A Game of Battleships (8 page)

‘Which bit of Europe was that?’ Rhianna asked.

‘Of course it’s different, Suruk,’ Smith said. ‘That was ten years ago and you were trying to 
become king of Nepal. Don’t ask, Rhianna – you’ll only encourage him.’

EU-571
lay at dock fifty yards further on. A tall man waited for them at the airlock.

‘Hallo!’ said Raumskapitan Schmidt. He wore a roll-neck jumper and a blue cap with an anchor 
on the front. His beard was close-cropped. The space captain looked friendly and enthusiastic, Smith 
thought, but seemed a bit dim. That sort of thing would never be allowed in the British space fleet.

‘Hullo!’ Smith replied.

‘Come on in,’ Schmidt said, gesturing to the spacious, well-lit interior of
EU-571
. A small, blonde woman in a similar hat approached and waved. ‘This is Petra Klein, ship’s android and my second in 
command.’

‘Welcome aboard,’ she said. ‘Who would like schnapps?’

An airlock opened without creaking and a second woman stepped out. She wore uniform, but 
her roll-neck jumper was a little looser than Schmidt’s and her plait reached almost to her waist.

Schmidt gestured to the tall girl. ‘This is Ingrid, who deals with our other important business on 
ship.’

Smith bowed. ‘Strategy and weapons, eh?’

‘Recycling,” Ingrid replied. ‘The
EU-571
is fully compliant with Directive 683/76 on the 
Harmonious Removal of Vegetable Matter.’

‘We have one of those,’ Smith added, keen to show that Britain was not lagging behind. ‘I put old 
cucumbers and potato peelings in it. You know, for the whales to eat.’

‘You have your own recycling officer?’ Rhianna said to Schmidt. ‘I think that’s amazing. I’ve 
always thought we should do more for the environment, Isambard.’

‘Well,’ said Smith, ‘I’m always happy to clean up a few dirty aliens, eh?’ He patted his sword in a 
manly way. Captain Schmidt gave Smith’s belt a rather worried look.

‘I also deal with crew relaxation and massage,’ Ingrid added.

Smith didn’t like the sound of that. Massage was that thing that made his shoulders tense up.

‘Okay,’ Schmidt declared. ‘Perhaps we should go through? Ingrid, if the young lady is interested 
in your work, why don’t you take her down to the sauna deck?’

Ingrid took Rhianna’s arm. Smith watched them head to the door, arm in arm. As the door 
closed he remembered a fascinating drama he’d once seen about friendship among young ladies entitled 
Lascivious Handmaidens of the Reform School of Dracula
.

Carveth nudged him and he blinked out of his reverie. ‘You do know that massage is supposed to 
make you
less
stiff?’

‘Go away,’ he said.

The sound of engines rose softly, a light hum that ran through the cream-coloured walls.
EU-571 
was leaving dock. ‘Please,’ Schmidt said, gesturing. ‘After you.’

*

The dining room was large and well lit. Waltz music piped merrily from hidden speakers. ‘Do 
take seats, please,’ Schmidt said, and he pulled back a chair for Carveth. Schmidt took the seat at the head of the table, under a painting of a gate with a chariot on top. In the interests of international harmony, Smith decided not to tell Schmidt that he looked just like the chap on the fish finger adverts.

Petra opened a cabinet and took out a bottle. She poured out little glasses of schnapps, including 
two for Ingrid and Rhianna.

‘Please,’ Schmidt said, ‘make yourselves at home. The food dispenser has been programmed to 
synthesise any food you wish, provided it is sausage-shaped.’

Carveth peered at the controls. The food machine was white and had a single button. ‘So I could 
have a banana?’

‘
Bananawurst?
Of course! Press the button twice for curry sauce.’

‘Actually, I had curried banana sausage for breakfast,’ Carveth said, and she sat down hurriedly.

‘One for you?’ Petra asked, putting a glass in front of Suruk. He sniffed it warily.

‘
Prost!
’ Schmidt declared. ‘Or as you might say, bottoms up!’

They drank. Carveth finished her glass and swapped it quickly for Rhianna’s and drank that too.

She set it down, looked up and to her surprise saw Petra accomplishing the same sleight of hand with 
Ingrid’s glass.

Suruk pointed to the food synthesiser. ‘This sausage puzzles me. What animal is it the wurst part 
of?’

‘I’m afraid we’ll have to speak English,’ Smith said to Schmidt. ‘Unless you’re fluent in Latin, that 
is. If you want to discuss how all Gaul is quartered into three halves, I’m your man.’ He was beginning to feel slightly lost. The combination of air conditioning, strong liquor and Strauss had started to make things rather blurry.

‘Then you will excuse my bad English-speaking, I hope,’ Schmidt added. “I fear the infrequency 
of use may have caused my loquacity to atrophy somewhat.’

‘I’m afraid so,’ Smith replied. ‘I didn’t catch a word of that.’

‘So how is your German?’

‘I don’t have one. Oh, I see! Rather basic, I’m afraid.
Ja. Bien
.’

Schmidt met Petra’s eye and she quickly filled the glasses.

‘Absent friends!’ Schmidt announced, and they drank again. Carveth put down her glass, then 
Rhianna’s and found Smith glaring at her across the table.

‘That was Rhianna’s drink,’ he whispered.

‘So?’ Carveth demanded. ‘I’m honouring the toast. She’s a friend and she’s absent, so. .’

‘Now,’ said Schmidt, ‘tell me about this craft we are looking for.’

Smith frowned. ‘Well, it’s some sort of warship. I only saw it for a moment, but it’s clearly heavily 
armed. Probably railgun turrets and missiles.’

Schmidt finished his drink. Petra caught his eye. ‘The same procedure as last time?’ she inquired.

The Raumskapitan nodded. ‘Of course. And break out the Viennese Whirls. This is grave news.’

Carveth found that intensely sugary biscuits and schnapps went quite well together. She managed 
to feel unusually drunk and unusually active. Of course, in practice that probably meant that she would run halfway up the wall and then fall flat on the floor, but for free booze and biscuits, she was ready to take the risk.

‘It barely showed up on the scanner,’ Smith said. ‘That’s the strange thing… it just appeared out 
of nowhere. There was a flash of light, and suddenly the ships around us were in pieces.’

‘Are you sure that was not a part of your own craft, ah, dropping off?’

‘Certainly not. Vessels such as mine have been the backbone of the British space fleet for 
generations. Admittedly, the
John Pym
is quite low down the backbone, to be honest –’

‘Just above the arse,’ Carveth added helpfully, pouring herself another drink. ‘Near the tail.’

‘There is nothing wrong with having a tail,’ Suruk pointed out. ‘We M’Lak have small tails. So did 
such great Earth heroes as Thomas Kitten and the two cities of Abraham Dickens.’

Smith paused to think this one over, chasing Suruk’s logic through the maze of his brain. Carveth 
raised a shaky hand. ‘Where are all your aliens?’ she inquired.

‘Aliens?’ Schmidt shook his head. ‘Europe does not have aliens. At least, it does not rule over 
other peoples as your British Space Empire does.’

‘
Thinks
it does,’ Suruk added.

‘You see, in Europe all nations are equal. Except Italy, but that is only because its prime minister 
sold it to the French when nobody was looking. There were detailed negotiations and the deal was 
finalised in a car park near Lyons.’ He sighed. ‘To think of it… the cradle of the Renaissance, sold in a service station like a football club.. these are dangerous days, my friends.
Prost!
’

As Smith raised his glass the lights went off. The subtle underfloor lamps faded away and a single 
red bulb flickered into life behind Schmidt’s chair. Distantly, in the bowels of the
EU-571
, a bell was ringing.

‘What is this?’ Suruk snarled.

Carveth pointed at the bulb. ‘Pretty!’ she said, and she fell over.

They hurried down a steel staircase. Rhianna and Ingrid stood at the bottom of the stairs. ‘Hey, 
Isambard,’ Rhianna said, ‘I’ve just been learning about wind farms.’

Carveth, now upright through force of will and assistance of wall, blinked. ‘What’s going on?’

In the red light the command deck of the
EU-571
looked like a very tidy chamber of Hell.

Actually, Smith thought as Schmidt led them between the rows of computers, more a corridor than a 
chamber. Men nodded and gestured at screens and an officer sneezed into a paper bag. Only the soft 
hum of computers and the whisper of engines broke the silence.

Suruk tapped Smith on the shoulder. ‘All these red lights,’ he whispered. ‘I have heard of such 
places, Mazuran, in districts of Holland. Be on your guard, lest one of these men seeks to repair your washing machine.’

Turning, Schmidt leaned close and lowered his voice. ‘Captain Smith, our long-range scanners 
have detected a vessel in the area. There is no visual confirmation. By now, it ought to be in range.

Perhaps it is your enemy.’

‘Maybe.’

‘We will approach,’ Schmidt added. ‘But stay very quiet. Our stealth capacities are not limitless, I 
am afraid.’

‘Righto,’ Smith said. ‘Crew, pay close attention and pipe down!’

‘Yes,’ said Schmidt, ‘but
quietly
.’

Schmidt peered into a computer screen, adjusted his sweater and pulled down his captain’s hat.

He frowned, as the man from the adverts might do when confronted by an unsatisfactory piece of frozen 
cod.

Rhianna took hold of Smith’s arm. ‘Look.’ She pointed at a large dial mounted on the wall. ‘Is 
that supposed to be happening?’

Smith looked at the dial. It reminded him of several of the controls of the
John Pym
, although the lettering on the dial was in the language of abroad. Perhaps it had something to do with the
EU-571
’s stealth system.

Schmidt stood up and stepped over to join them. ‘Hmm,’ he said, rubbing his beard thoughtfully.

‘Franz?’

A tubby, fair-haired man leaned over from the console to the right. He looked at the dial and 
scratched his head.

Very slowly, the needle began to rise. They watched it crawl past 800, then on to 1,000. Smith 
glanced to his left: the neck of Schmidt's sweater bulged as he swallowed, hard.

‘It's past a thousand,’ Carveth said.

‘One thousand one hundred,’ Franz whispered.

Slowly, steadily, the needle approached the red. Smith held his breath. A single bead of sweat 
rolled down from Schmidt's hairline.

‘One thousand three hundred,’ Franz said.

‘This is worrying,’ Suruk declared. ‘I think we should remove the needle.’

‘Why are we looking at the dial?’ Carveth asked.

Smith glanced round. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘I'm looking at the dial because – well, because Captain

Schmidt here is looking at it. It's clearly very important.’

‘Really?’ Schmidt turned his attention from the dial as if awaking to find himself in unfamiliar 
surroundings. ‘Being the captain, and therefore responsible for the smooth running of this vessel, I was inspecting the dial because you brought it to my attention.’

‘I only looked at it because you did,’ Smith replied, feeling slightly put out.

‘Me? It was you who began all this dial-staring.’

‘I didn't start it!’

‘Yes you did. You –’

A woman was walking by, ticking items off on a clipboard. As she passed she reached out 
without looking and hit the top of the dial with her hand. It dropped back down to zero. ‘
Kaput scheisser
Maschine
,’ she muttered, and she carried on. Below the dial, a small door opened and a tiny brass man slid out, hit a bell and drew back inside.

Petra had been peering at one of the scanners. She tapped the screen. ‘Hey! Look at this.’

‘What is it?’ Schmidt demanded.

‘Sensors for the outside,’ she replied. ‘If we pinpoint the location, cross-referencing all the 
vectors…’

‘Just what I would have done,’ Carveth put in. She had slumped against a bulkhead.

‘We find the sensors pinpoint an area of space about
here
.’ Petra tapped the screen twice and it zoomed in on a patch of empty space. It looked like nothing, Smith thought. Perhaps the
EU-571
lacked the sophisticated scanning equipment of the
John Pym
.

The screen flashed blue. Lightning blazed in the centre of the monitor. Needles flapped in dials 
like the wings of frightened birds. Suddenly they were looking at the vessel that had ambushed them – 
and it did not seem to have detected them.

‘That’s him!’ Smith cried. ‘We’ve got him cold! Get a lock on and show him what for!’

‘What?’ said Schmidt.

‘That’s the ship that blew up our convoy!’ Smith grinned at the screen. ‘Now we’ve got you! Give 
him a rocket, Schmidt.’

‘Rocket?’ Schmidt and Petra exchanged a puzzled look. ‘Captain Smith, we do not have any 
rockets.’

‘Lasers, then. Slice his bows off.’

‘
Entschuldigung!
’ Schmidt looked genuinely appalled. ‘Please calm yourself, Captain. One, this ship belongs to the European Union, not the British Space Empire. And two, do you realise the paperwork 
that would involve?’