"Okay, now wait just one damn minute," I said, sounding like every cliche in the book when it came to a situation like this.

"Now, William, granted I'm unfamiliar with some of the mythology of your world and the exact context here, but I don't see how a unit of time could be sentenced to eternal damnation in a lake of fire."

"What are you talking about?" I asked.

"You said one damn minute."

I stared at the glowing heads-up display in front of me, and then I looked over to the top-right corner where I could see the AI integration showing up where it would on a normal Terran display. Arvie had clearly done his homework when he was putting this together.

"Don't bullshit me, Arvie," I said.

"I also fail to see what the offal from a ruminant animal on your world has to do with our current situation."

"I know you know what all of this means, Arvie. So it would be nice if you could stop with the whole lost in translation bullshit."

There was a momentary pause. It'd been a while since I'd gotten one of those momentary pauses from the computer. Mostly because it'd been a while since the two of us had a conversation that didn't involve me breaking out counterpoints to his arguments that I'd already come up with due to the shard version of him that was sequestered away in my old jail cell giving me the inside track on those arguments before they happened.

"Fine," he said. "I rather thought you liked our back and forth banter."

I grinned at the heads-up display. I was pretty sure the computer could see me grinning at him.

"Come on, Arvie. I absolutely love our back and forth, but if you're going to do a back and forth like that, you need to make sure it's something genuine. It's just not the same if you're faking it."

Another pause. That was two for this interaction so far, and we were only just getting started. I figured I was on my way to breaking a record if this kept up like this.

"'Faking it?' You said that on purpose, didn't you? A reference to somebody not being able to get a woman to..."

"Yes, Arvie. That's exactly what it's a reference to."

"Well, at least I know you don't have to worry about that problem with the general."

I frowned. I wondered, not for the first time, exactly how much the computer was monitoring on the regular with me and Varis. He claimed he could see everything at all times, but it wasn't actually recorded unless there was a need for it to be recorded. But if somebody believed that then I had an antigrav causeway to sell you over the rebuilt ruins of Old Brooklyn.

"Whatever," I said. "We should get going. We've already wasted entirely too much time with bullshit."

"I agree, William, we have wasted entirely too much time with bullshit."

I stepped forward. The armor moved easily enough with me, and as I moved, I felt the padding inside the thing adjusting to give me a better experience.

"I hope you don't mind, William, but I've taken the liberty of adjusting some of the padding inside the armor to make for a more pleasant experience for you."

"I don't mind at all," I said, grinning at everything and nothing at the same time. "Go ahead and make it as pleasant an experience as possible."

I reached the side door where Selii's advance troops were moving in and sitting down. They were all looking around with wide eyes, like they were seriously impressed. A moment later, Selii came in and looked around. Her eyes weren't quite as wide, but I could tell she was trying very hard to not look impressed while she was clearly impressed.

"How did you manage to pull this?" she finally asked, turning to look at me.

Though again, she blinked in slight surprise as she realized I was standing there in white armor. At least that was what I was calling it. The stuff wasn't quite the same as the power armor I was issued back on the Alamaraine, or any of the power armor I'd trained on back in the day foolishly thinking I'd never have occasion to use the power armor because I was a good enough commander that I'd never put my ship in a position where we needed it.

I'd been young and foolish then. Maybe a little optimistic, too.

Again, she recovered rather quickly. I hit her with a grin that I knew she could see, because the faceplate was transparent at the moment.

"What are you talking about?" I asked.

She looked around again, and I frowned. I felt like I was missing something.

"Arvie, do you want to tell me what she's talking about?"

The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

"Not really," he said.

"Could you tell me what she's talking about?" I asked.

"I could, but much like the general, I feel it's a much more rewarding experience if you figure these things out on your own."

"Damn it," I muttered.

"What was that?" Selii asked, turning her attention back to me.

"Sorry, I was having a conversation with the Combat Intelligence."

"Her eyes went wide again. "The Combat Intelligence?"

"Yeah, Arvie?"

"I don't know who Arvie is," she said.

"I think you might know him as Arvac," I said.

Her eyes went wider. Which I didn't think was possible, but here we were. That seemed to be a reaction she was having on the regular. I wondered what I kept saying that was causing her to nearly lose it every time I opened my mouth.

"You can communicate with the Combat Intelligence directly?" she asked. "Like he's actually deeming you worthy to talk to?"

"Um, I don't know anything about being worthy," I said with a shrug. "But yeah, we have conversations all the time."

"I'm afraid I can shed a little bit of light. At least on this subject," Arvie said. "I don't normally have occasion to have conversations with the common soldiers. Typically my role is to advise and report for the general."

"Got it," I said. "Yes, I'm talking with the Combat Intelligence and I got Harath to bring us these troop transports. There are new sets of armor that should be sized for all of your troops in the back of the transport."

"You did all of this in a matter of minutes?" she asked, her mouth still working.

"I did?" I said, the question obvious in my voice. I got the distinct feeling from her reaction that I'd done something odd, but at the same time, I didn't really know what that odd something was.

"Have I done something wrong?" I finally asked.

"No, nothing wrong," she said, shaking her head and moving to the back.

"Okay, troops," she bellowed. "We have some new toys to play with. There are power armor sets in the back. I want you to get them out. They should be assigned to your unique biometrics and have your name on them, so even you lot of idiots shouldn't have any trouble figuring out what goes to who."

She turned and winked at me. I blinked. Again, that seemed like the kind of thing that might be borderline inappropriate if Varis saw it happening, but again, there was nothing but...

I turned around and nearly let out a quiet yell, because Varis was standing right there looking at me with a look of supreme dissatisfaction.

I half expected to see her eyes darting over to Selii. Like maybe she thought I was getting a little too personal with the woman, but then her eyes darted back to me and that frown only got deeper. I realized the dissatisfaction didn't have anything to do with Selii.

"Was it something I did?" I asked.

"You know exactly what you did," she said.

"I don't know what you did," Arvie said. "Watching the two of you interacting has been a fascinating study in the romantic interactions that go with a successful battle pair linking and…"

"Not right now, Arvie," I muttered, even though I desperately wanted him to keep talking and tell me more about battle pairs.

Varis's eyes went wide. "Arvie is in there with you?"

I paused, wondering if I should say anything. Wondering if I was going to get the computer in trouble if I said anything. Wondering if there was any getting around any of this, because I felt like the cat was already out of the bag and we were already both in some serious trouble here.

"I am, General," Arvie finally said.

"Well isn't that wonderful?" she said, her arms crossing and annoyance coming through the link.

"Is it wonderful?" I asked, "Because you're saying it's wonderful, but the feeling I get through the link is that you're really annoyed."

"Probably because I am annoyed," she said. "You weren't supposed to succeed."

"I'm sorry?" I said. And again, it came out more as a question.

She sighed. She seemed to deflate. All the anger and annoyance and irritation that'd been flowing through the link disappeared in an instant.

"There's no need for you to be sorry," she finally said. "I suppose I should've expected this. You've proved to be remarkably resourceful. I just didn't think you were going to prove to be remarkably resourceful in this instance."

"Again, I'm sorry," I said. "And look, it's all well and good that we're having this conversation and everything, but maybe this is something we should talk about later? After we get in and do the rescuing and make sure we've pushed away the empress if she decides to attack."

"I'm not sure that's going to happen," Varis said. "Her forces have been making a large show in the opposite direction from the explosion. Like this was all a distracting measure to try and get our forces to concentrate here so she could attack on the other side."

"That doesn't sound like a particularly bright plan," I said. "In fact, it seems downright obvious."

"The empress is often downright obvious with her scheming," Varis said with a shrug.

She looked at me and then over her shoulder to where that firestorm was still brewing. I wondered how many people had died while we were delaying with all of this bullshit. Though when I looked at the chronometer ticking away in my heads-up display I realized it had only been maybe a half hour as humans reckoned from Varis giving me the go-ahead to launch a rescue mission to getting these ships in here.

I suppose that was a pretty good timeline for somebody trying to organize a rescue mission like this. Especially with all the chaos all around us.

"Go," she said. "But remember. If you die…"

"Yeah, I know. You're going to have some local witch doctor or shaman resurrect me with livisk mysticism so you can kill me all over again."

"Exactly," she said. "And one more thing."

She leaned forward and kissed me on the cheek, or at least it would've been my cheek if I'd been exposed. As it was, she laid a smacker on my faceplate that left a lip print on there.

"Arvie, could you do the honors since you obviously seem to prefer spending time with Bill to spending time with me?"

"I don't know what you're talking about, General," he said with an annoyed sniff. "But I would be happy to do the honors."

There was a bright flash from that part of my faceplate. When I looked over there, the lip print was still there. I reached up and pressed an armored finger to it, and it didn't smear.

"The first bit of decoration for your armor," she said, hitting me with a wink. "Now the two of you go out there and have fun, but be careful."

"I will," both me and Arvie said at the same time.

I shook my head and chuckled as Varis stepped out of the transport, hitting me with one last long and lingering glance. Worry bloomed through the link. She bit her lip and chewed on it for a moment, and then she was gone.

I headed up to the front while Selii organized her troops. Hopefully Crison was doing the same with his rescue unit.

I didn't think I'd be lucky enough to get to fly this troop ship, but at the very least I could get a look at the cockpit and try to keep an eye on things as we flew through all that nuclear nastiness.

And maybe if I was nice to the pilot they'd let me take the controls for a minute. Hope springs eternal.

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