-Chapter Twenty-Four-

CX-431 Alpha
Beta Quadrant

When they dropped out of warp near their destination, Khan became all business. He settled into the pilot's chair with ease, using the computer to scan for life on the planet below.

"Scanners detect rather a lot of life on the surface," he told Anthea when she joined him. "None of it is registering as human."

"There was a civilization there," she commented, "ages back, but they died out due to unknown circumstances. I have a few areas from the first survey in mind for a settlement, but we'll need to check them out in person before making any decisions."

Khan glanced over at her. He'd left his dark hair loose, some of the strands falling in his face. "It might be a good idea to see if any of the indigenous life is dangerous to us."

"Exactly." Anthea pulled up the survey reports from Starfleet. "The planet doesn't have much in the way of seizmic activity in most areas. There are a few volcanic areas, mostly confined to near the equator. Of course, we never can tell what's going to suddenly pop up, but the initial survey seems to indicate stability."

"That is what the sensors are telling me now," he replied. "We'll need a fairly sizable, flat area, with trees for building supplies, and access to plenty of water. The supplies you acquired won't last us forever."

"I hope the local wildlife is edible. I've brought seeds with us so we can grow crops, such as lettuce, carrots, squash, that kind of thing. I don't know what plantlife will be edible, either."

He turned to look at her. "Is there anything you didn't think of?"

She studied her screen. "I forgot birth control. Other than that, I'm not sure. Oh, I have all your equipment from your home lab. We'll need to set up generators, I have those, too, three of them, but I brought the stuff, just in case. And if we really get desperate, there's an inhabited planet two systems over that trades with the Federation and several non-Federation planets."

Khan smiled a little and went back to his sensor readings. "No wonder Starfleet kept you. No offense to Otto, but you will be my second-in-command from now on."

"I'm your wife. I'd better be equal."

The smile turned into a smirk. "Yes, dear."

She leaned over and gave him a light smack on the back of the head. He only laughed.

They landed near the first potential settlement site, and Anthea locked Nolan in the ship with a communicator link open like a baby monitor, and the medical robot to watch over him. It wasn't ideal, but she also wasn't dragging him along when she and Khan surveyed the area, and she wasn't going to let her husband go off by himself.

It was early summer on this part of the planet, as were the other two sites they wanted to check out. They would have plenty of time to build shelters for the coming winter.

This was the farthest north site, with a present climate approximately that of England. Khan was dressed in a long-sleeved shirt, trousers, and boots, armed with his phaser and a long machete he'd dug out of one of the cargo boxes. Anthea had the sensor equipment and her own phaser. If they had to fight anything off, she was going to leave it to her very capable husband to take care of.

"I'm not sure about this area," he told her. "It has plenty of lumber, which is good, but we'd have to clear a lot of area, and the water is a bit far."

"It's also downhill," she said. "And the ground near the water seems unstable. Undermining the root system could cause a landslide into the river."

He nodded. "We'll come back to this if necessary, but it is not my first choice."

At the second site, Anthea liked the area a little more. The trees were bigger, farther apart, and the ground was nicely level with a wide stream flowing through the middle.

"I'm going to scout by the hills over there," Khan told her. "Wait here."

"Sure."

He went off through the trees and low brush, while Anthea set to gathering and labelling plant samples, for testing and study. She wanted to know starting out which were edible and which were dangerous.

She'd been at it about twenty minutes when Khan came running full-tilt through the trees, machete out but down at his side. He had a scratch along one cheek, and the blade was covered with gore.

"Run," he said, grabbing her arm, and she did.

Back on the ship, he slammed the door shut and leaned against the wall.

"What was out there?" Anthea demanded.

"No idea what it was, but it was big, and it had claws bigger than my hands." He held them up to demostrate. They were speckled with blood. "Not my own blood, don't worry. I hope I killed it, but judging from the sounds from the cave I was scouting, there are more of them."

". . . Okay, we'll scratch this one off the list."

The third site had a nice, big clearing, near a sparkling blue-green lake, all of it hidden amongst towering trees. There were low, rolling hills through the forest, but nothing big enough to support caves or giant, furry monsters. The lake was fed by a river that flowed from mountains a good fifty kilometres away.

"I like this one," Anthea told her husband. "We've got a good view through the trees, access to water, and the sensors are telling me the chemical composition of the ground is similar to Earth, so we should be able to plant our crops with little problem."

He looked up at the big, fluffy clouds in the brilliantly blue sky. "Oxygen level is slightly higher than Earth, but that will be fine. You're not having any issues, and I'm sure Nolan will adapt just fine."

"What about your people?"

Khan stooped to take a water sample from the lake. "We do not require oxygen the same way you do."

Anthea blinked. "Oh, really?"

"We are affected by nerve gas, but we can survive for longer than normal humans without oxygen, because we do not waste half of it on every breath."

"That's interesting. I'm really glad Nolan isn't fussy, because if he were, and could wail for longer without taking a breath . . ."

Khan snorted. "Yes, that would be irritating."

He loaded the water sample into the testing unit he'd brought from the ship. "The water is clean, as far as I can tell. No known contaminants from any Starfleet database. It should be safe to drink."

"Good." She smiled. "So, we're settling here?"

He gave her a slight nod. "We are settling here."

"Now that we have a place to set up, we can begin reviving my crew," Khan told her over dinner.

They'd set up a bonfire outside the ship. The Reliance took up most of the clearing at the moment, the nose jutting out over the lake. They sat under the ship's wing as evening set in.

Anthea had Nolan on her lap and was feeding him small bites of food. His first molars had come in, and he relished chewing his food, even if he made a mess. "We'll need to remove the cargo containers before we can get them out. They're jammed in pretty tight, too. I used every space I could."

"Are they equipped with hover capability?"

"Yeah, but they're still bloody heavy."

"That should not be a problem."

Deciding he was finished with dinner for the present, Nolan squawked and slid off Anthea's lap. She tried to catch him, but he stumbled out of her grasp, towards the fire.

Khan reached out with one hand, caught his son by the back of his little shirt, and lifted him off the ground, all in the blink of an eye. Anthea hadn't seen him move. It was still something of a shock to know he could move that fast.

"No," he told Nolan. "Stay away from the fire."

"I'm not certain he'll understand that," Anthea began.

"Oh, he understands." The man narrowed his eyes at his offspring. "The fire is hot. You know what hot means?"

Nolan was delighted with being suspended in the air, and he flailed arms and legs, a huge grin plastered on his little face. Still, all his attention was for his father.

To Anthea's absolute astonishment, the baby nodded. "Fiw hot," Nolan piped. "Hot huwt."

Khan passed their son back over to Anthea. "He's much more intelligent than a normal human child," he reminded his wife. "I could understand at his age concepts that a child of two could not."

Still, she was a little shaken at the near-miss, horrified at the thought of her precious child falling into the fire. She kissed the top of Nolan's head.

Returning to the prior subject, Khan said, "I think, tomorrow, we can begin awakening the others."