He and Merle's apparent cat (named Googie, code-name Vega), are both members of the "Friends", a group dedicated to resistance of The Tyrant, who leads the FOEs (Forces of Evil).
A message sent to them on time-delay reveals them they can either remain safe on Earth for Friends agents to find them, or search for the enigmatic Weaver, founder of the Outernet.
With his personal agenda foremost, Loaf cons Jack into giving him The Server in an attempt to make money, which requires him to take out a loan from aliens.
As a result, Jack and his friends are stranded on Deadrock, a dangerous planet, crawling with FOEs, and Loaf runs into several representatives of the nastiest loan sharks in the Galaxy.
Back on Earth, the Bug poses as an agent of the US government and gains control of Merle's father, Colonel Stone, commander of a USAF base in England.
Jack and Merle find allies- but the Deadrock Freedom Fighters face terrible odds, and all they have on their side are primitive weapons and the cranky Help application.
They eventually destroy the Deadrock Server, which FOEs had set up to monitor all information passed through it electronically (speech was forbidden) and reintroduce the residents to talking.
She is arrested as a traitor, but the humans find themselves able to shapeshift due to parasitic natives of the planet that endow all residents or visitors with the ability.
Unable to teleport to Helios, they look for affordable spaceship transportation and find it in the form of hippie Zodiac Hobo and his anonymous ship, which complains about its status as such until Merle names it Trigger.
After meeting Janus in N-space (he removes Loaf from Tracer's control), they serve as eyes for Tiresias, letting him see the universe before dying in peace.
Merle attempts to return to her own time, but winds up in an alternate universe in which the Outernet was never created: Tracer is invading Earth, and she is a rebel on the opposite side of the war from Jack.
What follows is a roller-coaster ride around the Earth as Jack and his companions try to stay one step ahead of the Bounty Hunters and activate the planet's ancient defences against alien invasion.
They use a low-tech form of teleportation, travelling to Stonehenge (where Janus and Sirius originally landed), the Great Pyramid of Giza, Machu Picchu, Uluru, and Shangri-La to complete a chain that will defend Earth.
Janus gives Help access to a startling secret: the Bugs, believed to be genetically engineered, were in fact a thriving species before The Tyrant annihilated all but one and cloned it.