I stared and winced as the Jeraj landed on top of a trooper. The lack of power armor meant his sword went down into their chest cavity over and over and over again with relative ease.

It was seriously impressive how he managed to get that long, black, Sephiroth motherfucker down over and over again like it was a dagger or a short sword rather than the long, ridiculous thing it actually was.

"Do you think we should help him?" I asked as Jeraj leapt from the body he'd just been stabbing repeatedly and flew towards a woman.

She stared up at him in pure, abject, wide-eyed terror. Like she could see her death coming for her. And rather than welcoming an opportunity to go to Sto'Vo'Kor, or whatever the fabled livisk afterlife was called where they got to go and fight for all eternity that I still hadn't bothered to look up because I hadn't looked into their religion. She was just seeing the cruel, cold blackness that awaited all of us when it was all over.

Maybe. I'd never been a particularly religious person myself.

I looked over to Varis just in time to see her let out a wince of her own. The woman had turned and was running, screaming the entire time about how she didn't want to die. Not that it helped her as she was beheaded.

"Tell me I'm the worst prince consort, you bitch," Jeraj shouted.

"Um, well. I don't think it looks like he needs any of our help right about now," Varis said. "Honestly? I'm a little worried that if we tried to get into the middle he might accidentally go after one of us instead."

"Yeah, I think you're right," I said, wincing again as Jeraj chased down an unmarked imperial trooper and turned them into an unmarked imperial corpse.

"He gets like this when he gets really upset."

I looked over to see Yana standing there staring at her brother as he went on a rampage. She looked over at me.

"You don't seem terribly upset about this, Terran."

"Yeah, well, I've had a bunch of assholes coming after me lately. First it was a bunch of people who looked like they just stepped out of the reclamation mine, then maybe some bounty hunters judging by their armor, and now these people who are clearly working for the empress but pretending they aren't working for the empress."

She let out a sigh. "Yeah, she sent anyone and everyone she could over here as soon as she got wind you were coming out here. She put out a bunch of contracts to bounty hunters that made it clear you were to be taken alive, she made Jeraj take out all the unmarked stuff, and she offered amnesty to anyone in the reclamation mine who captured you."

"I fucking knew it," I said, clapping my hands together. "She loves sending that unmarked stuff out."

Yana exchanged a look with Varis. Like I'd just said something monumentally stupid.

"What?" I said.

"Everybody knows that when unmarked stuff goes out it's usually the empress."

"Fucking livisk," I said, shaking my head.

Jeraj was making his way up the scrap pile now. The livisk were firing at him, but he seemed to have an unnatural way of dodging them.

"So was he always this good?" I asked, cocking my head to the side as he put his sword through a couple of livisk who were running at him. They made the stupid mistake of running at him in single file, which made it easier for him to turn them into a livisk kebab.

"He spends a lot of time training," Yana said.

"So he's a fitness freak or something?" I asked.

"More like he enjoys spending one-on-one time with his trainer," she said.

There was a twinkle in her eye. I looked over to Varis and elbowed her in the side.

"That sounds an awful lot like the incentive you give me to train."

Varis rolled her eyes, but I could feel pleasure coming through the link.

Jeraj leapt up the debris pile towards the livisk lady running this part of the show. He was letting out a snarl of rage that didn't seem at all in keeping with the genteel dude I'd met earlier, but people contained multitudes, I suppose.

Also? Dude was seriously a much better actor than what I gave him credit for.

Meanwhile, the ringleader was starting to look just a touch worried. Every time he landed, he would leap almost immediately and a bunch of shots would land where he'd been.

Then a shot landed at our feet. I looked down, uncomprehending, then I looked up and saw more troops streaming in.

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"Shit, they called for backup," I said, pulling my own plasma pistol out and firing.

I didn't know that a plasma pistol was going to do a damn bit of good against all the plasma rifles they were aiming at us, but I figured I had to try.

"Suppressing fire!" I shouted, firing and causing the livisk to duck for cover.

It looked like this new group was more of the assholes in bandanas, which meant they were a step below bounty hunters.

"Oh, fuck it," Yana said. "I suppose we're stuck with you at this point."

She pulled her own pistol up. I tensed as I turned to look at her. Everything slowed because I thought I was being attacked. That seemed to just be a thing that happened when I was in the middle of combat.

Then she started firing, but she was firing at the livisk attacking us.

"There he is," one of them shouted. "Take him!"

"But he's already killed a bunch of the imperials!" another yelled.

"That had to be his woman," a guy in a huge bandana shouted.

"Aww, did you hear that?" Varis said. "They think I did all the killing!"

"Yeah, I heard it," I muttered.

I kept firing to take out my frustration, plasma bolts landing among the assholes coming at us. They looked ridiculous with their bandanas and their mismatched armor that looked like they'd been spending plenty of time in the Undercity trying to cobble together enough armor and weapons.

The problem being they put together those weapons and armor to get an advantage over other assholes trapped in the reclamation mine. Not to fight off an armed battle pair.

I noticed some bounty hunters moving in with the reclamation mine people. Though the bounty hunters seemed to be doing their best to stay away from the reclamation miners. Almost like they were hanging back and letting the prisoners act as cannon fodder.

"Fucking bounty hunters," I growled.

"Bounty hunters and mercenaries," Yana said. "She called in a bunch of those types and has been keeping them in reserve in the palace in the hopes of sending them after you at the opportune moment without looking like she's sending someone after you directly."

"Let me guess, plausible deniability," I said.

"No, she just wants to be able to send people after you and make it look like she's not the one who's doing it," Yana said.

I opened my mouth to tell her that's exactly what that meant, but then a sizzling bolt of plasma flew over my head and I figured I needed to concentrate on the fight. I was getting sick and tired of all this fighting. It seemed like life was nothing but fighting lately.

"If we get out of this, we need to go for a nice vacation off-world," I said, turning to Varis.

"Agreed," she said. "But we're going to have to figure out a way to get off-planet that doesn't involve exposing ourselves to any of the empress's fleets."

"Well, we just go out with a fleet of our own that makes her think twice about attacking us," I said, continuing to fire into the miners and mercenaries throwing themselves at us and dying a glorious death on behalf of their empress.

Some of the miners had those primitive weapons. The ones that were just tubes firing those small bits of metal. They pinged on the debris all around us. One slammed against my shield and it flashed purple for a moment.

Well okay then. I guess my shield made it through that tumble intact. Good to know.

"I hate to say this," Varis said as the waves of livisk got closer and closer. "But there might be too many of them. At the very least they're going to reach us soon, and there are still imperials up on the debris all around us who will be able to fire on us once we're distracted."

I looked at the crowd coming out towards us, then I glanced up to the top of the debris mountain Jeraj had been climbing in leaps and bounds. Like literally climbing it in leaps and bounds.

He let out another bellowing roar as he landed right next to the woman running things and the dude next to her who'd been running communications. With a quick whirl he brought his sword around and beheaded both of them in one blow.

"I'll show you who's the worst prince consort, bitch!" he yelled, spitting on both of them.

"Holy shit," I muttered.

"I told you he gets like this when somebody upsets him," Yana said.

I turned and stared at her.

"What?" she said.

"You're being awfully friendly for somebody who just had her arm chopped off."

"Yeah, well, I seem to have no choice but to throw my lot in with you. And you were trying to make a point," she said with a shrug. "Besides. I figure if I go back with the two of you then you'll help me to regrow my arm, right?"

"Of course we will," Varis said, smiling sweetly at her.

Meanwhile, I could only glance between the two of them and wonder. I'd spent a lot of time on this damn planet. At least it felt like an eternity, for all that it couldn't have been more than a couple of months of getting shot at constantly at this point. But there were still times when the livisk said something that just had me shaking my head and saying "fucking livisk."

"Would you rather I swore a vendetta against you and tried to kill you?" she asked, turning her plasma blaster on me. Which had my own eyes going wide. I'd left myself open to that.

"No, that's perfectly fine if you want to be friendly with us," I said. "And I am sorry about chopping your forearm off. There are probably more constructive ways I could've gone about making my point."

"But then I would've thought you were just a soft human," she said with a shrug.

I shook my head again. "Fucking livisk." Then I turned my attention to the battle. "I think we're going to have to go out there and do the whole battle pair thing."

"But you don't have any training in dodging incoming fire," Varis said.

I blinked. Then I thought about everything Jeraj had been doing.

"Wait, that's something that's possible.?"

"Of course it is," she said.

"Then why didn't we train that shit already?"

"Because I was too busy trying to figure out if we were becoming a battle pair in the first place!" she said, sounding exasperated. "And training to anticipate plasma blasts is something that I know a battle pair can do, but I'm not exactly sure how you do it."

"Jeraj could probably teach you," Yana said. "Assuming he survives this craziness."

"Well, we need to do something," I said.

There was a sudden cry of alarm and pain out there, and suddenly the pinging of bullets was coming from the opposite direction. Dust was kicked up all around. The livisk who'd been coming at us were going into hiding and being pinned down by suppressing fire.

I looked up and around, wondering what in the sequel trilogy was going on here.

"Remember the Allamaraine!" somebody shouted.

"Remember the Allamaraine!" a bunch of voices bellowed at the same time.

And suddenly there were a bunch of people in rags that looked like they'd been Combined Corporate Fleet uniforms once upon a time coming down the debris mountain we'd been hiding under firing those primitive weapons. Then they were picking up plasma weapons that had been discarded by Jeraj's rampage and firing into the livisk.

"What in the name of the empress is that?" Yana breathed.

I grinned. "Looks like the cavalry is here."

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