The following is a preview for
Mars McCoy and the Chaos Horde
- The first Mars McCoy novel -
Space opera adventure and excitement in the classic
pulp tradition!
by Van Allen Plexico
Coming Summer 2008 from Airship 27
Productions and White Rocket Books
Prologue
“War!” screamed Captain Jaxon at the top of his robotic lungs. “War has come to the Fringe Worlds, and you boys know what that means!”
One of his robotic crewmen leapt up atop the navigational control panel and waved his metal arms wildly.
“Plunder, Cap’n!”
“Maybe so, maybe so,” Jaxon agreed, sounding ambivalent. “But we do quite well on that score already.”
A cheer from his “men” affirmed this.
“What else does it mean?”
“War profiteering,” another crew-robot chimed in, his voice sounding like a recording played back a bit too fast.
Jaxon winced at the voice, then shrugged his metal shoulders.
“A good chance, yes. Helping out the various sides in the conflict by expediting the shipments of armaments—merely playing our humanitarian part, of course.”
The robotic crew of pirates all chortled at the term “humanitarian.” The sound was one of a dozen alarm clocks all going off at once.
Jaxon let the bridge crew settle down, then turned to glare at them with his burning-red eyes.
“But better than plunder—better than exploitation and profiteering—”
The crew sat still for a moment, their processors whirring, glancing from one to the other with looks of confusion and puzzlement. Then one of the communications robots tentatively raised a multi-segmented silver arm.
“This is no schoolhouse,” Jaxon bellowed. “Tell me the answer!”
“The Space Patrol will intervene?” the robot asked cautiously.
Captain Jaxon’s red eyes flared dramatically.
“Precisely!”
He whacked the communications robot on the back in friendly fashion. Bolts and gears sprayed out across the floor and smoke began to issue from the robot’s orifices.
“The Space Patrol. Yes.”
The seven-foot-tall pirate captain strode to the center of his flagship’s bridge and rested his segmented arms against his dull gray sides with a resounding clank. His two fiery eyes peered up at the viewscreen that filled the forward portion of the chamber, and he nodded his smooth, oval-shaped head in satisfaction.
“And when the Space Patrol ventures into my territory,” he said in a low, mechanical growl, “they will find they have fallen directly into my trap.”
The robots all chortled at this and nodded with glee, save the one who had correctly answered the question—he had by now collapsed in a limp and smoldering heap on the floor of the ship, prompting a maintenance bot to roll out and drag his carcass away.
A few moments later, as the pirate captain mulled over his plans and the crew indulged in a little unscheduled lubrication, one of the scanner officers jumped from his seat, his antennae raising and lowering in rapid fashion. He whirled about and signaled frantically to Jaxon.
“Captain! Captain! A null-space distortion just ahead! Something is—”
The blackness of space just beyond their ship twisted and spiraled with rainbow colors momentarily. Through the opening streaked a most familiar shape.
“—coming this way.”
Jaxon took in the sight, his eyes widening in surprise.
“I cannot be this lucky,” he rumbled. “Oh, I cannot be this lucky!”
“Space Patrol ship off the forward bow,” shouted the helmsman, somewhat belatedly. “Their null-engines are off line but their blaster-cannons are hot,” he added.
The sleek form of a Black Bird spacecraft filled the screen. Jaxon studied its markings carefully.
“Black Bird Five. Well, well.”
“Incoming transmission, Captain!”
“Put it on screen.”
Static washed across the viewer for a moment, replaced by the smiling face of a man apparently in his late twenties or early thirties, with bright green eyes and wavy red hair.
“I thought I might find you here, JX-1,” the man said with a wink.
“Mars McCoy. How pleasant to see you once again,” the pirate captain replied. “And it’s ‘Jaxon,’ as you well know. I have long since evolved beyond my original robotic designation.”
“‘Evolved?’ You’re a one-machine poster boy for the hazards of combining human and alien technology!”
A low growl issued from Jaxon’s speakers.
“Enjoy your bravado as best you can, McCoy,” the pirate growled at him. “For you have foolishly placed yourself directly into my hands. Reducing you to random trace molecules is something I have long awaited with great anticipation.”
“Stuff it, you big windbag,” came the voice of Lt. Betty-12, the beautiful brunette who also happened to be both Mars’s second in command and a robot, herself. “You don’t think we’d be stupid enough to simply walk defenseless into your custody, do you?”
“Ah, Lt. Betty. As feisty as ever, I see.” He spread his nubby metal hands wide. “But your argument seems to have no merit—for that is precisely what you have done, is it not?”
He gestured with one hand and the communications officer to his right punched in a quick series of signals on his console. Moments later, five spirals of light—the null-space jump effect—appeared all around Black Bird Five.
“You see, Captain McCoy, while you might conceivably make this a ‘fair fight’ just between the two of us, it turns out that I am not alone here. Not alone at all.”
Five ragged pirate vessels had materialized, their gun ports open and their blaster-cannons energized.
“I’m sure it goes without saying that if you activate your null-engines, you will be vaporized,” Jaxon added.
On the screen, Mars continued to smile.
Seconds ticked by, and no one moved, no one spoke. The tension ran high.
The pirate continued to stand there, studying the screen, waiting for the human captain to break down in tears—to beg for mercy, to offer anything in his possession for the chance for escape.
Instead, Mars continued to smile.
Finally Jaxon couldn’t take it any longer. He raised both gray arms high and bellowed, “What? What is it? You are beaten! I have you dead to rights! Why do you smile that infuriating smile, McCoy?”
Mars laughed.
“Because I’m thinking of how nice it would be to finally arrest you and run you in,” he told the pirate. “But I suppose I’m going to have to let you go.”
Jaxon’s blazing red eyes blinked in surprise.
“Let me go? Let ME go?!”
Mars nodded.
“It would only be fair,” the Ranger replied, “since you’ll be providing me with some critical intelligence in a few moments, and I’ll owe you something in return.”
Jaxon gazed back at his nemesis in utter amazement.
“Is that so?”
“You don’t owe him anything, Captain,” came the voice of Betty-12 from the copilot’s seat. “We should run him in anyway.”
Both Jaxon and Mars ignored her this time.
“Jaxon,” Mars said then, growing serious, “there are bigger things afoot than merely your little pirate operations out here. So I’m willing to look the other way—this time—if you’ll be reasonable and cooperate and answer a few questions for me.”
Jaxon laughed then—a curious sound, reverberating up from the depths of his wide gray torso and crackling out of the speaker set into his oval-shaped head.
“Mars, you must be smoking that Denarian pipe-weed you confiscated from me last month!”
He swept his big, rugged hand in a wide arc.
“You are currently locked in the sights of more than a dozen blast-cannons! I have you dead to rights! By all the worlds of the Empire and the holy throne of the Emperor, why would I want to answer any of your questions, much less let you go afterward?!”
On the screen, Mars shrugged.
“Maybe because of this?”
He motioned to Betty-12. She sent a signal.
The robot at the tactical station emitted a high-pitched shriek.
Jaxon whirled on him, crimson eyes boring in.
“What?”
“I—I—I suggest you switch the viewscreen to tactical display, Captain!”
“Do it!”
The image of the smiling McCoy vanished, replaced by a layout of the local area of space. A representation of Black Bird Five blinked at the center. Jaxon’s six pirate ships surrounded it.
And now two gigantic blips hovered on either side of the pirate fleet, along with numerous smaller objects.
Jaxon gawked.
“Are those—are those—”
“Two Galactic Navy battleships, Captain,” the tactical robot replied, his voice sounding an octave or two too high.
“Battleships?” Jaxon repeated, incredulous.
“Battleships,” came the voice of Mars McCoy over the audio channel. “And I think you said something before about ‘dead to rights.’”
“All seventy blast-cannons are locked on the pirate vessels, Commodore McCoy,” came a crackling voice from another speaker aboard Black Bird Five.
Jaxon heard it, and his red eyes widened slightly. If half-alien mechanical pirate robots could be said to gulp, Jaxon gulped.
The pirate crew all eyed one another nervously, then turned their attention to their leader, waiting.
Jaxon eyed the two big battleships floating on either side of his little fleet, considered his alternatives, and nodded his metallic head.
“So, Mars,” the pirate said, his voice much less belligerent now, much warmer, and taking on an almost conciliatory tone. “Mars, my boy. I believe you had some questions for me, then?”
Mars, his face on the screen once more, was still smiling.
“Definitely.”
Then Jaxon paused.
“Did that man just call you ‘Commodore McCoy?’”
Mars’s smile faded. Jaxon thought he detected the traces of what the humans called “pain” crossing over the captain’s face.
“That—is a long story,” Mars McCoy replied.
* * *
Continued in
Chapter 1 of
Mars McCoy and the Chaos Horde
Copyright 2008 by Van Allen Plexico
An Airship 27 - White Rocket Books co-production
Based on characters and situations created by Ron Fortier and
the Pulp Factory
Mars McCoy logo created by Anthony Schiavino
Coming Summer 2008!