Later that evening we were back up in the sparring room. She waved her hand and again the rows of swords appeared in front of us. I held my hand out, fully expecting one of the practice swords to come for me and worrying she was going to use real swords again.

But she turned to me and smiled.

"Nothing like that this time around."

"What are you talking about?" I asked.

I was feeling pretty good about myself. It'd been a few days since the empress made an attempt on our lives, and we'd gotten this whole battle pair thing down to a science. To the point I felt like I knew exactly what she was going to do well before she actually did it. To the point our minds almost worked as one when we were sparring.

"I told you I think we've almost become a fully linked battle pair."

"And you never did tell me exactly what that means," I said.

"I'm about to show you what it means," she said. "Though I'm interested to do a little testing of our limits while I show you."

"Testing of our limits?" I asked, arching an eyebrow.

"A human and a livisk forming a battle pair from their link is unheard of. Even regular livisk forming a battle pair is... well, it's not exactly rare, but it is something that's usually kept in reserve."

I frowned as I thought about that. I would've given a pretty penny to talk to anyone who was involved in the Marines, or any other group crazy enough to hop into drop ships and get transported down to a planet surface so they could mix it up with the enemy up close and personal.

Unfortunately, I didn't have access to any Terran Marines. Any ground pounders I knew were over in the reclamation mine.

I turned and glanced in that direction. I felt a pang of guilt that they were all stuck out there in that reclamation mine. I wished there was more I could do for them, and I hoped killing the original overseer and sending the new overseer a message would be enough to at least get them better treatment.

But I longed to go out there. I had plans in the back of my head I was working on to try and get over there so I could have a meeting with them. Preferably one where Varis wasn't with me to fuck things up. She was a little too ostentatious. Showing up with a noble and a general all wrapped up in one person would result in all kinds of the wrong attention.

I needed to try and sneak in there on my own, but that was a problem for later.

Suddenly I heard a noise I hadn't heard before. More feet walking across the mat. The practice swords started to wiggle and then fly across the room, attached to the antigrav fields that sent them to whoever was using them.

I frowned as I turned and looked around. We were surrounded on all sides by warriors. All of them were livisk, both male and female, and all of them were staring at me with a considering sort of look.

I considered them in turn. I tried to hide how utterly confused I was. How I was trying to figure out what the ever-loving fuck was going on here, but I didn't think I was doing a very good job of hiding it if the smiles they hit me with were anything to go on. Or if the utter amusement coming through the link from Varis was anything to go on for that matter.

"Um, so do you want to tell me what in the sequel trilogy is going on here?" I asked, turning to Varis.

She waved her hand again, this time raising it just a little. I looked up and saw that the ceiling seemed to be going up. The mirrors were also turning transparent so it was nothing but floor to ceiling windows letting in light from the dusk settling over the city.

"A disquieting metamorphosis. Is the room actually stretching?" I muttered.

"What was that?" Varis asked.

"Just a little something from Earth pop culture," I said. "Though I've only ever seen the lunar version of the ride."

She shook her head. "You and your odd tangents about Earth culture."

"The place I'm talking about is a lot of fun," I said. "You should try it out, even if the Mouse is one of the companies that helped usher in our hyper-capitalist dystopia that humanity lives in today."

"Well, right now you need to worry about what's happening around us on this planet."

Again, the room started to shift. It seemed to be creating more stationary emplacements this time around. A hill here or there. Ramps, stairs, arches, all kinds of things we could get up to some trouble on.

"That's interesting," I said, turning to her again. "Do you want to tell me why you have us about to get gangbanged by a bunch of other livisk warriors?"

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I looked all around the room. There were four pairs of warriors facing us from every side of the room. Which seemed excessive for a training exercise.

"It's something you'll have to learn how to do eventually," she said.

I sensed something from the link as she said it. Like she was hiding something. It was a sense that had been there for some time now, but it was also something I hadn't truly noticed because I'd been so busy trying to keep from getting hit by those damn practice swords. Or scheming with Arvie. Or dodging an attack from the empress.

"Do you want to tell me what's going on here?" I asked.

"I will, I promise," she said. "But first? Combat."

I didn't get a chance to tell her that I wanted to know what in the sequel trilogy was going on here before the combat. The four pairs all around us, I wondered if they were battle pairs or if she'd just brought them in because she figured we needed a little bit of a challenge, let out bellowing roars and ran right for us. They held their practice swords out in front of them, and they sparked with that same blue electricity I recognized from so many sessions with Varis.

One of the men came straight at me. He didn't waste any time. There was no finesse. This wasn't a dance of swords like you saw in the movies. No, it was him bringing his sword down and around to hit me with a knockout blow before the fight even started.

And I'm not too proud to say I let out a yelp as he brought that sword down to hit me. A yelp that quickly turned to a scream as I did a roll.

Time seemed to slow down. I blinked, wondering what was going on with that. But then I was coming back around and I lashed out with my own practice sword, hitting the guy in the ankle.

He let out a yell of his own, and then he was crumpling down to the ground. But another livisk warrior, this one also male, was there in an instant bringing his own sword down.

I stared up, and again time seemed to slow down around me. I watched in slow motion as he brought his practice sword down to where my head was supposed to be. I didn't want my head to be there when it landed. I didn't want to find out what happened when one of those practice swords hit me in the head, and so I rolled in the other direction.

I rolled away and the world seemed to speed up. Varis was there in an instant, hitting him with her practice sword right in the middle of the gut then pushing a hand against his chest and sending him flying back.

The livisk let out a surprised grunt, and then he flew back, his body limp.

I also noted that none of them were getting back up right away. I looked down at the practice sword in my hand and wondered if she'd turned them up to 11 or something.

"This is crazy," I said, turning to stare at her.

"No, this is survival," she said, grim determination filtering through the link. "We need to be able to survive."

"What are you even talking about?" I said. "I need you to let me know what's going on here."

I sensed there was something moving through the air behind me. It was a feeling I got through the link. I ducked at the last moment, turning around to see another practice sword coming through the air right where my head had been a moment ago.

"Could we please stop trying to hit me in the head, damn it?" I yelled.

I brought my own up and hit the guy in the wrist. It immediately went limp, and his practice sword fell to the ground. I followed up with a kick in the nuts.

"Bad form," Varis said.

"Trying to survive here," I said.

"I never said bad form was a bad thing," she said, amusement filtering through the link.

"This is crazy," I said, looking at the three livisk on the ground. One was clutching his balls with the hand that was still working. I hit him in the gut with my practice sword and he went limp, staring up at the sky.

I hoped that numbing was enough to stop him from feeling what was going on between his legs.

Varis and I moved back to back. We did a quick circling motion as the remaining five livisk moved in on us all at once. I felt what she wanted me to do before we could talk about it.

Both of us turned and ran up a ramp at the same time. The room started to move around us again, the mat moving up and down and all around. Heaving underneath us like there was an earthquake going on, only it was localized entirely within the floor below us.

"What is this?" I asked.

"Less talk, more fight," she said.

And so I did just that. We came down just in time to see a livisk woman standing in front of us. She hit me with a smile.

"I'm going to enjoy proving how worthless you are, human," she said.

"You're welcome to try," I said, slashing at her a few times with my sword. Her eyes went wide and she took a few steps back, obviously trying to get away from me, but I kept coming with the attacks.

Then I swept her leg with my own leg when she backed away from a sword swipe that I pulled back from at the last moment, and Varis was right there to hit her in center of mass.

I saw a livisk sneaking up behind her, and she whirled around to meet their hit as another one came in on me.

We went into a practiced dance, both of us feeling livisk who were moving in on us through the link. There were only four of them left. And oddly enough, it didn't feel like it was nearly as difficult to take on four of them. Just like it hadn't felt difficult to take on five of them. Or eight of them.

I saw a flash of light from my hand as I moved it around. I blinked again, wondering if I was seeing things. Wondering at this dance the two of us did, our minds feeding on one another as we got into the groove. As we seemed to move as one.

I lost track of how long the fight went on. Giving a play-by-play would be boring since it's a bunch of dodging this and attacking that, and Varis and me figuring out how to fight together. But finally it was done and I stood there, my chest heaving, as I looked at the eight livisk all around us on the ground.

As one, they all started to climb up. Like the numbing was somehow timed to last until the end of the fight. I wondered how that worked.

I thought they might be annoyed with us for besting all of them, but instead they were looking at me and shaking their heads with a collective smile. The first one I'd hit came over and clasped my arm.

"The general told us the two of you were a force to be reckoned with, but I didn't believe it until now."

"Good fight, Terran." the livisk woman who'd insulted me earlier said, also clasping her hand with mine.

I turned to Varis.

"Okay, so do you want to tell me what's going on here? What's with all this training? What's with all these people trying to attack us tonight?"

"I had to know if we were a true battle pair," she said, taking a deep breath and letting it out. Trepidation filtered through the link. "Because the moment we go to visit the empress? She's going to throw us into an arena and test us, and she's going to try her best to kill us in gladiatorial combat. I needed to know that you were ready, because going in as a battle pair is the only way we'll survive what she's planning on throwing at us."

I let out a breath. Suddenly a lot of her caginess around training was making more sense. Suddenly her reluctance to return the empress'' calls were making more sense.

"Son of a bitch," I said.

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