Disclaimer: I don't own Star Trek. Please don't take away my coffee.

After several weeks of conditioning, Admiral Marcus finally let his pet out to play with the other dogs. All the humiliation. The degradation. The arrogance. None acceptable, not easy to forgive, but all the tests, and the pain (yes, pain – even his superior body suffered limitations) – all of it paled next to the Admiral's greatest trump. His greatest mistake.

One toe out of line meant one less life nestled in the frigid safety of the cryotubes. The Admiral threatened his crew, his family, and for that there could be no forgiveness. Khan would give the Admiral his war, but it would not be with the Klingons. But chess, the purest game of war, was not a quick exchange of hostilities. The wise player hid his strengths, distracted his opponent, and murdered the opposing king with a sudden and violent assault. So it would be with Marcus. Khan would bide his time and wait until the time was ripe. Until then, he would savor his fantasies of destruction, of clapping his hands to the man's head and squeezing, pouring his hate and his rage into his palms until they met, slicked with gore.

And until then, he would build the man weapons and play the good dog. He wouldn't pull at the leash, wouldn't bite the hand that fed. He would lull them into a false sense of security, and then – oh, then – he would have his vengeance.

Across the room, Lieutenant Jacobs swore. Only the faintest interest touched Khan's mind; his thoughts were too busy with the designs for his new torpedoes to bother with the lesser human.

Upon his release from the medical facility where he had first been awakened, Khan had been assigned an armed escort. In the eyes of the staff and scientists, the man was John Harrison's aide. In reality, he was Khan's minder. Jacobs shadowed him from room to room, hour to hour – constantly. He was a buzzing fly Khan was not allowed to swat, and it took a great amount of control to restrain his more savage instincts. The man was clearly inferior. Not only was his body weak, but his mind was soft and flabby. Though Khan had only been able to study the technological advances of the past three hundred years for a few days, this man had been exposed to such basics his entire life, and yet he couldn't manage the technology at his own work station.

Pathetic.

Jacobs grabbed his communicator.

And then the day grew just a little more interesting.

.O.O.O.

She was up to her elbows in wires, half buried in the computer's housing. It was a mess. Unnecessary rats' nests of twisted cables twined through the cavernous space, mutated blood vessels linking the blinking circuit boards and power cells.

Whoever put this together deserved to be shot.

And then stabbed.

And then subjected to the Viking blood-eagle.

And it still wouldn't be enough.

The mewling ensign assigned to this nightmarish work station was bleating his thanks from the bright world above.

"I can't thank you enough. Have you figured out the problem? It's crashed two times in the last week, and I've lost so many man hours…"

Oh, stars, enough already. "Hey," she said, "want to help?"

"Yes!"

The enthusiasm (wouldn't last) took the sharp edge off her irritation, and she swallowed the "Great. Shut-up or get out" that hovered at the tip of her tongue. But he was still annoying, and she desperately wanted silence to finish her job. "Get me some coffee from the mess hall, would ya? I'm running low."

"Oh… oh, sure!" And the little ensign was off like a shot. Poor mite. He couldn't have pictured this when he signed up for Starfleet.

Left in perfect silence, she returned to gutting the bad wiring job. No wonder it kept crashing. The cables were so twisted the combined weight kept pulling individual wires from their ports. So help her, if she found out who was responsible… were all the workstations like this? Please, please – just – no.

They didn't pay her enough for this crap.

Her communicator chirped, and she fished for it blindly with one hand as she tried to reattach a pair of cables with the other.

Flipping it open, she half sang, "Starfleet's favorite techie, please hold while I compensate for your organization's lack of brainpower."

"Tyrrin? Hey, yeah. I need you."

Ah. Jacobs. Because no Monday was complete without a regular dose of incompetency. Goodness knew the man had muscles – just not the one that counted. "Well aren't you forward. What brought this on?"

"My work station froze up."

Her eye wandered over her current predicament. Was this really how every work station was wired? "Well, maybe it's trying to give you a hint. Girls don't like to be rushed, you know. Too much pressure and – poof! – goodbye, good times." The sass and snark came easily, running the conversation while she tried to process this new development.

"Seriously, Tyrrin."

"I'm always serious." She tugged at the weave of cables above her. "Give me twenty minutes." She paused. "And have coffee ready."

.O.O.O.

Tyrrin waltzed into Jacobs' office with her usual pomp. He wasn't alone. A stranger was in the office, seated at the work station opposite, and Tyrrin felt the frost emanating from his aura chilling her as she stepped through the door. He wasn't even looking at her, but she instantly knew this was no mindless grunt. Nor was he a wilted scientist. There was something she couldn't quite…

She'd figure it out. Until then, she'd avoid spending time alone with him. This was definitely a Kitten Killer.

Jacobs glanced up and all but melted at the sight of her. She gave him a quick Cheshire Cat grin and clasped her hands behind her back.

"I was surprised to get your call," she said. "Weren't you reassigned?"

"Well…" His eyes darted to the side, and Tyrrin followed them to the cold man across the office. "Yeah, but you know how Starfleet is."

"More interested in training their female officers how to bend over without showing their skivvies than how to do their jobs?"

Jacobs flushed. "This is my new assignment." He frowned at his computer, refusing to make eye contact until he had his thoughts back on task. Then he snapped his eyes back to Tyrrin. "Can't you just say 'Welcome back' like a normal person?"

"I could," she said, "but sarcasm is my greatest charm. You love me, don't lie to yourself." She made a show of scanning his desk and spread her hands. "Coffee?"

Jacobs pulled out a thermos and set it between them. Tyrrin popped off the cap and took a deep sniff. It wasn't great, but it was fresh. "Passable. Now show me to the problem. You said your computer was frozen."

"Yeah…" He pushed back from the desk, and Tyrrin dove for the access panel. It was ground level, like the last, and she'd have to go spelunking to find the issue. No time for chit chat.

Before she dove into the depths, she snuck a peek across the room and found herself meeting an alarming pair of frigid blue eyes. The Kitten Killer eyed her dispassionately. "Why are you out of uniform?"

That voice… damn. Tyrrin couldn't believe how much the man could pack into one sentence – a query, an order, casual disdain, and a hint of irritation promising tremendous amounts of pain. That was the voice of a leader, no doubt. And doubtless he was pissed he couldn't plug her into one of the usual slots in the hierarchy. That was the true purpose of uniforms – one look and you knew everything you needed: rank, area of expertise, etc. And if there was one thing Tyrrin loved about her job, it was screwing with the command structure.

"Don't have one," she said as she slid into the belly of the beast. She tried to ignore the relief that came from escaping those eyes. "Could you imagine doing this in a miniskirt? Without leggings? The ensigns would never get anything done… not that the ensigns get anything done, anyway, but…"

Jacobs, bless his one-celled brain, decided to intervene on her behalf. "She's not Starfleet personnel. She's a private contractor."

What a dry description. It needed some flavor. "I fix the complicated crap they're too stupid to use."

"Tyrrin!"

Hidden in the cables, she grinned, and mocking Jacobs' exasperated tone, whined, "Thomas!"

And then she saw it – or rather, realized what she wasn't seeing. There was no mess. Everything was properly wired and linked in an organized fashion. Whatever monster mangled the ensign's work station had clearly not set up any of the stations in this wing of Section 31. While that was well and good, it also meant…

"Oh my stars, Jacobs! You are such an idiot." She sprang from the bowels of the machine, spitting fire. The lieutenant blanched and took a half step back, catching himself before he executed a full retreat and casting a nervous glance across the room. Tyrrin was a little offended. Yeah, the Kitten Killer was freaky as heck, but she was definitely the immediate threat. "This is a record low, you know. I think you deserve a place on the Wall of Shame." With an exaggerated flourish, she poked the On/Off switch beside the work stations main interface portal. The frozen screen winked black. Then, with a whistle and a chime, it rushed back to fully functional life.

"On and off again. Seriously?" She grabbed the thermos and snatched her tech bag from where she'd tossed it beside Jacob's chair. "Don't call me for this crap – I've got bigger problems. Tanner almost blew the foundation earlier – his drive was actually smoking when I came in. Idiot doesn't know a fire when he sees one… he must have done very poorly in cub scouts."

She turned around to find the Kitten Killer standing by his desk, hands clasped behind his back, his frosty eyes gleaming with attentive energy. There had been no whisper of cloth as he stood, no creak of the chair. It was downright eerie, and Tyrrin felt, suddenly, that the center of this man's attention was a very bad place to be.

Addressing Jacobs, he said, "I believe introductions are in order, lieutenant." He smirked, and it was one of the most uncomfortable expressions Tyrrin had ever seen. She'd seen plenty of fake smiles in her time, but this one wasn't artificial. At the same time, Tyrrin doubted it had anything to do with the conversation. Something was twisting in that man's mind, and that was what he found humorous, not the pathetic display of geekery before him.

"Sir," Jacobs said. "This is… Tyrrin Regent."

Even her name was a damn power-play. She couldn't help the smile that slipped over her face. The Kitten Killer remained un-phased.

Jacobs flushed, obviously uncomfortable with the tension hanging in the air. Interesting. He hurried to continue. "No rank. She's responsible for managing all the base systems. Tyrrin, this is," He hesitated – only for an instant – but there was a flutter in his voice as he tried to spit out the Kitten Killer's name. "Commander John Harrison."

Jacobs was lying.

Raising her chin, Tyrrin mirrored the Commander's stance. All of a sudden he was much more interesting. A regular Kitten Killer could be blamed on poor parenting, a dash of childhood trauma and an affinity for violence. Not worth noting, definitely worth avoiding. But a mystery Kitten Killer? Much more noteworthy. There was a reason she had such a high clearance level, and that was, quite simply, because she was bound to stumble across all of Section 31's dirty laundry on her wanderings through the system. She fixed the Admiral's computer as well as the ensigns', and she serviced the network they all used to store their data. There were no secrets from the techie.

The Kitten Killer narrowed his eyes, and Tyrrin could see the analysis running behind them.

"Miss Regent." He purred her name like he purred every other word, and the techie was forced to squelch the chills tickling up her spine. "Why such…studied informality?"

It was difficult to tell if he was irritated. He wasn't wrong. Her casual flippancy was studied. The best way to maintain her independence in such a structured environment was not to break but to actively ignore the rules. That set her apart. It marked her individuality from the command structure, and that gave her a certain amount of power. Very few ever grasped that, even fewer picked up on her game so quickly. Kudos.

But she didn't sing on command. She answered him with a shrug. "Why not?"

Commander Harrison seemed to lose interest and turned away, dismissing her without a word. Sending Jacobs one last look, Tyrrin strode towards the door. She tried not to feel so relieved when she escaped into the hallway.

A/N: Not a very long opening chapter, but it'll do. I was happily working on my other fic, when I went to see Into Darkness with my dad. I've been raised in the fandom, but I've never considered it especially sexy until now. Khan, just... wow. The plot bunnies heard the dinner bell and several sank their teeth into my posterior. The most determined hanger-on is what you see here.

Things are not as they seem.

I know everyone says that, so I won't try to convince you here. I actually have a fully functional story arch laid out for this story, but right now my other fic has seniority over this one. That means I'll update when I can, but we all know what REALLY decides seniority - reviews.

So let me know what you think/what you'd like to see. As I said, I already have an arch established for this little tale, but Tyrrin is a delightful little troublemaker, and if you have requests for ways you'd like to see her screw with Admiral Marcus and/or Khan, feel free to leave your suggestions in the pretty little box below.

Should I keep going with this? Storytelling is best when you're not speaking to an empty room.