Halfbreed Ch. 05

He hilted and came, his breath expelling in great gouts from his nostrils as he ejaculated. Her entire body began to tremble, starting from the base of her neck and rolling down her spine like a seizure. A moan slipped out, and she turned her head away from him.

Allynna laid her forehead against the tiling, hunching her shoulders as she struggled to catch her breath. The tightness in her pussy became unbearable as she pushed back against him, crushing her ass against his waist as the two humped long past completion.

Mike panted, his hands molesting the object of his obsession as he enjoyed the sensation of her wet skin. He leaned forward, planting a kiss on the back of her neck as Aly hid her face from his gaze. He chuckled, turning her head to look at him as her orgasm consumed her. Even an Elf couldn't hide that from him.

They cuddled close for a moment, and then Mike pulled free, allowing Allynna to peel herself off the wall as they both caught their breath. She turned to face him, looking in his eyes as if to confirm that they had, in fact, just done that again. Mike grinned at her, and she scowled back at him, her blush deepening as his gaze drifted downwards.

"...I believe we need the wash cloth again." Was all she said. Mike laughed as he reached for it.

Several minutes later, the Elf emerged from the bathroom, her soft steps across the floor mirrored several feet behind by her Human. Mike stared after her as she breezily wiped the wetness from her skin, the sun reflecting in her hair. She was pristine, her body seeming to move in an even more graceful manner than usual. She bent at the waist, and Mike felt another stirring in his aching loins.

He moved to the bed, sitting down to pull on his trousers at the same time that Aly reached for her body suit. He stared at her, wordless as she began to put on her clothes. It all seemed like some strange dream: the Elf returning to her natural state of appearance as he pulled on his socks. He could see her slender back, her naked shoulder blades as they moved back and forth, trying to tug the fabric up her thighs. A feeling built inside his chest.

"I..." Mike started to say, prompting the Elf to glance behind her. Her eyebrow rose. "You're my best friend, Aly." He said, voicing the thought in a way he had not intended.

She blinked at him, her modesty all but gone as she pulled the suit up over her bare bottom. Her face was expressionless as she turned back to focus on her outfit.

"You have a strange habit of stating the obvious, Michael." She replied.

Mike laughed at her standoffishness. "Well, then you tell me what you'd call us."

Us. The word alone seemed to unsettle her. Allynna stopped. Something changed in the look on her face. She sank down onto the bed next to him, half-dressed but heedless of his wandering eye. She took his hand in hers and brought it to her lap, staring down at it with an absent expression.

"I do not have the proper words to explain what you mean to me." She murmured. "You aren't just my Captain anymore. You haven't been for a long time." Her fingers gently stroked the top of his hand. "But now I feel lost. I do not know what happens next."

"Why does anything have to 'happen?' "

She turned her gaze to his. "You are not an Elf. You don't understand."

"I'm aware of that." Mike teased. "Enlighten me."

She didn't so much as smile. "You know my people, Michael. Better than almost any who aren't Elfkin. But you can't understand what this situation means to them."

Mike squeezed her hand. "It only means what it has to mean, Aly."

Allynna shook her head. "You misunderstand my intent. It is not our mutual feelings that concern me. My family, my path to citizenship, even my Mool'Gwaith status. Everything will change because of what we've done, in more ways than I am allowed to make you understand right now."

"Your Uncle seems to get along just fine with Susan." Mike quipped. "A human bride for a decorated war hero. Doesn't seem so bad to me."

Allynna's morose expression deepened. "Your people see him as a hero, Michael. Mine see him as a disgrace. There's a reason why they live on a remote colony world in Wild Space, and not the Elven Core worlds."

Mike frowned. "What, for losing both his legs in a last stand against overwhelming odds? He called in an airstrike on himself, and somehow still managed to save an entire colony. I'm aware that suffering an injury like that is considered shameful to that weird cult of perfection you people are running, but-"

"The situation with my Uncle is far more complicated than that." Allynna said. "And I'm not going to get into it with you. His mutilation is only part of the problem."

"-So your people really do just hate aliens." Mike said flatly.

Allynna seemed frustrated. Helpless to make him understand. "It's not that either, Michael. There are rules to our society that make it impossible for me to explain to you the actual problem."

"You're not Elven society, Aly. You tell me."

Her forlorn look caught Mike off guard. "I can't."

"Why?"

She wilted from his stare. "...Many reasons. Not the least of which being that it is an uncomfortable subject for me to discuss. More to the point: there may be grave consequences - for both of us - if I reveal it to you prematurely."

"What kind of consequences? And what even is 'it' anyway?" Mike pressed. Allynna went silent. She turned to face him on the bed, pulling both his hands into hers.

"Understand me when I say this, Michael: I want to tell you why, with every fiber of my being. But I am prevented from doing so, by the same rules that bind me to your service as your Mool'Gwaith. I do not regret what we did last night-"

"And what we did in the shower." He joked. A ghost of a smile crossed her lips.

"Yes." She said. "That as well... but I need you to understand that this changes things, in ways that I cannot fully predict the outcome of. And that makes me feel..."

"Scared?" Mike said.

"Vulnerable." She insisted.

"You sound scared." He said. "Are we...?" He asked, a pit growing in his stomach.

Her eyes widened. "Of course we are! That is not the intent of this conversation. Just..." She toyed with his fingers. The Elf had no idea what to say; the world had truly gone mad.

Mike touched her face, pulling her to his lips in a soft kiss. When he pulled back her wonderful blue eyes were upon him.

"I get it." He lied, "You'll explain it when you can. You ready to take a crack at that door? We need to get the hell out of here."

Allynna stood up off the bed, turning her back to him as she threaded her hands through the arms of her body suit, pulling it over her torso as she slid smoothly into the clingy outfit. Her Elven grace came to the fore, her hips turning back and forth as she tried to wiggle into her suit. Mike couldn't help but stare. Allynna glanced back over her shoulder, flashing a small smile as she winked at him.

"You tease." He said, smirking.

They finished getting dressed. Mike pulled on his Gelph leather jacket just in time to see Aly zipping up her suit, tugging at the fabric on her neck and hands to try to fit her fingers into the proper grooves. After checking around the room to make sure he hadn't forgotten anything, Mike made for the door.

"Once we're outside we'll need to move fast." He said, pulling aside the rest of the door panel. Allynna stepped up to his left. "They're gonna realize real quick that we're gone, and it's not like we can exactly 'blend into the crowd.'"

"What about the guards?" She asked.

"-Assuming they're standing between us and the elevator? We subdue them."

Allynna did not seem impressed. "You mean like last time."

Mike let out a derisive snort. "That was a fluke."

"They have guns, Michael."

"Smuggling has a shorter statute of limitations than murder does, Aly." He replied, peering into the mess of wires and circuit boards to find what he was looking for. "If we kill one of their own, a bullet to the back of the head will be the least that they'll do."

"You always think of the worst scenario." She said in an icy tone.

"Plan for the worst, hope for the best." He replied, smiling to himself. "Time to put your knowledge to the test: get this door open for us."

She took his place at the opening, peering into the innards of the panel with an Elf's unerring concentration. "This door is a T-4 Aelor Bulkhead. Standard civilian electronic lock. The only means of opening it without the code is to trigger the fire alarm override."

Mike nodded in encouragement. "So how do we open it?"

She stared at the panel for a moment. "I believe that I can override the fire alarm sensor, it should cause the door to automatically unlock." Her nimble hands worked around inside the guts of the panel for a moment, her brow furrowing with concentration. "If I can just-"

There was a spark, and Aly's hands leapt from the panel. She let out a surprised squeak of pain. "Confound it!" She cursed, rubbing at her fingertips where she'd been shocked. "That is where the wire is supposed to be in the schematic."

Mike chuckled, gently nudging her to one side as he flashed her a cocky grin. "Figures you'd know every nut and bolt on this thing backwards and forwards, but still have no idea how to exploit its flaws."

Allynna's eyes narrowed. "What flaws? This is an Elven-made door used for detainment. We do not design our security to-" But he was no longer listening.

Mike formed a gesture with his hand, the liquid metal from his wrist device forming a flat-head screwdriver that jutted into the narrow space. After a few careful maneuvers, he managed to make contact with a small capacitor inside the panel.

The fragile thing broke from the contact, shattering into sparking fury as smoke began to trail out from the circuit boards. Mike quickly withdrew his hand as an uncomfortable scraping sound arose from the panel. There was a click, and then the lock popped open.

Mike turned to Aly, smirking at her stoic expression.

"Well done." She said in a bloodless tone.

"The T-4s go into override when the specific capacitor I just hit fails," He explained, "Had to get myself out of one or two holding cells like this, back in the day. They overload the second the right amount of pressure is applied to them."

"I see." She said. Mike laughed at her.

"Lighten up, Aly." He said, reaching for the door as he tried to shove it open manually. "You can't always know everything."

The door opened with a sickening creak, causing Mike to grimace to himself. Allynna had her ringknife in hand before he'd managed to shove the door open with his shoulder. He stuck his head out into the corridor, fully expecting to see a pair of Orcs come charging up the hallway from the direction of the elevator.

But there was no one there. Mike did a double take as he looked down either end of the corridor, seeing nothing but sealed doors and the blinking lights coming from the elevator. The area was deserted.

"We're clear." He said, the hair on the back of his neck instinctively rising. "...But I don't know exactly why."

Allynna followed behind as he creeped his way out of the room and up the corridor, sparing glances this way and that, as if to confirm that the Orcs weren't lying in ambush. The Elf voiced aloud the thought that he did not: "Perhaps they're in the middle of a guard change?"

"Never heard of a guard shift where the guards left their post before their replacements arrived." Mike replied, coming to the elevator panel with a suspicious glance over his shoulder. "...Fuck. This thing needs a keycard. If we had my communicator we could hack it, but-"

"Do we have alternatives?" Allynna asked.

"I'm thinking." He said, glancing around. "Where's the fire escape in these prefabs?"

Allynna pointed down the long corridor behind them. "This way."

She led him back down the corridor they came from, passing by their now-vacant holding cell and heading in the opposite direction. When they came to the end of the corridor, Allynna pointed at a sealed door. It was another T-4.

Upon Mike's urging she peeled open the panel and replicated his earlier feat. The sight of sparks and smoke made Mike smile as the clever Elf undid the lock and flashed him a playful look.

"After you, Captain."

"Well done, my first mate." He said, casually groping her rear. Allynna half-jumped in place, a concerned look arising on her features. Mike's smile receded. "...Sorry."

"I do not dislike your touch, Michael." Allynna murmured, glancing away. "It's just..."

"Hey, I get it." Mike said, swallowing his nervousness down his throat.

They climbed the circular stairwell, ascending to the first floor. The fire escape vomited them out into a small alcove to the left of the main lobby, the pale magnificence of Elven architecture surrounding them with, narrow pillars and domelike ceilings that resembled resplendent canopies of nature. Mike checked the area before gesturing for Aly to follow him.

"Where is everyone?" She asked.

"Dunno. Shh." He said, lowering down into a crouch so as to minimize line of sight. After glancing around the corner to see the lifeless front entrance, he pulled his head back. "We need to leave, but we can't go out the front. Find a window that leads out the back."

Together they creeped their way through the abandoned corridor, checking every so often to be certain they didn't hear the dreaded footsteps of an approaching Orc. After a short search, Allynna found an unlocked door that led into a gutted office, with a wide window staring out at the rising sun.

Allynna looked around at the bare room, stepping with care across the unfinished and unpolished white floor tiles. There wasn't even a desk or chair to sit down on. "This building is half-completed. Most of the rooms are not even furnished."

Mike was already at the window, wiggling the liquid metal at his wrist around to jigger the lock open. He glanced up from his work. "...And?"

She looked back at him, her brow pulling down over her face. "Elves do not do half-measures, Michael. They would not have left this building unfinished without cause."

Mike hit the latch and shoved the window open. "Maybe something happened that cut their visit short?"

"Perhaps." Allynna said. She did not sound convinced.

Together the two slipped through the portal, clambering over the edge and dropping down several feet to the ground. The waterfront was less than a dozen feet in front of them, the blue water lapping at the soft red sand of the beach.

The path they stood on was a narrow road leading in opposite directions. Down one direction led to the front of the building and the main thoroughfare, down the other headed towards the shore of the artificial lake, across which Mike could see the numerous Orcish longhouses sitting like stacked matchsticks scattered across the earth. He looked back and forth at both options. "Which way?"

"North." Allynna said. "We can follow the shoreline almost to the launch pad."

"You know your way around the base." Mike joked as he moved to follow her.

Allynna glanced back over her shoulder. "I remained conscious for my internment, Michael." She said in a haughty tone. "The Orcs landed at the Starport and then led me directly to the Embassy."

"I would have put a million credits on them never taking you alive." He said, smiling. She did not respond to his goading.

They moved out onto the shoreline, following the narrow trail as it winded around the tall trees that ringed the base's perimeter. Mike's instincts kicked in as they moved up the path, his ears alight to the sounds of voices in the distance.

"For eight foot tall killing machines, these Natives sure seem to love nature." He said.

"Were the circumstances any different, so would I." Allynna responded. "I have not enjoyed a walk among the trees for many years."

"Well, if we ever get off this rock, I'll have to join you for one." Mike said. "Maybe ask your Uncle and Susan if they'll let us stay with them for a few days on Zemba V."

"I'd... like that." Allynna said, though her tone was hesitant and reserved. Mike felt a twinge in his gut as he realized what he'd just suggested.

His response was cut off by the sudden sound of childish laughter. Mike and Aly froze, caught off guard as a pair of Orclings burst out of the bushes in front of them on the trail.

A young female chased after a squealing boy, tackling him to the ground as they engaged in a spate of roughhousing. Their laughter was high pitched, yet deeper in tone than the average human child. Mike half-leapt into the hanging fern next to him as Aly did her utmost to blend against the tree to her left.

The two children whirled around, flattening grass and scattering leaves as they tussled on the trail. Mike and Aly exchanged a long look, and the Elf quietly tucked her ringknife back into her arm.

Finally kicking free of his playmate, the Orc boy laughed and stuck his tongue out at her. He flashed his fangs as he stood to his feet, sprinting away with her hot on his heels, headed directly towards the fugitives hiding further down the trail.

Mike froze in place as the boy swept by them, cackling down the path with his female opponent sprinting after him. For a brief, terrifying moment Mike matched eyes with the young girl. She saw him, her gaze turning first to him, then to Aly as she sped past, ultimately ignoring them both in pursuit of her fleeing friend.

Mike waited till the children had passed beyond sight before he gestured frantically up the trail. "Go, go, go, go!" He blurted out, taking off at a dead run. Allynna was right on his heels, moving with a swift grace in her step.

They skirted the outline of the shore until the trail once more merged with an alleyway that connected to the main thoroughfare. Mike's loping pace slowed, coming to a halt as he pressed his back up against the carbon-fibre wall of a nearby Elven building. He looked down the alleyway, spotting a lone Orc in fatigues standing with his back turned to them. Mike glanced at Allynna as she appeared next to him. He put a finger to his lips and pointed down the opposite length of the building.

Together they creeped along, keeping their eyes sharp for another unexpected encounter. With no other options available to them, they were forced to make for the main road.

The thoroughfare was mostly deserted, with only a few Orcs moving to and fro between buildings as they carried on in the early morning glow. Mike prodded Aly, and together the two made creeping progress up one side of the road, skirting buildings and ducking into alleys when the natives came near.

The exodus became more difficult as time went on, with more and more Orcs emerging from their multi-story longhouses. The sudden bang of a window opening above Mike caused him to jump. A middle aged Orc woman began to pin washed clothing up upon a line that was drawn across the thoroughfare to the building opposite her own. The two escapees hunkered down for several seconds, tense in the silence as they waited for the woman to distract herself long enough for them to move on.

The Orc, oblivious to the aliens beneath her, began to hum a low tune. It was a deep, guttural growl, emerging into a musical note that rumbled deep in Mike's chest. Soon other voices down the street took up the tune, and suddenly Mike and Aly were surrounded by a series of echoing harmonies and deep-throated choruses, as though the Orcs had practiced for the song and were giving a performance.

Once the Orc woman turned her back to the window to get more clothing, Mike and Aly moved on, hurrying their pace as their window of opportunity narrowed. It was only a few dozen feet onwards that a strange sound filtered into their ears.