Chapter One: Oh, the Possibilities!
When Admiral Marcus first saw Captain Selva's report, he assumed it was a joke. Selva should have known better to send his stupid enthusiasms to Command. Sighing, Admiral Marcus opened the line to Selva, then reached down and picked up a PADD and a couple of bits and pieces that had fallen to the floor. Blasted paperclips.
"Admiral," Captain Selva said, saluting.
"Captain," replied Marcus, "I would appreciate it if you kept April Fool's jokes out of your reports to Starfleet Command."
Selva looked confused for a moment, then replied "Sir, I am not joking. We have indeed found the Botany Bay."
Marcus' jaw started to drop, but he snapped it shut. "I want details," he said. "Now."
The possibilities were staggering, and he wasn't just talking about the things that would have had historians dancing for joy. It had been suspected for decades that some of the Augmented humans had escaped at the end of the Eugenics wars, possibly in that ship. Maybe even Khan, last and greatest of the eugenics tyrants.
The Augments were living weapons, and in the right hands - his hands - they might just be what was needed to end the Klingon menace and properly strengthen Starfleet. He ordered Selva to remove the cryotubes from the Botany Bay and bring them to the Jupiter Section 31 base secretly.
While that order was carried out, Marcus buried himself in all the information he could find on the Augments and the Eugenics Wars. He also called in a historian - Macgivers was her name - to give him as much detail on Khan and the other late-surviving Augments as she could. He got a few descriptions, and even a copy of a badly water-damaged photograph that might be of Khan, although Macgivers wasn't sure. He thanked her and sent her away wondering what the head of Starfleet wanted with the history of such an ancient war.
The information was fascinating, but also disturbing. The Augments were impressive in their abilities, but also in their aggression and ambition. He almost reconsidered the whole idea. The last thing he wanted was the Augments back in power.
But the power wielding them would give him... it was worth a few risks. And it wasn't as if he were going to wake all of them. There was limits to how much trouble one Augment could make. Khan himself was the only one they had any decent information on, so he was the one they'd wake if they could identify him. And since he would have been executed if he had been caught it wasn't as if he didn't deserve whatever Marcus chose to do with him.
Marcus ordered the doctors to find out how to unfreeze long-term cryofrozen people safely. He had to consider carefully which doctor to tell the whole truth to before settling on Dr. Marin. The doctor's medical curiosity knew no bounds and he wasn't inclined to excessive scruples. Just the man for this job.
Finally the cryotubes arrived and were safely settled in the smaller experimental hanger. Admiral Marcus stood at the door after the techs had left and just looked at them, a satisfied smile playing about his lips. Then he took out a copy of that badly-damaged photograph and began walking among the rows of cryotubes, peering through the mildly-frosted faceplates at each of them, his footsteps echoing in the quiet.
Men, women, even a few children. They were of every race, but all were so still and cold that he felt surrounded by corpses. He'd gotten through all but the last row, and still no Khan, unless that one at the beginning... but that one had had a vicious looking facial scar and a beard, so it didn't seem too likely.
Marcus was at the last-but-one cryotube when he found him. It was definitely the man in the picture, but Marcus found himself dubious that this was actually Khan. He looked so bloody young. This guy had really ruled a quarter of the Earth? Marcus shook his head. Well, they'd wake him and if he wasn't Khan or someone else suitable they'd put him back to sleep and wake the bearded man.
He called one of the techs back and told them to prep. that particular cryotube for revival, then went off to see how the plans for the Dreadnought vessel were progressing. Hopefully better than last time, or he might have to cancel the project. Dammit, they NEEDED Khan.
It wasn't until two days later that the doctors woke Khan, and Marcus was stuck in a Star Fleet meeting arguing with the other Admirals about the next year's budget. Pike in particular kept calling attention to the increases for Section 31 and demanding to know which projects the money was for.
"Yes Sir, I am aware that you can't give us details of exactly what Section 31 is working on, but an increase of this size needs some justification, especially when," and here Pike leaned forward to emphasize his point, "the money is already in use for training cadets. We need every new officer we can find after the Narada incident, as you well know."
"Just what do you want me to tell you, man? A lot of the money is for deciphering the Narada's systems and for improving our own, I can tell you that much. There is much we can learn from a ship from the 24th century, but we need the resources to study it."
"You're concentrating on weaponry, aren't you?"
"Chris, we lost Vulcan and we nearly lost Earth, dammit! To one vengeance-mad Romulan and a few friends armed with a fancy ship and weapons we'd never seen before. If we just sit here, exactly how long do you think it's going to take for the Klingons to take advantage, or the Romulans?" A couple of the other admirals nodded at this. The Narada had cost the Federation dearly. Too dearly.
Pike rubbed his forehead irritably. "I'm not suggesting we 'sit here', but taking money from the Academy when we're short-handed as it is is not the way. And why does all the development work have to be done under Section 31's mandate anyway? Surely there's a lot of it that could be done openly..."
Marcus suspected this was actually the crux of Pike's recent problems with him. They'd been friends once, and he'd even been the one to talk Chris into entering Starfleet in the first place. But the man was too stiff-necked and narrow-minded for his own good sometimes and they'd drifted apart once Marcus had been put in charge of Section 31.
By the time the meeting was over, Marcus had gotten most of what he wanted, minus a couple of projects being under the Science control rather than that of Section 31.
After the meeting finally ended Marcus entered his office, closed and locked the door before calling the Jupiter Section 31 base medical. It took them a few minutes to respond and Marcus grumbled, calling up a report on his PADD and fiddling with it. He'd just started brewing a cup of coffee when the screen cleared and Dr. Marin showed up, looking harassed and unhappy. "Admiral," he said.
"How goes the revival of our man from the past?" asked Marcus.
"There have been some complications..." said Marin, frowning. "He's unfrozen and we have him stabilized for now. It looks like the protocol used to freeze him was not the same as any of the examples we had available, and the different physiology only made things more difficult. He went into shock, then cardiac arrest and we've had to put him on a ventilator. He likely has brain damage, but we won't be able to tell how bad it is until he wakes up."
"The wrong protocol? Oh for the love of... just how bad is the brain damage likely to be?"
"We don't really know yet. It's a hypoxic-ischemic brain injury-"
"In Standard please," interrupted Marcus.
"His brain was deprived of oxygen and nutrients for long enough that there is likely diffuse damage to various areas of the brain."
"Will he live?"
"Yes, probably, but he could be restricted to a vegetative state or have less severe issues if he does come out of his coma."
Great. Just bloody wonderful, fumed Marcus, running a hand through his hair and standing up from his desk. After all this effort, to have Khan be damaged... assuming he survived at all. He should have had one of the children woken first to make sure the procedure worked before reviving Khan. They'd undoubtedly grow up to be monsters anyway so it wouldn't have mattered if they died.
It was nearly two weeks before Khan woke.
A/N: Obviously, Star Trek has a very different history than the real world, and cryopreservation, genetic engineering, and space flight advanced much more quickly there than they did in reality. I think people seriously underestimated just how hard these things are when they were writing Star Trek. I do have some knowledge of what's involved in genetic engineering, and that will leak into this story and how I portray the situations and people.
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