Chapter-09:
She didn't really know what she was doing. It wasn't as though anyone asked her to, but in the weeks that rolled by in Khan's absence, she made it her mission to find where his crew was being kept. For a while, she was beginning to doubt that they were on the starbase at all. That is, until she came across a suspicious gap in the inventory log of the cargo bays. Upon further searching, she found them to be in a secure storage room adjacent to one of the cargo hangars, locked by an authorization code. When she pretended to have made a wrong turn, she saw with her own eyes that the place was not even guarded by security officers. Marcus must have had a lot of faith in his secrecy as well as his hold over Khan if he thought such lax precautions were safe.
In the meantime, she found an unexpected friend in Carol Marcus. There was nothing about the woman that was even remotely reminiscent of her father, which made it easy to forget who she was related to. Between her hours wasted in pretend research, and the hours spent in watching the sleeping crew of the Botany Bay, Marla had delved into painting again. It distracted her from wondering what he was doing every hour that he was kept away from her.
She was in her room working on an imagined portrait of Julius Caesar, an apron over her uniform to protect it from the paint. Stretched comfortably on the bed was Carol, who took particular interest in looking through Marla's sketchbook.
"Do you ever regret—or at least reconsider—your career choice?" the blonde asked pensively.
"I have…" Marla murmured distractedly as she leaned in close to the canvas to dab in the detail of laurel leaves on Caesar's breast plate. "Have you?"
"Sometimes. I've always wanted to do something… I don't know, creative rather than destructive. It would be wonderful to create life instead of all this killing. Weapon technology is fascinating, but I feel like there is far too much importance put on it… Everyone is far too eager to just blow things up. What's worse is they put just about anyone in command positions anymore. No one needs to work their way up through the ranks anymore. You can be captain without even graduating past cadet."
Marla paused her paintbrush. "Are you talking about James Kirk?"
"Who isn't these days?" Carol snickered. "Six months ago he was being reprimanded by the board for cheating on the Kobayashi Maru, and now he's the captain of the best ship in the fleet surveying planets on the edge of the system. He's got brains, but obviously no character whatsoever…"
Marla laughed. She only knew Kirk by name and his less-than-stellar reputation as an officer. Which was quite contrary to his reputation as a playboy. There was many a girl at the Academy who sighed and cursed because of him. "He can't be all that bad," she added as she blended the pigments on her canvas. "For a cadet, he did manage to beat that Romulan Nero."
"That's true," Carol quietly agreed, and Marla was sure she saw a smile touch on the blonde's face.
The annunciator beeped at her door. Quickly, she wiped the bronze-colored acrylic from her fingers and pushed the intercom button on her desk.
"Come in!"
The door wheezed open and Carol was suddenly scrambling out of her comfortable recline and onto her feet. Standing at her door was Khan, in full uniform and with a duffle bag over his shoulder. His sharp eyes were on Carol with cool curiosity.
Marla couldn't help the smile that burst onto her face and she practically gasped out at the unexpected sight of him, her hands clutching around her brushes as she fought the desire to run into his arms like a needy fool.
"You're back!"
His eyes seemed to have taken on a shade of blue in the light of her room. She never ceased to marvel at how they always seemed to change in hue. A smile appeared on his face as he moved further into the room.
"Yes. My first thought was to return this to you." A hand revealed Paradise Lost. "It must have been difficult for you to part with…"
His attention gradually drifted back to Carol, his smile waning.
"Oh, Carol…" Marla tried to contain her smile. "This is Commander John Harrison. John," the name left a strange taste in her mouth, "this is Dr. Carol Marcus."
There was a sharp alteration in his expression, his eyes widening ever so slightly. It reminded her of a cat spotting a mouse. "Marcus."
"It's a pleasure to finally meet you, Commander," Carol smiled, but it wasn't convincing as she visibly withered under his silent gaze. "I've been following your work. Speaking of which… I have a few reports to catch up on… I'll meet up with you later, Marla."
Carol tiptoed for the door almost as if she was afraid of being seen in her escape.
"Goodbye," Marla was hardly aware of her friend's abrupt exit—she simply couldn't take her eyes off of him. She did not need to look to know that they were alone now. "I'm happy you're finally back."
She hadn't taken the book from him, so he set it aside on one of her sketch-riddled tables. He picked up one of the drawings of Napoleon and admired it. "You've taken up art again. Impressive technique…"
"I've had some spare time," she said with a hint of embarrassment to her idleness. "I… I also found your crew."
His eyes flashed to her, a look of genuine surprise. Slowly, he set the paper down. "My crew?"
"All seventy-two of them. It took a bit of digging, but… I found them on the cargo deck, storage room 137D."
"You did not wait for instruction from me?" His tone was so flat that she was afraid she had done something wrong.
"After everything I heard Admiral Marcus say, I wanted to help," she said confidently, even though she felt smaller. "I want to help you."
"Because I am so vulnerable and disadvantaged in this century?" Those harsh eyes narrowed.
"I didn't mean that," she replied quickly.
"You went out of your way to find them, risked discovery for the sake of seventy-two strangers who may as well be counted dead. Why?" His head canted slightly. "Is it because of your moral principles prevailing over the authority of your supreme commanding officer? Or was it for me?"
Her heart leapt into her throat. She wanted to answer Yes, it's always been you. But different words came out, meek words. "I don't know."
No matter what she said, though, he didn't seem fooled. He let the duffle bag slip slowly from his shoulder to be set soundlessly on the floor. The severity of his posture never faltered, but as he stepped slowly nearer to her, his eyes seemed to take on a softer scrutiny than their usual harsh calculation.
"Oh, but I think you do know," his voice rumbled through the air, the vibrations of it hitting her all over her body. "Would it have altered your choice if my plans were of another nature?"
"What do you mean?"
Smugness pulled at the edge of his mouth. "Perhaps there is a simpler method in gaining freedom than trafficking my people out. Carol Marcus, for example…"
She caught his meaning immediately and it alarmed her. "You mean ransom?"
"It's only reasonable to reciprocate Marcus's own methods. A living daughter is bound to be more valuable to him than seventy-two frozen men and women of antiquity. Though his delay may cost her an extremity or two…."
The ease in which he spoke of such atrocities was quickly reminding her of what the textbooks described. Ruthless, tactical, and quite possibly vengeful to a destructive degree. It made her blood run cold, and after months of yearning for him, she wanted to shrink away. But instead, her hand (the same one he had nearly crushed into a thousand pieces) pressed to his solid chest.
"Khan, no…"
The word no made his eyes flash, a look of incredulity appearing on his features. "You would tell me what I cannot do?"
"I know I can't," she was surprised at her own audacity. "But I can ask you…. Please leave her alone. There is a way to free your people without any more lives being lost or endangered. I've spent enough time with Carol, I know she has nothing to do with what her father is doing. She thinks he's just creating better weapons for the fleet."
"Forgive me," there was the searing sarcasm in his tone as he loomed in close. "I was under the foolish impression that you had picked your side. Now I see you are still flitting between your loyalties."
"I chose you," the words came out more sternly than she expected. "If I didn't want to follow you—to be with you—I wouldn't have stayed."
There was a new flicker of light in his eyes as she raised her voice to him, her tone increasingly scolding and determined. She could tell by the hint of intrigue on his face that he wasn't used to people speaking up to him in such a way.
"I did wonder if you would still be here when I returned," he seemed to muse aloud, "if you were bold enough to stay."
"I'm not afraid of you," she said with surprisingly clarity. It was the first time she meant it.
"Perhaps you should be," he murmured. "I am a man who is accustomed to getting what he wants. I'll free myself and my crew from Marcus, then commandeer a ship and leave here…"
A strong hand gently came to her neck, palm and fingers cradling her jaw as she instinctively leaned her head into it. He was so close to her now, their breaths collided between them and she could see the bewildering assortment of colors in his eyes.
"And so long as you give yourself willingly," his lips brushed hers with every word, "I will have you too…"
Her legs nearly give out from under her. Even if she wanted to, she was not given the chance to argue when he pressed his mouth to hers. Her eyes fell closed and the taste of him was more intoxicating than she remembered, than she had continuously dreamt of. She didn't realize how heavily she was leaning into him until his arm effortlessly held her by her waist, pulling her against him to feel every perfect dimension of his lean body.
Already her heart was pounding at an alarming rate, her blood quickened so suddenly that she felt dizzy. She was barely conscious of her legs moving beneath her. He was herding her backward, his tall form easily overcoming hers and manipulating it towards the bed. She resigned all control to him and he accepted it—not graciously, but with entitlement.
Something changed so suddenly and so unexpectedly that she could not help but stare in wonder. The man who now lay quietly beside her did not seem to be the same one that entered her room only a couple of hours ago. He was calm, at peace, and completely unintimidating. All of the fearful respect that he had enforced into her from their first meeting was unraveled piece by piece.
It began with the way that he kissed her, so softly as to almost be timid—asking permission rather than taking—which he claimed he could and easily could have. When he could have lifted her without any effort to carry her to the bed, he instead guided her towards it. And when all clothes were discarded (the uniforms that would remind them both of the cage of a starbase that they were in) so, too, did pretenses drop.
That intrinsic need within him to have power no longer seemed to exist when she moaned his name—his true name that had been taken from him. The one syllable made him shudder at her voice the same way that she always trembled at his. And to make him quiver, to feel the unintentional reaction in his otherwise perfect body suddenly shifted the paradigm in her favor. Khan wasn't just a warlord out of time, he was a man. And for all of his intellectual and physical prowess, he revealed himself to be as susceptible to the passions as any other human. Perhaps even more so. The emotions that seemed to fester and coalesce beneath his often harsh exterior were atoms waiting to collide.
This was a man who was terrified of being alone. He may never admit to it, or even realize it himself, but she knew it by the way he pulled her close to him in such a petty need for ownership. Marla was no better. They were both needy in their loneliness, which she was able to forget in the final moments as they clung to each other at the peak of ecstasy.
And now he slept. The man who slept for 300 years and was immune to sedatives was tranquil, naked, and in total submission as she lay on top of him, feeling his chest as it slowly rose and fell. No matter what he did to her now, she could not imagine ever being afraid of him again.