Deathtrap

by Craig Alanson

  The day wasn’t hot, not yet, and Irene sure as hell would not drink anything offered by the Kristang. “What?”

  “Please,” the man hissed in a harsh whisper. “Help me.”

  Irene took a step back and kept a hand on her sidearm. “I can’t.”

  “I was a sergeant, Third Infantry,” the man’s eyes darted wildly between Irene and the impassive figure of the Kristang behind him.

  “You were,” Irene responded more forcefully than she felt, a voice in the back of her mind was telling her that if she began to feel sympathy for the wretched man, she might lose control of her emotions. “Are you still Keeping the Faith, huh? How’d that work for you idiots?”

  “Please, please. I’m sorry for everything. You got to get me out of here. They’re killing us for sport, for fun.”

  “We warned you, UNEF warned you that would happen, but you shitheads knew better. You called us traitors.”

  The man sank to his knees, Irene was glad he had not told her his name, for that would have made the situation too personal for her to bear. “If you can’t take me with you, then, Captain, kill me, Please, kill me.”

  She took another step backward and found her hand had lifted her sidearm halfway out of its holster. Deliberately, she pushed it back in the holster and held that hand away from the weapon. “I’m not going to-”

  “Kill me! Please!” The man begged, sobbing and falling forward onto the ground. He looked up at her, his eyes welling with tears, when his body was wracked with spasms, twisting in agony, his hands tearing at the collar.

  “Stop it!” Irene jabbed a finger at the Kristang, who was holding a device in one hand. Just as the former soldier’s body collapsed limply on the tarmac, the Kristang pressed a button with a thumb and the man’s body jerked and twisted again. The weapon was out of the holster and into Irene’s hand before she knew it, but the muzzle pointed not at the enemy, it pointed at the prone man’s head.

  “That is my property!” The Kristang spoke for the first time, casually walking toward her and tucking the pain-inducing device into a shirt pocket. “Captain,” the lizard’s lips curled in a cruel smile, “my apologies if this one,” he kicked the former sergeant with the toe of a boot, “has caused you any distress.”

  Irene stood on the balls of her feet, the pistol wavering. She wanted badly to shoot the lizard between the eyes, but the pitiful sobbing of the man as he rocked side to side on the hard tarmac made her again point the weapon at his head. One shot, she told herself, one pull of the trigger would end the poor man’s suffering. She could not act against the Kristang, could not violate the treaty and invite retaliation against the Ruhar, but what if she put the wretched slave out of his misery? The Legion would likely have to compensate the lizards for the loss of their property, no more.

  Her finger tensed on the trigger.

  “Hey!” Derek shouted, ducking under the Buzzard and waving his arms. He had seen the scene develop on a cockpit display, and ran out the instant the Keeper fell to his knees. “Put that away! What are you doing?”

  “This guy-”

  “Is not our problem.”

  “He-”

  “Honey, don’t,” Derek’s hand enclosed hers, gently pushing the pistol away, his fingers pulling her trigger finger to the side. “He is not our problem. It’s not worth it. You don’t know what will happen.”

  “The lizards won’t do anything while-”

  “You don’t know that. We can’t take the risk. Please, Irene, get back in the aircraft. Let me handle this.”

  There was hesitation, then Irene nodded. She was not thinking clearly, not capable of thinking clearly, she knew that. For once, she needed to let Derek handle the situation, which went against her every instinct as a control freak, and she hated pushing the problem onto Derek. But she did not resent it, it was for the best. They always had each other’s back. “Ok,” she replied in a small voice, stuffing the pistol back in its holster, and walking robotically around the nose of the Buzzard, so she could not see Derek, the lizard or the pathetically whimpering slave.

  “Human,” the Kristang warrior sneered, stepping forward. He was more than a foot taller than Derek, who stood over six feet.

  “You, shut your mouth,” Derek said through clenched teeth. Pointing at the Keeper who had pushed himself onto hands and knees, he walked forward to stand toe to toe if not chest to chest with the intimidating alien warrior. “Get this away from my aircraft, you are not authorized to be here. I cannot allow debris to clutter the tarmac, it can get sucked into our turbines and cause foreign object damage. Get it out of here, now.” He used the word ‘it’ rather than ‘him’ to hopefully give the impression he didn’t care about the poor lost soul crouching on the ground.

  The Kristang looked down at Derek’s holstered sidearm. “As you wish,” he took the pain-inducing remote out of the pocket. “My slave will need proper incentive to-”

  The words were cut off as Derek’s right hand, which concealed a small razor-sharp blade, sliced the warrior’s wrist with a deep gash, making the alien drop the remote and jump backwards. The warrior raised his arms to attack Derek, then froze as he felt the muzzle of a pistol jammed hard under his chin.

  “The treaty says,” Derek grunted and dug the pistol harder into the lizard’s neck, “that I can defend myself against attack. I can’t shoot first but,” he pressed his knife-holding hand up to the lizard’s cheek. “I can slice your ugly fucking face like gutting a fish. Do we understand each other? I asked, do we understand each other?”

  The Kristang nodded wordlessly, frozen from shock that a lowly, soft human had dared defy its superior nature. Blood flowed freely from its sliced-open wrist, and it held the injured limb tightly with the other hand.

  “Great,” Derek took a wary step back, holding the pistol aimed squarely center-mass at the alien’s chest. With one foot, he felt for the fallen remote, and kicked it away from the lizard. “Take your property and get out of here.”

  “What about me?” The Keeper gasped.

  “You?” Derek did not take his eyes away from the Kristang. “Do you regret joining the Keepers, or you only regret betraying your own people?”

  “Both, all of it,” the man grunted as he painfully pushed himself to his feet. “And more.”

  “You want to help, to make this right?”

  “Yeah. Anything.”

  Derek kept the pistol pointed at the Kristang and watched with one eye while he looked toward the former infantry sergeant. “When we shipped out from Earth, I figured I was never coming back. That one way or another, I would die on some Godforsaken rock lightyears from home. Things didn’t turn out the way I expected, but it’s same shit, different day. On one rock in space or another, we can all buy the farm today or the next day, you hear me? If you want to make things right, you want to do your duty as a soldier, if you remember, then die with dignity. Don’t let the fucking lizards see your fear.”

  The man had straightened while Derek spoke, now his shoulders slumped as he hadn’t heard what he wanted. Then, a light flared in his formerly dead eyes, and he pulled his shoulders back. His right arm came up in a salute. “Hooah, Captain.”

  “Hooah, soldier. What’s your name?”

  “Anderson, Sir. Third Infantry.”

  “I’ll see that the Third remembers you,” Derek blinked away the beginnings of tears as the former soldier pivoted on his heels and strode away, limping but proud.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  “Ma’am,” Derek Bonsu approached Perkins in her large but cluttered office. “You need to know about this ASAP. We got a problem and it needs to be dealt with immediately, before it gets out of hand.”

  Emily was happy for any excuse to break away from the task she had been working on, a report for General Ross because he preferred her to review any reports that went to Commissioner Yusafft’s office. The fame of Perkins meant Yusafft’s people were somewhat less likely to question and nit-pick every detail of a report. “
Sit down, Captain. You look like you could use a drink.”

  “If we had any debriefing fluid on this planet,” he agreed, “I could drink a whole bottle.”

  “I heard about the incident at the airfield.”

  Derek was prepared with an answer. “Ma’am, I know what the Verds think about it,” the Verd-Kris soldiers in the VIP party had not been happy to hear that Derek had injured a Kristang, especially since the incident happened during their negotiations. Derek, the mission commander had told him angrily, had endangered not only the negotiations, but the lives of the entire party. “It didn’t happen like-”

  “Relax, Captain. I downloaded the flight recorder video remotely while you were on the way here. You’re going to get an official reprimand from General Ross’s office, he has to do it, because otherwise Commissioner Useless will demand to get involved and make a big deal about it. When you get the official reprimand, be contrite then ignore it. Oh, and because I’m your CO, you are hereby reprimanded.”

  “Yes Ma’am.”

  “Personally, I would have sliced up that lizard’s cheek, just on the off chance he might try to grab my weapon and give me a legal reason to empty my magazine into his ugly face, but,” she winked with a shrug.

  “Shit,” Derek’s expression turned sheepish. “Wish I’d thought of that.”

  “I’m glad you didn’t,” her face returned to the perpetually concerned expression the team expected. “Don’t worry about the Verds, officially they are upset, privately they are pumping their fists and wishing you had kicked that lizard’s ass. Don’t do it again,” she waggled a finger at him. “How is Irene?”

  “She’s dealing with it. I want to,” he glanced over his shoulder out the door, “tell you this before Irene gets here, she’s checking on the crew replacing a balky actuator on our bird. I just heard from a Verd pilot, the Kristang in Chulot are planning a festival before they begin the handover of that province.”

  “Yeah, so? They don’t need a permit from us, festivals are a good way to distract the lizard population and keep them quiet.” She could not picture Kristang walking around a festival eating corndogs and playing ring-toss games, but then she really did not care what the hell they did, so long as they peacefully accepted the Ruhar taking ownership of the planet.

  “The highlight of the festival will be a sort of gladiator tournament,” even Derek Bonsu’s dark skin could not completely prevent him from looking a bit pale as he spoke. “Gladiators, like, armed Kristang warriors against Keepers. And Keepers against wild animals. Or Keepers forced to fight each other. All the contests are to the death.”

  “Fuuuuuuck,” Perkins groaned and slumped in her chair.

  “The festival is six days from now. The lizards in Chulot plan to publicize the tournament big-time, and it will be broadcast on their planetary network. The same network the Legion is using for communications. Every human in UNEF will be able to watch the slaughter, live and in high-definition.”

  “Oh, this is bad. This is bad.”

  “What’s bad, Ma’am?” Irene asked as she walked into the office, wiping her hands on a rag.

  Emily Perkins could think fast when she needed to, and Derek kept his eyes forward so Irene couldn’t see his expression. “Commissioner Useless wants to accelerate part of the schedule again. That means shuffling around,” she waved her hand at the laptop on the desk, “all the logistics crap we just spent a full day working out. Ah, that’s my problem,” she turned away to avoid meeting Irene’s eyes. “Is your bird flightworthy again?”

  “It’s good enough,” Irene shrugged. “We knew the Legion was getting second-hand and obsolete equipment. I’m happy to be flying a Buzzard instead of those old Crows they gave to the Verds. We can make-”

  “Striebich,” Perkins held up a hand. “I need to call Ross.”

  “Yes, Ma’am.” Derek rose from his seat, but turned in such a way that he walked out the door in front of Irene. He needed to tell her before she heard it over the net, because soon everyone on the planet would know about the barbaric plans of the Kristang.

  “We control the planetary network,” Ross noted, squeezing his coffee mug with such force that for a moment, Perkins feared he would snap the handle and cut himself. Then she remembered it was a Ruhar coffee mug, lighter than Styrofoam but strong like aluminum. Ross could have thrown it to the floor, stomped on it, even hit it with a hammer, and only dented the tough mug. Sometimes advanced alien technology was great, but sometimes a person just needed to smash something. “Can we block publicity about this, this, event?”

  “I asked that question of our hamster overlords on my way here,” Perkins was tired of delivering bad news. “They told me unless we completely lock down the network for classified access only, or crash it, there is no sure way of stopping communications. The lizards could send the video sliced up into packets that are sent via email, or embedded in other images. Even if we unplug the network, the lizards can broadcast on a distributed land-based system using their phones, or, hell, the computer that runs their toasters.”

  “Technology should give us more control, not less.”

  “Welcome to the future, Sir, it’s impossible to stop people from communicating. Power to the people, I guess.”

  “I can’t order our troops not to watch,” Ross mused. “That would be a futile gesture.”

  “They would know about it anyway, that’s almost as bad.”

  Ross stood up, that was her cue that she had been dismissed so she rose from her chair. “I will get my PR staff to throw a message together quick, get out ahead of this mess. The lizards want to-”

  Perkins’ zPhone vibrated. She had set it to ignore all incoming messages unless it was a Priority Red alert, and the text from Derek Bonsu had been tagged as Red. “Too late, General.” She showed him her phone screen displaying a taunting message from the Kristang in Chulot, at the same time Ross’s own phone sounded an alarm and one of his aides stepped through the door. “It’s time for damage control.”

  “Jarrett,” Perkins walked up behind that soldier and set a fresh mug of coffee on the table beside the console Shauna was using. “Are we making any progress?” She used the word ‘we’ rather than ‘you’, because the project Shauna was working on was assigned to her by Perkins, based on a hunch. If the project did not yield any useful result, it would certainly not be Shauna’s fault, for she had been working intensively day and night. It got to the point where Perkins had to order Shauna into the field for a day, so that soldier could get a break. A fresh mind was more important than numbly grinding through data.

  “Maybe,” Shauna waved a loose strand of hair away from her eyes. She hadn’t taken time to wash her hair that morning, and now it hung limp, not that she cared. She could shower and take care of herself when the job was done. What she was doing was important, and not only because of the faith her CO had placed in her. “I’m following up on a lead. It’s early, hopefully tomorrow I can-”

  “Show me,” Perkins ordered as she pulled up a chair and leaned forward eagerly. The Chulot festival, during which the Kristang intended to force two hundred Keepers to fight for their lives against vicious wild beasts, armed Kristang warriors or, even worse, to fight to the death against each other, was in five days. Half the humans on Fresno were horrified at the idea, the other half publicly declared the Keepers had brought it upon themselves. The half who pretended indifference were still unhappy that UNEF, the Legion and their patrons the glorious Ruhar not only would not do anything to stop the televised slaughter, they could not do anything about it.

  Morale within UNEF was bad and getting worse, Ross privately told Perkins he anticipated increasing discipline problems as the festival approached.

  So, Emily Perkins was grateful for any opportunity to think about anything else.

  Shauna’s expression was pained, uncomfortable as the colonel scooted her chair closer to better see the display. “It’s not in-”

  “Jarrett,” the colonel touched the
sergeant’s shoulder with a reassuring squeeze. “I worked intel, remember? I know what it’s like when some nosy upper-echelon butthead wants to see my raw data before I’ve made sense of it. This was my idea, if it doesn’t pan out, it’s not on you. Show me what you’ve got, and I’ll tell you whether I steered you in the right direction.”

  “Ok,” Shauna blew loose bangs out of her eyes. “The AI hasn’t been much help, except with image processing.”

  “The AI doesn’t know what we’re looking for, because we won’t know what we’re looking for until we see it. That’s why it’s called artificial intelligence. Trust your instincts.”

  “This,” Shauna ran the image backwards, “is where I started, just like you said.”

  “Wait,” Emily paused, uncertain, looking at the time code of the image. “Where did you get this? That image is from before the Ruhar fleet arrived here.”

  “It is, Ma’am,” Shauna’s pride was evident. “I got it from a Verd-Kris, through our old friend Surgun Jates. The Verds got it from Ruhar Fleet intelligence. The hamsters positioned stealth satellites here before their fleet jumped in. The lizards detected all four of the surveillance satellites, but before they were destroyed, between them they collected almost nineteen hours of high-rez images, data and communications intercepts.”

  “Son of a bitch,” Perkins exclaimed softly. “My sources didn’t tell me a damned thing about this. The hamster fleet intel chief told me she didn’t have any reliable data prior to the fleet’s arrival in this system.”

  “They may not trust us to keep their secrets. Besides, the Verds have a longer relationship with the hamsters than we do,” Shauna tried to ease the blow. “Jates gave me the impression the Verds pulled in favors to make this happen.”