Dark Vengeance (7 page)

“Actually, he had a dozen or more weapons at his disposal. Right there in the weapons locker behind him.”

The Captain began to look annoyed again. “It is locked by six different locking systems. It can only be opened by an approved officer!”

“It never was opened, Captain. The suspect was a Sentian. He could see into the locker. He simply reached in and grabbed a disrupter.”

“But he could not have drawn any of the weapons out. They would not pass through the metal on the door even if his hand would!”

“The weapon signatures on the door next to you are forty percent weaker than a normal disrupter blast. The Sentian fired the disrupter from inside the locker. The disrupter blast was not fully absorbed by the metal panel. Sixty percent of it made it through the cabinet door and hit the wall next to you.”

Captain Mars stood with an expression of astonishment on his face. His green skin tone turned slightly pale. He struggled to process the information. When at last he felt he had resolved it, he let out a long sigh and shook his head. “That is extraordinary, Commander. I see Captain Tarn’s appraisal of your deductive skills was no exaggeration. How did you find this?”

“It was because there were no prints on the officer’s weapon, Captain. The odds of that are astronomical.”

“But your finding doesn’t really change anything, Commander. It simply means that the Sentian managed to fire at Officer Ree before he was shot.”

“That doesn’t fit the problem with those weapons signatures on the wall next to you, Captain.”

“What about them?”

“You said Officer Ree had to be prone on the floor when he managed to shoot the Sentian.”

“Yes, yes he was.”

“Then why was the Sentian firing at someone more than five feet above the floor?”

“Wild shots in the middle of the battle!”

“The two shots are closely spaced, Captain.”

“Commander, are you trying to say the Sentian was shooting at someone else?”

“The blow that killed Ree probably came from behind and above. Am I right?”

The Captain stuttered, “Yes…yes it did.”

“May I go through the whole chain of events for you, Sir?”

“Please do.”

R.J. looked over the room. “The Sentian came into this room most likely to hide from someone. Maybe he had a partner that turned on him intending to keep all the loot for himself. I think the Sentian came aft hoping to escape that third person by passing through the sealed doors to engineering, knowing the person chasing him would not be able to follow. He reached the engineering doors only to find them shielded with a material he could not pass through. Am I correct about that, Captain?”

“Yes, Commander. The doors to engineering are especially dense. Please, go on.”

“Out of time, and desperate, he ran into this room hoping to hide. It was then Officer Ree must have noticed something happening and began pursuit. The Officer entered this room with his weapon drawn, just as you speculated. The Sentian raised his hands, happy to surrender and be saved from his pursuer, but the third man came up behind Officer Ree and struck him in the head. As the officer fell, the third man grabbed Ree’s weapon. The Sentian did the only thing he could. He reached into the weapons locker, grabbed the nearest disrupter, and fired two shots but missed. At the same time the third man fired a single shot, killing the Sentian. So, the two disrupter signatures you found on the weapons locker cabinet were made by the Sentian firing from within the cabinet. They were not shots that missed him as forensics believed. The third man then checked to be sure the officer was dead and wiped his prints off the weapon. But, too much time had passed. Maybe someone was coming. He couldn’t risk being spotted. He dropped the weapon beside the body and escaped, hoping the missing prints would be dismissed and the whole incident would look like an exchange between Officer Ree and the Sentian. This new scenario explains everything, Captain; the disrupter signatures on the wall next to you and the missing prints on the officer’s weapon.”

The Captain took another long, deep breath and stared blankly. “There are several key speculations in your theory that do seem to be supported, Commander. The doors to engineering are indeed shielded beyond what a Sentian could pass through. Officer Ree had begun a patrol because of the sudden loss of video coverage. It would have been easy for him to run into the Sentian. Your suggestion that the third man was after the Sentian’s stolen jewelry may not fit, however. The man’s pockets were still full of stolen items.”

“Maybe the third man did not have time to take the jewels, or more likely he deliberately left some behind to try to support the two-man theory. It almost worked,” I added.

“Indeed. If we begin to find missing items that were not on the Sentian’s body, that would support the idea of a second thief. In the meantime we are faced with quite an undesirable conclusion to all this, I would say,” added the Captain, shaking his head.

“You’re right about that,” answered R.J. “Obviously the man who killed both Officer Ree and the Sentian is still aboard this ship.”

The Captain nodded. “Yes, and for the moment there are only two people on this ship who are not suspect.”

At first I thought the Captain was going to say R.J. and me. But he looked at me with a discerning stare. “I know that I did not commit this crime and had Commander Smith been the third man he would have done his best to support the two-man theory. He would not have gone to such lengths to disprove it.”

R.J. added, “Captain, the Sentian’s two shots were high. It is unlikely he was firing at any staff members.”

“Unless his aim was off, Commander. He was attempting to shoot from within a weapons locker after all.”

“But if my guess is correct we are looking for a guest, or guest’s aid, or someone at least five feet tall,” said R.J. 

“Captain, I was the one who suggested Commander Smith could be of help in this matter. Knowing his abilities I certainly would not have done that was I the third man,” I said.

“Unless you expected him to get involved regardless,” replied Mars. “Where were you last night, Captain Tarn?”

“I left the party late and slept for two hours in my stateroom.”

“Alone?”

“Yes.”

R.J. cut in. “Captain Mars, I can vouch for Mr. Tarn’s integrity. It is completely impossible he would have been involved in this.”

“Your word does carry a great deal of weight, Commander. He will be put at the very bottom of the list. It’s quite a long list, however. The continuous comings and goings at the unscheduled celebration last evening leaves almost no one with an alibi. Unfortunately that large gathering also left many staterooms unoccupied and was probably the reason the Sentian decided to begin his thefts.”

R.J. flashed a guilty look at me. “Captain, it might be to our advantage to allow the third man to believe the two person scenario is the one that security has been accepted. He’s much more likely to make a mistake if he believes no one is looking for him.”

“I agree. I will brief my staff to act as though we’ve accepted the two-man theory. Commander Smith, until this crisis is resolved, I will leave word that you are to have full access upstairs and to engineering. Please keep me informed if you come up with anything else. If you will excuse me now, I need to speak to my department heads and security personnel. Once I’ve set up a preliminary response to this new situation, I believe you and I should get together to consider options. Is there anything else you need right now to continue assisting us?”

R.J. stuttered in surprise. “No… no. I am at your disposal, Captain.”

“Very well then, Gentlemen, I’ll contact you directly.” The Captain stood and left without looking back.

I turned to R.J. and put my hands on my hips. “Well, you do know you’ve destroyed any hope of a peaceful cruise, and it’s all on you this time.” I said.

“You better watch it. You’re still a suspect.”

The atmosphere aboard Star Seven ceased to be one of busy routine. The various staff members continued to fulfill their duties as before but their demeanor was now one of mourning and concern. Apparently the Enuro staff was a very close knit family. R.J. and I visited all of the most popular facilities as casual patrons trying to quietly promote harmony and goodwill, but there were seldom any guests present and the few workers we interacted with remained withdrawn or distracted. There are no antidotes for families with injured hearts, and there is only one partial cure: time.

Captain Mars surprised us by showing up in my stateroom very late the next day. He sat and looked at us like a man bearing too much weight on his shoulders. His obvious discomfort caused us to wait for him to speak first.

“We have another problem, Gentlemen, as though we didn’t have enough already.” He paused and gave a look of fatigue, then continued. “Apparently the Sentian left us one more calling card before he was killed. In addition to sabotaging the ship’s video system, he also managed to damage our subspace communications network. He introduced an acid into a series of subspace signal waveguides. It took awhile for the damage to become apparent. There is no hope of repairing the system. I’m sure you know those subspace system communications pathways are constructed with a very special internal coating which cannot be reproduced onboard. We no longer have subspace communications or flight data transfer and will not have until we arrive at Enuro.”

“What about navigation?” I asked.

“The navigation arrays are fully functional. At least they are not a problem.”

“So the Sentian wanted to make sure you couldn’t report to the Enuro authorities when the guests finally discovered they were missing valuables,” said R.J.

“A good guess, Commander. He was probably hoping to quickly slip away somehow as soon as we arrived at Enuro.”

“Well, the loss of subspace com and data transfer is unfortunate but not insurmountable, Captain,” I added.

“Yes, our other problems are of far more concern.”

“Have there been any other new developments?” asked R.J.

“All department heads and security have been put on alert and given instructions not to reveal anything. Other than that, the ship has been quiet. If we are very lucky the third man will not realize we are on to him, and there will be no further problems aboard until Enuro. But, somehow I have a feeling that’s too much to hope for.”

“We should construct a list of our best possible suspects, Captain. From that we can secretly monitor those people and possibly get a clue to an actual suspect,” suggested R.J.

“Agreed. That was my thought as well. I have the files on all of our guests and a few on newer staff. Let’s sort through them and see if your deductive mind comes up with anything else, Commander.”

“We should start as soon as possible, Captain,” replied R.J.

“I would suggest immediately,” replied Mars.

We set up in R.J.’s stateroom and ended up working all night. By morning we had the strangest list of suspects I could ever have imagined. We agreed the third man must have had quite a bit of physical ability to do the things he had, which caused the Captain to take another long look at me. R.J. seemed to find that humorous to no end.

The Ancient, the 1300-year-old woman who fit everyone’s idea of a nightmare, was placed at the very bottom of the list since she lacked every one of the prerequisites needed to accomplish the crime. Ambassador Beltran, the medicine ball with legs, was also listed way down with The Ancient since he had no dexterity and only minimal mobility.

From there, names became somewhat more difficult to exclude. We made the Crystal sisters third up from the bottom. While attractive female entertainers seemed less likely to employ physical combat as a means to an end, their other attributes were far more persuasive.

Next were Ambassador Sulik and her usually irate aid, Ms. Purser, the one who had brushed me aside to complain at the desk. Although Purser and Sulik were easily upset and quick to become aggressive, they struck me as more the cut-and-run type rather than actual fighters.

Higher on the list was the Golian fellow I had met in the gym. He had all the right talents. Up there with him was the Tagon, Lord of Acondra, from the people who exchange the taste of blood as a greeting.

There were a few staff members tall enough to fit the bill, including Fantasia and Elachia. Three of the lower-ranking security officers were marginally suspect, along with two of the forward maintenance engineers. We kept the staff members on a separate list.

“It’s not that long a list, Captain. All we need is a tiny bit of evidence that points to one of them,” said R.J.

“We will begin clandestine surveillance immediately,” he replied. “I’ll leave you now and set this up. We’ll meet again at day’s end. You’d better come up to the flight planning office this time, as discreetly as possible. I should not be seen down here quite so much.”

The Captain gathered up his things and left.

I stretched in my chair. “I need some sleep. Only had two hours before you started shaking me, remember?”

“That seems like a week ago.”

“What do you say we keep an eye on each other?”

“A prudent suggestion, Mr. Tarn. You sleep first, then. I want to look at these profiles a bit more.”