I looked at the conduit we were repairing today. Harath was still chuckling at the tale of the livisk warrior I beat the shit out of.

Meanwhile I looked at the repair of the day.

"You sure seem to love repairing the plasma conduits on your own," I said.

It was on a transport ship, so it wasn't nearly as thick as the plasma conduits I'd seen on the bomber Harath was working on when we first met. There'd been a few of these we'd gone through, and I'd noticed it was one of his top things to repair.

"That's the kind of thing where it can be really easy to miss the conduit getting too thin, and if we're going to repair something like this then I want to have eyes on it," he said.

"But surely you can't have eyes on every ship that comes through here," I said. I was sure my voice was muffled because it was coming from inside this little bay where I was staring up at the plasma conduit in front of me. It was running live. It was always best to run plasma conduit live when you were making a repair.

Though, it seemed like putting lipstick on a pig to say I was making a repair when I was really just adding some more layers on top of the conduit with a molecular laminator, I don't know what he was doing with the polarity reverser, so it wouldn't wear too thin and cause a catastrophic resonance cascade.

"Of course, I can't keep eyes on everything," he said. "I repair the things up here, the VIP stuff, the things that need to work. I have a training regimen where I cycle people through and make sure they know what they're looking for."

I paused for a moment. I hit a button to send the antigrav plate I was sitting on out as I stared up at him with a grin.

"Why, Harath, that almost sounds like you're taking me on as an apprentice because you don't trust that I can make a proper repair."

He grunted, but then, surprisingly, he went on.

"I don't trust you, of course," he said. "You're a human. Who knows what they taught you in that Terran Academy you're always going on about."

"They teach us enough that we've managed to hold you back every time your people try to make an incursion on human space."

"Almost every time," he said with a grin and a wink. "Things have been a little sticky here on the home world for the last half century or so. I imagine once we get our affairs in order, it's going to be a little tougher on you and yours."

"Maybe so," I said, grinning right back at him.

"Keep talking like that and I might have to challenge you myself," he said.

"Is that the kind of thing I can expect from you livisk assholes on the regular?" I asked.

When I said, "assholes" it was in a loving way, but that didn't stop him from taking the antigrav plate I was lying on and sending it clanging against the ship.

"Don't damage my ship or I am going to punch you in the gut and make you regret it," he said. "And I won't be as gentle as the other guy."

My mouth turned to a thin line. I knew better than to point out he was technically the one damaging his own damn ship by kicking the antigrav plate against it. I knew he was trying to send me a message. He could mess with me whenever he wanted and there wasn't a lot I could do about it.

"Are you sure you won that fight?" he asked.

"Glad to know you have confidence in me," I said.

"I don't have confidence in you," he said with a grunt. "That's why I'm here teaching you."

"I think I won it," I said.

"All on your own?" he said. "You didn't have any sort of help? The general didn't step in?"

"She didn't," I said.

"And how long have you and the general been linked now?" he asked.

I paused as I slid back into the alcove and looked at the plasma conduit I was supposed to be inspecting. I could see with a quick visual inspection there was nothing wrong with the thing. There were no little puffs of radiation escaping out of the thing, which wasn't something I'd been able to see before I came to this tower.

Which was odd, but I hadn't commented on it. Add it to the growing list of odd things that seemed to be happening since I came here.

"It's been about a year from the first fight when she started appearing in my head every time I closed my eyes."

"Ah, yes, the distance can do that to you," he said.

"The distance?" I asked.

"When you're far from the person you've linked with," he said. "It's the links way of telling you that you need to go and find each other, or else."

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"Or else what?" I asked, curious about anything I could learn. Even Arvie had been remarkably close-lipped when I asked him for details about the link. Which was really annoying.

"Or else bad things can happen after long enough."

"Like even if the person on the other side doesn't get killed?"

"Eventually, yeah," he said, and I could hear the shrug in his voice even if I couldn't see the shrug.

That was fascinating, and it was information about this link that was straight from the source. Or at least it was sort of straight from the source. I figured Harath probably knew a sequel trilogy of a lot more about it than I did. Definitely more than a bunch of humans speculating on what was happening with the link could possibly know.

"We've also been working together a lot on sparring," I said.

"I see," he said. "And has anything interesting been happening with that sparring?"

"Not really," I said, not wanting to get into it with him.

I wasn't sure how much Varis would want one of her subordinates to know about what was going on, or if I should even talk about the way our minds seemed to work as one when we were sparring. To the point that neither one of us could even get a hit in these days. Unless maybe it was an evening where she'd had a particularly bad day of dealing with all the administrative bullshit that came with being high nobility and a general.

Somehow that made her angry enough that she could sometimes fool me through the link. Something I desperately wanted to figure out how to do myself.

"Well, that's very interesting, isn't it?" he said.

"I don't know that I'd call it interesting," I said, staring up at the plasma conduit and running a scanner over it.

Then I moved up with the repair unit. Only I dialed it back in the opposite direction of what I was supposed to be doing. So instead of adding layers of material to the plasma conduit on the inside, which was frightfully useful since it meant not having to take down the entire system to open up the conduit and replace it, I removed a couple of layers from the conduit.

Which would eventually cause a catastrophic explosion if it went out into the world like that. But I wouldn't let it go out like that. I was just testing something. Trying to make sure the laminator worked the same on livisk ships as it did on human ships.

I also needed to test Harath. See if he would double check my work. If he didn't then I could say I wanted to do a double check and fix it. I also didn't bother to run a scan. I could see the plasma leaking out of the delaminated conduit.

I pulled the antigrav unit out. Harath frowned down at me. "Done so fast?"

"Yup!"

"Did you do the scan?"

"I figure what's the point in doing a scan when I can see the radiation leaking out of the conduit? No point in wasting time."

"No point in wasting time?" he growled.

He got down on the antigrav plate, grumbling the whole time. It dipped under his weight. He was much heavier than me, and most of it was pure muscle. I really hoped he didn't try and challenge me the same as that other asshole.

"So can I expect a lot of you assholes to challenge me to try and get at the general?" I asked.

He barked out a laugh, which was a rare thing.

"Challenge you for the general?"

I licked my lips. Varis said that wasn't what was going on, but I was curious. There'd been too many times I got the feeling she wasn't telling me the whole truth when it came to livisk customs.

"I heard the guy who punched me saying something about how he was going to teach her the meaning of a proper mate or some bullshit like that."

"Sounds like he was looking for trouble, and not necessarily the trouble a human can provide," Harath said.

"Thanks for the vote of confidence in my fighting abilities," I said. "I think I showed I can take care of myself."

Though I still wondered about my abilities. Wondered how I was able to go toe-to-toe with a livisk like that. And I was wondering even more now that Harath was asking me questions about the link.

"That you did. And saying he was fighting for the general was probably an excuse. Nobody does that anymore."

"Anymore?"

"Exactly! He was probably upset at losing out on some fun on the anti-air emplacements," Harath said. "Not that you shouldn't be careful. You're going to have people who will challenge you, even if it's not for that."

"Oh?"

"You're a human who suddenly has the attention of a high-ranking, beautiful, and very eligible livisk woman. There are probably hundreds, if not thousands, of warriors who thought they had a chance to increase their station in life by catching her interest, but none of them have so far. And then you, a human, comes along and here we are."

"Here we are," I said, running a hand over the part of my gut that was still a little sore.

Not a permanent injury. A quick scan had showed it was just a little bit of bruising that would heal on its own, and Varis had approved when I said I wasn't interested in getting it healed. I felt that approval coming through the link and knew I made the right decision.

"By the empress," Harath suddenly roared, and I smiled as I knew he'd found what I'd done.

"Is there a problem?" I asked.

He hesitated for a moment. I heard the sound of the conduit laminator running in there. It was a steady buzz. Then he hopped out, physically pushing himself out on the antigrav plate rather than waiting for it to move him out on its own. When he glared up at me I took an involuntary step back.

Because he looked angry.

"I knew you couldn't see what was going on with these conduits with your eyes," he growled at me, waving the scanner at me. "This is why we take scans."

I stared at him, my eyes wide. Trying to show the appropriate amount of terror. Though I wasn't as terrified of him as I might have been before I got in that fight in front of the anti-aircraft battery. After all, I knew I could go toe to toe with a livisk now. Maybe.

"We always use the scanner to double-check everything," he said, growling as he shook the scanner in my face. "You never cut corners. You never assume you can see the radiation leaking out. It was right there on the scanner when I looked."

I held my tongue. I had totally been able to see that radiation. That was the whole point of what I was doing here.

"Fine, next time I'll use the scanner," I said. "What would've happened if that had been left like that?"

I knew exactly what would have happened if I left that like that on a human ship, but I wanted to hear it from him. I had to be sure it worked the same way on a livisk ship.

"Nothing immediately," he said. "Whoever was on this transport would've taken off and thought everything was fine. Right up to the moment they blew up. They probably would've cleared the building and made it out into the city proper before the explosion happened which is good for us, but that wouldn't be good for anyone flying it."

"Of course," I said trying to look properly chastised.

Meanwhile, inside I was pleased. That was exactly what I needed to know. Now it was just a matter of trying to put all of this to work in service of my little plan.

And that involved convincing Varis that it would be a good idea to throw a Grand Gathering where potential enemies were invited to party the night away with us.

That was probably going to be the hardest part of the whole damn plan.

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