Deathtrap

by Craig Alanson

  “No need, Tiekum,” Kekrando interrupted with a weary sigh, pointing at the main display. “The enemy is taking care of that for us. The wages of sin may be death, but so are the wages of stupidity.”

  On the display, one of the Fire Dragon destroyers had flown too close to a stealthed Ruhar mine, and that device exploded. The explosion itself was not dangerous to the well-protected destroyer Our Enemies Will Regret Their Arrogance, as in the vacuum of space there was nothing for the expanding force of the detonation to push against. The designers of the mine knew about the extremely limited usefulness of explosive devices in space, so the mine did not rely on shrapnel flying in every direction. Nor did the mine attempt to shape the force into a cone directed toward the enemy ship, knowing that the enemy’s shields would deflect the shrapnel.

  What the mine did was absorb the energy of the explosion and turn that energy into a focused beam of powerful X-rays. The exciters of the X-ray laser lasted only for nanoseconds, but that was enough to send a thin beam of high-energy photons at the target.

  The shields of the Arrogance were, surprisingly, in excellent condition, having had three quarters of the generators replaced earlier that year. The shields wrapped around the ship, forming an invisible, roughly lozenge-shaped blob between five and eight meters thick. The computer controlling the stealthed mine was only mildly self-aware but it was smart, and so it aimed the X-ray laser’s beam at a point where the target ship’s shield protection was weakest, midway between two generators. The shield still could have protected the ship from something relatively large like a missile warhead or railgun dart, using the power of the shield to deflect and absorb the kinetic energy. The X-ray laser beam was less than half a nanometer in diameter and as its tip impacted the shield, the shield flared and overloaded in that very small area, allowing the body and tail of the eighty-meter-long bolt of hellishly-charged photons through to strike the light armor plating of the frigate’s hull. As designed, the outer layer of armor exploded outward, creating a fog that absorbed and scattered part of the incoming beam. The middle layer of the armor also ablated away, with the innermost layer flashing into plasma that erupted in a disc perpendicular to the laser beam.

  If the Kristang who had designed, constructed and installed the destroyer’s light armor plating had the opportunity to review the ship’s flight recorder data to examine the armor’s performance against an X-ray laser generated by a stealthed proximity mine, they would have been pleased with themselves, for the armor protected the Arrogance’s fragile interior from eighty six percent of the incoming energy that got through the shields.

  Unfortunately, the flight recorder data was never transmitted to the other ships in Commodore Kekrando’s force, because the remaining fourteen percent of the focused X-rays blasted through the innermost layer of armor, using the plasma barrier to scatter the beam like a shotgun shell. The photons bombarded, vaporized or melted everything in their path, all the way through the hull to be stopped by the innermost layer of armor on the other side. In their path lay a cone-shaped gap of destruction. Cables, bulkheads, power conduits, and structural frames in that cone ceased to exist, all of which would have disabled the ship and left it vulnerable to other weapons, except the computer of the mine had gotten lucky.

  No, that was bullshit. No luck was needed. The mine’s computer had been smart. As the Arrogance had approached and the mine had silently prayed oh please oh please oh please come closer to me, it compared the destroyer to its database of Kristang ships, and knew exactly where to aim for maximum damage.

  The Kristang who designed that class of destroyer knew that those ships had weaknesses in their energy shield coverage, areas where the shield was thinner. Destroyers were relatively cheap to build and operate, and almost considered disposable. Their strength was in numbers, so they had to be cheap enough to be built in large quantities. Regardless of the demanding specs given to the designers, they took care to protect the ship as well as they could. Missile batteries were located under areas where the energy shields were thick and strong, providing as much protection as possible. The designers of that ship class had congratulated themselves on their clever packaging, and in actual service, the destroyers of that class rarely suffered a hit to a missile battery.

  The stealth mine also congratulated itself on its cleverness before it ceased to exist, having let the destroyer pass slightly onward before initiating the detonation of its payload. The X-ray laser beam therefore struck the target’s hull at an angle, so its energy was directed at the fully-loaded missile battery buried under armor on the far side of the hull. When the X-ray photons hit the three missiles there, those propulsion cores blew a picosecond before the warheads, ripping a forty-meter hole in the destroyer’s hull, and cracking it in half just before warhead fragments tore into the stored energy of the ship’s jump drive capacitors. The hapless Arrogance instantly became a ball of fire.

  There are several schools of thought about the best tactics for destroyers operating together. One theory is that destroyers should fly in close formation, so each ship’s point-defense cannons can help protect its lightly-armored nearby fellows. That theory depends on close coordination between crews and on all ships having a properly functioning PDS. Properly functioning as in, one ship’s defense cannons not shooting at a friendly ship because its sensors were confused.

  Another theory, that is popular with destroyer captains smart and lucky enough to be experienced captains rather than on the list of battle casualties, is the Every-Ship-For-Itself tactic.

  Unfortunately for the crew of the second ship, their experienced captain’s objections to close formation flying were ignored by the captain of the Arrogance, who as a second son of a minor clan leader, outranked the captain of the We Will Show No Mercy To Our Dishonorable Foes, despite having three strikes against him as a destroyer squadron leader. First, he had been a captain for a grand total of two months before drawing the assignment at Feznako. Second, his brother the third son very much wanted to get rid of the asshole ahead of him in line for inheriting their father’s position, and therefore arranged for Arrogance to be offered the hazardous assignment.

  And third, it was generally accepted that the captain of the Our Enemies Will Regret Their Arrogance was a total fucking idiot.

  Thus, when the Arrogance briefly became a small sun above Feznako, the We Will Show No Mercy To Our Dishonorable Foes was close enough to have its shields be overwhelmed and fail from the impact of particles that used to be the Arrogance. Shield generators recovered quickly and automatically, shunting aside into disposable heatsinks and capacitors the energies that would have burned them out. Relays tripped when they sensed the immediate danger was over, sending power back to the generators, which began forming shields. Just in time for all the generators on one side of the No Mercy to be permanently knocked offline by chunks of debris that used to be the Arrogance.

  With the No Mercy’s fragile armor exposed, the Ruhar stealth defense network around Feznako should have seized the opportunity and reacted immediately. Its reaction was delayed because every stealth mine above that side of the planet detected the vulnerability of the enemy ship, and their little brains all had the same thought: Oh hell yeah, I’m gonna get me some of that.

  Three dozen mines pinged the defense network computer at the same time, with the computer equivalent of third-graders waving their hands and begging ‘Ooh ooh pick me pick me’! The network control computer assessed the situation, ranking the mines by proximity to the target, by how severely the loss of each mine would affect overall coverage of space around the planet, and by how much each mine had been a pain-in-the-ass during recent wargame exercises.

  Plus, one mine was pushed to the back of the list because that mine had composed, performed and distributed a dirty humorous song that poked fun at the network control computer. While the network computer had to admit the song was funny, it did not have to enjoy being made fun of.

  The mine that was given the honor of
taking out the No Mercy was located almost on the horizon, far from the stricken destroyer. It barely had time to shout out ‘So long suckers’ before it exploded, sending a searing bolt of X-rays directly into the No Mercy’s fully-charged jump drive coils.

  “Co-Commodore!” Tiekum stammered. “Both, both ships are gone,” he whispered. The destruction of both ships had taken less than two seconds. The destroyers had been flying so close, their funeral fireballs had merged into one roiling mass of light.

  “Yes they are,” Kekrando announced with a weariness so deep he did not muster up enough emotion for disgust. “Nature abhors a vacuum, Tiekum. It also abhors stupidity. Get us out of here, before we lose any more ships. We no longer have a numerical advantage against my opponent. The battle over Feznako just became a stalemate. Neither we nor the Ruhar dare to risk our ships to provide orbital fire support. Signal General Dethutra that he is on his own. Oh, and before we jump away, conduct the fire mission. We must strike three particular targets on the surface.”

  Driving the Tiger dune buggy was fun, until it very much was not. Dave kept the speed moderate at first, watching the Verd’s expression out of the corner of one eye, until Jates looked at him and cocked his head. “Czajka, are you driving this slowly because you need to take it easy on your hemorrhoids?”

  “Uh, no,” Dave felt himself blushing.

  “I can run faster than this,” Jates grunted. “We haven’t got all day.”

  Dave took the hint and rolled the throttle control on top of the joystick with his thumb. The Tiger shot forward and raced down the dusty dirt road through a forest, with foliage slapping the armor on both sides as the vehicle fishtailed slightly on the turns. After they came over a hill and the Tiger went airborne, tires spinning frantically to make the next turn without going too wide and crashing into a tree, Jates said nothing, but flipped the Course Assist switch. That nanny system looked over the driver’s shoulder and prevented actions that were likely to result in a crash, sort of an autopilot for ground vehicles. It was impressive, it was sophisticated, and drivers hated it because it took half the fun out of racing across an alien planet. As the Tiger got itself under control and Dave got a wide-eyed glance at the cliff he had nearly driven off, he swallowed hard and said a silent thanks to whoever had programmed the Course Assist computer.

  Oh what the hell, he thought. With a computer nanny watching his every move, he could actually drive faster, knowing the system’s sensors would reduce the throttle or apply brakes if he was getting them into danger. The computer’s sensors scanned the ground in front of them and its internal map knew what lay around every hill and curve. Or, it knew what was supposed to be around every curve.

  The road, really more like a wide trail, went down a steep hill and bent to the right with a clearing ahead visible as light came

  through the forest. The road was rutted and the edges were washed out from recent rains, Dave was grateful for the traction-control system automatically adjusting the wheels to compensate for the uneven surface. The wheels were not crude air-filled rubber tires, these were a nanomaterial fiber that would change diameter and width. Even at high speed, the wheels could conform their shape to the terrain to reduce shock on the passengers, to Dave it felt like driving on super-soft balloons. Having such amazing alien technology literally at his fingertips made him overconfident and he raced down the hill at full throttle, letting the nanny decide when to apply the brakes. Beside him, Jates made no objection, merely holding lightly to the grips on either side of the seat. Even blazing down the rutted hill, the Tiger made almost no sound, other than loose gravel crunching under the wheels.

  At the bottom of the hill, the wheels churned and spat gravel to the left as the Tiger slewed through the right-hand turn. Dave blinked as his eyes adjusted from the dappled light coming through the forest canopy to the bright light of a broad field, so his reactions were slowed. The nanny computer was not any slower than normal, it jerked the front wheels to the left and slammed on the brakes when its sensors detected the obstacle just around the apex of the turn, an obstacle that was not on its internal map.

  A cluster of tree branches was down across the road, tangled branches twisted together. The Tiger slowed rapidly, throwing Dave forward against the straps. His thumb flicked the throttle forward but the nanny counteracted to avoid a crash.

  That could be fatal. Dave knew something the computer nanny did not understand, that in hostile territory a roadblock was likely the site of an ambush. Those trees had not naturally fallen across the road, they had been placed there to stop traffic, and the only traffic authorized to move along that road was Legion. A two-man Tiger did not have air cover flying overhead and there was no support following behind them, Dave and Jates were on their own.

  His brief training drives in Tigers on Paradise had taught him something important that was not in the vehicle’s official manual. The Ruhar instructor had been bored and disdainful about teaching humans to drive the recon vehicle, but he had given a tip to a fellow soldier. When in trouble, hit the quick release on the end of the left-hand seat grip. That recessed button deactivated the Course Assist and dampened the traction aid so the driver had more immediate control. Reflexively, Dave pressed the quick release with a finger while he goosed the throttle and steered to the right, straight at the obstruction.

  Made of composites and carrying only light armor, the Tiger did not weigh much, in training Dave and Jesse had been able to lift the rear and pull it out of the mud. The two occupants, not wearing skinsuits and carrying only rifles and one spare magazine of ammo each, did not add significant mass to help the Tiger crash through the barrier. Fortunately, the barrier had been thrown together hastily, the trees were not thick nor were their branches tied together. Whoever placed the obstruction there had relied on ambush victims automatically acting to avoid a crash. The Tiger’s pointy armored nose crashed into the branches and its bottom slope, designed like the bow of a boat for crossing streams, caused the vehicle to ride up. The nose flipped up and the front wheels spun uselessly in the air. The recon vehicle titled up and to the left-

  The designers of the Tiger were not stupid. They knew Ruhar soldiers liked to race around like hotshots, and the Course Assist system was designed to protect the drivers from their own rash decisions. The designers also knew there were times when the soldier in the field needed to be trusted, and in that case the vehicle needed to do whatever crazy-ass thing the driver wanted, to the best of the Tiger’s ability. Pressing the quick release button did not truly deactivate the Course Assist, it merely put that nanny system into combat mode.

  When the nanny understood that Dave, for whatever reason, wanted to crash through or over the barrier, its tiny brain might have muttered something like stupid aliens or soldiers be crazy but it assessed its options in a microsecond. The rear wheels expanded in a jolt and the rear shocks slammed their electrodynamic pistons to full extension, sending the rear of the Tiger bouncing in the air like a high-powered lowrider. With the nose already in the air and the rear jumping upward, momentum carried the recon vehicle forward. Quicker than Dave or Jates could see, all four wheels extended treads designed to operate in deep mud, those paddles grinding into the tree branches as the Tiger’s composite belly skidded up and over. The pointy nose dug into the dirt road on the far side and there was a cracking sound accompanied by a hard jolt, then the treads retracted automatically and the buggy raced off, its tail sliding as the wheels fought to balance the need for speed with the need for traction.

  Jates shouted the Kristang word for “GO GO GO” and Dave did not need to wait for a translation nor did he need the instruction, he already had the throttle maxed out. The road across the field zig-zagged to follow a stream, Dave did not like the idea of sticking to the road in an open area. “Ain’t nobody got time for that,” he muttered and guided the Tiger in a beeline across the field, bouncing and rocking straight toward the stream. The stream bank was only half a meter high and the Tiger soared throug
h the air, coming down in the middle of the stream with a tremendous splash that threw up water, soaking and temporarily blinding Dave. He eased off the throttle a bit until there was another hard jolt and crunch when the nose hit the bank on the far side and something broke off with a ripping sound. Again, the nose lifted up, this time the wheels maintained traction and the Tiger slid over the embankment to flop on its belly in marshy ground. Treads deployed automatically, the traction control reengaged, and wet mud was flung up on both sides as the buggy surged forward.

  A female electronic voice spoke loudly in calm tones. “Vehicle is being operated in an unsafe manner,” announced the Bitching Betty computer. “Please return-”

  Whatever helpful advice Bitching Betty was about to give was drowned out by Dave, incredulous that a mindless computer wanted him to slow down. “You have GOT to be kidding me!”

  “Repeat, this vehicle is being-”

  “Oh fuck this!” Dave exploded as a line of projectiles threw up water splashes to the right and bullets pinged off the rear armor. He got the Tiger straightened out, figuring there was no need for steering an evasive course while the buggy was bouncing and skidding so wildly already. There was a hard jolt and suddenly the right rear wheel slowed and began to wobble alarmingly. The vehicle slewed to the right and mud was kicked up to the left as whoever was shooting at them missed. Dave got the buggy back on course and held his breath as he just missed a thick cluster of trees that stood to the side of the road. Then they were out of the field and back in the forest. Dave risked a glance at the display between the seats, showing the view from a rear camera. “I count five.”