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Case No. 45728-02
Incident(s): Homicide, Suicide
Officer of report: Police Constable George Dunham
Reporting Date: 20 January 2419
Towards the end of my patrol in Zone 40 of Epsilon Eridani, I noticed a Canonite Shuttlecraft orbiting Catullus-2A at 10.000 kph.
Three things caught my attention:
(1) All its primary lights were off. Just its backup lights were flashing. This made the spacecraft largely invisible to me approximately 500 km away. Pilots not paying close attention to their radar could pass perilously close to it.
(2) Catullus-2A is a large yet uninhabited and unmined asteroid. There is no clear reason to be in its orbit, which is weak, and therefore little thrust should clear you of.
And (3) 10.000 kph is not a safe speed, as it is very slow and exposes spacecraft to collisions with debris or unwanted gravitational pulls.
So I ran my siren and issued a warning over radio waves, saying if it did not resume motion immediately, I would be forced to write a citation.
Backup energy should allow communications, so even if they had been having problems with power generation, they would have been able to respond. After waiting 3 minutes, I issued a second warning, making it clear that I would come onboard, if they made no attempt to respond in 90 seconds.
I hardly gave them half that time, because then, across my front view, floated by the lifeless body of a human female. Early 30s. About 5 feet 7 inches. Athletic build. No helmet. Shoulder-length brown hair. Brown eyes. No obvious bruises or wounds. Wearing a jumpsuit with no identifying insignia. What struck me most was the frozen expression on her face of the acutest grief. She must have been weeping heavily in her last moments.
That determined me to board the spacecraft. I was not initially suspecting foul play but rather a serious accident where perhaps a large rock had torn open their vessel. Before long, with my patrol craft locked on, and myself fully suited, I opened the side hatch to access the Canonite. An apple gyrating near the ceiling indicated to me the lack of gravity.
I gently grasped my way forwards. The interior light was poor, the backup bulbs flashing faintly. After a half-hour of finding nothing of note, I considered at last resorting to the pilot’s log and the video recordings. This is when, as I approached the front cabin, drops of blood of several sizes began to drift by me.
One long and aimless thread of blood then ran towards me.
Given how dark it was, it was difficult to spot its source. At first, I looked myself over, hoping I had not poked myself with something sharp. Once well at ease in this respect, I pushed myself as quickly as possible towards the pilot’s seat. There, in it, sat a dead human male. Ghastly pale. Probably from the perfect loss of blood.
A large wound, several centimeters wide, and several more long—almost from ear to ear—characterized his throat. Early 30s. About 5 feet 10 inches. Athletic build. Clean shaven. Short black hair. Brown eyes. Besides the gash, no other signs of trauma.
I collected the hard drive and returned promptly to my patrol craft to review it.
Once in my cabin, I flipped through the log files. Formulaic. Technical. I learned only that they were heading for Ptolemy III, having left Earth 6 months ago. The video recordings, on the other hand, cast light on everything.
The last hour begins with the two of them talking. The man appears to deliver news most disagreeable to the woman. In fact, it perfectly maddens her. She beats his chest as she weeps. He calms her down by embracing her. Eventually, he leaves the room, ending up deeply contemplative in the seat where I found him. Meanwhile, the woman wanders the spacecraft in tears until, finding herself in the kitchen, she grabs a knife. After this moment, her features assume the most dreadful resolution.
Suffice it to say, she kills him, after which horrific deed, she wanders the halls awhile, in a silent but wild state, before opening the door. The immense pressure pulls her into space, which suffocates her in seconds.
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