It was a cold, blue-green swamp under a violet sky. Lieutenant Connors had seen some swamps in his day; after all, he'd spent a number of years at the original "Camp Swampy," Fort Stewart, Georgia.

"Nothing like this shit, though," he muttered, as he struggled for a balance between conserving power for his Armored Combat Suit, and not sinking waist deep in the muck. Not sinking continued to win the toss as he reduced mass on his suit and applied power to forward thrusters to keep going even when the ground slid away in a lumpy slurry beneath him. His feet still sank ankle deep in the crud below.

The ACS encasing Connors was Galactic-built, but to human-drawn specifications. Despite this, and despite being symmetrically bipedal — two arms, two legs — and having a largish lump right where the head should be, the thing did not look too terribly human. In fact, it looked completely inhuman. For one thing, the suit had colored itself a dull blue-green to match the vegetation of the swamp. For another, it lacked obvious eyes and ears, while having a number of weapons stations sprouting from it.