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Suspension
Stardate 2258.42
Space had a tendency to be anything but exciting. It ranged on and on for parsecs outside her viewport. Just a bleak reminder of the final frontier coming to a close. She made a habit of covering it with a folding screen or hanging a gauzy bit of voile in every room she was allotted for quarters.
Said voile, ironically, turned out to be a rather bad idea once the USS Revere, Federation Scout-class, NCC-595 docked alongside an antiquated sleeper ship. She continued on for some hours with rewiring a bit of mainframe from the subspace network console, gazing longingly across her workspace at the piece her fingers had been itching to breathe some life back into. Completely oblivious.
Their current mission objective had been achieved with a scouting run to the edge of interstellar space between two quadrants. Romulan and Federation Space. The literal "nothing" as she termed it.
Then the subspace communication relay had gone offline in a dramatic blaze of sparks just after she'd finished recalibrating the short-range sensor arrays. She had a sinking suspicion that the two incidents were related.
Getting along marginally well with the crew, she specialized mostly in control systems for common Federation starships. Useful enough to crew an auxiliary support role when needed, but her official designation was termed "historian" by the brass. Said brass had the habit of tucking her away like a musty encyclopedia on these far-ranging vessels. The real talent was kept closer to home.
Some, not all, scoffed behind her back when she sat down in the mess at odd hours. She kept to herself, eyes down as she chewed gamely on tasteless imitation beef and dehydrated vegetables. The "walking anachronisms" was what most Starfleet officers called historians. Probably the first to get sacked when the fleet needed a good culling to streamline the ranks. The historians formed a veritable enclave, secular from the bulk of Starfleet, both in the academy and in active duty roles.
Historians keep to other historians was her creed. Captains regularly grumbled under their breaths about "finally getting use out of her" when the situation did call for her expertise.
She could count those occasions on one hand since her graduation from the Academy nearly a decade ago.
It was therefore an unexpected occurrence when the ship's comm whistled into life overhead.
"Attention. The following personnel report to the transporter room. Engineering Officer Thackeray and Lieutenant McGivers. Acknowledge," came the tinny voice of the first officer.
"McGivers – on my way," her voice came out strong and clear, resignation in her tone as she set aside the scorched wires and rounded a few easels to face her door. Running on stale coffee and a few hours of snatched sleep she caught two days ago did not do wonders for her manners.
She met with her colleagues, gently correcting the captain of the Revere when he mispronounced her name. Couldn't be mad with him – he'd only seen her a handful of times since she was assigned to the Revere six months ago. Admiral Marcus, the top brass that'd embarked with them when they left Romulan space, was standing ready. They went through a cursory briefing – unidentified vessel, possibly an old sleeper ship of unknown origin. That's where she came in.
Marcus gave her the slightest of nods as she joined the engineering officer and medical officer on the platform, standing ready as their party of five was prepping to be beamed over.
The faint tingle of energy coursed through her, the sterile scent of the Revere replaced with the even cleaner smell of the other vessel. The captain had the sense to defer all of his power to Admiral Marcus, scraping and verbally genuflecting as they made their way through the dimly lit corridors of the sleeper ship.
It was just beginning to feel habitable – the walls of steel were barely above freezing as she coasted a finger over them.
"Atomic powered?" she postulated to the engineering officer. Thackeray, she recalled his name, nodding in the affirmative.
"Ancient – twentieth century. At least."
"I've only seen photographs of these types – sleeper ships were the primary mode of transport during that era until faster methods of interstellar travel were developed in 2018. It would take years to get from one planet to the next on these," she said to herself, absently noting that Marcus absorbed the information with keen interest.
The rest continued to fumble around the corridors, peering into the capsules and ancient interfaces. She was consulting with the engineering officer when the medical officer gave a shout. Her heart lurched into her throat. This place had all the ghoulish charm of a Mayan crypt with its honeycombed walls and niches laden with cryopods.
But one was showing signs of increased respiration. She and Thackeray joined the rest by the cryopod to get a look.
Did Howard Carter have a similar numbness to his body when he first wedged himself into that gloom so many centuries ago? Did the tomb swallow his imagination whole with its very significance before he clapped eyes on the sarcophagus of his idol?
Emotion swamped her as she examined the man beneath the panes of tempered glass, crouching low to peer through to the form beneath. Synthetic material clothed him from neck to heel, dark fabric without any indicative insignia. But the face wasn't one she could forget.
I could cut myself on those cheekbones.
"Pardon?" asked Thackeray. Her cheeks flamed and she mumbled a quick "nothing" before resuming her pursual of the man. Superior bone structure notwithstanding, the man was lean and long. Broad shoulders. Tapered waist – perhaps a bit malnourished with some lost muscle mass from a few hundred years wasted in suspension. Long legs and feet.
She cataloged every detail with clinical efficiency. A blunter, more honest part of her brain thought she paid this man more of a personal interest than a professional one. She gave that part of her brain the boot and stood up, busying herself with straightening her skirt as her practiced composure fell neatly back into place.
No words were required. She was simply the fact checker once more. The reference, the encyclopedia – her face was a smooth mask of indifference but the admiral must've rooted out the crack in it. The excitement she couldn't will out of her eyes was perhaps the final nail in the coffin.
It was all the affirmation Marcus required. He looked her square in the eye and then back at the prone man in cryostasis. Suspended in time.
When Carter was asked if he had seen anything of value in his boy king's tomb he had replied, "Yes, wonderful things."
She was bereft of words that did the situation justice. Far too preoccupied with the covetous look Marcus was directing at the prone man's form, the lieutenant failed to have a single moment of satisfaction for aiding in the rediscovery of Khan Noonien Singh.
They were en route to Earth – home, she thought – when she was finally permitted access to sickbay. He was lounging in a biobed with a PADD when she came into the room, empty save for him. They'd somehow gotten him into scrubs in an unflattering shade of algae green. Monitors bleeped out a steady cadence of statistical readouts. Vitals and such – phenomenally healthy vitals.
Of all the practiced introductions she could've breezed through, her mind picked the least flattering and ran with it.
"You nearly had me thrown out of university," she blurted out as she approached his berth.
His chin veered to the right to face her. Any hope of forming an articulate thought went up in smoke when his eyes pinned her. Blue, green, grey – one of those silly kaleidoscopes has a more definitive color than this man's eyes. The old video feeds and aging printed media of his likeness did not do him justice.
"Mr. Singh," she hedged, unsure of the proper form of address. All of the histories agreed that he was practically royalty when he'd left Earth.
"Khan, please," he rasped, his voice scratchy from disuse.
Christ.
Strike two. None of the damn video feeds or recordings of his addresses and myriad speeches prepared her for this. The voice was a physical presence in the room, exceeding him while still being him in a long, low pitch.
"Ship's historian, Lieutenant-" she rushed out before he cut in.
"Marla McGuviers," he finished smoothly for her. He gave the PADD in his hands a pointed look before powering it down with a cursory flick of his fingers. "I am told you participated in my rediscovery."
"I'm afraid I wasn't a great help," she put it bluntly, leveling her chin and squaring off her shoulders.
He veered the conversation with a simple tilt of his head, his mouth firming into a sinuous line. "I confess. Out of all the information I've garnered from reading about your starships they have one glaringly absent luxury not mentioned in the manuals."
"I'm not quite comprehending what you're getting at, sir." The words sounded huffy to her ears just as they lifted off of her tongue.
"A beautiful woman, of course," he rejoined.
Blood rushed to her face. His eyes never left her own, a smile best termed as "lazy" lifting the corners of his mouth. A fringe of dark hair fell into his eyes, compelling him to lift a hand to smooth it back. Khan motioned to the other biobed in the bay. She sunk down onto the crisply folded sheets, palms sweating from nerves. Smoothing her hands over the skirt of her uniform, she made a great show of drawing out her PADD from its casing.
"I'd like some information – for the record, of course," she continued as she fired up the screen, "just to cover the historical information about your vessel-"
"And why do you wear your hair in such an uncomplimentary fashion?" The question itself seemed to come out of thin air, but the man seemed genuinely intrigued by the state of her hair.
Her hand came up to touch the bird's nest of a snare she had caught it up in. A stylus was jammed in there to hold it in place – pilfered from the subspace network console.
"Functionality," she answered sternly, dropping her hand. The PADD was pulled from her fingers and set aside, his long body rising from his bed in a smooth, singular motion. You wouldn't have guessed the man's heart had nigh on failed days ago.
His hand cupped her jaw, warm and rough all at once as he turned her head. As forward as the gesture was, she couldn't bring herself to stop his observations. A thumb smoothed over the turn of her lips in a seemingly secondhand gesture to his grip, heat blooming in the path that it etched. Turnabout being fair play and all. Now she was the object of his pursual. Albeit less covertly and more tactilely than the long minutes she'd spent peering through the glass of his cryopod.
One moment he could flash a bit of charm and an inkling of a smile. The next visible mood could be as unperceivable as peering down to the dark bottom of a well. You could catch a shimmer of water if the lighting was proper, but just as soon as you'd firm up the image in your mind it would be darkness once more.
"Functional it may be. But far from attractive. There," he declared, long fingers smoothing over a loose curl. He'd managed to undo some tendrils from her stiff bun, teasing strands down her back. "Soft. Natural. Simple."
She had to agree. Now if she could get her legs under her without making a complete stumbling ninny of herself in front of the man, she'd be set. "Mister Khan, I'm afraid you misunderstand me. This visit is strictly business." Was her voice that faint sounding?
"Do you gain no enjoyment from my company?" he asked softly from behind, his hands dwarfing the span of her shoulders as he gently set them there. She was fragile and crudely made next to this man. Imperfect and so very, very small.
"My objective for this visit is to engage in academic discourse – scientific. Men of," she stumbled, "the world of the past. I'm sure that you understand to actually talk to a man of your century is-"
"There." He said it again, punctuating the word with a gentle tug at the new sheet of hair he'd freed from the bun. "Simple, soft." This man's voice was lethal. It was almost an afterthought when he suddenly leaned down – she could feel the pressure of this thumbs on the delicate knob of a vertebra just above her uniform. Warm, wet air coasted over the shell of her ear as he said in a precise, clipped tone, "Please remember."
"Perhaps," she managed, brushing off his hands as she rose from the biobed, "we can discuss the past when you're feeling more inclined to approach the subject." She was beating a trail to the turbolift, concealing the tremors in her hands by balling them into fists at her sides.
His voice and smile followed her out of the bay. "Glad you could pop in," he rasped after her, catching her gaze as the turbolift doors began to shut.
"Do so again." His eyes bore into her. The lift doors closed.
Supreme disappointment was the first thing his brain registered when he was brought out of cryostasis. Disappointment at the state of civilisation. Marcus, an admiral according to his introduction, was rather set on utilising his higher functionality for some vague purpose.
War, possibly.
Khan had pumped the bright eyed girl for information through her personal PADD she'd forgotten. Two hundred and sixty-three years, two months, fourteen days, nine hours and forty-seven minutes in suspension. The weight of that figure pressed heavy on his mind. He disregarded it, tucking the number away to mull over at a more convenient hour.
His first priority was the survival of his crew.
Space travel was now a thoroughly conquered frontier. Entangling alliances had been established between the human race and many alien races over the last two hundred years. This Starfleet was what the lieutenant termed a "deep-space exploratory and defensive service maintained by the United Federation of Planets."
He theorized that "defensive" had the same double meaning in the 23rd century as it did in his 20th century. Theory became fact when Marcus started asked him rather probing questions concerning his engineering capabilities.
When Khan had rejected the questions outright or deftly batted them away with some leading conversation, Marcus backed for the day and simply came back the next morning to pose them again. A delicate balance of power was solidifying. Khan found himself at the bad end of the bargain.
Something he utterly detested. So he set about forming a contingency plan. The first step was familiarising himself with the times. Cursory searches into the ship's banal specs gave him a manifest. It listed the SS Botany Bay, DY-100, as part of the cargo. He assumed they were having it hauled. A part of him was sceptical – quite possible that Marcus had this information tucked into the mainframe for him to find. To soothe his worries.
Rage built up in intervals. He paced the small room they'd allotted him after his health had been established as exceedingly above par. Access to the residential quarters of the ship was permitted. But he would be monitored. It was therefore no great surprise to him that he sought out Lieutenant McGivers and her room the day after their first meeting.
"I'd hoped you might occupy my time before our mutual dinner engagement," he slid out smoothly when she answered the door chime, shock clear on her face as he pressed her personal PADD into her hands. She'd been in quite the hurry to quit the sickbay after their conversation and had by chance left it in his care.
He wedged himself between her and the doorframe, the door giving a snick as it shut. Khan then found himself face to face with an easel of all things. He ignored her snorted sound of exasperation at his slightly forced entry.
Her hair, in the periphery of his vision, was unbound. He made no comment about her change in style. Khan simply felt satisfied that his skills in the art of persuasion weren't completely unhinged after so many years in suspension.
"Very good," he allowed after a moment's pursual of the canvas. It was rather nice. Her technique was a study in a denser, detail-oriented style. His eyes picked up on the painstakingly rendered greaves of the murmillo and his crested helm.
"Flavius," his voice brooked no argument about the gladiator's identity. It was Flavius.
"Correct," she said, putting the desk between them as she tidied the cluttered surface.
"Fine technique." It came out more as an accusation. How could an imperfect being possess talent of this caliber? It defied reason, but wasn't out the realm of possibilities. It was hard to breed this creativity in his kind. Only a handful of his crew could claim virtuoso status in the arts. He considered it a rather disappointing loss, but the Augments excelled in virtually everything else. A small price to pay for perfection.
He glanced around at the other canvasses decorating her small space. "All bold men from the past. Richard, Leif Ericson, Napoleon. A hobby of yours, such men?" he asked, turning to face her. Poised with a hip on her desk, she managed a small nod for him.
"Would you mind adding yourself to the collection?" she ventured, motioning emphatically at him before picking up a thick pad of sketching paper that'd been leaning drunkenly over the desk's edge. She was teasing him. Or appealing to his ego. Either worked well enough for him – just as long as it brought him closer to the objective.
"I'd consider it my honour," he rasped, sparing her a polite look. Khan settled himself on the lieutenant's cluttered couch, shoving aside stacks of half-finished etchings. The lieutenant sat opposite of him on the arm of a chair, perched birdlike. They settled into a long silence quite comfortably.
"You should know," she muttered, her lead tipped stylus moving across the fine grain paper, "that after you attempted to take control of the Eastern Coalition and failed spectacularly, a rather lively rebellion was sparked in Eastern Turkey a decade or so after your ship launched. That spread to Persia in 2006. Russia annexed it all, as per the usual. Still were administered by the Coalition, mind you. But the real fun began in 2025 when a few figureheads from Europe managed to stage a coup."
He processed the information slowly. His portrait had been taken numerous times during his rule – sitting perfectly still for an artist was old hat for him.
"You're an authority figure on the history of the Great Wars and those wars proceeding them?"
"I grew up in Mumbai before I enlisted in Starfleet. The interest in the wars and the role they played in your history came naturally," she admitted, her clever eyes drifting up. That took him by pleasant surprise.
"Oh?" he urged, shifting forward to lean his elbows on his spread knees. With his hands clasped before him in a sort of supplicating gesture, she told him of her father and mother – an engineering officer and a diplomat, respectively. All while rendering his likeness in frighteningly accurate lines on the paper between them.
The lieutenant had been born on base while her father was the yard superintendent for the San Francisco Fleet Yards (American accent, maintained slightly but worn imperceptibly by years abroad) before Starfleet had given her father a posting in the shipyards of Mumbai. Her mother had transferred her diplomatic services as well to the British Embassy (McGivers – possibly Scottish, Irish, English or even Welsh in origin? [Regional traits are present considering her fair coloration and hair {Red hair phenotype – rarest of all colors that are naturally occurring, allele shown to be recessive}]) there in order to be closer to her husband and child.
"Let's hear your Hindi," he said in that very same language, the vowels dipping off his tongue. His birth language was something he'd not spoken in centuries. The sound of it echoed by the little slip of a woman opposite quelled his irritation over his current circumstances somewhat.
"My work on you has given me nothing but grief." The statement was softened somewhat by a smile while the Hindi rolled from her tongue in lovely curves. She was shading his eyes with grim determination, her head darting up at intervals to allow her to commit another detail to memory before she dove back into the sketch.
"Thrown out of university?" he drawled, making noises over the idea of the prim lieutenant doing anything so outrageously wrong to merit expulsion.
"You've become a taboo to defend in academics – especially for a doctoral thesis." They'd yet to drop the language for English again. Her mouth was pink and full – distractingly so. His eyes narrowed. Proportionally, she could've passed for a few of the female Augments.
Still, she lacked the bearings his sisters carried in their very bones.
Underneath her eyes were shadows. Subconscious strain manifested physically in the lieutenant. It wound around her limbs like the tightening of so many rusted coils. Persistent, this one. Tired, surely, but not yet broken by this society.
She would suffice.
Yours Hopefully on deck!
Marla Madlyn McGivers, for all the newer fans of the 'verse, is indeed a canon character from the original series. She appears in "Space Seed" and is portrayed by the lovely Madlyn Rhue. That same episode inspired a lot of the dialogue and flow in this chapter. Some creative tweaks were made.
When asked by a friend as to who would be my modern actress for McGivers in this fic, I replied with Jessica Chastain in a heartbeat due to Rhue and Chastain having an eerily similar physical resemblance as well as the same height/body shape. She is also a respectable thirty-six like Cumberbatch and keeps getting better with age!
Also – UK/US spelling changes in Khan and Marla's voices are intentional. Khan's thinking brackets are my attempt to demonstrate his superiorly bred brain and thought process.