The UN arrived first. On Mars she’d worked with their standard weapons investigation teams. They’d been searching for illegal smart munitions, and were your usual UN soldiers in white suits and blue berets, cute and kind of aimless. These veterans were of a different breed. They came dressed in carbon-black SWAT gear that made her police outfit look like a school uniform. Suit clucked and gurgled his jealousy at their budget. Each carried EM pulse rifles that weren’t effective against the mechanical components of sentient machines, but messed up their power supplies. The last two brought flamethrowers and explosives. Alice didn’t know what kind of trouble they’d encountered on other raids, but doubted Niner would be a problem; he was just a little kid who’d been lied to.