Joseph had finally had a moment to prepare and sterilize the autopsy room in order to examine the victim. His mind already ran through the little data he had of her from her files, namely her work with toxic materials, though none of it affected his judgement when it came to determining her cause of death. She wasn’t found in a lab after all. Else it would’ve sent up an alarm and locked down the whole ship, resulting in every crew member being quarantined and tested. 

“Pity, to die so young and so far from home. It’s not a fitting fate for anyone.” Joseph said in a surprisingly compassionate voice. 

His brown eyes softened when he skimmed over her exposed and motionless body, looking far more helpless in death than she had in life. An ironic truth that once dead, their appearance to the world often changed as well. Only Dr. Niven was with him and a trusted assistant who had helped him splay open the ribs, keeping the deceased patient modest as possible. It was only partly way in when Joseph’s eyes widened in surprise then locked his expression to mirror Niven’s. 

“Get the Captain on the line. This wasn’t just a death, I believe we have a killer on board.” 
----------
“Copy, they’re on their way.” Catherine replied shortly, contacting the two planes reserved for ground attack carrying appropriate ordnance, “Sandy 1, you’re up. The ground team needs a hole in the wall. Stand by to receive coordinates of a sniper post to eliminate.” she relayed, gesturing at the sensors officer to look into finding his position. “Sandy two, look for the Al’Kesh. The gliders that were attacking the ground forces seem to have withdrawn, look for them ,they might be escorting it. If you see them, fire at will, don’t let them get away.” she addressed the other problem.

With the enemy capital ships retreating, her combat high started wearing off. “Talk to me, what’s the damage?” she asked as the officers reported in one by one. The engines suffered quite the hit, presently running at 80%. The shield was approaching the 50% mark as well - good thing they stopped when they did. “Anyone know what happened to the beam cannons?” she asked, annoyance in her tone. This should have been a five minute engagement that should have ended up with three Ha’Tak in pieces and barely 10% drop on the shields. If this was a sloppy maintenance job, she’d have their heads on a… “Ma’am, engineering reports preliminary assessment. It seems the buffers were tampered with.”

“Sabotage?” she asked, a little unbelieving. Oh, how ironic that the ship that took the most bureaucracy to crew unlike the military owned ones would be the one to have a mole on board. “Wait a minute… What about the labs?” she asked warily, dots slowly connecting in her head. that was when the news from Joseph arrived. Captain’s nails dug into her palms as her fists clenched. “I want this ship on lockdown. No one goes anywhere from now on. Once the ground clears up, pick up everyone and then confine all crew to quarters pending screening. Get Earth to send the equipment.”