Down The Rabbit Hole
Warnings: Explicit Violence and suggestive themes. Some instances of bad language.
Disclaimer: I own nothing.
Once inside, the four Starfleet officers took their seats. The trade shuttle was basic, with no weaponry, but it was fast and agile with its spherical design and six engine boosters. Still, Cassia eyed it dubiously.
"Where did you find this piece of junk?" she asked as she sat down in the secondary pilot's chair. Kirk glanced at her, a teasing glint in his blue eyes.
"Don't call her junk. She's not much but she's fast. She'll do just fine, unless you're feeling scared, Commander?" he asked her, with a roguish wink. "Need me to hold your hand?"
"Need me to break it?" she rejoined, as Kirk winced and raised his hands in mock surrender. "Now, shall I drive or are you too busy wisecracking to fly this crate?"
"Ouch, and it's not wisecracking. It's called flirting," he told her as he strapped himself in. She could feel Uhura's amused looks at them, accompanied by the chilly disapproval of the Vulcan.
"Really? And here I thought it was just idiocy," she muttered, as Kirk muttered something to himself. Cassia rolled her eyes and proceeded to ignore Kirk, as he admittedly took the controls with ease, taking off smoothly and gliding them out of the shuttle bay and into open space with no problems.
"Not bad, Kirk," Cassia muttered, and he grinned to himself.
As they entered Qo'noS atmosphere, Cassia felt her heart rate rise in anticipation, as the dusty, windswept plains came into view, the sky darkening as they sank below the layer of clouds.
"Captain, I am detecting a single life form in the Ketha province. Given the information provided by Mr Scott, this is most likely John Harrison," Spock informed them in his monotone voice.
"Got you," she muttered under her breath as Kirk nodded to himself, adjusting their course as Cassia punched in the new co-ordinates from Spock's sensor scans.
"Mr Sulu, I think we found our man. Let him know we mean business," Kirk relayed his orders to the Enterprise, the calm voice of Sulu replying in the affirmative.
Sulu's message came over the comm, and Cassia was almost impressed. If her lover had been anyone else, it might have worked. As it was, she knew it would most likely make him amused at best, and annoyed at worst. Fear was not an emotion that Augments were designed to feel. It had been bred out of them long ago.
More memories flashed across her vision, making her lose focus until Kirk's concerned voice cut through her reverie. "Mason! Earth to Mason, you alright over there?" he asked, as she started slightly, shaking herself. "Not getting sleepy on me, are you?"
"I'm fine, just…not been getting much sleep lately," she muttered in explanation, inwardly shaking herself and growling in her head to focus.
"We will arrive at Harrison's location in three minutes, Captain," Spock interrupted them, as they flew over a cloud-topped mountain range, before Cassia glimpsed the ruins she remembered from her previous visit. "It is unlikely that he will come willingly. I calculate the odds of him attempting to kill us at 91.6%."
"No shit, Sherlock," Cassia muttered under her breath, Kirk sending her an amused smirk.
"It's a good thing you don't care about dying," Uhura mumbled, as the other three passengers froze.
The bickering that ensued almost made Cassia laugh out loud, were it not for the memories Uhura's anger and Spock's explanation evoked.
They waited in the dark and the cold, their bodies covered in combat black and weaponry, finally considered ready to fulfil their duty.
Cassia simply relished the new surroundings, the end of their time sequestered underground in that infernal compound. Over was the time of experimentation and being treated like a laboratory rodent. Now, they were out in the world and soon that very same world would learn its mistake in believing they could subjugate their own creations.
She had almost been kept behind. She, and the other female Augments, had almost been kept in confinement, to be artificially inseminated and used as broodmares for the next generation, but for once, Cassia thanked the military power behind Noonien Singh's work that insisted that all Augments were despatched for duty, male and female.
It meant she would not be separated from the man she loved.
Khan was their leader, and he stood at their head now, Cassia on his right, Jason, an Augment of Maasai descent on his left, towering even over Khan. He was their explosives expert, and they waited for the signal before they stormed the enemy encampment at Srebrenica.
It would be the beginning of the end, for the war.
Khan's eyes almost glowed in the darkness of the arid landscape they hid in, as they met hers and something softened intangibly in their cold depths. He shifted closer to her, his shoulder brushing hers.
"Soon, my love. Soon, we shall be free," he told her, and she smiled. After tonight, when the humans lay sleeping and satisfied, glutted on their own vanity and self-congratulation after the Augments won the victory for them, they would take control. First here, then they would fan out across the world.
They were built to bring order, and order was what they would create. It was the only freedom they would ever be permitted.
"Try not to get yourself killed," she admonished him quietly, as he frowned down at her. "No, don't you dare give me that look!" she continued fiercely, her voice too low for normal humans to hear. "You know what I mean. Even they have weapons which could threaten us. Just don't go all martyr on me if things don't go according to plan."
Khan rolled his eyes. "Your over protectiveness is unnecessary, Cassia-" he began but she cut him off with a slap to his arm.
"Hark who's talking!? Who starts acting like a gorilla if I so much as leave your side?" she replied sarcastically. It wasn't quite true, but he did turn moody and cold until she returned to him, as she inevitably did. Because of her speed and agility, she and a few other Augments had been utilised as scouts and spies, despite the added dangers that task held. Naturally the humans were too afraid to send their own people, or to use drone planes to reconnoitre an enemy-held region.
She wouldn't have put it past Khan to snap the Intelligence chief's neck one day, with his particular liking for selecting her for recon assignments, were it not for the coup that would take place soon. Very soon.
Anticipation and exhilaration began to take hold of Cassia, firing her warrior's blood, even as Khan opened his mouth to retort. Jason's voice, deep and rumbling like a thunderstorm, broke across their banter. "When you two have quite finished arguing like an old married couple…"
"Nyota, you mistake my choice not to feel, as a reflection of my not caring," Spock's voice tore her from her memories, as she felt a strange weight settle in her gut at his words. "Well, I assure you, the truth is precisely the opposite."
As his words died on the air, Cassia felt them pierce her heart even so. This band of humans and aliens, especially these three…they were truly a family. As she, Khan and the others had been once.
She felt an alien wetness on her cheek and rubbed it off angrily before the others could notice.
Just then, their ship was rocked by a direct hit to their aft, jolting the Starfleet officers forward in their seats. Immediately, Cassia's eyes scanned her instruments.
"What the hell was that?" Kirk barked.
"We've got one ship on our tail!" she called, as Spock looked up from his own screens.
"We are being pursued by a D4 Class Klingon vessel," Spock told them, his voice conveying both urgency and agitation for all he was an emotionally controlled Vulcan.
"I thought this region was abandoned?" Kirk asked, frowning as he dodged another phaser shot.
"It must be a random patrol," Uhura guessed. "We've lost contact with the Enterprise. They must have hit our communications."
"The D4 Class are notoriously unwieldy in close quarters. They're designed for barrage assaults, not a dogfight," Cassia added, glancing at Kirk. "We might be able to lose them in those ruins."
"Captain, I would not advise it. I calculate we have a 45% chance of surviving this attack if we fly into those structures," Spock butted in, and she glared at him.
"And we have 0% chance of surviving this if we stay in the open!" she snapped at him. "We have no alternative."
"Shut it, the pair of you!" Kirk barked, his tone turning commanding as the pair subsided with cool glares at one another, as another phaser burst grazed their bulkhead. "We're going in! Hold on!"
Kirk opened the thrusters full throttle, sending them into a steep dive. The Klingon ship pursued them into the labyrinthine structures below, firing constantly, the trading ship dodging where it could, but they were getting hit more often than not. Their shields were faltering.
"This ship has no offensive capabilities!" Spock called from his screens, as Cassia rolled her eyes.
"State the obvious much?" she muttered to herself, earning a dark glare from Kirk.
"Yeah, got that. Give me all six fuel cells!" he called back to Spock, the Vulcan giving him as much power as they could spare to boost the engines and their speed. They dipped and dived, banked and spun, evading the Klingons' fire but not their ship. They just couldn't shake them.
"They're closing fast! Bearing 2.8.5!" Uhura called out from her station.
"Diverting all auxiliary power from environmental controls to the engines!" Cassia barked out. "Hope you don't mind getting a bit sweaty."
Her superior physiology barely noticed the temperature rise, but she glimpsed a trail of sweat run down Kirk's temple, as he grimaced.
Kirk banked a corner, and he inhaled sharply. "There, there! We can lose them there!" he called out, his eyes fixed on a small fissure between two structures.
"Someone has a death wish," Cassia muttered sardonically to herself, as Kirk glared at her out of the corner of his eye.
"You're suggesting we utilise the passage between the approaching structures. This ship will not fit!" Spock retorted, sounding harried even for a Vulcan.
"We'll fit," Kirk insisted.
"We will not fit!" Spock barked back, as Cassia, despite their situation, exchanged a long-suffering look with Uhura. By then it was too late, and the gap was on them.
"We'll fit, we'll fit!" Kirk yelled desperately, as he turned the ship 90 degrees, barely scraping through the gap. Metal groaned as it clashed against ancient buildings, Uhura crying out in alarm as the ship's structural integrity took a pounding. They emerged from the other side, panting with adrenaline. "Told you we'd fit," Kirk gasped.
"I'm not sure that qualifies," Spock muttered sullenly, and Cassia suddenly laughed. She felt more alive than she had done in years.
They'd emerged into a rectangular part of the complex, an area which looked familiar to Cassia, and as she looked down, she could see they were not far from Khan's life sign. They were so close…
"Any sign of them?" Kirk called back to Uhura.
"No. Which worries me," she admitted, and Cassia agreed. The Klingons knew these ruins far better than they did, and she doubted they were alone in their patrol. They needed to be careful.
"We lost them!" Kirk smiled triumphantly.
"Or they're jamming our scanners," Uhura pointed out.
"She's got a point," Cassia agreed. "The Klingons will know these ruins far better than us, they could be on us any second."
"Or, we lost them," the obstinate human still insisted, and Cassia felt a rising urge to snap his neck. Tamping it down, she snarled through gritted teeth to vent her rising annoyance. Bright light suddenly filled the cockpit, blinding them momentarily, as they were surrounded by three D4 Class Klingon ships.
"Well, I'd hate to say I told you so…" Cassia trailed off, as Kirk growled at her.
"Has anyone told you how exceedingly annoying you are?" he snapped, as she just smiled airily and exchanged a grimly satisfied look with Uhura. She really was growing to like that human a bit too much.
Guttural Klingon came over the comms, as Uhura translated after a moment, stiltedly. "They're ordering us to land. Captain, they're gonna want to know why we're here. They're gonna torture us, question us and they're gonna kill us."
Cassia digested that information silently as Kirk glanced around, obviously thinking on options himself. As an Augment, there would be little they could do to harm her short of cutting a limb off, something she did not doubt they would hesitate to do, and her superior strength and speed would help her in an escape attempt. But what of the others? No doubt the men would offer themselves to protect herself and Uhura, and the Klingons would take them first in order to break the men that much quicker. It was a tactic old as time itself.
She could leave them and find Khan, and then they could destroy the Klingons and take the ship back to the Enterprise. Between them, it would not be difficult to overcome the crew and go where they wished.
As she contemplated that plan, something within her, some long-buried and deeply suppressed instinct reared its head and shouted No with all its might. What the hell…?
She growled under her breath. Damnit, she couldn't leave them. She couldn't leave them there to die.
At the same time as Cassia came to her own decision, Kirk came to his, his voice cool and steady, every inch a Starfleet Captain. "Then we come out shooting."
Uhura left her seat to face Kirk, her voice strong but with an undertone of fear that simultaneously touched and repulsed Cassia. "We're outnumbered, outgunned. There's no way we'll survive if we attack first," she told him, firmly. "You brought me here because I speak Klingon, then let me speak Klingon."
Kirk reluctantly agreed, and they landed in a space clear of detritus, surrounded by the Klingons' ships. Reluctantly, Kirk and Spock allowed Uhura to leave, and as she watched, she saw the steel enter the lieutenant's spine, wiping away any trace of fear, as she walked towards the group of Klingons waiting for her. Any sign of weakness would mean death.
Kirk and Spock briefly argued over Uhura's plan, before Kirk was forced to stand down by Spock's logic, as well as his promise of Uhura's wrath as well as the Klingons.
Hell hath no fury like a woman…well, not scorned exactly. Perhaps severely pissed off…
Cassia did not know Klingon, but she guessed the substance of the conversation. With the Klingons, it would be best to be as truthful as possible, while appealing to their warriors' honour. Uhura would use Khan to try and unite them together, at least long enough to get away, by painting him a danger to both worlds.
She gritted her teeth at that thought, even as she understood the reasoning. She ached to see him, she ached to hit him somewhere very vulnerable, even for an Augment, for sending her back. Then maybe she'd kiss him again.
Kirk grabbed phasers for them all, and they settled back down to watch. Cassia felt a twinge of concern, alien and unwelcome in her stomach, for Uhura when the Klingon she had been conversing with grabbed her chin, holding her immobile as he reached for a knife in his boot.
Cassia and Kirk were up and rushing for the open door before either knew it, but they were too slow. A phaser burst hit the Klingon holding Uhura, distracting him while she ducked and grabbed his knife, stabbing deep into his chest with it.
As soon as she cleared the shuttle, Cassia brought her phaser up and started firing, her enhanced reflexes proving too quick for the Klingons. She found cover and looked up to see a hooded figure in a familiar longcoat, his face partially covered, wielding a phaser cannon and a rifle. She remembered seeing them in his hideout.
Khan.
Her heart beat faster, even as a phaser burst from a Klingon disruptor marked the stone next to her shoulder, and she bared her teeth in anticipation.
Finally, a good fight.
She lost sight of Kirk, Uhura, Spock and the two security officers in the melee of phaser fire and guttural Klingon. A bat'leth swept across her shoulder, severing one of her curls, as she ducked and spun. Snarling, she threw away her phaser, the useless thing no better than a toy.
She backed up, dodging the Klingon's swipes and lunges with ease, laughing as her opponent grew more frustrated and enraged. She was pretty sure whatever he was shouting at her was not complimentary. Probably telling her to stand still and fight like a man, or Klingon…
Frustration and rage were her friends and her weapons. With one overzealous attack, she ducked beneath his swing, broke his wrist and as the Klingon fell to his knees, she spun and drove a knife she'd hidden in her boot deep into his throat. She pushed him back with her boot disdainfully, as another came for her.
Overhead, the Klingon ships dropped like flies from her lover's phaser cannon even as more reinforcements arrived. She despatched one opponent, just to look up and see Kirk pinned by another Klingon's bat'leth, and she threw her knife at his assailant, piercing his shoulder and giving Kirk time to finish him off. The human nodded his thanks, even as his eyes widened and he called out a warning.
"Mason, behind you!"
She felt the blow to the back of her head and went down, rolling with the force until she came back to her feet, smirking as the dull pain the blow caused faded. "Come and get me, big boy," she purred, as the Klingon roared and charged her. She dropped into an ankle sweep, dropping him to his knees. She caught his arm in a lock and snapped it, the Klingon's roars of anger and pain reverberating around the ruins. His other fist came up, and she snapped that one too, looking down on her opponent dispassionately as he roared again. Stepping behind him, she clasped her hands around his head and snapped it sharply to the side, severing his spinal cord.
She looked up to see Kirk's stunned face, shock and disbelief in his sky blue eyes, but she just smiled and turned away. Gone was the confusion and the uncertainty; here and now, she was what she was born to be: a warrior, a killer of truly perfect, clinical savagery.
She was soon distracted by other opponents, undaunted by her strength and speed, as were the others, and she laughed as she led them a merry dance through the ruins, working ever closer to Khan, stood upon his ledge and firing with perfect aim, killing any Klingons who dared get too close.
Just as she filched a knife from one of her newly dead opponents, she felt something pass over her, and looked up to see Khan, his cannon and rifle gone, as he soared over her head, landing behind her.
"Cassia!" he growled, as she ducked a blow from a bat'leth, and knocked the Klingon unconscious.
"Oh, I'm glad to see you too. I'm great by the way," she snapped sarcastically. Khan growled in exasperation, pulling her around by the arm and forcing her deeper into the ruins, as the cries of the Klingons and the shouts of the humans dimmed slightly.
"What are you doing here? I told you to stay on Earth!" he growled as he swung her against a wall.
"I had other plans," she replied defiantly, as he growled again. Pulling him closer, she leaned up as if to kiss him, as his mouth instinctively lowered to hers. And promptly kneed him in the groin. He only collapsed in on himself for about a second, but she still felt satisfaction. "That was for leaving me behind on Earth, you presumptuous bastard!"
He slammed her back against the wall, the stone cracking beneath the force of the blow, but it just increased the arousal in both their eyes. Strength was a part of them, and they used it liberally.
His lips against hers were forceful and possessive, a kiss she returned full force. His hands moulded her body to his, fitting one another like a glove until familiar guttural shouts tore them apart.
They had fought beside one another for years. They knew every flaw and strength of the other, and together they fought as if it were a dance. Khan released her just to use his hold on her wrist to fling her around, her knife flying from her free hand to bury itself in the attacking Klingon's neck.
"You've certainly recovered," Khan commented dryly as he lazily despatched another Klingon, turning to catch a knife thrown at his head and return it fatally to its owner. Cassia smiled as she slid between a Klingon's open legs to twist her legs around his torso and fling him to the floor. As he tried to scramble to his knees, his hand scrabbling for a knife, she spun and lashed out with her foot, driving him into unconsciousness.
"You're not so bad yourself, lover," she smirked, breathing only a little heavily with the exercise and the blood heating in her veins, a feeling she knew was reflected in Khan. Fighting, each other or other opponents, always got their blood up.
Cassia ducked an incoming phaser blast, and then a knife as it sliced through the air towards her. She caught the blade, her palm stinging only a little as it cut into her skin, then flung it back. She felt a presence behind her and spun, but it was only Khan who used his hold on her fist to yank her into his arms.
He smirked wickedly. "Still too impulsive, I see, my love," he hissed, and she shivered, panting.
"And that's why you love me," she retorted, pressing a brief passionate kiss on him. "Careful, the children might see," she teased him, already leaping away. He followed, landing not far from where Kirk, Spock and Uhura were ensconced, the latter two bent over their Captain, winded from his fight with a Klingon.
She could feel the eyes of her human and Vulcan companions on her as she fought, displaying strength, agility and skills not usual for humans. Kirk had seen her kill that Klingon with about as much difficulty as stepping on an ant.
They wouldn't take long to work out the truth. The time for deceptions was over, she'd got what she wanted.
Khan finished the last of the Klingons, and spun towards the others, grabbing a disruptor and made sure it covered them. Spock picked up one of his own, but Khan ignored him as Cassia followed behind. "Stand down!"
"How many torpedoes?" Khan cried desperately, as she stared at him. What?
"Stand down!" Spock barked again, but Khan just shot the disruptor out of his hands with barely a glance, before resuming his angry questions.
"The torpedoes! The ones you threatened me with in your message! How many are there?" he asked again, almost snarling that last. Cassia looked between him and Kirk, confused.
"72," Spock replied, since Kirk was too busy glaring to say anything. Khan froze, as he glared at the Vulcan, and Cassia's eyes widened. 72 torpedoes…
She knew Marcus had equipped the Enterprise with highly advanced, experimental torpedoes but she hadn't known the exact number. But 72...72 torpedoes for the 72 members of their family, their crew. Could it be…?
She barely dared to hope.
"I surrender," Khan suddenly dropped his weapon, Spock grabbing it and covering them both, as Cassia stared. Her heart felt like it would burst out of her chest.
Kirk staggered to his feet, rage filling his blue eyes as he stared at Khan. "On behalf of Christopher Pike, my friend, I accept your surrender," he said calmly, until he threw the first punch.
Kirk's punches and kicks had no effect on Khan, something they both knew, but the others didn't and Kirk wasn't about to quit even as he staggered from weakness and exhaustion.
"Captain!" Uhura screamed in desperation as Kirk's blows grew both more savage and weaker, as he collapsed to the ground. Finally Cassia had had enough. She could only stand by and watch someone attack the man she loved for so long.
She got between them both, shoving Kirk away, and onto the floor, after his final punch. "Enough!" she snarled, as betrayal filled the eyes of the human in front of her, confusion filling Uhura's eyes. Khan was dishevelled and dirty when she turned to face him, as he looked mockingly down on the weakened Captain.
"Captain?" he muttered, the very word an implied insult as Cassia glared at him warningly.
Kirk glared at her one last time, before he turned away. "Cuff them both," he growled, as Spock and Uhura moved in.
She allowed herself to be cuffed passively, as Khan did the same, and she could see the questions in her lover's, and her companions' eyes. She had a lot of explaining to do, and she had plenty of questions of her own.
She walked towards the shuttle, the wind of Qo'noS howling mournfully around them.