Galactic Detective Shilo Zander

Detective Zander sat at his decrepit desk in has over priced office on the nameless space station he had no desire to remember the numbers of and read the report back from the JoLangus. “Jessica, would you look at that? My wild guess on the Doctor was right. That reminds me, can you check on my health insurance?”

A snip with a snarkiness to it that his mother would approve came back from the living room/main office. “You don’t have insurance. You didn’t renew yours.”

“What that’s not right.”

“No, the form is right there on your desk.”

“Oh. This.” Zander plucked the form from the bottom of a stack. “I thought it was optional. A problem for future me. Jessica, The plagiums took them. What do we know about Plagiums?”

“Not much. They are the richest species controlling two-thirds of the core and mostly export. Beyond that. They wear dark cloaks from head to tail and are rarely seen.”

“That’s what I thought. But two of them took Doctor Zayflan. Maybe I’ll call JoLane to see if she knows anything.”

A light flashed red on Zanders desk. His security alarm that the landlord had no idea that Zander had it installed. “Jessica, take an early lunch.” He pulled up the alarm on his laptop. Under his breath he mumbled, “level three threat.” Zander pulled up the video feed. A Kohask—think werewolf without the friendly human side— entered the building. It had a muzzle around its wolf head and the claws were covered with leather straps. “Jessica, Jessica. I mean it. take your lunch break and go out the backway will you. Take an extra long break and let Tony know I’m buying.” If he survives. Zander pulled out his pistol and made sure the charge was topped off. He cranked the intensity to max and stepped out to the main office to see Jessica's slime tail disappear behind the front door.

Zander took a spot trying to find a comfortable position where he could also dive behind the couch for cover if needed and contemplated how many stories he could survive in the light gravity if he needed to jump out the window. Twenty? Thirty?

Knock, Knock.

“It’s open.”

The door flung open and the Kohask stepped inside. She forced the door shut giving the door a solid dent. Although the top of the door twisted inward a good inch the door remained latched, or maybe it was jammed that way.

Detective Zander shuffled around to the other side of the sofa and clicked the safety off of his pistol. "We can talk this over."

She jumped at him and Zander pulled the pistol.The wolf towered over him, saliva dripped past the muzzle and onto his trenchcoat. A round went off leaving a hole in the television and wall behind it.

Despite the leather coverings over the Kohask's claws she was remarkably dexterous with her hands and forced the pistol away and squeezed Zander's arm until he dropped the pistol on the couch sofa.

"Let's start over shall we." The voice was a growl but feminine, most assuredly, and smooth.

"Okay, As long as we don't cause more damage to the place. I'm renting it."

"I'm Sandra, I suppose that will do. You wrongly accused the Kohask of interfering with the JoLangus.." She thumbed him on the head with the back of her paw.

Fuzzy vision, pounding headache and the smell of raw meat. Detective Zander shot up and searched for his pistol. He slipped on the wet surface that he was laying on and tried again scrambling to put his back on a wall.

A light chuckle full of delight and humor came from the darkest corner of the cell found as his home. Blue eyes glowed from the darkness and Sandra approached him. She curled around him and brushed her coarse black tail across his face. "Oh, good I didn't break you."

"No, I think I will live. Could we perhaps have a conversation."

"Oh, I suppose. Talking that's boring. But it is required. For now." The Kohask sat on her haunches. She still had her claws contained with leather sleeves but the muzzle was gone. Werewolf, moon terrors. It was obvious why they got those nicknames from the humans. Detective Zander wracked his jellified brain over what he knew of them. Carnivorous with sharp teeth. Did not transform, nope they were always the overgrown fur covered large creatures like Sandra.

A Cargo transport of the Kohask, much like the design that Zander had identified as the source of the cheese. Hopefully the cheese came from a cleaner ship. Zander hoped the wetness he felt on his fingers wasn't blood but the other options were not much better.

"I'm alive so you must need something from me?"

"You solve puzzles, yes. Although you missed a few details you made us aware of an illegal trade route shipping toxic products through our space and using one of our ships. The ship has now been ... um can we say it's been reacquired."

"And the crew."

"Delicious if you must know."

Zander ran his hand across the wet surface. "We don't happen to be on that ship."

"I'll leave that to your imagination."

"And if the crew is ... is no longer available, am I to assume I'm here to solve a different puzzle and not correct my ill informed mistake."

"Reacquiring the ship solved that issue. But you now owe us a debt and we are here to collect."

"Let's say I don't disagree here. But I am curious what are the terms."

Sandra shifted her weight forward and licked her lips. "The terms are simple, solve our problem."

"And my motivation is?"

"Your motivation should be obvious."

"I take it you're more of the stick only what is a carrot type of gal. I'm not sure how much help I'm going to be."

"Then you darling have an issue."

Shilo Zander swallowed. "Let's focus on your issue."

"Gladly, now we are getting somewhere. The galaxy sees us as monsters, invading territory. Human's comparing us to werewolves have not helped our image. We don't mean to invade."