A Game of Battleships (2 page)

The gunfire had stopped on the upper floor. Wainscott bounded down the stairs and stopped 
beside Smith’s shoulder, rubbing his hands and smirking at the road ahead.

‘Almost at safe distance,’ he said.

‘Good.’ Smith consulted a diagram sellotaped to the dashboard. ‘Listen, when we hit the fence 
it’s going to get hotter than a Friday-night phaal. We’d better time this right.’

‘Very true,’ Wainscott said, rubbing his beard. Technically, he was in charge of the mission, but 
Smith knew that he was always willing to listen to reason in the field – in as much as he was capable of listening to reason at all. The fact that Wainscott was not yet nude apart from his gun and boots meant that the mission was going pretty well.

‘Ready?’ Smith said.

Wainscott glared over Smith’s shoulder at the road ahead. ‘Ready.’ He turned and ran back 
upstairs. Suruk put the last of the severed heads into his bag and zipped it shut. Smith gunned the engines and the bus crawled downhill. The thrusters of dozens of hovertanks had turned the road into a frozen 
track as smooth and pale as milk. He hoped that the chains on the wheels would do the trick.

Nelson, the Deepspace Operations Group’s technician, called down the stairwell: ‘Enemy 
behind!’

Smith looked in the rear view mirror. Vehicles were pouring down the road, a black armoured 
snake. He accelerated. ‘What’s the range?’ he called back.

‘We’re out of the blast range.’ This was Wainscott. ‘Let ‘em have it, Nelson!’

Five miles away, the Fortress of Iron exploded. The huge skull on the hillside cracked and burst 
apart. Thunder rippled through the valley, knocking great sheets of snow from the hillsides. The steering wheel jerked in Smith’s hands, and he wrestled them back on course.

‘Boom!’ Wainscott chortled.

‘Very good!’ Suruk exclaimed, as if at a joke. ‘Very good indeed!’

The landing pad was up ahead. Smith saw rows of space-fighters parked behind an alien fence.

‘Hold on,’ he called, and he turned the wheel and drove straight through the bio-wire. The bus swung out, ploughing into a row of fighter-craft, smashing their tail-fins. Two Ghasts ran onto the far side of the landing pad, hauling a disruptor-cannon between them.

Gunfire clattered outside. A shot clipped the engine block and suddenly black smoke poured into 
the cabin. In the top right of the windscreen, next to several holes, a speck had appeared and was growing into Smith’s battered space freighter, the
John Pym
.

‘Our transport arrives!’ Suruk announced.

Smith threw on the brakes, turning the bus side-on to the enemy. As he slipped from the driving 
seat, the windows burst in a roar of disruptor-fire. He crept down the length of the bus, boots crunching on shards of glass. A fresh burst of alien shooting slammed into the side, wrenching the metal.

‘All change!’ Smith called. ‘The ship's here!’

‘I think we may have angered them,’ Suruk observed, as he picked up his bag of heads.

Wainscott glanced at Susan. ‘All set?’

She nodded. ‘I'll keep you covered. Craig, pop some fog out there!’

They ran out in a billowing wall of white smoke. The air was cold and smelt of burning. Susan 
levelled the beam gun and the laser arced out and cut down the Ghasts on the heavy disruptor. Two more ran in to take their place.

The
John Pym
dropped from the sky like a meteor – far too much like one for Smith's tastes. At a hundred feet up, Carveth clearly remembered the brakes and the engines roared as it slowed and turned, peeling the paint from the roof of the bus. Half a dozen praetorians ran to meet it.

The
John Pym
twisted mid-air and the great rusty boom of the tail hit the bus. It rocked and 
flopped onto its side, flattening six solider ants under several tons of steel.

The
Pym
's landing legs hit the tarmac. The loading ramp dropped open, and the raiders rushed 
into the safety of the hold.

The soldiers ran through the hold and into the mess-room. Smith paused by the door, hand on 
the lever. ‘Where’s Wainscott?’

‘Right here.’ Wainscott looked back at the landing pad. It was littered with dead praetorians. He 
snorted. ‘Elite shock troops my arse. Come on, chaps, let’s get the kettle on!’

Smith braced himself as the
John Pym
tore off from the ground. He closed the mess door and 
walked into the corridor. He followed the Deepspace Operations Group into the kitchen, then wandered 
through to check on the rest of the crew.

Suruk was already in his room, making space for the new additions among the skulls on his 
mantelpiece. In the next cabin down, Rhianna Mitchell sat cross-legged on a pile of genuine Procturan 
crystal-cushions, a lopsided dreamcatcher hanging above her head. Smith wanted to kiss her hello, but it would be unwise to disturb her meditation. It was Rhianna’s psychic ability that was keeping them off the Ghast radar.

He started to creep past. ‘How’d it go, Isambard?’ she asked, not opening her eyes.

‘Pretty damned good, thanks. Want some tea?’

‘Herbal?’

‘Certainly not. I’ll bring you one in.’

‘Namaste, Isambard.’

‘Carry on,’ he said, and he strode into the cockpit.

Polly Carveth looked round from the pilot’s seat. She wore her utility waistcoat and had rolled up

the sleeves of her collarless shirt. The ship’s emergency goggles looked enormous on her small face. ‘Are we safe yet?’ she asked.

‘Nearly, Carveth.’

‘Thank God for that. How was it?’

‘Clockwork.’

She glanced at the console on her left. ‘Uh-oh. We’ve got a pressure problem, boss.’

‘Pressure? What’s happened?’

‘We’ve taken a leak. Either they’ve shot us or some lemon’s not shut the back door properly.’

‘I’ll be back in a minute,’ Smith replied. ‘Carry on.’

He left the cockpit and headed down the corridor. Rhianna still sat in her trance, looking pretty 
and smelling herbal. The Deepspace Operations Group were pouring out the tea. Smith yanked the door 
open and stepped into the chill of the hold.

The air was thin: they were leaving the atmosphere behind. Smith crossed the hold, the wind 
howling around the open door, and reached out to the button.

A massive red shape rose up beside him.

28935/H had been hiding behind the packing crates: out of ammunition but too fanatical to 
retreat. The leather coat whipped around his bulging stercorium. Under the steel helmet, yellow eyes 
glared out of a face that was all scar tissue and fangs.

‘I’ll smash you!’ he snarled. ‘Smash you good.’

He lumbered forward and swung a huge pincer at his head. Smith ducked and slammed his fist 
into the beast’s midriff, knocking him back.

‘Die!’ the praetorian grunted. ‘Weaklings must die!’

28935/H charged. Smith darted aside, stamped into the side of the alien’s knee and tripped the 
brute with its own momentum. He grabbed the back of the Ghast’s helmet, hooked his fingers over the 
front, punched his right hand forward and yanked the left hand back. There was a sickening crack and 
the praetorian kicked, shivered and was still.

Smith gave the body a good shove and it flopped out of the back door. He watched it fall, the 
leather coat wrapped around it like a dead bat’s wings. Then he closed the door.

On balance, it was probably time for a holiday.

I am delighted to report that my first test subjects have returned apparently unharmed from their trip through the
Breach. I purloined a rabbit from the Dean’s vegetable garden and purchased a tom-cat from a travelling fellow, and on
Saturday night I put them both through the gateway. The rabbit seems entirely untroubled by the experience and indeed
appears to want to return to the portal as quickly as possible. The tom-cat, although it has made itself scarce since its return,
leaves me with the impression of being contented.

But this is not enough. I am on the cusp of a discovery that will make me the toast of Oxford. If my research is to
be concluded, I will need larger test subjects. I considered using an ape, but I suspect that its absence would be missed. I need
a higher organism, but one that is generally neither seen nor heard. Wait a moment – how about a child?

Part One 

Isambard Smith leaned back in his chair, put his model kit down and turned to the girl in his bed. ‘You know, Rhianna,’ he declared, ‘there are many spaceships in the British fleet, but I think this must be the finest.’

Rhianna looked around the room, taking in the ambiance of HMS
John Pym
: the exposed 
pipework, the slightly rusty bolts and the subtle, yet pervasive, smell of last night’s dinner. ‘Um, okay,’ she replied, brushing a stray dreadlock out of her eyes.

‘No,
this
ship,’ Smith said. He held up the model kit. ‘HMS
Valiant
, first of the Cerberus-class fast destroyer fleet. Do you know, it fires ten-pound railgun shells? Ten pounds! Imagine getting alongside Gertie and letting rip broadsides with a couple of those! Boom! No more war of aggression for you, you dirty moon-men! .. Are you alright?’

He paused, model raised ready to swoop. Rhianna gave him a small smile. ‘I’m fine.’

Smith lowered HMS
Valiant
. It was difficult having a girlfriend, especially a foreign vegan who disapproved of war. He had come to realise that girls were different from men and that he had to make 
allowances for that. If walking out with Rhianna had taught him anything, it was that women had to be 
treated with tact and respect. ‘You look less than chipper, old girl,’ he said. ‘It’s not a lady problem, is it?’

‘No, Isambard. Don’t you know what day it is?’

‘Indeed I do. It’s the day before the anniversary of the Battle of Agincourt.’

‘It’s three days before I have to go away. And I don’t want to leave you, even though you are 
obsessed with battleships and high on glue fumes. I know we have to be apart, but still… I wish we 
didn’t.’

‘I know.’ Fear rose inside Smith: she was going to make him talk about
feelings
again. For any decent Englishman there were only two kinds of feelings: righteous anger and quiet satisfaction. Anger was usually directed towards aliens, traitors, foreigners and Carveth, his pilot, android and alleged 
subordinate; satisfaction might be felt after thwarting invaders, thrashing tyrants, eating a pie or releasing wind. He was not certain he could produce the emotions Rhianna expected of him: after all what was one supposed to think of the sea-beams glittering on the shores of Orion beyond it all being quite nice – for abroad?

‘I shall miss you too,’ he said. And he would; he knew that for a fact. ‘I like you very much.’ It 
sounded feeble. ‘I think you’re super,’ he added. She smiled at that, so he risked continuing to speak.

‘When I first met you, I thought you were just some funny bird from New Francisco. But I’ve learned to appreciate you properly. There’s so many facets about you that I like,’ he added, making a rhetorical 
gesture towards some of the facets in particular. ‘You’re nice, and you’re pretty, and you like Pink Zepplin too.’

‘I prefer the acoustic stuff.’

‘I wish I knew where you were going,’ he said.

‘Me too,’ she replied. ‘But it’s top secret. They need me to help research the Vorl.’

‘I know. War effort and all that.’

She nodded. ‘Just got to chill out and carry on.’ Despite Rhianna having been born on the New 
Francisco orbital colony, Smith thought that she was picking up the language pretty well. He realised that they hadn’t reached the end of the convoy run yet, and he was already missing her. Well, dammit, there was no point moping about like a sad-sack. They’d jolly well have some fun first, just as soon as he’d sorted out this model kit.

Rhianna stood up and picked up her skirt from the floor. ‘Isambard, you look really stressed. Is 
there something wrong? Something you’re not telling me?’

‘Not really –’

‘Have you glued HMS Valiant to your hand?’

‘A little bit.’

At 3.25 Greenwich Mean Time, Captain Smith strode into the cramped cockpit of the
John Pym
. ‘Status report, crew!’ he ordered, dropping into his chair and picking glue off his hand. Gerald, the ship's 
hamster, scurried happily in his cage.

Polly Carveth consulted her notes. ‘Status is bored and slightly nervous, captain. As you can see 
from the chart here…’ She held up a battered Galactic Survey map. ‘We’ve passed the system core and 
are now proceeding with the rest of the convoy to the Ravnavar system, where we will drop Rhianna off 
with the Service’s contact there. Then we and the rest of the convoy will proceed to the outer rim, which in terms of our schedule puts us somewhere between mid-afternoon tea and having a little sleep.’

‘Excellent plan. We’ll need to get our energy up for late afternoon tea. Anything to report,

Suruk?’

Suruk the Slayer stood by the wall, polishing some of the better pieces of his trophy collection.

‘Only a disappointing absence of mayhem,’ the alien replied, carefully brushing some dust from the 
bulbous skull of a black ripper. ‘I fear that hand-to-hand combat is rather difficult to find in deep space.’

‘In which case,’ said Smith, ‘you can help me with the crossword.’ He rummaged about at the 
side of his seat and came up with a folded newspaper. ‘Let’s try three down…
Creature that hunts prey
.