A/N: I had a tremendous bout of inspiration in regards to this story following my second viewing of Into Darkness. I finished not only this chapter, but the next one as well. I'll wait on getting feedback through reviews before posting the other. Enjoy!
"Hold tightly, my dear."
The words blared through her mind like a siren. Before she could process the reason behind Khan's warning, she felt the ground beneath her shift violently as the hull of their ship screeched in distress. The torpedoes that had been jettisoned from their cargo were still in close proximity when they exploded, knocking them and the Enterprise closer to the gravitational pull of Earth.
Carol would have been thrown to the other side of the bridge if not for the arm pinning her against the console. His arm. Which grew tighter around her waist, even as the ship regained stability.
"Open a communication channel with the Enterprise." thundered Khan, his eyes gleaming with rage. Carol tried to wriggle away, but that was only effective in causing his hold on her to intensify, making it difficult to breathe.
"Captain, since you clearly have no idea of the lives that your first officer has just condemned to death, let me share an old saying with you," he said with deceptive calm. It was his eyes that gave away his savage intent. "You gave me hope, and then you took it away. That's enough to make anyone dangerous… but imagine for a moment what that would make me."
She screamed, ever so briefly, as her body was thrust in front on him. Warm hands then enclosed both sides of her head, causing her heart to plummet into the bottomless void of the nightmare she found herself in.
He was going to kill her like he did her father – a brutal application of pressure to the curvatures of the skull. She suspected that the blood staining his hands from Admiral Marcus hadn't even dried by this point…
"Since I doubt you are able to perceive or respond to this warning with your communications critically damaged, let me describe a series of events set in motion by your humiliating effort to defeat me before you are completely incinerated by your tumble into earth's atmosphere." He fumed, ignoring the dry sobs of his captive.
"First, I will murder your weapons specialist as I did her father. Then I will target Starfleet headquarters and unleash the entire payload of this vessel upon that city. When that is expended, I will return to Jupiter and reclaim the technology that I created for your empire of cowards and use it to shape a world. End transmission."
Carol closed her eyes, causing a single tear to escape down her cheek before striking the floor. The hard-won peace built upon the sacrifices of men and women in the Federation of Planets was about to be obliterated; her friends and family about to be nothing more than memories. All because of one man who loved his family more than anything.
"Any last words, Dr. Marcus?"
She felt his fingers beginning to tense within her hair. Her first instinct was to say, "I'm sorry." Her words would do nothing except inform this villain that she recognized the role she played in the demise of all she cherished. But as she opened her mouth to speak, another thought occurred to her.
"They're alive." She said with the tranquility of someone who had already accepted their fate. Not once did she think it would save her, nor was she certain that Dr. McCoy had the same compassion in his heart that her Captain did. But it seemed worth mentioning… and, as it turns out, perhaps even more than that.
"That is not possible," he countered. "The torpedoes' design was too elaborate. Only I could disengage their chambers from the fuselage."
Carol shook her head. A difficult tasks given its position between two hands of steel.
"I could do it. And I taught my technique to their chief medical officer. They're likely sitting right now in a remote corner of the ship." She explained, her tone dispassionate up until she felt his palms retreat from her skull.
"My crew… is aboard the Enterprise?" he demanded, leaning so close that she could feel his breath breaking against her forehead.
"Yes." She responded, holding his desperate gaze with a cold indifference. "Every man and woman that you love is on board the ship that you damned."
The change in Khan's composure seemed impossible. One moment, he was a calm, collected madman with a heart of flint. The next, he was like a man possessed, racing wildly about the bridge in a flurry, pressing buttons and throwing switches as if racing against a clone of himself.
"The ship's tractor beam will act against the Earth's gravitational pull, giving me more time to stabilize their warp core and take the Enterprise to safety. I will need you, Dr. Marcus," he said, stopping all that he was doing to look her in the eye. "To make the navigational corrections necessary to ensure that both our vessels are not destroyed. I will relay instructions," He said, kneeling down to pry the badge off her father's body. Despite his attempt to be discreet, Carol found herself nauseated by what little she could see of the body. "Once I beam aboard their ship."
"You understand that once the Vengeance is mine, you're not coming back." She explained cautiously, staggering into the command chair with her leg still howling with pain. Khan paused at the exit to the bridge, turning slowly on the spot to gaze at her one last time.
"It would be an insult to you if I expected otherwise." Was his short reply before the doors of the lift closed, removing him from sight.
It was likely the most meaningful compliment she would ever receive, Carol realized. And , despite herself, she found herself smiling because of it.
"Transporter room, on screen." She commanded, watching as Khan stepped onto the metallic pad. Within a few seconds, he was gone in a flash of spiraling light. That was her cue.
"Raise shields." She added, wanting to ensure that Khan would not be able to return. "And open a communications line with Commander Khan. I mean... " She remembered that Khan was using her father's communicator. "Open a communications line with Khan, who is using Admiral Marcus' device."
"Shields raised. Integrity at 73%." The starship responded.
"Dr. Marcus, do you hear me?" came the voice of Khan. She had a fleeting desire to ignore him, but as scarred and traumatized as she was by the events of the past few hours, Carol was not about to let her friends perish because of her unwillingness to collaborate with this man.
"Yes, Commander, you are coming in just fine."
"The gravitational systems have been disabled. You will need to activate the tractor beam in such as way that the Enterprise remains steady." He told her quickly. She could hear the air whipping past the augment as he ran at breakneck speed. "And it is no longer appropriate to refer to me by a false title. Khan will be sufficient."
It was only years of strict professionalism at the Academy that kept Carol from rolling her eyes at that comment. She could call him whatever she damn well pleased… but not was not the time to argue with the only force in nature powerful enough to save the plummeting starship.
"Very well, Khan. Activate tractor beam on the Enterprise." She said, steadying her hand on the control pad.
The ship did not confirm her order verbally, but it nevertheless vibrated and emitted a pulsing blue stream at her target.
"You will need to activate reverse thrusters at 20% capacity. That should be enough to sufficiently stabilize the ship so that I can enter the warp core." Instructed Khan.
She obeyed him quickly, but followed up with an obvious question: "What on earth are you going to do in there?"
"The core is misaligned. If my crew is to survive, the acting Captain will need to have enough power to counteract the inertia of our descent."
"But can't the –"
"The upward force of the tractor beam on the hull of the ship needed to counteract the downward force of its velocity would tear this vessel apart." He interrupted swiftly, as an increasing amount of static developed on the line until communication was completely severed.
She didn't bother trying to reach him again. The interference of particulate matter in the warp core would make any device malfunction, and most of her attention was focused on adjusting the tractor beam so that the Enterprise remained steady, despite the atmosphere's insistence on pushing it every which way.
"You are being hailed by the USS Enterprise."
"Open a channel!" she practically screamed, enormously relieved at having someone help her manage the fates of two ships at once.
"Dr. Marcus, is that you?"
"Unfortunately, yes it is." She replied hastily, recognizing the eternally calm voice of Spock without looking at his image on the screen. "Khan is on board the Enterprise trying to save the it because I told him that his crew might still be alive over there."
"You were correct in your hypothesis, Dr. Marcus. Because of your guidance, they are currently in the medical storage facility."
"That's great, Commander," she snapped, honestly wondering if she appeared to care or if over-explaining trivial matters during life and death situations was a Vulcan compulsion. "But I can't maintain both ships like this for long."
"It seems you won't have to." Spock informed her in what sounded like a illogically shocked tone. "The warp core has just stabilized. Remove your hold on the ship and we will be able to apply our thrusters."
She didn't need to be told twice. With immense relief, she disengaged the beam and allowed the Vengeance to hover within the Ionosphere while she regained feeling in her muscles.
As an afterthought, she attempted to reopen a communications line with Khan.
"The Enterprise is safe." She reported. Realizing that was not his particular interest, she rephrased the sentiment as, "Your crew is safe."
His only response was a ragged cough.
"Khan, are you alright?"
Another cough, and then a deep, raspy reply, "If I was alright, I would have commandeered this ship by now."
Besides affirming that saving hundreds of lives did not necessarily make you a good person, his words had the unsettling effect of raising her concern.
"What you just did would have killed a regular man, but Dr. McCoy said that your cells regenerate like nothing he'd ever - "
"I am going to die, Dr. Marcus." He told her suddenly. "Whether it is in this room at the hands of those I tried to destroy, or after a millennia within a cryotube that will eventually malfunction makes no substantial difference."
She heard doors open and the rustle of clothing. His decontamination had just been completed.
"Regarding what I did… what I planned on doing to you…" Khan's usually booming voice was barely audible. "Would you not have done the same to me if I was loved by the one who threatened to destroy all you held dear in this world?"
Under any other circumstance, she would have responded in the negative. But Carol had seen her thirst for revenge run deep at the time of her father's death. Would she have spared his crew after all the pain that their Captain had wrought on her life?
"Maybe." Was her hesitant reply.
Khan chuckled softly, sounding genuinely amused to her rather than terrifying for the very first time.
"You are very different from your father, Carol Marcus." He commented, causing a strange feeling to arise in her gut. "But this is where our paths break apart…"
"Target Khan's location." She only noticed that she'd said those words when he appeared on screen before her.
"Goodbye, Dr. Marcus." His voice was faint, but she it strike a nerve deep within her body. Angrily, she tried to smother any sympathy she had for this madman. If he was lucky, he would spend the rest of his days in stasis alongside his crew. If he was unlucky…
And then she wondered, very dangerously, if she would have acted similarly in his situation. If her family was being used to control her and then, if she had every reason to suspect that they had been murdered, would she act without restraint against all those who stood alongside her enemy?
The answer made itself apparent when she located Khan's crew precisely where Spock had mentioned. She marked a floor in Engineering for the seventy-two comatose men and women, and a single maximum security cell for their leader.
"Khan Noonien Singh," she then said bitterly, watching as seventy-three bodies appeared on her ship. "Consider this act of aggression against the Federation of Planets a form of mercy."
A/N: And so this fanfiction's title weaves its way into the story. Doctor Who fan should notice the quote from 'The Doctor's Wife'. After all, why wouldn't Khan be a Whovian? (Besides his genocidal tendencies, of course).
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