Executioner's Gambit: Jintauroka 1 (Patreon)

I've been working on rewriting the scene where Jintauroka interviews Tori. It's been mostly redone, so I guess I'll post the new version. It's long, so I'll split it.

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Tori answered the call without even a hello. “Great news, Captain,” she said, “I just apprehended your serial killer.”

“Oh!” said Gutassi in a stunned silence. “Well, that is great news, but I wasn’t actually calling about that.”

Tori frowned as she followed Sese and Thojy back to the gravity wells. Sutzir walked nearby. He had wanted to return to Krakuntec with Daskatoma but had left his environment suit back at the shuttle bay and didn’t dare depart without it.

“Well, whatever it is can wait,” Tori said with a yawn. “I’m operating on a major sleep deficit that I’m desperate to pay down.”

“I’m afraid not,” said the captain. “Officer Jintauroka is in the commissioner’s office, demanding to speak with you.”

“I’m in no shape to keep our secrets, Cap,” she reminded him. “Tell him I’m in bed, and he can interview me when I get up.”

“Absolutely not,” Gutassi said. “We need him off this ship ASAP. Turns out, we left some rather incriminating evidence in the commissioner’s office, and if we let him get bored, he’s liable to notice. I’ll have a runabout come pick you up to save time.”

When Tori stepped through the commissioner’s airlock, her eyes went immediately to the print that was still sitting on the deck. Captain Gutassi had said the evidence was on the back of the frame, but hadn’t been any more specific.

She looked up at the krakun and then down at the geroo-sized office chair in front of him. The captain had removed it for Troykintrassa’s visit, but she was so grateful that it was back now. This interview was liable to be difficult enough. She certainly wouldn’t want to do the whole thing standing.

“Thank you for providing me a chair,” she said as she took her seat.

Officer Jintauroka glanced down from his strand, dismissing her gratitude with a wave of his claw. “The captain had an officer deliver that. Thank him.” Tori had been about to reply, but the krakun launched directly into his work. “You know, from the moment I first saw you on the bridge, I knew that you would turn out to be the most intriguing part of this investigation.”

Tori swallowed. What did that mean, precisely? Was he onto them? Did he know that they were responsible for the crash? Or was this just some sort of mind game? She tried to smile, but it didn’t make it to her voice. “Well, then I’m afraid you’re in for a very dull case, sir,” she said. “There’s nothing interesting about me.”

Now, she had his full attention. His eyes opened wide, and he set his strand down on the deck—face down, she noted—and lowered his weight onto his elbows, bringing his face closer to hers. “That’s hardly true, Tori,” he replied. “While I was waiting for you, I looked up your records. It says that while you were still on the Harvest Reaper III, you tracked and apprehended a serial killer—despite your injuries.”

“I was nearly killed by a serial killer who then took his own life, you mean,” she sighed. “It was terrifying. There wasn’t anything uplifting about someone holding a knife to your throat.”

“And then, when the Sailor’s Gambit I couldn’t track down their own serial killer, they called you in for help.”

“I’m glad I was able to help.”

He paused, one eye opened wider. “I don’t often speak with geroo. Do I correctly understand the conjugated word form ‘was able’ to mean that you’re finished helping?”

Dang it, she cursed herself, I’m too sleepy to play this game. “Yes, the killer’s name was Thojy. We caught him less than an hour ago.”

He paused a moment. “We?”

Tori nodded. “Yes, we,” she said. “The investigation has been a team effort.”

The green krakun flipped his strand over and tapped repeatedly on its face. Then, he turned the gigantic device around to show a single frozen frame from his three-way call to the bridge. With a pinch of two talons, he zoomed in on Tori. “Note that the rubber cap at the bottom of your cane is clean in this photo, but now it’s covered in blood.”

Her ears fell, and she leaned her head past the edge of her seat to get a better look at it. Indeed, it was coated in Thojy’s blood. “Damn it,” she grumbled, “that was careless.”

“Careless… An interesting word to choose,” said Jintauroka, leaning in slightly. “You didn’t want me to see this?”

She frowned. “No, careless that I’ve been tracking blood with me since Deck 25.” She sighed. “Someone will have to clean that up. I’ve made their life more difficult, pointlessly.”

“So, you’ve apprehended another serial killer,” he said, grinning. “Tell me how you did it.”

“I thought you were here to investigate a shuttle crash,” she said. “What’s this to do with that?”

Tapping on the photo, the officer said, “Something interesting is going on, and you’re in the center of it. This call took place only moments after a major function—engineering had just restarted the ship’s reactor after its rebuild. And though you’re not even an officer, you’re up on the bridge.” He pointed. “Look how the captain is looking at you instead of me. And though I’ve yet to see any other geroo wear even a scrap of cloth, you’re draped in it.” With a talon, he gestured at the green sash that crossed her chest.

“Nothing interesting is going on now that Thojy’s been caught,” she insisted. Tori lowered her ears in irritation. “And as for the sash, it was a present from my mate to help me conceal the worst of my scars.”

“And why was the captain so concerned with you in this moment?”

Tori glared at him, taking a few breaths blowing them hard out through her burnt nose. “Did you ask him?”

“I’m curious why you think he is,” said Officer Jintauroka. “You’re an investigator… Show me some insight.”

She shrugged. “Perhaps, I was making him uncomfortable, being the only non-officer on the bridge? Perhaps, because a shuttle crash isn’t his problem? Yes, tragic that someone was killed, but so what? Not our shuttle, not our repair work, not one of our crew. But the investigation into Nija’s murder? Very much his problem.”

She stroked her chin. “Furthermore, Nija was killed in a public corridor,” Tori explained. “If the chief of computer operations can be beat to death with a metal pipe, perhaps the captain was worried about his own safety.”

“Excellent insights!” he said with a grin. “And how did you catch him?”

Tori sat back in her seat. “I triangulated the signal strength from the strand he was wearing and determined that he had been in the vicinity at the time of the murder. I had interviewed Thojy previously, and I knew how much he hated his boss, Nija. Additionally, Nija had managed to stab her assailant before she succumbed. And when we searched his apartment, we found plenty of blood evidence.”

“But the other victims were poisoned, right?” asked Jintauroka. “If this is the same guy, then why the change?”

“Because we tightened security after he stole nine tablets of quinalbarbitone, keeping him from taking more,” Tori explained. “If he wanted to keep killing, he had no choice but to resort to a different method.”

“But—”

“And it doesn’t really matter,” she said. “He’ll be tried for killing Nija, and the punishment for murdering one geroo is the same as it is for murdering ten. I don’t have to prove he killed everyone just to see justice served.”

Jintauroka reached out, opening his palms around her. Is that supposed to make me feel welcomed? she wondered. Threatened? “In addition to your unexpected presence on the bridge, you still keep popping up,” he said with a grin. “After sending the victim’s nephew off the ship, he returns. And who does he ask for?”

What could she say? She had no idea. Tori was certain that he wasn’t going to let this line of questioning go, but she was equally certain that she didn’t want to discuss how Daskatoma had hired a murderer.

“Well?” asked Jintauroka. “No thoughts? Why do you suppose Daskatoma asked to speak with you?”

She pinched her lips together in thought. “You sent him away a second time.”

“I did,” said the krakun.

“Well, then, I suppose we’ll never know,” said Tori. “Unless the company chooses to hire him as his uncle’s replacement, he probably won’t be able to return.”

The krakun drew his claws closer around her, as if he planned to scoop her up, chair and all. The rusty red geroo closed her eyes and prayed to the ancestors that he wouldn’t.

“I suppose, but you see what I’m saying, right?” He waited a second for the question sink in. “You assert that you’re just an insignificant crewmember, but yet, this investigation keeps revealing unusual things, and you’re right in the middle of most of them.”

“So, what are you suggesting? That I’m responsible for the shuttle crash?” Tori glared at him for a bit, then threw her paws up in the air. “Okay, fine. I confess. First, I beat Troykintrassa with the rubber stopper at the end of my cane. I tied him up, dragged him onto the shuttle, flew him through the gate and crashed his ship on Krakuntec.”

“Very amusing,” said Jintauroka. He didn’t sound amused.

“Wait! I haven’t gotten to the best part,” she said with a sleepy grin. “Right before the crash, I jumped out an airlock, landed on the commissioner’s nephew, beat him, and forced him to deliver me back to my ship.”

“I see,” he said. Finally, playing along, he asked, “And his ship-wide page asking you to meet with him?”

Tori raised one finger and pointed to the rafters. “Clearly a coded message, a plea for help. He wanted you to come rescue him before I took my cane to him again.”

He glared at her. “You might find this funny, but there’s far too much coincidence in this case for it to all have happened by chance.” With one claw, he started counting on his talons. “First, the engineering chief: just happens to have mashed the airlock in an accident, so it has to be repaired before my arrival. Was that to conceal something?”

Another talon. He glared at her. “Second, the commissioner himself: just happens to request a shuttle diagnostic right before the flight that crashes. Plus, he allegedly orders a shutdown by accident that keeps him out of communication with Krakuntec until his death.” Jintauroka tilted his head. “How much of that really happened?”

“Third, the commissioner’s nephew: weirdly desperate to get on board and speak with you, despite the recent death in his family.” He shook his head. “Why want to speak with anyone other than the captain? Why you?”

The krakun put his claws back around her and leaned in closer. “And finally, the captain: acting incredibly guilty, attention focused on you, and commanded a second shutdown as soon as the commissioner left, giving him time to destroy evidence of—”

“Of what?” Tori interrupted. “What precisely are you imagining that the captain would want to cover up? A torrid affair between the two?” She smiled at the thought.

He did not. “Well, there’s strong indications that the commissioner’s chamber was scrubbed down trying to hide—”

“Hide what?” she interrupted once more. She continued to feign ignorance. “You’re obviously imagining something nefarious, but I can’t for the life of me imagine what it is.”

He huffed and said it flat out, “What if the captain killed the commissioner?”

———

Reviewer's link: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1cIHVbS98_dMW2InvJXiuAL-8vTLh5K86Pvo-bXLvr4k/edit?usp=sharing

Thoughts?