A Game of Battleships

by Toby Frost

  ‘Now you’re making sense,’ Carveth said, and she fired up the engines.

  *

  An important point involving semi-colons had arisen in the treaty debate.

  ‘Could it be,’ a tall, square-jawed man declared, his voice choking with emotion, ‘that everything we fight for is in this one, final, dawn? Could it be that liberty, true liberty, is what I stand for…’ His voice dropped to a whisper. ‘…here, deep in my heart?’ Weeping openly, he took his seat again.

  One of the M’Lak stood up. ‘Maybe.’ It sat down.

  The Minister for Colonial Affairs leaned over to W. ‘I say, if this foreign chap blubs when he talks about freedom,’ he whispered, ‘what’ll he be like against a horde of Ghast stormtroopers?’

  C’Neth rose like steam from a kettle. ‘Look, we need to discuss this punctuation,’ he explained, addressing himself at random to the delegation from the Arabian League. ‘If you can’t bring yourself to deal with the details, what about the big things? Drop your commas and soon you’ve not got a leg to stand on. Not that I have any legs,’ he added, glancing down. ‘Below the waist I just taper to a point.’

  ‘Don’t you just,’ said Sann’di.

  ‘Ooh! Isn’t he bold?’

  W slipped out the room. Entering the corridor was like coming up for air. He rubbed his forehead and leaned against the wall. Catching a glimpse of himself in the mirror opposite, he resolved never to look at his reflection again and then sighed.

  In a swish of dark material, Dawn, the organisation simulant, was at his side. ‘Everything alright?’

  ‘Leaving aside the idiots bickering over a semi-colon while the end of the galaxy rapidly approaches, fine. Any news from Wainscott?’

  ‘His men are sweeping the lower decks. The M’Lak Rifles are on high alert. If they get any more alert, they’ll start chopping people’s heads off just to make sure they’ve not swallowed any dynamite.’

  ‘Good.’

  ‘Those drone things are scanning the public areas. The governor’s got them rigged with all kinds of gear. And there’s a chap from Engineering wants to talk to you. Says he’s got information on a signal.’

  ‘Where is he?’

  ‘Billiard Room Four. Do you need a bodyguard?’

  W shook his head. ‘We need everyone looking. Tell them to get on with it.’

  ‘Right you are.’

  W hurried down the corridor, slipped his pass-fob over a side-door and ducked into the riveted chaos of the back stairway. He trotted downwards, the low ceiling brushing the top of his mop of black hair, his boots clanging like hammers on the metal steps.

  At the foot of the stairwell, a wallahbot directed him to Billiard Room Four. It bowed on a hinge and gestured with an arm of polished brass. ‘The gentleman awaits.’

  The man rose to greet him. He was in his fifties, broad-shouldered and wide-necked. He wore dark overalls and spectacles that looked curiously delicate on his tough boxer’s face. The little badge on his lapel said ‘Brian.’

  ‘Brian,’ he said, pointing at it.

  ‘Eric,’ W replied. They shook hands. ‘I gather you have some information for me.’

  ‘Indeed.’ Brian’s voice was heavy and slow, but he sounded anything but stupid. ‘I’ve found an anomaly – a potential security breach, I think. I thought I ought to come and report it. You are the right person for that, aren’t you?’

  ‘Absolutely.’

  He adjusted his glasses. ‘I can take you to it.’

  ‘Lead on.’

  They returned to the maintenance stairway. The air smelt of grease and metal. W took the lead as they descended. Brian hummed to himself but W could not make out a tune.

  ‘I’ve got a gun pointing at your back,’ Brian said. ‘Well, a crossbow.’

  ‘I thought you might,’ W replied. ‘How did you smuggle it in, by the way?’

  ‘Inside me. I’m an android – a custom job. Fixed frame, modular plastic skin, no metal parts.

  When I think of the lengths I had to go to in order to get through your security. . Ugh.’

  They walked on. ‘Out here,’ Brian said.

  They stepped out onto a storage deck. The floor was metal, the air hot and greasy. Machines banged and rumbled in the distance as if they stood in the back room of a colossal laundrette. But that was nothing to the odour of spice. The smell of curry powder filled W’s nose and mouth. The air was thick and intoxicating.

  Brian kicked the door closed. W looked around.

  ‘I put out a signal,’ Brian said. ‘Getting hold of the gear wasn’t easy, but by now our fleet should have your co-ordinates. Which leaves me to get on with Part Two of the plan: eliminating enemy personnel.’

  ‘You won’t get away with this,’ W said.

  The android smiled. ‘Why not? When I’m done, this space station will be reduced to debris. I myself will escape and, believe me, I will leave no trace of you.’

  ‘You’re a marked man now. My people will hunt you down like game.’

  ‘Perhaps. But I can change my spots. I’ve been careful to let a few cameras get a picture of me.

  They’ll be looking for the wrong person now.’ Brian stopped smiling. His features twisted, stretched and shrunk as if drawn onto drying clay. Brian’s face was longer, the eyes deeper set, the brow lined and jawline hard.

  W swallowed hard. He was looking at a version of himself: an imperfect copy, but one good enough to fool the colony sensors.

  ‘All I need now,’ Brian observed, unable to avoid grinning, ‘is to copy your stupid little moustache. Perhaps if I drink some cocoa. Now move.’

  They walked: the real man in front, his duplicate behind. W scowled into the corridor. Up ahead, something bubbled and slurped. W clenched his fists. He was too angry about the insult to his moustache – measured carefully against an actual pencil – to be very much afraid.

  Behind them both, one of Barton's drones puttered across the corridor and disappeared into a side passage. It gave no indication of having seen them.

  ‘On the left,’ Brian said.

  W’s eyes prickled as they turned the corner. The corridor opened out and suddenly the room glowed red, as if they stood at the edge of Hell. Before them, in a great vat the size of a swimming pool, lay the station's third-level curry repository. Evil lights flickered on the ceiling. The air was rank with spice.

  ‘Now then,’ said Brian, ‘Your decadent empire is about to end. The New Eden will snuff you out like a candle. We will not even leave a trace to gloat over. Starting with you.’

  W sniffed the air, filled his artificial lungs with raw curry. ‘Undiluted Madras.’

  ‘As I said, there will be no traces. You’re going for a swim.’

  He flicked up the crossbow and W took a step back. The red liquid roiled and bubbled like lava at his heels.

  So, thought the spy, this was it: death and disintegration without even a portion of rice to soak up his remains. He looked at the android, the crude mimicry of his own face, and wished that he had a cigarette and a nice cup of tea.

  W opened his mouth, tilted his head back and took a huge hit of industrial-strength Madras. It had much the same effect: though his throat tightened, his eyes stung and his heart burned as he exhaled, fury spread through his meagre body, enervating him.

  ‘Well then,’ he said. ‘Right now the only thing I can think of worse than you killing me is you banging on about it. So you might as well have done.’

  ‘Suits me,’ Brian said, and he fired.

  W froze for a second, then pulled on his jacket. The dart fell out, tinkling on the steps: a three-inch sliver of hardened plastic, the tip smeared with something like oil.

  ‘Nerve toxin,’ Brian said.

  ‘Moral fibre and Harris tweed,’ W replied. ‘And a bulletproof waistcoat.’

  One of the maintenance drones swung into the corridor, the sound of its rotors muffled by the bubbling vats.

  There was a short pause. Brian flexed his fingers. �
�Then I’ll have to strangle you,’ he said. ‘The world’s a tough place. And you’re just too mild to survive.’

  Brian leaped forward; W darted aside, his fists up. He looked like a geography teacher in the rutting season, elbow-patches out, all bony hands and tweed. Brian went straight in, driving out with a hardened plastic fist – as one of Barton’s drones crash-dived into the back of his knee.

  The android stumbled. W lunged, grabbed the collar and waist of Brian’s overalls and threw him over his shoulder, back first into the bubbling, reeking sludge.

  Brian flailed, cried out and sank from view. For half a second the vat was still and then the android broke the surface, thrashing. Brian yowled. His face seemed to melt, reform, run through half a dozen shapes it had taken; the cheeks fat and jolly one moment, cadaverous the next, the mouth stretching to a dreadful, malfunctional howl.

  ‘Too mild, eh? Did you bite on a chilli?’ W asked.

  Brian did not hear him. With a final screech, the android pressed his hands to his running face like The Scream of South Asian cuisine.

  ‘Munch on that,’ W said.

  Barton ran in as Brian sank out of view. His drones chugged into the room behind him, their rotors uneven in the thick vapour; several had gun attachments. They looked hand-made, the sort of thing the governor might have produced in a quiet afternoon. They circled the vat like vultures.

  A white plastic skeleton surfaced in the curry. It had neither overalls nor human features any more; the voice came out of a speaker mounted where its throat had been. ‘Well,’ it said, ‘this is awkward.’

  ‘Isn't it?’ said W.

  ‘Look, I’m treading water and it really hurts. This stuff is definitely corroding me.’

  W said, ‘Would you prefer a lifebelt or a chapatti?’

  ‘That’s not funny. Get a rope in here! How the hell do you people eat so much of this stuff?’

  ‘The trick is to wash it down,’ W replied.

  ‘A blanket would be nice, too,’ said the android. ‘I'm feeling pretty silly here and my legs are seizing up.’

  ‘Oh, for God’s sake!’ Barton said, disgusted. ‘First people come and clutter up my space station, and now there’s a broken robot floating in my dinner. I’ve had just about enough of this.’ He shook his head, weighed down with cares. ‘Ah, bollocks.’

  *

  The airlock door creaked open and the crew left the John Pym deep in conversation.

  ‘…and I said to him, “It’s not a bad burp unless you can smell it!”’ Carveth exclaimed.

  ‘So what did the archbishop do?’ Suruk asked.

  ‘That was nice work back there,’ Smith put in. He closed the door to the John Pym, and they waited in the corridor as the station’s lurgiscope scanned them for disease. The door at the far end remained shut, closed until the check was complete. ‘You all did well.’

  Rhianna kissed his cheek.

  ‘Gosh, thanks old girl. But now we need to warn the others. The sooner we can get a battleship out to face down those blighters the better.’

  The scanner pinged. ‘All your germs are within acceptable levels of tolerance. Your clearance level has been raised from Stop That At Once to Carry On. Exfoliate for victory, citizens.’

  The door rolled back before them. W stood behind it. His gaunt face and folded arms gave him the look of a vampire surprised in its coffin.

  ‘Good news,’ he said. ‘We have located the traitor that Le Fantome warned us about. He appears to be an android of Edenite construction. Luckily, I was able to apprehend him before he could wreak havoc by partially disintegrating him in the curry sump. Unfortunately, the curry could not be saved.’

  ‘Damn this war!’ Smith exclaimed.

  ‘Now we can get back on with the treaty. With any luck, they’ll have stopped arguing about the punctuation by now.’

  Smith said, ‘Sir, before we do that, my crew and I have bad news. Not only have we failed to get rid of that blasted mirror, but we were nearly caught by patrolling ships. It’s the Ghasts, together with the Edenites: they’ve got half a dozen warships sweeping the area, like a – a – diabolical broom of evil!’

  ‘Dammit!’ W growled. ‘Follow me.’ He strode down the corridor, stopped at an intercom and flipped the switch. ‘Dawn? We have a problem here. I want you to inform the others that there is mould on my gherkin. Repeat, mould on my gherkin. I need a special catering meeting in three minutes.

  Understand?’

  ‘Loud and clear,’ the intercom replied.

  *

  The lift shot them up through the heart of Wellington Prime. Dreckitt waited in the corridor, looking shifty and dangerous.

  He adjusted his hat. ‘What’s cooking, people?’

  Suruk gave him a very stern look. ‘One does not cook people. It is distinctly passé. ’

  ‘A big helping of villainy is cooking,’ Smith replied, ‘washed down with rum.’

  Carveth looked at Dreckitt. ‘Feels more like a laxative to me.’

  Dreckitt patted her shoulder. ‘Easy, sister. We’ve got work to do. Down these dark spaceways one man must walk, and that one man is you and me. Lady, let’s give evil some chin music.’

  ‘Is that dirty talk? And if not, why not?’

  Dreckitt lead them into a clean, white room. Where the rest of the station looked like an overgrowing of brass scrollwork against a background of artificial walnut and racing green, this place was sterile and cold. Captain Fitzroy, Chumble and Squadron Leader Shuttleswade stood near the door.

  Wainscott and his team lounged against the far wall in front of chrome shelves full of equipment.

  Uniforms hung in a row beside them. The impression of military efficiency was marred only by the fact that they were chefs’ uniforms and this was the scullery.

  ‘Glad you could join us, Smitty,” Captain Fitzroy said. “Sounds like we’ve got trouble on the horizon. I’ve got my best players on the case.’

  ‘Who’d like cocoa?’ Chumble asked.

  W strode past her. ‘Quieten down, everyone. Get those doors closed and sealed. It’s time to take care of business. Milk, no sugar, Chumble.’

  Dreckitt leaned next to Shuttleswade against a row of stainless steel cabinets.

  ‘Listen closely,’ W began. ‘I have apprehended the spy described by Le Fantome and he has been put out of action. That’s the end of the good news. The bad news is this: one, our spy told me that he had managed to put out a general transmission, giving our location to all and sundry; two, Smith informs me that there is a substantial enemy battlegroup sweeping the system, made up of Ghast and Edenite craft.

  We estimate three or four Edenite destroyers and one Ghast vessel. And if situations one and two are considered together, we get –’

  ‘Three, by thunder!’ Chumble roared.

  ‘You’re way ahead of me. In the circumstances, we must proceed on the basis that the enemy know where we are. That means they have to be diverted or destroyed. Nothing, and I mean nothing, must be allowed to stop the negotiations. The very future of Britain, and hence democracy and mankind, may rest on getting Johnny Moonman to do what we say.’

  ‘That’s a hell of a job,’ Captain Fitzroy said. ‘I’m happy to take to the field, but a few substitutes on the bench would be nice.’

  Suruk said, ‘The M’Lak would delight in such a battle. You should speak with the gilled helmsman. Or at least hold a note against his tank.’

  ‘What about other countries?’ Rhianna put in. ‘Britain’s not the only nation on Earth.’ She looked from face to face. ‘Honestly, it isn’t.’

  Wainscott shook his head. ‘You mean, let them have a go? I should think not. You know what it’s like… they go all silly and bang on about “deniable black ops” and whatnot. I tell you, when I’m on a mission I don’t leave anything behind to deny.’

  W said, ‘It’s not possible. We need signatures on the treaty. If others think that we need help…well, we’ll look like a charity case.’

&nbs
p; Shuttles folded his arms. ‘I can get my wing out into space as soon as you want. But what we need is a battle-plan, especially if there are bags of Gertie swinging in sun-side.’

  Dreckitt snorted. ‘Button-men, huh? I say we drill ‘em.’

  ‘I’ll tell you what we need to do,’ Smith said. He had been leaning against a sink; now he pushed off and stood upright. Heads turned. ‘Gentlemen, it’s time to fight. We British may not use the honeyed words of other lands – although we did invent writing, speech and Mozart, whatever they may claim in Hollywood – but we do have a lot of dreadnoughts. My friends, let us give the enemy diplomacy as we do best: from orbit, via a big gun. In the name of justice and democracy, let’s give these invaders a jolly good thrashing!’

  ‘But what about the talks?’ Dreckitt asked. ‘Once the Vorl know our racket is compromised, the whole grift will be blown.’

  ‘You’re right,’ Smith replied, ‘our allies are too precious for us to lose. The visitors require careful handling. That’s why we’ll lock them in the conference hall! What they don’t know can’t hurt them, right?

  You get Johnny Alien to sign the treaty. Meanwhile, we space chaps’ll blast the hell out of Gertie. The allies need never know. All we have to do is close the portholes. Maybe we can tell them later. They might even be impressed.’

  Wainscott thumped the sideboard. His beard was still speckled with pastry, as if he had forgotten to open his mouth and rammed a vol-au-vent into his chin. ‘By God,’ he growled, ‘you’re right! Sound doesn’t carry in space. We lock one load of aliens in until they sign the treaty, then blow up the other bunch. Then we come back to the first lot and blow them up too – or do I mean make friends with them? Susan? Ah, we can work the details out later on. Smith, you have my team beside you.’

  ‘And my lacrosse stick!’ Captain Fitzroy exclaimed.

  W stood up. ‘Then we’re decided. Captain Fitzroy, you are to enter deep space immediately.

  Wainscott, go with her. You’re the marine contingent. Smith, once your air tanks are replenished, take your chaps and follow. You’ll be able to catch up easily enough. Use Rhianna to try to sense the enemy – no doubt they’ll have this secret weapon of theirs with them. Governor Barton and I will manage the treaty. Everyone agree? Excellent. To business, then.’