I stepped out of the post-rad chamber shower and took a deep breath. My lungs had started to feel a little sparkly there at the very end. That was how you could tell you'd been breathing in some of the really nasty shit. It was good to spend some time in the rad chamber and get that shit taken care of.

Also? It was good to enjoy the view on the other end of the showers. This was a private chamber dedicated to the general and any of her close compatriots, and ever since her brother had expired in an unfortunate incident where he tried to take over a human colony world and was taught the error of his ways by yours truly?

Those compatriots meant me, myself, and I.

So as I stared across the room at her, the place was tiled and felt like pretty much every locker room I'd ever been in since I was a young man, I got a very nice view of the alien general as she was toweling herself off.

She noticed me watching. Maybe she had that sixth sense some women seem to have about guys looking at them, but I figured if ever there was someone I was allowed to look at? It was my smokin' hot alien girlfriend.

"What?" she asked, looking at me without a hint of shame or embarrassment.

"Just enjoying the view," I said.

She grinned, and I felt approval and just a little bit of heat coming through the link. I could totally go with approval and just a little bit of heat coming through the link.

"Is that the kind of line that works on human women?"

"It depends on how well I know the human woman," I said with a shrug. "If it was somebody who I'd just started dating? I probably wouldn't say something like that."

"Very technically, we've just started dating. At least as you humans reckon that sort of thing."

"Oh, come on," I said, rolling my eyes. "We've been through more in a couple of weeks than most relationships go through in a lifetime. Not to mention we've got this whole psychic bond fated mates thing going on. You'll be forgiven if I look at you and break out some of my cheesier pickup lines."

"That's just fine, Bill," she said, letting her towel drop to the floor once she was dried off. She hit me with a sly look, her head cocked to the side.

Then she looked over to the other end of the locker room where, oddly enough, there was a small hot tub. Think the kind of thing you might find in the training room for any major sports franchise. At least it was the kind of thing movies said was in the training room for a major sports franchise.

I wasn't sure what a hot tub in a training room was supposed to do, but I had a pretty good idea of what I wouldn't mind doing in a hot tub with Varis right about now.

She took a step across the room and looked at me. We were about even in height. Livisk women were about the same height as yours truly, and livisk men were usually about a head taller than me. Though I blinked as I stared at her, and this time around it didn't have anything to do with the view.

Okay, so maybe it had a little bit to do with the view, but more than that? I was surprised to realize she was a little shorter than me now.

"Is it just my imagination," I said. "Or are you a little shorter than before?"

Her hand moved up and ran along one of my arms. I looked down to that arm. It definitely wasn't my imagination there. That arm was a little more muscled than it had been before. I know because I'd spent some time in the shipboard gym trying to stay in shape. Trying to avoid the little bit of paunch most people got when they were underway and riding a chair for most of the day.

The navy and CCF were supposed to have physical fitness standards, but that was the kind of thing that got more and more lax the higher you climbed in the ranks and the more time you spent in the service. Especially in the CCF.

I looked back to her. "You know, at some point you're really going to have to explain what's going on here," I said. "Impossible strength, gaining muscles where I was never able to before no matter how much protein I downed, being able to take on a livisk male in single combat. Especially one who's apparently in a battle pair with the empress, which I get the feeling makes him into some sort of badass."

She sighed as she leaned forward and pressed against me, which meant every part of her body was pressing against me. I was suddenly painfully aware of how nice it felt having every bit of her body pressing against my own. The brain down below suddenly made itself very known.

I was also painfully aware of how much I'd missed the after-sparring match we usually enjoyed with each other.

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"Do we really need to talk about that right now, William?" she asked.

"So I'm William now?" I asked.

"Is there a problem with using your name?" she asked, looking up at me and blinking so sweetly that I knew she was doing that on purpose. That, and I could feel her amusement coming through the link.

"Come on, Varis," I said. "Let's go have a seat in the hot tub and maybe we can talk about this a little bit. I did just stop an invading force from moving in on your tower, and I managed to defeat one of her prince consorts again. I figure that's worth at least a little something. Right?"

She sighed as she melted against me. I ran a hand up and down her back, but I also made sure to keep that hand exclusively on her back.

No going below the equator, as much fun as that might be. I knew she was trying to distract me with the sexy, and I had no intention of being distracted. I wanted answers.

"You know, I almost feel like I need to call you William to get your attention," she said as she took my hand and pulled me over towards that incongruous hot tub in the middle of her small locker room attached to her rad chambers.

It made me wonder exactly how many times she had to use her rad chambers to get the green glowies out of her body if she had a whole locker room and a hot tub dedicated to the thing.

"Why would you say that?" I asked, though I got the feeling I knew exactly what she was going to say before she said it.

"With the way you and Arvie are always going on like an old married couple, it's almost enough to make a girl jealous," she said.

There were tile steps that ran up and around the hot tub on both sides. She took me by the hand and pulled me up and around the left side. I looked down at the hot tub and was surprised to realize there were fully reclining seats in there, and the thing was a little bigger now that I was looking down at it than it had seemed when I was looking at it from across the locker room.

I turned and looked in the opposite direction to the rad chambers that lined the other side of the place. They were only big enough to fit one livisk at a time. Thankfully, there was an option to go into stasis while the things were running.

Humanity had gone a completely different direction with our radiation purging chambers. Our trick was to make them big enough that people could move around and do things while they were in the chamber. As long as those things involved moving around inert stuff and not electronics.

Something about the decontamination process made it difficult, if not impossible, to use actual electronics when you were in the radiation purging chamber. It was all science I didn't understand. Getting radiation purged on the regular was just my job five days a week, to paraphrase an ancient classic.

Varis stepped down into the hot tub and reclined in one of the molded seats. I moved to follow her, and I sat down next to her. I moved an arm around her and she pressed up next to me, her head against my shoulder.

Bits of my anatomy down below were still very much making themselves known. They were still screaming that there was a beautiful alien woman sitting next to me in a hot tub.

But the more rational parts of my brain said water was a terrible lubricant, and I didn't imagine anything about that changed because we were in a hot tub the livisk had put together. There were only so many ways to keep a hot tub running.

We sat in silence for a little while. I enjoyed the feel of her pressing against me. I idly traced a finger up and down her arm, though at one point I moved that finger down so that it was tracing over a more interesting bit of anatomy on her upper body. Which had her letting out a shiver and sent goosebumps running up and down her body even though she was in the middle of a very warm hot tub.

"You're being naughty, Bill," she said.

"So I'm back to Bill?" I asked.

"You're always Bill," she said, pressing a hand against my chest.

Again, we sat there for a quiet moment, and I was content to enjoy that quiet moment. Just the two of us sitting together, enjoying the feel of our bodies pressing together. Enjoying the feel of her.

Finally she took in a deep breath and let it out in a long and slow sigh.

"Have you talked to Arvie about any of the things that have been happening to you?"

"I mean, I have a pretty good idea of what's going on based on context clues."

She pulled away from me a little. Which was frustrating, but she pulled away so she could look at me. Then, even more frustrating, she moved so she was sitting on the other side of the hot tub from me. She draped her arms out and leaned down so that distracting bit of her upper anatomy I'd been running a finger along just a moment ago was just under the water where I couldn't see it.

"So you want to have this conversation with no distractions, I take it?" I said, arching an eyebrow and smiling at her.

"What are you talking about, distractions?" she asked, looking away and waving a hand.

I glanced over in the direction she waved just in time to see a small slot open in the wall. A drone came out a moment later, and it was carrying a bottle of something I was pretty sure was livisk alcohol. As well as a couple of cups for us to enjoy that alcohol.

The drone set the tray down next to Varis. She poured a glass for her, and then she poured one for me, moving across the hot tub for a moment to hand it to me. Then she moved back to her spot and settled in. And she surprised me by throwing back her glass and chugging almost all of it down in a single go.

I blinked in surprise, though I wasn't sure if I was surprised or impressed.

She looked back at me and arched an eyebrow, and she looked oh so hot sitting there wearing absolutely nothing. Sitting just high enough to hint at everything lurking just under the surface.

It was almost enough to tempt me away from the conversation I desperately wanted to have with her. Almost, but I wasn't going to fall for her tricks or let her use her feminine wiles like that.

Maybe she could sense through the link that I wasn't going to let her pull that on me. She let out a sigh and a spike of frustration came through that link. Then she put her glass down.

I took my time with my own drink. I sipped at it. This seemed like a conversation where I needed to be of sound mind.

"So," she said. "You say you've figured out things from context clues. You're a clever man, Bill Stewart. Why don't you tell me exactly what you know about the link, and how you think that relates to everything that's been happening to you?"

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