DEADWALKER SUBDIVISION (SAMPLE)

SAMPLE CHAPTER 3

"I'm getting old, and he was cute," she half lied. Jet didn't buy it, there had to be more to the story, but for now he let it go. The freighter Armonann glided silently into the temporary fault-line station which looked more like a child's erector set than a sophisticated space station, but it served it's purpose until the planet was rebuilt.

The Fault-line cars fit tightly inside the tunnels running throughout the Milky Way Galaxy, but the cars were big enough to carry space ships built to the IGS standards. Guide bots and computers performed the loading maneuvers, preventing expensive equipment from contacting the double ended ships that could be pushed beyond the speed of light squared. It would only be an hour until they reached the next station where they would make the first three month jump into near space, giving him time to get some work done.

Jet turned his thoughts back sixty six days. Once he had puked his guts out, he was able to survey the crime scene with a little peace. Each time he accessed the file, every detail down to the smallest sound and smell was re-visited. The odd patterns of crimson reminded him of an abstract art festival set in medieval times. Jason Knobb had his office decked out in pink and peach pastel with hard edged purple carbon plates embedded in the wall. Add blood spatter from fifty knife slashes and it was a scene right out of a twisted low budget horror movie. But to Jet it was more than real because every crime scene struck a personal chord in his heart. For Jettison Tyrell Excalibur Ravenaugh there were only two unchangeable things in his life. One was his former identity he preferred to keep hidden, along with his past life. The other was responsible for making him the best private investigator in the Galaxy. As to the later, it started when he was thirteen years old.

"What'cha thinkin' about," her high pitched voice broke into his thoughts like shattered glass. "I feel like we should get to know one another since we're stuck on this freighter for three months."

Jet's gut turned like molten lava. He was used to being alone, but she was right, he might as well use this time wisely. Every blood spatter had been carefully sampled and catalogued for future DNA analysis by a sophisticated robot, and now he was able to check the results more thoroughly. Jet continued scanning the individual splatter trails on the walls and ceiling until one caught his eye. He allowed her partial access so she could see visually what he was seeing, but the other details were omitted. "The hue of that one seems a little off," he pointed high up on the wall. A check of the back lighting and shadow angle revealed no anomalies. Zooming in on the odd pattern, he ran a spectrographic breakdown to see why it seemed different. The top layer had been carefully removed by the investigating bot and progressive samples taken at nano-inch intervals. Below the surface was a richer blood from a different racial characteristic and it wasn't long before the results came back. It was a positive match that would hold up in any court of law. The one odd blood pattern was a perfect match to Pon-shea-sedona's DNA. Add to that video surveillance placing her in Jason Knobb's office ten minutes before his demise and he had her dead to rights. But there was still the question as to motive, and he wasn't satisfied with any of the evidence. It was too convenient and she was too happy.

"Do you want to know why I became an investigator in the first place?" he shut down his neural net and stood up. Sedona's eyes sparkled like two tiny blue suns. He led her down past the dingy mess hall with its compliment of rough looking deep space crew. They stared longingly as she passed, coarse laughter echoing after them. "Don't mind the crew, these ships only carry the most valuable cargo on long journeys which means they're bored most of the time."

"I'm used to it by now, but why not use robot ships?"

"The pirates are smarter than most bots. It takes a human crew to out maneuver them." By now they had entered near space, the empty void between star systems not connected by the Fault-line. Out here there were no life buoys or patrolling security ships, just a barren wasteland better left for the dead. "The pirates don't take prisoners either." He saw the look of surprise on her face, but she remained silent. "You know not every solar system has the privilege of being directly connected to the life giving blood of the Fault-line?"