A Game of Battleships (19 page)

Prong whipped round as fast as his bionics would allow. ‘A loyal servant of New Eden has died 
and you propose eating him? Have you no decency? Beliath will be given his own shrine, with an honour 
guard and a gift shop where suckers can buy bits of him as relics. Well, bits of something.’

Together they walked down the gantry towards the landing bay. It was largely empty, as the great 
majority of Deliverance’s warships were either scouring space for the
John Pym
or being repaired after the pirate raid. Only the
Pale Horse
stood on its own, too precious for mere patrolling.

The sight of the vessel seemed to energise Lord Prong. ‘To think of it,’ he rasped. ‘All this power, 
hidden from us for thousands of years.’

462 sneered. ‘Thousands? I thought the universe was only two hundred years old.’

‘That was the last edition of the Edenite Creed. We changed it.’ Prong shook his head, and the 
buckle on his hat glinted in the firelight. He prodded the door controls on the
Pale Horse
. ‘You know, for a young’un, you’re way behind the times.’

The door of the
Pale Horse
slid open with a wet scrape of greased steel. A length of rusty chain hung across the ceiling like the bunting of the apocalypse. 462 limped over the threshold. ‘Human 
weaklings will believe anything,’ he observed. ‘Our glorious leader says so.’

Prong snorted. ‘And what does he know? Your leader is five feet tall and can't make a speech 
without shaking and sweating like a fat man holding a chainsaw.’

‘That's part of his style,’ the Ghast replied. ‘He does that to, ah, highlight the excess of disgusting effluent we have to purge from the galaxy. By. . well.. producing an excess of disgusting effluent. Now, to the engine room.’

The lift rattled as they travelled into the heart of the vessel.

‘With a little modification,’ 462 said, ‘this ship will make an excellent tool for use against 
humanity. I take it that the drive of this craft works properly?’

‘Fine,’ Prong replied. ‘The device that the unbelievers stole is merely a part of the backup engine.

The
Pale Horse
can work perfectly without it. In fact,’ and he gave a wheezing chuckle, ‘if they think they can strip it down and build their own version, they're much mistaken. Oh no, they'll get a surprise when they try that.’

‘What sort of surprise?’

‘Well, to start with, they'll –’ The lift stopped with a grim clang and Lord Prong broke off to 
curse his knees. Cogs rolled in the door mechanism, once polished but now grimed with rust the colour 
of dried blood. Prong's face cracked into a broad, sickly smile. ‘Ambassador 462, you have as yet glimpsed only the barest power of this ship. I give you: the fully-operational Dodgson drive.’

He heaved the door back and 462 looked into the heart of the
Pale Horse
.

It was not a large room, no more than thirty feet square, and the ceiling was not high. Banks of 
computers lined the walls, toiled over by red-robed Handymen. The inevitable guards stood around, 
toting machine-guns. Like veins, pipes ran from the computers, along the ground to disappear into a 
patch of darkness on the far wall. It was not just a hole, though, but something infinitely deeper and darker than that: a null zone, an absence of reality. Electricity thrummed through the air and 462 felt his antennae start to rise on end.

He chuckled. ‘A self-contained black hole, except without the suction. Very good, Prong. Your 
technology has clearly advanced.’ He took a limping step forward and two of the guards clenched their 
prodigious jaw muscles. ‘My masters are certain to find this project of considerable interest. They will be most impressed with your discovery of the artefact.’

‘As they should be.’

‘They will be less impressed by your failure to hold onto it. Tyranny is about more than mindless 
aggression, Lord Prong.’ 462 reached up and wiped his metal eye on his leather sleeve. ‘It is about control.

At the moment, the evidence suggests that you are hardly worthy of being put in control of your own 
bladder, let alone an immensely powerful weapon such as the
Pale Horse
.’

‘Huh. I suppose you’ve got the answers, young’un?’

462 smiled around his facial scars. His antennae had begun to rub together. ‘We are going after 
Captain Smith. I want every warship you have capable of long-range travel armed and ready to launch 
within one standard day. It is time to turn this weapon on the people who attempted to steal it from us.

How dare they try to stop our mission to destroy Earth and every living creature on it! Have they no 
standards?’

Prong raised a spindly hand. ‘One question. Is this mission of tactical value? Or is it just because 
that unbeliever Smith shot you in the eye? And the leg? And burned your hand?’

‘Just get on with it,’ 462 replied, and he turned back to the lift.

*

‘Well,’ said Carveth, ‘they're obviously insane, but that's hardly a change, is it?’

‘Indeed, Captain Fitzroy is unusual,’ Suruk replied. He stood in the doorway of Carveth's room, 
arms folded, watching as she rifled through her wardrobe with increasing desperation.

‘Unusual? They're crazy.’ The hangers clattered on the rail. ‘Can't wear that – that needs cleaning 
– you got blood on that – those are my spare overalls. Ah! What about this?’ She lifted down her blue 
dress with the white frills at the edges and held it over herself. ‘What do you think? Does that say
me
?’

‘It proclaims you with great vehemence. And how do I look?’

Stepping under the doorframe, Suruk flicked out the back of his tailcoat, wedged a top hat firmly, 
if unevenly, onto his head and then clamped his cane up under his arm like a sergeant-major.

Carveth stepped back and narrowed her eyes. ‘Overall? You look like a cross between Jack the 
Ripper and the voodoo god of death.’

‘Splendid. Although in truth I regard this entire dining rigmarole as futile. What is the point of 
getting dressed up with no battle at the end of it?’

‘But spending three hours getting dressed is fun. Having a panic because you've got half a pound 
heavier since you last looked in the mirror is – actually, you've got a point. But you'd better go, if only to keep Captain Fitzroy off the captain.’

‘She means to attack him?’

‘Suruk, she's a lunatic. I probably only escaped being forcibly inducted into an all-girls-together 
jamboree because I don't know how to play lacrosse.’

‘Perhaps you should try it.’

‘Nah. I could never get used to the skirts. . Please tell me you're talking about lacrosse.’ Carveth 
laid the dress on the bed. ‘Look, I'm not saying that she's going to jump him. But she's a silly cow, and he's… is there a male equivalent?’

‘Oxymoron,’ Suruk said.

‘Right. So keep an eye out, eh?’

Suruk said, ‘I shall attend to my spawn while you dress yourself,’ and slipped into the corridor.

Carveth pulled on her dress, checked her tights, fastened her boots – serious festivity required 
serious footwear – and hurried into the hold.

She examined herself in the mirror. All things considered, she wasn’t doing too badly. As she 
stepped away, something changed in the background – not her reflection, but behind it, as if someone 
had just moved out of sight. She looked around the room. Nothing. Shrugging, she turned from the 
mirror and left the hold, managing not to shudder as she closed the door.

Smith waited by the airlock in his fleet jacket, his moustache newly trimmed. ‘Is Gerald fed?’

Carveth asked.

Smith nodded and opened the door. They stepped out of the
John Pym
and into the vast cathedral of the
Chimera
’s hangar. Spindly handling machines hung folded in the rafters like roosting bats. Under the archways, half a dozen fighter craft waited in the dark. They looked like sharks, their wings drawn back for spaceflight, their tilted nosecones making them arrogant and fierce. Latitudinal thrusters behind the cockpits looked like gills. Cannon jutted from their mouths.

Smith stopped. He gazed at the fighters like a pilgrim at the end of his journey. ‘Hellfires’, he 
breathed.

On its fuselage, just below the cockpit, each Hellfire displayed its kill-tally and its own distinctive picture. The nearest one showed a lion chewing a droopy ant; the one behind it, a red dragon belched 
flames; all had red, white and blue roundels on their wings. ‘Good lord!’ said Smith. ‘I always wanted one of these. .’

A tall young man walked out from between the ships. He wore a flying jacket, a portable 
cogitator-rig strapped to the epaulettes. A wire emerged from his collar and disappeared into a neural port installed behind his left ear. One of his eyes was false, Smith saw: there were crosshairs on the pupil. He smiled and raised a hand. ‘Hallo there! Come to see the machines?’

‘Yes,’ said Smith. ‘I’ve never seen a Hellfire up close before. I mean, I’ve dreamed of it. I’ve got 
some pictures in my bedroom –’

‘Is that your ship?’ the pilot asked, looking at the
John Pym
. He turned to Smith, looking 
impressed. ‘You must have some balls, flying that in Gertie space.’ He put out a hand. ‘Jim Shuttleswade.

Call me Shuttles. That’s my can,’ he added, pointing to one of the Hellfires. ‘Foul temper, but soft as a kitten once you take control.’

A light flicked on in one of the cockpits. Above the snarling lion, a voice snapped, ‘I heard that, 
you bloody halfwit!’

‘Autopilot,’ Shuttles explained. ‘They crank ‘em up for maximum aggression. Seeing as you’ve got 
your best blues on, I take it you’re off to Felicity’s soiree?’

‘Yes, indeed.’

‘Well then, I’ll show you the way.’ Shuttles grinned. ‘Strength in numbers. I’ve come to realise

that our captain, while a tactical genius, is rather a card.’

*

‘So I charged up the left flank, with Juliet in close support,’ Felicity Fitzroy said. ‘By God, we 
must have looked a jolly sight! And do you know what they did?’

Smith had no idea what they would have done, or who they were. He was pretty sure Captain 
Fitzroy was telling him about a space battle, or perhaps an inter-fleet ladies soccer match. Her previous story, which had involved twins called Hattie and Hyacinth Mansoor, had culminated in Felicity Fitzroy’s first captaincy and a huge midnight feast.

Why couldn't women talk about sensible things, like model kits and beer? His attention was 
further troubled by the fact that Felicity had put on a tie as well as her space fleet jacket, but had chosen a pair of extremely tight jodhpurs. Smith took another sip of wine and fixed his gaze on a holographic 
portrait of the First Lord of the Admiralty on the far wall, whose glowering jowled features would have stopped the erotic thoughts of anyone who wasn't a bull terrier. And even a bull terrier, Smith reflected, wouldn't have advanced from the front.

Smith said ‘Mmn,’ and Felicity Fitzroy carried on. She was good-looking and everything but her 
enthusiastic nonsense-talking made Rhianna's vague nonsense-talking seem increasingly appealing.

Suruk sat at the far side of the table, wearing his top hat like a chimney to vent his rage. He 
seemed quite placid at the moment, although Smith didn't like the way he was eyeing Felicity Fitzroy's cat.

It was a pink striped Bhagparsian feline, fat and lazy, flopped in a basket near the door. According to Felicity, the cat was very intelligent, although Smith suspected that if that were true, it would have kept further away from Suruk at dinnertime.

Further down the table, a number of ship’s personnel tucked into synthetic fish. Smith reluctantly 
took a slab of smoked shamon that tasted like a blend of cod liver oil and ash.

The First Lieutenant, a squat, bearded man named Collingwood, passed a dish full of small green 
objects down the table. ‘Peas,’ he muttered, as if they needed identifying.

‘The peas are genetically engineered for use on moving vessels,’ Felicity explained. ‘They've got 
corners.’ Suruk pulled a face at the peas. ‘Just be glad they're not the anti-radiation sort,’ she added.

‘Those come in a lead pod.’

Carveth sat beside Chumble, opposite the wall-mounted red light that seemed to serve the ship’s 
computer as an eye. Dave was a sophisticated but not entirely pleasant conversationalist.

‘Do you like peas, Ship’s Officer Carveth?’ he inquired, a slight hiss slipping into his hard, nasal 
voice. ‘Do they. .
please
you? Do they delight your sensitive palate?’

‘They’re alright.’

‘Polly Carveth,’ he mused, his LED throbbing. ‘That’s a Cornish name, isn’t it? Tell me, Ship’s

Officer Carveth, are you from the sticks? Wet behind the ears? Naive, shall we say. . unsullied?’

‘Nope.’

Mr Chumble caught her eye and shook his head sadly. ‘Pay no notice to that idle Bedlamite,

Miss.’

‘Of course, computers do a lot of the hard work these days,’ Captain Fitzroy declared. ‘But 
sometimes life in the space navy is just rum, circuitry and out on the lash.’ She leaned over and filled up Carveth’s wineglass. With a sisterly grin, Captain Fitzroy nodded down the table at Shuttles and 
whispered hoarsely, ‘I've had him. Well worth a go.’