"You know she's not going to be happy about you going along, right?"

"Perhaps," Arvie said, staring down at me and moving his head and arms like he was testing out this new body he inhabited.

That was a nice trick as well, being able to just inhabit a body like that. There were a few people back in Terran space who'd allowed themselves to be uploaded so they could bounce back and forth in between various technological marvels like that. But it wasn't something that was done all that terribly often.

Apparently trying to help those people maintain their sanity when they were stuck inside a robot body all the time was a task and a half. I was thankful I'd never had occasion to work with the nut jobs who'd volunteered for that duty.

Supposedly things tended to get really weird, really fast, whenever they were involved.

"Fine," I said, grinning up at Arvie. "You're allowed to come along if Varis says it's okay."

Arvie turned to look at her. There was a slight glow to his eyes which gave them a menacing sort of look. Which I'm sure is exactly what the people who designed that mech had been going for.

It was a design that towered over the livisk all around us, and so it was something that really towered over me.

I turned and looked at some of the other similar mechs gathered all around. Some of them clearly had livisk sitting in cockpits. Others looked like they were standalone, but if I knew anything about the livisk I figured that meant there were pilots somewhere doing a remote drone thing.

I'd have to ask Varis about that later. Assuming I survived this rescue mission.

Though I wasn't sure if even death would be as final as I usually thought it was considering what Varis said about going to find a high priest or priestess or whatever and using them to resurrect me so she could kill me all over again. I wasn't in a mood to die any time soon. Let alone twice.

Not that I was ever in a mood to die, but today really didn't seem like a good day to die with that kind of threat hanging over my head.

Varis stared at Arvie in his mech, and then she looked at me. A spike of irritation moved through the link, but I think it was a spike of irritation that was solely grounded in her being annoyed that I'd found people who were willing to go along with me on this stupid crusade. Not necessarily that she was upset about Arvie deciding to go along with me.

Then she smiled and shook her head.

"Fine. You go and have your fun in there."

I opened my mouth to tell her I didn't think it would be fun, and then I snapped it shut. Because there was a sudden warning feeling from the link. Like maybe I needed to keep my fucking mouth shut right about now.

So I snapped my mouth shut. Approval moved through the link at that.

I looked around at everybody gathered. A large troop contingent of about twenty soldiers had appeared behind Selii, and there was a group of maybe twenty rescue people who had appeared behind Crison. I looked at each one of them in turn, and then I turned and looked at the massive shield wall in front of us.

I knew from getting a look at that shield wall from the air that it was actually a big cylinder that funneled the heat and fire and smoke up and away from ground level. And it looked like there was smoke that was starting to boil up and over the wall. That smoke was also moving out over the city and creating a cloud that wasn't exactly blotting out the light, but it was definitely casting shadows over the parts of the city it covered.

Though it was late enough in the evening that it's not like there was all that much light to blot out anyway.

"So how are we going to get in there?" I asked.

"Isn't that your job to figure out, human?" Selii asked.

"Actually, that is mine to figure out but I'm talking to the two of you in the hopes you might have an idea," I said, trying to make my voice sound breezy and unconcerned with the unspoken challenge she'd just thrown my way.

I was painfully aware that these were livisk. I was a human. They might not like working for me even if they'd been willing to volunteer if it meant they got to go in there and rescue their people. I was operating under the assumption that the only reason they were here was because of that opportunity to rescue some of their people.

Which meant they probably still weren't happy at the idea of working for a human, but I'd take it as long as I had their help.

"So, what I'm asking for is suggestions from the two of you. I've been on the ground after a nuke has gone off, but we didn't have a massive tower shield like what you have going up there. The radioactive shit just kind of spread through the atmosphere, and people had to deal with it as best they could."

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"You don't have shielding that can immediately surround a nuclear detonation?" Selii asked, leaning forward and looking at me with a hunger in her eyes that I didn't like.

"I'm not going to talk about what kind of deterrents or safety measures we have in place in human space to deal with nukes," I said, shaking my head and grinning, "But that was a good try."

"Can you blame a girl?" she asked, winking at me.

Again I felt at the link for any sign Varis had seen that and might be unhappy about it. And again, there wasn't anything but a mild bit of amusement there.

When I turned to look over my shoulder at her, I saw that she was mostly busy dealing with the higher-ups who refused to help my impromptu rescue operation. Which explained the flashes of irritation that I also felt moving through the link.

But she also kept casting glances in our direction as well. Every time she did, she seemed to be amused more than anything by what she saw over here.

I was glad she could get a little bit of amusement from my current situation, because everything around us was pretty dark as fuck.

"So, is it possible to open up the shielding and let us through near the bottom?"

It was possible to disrupt a shield on a local level with human tech, but I didn't want to give away that was something we had. It wasn't exactly something that was easy to use in combat, so it hadn't seen much use against the livisk.

Still. Best not to give that away if I could avoid it. For all that there were parts of me that wondered why the hell I was still loyal to the CCF and the Terran Navy when they'd clearly abandoned me.

"It would be possible," Crison said. "But not advisable."

"Why not advisable?" I asked.

"Because if you open a hole in the shield then you'll have everything that's being held on the other side of that shield trying to come through in one small area," Selii said, "Which means you're going to have a bunch of superheated air blasting through trying to get out. It'll make it difficult for anybody to get through. Depending on how powerful the superheated air is, it might cause some damage or kill somebody when they try to go through."

"But we could get through? Like, what if we had some sort of vehicle we put through or something?"

"Still not advisable," Selii said.

"The best method would be to go up and over the shield wall," Crison said, staring at the wall as it went up and up. "If there truly are people in shielded bomb shelters then they're not all going to be on the ground anyway."

"Oh?" I asked.

"Shelters like that are usually sprinkled all throughout a building," he said with a grunt. "So we're working with a z-axis when we try to find them."

"Okay," I said, grinning at them. "So do you have transport or rescue ships ready to go?"

"We could try to find one," Crison said, glancing over at Selii for a moment and then back to me, and then finally over to Varis.

"Why do I feel like there's a 'but' somewhere in there?" I asked.

"Probably because there is," Crison said. "We came in on a general transport, but my people haven't connected with a rescue lifter yet. They were telling us it could be several hours before one comes through for us."

"Damn it," I muttered.

"It would be much easier for you to try and requisition something like that, given your connections."

He glanced over at Varis, and it was pretty obvious what he meant. I was the one who had the love connection to the general, and the general was the one who had a connection to all the supplies.

I looked over at her. She looked back at me and smiled. It was a smile that looked entirely too sweet under the circumstances. Like she could sense what I was going to ask for. She subtly shook her head back and forth.

That was a gesture that meant the same thing whether we were talking about humans or livisk. A no was a no.

"Yeah, I don't think that's happening," I said.

"The general isn't going to help you?" Selii asked.

I really didn't want to get into the whole complicated situation between me and Varis with these two. I didn't want to go over how the general was annoyed I was trying to put myself in harm's way, and so she was going to keep me from going in there by not helping me out.

Then I grinned.

"Do you happen to have a comm? And could you patch me through to Harath?"

Crison blinked and went pale. "To Harath?"

"Yeah, he's the guy in charge of all of the ships."

"I know who Harath is," he said, licking his lips and suddenly looking nervous. "But I don't have a direct comm link to him. I would have to go through several layers of command in order to even…"

"Yeah, I'm the several layers of command right here," I said, waving my hand to dismiss all his worried about the chain of command. "Harath and I are buddies. So do you have a comm I can use to talk to him or what?"

"Buddies," Crison muttered, rolling the word around like he didn't think it was possible for Harath to be friends with anyone.

I reached down with my other hand and touched at the sword hilt Harath had given me before I left Varis's building earlier. Something told me there was something very important about that sword. I didn't know what it was, but it said there was a bond there. That Harath would be there to help me when I needed it.

Crison and Selii exchanged glances. Then Crison sighed and handed over a comm.

"Thank you so much," I said, smiling at him and trying to hide the frustration I felt.

Every passing moment was a sand through the hourglass. Every sand through that hourglass was a potential life lost.

I spoke into the comm. "I need to reach Harath."

An indignant voice came through on the other end of the line. "Who is this? Why are you asking to talk to the Fleet Steward? You don't have authorization on this channel."

I sighed, rolling my eyes as I looked to Crison and Selii. I didn't have time for this red tape bullshit. I figured it was time for me to see how much weight I had to throw around here.

I didn't think it was much, but with a little luck it might be enough.

"This is General Varis's consort, Captain Bill Stewart, and I need to talk to Harath right now."

I waited, wondering if that was going to work. What felt like a small eternity later a familiar voice came through the line.

"Bill, is that you?" Harath's voice said, sounding as gruff as ever.

"See," I said, winking at Crison and Selii. "I told you I could get through to him."

"Are you in trouble?" Harath asked.

"Not trouble exactly," I said. "But I'm trying to mount a rescue mission, and I find myself in need of some troop transports and a rescue ship. Do you think you could hook me up?"

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