"So, are you going to come to meet the rest of the crew? I know they're waiting for you down at the bottom."

"I would love nothing more than to meet the rest of the crew," I lied.

I still wasn't entirely sure about meeting the rest of the crew. I still couldn't shake the feeling it was my failure that put all of them here in the first place. Or, at the very least, it was the mental link with my alien girlfriend that had put all of them down there.

Sure I wasn't the one who actually drew her out. That was more a trick of circumstance and her having to come and find me before both of us went insane from not being close to each other. But still.

"I understand," she said. "I take it you have business to take care of."

Her eyes darted over to where the other livisk were standing around. I noted she didn't exactly smile at the guards gathered all around us. I wondered if there was a story there, but honestly, it's not like there needed to be a story there. They were guards in a prison she'd been stuck in. Even if it sounded like they'd gotten preferential treatment from the guards since my intervention.

"You can come with us if you'd like," I said.

I interrogated the link for a moment. I wondered if Varis would have a problem with that, but I didn't feel anything coming from the link that would indicate she had a problem.

I turned back to the livisk who'd been escorting us.

"Okay, I'm ready to get going."

He glanced at me, then he turned to look at all the soldiers who arrived with Selii. His eyes went even wider when even more soldiers started to stream in from the same direction we'd just come from. I grinned as he turned back to me.

"You didn't think I was just bringing the one troop transport, did you?" I said, winking at him. "We just had to make the initial flight and make sure it was possible to do an insertion. Now that we know we can get in here, I'm going to be all up in your business."

"I see," he finally said, and it was in a tone that said he didn't like what he was seeing. Well, that was tough shit.

We kept moving, and I noted we seemed to be going back up towards the surface rather than down into the reclamation mine.

"I thought you said the best digs were at the bottom of the mine," I said, turning to Varis as we moved along.

"Oftentimes they are," she said. "Down at the bottom of the reclamation mine is a place where the material in the mines can be used to construct accommodations that are nicer than the sort of thing that are issued to prisoners. And being at the bottom of the mine means it's far from prying eyes."

"I see," I said in a tone that said I didn't see at all. But luckily, I also had the link to let her know I didn't get it.

"It's one of those things you don't truly understand unless you're part of livisk society," she said.

"I seem to be getting that a lot," I said. "And there's a certain Combat Intelligence who refuse to explain these things to me. He says it builds character if I have to learn everything the hard way."

"You know I can still hear you even though I'm stuck back here where they're unloading the troop transports?" Arvie said through a commlink.

"Of course, I know you can still hear me," I said. "Why do you think I said it?"

Arvie let out a quiet sniff, but otherwise he kept quiet.

"People have to have a little bit of hope, right? Even if you're trying to beat them down. And there are always people who are willing to work with whoever is running a camp like this if it means they get a little bit of comfort. Makes it easier to keep everyone else in line. Especially if they aren't willing to invest the money to pay a proper number of overseers and guards," Varis said.

"I see. So it's sort of a way of letting the inmates run the asylum."

"I'm not sure what those words mean, but the sentiment is probably the same as what I'm trying to get at," she said with a shrug.

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

"Interesting," I said.

Our conversation came to a halt as we reached a familiar area. Only I wasn't used to seeing this particular area from this particular angle. I was staring at none other than the landing pad we'd come in on the first time around. I could even see a small stain on the ground where I'd killed the original overseer.

I interrogated myself as I stared at that spot. I wondered if there was even going to be so much as a pang of regret for what I'd done. But I searched my feelings and I found…

Not nothing. Nothing would have been less disturbing than what I found waiting in me. I felt satisfaction at what I'd done. That woman had been a horrible person doing horrible things to my crew. And she got what was coming to her.

In all the time I'd worked for the Terran Navy and the Combined Corporate Fleets I'd felt the elation of winning battles, sure. But there'd always been the disconnect of fighting machine to machine. I was always in a ship. I was always damaging someone else's ship, and the combat always happened at a far enough remove that it's not like I could see people being vented out into space when I destroyed those ships.

Not to mention most of the time when you destroyed somebody's ship they didn't get a chance to vent out into space. It was hard to get vented out into space and die a relatively slow death of asphyxiation and freezing to death when you were busy being vaporized by an explosion that took them out faster than their nervous system could register what was going on.

Nerves couldn't fire faster than a fold drive going critical and blowing up a healthy chunk of spacetime all around it.

As we reached the landing pad and the shack, I glanced up and around. I was well aware there could be all sorts of listening or monitoring devices up here. But I felt fairly secure.

For the most part, that didn't seem to be a thing the livisk were interested in. I'm sure there was something about how it wasn't honorable to spy on your enemies or some such bullshit when you could just fight your way into their inner sanctum and torture them until they gave you whatever information you needed.

Or maybe it was simply that the logistics of running a mass surveillance state were a lot more difficult than most people appreciated and they couldn't spare enough intel weenies to monitor everything at all times. Even a mine where the empress had taken a particular interest in torturing the inhabitants.

Either way, I wasn't too worried that the empress had listening devices down here, but I was always worried that some blue sparkly asshole might try to curry favor with her worship because they thought informing on other people was the patriotic thing to do.

The same as assholes throughout time had thought it was their patriotic duty to inform on their neighbors rather than minding their own damn business.

I got a sense of déjà vu as livisk came out of the shack. Both because it resembled what had happened on the auxiliary landing pad down in the Undercity, and because it bore more than a striking resemblance to what had happened the last time I came here to visit. Only there wasn't a fighter craft behind me this time.

"What are you doing?" a man bellowed at the top of his lungs as he stepped out of the shack. I didn't recognize him from before. "I told you to take care of the proximity alert down in…"

His voice trailed off as he looked up and finally got a good look at who was here. I could see the wheels turning in his head as he came to the realization there was probably a connection between the proximity alarm going off in the Undercity and a human who was probably the last sapient being in the galaxy he wanted to see in that moment standing there smiling at him.

I gave him a little wave.

"Hello there. Nice to see you. I'm afraid I didn't meet you the last time around, but I do have to compliment you on being able to take a message. My crewmate here tells me she's been treated quite well, at least for the standards of being down in a livisk reclamation mine."

The guy's mouth worked a few times. Again, I could see the wheels turning. Like he was trying to think of something, anything, to say. But it also looked like his whole world had just come crashing down around him. Or, at the very least, there was a known trigger-happy Terran who had a propensity for killing the people who ran this reclamation mine standing in front of him, and no doubt he was doing some math trying to figure out what his chances of survival were.

"Uh, yes. So nice to see you again," he finally said, and his smile looked sickly. Again, like he was mentally calculating the odds I was upset about something and I was about to shoot him where he stood.

I found myself thinking over the odd set of circumstances that brought me to this moment. Trying to figure out how I felt about an alien looking terrified that I was going to start laying into him with a blaster. And again, I found I didn't really have a problem with it.

I guess there'd been more changes in me than I'd imagined when I was dragged to this planet. Or maybe that was a little bit of the link with Varis rubbing off on me.

"Look, you can stop with all the obsequious bullshit," I said, waving an arm.

"Stop with all the… what?" he asked, dropping the act for a moment.

"I have a business proposition for you, my friend," I said, hitting him with a wide grin that immediately had him looking even more suspicious than before.

"A business proposition?"

"Yes, a business proposition," I said, grinning and clapping him on the back. "I'm sure we'll be able to have a nice chat and we'll come to a nice arrangement that will work out for the both of us."

His eyes darted over to Varis for a moment. She merely stood there looking strong and silent and insanely hot. The meaning there was clear. She was letting the crazy Terran do the talking, which spoke far louder than any words.

"Yes, let's have a chat," he finally said.

"Good man," I said, clapping him on the back. "And hopefully we can come to an agreement that doesn't involve me shooting you by the time we're done."

He missed a step at that. Good. Keep them off balance.

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