"Stay on target. Stay on target," I said, moving in on a skyscraper I was told was part of a rival house that'd been giving Varis trouble over the past five years or so. Particularly in the last year when she fell out of favor with the empress because of me besting her in combat.

I figured I owed her a little bit of payback for that.

"Are you sure this is an advisable maneuver, William?" Arvie asked.

"I'm not sure it's an advisable maneuver, but it's something I have to try," I said.

"You say so," he said with a digital sigh.

"Almost there," I muttered, the targeting computer moving me in.

Though it was a touch ridiculous that I was even using a targeting computer for this. It wasn't the kind of shot that required a targeting computer or the Force. No, all I needed to do was line everything up and let loose with the missile that had a nice nuclear tip on it.

That would be all she wrote. Even the shielding on that building wouldn't be enough to fend off a couple of nukes. And if it was enough, well the second and third blast should be enough to take out the building after their shielding fell.

Not the kind of thing a livisk would do to their precious imperial city, but it was certainly the kind of thing a desperate human might do if they were trying to take out as many livisk as possible with their one opportunity to use a nuke.

"Stay on target," I said, watching as the countdown moved down. I was in the zone now. Sure this was a strange ship, for all that I had it displaying Standard Galactic, but it was still more or less the same as flying a human ship.

Again, the joys of infinite diversity in infinite combinations when it came to things like UI design for humanoids.

I pitched the ship to the left on a ninety degree turn, which had the targeting computer beeping at me angrily. The ship pivoted on the antigrav, but I didn't feel it because livisk ships didn't let you feel any of the physics going on around you unless something was broken.

That pivot put me on a straight line to what I was actually looking to destroy with this run.

The targeting computer kept beeping, but again, it's not like I needed a targeting computer to tell me what to do here. I ignored the angry red alerts on the canopy telling me that under no circumstances was I allowed to do what I was about to do.

"William, why do I get the feeling you're about to do something precipitous here?"

"Probably because that's exactly what I'm about to do," I said.

I hit the fire button, and nothing happened. No doubt some system built into this thing to prevent someone from doing exactly what I was about to do. That was fine. There was always the manual override.

It was even a nice little lever I could pull on, and I was immediately able to launch the nuclear-tipped missiles I was carrying on my bomber.

I didn't need the targeting computer for this. Not for the massive pyramid surrounded on all sides by towers that were part of the shield generating capability for the imperial palace.

Not that the shield generating capability for the imperial palace was going to do the imperial palace a damn bit of good in this case.

I let out a whoop of joy and pumped my fist in the air right up to the moment the screen seemed to glitch for a moment. I had a view of my nukes twinkling as they moved towards the palace in the haze of daylight over Imperial Seat, and then the whole world went dark all around me.

"I told you, William, you literally can't do that," Arvie said.

I stared at the blank screen wrapped around me. One moment the simulator had been running, and the next it was no longer there.

"Are you fucking kidding me?" I asked.

"The simulation doesn't allow for the possibility of attacking the imperial palace," Arvie said. "You're lucky. Most publicly available flight simulators would report back to the empress's forces and let them know someone was targeting the imperial palace. It's only because I was able to intercept those communications that you're not ending up on a liquidation list right now."

"Damn," I muttered, deflating. "And I thought that had been going so well."

"Yes, well. I had an inkling of what you were planning on doing and took precautions. You realize I'm going to have to tell Varis about this, correct?"

"Oh, of course you'll have to tell Varis about it, and you can stuff it up your vacuum tubes."

"That is an insult, William," he said with a digital sniff. "Computers on this world haven't used vacuum tubes for several thousand of your years."

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

I frowned. Several thousand years? That was odd. That made it sound like their computer progress had been a sequel trilogy of a lot slower than what we'd done on Earth. Oh well. Now wasn't the time to worry about that sort of thing.

"Anyway," I said, letting out another sigh. "I don't suppose you could consider keeping this between the two of us?"

The side of the simulator opened, and I saw none other than Varis standing there with her hands on her hips. Staring at me with a half smile that still managed to look like a frown. I blinked as I looked up and around. Suddenly I could feel that she was nearby where I couldn't before.

That was odd. Had she been masking where she was? Or was I so occupied by the flight simulator that I hadn't realized she was right there?

"Taking some time to brush up on flying livisk ships?" she asked, arching an eyebrow.

"Something like that," I said.

"Yes, something like that," she said, not sounding the least bit amused.

"It's always a good idea to get a little bit of practice in, right?"

"Yes, I'm sure it was wonderful for you to get some practice in. And is there anything that's going to get back to anybody who's going to cause me trouble?"

"Uh, not exactly?"

"Not exactly?"

"Well, for one, Arvie said he managed to capture the incriminating signal before it went out to the imperial palace. For another, you have an army surrounding us. I don't think I have to worry all that much."

She sighed and rolled her eyes. Then she held a hand out.

"Come on," she said. "We have a few things we need to go over."

"Look. If it's about me trying to attack the imperial palace, can you really blame me? That's the kind of shot that anyone in the Terran Navy or the CCF would give their right nut to be able to do."

"No, I don't blame you for doing that," she said, letting out a sigh. "There are times when I wish I could do the same and be done with it."

That nearly had me missing a step. I glanced at her sideways. That sounded almost like treasonous talk. I wondered if I was starting to rub off on her.

I also figured it wasn't a good idea to talk about it with her. She seemed like she'd had a bad day.

"Trouble at work?" I asked.

"You don't know the half of it," she said.

"Do you want to talk about it?" I asked.

"No, I don't want to talk about it," she said.

We walked into an elevator and moved up. Thankfully this was an internal elevator. Not one of those deals that took us out over the city. I don't know why I kept getting vertigo in those, but it was a pain in the ass.

Finally we stepped into a room where there was a mat running across the floor. And instead of floor to ceiling windows with a view of the city, there were floor to ceiling mirrors running all around in a massive circle the size of the entire building.

Again. The skyscraper on a skyscraper we were in wasn't as big as the main tower below, but it was still pretty damn big.

Sure there were windows above those mirrors, but the mirrors were definitely the main draw.

I reached down and touched the padding.

"Take off your uniform," she said as she shrugged out of her own.

I blinked, turning to stare at her. I was going to enjoy the view if she was getting out of her uniform.

"I mean, we've been away from each other for a good chunk of the day, but I figured you'd want to have dinner before we got to that."

She stood there in a sports bra and something that looked like boxer briefs down below. Even though she could move around in her uniform just fine. They were the kind of material that could breathe.

She also kicked off her shoes and let out a quiet sigh of contentment as she pressed her feet against the mat below.

"Come on," she said, sashaying across the room. She waved her hand over the mats, and suddenly something appeared up out of the floor below. An array of weapons. They mostly looked like the kind of practice stuff you'd see in any military training center. Or any dojo or dojang back in Terran space for that matter.

"Um. What exactly are we doing here?" I asked, because this definitely wasn't what I had in mind when she said we needed to go over a few things.

She pulled a black practice sword out. The thing crackled with energy and tines of electricity running up and down its length as she held it out to me.

Then she let go and the thing went flying across the room, flipping around so the hilt was facing me.

I let out a yelp and tried to grab it, but I fell to the ground. I was still in the middle of getting out of my jumpsuit and revealing my own boxers down below, which also revealed how much I was enjoying getting a look at her in a sports bra and those tight shorts.

I probably should've felt like some sort of pervert for continuing to get hot and bothered looking at her, but I also figured if I was going to get hot and bothered looking at anyone? I might as well get hot and bothered looking at my…

Well, I wasn't sure what she was. Clearly I had a rank insignia that said I was Consort, but I wasn't sure if that's because that's all she thought of me as or if it was because that was the rank they had for whatever I was.

She appeared over me, and I thought about Hathar laughing earlier about the whole consort thing. Thought about how that annoyed me. I didn't like that "consort" might be all she thought I was.

"Excellent," she said. "Now if you're ready, I need to…"

Her eyes went wide as I grabbed the practice sword where it'd fallen to the ground after I failed to grab it. Apparently the antigrav gave out so it could come to rest next to me.

I brought it around and it made contact with her leg. That leg immediately went limp, and she fell to the ground with a yelp of surprise.

I hopped up and held my sword out. She tried a swipe of her own to take me out, but I was ready. It was like I already knew what she was going to do before she did it. Like the link was a cheat mode telling me where she was moving before her sword moved there.

Only she changed things up at the last minute and my own leg was hit. Now it was my turn to let out a yelp of surprise as I fell to the ground. My whole leg went numb.

"Son of a bitch!" I yelled falling down to the mat.

Thankfully the mat was comfortable. It provided way more cushion than I would've expected. Almost like there was something built into the floor that kept me from taking too hard a hit.

And I was thankful for that as Varis jumped up and held her practice sword out again. It let out a small crackle of energy that reminded me of the plasma conduit earlier in that bomber I wouldn't mind using to take out the imperial palace.

Though I wondered if it was even possible for a livisk ship to take out the imperial palace. If they had safeguards built into the flight simulators then I couldn't even begin to imagine what kind of safeguards they had built into their bombers.

Not that I cared about any of that. No, for the moment I was more worried about concentrating on the beautiful sparkling blue alien general coming towards me. Stalking towards me with a predatory grace and a gleam in her eyes that said she was about to take out all her frustrations of the day on yours truly.

And I was here for it.

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