Halfbreed Ch. 04

"Ow! Watch the jacket!" Mike protested as Lashvara shoved him into the prison cell with way more force than was necessary. The Orc manhandled the puny earthling, keeping his head pointed at the ground, with her hand firm against the back of his neck as she waddle-walked him into the room.

Someone gasped. Mike tried to lift his head up to see who was there, but the Orc held him by the scruff of his neck. She pressed something into the manacles behind his back. Click went the restraints, and suddenly Mike could move his arms again.

"Your prince returns." Lashvara grunted to whomever was in front of her. "Seems he has even less common sense than you do."

Without waiting for him to recover she pulled the manacles off of his wrists and then shoved him forward. Mike toppled to the ground, only just catching himself with his hands on the green nylon carpeting at the foot of the bed as the door slid shut behind him. There was a beep, and the latch locked into place.

He picked himself up off the floor, letting out an annoyed expulsion of air as he brushed himself off. The room revealed itself to be a small 10x10 cell, with a double bed and comfortable accommodations. His eyes settled upon the only other person in the room and-

"Aly!" He blurted out, his heart leaping out of his chest as he caught sight of the blonde Elf. She stood in the center of the room, looking equally stunned at the development. He resisted the urge to rush over and embrace her.

Neither said anything to the other for several heartbeats. Allynna's eyes were glued onto his like she'd just seen a ghost. An awkward silence filled the room.

"...So I see you got captured too." Mike murmured, rubbing at his wrists from the friction of the manacles. "Crap. I was hoping I'd bought you some time to escape."

Aly advanced on him, her long stride crossing the space between them like it was only two footsteps instead of five. Before Mike could say anything she cranked her arm back and slapped him across the face. The hit was hard and genuine, and Mike's head snapped to the right from the force of the impact.

"Ow, Aly!" He protested, rubbing at his face as he took a sudden step back from the volatile Elf. His left arm raised instinctively to ward off a second blow.

Allynna didn't even pretend to humor him. "You sanctimonious ape! What did you think you were trying to accomplish, leaving me like that?"

"Glad to see they fixed your translator!" Mike shouted back. "Heruen help me, I think you cut my cheek." He stuck his tongue around in his mouth to feel the cut. "You hit harder than the Orcs do."

"Michael." Allynna said, her eyes were red hot with anger. There was an expression of barely repressed rage upon her stern, Elven features. Her teeth gritted between her pursed lips, her eyes narrowing down to a needle's point, aimed directly at his face. "Why did you trick me into leaving you behind?"

"You wouldn't have left otherwise." Mike said. "I know you too well, Aly. You'd have dawdled while I failed to climb up a repulsor cycle and gotten us both shot for the trouble." He shrugged, "I was screwed. It was simple arithmetic, even a guy with a concussion could figure it out."

Mike flashed a cocky grin at her, doing his best to allay her worries with a bit of swagger. She stood there a moment, her inscrutable facial expression breaking as she crossed the final distance and wrapped her arms around his chest.

He felt her warm body press against him; slender arms that threaded through his own and clung to his back. The cocksure Captain tensed, caught off guard as his Mool'Gwaith hugged him for the first time.

"You shortsighted fool." She shook her head, leaning her forehead against his chest as she took deep, stuttering inhales. "I was doing 'the arithmetic!'"

Mike swallowed and froze up, his mind failing to make the proper computations to react to an Elf's unexpected embrace. Allynna did not look at him, her head tilted downward as she hid her face from his sight.

"I thought you were dead. I thought they'd killed you then and there. I watched them advancing on you, standing all alone in that clearing..." She swallowed, closing her eyes as she tried and failed to even her facial expression to her normal, Elven emptiness. "I would have had to remember that awful image of you for a millennia, Michael. For the rest of my life."

Elves didn't cry. That was a truism that had followed Mike's experiences with the enigmatic race throughout his lifetime. He'd even attended the unique dreariness of an Elven funeral once. The worst he ever saw was a trail of silent tears drifting down the face of the departed's spouse, unacknowledged and politely ignored by her Elven kindred. He heard later that the widow had made 'quite the scene.'

Elves did however start to breathe asthmatically when they were particularly troubled and struggling to hide emotion. Aly's gasping inhales were sharp and pointed, her head buried in his chest as she stared down at the floor and tried to regain her composure. She almost sounded like she was having a panic attack.

Mike at last put his arms around her. "Aly, I was just trying to keep you safe. What would your parents think, if I let you die on my account?"

"They're not here, Michael. You are." She replied, " I am a hundred and three; I do not need them to be looking over my shoulder every time a catastrophe occurs. But..." She trailed off, pulling away from him as she seemed to realize what she was doing. "If something had happened to you, I would have never forgiven myself."

"As I recall," Mike said, glancing about their sparse but comfortable room. "The Mool'Gwaith Code states that you're only supposed to protect your Captain so long as your own life isn't unnecessarily threatened."

Allynna stared him down, "-the Agreement also states that my responsibilities begin and end with maintaining the bridge. But who was the one crawling through the Halfbreed's guts on her hands and knees last month, cleaning gunk out of the power converters?"

"Hey, don't get mad about that. You lost the bet." Mike joked.

"Stop it, Michael." She said, shaking her head as she sat down atop the lip of the bed. Her hands were trembling, but only slightly; she ran her fingers back and forth through her palms as if they were searching for something to do. "Stop pretending like all of this is okay."

"None of it's 'okay,' Aly." Mike said, sitting down across from her on the floor and crossing his legs. "To tell you the truth? The worst thing that could have happened to me today was that I saw your face again."

"Even if I had successfully evaded them," Allynna said, "I was stranded, alone on a hostile planet with limited spacefaring technology. My chances were slim to none."

"Some chance is better than the none you would have had, if you'd stayed." Mike retorted. He rubbed at the spot on his face where Lashvara had struck him. "Were the guards as 'aggressive' with you as they were with me? Because I got a hell of a walloping."

"Beyond restraining me and taking away what weapons they could find, no." Allynna responded, her even expression returning at last to her ageless face. "Once they fixed my translator I was questioned for a short time, but nothing of much substance. These Orcs are..." Aly paused, glancing around as a suspicious look came to her eyes. It seemed to just occur to her that someone might be watching. "They can read our minds, Michael."

Mike nodded, "I know. Some pale old Orc was in the room while the interrogator was beating me. She called him a Judge. He read my thoughts, even spoke to me."

"This is unprecedented." Allynna murmured, "No species in the galaxy has shown an aptitude like this since the Mythic times. If the Orcs harnessed it-"

"They'd either be the greatest diplomats that we have ever seen," Mike said, holding up one hand with the palm extended, "...Or the galaxy's worst dinner guests." He lifted the other palm, swaying both up and down as if they were on a counterbalanced weight.

"They're... surprisingly forthright." Allynna said with halting words. Mike laughed.

"Geez, don't hold back your real feelings, Aly." Mike said, "If I didn't know any better, I'd say you didn't like them."

Allynna shook her head, stubborn as always. "It's not 'dislike' Michael. I just... a sentient being's feelings are their own. They are the only thing that we can truly call ourselves." The Elf's brow tightened, "I resent being exposed in such a manner."

"Well, get used to it." Mike said, grimacing at the idea that Aly might be 'exposed' to Lashvara's unsubtle comments regarding his own private thoughts about her. "Seems like their whole species is like this."

"None of the Orcs we encountered on Charity displayed any indication of empathic abilities." Allynna said, flicking her ringknife into her hand. Evidently the Orcs had failed to discover where it'd been kept. She moved it about her fingers at a much faster rate than usual. She was clearly worked up. "...Do you think they were merely hiding it?"

"I'm not sure." Mike said, considering the notion. "Seems like a hard thing to conceal, and I didn't hear a single word about this kinda stuff from any of the Colonists. You'd think 'Psychic Natives' would have popped up on the Galactic radar."

"Perhaps that is the reason for the pirate attacks? They're trying to keep their own nature a secret?" Allynna speculated. "It would make sense that such a communal people would be hostile to aliens."

Mike shook his head. "If that was true, we'd be dead already. These Orcs decided to capture us, not kill us. Supposedly, we stole their Shield Generator."

Allynna blanched, "What?"

Mike folded his arms, shaking his head in incredulity. "Yep! Apparently we were flying stolen contraband, Aly. Just not the kind we thought." He shrugged, "Seems like Fignet Opalbraid has gone interplanetary with his criminal activities. The Orcs 'lost' their Shield Generator, conveniently just around the time when we were given the contract to smuggle ours out of the system."

"Why would they need a shield generator in the first place?" Allynna said, brushing a few stray blonde locks from her features. "This is Wild Space, the only real threats to speak of are the Goblins, and their nearest raiding fleets aren't within a dozen light years of this system. It doesn't make any sense."

"I haven't the faintest clue either." Mike agreed, "But I think they're catching on to the fact that we're just patsys. That means that we've either outlived our usefulness and are about to be disposed of, or..." He trailed off.

Allynna waited with bated breath. When Mike wasn't forthcoming, she prompted him. "Or...?"

"Or, I don't know." Mike said, "Honestly, I'm not quite sure why neither of us is lying face down in a ditch right now. It's not like we have anything the Orcs want."

"Information." Allynna responded. She tucked her Maeth ringknife back into her arm. It disappeared as if she'd never held it in the first place.

Mike snorted, "Believe me, once the fists started flying I told them everything we knew, and they seemed to believe me. If that's the only thing stopping them, then I'm sorry: I might have just killed us both."

"Don't talk like that, Michael." Allynna said, "We're going to get out of this." She pointed up at the ceiling. At first Mike didn't get what she was doing, then he started to chuckle.

"Really? Using the same speech I gave you yesterday to try to cheer you up, when you couldn't even understand me?" Mike said, arching an eyebrow.

"I got the gist of it." Allynna shot back.

"The entire time I was talking to you, I was just repeating the phrase 'Knife ears don't live long, if they live a half life.'"

It was an old human insult, from back during the War of Elvish Aggression, when a desperate gambit by mankind's overwhelmed defenders managed to irradiate the insides of an Elven Titan, blowing the monolithic starship sky high and dealing the Elves one of their most shocking defeats ever. It was a victory that humanity would occasionally use to remind their now-allied Elven compatriots. With no small degree of smugness.

Allynna's eyes narrowed at the insult. "That isn't funny, Michael."

"The fact that you have to say it's not, means that it is." Mike said, picking himself up off the ground. "So, what's the plan?"

"You're the Captain." She said in response, "Your task is to guide me."

"Yeah, but you've had time to think." Mike retorted, "I've been either unconscious or sitting in an interrogation chair for the last few hours. Time to see if my mentorship has taught you anything useful."

"Security is light." She said, "Patrols are uncommon, but I can't see down the hallway to check how often the Guards are there, or if they are watching us. There's a small window above the bed too, but it's too small for either of us to fit."

"So no squeezing through." Mike clucked his tongue, "If I had to guess, the guards are watching us at all times. We'll need to find an opportunity if we're going to make a run for it."

"Perhaps this time you can avoid leaving yourself behind to die?" Allynna said, her arid tone concealing the honest concern in the statement.

"Well, obviously." Mike said, "This time it's your turn. I showed you how to do it, and now the Mool'Gwaith follows the example."

"If that was your 'example' then you are a terrible teacher." Allynna said, the barest curve breaking the flat plane of her lips. Mike loved her subtle smile, it was like discovering a colorful rose hiding behind a thicket of concealing hedgerows.

Her amusement faded away as her eyes took a faraway look. "I forgot to check in this month with the Gwaith Tracking Authority before we took off on Charity. I'd assumed we'd have had enough time to make it to the rendezvous point before I had to contact them. I will likely miss the deadline."

"I think a stern vid call from those glorified paper pushers is the least of our concerns, right now." Mike said.

"It will be the first time in my three years of service with you that I have been late on a report." Allynna responded, her haughty tone implying that she'd just checkmated Mike with her statement. "It won't look good to the Authority; I may suffer severe disciplinary penalties for the infraction during my yearly review."

Mike groaned, "Aly, if those penalties don't involve a bullet to the temple, I'm pretty sure you've got bigger things to worry about."

"-That does not mean that I shouldn't keep other concerns in mind as well, Michael." She answered, as if the thought itself was self-evident. "I am as worried about my future as much as I am the present."

"That's all fine and dandy," Mike said, gesturing at the sealed bulkhead door behind him, "but the present situation kinda trumps whatever slap on the wrist your little pilgrimage commission's going to give you for not coloring in between the lines."

Allynna's lips flattened. "I could be forced to continue the mentorship program for years longer than I would have, Michael. I may not even attain my citizenship with the Everlasting Empire."

"You have to be alive in order to be a citizen Aly." Mike replied. "-And what's so great about being one, anyway? For something that's supposedly been your dream to get, I've never heard you say more than ten words on the subject."

Allynna opened her mouth to say something, but then closed it. It was a strange sight for Mike, considering usually the opinionated Elf was never at a loss for words or explanations for her actions. She shifted back and forth uncomfortably in her seat on the bed.

"It is the way of my people, Michael." She said at last, in a most unconvincing manner. "I would not expect a Human to understand. Your species has no respect at all for government and politics."

"Okay, first of all: racist." Mike replied, to which Aly let out a derisive expulsion of air. "And second that's not strictly true: we just don't like having some giant one-galaxy government lording it over everyone. We saw how that worked out for your people and the Federation of the Fae, huh? We're individuals, not cogs in a machine."

"You're chaotic." Allynna said, but there was no venom in her voice. She stared at her hands for a moment. "...My father's lineage has a long tradition of military service. There is an expectation that comes with the family name. I am already the first in my line for several generations to not serve in the Navy, I could not bear the shame of also being the first in untold millenia to not earn my citizenship."

"I wouldn't stress the small stuff as much." Mike said, leaning back on his hands as he relaxed on the floor. "We might be dead soon."

"You are altogether too pessimistic sometimes, Michael." Allynna replied. Mike laughed.

"-Says the Elf currently blubbering to me about a missed vid call while we rot together in a holding cell." Mike shook his head back and forth. "Face it Aly, at this point a little pessimism might just be warranted."

"Perhaps we can explain to the Orcs our situation." Allynna offered. "It is not like we were consciously trying to steal from them."

"I already explained it." Mike said, "These aren't the same Orcs who shot us down; but if they decide for whatever reason that they don't like our answers, then there's not much we can do."

Allynna didn't say anything. Her blue eyes stared at her lap as her facial expression flattened to its normal, vacant colorlessness. "...I am glad you are okay, Michael."

Mike grinned at her, "Likewise, Aly. I'd be lying if I didn't admit I'm happy to see you here - failed escape attempt notwithstanding."

"The cursed thing stalled out on me." The Elf said.

Mike chuckled, "-And you wonder why I always say 'let me drive.' You missed a gear shift on a hill again, didn't you?"

Allynna bristled, she started to stutter out a complaint, but realized Mike was joking. She shook her head back and forth in disgust. "I wouldn't have found myself in that situation at all, if you had actually practiced your hand to hand combat training."

"-And miss out on the chance to get slapped in the face by a bipolar Elf? Not on your life." Mike said, rubbing at his cheek. "That's twice today I've been struck by a woman without provocation, by the way."

"I sincerely doubt that the first strike was any less deserved than the second one was." Allynna said, her eyebrow quirking as a playful gleam entered her eye.

Mike smiled, finally feeling the intense pressures of the day weighing down upon him. His time spent unconscious had done nothing for his exhaustion.

"So..." He said, coming to the truly uncomfortable subject. "There's only one bed."

Allynna glanced around at the mattress beneath her. "Yes." She said, matter of factly. Her voice was pallid and empty of emotion when she said it.

"-I can assume that somewhere within the strictures of the Mool'Gwaith handbook there's something about not sleeping in the same bed as your Captain?" Mike offered.

Aly's cheeks had the slightest reddish tint to them. "It is heavily frowned upon. Due to the... implications."

"Well, Freya forbid there be any implications." Mike said, winking at the stoic Elf. "Toss me a pillow, will you?"

Allynna turned and reached for the pillow, lifting herself off the bed for a moment. Mike stared for a few heartbeats. Her bodysuit left little and less to the imagination. When she turned back to face him Mike consciously looked away, doing mental calculations of star charts in his head to keep his thoughts from spinning off in dangerous directions.

"What for?" She said.