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48 hours after Impala's departure…

"Keptin," a very timid Russian navigation officer ventured as he slipped into the infirmary, trying to ignore the death-glare levelled at his head via the CMO.

"What is it, Mr. Chekov?"

"Ser, IO Walker wishes to come aboard."

"What? Why?"

"He vill not say, ser."

Kirk glanced over at his interim first officer, who shrugged over their board of 3-D checkers. "The man's a career parasite. Whatever he's here for, it can't be good," Sam volunteered, brilliant black eye faded to greenish bruising. He looked much better, ribs healing nicely, cuts sealed up, drug-free. McCoy had had a hard time of making sure the experimental drugs were flushed from both Kirk and Sam's systems. He was still puzzling out how exactly Kirk had avoided a catastrophic anaphylactic episode with all the odd agents swimming around in his bloodstream.

"Well, First Officer Winchester, care to join me in this little jaunt?"

"Certainly, Captain Kirk."

Dr. McCoy was not happy about it but couldn't really protest after Sam very sincerely promised to make sure that Captain Kirk didn't strain himself and absolutely they'd come back to the infirmary right away if Sam noticed anything strange in himself or Captain Kirk.

So the infirmary doors swished shut behind them and Kirk turned to Sam in no slight awe. "You have strange and effective persuasive powers, my friend."

Sam grinned, bright and blindingly (deceptively) innocent.

Intelligence Officer Gordon Walker was very self-important, dapper and annoying. He could be very charming, but only when he stood to gain something. Thus, when Kirk walked in on the IO trying to schmooze one of Kirk's shyer scientists and making her very uncomfortable, the captain had to tamp down the strong urge to space the man. No one messed with his crew, especially IO. And Walker couldn't want anything good from the ensign and Kirk was pretty sure she knew it. "Ensign O'Malley," Kirk barked and she snapped to relieved attention. "I believe the rest of your experiment on minor transporter anomalies can be conducted in the lab. Dismissed."

She practically skittered out of the room after a quick liberated salute as Kirk turned an irritated frown on the IO. "I assume you have a reason for being here?" he asked coldly. Sam was impressed with Kirk's restraint. Dean would have just told the bastard to take his smarmy ass back up onto the transporter pad and do the world a favour by losing his transporter pattern in the buffer on his way back.

Walker handed over a small PADD with a scowl and rather rudely asked "Was that really necessary? Winchester, come on." There was a pause.

"Come on what?" Sam asked curiously.

"You're not feeling a change of heart?"

"About what, exactly?" Sam demanded, very confused.

"Your…position."

Sam raised a bewildered eyebrow. "I'm heading back to the Impala as soon as we meet up with her, so no. The Enterprise position is only temporary."

Walker looked startled, which was more than a little odd, causing Kirk to briefly glance up at Walker as Sam loomed over his shoulder, confused and irritated with the IO. Walker opened his mouth again and Sam cut him off with no room for disagreement. "You were attempting to interfere with the workings of a Starfleet ship. And it is the prerogative of the captain to know why you are aboard his ship. No change of heart or position is necessary."

After that, Walker silently fidgeted until Kirk handed the PADD over to Sam, who skipped through its contents quickly. His eyebrows knit in a frown. "This is accurate?" Sam demanded.

Walker bristled in indignation. "Of course it's accurate."

"If you'll excuse us," Sam almost blurted and tipped a head towards the door. Obligingly, Kirk stepped outside. Immediately words spilled from the first officer.

"Sir, Dean and Spock wouldn't do this. They were pissed but in control when they left and they wouldn't lose that advantage. Additionally, the Impala's crew would have stopped them." Sam's earnest face had Kirk blinking. He thought he had seen the phenomena known as puppy-eyes prior to this point.

Obviously he was mistaken.

He understood the danger now because Sam Winchester was gazing worriedly at Kirk with all his might, earnestness in every line of his body. The expression should have been ridiculous on a man of Sam's size, experience and calibre but managed to express itself appropriately as genuine, heart-felt concern and suddenly Kirk wanted to help Sam fix the problem (not that he was going to ignore it in the first place – Dean and Spock were his friends).

Rubbing his face with his hands, Kirk bought himself a little time to formulate his thoughts, since his brain was racing furiously. "Of course they wouldn't do something this stupid," he mumbled. "Winchester said he'd been contacted by IO and they were being helpful, he was already suspicious of them. It makes no sense that they'd disintegrate another Miranda-class ship unprovoked. There's no reason for it. Yet this information," tapping the PADD, "says they have definitive proof. I find it very convenient that there were no eye-witness survivors, yet they managed to get this nice little clip of the Impala firing upon an ally. I totally trust Dean and Spock over that IO bastard. Still, we can't ignore the 'evidence' he's presented. If it's true, we definitely do not have the whole story and we need to get it before the Impala gets herself into even more hot water. If it's not true, there is a massive leak in IO and/or Walker is the leak and we have him aboard our ship where he can do less damage. If he's not the leak, we need to find it."

Sam's big shoulders collapsed in on themselves with relief and Kirk scoffed. "You seriously thought I'd hang both of them out to dry?"

"What? No! I just…I worry. About everything. It's what I do. It drives Dean nuts."

Kirk grinned. "Well, don't. Worry, that is. I have a fantastic plan."

"Oh hell."

Kirk laughed aloud. It was kind of fun to have a first officer who bluntly voiced what Spock usually communicated through almost invisible facial movements.

At the same time…

"Well isn't this just peachy."

"I do not believe this situation resembles fruit, captain."

Dean snorted in amusement. Anyone who said Spock didn't have a sense of humour had clearly misplaced their own funny bone. Spock's humour was dry and very subtle, definitely less obvious than Sam's, but quite healthy and very sharp.

"Any leads on where she might have gone on the planet?"

"No sir."

"Ugh. Great. All we have is an empty, illegal shuttle and a toasted Miranda-class ship with no survivors. Romulan work, judging from the disruptor pattern, am I right Spock?"

"You are correct, captain." And there was no way to get Spock to call him Dean while they were on duty. Captain, captain, captain, it was enough to drive a man nuts.

They were orbiting above a Starfleet prison planet that produced raw ore, hiding from both Starfleet and enemies behind several mined barges and transport ships littering space, meant to act as a final line of defence. Enemies wouldn't dare slip in after the Impala to chase her because Castiel was a piloting wizard and that was the only reason they were still in one piece.

More to the point, the prison planet wasn't answering hails. It was suspicious as hell, especially considering that Dr. Gain had made a beeline for this particular planet, not bothering (or knowing how) to hide her trail. So the Impala was lurking, weighing whether or not to go in guns blazing, wait an extra twenty four hours for the Enterprise to show up with more men and bigger weapons or just plain wait to see if bigger fish than Dr. Gain showed up to collect their wayward scientist.

The decision was made for them.

"Sir! Incoming Romulan warbird!"

"Son of a bitch! Shields up, red alert!"

Enterprise

"Ser, de Impala said dey vould be vaiting for us at Theta 34-C, de prison planet."

Kirk scowled at the view screen, ignoring the IO gremlin lurking over his shoulder. Cupcake had already sent a discreet report over, stating that yes, Walker was wearing a wire and Security could jam it at any time. If Security couldn't jam it, an irritated Sam definitely would.

"All right. Sulu, lay in a course for Theta 34-C at warp 7. ETA?"

"Three hours, sir."

"Excellent. You have the conn. Winchester, with me. Walker, stay put and don't touch anything."

Safely inside his ready room, Kirk flipped on the little jammer Cupcake had thoughtfully left on the table. "I can't assign Chekov to hack Walker's recent activities because that would be far too obvious – he's the first person any investigation would seize. Can you look into it?"

Sam grinned with no small amount of evil anticipation. "I'm a scientist. Research is my specialty."

"Excellent. You have three hours. Find me something that can put him in the brig. If not, we'll have to go with my fantastic idea."

"Got it."

Two and a half hours later…

Researching Walker was almost too easy. The man clearly had an inflated opinion of his master spy abilities because Sam's decent (but not Chekov/Ash-level) hacking skills had made quick work of his defenses, quickly finding a 'hidden' history with a planet renowned for its xenophobia. Sam and Dean had thought Gain's escape from Starfleet inquiry had been a bit suspect and now Sam was staring at proof. Walker didn't like anyone that wasn't human and he was willing to go to very great lengths to ensure humanity ruled the galaxy. "Geez, he's not even a good spy," Sam grumbled, sending the information to Kirk's PADD. "Better make sure he's still on the ship."

Hoisting himself out of his chair, Sam paused as his ribs reminded him he was still putting himself back together. Padding off to Walker's assigned quarters, Sam reminded his ribs that he had work to do, so they could get over it.

Walker wasn't in his quarters and neither was his Enterprise security shadow. "Computer, locate Lieutenant Cutler."

"Lieutenant Cutler is in the shuttle bay."

What the hell? Sam tapped his comm. "Cutler, come in please."

Nothing.

Shit.

"Captain, we may have a problem," Sam snapped, barrelling for the shuttle bay at top speed.

"Unauthorized shuttle bay depressurization. Unauthorized shuttle bay depressurization." The claxons began whooping and Sam swore again, picking up the pace. If Cutler was in the bay when Walker opened the force field, he would be dead.

Luckily, the lieutenant was alive, slumped just inside the sealed double doors leading in with a rather large knot on his head bleeding freely and on closer inspection, a tiny dart sticking out of his hand.

Sulu and Chekov would stop Walker and the shuttle. "Cutler. Cutler, wake up." Sam tapped the man's face gently. "Cutler, talk to me. Medic!" he bellowed and an ensign working around the corner jumped to it, clearly aghast that she hadn't noticed a thing.

The lieutenant groaned. "Sir?" he slurred. "Sir, Walker, he, he – "

"I know Cutler. He got you with a sedative and clocked you over the head. It's not your fault. Chekov and Sulu are chasing him down now."

Cutler grabbed Sam's wrist, stopping the first officer from prodding the bump "No sir, he took something from the labs with him."

Sam blinked. "Which lab?"

"He didn't say."

"What?" Sam was confused.

"He said since the doctor had failed at messing with your head, he was going to just take the virus and said thanks for enabling him. I didn't let him see or do anything, though it is possible he duped me or the lieutenant-commander I relieved. He's IO after all. He seemed pretty proud of himself."

"Messing with my head?" Sam paused. The weirdo conversation in the transporter room. Some of those words must have been a key to snap the brainwashing into place. Sam hadn't even noticed, but now that he thought about it, Walker was definitely expecting Sam to react in a certain manner. Ha. It'd take more than drugs to convince him to kill his brother and turn against Starfleet. Some witch and her IO dog had no chance. Back on topic. "The virus?" Sam tapped his comm again. "Kirk, did you keep anything on that virus from the Tamir incident?"

"No," Kirk replied shortly. "Busy at the moment, Winchester. Chasing this asshole. Call back in a minute." The medic team arrived and Sam saw Cutler off, still very confused. Thanks for the virus?

Running a quick search of the uber-organized science department turned up one item from the Enterprise's first mission with the Impala. Spock had kept a PADD on antidotes to examine and possibly produce but hadn't gotten around to actually studying the thing. Thankfully, the Enterprise's first officer kept copies of everything and Sam was soon skipping through the work, looking for something specific.

"Shit," he realized quickly.

"What?" Kirk demanded from behind him. "Walker got away, slippery bastard. Dodged into an asteroid belt that even the Impala wouldn't brave. We could send shuttles after him, but our sensors would be blind and unless you have something dire, it's not worth it."

Sam laughed bleakly. "I have something dire. Jim, this little book on antidotes that Spock kept? It's Gain's original record of the virus in code. She was paranoid, probably planned for something like the Starfleet inquiry. We didn't manage to eradicate her work and now the virus is out. Walker's got the whole damned formula. All she has to do is spend twenty minutes tweaking the thing in a lab and our current antidotes are useless. As soon as they meet up, it's in production again. Both Gain and Walker have reason to be pissed at the entire galaxy by this point – they could target the Federation, Romulans, Klingons, you name it. If they do it right, they could turn all of us on each other."

Kirk paced for a minute. "Uhura, hail the Impala."

Pause.

"Uhura?"

"Sir, I can't connect with the Impala! She's not responding to our calls!"

The captain and first officer exchanged a worried glance and bolted for the bridge.

Theta 34-C – twenty minutes later…

Kirk had pushed his ship to her considerable limits to reach Theta 34-C as fast as possible.

They dropped out of warp and Sam had to swallow hard. A debris field approximately the mass of the Impala scattered space in front of them and a hulking Romulan war bird floated menacingly above the field of triumph.

"Hail that ship," Kirk gritted out. "Red alert."

"Sir," Sam murmured in his taming-Dean voice, just as worried as the captain. But if Kirk went in guns blazing, the Romulans would respond in kind and they wouldn't get anywhere at all – no information, only disruptor fire.

"Understood, Commander," Kirk replied tightly as his face smoothed out. "Run me a scan and tell me if that's the Impala."

Sam's fingers flew over his console and when the well-tuned machine spit out sympathetic results a second later, Sam almost fell out of his chair in thankful disbelief. Damn tricky, tricky Spock and his devious big brother. That was too close for comfort. He shook his head at the captain, whose shoulders loosened just that bit, in time to change his face from force-frozen neutral to mildly irritated.

The Romulan commander looked highly pleased with himself, but almost everyone on the bridge relaxed, even those who had missed the little science officer-captain exchange. The knots on the commander's uniform were that of a milk-mission captain. Sam had to stifle a chuckle at the pretentious Romulan as Chekov and Sulu slumped from battle-ready to simple at-attention. Uhura almost sighed in relief. The Romulan ship was nice and new, so new that everyone could practically smell the leather squeaking under the pilots' derrières. Green, green as the Enterprise's crew had been for all of an hour before the Narada beat it out of them.

This Romulan ship couldn't have taken one of the Impala's shuttles, let alone Dean, Spock and the Impala in a pissy mood.

Still, the Romulan gloated with sharp, white teeth and bright, excited eyes. "I destroyed the Impala!" The commander looked inordinately pleased with himself.

Kirk was appropriately incredulous, expressing the entire bridge crew's opinion. "Bullshit."