"We need to get you a wristband,"

"A what?" I asked.

She ducked and came at me, and I jumped at the last moment. The practice sword sailed under my feet, and I brought my own down and around trying to hit her backside.

But she arched her back and stumbled forward. It would've looked ridiculous, but it worked. Anything that worked couldn't be all that ridiculous.

The same as any landing you walked away from was a good landing, even if the rest of your craft wasn't in the greatest shape.

"A wristband," she said, grunting with the exertion of spinning around and coming at me.

She used a low form. I could sense what she was going to do before she did it, and I was able to step out of the way. Only she changed at the last moment. Like she knew I could sense what she was about to do and she changed it up at the last moment.

That was a neat trick. I wondered if I was able to feel what she intended to do because she was so familiar with the form, or if she was changing what her mind was telegraphing.

I decided to try it myself. I started barreling at her. There was something to be said for occasionally just ramming your guns right down your enemy's throat and pulling the trigger. Even though we weren't using guns here.

My practice sword, a length of black tubing that was both rigid and soft at the same time, I had the feeling it would bend if I tried to hit her too hard, crackled with energy as I moved to bring it down on her. But I switched at the last moment and tried to go low.

She was ready for me. She did a similar jump to what I'd done, and she brought her practice sword down and around on my back.

Let me tell you. The sensation of suddenly having my body going limp from about halfway up my back down wasn't pleasant. It reminded me of stories I'd heard of people falling into a pool just the wrong way and having to go into the medbay for the better part of a month. It took a long time to rewire somebody's nervous system once it'd been screwed up.

I fell to the ground. Again, that cushioning was there for me. Again, it was only a moment before my body started working again and the numbness departed.

I rolled around just in time to see her about ready to bring her practice sword down on my head.

My eyes went wide and I yelled as I rolled to the side, trying to escape her.

She brought her sword down once, twice, again, and again. She screamed every time she brought it down. Like she really was trying to take out her frustration on me.

I didn't try to hit her with my sword this time around. This time I just kicked out. Her eyes went wide as she was knocked on her ass.

She did a little roll back and then hopped up. I did the same.

"It's a way for you to interface with the systems in the tower," she said.

"So like a smartwatch or something?" I asked.

"If that's a band that goes around your wrist and allows you to access systems, then sure, just like a smartwatch," she said.

"How quaint," I said. "I don't suppose you have a slate I could carry around instead? I never liked those watches. It's been a thousand years and they've still never reached the full promise everybody thought they should because the screens are so damn small."

"We might be able to arrange something like that," she said with a grin, coming at me.

She swung her sword, and I brought mine up and slammed it into hers. We traded barbs, looking for all the world like we were Errol Flynn in an ancient movie. Or maybe Mandy Patinkin. Either way, we were trading blows and I felt like I was almost using the Force. I could sense where her sword thrusts were going before she did them.

We danced back and forth like that, me giving ground for a moment, then her giving ground for another moment. Forward and back, around and around. I could see the mirror reflection of the two of us out of the corner of my eye.

She grinned as she stared at me.

"Good. You're getting the hang of it."

"It would help if I knew exactly what it is I'm getting the hang of," I said.

There was a sudden rumbling, and the mat underneath me shot up. My eyes went wide and my arms cartwheeled as the ground suddenly shifted under me and I went flying. She thrust up with her sword and hit my stomach. I worried that I was going to lose control of my bladder.

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Thankfully that didn't happen. When I looked down, my boxers were still in one piece and dry.

But the room had changed all around me. It was changing constantly. Some of the mat rose up in a stair shape, and then it went back down. A giant column of material made out of the same stuff as the matting suddenly shot up and then back down again and again. It was happening all over.

I felt a rumble underneath me. The floor moved up and I rolled around just in time for her practice sword to come down where I'd been just a moment ago.

I brought my own up and slammed into her midsection, which had her crumpling just in time for a ramp to appear underneath her that sent her tumbling down and around.

I got up. I was on the other side of that ramp that had suddenly shot up. I moved around it slowly and saw her lying there, clutching at her stomach. I felt at her mental link though, and I could tell there wasn't anything wrong.

Still. I approached like I was worried about her. I was worried about her on some level, but I was more worried about winning whatever this was.

"Are you okay?" I asked, walking up to her like I was more concerned than anything.

She brought her practice sword around at the last moment and I did a quick flick of my wrist to hit her wrist. Her practice sword clattered to the floor, and I held my own up to her eyes. She went cross-eyed for a moment as it hovered there in front of her face. Which brought to mind another moment last night when she'd gone cross-eyed as another bit of something was hovering in front of her face, but it probably wouldn't be polite to get into that sort of thing here.

"Do you yield?" I asked.

She let out a yell and her feet kicked out, knocking my feet out from under me.

Then she was on top of me. Her hand chopped down on my wrist and my own practice sword went clattering away. I suddenly got the feeling she'd been toying with me.

I let out a yell of my own and pivoted up and around, pulling her over until I was on top.

"Do you yield?" I asked.

"Never," she said, trying to get up.

But something odd happened. She stayed precisely where she was. I figured she should've been able to get away from me easily enough. She was stronger than me. That was the thing about livisk. That was the whole reason why we needed power armor to match them in hand-to-hand combat, for all that the Marines learned ways to fight that supposedly helped to use the aliens' strength against them.

I could feel her straining, but I wasn't having any trouble holding her in place. She grinned up at me.

"Good. It's already starting to work."

I blinked, "What's already starting to work?"

"I yield," she said.

I let go of her as soon as she said that. A part of me worried it was some trick. Like she'd pretend to yield and then the moment I let go she'd try to knock me on my ass again.

Livisk honor often ran up against the livisk desire to wiggle out of something, and it was always a pain in the ass to be the person who was caught on the business end of them trying to rules lawyer their way out of something.

Instead I rolled to the side and she did the same, bringing her knees up as she looked at me. She blinked a couple of times.

"I suppose some explanations are in order."

"That would be nice," I said. "But honestly? I'd be perfectly fine just sitting here and being with you."

She scrambled across the mat towards me. I worried that a bit of the mat material was going to go flying up and send us rolling around the room again, but that moment never came. No, instead she just pressed her head against my shoulder as the room calmed down around us. I wrapped an arm around her and pulled her against me.

It was a good feeling.

"I'm sorry for missing lunch today," she said, "But it occurred to me right around lunchtime that I hadn't actually figured out a way to get in touch with you, and it would've taken too long to use the link to try and figure out where you were in the maze that is the tower."

"You shouldn't feel bad," I said with a shrug. "I spent the day working on repairing the plasma conduits on a long-range bomber."

"You were doing what?" she asked, turning to stare at me in clear surprise.

"Yeah, I met Hathar. He says he's in charge of all of your stuff. Talks about it like it's his stuff."

"You met Hathar?" she said, and there was an unreadable quality to her tone as she looked at me.

"Yeah, he seems like a pretty nice guy," I said with a shrug. "A little gruff when I first got to know him, and he called me consort which I'm not a fan of, but I guess that fits."

She looked at me with a twinkle in her eye. Then she reached out to touch the insignia at my shoulder.

"I can see why he might say that, but you're so much more than a consort."

She leaned in and hit me with a kiss. I decided to enjoy that kiss for a moment, but only for a moment. Then she pulled away, and her eyes were searching mine again.

"Thank you for helping me tonight. Sparring really did help to release some tension."

"Did you have a lot of tension in your day today?" I asked.

"I've been nothing but tension for the last year or so," she said, "Trying to convince the empress to let me take one of my ships into human territory. Trying to find a full crew willing to go on such a mad run. Mostly people who thought there was a good chance they were going to die gloriously for the empress because they'd brought shame on their houses in some way."

"I bet they were disappointed when they lived."

"Some of them," she said with a shrug. "Others seemed to think going into the belly of the beast and returning alive was enough to restore their honor."

"How nice for them," I muttered. "So next time you say we can do lunch, I'll be able to get ahold of you with this wristband thing you're talking about?"

"You should be able to, yes," she said, leaning in and kissing me again. "And I promise I'm not going to blow you off every time. That's how you humans say it, right?"

"That's exactly how we say it," I said, winking at her.

"And I'll be interested to see what happens with you and Hathar. I'm assuming you're going back there tomorrow to spend more time around the ships?"

"How did you know?" I asked.

"We're in each other's minds," she said with a smile. "Of course I can tell what you want to do."

"You can tell what I want to do?" I asked, grinning at her and arching an eyebrow.

She grinned right back at me, and then she practically launched herself at me and started kissing me again, only this time we didn't stop for sparring or more conversation.

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