Required to Assist

With life on overpopulated Earth no longer tenable, Lorna Wincott grasps at the chance at a fresh start colonizing a new world. The price exceeds her modest means, unless she volunteers to serve as the ship’s emergency assistant.

But the ship only wakes the assistant when a problem arises that stumps the ship’s AI and android crew. All of her training focused on matters well within the ship’s capabilities. What could possibly require waking her?

Just one thing: murder. And the murderer left no clues. Lorna’s training fell short of covering the solving of locked room mysteries. But the longer she takes to solve it, the more people will die.

“Required to Assist”, a science fiction murder mystery novelette set in an isolated generation ship lightyears from any safe harbor.