Warbirds of Mars: Stories of the Fight! Read online

  Alex Ness is primarily a poet (and a fine one at that), so his take on our world was unusual in his epistolary approach. ‘The Deadly Triad’ gives us a glimpse into the historical happenings in East Asia after the Martian invasion, describing the outcome of the four-way war between the communists and the nationalists in China, and the invading Japanese and the newly arrived Martians. Later in this volume, Alex again uses the epistolary format in ‘Red Sky Phoenix: The Rise of Free Russia’ to give us a tale of some of the last revolutionaries in Russia, as they make a desperate play to stop the Martians in their tracks.

  I first met Sean Ellis online through his (and my) collaborations with Jeremy Robinson on the latter’s Chess Team series. A fine thriller author and a purveyor of his own brand of pulp-style adventure and excitement with his Adventures of Dodge Dalton series, Sean brought another interesting twist to our universe in ‘The Farmboy’s Adventure’. He showed us the journey of two young men from the fringes of the war into the actual events of the webcomic, but as seen from a different point of view. After working with him online and considering him a friend for over a year, I met Sean face-to-face for the first time at the 2012 Phoenix Comicon—where Doc and I were selling print copies of the Warbirds webcomic. Serendipity again.

  This anthology also gave me the opportunity to delve a little deeper into the origins of Mr. Mask, our gas-masked Martian hybrid hero. Who is this guy? Why does he have such outlandish gear? What’s with the sword? To me, Mr. Mask is a mishmash of every pulp and modern avenger out there, from The Shadow to Spy Smasher, and a little bit of Snake Eyes, too. But there’s more to him than that strange get-up and his fighting skills. His origin, unlike other avengers in the pulps (both new and old), involves shame. Shame at what he is, rather than what he might have done. In ‘The Bitter Edge’, Mr. Mask finds a purpose in life that transcends his shame, and provides him just what he needed all along—direction.

  Ron Fortier needs no introduction to the New Pulp crowd. As the Air Chief of Airship 27 Productions, a company responsible for many of the best volumes of New Pulp stories out there, and a New Pulp author himself, Ron was also the first big pulpster to compliment me on the writing of the webcomic (and the first to awaken my fears of being caught out as a writer just having a lot of fun, instead of taking things seriously). But his praise meant more than anyone else’s—if I was getting it right in Ron’s eyes, then I was doing okay. Even though I was expecting the southwest from Jeff, it was Ron who brought it to the anthology with ‘The Monsters of Adobe Wells’. Ron brings not only a rollicking adventure with members of the core Martian Killers team, but he also introduces Charlie Three-Feathers, a man one part Lone Ranger and one part Tonto, but all pulp warrior. I never would have suspected that this series—which encompasses horror, science fiction, air war, urban pulp, and comic books—was missing a good old-fashioned Western angle, but I would have been wrong. As soon as Ron brought it to the table, I knew just how right it fit.

  In ‘Human Guile’, Chris Samson, an up-and-coming horror writer, delivers on the action like nobody’s business. He not only involves every major member of the Martian Killers in his tale, but he introduces their perfect opposite numbers in The Last Outlaws, and gives us insight into the varied approaches to which the Martians will resort to crush the resistance.

  Award-winning supernatural thriller author Stephen M. Irwin’s ‘Surprise’ gives us the best slice of ’40s dialogue and narration of the collection—odd coming from an Aussie. Steve’s novels have garnered deserved praise for his lavish descriptions and his ability to raise the hackles on the back of your neck…much like another famous author named Stephen. But Irwin, the new Duke of Spook, instead turns dark and cynical in this tale, showing us the wrong side of human nature when a disenfranchised and disabled vet gets embroiled in a situation far beyond him, and sees it though to the bitter end.

  With ‘The Road Out of Antioch’, serendipity strikes again. J. H. Ivanov was one of my best friends during those comic book store days, and he was there that day when I met Jeff Mariotte, too. I lost track of Ivanov when I left Arizona in ’96, and that had been one of my biggest regrets in life. In addition to being a fine friend, he was the most talented writer I knew, and unlike many others I knew at the time that wanted to be writers (myself included), he actually wrote. Through the wonders of Facebook, he got in touch with Doc, and we found each other again, just a few months ago. I was delighted to have my friend back, and, overwhelmed with happiness, I immediately shanghaied him into doing a story for us. To his credit, he blasted out a complex tale of the resistance’s most far-fetched plan for combating the alien menace: resorting to the supernatural. Ivanov’s protagonist is tasked with the horrible job of journeying across France with a symbiotic creature that might just save the world—if it doesn’t destroy everyone and everything first. I challenge you to not squirm in your chair when you read the scene in the farmhouse with the two boys. It’s great to have you back, J. H., and welcome aboard.

  David Lindblad, another up-and-coming horror author, takes the fight to the wastes of Greenland in ‘Shipwrecked’, and he introduces a vibe which is at once Lovecraftian, and also evokes John Carpenter’s The Thing or perhaps Irvin Yeaworth’s The Blob. Either way, there’s only so much a small band of humans can do against an otherworldly threat so tenacious…

  Finally, Doc brings us home in my favorite tale in the collection, ‘Refined Elegance’. Here, we see the whole team in action yet again, but for a change, the entire tale is from Josie Taylor’s point of view, and we see not only what life is like on the front, but also what things are like in a Martian-occupied world, on a daily basis. The story captures the essence of the old pulps by bringing us action and danger, with an old-time style rarely seen in today’s fiction.

  Although it was a relatively last-minute idea, we asked several amazing artists to read these stories and give us a vision of a scene they liked, or an illustration they felt brought the tale, the team, or the world of Warbirds of Mars to life. We were not disappointed. Jean Arrow, our only female artist, tackled the bondage aspect that creeps into the webcomic from time to time, emulating some of the spicier tales of old and satisfying Doc’s urge to draw cheesecake. Her gorgeous illustration faces off with Doc’s foreword. Robert Hack’s brilliant view of an autogyro battling the alien menace over a cathedral graces the front of this introduction. Nik Poliwko starts our stories off with a bang with his dark and menacing scene of the nascent Hunter Noir emptying both barrels into the bad guys. Christian Guldager, the Danish wonder, came through for me at the last minute to present an eerie view of aliens on Main Street opposite ‘In The World Today’. John Lucas perfectly captured the flavor of Mariotte’s South China Sea story ‘Southern Cross’, and Richard Serrao also came in at the last minute to show us a dark take on the war in China, opposite ‘The Deadly Triad’. Comics’ Dan Parsons jumps from Star Wars to War of the Worlds by illustrating ‘The Farmboy’s Adventure’ with a piece that captures all the glory of the space pulps and Buck Rogers-style serials.

  Jason Worthington had perhaps the hardest illustration job: to illustrate a story that I hadn’t written yet, because I was waiting on our final page count to tell me whether my story needed to be long or short. He brings the rural Japanese setting of ‘The Bitter Edge’ to life beautifully, and from just the small description of the scene I gave him.

  Rob Hicks got the enviable job of drawing our only Indian adventurer and one of the cooler creatures in these pages, for ‘The Monsters of Adobe Wells’. Mike DeBalfo adds upper-class style and induces our fear of the Nazi threat with his illustration for Megan E. Vaughn’s ‘The Skull of Lazarus’. Paul Roman Martinez captures the faded Soviet glory in Ness’s ‘Red Sky Phoenix: The Rise of Free Russia’ by giving us onion domes and deadly saucers. Matthew Goodall must have had a tough time choosing a scene from Samson’s ‘Human Guile’, our longest, and perhaps most action-packed, tale. But Matt did an amazing job of showing Josie both afraid and ready to
do what it takes to deal with a human menace worse than the Martians.

  Nathan Morris managed not only to draw the trustworthy Citroën from Irwin’s ‘Surprise’, but he also brings all the wild assortment of characters from Irwin’s tale to life, and adds the creepy with those squid hands. Bill Farmer encapsulates Ivanov’s ‘The Road Out of Antioch’ with some simple evocative images of the creature in the jar, the sack, the enemy fortress, and the giant waving tentacles of doom. This image surprised me the most, in its simple honesty and powerful rendering. Andy Carreon brought us our most dynamic image, showing our heroes in action and the horror on the ice in Greenland, in Lindblad’s ‘Shipwrecked’. From the planes to the creature, to the devastating explosion, he got it all in there somehow. Bravo.

  Finally, Doc himself gives us an illustration, showing Josie Taylor’s transition from extraordinary lounge singer, to seeming victim, and eventually to high-flying hero. If you can tear your eyes away from her assets long enough, take in the detail of her TV/radio wristwatch, her ever-present flower, and her Martian Killers insignia.

  It’s been an amazing treat working with such a cast of talented authors and artists. I’d like to thank each and every one of them for their tremendous work and dedication, and to thank Doc for asking me to join him on the journey. Now turn the page, tuck in, and get ready for the ride of your life. It’s the 1940s. World War II is raging (or about to be). Hostile, hate-filled creatures from another world have invaded our home, and they are here to stay. The world is in tatters. Humans are slaves, or homeless, or sympathizers. But a few staunch protectors of liberty are roaming the world, fighting the good fight. The resistance is alive and well.

  Read on, for Stories of the Fight!

  Regards,

  Kane Gilmour

  April, 2013

  HUNTER NOIR

  By Scott P. Vaughn

  A pair of T-6 ‘Texan’ trainer planes buzzed over Thunderbird Tower, their 600 horsepower Pratt and Whitney prop engines roaring like enormous amplified bee hives.

  Robert Black watched them pass over his head to cut across Thunderbird Field and fade into the cloudless sky. He stepped out from the shade of the auxiliary base’s small tower into the palpable heat wave of valley sunlight. The desert stretched out into the distant shimmering of Arizona heat. The occassional budding saguaro and brown scrub brush did little to color the bleak expanse, so different from the greenery of home. It was hard to believe that a city lay only a dozen miles ahead under the stark blue sky.

  It was June of 1944, and Robert Black would soon be able to leave Arizona behind, so he pointed a green Army Air Force Dodge south toward Phoenix, hoping he’d think of something to buy for Gina by the time he got to town. He had not seen her since being on loan from Southwest Airways to train cadets for the war. His sweetheart since high school, Gina still lived less than a block from Robert’s parents in Indiana. She was the only thing still keeping him smiling since the news of his brother’s death. He shook the dark thoughts of the European Theater aside and gunned the accelerator, anxious to be back in civilization for a few hours.

  Robert squinted, looking for the peak of the ‘Westward Ho’ or some other landmark of Phoenix proper. Instead, he could only make out a strange haze hanging in the air over the road. The haze coalesced into a thick blackness. Smoke drifted up from where downtown should have been. An uneasy foreboding began to creep up the back of Robert’s neck. Instinct told him to rush forward faster to see what had happened: training told him to get back to the base.

  “My God,” he said.

  The sky over Phoenix had become a haze as well, only it wasn’t smoke—it appeared to be a mass of planes.

  “Is it an attack? Germans? Japs?”

  Robert’s foot had fallen off the accelerator. The car was coasting slower. His eyes strained to see that much further ahead. The foreboding became a chill, and Robert’s heart froze.

  Waves of craft in formation were coming toward him, following the road like a beeline straight for the auxiliary base. They were large, like bombers, and moving fast. Robert was murmuring to himself, “I should be able to identify their silhouettes by now,” but his voice trailed off.

  These were not planes.

  The craft roared directly overhead, a droning otherworldly sound like no conventional engine could ever make, prop or otherwise. Their shapes were more like disks than any sort of winged aircraft, with external pods that concealed weapons or engines—Robert couldn’t tell which—mounted over and under the left and right sides. A shining black dome seemed to denote a cockpit at the front of each ship. Each was easily twice the size of the largest bomber he had ever seen. Within moments they had passed over and were fading into the distance behind him.

  Robert’s car stopped.

  After the second and third waves went by, it still took Robert another two full minutes to come to his senses. Tears welled up in his eyes, and he refused to look at the burning city. He felt tiny and alone. His hands shook on the steering wheel, and when he finally managed to control himself enough to turn the car around, the world had become a cold gray.

  He floored the Dodge and headed for Thunderbird Field.

  By the time Robert had driven back to the base, it was leaking the same acrid smoke as the city—only this was his home, and it was gone.

  The fence was destroyed, along with the guard tower, so he raced onto the grounds, looking for signs of life.

  The scene had descended into a Gustav Doré illustration of Dante’s Inferno. Plumes of smoke poured from flattened buildings and destroyed hangers. Grizzled black husks of former men were scattered all around. Robert had to fight his body’s natural reaction to be sick at the sights and smells that greeted his senses. He coughed, specks of spit and bile coming to his lips.

  The car rolled on.

  “Am I the only survivor?” he asked.

  A formation of three saucers flew over and away. It had only taken him fifteen minutes to drive back to the base, but their work was nearly done. Not a soul moved within the haze of death. The base had been wiped out. To the west, the same fog hovered over distant Luke Field.

  Something was moving through the black haze, high above. Robert brought the car to a halt and leaned forward to look up through the dust on his windshield.

  He got his first close look at a ‘Martian Saucer’ in that moment. This one was mounted to a disk supporting the craft on three tall, spindly legs. The walker towered nearly four stories above him, and he could see that the gray and maroon plating might appear riveted like an Axis ship, but it wasn’t made of any metal he had ever seen before. Robotic arms had popped out of the underside ‘engine’ pods, and in place of hands were bayonet-like cannons that spat beams of light with a deafening blast, igniting everything in front of Robert that had once been Thunderbird Field.

  The craft turned to touch off the hangers, so Robert drove his car as fast as he could to the far runways, hoping to God that something was still flight worthy and somehow fueled for takeoff. The Dodge kicked up dust and bounced on its shocks when it drove over debris, but Robert never let off the gas. Ahead was the flat expanse of the runway and a lone TP-40 Warhawk, waiting like a gift from heaven.

  Robert stopped the car close to the rear of the plane. He looked back at the carnage he had just witnessed. Fire rose through smoke and ash, as if the Earth itself had opened up and belched out hot flames. Two more of the otherworldly walkers stalked their way through the hellish landscape. Their flying counterparts were nowhere to be seen. If he was going to take to the skies, now was the time.

  Wiping the stinging heat and death from his eyes, Robert climbed aboard the plane. The gauges told him his silent prayers for fuel had been answered, so he began his checklist to take wing.

  “Captain Black to tower. Does anyone read me, over?” The static was all the answer he needed.

  He was near panic and skipping steps on his checklist. Robert swore. Igniting the plane’s engine, he decided to taxi and run for
it, watching the horizon and the sky for any surprise enemy fire. His plane rolled past the wall of smoke and turned around.

  Robert gunned the throttle, certain that he would be destroyed before he even got off of the ground. The tension only escalated when he began to lift off, knowing he was only a more visible target. He climbed hard, hoping to get as much altitude and distance between his plane and whatever those destructive things were, before he would have to find out whether or not he could out run them. The training craft had little munitions to speak of, and Robert was already taking it for granted that the invaders’ craft might even be bullet proof.

  The plane banked and shot into the sky. “Come on, girl, higher. Gina’s waiting for us to get home.” She was the only thing he could think of. All that kept him sane in a world gone mad.

  Robert checked his heading again. It had been two hours since he had taken to the air, and according to his compass, he was still making for Indiana, but then again the compass had gone haywire on at least three occasions so far. Each time he would be forced to deviate from his path away from what appeared to be whole fleets of craft descending from the heavens. Ships of varying size and configuration made up each mass of invaders, but always the bulk of them would be the saucer fighters and walkers. He had yet to identify any American craft sent in retaliation, but then visibility was awful thanks to the amount of smoke drifting through the air.

  Another burning city was looming into view. Robert would have to swing wide to avoid going over it, and he didn’t want the reality of math equations to spoil his optimism about his fuel. But the sky seemed relatively clear; perhaps the invaders had already moved on. Besides, if he didn’t refuel soon he’d be forced to set on down on Route 66 somewhere, find a ride and hope for the best. His Warhawk began its descent.