Disclaimer: I do not own Doom or Star Trek.
Chapter Fourteen
"We walked for days after that," Jim explained, staring down at his hands, still twirling the coin he held. "Eventually it was Solveig who found their trail. When we finally caught up with them, they had hidden themselves deep within a cave system and set up any traps they could with the resources they could spare. Some were quite impressive, I have to admit.
"Solveig and I trekked far below the surface and eventually we found them in a cavern with its own water source. Xavier was on watch when we found them and Solveig appearing beside him startled him so badly, he shot at Solveig. She simply ducked out the way and I was still behind her and the shot went over both our heads, but the noise… It echoed and the cave system just seemed to amplify the sound.
"It was all hands on deck, so to speak, after that," Jim smiled slightly. "We all knew that the sound of that shot was going to attract everything from miles round. It didn't take long to pack up and get the hell out of there, but we weren't quick enough. Luckily it was only imps we encountered, they were easy enough to kill. Unfortunately, Itzel was injured before we managed to kill them all. Itzel was the second youngest after Malakai… The injury was deep, it healed in no time. But her screams… They haunted my dreams for weeks after-"
Suddenly the doors to the cell they were in was thrown open and both Jim's and McCoy's attention snapped to the new arrivals. Several guards stood in the doorway surrounding a woman dressed in a uniform consisting of a long black coat, similar to the coat Khan had been wearing when they'd first encountered him face to face… Well not the first time Jim had encountered him, just the rest of crew of the Enterprise.
"Captain Kirk," The woman greeted Jim, ignoring McCoy completely. "It's a… Pleasure, to make your acquaintance."
"I'd say likewise," Jim replied. "But that'd be a lie."
The woman laughed and gestured to the guards around her, they quickly moved forward and Jim eyed them warily as they approached him. One of the guards broke away from the group and approached McCoy. The guard raised their weapon and levelled it at McCoy's head.
"Just a little incentive to stop you from escaping," The woman told him. "I know all about you Captain Kirk, you have quite the reputation as an escape artist."
"And how do you know about me, Ms…?" Jim asked.
"John Gill is most talkative, when given the right motivation," The woman answered. "As for who I am, Captain… Let's just say, I'm an interested party."
"Interested in what?" Jim questioned, glancing at McCoy as the guards unlocked his chains from the wall.
McCoy watched as Jim let the guards lead him to the centre of the cell, where they forced him to his knees and connected the chains to the floor. All the while, Jim kept his gaze fixed on the woman standing in the doorway, staring at her with an odd look in his eyes. The woman just continued to smile at Jim, her eyes holding a sadistic glint.
"I know you," Jim said, frowning slightly.
"Indeed you do, Captain," The woman smiled. "But you can ponder that another time. Right now, you have information I need. I'm I correct in thinking you won't give it to me willingly?"
Jim narrowed his eyes slightly and glanced at the guards surrounding him.
"Demands," Jim finally answered. "What do you want to know?"
Without warning one of the guards punched Jim, causing his head to snap to the side and blood to drip from his cheek and nose. Jim turned his attention back to the guard who had punched him, before spitting out a mouthful of blood, standing the guards uniform. The guard let out an enraged shout and lunged at Jim.
"Enough!" The woman yelled, but the guard didn't stop.
When the other guards finally managed to pull the enraged guard off Jim, Jim's face was covered in blood, but there wasn't a single cut or any sign of injury. McCoy glared at Jim as he sat up and laughed, before turning to the side and spitting out another mouthful of blood. Jim turned his gaze to McCoy and saw the glare being sent in his direction.
"Don't worry, Bones," Jim sent a bloody grin at McCoy. "Whatever they do to me, doesn't hurt for long."
)o(
It seemed like hours before the guards realised they weren't going to get any of the information they wanted from Jim. By the time they left, the hard floor was covered in blood, but Jim didn't have a single scratch on him, although you wouldn't have been able to tell due to his blood covered skin and stained and torn cloths.
"You said you knew her," McCoy said after a moment, when it became clear Jim wasn't going to break the silence they'd fallen into after the departure of the guards.
"I've seen her somewhere before," Jim answered, glancing at McCoy. "I can't remember where or when, but I have definitely seen her face before."
"How is that possible?" McCoy asked. "John Gill was the first person to make contact with this planet and he was sent here to simply observe and Starfleet been monitoring this planet since it was discovered, they'd have known of any outside influences."
"I don't know, Bones," Jim replied, moving his arms into a more comfortable position and making the chains rattle as he did so.
The two of them fell into another silence and Jim shut his eyes and tried to remember where he'd seen the man face before, where he knew him from… But he just couldn't remember. A Martians memory was different to a humans and was able to remember much more over a much longer period of time and Jim had been alive for a long time by human terms, so he could be forgiven for forgetting the odd detail.
For all he knew the woman could have been as insignificant as a face he had passed when traveling on a shuttle or someone he'd walked past on a street… But the woman had admitted they knew each other, so it had to be more than that. Suddenly Jim's head snapped up, as a distant memory pushed itself to the front of his mind.
"Khan," Jim said out loud.
"Khan?" McCoy asked.
Jim nodded, "That woman…"
"Wasn't Khan," McCoy finished, peering at Jim closely… Maybe he'd been hit on the head harder than it appeared.
"I know that, Bones!" Jim exclaimed. "I'm not an idiot."
"Could have fooled me," McCoy muttered.
Jim sent a glare in McCoy's direction, before turning his attention to the door to their cell.
"That woman, her name is Sarina Kaur," Jim told McCoy. "Or that was her name when I first encountered her."
"Doctor Sarina Kaur, the woman in charge of the Chrysalis Project?" McCoy questioned. "The Project that created the Augments?"
"There's no such thing as the Augments, Bones," Jim sighed. "They never succeeded in creating genetically engineered superhuman's. The Augments were just Martians using a rumour to hide their true identities. Khan believed himself a king amongst human-kind, to be worshipped and treated like a god… But there were experiments, but they weren't done by Doctor Sarina Kaur and the Chrysalis Project. The experiments were done by the Martians on Human… Khan wanted to see if it was possible to attach the twenty-fourth chromosome to the human's twenty-three. Doctor Sarina Kaur was injected with Khan's blood, it was more like a transfusion, and it worked."
"She has twenty-four chromosomes?" McCoy stared at Jim.
Jim nodded, "Khan's blood slowly infected the rest of her cells with the twenty-fourth chromosome. She's the first of many who were turned by Khan and the other Martians, they were trying to rebuild the Martians race… And it was only took a matter of weeks for them to realise they had to select humans without a certain gene to stop those they were changing turning into mutants. Then the first group took control and then another, billions of people were enslaved…
"I tried to save as many as I could… I killed my own kind, Bones! I tried to stop them, but millions of people died at the hands of those tyrants. Why couldn't they understand? Why couldn't they see? We were just like humans, we originally had twenty-three chromosomes. The twenty-fourth chromosome was synthetic, created by Martian scientists after a plague nearly wiped out our enter race! So many people died, Bones, I couldn't save them," Jim bowed his head, as tears rolled down his cheeks.
The way so many had been killed, at the hands of his kind, had been brutal to put it nicely. He seen so much and even now he couldn't decide which was more horrifying, watching his kind be killed by mutants or his kind killing others in way nobody deserved to die, when they refused to bow down and worship someone who considered themselves superior. The executions and the massacres… It had seemed like an endless bloodbath at the time.
"It wasn't your fault, Jim," McCoy said, wishing he could reach out and comfort Jim.
Jim just shook his head.
"After Solveig and I found the others, we travelled to the Northern plains," Jim said, changing the subject.
)o(
A look of surprise passed over Khan's face as Solveig, Ty and the rest of Tarsus Nine arrived at the new camp. It seemed Ty was correct, they had indeed survived just like Ty had said they would. He had to admit he was impressed that the small group of children could survive for so long and through so much on their own. He raised an eyebrow slightly as he noticed Solveig place a protective hand on Ty's shoulder, upon seeing Khan's gaze fixed on him.
Ty glanced up at Solveig as he felt a hand land on his shoulder and saw that her attention was fixed on something across from them. He followed her gaze and found Khan standing there. He nodded to Ty when their eyes met, before walking off deeper into thru camp which had been set up. Solveig squeezed Ty's shoulder as she tracked Khan's movements.
"I want you to promise me something, Ty," She said.
"What?" Ty asked, looking back at Solveig.
"Trust your instincts," Solveig answered. "And do not follow orders blindly."
Ty frowned at Solveig, "Is this about Khan?"
"Just promise me, Ty," Solveig replied.
"I promise," Ty nodded.
Solveig squeezed Ty's shoulder again, before dropping her hand from his shoulder. Ty glanced at Solveig and she smiled at him, before looking round.
"Come," Solveig said. "We need to find a place to rest."
Ty and the rest of the Tarsus Nine followed Solveig through the camp, which was noticeably smaller than the first camp they'd arrived at with Khan and Ty couldn't bring himself to ask how many hadn't survived the attack.
"Ty," Hoshi suddenly said from Ty's left.
"Hoshi," Ty replied. "What is it?"
"Xavier," Hoshi answered.
"What about him?" Ty asked, glancing over his shoulder and seeing Xavier at the back of their small group, out of earshot.
"He's capable of mutating" Hoshi told him.
Ty almost stopped walking, but Hoshi gripped his arm and almost dragged him along to keep them out of Xavier's hearing range.
"You're sure?" Ty questioned.
"I'm certain," Hoshi nodded. "When we were attacked by the imps, one of them shot something at him… I over heard survivors from the other colonies talking, the imps shot their tongues at those capable of mutating and the tongues burrowed into their necks, infecting them and causing them to mutate."
Ty looked back at Xavier.
"Then we'll just have to make sure that doesn't happen," Ty stated.
"We should tell someone, Ty," Hoshi said.
"We've survived this long without it happening, Hoshi," Ty replied. "He won't mutate unless he's infected. There must be others here, who have escaped without being infected."
Hoshi looked back at Xavier this time.
"If he mutates…" Hoshi began. "I… I couldn't kill him."
"Hoshi," Ty said seriously. "If he becomes infected and he mutates, I will kill him. He's the closest thing I have to family, you all are. But if he mutates, he won't be Xavier anymore… I won't let him harm any of you, he wouldn't want us to let him live, if he it meant he'd kill those mindless monsters... Monsters he's lost his entire family to."
)o(
Hey! I hope you enjoyed this chapter. Until next time,
Blessed be,
TreeOfLife1997.