2-68: Surrendering For the Glory of the Empress
The two livisk looked back and forth at one another. I could see the wheels turning in their heads. Both of them were really trying to decide whether it was worth it to make a valiant last stand for their empress.
I made sure that the comm link was turned off as I turned to Varis.
"So do you think they're going to surrender?"
"They're livisk," she said with a frown. “It goes against everything that they know to surrender.”
"Especially when they're working for the empress, right?" I said, hitting her with a grin.
"Exactly," Varis said.
I turned my attention back to the holoblock. They had leaned in close and were muttering something to each other low enough that it couldn't be picked up by the shitty microphone that was probably put in by the lowest bidder for the empress.
Finally they turned back to me. The woman in particular seemed to be the one calling the shots, which pretty much described my life since coming to this world. Hey yo.
"Fine. We surrender," she said.
I blinked. "Excuse me?”
"I'm sorry. These microphones are always terrible. Did you not hear what I said?" she said. "We surrender."
"Oh, I heard what you said. I'm just having trouble believing that you're actually going to do it."
The memory of betrayal the last time some livisk claimed they were surrendering was still fresh in my memory, after all.
"If you'd like, we could die gloriously for the empress," the woman said, holding her pistol up to Selii's head and causing my balls to retreat up into my body. I really didn't want to lose any of my people, and I didn't want to lose Selii. She was one badass bitch, and she'd gotten me out of the lurch on at least one occasion so far.
I really didn’t want to repay that by getting her killed.
"No, that's quite all right," I said. "If you're going to surrender, and you promise no bullshit, then you can surrender. No bullshit."
"Good," she said, grinning at me and pulling her weapon away from Selii's head.
I might've been imagining things, but I almost thought I saw Selii roll her chin just a little. Like she’d been getting ready to start something. Probably tensing in preparation to butt this woman in the head or something. Her hands were shackled down behind her back, so it would be difficult for her to do much more than that, but she seemed like the kind of person who would be dragged into the great beyond kicking and screaming.
"So we just open up the door and everything is okay," I said.
"That's usually how a surrender goes," the livisk said.
I looked over to Varis and grinned. She merely rolled her eyes, no doubt knowing where I was about to go with this.
"Yeah, I've played that game before. I took a livisk captive and I thought everything was going well right up to the moment she did that bullshit legal loophole stuff you livisk love to pull and I found myself pinned under a support strut from my ship."
"Look, that's all fascinating and everything," the guard said. “But could we get this over with?"
"Yeah, sure," I said. “As soon as you uncuff Selii there and you give her your weapon."
There was a pause. I figured this was the moment where if this lady really was trying to double-cross us, then she’d be hesitant to hand over her weapon. Only she shrugged and gestured for the dude next to her to do as I said.
To his credit, there was only a moment of hesitation as he stared at her and then up and around.
"Are you sure about that?" he asked.
"Do you want to die?" she hissed in a low voice. "You've seen what's been happening to people who fight for the empress when this human comes along. Do you really want to die for that?"
I leaned in a little closer to the holodisplay as they had their conversation. I was very interested in what was going on there. That sounded almost like they were having second thoughts about dying for the glory of the empress.
Which was something I could totally get behind. I wouldn't be in the mood for dying for the glory of anything but protecting my people, and it’d been a long time since anyone in the CCF had been asked to die for that sort of thing considering the way the Terran Navy managed to keep the livisk away from the home system.
My alien girlfriend moving in for a smash-and-grab being one of the notable exceptions in recent history.
Selii was freed a moment later. She took the weapon from the guard and looked up and around, grinning in obvious disbelief.
"That actually worked," she said.
"I'm just as surprised as you are," I said. "Could you go ahead and get your people out of their shackles and make sure these assholes aren't holding any other weapons?”
“Sure thing,” Selii said.
"I'm proud of you,” Varis said.
“You are?” I said, turning to her.
"The old you would've gone in there guns blazing without stopping to think about whether or not it's a good idea to go into a chamber where there might be people hiding weapons or holding our people hostage.”
"Yeah, well, I've learned the hard way that it's a bad idea to get too cocky and overconfident," I said, hitting her with a wink.
Meanwhile, on the holodisplay I could see Selii moving down the line to a button near the back. She jammed her thumb into the thing. There was a loud thunk that reverberated through the ship all around us, even through the blast door, and then her people were standing and some of them were flexing their hands like they’d love nothing more than to introduce the guards to their fists.
"Let's go easy on these two," I said into the comm. "After all, they were kind enough to let you go without even trying to shoot you.”
That resulted in a few more of them looking up and around and seeming annoyed that I was holding them back, but then they all stopped with the posturing. Mostly.
"It looks like everything is secured,” Selii said.
"Okay, then let's do this," I said.
I glanced at the console before me, then turned and looked at Varis. She stared at me for a moment and then shook her head.
"You really need to sit down and learn our symbols at some point."
"Honestly, I'm surprised I'm not getting the symbols as part of an auto-translate from Arvie thanks to this chip I have in my head."
"I'm working on it," Arvie said. "But it's a curious thing. No matter how many times I try to come up with something that provides a real-time translation, it's almost as though your mind is resisting the idea."
"You're starting to sound like my Livisk instructor back in my academy days," I said.
"I can't imagine the hell that teacher went through dealing with you as a cadet,” Arvie said.
"You have no idea," I said.
Varis was kind enough to reach out and hit the button to open the blast door. There was another series of loud thumps and thuds, and then the blast door opened up and we were good to go. I think.
I turned around. I half expected to see that the whole holo thing had been spoofed somehow, though it would've been a lot of trouble for the empress to go through to create a scenario where she was spoofing a holodisplay like that just to try and screw with us.
Still, considering the time I’d been having ever since we went down to that damned reclamation mine? I would've hardly been surprised to find us in a situation like that.
I looked at the two livisk standing there. Both of them sketched a small bow.
"You would be none other than the Terran who is causing the empress so much trouble," the woman said.
"That would be me," I said.
"Yes, well, this is awkward and everything, but I would rather not die for an empress who has been…”
She cut off at an elbow in the side from the other one. I looked at him and then I looked at her. That was certainly an interesting development. She looked over at him and her eyes narrowed in a glare.
"Come on, Samel," she said. "You know there's no point in trying to sugarcoat any of this. The situation is what the situation is."
"Excuse me for thinking you shouldn't speak ill of the empress, Carisa," he said.
I clapped my hands together, which had both of them jumping and turning to look at me. That had me wondering that they were jumping as they turned to look at me. I didn't think I was all that terrifying, but they were both looking at me with wide eyes that seemed to say they thought they were about to be deep in the shit.
"Look, Carisa, Samel, do you mind if I call you Carisa and Samel?"
"I don't mind," Carisa said.
"I suppose not," Samel said, frowning.
"Okay, so Carisa, Samel," I continued. "I forgot to mention earlier that I'd also be more than happy to offer both of you jobs."
"Excuse me?" Samel said.
"Are you serious?" Carisa said.
"Yes, excuse me?” Varis said from beside me.
I turned to look at her. She seemed irritated, and it was genuine irritation coming through the link. That surprised me. It’d been a while since I'd been hit with genuine irritation, and yet here we were.
"I mean, it seemed like a good idea. Right? If we're going to ask people to surrender and give up everything they’ve ever known, then the least we can do is offer them an olive branch. Right?"
She stared at me for a long moment, and then finally she shrugged. She still seemed irritated, but the irritation wasn't quite as intense.
"I suppose," she finally said.
"Great," I said, turning and looking at both of them. "Obviously we’re not going to be putting you anywhere you could get up to any sort of real trouble, but it's great to have you on the team."
They both turned and stared at each other. Samel looked like he really wasn't happy about this development. I figured if any of these two needed watching, it would be him. But at least we were getting the situation under control.
I turned to Selii. "Would you be a darling and go ahead and take these two into your custody?"
"But we surrendered,” Carisa said.
"You surrendered, yes," I said, turning my attention back to Carisa. "But I don't exactly trust you right now. It's going to take a little bit of work before we get to that point, and right now we are sort of in the middle of combat with the empress. I need to make sure nobody gets stabbed in the back."
"Understandable," Carisa said, nodding.
"I don't like it," Samel said.
"That's the neat thing," I said, grinning at him. "You don't have to like it, but you are my captive now so you also don’t have a choice. Selii, if you would."
Selii grinned as she brought up the cuffs I was pretty sure she’d been held in just a few minutes prior. It wasn’t a pleasant grin.