"Sal's DEAD?!" Rachel shrieked, hugging Tommy tight.

"Who would want to kill the cook?!" Sam asked, moving the chef's final creation to the side.

"Dinner wasn't that bad" Henry remarked as he and Louise laid Sal on the kitchen counter.

"How can you make jokes at a time like this?!" Alice shouted.

"It's my defense mechanism! If you have a problem with it, take it up with the captain!"

"Alright you two, I don't want another dead body in the kitchen." The Captain spoke as he went to look over the body. "Poor Sal… he was a good friend of mine."

"Maybe we should check the security cameras?" Dr. Max suggested.

"That sounds like a good idea" the Captain concurred "Scottie?"

"Yes Captain?"

"Go to security and look through the files, print out photos for what happened in the past hour."

Scottie nodded and left for Security on her own.

"Shouldn't someone accompany her?!" Rachel asked "What if whoever killed Sal goes after her?"

"We'll all wait in the cafeteria until she returns."

"But what if she did it and tries to manipulate the footage?" Alice suggested.

"She was in the cafeteria the whole time we had dinner." Dr. Max remarked "So it's certain that Scottie wasn't the one who killed Sal."

Alice groaned as the rest of the crew minus scottie made their way back to the kitchen, with Eleanor bringing the desserts into the cafeteria.

"Are we gonna eat those now" Louise asked.

"Lets at least wait till Scottie gets back…" Tommy remarked.

The tray was placed on the table with the emergency button and everyone dispensed glasses of Don Dew or other drinks. Charlie shook in worry as he sipped his drink, Alice rubbing his shoulders.

"I-I don't wanna die in space!" Charlie whimpered.

"I understand…I once had a near death experience once."

"Really? What happened?"

Alice put her glass down "It was during the Tsilindr Clan incident. I had to crawl though a metal tunnel and the ship I was in had it's belly scrapped. It was crushing my torso and I ended up blacking out."

"How did you s-survive?!"

"Sheer willpower kid, sheer willpower."

Charlie then glared at Alice "Don't call me kid!"

Alice sighed and walked away from Charlie.

As everyone wandered through the cafeteria, the Captain made his way to Henry.

"Doctor Rodman…"

Henry sighed "Yes Captain?"

"You've said that the analyzer can not determine what was in the corpse you found."

"It hasn't been able to determine what was in the corpse yet captain."

"Are you stalling?"

"Stalling?! No! The analyzer is going through the whole IA Compendium and has found NOTHING that matches the make up of the unknown components so far."

The Captain sighed "Look, I know that you haven't had a lot to do and even your tasks aren't really in your field…"

"It's fine Captain, but I didn't do it. And once Scottie is finished looking over the tapes, I will be completely exonerated from your accusations."

BOOM!

The lights flashed in the Cafeteria and the ship mildly destabilized. The crew grabbed onto the bolted tables, lighting figures or anything that wasn't tied down. Charlie rushed out of the Cafeteria to make his way to Navigation to right the ship.

Eleanor watched as the dessert tray started to fall off it's table, so she jumped from one to the other to prevent the sweet treats from being wasted.

"CHARLIE! HEY CHARLIE!" Alice shouted.

"HE CAN'T HEAR YOU ALICE!" Dr. Max complained.

The ship then began leveling out and everyone got their footing as they gathered their composure.

"What the hell happened?!" Rachel asked.

"Sounded like an explosion…" Tommy spoke.

The Captain made his way to the intercom "Charlie? How's the reactor? How are the engines?"

Charlie pressed a few buttons in Navigation "The…they're both fine, but there's massive electrical failure within…Security!"

"Report back to the Cafeteria Charlie."

"10-4"

Charlie soon arrived, and the ten crew members walked past the Medbay and the Upper Engine to see what the hell happened to security.

The door had burst open from the inside and chunks of metal had dented the Reactor door opposite it. Broken glass, burnt papers, and pieces of wire were strewn across the floor.

Sam entered the room first, followed by the Captain, Dr. Max, and Eleanor.

Slumped on the chair of the Security room, facing the now destroyed screens and ruined memory banks was the body of Scottie Cawthon. The explosion was so intense that it caused one of the monitors to fall onto her head like it munched her like some giant beast. Her torso was bleeding out immensely along with her internal organs splattered on the floor.

"I don't think we need Dr. Rodman to check Scottie's pulse." Sam remarked.

Eleanor was shivering, holding back tears "S-scottie…no…m-my best friend!"

The captain quietly hung his head "First Sal…now Scottie…"

"Why would anyone want to kill Scottie?" Eleanor asked as she wiped her face.

"Maybe her death was unintended." Dr. Max suggested "The person who killed Sal might have blown up the security room to erase the video evidence of the crime and the method happened to put Scottie in the crossfire."

"Then what do you suggest we do?!" Sam demanded.

"I suggest that we take the bodies to the Medbay and we'll have Dr. Rodman do some medical tests on the bodies, then he'll give me some of the genetic materials for me to experiment with in Oxygen."

"That sounds like a good plan Max" The Captain concurred "Tommy, Rachel, and Sam will clean up the kitchen. Eleanor, Charlie and Alice will work here. Dr. Rodman and I will be in the lab while Louise accompanies Dr. Max as he does his tests."

The crew groaned at the prospect of cleaning the messes but it was part of the requirements of managing The Skeld. Dr. Rodman put Sal's body in a bodybag while the Captain did the same for Scottie's. Within Storage there were mops, brooms, trash bags, and all the instruments needed to clean up damage from an unknown missile or a death on the ship.

In the kitchen, Tommy began washing the inside of the oven while Rachel began mopping the blood and Sam was sweeping ruined materials off the floor.

"To be honest…" Rachel began "If anyone was going to die on this ship, I thought it was gonna be Dr. Rodman!"

Sam took offense to this remark "Why do you say that? Because he's black?"

Rachel gulped a bit "N-no miss! It's because of his uniform, him wearing red and all paints an obvious target on his back to die."

Tommy popped his head out of the oven "What do you mean?"

"Oh come on, don't tell me you haven't seen a lot of old sci-fi," She turned to Sam "You know what I mean, right?"

Sam just angrily glared at Rachel while shaking her head. With a sigh, the cadet frowned.

"I'm sorry Sam, I didn't mean to offend you."

"You better start thinking twice about what you say! Being a black woman during the battles on Mira means you're seen as less of a soldier than the others. During the battle of…"

"Oh there you go, prattling off about your military career. Don't you talk about anything else?!"

Suddenly, the lights powered down all over the ship and dark red emergency lights turned on.

Tommy groaned as he pulled out his Tablet and spoke into it.

"What the hell happened?"

"Sorry Tommy!" Charlie spoke "We needed to turn the electrical systems off so we can disconnect the broken components for cleaning. Can you turn them back on?"

"Sure thing, I'll be there in a bit."

Tommy began to leave the kitchen, leaving Rachel with Sam.

"Oh he is so dead." said Sam.

"Dead? Why do you say that?"

"Easy. The electrical room is dark, cramped, has poor visibility when trying to see anyone come from behind you due to a large wall and is the easiest place for an ambush. If I were to go in there, I wouldn't enter unarmed."

Rachel rolled her eyes as she finished mopping and began looking for paper towels to dry the floor off. Instead, she found cabinets of all the foods and one that was locked with a keycard.

"Sam? What's this?"

Sam took a look and saw the locked cabinet.

"Pfft, cheap second hand retrofitted lock. Sal probably has the key but I can break into it."

Sam went to the knife block and saw all the knives and the sharpening steel in their proper place.

"That's odd…"

"What is it Sam?"

"If Sal was killed with the sharpening steel, it's clean as a whistle."

Rachel shrugged as she took out the widest knife she could find and approached Rachel.

"Sam…" Rachel spoke "…I know you may not trust everyone."

"Calm down Rachel, I'm not going to stab you. I'm gonna stab the drawer. I think it's an electromagnetic lock."

Rachel rolled her eyes as she got out of the way of Sam kneeling on the floor. With military precision, she stabbed the knife in the gap where the lock was. With a creak, the magnet detached from the cabinet and allowed the door to be open.

"Oh…my…god!" said Sam.

"Oh no! What is it?!"

Sam reached in, carefully and with intent and pulled out a bottle of Vodka.

"It's Sal's liquor storage!"

Sam pulled out vodka, gin, rum, tequila, and several styles of whiskey like Mac Daniels, Bullet Bourbon, Johnny Strider, and J&D.

"I think we deserve a bit of a dinner aperitif!" Sam exclaimed as she put the bottle of vodka on the counter.

Rachel shook her head "I don't think so… at least not until this is all sorted out."

Sam shrugged and poured a shot of vodka and sipped it, but not before immediately spitting it back out.

"Gah! That's not what the Russians at The Wall drink!"

"Cause that's Gin…"

Sam looked at the bottle and it was indeed Gin. She rolled her eyes and began reaching for the right bottle. As the solder poured a proper glass, Rachel grabbed the bottle of J&D and planned on hiding it in her bunk to take a nip from later.

"Are those lights on yet?!" Charlie complained as he wrapped up the last bag of broken electronics.

"I'M GETTING THERE!" Tommy retorted "YOU TRY RECONNECTING WIRES WITH ONE HAND!"

Charlie sighed and put the final bag down while Alice swept the papers and glass with Eleanor sticking herself in the security console.

"What are you doing Eleanor?" Alice asked.

"Trying to find the cause of the explosion. It couldn't have been a bomb as we don't have any plastic explosives on the ship."

"Maybe they were taken off of Omega Psi 5-5.2?" Charlie suggested.

"Negative," Alice replied "All the explosive stores were used when we searched through the planet. Whatever was done to cause this must have been improvised."

"And improvised it was!" Eleanor spoke as she crawled out of the console with a broken device.

"What did you find Eleanor?" Charlie asked.

In Eleanor's hands were fragments of a Series 47 Hand Phaser. The handle and barrel were intact but the energy core had broken from the inside.

"How did this happen?!" Charlie said, shaking a bit.

"It was intentionally overloaded, like a champagne bottle with weak glass and a strong cork. But it would have taken several Hand Phasers to cause the destruction that we saw."

A large clang and the rising hum of electrical boot ups reverberated through out the ship as the electrical systems rebooted.

"Sam could have done this" said Eleanor.

"That's not fair to her!" Charlie pleaded "Just because she's a soldier doesn't mean she is the only one with weapons knowledge."

"Exactly!" Alice added "It could have been any of us because we all know how to use phasers. It could have even been Sal as he could have planted them in while he was cooking before he died."

Eleanor groaned "Well we don't have any evidence to full support any of out theories…our hopes of finding out something rely on Dr. Rodman and Dr. Max."

The three agreed and all began finishing up the clean up of Security and prepared to reconvene in the Cafeteria to try to calm down.

The bodies of Scottie and Sal were placed next to each other as Dr. Rodman drew blood out of Sal's corpse. The Captain was meanwhile looking at the analyzer and the centrifuge.

"Do you think you can find out who killed Sal and Scottie?" He spoke despondently.

Dr. Rodman groaned as he wrote Sal's name on the vials. "Damn it! I'm a doctor not a CSI agent!"

"I understand…but Sal and Scottie were good friends of mine…"

"Of ours." He replied as he put the vial into a rack.

"Yes Henry, of ours…" the captain spoke "What are you going to do with the bodies?"

"Scottie and Sal have to be processed as according to their wills, so their bodies have to stay here." He replied as he drew blood out of Scottie.

"Ah yes, according to regulation" The captain spoke as he poked the analyzer and centrifuge. It was at 52%. "This thing sure is taking a long time."

Henry sighed "It's going through everything we have in the IA Compendium to try to find answers for what we found on the planet."

"And if it finds anything…?"

"We isolate it, study it, and then classify it depending on how dangerous it may be."

"Dangerous?"

"Yes, the IA Threat Scale. It's very similar to how papers are graded in school. F being so un-dangerous that it's begging to be killed, D being harmless, C being domesticated but possibly dangerous, B being tamed but dangerous, A being heavily intelligent to the level of human understanding and the two highest classes are the most dangerous of them all."

"And what are they again?"

"X means incredibly dangerous but can be controlled and allowed to live. Z means that it is so dangerous that it's extinction is necessary for protecting all other life in the universe."

"Has there ever been a creature or substance with Z classification?"

Dr. Rodman wrote Scottie's name on her vials "Yes."

Gary gulped "What are those creatures like? Giant beasts that eat planets?"

The doctor chuckled "No, such beasts are under the X scale as we have the technology to defeat them. The Z class is for those invisible nasties. Diseases, viruses, bacteria, parasites. HIV/AIDS, Marburg, Ebola, Smallpox, SARS-CoV, MERS-CoV and numerous others. Many have been eradicated but any new one has the potential to have devastating effects."

Gary gulped as he watched Henry place the vials into a heavy case with foam buffers. He then picked up the case as he began to exit the Medbay with Gary to meet up with Max.

"What should we do if we if someone else dies?" Henry asked.

"You don't really think someone one else is going to die, do you?"

The two walked through the cafeteria and saw the rest of the crew save for Dr. Max and Louise, who were in Oxygen when Henry and the Captain arrived.

"Hello Captain, Henry." Dr. Max said to greet the two. He was preparing devices for writing a report while Louise was cleaning the equipment.

"Hello Dr. Max," The Captain spoke "Have everything you need other than the blood?"

Dr. Max nodded "I should. All crew members have blood samples taken before deployment and Louise and I have taken our spare blood out of the storage for comparison."

Dr. Henry placed the vial case on to the table and left with the Captain.

"I don't trust those two…" Louise spoke as she opened up the case and started taking vials out.

"What makes you say that?" Dr. Max spoke as he took out samples of Sal's and Scottie's spare blood.

"I can't say…It's just that when I'm with you I trusty you intrinsically, but when I see the Captain or Henry, something doesn't click."

"I know what you mean…but it's funny…"

"What is?"

"I never had this feeling before we landed on Omega Psi 5.5-2."

"Me neither… but I do remember one thing."

"When I saw Sal and Scottie dead…a feeling of relief came over me."

"Me too, as if we felt safer without them alive."

"Is that wrong to think?"

"I don't know…"

Max took a pre-mortem vial and a post-mortem vial of both Sal and Scottie's blood and put them in the comparer.

"Louise, I can handle this for now. You can go back with the rest of the crew."

Louise nodded and made her way to the cafeteria and was a little saddened with what she saw.

Tommy, Eleanor, Rachel and Gary were sitting at one table and playing a game of cards. It was as if they were the school bullies and they didn't want any other members. Rachel however seemed like she was the new bully who didn't exactly fit in.

Charlie, Sam, and Alice were sitting together and playing a board game. They felt like the old friends that she could trust, nothing could drive them apart at all.

And finally there was Henry. He sat alone with a glass of Don Dew and looked over his notes as he played a game of Solitaire. He felt like that one loner kid, the one that everyone thought was going to snap and kill everyone one day.

"Got any sixes?" Tommy asked Gary.

The captain sighed as he handed over his six to Tommy.

"Got any tens?" Gary asked Eleanor.

Eleanor rolled her eyes and handed a ten over.

"Got any eights?" Eleanor asked Rachel.

Rachel looked through all of her cards "Nope! Go fish!"

Eleanor shrugged as she reached into the draw pile and was able to pull out a pair of queens for herself.

"Hey guys?" Louise asked "Can you deal me in next hand?"

"You can take my cards" Rachel spoke as she got up from her seat.

"Where you going?!" Gary asked.

"I want to check on Henry, see if he's ok…"

The others groaned as Louise took Rachel's cards and looked them over.

"My turn?" Louise asked, prompting the others to nod "Ok…got any fours?"

Rachel walked over to Dr. Rodman and noticed he was reading up on the IA Threat Scale and was specifically looking up those involving Z Class.

"Henry? What are you looking at?"

"Trying to find a disease with the most unusual symptom ever."

"And that is?"

"The intent to murder."

Rachel frowned "The only disease that I can think of that could do that is Rabies."

Henry shook his head "Rabies makes you aggressive, it doesn't make you want to meditate murdering someone. Rabies is something that changes you visibly. If we have come in contact with something that gives one a psychopathic desire to kill rather than a sociopathic one, we might have found a disease that is not dangerous to the host, but rather the people around them."

Rachel shivered and reached to hold Henry's hand, but the doctor took it away with a sigh.

"I know you want comfort, safety and security but you might not find it in me or anyone. You might have this disease or I might have it. Any of us might have it. I know I've kept to myself but it's for everyone's safety, at least that's what I tell myself."

"So what do we do for now?"

Henry sighed "There's safety in numbers. Dr. Max is by himself but he should be safe if we're together."

Suddenly, an alarm went off.

"What's going on?!" Rachel shouted.

"It's the Oxygen alarm!" Charlie explained "It's leaking from the ship!"

"Ah shit!" Sam shouted.

"What do we do?!" Rachel shouted again.

"Two people need to reactivate the Oxygen supply!" Tommy explained.

"I'll go!" The captain declared "Eleanor, you come with me! Max must have accidentally pressed the wrong button or something."

Eleanor and Gary dashed through Weapons to get to Oxygen while Alice ran to the opposite door.

"C'mon everyone, lets get to the escape pods!"

"Are you kidding?!" Tommy shouted "We're good for two minutes, the Captain and Eleanor with Max can bring the oxygen back online ASAP."

"Do you w-wanna take that chance?" Charlie asked "Not me!"

The navigator then ran towards the engines, followed by Sam and Louise.

"Henry! Rachel!" Alice shouted "Are you coming or not?!"

Henry sighed as he stood with Tommy "I think we'll be fine!"

Rachel walked over to Henry and Tommy "Me too, they'll be able to…"

"OXYGEN DEPLETED IN 60 SECONDS. MAKE YOUR WAY TO THE ESCAPE PODS."

"THE CAPTAIN IS AWAY FROM HIS POST! TO THE PODS! NOW!" Alice shouted.

"YOU'RE NOT THE CAPTAIN!" Tommy retorted.

Worried, Rachel grabbed Henry's arm "C'mon! We'll need you!"

"No! Go without me, Louise will be your doctor."

Rachel nodded, but as she began to leave the Cafeteria the alarm halted.

"OXYGEN SYSTEMS: NORMAL. RESUME YOUR DUTIES!"

"Told ya." Tommy remarked dismissively as Alice crossed her arms and sat. While the un-evacuated crew returned so did Charlie and Eleanor.

"Max just pressed the wrong button during the test!" Eleanor said to comfort the others.

"Alright then," Rachel said with a sigh of relief "And Max?"

"He's doing fine" the Captain said assuredly "He'll be done in a bit, let's just wait till he's finished and we'll see what he's found out."

Everyone went back to their seats with Henry and Rachel sitting alone at their own tables, patiently waiting for what Max discovered.

Hopefully it would be enough to ease everyone's minds.