There was still a crowd surrounding the spaceship when they returned to it, though the horde had decreased in size. Tooley scanned her ship to see if anyone had thrown anything at it, and then eyeballed the crowd. They seemed content to stare for now, but Tooley shot one harsh glare at them as she went up the ramp, just to keep anyone from getting any ideas.

“Welcome to your serial killer safezone,” Kamak said. He stood by Kacey’s side and gestured across the ship’s interior. “Make yourself comfortable, but not too comfortable.”

After that half-hearted welcome, Kamak headed to the kitchen to get a real drink. Restaurant beer barely counted as alcohol. Kacey nodded gratefully and then leaned towards Corey.

“I still don’t know what he’s saying,” she mumbled.

“He’s just being grumpy,” Corey said. “There’s an empty room at the end of the right hallway there. It’s already got a bed and sheets and everything, so you should have everything you need.”

“Could have a slab of wood for a bed and this place would still beat the cabin,” Kacey said. She glanced around the sleek interior of the ship, visibly admiring the kind of architecture she had only ever seen in sci-fi. “And it definitely seems safer.”

“Yeah. I invested in a good security system,” Corey said.

“Not that anyone’s actually tried to break in so far,” Tooley said.

“What’d she say?”

“Nothing.”

“Coward,” Tooley scoffed.

“Okay, so,” Kacy began, eager to move on. “Room’s down there, I’m assuming that is the kitchen. Is that the kitchen?”

“Yes, that is the kitchen,” Corey assured her. “The thing that looks like a refrigerator is a refrigerator, but everything else, ugh, maybe ask for advice before you touch anything. They look familiar enough to fool you, but the controls take some getting used to.”

“Maybe I’ll just order takeout,” Kacey said. “Is ‘giant spaceship parked outside the baseball field’ a valid delivery address?”

“God I really hope so, I could go for a pizza,” Corey said.

If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

“Do they not have pizza in space?”

“I mean, they have meat and sauce on flat bread, but it’s from space, so the sauce is made out of like, fermented fruit and the meat comes from something that looks like a sheep fucked a squid,” Corey said. “It tastes better than it sounds, but it’s not ‘my’ pizza, you know?”

“I- I don’t,” Kacey said. She’d never eaten regular squid, much less sheep-squid. “I don’t know.”

“Yeah, I guess that problem would be pretty unique to space travelers,” Corey said.

“We’ll get you some pizza tomorrow,” Kacey said. “Unless you have serial killer hunting to do.”

“We have a lot of that to do,” Doprel said. “Not that we have a plan to do it.”

“Kind of hard to plan around a killer that can be anyone at any time,” Kamak said.

“Right now the only thing we need to do is make sure our presence is known,” Farsus said. “Kor’s options on this planet are limited by her communication abilities, and she is at more risk than ever. Our presence here will hopefully be enough to force her into inaction.”

“I’d almost rather she took action,” Doprel said. “If she comes at us I could just squish her and get this over with.”

“Which is precisely why she’ll avoid us,” Farsus said. “You’ll get your chance, Doprel, but likely not soon.”

“Sooner the better. I haven’t gotten to crush a bad guy in a long time,” Doprel said. There’d only been one fight in the last few months, and Doprel hadn’t even gotten to be part of it. He had a lot of bad-guy-squishing energy to get out of his system. For a brief moment, Corey was glad Kacey understood none of what was being said.

“I like Farsus’ take,” Bevo said. “Just palling around, making ourselves known. Gives us plenty of time to explore Corvash’s home turf.”

“This isn’t a pleasure cruise, we need to focus on finding Kor Tekaji,” Kamak said. “We’re heading back to the police station tomorrow. Hopefully we can finally talk them into something useful.”

“And while you are doing that, I will be grocery shopping,” Farsus said.

“Grocery shopping?”

“I promised the ambassador I would retrieve some local goods for her,” Farsus said.

“Now is not the time to be splitting up,” Kamak said.

“I’ll go with him,” Doprel said. “You’ll be surrounded by cops, so it’s not like you’ll need the big guns.”

“We do have the numbers to split up nowadays,” Corey said. “Covering a lot of ground would be more effective, even.”

“Hmm. Good point,” Kamak admitted. “Fine. To Vo, you speak cop, you can come with me. Farsus, Doprel, you two do the damn errand. Rest of you focus on keeping watch on the new human.”

“Maybe we can get that pizza,” Corey said.

“You can bring me back a slice, I’m staying on the ship,” Tooley said. “I don’t like the way the crowd’s eyeballing it.”

“Well then, Bevo and Corey can babysit,” Kamak said. “Nice to actually have half of a plan for once.”

“Don’t get used to it,” Tooley scoffed. Kamak rolled his eyes, stood up, and took his beer back to his room. Kacey waited politely on the sidelines until she was sure the conversation had really wrapped up, and turned to Corey.

“So, uh, what the hell is happening?”

Corey rolled his eyes and reluctantly played the role of translator once again. He’d have to see about getting Kacey some kind of expedited chip tomorrow.