A/N: I KNOW it's been months, but I aim to finish what I started here. I can't feasibly continue cranking out 4000+ word chapters at a time, but these shorter chapters have the added bonus of appearing more frequently. It's a win-win, people.

Nothing. He would tell them nothing.

They'd commandeered the conference rooms. The larger spaces were used to house prisoners. Initially, they'd been separated by division, but the intruders were quick. Sooner than expected, the officers were identified and separated from the rest of the Starbase's crew.

134? Was that the number? Before he'd been dragged out, he'd tried to do a headcount. Only about forty in his room. Not everyone was there. The faces he knew weren't there, besides one. The mission could continue. There was hope left in this yet.

Right now, he was concerned about the marked absence of doctors. Not so much as one medical tunic had been spotted. Not by himself, or anyone he'd interviewed. Some of the earlier captures had noticed. They'd also told him what to prepare for.

The shock came again, made nastier by whatever chemical his captors kept applying. He didn't understand the questions. Whatever language they spoke sounded more like the distant thrumming of an engine than the kinds of words he was used to. He'd tried reasoning with them. They had listened, but they didn't seem to understand. The language barrier was huge.

Staying conscious was important. He'd gather as much information as he could. Descriptions, durations of the shocks, nuances in the chain of command. The tallest one, the one with additional stripes down the center of their uniform, was the leader. All the requests passed that way.

He locked eyes with the leader. There seemed to be anger and frustration in the expression. Maybe because of the interrogation, maybe something else. Strapped to the table as he was, there was some difficulty in reading that face. He caught a fleeting glimpse of despair.

Spock might know what to make of it. For now, Kirk would take another shock.

/\\

As soon as it was safe, Uhura led the way out of the vent. The hallway had long since been emptied. All that was left to show that anything had happened here was a stray phaser burn on the wall.

She dusted off her skirt and helped Chapel out of the vent.

"Oof- Thanks. I bet whoever designed that vent never had to crawl through it in tights." There was a sizeable hole forming in the fabric around one of her kneecaps. The other one looked close to tearing.

"And heels." Uhura said. "Sure, they're just fine until you're trying to be quiet. I'm surprised I didn't bang the side of the vent. Then, we'd be in real hot water." The same hot water McCoy and Lieutenant L'Nel were in. As soon as they found the Captain and Spock, Uhura planned on mounting a rescue.

According to the Commodore, the Enterprise's COs were taking shelter in the main offices. By her best guess, Uhura supposed they were in the right area. Commodore Corbett's sudden appearance backed up her theory. The big door had to be a back access point.

That was another thing. The more she thought about it, the more Uhura realized that the layout of this Starbase was very different from any she had visited before. The hallways followed a similar pattern, but something about the rooms… Domonova had proved to be right about the vents. Who knows what other kinds of modifications were hiding around here?

"I say we try the door first." Uhura made her way over to the keypad. If this was a standard entrance, there would be a standard code. So, Corbett was all pomp and circumstance without any substance after all. She punched in triple 9s and waited. After a second, she tried it again. Frowning, Uhura waited for the door. The panel hadn't given her a negative response, so she assumed it must be working. This was frustrating. She angrily punched in three 9s again and to her surprise, the door slid open.

Triple triple 9s. I could slap that man.

"Chris, I've got it!" They hurried through the door. The great thing slammed behind them, and Uhura could hear the locking mechanism grinding back into place. That was one heavy door.

Chapel looked around the interior of the office section. It was just as bland as the rest of the base. Didn't anyone here believe in wall art? At least put up a plaque. This was hideous. But, they didn't have time to nit-pick the interior decorating. Uhura motioned for her to follow her down the biggest hallway. She'd been here before. She could find Corbett's office faster.

The first people they found weren't the Captain and Mister Spock. Uhura stopped short as a different pair rounded the corner up ahead. A darker-skinned man with close-cropped hair came barreling around the corner with a phaser. He had ablue tunic and the stripes of a Lieutenant Commander, but beyond that no identification. Close behind him was a taller woman with hair almost as short. There were no rank stripes on standard-issue coveralls, so there was nothing to be learned there. She also seemed more put-together than her companion was, but she wasn't the one waving the phaser around.

"Linois, are they Enterprise?" The woman murmured to her colleague, but Chapel heard. Linois. She didn't need to confirm with Uhura. Chapel knew that name. It could be that these two were carrying out the rest of McAdam's plan, or they could just be trying to figure all of this out. Either way, Chapel had to make sure Linois didn't get trigger happy.

She took a deep breath, ran forward, and threw her arms around the gun-toting Lieutenant Commander.

"Oh thank goodness we found you!" Chapel let a hysterical note color her words. If these two were up to something, playing dumb might be beneficial. If they were innocent, Chapel didn't care what they thought of her. "I was so worried they'd taken everyone on the base!" Maybe if she could work up some tears she could really sell this.

Linois seemed to be at a loss. He lowered his phaser and hesitantly raised a hand to pat her shoulder. "It's… Everything's under control. The offices are secure."

Uhura saw the look of desperation pass from Linois to his companion, but he wasn't getting any help from her. She smirked before turning towards Uhura. Chapel's scheme seemed to be working, so playing along looked like the order of the day.

"We got locked out of Sickbay." Uhura lied. "The alarms were blaring and we had no idea what was happening! Oh, it was horrible!" She wrung her hands dramatically. It looked like the newcomers were buying it. The lady hadn't been introduced, but Uhura would bet her bottom dollar that this was either Pym or Wogan. Unless, of course, the whistleblower didn't know about everyone and this was a bigger conspiracy than they had expected.

Chapel finally disengaged from Linois' arms and started wiping her tears. She'd managed to work up a little cry, nothing too major. "I'm s-sorry. It was just so awful!"

Linois looked like he'd just eaten something unpleasant. "No worries, Miss uh… It's fine. You're safe in the offices. We've got everything locked down." Uhura noticed when he put the last couple of pieces together. "Say, how did you two get in here?"

She jumped to Chapel's aid on this one. "Oh, that nice young Lieutenant gave me the code when we got locked out of Sickbay. He and Doctor McCoy told us this would be the safest place. But, I'm so glad we found someone else here." Uhura gave them her winningest smile. She didn't like the looks of either of them. It certainly felt like they were plotting, what with the sneaking around. She couldn't say for sure, but something was off here.

Linois' companion spoke up at last. "Well, you two had better wait in one of the inner offices. You might get in the way of the defense effort." She didn't look too happy to be handling this.

"Defense effort?" Chapel sniffled and looked between the two of them. "What's going on?"

Linois stepped back in to end this as quickly as possible. "Nothing you should worry your little head about. We're taking care of it. You should go to the… Maybe the break room? They can't g- I mean, they'll be safest there, right Wogan?"

Wogan it was then. Now, Uhura was really on her guard. Two confirmed conspirators in the same place, doing their best to get bystanders out of their business? That was too much. She hadn't been certain before now, but the whistleblower had been right about the schematics and about the character (at least what she had observed) of two of the crew. There was something to all this conspiracy talk after all.

"We'll go right there! Thank you so much!" Uhura beamed at them again. Maybe once they were out of sight, some real investigating could be done.

"Oh, one more thing!" Chapel interjected before Linois and Wogan could get a move on. "Our Captain and First Officer are somewhere in here. Have you seen them?" She'd almost forgotten about them, with all of this playacting.

Wogan frowned. "They're not here. They were the first ones to leave. You better stay put, though, if you don't want to end up like- injured, or worse." With that slip freshly laid out for their consideration, Wogan grabbed Linois' arm and steered him down the hallway. Uhura's eyebrows rose as she watched them leave.

"How they've kept anything hidden from the crew, I have no idea."

Chapel snorted and rolled her eyes. "Maybe that's how the whistleblower knew who to rat out. Those two are about as subtle as a phaser rifle."

"That… Well, that seems a little too easy, doesn't it?" Uhura stared off down the hallway. "I mean, not exactly easy, but… They don't seem like the kind of people who would be in charge of a something like this. Whatever this is. Oh Chris, we're working on nothing here!"

It was true, they didn't have much to go on. Chapel checked over her shoulder one more time to make sure they really weren't being monitored. The coast was clear.

"We've got the weird signals, three names, and blueprints that don't line up like they should. I can say we've gotten by with less."

"Yes." Uhura countered, "But we're definitely outnumbered. That, and you heard what Wogan said! However the Captain and Mister Spock 'ended up', it wasn't good. If the situation was in hand, Linois and Wogan wouldn't be running! Doctor McCoy and L'Nel wouldn't have been captured!"

Chapel detected the underlying note of hysteria in Uhura's voice, and she couldn't say she wasn't feeling the same. This was a fine kettle of fish. Outnumbered, outgunned, and completely clueless as to what was going on here, they didn't have too many options.

"Well, we have to do something." Chapel huffed. She stopped at the next fork in the hallway. "Nyota, say Captain Kirk was here. What's the craziest thing he could do right now?"

Uhura stopped and turned. "Run out and face the enemy. And he's already done that."

"Alright. Say you're Spock. What would you advise?"

"I'd say not to go."

"But the Captain talked him into it." Chapel let her gaze wander down the corridor. Spock had been convinced. "If he could get Spock to go, then it had to have been the only good idea."

"Or the only obvious solution." Uhura countered. "Play it safe. What would Doctor McCoy insist they do?"

"To put it colloquially, 'Not a blasted thing'. Unless there were injured." Sighing, Chapel leaned against the corner of the wall. "But none of them are here, and on top of that, everything they did got them into trouble. How do we stay one step ahead of whatever's going on out there if we don't even know what's going on out there?"

Uhura looked to be lost in thought. She was staring absently at the carpet, trailing a finger on the edge of her cheek. "If I were a security station," she murmured, "where would I be?"

Chapel crossed her arms and looked down both hallways. A Security Station would be nice, but they could get the most information in one of the offices. Suddenly it hit her. Where had Uhura been already and what office did they know for sure wasn't in use?"

"Can you get us to Corbett's office from here?" Chapel gestured to the fork. "Does this section of the hallway look familiar?"

Uhura's eyes lit up with recognition. "Yes, yes it does! I think if we take the right and then the next left we see, I should be able to get us to the right doorway. That is… Well, that is if there aren't any guards still on duty."

Chapel nodded. "Lead the way. If they're still hanging around, we can ask them what the heck is going on around here!"

"Right." Uhura got going down the right fork of the hallway, then took her left, and made a few more turn before she stopped in front of a big metal door.

"Commodore Corbett, alright." The plate outside the door said as much. Chapel put her hands on her hips and scanned the rest of the hallway. There was no one here. Not a soul. That was suspicious as anything, she decided. "Now, how do we get in?"

'Well, if we're lucky, he left it unlocked when he went to go get Doctor McCoy and L'Nel. Maybe he even had a security feed hooked up to his computer console. That would be some kind of break." Uhura stepped up to the door and it swooshed open.

"That's some kind of luck." Chapel stated, wondering at the kind of security they had around here. Uhura had mentioned guards… Maybe things were worse than they thought, if conditions were this lax where security was concerned.

Uhura entered the room and went straight to Corbett's computer. It seemed as if he'd left his office in an awful hurry. PADDs were scattered on the desk, and it looked like he had three different programs running at his desk. Uhura reached for the closest PADD and took a glance. Some kind of requisitions form for coolant, ready to be approved. Next PADD. This one was more interesting. It was a request for computer maintenance in one of the atrsometrics labs.

"Do you think this has something to do with the missing data?" Uhura handed the PADD over to Chapel and turned her attention back to the computer console. Corbett had been monitoring a couple of security feeds. Of the four-way split, one was the hallway they'd just been in, one looked to be the cargo bay, and the next one…

Uhura gasped and isolated the feed. Hearing her, Chapel rounded the desk and stood at her shoulder.

"Those are… That has to be a conference room."

"I think so, Chris. It's the only room big enough that isn't a cargo hold…"

The feed broadcast- in perfect clarity- a conference room stuffed with people. Wall to wall, there were figures sitting, kneeling, and tending to the wounded. There were wounded. From what Uhura could tell, it was all Security personnel, or Operations people. She couldn't find any indication that either the Captain or Mister Spock was there with them, but she did recognize one of the guards from earlier sitting up against the wall. About half of the visible crewmembers sported injuries, while the other half looked to be trying to alleviate some of the pain any way they could.

"What happened to all of them?" Chapel's gaze was locked onto the screen. "They can't have all been captured already, could they? Sickbay's only been on lockdown for about an hour at most… That's… There's hardly enough time…"

It was incredible, how efficiently these invaders had been working. She could see a few now, entering through a side door. They were armed, and they carried a man in red between them. Several of his comrades rushed forward to help as he was deposited on the floor near the doorway. Just as quickly and quietly as they had come, the aliens vanished.

Chapel couldn't say she knew more about them than she'd already observed, but one thing was clear: The crew was being interrogated.

A/N: Whatever will happen next? I'll be sure to let you know.