A Game of Battleships (15 page)

She opened the door and looked straight into the grim face of Hieronymous Prong. She gave a 
yelp of surprise and slammed it shut.

The door burst open and Lord Prong took a limping step into the room. ‘Well, well,’ he rasped. ‘I’ve been looking for reds under my bed all those years and it turns out they were in the wardrobe.’

There was a huge silver automatic in his hand, scrimshawed with holy writ. Even less pleasant 
was his smile, which looked like the product of muscle failure. Behind him came Hierarch Beliath and his inevitable smell.

‘Close the door,’ said Prong. ‘Best the allies don’t know these idiots got this far.’

The door clicked. Beliath said, ‘That one’s a dirty alien.’

Prong grimaced, as if trying out his face and not liking the fit. ‘Put my property down.’

‘Gladly,’ Smith replied. As he set the parcel on the ground, he flicked his hand into his robe.

Smith turned holding a Markham and Briggs Civiliser. ‘I’ll put you down too, if you’d like.’

Prong raised his hand. Smith’s gun roared and the Civiliser shell hit Prong in the chest and 
blasted straight though him. Prong’s pistol clattered on the ground.

Slowly, the Grand Mandrill patted his chest. ‘Only a lung,’ he wheezed. ‘I’ve not used those 
things for ages.’

‘Pipe down, you two,’ Smith replied. ‘You’re under arrest.’

Prong and Beliath glared at them with guilty rage, like a couple of dirty old men surprised outside 
a netball court. Carveth produced the shotgun from her robes.

‘How dare you try to stop us?’ Beliath snarled. ‘Don’t you know how offensive that is to us? We 
are men of faith.’ He drew himself up and cocked his head back. ‘We require special treatment.’

‘I don’t doubt it,’ Smith replied. ‘You smell terrible.’

Beliath sneered. ‘It is written that deodorant is decadent and washing is weak, just like your 
society. After all, do I look like a powdered fairy?’

‘More like a smelly gnome.’

‘So move it, King Leer,’ Carveth added, and she pulled her hood back.

Beliath shuddered violently. His eyes, already wild, took on the appearance of poached eggs in 
the mouldy ham of his face. White specs of foam appeared at the corners of his mouth, joining the 
assorted detritus already clustered in his beard. ‘A
woman
,’ he spat, goggling. ‘A woman in the guise of a Handyman!’ Beliath clutched at his robes, yanking wads of fluff from his head. ‘The shame, the brazen, wanton, licentious, dirty, filthy, naked shame of it.’ Gasping, he turned to Prong. ‘Grand Mandrill, we 
must kill her to wash this stain from our honour. Yes, I’ll burn you, Jezebel, just as soon as I’ve got you out of those robes –’

He lunged at Carveth with both hands, palms out to grab and squeeze. She raised the shotgun 
and fired.

The shot threw Beliath against the wall. His whole torso was red. His face gawped, as though he 
had no idea how he had got into this terrible state. Then he dropped onto the floor.

‘Nice,’ Suruk said.

‘I didn’t mean to do that,’ Carveth said. ‘Honest.’

Smith looked at Beliath and wondered how many years’ bad luck you got for killing the Ancient 
Mariner.

On the far side of the room, Prong coughed. He patted his meagre chest. ‘Praise the Annihilator.

Faith alone has saved me. That and bionic lungs.’

Smith put his gun against Prong’s hat. ‘Your brain’s not bionic. If it was, it would work better.

Prong, I am taking you prisoner. You will return to our ship with us.’

‘So no fast moves, bucklehead,’ Carveth added.

Prong chuckled. ‘Is that the best you can do, captain? A .45 Civiliser? By Edenite standards, that’s 
a pretty low calibre weapon.’

‘Then it’ll match your brain. Now
move
.’

Prong opened the door and stepped out. Smith followed, close behind. The door slammed shut 
and, slowly, the pack of guests looked around.

They stood in a loose row in their various uniforms, the extended family of evil waiting to have 
its photograph taken. Smith saw whiskers and polished armour on one side, antennae and leather coats on the other and white robes and pointed hoods in the centre, but the differences were superficial. He was still looking at the lowest dross of the galaxy.

‘Hands up!’ Smith cried.

‘Back, rabble!’ Suruk snarled. ‘Keep at bay, or I shall drench the walls with idiot blood!’

There was a moment’s pause. The Edenites glared back at him, their eyes wild and hooded hats 
high. They resembled an exceptionally butch drag act about damsels. The lemming-men looked at one 
another, affronted and furious. From the Ghast deputation a thin, nasal voice exclaimed ‘Oh, for Number One’s sake – not
you!
’

‘462…’ Smith said. ‘For once, it’s not you saying “we meet again”. It’s me. Well, we meet again.’

‘This is turning into a very tedious day,’ 462 replied, crossing all his arms. ‘Praetorian? Remove 
these imbeciles.’

One of his guards cocked his gun.

Smith raised his pistol and let off a single shot into the rafters. ‘That’s enough! Right, you bloody 
savages,’ he called. ‘In the name of the British Space Empire, stop your ignorant gibber-jabber or I’ll blow your filthy brains out!’

‘That’s liberal talk!’ Hierarch Ezron roared. ‘Kill ‘em all!’

In a clatter of guns, knives and axes, thirty of space’s worst villains drew their weapons.

Suruk moved. His robe fell and his arm flicked out to the parcel he carried. There was a long, 
hooked knife in his hand. ‘Fools, listen. My blade is sharp and poised. Should I fall, it will tear this relic of yours. Strike me down and you will fail your rulers, betray your orders and generally resemble chumps.’

Carveth stepped in, laying the shotgun against the parcel.

462’s tongue slid out of his mouth and moved from side to side. ‘Very well,’ he said. ‘That is a 
powerful piece of materiel. Praetorians, no shooting.’

‘Well said, dirty ally,’ Quetic added. ‘There must be no gunfire. In which case – axe attack!’ He 
raised his axe and gave a warbling scream of mingled hatred and glee. ‘
Hwuphep Popacapinyo
–
darhep yul ai!
’

‘Wait –‘ 462 hissed as Quetic’s soldiers came to life around him. They rushed forward, bayonets 
first, and Smith realised that Prong and the painting were turning into considerable impediments to his escape.

He shoved Prong aside and lifted the Civiliser, took careful aim, and shot one of Quetic’s 
howling minions in the thigh. ‘Everyone back!’ Smith called, and to his horror he saw that Carveth had pre-empted him and was running flat out the way they had come.
Bloody coward
, he thought, and a revving sound made him turn to the left.

He dodged back instinctively as a whirling blade swung down. A giant in a dark uniform and a 
steel breastplate stood before him waving a circular saw of the type used to cut paving slabs. Smith drew 
his sword, but Suruk dashed past him. The alien leapt onto Carsus’s chest, and with one massive yank on the Reborn’s armour sprang into the air. Carsus looked up, raising the whining saw again – and Suruk’s spear flashed out. Carsus’s head, which had always looked like an afterthought, rolled off his shoulders and his enormous body dropped like a felled tree.

Suruk landed lightly beside the armoured corpse. ‘No helmet. Amateurs.’

Smith looked back just in time. Steel flashed before him before he drove his sword up to block 
Quetic’s axe. The impact sent them both staggering. The lemming man leaped back in, swinging, but 
Smith dodged and sliced the alien across the arm. Quetic cursed in Yullian – ‘
Fecinec!
’ – and flopped against the railings, his whiskers flecked with froth.

‘Boss!’ a voice cried at Smith’s side. He looked around, and saw Carveth. Before he could rebuke 
her cowardice, he saw that she was pushing a porter’s trolley. Suruk heaved the painting onto it.

A fresh batch of guards ran onto the gantry behind them. The Ghasts were readying their guns.

Prong's amplified voice roared at them not to shoot.

‘Boss!’ Carveth called, ‘What do we do now?’

‘Isn’t it obvious?’ Smith replied. ‘In the name of democracy and the British Space Empire… run 
like buggery, men!’

They tore down the gantry, Suruk pushing the trolley while Smith and Carveth laid down as 
much covering fire as they could. As one, the mob of enemies surged forward, yelling, hissing and 
yowling. Smith fired off two more bullets, killing an Edenite thug and stunning one of the praetorians with a shot that made its helmet ring like a gong.

An angel-shaped surveillance drone swung overhead, trilling out a warning. As if in answer, a 
pair of metal doors burst open on the left and a chanting gaggle of cultists rushed out, wearing large metal bells over their heads. Each carried two hammers, and they would have overwhelmed Smith and his crew, 
had they not used them to strike their bells. The fanatics staggered like bees in smoke, their dirge muffled by their clanging headgear, and Suruk deftly wheeled the trolley between the swaying bodies, clearly 
fighting the urge to play a tune on their heads with his spear.

Smith fished the speedloader from his pocket and pushed a fresh set of shells into his pistol.

Carveth reached the lift – she had never realised that legs as short as hers could go so quickly – and thumped the control panel. The doors rolled apart and Suruk pushed the trolley at the gap.

‘It will not fit!’ he snarled.

‘Turn it side-on, you stupid sod!’ Carveth shouted.

‘Apologies, that was foolish.’ Suruk turned the parcel and pushed it end first into the lift. They 
crowded in around it. Smith fired two more shots down the gantry, deterring nobody, and slammed the 
door behind them. Slowly, the lift began to sink.

Carveth flopped against the wall. ‘All this,’ she moaned, ‘for a bloody picture. It’d better have 
some ponies on it.’

She had a fair point, Smith thought – apart from the bit about ponies. After all this effort, he 
would be severely disappointed if the painting didn’t contain at least one artistically valid set of antiquities: the poetess Sappho admiring some Greek jugs, perhaps, or Guinevere and Lady Godiva – preferably in 
the same scene. .

The lift rumbled around them. Carveth remembered to reload the shotgun. Above, a bell started 
to toll, a rapid, urgent pulse. ‘We’ve got to get out of here,’ she said. ‘Who was that old bloke? Oliver Cromwell or somebody?’

‘More fathead than roundhead,’ Smith replied. ‘A member of the Edenite religious police. Most 
hierarchs don’t know which end of the red-hot poker to do the poking with, but that fellow – well, if his ship’s anything to go by, he’s a sharp biscuit. And 462, here of all places. .’ He shook his head. ‘I knew that bugger was alive, but I thought they’d have sent him to the Morlock Front, or at least given him a research job. Clearly there wasn’t a backroom big enough for his swollen arse.’

Carveth pointed to the lift controls. ‘We’re nearly at the bottom. They’ll be waiting –’

‘Suruk?’ Smith said. ‘Time to give the signal.’

The alien reached to his side and took out a flare pistol. He held it out to Smith. ‘You must fire it, Mazuran. I have taken the oath to fight only with the weapons of my ancestors. Guns just breed 
violence,’ he concluded, solemnly drawing a pair of machetes.

Smith turned the pistol over in his hands. ‘I hope this works,’ he said, and the lift jolted to a halt.

As the doors opened, he shoved the gun into the aperture, angled it upwards and pulled the trigger.

The flare sailed up above Deliverance, over the wall dividing the hired men from the devotees. In 
the Booty Hut, Captain No-Nose Chang saw the light and spluttered with surprise. Grog bubbled up the 
wrong way, pouring out of the centre of his face like a frothy proboscis. ‘With me, lads!’ he called, 
stumbling to his feet. His nasal passage fizzing uncontrollably, he charged out of the door, the itching driving him wild. Behind him, his men cheered and drew their weapons.

The lift doors rolled open onto a medieval picture of Hell. As Smith stepped out, the gates 
exploded. A horde of the galaxy’s lowest piratical scum poured in, unkempt and furious, waving guns, 
cutlasses, tankards and grappling hooks. Hideous faces grinned behind lank hair and scars. Alarms howled and warning lights strobed in the rafters.

On the far right, the front of a temple flopped down like a drawbridge and a great machine rolled 
forth: part tank, part grimacing idol. The face of the Great Annihilator glowered down at them, and a 
mechanical roar yowled from between its fangs. From the brim of the war-god’s iron hat, Lord Prong 
called down curses on the raiders and the young folk of today. A bevy of cultists swarmed around the 
caterpillar tracks, flagellating wildly. Occasionally a robe would snag on the workings and a fanatic would be whisked under the war machine, to lubricate the gears.

The pirates met the Edenites in a terrible clash of blades and guns. A rocket sailed out of the 
pillaging horde and blew the top off one of the mobile fort’s turrets. A couple of hatches dropped down from the idol’s chest and two great rotary guns spun in place of nipples.

‘It’s got laser tits,’ Carveth gasped. ‘Let’s get the hell out of here!’

Beside her, Suruk gazed at the battle like a small child looking at a Christmas display. ‘Craven