AN: I was going to update yesterday, but life happened. So inconvenient. Anyway, apologies for the delay! And thank you to everyone who's favorited/followed/kudoed/(especially) reviewed!

Chapter Four

The decks of the Vengeance were dark, lit only by dim red emergency lights—more than sufficient illumination for Khan's genetically engineered eyes. He strode through the corridors, Lieutenant Commander Montgomery Scott trailing nervously behind him, alert for any crewmen foolish enough to get in his way. This task hardly required all his attention, and the remainder he focused on his next moves in the deadly game he found himself playing. With Marcus removed from the board, at least temporarily, his greatest opponent was now Kirk—who was proving to be a surprising foe.

After the attack on Starfleet Headquarters, Khan had thought Marcus would pursue him to Qo'noS himself, but he had underestimated the admiral's cowardice. Instead, he had sent a sacrificial pawn in his place, and that was exactly what Khan had expected Kirk to be: a pawn, no more. Instead, he had proved to be principled, intelligent, and courageous—and for an unaugmented human, he had a good punch. He was a superior man, but he was still Khan's enemy.

He'd had a chance on the bridge to kill Kirk and take over the Vengeance. Pragmatism had stayed his hand. The displacement wave, whatever its origin, had unsettled the board, and until Khan knew where all the pieces had fallen it was best to keep Kirk where he could use him. Still, there were moves he could make now to ensure—

Movement out of the corner of his eye. There was someone pacing them in a parallel corridor, visible for a brief second at the junction of an intersecting hallway. He caught no more than a glimpse, a sliver of silhouette that seemed strangely familiar. Khan picked up his pace, putting distance between himself and Scott. At the next junction he turned in the opposite direction from their pursuer, broke into a run, and took the first turn he came to. He heard Scott, standing at the last junction, calling after him, but he was well out of sight of both the engineer and whoever was following them.

With his intimate knowledge of the ship's layout, it was simple for Khan to cut back across their track, reach the paralleling corridor and work his way silently to where he knew their pursuer would be, watching the confused Scott and wondering where Khan had gone…

Except he wasn't.

From behind him, someone said, "Commander."

It was the rank Marcus had given him after waking him from stasis, the rank he had answered to for more than two years. Out of habit, Khan turned. His eyes widened. "This is… impossible."

"That's what I thought, too," the other said.

Then Khan saw the knife.

Several minutes later, Khan caught up to Scott outside Engineering. Scott threw him a sharp look, but did not break stride.

"Where the hell did you go?" he demanded.

"My apologies. I had some personal business to attend to."

"Well, you picked a bad time for it. A core breach waits for no one!"

"Actually," Khan said, "I believe I picked the perfect time."

"The hull breach on deck fourteen is sealed," Carol said.

"Best news I've had all week," Kirk muttered. He was currently half inside a wall conduit, trying to restore power to internal sensors and wishing Scotty was here. "How are they doing in Engineering?"

"I can't tell." Carol bent over the Nav console, to which she had rerouted almost all bridge functions. "We lost contact with Engineering when the repair crews rerouted power around the ruptured conduits on deck 12."

"Do we still have—"

The doors to the bridge slid open. Kirk scrambled out of the console and flung himself between Carol and the person who stood in the doorway—a lean Andorian woman in the black uniform of the Vengeance crew, with a commander's stripes on her sleeve. She glanced at the phaser in his hand; he eyed the phaser in hers.

"You must be Captain Kirk," she said. "What have you done with Admiral Marcus?"

"I relieved him of command."

"So I heard. What have you done with him?"

"That's none of your concern, commander. Lower your weapon."

He watched her struggle between loyalty to Marcus and the instinct to obey an order from a superior officer. Her phaser remained steady. "Where is he?" she repeated.

Kirk hesitated. "He was badly injured in the impact," he said. "He's aboard the Enterprise, receiving medical attention." He watched the nose of her phaser drift toward the deck and pressed, "His mission—this mission—was illegal and wrong."

"I know," she said. She held his gaze even as her arm lowered. Her eyes were fierce and very pale. "I've known from the beginning." She placed the phaser on the ground and kicked it toward him. It skittered across the deck plates and he stopped it with his foot. "I am Commander Thryshi Sh'athylnik, Intelligence Division. As the ranking officer of the Vengenace, I surrender this ship to you, captain."

Kirk made no move to pick up the weapon. "I offered my surrender to Admiral Marcus, and he tried to destroy my ship and my crew."

"You're not Admiral Marcus."

"No," Kirk said. "I'm not."

They stared at each other for a long moment.

"Now that we've established that," Sh'athylnik said, "What the hell is going on?"

"Sir," Carol interrupted, "We're being scanned by the array. It's penetrated our shields."

"What kind of scan?" Kirk demanded.

There was no answer. Sh'athylnik's eyes widened, and Kirk dared to glance over his shoulder. The Nav station was empty. Carol was gone.

"What the hell—" Kirk turned back to Sh'athylnik, only to find she, too, was gone. He felt something like a transporter effect seize him, and thought, Oh, shi—