RETREAT

His air force reduced to burning cinders falling from the air, the great Admiral rose slowly from his command chair.  Twenty years.  For twenty years, Admiral Arson had been the most feared man in all the world.  Each and every city along the coast lived its days and nights in terror that the Admiral and his 'planes might come to visit, to plunder, to destroy.  But then this year, that young upstart from the plains states.  'Dashing' David Dillon, the 'Air Marshal.' Dillon and his ragtag group of mismatched aviators brought him to this place, laid him low and made the Admiral of a hundred twisted piles of junk falling from the air and a thousand more dead men.  "Admiral, Admiral!  What shall we do?  Whatever shall we do?"  Admiral Arson turned his head to the man who had spoken, a lowly communications officer in his smoked glass goggles.  The great villain opened his mouth, paused, and shut his mouth tight with a snap.  Admiral Arson opened his mouth again, then turned in a swirl of his greatcoat and was off and running for the escape pods.  Later, it would be said that he had run away screaming.  Others whispered that he had been weeping, like a scared child.  But all that mattered was that he had run.