On the Lam 2 (Patreon)

Various fans (@Millerdark, @Spate, and @Rick Griffin) expressed a little concern that the first episode of On the Lam didn't apply any pressure to the crew.

Fine.

Let's fix that.

———

Ateri wrinkled his muzzle in disgust as he looked around the commissioner’s quarters. Empty food containers and bags littered the deck, sauce had splattered on one of the walls. Just the day before, the captain had offered to send in a cleaning crew if the krakun would vacate to the docking bay while they worked, but instead of replying, the commissioner had rolled over, leaving the tiny geroo talking to his back.

“Sir,” Ateri said, “your presence is making the crew anxious. They want to know what they’ve done wrong. In the absence of the truth—which I promised to keep between us—wild rumors are starting to circulate.”

Commissioner Sarsuk glanced down at the geroo for a moment before returning to the game he played on his strand.

“I think it would be best if you rotated between ships,” said Ateri. “There are dozens of ships in your fleet. Why don’t you spend a couple days at each?”

This time, the krakun didn’t even glance his way.

A long delay. “You can’t, can you?” asked Ateri. “You’re afraid of being spotted by Krakuntec security if you pass through the gate.”

At that, Sarsuk paused his game and set the strand down on the warm aluminum deck. “I’m warning you, Ateri,” the lizard hissed, “drop it.”

The captain sighed. “I’ve been in a position of authority for half my life now. I’ve dealt with plenty of lawbreakers and watched them run—as if there was anywhere to go aboard this ship—instead of facing the consequences of their actions,” he explained. “I know exactly what it looks like.”

The krakun’s lips raised, revealing a vast array of meter-long teeth. “I haven’t done anything wrong!” he said slowly, carefully enunciating each word.

“Then why are they after you?”

The yellow krakun didn’t even try to deny it. He leaned back against a wall with a reverberating clunk and rubbed one palm down his face. After a long pause, he explained, “There was this gal…”

When he didn’t continue, Ateri said, “Yes? Go on.”

“She planted a miniaturized recording device on me before I entered a top secret meeting.”

The geroo covered his mouth with both of his paws, eyes staring wide. “And now … they think you’re a traitor.”

With a solemn face, Sarsuk nodded.

“Go!” the captain shouted, one arm outstretched toward the airlock. “Get off of my ship this instant!”

“You can’t…” the krakun huffed. “I’m the commissioner!”

“You were the commissioner,” Ateri corrected him. “The company would have fired you the moment they suspected you were a traitor! We would have known that, if my people were still handling communication with Krakuntec. And now, every moment you spend here is endangering my crew. They’ll think we’re harboring a fugitive!”

“But I didn’t do it!” the gigantic reptile whined.

“I don’t care!” shouted Ateri. “You have to leave!”

“Wait! Wait!” shouted Sarsuk. He laid on the deck, scooting the captain into a corner with his open claws. “I have … an escape plan. I’ve already planted the seeds, but I can’t go yet. I can’t leave until the precise moment when the pieces move into place.”

“No! You have to go now!” Ateri shouted, despite how easy it would be for the mammoth krakun to squish him. “Look, I’m sorry you got screwed over by some gal. Hire a good lawyer and turn yourself in. But the company is liable to punish my crew en masse for helping you. Size aside, commissioner, you’re just one person. I’m trying to protect the lives of ten thousand crew members.”

“You have to help me,” the beast whispered.

“I can’t,” said Ateri.

“I’ll…” Commissioner Sarsuk bit his lower lip. “I’ll make it worth your while.”

The black geroo huffed and climbed over the krakun’s outstretched talons. “You can’t. We can’t use your money, and you’ve already lost your job. You’re not in a position to offer us any sort of favors.”

Sarsuk scooted his strand across the deck, face up, so it laid directly between Ateri and the geroo-sized exit. With a tap, the krakun pulled up a diagram—wildly complex, strangely familiar, and yet alien enough to drive a shiver down the captain’s spine. “But I could offer you … this.”

Ateri stepped closer, his eyes flitting over the drawing. In school, he’d excelled in science and received near-perfect grades in all of his engineering courses, but whatever he was looking at now was way over his head. He doubted whether even Chendra could make ear-or-tails of it, and she certainly had the greatest mind among the crew. “And this … is?”

A two meter long talon tapped the screen and the image went black—as if there was any possible way that Ateri could have memorized the thing and reconstructed it once he left the commissioner’s state room. “It’s … the sort of thing that would get your entire crew purged,” breathed the krakun. “And not simple, painless deaths either. The company would make an example of your crew. They’d make every slave they own watch how horrific your deaths were just to make sure that no one ever tried to get their paws on it.”

Ateri should have run away screaming, but that wasn’t in his nature. If there was anything that important in the galaxy, he had to know what it was. “What?” he asked. “What could be that important?”

# # #

Chendra glanced up at the drawing room door and beckoned for the two females to enter. “Close it. Bolt it,” she said. Then, on her strand, she tapped a button to bolt the front door as well. “You didn’t tell anyone you were coming? You weren’t followed? No one came in with you?”

Jakari and Sur’an shared a glance. “No, we’re alone,” said the captain’s mate. “What’s going on here? Where’s your butler?”

“I sent the staff home,” said Chendra, turning her attention back to the device in the middle of the rug.

Ateri stood. All of the chairs and couches had been scooted to the room’s periphery. He snatched a cushion off a couch and set it on the rug. Sitting back down beside Chendra, he patted the cushion. “Come. Join us,” he told his lovers.

Jakari and Sur’an shared one more look before doing as they’d been asked. Jakari sat opposite her mate, and Sur’an carefully lowered herself down onto the cushion. She rested one paw on top of her swollen belly.

Jakari stared at the device a moment, then raised her eyes to Chendra’s. “This is what you wanted us to see? This is the big secret?”

Chendra waved her paws over the machine. “This is a model of the White Flower II.”

Everyone stared at it a moment longer before Sur’an shrugged. “Sure. A vacuum cleaner. That’s a perfect model,” she said. “Our ship sucks.”

Ateri glared at her, and she stuck her tongue out at him.

The captain got up on his knees. “Commissioner Sarsuk wants something from us, but if we help him out, he’ll give us a schematic for how to build this.” While stressing the word, he gripped the hose that connected the vacuum to the carpet cleaning attachment.

Sur’an glanced around the room. “A … vacuum hose?”

“If we built this hose according to his plans,” the black geroo explained. He disconnected the hose from the carpet attachment, then let the attachment fall back to the rug. “We could disconnect the ship from the gate and then reconnect the hose over to here where the recycler bay is closest to the bulkhead…”

Jakari’s eyes opened wide. “And fly off without the gate? The trinity would stay online even though a third of it has been cut away?”

“So he says,” Ateri sighed. He took his seat once more, eyes staring at the vacuum cleaner.

Sur’an looked at the scientist. “Would this work, Chendra?”

The beautiful geroo could only shrug. “I haven’t seen the schematic. Only Ateri has. He tried to describe it, but there wasn’t much to go on.”

“Sorry,” the captain whispered.

“This sounds like a huge project,” said Jakari with a whistle.

Ateri nodded. “Maybe a month of construction time. We’d probably have to demolish an entire deck of the ship to come up with raw materials. There’ll be a lot of unhappy geroo.”

Sur’an laughed. “Demolish an entire deck? A month-long project to build a giant tube around the back of the ship? Krakuntec would notice us doing that.”

“Not if the commissioner is sitting in his state room the whole time,” sighed Ateri. He scratched at his scruff with his short, blunt claws. “Not if he was supervising the project.”

“Commissioner Sarsuk? Sourpuss Sarsuk?” the pregnant commander asked. “He’s going to help us escape from slavery?”

Ateri nodded.

Jakari scowled. “What’s he want in return?”

“Not much.” The captain flopped back on the rug and covered his eyes with his paws. “We merely have to hide him from the authorities and keep him from being executed as a traitor. That’s all.”

———

Reviewer's link: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Ke7xfmoky0y_jYay49FxrRA-HqBfm8Iqg5we-BINFzg/edit?usp=sharing

Thoughts?