A/N: Yeah, I know my Reichenbach solution is not accurate, but do cut me some slack-this was written before Series 3 premiered, believe it or not! :) Enjoy!
Forever Avenge
a Star Trek/Sherlock crossover
II
[Stardate 2015,4: London]
"You ready yet?"
"Almost, give me a moment to get as much blood out as possible."
"I don't hear you blowing your nose, Sherlock."
"Shut up—it hurts, alright?"
"And it's gonna hurt worse in a moment, so suck it up!"
"Fine…"
"Ready?"
"Yes…"
"Okay, come here and pull your chair as close to mine as possible, facing me."
"Alright. Do you really have to do this now while it's still bleeding, though?"
"Yes, Sherlock; you know if you don't set your nose within a certain amount of time after breaking it that it won't heal correctly!"
"You're lucky you're a doctor, or else—"
"Or else what?"
"Nothing. Ok, do your worst."
"Where's that paper towel; you've made it bleed again…"
"And you're going to make it bleed even more in a moment—just get it over with already!"
"Alright, fine! Just hold still, dammit."
"…OW."
"Stop that—hold on, I haven't even done anything yet!"
"You touched it!"
"No shite, I'm going to have to do a whole lot of that in order to set the bloody thing!"
"…"
"Hold. Still."
"I am!"
"Are not. I'm serious, Sherlock, I'll be able to work faster if you just cooperate."
"Fine."
John took a steadying breath and replaced his hands upon Sherlock's injured face, pressing his fingertips at the top ridge of the detective's nose and slowly beginning to press firmly down upon the traumatized cartilage. Pressing his lips together, he focused on making an invisible straight line down the center of Sherlock's face, imagining just where to set the fractured bones; Sherlock groaned in pain as the doctor pressed his palms against him and brought the bottom of his hands together underneath the nose.
"Stop whining," John saw fit to chastise him, feeling the pieces of the fracture move into place beneath his fingertips. He nodded once to himself, pulling his palms down the side of the nose, adding firm pressure and moving in a straight line as he did so. He felt Sherlock clench and unclench his teeth in frustration at the harsh movements across his injury but he remained silent in order to allow John the utmost concentration at his work. He couldn't help but think that John was probably secretly enjoying torturing him so, though, after all the torture he had brought upon the doctor. John frowned slightly and repeated the process, adding a bit more pressure the second time around in order to make doubly sure that the bone was properly forced back into its correct position; he chanced a look up into Sherlock's agonized blue eyes, examining the pupils to make sure the man was not at risk for passing out due to the pain.
"You alright," John asked in honest concern as he lifted his palms from Sherlock's face. The detective scoffed.
"What do you care?"
"I'm asking, because if you faint I won't be able to finish setting your nose until you regain consciousness," John explained. "And by that time I'll probably have to re-break the damn thing to get it back in the right place."
"I'm fine," Sherlock stated in firm indigence, to which John nodded and re-directed his attention back to the man's injury.
"Hold still," the doctor reminded Sherlock as he leaned over to look up the man's nose, inserting two fingers into the swollen nostrils with great precision.
"Ah, Hell—" Sherlock cursed, pulling away from John as he winced turbulently in pain.
"For god's sake, Sherlock," John said, grasping the man's shirt and pulling him back in front of him. "I've got to align the nose from the inside, too!"
"You keep your fingers out of my nose!"
"How the Hell do you suppose I fix it, then, Sherlock? I washed my hands, it's not like they're dirty; just let me hurry up and finish here so you can tell me why you jumped."
Sherlock opened his mouth to spat a sassy retort back at John but stopped abruptly after hearing the second part of John's sentence. He paused, then looked the man in the eye and nodded reluctantly. "Be gentle," he growled gruffly as he re-settled himself back in his chair, bracing himself for the next shot of pain to his nose. John nodded once, took a deep breath to re-focus himself, and then re-inserted his index fingers into Sherlock's nostrils. He ignored the man's hiss of discomfort as he felt around the cavity—which was grossly distended by the injury, making twice as sensitive of an area as before, much to Sherlock's dismay. To his credit, though, he managed to keep completely still by clenching his teeth together roughly; John didn't have the heart to tell him that adding pressure to his jaw would only further aggrieve the swollen area, too grateful for the silence to disband it so soon. At last he felt the fracture click back into place beneath his fingers and he was able to release a bit of the pressure.
"Blow your nose," John instructed Sherlock, his fingers still up the man's nose. Sherlock simply stared at him.
"What?" he said stuffily.
"Blow your nose while I pull my fingers out," John said. "It will help drain blood and pus from the nose, trust me."
Sherlock looked at the doctor peculiarly but nonetheless obeyed, blowing out from his nostrils as John extracted his now-bloody fingers from within the detective's nasal cavity. He watched as the man calmly wiped his hands off with a paper towel, and then held the napkin gently up against Sherlock's nose. "Blow," he ordered, "careful now, but try to get everything out." Sherlock obeyed, feeling a bit foolish but making a point not to complain anymore despite how much worse his injury hurt now that John had thoroughly messed with it.
"Alright," John said, pulling the blood, pus and mucus-filled paper towel away. "You stay there—and don't you dare move or touch your nose. I'll be right back."
Sherlock did not respond and resisted the urge to make a sarcastic face at John's back as he rose from his chair and retreated into the kitchen, where he tossed the used napkin and re-washed his hands. He watched the doctor turn on his heel and head for the bathroom next, and then was greeted with his return not a moment later. In John's hands was some crumpled tissue paper; as he sat back down in front of Sherlock he tore off a piece and crushed it into a crinkled ball shape in his hand before carefully wedging some into one nostril of Sherlock's, repeating the process for the other. Once the tissue was in place, John extracted a small band aid from his pocket and stuck it across the bridge of Sherlock's nose.
"It'd be better if I had a clamp for it," John muttered beneath his breath, leaning away from Sherlock's face to examine his work. "…But I suppose that'll have to do."
The doctor rose again and went back into the kitchen, grabbing a towel and a handful of ice this time before returning to the living room.
"You'll have to keep this on it for at least twenty minutes now, alright?" John said, handing the make-shift ice pack to Sherlock to place upon his nose. Sherlock glowered at it for a moment before carefully putting it against the injury.
"…ow."
"Oh, stop complaining," John said. "And take your chair back to the other side of the room, will you?"
"You seem to be reciprocating from your previous rage rather well," Sherlock commented as he pushed his chair back to its proper place opposite from John's. John sat back down with a slight huff, watching Sherlock lift his ice pack up from the arm of his chair and slump down into it with the chilled towel placed upon his nose.
"I'm controlling it," John said with a slight frown. "There's a difference." He sighed, relaxing a bit further into his chair and looking briefly away from Sherlock; he smirked a bit.
"Besides, I've already broken your nose. Don't want to do any worse damage than that until I hear what you have to say," John pointed out. Sherlock looked at him with a calculating expression.
"Ah, yes," Sherlock spoke. "But are you certain that you are really fit to discuss things? I have given you a serious shock by my unnecessarily dramatic reappearance, no denying that. Also, in the matter of these explanations, we have—that is, if you'll assist me as you always have—a hard and dangerous night's work in front of us."
"No, I'm not denying it," John said, looking back at the man. "But I'm alright, and damn the work for just one moment, alright? I need to know now."
I need to know before you turn out really just to be the PTSD talking…I need to know that I'm not actually alone, Sherlock.
Sherlock met his eyes.
"So you'll come with me tonight?"
"Of course."
"Good," Sherlock said, pressing his lips together and averting his eyes for a moment. "That's good," he repeated, then looked back at John. "Well then, since I know you're wondering mostly about how I survived the fall, it would help that you knew I never hit the ground in the first place. What you saw was all an illusion—a trick."
"You never hit the ground?" John clarified, knitting his brow together in confusion.
"No, of course not," Sherlock said matter-of-factly. "I had Molly help prepare my corpse, you see. We had met previously—I knew that my death was inevitable immediately after leaving Kitty Riley's flat—and discussed a plan of action. She helped immensely in the dressing up and setting out of a cadaver for the funeral; without her help this would have never worked according to plan. After we had a fake body for later, the only matter was to make sure I hid myself properly after falling off of Bart's and—"
"Hold on," John said, an incredulous look upon his face. "Molly knew you were alive?"
"Yes," Sherlock said with a slightly confused look upon his face. "I just said so…"
"And she didn't tell me?"
Sherlock observed the look of hurt that John wore and sighed exasperatedly.
"Obviously I had told her not to say anything," Sherlock explained, holding up his hand before John could protest. "She didn't want to, of course, but I told her it was imperative that she followed my instructions should you be in further danger."
"…Oh," John said softly. "You were trying to protect me."
"That was the whole point behind the suicide, yes," Sherlock said, folding his hands together thoughtfully. "Surely you heard the recording of mine and Moriarty's conversation from the rooftop on my phone."
"I didn't listen to it," John told him, "But Lestrade showed me the police report, which had the full script from the conversation on it."
"So you know about the snipers."
"Yes."
"Good, that saves time, now I don't have to waste my breath explaining my motives."
John stared at Sherlock, his frown deepening as he thought of a million things he could retort with but deciding that his silence would be the best. After all, nothing in the world would make Sherlock Holmes a sentimental man; not even John believed he could make the detective truly see the emotional ramifications for his actions, but he could not help but forgive him nonetheless. It would not be the same Sherlock if he had returned crying and kneeling before John.
"Now, John, I need you to think back to that day in order for you to fully understand," Sherlock began again, glancing across at his flatmate. "Remember how I vehemently ordered you to stand at a very specific spot while I spoke to you from the roof of Bart's? I needed you to have the perfect perspective and vantage point for me to pull off the illusion of falling to the ground, and the position that you stood at blocked your view from two areas: from behind the building and behind the sidewalk before me. I needed you in that spot so that you would not be able to see the truck."
"The truck?" John asked. "What truck; there was no truck."
"Exactly," Sherlock said, pointing his finger at the man. "You didn't know it existed at all because you could not see it. That's why you needed to be behind that smaller brick building. I landed in the bed of the truck, which was packed with proper materials to cushion my fall."
"You couldn't have landed in a truck without me knowing, though, Sherlock," John argued, "Because I saw you hit the ground. I saw you!"
"But did you really?" Sherlock inquired. "Think, John, think; did you really see me specifically make contact with the concrete below or are you simply recalling the image of me already lying in a pool of my own blood?"
John met Sherlock's eyes before closing his, remembering the day of Sherlock's fake suicide with all too much clarity. He remembered the sheer horror he felt clenching around his heart when he saw Sherlock toss his phone to the side. He could see Sherlock's arms outstretched, could remember his silent "no" ghost across his lips as he was forced to watch the detective lean forward. He remembered the next bit in slow-motion, just as he had seen it when it had happened. He could see the very moment Sherlock's shoes left the rooftop; remember the way his scarf billowed behind his body as he free-falled to his death. He re-watched it all in his mind, the fall, but sure enough when he tried to remember the moment Sherlock's body made contact with the damp, unfeeling ground beneath him, all he could see was a black expanse blocking his view. He replayed that bit in his mind over and over, but sure enough, Sherlock was correct; his view of the final seconds of Sherlock's fall were completely blocked out by the brick building standing between him and Bart's.
"So the truck was behind the building where I couldn't see it, then," John said, opening his eyes immediately to look back at Sherlock. He exhaled with relief; just replaying the suicide in his mind made him second-guess himself once again for a moment, but once he saw that Sherlock was still there, obviously alive and still with the towel pressed up against his recently sustained injury, John could see clearly again, could breathe once more.
"Okay…" John said, beginning to come to grips with the idea of a truck hiding there away from his sight. "But what about the body I ran up to? That was definitely you, Sherlock, I'd have been able to tell—"
"Of course it was me," Sherlock said. "Obviously I rolled out of the truck and onto the ground before you got over there."
"How did I not see that?"
"The cyclist."
"Oh…"
John recalled his painful run-in with the random biker in the street that day and frowned. How could he have been so careless? Unless…
"…Homeless network. You hired him to knock me down, didn't you?"
"Yes, very good," Sherlock said with a slight nod. "It was a member of the homeless network that assisted Molly and I with the truck as well."
"Brilliant," John said bitterly, to which the corner of Sherlock's mouth flitted upwards just a tad in amusement.
"Immediately upon landing safely in the truck," Sherlock continued to explain, "I ripped open a bag of blood and poured some of it upon my head and the rest on the ground. I had Molly extract a pint beforehand should someone order a DNA test on the blood—which, admittedly, would have been highly unlikely given the fact that Molly herself did the 'autopsy' upon my 'body.' The rest from then all out consisted of her and Mycroft later helping me fake the funeral and what-not."
"But I checked your pulse," John pointed out. "There was nothing there; how'd you pull that off?"
"Ever heard of the rubber ball trick?" Sherlock asked, extracting a small black ball from deep within his coat pockets and tossing it idly to John. "There is a classic magic trick that involves squeezing a ball under your armpit to cut off circulation to your arm and make it seem like you have no heartbeat. I used that to fake the loss of a pulse to you, knowing you would induce your authority as a doctor and make to double-check my heart had stopped somehow in the chaos of the fake paramedic's handlings."
"You really thought this through," John said, honestly impressed despite the deceit. "I mean…you had all of, what, an hour and a half, maybe two hours to put this together while we were separated. You really put a lot of thought into this."
"I knew it was coming," Sherlock said, wrinkling his nose as he inadvertedly quoted Moriarty: "The fall."
"What were you doing while you were gone, Sherlock?" John asked, breaking the detective's remorseful train of thought.
"Moriarty's web was immense," Sherlock informed his flatmate while readjusting his makeshift ice pack upon his sensitive face. "I was not about to leave this case unfinished, and seeing to it that most every criminal part of that web thought I was dead gave me an imperative advantage. With the assistance of Mycroft I was able to see to it that the world's only consulting criminal's web was successfully and permanently shattered."
"Mycroft knew you were alive," John breathed in disappointment; "Never thought I'd live to see the day that you willingly went to him for help."
"I did not do so at first," Sherlock said with an exasperated sigh. "It was after I realized many of Moriarty's main accomplices were not just located out of the country but outside of Europe as well that I knew I would need the assistance of a slightly international power such as him. He was able to pull more strings than I could have ever imagined to get me into face-to-face meetings with the most inconspicuous of criminals worldwide that had somehow wrapped themselves up into Moriarty's system…it was all very tedious," he finally admitted, looking at John with an honest expression. "I just wanted to get it all taken care of as quickly as possible so as to return to you in a timely fashion."
"Three years is timely?" John said in disbelief. Sherlock shook his head.
"No," he huffed. "It is not in the slightest. I took about a year and a half longer than I'd wanted to."
"I wish you could've told me from the start," John admitted, his expression faltering again with a sigh. "But I see now why you couldn't, I suppose..."
He looked up from his lap, eyeing Sherlock seriously. "Promise me something, though, will you?" he asked, to which Sherlock gave him his full, undivided attention. "Promise me that next time, you will include me. Next time we'll come up with a plan together, alright? I know I'm by no stretch of the imagination a mad genius like you, but even you have to admit I can be helpful."
Sherlock nodded once—a nearly imperceptible nod, mind, but John saw it nonetheless just before he finished:
"Let me be a proper best friend and help you from now on, Sherlock. Don't…don't cut me out anymore."
Sherlock had to pause before responding to John's request. He knew there were instances, sometimes, in which he had to keep John out of it in order to protect him—the Reichenbach Fall being a fantastic example of that exact kind of instance—but he saw now that John's wishes should be respected. He was a soldier; after all, he was made for battlefields, not to be abandoned. Out of sheer respect for their friendship and companionship, Sherlock silently agreed to John's terms, nodding firmly across the room at the army doctor and watching with intrigue as his simple head movement made John visibly relax in relief. The betrayal was what got to him the most, Sherlock realized, and he silently vowed once again to do everything in his power never to hurt John in this way ever again.
"Work is the best antidote to sorrow, John," Sherlock said softly, effectively ending their previous conversation of the past to bring both of the back into the present.
"Right then," John said with finality. "This case you've got; what is it and what are we doing tonight? You've got to brief me on things before throwing me into the crossfire."
Sherlock smirked at John's militaristic reference, sitting up a bit straighter in his chair as he automatically prattled off all the information he had about his newest case to John. Much to his surprise, John realized soon on that Sherlock's new case was the very murder he had read about in the paper that morning, the murder of one Ron Adair. John was suddenly able to recall everything he had read from the paper's report that morning, recounting the few facts and figures he had picked up upon to the consulting detective before him, who nodded in approval as he spoke. The authorities, not to mention the man's family, were perplexed by the case; it seemed that Adair had not an enemy in the world. According to the police report, he was in his sitting room, with a window open, working on accounts of some kind, as indicated by the papers and money found by police. Adair liked playing whist and regularly did so at several clubs, but never for great sums of money. It does, however, come out that he won as much as £420 in partnership with a Colonel Moran.
"They didn't say much in the paper about whom this former Colonel Moran was, though," John explained to Sherlock, who sure enough was able to spout out far more facts and figures about the mysterious man to his flatmate, who sat listening inquisitively as he spoke:
"Moran was educated at Eton College and the University of Oxford before embarking upon a military career. Formerly of the 1st Bangalore Pioneers, he served in the Jowaki Expedition and in the Second Anglo-Afghan War, as well as many other well-known militaristic pursuits before retiring to serve under Moriarty's criminal empire for a time. Unfortunately he was the only piece of the web that I had failed to destroy," Sherlock admitted with a deep frown. "In fact, you may want to bring your gun tonight in case I miss my shot. Doubtless there will be a threat against my life during our visit with Moran."
"Wait," John said, holding his hand up to stop the detective from continuing on for a moment. "That's where we're headed? To face this Sebastian Moran bloke?"
"Yes," Sherlock said, raising an eyebrow. "Isn't it clear—?"
"You know it isn't," John said in exasperation before Sherlock could continue:
"Now left without employment, Moran earns a living here in London by playing cards at several clubs—a hobby he shared with Ronald Adair. Moran murdered Adair by shooting him with a silenced air gun that did not use bullets for."
"A gun that doesn't use bullets?" John asked skeptically, to which Sherlock surprised him with his response.
"Have you ever seen the movie No Country For Old Men?"
"…The western?"
"Yes," Sherlock said with an eye roll. "Of course you've seen it. I personally haven't, but I know that the antagonist in that film utilized the same kind of weapon that Moran used on Adair, if you can visualize that correctly."
"I can," John agreed, thinking.
"With that weapon's particular intensity of air pressure, it would have been easy for as good of a shot as Moran to aim correctly through the open window in Adair's room and make a direct hit on him."
John stared at Sherlock.
"How long have you been working on this case?"
"Since this morning," Sherlock replied. "Why?"
"That's how long I've been working on it as well," John retorted. Sherlock shrugged.
"You had numerous distractions, whereas the only distraction I encountered was our meeting, and I had already gathered up all of this information by the time I met with you here."
"That and you're you," John muttered, to which Sherlock knew better than to reply despite how much he truly wanted to. After all, he had just barely escaped John's wrath; his nose was still throbbing enough to remind him to keep his mouth shut for the time being. He now glanced at the clock, noting that it was now late afternoon and that a little more than twenty minutes had passed, allowing him to remove the melted ice pack from his face and dispose of it into the kitchen sink. John stayed where he was seated as Sherlock went to examine his nose for himself, thinking over the day's events so far and over the facts that had just been rapidly spewed out at him.
"Fair enough," Sherlock could not help but agree arrogantly, walking back from the bathroom and stopping behind John's chair. "Are you ready to get going?" he inquired, gripping at the back of the cushioned seat. "We have time to stop somewhere to eat first, if you're hungry…?"
"Starving," John agreed, rising from his seat and grabbing his jacket as he followed his flatmate's long strides straight out the door and into the brisk air, unable to hold back a secretly delighted smile at how quickly everything was beginning to return to its former normalcy.
-•-• •-•-
[Stardate 2258: space coordinates ]
"We'll begin work on the Vengeance here, as soon as you complete those blueprints I gave you—"Admiral Marcus began to explain to Khan in the midst of their tour of the secretly subsidized Io Facility, a spacedock in orbit of the Jovian moon Io. He was interrupted with surprise when Khan simply handed over a microchip, walking straight past Marcus and stopping to look across the balcony they stood upon, observing the spacial measurements of the garage the U.S.S. Vengeance would eventually be built within.
"I re-drew the entire design of the ship," Khan explained. "With the improvements I wanted to make in the thruster design your previous bow shape simply would not do. It now further resembles the Enterprise more so than the Oberth while still maintaining the optimal measurements of speed and precision during and out of warp."
The Admiral fixed Khan's back with a speculative glare, pulling out his tablet and transmitting the files from the chip into the tablet's system. As he pulled up the newly re-written blueprints, Khan pointed across the empty expanse before him.
"This will have to be further expanded to accommodate the new hull size, of course."
"No can do, resize the hull," Marcus said, to which Khan merely glanced over his shoulder in distaste before stating:
"You asked me to design the best ship I could for your Federation, Admiral, and I did just that." He turned back to face the interior of the station. "If you choose to be idiotic to suit your station's current state rather than adjust to the magnificence of my ship, so be it—but you will be redesigning the hull, then, not I."
Khan was met with a long expanse of silence, an experience most welcome after having to endure the Admiral's tiresome instructions and explanations upon how travel to and from the hidden space station would be performed and when building of the Vengeance will commence. The ship itself was going to be magnificent; specifically designed to be a combat vessel, it was going to be larger, faster, and more heavily armed with advanced weaponry than the Enterprise and all other ships in its category. Despite its enormity and vexation of an engine manual, the Vengeance also would not require even half of the crew the Enterprise or the Oberth required, making it a much more economically stable of a starship to man for the Federation…Class: Dreadnought; Hull Type: Warship; Registry: Unmarked/Officially Nonexistent; Affiliation: United Federation of Planets; Operator: Federation Starfleet (Section 31); Top Speed: presumably Warp Factor 12 (pre-TNG warp scale)…Khan took many liberties in putting his own personal taste and preferences into it as well, capabilities including, but possibly not limited to, advanced warp technology, next-generation sensor technology including "multi-dimensional RADAR" and "space region observer" systems, upgraded (potentially M5-level) automation of all primary systems and anti-transwarp beaming countermeasures, hull armor including extending plates to cover the navigational deflector and a "sunken" main bridge configuration, making it all the more suitable for a war machine in doing so. He was not going to alter a thing about the blueprints, no matter how much the Admiral argued over the matter. After all, the man wanted the perfect war vessel, and perfection is all that Khan presented him with.
"Impossible," he heard Marcus mutter. Khan looked up from the loading dock below him, glancing at the expanded holographic projection of his masterful blueprints reflected across the metallic dock before him.
When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth…
"What is 'impossible,'" he inquired dully of the Admiral, watching the man examine through the organized hologram without having to turn around and face the tiresome man thanks to the reflective metals of the Io Facility.
"'Can be operated by one individual if necessary?' Impossible!" Marcus said, tapping once upon the blueprint to zoom into the description of the hull design. "With a bay this large in diameter, the engine thrusters must be at least doubling that size and capacity. This vessel couldn't possibly go into a successful warp without at least eighteen men manning the engine room at all times, it would fry!"
"The engine controls are in the bay, as you have decidedly missed in your hasty reading," Khan informed the Admiral. "Though it has a crew compliment of approximately 230 officers & enlisted ratings, in the instance of an emergency in which all but one knowledgeable crew member is temporarily incapacitated all primary controls of the ship can be accessible from the bridge. Also, the design of this ship's warp capabilities eradicate all former limitations and inconveniences from previous ship's designs; this ship is fully functional during warp due to the fact that the Warp Factor scale is not linear. Therefore, Warp 12 is actually three times as fast as Warp 8. The existence of anti-transwarp beaming countermeasures on this ship therefore can and will allow all systems to be successfully manned by an individual should the circumstances require it—a necessity given the fact that this vessel will see war, Admiral."
"And what is this weaponry you've got here," Marcus inquired, exiting out of the zoom-in of the hull diagram and now switching his diagram's focus onto the torpedo launchers. "I've never seen anything like it before…"
"That's because there has never been anything like it before," Khan stated arrogantly. "Upgraded deflector shields; heavily armored outer hull; far more extensive defense capabilities than most Federation vessels have contained in the past. However, that is not the crux of the improvements; in addition to the doubled magnitude of the Vengeance's cannons, I have also taken it upon myself to design a very specific type of photon torpedoes for the vessel as well—which I personally will build alongside monitoring the construction of the Vengeance. Also, it should be noted that the ship's advanced phasers could be fired while the ship was at warp, a capability that has been a sore spot of weakness in Federation starships for far too long now. The ship is to be equipped with only the most technologically-advanced features including better shielding, more advanced transporters, and enhanced warp capabilities."
"Brilliant," Marcus praised, a decidedly accidental endearment that struck a fierce chord within Khan, causing him to clench his jaw so tightly that a vein bulged out from the side of his neck. He finally turned around, his coat swishing about him like a dark cape of shadows as he met Admiral Marcus' expression with a look fixated with nothing more but pure, acidic hatred.
"Do not attempt to compliment me, Admiral," the human augment growled. "I do not accept praise from one as insignificant as you are."
Only John Watson can call me brilliant, you imbecilic tyrant.
"These torpedoes," Marcus thundered on, merely glancing unfazed at Khan's threatening expression before looking back down at his tablet. He pulled up the holographic image depicting the internal structure of the new weaponry. "Elaborate."
"I've kept most of your previous torpedo design intact," Khan explained, zooming in on the image before him. "But I've altered the interior compartment to make it more amendable for specific long-range targeted attacks."
"Alright, but this is what I meant for you to elaborate on," Marcus said, clicking on the image and watching as the hologram demonstrated how easily the interior fuel containers within the torpedoes could be removed with relative ease. "What is the purpose of that?"
"To make it easily accessible should the weapons be accidentally set off," Khan explained, an unfathomable expression painted across his stoic face. "Obviously if a misfire occurs with the torpedoes still onboard the ship, we would want to quickly and efficiently disable them so as to prevent blowing the Vengeance up."
"Hmm," Marcus said, looking over the image once more before shutting the blueprint's hologram down completely. "Point taken."
"Quite," Khan said, accentuating the 't' pointedly.
"Everything seems to be in order, then," Marcus agreed, extracting the microchip from his tablet and pocketing it. "I will see to it that these plans get to the engineer's office here at the base…and we will make plans to expand the interior to accommodate for the vastness of the hull."
"Of course you will."
"And you are to start work on the torpedoes as soon as the materials come in, alright, Commander?" Marcus said, not waiting for an answer as he turned on his heel and marched away from Khan, already dialing up his main weapons engineering crews to prepare the dock for material transport vessels.
As soon as he knew he was alone on the deck, Khan allowed a small, devious smile to creep across his face. From within the pocket of his long coat he extracted a second microchip—the full blueprints of the photon torpedoes he was meant to build. Little did anyone in the Federation know that rather than planning the optimal efficiency for the Vengeance's departure into an all-out war with the Klingons that he was purposefully fitting the ship to meet the requirements for a one-man mutiny against the Admiral—not just any one man, of course, but himself. 'Commander John Harrison—' Khan. Even the 'new and improved weaponry' was designed to his advantage. A fuel container in the interior compartment could be removed to retrofit the torpedoes, not to deactivate their cores, Khan thought snidely, but to carry a humanoid-size individual encased in a cryotube.
The human augment ran his fingertips over the chip one last time before pocketing it, glancing over to the door in which the Admiral had previously exited through with the unknowingly false blueprints. Idiot.
-•-• •-•-
There was a warehouse dock just outside of the main transporter deck that Khan was provided to construct the Vengeance's seventy-two photon torpedoes in. Provided with more than enough space and plenty of tools of the trade and computer systems to work with, Khan gratefully set right to work in focused seclusion. Very few materials had been provided yet, so it was merely a matter of setting up all of the proper plat forming and what-not for today's work—not much else to be done, though Khan was fervent to keep within his hideaway for as long as he could. Here was the work—not the Work, of course, for that would never be again—but work enough to keep his mind functioning mostly upon logic rather than hatred. Emotional disturbances could only get a man so far, after all; it was logic and science that had made the human race superior in the past. Now, as an augment, Khan knew the best of both sides of the spectrum, the emotional and rational inhibitions of the human body. When both worked as one unit, he was unstoppable, god-like in his power and control.
Not yet, he had to continuously remind himself. Not until they are with me. Not until he is by my side once more. It was never difficult to regain control when he remembered that one wrong move would cost his John his life.
Khan sighed in annoyance upon hearing the cargo doors open, adjunct in refusing to greet whoever had the audacity to ruin his short moment to silence.
"Hello," a surprisingly bright, feminine voice greeted him. Khan lifted his head from the computer keyboard slowly, taking notice in the footfall patterns his female visitor took in approaching him, her clean, British accent, and the subtle scent of her floral perfume. She stopped a good couple of meters away from him to both respect his personal space and to have a proper angle by which to view the entirety of the warehouse. "All set up here?"
"Indeed," Khan said curtly, truly not wishing to engage in conversation at the moment, despite the woman's—no, girl's—inviting tone of voice. She unfortunately was not fazed in the slightest by his sharpness as she blundered on:
"Good." The sound of a stylus scripting across a tablet filled the quiet now; "The first shipment of materials should be available by tomorrow afternoon San Francisco time, approximately six hours after your transport shuttle will pick you up from your place of residence in the city tomorrow morning."
The writing paused. "What was your name again, Commander?"
So she doesn't know who I am. Interesting; I'm curious now to see just how many other members of the Admiral's beloved Section 31 have been left in the dark…Khan at last turned to grace the mysteriously intrusive female with his presence, regarding her sharply with a harsh, analytical glance.
"John," he said evenly, taking a single step towards her. After a short pause, he finally extended his hand out in greeting. "John Harrison. And you are…?"
"Lieutenant Carol Wallace," the girl said brightly, offering Khan a surprisingly genuine smile. "Pleasure to meet you, Commander Harrison. I will be your assistant in the construction of the torpedoes."
"I do not require an assistant," Khan informed her firmly. "In fact, I recall specifically telling the Admiral that I do not wish to have anybody helping me with the torpedoes—it makes for far too much stupid in one room."
"Well, sorry to burst your bubble but you're getting me," Carol stated in equal firmness. "And I wasn't assigned. To be honest, technically speaking I am not permitted to be at this spacedock at all. I am here on my own accord, Commander, and for my own personal purposes."
She narrowed her eyes before continuing on:
"Also, if you don't mind a bit of bluntness, I doubt that I will add to any of the current stupidity in the room; I have a Starfleet certified doctorate in applied physics and engineering, specializing in advanced weaponry. Needless to say, I know how to do this kind of work, Commander, and I know how to do it well."
Khan regarded her carefully, looking her calculatingly in the eye and finding that every word that had just spouted from her lips had been nothing but the truth.
"You aren't supposed to be here." It was not a question, and Carol nodded in agreement to the statement.
"That's right. Just like you."
This actually managed to startle Khan ever so slightly, but he kept his face cool and collected as he demanded quietly: "Explain."
"My curiosity got to me, Commander, and so I admit I scanned your files before sneaking onto the Io Facility after my—after Admiral Marcus," she said, and Khan caught her glance to the left. Something in that statement is a lie. "You were automatically entered into the data system at the rank you are currently at. If you were a true commander you would have certainly been tracked and traced all throughout your time in the Starfleet Academy and every single one of your climbing ranks would have been recorded as well. And yet here you are, with practically no history to go by, building was will be the turning point of the Federation's wartime regime."
"Interesting deductions, to say the least," Khan said icily, slowly making to pace around Carol, observing her stance from all angles. She remained completely still as he did so, keeping her stoic stare straight ahead, refusing to back down from her statements. "…I wonder how you had access to classified personnel files, though, given your current rank—or rather, lack thereof."
Carol swallowed; she had not thought this far into their conversation in hope that Commander Harrison would falter upon being called out as a fake.
"I know a man."
"As do I. I know many men. This means nothing if you do not know the right man, or in your case, if you are not related to the right man in question, the very man who created my file. Correct?"
At this statement Carol gaped at Khan. "How did you—"
"You make it ridiculously simple to read you, Miss Marcus," Khan said, causing her expression to significantly falter upon the mention of her correct surname. "You may have every other imbecile onboard this spacedock fooled but you cannot fool a mind as powerful and uninhibited as mine. I was made to deduce a person's life story from a simple stain upon their shirt. If you honestly thought I could not read your true identity by a few argumentative but choice handfuls of words you are going to have a bad time."
Khan took one step away from Carol Marcus, clasping his hands behind his back and meeting her eyes.
"Don't try to lie to me again; it doesn't work."
Obviously Carol's plan fell through far deeper than she had intended. With a heavy sigh, she pressed her lips together and looked away from Khan's piercing glare, attempting to quickly and rationally come up with a half-decent comeback in order to allow her to stay and assist the Commander. More than anything, she wanted clarification; she could tell her father was doing something highly illegal, something that could potentially be counted as treason against the Federation and have him either imprisoned or executed as consequence. Though he could be rather thick-headed at times, there was something inside of her that wanted to see if she could stop Alexander Marcus before he dove in too deep.
"Fine," she acquiesced, lifting her hands up in defeat. "You've got me; you know who I am and you know what I know. In knowing that, you also are aware of the fact that I could have this entire operation terminated should anyone equal to my father's standings suddenly know about your false identity."
"Is that a threat?" Khan spoke in a dangerously low tone of voice.
"Take it as you will," Carol said, unaffected by his change in demeanor. "The point is both of us now know something of slight importance about one another, something that could easily put us both in compromising positions. So, you may as well even out the playing field a bit and tell me your real name now."
"How amusing," Khan spoke through an acidic smile. "All you need to know about my true identity is that I give no quarter, no mercy should someone attempt to threaten me. Do not think just because you are a woman and you are related to my 'employer' that I shan't destroy you."
"It would be a lot easier for the both of us if you didn't do that," Carol said, and Khan could not help but be slightly impressed at how long she had been able to hold her stance despite his menace. "After all, why resort to barbarianism when we could just sit and talk instead? That would be the much more human approach."
"And who's to say I am human?"
Carol raised an inquisitive eyebrow at Khan.
"Well, that's one question out of the way, then. Anything else you'd like to tell me while you're at it?"
"Why do you want to know?" Khan regarded her, to which she shrugged her shoulders slightly.
"Once again: curiosity."
"I don't put my trust in many people, Miss Marcus," Khan said truthfully, turning away from her to go back to the computer. "I have no reason to do so."
Carol paused, thinking over his words, wondering over the true meaning underneath their context. In the end she could come up with a million possibilities and no sure-fire facts.
"If it means anything to you whatsoever," she began in a much softer tone of voice, "…I could at the very least be somebody to confide in."
Khan paused.
"Why would I wish to confide in you of all people?"
"Like I said, it was only a suggestion," Carol reasoned. "But who else could you confide in? I mean…you now know of my secretiveness. Why would I reveal your secrets when you now have an equal amount of information by which to blackmail me with?"
"You don't want to know my secrets," Khan said loathingly, staring into the computer screen without actually reading the diagrams projected upon them.
"Perhaps you should let me make that decision for myself," the weapons technician stated. "I want to know what kind of man my father has brought in to militarize Starfleet. I want to know everything about his secretive plans, and I will do anything to gain that information, Commander. If I cannot get it from you I will simply look elsewhere. Might as well allow for intelligent company rather than simply create a new enemy in me, don't you think?"
"Sometimes," Khan said with a smirk, "An enemy is much easier to handle than a friend."
"Why is that?"
"When friends turn on you," Khan said in a dangerously quiet voice, "It hurts far worse than having to deal with a foe."
Carol stopped, surprised at this display of humanity from Khan after experiencing so much of his nearly robotic intellect. Now she definitely wanted to know more, wanted to get closer to him—if not to gain information herself, then to help this poor creature before her. She gripped at her tablet, looking at the ground before her.
"…So far, Commander Harrison," she said gently, "You have given me no reason to betray your trust."
Khan smirked to himself. "You've known me for all of eight minutes."
"That's long enough to see you're not entirely who you seem to be on the outside," Carol reasoned, looking towards the back of his head. "That's long enough to be able to tell you've been hurt and that you are angry at the world."
She narrowed her eyes slightly, biting her lip before uttering: "And I'll bet that you are forced to be here against your will, under a bribe of some sort by my father's doing."
Khan clenched his jaw together tightly, fury bubbling at the mere voiced facts of his false employment. He glanced over his shoulder at Carol, his eyes shining: "You would be correct in concluding that."
"In that case," Carol began, taking a deep breath and closing her eyes as she bowed her head, "…I can no longer be sure of with whose side my allegiances lie. Especially if by doing this to you my father has betrayed the Federation and abused his rank. I simply cannot stand by such treason."
"You don't know anything yet."
"You haven't denied anything I've said," Carol pointed out, opening her eyes to look at Khan just as he slowly turned about to face her again. The augment leaned against the computer's vast keyboard, gripping lightly at the edge of the platform as he pressed his lips together.
"There is no point in you knowing anything about me," he repeated.
"It would get you to talk," she reasoned. "Sometimes talking things through helps us cope."
"Do not try to empathize with me, Miss Marcus."
"I already have."
"Caring will be your greatest mistake," Khan warned her. She met his eyes with the same intensity as he met hers.
"Why don't you let me make that judgment on my own," she said with quiet force, unblinking in her stare. Khan kept up his glare for as long as it suited him; he wanted her to know that she truly was doing the wrong thing, that in her eyes, once he finished his extensive tale of suffering and brutality that she had unintentionally empathized with the enemy. But she was stubborn, as stubborn as her father, the Admiral was, except she stood on the opposite side of the spectrum, her humanity blazing within her blue eyes rather than the same lust for war that her father's so piercingly held. Khan could respect her strong will and her forcefulness in how she handled his mental block. In that sense she nearly reminded him of John, of how he could always manage to be firm and yet so compassionate at the same time. Perhaps, like John, Carol Marcus for some reason would not see fit to cast Khan away into the flames of Hell as the rest of the world did despite his unharnessed brutality. Perhaps even this mere human being would manage to see the small bit of humanity remaining within him. In all honesty, he rather doubted it—especially after knowing this girl was raised by a man like the Admiral—but she had made her decision. She wanted to know everything she could, regardless of whether or not she would regret it in the end.
"…My name is Khan," he began, standing up straight and clasping his hands behind his back. "John Harrison is a creation of pure fiction, logged into the database, as you said, by your father merely for the purpose of concealing my true identity as a human augment to Starfleet command."
Carol knit her eyebrows together in slight confusion. "Human augment…?"
"Mmm, yes, you wouldn't know of such classified information would you? Clearly your research only dove so far," Khan said with a slight wrinkle of his nose. "Augment is a term used to describe a group of genetically engineered humans created by advances in DNA resequencing in the mid-20th century. We augments were designed to be remarkably agile, five times stronger than and twice as intelligent as a normal human being, resistant to sickness and with enhanced senses, possessing heart muscles twice as strong and lung efficiency fifty-percent better. Our blood contains platelets capable of regenerating from any disease or toxin, which can be used to cure or revive medical subjects via transfusion. We also have twice the average lifespan. Even our resistance to directed energy weapons is improved, as it takes multiple shots with a phaser or a phase pistol to successfully stun one of us.
"Along with our superior abilities there was a so-called defect in our altered genome: according to the very scientists who created us, the augments were 'aggressive, arrogant and ambitious, with a diminished sense of morality.' One of the scientists behind our creation even had the capacity to say that 'superior ability breeds superior ambition,' and then later theorized that a defect in the genomes of the augments created a malformation in our base-pair sequences that regulate the neurotransmitter levels in our brains, causing us to be highly prone to aggression and violent behavior. They never did see fit to 'fix' such a defect, however, which provokes me to wonder whether or not they truly considered it as one..."
"That would be why the program got effectively closed down, then," Carol Marcus said, her brow furrowed slightly at this streamline of information suddenly being thrust upon her. Khan raised an eyebrow.
"Not necessarily," he corrected her assumption. "The program ceased to be when the ramifications of taking perfectly intelligent human beings under their wing and gifting them with the solutions to all their physical limitations came to be. It is one thing to have a born super-genius running rampant across the globe; it is an entirely other thing when that genius has no physical hindrances to speak of, making them unstoppable in every practical sense of the word. We were created to rule, to govern as the perfect dictators of power—that is why my given name was 'Khan,' as a silent adage to the Genghis Khan, one of the greatest conquerors to ever have once walked the Earth. But when we did what we were made to do by any means necessary of doing so, we were immediately considered genocidal tyrants who conquered and killed in the name of order; thus, I and my kind were frozen in cryogenic sleep in order to be controlled once again."
"Yes," Carol began slowly, "Because you were killing people."
"We were doing precisely what we were made to do," Khan said pointedly, making Carol visibly pause.
"So you're saying that Starfleet was responsible for creating all of that tyranny."
"Indeed," Khan said, his eyes glowing as he could see the gears within Carols mind whirring, could physically watch her catch on. He was staring, waiting for the horror of it all to set in when she suddenly inquired:
"Who were you before that happened, though, before you were unrightfully experimented upon?"
It was Khan's turn to noticeably pause. To put it bluntly, he very much was not expecting this question to turn up at all. Absolutely nobody had ever cared to know about Khan's human identity, about who he was before he became Khan. That was an entirely different lifetime to him now, when he lived not only in a different era, but a different life entirely.
"What do you mean by asking me that?" he asked carefully.
"I mean exactly what I said," Carol stated. "Who were you before Starfleet took it all away?"
Khan stared at her in minor disbelief; she really wanted to know. In complete honesty, she truly just inquired about a life long past, a life that had not been his in over two hundred and fifty years. Where do I begin, he thought as countless memories valued greater than gold to him immediately rushed back into his effulgent mind all at once. There were cases long forgotten appearing from dust, hundreds of stories to regale, blog entries, conversations abundant…and in between all things pertaining to the Work, of course, was the unexpected blessing of a love since cherished. Khan blinked, feeling his chest significantly constrict at the thought of John Watson, and he found he had to take a deep breath to steady himself before looking Carol back in the eye and beginning from what very well could have been the proper beginning of it all:
"I was a consulting detective. Only one in the world, I invented the job…"
-•-• •-•-
