Fox Hunt (Fox Meridian Book 1) by Niall Teasdale Read Free Book Online

virtual assistant on her implant was offering her. The door slid open and two men looked in at her. She was not entirely sure whether they were embarrassed or nervous, but she recognised both of them and they had no reason to be either. Just in case she had not remembered their names, her VA inserted them into her vision field for reference and she pushed the tags aside with a thought. ‘Captain Morris, Lieutenant Parsons… What can I do for you?’ She would have invited them in, but there really was little to the room aside from the bed and a small space to stand.
    ‘Inspector Meridian,’ Morris said, ‘you were checked aboard with a weapon?’
    ‘Your colleague checked it in and made sure it was correctly stowed, Captain.’
    ‘We need to check it again.’
    Shrugging, but suspecting that this was going to turn into a problem of some sort, Fox reached up to the small overhead stowage box above her bunk and pulled out a slim, metal briefcase. It required her thumb and a coded signal from her implant to unlock it. She cracked the latches with the case sitting beside her and then turned it so that Parsons could open it up. The security and comms officer had seen her pistol before, but she noticed Morris frowning at it. Parsons took a handheld diagnostic tool from his belt and began interrogating the weapon’s on-board computer.
    ‘I don’t recognise the design,’ Morris commented.
    ‘You wouldn’t. MarTech aren’t marketing them yet, though I hear the rifle versions are going out to specialist military units in the next few months. What’s this about, Captain?’
    Rather than answering, Morris looked at his security officer. ‘Like I said,’ Parsons said as he straightened up, ‘there’s no way it was her. It was last fired two days ago. You were in on that business in the crater, right?’
    ‘Yeah. I shot a mercenary in the eye with it.’
    ‘In which case, Inspector,’ Morris said, his shoulders sagging a little, ‘I’d like to ask for your help.’ He lowered his voice, just in case not everyone in the cubicle block was plugged into a sensie, but she knew what he was going to say before he said it. ‘One of our passengers appears to have been murdered.’
    ~~~
    ‘So this is how the other half lives,’ Fox said as she took in the scene in the largest of the ship’s cabins. If you wanted to shell out for the space, or you were travelling with someone, you could get a cabin instead of a bunk. The smaller ones were not exactly spacious, but you got two bunks and space to sit down. This one was the first-class cabin, with a double bed, a desk, and a couple of comfy chairs, and even a shower cubicle. ‘Or dies anyway.’ The victim had paid for his own first-class cabin and had died slumped over the desk. ‘He hasn’t been moved?’
    ‘We were going to radio Detroit for instructions,’ Morris said, ‘and then Mark remembered you were on board…’
    ‘You need to notify them anyway. Tell them you’ve got a dead passenger and a detective on site, and that I’ll forward an initial assessment as soon as possible.’ Her eyes scanned the room, software in her implant adding detail and sharpening the image as she did so. ‘Not that I’m going to be able to do much. I don’t have the right equipment.’
    ‘I’m more concerned that we might have a murderer on the ship.’
    ‘It’s not likely that someone’s going to wig out and kill everyone. To be honest, this looks like a hit. Who was he?’
    ‘Sanderson Hunt,’ Parsons replied. ‘He was a sales rep for MarTech, according to the documentation I have on him.’
    Fox took a step into the room. ‘Travelling alone? Anyone else from the company aboard?’ The corpse had an obvious puncture wound in the back, just left of the spine, maybe through the heart. It looked like a large-calibre bullet, but there was something a little odd about it.
    ‘Yes and not that I know of.’
    ‘He was shot in the back. If someone had opened the door, he