Chapter Thirteen: Into the Open Air

Jim must have informed Doctor McCoy of Khan's arrival because the minute they entered Sickbay, Charlie noticed a biobed cordoned off with ample room for security to stand around.

"Sit," she ordered, grabbing Khan's arm and directing him to the bed.

"Relax, Charlotte. I'm not going anywhere," Khan explained with an air of distain, although he did sit on the requisite bed.

"It's Ensign Noland, Khan, and the 'yet' you didn't say was plainly obvious," she rebuked. He smirked as he adjusted his seat, his back ramrod straight while his eyes roamed over those in sickbay, mainly Carol and Bones, and the cryotube they were investigating.

"You perceive me rather well for an inferior human," he said, his eyes slanting towards hers. "But then again, your father was rather adept at that as well."

Charlie scowled, her arms crossing over her chest. "Tell me what happened," she ordered, meandering so she stood in front of him and stare directly into his cold gaze.

"When?" he asked dismissively, his attention turning back to Carol who had removed the last of the missile pieces surrounding his crew.

"You know when," Charlie snapped. "With my father. What happened?"

The hint of another smirked emerged as Khan turned his steel eyes to hers and she suddenly felt very naked under it. She lifted her chin, unwilling to show any sense of weakness to him. Yes, his circumstances could warrant the behavior he displayed, but she knew Khan always had something up his sleeve to benefit his situation. She trusted him about as far as she could throw him.

"Let's just say he discovered a weakness of mine before I learned of his."

"And what is your weakness?" she challenged.

Khan sneered, and shook his head. "As if I would tell you. Come, Charlotte, I know you are far cleverer than that idiotic question you just asked." A burst of heat rose in her cheeks, her indignation and anger increasing by his patronizing. He either enjoyed his ability to get a rise from her, or he clearly didn't care because he continued as if describing the weather, "We had been playing a form of chess for many years, Charlotte; we were both master's at the game. I have to say I was impressed by his shrewdness. I had yet to come across a non-augment who could even hope to match my level, but he possessed talents I see now run in the blood. And unfortunately for me, that blood allowed him to call checkmate quicker than I. He at least let us take our lives and escape into the unknown."

Charlie considered that depiction of her father a moment before she muttered, "Why?"

"Why what?"

"Why did he let you live? He must have had orders to destroy you; it's not like him to go against that."

"Simple, Charlotte," Khan shrugged. "Your father was addicted to power, a trait I see in you. How else could he have become a general by the age of thirty-five? He saw us for what we were: superior to all others on Earth. He negotiated for us to escape because to kill us would have rid himself of a valuable ally."

"You're lying," Charlie hissed. "My father would have never betrayed the country he swore in oath too. Never."

"He didn't betray them, Charlotte." Khan paused a moment, a twinkle coming to his eye as it dawned on Charlie what he meant.

She was taken aback by what Khan implied. She could not and would not consider the implications of his deduction, because to do so would make her question everything she had been taught; everything she believed in. "So what was the weakness you were going to use against my father?" she decided on a different approach. "From my experience he didn't have one."

"Everyone has a weakness." Charlie shook her head, her thoughts momentarily thrown back to the man with a permanent scowl on his face and disappointment in his dark brown eyes. "Tell me. How was life in that quaint little town in Colorado?" Khan continued, pulling her from her thoughts. "I bet all those trips around the world as a child were fascinating. Where was your favorite?"

Charlie stumbled back away from the man, her insides squirming with unease by the underlying tone of his words. Deciding distance was the best course for the situation, she turned on her heel after she ordered the security to shoot him if he so much as twitched and made her away over to McCoy with only a subtle glance in Carol's direction.

"How's it going, Spitfire?" McCoy asked as he dived into his microscope, Khan's blood sample next to him.

With flicker of a peek in the augment's direction, she said, "Oh nothing much, just finding out my dad was the main reason we have Khan here to deal with. You know, the usual." She leaned her hips against the table, her eyes trained to her boots as that man's words continued to instill themselves in her consciousness. She knew she shouldn't let him get under her skin, but she was finding it hard to argue against his logic when she saw the same things herself.

"Holding something back, are we?" McCoy remarked as he rose and jotted down something on the PADD next to him.

"Many things, McCoy. Many things."

The bitter tone in her voice had McCoy turning his full attention to Charlie, evident curiosity in his question. "Care to share?"

Charlie snorted. "Do I ever?"

"Sometimes. Hey, it's just me, your, how do you say it?"

"Brother from another mother," she grinned.

"Yeah, that."

"Thanks, Len. I mean it," she added after registering his skepticism. "I just have a few things of my own to figure out first."

McCoy sighed, reaching up to rub his tired eyes. "Listen, Spitfire, I know Jim's being a bit hard, but you have to understand—"

"Not now," she interrupted with a snap, noting the surprise in McCoy. "I'm sorry, just not right now."

The doctor opened his mouth to reply but was cut off as a ship wide broadcast began to air, popping up on all the screens in medical. As Charlie watched an image came up and she reeled back with a gasp when Admiral Marcus's picture filled the screen. She turned back to McCoy, his eyes widening when he noticed the admiral's face filling the monitors.

"Captain Kirk," the admiral said, a shiver on unease rolling down her spine.

The entire room went silent, even the ship unwilling to impart its own sounds besides those of the captain and admiral. A small gasp turned Charlie's attention to the blonde daughter of the man on the display before Jim's voice filtered through sickbay.

"Admiral Marcus, I wasn't excepting you. It's a hell of a ship you got there." The underlying tone of Jim's voice had Charlie reading between the lines, wondering what he was seeing since the screens only displayed the admiral's scowling visage.

"And I wasn't expecting to get word that you'd taken Harrison into custody in violation of your orders," Marcus snapped.

"Well, we uh . . . we had to improvise when our warp core unexpectedly malfunctioned," Jim lied. "But you already knew that, didn't you, sir?"

"I don't take your meaning," Marcus growled.

"Well, that's why you're here, isn't it? To assist with our repairs? Why else would the head of Starfleet personally come to the edge of the Neutral Zone?"

"Nice one," Charlie whispered as she saw that familiar hardening of the Marcus's gaze, a skill she had developed quite well when she was back on Earth.

"Is there something I can help you find, sir?" Jim added.

"Where is your prisoner, Kirk?"

"Per Starfleet regulation, I'm planning on returning Khan to Earth to stand trial."

Marcs sighed, reaching up to rub his eyes as he fell back against his chair. "Well, shit. You talked to him. It's exactly what I was hoping to spare you from. I took a tactical risk when I woke that bastard up, believing that his superior intelligence could help us protect our self from whatever came at us next. But I made a mistake. And now the blood of everybody he's killed is on my hands. So, I'm asking you, give him to me, so that I can end what I started."

"Bullshit," Charlie snapped, louder than she intended when several others in sickbay shot startled glances in her direction, including an annoyed Carol Marcus.

"And what exactly would you like me to do with the rest of his crew, sir?" Jim argued. "Fire them at the Klingons, end seventy-two lives? Start a war in the process?"

Charlie peeked over in Khan's direction, noticing the muscle twitch in jaw. Even if she hated the man with every fiber of her being, killing seventy-two innocent people was murder, plain and simple. They may have committed crimes in the past, but they were shown mercy from her father no less; they didn't deserve to die.

"He put those people in those torpedoes," Marcus continued. "And I simply didn't want to burden you with knowing what was inside of them. You saw what this man can do all by himself. Can you imagine what would happen if we woke up the rest of his crew. What else did he tell you? That he's a peacekeeper? He's playing you, son. Don't you see that? Khan and his crew were condemned to death as war criminals. And now it is our duty to carry out that sentence before anybody else dies because of him.

"Now, I'm gonna ask you again! One last time, son. Lower your shields, tell me where he is."

"He's in Engineering, sir," Jim said, Charlie raising her brow as she turned towards the augment sitting on a bed in sickbay. "But I'll have him moved to the transporter room right away."

"I'll take it from here," Marcus announced before the monitors cut out.

Charlie stared at the black screen, trying to figure out what Jim was thinking. The ship suddenly move to warp, Charlie's startled gaze roaming over those in medical. She didn't mind running from Marcus, in fact it was something she dreamed about since she was pulled from the Enterprise, but running was not an act she ever thought Jim would do.

"Well, at least we're moving again," McCoy grumbled, beginning another of his endless tests of the augment.

Khan's eyes roamed over those in front him, detached and emotionless. "If you think you're safe at warp," he announced his gaze hard. He caught Charlie's as she moved to his side, "you're wrong."

Carol and Charlie glanced at each other, both knowing the potential of Marcus and what Khan's threat meant for the ship. They both turned at the same time and rushed from sickbay, intent on the same target.

They didn't speak a word to each other as they rode the turbolift to the bridge. Charlie couldn't tell if she heard Carol's heart beating wildly or her own, the blood in her ears muffling everything outside her own mind. Marcus was going to catch them, that was certain. And if they didn't get to the bridge to warn Jim, all of the lives on the Enterprise could be in jeopardy.

The minute the doors opened Carol shouted, "Permission to come on the bridge." Charlie didn't wait for the go-ahead and plowed past the woman.

"Charlie. Dr. Marcus," Jim said surprised, rising as the two women rushed to his chair.

"We can't outrun him," Charlie declared.

With a small nod, Carol added with a rush, "He's gonna catch us and when he does, the only thing that's gonna stop him destroying this ship is me. So you have to let me talk to him."

Jim flicked his confused gaze between the two women. "We're at warp, he can't catch up with us."

"It's Marcus, Jim," Charlie tried. "He already created advanced torpedoes. It's not so hard to think he hasn't helped his speed at all."

""He's been developing a ship that has advanced warp capabilities," Carol argued, jumping over Charlie. "And I—"

"Captain!" Sulu interrupted, Charlie, Jim, and Carol turning their attention to him. "I'm getting a reading I don't understand."

"What is it?" Charlie asked, jumping down the steps to look at Sulu's console, afraid for what she might see. Just as she leaned over, the ship chasing the Enterprise opened fire, the force of the phaser blasts knocking her out of the warp field and throwing everyone violently to the floor. As Charlie fell, she tried to catch herself on Sulu's console, but the energy caused by the weapon's fire forced her to lose her balance and she landed awkwardly with a distinct pop!

Gritting her teeth against the pain, Charlie stood up cradling her wrist, the bridge awash in red at the alerts sounded and the others scrambling to their seats.

"Why the hell is he firing at us?!" Charlie barked, trying to move the fingers in her left hand and only feeling aching pain.

"Where are we?" Jim asked Sulu, circling around his chair.

"We're 237,000 km from Earth."

"Damage report!"

"Shields are down," Charlie announced, running her fingers across the console nearest her, trying to ignore the fire in her arm.

"Weapons are down," Darwin at the navigation's station said. "We're defenseless, sir."

"Sir, we have a bulk head breach," another crewmember added, rushing from one station to another.

"Where's the damage?" Jim asked, turning to the science officer cattycorner to his hair.

"Major hull damage, Captain," the alien's deep voice answered.

The Enterprise quaked again, Marcus's ship continuing to fire on the defenseless constitution class vessel. Charlie stumbled her way to stand by Jim's side, her brows drawn in apprehension with the continued onslaught of phaser fire, and the evident panic beginning to rise.

"Captain, you have to do something," she pleaded as the ship took another hard hit, throwing her to the side again and jarring her injured wrist. She was shocked by the blatant attack by Marcus, her mind unable to process the chaos that erupted around her and only the pain of her arm keeping her in the moment.

"Evasive maneuvers! Get us to the Earth, right now!" Kirk ordered panicked.

"Captain, stop!" Carol shouted, both Charlie and Jim turning to her even as the ship was still peppered with phaser fire. "Everybody on this ship is going to die if you don't let me speak to him."

Kirk stared at Carol's firm, stubborn gaze and then at Charlie who nodded subtly. "Uhura, hail them."

Carol spun towards the view screen, her voice no longer than of a grown woman but of a little girl, terrified of her father. A voice Charlie knew far too well.

"Sir, it's me. It's Carol."

The firing came to a halt, the Enterprise settling down when Marcus's face was again displayed on the bridge.

"What are you doing on that ship?" he growled while Carol moved closer.

"I heard what you said," Carol answered. "That you made a mistake and now you're doing everything you can to fix it. But, Dad," he voice cracked, unshed tears in her words, "I . . . I don't believe that the man who raised me is capable of destroying a ship full of innocent of people. And if I'm wrong about that, then you're gonna have to do it with me on board."

Marcus seemed to mull that thought for half a second before he stated matter-of-factly, "Actually, Carol, I won't."

Whirling, white lights began to spin around Carol and she held her hands up in shock, spinning towards Charlie and Jim. "Oh! Jim."

"Oh shit!" Charlie exclaimed as Jim snapped, "Can we intercept the transport signal?" Carol turned around and began running as if should could outrun the transporter signal.

"No, sir." Someone answered when Carol was transported away from the ship, Uhura having had to raise her arms in surprise when she thought the weapon's specialist was going to collide with her.

"Carol!" Jim shouted.

"Captain Kirk," Marcus began, his words rushed as if he wanted to be done with the matter and head back towards Earth. "Without authorization and in league with the fugitive John Harrison . . . and is that Noland I see there next to you. Well, well, well, this day is full of surprises. And betrayal."

"Sup, Admiral," Charlie growled, taking a couple steps forward. Her wrist hurt something fierce, but his arrogance, the disregard for Starfleet personnel, and her own personal vendetta sent a spark of confidence over her shoulders. She'd be damned if she cowered before the admiral again, in any situation. "You know, it's not really betrayal when I don't owe any sort of allegiance to you. It was more about seeking justice; something you seem to know nothing about."

"I see you haven't changed much, Miss Noland," Marcus scowled, shaking his head. "You wanna talk about justice? Justice was removing you from that ship before you could use for your own purposes. Justice was making sure you are not like Harrison and his band of miscreants. Justice was protecting the people of the Federation from abominations like you. I don't even want to know what perverse methods you used to get back onboard."

Charlie had never felt such rage as she did in that moment. She hadn't ever put much into the saying of seeing red, but that moment she saw crimson. "You son of a bitch—"

"No, Miss Noland!" Marcus barked, jumping up from his chair and cutting her off. "Don't even try to lecture me with your high and mighty 21st century ways. You are just like Harrison; don't deny it. That vermin did everything he could in order to survive and I see you're no different. How could you have made it out alive from your brush with the Klingons? How else could your father have had the capabilities to defeat Khan without being able to match him as an equal? And then decide to let him and his crew live when the people of your era wanted their blood? It doesn't make sense unless he was in league with them."

"You know nothing of my family," Charlie shouted, her uninjured fist clenched so hard her knuckles were translucent. "How dare you talk about them when you don't have all the facts, Admiral. My dad may have been a schmuch of a father but he was one hell of an Airman; I can admit to that. He defeated Khan because he was smarter than him, not because of some lab but through evolution. Through the blood of our family, the nobility that comes from being a Noland, which I know you couldn't possibly understand. We live for honor, to protect the innocent, and follow the laws of justice, not warp them to how we see fit. It's that blood that brought me to this century and it was what saved me, not some experiment. I am nothing like Khan, but if being placed in the same category means I'm less like you and the men you represent, then I will gladly hold that claim."

Charlie was panting after her rant, her cheeks stained a bright red and her scowl deep. No one dared move toward her. The captain most of all shocked by her outburst, knowing the lengths she took for propriety (himself notwithstanding) when it came to rank.

The sound of a single clap echoed around the motionless bridge, everyone too shocked by the confrontation between the ensign and the admiral. Startled gazes flickered around with each resonating echo, each person trying to see the orchestrator. Slowly the crew's attention moved back to the screen, realizing it was Marcus who made the sound.

"You have a flare for the dramatic, Miss Noland I will give you that."

"Well thank you," she bowed mockingly.

"But I would have thought our time together would have tempered that dynamic."

"All it did was make me realize that the future isn't that much different than the past," she spat. "That no matter what century you're in, men will still do whatever they can to make themselves the biggest bully in the schoolyard."

"Quaint," Marcus smirked, lightly shaking his head. "If you had only given what I asked, what was required of you then we wouldn't be in this predicament, would we?"

Jim moved forward with hesitant steps. "Charlie, what's he talking about?"

She snapped her head towards Jim, forgetting about the crew of Enterprise in her desire to unleash every pent up emotion she had since her first session with Marcus. When she recognized what she had said, she inwardly recoiled. She had never wanted Jim to know what really happened in the sittings with Marcus, the back and forth they went through as she slowly came to understand he wanted her for more than what he claimed. It was only with the emergence of Khan, and the stakes he held did she figure out the true intentions of the admiral. She couldn't let Jim know that he left her to be the Admiral's pet.

"Ensign, answer me," Jim growled frustrated.

"Perhaps I could be of some assistance?" Spock spoke up as the silence lengthened with Charlie's refusal to answer the Captain. "When I joined Pike's conscious in the last moments of his life, he shared with me the results from his investigation into the truth behind the Admiral's removal of Ensign Noland."

"Was that why he was gone so much the weeks before his death?" Charlie turned to Spock. She hadn't known he had performed a mind meld, but she was curious as to what the Vulcan gained from joining his consciousness with Pike's. And a selfish part of her wanted to know if he was just as sad to be leaving Charlie as she was.

"Yes," the Vulcan acknowledged. "Admiral's Pike investigation led him to Section 31 where he learned more about the experiments completed by Dr. Noland-Spear. They were not for exploration as we had originally perceived, but as a weapon similar to what the Klingons wanted. Commissioned by Admiral Marcus." The crew all turned back to the screen, each in a different state of shock and anger while the man glowered at them all. "You are the only one alive, Ensign Noland, who has any hope of recovering the missing data," Spock added. "The military prowess of your family, the relation to the Boradis system, and the possible collaboration between you and Harrison were all justifications for your internment at Starfleet Headquarters. You are, in effect, the perfect military weapon."

"And why didn't you tell me this before, Spock?" Jim growled as Charlie tried to digest that piece of information. Was the very life force flowing through her veins going to always be the cause of her turmoil? Was she to be controlled by those of the Noland name, both past and present?

"I was waiting for a more suitable opportunity, Captain," Spock added. "You both were emotionally compromised after the death of Admiral Pike; I did not wish to add further injury with the revelation about Ensign Noland."

"We really need to work on your communication, Spock."

"He's right though, Captain," Charlie added, awkward as she turned and addressed him, ignoring the tribulations inside her mind. It may be her kryptonite but being a Noland was always what made her strong. One heart, one way, just as her father always said. "I had my suspicions, but after Pike—"

"You never told me." It was more than the disappointment that sent a knife into Charlie's heart; it was the nodule of betrayal and hurt.

"I couldn't," she confessed, willing him to understand everything she was not telling him. "Not with what you were going through. What we were going through, there was too much."

"It is never too much, Charlie. Don't you trust me? Did you think I couldn't save you again?"

"It's not up to you to always save me!" she shouted. Realizing her outburst she added in a more respectable tone, "I had to do this on my own. You never asked to be dragged into something this complicated. He wants me like a broodmare for whatever stupid military agenda he has," she turned to address Marcus then, speaking more to the admiral than the captain, "He did everything he could within the grey areas of legality to get what he wanted. But you got something you hadn't anticipated, right sir? I'm a lot stronger than the Nolands you used before. I won't give you want because you don't deserve it."

"It seems I underestimated your character, Miss Noland," Marcus derided, slouching back against his chair again. "A mistake I won't make again. Captain Kirk, arrest her for conspiracy to commit acts of treason with the known fugitive John Harrison."

"What?" Jim asked dumbfounded, a string of 'no!' sounding from the communication and helm stations.

"You heard me, Son," Marcus snapped.

"I won't. I can't," Jim answered, the shocked tone of his voice replaced by the confident arrogance he was legendary for. "Charlie is an acting ensign for this mission, by my request. She has not acted with Harrison or had any communications with him outside my orders."

"I see," Marcus said. "Well, since you seem to be in league with two Federation fugitives, having gone rogue in enemy territory, you left me no choice but to hunt you down and destroy you. Lock phasers," he said toward his crew.

"Wait, sir," Kirk panicked, running forward to the front of view screen, as if placing himself between Marcus and his crew. "Wait! Wait, wait, wait, wait! Wait!"

"I'll make this quick," Marcus dismissed. "Target all out door torpedoes on the Enterprise bridge."

"Sir, my crew was just . . . was just following my orders," Jim stumbled, a fear Charlie had never heard before poured from his lips with each word as he struggled to save her and everyone else onboard. "Even Charlie; I told her to come with me. I take . . . I take full responsibility for my actions, but they were mine, and they were mine alone. Charlie had nothing to do with this. If I transmit Khan's location to you now, all that I ask is that you spare them." Jim paused, the full weight of his words lingering in the tense atmosphere. "Please, sir. I'll do anything you want. Just let them live."

"Jim," Charlie whispered, wetness blurring her vision both by her fear and the way her heart ached with his plea.

"That's a hell of an apology," Marcus added, more of a brush off than anything else. "But if it's any conciliation, I was never gonna spare your crew. And Miss Noland, you may have been an asset before, now you're just a pain in my ass. Fire at will." Then the screen went black.

Slowly Jim turned around, mirroring the astonishment all on the bridge felt by Marcus's blatant disregard.

"I'm sorry," he said.

"This is bullshit!" Charlie snapped, gaining the startled and despairing attention of those on the bridge. "This is not how this is supposed to happen. We are not supposed to die like this! It's too soon!"

"No one is ever fully aware of their fate, Ensign," Spock said, his voice almost resigned to what awaited him as he came to stand next to Uhura. "How we die is not for us to discover until it is time."

"They're powering up with weapons," Darwin said from her station, her bald, dark head dipping down in fear.

"Some are more fortunate than other's to have a bit of foresight, Commander," Charlie added bitterly. Could it be that the fate of the Enterprise crew was slated to die decades before their intention? Had she caused some chaotic rift in the space-time continuum by having more of Jim's attention on her than the ship and crew? She glanced in his direction, his reddened blue gaze full of fear and disappointment. At himself, the admiral, or worryingly her, she had no idea. Charlie just knew if these were to be her last moments alive, whether she was in the 23rd century or the 21st, she wanted to spend them in the arms of the man who held her heart for all time.

Rushing to his side, Charlie buried her head in Jim's chest, her eyes squeezed shut against the pain she knew was coming. Jim's arms held her secure as if saying if he was going to protect one person on his ship, it was going to be her. And then they waited.