AN: I hope you all like the new 'Book Cover' I made for this story! I wanted to do something cool with the faces of Cumberbatch and my personal choice for Marla, but… Well, I'm bad at that sort of Photoshop, lol! I hope my artistic rendition of space and Ceti Alpha V are enough! Anyway… I believe I promised something good this time?
Khan didn't return that night.
Marla was at a loss for what had happened, or what to say. But being left alone after it, and not being able to talk to anyone because of her injuries, was possibly worse. She at least wanted the company! She lay in the shuttle along the poorly designed seats, wrapped up in one of the blankets. She was sore from the confrontation with Zuleika, but that wasn't what was bothering her at all. What had her knocked for a loop was the fact that Khan had kissed her. Full on, greedily kissed her with complete abandon! She'd been terrified just seconds before it happened because she had no idea what he was going to do in answer to her actions at the fire-pit. She certainly hadn't expected that!
Dear God, she thought, what a kiss!
When she shut her eyes, she could almost feel it again. The press of his mouth on hers; so hard and hungry. She could even recall how it felt to have his body- a body she'd dreamed about (even had nightmares about) since the moment she saw him- pressing up against her. If she hadn't just had herself throttled to within an inch of her life, she might not have stopped. Or maybe she would have stopped because of how good it felt.
She whimpered. Why did she always doubt? Even a little? She sat up carefully, and went to the door of the shuttle, and opened it up. She looked out. Then started to climb out.
"I don't think so," said Ling, who was standing just to the right. "Our Lord said that you're going to stay in there until you're better."
Marla tried to protest, but Ling interrupted her. "No, don't do that, either. He talked to Doc. Hawkins, and if you try to talk, it'll delay the recovery time. Unless you want another dose of our blood in you, you'd better stay quiet, and let yourself heal. Consider it a break, or something. You've pretty much been going since the second we got set up, anyway."
Marla sighed and started to go back inside.
"Hey, Future Woman," Ling called, "When you get better, I'm teaching you some hand-to-hand moves. Throwing rocks can only go so far, you know."
Marla smiled. So, yesterday hadn't been a one-off. Ling was being nicer. She hoped this meant she'd gained the Asian Augment's respect.
For four days straight, Marla was confined to the shuttle. And in those four days, she heard nothing from Khan. She didn't see him, and neither Ling nor Weiss mentioned anything when they brought her food. The whole thing was driving Marla crazy! On top of being essentially hospitalized and segregated, she was also bored out of her mind! This was worse than when she'd been floating in space with the whole lot of the superhumans all asleep! There were people out there that she could interact with, and, apparently, she wasn't allowed to!
The monotony didn't ease until Dr. Hawkins came to give her an exam. He checked the bruising on her arms, and around her neck. They were still deep purple ringed with yellow.
"It'll be a while longer before these fade away," the doctor told her. "Normally I'd suggest a scarf to hide them, if you're self-conscious," he added. "But at least you can talk again. Just don't be yelling anything."
"Thank you," she said softly. A thought occurred to her, and she asked him, "Doctor, when I first woke up Khan, he… treated some burns on my back. He injected me with his blood."
"That's not surprising," Hawkins said, "Our blood and other cells were designed to regenerate and recover quickly from injuries. We use that particular method as a last resort, and it's considered taboo to use our blood on non-Augments, but Lord Khan has his own reasons for the things he does. Obviously it helped."
She nodded slightly in agreement. "His blood healed my burns and… other things." She sighed. "But, normally doing that- putting blood of an unknown type in to someone- is dangerous."
"For ordinary people," Hawkins agreed, "It is. But, our blood was designed to simulate Type O- the Universal Donor. That way, if we ever needed transfusions from one another, we would always match."
"But…that's impossible."
"It was laboratory tested, and government mandated in some cases, at the time," he countered. Then he packed his things away. Before he left, though, Marla took the time to ask him two important questions.
"Doctor? I'm sorry… Where is Khan?"
He paused at the door. "He's overseeing the tanning of the bison hides, and the Sod project. He's been very busy."
The sod project? Hers and McPherson's- Liam's- project? She smiled. Then she asked, "What happened to Zuleika?"
"Oh, she's had some time to cool off," said Hawkins. "Don't worry about her."
That didn't help Marla's worries. But she thanked him and let him be on his way.
The morning of the fifth day, the shuttle's door opened, and Khan stepped through. Marla looked up and knew she knew she looked too happy to see him. She felt entirely too happy to see him. As soon as he was inside, she leapt to her feet.
"Khan," as she approached, she found she had no idea how to greet him. After being kissed senseless, did you hug the person who turned your brain in to mush? Did she greet him as she used to, with cordiality? Was a handshake weird? She had no idea. At least the man inside with her now looked as if he could be human. That strange, yet alluring, thing that had pressed itself against her seemed to be gone.
She wasn't sure she wanted it to be entirely gone, though.
He looked down at her with ice-blue eyes, but the expression did not look cold. If anything, he seemed to be apprehensive. That wasn't a look she associated with the proud, strong Khan Singh.
"Forgive my absence during your recovery," he said, moving around her to enter the center of the cabin. He held a blanket-bundle against his chest. "I would have come sooner, but… I was unsure if you still wanted my company."
She laughed, it hurt her throat a bit, and then she quieted the sound. "Why would you think that? I've been bored to death in here, with no one to talk to."
"You would not have been able to talk," he stated.
"Well, then, no one to talk at me while I listen." She moved closer to see what he had brought. "What's this?"
"Something to help you in the future, should you need it." The item he picked up from the fabric looked like a white stick, at first, but no such wood grew in the jungle. It took her a moment to recognize that it was bone. And as he handed it to her, she realized precisely what it was.
"You made… You made a bone knife!" she said, astonished, and mesmerized. The design on the outer case was intricate and delicately carved. On the front, and the back, the exact same design was featured. When she pulled the knife itself out, she saw that the whole of it had been carved out from one single bone. It was sharpened very finely, the flat of the blade smooth and without a single blemish visible. She put the knife back in to its sheath.
"It's beautiful," she said. "And… you really want me to have it?"
"You need other methods of protecting yourself, though I doubt anyone within the camp will attack you again," he explained. "But better to be prepared."
She felt heat going to her cheek. "You trust me with a weapon, though."
"You deserve something more refined than a phaser, and it will be some time yet before I can make a sling for you."
That took her by surprise. "You want… You want to make a sling? For me?"
"You did have proficiency, I believe." He grinned. Oh, how she missed that smile! It was a rare thing, and when he showed it to her, it made her feel lighter than air.
She covered her mouth. Too much. She thought it would be too much. "…Did you make the carvings, too?"
"I did," he confessed. "It is in the Hindi language. It says, 'Though she be little, she is fierce'."
The quote made her giggle. And the giggle made her wince and cough.
He turned, and picked up the blanket itself. "This was recovered from the fire." He shook the fabric out, and held it up.
"Thank God for fire-proof fabric," Marla said with a big smile.
"Apparently my people did not consider that fire-resistant material would be perfected by the 23rd Century." He chuckled softly, and it made Marla's upper spine shiver.
She took the sari, however, and sniffed it. "Though it still smells like smoke."
"Ah, I could do nothing for that." That made them both start to laugh, his chuckle joining in chorus with her restrained giggles.
After the laughing had subsided, she said to him, "I really did miss you." It was a lot to admit, but it was true! She had missed this, these strange and unexpected moments of laughter, and their conversations together. Being without them had been absolutely horrible.
He looked away from her. Glance cast downward. "You had already been through too much trauma," he told her. "And you were in enough pain. I," he paused. What was wrong? She had never seen him look this way before. His brow furrowed, his lips turned down now in scowl or frown, but not the least bit of their humor from moments ago present. She waited for him to continue, if he would.
"I did not trust myself to be gentle with you." His voice was a whisper, but the strain in it spoke volumes. And it made Marla's heart ache. He wove around her as he headed for the door, and said, "You may change your clothes, if you want, but when you've finished, join us. Liam wishes to share his studies on the larva the two of you discovered."
After the door shut, Marla looked down at these new gifts. The knife was, truly, beautiful, and wonderfully crafted, and it gave her a much better idea of what artistic abilities the Augment Leader possessed. It also made her feel so glad, to know that he trusted her enough to give her a weapon! She wouldn't have to feel so vulnerable anymore.
She changed out of the jumpsuit and back in to her sari. It was amazing how a simple change of clothes made you feel. She had thought that wearing the same thing as the others around her would make her feel more like them, but since it was Zuleika's suit, and she had been confined away from the rest of the colony, it had the opposite. The sari made her feel, strangely enough, more like herself again. When she finished, she climbed out of the shuttle, and was led by Ling to meet with McPherson and Khan.
The walk revealed that quite a lot had happened while she was away. She saw skins drying near the fire pit, stretched out in the sun, and there were people knelt on the ground, with rectangular wooden molds, forming bricks! She would need to ask what their sod was made from, but she suspected it was a mixture of gravel and rock from the mountains, with mud and leaves from the jungle.
"Liam says if those hold up through the rain, then we'll be able to have houses in a year or so," Ling said.
Marla smiled, "This is amazing. I'm watching history unfolding right in front of me."
"Was this really how they did it back then? During the middle ages?" Ling asked her.
She figured Ling meant the Medieval times.
"Oh, in many places during that time they utilized stone, and had hammers, nails, and other materials. This method predates the time of Christ," Marla explained.
"Still, it'll be nice. An actual house," Ling mused.
"Did you mean it before?" Marla asked her. "About… teaching me how to fight?"
"I wouldn't have said it if I hadn't meant it," Ling confirmed. "I'll go easy on you, but I want your best, hear me?"
"Loud and clear," Marla replied.
They stopped at the Hospital Shuttle, and Marla went inside. She found Liam with Dr. Hawkins and Khan, looking over the body of a bird, the head cut open in the back, several of the beetles, and three still wriggling larva.
"Miss Marla," Liam said, looking up. "I'm glad you're doing better. Now that you're here, I can share my findings." He looked at their leader and the doctor, "You'll all find this interesting." He used a pair of tweezers to pick up the first larva. "I wanted to know how these creatures used their neurotoxin. So, I caught one of the indigenous birds, and began by feeding a larva-coated parent beetle to it. There was no change in the least. Then I tried a paste of ground larva and fed that to the bird. Again, no change. Then, I attempted to attach them, like leeches. At first there was no change, but I had to leave for a bit to oversee sod preparation. When I returned, the bird seemed to be in the middle of a seizure, flailing around and attempting to get out of its restraints.
"Within minutes, the bird dropped dead, seemingly of its own accord. But," he pointed to the larva, "This crawled out of its ear passage. I contained the larva, and then cut open the cranium." He picked up what looked like tan colored meat, smeared with some blood. It was crumbly and loose. "This is what I found. The larva had completely destroyed its brain! My guess is that these larvas find a host to feed on, like a parasite, and then devour brain matter. When the host dies, either from the larva reaching maturity, or when the brain matter has been entirely consumed, it leaves."
"How does the neurotoxin assist in this?" Khan asked.
"It likely makes the host more docile. In a more sentient creature, and this is just a hypothesis, My Lord, it may render them susceptible to suggestion."
"Mind control?" Marla asked.
"Yes," McPherson replied. His expression was one of child-like delight. "Isn't this just magnificent?"
"Scientifically, yes," agreed Dr. Hawkins, "But medically it's one of the worst things I've ever heard. How could anyone survive being infested by those?"
"They likely wouldn't," said McPherson. "Still, it wouldn't be bad if you studied them, too, Doctor. Then we can know if one has gotten in to one of our own."
"Study them thoroughly," Khan said. "I want as much knowledge on these creatures as possible. I don't want any more threats to our colony."
The men agreed. Khan crossed to Marla and touched her arm.
"Come with me. I'm meeting with our newly appointed masons. I want your opinion on the best designs for our settlement's houses." She quite eagerly agreed and followed.
It was back to business as usual, after that, really. The colony's progression moved with near rapid speed, though. As the days passed by, the sod bricks made seemed sturdy and strong, and eventually the first dwelling, a simple house with a single, open door, was constructed as a sort of 'test house', and they moved the cryo-tubes inside. Some of those said tubes had been given a new purpose, as well, serving as freezers for the meat that had been butchered from the bison. This ensured that anything killed and brought in for food would not go bad and that they would have preservation without salt.
There were many blessings that came from the bison hunt. Not only the hide and skins to use in making wrappings for weapons, but they were able to make new clothes, now. One of the first things made, aside from the promised sling and stone pouch that Khan created for Marla, were leggings and breeches for the men. Khan had even crafted a long coat to wear.
The first time Marla saw him in the dark tan material, his legs hugged by the breeches that replaced his Starfleet issue trousers, it had given her stomach butterflies. He looked like a real ancient warrior, now. His hair had even begun to grow out, and now was held back with a leather tie.
The best innovation, however, that came with the bison had been the creation of real, honest-to-God soap! With the tallow collected from the meat and the skins, the ashes from the fire, and their river-water, they were able to make crude, but perfectly usable, and very welcome soap. Marla relished in the first bath she had with that soap, and had scrubbed herself with it until her skin was raw and pink. True, the soap also meant cleaning of various other things, like their weapons and clothing and what all, but that little bit of vanity remaining in her had been so happy for the luxury.
In between all of these happenings, Ling made good on her promise. She showed Marla some martial-arts moves. Given their equal heights, taking down an attacker of similar build had been first. This resulted in the first week of training with Marla being flipped over Ling's shoulder and slammed to the ground several times.
"This is going easy on me?!" she exclaimed after getting back up from a particularly heavy slam.
"If I were being serious, your whole skeleton would be shattered," Ling told her. "Now get back up. We're doing it again."
It took a month, but Marla finally got the hang of it. The feeling of being able to lift Ling up with all of her might and slam the woman down on the ground had been exhilarating.
"Perfect!" Ling told her, jumping up, without a single sign that she'd been body-slammed apparent, save the dirt on her clothes. "Now that you've got that down, I'm going to have Joaquin join us, and we'll work on neutralizing a bigger opponent."
"Are you insane?!" Marla yelled. "I could never!"
"I can," Ling countered, her face smug.
"You're a supersoldier!"
"And I was taught by a man who was as small as you, and had achieved mastery in seven different types of martial arts," Ling told her. "My sensei, though completely inferior in genetics, was a superior fighter. Before I met Lord Khan and Joaquin, he was the most powerful man I had known."
Marla fidgeted a bit. "Sorry."
"It's fine," Ling said. "Lesson's done for today," she added. "Get food and wash up. You smell like a Comp Berry."
Marla looked over the leather vest that Ling now wore, and her phaser's new side-holster.
"And you smell like a bison." The Augment woman laughed, and just waved her off. It was still a shock, even after all this time, that she and Suzette Ling had become friends.
Marla retrieved a bar of soap and her bag from the shuttle, and then went to go get her supper. That would be first. She was absolutely starving, honestly. After getting a few slices of meat and a rationing of canned, re-hydrated peas, she sat to eat. The meat was slightly gamy, but she'd gotten used to the flavor, as she had gotten used to so many other things. The other Augments still didn't sit with her, but there had been no more altercations or assaults from them. Zuleika kept away from her as much as possible, and seemed to ignore her existence when they did pass by one another. That was better than being strangled and slapped around, she supposed.
While she ate, a mass came up and sat beside her. Golden-headed Viking Harluf looked at her and smiled.
"You are doing better now, without so much hostility, Miss Marla," he said to her.
"It's better than before," she admitted to him.
"You are getting stronger, too," Harluf noted. "I watch you with Suzette. She is a good teacher. And you are quick to learn."
"Thank you," she replied. "You're one of the few people who will talk to me, still."
"You are smart and very kind. But you are also stubborn," he told her. "I am a stubborn man, myself."
"I've never seen that."
"You and I do not disagree with one another," he said.
"That's not a bad thing with some friends."
He grinned wider. "I am glad that you think of me as a friend, Miss Marla." He looked around, and then leaned in close, whispering to her, "Lord Khan does not want us to be friends."
She paused, putting down the mouthful of peas she had scooped up. "Why? You're one of our best hunters."
He glanced around again. "I think that he thinks… that I may want to be more than your friend." Something in his words and in his eyes changed, then. Less innocent and jovial. Darker. More sinister. It made Marla lose her appetite.
"Um, well," Marla said, standing up, and setting her food down. "I don't think he has to worry about that. You and I are just friends, right?"
The face of the ally seemed to return, slipping on as easily as flipping a switch. "Of course," he answered.
"Good." Marla gestured to her abandoned plate. "You can have the rest of mine. I'm not so hungry, now." Then she left the camp's central hub, taking a less obvious route around toward the river.
When she reached the riverbank, she set down her bag and undressed. The conversation with Halruf unsettled her greatly. She had never thought much about the fact that he avoided talking to her whenever Khan was in camp, but now she had to examine it more closely. The first time she met Harluf, he had seemed like a sympathetic and kindly ally. Someone who just wanted to protect a person who was very clearly a target and easy prey to others.
Had he just been another predator using a different method of catching that prey?
The cold feeling that left in her made her pick up her bone knife, tie it securely to her upper arm, and take it in to the water with her soap bar. Better safe than sorry.
She lathered up, rubbing the rough rectangle over her skin and in her hair, and then tossed it back toward her things on the bank. She ran her hands up and scrubbed with her fingers and palms, getting a thick foam up in her hair, then moved the foam down over the rest of her body. She looked down at the rippling water. Nearly two months since the loss of the Eden, and their landing on the planet, she had changed, and the reminder of it threw her off. When she was able to see her reflection again, one sunny afternoon when she had been washing, she expected to see a woman with the traces of regained fat around her face and limbs, and chin-length wavy brown hair. The face she saw, though, had slimmed, becoming a clear heart-shape rather than a slight oval. Her hair had grown out, too, and now it brushed her shoulders. Days out in the sun had lightened it and made it spark with deep red in the light. She hadn't been 'auburn' since she was twelve. Her body had developed new muscles on it, in her upper arms and in her legs, especially.
The woman she had seen was not the Marla McGivers who had boarded the U. S. S. Eden. She doubted she'd see that woman ever again.
She dunked down to clean her hair out, and rose back up, clearing the remaining soap from her eyes. However, a splashing sound made her jump and turn. She drew out her knife and pointed it outward. She looked around, seeking out the originator of the noise. Was it Zuleika, wanting revenge after all this time? Was it Harluf? Her eyes sought any movement in the dark.
"Very good reflexes," purred a familiar voice. Khan seemed to emerge from the night itself, but really, he had stepped out from behind a small outcropping of rocks. He must have tossed something in to the water. "You have picked up so much from Suzette, my dear."
Relief flooded her as she realized she wasn't in danger. "Oh, Khan," she sighed. However, that didn't last, as she remembered that she was entirely naked. "Khan!" She crouched down, covering her chest with her arms. "What- why are you out here? Did you just want to scare me?"
"Oh, never, my dear, never," he said, moving closer to the riverbed. "I was merely curious about your progress."
"There are other ways," she told him, "And better times, to ask about that."
"Not in this case." He shrugged off his long leather coat, letting it drop to the ground. Then he pulled the fraying black shirt he still wore off, and dropped it, as well, revealing his perfectly cut pectorals. His upper body was practically gleaming in the light of their sister-planet above. His shoulders, arms, were magnificent and looked cut from marble. To call his abdomen a 'six-pack' would be an insult to the beauty of the dips and ripples in the muscle.
When his hands went to untie the upper knots on the sides of his britches, it became very obvious what he was doing, and Marla was able to make her brain start working and make her stop staring at his body.
"You- I," she tried to talk, but apparently perfection in flesh was hindering that. "You're stripping!"
"Obviously," he said. The peek of his hip-bone, the hard-cut lines of his long legs, the mere glimpse of the dark trail of hair going down from his lower abdomen to his...
Marla watched him step down in to the river. Movements slow, precise, and graceful.
Eventually her legs remembered that they could move. "Khan, if you need a little privacy, you can always ask," she said, turning away and going to the riverbank to gather her things. Before she could climb up, though, he lunged. His arms wound their way around her waist, and he pulled her back to him. She yelped and struggled at first, but then his large hands pressed against her hips. His head dropped down and he buried his nose in her wet hair. She froze.
Khan pressed his lips against shell of her ear, and he whispered to her. "Day and night I watch you, woman, and with every waking moment, every second that passes by, my hunger for you grows." Every syllable of his words made his lips move along her skin. His breath was hot against her. He held her flush against him, her back pressed to his chest, and the front of his thighs moving against the curve of her buttocks.
She licked her lips, the bottom one quivering. "I… Khan, I-"
He stalled her words with kisses to her neck. He trailed them down and along their curve in to her shoulder, while he bowed, guiding her to lean forward. Her hands shot out and plunged in to the cold river water. Tiny stones and sand oozed up from her fingers, but she didn't quite care when she felt his arousal, as hard as the rest of his glorious body, press against her thigh.
"From the moment I tasted your lips," he said against her shoulder, "and felt this soft body against me, I have craved more. Give me what I crave," he begged her.
"Oh, God," she gasped as his hips moved forward. She felt his length rub against the tender bundle of nerves between her legs, and it caused her to jerk her hips back. "Khan!"
"Maid of Eden, ere we part," he breathed as he adjusted his hips, "give, oh, give me back my heart." He moved his right hand up along the center of her body, between the curves of her breasts and along her neck until he had her head cupped in his hand. "Or since that has left my breast, keep it now and," then he slid himself deep inside of her, one long motion to fill her up, "And take the rest!"
His words came out in a low, loud groan, echoed by her own voice crying out. He stopped when he was sheathed inside of her, then he pulled his hips away, slowly. God, the ache she felt, it was unspeakable. He didn't retreat entirely, though, for as soon as she felt the bulk of him gone, he pushed his hips forward and impaled her again. His breathing was harsh in her ear as he moved so slowly. She knew he had to be holding back for her. He doesn't want to hurt me, she thought. She pressed her thighs and round ass against him, whimpering. She didn't want to hurt, but she wanted to feel him, too.
He took the hint, and began to pull and push, making a steady, building rhythm. With each increasing motion, their breaths increased and quickened. Marla felt her heart beginning to beat in time with his movements.
"By that lip," Khan gasped, his head whipping back, while he increased his thrusts. "By that lip I long to taste; by that zone-encircled waist; by all the token-flowers that tell what words can never speak so well!" He shifted the angle of his hips and-
OH! Oh, yes! She screamed as he stroked at the little nerve-center.
"Khan!" Her voice came out in a high-pitched sound, then she keened, begged him, "Oh, God, Khan, please! Please, please, please, please!"
His answer was a sharp and quick thrust, followed by hard, fast piston motions that could only be described as wanton rutting. That voice that had been giving her sweet and ardent words came out in raw, unrefined grunts. His hands grabbed for her thighs, and he dragged his fingernails against her skin, while his lips found her neck and his teeth scraped against the tender surface. He took that spans of flesh and worried it; suckled it, growled around it. He was leaving his unquestionable marks on her body.
By now her fingers had gone numb in the cold water. Her legs and knees, she didn't think to the ache they would feel later. She was absorbed and lost entirely in this; this unfathomable, unending torrent of savage passion. Her wordless cries were a song in the night that spoke of the desire she felt this gorgeous and magnificent creation of science. And, oh, how she had desired him, from the minute she first saw him, even when she had feared him, through everything that they had been through together, it had persisted and grown. She had never hoped to fulfill it. But now he drove her full-on to the peak of it.
As they hurtled toward that peak together, she screamed. Whether it was his name, or whether there were no words at all, she didn't know, may never remember. What she remembered was the bellow he made when he cried out, following her over the edge.
"MARLA!"
AN: Now… let it be known that I do not write erotic literature. I hope what I have written will suffice. Hope you like the gratuitous Naked-Batch and quotes from Byron.
Now, to take a moment to interrupt, I want to direct you folks to the page of a fellow writer. Her name is Tekawolf and she does many good writings. In fact, I currently have 3 collaborations going on her page. We work together to bring madness to various worlds. If you want to read them (especially our Sherlock centric stories) go to me profile and clickie the link next to her name!