Sunny had never seen so much blue before. The sky above and the water below stretching out to the horizon in all directions. The polar field in the sky above was a beautiful metallic rainbow that reflected off the water causing the entire planet to sparkle like a prism.....

It was terrifying.

Sunny had never seen so much water before. Of course their planet HAD water, it was sort of important when it came to life sustaining a planet, but most of it was in shallow rivers, and abandoned underground lava tubes and caverns. Most of her planet's water was fed by underground springs, and the largest lake was located thousands of miles away on the other side of the planet meaning she had never actually seen it before.

Even those times she had visited earth, they had been located in the center of the landmass, and it barely occurred to her that the planet was almost 2/3s water. The humans seemed very excited about the entire thing, but as Krill had stated before, the vast majority of humans LOVED large bodies of water. She had no idea why, whether it was cultural or evolution that caused this, but it was sort of terrifying.

She found herself poised on the edge of lunging forward as her marines, and mostly Adam, leaned out precariously over the edge of the boat. She feared that the humans would fall in and drown or something and wished they would just relax, but there Adam was holding onto nothing more than a taut rope, feet braced against the side of the boat and leaning out over the water held up by a single hand. Wind whipped at his hair and shirt eyes closed and smiling.

She would generally have been glad to see that he was happy if he wasn't hanging over a trillion gallons of liquid death.

Their boat cut a little right, and, in the distance, sunny could see a tall peak of rocks surrounded by a little beach that was no more than a football field all the way around. Clinging to the rocks she could see some sort of strange colorful plant-life, but it was too far away to see at this point.

She spent the next few minutes trying to keep the marines from falling off the edge of the boat, which in the end only earned her some weird looks. Krill floated mildly at the front of the boat, and oddly enough it seemed as if he was more relaxed than she was.

In his case, she was worried that he was going to fly off the edge of the boat and end up sinking into the depths below, but luckily, they made it to the tiny island, and the human hopped off onto the sand. The scientists began taking their samples , the water, the sand, the strange plant life. When everything was cleared, predictably, humans began touching things, mostly picking up the sand and marveling at how soft it was.

She pointed out they had no idea what kind of dangerous things could be in there, but Adam, the commander, lying on his back in the sand looked up at her with a grin, "Nope, not with the new protocol I made up. It's called the TISICTI for short, or for long the "Test it so I can touch it" protocol. Krill threw a fit enough times I thought it would be a good compromise." He motioned towards the scientist, "What do you think we have them for."

She frowned, "I sort of assumed they were here to do, you know, science and stuff. Like samples and testing and whatever else."

The man shrugged, "I mean yes, but more importantly, they are here to make sure that we can safely touch things."

He leaned his head back against the sand with his eyes closed, "Honestly, this planet isn't exactly of particular interest accept for the water and beaches. NO sentient lifeform owns it. The biggest creature are weird sort of whales, and most members of the GA don't want anything to do with it, so here we are." His single eye popped open, "Oh, that reminds me." He stood from the sand and motioned to the marines, "Break out the cooler, and radio to the crew that the planet is non-toxic." He rubbed his hands together with a grin, "Let's do this."

Sunny watched for the next few minutes in fascinated confusion as the humans, transformed the little beach into an island paradise. Colorful blankets and towels she wasn't even aware the owned were laid out across the sand with large umbrellas staked into the sand against the sun. Big blue coolers of drinks and snacks were set out every few yards. And soon enough other members of the crew began to appear docking boats on the designated part of their little island.

Unlike the marines, these crew members were barely dressed, lugging more towels, and large dark glasses that helped them block out the sun.

Adam Jumped up on one of the coolers just as things were getting started whistling very loudly so that the group turned to look up at him, "Alright, a few rules before we get started. This is not our planet, and you know human history of taking care of oceans and shit. By the time we leave, I want to make sure it looks like we were never here. For every piece of trash I find on the beach or in the water after this is all over, you all are getting docked pay by a credit. Each rock is to be thoroughly explored before you jump off. I don't want anyone breaking their neck while out, and if anyone asks what we were doing today. You were performing reconnaissance for the suitability of human life. Got it."

The humans let of a whoop of excitement, and Adam grinned, "Alright you crazy kids. The Mission starts now, and I expect a full report from every one of you once your done."

Sunny had never seen an order followed so fast. Within the next few minutes humans were flrolicking in the water, and on the sand or simply lounging in the sun with their feet in the sand. The marines were relieved of their duty, and made quick time in removing all their gear exposing the fact they had expected something like this to happen.

Maverick walked past Sunny down the beach wearing nothing more than what sunny would have considered underwear and a baseball cap. She wasn't entirely sure if she was supposed to feel uncomfortable with that, but none of the humans seemed to mind. In fact, there was a significant number of humans who were wearing even less which hardly made sense since humans made physical privacy a very big issue.

Apparently here that didn't count.

She turned up the beach Just in time to find Adam struggling to pull off his gear. The pants got stuck on his foot and he pitched into the sand with a laugh shaking his foot trying to squeeze out of the tactical gear. When he stood up he was wearing nothing more than shorts and was partially covered in sand.

Walking past Ramirez raised a hand, "Wow commander, put a shirt back on. I'm being blinded."

Adam turned to look at him, "oh please Ramirez, you are just jealous of my stunning physique." He flexed just then sending laughter up through close by members of the crew.

Sunny looked between the two of them. Ramirez had a bigger chest and biceps, but she had to admit he may have skipped leg day a couple times. Adam clearly kept a schedule for his workouts. She would never have said it, to much a boost to his ego, but she would have given it to Adam

Then again, maybe she was biased.

However, Adam, and all the other marines had reason to brag if she knew anything about human physicality, so she decided to give all of them credit.

Adam walked past her towards the water UV light reflecting in diamond colors off his skin. Invisible stripes, to humans, covered his body in an intricate and almost beautiful pattern of swirls and striations. Generally, human skin color would have never been considered beautiful to a Drev, but with the addition of the invisible patterns on their skin reflecting in rainbow colors to sunny's vision, it was actually quite beautiful.

"Hey Sunny, you Coming?"

She turned her head to follow him where he stood at the edge of the water, "I.... Into the water?" She stammered.

"Yeah, of course into the water." He smiled, "That's the point of going to the beach."

Sunny took a step back and then shuffled her feet in the sand.

Adam tilted his head, "hey, what's wrong."

She rubbed the back of her head with an upper arm, a habit she had picked up from the humans. "Well.... I...."

"Do you..... Not know how to swim?" He wondered. Behind him Maverick went floating past on her back

Sunny shook her head, "We.... don't have large bodies of water on my planet."

The man clapped himself on the forehead, "right, Right, I totally forgot. You know the GA classified our planet as Aquatic. Forget that that's not normal." He walked back up the beach feet slipping in the sand and then took her by the hands his one green eye reflecting the polar lines in the sky above.

"Come on. We'll take it easy." Still holding her hands, Sunny allowed him to lead her backwards down the beach towards the water, "You'll be fine. I promise." They had reached the edge of the water now, and with great apprehension sunny stepped into the water.

It was warm.

"That;s it, just keep coming. The man urged, and she stepped a little deeper. The water reached to her knees now, and high on the human's thighs. He kept leading her into the water, and in apprehension, she watched as the water line drew up her stomach and towards her chest. However, the human stopped at about his chest height, "See, not so bad is it." She moved her lower arms around in the water marveling at the strange sensation.

The human kicked his feet up spread his arms out, and was suddenly floating on the surface of the water. He kicked a little bit with his legs swimming around her in a circle before letting his feet down again, "Time to see if you can float.... I'm almost thinking maybe not, but that's ok because we have life jackets."

He swam behind her taking her by the shoulders, "Ok, I just want you to lay back rise your feet and just let your arms hang out to the sides, I promise you won't drown, and you can stand up at any time."

Sunny nodded in apprehension but leaned her head back and kicked her feet up off the bottom. The human supported her weight from behind,and past the water she could feel his hands on her back. Water rushed against her ears muffling all noise around. He let his hands relax, and to her dismay, she began to sink, but just as she was beginning to feel panic, hands pushed her back to the surface and stood her back up. The human smiled at her then winked, which in his case was more of a blink, "Guess you're too dense, but that's ok." he turned back towards the beach, "HEY RAMIREZ!"

The human sat up on his beach towel and lowered his sunglasses, "What!"

"Toss me some of those water wing things right next to you, yeah." Sunny watched in interest as four strange air filled rubber doughnuts were tossed to them.

"Hold a second." He said grabbing one of her arms and slipping It through the doughnut until it was high up on her arm. He did that three more times and then had her try the floating thing again. To her surprise, it worked, and though her feet sank, Adam's instruction to lightly kick her feet helped to keep her lower half upwards in the water.

It was honestly kind of relaxing.

The human kept close by one hand on her arm.

Eventually she felt comfortable with letting him go. He showed her how humans swim openly admitting that he wasn't the best at it. He knew freestyle and backstroke, which sort of just involved kicking your feet and pinwheeling your arms. Generally she was mostly just impressed on how fast the humans could swim when they clearly weren't meant for an aquatic environment.

She learned the hard way that humans could dive as well when Adam vanished under water for more than ten seconds and she began to panic. He popped up a few years to her left seconds later shaking water from his ears.

At one point she was floating on her back just relaxing when she felt something suddenly grab her leg.

She shrieked in panic and flailed about in fear. Then a body erupted from the water. Maverick peered at her through a set of dorky goggles spewing water through a tube connected to her mouth. She removed the tube and grinned at Sunny, "He he, almost pissed yourself right there." Before Sunny could retort, the human vanished under water once again swimming away only to drag Adam underwater.

Sunny watched in worry thinking that she was trying to drown him, but apparently dunking someone was considered acceptable.

Eventually they moved closer to the beach, and they began a game with a brightly colored ball knocking it into the air and trying to keep it from touching the water Sunny was pretty good at the game, but wasn't excited when she ended up falling and vanishing below the water. She almost freaked out before remembering she could stand coming up and spewing water from her nose. The humans laughed at her.

A few hours of that was followed by another few hours of lying in the sun on the sand. Adam requisitioned one of her arms as a pillow and ended up falling asleep in the humid warmth.

He eventually woke up when someone announces they had discovered a diving rock, and Sunny watched as Krill almost had a conniption when the humans began leaping from twenty feet up and into the water. Sunny almost followed his lead when the humans began doing tricks. Adam was the first, leaping outwards, and then pitching downwards face first hands held above his head. Sunny was sure he'd break his face doing something like that, but he came back up to a cheering crowd.

If that wasn't bad enough they began doing flips after that rotating backwards and forwards and sideways attempting to spin as many times as possible. Yet none of them ever seemed to get hurt upon doing this.

One of the human lab technicians managed two flips which turned into a dive, and it turned out she had been a competitive diver at university. That thought worried sunny because that meant there were humans out there who flipped themselves around off of high places just to look cool, and they did it for a living.

"Hey Ramirez, dare you to do a belly flop." Adam said in passing to the other man.

Ramirez look up at the rock.

The rest of the group began chanting. Sunny did not like the sound of this, but the man shrugged and began climbing. The group began to scream and chant as he made it to the top of the rock.

Krill ran up just then, "Ok that's it. Stop right there."

Sunny looked down at him, mostly ignored, "What are they doing."

"I don't know,but when humans start chanting, it's never good." Ramirez took a step back and then leaped forward spreading his arms out wide to either side chest downwards.

The slap he made upon hitting the water was tremendous. Sunny winced and Krill cursed. The humans waited for a long moment staring at the water, but then Ramirez broke the surface gasping and the humans began to cheer.

He got a serious lecture fromKrill upon crawling onto land, his entire chest, legs, thighs and the side of his face one bright red welt.

Eventually she convinced Adam to stop by dragging him back out into the water. This time he appropriated a strange floating object in bright pink, and together they floated just off the beach using the pink thing as some weird sort of water cushion.

Sunny had no idea where humans came up with these ideas.

I was when the clouds started gathering in the distance that the humans decided now would be a good time to leave. They packed up all their things in record time and Adam had them comb the beach several times before allowing them to leave. Te shuttles reached atmosphere just as the massive hurricane passed below them. It was many miles wide, and radar detected that the surface winds were somewhere around two hundred miles an hour.

To say that Krill was not amused would have been a massive understatement.

Still though, the day had been fun.

She couldn't think of a better day in living memory.