—Chapter Four—
Nolan was absent when she woke. The light streaming through the window told her it was roughly midday, and when she checked her wrist chronometre, Anthea saw that it was just after noon.
Sounds from elsewhere in the house drifted through the open bedroom door. Her parents were in the kitchen, and it sounded like they were cooking on the stove. They had no oven, just a small two-burner stove top. Anthea wanted an honest to goodness oven. Maybe she'd tell Khan that was what she wanted for their anniversary next week, an electric oven.
She didn't bother with her shoes as she rolled out of bed and shuffled on bare feet into the kitchen. Most of the house was floored with wood, sanded smooth but unvarnished, and they'd laid rugs over it to protect bare feet both big and small. The kitchen and the small bathrooms were stone floored, though.
The kitchen table and chairs from her old house back on Earth looked a bit odd in the kitchen here, but Anthea had tried to keep at least some familiar things to help make this new world their home. There were only four chairs, and Nolan currently sat at one, boosted on a cushion. Khan sat at another, as he conversed with her father. When he saw her enter, he lifted Nolan into his lap so that she could take the chair.
Anthea put the cushion between her back and the chair. "What're you making, Dad?"
"Some of the lads caught some fish in the lake. I didn't think we'd have any this early, but we do. I warned 'em about overfishin'. But they gave us a few large ones."
He'd descaled and deboned the fish, which didn't look like anything Anthea was familiar with. "Are we sure they're edible?" she asked.
"We're about t'find out, aye?"
She eyed her father dubiously. "... Okay."
"Don't worry, lassie." Graham grinned at her. "I had Yves run a sample through one'a his machines. This may look like an odd bugger, but it's basically salmon."
Lunch was grilled "salmon" and a selection of root vegetables they'd managed to grow and store through the winter. Martha had made griddle cakes instead of bread—due to the lack of oven—and they discussed, with Nolan dropping chunks of it on Khan's lap, plans for making a supply run in the coming weeks.
"I'm reluctant to go so close to Anthea's delivery," Khan said. "We have three ships but Otto's isn't a supply ship, it's a fighter, and your shuttle is barely big enough to be warp capable, let alone carry enough cargo for eighty people."
"If we take Yves and Ronja with us, I could just as easily give birth on the ship in space as on land," his wife pointed out. She'd told him about recruiting Ronja to their medical staff. "I'm certainly not giving birth here, in the house."
Her husband eyed her, then nodded. "That's true. But are you sure you want to do that?"
"I'm not sure of anything at this point except that I want the baby out and Yves refuses to induce me."
"You're only thirty-five weeks, dear," Martha put in.
"Almost thirty-six. And I'd had Nolan by this point."
Khan shook his head. "Let's give it a few more days. Otto will be back this afternoon from his patrol around the system, and I can discuss it with him."
Martha insisted on cleaning up Nolan while Graham cleaned up the cooking, shooing both Khan and Anthea out the door.
"Take some time just the two of you, even if all you do is walk down to the square for a bit. When that baby comes, you won't have any time at all."
From her memories of the days after Nolan's birth, that was very true. So she let Khan take her hand in his larger one and guide her down the hill.
"I had a nightmare while I was napping," she told him.
"Oh?"
Threading her fingers through his, she said, "I have them a lot, really. Anxiety dreams. I dream that I found you too late, and either your cryotube had failed or someone had turned it off, and you were dead. Or I dream that you died when the Vengeance crashed, or that Kirk killed you on Qo'noS."
Khan stopped just below her on the steps so that they were eye to eye. "I have nightmares that you die in childbirth. Sometimes Sarina, mostly Nolan. That I wake from my sleep and find that you passed away. Or that I find my way back to you and you hate me."
She pulled her fingers from his to cup his face in her hands. "I could never. But I dream the same, sort of. The worst is the one where I wake you up and you tell me you never really wanted me, that I was just a means to an end, and you tell me there's someone else, that there always has been, and Nolan and I mean nothing."
Khan leaned to rest his forehead against hers. "I would never, Anthea. I love you so much."
"I know. But, you know, anxiety. I'm still dealing with a lot of unknowns from when you were gone. I think it's why I lashed out at Marla. Here's this woman who threw herself at you, and then you let her come to our home to live, and I was dealing with what had happened with the Klingons and starting to feel fat because of the baby…"
He looked horror-stricken. "I hadn't considered that. I'm so sorry. No wonder you were so angry. I'm an idiot."
"You were worried and not thinking straight. It's okay. I don't think we'll ever be good friends, but she and I have made peace."
Khan nuzzled his nose against hers, making her giggle. "There's no other woman for me. If I were to lose you, I think I just might go insane."
She tilted her head just enough that she could kiss him. Khan wrapped his arms around her, wanting a more thorough kiss but aware that they were in the open.
The sound of repulsor engines reached them, and the pair broke apart and looked up, neither recognising them as those of the Sokol, the Klingon Bird of Prey that they'd stolen some months before and was the patrol ship captained by Khan's lieutenant, Otto Sokolov. Amusingly, the man's surname actually meant "bird of prey". It was, the big Russian had declared, meant to be.
But it wasn't the ship they wanted to see. It was a squat, rectangular thing, with NCC-1701 emblazoned on the side, along with "Galileo XII".
"Oh, for the love of God," Anthea swore. "What now?"
Khan growled and headed for the runabout, grabbing a phaser rifle out of the open armoury on the way past. Anthea hurried after him, hoping to forestall any violence her husband might inflict on the Starfleet officers. There was about to be an uncomfortable amount of testosterone and posturing. It wasn't easy to keep up, but she just about managed.
Surprisingly, the sole occupants were Jim Kirk and the doctor, Leonard McCoy. Anthea liked the curmudgeonly Southern man, and knew her soon-to-be brother-in-law would be happy to see the man, as well.
Kirk held up his hands as they exited. "Hold up. We come in peace."
"You weren't supposed to come at all," Khan reminded the captain.
"Yeah, well, wasn't planning to," Kirk said. "But you're gonna be glad we did. Can we discuss this elsewhere? Like maybe over there?"
He gestured to the Reliance. After a tense moment, Khan nodded. The four of them headed into the ship. Yves was already there, of course, and he looked up with no small amount of surprise when they entered the medbay.
McCoy greeted the Frenchman, then set a rectangular transport case on the nearest of the two beds. It was roughly ten by twelve by sixteen inches. "What kinda cryo storage do you have here?" he asked Yves.
"We have two of the pods we came here in," Yves told him, "and the standard Starfleet cryo unit for medical use." He indicated what looked like a big refrigerator against one wall.
"Everything here was top of the line a year ago," Khan reminded the Starfleet officers. "Why?"
Kirk let out an explosive sigh. "Okay, so, you know we're on a five year mission for Starfleet. Boldly going, etcetera. Part exploration, part first contact, all of that. We were out near Denobula and we were surveying this asteroid system and we found an old medical research facility. Joint thing between a Starfleet-associated group and the Denobulans. But they abandoned it like sixty years ago. Just turned off the main generators, left the backups on to power the shields, and walked away."
"Which we found out after," McCoy put in. "We didn't know any of this when we found it. We went in to look around, found it abandoned, but there was a small lab still powered. We went poking around, mostly because we're idiots-" This said with a pointed look at Kirk, indicating who the primary idiot in question was. "-and found this cryo storage."
Khan looked between the two men. "And what, pray tell, does this have to do with why you're here?"
"I'm getting to that," Kirk said. "This is important. So after we left the facility, which is called Cold Station 12, by the way, if that rings any bells…?"
It didn't. Kirk forged on. "We contacted someone people back on Earth and learned that CS12 was created to do illegal genetic research, the kind Earth made laws against back in the 1990s."
"The kind," Khan surmised, "that created us."
"Yeah. But also to store some stuff. About a hundred years ago, back when Starfleet was just getting started, CS12 was an early station for Section 31. I came across it in Admiral Archer's notes. Some guy named Arik Soong made off with most of the stored contraband, which was destroyed."
McCoy opened the container. "He missed these. There were originally just over 1800 of these but this is what's left."
The doctor pulled the two small cryo pods from the box. "CS12 bein' a Section 31 facility is how Marcus knew who you were," he told Khan, and held them out to him. "These were found on Earth and transported to CS12 for storage. They're from the Eugenics Wars."
Khan looked down at the embryos. He was silent, face unreadable, as he stared. Then, very quietly, he said, "I recognise these. They were stored originally in a facility near my palace. I had to leave them behind when we fled. My- My mother created these. They're all that's left of her research, all that was saved from the fire."
"What are they?" Anthea asked.
"They're Augments," her husband told her. "In embryonic form. They very well may be my siblings."
Or children, Anthea thought, recalling the fact that his sister was technically, genetically, his daughter. Sarina Kaur had been a very unethical woman.
Khan, McCoy, and Yves moved to transfer the embryos into the medbay's storage. Anthea was left leaning against the medical bed, Kirk fidgeting beside her.
Kirk knew it was rude, but he couldn't stop casting nervous glances at Anthea's enormous stomach, a little alarmed when the bulk of it changed shape briefly. He'd known she was pregnant, but she hadn't been showing much when he'd been here last, and now, well...
Catching him staring, she splayed a hand over her belly. "Something wrong, Captain?" she asked, amused by his obvious alarm.
"Sorry, I- I don't mean to be rude. I've never been this close to a pregnant woman before. Uh… Is… it supposed to be doing that?"
She snorted a laugh. "She's stretching. I know it looks odd."
"How… close are you? When are you due?"
"Any day now," she replied cheerfully, then added, just a little testily, "God willing. My kidneys are feeling a bit bruised."
Kirk nodded, feeling completely out of his element and wishing Bones would come back. "Shouldn't you be … sitting down?"
"Probably," Anthea admitted. "But I'm uncomfortable no matter what I'm doing these days."
"So, uh… everything okay? No lasting problems from the Klingons?"
"I'm fine. Good, even. I'll be great once I've got this mixed martial artist out of here, but I'm good." She eyed him. "You don't need to pretend concern, Captain Kirk."
He shook his head, nearly wincing at the formality. They'd once been very informal with each other, but he had a feeling that if he referenced that in any way, he wouldn't be leaving the ship breathing. Or in one piece, given the way Khan kept glaring at him from across the medbay.
"I'm not pretending," he told her. "Khan and I might, uh, hate each other, but I worry about you and about Nolan. I know you've got this medbay, and I'm sure Dr Guillame is great, but still. You have a medical emergency during labour, you're gonna be in a difficult position."
"Says the man born on a shuttle during an emergency evacuation, a day at warp from the nearest system."
"Why do you think I'm worried?" He crossed his arms. "And if you use those embryos, what about their surrogates?"
Anthea had to admit, it was touching that he was concerned, even for his enemies. "Augments are very hearty," she reminded him. "I'm told you punched my husband repeatedly in the face and it didn't phase him."
"Who told you that?" he demanded, a little embarrassed.
"Dr McCoy."
Kirk cleared his throat. "Khan is kind of a machine. I admit, I didn't think there was a heart in there. These embryos mean a lot to him, don't they?"
"His mother died when he was four years old. He only had two things left of her until today: his sister and this." She held up her hand to show him her wedding ring. "So, yes, it means a great deal to him, even if he'd never admit it."
The Starfleet captain looked a little uncomfortable. "Well, I'm glad we brought them, then. Spock tried to talk me out of it, he didn't wanna come back here, but I couldn't leave them there, you know? Khan and the other adults might be super soldiers, but these are just… they're not even babies yet. They're innocents. And Nolan. He's the reason I've convinced my crew to help me keep your colony secret from Starfleet."
Anthea nodded slowly, knowing that it wasn't only Nolan, but her, as well. He was strangely sentimental about their one night together, while she'd rather forget it entirely. But if it kept Starfleet's flagship at her relative beck and call... "Khan and I have already discussed how to raise the eventual children of this colony. Neither of us want to raise them like he and the others were. There are certain realities we do have to address and handle, but what he went through? That isn't going to happen here. Some of the Augments might protest. Some of them like being the way they are. But most, given the chance to settle down? They're enjoying it."
"I thought Khan wanted to rule the galaxy."
She snorted. "I know you've read what records of the Eugenics Wars remain, but they leave out a few things. Khan wasn't the one purging the so-called 'inferior'. There were Augments who were doing that, yes. And you know what happened to those people? Khan killed them. His subjects adored him, because he took care of them and stopped the threats to them. His people here? They're not with him out of fear. They're with him because he looks after them. And these things I'm saying come from them, not him.
"You don't see our day to day life here. Every one of these buildings, Khan personally had a hand in building. He doesn't ask anything of anyone he isn't willing to do himself. When we had a food supply problem a few months back, he gave them what we had out of our personal store and went to get more supplies. That's the kind of man my husband is. But you only see the soldier he was created to be, on some of the worst days of his life."
Kirk opened his mouth, closed it. He had to admit, when Khan had told him, all those months ago aboard the Enterprise, that he cared for his people and that Marcus had used them to control him, that he'd thought Khan had been bullshitting him. But he was seeing a lot of evidence to the contrary and it made him uncomfortable.
"Speaking of that supply trip-" Anthea began, but stopped.
The medbay door opening interrupted everyone. Anthea would have expected Kati, or her parents, but it was Commander Spock, with a large, plastic bin.
"Captain," he said, nodding at Kirk. Then he glanced at Khan, and finally addressed Anthea. "Apologies for entering uninvited, but our security personnel located this container in the brig. As the contents belong to Khan, I felt I should bring them here so that they do not continue cluttering our storage."
He set the container down with a thump. "We are not, of course, returning any of the weaponry confiscated from Khan at the time of his arrest."
"How generous of you," Anthea said wryly. "Actually, your timing is perfect. I was just about to tell Captain Kirk about some hostiles we encountered on Elora, almost five months ago."
Kirk straightened, arms dropping to his sides. "Oh?"
"Yes. There were five of them. They beamed to the surface of the planet but we couldn't ascertain from where, which indicates transwarp capabilities. They were all humanoid, bald, very pale skin, dressed in black. All of them had heavy cybernetic enhancements. They could adapt to energy weapon frequencies and behaved with hive mind mannerisms. After we killed one, or Khan did, they captured one of our men and … assimilation is the term they were using. Sadly, we lost Barton. We managed to kill all of them, but it takes projectile weaponry to do it. They called themselves 'Borg'."
Kirk frowned. "Well, that isn't alarming, or anything. Do you… have any images of them, or…?"
Anthea was about to say no, then stopped. "Actually, Marla might. She was there. She and Barton were— Well, it doesn't matter now, but I think she's been doing some art therapy to get over the incident. It was traumatic for her."
"But not you," Spock put in.
Her expression went utterly blank, eyes flat. "You all seem to be operating under the misguided belief that I'm some damsel in distress. Yes, the Klingons managed to capture me but I was protecting my children and I was relatively unarmed. I have sniper and weapons training, Mr Spock, and underwent rigorous training with Section 31 before I'd even graduated from the academy. I know that my record says I was an administrative assistant at the Kelvin archive, and I technically was, but I was also the one that executed people who saw too much. Executed, Mr Spock."
There was a tense silence for several moments, before Kirk loudly cleared his throat. "Ahh… maybe I'll go find Marla. Where can I find her?"