Kanti 10 (Patreon)

As you may have noticed, I've decided to skip ahead. I don't actually know if this would be scene number 10 or not, but it's certainly out past number 5. But first, a quick word on why I'm skipping...

The issue with this story (the reason I haven't bothered writing any of it down previously) is that I'm a bit stuck on the plot. Although I could write a bunch of scenes here about Kanti getting some sweet sourang lovin' (and I may yet), I think that would be a distraction. I really want to get to the point where I'm stuck so that you guys can look at it and make suggestions. After all, if the plot hole can't be fixed, then I'd rather focus my efforts on a more viable story.

So instead, let me sum up what would happen in scenes 5-9. You guys will just need to use your imagination. Pretend that this has happened and then go read the following. This setup will be important!

Kanti is all grumbly about Tikkatikkachitter. He's agreed to impregnate her because he desperately wants to free the geroo, but even though she's been a whole lot nicer than she was when he first met her, she's still an unrepentant slave owner. So, he doesn't trust her.

However, Kanti's a pretty typical guy, and despite how he wants to keep emotionally distant from her, he can't seem to manage it. She's giving him a metric truckload of Tish-sanctioned sex and every time they bone, he feels a little closer to her (think relaxing cuddle-aftercare).

Additionally, I'm going to craft the adventure-to-the-shuttle to give him lots of chances to start liking her. They can talk and she can be less stiff. He can learn more about her.

This journey will parallel the one Kanti made to try and save his old master, but instead of being a nightmarish march in the cold rain, it's going to be fun. Tikkatikkachitter may even save him from that squirrel-creature he met in Fair Trade. We'll see.

In all likelihood, I'll go back and modify the timeframe and the commissioner won't be leaving "in the morning" to go inspect. Kanti may need more bonding time with Tikkatikkachitter and they'll arrive with just enough time to get settled in.

Regardless, by the time this next scene begins, he's already started thinking of her as a friend. Got it? Great!

——— 

Captain Numea spotted the orange helmet first. It sat upon a folded environment suit in front of the door to her apartment. “Just great,” she groaned. She plucked the strand from her shoulder holster and tapped a name.

The engineering chief answered almost immediately. His ears looked worried. “Don’t tell me that Commissioner Sarsuk’s already found something he’s unhappy about. I had my crew go over the docking bay and his quarters with a fine—”

“No, it’s not that,” Numea interrupted. “Go check the logs for the environment suits. I need to know which geroo was the last one to use suit number…” She bent over to pick up the helmet but paused when a small scrap fluttered out of it and drifted silently to the deck.

Her ears out in curiosity, she retrieved the slip of paper. There was something quite strange about this scrap. It wrinkled easily in her grip and was quick to crease, most unlike the stiff sheets of writing plastic produced aboard the ship. Some fragments of krakun were printed in bold block glyphs on one side of the sheet—chemical names, but nothing she recognized.

However, when she flipped the scrap over, she noticed a message written in sloppy, hurried geroo script. “Captain, it’s urgent. Tell no one,” it read. “Come to the shuttle, alone.”

“Captain?” asked the engineering chief. “Which suit?”

Numea stared at the slip a moment, gnawing her lower lip. “Forget it,” she said, crumpling the scrap into her fist.

“It’s really not a problem,” he said. “I’ve got the check-out logs right here. If one of my crew needs a kick in the tail hole—”

“No.” She shook her head. “Engineering is doing a great job. Don’t worry about it.”

Numea disconnected the call, gathered up the suit, and strode quickly to the shuttle bay. On her way, she made a second call, this time to the junior officer stationed outside of the commissioner’s quarters.

“Yes, Captain?” The worried geroo’s green eyes darted quickly back and forth as he tried to divide his attention between the captain and the commissioner’s call light.

“Anything from our guest?” she asked, barely glancing at the screen.

“No, Captain,” he said. “Not a peep. But he’s only been here a half-hour.”

“If he wants anything,” she explained, “I want you to call me first. First, do you understand?”

“But Captain—”

“I’m well aware of the standard protocol, but we’re changing it around today,” Numea said. “If he wants anything, you call me first, and then you see to his needs. Understood?”

The junior officer did not look comfortable. His ears sagged low. “Yes, Captain.”

She cut the connection and strode around a corner to the huge glass windows that surrounded the docking bay. In the center of the wall stood a large metal hatch. A male in his early thirties with a bright white pelt jumped to attention and saluted, still blocking her way to the hatch.

She returned the salute and sat down on the bench opposite him. Setting the helmet to one side, she unzipped the suit. “Chaishu, right?” There were a lot of junior officers aboard the Meteor Lake I, and Captain Numea didn’t interact with them directly often enough to keep all their names straight, but she did make a concerted effort.

“Yes, Captain,” he said, holding himself a little straighter.

“Go take lunch,” she told him, not looking up.

“Captain?”

She ignored him as she pulled the plastic up over her legs.

“Captain, it’s only oh-nine-hundred hours,” he reminded her.

“Breakfast. Go get breakfast,” she said. “Half an hour. Not a minute less. Understood?”

She looked up and waited for him to nod. “Yes, Captain. I’ll be back in half an hour. No sooner.”

She snapped the helmet into place, climbed into the airlock and closed the hatch behind her. She checked the panel. “Ten percent sulfur compounds,” she sighed. Even a single breath of sulfur in that concentration would probably prove fatal without immediate care. Whomever had left her the message was playing a dangerous game—not just with the deadly sulfur gasses but also risking an upset to the temperamental krakun. When she found the note’s author, they would be punished—quietly the moment Commissioner Sarsuk left the ship.

Captain Numea rechecked the suit’s battery, grabbed a flashlight from the charging rack, and cycled the lock. WARNING: Hazardous atmosphere detected. DO NOT remove helmet! flashed the message in her heads-up display.

She strode across the bay, up the ramp, and into the back of the commissioner’s shuttle. “Hello?” she called, shining the flashlight this way and that around the dim confines of the mammoth ship. “Is anyone there?”

A pause and then the ominous scraping sound of metal on metal spun her about.  She focused the beam on a communications cabinet whose panel had slid slightly ajar.

Another pause, then a voice called out from the darkness beyond. “Are you the captain?”

Her ears laid back in frustration. “Yes, I’m Captain Numea. What in the five hells are you doing aboard the commissioner’s shuttle?”

“Oh, thank goodness,” said the voice. The panel slid farther open and out squeezed a scruffy geroo. He wore no environment suit, not even a breathing mask, just the usual necklace, bracelet, and strand holster. Then she noticed the woven belt he had tied around his hips and the crude metal knife tucked in it at his side.

“Gah!” she gasped in surprise, dropping the flashlight.

Kanti chuckled as he bent to retrieve the lamp. “I get that a lot, it seems.”

“But … but how?” she whispered, reaching out to touch him with a gloved paw.

He let her touch him, let her see how his eyes did not burn in the caustic atmosphere. He even opened his mouth so she could witness that his tongue did not blister and blacken. Kanti handed her back the flashlight. “Captain, I’ve come to make you an offer of a lifetime.”

“An offer?” she whispered. “Of what?”

“I think I might know of a way for your crew to escape their enslavement to the krakun,” he said, his ears grinning. “But if you’re in, I need your buy-in immediately. Sarsuk’s planning to visit three different gate ships today. If you’re not willing to take the risk, then I’m going back into my hiding spot. I’ll sneak out to ask the next captain when the commissioner leaves for his inspection.”

Numea stared, her jaw slightly open. “You’re … talking treason,” she said quietly.

But Kanti just rolled his eyes. “Call it whatever you like. I never promised the krakun any loyalty. So, are you in or are you out?”

The captain growled and planted fists on her hips. “You’re going to have to give me a little more than that. What plan?”

Kanti nodded. “I think there might be a way to modify geroo DNA so that sulfur doesn’t harm us. A friend of mine can make a serum that did it to another species, but we need scientists and biologists and doctors to … science it,” he grunted, frustrated at not knowing a better word. “And then, if it works, we need a lab to mass-produce it."

“How would that free us?” she asked.

“Because once the crew can breathe the air,” Kanti explained, “we can steal the commissioner’s shuttle and transfer the crew to Krakuntec. There’s a whole society that exists between the cracks there, just outside krakun control. There’s plenty of room for us, but the krakun rely on the fact that none of their slaves can breathe the air. That’s how they keep us from running off.”

The captain stared in silence; her breath amplified inside her helmet.

“Well?” asked Kanti.

“You’re really able to breathe krakun air?”

Kanti grinned and nodded. “It smells terrible, but you’ll get used to it.”

Another pause before Numea finally allowed her ears to smile. She reached out a gloved paw to touch his. “Okay, I’m in.”

———

Reviewer's link: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Zy9X7sQY-u4HeL_hqw7RBFxV7ZrVVasycILetWhpUpc/edit?usp=sharing

Thoughts?