Space RP

Post Reply New Topic

He was feeling around the exoskeleton of the Noble when something gave way.

That's odd, he thought. Massive internal displacement. He was hit by a blaster on a killing setting. And yet he was decapitated and left out on the surface of Shiva to make sure.

No, Ants are resilient to blaster fire. They are insects after all. But a high blaster setting would still cause extreme pain due to the fact that the entrails had been scrambled. He would have died anyway. The decapitation appeared to be a coup de grace. Was it done out of mercy? But then, the contemptuous dumping on the surface.

He heard the spaceship land and cursed. He should have had the launch pad locked down until the most critical phases of his investigation were complete.

"Listen, Heather? I need to make sure that this area is kept as under wraps as possible." With that, he took another device out of his pocket, scanned it over the body, and planted it on the ground next to it. It beeped and activated. At her bemused and annoyed look, he explained. "It's an SEP* field. Better than a cloaking device, it'll allow people to ignore the body, except you and me, as we already know it's there."

((*Somebody else's problem. From Wikipedia (emphasis added by me):

R'ae used technology of the elders to scan the environment. Of course she scheduled her flights in a way to normally meet Heather but of course unscheduled events can happen to everyone. She also saw the presence of someone else around her which made her refrain from directly contacting her but decided to stroll over. Halfway she returned and brought a memory crystal. It contained literature and music which she hoped Heather would like. She always is on long journeys and does not have the chance to shorten them for herself.

She still saw the presence of someone else and thus first went to the store to buy the components she assumed to need and then clackered (the expression is more clear when you hear S'kele walk) to Heather and greeted via projected images.

Meanwhile, Mikhail had left for his ship, leaving an alarm system on the SEP field just in case. He then prepared a synthesised meal, wondering who that S'kele was. ((LostInEmulation, what does a S'kele look like?))

In any case, he didn't like dealing with the truculent. The Sapient Ape, Heather, was too truculent for his liking. She wasn't guilty, or at least he didn't think so, of the murder or any assistance in covering it up. But she was acting too ornery for his liking. He didn't have any prejudices against races as much as people who were stupid, stroppy, or criminal.

And why was that Ant Noble killed? Mikhail could think of a dozen reasons off-hand why he was on Shiva, but until he identified the body (Ants recognised each other by pheromones, and so difference was harder to tell), he could not narrow these down.

The alarm went off.

$#!t, thought Mikhail. Someone's already poking around.

He ran for the disposal office, blaster in hand. When he got in there, he noticed someone trying to plant something on the corpse.

A thermite bomb.

"Freeze!" he yelled. The figure turned around, startled, and ran for the other door, towards the settlements nearby.

He fired a stun blast at the fleeing figure and hit it, but the figure kept running. He's either an Ant or another arthropod, or he's wearing a energy dispersal garment.

Mikhail quickly checked the thermite bomb. He pocketed it after making sure it was disarmed, and ran after the figure, out the door. He pelted down the road, passing a cafe as he did so, screaming "Adjudicator, FREEZE!"

(EDIT: bad synching will add to this post later)

((Okay, I dunno what's going on, so I'll keep it that way with Mikhail. He has little patience for politics))

"Wha--?"

He shrugged, and pulled the figure up. A human male, a little older than Mikhail.

"I think our friend will tell us what we need to know. Once you're done with your friend, please see me."

***

A few minutes later, Mikhail had the man in a cell on board his ship. It was a rudimentary one, but enough to keep him in.

"Now, an Ant Noble turns up dead in a rubbish heap. His insides are scrambled- a rather nasty side effect of a projected energy weapon, a blaster to you- but someone made sure by ripping his head off, and dumping him out of the surface of Shiva. Now, I grew up on Shiva. And while I don't know your face, I know you came from there. That skin tone is unmistakeable, as is the frostbite scars. You turn up, you see past an SEP field, which means you knew the body was there. You set a thermite bomb. Accessory to murder, attempted murder, and breaking and entering. I'll leave aside, temporarliy, the legality of disobeying a lawful command from an officer of the law, and wearing an energy dispersal jacket."

He tapped the jacket that had been removed from his prisoner.

"Now, save me the trouble, and tell me who you are working for."

R'ae was seriously uncomfortable about the last question: "Ŧis insta'nce does not say, that he's a'cing m'rally. In ŧe st'ndars of ŧis insta'nce he's dark gray. J's not comp'eŧly b'lack as ŧe m'jori'ty o' ŧem. No o'ne who krew up' ŧinking he wa's b'etter ŧan b'iłjans o' oŧers ha's a koo'd st'rt for m'rals. B't at lea'st he d'id not hand in a b'lank shee't in ŧe e'xam of m'rals, li'ke mo'st o' ŧem. Ŧis does p'rese'ntə a p'rob'lem si'nce ŧese peop'le are eve'n m're un'predict'le ŧan m'st o' ŧem. My be'st guess for hi's motives is ŧat he wa'nts t' c'mply to a s'cialły kinda a'ccep'ted st'ndar whi'le n't kivng up hi's" she clicked in a certain way meaning that she did not know how to say it "af'fairs wiŧ m'n. Or it is s'me k'j't int'rigue no o'ne understans. I d'n't understan'd the n'bles..." she moved her first legs in a way to indicate vagueness.

Then she focussed Heather and asked about which murder she referred to.

((BTW: the ' in R'ae name and speech is a clicking sound, not found in human speech))

R'ae had to admit, that she had no idea but of course, there were several possibilities according to her. Maybe this ant was attempting to replace another noble (maybe of Seven's family for example) for example (she shuddered at the idea that unknown powers infiltrated the House of Lords). Or it was supposed to be a cover for when this ant was doing immoral business. Or something entirely different she had no clue about because she was in her garage, attempting to bend the laws of physics a bit more to attempt faster travel. She admitted in a rather embarrassed way her lack of knowledge of most matters of royalty apart from their very existence.

R'ae agreed, even though the dish was something she did not really appreciated (spiders were always a bit too s'kelemorphic for her preference even though they were descending from a completely different planet), she looked forward to the company of her friend.

A few hours later, Mikhail was pacing up and down the recreational area of his ship, swearing in a colourful language used by the Ants, full of consonants and clicks. The b*****d trying to burn out the garbage ship had a cybernetic device in his head that burned his brain out.

Mikhail had reset the SEP field's alarm system, and so far, nothing had tripped it. Currently, his automated autopsy machines were going over both the criminal and the Ant Noble.

All he could do was wait.

He clicked up Lungbarrow on his e-book reader, and began to read...