Before Molly could offer a response Khan's lips had possession of hers, his tongue diving deep into the recesses of her mouth.

He let go of her hands so that he could bury his long fingers into her hair.

Arms now free, Molly reached up to grasp him around the neck. She rubbed herself against him and was rewarded with a desperate groan that reverberated through his body.

But as he moved his hands down her neck and shoulders, before making their way until they came to rest on the swell of her breasts, cupping them while massaging her aching nipples. Then her low keening cry brought him out of the passion-fuelled haze he had been in.

With great reluctance he released her lips. Leaning down so that his forehead rested against hers, he brought his hands up to gently hold her head as he looked directly into her eyes. He worked hard to get control over his breathing and the urges his body was demanding he fulfil.

As much as his body craved to continue, his mind was once again in control. Now was not the time.

He needed to find his crew, and get them and himself away from Marcus' clutches.

Molly watched the play of emotions Khan was battling to get under control. She saw how he finally mastered them moments before he stepped away from her.

They both stood looking at each other as frantic breaths gradually slowed.

"How… how is it possible for a man born in the twentieth century to still be living in the twenty-third?" Molly finally managed to get out.

Khan watched her closely, letting out a sigh of relief satisfied that she was not working for Marcus, and clearly had no knowledge about what the admiral had done.

"Seventy three actually."

"What?"

"There are seventy three of us. Though I was the only one Marcus reawakened."

"Reawakened you? How? Why?"

Khan reached out to her, wrapped his arm around her shoulders as he led her over to her desk, sat her down and pulled over another chair for himself.

He then began his story.

"As a child I was kidnapped off the streets where I lived."

"Were you not missed… your family…" Molly asked.

"I was an orphan, one of many on the streets of New Delhi. When we disappeared we weren't missed. There would soon be others to replace us."

"What happened to you?" she tentatively queried.

"We were experimented on," Khan replied.

He got to his feet, unable to remain still and began to pace.

"We were injected with genetically altered DNA. It made us 'better'."

"Better? In what way?"

"In all ways: strength, intellect, enhanced immunity, regenerative capabilities, better hearing, vision and an ability to adapt to any situation."

"What was the purpose of all these experiments?" Molly asked, though she had a terrible idea she knew what his answer was going to be.

"For war," Khan confirmed her fears. "We were the greatest weapons ever created. We were trained to be the ultimate soldiers. Trained to defend Earth and its people at all cost."

"What went wrong?"

"Wrong?" Khan looked at her in surprise. "Nothing went wrong."

Molly wasn't convinced. "But something happened, something changed."

He looked at her with admiration. She truly was remarkable. If only there was time for him to explore just how unique and special she was.

"We found out that we'd been implanted with neural inhibitors."

Molly frowned. "Why?"

"They didn't want us leaving the compound we had called home for fifteen years. They knew that the general population would rightly fear us. So they used the inhibitors to control us, or punish us if we tried to escape."

"What did you do?"

Khan smiled coldly. "We found out how to remove them. Then we integrated ourselves under assumed names into the world of business and government. We posed as regular humans, and we waited."

"For what?"

"For the right time to take control of the Earth," he replied calmly.

Molly felt sick, and her face went deathly pale.

"And… how… how precisely did you do that?" she stammered.

Khan stopped his relentless pacing and walked back to where Molly sat.

He crouched down beside her and took her small, delicate hands in his larger ones. He raised one hand to his mouth grazed the knuckles softly with his lips. He felt her hand tremble, and heard the catch in her breath at the contact.

Looking into her soft, brown eyes he told her honestly. "I'm afraid to say we took it by force."

"Oh God!" Molly cried, closing her eyes.

Khan continued his explanation. "We took control of the earth, splitting it up into seven territories."

He let out a sigh and Molly opened her eyes to watch him closely.

"I ruled with a firm, but fair hand. Everyone in my territory prospered. But sadly not all rulers were so generous."

"Enslavement?"

Khan nodded. "A rebellion was growing. And then the very thing made us unique became our curse."

"What do you mean?"

"Our genetically engineered DNA. Scientists discovered a virus that when introduced to our DNA caused a mutation that gradually destroyed us from the inside out."

Molly shuddered. She chewed on her bottom lip, deep in thought. 'So that was what Marcus was referring to in the attachment.'

"What happed next?" she asked.

Khan's expression became remorseful. "War," he replied sadly. "Not just against the humans, but among ourselves. Petty jealousies had arisen when some territories did better than others. It became known as The Eugenics Wars."

In a small voice Molly asked. "How many died?"

"According to the small amount of records Starfleet has pertaining to that time, over 73 million."

The figure was simply staggering.

Molly took a deep breath. "How did you escape?"

"My territories were under attack from all sides, and I knew we were not going to win. I gathered together as many of my supporters as I could and we fled. We eventually found a sleeper ship, which was how we used to travel in space. It would take so long to get anywhere in our Solar System that we used cryosleep technology, essentially freezing ourselves in sleep until we reached our destination."

Molly nodded. She remembered being taught at Starfleet Academy about how space travel worked in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.

"We set off on the SS Botany Bay. And I hoped that when we awoke we could find somewhere where we could live in peace."

"Instead you were found by Admiral Marcus."

Khan sighed. "Yes."

"What happened?"

"He recognised the name of the ship he found drifting in space. And he recognised me. He realised he had an opportunity to exploit my intellect, and my savagery."

Molly nodded, silently encouraging him to continue.

"He decided to only reawaken me. But before doing so he had my appearance, including my voice surgically altered, so that I appeared English instead of Indian. He also had my memory wiped, so that when I woke I believed him when he told me that I was a Starfleet Officer called Commander John Harrison who worked for him at Section 31 as a weaponry expert."

"That explains the lack of data in Commander John Harrison's personnel file," Molly noted.

Khan nodded before continuing. "He told me I'd been on a secret mission to QoNo'S that had gone wrong."

"Wasn't he concerned that with your genetic enhancements that you would likely regain your memories?"

Khan smiled softly. Yes this young Lieutenant was a very intelligent one. "He knew my memories would eventually be reinstated, so he had a contingency plan worked out for when the inevitable happened."

Molly waited, though in truth she had already had an idea of what was involved in the Admiral's contingency plan.

"My crew," Khan confirmed. "When my memories returned and I realised the extent to which I had been used. I wanted to kill the only man who had been able to truly humiliate me."

"What did you do?"

"I confronted him. But he told me that if he died I would never see my crew again. He told me if I continued to help him develop new weapons and spacecraft, he promised he would reunite me with my crew once I had completed what he needed me to do for him."

"Except that he hasn't kept his end of the bargain, has he?" Molly asked.

"No," Khan replied bitterly. "The more tasks I complete, the more new ideas he comes up with."

"Do you know where your crew are being held?"

He shook his head sadly. "But I must find them."

"I could help you," Molly offered sincerely.

Khan moved his hands so that he now cradled her face and gazed deeply into her eyes.

"No little one," he replied softly. "This is my fight not yours. I don't want you involved. Alexander Marcus is a very dangerous man to cross."

Molly opened her mouth to argue with him. But Khan placed a gentle finger against her lips and shook his head, his expression stern.

Time was of the essence he needed to start putting his plan of action into motion. He could not, must not allow himself to become distracted by one sweet little Lieutenant with intelligent eyes, and …

"I must do this on my own," he stated. "You must not become involved."

Molly removed his finger from her mouth and gently placed her hand against his cheek.

"I already am involved."

Khan rested his hand over hers.

"Then for my sake do not pursue what you now know any further."

He stood up, pulling her up from her seat and enfolding her in his powerful arms. Resting his chin on the top of her head he made one final attempt to make her see sense.

"You must remain safe, Marcus is not to be trifled with. He may not be an Augment, but he can still kill you." He stepped back and looked into her upturned face. "Live for me Molly Hooper."

He then swooped down and kissed her hungrily on the lips once more, before turning and without looking back left the morgue.

Admiral Marcus was not the type of man who liked to be kept waiting. He especially didn't like it when he believed that the delays were deliberate.

He knew that the long-range torpedoes Khan had been working on were almost complete. Then he had received notification that there would be a short delay due to the need to correct a design malfunction.

Coming from anyone else this wouldn't have been an issue. What was thought could work in the design stage didn't always work when put into practice.

But when it came to the superior mind of Khan Noonien Singh, this was unheard of.

And that had made Marcus suspicious.

So he'd decided to look through the designs and any modifications Khan had made to work out what the augment was up to.

Pulling up the latest specifications on the designs, Marcus went through them meticulously. At first he didn't spot anything out of the ordinary. But looking again closely at what appeared to be only a minor alteration, and the purpose of the changes, given the one who had designed them, became clear.

"Well, well, well," Marcus murmured. "Thank you Commander. That is indeed a most excellent and ingenious idea."

Marcus then sent a transmission authorising the transfer of the torpedoes to a secure location.

Molly's head was spinning. All that she now knew made sense of what she had found in the autopsies she had performed.

But that was just a small part of what was really going on at Section 31.

Did Starfleet, and for that matter The Federation, know what was really going on here?

Did they even care?

Or did they prefer to look the other way and remain in ignorance?

Molly was truly beginning to wish that she didn't know what she knew. But her damned curiosity just wouldn't let up.

Despite Khan's warnings she knew she couldn't leave things be.

She knew he hadn't told her everything he knew. She knew he was trying to protect her, keep her safe.

But whatever it was that was going on here clearly had greater implications that simply could not be ignored.

She checked the time, took a deep breath, it was now or never. Marcus wasn't likely to still be around here this late. She left the morgue and made her way to the Admiral's office. As expected he was nowhere to be seen.

Molly was certain that whatever Marcus' true intentions were they would be found here.

She walked over to his desk and sat down. She was surprised to note that the Admiral's terminal was still on, and that he hadn't logged off.

This would make it easier for her to access any information she was trying to find, but it also made her stomach clench nervously. The Admiral was not the type of man to forget to logoff. That meant that he was still around. She wasn't going to have much time, she needed to find out what was going on and get out as quickly as possible.

What she did after that would depend on what she found.

She quickly spotted that Marcus had been checking on the progress of the new torpedoes that John – no Khan had been working on.

Skimming through his personal logs on the torpedoes, she froze when she read the transmission he had sent no more than an hour before.

"Oh my God," she whispered.

And then she felt a phaser being pressed to the back of her head.

'Idiot!' she berated herself silently.

"Lieutenant Hooper, how may I help you?"

Molly turned very slowly, determined not to show any fear. She got to her feet, and faced the Admiral, looking him in the eye.

Marcus was surprised by her move. Clearly he had underestimated her.

Molly ignored his question instead she stated. "I know Commander John Harrison is a complete fiction, and that his real name is Khan Noonien Singh."

Marcus tensed in shock. How had she come into such classified information?

"He told me."

His shock turned to anger. "So Lieutenant Hooper, you're in league with him. Traitor!"

Molly stood her ground. "There's only one traitor in this room and it isn't me."

"Don't take that tone with me Lieutenant. You don't know whom you're dealing with," he warned.

Molly kept her nerve. "I know exactly whom I'm dealing with," she replied. "A man set and determined to start a war, a dirty war with the Klingon Empire. What I don't understand is why?"

Admiral Marcus looked at her in disbelief.

"You're kidding me?" he said.

She shook her head.

"You are aware of what happened to Vulcan?"

"Of course," Molly replied. "But if I remember the events correctly, Vulcan was destroyed by a rogue Romulan from an alternate reality, not a Klingon."

"It is because of what happened on Vulcan that it has become necessary to make a pre-emptive strike against the Klingon's to neutralise any potential threat that they may pose."

Molly still couldn't follow his logic.

"Why?" she asked. "They haven't made any direct threats against The Federation."

"But the potential is there," Marcus stated. "Every time Starfleet has come into contact with the Klingon Empire they have repeatedly shown nothing but aggression."

"So what you're saying is, because the Klingon's don't want to be friends, you think this is reason enough to start a war?"

"Yes," Marcus replied unrepentant.

"And what of Khan and his crew?"

Marcus scowled at her. "What of them?"

"What happens to them once you have your war? I can't see Starfleet or The Federation being particularly pleased or comfortable with your method of enforced labour."

"Starfleet and The Federation will never know."

Molly's eyes widened with horror. "You're going to kill them, Khan and his crew."

The Admiral smiled triumphantly. "Of course," he replied. "I can't risk anyone finding out what has been going on here."

"I know what's going on," Molly bravely stated.

Marcus raised the phaser he still held in his hand. "True, which makes you a liability."

Molly turned and started to run just as Marcus fired. Her stunned body crumpled unconscious to the floor.