I do not own Star Trek
Warning: Spoilers for Into Darkness.
It begins with Khan's perspective of things as they happened in the film before getting gradually further and further from actual events. (So if you start and think "that's just what happened in the film not anything new" then just wait a little...)
Khan was calm as he stood in the cell, humans, they were so weak, predictable, honourable...
"The only reason why you are still alive is because I am allowing it. So shut your mouth." Kirk spat at him, clearly intended as a threat, posturing in an attempt to get Khan's compliance. Not that he had actually done anything since his surrender other than comply. He hadn't even fought back during Kirk's laughable attempts to hurt him. It really was all very amusing, if Kirk had been planning on killing him he would have done it already.
"Oh Captain, are you going to punch me again, over and over until your arm weakens, clearly you want to, so tell me... why did you allow me to live?" His voice was rich and deep, it had been engineered that way, tones that would, on an instinctive level, equate to the authority of an alpha male. It was calm, with the barest traces of curiosity to leaven it. The captain was slightly battered but he met his gaze, and though the man was weaker and his voice less of a rounded baritone, he could appreciate the authority the captain managed to muster, despite being merely human. Here was an adversary he could respect, even if he still failed to be a real challenge.
"We all make mistakes." That was a lie, Kirk didn't see it as a mistake, a risk certainly, an emotional drain, but he still believed it to be the right action, the moral action... the man was far too easy to read for his own good.
"Hmmm... I surrendered to you because, despite your attempt to convince me otherwise, you seem to have a conscience Mr Kirk. If you did not then it would be impossible for me to convince you of the truth." He missed his crew, his family, his people, they would never be so easily manipulated, they were the only ones able to challenge him, truly challenge him, as equals. The only reason Admiral Marcus had been able to attempt to face him was the vulnerability of his crew in their frozen state. "Two three, one seven, four six, one one." Those numbers were seared in his mind. "Co-ordinates not far from Earth, if you want to know why I did what I did, go and take a look." The dare was hardly subtle but it would be effective, this brash young captain wouldn't leave a mystery unsolved, no, his courage would be very useful...
"Give me one reason why I should listen to you." Khan resisted the urge to smile, he had him.
"I can give you seventy-two, and they're on board your ship, Captain, they have been all along." Just like that, plant the thought and watch them scurry, the torpedoes were a mystery, one which must have been eating at Kirk already, and now he wouldn't just wonder, he would burn to find out what was inside, he would risk setting one off to find out... He wasn't foolish, for a human anyway, he wouldn't do it on board the ship, it would take time, but they'd do it, and then the captain would be back. Khan settled himself to relax as he waited, preparing himself for the emotional plea he knew would be his best approach with Kirk, his crew, his family, 'what wouldn't you do for your family?' That would be a nice touch, a tug of his emotions, equating it to his own strong bonds of loyalty, emphasising their similarities to attempt to lessen Kirk's awareness of their differences, of Khan's ruthlessness. Yes he had it all planned out, what Kirk would say, how he would respond, but when he finally did return Kirk's opening statement was not what Khan had expected.
"Why is there an empty Cryo-tube in that torpedo?" Not a man, or less likely a woman, as a race bred to be warriors and lead armies there were always more men than women in their number, though one of their women was stronger than any human, male or female, they were still less physically powerful than the men. None of the cryo-tubes had been empty. There were empty cryo-tubes on the ship, they had been fewer in number than the ship had been initially built for by the time they finally entered stasis, he wouldn't have wasted an opportunity by building a torpedo around an empty tube. Nor would Marcus have emptied the tubes, he didn't care about the well being of the inhabitants... and if he had been able to build them himself he would have done long before Khan escaped him.
"Empty?" He hated having to ask the captain for information, acknowledging his ignorance, but he needed to know. "Truthfully?" His eyes burned into Kirks, blue meeting blue, icy fire and desperation in their depths, where were his crew?
"There was a note, but I don't see how that counts as proof. You said it would be a reason for me to listen to you..." A note. Whoever had taken his brother or sister, without setting off the torpedo or leaving evidence of tampering, something he had tried to make very difficult to achieve, had left a note.
"What did it say?" The captain frowned at his question, clearly unsure whether to tell him, uncertain what was going on... "What did it say?" Khan shouted, demanded, using every part of its vocal effect to drive the words past Kirk's rational mind to his monkey brain, his instinctive core, the part which could hear the roar of jungle cats just beyond the fire's glow in the deep growl of his voice. Khan would have been pleased by the slight flinch in the captain's shoulders if he was not so caught up in more important things, his mind flashing, who could have done it?
"It was addressed to someone called Khan..." Of course he hadn't told the humans yet about his real name, they still thought of him as John Harrison, the persona Admiral Marcus had constructed for him... it narrowed his suspects considerably... either his brother or sister had escaped or Admiral Marcus was behind it, he was the only one who knew Khan's real identity.
"That's me, just tell me what it said!" Kirk was still thrown by the reaction, the man who had seemed so very much in control of himself, of his situation, entirely unphased as he had attacked him, slammed his hand against the forcefield, sending a ripple through it, though it held.
"Khan comma E eight comma E seven to E five X fifty-four comma D eight and others in box comma E one unaware stop. Your move stop." Spock responded calmly he had memorised the short message, he included the punctuation in his recitation, any part of it could be relevant to the code. Khan let out a deep sigh, they were safe, he even had a good guess of who might have them, though she, at least he thought it a she, was a mystery from his past. "Your reaction serves to confirm my interpretation, the references are to chess positions, the old two dimensional style board, E eight, black king, that is you. E seven to E five, king's pawn making an opening move. D eight, black queen, and others, in the box, off the board, either they are dead or they are still in stasis, somewhere, whichever it is you are relieved by it, it's black pieces so I assume they are on your side, stasis seems the more logical conclusion X is also used as a multiplication symbol, so at least fifty-four of the people in stasis have been moved, at the time the note was written. E one, the white king, is unaware, that would most likely be Admiral Marcus. The question is, who was in the stasis units before the black king's pawn retrieved them?" The captain was surprised, Khan couldn't help but find himself slightly impressed by the half-vulcan's reasoning capabilities, not enough that he would spare him when this was over but still... He wondered why the Vulcans had not conquered Earth before their numbers had been decimated, they were stronger, smarter, faster, had better stamina, it was only their relentless logic and pacifism that held them back.
"Why was there a man in that torpedo?" Kirk asked, drawing Khan back to the conversation he had been meaning to have, but with a very different emotional setting. Though Kirk shot Spock a questioning look, the first officer had failed to inform his captain of his interpretation before that point... how interesting.
"There were men and women in all those torpedoes Captain. I put them there." And now they were somewhere else, safe he hoped, but he didn't know, were they awake, asleep, dead, as the half-Vulcan had said stasis seemed the most likely conclusion, but he didn't know, which was almost as frustrating as knowing Admiral Marcus had them and was using them for leverage. At least then he had known where they were, that they were in danger, and how to best protect them, now he knew nothing aside from that they had been removed from the situation, he could suspect that the person who had taken them would keep them safe, if he was correct she was one of them, but he didn't have confirmation, he didn't know.
"Who the hell are you?" Finally the question he had wanted the captain to ask, led him to, though the dramatic reveal was somewhat spoiled, and yet heightened, by the note having named him as Khan.
"A remnant of a time long past. Genetically engineered to be superior so as to lead others to peace in a world at war. We were condemned as criminals, forced into exile. For centuries we slept, hoping when we awoke things would be... different, but as a result of the destruction of Vulcan, your Starfleet began to aggressively search distant quadrants of space, my ship was found adrift. I alone was revived." He remembered the feeling, when he first woke to see a human face looking down at him, in a Starfleet medical facility, the flash of concern at being the only patient there, quickly squashed to try and hide his fondness for them, his family, his people. The relief and horror when he learned that they were alive but were being used against him, used to force him to asist the loathsome man who thought himself able to control someone like Khan.
"I looked up John Harrison, until a year ago he didn't exist." Kirk had clearly meant for this to be an interesting fact, something of note, but he was as aware as the man he faced that the impact had been lost.
"John Harrison was a fiction created the moment I was awoken by your Admiral Marcus to help him advance his cause." Khan did not bother to hide his anger and dislike towards the Admiral. "A smoke screen to conceal my true identity." He had intended a dramatic announcement of his identity here, it had been pre-empted, no matter.
"Khan." The captain commented, it wasn't a question so he didn't respond. "Why would a Starfleet Admiral ask a three hundred year old frozen man for help?" Ask... asking wasn't really part of the equation, but they hadn't reached that point in the conversation yet.
"Because I am better." It wasn't a boast, it was a statement and in some ways a promise, Kirk held him, he 'allowed' Khan to live, because Khan had allowed Kirk to capture him, it was a promise that the tables would be turned, that the power would shift.
"At what?" The doubt in his eyes was delicious.
"Everything." He let the word hang for a moment, blunt as only a statement of fact could be, it was not an opinion, he was better, they were better than any human could hope to be. "Alexander Marcus needed to respond to an uncivilised threat in a civilised time and for that he needed a warrior's mind... my mind, to design weapons and warships."
"You are suggesting the Admiral violated every regulation he vowed to uphold simply because he wanted to exploit your intellect." Spock's response was predictable as well, of course, having been raised on Vulcan in their passive ways he wouldn't understand the true value of Khan's mind, what the Admiral had really been after.
"He wanted to exploit my savagery. Intellect alone is useless in a fight Mr Spock." Which was why Vulcans had been reduced to an endangered species while Humanity spread. "You, you can hardly even break a rule, how could you be expected to break bone?" There was a pause, the threat in his words and posture evident even to the calm commander, the set of his jaw was evidence of that. "Marcus used me to design weapons, to help him realise his vision of a militarised Starfleet. He sent you to use those weapons, to fire my torpedoes on an unsuspecting planet and then he purposely crippled your ship in enemy space, leading to one inevitable outcome. The Klingons would come searching for whomever was responsible and you would have no chance of escape." He could see the hurt and betrayal, the denial in Kirk's eyes. He had already suspected as much, but he did not want to believe, didn't want to accept that the very institution he had pledged to serve would be headed by such a man, that it would abandon him, sacrifice him to a cause he didn't even want to believe Starfleet would approve of let alone do all this for. "Marcus would finally have the war he talked about, the war he always wanted."
"No, no." Belief warred with denial in the captain's voice. "I watched you open fire in a room of unarmed Starfleet officers." He knew the accusation would be coming, if you couldn't disprove what a person said the next thing he would want to do, emotionally, was to discredit the source, prove it to be unreliable, anything to keep alive the hope that it was wrong, that Starfleet wasn't behind an attempt to start a war and kill him and his crew to do so. "You killed them in cold blood." It was time to bring that protective urge out, relate to it, and he could relate, much as he disdained the majority of humanity he could understand the captain's urge to protect his crew, his family, he understood because he also felt it, it was a kind of kinship between them, both leaders, both loyal to a whole greater than themselves yet composed of inferiors.
"Marcus took my crew from me." He let the anguish he had felt about it leak out, usually he hid this side of his emotions, he didn't suppress them like the Vulcans, no, they gave him strength, power, but they also showed vulnerability, ways in which he could be hurt, he didn't advertise them.
"You are a murderer." The anger he should have felt at Admiral Marcus's betrayal adding to what he genuinely felt for Khan in his tone, the captain was transferring, still struggling to refute that any of it was true.
"He used my friends to control me. I tried to smuggle them to safety in the very weapons I had designed, but I was discovered." The admiral had noticed the missing pods, but unable to get past the security systems on the torpedoes he hadn't known the pods were empty... had he? "I had no choice but to escape alone. And when I did I had every reason to suspect that Marcus had killed every single one of the people I hold most dear. So I responded in kind." The tear that he shed was not entirely faked, though he hoped it would evoke sympathy it stemmed from real emotion, a feeling of loss he had not truly allowed himself to feel until now, he had been too focused on revenge, and then on dealing with Kirk, and now... he still wanted revenge on Marcus, and to find his missing crew. "My crew is my family Kirk. Is there anything you would not do for your family?"
"But they weren't in the torpedoes, and you didn't know?" Kirk commented, Khan could see the doubt, the uncertainty, he almost had the captain's sympathy, despite having killed his friends, humans were so easy to manipulate, even after everything he had done, Kirk would see the sentimental side of it.
"No... someone else has them now." One of his family, his crew, had taken them from their pods and left a note in case he should come looking for them. He wondered if any of the pods were still occupied, if they had rescued only some of the seventy-two, or if they had rescued them all and left the notes as they went, with the lower number being indicative of which torpedo the crew had happened to select to open as they had gone through them in some order... Their staring was interrupted, inconveniently as Khan had almost gotten through to Kirk, by the sound of a message being put through.
"Proximity alert sir, there's a ship at warp heading right for us." Ah, the admiral... he would want to see this completed... Khan was glad that he would be making this easy for him, that Marcus would come to him.
"Klingons?" Humans were so slow, especially when they wanted to be.
"At warp? No Kirk, we both know who it is." There was a vicious happiness mixed with the hurt and frustration of his tone, a vindictive spark at the confirmation hidden in Kirk's eyes, he knew, he didn't want to but he did, he knew exactly who was coming and why.
"I don't think so sir, it's not coming at us from Chronos." The voice said. He could see the horror blooming within the captain.
"Lieutenant, move Khan to the med bay, post six security officers on him." Kirk fled the brig, ran from the realisation, but it would follow him, and soon Khan would too, not because of revenge or hatred like Admiral Marcus, but because Kirk was too much like Khan, because he could almost respect the captain, and that made him a threat, when all this was over Kirk would try and stop him from conquering Earth, and that could not be permitted.
Khan didn't resist as they moved him to sick bay, he had no reason to, it was likely more comfortable than his cell, despite the cuffs, and the security guards were no concern, he could take them out in moments, they were less of a hassle than the forcefield would have been should he decide the time had come to escape. Not that that time had yet, for the moment he was quite content to remain where he was, to gather more information, to try and figure out who had taken the others and where. He was grateful the captain had broadcast his discourse with the Admiral to the entire ship, not least because there was a message in it for him, beneath the sound of the conversation, at a frequency that it was possible the half-Vulcan might hear, but only possible, nobody else would, even on board the ship it was coming from. Morse code, it sounded like a faulty connector in one of the display consoles, but he recognised the rhythms, the patterns, he wondered if the science officer would intercept this message as well, if he would even recognise it as a message.
"E8. Am on board vengeance. See you soon. E7." The message repeated itself three times, quiet enough to almost be missed. Inwardly Khan smiled. It was noble of the captain to lie about his position, to insist on returning him to Earth for trial, but then the captain still thought he could escape battle with the Vengeance. Khan turned his mind to the matter of who the king's pawn might be... who might he expect to see when he stepped on board the ship he had designed for his own flagship. Bigger, stronger, faster and capable of being piloted by a single individual, designed for battle, it was the augment of the star ship world, Marcus may have thought it was designed for him but it was plain to anyone with half a mind who its true captain would be, and one of his crew was there waiting for him... The captain would come for him soon enough to ask for his help in taking the other ship, in the meantime Khan let himself dwell on the puzzle before him.
When the lid of his cryo-tube had closed over him he had seen the message, before it had activated and frozen him. 'If I could move from E7 to E1 for you I would. Sleep well.' He had often wondered if the message had truly been meant for him, there had been quite a bit of confusion during their escape, and while it had always been intended as his pod it was possible someone else had thought it to be another person's. Now there was no doubt it was for him, and that the reference was to chess. The 'for you' and the 'Sleep well' suggested caring, beyond caring for others of their family in general, it seemed the writer would like an emotional, most likely a romantic attachment which made the women more likely than the men, though it by no means ruled them out. That left the meaning of the move as the last clue, until today, it could mean a desire to kill his enemies for him or to reach the far side of the board, and when a pawn reaches the far side of the board it became a queen... either could be interpreted romantically.
He had suspected Kati, the strongest of the women, the most vicious, and clearly interested in him, she would most certainly want to be his queen and enjoy killing his enemies, but the message from the pod had made reference to D8, the black queen, to her being with the others. There was nobody that could refer to other than Kati, and Kati would never refer to herself as a pawn aside from it being the only piece on the board that could become a queen, whoever was on the other ship did not see themselves as his rightful partner, as Kati would, it was someone else.
Khan was glad that Kirk didn't mention the pods being empty to the Admiral, that he confirmed for himself that Marcus had known about the pods, and that he had thought them to be full of people. It reassured him that they were safe, somewhere, and that Marcus had no idea. The battle was a minor concern, but he doubted Marcus would be able to destroy the Enterprise, though she might not tip her hand until the last moment possible his fellow augment would have a plan, would stop the final shot if necessary. Finally, as predicted, Kirk came to him.
"Tell me everything you know about that ship." Kirk was cornered, he had no choice or he wouldn't be here, the temptation to rub it in was strong, but he needed Kirk to get him aboard.
"Dreadnought class, two times the size, three times the speed, advanced weaponry, modified for a minimal crew. Unlike most federation vessels it's built solely for combat." Built solely for him.
"I will do everything I can to make you answer for what you did." Good, the captain was being honest with him. They stared at each other for a long moment as Khan waited patiently for Kirk to say what they both knew he would. "But right now I need your help." He could have gloated, he probably would have any other day, Kirk was the closest mind he had found since his awakening to his own, but his sister was waiting for him on the other ship, so he contented himself with two words.
"You do." Not a question but more than a simple confirmation, it spoke of knowing things the captain didn't, of just how little chance anyone on the ship had of being alive in half an hour's time without his help.
"Are you coming with me or not?"