Star Law: A Marshal Cole Series

Chapter 11 (b)

Marshal Cole and Doctor Kripisov entered the bridge via the port side lift. Their walk towards the captain's chair slowed as they gazed out outside at the enormous swirling Black Adder Cloud. It was filled of purples and blues, flecks of green and reds. Periodically, flashes would appear inside just as they would with thunder clouds on a planetary body.

"Incredible!" exclaimed Cole. "I had no idea it was this beautiful."

"You're always in your quarters when we pass," Kripisov teased.

Captain Cutler stood as they entered the bridge and moved to meet them half way. "It may look beautiful but it's also dangerous, prevents us from dropping out of warp, hard to navigate and interferes with communication."

"Will we have communication back before Hawks?" asked Cole.

"Only several hours inbound from the planet," replied the captain. "They have a powerful relay that most cuts through Dark Adder's interference. You were hoping to tap into databases to help with the investigation?"

"It is always good to have access to outside data but it can also be a crutch as well as information overload," said Cole. "We'll continue to gather evidence and set a list of priority queries when the time comes."

Cutler extended his arm directing them to one of the doors at the back of the bridge. "Let's go to the conference room. I want to know where we are in the investigation."

The captain led the way to a meeting room that could easily seat a dozen people. A three dimensional holo emitter was in the center of a long table and several flat screens were at the far end. Dr. Kripisov and Cole sat together on side of the table and Cutler took a chair opposite.

Kripisov took out a datapadd she had brought with her and desk connected with it. It brought up visuals of a passport hologram. "This is Aubrey Chase Chen in better times. I have ruled her death a homicide."

Cutler exhaled. "I don't think that comes as any surprise. Did the autopsy tell us anything useful that may lead to her killer."

"All I can tell you how is how she died," answered Kripisov. "She sustained blows over much of her body, several bad enough to have eventually killed her. She was stabbed over and over again with multiple objects and some of those would have led to enough blood loss to kill her."

"But that was not the cause of death?" questioned Cutler.

"No, she eventually died from having her neck broken," answered the doctor. "Bruises around the neck suggest a grip around the throat but considerable force upward broke the C2 vertebrae. To be blunt her head was pulled off."

Cutler winced upon hearing this. Turning to the marshal, he asked briskly: "You're awfully quiet about all this. Does this tell you anything about the killer?"

"Ruling the death a homicide doesn't in fact tell us who the killer or killers are," said Cole, matter.

Cutler stiffened. He hadn't considered this. "There might have been more than one killer?"

Kripisov intervened. "The stab wounds and various blows came from left and right, higher and lower angles suggesting left and right handed, shorter and taller."

"Two people?" Cutler asked in surprise.

"Not necessarily," replied Cole. He pulled a datapadd towards him and scrolled through some lines and then tapped and put it on big screen. It showed blood splatter on a wall. "In a death with this much blood present, we see voids where a suspect was present when droplets were cast off. In this case we see have seen no voids of any kind."

Cutler was incredulous. "You're saying the victim was killed by an invisible force?"

"Not quite. All we can say now is force of some kind was used and death and damage was the result," said Cole.

This left Captain Cutler frustrated. "Certainly you must have a theory."

"I have a number of ideas," replied Cole in a non committal tone. "We are still waiting for some forensics to come in."

Cutler looked to Doctor Kripisov. "You're a woman of science, Kendra. Is any of this making sense to you? Are we just missing some evidence to come in?"

"I can safely say I've never seen a case such as this," said Kripisov. "Tremendous power was demonstrated in the victim's cabin. The ship engineers are still trying to figure out how the safe was wrenched from the floor. I have collected lots of physical evidence such as DNA that we're still waiting to hear back on. However, at this point, we have data like the blood splatter analysis that is confusing even to the medical AI."

"Is there anything that we know?" asked Cutler, his voice raw.

"Yes," answered Cole. He keyed up the data to be displayed on the screens. "Our victim is Aubrey Chase Chen, age 42 and till recently a resident of Earth in San Fransico. She was employed in logistics for the State department. She travelled alone and thus far does not seem to have had any contact aboard the ship outside the common areas. Your droid Boz is still back in the security office collecting all the video data that we can find. Quite frankly, it's a lot for even the best AI to go through and will take time."

"Was her final destination the planet Hawks?" Cutler asked.

"If she arranged transportation beyond, it is not indicated anywhere. However, Ms. Chen had a storage container in holding. It may reveal more about her. I'll be leaving that in the hands of your security chief who should be coming back onto shift." Cole shifted in his seat. He knew it wasn't much but that was how some cases worked at the beginning. "We still have six days till we arrive at Hawks, yes?"

"Yes," replied the captain. "Normally under top sub-light speed, we'd do it in 2 days. We slow down considerably as there's lots of debris from the Dark Adder Cloud."

"We still have time and there's a lot to go through," said Cole.

"My fear is there is a killer still aboard my ship and we have no idea who they are and if they might kill again," Cutler said.

Cole said nothing. And what could he say? The mystery of how a homicide could take place inside a locked room with no clues as to how the killer could avoid detection did not sit well with anyone.

Doctor Kripisov brought them back to point. "We three have been up since last night. Time to get some shut eye and let Volks and our lab generate some new information."

Both the captain and the marshal nodded. "Okay, we'll pick this up in six hours."

The meeting was dismissed. They passed Lieutenant Karlsson who was at the captain's chair awaiting relief from Lt. Commander Daravan. Cole and Kripisov made their way back to the lift and were gone. Cutler lingered only a moment longer to watch the lightening in the Black Adder Cloud. The only sound of thunder was the sound in his head. It made him shudder.