How I Helped My Smokin' Hot Alien Girlfriend Conquer the Empire

More people in CCF uniforms streamed down the debris pile all around us. I'd never been so happy about seeing a bunch of CCF uniforms all in one place in my life.

Honestly? The uniform was always something I'd been a touch ambivalent about. Mostly because seeing a bunch of CCF uniforms was always a reminder of just how much I'd screwed up to end up in the CCF in the first place.

Only now there were blasts firing out from the people wearing those uniforms. I felt a swell of pride I'd never felt before seeing people wearing that uniform.

Mostly it was a swell of pride because I knew this was my crew coming to our rescue. Well, they thought they were coming to our rescue. It was probably a toss up whether or not Varis and I would actually be able to take on all the livisk assholes coming at us, but it was always nice to have help.

"Allamaraine!" a guy shouted, and I almost thought I recognized that voice. The dude was right in front of us, and he held his fist in the air.

"One, two, three!" everybody else all around us roared. Like a battle cry. Not at all like the joke that phrase had been for at least a thousand years.

Again, a chill ran through me as I took it all in.

My crew ran forward, and they were definitely giving as good as they were getting with the livisk. It helped that they were picking up plasma rifles Jeraj left behind when he killed the bastards trying to take us captive.

"Okay. So I have to admit this has been a long jaunt through the Undercity," I said. "But it's totally worth it to see this moment."

"Definitely," Varis said. "Who's the person leading them?"

The person leading jumped as he realized we were standing right behind him. The guy turned around. His hair was long, and it had a distinctly reddish color. I blinked as I realized who it was even before he had a chance to take his mask off.

I was never going to say anything bad about somebody fighting in a mask ever again.

He pulled it off, and it was none other than Olsen standing there grinning at the two of us. Which was almost as crazy as the idea of seeing Olsen leading a fight.

I don't think I'd ever remembered a time I'd seen him smiling on the bridge of Early Warning 72.

He stepped up to us and looked at me first. He caught the way I was looking at his mask and grinned.

"They're terribly comfortable. I think everybody will be wearing them eventually," he said.

"Damn straight," I said, grinning.

"Also? There's so much nasty shit floating around in the air down here, and they don't have medbays for people who are supposed to be dying of slave labor. So it's good to wear a mask to filter out some of the particulates."

"I see," I said. That definitely made sense. It made me wonder if I should be wearing a mask down here, but I hoped I wouldn't be down here long enough for the long-term effects of being exposed to whatever the sequel trilogy was floating around as particulate matter down here wouldn't be enough to cause me long-term issues.

"And you?" Olsen said, turning to Varis.

"Me?" she asked.

I could feel her tensing through the link. I glanced over to her and saw she was coiled like a spring that was ready to explode. I almost put a hand on her to calm her, but I figured I'd let this play out however it would.

Olsen grinned and shoved his hand forward. Which had Varis staring down at it like it was a coiled snake rather than a coiled spring. She eyed the offered hand, then looked over to me. I merely arched an eyebrow and shrugged, though I hoped the link was telling her that whatever was going on here, it was probably okay for her to take that offered hand.

So she did just that, grasping his hand just below the elbow. They held each other's arms for a long moment.

"Glory to you and your house," Olsen said, grinning at her. "And no hard feelings about kinda sorta being the reason we're stuck here in the first place."

I rolled my eyes. "Come on, Olsen. I know they might seem like Klingons, but we're talking about livisk here."

"Glory to you and your house as well," Varis said.

"I don't know if you'd be saying that if you had any idea who my dad was," Olsen said.

I looked between the two of them, wondering what in the sequel trilogy was going on with this conversation.

"That is the proper form of address, William," Varis said, turning and smiling at me. "If you would spend more time studying up on the proper niceties of livisk culture rather than simply looking up ways to destabilize the Houses to work in my favor then you might have come across that in your studies."

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

I blinked, and then I grinned and wagged a finger at her.

"You think you're going to get me to give something away."

"I can hope," she said.

I looked beyond Olsen to the people fighting. I saw a human go down, clutching at their leg and swearing loudly.

"This isn't good," I said. "We need to get out there and join the fight."

"No way," Olsen said. "You're our ticket out of here. Especially now that the reclamation mine is being directly assaulted by the empress and her forces."

"How do you know it's the empress?"

"Well…" Olsen trailed off and frowned. "Honestly? I don't know that it's the empress, but they're the only ones I can think of who might be trying to lead a direct assault against the mine. And the attack coming right when you've come along to give them a spanking is suspicious."

"Yeah, just a touch," I said, glancing to Varis.

I wondered how the empress knew we were down here. Maybe that was something I could ask Jeraj if we lived through this. Though that was a thought that didn't hold the terror it once did considering all the ridiculous scenarios I kept surviving.

"So we need to get you out of here," Olsen said.

"Yeah, no," I said.

"Look. Captain," he said, and this time he put a hand on my shoulder. "I understand we didn't get along all that well on the Early Warning 72."

"Yeah, that brings me to another question," I said, interrupting him in the middle of his train of thought.

I figured we were going to have a big character-building conversation, but I didn't have time for it right now. I had a much more burning question in mind.

"Anything, Captain," he said.

"Y'know, I think this meeting is the first time you've actually called me Captain without me snapping at you about it first."

"I know, Captain," he said, the corner of his mouth turning up. Then he glanced over his shoulder to the battle happening behind us. "But you might want to get on with whatever your question is."

"Why are you saying 'remember the Allamaraine' and 'Allamaraine, one, two, three?'" I asked. "We were all together on the Early Warning 72. The Allamaraine was a floating wreck by the time we met."

"I'm afraid that's my fault."

I jumped, and then I turned to see Rachel stepping out of the darkness above us. She hopped down the debris like she'd been doing that a lot lately.

I probably shouldn't have been surprised she had a lot of practice hopping down the debris down here in the Undercity. I glanced up to the plates being held aloft by a bunch of antigrav. It really was one sequel trilogy of a security vulnerability that a big chunk of the city was literally being held aloft on massive plates held together by a combination of structural supports, antigrav, and prayer.

I tucked that one away to maybe use later.

"You told him about the Allamaraine," I said.

"It was a bit of a mouthful to say 'Remember the Early Warning 72!'" she said with a grin and a shrug. "Plus I figure the Allamaraine got blown up too. That's where all this really started."

"I suppose so."

"Not to mention it sound a lot like 'remember the Alamo,' and I know you love a good military history reference."

"You do know me well," I said, grabbing her and pulling her in for a hug. "It's damn good to see you again, XO."

"Same to you, Captain," she said.

The she pulled away from the hug. It looked like there were tears threatening at the corners of her eyes. Tears that surprised me, for all that my eyes were watering as well.

She reached up and wiped some of them away. I stood there trying to hold my own back like the stoic man I was supposed to be in this moment.

Okay. So maybe I let a couple of manly tears trickle down my cheeks. Whatever. I figured under the circumstances? It was totally allowed.

"Look, Captain," Olsen said. "Actually, hold on just a moment."

He turned and started firing his weapon at some rough looking reclamation mine livisk who'd broken free and were running at us. I noted that he was a pretty good shot. A livisk went down with a primitive bullet hole in his head.

"Holy shit, Olsen."

"I told you a lot has changed down here," Rachel said. "We managed to get most of the crew out through escape tunnels down at the bottom of the reclamation mine."

"Most of them," I said.

"Not all of them," she said with a shrug. "Some of your starfighters showed up and started running interference, which was a whole sequel trilogy of a lot of help."

"Wait. Starfighers?" I said.

"They got blown up. There are more imperials coming in. A lot more," Olsen said.

"Shit," I muttered.

"Yes, shit," Varis breathed from next to me.

I frowned as I looked at the fighting all around us. More people were going down. We really needed to get into the fight. We needed to end it so we could get the sequel trilogy out of here.

"That's all very interesting and everything," I said. "But if you'll excuse me for a moment while me and Varis finish the fight?"

"I really don't think that's a good idea, Captain," Olsen said.

"Sorry, but I'm going to be pulling rank on this one," I said.

"But you're the connection to the general, and we need the general to get out of here."

I looked at Varis and winked. She smiled back at me.

"I promise the two of us will do our best to survive what's coming."

"If you say so," Olsen said, though he sounded doubtful.

I raised my plasma sword and ignited it again. Olsen's eyes went wide. Then I held up my plasma pistol.

It was a special model. One that was designed so I could crank it all the way up to 11 if I needed to, and it would have the kind of power that was normally reserved for a plasma rifle. I turned it all the way up and pointed it at yet another livisk who came running at us.

The blast took them full on over the chest plate. One moment they were there, and the next they'd blown up into their constituent parts. I held the barrel up to my mouth, though not too close because of the superheated plasma that was waiting right there, and blew on it.

"See, we have this well in hand," I said, grinning at Olsen.

He stared at me. "Holy shit, sir."

"Yeah, a lot of shit has happened since I came down to the planet surface," I said. "There'll be plenty of time to brief you on all of it when this is all said and done. Assuming we don't get captured."

With the way things were looking now, capture seemed a whole lot more likely than being killed. For me and Varis, at least. I didn't for a moment imagine my crew would survive me and Varis getting captured. Not for long.

"As you say, sir. We welcome the help," Olsen said with a grin, but again it was in a tone that said he wasn't sure how much help we'd be.

I grinned back at him, and then I shook my head at how ridiculous all of this was. Olsen was turning into an effective leader. Somehow being down here in a reclamation mine had tempered him in a way no amount of serving on a picket ship, relying on his dad to get him a comfy posting, ever could.

The universe was a strange place, but if it was finally going to throw me a bone then I wasn't going to complain.

So I raised my blaster and my sword, and with a bellow, Varis and I ran into combat once more.