Page 7 of There's an Elf in My Cockpit

Should that criminal asshole find the boys I was certain he’d be too chuffed about the treasure trove he’d found to really hurt them. Trained to be gladiators, each kid was worth a fortune, and considering they once belonged to the fallen Crimelord Drameil would hike up their price even more. They were collector’s items now, sick as it was.

Vi stood with her feet planted next to me just outside the shuttle’s hatch. It had already been closed behind her to preserve the heat in the little ship; I wished I could just stuff her back inside so she wouldn’t have to face this awful cold. Not only that, but the ship was stuck inside a huge crater, we had a nasty ice climb ahead of us first; it wasn’t for the faint of heart.

Not that Vi appeared to be faint-hearted, she looked cute and fierce in her thick, puffy snow clothing. Camila’s emergency gear had turned out to fit her slender figure the best, which actually meant she had straps and extra pockets all over her body to stow weapons. An amazing shot, Camila went on every mission the gladiators went on, providing long-range backup with her laser rifle. Too bad that laser rifle wasn’t aboard the shuttle now, I would have liked to have it.

At least I could admire the way the straps and pockets emphasized Vi’s figure even through all the layers. Everything was white or light blue to help blend with the ice around us. Her snow-white hair made her seem to fit right into this biome like she was meant to be here.

She was shouldering the backpack I’d put together for her without complaint too, like it didn’t weigh anything. Maybe that was because she wasn’t human, Elrohirian’s had different muscle attachments, allowing for greater strength without losing precision. She still looked like she didn’t weigh much at all like a good gust of wind would blow her over.

“Let’s go, human,” she said, offering me a slight smile over the thick white scarf that protected the lower half of her face. She had snow goggles just like me to protect her eyes from the sharp glare of sunlight bouncing off all the white around us. Mine just appeared to work like the glass of sunglasses worked, but on Vi, the glow of her green eyes shimmered through the tinted eye protection. Giving the goggles a weird murky yellow glow.

“Let’s go,” I agreed, and I shouldered my own, much bigger backpack and started for the crater wall. I’d scouted with Darth earlier and the young male had flown to the top to ensure that this was a safe route for me to attempt to climb out. He’d put anchors in along the way so all I had to do was climb to each one to secure the rope and Vi could safely follow behind me.

Too bad the male’s wings were not quite developed enough yet to carry me up that wall. He might be able to manage Vi but I didn’t want to risk that or allow the youngster the chance to hold her for that long. I was starting to doubt my sanity, was I any better for making her risk the climb, just because I was feeling a little possessive?

At the bottom of the steep ice cliff, I expected her to balk or hesitate but she didn’t do either of those things. Just appraised the height of the first anchor that we could see a good fifty feet above our heads. That was a long fall onto the ice, I very likely wouldn’t survive it if I messed up, so I wasn’t going to. Darth’s opinion on what were good heights for anchors was far different from mine, considering that he was a creature of flight, and in that young ‘I’m invincible’ phase on top of it.

Getting our gear ready took a moment as I wanted to triple-check everything before we started. Maybe I was more nervous about Vi falling than I wanted to admit. This is why I hadn’t wanted to take her with me. This climb would test most experienced climbers, and I had no idea what kind of skills she had. “Please tell me you’ve done ice climbing before,” I found myself asking, ice axes in hand when I was supposed to get started.

She made a soft, tinkling laughing noise behind me, and I could feel her eyes burning into the back of my head. “That would have been convenient, wouldn’t it? No, I have not ice climbed before, but I climbed in the mountains of Hiral, and I cliff leaped at the Ravar cliffs. Does that help? I do believe Hiral involved similar tools to those you are holding now.”

When I glanced back she was holding her own set of ice axes, nimbly spinning them in her hands. She really was a fucking elf, even if I couldn’t see her ears right now, tucked beneath the white cap on her head. I couldn’t overestimate her ability, but I had to remember that she was not a human woman, she was Elrohirian, and their physical abilities were superior to those of humans. I had to admit that she might end up being better at this than I was, and I had rarely been out-competed by someone as pint-sized as she was.

I started the climb, making steady headway while I called down instructions to the woman climbing just to my right and beneath me. She was hanging on like a trooper, never letting tension pull on the rope tethering us together. I still didn’t breathe easy until I’d made it to the first anchor, which I again triple-checked before I trusted my weight to it. Only seven more anchors to go before we made it to the top.

My muscles ached and burned by the time I dragged myself over the edge, but I didn’t rest until I’d pulled Vi out of the crater with me. I was tired from the climb, but also warm and limbered up, with a short rest, I was happy to tackle the long hike ahead of us. Vi was a little more winded but she’d made it up with admirable skill and stamina. Definitely not something an untrained human could have done, male or female; that was a tough climb for a beginner.

“So, Hiral and Havar,” I said conversationally while I secured our gear and backpacks, making sure that we were leaving this area in such a way that we could easily make the climb back down again when we returned. “Those common tourist spots?” I had never heard of either place but they sounded Elrohirian.

She shook her head, not responding to my question but staring off into the distance to my right. Whatever she had fixated on, either it was in her mind, or it was something I couldn’t see. Pulling free the small lens that functioned much like binoculars, I aimed it in the direction she was looking. Ah, the ship that was following us, partially submerged in a snowy protrusion. There were little specks moving around the base of the ship so at least some of them had survived their rocky landing.

Vi turned around, a sunny expression on her face that was entirely forced. “No, Hiral and Ravar are mostly spots the thrill seekers like to visit, a bit too advanced for the average tourist.” She was distracting herself from the sight of the ship with small talk now, and I was willing to let her.

So she wasn’t as much of a beginner as I thought, no wonder she’d done so well on the climb. I wondered if I would have been more willing to let her come with me if I’d known all that earlier. Probably not. Though I liked that she was a thrill seeker as much as I was. My idea of vacation was definitely not sitting on my ass in the sand with a silly drink with an umbrella in it.

“Can they see us from that far?” I asked, there was cover on our left, it wasn’t far but we’d have to hustle and I wasn’t sure how stable the ice surface was. On Earth, I’d once crossed a glacier with a couple of buddies, the way the ice moved meant that huge ice crevices could be hidden beneath a thin layer of ice and snow. We had walked spread out, with ropes spread between each of us in case someone did fall. As a precaution, we’d have to do the same here.

“They might if they are trying hard enough,” Vi responded, not pretending she didn’t know what I was talking about. So we broke out into a jog without speaking, spreading out across the ice to let the rope grow taut between us, and headed for the raised spikes of ice on our left so we could duck behind them.

Once we reached them and out were of sight of the hostile ship, I slowed down our pace and checked our heading. Then it was just a matter of finding what worked best for both of us as we started chipping away at the distance between us and our objective. It wasn’t long before we fell into a rhythm together.

A few hours later I finally let us take a break. We’d spent the hike so far in complete silence, both of us focused on our footing far too much for small talk. Sitting down on our backpacks while we shared some water and warm food I commented, “I should have known you’d do well in this kind of terrain, being one of Santa’s little helpers.” Then I wished I could take that back, she wouldn’t have a clue as to what that even meant.

Her expression was sweet and confused above the thick scarf around her neck, her Caratan jingling when she shook her head. “Please explain, you say the strangest things.” On the Vagabond where I’d lived for a year and a half, I’d celebrated Christmas with the humans and the alien gladiators once. They didn’t need explanations, they knew, because everyone loved that particular celebration. Even the young gladiators back on the shuttle knew about it and they were supposed to be sticking around to join in the festivities next week. It made it easy to forget that not all aliens knew what it was.

“Santa is a mythical figure on Earth that we like to celebrate with presents and a feast and stuff, he lives on the Northpole which is covered in ice. His helpers are elves and well, they look much like you, especially in that get-up from before.” My explanation was bare bones but it clearly got the message across.

Laughing at what I said, the ice world around us briefly really did seem magical. “I like that, I can be an elf.” She fingered the chain on her cheek with a gloved hand. I imagined the metal jewelry had to be freezing cold against her skin but she wasn’t taking it off. Vividly recalling the candy cane stockings beneath that flirty green dress I silently amended to myself that only the sexy elves looked like her, the ones not meant for the kids.

She wasn’t wearing the dress or stockings now, but I’d made sure to stow them on the shuttle so they wouldn’t get lost. The chemistry between the two of us was sizzling and I just knew that she felt it too. Once I convinced her that I was a good guy to date, I’d convince her to wear those stockings for me to bed and nothing else.

Those thoughts were enough to keep me warm as we continued our hike, staying a little closer together this time as the wind was picking up and snow and sleet were starting to whip us from all directions. It wasn’t as safe as I liked, but it wasn’t good to lose sight of one another either, we were instinctively seeking the comfort of seeing the other as we walked.

When I had to check our heading for the fourth time in less than ten minutes I knew the weather was starting to get too extreme to keep going. On top of that, darkness was suddenly falling, much more rapidly than I expected. That wasn’t safe, once it was dark we wouldn’t be able to see any of the possible dangers ahead of us.

“Let’s call it a day,” I announced, my words getting ripped away by the rapid winds filled with ice and snow. I could feel the tiny flakes hit any exposed skin like tiny needles of ice. Vi looked immensely relieved when I said that and I wondered if she’d been soldiering on for much longer than she really wanted, pushing herself past her limits so she wouldn’t slow me down. I should have checked on her much more often, a fatigued hiking partner was worse than a slow one.

“Sit down,” I ordered her when I pulled out my fold-out shovel, I could see that she was moving to grab the one strapped to her bag. “I’ll take care of this, you rest.” She was in shape to have kept up as long as she had after that exhausting climb, but now her stamina was running out. I would be faster if I built the snow shelter myself, and she’d save her strength for the rest of the walk tomorrow.

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