-Chapter Six-

Armed with the things Khan had told her about Rodriguez, she sought the man out the next morning, where he worked on tanning hides culled from local wildlife. He was on the shorter side, only a few centimetres taller than she, with a wide, stocky build and long, black hair tailed at the nape of his neck.

"Rodriguez," she said, as she approached.

He looked up, shielding his eyes from the sun with a hand, and sighed when he saw her. "What do you want?"

"Khan tells me your first name is Miguel. Would it be alright if I called you Miguel?"

"No."

She smiled. "Alright, that's fine. Rodriguez, I am aware that you do not like me."

"Senora Khan is a smart one," he said dryly.

Her smile turned into a nasty grin. "Khan knows, Rodriguez. Right now he's tolerating it and letting you adjust. But let me tell you something. I am his wife, the mother of his son and of any future children. Do you know what that means?"

His dark eyes narrowed. "Why do you not enlighten me, senora?"

"It means that I spent two years hunting down where Starfleet had stored you lot, and it means that the only reason I rescued your sorry, ungrateful arse is because he likes you. It means that I have the patience and determination to make your life a living hell if you continue to treat me as subhuman. Khan may be your leader, but it's really me you should be worried about, Rodriguez, because I will not hesitate to remove you if it becomes necessary."

Rodriguez laughed. "You talk big, Senora Khan, but I do not believe you have the . . . guts."

"No?" Anthea picked up one of his hide-scraping knives, one out of a box of random hunting-and-gathering tools she'd thrown together back on Earth. She rolled the handle between her fingers. "Let me tell you something. There was a doctor back on Earth. Her name was Roxy Coleman. Brilliant geneticist, just at the start of her career. She was one of my staff, while I worked at Starfleet Headquarters, trying to find Khan and all of you. She discovered some things, after I had her look into something. She swore to me she'd never tell."

"What has this to do with me, senora?"

"Do you know why I'm speaking of Roxy in the past tense, Rodriguez?"

He shook his head.

"Because I killed her. I liked her, and I killed her because she knew too much." She slammed the knife down, burying the point in the log he was using as a work surface. "What do you think I would do to you, since I don't like you?"

Anthea turned and walked away, leaving him with that thought going through his head.

Khan stood in the doorway of their mostly-built cabin, not far away. "Did you really kill this Doctor Coleman?" he asked.

"Her career," Anthea told him. "Which, to a doctor, is very much the same thing."

He laughed.

"Not going to chew me out for threatening one of your men?"

"Hardly. I've tried to make them accept you, but we are a very proud race, bred to be that way. Much as I hate to say it, my dear, many of them are going to make you earn your place. Rodriguez was a good start."

She sighed. "I'm having a baby, Khan, I don't have time for this shite."

"I know. But world domination can't be achieved overnight. Believe me, I speak from experience."

". . . I don't know what to say to that."

By Earth's calendar, it should have been autumn already, but CX-431 Alpha had a slightly longer revolution, and summer dragged. The heat was really getting to Anthea, and she spent most days on the ship, where there was air conditioning.

Once word got around that she'd stood up to Rodriguez, some of those who had been leery of her came around, viewing her as worthy of their leader at last. Those who had always supported her didn't see why it was such a problem, Khan marrying a normal, but very capable, woman.

"Khanopolis!"

Khan gave Joachim a gimlet eye. "I am not that egotistical, Joachim."

"You used to be proud of who you are!" the other man said.

"I still am. I have merely learned to temper it with restraint. You would do well to do the same."

Chastened, Joachim ducked his head. The men sat around one of the work tables, taking a break from construction, and talk had turned to what they were going to name their new home.

Otto laughed and slapped the younger man on the back. "We are looking to name a world, Joachim, not feed Kaiser's ego!"

Khan briefly lifted a corner of his mouth in a wan smirk. He was different now. Not in any huge way, but his time with Starfleet, his time with Anthea, had taught him what years as dictator of the largest empire on Earth could not: power wasn't everything, and arrogance could cost him. There was a difference between knowing his abilities, knowing he had been engineered to be better, and assuming that it could automatically get him anything he wanted.

Being bested by a Vulcan had taught him that.

"I want a name to last," he said finally. "We may be faster, smarter, stronger, but we do not live forever. I wish to give our home a name that our children can carry when we are gone."

Otto nodded. "Why not ask Kaiserin her opinion, Khan? She has good taste."

"She said she does not care, as long as it isn't silly or difficult to pronounce," Khan said.

Chin, silent until now, laughed. "She did the hard work," he pointed out. "We just build, and finish what she started. She does not need to worry about trivia now."

Especially not, Khan thought to himself, now that she was expecting. He smiled to himself, thinking of their coming child.

Kati wandered over, with a plate of food for Khan. "Taking a break?"

"And trying to name this place," her brother said. "Thank you, Kati."

Kati pushed her long, dark braid over her shoulder. "How about . . . Sitara?"

"What does that mean?" Joachim asked.

"It's Hindi," Khan told him. "It means 'planet' or 'world'. 'Tara' also means 'star'."

"I like it," Chin said. "It sounds nice, and is to the point."

"You speak Hindi?" Joachim asked.

Otto reached over and smacked him on the back of the head. "His name is Khan Noonien Singh, fool. What do you think he speaks, Swahili?"

"I do speak some Swahili," Khan said. "Also French, Afrikaans, Spanish, Chinese, Japanese, Sanskrit, Russian, German, Vulcan, Romulan, and Klingon, to name a few. Not necessarily with any complete fluency."

Kati patted her brother's head. "You are such a show-off. Oh, I almost forgot. Anthea said to tell you that she wishes to speak with you, when you have some time."

He immediately stood up. "Did she say what she needed?"

"It was nothing urgent," Kati assured him.

"Still, I had better see what she wants."

As he left, Otto remarked, "That woman has the great Khan wrapped around her finger."

"I would not mind being in his place," Joachim said. Then, "Ow!"

Khan paused with his hand near the panel to lower the Reliance's ramp when he heard Anthea's laughter coming from the direction of the lake. Turning on one heel, he walked the length of the ship, finding wife and son playing in the shallow water under the Reliance's nose, shaded from the hot sun.

Nolan splashed happily in the water, shrieking with squeals and laughter. The little boy sat in his mother's lap, slapping his hands against the water's surface, giggling at the ripples he made. Anthea wore a bathing suit, her brown hair knotted loosely at the nape of her neck. As far as he could tell, the baby was naked.

Khan loved moments such as these, the sight of his child so happy making his heart swell. To think he'd nearly missed all this, would have missed it if Anthea hadn't sacrifice everything she'd worked for to save him.

He walked across the warm, sandy shore. Nolan saw him approaching and yelled, "Dada!"

Anthea turned, giving him a big smile. "Come play with us, Daddy," she said. "I'm teaching Nolan how to swim."

Khan shrugged and kicked off his boots, then peeled off his shirt. He rolled up his pant-legs and waded into the water, to where his little family sat.

Nolan immediately splashed him with a small spray of water and giggled madly.

Narrowing his eyes at his son, Khan growled, "You think you're getting away with that, do you?"

He caught Nolan under his little arms and pulled him through the water, and the child laughed like a loon. Khan found himself grinning as he skimmed Nolan's small body over the surface of the water.

Anthea never tired of seeing Khan interacting with their son. When she'd been pregnant with him, she hadn't known where her husband had disappeared to, or his side of the events that had taken him from her. She'd faced a future in which she'd raise her child alone.

Words couldn't describe how happy she was now. It had been an adjustment, calling him Khan instead of John, but now it felt as if she'd always called him that. And watching him play with Nolan in the water, truly relaxed for what was probably the first time in years, she could almost believe they'd never been apart.

"I think you're his favourite person in the universe," she remarked to her husband. "Before I woke you up, he was all about Mummy, but now he worships you."

Khan glanced over with a smile. He held Nolan loosely, so the child could float a little and paddle his arms and kick his small legs. "I'm still new and interesting to him."

She shook her head. "No. He adores you. I wondered if he'd know who you are, since you weren't there in the beginning, but he definitely knows you're his father. If it was just that you're someone new, he'd be like this with everyone, but he's not."

Nolan got impatient with the talk and no swimming, and he flailed his little arms. "Play, Dada! Swim!"

Khan arched a brow. "How big is his vocabulary now?"

"I lost count a while back. He picks up a new one every day, I swear."

"Hmm."

They spent a while teaching Nolan how to float by himself. He almost had it mastered by the time Anthea decided their wrinkly skin needed to dry out. They got out of the water, and Khan carried Nolan on his shoulders, the little boy's small hands on his head for balance.

Anthea wrapped a towel around herself and picked up her husband's discarded clothes, since he had Nolan and couldn't retrieve them. As she straightened, she noticed that Rodriguez stood not far away, glaring at them.

"He might be a problem," she told her husband. "It's gotten worse, not better."

"I will speak with him," Khan said softly. "Truthfully, if he weren't an Augment, I would have left him on Earth back in 1997."

She made a noncommittal noise and keyed open the Reliance's ramp. As he followed her aboard, Khan noticed she'd put a hand to her belly.

"Are you alright?" he asked.

"Fine. Just thinking. I have no real preference on a gender, but I'd love to have a little girl."

He put Nolan down, even though the child was still naked. "I believe I would, as well. Perhaps, if we did . . . we could name her Sarina."

"After your mother?" Anthea caught Nolan, amidst his protests of "No, Mama!" and carried him to his dressing table. "I'd like that."

Khan slid his arms around her waist, resting his chin on her shoulder. "Speaking of names, Kati suggested a name for this world, and I have decided to adopt it."

"What did you choose?"

"Sitara. Hindi for 'planet'. About as original as Earth, but more elegant."

Anthea twined her fingers through his, where they rested on the slight swell of her stomach. She'd never regained a flat belly after Nolan's birth, so she was "showing" earlier with this child.

"I like it," she told him. "It's a good name for our home."