Chapter 3: Investigation

We returned to the meeting room in the administration hub. The guards once again waited outside. Soon after, administrator Tobis joined us.

“I understand there have been developments in your investigation captain?” he said with his familiar confident smile.

“Yes, as you have been updated by Laine. Communications officer Marwin was found dead in his cabin. We believe his death was murder that was made to look like a suicide,” said Jem. His eyes seemed to widen a little for a moment.

“My guards had informed me it was a suicide. Are you sure? Was there any evidence that others had been in his cabin?” asked Tobis.

“We examined the angle of entry of the shot in his head. It could not have been made while holding the weapon in his right hand. And the other thing that makes his death suspicious is the timing. We arrived and soon after he dies,” replied Jem.

“I see. So you are suggesting we have a murderer on this station?” He continued to look directly at Jem, ignoring the rest of us. It was beginning to bother me.

“Yes. At this point we cannot confirm his guilt or innocence regarding communicating with the pirates. He was perhaps working with another being, who then murdered him to shut him up, or he was killed to leave a false trail. We need to investigate further to find out,” said Jem.

Tobis thought for a moment. “Captain, the death of one of my staff concerns me. Please continue your investigation and please continue to have Laine keep me informed of your progress.” With that he left the room.

“Are your investigations usually like this?” asked Laine.

“No. Usually they are far more dangerous,” replied Jem with a smile.

“So we have a person of interest, the late communications officer Marwin. We need to investigate his background and activities around the time period when the message was most likely sent to the pirates. Was he the one who sent the message, or was he innocent?” said Jem.

“And we have an unknown killer of communications officer Marwin. The killer had to have access to his cabin, soon after we arrived. Perhaps there are logs or video feeds that show someone visited his cabin,” said Koluna.

“Laine, is that corridor the only way to reach his cabin from here?” I asked.

“Yes,” she replied. She typed on her keyboard. On the display on the wall appeared a map of the station. “This is his cabin, and this is the administration hub,” she highlighted the two locations on the map. I nodded. It was clear there was just one path between the two.

Laine typed some more and the display now showed Marwin’s career history aboard the station.

“I see nothing significant here. How about you?” asked Laine.

“It looks like he kept out of trouble but did not go beyond meets expectations,” I said.

Next on the display appeared a list of his movements around the station. Everywhere that he went that was logged was on this list. It was a chronological list of locations. He won’t be going any further now.

“He was not on duty around the time. But he was out of his cabin. What is this designation?” I asked.

“It is storage room 47-A,” said Laine.

“Could you put up a map of the station and highlight storage room 47-A, also the cabin of officer Marwin,” said Jem. A moment later a map was on the display.

“I wonder what he was doing there, it is some distance from his cabin,” said Jem.

“The logs show he visited that room several times since,” Koluna pointed out. Laine typed for a bit and the entries for his visits to that room were highlighted.

“I’d like to see what is so important in that room,” said Jem.

“What about the unknown killer?” asked Koluna.

“Laine, could you arrange it so that Koluna could review logs and video feeds around the time officer Marwin was killed?” asked Jem.

“Of course.” She tapped on her keyboard some more. Some windows popped up on the display. “Here are access logs for that area of the station for that period. And here are feeds for the various cameras we have near his cabin. You can scroll forwards and backwards like this.”

“Thank you Laine,” said Koluna.

“While you look for clues here, Brian, Laine and myself will check out that room,” said Jem.

“Here take this, in case you need to use the scanner,” Koluna handed me the medical kit.

“Thanks,” I said.

Koluna remained in the meeting room with two guards outside and we left with the other two guards.

We walked along several corridors in a different direction this time. The station was so large it could use some kind of transportation system. I assume that they avoided moving cargo around by having a vessel drop off in the same location that another vessel would later collect it from.

Laine consulted a handheld device that showed our location and where we were headed. She seemed satisfied we were going in the right direction. Because this station was built over time with modules from various sources, the corridors and airlock doors were different as we went along. Some were visibly much older than others, including the section we were in when we finally arrived at our destination.

This module was old, and from the dust on the floor I figured few people had been here recently. There was a sign on the door that said “47-A”. The latch was a manual one, not needing some kind of security scan. One guard reached out to open the door as my sense of paranoia spiked.

“Hold on a moment,” I said loudly. The guard paused and looked at me and then at Laine.

“What is it Brian?” asked Jem. I pointed one finger upwards to indicate hold on a moment. I then pulled out the scanner from my medical kit and scanned the door to confirm my hunch.

“So the logs showed that officer Marwin was here multiple times, is that correct?”

“That is correct. We saw that back at the administration hub,” replied Laine.

“But there is no scanner built into this door. How could it get into the log he was here?” I asked. Jem and Laine looked at the door, and then at the readout on my scanner.

I carried on. “If he had been here, there would be no log entries. If he had been here as many times as the log suggested, there would be footprints in the dust by the doorway.”

“You’re right. I missed that,” said Laine. She turned to the two guards and spoke to them in the language they used. I was on my way to full panic mode by now. We were in some old module where nobody would come looking for us. This did not seem right.

At that point the guards dropped their neutral expressions and sneered at us. They both drew their weapons. One guard barked instructions to Laine.

“He said we are to get inside,” said Laine.

“Does that include you?” I asked.

“Yes, all three of us. I had nothing to do with this. I swear! I don’t understand what is going on,” replied Laine. I looked at the weapon in the guard’s hand. It appeared to be an energy based weapon. I knew I should be ok if he didn’t shoot me in the head. I moved around Laine and got between her and the guards. So far he was pointing it at my torso. I slowly replaced the scanner in my medical kit and reached for the stun gun, it looked like a medical probe. I hid it in my palm and brought my hand out.

I kept my tone calm and kept my eyes on the closest guard with a weapon. “Jem, see if you can open that door.”

The guard had not seen my stun gun, and he barked more instructions to Laine. That was when I brought up my hand and shot him. At the same time he fired back at me. The charge dissipated over my suit and down to the deck plate. He fell backwards, and I quickly turned to cover the second guard.

The second guard was shocked to see his fellow falling backwards and did not see me aim and fire at him. This time he did not get a shot off and he crumpled to the deck beside the first guard.

I quickly relieved the two guards of their weapons. Then I turned to check with Jem and Laine.

“Are you ok?” I asked them both.

“I am fine. How did the suit work out?” asked Jem.

“I didn’t feel a thing,” I said. I gave Jem a weapon.

“How long before the stun wears off?”

“Not long, we better get them inside the room,” I replied. Jem opened the door, and I dragged one guard into the empty storage room. There was nothing in here.

I went back and dragged the other guard into the room.

“Brian, there is no lock on this door,” said Jem.

“I got it,” I said. I closed the door, and with the weapon on a low setting I fired at the edge of the door to spot-weld it shut. “They should be ok for a while. We can send someone back to fetch them.” Personally I did not care if we did, but perhaps they had information we could extract.