The squad deployed chutes at the lowest possible height; even camouflaged, parachutes could be seen by an eye that knew what to look for. The capture pod’s parachute was immense and designed to support dramatic air-braking; it made impressive snapping sounds as the nanobot-created canopy formed, filled with air and then violently tore apart, only to form again a second later. Finally the capture pod slowed enough that its parachute held.
Jared turned to the science station, several klicks to the south, and upped the magnification on his cowl to see if there was any movement at the science station that would suggest they had been seen. He saw nothing and had his observation confirmed by Wigner and Harvey. Moments later they were all on the ground, grunting as they moved the capture pod past the edge of the meadow and into the woods, and then moving quickly to augment its camouflage with foliage.
::Everyone remember where we parked,:: Seaborg said.
::Quiet,:: Sagan said, and appeared to be focusing on something internal. ::That was Roentgen,:: she said. ::The others are getting ready to deploy chutes.:: She hoisted her Empee. ::Come on, let’s make sure there aren’t any surprises.::
Jared felt a peculiar sensation, like his brain being picked.
::Oh, shit,:: Jared said.
Sagan turned to look at him. ::What?:: she said.
::We’re in trouble, Jared said, and halfway through saying it Jared felt his integration with his squad violently cut off. He gasped and clutched his head, overwhelmed by the feeling of having one of his major senses ripped out of his skull. Around him Jared saw and heard the other squad members collapsing, crying out and vomiting from the pain and disorientation. He fell to his knees and tried to breathe. He retched.
Jared struggled back to his feet and stumbled over to Sagan, who was on her knees, wiping her mouth from vomiting. He grabbed her arm and tried to pull her up. “Come on,” Jared said. “We have to get up. We have to hide.”
“Wha—” Sagan coughed and spat, and looked up at Jared. “What’s going on?”
“We’re cut off,” Jared said. “It’s happened to me before, when I was at Covell. The Obin are blocking us from using our BrainPals.”
“How?” Sagan yelled the question, too loudly.
“I don’t know,” Jared said.
Sagan stood up. “It’s Boutin,” she said, groggily. “He told them how. Must have.”
“Maybe,” Jared said. Sagan wobbled slightly; Jared steadied her and came around to face her. “We have to move, Lieutenant,” he said. “If the Obin are blocking us, that means they know we’re here. They’re coming for us. We have to get our people up and moving.”
“We have more people coming,” Sagan said. “Have to…” She stopped, and straightened, as if something cold and horrible had just washed over her. “Oh, my God,” she said. “Oh, my God.” She looked up into the sky.
“What is it?” Jared asked, and looked up, scanning for the tell-tale subtle ripples of camouflaged parachutes. It took him a second to realize he didn’t see any. It took him another second to realize what it meant.
“Oh, my God,” Jared said.
Alex Roentgen’s first guess was that he managed to lose his tightbeam connection with the rest of the platoon.
Well, shit, he thought, and shifted his position, spread-eagling and spinning a few times to let the tightbeam receiver seek out and locate the other members of the platoon, letting his BrainPal extrapolate their positions based on where they had been on their last transmission. He didn’t need to find them all; just one would do nicely and then he would be reconnected, reintegrated.
Nothing.
Roentgen pushed his concerns away. He’d lost tightbeam before—only once, but once was enough to know it happened. He had reconnected when he made it to ground then; he’d do it again this time. He didn’t have any more time to waste on it anyway because he was coming up on deployment altitude; they were deploying as low as possible to cover their tracks, so when to deploy was a matter of some precision. Roentgen checked his BrainPal to determine his altitude and it was then he realized that for the last minute he’d had no contact with his BrainPal at all.