Words All The Way Down

Inspired by the following prompt: [WP] A famous detective attends an exclusive party on board an extravagant starship mansion. The evening is jovial until a body is discovered.

Every good mystery starts off with a blood curdling scream. Detective Pratt sprinted down the gilded halls of the Starship Extravagance. He pinpointed the screams to the second door from the end of the hall and impatiently waited for the automatic door to open.

This time, he noticed, the crime involved the Countess in the study and a dagger. On the floor was the dead Count, very clearly the recipient of said dagger. The detective quickly sprang into action.

“Countess, did you see who did this to your husband? Did you see which way they went?”

The Countess replied between gasps, clearly distraught. “No, Detective. It all happened so fast. The lights flickered off. I heard my husband grunt in surprise. Then, when the lights turned on all that remained was my dead husband and that dagger.”

After settling the Countess into a chair, Detective Pratt crouched down to get a closer look at the dagger, hoping to find some extra clues as to who the killer might be. As the detective brought his head closer to the dagger, he thought he could hear a faint beeping sound. Then, at the butt of the hilt, he saw a number counting down.

7….6….5….4….3

He quickly emptied a nearby metal bowl of sweets, covered the dagger, and held it down with his hand. The detective hoped it would be enough to contain any shrapnel. With a faint boom and some resistance against his hand the dagger inside the bowl exploded. Pratt slowly lifted the bowl to see the charred, fragmented remains of the dagger. Clearly the killer had prepared for losing his knife and didn’t want to leave behind any evidence. He would have to analyze it further in his portable lab to glean any further information. Right now, the dagger was a dead end.

Detective Pratt scanned the rest of the room, desperate to find any other physical clues while the trail was still hot. Then, he saw it, a faint trail of blood that ended abruptly near one of the walls.

“Don’t touch the dagger,” he muttered to the Countess.

He slowly approached the wall and gave it a soft push. It swung open to reveal a dark hall filled with pipes. At the end of the hall, music from the ongoing party could faintly be heard. The detective looked down and noted that the trail of blood continuing down the hall.

“Wait here Countess. And don’t answer the door for anyone.”

With that, Detective Pratt sprinted down his second hallway of the night, hot on the killer’s trail. He was on a clock. The Starship Extravagance docked in 3 hours time, and he wanted to catch the killer before then.