-Chapter Thirteen-

One of Kirk's men watched the baby while the rest of them cleared out the fifty or so Klingons in the city. Taking them out wasn't the issue; hunting them down and getting to them was. It took all night, and by very early morning, Khan was exhausted. It had taxed even he, and he'd been up nearly three days by that point, anyway.

All he wanted to do, all he could think about, was getting home to his wife and sleeping for a good eighteen hours. Hell, he'd even settle for two hours.

To Khan, destruction needed to serve a purpose. "Because it was there" wasn't a good enough reason to do this much damage to a civilisation, especially one as pacifistic as the Brinthi. He didn't understand how the Klingons could justify attacking others just because they could.

"It makes you think, no?" Inigo murmured, as they watched the Brinthi shuffle back into their retaken city.

"About what?"

The Spaniard shrugged. "I remember, on Earth, at the end of the wars. We sit back and think, 'Why did they do this?' More land? Dominance? You ruled a quarter of the planet, Khan, and you did not do it this way. You can be a hard man, surely, but you are not cruel like this. I have not seen this kind of cruel since Russia, and their raids on central Europe. You took Russia and stopped this senseless mess."

Khan turned slightly, to look at Inigo. "I was just now thinking of that time."

"It is impossible not to be reminded," Inigo replied. "These people, they are weak as France was, weak as my own people were when Germany took them again. If I may be honest, Khan?"

"Always, Inigo."

"I am glad we have Sitara. A place of our own. We all want the same thing in our new home: peace, and to prosper. To be our own people. Earth, it was too . . . political. Everyone out for themselves. Even this Starfleet? I do not like this Starfleet. They think they are better than everyone, no? So educated, so mighty. It is good they helped these people, but look where their enlightenment has got them. We do their dirty work, they take the credit."

Khan huffed a laugh. "If only you knew, Inigo, just how true that is."

"So, we go home now?"

"As soon as the illustrious and dashing Captain Kirk is finished, yes."

The Brinthi, it turned out, had one particular cultural quirk that managed to irritate both Kirk and Khan: no one would take the baby Khan had rescued. Orphans were apparently shunned, which seemed to both men to be completely ridiculous. The Brinti had no orphanages. Single parents were expected to re-marry immediately, in an arranged marriage set up by the city council, after the loss of a spouse. Divorce was unheard of.

"And these people are advanced enough to have warp drives?" Kirk asked incredulously. "What the hell?"

Khan held the crying child against his shoulder. It was a boy, and not more than a few months old. "I cannot imagine leaving a child to die simply because its parents are also dead. How is that conducive to a thriving culture?"

McCoy, come down in another shuttle, approached with his medical bag. "What's going on?" he asked.

"The Brinthi have abjured the baby," Kirk said. "Khan rescued it from some Klingons that killed its parents, and no one will even look at the poor kid. And as long as we've got the baby with us, no one will talk to us, so I can't figure out why. I was wondering if you'd look the baby over, see if there's some biological reason they're willing to let him die? I'm going to go talk to those people over there and see what the hell is going on."

"Sure, Jim. May I?" Bones asked Khan.

Khan gingerly handed the child over. Despite his rather abrupt entry into fatherhood, he'd adapted quickly as he did to just about all things. He was protective of this little one almost as much as he was over Nolan.

McCoy examined the baby, holding him just as carefully as Khan had. "Definitely a boy," he said to himself. "Good, healthy set of lungs. I don't know much about the Brinthi, but he seems strong enough for a baby his size and approximate age. Have the people said anything about him?"

Khan reached out, brushed a finger over the baby's white-blonde, wispy hair. "Other than that he is twelve weeks old and that they will not take him, no. The woman we spoke to told us his age. Her spouse dragged her away and would not let her tell us anything further."

The doctor muttered something unflattering under his breath. "What kind of people does that to a kid, huh?"

"One my people will not be doing business with," Khan said fiercely.

Kirk came back, looking disgusted. "Okay. So here's the deal. According to their religion, if a kids loses his or her parents at the same time, the kid is cursed and will bring doom on anyone who helps them. Given that these people are pretty pacifistic, I'm gonna hazard a guess and say that the only time that kind of thing happens is when families get sick. You'd think they'd know about illnesses and how they work, but . . . I dunno. I was told flat-out that no one will take him, even the mom's parents who live about a mile away."

"Dammit, Jim, that's the stupidest-"

Kirk held up a hand. "Yeah. I know. I already said as much to those people over there. They also have absolutely no interest in the Federation, and while they're grateful we helped them, they want us to go away. We're outsiders."

"We will take the child," Khan heard himself say.

McCoy and Kirk both turned to look at him with surprise.

"Say again?" This from Kirk.

"My people. We will take the child."

"Doesn't that go against your philosophy?" Bones asked him.

Khan shrugged, taking the baby back from the doctor. "I find my philosophy is evolving. My lieutenant and his partner would like a child. As they are both male, they cannot have one of their own. I believe Otto would be more than happy to adopt this boy."

The cabin was almost ready to move into. Anthea looked forward to when Khan set up their bed and she could sleep on a real mattress, one with plenty of room to stretch out on.

Since the cabin was still a bit dirty, Anthea dressed in boots, trousers, and one of Khan's Starfleet shirts, which she'd taken to sleeping in sometimes while he'd been missing.

She carried Nolan inside and set him on the floor in the living room, on the rug she'd brought from Earth. She hadn't brought all of her possessions, but there were a few she hadn't been able to part with; she was lucky in that she had been able to bring parts of her old life with her when coming here. Khan's crew had lost everything when they'd fled Earth two centuries before.

Measuring tool in hand, she began taking notes for making the window coverings. The frames didn't have glass; instead, there were shutters they could close, on the inside of the window. Still, she wanted curtains, to provide cover while still letting the breeze in.

She ran a hand over her stomach, smiling to herself. They still had several months, but it wouldn't be long, really, 'til their child was here. Khan was planning to build Nolan a bed of his own, so that they could use his crib for the new baby.

"Good thing I brought your baby clothes with me, even if they're all for a boy," she told Nolan over her shoulder. "I doubt anyone here will have a problem with me dressing a girl in anything covered with blue teddy bears, right?"

There was a footfall at the door, and Nolan yelped, "Mama!"

She turned. Two hulking forms had entered through the open doorway, both in leather-and-metal armour. It took her one heart-stopping second to realise what they were.

Klingons.

Anthea dropped the measuring tape and dove for Nolan, but one of the Klingons got there first. He lifted her little boy in one metal-plated fist.

It had been close to three years since her hand-to-hand combat lessons, when Khan had been going by John Harrison. She hadn't practised since getting pregnant, hadn't needed it. Still, some of it lingered in her memory.

She changed direction and grabbed the machete Khan had left on the table, from when he'd been stripping saplings to make curtain rods for her. Anthea caught up the blade and went for the nearer Klingon as he reached for her. Desperation drove her to move faster than she had in her life. She ducked under his outstretched arm and slashed the blade across his midsection, just as Khan had taught her. It had been an idle thing, his telling her where the Klingons' weak points were in their armour.

The leather parted under the wickedly-sharp blade, and she drove the rounded end as hard as she could into the exposed flesh beneath. The Klingon made an "Urk!" sound. Anthea twisted the machete and shoved hard upwards, driving it towards his heart.

He dropped to the floor with a thud.

She turned to the other Klingon, who looked a little surprised that she'd just killed his companion.

"Give me my son!" she hissed.

He responded in Klingon, which she didn't speak, and gave her son a shake with his large fist. Enraged, Anthea rushed him, throwing her weight into him. She wasn't heavy, but her momentum knocked him off-balance, and his lost his grip on Nolan. Heart pounding, she caught her little boy and dropped to the floor, rolling between the Klingon's widely braced legs.

She scrambled to her feet, a startled-into-silence Nolan still tight in her arms. Anthea hit the front door at a dead run.

Just outside, she ran into a familiar figure, somewhat literally.

"Help!" she said. "Klingons!"

"I know," the figure said, and grinned.

Then he raised his fist, and swung it at her face.