“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?”