Free A Game of Battleships by Toby Frost

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?’
    ‘Paperwork?’
    ‘Not to be mentioning three… we have no guns.’
    ‘What?’
    ‘I approve,’ Suruk said. ‘Ramming speed!’
    ‘No, no “ramming speed”. Europe is a place of peace. This vessel was built to survey, to discover  and, once sufficient evidence of an enemy attack has been uncovered, to enable