That was when Maly mentioned why she was here. “So what are you doing in Pom-Kala? We are here to hire mercenaries for the war.”

  Eric frowned, and Yong blurted “So are we, our planet was invaded and they are eating people, we need protection.”

  Maly looked down, “That, that is terrible, but we need numbers. We can't patrol everywhere.”

  Eric said “Well, we just need some high level folks who can stop high level foes. We have a million soldiers, literally, but most either don't have levels or just got levels, we only just got rifts.”

  Maly looked thoughtful. “Is there any way we could hire your military?”

  Eric and Yong looked at each other, and Eric answered, “I don't think so, my nation has a historical issue with mercenaries.”

  Yong added “With the invasion, it would be very difficult for us to send anyone away from the homeland to fight elsewhere.”

  Lawshawn said “What about the North Koreans?” Eric and Yong both looked at the Army Captain, so he explained, “From what I heard, North Korean soldiers have been surrendering to the south, but the south doesn't want to let most of those soldiers fight on the front lines because of what they did in the invasion. Send those troops to the Dwarves, who will be happy to have fighters.”

  Maly looked interested, “How many troops are we talking about, and what levels?”

  Yong said “We have captured about a quarter of a million so far, with about the same number in an awkward situation of us providing supplies and ammo to pockets of North Koreans who fight the invaders while both sides pretend we are not helping each other.”

  Maly gaped, “Um, to clarify, a million is a thousand thousand, right? I'm not misunderstanding the word?”

  “Yeah, we have about two-hundred fifty thousand captured North Korean soldiers. They probably are not the best troops you have seen, but they were trained to hold a rifle.”

  “Oh, gun troops,” the dwarf sounded disappointed, “Still, quantity has a quality all its own. We mostly need lookouts, patrol soldiers, and support for our heroes.” She paused, thinking, “That could work. Yeah, that could work!”

  Yong frowned, “That solves your problem, assuming we can work out an agreement and transportation, but we still need a strike force, an iron fist.”

  Maly grinned, “Just let me do the talking.”

  War-chief Parsh looked like the sort of orc who could have taken power by force a century ago. Over 7 feet tall and probably weighing 300 pounds of muscle, he wore a loose vest and war-skirt. He had scars on both arms and was missing an ear, which was visible because his long black hair was tied in a ponytail. His blue eyes studied them intently.

  “So Maly, you are here for another boring patrol mission?”

  “Not this time Parsh, we have worked out a kind of trade, assuming everyone back home in our world and the human world agree. The humans are new to the rifts, and need high level warriors to fight back an invasion. They have lots of low levels who can patrol. So we were thinking we provide gold, you provide your best warriors to fight an invasion of high level-you said they were Kappa?” Eric nodded. “Kinda turtle-reptile people, in exchange for our gold, and the humans provide a lot of ground troops to patrol our borders.”

  “Hah, wonderful. Er, the payment, it is fair?”

  “The usual, ten-thousand gold per month for five hundred warriors, average level 20.”

  Yong spoke up, “We have more gold of our own, if we could get more warriors.”

  Maly looked annoyed, but nodded at him.

  “I have, er we have, about twenty-thousand gold pieces worth of gold in bars. We can get more, and Earth has goods that you desire, wood and foodstuffs, so we can provide even more gold as your people buy those from us.”

  Parsh looked at Maly. “They sound desperate.” He looked at Yong, “How bad is it, truly?”

  “Where the war-chief Jatya is fighting, we are doing well, pushing them back. But she keeps her force together, so in the west we are, well, we are losing. If Jatya were in the west we would be winning there, but we would lose the east.”

  “Jatya, that old battle-ax? Oh, if she got to fight and I didn't, I'd never hear the end of it. I will sound the horns. I have heard of the human rift, I assume my warriors should go there? We can be there in two weeks. I will get you a war band worthy of thirty-thousand gold, and I will lead it myself!”

  After a discussion of logistics, Eric warning the chief of the metal tubes, and the group emptying their inventories of gold, they left the war-chief's fortress.

  The four dwarves wanted to come with the humans, explaining that they wanted to see what they had hired, and also would be needed to help escort the human troops to their own world. Eric pointed out that he had a fast travel ability, but it could only transport ten people. At first it looked like it would be an issue, but Tilly volunteered to stay behind, saying she wanted to visit her father anyway.

  Upon their return to Earth, Eric helped set up a teleconference with South Korean military officials. Yong began his report:

  “I have negotiated for another large force of orcs, but there was an additional cost.” He pointed to the dwarves, “These fine people helped cover that cost, in exchange for letting North Korean troops that we are holding in camps patrol their lands and fight their foes. As they are only costing us resources, and it would let them effectively help defend Korea while not upsetting the population, I agreed, subject to your approval.”

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  “How many of these troops do they want?” An older Korean man, ramrod straight in his uniform, asked. Eric had forgotten his name but he was a Jungjang, which apparently was like a general.

  Maly interrupted, “At least thirty-thousand,” she smiled smugly. Eric's merchant skill told him she was ready to haggle, and he suspected 15,000 would make her happy.

  The Jungjang frowned, “It would be better if you took fifty-thousand, many of these troops are not well fed, and we do not want to cheat an ally, unlike some.” Eric winced at the barb but kept quiet. While the Koreans had a point, Eric felt that he had gone above and beyond to help them. Of course, any human would want to keep a species that ate humans from gaining a foothold.

  Maly couldn't hide her grin, “Sold!”

  Eric just shook his head, and turned to Colonel Melendez, “I assume you can arrange transportation again?” The officer groaned, then nodded.

  Eric saw Alicia waiting outside the room, looking nervous. He went out and said “What's up?”

  “Um, I was going through your e-mails like you asked, and, well, some people will be very glad you are back.” She handed him printouts to review while he went back to his office, trusting that the troop movements for Korea could be handled by the other folks in the room.

  The e-mails were about 'the Pacific war.' The US Navy was in a full fledged war with the Kappa, who seemed to have several of the giant lizards. So far the Navy had been arguably the winners, but a Virginia class submarine, an Aegis cruiser, and three Arleigh-Burke destroyers had all been sunk so far. The sub, for obvious reasons, was lost with all hands, and the survival rate for the surface ships was only 54%. That was in trade for 9 'giant lizards,' thanks to air power for the most part. The new tactic was to send 3-5 tomahawks on first sighting, then pound it with everything the Navy had until it went down.

  Mixed in with the 'war results,' was a page of intel on the Kappa in Korea. The blue neck things they wore were apparently a sort of breathing device, keeping water over their gills. It was reported that destroying this device would lead to the Kappa fleeing for the back lines regardless of the overall strategic situation, and Korean troops were starting to take advantage of this.

  “We need to get stronger,” Eric muttered.

  “What?” Alicia asked.

  “We, our region, the US, humanity as a whole, we need to get stronger. The orcs are helping, but we need levels. It may be the most important task we have.” Eric resolved to use his job to help in any way he could. Then he heard a ding sound:

  Eric was surprised, that was a lot of quests, and completing two at once? He checked his XP and was only barely short of level 9. With a new determination, he told Alicia “Get my group together, we are going to grind for XP.” He knew he and his entire group could complete the shareable quest by entering just one new rift, but he planned to try something stupid.

  He drafted the e-mail, and hit send to everyone in the Department of Rift Security. “Quest available, if you go into five rifts, you will complete the quest 'explorer.'” He received a notification:

  That was when Eric remembered that the mailing list included all US military service-members. 'oh well,' he shrugged, 'I'll probably get a scolding from Dr. Cohen, but a lot of people will get a few XP.'

  Once he had Kendra, Lashawn, Guidry-and to his surprise Alicia-ready, they went into the orc rift to find Tilly and catch her up. Arriving in her home village, Eric headed straight for her father's office. The thin, white haired orc looked even older, but his grip was still firm when he clasped arms with Eric and then each of his friends. “Where is Tilly?” He asked, concerned.

  Eric realized they had beaten her back, “Oh, sorry, she wanted to visit you, so we let her travel on her own, but I forgot how much my fast travel ability helps.”

  The old orc frowned, “Normally I would say she can handle herself, but, well, with Jatya gone, the goblins have become more bold. Plus my daughter, well, if there are hobgoblins she is likely to get kinda wild. That's when you make mistakes. You can find her right? Make sure she is OK?”

  Eric said “Of course, she is part of our group.” The orc law-chief nodded happily.

  “Then I won't keep you,” he dismissed them.

  Eric used find ally, and noticed that the ugly green arrow now had yellow flashing highlights. He was convinced the system was just trolling him at this point. Still, it pointed the way, and the group got moving. After half a day they were just ready to make camp, when they saw a large cloud of dust approaching. King got out his binoculars and swore, “There are nine of them! Goblins. Two of the big ones and seven of the squirts.”

  The group were next to an outcropping of rock, which at least meant any foe had to approach from one direction. But there wasn't much they could do to improve their situation in just a few minutes. Eric did use a water blast on the ground about 30 feet from their position, creating a muddy quagmire.

  As the goblins got close enough to see with the naked eye, Guidry and Captain King took aim, “Left” King ordered, and two careful aimed shots hit a goblin in the torso, one perforating its heart. The creature dropped, and the other goblins drew pistols but didn't fire yet, knowing they were too far back.

  “Semi-auto,” King suggested, “pick separate targets.” The two soldiers fired 3 round bursts, and two more goblins fell from their mountain lions, one with a bullet through it's large eyeball, the other with half its neck blasted away. But now the goblins were close enough to return fire, and 8 shots slammed into Kendra's shields. Three got through, and Eric ducked as a bullet whizzed past his ear. Another shot wasn't even close, but Lashawn had taken a bullet to his left shoulder and was clearly favoring it.

  The two lead goblins, what Tilly had called 'hobs' were on Tarses, which tried to gallop through the mud. To Eric's disappointment, his spell didn't do much, a bog that would have stopped horses was less effective on the broad footed, shorter lizards, but it did slow them.

  “Permission!” Alicia cried out, and the two hobs stopped, stunned by something. Eric took advantage of their pause to use Wind Slash on both of those mounts, not killing them but causing them to stop and try to back away.

  Kendra saw the hobs stopped, and used her beamer on a goblin, and saw the beautiful sunset in the distance through the large hole in the goblin's chest. The mountain lions that had lost their riders had tried to rush forward, but also paused at the muddy mess, made worse by the lizard feet stirring the mud.

  Guidry and King fired at the same time the remaining 3 goblin pistoleers did, and bullets flew in both directions. Two of the goblins went down, but Eric went down with a bullet in his thigh, blood spurting in time with his heartbeat, and Kendra took a graze to her scalp, which also bled copiously. Eric had also heard Alicia scream in pain.