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The Admiral had shut off the view screen communication and a signal appeared on the Entrada's screen, indicating the function of the transporter pad.
"Sir, all our communications and transporter functions have been restored. They've stopped jamming our signals." Keats informed Spock.
Nyota's eyes were glued to the blackness of space and the ship before them on the view screen, her hands shook and she tried her hardest to control her emotions. She couldn't get upset, not at this stage in her pregnancy, that would not be good for her daughter.
"Nyota." Spock said quietly, she tore her gaze from the screen and met his, exhaling. She hadn't realised she was holding her breath.
Kirk came running onto the bridge.
"What's happening?" He approached the centre of the room. "Holy shit." His attention was drawn to the ship facing them, but his hand managed to find Nyota's shoulder. "Uhura, you okay?"
"I don't know." She whispered.
"Lieutenant Keats, can you hail them?" Spock asked over his shoulder.
"I am sending them everything I can, Sir. They are choosing not to respond."
"What the hell do you think he is doing with Khan?" Kirk asked. "He can't kill him…"
Nyota held her breath again and gripped the sleeve of Kirk's jacket, crushing the leather in her fingers.
"Killing him would be illogical; if he did, he would have nothing to use to gain Uhura's cooperation."
"Spock!" Kirk called out on his insensitivity.
"No, he's right." Nyota breathed, "If he killed him straight off there would be no way they could get me to do anything." Her lip trembled.
"What can we do now?" Kirk sighed, wanting to act, do something.
"There is nothing we can do until the Admiral responds to our hailing frequency and reopens a channel." Spock said. "I suggest we keep our shields up."
A long few minutes passed. The bridge crew had ceased their work on the data from Orcus and anxiously awaited a response from the Admiral's ship. Nyota felt as if lifetimes had passed, her feet welded to a spot on the floor.
The view screen fizzled back to life, displaying the half empty bridge of the Admiral's ship. He stepped into view, dragging Khan with him and forcing him down to his knees. Khan's hands were cuffed behind his back as he looked back onto his ship and found Nyota.
"You have got yourself one loyal guy, Lieutenant." The Admiral was annoyed. "He is refusing to tell us anything!"
Nyota couldn't speak. She held Khan's gaze and saw fear in his eyes. He grit his teeth and struggled slightly against his hand restraints.
"This is what I'm gonna do, I'm going to make you a real fair deal here." The Admiral began addressing Uhura. "I'll let Khan go and return him to the Entrada, if you come over here and take his place." He said, like it was all so simple. "Or, if you turn down my offer," He stepped closer to Khan, grabbed a fistful of his hair and pulled his head back, bringing a knife he enclosed in his other hand to his throat. "I'll slit his throat right here and you can watch him die."
"What the hell is wrong with you!?" Kirk shouted at this man, "What kind of deal is that, you can't do this-!"
"Is that a 'no', I'm hearing then?" The Admiral said, pressing his knife in closer to Khan's throat.
"No, please stop!" Nyota exclaimed. "Please, please don't hurt him, please."
"Nyota…" Khan managed as the blade hovered back from him.
"Be quiet." The Admiral kicked him in the side of his ribcage. Nyota screamed as he doubled over.
"Lower your shields, let me beam her across." He spoke slowly, addressing them like they were idiots, Khan had managed to sit up again, yet Spock was reluctant to oblige.
"Spock." Nyota turned to him. "Do it."
"Uhura, this is not a good-" Kirk began.
"Jim!" She cut him off. "I have to, I can't let them hurt him." Tears were pooling in her eyes.
"Lower shields." Spock ordered eventually, gaze locked with hers.
They waited in silence, the crew each looking at Uhura with fear and worry, terrified for her and the baby. Energy encircled her, she took a deep breath and focused as the bridge changed from the bright white Entrada, to a smaller, blue hull. She energised in the middle of the bridge, spotting Khan on his knees in front of the view screen. As soon as she was able to move, she dashed around the comm to him before anyone could grab her, and dropped to her knees next to him, throwing her arms around him.
"Are you okay? Oh my God…" She kissed him.
"My love…" He replied, but two security guards had grabbed Nyota's arms and were picking her off of him, dragging her back. Khan snapped. "Unhand her for God's sake! This is no way to treat a pregnant woman!"
The Admiral observed her a moment before nodding to the security officers. They let go of her arms, and one simply placed a hand on her shoulder to remind her to keep still. A few tears escaped her as her hands found her stomach.
"Please, let him stay here." Nyota begged, "Just don't separate us."
"Sorry! That wasn't part of our deal." The Admiral said, walking back around to a comm station. "Say goodbye to lover-boy."
"Khan!"
He met her gaze and tried to get to his feet, but energy was already encircling him and he vanished from the bridge, appearing on the view screen on the Entrada's hull.
Kirk helped Khan to his feet as he reappeared on their bridge.
"Get these bloody cuffs off me!" He demanded. "Why can't you just take us both!?" He yelled back at the Admiral.
"You'll get in the way Khan." He told him. "You weren't willing to offer me any information, so I shall work with Nyota and take it from her instead."
"You touch her!" He yelled. "You lay a finger on her, or on my child and I will hunt you down!"
The Admiral laughed. Someone from engineering rushed onto the bridge with a pair of industrial bolt cutters and freed Khan from his restraints.
"You think anyone in the federation is going to let you get anywhere near me?" He questioned him, "After what you did to the last Admiral?"
"If Uhura gets hurt, I'll be coming after you as well!" Kirk spat.
"As will I." Spock too pitched in, and soon, the whole bridge was on Khan's side.
"I'm not going to hurt her, what good would that serve?" The Admiral countered, "Besides, hers and the child's health is what I am interested in. I'll have a chat with Uhura, and we'll see if we can't come to a little arrangement or two. Find a win-win situation for everyone."
With a smirk, the Admiral closed off communications to the Entrada.
"Shields up." He ordered one of his lieutenants. "I don't want them trying anything smart."
Nyota wiped her face and took a deep breath, mustering all the strength she could find.
"Lets go somewhere quieter, so we can talk." The Admiral said, approaching her. The security guards had let her go.
"I might be pregnant, but don't think for one second that I have forgotten how to fight." She hissed at him.
"Lieutenant." He held his hands up in a show of assurance, "I am honestly not going to harm you, or your child; I'm not a monster."
"Then what the hell was all that about!?" She demanded.
"I am not adverse to using tactical force in situations that require it, and with Khan, force is always required."
"With you force is always required. It's the only way you can gain control."
"You might wanna apply that to Khan."
"He doesn't use violence to control people; he'll kick your ass because you deserve it!"
"You really can't see him for who he is, can you?" He laughed.
"I know exactly who he is. It's you that still tries to label him as a criminal; creating ways of punishing him and making him the bad guy."
"Come with me." He reached out to grab her arm, but she evaded his hand.
"Don't you touch me." She growled. The Admiral eyed her a moment before gesturing toward the bridge doors.
xxxx
Nyota sat in the conference room of the little ship opposite the Admiral. She didn't know what class starship she was on, but it was very pleasant. The main rooms were smaller than an average fleet ship, and the colour scheme used hues of dark to powder blue. Her fingers cradled a glass of water on the table before her, she stared through the liquid at the warped colour of the table beneath.
"What do you want?" She asked quietly, breaking the scrutinising silence and looking up at him. "And don't lie, or sugar coat it, or skip around the point - just tell me what it is you're trying to get from us, trying to achieve."
"I cannot trust Khan, or you for that matter, Lieutenant." He said, "And now you have conceived a child… it's dangerous."
"Dangerous?"
"This child will be genetically unique; it will have some genes of a super human. It's personality, emotional state and development will be entirely unpredictable and different to that of regular humans. Who knows what tendencies it may have inherited from its father."
"Do you even understand how the concept of development works?" Nyota protested. "Every person is unique, superhuman or not, it doesn't make any difference. She will develop her-"
"She..?" The Admiral suppressed a smug grin at her lapse of tongue.
"Yes. She." Nyota cursed herself for letting the information slip, but continued. "She will develop her emotions and personality based around her upbringing."
"You honestly think that Khan is capable of bringing up a child?"
"Absolutely." She defended him. "He will be a perfect father."
"He is a murder and a manipulator."
"Only because you forced him to it!" She argued. "Yet after everything you have put Khan and I through in the past years; making us out to be war criminals, cryostasis, killing the Vengeance crew! … You have the audacity to sit there and act as if you are better than us?"
"How do you know about the Vengeance crew?"
"You really think we wouldn't figure it out?" She said, there was no need to tell him about how they confronted Spock. The Admiral sighed, but made no comment on it.
"Having a child does not excuse your past actions, Lieutenant." He told her, "But, it does complicate things. Already your crew mates are willing to side with you against me if any harm came to you or your daughter, and if word got out about any of this to the rest of Starfleet or normal civilians, then there would be more trouble than I can deal with. Yet because of both your past reputations, I cannot just sit by and do nothing."
"Yes, you can. You can leave us alone and let us get on with our lives in peace. We have a child to think about. I don't want to be fighting the Federation anymore."
"Then you will consider this; I leave you both in peace, in exchange for access to your daughter in order to study her genetics."
"Go to hell."
"Fine, we will commence with option two then." He told her impatiently, "I am taking you back to earth. I will wait until your daughter is born, declare you unfit to be parents, and then I will take her from you. No one will argue with this. She will be raised by the Federation and studied by genetic experts. You will never see her, and she will not know that you, or Khan, exist." He announced his decision, ending their discussion and getting to his feet to leave the room.
Nyota stood up and threw her glass of water at him. The liquid soaked him as the glass narrowly missed, and smashed against the wall next to him, shards flew everywhere.
"You bastard!" She screamed. "You are not!" The security guards who had been present in the room grabbed her arms. The Admiral threw her a disgusted look.
"Put her in the brig and get the doctor to run some scans and take blood." He ordered and Nyota was dragged away.
Nyota lay in a powder blue cell, defeated. Security had locked her up and the ships doctor had given her a mild sedative before she could think about throwing a punch. He scanned her and her stomach, and took a few blood samples. The Admiral would know everything about her child in a matter of minutes.
Closing her eyes, she could not fight the sleep induced by the drugs, as the ship warped her away from Khan and the Entrada, and back to Earth.