A Game of Battleships

by Toby Frost

  ‘Wait, Rhianna,’ Smith said. ‘You could communicate with the sun dragons back on Urn. Tell it that we’re friends.’

  ‘Okay.’ She pressed her fingertips to her temples. ‘I can feel its mind, but it’s all nonsense.

  Somebody wants to kill something – that’s clear, at any rate.’

  ‘Me,’ Suruk said. He stepped past her, giving his spear an experimental swing. ‘I shall deal with this being. This is a battle I must fight alone. And in case it isn’t, I would prefer it if you let me have the first go.’

  Smith shook his head. ‘Sorry, old chap, but we’re doing this together.’

  The creature lumbered forward. It had short legs, but the wild flapping of its wings helped lessen their burden. Trailing whiskers like those of a catfish brushed the trees. The eyes burned red, the mouth gabbled and snarled.

  Dreckitt checked his pistol. ‘What a way to go out,’ he growled. ‘Twenty-five years on the mean streets, and I get blipped off by a turkey the size of a dinosaur.’

  ‘Maybe it’s karma,’ Rhianna replied. ‘You know, for like all those Thanksgivings or something?’

  The monster ran its huge hand down the table, scooping up a clattering heap of crockery, and hurled it at them. Rhianna threw her hand up, shielding the four explorers, and the air was full of exploding china. Its head – somewhere between a catfish and a bald rabbit – swung down on its python- like neck, and peered at them all.

  Smith raised his Civiliser, looked down the barrel, and shot it between the eyes.

  The beast stumbled back, shook its head as if to clear it, and lashed out. Smith ducked aside, but not quickly enough, and the hand knocked him onto the table, amid the three-tiered ruins of a massive cake-stand. Smith twisted, broken china crunching under his weight, and fired twice. The bullets disappeared into the monster’s chest as if into porridge. It reached out for Smith’s head – And Suruk brought his spear down on the beast’s fingers. It roared and backhanded him, and Suruk parted company with the ground. He flew briefly upwards before making loud contact with a tree.

  Dreckitt’s gun banged once, twice, and the creature drew back to the far end of the long table.

  ‘It’s immune to my rod!’ Dreckitt snarled.

  The beast leaped onto the far end of the table. The table flipped up, the edge nearly hitting Smith under the chin, and a rain of saucers broke on the ground around it.

  Suruk staggered out of the forest, rubbing his head.

  ‘Suruk, be careful!’ Rhianna called. The goggle-eyed head swung to face her.

  To her credit, she did not scream. Less to her credit, she reached out and said, ‘Hey, I can totally see its tonsils. Check it out, guys…’

  Smith tore the tablecloth from the remains of the tea party. ‘Over here!’ he called, flapping the cloth. ‘Look!’

  He sidestepped, waving the cloth like a matador. The monster turned, quick and lithe for all its grotesqueness. ‘Run, everyone!’ Smith called. ‘I’ll distract it!’

  ‘Then what’ll you do?’ Dreckitt demanded. ‘Give it indigestion?’

  Smith ignored him. The creature drew back and up, its little wings working as if to break off its back and fly away. It blocked out the sun; the trees and spires disappeared as it rose into the air. The long neck drew back, like a cobra’s body.

  The monster pounced. ‘Run!’ Smith yelled, and he threw himself and Rhianna out of the way. Its claws, like two thrashing spider-crabs, shot past him, clenching on one of the huge mushrooms as if to throttle it. The beast’s head darted forward, bit a steak-sized chunk out of the mushroom and spat it out in a cloud of spores.

  Smith found himself on top of Rhianna in thick grass, which had been much better when he’d imagined it in private. He hauled himself upwards, grabbed his gun and helped Rhianna to her feet.

  Beside him Dreckitt raised his pistol. Suruk, still groggy, pulled his spear back to throw.

  ‘Now then…’ Smith said, lifting his rifle.

  Rhianna touched his arm. ‘Wait, Isambard. Look.’

  The monster stood a little way off, one of its arms raised as if to strike. But it was still: the great eyes were fixed on its own talons, not on the humans below. Slowly, the monster moved its claw away

  from its face, gazing at it in awe, like a medieval artist discovering the wonders of perspective.

  The shot was perfect, despite the cloud of fungal spores surrounding the creature’s head. One good bullet and it would be ready to adorn the trophy wall, next to the stuffed praetorian. But there was something in its expression that made Smith pause, a mixture of wonder and confusion that seemed eerily familiar.

  ‘It ate all the mushrooms,’ Rhianna said.

  ‘Weapons down, chaps,’ Smith said. ‘Our work here is done.’

  Suruk swayed a little. ‘Surely you jest. Think of the glorious trophies and the honour we would

  gain from slaying this beast! Not to mention that it threw me into a tree.’

  Smith shook his head. ‘No,’ he said. ‘I couldn’t kill it.’

  ‘Why not, Mazuran?’

  The monster blinked and looked around, as if unsure how it had arrived. Smith turned to look at Rhianna. ‘Because it made me think of you.’

  ‘Um…’ she replied. “Is that because you remembered that I don’t approve of slaughtering helpless animals?’

  ‘Yes. And also because it’s out of its face on mushrooms.’

  Suruk peered at the beast, then at Rhianna. ‘Actually, now you mention it, there is a certain resemblance –’

  ‘It’s just a dumb animal,’ Smith added.

  ‘Dumbest animal I ever saw,’ Dreckitt said. ‘Come on. Let’s find the boss lady and hand out some chin music.’

  *

  The Hellfire shot out of the Chimera like a pip from a fruit, the loss of pressure hurling it into space as the engines fired. Suddenly, all comfort was gone: Carveth couldn’t see the other fighters or even the John Pym; only the stars ahead, glittering like broken glass. The cockpit was tiny, the engine roared behind her, and she missed the others terribly – especially, she was surprised to find, Gerald.

  ‘All systems go,’ said the autopilot. ‘Resetting the tonnage counter to zero. Let’s get down to business.’

  ‘I’ve never done this before,’ she said. It came out in a rush.

  ‘It’s simple. Find the enemy. Blow him up. Repeat until victorious.’

  ‘Right,’ she said, her hopes that the Hellfire would fly itself fading fast. She had to hold the stick, which meant that she wouldn’t be able to spend the battle with her hands over her eyes.

  It took eight minutes of hard flying to reach the enemy. Carveth watched the dials, checked the fighters around her and wondered if there was an android god and, if so, what the hell it was playing at by letting her get into this mess. She ran though the instrument panel and sensed the depth of control she had over the ship. What were Smith and Dreckitt doing now?

  Objects leaped into view. Three spacecraft like chunks of grey stone and, behind them, a sleek black shape, a Ghast vessel. She could see the burning-world symbol of the Edenites painted on the nearest battleship – and then something shot past her line of sight.

  ‘What was that?’

  ‘Enemy,’ said the Hellfire. ‘Throttle back to combat speed. Don’t want to miss the action, do we?

  Good plan, that, going in for the big fish first. I like your style.’

  Panic bubbled up. ‘I didn’t see the little ones!’

  ‘Well keep your eyes peeled, because here they come. Weapons armed. Ready to stuff a few rockets up the big fellow’s jacksie?’

  The radio crackled. ‘New girl’s gone straight in. Break and engage, chaps.’

  The enemy rushed in like swooping flies, completely silent. Lights burst from a ship – missiles, and the Hellfire snapped, ‘Countermeasures away. Got one turning on the rear.’ Light flashed on the right side of the screen. ‘First blood to Allie. Nice kill, Hellfire 3946. Pilot? Bandit, three
o’clock.’

  ‘Really? Where?’ Carveth swung the ship – it moved so easily! And suddenly there was a light ahead, the engine of a Ghast fighter. Got him! she thought, and she pressed the left thumb-trigger. The lasers opened up, cutting quad stripes through the night before her. The Ghast jinked, twisted right and down, looping to come back at her. She turned left, yawed the ship ninety degrees and cut the main engine. The Hellfire kept on course, but spun on its axis – suddenly the Ghast was directly before her.

  ‘Fire!’ she yelled, clenching the controls in her fists. Chainguns, lasers and missiles streaked out. One of the missiles flew off, bewildered by chaff, but the second turned in and, like an iron filing to a magnet, smashed into the alien ship. It burst in a flurry of light, suddenly nothing but embers.

  ‘I got him, I got him! Did you see that?’

  ‘Nice work.’ The tonnage counter whirled on the dashboard. ‘Now, the warships.’

  ‘Yes, right.’ She shook with fear and wild, shameful glee. ‘I got him, I bloody got him.’ She pulled up, and the grey-white frigate dropped into her vision. The craft’s hide was alive with turrets, whirling to provide defensive fire as the Hellfires made their pass. ‘That’s a lot of guns,’ she said, realising how feeble her voice sounded.

  ‘All the more ammo to explode,’ the Hellfire replied.

  ‘I’m not sure.’ A panel came on beside her head: apart from two dozen winking lights, a pointless grid-picture of the enemy warship appeared spinning like a bauble on a Christmas tree.

  ‘You’d better not be weeding out, my girl,’ the ship growled. ‘Because if you’ve got cold feet now, they’ll be much colder when you’re floating in space. Now, let’s teach these alien bastards who really owns the galaxy. All weapons ready, pilot. Just locking us in with the others. . nice.’

  The radio burst into life, a horrible shrieking noise, and Carveth flinched. ‘What the hell was that?’

  ‘Nothing,’ the ship replied. ‘Ghast broadcast, trying to intimid –’

  The delay was enough. A disruptor shell clipped the bottom of the left wing and ploughed through the underside of the Hellfire, hurling the fighter off course. They spun away, back towards the Chimera. A siren blared in the cockpit. Carveth screamed.

  ‘Bloody malfunction!’ the Hellfire yelled. The battle went end over end in the windscreen, ships chasing each other like clothes tossed in a washing machine. ‘Bastards’ve hit the – arrg – mit mein fliegender Zirkus – bloody buggering processor – un prince tres petit, sur un planet tout seul –’

  And as the Hellfire went dead, Carveth passed out.

  *

  Smith burst out of the wood, Dreckitt and Rhianna just behind him. Rhianna paused to catch her breath, while Dreckitt fanned himself with his hat. ‘Bloody forest,’ Smith muttered. ‘Why can’t they have a path?’

  ‘Yeah,’ Dreckitt added, ‘made out of bricks. Yellow ones.’

  They stood at the base of a broad staircase, made of something that looked like both sandstone and nougat. Before them, the main mass of the castle rose up and moved slowly. Gawky birds circled the towers. Smith drew the Civiliser. Rhianna tapped his arm.

  ‘That tower,’ she said, pointing. ‘It’s in there.’

  Each tile in the tower’s roof was painted as a playing card. It was a roost for gargoyles, an imposing blend of castle and a cathedral. There were no guards. Far above them, a carpenter sat on a wooden gantry, looking at a plan. He reached under his paper hat to scratch his head, then turned the plan the other way up. A moment later he began to scratch his head again.

  ‘I see no sign of Major Wainscott,’ Suruk said.

  Smith nodded. The sheer brightness of the place was unnerving. ‘No, for one thing, the place is still standing. I’d have thought he would have blown part of it up by now.’

  ‘He’s probably gone to apply for a green card,’ Dreckitt said. ‘I say we bust this joint without him, flying monkeys or not.’

  ‘Totally,’ Rhianna said. ‘It’s time to smoke or get off the hookah.’

  Smith walked up the steps. The palace doors were twice his height. The left one was ajar. ‘With me,’ he said, and as he stepped inside the lights came on.

  They rose from beneath the floor, turning the chequerboard tiles into a grid. A reddish glow lit the walls, revealing letters scratched into the paintwork, as if with a blade: W Kt to R Q. It was as Carveth had said, Smith realised: the chains of cards, the paintings of queens and kings. But she had not mentioned the throne under the centre of the hollow tower or the immense candelabra that hung above

  them like a twisted anchor, playing cards impaled on its spikes. A woman sat on the throne. The place smelled of tallow and old cabbage.

  The doors slammed shut.

  The Queen of Hearts stood up. In silhouette her crown made her look like a horned demon: it was not much of a relief to realise that the crown was metal, given that it was nailed straight into her brain. She seemed to glide down from her throne, her face as pale as the moon.

  ‘So,’ she growled, ‘the white queen sends her knight. And three more pawns.’

  Smith glanced left and right. From the shadows, figures moved forward. They were the ones Carveth had described – the Grim Reaper ace of spades, the thuggish king of clubs, the sharp-faced knave of diamonds fingering its pointed chin mockingly. This was a nightmare, Smith thought. It took all of his moral fibre to look the queen in the eye: foreign she might be, but she was something very close to a deity.

  ‘Madam,’ he replied, ‘we are not pawns.’

  ‘Can it, lady,’ Dreckitt said. ‘I’m done with the crazy talk. We’ve banged gums long enough.’

  ‘Oh, no…’ hissed the diamond-faced minion, ‘the banging’s hardly started.’

  Suruk looked around the room. ‘Interesting. Is that item on your head part of your skull?’

  ‘Quiet, frog-creature!’ The queen glared at Suruk. He glared back. ‘I had thought the guardian would have killed you in the forest.’

  Suruk shrugged. ‘We defeated it, but we let it go. Some things are too beautiful to destroy, and history’s largest dragon-turkey is one of them.’

  The queen scowled at him, a bad policy for anything with a distinct head. She took a step forward. ‘So, what do you want from me? A game of chess, perhaps? I can kick a bishop through a stained glass window. An underling like you would be no problem. I have a taste for pawn as well as the occasional queen.’ She seemed to grow slightly, her face lit with a kind of hungry severity. ‘I am the grandmistress of the chess board, the lady of the high stake. I’ll mate you in so many different moves you’ll be aching for months afterwards.’

  ‘That’s enough of that,’ Smith said. ‘I am Captain Isambard Smith of the British Space Empire and these are my comrades. We didn’t come here to play chess with you.’

  ‘Cards, then.’ The queen raised her white hands and cracked the knuckles. ‘How about a quick shuffle? No?’

  ‘No way.’ Rhianna glared straight back. ‘Who died and made you queen?’

  The queen smiled: the lights dropped and shuddered, and suddenly the room was full of pulsing shadow. ‘Nobody’s died – yet. I did not inherit this place: I am it. I am the ruler of this realm, lady of pleasure and games, mistress of the cards.’

  Suruk looked her over. ‘I have seen such cards in the telephone boxes of Earth.’

  ‘Nonsense,’ said the queen. ‘My courtiers and I have always been here, seeking new. . techniques of entertainment.’ She reached into her dress and took out a little box. Its sides moved as her long fingers manipulated them. ‘Like this Rubik’s cube. Opiates, potions, croquet. . what’s your pleasure?’

  ‘We want Prong,’ Smith said.

  To his right, steel hissed. The knave of diamonds held a hideous piece of apparatus, tapering to a wicked point. ‘Right you are!’ it said.

  ‘ Lord Prong,’ Smith added. ‘It’s his name.’

  ‘Aw,’ said the knave, and its shoulders slumped. It put
the spike away.

  ‘Ah, Prong,’ the queen said. ‘Go on.’

  ‘We need to pass through the mirror or whatever it is to reach him. He’s an enemy of the British Space Empire. Which, by the way, you’ve joined. Congratulations.’

  Rhianna added, ‘He’s the high priest of a cult of vicious lunatics. He has no respect for people’s rights and wants to prevent the peoples of the galaxy forming an alliance to promote peace and unity.’

  ‘The guy’s a two-bit bum,’ Dreckitt said.

  ‘Most bums have two bits,’ the queen said thoughtfully. ‘But it sounds like the same man. Prong found a way to manipulate this place. Not just to pass into it, but to use it to flick an object between your world and mine.’

  ‘We’ve seen the object of Prong’s you refer to,’ Smith said. ‘And it is terrible indeed.’

  ‘Every time Prong uses his machine, it damages us,’ the queen said. ‘It drains the life from this place, makes it more like your world.’ She shuddered. ‘More logical,” the queen said, as if it was a dirty word. She leaned forward, her crown looming up like a metal cliff. ‘I blame him for the demise of my walrus.’

  ‘Typical,’ Rhianna said. ‘No concern for the environment.’

  ‘I see.’ Smith glanced at the wall. The paint was mildewed in patches. He had previously thought that it was what estate agents called a ‘feature’ but perhaps the decay was attributable to Prong. ‘So how does this machine work?’

  ‘Don’t ask me,’ the queen said. ‘I just rule here.’

  ‘Fair enough,’ Smith said. It reminded him of Carveth’s attitude when he asked her about faster-than-light travel. She had explained that some things just worked because they jolly well did.

  ‘Come with me,’ the queen said. ‘Although you may need more peons to take Prong.’

  ‘We’ve got friends, back in the gardens.’

  She frowned. ‘Maybe no more. The guardian will re-appear, and it will not be pleased.’

  ‘Wrong,’ a voice said from the doorway. Wainscott stepped into the hall in a clatter of armour.

  The major was smiling broadly: Susan and the rest of his team had a look of hard determination. ‘A.P. Wainscott, Major, British Army, he declared. ‘Sorry we’re late. Stopped for tea. Madam, you seem to have a chess piece nailed to your head. Smith, update.’