Abigail almost dropped the phaser, her arms locking around Khan's neck in relief. "I see you fit," she murmured into his shoulder, slowly pulling back to look into his handsome face.
"Four meters? I've fit through smaller," he joked, sounding odd in his even tone and emotionless features.
A grin began to tug at the of her lips before an unbelievable tremor of pain rolled through her body, making her grip at Khan's shoulders for support. Worry and fear passed through the Augment's eyes as he kept Abigail on her feet until whatever was happening to her passed. Her body began to go limp in his grasp and her clear golden eyes became foggy.
"What did he do to you?" he ground out, the sounds of fighting gone from a few rows down.
Abigail blinked, trying to clear the bright dots from her vision to no avail. "He gave me some sort of...drug." She shook her head, angry at the dots that floated before her eyes. "He said I would be in a lot of pain and lose my vision, the use of my arms and legs..."
The intense fury that passed through Khan's eyes almost frightened her, and she would've stepped back if his grip had not been so tight. "And what were the other effects of this drug?" he asked, his undying hatred tightening his throat.
"Death," she said simply, meeting his eyes and not showing any of the fear that tugged at the back of her mind.
Khan stood still a moment, his thoughts racing, all centered around two things. Revenge for the ones he loved and saving the only person he that he loved unconditionally with every ounce of his aching heart.
"We have to go," he murmured, grabbing her wrist and towing her behind him as he navigated the pipe rows back to Kirk and the engineer.
"This way," he ordered, making his way over the unconscious bodies in his mission to get to the bridge.
Ignoring the burning look of curiosity on the captain's face, Abigail followed tightly behind Khan up the narrow hallway towards the bridge.
Something felt off about the tension surrounding Kirk and the engineer as they got closer to their destination, as if the two had some unspoken resolution. Grinding her teeth together as the pain became a constant fire in every muscle, she squinted against the bright lights that suddenly came on in the hallway.
"They're back at full power," Kirk whispered in dismay, keeping up with the easy jog Khan had initiated.
He cast his eyes ahead, noticing the way Abigail seemed to be functioning under an immense stress. Her skin seemed to be lacking any usual color and fine sheen of sweat seemed to cover the back of her neck and along her cheekbones, and her eyes, from what he had seen a moment before, seemed cloudy and distant. Dismissing it as some weird Augment thing, he continued on until they got to the bridge.
The four of them fanned out across the bridge, training their phasers and shooting down all the crewmen in sight, leaving Admiral Marcus in the captain's chair. The dark spots floated in her line of vision, making it difficult to keep her focus on the admiral as she lifted her phaser towards him. Grinding her teeth together as the spots began to expand, she felt Khan at her side, his hand cupping the back of her neck.
Her whole body tensed as she watched the engineer turn away from the admiral, pointing his phaser at Khan. His body crumpled beside her and a final wave of pain brought Abigail to her knees, then falling to the side. Blinking furiously at the spots, she locked her eyes on Marcus, hatred flowing through her agony riddled body. A smirk twisted the man's thin lips as he watched her failing to push herself back up.
"See? I told you it'd be painful," he intoned, watching the anger registering on her face as everything went black.
"Admiral Marcus, you're under arrest."
"You're not really gonna do this, are you?" Marcus scoffed, his disbelief and scathing apparent in his tone as he stared condescendingly at the young Captain.
"Admiral, get out of the chair."
"You'd better stop and think about what you're doing, Kirk," Marcus yarned, not moving from his position in the captain's chair. "You'd better think about what you did on Kronos. You made an incursion onto an enemy planet. You killed a Klingon patrol…even if you got away without a trace; war is coming! And who's gonna lead us? YOU?"
Frustration curled around her thoughts, blurring out the rest of Marcus's boring statements about how only he could lead Starfleet through the eminent war. How could her body, her weapon, give out on her like this? Her will to fight was stronger than anyone she knew and she refused to let the darkness swallow her whole. Ignoring the protest of all of her muscles, she dug her nails into the top of her thigh, rationalizing that it would start the healing process her highly adapted body possessed. Slowly but surely her vision began to lighten, dull blobs that could only be Kirk and the admiral standing before her. She could feel a hot, sticky liquid begin to dribble down her hand and a different kind of pain was blooming beneath her nails, but she dug them in harder. Her determination to get some use out of her body again flaming to life amid the pain that remained.
A cool hand curled around her forearm and she fought the urge to turn her face towards the owner; she knew what it meant. Khan was awake. Suddenly his hand was gone and she found herself digging her nails in deeper despite the pain that tore through every nerve of her body. Carol Marcus was yelling from the other end of the room, probably attempting to warn Kirk against the oncoming storm. A body fell a few feet from her, probably the engineer, she thought as the blobs before her began to take on human characteristics. A scream pierced through the chaos, bringing a new light to her vision; Carol Marcus was on the floor, bent over what had to be her broken leg and the unconscious body of Jim Kirk. She watched the figure that had to be Khan shoving Admiral Marcus into a chair as he attempted to flee the room, the admiral's head between the enclosing force of Khan's hands.
"You...should have let me sleep," echoed through her head as she lost her grip on her leg and fell back into blackness.
Khan released Admiral Marcus's skull, turning his back as the corpse slumped out of the chair and hit the floor with a dull thud. He stepped forward, the justice upon the worm of a man had been done and he walked towards the center of the room. Without missing a beat, he grabbed hold of Kirk by the collar of his shirt as he began to raise himself up from the floor. He dragged the complaining captain over to the front of the ship, typing in the combinations necessary to hail the acting Captain Spock aboard the Enterprise. Not daring to look back at Abigail as she lay motionless on the bridge, Khan focused all of his energy into dragging Kirk in front of the screen as the Enterprise's crew came into focus before them.
"I'm going to make this very simple for you."
"Captain!" Spock announced, surprise apparent on his usually stoic face.
"Your crew for my crew," Khan intoned, drawing Spock's attention back to him as he held fast to the back of Kirk's collar. The Vulcan would choose his crew's fate, but not condemn Khan's.
"You betrayed us."
"Oh, you are smart, ," Khan purred sarcastically.
"Spock, don't! Ah!" Kirk began before receiving a blow to the back of his skull from Khan. He fell to the ground unconscious.
The crew on board the Enterprise all stepped forward in alarm, Spock glaring up at the screen.
"Mr. Spock, give me my crew," Khan asserted, drawing the ship's attention back to him.
"And what will you do when you get them?"
"Continue the work we were doing before we were banished," Khan supplied simply, cold eyes focused on the Vulcan before him.
"Which as I understand it involves the mass genocide of any being you find to be less than superior."
Khan stared at the man, his lips curling slightly as he spoke. "Shall I destroy you, Mr. Spock? Or will you give me what I want?"
"We have no transporter capabilities," Spock deflected, breaking eye contact in an attempt to prolong the little time they had.
"Fortunately mine are perfectly functional. Drop. Your. Shields." Khan was losing his patients, for the crew of the Enterprise and the un-moving body of the woman he loved lying just at the corner of his peripheral vision. He had to get out of this and attempt at reviving her.
"If I do so I have no guarantee that you will not destroy the Enterprise," Spock reasoned, doing all he could to sway the Augment, but to no avail.
"Well let's play this out logically then, Mr. Spock. Firstly I will kill your Captain to demonstrate my resolve. Then, if yours holds, I will have no choice but to kill you and your entire crew."
Spock hesitated. "If you destroy our ship, you will also destroy your own people."
"Your crew requires oxygen to survive, mine does not. I will target your life support systems located behind the aft nacelle. And after every single person aboard your ship suffocates, I will walk over your cold corpses to recover my people," Khan paused then, making sure that he had their full attention. "Now...shall we begin?"
Spock hesitated once more. "Lower shields," he ordered Sulu.
"A wise choice, Mr. Spock," Khan acknowledged, his fingers dashing across the console expertly as he pinpointed the location of the torpedoes aboard the Enterprise. "I see your seventy two torpedoes are still in their tubes. If they are not mine, Commander, I will know it."
"Vulcans do not lie. They torpedoes...are yours," Spock confirmed, his head inclined slightly in the affirmative.
"Thank you...Mr. Spock." Khan made his way towards the center of the bridge where sat the captain's chair.
"I have fulfilled your terms, now fulfill mine."
"Well, Kirk, it seems apt to return you to your crew," Khan murmured, sitting in his rightfully claimed spot and tapping a few buttons on the arm of the chair. Golden beams of light quickly encircled Kirk, the engineer, and Carol Marcus. "After all, no ship should go down without her Captain."
As soon as the video call cut out, Khan locked the ship's missiles onto the Enterprise. Leaping out of the chair and rushing over to Abigail, he knelt beside her as he cupped her cheek while he felt for a pulse. It was there. Faintly, it was there, coupled with her shallow breathing and fluttering eyelids. The ship rocked beneath them with the force of the exiting missiles as he pulled her into his lap. He squeezed his eyes shut and pressed his lips to her forehead, determined to get the two of them, and his frozen crew, out of this damn galaxy.
A new force rocked the ship, a shudder running through his very bones as he held Abigail protectively to his chest. Realization hit him and he lowered her limp body to the floor before racing for the control panel. Sheer desperation erupted out of him as he saw that the torpedoes had exploded.
"NOOOOOO!" he bellowed, slamming his hands against the console as if it were to change the gut wrenching fact before him. His family was dead. And his lover was on her way out too.
