C5 Devil's Bargain (Patreon)

Oh, so that's what Troykintrassa told Tori in this new episode of Executioner's Gambit...

–––

Tori talked with the commissioner all afternoon. She wanted to slip out and grab some lunch, but felt awkward doing so—knowing that the krakun was trapped in his room without any food whatsoever. So, she ignored the grumblings of her empty stomach and tried to be the best company she could.

He sighed in frustration. “You know the ultimate irony here, Tori?”

She smiled. “That a serial killer will have murdered a thousand times as many people by accident than he has intentionally?”

“Okay, that is very ironic,” Troykintrassa groaned. “So, not the ultimate irony, I suppose, but I find it ironic that I was just about to fire my nephew, and now with me dying, he's liable to not only keep his job, but get mine as well.”

Tori’s jaw hung open in surprise. “Fire Daskatoma?” she squeaked. “Why? Dask is a sweetheart!”

“Yeah, that's his problem precisely. He's too soft to do this job,” the old lizard sighed. “That’s why I made the Sailor’s Gambit I my first stop. I knew this ship was falling apart around him, that it was the one he’d been struggling—and failing—to fix.”

Tori frowned and sulked in silence. She really liked Daskatoma. He was funny and interesting. He was helpful and insightful. Even though he refused to bend the rules for her, he deserved to be successful, to get more than half a paycheck for the work he did. He was soft, sure, but was caring about people such a crime? Since when was being a good person a flaw?

She turned toward the wall and imagined his uncle lying there, chatting with her. “Well, I don’t know about Daskatoma being too soft to succeed,” she told him, “but you seem pretty soft to me as well.”

“Ooh,” he moaned as if her words stung, “that’s a cruel thing to say to a krakun.”

“I mean it!” she laughed. “Despite all you’re going through, we've been having pleasant conversations for hours.”

The commissioner sighed. “You're seeing my softer side because I've had no reason to show you my ruthless side. But I have one, and you’ll know it when you see it,” he promised. “Now, my nephew? He is soft all the way through. He can't do the ruthless bits of this job—even when that's what he's paid to do.”

To Tori, that just meant the world hadn’t ruined Daskatoma yet—that he was still a good person despite it all. “Oh well, I suppose it’s not our problem now, right?” she said. She checked the time on her strand and climbed slowly to her paws. “Anyhow, it's almost seventeen hundred hours. I need to go meet Druka.” …And explain that they had only weeks to live. How was she supposed to do that?

Over the intercom, she could hear the gigantic creature scramble to get up. His voice dropped from casual to a serious whisper, like he pressed his cheek against the wall, sharing something he wanted only her to know. “Okay, but before you leave, I need to do one more thing,” he said, “and I apologize in advance for this. I really wouldn't if I had any other choice.”

Tori cocked her head and stared at the intercom for several long moments, confused. “Sir?”

“If you could save three people from this ship,” Commissioner Troykintrassa whispered, “would you do it?”

She blinked. Had she misheard him? Was this a purely hypothetical question so he could gauge her personality, or was there more to this? “What? What do you mean? “

“Just that,” said the krakun. “If you had the opportunity to rescue three people from their fate here aboard this ship, would you do it?”

Tori looked around the airlock as if expecting to see someone there, watching her squirm. “Rescue? How?” she demanded. “Would I … pick just any three people?”

“No,” said Commissioner Troykintrassa, “three people in particular: you, me, and Druka.”

# # #

As Tori shuffled toward the neighbor’s apartment, Druka—who was hanging out with only Biiz today—said, “Hey babe, Lusa’s making breakfast cakes. Want to join our neighbors for some breakfast-dinner?”

But she didn’t even have it in her to reply. With head lowered, she shuffled on by toward their own apartment. Over the murmur of voices in the corridor, she heard her mate tell Biiz, “I guess that’s a no on breakfast-dinner. Perhaps another time?”

Druka joined her in the apartment, and when she took a seat at the table, he closed the door behind himself, and took the chair opposite her. “Bad day, huh? I’ve been trying all day to call to see how it went with the commissioner, but with the network down, I haven’t been able.”

She laid her cheek down on the backs of her paws and closed her eyes but didn’t reply.

“I guess that means he wouldn’t sign it, huh?” he whispered and reached out with an ignored paw. “Well, that’s not great, but it’s not the end of the galaxy either. We still have all those credits Aziz gave you. If Doctor Amhela is dead-set against taking a bribe, then perhaps we should follow Thojy’s advice. We could pay someone to dig up dirt on him. Now, I know blackmail is an ugly—”

“Today was the worst day ever in the history of days,” she whispered, “and my surgery doesn’t matter.”

“Doesn’t matter?” he gasped. “Of course, it matters, Tori!”

But as she related the earlier events—the commissioner’s poisoning, the captain shutting down the trinity, how the ship would lose power in a few weeks’ time, and that everyone would freeze and die—he fell silent, overwhelmed much as she had been when she first heard the news.

“That can’t be right…” he whispered at last, his ears back and haunted. She looked up into his lovely green eyes for a long while before he added, “There must be … something we can do.”

“There is,” she said with a sniffle. “And I hate it more than anything else.”

She slowly lowered her head and closed her eyes. Druka waited patiently for several seconds, but then he begged, “What, Tori? How can we fix this?”

Without meeting his eyes, she whispered, “I spent hours talking to the commissioner. His plan is for us to wait until zero hundred hours, then sneak into the corridor outside his stateroom, and cut the weld with a saw or something.”

“Okay, that’s not too tough,” he said. “Then what?”

Tori sniffled and wiped at her nose. “There’s a terminal in the shuttle bay, and Commissioner Troykintrassa’s got all the override codes memorized. Once he’s out, he can take control of the ship’s computers. That way, the captain will never know that the three of us have depressurized the bay and left with the shuttle.”

“The shuttle? But how are we supposed to go anywhere if the gate is down?”

“Then, the commissioner will wait until the trinity has discharged, bring it up remotely, and fly through the gate back to Krakuntec,” she whimpered. “He’ll get to a doctor and take us to safety. He said he’d even bring me to a krakun doctor to do my surgery so there’d be no chance of failure.”

“Okay…” said Druka, drawing the sound way out. His ears splayed in confusion. “So, we save the commissioner’s life and you get your surgery… Why all the tears?”

At last, she looked up with red, tear-stained eyes. “Because then, the company will fly a fighter in through the gate and purge the ship.”

His ears had lifted slightly, but now they fell flat against his head. After a pause, he said, “But… But you just said that everyone aboard this ship was going to die.”

“Yeah, in a few weeks,” she groaned. “Unless we rescue the commissioner, then they’ll die tomorrow.”

“T-tomorrow?” he stuttered before covering his muzzle with both paws. “We can let the commissioner die with all of us, or we can rescue him and wipe out any time that everyone has left?”

Tori nodded in silence. It was a terrible choice. No one should ever have to make such a decision.

“That’s… That’s…” he whispered from behind his paws, but he never completed the thought.

Tori understood. She didn’t know what to call this no-win situation either.

–––

Reviewer's link: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1_LuHMfQPvix4maJCM5RC3hEk7GFb2j0UQV117_yHgfo/edit?usp=sharing

Thoughts?