I took a deep breath as I stared at the entrance to the dining room. At least I assumed it was the entrance to the dining room. I was staring at a couple of ridiculously ornate double doors that were jet black and had the same silver and gold inlay as the stuff I saw back in my gilded cage.

"Are you quite well?" Arvie asked.

"Not really," I said. "The reality of what I'm facing down here is finally starting to hit me."

"Would it make you feel better if I let you take one of the smaller knives from the wall collection?" he asked.

I paused and looked up and around. I had the distinct feeling I was about to find myself in a trap.

"Is that a possibility?" I asked.

"Actually, no," he said. "I wasn't even allowed to put out knives with sharp edges for the place setting. For all that you are correct. A dinner is considered a dull affair if there isn't at least one fight."

I sighed. "That's okay, Arvie. It's not like I'm going to escape this place with a knife from that collection."

"You should have more confidence in your abilities, William."

"I promise the first thing I do if I get a knife is figuring out wherever they're storing your personality and giving you a physical lobotomy," I said. "I'd say it's one you're not going to forget, but I'm going to cut enough wires that you'll forget everything."

"I look forward to that, William," Arvie said.

The doors slowly swung open, revealing a massive dining room with an equally massive table in the center. Windows dominated the whole of the dining room all around in a circle, giving an impressive view of Imperial Seat.

The table looked to be made of some sort of really dark wood, but it didn't have the silver and the gold inlay. And pacing in front of that table was none other than Varis. General of the Livisk Ascendancy. Pain in my ass.

Beauty who had all the grace of a predatory cat sensing prey, and I had the feeling I was the prey.

"This is a nice setup," I said.

She jumped and turned to look at me. I took a momentary satisfaction knowing I'd been able to sneak up on her. That felt like I'd won a point, for all that she was way ahead in the game at the moment.

"I might as well get some use out of this massive relic to a time when my family still held influence," she said, staring at me with narrowed eyes.

"Are you talking about a year ago before I fragged your brother on that space station, or are we talking about some far more ancient time when your family was a big deal?" I asked.

I didn't think this kind of skyscraper was the sort of place someone could be given in the space of one courtship with the empress. For all that I didn't know much about how courtship worked in the Livisk Ascendancy.

But who knew. The livisk took the whole Dear Leader thing to an extreme that would make ancient twentieth century North Koreans, or twenty-first century Americans for that matter, look like rookies in comparison.

"You have jokes," she said.

"I don't know that it's a joke," I said. "Honestly? I'm a little surprised you haven't tried to kill me for the whole killing your brother thing. Or that your empress hasn't gotten word that you have me here and is banging down the door to try and kill me because I killed her third or fourth favorite dick in her harem."

Varis stared at me for a long moment. It was a moment where I worried she really was about to kill me for the sin of bringing up her brother. Or maybe she realized she could get something out of turning me in to her empress.

Then she did the last thing I expected. She shook her head and started to laugh.

"Okay. That was actually a pretty good one," she said, gesturing for me to sit down at one end of the table.

She moved to sit at the other end. And when I didn't immediately move to sit? A sparkling blue line appeared in the floor pointing me to a chair at the other end of the table.

I stood there staring at it. Then I looked over to Varis. I enjoyed watching her walking to the other side of the room.

She was in a long sparkling purple dress that really showed off her figure. There was muscle there that showed she was every inch the warrior I'd come to expect from everything that happened the couple of times we'd met each other in person, but her curves were just as dangerous as the rest of her.

Come to think of it? This was the first time we'd ever met and we weren't trying to kill each other in single combat. That felt odd.

"Do you have a problem?" she asked, leaning against the table when I didn't make a move.

"Do you seriously have conversations with people on the other end of the table like that?" I asked. "Like is there some sort of audio field or something that carries our voices to each other?"

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"There is," she said. "Why? Is there a problem with the setup?"

"Remember what I told you about trying to keep things friendly with the general?" Arvie said, his voice sounding strained.

That had Varis looking up and grinning. Again, not the sort of response I was expecting.

"Are you seriously trying to get the human to stand on protocol, you rusted bucket of circuits?" she asked.

I snorted. She looked at me and smiled. There almost seemed to be a moment passing between us.

"I have a terrible feeling about this," Arvie said.

"I am trying to keep things friendly with the general," I said. "So that's why I'm doing this."

I marched over to sit down at the corner right next to where she was sitting. Which turned the massive dining room, no doubt meant for hosting numerous "guests," into a more intimate setting.

Varis arched an eyebrow, but otherwise didn't comment on me being near. Other than maybe the hint of a smile at one corner of her mouth. And a sense that she was pleased coming through the bond.

In that moment some drones appeared in the room. Not combat drones, though I wouldn't have been surprised if he sent combat drones in to to take care of me since I was displeasing the general.

I blinked as I realized they carried trays of human food.

"You went to the trouble of importing grapes from Terran space to gloat?" I asked.

"Actually, I told the printer to try and reconstitute some of your Terran food based on recipes we've taken from captured colony worlds before burning your crops," she said.

"Huh. Seems like a lot of trouble. Almost like this is a last dinner for yours truly," I said.

I took one of the grapes off of the tray that hovered into place. I took a bite, grimaced, and put it back down. It's not that it was necessarily wrong. More like they scanned the grapes before they were quite ready.

The practical upshot being they were sour.

"Perhaps we should've taken a scan of some of the food on your ship before we left human space," Varis said.

"It wouldn't have done you much good," I said.

"Your cooks are just as bad on your ships as they are on ours?"

"Exactly," I said, winking and spearing a piece of meat that looked like it was more local. Or I tried to spear it. The spork-adjacent tool wasn't the greatest for spearing. Which was the point. "Unless you're on one of the bigger ships with an admiral on it. They want to make sure everything is like staying at a fancy hotel when you're in flag country."

"I'm not familiar with this term, flag country," she said.

"On ancient ships when an admiral would come aboard they'd raise a flag to let people know they were on that particular ship. Eventually as ships got more sophisticated, and there were fewer places to put actual flags, they started calling the area where higher ups gathered flag country," I said.

"Ah. They call that banner land on our ships," Varis said. "When someone of sufficient rank comes aboard, all the user interfaces change to their personal colors and shifts to show their personal or family banner."

"That sounds exhausting," I said.

"It is," she said. "There have been civil wars sparked in the past because two generals from noble houses of equal ranking kept walking to different parts of a large carrier trying to claim as much of the UI for 'their' house and color as possible until it eventually devolved into fighting that quickly spread beyond the one ship."

I paused in the act of chewing on a hunk of meat I'd speared from one of the plates. More and more of those drones kept coming in, bringing piles of food.

"That sounds ridiculous," I said.

"It's certainly one of the more ridiculous sparks for a civil war in the Livisk Ascendancy. Not that the historians rank that sort of thing."

"Why not?" I asked. "Humans love creating lists of ridiculous history things like that."

"Your people have a phrase. 'History is written by the victors.' That tends to be the case with my people," she said.

"The same with mine," I said.

"Do your people execute those they disagree with?"

"Not as much as you'd think," I said. "But you know about that war even if the history was written by the victors."

"I do. There are personal family histories as well as the official imperial histories. If one is to ride the tide of history then you need to learn from it," she said. "Even if there are some aspects to that history that those in power would rather not see repeated."

"Makes sense," I said. "There are a lot of examples of that kind of thing on earth. There are even examples of people trying to take the playbook from the historical bad guys and repeat it because they figured it almost worked the last time, so why not try and do it again, but better?"

"And do you think I'm one of those historical bad guys, William Stewart?"

"You can call me Bill," I said. "The computer is the only one who calls me William."

"Very well, Bill," she said. "So do you think I'm one of those historical bad guys?"

"Well you've said you were out of favor with the empress, and something tells me that me killing your brother isn't the reason you're out of favor," I said.

"Go on," she said.

"So clearly something happened so your family isn't exactly popular with Dear Leader, and clearly you're also powerful enough that you still have this massive skyscraper in the middle of Imperial Seat that the empress hasn't taken out for whatever reason."

"An interesting analysis."

"And you livisk are very much of the 'might makes right' school of political science. We know you've had a few civil wars, for all that you go on about how there's been continuity of your imperial line going back for thousands of years. Which makes me think the empress maybe isn't quite as all powerful as the livisk like to pretend she is, and you're just powerful enough that she doesn't think it's worth trying to go after you."

She looked up to the ceiling. "Arvic?"

"The human is quite astute in his analysis of the current political situation," Arvie said.

"It would seem I was correct in my assessment," Varis said, and there was barely the hint of a smile turning up the corners of her mouth.

"So it would seem," Arvie said. "You win the bet, General."

"Thank you, Arvic," she said.

"Bet?" I asked. "What bet are we talking about?"

"You don't need to worry about that," Varis said. "All you need to worry about is your current situation."

"And what is my current situation?"

"Your current situation is you are being held on the homeworld of the Livisk Ascendancy by General Varis t'Thal. Sister by marriage to the empress. Conquerer of human worlds," Arvie intoned.

I took another bite of that meat and chewed on it. "This stuff is good. Better than the Terran food you're trying to mimic."

"You don't seem particularly impressed by all those titles," Varis said.

"I'm sorry. Should I be impressed?"

"I mean…"

"Because it seems to me that someone with all your impressive titles should be doing bigger things than going to human space running pissant raids," I said. "You seem more like the type to lead grand battles on behalf of your empress who's too chickenshit to fight her own fights, and yet here you are having dinner with me instead. There's nothing grand about that."

Varis bristled at that. I could also feel the faint echo of anger lurking in the back of her mind. She also glanced around. Like she was looking for listening devices since I'd insulted her empress.

I didn't care about her empress. All I cared about was turning the rhetorical knife since they wouldn't let me have an actual knife to twist.

"So what's your real story, General Varis t'Thal, Raider of Chunks of Ice at the Edge of the Terran Home System and kidnapper of 'mighty' Terran warriors who already have one foot in retirement?"

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