Author's Note:

Greetings and salutations readers. Here is chapter three and I've taken some liberties with some things, especially with beaming so please let me know if anything in this chapter is radically wrong. Thank you for your continued support of this story and I hope you enjoy this chapter.

I don't own Star Trek.

Little Trace

"Commander, we've lost some of the signals of the away team!"

Spock was swiftly beside the crewman who had called out while remaining the picture of calm, "Which ones and how?"

The man was quick to answer, "We can no longer find the Captain, Lieutenant Commander Scott or Ensign Chekov sir. They just vanished from the scanner but Mr Hendorff and Mr Kai are still visible sir."

Spock turned to the communications station, "Lieutenant Uhura, contact Mr Hendorff."

His order was unnecessary as Nyota had already done it so he addressed the security officer, "Mr Hendorff, we have lost contact with three of your team including the Captain, please report."

The confusion was evident in the man's voice as he answered, "We had found the device that was giving off the signal, Mr Scott and Mr Chekov were examining it as we and the Captain kept watch. Mr Scott requested Captain Kirk's help and we continued to keep watch, shortly afterwards we thought something was wrong and turned to see that the three of them and the device had vanished without a sound and leaving no trace except for depressions in the grass where they'd been standing. Mr Kai is looking for any indication of where they might have gone but he hasn't been able to find anything so far."

Spock thought for a moment before giving orders, "Mr Hendorff, you and Mr Kai continue your search but remain close to the former location of the others. I will beam down with a second team shortly to assist you."

"Understood Commander."

Spock made his way to exit the bridge giving orders as he went, "Lieutenant Uhura, keep a constant connection with the remainder of the away team and perform regular check-ins. Lieutenant Sulu you are in command in my absence, keep giving constant scanning sweeps of the area to simultaneously check for any anomalies and to maintain a careful watch on the away teams."

There were affirmatives from both the lieutenants and Spock left the bridge.

Shortly afterwards Spock and his team were beamed down to the surface; the team consisted of Spock, McCoy, Doctor Adams who was a science officer, Ensign Harvard and Lieutenant Hadrian as engineers and several more security officers. Adams, Hadrian and Harvard instantly began to scan the area where the three had vanished from while the security team took defensive positions around the group. Spock received a more detailed report from Hendorff and Kai and then dispatched Adams and Hadrian to examine the nearby wreckage for any evidence of what happened leaving him and McCoy waiting for results, "What do you think happened?"

Spock looked at the doctor who had spoken, "There is not enough information at this moment to come to a viable conclusion Doctor McCoy, therefore it is illogical to make assumptions at this point."

"Dammit man, you must have some theory on how they just vanished."

"I have several plausible theories on the matter Doctor but I wish to gather more information before I go any further into any of them. We must be able to fit a theory to facts not facts to a theory."

Leonard opened his mouth to say something more but a shout from Harvard interrupted him, "Commander, I've found something!"

Spock was instantly next to the ensign and McCoy idly wondered how he could get somewhere so quickly without looking hurried before shooting of to join them. Harvard was in the middle of explaining what he'd found when he got there, "I did several scans of this area before I noticed it, it's so small its no wonder we kept missing it."

McCoy broke into Harvard's explanation, "What was so small that we kept missing it?"

Harvard quickly answered, "A beaming signature sir."

"What's a beaming signature?"

Spock was seemingly absorbed in what was on Harvard's tricorder so the ensign explained, "It's a sort of disturbance left behind for a short while when you beam someone or something to or from a place. When you beam a target you effectively dismantle its molecules and send them somewhere else, this disrupts the molecules around the target for a short while which causes a slight distortion in the area around where the target has been or arrived in and that is a beaming signature. Usually our tricorders or the ship scanner can pick this up but in this case the signature was so small it barely registered on the tricorder and there was no way the Enterprise's scanners would have seen it."

Spock looked up from the tricorder, "You are indeed correct Mr Harvard, there is definite evidence that our crewmembers were beamed from this spot even though the signature is exceptionally weak, exemplary work Ensign."

"Thank you sir."

"Unfortunately this means that they could be anywhere on the planet or indeed beyond and as such we are unlikely to find anything to assist us within the immediate area. Doctor McCoy please inform the rest that we shall be returning to the ship, I shall request a beam-up presently."

Once back aboard the ship a meeting of the remainder of the Command Crew was held to try and decide what was to be done next. Hikaru gave a summary of what the constant scans had come up with, "So far we haven't seen anything out of the ordinary on the planet but we are studying each scan carefully to make sure there's nothing we've missed."

McCoy made a suggestion, "Is there some way to track where they went using that signature thing you found?"

Spock answered, "No Doctor McCoy, a beaming signature is merely a minor distortion left as a result of beaming, it soon vanishes and is limited to the surrounding area. Unlike a warp jump, beaming leaves no trail to follow that we know of or can detect. In order to find where they have been taken to we would need the device that beamed them."

"So what this means is that all we have is the knowledge they were beamed somewhere but we have no way of knowing or finding out where?"

Spock paused before answering, "Unfortunately yes Doctor."

There was a dejected silence from around the room and there was a small sniff from Nyota. Hikaru finally spoke, "So what do we do?"

There was another silence before Spock made to speak but he was interrupted, "Commander Spock, you are required on the bridge. We are being hailed by an unknown party."

The remaining Command Crew all shared a look before heading swiftly to the bridge.

PS-I know that it's more build-up but I should be getting to the main focus of the story soon. I checked and I found out what Scotty's rank is so that has now been changed.