Clean Up (Patreon)

I'm feeling that momentum build as I work on Executioner's Gambit! Let's hope I can get lots done this weekend. I'm getting my Covid booster on Monday, and I'm expecting it to kick my ass just like the vaccine did initially!

———

Tori left the central ramp at level twelve to report to the commissioner’s chambers, but something was distinctly wrong with the oversized corridor that ran through the center of the ship. Instead of bustling with geroo going about their daily lives, the hallway was empty—save for a single enormous figure crawling toward the ramp on his belly.

“Daskatoma?” she gasped before hobbling off toward him, her cane tapping a fierce beat against the aluminum decks.

The corridor was far larger than a typical geroo hallway but smaller than any a krakun would want to use. It didn’t lead to the bridge, to the drive room, to the reactor, or even the recycler. In fact, there was only one reason it was big enough for the gigantic lizards to squeeze through: at the end of the corridor laid the only krakun-sized airlock to the hull. In the unlikely event that the shuttle bay was ever damaged or otherwise rendered inoperable, Krakuntec could always send a ship to dock at this backup airlock and give the commissioner a way off the ship without him having to wait for the engineering crew to repair the shuttle bay.

This was for everyone’s benefit. Depending on the nature of the damage, repairs could take weeks or months to enact, and the ship didn’t exactly stock any food for a krakun to eat when the commissioner got hungry!

She stopped in front of him, blocking his way. “What in the ancestor’s names are you doing here, Daskatoma?” she shouted up at him.

The krakun looked down at her with an incredulous expression. “Someone was parked in the shuttle bay,” he said as if it were obvious. “I had to dock with the airlock—”

“Not in this corridor, damn it!” Tori shouted at him. “What are you doing on the ship? Investigator Jintauro is here investigating your uncle’s accident!”

Daskatoma tried to straighten up, but the hallway was too small to afford him any dignity. “This is my ship,” he huffed. “It’s my job to inspect it!”

Tori blinked. “Your uncle inspected it two days ago!”

“Well…” the krakun muttered, “he never submitted his report—”

“Of course, he didn’t! He died in the wreck,” shouted Tori, waving her cane in frustration. “Are you even thinking straight, Dask? What’s going on in your head?”

“I don’t know, Tori!” Daskatoma groaned. He laid his chin down on the deck so he could gesture with his claws. “I don’t want him to get in trouble. Or maybe I’m the one who’d get in trouble? Or maybe I don’t even work here anymore. I don’t know!” He shook his head.

Tori put her palm flat on the end of his snout, as if she could somehow push the mammoth beast back through the airlock. “Well, you need to get out of here before Investigator Jintauro charges you with tampering in his investigation…” Her voice tapered off, and what remained of her ears slowly raised. “Unless…”

The commissioner cocked an eyebrow. “Unless what?” he asked.

She stared at him for a long moment before taking a couple steps backward and leaning her weight on her cane. With a glare, she said, “Unless … you really are here to tamper with his investigation…”

Daskatoma’s eyes opened wider. “What are you talking about, Tori?”

“No, that actually makes sense, doesn’t it?” she said, the thoughts in her head churning at full speed. He didn’t say anything, so she explained, “Thojy murders eight of your ‘duds’ with the stolen quinalbarbitone, but when the supply is moved to a locked cabinet, he can’t get any more, so he resorts to beating his boss to death with a pipe…”

The krakun glared at her, and his voice took on a warning tone, “Tori—”

“But even though we know that Thojy is the murderer,” she said, ignoring him, “that doesn’t explain how he gained access to the poison, nor how he got into the victims’ apartments, unless he had help from someone who had complete access to everything—”

The commissioner shrugged, his shoulders touching the rafters. “Well, I suppose Thojy could be just a copycat murderer,” he said, “emboldened by the other killings to take out his personal grudges—”

Tori held up her free palm, interrupting him. “Except that he also tried to throw us off his trail by setting up Nija’s son as a patsy. To do that, he would have needed the exact same access we know the killer had.” Her cloned eyes glared at him, burning with intensity. “Access that you granted him!”

Daskatoma’s head recoiled slightly. He looked down at her from above. “Tori… Are you accusing me—?”

“Yeah, I suppose I am, Daskatoma,” she said, setting her chin. Then she began to pace while she laid out the case. “As commissioner—or deputy commissioner, whatever—it’s your job to clean up problems that threaten the ship’s stability. But with the Boots video having spun up the crew against authority, the last thing you’d want to do is go on a company prescribed execution spree, would you?”

She glanced up at him a moment before turning and pacing back across his path. “Even if the crew would be happy to be rid of these duds, you’d still risk fanning the anti-authority flames by being so harsh!”

“But I—”

“But if you ordered someone to stage these executions as murders, then the crew wins,” she explained. “They feel empowered that they could make their world better. And you win too; you defuse the situation and send a not-so-subtle message to management that they can’t let this happen again, or someone might slip something into their dinner too.”

She put a fist on her hip and pointed at his nose with her cane. “Your uncle wouldn’t have minded. He probably would have been proud of your ingenuity—”

The warning tone was louder now. “You’re way out of line, Tori—”

“Am I?” she asked. “Or is there any other plausible explanation for why you came here?”

When he didn’t reply immediately, she returned to her pacing, smacking the deck hard with her cane on every other step. “You weren’t terribly worried about your executioner hiding among us until you were ready to … I’m not sure?” She glanced up at him. “Perhaps you were planning to whisk him off to another ship, so he could start over fresh? You certainly couldn’t pardon him so he could continue living here. That would undo what you’ve accomplished.”

Daskatoma stretched out a claw to make a wall that blocked her way. She looked up at him. “Tori!” he said, calmer now. “Just listen to yourself—”

“No, hear me out. This makes too much sense,” she said, staring him in the eyes. “If he’d been caught, you’d have just disavowed him. No one would have listened to any wild stories of his—that you’d ordered him to kill his victims. They’d just toss him in the recycler.”

Tori moved her cane from one paw to the other, shifting her weight. “And though you haven’t done anything wrong,”—she glared at him—“from the company’s point of view, at least—it would be foolhardy to leave something so … clandestine—so suspicious—still unfinished while your government was investigating the shuttle crash.”

She took a deep breath with her cloned lungs and released it slowly. “If Investigator Jintauro realized that you had been arranging murders—even legal ones—he’d have to wonder if your uncle’s death really was an accident! After all, you’re the one who stands to benefit most from his death. With Troykintrassa out of the way, you’d be the obvious candidate to replace him as commissioner—”

“Tori, stop it!” he shouted, shutting her down. “I loved my uncle, and I never would have hurt him.”

The rusty red geroo stepped closer and rubbed his snout with her paw. “Of course, Dask. I get that,” she said in a kindly tone, “and I’m not saying you had anything to do with the wreck.”

She shook her head once before continuing, “But his death is being investigated as we speak, so this is your last chance to clean up anything that might draw you into the investigation. Even people with nothing to hide have good reason to avoid intense scrutiny. The investigator could easily mistake your uncle’s death as foul play, despite it being just an accident.”

Daskatoma visibly relaxed. “Okay. Well, I’m glad you’re not—”

She pointed at his snout. “But that brings us back to Thojy and how you plan to smuggle him off the ship.”

“What?” he asked, his mouth hanging open slightly.

Tori looked left and right. She couldn’t see past him to the airlock, and all the other geroo had made themselves scarce when he boarded, so he could do whatever he liked with complete impunity. She frowned, trying to gauge how much space remained on either side of the gigantic lizard. “What you’re doing is blocking the way to the airlock,” she said. “Step aside, Daskatoma.”

She ducked her head and darted beneath his elbow. At first, he moved to stop her, but then froze, hesitant to touch her. “What? No,” he gasped.

“I don’t want to hurt you, Tori,” the commissioner shouted. “Wait! Watch out.”

———

Reviewer's link: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1CXcYY6QrCEmRcQCaUa7dZE6jmUCDV0grI9Qck9Mt27o/edit?usp=sharing

Thoughts?