Deathtrap

by Craig Alanson

Jesse asked the question he feared. “Everyone else is dead?”

  “Looks that way,” Dani nodded sadly.

  “Shit. I guess the only good news is, the Legion doesn’t know that,” Jesse observed.

  “How is that good news?”

  “Because, the hamsters will move faster to rescue us, if they think some of their own are here,” he explained.

  She shot an unfriendly look at him. “That is a cynical attitude, Colter.”

  Jesse would have shrugged but doing that might have made him fall off the crutch, so he just looked at her.

  She sighed. “Damn it, you’re right,” she admitted. “You can drag that gear away?”

  Jesse very carefully balanced on his good leg and picked up a rifle, hooking its sling over the top of his crutch. “I’ll do my best,” he said, grimacing as he picked up another rifle.

  As Dani ducked back in the Buzzard, it occurred to her why the sergeant was making the laborious effort to move the recovered gear away from the Buzzard, rather than waiting for her. It was because, if the enemy attacked the downed Buzzard before she could get away, he would have a stash of equipment safely squirreled away. Part of her resented Colter for being cynical. The rest of her admired his practical thinking.

  Half an hour later, she had a neat collection of gear stacked up at the base of a tree. They had two rifles, with one spare magazine for each. A small box had contained four grenades, although without a launcher, the grenades would have to be thrown by hand, which was not real useful. The Buzzard had not contained any skinsuits, and the only armor she could find were three sets of ballistic vests that covered the wearer’s torso. Because the vests were designed for Ruhar, they were long enough to droop down halfway over her thighs. No helmets, which was unfortunate, they had to make do with goggles for eye protection

  Fobish was lying unconscious on a blanket over a pile of leaves she had scooped up. The Ruhar officer was as comfortable as Dani could make her. Colter’s face was pale, after she had injected him with powerful pain-blocking nanomachines and got his leg somewhat straightened. Despite the sergeant saying he could not feel anything below the knee, his body had reacted to her messing with the injury by going into partial shock. “How does that feel?” She asked, watching the soft cast wrapped around his leg. The smart material was already hardening and would protect the broken leg until Jesse could get real professional medical treatment.

  “I don’t feel nothin’,” Jesse assured her with a shake of his head, but his eyes were not focusing properly. “Thanks, Captain.”

  “Take it easy,” she instructed, glancing over at the prone Ruhar officer. “Here,” she tossed a pouch of ration bars to him. “Eat one of these.”

  “I’m not hungry.”

  “Yes, you are. Those Ruhar nano meds are like magic and my poor brain doesn’t understand them, but one thing I know is they accelerate the healing process. To heal, your body needs carbs and protein. So, eat.”

  Jesse slid the pouch open, took out a foil-wrapped bar, and tore it open. He sniffed, it was predictably bland, as were all the rations created by UNEF on Paradise. “How much food we got?”

  “Plenty.” Seeing her vague remark had not answered the question, she waved at the plastic bin she had found in the wreckage. “For just the two of us, enough for two weeks. The problem is Urmat Fobish. The Buzzard had zero for anything the hamsters can eat. I found two food packets in the personal gear of the Ruhar. That was bad planning,” she frowned. She had made a note on her phone that, when transporting mixed species, aircraft needed to carry emergency rations and supplies for everyone. If they ever made contact with the Legion again, her phone would automatically upload the message. Where, considering there was a war on and the Legion was busy worrying about more important things, the message would no doubt sit unread in a queue until it no longer mattered. Noticing that Colter had not bitten into his ration bar, she led by example by tearing open a packet and biting into a bar. Or she tried to. The bars were tough, she had to saw her teeth back and forth to bite off a chunk. “Yum,” she saluted him with a canteen and took a drink of water. “Now all we have to do is wait here for rescue.”

  “Great. Still no signal?” He checked his zPhone, which showed no connection to the planetary network. Color was returning to his face, as the nano meds helped his body begin healing.

  She shook her head. “Nothing. The Buzzard’s comm gear might cut through the jamming, but it got crushed in the crash. We’re here for the duration. There is a tarp in-”

  Jesse made a slashing motion across his throat, cutting her off. “I saw something moving,” he whispered, picking up a rifle and flicking off the safety. Pointing to where he had seen, whatever it was, he flashed hand signals to the Captain.

  Who stared back at him, not comprehending.

  Shit, Jesse thought to himself. Grace was a freakin’ psychologist, she had never served in the infantry. Of course she would not know standard UNEF battle hand signals. Reduced to simple motions, he pointed at her, and used two fingers in a walking motion, then gestured at a tree.

  Dani nodded once, silently. As quietly as she could, she crawled on her knees backwards, then rose into a crouch and got behind the tree, moving quickly but not in a panicked rush. Eyes notice movement and she didn’t want to make any abrupt motions that would attract attention.

  Jesse had scooted on hands and one leg to get behind the tree where their gear was stacked up. Dani cursed herself for not at least covering the gear with a pile of leaves. Most of the gear was drab gray, green or brown but there was a bright yellow medical kit set on top.

  Jesse waggled fingers to get her attention and pointed toward the Buzzard. Something was moving there. Slowly, she raised her rifle to look through the scope. What she saw startled her. It was a drone, about the size and shape of a small waste basket, easy to see because its surface was bright orange. As the drone moved slowly over the downed aircraft, a door opened and what looked like a gun barrel extended. The surface did not change color to blend in, even without the enhanced vision of the rifle scope, she would have an easy time tracking it. She turned away from the drone to silently mouth to Jesse ‘What the fuck is that?’

  ‘Drone’, Jesse mouthed back at her.

  She was tempted to reply ‘Duh’.

  Jesse held up one finger, emphasizing the gesture by mouthing ‘Just one’.

  ‘Do NOT fire’, she ordered, waving a hand downward for him to lower his rifle. Jesse kept his rifle on target but flashed her a thumb’s up to acknowledge the order. If the drone simply checked the Buzzard and moved on, they would let it go. Drawing attention to themselves was not a good idea.

  The drone drew attention to itself with a booming voice making an announcement in the Kristang common language. The sudden sound startled Dani and she could see Jesse jerk back also. Though her zPhone was not connected to a network, the translation function worked just fine. ‘You are trespassing on sacred lands. Remove yourself from this area, or you will be subject to extermination’.

  The announcement repeated. Jesse looked at her, his eyes wide, mouthing ‘What the fuck?’

  She had no answer. If she could have taken her phone out to dig deeper into the translation, she would have wondered if ‘sacred’ was the correct word. ‘Extermination’ was probably more formal than whatever the drone was saying, but she understood the meaning.

  What she did not understand was why a drone was patrolling a forest. There were no settlements within a hundred kilometers of the crash site, she knew that from the map on her phone.

  The drone disappeared around the far side of the Buzzard’s cracked and battered hull, and Dani covered the front of the aircraft while Jesse aimed at the rear. They both guessed wrong, for the drone came straight up above a bent and broken wing. Dani could now hear a faint buzzing sound, like the wings of large insects, and realized the top of the drone had air intakes, so there must be propellers or a turbine engine on the bottom. For a minute, the drone flew along the
path the Buzzard had gouged in the soil as it came to a stop, and Dani dared hope the damned thing would go back to where it came from. Or just go away. If the drone reported a downed Legion aircraft with no survivors, that could actually be good for them, for the Kristang would not waste time and missiles on a wreck.

  Then, the drone went closer to the back ramp, and began flying toward the stack of supplies. It could not miss Urmat Fobish, lying covered by a gray blanket. Shiiiiiit, Dani said to herself, and looked to Colter for advice. She was an officer but the sergeant had combat experience. She did not have to speak, her pleading look was all Jesse needed.

  He held up three fingers of his left hand, the hand that cradled the rifle’s barrel. The drone suddenly zipped forward, then halted and hovered. Dani realized the drone was looking at a foil ration wrapper that the breeze had carried away after she dropped it.

  ‘On three’, Jesse told her silently, and lowered the first of three fingers.

  Jesse fired first, setting his rifle on full auto to have the best chance of hitting the elusive target. Dani fired a three-round burst a split-second later. The drone rocked and spun from the impacts and sparks flew, then it zipped straight up out of view.

  “Fuck!” Dani whispered. “Where did it go?”

  Jesse was scanning the sky with his rifle scope. “I don’t know.”

  Dani ran back the video captured by her rifle, looking for clues. “Oh, shit. It went straight up when we hit it.” She pressed herself tighter against the tree. “It could be anywhere.”

  “No, I got it,” Jesse whispered back. “It’s damaged, the propeller is making a whining sound.” He pointed with his rifle, while walking around the tree on his knees. His injured leg caught on a fallen branch and he gasped despite the high-tech cast and pain blockers. “It’s above the trees, working its way behind us.”

  Dani slid around the tree, keeping the thick trunk between the drone and herself. She could see it now, a flickering seen intermittently through gaps in the tree canopy. The little trashcan body of the drone was hard to see even though the orange stood out against the blue sky. What she used to track the object were the sparks flashing from it, and a hazy trail of white smoke. They had indeed hit it.

  As quickly as the drone had rocketed away, it attacked. Dani tried to track it, firing on full auto as Colter had done. The drone moved so fast and unpredictably, they had to saturate the target area to get a hit.

  After firing at both her and Colter, the drone zipped away again, except this time it clipped a tree branch on the way up, and wobbled before zooming away.

  Dani concentrated on controlling her breathing and not losing sight of the drone. It attacked again, and she fired when Colter did, following his lead, sending a hail of rounds streaking out toward the target that jerked side to side and up and down. Their rounds tore chunks out of trees behind the drone, filling the air with splinters and sawdust. While they weren’t scoring any hits, they were keeping the drone from shooting back.

  Until it did shoot back.

  The tree trunk next to her exploded, sending a shower of splinters at her face. She ducked, feeling hot blood running down her face. Colter fired at the unseen attacker, while Dani wiped a trickle of blood away from her eyes, feeling lucky that the goggles had protected her vision.

  “Captain!” Colter shouted. “It’s going toward your right!”

  She stuck her rifle out automatically, so she could use its scope to feed images to her helmet while she remained behind the solid tree trunk-

  Except she wasn’t wearing a helmet. Cursing herself for stupidity, she yanked the rifle back behind cover of the tree-

  And was knocked flat on her ass as the rifle was shot out of her hands. The weapon broke in two pieces and went spinning away through the air, and her eyes filled with tears as she saw the thumb and index finger of her right hand bent backwards like they should never be. She blinked away tears of pain and scrambled to flatten herself against the tree as more chunks were blown out of it. To her left, Colter was firing again, she heard him curse as the tree he was hiding behind was being ripped apart. The drone must have decided that since its target was being elusive, it would remove the tree. Jesse scrambled backward, falling on his behind and not losing sight of the drone, pouring a stream of fire into it.

  Then the drone exploded.

  “Got it!” Jesse exulted. “I got you, you son of a bitch! Uh, uh, oh shit!” There was a loud crack as the blasted tree snapped a meter above the ground and it slammed into the forest floor, wobbled, and fell over on top of Jesse. He rolled and tried to scramble away on hands and knees to no avail, barely saving his life as the heavy trunk flopped onto his thighs and crushed him into the dirt.

  “Colter!” Dani screamed, her head jerking between the sparking and smoking remains of the drone, and the sergeant. Deciding the drone was no threat, she ran over to Colter, keeping low. “Sergeant, your legs. Are they-”

  “I can wiggle my toes, on both legs. I think,” he pushed himself onto his elbows and tried to pull away from the tree trunk, “Yeah, my legs aren’t crushed. I think I’m just stuck here.” He looked up at her blood-splattered face. “You Ok, Ma’am?”

  “I,” her voice was shaky. “Fuck, that thing was fast!”

  “So, you’re Ok?”

  “I lost my rifle,” she was so mad at herself that she bit her lip in frustration, and tasted blood. “Think my right thumb, and trigger finger, are broken.” The pain was only now registering on her conscious mind, and it was making her slightly sick. Seeing her thumb bent backwards did not help her fight the nausea. Focusing on something useful would help. “How about you, Colter?”

  “Think I hurt my leg again, got it caught on something when I had to get around this tree,” his voice was strained. “Hurts like hell.”

  “Sorry,” she stood up cautiously. “I can’t give you any more pain blockers.”

  “Yeah, I’ll be fine if we can get this damned tree off of me. Seriously, I’m fine, just stuck here” he flashed a thumbs up at her, then his eyes widened as he saw her right thumb hanging where it should not be, swollen and purple. “Sorry, I didn’t mean-”

  “It’s Ok, Colter.” She handed the broken halves of her rifle to him. “See if you can salvage my weapon while I check on Fobish.”

  Dani found the Ruhar officer still asleep, but under the fine fur covering her face, the skin was a warmer shade of pink, and that was a good sign. The Urmat’s lips were moving silently, and her hands jerked. Probably having a dream, Dani figured. She knelt down next to the alien woman, and took one of her hands gently in her own, squeezing softly and offering what comfort she could. The Ruhar was an alien, but so was Dani, and they were both stuck on a planet where neither of them wanted to be. They fought the same enemy. Their differences were less important than what they had in common.

  Dani opened the medical kit and injected her right hand with a small dose of nano meds, activating the pain blocker. In seconds, her hand went numb, but she could still move the other fingers. Though she did not feel pain, her body recognized the damage, and beads of sweat broke out on her forehead. She wiped the sweat away from her eyes with her left sleeve, and steeled herself to bend the thumb and index finger back into position, before applying a splint sleeve. The sleeves wrapped around the injured digits and hardened, forming a protective shell. That was the best she could do, until they returned to civilization. Satisfied that Fobish was as secure as she could be, Dani went back to where Colter was still wedged under the fallen tree.

  “I think your rifle is fucked, Ma’am,” Jesse declared. “A round hit right in front of the magazine release button. You’re lucky you didn’t lose your hand,” he added.

  Dani stared at the shattered parts the sergeant dropped to the forest floor. The rifle was broken in half, the scope ruined. “If that’s luck, I’ll take it.”

  Jesse frowned and pointed at the magazine well, which was twisted and had a hole punched half way through. “The magazine is jam
med in there, don’t know if I can get it out.”

  “I only had six, eight rounds left anyway,” she gave a shrug, which turned into a shudder. How close had she been to death? Too close. “Fobish is recovering,” she squinted up at the tree canopy, imagining another drone dropping down to kill them. “We need to get out of here. No way did there just happen to be a drone randomly here. There must be a Kristang base nearby.”

  Jesse shook his head, handing his rifle to her. “I don’t think so, Ma’am. I think we have another problem, a big problem that I should have noticed before. That was not a combat drone.”

  “It wasn’t?” She asked, surprised.

  “No. We train to fight combat drones,” he stated. Of course, in training, they had their own drones to counter the machines of the enemy. And they trained in skinsuits. He didn’t tell her that. “Combat drones aren’t bright orange, and they don’t make announcements. That drone was, I think, kind of a forest ranger. Protects the wildlife here from poachers.”

  “Poachers?” She arched an eyebrow, sure the sergeant had lost his mind, or was messing with her.

  “Poachers, and trespassers like us, who just aren’t supposed to be here. You see these big, tall trees all around us?”

  Dani blinked. “I see plenty of them.”

  “They were planted in rows, see?” he pointed.

  Dani blinked again. “I’ll be damned. You’re right.”

  “My father took me out in the Arkansas woods hunting one day, and we came across an area where the trees were planted in rows. There was a government program back, oh, in the 90s or something, encouraged land owners to plant trees as an investment. When the trees were ready for harvest, prices had fallen, there was a glut, and a lot of planted forest were just left to grow natural. It wasn’t worth cutting them down. Anyways, I should have noticed this earlier.”

  She looked up at the trees, then down at the ground. There were no types of fruit or nuts visible. “Is this an orchard?”

  Jesse took a deep breath. “No. See the bark? These are black trees. It ain’t the trees that matter, it’s what lives in black tree forests. That’s why the lizards plant these trees on their planets.” He explained what Shauna had told him, and wished he had been paying better attention when she talked.