B8-2 Poisoned Catavi (Patreon)

Someone stop me. I think I might have lost control.

After a quick exit, Thojy grabs some lunch.

———

Thojy smiled. “Fried catavi, light on the sauce please,” he said before turning away.

He never ordered from this vendor, never ate up on this deck, but Churi’s cart was well known for being consistently excellent. It was still early now, but later in the lunch rush, the line could run all the way to the corridor.

He’d been scoping her out for almost a week now, and he was excited to try her cooking.

“Coming right up, sir,” Churi said. She glanced up from her cutting board. “Beer?”

“Oh yes, please,” Thojy said without looking back.

She plunged a paw into the ice bath and pulled out a bottle. Setting it on the narrow counter, she said, “Five and a half. Opener’s on the side of the cart.”

Thojy nodded, so Churi entered the tally into her strand and tapped it against the one on his shoulder. Both devices beeped to confirm the transfer, so she returned to her cooking without giving the black and white geroo another glance.

Fry oil hissed angrily, and she pulled a metal basket of the crispy morsels from the fryer. With a practiced bounce, Churi shook the excess oil away, dumped them on a plate and gave them a quick drizzle of a deep brown sauce from a plastic squeeze bottle.

“Thanks,” said Thojy before taking his order back to a seat at the edge of the market.

From there, he listened to the clashing music; pop from the catavi stand, a dance mix at the wine vendor, and … he had no idea what the fruit seller was playing. The gatesiders enjoyed their own genres of music and he couldn’t make ears or tails of any of it.

He picked at his plate and savored the flavors while he waited. The food was as good as promised. To save credits, some vendors would recycle their fry oil endlessly until their catavi tasted old and stale regardless of how fresh the meat was. Churi clearly hadn’t fallen into that trap. The breading was light and crispy, slightly salty, and lacking any other flavors that could distract from the tender white meat inside. The sauce was tangy, fresh, and bright.

He was a little disappointed that he hadn’t tried her stand earlier.

“Oh, well,” he sighed.

Thojy ate mostly from one side of his plate until he came across a catavi whose naked tail peeked from the dumpling. Gripping the fried dough gently with one paw and the tail with the other, he carefully pulled the chubby crescent of meat from its dressing. Then he snipped off the catavi’s head with his incisors and crunched the tiny skull with his molars. “Delicious.”

Casually looking around to see if anyone was paying attention to him—no one was—Thojy fished in his holster’s pouch until he pulled out his last remaining big orange pill, then carefully concealed it in his fist. He took another swig of beer, and confident that no one was watching him, he dropped the capsule into the doughy pocket. Then he pushed what remained of the catavi in behind it and smiled.

Good as new, he thought.

Setting the poisoned morsel down on the edge of his plate, Thojy sat back, nursing his beer while he waited.

He didn’t have to wait long. Lieutenant Moppii appeared right on schedule. If there was any one geroo more universally hated across the Sailor’s Gambit I, one who would be missed even less, he couldn’t imagine who that could be.

Moppii had rocketed up from obscurity to her current position of power in only a couple of years, though not through any particular talent or skill of her own—well, not a skill that most would envy, at least. Moppii had a knack for assembling teams of weak-willed individuals and bullying them until they toiled endlessly at whatever task she needed done. Then, job complete, she took credit for each accomplishment before driving her staff mercilessly to complete the next.

Moppii squeezed the life out of the crew, converting their misery into her achievements. Once under her command, her work crews faced endless belittling and pointless cruelty until she could earn her next promotion.

“You, my dear, are perfect,” Thojy whispered as he watched her stomp her way to the catavi cart. She shouted at the cowering cook.

He couldn’t make out all her words from where he sat, but some could be heard by all. “Clean this mess up!” the lieutenant shouted at Churi. “If I see a single crumb sitting out, I’ll pull your license! I’ll shut you down!”

Churi’s pleas were too quiet for him to hear, but after a quick scrub of her work area, she pulled a beer from the ice and hurriedly began work on another batch of catavi. She didn’t—Thojy noted—enter anything into her strand this time or try to tap it against the lieutenant’s to ring up the purchase.

“A free meal?” Thojy whispered as Churi pulled the dumplings from the fryer. “Well, let’s make it one to remember…” Then, grabbing the plate with his left paw, he positioned the poisoned nugget between the back of his thumb and the plate’s edge.

Then he stood and returned to the vendor, timing his approach just as she squeezed a generous squirt of sauce over the steaming treats. Thojy slid his plate smoothly in between the lieutenant’s and Churi’s squeeze bottle, saying, “And a little more for me too, please.”

Moppii snarled at him. “Wait your turn!” she growled as he casually knocked the dumpling off of his plate and onto hers.

“Oh, so sorry!” he said, yanking his plate aside. Then Thojy waited for her to get her share of the rich brown sauce, accepted another squirt for himself, and then strolled away without looking back.

He slowed for only a heartbeat as he tossed the rest of his meal—plate and all—into a recycler chute marked with a black stenciled boot. In his mind, Thojy crossed off the last name on his list.

Careful not to run, he strode away, intent on putting as much distance as possible between himself and Lieutenant Moppii before the quinalbarbitone had a chance to work its magic.

———

Reviewer's link: https://docs.google.com/document/d/147sG-kRGGIjBeSVBTJGE207Bx8vBkhkzqy2qDsq8cgo/edit?usp=sharing

Thoughts?