No, you land way off course

The pod was still shaking when Iris spoke.

“We have deviated from our designated trajectory.”

“How far?”

“Considerably. Impact in five seconds.”

“WHERE?”

“Somewhere wet.” The pod slammed into the water. We skipped across the surface, smashed through something wooden, and buried ourselves nose-first in the beach.

My harness released.

I kicked the emergency hatch and sent it flying thirty feet. “Holy shit.” I knew the armor upped my strength but that’s ridiculous. “Strength amplification functioning normally,” Iris said. I grabbed my rifle and climbed out expecting a battlefield. Instead, I found paradise.

Turquoise ocean. White sand with some glass scorch marks where we had slid across. Colorful fishing boats surrounding a village of wooden huts built along the shore. And about fifty squid people staring at the seven-foot armored man who had just fallen out of the sky.

I looked back. My pod had demolished half their pier on landing. “You also sank a boat,” Iris helpfully added. The villagers were humanoid but definitely alien, with skin ranging from pale blue to violet and flexible tentacles growing from their heads instead of hair. They didn’t look mad, their expression more one of awe.

Most kept their distance. One didn’t. She pushed through the crowd and approached me. She looked about my age, early twenties. Her squid features designed to be more cute than monstrous, with smooth lavender skin, huge dark eyes and slender tentacles cascading from her head and around her shoulders. Below the neck, however, evolution had apparently decided the human body plan didn’t require much improvement. Long legs. Narrow waist. Wide hips. Full glistening chest. The developers had somehow made a squid girl sexy.

“Really?” Iris muttered.

What?

“You’ve been planetside for forty-three seconds.”

I’m observing the indigenous population.

“You’re observing two extremely specific portions of the indigenous population.”

The girl reached up and knocked against my chest plate.

Clunk. Clunk.

“Is there really someone inside?”

My helmet retracted.

“Last time I checked.”

Her eyes widened. Color rippled across her cheeks as several of her tentacles curled against one another. I smiled. Interesting. Iris appeared directly between us in my HUD.

“Your heart rate increased.”

“I just survived an orbital deployment.”

“Your heart increased when little miss fish tits smiled at you.”

“Delayed reaction and I don’t know if a Cephalopod counts as a fish.”

“I see.”

She disappeared.

“Neria!” An older alien wearing overalls and carrying a harpoon hurried toward us.

“My father,” the girl said.

The fisherman stopped beside her, looked at my pod sticking out of his pier, then looked at me. I raised a hand. “Sorry about the boat.”

Instead of getting angry, his expression changed. He said something I couldn’t understand. Then dropped to one knee. The rest of the village followed. Even Neria bowed her head.

“Uh, Iris?”

“Translating.”

A moment later the fisherman’s words came through my helmet. “Thank the deep. The Colonies have finally come.” I looked around. Everyone was staring at me differently now. Not frightened but hopeful. They thought I’d come here intentionally.

Iris.

“Yes?”

Don’t tell them I got lost.

“You didn’t get lost. Your pod suffered catastrophic navigational failure.”

“Yeah I wouldn’t mention that either.”

The old fisherman stood and clasped both hands around my armored forearm. “The broadcasts said the Colonial Army had landed. We prayed your soldiers would reach us.”Neria stared up at me with newfound fascination. That felt pretty good.

I looked down at the massive rifle magnetically locked against my armor.

“Well here I am.”

Iris sighed inside my helmet. She gave me a breakdown of our situation. We were approximately two hundred and eighty kilometers away from the drop zone. A plasma mortar had screwed with our Nav systems and knocked us off course. Iris contacted Colonial command while the villagers surrounded me with questions. My rescue beacon had been detected, but fighting around the landing zones had every available dropship occupied.

“Estimated retrieval: twenty-one hours,” Iris told me privately.

“Tomorrow?”

“Yes.”

I looked at Neria. She was still watching me with a big smile on her face. “Could be worse.”

“I knew you were going to say that.”

Her father insisted I stay with his family.

Apparently refusing the village elder who believed I’d personally descended from the heavens to liberate his people would’ve been rude, so that evening I found myself sitting at their dinner table instead of shooting Mercenaries.

The house was small and warm, built on wooden supports over the water. Nets and fishing equipment covered the walls while oil lamps kept the place lit at night. Dinner consisted of grilled fish, something resembling purple rice, and a bowl of tiny crustaceans that kept trying to escape. Neria sat directly across from me. She had changed out of her fishing clothes into a loose dress that seemed to have purposely left a few buttons unbuttoned.

I noticed. Iris noticed me noticing. “She has eight tentacles growing from her head.” And? “I thought that might warrant consideration.” The developers made it work. “You have remarkably flexible standards.” I prefer open-minded.

Neria leaned across the table. “Who are you talking to?”

“My AI.”

“The little blue woman?”

Iris materialized beside my plate.

“Little?”

Neria smiled. “You’re very pretty.”

Iris’s expression softened. “Thank you. I’m glad someone noticed”

Neria looked back at me. “But I like him better.” She smiled.

Iris vanished. I nearly choked on my drink. Iris? Silence. Iris.

“I am processing tactical information.”

You’re pouting.

“I do not pout.”

Her father saved me by pouring another drink. They gave me a small room overlooking the ocean. I lay on a woven bed listening to waves rolling beneath the house. My armor rested in standby around my undersuit, Iris’s hologram sitting on the windowsill. “Pickup arrives at approximately zero-seven-hundred.”

“Great.”

“You should sleep.”

I looked toward the moonlit ocean. First day inside the game. I’d been shot out of a spaceship, nearly died during orbital entry, destroyed a fishing boat and somehow gotten mistaken for a liberator. By a group of squid people including the hot one I was pretty sure was trying to fuck me. Hell of a campaign they put together here, not bad.

“Good night, Iris.”

She disappeared.

“Good night, soldier.”

I closed my eyes. Some time later, something touched my arm. My eyes opened. The room was dark. Someone was standing beside my bed.