Anyway, it wasn’t Sagan he was worried about, it was Boutin himself. The mission anticipated some resistance from the small Obin military presence at the science station, but none from the scientists or from Boutin. This struck Jared as wrong. Jared had Boutin’s anger in his head and knew the intelligence of the man, even if the details of all his work remained unclear to him. Jared doubted Boutin would go without a fight. This didn’t mean Boutin would take up arms—he emphatically wasn’t a warrior—but Boutin’s weapon was his brain. It was Boutin’s brain formulating a way to betray the Colonial Union that had put them all in this position to begin with. It was a bad assumption that they would simply be able to snatch and stuff Boutin. He almost certainly had a surprise in store.
What that surprise would be, however, eluded Jared.
::You hungry?:: Seaborg asked Jared. ::Because thinking about how insane a mission is going to be always makes me want to eat.::
Jared grinned. ::You must be hungry a lot.::
::One of the benefits of being Special Forces,:: Seaborg said. ::That and skipping the awkward teenage years.::
::Studying up on teenagers?:: Jared asked.
::Sure,:: Seaborg said. ::Because if I’m lucky I’ll get to be one one day.::
::You just said we get to skip the awkward teenage years,:: Jared said.
::Well, when I get there they won’t be awkward,:: Seaborg said. ::Now come on. It’s lasagna tonight.::
They went to get something to eat.
Sagan opened her eyes.
::How did it go?:: asked Szilard, who had been watching her as she listened in to Jared.
::Dirac’s worried that we’re underestimating Boutin,:: Sagan said. ::That he’s planned for being attacked in some way we’ve missed.::
::Good,:: Szilard said. ::Because I feel the same way. That’s why I want Dirac on the mission.::
Arist, green and cloudy, filled Jared’s vision, surprising him with its immensity. Popping into existence at the bare edge of a planet’s atmosphere with nothing but a carbon fiber cage around you was profoundly disturbing; Jared felt like he was going to fall. Which was of course exactly what he was doing.
Enough of this, he thought, and began disconnecting himself from his sled. Planetward, Jared located the five other members of his squad, all of whom translated before him: Sagan, Seaborg, Daniel Harvey, Anita Manley and Vernon Wigner. He also spotted the capture pod, and breathed a sigh of relief. The capture pod’s mass was just short of the five-ton mark; there was a small but real concern it would be too massive to use the mini–Skip Drive. All of Jared’s squad had pulled themselves from their sleds and were free-floating, slowly drifting from the spidery vehicles that had brought them this far.
The six of them were the forward force; their job was to guide down the capture pod and secure a landing area for the remaining members of 2nd Platoon, who would be following quickly behind. The island Boutin was on was carpeted with a thick tropical forest, which made any landing difficult; Sagan had chosen a small meadowed area about fifteen klicks from the science station to land at.
::Keep dispersed,:: Sagan said to her squad. ::We’ll regroup when we get through the worst of the atmosphere. Radio silence until you hear from me.::
Jared maneuvered himself to look at Arist and drank it in until his BrainPal, sensing the first tenuous effects of the atmosphere, wrapped him in a protective sphere of nanobots that flowed from a pack on his back and secured him in the middle, to keep him from making contact with the sphere and crisping himself where they intersected. The inside of the sphere let in no light; Jared was suspended in a small, dark private universe.
Left to his own thoughts, Jared returned to the Obin, the implacable and fascinating race whose company Boutin kept. The Colonial Union’s records of the Obin went all the way back to the beginning of the Union, when a discussion over who owned a planet the human settlers had named Casablanca ended with the settlers removed with horrifying efficiency, and the Colonial Forces charged with taking back the planet likewise utterly routed. The Obin wouldn’t surrender and would not take prisoners. Once they decided they wanted something they kept coming at it until they had it.
Get in their way enough and they would decide it was in their interest to remove you permanently. The Ala, who had fashioned the diamond dome of the general’s mess at Phoenix, were not the first race the Obin had methodically wiped out, nor the last.