Summary: Uhura confronts an old nemesis and a new one.

Round Two!

Uhura wasn't the kind of woman to sit around and wait for shit to happen to her. She needed to know what was happening between the Enterprise and that Vulcan cruiser, and she wasn't going to find out by sitting in her quarters knitting. Unfortunately, she was still on medical leave and didn't have any excuse to be anywhere near the action. That never stopped her before, though. So while Spock and company were 'touring' the Vulcan cruiser, Uhura was on a mission of her own.

She was couldn't go on the bridge while off duty and she had no access to the official communications channels. Nobody knew better than Uhura, where the actual source of information was on the Enterprise. She also had the currency needed to gain admittance to the gossip mill. Uhura used to be popular below decks and had gained a lot of useful information in the past, but now she avoided the area like the plague since she became the primary subject of said gossip.

"Oooh, look who's here! It's Lieutenant Uhura!" One of the Spa technicians practically gushed when she spotted Uhura. One tech elbowed the other one. "She's married now. It's Mrs. Uhura. Right mam?" the girl asked with a big happy smile.

"Oh my god, I can't believe it!" another technician squealed. THE Lieutenant Uhura?" Uhura didn't recognize her. She must be new since her last visit.

All the technicians behind the counter huddled together, whispering loudly about Uhura as if she wasn't standing right there in front of them.

"No," someone said, coming from behind a divider. "She's Mrs. Spock now," he said in a loud voice and staring daggers at Uhura.

Uhura girded her nerves and put on a friendly smile as she greeted Spa Technician Hernandez. "Lieutenant Uhura will suffice."

"Lieutenant Uhura, hmm? Okay, then Lieutenant Uhura. How may I assist you?" Hernandez asked just as sweetly as Uhura. They smiled daggers at each other for a full minute while the other attendants looked on in confusion.

"I'd like the usual, please. Is there a spot available for me?" Uhura finally asked.

"What usual? I haven't seen you here since," Hernandez put his finger on his chin, thinking. "When was it now? Was it when you attacked me for talking about your BOYFRIEND?"

"I didn't attack you. Mr. Hernandez."

"You didn't? Well, I felt very attacked."

"Maybe you felt defensive because you said something that was untrue?" Uhura asked.

"Or maybe YOU felt defensive because you heard something you didn't like about your boyfriend?" Hernandez shot back. You could hear the ventilation circulating air in the room but not much else, as everyone watched the standoff between Uhura and Hernandez with rapt attention.

Well, Uhura thought. What was she gonna say, that she wasn't defensive? She sure the hell was defensive about Spock, and she had been since she married him. Before he kidnapped her from the ship, before T'Pring divorced him, even before Riley ghosted her, she had been team Spock. Uhura nodded. "Okay, maybe I was defensive," she admitted.

"Maybe?" Hernandez looked unconvinced.

"Yes, maybe I am a little sensitive when it comes to my friends."

"Your friends? Girl, come off your high horse. We all know about you and Spock now. I should have known though," Hernandez nodded his head. "You were ride or die for that man from the beginning. I didn't believe the rumors about you two because Mr. Spock is so stuffy, but I should have known if anyone could turn his head, it would be you."

"What rumors about me?" Uhura was ready to blow her top and tell this techie off, but she was on an info-gathering mission and Hernandez was the biggest gossip on the ship.

"That you and Mr. Spock have been together since the Gorn treaty party. The transporter staff said you beamed up together, in the morning, all hugged up and somebody saw Spock carrying you into your quarters but they didn't see him leave." Hernandez said, searching her face for confirmation.

"Look. I just want my hair and nails done and maybe a massage. I've been really busy lately and have been neglecting myself," Uhura said, neither confirming nor denying the old rumor.

"See," she held out her hand with Spock's ring sitting on her finger and showed Hernandez her unkempt nails. "Can you help me? I promise to be a good girl," Uhura smiled sweetly.

Hernandez's eyes popped wide open. He looked as if he was salivating to get a look at the infamous ring up close and personal, but he was still miffed about their last encounter. "I don't know." He stuck his nose up in the air. "I thought you and I were friends, but..."

"Hernandez, are you married?" Uhura asked, changing tactics.

"No, some of us aren't so lucky." Hernandez frowned.

"Dating anyone special?" Uhura asked.

"Well... I have a friend in engineering..."

"What if you heard me spreading untrue rumors about this friend of yours? What would you do?"

"I wouldn't get mad at you for making a mistake. I would just set you straight."

"I wasn't mad at you. I was angry at the gossip. I know what it's like to be the subject of all kinds of crazy rumors and I can admit now that I overreacted." Uhura looked around at the other technicians who were watching them with rabid eyes. This encounter would be all over the ship before the end of the alpha shift.

"Hernandez, I do like you. You're a great stylist, and I don't let anyone else touch my hair except you. Just don't talk shit about my husband again and we'll both be straight. Deal?" Uhura held out her hand to shake on it.

Hernandez looked as if he was thinking it over for a few seconds and then he snatched her other hand with the ring on it. "Girl, there is nothing straight about me and you know it. Now let me see this ring." He pulled her by the hand into his workstation.

Once Uhura was in the salon chair, Hernandez started chitchatting right away. "If you had only told me you and Mr. Spock were doing the do, I would have never said a thing about him. I would have shut that gossip down for you, too. You know I believe in true love. Now tell me, how long has this thing been going on?" He tapped her ring.

Uhura rolled her eyes. But that was the unspoken deal. You give some gossip; you get some gossip. She gave Hernandez a very sanitized version of her courtship with Spock, leaving out all the truly juicy details. Still, what little she told him would be enough to keep Hernandez's lips flapping for a week at least.

"How do you like the Vulcans sending ships to escort the Enterprise? As if we need them. What's that all about?" he asked her while he did her nails.

"Nobody knows, but the captain is over there now trying to find out," Uhura said.

"Well, I heard they were sent here to take Mr. Spock home for bringing shame to the Vulcans," Hernandez said.

"Vulcans don't feel shame," Uhura dismissed the idea. "Besides, Spock and I were going to Vulcan anyway, so they wasted a trip if that's the case."

"If you say so. I also heard that Dr. M'Benga is half Vulcan, but he's the kind that just looks more Human."

"What? I hadn't heard anything like that," Uhura said. She really had been out of the loop these past few weeks.

"Well, why else would Nurse Chapel be so into him suddenly? She must have found out he was half Vulcan."

"What are you talking about?" Uhura sat up straight and looked at Hernandez in shock. "What's this about Chapel and M'Benga?"

"Girl, you didn't hear about Nurse Chapel and Dr. M'Benga?" Hernandez couldn't believe the ship's second-best gossip didn't know something.

"I've been kinda busy," she admitted.

"Well, I don't know how it started, but Chapel's been seen leaving M'Benga's quarters at all hours. The doctor is hot, so I get the attraction, but apparently, she has a thing for Vulcans."

Uhura didn't want to hear anything about Christine and her apparent fetish for Vulcans. But she shouldn't be surprised Christine had moved onto another man so quickly. She felt sorry for Jeff, though. Christine was like a dog fixated on a bone, and she would not let go of Jeff anytime soon. If Chris only wanted him because he was supposed to be Vulcan, she was going to be disappointed. Uhura knew better than that. She and Jeff had talked about their lives before and she knew for a fact he had two very human parents.

Before she could say what she was thinking, something shook the ship and the red alert klaxon sounded. Lieutenant Palmer was on the intercom, "all hands to battle stations."

What the hell! Everyone started scrambling. The technicians quickly secured their stations and headed for their assigned shelters. Everyone on the Enterprise had duties during an emergency, even if it was just to hunker down somewhere safe and out of the way.

Uhura was on medical leave, but during emergencies, it was all hands on deck for command staff, and since she was already below decks, she headed for auxiliary control, where she thought she may be of service.

When she got there, everyone in the auxiliary section was busy manning their stations and didn't even blink when they saw Uhura take over the communication console to monitor ship transmissions. The Enterprise and Vulcan cruisers were under heavy attack by raiders of unknown origin.

Using skills she'd picked up from Spock, Uhura deciphered the encoded messages used by the raiding parties in their ship-to-ship transmissions. It surprised her to learn it was the language of Orion's pirates and slavers. Why would they attack Federation ships?

"Intruder alert! Intruder alert!"

Scotty's voice came over the intercom since he was in command during the captain's absence. "All decks, we have intruders aboard, defend with phasers set on maximum."

Oh hell! Lethal force? Uhura didn't like the sounds of that. She went to the storage locker and got herself a phaser and handed out phasers to the other crew members when there was a loud bang outside the door. Someone was attempting to breach the auxiliary control room.

The auxiliary control center was an important area of the ship. If the main bridge was inaccessible or uninhabitable, then auxiliary control became the main lifeline of the ship where navigation, communications, and weapons could be engaged. But it was the most vulnerable area of the ship for the same reason. If an intruder wanted to hijack the Enterprise, then auxiliary control was how they did it. And they had done it several times during the past 5 years. Each time, the security of the center was upgraded and redesigned. The section had to be super secure against a foreign invader, but in case a foreign invader got control, it also had to be accessible by Enterprise crew to retake it.

Uhura felt fairly safe there, but she knew her life was in grave danger all the same. She was the highest-ranking officer there, so she gave orders for the defense of the room at all costs and briefed everyone on what to do in case the intruder compromised them. She relayed their situation to the bridge and Lt. Palmer kept Scotty abreast of the situation below.

And while all of this was happening, she worried about Spock. What was happening on the Vulcan cruiser, which surely was no match for an Orion raiding force? If the Enterprise had somehow been breached, what was happening on the Vulcan vessels? She hoped Vulcans really had that secret advanced tech Sulu thought they had.

*/*/*

Captain Kirk heard the emergency alert klaxon moments before the ship suffered the first hit. Before he knew it, the Syrran and her sister were in the heat of battle. He was fairly certain the Enterprise could hold its own, but he was desperate to know what was happening on his own ship.

He and the landing party were just viewing the bridge of the Syrran when the attack started and he had a bird-eye view of how other Vulcans conducted themselves while under fire. They acknowledged the urgency, but they did so in a calm and logical manner while their ship was under attack. Kirk was not accustomed to just standing around when the shit was hitting the fan and he wanted to be of service, but he didn't understand a thing the Vulcans were saying. The universal translator was useless for the dialect they were speaking.

Apparently, Spock was familiar with the workings of the Vulcan ship's control panels was able to step in and take over a station when the panel shorted out and the officer manning the station was injured. M'Benga and McCoy were right there on the bridge offering first aid to those that needed help, and Dr. M'Benga even accompanied the injured to the ship's sickbay to render aid there.

"Captain," Spock called over to him.

"What is it, Spock?"

"We are under attack by Orion raiders. The Enterprise has been boarded."

"How is that possible? What are they even doing in this sector?"

"It is well known that the Orions have pirates ships specializing in stealth attacks that facilitate their highjacking of vulnerable ships. They knew just where the Enterprise's vulnerabilities are and how to breach them. Somehow they have acquired cloaking technology, which is why we didn't see them coming until it was too late."

"Didn't the Vulcans see them? The emergency alert went off before the first shot was fired," Kirk pointed out.

"Indeed," Spock said.

"What can I do?" Kirk asked, looking at the console. "How do I read this stuff? " He slammed his fist on the panel. "How is the Enterprise fairing?"

"Scotty is an experienced battle officer. I am sure he is doing everything possible to evade capture keep the crew safe." Spock had tapped into the Enterprise's communications and was monitoring the situation. He was not surprised to see the name Lieutenant Uhura as the officer who decoded the Orion's secret messages. However, he was not pleased to learn his wife was in the heat of battle in the ship's auxiliary control room. A room that was currently under intense attack by Orion intruders.

Spock shouted something in the language Kirk did not understand and captain T'Lann responded by giving out new orders to her crew. "What's happening!" Kirk demanded when Spock rapidly programmed something into the ship's computers.

"We are going to perform a maneuver to box the Enterprise in and extend our shields around her," Spock explained.

"Are our shields compatible with theirs?" Kirk asked.

"They will be Captain," Spock said as he fed the information into the computer. "Mr. Scott and his engineering crew will know what to do."

All Kirk could do was stand by and watch as Spock the Vulcans worked together to save his ship.

Yeah, I know, by the time the Enterprise gets to Vulcan Uhura will have dropped a set of twins or something. But every time I start a chapter intending to resolve everything and finish this story, I get a new idea. Somebody stop me!