The scent of ionized plasma and freshly baked ozone wafted through the air of planet Zaefod IV. The stars of the night sky were drowned by the light pollution and smog from several reactors melting down. Screams of the wounded drowned by the sound of ion engines soaring above and finishing what remained of the local pirate garrison.

Just another day in the job for the Mercenary Lieutenant Colonel Eolyzor. He stood atop his Mobile HQ platform, silently cursing the glimmer of the force shield covering his view of this beautiful battlefield. His mercenary unit was hired by the Merchant Guild to clear some pirates trapping hyperspace lanes with asteroids. Well, they won't be trapping anything else on this side of the afterlife anymore.

Eolyzor threw the butt of his cigar down on the metal plate of his MHQ and crushed it under his marine power armor's boots. The middle-aged veteran insisted on going to combat dressed to kill even though he never had any action anymore and whatever attack strong enough to pierce the MHQ's shields would vaporize his marine suit. But still, he donned it like when he first set foot on some alien shithole to fight for the Federation. The man groaned and barked his orders over the open comm without any regard for protocol or even about encrypting his message.

"Ok, boys and girls, fun is over. Wrap it up and send in the Pillager Drones to salvage any scrap worth some Cred. Jameson, Oliver, Christine, and Fwzkchpt, you four keep your atmospheric hovers ready and your lasers hot. Sweep the battlefield for any hidden nasties. I want Taylor, Jennifer, Quoogz, Angela, and Harrison here for a debriefing on the double. Thomas, start the holo-recorder and let's send our invoice to the clients. I have some Drusian ladies waiting for me a couple systems over, and you know how much I loathe to leave a lady waiting."

As ordered, his well-trained soldiers shouted acknowledgment back trampling each other over the comms but sounding in unison. Eolyzor winced at the sound overload while he grinned. A well-oiled war machine was a thing of beauty. Thomas, his cyborg second in command turned from his station, two datapads hovering at his sides latched to their extensible mounts protruding from their backs. His bionic eye caught the Lt. Colonel suit and instinctively downloaded his vitals. Without even thinking, he set the oxygen levels of Eolyzor's suit a notch higher to flush the toxins from the tobacco from his system.

"Acknowledged, sir. Battlefield telemetry from all units just finished downloading, the report is being cooked as we speak. I'm ready to record your message in 3, 2, 1..."

They recorded the message and beamed it over the secure laser link to the mothership in orbit, that immediately detached a round dropship to the surface. It would be their transport back home. During this time, the five soldiers that were called arrived and synched their suits to the shield frequency, allowing them to cross over. Eolyzor smiled, his teeth showing through his opened lips. The commanding officer took his time to look at his trusted ground commandos.

Taylor was a Human from Earth. Two meters tall, this former gravball player was disqualified from the league because of drug abuse and found his true calling slaughtering aliens across the quadrant. He used a heavy marine armor, a model nicknamed Terminus with a wide assortment of close-quarters combat weaponry and detachable pods for swapping. The only ranged weapon only cared to carry a Gatling Slugthrower that had "less range than Lt. Colonel Eolyzor could piss away" but could puncture a ship's bulkhead at less than two meters.

Jennifer was a beautiful Aquarian, a race of aquatic beings unable to breathe air. Her suit was self-sufficient so long it received biomass and energy. Her specialty was mid-range skirmishes with a plasma rifle and a depleted uranium machinegun. Since the pressure of the water allowed her to support more G-force than other fleshlings, the entire back of her suit was made of thrusters and jump jets.

"Furry Death" Quoogz was, for a lack of imagination, an Ursine. A cuddly furry teddy bear that would fit in any girl's bedroom, if that girl liked 3-meter-tall seething clawed and fanged murder beasts whose fur was made of steel-hard bristles longer than an adult's hand. Even though his claws could rend steel, Quoogz's passion was the flamer. Two tanks of compressed plasma wide and tall enough to fit Taylor inside were strapped to his back with two long hoses connecting to the top of his gauntlets.

Angela "the Reaper" was a tactical mid-to-long range operative. She was a half-breed Human-Avian, and her lineage granted her great tridimensional perception. She excels in scouting missions. Her suit had ion repulsers that allowed her to remain aloft while she sniped targets with her pulse laser sniper rifle or granted assistance in camouflage mode with two arm-mounted laser carbines.

Harrison was another halfbreed Human from Earth although his other half was some unknown cybernetic alien. His specialties were electronic warfare, sabotage, knowledge engineering, and diplomacy. His suit was poorly geared for combat, but the black material it was made of was practically undetectable and could morph color and texture to blend with almost anything. He was partly machine just like Thomas, but unlike the cyborg, his machine half was deeply ingrained in his blood, brain, and bones, nanites that could interface with machinery. He only carried a vibrosword and dual laser pistols as sidearms.

The five mercenaries gathered around his commanding officer, eager to know why did he call them to the MHQ. Angela looked up and saw the glare of the dropship burning in re-entry. The bloody thing would crash-land less than two hundred meters from their position soon. The lander's superstructure was tough enough to survive a crash with double that speed so she wasn't that worried about the vehicle but with the landing site. She was relieved to be inside the forcefield, as she trusted that Thomas would enhance the particle opacity just before the ship landed to pick them up.

"People! I'd like to thank you for your hard work." The Lt. Colonel started his speech in a very strange way. It was not like him to get this soppy. "I want to announce that this old man decided to finally settle down. Tie the knot. Stop being a fool and become a family man."

Harrison could swear he heard the grizzled veteran's voice crack for a moment. His nanites enhanced his processing speed to get his biological brain out of stupor. "Goddammit! The Colonel is both retiring and getting married!" He spoke his thoughts out loud in disbelief.

"Wait, what about the Drusian ladies? It does not make sense!" Jennifer shouted over the comms. A translation software caught the blurbs and wails she produced in the water of her suit and sent the translation to the vocalization software as English. She had a custom-built vocal pattern modeled after some famous actress of old movies.

"I report it probably was a hoax, a smokescreen to cover for and enhance the impact of the big reveal," Thomas answered with his toneless voice.

"Fucking shit, Colonel. We need to drink until we fall tonight," The huge bear person broke protocol and smacked the back of his commander's marine suit, causing the armor's gyroscope to overload and forcing the man to take a step forward from the strength of the impact.

Cheers and toasts erupted along with the comms as the other members of the mercenary company received the news from the MHQ. With a cartload of Creds from a mission well done with minimal losses and a lot of salvage, it would be a farewell party to break a planet. Maybe both physically and financially.

The dropship was about to touch down silently, its falling speed greater than the speed of sound. The humming of the shield suddenly stopped and the sound of the power reactor of the MHQ breaking replaced it. A light came up around Eolyzor and his closest soldiers, drawing a strange and eldritch pattern around them. It looked like something out of some crappy fantasy vid.

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

'A FUCKING MAGIC CIRCLE!!!' That was everything Eolyzor could think about the pattern around him before nausea overcame his senses and his whereabouts shifted.

The night was suddenly replaced by sunlight. The sounds of things burning and machinery failing replaced by birds chirping and people gasping. Eolyzor came to himself and looked around. Underneath what remained of the MHQ he could see the same diagram of the magic circle but etched in gold over black granite polished to mirror-like quality. Around him, several greek columns of white marble towered ending in an also white ceiling with a round opening above them, and people from a freaking Renaissance Faire gawked at the soldiers. Including a middle-aged geezer that had a jeweled gold crown on his head, some blonde bimbo with a silvery tiara and a dress robed mages, and enough metal-plated knights to fill a freaking Carnaval parade float back in Brazil.

He could also see other parts of his MHQ scattered around and his six subordinates flabbergasted at their sudden change of surroundings.

"Harrison, what the fuck just happened?" Barked the Lt. Colonel.

"I don't know, sir. My nanites overloaded and are currently rebooting. The few that returned online are reporting some batshit energy spikes right before our locations shifted. I cannot get the IFF or tracking data on any of our friendlies except us. I'll keep you updated as more data is collected. Our personal comms are offline."

"Keep Thomas on the loop, Harrison."

"As you wish, sir." Harrison saluted him.

The blonde bimbo came near them and stopped between two columns. She started to speak but they couldn't understand her. She was delivering some sort of prepared speech like a politician on a rally, using the sort of tone of someone that wanted to inflame the passions and hide the truth. The King on his throne silently scowled and glowered at the mercenaries as the Princess spoke. Blonde bimbo was too verbose for Eolyzor.

He asked his second, "Thomas, do you know what language they are using?"

"No, sir. I'm recording her speech and running an algorithm. Keep her speaking, I'll code a patch to our translation software as soon as possible."

"My nanites are all online, I'm working on re-establishing our comm network," Harrison reported. "The MHQ is FUBAR."

The trained merc commander barked more orders to his other subordinates, "Gentlepeople, status report. Check your weapons and suit systems."

"My wings are down, the ion thrusters are out of juice." Reported Angela. "I have some shots on my laser carbines but the sniper rifle is broken."

"Plasma tanks are unstable and might blow if I have to burn something, sir," Quoogz went after Angela. "I still have power but they need to rest."

Jennifer was silent but some sparks came out of her suit and water was trickling down.

Taylor threw some punches in the air aimed at nobody, "I'm good to go and ready to rumble, coach! All systems nominal over here. Thank Jesus for EMP plating."

'Thank Jesus for primitive systems, that is what you meant you dumbass jock' Thought the Lt. Colonel in jest. 'I bet there are fewer transistors in your suit than neurons in your brain'.

Eolyzor assessed his team and started assigning tasks, "Harrison, stop doing whatever you are doing and fix Jen. She is leaking. Quoogz and Taylor, stand by and engage hostiles. Angela is on support. Thomas, keep working on getting us a translation."

All the commandos answered affirmatively and engaged in their jobs, years of missions together under dozens of different suns banishing any worries.

The Princess stopped talking and they just stopped there, staring at each other. Nobody was moving. Eolyzor tapped his ear with his power gauntlet and pointed at his mouth and then to the Princess. She asked something, Eolyzor shouted gibberish as an answer. The Princess spoke again and they kept going back and forth, in a non-conversation while Harrison worked on Jennifer's suit.

A few minutes later Thomas gave a thumbs up. "Analysis complete. I got the translator patch and the Princess vocalizator ready for transmission, sir. However, our comms are still down."

Harrison lifted his hands from his aquatic comrade's suit, tendrils of silvery nanites retracting back into his body as he reported, "Jen is patched and out of danger. I'm bringing the comms back online in five."

Five minutes later, the chirping of the comms coming back online was drowned by a heartful thanks from Jennifer, "I thought I was going to die, thanks, guys!"

"Permission to die denied, boys and girls. Wait until we are back home to croak," Eolyzor answered in a commanding tone. "Get this patch installed on the double, Thomas."

The cyborg barked with a salute, "Yessir."

The software download came and installed. Eolyzor finally noticed his HUD was also broken as he missed the status bar. The Princess spoke again, and finally, he could understand what the hell she was talking about.

"Heroes, is everything alright?" She asked with some concern and zero empathy.

"No shit, Princess," Eolyzor answered. "Nothing is right. To begin with, where the fuck are we and who are you?" Eolyzor's cool was dispelled and he now wanted some answers. And compensation. And a new cigar. He'd fucking forgotten his Cubans in the mothership.

"You are in the Kingdom of Mauris and I'm Princess Priscilla," She smiled and curtsied. "Heroes, you were summoned here to help us. The Demon Tribe is threatening the Human Realm and we are risking extinction. Please help us in our righteous struggle and push back the tides of evil!"

Shitty fantasy cliches. What the heck they had to do with the struggle of some stupid backwater magical planet if magic was even a thing. There were almost a trillion humans in the Sagittarius arm of the Milky Way already and no magic whatsoever but who cared about a single planet. Die in a ditch but leave people alone.

"The hell you yank us out of our place without warning to fight your shitty war. Go get extinct and don't bother others for all I care." He shouted, venting his anger. He smirked and completed full of disdain after a pause, "Your Highness."

"Preposterous!" The old man in furs and crowns at the back shouted. "Impudent fools, who do you think you are? Kneel before the King!"

Eolyzor felt a pressure in the base of his skull, and the thought of obliging the KIng's command sounded very enticing for a moment. But he had suffered enough psionic coercion back in the Tau Ceti chaos psycher's uprising to fall for such parlor tricks.

"Men, I'm classifying these kidnappers as hostiles as of now. According to Federation law, they are criminals and we are in the clear. Shoot to kill if they display any signs of aggression." He spoke to his commandos without translating it to the natives. Switching to the native language, he answered the King.

"Fuck you, Your Majesty."

He quick-drew his trusty .429 Desert Eagle, a relic of the XXI century and in a reflexive motion shot the King three times. Head, heart, and crotch. The headshot hit some invisible barrier, creating a spiderweb pattern in the air as a bubble shimmered into existence, not unlike a forcefield. The second bullet pierced the bubble but lost most of its power but the third shot opened a new Royal Asshole in the Ye Olde Royal Asshole.

The silence after the gunfire was only broken by the sound of the pistol shells hitting the ground.

The knights and mages burst into action moments later after the shock of seeing the King murdered before their very eyes passed. The commandos reacted and a bloodbath ensued. Quoogz retracted his flamer gauntlets, exposing his twenty centimeters long claws as he roared and charged the knights and mages. Angela's carbines sung death while she walked around in full automatic spreading scorch marks in both flesh, metal, and marble. Taylor engaged his Chain-Guided Rotary Vibroblade, a device of destruction inspired on tools used by ancient lumberjacks back on Earth and went on the opposite side from Quoogz, not wanting to share kills with the bear-person. Harrison, Thomas, and Jennifer readied themselves for backup and support should any of the more able operatives require any.

They didn't.

A few minutes later, the only unharmed native in the vandalized summoning room was the Princess. The girl crouched when the Desert Eagle first roared and started to cry and piss herself while the Commandos turned her Kingdom's best mages and Knights into mincemeat. She heard a click and looked up only to see a silvered piece of metal with a hollow tube in the middle pointed at her. The same weapon that killed her father.

"Well, Princess, we are in a pickle here. Your people illegally kidnapped and attempted to subjugate us without the right to do so. Now I'll give you two choices and a minute to decide. You either die now and join your pappy in whatever shitty afterlife you believe in, or you work for me as a liaison with the natives until we find a way to get back home.

"CHOOSE," Eolyzor shouted, his irritation level dialed to 11.

"I want to live!" The girl squatting in a pool of her own piss cried. "I'll work for you, please don't kill me!!!"

"Good." He smiled as he pulled the Desert Eagle back and holstered it, the weapon disappearing back in the legplate of his marine armor like some robotic policeman from some old flick. "People, secure the perimeter. We are taking over this place, our mission is to survive and find a way to get back home." Eolyzor ordered and his Commandos shouted back a salute.

The bewildered Princess looked up and mustered the strength to make one question. "Who are you?"

"We are your worst nightmare, Your Highness." Eolyzor sneered with his best evil grin. "We are going to show this shitty fantasy world the price of messing with the Unreasonable Commando."