Just a note, if you haven't seen already, I am moving over to Substack as my main website. I'd deeply appreciate if you checked it out! K.R. Stevens Writing | K. R. Stevens | Substack
Dear Investigator,
A rather disturbing set of log entries today have been recovered. I think it is to be expected that things would get out of hand on the ship, given the signs of struggle aboard. However, it is nonetheless alarming to see it on one of our vessels.
I have some equally disturbing news on the matter of the missing loss incident inspection team. It would appear that I had been misinformed when it was reported that their families hadn’t seen them. It has come to my attention that many of these family members are also themselves missing. Any members of their respective households have disappeared as well. To say this is puzzling is, I fear, a great understatement.
We have redoubled our efforts to locate these missing persons, though the war, of course, complicates matters. I will keep you apprised of any updates here.
Respectfully,
Margaret Aurelius
Director of Deep Space Mining Initiatives and Exploration
Frontier Dynamics Corporation, Interstellar
Mission Day 51
Medical Operator Dr. Frederick Saginaw, MD
Dead body brought in by Travis. It’s Madsen. Shot to the head. No exit wound. No projectile found in the head. Peculiar burn pattern around the entry wound. Seen this before when I was stationed in the Embassy. Has to be professional. Special forces? Corporate security?
Put the body in stasis.
Shame. Good poker player.
Mission Day 51
Security Personnel Meredith Andrews
Who the fuck would want to kill Madsen?! I could understand someone being upset with him about the reporting fiasco, but murder? And why now? It’s been almost two months since that!
Doc says this looks like a professional hit, and I shouldn’t look too deep into it, but wouldn’t say anything else. Like hell am I going to let this go. I have never had a murder on one of my watches. Maybe a fight that got out of hand, or even attempts, but I’ve never had someone purposefully kill someone like this. I’m not about to roll over and let this slide.
There’s no sign of a struggle in Madsen’s quarters. It looked as though he was standing in his room when he was killed. Maybe he was talking with his murderer when it happened? It was likely someone he knew, but that’s not entirely surprising. At this point, who doesn’t know everyone else on this ship?
There’s no splatter pattern around the room, and there’s burns around the entry wound. So the weapon was fired at point blank, most likely with direct contact, and some kind of suppression device. Nothing seems to be missing, though only Madsen could have told us that for sure.
It would have happened after Travis said Madsen left the engineering section to get some sleep, and this morning when Travis went to check on him after he didn’t show up for his shift. That’s about 9 hours, since it took Travis 2 hours to realize he hadn’t heard from Madsen yet.
We aren’t equipped for a full on murder investigation, so I’m not going to have any assistance in the form of a DNA scanner, or even a coroner to tell me what happened to Madsen. Doc is a lot of things, but he’s no forensics examiner, and he's evaded any further questions I’ve had about the whole thing.
So, my possible suspects to investigate are mostly going to be mostly conjecture till I can get some real evidence.
Cap is a definite possibility. He perhaps has the strongest motive to kill Madsen. Hell, it wouldn’t even be the first time violence broke out between them. Revenge for almost costing Cap his career is pretty compelling. The question, again, is why now? I’m going to have to see if Cap ever left his room, since he’s back to sulking.
Travis could be a possibility. I know they are good friends and work partners, but disagreements happen. I’m going to have to really question him hard. He was, as far as we know at the moment, the last person to see Madsen alive.
Dr. Greene and Madsen have had disagreements in the past, but that’s cooled to passive aggressive snips back and forth for a long time now. Plus, I doubt he would have been doing anything other than prepping for the dig.
Doc has been very evasive of my questions. He brought up the alarming detail that this could be a professional hit, but has been tight-lipped ever since, even urging me not to investigate. I don’t really think he’d do something like this, but his attitude towards the case is suspicious.
My wild card I hesitate to bring up. The fact is the new kid on the Excavation Team, James Wade, is kind of an unknown. He seems like just an overeager dope, less so after that hazing incident gone wrong, but you never know. He is the one person on the ship I know the least, but that’s just as much a reason to consider him as it is against.
Other than that, I really don’t know until I get more evidence. Other than the report he filed that almost derailed the gig, Madsen was generally well-liked on the ship. He just cared about making sure we get there and back.
Anyway, in light of the incident, I’ve ordered a halt to the landing today. I’m not about to possibly let a murderer off the ship, even if it is to a desolate rock thousands of light-years away from civilization.
Fuck, do I need a drink. I can’t, though, till I get to the bottom of what the hell happened.
Mission Day 51, Supplemental
Security Personnel Meredith Andrews
For fuck’s sake. I don’t have enough shit going on with Madsen’s murder, now fucking Fisk has to do just about the stupidest thing possible, as usual, and try to shoot Harlan in his cell while I was out of my office interviewing suspects. That stupid motherfucker used a det charge to blow open my office, and then another to blow open my armory so he could get a gun. This, of course, set off just about every alarm on this ship.
The only reason Harlan isn’t dead right now is that idiot didn’t realize the gun wasn’t loaded. By the time he got to the cell I’ve been keeping Harlan in to keep him safe, I was able to get back there and stop Fisk. That asshole had the gall to point the gun at me and pull the trigger.
I’ve got him in the isolation cell, and fighting every urge I have to go in there and make sure that idiot never forgets to not fuck with me.
Jesus Christ. I don’t know what the fuck to do anymore. I have to add Fisk to my list of suspects now. If he’d pull something like this, it isn’t that much of a stretch to imagine he could have been the one to pull the trigger on Madsen.
Only problem is if he already had a gun that he used to kill Madsen with, why break into my office for another one? I don’t fucking know.
Just before this shit happened, I was talking with Dr. Greene, and he said that James Wade hadn’t showed up for pre-launch roll call this morning. His team has been looking for him all day.
What the fuck is going on?!
Thank you!
I hope you enjoyed this glimpse into the dark future of The Bones of Night. What do you think happened to The Prospector? Let me know in the comments, or on social media! Don’t forget to spread the word, and share the site with your friends!
Thank you for reading K.R. Stevens Writing. This post is public so feel free to share it.
Words cannot express how much I appreciate you for taking some time out of your day to see what I’ve been working on. I hope to see you soon!