1899- Journey to Mars

“You’re telling me something’s not possible? When we’ve been flying a ship off the surface of the Earth and into the black? I think you’d better tell me.”

“It’s...Jack the Ripper.”

“Come again?” John Carter said.

“Dr. Jonathan Conklin. Only there’s two of him.”

“Just like those orange-headed fanged guys. Except there were mor

e than two.”

“Yeah. A lot more than two.”

“Why don’t you blast them?”

“Yeah. I’m on it.” Billy fired and the ship to the left turned into so much flame and junk metal. The eyes of the Jonathan Conklin in the right-hand ship widened. He jabbed a button and the ship darted forward. Billy fired and the ship came apart, but part of it kept on coming.

There was a loud screech as metal scraped along the glass and disappeared. Then a head flopped into the window with a sickening thud, it’s eyes moving around and its lips pressed to the glass, before it tumbled over the top of the ship and was gone.

“Shit,” Billy said. “I’ll have to tell Ekka.”

[ 35 ]

Solomon Grundy watched as the Tesla tricked his Titan, and the Westinghouse was blown to smithereens.

Grundy cursed inside his helmet and prepared to leap forward and gesture to the corts what to do, when one of them did exactly what he was aching to do—a torpedo shot out from the Kraken, even as Grundy watched the Tesla turn to see them.

Teslas were legendary. They were...good. And damned if he didn’t want one of his own so badly it made his teeth ache.

As if on cue, the Kraken dove for the figure of the Tesla robot on the upper surface of the Argent. Grundy knew the Tesla would be destroyed, but he could do nothing more than watch.

[ 36 ]

Guthrie estimated the moment of impact, calculated an escape trajectory and waited until he was cut off from view of the forward window of the Kraken before leaping away, thanks to Billy’s special addition to his robot body. The jets in the soles of his feet engaged and he narrowly missed impacting the flat, broad belly of the Kraken. Once behind the two, he turned and kept within the electromagnetic envelope of both ships. He watched as the Kraken took hold of the Argent and diverted toward the distant-but-growing shape of the space station Ozymandius that he now clearly saw off to his right.

Employing his telescopic eyes, Guthrie took in every detail possible of the space station, noting the number of singleships attenuated to it. He began a set of internal calculations.

[ 37 ]

The passengers and crew of the Argent heard the two tentacles writhing across the upper surface of the ship.

Ekka emerged onto the bridge from below with Dakota and Ian in tow.

“What’s that sound?” Dakota asked.

“The black octopus ship,” Billy said.

“Can we charge the hull again?” John Carter asked. “Fry them?”

“Guthrie is out there. I don’t want to...fry him.”

At that moment the ship lurched and a large object hove into view in the forward screen.

“What the hell is that?” Dakota asked.

“Something not good,” John Carter stated. “I think it’s where all those singleships are coming from.”

Billy swiveled his chair around to Ekka. “There’s something worse than that and the singleships with orange-haired vampires.”