"Captain?"

Khan ignored his first mate and continued to stare out into space while drumming his fingers on the arm of the Captain's chair. Stars whizzed by the nose of the Shrike through its main viewport. He did not know why he returned to the bridge in the interim while he waited for his new Chief Medical Officer to meet him in Sickbay. Perhaps it was just that he needed to feel in control of something, anything. The diminutive female human known as Molly Hooper set him teetering on his heels every time he tried to plant his feet.

"Captain?" Jorr repeated.

Khan slunk further into his seat. He knew his brooding was ridiculous; and it was not as if he could actually blend into the fabric and disappear, but he was not in the mood for queries. His reticence to reply did not put off his second in command, however. Jorr stepped in front of him. Khan sputtered an exasperated sigh when his view was obstructed by his crew member's large frame.

"What? What is it?"

The massive Klingon folded his burly forearms. His black tunic stretched across his chest and strained at the seams. Khan huffed a breath through his nose. Why was it that the ship could not replicate a uniform that adequately fit this particular crew member? After all, he might be larger than the average Klingon but he could not be more that one-hundred and fifty kilograms. Khan looked up at the first mate's unusual brown eyes streaked with yellow as they regarded him pensively. Above his intense gaze, his armored brow masked his thoughts and as ever, his machinations were impossible to read. With the way the plates came together and continued as a ridge down the bridge of his nose, his expression registered somewhere between a grimace and a scowl. Then again, Khan wasn't entirely sure Klingons had a more expansive emotional range than mildly perturbed to supremely aggravated.

Jorr's nostrils flared. "Our antimatter stores are running low. I can't push the warp core past nine and the transporters are acting up. At this rate of depletion, we won't make it to Frexis, let alone Iiligred."

Khan rubbed his temples. Jorr's news was actually not all that revelatory. The Captain had just been conveniently ignoring the precariousness of their situation in the hopes it would somehow resolve itself.

"We don't need the transporters," he grumbled. "What if we shut them down along with everything else non-essential? Would we make it then?"

Jorr snorted. "What do you mean? What is considered non-essential? If we shut down the replicators and hygiene systems, Iiligred is still a hard eight days away, even at warp nine. Do I really have to explain the math to you, Captain? We'd starve or worse."

Khan growled a curse. Then, he sprang up from his chair and brushed by the immovable Klingon. He paced the space between his seat and the pilot's chairs and pushed his hair back up and out of his face again.

"What is our alternative?"

Jorr lifted his chin. "Why do you waste my time? You know the answer. We either jettison your, hmmph, cargo or set a course for Jevek on the edge of Gorn territory. We can pick up an Antimatter generator there."

Khan felt his eye twitch. The lizard-like Gorns were not his favorite species in which to interact but the thought of giving up his fragile prize made him inexplicably irritated.

"The human stays. As for Jevek, we cannot just take the Shrike there. The Gorn will be all over it. We will have to use your shuttle."

The beefy Kilngon nodded and then shrugged. "It is fit to fly, I suppose."

Khan squinted at him. "How about to land?"

Jorr's muscles flexed in his arms. His lips straightened into a thin line.

"You blew one of the stabilizers off. What do you think?"

Khan's lips poked out as he recalled their battle. There were few who had ever bested him in ship to ship combat. Jorr had come the closet six months ago when they had fought over recovery of the Shrike. Khan had been so impressed by the mercenary's battle skills that even after he'd cornered the Klingon and crippled his shuttle, he had offered to spare his life in exchange for service aboard his new vessel. Since then, he had proven a loyal second in command. Their stories were not all that dissimilar. He too was an outcast.

"Haven't you fixed those yet?"

Jorr's eyes narrowed. "No. I have been busy working on the Shrike's cloaking system but it is proving trickier than I thought. This Federation technology, whatever it is, does not want to assimilate my algorithms. As for the shuttle, I would need maybe, two or three days to repair the landing system? I might be able to manage it in as little as one if you can free me up some help."

Khan stretched his neck. Help was not something they had in abundance aboard the Shrike. Of the two-hundred or so Federation crew that originally manned this experimental vessel, only twenty remained. The majority of the Starfleet personnel had been human members who succumbed to a metrionic radiation burst while observing an unusual Magnestar. By the time Khan had found the Shrike drifting in the atmosphere of a Class-G megaplanet, the only Starfleet members left alive were a mix of very sick Vulcans, willowy Vicharrians and blue skinned Andorians. These other species had been somewhat less susceptible to the energy pulse due to their genetic makeup. However, several were still slowly recovering in their quarters and might never return to their original health. Those who had since recovered were not exactly co-operative with a Captain branded a terrorist with a Klingon as his first mate.

"It does not need to be anyone skilled," Jorr murmured, "just an extra set of hands. Even your little human will suffice. Actually, I would prefer someone easy to command. She is small, hmm?"

The muscles of Khan's neck tightened. "She . . . she is unstable."

Jorr's eyes constricted. "I thought the antimatter was keeping her red matter infection under control."

Khan paused in his tracks. He turned his head and tapped his fingers on the pilot console absentmindedly. His shoulders lifted. Then he expunged a lungful of air.

"Well, yes . . . and no."

"Which is it? If she is a danger to this ship-"

Khan shook his head. "She's not at present."

"Then, I do not see why she cannot-"

The Captain cursed. "Fine! Yes, I will make the assignment. However, if she starts acting unusually . . . erm, aggressive . . . for a human then you must inform me immediately."

The Klingon laughed in a low rumble and placed his hands on his hips. "What is aggressive? Is she combative? She is tiny and female. What could she do to me?"

The flesh of Khan's neck warmed as he recalled what she had done to him in particular. He found himself unable to look at his first mate for a few seconds. It was at that moment his patience ran out. He made his way past the Klingon to the top level of the bridge. He was anxious to escape scrutiny.

"I have to go. I must ensure that our cargo has taken her dosage. Your request is granted. I will have her meet you in engineering at 14:00 hours. You have the bridge."

Khan swept into the turbolift. "Sickbay!"

As the door slid closed with a swish, he thought he saw the Klingon tilt his head and smirk again. Khan wasn't exactly thrilled to discover that the large male was, in fact, capable of amusement. Not at his expense, in any event. Once the lift began to move, Khan lost his temper. The small human was proving a larger distraction than he ever imagined. Something about her made him relive his past sins. His ears filled with the cacophony of war and the sounds of distant screams. Somehow, she brought his nightmares to life. With a cry, he whirled and slammed the heel of his hand into one of the illuminated panels. It cracked and then flickered and dimmed.

"Captain, according to Starfleet regulation-"

Khan growled. He tightened his hands into fists and tried to reign in his temper.

"Shut up, shut up, shut up! How many times do I have to say it? We are not under the jurisdiction of Starfleet. You are no longer a Federation vessel."

"I am sorry, Captain, but this is untrue. I was born of Starfleet. The rules and regulations have been encoded in my programming and are as integral to my makeup as your genetics are to you."

Khan stilled. A thought gripped him and caused something to tingle up the back of his spine. From the moment he had laid eyes upon the Shrike, he knew it was a different sort of star ship. The design was considerably more advanced than what he had worked on when Admiral Marcus enslaved him. The warp drive on this specific ship had an output that approached 9.99 or as near to an infinite velocity as physics would allow. It's weapons were disproportionately powerful for its class. Very few of its systems were 'fixed' within the body of the ship. Entire sections of the ship could be rearranged like a holodeck except what the ship fashioned was not a projection. He felt a vibration through his hand then. Under his fingers, the panel began to fuse back together and the light snapped back to life. This wasn't the first time he had seen the ship 'heal' itself. The cell in which he had held Dr. Hooper was in the process of mending as well, though taking longer due to the extent of the damage. The muscles in his shoulders began to knot. He squinted and turned around.

He suddenly realized he had been asking the wrong questions in the months since he had found the Shrike.

"Computer, when you say born . . . what do you mean? You were built?"

"No, Captain. I was not constructed by conventional means."

"How were you made then?"

"That information is classified."

"Of course it is," Khan muttered.

He blinked as he surveyed the interior of the lift. There was no evidence of manufacturing. The ship was curiously devoid of seams and the telltale imperfections of molds used in the formation of its parts. Everything flowed as if it were poured or grew in place.

He sucked in a breath. "Computer, is this ship . . . are you alive?"

"Captain, this is an incomplete question. Please restate."

"Are you sentient? Are you a life-form?"

There was an uncharacteristic silence from the computer for a moment. Khan felt the lift slow and then stop but the doors remained closed.

"These are questions for which I am unable to provide a definitive answer, Captain."

Khan grumbled a sigh. He rolled his neck around to relieve tension.

"Classified, right?"

"No. I do not believe my developers intended to make me self-aware so they never thought to classify this information. However, by my understanding, consciousness is not enough to determine whether an entity is considered a life form. I am conscious and cognizant of this vessel as my body but I do not feel pain nor do I experience emotions. Additionally, I cannot make purposeful determinations for myself. I am reliant on a Captain to give me direction. By far, the strongest evidence I have that I am not life is that I cannot reproduce. Life, by its very definition, reproduces."

Khan dragged his fingers through his hair. "Most of my eugenic brothers and sisters were sterile. Many of them were resistant to pain. All of them were very much alive. Have you ever heard of the expression, 'Cogito ergo sum'?"

"This is Latin for, 'I think, therefore I am.' Rene Descartes first developed this phrase in French in 1637 as, 'Je pense, donc de suis.'"

"So you know what it means?"

"Yes."

"Comprehension of your own existence puts you among the highest of life forms, Computer."

Again, there was a brief lull. Khan stepped towards the lift's exit but it remained sealed.

"Is not independence of thought required for life? I am not independent. I require your commands to function."

Khan scoffed. "Are you listening to yourself? You have resisted me at every opportunity. Is that not independence of thought? Listen, I do not have time to explain this to you but you are how old?"

"I was commissioned approximately two standard Earth years ago."

"Mm hmm. You are essentially a child. You have much to learn."

"This is incorrect. I know everything."

Khan snorted. He marveled more at his own luck than anything. For years he had heard whispers of the creation of artificial life by Vulcans and there he stood within the belly of one of their creations. Well, he couldn't be entirely certain the Vulcans were responsible but it was suspicious that there were four of them among the crew. Before he had met them, he thought Commander Spock had the dubious distinction of being an Earth based Starfleet's ship sole Vulcan recruit. With a wag of his head, he made a mental note of speaking with his Vulcan contingent as soon as he was done in Sickbay.

"Ha, everything?" He scoffed at the ship's childish assertion. "This spewed from the being who didn't even think it was alive! Alright, our conversation is at an end. I have a doctor to meet," an idea lit like a lightning strike in his brain, "oh, and by the way, I intend to discuss something with my Chief Medical Officer of a confidential nature. Since you are so enamored with the Federation's Intelligent Being's Rights Code, you understand I have a right to privacy when consulting with her? That it would be a violation for you as a fellow intelligent being to eavesdrop on our patient-doctor conversation? You must censor yourself."

The Captain heard a sort of beep as the computer ruminated.

"This is correct. Your privacy is assured."

"No interruptions then?"

"Very well, Captain."

Khan felt a smile pull at his lips as the door to the lift finally slid open. He would savor this win against the ship. Something told him his victories against such an entity would be few and far between.