He heard movement behind him, in blind panic he whirled around, his heart thumping, sweeping his torch left and right, the surrounding supports and bulkheads threw off a myriad of shadows as the torchlight swept over it, his eyes strained in the dark. There was nothing. Jeez Jackson, get a grip, the sooner this damned power coupling is fixed the sooner the lights come back on, he thought.
“ Hey Fletcher, is that you!” He shouted down the corridor, just in case. There was no answer.
“ Where the hell is that asshole,” Jackson mumbled to himself.
Lathiel had secreted himself behind a small support girder a few feet away from Jackson. He gently adjusted his grip on the knives so that the blades pointed inwards following the contours of his forearm, and slowly approached the doomed Terran.
As Lathiel approached, Jackson spun around to face him. “Jesus, Fletcher don’t creep up on me like that,” he said as his hand clung to his chest.
He was jumpy, nervous, Lathiel was enjoying this, without another word, the Krenaran assassin swung the concealed knife upwards and outwards in a wide arc, catching and slicing open Jacksons throat.
He dropped his torch and fell to his knees gurgling, spluttering, and clutching at his ruined throat, to help the man on his way Lathiel gripped the mans neck, and with a sharp twist broke it. Jacksons body fell face first on the floor, motionless.
Lathiel quietly picked up the torch and scanned the corridor for a door. There was one on his right, about ten metres ahead.
Dragging the blood soaked body into the room, he found it was a very small sickbay, and was deserted. The entire deck was until they got the power back online down here. Shining his torch around the room, Lathiel could only see a single bed, it would have to do. He hauled the limp body of Jackson onto it, before cleaning his knives again and exiting the room.
Re-sheathing and hiding the blades back inside his uniform, Lathiel headed back the engineering section, three decks above.
Once there, the dark skinned man greeted him again, “Hey Fletcher, you fixed that coupling I told you about?”
“ Yes lieutenant,” Lathiel lied.
“ Where’s Jackson?”
“ Oh, he’s just finishing up, getting the tools together,” Lathiel lied again.
“ Couldn’t you have helped him?”
Lathiel knew this man had a dislike for him from the tone of his voice, and from his posture as the man disrespectfully turned his back on him. He did a quick scan of the room, nobody else was here, it was just the two of them, and time for a little sweet revenge. Lathiel drew one of his knives, and before the man even had a chance to turn around he threw the blade with such force straight at him, the knife whistled through the air.
The man staggered forward as he felt the impact of the blade embed itself in the back of his skull. His eyes began to roll, and he began foaming at the mouth as he desperately clutched at the blade protruding from the back of his head to no avail. Finally, his legs buckled and he collapsed with a thud onto his back. His head snapped back and slammed into the deck plating, forcing the knife ever deeper inside his skull, until the very tip of the blade was faintly visible protruding through his forehead.
“ Maybe that will teach you some respect,” Lathiel spat at the corpse as he dragged the body into a side room taking care to seal the door shut behind him. Only nine more to go, he thought with a sadistic grin.
Siccio arrived in the toilet block and immediately noticed one of the cubicles was busy, there was no sound coming from the cubicle though which was strange. One of the crew might have fallen asleep on the toilet, he thought.
After relieving himself he asked, “You okay in there buddy?”
Siccio didn’t know whether to open the door or not, after waiting a few seconds he bit the bullet and forced the door open.
The pale form of Ensign Fletcher stared blankly at him.
“ Damn man! You could have said something!” Siccio said, angered at the ignorance of the man slumped in front of him.
The body slowly gave way, and flopped off the toilet seat, leaving a crimson smear along the cistern.
“ Holy shit!” Siccio panicked, as terror gripped him, his heart pounded in his chest, dashing out of the toilet block and into the corridor, wanting to be anywhere but back in there. He sprinted back to the command centre to tell Lieutenant Pryce the grisly news.
Back in engineering Lathiel had reverted to the form of the man he had just killed, looking at his I.D. card his name was Lieutenant Junior Grade Wesley Forrest. He was the ships chief engineer. Unsure of his next move, he decided to take a walk through the ship waiting for a target to present itself.
Finally it did, in the form of a rather attractive dark haired young woman, heading toward the mess area, it was almost a shame he had to kill her. Lathiel elected to calmly follow the woman, another crewmember walked past them; greeting him informally.
The two of them arrived at the mess area, Lathiel sat down and quietly observed. The woman proceeded to order some disgusting smelling Terran food from a simplistic, battered looking food synthesiser; he was hard pushed not to be sick. However, he deigned to push such thoughts to the back of his mind. He had a mission to complete and nothing was going to stop him.
He made his way toward the machine as if going to order something himself.
“ Oh hello Wesley, is everything going okay down in engineering?” The woman asked politely.
“ Perfectly,” Lathiel replied, resisting the urge to sneer.
“ Oh good, I suppose that’s one thing to be grateful for at least,” The woman said as she moved to walk away from the machine and sat down at a table not too far away.
As he was pretending to order the food, he ever so gently unsheathed one of his blades, and as he walked past the seated woman; rammed it straight through the back of her chair. The woman lurched forward under the force of Lathiels powerful thrust, blood spurted across the table from her mouth and she flopped forward into her food. Lathiel retrieved the knife and calmly left the mess area.
Siccio had now arrived on the bridge, panting and panicking. “Lieutenant!”
Pryce could see the man was in a state, “calm down Siccio, what’s wrong?”
“ It’s Fletcher, he’s been murdered.” Siccio gasped, his heart still racing.
“ How?”
“ Looks like someone’s stabbed him,” he said.
“ Let’s go; Chambers, set the ship to computer control.”
Pryce, Chambers, and Siccio all left the command centre, and made their way to the toilet block to see the body for themselves.
“ I swear, I’ll have whoever’s done this blown out the airlock,” Pryce said as they headed to the elevator.
A few minutes later, they had arrived at the grisly scene.
Pryce checked over the body, “He’s been stabbed alright, in the lower back. He wouldn’t have even seen his attacker; poor bastard.” He turned to face Siccio, “since at this moment, you are the prime suspect, I’m placing you under house arrest for murder, until we can rule you out as a suspect.”
“ But I didn’t do it!” Siccio protested.
“ You were the first one on the scene, are there any other witnesses that can provide an alibi?”
“ Well, err, no. But I swear I didn’t kill Fletcher! I was taking a piss for Christ sake!”
“ Chambers, lock him in the forward hold until we can find out who did this.”
Chambers advanced on Siccio, who pleaded once again. “Pryce, you’ve gotta believe me, I didn’t do this!” He said pleading as he pointed to the body.
“ Sorry man,” Chambers said as he ushered an irate Siccio out of the door.
“ You believe me, don’t you?” Siccio asked, as Chambers continued to lead him away.
“ For my part, yes, I believe you,” Chambers acknowledged. “But you know better than I do, rules are rules, I don’t like it but I have to follow it. You were the first on the scene, and you have no one who can back up your story. Standard E.D. F policy dictates that you are the prime suspect until proven otherwise.”