Scorched Earth, Alien Wonders
Chapter 23: Death Trap

“How am I doing, Doc?” I asked Jenkins after he finished examining me the next morning.

“There continues to be an irregular thread showing up on the scan of your prairie dog subroutine that has gotten thicker since the last time I viewed the pattern,” said Doc, in a subdued voice, as he sat the mini-binocs down on the burrow floor.

Ah. Bloody. Hell.

“Thanks, Doc,” then I motioned for the team to gather around in the center of the burrow. Shiny, thin, strands of morning sunlight floated down through the overhead entrance, making the place look far brighter than my mood.

“I’d like you all to stand behind the binocs, because it’s time for me to contact Qualdron again and give him a report, but I don’t want him to know you’re here and listening.”

Sensing I was not in the cheeriest frame of mind, everyone quickly moved over to the backside of the burrow. I touched the communications button, and the mini-binocs instantly increased to full size. I laid them against a root-cluster at an angle that would allow me to look directly into the lenses.

A few seconds later, I was engaged in a conversation with our double-crossing, mission leader.

“I have very little to report, other than the news we already spoke about regarding human enlightenment. We have been unable to make any headway in penetrating the human settlement to replace out about a planned raid on Rosen.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” responded the two-faced, pale-cheeked, back-stabber.

Then I posed some statements to prompt what I hoped would be revealing answers.

“I want to confirm again that the transporter is ready to engage and get us out of here, because I’m afraid we might have to call this a failed mission.”

“I’m sorry to hear that, too, but rest assured the transporter is ready to get you and the team out of there any time and time is running out.”

“Okay, thanks. Is there any news from your end?”

“No, I’m just hoping for the best mission outcome possible.”

“Okay. I’ll check back tomorrow. Memphis signing off...”

“Captain, wait...”

“Yeah?”

Silence...

“I just wanted to wish you good luck.”

After I disconnected the link everyone quietly circled back around the middle of the burrow.

“Torie!” I said loudly.

Instantly, the old centurion swirled up from the binocs and stood with us.

“Do you think he suspects we know anything?” asked Moore.

“No, but what was your sense of it, Doc?” I asked Jenkins.

“I couldn’t really tell, since I don’t know the guy’s usual pattern on these types of missions.”

“You know him better than anyone by now, Captain, after reporting to him for almost two-full moons. What did you think?” asked straight-talking Jones.

“I think he doesn’t suspect anything, and I think he wants us to fail, and I’ll tell you three reasons why.”

“First of all, if this assignment was meant to uncover a real threat to Rosen, he wouldn’t have let us give up this easy...by his reputation, the words ‘mission failure’ aren’t in his vocabulary. He would have insisted we try harder, and he would have kept up the pressure.”

“Secondly, he didn’t ask once if I’d gotten Torie to tell me what the two-word, coded messages were that he sent to his girlfriend...why? Because it no longer matters, since he expects us to get into the transporter a little over 48-hours from now.”

“And third, the sooner we get snuffed out in a tragic transporter accident, the sooner we are shut down from possibly exposing his treasonous plot.”

“That rat-bastard really wants us to get into that transporter death-trap, just as we suspected,” said Moore, while everyone else stood there stone silent like condemned prisoners.

“What’s gonna happen when we don’t get into the transporter?” asked Brown. “The techs will know that we didn’t enter.”

“Ah, but we want him to think we all entered the transporter, and died trying to get home just as he planned,” I replied.

“That’s a neat trick, Captain, how are we going to pull that off?” asked Davis.

“I’m working on it.”

Dammit, I was getting that bad feeling again. C’mon, top dog...shake it off.