"John Ringo - The Legacy of the Aldenata 5 - The Hero" - читать интересную книгу автора (Ringo John)

Chapter 2
The premission briefing bore no shattering surprises. There was fuzzy vid from a probe flyby, with
scientific data on geology and meteorology, botany and zoology. They were fuzzy because the probe
was the size of a basketball and had whisked through at meteoric velocities, then done a datadump;
anything larger or less covert would have given away the fact that someone was interested in the system.
Mission gear was listed, some as required, some optional. Another list had forbidden items. No
shocks there, either: nothing that could give away the location of an inhabited planet, no tech gear that
didn't include a self-destruct, nothing personal that was indicative of culture or language, etc. Also
tediously routine for the team was the situation: Enemy forces: unknown. Friendly forces: none. Attached
assets: none. They were needed at once and had only minimal prep time. There was never time to
rehearse it properly, but there was always time to waste a team or two. They would at least get two
days to shake down with their new member. The military was generous in its own way. Day One was
today, all talk. Day Two would be a field exercise.
"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'ssomething 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.