STAR TREK: INTO DARKNESS (ALTERNATIVE REALITY)

CHAPTER ONE

KHAN POV

I was locked in the cell. The only way of getting onto the ship peacefully; of course I could have killed Kirk, Spock and the female, but at first, information had to be extracted. From observing the humans, it genuinely was a wonder they got into space at all. But there I was in the cell. Waiting. Biding my time. Before they would realise that surely I wouldn't surrender that easily without a motive.

At first, it was just a rather tedious 'interrogation' by Kirk. To give Spock some credit, at least he though through his questions logically, but Kirk, all bravado. He wanted to give off an air of control, but he knew too well who had the power here. After 2 hours of asking me why I helped fly the aircraft into the Star Enterprise Headquarters and other mundane questions, he assigned my cell a 'guard'. A 'guard' in case I absconded? Really, I did now think that the human race had regressed in the medieval era. I may be a good fighter, but I had no intention of leaving the ship until I had found them.

And then. They sent her in. Posing as an Enterprise Science and Technology expert. But I would recognise her anywhere. I thought she had been subjected to the re-freezing like the other members of my crew. But she was standing there; my first officer. The best officer I have ever encountered. And my heart swelled. I could never forget her. I never would.

Kirk and Spock were just at the door – I couldn't help myself.

"Ava!"

Her eyes lit up as she turned to me. Pupils dilated a few millimetres. She recognised me at that instant. I swear it.

"I'm afraid you've got the wrong girl, Harrison, this is Annabelle Johnson, the prime officer to make sure you don't act up on my ship" Kirk retorted and stepped back up into the chamber. Spock followed, like the loyal puppy dog that he is. Emotions he may not show, but emotions he does feel. It was written all across his mannerisms around the man. I joked with myself whether or not this loyalty was logical.

"My name is not Harrison, it is Khan. Just Khan. And her name is not Annabelle Johnson. It is Ava. It always has been."

Kirk looked taken aback. Spock had my details in his hands.

"Captain, Mr. Khan is right about his identity. 'John Harrison' only came into existence, never mind into Starfleet, only a year ago." Spock's ever monotonous voice advising his captain on his next moves resounded in the room. Kirk looked at the papers, and then at me. What could I do, smile? I simply glared back at him, all knowing.

"Where do you come from?" Kirk ever-intelligently posed the question at me.

"Earth; where does it look like I come from?" I glanced at Spock trying to look up more details behind him, "To save you, and I, more time, you can stop relying on that thing. SHE already made it past that system onto this ship. I am a genetically modified human. I am better than you in every way – all ways. Stronger, smarter, quicker. And so is she."

Ava stood up from her perch just outside the cell.

"I have no idea who this man is, captain," she looked at Kirk and then Spock, but not back at me, "I have never met him before in my life. I was told to guard the prisoner so he can be brought to a trial. That is all I am here for."

Kirk looked at her. A womanizer, I could tell, and then smiled softly, "I'm sorry about him, Annabelle, he's a nasty piece of work, but I won't put you through guarding him any longer…" he looked around at a dogsbody from the underbelly of the ship outside the door and sent her away. His gaze was then firmly on me as I leant against the wall of the cell. Spock, however, evidently had more than one brain cell to rub together and asked to be excused, still holding his beloved documents file. He was going to check her details. All I needed to do was wait.

I couldn't believe that she could be working for the same dogs that imprisoned us in that icy tomb, only to let us out for their own doing. Especially as she had somehow escaped the terrible fate again.

"Do you enjoy frightening my crew? Because the only reason you are alive is because I say so. I am performing an act of mercy by bringing you back alive. I was told to fire those torpedoes, I was told to take you out Khan. But I didn't. It would be illogical." He walked out of the room, leaving me in no doubt that it was Spock, not his over egotistical self that had suggested following the rules of the enterprise to bring me back to trial (only someone that anal would halt a man with as many accusations as I being shot at left, right and centre).

The ship was a fairly new model. By far not the newest; still a WARP core, a little wear here and there, but Kirk was given a fairly up to date ship for a captain who from all the information I could gather was simply very lucky. I mean, logically, sending a member of crew into a large volcano without causing a fuss with the organisms on the mainland? Really Kirk? Really?

I must've dozed off for a couple of hours through the sheer dreariness of this ship and the slowness of their ability to drag up information about their own crew members, but I was awoken by a confrontation. Professional, but serious, just outside the jail chamber.

"Captain, she does not exist prior to last year, just like Khan. There are no records of her birth, her assignment to this spacecraft, her qualifications to carry out the role she's somehow adopted 1 year ago under the name Annabelle Johnson. Sir, she is a danger to the craft." It was a Vulcan – I would have put money on Spock.

"That's as maybe, Spock, but she is not like him. You have seen her work; she's intelligent, fast, strong, but not unlike other women in her department, and above all, she is not a homicidal maniac. Her file must've been lost." Kirk's over optimism never ceases to amaze me.

"Sir, with all due respect, she should not be aboard this ship at all. I strongly advise that she is kept under the same conditions as Khan. We do not know whether we can trust her."

"Spock, this is me appealing the human half of you. She is not evil. It is a gut feeling, can you understand that?"

"It is highly illogical"

They entered the jail chamber, acting as though they had never argued in their lives and walked right over to my cell.

"We need to ask more questions and we need a blood sample"

"I will not comply", I stared right at Kirk, and then changed to Spock, "unless she is here." I then looked over at the other wall. This made Kirk nervous and Spock ever the more insistent about his hunch over Ava's circumstances. Kirk looked at me, perhaps trying to intimidate, although this was hard for someone of his stature in comparison with a 6, 2" giant in his eyes. Silence filled the air. Then Kirk suddenly called someone from the door to fetch her, all the time looking directly at me. I say me, but it was more my cheek, as the wall was a much more inviting sight.

She walked into the room and approached Kirk and Spock.

"Captain, you called me?" She could sense the tension in the air and I can only imagine she had already realised that her little 'identity crisis' had been leaked. Kirk reluctantly turned around and addressed her.

"He won't comply with any of our requests unless you are here, Annabelle," he almost whispered to her, perhaps in a bid not to annoy Spock further by calling her 'Annabelle', of which he was only too aware was not the case.

"I see," she finally looked at me with those deep brown eyes I had always remembered, more beautiful than any I had ever seen and curled dark brown hair. A blood sample was taken through the cell wall, no doubt they'd waste more of their time discovering that I was genetically modified, not that they'd already had that information, of course. But the questions did not begin for me as they did for her. Spock obviously couldn't stand by any longer.

"Who are you?" he asked her in the same tone he always used when he knew that his answer was right. The good thing with Spock was that he didn't beat around the bush.

"Pardon me?"

"You aren't Annabelle Johnson, unless of course you were born 1 year ago, and on that day you joined the fleet. Who are you?"

Her face writhed with the sense of resignation that she had seldom felt. There was no way out now.

"Ava, sir. Ava Peters," Kirk looked over, horrified that I could be right about her, "I was genetically modified 300 years ago for an Enterprise project, but they chose to cryogenically freeze us and then unthaw us as needed, sir."

Spock looked over at Kirk as she looked at me disdainfully. For some reason I actually felt her pain. But surely, why was she not fighting her way out of here?

"Anna- Ava, we are going to have to," Kirk sighed heavily, "we're going to have to put you in the cell, we don't know what you're capable of, and whether or not you have his 'tendencies'" he added, gesturing at me.

"I am not like him. Let me explain, when we were first brought to life, we acted as one force, as a team, but then things got out of hand, we were allowed to roam free as is we were real humans. I rebelled against the violent slant the others were advocating. I defected from the regime Khan was in. He was too busy hating the people that froze us up in the first place, that he just saw you all as the same. I didn't – I saw you as individuals. I know you aren't evil," she spluttered. It was true that she defected. But these people belonged to the very same organization that tortured us for free labour and she ends up working for them?! I still couldn't believe it.

Spock locked her away in the cell next to my own. We sat, arguing, she was accusing me of living in the past, I accused her of living in a fairy tale with a happy ending. But I still missed her more than anything else in the universe. And finally she was beside me… not perfect, but once one of the Kirk's superior cronies would almost certainly call to have me transferred to the 'mothership', that would be my chance to save the 72 in the torpedoes.