A/N: omg ok, so I figured this chapter would be a while, but I didn't plan on it taking so long. I started to write it, then sat on it, came back and realized I hated it, so I scraped the page worth that I wrote and re-did it. Sat on it a few days more and picked away until I was satisfied. The second section thankfully came a lot faster. Usual disclaimer.

Chapter 7: Destinations

There was movement. Or at least the shadow of movement. Whispers came and went in the darkness, the world seeming as if it existed in the depths of a bottomless ocean. He felt numb, and that numbness was everywhere. It permeated his non-existent limbs, leaving him to feel as though wrapped in a tight, inescapable cocoon. While not ignorant to the sensations of restriction and confinement-there was a kind of serenity to be found in it-this was suffocating. Claustrophobic. An unknown dwelled there, an unknown that he himself did not create.

Dung colored eyes drug open to faded light as he began to gasp. Instead of a smooth clean flow however, his breath was wet and wrought with the coppery fume of blood. There was only a scant few times where Khan could ever recall tasting his own blood, but when he had, it had never been like this. The worst of it though, was that he could not seem to rise above his discomfort or look past the strange pain that seemed to be coming from everywhere.

"Khan?"

The questioning sound of his uttered name angered him. He could not see where the voice calling it had come from; could not follow it, could not find it. He was prepared to snarl that displeasure, but with every shallow breath he found that he couldn't manage more than…nothing. He closed his eyes back. The coppery fumes came again. "It will only be a matter of time before those others find us and given what has happened, I doubt they will be lenient. Khan is the only one who knows what is going on and if we intend on having him survive this ordeal, we must act."

"And what shall we do then Roe? We are cornered in this place and our options are limited." Though Lilith spoke to Roe, her attention was on Aakar and Khan. She watched with worried eyes as the man worked intently but carefully with scant and ineffective materials on their grievously injured leader—anything to patch the air-exposed hole in his lung. His eyes had opened briefly…this was good, but their situation was far from improving. "Kaida," the woman would ask quietly. "Did you figure out what that device was from Khan's pack?"

"No," she sighed. "I'm not even sure how to turn it on…if it even is meant to do it."

"Unbelievable," Roe would grumble as he stood up from the cold concrete, mindful not to aggravate the nasty scald on his left forearm. He stalked to Kaida and snatched the item from her. Looking over the glass object, he frowned at the substantial crack down the center of its glass screen. Kaida wore an indignant scowl at Roe's impatience. "And you feel you can do better?"

"Perhaps…at least I'll do more than stare stupidly at it."

"Stop squabbling and figure it out," Lilith would suddenly snap, hushing whatever defensive remark Kaida would have retorted with. "They'll start searching for us on foot if they haven't already."

In the seconds that followed, no one said anything. Kaida for the time being assessed the wound on her own shoulder gained in the fight. It hurt terribly but she was fine to ignore it. Finally the girl would glance over the rest of her crewmates. None had escaped unscathed. While Khan was the worst off, Devindar hardly fared better. At least though he was conscious and able to move under his own power. For what it was worth, Oren sat beside him, ready to assist should it be needed. He too had burns, but they were mostly superficial, inconsequential. Sven's back was a fright, but it could hardly be helped given he was a sizable target and none of them had any protective gear. Perhaps it was because of his size and formidable strength that Sven was able to shrug off what Kaida knew to be something just short of agony. Then there was Lilith and Aavai. Like her, they had managed to avoid the more serious burns. This fact though hardly promoted comfort among them…or it certainly didn't seem that way. "What will we do if they find us again?" Kaida hazarded the question with trepidation, her own eyes going from Lilith to Khan and back again. The query was likely pointless, but really she just couldn't help but ask.

"Maybe…we should surrender?" Another voice—Aavai's—would offer humbly. Aavai's words caught Kaida unaware. The others seemed unprepared for the response as well, least of all Lilith. Upon hearing this, Lilith's nostrils flared hard as her face swirled into sharp displeasure. Her following actions upon Aavai were swift, the heavy-handed slap across the man's cheek echoing through the cool passages. Aavai's surprise at the strike quickly turned to anger, but the dangerous flash in Lilith's eyes forced reconsideration. "How dare you suggest such cowardice? If our straits weren't so dire I'd dispatch you myself," she glowered, her threat more a promise than a show of dominance. "Perhaps Lilith you failed to notice those soldiers were not trying to kill us until after we began felling their comrades. Their weapons had two distinct categorical strengths and only when we continued our resistance did they start using the more powerful settings. Clearly they weren't trying to harm us at the outset," Aavai argued, bite in his words as he opted to continue. "What is to say that they wouldn't-"

"Khan must have had his reasons for our fighting back," Kaida said in interruption, more or less siding with Lilith, an action that hopefully would keep the woman from mauling Aavai for his apparent willingness to cow.

"…The tablet." A sudden hush would fall over the group as the faint and straining murmur of Khan's voice filled the space. Immediately Roe would approach Khan, whose right hand had lifted, reaching tiredly for the P.A.D.D. in Roe's grasp. Khan himself felt uncommonly weak, but even in his damaged state, his pride would not let him appear that way. He had heard quite enough. Fingers tapped lightly on the cracked screen activating sewer schematics loaded into the onboard memory. Though his mind was a soupy bank of stinging fog, Khan was fairly sure his original plans, which had been based on he and his crew not being discovered, had been compromised at the very least. As always however, Khan went to great lengths to ensure that there were other options…even if they were far from preferred. It was now time to utilize those contingences. His crew watched his meticulous handling of the P.A.D.D. as he highlighted a route that would lead them from both the sewers and ultimately Starfleet's dogged pursuit. When he was finished, Khan forced himself to look at Lilith with dim glassy eyes. The hand holding the P.A.D.D. moved slightly in the woman's direction, prompting her to take it from him. In turn Lilith took the P.A.D.D. from Khan, the route he had pulled onto the cracked screen blinking promised salvation. It was going to be up to her to take the group the rest of the way…an unspoken reality given she was the first that Khan awoke and was also now differing to. "Alright, let's-" Lilith cut herself off, canting her head slightly as if listening for something.

She could hear distant footsteps. They all could. At once each revived member of the Botany Bay turned to the other, the gravity of their impending situation heavy upon them. Starfleet was coming, but at present they were not close. Lilith circled her wrist, her index finger up, signaling her crewmates to follow and remain on her. Silently they picked themselves up, moving in the direction indicated on the glass data tablet. Khan still could not walk and thus was left in Sven's care for transport as Aakar remained beside them both. As they traveled through the angular tunnels, Lilith couldn't help but wonder if wherever they were headed, they could do something more for Khan there. Without him they could of course still find a way to carry on; he would have demanded such. But life in this future time would be hell without his leadership. Despite whatever had occurred with Khan to have Starfleet so hotly after them, his presence was an assurance and utterly necessary. His crew would fight for him. Whether he lived or died, only over their dead bodies would Starfleet take Khan from them.

"Keptain," Chekov would chirp in his especially thick accent from the plexi cartographic plotting station. "Though we'd be doubling back quite a bit from Alpha Onias II, Triacus, one of the worlds in the Epsilon Indi system, I would suspect warrants surveying sir." Without saying anything initially, Kirk flashed an interested grin as he stood and made his way over to the curly-topped Russian and his trajectory projections. Fortunately for the Captain, the hypo therapy Bones had him undergoing was doing wonders for his particularly persistent blue-tinged rash. Presently he wasn't itching or swelling or otherwise wanting to skin himself alive, so it made focusing on Pavel much easier. "Sure Chekov. What about this planet warrants surveying?"

"Well sir," the young Russian explained, "it has been presented by the xenogeology department that Triacus is in possession of exceedingly rare occurrences of specific crystalized carbon structures." In response, Kirk was quiet for a moment wondering briefly if the considerably younger man had been put up to this. "Is that so?" He'd ask at last, but not for seeking further enlightenment. "Tell me Chekov, isn't Triacus the homeworld of the now extinct Triacus marauders? I'll admit that my lore of the planet is fleeting at best."

"Uh, yyyes sir."

"And what about the exoanthropology department? Surely they expressed interest in Triacus as well giving what history we know if it; there must be a compelling reason why it's been suggested we go to a known planet already understood to be uninhabited." There was an amused if not an overly suspicious glint in Jim's eye, but he let on little more than that. "I would imagine so Keptain, but those department heads report to Commander Spock and would ideally have more information than myself."

"Yes, a Commander who is at present conspicuously absent. Pardon me for a second Chekov, " Jim would say as he pivoted with a smirk back to his chair, tapping one amongst several panels until the application he sought initiated. "Computer, what is the current location of Commander Spock?"

"Commander Spock is located on deck nine in Life Sciences lab A."

"…Interesting," the blonde mused to no one in particular. "Mister Sulu, you have the Conn." At once Hikaru's chair swiveled about to face Kirk who was already moving away from the command chair. "Aye sir," the helmsman briskly obliged, not sure why he was suddenly put in charge but taking the main seat just the same. A woman assumed Sulu's normal position in the meantime, keeping the voyaging Enterprise on a heading likely to change in the very near future.

Kirk was met with a plethora of respectful nods and acknowledgment of his rank as he passed through the corridors from the turbo lift to his intended destination. Upon entry of the Life Sciences lab, a blue clad female ensign walked past, her face buried in a file of some sort. As a result, she didn't see the Captain's blue eyes track her form, lingering on her figure for just a hair longer than needed for identification purposes. He had gotten better about his leer-in-passing in regards to the opposite sex…at least when it came to the hordes of attractive women who were stationed aboard his ship for the next half decade; drama was the last thing he needed so early on. Pulling eyes from the ensign's appreciable assets, Jim spotted his FO across the lab seated at a station, his attention on the specimen under a microscope. "Mister Spock," Jim announced casually, arms behind his back. Spock looked up at him. "Greetings Captain."

"Chekov proposed we pay a visit to Triacus on account of information provided by the xenogeology department. Mentioned something about 'exceedingly rare occurrences of specific crystalized carbon structures'. Given that you're our Science Officer, I figured you could shed a little light on why our navigator seems more than ready to point us in Triacus' direction?" It was hard to miss the expression on Jim's face as he awaited a response from Spock, who at the moment only stared back with those clear brown eyes—mental wheels spinning.

"…"

"…"

"Did the Captain not give a direct order to present Lieutenant Uhura with an adequate ring of betrothal?" Just then the carefully placed grin Kirk sported bloomed to a full smile. "Before you confirm Captain," Spock continued, "it bears mentioning that I would be remiss for rousing interest in surveying Triacus solely for my subjective benefit. Though Triacus is a familiar and charted world, it has not the subject of intensive exploration. For that reason I spoke with both the xenogeology and exoanthropology departments to discuss scientifically relevant opportunities merited enough to expend energy on a potential assignment. There are several. In the end Captain, our visiting of Triacus satisfies the parameters of our five year mission as well as allowing myself to carry out the order my superior has issued, thus making the suggestion to explore Triacus a logical one."

"Ya'know Spock, going out in the universe to find the perfect bling for your fiancée's ring is pretty bad-ass. Heaven forbid if you two ever go your separate ways, that would be one hell of a dog act for some other poor bastard to follow. On another note though Spock, you could've just said, 'hey, let's go to this planet so I can get a big fat alien rock for my bride-to-be'. I would have totally understood." It was now Spock's turn to grin, suppressing the urge to malign his friend's political incorrectness and reiterate the reason for his indirectness. "Not only is it sound advice that I am following, but an order is an order," Spock promptly responded. "Cultivating the best option to fill this command, which also happens to be a personal endeavor, would be mutually propitious to all parties involved."

"Indeed Mister Spock, indeed." At once Jim reached for his communicator, flipping it up to open a channel to the bridge. "Mister Sulu."

"Aye Captain?"

"Have a course set for Triacus in the Epsilon Indi system, warp factor four."

"Yes sir!" The comm slapped closed. The heading was changed.

"Thank you Captain."

"Anytime Spock."

A/N: I hope you all liked it. As I said before, it took a lot longer than I anticipated, so I hope it came out alright. Let me know what you think as constructive criticism breeds better chapters. Also in addition to this chapter, I've made some very small edits to previous chapters (like grammar) including correcting some of the planets mentioned in this fic and also better researching mentioned Star Trek Universe locations while remaining reasonably faithful of ST continuity. Till next time. Thanks for reading!