Page 1 of There's an Elf in My Cockpit

Chapter 1

Oliver

I was so freaking glad to escape the crowd for a moment, that I didn’t even hesitate to volunteer for pilot duty. I’d rather be ferrying people up to the Vagabond than stay at that guesthouse a moment longer. Geez, who’d have thought that a dozen teenagers and an almost equal amount of ex-gladiators could make that much noise? I chuckled at my own thought, yeah of course I should have known, it was like a herd of stampeding elephants in there.

Jogging up the beach from the house we’d rented for a couple of days, I cut through some back streets just as the first dawn light started streaking across the horizon. Nobody wanted to leave this early except me, I loved that hush before first light. Maybe that was crazy, definitely crazy according to some of the ladies of the ship, but I didn’t care. If I had a girlfriend, I might not be as eager to leave my bed each day, but since I was the only bachelor on the ship; rising early it was.

Dropping into the pilot chair, I found that meditative space as I worked through the pre-flight checklist. I’d learned this skill quickly once I’d joined the crew on the Vagabond and it always grounded me. It wasn’t anything familiar from my days before the abduction, but I’d always been a quick study.

A year and a half ago I’d woken up on a desolate mining planet along with one other human guy. We’d been surrounded by aliens, unable to understand a thing they said until they’d painfully installed the translator implants. For a few weeks, I’d been forced to work in the mines alongside the strangest of alien species while my compatriot was being tortured for information.

I learned a few things very quickly during that time. One, I’d ended up in the future somehow, several hundred years into it. Two, that other dude, he was from said future too, he was almost as alien as the aliens we were surrounded with. And three, you couldn’t rely on anyone but yourself out there. I didn’t believe anyone was going to rescue me, and I’d been resigned to die trying to escape or to die in that freaking mine.

Then Tori and her male Eoin showed up and they did rescue me and all the others trapped there. I had to remake my life out here in the Zeta Quadrant, and unlike that other human, I had no idea what this new world looked like or what the rules were. I thought it prudent to stick around with the people whose moral compasses matched my own so I’d stayed on the Vagabond.

I liked all the guys on the ship, they had a brotherhood that was similar to the bonds I’d formed with my buddies in the military. Then there were the plucky human women they had for mates as they called it, it was like gaining ten sisters overnight. Yeah, I was really glad to get away from all that sometimes, but I loved being part of the family as the single fun uncle to their kids.

The main pilot for the Vagabond and his mate picked up the other shuttle once I’d already ferried up a group of gladiators, kids, and women. We’d come to this place to show a group of rescued kids how to have a good time, they’d been teenagers slated to become gladiators, with the appropriate training mostly complete. It made sense for ex-gladiators to be their mentors, they understood better than anyone what they’d been through.

I was on my way down again for the last batch, five teens led by their oldest peer, a serious fellow by the name of Darth. I tried not to think of a certain sci-fi franchise from my own childhood too much each time I had to call him by name. I just needed to pick up this last group and we were clear to leave this resort planet.

I was so ready to go, this place was boring as fuck. After my military days, I’d been a wilderness guide for years, taking experienced campers up the hardest climbs in my favorite National Park. This planet had zero interesting climbs, even less to do in regard to extreme sports, and I’d been bored out of my skull when we weren’t actively playing games with the teens.

Landing the shuttle on the strip of grass that was our designated landing spot, I got up from the chair, ready to fetch my last group of passengers. I ducked out of the hatch, half hoping they’d already be there waiting for me. These were teens supervised by a nineteen-year-old, I seriously doubted they managed to be punctual. In fact, I was willing to bet they’d gotten distracted on the beach by the pretty female guests. I probably had to go fetch them.

Raising my com to my mouth as I strode across the shimmering dark green grass, I hit up Darth to see what they were doing. My eyes lingered on the single other person crossing the landing area. Long slender legs encased in candy cane stockings immediately drew my eye, not to mention the sexy curves showcased by the tight green little dress she wore. Woah, where had they been hiding her all this time? This place wouldn’t have been so boring if I had that to look at.

I laughed at myself just as Darth answered, I was no better than those teens, letting a sexy girl distract me. “Yo, Olly what’s up?” one of the boys yelled far too loudly into Darth’s com, definitely not Darth himself because he always sounded serious. I could hear the rowdy sounds of a scuffle as if the guys were wrestling around, probably the reason it wasn’t Darth answering the device strapped to his very own wrist.

“Where are you? We’re ready to go, get your asses to the landing strip.” I said, I wasn’t a hundred percent certain, but I thought it might be Lirr who’d answered, that distinct Kertinal dual-toned speech hadn’t fully developed yet, but it was starting to show.

“Oh, uh, where are we?” Lirr said, and several voices, one over the other, hurried to answer. I couldn’t make out anything other than the word beach so I firmly told them to stay exactly where they were, I’d fetch them. It would be just my luck if I had to bail these youngsters out of trouble with the resort security at the very last moment.

Orienting myself towards the beach I started walking at a jog but I couldn’t help myself, twisting my neck to get a last look at that sexy lady. I skidded to a stop immediately, what the heck? She was attempting to open the shuttle, my shuttle, by waving one dainty hand over the panel beside the hatch. Why the fuck was she trying to get into my ship? Was she a thief? I couldn’t imagine it, not dressed in what I knew were the resort colors, red and green.

Actually, now that I thought about it, on her, the look was a bit Christmassy. Maybe that was because she was Elrohirian, she looked like an elf. Long blonde hair drifted down around her shoulders all the way to her gently curved behind. A big red sack was slung over one shoulder, bulky with the shapes of many differently sized objects pressing against the fabric from inside.

“Hey, what do you want?” I called out to her, but there was quite some distance to cross and she didn’t seem to hear. I had to get back and find out what this was about, I couldn’t let some stranger sniff around our ship, even if she was the sexiest thing I’d seen in months. And then my mischievous side struck, my curiosity getting the best of me. I tapped my com to remotely open the shuttle and watched as she jogged inside.

“Hey, Darth?” I said, calling the young male a second time. He actually answered, sounding put out but not winded. “I need you to wrangle your troop into submission and meet me on the landing pad, after all. I’ve got an intruder to deal with.”

The male was instantly on high alert, “Yes Oliver, I’ll take care of it. Do you need us to come in hot? We can provide backup if you need it.” He was almost eager to put himself, and his buddies, to the test, to prove they could do a good job. There was a reason males like them had been selected for the gladiator program, besides their obvious size, they had a temperament for it too. They needed action, even craved it.

“Nah, I got this. There’s only one, just hurry up. Don’t let them get into any more trouble.” I signed off with an excited feeling in my stomach which I gave free reign. It helped to know that Darth was doing his absolute best to get his troop of wayward teens to the shuttle in a prompt manner. Likely, the thought that action was going down without them was enough of a carrot to get them moving.

Jogging the final stretch to the shuttle, I ducked inside to deal with my intruder, a grin on my face. Yeah, that definitely looked like one of Santa’s little helpers standing right in the middle of the shuttle’s cockpit. That is, the adult version of an elf, the sexy kind I wanted to have in my lap.

She had the bulky red sack at her feet as she anxiously looked around the shuttle, a confused expression on her pretty features. The Caratan chain that each Elrohirian wore dangled merrily from her nose ring along her cheek, attached to a little hoop in her earlobe. Her eyes were the brightest of greens, her hair so blonde it was almost white, and her figure was lovingly hugged by the snug green dress.

“Oh,” she said, her mouth forming a perfect little ‘O’ as she turned in my direction and spotted me. “I think I might have the wrong ship…” She flipped her hair over her shoulder, a hint of red streaking across her cheekbones. Out of all the alien species out there in the Zeta Quadrant, the Elrohirian looked almost entirely human, they just had glowing eyes and pointed ears. Hers were sticking delicately up through her long locks, dainty and pretty.

This woman was also so completely my type that it was almost like she’d walked out of my boyhood wet dreams and into this cockpit. I wanted to keep looking at her for as long as she’d let me.

*

Vi

Heart pounding, I walked along the cheerful boardwalk. The waves were crashing big and purple onto the black sand of the beach on my left, echoing my nervous mood. I felt exposed out here this early in the morning when there were no crowds to blend in with. What if he was already on the planet? What if he was looking for me right now? No, I shouldn’t think like that, the agency had assured me that this relocation had been top secret. No one knew, not even my family.

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