"Hey, Sulu?"
"Yes?"
"Do you know why Scotty's accent is so thick compared to everybody else's from Scotland?" Elle asked.
Sulu blinked. "Well he doesn't really like to talk about it," he said.
Elle slid closer to him. "Why?" she asked in a hushed voice. "Where's he from?"
"Well he grew up on Utopia Planitia," Sulu said quietly.
"Mars!?" Elle almost shrieked.
"Shh!" Sulu glanced around the mess hall, but of course no one was paying attention to them. "Yes," he whispered, "but you know that its basically a Scottish colony, all the good engineers are from Scotland. Then he went back to Earth to finish his degree in his family's hometown, and then shipped out into space and never looked back. That's why he adopted the accent. Of course, nobody from Utopia likes to say that they're a colony at all, but you know how Scotty is, kilts and all."
Elle could not believe it. "Is that on his transcript?" she asked.
Sulu gave her an odd look. "Why are you asking?"
She gave him a smile that felt more like a grimace. "No reason."
"Oookay."
-/\-
Elle had never heard Simba the tribble vocalize anything other than a purr or a squeak. Therefore, when she was awakened in the middle of the night by Simba's frantic squawking, her first thought was "Klingons!"
"Computer, lights!" she called, jumping out of her bed and diving for the comm.
A strong hand caught the back of her pajama shirt and held her in place. "I come in peace," Khan rumbled.
"My tribble says otherwise," Elle snarked, blushing with humiliation at hanging from his grip like a grocery bag. "Put me down."
He set her on the ground. "I want to talk to you," he said.
She made another dive for the comm. "Stranger danger says no," she said, and almost touched the comm button before he grabbed her upper arms.
"Stop that," he said. "I just wish to talk."
Elle stopped struggling, acutely aware of the fact that he could literally squish her like a bug. "What do you want?" she asked.
"Will you stop trying to escape?"
She bit her lip. "Fine."
He let her go. "Sit," he said.
She walked into the living room and sat on the couch, pulling Simba into her arms to keep it quiet.
Khan sat on the chair across from her. He surveyed her silently for a moment, and then spoke. "You are from the past," he said. "Like we are."
Elle almost choked on a floating tribble hair as she gasped. "Wha-" She coughed. "What?"
"No one in this century knows what tv is," he said.
"They know what television is," she retorted.
He looked at her. "But you are from the past," he said.
She gave him a look. "You're crazy."
"I am the smartest person you will ever meet," he replied.
"Smartest human," she said, unable to stop herself.
He huffed a laugh. "Very well, then. Smartest human you will ever meet. I know what a person out of time looks like. What year are you from?"
She conceded. "2018."
"How did you get here? Stasis, like us?"
"No, it was, I don't know, actually. We still haven't figured that out. Something about quantum signatures." Elle frowned. "Why?"
"What was it like in the 21st century?" Khan asked. "I never got to see it myself."
"Pretty terrible, as a whole," Elle replied. "You're not missing much."
"But I am," he corrected, his eyes lighting up. "Don't you see, Elle? If we had not been taken from our time and place, we could have made everything better-"
Elle started to laugh. She couldn't help it.
Khan stopped, highly offended.
"Man, come on. You weren't taken, you were kicked off the planet by your fellow humans," Elle said. "And besides, you would make the planet better for who? Your forty-eight buddies and your three kids? How long would perfect genetics last as your people fought amongst themselves and remarried into the normal gene pool?"
"We've learned from our mistakes," Khan said. "I would control them."
"And you'd get assassinated, and then what?" Elle asked. "Botany Bay the Second. Even faster this time. Or you might kick off World War III too early, and then what would happen to this timeline?"
He scowled at her. "You are quick with your answers," he said.
She raised an eyebrow at him, Spock-style. "You think I haven't spent hours and hours thinking about what it would be like if I went back? If things hadn't happened exactly like they've already happened? Time is more fluid, and more fragile, than you think. You'd have to end up in space, again, for the Enterprise to find you, for you to wake up to find yourself here, to think up crazy ideas of taking over the ship and going back in time in the first place."
"I see temporal physics is more common than before," Khan said, looking disgruntled.
"Just take the new planet," Elle advised, trying to play it cool. "You won't get a better offer. Wouldn't you rather be king of a new planet, instead of the old gross one?"
"When you put it that way," Khan said, amused. "Very well then. I suppose we will not take over the Enterprise."
"Thank you," Elle said sincerely.
Khan stood and inclined his head. "I shall leave you to your rest." He gave her a sharp grin. "I trust you will not tell your father of our little chat?"
"Dude, as soon as you leave I'm going to call him," Elle replied frankly. "And he's not my actual father."
He laughed. "Understood." He patted her on the head and left.
Elle deflated, all her bravado leaking out of her ears in one huge, shuddering sigh. "I have never been so close to peeing my pants in sheer fear," she told her tribble, staring up at the ceiling in shocked relief. "He could've smashed my head like a walnut if he wanted to."
Simba cooed reassuringly.
-/\-
"Elle to Captain Kirk."
A groggy reply. "Kirk here. What's wrong?"
Elle grimaced. "Uh, Khan just stopped by my quarters for a little chat about time travel."
A beat. "WHAT!" Captain Kirk roared, fully awake. "Are you all right?!"
"I'm fine," she reassured him. "I'm fine, I talked him out of it. I think."
There was a distant banging on the door. "Spock, Elle has a problem. Security to Elle's quarters." Another shuffle. "Be there in two seconds," Kirk said, and the channel closed.
Elle hustled to her room and threw her robe on over her pajamas.
Kirk and Spock arrived less than a minute later, Lt. Hernandez on their heels. "What happened?" Kirk asked.
Elle recounted their conversation. She'd never seen the captain's face turn quite that shade of purpley-enraged before, or seen Spock's eyebrows go quite that high. "So yeah," she said.
Lt. Hernandez looked shaken as well. "We've had guards discretely posted on those corridors, there's no way he could've gotten past- and we have no records of their biosigns traveling through the ship past 2100 hours," he said, checking the computer timestamps.
"So they figured out a way to beat the computer's sensors," Kirk said grimly. "Wonderful."
"Are you certain, Elle, that he was convinced to give up his scheme?" Spock asked.
Elle chewed on her lip. Her brain said 'bluff', but her gut said, "Yeah. I think he's done."
"If they've been tampering with the computer, they must've known there was no way we would let them actually have the ship," Kirk said.
Spock nodded.
"I think it's time we had a chat with our guest," Kirk said grimly. "Mr. Spock?"
"Yes, captain." They both stood.
"Lt. I want someone on Elle around the clock until we reach Oppo Minor," Kirk said.
"Aye, sir."
Elle sighed.
Kirk kissed the top of her head. "Go back to sleep. We'll deal with Khan."
"That sentence is not as comforting as you think it is," Elle replied.
-/\-
Two days passed. No one took over the Enterprise, and Elle didn't notice any time travel changes, so... it was probably fine, right?
"Dude, if you don't stop showing up in a minor's quarters at night, the captain will have you melted into atoms, superhuman or no superhuman," Elle said, resigned to the fact that Khan was smarter than the Enterprise's sensors.
"I am not here for any nefarious purposes, I assure you." He extended a hand to pet Simba.
Simba growled.
Elle's eyes widened. "What did you do to Lt. Hernandez?" She pushed past Khan into the living room. "Is he dead!?" She dropped to the floor beside the security officer and felt for a pulse.
"He's fine, he's simply sleeping," Khan said dismissively.
Elle glared up at him. "This is why you're never going to have your so-called empire! With your superior ambition and your superior intelligence and superior head-smushing skills, where's your superior compassion? Your superior love? Your superior humanity? Whoever made your genes was an idiot!" It occurred to her, belatedly, that if Khan took offense and decided to kick her while she was on the ground, she'd die like a watermelon.
Khan stared down at her. "Is that what you've learned, in this century? To yell at people better and stronger than you?"
"No, but that's what I find myself doing anyway!" Elle retorted, scrambling to her feet. "What the chicken nugget is your problem?" No seriously, Elle, shut up.
Khan snorted. "Do they even have chicken nuggets in the twenty-third century?"
"No," Elle said. "They were so bad people stopped making them. The closest you get now is crispy chicken tenderloins."
"I see." He folded his arms and tilted his head. "I have decided to take this ship. I want to know if you'll be with me when I do."
Elle gulped. Not good, not good. "Why are you telling me this?" she asked.
"We are meant for something better than carving a life out of a primitive wasteland," Khan replied simply. "With this ship, I will do so."
"You think the captain will let you do it?" Elle asked, folding her arms.
He smiled. "If you tell him to let you, yes."
Well he's not wrong. "Why would I do that?" Elle retorted. "I, for one, enjoy things like diplomacy and civil rights."
"And you will still have those things," Khan said, his tone magnaminous. "But under our direction."
"You're missing the 'serve' part of civil servants," Elle replied.
"You think that your ambassadors and your policy makers do not have their own agendas, their own plans?" Khan asked. "Coming from the past, you cannot be that naive."
Elle scowled at him. The knowledge of Section 31 held her back from making a stinging retort. "You really think the Federation will let you take over, just like that?"
"They will have no choice."
Elle shook her head. "Then people will make their own choices."
"I doubt it."
Elle raised an eyebrow. "Khan, come on, you were part of the eighties and nineties. The most interesting thing was America and Russia. You think you could handle four hundred planets, plus the Klingons, the Romulans, the Gorn, and everyone else out there?" Do you think that the Aegis would let you get away with anything?
"I'm sure we could."
"Uh-huh."
"You don't sound convinced. Should I show you the extent of my strength?"
Elle made a face. "Please don't. I've seen the history reels."
Khan grinned. "Then you know I could."
"I know you could," Elle said. "Everybody knows you could. But what would be the point? Do you like being revolutionized again? Literally nobody is going to take a superhuman coup lying down."
"People are sheep," he said. "They can be led."
"Yeah," Elle said. "Unfortunately, better men than you have led them to things like 'selflessness' and 'freedom' and 'self-betterment.' You try and lead them to things like 'genocide' and 'genetic engineering', sheep can trample you, you know."
"You make a good case, Miss Wilcott," he said.
She regarded him. She was tired, her head hurt, she had obstacle course training again in six hours, and there was unconscious lieutenant at her feet. "Look," she said. "You've already done your conquer and rule thing. Why don't you try something else? Get to the colony planet, set up your perfect little empire, and try and discover the meaning to life or the universe or something. Do something that other people will like."
"Why should I?"
"Knowledge is power, I don't know, I'm tired."
Khan bowed, a mocking smile on his face. "You've given me much to think about. Sleep well."
She watched him go. "You show up in my quarters again, I will shoot you in the face," she told him.
He laughed, and was gone.
-/\-
Surprisingly, this time around, it was Spock who wanted to kick 'em all out an airlock, and the captain who talked him out of it. "Think of the paperwork, commander," Kirk beseeched. "You don't want to do that."
"I could complete the paperwork in a timely manner," Spock said darkly, his eyebrows as furrowed as Vulcan physionimy allowed.
"No really," Elle added, "I think I talked him out of it. I think he just wants to watch you twitch."
"If he wants to play games, we can give him a chess set," Kirk grumbled.
The Enterprise arrived at Oppo Minor without further incidents. A 3D chess set was included with the supplies the Enterprise gave the budding superhuman colony, "for your edification," Kirk said to Khan, his tone dry as paper.
"My thanks," Khan said, "for a most enjoyable week." He nodded to Spock, and turned to Elle. "If you find you tire of these futuristic pacifists, we could always use a menial servant, someone to watch the baby."
"Thanks," Elle said dryly. "You'll have to parent your own child. Use that superhuman stamina."
Khan chuckled and climbed onto the transporter dais.
"Energize," Kirk said.
The superhumans vanished in a whirl of glitter and sparkles.
"That wasn't so bad," Elle said, pleased, at the same time Kirk said,
"I think I just aged ten years in one week."
Elle snickered.
Thus the transfer of the Botany Bay colony was completed, with no loss of personnel, ships, or expensive prototypes. Elle felt very accomplished.