Halfbreed

Mike marveled for a moment at the geometric perfection of the fluttering Fairy bartender's flight path as she weaved her way across the grimy bar. She left a current of glitter in her tumbling wake, a jetstream of twinkling dots of light that settled slowly in the smoke-filled air. He watched as she zipped back and forth across the length of the bar, filling drinks and balancing shot glasses upon impossibly small hands, seeming to all but dance with her insect-like flight movements.

She was barely the height of a wine glass, yet her strength was such that she could hold two of the things in either hand, balancing each above her head as she flew in curving lines like a buzzing mayfly. The little creature had some strange form of telekinesis, and it was on full display as she pulled a nozzle to dispense alcohol, while simultaneously polishing a glass with a washcloth that was as tall as she was.

Lashvara's eyes followed the Fairy's frenetic movements as she planted her green elbows upon the countertop. She sat next to Mike in the bar, the second one they had visited in as many hours.

"You know," She said, her gaze shifting to the row upon row of exotic drinks perched upon the tall, glowing wall. "In my culture, before first contact, alcohol was seen as a rare and sacred substance.

Garouka

, the Priests called it: wine fermented from a particular mushroom native to Votar." She flicked the blue mushroom hanging in a thong about her neck with her finger.

Mike chuckled, glancing over his shoulder to see if Allynna had returned. "Figures the Priests would be the first ones to 'discover' it." He signalled the Fairy bartender. "I'm surprised they didn't hoard all the hooch to themselves."

Lashvara guffawed. "We thought it was the distilled blood of our heroic ancestors. The Priests would let the villagers drink on festival days, and when warriors were about to go off to battle. We never had the abundant quantities that you interlopers seem to possess, however."

"Wat'ser order?" The Fairy said, zipping up between Mike and Lass as her head snapped back and forth between them. Her toe tapped the air as her translucent, hummingbird wings buzzed above the sound of the music.

"Get me a Dwarvish Sapphire." Lashvara grunted.

Mike gave the Fairy his winning smile. "Moscow Mule."

"S'what?"

Mike leaned closer on the bar, cupping his hands as though he was yelling in her face. "A Moss-Cow Mule!"

The Fairy's wings fluttered in a hover. "S'what?"

Mike listed the ingredients off on his fingers. "Ginger beer, a shot of vodka, a splash of lime juice." The Fairy made a face at him and zipped away. "-And make sure it's in a copper mug!" He shouted after her. Mike let out a sigh. "One day I'll find an alien bar that serves it."

"Best of luck." Lashvara grunted, "From my experience, sentient beings tend to only provide for their own."

"Well aren't you cheery this evening?" Mike joked.

The Fairy zipped by the both of them in a flash, their drinks clattering onto the countertop as she rushed over to another part of the bar to serve a new patron. The forlorn smuggler stared down into his drink, cupping the copper mug in his hands as he stewed on his predicament. Lashvara upended her own down her gullet, her cheeks running blue with the bright, fluorescent alcohol. At least she could hold her liquor.

The Orc tipped her glass vertical and gulped the last dregs. "

Mmh

," she mumbled, wiping at her lips with the back of her hand, "Maybe you are right, smuggler. Neither of us should be here. This planet makes my teeth itch."

"Still not too late to let me go." Mike said, sliding his finger across the harmless tracking device around his wrist.

"Unfortunately for both of us smuggler, it is." Her beady eyes held to his. "I need answers.

My people

need answers."

"What if 'finding the answer' means taking down the entire Loupian Mafia?" Mike said.

"We judge the mighty by the obstacles they overcome." She retorted.

"Sure." Mike shrugged, "But there's a thin line between stupidity and success."

The Orc considered the thought for a moment. "...Are you saying I'm out of my depth, boy?"

Mike snorted, "Judging from how you handled the meeting with Fignet? Yeah."

Lashvara guffawed. "Insolent to the last. As I recall,

you

were the one who leapt into a speeding hover car. Are you really any better than me?"

"Well, let's see." Mike said, "In the last three days or so, I've been shot down, beaten half to death, beaten

again

by yours truly-"

"Of all the beatings, that one was the most warranted." The Orc said, grinning. Mike laughed.

"My first mate might have something to say about that. Still rocked my jaw, though." He lapsed into silence. "...And now we're sitting here, waiting for Fignet to finish setting up the 'deal' that's going to deliver us directly into the Loupian Mafia's clutches." Mike settled onto the countertop with his arms. "So no, I'm probably no better qualified than you. Those 'guards' of yours could really come in handy, right about now."

"I told you: they're not getting involved." Lashvara growled.

"Involved in what? Aren't they your tribe, too?"

"They are innocent in this." Was all she said, grumbling into her cup. Mike gave her a side-eyed look, which she returned with a hard stare of her own. Mike glanced away. An awkward silence descended between them.

"...You freak me out a bit sometimes, you know that?"

"I know." Lashvara said. "It's hard not to notice. You aren't exactly subtle with your emotions, smuggler." She smiled, flashing her large teeth. "Maybe that's why I like you. You don't pretend otherwise."

"Can't you just turn it off?" Mike made a swirling gesture with his finger at his temple, "All those... outside emotions?"

She huffed. "Can you 'turn off' your ears? Your eyes? Your lungs? I feel your emotions the same way you overhear a conversation. Sometimes you can ignore it, other times its loud enough to fill a room."

"How do you manage?" Mike asked.

"How do I manage what?" Lashvara said.

"Feeling all those emotions at once? Doesn't it - I don't know, get confusing?"

"Amongst fellow Orcs?" Lass shook her head, "No. Never. Emotion is just another way to communicate. Assuming the tribe is united in purpose, we feel those feelings as a group. It is the tapestry of our lives: the joy, the sorrow, the anger, the passion. One person's pain is the tribe's pain, their joy our joy. It gives us texture, completes us in ways we could not be completed as individuals."

"And aliens?" Mike asked.

Lashvara's grin faded. "That," She said, "is a bit more complicated." She stirred her drink. "I told you before I spent time with the Elves? It was a lonely experience, filled with confusion and uncertainty. I have never felt more apart than when I sat in a crowded debate hall with a hundred classmates."

She looked almost mournful as she spoke. "Interlopers have a curious kind of sentience: chaotic, disjointed, disconnected, split from one another in ways I cannot fathom. It is like listening to a song devoid of all structure, lyrics or tune. Yet every so often you can catch glimpses of a melody you recognize in them."

"Oh yeah?" Mike said, taking a dainty sip of his drink. "And what kind of music do I remind you of?"

"The songs of fools and braggarts." She said. Mike laughed.

"Fair enough." He said. "I am - if nothing else - a fool."

Lashvara smiled. "An honest fool, at least. I see now why you-"

The Orc stopped. Lashvara's expression changed, her lips flattening as her eyelids lowered. "...There are others watching us."

Mike huffed, "You just figure that out

now

?" He said, smirking. "We've had eyes on us since before we ever entered this neighborhood. We're in Loupian territory now."

She glanced around at the bar patrons, narrowing her eyes. "What is it about these criminals that curdles your blood so?"

Mike let out a sigh, swirling the shimmering liquid around. He watched as Lass downed a second Dwarvish Sapphire like it was nothing and signalled for another. "D'you people even

have

organized crime on that native moon of yours?"

"For the last time: it's Votar. And no." Lass quirked an eyebrow. "Criminals are few and far between in our society. It is all but impossible to lie about committing a heinous act. Orcs that do so are

Argarod

: delirious with egotism. They are killed upon discovery."

"And here I thought you people were all puppies and rainbows." Mike quirked an eyebrow. "Why?"

"For lying." Lashvara said, her brow lowering. "It is the deadliest sin: to tell a falsehood with the conviction of an honest heart. If one is willing to murder the truth, they are willing to commit any act."

"So you kill them first." Mike said.

"There are many legends in our tribe of cruel tricksters who became Chief through subterfuge and villainy." Lashvara said, "Often enough, it spells the death of the tribe itself."

Mike considered the idea. "...So what would have happened to me, had I lied to you in that interrogation room with the same kind of conviction?"

"You would have been strangled. By my hands." Lashvara shrugged, "I knew the truth before you ever regained consciousness. Our talk was an attempt to understand your intent for committing the crime, not the details."

A chill ran down Mike's spine. "Whos to say I'm not still leading you on?"

Lashvara grinned, "You aren't clever enough to be that good a liar." She signaled the Fairy bartender for yet another drink. The small creature made a face at her and flitted away. "Your lover returns."

Mike glanced over his shoulder, spotting Allynna some distance away, heading towards them. She moved at a graceful clip across the bar floor, ignoring the looks she and her braid got from passing bystanders. The Elf slid to his side, her lips moving up to his ear. Mike made a point to take a long, casual sip from his drink and stare at the countertop, aware of the hidden eyes that were watching.

"Fignet is speaking to them now. They'll escort us into the private area in a few minutes." She whispered.

Mike nodded, "You get a vibe from the conversation?"

"Agitated." She said. Mike clucked his tongue.

"The Loupians, or Fignet?" He said, glancing at her out of the corner of his eye.

"Both."

"Shit." Mike rubbed his chin. "Go back and see if you can listen in. Try to look for keywords or innocuous conversation that doesn't directly deal with the logistics of the meeting. I don't want to walk blind into a doublecross."

His first mate nodded and broke away, weaving her way once more through the crowded bar. Mike stared for a long moment after her.

"Your Elf's arse is quite enchanting.

Eyes up

, fool!" Lashvara barked, putting a hand on Mike's shoulder and turning him back towards the bar. "You'll draw attention to us."

Mike shrugged her off. "Buy me the next drink and I'll consider it." He said. His smile faded. "...You realize that empty suit has set us up, right?"

Lashvara nodded at him as she took another swig from her drink, "I wouldn't be surprised. Deceit clings to the Dwarf like a cloud of flies upon a bloated corpse. What of it?"

"You're way too comfortable with that fact for my liking." Mike glared at his drink. "That they even let us through the front door means one of two things: either they have no idea what's happened to the ship, and he's sent us in to be the proverbial killed messengers, or they know

exactly

what's happened, and are bringing us into the back room for quick disposal."

"Perhaps." The Orc said, naive to a fault. "Why come along at all, then?"

"Oh, that's easy:" Mike grinned, "You promised me a ship."

Lashvara huffed. "I admire your single-minded determination. If not your common sense."

"Pot calling the kettle black." He retorted.

Mike felt the sudden press of a gun barrel against his back. He straightened in his seat, putting his hands slowly upon the countertop.

"You the Elf's Captain?" Barked a voice in his ear.

"Yep." Mike said. He could practically taste the thick scent of cologne the Loupian wore to cover up his wet-dog smell.

"Get going, we're headed to the back. Slow like. Nice and easy." Mike stood up out of his chair, and Lashvara did the same.

"You do not need to point a gun at us," Lashvara growled, her shoulder muscles flexing as she tensed up. "We are unarmed."

Heruen help me, this green bitch is going to get me killed

. Mike thought to himself, turning to face the Loupian.

The alien canine was nearly two feet taller than Mike: a hulking brute with tall, doberman ears and bushy black hair. He was dressed like his companion: in a well tailored suit of a reflective, latex-like fabric. Loupians were hairier than humans, and as Mike made his way towards the other Loupians guarding Allynna he noted with humor that all of them had some form of scruff or facial hair. As they walked, their long, bushy tails swept behind them as if they had a mind of their own.

Mike nodded at Allynna when she joined the pack. "Where's Fignet?"

"Gone. Seeing to his business arrangements." The Elf said in a cryptic tone. Her facial expression was blank.

Gave us the slip, you mean.

Mike thought. He nodded at Allynna. "All right, then we'll just tell the Veiled One ourselves."

"Get moving, human." One of the guards growled. Mike rolled his eyes and moved onwards.

Together, they formed a line with Mike, Aly and Lass sandwiched between a small crowd of guards. No one in the bar paid them even a passing glance. They had probably already seen a scene like this hundreds of times before.

They came at last to the door at the back of the bar: a tall, metallic behemoth that was almost a foot thick with a bolted lock. The Guard in front of them pounded on it. The slat opened, and another pair of Loupian eyes peeked out. The Guard barked in a low voice, a yipping sound that seemed to be some sort of password. The slat closed, and the door unlatched, opening to reveal another Loupian of a larger, hairier breed standing behind. The two stared each other down for a long moment. Mike only caught a trickle of their conversation, due to the thudding beat emanating from the other side of the door.

"-oss said so."

"You ain't the-"

"On 'er orders specifically. You wanna pull rank, take it up with 'er."

"

Grrhh!

Fine. Go."

The doorman stepped aside to allow the guard through. He gestured to the three of them to follow and moved on. Mike glanced back at his two companions: Aly simply stared, but Lass' eyes hardened. He shrugged and stepped through.

The first thing Mike felt was a noise. He

felt

it before he truly heard it: a thumping beat in the core of his chest that radiated like echolocation back to the source of the sound. It rattled his teeth and vibrated through his muscles, a repetitive bass that grew in intensity the closer they came to it.

The hallway they were in was dank and narrow, difficult to navigate and hard to gain one's bearings. They weaved their way through a series of turns and cutbacks as the guard led them through the drab, narrow, deserted halls. Heruen help them if they had to try to find their way back out again.

"Listen to me," Mike mumbled, his voice masked by the music. He glanced back at Aly and Lass walking behind him. "When we get in there, they're going to act like Loupians."

"What does that even mean?" Lashvara growled under her breath.

"They're gonna try to Alpha Male us: get under our skin, make us angry, show us to be weaklings, that sort of thing. It's a means for them to establish the proper 'dominance' they oh so covet." Mike said.

"Loupians are obsessed with authority." Allynna whispered. "It is unwise to test one's place in the pecking order."

Mike nodded, "And since we're currently somewhere below the basement in that pecking order, that means we're coming to the Mafia hat in hand. Whatever you do:

don't

take the bait. When they tell you to do something, you do it. If the Veiled One tells you to smash a bottle over my head, make sure you knock me twice for good measure."

"This is insane." The Orc rumbled.

"It's survival." Mike corrected her. "We're going to be told to do things in front of the Veiled One that are likely humiliating, possibly painful. Suck it up, smile, and get through it. If anyone loses their cool, their head's gonna follow soon after."

"Interlopers." Lashvara muttered under her breath. The words were lost to the bass beat.

At last they came to a large double set of doors, sealed shut despite the rattling cacophony coming from the other side. The guard glanced back to make sure that his guests were behind him before shoving them open.

Mike was momentarily blinded by a bright flash of light. For half a second, he thought they had walked into a fatal ambush, and his heart leapt into his throat. However, the strobe light shifted away from his face in time to the beating screech of the song, and he could see again.

They had entered a large, cavernous dance club. It was a single room, larger than the entire bar that they had just come from, segmented off into a grid of individual dance floors separated by one-way glass, looking inward. A single, long corridor ran through the center, leading up to the VIP rooms and the bar.

The music was loud, a blaring assortment of heavy electronic melodies mixed with strange, alien sounds: barks and yips and whines. His ears ached at the migrane-inducing volume of it all. He stuck a pinkie in his ear to clear his aural passages.

The air was thick with the heat of humanoids clustered in tight packs. Bodies gyrated, bumped, pressed and squeezed together, turning the air into a humid, heavy thing. Figures danced in the thick shadows of the dancefloor, arms and legs and torsos melding together in the dim and confusing light like a frenzied school of fish.

In the back of the room, hovering upon repulsor skids so that it had a prime view of the rest of the dance club, was a large VIP room. It's clear-glass walls projected holograms of dancing, naked forms and silhouettes of what looked suspiciously like Loupians in coitus. Adding to the riot of color that assaulted Mike's senses were the dozen or so strobelight generators streaming rainbows down from the walls.

The guard lead the way forward, pushing into the main thoroughfare as individual partygoers broke away from their revelry to get a drink at the packed bar. The crowds parted like a literal wave when the Loupian Guard passed, his three charges following in his wake. He made a beeline for the VIP section, stepping onto the repulsor platform and gesturing for his guests to follow him. Once they were secure, the platform rose, depositing them at the entrance to the VIP room.

Two Loupian Guards were waiting for them at the top. They gave Mike hard looks as he passed. One of them swiped his card across the glass door and led them through. Immediately the sound from outside became muted.

Inside the VIP lounge, the ratio of Mafia members and civilians shifted dramatically. Nearly every other person in the room was wearing a suit. Everyone, without exception had either a tail, tall ears, digitigrade legs, or some combination of the three. Three Mafia men were sitting over a glass table, inhaling Varkan Dust while groping at giggling, half-naked Loupian females. More than a dozen of the impeccably-dressed Loupians lounged upon couches, danced on the tiny dance floor with their groupies, or milled about in the hedonistic ambience.

One particular groupie caught Mike's eye: a swaying, shifty creature with black fur and long legs. She was clothed in a form-fitting suit trimmed with gold, her gloved hands making complex gestures as she pirouetted about the dance floor with an almost Elf-like grace. Her face was an LED mask, shifting in color and shape in time to the beat of the song. First it was a wide-eyed fish face, then a blue dragon snarling. As Mike passed by, the face shifted, becoming a reddish reflection of his own. Mike blinked at it, and the mask blinked back. He swallowed and continued on. The dancer, heedless, continued her elegant routine.