Check out the note at the end!

Chapter One

I don't believe in a no-win scenario.

Those words had followed James Kirk his entire life, from the day his father died saving eight hundred people to the day he stood on the bridge of his own starship and begged Admiral Marcus to spare the lives of his crew. They followed him now through the corridors of the Enterprise and into Sickbay, where he faced the man who had shattered his world.

That man, who called himself Khan and who Marcus called John Harrison, sat straight-backed and still on the edge of a biobed, unconcerned by the tense Security officers arrayed around him. His face was closed, unreadable, and unmarked by Kirk's earlier attack. Kirk remembered, vividly, standing on the surface of Qo'noS and smashing his fist into Khan's face until the skin of his knuckles split and bled. Some of that rage had left him, but not all: he could feel the remainder as a hot, sharp point lodged under his sternum, waiting for another chance to leave a bruise on the augment's dark skin.

But not now. Not yet.

"Listen to me, Khan," he said. "I am going to do everything I can to make you answer for what you did that night at Starfleet headquarters." He had to pause, because what he was about to do was crazy, and Spock's warnings still rang in his ears. "But right now, I need your help."

Khan's expression turned faintly scornful. "Of course you do. As your Mr. Spock would say, it is patently obvious. Very well. You need my help." His tone sharpened, strengthening his slight accent. "In exchange for what? Or do you think that I'll give you my assistance out of the kindness of my heart?"

Kirk wasn't sure Khan had a heart—but if he did, Kirk knew where it lay. "You said you'd do anything for your crew. For your 'family.' Help me, and I can guarantee their safety."

"Captain." Khan gave him a pitying smile. "You can't even guarantee the safety of your own crew."

Tell me something I don't know. "Yeah, well, I'm working on it. I can't assure the safety of your people without first securing the safety of mine. That should be plain enough. If Marcus succeeds in destroying the Enterprise, the fact that your crew is cryogenically packed into torpedo frames won't help them."

They both glanced at the cryotube McCoy and Carol Marcus had removed from the torpedo, now tucked into a corner of Sickbay. Through the frosted glass Kirk could just make out the attractive features of the pale, dark-haired woman sleeping within.

"They'll be blown to bits just like the rest of us," Kirk pressed on, "and their component pieces scattered across empty space."

Khan said nothing. The silence stretched between them, and Kirk struggled not to show his tension. To give himself a moment's reprieve he glanced at McCoy, who was bent over a work station.

"Bones, what are you doing to that tribble?"

"The tribble's dead," McCoy said without looking up. "A standard medical specimen. I'm injecting Khan's platelets into the deceased tissue of a necrotic host. You wanted me to figure out what makes the sunuvabitch tick? I'm figuring."

And that's enough stalling. Kirk turned back to Khan. "So—are you coming or do I have to do this alone?"

After a moment, Khan's expression turned thoughtful.


The Bridge breathed a collective sigh of relief when they received confirmation that Kirk and Khan had successfully boarded the Vengeance, though they knew none of them were out of danger yet. Spock alone remained unmoved, seated in the captain's chair and turning over in his mind every possibility, every contingency. He was keenly aware of the number of variables that could turn against them, the many ways in which their plan depended upon pure chance.

McCoy slipped onto the bridge and took up his accustomed post to the left of the captain's chair, uncharacteristically silent. Spock was about to inquire into his progress with Khan's bio samples when a loud alarm from the Communication station interrupted the muted hum of Bridge operations.

Uhura turned toward him. "Incoming message from New Vulcan, sir," she said. "That call you had me try to place? The necessary relay links finally fell into position and it went through. You have the transmission you requested."

Spock acknowledged this with a nod of approval. "On screen, please. I would acclaim you a wizard at your specialty, Lieutenant, except there are no wizards."

Uhura offered him a small, pleased smile. "The correct term is 'sorceress,' Mr. Spock—and thank you. Putting through the visual."

The weathered visage that appeared was both familiar and utterly strange to Spock's eyes. He could see the bones of his face, his own bones that he saw every day in the mirror, robed in lined flesh: a stranger's face and his own, all at once.

"Mr. Spock," the image on the viewscreen said.

"Mr. Spock," the science officer responded.

Though he would never admit it, there were times when philosophically, even emotionally, he was unsettled by conversing with his future self. He refused to allow this to be one of those times. "I will be brief, so as not to waste time neither of us has to spare. In you many travels and experiences, did you ever have occasion to come across a man named Khan?"

Nothing so obvious as a nameable emotion crossed the elder Spock's face, but the younger man detected a shiver that passed through his entire body. He paused for a long moment, composing his response.

"As you know, I have made a vow never to give you information that could potentially alter your destiny," he said. "Your path is yours to walk and yours alone. I can and should have no influence over it. I always felt that way would be best for you."

"As do I," agreed his younger self.

"That being said, I have to tell you that the individual called Khan is the most dangerous adversary the Enterprise and her crew ever faced."

Everyone aboard the bridge watched the screen, turning away from stations and letting hands drop from panels. McCoy leaned forward and braced his elbow against the captain's chair as the elder Spock continued.

"He is—"

The image dissolved in a burst of static.

"Lieutenant!"

"We lost the signal." Uhura's hands moved rapidly over her panel. "I don't know what happened, sir, the connections are still in place. Something must have interrupted the transmission."

From the Science station, Spock's relief officer said, "I'm reading a coherent tetryon beam scanning us, Captain."

"Origin, Ensign."

"I… I'm not sure," she said. "But there's also a displacement wave moving toward us."

"Onscreen."

On the viewscreen the static disappeared, replaced by what appeared to be a line of stormclouds in space, sweeping toward the helpless Enterprise and the crippled Vengeance. Spock stared at the image, trying to grasp the enormity of the phenomenon, trying to comprehend what it might be. Behind him, McCoy made a noise of disbelief.

"My God," he breathed. "What is that?"

Spock had no answer for him.


Author's Note: This story draws on a lot of different sources. At its root, it is a mashup (though not a crossover) of STiD and ST:VOY, with some crossover with a little-known show called Andromeda that was created by Gene Roddenberry before his death, a lot of elements from ST:TOS and some of the licensed Star Trek novels, and a little original stuff thrown. You don't need to know anything about all that: this is a STiD fanfic, and that's the only thing you need to have watched to enjoy this fic.

Khan is obviously a really important character here. You can find at least four depictions of him in the Star Trek franchise, each slightly different than the others. I have tried to keep him (and all the other characters) as close to canon as possible, but I've made a few changes. One of them is to return Khan to his Indian roots. I adore Benedict Cumberbatch and I understand some of the writers' reasons for casting Khan the way they did. In my head, I still picture (and hear) BC when I write Khan. But my Khan is Sikh, the way Gene Roddenberry first envisioned him.