Deathtrap

by Craig Alanson

  Using drones to cut internal power sources worked only a few times. In some cases, cutting one power source caused a backup source to kick in, and there were often multiple backup sources. The design philosophy of Kristang engineers was to build equipment to be rugged with multiple backups, because they knew once the equipment got into the field, proper maintenance was never going to happen. Even if by some miracle, clan leadership had provided funding for technicians and spare parts, the warriors who relied on the equipment would never bother to read the recommended maintenance schedule.

  So, cutting off all power generation inside an asteroid base often took as much time as a full search would have. Then, they had to conduct a full search anyway, to be certain.

  “Scan is not showing anything that wasn’t declared, Ma’am,” Derek reported. That particular asteroid, on the official charts as a base for search and rescue equipment for a mining operation, was a small facility and appeared to have been stripped clean of anything useful.

  Dave unbuckled the straps that held him into the Dodo’s seat. “That only means that if we do find anything in there, it is nasty enough to be worth hiding behind a stealth field. Shauna, we’re up, it’s our turn.”

  “Wait,” Jesse did not like his girlfriend risking her life on an away mission, even though she had cleared asteroids before. The crew rotation schedule required Jesse to rest, so Dave and Shauna were putting their suits back on. “We got a clean scan, right? The drone cut the power, so nothing is blocking our scanners?” He looked hopefully to Derek, who shook his head.

  “Cutting power reduces interference with the scanners,” Perkins replied with a trace of irritation. “It does not guarantee there are no hazards in there. You know the drill, Colter.”

  “Yes, Ma’am,” Jesse straightened in his seat, catching a pissed-off look from Shauna. She hated it when he tried to protect her. “I was hoping the scan could tell the away team the best places to look, if there is anything hidden in there.”

  Derek lifted an eyebrow, and tilted his head. “That’s not a bad idea, Colter. Colonel,” he turned to Perkins, “we can narrow the search. If the away team can verify this section of the base really is carved out of this loosely-packed material,” he gestured to the display in front of him, “we can eliminate sixty percent of the search zone. We know Kristang stealth fields don’t work well in that type of material, it makes the field edges fuzzy and easy to detect. Anything hidden would have to be here, deeper toward the center of this rock.”

  Perkins considered the matter. “Bonsu, is there anything in the hamster ops manual about this?”

  Derek lifted his hands. “Not that I could find, Ma’am. Either they don’t know about it, or they aren’t sharing it with us.”

  “More likely they tried it a long time ago, and it didn’t work,” Perkins frowned. “All right, it’s worth a shot. Czajka, Jarrett, I want three points of reference before we write off sixty percent of the search zone as cleared. We humans can’t afford any screw-ups out here.”

  Dave shared a knowing look with Shauna and nodded just before he pulled on his suit helmet. No screw-ups meant they would be searching the entire area anyway, to prove Derek’s method worked. It was going to be a long afternoon. Again.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  After his failure at Pradassis, where hidden maser cannons planted below the surface of that world had blasted his battlegroup out of orbit, and then he had lost a war of attrition to the Ruhar fleet, Admiral Kekrando had been recalled home by Swift Arrow clan leadership. The voyage to his clan’s homeworld had been aboard a Kristang warship, but the trip began with his ships attached to a Jeraptha star carrier. Having his ships forcibly disarmed and transported by an enemy carrier had been humiliating, and the beetles had taken the opportunity to mock their defeated captives and play practical jokes for their own amusement. When Kekrando finally reached his clan’s homeworld, he expected a quick show trial followed by a public execution, but that had not happened. Instead, he had remained under house arrest at his country estate, surrounded by his wives, children and the usual collection of servants, as if nothing had changed. What had changed was he could not leave the estate, and no one was interested in visiting him to seek his counsel and influence. Understandably, no Kristang with any sense wanted to be associated with the disgraced former admiral.

  Days, then weeks went by, without a summons for a show trial. Cautiously, Kekrando had reached out through private channels and discovered the reason he was still alive: senior clan leaders were fighting over who would gain wealth and power when Kekrando died.

  Jet-au-Bes Kekrando was, in addition to being a senior military leader, also a minor clan official. According to clan law, his uncle Verk-al-Ren Tahromen would inherit all of his nephew’s possessions and authority, and that arrangement was unacceptable to many senior clan leaders. With his nephew’s wealth and power added to his own, Tahromen could make a bid to join the ranks of senior leadership, and that would upset the delicate balance of power within the senior ranks. So, ever since Kekrando lost his battle at Pradassis, a fierce political battle had raged within the clan’s leadership, with infighting, assassinations both successful and attempted, and an amount of double-dealing and backstabbing that was impressive even by the standards of Kristang society. Tahromen had barely survived an attempt on his life, which prompted him to take out an insurance policy, in the form of offering to throw his support behind the clan leaders who gave him the best deal. Until that issue was settled, the lives of both Tahromen and his disgraced nephew were safe.

  Then a savage civil war had broken out across Kristang society, and severe early losses by the Swift Arrow clan had caused the senior leaders to swallow their pride and call the experienced Kekrando back into service, although at the lowly rank of senior captain. Kekrando had been given the task of rescuing Feznako. If he succeeded, the clan leaders could take credit. If he failed, then the clan leaders would suffer no additional loss of face. And if the former admiral died in action, well, that would solve many problems.

  Emily Perkins was giving a briefing to her bored team, who she could see were struggling to pay attention. Except for Nert, who as a teenage cadet, of course found the tedious mission exciting and fascinating. “-the same as before, we scan the rock remotely, then-”

  She was interrupted by Derek’s call from the Dodo’s cockpit. “Colonel! We’re picking up an emergency call from the Warshon.”

  The team instantly broke out of their lethargy and looked at the open door to the cockpit. “Combat alert?” Perkins asked anxiously. If Kristang ships were attacking, her team was in trouble. Their Dodo was exposed in empty space between the cruiser and the edge of the asteroid field. The cruiser Warshon was closer, but in spaceflight, time mattered more than distance. To return to the cruiser would require cancelling the Dodo’s forward momentum, then accelerating in the opposite direction. It would be faster to burn hard straight ahead for the asteroid field, and try to hide among the spinning rocks there. Or the vulnerable Dodo could engage stealth, use cold thrusters to alter course without leaving detectable emissions, and hope to ride out the battle by hiding. None of those options were attractive if the Kristang had arrived in force to take the star system back.

  “No, Ma’am,” Derek assured her. “It’s a distress call. Looks like some hamsters, I mean, Ruhar,” he stumbled at remembering Nert was with them. “Got in trouble. Tripped a booby trap or something. We’re the closest unit able to respond.”

  Perkins knew that was not entirely true. The Warshon could jump in near the site, skipping ahead of the Maverick’s Dodo if the situation were serious enough. Moving the cruiser would disrupt flight operations all across the sector assigned to the Warshon, and would be considered only if that ship’s captain thought the starship’s additional resources would be useful. The fact that the flight director aboard the cruiser was assigning a team of humans to respond, meant the situation was not serious enough to move the ship, but desperate enough to bring in
untested aliens. “Signal the Warshon we will comply, and change our course. Everyone, strap in,” she noted with pride that she was the only person not already securely in a seat. The Mavericks knew that a distress call meant the Dodo would be burning its engines hard instead of the constant acceleration they had experienced since getting clear of the Warshon. “I’ll review the call from here,” Emily added as she punched up the message on her console. In the past, she would have insisted on being in the cockpit, feeling like that gave her a greater sense of control and that was true. It gave her a greater sense of control, it did little to improve her situational awareness, and it annoyed and distracted the pilots. Her being in the cockpit, sometimes with the bulkhead door closed, made Shauna, Dave and Jesse feeling they were being excluded from important decisions. So, she cinched her seat straps tighter as she heard the pitch of the engine sound increasing and the Dodo veered left onto a new course.

  “What’s up, Colonel?” Shauna prodded four minutes later, after the three gee acceleration cut out and the dropship resumed the steady point eight gees of thrust. Perkins had been reading the message and talking to herself, her lips moving silently.

  “Oh,” Emily pulled herself out of her reverie. “Bonsu was right. It is a distress call. A Ruhar team got into trouble clearing asteroid A-4, and we are to provide assistance.”

  “A-4?” Jesse repeated, surprised. Such a low number meant the asteroid was high on the registry. “That’s a big one, huh?”

  “It’s big for an asteroid. It’s like the asteroid Ceres in our home solar system, A-4 is three hundred kilometers across. Big enough for gravity to pull it into a sphere. Technically, it’s a dwarf planet. Says here,” she scrolled down the report. “The Ruhar think it wandered in from the outer star system, because its chemical composition is different from most rocks in the asteroid belt here. Anyway,” she didn’t see how that bit of trivia was useful. “The lizards sunk deep tunnels into A-4, probably intended to install defenses there. Something went wrong, an explosion two hundred years ago blew a big chunk out of one side, and the Kristang mostly abandoned the place. Supposedly, they abandoned it. They gave the Ruhar very detailed plans for the tunnels and caverns they dug under the surface of that rock, suspiciously detailed,” she hinted. The Kristang were notorious for providing partial information, confusing and conflicting data, and outright lying about the number, location and status of facilities in star systems they surrendered to the Ruhar. So, it was highly suspicious when the lizards provided what looked like complete information.

  “Rescue mission, huh?” Jesse pulled out his tablet, eager to get the details. “We’ll be going down to pull the ham- Ruhar out?” Damn it, he told himself, he needed to remember that Nert was now with them.

  “It is a rescue mission, but we will not be the primary team to attempt to pull out the crew that is trapped and possibly injured,” Perkins explained.

  “Aw, man,” Dave slapped a knee in disgust. “What, we’re second string on this one, again?” He shared a dejected look with Jesse. “They’ll probably make us park this ship somewhere, use us to relay communications.”

  “That is bullshit,” Jesse agreed. “Sorry, Colonel.”

  She arched an eyebrow. “For your language, or for thinking it is bullshit that the Ruhar don’t trust us to handle the important jobs?”

  “Uh,” Jesse blushed. “Both.”

  “This time, we’re not being dissed by our allies. We are not the primary team, because there is already a crew working their way down the tunnel that collapsed or blew up or whatever happened. We would only get in their way. Our mission will be to explore side tunnels that may provide alternate access to where the team is trapped.”

  “Well, all right then,” Jesse exchanged a high-five with Dave. “Finally, some respect.”

  “Respect, if,” Perkins added. “We don’t trip another booby trap and need to get rescued. We do this by the book, no shortcuts.”

  “Ma’am,” Shauna looked up from her tablet. “The Ruhar don’t know if these side tunnels connect to the target location?” The situation appeared to be clear and simple, according to the diagram the Kristang had provided, of the facilities buried under asteroid A-4.

  “No, they don’t,” Perkins rolled her eyes. “I know this is going to shock everyone, but the initial team that surveyed A-4, found the layout of that base does not exactly match the diagrams the lizards gave us.”

  “Fucking lizards,” Dave spat. “How bad is it?”

  “We only have,” the Mavericks commander tapped her tablet, “accurate data on fifteen percent of the base. That’s as far as the initial team got, before the accident happened.”

  Shauna whistled as she compared the Ruhar data to the info provided by the Kristang. “There are entire chambers down there, that aren’t listed on the diagram.”

  Perkins nodded, but held up a finger for caution. “Some of those chambers were sealed off, the lizards will probably say they left them off the diagram, because they were only used during construction. They may be telling the truth about some of the chambers, the Ruhar scans show they are empty and were sealed off before the base was completed.”

  “Yeah,” Dave scoffed. “They look empty. There could be anything in there, hidden in a stealth field. Although,” he looked at the data more closely. “I see the Ruhar team that got stuck down there did use active scanners. They would have detected a stealth field, right?” He directed the question to Shauna.

  “If it’s a standard Kristang stealth unit, sure,” she confirmed. “The specs on the Ruhar detection gear say they can detect the resonance of a Kristang stealth field, certainly with an active scan at that short range even through the rock of that asteroid.”

  “Yeah, that’s according to our furry friends,” Dave was still skeptical. “No offense, Nert. I have too much experience with defense contractors padding their stats, and saying their gear can do stuff that it really can’t in the field.”

  “I do not take offense, Mister Dave,” Nert assured his human friend.

  “This data looks legit,” Shauna announced. “Dave, this is very short range. The only way the lizards could have hidden something that close to an active scan, is if they bought a stealth unit from the Thuranin. Even then,” she brushed a stray hair out of her eyes. “I wouldn’t want to bet on a stealth field concealing something larger than a baseball.”

  “I don’t see the lizards paying a boatload for a Thuranin stealth field, to hide something down there,” Jesse shook his head. “Anything that important, the lizards would have removed it before they surrendered the place.”

  “Ok, yeah, that makes sense,” Dave agreed. “It’s still sketchy.”

  Perkins thought it was sketchy too, but she had orders to send her team down under the surface of A-4, whether the diagrams were accurate or not. “That’s why we will be extra careful down there. We will not be racing through tunnels to get to the target site. We proceed like a normal sweep, we can’t afford to miss some side tunnel that might give us access to the people who are trapped.”

  “Em,” Dave used his private nickname for Emily Perkins, because he was distracted by trying to trace the maze-like tunnels and chambers to the target site. “Do our orders direct us to use a particular path, or do we use our judgment?”

  “Czajka,” she emphasized his last name, seeing the amusement on Colter and Jarrett’s faces. “We are to coordinate with the team onsite. They,” she was reading a message from the onsite team’s leader as she spoke. “Huh. Ok, they want us to take two potential paths through the tunnels.”

  “We split up?” Shauna did not like that idea.

  “We have to.” Perkins also did not like that idea. Two teams. How best to split up her people? The real question was whether Shauna and Jesse should be together, or would their relationship compromise their focus and effectiveness?

  The same question applied to herself and Dave Czajka. Could she maintain a proper level of professionalism with a man who shared her b
ed, while working in a hazardous situation?

  Irene and Derek flew together, and their intimate relationship had not caused any negative consequences. So far.

  This was, she decided, as good a time as any to test whether she could effectively work with Dave Czajka.

  “Jarrett. You, Colter and Cadet Dandurf will be one team.”

  “Oh!” Nert clapped his hands excitedly. “Thank you for the opportunity, Colonel Perkins.”

  “Cadet, you can thank me by not getting killed down there. Czajka, you’re with me, and-” And who? Irene or Derek? They only needed one pilot to remain aboard the Dodo. Irene had been cranky lately, subtly complaining about the boredom of their asteroid-clearing assignment. The pilot needed a chance to get away from the Dodo for a while. “Striebich, you’re with me also. Bonsu, you hold down the fort here.”

  “Yes, Ma’am,” Derek flashed a thumbs up from the cockpit. “I’ll keep the coffee hot.” To Irene seated next to him, he added a quiet plea. “You be careful, please.”

  “Me?” Irene feigned surprise.

  “Yes, you. We’re not ground-pounders like the rest of the team. Let the Colonel and Jesse take the lead, they know what they’re doing.” He reached out a hand and she squeezed it. “I want you to come back here in one piece.”

  “Nert,” Jesse ordered quietly. “You stay behind us.”

  “Sergeant Jarrett,” the cadet knew to address Jesse formally now that they were in action. “I believe I should go first. My eyesight and reflexes are superior to that of humans,” he said with clueless disregard. “If there is trouble, I can see it first, and-”