Deathtrap

by Craig Alanson

  “I don’t know if we could calculate how much heat is leaking into the marsh,” Shauna didn’t want to squash Dave’s enthusiasm, she also didn’t see a way they could make sense of the data.

  “Maybe we don’t have to,” Jesse said before slurping coffee that was too hot. “Ah! Damn that’s hot. Listen up, we can figure whether the outlet pipes are leaking, and how much.”

  “How’s that?” Perkins looked up. She was again reminded how lucky she was that the Ruhar had pulled together herself, Jarrett, Colter and Czajka for interrogation to determine how much they knew about Joe Bishop’s theft of a dropship. The answer to that question was zero, none of them had any idea why or how Bishop had managed to fly a sophisticated airspace craft, what he had done with it or where he went. The four of them, with Irene Striebich and later Derek Bonsu, had reactivated hidden maser cannons and blasted a Kristang battlegroup out of orbit. If she had not been brought in for interrogation, she might never have met the team now called ‘Mavericks’.

  “Simple math,” Jesse answered with a grin. “Simple for the computer, anyways. We check the river flow above the inlet pipes, below the outlet pipes and in between. There’s a stream dumping water into the river downstream of the inlet pipes, but we should have a way to estimate the inflow from that stream.”

  “Hmm,” Shauna hummed as her finger flew over the keyboard. “We can calculate that. Yup, yeah, there is less water flowing from the outlet pipes than there should be. About eleven thousand gallons per hour less. That’s a lot. That water must be leaking into the marsh.”

  “That water sure is going somewhere,” Jesse accepted a high-five from Dave. “Darlin’, uh, Sergeant Jarrett, how much heat would eleven thousand gallons an hour contain?”

  “That, um.” The computer had that info somewhere. It took Shauna a minute to find it. “If we add that much heat back in, the fusion plant is now generating six point five percent more heat than it should.”

  “Above the margin of error,” Perkins noted with satisfaction. “This is good work, people. Jarrett, put our findings in a file and I’ll talk to the Verds.”

  Jesse was not pleased by that. “We’re letting them hog all the glory?”

  Perkins sat back in her chair. “Remember what I said about teamwork? The Verds are in our team.”

  “Yeah, ‘Pone,” Dave agreed. “The Kristang are the enemy. Them, and the Commissioner’s office,” he added with a wink.

  “Besides, we don’t have any means of checking these sites,” Perkins observed. “The Verds have better toys than we do.”

  “Ma’am,” Shauna had to stifle a yawn despite the coffee she’d been drinking. “What will we be doing?”

  Their commanding officer thought for a moment. “Jarrett, you take Nert and fly to this fusion plant, coordinate with the Verds. They’ll hear about this soon and you need to explain your search strategy to them. I’m flying out in,” she checked her zPhone, “two hours to meet General Ross, I’ll brief him in person. Dave, er, Czajka,” her cheeks flushed red. “You’re escorting the inspection team at that hydropower dam, keep to that schedule. Colter, there’s a flight to Verd-kris headquarters this morning. You go smooth things over with their intel people. If we do find something dangerous hidden under one of those fusion plants, the Verds are going to be mighty embarrassed that we figured it out before them.”

  “Smooth it over?” Jesse gulped. “Me? Um, how am I doing that?”

  “Be charming, Jesse,” Shauna reached over and stroked his arm. “You can be very charming, when you think it will get you something.”

  “Uh-” It was Jesse’s turn to turn red with embarrassment.

  “What I want to know is, sure the Verds have better toys. But how will they check those sites?” Dave asked.

  Perkins’ mouth straightened into a grimace. “The Verds keep telling us how much smarter they are than us poor humans. They’ll figure something out.”

  The Verd-kris first asked themselves the question of how to investigate the source of excess heat, when they received the information from the Mavericks. No, that wasn’t correct. First, they asked themselves why they had not considered looking for excess heat generated by the fusion plants. Then they wasted almost an hour double-checking Shauna’s analysis before admitting that three power plants indeed were throwing out an unusual amount of heat, with no reasonable explanation. A more detailed analysis, which the Verds prided themselves was something the humans could not have done, revealed those three power plants were also putting less electricity into the local grid than was expected. Old and poorly-maintained equipment could not explain where all the lost energy was going, and it had to be going somewhere. Like to a powerful stealth field concealing a network of caverns and tunnels under the reactors.

  Before kicking their findings up the chain to their hamster overlords, the Verd-kris headquarters intelligence team agreed they needed more solid data. To get that data, they had an opportunity to use a toy provided by the Ruhar: tiny submarine drones. A swarm of tiny drones would swim up the cooling outlet pipes and separate to find the sources of heat. Though the pipes had screens to filter out contaminants and prevent sabotage, the drones were small and slender enough to slip through grates and screens in the pipes.

  Because the three suspect power plants were behind the lines, in territory controlled and cleared by the Legion, the Verds could simply have flown in a set of submersible drones and asked the engineering teams to deploy them through hatches in the pipes. A request to do that would have taken hours, even days, to work its way up the proper channels and back down again, and the Ruhar were sure to hear about the proposed operation.

  Instead, the intel office at Verd-kris HQ made an error in judgment. They requisitioned an aircraft to fly low over the river downstream of one fusion plant and drop a swarm of drones into the water. As the aircraft came in low and slow, its back ramp opened and bundles of drones spilling out to splash on the surface and disappear, technicians at the plant became alarmed and reported the incident. Those technicians included Ruhar and Verd-kris, plus a handful of the Kristang who had operated the reactors before the Legion arrived. The Kristang might have secretly reported what they saw, or maybe none of them had the opportunity to alert their fellow clan members.

  It did not matter what the Kristang technicians did, because sensors hidden around the power plant noticed the low-flying aircraft, and the Kristang who monitored those sensors soon knew something odd was going on.

  They also knew their secret was about to be exposed.

  “Nerty,” Shauna leaned toward the alien teenager seated beside her in the Buzzard, speaking just loud enough to be heard as the pilots ran the turbines up to check engines before takeoff. “Are you Ok? You look nervous.”

  “Me? No,” he shook his head, his slightly quivering lower lip betraying his true feelings. That and the trembling fingertips.

  “I’ve never seen you be worried about flying,” she added in a lower voice, then stopped talking as the howling turbines throttled up again and the aircraft leapt off the ground.

  Nert sat stiffly, hands clutched together in his lap, staring straight ahead until the Buzzard transitioned to level flight and the engine sound faded. “I am not afraid of flying. I am afraid of being shot down. This is a combat zone,” he reminded her.

  “Ah, yeah,” she understood. “Don’t worry about it. True, this whole planet is the front line, but, we are safe for now.”

  “How can you be sure?” His accusing look told her that he did not like being told sweet comforting lies. He wore a cadet’s uniform and he was no longer a child.

  “It makes sense,” Shauna shrugged. “We know the lizards plan to split the Legion by forcing their Keeper slaves into gladiator contests. That’s their big play, they set it up even before the Legion was officially assigned to this rock. It must have cost them a lot to transport all those Keepers here, no way would they risk spoiling all their preparations by attacking early.”

  Nert’s b
row furrowed in a very human-like expression. “That does make sense.”

  From his tone, Shauna guessed the cadet was not fully convinced. “If this were a strategic planning exercise at the Academy, how would you assess the risk of the Kristang starting a fight right now?”

  Nert’s expression brightened. “Minimal,” he answered. “You are correct. The lizards are bloodthirsty and self-control is not one of their strengths, however they can be patient when doing that gives them a useful tactical advantage. They will wait to see if sacrificing the Sleepers,” he grimaced in disgust, “causes part of the human force to break discipline.”

  “Uh huh, yeah. That’s what HQ is thinking,” she agreed.

  “Sergeant Jarrett?”

  “What, Nerty?” She did not like being formal with the boy.

  “Are the lizards correct? Will a significant part of the human force act against orders, to free the Keepers?”

  Shauna shook her head and stared at the deck. “I don’t know, Nert. Really, I don’t.”

  “What about you?” He lowered his voice, though the other four passengers were out of earshot in the front of the cabin.

  “Me?” She looked up to meet his gaze. “I don’t know that for sure either. My plan is not to watch or listen to any of the gladiator games, but,” she bit her lip. “I’ll hear about it one way or another. It’s hard to watch your own people being slaughtered.”

  To her utter surprise, Nert took her hand in his and squeezed. “We are your people now. All of us who fight against the Kristang. Jesse, Sergeant Colter, told me the Keepers made their choice before they left Gehtanu. They have,” he squinted in concentration. “They have selected their beds, now they must sleep in them?”

  Shauna gave Nert points for remembering a human expression, even if he hadn’t gotten it exactly correct. He had made the effort to speak to her in her own language, that meant a lot. She squeezed his hand back. “Jesse is right about that. Can I ask you a question?”

  “Of course.”

  “What are,” she almost said ‘your people’. “The Ruhar here saying about how they expect humans to react?”

  Nert did not look directly at her. “Um, well. The officers I have heard spoke admiringly about the Kristang strategy. No matter what happens here, the Kristang have sowed doubt about how reliable the human part of the Legion will be in future operations. The Legion concept does not work without humans. My people,” he said without thinking, “will not trust the Verd-kris by themselves.”

  “That’s what I thought,” Shauna replied, echoing what Perkins had told her. “No point worrying about it now,” she leaned back and pulled her helmet down to shade her eyes from the overhead lighting. “We’ve got a long flight, let’s get some rest.”

  Jesse rubbed sleep away from his eyes and covered his mouth as he yawned while strapping into his seat in the surprisingly crowded Buzzard. Maybe, he realized, he should not be surprised. The continuing shortage of flightworthy aircraft meant that people who needed to go somewhere had to squeeze into whatever transport was available. Still, the few times he had flown on Fresno had been aboard aircraft filled more with supplies than people.

  What was surprising was the number of aliens seated in the cabin. That particular aircraft was operated by humans, he could see the two pilots were human and the crew chief at the bottom of the ramp was human. Yet, six of the passengers had the fur-covered faces of the Ruhar, and wore their uniforms. There was also a Verd-kris female and Jesse noted all the Ruhar seemed to avoid speaking with or even looking at the Verd. The friendly lizard looked back at Jesse with a neutral expression, then nodded slightly. Jesse returned the gesture and ignored the Ruhar. The hamsters were too good to talk with lowly humans and lizards? Fine, he thought, Fuck them.

  After a couple minutes of inactivity, he leaned to speak with one of the pilots, who was lounging against the rear of the cockpit bulkhead. “Hey, Ma’am,” he addressed the French Air Force officer. “What are we waiting for?”

  The woman did not answer, instead pointing toward the open rear ramp of the aircraft. Boots stomped on the ramp and a woman wearing the double silver bar insignia for a captain in the United States Army tucked a bag under the seat next to Jesse and began strapping in.

  “Now, we go,” the pilot announced sourly, hitting the button to close the rear ramp and going forward into the cockpit.

  “Colter,” the Army woman said as she read Jesse’s nametag. Then her eyes opened wider as she saw his unit insignia. “Maverick, huh?”

  “Yes, Ma’am. Sergeant Jesse Colter.”

  “Captain Dani Grace,” she replied. “I met your pilots, last week it was, I think. Striebich and Bonsu?’

  “That’s them all right. Oh, hey,” Jesse turned in his seat excitedly. “I heard about that. Were you the one who gave that lizard a smackdown?” He laughed with delight.

  “Officially, I must say that indulging in insults would be unbecoming an officer.”

  “Uh huh, sure thing,” Jesse agreed with a twinkle in his eyes. “Unofficially?”

  “It was delicious,” she winked.

  It was a long flight and after chatting with the captain for a while, Jesse leaned back, pulled his helmet low over his face, and slept. He was still asleep when the war started. Jesse’s notification that the conflict had begun was not in the polite form of an engraved invitation. It was in the form of the aircraft dropping abruptly, sending his stomach fluttering up into his mouth and jerking him rudely into awareness. “What the-” He started to say, before having to clamp his mouth shut hard so his breakfast didn’t end up all over the cabin. Zero gee training had not bothered him once he’d gotten used to it, the problem he had that morning was the unexpectedness of the event.

  Then he got a real treat as the bottom dropped out, hard. Before, the Buzzard had been falling, now the engines howled in a power dive and what had been a sensation of zero gravity became negative gees. Holy shit! He fought down both his breakfast and rising panic. He knew from talking with Irene and Derek that the Buzzard was a transport aircraft and not a fighter. An airframe was designed to take a certain amount of positive gee load, but how many negative gees could it take before the wings snapped off or something critical failed?

  Jesse never found the answer to that question, because the Buzzard abruptly pulled up hard, crushing him down in his seat. The cabin vibrated so violently he thought the wings had broken away, only the tortured screaming of the engines assured him they were still somehow attached.

  Then the Buzzard inverted.

  Bags and other improperly secured gear flew around the cabin, crashing into the ceiling that had become the floor. The inverted flight lasted only long enough for Jesse to begin a prayer that was cut off when the Buzzard snap-rolled back into the position that God had intended things to fly, and Jesse faintly heard the whoosh sound of missiles launching, accompanied by the aircraft bouncing upward as it was suddenly lighter by the weight of four missiles.

  “Shit!” He shouted to add to the din in the cabin, unheard because most other people were also shouting something. “That’s not good!”

  Bzzzzzzzt! Bzzzzzzt!

  The defensive maser turrets fired two long pulses, then cycled into rapid-fire mode. Bzzt bzzt bzzt bzzt!

  “That is really not good,” he shouted at Captain Grace, who wisely was in the proper tuck position for a crash. No, what? Jesse could not believe his eyes. She was bent over her freakin’ phone? What the hell could she be doing with-

  Jesse followed the Captain’s lead, pulling out his phone and putting it firmly between his knees.

  War.

  There was one text message on his phone screen: a general alert from the Legion that announced wide-spread fighting broken out on and around Fresno, in coordinated attacks. Jesse’s mental response was ‘No shit Sherlock’ to that very helpful message. What he found more useful was the little signal strength icon, which was blank, and a blinking warning that communications were being jammed.

&n
bsp; Jamming meant he could not get a message, perhaps a final message, to Shau-

  Shauna!

  She and Nert were also flying that morning. If Legion aircraft were being shot at, then she was in danger.

  Jesse reached back and patted his sidearm, looking forward at the locker that contained rifles. He was going to survive. He was going to live, and he was going to assure Shauna lived, and he was going to kill a whole lot of lizards who were threatening the love of his life. Whatever thought he had next was chased away by the aircraft jerking upward, then sinking violently and rolling as there was a loud BANG and the right side of the cabin was suddenly peppered with holes. Air shrieked through the holes, an ear-piercing scream that made Jesse brace again and cover his ears with his hands.

  After that, Jesse had only a jumble of confused memories as the stricken aircraft tumbled through the sky. At some point he heard an automated voice faintly shouting Brace Brace Brace in English and repeating the warning in multiple alien and human languages. The voice being automated gave him a sick feeling, because it meant the pilots did not have time to give a warning.

  Or, there were no pilots alive beyond the cockpit door.

  Over the shriek of wind coming through holes in the Buzzard’s skin, Jesse could not tell whether the defensive maser cannons were still firing, or whether either of the engines was running. He looked up just long enough to see something tall and black flash past a gaping hole in the hull.