The Assassin in the Hold

The tension between Captain John Marchant and First Office Nick Williams is palpable while they are performing a routine check of the ship's hold. They suddenly find a hidden man. Before they can say anything, the man tries to kill Nick. They recognize the man as a Karchuck, an elite assassin trained from youth, before he disappears into the hold of the ship. Nick chases after the assassin, his mind full of questions about the man's presence on the Red Survivor while he struggles to bring in the man alive to get those questions answered.In the Red Survivor Mission Chronicles, this is a standalone space opera short story that focuses on the inherent tension between Marchant and Williams. Fans of space opera will enjoy this story, buy your copy today!Sneak Peek "Very interesting, don't you think," Captain Marchant said, pointing out a bag that was buried in the back. He pulled it out with two fingers as if he expected that it might bite him. He opened it up and took a whiff before passing it back to me.I didn't need to inhale, I could smell it from where I was. "I did not expect to find Krallian spice," I said, looking at the identification label on the container. The name wasn't there, of course, but I used the camera on my handheld screen to capture the number to look up the culprit later. My eyes narrowed when I glanced at the captain.He had known exactly where to look, almost as if he knew it was there."Neither did I. Good thing we're taking a look around. This is one of my more important duties.""Do you want me to write this up?""No, we'll let Ensign Redding do it. I saw you took down the identification information. She can handle it from here."I closed the container, making sure to put the latches in place as I did. It might have seemed to somebody else that Marchant was trying to lighten my burden by not require I handle the offender, but it was my responsibility.Marchant loved to delegate my duties to other people and then blame me for when they got it wrong. The captain smiled at me again as if he could tell what I was thinking. "Onto the next one." There was almost a jovial quality to his voice as he nodded at another container. This was double the width of the last one and three times as long. What do they have in there, a corpse?I opened it up as well, pushing off the lid to fall on the floor with a clatter.I was surprised to see a man looking up at me.He had a blaster pointed right at me.


Genre: Science Fiction