CHAPTER 10:

Marla could feel the cold seeping into her as she leaned on the wall of the tube junction. Having no choice but to wait, she sat with her arms around her knees to retain as much warmth as possible on the unforgiving hardness of the floor that was never meant for idle sitting. They had been there for half an hour and the adrenaline in her system was beginning to fail her. Hunger was settling in, as well as anxiety. She expected to be found at any moment.

Khan remained huddled in the corner. He looked strangely small, almost like a boy with how benign his face was when at rest, looking pale and free of those lines of anger and cruel intent in the poor light of the junction. She remembered how harmless he could look and she knew how deceptive it could be.

The droning of the ship that had mesmerized her into some minor state of calm suddenly died away, making the small room feel suddenly exposed. The abrupt silence was profound enough for Khan's eyes to open. He didn't look surprised in the least.

"They shut off the engines…" she stated the obvious at a whisper, afraid that they could now be heard throughout the quiet ship. "Did you plan for that?"

"Protocols…" he said wearily. "No helm capability requires the shutdown of all engines, including impulse power…. They will be reduced to thrusters only…. Thus far, the captain has been uncharacteristically by the book…"

"You talk like you know him," she said dubiously.

"James T. Kirk…" he began, slowly stretching out his limbs with a wince, "…is creative, if not clever. He proved as much when I first laid eyes on him. He fashioned a makeshift weapon to take out the engine of my jumpship where a troupe of phaser rifles failed… Then, he ran shooting into a Klingon squadron that outnumbered him ten to one, jumped through space from one ship to another through a field of debris, and I have heard voluntarily climbed into a warp core to realign it. He thrives in the face of certain death and excels in chaos."

Marla stared in wonder as she listened. She had never heard him speak of anyone with what sounded to be any degree of respect. What he was admiring was what the Federation had gladly dubbed heroism in Captain Kirk.

"If he excels in chaos…" she asked coldly. "Then why do you insist on creating it?"

The question seemed to suddenly exhaust him the way his eyes closed beneath a frown. "If there is ever to be order, then it must come in the wake of chaos."

"Is that why you did it?" Anger was heating up inside of her, and she had forgotten to whisper. "All the terrible things you've done were for 'order'?"

"At one time, yes." His eyes opened again, looking strangely docile as they held a cerulean hue. "When Earth was fraught with wars three hundred years ago, it needed us to restore peace… But I've been awoken in a self-professed orderly world. You…" his voice softened a bit. "You knew better than even I did how irrelevant we would be in this time. But I still had the one purpose to cling to that inspired the launch of our ship into exile—to lead my people as I had led nations… though it would be into the darkness of space. I accepted that you would not want to follow, you belong with your Starfleet." He spoke the word as if it left a bad taste on his tongue.

At his talk of acceptance, her hand moved to the bruises on her neck that told a contradictory story. Though she didn't consciously make the gesture, his eyes flickered to her neck and dimmed briefly with what seemed like regret.

"Everything I have done was for my family. But when Commander Lassiter intercepted my escape—when I had to leave them all behind—Marcus made me believe that he had killed them all…" a shaken breath was taken, his gaze at last lifting from her abused throat to meet her eyes. "And that it was you who made it possible."

A pressure suddenly mounted within her, the need to burst out with the truth of why she never arrived in the hangar to meet him. That she was never a spy for anyone. She didn't even understand why Admiral Marcus used the lie. But her pride prevented her from explaining anything to a man who caused so much pain and devastation. Her conscience had to prevail over her idiotic heart.

"You asked me why." His voice dropped with resentment, his eyes narrowing and flashing a glint of green. "By Marcus making me believe my crew was dead and that you had used me as easily has he had, I was left with nothing. I was alone in a world I do not belong to. I had nothing to fight for… but revenge. So my new and only purpose was Marcus. I was determined to make him feel the same loss. He is a man of war and would feel no greater pain than the death of his officers. I knew they defined him more than even his own daughter, so I killed as many as I could and all at once. Marcus then had to follow me to the Klingon home world—initiating his dream war under the flag of retribution was too great a temptation—and I waited for him there.

"However, I did not anticipate that my crew would be alive. It changed everything. What began as a means to kill Marcus became a second chance for me to save my crew, and I would take no chances. I had no mercy left for Starfleet, and the lives of my crew came before all others. Had Marcus sent any ship but the Enterprise, I would have succeeded…" His face creased for a moment with scorn. "Marcus launched the Vengeance, the ship that I helped build. It was fortuitous that he himself was on board and when I finally had him…" His voice lowered into a distracted whisper, his eyes flashing with remembered satisfaction. "I watched his final moments of terror, agony, and regret for the day that he ever found my ship."

She didn't understand the feeling that coursed through her as she listened. The hatred in his eyes and the ease in which he spoke of it made her shudder. And yet… her heart broke for him. He was at the mercy of his own out of control emotions and she couldn't help wondering if his rage could have been quelled had he at least been spared the lie of her betrayal. She didn't dare to ask when another question surfaced tremulously.

"Were you going to come after me too?"

He slowly shook his head. "No… I had the same hate for you as I did Marcus… but it was only with you that I feared succeeding. I didn't want to find you."

"And now that I've found you..?" She couldn't help the nervous fingering of the bruises on her neck. She had never been so terrified of someone's hands, and yet so desperate to be touched by them again.

"I want an explanation." His voice was suddenly sharp. "For why you're helping me. You've made it clear that you despise what I've done and what I am, so I want to know why you are risking your life now to help me. You are clearly still comfortable in uniform…" His eyes dipped with disdain to the red uniform that clung to her.

It insulted her to be judged by her clothes. If he only knew the false name and persona she had put on to get onboard the Enterprise.

"I'm not just helping you," she said sternly. "I'm helping everyone else. Ever since your ship was found, you've brought nothing but death and destruction. And nothing but pain has been brought to you and your people. There's always going to be someone in the Federation who will keep using you all as science experiments and tools and you'll continue to fight them until every last one of you is dead. I may not have had any control in your first revival, but I was still involved. You were once one of the fiercest leaders Earth had ever known, Khan… but you were also one of the greatest. No matter what I may think of you now, that won't change. So I intend to help you and your people escape once and for all. To get you out of the reach of the Federation and Starfleet. What you do after that is up to you, as long as you stay away."

The thoughts that had filled her mind for so long now flowed easily from her mouth as if she had rehearsed it. Even if she completely omitted what she went through to reach such a conclusion.

She waited for a reply of some kind. Something to tell her whether he was grateful or would spit in her face and reject the offer. But as he stared at her, she couldn't read his face. His brows were knitted, but not downward in a frown. It was only when his softened eyes squinted with scrutiny that he finally spoke with a tone of wonder.

"How you've changed…" The more he looked at her, the more a grimace appeared, his jaw clenching as the following words came out more quietly. "Though I suspect I never knew you to begin with.… I trust you now only as far as it suits me."

"Then it's mutual." She prided herself in her ability to speak firmly in spite of the distinct churning pain in her chest.

"And you find no need to justify yourself?" Now he was the one who sounded dubious. "To tell me what happened to you since I had last laid eyes on you in the hangar of Starbase 12? When you swore you would come with me—in your words—'no matter what'?"

He was mocking her. Making her into a liar. "I don't have anything to justify—"

One of the tubes suddenly beeped, its latch hissing open. Marla had barely glimpsed a red-uniformed hand with a phaser when Khan fired his own weapon into the narrow opening. The blast of the phaser gave her flash burn and she heard the shouts of crewmen echoing into their small junction.

Khan, who had been languid with weariness only seconds ago, now rolled from his corner with frightening agility. He fired another shot, but this time it hit the control pad beside the entrance of the tube. It beeped angrily and slid shut, the circuits smoking. Long limbs carried him like a spider to another tube, and when he was satisfied that there were no red shirts waiting for him on the other side, he took her hand and led her silently through it.

She wondered briefly if the security men that Khan fired at would recover all right, but her fingers curled around the strong hand that pulled her into the maze of service tunnels that ran throughout the Enterprise.