Descent Into Darkness
Day 2 - Not On The Side Of Angels (Fanworks focusing on Dark!Molly)
John Harrison was the most beautiful man she had ever seen, and she was going to make sure he died a slow and painful death.
The bombing of Section 31 had rocked Starfleet. The massacre at Starfleet Headquarters in San Francisco had ripped through the command ranks, leaving the fleet vulnerable without many of their senior and most experienced officers.
Both were acts of terrorism that hit far too close to home for many.
Molly was one of them. She had been scheduled for duty at the London building the day of the bombing. If there hadn't been an unexpected delay with the public transport system out of her suburb, she would have been buried under tons of rubble just like many of her friends.
The knowledge of just how close she'd come to death had nearly knocked her to her knees.
And then the revelation that the devastation had been caused by John Harrison had finished the job.
The section supervisor Doctor Anderson hadn't wanted Harrison in his labs; as Harrison wasn't a doctor or biologist, there was no reason to allow him access to any of their projects. But word had come down from high (the rumours even whispered that the order had come from the office of Admiral Marcus himself) and there had been no choice. Eventually, even Anderson had agreed that Harrison had offered a few insights on some of the experiments, including ones that focused on some unique tissue and blood samples they had been given to analyse; samples, they were told, that had been acquired from an unmarked, derelict spacecraft found in deep space.
At first Molly had enjoyed Harrison's visits. He'd walk into the lab full of barely suppressed energy, listen to the other scientists as they discussed their current experiments, and then rattle off suggestions. It didn't hurt that he was the most gorgeous man she had ever seen, and watching him walk amongst the work stations was a treat. He'd even stopped by her station a few times that first month, before moving on without a word. She suspected he had found her experiments to be inconsequential; which they might have been on their own, if they hadn't tied into the larger project she'd been assigned.
The top secret one that no one without a very specific clearance, not even Harrison, was allowed access to. Nearly an entire year of Molly's blood, sweat, and tears.
Those inconsequential projects had been stepping stones for something far bigger.
While the others worked to identify applications and uses for the samples, Molly worked on finding a bio-agent that would bring the mysterious lifeform to its knees should Starfleet ever encounter another one. Her orders were to create something that would weaken the alien, and slow or temporarily stop its regenerative abilities, so that the creature could be more easily subdued (if necessary). Early testing indicated the alien shared large amounts of DNA with humans, which complicated matters considerably. She would need to create something specifically engineered to stop a powerful creature that was a distant relative of humans in its tracks, without risking the safety of the men and women of Starfleet (and the Federation as a whole).
Months after he'd begun his visits to the labs, Molly had looked up from her microscope to find Harrison watching her. His pale gaze had seemed to burn into her, as if he could read every emotion or thought that passed through her mind. She had blushed and blinked, and when her eyes opened again, he's expression had transformed into a friendly smile that she had reflexively returned.
Soon enough, Harrison began to make a point of coming by her station whenever she was there during one of his rare visits (which wasn't as often as before now that her main work was being conducted in a secure area). He'd ask about her project and then her day, her cat, the trip into work that day, what she'd chosen for lunch. The sort of small talk she would have assumed he abhorred.
Molly had thought, mistakenly it appeared, that they were becoming . . . something, friends at the very least.
Through months and months of light flirtation, unexpected meetings in the canteen, long conversations about the work going on in the labs, and one single perfect, passionate kiss after he had pulled her into a disused cupboard two day before the bombing . . . through all of that, Molly had never once mentioned or even hinted at her secret project or that she suspected that John Harrison was more than he appeared (if he wasn't one of the infamous 'mysterious' lifeforms, she'd eat Anderson's prized cactus).
Only an idiot would look back on all that and not put two and two together. He'd been using her to try to gain information, and once she was no longer useful he had condemned her to the same fate as everyone else at Section 31 without a second thought.
Fair enough, she hadn't felt more than a brief twinge of guilt when Admiral Marcus himself appeared at her flat and asked if she'd be able to recreate the bio-agent she'd been close to perfecting at Section 31, and—more importantly—if she thought there was any way to make it lethal.
Which is how she currently found herself in the sickbay of the Vengeance, partnered with a man who took orders well enough but clearly had no clue what it was he was helping to synthesize.
Admiral Marcus had reassured her that her serum was only to be used as a last-ditch effort if all other attempts to apprehend and subdue Harrison failed.
She looked up from the terminal she'd been working at when the ship's computer warned that the warp core had shut down and it had switched to the sickbay to auxiliary power. All non-life support systems would be temporarily shut down.
That was unexpected.
Molly saw her companion pull a phaser out of a drawer that should have only held medical supplies, and the hairs on the back of her neck stood on end. He set the phaser to the side, but she noticed he kept at least half his attention trained on the door from that moment on.
Molly started when her terminal screen flickered as the ship's full power was restored. In the list of executable medical programs was one that shared the same name as her cat, 'Toby'. She was positive the program hadn't been there before the power down. She cast a furtive look toward her Richards (who was, apparently, more comfortable holding a phaser than he had been running a centrifuge) and accessed the program.
A password request popped up.
She frowned.
The program was probably nothing, an inside joke left by the ship's programmers.
Then again, hadn't it been well known that John Harrison had been heavily involved in the design and programming of the Vengeance? If there was the smallest chance that the program wasn't a joke, that it had been rigged to appear only if certain ship systems had been rebooted . . .
The entire idea was farfetched; but she still found herself searching her memory for anything that stood out, anything that Harrison might have expected her to remember and make note of.
There was one thing. They had been talking about Toby, Molly had told a story about when the feline had been a kitten and had managed to get into a bit of trouble. John had mentioned having a pet once. He'd only discussed it briefly, and then his face had clouded and he'd changed the subject as if the memory pained him.
What was its name?
"Redbeard."
"Pardon, Doctor Hooper?"
Molly jerked and realized she must have spoken out loud. "Red blood. Cells. I think I'm going to need another look at the results from the last run on those blood cells."
Richards nodded. "Do you need me to set anything up?"
"No, I can manage. Thanks." She waited until he turned back to his station, then typed in 'Redbeard'.
File after file sprang to life across her screen. Molly skimmed each just enough to get the general idea, then moved on to the next.
There were schematics for torpedo cases and cryotubes. A list of names, ages, and serial numbers. Page after page of technical information that Molly didn't recognize. And a document with her name at the top.
"Molly,
If you've found this, it means the delay with the 7:15 train was sufficient to keep you out of harm's way. Unfortunately, it also means that you have put yourself back into danger by boarding the Vengeance.
I need you to do one last thing for me, Molly. Somewhere in the galaxy, there are seventy-two souls who are sleeping in cryostasis. They are my crew, my family; and they have been taken from me by Admiral Marcus and his men. Everything I have done, I have done for them, to rescue my family from the hands of those who would use and destroy them.
Regardless of your feelings for me, I ask . . . no, I beg you to help them.
Do not trust Marcus.
Do not trust anyone.
Above all else, you must survive, Molly. My Molly."
She stared at the screen and tried to process what she'd just read. Even without a signature, she knew who had written it.
What the hell had been going on in Section 31?
"Marcus thought something like this might happen."
Molly turned just in time to catch the butt of the phaser against her cheek. As she hit the floor, she saw Richards frowning at the terminal screen. "Sickbay to the Bridge. Khan left a love note for the good doctor."
Who the hell was Khan?
Marcus' voice came across the comm. "Not important. Is the serum finished? Does it work?"
"Close enough."
Richards stepped over her toward the carefully stored vials that contained the serum. Molly tried to reach out and grasp his ankle as he passed, hoping to pull him off balance, but he jerked free.
"We've got visitors. Khan and that idiot Kirk will be coming straight here, so I need you to bring it to the Bridge. Marcus out."
Richards grabbed a hypospray and loaded it with the serum. "Nothing personal, Doctor. I wish I could say that the Admiral will be lenient on you, but we both know you aren't going to make it home."
"Neither are you."
Both Molly and her assailant jerked at the sound of a third voice. Before Richards had a chance to turn toward the door, he was already down.
Molly looked up to see John, phaser in hand.
"Have you read it?"
She nodded, and cautiously stood up. "Parts of it."
"And?" He stood tall and alert, and she thought she saw his fingers shift against the handgrip of the phaser.
"What do you need . . . Khan?"
Some of the tension seemed to melt away from his face and the hand holding the phaser lowered to his side. She wondered what he would have done if she hadn't given him the answer he wanted.
"My crew is on the other ship. As soon as I've dealt with Marcus, they'll be transferred to the Vengeance."
Her mind had already begun making lists of what would need to be done to wake Kahn's crew from their cryosleep. "I'll prep the sickbay."
He darted forward and wrapped his free hand around the back of her head to pull her into a kiss that stole her breath away. Almost immediately, he released her. "Kirk and the engineer will be looking for me. Secure yourself, things may get a little bumpy."
And then he was gone.
Molly looked down at Richards' stunned body, and quickly leaned down to snatch up his dropped phaser. After a second's hesitation, she picked up the hypospray and tucked it into the pocket of her tunic.
Khan had told her himself.
Do not trust anyone; and above all else, Molly needed to survive.