Lieutenant Kate Whittman stared out across the viewing deck into space, where thousands of tiny stars twinkled peacefully. She often came here to get away from all the clatter and noise of the space stations inner areas, where punk-teenagers played loud music and broke the peace. But staring up at the stars Lt Whittman let all these troubles wash away from her as she thought about the other people, the lucky ones, who had managed to scrape enough to get themselves off this desolate floating nightmare. With a wave of emotion Lt. Whittman diverted here gaze from the stars and stared at the floor for a moment, regaining here composure. Wiping away the first hint of tears, Kate looked back up at the stars and wondered if she'd ever be lucky enough to find a paradise somewhere far away, away from this terrible space station and all the terrors it contained. Her thoughts were interupted, however, by the crackling of a nearby control panel. "Kate?" asked the panel. Walking over to the panel, Kate held down a button and spoke. "Yes". "Kate, good. Sorry to disturb you..." began the voice of a man somewhere in the station. "That's okay" Kate interrupted. "...good. There's been some sort of gun-fight down in docking-bay 37A, Boyd wants you to come and investigate. "Right, I'll be there in a minute" said Kate, trying to hide the emotion in her voice. She released the button and walked towards the door, opening it, passing through and then closing it. She walked down the corridor which was empty, except for the rats. Wiping away the last remanants of tears and straightening here uniform, Kate stepped into an empty elevator and swayed slightly as it shot down its tube towards the lower levels. After only a few moments there was a sudden sensation of deacceleration followed by the gentle rattle of the doors opening, revealing a busy corridor. Stepping into the rushing crowd, Kate was dragged along towards here destination. De-touring via a small alley-way, she passed a man walking nervously out of a bar named "6 Blue Bottles". He acted suspiciously and quickly ducked away from her but Kate ignored him, she obviously had bigger fish to fry. Ahead of her several well armed militia men were maning a barricade. Saluting stiffly as she walked past, Kate walked further down the narrow corridor to where there was a crowd of people swarming around. It was obvious from the comotion that this was no ordinary gun-fight, something serious had happened. Upon reaching the crowd she was greeted by the voice who had contacted her earliar. This time the voice had brought a body with it and she reckignised it as that of Lt. Colius.

"Hi Kate, glad you could make it" said Colius, looking up from a piece of shrapnel he had half-heartedly been examining. "Hi. What happened?" asked Kate, surveying the haze filled hanger. "Explosion, V class. There were a bunch of crates and empty drums in here, but nearly all of them were disintergrated in the blast. Point Zero's just over there" answered Colius, pointing towards the center of the hanger. "V class? Is this related to the other explosion yesterday?" asked Kate, remembering a similar explosion. "Well, we were hoping you'd be able to tell us. You're the only person we could get throught to that was at the other explosion, so we figured you'd be able to identify any points of interest" replied Lee, dismissing the piece of shrapnel to the recycling bin. "I'll take a look" answered Kate as she entered the hanger, gazing around at the scorch marks on the walls and ceiling. It was obvious from the direction of the scorch marks where the bomb had detonated. She made a mental note of the situation and bent down over the detonation point. The typical marks were there, like the 4 slight impresions left by the bomb stand and the almost perfectly clean floor between them. "I'd call it a Y class. Its an open explosion, probably designed for maximum area effect. And look at these imprints...". Kate paused for a moment and indicated the 4 slight dimples in the floor. "...It's definitely a centre-active one, probably with uranium plating on the inner core - have you had the area scanned for radiation and gamma effects?". "Yep," replied Colius, "I had the whole place scanned as soon as I got here. Low level radiation, but unusually low levels of gamma and ultra-violet pollutants. What do you think?". "Either someone's distributing pamphlets on how to make Y class bombs or this was done by the same people as the explosion yesterday." replied Kate, standing up and strolling slowly around the hanger. Colius informed one of the junior officers abou the findings and sent him off to file them in with the other thousand or so bomb investigations for the last month. While Colius directed a photographer towards the imprints and the blast area, Kate noticed an inregularity in the wall nearby, like little badly-made rivets sticking out. Kneeling down to look closely at the small objects, she noticed how they were melted very roughly and were at irregular heights along the wall, continuing on for some distance. "Lee" called Kate, refering to Lt. Colius by his real name. "Yes?" inquired Lee as he walked over to where Kate crouched. "Have you looked at these?" Kate asked, pointing out the objects in the wall. "No, I didn't notice them earlier. Looks like some kind of projectile. Hold on, I'll see if I can get one out." replied Lee, taking on a knife and prying the object out. After a small struggle the object slipped out and revealed itself to be jagged at tubular. "Bion Cannon ammunition" stated Lee, turning the object over. "Definitely. Looks like there was a fight before this bomb went off" said Kate, frowning as she sensed the first signs of a headache. "That makes things interesting. Perhaps the bomb was meant to catch someone in its blast - perhaps it did. We'll never know, since everythings melted and the security camera's in this hanger died ages ago" replied Lee, strolling back to where the other officers were gathered and directing them towards the Bion munition embeded in the wall. Walking over to Lee, Kate said softly "Look, I'm getting a headache, I can't wait for all the paper-work. I'm going to go sleep for a few hours, okay?". "Yeah, okay. I'll make something up for the boss, you relax" replied Lee. "Thanks" said Kate as she walked out of the hanger.