Battle of Mercutio 14

The Battle of Mercutio 14 took place in 2458, involving the Earth Empire.

Henry Whittington Smythe was involved in the battle, during which he and ten others became stranded on one of the moons of Mercutio 14. The moon was a hostile swamp environment, populated by dragonflies the size of an albatross and leeches the size of bananas.

Smythe and his ten subordinates clung to a raft for much of a fortnight, during which Flinty had his head taken off by one of the dragonflies. The leeches threatened to such the others dry of blood but they learned to fight them off with hairspray and a naked flame, with Migs fortunately possessing a spare tin. Arguments broke out but Smythe came to realise that they solved nothing.

Smythe ultimately survived and told war stories of Mercutio 14 into his old age. A Field Marshal by the time of his death in the early 26th century, he received a full military funeral on Earth, where he was recognised as a war hero for his actions at Mercutio 14, as well as during the Martian Wars and the Siege of the Hexion Gates. (PROSE: The Taking of Chelsea 426)