Starship Titanic Read online

  'They're all video games!' Lucy felt righteously indignant. 'They aren't controls at all!'

  As a matter of fact, the entire Captain's Bridge was little more than a high-class amusement arcade. It had been designed specifically to keep the Captain of the Starship Titanic amused during the tedium of long inter-galactic flights, in a spacecraft that was almost entirely automated and self-running. It was, after all, Titania - at the heart of the ship's intelligence - who was far more capable of taking decisions and issuing orders than any mere living creature.

  'So?' said Dan.

  'So...' said Lucy. 'I suppose we'd better find out how to fly this baby ourselves and point her Earthwards.'

  'So - what was going on between you and that that thing...'

  'He's not a "thing" - he's just a perfectly ordinary alien and there was nothing going on.'

  'He had his hands on your tits!'

  'No he did not!' Lucy couldn't stand Dan at moments like this. Why couldn't he give her room? Why did he try and twist everything? What mattered was them: Lucy and Dan.

  'What matters is us,' said Lucy, taking her cue from the previous sentence. 'You and me.'

  'You and me and any other life-form you can get it off with!' retorted Dan.

  'Jesus! Dan! You are so unpleasant!'

  'I'm merely stating the facts.'

  'Well, if you really want to know the facts: I never made love to Jurgen Zenzendorf.'

  'I wasn't talking about Jurgen Zenzendorf!' Trust Lucy, thought Dan, to bring up another case that she could defend instead of the one they were actually talking about. 'I never even suspected you of going to bed with Jurgen Zenzendorf. I mean Jurgen was an asshole.'

  'He was not! That's typical of you to denigrate my friends just because you're unbelievably, maniacally jealous!' Lucy was firing on all cylinders. Dan beat a hasty retreat.

  'OK! OK! I accept what you say about Jurgen! He was a nice guy! I liked him. I liked his moth collection. I liked his mother. Jurgen was GREAT.'

  'OrJimmy Clarke!'

  'Ah! Now I know you're lying!'

  'HOW CAN YOU SAY THAT!'

  'Jimmy Clarke told me himself you'd been to bed together.'

  'He's a lying bastard! Anyway! That was before I knew you! I don't want to talk about any of this!'

  'Then why d'you start it?' Lucy was now yelling at the top of her voice. Dan found his drive to do whatever it was he'd previously felt driven to do shrivel into a limp rag of confusion. He'd actually forgotten what they had started arguing about.

  'Oh, Dan!' Lucy threw her arms round him. 'Why are you always so far away?'

  'I'm here, Lucy!'

  'But I never seem to get through to you. I love you.'

  'And I love you,' replied Dan, and he kissed her, and she felt how far away he really was.

  'Oh, Dan, let's get married,' she said.

  'Oh, sure. We're on an alien spaceship - God knows how many light years from Earth and you want to organize a wedding.'

  'You know what I mean,' she said.

  'It's no good rushing these things.'

  'Dan, we've been living together for thirteen years! We can't ever rush anything now!'

  'Let's get the hotel up and running, and then we can talk about it,' said Dan sensibly, 'You do like the rectory?'

  'Of course I do. I'm crazy about it.'

  'Except that it doesn't exist any more.'

  'We'll get it rebuilt - Nigel got a great deal on selling off Top Ten Travel. We'll rebuild it - better than it was - and make it the best little hotel in the goddamned world'

  'If we ever get back.'

  'If we ever get back,' agreed Dan.

  They looked round at the so-called 'Captain's Bridge' with its library, its video collection, its chess boards and cards tables, its jacuzzi, billiard tables, cinema complex and gym, and they wondered how the hell they were ever going to find out how to control something that didn't appear to have any controls in the first place.

  'Lucy,' said Dan.

  'Oh! Don't start again! He wasn't doing anything!'

  'I wasn't talking about that,' replied Dan.

  'Good!' retorted Lucy. One point scored.

  'You know this video game that seems to be based on the Starship itself?'

  'Uh-huh?' Lucy was staring out of the windows above the console of games.

  'Well, it's sort of changing.'

  'I know this is stupid...' said Lucy. 'But you don't suppose that computer game isn't a computer game?'

  'You mean - might it be an actual display showing those things coming towards us?' By now, Dan was also looking out of the window. A squadron of small, clumsy-looking spacecraft were hurting towards the Starship. Dan checked. Their movements correlated exactly to the motion of the spacecraft on the video display,

  'Oh my God!' murmured Lucy. 'We're being attacked!'

  At that moment, The Journalist suddenly burst onto the Captain's Bridge.

  'The ship's on automatic!' he panted. 'But the central intelligence core is missing some of its parts. We can't control the ship unless we can locate all the missing bits of the system and get them back into place!'

  'Too late!' said Lucy and nodded out of the window. The Starship was now entirely surrounded by the smaller spacecraft.

  The Journalist muttered: 'Holy Pangalin!'

  A voice suddenly boomed over the ship's loudspeaker system: 'You are surrounded. Give up at once or we open fire!'

  'Quick!' yelled Dan, pushing The Journalist over to the console. 'How do we give up at once?'

  'I haven't the slightest idea,' returned The Journalist.

  'If you refuse to give up, we shall open fire in thirty seconds,' said the voice from the enemy spacefleet.

  'WE GIVE UP!' yelled Lucy, but her voice merely echoed round the Captain's Bridge.

  'DO SOMETHING!' screamed Dan.

  'I told you! The ship's missing essential bits! I don't know what to do!' The Journalist was flipping controls as fast as he could but to little effect.

  'Since you refuse to co-operate...' boomed the voice.

  'WE'LL CO-OPERATE! JUST GIVE US A CHANCE!'

  Lucy had climbed onto the console and was waving her arms at the spaceships in a desperate attempt to attract their attention.

  '... since you refuse to co-operate you give us no choice but to open fire,'

  The space outside the Starship suddenly exploded in light and a terrific noise battered the mighty hull - deafening those inside. Lucy fell off the console and Dan and The Journalist both dived for the floor, where they lay trembling with their hands over their ears.

  There was then a pause.

  The voice boomed over the loudspeaker again: 'Do you surrender?'

  'YES! YES! WE SURRENDER!' screamed all three occupants of the Captain's Bridge.

  'Very well! You leave us no choice!'

  Another almighty din broke out around the Starship, and this time they could feel it shudder with the impact of the explosions outside. Then there was silence. The smaller spacecraft edged in a little closer.

  Then the voice was booming out again. 'Look! We don't want to damage the Starship, but if you refuse to co-operate you will leave us no choice.'

  The Journalist had by this time found a sort of microphone. He pushed a switch and bellowed into it.

  'STOP! STOP! WE SURRENDER! STOP!' His voice deafened everybody on board the Starship Titanic, but elsewhere there was a terrible silence. Then they heard the enemy for the last time:

  'We shall hold you responsible for any damage done to the Starship!'

  With that a wave of the smaller spacecraft peeled off from the main fleet and swooped towards them. Points of light spattered out from their guns and the sound of ripping metal shook the great Starship.

  'Oh my God!' screamed Lucy.

  None of them could have told you how long the attack went on for, but it seemed like several lifetimes to the three figures huddled on the Captain's Bridge. The noise, the vibration, the crashing and b
ucking of the giant Starship went on and on. Lucy found The Journalist had his hands on her breasts, but decided not to say anything.

  When it was all over, they waited and then stood up, trembling and shaking. The first wave was returning to the main fleet meanwhile a second wave was peeling off.

  'Here they come again!' yelled Dan, and he and Lucy ducked down once more beneath the console. But The Journalist remained standing, with a curious expression on his face.

  Lucy and Dan braced themselves for the gunfire... but it didn't come. Instead there was an odd - rather unmartial - banging on the hull of the ship.

  'Yassaccans!' muttered The Journalist. Lucy and Dan both assumed this was another alien expletive, and remained under cover, but then The Journalist nudged Dan and said: 'Look!'

  Dan cautiously put his head above the console and peered out of the window: the second wave of spaceships had pulled up all around the Starship, and an army of short and stocky space-suited figures were swarming over the hull, hammering and welding as they went.

  'What the blazes?' asked Dan.

  'They're repairing the damage,' explained The Journalist, Yassaccans are like that! They hate injuring hardware!'

  'What about software?' asked Lucy, readjusting her bra.

  'We'll need guns!' yelled The Journalist. 'Follow me!' The three of them ran, doubled-up, out of the Captain's Bridge, while the enemy's hammering and welding outside gathered in intensity.

  Meanwhile the voice boomed out over the loudspeakers again: 'We shall recommence our attack, as soon as the first damage has been repaired! If you do not surrender, we shall board and dispose of everyone we find!'

  In the crew's quarters, The Journalist discovered an arms cache. He handed out weapons to Dan and Lucy.

  'How do we use them?' asked Dan, turning a strange gun over in his hand. It had a short thingy and bulbous side-thingies and a sort of thingy that stuck out and which Dan pushed: a laser beam shot out across the Crew Room and exploded in a fireball at the other end.

  'Like that,' explained The Journalist, 'except don't point them at the soft furnishings.' He rushed over to the flaming curtain that Dan had just set on fire and grabbed an extinguisher.

  'We can't use these!' cried Lucy.

  'Then you'll just have to get used to the idea of being thrown off the ship into deep space. These Yassaccans are not playing games. Here! Dan! Put this on!' He threw Dan a helmet.

  'What is it?' asked Dan.

  'The Starship has two realities; one is the DataSide and the other is the MatterSide. When the Yassaccans board, they'll try to take over the DataSide as well as the MatterSide. So one of us better be prepared to confront them there!'

  'I have no idea what you're talking about,' replied Dan.

  'It's a VR helmet - a Virtual Reality helmet. You put it on, you'll be able to explore the DataSide and check whatever the Yassaccans get up to there!' The Journalist was clearly losing patience.

  'Just put it on!' shouted Lucy.

  The noise from the repairs on the hull was getting unbearable.

  'What the heck are they doing out there?' exclaimed Dan.

  'Just put on the helmet!' cried Lucy. At which Dan did.

  'Wow!' he exclaimed. 'I see what you mean! I'm right in the ship... Hey! This is great! I can get into the consoles! Wow! Now I'm running along the wiring! Hey! The circuit-boards are like vast cities! Shit!'

  The moment he had the helmet on, The Journalist grabbed Lucy and started kissing her as if there were no tomorrow which, he figured, might well be the case. And, as if shed been expecting this all along, Lucy started to kiss him, but then she suddenly pulled back, and glanced anxiously over at Dan, who was climbing some invisible stairs in his Virtual Reality and then turning around and handling invisible objects and letting out delighted yelps.

  'Oh don't worry about him!' panted The Journalist. 'He can't hear or see us. We're still MatterSide. He'll be totally absorbed in that thing - it's always the same - first time you put on one of those you're usually off for five or six hours! Let's do it!'

  But still Lucy pushed him away. 'The Yassaccans are invading the ship!' she protested.

  'That's right!' replied The Journalist. 'We've hardly got time to do it before they arrive! Quick!'

  'Is that all you can think about!?' groaned Lucy. The Journalist was now nuzzling her neck and sending excited shivers down her spine.

  'I told you - once we Blerontinian males get aroused...'

  'Arrgh!' Lucy suddenly screamed. 'And what about the bomb?!'

  Pangalin!' exclaimed The Journalist. 'I'd forgotten about that!' He suddenly whipped a small handset out of one of his many pockets and flipped it on.

  'Twenty-five... twenty-four... twenty-three...' The bomb was counting.

  'Toothless rabbits!' yelled The Journalist, 'it's nearly there!'

  'Twenty-two...' said the bomb.

  'Hey! Bomb!' yelled The Journalist into the phone.

  'Don't talk to me!' moaned the bomb. 'I'm nearly there.. twenty-three... no, I've done that...'

  'We're being invaded!' shouted The Joumalist. 'Twenty-oh... no! Damn! Recommencing countdown. One thousand...'

  The Journalist flipped the phone off and started kissing Lucy's neck and undoing her suit. 'That was close!' he breathed.

  'Whoops! Nearly went down a transistor then!' said Dan. And suddenly Lucy was running her hands all over The Journalist and pulling him down onto the floor.

  'You're crazy!' she murmured...

  18

  The hammering and banging on the outside of the ship had stopped by the time Lucy and The Journalist had struggled back into their clothes. Dan, who was still scrambling around some unseen obstacles on the DataSide, suddenly yelled out: 'They're in the ship!'

  The Journalist grabbed as many weapons as he could carry and headed out of the Crew Room. Down at the far end of the Grand Axial Canal he could see short, stocky figures already slipping onto the jetty. The Journalist settled himself behind a large podium, on which one of the braziers burnt, and took aim. As Lucy joined him, he fired and a series of explosions rocked the jetty and sent the invaders diving for cover.

  The next moment, Lucy felt the air around and above her exploding with light and noise as the Yassaccans returned their fire.

  'Hey! This air-duct goes on for ever!' Lucy span round to see that Dan (still in the VR helmet and totally unconscious of anything that was happening MatterSide) had wandered out through the open door of the Crew Room and was now heading straight for the Grand Axial Canal.

  'DAN!' she screamed, and ran towards him as his feet reached the edge of the embankment. Immediately there was another explosion of noise and light around them, as the Yassaccans fired again. But Lucy had hold of Dan's sleeve. She managed to twist him round on the very edge of the water and pushed him back towards the Crew Room. The Journalist, meanwhile, was firing as fast as he could in the general direction of the invaders. But by now there was so much smoke neither side could see very much.

  'Let's get out of here!' yelled The Journalist and he bundled Lucy after Dan, back into the Crew Room.

  19

  'Who set fire to the curtains?' demanded Bolfass the moment he burst into the Crew Room. He nodded, and a couple of Yassaccan repair workers hurried over to replace them. Bolfass had led his Special Assault Group along a back service corridor to the crew's quarters, while Yellin and Assmal led the frontal attack along the main arteries of the Starship.

  Bolfass loved the finish they had obtained on the service corridor ceiling. It gave him much quiet satisfaction, in the dark of the night, to reflect on the craftsmanship and the high quality of material lavished on even the working areas of the great Starship.

  'Never was there another such construction in the entire history of our people,' he used to tell his grandchildren, as they sat around the evening hearth, eating their dumpling stew and snork crackling. 'Even the curtains in the Crew Rooms were woven from the hair of the silky canadil, which lives high u
p in the Mountains of Merlor, and can only be caught with love and kindness. The hair of the canadil is so fine you must weave it by the light of the moons, for in sunlight it will disappear like snow.' The children loved these tales of craftsmanship and daring feats of engineering.

  It cut Bolfass to the quick to see how someone could mistreat such workmanship. In fact it made him very cross indeed.

  At that very moment, a figure wearing a VR helmet stumbled into the room, followed by two others - one of whom was clearly a treacherous Blerontinian. A black rage swallowed Bolfass whole, and the next moment he had swivelled out his SD handgun and blasted the three newcomers to cosmic dust - their bodies exploded in a supernova of entrails and mangled flesh that quickly reached white-heat and, happily, burnt out before they could besmatter or stain the beautifully hand-lacquered walls.

  Lucy was aware of a violent cacophony of noise and her eyes were whited-out by the most piercing light. She screamed, grabbed onto The Journalist and fell in a faint upon the floor. It was that terrifying.

  Bolfass grinned and blew away the smoke from his SD handgun. His anger assuaged, he twirled the gun on his finger and slipped it back into its holster.

  It has to be explained at this point that the Yassaccans were a peace-loving, kindly race - dedicated to craftsmanship and sober industry. Many of them, however, were also prone to blind, blood-lusting rage when confronted by certain things - such as sloppy workmanship or a disregard for fine hand-crafting. In the distant past these rages had led to terrible destruction of life and property, and, since the moods went as quickly as they came, they had also led to unendurable remorse for many thousands of these otherwise benign and caring folk. The Yassaccan scientists had, therefore, developed the SD weapon, which - unlike the sort of hardware that most military scientists come up with - was designed to reduce death and destruction rather than increase it. The Simulated Destruction weapon - or SD gun - gave the user the momentary impression of having wreaked the bloody revenge that his crazed fury craved - without actually doing any damage. It always surprised and stunned the enemy, but that was all.