Okay, so maybe flying escort to a smuggler known for leaving his 'co-workers' holding the bag hadn't been the smartest idea, but in his own defense, the money offered for the job had been too good to pass up. Of course, accepting the job while falling-down drunk and not thinking clearly might not have been the best decision he'd ever made, either…The sad thing was, it also wasn't the worst one.

Dancer Hauk, who would forever curse his parents for giving him that name, decided it would be best not to mention that part to his older brother Fain if he managed to get out of his current situation alive, mostly because Fain would probably kill him himself if he did.

Things had been going fine, aside from him having a slight headache from the three bottles of Grenna alcohol he'd drunk the night before, and he'd met up with the guy who'd hired him in the landing bay, a quick refuel on his fighter later and they were on their way. Maybe he should have been more suspicious that things had been going too smoothly and questioned why his 'employer' – a Partini by the name of Jorvi Lyshon – had seemed so eager to leave the morning after hiring him, or even just spared a passing thought to how the Partini was planning on paying him the amount of money offered.

Seriously, that amount of credits was a lot more than a smuggler had any chance of making, especially a smuggler who'd only been at it for around four years. That probably should have been a red flag right there.

But honestly, the job had seemed strictly on the level, a routine run through the Verix sector and a stopover on the planet of Taeceri and the money was as good as his. How was he supposed to know that the 'cargo' was a bunch of illegal weaponry and, to really seal the death sentence on whoever was caught with it, a crate of prillion?

And, halfway through the trip, things started to go downhill.

Mostly it was just some small malfunctions, nothing that even required him to find a planet to buy parts on, but when his radar started flashing, let him know that no less than seven fighters were closing in, he knew that something was definitely up. So, he'd prepared to hail Jorvi's cargo ship (an older E0-ZAS model that he was amazed still passed system checks) in order to tell him that they needed to tel-ass out of there, when he was hailed by one of the approaching fighters.

Hauk had prepared to play it cool, but that all went out the proverbial window when he heard:

"Captain Jorvi Lyshon of The Grezla, this is Commander Fyzon of Unit 5 of the Derlexan Military. You are under arrest for smuggling weapons into Derlexan airspace, with an additional charge of illegally transporting prillion. Surrender now and prepare to be boarded."

His first response had been something along with lines of 'what the fuck?', but a swift check of the old cargo ship's registration had revealed that he had been listed as the pilot of The Grezla, and it had hit him with the force of a transport: the damned Partini had changed the registration in case something like, oh say, a unit of fighters surrounding them and demanding that they deactivate all weapons and surrender happened.

And he could see why; the Derlexan's had a strict policy of executing any smugglers found in their airspace or around any of their colonies, and while they weren't a warring race by any means, they had some pretty badass gunners in their military. Unfortunately, most of the time they didn't bother to check if they were executing the right guy or not, which was very bad luck for him.

After that, things pretty much went to hell in a hand-basket as the real Jorvi panicked and the ancient cargo ship's aged ion cannons opened fire on the approaching fighters, which were quick to scatter and evade the blasts…and which brought him to his present situation of having to pull off some rather fancy piloting maneuvers in order to avoid getting blown to smithereens.

Hauk cursed loudly as he jerked his fighter into a hard right barrel roll, almost imagining the sound of the cannon blast as it shot no more than a few feet from his left side, growling as he returned fire and watching as the other fighter exploded into a torrent of silent flames.

The Andarion quickly turned his ship and opened fire on a fighter who was trying to sneak up on him, feeling no small measure of satisfaction as his shot took out the ship's rear engine and stabilizer, causing the Derlexan fighter to go into an uncontrollable spin and almost collide with one of its' allies. He took a moment to quickly check his radar, which told him that there were five ships left to go, and a look at the cargo ship nearby told him why.

The Grezla, as opposed to him, wasn't doing so well. There were multiple blasts marks across the hull, and it looked like something important had broken, as there was a steady stream of sparks coming from a crack in the vicinity of the main thruster. The ship's cannons were firing alright; the problem was they weren't even coming close to hitting anything, which could either be because the enemy fighters were flying in seemingly random patterns or whoever was on the guns just sucked that badly. He was betting on the latter.

Hauk was jerked out of his observation of his former employer's situation by a faint shift in the air behind him that signaled a teleport, and he jerked forward against the safety straps in time to avoid getting stabbed in the back of the head. The sudden move caused his fighter to lurch sideways, which sent his attacker slamming against the side of the control panel.

Releasing the straps holding him in his chair for better maneuverability, he stood and turned quickly towards the stowaway, barely managing to move his arm out of the way of another slash from the knife his opponent was wielding in their right hand. He growled loudly, which caused his attacker (clad in a formless brown flight suit and a feature-concealing helmet) to hesitate, which presented just the opening he wanted for a counterattack.

A quick punch to the sternum and open palm strike to the ribs resulted in his assailant being too busy wheezing for breath to attack, and that meant that he had the time to quickly get his ship out of the way of another blast from a Derlexan fighter. Obviously, they didn't care that one of their own was on board with him…which was bad luck for him, since if they had been hesitant to blow up one of their own it meant he would have had a better chance of escaping.

Surprisingly, the intruder on his ship didn't take that long to recover, and they lunged in for another knife strike, this time aimed at his torso.

Twisting sideways so that the intruder's arm went right past him, Hauk reached out and grabbed hold of the limb, and a simple flick of his own wrist resulted in an audible 'crack!' that signaled a broken bone. A muffled hiss came from inside his attacker's helmet, which caused the Andarion to feel a small kernel of respect because his attacker hadn't fallen over screaming in pain.

Out of nowhere, an ion blast just grazed the right side of his fighter, but that was enough to catapult them into a wild spin through space, especially since no one was holding onto the controls.

Hauk grunted as his head slammed into the wall and his hip cracked against the edge of one of the consoles, his hand trapped behind his back as he tried to right himself, only for the ship to turn completely upside-down and send him crashing to the ceiling to hit his head again. Thankfully the roll went all the way around so he wasn't stuck on the ceiling, but that meant he was up for another meeting with the floor, though at least this time he was able to grab on to his pilot's chair and somewhat land on his feet.

The Andarion techspert was rather gratified to see that his assailant had had just as tough a time through the spin as he had, only more so since whoever-it-was hadn't grabbed onto anything for the return trip to the floor. As a result, they probably had one hell of a concussion even through the crash helmet, and judging by the way they were holding their broken arm close to their body, the ride hadn't done the injury any favors.

Quickly sliding back into the pilot's chair, Hauk tried to straighten out his fighter, but a flashing warning light told him that the blast had somehow managed to hit one of his stabilizers, which just made things that much harder.

Wrestling with his ship, he managed to stop the uncontrolled spin, and find out that apparently they had been knocked a fair distance away from The Grezla. That was fine with him, since he didn't care one way or another if something happened to that bastard Jorvi, but before he could do more than make sure that they weren't about to start rolling again, his ears picked up sounds behind him that told him the intruder had somehow managed to get to their feet and recover their knife.

That was the thing about Andarion hearing, it was so good that they could hear someone coughing from a mile away, and they could also hear someone picking up a knife right behind them.

Hauk raised an eyebrow, slightly impressed with his attacker's persistence, as he slowly stood and turned around to face the stowaway, revealing his fangs as he grinned and made a 'bring it' gesture towards his assailant. The taunt worked, and his assailant lunged forward, knife held awkwardly in their left hand, the hand not attached to the broken arm. This time, however, his attacker didn't fall for previous twisting trick that he'd used, somehow managing to change direction mid-lunge and score a hit on the Andarion's upper arm, resulting in a shallow cut that released a thin line of blood.

His eyes narrowed at the injury, Hauk immediately sought to return the favor at least tenfold, slashing with his claws at his attacker as they spun around for another go at him. He struck pay-dirt, his claws slicing through the material of his attacker's flight suit and biting into the flesh inside it.

This time, his assailant released a sharp yell of pain, retreating with five claw wounds in their side, though Hauk noted regretfully that they weren't deep enough to be anything but very painful. Hopefully that was all they would need to be, because if his attacker was distracted by pain, it would be easier for him to move in for the finishing blow. He didn't really need the distraction, seeing as he could easily dart it and pull out the assailant's heart, but he'd rather not have to clean the large amount of resulting blood out of his ship's cockpit…again.

Eyeing his wounded attacker, Hauk decided that enough was enough, and growled loudly as his muscles tensed in anticipation of his next move. His attacker did likewise, and time almost seemed to pause before they both lunged towards each other.

Hauk's greater size and muscle mass proved to be the deciding factor, and he slammed the assailant back against the control panel with no small amount of glee, one clawed hand pressing the intruder's left arm down to take threat of the knife out of the way, and his other hand wrapped around the intruder's throat. The back of his enemy's flight helmet smacked against the wall, and the techspert vindictively hoped that it had hurt like hell.

Before the Andarion could tighten his hold on the intruder's neck, the ship rocked sharply to the side and tossed both combatants to the floor. Warning lights began flashing and Hauk scrambled to his feet, a sinking feeling growing in the pit of his stomach as he struggled to stay upright in the wild rocking and turning of his ship.

Reaching the pilot's chair, he immediately sat down and tried to figure out what the hell had happened. But what he found out wasn't good, because in the rush of the fight with his attacker, the fact that there were five other fighters out there had completely slipped his mind. Unfortunately, he hadn't slipped theirs', and apparently one of them had broken away from the attack on the Grezla in order to fire another shot at him.

And damn it all to hell, that shot had connected and taken out another one of his stabilizers!

The Andarion snarled as he struggled to keep his ship under control, partially standing as he tried to keep from going into another uncontrollable spin, since there was a very, very low chance that he would be able to pull out of another one. Pressing several buttons and flipping switches, he was able to bring a maintenance readout up onto the screen, and it felt like he'd swallowed a rock as he saw that not only were both his rear stabilizer's out, but several other important systems had been hit.

One of those systems was the air filter, and that meant that if he didn't do something soon, he was likely going to die from lack of air…To hell with that, he wasn't dying from anything less than a fatal injury, or a heart attack from really incredible sex. As neither of those seemed to be happening anytime soon, no way was it ending there for him!

As Hauk wrestled with the controls, his ship sliding sharply to the side, he didn't see the wormhole until it was far too late and he was slammed back down into the pilot's chair by the g-forces propelling the fighter.

The thing about wormholes was that they catapulted you out of whatever system you happened to be in when you went into them, whether you want them to or not. Also, when you used a wormhole shortcut (as his friend Caillen "Dagan" de Orczy used to before he got married), the best part was that it was impossible for anyone chasing to track where you'd come out, something to do with too much distortion.

All Hauk really cared about at the moment was that the wormhole was taking him far away from that damn Partini bastard Jorvi, not to mention the Derlexan fighters. Of course, he also cared that, judging from the new warning light that just came on, his landing gear had been blown off the minute the ship had slid into the wormhole…which meant that he was royally screwed if he had to make an emergency landing.

The fighter emerged from the wormhole several moments later, and the Andarion was able to breathe a little easier now that the crushing g-forces had been left behind in the cosmic shortcut. He didn't have time to be relieved though, since the wormhole had hurled them out right towards a planet, and if he didn't do something soon, the planet's gravity would pull the ship in and he would have to kiss his ass goodbye unless a miracle happened.

As the gods didn't like him most days, he chose option number one and began doing all he freaking could to change course and somehow steer the badly damaged ship away from the looming planet. He used every damn trick he'd ever learned, both from piloting instructors and from flying with certifiable nutcases like Caillen and Syn. None of them did a damn thing aside from tilt the ship slightly upward to that the back of the ship would take the most damage.

When that failed, he went with option C, which was to grab his emergency bag (never get in a ship without it!) from under the console and download as much information on the planet he was approaching as possible into his portable computer before stowing that in his pack. Strapping himself into the pilot's chair, he didn't even spare a thought to the injured second person in the fighter as he braced himself for impact with the planet's atmosphere.

His last coherent thought was something along the lines of, 'Fain is going to kick my ass for this…'

Author's Note: Hey guys! This is my first attempt at writing a League series (owned by the awesome Sherrilyn Kenyon) fic, so please keep that in mind while sending me your reviews! Apologies if I got some of the terminology wrong! :P Please read and review! As always, constructive criticism is welcome!

What gender do you think the person Dancer was fighting with was, a man or a woman? A virtual cookie to whoever guess right!