As we cautiously approached the door, we could hear the sound of whirring and clanking coming from the other side. We exchanged a worried glance before Mate kicked the door open, revealing a scene straight out of a nightmare. Robotic arms and tentacles protruded from every surface of the bridge, controlling the ship with frightening efficiency. The midshipman Robinson, who had started all of this, was nowhere to be seen....

Her majesty’s martian colony -- New Victoria in the crown colony of Hellas -- 1917 My name is Gordon Arthur. My father was a well known importer and purveyor of Tea at New Victoria, where I was born. My grandfather was a miner and among the first colonists of Mars. During the original Nickel rush he managed to raise enough money to buy plots of land in Mare Serpentis which he made his fortune. I was sent at the age of six...

The H.M.S Minerva Flashes of memory: hands pulling me from the wreckage. I dreamed of Queen Victoria floating in her cylinder of luminiferous ether, her black dress billowing slowly in the fluid. The fluid keeping her eternally alive. Her hands pressing against the glass, her mouth moving but her words made silent by the substantial dimension of the glass. Flashes of memory : distorted faces... When I awoke, I found mysel...

“We are not interested in the possibilities of defeat. They do not exist.” Queen Victoria 1890. Tiredness overcame me and I drifted back towards the sullen inkiness of sleep. I knew then in my soul that something terrible had overcome the ship and its crew. Unless I found a way out of this grey room in which I had been confined for an uncertain period of time then the same fate would overcome me as well. I watched the Med...

I came to the conclusion that the room must contain an Air Vent, after much searching I found it behind my bunk. I was able to wriggle my body inside, it was very tight and dark. Now that I had dealt with the Droid, I now just had to find a way out of my prison, and that would be easier said than done. Distant at the top of the air shaft was a faint light. I started to climb upwards. Towards my escape, hopefully towards s...

I started to run towards the only exit, my feet pounding against the metal sending out further ringing vibrations into the gloom. A swarming cloud of a thousand metallic red and yellow brass insects arose in front of me as I ran headlong into the buzzing horde each with its knife-like stinger aimed at my body. It would seem that everything in the universe was out to either crash into me or stick me with needles rather mak...

Chapter 1: The First Stroke “We should garrison Mars in order to protect ourselves.” Lord Salisbury, 58 Anno Reginae (1895 in the old style.) Her majesty’s martian colony: New Victoria in the crown colony of Hellas. 81 Anno Reginae. (1917) I, Gordon Arthur, have set these words to paper, as much as memory will let, years of twisting memories have made these events more like dreams. I cannot be certain what befell us on th...