Free The Human Division #1: The B-Team by John Scalzi

adjust the properties of the nanobotic cloth of his combat unitard to run a slight electric current through his unitard’s hands, soles and knees, the current powered by his own body heat and friction generated through movement. That achieved, he reached out again toward the the big, black, invisible object.
    His hand clung to it, lightly. Hooray for magnetism, Wilson thought.
    Moving slowly so as not to accidentally and fatally launch himself into space, Wilson left the shuttle to go exploring.

    “We have a problem,” Wilson said. He was back on the conference call with Coloma and Abumwe. Schmidt hovered behind Abumwe, silent.
    “ You have a problem,” Coloma said. “You were ordered to return that shuttle forty minutes ago.”
    “We have a different problem,” Wilson said. “I’ve found a missile out here. It’s armed. It’s waiting for the Utche. And it’s one of ours.”
    “Excuse me?” Coloma said, after a moment.
    “It’s another Melierax Series Seven,” Wilson said, and held up the black box. “It’s housed in a small silo that’s covered in the same wavelength-absorbing material this thing is. When you run the standard scans, you won’t see it. Hart and I only saw it because we ran a highly-sensitive thermal scan when we were looking for the black box, and even then we didn’t give it any thought because it wasn’t what we were looking for. When I was looking through the Polk data, there was an explosion that seemed to come out of nowhere, before the Polk was attacked by the ship and missiles we could see. My brain put two and two together. I passed by this thing on the way to black box. I stopped this time to get a closer look.”
    “You said it’s waiting for the Utche,” Abumwe said.
    “Yes,” Wilson said.
    “How do you know that?” Abumwe asked.
    “I hacked into the missile,” Wilson said. “I got inside the silo, pried open the missile control panel and then used this.” He held up the CDF standard connector.
    “You went on a spacewalk ?” Schmidt said, over Abumwe’s shoulder. “Are you completely insane ?”
    “I went on three,” Wilson said as Abumwe turned to glare at Schmidt. “I was limited by how long I could hold my breath.”
    “You hacked into the missile,” Coloma said, returning to the subject.
    “Right,” Wilson said. “The missile is armed and it’s waiting for a signal from the Utche ship.”
    “What signal?” Coloma asked.
    “I think it’s when the Utche ship hails us,” Wilson said. “The Utche send their ship-to-ship communications on certain frequencies, different from the ones we typically use. This missile is programmed to home in on ships using those frequencies. Ergo, it’s waiting for the Utche.”
    “To what end?” Abumwe asked.
    “Isn’t it obvious?” Wilson said. “The Utche are attacked by a Colonial Defense Forces missile, and are damaged or destroyed. The original Colonial Union diplomatic mission was traveling by CDF frigate. It would look like we attacked the Utche. Negotiations broken off, diplomacy over, the Colonial Union and the Utche back at each other’s throats.”
    “But the Polk was destroyed,” Coloma said.
    “I’ve been thinking about that,” Wilson said. “The information I was sent by the CDF about the Polk ’s mission said it was slated to arrive seventy-four hours prior to the scheduled Utche arrival. The black box data stream has the Polk arriving eighty hours prior to the scheduled Utche arrival.”
    “You think they arrived early and caught someone setting the trap,” Coloma said.
    “I don’t know about ‘caught,’” Wilson said. “I think whoever it was was in the process of setting the trap and then was surprised by the Polk ’s arrival.”
    “You just said these things were looking for the Utche,” Abumwe said. “But it sounds like one of them hit the Polk, too.”
    “If the people setting the trap were nearby, it would be trivial to change the programming of the missile,”