Sample: Outer space domestic disturbance?

[David Brown]

Here's another sample of my Marx Space Guys adventure. By the way, these are based on official and semi-official tie ins to the Tom Corbett show and related media, which I still haven't run down. The character who is EXACTLY like the figure is Moxon. This really is how I have always written action scenes. I'm still surprised by how strong a response I get. I expect to have this up as a regular installment shortly.


That night, Jason lay with Alek in his bunk, intermittently watching Sparky the squirrel. The adventure showed Sparky, Spunky and Tweel the Martian on Venus. They conveniently wore armored suits to protect them from the heat and pressure, at the cost of correspondingly limited movement. Sparky was currently struggling to pick up a wrench dropped while repairing their spaceship. At first, he simply could not get hold of it with the clumsy gauntlets of the suit. When he did manage to grip it, however, he found that the pressure made it impossible to pick it up. Spunky and Tweel tried to pry it off the ground, but only bent the tool. At first, he didn’t notice the raised voices, from the direction of the cabins across the main corridor where Jackie and Vasily slept, until he recognized Anastasia. He still might have done nothing, if Alek had not stirred. He patted her hand and climbed down, past Jax and Sarip. He had just passed the half-open privacy partition when Jackie crashed through the partition of Vasily’s cabin, kitty corner to theirs.

Jackie might have gone right into his own facing cabin, if he had not hit the frame of its partition. The partition he had just gone through clattered to the floor, derailed and deformed but not penetrated, as Vasily pushed his own way through. The moreno gave no more than a grunt as he assumed a defensive posture, easily drowned out by Anastasia’s shriek. The Federation pilot struck twice with his fists and once with a high kick before Jackie struck a single blow of his own, staggering his foe with a jab to the abdomen. Jason called out a half-articulate warning, before he found himself pushed aside. He glared in anger as Moxon strode past, brandishing his sheathed trench knife as a knuckleduster.

Anastasia came into view, clad in the bottom half of her fatigues and a half-fastened undergarment. When she grabbed for Vasily, he pushed her back and wheeled to face the interloper. Jason felt an irrational satisfaction as Moxon advanced. Let the man of Gaia try to separate two Martians unaided if he chose; let him try to part a lion’s jaws with one hand. Yet, he already had a foreboding sense that Moxon knew exactly what he was doing. In fact, Moxon moved faster than Jason could follow. One moment, Vasily was drawing back his fist. The next, he was crashing down on top of the broken partition, leaving behind a suspended spray of blood that ended at Moxon’s still-raised fist.

That was when old Yuri emerged from his cabin in the cross corridor. He raised a hand to Vasily, who protested but was not bold enough to raise a fist. The elder pilot gave another warning, then planted a foot on Vasily’s chest. The younger pilot’s face flushed in rage, but he was already put in his place. That was when Anastasia emerged, dressed only in the bottom of her fatigues and her half-fastened upper undergarment. She lashed out with an open hand. Moxon might have blocked the blow, but he might not have bothered. What was clear was that he caught Ana in the breastbone, slamming her up without effort against the corner bulkhead.

Yuri turned his stern gaze to Moxon, then to Anastasia. Moxon, in turn, looked to Vasily. He rose to his feet, lifting the partition. “Go to Dr. Cahill to have your injuries examined,” Moxon said. “Say nothing of what happened. Remain there for the remainder of the cycle.” Vasily ran away with a clatter down the corridor of the ring. The trooper looked to Jackie next. “Mr. Henderson, do you wish to file a charge with the captain?” The moreno returned his stare for a moment, then withdrew to his own bed.

The trooper released Ana. She retreated behind Yuri. “We gave you quarters with the officers and the married crew,” Moxon finished. “Return there; you are confined until I decide if other arrangements are needed.” Yuri silently lifted the fallen partition and shoved it back onto its track. Then he escorted Ana away, one arm around her.

It seemed to Jason that he realized only then that he was poised to lunge. “He’s got no right,” he said. “They aren’t on our side, but they’re ours. We take care of our own, one way or the other.”

Alek took hold of his arm. “Don’t,” she said.
Jax came up more cautiously at his right. “Don’t do it, man,” he said. “You know what they did to us. We don’t know what they did to him…” That was what made him untense and step back. At that very instant, Moxon turned his head just enough to show him a half-smile before he strode away.