Anastasia, Queen of Mars

Anastasia, Queen of Mars

by Paul D. Batteiger

Copyright 2018 by Paul D. Batteiger

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Anastasia, Queen of Mars

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Table of Contents

Chapter 1: Down to the Red World

Chapter 2: Under the Crimson Sky

Chapter 3: Beside the Black Lake

Chapter 4: Under the Two Moons

Chapter 5: To the Ancient Shore

Chapter 6: War in the Black City

Chapter 7: Blood Beneath the Sky

Chapter 8: Night on the Red World

Chapter 9: People of the Deeps

Chapter 10: Swords in the Night

Chapter 11: Fires of the Dawn

Chapter 12: City of Doom

Chapter 13: Morning in Crimson

Chapter 14: Tower of the Ancients

Chapter 15: Red Steel in the Night

Chapter 16: City on the Red Cliffs

Chapter 17: Sky of Two Moons

Chapter 18: A Land of Night

Chapter 19: Edge of the Blade

Chapter 20: People of the Dark

Chapter 21: Across A Dead Sea

Chapter 22: To the Nameless City

Chapter 23: Beyond the Wasteland

Chapter 24: At the Conclave

Chapter 25: In the Deep

Chapter 26: Light in the Dark

Chapter 27: Down to the Deeps

Chapter 28: Bringer of Fire

Chapter 29: City of the Night

Chapter 30: Siege in the Deep

Chapter 31: Battle of the Sky

Chapter 32: Fires of Mars

Chapter 33: Queen of Two Worlds

Chapter 1: Down to the Red World

Anya went to the bow on their final approach to Mars, desperate after weeks in the void to finally see their destination. The forward observation dome was quiet and lit only by small lights. She gathered her skirts and made her way between the benches to stand before the great curved window, and she looked out into the dark. Against the endless field of stars, the red world of her birth loomed large, and the color was a deep, copper red, marked by a swirl of white frost at the pole.

It was smaller than Earth, the totality of the surface only equal to the land area of all the earthly continents. A planet of dim light and cold air, thin and lacking in oxygen. The journey here had been like an enforced holiday no one wanted, highlighted by inactivity and impatience. On Earth there had been preparation and packing and urgency, and then came the long voyage when it seemed like everyone was trembling on the edge of something, forced to wait. The trip gave her far too much time to worry about her future.

It had been almost the opposite of her passage to Earth as a child – struggling to breathe the heavy atmosphere, prostrate beneath what seemed a crushing weight of gravity. She had been so frightened, and had not understood the speech of those with her. She remembered crying out in Martian, hoping someone would answer.

I see you had the same thought as I, came the voice of Sir Henry Hallingstone as he entered the room. He always moved so quietly, much moreso than other Earthmen, who always seemed to stomp as loudly as possible.

She half-turned as he came to stand beside her, far enough away to avoid any impropriety. He was the diplomat assigned to their expedition, and nominally in command, though he was not the officer who would direct the troops they brought with them. He was a well-knit man with a drooping mustache and intense eyes. The way he looked at things reminded her of the one time she had been presented to Lord Salisbury. They both had that same cold watchfulness.

I wanted to see it before we land, she said. It’s been so long since I was here. She wished he would go away.

Ten years, he said. Almost as long for me. I left not long after you did, though my visit was shorter. Those were difficult days.

An understatement, she said stiffly. It seemed a dismissive way to refer to the uprising that had slaughtered her family and stolen her throne. She could not remember any of them very well. They were still images in her mind, like old photographs. Theirs had been a dynastic family, and she had been raised by servants and guards and tutors. She remembered her mother, tall and proud on the throne, more a presence than a person.

Sir Henry half-bowed with a slight smile. No disrespect, my lady.

She made a noncommittal noise. She had decided some weeks ago that he had, in fact, no respect for anyone save himself. She tried to ignore him and looked down on her homeworld. The massive shape of the mountain the Earthmen called Olympus was plain to see on the red expanse. A volcano the size of France, the slopes thick with strange vegetation, fed by cooling winds that flowed down the sides. Rain fell on those slopes, one of the few places on Mars where that happened. It was a sacred place to her ancestors, and she wondered if she would ever see it in person.

You are worried, he said, in that way he had of assuming and then not looking back. A regiment seems like a small force with which to reclaim an empire, but these are Queen’s Rifles, and the Martians have never had to face real riflery. Once your cousin adds his native forces to ours, we will push to the capital and gather allies along the way. It shall be like the Maghreb – we will find everywhere the enemies of our enemies.

My enemies, she said.

He paused to take a small breath from his mask. The Victoria was an Earth ship, but she was only operating at half normal air pressure to prepare the troops to the conditions they would face on the surface. It had only taken Anya a few days to acclimate, and she continued to rather enjoy the discomfiture of the Earthmen. The bare surface of Mars would be much worse.

Yes, he said. Your enemies, very much so.

She had been taken from this world when she was just a child, the last survivor of the Vovikar dynasty that ruled the Empire. The uprising had placed a usurper on the throne, and so the British had saved her life, taken her to Earth. When she was young she had thought it a gesture of kindness, but now she knew they thought to someday use her to take back the Empire for their own purposes. Now the usurper was dead, the empire divided, and that day had come. Now she was returning to Mars at the head of a thousand British soldiers to try and retake her birthright.

It shall be highly symbolic, Sir Henry said. A great deal of prestige for the Crown. It is already October back home. By the time the year turns we shall have made you a queen again, and the year nineteen hundred shall open with the British Empire expanding to another world. He smiled.

There were many things she could have said, but she did not. She had learned that differing with Sir Henry only brought frustration, and made no dent at all in his air of superiority. He was what she found most frustrating about Earthmen, especially the British – the certainty that they were all that was best. Some of them had more admirable qualities, but they were few. She found her hand was knotted into a fist, and she hid it in a fold of her gown so he would not see.

She took a last look down at the planet below. That this view of her home would be intruded upon offended her in a way she could not have expressed. Instead, she simply nodded to him. A good day to you, Sir Henry. She turned to go.

And to you, if it is day. He laughed a little, then made a bow that was almost sincere. Princess Anastasia.

o0o

She returned to her quarters through the dim corridors of the ship, glad that the thin air kept the troops in their barracks. It was so lovely and quiet here in space. One of the things she had first learned to dislike about Earth was how loud and how bright everything was. Thicker air carried more sound, and it was something she had been forced to get used to.

The gravity was lower on the ship, and she was working to grow used to that as well. Once they landed, the Martian gravity would be lesser still – about a third of what she had faced on Earth. She remembered lying in her bed as a girl, the air so thick it felt like sand in her lungs and the gravity like a hand pressing her downward. She had slowly, painfully become accustomed to it, but she knew it had changed her. She was tall for an Earth woman, but short for a Martian. Her bones would be denser and heavier than other Martians, and she would be strong. Already, she could move more easily, had to learn to walk carefully so she would not stumble or trip. Once they were on the surface, she would be three times as strong as any Martian.

She was a little dizzy when she got back to her quarters, paused to take a breath of oxygen from the little tube that led to the small tank on her shoulder. The thin air was affecting her as well, though she had adjusted better than the Earthmen. She had lived most of the last decade at a private chalet in Switzerland, high in the mountains where the thin air made visitors ill. It was dense compared to the surface of Mars, but the best that could be managed on her adopted world – if she could be said to have adopted it at all.

For the last ten years she had spent a great deal of time alone. They sent girls to be her companions, but they feared her and none of them became what she might call a friend. They rotated the girls out as well, presumably so none of them would become confused in their loyalties. Anya had had servants and guards and tutors, but no one else. She found this journey and enterprise far more frightening than she wanted them to be.

Her rooms here were small, but well-appointed. She always had the sense the British wanted her to project an image of royalty without developing appetites for luxury. It made for a strange mixture. It felt confined here, after the mountainous vistas of Switzerland, the terrible, bright sun and the cold winds. She sat on the bed and reached into her drawer, took out the folded photo case and opened it. Here she had a picture of her mother, taken the year before she had been assassinated.

Queen Omavarvisha, Shrad of Vul and Bringer of Fire, looked out from the photograph, the black and white image not conveying her deep red skin. She had the small horns above her eyes that Anya had – three in a row on each side, the largest the length of a fingertip, the other two smaller as they receded toward her hairline – the mark of their family line.

The queen did not wear a British dress with corset and gloves and a high collar. She wore the rich, heavy robes of a Martian queen over a body covered with little more than ornaments and jewels. Her hair was bound in many long braids decorated with gold bands and looped in elaborate patterns. Compared to a human’s, her face was elongated and her eyes were large. Her ears were set slightly high and had long points. Her gaze was direct and fearless, and she had a bared sword laid across her knees.

This was the only picture of her mother ever taken, and though it had been reproduced a hundred times – the original was in the British Museum – when she looked at it she felt her mother was looking right at her. Anya sat up and looked in the small mirror, touched her own horns, her ears. She wondered what she saw, and what she would think. Her mother had not been a warrior queen, though she looked fierce. She had been a daughter of a regal line, bred to command.

She folded the picture away, put it back in her drawer, and she thought of what was to come and she could not encompass it. The prospect of an invasion contained far too many elements that were simply out of her experience. It was hard enough to imagine returning to Mars – the world that was more like a dream to her now. And if she seized her throne, what then? The idea of having to be a queen was terrifying.

On Earth, when she felt alone and afraid, she thought of Mars, and took comfort in it. Mars was her home, and there she could imagine she would return someday. Now she was almost there, and it seemed a dread rather than a refuge. She longed for it, and she shied from it, all at once. She clenched her fists and pressed her arms against herself, feeling hard and tight and brittle. She knew she was a pawn, of sorts, in this great game, and pawns were spent and traded and lost. If she wanted to survive, she had to become a queen.

The Earthmen called her Anastasia, because Deep Martian sounded Slavic to their ears. They gave her a name that sounded like her own, but was easier for them to pronounce. But she had not forgotten her real name, and if she took the throne, it would not be under any name they gave her. She would be a queen like her mother had been: she would be Anavasavsta.

o0o

Landing was much smoother than leaving Earth, and she barely noticed the passage through the frail atmosphere. She felt the lurch when the ship shut off her planetary drives and shifted to the lift engines used by airships. Ships could not fly very high on Mars; with the air so thin, they could not generate enough lift to rise more than a few hundred feet above the ground. The normal drives would not push the ship either, as Mars had no magnetic field to push against. Ships had to deploy sails and drift on the Martian winds.

She went out as soon as she could, stepping from the heavy hatch and onto the open upper deck. Her first breath of free Martian air was not convivial, as it was cold and breathlessly thin, tasting of blood or metal on her tongue. She went to the rail and leaned there, fighting the urge to use her breathing tube.

The land spread out around her, endless rolling lands of stone and sand, the sky overhead hazy and dim with dust. She took another breath and then relented, took the tube and clipped it into her nose so she could breathe a steady supply of oxygen to supplement the thin air. She shrugged her shawl over her shoulders and wished she had a proper Martian cloak. She decided she would obtain one as soon as she could. A red robe fit for an empress.

The soldiers were on deck, carrying the stowed gear up from the hold and arranging it for easier access. They were on the planet now, and she watched them unpack crates of rifles and distribute them beside the shrouded escape flyer under its canvas tarp. It was funny watching the men easily hoist enormous crates in the lighter gravity, and then almost immediately collapse, gasping for breath through their masks. Their bright red uniforms were quickly covered in a fine layer of red dust, as were their conical white pith helmets. The fighting qualities of the British soldiers were not in question, but she had never thought they looked much like warriors.

Colonel James saw her and smiled. He came closer and bowed to her with a sincerity she always appreciated. My lady. This must be a momentous moment for you.

Indeed, she said. It is actually my first time in the High Plains. Her people did not live in the uplands. These dry, desolate plains were home to the High Martians, pale-skinned and savage of temperament, barbarians and raiders. They were the wellspring of mercenary armies that fought the wars for their red masters.

Can’t come down in the Delve, he said. The jets would cause too much damage, and the pressure changes would make it hard to maneuver properly. He smiled again, put his mask to his face and breathed deep. Sir William James, Colonel of the 1st Martian Rifles, was only a little older than Sir Henry, but at forty he looked older than that. His beard was going gray on the sides, and there were lines in his face from wind and sun. He was an old hand campaigner, and she gathered he was here to avoid some kind of scandal back home, though she had not heard details.

She liked him, smiled back as wide as she ever did, which was not very. He was a big man, and she had to look up at him. She knew he had been to Mars before, and though he didn’t seem to care for it, he remained rather cheerful. She had heard rumors that he drank to excess, but she had never seen it.

The soldiers were unpacking artillery, and she felt a pang at the sight of the guns. Sir Henry made it sound easy, but she knew retaking her throne would probably mean fighting, and she didn’t want to see Earth weapons used against Martians. The whole expedition had seemed theoretical back on Earth, but now they were actually here and she was confronted with the stark reality, and she didn’t like it.

William followed her glance, and his smile faded a bit. We’ll hope this doesn’t turn into some kind of fracas, he said. Seems damned rude to come to another planet just to start trouble. He winced. Your pardon, my lady.

She almost laughed. Pardon granted, Sir James, she said. She breathed fresh air through her nose. I am not eager to see blood shed on my behalf.

Well, but you’re the rightful heir, he said. Don’t forget that. We are restoring you to your throne.

Well, and I suppose that’s all there is to it, she said, somewhat sarcastic.

He laughed at that. Well, also bulling our way into a political situation on another world that could blow up at any moment. We’re doing that as well. He took another breath and then nodded, pointed ahead of them. The Delve.

o0o

She turned to look, and then clutched at the rail of the ship as the emotion overwhelmed her. She had not thought she would remember it so well, but she did. Ahead of them, the ground dropped away, and a layer of mist floated there like a sea lapping at the cliffs. It was the edge of what the Martians called the Tarivinan Delve. It was a network of canyons for which the word was entirely inadequate. The American Grand Canyon would vanish within it. The Delve was almost two thousand miles long, and on Earth would stretch from California to Maine and beyond. It was over five miles deep, in some places closer to eight, and hundreds of miles wide.

In the Delve, the air pressure gathered and built to a more habitable atmosphere; moisture was trapped and rain fell, watering the farmlands below. Thicker air made it warmer, and she felt it even as the first light mist settled on her face. She smelled it, and the scent conjured memory so strongly she felt faint. She remembered the mushroom gardens, the flowers on the vines that grew everywhere, hoppers bounding away too fast to catch with their red fins flicking.

The Victoria glided majestically over the edge and the mist rose up around them. She felt the ship settle, and then it began to sink slowly through the gradually thickening air. They dropped through layers of cloud and shadow, and then emerged into the open sky above the homeland of the ancient Martian civilization. She saw the cliffsides covered with the multicolored fungi, the red ridges leading downward to the shining silver ribbon of the river hedged in by the orderly patterns of the cultivated fields. The dim sun shone through only as a gentle glow, filtered through the mist to make a golden haze. Just the sight of it all stilled her breath.

Colonel James leaned on the rail and took a breath from his mask. Welcome home, my lady.

*****

Chapter 2: Under the Crimson Sky

Princess Anastasia remained at the rail to observe, but William could not. They would be landing soon, and he had business to see to. He sketched a small bow and then made his leave; he didn’t think she even noticed. She was a strange girl, with that deep red skin – redder than most Martians – and those little horns on her forehead. Supposedly only her family line had those, and he’d never seen them on another. The almost demonic look of her contrasted with her reserve and her poise. She acted like someone born to rule, that was no mistake.

He went back across the deck and shouted a few commands just to keep the men sharp. They were mostly doing what needed to be done. A month of inactivity aboard the ship had them eager for something to do with themselves. He paused to press the mask to his face and took a long breath of sweet air. The one thing he really hated about Mars was how fast a man got out of breath here – the other thing was there were no horses, but that was another matter.

The troops were busy unpacking their rifles and ammunition cases, and he left Sergeant Bell in charge of the work and headed below. Now they were in the Delve they were in potential danger, and he had to start thinking of the security of his men as well as the princess. That meant he had to look to his artillery.

The light gravity made descending the stairs a white-knuckled enterprise of gripping and handrail and stepping carefully so he didn’t end up flat on his face. He hadn’t been to Mars in almost seven years, and he was out of practice moving around. He hoped it came back to him quickly. Only about a third of the men had ever been off-planet before, and that could be a problem. Under fire men forgot training and reacted, and that could mean troops stumbling and throwing themselves all over the place.

On top of that, riflery on Mars was complicated. The kick of a Martini-Henry .577 would knock a man on his backside here if he was not braced for it. It was one of the reasons they didn’t worry much about the Martians getting hold of Earth guns. A Martian firing a rifle would probably dislocate his damned arm. Here, shooters had to brace, and range was longer because of the gravity, but the stability of the bullet was worse because of the thin air, so accuracy at longer ranges went right to hell.

He emerged into the lower deck and followed the left-hand corridor to the armory. The men on guard duty stiffened and saluted, and he returned it easily. This was a new command for him, and these men didn’t know his history except perhaps by rumor. That was part of the reason he had fought for this command. It was almost funny that he’d managed to cock up so badly he had to get away from Earth entirely. Or it would be funny, if it were not simply painful.

He came into the huge, open space of the armory hold and saw the artillerymen here already, cataloging, marking, and prioritizing. The big guns were their real advantage, as the Martians did not have anything like them. Gunnery would be very different here, but explosive shells would make hash of the delicate Martian architecture if it came to that. He hoped it didn’t. He rather liked the Martians, as much as it was possible to like such a strange people. They were mercurial, reserved and then emotional, easy to anger but quick to forgive.

He returned salutes, then headed to the rearmost chamber, closed off from the rest of the hold. He was not really surprised to find Sir Henry Hallingstone here already, and he was not really pleased either. The man was a diplomat of that particularly shifty variety the foreign service seemed to produce by accident – like mold on bathhouse walls. He was glad to see, at least, that his guards were not letting the man into the secure room.

Sir Henry saw him and his expression brightened. Sir William, just as well you are here. Your men are -

Obeying their orders, William said. He smiled and the two guards drew themselves up stiffly and saluted.

Colonel James, sir! one of them said. He gave Sir Henry a look and William almost chuckled. The men didn’t much like him either. Ah well, politicians.

Stand easy, he said. Open the door.

Sir! the man said and opened the hatch, stepped aside and stood straight with extra snap.

William gestured to Sir Henry. After you, sir. It was a bit of a question as to who outranked whom here. They were both peers, and while Hallingstone was nominally in command of the expedition, William thought the man would wilt at the first sign of danger. He certainly had no illusions as to whom the men would listen.

Sir Henry smiled and preceded him through the hatch, and William followed. The room inside had been walled off from the main hold before launch, and the long crate in here was lashed down and protected by wooden forms that affixed it to the deck. There was a smell, something acrid and not like ordinary gunpowder.

We’ll unload it last, William said. It’s delicate – or moreso than a cannon. I’m still hoping we don’t need it.

Sir Henry went to the crate and stood beside it. It was almost as tall as he was, and longer than two carts laid end to end. He touched the wood. A real heat ray, he said, as if ruminating. Have you ever seen one fired?

I have, William said. I was in the capital when they did the annual firing, once.

Of the only one that still works, Sir Henry said. The Martians have declined much from their supposed former state of greatness.

His tone rankled, but William didn’t say anything. The Martians had once held a much higher state of technological advancement than they did presently. At their height they had created the great weapons known as heat rays – devices that projected terrible beams of annihilating energy. They had long since lost the secrets of making them, but the royal palace was still equipped with great mounted examples that had once defended the emperors. Only one of them now functioned, but the Martians fired it every year with great ceremony to maintain the ruler’s title as the Bringer of Fire.

I’ve only seen them fired on Earth, the once, Sir Henry said. Made a dreadful racket. Easy to see how a more primitive people would worship such a device.

William chewed on his tongue. Can hardly be that primitive, since they built the thing in the first place.

Not this one, Sir Henry said. He patted the wooden crate fondly. The Martians haven’t built a heat ray in over a thousand years, so they tell me. This one was engineered by our boys in just a few years.

From the one we stole from them and took apart, William said.

Still, says something, don’t you think? I have read the theories of Mister Charles Debakey, who theorizes that the present Martians are not the people who built this civilization, but rather the remnants of a servant race dwelling in the ruins of their masters. Sir Henry had a way of speaking that made him sound almost insufferably sure of himself. Perhaps it served him well in statecraft.

We’re not here to overawe primitives, William said, his tone going colder. This is a dangerous, and delicate situation. We may have an easy time, but I would not wager on it.

Sir Henry waved a hand. We have a regiment of rifles and real artillery. The Martians will have never seen anything like it before. And we have the rightful and legal heir to their throne. This is not a usurpation, it’s a completely legal action on our part.

Henry, the great tragedy of humanity is that there is no law that applies between governments, or between different peoples. Sometimes men can agree, but when they cannot, there is war. He looked at the crated-up heat ray. This contraption is only here so we can impress upon them that Anastasia is the Bringer of Fire – that carries a lot of weight with them. I pray we don’t have to use it on anyone.

Sir Henry sniffed, looking at him with obvious disapproval. I had not expected a military man to be so hesitant to engage in violent action. You don’t have a reputation for such reluctance. He gave William a sidelong look that said he knew exactly what William did have a reputation for.

Instead of showing anger, he laughed. It’s not reluctance at all, he said. It’s the simple fact that if we are in the position of firing this infernal machine at someone, well, then things have already gone very, very wrong.

o0o

Anya stayed at the bow of the ship and watched as they descended into