A20 A Week (Patreon)

Man! This next scene for Executioner's Gambit took a ton of passes. Think I've got it now.

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Tori left her meeting with the captain feeling unsatisfied. Daskatoma really wanted her off his ship. She had felt his insistence, and he’d only relented when he realized that leaving would mean her death.

This krakun was so very … unkrakun-like. True, she didn’t know many of the mighty reptiles, but Sarsuk wouldn’t have hesitated in sending her away. She was certain of that.

But if Daskatoma didn’t care about losing the two crewmen who transferred off, then why was it such a big deal that she had transferred on? He wasn’t worried about her health problems consuming the ship’s resources. He said that he’d let her have the surgery had it only been up to him.

So, why did he want to undo her transfer?

She worked the morning, but still these questions nagged at the back of her mind. Only when she met Sese for lunch—the vendors were willing to serve her once again when the big officer was standing beside her—did Tori’s concerns bubble to the forefront of her mind.

“You doin’ okay?” asked Sese.

Tori sighed. “It’s been a rough day. I had to meet with both the captain and the commissioner.”

“Deputy Commissioner Daskatoma, you mean?”

Tori opened one eye a little more, making a mental note that Daskatoma’s role as the commissioner’s nephew apparently wasn’t a secret. “Yeah, him,” she said, taking another moment to roll the morning’s events through her mind. Eventually, she shared, “Captain said something interesting though, that krakun don’t generally fear anything aboard a gateship, but that they’re deathly afraid that we’ll revolt.”

That made Sese laugh. “‘Deathly afraid’? Sounds like quite an exaggeration.”

Tori shook her head. “Actually, I believe it. Daskatoma told me a little about krakun society and just how bad it is for the unemployed.” She tried to imagine spending hundreds of hungry years living in poverty while looking for work, but her brain kept rejecting the thought as nonsense. “I think they’re all terrified of losing their jobs.”

The bigger gal smirked. “Well, then I suppose it’s nice that we have a little leverage over the big lizards, even if it’s too extreme to actually use.”

Tori grinned, and her eyes disappeared into dark crescents. “You won’t threaten to revolt if we skip raises this year?”

Despite how Tori’s teased, the insides of Sese’s ears still blanched. She responded with a serious whisper, “Definitely not. The company deals with revolt … harshly.”

“I bet,” said Tori.

“No, I mean … really harshly,” repeated Sese. The officer glanced around the busy market, checking that no one was eavesdropping. “When training to become a security officer, you learn a few ugly facts. That was one of them.”

“Oh yeah?”

Sese remained silent awhile, her mouth a thin, tight line. “You don’t want to know.”

Frustrated, Tori gave the bigger gal’s paw a shove. “Oh, come on!”

Sese held her breath a moment before releasing it in a snort. “Well, if a commissioner suspects that a ship might revolt—might, it doesn’t even need to be a sure thing—the company requires that they…” she whispered, “purge the entire ship.”

Tori gasped in horror, covering her mouth with both paws, but she was so shocked that she couldn’t even respond.

Sese added, “They won’t try to root out the troublemakers or purge only the officers, they’ll kill every single person on board down to the newborn cubs.”

Tori stared for a long while before she found her voice once more. “That’s barbaric!”

“That’s policy. If they’re worried about revolt, they’ll purge everyone and scrape the ship from top to bottom to cleanse it of anything we might have written or recorded.” The officer avoided Tori’s eyes, as if being a security officer made her guilty by association. “They’ll recycle every strand, every memory stick, every note and scrap of paper—even the bedding and personal items because it’s simpler than searching inside them.”

Sese poked at her lunch a moment longer, then pushed her tray forward, apparently having lost her appetite. “Without even doing a backup, the company will reset the ship’s computer back to a fresh install. And only when they’re sure that they’ve scrubbed every trace of the old crew from existence, will they allow new geroo aboard.”

“They tell you this?” asked Tori, placing her paw over her friend’s.

Sese pulled her paw away, then cradled it to her chest, as if Tori’s scrutiny had burned her. Glancing around once more, the bigger gal explained, “In the case of a full purge, security is supposed to try and keep the crew calm.”

Tori blinked. “While they’re being tossed in the recycler?”

Raising her palms, Sese shushed her, silently pleading for Tori to keep her voice down.

# # #

That evening, Tori barely even glanced up when her mate came home. She sat at the table, staring at the darkened screen of the strand before her.

“Hey, hon,” said Druka. He kicked off his boots and set them beside the door. After taking a seat opposite, he asked, “Any dinner preferences?”

Tori didn’t look at him. “I think we should buy a whole lot of really good booze and drown ourselves in it.”

Her mate rolled his eyes. “While you’re still on painkillers?” he asked. “Too dangerous. Not gonna happen.”

At last, her bloodshot eyes met his. She whispered, “I’ll share them with you, if you want.”

Druka cocked his head, confusion clear across his ears. “Hey babe… What’s that supposed to mean?”

“My love… I’m afraid we might be doomed. I’m afraid everyone aboard this ship is.”

Druka’s ears drooped. Placing his palms flat on the table, he said. “Slow down, hon. What are you talking about?”

“I can’t prove it, but I think the commissioner might purge the ship next week.” Tori bit her lip, taking a moment to consider her words. “Deputy Commissioner Daskatoma offered us a chance to transfer off, but I didn’t piece this together until after he left. Sorry.”

Druka stood and walked to the refrigerator. He didn’t speak again until he’d had a long swig of beer. “This has to be a mistake.”

“I’m praying it is! I wish we’d brought my grandparents’ shrine with us,” Tori whined. “But I’ve gone over it a hundred different ways. If something else is going on, then I don’t know what it is.”

Tori recounted her discussions with the commissioner, the captain, and Sese, explaining that Daskatoma had to be worried about a revolt brewing, that no other reason would justify why he wanted to undo the transfer. And if that was the case, then everyone was doomed.

“No, that’s ridiculous,” said Druka with stern ears. “If they were going to purge the ship, then why wait? If they’re afraid we might shut down the trinity, then why haven’t they flown some sort of military ship in to shadow us? Then, they could come aboard and retake control if the gate closed. Not like we have any weapons to fight back.”

“I considered that,” said Tori, “but I don’t think Daskatoma’s got it in him to issue such orders. He’s … soft—for a krakun, at least—and even if he did, I doubt he’s got the authority. Only his uncle has the power to make big decisions.”

Druka drank some beer. “Are you sure the company considers killing ten thousand geroo a big decision? I mean, it’d be huge to us, but for Planetary Acquisitions, it’s probably just a checkbox on a form. Hells, they’ve probably got a well-worn stamp that says, ‘Kill everyone’.”

“That’s dark, Druka.”

He only shrugged.

“That might be true,” said Tori, “but Sese described the process. It sounds like they’d recycle everything but the ship itself. I don’t know how long that takes, but it wouldn’t be overnight. I suspect everything in the agriculture bay is going to die without workers maintaining the plants. Lots of systems will probably be marginal. That means they can’t just transfer ten thousand geroo aboard when they’re done. They’re going to have to kickstart the whole thing from zero.”

Druka frowned. “Between hiring a military crew to scrub the ship, buying or breeding new slaves, and taking the time to train the crew and get the ship running again, that sounds like quite an investment. Yeah, the company would hate that.” His ears perked. “So, why do you think this will happen next week?”

Tori stood up and started to pace. “I looked up the ship’s schedule. Troykintrassa—that’s Daskatoma’s uncle—he’s coming to inspect the ship next week.”

“Could be a coincidence.”

“If so, it seems like an awful big one. According to public records, he hasn’t been aboard the Sailor’s Gambit I in forty-seven years!” Tori sighed. Her lower lip trembled. “I’m so scared, Druka. What do we do?”

“We tell the captain, I guess.”

“So he can do what?” asked Tori. “The crew hates everyone in charge—passionately! How do you undo generations of frustration and resentment in a week? How is that possible?”

Druka shrugged. “I don’t think it is. Resentment like that would take ages to repair.”

Tori covered her face with her palms. “I wish I could call Daskatoma and tell him we’d like to transfer back.”

Druka sighed. “You’d die.”

“I’m dead either way!” she whined. “At least you’d be safe.”

“I’m not giving up just because you think this might happen next week,” he said. “You said it yourself; you don’t know for sure that this is why Daskatoma wanted to reverse the transfer.”

“But what if it is?” asked Tori. “I’ll have gotten you killed.”

“And if I agreed to give up, then I’d have gotten you killed,” he huffed. “If the purge isn’t a sure thing, then let’s try to fix things before the commissioner’s inspection.”

Tori’s ruined ears frowned. “You just said this couldn’t be fixed in a week.”

“True,” agreed Druka, “but it just has to look fixed enough that Troykintrassa won’t pull the plug. If his nephew doesn’t have the courage to demand a purge, that could give everyone another forty-seven years to mend the rift between crew and management—plenty of time.”

She scowled. “How?”

“Well, you could solve the case—catch the killer and have him executed,” Druka suggested. “From a company perspective, executions fix everything, right?”

“In a week?” whimpered Tori. “That’s impossible.”

“Improbable maybe,” agreed Druka with a smile, “but not impossible. At least it’s your full-time job. It was a lot harder last time when you had to do your sleuthing in your spare time.”

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Reviewer's link: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ftZ01dymHBKCuWdFV_9XXSQKgT4DIzPueR2Ymx_Cs90/edit?usp=sharing