1899- Journey to Mars

“R-E-N-D-E-R. Render. Render what?” Grundy asked. He had heard that a Tesla could read lips.

The flashes repeated.

“S-U-R-R-E-N...Surrender?” Grundy laughed. He slapped the arm of his chair and then felt something go immediately wrong. His suit had sprung the tiniest of leaks near his wrist.

Panic seized him. He wasn’t a vampire. The emptiness, the lack of pressure in the ether would kill him within minutes, to say the least for a complete dearth of breathable oxygen. He gestured to the corts wildly and shouted, “Get him!” Grundy attempted to abandon his chair so as to make for the accessway off the bridge, but realized he had belted himself in.

As Grundy began feeling for the tiny belt clasp with his clumsy, thick-gloved fingers, the two corts sprung toward the Tesla.

The robot’s hands became swords that began the process of dicing the two vampires. After a moment, there was nothing left but grisly floating debris.

Grundy found the hasp of the belt and freed himself as the Tesla faced him.

Grundy searched for and found his rifle strapped beside his chair. He lifted it and pointed the barrel toward the robot.

The Tesla sprang at Grundy and struck the man below the chin. The glass plate in Grundy’s helmet shattered, and the ether closed in. Grundy screamed, but no sound reached his ears.

[ 44 ]

Dakota Gostman heard the barrage of shots coming from the cargo area and knew that his parents were in a firefight. His muscles bunched and he ground his teeth with each muffled blast. The deck beneath his feet vibrated.

After several minutes there was a long, drawn-out silence that was somehow far worse than the noise.

Dakota waited in the dark. His put his ear against the bulkhead and waited for any sound. One finally came, but it wasn’t a sound he expected. Instead this was a dim and distant shushing sound, as if large sacks of feed were being dragged across the deck in the aft of the ship.

He decided to count down from a hundred to one and then, if his parents didn’t call for him by that time, he would go and take a look. Perhaps they needed him. What if they were bleeding somewhere? And here he was, counting backwards like a first-grader.

At ‘one’ he listened at the small panel, then slid it slowly back so as not to make even the faintest of noises.

The hallway to the staterooms was empty.

Dakota emerged from his hiding place, slid the steel panel back into place and tip-toed to the kitchen where he stopped and peered around the corner. Nothing.

Across the kitchen and to the hallway leading to the cargo bay, Dakota stopped. That shushing sound came again.

He carefully peered around the corner.

A strange man was mopping up blood from the deck. There was no one else around.

“What a mess!” the man said to himself. “Mop this deck, mort! Clean that up, mort! Why, if I had a...a razor scalpal, I’d show him a thing or two.”

Near the door was the edge of the cargo worktable. On the table was a stack of weapons, his dad’s own armaments.

They’re prisoners! Those that survived, the thoughts echoed in his mind.

Dakota seethed with a sudden anger. He reached out and plucked one of the JPM pistols from the table, checked the setting on it. Empty!

He retreated back to the staterooms where he entered his parent’s quarters and got into the munitions box underneath their bed. He fed ten rounds into the gun, threw the bolt, and trotted back to the cargo bay.

The strange little man was still there, but he was resting his bones against the cargo bulkhead.

Dakota slid the gun into the back of his pants, then stepped out where the fellow could see him.

“Hey, Mister,” he said.

“Who are you?” the man asked.

“I’m your worst nightmare,” Dakota said. “Why don’t you try and catch me?”