The report of cold, hard boots echoed off the hydrocrete flooring. White and specked with mud, they had a certain saunter to them. Above the boots, white paint flaked off in places revealing gray allotropic plating under‐ neath. It continued, scratched and battered, as it climbed up and over the armor of a large man, encasing him in a fully- enclosed set of power armor. A tarnished nameplate reading “M. Straight” sat tethered to his chest, small globs of indus‐ trial adhesive apparent around the edges. Underneath the nameplate were two yellow chevrons stenciled over a patch of off-white paint. He brought up a black-gloved hand to a silver door with a small patch of water droplets stenciled on it and placed his hand against it. A light flashed green, and the door slid open in front of him. He stepped through the threshold. On his shoulder, a painting of a cat skull wearing a bowtie scraped the side of the doorway, marring it. He stopped, frozen. Hardened eyes that had seen too much at too young an age peered out through a gold mirrored visor. The smallest of tears formed in his right eye.

In front of him, another warrior lay on the ground the armor of his self-contained suit, purple and a different model, but the insignia on his shoulder the same as Straight’s. A nurse in pink armor with a red cross on the shoulder sat on top of the warrior pumping as water from the high-pressure showers cascaded over them. The nurse oblivious to the water kept pumping a pink crotch plate into the visor of the purple helmet. It wasn’t that alone that brought tears to Straight’s eyes; it was the sheer violence, with which the nurse did it. The nurse was just really digging in there with everything, bashing that purple helmet off the floor and back into that flamingo-pink crotch.

“Dago?” Straight cried out in a meek, shaky voice.

But they just kept going at it. If the crotch and the helmet had antlers, it would have looked like two deer trying to kill each other.

Straight tried to speak again, but his voice just wasn’t there. It kept catching on the laughter in the back of his throat. He pushed harder on his voice, but its claws were firmly dug in. My god, it was like watching two Buicks fuck in a car wash. He pushed even harder, straining to force his voice out. He could feel the claws slipping as he pressed on. Then it happened. The claws lost their last remaining grip on his tonsils and shot out of his mouth faster than the speed of sound, which is probably why they came out much louder than he had planned and with words he had not yet thought to say.

“What the fuck, Dago!” he yelled.

The two on the floor stopped right in the middle of an action that simulated a nightmarish version of oral sex. Like a beaver going down on a porcupine. They looked at him, and he looked at them. Uncomfortable didn’t even come close to explaining the tension in the room. Or at least he was uncomfortable. Dago just slapped the nurse on the ass. It sounded with a dull thud due to the plating. He wasn't uncomfortable at all. The nurse got up, giving a playful slap back before walking out of the room and tossing a glance at Straight. Or at least he thought it was a glance. It was hard to tell with that mirrored coating on the visor. Could have been a glare for all Straight would have known.

“Hey Straight,” said the purple-armored man whose name plate read “P. Vertucci.”

“Seriously, Dago? We have call in five minutes with the new major, and I find you in here face banging a nurse?”

Dago stepped into the showers, making a quick three- sixty, letting the high-pressure jets knock off whatever dirt they could find in the short amount of time he was willing to stay in them. He felt like they were making him dirtier after what he had just witnessed.

“It’s not like I came here to face bang a nurse. I came here to get a shower. The face banging just kinda happened,” said Dago, slapping Straight on the back as he stepped out of the shower. Then he grabbed his own crotch and adjusted it, shaking his leg in the process.

Straight reached over and hit a large square button on the wall turning on the air jets. “First, I don’t know how comfortable I am with you smacking me right now. Second, how do you even decide that trying to get all up in a ballistic codpiece while wearing a fishbowl is a good idea?” asked Straight as they walked through the jets and out the door.

“I wouldn’t say it was a fishbowl. I’d say it’s more of a motocross helmet.”

“You know what I’m saying.”

“Come on, man. Did you see that nurse? Can you really blame me? She’s hot,” he said as he pressed his hand to another door. It flashed green and opened to the outside.

They stepped out into a small military outpost cast in shadow from the surrounding mountains. Most of the light that illuminated the base reflected from their snow-capped peaks.

“Hot? I don’t know about that. All I saw was someone in a fully acclimatized spacesuit covered in armor. I don’t know if she was hot. Hell, I don’t even know if she was a girl with that visor of hers.”

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A soldier in blue walked up to them.

“What do you mean? Of course she was a girl. She’s a nurse, and she was wearing pink armor,” said a frustrated Dago.

“So what if she was wearing pink? You wear purple,” cried Straight.

“Yeah, but she’s a nurse.”

“What are you guys talking about?” asked the soldier in blue. He had the same cat skull painted on his shoulder, with the same banner that read “God’s Mulligans,” but was about a foot shorter.

An exhausted Straight shook his head. “I just caught Dago face banging the new nurse.”

“You got into an oxygen room, dude?”

“No, I found them in the shower,” answered Straight. “I’m confused. How did you face bang if you weren’t,

like, in an oxygen room? Does the hot water give off oxygen so you can breathe?” asked Mulligan as they entered the empty courtyard, which was bigger in name than in size.

“They did it by molesting his face shield with...”

Dago interrupted. “It wasn’t that bad. It was just a little dry humping. That’s it.”

“Oh, I need details on this,” said Mulligan.

They got into formation.

The door leading into the gun range burst open to the

right of them. In the middle of the doorway stood a beast of a soldier, his armor gunmetal gray and more beat up than a whores vagina.

“My god,” said a voice that sounded like drowning gravel.

They jumped from shock to attention at the sound of it.

“What a bunch of fairy queefs we have here,” the beast said as he exited the armory, ducking to fit through the door.

Dago’s eyes got big as he glanced at the man.

“Why the fuck are you in purple?”

Dago snapped back to attention.

“Are you some kind of dick sucker or something? Do

you want to go in the back right now and give me a BJ? Is that it?“

Dago said nothing.

“Well, is it? Answer me now!”

“No?” Dago’s voice shook as he answered.

“I am Major Hardick, and I expect the answer to every

question I ask to be ‘Yes sir, Major.’ Now, you all want to suck my shlong don’t you?”

“Yes sir, Major?” the three of them said in confusion and out of sync.

“You all disgust me,” said Hardick. “Now let’s get one thing clear. I have drank more piss, dumped on more chests, and eaten more ass than all you nob gobblers put together.”

“Christ, take it easy,” said Straight without thinking.

Hardick got right up in Straight’s face. “Take it easy? Did my father take it easy when he sodomized my asshole? Did my sister’s little pink bunny take it easy when it choked to death on my cock?”

“What the fuck?” said Dago under his breath.

“No?” answered Straight.

“That’s right. They did not, just as I will not be taking

it easy on your sorry asses. In my army, you only have two choices. You can give or you can take. For you lowly pieces of placenta, that means you’re either sucking my dick, or I’m fucking you up the ass. Do you understand me?”

“Yes sir, Major.”

“I just got word that headquarters has a new weapon that they need us to test out, and you three pleasure wipes are going to go pick it up. Now get out of my face.”

“Yes sir, Major,” they said in semi-unison as Hardick exited the same way he entered. But before doing so, he slammed into a stack of empty oil barrels, knocking them over for no other reason than they pissed him off.

They stood there silent as Hardick kicked and punched the empty drums like they owed him lunch money before exiting back into the armory.

“Pleasure wipes? I thought Dago was fucked up in the head,” said Mulligan.

“No shit. Did you see that red rooster on his shoulder? It’s like he’s proud to be a cock,” said Dago.

“Cock biter, more like it.”

Straight just looked at both of them and shook his head. “Come on, guys. Let’s grab a RAT and get out of here. We’ve got a long day ahead of us, and I’m really not looking forward to this shit,” Straight said as he walked off.

The other two followed.

“Gunner!” Mulligan cried out as they approached the Rover All Terrain aka RAT.

“Why do you always cry out gunner?” asked Dago. “Because I want gunner,” answered Mulligan.

“But no one else wants gunner. You don’t have to call it

out,” said Dago. “You don’t hear me calling out shotgun, do you?”

Straight walked around to the driver’s side of the rover. Mulligan climbed into the back, wrapping his hands into the handles of the mounted turret.

“If Mulligan didn’t call it, you would, just to be a dick,” said Straight as he grabbed the roll bar of the RAT and pulled himself up into the rover.

“No, I wouldn’t.”

“Just get in,” said Straight motioning that he was not in the mood to wait or argue.

Dago climbed in with a sigh and mild attitude. “I wouldn’t,” he repeated.

“You buckled up back there?” asked Straight.

“Yes, Dad,” said a sarcastic Mulligan.

“Hey, I just don’t want you falling out again.”

“What the fuck ever, dude,” said Mulligan.

The RAT took off, only making it a few rover lengths

before reaching a large synthetic gate. Above them on the wall stood a soldier in green armor.

“Names?” asked the soldier.

“You know our names, Renard,” said Dago with more than a hint of annoyance in his voice.

“Names?” asked Renard again.

“You just saw us with the new major,” Straight said as Dago casually sited in his rifle on Renard’s helmet. “Prob‐ ably heard why we’re headed out. It’s a small fucking base, only like six or so people here. Who the fuck do you think we are?” demanded Straight.

“Names?” asked Renard again.

“Fucking hell, Renard...”

Straight put up a hand, silencing Dago, and with resig‐

nation sounded off.

“Manix Straight,” said Straight.

“Perseo Vertucci,” said a reluctant Dago. “Scott Mulligan,” said Mulligan.

“You’re clear,” said Renard as he hit the button opening the gates.

“Hey, John?” asked Mulligan.

“Yes?” answered Renard.

“How’s that pearl coming?”

“What pearl?” asked Renard.

“I just figured, like, with all that sand crammed in your

clam, you must be making a hell of a pearl.” “What?”

“He’s saying you have a vagina,” said Straight as he punched the throttle on the rover bringing the electric motor to life with a whir. Tires broke loose billowing dust behind them that wafted up and over the wall, covering Renard in silt, as they squeezed through the still-opening gate like a stepdad through a prom dress.