Starships — William L. Culbertson

Starships includes two novelette-length stories about the distant future when people from Earth have settled the solar system and have even visited the stars.

Starship

The Space Service assigned Penn to stand "Honor Watch" on the old academy ship, Artemis. Last of three starships, the Artemis once journeyed to the stars. Now it orbits Earth, a symbol of mankind's retreat. Penn has several projects to pass the time, but new orders arrive: The Artemis is to be scraped. It would have been a melancholy moment, but there is an unexpected objection.


Starship: Free Mars

On his way to a mathematical conference on the Moon, Dr. Tate Richardson is kidnapped in a daring raid by a ship from the Republic of Mars. Once on Mars Tate finds a planet quite unlike that described to the citizens of Earth. Tate himself is less, but much more, than his kidnappers anticipated. This is a second story set in the same world as Starship. Occurring three years after than the events in Starship, this independent story continues the saga of humans and the stars.