John Ringo: The Hero

“The planet is quite Earth-like,” the team commander, nicknamed Bell Toll, said. “Climate is temperate and moderate. I hate to sound too cheerful, but altogether it looks like a walk in the park compared to our usual missions.”

“How do we insert?” Gun Doll asked.

One of the intel weenies briefing them replied, “A stealthed survey ship found an open tunnel to the system. It was quite unlikely, but there it was. The system they found contains both multiple Jovians and this high-quality planet. Sensor bots were dropped for their usual sweep, when faint energy emissions and hyper tracks were detected. The bots performed a cursory biosphere sweep and localized the emissions.”

“It’s our job to do a drop,” Bell Toll continued, “move to the area and determine, hopefully without detection, if there is or is not a Blob base in the area. There’s something there, but it could be Blobs, free-colonizer humans or pirates. Or even another, unknown, race. It’s up to us to determine which. And for that we’ll need our sensat.

“Tirdal, attention, please,” he asked, and Tirdal snapped upright. “Tirdal’s been in service for quite some time as an intel analyst and interrogator. He’s only recently been through the DRT course, but has some experience and time in grade, so, by the chain of command, he will be third in line of command, after me and Shiva. At ease, Tirdal.

“Class Two, for those of you who slept through all the training sessions, means he can detect emotions and thought processes, but not reliably acquire actual thought symbols. Level Four means he can detect out to a variable but undefined range greater than Level Three. He’s going to be one of our early warning systems to keep us from walking into a tea party of Blobs. Also, if he can pick up any signs from a distance, we may not have to go in as far. I’m sure you all appreciate the advantage of that.” They did. Brave fronts aside, anything that reduced mission risk was a good thing. Everyone took another look at the Darhel, looking as cool as an Oort planet in his brand-new uniform. Most of the stares were curious, but a couple were cold. He didn’t seem fazed.

“With all that said, are there any questions not addressed in this briefing or your packets?” There were not. All the questions that the team wanted to ask were on the unofficial forbidden list. “Why are we doing this shit?” “Are we actually expected to survive?” “Is this a good time to ask for a transfer?” Questions that flashed through most of their minds, at least from the second mission onward, but could never be spoken. They were DRT and they hadn’t gotten this far by quitting.

“Then you had better get last minute stuff fixed up and check your gear. Zero seven hundred start tomorrow. The initial oporder will be Thursday at zero nine hundred. We’ll probably lift sometime around seventeen hundred to nineteen hundred hours. That’s all. Tirdal, follow me,” he finished with a point of his finger. He knew better than to leave the Darhel alone for now. The team was still unwinding from their last exercise and wouldn’t react well to the stress of an incoming alien sensat. He could already hear the grumbles.

Despite shorter legs, the Darhel strode easily down the duraplast hallway alongside the captain, feeling the human’s conflicting thoughts. Beneath the turmoil, there was order and confidence. Even more than regular troops, sensats needed to know their commanders were prepared to deal with issues. Tirdal felt the coming question arising before Bell Toll opened his mouth. “So what do you think, Tirdal?”

“Of the situation, Captain? Of the team? Of the preparations?”

“Of the team, for now.”

“I don’t think they like me much,” Tirdal said slowly. He said everything slowly. His voice wasn’t taciturn or filtered to be deep and empty, that was just how Darhel spoke. His only expression was a flip of his right ear.

The pictures to either side of them were more formal, line drawings and holos of battles and locales. Bell Toll appeared to study them as he walked, though he’d no doubt seen them thousands of times before.

“They may not like you,” the captain said, frowning. “Yet. But small teams require trust and teamwork. Since you’re new and haven’t been with the team in their exercises, or missions for that matter, you’re naturally going to experience a bit of standoffishness. This is just the nature of being new to a team. Don’t let it worry you. Do your job and everyone will forget that…”

“That I’m a shiftless Darhel freak?” Tirdal supplied with an ear flick.

“If you take that point of view things will be very rough indeed,” the captain said, stopping to lock eyes with the Darhel. “And I won’t tolerate discrimination.”

“Yes, sir,” Tirdal agreed, tasting the forceful honesty in the statement. For a wonder, the team commander seemed to accept him at face value: as a “newbie” team member, not a Darhel, not an evil demon Shylock. Still, the captain was keeping him separated from the rest of the team at present. Tirdal partly appreciated that because there was less stress in their thoughts when he wasn’t around, but it wasn’t a good sign. They’d have to learn to be comfortable to function.

“But you still have to respect their unity and work to earn their trust,” Bell Toll said, as if he were the sensat. “If you try to mess with the experienced members, they will go hard on you, trust me. You’re the new boy, learn to deal.”

“Yes, sir. I’m prepared for that.”

“Good. They’re — we’re — going to give you the respect due your rank. But it is up to you to prove that you’re worthy to be here, not up to us to prove that we are.”

“Yes, sir,” Tirdal said as they reached the captain’s office.

“I’m sure you’ve got your own preparations,” Bell Toll said as he turned at his door. “Oporder for the exercise is at zero nine hundred. Same briefing room.”

Tirdal flicked his ear again, then left as Bell Toll closed the door.

Back in the team’s briefing room, the NCO in charge had just returned. He’d arrived late and left early to deal with details, and no one had had a chance to talk to him, yet. Shiva, as he was known, walked in to the middle of the heated discussion about the Darhel. It was rather vehement, and he’d not even sat down before Thor confronted him.

“We gotta goddamned Darhel sensat dumped on us, Sarge,” he complained without even a nod of greeting.

“I know, I was here,” Shiva said. He was calm. Shiva was always calm. Considering the missions and the troops, it was a good attribute, and he’d made it as long as he had and to his rank because of it.

“Good. What are you going to do about it?” Thor asked.

“Nothing,” Shiva replied. “Nothing I can do, and he’s the sensat we’ve got. Sorry, Thor, you’ll have to get used to him.”

“They probably let the little shrimp ghost Q course,” Gorilla put in. “They always go easy on sensats.” His voice was deep and gravelly to match his huge size.

“Think so, huh?” Shiva asked, turning toward him.

“Yeah, am I wrong?”

“Well,” Shiva drawled, a faint smile of amusement spreading across his face as he spread across the chair in a stretch. “He apparently maxed the course. Not ‘exceptional,’ but ‘maxed.’ I called Roy over at Course and the instructors were impressed. And most of ’em hated his guts. So there was no favoritism there.”

“It’s probably just like the way chicks get treated,” Gun Doll said. “There’s so few of us, still, that we stand out. Everyone assumes that women, shrimps, aliens and civvy specialists get special treatment.” She looked over at Dagger, who’d hazed her mercilessly upon her arrival, before grudgingly admitting she knew her job. “Right, Dagger?”