Though it probably hadn't been intended directly as a compliment, Melissa couldn't help but feel a half-surprised surge of excitement when the captain mentioned<em>best in the field</em>. If the crew contained only the best, and she was part of the crew... was she really that good? She blinked several times; now was<em>not</em>the time to be unduly exulting and petting her own ego. The half-oriental woman lifts a hand, lightly covering her mouth while looking from one person to the next. She'd known the situation on Earth was... bad, though hadn't grasped the magnitude. It was a sobering thought.<br/><br/>The doctor's slightly amusing.... she hesitated to think of them as<em>antics</em>, brought a grin to her lips; one which evaporated when Cassandra cut to the core of the issue, and the captain brought that unpleasant bit of information to light.<br/><br/>"A human," she murmured, mostly to herself. It wasn't surprising, really; in enough billions of people, there'd be always be a few practically-insane bad apples. A tad depressing, though, to have the point driven home that just fighting the enemies from without wouldn't be enough.<br/><br/>"Question," she speaks up. "I'm not the most knowledgeable about how these kind of things work, but... have we at least identified the virus that did his? And I guess, what I'm getting at is more... is there anything stopping them from going to our colonies or space stations and dropping it off? I mean, do we have some kind of way of catching it before it spreads, or is that part of what we're working on?" The telepath shifted in her seat uncomfortably. "I mean, aberrants can travel through space, right? If they find out what we're up to, what stops them from dropping it off, well... here?... Ah, sorry, I'm not trying to be some kind of doom-sayer, I just... want to understand how we're avoiding that, or, if not, well, I guess the severity of our situation." Not particularly eloquent, she criticized herself, but it wasn't something she particularly<em>wanted</em>to talk about directly. And, when it came to all that sort of... medical stuff, she felt downright ignorant.