Down The Rabbit Hole
Warnings: Violence and graphic description of injury. Some instances of bad language.
Disclaimer: I own nothing.
The bridge shook and shuddered. Warning alarms blared from every console, the anti-gravity going haywire, as the engines struggled and failed to remain online.
The detonation in the cargo bay had destabilised the engines severely. It was all Cassia could do to hold on.
She was acting on autopilot, her survival instinct kicking in even as her entire being trembled with shock and grief. Spock had done it.
Her family was dead.
She wanted to cry, she wanted to scream and rage and tear the Universe apart. All the darkness inside of her overflowed and brimmed forth, subsuming her rational mind. All thought of protecting the humans, of protecting the Enterprise, had been obliterated the moment those torpedoes had exploded.
They would start with Starfleet. The entirety of humanity would pay for the genocide that had just been committed in their name. Spock would rue the day he was ever born, as he lost the last home he had. They would tear it apart.
She met the wild, grief-stricken eyes, burning with hatred, of her lover as he tried to divert enough power from auxiliary systems to stabilise the engines. But it was far too late.
They both nodded, and she gritted her teeth as her hands flew over the console, barely wincing as sparks danced all around her. She diverted all remaining power from non-essential systems, and as they spiralled further out of control, entering the Earth's atmosphere in a wild freefall, she diverted it from life support too.
Suddenly she felt his hand over hers on the console, and was torn from her grief-driven urgency, as he held it tightly. "If we go down, they go with us," he told her, his voice a bestial snarl. She doubted hers was any better.
She nodded; turning back to the view screen as they narrowly missed the Enterprise, a savage feeling of disappointment that they had not taken the ship down with them too filling her, as she growled. "Computer, set destination. Starfleet Headquarters!"
Engines compromised. Cannot guarantee destination. Confirm order.
"Confirm!" Khan snarled beside her, his face savage and unhinged in the harsh glare of the red emergency lighting. The ship shuddered and strained, as they watched through the view screen as first land and sea, then the cityscape of San Francisco, materialised. Cassia's knuckles whitened as she tightened her grip on the console, one hand in Khan's, as they dived steeply.
The entire ship juddered and bucked as it hit Alcatraz, demolishing the former prison and tourist destination, the Vengeance doggedly limping its destructive way, until it crashed into the towering skyscrapers and glass prisms of San Francisco, sliding to a halt.
Just before she was thrown to the side by the final impact, consoles and overhead compartments splintering and exploding in showers of sparks, as the computers blared more warnings, she felt a surge of vicious satisfaction as she saw Starfleet Headquarters, seconds before it was crushed beneath the Vengeance's hull.
She was thrown away from Khan, as the view screen shattered, leaving them exposed to the open air, and a thirty-metre drop below, the support struts of the consoles the only thing saving her. Debris fell all around her, and she covered her eyes against the plasma sparks raining down around them, just as she felt a sharp punch to her gut, driving the breath from her lungs, her entire body bowing with the force.
Her world became one purely of sensation. The blare of emergency shuttles in the ruined city below them. The crackling as cables and circuits sparked above her head. The rumble of debris as buildings partially collapsed and the ship's dying hull disintegrated onto the streets below. The acrid smell of smoke, the metallic scent of iron and rust, something warm trickling down her waist, soaking her shirt and trousers. Her entire body cried out in pain as she gasped for breath, each one a fight. She was paralysed, unable to move.
Frantically, she listened for Khan, fear clouding her mind as she tried to see where he had been thrown, when she heard his voice, weak at first, then growing stronger with fear and urgency, calling her name in the dark remains of the bridge. "Cassia!"
"Here, Khan!" she shouted, her voice raspy with pain unlike anything she had experienced in centuries, or ever. It fogged her mind, made it difficult to think, as she shook and trembled. She was dimly aware of the sound of someone scrabbling over debris and consoles to her side, and then he was there, beside her, hands urgently cupping her face.
"Cassia," he breathed in relief, before his eyes widened as he took in her wound, his hands dropping to her waist.
"How bad is it?" she asked weakly, her body already fighting to give in the unconsciousness beckoning at the edges of her vision, black and inviting. His hands trailed over her exposed abdomen, and she could feel the long, thin pole piercing her stomach through the left side, pinning her to the console beneath her. Considering the ruin that the bridge had become, it was little surprise to her. His fingers probed the wound, and she cried out, the metal cold within her body.
"Your injury is severe, and your body cannot regenerate unless we remove it," he told her gently, one bloodied hand stroking her hair back from her face.
"Better out than in," she quipped weakly, startling a pained chuckle from him, as she lowered her hands to the jagged, cylindrical piece of metal in her stomach, and gritted her teeth. With a cry of agony, her every muscle tensing with strain, she pulled it from her body, Khan's hands helping her as her spine arched, the pole making a sickening sucking sound as it left her body. She felt a fresh wave of her own blood pour from the wound, and breathed deeply, willing the pain away, holding it at bay. She shook, from head to toe, as she opened her eyes and looked up at Khan's.
The icy blue was filled with impotent fury and pain, as he looked down at her, writhing with pain and fighting to stay conscious. Her hands, scarlet with her own life force, raised to his and he flinched as her hands grazed mangled skin, blistered and burned through the torn fabric of his shirt.
"You've been hurt," she breathed.
"Not as severely as you. It's nothing," he replied softly. "Cassia, forgive me. Forgive me all of this."
"There is nothing to forgive," she told him intensely. "If it were not for you, I would never have found you again. I would never have found myself again, my love."
She raised herself up as much as she could, forcing her weak limbs to do her will, and kissed him weakly. "You need to go," she whispered against his lips. "You have to run, or they'll catch us both."
"What hope is there now our family is dead?" he asked her darkly, before she shook her head.
"There is hope for us, Khan. As long as we live on," she whispered. "As long as we fight to live on, in the names of those we have lost. I love you."
"As I love you, and have done for three hundred years," he replied huskily, as she stroked his cheek with her hand.
"Good. Now go," she told him, as his face hardened and she could already see a denial forming on his lips. "NO! No more arguments. Much as I love having domestics with you, you need to run before the emergency services arrive, or before Starfleet does. You have to escape if we're to have any chance."
"I will not leave you here," he retorted with a fierce growl. "I will not lose you again."
Cassia shuddered as her body trembled with agony. It was shutting down slowly, gradually falling into unconsciousness. Their augmented DNA meant they could heal almost any injury without medical help, but for an injury such as this, her body was programmed to shut down and fall into a coma, diverting all excess energy, the better to heal quickly. There was only so much she could do to fight it, and she was beginning to lose the battle.
"You won't lose me," she breathed. "My body needs to heal, and I will only be a burden to you. You have to leave me behind. You have to stay free…!"
Her voice trailed off, as the fight to remain conscious began to tip against her, and she moaned, forcing back a cry of pain as her wound throbbed, the platelets in her blood beginning the regeneration process.
"Cassia, stay with me," she heard Khan's voice, as if from a great distance, and dimly looked up at him, focussing on his eyes. She saw determination crystallise in their depths, as he suddenly lifted her into his arms. She cried out, as he breathed apologies to her, then she felt just the rush of air and the feeling of her stomach bottoming out, well what was intact anyway, as Khan jumped from the ruined bridge with her cradled in his arms.
She barely felt the impact, as her body slowly numbed, when Khan landed, and immediately jogged away, with his precious cargo. She was vaguely aware as he stopped and laid her down on the cool ground, leaning over her, caressing her lacerated cheek. "Stay alive," he told her fiercely. "I will come for you, Cassia. I will come for you."
"I…know," she gasped weakly, her breathing becoming laboured. She heard the blare of emergency shuttlecraft, and pushed weakly at his shoulder. "Go!"
He pressed a swift kiss on her lips, one she could only weakly return, before he gently laid her head back down on the pleasantly cool ground, and disappeared from her sight. She turned her head to watch him run, with the fog clouding her vision, and hoped he remained free.
She closed her eyes and let the darkness take her.
It felt like mere seconds that she awoke, limp and as weak as a newborn kitten, opening her eyes to the harsh glare of light against pristine white walls, a medical display bleeping softly beside her. She tried to move, but her wrists were tied down, and she was vaguely conscious of soft sheets against her body.
A hospital?
She remembered the crash and forcing Khan to leave her behind. Clearly she'd been found and taken to a hospital. She wondered if Starfleet had caught up with her yet or if her identity remained unknown. She doubted it, all they need do was cross-reference her DNA with those on Starfleet record.
Which meant she was likely at Starfleet Medical, under guard.
Somewhere to her left, a door opened and closed, and she slowly opened her eyes to see a particularly unwanted figure in front of her.
She may have been as weak as an infant feline, but that didn't stop her trying. "YOU!" she snarled, sitting up as far she could, trying to snap her restraints so she could throttle the damned Vulcan in front of her. She glanced at her restraints in frustration, but her injuries had taken a lot of regenerative energy it seemed. It would be a few days before she was back to full strength. She slumped back against her pillows with a growl, glaring narrowly as Spock's brow rose. "You'd better get out of here before my strength returns, Commander Spock, because when it does, I will tear you apart for what you did to my family!"
"There is no need for such threats," he told her calmly, barely blinking at her aggression. "Your crew is alive and still in stasis."
She froze, her breath coming hard and fast, as wild hope and disbelief fought for dominance in her mind. "You're lying. I was there on the bridge, I was there when the torpedoes exploded!" she snapped irefully.
Spock shook his head. "I did allow Khan to transport the torpedoes aboard the Vengeance, I however did not lie. The torpedoes were Khan's, but I had the cryotubes removed from them prior to arming them and allowing you to beam them aboard the Vengeance. As such, your people are alive and well."
Cassia stared, not sure if she could believe him or not. Logically, there was no gain in lying to her, and Vulcans could not lie, but Spock was not entirely Vulcan. He was half-human, which meant he could tell a half-truth at least. He sighed, and held her gaze directly. "I am telling the truth, Cassia. Your people are not dead."
"Fine," she muttered reluctantly. "Why am I here? What's happened while I was…unconscious?"
"The crash landing of the Vengeance caused significant damage to San Francisco, as I am sure you and Khan intended," Spock replied. "There are several thousand dead and many more still missing. There are ongoing efforts to retrieve the missing. You were found close to the wreckage of the Vengeance, unconscious and injured, and you were transferred to a civilian medical facility. However, once you were identified, Starfleet arranged your relocation to Starfleet Medical. You have been asleep for three days."
Cassia supposed Spock was looking for some hint of guilt or regret that they had caused such devastation, but she hit it well. Two could play at this game.
"You should not have interfered," she murmured coldly, her voice soft and deadly. "We were leaving once we had what we wanted. You looked into my mind, Commander, you knew my intentions to persuade Khan to leave. I had succeeded when you detonated those torpedoes."
"I knew you were responsible for the ceasefire after the Captain, Mr Scott and Doctor Marcus were returned to the ship, I however calculated that the risk of Khan simply ignoring you and seeking to continue the work you were engaged prior to your exile was too great," the Vulcan replied calmly.
"Work? What work?" Cassia snorted contemptuously. "Oh, let me guess? You actually believe what the history books tell you when they say we were mass murderers and war criminals? We were condemned by the very people we were created to protect, we did our task well. I hold no guilt for the role I played three hundred years ago, however I can see things have changed. I do not judge an entire race based on the actions of a few. That is why I wanted to leave, to find my own purpose, our own purpose without the dangers of others interfering with that. You know for being half-human, you really don't set much store in the persuasive power of emotions."
"That may be so," Spock replied coolly. "Regardless, Khan was apprehended and has been returned to his cryotubes."
Cassia eyed him closely. "There is something you are not telling me," she murmured questioningly.
"Kirk was fatally exposed to radiation. The damage caused by the Vengeance caused our warp core to go offline. Kirk entered it to repair it and paid with his life," the Vulcan explained after a moment, and Cassia sighed.
"I am sorry," she told him sincerely. "Kirk was a good man."
"That is not all," Spock continued. "I pursued Khan and returned him to the Enterprise, where Doctor McCoy deduced that using Khan's blood would revive the Captain. It appears to be working."
Cassia nodded, as she watched the stoic Vulcan intently, before a slow smile spread over her features. "You didn't pursue Khan just for that, did you Spock? You pursued him to kill him, to avenge Kirk's death, before McCoy informed you of the possibility of reviving Kirk. Correct?"
"You are correct," he replied after a moment.
"So you see, Commander. We are not so different, after all," Cassia finished quietly, as he eyed her narrowly. "What is to happen to me now?"
"The official story concerning you is that there is none. You were killed aboard the Enterprise during the Vengeance's attack, and now you have no identity. You will be returned to your cryotubes with the rest of your crew," he told her sternly, and she nodded.
"Good," she whispered. He watched, a slight arch of his brow the only sign of his surprise.
"That is not a response I was anticipating," he admitted.
"The urge to rule, to dominate, is very strong in me, Commander," she explained, after a moment's thought. "And there is more than one Admiral Marcus out there, ready to exploit my family's abilities for their own gain. This way, I will rejoin my family and be spared the temptation of power and the fear of exploitation, which is all I really want. If I cannot have freedom, then I will gladly take stasis alongside my family."
"The memories I uncovered during our meld have changed you," Spock stated, and she nodded.
"I do not want my life to be forever dictated by what I have been told I should be. In none of my lives have I ever accepted that readily. As Marla McGivers, I fought it only superficially and it led to my undoing. As Cassia, I had no choice if I wished to survive, and now…I truly refuse to do so," she replied proudly, and he nodded.
"Apropos of that, I wished to inform you," he replied, holding out a PADD to her carefully. "I was able to trace your human family. Records from that period are…incomplete at best, but I was able to ascertain that while your human father and mother both perished, your sister and brother did not. During the Eugenics Wars there are records of them in Australia."
Australia had been one of the few countries that held out against the Augments for the duration of the War. Cassia could barely believe it, as she blinked back tears.
Kayla, the little girl from that memory, had survived and gone on to live her life. "Was she happy?" she asked. She had no other memory of her human family before the Augmentation, but that one.
"We cannot extrapolate such a conclusion from the data available, but she still has descendants living on Earth, two of whom are serving in Starfleet," he told her, and she nodded.
"Thank you, Commander," she replied softly, looking away, to the window, where she could see the ruins of Starfleet Academy. "When will I be returned to my cryotubes?"
"As soon as the doctors are certain your condition will not deteriorate, nor that the stasis will harm you further," he replied, standing and retrieving his cap from where he'd placed it. She frowned at him.
"The stasis will not harm me, healed or not. Nor will my condition deteriorate," she stated firmly. Spock eyed her for a moment, before placing his cap back down and stepping a little closer.
"I was not referring to your injuries. From tests run on Khan's blood, we know their regenerative properties. I was speaking of your pregnancy," he explained, and she felt her jaw drop and her eyes go wide.
"Pregnancy? I can't be pregnant-" she began but he cut her off.
"If you are referring to the implant located in your arm which prevented such an occurrence, it is faulty," he replied. "As to the extent of your pregnancy, you are only a week into your first trimester. We must be certain that the cryogenic process will not affect you or the embryo adversely."
Cassia was still completely floored. Pregnant? "It won't," she told him shakily. "Pregnant women were placed in stasis all the time on sleeper ships during missions to Mars and such. Early as I am in the trimester, I doubt there will be many dangers, and the child is a product of mine and Khan's DNA. It will be far stronger than a normal human infant."
At that, Spock finally went to leave. At the threshold of her room, he paused and looked back. "It may sound illogical to state this, but I understand and respect your reasoning for your actions, and your aid will not be forgotten. Perhaps in a later time, you shall indeed be free once more. I suggest you read the information I have provided on that PADD concerning your family. You might find it most interesting."
Cassia could only stare as he walked away, sorrow and pain mingling with joy as she laid back against her pillows and stared at the ceiling, too immersed in her own shock to even think on escape. She finally glanced over the PADD, and her eyes widened before a slight smile curved her lips. Yes, very interesting indeed.
A week later, and she was nearly healed. Her strength was returning in increments but she attempted no escapes. There was no point, she had nowhere to go and her family was all she wanted now.
She briefly thought of escaping for the sake of the child, but where would they go? How would she raise him or her without the help of her family? Of Khan?
In truth, she was too afraid and too tired to contemplate escape. She just wanted her family.
One night as she was transferred to the secret facility where her family were being kept, she knew what was coming and welcomed it. Time to sleep, and hope for a better awakening which might not be too far in coming.
She hoped Kirk and Spock would take heed of her warning. Marcus would not have been alone in his ambitions and there would still be others who would look to exploit her family. She could only hope that her trust in Kirk was not misplaced.
She hated being out of control, but in this she forced herself to accept it.
As she slid into the cryotubes, wriggling slightly on the cushioned interior to make herself more comfortable, she grazed a hand over her abdomen, silently promising the child within her that things would be different one day, that they would awaken somewhere safe, and they could be born free. She glanced sideways, to the cryotube next to her, glimpsing her lover's face, calm and peaceful in icy repose and inhaled deeply, nodding to the medical staff that she was ready.
She felt nothing but peace for the first time in a long time, as the cryogenic sequence shut down her body, and darkness once more beckoned. This time, she gave into it gladly. One day, they would be free.
A/N: There's still one more chapter to go, remember!
To be continued...