The rest of the week continued on in much the same way. We'd have a little bit of fun together in the evening and go to bed, and I'd wake up fully rested and ready to attack the world again.
I figured with the late nights we were sharing with one another I'd need to sleep in. And I figured if I was a captive to an alien noble and general then I could probably enjoy a little extra shut-eye. But it was never necessary. Late nights, early mornings, and I felt like I'd slept for ten hours.
Which was probably for the best. I felt guilty at the thought of sleeping in. Especially when I thought about all the people in my crew who were stuck in those reclamation mines.
Varis assured me the message we sent on that first day would get them better treatment than they would otherwise get, but I still felt bad about it. It was still a gnawing pit in my stomach every time I thought about it.
Rachel. Smith. John. Even Olsen. None of them deserved what was going on there.
I also thought about that mysterious attack we'd suffered when we went to the reclamation mine. Who was flying those fighter craft? Why did they seem so intent on killing us?
But I didn't think I was going to be getting any answers anytime soon, which was a damn shame.
Things went well enough with Hathar as well. He continued to show me the various craft in their fleet. He showed me a few things that even I didn't know how to do.
I could cover the basics when it came to maintaining a ship, but I didn't have nearly the depth or breadth of knowledge he did with all his time turning a wrench. After a week I was starting to feel more comfortable turning a wrench myself and repairing livisk craft. More comfortable than I'd ever been with a human craft.
It turns out knowing the basics of whether or not something was flight-ready was very different from getting into the intricacies of trying to repair something.
Evenings continued with the two of us practicing and sparring. Sometimes with practice swords. Sometimes just doing hand-to-hand. And the more we practiced, the more we seemed to be in sync with one another. The more it felt like I knew what she was going to do before she did it.
The routine was finally broken a week after our first sparring match when the two of us were strolling along a park that ran along the outside of her building. It was a pleasant walk. I felt her contentment in the back of my mind. It was lovely having her right there next to me. Our hands were clasped together.
And then suddenly there was a loud noise that interrupted our reverie. A noise that was louder than the stuff I heard when I was on the upper hangar deck with Hathar working on a shuttle or a fighter that needed a little bit of tweaking and tuning.
I looked up, and I was surprised to see a fighter hovering right there. A ship that bore the mark of the empress herself.
"Um, I hate to state the obvious here, but it looks like that's an imperial fighter craft," I said. "And it looks like they have all kinds of guns they're pointing at us."
I stared up at the craft. It stared right back at us. It was cold and unfeeling. The tips of those weapons glowed.
Varis's reaction was immediate.
"Shields up. I need Fighter Wing One out right now. We're going to get this bastard away from the building."
The glowing tips turned to an ominous hum, and then that ominous hum looked like it was about to turn into something even worse.
"Son of a bitch," I growled, throwing myself at Varis. I didn't think it was going to do a damn bit of good, but I also figured I had to do something. Maybe I'd get vaporized before she did. That was just fine with me. If either one of us was going to get vaporized, then I'd rather it be me.
I told myself it was my protective instinct kicking in, or that if she survived she had a better chance of doing something to save my crew than I did without her around.
But mostly? I couldn't stand the thought of her not being in the galaxy. It'd only been a week and a half, but it'd been an intense week and a half. A whirlwind week and a half, I dare say.
She hit the deck and stared up at me, giving me an odd look.
"What are you doing?"
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There was a scream and an explosion. Like the end of the world happening all around us.
I yelled as I pressed myself down on top of Varis. As I tried to protect her, and I knew there wasn't a chance my body was going to be enough to protect her from what was coming for us.
The forces ripping through the air around her building were the kind that would destroy us. They would rip through my body like so much tissue paper. It was over. Any moment now, I was going to feel something, or maybe the world would just go dark
I slowly realized that Varis wasn't reacting nearly as intensely as I was. No, if anything, she was staring up at me with amusement. I could sense that amusement coming through the link. That she wasn't worried in the least.
I blinked. I looked up and around, and finally back down to her.
"Um, I can't help but notice we're not dead," I said.
"What did I tell you about a building having to have its own security?" she said, arching an eyebrow. "I can assure you any shielding we have on the building is far greater than any firepower a small imperial fighter like that can put out."
"I also can't help but notice that fighter looked an awful lot like the fighters that came after us that first night when we went to visit the reclamation mine."
"It did," she said.
"Only the ones that attacked us that night didn't have any of those markings."
"Almost like the person who sent them after us wanted the ability to deny that they sent those fighters if the mission didn't go well. It is dangerous going after a general and a high noble after all, even if you're the most powerful person in the Livisk Ascendancy."
I finally rolled off of her, reluctantly, and sat up. I looked around, and then I looked to the spot where that imperial fighter had been just a moment ago.
"How did that even get close enough to fire on us?" I asked.
"That I'm not sure about," she said. "I've been dodging the empress and her summons ever since I got back to this damnable planet. It's almost enough to make me want to take my fleet and go off world."
"Wait, you've been dodging a summons from the empress all this time?" I asked, turning to look at her.
"I have," she said, and she suddenly blushed. Like she was embarrassed that she'd been dodging a summons from the empress.
I don't know why she was blushing at me over that. She should realize that of all the people in this tower, I was the one who cared the least that she was dodging a summons from that sparkly blue bitch.
"Maybe this is one of those things I don't understand because I'm a simple human and I don't have the knowledge to even begin to comprehend the intricacies that go into livisk politics," I said. "But could you maybe explain to me exactly why you've been dodging a summons from the empress? Because from what little I know of your system, that seems like the kind of thing you'd want to pay attention to."
She stared at me with green eyes that searched my own
"Do you want the actual answer, or do you want me to cover it in sweet granules?"
"Sweet granules?"
"Isn't that the turn of phrase you use? Sweetening something bad to make it seem better."
"You mean sugarcoat something?" I asked.
"Yes, that's it," she said. "Do you want me to give you the truth or do you want me to sugarcoat the situation?"
"I'd rather always have the truth, if you don't mind," I said. "I think it would be pretty difficult to not tell the truth based on the link."
"What we've done so far is nothing compared to a true battle pair," she muttered.
"What was that?" I asked.
"The problem is that the empress is upset with me," she said, ignoring my question. "I was supposed to go off to Terran space and die a glorious death as penance for failing to a human. I didn't die that glorious death, and the empress wants to help me complete that mission that she views as a failure as long as I draw breath. Or at the very least, she wants to kill you, and I find that unacceptable."
"And as long as we're in your tower, we don't have to worry about that?"
She squeezed her eyes shut, then turned to the shielding around her building that just saved our asses. It was still sizzling in front of us. A light pink color that protected us from anybody trying to kill us.
"Well, we don't have to worry about anybody trying to kill us with anything short of a nuke, at least."
"So how long before she gets impatient and sends a nuke our way?"
"I can only ignore her for so long, but there is a certain amount of time I can go before she will start to send… greater forces."
"And sending a fighter craft to try and kill us is her throwing you a softball?" I asked.
"When she knows I have shielding up and it's doomed to failure? Yes, that is the empress's way of trying to get my attention without actually killing me."
"So the pilot she sent in that ship was just supposed to risk almost certain death?"
"The pilot in that ship was likely excited at the idea of being able to die a glorious death on behalf of the empress, or at the very least they knew there would be consequences for their family if they didn't die gloriously for the empress. Just like I'm suffering the consequences of not doing the same when I went to retrieve you."
"But you have a military of your own," I said.
"I have a military of my own, but I can't possibly hold up to all the other houses when they unite behind the empress against me."
I scratched my chin and looked up at the shield, which was starting to fade away entirely. If there was another attack, I knew it would be there in an instant though. That was a comfort. As long as somebody didn't try to nuke us.
Turns out my unique solution to taking out a livisk building in the simulator wasn't quite as unique as I thought.
"So the power of the empress is that she's able to unite everybody behind the throne, right?" I said.
"Exactly," Varis said.
"Well, it seems to me there's an easy solution to that problem."
"How could there possibly be an easy solution to that problem?" Varis asked, turning and staring at me.
"We take all of the nobles and unite them against the empress on our side, or at the very least, we divide them so they don't leap to her defense when we attack her."
"Oh, yes, a very easy solution," Varis said, rolling her eyes and continuing our stroll as though nothing had happened.
But that thought was in my mind now. I had no idea how I'd make it happen, but the idea was simple. Divide and conquer.
It was actually implementing the idea that was the complicated part.
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