The exception had been fatigue. He had ignored the fact that SEAL students were kept awake for the entire period of Hell Week and that had almost finished him. But he made it. And he’d kept his head down in Phase One and Two and done pretty well, finished near the top of his class. When he got to the Teams he knew he’d face some harassment, nothing personal, just making sure he was adequate SEAL material. When they sent him out for flight-line he came back with a roll of climbing rope. When they sent him out for prop-wash he came back with a bucket of same, a civilian brand of aircraft cleaning solvent. He’d prepared and thought that he was ready to face anything that the SEALs could throw at him.

Until this.

He realized, as he reached the top of the platform, that instead of reading military fiction he should have been reading science fiction. For all his briefing he realized he had no clue what they were talking about. Different atmosphere? Different sun? Different gravity? And then there were those stinking, unworldly, bugs.

This could really, really suck.

He started the damned video camera then prepared to step through. At the last moment he stopped. If there might be a drop he wanted his feet together. He placed them side by side, held his weapon at high port in tactical position, and then jumped into the globe.

There was a moment of disorientation, like being on a roller coaster upside down in the dark and then rather than falling his toes caught on something and he tripped. He automatically rolled on something soft, hit something hard and came up in a crouch with his weapon trained outward.

Orange was his first impression; most of the environment was orange. There wasn’t a lot of sunlight; it was cut off by overarching vegetation. The “trees” seemed to be giant vines that twisted together to reach upward for the light. It was something like triple canopy jungle. But instead of the vines and moss equivalent being green, they were orange. And they were everywhere. He’d hit a small patch of “soil” (orange) but it was a small patch. Most of the ground was covered by the roots of the vines.