"But I didn't kill Benji," Natasha shrieked, moving to the edge of the bed. "I swear I didn't. You have to believe me, Jessa."

When she realized we weren't buying her Lieutenant Colonel Polk act any longer, she referred to me as Jessa instead of Colonel. Although I found her shift in attitude quite intriguing, I knew I still couldn't trust her to tell us the truth.

"Then, my husband was murdered," I concluded; my breath became raw in my throat. I bunched my fists tightly. I wanted to do Natasha bodily harm. Again, I took a deep breath and resumed, "I have a source who says you have been exchanging our information for Crimson Fleet money."

Natasha steepled her fingers, staring at them. "Maybe I have. Maybe I haven't."

"You had the motive and the means to kill my brother," Nate ground out his words between clenched teeth. "Now if you don't tell us who killed Ben and why, you will be going to prison for his murder."

"CHIP, play disk," I instructed the computer.

When I saw Ben's face, I unconsciously ripped my hand away from Nate.

"Agent Benjamin Masters' Log, January 8, 2150...Agent Austin and I have infiltrated Bravo Ait without incident. We are in search of the crew of the Washington. So far we haven't been able to locate them. We, however, have happened upon a compound. It was pretty easy to make it past the guards. We entered the TravelTram, but before we pressed any buttons, the TravelTram plummeted ten or more floors," Ben told his computer, sitting in a large chair in the landing craft again.

Each log we viewed took place in that vessel. I deduced that Austin and Ben must have set it up as a Command Post.

Ben continued, "When we exited the TravelTram, we found ourselves in what appeared to be a deserted basement. Two men approached us. Austin pulled me into a nearby closet. From there, we watched the men enter what looked like a laboratory. It had test tubes, bunts and burners and a locked cabinet. Labeled bottles with a different colored solution in each filled the shelves upon shelves that lined the lab. After we were sure they were in the laboratory, we peeked through the window and eavesdropped on their conversation. They hovered over a set of plans."

Ben looked around as if he thought someone might be listening to his log. He had black circles under his red eyes. What had been keeping him up nights? The plans for the biological weapon? Or something else?

"'Once we finish this weapon, we will fill it with RY-987. We will put one of our agents on every Freedom Alliance StarVessel. Then poof! Every member aboard will be dead,' one of them–a fair-skinned, white-haired man with a British accent– told the two men we saw going in the room. Austin and I will continue to search for the missing Washington officers. Masters out."

Nate and I looked at each other.

"Now we know how Ben stumbled upon–" Something on the computer screen caught my attention.

"Benji," a dark-haired woman purred, draping herself on the arm of the chair Ben was sitting in. The date across the bottom of the screen read September 2, 2150.

"CHIP, stop disk," Nate charged the computer, grasping my hand again.

This is the Spacestastic Mysteries Podcast. We are continuing science fiction, mystery author Annagail Lynes’ first novel in the science fictions series Jaguar and Peacock Series, Who Killed Ben?

Federal Agent and seasoned SpaceVessel Commander, Jessa Strazzer, emerges from the wreckage of a devastating accident that claimed the life of her beloved husband, Ben. Returning to her duties with a heavy heart, she grapples with grief and unanswered questions, determined to uncover the truth behind the tragedy that shattered her world.

As Jessa sifts through the remnants of her past life, she stumbles upon a mysterious box of items left behind by Ben. Within its depths lies a chilling revelation: the accident that claimed Ben's life was no mere mishap, but a deliberate act of sabotage.

This is Episode 5 – Was There A Moment? If you have not subscribed, hit the bell to be notified of new episodes.

Transcript: https://annagaillynes803633422.wordpress.com/2024/06/15/who-killed-ben-episode-5-was-there-a-moment/

If you sign up for updates at https://tinyurl.com/lcsnovel, you will receive a free digital copy of Annagail's novel, The Last Chance Station, which is set in the same universe as The Jaguar and Peacock Series, but which follows the cases Colonel Alexandra Madrid solves with her partner, Tony Ashton, on a SpaceBase on the edge of space explored by the Freedom Alliance.

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We ate in silence for the next few minutes.

"How are you handling all this stuff with Ben?" Nate picked up the pitcher of lemonade, pouring some into his glass.

"I'm fine." I handed my glass out to him. My hand--visibly trembled.

"No, you are definitely shaken." He filled my glass, then replaced the pitcher. He stared at me a moment before he added, "I don't remember the last time I saw your hand shake like that." His eyes narrowed in concern.

"You can be in trouble anywhere in the universe, and I would know it," I began, loading a forkful of spaghetti into my mouth. After I chewed it thoroughly, I continued, "Why didn't I have that same sense about my husband? Why didn't I know he was in trouble?" I picked up another forkful of spaghetti.

He scrutinized me for a moment before saying anything, sipping his lemonade. "He didn't give you any clues when you saw him before the accident?"

"He was very upset when I arrived home. He had an altercation with his partner earlier in the day, which led him to believe that she was working for the Crimson Fleet." I raised my hand to glance at the wedding ring Ben bought me. I couldn't seem to bring myself to remove it. For me, slipping off my wedding ring symbolized the death of my marriage to Ben. I quickly hid my hand under the table.Then I lowered my voice and confided, "I called Morgan Kramer, our agent in the Crimson Fleet Underground. I showed her the picture of Ben's partner. Kramer told me that three years ago, the Crimson Fleet started paying Austin for Freedom Alliance information."

A comfortable silence ensued for a few minutes as we worked on our spaghetti. Nate was the first to break the silence by asking, "How did Ben react to that?"

"How do you think he reacted? He was furious." I put my glass of lemonade to my lips, then set the glass down. "I only saw him that angry once before...when my father..." I reached behind my hair to finger the long scar on the side of my neck for the second time today. I kept the scar hidden. Every time I caught a glimpse of it, my stomach threatened to turn over. Not because of the abuse but because I didn't stop it. I let that man intimidate me, cut me down with his words and hurt me with his fists and knives.

"The Washington was a vessel similar to this one. At least three-hundred people should have been on board," Nate noted, giving me a look of uneasy puzzlement. "Three-hundred people can't just disappear. Maybe the Crimson Fleet took them as prisoners."

"Perhaps," I consented, steepled my fingers and leaned back in my chair. "But the Crimson Fleet's philosophy is the survival of the fittest," I went on, trying to explain my position. "So if the Washington had been in a battle. One that crippled them. Don't you think that the Crimson Fleet would have left the injured and dead crew members?"

"And if the Washington was badly injured, there must have been casualties." He folded his hands behind his head, narrowing his eyes speculatively. "If that's the case, where are they?"

I shrugged my shoulders. "I don't know." I intertwined my fingers and rested them on my lap. "I do think, however, that we should go through the remaining logs before jumping to any conclusions."

Nate slowly nodded his head. "Ben could have already found the bodies," Nate concluded, giving me a leisurely once-over. "In any case, it's going to be a long night."

I lifted the flaps of the box. An envelope with the words "Watch This First" scrawled in Ben’s handwriting caught my eye. Picking up the envelope, I removed a small circular disk the size of a button from it. After pushing the disk through a slot on the side of the screen, I instructed the computer, "CHIP, play the disk."

My heart felt as if it had sunk into my boots when Ben appeared on the screen. He sat on the couch in our Base house. His dark-brown hair seemed longer than usual and definitely a lot messier. A full day’s growth covered his chin. From the redness of his eyes and the dark circles under them, I knew something had been keeping him up nights. Ben rarely worried, so if something was keeping him up, it had to be serious.

He began, "Angel, if you are watching this, I must be dead. Knowing you like I do, I know you are sitting behind your desk on the Liberty. You have thrown yourself into your work. You have been doing anything to avoid dealing with the pain."

I looked around, exchanging an amused look with Nate. I guess Ben knew me better than I thought.

"Angel, I love you so much," Ben maintained, casting me a sad yet involuntary smile.
It broke my heart just knowing that I would never hear Ben call me Angel again.

I smiled, putting my hand to the screen. "And I love you," I agreed; tears forming in my eyes. I missed him so much. The hole in my heart that he left when he died ached. I watched him on the screen of my terminal, knowing that my time with Ben ended when the disk did.
Ben paused for a moment to stare at his wedding ring, twisting it around and around his finger. The hunted look that I saw in his eyes made the hairs on the back of my neck rise. Something was definitely wrong.

"I am in big trouble, Angel. I discovered that the Crimson Fleet have been working on a secret biological weapon. And they have made several attempts on my life and have threatened to kill you and Reggie. I don’t know. Maybe they have already tried to take you out."

"The accident," Nate whispered.

Just then, a bright light from an oncoming car blinded my eyes. Shielding them with my hand, I looked up at the road. A car barreled through the intersection, then sped up and made a beeline for our car. "Ben, watch out!" I heard a deafening crash as metal slammed against metal. A sound that echoed in my ears long after the event. Thrown forward, I felt my body sail through the window shield like a missile flying through a war-torn sky. Pieces of glass erupted over the hood of the car and on the street below. I landed face down a few feet away from the vehicle, lying in a bed of jagged glass. Even though every bone and muscle in my body ached, I lifted my head to look back at the mini-van. I saw Ben's dark head slumped over the steering wheel. When I heard the piercing cry of the sirens seeking us out, I collapsed back onto the asphalt. At that moment, everything went black.

“She foiled our gas and bombs on her vessel, so we are going to have to take more drastic measures. We are going to have to bomb her crew with her on it. She has always been the bane of my existence since she married Josh. He wasn’t supposed to marry her. We weren’t supposed to be family, but he fell for her. Why? I will never know. She is not that pretty, and she is so annoying.”

“Let’s go,” I told my people, leading them over to the Island Committee members’ table. When all of them looked at me, Jake and I flashed our badges. “On the authority of the Intergalactic Intelligence Bureau, you are all under arrest.”

“For what? You have no authority to arrest us,” screamed the man who had pretended to be my father.

“Those humans who brought that Biodome to your planet also made Kilo-Ait…and Sierra-Wun for that matter a part of the Earth colonies pact,” I started, moving around the table. “That means I have all of the authority of Earth to arrest you for the genocide you unleashed on my people and are about to unleash on the people of Sierra Wun.” I stopped behind an empty chair, putting my hands down on it. “There is the matter of creating a disease, killing people with it, taking our people captive, killing people who you abducted, interfering with an investigation.”

Jake moved forward. “The attempted gassing and bombing of a Freedom Alliance MASH SpaceVessel.”

“You cannot prove anything,” the man said with grave deliberation.

“If I were in your position, I would hope that was true too. Unfortunately for you,” I revealed, holding up a chip, “I was recording everything I heard and saw in captivity. I knew the plot. I knew how you created the disease, how you knew the planet was going supernova. Your plot to kill the humans. Then my memory was erased. The fact that it was erased indicates that you know I am telling the truth. Too bad for you that I have the chip and remember everything.”

He stood up and grabbed my arm. “Then we are going to make sure you forget again.”