1899- Journey to Mars

The Argent shot through the singleships and rocketed toward the planet’s surface at a frightening suicidal speed. Guthrie’s voice came over the speaker tubes, “Billy your maneuver has the ship’s transmogrifier vibrating badly. I fear it will not hold together much longer.”

Billy said, “It doesn’t have to.”

Guthrie said, “Sir, at this speed and this angle, we cannot slow our speed enough to land. We will crash. It is a one-hundred per cent probability.”

“That’s only because you think like a robot. Protect Dakota, Guthrie.” Billy talked to everyone at once through the speaker tubes, “Hang on tight, because this is gonna be one heck of a bronco ride!”

The singleships charged again like an enormous swarm of angry hornets, staying right on the rear of the Argent.

The red planet loomed so large that is was all Billy could see through the window. He studied the surface with an adrenalin-accelerated mind, figuring out where he could go. As the features became distinct, the mountain peaks, the valleys and alluvial plains, he made his decision. They shot down, down, toward the surface, with Billy nudging the controls slightly to take the Argent where he needed it to go. The singleships were staying with him! Billy realized that Fu Manchu must have increased the power and speed on the ships when he was equipping them with Faraday cages.

They were so close to the surface now that the terrain was distinct, and they were almost at the same elevation as the tops of the large mountains. Billy felt his jaws clenching and he forced them to relax as he nudged the Argent even faster in a straight dive. He glanced at Ekka, and her eyes were big, but she only said with a scared smile, “It has never been dull being with you. Don’t stop now.”

A singleship exploded against the rear of the Argent and Billy held fast to the controls to keep them on course in their suicide dive. Below them, the green-dotted canal was clearly visible as a deep, steep-walled red canyon running north and south as straight as an arrow. They were now well below the levels of all the mountain peaks. Another singleship slammed against the bottom of the ship, then two more, followed rapidly by a dozen bone-shaking explosions almost simultaneously into the top and sides. Billy’s stomach lurched with a thread of fear and he knew the Argent could not take many more hits like the last barrage without severe hull damage. He looked at the red planet in his window. They were seconds from crashing. Out of the corner of his eye, Billy saw three singleships racing forward to take aim on the front glass.

Billy made his move.

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He turned to Ekka and said, “Here we go!”

Billy slammed forward all the levers at once, instantly reversing the transmogrifier’s spin and forcing the Argent to decelerate from twenty thousand miles per hour to fifty miles per hour in a mere moment.

The increase in gravity from the incredible deceleration pushed everyone into their seats until the metal bases groaned, and the blood left their heads, leaving Avi and Edgar momentarily unconscious. The Roof of the Argent visibly flattened toward the floor and rivets splanged from the ceiling to ricochet across the ship like hard-thrown marbles. Wood splintered along the walls as it compressed, and the ship shuddered as if in a terrible death spasm. Groans and creaks and screeching metal sounds echoed throughout the ship, and whiffs of white smoke drifted from the engine room that housed the transmogrifier, which shuddered so strongly that the entire vessel’s framework was in danger of buckling.

The singleships could not stop and shot by the Argent. They crashed in violent explosions in the canal bottom like a deluge of fiery raindrops falling from a demon’s thunderstorm. The entire canal blazed with fire as the singleships crashed into the red planet.

Billy forced the nose upward and the Argent banged hard into the canal soil and rebounded into the air as it kept the fifty-mile per hour forward momentum. Billy worked the controls as his dizziness cleared and he slowed the ship enough so that the next touchdown allowed them to skid on the sandy surface for two hundred yards before coming to a stop.

Edgar said in wonder, “We are on Barsoom.”

PART III: THE RED PLANET BARSOOM

(January 18, 1899)

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A singleship crashed into the top of the Argent. Billy knew there would be more, and he unbuckled to get into action. Ekka did the same, then they heard more explosions, but these weren’t hitting the ship. They hurried to the top hatch and saw John Carter in his spacesuit wielding his Winchester with deadly accuracy. He dropped a ship with every shot, and when four of them dove together, John worked the lever and fired his rifle from the hip so fast it was one rolling sound. All four enemy ships exploded above the Argent and fell beyond it, scattering in flaming pieces of debris across the ground.

Only three singleships now remained out of the original twenty-one hundred, and they came straight down, but were no match for John Carter’s Winchester. They, too, fell in flaming tatters around the Argent like so much burning trash caught on the wind.

With the last ship gone, John twirled the Winchester and walked to the hatch. Billy and Ekka could see his smile through the glass on his helmet. They entered the Argent and closed the hatch, then took off their head

gear.

“Nice shooting,” Billy said.

“Nice flying,” John said. They joined the others in the engine room to view the damage to the transmogrifier, but to their happy surprise, other than it being so heated that tiny ribbons of white smoke drifted upward, it seemed undamaged.

Guthrie examined the machine, worked on it for several minutes and said, “It is intact. I need to retighten the anchor bolts and girders, but that is all. Now, I must retire to the equipment room and allow my internal capacitors to repair my damage. Some of the electricity entered my internals and destroyed them.”

Billy asked, “Are you all right?”

“My ability to function is degrading at an accelerated rate. But I am designed to self-repair these problems. I merely have to become inert until the process is completed.”

“But if we have problems, you can get back up, right?”

“No, I cannot. I must remain inert until the process is fully completed, otherwise I will cease to be.”