Last Dispatch: Part 3
This story was made using the solo RPG Last Dispatch, by Symbolic City.
Yoli pressed play on their hand-comp again, replaying the speech from the beginning. It was a bothersome chore, but Yoli had heard enough political speeches that they had learned how to quickly pick out the important clues from seas of platitudes.
And there were a lot of platitudes. The newly elected Chief of the Lifeboat Corp, Henne Loann, had used their victory speech to express their intended manifesto for the future of Tethys Station, and it had not gone over well.
Most of what she said had been the same banal assertions of maintaining the station and fulfilling their duties to all who lived on it, but some fool on her team had ignored the political situation. Any other year, the speech might have flown; this year, her constant reminders of the importance of the Lifeboat Corp read as condescending.
Then the political operatives started. Her mentions of protecting families on the station were cast as threats against loved ones. Her assurances of neutrality were twisted by all sides as appeasing their enemies. Her calls to action were seen as incitement, and her promises of progress were viewed as radical.
Yoli, thankfully, was able to remain skeptical on all fronts. Picking through the speech, there was nothing that suggested Chief Henne would be any more or less radical than any other Chief. No, if there was danger, it came from overreaction. If the people of Tethys Megastation acted before cooler heads prevailed…well, that was when real problems started.
A piercing buzz startled Yoli from their focus. Exhaling as their heart slowed, they reached out and opened the com at their desk. “This is Yoli.”
An unfamiliar voice hummed through the air. “Deck five, section 2a. Now.” the voice was sotto, difficult to hear over the background noise of people talking.
Yoli blinked. They weren’t used to getting commands. “Who is this?”
“Hurry,” the voice whispered before the com went dead.
Yoli considered ignoring the call for only a few seconds before standing from their desk and grabbing their hand-comp. If they were of a different profession, perhaps they could have ignored the call, but as a journalist they had a duty to bear witness. Besides, personal accounts were better than first- or second-hand interviews after-the-fact.
Yoli ran most of the way to Deck five, pausing only in the central elevator. Section 2a on Deck five was the security section and quite a ways from the elevator, so Yoli was panting by the time they reached the disturbance.
Crowds on Tethys weren’t unheard of, but they usually congregated in the large open spaces, like the central concourses and plazas. The hallways weren’t large enough to handle more than three or four people standing shoulder to shoulder, so that ten people became an impenetrable throng.
A quick estimate — a poor one, Yoli knew — was more than fifteen people were crowded in the hallway, all shouting and pushing against a wall of five Homestation Defense guards. Their urges to disperse went unheeded, as they cried out to be let past, to see if what they heard was true.
Yoli watched it all, paying attention to every detail they could see and hear. Snippets of protests and shouts for calm painted a clear picture; General Layne was dead.
“Officially,” Yoli prompted, “General Layne’s death was ruled an accident.”
“Nonsense,” Professor Morliss gnawed on her thin soothe-stick, alternately sucking air through her teeth and shaking her head. “Everyone knows General Layne was single-minded and careful to the point of paranoia. She knew the dangers of overdosing, and even if by some miracle she was too distracted, supplied doses are individually packaged and prepared. She’d have needed to wanted to overdose.”
Yoli studied the Chief Researcher. “So why don’t you think it was a suicide?”
“Again, we all knew the General,” Morliss slipped the stick out of her mouth tapped it on her office desk. “She was dedicated to this station and her position as head of Homestation Defense. I think it was an assassination.”
Yoli leaned forward in their seat, smiling as disarmingly as possible. “You don’t think that’s a little…extreme of a position? Tethys Megastation may not be the calmest place in the galaxy, but no one has ever assassinated an official before.”
“Not that you know of, you mean,” Morliss smirked before gently placing the stick between her lips and sucking. “Forgive me, would you like a stick?”
Soothe-sticks were a blend of leaves, binding gel, and chemical agents wrapped in flavored paper. They were safer than cigarettes, both for the lungs and space station air-filtration and -recycling systems, but Yoli never appreciated the habit. Even with the flavors it tasted too much like chewing on a toothpick.
Nevertheless, they pulled a thin brown stick out of the offered pack and stuck it in their mouth. “Thank you. So, is there any reason you think it more likely that Manager Keese was responsible than anyone else? I think many people might think Keese is still too busy putting together Ockrim’s new Organics Harvesting Division. They’ve been falling behind Fresh-co in terms of output, recently, and there is a lot riding on Keese’s ability to turn things around.”
“That’s precisely why I think Keese did it,” Morliss spread her arms. “With General Layne gone, Homestation Defense is going to get a new leader. I don’t know how close attention you keep, but it’s a good chance Sub-General Provik is going to get the nod. Provik is…less flexible, shall we say, than General Layne was; He’s going to crack down on the Gleaners, and Fresh-co is going to take the brunt of it. It’s no secret, is it, that Homestation Defense is still feeling slighted after the last rationing adjustments?”
Yoli nodded slowly. “Well, I see your point, but do you think it was a good idea to publicly accuse Manager Keese with only suppositions?”
“It’s a better idea than letting him get away with it,” Morliss sniffed, rolling the stick from one side of her mouth to the other and then clenching it in a rictus grin. “If provocation is what it takes for Homestation Defense to look into Keese, then I’ll provoke.”