The glasses stayed clear until they walked in the room, then darkened momentarily and came back showing a jungle scene. It wasn’t anywhere on Earth — both the trees and sounds were wrong — and it took Berg a moment to adjust.

“Where are we supposed to be?” he subvocalized. When they passed Basic, every Marine was fitted with combat implants that consisted of a small microphone implanted next to the vocal cords and a receiver in the mastoid bone. Learning to subvocalize was a requirement of Marine basic training. The system was virtually identical to the one the Adar used when they first reached Earth. For a short time, it had been thought that the Adar were telepaths since using the system looked much the same to an ignorant observer. There was virtually no sound involved and only short bursts of radio.

“This is based on Chen’s World,” Jaenisch replied subvocally, his lips moving only slightly. “But it’s got different monsters. All we have to do is make it to the far wall.” He hefted a virtual M-10 and was now, in the goggles, wearing full battle rattle, a set of boron carbide body armor with fitted pouches for ammunition. “You’ve got left, I’ll take right.”

Berg jacked a round into his own M-10, flicked the weapon off safe and nodded.

“Let’s do it.”

Jaenisch led off, following a narrow game trail. Berg kept his attention to the left, sweeping forward, up and to the rear. There were some light heat forms in his glasses, but nothing that looked like a threat.

A thunderous roar from the right almost made him spin around but he kept on his sector and it was a good thing. Just as the roar faded, a form came charging through the jungle. It was bipedal and looked something like a more insectile Dreen thorn-thrower. Whatever it was it had a big mouth and Berg wasn’t going to take any chances.