A/N: I didn't edit this one as thoroughly as I did the previous two, so if there's any really big screw ups, please kindly let me know and I'll fix it...
Why did I rush the editing procccess, you ask? Well, I was a bit busy today and I really wanted to get this posted because it IS Benedict's birthday (I still have half an hour here in the US...where I live, anyway)! Yea!

That reminds me, it looks like I'll be able to update on Fridays since I feel that's a day that's not so busy for me...so y'all can look forward to that. LOL.

Enjoy the chapter!

Less than an hour later, Lash had a fairly good idea of why Khan set a bomb to go off in the Archives: revenge. If she weren't stuck under lock and key, so-to-speak, she would have gone off to something like that as well.

One of Lash's monitor's pinged and she looked up. There was a message sent to all senior command of all the vessels in the Federation calling them to an immediate, emergency meeting to discuss the bombing and plan the next step.

Lash looked out of her window towards HQ, her brow furrowed. "What do you have planned?" She muttered to herself as she turned back to her monitors.

A few minutes later, as she was digging for some more information on Thomas Harewood, hoping she could get some answers from that train of thought, she saw a flash out light out of the corner of her eye. Whipping her head towards her window, she saw a ship firing rounds into the room she knew was where the Captains' meeting was being held. Standing, she went over to the window, frowning, before her illusive answers filed into her brain. Eyes widening, she quickly grabbed her boots and put them on, then sprinted out of her room and down the apartment complex.

It was Khan. It had to be Khan. From what Lash could, tell revenge was on his mind and with his mind being so sharp, he would have known the steps Starfleet would take when an emergency surfaced: All Captains and First Officers gathered. He was going to kill as many birds with one stone as possible.

Sprinting as hard as she could, Lash made her way across Starfleet property to HQ and ran to the top floors. Through the windows, she could see the back of a small ship firing into the conference room. She stopped as she saw rounds heading towards the ship. Frowning, she saw someone (squinting, she could make out the form of James Kirk) firing a gun, then made her way towards him when he stopped firing.

As she rounded the last corner, she watched as Kirk threw the gun towards the ship. Lash noticed the gun was attached to a tether. Following the line, she realized Kirk was poorly attempting to bring down the ship with an emergency fire hose attached to the wall. As she watched the ship suck up the gun and clog the intake, the hose became taught and eventually pulled the whole emergency system out of the wall, which also got sucked up in the intake, causing it to choke and fail.

Heart in her throat, Lash watched the ship go into a tailspin. From her spot, she could just barely make out the broad-shouldered form of Khan in the pilot's seat. With a gasp she could only feel, since it was still so loud from the damage and the ship, she stared as, while still in the tailspin, Khan transported out of the ship. She was disappointed; once again, she was one step behind him.

Confusion consumed her. How could he possibly transport out of there? She needed to get back to her apartment to figure this out...and fast before someone saw her hanging around. She turned to head to the nearest flight of stairs.

"Hey!" She heard from behind her.

Stopping, she silently cursed, then spun around slapping a look of surprise, confusion, and worry on her face and looked for whoever called out to her. She saw that it was a member of the security team.

"We need some help over here." He called to her.

"I'm not trained." She called back, trying to find a feasible excuse to get the hell out of there so she could research.

"You can help move people." He turned and went to direct someone else.

With a huff, Lash walked back towards the damaged conference room, then carefully schooled her features as she encountered people.

Walking as fast as she could, she helped the injured stand and get out of the more damaged areas. If they couldn't stand for whatever reason, she would drag them, using only about half of her strength. Marcus warned her on her first full day awake that she shouldn't use her physical strength to the maximum. It would raise suspicion that Marcus didn't want.

Speak of the devil...

Lash had helped a woman sit down against a wall away from harm and was wiping her hands on her now ruined trousers when she saw Marcus limp around the corner of the conference room. He spotted her immediately and frowned; he hobbled over to her.

"What are you doing here?" He growled lowly at her as he grabbed her upper arm. He directed them away from the crowd of people.

"You know why." She growled back, trying to snag her arm out of Marcus' tight grip.

They stopped at the top of the stairwell. "Get back to your apartment. I want to know how he transported out of here and where he went." He instructed her as he finally released her arm, only to shove her towards the stairs.

Turning around and glaring at the Admiral, Lash watched him turn and hobble back to the wreckage. Once he was out of sight, she ran down the stairs and back to her apartment.

In her apartment, Lash immediately went to her PADDs and monitors. She had one monitor search for anything on Khan, another she searched for new transport capabilities, and one other she set up to keep an eye on Marcus' personal and Starfleet messages. She let the systems do their work while she stripped down; she needed to clear her head and the only way, currently, that she could do that was with a cooling shower.

Fifteen minutes later, Lash stepped out of her shower and dressed in loose night clothes. She then planted herself in front of her monitors, ready to stay there the whole night, until they picked up something. She had gotten enough sleep in the past two hundred years. She could go one night without it.

It was mid-morning the next day when Lash got up from her chair to get a glass of water. When she returned, two of her monitors pinged. The more pressing of the two was a transcript of a communication between Kirk and someone her systems recognized as Commander Spock. It read:

Kirk: Yeah.

Spock: Commander. Mr. Scott has found something in the wreckage of Harrison's ship. He has asked to see us right away.

Lash frowned, then picked up one of her PADDs and set it to search for Mr. Scott in relation to Kirk and Spock. While the PADD searched, she looked at the other monitor that pinged. It found an equation for trans-warp beam capabilities...and a Mr. Montgomery 'Scotty' Scott came up with the equation. He was also linked to Kirk and Spock via the USS Enterprise.

Eyes widening, Lash quickly came to the conclusion that Khan used Mr. Scott's trans-warp equation to vessel or planet hop. Which vessel or planet he went to, she didn't know...at the moment. She set another PADD to search and find where Khan had jumped to. She hoped she could at least locate the device that Khan had used and track him from there.

Once the PADD was set up, Lash quickly rummaged through her closet to find a clean pair of gray trousers and a black, crew-neck Starfleet shirt. After she hastily put the clothing on, she wound her hair up into a tight bun, grabbed the searching PADD, and ran out of her apartment. She had to find this Mr. Scott and ask him a few questions.

On her way down the turbo lift, she set another search to look for Kirk's current location. If she found Kirk, she'd find Scott. It was only logical. Her PADD pinged, informing her that it found Kirk. He had stopped outside the building to Marcus' office. The turbo lift stopped and Lash ran out. She headed for Marcus' office, every once in a while looking down at the PADD to make sure Kirk didn't go anywhere.

Lash was just about to run up the stairs that would lead her to the office when she looked at the tablet. It showed that Kirk was moving...and he was moving towards Marcus. Thinking quick, Lash changed her direction and ran around the building to a back door. The door lead to a passage that Marcus had built out of paranoia; it led from the side of the wall behind his desk to the outside of the building. He had it so that in some rare instance he ever felt threatened, he could make a quick escape.

She came to the hidden door in the office and popped it open a sliver. Enough so she could hear what was being said beyond. She heard Marcus talking to his conference table full of people. Looking down at her PADD once again, Lash saw that Kirk was running into the office at that moment. Holding the PADD down, she listened carefully for Kirk to announce himself.

"Sir, he's not on Earth. He's on Kronos, sir." Kirk said, catching his breath. "I request my position to be reinstated and permission to go after him, sir."

Lash frowned. Kronos? Why Kronos? The more she thought, the more she missed of their conversation. Of course! Try to start a war with the Klingons. If Khan succeeded in that, a war would attempt to kill off most of Starfleet...and they would be distracted enough to leave Khan alone to get our crew and get as far away from here as possible. Lash tuned back into the conversation when Marcus revealed Section 31 to Kirk. They spoke briefly of Pike's death the previous day before Marcus gave the okay to track down Khan. He told Kirk to "take him out and haul ass". This made Lash irate. She waited a few moments for Kirk to walk out of the office, then she opened the door wider, stepped through it, and slammed it shut. She stomped around the corner to see Marcus, standing behind his desk, watching her with mild shock before he glared at her.

"I'm going after him." She said, clenching her fists so tight, she could feel her nails break through the skin of her palm on one hand and the PADD starting to give way in the other.

"Yeah, I figured you would." Marcus said casually, sitting back in his chair. "That's why I'm transferring," he used air quotes around 'transferring', "you onto the Enterprise."

Lash stood in front of the desk in shock. "What?" She asked, lifting an eyebrow, sensing an ulterior motive behind him agreeing so easily.

Marcus grinned like the cat that ate the canary. "You'll get to see Khan...you just have to do something for me while you're being transported to him." He explained. "Kirk's not going to kill him; he'll follow Starfleet regulation. He's too soft, too compassionate, so don't worry about that."

"Then what do you want me to do?" Lash asked, relaxing her stance slightly.

"Cripple the Enterprise close to Kronos." He explained briefly.

Lash stared at him for several seconds, not entirely understanding why. Then she thought of what Khan was probably planning. "You want to start a war with the Klingons?" she said, aghast.

"I need to test out my new ship somehow. Which Khan designed for me, by the way." He smirked. "Might as well use the Enterprise as bait."

Lash could not believe what she was hearing. Almost. This was Marcus. The man who woke her and Khan up from centuries of sleep to blackmail them into doing his dirty work.

"I know you have a stash of costumes in your apartment. Grab a red operations shirt and whatever else you want to take along, then head to the shuttle bay. Get on one of the shuttles heading to the station and get on the Enterprise." Marcus leaned forward and tapped a few places on his screen as he continued. "I've just sent your transfer papers. You'll have no problem getting on board." He leaned back to look at Lash. "When you know the ship is close enough to Kronos to reach by shuttle, but still be unnoticeable to the Klingons, knock it out of warp. I've made you study that ship for a reason and I know you can disable it."

"Well, I would say thank you, but we both know I really won't mean it." Lash glanced down at her PADD as it pinged, telling her it finished trying to locate Khan...not that she needed the information anymore. "Anything else, sir?" She asked sarcastically.

Marcus was silent a moment as he watched the woman in front of him closely. "Those torpedoes I'm giving to Kirk? Khan developed them. There are exactly seventy-one of them." Marcus steepled his fingers in front of his face as he witnessed Lash connect the dots.

Lash gasped. "Our crew." She whispered, eyes wide and horrified. "But how...?"

Marcus nodded. "Khan was trying to smuggle them out from under my nose, hiding them in the torpedoes and hoping he could get them on a ship and safely into space. I found them and I will use them against him—you—if I have to."

Blackmail. Lash thought. Curse the little shit who thought of it!

She sighed. "Fine. I'll do it." She turned to leave the office (and Marcus) behind.

"One more thing, Lash." Marcus sneered at her back. Lash paused as she listened. "If you manage to come back alive, just remember: there will be consequences for aligning yourself with him."

Lash looked back over her shoulder and curled her lip in disgust. "Of course." She snarled, and walked out of the office.

A/N: Rut row, Shaggy!
I never said Lash was 'good'. She gets to be devilish in her own ways, too...even if she is doing it because of Marcus; she'll get to do things her way, though.

If you could leave a [kind] review, that'd be awesome.

Thanks to all who have read, reviewed, favored, and alerted!