Redshirts

accompany me. You’re on it. Meet me in the shuttle bay in half an hour.”
    “Yes, sir,” Dahl said. Q’eeng nodded and headed off. He turned back to Duvall and Finn. They were looking at him oddly. “What?” he said.
    “An away team with Q’eeng,” Duvall said.
    “A sudden, oddly coincidental away team with Q’eeng,” Finn said.
    “Let’s try not to be too paranoid,” Dahl said.
    “That’s funny, considering,” Finn said.
    Dahl pushed the blueprints at Finn. “While I’m away, Finn, find a way for us to sneak up on Jenkins without him being aware of it. I want to talk to him, but aside from that warning I don’t think he wants to talk to us. I don’t want to give him that choice.”
    *   *   *
    “This is all your fault, you know,” Cassaway hissed at Dahl. He, Cassaway and Mbeke constituted the away team with Q’eeng and a security team member named Taylor. Q’eeng was piloting the shuttle to the colony; Taylor took the co-pilot seat. The xenobiologists were in the back. The two other xenobiologists had been coldly silent to him during the mission briefing and for most of the shuttle ride down to the planet. These were the first words either of them had spoken to him the entire trip.
    “How is this my fault?” Dahl said. “I didn’t tell the captain to take the ship here.”
    “It’s your fault for asking about Jenkins!” Cassaway said. “You’re pissing him off with all your questions about him.”
    “I can’t ask questions about him now?” Dahl said.
    “Not questions that make him retaliate against us,” Mbeke said.
    “Shut up, Fiona,” Cassaway said. “It’s your fault too.”
    “My fault too?” said Mbeke, incredulous. “I’m not the one asking all these stupid questions!”
    Cassaway jabbed a finger in Dahl’s direction. “You’re the one who brought up Jenkins in front of him! Twice!”
    “It slipped,” Mbeke said. “I was just making conversation the first time. The second time I didn’t think it would matter. He already knew.”
    “Look where we are, Fiona.” Cassaway waved to indicate the shuttle. “Tell me it doesn’t matter. You never told Sid Black about Jenkins.”
    “Sid Black was an asshole,” Mbeke said.
    “And this one isn’t?” Cassaway said, pointing at Dahl again.
    “I’m right here, you know,” Dahl said.
    “Fuck you,” Cassaway said, to Dahl. He looked at Mbeke again. “And fuck you too, Fiona. You should have known better.”
    “I was just making conversation,” Mbeke said again, brokenly, her eyes on her hands, which were in her lap.
    Dahl looked at the two of them for a moment. “You didn’t know Q’eeng was coming to see you, did you,” he said, finally. “No time for you or Collins and Trin to get coffee or for you to hide out in the storage room. Q’eeng just showed up at the lab and you were all caught flat-footed. And when he told Collins he needed an away team—”
    “She volunteered us,” Mbeke said.
    “And you,” Cassaway said, spitting out the words. “Q’eeng wanted her or Ben to come too, but she sold you out. Reminded him you had solved the Merovian Plague. Said you were one of the best xenobiologists she’s ever had on staff. It’s a lie, of course. You’re not. But it worked because you’re here and not her or Ben.”
    “I see,” Dahl said. “I don’t suppose that’s unexpected, because I’m the new guy. The low man on the totem pole. The guy that’s meant to be replaced every couple of months anyway, right? But you two,” he said, nodding to the both of them. “You thought that you were protected. You survived long enough that you thought Collins wouldn’t push you at Q’eeng if she had to. You thought she might even pick one of you over Ben Trin, didn’t you.”
    Cassaway looked away from Dahl; Mbeke started crying quietly.
    “It came as a surprise to find out just where you sat on the totem pole, didn’t it?” Dahl said.
    “Shut up, Dahl,” Cassaway said, not looking at him.
    They were quiet all the rest of the way down to the planet.
    *   *   *
    They found no colonists, but they found parts of them. And a lot of blood.
    “Pulse guns on full power,” Q’eeng said. “Cassaway, Mbeke, Dahl, I want you to follow the blood trails into the woods. We still might find someone alive, or find a dead one of whatever it is that did this. I’m going to check out the administrative office and see if there’s anything there that can explain this. Taylor, you’re