Tarakoshi (Patreon)

If you were to ask me who my favorite krakun is, I might have to say Tarakoshi. I only ever wrote one scene with him, but he always felt the most genuine.

Perhaps someday I'll figure out what to do with this:

——— 

Captain Ateri forced his ears into an unnaturally cheerful set. Of all the parts of this awful job, meeting with the commissioner was the worst.

He put one paw to his face and adjusted the black eyepatch over his empty, left eye socket. Well, perhaps not the worst part, but he certainly didn’t enjoy these visits.

The back of the shuttlecraft lowered slowly down, forming a ramp for the enormous krakun. When the motors went silent, Ateri cleared his throat. “Good morning! I hope you had a pleasant flight, Commiss—”

The word died in the captain’s throat as the emerald green krakun peeked from the back of the commissioner’s shuttle and peered around the docking bay. Commissioner Sarsuk had yellow scales and he always moved with complete confidence. He never hesitated after landing unless he was upset and felt the need to berate Ateri … again.

Not certain how to address the new visitor, Ateri remained at attention, with paws behind his back. The geroo held his tail out straight, trying to conceal his unease at the unexpected change. Eventually the krakun bounded down the ramp and turned to face the tiny, black geroo standing before him.

The gigantic creature seemed uneasy, almost as if he had never seen a slave before—which was ludicrous. The krakun slowly lowered himself down until he was laying on his belly, his chin merely half a meter above the deck and his eyes were … as close to Ateri’s eye level as the mammoth beast could manage without picking the captain up off the deck.

Ateri searched his memories for any sort of memo warning about a new commissioner, but he came up blank. So instead of risking the krakun’s ire, Ateri continued to wait.

“You’re Captain Ateri,” the krakun finally managed. “I recognize your eyepatch from your photo.”

“Yes,” the captain replied, uncertain of what else to say, “I welcome you aboard the White Flower II. You must be….”

A silence stretched between the two before the krakun filled in, “Tarakoshi, the commissioner’s nephew.”

Ateri nodded as if the situation was all perfectly normal.

“Uncle Sarsuk’s sick,” the krakun explained. “He was just gonna stay in bed, but when I suggested that I fill in for him, he said I could.”

“Oh, I understand,” said Ateri. “Well, then I’m sure you’ll want to get right to work.” He gave Tarakoshi an encouraging smile and took a few steps down the shuttle bay toward a large, krakun-sized airlock. “If you’ll just follow me, I’ll show you to Sarsuk’s visitor’s chambers where you can relax and study the logs since the commissioner’s previous visit.”

The krakun scrambled to stand back up, but he needn’t have bothered. A single krakun step covered as much deck as a dozen made by a geroo.

“Just head through this airlock,” explained Ateri as he gestured with an open paw. “The visitor’s chambers are on the left and you should be able to access any of the ship’s records on your strand. If you have any questions or need anything at all, just push the button on the wall to call me.”

Tarakoshi nodded excitedly. “Yes, yes, okay. I’ve got it. Through the airlock, chamber on the left, records on my strand, and call button on the wall. Thank you very much, Captain! I’ll get right to work. Thanks!”

The huge, green beast rushed to the airlock, stopping once to wave before pulling the hatch open and vanishing inside.

Ateri opened the hatch to the geroo-sized airlock in the middle of the windowed wall and scratched idly at his ruff while the air inside cycled. He had never been thanked by a krakun before. He’d never even heard of such a thing happening. The captain walked through the second hatch and was greeted by a junior officer whose name he couldn’t recall offhand. She saluted and waited for instructions.

“Y’know,” muttered the captain as he returned the officer’s salute, “I think you should go about your normal duties today.”

“Sir?” she asked. “You don’t want me to wait outside the commissioner’s chamber, in case he calls?”

Ateri shook his head. “Nah, I think I’d rather handle it myself today … just in case.”

———

 Ateri waited outside the commissioner’s chambers. He paged through the day’s requests on his strand, prioritizing and delegating responsibilities, glancing up every few moments to see if Tarakoshi had lit the call light above the airlock hatch.

After only an hour’s work, the red light came on and Ateri put his strand back into the holster on his right shoulder. He entered the airlock, but then stopped, noticing that the air inside the commissioner’s chamber was still sulfur rich. Cycling the airlock now would be almost instantly lethal.

Instead, Ateri pressed the call button beside the indicator panel. “Commiss—” He shook his head and began again. “Sir, I can’t come in so long as the atmosphere is still set to Krakuntec normal. The sulfur is poisonous to geroo.”

“Oh, right, right!” boomed the voice over the intercom. “I remember that. I’ll reset it now.”

Ateri shrugged and watched the display as the sulfur levels dropped; ten percent, one percent, ten thousand parts per million, five hundred, three, and then down to only trace quantities. Ateri scratched his head. He pulled the lever to cycle the airlock, but the pumps didn’t even turn on. Tarakoshi had set his uncle’s chamber to the atmosphere of Gerootec instead of some compromise between their two worlds.

So many firsts on one day, Ateri thought to himself.

“Can I help you, sir?” the captain asked as he stepped inside.

“I’m done,” blurted the krakun, almost over Ateri’s words. “I mean, I’m done with my work, Captain.”

“Wow, that was quick,” said Ateri in surprise. “Did you have any questions?”

Tarakoshi shook his enormous head. “No, it was really pretty easy. I don’t understand why Uncle Sarsuk keeps complaining about the job sucking so much.”

“Oh, well … that’s great.” Ateri smiled hesitantly. “Well, we’ve certainly enjoyed your visit today, sir, and we all hope that Commissioner Sarsuk lets you fill in for him more often. Please extend our sympathies to him. I hope that he feels better, soon,” lied the geroo.

“Oh yeah, I’ll do that!” The krakun smiled and showed off many of his meter-long teeth. “I’m sure he’ll be happy to know you’re thinking of him. And … um … Captain?”

Ateri’s fur stood on end and he hesitated, trying to remain calm. “Yes, sir?”

“I just wanted to apologize.”

Ateri swallowed, his eyes wide. “A-apologize … for?”

“I’m sorry about mentioning your eyepatch when we first met,” he explained. “That was really insensitive. I’ve just never seen anyone wear one before, but you’re probably touchy about it. I mean … um … since it was my uncle … and all … that had your eye … removed.”

“Removed?” Ateri couldn’t help but chuckle. “Had my eye removed.”

The young krakun wrung his claws together. “Is that the wrong word?”

“‘Removed’ sounds like he sent me to a surgeon who was trying to stop a cancerous growth from spreading. Your uncle didn’t ‘have my eye removed,’ no. After making me watch while he murdered two of my very best friends, he held me still and gouged the tip of one of his talons into my eye,” Ateri growled. He cursed himself for taking his anger out on the young krakun, but he was too upset to stop now. “Technically, it was one of the ship’s medics who had to remove all the ruined pieces of my eye. He actually had to spend a couple hours researching just how to close the wound … when I told him that Sarsuk forbade me from letting them clone me a new one.”

Tarakoshi looked away. “Yeah, that. Whew, that’s a relief,” he mumbled. “So glad that you’re not … y’know … sensitive about it.”

Ateri stared in silence a moment before he chuckled. He couldn’t help it. Everything about this visit had been absurd.

Tarakoshi turned back and smiled. Ateri had never seen a krakun smile before, but there was no mistaking it from the descriptions he had read. The krakun’s sophisticated facial muscles pulled the edges of his mouth upward and his eyes disappeared into dark crescents. Geroo could snarl, but beyond that, they displayed all emotions with the set of their long ears.

After a long pause, the krakun said, “So, I was looking in your file, and it said that you’re forty-seven years old. Forty-seven? Is that really true?”

Ateri nodded.

“Wow, that’s just crazy. Gerootec years weren’t like … crazy long, or something?”

The geroo shook his head. “I looked it up, once,” Ateri explained, “I think they’re pretty close to a Krakuntec year. Like within a few percent, but I don’t recall which were longer.”

“Forty-seven,” the krakun repeated. “That’s just insane. I can’t believe they let you command an entire starship. Well, yeah, I mean it’s only a slave ship, but forty-seven? That would be like hatching out of the egg and being handed your command.”

Ateri ground his teeth for a moment and tried to keep his voice level. “First of all, I didn’t get this command at forty-seven. I became captain at twenty-two. And secondly, no one handed me anything. I earned this command. I worked for years to prove that I was the best geroo for the job, and I kept on proving it for the last twenty-five years!”

“Jeez, chill out, Ateri,” said the krakun as he rolled his eyes. “I didn’t mean that you were a bad captain or anything. It’s just, twenty-two years? My mom probably didn’t even trust me with solid food by the time I was twenty-two. I don’t even have any memories going back that far.”

Ateri sighed. “How old are you?”

“Seventeen hundred and forty-seven.” The krakun grinned again. “Forty-seven … you and I are practically twins, y’know … give or take seventeen hundred years.”

Ateri let loose with a sharp bark of laughter that the geroo called a “yarp”. “Twins, huh? Well, sure, I can see a slight family resemblance.”

“But I guess,” Tarakoshi said in a far quieter voice, “geroo don’t live to seventeen hundred … or even one hundred.”

Ateri shook his head. “No, it’s forbidden.”

“Yeah, my uncle said you guys were culled at sixty.”

Ateri closed his eyes and held his breath, trying to regain his calm. He couldn’t say why any one euphemism was any worse than another, but there was something deeply vulgar about the term “culled” being used with regard to sapient beings.

“I just … wow,” sighed the krakun at a loss for words. “Sixty is like … I dunno … waking up for only a moment. How can you stand that hanging over your head?”

The captain shrugged. “No one gave us a choice.”

“And twenty-two? Twenty-two.”

“Well, to be fair,” said Ateri, marveling at having a pleasant conversation with a krakun, “I had done a lot more than eat solid foods by the time I was twenty-two. I had studied, I had trained, I had been tested.” He sighed. “I’d seen friends die. I’d found the love of my life, and pair bonded with her.”

Tarakoshi looked down for a brief moment before quickly looking away.

“Haven’t found your mate yet, Tarakoshi?” Ateri asked reflexively before wondering why he pried.

“Well, krakun society is … complex,” the krakun explained. “I don’t think you could understand just how impossible it is to find a mate without becoming a financial success first. And that can’t happen at seventeen hundred, well, unless you were hatched in a golden nest.”

Ateri nodded. “A success like your uncle, you mean?”

Tarakoshi erupted into such side-splitting laughter that Ateri had to dash backward, just to keep from being crushed.

“A success?” The krakun wiped at his eyes with the back of a claw. “My uncle? He’s a slave wrangler! What could be more pathetically low than that? Seriously! If the task were only a little more menial, we’d have slaves handle it!”

The insides of Ateri’s ears heated to a bright red. He had never really given Sarsuk’s station much thought. Ateri was the most important geroo aboard their ship—their entire world—and Sarsuk could crush any or all of them to blood on just a whim. From a geroo perspective, the commissioner was the most important person in the galaxy. And though Ateri knew that his people were only slaves, by mocking Sarsuk as unimportant, his nephew made the geroo feel all the more so.

Ateri wondered briefly if Sarsuk had a mate. The captain had to admit that he didn’t know. The commissioner had certainly never mentioned anything about his personal life and Ateri had no reason to pry. But, from the sounds of this conversation with his nephew, it seemed unlikely.

“Oh,” muttered Ateri. “I guess I just inferred … since you were so enthusiastic to fill in for your uncle … that the job was a little…” Ateri shrugged, searching. “more prestigious than it apparently is.”

“Nah,” grunted Tarakoshi as he rolled back on his rump, “any job where you have to interact with slaves is pretty much the bottom of the recycler heap in krakun society.”

“That’s a shame,” said the captain, his ears lowering slightly into a grin. “And here we were … having such a pleasant conversation.”

“Yeah, well, at my age,” explained the krakun, “any job is a good thing. Every century, you slaves are stealing more and more of our minimum wage jobs.”

“Um…” said Ateri, somewhat startled, “sorry? We don’t want them.”

“No, I know,” sighed the krakun. “Anyhow, I gotta start somewhere and all that.” He pointed at the captain with a claw. “But there’s no way I’ll be talking to slaves when I’m five thousand!” He laughed and after an awkward pause, he added, “No offense.”

“Of course, not,” agreed Ateri.

———

Reviewer's link: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1kcxvaieqOHm6a8xBOhn1dyTA_g_Sx7pI3EYrK5PlcHs/edit?usp=sharing

Thoughts?