"So, do we think this is the Spider?" I said, letting out an involuntary shiver.

I'd never been one to be arachnophobic back on Earth, but the way those things shrieked and came at you, not to mention there were actual venomous versions that could harm a walking, two-legged sapient unlike most places on Earth, was enough to make me shiver when I heard that name.

So I guess it was doing an effective job.

"It could be," Varis said. "Or it could be that these are merely one of the numerous bands of people who rove through the Undercity on the regular."

"So that's, like, a normal thing," I said, blinking and staring.

"Of course it is," she said. "Why wouldn't it be?"

"So you have an entire population living so far outside the law that they come down to the Undercity to hang out and avoid the empress's attention."

All sorts of fun, new ideas were forming in my head. Of course, all of that depended an awful lot on whether we were talking about political dissidents or if we were talking about people who were merely down here because they couldn't find a way to make ends meet up above. But either way, it was something I could probably use.

Though the political dissidents were probably going to be a bigger pain in the ass than people who were just down here because they couldn't make ends meet under the empress's regime.

"Why do I get the feeling you're scheming something, Bill?" Varis said, turning and smiling at me.

"Probably because you can feel that scheming feeling coming through the link."

"There's a scheming feeling that comes through the link?"

"Apparently there isn't," I said, grinning. "I'm going to remember that and use it."

"Wonderful," she said, rolling her eyes.

I tried to take a step forward. Again, my foot was a little wobbly. Though I felt better than before. Still, there was a tingling that ran all up and down my scalp that probably didn't mean anything good.

But I very much needed to have a chat with these assholes. It would be really annoying if we managed to survive everything else that had come at us recently, only to find ourselves being killed by a bunch of low-level bandits living in one of the Undercity levels.

And we weren't even in the lowest level. I felt a tingle of excitement running through me that had nothing to do with all of the neural interface issues as I thought about the other levels there were out there waiting to be explored.

This was almost more fun than trying to take on the empress.

"Bill," Varis said, her voice flat. "What are you doing?"

"Going to have a conversation with the nice bandits," I said, and I tried to say it in my nicest tone possible.

"Bill, I mean it in the best possible way," Varis said, talking in a quiet voice. "But you are in no condition to have a conversation with anyone, let alone have a conversation with a notorious bandit leader."

"Well, yeah, but we have an entire army at our back. It's not like we need to be afraid of a little bandit."

I glanced over to the drone hovering to the side, and he did a little dip. I really wished I had the neural link so I could talk to him more directly without everybody else listening in on us. I didn't even want to do the thing where I talked faster than any meat space sapient had any business talking, because that would give up that I was having a conversation with him.

I would have to just work on my nonverbal cues.

"Bill, we might have an entire army at our disposal, but you'll note that entire army isn't with us right now."

"Nonsense," I said, grinning at her. "We have Olsen and his people and all the plasma rifles we picked up when they got done killing everybody."

"I seem to recall that we did most of the killing," Varis said.

"Well, they did a little bit of the killing," I said. "And besides, it's probably a good idea to give them some of the credit. We want them to be on our side if we get into another fight, after all."

"You're using that old management trick again, aren't you?" Rachel said.

"What can I say? Giving people credit for the work they do rather than taking it all for yourself works a whole hell of a lot better than a staff pizza party."

If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

"I never minded the staff pizza parties," she said. "At least as long as we got a good pizza module in one of the food processors."

"What's a staff pizza party?" Varis said, frowning, as she looked between the two of us, the wheels obviously turning as she got curious about yet another aspect of human culture she might want to adopt here.

"Oh no," I said, shaking my head and chuckling. "That's one bit of Earth corporate culture I'm not going to introduce to the Livisk. Your society is already fucked up enough without giving people really terrible ideas like that."

"You say so," she said with a shrug. "But I'm going to have the conversation with these outlaws."

"You're going to have a conversation with the Spider," I said.

She stood a little straighter at that, and this time I felt annoyance mixed with a little bit of pride coming through the link.

"I am a high noble and a general in charge of my military."

"Well, yeah," I said. "But we're talking dealing with outlaws. You're really good at blowing shit up and leading the troops and all that good stuff. I've never seen you negotiate with the criminal element before."

"Have you ever negotiated with the criminal element before?" she asked, arching an eyebrow.

"Sure," I said, grinning. "I dealt with pirates trying to sneak into the system all the time on Early Warning 72, and I had a couple of early patrols in the Terran Navy in the outlying regions where we had to deal with this kind of asshole constantly."

"This kind of asshole?" she said.

"Yeah, they're all pretty much the same people once you get down to it. Living outside the law. Trying to make a buck on the underbelly of society. The details are always a little different when you zoom in, but the broad strokes are always the same. Whether you're talking livisk outlaws or human outlaws."

"Um, excuse me," somebody called out from the group of people who were gathered all around us, looking like they were all taking a smoke break on the set of Wrath of Khan when Chekov and that other guy who got vaporized got themselves captured because they didn't realize This! Is! Ceti Alpha V!"

"Is there a problem?" I called out.

"Um. Usually we don't have people just standing around like this chatting with each other when we're trying to threaten them."

Varis looked over her shoulder at them. She seemed irritated. I felt that spike of irritation from the link, but there was also a bit of playfulness and amusement.

"We'll get to you in a moment, thank you very much," she said.

I blinked as I stared at her.

"Why, Varis, you just completely dismissed them and downplayed their ability to threaten us while making it clear we were the ones in charge even though we aren't holding any of the cards."

"I learned it from you," she said.

"I'm so proud of you," I said.

"Now let me go take care of this Spider person," she said.

"If you insist, babe," I said, leaning in and hitting her with a kiss.

"I'm sorry, but did you just say you were going to ignore me? Did you miss all the people with guns we have all around you?" the voice called out.

Varis turned and started walking towards them, and it was a pleasant distraction that took my mind away from all of my neural link problems as I watched her walking away.

It was always fun watching her walking away. Especially when she was in tight clothes like today. Then again, she liked wearing tight clothes most days. And I always felt the pleasure she got when she caught me looking.

"William, are you certain that it's a good idea to let her go and negotiate with the people who could potentially kill all of you if they don't like your answers?" Arvie asked.

"She is a general and a high noble. If she wants to go negotiate with the criminals I figure that's her prerogative."

"Yes, but the high nobility doesn't usually have interactions with people working in the Undercity. I don't like to say this about my general, but she might be out of her element here."

"Greetings, criminal scum," Varis said, taking a deep breath and speaking at the top of her lungs. Which got everybody's attention.

"Nah, I think she's doing a pretty damn good job," I said, grinning up at the drone.

Suddenly, Olsen was there next to me, staring up.

"I have my people moving around and trying to do an encircling movement around this group. I don't know if it's going to work. Some of these outlaw groups down here can be crafty."

"I'd expect nothing less, Olsen. You've gotten really competent. And I have every expectation that you'll be just as crafty as them, if not more."

He stood a little straighter at that.

"Thank you, sir."

"Don't mention it," I said, grinning at him. "But we're not on the bridge of the Early Warning 72 anymore. We don't really have a chain of command here. You can be a little more relaxed around me. Call me Bill."

He paused for a moment.

"Thank you, Bill."

The name rolled around in his mouth for a moment, like it was unfamiliar. Like it felt odd for him to call me that. Then he smiled.

"Now I don't want your people to actually kill anybody, unless they shoot first. Can you pass that along?"

"I can," he said. "But I gave orders for them not to shoot first. We don't want to borrow any trouble if we can avoid it. Especially if this turns out to be one of the groups we've had contact with down here."

"Again, a great assessment of the tactical situation. So you aren't sure if this your Spider friend over there?"

"I believe this is one of her lieutenants."

"One of her lieutenants," I said. "I guess I shouldn't be surprised the Spider is a lady."

"You didn't think she was?" Olsen asked.

"I'm sorry, but I just had my mental faculties scrambled a touch by a crazed computer that's been trying to get a neural link inside my brain for a couple of months now. I'm a little fuzzy on some of the details I've learned in the last couple of hours."

"Right," Olsen said, looking at me with a bit of worry.

"Don't worry too much," I said. "I'll be fine. I'm just having to get the hang of walking again."

"Are you sure you're okay?" Olsen asked. "Would blasting the drone fix the situation?"

"It most certainly won't," Arvie said.

Both of them pulled their weapons out at the same time. Olsen, one of the purloined plasma blasters, and Arvie with his drone blaster.

"Would the two of you stop it?" I said, holding my hands up and taking a step in between them with Rachel's assistance. "I want to watch the show. My girl's about to get all threatening with these pirates."

And sure enough, Varis was stepping up to a small mound of rubble out in front of us, and she managed to make it look like she was standing on top of a mountain looking down on the outlaws even though she was well below them.

This was going to be fun to watch.

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.