Halfbreed Ch. 01

Allynna winked, timing it so that Mike missed seeing it when he blinked. "We'll just have to see, won't we?" She fired up the engine. The Halfbreed roared to life.

They were already in the lower atmosphere, following the ordered line of ships to the assigned checkpoint to leave orbit by the time Mike took a hard right and guided the graceful ship out, away towards the wild part of the planet, where the Colonists had yet to make any significant inroads on the native flora and fauna. Mike glanced out the window, watching the long string of blue-leafed trees rush by as the reddish horizon cast a pall across it all.

"How are we doing?" He asked idly, watching as they passed over a massive inland lake.

Allynna's eyes were locked to her heads up display. "Orbital Station sensors haven't picked us up, and we were far enough ahead in the line that the starport stopped logging us. We're in the clear."

"Your people need to install some better security measures." Mike joked, "This whole smuggling thing is almost too easy."

"This isn't Elven space, Michael." Allynna replied, "If it were the real authorities and not just these Colonial magistrates running the show, maybe it would be more difficult for us."

Mike cracked his knuckles, leaning forward eagerly as his fingers danced across the Halfbreed's flight controls. "All right, so which of these moons has got all the angry natives living on it?"

Allynna swept her fingers across her display, switching between four separate images of planetary bodies. "This one." She said, pointing at the screen then straight ahead, towards the sinking shape of a moon the size of the planet Earth on the horizon. In the harsh light of the late afternoon sun it shone a luminescent purple. "The largest one."

"Should have figured." Mike said, eyeing the planetary body. "So we make for that, hook around its orbit to dodge the Orbital defense platforms around the Colony, and then we're in the clear."

"-Assuming we don't rile the natives." She added. "There's a reason no one takes this flight path to get off planet."

"Besides honest smugglers." Mike corrected her.

"And fools." She added, glancing at him out of the corner of her eye. "...Shall we find out which we are?"

"Undoubtedly the second." He answered, gripping the throttle and pushing it to two thirds.

There was an appreciable pull upon their bodies as they were shoved back into their flight seats. Elven craftsmanship was such that the ship didn't so much as groan as it accelerated to such speeds. Soon the planetscape beneath was zipping by at too fast a rate to track with the human eye.

"We're nearing the ideal point to break atmosphere." Allynna noted, glancing behind her, down the ship's single, long hallway to get a view of the hyperdrive core at the back of the ship. "Engines are green. We're ready to make the jump once we clear the moon."

"Roger that. Let's go meet the stars." Mike said, trying but failing to suppress a grin as he pulled up on the flight stick and brought the Halfbreed to a near vertical angle.

The empty, orange sky stared back at them. Mike took in the sight of three moons hovering above them and let out a low whistle. "Say what you will about Charity, it's got a hell of a nighttime view."

"That it does." Allynna said. She almost sounded wistful. "Clearing the atmosphere in three... two..."

There was a sensation, almost like a bubble popping, and then the ship began to respond less sluggishly to Mike's command. He smiled, looking out across the vast expanse of black and stars as he adjusted his trajectory towards the native moon. "Maybe someday you'll get a planet like this of your own, just to look up and admire the view, huh?"

Allynna shook her head. "My father always told me that the view from space was better than anything you could hope to see on the ground."

Mike laughed, tilting the ship so that the native moon filled the cockpit's view. "Your father was also a Navy brat."

"As was I." Allynna said.

"Yeah, but I don't hold that against you." Mike responded. "You've got more of your Uncle in you than your Dad."

"You've never even met my father!" Allynna responded, scandalized. Elves took their family lineage altogether too seriously sometimes.

"No, I haven't," Mike agreed, "But I've heard enough about him to know he's got all your worst qualities."

"Thank Heruen he didn't hear you say that." Allynna hissed, "He'd have fired on the Halfbreed for the indignity and the insult... with me inside."

"Two birds with one stone for him then, huh?" Mike said, chuckling to himself.

"...What?" Allynna asked, tilting her head. "The translator came out garbled. I don't understand what you just-"

"Nothing." Mike said quickly. "It's just a Human saying." The Halfbreed was now skimming above the upper atmosphere of the Colony's moon, a continental body with thick forests and deep seas. It was the only other habitable planet in the solar system. "How long before we can break orbit?"

"Five minutes." She said, checking the instruments. "We need to be on the opposite side of the moon to the Colony, so they don't register us when we jump."

"What's got the natives so riled up, anyway?" Mike said, glancing down upon the moon and its pristine, spotless beauty. "They went from cooking fires to power cores in the space of a year thanks to the Colonists."

"Not all pre-spaceflight civilizations respond the same way to sudden technological advancement." Allynna said. "The Colonists also colonized the planet their moon orbits."

"That's just the entry fee to get into the Galactic clubhouse. It's not like they landed on their homeworld." Mike said, glancing up as a light on his dashboard suddenly went red. "...Something spiked the long range sensors."

Allynna swiveled her head, bringing up the sensor array. A wide grid of light spread across her face, illuminating her Elven features. She quickly pinpointed the anomaly. "It's a ship. A fighter."

"Pirates?" Mike asked.

"It's got Orcish Tribal markings on the wings." She confirmed, zooming in on the pinprick and enhancing the image.

"Native Pirates." Mike clucked his tongue, reaching for the throttle. "What's its make?"

"It's of Human design, but clearly modified." She replied, her lips twisting with distaste. "It'll catch up to the Halfbreed before we can make the jump."

"Roger that. Strap in Aly, we're gonna do some evasives."

Mike punched it, sending the Halfbreed hurtling forward as he struggled to keep a firm grip on the throttle. The blip on the screen kept getting closer.

"Two more fighters ascending to the upper atmosphere from the northern pole!" Allynna said, her voice carrying with it a chilling hint of worry. "They're of a similar make to the first one, making a direct course for us."

"Charge the guns." Mike said, "We're going to have to fight our way out of this."

Mike began to drift his course to the right, attempting to put distance between himself and the pair of ships coming from the poles to his left. The first pursuer continued to gain on him, coming up from the rear. Allynna watched with worry as the ships began to converge on them.

"They're coordinating. This is an attack, Michael."

"So I gathered." He said, glancing about his flight screen. He flicked a few switches. "Countermeasures are prepped. The second you detect the plume from a missle shot, deploy them."

"Affirmative." Allynna said. All business.

Mike kept drifting further to the right in a lazy turn, counting on the two ships coming at his left to start anticipating his flight path. True to expectation, the Orcish fighters began to match his drift, quickening their approach even as proximity alarms began blaring in the cockpit.

"Hold on." Mike said, gritting his teeth. He banked left and hauled back in the flight stick. The Halfbreed groaned and shuddered, its engine dimming as Mike pulled back on the throttle, then floored it once he had readjusted. Instead of the fighters coming at the ship from an angle, the Halfbreed was now hurtling towards them at top speed.

Head to head. The perfect engagement for an Elf ship. "Switch the shields to full front." Mike said, spinning up the auto-cannons. He had a dead lock on one of the fighters.

"Already done." Allynna said. "The other fighter is fifteen seconds out to our left."

"Won't need that long." Mike said, depressing the trigger. A streak of green spurted out past either edge of the cockpit window, as a stream of caramelized Thorium slugs fired out at an astounding rate. The ship was rocked by a string of red laser blasts that struck the Halfbreed head on, dissipating harmlessly against the ship's modified shield array.

The autocannons fired true. The first Orcish fighter was annihilated immediately, the slugs ripping through its inadequate shields and tearing the ship to pieces. It exploded when its fuel tank was hit, the vacuum venting the flames out into space, snuffing the cataclysm out almost immediately. Mike banked right, expecting the second Orcish fighter to dodge in that direction. It juked him, cutting left too late for Mike to course correct.

"Shit. Only got the first one." He cursed, continuing the turn so as to keep the two remaining fighters chasing him from separate directions, preventing them from regrouping with one another.

"We've got a missile launch." Allynna said. "...And another."

"We don't have enough Countermeasures to shake their entire arsenal." Mike said. "We're gonna have to ditch them."

"Where? If we go back to Charity now the Port Authority will impound us." Allynna said. There was a note of strain in her voice.

Mike shook his head, "Elves aren't known for thinking outside the box, Aly. And you are a prime example of that."

"...Outside the-?"

"It means you'd never think to do this!" He shouted, shoving the flight stick forward into a sudden dive towards the native moon. The Halfbreed shuddered just slightly as they plummeted. Allynna - to her credit - took the sudden change in stride, recognizing immediately Mike's intent.

"Countermeasures activated. We shook the first two missiles." Her hands were a blur of movement as the Halfbreed broke into the upper atmosphere.

"They'll be coming in hot behind us." Mike said, "Once we're at the point where we can make the jump, we head back out into space and lose them in the climb through the atmosphere."

"The shields will take a beating." Allynna murmured, switching the polarities so that the flank of the ship was reinforced.

"This bitch can take it." Mike said, patting the dashboard before diving in a sharper, more direct angle towards the ground. The bright foliage of the planet rushed up to meet them, an untamed coverage of thick jungle. Just shy of a thousand meters from the treetops Mike yanked back on the throttle and flight stick simultaneously, dropping to a near hover before punching the engines, streaking across the canopy cover.

"They're coming in from above." Allynna said.

"Let them." Mike replied.

True to her prediction, a series of shudders rocked the ship. The pair of fighters had opened up with their autocannons, spraying the top of the Halfbreed with a burst of concentrated fire. Mike banked left, skirting a small mountain range. He cut the engines to a third, weaving between the individual peaks in an effort to confound his pursuers. True to his tactic, they were soon level with him in altitude, attempting to pursue rather than engage from above.

Once the mountain range ended Mike gunned the engines once more, gaining a few precious seconds on his pursuers as he began a slow, methodical climb. "How are we doing?" He asked, sweat beading on his forehead as he struggled to maintain tactical superiority over his faster, more maneuverable opponents.

Allynna's mouth was a flat line. "About a minute out from the ideal jump point."

We'll find that spare minute right next to my nonexistent sex life. Mike thought, casting a short glance at Allynna before snapping his attention back to the danger of the moment.

"Brace yourself. We're about to take a beating."

The hull of the Elven craft shivered and shook. It shuddered in a manner that Mike had never felt from it before. He cut the throttle, dialing back so that the fighters were forced to overcorrect when his turn became far sharper than they could manage going at the speed that they were. The Halfbreed jumped ahead again, buying a few more precious moments of space at the cost of yet another maneuver they'd now be looking for him to pull.

"Michael-" Allynna said, her voice rising.

"I know! I know!" He said, staring at the near-empty shield gauge. He rotated the Halfbreed's turrets, "Finally got a straight shot at them!"

He pressed the trigger, green death firing back towards the now exposed Native ships. A Thorium slug clipped the nearest fighter, slashing its left wing in half and sending it spinning into the nearby mountainside, where it exploded with enough force to send dirt sailing hundreds of feet into the air.

The second fighter throttled back, dipping out of range of the Halfbreed's autocannons to regroup. Mike let out a whoop. "He's giving up the chase!"

"Michael!" Allynna shouted. The desperate emotion he heard in her voice startled him. His eyes settled upon the source of her horror: a fourth blip on the radar. It had snuck up on them in the midst of the dogfight, coming at a hitherto unexpected angle from his right. There was the telltale plume of a missile launch coming from the fighter's wing.

Mike reached for the flight stick to continue to maneuver, but was yanked back hard against his seat. A shockwave rolled through the Halfbreed, a shuttering screech that knocked Mike senseless. He lost consciousness for a moment, the force of the impact causing him to blink repeatedly to try to clear the unfamiliar fog from his mind.

They were plummeting. His fluttering eyes struggled to open as he felt the chilling pull of wind on his face. Mike rolled his neck down and to the right so he could stare, blankly at the gaping hole that had been made in his ship. The explosion had ripped through the Halfbreed's shields and torn through the entire starboard section of the ship's body, just behind the cockpit.

He could see the ground hurtling up towards them through the breach. They'd lost all engine thrust, the silver ship spinning back and again in an interminable circle as klaxons blared and lights faded in the cockpit. Mike felt a rush of vertigo as the gyroscope-stabilizers sputtered and died.

He glanced over, seeing Aly still at the controls. Her face was a tense mask, and her hair fell about her eyes like yellow stalks of vines. Her teeth were gritted, and she was furiously attempting to hold what little remained of the flight computer's systems together.

Mike admired her for that: fighting for the Halfbreed even as the poor girl plunged towards her inevitable fate.

Mike reached up, flipping the kill-switch on the controls as the cockpit entered lockdown. A thick shield engulfed the immediate area, shutting down the rest of the ship and killing off any chance of salvaging what remained. Aly's fingers froze above her controls as the flight screen dimmed to black. She cast her gaze in Mike's direction, and the two shared a long look.

Despite her supposedly blank expression, Mike could see the frustration and desperation written like letters across Allynna's severe, Elven face. She wasn't ready to give up. She never was. The thought made him want to smile, despite everything.

"It's just a ship, Aly." He said, right before they made impact with the ground.