A/N: Guess who is a Yeoman Second Class (E-5) now!? Busy with work, but I've been itching to get a new chapter posted. Enjoy!

I don't think we were out very long, as when I came too there wasn't any lingering groggy feeling. There was, however, the uncomfortable feeling of being wrapped up in something that was digging into my skin. I choked back a scream when I opened my eyes, staring straight down a good 15 feet or more at the floor below. I could see Zahra to my right and below, and Scotty right below. We were all tied up in strong cords, suspending us from something up above. The room was a lab of some sort, and judging by the sharp tools strewn about, this could not be good.

"Everyone okay?" Uhura asked, her voice coming from above me.

"A little tied up, but I'm good." Zahra remarked icily. There were grunts of agreement all around.

"This is why I never leave the Engineering section," Scotty said. "Although there is some quite interesting-looking technology scattered about this place… Do you think our host will let me have a closer look before he eats us?"

"He's not our host, Scotty- he's our new owner." Uhura snapped. "I heard him bargaining with the syndicate that ambushed us. They gave him a discount for buying five of us, and threw one in free. I just hope the Captain's okay."

"So, who was the free one?" I asked. Nobody answered, leaving an awkward silence. I guess my attempt at humor was not in the best taste at the moment. "Oh, it's me, I get it."

"I would assume they retained the captain- alive and in good condition- in order to facilitate the transfer of control of the Enterprise to themselves." Spock said, analyzing the situation as per usual. "The ship would be inoperable without the command codes in their possession."

There was the hair raising sound of something approaching, and it didn't sound human. The tapping sounds was a dead giveaway that whatever it was, I didn't want it getting any closer.

"Looks like our owner is coming back to check on us…" Zahra said.

The bile rose into my throat the second our owner walked, no, slithered in. The closest thing my mind could associate it with was a caterpillar, but jacked up on steroids, given multiple evil looking eyes, razor sharp appendages, and a huge scythe-like weapon that I feared would be used on us. I did not do insects, at all.

'Apologies, apologies.' The sound that came from it was riddled with clicking noises, but the universal translators picked it up regardless. 'Preparation takes time, preparation takes care. So honored you have joined me, so honored you are here.'

"I think you're mistaken. It wasn't our choice!" Scotty exclaimed.

'So eager to explore you, so eager to understand.'

I began to panic, fighting unsuccessfully against my bonds, doing nothing more than tighten them.

'Outside in, inside out.'

We were dead, we were dinner… or a science experiment. And we were…

Saved?

A phaser blast knocked the creature to the ground, his huge dissecting tool clattering aside. Eurydice stood over her kill, looking badass as per usual. Apparently someone had a change of heart.

"Eurydice!" Uhura snarled. "Here to finish us off yourself? How much will you get paid for it?"

Eurydice began shooting our bonds off one by one. I was not looking forward to the long drop to the ground, but extremely thrilled to still be alive.

"I don't blame you for the rage. I deserve it."

Hitting the ground knocked the wind out of me for a moment, but otherwise no harm done. I shook the ropes away.

"Now let's get out of here before I realize what a huge mistake I'm making."

Eurydice led us through the building and outside. Once we were in the clear, she beamed us out. I'd already experienced enough scary shit for one day, I didn't even have time to react to the fact that it looked like my entire body was being cut into shreds as I beamed out. Next second, we were standing on the bridge of a small, scrappy looking ship. This must be the ship she had towed us with.

Eurydice took her seat at the helm, leaving us to stand around and check out the technology that was so different from ours. This definitely had the look of a ship that had been salvaged, yet well loved. Eurydice wasn't the only one there- next to her was a pint sized version of herself.

"My daughter, Thalia." Eurydice said over her shoulder. The kid was pretty cute, sitting there like she ran the ship. And then I realized, she actually was helping to operate it. The ship approached the Enterprise, and Eurydice began to fire on the docking arms that held the Enterprise in place. Eurydice hailed our ship.

"Get ready to get moving." She instructed.

"Eurydice?" Kirk's voice came through the comms.

"And the rest of your crew! Won't be long before the syndicate security ships get here. As soon as the last arms are gone, fire up the impulse and get clear enough to warp!"

"More targets acquired, mama!" The little girl announced. She was adorable, and I had to quell my uterus for trying to convince me I wanted one- hell no!

"Good job, Thalia!" The last of the docking arms were blasted away. "You're clear!"

The Enterprise broke free, and we hovered over them.

"Lower shields so I can beam my people back!" Kirk ordered.

"Not until we're good and gone!" Eurydice replied. "Transferring warp coordinates to you now. We'll rendezvous at that location."

"Why should I trust you after what you did to us?"

"You shouldn't. So trust me for what I'm doing now."

We warped away, and the travel time gave Eurydice a chance to show us around her ship. I think Scotty and I were the most excited by the thing, everyone else could care less. Thalia took over from her mother, excitedly showing us the cargo-hold, and even the small galley. I had never wanted my own ship so bad. The trip was short lived, and soon we were rendezvoused with the Enterprise. Eurydice lowered the shields, and we stood by for Enterprise to beam us back.

I all but ran into Lawson's arms after we materialized in the transporter room, as he stood by with a medical team to check us over.

"Never let them take me on an away mission, ever again." I begged.

"What happened to you guys?"

Realizing none of us were hurt, the medical team stood down. Lawson walked with me as I left the transporter bay.

"Same thing that happened to the whole damn ship- we got sold. Then almost Eurydice decided last second that she felt guilty, so she got us out, but it was close."

Lawson laughed, and I could have killed him right then and there.

"Sorry, I know it's not funny… you're just really cute when you're angry."

I rolled my eyes.

"Get back to work, Lawson."

As tired as I was from this latest misadventure, the day was not over. I followed the team to the command conference room, where we would be stuck in a post-mission debrief for who knows how long. Kirk was already there, and visibly relieved to see us.

"Everyone alright?"

"None of us were harmed, Captain." Spock said.

"Good," Kirk had us all sit around the table. "Clearly that didn't all go as planned, but the good news is we have our dilithium. Zarah, any notes from the security side."

"A lot, actually, Captain, but I'm sure we're all on the same page here," She said. "Let's not hand over our phasers again. Ever."

"Roger that, Lieutenant. Danville, anything?"

I froze, not having anything to say. Well, I had a lot to say, but unlike Zarah I wasn't brave enough to speak up.

"No, sir. What she said."

"Very well. Scotty?"

"It was fun and all, Captain, but I really need t' get back to Engineering. She's been off warp for so long, I'm not comfortable taking off again until I check her over myself."

"If nobody else has anything to add, I think we're good here."

The consensus was no.

"Carry on, then. I need to have words with our 'savior'."

Zahra nabbed me before Scotty could take me off to Engineering, and I accompanied her down to the security office. So much had gone wrong on this away mission that she wanted to set some things straight.

"That shit can never happen again. If we were on any other ship, our Captain would be relieved of command." She sounded angrier than she let on. "I'm sorry that your first security detail ended up like that."

"I've been through worse, LT. And that was just being an engineer on away parties."

"It seems to be a trend. Don't get me wrong, I live for this stuff- but I want you to know to never let your guard down. Even if something seems like it's going to go by the book, and no sense of threat… anything can happen, as we experienced today."

"True that."

"Anyway, enough bitching, it's all over now," She handed me a PADD. "I just need you to sign off that you are mission complete, and have no injuries."

I signed my name, laughing that this was part of security protocol. I hated to think what the paperwork would look like if things went really wrong. Zahra cut me loose, and I took off straight to engineering. Tremblay wasn't scowling, so I figured things were going pretty well.

"Welcome back!" She said. "That certainly was a shit-show, but looks like we're back in business!"

"I'm surprised we actually got the dilithium."

"It's not the purest, but it's good enough. We're going to limp on back to Federation space and get some more."

Finally, these long weeks of drifting to certain eventual death, we were cruising on back to Starfleet territory. The ship was running smoothly, and spirits were higher than they had been. Of course, we engineers were always grouchy, but the atmosphere was far more normal.

It was only smooth sailing until the ship gave a sickening lurch and came to a dead stop. There was a collective expression of anger from every engineer in my section; it took all my restraint not to smash my panel with my bare hands. After the typical knee jerk reaction of everyone yelling at each other, trying to determine who fucked up this time, we determined the ship had dropped out of warp on its own accord. However, it wouldn't do that for no reason, there had to be something wrong. My first instinct was that the dilithium had been tainted, but a quick scan proved the crystals to be just fine. I had really been hoping for an easy shift, but that had been too much to expect.

"Holy shit, Danville- look at this!" Tremblay called from the station around the corner from me. I hurried over, and found her standing with her arm half way through the panel. I panicked, thinking she had punched through the glass, but realized there was no blood. She pulled her arm back, no blood or obvious injury, and then pushed it through again.

"What the-?" I tried to touch the panel, and my hand went through just as hers had, like there was nothing there.

"What do we do?" She asked.

"You're asking me?"

We all seemed to be experiencing the same phenomenon throughout engineering, and I was getting a little fed up with the comms coming in from my people in other sections. Nobody had any idea what was going on or what to do about it.

One moment I was completely focused on running a core diagnostic to at least try to get us moving again, and the next I was snapped out of my concentration by angry shouting. Ensign Perkins, who only moments before had been assisting me, was now backing away from LT Kyle, whom I had never seen look as angry as he did now. Tremblay joined me, looking concerned as to what the hell was happening.

"John?" Tremblay tried to get Lt. Kyle's attention, but he ignored her.

"If you can't do your job right, Ensign, then get the hell out of Engineering!" Kyle shouted.

"Lieutenant, what's the problem?" I asked, stepping in. Kyle gave me a look that could kill.

"You're supposed to keep your Ensign in line, Danville, maybe if you paid attention he wouldn't be in the fucking way!"

This was not the Kyle that I knew.

"Hey!" Tremblay snapped. "What is wrong with you?" She step towards him, grabbing his arm.

It happened pretty fast, and I think I reacted slower than I should have based primarily on the fact that I couldn't believe what I was seeing; Kyle pushed Tremblay with enough force to knock her off her feet, then proceeded to grab Ensign Perkins by the throat. My security training finally kicked in, and I jumped in to remove LT Kyle from my Ensign. He had him pressed against the panel, his grip so tight that Perkins' eyes were turning red as his face. I was significantly smaller than Kyle, so I went for the back of his knees, kicking so that he stumbled. It was enough to loosen his grip on Perkins, who was able to push Kyle's hands off of him and get out of the way. Kyle turned on me, grabbing my wrist in a death grip.

"Stand. Down." I ordered, as a mere warning.

He chose not to listen, so I did my job. It wasn't until his arm made a sickening snapping sound as I twisted it behind his back that he finally stopped struggling. That was just enough time for LTJG Wentworth and Ensign Blaise from security to show up and take over for me.

"What the hell just happened?" Tremblay asked, looking more pissed off than shaken.

"Third one in the past 20 minutes," Wentworth said as they took Kyle away.

Whatever was messing with the ship was messing with the crew as well, apparently. Passive, easy-going people don't usually turn into spitting rage machines over nothing. Perkins was coughing, but turned back to the panel to do his job.

"Can you get Perkins to sickbay?" Tremblay asked. She seemed pretty calm for having just been pushed down by her own boyfriend.

"Of course. Are you okay?"

"Fine. He didn't mean it." If she was angry or upset, it didn't show in her face.

"Come on, Ensign, let's get you checked out."

He followed me, but tried to get out of going as we walked to medical.

"I'm really alright, Lieutenant, I don't need to be seen."

"Standard protocol, Ensign. If you end up dying later on by some fluke, I get the blame as your supervisor. And I already broke a superior officer's arm today, so I don't need any more responsibility."

We didn't make it very far before we walked right into a full out riot; I counted five people total, two blue shirts and three red. I knew Lawson and Leslie, but the others I knew by face only.

"Ally, where the hell is security?" Lawson yelled, holding back a raging redshirt, who I knew I'd seen in a security meeting.

"You're fighting them right now." I said, unhelpfully.

"No shit!" He pulled out a hypo, and the crewman dropped to the floor.

One of the other security guys came after me, and I took him down with a direct fist to the solar plexus. Leslie knocked the other security guy down, blood spurting out of his nose, and then helped Lawson and the Med-tech by holding him back as they hypo sprayed him.

"All hands, this is the Captain." Kirks voice came over the ship-wide comms system. "In the interest of crew safety, I am instituting curfew protocols for all sections. All operations are limited to essential personnel, and you are to remain in your quarters between shifts. The curfew will be lifted as soon as we can guarantee the safety of all personnel. Kirk out."

I helped the boys get the two crewmen inside medical and strapped down on bio-beds. Lawson went to speak with McCoy, leaving me with an amused Leslie, the Med-Tech, and a slightly terrified Ensign.

"What the actual fuck is going on?" Leslie asked. "What happened to you, Perkins?"

"LT Kyle tried to choke him out, so I had to fight him. What did I miss here?"

"O'Neill attacked the Captain, and I was just leaving when those two started going at it."

Leslie's communicator chirped, and he was called away to another altercation, this time in Weapons. Lawson came back, looking frazzled.

"Well, McCoy conveniently sedated himself. Guess who's in charge right now and has no idea what the hell he's doing?"

"Sedated himself? On purpose?"

"Yes, I found a hypo of the strongest sedative we have next to him."

"Well that was stupid. We've got an entire ship full off people beating the shit out of eachother."

Spock came in, and Lawson brought him back to see McCoy. 10 minutes later, Captain Kirk joined them. I saw to Ensign Perkins myself, giving him an ice-pack to hold on his rapidly bruising neck. That was about the extent of my medical abilities, so he would have to wait until things calmed down to really get checked out.

"Danville, take this." Leslie handed me a freshly charged phase-pistol. "Don't be afraid to use it if anyone gets too rowdy. Something tells me we're going to have a lot more of these outbursts going on."

"Should we really have these out? What if I go crazy and turn it to kill?"

"I highly doubt you will, but the phasers in here are all locked to stun- the only person that can unlock it is the Captain himself."

"But what if he goes crazy and takes my gun-"

"Danville, just take the damn phaser. I'm leaving you to guard medical. I'll be nearby if you need backup."

No sooner had Leslie left that the red alert claxons were sounding. I jumped on a console, unsure whether this was a real red alert or someone screwing around. Everything appeared normal, but the entire ship was on lockdown. I saw Spock and Kirk run by in my peripherals, and knew I should check out what they were doing, but that's when Perkins started groaning in pain. He was doubled over.

"What's wrong?" I asked.

"Stomach," He groaned.

Not trusting my own medical judgement, I sought out Lawson. I found him at Dr. McCoy's bedside, talking to an Andorian medical technician.

"Alex, I need you!" I snapped.

"What's wrong?"

"It's Perkins."

He followed me back to Perkins' biobed, or at least where he had been.

"Perkins?" I called.

"Did he leave?"

"Doors are locked, he couldn't," He could have gone to the head, for all I cared. "Oh well, guess he's okay if he's on his feet."

"What was wrong with him?"

"I don't know, he just had sudden stomach pain or something, he was here for his neck-"

"Sudden pain? That's the first symptom."

I was going to question what he meant, but my answer came in the form of Perkins himself jumping onto Lawson, knocking him to the ground. I didn't want to shoot my poor ensign, after how badly his day was going already, but I had to do my job. All it took was a quick pulse from the pistol, and the struggling stopped.

"Alex?" I had to make sure I hadn't accidentally hit him.

"I'm good." He got to his feet. "As I was saying- that's how it starts, this Interphase sickness."

"Is it contagious?"

"It's environmental." He grabbed Perkins under the arms, and I got his feet, swinging him back onto the biobed. "If you get any pain, I'm knocking you out."

"Fair enough, I'll do the same to you."

The ship's computer voice came over the comms system, announcing imminent saucer separation. I nearly had a heart attack on the spot.

"Who the hell is controlling the ship?"

"Not the Captain, seeing as he's trapped in here too." Lawson said, unhelpfully.

"Saucer separation is a logistical nightmare, this better be a joke."

Kirk and Spock came running by, and the captain called me to join him. Lawson went with Spock.

"I need to get to the bridge through the Jeffries tubes- can I use you as my spotter?"

"Yes, sir."

"You're not going to go crazy on me?"

"Not that I'm aware of."

"Good. Keep it that way." We jogged to one of the access tubes, and Kirk removed the hatch.

"Captain, this is Uhura! Can you hear me?" The communications officer's voice came through Kirk's comm device.

"Yes! Where are you?"

"I'm on the bridge. I've stunned Sulu. I'm restoring your command controls and unlocking the turbolifts."

"Outstanding, Lieutenant. You've saved me from a long climb to the bridge. Stand by, Danville and I are on our way."

Kirk put the panel back, quite happily. I was glad not to have to entire the confined space as well.

"What's going on up there?" I asked as we ran for the turbolift.

"Sulu took over the whole damn bridge. And your boss took over the main hull and is trying to leave us behind."

"Great. So what's causing this?"

"We're trapped in interphase. There's a bunch of ships surrounding us in an energy web of some sort- no idea what they want."

The turbo lift doors opened, and we came out on a bridge full of mostly unconscious crew members in various states of coming to.

"Uhura, status!"

"Keenser's contacting us from Engineering. He's subdued Scotty and he's working on a plan to get the main hull free of the web."

I stood by, waiting for further instruction.

"Subdued Scotty? How did he manage that?" Kirk asked.

"Keenser's requesting that we transport all personnel from the main hull to the saucer section."

Kirk sat down at the tactical station.

"Why? And why isn't he telling us this over the comms?"

"Keenser communicates faster using the ship's systems than he does verbally," Uhura explained. I knew that from working with him for so long. "He wants us to try using a plasma blast to break the web, but he doesn't want to risk everyone inside the main hull."

"So we pack everyone into the main saucer section. But we don't know if it's even safe to beam through these energy filaments. We'll have to test it first. Uhura, you have the conn. Danville, come with me"

Waking up this morning, I didn't expect I'd be spending my day fighting my own shipmates or running around the ship with my Captain, yet here I was. We took the turbolift to the transporter room, and Kirk jumped into action.

"Lock onto Engineering, I'll go over."

"No, I can go, if it's unsuccessful you're a lot more important that me."

"That's not true. It's going to work. But thanks for the offer, Lieutenant."

I locked onto main engineering, and the readings showed Scotty and Keenser were the only ones left in there. The energy web didn't seem to affect the transporter.

"Ready when you are, captain."

He stood on the pad and nodded his head.

"Energize." He said.

I sent him over, and mentally crossed my fingers that he made it safely.

"Danville, I made it. Beam yourself to Transporter Room Two and start facilitating transfers onto the main saucer."

"Aye, sir."

I locked in the coordinates on a delayed self-transport, which I'd never performed but fortunately remembered how to do, and stepped on the pad. I hated transporting, but I didn't have time to freak out about it. Moments later, I was in the other transporter room. I jumped on the console, and opened up a hull-wide comm channel.

"All hands report to Transporter Room Two for evacuation," I announced. "All hands to Transporter Room Two."

The whole process went a lot smoother than I anticipated. There were only about 100 crewmembers still in the hull, and although most of them were still fighting or irrationally angry, I was able to get them to beam over in groups of five. Less than half an hour later, Tremblay and I were the only two left, save for Kirk, Scotty and Keenser in Engineering. She proceeded to launch a verbal tirade on me as I set the delay in, but followed me onto the pad regardless. It wasn't until we were on the other side, and Spock shoved a hypo into her neck, that she calmed down. I jumped on the console, hailing the bridge.

"Transporter room to bridge- main hull evacuation complete."

"Acknowledged, Danville." Uhura responded.

I turned to Tremblay, who was looking ashamed.

"Still think I'm an incompetent bitch?"

She laughed.

"Not the incompetent part, at least."

I unwillingly received the inoculation from Spock, although the interphase sickness didn't seem to affect me at all. Whatever Spock and Lawson had made up did seem to put me in an immediate state of calm, which was helpful.

The whole process of getting the saucer and main hull reconnected went faster and smoother than I expected. As soon as we were locked in, we broke away from the energy web that the armada of tiny ships had us in, and high tailed it out of there. Finally on our way to the nearest starbase, I was more than ready to call it a day- but first, I had to make some amends.

"Hey, killer." LT Kyle looked a little glazed over, probably high on pain meds as well as the inoculation. He was definitely not the raging lunatic I'd taken down earlier.

"How's your arm?"

"Alright, now that I'm high as a kite." He laughed. "Leah probably doesn't want to speak to me anytime soon, does she?"

"She will. It's not your fault that went down. Perkins, however… I think you scared him away from Starfleet forever. And then I stunned him."

"He'll get over it. Or used to it, at least. Did it affect you at all?"

"No, not a bit. But I was too busy breaking up fights to even notice."

Tremblay walked up, and Kyle stiffened. She didn't look mad, so I figured it was safe to leave them alone. I'd already hurt him enough for the day, and anything she had to say was between them. I tried to make my exit, but Lawson caught up to me, following me into the turbolift.

"Nice work today," He said, as we rode the lift to the deck my quarters were on. "Although you could have gone easy on some of those guys back there."

"They were attacking me. It's not my job to 'go easy'."

"You broke LT Kyle's arm in two places."

"I may have gotten a little excited."

The lift opened to my deck, and I hurried off. Lawson followed. I glanced at him over my shoulder as I accessed my keypad.

"I'm going straight to bed," I told him, smirking.

"That's good, you should rest."

I went in, and he lurked outside in the corridor. I had a feeling he wasn't going to leave anytime soon.

"Dammit, get in here." I grabbed the front of his uniform shirt, pulling him into the room and pulling it over his head in one fell swoop. I pushed him onto the bed, surprised at my own level of force. He pulled me down with him.

"Whatever training you're doing in security… keep it up." He laughed.

"A little less talk, a little more action, Doctor."

A/N: Please review, I love hearing from you all!