Deathtrap

by Craig Alanson

  The alien teenager pointed to the rear door aft of them, a door that had automatically ejected itself clear of the airframe when it received the Bail Out signal. She should have remembered that, she was still instinctively thinking in terms of human aircraft. Nert, having grown up in the high-tech Ruhar culture, instinctively expected mechanisms like aircraft to automatically act to protect him. Understanding that Shauna was less familiar with the alien aircraft, Nert reached over and yanked her harness release mechanism before she could object, then nudged her with a shoulder.

  Shauna did not need an engraved invitation to exit the falling and burning aircraft. Something was burning white-hot under the floor at the front of the cabin, probably a burned-out powercell. Those cells contained enough energy to incinerate her and melt right through the aircraft’s structure, the right side of her face felt hot like a sunburn from just a few seconds of exposure. There was no standing and walking toward the open door, she dropped to her knees and crawled as she best she could, clutching whatever handhold that presented itself and bracing with her feet while debris swirled around the cabin and she was slapped in the face by a loose seat cushion. Nert was right behind her, she could feel the cadet bumping into her as they clumsily made their way aft. At the open door, she hung onto the handholds on both sides, shouting at Nert to go first. In the howling and screaming wind, he couldn’t hear her. Shauna turned to look back when the cadet shoved her hard, and she fell out.

  The parachute did not deploy. She tumbled head over heels, flailing arms and legs before training kicked in and she stabilized her flight. The ground was not close, maybe the smart parachute had judged that, with enemy ordnance flying around the sky, it should let her get closer to the tree cover below before popping open. She had to believe that, had to trust the smart little brain of her parachute. She was in control, falling in a stable position, breathing through the oxygen mask, uninjured except for minor bumps, cuts and bruises. Her clothing was not designed for skydiving, the fabric rippled and flapped painfully against her skin and the air was freezing cold, causing her to shiver. She wanted to curl into a ball and forced herself to keep her arms and legs outward to avoid tumbling. The situation was the best she could expect-

  No!

  She flipped over to fall on her back, frantically searching for Nert. The Buzzard was still above her, falling to the north. One of the wings had broken away and was wind-milling toward the ground on its own, safely far from her but careening across the sky. She would need to watch that the free-falling wing did not arc closer to her. There was no sign the two pilots had ejected, she was too far away to see how much damage the aircraft’s nose had sustained.

  Nert! Where was-

  There he was. Too high above her, he must not have jumped out immediately after she fell out. Or was pushed out, she reminded herself. No matter, Nert was belly-down, skydiving in control, she could tell that much. She tried calling him but her earpiece picked up only static, the enemy must be jamming communications.

  As she watched, transfixed, Nert pushed over to dive head-first, gaining speed and growing closer to her. Her eyes scanned the sky above the cadet, catching a faint image of a cross-shaped object. Missile. That had to be a missile that had decided the Buzzard was already going down, so it deployed its wings, switched to long-range cruise mode and was seeking other targets. Damn it! She needed to know what was-

  The parachute had a computer. It should have received data from the Buzzard’s flight control systems. “Parachute,” she shouted into her oxygen mask, knowing it contained a tiny microphone. “Status! What happened?”

  “We were attacked by twelve MANPAD missiles,” a tinny electronic voice reported. “Nine were destroyed by the proximity defense system, one exploded close to the starboard side. The sensors lost track of the remaining two missiles, but as they have not impacted, they likely have been retargeted. The flight control system stopped reporting after the missile struck. Both pilots are deceased.”

  “Wait. If the control system cut off, how do you know about the pilots?”

  “Their flightsuit computers reported cessation of life functions after the cockpit was impacted by shrapnel,” the voice in her ear reported without emotion.

  Cessation of life functions, Shauna swallowed hard at that thought. Of course the death of two people had no emotional impact on the little parachute computer. “Status of Cadet Dandurf?”

  “Cadet Dandurf is well and being guided to the ground safely. Please assume proper position for parachute deployment,” a tinny voice sounded in her ear. “Please assume proper position for-”

  “I heard you the first time,” Shauna gritted her teeth and twisted her neck to check how close she was to the ground. A lot closer than before she flipped over to fall back-first, but not dangerously close. There was still time to-

  No. She was thinking like a human, she needed to think like a Ruhar and trust Ruhar technology. The parachute’s brain might know something she was not aware of. Or it was simply being cautious about caring for its primitive human passenger. Whatever the case, there was certainly nothing she could do to help Nert. As her mind formed that thought, she flashed through a thin cloud layer and temporarily lost sight of the cadet.

  “Please assume the-”

  “Shut up you stupid thing!” She pulled in one arm and the motion flipped her over facedown, almost too far. It was a struggle to maintain a stable position with her clothing flapping violently. All the training she had done to qualify for spaceborne duty aboard the Ruhar training cruiser, including spacediving from orbit to the surface of Paradise, was of little use to her at the moment. What we really should have trained for is unplanned shit like this, she screamed to herself. No one had trained her for bailing out of a burning aircraft, certainly not for bailing out while dressed for a nice Spring day back home. Training was great, but it was the stuff you hadn’t trained for that was likely to kill you.

  “I’m waiting!” She shouted, the air rushing past her mouth making it difficult to catch her breath. The ground was coming up fast and the stupid parachute computer had not deployed. “Oh, screw this,” she muttered, flipping to fall feet-first and clutching her arms at waist level, feeling for the parachute’s manual release handle.

  “Parachute release would be premature at this time,” the mechanical voice advised her. “Conditions will be optimal in seven seconds.”

  Shauna lifted a finger off the manual release. Trust the technology, she reminded herself. That was easier to say before she was close enough to see individual trees rushing up toward her. Trees? Hell, she could see something the size of a rabbit running across a clearing! When was the stupid chute computer going to deploy? At the last second, it occurred to Shauna that the parachute might not know she is human. It could be planning to set her down with enough force to break human bones. Maybe she should forget about trusting-

  No, the parachute computer did know she was human, it spoke to her in a human language. She had to trust the little electronic brain to take care of her.

  The chute deployed, much more gently than she had feared. All of her jumps before were using tactical chutes, and she had always been wearing protective gear like a skinsuit. The emergency chute she wore either understood she was human, or it was designed to handle its inexperienced user softly, because the first thing that happened was nanofiber straps tightening around her shoulders and waist, then a drogue chute deployed. No, it was a drogue balloon, just large enough to tug on her shoulders and get her feet pointed straight down. Instead of the balloon being discarded and pulling out a typical parachute, the balloon expanded rapidly, changing shape into a triangular wing and becoming nearly invisible. With the helmet blocking her vision, she had to crane her neck back to see the balloon. At first, she feared the rapid fluttering of the balloon’s edges meant it was falling apart, then she realized the thing was steering itself by adjusting its shape. Damn it! If she had a skinsuit or even a skinsuit helmet, she could see where and how the parachute
computer was guiding her, she could also change the drop zone. There was no manual control of the chute she wore, it was designed to safely set down inexperienced or injured people, so it needed to think for itself.

  Trust the technology.

  Below her was thick forest dotted with small clearings where old trees had fallen, her feet were pointing to one such clearing that she could see was a tangle of broken branches. If the stupid computer intended to set her down there, she was in trouble. Shauna reached down to her boot and pulled out a knife, if needed, she could cut herself free from the parachute straps. The front clasps of the damned vest were designed not to release in flight, she was stuck with it.

  To her relief, the balloon expanded and changed shape again, she felt the ground fall away as the balloon lifted her over a tall stand of trees that were reaching up to tangle around her feet. Then she was flying over a stream, the only break in the tree canopy. The balloon hung in place, steering itself to remain motionless in the breeze that ruffled the leaves below. Instead of deflating, the balloon maintained its altitude while the straps lengthened, lowering Shauna to splash up to her knees on the stony bottom of the stream. She felt herself being tugged backward as the breeze pushed the balloon away, before she could even reach up with her knife, the straps severed from the vest and the balloon drifted away where its nanofabric would dissolve so the material did not give away her position to the enemy.

  Shauna slogged out of the stream, getting wet to her waist because the smart little parachute computer had set her down on a shallow spot in the middle of the water. She moved quietly to not splash loudly in the water. Wherever she had landed, she was in enemy territory.

  A sound! She heard a muffled artificial sound, like someone shouting. An enemy patrol searching for her? Jamming the knife back in its ankle holster, she drew her sidearm, a Ruhar dart-throwing pistol. Its magazine held sixteen four-millimeter darts with explosive tips, and she had one spare magazine on her belt. The pistol was a fine, lightweight weapon that was easy to use and good for close-quarters work and she was absolutely dead if she got into combat against a Kristang equipped with a rifle. The pistol could only be aimed by her primitive human eyes and hands, without a skinsuit helmet she could not target the darts with a laser designator or use sophisticated infrared and motion sensors. Kristang rifles almost always carried a rocket launcher under the barrel, so the enemy could fire at her from a safe distance and would only need a close impact for the rocket warhead’s shrapnel to slice apart her unprotected body. Her only hope of surviving combat was to get close before the enemy saw her, and if the enemy was wearing powered armor, her darts would need a very lucky direct hit on a fast-moving target. Unlikely.

  She crouched down behind a tree, pointing the pistol in the general direction of the sound she’d heard. The sound did not repeat, making her guess at the direction.

  “Na!” The sound came from the east being partly carried away from her by the freshening breeze. “Aw! Ah!”

  What the hell? Why were the Kristang breaking battle discipline by shouting to each other? Even if the Legion was jamming the lizard’s comms, the soldiers on the ground should have line-of-sight laserlink signals between their helmets.

  Then something clicked in her mind. The sound was not ‘Aw Ah’. It was Shauna. Someone was calling her name!

  Nert came drifting into view above the stream before she saw the faint outline of his parachute balloon, the teenager’s legs pressed tightly together to dampen his swinging as the straps lowered him toward the stream. “Shauna?” His discipline slipped as he saw her, his face lighting up with a huge grin and one arm waving

  “Nerty!” She pushed the pistol back in its holster and strode out into the water, noticing the parachute was lowering the Ruhar cadet faster than she had dropped. Or maybe it just seemed that way. Nert might have been showing off for her, because he crouched in a landing position just before the straps cut loose, making him sprawl backwards into a pool of water. He came up waving his arms, sputtering and grinning.

  “Hello Shauna! I am pleased to see you are well.”

  “I’m happy you’re in one piece too, Nerty. Why didn’t you bail out right behind me?”

  “Oh,” the corners of his lips turned down in a sheepish expression. “Because we were bailing out over enemy territory, I thought we would be up Shit Creek.” He looked down at his feet, up to his knees in water. He reached back and unslung a rifle with two spare magazines clipped to the barrel, and an undermounted rocket launcher. “So, I brought us a paddle,” he grinned.

  “Shit Creek?” She cocked her head and laughed with relief. “Is that something Jesse taught you?”

  “No, I learned it from Surgun Jates,” Nert’s face fell. “Should I not have said that?”

  “It’s fine,” she waved a hand irritably. “Just didn’t expect to hear it from you.” In truth, she was irritated at herself for not grabbing a rifle from the locker beside the Buzzard’s door. The teenage cadet had a cooler head than her, and that shamed her. “Get out of the water.”

  “Would you like the rifle?”

  She thought for a moment and shook her head. With both of them lacking skinsuits, Nert was the superior soldier, he could run faster and aim and fire the rifle with much greater precision. “You keep it,” she patted her sidearm. “If we get into a firefight, we’re in trouble anyway.”

  What to do next? She considered what little she knew. The chute computer said the Buzzards had been attacked by MANPADs. MAN Portable Air Defense missiles. Small and relatively short-range shoulder-fired missiles like the Kristang Zingers she had trained with on Paradise, before the Ruhar took that planet back. They were fired from the ground, so there was probably not a hostile aircraft up there searching for survivors. It also meant there was not a large anti-aircraft battery nearby, only a group of enemy soldiers. Kristang doctrine called for two-man teams to deploy Zingers, so a dozen missiles launched meant at least twenty-four hostiles in the area, plus soldiers to support and protect the missileers. “Nert, we need to get out of here pronto, enemy sensors probably tracked us down to this site.”

  Nert’s brow furrowed as he thought. “Two survivors are not worth sending a search team, especially since the enemy force appears to be dedicated to an anti-air mission,” he speculated. “If they leave their assigned location, that would create a gap in their air defenses.”

  Shauna was taken aback by the cool analysis by the goofy-looking teenager, his earnest expression made slightly ridiculous by the rodent-like teeth overhanging his lower lip. “Uh, yeah, right. Let’s not take a chance, Ok?”

  “Leaving this area will make it more difficult for a search and rescue team to identify our position,” Nert explained like an adult talking to a small child. Or like an advanced alien talking to a primitive human. “We should-”

  Reminding herself that getting angry with Nert right then would not be helpful, she made a cutting motion across her throat. “Perhaps I didn’t make myself clear, Cadet Dandurf,” she tapped the sergeant stripes on her uniform. “We are leaving the area. What you did not consider is the enemy may have enough manpower to perform their AA mission, and hunt for us. They could even just send lizard civilians out to search this area. Or, they could lob a couple antipersonnel artillery rounds at us. The Legion could be overwhelmed right now, there isn’t going to be a rescue sent out until our forces establish control of the air and-”

  Her words were cut off by a trio of hot streaks burning down through the atmosphere, making her hold up a hand to protect her eyes. Seconds later, there was a bright flash to the west, followed by a roiling mushroom cloud. And, by the time Shauna was able to blink away the spots swimming in her vision, the ground beneath her feet trembled.

  Nert’s mouth gaped open. “Wha- what in holy hell was that?”

  Shauna thought there were times when the boy’s translator should have used less colorful language. “Something got hit. Something big enough to be worth targeting three railgun dart
s. What have we got over there?” She asked, pulling out her zPhone and clicking to the map function. “Whatever was there,” she squinted at the map, “it ain’t there now.”

  “All I see is a Legion logistics base, and,” Nert manipulated the map on his phone. “A supply dump.” He looked up at her. “Supplies for the colony contractor. Sergeant Jarrett,” Nert had caught on that formality was appropriate in their situation. “Why do you assume the target was a Legion facility? That railgun could be our fleet hitting a Kristang target.”

  Shauna jerked her head to indicate they could talk while they marched. She set off into the woods at a fast walking pace, expecting they would be walking for many hours. “The Kristang aren’t stupid. They wouldn’t have planned an uprising where their forces are concentrated enough to provide a legit target for a railgun, and your fleet wouldn’t hit civilian areas, not at this stage,” she explained. To herself she added, civilian areas would get hit if the lizards were using them as bases and the Legion was growing desperate.

  Nert frowned, not convinced. He walked beside her, his longer strides eating up ground. “Why,” he pointed to the mushroom cloud that was already being torn apart by the wind, “are we going toward the target zone?”

  “First, because if there are Legion soldiers in the area, they might get us out of here.” She did not mention that Legion headquarters was roughly in the same direction. When the Buzzard was attacked, they were less than sixty kilometers from the headquarters complex at one of the massive cargo launchers at the planet’s equator. The desperate and ultimately futile evasive action by the pilots had saved their lives.