"Are you sure it's a good idea to let her do the negotiating?" Rachel asked as she watched Varis climbing up to the top of that pile of rubble.

"Am I sure it's a good idea? Not exactly," I said with a shrug. "But do I think she's going to handle herself pretty well? Yeah, I think she can totally pull this off."

"I don't know," Olsen said, standing beside me and watching her climbing up to the top of the rubble. "I've been trying to get a face-to-face meeting with the Spider for a while now. I've negotiated with a few of her lieutenants and they all made it clear we're too small for them to bother with. Though I think the real problem is we're too human for them to deal with."

"Well, that's great," I said, clapping my hands together and rubbing them just a little bit to generate some warmth.

"It is?" Olsen said.

"Sure! Varis is definitely a big fish in a massive ocean. Like, we're talking she would be the size of Godzilla or something in her particular ocean."

"Godzilla?" Rachel said.

"Well, I mean, she's bigger than Godzilla, that's for damn sure, but you know what I'm getting at," I said.

"So what's it worth to you for me to one, not explain what Godzilla is, and two, not tell your alien girlfriend that you just compared her to a giant radioactive monster that breathes nuclear fire?"

"Honestly," I said, grinning at her. "She'd probably take it as a compliment."

"I'm still not certain this is a good idea," Arvie said.

"Yeah, and how much is it worth to you for me not to tell her that you have doubts in her ability to negotiate?" I said, winking at the drone.

"I'm not going to dignify that with a response, William," Arvie said with a sniff.

"Greetings, pirate scum," Varis said, holding her arms out.

"That was a good start," Rachel said.

"I can't tell if you're being sarcastic or not," I said.

"Neither can I," Rachel said.

"What are you talking about?" Olsen said. "That was a terrible start."

"Come on, Olsen," I said, hitting him in the shoulder with my own, "The cavalry came and you have to let her do her thing."

"You say so," he said, suddenly looking a little queasy.

"Excuse me, but is that supposed to be a good opener or something?" the livisk standing up top said, staring down at Varis.

"I don't care if it's a good opener or not," Varis said, staring up at her and making it look like she was staring down at her the entire time. "The grogthar doesn't concern itself with the opinions of prey creatures."

The livisk standing at the top of the rubble pile, which seemed to be a recurring theme with us lately, looked down at her with wide eyes.

"Who do you think you are that you can speak to me like that?"

"I am General Varris t'Thal," she said. "Sister-by-marriage to the empress. Admittedly I plan on killing the empress eventually, but for the moment sister-by-marriage to the empress impresses people, so I'm going to toss that out there along with pointing out that I am a general with a military at my back and a high noble."

"Kill the empress?" the woman up top said, seeming utterly confused.

"Well, yes," Varis said, looking over her shoulder and smiling at me. She gave me a little wave. "I've run into this Terran that I've fallen in love with. We have a link going and have formed a battle pair, and the empress keeps trying to kill us. So I figure the least we can do is return the favor."

"Return the favor?" the outlaw said again, rolling those words around in her mouth like she was trying to understand them. One of those situations where all of the words made sense, but when they were strung together they meant absolutely nothing.

"Anyway, you are all potentially standing in the way of all of that. My human over here just went into battle with the empress and nearly destroyed the imperial palace with an overloading anti-matter reactor on one of my fighter craft, and the empress took that poorly and blew up the reclamation mine we were just in."

The outlaw just stood there blinking and slack-jawed. Finally, she shook her head and seemed to get herself under control.

"Why are you telling me all this?" she finally asked.

"So that you understand just how far beneath my notice the affairs of you and your outlaws are, and how low I'm debasing myself by even talking to you in the first place," Varis said, a dangerous gleam in her eyes.

"So is that what it's like for y'all watching me do my smart-mouthed thing?" I asked, staring at her in wonder.

Because damn. Varis and I hadn't had much of a chance to go on one of these adventures together yet. She'd been too busy running the defense operation when the empress dropped a nuke on one of her outlying fortress towers. But now that we were here doing this little adventure together, I loved her even more.

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As if that was possible, but here we were.

"I don't know what you're talking about," Rachel said.

"It's sort of how I felt," Jeraj said.

"Yeah, you cut my hand off to make a point," Yana said, shaking her head. "That was one hells of an introduction."

"That is pretty much what you sound like to everyone, William," Arvie said. "And it's why I'm always cautioning you to exercise more caution."

"And it never works," I said.

"I could have all of you killed now where you stand," the outlaw said, glaring down at all of us in turn. "You could be brought low by a plasma blast from a lowly outlaw."

But there was something new to that glare. Before, she'd stood straight and tall. Her posture said she was the one who was in control of everything. Now, she looked nervous. She kept fidgeting, like the situation had spun out of control.

"You may test that assumption at your convenience," Varis said, and then she turned and looked at me and made a little motion with her hand.

I frowned. Then I took a step forward to talk to her, and I was surprised to realize I could take a step forward. Okay. Maybe I was starting to get better.

"William, you shouldn't move," Arvie said.

Immediately, Rachel and Jeraj were there on either side of me, grabbing hold of my arms and keeping me in place. I shrugged them off, which had me stumbling just a bit because apparently I wasn't quite ready for shrugging off two people, but I still managed to get away from them. Which seemed like an improvement over how things had been.

I looked at Varis. I wondered what she was getting at.

"That's it," the woman said. "I'm going to blast you and we can move to another part of the Undercity."

"Are you sure the Spider is going to care for that?" Varis asked.

"Excuse me?" the woman said.

"Your boss. The Spider," Varis said. "Are you sure she's going to care for that if you have to move your whole operation because you tried to kill me and we killed you instead?"

"You're bluffing," the woman said.

Olsen sighed next to me. "All that time we spent playing games of cat and mouse with them. Trying to get close to one of their lairs, raiding a couple of them, but they were always one step ahead of us and I could never get a meeting."

"You really wanted to meet this Spider chick, didn't you?" I said, shivering again as I thought of the local livisk equivalent.

"It would have made getting out of here a whole hell of a lot easier," Olsen said. "You see the kind of trouble we're having right now?"

"Yeah, that's true," I said.

Again, Varis turned and started moving her hand in a circle. I frowned.

"What is she going on about?" I muttered.

"Oh, for the sake of the gods above and the hells below," Varis said. "Haven't I stalled long enough for your subordinate to get his people in place?"

I blinked, then I turned to look at Olsen.

"His subordinate?" the outlaw said. "You talk to the human as an equal?"

"He's more than an equal," Varis said, turning back to her and grinning. Meanwhile, Olsen jumped as he realized he had a part to play in all of this. He started moving his hand in some signals over his head, similar to what I'd seen back when they fought the livisk in the reclamation mine. Those signals got passed on until they were moving out of sight. Presumably to the people who were moving in on the livisk. I just hoped they were in place.

"He's so much more than my human," Varis said. "He's my smokin' hot human boyfriend."

She grinned and gave me a thumbs up.

"I'm getting tired of this," the outlaw said. "I'm going to..."

Varis casually raised her blaster and pointed it at the outlaw.

"Again. You are welcome to test your ability to take on a battle pair at your convenience," she said.

Thankfully we didn't have to get to the point where they tested a battle pair at their convenience. No, suddenly a bunch of extra glows appeared behind all of the livisk outlaws who were gathered all around us. Really they weren't all that high. It was just a little bit of a rise, but still it would be enough to turn this into a potential turkey shoot if things went bad.

I didn't think me and Varis or even Jeraj joining in on the fun would be enough to take out all of them. Not before we lost some of the people down here with us.

But Olsen's raiders were suddenly there and pointing the glowing tips of their plasma weapons against the backside of a bunch of livisk outlaws who were holding their weapons up and suddenly acting far more meek than you usually saw from these blue sparkly bastards.

"Olsen," I said, clapping him on the back. "That was some damn fine work you did just now."

"Thank you, sir," he said, grinning at me.

"We'll take your surrender now if you don't mind," Varis said, staring up at the outlaw and grinning at her.

"Actually, would you mind if I spoke for a moment?" Olsen asked. "We've been negotiating with these people for a while now."

"Negotiating?" I asked.

"Going on raids against their holdings is part of negotiating when you're talking about livisk," he muttered. "You have to show strength before they'll take you seriously."

"Makes sense," I muttered. "Fucking livisk."

"We might be able to come up with a truce rather than having to deal with a bunch of captives," Olsen said.

I looked over to Varis, who was listening in on everything. She seemed to think about it for a moment, and then she nodded.

"Trusting humans has gotten me far lately. Might as well keep it up, right?" she said, grinning and coming down to stand next to me as Olsen made his way up the rubble pile. He stood there for a moment, and the remains of his uniform and the other material he had all around him almost made it look like there was a cape fluttering behind him.

I could only stare at the dude. This was nothing at all like the guy I'd seen sitting at his comm station trying to avoid any and all work and spending most of his time doing trading on the markets. Probably throwing around more money than I could ever hope to make in my entire lifetime. Even with a pension from the Terran Navy and the Combined Corporate Fleets.

"Excuse me," Olsen said, raising his voice just a little. "But you are Konai, correct?"

The glared down at him, her eyes narrowing. "Who are you that you know my name?"

"Somebody who's been spending a lot of time down here. Somebody who's been causing you a lot of trouble, I might add," he said, the faintest hint of a smile playing across his face. "And somebody who is very interested in meeting with the Spider, but you keep getting in my way. I warned you."

"Wait, what is he talking about?" Varis said.

"It would appear that he has a little more history with these people than I thought," I said.

"Very interesting indeed," Varis said. "Are all of the men who were on your ship lions like this?"

"I don't know about that," I said. "It was a bunch of people who were on the verge of retiring for the most part."

"If the people on your ship who were on the verge of retiring are this fierce..." she said, trailing off again.

I decided not to point out that Olsen was actually a nepo baby who was on the Early Warning 72 because it was a safe way for him to avoid actual conflict while getting a little bit of military service before he was pressed into the family business.

"Who are you?" Konai said, glaring down at him.

Olsen turned and hit me with a look that seemed slightly embarrassed, then he turned back to the livisk.

"Well, they are big on theatricality," he muttered.

"Oh, just go ahead with whatever it is," I said. "I'm not going to judge you for being over the top with the livisk."

"Okay then," he said, taking a deep breath and turning back to Konai. He sketched a quick bow.

"You know me as the Terran Fox down here."

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