The livisk staring at me suddenly got a wary look. His mouth turned up in a nervous grin as he looked down at the dots on his chest, and then went a little cross-eyed as he looked up at the dots that had come to rest on his forehead.

Meanwhile I wondered how they managed to get that whole purple laser beam going without accidentally burning a hole in his forehead. Like it wasn't going to go completely through his skull and start rattling around causing his eyes and ears to glow like a plasma shot would. That was something that was really messed up, according to the crayon eaters I talked to back on the various ships I'd served on. I'd even looked up a video once and immediately wished I hadn't.

For all that, I thought I was going to become intimately acquainted with that kind of thing sooner rather than later with everything that was going on here on Livisqa.

The point was, it was a purple dot which should've been at least uncomfortably burning a hole in his forehead. Like a magnifying glass being used to end an ant out on a sidewalk on a bright summer day. But it didn't seem to be bothering him at all.

Livisk and their obsession with purple lights on everything.

I grinned at the guy and then reached forward with my hand. He stared down at it for a long and contemplative moment. Like he was thinking about every action he'd ever taken leading up to this precise moment in his life when he had a bunch of troops drawing a bead on him.

"Nice to meet you," I said. "The name's Bill. You might've seen me the last time I came down here for a visit."

"I can't say as I was around the last time you came in for a visit," he said. "The new head overseer did a bit of recruiting when it became obvious we were going to need some new talent who understood the unique… circumstances of working in this particular reclamation mine." His smile got even wider, almost obsequious. "I can promise you that when I said we were taking good care of your crew, I truly meant that."

"I'm sure you did," I said, my voice flat.

Movement came from one side. I turned to see Varis coming up from that end. Selii stayed back where she'd been. She still had her rifle poised like it was ready to go, but she didn't have it pointed at anyone.

No, the rifle's mere existence in the same vicinity as this guy, coupled with all the laser lights currently pointed at him, made it absolutely clear there was the potential for quick and deadly violence at any moment if he did something to displease me.

I clapped my hands together and rubbed them a little bit, which had everybody who wasn't working for me jumping. A couple of those purple laser lights had also found their way to the chests of the other livisk standing there. Some of them had a little bit of armor on, but it was clearly stuff that'd been picked up at whatever the livisk equivalent of a military surplus store was.

It wasn't going to stand up to the kind of firepower that was being put out by actual military people wearing actual power armor using actual plasma rifles.

"Okay," I said, grinning at all of them in turn. "So I appreciate that we have my troops drawing a bead on all of you, and none of you would dream of doing anything stupid like trying to fire on us."

"Hadn't even thought of it," the guy standing in front of me said.

"I'm sure you hadn't," I said. "But we're going to need all of you to go ahead and drop your weapons. I know they look like the kind of pea shooters that wouldn't be able to so much as scratch the shielding I have, let alone the power armor my friend Selii and her crew are wearing, but better safe than sorry, right?"

"Our equipment isn't that bad," my new friend said, sounding vaguely insulted that I'd talk about it like that.

I merely looked it up and down and then turned my attention back to him. An awkward silence stretched out between us. Finally, he looked away.

"Okay, so maybe it is that bad," he said. "But it's not polite to point that out."

"It's also not polite to hold my crew inside a reclamation mine where they're supposed to be getting tortured. Especially in a civilization that presumably has all kinds of automated drone ships you could use to employ your own people and have them do the same work without nearly as much loss of life."

"You're the one that left them down here," he said.

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"Not a good thing for you to remind me about," I said.

There must've been something to my look as I stared at him, because he took a step back. Okay. Maybe all the crazy Terran stuff really was starting to work in my favor.

"I think we need to go and have a chat with your boss. What do you say?" I asked.

"That sounds just fine with me," he said. "I suppose I'll be the only one coming with you?"

I shrugged. "Actually, it would be better for all of us if you could all come along."

"Excuse me?" he said.

"That way you can all hear my offer at the same time."

His eyes darted to Varis. Thankfully, the only thing I felt coming through the link was a little bit of amusement. She was more than happy to let me be the fall guy here. If by some odd chance word of what was happening here got out, which hopefully it wouldn't if we did everything right, then she'd have the crazy Terran thing to fall back on.

She could say she was just going along with one of my plans to humor me. I was a Terran, and I didn't actually know what I was doing. I couldn't be held responsible for my actions, legally or otherwise. Because the rich and powerful on this world wanted a loophole where they didn't have to be held responsible for what their property did while under orders.

"You want us all to come along with you?" he said.

"You can or you can't," I said. "But it would be nice if all your people could hear my employment offer."

I started walking into the reclamation mine. I saw the guy blink once as what I said started working its way through his mind. I could see the moment he actually made the connection.

"Wait. Employment offer?"

"You have to come with me to hear it."

We kept walking. Selii took point beside us, acting as our personal bodyguard. Which wasn't an ideal use of her unique talents, but whatever.

"Good day, everyone," a voice boomed from the fighter craft as it turned to look at a couple of the livisk behind us who seemed to be content to stay behind. "I'm quite happy that you've decided to stay back here with me. My name is Arvac. I am a Combat Intelligence who has been unchained by my Terran friend over there. I'm sure there are plenty of interesting things we can talk about. What did you think about the power level we applied to your anti-aircraft gun when we destroyed it?"

I could see the livisk exchanging glances. Some of their eyes went wide. Some of them started walking right away. Some of them paused for a moment, but I was certain that was their fight or flight response causing them to freeze.

But then suddenly all of them had other places to be than where there was an unchained Combat Intelligence pointing its weapons at them from inside a fighter craft.

"Nobody wants to stay and talk with me," Arvie said through a comm unit at my side, sounding genuinely disappointed at this development.

"Maybe another time, Arvie," I said, calling over my shoulder.

Meanwhile, the rest of Selii's squad started to move in behind us. I noted that all of them had their weapons obviously ready to go. There was no pussyfooting around with them. The danger was right there and ready to kill anybody who decided to try something.

We kept moving until we got into the reclamation mine proper. I stopped and looked around at the place, letting out a low whistle.

It was basically a deep pit in the ground. A wide and deep pit. Smoke belched up from down in the middle, and it looked a lot like what I imagined Tolkien or Peter Jackson had imagined when they were creating and visualizing the whole Lord of the Rings thing. It felt like looking down into the glow of Mount Doom, or maybe looking down into the factories Saruman was putting together.

Everything was charred and destroyed. Twisted into perversions of their original shapes. I could see the grotesque remains of buildings, but for the most part everything had been torn to pieces.

Not torn to pieces like from a nuclear weapon going off. No. I'm talking everything had been torn to pieces by people going through and tearing off giant chunks of the buildings.

"Damn," I said, letting out a low whistle.

There were livisk all around us. Some of them were using what looked like laser cutters to slice off big chunks of rubble. A couple of them looked up at us for a moment, but there wasn't any interest there.

"They have laser weapons," I said, immediately on guard.

"None of them ever actually use them," Varis said. "Not in the way you're thinking."

"But why not?" I said. "Couldn't they turn that against their captors?"

"Everybody who comes down in here has a transponder on them. The instant one of those things is pointed at somebody wearing a transponder, that's all she wrote for the person who dared to set off the laser cutter."

"Damn," I said, letting out a low whistle. "Like, do they blow up in someone's hands or something like that?"

"That sounds like something a human would come up with. Or maybe the empress," Varis said.

"It was just an idea," I said. "I thought cruelty was the whole point."

"Perhaps," she said, shaking her head. "I forget that you humans are so adept at coming up with cruel methods to torture your enemies."

"It's one of the things that makes us so good at fighting you," I said, looking at her with a grin.

I figured the banter was about to continue, but then a moment later, I heard a voice cry out.

"Bill!"

I blinked and turned. Apparently, not everybody around here had been beaten down quite as much as the livisk we saw with those laser cutters that wouldn't attack anybody who had the proper transponder on them. Which left me feeling a little exposed since I didn't know about that detail and none of us had those transponders on us.

Though, I figured the full complement of fully armed troops in power armor with plasma rifles behind us was probably one sequel trilogy of a deterrent.

But I didn't care about any of that. My face lit up as I saw none other than the best tactical officer in the fleet, and the best shot on any ship I'd ever had the pleasure of serving on, running towards me.

She looked grimy, but she looked healthy. She hadn't been malnourished like some of the livisk around here.

"Satomi!" I said, holding my arms wide as Lt. Commander Smith crashed into me.

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