It was funny. I'd had all sorts of training that was meant to get me to react automatically when I was throwing myself into the middle of a combat situation. The kind of stuff the Terran Navy drilled into you again and again. The kind of thing the Combined Corporate Fleets were supposed to reinforce after people got out of the Terran Navy and decided to go for a bigger paycheck and a second pension by putting in another decade or so with the CCF.

But none of that training was doing me a damn bit of good as I stared at Rachel waiting down there at the edge of the platform. She had some sort of weapon slung over her shoulder, and I noted the way she kept looking around nervously, her head and her eyes darting this way and that.

"Something's wrong," I said.

"What are you talking about?" Varis asked. "The human down there looks to be in pretty good shape. I imagine the overseer has been taking good care of her. She doesn't seem to be malnourished."

"No, that's not what I'm talking about," I said.

I also looked around and took in everything.

"Do you notice something?" I asked, turning to look at the livisk who were on the skiff along with us.

Selii was coming in with some of her troops. They were on a skiff of their own with a pilot who worked on behalf of the people running the reclamation mine. I wondered if there was some sort of double-cross going on here. Something they weren't telling us to try and lure us down here so they could kill us.

"No funny business," I said, looking at the pilot.

He glanced back at me and grunted, as though it was no matter to him what happened here. I wondered if that was a good thing or if that was a bad thing, and then decided I ultimately didn't care as long as we got out of this alive.

"Look around," I said, pointing to the mine all around us. "What do you see?"

Varis turned and looked, and she frowned. I could sense the confusion coming through the link.

"I don't see anything," she said.

"Exactly," I said. "We don't see anybody out with those lasers cutting through things."

Her frown deepened. She turned to look at the pilot, only she actually pulled out her plasma pistol and held it up to his head.

That finally seemed to get the gentleman's attention. His eyes went wide, and he went a little cross-eyed as he stared at the thing. His hands moved up like he was a gangster in an ancient movie coming out nice and quiet like. These livisk things weren't quite as good as a good old-fashioned Night Terror Industry blaster from back home, but they were still decent enough and got the job done.

"You will tell me now if you're trying to betray me."

His mouth worked for a moment like he was trying to think of something he could say. Maybe he was trying to think of a convincing lie. Maybe his brain had simply been short-circuited because he was quite literally staring down the barrel of a gun.

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

"Is there danger down here?"

He shrugged. He still had his hands up with his eyes on the blaster in front of him. It started to glow at the tip, and an ominous hum filled the area around us. An ominous hum that was just a touch louder than the steady low thrum of the reclamation mine operating all around us.

"I don't know what danger there would be down here," he said. "At least there's no danger for somebody who doesn't go too deep."

"What are you talking about?" Varis said.

He frowned. "It would help me an awful lot if you weren't pointing that thing at me."

"I'll continue pointing it at you if I damn well please," she said.

"Okay, I've had enough of this shit," I said, pulling out my own plasma blaster. I took a step forward and pointed it down between the pilot's legs. "Tell us what's going on here, or I'm going to relieve you of your favorite bit of anatomy, and I'm going to make sure and shoot it off in a way they're not going to be able to regrow a new bigger dick for you in a vat. So don't even think about it."

"You can't do that," he said, licking his lips.

"Want to try me?" I asked, letting my eyes go wide so he could see a little bit of the crazy he expected from me.

Hey. Maybe I was vaguely insulted that they all thought I was mildly insane, but you bet your ass I was going to use that propaganda shit to my advantage.

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"Not really, no," he said.

His eyes held more terror at the idea of a crazy Terran pointing a plasma pistol at his junk than for an alien general and noble pointing a plasma pistol at his head. Which meant he was a smart man. The plasma blast to his head would have his skull glowing for a moment, but he wouldn't be around to see that.

A plasma blast to the dick was a different story. That would hurt like a motherfucker, he'd be conscious to experience it, and there really was a chance he'd be maimed for the rest of his natural life if I managed to do it just right.

And clearly he thought a human was more than capable of maiming a livisk with a plasma pistol.

"They're fighting down here," he said. "I don't know exactly what's going on. There's been a truce for a little while now."

"Who's fighting down here?" I asked as the skiff came to a halt and started slowly lowering to the landing platform.

The guy actually doing the steering turned and looked at Varis with vague unease, but clearly that unease wasn't enough for him to get involved. It was too bad for the pilot that he was just piloting us around hazards down here and not actually piloting the ship. Which was a confusing bit of terminology, but whatever.

"The humans and the livisk who were down here before, the ones who were getting all the perks… They didn't like getting thrown out and having a bunch of humans getting those perks instead."

I turned and looked at Varis. She shrugged.

"I wonder why Satomi didn't tell us anything about this," I said.

"No idea," Varis said.

We'd left her up top with some of the other troops who were landing. I hadn't exactly told them to listen to her orders, but they seemed to be deferential enough to her. Mostly because she knew about the upper levels of the reclamation mine and was able to guide them around.

Which meant she wasn't all the way down here to explain the dicey politics of livisk and humans reigniting an old war in the middle of a reclamation mine in the middle of the livisk capital city, of all places.

Finally, the skiff sat down. The driver turned and looked at us and shrugged.

"I'm getting paid the same whether you sit and have a fight or you want to go back or whatever," he said. "Just don't point one of those things at me."

"You don't know anything?" I asked.

"I don't know, and I don't care," he said casually, leaning against the thing with the air of somebody who was only doing a job because they were getting paid to do it, not because he had any particular passion for flying a small skiff around a reclamation mine.

Which I could respect. Clearly, he was a work-to-live sort of dude, or maybe he was one of those people who went through life trying to do as little work as possible. Which was something else I'd always appreciated.

There were times when I thought one of the main reasons why I'd had so much success in my own naval career, at least before it blew up in my face, almost literally, on the Ticonderoga, was because I was lazy. That made me good at delegating to the right people to do the job so I wouldn't have to do it myself.

"Well, let's go have a chat with Rachel and see what's going on here," I finally said.

"Yeah, let's go have a chat with Rachel," Varis said, still glaring at the pilot who still had his hands up. "And I don't want any funny business. You keep this skiff here until we return, got it?"

"I'm not sticking around here if they start fighting and trying to commandeer this thing," the driver said.

"You will stay down here or…"

I held a hand up and cut Varis off. Her eyes narrowed. She clearly didn't like me cutting her off, but she also allowed herself to be cut off.

"We have troops who'll be coming down here soon enough," I said. "I'm sure Selii has already gotten briefed on whatever is going on down here and is probably having kittens that she let the two of us fly down here without an escort."

"What are kittens?" Varis asked. "And why would she be having them?"

"They're tiny, furry creatures with sharp claws and teeth," I said.

"I see," she said, nodding gravely. "And these creatures are a great danger on your world?"

"Oh, yes," I said. "They're one of the greatest dangers possible. They'll literally steal your heart."

Her eyes went wide. "Tiny creatures with sharp claws and teeth that steal your heart, and you only have the one heart. I imagine it's fatal."

"Something like that," I said, but the amusement was trickling through the link. If anything, her frown deepened.

"You're fucking with me again, aren't you?" she asked.

"Just a little," I said.

"Asshole," she said, repeating a bit of Terran vocabulary she'd learned from yours truly.

"Now come on," I said. "We need to get out there and talk with Rachel. Figure out what in the hell is going on down here."

The driver reached down and hit a button, and a small shimmering hole opened in the shielding in front of us. I stepped out, and I suddenly didn't know what to do.

Rachel was right there. It was our first meeting since we last saw each other on the bridge of the Early Warning 72. I wondered if she blamed me for everything that'd happened. Satomi said she didn't, but I couldn't be sure.

It sounded like her husband sure blamed me for everything that had happened. And I'd noticed over the years that opinions were the sort of thing that could be sexually transmitted between spouses.

"Hi, Rachel," I said, feeling about as awkward as I had long ago at a middle school dance trying to ask a pretty girl I had a crush on out for the first time.

That had worked out well enough for me, but I didn't think this time was going to work out nearly as well. The circumstances were way different. The stakes were way higher, for all that they'd felt pretty damn high back then.

"Bill," she said, hitting me with a smile, but her eyes were still darting around. "I'd love to catch up and everything, but we really need to reach cover."

"Yeah, they told us there was some fighting going on down here," I said. "But how bad could it possibly…"

Varis let out a hiss, and I realized I'd done it again. I'd said the fateful words that always had the universe turning its attention on yours truly, and it was always a malevolent sort of attention.

Just in time with that thought, a bit of dust kicked up from the landing pad in front of me. I looked down in confusion, and then more dust kicked up. With a start, I realized it was being kicked up because of small projectiles flying through the air, whizzing through the air all around us, which wasn't something I was prepared to deal with.

I'd gotten so used to the plasma weapons I had access to since coming to Varis's tower that the idea of somebody shooting good old-fashioned bullets at us seemed quaint in comparison.

And then it hit me. The survival part of my mind finally took over.

"Shit, somebody's shooting at us," I said.

"Move!" Rachel shouted, grabbing my arm and pulling us away from the skiff and, incidentally, away from the safety the skiff's shielding offered.

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