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

Wilson said. “It’s set to receive. And once the thing hit the Polk, it would be too busy focusing on that to pay much attention when a strange ship popped up on its sensors. Until it was too late.”
    “The early arrival of the Polk ruined their plans,” Coloma said. “Why is this thing still out there?”
    “I think it changed their plans,” Wilson said. “They had to kill the Polk when it arrived early, and they had to get rid of as much of it as possible to leave in doubt what happened to it. But as long as there’s enough CDF missile debris among the wreckage of the Utche ship, then mission accomplished. Having the Polk go missing works just fine with that, since it looks like the CDF is hiding the ship, rather than presenting it to prove the missiles didn’t come from it.”
    “But we know what happened to the Polk, ” Abumwe said.
    “ They don’t know that,” Wilson pointed out. “Whoever they are. We’re the wild card in the deck. And it doesn’t change the fact that the Utche are still a target.”
    “Have you disabled the missile?” Coloma asked.
    “No,” Wilson said. “I was able to read the missile’s instruction set, but I can’t do anything to change it. I’m locked out of that. And I don’t have any tools with me that can disable it. But even if I disabled this one, there are others out there. Hart’s and my heat map shows four more of these things out there beside this one. We have less than an hour before the Utche are scheduled to arrive. There’s no way to physically disable them in time.”
    “So we’re helpless to stop the attack,” Abumwe said.
    “No, wait,” Coloma said. “You said there’s no way to physically disable them. Do you have another way to disable them?”
    “I think I might have a way to destroy them,” Wilson said.
    “Tell us,” Coloma said.
    “You’re not going to like it,” Wilson said.
    “Will I like it better than us standing by while the Utche are attacked and then we are framed for it?” Coloma said.
    “I’d like to think so,” Wilson said.
    “Then tell us,” Coloma said.
    “It involves the shuttle,” Wilson said.
    Coloma threw up her hands. “Of course it does,” she said.

IX.
    “Here—” Schmidt thrust a small container and a mask into Wilson’s hands. “Supplementary oxygen. For a normal person that’s about twenty minutes’ worth. I don’t know what that would be for you.”
    “About two hours,” Wilson said. “More than enough time. And the other thing?”
    “I got it,” Schmidt said, and held up another object, not much larger than the oxygen container. “High-density, quick-discharge battery. Straight from the engine room. It required the direct intervention of Captain Coloma, by the way. Chief Engineer Basquez was not pleased to be relieved of it.”
    “If everything goes well, he’ll have it back soon,” Wilson said.
    “And if everything doesn’t go well?” Schmidt asked.
    “Then we’ll all have bigger problems, won’t we,” Wilson said.
    They both looked at the shuttle, which Wilson was about to reenter after a brief pit stop in the Clarke ’s bay.
    “You really are insane, you know that,” Schmidt said, after a moment.
    “I always think it’s funny when people get told what they are by other people,” Wilson said. “As if they didn’t already know.”
    “We could just set the autopilot on the shuttle,” Schmidt said. “Send it out that way.”
    “We could, ” Wilson said. “If a shuttle was like a mechanical vehicle you could send on its way by tying a brick to its accelerator pedal. But it’s not. It’s designed to have a human at the controls. Even on autopilot.”
    “You could alter the programming on the shuttle,” Schmidt said.
    “We have roughly fifteen minutes before the Utche arrive,” Wilson said. “I appreciate the vote of confidence in my skills, but no. There’s no time. And we need to do more than just send it out, anyway.”
    “Insane,” Schmidt