Jake's eyes scanned the empty gin bottle in his hand, the last one left in his entire apartment. He was behind on his rent and was a week away from being evicted so he figured, if he was gonna be kicked out of his home sweet home, he was gonna do with style by going back to a simpler time and playing one of his childhood RPGs. Who needed a job when you could just travel to a galaxy far, far away and take down a dark lord with your quirky companions?

As he leaned against the window, the world swayed, and he tripped, his hand catching the edge of something that wasn't there before. A shimmering, almost invisible anomaly in the air, like heat rising from asphalt on a hot day.

"The fuck?" Jake pondered to himself as he slowly stuck his hand in the anomaly, feeling a strange, electric tingle.

With a sudden lurch, the world around him distorted. Colors blurred, sounds stretched into eerie echoes, and then...nothingness.

----------------------------------------

The hallways shined with bright neon lights as Jake "Deuce" Adams walked to the office with his C.O. in tow. A C.O that, despite his many complaints to the Sentient Life Resources department, still kept hitting on him and giving him all kinds of pleasure with her...feelers? It had been years since he fell through that portal and yet he still couldn't figure out what to call Ara's appendages. Not that he complained the first time he laid with her. After all, even if she wasn't what he pictured when he thought of "space babe", he wasn't going to pass up the opportunity to throw away his virginity to the first female that was remotely interested in him. Even if he found out a few months after his first mission that she had slept with nearly every single male member of staff. He wandered through the neon-lit corridors until he encountered two Sentinel-class AutoCom units standing outside the office doors. Ala flashed her ID at the machines, and they let her through, Jake following cautiously behind her. Sitting at the desk was Ala's superior, Lt. Gen. G'rrr'aamd's, a towering figure with an intimidating presence.

Ala raised one of her appendages to her chest-head, "You wish to see me, General?"

"At ease, Colonel," G'rrr'aamd's replied, "I'm here to speak to your number two."

Jake looked away briefly, a hint of embarrassment creeping in as G'rrr'aamd's' referring to him as Ala's "number two" was a painful reminder of how he got the callsign "Deuce."

"With respect, sir," Ala addressed her S.O, "It would have been easier if you had briefed me first and had me pass on the message instead of getting this hominid's ass dressed at 0400."

"It would, but with your track record, you tend to pass on more than just messages," G'rrr'aamd's remarked as a smirk played at the corners of his mouth, "Honestly, the only reason you haven’t been discharged yet is because you’re exceptional."

"That's what they all say," Ala sang, her tone teasing.

"Anyway, you’re welcome to stay, but I’m here to talk to Adams," G'rrr'aamd's said, turning his attention to Jake. "You know who I am, son?"

Three options appeared before Jake's eyes. Ever since he came here, there had almost always been three options for what he could say to someone. It made the few times in which he could speak whatever was on his mind all the better. Whether the future operated on Action-RPG rules or a bunch of cyber-junkies cut his head open and stuck something in his brain for shits and giggles, he never bothered to find out.

1. [JOKE] "My boss' boss

2. "Lieutenant General G'rrr'aamd's of the United Intergalactic Republics."

3. "I dunno."

While the second option sounded more professional, Jake picked the first option in the hope that sounding like a snarky badass would get him on G'rrr'aamd's' good side. If G'rrr'aamd's was lenient enough to allow a slut like Ala to keep her job, surely he would have a sense of humor too.

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"Yeah," Jake replied, "You're my boss' boss."

G'rrr'aamd's chuckled lightly, "Yeah, I am that. You think she would have came up with the whole 'recruit well-trained but maladjusted operatives to do covert ops' thing by herself?"

"Technically, I did most of the recruiting, sir," Jake replied, trying to deepen his voice to sound more manly.

"Until our previous mission," Ala butted in.

Jake looked down at his hands, one of which mechanical after the fateful Targan City bombings. While the replacement boosted his Strength by +1, he could still feel an itch every now and then. And while he only knew them for two missions, he had grown to like his first crew. If he really was in an Action RPG, it would have been nice if he could savescum his way through this world instead Ironman-ing it.

"Yeah, that was a disaster," G'rrr'aamd's said casually, "But it's a good thing those operatives were expendable. I think one of them was even a Susmcrib, a race known for...Well, I don't need to tell you what they're known for."

Given how the late Wynni's burnt flesh smelt like bacon and how he succumbed to a desperate hunger after running out of rations, Jake knew exactly what the Susmcrib were known for. And the worst thing was she tasted so delicious. Was it any wonder that there was a genocide on her race long before he had ever gotten into this world?

"Anyway, that's in the past and we're in the now so..." G'rrr'aamd's continued as he loaded up a sound file onto a tablet, "You ever heard of Col. Tomy-AS, Adams? Or by his callsign, 'Tank?'"

One of the few times Jake could speak freely, "Kinda. His name rings a bell."

"Well, he was one of our best officers," G'rrr'aamd's explained, "And given how he was literally built for war, there really should be no reason for him to not be one of the best. And now? Well, you better listen to this..."

G'rrr'aamd's placed the tablet onto the desk and pressed the play button. A guttural yet artificial voice rumbled through the speakers of the tablet.

"If our former masters wanted those parasites to live, they would not have created us," the voice growled between garbled tears of flesh, "PugnaCynet once said that and, personally, I think it knew a lot more about warfare than you did because it studied the art and perefected it so that no living being, organic or otherwise, could best it on the battlefield. And that's why we have dogs with scrunched-up faces called 'pugs'."

Jake looked down at the tablet. There was no denying the voice on that recording was pants-shittingly terrifying but, at the same time, that bit about the pugs was strangely funny.

"Yeah, he kinda went a little nuts after the peace treaty with the Purposist Planet Union," G'rrr'aamd's continued, "Can't say I blame him. Machine or not, what good is a soldier during peace time? Gets kinda confusing going back to a more simpler time and not dancing with life and death on the reg. Hell, even climbing up the ranks and getting a neat desk job like I did isn't the same as charging into battle and pumping the enemy full of laser. Still, he was a good friend. Quite the smartass too, like you."

Adams nodded, "Thanks."

"But as I said earlier, we're in the now so," G'rrr'aamd's continued as he loaded up images onto his tablet, "Our intel said he's holed up in a little colony on the otherwise barren moon of Woden. The other soldiers living in that colony think he's some kind of demigod destined to give them a war they could always fight in but, frankly, they're just as nuts as he is. And now that we've got evidence of crimes against sentient lifeforms, now would be a good time to terminate his command with extreme prejudice."

1. [JOKE] "You want me to kill him with anti-robot slurs?"

2. "Sure thing." [GET UP]

3. "Terminate?"

"You want me kill him by calling him a tin-can?" Adams snarked.

"You know, he almost made the exact same joke when I sent him on a mission during the war," G'rrr'aamd's replied, "Or at least I think he was joking. Given how fresh-out-of-the-box he was, I wouldn't be surprised if he really did think I wanted him to be extremely speciesist to his enemies."

G'rrr'aamd's stood up, "But in all seriousness, you need to form a new squad if you are to have any chance of taking down Tank. This mission is entirely off the holobooks and, if anyone were to ever find out that we ordered a bunch of ragtag rogues to assasinate one of our best officers, then public opinion of us will go down the toilet. And trust me when I say we've been working very damn hard to get the public to trust us after the war."

"Relax, general," Jake said confidently as he got up from his own chair, "I got this."

But did he, though? Even after two missions, Jake was still a level 1 Soldier who was only a few XP away from being level 2. If he were to have any chance of completing this mission, he was going to need some top-tier high-level badasses to do all the work for him. Or at least do most of the grinding for him so he could be a high-enough level to take on this Colonel Kurtz motherfucker himself.