A Game of Battleships

A GAME OF BATTLESHIPS

Space Captain Smith

God Emperor of Didcot

Wrath of the Lemming Men

A GAME OF BATTLESHIPS

TOBY FROST

Myrmidon

Rotterdam House

116 Quayside

Newcastle upon Tyne

NE1 3DY

www.myrmidonbooks.com

Published by Myrmidon 2013

Copyright © Toby Frost 2013

Toby Frost has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs 
and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents 
portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to 
actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN 978-1-905802-80-7

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, 
stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any 
means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, 
without the prior written consent of the publishers.

This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of 
trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out or otherwise circulated 
without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover 
other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition 
including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

Prologue

27th April 1863

PART ONE

The Big Bang

Dinner for Tw
o

Beast of Eden

The Handyman’s Tale

The Captain and the Queen

PART TWO

A Meeting of Minds

Searching for Tom Perdu

All Hell Breaks Loose

The Dotted Line

The Fortress of Iron squatted on top of the mountain like a skull driven onto a spike. It was the 
shape of the ant-like head of Ghast Number One: its mouth a doorway big enough to fit a tank, the radio masts a pair of huge antennae rising above the gun emplacements that served it for eyes.

Praetorian assault-lieutenant 28935/H, Stormfist Legion, snarled into the polar wind as he 
lumbered across the snow. The cold stung his lattice of facial scars, but to flinch would have been to show weakness. And weakness, of course, deserved death.

Captain 948356/B awaited him at the doors to the citadel beside a writhing coil of bio-wire. As 
the lieutenant ran up, a succession of muffled explosions rippled from inside the fortress like great 
belches. The Earth-scum had laid plenty of bombs and the drone clearance teams were still finding them.

‘
Ak nak!
’ 28935/H bellowed. ‘All hail mighty Number One!’

The captain nodded. He was slightly over half the praetorian’s height. ‘All hail our glorious 
leader. Are the humans dead yet?’

28935/H swallowed hard. ‘Almost, Captain. We have them trapped in the Museum of Puny 
Human Artefacts. As soon as we gain access, they will be annihilated.’

948356/B shivered and pulled his leather coat tight around his meagre body. ‘What are you 
waiting for? Lead me to them!’

They slogged their way across the compound. The museum loomed above them like a corrupted 
Greek temple. Huge pillars clustered around the doors. Above the entrance, a bas relief showed Number 
One stamping on the great buildings of Earth, his heel grinding the head of the Statue of Liberty to dust.

Ghasts swarmed around the building, flies on carrion. Trenchcoats and stercoria flapping, the 
ant-men rushed about yelling threats and orders to one another, pointing and saluting. One praetorian 
unit had shot its weakest member and, now that rigor mortis had set in, was using him as a battering ram against the service door.

‘We have made all efforts to break into the museum,’ 28935/H snarled. ‘Superior Ghast 
construction hinders our efforts.’

‘A feeble excuse,’ the captain replied. His breath hissed into the cold air. ‘Failure to crush these 
Earth-scum immediately will result in you being relocated to the delightful snow-capped mountains of the M’Lak Front!’

28935/H saluted very quickly. He could have easily pulled his master’s head from its narrow 
shoulders but, without a command to do so, he was powerless. ‘We shall double our efforts,’ he 
promised, pulling his gun and shooting a minion to show that he meant it. He paused, and a rare moment of curiosity passed through his reinforced skull. ‘Captain?’

‘What?’

“’Is it true that Isambard Smith is inside?
The
Isambard Smith? The one who assassinated 
indestructible Number Eight?’

948356/B ignored him.

‘Because, I was thinking. . Number Eight was genetically perfect – all the posters say so – and if 
you can kill something that’s genetically perfect. .’

‘Lean forward.’ The praetorian leaned. ‘Bit closer. I can’t reach.’

28935/H almost bent double. ‘How is this, great one?’

‘Perfect.’ 948356/B slapped him across the jaw. ‘Never think for yourself!’ he shrieked. ‘Now 
smash your way in and slaughter them!’

*

In the cool dark of the museum, under the glow of Florence Nightingale’s lamp, Major Wainscott 
gathered his men. The Deepspace Operations Group loaded their weapons under an exhibit entitled
Puny
Humans Tolerate iIlness
.

‘Pay close attention,’ Wainscott said, stroking his beard. ‘We’ve got two minutes at most before 
those ugly bastards bash their way inside. The charges are laid, but we need to get some distance. Smith, how’s our transport?’

Isambard Smith took his mouth away from the siphon and said, ‘Nearly done,’ and got a spurt of 
petrol in the face for his trouble.

‘Excellent. We’ll go out guns blazing. Susan, you and the chaps’ll be on top deck.’

His second in command pushed a fresh power-pack into the top of her beam gun. ‘Right.’

‘Now, where’s that damned alien?’

‘Greetings!’ Suruk the Slayer strolled out of the dark, past a model of
Louis Pasteur Failing To 
Develop A Deadly Viral Weapon
. Suruk opened his mandibles and smiled. ‘Apologies for my lateness. I was distracted by
Feeble Bladed Weapons of the Stunted Himalayas
. I trust I have not missed any of the carnage?’

Smith spat out petrol and stood up. ‘We’re all set. Let’s get loaded up. We’ve only got half an 
hour to meet up with the ship.’

‘Well said,’ Wainscott replied. ‘Hop on, men! And hold on tight!’

*

Ghasts crowded around the front entrance. ‘Obedience is strength!’ a praetorian roared, and it 
ran head-first into the doors. ‘Oof!’ It staggered back, helmet ringing.

A second praetorian shoved it aside and charged the doors, snarling like a dog. ‘Obedience is 
strength! Oof!’

Captain 948356/B smiled as he watched them. ‘How ironic,’ he mused, ‘that the humans should 
die among the worthless clutter of their pathetic culture.’

‘Culture?’ snarled the lieutenant, cocking his gun. ‘Where?’

948356/B smirked into the wind. ‘And how very, very pleasing.’

The doors exploded. In the last half-second of his life, 948356/B saw something like a shining 
red cliff come roaring out of the museum in a howl of engines and twisting steel. He saw a window and a 
human face behind it, and realised that he was looking at Captain Isambard Smith – and then the bus hit him and he burst across the windscreen like an enormous fly.

The Routemaster ploughed through ranks of bellowing praetorians like a runaway juggernaut.

Smith activated the windscreen wipers, and the blades threw gouts of purple alien slime across the snow.

The horn tooted merrily and the storm-ants, unable to disobey their orders, rushed forward and were 
reduced to mush.

A Ghast threw itself at the bus, clinging on with all four arms. It headbutted the windscreen and 
smashed its helmet through the glass in four brutal blows. The alien thrust its face through the hole and tried to bite the steering wheel. ‘Nutrition is victory!’ it snarled. ‘Eat the weak!’

Smith drew his .48 Civiliser, pushed it into the praetorian’s nasal hole and blew its rudimentary 
brains out.

By God! thought Smith, as the bus bumped over a succession of bulbous steel helmets and 
bulging rear ends, sometimes duty was its own reward.

‘All aboard, fools!’ Suruk the Slayer bellowed from the far end of the bus. He snatched at coats 
and helmets as the vehicle drove through the Stormfist Legion, hauling the ant-men onto the running-
board. The great sickle-shaped blade in his hand rose and fell and heads rolled against the base of the stairs before Suruk tossed the bodies back into the snow. ‘No ticket? Then I shall conduct you to your doom!’

Upstairs, the five members of the Deepspace Operations Group poured fire into the aliens.

Susan swung the beam gun and praetorians fell apart as the laser touched them. The Ghasts ran after the bus, blazing away wildly, even trying to chew through the hubcaps as it sped past, but a combination of murderous gunfire and moral fibre drove them back.

The bus left its pursuers behind. No doubt the Ghasts would be calling up reinforcements but, 
for now, the way was clear. Smith switched on the radio. ‘Claymore calling John Bull,’ he barked into the intercom. ‘Claymore calling John Bull. Come in, John Bull.’

A girl answered him. ‘This is Claymore,’ came the reply.

‘No it isn’t.
You’re
John Bull. I’m Claymore.’

‘You know,’ Polly Carveth said, ‘this would have been much easier if you’d let me choose my 
own callsign.’

‘I’ve told you before, I get to choose the callsigns.’ Smith swung the bus onto a narrow road. A 
notice in Ghastish threatened death. Most notices in Ghastish did that. He ran it over. ‘
I’m
the captain.’

‘But why do I have to be crappy John Bull?’

‘Because if I let you choose your own name you’d be Glitter Pony or some similar nonsense.

This is a commando raid, not a gymkhana.’

‘No I wouldn’t. I’d be Polly Princess.’

‘Damn it, Carveth, are you going to pick us up or not?’

‘Keep your bulls on, Claymore! I’m on my way.’

The bus rumbled down the narrow roads towards the landing strip. Nothing followed it: Smith 
knew that, back at the fortress, the Ghasts would be readying their hover-tanks, calling up reinforcements to cut the humans off before they could escape the planet. Suruk chuckled. Without any enemies to slay, the M’Lak was leaning out the doorway, tongue out, enjoying the falling snow.