A/N: This is the second chapter I've posted today, so if you're confused, it's most likely because you skipped chapter 27. Any mistakes are my own.

.bdobd.

The captain, the commander, and the injured cadets were all lying on the grassy area behind the building opposite the Sciences wing. Medical and Tactical had swarmed the five wounded people. There was also a Betazoid cadet that was being looked over by the most senior medical cadets and the sole Sciences minor in the group. Councilpeople had been segregated to a separate section of the grass, a good fifteen feet away from any Starfleet personnel. They didn't look very happy about this, but none of them were stupid enough to argue.

"They're tranquilizers," the Sciences minor announced. "They're pretty standard, except for the fact that they're calibrated for three hundred pound humans."

One of the Medical students working on the commander's group piped up, "The darts must have been just for the Commander, then. Kirk was shot with a load for two hundred. The snipers were shooting with three hundred darts until they got the Commander, and then switched over."

"So they're using two hundreds now?" the Security professor asked.

"No reason for them to switch back to the heavier dosages," a Tactical student pointed out. "I don't think that the police would be ordered to kill anyone. They've gotta know what's gonna happen if they pump a person full of too much sedatives."

"Right," the professor nodded. "Security cadets, with me." The professor led a swath of cadets into the building through the back door.

"Where are they going?" Zarabeth asked a Tactical quietly.

"They want to take out any guns on top of our building," the Talaxian mouthed. "If they can get the roof, then they can shell the top of Sciences and clear the way for the sick people to be taken to Medical."

"… Did that Betazoid girl –?"

"No." The cadet sighed. "Betazoids don't do well with refined chemicals." The two shared a moment of silence, staring mournfully over at the dead cadet, whose body was being dragged away from the busily working medical students.

The moment was broken by the sound of projectile weapons. Zarabeth saw Stevens squint and aim his camera at a window in the building: Security must have found the police/national guard forces. Bullets echoed oddly inside of the building as people shot up and down stairwells.

The enemy team on the Sciences wing fired three warning shots over the roof: Are you all right? "What building are we behind?" Zarabeth whispered. She looked around and realized that the Tactical forces had moved to guard the sides of the building from opposing fire, flanking the front stairwell. They were out in the open, and resting their lives on the strength of the snipers' assumed 'No kill' order. It seemed a monumentally stupid gamble.

Zarabeth half skittered, half crawled over to the knot of people surrounding the unconscious five shot people. "What building are we behind?" she asked the group.

"Dorms. And shut up!" someone hissed. Zarabeth heard Stevens snort and glared at him.

The window Stevens' camera was focused on exploded in a shower of tempered glass. The people below the window flinched with displeasure as pea-sized chunks fell on their heads and ran down the back of their necks. The snipers on the Sciences building shot again over the dorm, worried: Who is holding this roof?

The Security team answered with a series of well thrown overloaded phasers. Zarabeth flinched as the time bombs hit the roof and exploded: there were five more phaser batteries, gone. Unless paranoid Sciences majors were in the habit of stashing spare charge packs under their dorm mattresses, the cadet team would soon run out of ammo.

Smoke cleared with the infuriated shrieks of sniper fire. Chunks were taken out of the dorm's molding as the Security forces went about blowing every window in the Sciences building out of existence.

It was terribly loud, and Zarabeth almost didn't hear her comm go off. She scrabbled ungracefully behind the pack tending to the living wounded and flipped the device open, three fingers covering her opposite ear. She saw Stevens focus on her out of the corner of her eye. "Yeah?" she shouted.

"Nowmi?" Admiral R'Vish yelled. "That you?"

"Yes, Admiral? What is it?"

"I'm sending you a comm connection!" The Admiral answered, trying to make herself heard over the sounds of falling cement and breaking glass. "It's a channel to the national guard forces; it looks like it's from the security sectors of the American president! Order the guard to not shoot until directly provoked, and then for god's sakes stop firing!"

That was what the Sciences people were doing: forging a fake channel! "Will do!" Zarabeth agreed. She motioned for a Tactical to scuttle into the dorms and tell the Security team about the plan.

Zarabeth flipped her comm closed and checked the file R'Vish had sent her. It was a computer program that changed her comm's serial identification number from a civilian model to something that looked like a comm from a high government agency. She opened the file as the national guard suddenly stopped shooting: they must've been warned that they would be receiving new orders. The cadet team slowed their rate of fire.

The sound of a comm ringing came from the roof of the Sciences wing. Zarabeth held her breath and prepared her best Hassled Secretary voice. "… Who is this?" a male voice asked suspiciously.

"One of the people for the US," Zarabeth said in a rush. "Just got orders sir – sorry for the disrespect before, by the way, sir – that you can't fire – national guard, that is, sir –,"

"Out with it already!"

"I'm gettin' there!" Nowmi protested breathlessly. She saw a couple cadets smother horrified giggles. "I was sayin that you can't shoot unless 'explicitly provoked'. Says right here, sir."

"Where's 'here'?"

"… Well, here. You know. On the desk."

There was a groan from the other end of the line. A few of the Medical students were wearing smiles that split their faces in half. "… Fine," the national guardsman huffed. "Explicit provocation. Does the orders say anything about going after Kirk and Spock?"

Nowmi stiffened. "… I… don't see anything like that here, no."

"Alright," the man answered obliviously. "Orders received. Carson out."

Nowmi shut her comm quickly before she was forced to come up with a fake name that could be checked against a database. She raised her eyebrows at a Tactical: Are we going?

The cadet looked up at the roof of the dorm. Someone at the top made a thumbs up sign, and there was a loud, repetitive clunking as the cadets came down the stairs in combat boots. The Security professor poked her head out of the back door and mouthed something to the Sciences minor standing over the Betazoid's corpse. The minor shook her head, and the team filed out, a few of them pausing to bow to the dead cadet's body.

"We ready?" the Security professor asked in a normal tone of voice. The words sounded oddly tinny after the prolonged whispering and shooting. The Tactical professor nodded.

"Tactical, out!" the Tactical instructor ordered. The Medical students grabbed their patients and hoisted them gently, and the Security forces made a protective shell around the wounded parties. Everyone else – media and councilpeople included – was forced to walk on the outer edge of the safe zone.

The corpulent group shuffled slowly out from behind the dorm. The snipers could be heard cocking their weapons longingly, but everyone knew that they weren't going to shoot. Tactical took the lead and surrounded the councilpeople, herding the mob towards the main Academy campus.

There was a brief round of phaser blasts that rocked the dorm. Councilpeople either groaned with exasperation or whimpered, depending on their fancy. The Tactical professor turned and glared at Nowmi, who shrugged helplessly.

"Police!" a cadet yelled. Both professors swore viciously: in the heat of the moment, everyone had forgotten that the city police were after the Revolution.

The mob broke apart. "Head up to the Academy lobby!" the Tactical teacher yelled. "Security, focus on the wounded, Tactical, on the councilpeople!"

Nowmi cursed: she and Stevens didn't fit on either of those lists. "And remember that the guardsmen at the Academy probably didn't get the Explicit Provocation order!" she shouted after the rapidly disappearing Security and Medical forces. There was some prolonged filthy language, and the jogging group changed course abruptly, probably hoping to avoid the major wings and the sniper fire that would be waiting for them.

Stevens tugged sharply on her sleeve and began tugging her along with the rest of the group, which was heading towards the back of the dorm in an attempt to hug the main gate for as long as possible. "Wait a minute!" a man on the Sciences roof shouted. "The Academy men got different orders?"

Nowmi's eyes widened and a huge swath of the councilpeople tried to whack her over the head. More police fire sounded from the other side of the dorm, and everyone decided that running was a bit more important than revenge.

Nowmi stayed a bit closer to the Tactical people, just in case.

.bdobd.

The trip back to the main Academy construct was loud, scary, and riddled with bad news. About halfway to the main hall, the police that were following them clipped a national guardsman and killed him. The national guard, thinking that the cadets had just taken out one of their men, fired on the police, who retaliated.

All of this was sort of good for the actual cadets, but it was terribly depressing, especially when the guard got close enough to see who they'd just killed.

When they finally did get back to the Academy, it was discovered that enemy forces had taken the Admiralty's headquarters back over. The Admiralty was now for all intents and purposes that national guard's headquarters, witch was disturbing, because the Admiralty was only about a hundred meters from the main campus complex.

There was some good news. The reason the guard was at the Admiralty was that Lieutenant-Commander Giotto had taken over the school's security forces and completely destroyed all national guardsmen there. Also, Doctor McCoy had beamed onto the campus and taken over the Academy hospital. The captain, commander, and cadets were sent post-haste, while the unfortunate Betazoid was put in a body bag and sent to the morgue downstairs.

Lieutenant Sulu and Ensign Chekov were directing things in the main hall, and Zarabeth got to bug them about why a school had a morgue in the basement. "After the Narada, it made sense," Sulu explained shortly. "Now lemme alone; I'm busy."

Zarabeth ordered T'Panya to cover the defense system, which she did with an impressively small amount of grumbling. Stevens then came to her with a rumor that Pike was holding a conference with President McLaren, Captain Nimeav, and Admirals Calta, Archer, R'Vish, and Barnett. Zarabeth and Stevens wormed their way into the room with a minimum of fuss and settled down for a great show.

R'Vish and Calta were in the process of trying to convince Barnett to order the police off of Starfleet forces. "It doesn't make any sense that you called them anyway!" R'Vish fumed. "They're not even under your jurisdiction!"

"I know the mayor," Barnett waved the issue away. "Everything's just getting out of hand –,"

"They are minors," Calta hissed. "They –,"

"No one's died. It's not like I'm ordering them to kill anyone," Barnett protested.

It went on like this for some time. One the other side of the room, McLaren and Archer were trying to figure out a way to keep the Council safe, while Pike and Nimeav (who was on a holoscreen; the captain was still patrolling and couldn't make it to the Academy) were desperately contacting every captain. Zarabeth crept over to Nimeav's screen.

"Who're you looking for, specifically?" she asked quietly.

Nimeav, who was always looked the most distinguished captain of the bunch, sounded like she wanted to tear her hair out. "Tranya," she hissed. "That thing," she motioned to Barnett, "over there is probably blocking some of our comm signals so that we can't get backup. The bastard's not even supposed to be out of his cell; I can't believe that Calta convinced R'Vish to have him released!"

Pike shushed her. "Did you say you had Nimeret a while ago?"

Nimeav sighed and turned to Pike. "Yeah," she brought up a channel screen. "He was right – God damn it!" The screen was totally blank. "I'm gonna kill that –,"

"Nimeav."

"Sorry, Admiral."

Barnett was still singing for freedom. "But no one's died," he argued. "I agree that McLaren's situation was unfortunate, but –,"

"You fired on the President of the Federation!" R'Vish shrieked. "You egomaniacal bastard, what the fuck –!"

"Someone has died."

Everyone turned to Zarabeth. "What." Archer demanded.

"A Betazoid," Zarabeth continued. "She was shot with a dart that was filled with enough tranquilizer to knock out a three hundred pound human. Three other cadets and Captain Kirk and Commander Spock were shot too; they're in the Academy Sickbay."

Pike's eyes were wide and his face was pale.

Zarabeth belatedly remembered that Kirk was his favorite captain.

Admiral Pike exploded. Zarabeth shrunk back as the absolutely insane man charged towards Barnett, who was curled up hissing at his potential attacker like some sort of snake. Nimeav looked positively gleeful.

Pike was screaming obscenities at the top of his lungs, and Calta and R'Vish were holding him back, trying to keep him from murdering the commodore. McLaren and Archer had frozen in their seats, staring, blinking, at the former captain crying bloody murder. Barnett had not, for some reason, moved, and was still parked in his chair, yelling back at Pike, accusing the man of emotional compromise.

Nimeav shrieked and dove for her console; Stevens swung his camera from the admiral who was literally shaking with rage over to the captain who was scrabbling at her keyboard. "I lost Tranya's signal!" she shouted. "Shit; Pike, I lost her signal; where's Tranya?"

Pike was in no condition to help; he'd started out yelling about Kirk and Spock and had now moved on to the dead cadet, which was visibly affecting R'Vish. Zarabeth was torn between doing what little she could to locate all of the captains and helping keep Pike from ripping Barnett into little itty bitty pieces.

R'Vish looked like she just wanted to let Pike go and turn Barnett into soup; Tranya was her favorite captain and it looked like Barnett was the one putting the Orion in danger.

Pike and his restrainers were right in front of the door into the room, so when Senior Vulcan Councilman Prime burst into the room, the first thing he saw was a murderously angry Pike and the two other admirals, who were rapidly losing faith in their efforts.

Prime pinched Pike's shoulder, which shut him up for a spell, and made his way over to Pike's console. He waved the distraught R'Vish away and pushed Calta towards Nimeav to calm her down.

Zarabeth knew better to interrupt the Vulcan in the middle of whatever-it-was, so went over to bug Calta instead. "Is she," Zarabeth pointed to Nimeav, who was sitting on screen shaking, "your favorite?"

Calta was sitting facing her, trying to calm the incredibly worried woman down. He glared at the reporter. "Isn't it normal to have a favorite? I just like her best; I'm not trying to put anyone else down."

"I didn't mean to imply that, sir," Zarabeth bowed.

Favorites weren't someone you wanted to do better than everyone else, really. It was more like favorites were just the one person that one particular admiral happened to get along with better. It was natural. But that didn't make it fair, or make it less biased, or make that admiral less emotionally compromised.

Zarabeth's comm chirped, and she moved away from the trembling Nimeav (stepping over the utterly unconscious Pike) to answer. "Nowmi here."

"It's Uhura."

Zarabeth's eyebrows flew up. "Lieutenant Uhura! What's going on?"

"I was going to ask you the same thing. I just got a call from Admiral Archer saying that Pike was going mad and that Captain Tranya just went missing. Is that correct, or is he high on gun dust?"

Zarabeth couldn't repress her shocked snort of amusement. "No, no, that all actually happened."

"Do you need my help?"

Zarabeth looked over to the Councilman, who she knew was listening. The Vuclan nodded without taking his eyes off of the screen. "Councilman Prime says yes."

"Prime?" Uhura sounded almost happy. "I didn't know he was there. Alright, set your comm down in a clear spot: I'm going to beam down from that marker."

"Got it." Zarabeth moved a few chairs, and Stevens helped shove Pike's legs out of the way. She set her comm down carefully. "Alright!" she shouted at the speaker.

Immediately there was the shimmery metallic space that marked a transporter beam. Uhura must've been talking to her in the transporter room. The lieutenant materialized, looked around at the wreckage, gave Barnett the middle finger, and marched over to help Councilman Prime do whatever-it-was.

Stevens got a few great shots of Barnett's face, and Zarabeth waggled her eyebrows at Archer: your favorite's Uhura?

Archer nodded no. 'But she's good,' he mouthed.

That was undeniable. Zarabeth waved jauntily at the rather sick-looking McLaren, then walked across the room to look at what the councilman and the lieutenant were up to.

They were sending a channel somewhere. Zarabeth squinted at the screen and tried to decode the serial number that they were trying to take over. Uhura caught the look and peered up at her with amusement. "Valpac," she explained. "We just fixed them; they're strong. We're rerouting our messages through the Valpac carrier, so any filter that's blocking our signals will be confused. We should be able to talk to the captains that way."

.bdobd.

Jim woke up in a hospital bed with McCoy glaring down at him. "You got shot," Bones said bluntly as Jim blinked with fuzzy confusion, "being a fucking idiot, like usual."

"Wha?" Jim blinked.

"Barnett's not shooting at the cadets any more," McCoy continued with crossed arms. "But there're still those national guard idiots out there, so don't do anything stupid. There're a couple captains no one's heard from in hours, so Pike and Prime ordered me to wake you up, the bastards. You have any idea how many stimulant packs I've gone through?"

"Not enough?" Jim guessed hopefully.

"Too many. Get up to Pike's teacher's office." Jim shook his head a bit. "It's on the second floor?"

"Any guardsmen… in the Academy?"

"Nah, but there's a fuckload in the Admiralty. So don't do anything STUPID."

"Will do." Jim saluted weakly, making Bones snort.

"Come on, outta bed. I've got real patients to see ya brat." Jim stuck his tongue out at the affectionately irritated doctor and slowly made his way out of the Sickbay.

Jim made sure he wasn't being watched, then sped off towards where he knew Spock would be. He wasn't quite as out of it as he'd pretended.

Spock was lying in his own little area set apart from all of the noisy, human patients. He was green, but in a healthy Alien I Am in the Process of Healing way, not his sick 'green', which was actually a shade of orange-yellow.

Jim was completely disoriented when he walked out of the Medical offices and wasn't met with the Enterprise halls. 'Right,' he remembered. 'Academy.' He set off at a steady pace towards where Pike and Prime must be.

Prime's desk had been flipped upside down to reveal the huge, paranoia inducing military strength comm that he kept strapped under his keyboard. Jim'd only seen it once before, right after the Narada and the Academy was completely renovated. "What'd I miss?" he asked the group of holographic faces.

Prime was there, but not in the room. He and R'Vish and Nimeav were on conference call, with Pike supporting the channels from his desk. "Tranya hasn't been heard from in a good hour," Pike said, walking towards Jim and brushing dust off of his shirt. "Can you try contacting her on your comm? It's on a different frequency, right?"

Jim nodded. "All of the Enterprise equipment is." Jim selected Tranya's number from his contacts list and waited for the captain to answer his call. "Hey Pike, why're you dusty?"

The admiral blushed. His entire front side was covered in a fine layer of gray. "Prime nerve pinched me."

Jim gaped at him. "Holy fuck, what'd you do?"

"I… um…" Pike actually squirmed. "When Nowmi told me that Barnett had shot you and Spock and killed that Betazoid I –,"

"Wait: she died?"

Pike nodded sadly. "Those bullets were tranq darts made for a three hundred pound human. They were only meant for Spock."

Jim's eyebrows rose. "I took a three hundred pound dart and I'm awake?"

"No, you got a two hundred. They changed rounds after they shot Spock."

"Right." Jim sighed. "That shouldn't've happened."

"Agreed." Pike and Jim stared at the floor, Jim's comm humming slightly as it fought to connect with Tranya's ship.

"So, what about the neck pinch?"

"Oh! Well, when I heard, I… lost it, and I went after Barnett."

"Really? Nice." Jim snorted. "And Prime came in and you dropped."

"Like a stone." Pike shook his head ruefully. "I never saw it coming. I woke up about half an hour later feeling like an elephant had just kicked my neck."

"Yeah, those things are not fun."

Jim's comm shrieked. He offered it to Pike. "You want it, or you want me to answer?"

"You do it." Pike walked back around his desk. "I'll tell R'Vish."

"Gotcha." Jim flipped open his comm, and a rush of Tranya overflowed the speakers.

"Jim? Jim? Kirk, damnit, pick up your thrice-damned fucking comm –!"

"Tranya, good to hear from you too."

"Kirk? Thank gods you picked up; what the fuck is going on? I'm getting all of these call requests, but Valpac wouldn't support them all because they're precious system is too damned delicate. What's happening?"

"… It kinda depends where you are," Kirk said slowly, watching at R'Vish and Nimeav embracing in hologram as Prime watched on in bemusement.

"I'm orbiting. I'm just above you."

"Get down here, then. The national guard's still after the Academy from the Admiralty HQ and I want you to scare them off."

"Can do!" Tranya signed off with a jaunty click. Pike stuck his head around the column of faces.

"Where's she going?"

"She's coming here."

"What? Why?"

Kirk grinned. "Think the Salient can scare off a few of the guard?"

.bdobd.

The sight of the Salient bearing down on the Academy was either inspiring or absolutely terrifying, depending on your sympathies.

Jim cheered.

The ship managed to convince most of the national guard to leave without firing a single shot. Giotto's shooting from the Academy did the rest, and in no time at all the Academy and the Admiralty were freed.

The ship did totally freak out McLaren, who called, panicking, a few minutes after all of the guard disappeared, demanding to know what the fuck had happened. Jim explained while Tranya went over to free the Enterprise from the dock, because Scotty had called and said that Base Security had finally made a decision, and they weren't fond of the Revolt.

So the Salient toddled over to the Base, and there was a lovely little lightshow, and the Salient toddled back, looking very pleased with herself. Scotty had called Kirk and was bragging about how amazing everyone was when Nowmi sidled up and tried (miserably) to casually ask for a photo op with the Salient and the Enterprise together.

Kirk groaned and said he would ask. "Tranya?"

"Ye-es?" She was in a fantastic mood.

"Nowmi wants a photo op."

"Awesome."

Jim snorted. "Fine," he said to the jubilant reporter. "It won't hurt, anyway."

Tranya was moving into position while Scotty beamed Sulu up to the ship to help maneuver the Enterprise out of the dock. Nimeret called Jim and sounded completely confused. "Is there something going on?" the oblivious man asked. "I just got a call from Tranya saying that I need to get to San Francisco."

"Well, there's kind of been a Revolution," Jim said, rubbing the back of his neck awkwardly. "I guess we… sorta forgot to tell you."

"Um. Yeah. No shit. So, um, what's going on right now?"

"There'd gonna be a photo op." Jim looked over to where Nowmi was talking to Stevens. "And it's gonna be soon, too."

"… Warp?"

"I would."

"Righto."

Nimeret signed off. Jim shook his head, bemused. Nimeret wasn't at all concerned with politics, which Jim completely understood. It did mean that he was a perpetual two weeks late on all things relating to superior officers, but if that was his choice, so be it.

Uhura shuffled nervously over to where Jim was standing. "Captain," she hissed. "Admiral Archer told me that there's a situation down in the main hall. He's there and he wants you to help him."

Kirk nodded and followed as the lieutenant began to jog down the corridor. "Any details?"

Uhura flinched but didn't turn. "All of the councilpeople are alive; that's the good thing. But the cadets sort of… locked the anti-Revolution ones up in the brig." Kirk rolled his eyes and groaned, making Uhura laugh softly. "Yeah. Archer's worried and he wants you to –,"

"Make them feel bad about being bad. No problem." Uhura stepped aside as they came up on the doorway to the main hall. Kirk entered the huge lobby to a strong, sustained applause. Most of the cadets had gathered in the room to congratulate themselves on a job well done. He nodded accordingly and found a good spot near the back where the acoustics were better.

Kirk crossed his arms and glared at the cadets, who quickly lost their grins and began to look nervous. "… You locked up the councilpeople?" he growled.

Students squirmed. People began to stare at their shoes, and at the little space in between their shoes. "If you," Kirk continued menacingly, "want to go ahead and be like Barnett, then go right ahead. But I will have no part in it!"

Kirk settled in for a good, long, negative critique.

.bdobd.

The councilpeople were freed by a sheepish collective. The majority of the cadet population were staring at their shoelaces with shame. Everyone looked rather pitifully at Jim, who could barely keep himself from grinning. The Enterprise crew only looked so beaten after Spock had 'had words' with them; it'd been a while since a smackdown had worked so effectively for Kirk.

Jim was considering whether it'd be a good idea to address them again when T'Panya, who Jim thought had been off crooning at defensive rifle fire, dashed over looking uncharacteristically flustered. "The Odyssey-A has been sighted over the Academy, Captain Kirk," the Vulcan reported.

"Oh, good," Jim sighed, "Nimeret's finally here! … Hey, where's Uhura?"

"She has gone to collect the admirals, sir," T'Panya bowed slightly. "Do you have any orders?"

Kirk stared contemplatively at a patch of wall just over T'Panya's head. "… Not for you, right now. I'm calling McCoy."

Bones was not happy to hear from him. "What the fuck are you doing?"

T'Panya did an amazing horrified gasping noise at the blatant insubordination. Jim smothered a laugh. "Comming you. How's Spock?"

"A bit rough around the edges, but about fine. Why?"

"I need him," Jim explained vaguely. "Can you put him on?"

He could practically hear Bones' suspicion, but he handed the comm over to Spock nonetheless. "Captain."

"Spock, good to hear from you again. Listen: can you make it up to the roof?"

"… I believe so." Spock let the unasked question, 'Why exactly are you asking this?' hang in the silence that followed.

"Good. Nowmi needs a favor and I'm a mood to give it to her. Can you meet me in the main hall?"

"Now, I presume?"

"Yep."

"Affirmative." Noisy sounds of doctoral protest screeched from Spock's side of the connection. Bones must be having a bit of a conniption. "… Doctor McCoy does not support this endeavor."

"Really."

"Indeed: it was not an unforeseeable event," Spock replied calmly, driving Bones into another loud rage. Jim snorted.

"Good," Jim nodded. He winced as his back twinged. "Actually, change of plans: I'm sending T'Panya up to Medical to get you. Have Bones prep some more stimulants for me; I think this set's wearing off."

"Acknowledged."

"Kirk out."

"Spock out."

Kirk turned to T'Panya with orders, but the woman looked as if she would start to levitate from excitement if she didn't move soon. He just gestured for her to move, instead, and she took off.

.bdobd.