I stared at the guy. He stared back at me. He had that whole leering smile thing going for him. Which really wasn't doing him any favors.

"What," he said, blinking and suddenly looking a little self-conscious, if it was possible for a livisk wearing a bandana that looked like he was an extra in a Mad Max movie, or one of the hundreds of spinoffs that had been made over the years, could look self-conscious.

"I was just trying to decide if the sparkling makes your beat-up face look more or less ridiculous."

He scowled. "That's not a very nice thing to say."

"Yeah, and I'm pretty sure you're here to kill me, which also isn't a very nice thing to do if we're going to be talking about who's being nice to who here."

I tried to scoot myself up a little bit. I immediately regretted it as I found several spots on my back that were also in extreme pain. Though not as extreme as I expected given this ancient ruined city had just been beating me like I owed it money.

I was in an odd little pocket in the debris. There was a bunch of twisted metal and broken buildings all around me, sure, but I could look up and see...

Well, not exactly an open area, but I could see the underside of Imperial Seat. Big Final Fantasy VII Holoblock Remake Recoded Rebirth vibes. I wondered what kind of buildings were being held together up there. I wondered what people were doing up there.

Were they living their lives with no idea that there was this whole drama playing out below their feet? Would any of them give a flying fuck about the fate of a single human, especially one who'd been doing his best to annoy their empress for quite some time now?

Probably not.

"So do you want to be a little more specific about exactly who's looking for me?" I asked.

"What do you mean?" the guy growled at me.

"Well, do you have any idea how little it narrows it down that you say somebody is looking for me? Like, I have a lot of people who are looking for me."

I held my hand up and started ticking away before he could respond.

"There are the admirals back in Terran space. I'm sure there are a few of them, but Admiral Harris in particular seems like the kind of asshole who would send a special forces team in here to try and capture me because my continued existence is an embarrassment to the Combined Corporate Fleets. Then, of course, there's the empress. I imagine that opens it up to a whole lot of other people who'd take a shot at me because they want to curry favor with the empress.

"If you'd just stop long enough to…"

And all the people who've come at me so far? They have one thing in common. They're dead. I mean, the empress isn't dead yet, but her people are. And I'm working on that.

His eyes went wide. "You dare threaten the empress?"

I shrugged. "I'm not threatening so much as I'm kind of making a promise, but sure, whatever. I'm totally threatening the empress."

He looked utterly gobsmacked. The smile was totally gone. It was interesting. Clearly, this guy was an outlaw of some sort who was down here trying his best to capture me, but he still seemed to have a little bit of reverence for their empress.

For all that I hadn't seen a damn thing the empress had done so far that would make her worthy of any of this loyalty.

But then the smile was back. It was a nervous sort of smile. Almost a sickly sort of smile, but it was definitely a smile.

"Well, isn't that interesting?" he said, doing a quick bow and holding a hand out like he was presenting me to somebody. "Because I told you, I have somebody here who's very interested in getting to know you. Somebody who would be very annoyed to hear what you have planned for the empress."

"Oh good," I said. "We're getting down to brass tacks."

He looked confused. "Getting down to what?"

Honestly, I don't even know what it means. It's one of those funny little linguistic things that's been fossilized in human language, and I'm sure there's not even a translation in Livisk. I find myself using human idiom from time to time even when it doesn't make sense in Livisk."

"You don't shut up, do you?" he said.

"It's a fault I have," I said. "But trust me, not shutting up has saved my ass on more than a few occasions."

I thought about the last time I ran into a prince consort. Which, incidentally, was the second time I ran into a prince consort. I'd managed to keep chatting long enough to distract him so I could sucker punch him in the nose. Through his shields, but it turns out there was enough give in personal shielding, especially with my weird battle pair strength coupled with power armor, to give the asshole a bloody nose.

The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.

"Whatever," the guy finally muttered. "Your new friend should be arriving at any moment now."

He continued with that bowing posture, and he had his hand held out into a silence that got uncomfortable. Then it started to go from uncomfortable to downright awkward.

He turned and glared at some of the others who were gathered with us. All of them in equally ridiculous bandanas. "Do any of you know where he is?"

"Where he is," I said, grinning at each of them in turn. "I take it to mean that the empress herself hasn't come down here to have a chat with me?"

"The empress wouldn't debase herself to have a chat with a human," the livisk growled.

"Are you sure about that?" I asked. "Because she had a chat with me the last time I kicked her ass, or I guess it would be more accurate to say when I killed her prince consort. Did I mention that was the second time I killed a prince consort? I know you probably don't care all that much and you might think I'm bragging, but I just say it to make it abundantly clear exactly what kind of danger all of you are in right about now."

The livisk looked over at me. Glared at me is more like it. I knew I was rambling, but I was trying to buy time. I kept interrogating the link. I really wished that I had some sort of comm I could use to get in touch with Arvie.

Everything was so messed up down here, not to mention I'd been tossed around so many times, that I had no idea where I was and no idea which way Varis was exactly.

I could point in a general direction, but the explosion had blown me far enough away from her that it was only a general direction. Which was a sequel trilogy of a lot closer than only being able to point to a general arc in the skies and say she was off in that direction somewhere in the galaxy, but it wasn't going to help me very much while I was stuck here injured and wondering if they were going to kill me before my lady love saved my ass.

"You know, if this gentleman you're waiting on isn't going to make an appearance, I could always just accept your surrender," I said.

The guy stood tall. He looked over to one of the others in his party. That one shook his head, and the meaning there was clear enough.

Or at least there were a couple of meanings there that might be clear enough. Either way, whatever asshole was supposed to be coming out here to meet with them, and I had a few ideas as to exactly what kind of asshole might be coming out here to meet with them because I was down here, they were late.

Maybe they couldn't get ahold of him. Maybe the guy wasn't going to show up. Maybe there were a hundred other things that had gone wrong because some dumbass had fired off a weapon that took out Varis's star fighter.

Which had me thinking the empress, or at the very least a powerful noble, was down here fucking with us.

"You're going to accept our surrender," the one who revealed his face said.

"Well, yes? It seems like the sporting thing to do. I've already made a couple of overtures to you and tried to make it clear that I'm going to kill all of you if you're stupid enough to persist in this idiocy."

"What idiocy?" he said, scratching his head.

"The idiocy of keeping me captive," I said, rolling my eyes.

I tried to scoot up a little bit more. I was pleasantly surprised to find that my legs were actually working now. Sort of. One of them was bent at an odd angle which wasn't good, but I could use the other one to scoot along. I couldn't even feel them for a little while there. I hadn't realized I couldn't feel them until the feeling suddenly returned.

Pins and needle ran up and down my legs now. It wasn't an entirely pleasant situation, but given the alternative of not having any connection between my spine and my lower extremities? I'd take it.

It tickled like a motherfucker to try and move when both my legs and my feet were asleep, but I'd just have to deal. There was also a throbbing in the leg that was bent out of shape that felt like it was working up to really hurt like a motherfucker.

"See, I'm already feeling much better," I said, though I didn't make a move to either of my weapons at my side. I didn't think I was in any condition to use those. "So if all of you would just go ahead and surrender, I promise I can take you back to Varis. We'll have very good terms for all of you. Maybe we could even find a place to put you to work in her tower. It's a really nice place. Like, admittedly, I know I'm only seeing the super luxury parts of the tower. Which might be giving me a skewed view of how things operate in there, but I honestly think it's pretty neat."

"Are you trying to bribe us now?" the guy asked, scratching his head with his weapon this t ime. Clearly when they sent people down here to fight on behalf of whoever these assholes were fighting on behalf of, they weren't sending their best.

"No, I'm threatening you," I said. "I want to be absolutely clear about that. You can accept my offer to come back to Varis's tower, or you can die."

The guy looked over to the other livisk gathered all around us. They all threw their heads back and started to roar with laughter at about the same time.

I shrugged. "Don't say I didn't warn you."

They kept laughing for another long moment. I didn't do anything to interrupt them. I figured if they were going to burn time on the clock then I'd take it. The link was starting to feel a little stronger. I could point out where Varis was with a little more certainty.

Which could only mean one thing, and that one thing didn't mean anything good for these assholes.

"You're awfully cocky and confident, human," the livisk said. "I've heard stories of some of the bullshit you pulled. I'm not sure I believe even half of it, but you certainly believe your own bullshit."

I let out a dramatic sigh as I stared at all of them, then I made another regretful shrug.

"Don't say I didn't warn you."

"Yeah, you, and what army?" the guy said with a snort. "All your troops should be locked down with fighting the captive livisk in the reclamation mine right about now if they haven't been captured or killed. And I can assure you they're all motivated fighters."

"Motivated?" I asked.

"A pardon out of a reclamation mine is great motivation," he said with a shrug. "And if everything has gone to plan, then you're not going to be getting any more reinforcements anytime soon."

That sent a chill running down my spine, but I couldn't do anything about any of that right now. All I could do was try to survive so I could eventually do something about whatever was happening to my people.

To our people. I was in this with Varis, damn it, and as an angry blue bundle of pure pissed off alien hottie suddenly slammed down in the middle of all of those guys and started to lay into them with a sword, I could only grin.

It was the two of us against the galaxy, and player two had joined the fight.

"I tried to warn you assholes," I called out as she laid into them with a plasma sword and blaster.

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.