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

"Um. William?" Arvie said from beside me.

"Yes, Arvie?" I said, grinning, because I knew what he was about to say before he even said it.

I wondered if that was a result of the neural interface giving me an idea of what he was going to say before he was going to say it, or if it was just that I'd been spending so much time around the Combat Intelligence that I was getting to the point where I knew what he was going to say before he said it.

"I know I say this quite often, but this action seems precipitous even by the standards of the sort of thing you do on the regular," Arvie said.

"Why's that?" I asked. "Give me an analysis. That's what your job is, correct?"

"You want an analysis?" he said.

"Well, yes. You are a Combat Intelligence, right? So provide me some combat intelligence."

"Yes, well then," he said, and he sounded extremely pleased suddenly. "You firing a missile against that craft is going to be utterly ineffective. It has countermeasures, and there are anti-aircraft and missile defenses all around the city that can be used to take down that missile before it reaches the bomber. All you've done is alert the imperial forces to your position, and that means they're going to be firing on this fighter craft very shortly."

"Yep, that sounds like exactly what's about to happen, Arvie."

I got another one of those pauses that I loved so much. It was the sort of pause that told me he was trying to think something through. I chalked that up as a win for good old-fashioned natural intelligence baked by nature over a billion years instead of cobbled together by some ones and zeroes over a few hundred years.

"That is your intention, isn't it?"

"Exactly," I said.

"You want to provide a distraction in the hopes you'll be able to occupy the forces long enough that everybody will be able to get away from the reclamation mine before the bomber has a chance to deliver its payload."

"Look at you," I said. "A Combat Intelligence actually learning from a little bit of combat."

"I'll have you known that I can run countless simulations that tell me the efficacy of..."

"Simulations are great, Arvie," I said. "But there's something to be said for just getting into the shit and figuring out a way to get yourself out of it."

"Getting into the shit and finding a way to get yourself out of it," he said, and it was in an almost approving tone. I didn't dare look over to him to see what his expression told me in that moment. "I rather like that expression. Let's get into some shit then, William."

"Way ahead of you," I said.

I switched to number three and fired a second missile at the bomber. It had already stopped doing its lazy spiral around the city and was taking evasive maneuvers. There was a lot of space in between the fighter and the bomber. Imperial Seat was a big city, but it was a missile streaking across that city. Which meant it was going to close that distance pretty damn fast.

I could see it doing that. Like, I could see it in my head. I didn't even have to look up at the status display to see it.

"That's interesting," I said.

"What's that, William?"

"I'm able to see the status reports in my mind."

"Ah, yes," Arvie said, as though it was nothing. "That is another one of the advantages of using a direct neural link. I told you that you would enjoy it."

"That almost sounds like you're telling me, 'I told you so.'"

"I would never dream of doing something like that," Arvie said.

"Good."

"But I did tell you so."

"I knew it," I said, shaking my head and grinning. I couldn't bring myself to be too mad at the bucket of bolts. He had been right after all.

I switched to number seven, which was at about a 90-degree angle from one and three, and fired off another missile.

Meanwhile, the bomber was going a little crazy. The missiles were still streaking in, but I could also see countermeasures flying up from the city below.

Imperial City was riddled with the stuff. The empress had an iron grip on her people, and that meant she needed to maintain that iron grip by having troops and weapon systems out there ready to go at a moment's notice in case somebody decided to start firing on her. Or, more likely, in case one of the constant squabbles between the various nobles accidentally sent a stray missile towards the imperial palace.

Which was the kind of thing that could get somebody executed if they did it on accident. It was certainly the kind of thing that would get me killed if the empress could get her hands me. The problem was, she had to get her dirty mitts on me in the first place, and she'd had a little bit of trouble doing that so far.

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"Three missiles are away," Arvie said. "The first one is down. The third one is down."

"The bomber is still evading, right?"

"Correct," Arvie said.

I switched to five. I could see signatures from fighter craft rising up from the city now, but they were moving far slower than they had any business going. It was almost like I was playing one of those old games I'd enjoyed so much, but I was playing it with a cheat code that allowed me to do everything at a sped-up rate. Which gave me one sequel trilogy of an unfair advantage.

I let out a whoop in the computer space, and then I saw something dark looming in front of me.

I blinked and the world spun around me. It did that weird dizzying thing where time seemed to speed up for a moment of disorientation.

"Shit," I said, ducking below a bar that loomed out in front of me in the darkness. I almost bumped my forehead on it.

"I'm going to need to dedicate a little more attention to walking through this tunnel," I muttered.

"What are you talking about?" Rachel asked, looking at me with obvious concern.

"He's probably doing something stupid in an attempt to annoy the empress," Varis said with a smile as approval flooded through the link.

Approval and something else, but I really didn't have time for that kind of distraction right now.

"Trying to save our asses," I said. "And I need to get back in there. I'm in the middle of a little bit of a furball."

"A furball?" Varis asked, the livisk term not quite translating.

"A dogfight," Rachel said. She was mostly fluent in livisk. Fluent enough that she could handle the lost in translation moment. "A bunch of fighters are engaging one another."

"Not yet," I said, "But it's about to get that way. The empress is launching a lot of shit, but I also distracted the bomber."

"I will guide you through the darkness and the ruins, Bill," Varis said, wrapping an arm around me and pulling me along.

It made me feel like I was less than useless for a moment. I needed somebody to guide me through the dark tunnel, but I was doing something important, so I was going to let her do it.

"All my trust and love to you," I said, leaning in and putting my forehead against hers. A bit of surprise came through the link, but then she smiled.

"All my trust and love to you as well, Bill."

"Let's do this," I said.

"It's not very honorable. I'm just guiding you through a dark tunnel," she muttered, as I faded away.

"Arvie, could you please tell her that supporting somebody who is kicking some ass is every bit as honorable as actually going out and kicking some ass?"

"I don't think that's going to play very well with a livisk who is very much into the idea of going out and kicking ass personally, but I will pass the message on to her," he said.

"Good," I said.

I switched to number six. There were a bunch of fighters rising up from what looked like a clandestine base the imperials maintained. I guess the nobility weren't the only ones with secret bases full of weapons, though it was hardly surprising the empress had stuff like that too.

I turned my fighter and dove towards them, but they were moving slow enough that it would keep for a moment. I moved to seven instead. it was in the middle of the shit. A bunch of fighters had come up and were surrounding it. I stared in fascination at a bunch of fighter craft pointed almost directly at the ship, their plasma blasts frozen in the air from my perspective.

"Well, damn," I muttered. "Looks like I pissed them off just a little bit."

"Yes, just a little bit, William," Arvie said. "How are you going to get out of it?"

"That's the fun part," I said, grinning. "I don't plan on getting out of it. Harath is going to be pissed off when he realizes that I'm throwing away his fighters like this, but there's nothing to be done about it."

"As you say, William," Arvie said. "But I'm sure that he will be happy as long as it preserves the life of you and his general."

"Something tells me he cares a little more about the life of his general than mine, but that's nice to know," I said.

I switched back and forth between the ships. I used one to dive directly at fighters rising towards me. I was starting to lose track of which number I was piloting at the moment. I just knew I was at different points on the city compass, and the more I did it, the more I was able to flash back and forth between them and maintain the fight without even thinking about what number I was flying.

I moved to the north part of the city where my fighter had been diving towards fighters launching, only they'd been so surprised by me turning and bringing the fight to them that none of them had bothered to fire their missiles.

"Switching to ground weapons," I muttered, though I could do it with a thought rather than having to physically do it in the simulator. Which saved time. And it was really starting to show me exactly how the livisk had so much trouble fighting against humans who were more than happy to use Combat Intelligences to aid in their fighting. It was so much faster than tapping at the controls in a ship.

I fired those ground weapons. A missile flew down, and the warehouse those fighters were coming from went up. Like we're talking it went up in such a spectacular explosion that I was pretty sure I'd taken out a good chunk of the fighters before they even managed to reach the sky.

The only problem was I also vastly underestimated how large that explosion was going to be. I saw the concussion wave moving up towards my fighter craft and winced. It felt almost like the fighter was an extension of me, for all that I was in a virtual representation of a training pod that would allow me to control the thing. Then the feed went dark, and that was that.

There was nothing dramatic like static or anything like that as it was cut off. It was just there one moment, and then it was gone the next.

"It would appear we lost that craft," Arvie said.

"No big deal," I muttered as I moved into another one.

This one didn't have any fighters coming for it, but I knew it would only be a matter of time before it did. I turned and started screaming towards the bomber, and then I switched to another one and did the same thing.

I switched back to one with fighter cover all around. I also glanced over in the direction of the fighter base I'd taken out. I could see a mushroom cloud rising over the city.

It was a common misconception a lot of people had that a mushroom cloud only resulted from a nuclear explosion. If you had any big enough explosion then it would go all mushroom-shaped. And all the fighters and bombs going up in that base was definitely enough to create a nice big mushroom rising over Imperial Seat.

"Yeah, let's see how you fucking like it, you bitch," I muttered.

"Who were you talking to?" Arvie asked.

"Oh, just sending a little love to the empress," I said, grinning as I got back into the fight.

I switched to another ship that was heading straight for a bunch of fighters. Their plasma blasts twinkled in the twilight over Imperial Seat as they came for me, frozen for a moment.

I launched every missile I had. I didn't think this fighter was going to last very long, but if today was a good day to die then she was going to die gloriously.

The missiles tore into the imperial fighters, and then my feed went dark. Two down, six to go. But I still had some surprises in store for Her Worship.

Assuming I could last long enough.