“London! Don't let him get to the wireless," the huge Samoan pirate bellowed over the din of gunshots and clanging of swords.
"I'm on it, Mate!" Jack, even now barely feeling the weight of his pressure suit, skipped down the corridor beneath decks of the merchant S.S. Elmira after a lad half his age, though he himself was only forty. Even after six months aboard the Razzle Dazzle, terror of the shipping lanes between the Moon and Mars, the lack of gravity of Port Phobos made it neigh on impossible for him to keep from careening off the bulkheads like a billiard ball.
In his haste, Jack's quarry failed to seal the hatch as he passed into the wireless room. The pirate crashed into its bulk, throwing it wide, but sending him out of control, first against the bulkhead, up to the ceiling, and then downward, scoring a devastating blow, not to the radioman, but his vacuum-tubed equipment. The compartment, along with this part of the Elmira, was still pressurized. This was fortunate for the young, blond lad, because the pirate raid had been so swift, he had no time to don his oxygen gear. It also gave him maneuverability London sorely envied, as he finally got hold of an anchored metal table stopping his momentum.
Jack reached for the holster at his side, but the Elmira crewman was faster. London, with the grace of a trussed-up duck, tried to evade the blaster shot, but it was the sailor's own anxiety that caused him to miss.
“Give it up, boy," Jack yelled, then realized the lad couldn’t possibly hear him through his helmet. He’d understand Jack’s blaster, though.
The crewman suddenly dove low, throwing his torso against Jack's legs. London remained upright, but in surprise, he dropped the handgun. Both blasters were spinning in the room, impossible targets to seize. Jack felt and then heard the front of his thick canvas air suit ripping, thanks to the boy's skill with the cutlass he'd been wearing on his opposite hip. Jack raised an arm to block the next swing, but it never came. Alon, the First Mate of the Dazzler who had ordered him on this errand, was braced against the door frame, his pistol barrel smoking.
Jack looked at the boy sailing through the air, a great, fiery hole in his chest. His corpse ricocheted several times before the Mate grasped his leg in a massive, gloved hand and held it. The dead man slowly settled downward under the tiny moon's scant influence.
Alon scowled at Jack, his face clearly visible with his helmet removed. "I told you to stop him, not get yourself killed. If he'd have gotten off a signal, everything would have been lost." The dark giant's voice was carried by radio gear in his suit's collar.
"Yes sir, I mean…I'm sorry. This damnable suit and weightlessness…" London let his voice trail off, watching the Mate glance around the cabin, finally settling on the ruined wireless.
"No harm done, but let me tape that gash across your suit and pressurize it before we go above. It’s only a slow leak, but space is unforgiving, man."
"Fortunately, I am." The voice was both feminine and familiar, and its owner had managed to step up behind the Mate leaving him unawares until she spoke. He turned and bowed. "Aye, Captain. You be most gracious."
"Captain Shih." Jack hadn't expected her to descend this deep into the merchant ship. In other raids, she'd stayed above, directing the officers and crew as if an eagle in her aerie.
"Charmed that you haven't done too much harm to yourself, Dearie."
Alon busied himself with fixing Jack's suit as she wafted into the room, always seemingly equal parts of effervescence and inebriation, though the Mate said she was neither.
"If you expect to write my life story, Jack, you'd best be more careful with yours."
"Yes, Captain." He tried to bow, but Alon was in his way, just finishing with the sealant and adjusting a valve on the cylinders mounted on Jack's shoulders.
Jack gazed at Captain Ching Shih, who seemed distracted or bored. He recalled she had taken the name of her famous grandmother, the legendary Chinese pirate, who in her career had commanded 500 buccaneer vessels, and was the scourge of the South China Sea for decades. Things hadn’t gone the same way for this pirate in the first fifteen years of the 20th century. At least that’s what Alon told him when they first met in that dive bar just outside of Hana on Maui.
# # #
Jack brought up the rear as the Captain and Mate made their way through the raggedly repaired airlock and onto the exposed upper deck of the Elmira, one of three interplanetary merchant ships tethered to the rocky surface of the Red Planet's larger moon. Shih's squealing voice was ringing in his ears through the speakers as she commanded the crew of the pirate vessel Razzle Dazzle, or Dazzler if you prefer.
"Attention you vexatious curs! Boatswain Montanez, take a party of six and sweep below decks of the Achilles again. Webber, you do the same for the Sirius. Mr. Alon, have the Elmira secured. And don't forget to transfer as much Fire as you can off the other ships and out of this moon’s storage bunker into the Elmira's hold. We'll use her to transport it off this bloody rock and back to Ceres for our first lot of buyers."
For an instant, it seemed to Jack as if the crew of the Dazzler were paralyzed, but then he realized that moving quickly in almost no gravity was a sure way to die. The other two merchant vessels left and right were a good ten yards away and at slightly differing altitudes above the moon, with the pirate crew manning the lot of them. All of their pressure suits ranged in color from golden sand to steel gray, brass helmets and air tanks gleaming in stark starlight, so identities were only guessed at. He could pick out the Captain because she had her suit's torso painted brilliant scarlet, the same shade as her bandana, pantaloons, and heavy lip gloss.
"Well hop to it! Yes, Masina?"
Jack hadn't noticed the Quartermaster of the Razzle Dazzle approach from starboard.
"Aye, Captain." Her voice was deeper and gruffer than Shih's. As a native of a South Sea island found somewhere east of Tonga, she was nearly as tall as the First Mate, who easily stood at seven feet.
"You take charge of unloading the Fire from the coffers of the British Celestial Trading Company, transferring it to this vessel. We can't go down to meet Blackburne aboard the Razzle Dazzle so loaded, but we'll be needing to take as much as we can with us when we leave."
"Aye Captain." Even to Jack, Masina’s devotion to Shih was obvious. When Alon signed London on as crew, he'd sworn the same oath as the rest of the crew, but it wasn't until their first battle, running the blockade around the Moon just above Copernicus, that he realized how far that loyalty went.
"Take Ochoa, Hightower and whoever else you need, but it must be done while this moon's orbit has us obscured from the British garrison occupying the oasis on Mars."
"You can count on me, Captain." Masina bowed and made her way to an open co*ckpit skycraft, switching frequency to talk to those crew she was addressing on the Dazzler, anchored some fifty feet above.
"Mr. Alon, you take Jack here along with two others; Toby and Idris are a good choice. Transfer the colors and the transponder of the Sirius to the Dazzler. Logs say she’s due to pick up another cargo of freshly harvested Fire two hours past dawn at the oasis. We’ll be taking her place.”
“Aye, Captain.” To Jack, Alon sounded less than enthusiastic.
“The HMS Queen Victoria will be the only warship in port,” Captain Shih continued. “The Scimitar sailed three weeks ago to dry dock on the Moon after the Battle of Vesta. Both the Lion and Newcastle are vainly searching for us a hundred million miles windward between the orbits of Mars and Earth if our ruse worked well.” There was glee enough in Shih’s voice to bring joy to an entire armada of pirates. “By the time we get close enough for the garrison to realize what’s happened, we'll have their fortifications within range of the long nines. Blackburne and the Victoria will be caught with their proverbial britches down. It should be fun."
"Aye, Captain. And the prisoners?"
Shih paused uncharacteristically, for Jack found her excessively loquacious.
"How many?"
"Only nine. They were unprepared for us, thinking we were a merchant vessel in distress and off course."
"Your plan was well executed, Mate." Ching Shih sounded somber for the first time since Jack had met her. That wasn't until the Razzle Dazzle had risen from a sheltered Hawaiian bay toward space. She had been resupplied and, in Jack's case, re-crewed after a previous encounter with the British Navy leeward of the Moon's orbit. Their next lunar raid wouldn't be much more successful than the first, but at least then, they would discover where the Celestial Trading Company cached their lunar Fire.
"Captain, if that Commodore had bothered to deploy more than a handful of troops to stand watch at Phobos…”
"He kept the lion’s share at the oasis to guard the Fire farms and his captives.”
"Aye, and…well, let's say we were lucky to not suffer any casualties." Alon waited, but it was as if the Captain's attention had wandered into a different world. Then he said again, "The prisoners?"
"We'll leave a small troop here to guard them. One of the bunker cells can be left pressurized. There are enough rations for all until we return."
"Begging your pardon Captain, but nothing’s certain in a pirate's life."
"Aye." Her voice drifted like a dream. Then she returned to herself. "Don’t fret, Mr. Alon. We shall not falter in our task, and in a week's time, we’ll be well on our way to being drenched in filthy lucre.”
"Captain, dead men tell no tales."
"You’ve made your feelings clear as I've made mine. Now take Mr. London and follow your orders."
"Aye, Captain. You Jack, come along."
"Yes Jack, go" the Captain called after through the comm link. "You’ve written about a great many adventures, and your own are glorious. But even if we're successful, you have little time left to write mine."
Shih's words were lyrical, but the meaning behind them was cold. That meaning was the only thing that could have torn him away from his beloved spouse Charmain and his cherished but impoverished Beauty Ranch in California. His share of the treasure would ensure his wife untold wealth for a lifetime far longer than his. The consequences of an existence laced by debauchery, alcohol, and morphine were quickly leading him to the grave.
# # #
The Razzle Dazzle sailed through the thin atmosphere of Mars toward a mountainous region in the north. Like most merchant craft, she could navigate through naked space, planetary skies, and even oceans. Her hull was tarnished copper, and where the open deck of a terrestrial sailing vessel would be, was a continuation of the hull, though it could be retracted when in livable climes.
Jack had been raised on tales of such craft, though he never flew higher than five leagues above his native Earth before the discovery of the crop known as Fire. It was rare on his planet, but then a British scientist name of Roderick Lawrence invented astonishing steam engines that powered revolutionary flying devices using Fire. He discovered the first of series of vast off world deposits almost by accident while exploring the interior of the Moon.
In the twenty years since then, there had been a scramble among humanity to discover new and abundant sources of the substance that was both plant and mineral. One of them was Mars, but only in a single location, the last outpost inhabited by the natives known as Abantuu at the oasis Zaneni.
Jack looked up through a port at the retracted sails and masts. In space, they would be fully unfurled and coated with Fire, tacking on the solar breeze the way the sailing ships on Earth cruised more mundane oceans.
“Quartermaster.” Jack had a more natural affinity with Alon, but he was far too busy at the helm along with the Captain and Neil Gentry, the Sailing Master. Most of the crew were at stations, but he, along with Masina and the Ship’s Surgeon Cecille O’Malley, were amidships waiting. London wasn’t a praying man, but he watched the tiny figure of the Doctor fingering her Rosary. If the garrison at Zaneni saw through their deception too soon, then O’Malley’s superstition might be their only hope.
“What’s on your mind?”
“I know we’re here to raid the Fire caverns, capture the source of the supply, and do in the vandals of the British Navy, but what is all this of slaves?”
“Alon did not tell ye?” Masina seemed mildly surprised.
“Only a little. I know there are some type of people on Mars, but why only here?”
“Captain plays her cards closer to the vest these days, London. You know we all crewed this vessel when she was called Samal Naga. That’s when she was a merchant signed onto British Celestial. The Captain rescued more than a few of us from a life of piracy to join her crew.”
You were pirates before but she wasn’t?”
“Aye. The Spanish would have had our skins if they’d caught Alon and me. Shipwrecked and left for dead we were until Captain Shih chanced to bring us aboard the Naga. Contracted with Celestial to cargo Fire from Mars, we did, but that’s before we found out about the Abantuu.”
“Martians.”
“Men and women, I suspect, though we can’t say which is which. Ne’er seen no babies, but there were the egg chambers incubated in caves not far from the atmospheric…”
The Dazzler shook like a wet dog almost throwing Jack off his feet. He saw O’Malley’s short stature put her center of gravity low enough that her balance wasn’t disturbed, and Masina had a broad palm pressed tightly against the bulkhead to steady her.
“Just so. Passed through a turbulence boundary. Air’s getting thicker now that we’re approaching Zaneni and the air plant.”
“Alon said that much of this planet’s atmosphere and its water escaped into space. You say these Abantuu can make more?”
“The old King or Queen Inkosi told the tale of twelve or more of these plants each the size of a town square,” Masina said. “Dome covered with a technology or magic or who knows what that recycled air and water ages past. They say the machines were the gifts of gods.”
“Then what happened?”
“Time, an ancient evil, raiders from the other worlds, the legends change from one Abantuu to the next. Upshot is that all of them are gone, buried, and if the Abantuu know where they might be found under the sand, they’re not telling. When this one goes, if it does, what’s left of water, air and the thimble full of life here will vanish like fog in a furnace.”
“So, we’re not here just for the Fire. Does the Captain mean to save the Abantuu and this last air plant?”
“The Captain’s daft is she thinks she can do any saving in the long run.” Jack jumped a bit as the quiet doctor spoke unbidden.
“You be watchin’ your tongue, Surgeon,” Masina snapped back. “The Captain’s got her reasons for what she does and we’re all beholding to her.”
“Beholding that she got herself a pirate’s brand from Blackburne after refusing to ship Fire until the Abantuu were freed.”
“We were told they’d made a bargain to sell the Fire, not that we’d be taking it by force and enslaving them to do the harvesting.” Masina towered over the diminutive Irish woman but O’Malley gave no ground. Given how pirates of the east were treated by their Captains, Jack wondered if the Quartermaster’s experience with slavery might be personal.
Alon’s voice came rumbling through the communications pipes. “Now hear this. The Dazzler’s on final approach. Transponder signal’s been acknowledged. Sail Master at Zaneni given us clear passage to land. All hands be ready. Hendricks and gunners at the cannons. Strike team one at the skyboats. The rest of ye at the blasters and sabers. We’re going in.”
The hiss of the pneumatic tubes ceased and mirrors on the bulkheads angled light from the bow so the crew could see ahead.
“Wish Alon would let me join Montanez’s strike team. Been practicing with those sky fighters over four months and…”
“You’ll get your chance, London,” Masina said. “In the meantime, pay heed to yon oasis.”
Jack turned to the nearest rounded mirror. “Like a majestic sandcastle built into a cliff, or pueblo villages, but huge by comparison.”
“Half crumbling under the weight of time, Mr. London.” Masina muttered as she checked the burst cartridges in her blaster before returning it to her holster. “Best be getting to your sickbay, Surgeon, and pray on those funny beads that our casualties be light.”
“Will be a dark matter for Captain Shih if they aren’t.” She turned to go but the Islander woman stopped her.
“If you’re not loyal to the Captain and the crew, I’ll pitch you overboard here and now.”
“Rest assured, Quartermaster. My duty is to the crew in my sworn oath as a physician, pirates or no, and may God have mercy on us all.”
“Away with ye, then.” Masina dismissed her.
The two shared a look that Jack thought was born of strange comradeship, and then the Doctor was gone. Seconds later, Jack heard the whine of the first cannon shots from the British Fort.
“Betrayed! Incoming…” was all Alon managed before the Dazzler lurched to starboard, and then reeled again. Part of the brass and oak hull imploded just behind Jack, and the American found himself on the deck, smoke choking him, and his ears ringing like the bells of St Dolores.
He vomited from a bloody mouth. A strong hand grasped him and then he was being lifted as the world grew black.
In delirium, he heard something about retreat, skyboats, and pursuit. Then Jack was floating. He could feel the familiar sway of the sea and caught a salt tang in the air.
# # #
Nursing the monster of all headaches, Jack stood on a sandstone platform with a natural formation overhead. It was enormous and menacing, but kept away the prying eyes of the British skycraft. While more skilled and able-bodied sailors saw to sealing the hull breaches, he was sorting through lengths of broken rudder chain. He had been told by O’Malley that the Dazzler had barely escaped the ambush thanks to the Captain’s quick thinking and Gentry’s skill at the wheel. Montanez’s fliers held off the British skyboats long enough for the ship to flee down a series of deep canyons cut by the once mighty Martian canals. She floated on the surface of one now, though its width bank to bank was little more than twice the length of their ship.
The air was thinner here, but there was still enough to breathe. The chill reminded him of an Alaskan autumn. He swiveled, and with his back to the canal, returned to salvaging chain. That’s when he saw them creeping out of the shadows of a deep cavern in the cliff.
London froze in wonder. They were the people of Mars, the Abantuu, maybe a few dozen. They were naked, though they had neither a woman’s breasts nor a man’s loins. Thinner than most Earthmen, their skin was the color of porcelain but textured like seal hide. Heads were rounder at the top and thinner at the chin. There large eyes like those of a whale’s. Legs and arms both had an extra joint. The first one opened his mouth and trilled like a bird.
“Inkosi!” Captain Shih had managed to come within arm’s reach of the writer without him hearing her. “I’m so happy you’re still free, my friend.” Ching switched from English to whatever dialect the Martian had been using, but Inkosi raised a finger. The mouth didn’t exactly smile, but to Jack, it managed to communicate amusem*nt.
“We will speak your language, Ching Shih.” The Martian pronounced the trailing “h” in the Captain’s last name as if it were a “k”. “You have a terrible accent.” Inkosi gave an exaggerated shiver. “You came back like you promised. Embrace.” The Martian and the pirate hugged, but Inkosi’s multiple joints made the friendly gesture appear eerie.
“Jack, meet my good friend King Inkosi, though for that matter, she could be a Queen. Inkosi, the latest to join my crew from faraway Earth, Mr. Jack London.”
“My friend Captain is funny. We don’t understand your he or she, King or Queen. But you Jack London, my Ching Shih’s friend, makes you my friend. Embrace.”
The Californian took a step back, hoping he was rendering his friendliest smile while raising a hand. “That’s okay. Just caught a cold. Doubt you’d want to risk it.” On Earth, he had been intimately acquainted with all manner of folk, but wasn’t ready to hug a Martian.
“Inkosi, Kiccon, Acuns, how the hell are the lot of you?” The Captain made the rounds, hugging each Martian in turn, rescuing Jack from his discomfort. For their part, the Martians seemed to thoroughly enjoy human contact.
“We heard roaring in the sky and feared the worst.”
“Wait just a mo, Inkosi. I see Alon and Montanez coming. I want them to hear all about what’s happened since our escape from Blackburne gave you the chance to scurry away into your caves.”
Since no one shooed Jack off, he stayed, occasionally glancing overhead to make sure that only the ruddy rock overhang stared down upon them. They sat cross-legged and one of the smallest of them called Egots tried to put its head on London’s shoulder.
“We are grateful for you Earth people who would stand against your own for the Abantuu. We are one, always together. You humans, you are so different, your size, color, your…” Inkosi trilled again and Kiccon started to make a sound like laughter whilst glancing at Shih’s breasts and the mass of Alon’s loincloth.
“Captain,” the Mate started. “Best we be developing a plan. Day’s half gone and it won’t take the British long to figure out we’re hunkered down in these canals.”
“Right you are, Mr. Alon.” The Captain turned back to Inkosi, but the Martian spoke first.
“Your boat will fly?”
Shih nodded to Alon who answered, “The buoyancy tanks have been patched and will be filled in another hour. Plenty of Fire on board, so fuel’s not a problem. We could be in the air well before sundown, or is a night assault what you’re thinking?”
“Don’t look at me, Mate,” the Captain replied. “Inkosi is the one doing the planning, isn’t that right?”
How Shih came to that conclusion completely eluded Jack. “Planning what?”
“We must be free of the British, but we have no guns. You have guns to liberty us, so we can complete care of the sacred crops.”
“You want your lives back.”
Inkosi shook his head (London kept thinking he and him because he didn’t know how else to think). “No. If we live and the air machine is made right, even with Blackburne gone, others will come.”
“We can protect you,” Alon protested.
“No. Your ship is one. British are many. As long as Fire and Abantuu and Zaneni are here, they will come.”
“So, what are you saying? We can’t carry you all aboard the Dazzler.” Shih snapped her fingers. “The Sirius and Elmira. Not that many of you. I bet we could…”
“No. Listen Ching Shih. Our people all over our world are gone. The last air machine cannot make the sky more blue or the canals surge with water. Our oceans have vanished. We must follow their way.”
“You mean die.”
“All must follow those who went before.”
“But even if the Fire farms perish, the powder might last for ages, still able to be mined.”
“None of you humans know of the other air plants and the other farms. Once gone, you will not find this one either. You are my friend and you want to help. This is how you help.”
The Captain was still, contemplating unspeakable thoughts. Then Shih leapt up like a jack-in-the-box (and London tried to forgive himself for the pun). “Agreed.”
“But, Captain.” When Alon realized Shih was ignoring him, he returned to stoic silence.
“The Razzle Dazzle and her crew are at your service.”
# # #
“Are you sure this skyboat is going to make it through these caves? I can’t see a damn thing.” Jack was one of a dozen men, well, Martians, who were towing the 14-foot, open air vessel though the mysterious caverns of Zaneni. The baffles in the buoyancy tanks had been set so the nearly flat-bottomed craft hovered three feet above the ground. But without its rear-twin propellers running, the boat needed good, strong backs to move it.
“We see plants…” Inkosi struggled momentarily with English. “Growing on rocks.”
“Bioluminescence,” the Earthman volunteered. “Must emit most of its light in a range my eyes can’t see.”
“There will be light soon. The caves will end not far from here.”
“Is that it then?” Jack’s attention was drawn to a series of intermittent flashes from a cavern opening to his left.
“No.” The Abantuu called Graacal nudged him from behind. “That,” and then he made a series of soothing sounds, almost an alien lullaby.
“What did he say, Inkosi?”
“Babies.”
“Babies, but…well, I don’t hear any crying.”
“Go, Jack London. Not much time before Ching Shih will need you and the airship. Not much time left for the world.”
“Whatever you say, Inkosi.” Jack kept trying to look at the sparkling in the dark over his shoulder, but Graacal hit him again.
Then Jack did see light filtering down from the tops of natural chimneys some hundreds of feet above them, but ahead was only dull, rough stone.
“You escaped by climbing down those?”
“No, too small for Abantuu. Straight. We go through there.”
“But that’s a solid rock face.”
“Drive the ship there. Follow the plan.”
“If I accelerate into that wall, I’ll be splattered like a tomato.”
“That’s how we came here. We see what you cannot. The British cannot see either.”
“Well…” Jack pulled a pocket watch out of his vest and opened the fob. “We’ve got enough time. Another three minutes maybe. We’ll wait until we hear the Dazzler’s engines overhead. Help me get rid of these ropes. We’ll be flying high from now on.”
Graacal’s hand landed solidly on Jack’s shoulder once again, but the feeling was different, maybe even affectionate. His English wasn’t very good, though. “Good human. Not British.”
Jack could hardly see the Martian’s face in the shadows, but his mouth was making that quirky smile.
“Wait. I thought only you spoke our language,” Jack said to Inkosi.
“We learn very fast.”
Minutes later, Jack was behind the controls of the sky skiff that someone with a sense of irony had named Thuvia. “Damn that Edgar Rice Burroughs,” he muttered.
Two of the Martians were with him in his craft but he didn’t understand why. They didn’t know how to use something as basic as a sword. Jack couldn’t figure out how a sapient race evolved without weapons, even for hunting.
He felt more than heard the low hum. The fine vibration caused a gentle rain of dust. “The Razzle Dazzle.” He glanced at his watch again, and then put it away. “Right on time.” He thought he could hear some faint commotion on the other side of the wall, but judging by the agitation of the Martians, it must have sounded like shouting to them.
“Go,” cried Inkosi who started running ahead of the Thuvia. The rest of the Abantuu eagerly followed.
“Well damn, boys. Here we go.” Left hand on the wheel, he threw the throttle full forward. Braking hard, he let the twin propellers spin up to maximum and then released his craft. “Hope the hell you know what you’re talking about, Inkosi.”
The wall came up like lightning, and then instead of a deafening crash, Thuvia sailed through a gossamer film of crystal dust and was in sunlight. The aircraft shot forward like a projectile within the confines of the fort while the entire garrison’s attention was focused on the Dazzler just cresting the cliff high above.
His forward-mounted cannon cut down fifty men in a matter of seconds, but Jack narrowly avoided running into the main gate before veering off to the right. His ship spun and twisted within the main compound like an angry mosquito, the engines shrieking like a banshee.
From above, the cannons of the Dazzler were making short work of the Fort’s defensive ordinance. There was screaming and panic among hardened troops and wealth-glutted merchants as they died, and only some bravely.
The high whistles of the Martian voices doubled and then quadrupled, and on one pass across the eastern wall, Jack saw that some of Inkosi’s companions had liberated their kinsfolk from the stockade. They had no weapons, and many fell before the soldiers’ rifles and sabers, but the typically peaceful Abantuu had learned to fight with teeth and claws thanks to the iron hand of Commodore Blackburne.
“Now where did…” Jack’s musing was cut short as an explosion threw up dirt and rock almost directly in his flight path, causing him to swing wildly to starboard. One of his companions was thrown clear of the boat, and the other was mewing like a kitten while clutching onto one strap of his restraining harness.
“Hang on.”
Jack pulled the wheel and climbed directly toward the keel of the Queen Victoria. “Oh damn!” He managed to skim beneath both the ship’s hull and the blasts of two of her cannons. Then rocketing upward across her stern, he saw why they were all but ignoring him. The Victoria was ascending to engage the Dazzler.
The pride of the British fleet was only a hundred yards below the bow of the pirate ship, and she outgunned the Dazzler ten to one. Already all of the enemy skyships were harassing the Razzle Dazzle like a swarm of hornets, while cannon fire from the war vessel had breached her weakened port hull plates.
“She’ll be done for if the Victoria makes altitude.” Spying the British ship’s exposed main deck, Jack took his chance.
“You damn Brits ignore me at your peril.” Jack spun his vessel 180 degrees, just 20 feet above the Queen Victoria, and began his strafing run. The barrel of his cannon glowed orange with the friction of rapid fire. Half the crew were dead or dismembered before the survivors got to the deck guns. By the time they started shooting, he’d already sped past, stern to bow, soaring out of range, and turning for a second pass.
Thuvia was 70 feet above the still ascending Victoria, the Dazzler almost at his level to port when his ship lurched and then wobbled. Two British airboats, half again as long as his, were on his tail and had already delivered a critical blow. Smoke was pouring out of the craft’s engine compartment, and his starboard tank was bleeding Fire.
“Oh hell, sorry, Pal,” he called back to the Martian still dearly holding onto his seat. “I can’t even do evasive maneuvers.” Then, as the Victoria’s forecastle deck loomed up toward Jack, he grinned manically. “There are surely worse ways to die.”
Yanking the control wheel toward him, he pressed the evacuation valve and dumped his remaining Fire. Thuvia suddenly lost velocity and altitude, hard enough for the Martian behind him to be slammed into the back of Jack’s chair. The two British craft overshot him, guns still ablaze, raking the Victoria’s main deck. The port-side attacker clipped the top of the Captain’s quarters at the stern before recoiling upward, crashing into the companion vessel.
Jack was too busy to see what happened to them afterward. He was driving Thuvia across ruined craters of the Victoria’s flaming deck plates, watching his own vessel come apart at the seams. Only he, the terrified Martian, and the forward quarter of the co*ckpit was left of Thuvia when it came to rest just behind the main sail boom. They were surrounded by the remains of the warship’s crew, now only body parts.
The Martian hanging onto Jack’s shoulders didn’t understand the sound of a human laughing hysterically. “We’re still alive.”
“Not for long, I fear.” A voice came from in front and above them at the ship’s wheel.
“I can only believe you are Commodore Charles Blackburne.” With a macabre sense of invincibility mirroring Captain Shih’s, Jack stood, drew his cutlass, and pointing it at the naval officer, declared, “Care to surrender?”
“I shall not have the time.” With blood running from a bandage hastily twisted about Blackburne’s forehead, his uniform in tatters and stained in crimson, the Commodore gazed upward.
Jack and the Martian looked in the same direction and saw the horror of the Dazzler’s keel just above and approaching fast. She was listing to port, and making poor time, smoke and flame billowing out of multiple breaches.
Jack was out of the co*ckpit in a flash and at Blackburne, expecting to behead the man, but the Commodore was agile enough to leap back.
“You can’t stop a collision now. I’ll finally end that bloody Shih and her crew of miscreants.” The middle-aged and formidably fit officer smirked and advanced, blade at the ready.
“Not today.” Jack pulled the blaster out with his free hand, but the ship abruptly lurched upward. His shot redirected from the man’s chest to a leg.
With a spray of blood, Blackburne fell.
Quickly giving his sword and pistol to the bewildered Martian, Jack seized the wheel, frantically trying to bring the Queen Victoria about enough to save the Dazzler. Truth be told, he knew he wasn’t sailor enough to have done it alone, but Mr. Gentry’s skill moved the pirate ship just far enough to port to avoid disaster.
But disaster wasn’t avoided entirely. “I can’t stop the thing. Bow’s pointed at the surface toward…” Eyes grew wide, this time with terror as he saw the vast dome of the atmosphere machine dead before the Victoria’s figurehead.
Sharp pain lanced across his back and he fell forward and then right, avoiding a second slash by Blackburne’s saber.
“No, I’ll not let you destroy the last chance for the Empire to harvest the untold wealth of Fire, pirate.”
Jack heard a dry click, and looking up, saw the Martian awkwardly aiming the blaster at the Commodore.
“Gun empty, heathen?” Blackburne thrust his blade at Jack, but was slow because of his wounds and the American rolled to one side.
The Martian threw the sword at Jack, the blade nearly slicing into his arm. Grasping the hilt, both he and Blackburne regained footing at the same time.
“For England!”
“Shut up,” Jack screamed in reply. Though he fought valiantly, Jack did not fight brilliantly and was sliced across the chest, plunging back into the Thuvia’s ruined co*ckpit. The Martian lunged at Blackburne in desperation, but for his troubles was impaled through the abdomen.
Once again at the helm. the Commodore gripped the wheel with the strength of a madman, and began coaxing the Victoria slowly away from the atmospheric dome. “It doesn’t matter what happens to me, the ship, or even this Fort. The Fire must be protected for the Crown.” Gasping with effort, he moved the warship, degree by degree, though a violent death was inevitable.
“I said not today.” Jack leapt, mashing into Blackburne and sending the both of them across the deck. Neither man noticed the direction of the Victoria had changed again until they were near the portside lifeboats.
“Bloody hell, does that savage think it can steer?”
“I’m told they learn quickly,” Jack quipped.
Shock had momentarily stilled Blackburne and Jack rapidly looked over the railing. The atmosphere dome was once again their target and only seconds from impact.
“I’ll find a way to save this.” Blackburne shoved the pirate aside and tumbled into a lifeboat.
Jack found the officer’s wounded leg in his arms as he tried to stop him. Although Blackburne wailed in pain and rage, he pulled his adversary along with him, yanking the launch lever right before the world came to a colossal, flaming end.
# # #
Alon stood guard over Commodore Blackburne, his wounds bound as he was in heavy iron chains. He knelt before the Mate at the cave opening. Amid the smoldering wreckage of the Queen Victoria, itself a smaller catastrophe in the center of the smoking ruins of the atmosphere machine’s demolished dome, Captain Shih held Jack’s broken body to her breast, listening to his dying whispers.
After a time, she stood and nodded to two sailors. As gentle as parents guiding a perished child to the hereafter, they picked up the body and placed it next to what was left of the Abantuu named Olma who had valiantly carried out Inkosi’s wishes at the cost of his own life.
Shih approached the First Mate and the Commodore as might the Angel of Death. When she reached them, she pulled out her blaster and pressed the barrel against Blackburne’s forehead.
“You really want to be doing that, Captain?”
“Dead men tell no tales. Isn’t that right?”
“You be the Captain and I the Mate. The crew of the Razzle Dazzle is at your command. What should we do with the prisoners?”
To his credit, Commodore Blackburne did not beg for his life, though Shih thought she felt him tremble.
She stood and holstered her weapon. “Now that the atmosphere device is ruined, we don’t have much of time. Order the stockade rebuilt enough to hold, how many survivors?”
“Eleven including him, Captain.”
“Order it made to hold them, plus those we have on Phobos.”
“I’ve lost my command and I’m prepared to die, Shih, but spare my soldiers. They were only following orders.”
“Admirable, however I was under your orders, too, and I made a different choice.” She spat out anger and outrage as she pulled up her sleeve and exposed the pirate brand on her forearm. “No, you lived as slavers and now you’ll die as you deserve.”
“But you didn’t shoot him.”
“I won’t commit murder, Mate, but I will leave him a prisoner of the Abantuu.
“In six months, this will be a barren desert. Not a rat nor a weed could survive here,” Alon said.
“It’s what the Abantuu want and I’ll not question their wisdom. I suppose that’s justice.”
Inkosi approached Shih and cleared his throat. “Pardon.”
“What may I do for you, my friend.”
“We agree to care for our captors until we all die, but I have favor to ask.”
“I’ll grant it of course, as I have one to ask of you.”
# # #
The repaired Razzle Dazzle, the S.S. Elmira in tow and a week out of pirate port Ceres saw Captain Shih at the wheel on night watch. Alon made loud enough footfalls at his approach so as not to startle her.
“What can I do for you, Mate. Can’t sleep?”
“Been wondering about a couple of things.”
“Yes, and how are our new crew and unexpected cargo?”
“They be well enough near as I can tell, though I can’t get their names straight.”
“That would be Kiccon, Acuns, Graacal, Crevrik and Eqots, and by the time we make a quick sale of our surplus Fire on Ceres, they will be the last Abantuu survivors.”
“The last?”
“You mean our cargo, the eggs. Well, maybe they won’t be the last forever.”
“We can’t have babies on the Razzle Dazzle. We be a pirate ship.”
“Rest assured, when the time comes, we’ll find them all a good home. Meanwhile, keep teaching them ship’s operations. I hear they learn fast.”
“Aye.”
“The other matter?”
“That would be London. He really wanted to be buried on Mars?”
“His dying wish, that and his epitaph.”
“Those words you carved on the wall of the cavern near his grave.”
Shih smiled a little. “Jack London, born January 12, 1876 in San Francisco, California, Earth. Died November 22, 1916 at the age of 40 on the planet Mars, at Zaneni, but then, he won’t be the last. Novelist, journalist, damn I knew he wouldn’t live long enough to write my life’s story. Such is fortune, eh Mate?”
“That’s not what you carved on that cave wall by your own hand.”
“No, it’s not.” Shih allowed a faraway look to possess her, and one eye surrendered a tear. “I would rather be ashes than dust! I would rather that my spark should burn out in a brilliant blaze than it should be stifled by dry rot. I would rather be a superb meteor, every atom of me in magnificent glow, than a sleepy and permanent planet. The function of man is to live, not to exist. I shall not waste my days in trying to prolong them. I shall use my time.”
“Fitting words, Captain. He was a good pirate, and a good man. But begging your pardon, after Ceres, what course should I tell Mr. Gentry to set?”
Captain Ching Shih grinned like a Cheshire Cat who refused to disappear. “You mean after we stop off at Earth long enough to give London’s widow his portion of the booty? We’re going to finish a job we’ve failed at twice before, Mr. Alon.”
“You don’t mean…”
“Aye, Mate. The Fire mines under the crater Copernicus. Have I ever told you the story about the legendary Warrior Ants beneath the surface of the Moon?”
