Small Press Dispatch: He Held the Line

Roseanna Pendlebury On a planet that has no official name, a town that is likewise nameless sits abandoned as a war rages across the stars between the Earth-allied Company of Adventurers and the Martian faction. The inhabitants are a mixed bunch, both those who have a stake in the conflict and those who do not, stuck here on the edge of the galaxy to wait out hostilities, with only each other for company and survival. Above the surface floats a single remaining ship: the Philoctetes, manned by a single remaining crewmember of the Company. Ignatius, who still abides by his decades-old commission even though his crewmates have long since deserted to the surface or perished. But as the story begins, he has just heard the war has ended. The factions have formed into a new alliance, and they are coming to take stock of—and judge—their long-abandoned crews. Regardless of the extremity of the situation, it seems that Company and Martian law is going to be upheld, and the people scrabbling on…