Page 4 of There's an Elf in My Cockpit

The nose of the shuttle was heating up as we streaked through the stratosphere, we could already see the stars and the ice moon that accompanied this resort planet. Its surface was covered in electrical storms that disturbed sensor readings, making it perfect to shake a tail.

We could also see the handful of ships that orbited the planet right now, some of them big Starliners that had brought guests to visit this planet. Supply vessels came and went to keep the place in business. The Vagabond was one of them, sleek and gray, the Star Class Cruiser was accelerating as it swung around in a haphazard pattern meant to confuse anyone watching.

One other ship stood out and the moment Vi saw it, I heard her gasp, she even flinched back against my chest. One of her hands curled around my bicep, clinging to me and I felt a bit like a bastard for savoring the contact when she was obviously scared. In traders’ common a name was emblazoned on the side of the silver, sleek form. Below it writing in the elegant Elrohirian script.

There was no doubt in my mind that the shuttle chasing us belonged to this vessel, they were shaped too similarly to be a coincidence. More importantly, the ship, which was named Heroic of all things, was changing course to intercept us. A dead giveaway that they were playing for the same team.

“Woah, sweetheart, when you piss someone off, you really piss them off, don’t you?” I said. “You guys see it,” I added to Sunder who sounded much more grim when he confirmed that they were seeing the same thing.

Vi made an angry little noise in my lap, reminding me of a hissing kitten of all things. Her green eyes flashed with fire, “Piss off? I didn’t piss anyone off! This isn’t my fault!” Ah, I liked seeing that fire much more than the fear.

“Oh yeah? Tell me what the fucks’ going on then, I think we have a right to know at this point.” I gestured at the viewscreen where the Heroic had closed in rapidly and was now positioned between the Vagabond and us, appearing to cut off our avenue to safety. “Those are some big guns to chase down one errant Elrohirian.”

“Yeah, what the fuck is going on?” Lirr demanded from behind us. The sub-harmonics rumbled deeply through his voice this time, he sounded like a lion growling. Vi flinched at the sound, her eyes finding the youngster over my shoulder, they were filled with apology this time but she’d clamped up again, her lips thin as she pressed them together.

“Language Lirr,” I said, this was going to take more than a little swerving to get us off their radar, I was going to have to skim through the moon’s electrical atmosphere for a while. Behind me, the young Kertinal male made an angry growling noise at the reprimand while his peers laughed. At least none of them seemed too bothered by the sudden adventure.

“Why?” Lirr said, “The little ones aren’t here.” I couldn’t see it, but I was certain he was slouching back in his seat, his arms crossed over his chest, sulky expression firmly in place. Teens were the same everywhere, some things just never changed, no matter the species. I was actually glad to see it, Lirr and his peers had gone through far more than they should have in their short lives. They deserved a little acting out as teens.

“I know that,” I said, “But we are in the presence of a lady.” That made Vi smile again and I drew in a relieved breath. Good, now if she could just answer my damn questions, then I could figure out how to fix this. I couldn’t imagine that she’d done anything to deserve being chased down like that, but you never knew for sure. I wanted to know where I stood with her, whether I’d risked my safety and that of the teens for a good reason or not.

Lirr made an ‘aha’ noise that missed all the deep sub-harmonics of his previous statement and Vi’s smile got a little wider. I liked that, now that she’d gotten used to their presence, she seemed endeared by their boisterous presence. She couldn’t be all that bad if that was the case.

In much lower, hushed tones I could hear Darth talking to his younger friend. I couldn’t hear what was being said but Lirr was listening intently. Then the flying became much harder when the first shuttle was joined by a second from the bigger ship. Now we were being flanked by too sleek, small vessels, and their big daddy was closing in like a giant shark at our back.

I lost sight of the Vagabond when we swerved around the moon and I was forced to take us in much closer, skimming the belly of our shuttle through the top layer of electrical currents. Everything shook, the shuttle bumped and bounced with heavy turbulence, and now I wasn’t even focused on whoever was chasing us. It was all I could do to keep the shuttle stable.

“Are you sure this is a good idea?” Vi asked me, her fingers digging into my bicep where she gripped me with one hand, and my thigh with the other. I was pretty sure she was leaving marks, she was holding on so hard.

Darth chimed in from behind, “Don’t worry Miss, Olly has only been flying ships for a year and a half but he’s really good!” I winced because that only made her clutch me tighter, it was not the vote of confidence the young Tarkan meant it as. I was starting to think this was a mistake too, the ship was rattling so much that it was hurting my arms to hold the yoke straight. No choice but to persevere, there was simply no other option.

My sensors were as affected by the electrical currents racing through the moon’s atmosphere as those of our pursuers were. I was flying blind, only the viewscreens guiding me with views of the front and back of the shuttle. I had flown like that before, Kitan had made me practice flying without the sensors, but it was still making me break out in a cold sweat.

“Shut up, both of you,” I said through gritted teeth. “It will be fine, I just need to focus.” Which wasn’t as easy as I’d like right now. Vi was wriggling around in my lap, her sweet ass rubbing my cock. The adrenaline was making me hyper-aware of all my senses, touch included. The sweet, flowery scent that was all Vi was filling my nose, wafting up from the silky blonde strands of hair. Some had even gotten stuck in my beard, clinging to my face.

On the rear-view screen, I could see the sleek silver form of not one but two ships, one huge and wraith-like, the other just a silver bullet. Not good, they were still on us, how were they managing that? No one could keep their sensors going in this. Had they managed to maintain visual contact the entire time?

Desperate to get rid of them, I tilted the shuttle into the swirling heart of an extremely dense knot of currents. Hoping it would make them lose sight of us without shaking this poor little ship completely apart. One of the boys whooped with excitement, instantly hushed by Darth.

“Warning, proximity alert,” the shuttle intoned in a deadpan voice just as the turbulence leveled off. We’d made it to the other side and I had only a moment to spin the shuttle sharply to the left, the blast of a missile skimming past us. Damn it! Alarms started blaring and I realized the entire right array of thrusters was offline. I had no steering.

“Vagabond? Do you read me?” I yelled into the com, “Hang on guys, we’re going in for an emergency landing.” Or more like an emergency crash, I just hoped to God I could control it enough not to be fatal to anyone. This was an ice moon, even if we survived but the shuttle was hopelessly cracked… Without shelter, we wouldn’t last long.

I didn’t say any of those bleak thoughts, and I ignored the panicked questions from the pretty elf squirming in my lap. The boys behind me had all fallen silent, no joking, no laughing now. They realized how serious this was and when I risked a glance I realized they had all braced for impact.

Reaching the Vagabond was imperative, they had to know what happened to us so they could send a rescue party. I just wasn’t getting anything but static and then we were through the electrical currents that filled the moon’s upper layers of atmosphere. No chance of getting through now.

I was getting some control back now that I was out of zero-G and gravity was pulling harder on the shuttle. Trouble was, I could see the shape of the big ship and one of the small ones both following us down onto the moon. They must want Vi really bad if they were risking themselves in that fashion, no one willingly landed on this moon.

Keeping that to myself, I focused on getting us down to the ground in one piece. I had forward thrusters so I could slow us down like I was supposed to at this angle. Now it was just a matter of hoping that there was a sufficiently flat landing spot in the direction we were headed. I had no ability to adjust our course to the left, I could only angle us slightly to the right if I really needed to.

The crater in the snow that opened up in front of us took me by surprise because the shuttle’s sensors were still not functioning. It swallowed us up and I knew we had no choice but to land in it. We were rapidly losing altitude, the steep ice wall on the other side rising up in front of us, looming ever closer.

I yanked on the yoke with all my might, sending us in a circle to the right and then the nose of the shuttle hit the ground. We bounced, Vi screamed, someone growled a terrifying, angry noise, and then the metal of the ship groaned and screamed too. Everything seemed to bounce inside my skull; briefly filling my vision with dancing fireflies.

When everything settled a few moments later I was somehow still in one piece, and the lights were still on inside the ship. Before I could stop the impulse I had my hands on Vi’s soft body, sliding them all over her. “Are you alright? Are you hurt anywhere, sweetheart?” My heart was pounding in my chest, my jaw aching from how hard I’d clenched it, fear that I’d caused harm to the woman in my lap overruled all thoughts.

She swatted at my hands, first weakly and then much more firmly, “Stop that! I’m fine!” Then her nimble fingers had the buckles on the flight harness undone and she was gone.

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