WARSHIP
GEORGE R. R. MARTIN AND GEORGE GUTHRIDGE
George R. R. Martin is the best-selling author of the Song of Ice and Fire epic fantasy series and a range of other novels such as Fevre Dream, The Armageddon Rag, and Dying of the Light. He is a prolific author of short stories, which have garnered numerous nominations and wins for the field’s major awards, including the Hugo, Nebula, Stoker, and World Fantasy Awards.
George Guthridge is the author of several novels, including The Madagascar Manifesto (with Janet Berliner). He’s also written dozens of short stories, which have appeared in Amazing Stories, The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, and in numerous anthologies. He has won the Bram Stoker Award for best novel, and has been a finalist for both the Hugo and Nebula Awards.
“Warship” is the very first SF story Martin ever tried to sell professionally. “Tried” being the operative word. It wasn’t until some years later when he showed the story to his friend George Guthridge—who saw something in it, and offered to rewrite it—that the story found a home in the pages of The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction.
Invulnerable, she is. Earth’s answer to Sarissa’s defiance of Earth authority, she carries fourteen lasercannon, dual solar guns, a belly filled with conventionally armed missiles. Self-repairing, computerized to a point approaching sentience, she has backup systems should any instruments prove defective—supervisory capacities should any of her crew of fifty-one prove derelict. She is powered by two Severs-stardrive engines.
She is Alecto.
Graciously, gloriously she began her cruise homeward at five times lightspeed, her duralloy awash with starlight. Now she had stopped. Behind her, once reddened by Doppler shift, Sarissa’s sun is again gold.