“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.”