Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

        Technoblade was having what could be generously called a bad day.

         Getting kidnapped had been a terrible way to start it off. His mistake, honestly. Next time he'd just stick to eggs and bacon instead.

        Surprisingly, though, it had not improved from there. His cape and mask had been ripped away from him and he’d been thrown into the cell where now sat. The cell was small, just bare metal with a door in one wall and some weird circles in the ceiling. The door was made of something that looked like glass but had to be at least as strong as steel, based on how long he had pounded at it without making a dent.

         At least they had let him keep the rest of his clothes. At this point, his ratty jeans and red sweater were more holes than cloth, but they were the last things he had from Earth. He would be... annoyed, he decided, if he lost them. Not incredibly upset, or terrified to be so far out in space with nothing to remind him of home. Definitely not. But annoyed, maybe.

         He was definitely annoyed that they had taken his mask and cape, even though he hadn't been wearing those nearly as long as his other clothes. They had been a gift, though, something he had been given on the third planet he’d stayed on, and he didn’t like the thought of the aliens throwing away the cloak that had kept him warm on so many cold nights.

         Plus, they had enormously improved his ability to blend in with the aliens around him. Now, stripped of his disguise, he was obviously human, and painfully out of place.

 Not that that mattered much here, in the middle of a prison cell.

         He huffed and sat back against the wall of the cell, putting his hands behind his head. He was still scanning the cell for any possible escapes when the guards approached the door. 

         Techno watched as two aliens, dressed in the same dark uniform as the ones who had captured him earlier, stopped outside of his door. They were dragging another, smaller figure between them. 

        The third alien was so small that Techno thought it was a child at first. To be fair, it very well could be. Techno had never seen this species before, so he had no way to tell if this guy was an adult or not. 

        It (It? He? She? They? He, Techno decided, and if he was wrong he could always correct himself later) was covered in bright, colorful feathers that might have been quite beautiful under any other circumstance, but at the moment they were matted with rusty blood and sticking out at strange angles. Big wings as black as an oil spill hung limply behind the alien, and Techno could see broken primaries dragging on the ground.

        Clearly, whatever tranquilizers they had used on Techno, this guy hadn’t gotten them. 

        Techno had to give him some credit, though- if the long gouges in the guards’ armor were from him, then he had put up one hell of a fight.

        One of the guards punched a button on a panel that Techno couldn't see from where he was, and suddenly, the door slid open, the clear panel retreating into the ceiling. 

        Techno was on his feet in an instant. He didn’t have a chance to do anything, though, as the guards immediately flung the smaller alien into the room like a sack of potatoes. A sack of potatoes that had personally wronged them, apparently, based on how much force they put behind the throw. As the alien’s body arced through the air, Techno realized three things in quick succession. 

        Thing number one: The alien was flying a lot farther than Techno had anticipated.

        He probably had hollow bones for flight, so of course he’d be lighter than he looked, Techno’s brain helpfully supplied, while he remained completely motionless in the middle of the cell.

        Thing number two: The alien wasn’t actually flying through the air so much as he was launching through it, coming straight for Techno.

        And thing number three, which was becoming more obvious by the second: even despite how beaten up the alien was, he was still perfectly capable of fighting. 

        By the time Techno had processed the wickedly sharp talons coming directly at his face, it was far too late to move.

        The little alien hit him like a bowling ball.

        Techno made a rather undignified “oof” as he was hit, and the alien immediately launched into an attempt on his life. Huge wings buffeted Techno’s head as he fought to defend himself. He brought up an arm to try to shield his face, only to connect with a slash of talons that made stinging pain explode across his skin. 

        It took another moment of struggle before Techno was able to throw the alien off of him, and then he was stumbling back, pushing himself against the far wall of the cell as he tried to assess the damage. 

        Three long, red scratches were welling up on Techno’s arm, visible under a fresh hole torn in his sweater. And if the sting of pain hadn’t alerted him to the gash across his nose, then the blood pouring down his face certainly would’ve done the job.

        “Bruh,” Techno grumbled under his breath, biting back a much harsher word. Years of volunteering at an animal shelter that always seemed to have some snot-nosed kid or another hanging around it had ingrained the habit of not cursing into him. Now, he couldn’t seem to let it go, even when he was light-years away from Earth.

        He would probably never see that animal shelter again, came the thought from the part of his mind that was still freaking out over having been abducted by aliens. Technoblade was doing his best to ignore that part.

        The metallic taste of blood dripping into his mouth was unwelcome but unsurprising. Techno wrinkled his nose and spat it on the metal floor. He had forgotten how much head wounds bleed.

        How was he supposed to treat this? Alien jail didn’t come with free gauze or alcohol wipes. 

        No, he thought sarcastically, if you want that then you have to be in the good alien jail. Humans like him didn’t get the fancy treatment.

        He couldn’t even wrap his arm, the only cloth he had was what he was wearing, and that was so caked in blood and dirt that it would probably be worse than nothing at all.

        The laugh that bubbled from Techno’s throat landed somewhere between caustic and hysterical.

        There was no way he was going to die of an infection after he’d come this far. He wouldn’t give them the satisfaction. 

        He shook his head softly as if to rid himself of the thought. No, he wouldn’t die. He’d figure something out- he’d find some loose panel in the cell wall that he hadn’t seen the first five times he looked, or he’d attack the guards the next time they opened the door, or he’d take the little bird alien as a hostage and bargain for his freedom.

        Although considering that the bird seemed to be another prisoner, that might not be the best plan. His life didn’t seem to be worth much to the guards. 

         The alien in question was currently crouched on the other side of the cell, his wings still spread behind him to make him look bigger. The twisted expression on his face almost looked like a cocky smile- before Techno remembered that baring teeth was usually a sign of aggression in animals. He didn’t know much about alien social customs, but he was willing to bet that that wasn’t a friendly grin.

    “If you’re going to attack me again you might as well get it over with,” Techno commented, pretending to be unconcerned. “I’m warning you, though, if you rip my sweater again I’m going to put you through that wall.” 

    The alien responded in a low chirp that Techno assumed was his way of saying “I don’t understand you”. 

    Techno grunted a response and settled back against his side of the cell. The alien’s lips were still pulled back in that threatening grin, but he hadn’t made any move towards Techno to continue his attack.

    Techno was going to count that as a win.

    Time ticked by slowly, sitting in the corner of a cell. Techno wasn’t sure if it had been minutes or hours, but eventually, his eyes began to droop despite his efforts to keep vigilant. 

    He fought sleep for as long as he could, but inevitably, his mind began to slip under. As he drifted off, Techno only found himself hoping that he would dream of home.

---

        It was dark in the cell.

        Deep in the hull of a poacher ship, there were no windows for starlight to reach, and the artificial lights of the ship had gone off hours ago, leaving the cell in inky blackness that Philza’s poor night vision couldn’t penetrate. 

        Philza idly traced a groove in the metal floor with his talon. It made a soft scraping noise. His eyes never left the corner of the room where he knew the Human lay, even if he couldn't see it in the dark.

        Humans were rare enough in this part of the galaxy that even Phil had never seen one before now, but their reputation far preceded them.

        Their home planet was far enough out that even though they had started to explore the stars, they hadn’t made it very far. They had sent some attempts at communication, but the Galactic Council had made the decision to let their society develop a bit more before anyone was allowed to make first contact.

        Unfortunately, that meant that most Humans in space were ones that had been kidnapped from their home planet, usually by poachers who wanted to sell them on the black market.

        Even more unfortunately for the poachers, smuggling Humans had proven to be one of the most dangerous jobs in the galaxy. Humans were large, strong, hardy, viciously smart, and were more than willing to destroy an entire ship if they thought they were in danger. Cornering a Human was like trying to corner a dying star. The galaxy had quickly learned not to mess with them.

    So, saying that Philza was a bit nervous to be trapped with one would be a massive fucking understatement.

    Although, so far, this particular Human wasn’t living up to its species’ violent reputation. 

It hadn’t done anything overtly threatening yet- it hadn’t even fought back when Philza attacked it. 

That was actually quite the surprise. Phil had been sure he was about to come face-to-face with his Lady Death when he had taken a chunk out of the Human’s arm, but it had barely reacted. 

It wasn’t like the Human couldn’t have fought back if it had wanted to. It was twice Phil’s size, and Phil was already hurt. Phil would have gone down fighting, sure, but that wasn’t a fight he would have won. 

And yet, all it had done was retreat to the other corner of the cell and sit down. It hadn’t so much as twitched for hours. Maybe it was dead.

    Or maybe that was wishful thinking, Phil thought as he listened to the slow breathing that filled the room.

    Philza was pretty sure that the Human was asleep. He hoped it was asleep. If it wasn’t, then it was scarily good at staying completely motionless, and Phil didn’t know what unsettled him more: the idea that he was so little of a threat to the Human that it was perfectly comfortable falling asleep with him in the cell, or the possibility that it was watching him from the shadows.

    If the Human was awake, moving might alert it to his presence. On the other hand, his muscles were starting to cramp from sitting for so long. He had to get up at some point, whether the Human was awake or not.

    Philza slowly stood from the corner where he had been sitting for the past who-knows-how-long. His loose robes made a quiet swishing sound as he moved. There was no sound to indicate that the Human had stirred, and Phil’s wings ruffled in relief. 

He stretched, letting his wings unfurl as far as they could in the small cell. He could feel the ache in his joints. Maybe Wilbur was right, he thought with a soft huff. He really was getting too old for this.

    Now that he was standing, Philza cautiously made his way over to the corner of the cell where the Human sat so that he could see it in the dark.

    It didn’t look as intimidating like this, with its eyes closed and its head lolling against the wall. There was a long braid of hair thrown over one of its shoulders. Philza couldn’t make out colors well in the dark, but he was pretty sure it had been pink in the light.

    As he got closer, Phil could see that the Human’s braid was done in an undeniably Piglin style. Phil frowned. That fit in with the description the poachers had given of the Piglin mask and cloak it had been wearing when they caught it, but it still didn’t make sense. What was a Human doing in Piglin clothes?

The Human’s hair seemed to have almost the same texture as a Piglin’s mane, just a bit less coarse- it was probably why the Piglin braid had worked so well for it. Staring down at it, Phil was suddenly overcome with the near-suicidal urge to run his talons through the Human’s hair. 

Fuck, he missed Tommy. Tommy always let Phil preen him or braid his mane, even if he complained about it sometimes. (And even when he did complain, he couldn’t hide the fond look in his eyes or the pleased crinkle of his snout.)

Phil forced his feathers to lay flat. Tommy was safe, he reminded himself. In fact, the young Piglin was doing a lot better than Philza at the moment, still on the ship with Wilbur and Tubbo. 

They were probably all looking for Phil right now, he mused, and if he’d ever managed to teach them anything they were being smart about it. The poachers wouldn’t know what hit them.

Besides, Phil thought, it had taken Tommy years to let Phil touch his mane, and he was one of the species that liked community grooming. Trying to preen a strange Human would probably get his arm torn off. 

Phil had just resigned himself to settling back into the other cell and attempting to sleep despite the Human when the lights in the cell clicked on. 

The Human instantly shot awake. Its head cracked against Philza’s as it tried to stand, and Philza let out a high-pitched squawk of pain. He was very glad no one but the Human was around to hear that, his boys would have made fun of him for weeks.

The Human reeled back, and Philza scrambled back across the cell, futilely trying to pretend that he hadn’t just been watching it sleep like a fucking creep. He had no idea what it might do if it felt threatened by him, and he didn’t particularly want to find out.

Luckily for him, he didn’t have to try to play it off for long. A hiss suddenly sounded from the door, and both Phil and the Human jumped, their unexpected collision all but forgotten.

A guard stood in front of the door, which had slid open just far enough to let them push a plate of food into the cell.

“Morning,” the poacher said in Common, sounding infuriatingly chipper.

 It took Philza a moment to realize that they were talking to him .

“Glad to see you awake and alive,” they continued, unperturbed by his lack of response. “To be honest I kind of expected that one to have bashed your head in by now.” The poacher gestured to the Human, who was lingering near the back of the cell. The glare that the Human was giving the poacher reminded Phil uncomfortably of a predator staring down its prey. 

Philza very pointedly did not flinch when its gaze flicked to him.

“Sorry to disappoint, mate,” Phil laughed, lacing his voice with as much venom as he could while still maintaining an air of fake politeness.

The poacher’s three tails curled behind them. Phil wasn’t very familiar with Ti’atari body language, but he was pretty sure that was a sign of amusement. 

“Oh, believe me, I’m not disappointed. Remora owes me 50 em, she thought you wouldn’t last the night. I said at least three, but we’ll just have to see, won’t we?”

The Ti’atari turned and disappeared down the hallway before Phil had a chance to spit a response. 

Philza made a rude gesture behind their back before turning to investigate the food.

Food, as a rule, wasn’t something that was incredibly important in Phil’s culture. Sharing food with friends and family was nice, sure, but they didn’t have huge feasts together like Tommy’s people, and they didn’t place much value on high-quality food like Tubbo’s did. For the most part, Phil would eat pretty much anything his biology could handle.

Even Philza could tell that this food was shit. There was a small handful of wrinkly, worm-eaten fruits on one side of the tray, seemingly shoved on as an afterthought to the main dish, which was- Phil’s talons curled in indignation. Silverfish.

Under any other circumstance, Phil wouldn’t mind eating silverfish, but he could recognize the insult the poachers had intended by feeding him ship pests.

They hadn’t even bothered to shell the damn things, they were still covered in hard armor and tiny little spines. They weren’t even cooked- could Humans eat raw meat?

He turned to glance at the Human- and immediately had to stifle a yell. The Human was standing right behind him, leaning over his shoulder to look at the tray of food. Even bending over, it towered over him.

“Sweet Lady Death, mate, ever heard of personal space?” Phil blurted. 

The Human’s eyes narrowed, and Phil abruptly realized that telling off an alien that could break all his bones in one hand might have been, possibly, a little bit stupid. 

Then again, Philza had danced with Death for much dumber reasons, and he’d always managed to pull his feathers out of the fire before now. If this was what finally got him, at least “fighting with a Human” wasn’t too embarrassing of a way to die. 

The Human, to its credit, backed off, despite the fact that it obviously didn’t understand him. It pointed at the tray of food and said something in its weird, low language. 

“Uh, it’s food.”

The Human frowned and repeated itself. 

“Mate, I can’t understand you,” Phil said. This was going to be frustrating. Language barriers were a bitch.

Apparently, the Human thought so too because it began to try something else. It opened its mouth again, and Phil was shocked to hear it speak in Piglin.

“Food, right?” It said, gesturing at the tray. “You should eat.” 

“You speak Piglin?” Phil asked, dropping into the guttural language himself. 

The Human’s pronunciation could use work, but then again, so could Phil’s. It had been a while since he’d practiced Piglin, especially since Tommy mostly spoke Common since he’d joined the crew.

“Shit, mate, I didn’t know you could actually talk. Uh. I’m sorry about all… that, by the way,” Phil said, gesturing at the cut across the Human’s face. “I was just- a little freaked out, you know?” 

Phil laughed awkwardly. He hoped it wasn’t too late to apologize, he’d really rather have the giant alien as a friend than a foe. 

The Human stared blankly at him. “Food?” It repeated. 

Phil made a half-involuntary trill of disappointment. Apparently, it didn’t know as much of the language as he had hoped.

 At least he had confirmation that it- or rather, they, he corrected himself, switching to the Common pronoun for sentient creatures- were genuinely intelligent enough to understand language. The stories he’d heard about Humans were wildly conflicting on that point- some claimed that Humans were just as smart as or even smarter than any other sentient species, while others claimed that they were practically animals. 

“Uh, yeah,” Phil agreed, offering the alien the tray. “Food.”

Phil watched the Human pick at a silverfish while he began to dig into the fruit.

He didn't know if Humans were carnivorous or not- it was hard to know much of anything about Humans with how rare it was to even see one. He was sure someone studied them, somewhere, but Philza was no anthropologist.

This one, at least, seemed content to leave the fruit to Phil, which he was grateful for. Phil had been living on disgusting freeze-dried ship rations for a week, he would take any fruit, no matter how worm-filled. 

As Phil was thinking, the sound of loud, deep breathing reached his ears. Phil looked up, trying to figure out what the Human was doing- were they hyperventilating? Having a panic attack?- just in time to see them squeeze their eyes shut and bite directly into the silverfish, shell and all.

Philza may not have been well-versed in Human facial expressions, but he knew instant regret when he saw it.

Phil cackled despite himself as the Human spat shards of chitin onto the floor. The glare that the Human sent him only made him laugh harder.

It took Phil a while to stop laughing, and by the time he had begun to calm down, the Human had joined in, which only got him going again.

Eventually, their laughter died down (only when they had run out of breath to laugh with), and Phil found himself laying on his back, his wings slightly spread and pressed against the cold metal floor.  

“Oh, jeez, mate…” Phil chuckled. He didn’t bother with Piglin or Common, instead speaking in his native Elytrian. It wasn’t like the Human would understand him anyways. 

The Human responded in their own language. Philza had no clue what they were saying, but it still made him laugh. 

His laugh trailed off and he looked up, and suddenly his eyes met the Human’s. They were the color of amber, Phil thought, with quite a lot of white sclera visible around the pupil.

 They watched each other, both searching for understanding in unfamiliar eyes, before the Human looked away, and the moment was gone. 

Phil sat up and moved back across the cell, and the two of them fell back into silence.

---

The days passed more easily after that. Phil and the Human were still wary of each other, but they were becoming more comfortable sharing the space they had been forced into.

Phil started to learn things about the Human. He learned that they were a very light sleeper when they slept at all. The smallest touch was enough to shock them awake and send them grasping for what Phil assumed must be a weapon that they didn’t have anymore. He also learned that they were, in fact, an omnivore, although they seemed even less enthused about the prison food than Philza was. 

The two of them talked a lot. Sometimes it was just talk for the sake of talking, both of them speaking in their home languages, leading to long conversations that neither of them really understood. When they genuinely wanted to communicate, they spoke in Piglin. The Human only knew a few phrases when they started, but they were picking it up quickly, as well as the Common that the guards spoke when they came around. Phil was trying to teach them Elytrian too, just for fun. 

The result was that Phil and the Human were developing a pidgin of Common, Piglin, Elytrian, and even bits of the Human’s native language that would almost certainly be nonsense to anyone else. If they ever broke out Phil would have to teach the Human proper Common, but that was a cliff he could fly when he reached the ledge. 

Every day, one of the poachers came to give the prisoners food. Sometimes it was the same smug Ti’atari from the first day, and sometimes someone else. They chatted with Philza at first, seemingly amused that the Human hadn’t killed him yet, but as the days wore on they grew annoyed. They had obviously expected him to be dead by now.

Phil took great pleasure in disrupting their plans. His unending cheeriness in the face of his own demise was clearly starting to piss the poachers off, and that delighted him almost as much as the fact that he wasn’t actually dead.

It was hard to keep track of exactly how much time had passed- Phil was pretty sure that the poacher’s ship was running on a different day/night cycle than he was used to- but the poachers came to check on him and the Human several times before anything changed in their routine.

“Up, they’re coming,” the Human hissed in broken Common, rousing Phil from his sleep moments before the poacher rounded the corner and came into view. 

As Phil blinked sleep from his eyes, he saw that the woman that arrived wasn’t carrying the usual tray of food. He perked up, taking immediate note of this change.

Had their captors decided that the prisoners weren’t even worth the scraps they had been getting? Or maybe this was punishment for the Human for not killing Phil- they were going to starve them until the Human had no choice but to turn on Phil for sustenance. 

Phil carefully didn’t let his curiosity show, greeting the poacher with his usual, “‘Sup, mate?” Behind him, he knew that the Human was doing that unsettling baring of teeth that they did when they were happy- though the version of that expression they reserved for the poachers definitely wasn’t a happy one. 

“Shut up,” the poacher- an orange, scaled woman almost as big as the Human- growled. “I’m not here to chat with you, you overgrown chicken. I’m here for the Human.” 

“Really? Them? They’re not very talkative, you know. Not a great conversation partner.” 

“You think you’re so fucking clever, huh?” The poacher snarled. “You’ve been nothing but a pebble under our scales this entire time. I’ll be glad when the boss finally sees sense and gets rid of you.” She scowled at him. "Not today, though. What I've heard is, we're saving that celebration for when we reach the port. So you can either hurry up and die here," she said, glancing at the Human, "or you can wait, and you'll die there." 

She aggressively punched a button on the door panel, and a hissing sound filled the room. Phil's response died on his tongue as his eyes were drawn upwards, landing on those strange small holes in the ceiling. Gas nozzles, Phil realized, drawing a sharp breath.

He instantly realized his mistake when he felt his limbs grow heavy. His feathers rose defensively even as his heartbeat slowed, and he futilely struggled against the chains of sleep dragging him to the floor.

The last thing he saw before his vision went dark was the door to the cell sliding open.

Chapter Text

To his mild surprise, Phil woke up.

His cheek was pressed into the cold metal floor and his head was pounding as if someone had tried to crack it open. Probably a side effect of the gas-

Fuck, right, the gas. Phil groaned and tried to rise from the floor.

The wave of nausea that overcame him was powerful enough to knock him right back down.

Something’s wrong, he thought. He squeezed his eyes shut and tried to make the cell stop spinning around him. What’s wrong?

Slow, careful movements of all his limbs- first his legs, then his arms, and then a ruffle of his wings- confirmed that nothing was broken, or at least not any worse than when he had arrived. His head was killing him, but that was probably just whatever tranquilizer they had used on him wearing off. He could see and hear just fine, the low electric hum of the ship thrumming in time to the pounding in his skull.

And yet, something was still wrong. Somehow, even despite the ever-present humming, the cell seemed quiet.

The Human. He couldn’t hear the Human.

Phil’s eyes snapped open and he pushed himself up, ignoring the dizziness that swept over him at the movement.

The Human wasn’t anywhere in the cell- the poachers must have taken them while Phil was out.

“Fuck,” Phil spat, rubbing at his eyes. His head was fucking killing him. He pressed the butts of his palms further into his eyes and found himself clicking in frustration when that did nothing to relieve the pain.

His feathers bristled as he glanced around the empty room again, as if that would somehow magically make his cellmate appear.

It didn’t.

The rest of the day cycle went by agonizingly slowly. The Human didn’t reappear until the ship’s lights had already turned off, and the cell had been plunged into darkness once more. Phil heard the poachers approaching the cell long before he saw them.

“How long before we can sell it?” One of them was asking. Their hooves were clicking on the metal floor, creating an out-of-time rhythm with the other sets of steps, one so soft and steady it was barely there, and the third clumsy and heavy.

“Not long,” the other smuggler replied. “Three hundred kilochunks to the next station, but it’s four thousand till the next market that’ll take live cargo.”

The first one hummed. “How much do you think we’ll get for it? I heard a rig at the end of the spiral sold one of these guys for a hundred thousand.”

“I don’t care if we only get a thousand for it, I just want’a get rid of the thing. I mean, you saw what it did down in the lab, yeah? Messiest blood draw I’ve ever seen. Hmph. We’d better be getting a lot for that. At least enough to cover the fucking medical bills.”

“Hoo boy, that bad, huh? Yikes. Well, it’s not too much longer and we can get rid of both of them. Be nice to have some easy cargo again…”

The voices rounded the corner, and in the darkness, Phil was barely able to make out the figure of the Human being guided down the hall by two of the largest poachers he’d seen on the ship. The Human, usually so full of life, was just letting the poachers guide them, mumbling something under their breath that Phil could hear but not understand. They seemed to be having trouble standing up on their own, and as the group approached the door they tripped and almost brought both poachers down with them.

The Human said something in their home language as they were shoved back into the cell. Phil could only make out the words “fine” and “dies” before the Human collapsed against the floor, passing out cold.

Phil clicked in concern. The Human hadn’t sounded particularly concerned, so they probably hadn’t said they were going to die- still, Phil resolved to watch his companion carefully until they woke up. If the poachers had carelessly done something deadly to the Human, Phil would tear their throats out.

He nudged the Human with a talon, on the off chance that being poked might be the cure for whatever was wrong with them. They didn’t react.

With a sigh, Phil sat down next to them on the cold metal floor. They were obviously drugged out of their mind, probably from- what had that poacher said? A blood draw? Either it was anesthetic from that, or they had attacked someone and needed to be tranquilized. They didn’t seem to have any visible injuries other than the cuts that Phil had given them, which had already been there. The cut across their nose was healing faster than Phil would have thought possible, but he was pretty sure it would still leave a scar.

As the Human began to snore, Phil tapped a pattern against the floor with his talons.

Four thousand kilochunks. If the poachers’ ship was going the same speed it had been before Philza had gotten himself caught, it would only be a week, maybe two, before it reached that station.
He looked again at the sleeping Human.

In that case, he couldn’t rely on his family to track the ship down and rescue him. He had every faith that they would find him eventually, but that might take weeks or more, and Phil no longer had that kind of time. Not for himself or for his companion.

It was up to him, then. He would have to break out on his own.
---
As it turned out, breaking out on his own was really hard. Either the outlaws of the galaxy had severely stepped up their game since the last time Phil had been in prison, or he had gotten a lot worse at escaping jail cells. He chose to believe that it was the former.

It had been a week since the poachers had first started taking the Human away, leading them even deeper into the bowels of the ship for hours at a time. Whatever it was that was being done to them, it always left them dizzy and lightheaded afterward, and they almost always passed out as soon as they were back in the cell. Phil would be more concerned about that if he didn’t think it was the only sleep they were getting at all.

In that time, Phil had come up with and discarded about 26 different breakout plans, with varying levels of help from his cellmate. They tried to help as much as possible at first (though the language barrier often made it hard to communicate more complex plans), but they were growing weaker by the day. They tried not to let on that they were feeling anything less than one hundred percent, but Phil could see the way they had begun to pace the cell less and less, always conserving energy for when their captors would come to take them away again.

In the end, it was a stroke of luck that provided him the opportunity to escape. Three nights before the ship was due to arrive on-planet, a guard left the door open.

It was not open by much, just a few centimeters above the ground. It was barely enough for Phil to slip his claws under. But it was enough.
---
The alarm blared as Techno whipped around the corner, his worn-out sneakers skidding against the floor.

He could hear shouting just yards behind him, the sounds of what must be the guards arriving at the cell, finding the door torn wide open.

The little alien was a few feet ahead of Techno, half running and half flying. Techno was pretty sure he was laughing. He suddenly barked something in that chirping language and swung around the corner into another hallway that Techno hadn’t even seen, labeled with the alien language that he still couldn’t read.

He pivoted on one foot and ducked into the room after his companion. The alien was already digging through a pile in the corner of the room. He threw something at Techno, who only barely caught it before the next thing was being flung at him.

His mask, he realized, staring down at the object in his hands. The carved bone stared up at him, the sparse gilding shining in the harsh light of the ship. He caught the next object easier, recognizing the thick fabric of his red cloak.

The little alien was pulling a large pack over his robes and shoving a large striped hat down onto his head, already halfway out the door. There was a beat, and Techno realized that his new companion was waiting for him.

Techno swung his cloak around his shoulders and settled his mask on his face. The familiar weight was a comfort against his skin. He followed the bird alien out the door, already feeling better than he had in months.

The rest of the run to find the escape pods was hectic. Techno’s alien obviously didn’t know where he was going, but he could at least read the signs in the ship, so Techno was happy to let him lead.

They arrived at the row of small pods just as the poachers caught up to them. The door of the pod swung shut right before a blast impacted it from the other side. The alien frantically turned to the board of flashing buttons and lights and began to launch the ship into motion.

The entire pod shuddered horribly, and for one eternal moment, Techno thought that they were going to be stuck on the ship. Then, suddenly, the pod shot free, and they were soaring through the endless expanse of space.

For about ten glorious minutes, the escape was perfect. Techno was able to catch his breath as he watched galaxies whiz by outside the window. The ship was gliding through the stars, quickly leaving the poacher’s vessel far behind, and headed towards a small grey planet that was growing bigger on the horizon.

That was, of course, when everything began to go wrong. The ship jolted as they hit the atmosphere of the planet, throwing Techno forward in the cockpit. His mask bounced off the windshield, leaving his head spinning and his nose throbbing as he tried to right himself. The alien was trying to pull himself up from the floor, but the ship was shuddering like it was going to come apart.

Trees were whipping by the windshield. Branches cracked horribly as the ship tore through them, headed at terminal velocity towards the planet’s surface. Techno frantically grabbed a lever that looked like it might control the altitude and pulled it towards himself with all the strength he had left.

The ship began to level out- but it was too late. Earth sprayed as the pod hit the ground, skidding to a stop some two hundred yards after it hit the planet’s surface.

Inside the ship, Techno felt a shock go through him as the ship slammed into the ground. He heard a crunch and a short scream, and then everything else was drowned out by the sound of screeching metal. By the time he opened his eyes and removed his hands from over his head, the ship was still.