I wondered if the livisk even had a concept of the underworld or a place where people went to be punished for all of eternity when they died.

Knowing them, it was probably some Viking bullshit, or maybe it would be more accurate to say it was probably some Klingon bullshit. The kind of place where if you die an honorable death, you get to go to an afterlife where you get to spend even more time fighting other people.

Which always seemed like a bunch of bullshit to me. I didn't want an afterlife where I was constantly fighting alongside my ancestors for the glory of whatever the fuck I was fighting for. I didn't want an afterlife where the lion could lie down with the lamb and everybody was happy, for that matter.

My idea of a good afterlife was sitting on a nice intergalactic star cruiser. Maybe one that was out to observe a supernova at a safe distance with enough shielding that you didn't have to worry about getting obliterated in one of nature's biggest fireworks displays, and sipping a delicious Mai Tai from inside a hot tub while I had a front row view of everything that was happening and a beautiful woman sitting next to me for all eternity.

I was going to have to ask Varis if they had star cruisers like that in livisk space, or at the very least, if we could commandeer one of the battle cruisers that were part of her personal fleet to go out and do something like that sometime.

The point was, all hell broke loose in a human sense of the word. Missiles went flying out over the crowd of livisk and slammed into the tanks. Which immediately went up in massive explosions. It was a symphony of death, and Arvie was the conductor. It was a stark reminder of why a good Combat Intelligence could be such a dangerous thing when they really got going, and Arvie was really moving now.

The livisk hesitated for only a moment. I would give them that much credit. At least there seemed to be a moment of hesitation. A moment of surprise where they couldn't believe this was actually happening, but then the troops moved into action.

Some of the star fighters hovering above us also tried to move into action. Tried being the operative word there, because no sooner had they tried to move into action than Arvie started hitting them with rail guns that came out from his body and fired on the things.

Seriously, it was like every inch of his body had been covered with some sort of hidden weapon, and he was bringing them all out and firing them all at once at a pace that would've been impossible for a human or livisk or any other sapient creature with meat powering brains rather than circuits to pull off.

Then the livisk yelled and were running forward at me standing here all by my lonesome facing down a literal army.

Well, it was time to see how well some of that combat training I'd been doing with Varis worked, and it was time to see how badass I was as a result of being part of a battle pair. I was taking a risk here, but I figured if these prince consort pricks could be badasses when it came to combat, then it stood to reason that whatever was happening with me as a result of the whole battle pair thing would also allow me to be something of a badass.

That, or I was seriously overestimating my abilities here, and I was about to have serious issues.

I pulled the rifle off my back and started firing into the livisk as they ran at me. I turned it up to full tilt, and the ones in the front were knocked back again and again.

But there were enough of them that they just kept coming. There was only one of me, and it looked like there was a whole contingent of them after all.

"Just stay down," I yelled.

"I'm running low on missiles, William," Arvie said. "Plasma weapon charge is holding for now."

"Noted," I replied.

They kept coming. There were too many of them, and it looked like at least a couple of those hover tanks hadn't been destroyed by Arvie's opening salvo.

"Target those tanks," I shouted.

"On it," Arne said. "But that means I'm not going to have enough to target the infantry that are coming for you."

"Again, noted. I'm more worried about those tanks than I'm worried about the infantry."

They started to close in around me. I was going to be surrounded and in the middle of a very interesting situation here in a moment. I thought about reaching down and grabbing the sword at my side, but I wasn't sure how much good a plasma sword was going to do against what was coming for me. I couldn't cut down enough of them at once.

Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

More of Arvie's missiles hit the hover tanks off in the distance, but that didn't stop a couple of them from turning their turrets in my direction. They started to glow as they prepared to fire off a shot.

Son of a bitch. I shouted, throwing myself to the ground and rolling down the hill in the direction the prince consort asshole I'd just punched in the nose had gone rolling just a moment ago.

I came to an end of my roll and blinked a couple of times as massive blasts went off. I winced, hitting the deck and praying the power armor I was in would be enough to stop those blasts from killing me. But I didn't think my individual infantry power armor was going to be enough to stand up against actual armor.

Though, granted I spent most of my time flying around in starships where I didn't have to worry about armor firing at me, so what did I know?

I let out a yell and I looked to the side and saw the prince consort glaring at me. There was pure murder in those eyes. Like he'd love nothing more than to get up and kill me. But he'd also sensibly put his hands over his neck and was screaming out on his own.

I waited for the inevitability. Maybe I'd finally go to that aforementioned afterlife where I was sipping a Mai Tai, or maybe dying in battle meant that I went to livisk Valhalla or Sto'Vo'Kor or wherever the fuck it was they went when they died in honorable combat.

Though I wasn't sure if the livisk gods or God or whatever the fuck supernatural being they believed in, that seemed to be a pretty common thing among sapient creatures, would care for my version of honorable combat considering I'd just sucker punched one asshole and then had Arvie sucker punch their military in a metaphorical sense.

The end never came though. I just continued lying there on the ground with my hands over my own neck, waiting for an attack that apparently wasn't coming.

"What the fuck?" I muttered, getting up on my elbow and looking around.

I thought I heard some sort of yelling in the distance, but I couldn't be sure if I was hearing things or if that was my hearing going a little crazy because of all the loud noises happening all around me.

More ships bearing the imperial seal swooped down. I guess the ones who'd been sent out to harass the rescue mission had decided they were needed down here where the prince consort was clearly in a little bit of trouble.

Not that he got the memo that he was in a little bit of trouble. No, he let out a roar as he got up and ran at me.

"Oh, shit," I said, as he dove for the ground and suddenly we were rolling around.

I didn't miss a moment. I was thankful for all the time I'd been spending practicing fighting with Varis. Otherwise I might've been caught flat-footed. Like the first time I ended up fighting Varis hand to hand back on the Alamaraine so long ago. It felt like an eternity even though it was only a year ago.

I punched at the asshole again and again since I didn't have access to a weapon I could shoot him with. I lost my rifle when I hit the deck.

My suit had all kinds of fun little weapons that were popping up in my HUD, but none of them would be a damn bit of use considering I was close enough range to this asshole that I'd risk taking myself out right along with him.

"Why won't you just stay down?" I said, punching him in the face again.

Again, the shield protected him from the actual blow, but my fist also pushed the shielding in and slammed it against his nose. Which had his eyes watering as blood started to gush from that nose.

"I'm going to kill you, human," he yelled.

"You're welcome to try. Your empress can't seem to hit the mark."

I pushed him away from me and then scrambled to my feet. I looked around, but the rifle I'd been using had been knocked to the ground and Arvie helpfully popped up some calculations that told me there wasn't a chance in hell, whether we're talking the actual mythological hell or the literal hell all around me, that I'd get to it in time.

"Thanks for the assist, Harath," I muttered as I reached down to my side with my right hand and pulled the plasma sword up.

The prince consort stopped for a moment as he stared at me like he was confused. Then his face contorted in rage.

"How dare you steal a plasma sword from the Honored Society of Logistics!"

I looked down at the thing and then I looked back at him. "The Honored Society of what?"

"You know what you've stolen," he said, still glaring at me.

"I didn't steal it at all. It was a gift from my good buddy, Harath."

"Harath?" he asked, cocking his head to the side and looking supremely confused.

"Yeah, he's the guy in charge of running Varis's fleet. He gave me this thing before I headed out here. A good thing too. It's gonna make it way easier to kill you."

"That's impossible," he growled, reaching down to his own side and pulling out a sword of his own.

Only the sword he pulled out was a regular sword. He held it up between his eyes in what was probably meant to be a salute. At least I assumed it was a salute. That's what that sort of thing meant back in Terran space. Either way, the meaning was pretty damn clear. We were about to have ourselves a sword fight, and he was telling me to get my shit in order if I knew what was good for me.

"Very well, Terran," he said, moving the sword down to his side with a swish. "I'm going to defeat you in combat and show that I'm more worthy of that gift than you will ever be."

I looked down at the plasma sword. I hit the button and a small bit of metal arced up and around and down into a hole on the other side. I hit a button to activate it, and the whole thing started to glow with superheated plasma that was roughly in the shape of a blade.

"So, what? You kill me in honorable combat and you get to keep my sword that I got fair and square from Harath?"

"Exactly, human," the prince consort growled.

"Well, that seems like it's going to annoy Harath," I said.

"What's your point?" the prince consort asked.

"No point," I said with a shrug. "It just means I'm going to have to kill you so I don't upset my buddy."

And with that, I held my sword up and ran at him, screaming.

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.