"Adalet, I'm not sure what to make of Colonel Spangler's story about this train crash and the escaped alien..." Andrea sighs as she addresses the cops.

Amy cocks her head in confusion, "what's there to understand? Spangler's clearly lost his mind! Too much top-secret work isn't good for your mental health."

"While that may be true," Adalet agrees, "the only way we can prove that Spangler is delusional is by investigating further."

"Spangler left us a message saying we should look for answers at the Pacific Bay Space Agency's launchpad, so that's where we're going next," Andrea announced, "and tomorrow is a big day for PASA: Examiner-1, the first manned expedition to Mars, will be launched! Every precaution is justified."

"A manned expedition to Mars! How exciting! It must be the biggest thing that ever happened in Rhine Canyon!" Amy cheered.

"That's why I want my best cop to visit the launch pad, and make sure all's in order! Ground control to Adalet, prepare for liftoff!" the Chief jokes.

Adalet and Amy drove out to the launch site Andrea had directed them to and began walking around the area. Upon reaching the launch pad, they discovered an astronaut resting against a PASA vehicle. At first, they thought he was just relaxing, but after getting closer, they saw a gaping, burnt hole in the centre of the man's chest. Looking around the area, Adalet spotted a blue clipboard with a small bundle of paper clipped to it and a small model space shuttle near the right foot of the body.

"My goodness, Adalet, that man has a hole in his chest big enough to see through it!" Amy gasped, able to see the grill of the vehicle through the hole, "I've never seen anything like it! He's dead, without a doubt."

"The victim's wearing a spacesuit..." Adalet remarked, looking over the orange suit, "so he must be an astronaut!"

"Wait a minute... I recognize him! It's Tom Nelson, the astronaut who was meant to go to Mars! Girly Gossips interviewed him last week about the mission. He was so excited!" she remembered, "an astronaut dropping dead one day before a space mission! And look how he died... Adalet, we're dealing with another murder!"

The Turk held up the clipboard and model space shuttle, "this paper has the victim's name on it! It looks like his schedule..."

"Better make the rest of it legible!" the rookie said, noticing the missing information, "and you've also found a tiny spaceship? Hmm, is that screen asking for a password? Go on, hack it, Adalet!"

Plugging the USB into her table, she opened up the passcode application. After selecting the correct sequence of numbers and letters, the screen on the USB lit up light blue and now read UNLOCKED.

"Adalet, good job cracking the password on that miniature spaceship! Which turned out to be a USB key!" Amy notes.

"It was next to the victim... What was it doing on the crime scene?" Adalet wonders, placing it into her case, "let's ship it to Hannah!"

Grabbing her brush and powder from her case, Adalet dusted the header of the victim's schedule. She recovered the title PASA Rhine Canyon Training Facility.

"Rhine Canyon Training Facility," Adalet read out loud.

"So PASA trained their astronauts in the desert... And if Tom Nelson went to this training facility, we should go too!" Amy decides.

Once Roxie had arrived to take the body and USB back to the lab, Adalet and Amy drove out to the desert training facility. When they arrived they found that the area had been set up with model buildings and equipment and in the late evening light, the sand and rocks had a reddish look to them.

Walking around, Adalet found another bundle of paperwork and a photograph featuring the victim and an unknown man dressed in heavy winter clothing. Meanwhile, Hunter discovered an astronaut helmet and the dog seemed very interested in the writing on the visor. Adalet had to pull the dog back by her collar when she went to lick the glass.

"Are we still on planet Earth, Adalet? It sure looks like Mars! Now I understand why PASA trains their astronauts here" Amy comments, admiring the facility, "oh, Hunter found the victim's spacesuit helmet! And it has a message written on the visor: "This is your last ride, Nelson"!"

"This threat could have come from the killer!" Adalet suggests, "and whatever this substance is that it's written in made Hunter want to eat it so we'd better collect a sample!"

"You also picked up the cover page of a... Ph.D. thesis! It says "Supervisor: Tom Nelson." Can you make the rest of the writing visible?" she inquired, as the captain swabs the helmet.

"Once I'm done with this!" she replied.

"And that's a lovely photograph! Two friends sitting by a fire... and one of them is our victim!" she exclaimed, "but who's that other guy in the knitted hat?"

"I've never seen him before," Adalet said, bagging up her sample, "so let's check the database, Amy!"

"Good work, Adalet," Amy praised, taking the sample while handing over the photo, "you collected a sample of that strange substance the killer used to write on Tom Nelson's helmet! Let's send it to the lab!"

Scanning in the image of the unknown man, Adalet compared his features to those of the closest match. Once she had completed his face, the database gave her a name, but for some strange reason, it was only a first name.

"So the man sitting by the fire with the victim in this picture is a certain Randolph," Adalet frowns as she looks at all the blank spaces, "according to the database, his last name is unknown... No address listed... But it does say Randolph always wears winter clothes, even in summer!"

"How odd!" Amy remarked, "let's find this Randolph and ask him how he knew the victim!"

Before going on a hunt to find the man, Adalet picks up the Ph.D. thesis. She dusted the blank area of the cover and recovered the missing information which included the name of the student to whom the thesis belonged and a diagram of the solar system.

"Adalet, you revealed the rest of the writing on the Ph.D. thesis! So, Tom Nelson supervised a student called Brad Raybury. Let me get you more info..." Amy says, pulling out her cell phone and calling Hannah, "Hannah? Could you look up a Brad Raybury for us?"

"Let's see..." They heard the clicking of Hannah's keyboard, "Brad's a post-grad at Innovation Valley College, studies astrophysics... and he's an intern at PASA, doing research for his thesis. Hope this helps!"

"It does, thanks, Hannah!" Adalet says before ending the call.

"Perfect! So Brad Raybury was writing his thesis under Nelson's supervision. Brad must have known the victim well. Let's find him!" Amy said, putting her phone away.

They set off in search of Brad Raybury first. They headed out to Rhine Canyon University and got directions to the astronomy classroom. In there they found the man they were looking for and informed him of the murder of his supervisor.

"What a tragedy, Capt. Adalet. Tom Nelson was the greatest scientist alive! Now the Examiner-1 will not go to Mars..." Brad sighs as he gathers up his workbooks, "I'll never win a Nobel prize without him! This is the saddest day of my life, even sadder than when my cat fell into the particle accelerator! He was never the same again."

"Our sympathies, Mr. Raybury. But you could still make a big contribution to science if you helped us find Tom Nelson's killer..." Adalet offered.

"Find a killer? That's nothing! Capt. Adalet, you should try finding a single quark in the quantum field!" he boasted, "Tom was the smartest person on Earth, it's not like someone could catch him unawares! Whoever killed him must be an even bigger genius! Good luck competing with that kind of intelligence... Now excuse me, but the first chapter of my thesis is due tomorrow, and I'm light-years behind!"

Leaving the university, they set off in search of Randolph. It took them almost an hour of driving around and showing citizens his picture before they managed to find him walking along the highway. Thankfully winter clothing in the desert made him easy to spot.

"Hello, I'm Randolph! Randolph loves talking to people!" the bundled-up man introduced himself.

"Well, hello, Randolph," Amy smiled nervously, "I'm Amy and this is Adalet. We're investigating the death of Tom Nelson, an astronaut. It appears you knew him?"

"Tom was my best friend! He was training here in the desert, preparing his big trip to Mars. We talked a lot!" Randolph beamed with joy, "the desert is lonely, and Randolph is homesick. And cold. Especially without my friend. Randolph will miss Tom!"

"You're not from around here, Randolph? You must come from a very hot place if you're cold in the desert!" Adalet guessed.

"Well... alright, I'll tell you a secret: I'm an alien from planet Kerp-9!" Randolph whispered, "I crash-landed on Earth forty years ago, and I've been here ever since!"

"Oh, dear..." Amy muttered, "not another alien-obsessed lunatic! Thank you, Randolph, we'll... be in touch if we need anything else."

Randolph waved as they drove off until they could no longer make out his figure in the rearview mirror.

Amy tossed her hands in the air, "Adalet, Rhine Canyon seems to be filled with crazy people who think they are aliens... Looks like we have another one on our hands."

"Adalet, I thought I'd seen every conceivable way to take a person's life... but this astronaut's death almost defies science! See this enormous hole in the victim's chest?" Roxie points at the gaping hole in the victim's chest showcased in the picture they had pulled up on the monitor, "his heart, lungs, rib cage are all gone. But the surrounding tissue is intact! There's no blood or bruising! Whatever did this completely cauterized the wound. Seriously, when you find the murder weapon, Adalet, let me know! I guarantee you it's not an ordinary weapon!"

"If the victim was a PASA astronaut, perhaps his enemies weren't ordinary criminals either!" Adalet theorized.

"Well, there's one thing about the killer that's perfectly ordinary: they're right-handed!" she informs them.

"How did you figure that out, Roxie?" Amy asked curiously.

"The victim was found propped up against a car. The car wasn't damaged, which means the body was moved there post-mortem," Roxie explains, "where he'd been moved, the victim was leaning slightly to the right. This shows the killer's right side is stronger than the left, which in turn means they're right-handed!"

"Whoa! Knowing you, Adalet, this small detail will be a giant step forward in the investigation! I'll write it down: the killer is right-handed," she says, writing down the fact in her notepad.

"What about the paste we sent you, Yann?" Adalet asks, turning to face the forensics expert.

"I've identified the substance you've collected from the victim's helmet!" Yann confirmed, "it's mashed pepperoni pizza, with extra protein and vitamin B, preserved at high temperature to keep for 80 years, and compressed into a tube."

Amy stuck out her tongue, "bleurgh! Who'd want 80-year-old pizza, from a tube?"

"Mainly astronauts. It's a very common space food. Not very tasty, but nutritious. And as you can see, easy to write with," he says, pulling out a tube from his lab coat pocket, "I ordered a pack of space food online just to cross-check my initial results. I must say I prefer traditional pizza."

Adalet took the tube and had a small taste, "yuck! It's like they couldn't decide which flavour to focus on, so they just made everything too potent!"

"Alright, so we know our killer eats space food! That's the strangest evidence I've ever taken down, Adalet," Amy commented but made note of it regardless, "but fear not, it's in my notebook now!"

"Here, Yann, you can have this back," Adalet says, returning the tube to the man before going to get some coffee to wash the taste out of her mouth, "could you get anything off that USB key, Hannah?"

Hannah scratched the back of her head awkwardly, "I'm embarrassed to admit this USB key you found on the crime scene was a real headache."

"Really? Don't you just plug it into a computer? It's not rocket science!" Amy jokes.

"When it belongs to an astronaut, it IS rocket science!" she argued, "the files on the USB deleted themselves as soon as I plugged it in! Those guys at PASA take their data protection seriously!"

"Oh, great! So we have no idea what was on the USB?" she complained.

"Luckily, I've found a bug in the script that encrypts the owner's name and discovered that the USB key belongs to a certain Megan Steel. I looked her up: she's a lead scientist at PASA," Hannah pulls up the file on the large monitor, "Megan Steel was in charge of the Examiner-1 program, the Mars mission your victim was part of. She was Nelson's supervisor."

Adalet finished off her coffee, "well, Amy, time for more rocket science. Let's ask Ms. Steel what her USB key was doing at the crime scene!"

Returning to the PASA launch site, they entered the main building and tracked down Megan Steel to the control room.

"Ms. Steel," Adalet greets, "we found your USB key next to a dead PASA astronaut. We suspect the murder could be linked to the mission you led."

"The Examiner-1 is a top-secret research program. The public only knows that it's the first manned mission to Mars, and I'm not authorized to tell you more," Megan informed them firmly.

"Hmm, everything in Rhine Canyon seems to be top secret... What about Tom Nelson? Who do you think wanted to harm him?" Amy inquired.

"Tom Nelson was a brilliant scientist. A great loss for PASA. I'm sorry, I don't remember much else about him... I mean, it's, erm, classified," she corrects, awkwardly.

"I guess you don't remember how your USB key ended up on the crime scene, either?" she replied.

"Tom borrowed it from my desk. Or did I give it to him? I'm not sure... Forgive me, Capt. Adalet, my hands are tied, and... Between you and me... sometimes, after a particularly trying day, I feel like my brain just gets wiped! I can hardly remember my own name!" Megan confessed.

"Thank you, Ms. Steel," Adalet smiled, "I hope the other scientists at PASA aren't as scatterbrained as you... or you might accidentally send your mission to the wrong planet!"

"Adalet, this case is going nowhere at the speed of light! Tom Nelson, an astronaut, was killed the day before going to Mars. There was a big hole in his chest, and Roxie thinks his injuries were caused by a weapon no one has ever seen before!" Amy summarizes.

"PASA is reluctant to reveal anything about the Mars mission: the chief scientist, Megan Steel, is either forgetful or pretending to be," Adalet rolled her eyes, "the Ph.D. student, Brad Raybury, is sad that his mentor died... but his head is too high up in the stratosphere to be useful for the investigation."

"And Randolph is... a bit simple," she decided on using, "apparently, he thinks he's from another planet!"

"Capt. Adalet! I'm glad you're here!" Colonel Spangler exclaimed, joining them in the office.

"Colonel Spangler!" Adalet turned to the man, "perfect timing! You've led us to this investigation, and we'd really like to know why!"

"Capt. Adalet, you must never tell anyone I was here! My superior will have my head if he finds out!" he warns, "listen: deep in the desert, the Army has a secret war room! Only the highest-ranking officers have access. The current password is "starlight", but it will change in two hours. You must go there now! I can't say more but hurry and you'll see for yourself!"

Amy gave him a look of disbelief, "And why exactly should we trust you, Colonel?"

"I'd come with you and explain, but there isn't time! I'm in big trouble already for coming here, my superior must never find out! Now, go, before the password changes!" he ordered before fleeing from the room.

"Well..." Adalet blinks at the spot the man had been standing, "if the password is only good for two hours, we don't have time to waste! We need to go to the war room now!"

"This is the secret room, Adalet!" Amy says as they stand in front of the door to the war room, "go on, let's see if the password works!"

Adalet typed in the passcode Colonel Spangler had given them and the door slid open without any protest.

"We're in," Adalet whispered, entering the room.

After making note of the lack of security cameras in the room, they began looking around for clues. Adalet picked up a confidential folder that someone had left behind on the boardroom table. She also noticed some broken pieces of metal piled on one of the office chairs, but it was impossible to make out what the pieces could have been from.

"Shhh, Adalet! Let's be quiet! If anyone finds us here, it's not just Colonel Spangler who'll be in trouble!" Amy reminded, as she and Hunter kept watch at the door, "and look, that's the Army's Top Secret file on Tom Nelson!"

"We should treat this as a clue, and look through the file..." Adalet whispered back, opening the folder.

"But be quick, before they discover us!" she advised, "And you've also found some broken pieces? Alright, put them back together, but don't make any noise!"

Adalet sifted through the contents of Tom's folder. There were documents about his time before PASA, such as junior high transcripts, old photos, certificates of achievements, and some confidential files. But it was one of the older photos she found that made her pause. It was of the victim, several years younger, and a woman watching the stars. However, someone had circled the woman's face with a red marker and stamped SECURITY RISK beside it in the same colour.

"I have a photo here from Tom Nelson's file, it's definitely our victim, though he looks much younger!" Adalet tells Amy, "there's a girl with him, apparently, the Army classified her as a "security risk"!"

"Adalet, we'd better put this folder back so it looks like we never touched it..." Amy said and Adalet did as advised, "let's just take that one photo to the lab!"

Once the folder was back in the exact place they had found it, Adalet began working to repair the metal pieces she'd found. Once everything was glued back together, the device in her hands looked to be a gun of sorts, but it was made of strange metal and had a ball on it similar to a plasma globe attached above its handle.

"Adalet, you restored the broken device! Is that a... a gun?" Amy questioned.

"It's certainly very odd-looking..." Adalet said as she turned the device around in her hands.

"It could be dangerous," she pondered, "better send it to the lab!"

"Adalet, the girl in the photo you found in the Army's war room is a certain Astrid Saucer. She's Tom Nelson's childhood friend," Hannah explains, "Astrid's also a well-known UFO fanatic. She has an Alien Encounters blog, with thousands of followers, which might explain why the Army considered her a security risk."

"Oh, great... aliens again! Just what we needed!" Amy groans.

"Aliens or not, we should talk to this woman. If she was the victim's friend, maybe she'll tell us something useful about him!" Adalet reasoned, "but before we go, what did you find out about that gun, Hannah?"