Kirk struggled back to consciousness with the idea that it would be unpleasant to wake up, but that he should do it anyway. After a confused moment he realized he was lying on the deck of a starship. It took another moment to remember Khan, the Vengeance, and the displacement wave. He opened his eyes.

The bridge was dark, lit only by auxiliary lights and sparks erupting from damaged consoles. Alarms screamed from half a dozen panels. Kirk pushed himself unsteadily to his feet and immediately tripped over a body. He knelt and turned it over. It was the young ensign who had manned the Tactical console, the one Kirk had stunned. His body was still warm, but when Kirk felt his neck there was no pulse.

Carol Marcus lay on the deck nearby. Cold, Kirk crawled over to her and gasped with relief when he saw she was breathing steadily. The side of her face was singed from a too-close explosion, but otherwise she seemed unharmed. When he shook her gently, she groaned and opened her eyes.

From across the bridge, someone moaned a series of unintelligible swearwords. Kirk felt the corner of his mouth twitch in an involuntary smile.

"Scotty, you okay?"

"Aye, Captain," Scotty answered, though he sounded unsure of his diagnosis. "A bit knocked about, but nothing seems broken."

"Excellent. See if you can raise the Enterprise."

"Aye, Captain."

"Dad?" Carol dragged herself to the captain's chair, where Marcus lay slumped on the deck. "Daddy?" She reached out and touched his hand. She sounded small and lost.

Kirk crouched beside her. The admiral was alive, but Kirk knew he needed medical attention. His chest rose and fell erratically, and Kirk's gentle fingers found a soft spot at the base of his skull, where his head must have struck the back of the chair.

"Dr. Marcus," Kirk said. "Carol." She blinked, looked at him. "There's nothing we can do here. Right now I need your help."

"Yes," she said. "Yes. Of course." She moved blindly to the nearest station and stared at the controls.

"Get me damage reports, Dr. Marcus," Kirk said, and her eyes focused.

"I've got the Enterprise, sir," Scotty said, "But it's audio only."

"That's fine." Kirk scanned the bridge, searching for the one man he hadn't expected to have to check on. "Spock, what's your status?"

He found Khan crumpled in a corner, his black clothes almost invisible in the darkness. Kirk was so sure Khan would be the first to recover from the impact that at first he was convinced the augment's apparent unconsciousness was a ruse. Only when he saw the blood matting Khan's dark hair did he realize Khan might actually be hurt. He brushed a stray lock of hair off Khan's forehead to reveal a wound just above his right temple. White bone gleamed through the blood and broken skin.

"We have sustained damage, captain," Spock said, staticky. Kirk heard urgent voices in the background. "Damage reports are still coming in, as are casualty reports—"

Casualty reports. The words drove the air out of his lungs. At the same moment, Khan's hand snapped out and wrapped around Kirk's wrist. Kirk jerked back in surprise and almost fell. Khan's fingers pressed against Kirk's skin with bruising strength.

Kirk gritted his teeth against the pain. "Khan."

"Captain," Khan said. His voice was rough. He kept his eyes closed.

"I told you to hold on to something."

At this, Khan opened his left eye, though his right remained closed, glued shut by the blood that covered half his face. "Captain," he said again, his voice as dry as Kirk's.

The captain's comm panel whistled. "Engineering to Bridge! We have severe damage down here. Possibility of a warp core breach!"

"Do you need medical attention?" Kirk asked Khan, more out of courtesy than concern.

Khan released Kirk's wrist, stood in one smooth movement, and wiped the blood out of his eye. He only wobbled a little, which impressed Kirk: that head wound would have killed an ordinary human. Kirk stood as well. Kneeling at Khan's feet didn't seem like a healthy place to be.

The comm whistled again. "Bridge, do you read?" The voice sounded increasingly frantic.

"Captain!" Carol said, "There's a hull breach on Deck 14."

"There is an automated repair system—" Khan began.

"Yes, I see that," Carol interrupted. "It's not responding."

"Captain, I've got to get down to Engineering—"

"I know, Mr. Scott. Hold on." Kirk returned to the captain's chair and punched up the shipwide channel again. "This is Captain Kirk." He could hear the faint echo of his voice through the ship. "I don't know what Admiral Marcus told you, but his mission was illegal and unsanctioned by Starfleet Command." At least, Kirk hoped it was. He glanced down at Marcus's barely-breathing body. "I have relieved the admiral of command, and I suggest you cooperate fully with my crew." He switched channels. "Engineering, this is the captain. I'm sending someone down to help you now."

"Acknowledged, sir," came the relieved reply.

Whoever was in Engineering, Kirk thought, was a practical woman. But he couldn't count on the rest of the crew to be as accepting of the change in command.

"M. Scott, I'm sending you to Engineering." Scotty was already on his feet, waiting beside the turbolift for the order. "Khan, I want you to go with him in case there's trouble."

He met Khan's impassive gaze with more confidence than he felt. He wasn't sure what he would do if Khan refused. Carol couldn't accompany Scotty: she was a physicist, not trained in anything more than basic combat. Kirk would have to go, leaving Khan on the bridge of the most powerful starship in the quadrant, where his most hated enemy lay helpless. And surely Khan knew all of that—

But then Khan blinked and said, "Captain," for a third time. He crossed the bridge, passing uncomfortably close to Kirk and followed Scotty into the turbolift.

Kirk let out a sigh of relief. He felt like a mouse playing chess with a cat, and he hated Khan for making him feel that way.

"Are our transporters working?"

"Yes, captain," Carol said.

"Beam the admiral over to Sickbay, then see if you can find a repair crew for that hull breach."

"Yes, sir."

"Captain, do you read?"

It was Spock, speaking through the still-open channel with the Enterprise. "I hear you, Spock. What's going on?"

"We are detecting an unidentified object nearby. Can you confirm with your sensors?"

"Just a second," Kirk said. "We're a little short-staffed over here."

He quickly realized all the consoles were highly redundant, and he could access Nav functions without having to leave the Comm station. The Vengeance's navigational sensors were excellent, but the rest were minimal at best and Kirk could do little more than confirm that there was something out there.

He finally managed to get the viewscreen operational—and then he sat back and stared. At the front of the bridge, Carol's hands stilled as she looked up the image.

"What is that?" she said.

Kirk's first guess was it was some kind of space station, though it resembled no design he had ever seen. A dozen wide, flat panels stuck out from a central hub at different angles. Every few seconds a pulse of light shot from the base of the hub and disappeared into the distance.

"Mr. Spock, are you seeing what we're seeing?"

"I assume so—" someone, Kirk thought it was Chekov, said something he couldn't make out. "Did you hear, that, Captain?"

"No." Something in Spock's voice made Kirk think it wasn't good news.

"Captain, if our sensors are working correctly, we are more than 70 thousand light years from Earth."

"What?"

"We appear to be—"

"No, I heard you." He didn't want to hear it again, but he brought up the nav sensor data he had so quickly dismissed while investigating the array. There it was, printed on the screen in stark, undeniable numbers: they were on the other side of the galaxy.