Something is eating the crew, that much is certain. It's a very clean eater, leaving little but a few smears of blood on the floor and walls of corridors. They haven't seen what it is. Or who it is.
Tensions are high. With this many people aboard a ship so massive, it's easy for a killer to blend in. But how are they getting around? Why are the security cameras always off when they strike? Why does no one witness the violence?
Fingers are pointed at the officers. They control the monitoring systems. They know crew rotas. One of them is likely to blame. But how are they so clean about it? Little is left to waste.
The first clue comes in a blurt of error code. One of the technicians notices it. The AI core unit has been without biological fuel for some time. It's tank is dry and, if the scrubbed records are anything to go by, it looks like the AI decided to dump its own biofuel into the void.
Why would it do that?
It wants to taste us, one of the engineers had said. We'd laughed at that.
And then his ID card turned up on the lower decks, lying on a smear of neatly wiped blood.
Paddy Dobson
27th August 2022