Page 18 of There’s an Elf in My Cockpit

Oliver

My girl was completely lost in thought since we’d passed the hole. Not in a dangerous way, she was carefully watching her footing, her ice axes at the ready, just not open to any kind of conversation. Truthfully, neither was I. The sight of that hole had deeply unsettled me, it had filled me with unholy rage. I was, now more than ever, convinced that waiting for the Elrohirian justice system to catch this bastard wasn’t going to be fast enough. I wanted to erase the threat to my woman as soon as possible.

The violent thoughts surging through my brain didn’t bother me either. I had quickly learned that in the Zeta Quadrant living by the same code as I had on Earth was only going to get me killed. The laws here were different, varied even depending on what planet you were on. So I had embraced the code by which the gladiators on the Vagabond lived by. They were good males, and training with them over the past year had instilled me with the deepest respect for how they treated their mates and their peers.

They would definitely agree that making sure Elpherian never left this moon was the right thing to do. Even Thorin, who was Elrohirian himself, and a former police officer at that, would stand in line to help me cut the proverbial brake line.

I wasn’t going to tell my little elf about the things I was thinking though. She liked it when I was bossy sometimes, but I was certain that hearing me utter such violent thoughts might turn her away from me. She’d been stuck with a vile male like Elpherian and ran for a good reason after all.

A plan was already forming in my mind. Kitan and Da’vi were probably the males who had come down to the surface to help us with the shuttle. I could take the shapeshifter Sune with me, locate Elpherian’s ship, and do some very serious damage. Somehow, I didn’t think our host would be as helpful to the criminal as he’d been to us.

Thinking of our strange host made the fine hairs on the back of my neck stand on end and I lifted my head to look uneasily over my shoulder. Since we’d left the ice castle, I hadn’t quite managed to shake the feeling that someone was watching us. I hadn’t seen the strange shadow that Vi had described seeing twice, and I had wanted to dismiss it as a figment of imagination, brought on by exhaustion. I couldn’t though, Vi had been too earnest in describing it, with very consistent details. And I just felt it in my bones, that it was true, and that even though we couldn’t see it right now, it was still watching us. Him, our strange, beastly host.

It made me set a faster pace than was comfortable and when the edge of the crater came into sight I realized that might be a mistake. We’d burned a lot of energy just on that intense eight-hour hike just now. It was a bad idea to make the climb down when we were both tired. I knew my own limits and I was certain I was still good enough to do it, but was Vi? I didn’t really want to ask her. I could already tell by the red in her cheeks and the determined tilt of her pretty pink mouth that she was still walking due to sheer willpower. She had that in spades though, and I couldn’t be more proud.

“I’m going to try and see if I can hail Darth or Kitan on their com,” I said, making a decision right there. We were close enough, that they could spot us from the sky, Kitan would be able to pick us up from here. I halted, and with just a tug on the rope tethering my elf safely to my waist, I started to reel her in.

Darth answered almost immediately and this time the connection between us was crystal clear. The deep rumble of his voice was tinged with a hint of excitement, “Are you almost back, Olly? Is Vi with you?” I wanted to growl at him and ask him why the fuck he was so interested in my girl. She was none of his business. I reined myself in because Darth was just a teenager and Vi wasn’t interested in him, there was no need to be jealous or territorial.

“The two of us are near the edge of the crater but dark is coming, we don’t want to make the descent now. Did Kitan arrive with help? Can he fly up and fetch us with the second shuttle?” Vi had reached me now and I wrapped her up in my arms, tugging her as close to my body as I could. She came willingly, resting her head against my chest beneath my chin and I cherished the feeling of the escaped strands of her hair that clung to my beard, tying us together.

“We’ll be right up,” Darth said, and then the connection cut before I could tell the male that he didn’t need to accompany the pilot. We had gotten back to the crater without any incident, but that didn’t mean I trusted it. Elpherian had made his crew dig a huge crater to locate Vi’s body, he wasn’t giving up and would be watching for any sign of life.

With that feeling of unseen eyes on me, I couldn’t shake the thought that I was mistaking what I thought was our host for spies for the Elrohirian criminal. As long as we were exposed out here, I wouldn’t breathe easy and the last thing I wanted was an over-eager teenager to show up and possibly get caught up in some kind of attack.

I tightened my grip around the ice ax I was still holding and then actually tucked that in the loop on my leg and grabbed the pistol instead. Vi didn’t comment but I knew she saw me do it, she just turned her sharp, glowing green eyes on our surroundings, keeping watch as much as I was while we waited.

The flap of wings came first, and I turned, raising the laser pistol and then lowering it again with a curse. The Tarkan teenager hadn’t even hitched a ride, safely, with Kitan on the shuttle. No, he was flying out of the crater on his own, his huge leathery wings beating quickly in the frigid air. Dumbass, he had to be freezing his wingtips off right now, considering he had no pelt or coat to protect the thin leather membranes from the temperatures.

Rising higher, he circled three times before his eyes landed on the two of us. Then he darted in our direction, wings outspread as he soared in a graceful arc to the ice near us. Vi was enthusiastically waving at him, but she kept herself tucked against my body. When he got closer I realized there was someone clinging to his back and my stomach went cold. I recognized that blue color; had Darth taken Belal up here?

Darth’s feet touched the ice and Belal leaped off his back and ducked around the wings to peek at us. I could see hesitation in those big yellow eyes, his weight pitched a little more to the side, leaning on the leg that hadn’t been broken a few days ago. “Belal! You’re up!” Vi exclaimed, and now she did push herself out of my arms and headed for the young Hoxiam.

Her warm welcome was all the invitation Belal needed to scuttle across the ice toward my elf. He briefly dropped on all fours for greater speed and then he accepted a warm hug from Vi while she babbled happily about how glad she was to see him and how good he’d healed. As a Hoxiam, Belal was probably the only species down on the planet (except our host) that was made for this kind of weather The thick blue pelt had several layers with different types of hair to insulate him from wetness and cold, this probably felt like nice weather to him. Which was why he was only down to a pair of shorts while the rest of us were all wrapped up in parkas and snow boots and such.

The glowing expression on the kid’s face was enough to make me swallow any reprimand for Darth about taking him up here. It also helped that Darth wasn’t even looking at Vi, he just headed directly for me to clasp my wrist in greeting. “Good to see you, Olly. We were worried you guys weren’t going to make it before dark. Kitan was ready to start searching for you.”

As if his words had summoned him, the nose of one of the Vagabond’s shuttles rose over the edge of the crater. A spotlight blinked on to illuminate us in the fading evening light. The night here came on quick, and though the sun was still hovering on the edge of the horizon, painting the ice in beautiful shades of pink and orange right now, it wouldn’t last very long.

The shuttle rose some more, then crossed the several hundred feet between us and the edge of the crater in seconds to come in for a landing behind us. My skin prickled with unease, worried that the ice might not be able to hold the weight of the vehicle but it landed without incident. As soon as the hatch opened I was reeling Vi and Belal in, tucking both under my arms and steering them for the ship. I wanted us out of the open as quickly as possible.

The lack of a sighting from Elpherian was making me extremely uneasy, I hated that I had no idea of his location. But the sight of Chloe and Kitan at the front of the shuttle made me smile, briefly shaking the worried thoughts from my mind.

The navigator was a small human woman with a choppy haircut that suited her pixy-like features. She had the big Sune pilot wrapped around her pinky finger. He was currently in his hybrid-form, which made him look like a fox and a human crossed together. His rangy form was big and muscular, covered in a thick orange pelt, and his snout pulled into a wicked grin.

“Brother,” the fox-like male said, “Why the fuck did you have to crash on a freaking ice moon of all things? I’m freezing my balls off here.” He was hit in the stomach by a pointy elbow from his mate and his grin turned even wider. “Ah, nice to meet you is what I meant to say. I’m Kitan, and this is my mate Chloe.”

Vi laughed, the sound tinkling like chimes, filling the interior of the shuttle with her amusement. I fucking loved that sound, and I was happy that she was relaxing while she met more of my friends. They could be overwhelming to most people but I had a feeling that Vi was going to fit right in and I couldn’t wait to see it.

Darth didn’t enter the ship, grabbing the chance to fly before we were back on the Vagabond, and Belal strapped himself in right next to my girl with a wide smile stretching his far too-large mouth. Hoxiam were rarely welcome anywhere because of the bad name their species had. All thanks to the much more visible but small sub-faction that liked to eat the flesh of intelligent species. That Vi had shown so much maternal care right from the start had clearly made him form some kind of attachment.

For a woman who claimed she didn’t inspire loyalty, a woman who seemed inclined to run when things got intense… She was not shying away from this and doing everything right to make the kid feel accepted. I was pretty sure that seeing her lean over to wrap her arm around his still slender shoulders was the final drop. I loved this woman, I already knew that, but for a moment I was so filled with it that all I could do was sit and stare. Probably with a dopey grin on my face if the looks of Kitan and Chloe were anything to go by.

Yeah, I loved this woman and I would go to the ends of the galaxy to make sure that she knew it too.