A Game of Battleships (17 page)

‘Ugh.’

‘Quite. We have attempted to emulate them, but our own Strength Through Morris initiative has 
not been wholly successful.’ 462 glanced away, pushing aside unpleasant memories of colliding helmets 
and flapping black handkerchiefs. ‘Send out your men to find Smith. If nothing else, keep him busy. We need the
Pale Horse
for our next objective.’

‘Which is?’

‘
Classified
, Prong. Suffice it to say that there will be merciless killing involved, which should satisfy your religious sensibilities.’

‘Will it help the needy?’

‘No.’

‘Then damn it, I’m in!’ Prong punched his fist into his palm, then checked that none of his 
fingers had dropped off. ‘I hate the needy. Scrounging bastards. Just make sure there’s enough carnage and Eden is yours to command.’

‘It always was,’ 462 said, and he smiled and turned away.

*

With a low rumble of castors, Theophilius Chumble pushed a trolley laden with food down the 
corridors of the
HMS Chimera
. As second-in-command and ship’s android, responsibility for the proper running of one of the Empire’s dreadnoughts rested on him, and part of that involved waking up the 
captain. He stopped the trolley, fished the fob-phone out of his waistcoat and checked the time.

Chumble knocked as he opened the door and strode paunch-first into Captain Fitzroy’s room.

‘Good morrow, good morrow!’ he chuckled, rubbing his hands together. ‘And what a fine morrow it is, 
Ma’am.’

Felicity Fitzroy sat up in bed, dislodging the striped Bhagparsian feline that had been resting on 
the covers. It yawned, sighed and went back to sleep.

Clad only in regulation space-knickers, the captain got up, rubbed her eyes, stuck her arms up as 
if to punch the sky and said, ‘Hullo, Chumble. Another sunny day in the space fleet, eh?’

‘Absolutely, Captain. Now,’ he added as she flung her arms down and touched her toes, ‘I think 
breakfast is called for. Half a synthetic roast chicken and a snifter of port would be capital, methinks.’

Captain Fitzroy pulled on her dressing gown. It was dark blue and had epaulettes. ‘Jolly good 
idea.’ She reached down and prodded the heaped covers. They groaned and, slowly James Shuttlesworth, 
ace space-fighter pilot, pulled back the duvet until his eyes were visible.

‘Morning sleepy,’ said Captain Fitzroy. ‘What ho there, Shuttles.’

‘Uh.’

‘Guess what I had last night,’ Captain Fitzroy demanded.

He groaned. ‘I don't know. A lot to drink?’

‘You!’ She whirled her arms and yawned. ‘I banged you silly. Who's the best girl in the fleet, eh?’

‘You,’ he said weakly.

‘Good-oh.’ It was only right that he should have known the answer to that question, since 
Captain Fitzroy had shouted it at him several times the night before,
in flagrante delicto
.

‘Look, Felicity, we really ought to stop doing this –’

‘If you don't want to joust, leave your lance in the castle,’ Captain Fitzroy replied as she strode 
into the bathroom. ‘No time for sluggards here – am I right, Mr Chumble?’

‘Most certainly you are, Ma’am.’ Chumble rocked on his heels. ‘You know, once I made the 
acquaintance of a most slovenly fellow, by the name of Frampton Gusset –’

‘Have to wait, I’m afraid,’ she replied, sawing at her mouth with a toothbrush. ‘Busy day today.

What’s the mission, Mr Chumble?’

‘Well, let me see.’ Chumble took out his fob-phone, flicked it open and consulted the screen. A 
series of muffled bangs indicated that the captain was getting dressed. ‘I do believe that today, we’re not doing very much at all.

‘Excellent!’ Captain Fitzroy emerged, dressing as she approached. ‘Patrolling the borders of the 
Empire, eh? All aboard,’ she said, adjusting her bra. ‘Mr Chumble, have the wallahbot laser another notch on the bedpost. Activate the deck-swabbing machine. Oh, and feed the cat, would you?’

*

Carveth was in the cockpit and Suruk had retired to his room to polish the new additions to his 
skull collection and rearrange their hats. Feeling tired and lonely, Smith decided to look in Rhianna’s quarters.

He felt oddly furtive about going into Rhianna's room, even though he was doing so because he 
honestly missed her and not with the intention of looking at her pants again. It was strange how different her little metal cube was to any of the other metal cubes; it was as though each cabin trapped some of its owner's personality like a genie in a bottle. Smith's bottle would have contained tea; Suruk's, probably blood; and Carveth's, bubble bath cut with Prosecco. Smith ducked under the genuine tribal dreamcatcher that hung from the ceiling like a dead bird splattered across the grille of a juggernaut, and stopped to marvel at the number of books that Rhianna owned.

He pulled one down at random, a brick-sized paperback with a dragon on the spine:
Dragonriders 
of Urn
, prelude to
All the Teas of Urn
. He replaced it carefully in case its sequels fell down and killed him.

Next to it was a scholarly work on gender politics. Smith knew little about gender politics, although his grandfather had once told him that voting Liberal was for girls. He turned, not quite sure what he was looking for but pretty certain that he wouldn't find it unless Rhianna was hiding in the cupboard.

Something made him approach her bed. He stopped before the little table beside it, handcrafted 
by simple robots in an authentic traditional production line. He felt no more certain of what he sought but knew that he was slightly warmer. He wasn't looking for the apparatus on the top – part hookah, part alchemy experiment – either. Smith sat on the bed, which smelled quite nice, and decided to go to sleep.

After a busy day infiltrating the Edenites, foiling their evil plans and stealing their stuff, he 
deserved a rest. Soon they would be in Colonial Space, where things were done properly and he’d be able to hand over the weird mirror to the security services. And then he would see Rhianna again.

He closed his eyes.

The instant Smith awoke he knew something was wrong. A moment later he realised that the 
ceiling lacked any model spaceships. He sat up, remembering where he was. There was a curious smudge 
in the air beside the door. He rubbed his eyes and the smudge leaned forward and held out a hand.

Smith was hardened to the horrors of space and so he didn’t leap back much more than two feet.

It was a Vorl, one of the ancient energy-creatures with whom the Empire had struggled to strike a pact.

But what was it doing here? And then the shape coalesced and he gasped as he recognised its dreadlocks and face.

‘Help me, Isambard! Can you tell me if this is working okay?’

‘I suppose so,’ he replied. ‘Either that or my brain isn’t. Are you.. Rhianna?’

‘Yes,’ the shape replied. ‘Kind of. I’m like Rhianna’s mind, projected astrally to you. My physical 
body is meditating. But my psyche has reached out. Finding your mind was really difficult.’

‘Well, I am a long way away.’

‘Um, yeah. Something like that. So, Isambard, speak to me.’

‘Hello.’

“How’s it going?”

‘Fine thanks. Mustn’t grumble.’ Smith instinctively glanced upwards, then realised that there was 
no weather on the
John Pym
to talk about. ‘Did you get to your place alright?’

‘Yes, thank you. I can’t tell you where it is, but I’m cool. I'm with the Vorl. They’re teaching me 
to unlock my psychic powers.’ The blur made a vague weighing-up gesture, as though describing the 
balance on a pair of speakers. ‘It’s very spiritual.’

‘Smashing. We found the ship that blew up the convoy.’

‘Really?’

‘Absolutely. It was the Edenites who made it. We raided their planet and blew a load of them up.

There was this one chap, and he came running at me, so I just pulled my Civiliser and – blammo! – right between the eyes. Burn that at the stake, you savage!’

The blur folded its arms and sighed.

‘It advanced women’s rights,’ Smith added. ‘Honestly. Am I going to see you soon, old girl?’

‘I’ll try, Isambard. I have to go and talk to some people about peace.’

‘But that’s what you do here. Even when I’m trying to shoot them.’

Rhianna sighed. ‘Can’t anything be done without violence?’

‘I suppose so. It depends if chaps are going to be reasonable. Just be glad you weren’t around 
two hundred years ago.’

‘What happened then?’

‘The overthrow of the World Government, of course. By 2300, Earth was a terrible place. Britain 
hardly covered the British Isles, let alone anywhere else. A few people milked the globe dry. The rest of the world had gone to hell. By 2325, the most popular fast food in London was other Londoners. People 
would murder you for the toffee in your mouth. When the World Government fell, we had to reconquer 
Earth from the colonies in. All except for Woking, that is. Which is precisely why –’

‘Kiss me, Isambard.’

‘But you’re made of air.’ Still, he thought, if she was up for it, the fact that she didn’t have a 
substantial form needn’t stop him. He stood up, leaned over and kissed the smudge that constituted her head.

‘I think that was my cerebellum,’ she said.

‘Sorry, leaned in a bit far.’

Smith put a finger through her chest, and felt a slight resistance. He tried again with both hands.

‘Isambard, what’s that?’

‘It’s not me.’ He glanced down and checked that indeed it wasn’t.

‘I think it’s Polly,’ Rhianna said.

Smith listened. It was probably nothing. Chances were, Carveth was just singing along to the 
radio. She tended to listen to popular music, although a recent purchase of the greatest hits of Nine Inch Marilyn And The Angry Kids had made him worry that she was entering some sort of android 
adolescence. She was quite strange, he reflected, combining in one small body the logic of a robot with the complete lack of logic of a girl, her childish obsession with very small horses mixed –- but not too mixed, thank God – with the sexual appetite of a woman of twenty-eight. Well, several women of twenty-eight.

He looked at Rhianna. ‘I think it was nothing.’

‘Isambard, I have to go. My powers are waning, and it’s nearly dinner time.’

‘Oh, righto.’

‘Be careful, Isambard.’

‘Will do. You too, alright?’ He stepped back and waved.

Rhianna’s form condensed for a moment, so that he could make out her dreadlocks and jazz 
cigarette, and she smiled. ‘Blessed be.’

‘Carry on.’

‘Oh my God!’ Carveth cried from the far end of the ship, ‘The mirror!’

Smith glanced round, said ‘Cheerio!’ and ran into the corridor. He tore down the passage, socks 
pounding on the metal floor, charged through the airlock door and fell stumbling into the hold. He had no idea what to expect – images flickering across the surface, lights firing up along the frame – and he stopped still, looking towards the mirror at the far end.

Carveth stood in front of it, her back to the glass, looking over her shoulder at her reflection.

‘Look at what it's done to me!’ she said.

Smith looked at her. She seemed much the same as usual: shortish, average build, in combat 
trousers and utility waistcoat, her shirtsleeves rolled up and her hair pulled back into a functional ponytail.

‘You look about. . normal,’ he ventured, suspecting that this was dangerous territory.

‘But,’ she said, ‘my arse. .’

‘It's usually like that,’ Smith said. ‘It's not that it looks fat, of course –’

But he was too slow, because by then she had howled with despair and run from the room.

Smith shook his head and examined the mirror once more. He saw nothing odd about it. In fact, the 
image didn’t look bad at all.

Glancing round, he saw Suruk beside him. ‘It is undoubtedly strange,’ the M’Lak observed.

‘Maybe there is something in the frame.’

‘Perhaps. I know – why don’t I whip the back off and have a look?’

The alien frowned. ‘Are you qualified to do that? The warranty may be grievously voided.’

‘Of course I am – I’m a chap. Suruk, stand clear. You are about to witness the strength of DIY 
knowledge.’

‘I am unconvinced by this plan, Mazuran. Do you recall the time you tried to fix the television?’

‘I don’t remember anything going wrong then.’

‘That is because you were unconscious. Come. You are no less of a warrior for leaving it.’

‘Well, all right then. I’ll just see if –’

‘Boss?’ Carveth called from the cockpit. ‘I’m technically not speaking to you because you were 
rude about my arse, but we’ve just been hailed.’

‘Really?’ He left Suruk with the mirror and rushed to the captain’s chair. ‘Who by?’

‘Them,’ Carveth said, and as she pointed at the top of the windscreen, a huge spaceship flew 
overhead.

Silent, battleship-grey, it slid over the
John Pym
like a steel sky. The ship was roughly the shape of an arrowhead, each side covered in missile batteries, torpedo hatches and turrets the size of castles; each turret brandishing a pair of immense railgun cannon. It was as though the
Pym
flew upside-down over a militarised city.

Lights and portholes glinted. Rows of striplamps intersected to form a glowing Union Jack the 
size of a football pitch. On the dreadnought’s flank, a lion that could have swallowed the
John Pym
glared at a rearing unicorn slightly bigger than a dinosaur. Between them were the words
HMS Chimera
.