A Game of Battleships (32 page)

Rhianna cupped her hands around her mouth. ‘We’re right behind you, Polly!’

‘I’d rather you were in front!’ Carveth shouted, but by then the Hellfire was turning to her, flank 
on, cockpit open. She paused a second, wondering how in hell’s name she was getting out of this, and 
then Suruk stepped in and shoved her buttocks-first up into the chair. And as the cockpit closed around her, she realised that she wasn’t getting out of it at all.

Suddenly it was quiet and warm.

‘Welcome aboard, girlie,’ said the Hellfire. ‘How many hours – wait a minute… where’s your tie?’

‘My what?’ Carveth could not decide which was more frightening: the baffling rows of controls, 
or the easily understood awfulness of the view through the windscreen. Below her, Smith was waving like a piston, no doubt cursing her luck at getting to fly a space fighter, much as she herself was doing.

‘Your
tie
, woman,’ the spaceship said. ‘This unit fights smart because it flies smart.’

‘Look,’ Carveth said, ‘this is a terrible mistake. Alright, I’m the only spare pilot, but really –
really
– I’ve never flown a fighter before.’

‘Oh, I get it,’ said the Hellfire. Its systems powered up around Carveth. She felt like a mouse 
hiding in a toaster that had just been switched on. ‘You want to cut and run, eh? Flip the switch on the front, would you?’

‘This one?’

‘Next one down. Thanks.’ A light appeared on the dashboard. It said
: Ejector seat now under autopilot
control
. The panel next to it activated. It read
: Ejector seat control switch also now under autopilot control
. ‘Your flying experience stops at chicken, eh? Want someone else to do your fighting for you?’

Wainscott’s men ran past the nosecone, followed by Rick Dreckitt. They looked extremely 
competent and warlike in their body armour. Rhianna said something to Wainscott, and he grimaced.

‘No,’ Carveth protested. ‘Well, not much.’

‘So what
have
you flown?’

‘Um.. the
John Pym
… and a sun-dragon on Urn. Look, I've really got to –’

‘Dragonrider of Urn, are you? I
like
it! Now listen… you and I are going to go out there and blast the living hell out of anything in our path. If I believed in defence, I’d tell you that the best form of 
defence is attack – but I don’t, so let’s attack anyway. When they see my colours coming at them, they’ll regret the day they were born!’

‘Maybe they’ll run away, too.’ Wainscott’s team ran into the
John Pym
. Rick Dreckitt followed 
them, but paused at the airlock. He lifted his Panama hat and tipped it to Carveth, then waved. ‘Knock 
‘em out, kid!’ he yelled, and she could just make out his voice. Carveth waved back, and then Dreckitt saluted and disappeared into the
John Pym
. The airlock door swung shut. The
John Pym
began to activate its engines. This was it. No ducking out now.

I’m coming back from this,
she thought
. And when I do, I will go on the biggest bender imaginable. Curry,
wine, sex, more wine, more curry –

‘You ready for this?’ the Hellfire demanded. ‘We’ll go in together. I’ll regulate the systems, you do 
the blasting. Because if you’re not ready. . you know who controls the ejector seat. Now then, pilot, get your hands on the controls, because here we go.’

A mechanical arm folded down from the cockpit roof. It ended in a tiny plug. ‘Neural shunt,’ the 
Hellfire said.

Carveth pushed her hair back. The little plug slid into the socket behind her ear.

At once she saw schematics: weapons layouts, datasheets of torque and weight ratios. Her 
consciousness seeped into the ship, and it partly into her; their nervous systems linked. She felt the ship: its cunning, its ferocity, an unbending determination that frightened and electrified her. She felt fast and dangerous. She could smell pipe-smoke.

‘Your brain tastes of Prosecco,’ the Hellfire said.

Lights strobed before them. The bay doors swung open and the docking clamps flipped back.

The
John Pym
dropped out of the
Chimera
as if falling through a hole in the ground. The first of the Hellfires moved into line.

The intercom crackled. ‘What-ho. This is Allie, Shuttles’s wingman. Just follow us in, new girl.

Your ship’ll do the hard work, even if it says otherwise.’

‘Thanks,’ Carveth said. Her voice hardly worked. The Hellfire cycled through its weapons like a 
pianist stretching his fingers.

As the docking arm folded down from the roof, putting them last in line to leave the ship, 
Carveth reflected that it could have been worse. After all, nobody was shooting at her yet.

*

It was pitch black in the hold of the
John Pym
. The power was almost completely down, the 
engines off except for a slow retro-thruster to hold the ship out of the battlezone. Soon the
Pym
would register to scanners as nothing more than a lump of metal.

‘Sounds like bloody madness to me,’ Major Wainscott growled. ‘Believe me, I know lunacy when 
I see it. Sometimes even when I don’t,’ he added, glancing around. ‘It talks to me, you see.’

‘So do I,’ Susan said. She pointed at the major. ‘He’s right. This sounds mental. But if it works, 
I’m game. Better than sitting in that dreadnought waiting to get a rocket up the arse.’

Dreckitt helped Smith get the mirror up on end. ‘What the hell,’ he said. ‘The whole deal’s a 
jump ahead of the nut factory, but how does that change anything?’ He stepped back, admiring the 
mirror. ‘So how do we work it?’

‘Smith knows,’ Susan said. ‘Is there an
on
switch?’

Smith wore the Civiliser on his right hip and his sword on the left. His hunting rifle was slung 
across his back. ‘Right chaps, here's the plan: The enemy have an engine powered by this mirror, 
somehow. It’s obviously still working. So, we cross into this netherworld and make it part of the Empire.

As soon as any headman appears, we grab him and find out how to nobble the stealth ship. Simple.’

‘Great,’ Wainscott replied. ‘Let’s go!’

Dreckitt said, ‘Just one thing. If you’re with us, Smith, and Rhianna’s doing her shielding thing, 
who’s been driving this crate?’

A sinister laugh came from the front of the ship.

‘It’s alright,’ Smith said. ‘We’re plotting a course away from the fighting. . actually, I’ll just check that.’

Suruk strode out of the cockpit as he approached. ‘I am ready,’ the alien announced. ‘Let us test 
the new hunting grounds.’

They called in to wake Rhianna from her trance. She equipped herself with a satchel and a very 
scuffed pair of boots. It was the most practical gear Smith had ever seen her use. He kissed her while Suruk pulled a face and looked away.

‘Let’s go,’ Rhianna said.

Together they returned to the hold. ‘Right then,’ Smith said, ‘let’s get cracking. Wainscott, could 
your chaps get out of the line of sight? We need to have the jump here.’

‘Course,’ the major said, and the soldiers drew back.

Smith bent down and got to work on the frame. He turned the dial as Carveth had shown him, 
the puzzle solving itself as he rotated the little symbols. The diamond clicked into place. He moved across to the clubs. The mechanism spun easily, as if luring him in.

Suruk gave a thoughtful little growl. ‘The air has changed.’

‘I can feel it,’ Rhianna said. ‘It’s kinda chilled – in a bad way.’

‘Nix, lady,’ Dreckitt replied, ‘Just your imagination,’ but his pistol was in his hand.

Smith stood up and began to adjust the little spade in the top right corner, as if tuning a radio. He 
was unpleasantly aware that his groin was up against the glass. There would be nothing to prevent the 
nether regions of Hell having full access to the nether regions of Smith.

‘One more,’ he said. Susan checked the beam gun.

Smith turned the little pieces, rotated each quarter and clicked them together. He pushed the 
heart down the groove, into the corner. All four pieces were in place. He stepped aside. Rhianna stared at him from the edge of the room. The whites of her eyes looked huge.

They stood in the hold and waited for something to change. For ten seconds, the room was 
silent.

‘Ah, bollocks,’ Wainscott said. ‘Bloody woman was talking rubbish. It’s these androids, Smith.

You ought to get her looked at – change her oil or whatever it is they do.’

Suruk stepped forward, levelled his spear, and calmly pushed the butt through the glass. It met 
with no resistance. He withdrew it, looked at the end and gestured to Rhianna. ‘Ladies first.’

‘I’ll do this,’ Smith said. ‘Gentlemen, follow me!’ He approached the mirror, took a deep breath 
and stepped into it.

There was a loud noise and Smith staggered back, clutching his head. Rhianna ran to his side. ‘It 
must be psychic feedback,’ she said, pressing her hand over his. ‘Ummm.. . has anyone got any aloe vera?

Raw kelp?’

‘I hit my head on the frame,’ Smith said. ‘Come on, men! This way!’

He drew his pistol, bent low and walked into – and through – his reflection. A wave of cold 
passed over him, like fever, and then he was on the other side.

He stood in a stone hall, vast and empty. Sheet metal had been pinned to the rear wall, so as to 
mimic the hold of the
John Pym
. Smith turned around slowly, and took in the sheer size of the hall: an enormous nave, worthy of a cathedral; the floor a chequerboard of tiles. An alien creature had been 
stuffed and mounted fifty yards above his head amid the vaults; it looked rather like a walrus with wings.

Staircases stretched across the ceiling as if the great chamber had been built upside-down. It smelled of dust and, faintly, of soup.

‘Well, crikey!’ he said.

Suruk emerged next to him. He looked about, nodded, and took a folded top hat from his side.

Tapping it into shape, he placed it carefully on the crown of his head.

‘You came equipped,’ Smith said.

‘When in Rome, one should do as the Romans would do,’ the alien replied. ‘Conquer everything 
for our empire!’

Rhianna was next. She gazed down the length of the vault and said, ‘English perpendicular 
Gothic, essentially Germanic but with mid-Victorian influences. . far out!’

Wainscott followed, then Susan, guarding the entrance until the rest of the raiding party were 
inside the hall.

‘What now?’ Dreckitt said.

Smith reached into his coat and removed a portable radio tripod. He unfolded the little legs at the 
end and pulled up the telescopic aerial.

‘That won’t work here,’ Dreckitt said.

Smith took the clean Union Jack handkerchief from his back pocket and tied it to the top. ‘It’ll 
work now,’ he said. He set the rig down on the tiles. ‘I claim this dimension in the name of the British Space Empire! There. It’s ours now.’

‘This is madness,’ Dreckitt whispered.

‘No,’ Smith replied. ‘This is Britain.’

‘Same difference.’

‘And we are all mad here,’ Suruk added.

Wainscott snorted. ‘Compared to Sunnyvale Home for the Psychologically Uneven, it’s pretty 
dull.’ He checked the ammunition counter on the side of his Stanford gun. ‘I bet they don’t even have a pills trolley.’

Susan gave Wainscott a hard look. ‘Mission first, pills later. Then cocoa.’

‘Right. Let’s explore this place, then get naked and blow it up. What say you, Smith?’

‘Well,’ said Smith, ‘Seeing that we’ve claimed this place for Blighty, we ought to tell its inhabitants the good news. Let’s go.’

Wainscott made a series of swift arm gestures and the Deepspace Operations Group split into 
two. They moved down the length of the hall, using the columns as cover, keeping to the shadowed walls.

Their boots were almost silent on the stones.

‘Where is everyone?’ Rhianna whispered. ‘You’d think they’d guard the portal, surely. Polly said 
that she saw horrible things in the mirror when she looked in it.’

‘Perhaps they are waiting for us,’ Suruk replied, and he smiled.

Craig, Wainscott’s infiltration expert, beckoned from the far wall. They crossed the hall and 
regrouped. ‘Found the way in,’ he explained. ‘I think you’d better look at this.’

It was a broad oak door, studded with iron and flanked by knights carved into the stone. Across 
the lintel, a stone figure smiled down at them. Its head and body seemed to be an enormous egg. ‘What a skull!’ Suruk breathed.

‘And that’s not all,’ Susan said, and she opened the door.

They looked into a castle’s grounds. Stone steps led down into a garden: to the right, a maze of 
hedges; on the left, thick forest bristling with conifers. A high wall encompassed both and, outside it, a 
patchwork of fields stretched away to the horizon. On the far side of the wall, a wad of towers rose up towards the cloudless sky. The air smelled fresh. The snickering of shears floated up from the garden.

Dreckitt gasped. ‘Are we – is this England?’

Smith held his hand out palm-up. He felt no rain. ‘I doubt it.’

‘My God!’ Wainscott breathed. ‘Another dimension. I really have gone doolally.’

Smith looked a little closer, and the details of the scene were like the onset of a hallucination. A 
bird flew too close to a cloud, and a white tendril shot out and dragged it inside. In the distance, men could be seen painting the bushes in the garden. Hedges slid back and forth within the maze like pieces in a Chinese puzzle. In the yard before the castle stood a dozen statues that looked like plasticine. The towers and buildings were subtly shaped like other things: a top hat, a house of cards. They were not quite still; they changed position as if they had wheels, drawing apart almost too slowly to notice.
It’s a watch face,
Smith realised
, it’s moving like a bloody watch face
.