“I hate you so much right now, Right.”
The cleaning rag hit the window with a wet slap, Left taking out his annoyance by wiping the glass down hard enough any normal window would've shattered.
“We wanted on the ship, so I got us on the ship. I know it is not what you had in mind, but it is better than being stuck on Septa.”
Right ignored the pointed frown aimed his way, and kept up his half of the work. They were floating near the top of the window that made up one wall of the canteen, offering a view outside to space, trying to clear away a splatter of something someone had thrown off one of the suspended pathways leading through the upper section of the large room. Of the cleaning duties they could have been assigned wiping windows wasn't bad. They could float to the top to get spots others couldn't, and it was a relatively easy job. He was getting sick of Left's constant complaining though.
“The view is nice. You have to admit looking out on the stars is not a bad way to spend a day.”
“Wiping windows forever is.”
“You are just determined to be upset today aren't you?”
“I got you to contract a word, and that's the happiest I've been all day.”
“I could not think of a better way to phrase that without sounding pompous.”
“Too late, you already always do.”
Right actually looked hurt at that, and Left let out a sigh, voice dropping into an apologetic tone.
“Look, I'm sorry. That was mean, but I'm seriously just so done with this. Honestly I don't think I'd hate it as much if people weren't so stinking rude. We've been here for a US month and a half, we've met everyone on board, and every single freaking one of them has been awful.”
“That other janitor girl was alri-”
“Right. Right, look at me.”
Left turned to Right as dramatically as he could with their heads stuck so close together.
“Captain Strong-Arm called us a freak show. My biggest childhood hero is a jerk. Do you know how soul-crushing that is?”
“I told you anyone who calls themselves a captain while not actually being one was probably kind of a-”
The words were cut off by a loud rush of footsteps coming from one of the suspended pathways just behind them, and they struggled a minute to turn and look before Left gave up and turned to the right with the rest of their body. They just barely caught sight of a team dashing around the corner into the next room over, half of them speaking in languages they didn't understand.
“That looked like Sapphire’s group. That's serious right?”
“She is in charge of ship security. Maybe a fight has broken out?”
They went back to work, Left unusually quiet. They had nearly finished the job when Left next spoke.
“You know, I don't think I've ever seen that guy in the back before.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean I've got a thing for faces. You never forget a book, or number, or code, right? You're good with that stuff. My thing is people. I never forget a face. We've seen everyone on board this ship at least once by now, and I'd swear on our life I've never seen that guy before.”
“I saw Sapphire, two of her subordinates, and Juggernaut, all people on board the ship.”
Left scrubbed at the window in awkward patterns, used to talking with the paws he had primary control over. Right hated it, as they each mostly controlled the half of the body opposite their own head, and the constant motion jostled him, but he knew Left was getting into a grove as his words sped up.
“Yeah that's what I thought too, right? The Kalon in the back with the white fur, looks a lot like Juggernaut, but it wasn't him. The face was off, and he had a weird limp in his back leg. I'm telling you something doesn't feel right. What if it's a spy?”
Right rolled his eyes, finally throwing his rag in the bucket held by their second set of paws.
“This is the most important ship in the Kalaxion Alien Alliance, I seriously doubt a spy could get on-board. Besides, there are bound to be alliance members visiting at points. If that was not Juggernaut then it was probably another member of the alliance, perhaps a family member of his.”
“You overheard them talking when we were mopping the west conference room, though, didn't you? Now that the ships got that Null Code mass weapon thing we've gone totally off the map. No communication with the outside world at all until the mission succeeds, cloakers always active, no shipments, no coming or going, nothing. There shouldn't BE anyone new.”
“You are being paranoid.”
“You don't believe that.”
Right was quiet a moment before letting out a sigh, nudging Left to work with him floating back down to the ground now that they had finished their work.
“Even if by some impossibly slim chance some enemy did get on board, and say they did somehow miraculously deceive and work their way into the populace unnoticed... So what? They would be taken out the nano-second they slipped up. They could not possibly get past every single security system, and trick the ship's biology into finding their cybernetic parts non-hostile, and take down an entire interstellar ship full to the brim with the most skilled people in all of the galaxy. The S.S. Crustacean has on board a weaponized code the alliance believes will end the war for good. They would not let something as easily predictable as a spy jeopardize that.”
Left's voice came out soft when he responded as they made their way down one of the back hallways, buckets held awkwardly in their second set of paws.
“Right, you know I really really want that to be true, but you haven't just been hanging off our body unconscious this entire time. You aren't dumb, you aren't blind. You've seen how this ship is run same as I have cleaning up after these buffoons. The alliance itself may be incredible, but they assigned people here based on heroics, and fame, and we've seen for ourselves most of them are idiots. They're good in a fight, sure, but they're cocky, and sloppy, and I really really don't think most of them understand fully what they're doing. They aren't taking this seriously. The few who are get ignored. Lady Jasmine's brilliant, but that doesn't mean jack if nobody will listen to a word she says here. It's like they were handed that code, put on this ship, and assumed immediately we'd already won the war.”
Left looked Right's way, for once in his life looking serious, and, Right noticed, scared.
“I know they wouldn't notice a spy, and you do to.”
Right didn't like how serious Left was being. Left was never serious. He was loud, and brash, and a constant stream of over-excitable energy. He felt a cold shiver run down their spine, as they made it to a janitorial closet, gently nudging the door open.
“Look, Left... It... It was just a stranger. Or maybe not even that. We did not get a good look at him, and who knows, maybe the limp you saw was simply the result of a stubbed toe, or a knee accidentally run into a table's edge. It is not worth worrying about.”
His voice sounded shaky to his own ears, and Left clearly wasn't buying any of it. They put their equipment up in silence, and pulled out their assignment chart, starring a long while as neither of them really read the words.
“How about this. We tell someone what we saw, and report we believe there is something that should be looked into. They are unlikely to believe us, but it is the best we can do right now. Is that okay?”
Left frowned, responding in a voice Right knew meant he wasn't really happy with the solution.
“Yeah, okay.”
