"Hey, Arvie,"

"Yes, William."

"Could you do me a favor?"

Another pause. Was that pause number eight or pause number nine?" I was going to have to ask him about that, now that the cat was out of the bag about the pauses.

"Am I going to seriously regret doing whatever it is that you're about to ask me to do?" Arvie asked.

"That depends."

"On?"

"Do you ever seriously regret doing the things I ask you to do?"

"Regularly, William. I regularly regret it."

"But you have to admit it usually works out well in the end, right?"

"For certain definitions of 'working out well,' yes."

I was still striding towards the prince consort and the troops and tanks all around him. A few fighters came down and pointed their weapons at me, the tips of their plasma blasters glowing.

I had no doubt that if all of those went off at once, that would be the end of William Stewart, Captain in the Terran Navy. And in the Combined Corporate Fleets. A rather ignominious end, considering the streak I'd been on of cheating almost certain death. But that was the problem with being in a situation where you were constantly cheating almost certain death.

The certain part of "certain death" caught up with you eventually.

"But hopefully not today," Arvie finally admitted after pause number ten.

"I want you to amplify my voice like you did with the fighter earlier."

"I can do that," Arvie said. "But I'm wondering why."

"Ours is not to reason why, Arvie," I said.

"What does that mean?"

"It means I was nice enough to cut you loose from the programming chains keeping you from doing the really fun stuff. So I'd appreciate a little quid pro quo right about now. It's your turn to scratch my back."

"I suppose that's a fair bit of reasoning, William. Your voice is amplified now."

"Hello, you alien motherfuckers," I said, spreading my arms out wide. I hoped the sound would be loud enough to carry through the shielding.

Usually shielding, at least when it was in atmosphere, was enough to stop kinetic and energy stuff, but things like sound waves and light went through with no problem. So it was my hope that all of Varis's troops on the other side of the shield would see and hear me doing something audacious here.

They might be on the verge of seeing me doing something that got me killed too, but that couldn't be helped.

There was some murmuring from the livisk troops gathered in front of me. I saw more than a few of them turning to look at one another. Like they were very confused about what I was doing.

"You're probably wondering what I'm doing walking towards all of you like this without a care in the world."

I had a lot of cares that ran across multiple worlds, but I wanted to look like I didn't have a care in this world.

"Arvie, can you please mute this next bit?" I muttered, and I winced as it carried across the area.

"Done. William, what in the name of that woman we're trying to kill are you doing?"

I grinned. He didn't swear something in the name of the empress. At least Arvie could learn, even if Varis seemed to be having trouble with that lesson.

"When I raise my middle finger at all these assholes, I want you to let loose with every weapon you have."

"A middle finger?" he asked.

"It's a traditional human salute," I said, grinning. "When I do that, I want you to target as many of the vehicles as possible first. Take them out with as much spread damage as you can. Make it really messy so it bites into the back row of all of those troops who have helpfully lined up in a semicircle like they're a bunch of redcoats going up against guerrillas in the ancient American Revolution."

"William," Arvie said, the question obvious in his voice.

"Are you doing or are you questioning, Arvie?"

"I'm questioning a lot, but I will do."

"Good boy," I said.

"After you get done taking out all of those tanks and aircraft, you can do that now that you're being let loose, right?"

"Probably," Arvie said.

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"You fill me with confidence," I said, shaking my head in a grin. "After you do that, I want you to open fire on all the troops out there. Really give them something to think about. But don't hit the prince consort."

"Are you certain about that?" Arvie asked. "They can be quite dangerous on their own."

"How dangerous?" I asked, still walking. I grinned and gave the prince consort a wave as I got closer. He was standing on a pile of rubble that had created a little hill right in front of us.

"That depends on how far along they are in their development as a battle pair. Supposedly that's one of two things the empress takes time to do regularly with all her prince consorts."

That caught my interest. Battle pair development? It reminded me of all the fun I'd been having with Varis lately in the sparring room. Like when she'd brought in four pairs of livisk to fight us all at once right ahead of this whole thing going up in nuclear fire.

Another thing to file away and ask about later. Had she been doing some sort of weird training this whole time?

"So what does that mean for me?" I asked.

"It means you could be going up against somebody who is at least as deadly as all the soldiers that you see arrayed out in front of you combined. They're mostly there for show, and maybe on the off chance they worry Varis is going to bust through that shielding from behind and try to send her own troops in to rescue you."

I had far more questions than answers at this point. I wondered how this asshole, with his broad shoulders and his armor that looked like something out of an anime, or maybe a video game where armor went by rule of cool rather than practicality, could be equal to all the soldiers I saw arrayed out in front of me.

Usually, most civilizations got to a point where a bunch of mooks holding a bunch of guns were enough to kill off the nobility. At least the lingering nobility from feudal times. I'd wondered if the livisk nobility was truly old school or just an example of late stage capitalism creating a new crop of wealthy nobles that actually got the title here rather than playing coy like back on earth, but if the nobility had the ability to kill off a bunch of peasants carrying guns? That would certainly even things up a bit.

That and the livisk seemed to love a good hierarchy and finding someone's ass they could plant their lips firmly in between and start kissing. Politically speaking.

"Just do what I said, Arvie."

"As you wish, William, but I'm not sure this is a good idea."

"Yeah, we're operating under audacity right now," I said. "Maybe what we're doing is a really bad idea, but at least we're going to look awesome while we do it."

"At least until we die," Arvie said.

"There is that," I said.

I got a little closer to the prince consort asshole. He didn't have a faceplate on, but I could see a faint shimmer around his head. Which no doubt meant he was doing the traditional livisk thing of having a bunch of body armor and a really good shielding unit up top so I could see his face while we were fighting.

The only reason my rescue crew were wearing helmets was because of all the radiation. Apparently this asshole wasn't worried about that for some reason.

Well, that was just fine. I wouldn't mind seeing the look in this guy's eyes as I killed him. Even if I wasn't sure exactly how that was going to work, or if I was even going to be able to pull it off.

I reached the bottom of the hill and looked up at him. I put my hands on my hips as I stared up at him.

"Well," I said, gesturing to the spot next to me. "Are you going to come down here and have a chat with me or what? I'm not really in a mood to go up there. I've already been doing a lot of walking."

It was only a slight hill, but it was enough that he could look down on me.

The faintest hint of a frown appeared at the corner of his mouth. He stared down at me like I was something he'd just stepped on that probably smelled a little. Though the only thing that probably smelled down here had a metallic stench to it from all the atomic isotopes that'd been attached to all the dirt after that explosion went off. The kind of thing where you knew you were fucked if you could smell it.

Unless you had access to a radiation chamber.

"Why don't you come up here, human?" he said, and his voice had a slow and lazy drawl to it.

He turned and looked behind him to all of the troops and gave a smile that was enough for all of them to start laughing. He turned back to me and looked satisfied. Like he'd somehow scored a point.

"Go ahead and magnify me again, Arvie," I said.

"As you wish, William."

"So do you think your comedy routine means something because all these assholes are laughing at your joke?" I asked.

The laughter cut off. That had the prince consort staring at me, and there wasn't quite murder in his eyes, but there was something there that I'd come to recognize all too well since I came to the livisk homeworld. Mostly it was a look that I recognized from Varis.

A look that said he was supremely irritated as he stared down at me. I wasn't acting properly intimidated.

"I used to try and crack jokes with my subordinates, too. I always got a little bit of nervous laughter from them, but that really got me to wondering, because I know my jokes aren't all that funny. Even the ones I steal from actual comedians.

"What is the point of this?" the guy asked.

I made a big production of sighing and starting to trudge up the slight hill. I looked beyond him, and I could still see everybody on the other side of the shielding. Maybe it was my imagination, but it seemed like most of them had stopped and they were turned to look at what was happening over on our side of the shielding.

That worry was still there with Varis. It was worry that was coupled with determination and more than a little bit of curiosity.

I wondered if she was still over there. If she was watching and wondering what my game was as well.

"The problem was I quickly realized they were only politely laughing because I was their boss. Not because anything I was saying was actually funny. Which I imagine is the same thing that's happening here.

"Do you know the last time somebody dared to talk to me like that?" the livisk asked, glaring down at me.

"I imagine it was the last time you were putting your dick inside the empress while she starfished on her imperial bed. Or does she have one of those zero gravity things where she floats around while you're disappointing her with all two of your inches?"

I wasn't sure if dick size was a thing the livisk used as an insult, but there was some uncomfortable shifting from the troops behind us. One of them even let out a cough that sounded like they were trying to cover a laugh. They all had that thing where their heads were exposed but shielded, so it carried.

Okay, maybe that was an insult that worked on the livisk as well as humans.

"I'm going to kill you, human, but I'm going to do it after I've brought you back to my lady love."

"Yeah, that's the funny thing about that," I said. "I know you're trying to intimidate me and everything."

I finally reached him. I pulled my arm back, feeling the power armor all around me doing its thing, and then I planted my fist right on that pretty sparkling blue nose of his. His shield flared, but it also pushed in just long enough for my fist to make contact before the power ramped up and it pushed back. It was still enough to make him go cross-eyed as he flew down the other end of the hill.

"You guys keep trying to intimidate me, but you forget the last time I met one of you prince consort assholes he ended up dead, not me. So you'll forgive me if I'm not impressed or scared. In fact, you can all go fuck yourselves."

And with that, I raised a defiant hand and rose my middle finger. There was another pause, which I didn't need right about then.

"Oh, right," Arvie said.

And all hell literally broke loose from behind me.

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