This is the last replaced chapter. Edited on 10/1/2013.
I hope replacing this chapter does not interrupt anyone halfway through reading these scenes.
Thanks to these folks (in alphabetical order) for taking the time to give feedback on these replacement chapters before they were added to this story: BigStraightCrush, CLTex, Emma, Guest, Mrs. Cumberbatch, rem, TheJewellersHand, WhitneyG, XxLadyVerlacxX
Chapter 50
Khan awoke in agony. There was a wrenching cramp where his stomach used to be, and a lead weight in his chest instead of a heart. He cried out, unable to control himself, unable to regulate the pain. He felt incomplete, and it was not just a physical incompleteness.
Beth.
He forced his eyes to open, forced himself to look around. He was laying on the marble floor in the auction room, beside the wooden table. He had failed her. She was gone. He tried to sit up and his stomach muscles spasmed. He barked with pain and rolled over on his side, hugging himself.
"Welcome back," a deep voice said, and Khan could not believe his ears. He looked up at the man standing in the doorway. He was tall and broad-shouldered with auburn hair and intense teal eyes. The fidelity of the man's voice was unmistakable. He was an Augment.
"You died," the man said, crouching down and turning Khan's face into the light with a strong hand. "But your body is coming back, one system at a time."
In all of his years of fighting Khan had never come close to dying. "How?" he asked, watching as the man examined him. He was in his forties, with scar tissue under his left eye. It was the kind of scar that technology could remove in the twenty-third century; this man had chosen to keep it and Khan fleetingly wondered at its significance. As he stared a second man came up behind the first. His hair and eyes were darker, he had no scar, and he was a few years younger, but otherwise the mirror image.
"I knew you were an Augment," the second man said. "I devised half the games at the Citadel myself. Only a superior mind could have beaten the house as often as you. That, and your lack of identity. You're the Augment we heard about last year, you were discovered and awoken by Starfleet."
Khan nodded once, clarifying nothing.
"We own the Citadel," the first man explained. "My name is Sam Coghlan, my brother is Kelly. We have been looking for you since this morning. You killed two of our guards. When our men here today recognized you we ordered them to keep you in the building by any means necessary. We are familiar with the increased resistance of augments to traditional energy weapons so we instructed them to carry modified phasers. Some of your small blood vessels have been fried and you've lost a lot of fluid." Sam pointed to the scar under his eye. "I died once myself and I know how much it hurts until your cells regenerate. I apologize for the drastic measures."
Khan sat up carefully, putting his head between his knees. The pain in his stomach was already starting to subside but lactic acid was leaking into every muscle in his body. It felt like fire ants were crawling through his veins. "The woman," he said hoarsely.
"The one for sale? She's the one who restarted your heart," Sam told him. "We're told she gave you chest compressions after you died."
Khan put his hand over his heart. Was that the last place she had touched him?
"Surprising considering you'd just paid for the privilege of raping her," Kelly said. "Or do you know her?"
Khan looked up slowly, feeling his brain slide sickeningly inside his skull from a lack of cerebrospinal fluid. These were not normal men, yet when he tried to see them as Augments, there was something not quite right about them, like a blurriness where there should have been sharp edges. They were looking at him with a disturbing intensity.
"No," he said. He needed to find out what had happened to Beth, but if these men really were some kind of Augments he didn't want them being more curious about her than they already were. "We were told she was from Earth," Khan began, and then paused, gasping and pretending that his lungs were failing. He could feel his strength returning but he wanted to appear weak for as long as possible. After a few moments he continued, his voice pained and quiet. "I told her if she pleased me I would send her home when I was done with her."
"That is an offer she wouldn't get from anyone else here. It's lucky that she believed you," Sam said. "If she hadn't restarted your heart your brain would have been too damaged for a full recovery by the time we arrived. She probably saved your life."
Of course she did, Khan thought. Somehow Beth always managed to succeed when he failed. "Where is she?" he asked.
"One of the bidders made us a private offer," Kelly said. "After today's fiasco it seemed the cleanest solution."
"Who?" Khan asked, fighting to keep the panic out of his voice. He tried to remember all of the men in the room. "Was it Clay?" He was the one with the reputation for inflicting injuries on the girls.
A third voice came from the door. It was Armie, all resentment and indignation. "Yes, it was Clay. He's already taken her back to his ship."
Sam and Kelly cringed and bristled as Armie entered the room, followed by two casino guards. Khan couldn't tell if the guards were containing Armie or protecting him. Khan stood slowly, relying on hate to give him strength, as it had so many times before. He noticed his bag on the table. It was open, still full of his credit chips, his sleek new PADD laying on the top.
Armie saw Khan looking at it and he stared greedily at the money. "It will cost you, but if you still want the girl I might be able to broker a deal for you when Clay is done with her, but knowing Clay, she's probably not worth having by then." He laughed, and the sound pulled a trigger in Khan's mind.
He reached inside the bag to grab his PADD. It was barely a few millimeters thick, but it was heavy enough to carry the right momentum. Khan crouched as the two guards fired phasers over his head and then he leaned forward to hurl the PADD. It sliced through the air for a fraction of a second before its thin metal edge sliced through the skin of Armie's neck.
There was a moment of stillness as shock registered around the room. None were more shocked than Armie, whose eyes widened in disbelief as his hands clumsily felt the PADD embedded deep in his throat.
"I'll always want the things that belong to me," Khan told him, smiling viciously as Armie made empty choking sounds. The PADD had severed his trachea and obstructed it completely. Armie pulled it out, freeing his airway but also unstopping his carotid artery. Blood gushed from the wide wound in his neck as he fell to his knees and keeled forward, dead.
Khan remained crouched, leaning back on his right foot, waiting for his next target to volunteer. To his surprise, the guards didn't move except to lower their weapons.
"Alright, you two, clear out," Sam ordered. The guards exited, leaving Khan alone with Sam and Kelly, and Armie's corpse.
"He was our brother." Kelly said matter-of-factly, looking down with disdain as Armie's blood spread towards him across the floor.
Khan shook his head. "That's impossible. You're…"
Kelly smiled – an unexpected reaction if Khan really had just murdered his brother. "We're the last descendants of the Augments from your time."
Sam also smiled. "Of course, as you would know, the original Augments couldn't normally breed, not with humans, not with each other. Our line started with two Augments. One was a full-blooded Augment."
"Pure, if you like," Kelly said.
"And the other was… different, somehow, but still augmented, and they were able to conceive children."
Khan understood. They were describing Primary and Secondary Augments, like himself and Beth. He stared at the men. Was he looking into his children's future, and their children's children's future?
"And they continued the line by breeding with each other."
Khan's eyes narrowed slightly. "Siblings bred with each other?"
Kelly nodded, unashamed. "Like Egyptian Pharaohs, to keep the bloodlines pure."
"Some mated with normal humans," Sam added. "But it diluted the very traits that made us special, so it was forbidden. Unfortunately, as the weak genes were eliminated by inbreeding, even mating with humans became impossible. Now we are so pure that even a runt like Armie was sterile."
Khan was shocked by how casually Sam and Kelly regarded their dead brother. "There were no females born in your generation?" he guessed, feeling nauseated. He thought of Beth and how he could not let them guess what she was, nor that she was carrying his children.
"We had a sister," Kelly said, with a trace of bitterness in his voice. "She could not accept the way things were."
"She committed suicide," Sam explained. "It was very Shakespearean."
"I'm sorry," Khan said, trying to sound sympathetic, but he guessed the sister was better off dead than attached at the womb to these two men, being forced to bear their children.
"We've invested in genetic research and cloning," Sam continued. "But we're yet to see any tangible results."
"Which brings us to the reason you're still alive," Kelly said.
Sam laughed. "That's right, brother, the king is dead, long live the king!"
Khan frowned in confusion, and decided he didn't like the way Sam called him brother.
"You killed Armie," Kelly explained. "Everything he had is now yours. All of his property, all of his power."
"That is the Augment way," Khan conceded.
"Yes," Kelly said proudly, "We still honor the old traditions, as much as we know of them, anyway."
It was true, down to the closed-minded puritanical attitude, and the old ways had never seemed more archaic to Khan. "Why hasn't anyone killed Armie before now?" he asked.
Both men laughed. "We never felt inclined to allow it before," Kelly said.
"We want to make you a partner," Sam added, smiling expectantly. "It would be an honor and a pleasure."
"We rule this city and half the planet," Kelly said proudly. "With your help we could control it all. I think it is a worthy prize for you."
"Indeed," Khan said, waiting for the old heat of ambition to rise in his chest. It did not come. "What if I were to decline?"
"Why would you?" Kelly asked sharply. More than Sam, he seemed to take pride in his Augment heritage. Having a "real" Augment as a partner was probably quite a coup in his mind.
Khan tried to think of a reason that did not involve Beth, something that would impress the brothers. "Starfleet is still holding my Augment crew. I am on a mission to retrieve them." He picked up his bag. "I was here to raise funds."
Kelly's eyes widened. "An Augment crew? How many are there?"
There were seventy after the death of Ram and Rod, but Khan said "Six. Before I met you both I thought they were the only other Augments left in the universe."
Kelly smiled, pleased to be included in the company of pure Augments. "We must help you find them."
"Of course we must," Sam agreed enthusiastically. "Is there anything we can do?"
Khan could only think of Beth, and how much danger she was in, how much she needed him, how much he needed her. "Yes," he said immediately, "Give me your fastest ship."
Beth's eyesight was returning. She could see blurred edges of light as three men walked her from a shuttle onto a larger ship. It was very warm on the new ship and the air smelled of smoke or incense. Her hands were bound behind her back with a nylon strap and when she tripped on a raised platform she had no way to break her fall. She turned her face to save her nose from smashing into the floor, but managed to hit her head on the side where it was already injured and painful.
"Bring her to my quarters," an unconcerned voice commanded, walking on ahead. Two pairs of hands pulled her up roughly by her arms and shoulders, manhandling her down a corridor and into a room lit with a red glow. The soft light was less painful on Beth's eyes and she found she could see more clearly. She was in a bedroom, but it was a bedroom only in the sense that there was a bed in the room. Otherwise it seemed more like a grand reception hall, complete with a gilded dining table, red leather couches and an imposing wooden desk. She was taken to a long chaise lounge opposite the desk and pushed down into it by the two men. She struggled, her hands bound, not to tip over onto her side.
The two men stood back, looking down at her. A third man – heavyset and bald, part human but with a pronounced Coridian forehead – came to stand between them. He was Clay, the man who had bought her after Khan died.
Khan. Beth's breath caught as the memory of his still heart returned to her with cruel clarity. She shook her head to clear it. She had to focus on these men in front of her.
She stared up at them, angry at herself that after all of her precautions and all of her mother's warnings, and everything she'd done and been through she was actually going to suffer the very fate she had spent most of her adult life trying to avoid. Beth knew she was powerless to save herself, powerless to stop these men from hurting her, powerless to avoid her destiny any longer.
"Do you know why I wanted you so badly?" Clay asked. He sat down beside Beth, running a finger along the neckline of her white dress. "My mother was a human whore, just like you." She looked up at the two men standing over them so she wouldn't have to look at Clay's evil smile. Did they like to watch? Did Clay like to be watched?
"Look at me," he said to get her attention. He was irritated and there was also jealousy in his eyes as they darted to the other men. He put his hand on her face, stroking her skin with fascination. "You feel so beautiful," he said, and he leaned in to kiss her.
Beth pulled back instinctively and looked fearfully at the other men, half expecting them to step in and hold her down.
"I said look at me!" Clay shouted, taking her chin and jerking it towards him. "I bought you, not them."
He kissed her roughly, but pulled out of it a moment later. "Why do you keep looking at them?"
This time she hadn't been looking at anyone - she'd had her eyes screwed shut against his kiss. Clay had only touched her a few times, in this room and earlier in the shuttle, but he already seemed to be heavily affected by her augmented pheromones. Beth wondered if he was particularly susceptible, or if her fear was making them especially potent. But why would fear make them stronger? Surely that was the opposite of what her body should do in order to protect itself?
But then Beth thought back to the words Ram had used to describe Secondary Augments on Centula. He had called people like her weapons, and talked about them controlling and lowering the guards of others. Was it possible that her anomaly could somehow be used as a defense mechanism in times of extreme danger? If she could find a way to use it, would it protect her by distracting and confusing Clay? Beth suddenly knew what she had to do.
Taking a deep breath she leaned forward, pressing her cheek against Clay's jowls as she whispered in his ear. "They want me for themselves. They're going to take me away from you. The next time you turn your back they're going to put a knife in it."
He snapped his head back from her, his eyes suddenly full of fear and suspicion. Beth managed to smile at him, managed to make her voice calm and soothing. "You're the only one I want."
He jumped up from the lounge like he'd been stung. He turned on the other men. "Get out!" he shouted, shoving them away from her. "I said get out!" He chased them out of the room and while he was gone Beth looked around for something she could use to save herself. On the desk there was a plate of pomegranates and a silver knife was sticking out of one of the fruit. She stood up, watching for Clay to return, and turned around, backing up against the desk, her fingers feeling for the handle of the knife behind her back. They wrapped around the cool metal just as Clay came back into the room. He looked confused, and didn't comment on her standing up when she should have been sitting down. He walked over to her.
"I'm sorry about them," he said, scratching his head. "They won't be bothering us for the rest of the night."
Beth used the knife to cut through her nylon bonds, and this time she didn't have to fake her smile.
Khan didn't bother hailing Clay's cruiser. Once he was within transporter range he put the Coghlans' ship on auto-pilot and beamed aboard the cruiser. He was armed with every weapon he had acquired during his time on Golana. He was eager for the most important fight of his life.
But once he was on the ship he knew something was wrong. Alarms went off, alerting to an unauthorized passenger, but no one came to investigate. Khan moved from room to room on the ship, looking for Beth, for Clay, for the crew, for anyone. It wasn't until he got close to the end of a long corridor that he smelled the blood, and the singed hair and skin. He also smelled Beth and he tried to manage his dread as he looked through the open door.
Whatever he had expected to find, it was not Clay's dead body laying on the floor, his throat cut and a pool of blood cooling around his shoulders. There were two more men on the floor, both of them stunned with a phaser. They were not dead, but they had been fired on so many times that their clothes and skin and the hair on their chests were burned. They would be unconscious for a very long time.
Then Khan saw a small silver knife laying on the ground beside Clay's body. He went to it and picked it up and automatically sensed Beth had held it in her hand. She had killed Clay and shot these two men. Khan looked around for her. "Beth?" he said aloud. Was she hiding? She was probably traumatized. What had these men done to her to make her capable of such violence?
"Beth!" he called out as he backtracked through the ship, looking in every cupboard, every dark place she could have hidden herself. She must be so afraid, she was probably in shock. He just hoped she hadn't done something to hurt herself. He ended up in the shuttle bay and saw that there was room for one shuttle but there were none docked. He went to the computer and checked the ship's manifest. There was a shuttle registered to the cruiser and Khan knew that Beth had taken it to escape. He laughed with relief, knowing that she was safe, knowing he should be able to catch up to her easily. He would be counting the minutes until he found her, until he could see her and hold her again.
This is an important chapter for Beth! Turns out she saved Khan's life and she learned her anomaly might actually help her out sometimes. Hope you enjoyed this chapter - thanks for reading!
