On the rolling plain, grasses waved purple and orange in the morning breeze; birdlike animals with two sets of wings could be seen playing the sky, testing out the currents and eddies with wild, chaotic swoops and dives. This was our first morning on a new world, the first I or any of my former shipmates had ever set upon. It was beautiful. If there hadn't been a large, angry master sergeant on it, bellowing in my ear, it would have been just about perfect. Alas, there was. "Christ on a Popsicle stick," Master Sergeant Antonio Ruiz declared after he had glared at the sixty of us in his recruit platoon, standing (we hoped) more or less at attention on the tarmac of Delta Base's shuttleport. "We have clearly just lost the battle for the goddamn universe. I look at you people and the words 'tremendously fucked' leap right out of my goddamned skull. If you're the best that the Earth has got to offer, it's time we bend over and get a tentacle right up the ass." This got an involuntary chuckle from several recruits.
