I popped out to Threshold, ran over to Mama Grace's, and found it packed to the brim with people. A lot of them weren't even Misfits, just humans who had heard the news and come running to find out what was going on. They cheered as I entered. I hopped up on one of the tables, cupped my hands around my mouth, and shouted, “Hey, you! Pipe down there!" The cheering quieted. "Who here wants to help me fuck up some aliens?"

That got an even bigger cheer. I put my fingers in my ears for 30 seconds. When it finally died down, I yelled, "Y'all gotta be okay with dying, and you gotta be part of Misfits Guild. Other than that, if you can put damage in 'em, then you're with me. Call your friends."

On my way over, Juana had been frantically messaging me. We set up a new level of membership to Misfits Guild, the lowest rank, which would be reserved for all of our new recruits. Anyone who failed to listen to a Misfits Guild member with greater experience would be unceremoniously kicked. We’d run background checks on them all as fast as we could. What if some of them report back to Waters? What if they're traitors? she asked nervously in our command chat.

I've thought about that, I replied. What can they actually do? Kill us? We just respawn. Then I kick 'em out of the guild and kill them back a few times. If they're unaffiliated, the death penalty cost goes against their unfulfilled contract and just extends the amount of time they have to work to buy it out.

What if they report back to Waters on what we're doing?

I don't intend to let anyone know more than about ten minutes ahead. We're going to be doing hit-and-run tactics for a while. Anyway, I think it's worth the risk.

So I stood there atop the table, arms akimbo in the classic gunfighter posture as they cheered. I picked out ten miners I knew vaguely. "You, you, you. You're all squad leaders. Each of you get"—I counted out volunteers—"fifteen people in a squad and follow me."

I jumped down, pushed my way out. "Anyone who's not a member, send a message to a Misfits Guild officer and ask for admittance. Let's go. I want us in position before the timeout is done."

"In position" was deep within the bowels of Castle Byalgrad. Fortunately, we didn't have to jump over the waterfall and go through the tunnel system. Now that we had the Rats-in-the-Walls ability, anyone in our coalition could access the Byalgrad system from our portal in our outpost.

We stepped through to our outpost, then selected the Nexus and entered. I found myself back in the throne room where I had met That-Which-Remains, but the personification of the reality engine wasn't there. Or, if he was, he wasn't showing himself.

Instead, glowing portals lined the wall, like smaller versions of the ones in Threshold that led into various levels. Using Inspect, I could bring up information on each of them. I picked one at random, pulled it up.

[Descent of Ishtar.

In ancient Sumeria, the gods and goddesses ruled the world with a strong but respectful hand, until the day that Ishtar was forced to descend to the underworld to seek her vengeance. Accompany Ishtar through the seven gates and confront the Annunaki, forcing them to return Ishtar's husband to life.

Enemies include jackals, Babylonians, Scarab beetles, Wild aurochs, Gilgamesh, Bronze Age tax collectors.

Current progress: Zero teams have made it past the first gate.

Where would you like to go? First gate, second gate, third gate, fourth gate, fifth gate, sixth gate, seventh gate, Outer World.]

"Alright," I said, pointing at the portals. "Each squad picks one of these. Go through, find an enemy camp. As they come out, kill them. If they aren’t there, figure out what they’re up to and mess it up. Over and over and over again. When you die, you should respawn back here, if I read the information right. You might be at our outpost, and then you'll have to come here and then go back, but it shouldn’t take more than a few seconds to get back into the fight. I want us wreaking havoc for at least an hour. Whichever squad gets the most kills, I'll have Mama Grace cook up a special feast for you tonight."

I got a whoop and a cheer. "And," I promised recklessly, "I think I know where I can get some real Earth beer.” I sent a quick message to Colonel Ames. I’m going to need a shitload of beer at Mama Grace’s in three hours. Can you deliver?

Everyone laughed. "Let's go," I said, pointing.

I took Sage and a team of random miners. We jumped through a portal that I hadn't even bothered to read the description of. We appeared in a grassy field. In the distance was a medieval castle with flags flying gaily. On the far side of the field was a forest. And in between the forest and the castle were several different encampments. Brightly colored pavilions and tents clustered together. Knights riding between the camps. Bowmen practicing over to the side.

"It's Agincourt," Sage said. Probably seeing the puzzled expression on my face, she elaborated. “These are the attacking English, except I suppose some of these camps are actually the aliens. That castle over there must be the objective.”

The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

"Right." History hadn’t been my strong point in school. I focused on the nearest camp. A flag flew over it with a logo I didn't recognize. I Inspected it.

[Tal-Noron Dlrk Associates, a subsidiary of Sicaris Corporation.]

"Well, what do you know?" I said, rubbing my hands together. "Our old friends, Major Waters’ backers. That's target number one."

Horns blew from the battlements of the castle. “Time’s up,” Sage said. “Everyone’s going to be heading for the castle I think.” She pointed to a squad of lizardfolk emerging from a camp to our left, racing up the field toward the keep accompanied by their creep.

“Leave them. We’re focusing on the Sicaris goons,” I said, and activated Fastest Gun in the West.

We raced forward just as a stream of jumpsuited orcs carrying rifles and halberds came out of the Tal-Noron camp, streaming toward the castle. They didn't notice us until we were nearly on them.

I cast Call ‘em Out. Sage whooped and lassoed one of the nearest orcs, forcing him to turn his rifle on the others. The miners with us fell on them with glee.

Some of the miners had abilities, and I tagged the ones using theirs for Arjun to look at for inclusion in a kill squad. Most of them, though, just ran in, wielding clubs, swords, or guns, and smashing into the orcs, taking them by surprise.

A man wielding a rake and wearing soiled dungarees sent a wave of green vines over the orcs, wrapping them up and tangling three of them together. The vines burst into yellow flowers, which exploded, dealing three points of damage each. Not much, but when hundreds of blossoms went off at once, it packed a punch.

A woman with skin darker than I’d ever seen before was literally shaping balls of water between her hands and throwing them at the nearest orc. The balls stuck wherever she’d thrown. She hurled them so fast it was hard to follow. In seconds, the orc was entombed in fist-sized water globules, his health ticking down as, presumably, the water drowned him in place.

Sage whooped and cast Cowgirl Cheer on us all, and I felt so good I couldn’t help laughing out loud as I took aim and shot a Barrage into the nearest enemy.

The orcs fought back, of course. Honestly, they were better warriors than we were. But I managed to do a little bit of shotcalling, and enough of my team listened to me to make a difference. We cut one orc out of the pack, killed him, and then repeated.

We got six of them down. They killed two of us. I spotted the orc who I thought must be the leader. He was near the front and fighting, but kept pausing and jerking strangely, like he was distracted trying to organize the battle.

"Him!" I said, marking him. "Focus him!"

Sage turned her Tamed orc on his leader as I used a Trick Shot to target him with a stun round. The orc staggered backward, visibly disoriented. Two women rush forward. One held a cast iron frying pan. She reminded me suddenly of the hillbilly woman I'd fought in our initiation chamber so long ago. The other, wielding a shotgun, rushed at him. Shotgun woman pulled the trigger, blasted him in the face with pellets of lead. The first woman smashed his head with her skillet hard. The orc fell and dissolved into a shimmer of sparks.

That gave us a couple minutes of advantage. I'd noticed before with Mak’Gar’s crew, but space orcs only take commands from someone who's actually in the battle. Don't ask me how they could possibly survive as an advanced technological species with that kind of idiotic behavior. If it was true that most species were sucked up into this reality engine exploitation fiasco when they were essentially on a Bronze Age level, maybe they just hadn't had time to learn that command and control were just as important as being able to smash faces in.

I kept count. When we had lost six and they had lost eighteen, I said, "Retreat!"

Most of my team obeyed. Two of them were busy locked in combat and paid me no heed. We fell back anyway, and they died where they stood.

A moment later, we were back in our Nexus chamber. I waited for our dead allies to respawn. “That was a good start. Now, another.” I sent a message to my squad leaders. Rotate out in the next five minutes or so. Pick another portal and wreak havoc. Slash and burn, hit and run.

"Ooh, I see one! I see one!" Sage said excitedly. She pointed at a portal. "This one!"

I shrugged. "Go ahead."

She led the way, and we followed her into a reproduction of the Battle of Little Bighorn. As we joined the battle alongside the screaming Sioux in their war paint, riding into battle atop hearty ponies with rifles firing, I grinned.

"Grandpa would love this one!" I shouted as we descended on a group of confused-looking lizardfolk who were fighting alongside blue-coated cavalrymen.

"I get to kill Custer!" Sage shouted, pointing.

"Hold on!" I did a quick Inspect. He was listed as an ally to the lizardfolk team here. The objective for this battle was to protect Custer and kill Sitting Bull and the other war leaders, then plant a flag atop the ridgeline behind us.

In that case, our objective was to stop the lizardfolk from getting past the Indian warriors.

"Okay, you can kill Custer. I just had to make sure he wasn't one of ours."

"Obviously I can read, Shad!" Sage said as she ran forward, whooping.

I just aimed the rest of our people at the lizardfolk. "Go for it!" I said, and stood back watching, letting my All-Seeing Eye get a good picture of what was going on.

I tipped my hat to Sitting Bull as he rode past. Might have been my imagination, but I thought he looked like Grandpa.

Back at headquarters, I had all my squad leaders turn their footage over to Kirin.

"I want a three-minute video with the best of that," I told her. "Someone can take it to whoever's left in the Lotus Eater level and tell 'em nap time's over, it's time to play."

"I'm on it.” Kirin said.

"Well, what next?" I asked Juana. "You guys had time to plan?"

"We have," Grandpa said. "Next up, you, me, and Juana take a trip up to the Hub. We need a conversation with Veda, and we need it in person. She’s asking for us by name.”

“So now she wants to talk?” I closed my eyes. "I don't think we can afford the time away."

"I don't think we can afford to miss it," Juana said. She stood up. "Besides, we've got plenty of other people here who can keep the harassment going. Nobody's gotten past even two of the bosses in their instances. We’ve got a little time. Arjun is working on harassment plans. We can let some of the new recruits out to play.”

"Who are we leaving in charge here?"

Allison raised a hand. "Dwight, Kirin, and I can manage it."

"And me," Sage said brightly. "Field Commander Sage, I'm on assassination detail, right, Grandpa?"

“I’m not sure about that,” he said. “Maybe you should come with us.”

She shook her head. “That last level was called Indian Wars. By the time you get back I want every single team on that map wiped out.” She looked uncharacteristically fierce. I could just picture her in war paint. The enemy teams wouldn’t know what hit them.

Grandpa smiled. “Well then. Go ahead and have fun!”