B3 Big Friend (Patreon)

This chapter of Executioner's Gambit needed a pretty thorough rewrite since we've changed so much!

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Trembling, but not shaking quite as hard as the last time she entered the commissioner’s stateroom, Tori stepped over the airlock’s threshold. She glanced up at the enormous black and orange krakun for a moment, but then something unexpected caught her eye. She pointed. “Is this seat for me?”

Daskatoma nodded. “Yes, I had the captain send one in.”

A considerate krakun? She knew the big lizard was different, but hadn’t actually expected him to be that different. “Oh, um, thanks!” she managed before taking a seat and turning the office chair to face him.

The krakun stooped down somewhat. He was far from on her same level, but it was a conspicuous, obvious effort to even try. He asked, “Did you have a nice day?”

She stared at him for a long while, baffled. It was a simple enough question, and she felt like she should answer him, but this was getting ridiculous. “Sir? Did you need something from me?”

His eyes grew wide, and he pulled his head away slightly in surprise. “Need? No, not really, I suppose.”

“Then, why did you send for me?”

Daskatoma drew a breath and took a moment to release it entirely, then avoiding her eyes, he explained, “Well, I guess I finished with my inspections early today, and I thought I’d stop by and see how your investigation was going.”

She stared at him. Had someone else said that, she wouldn’t have questioned it. In fact, she really loved the thought of Holly or Sese swinging by for a social visit … but the deputy commissioner? She leveled a suspicious look at him and put back the nubs of her burnt ears. “Why?”

His dinner-plate sized eyes opened wide. “Why?”

“Yes, why? Yesterday, you wanted me to transfer back to my old ship, and now you want to know how the investigation is going? Why are you interested?” She glared at him, confronting him, despite his authority. “You clearly don’t care.”

He blinked, stunned silent for a moment. He put one gigantic claw against his chest, and when he spoke again, he sounded almost … hurt, “I do care!”

But Tori was unmoved. “Then, why didn’t you want me on the case?” she demanded.

Daskatoma didn’t reply. In fact, he couldn’t even meet her eyes.

Tori threw back her head and groaned in frustration. “Why are you even talking to me? Since when do krakun chit-chat with geroo?”

The krakun rolled his eyes and blew out a, “Pfft,” before lowering himself to his elbows and moving his face closer to hers. “I’ll have you know, that I chit-chat with lots of geroo.”

She should have been terrified. With one snap, he could bite her in half and swallow her down, chair and all, but instead, she felt confused… Krakun chit-chatting with geroo? Did he mean that, or was he referring to bossing starship captains around and demanding they try harder. What did a krakun even consider “chit-chat”? “What?” she said quietly. She shook her head. “That’s…”

“Oh, now you’re an expert on krakun?” laughed Daskatoma. “You know more about what krakun are like than me, a krakun?”

She felt a little silly when he put it that way. “Well—”

Interrupting, he asked, “Have you ever even talked to a krakun—other than myself?”

The question chilled her, and she pulled her arms around her ruined body. She didn’t want to think about it, but how could she not? She was once again back in Sarsuk’s stateroom, dying slowly as the sulfur ate away at her flesh. She tried not to cry, but a whimper escaped. “Yes, once. I had a long conversation with my previous Commissioner,” she finally managed. “It … went poorly.”

“Oh. I’m sorry to hear that,” said Daskatoma, and despite how he spoke in Krakun instead of her native Geroo and how he loomed menacingly over her, he sounded … sincere. He held his claw before her, and with a pinching motion, he placed his talons a scant half-meter apart. “But still, that’s what we might call a really small sample set. I promise you; I’ve spoken to far more krakun than you have.”

She wanted to laugh. She dabbed at her eyes. “I see. And so, from this vast sample set of yours, you feel that it’s common for krakun to chit-chat with geroo?”

The gigantic reptile frowned and rolled his weight back until he was sitting up. He admitted, “Well, no, I probably wouldn’t go that far.”

“…And that I’m being ridiculous, absurdly paranoid for thinking that someone who didn’t want me investigating a crime but has to have progress reports is acting more like a suspect than a casual acquaintance?”

“A suspect? That’s rich.” Daskatoma laughed, and his belly shook. With a wink, he said, “I’ve read Chief Tipohee’s reports on the murders, and despite being a really clever guy, even I don’t see how I could have managed them.”

He leaned forward on a palm. “Subcommander Kimoa was the only victim found in a corridor that I could even fit in, but I think that if I’d been skulking around, then one of the witnesses might have mentioned it.”

Tori had been trying to hold it in, but now the ridiculousness overwhelmed her and great yarps burst out.

“What? Why are you laughing?”

“I’m sorry.” She dried her eyes and covered her face in embarrassment. “I’m just trying to picture you sneaking around the ship unseen. It’s … amusing.”

He grinned wide, the ends of his wide mouth curling up. “Okay, now I’m going to have to try that!”

She blinked and nearly shouted, “Try to get away with poisoning someone’s tea?”

He bellowed a deafening laugh. “No! I mean the sneaking around part.” He grinned wide. “I should try to sneak somewhere on the ship and see if you hear about it before we speak next.”

Tori stared up at him until the silence turned awkward. “Why?”

“I dunno,” he said with a shrug. “To see if it’s possible, I suppose.”

Alarmed slightly, she raised a palm. “… And before we speak next?” she asked. “Are you planning on visiting me every day after work?”

He pursed his lip, fidgeting slightly as if put on the spot. “Well,” he said, “I had considered it.”

Tori, her heart racing, jumped up from her seat, both palms out before her as she begged Daskatoma not to. “Oh wow, oh ancestors, this is really awkward,” she muttered. “I just presumed that after working with geroo for two hundred years that you’d know, but maybe—”

Towering over her, he blinked. “Know what?” he asked slowly, suspiciously.

“Well, do you see how the beads on my necklace are golden except for this last one?” She raised her chin and pinching the necklace she wore with both sets of thumbs and index fingers, she held the strand up for him to see. “The silver bead indicates I have a mate, and I’m not available to date anyone.”

Tori smirked and let the beads fall back against the nape of her neck.

“Oh, ha ha. Very cute,” he said, bobbing his head from side to side at her joke. “I assure you that I’m not working up the nerve to ask you out on a date.”

With fists on her hips, she said, “Let’s skip right to dessert,” the geroo idiom for getting straight to the point. “What did you need from me, and why are you liable to meet with me again?”

Daskatoma grinned and shook a talon at her as if she were a naughty cub. “You don’t mince words,” he said. “I respect that in geroo. It’s not a common trait in krakun—”

She cut him off once more, “And if I was going to live for another twelve thousand years, I might not be in a hurry either, but I’ve got a case to solve and a…” She almost said “deadline”. Next week, the krakun’s uncle would be visiting the ship, and what would happen if he didn’t like what he saw? Would he order the ship purged? Would he kill everyone? Quieter now, she added, “Well, I’d like to solve it quickly, before The Executioner can claim more victims.”

“Good. Great. Fine,” he said, fumbling as if unsure how to speak succinctly. “Respecting your people’s culture: I’d like to be your friend.”

She stared at him. “Friend?”

The lizard nodded. “Friend.”

Had she heard him wrong? Had she misunderstood the Krakun word he’d used? It wasn’t a particularly common noun. This time, she drew the word way out, carefully enunciating each sound, “Friend?”

He rolled his eyes. “Admittedly, I might not have quite as large a sample size as you have when it comes to geroo customs, but after two hundred years of working with them,” he said, “I feel fairly confident that geroo do have friends, yes?”

She stood, motionless, staring up at the creature that terrified her people above all else, the monster so horrific that it could kill with an accidental touch. She peeped a tiny, “Yes?”

“Well, I’d quite like to be one of them,” he said with a little nod.

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Reviewer's link: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1LM955D4h2MlyH5AZou_384HtXUHAEUhuPi-FYEMrGmM/edit?usp=sharing

Thoughts?