-Chapter Seventeen-

She had no idea how long it had been since they'd been taken. At least two days, Anthea thought, but outside of that, she couldn't tell. She hadn't been wearing her watch when they'd been abducted, and there was no clock in their small room.

Surely Khan had returned to Sitara and found them gone by now. He would be frantic with worry. She could only imagine the kind of hell he was raising. She found the thought of him plowing through the Klingons highly entertaining.

There was nothing in the room she could use as a weapon. The bed was bolted to the floor and the wall, made of a very solid piece of metal she couldn't break. It was the same with the toilet and the sink. There was a sensor on the faucet hat turned it on and off, no handles, and the toilet flushed automatically, too. There was no window, the bed had no linens, and the door had no access panel from the inside.

It only opened under armed guard, twice a day, when they brought food for her and Nolan. Rather, they brought one meal, and she split it with her son, making sure he was fed before she ate her own portion.

Anthea lay on the bed, Nolan in her arms, and told him stories to keep him entertained and herself sane. She'd already run through the plot of Star Wars, all twelve films, and a few fairytales. Even at almost seventeen months, Nolan was particular about his bedtime stories.

"Alright, how about this one? Once upon a time, there lived a little boy, a prince in a far-away kingdom. He was a very special little boy, but he was also sad."

"Why sad, Mama?"

"Because his mummy died, and he and his sister had to go live with mean people. This little boy loved his sister very much, and he also loved animals and playing in nature. But the mean people didn't let him play with animals, or have any fun at all. So this prince grew up, and he became mean, too, because no one loved him. All he wanted was for someone to love him, but the people were afraid of him. He was their prince, and he looked after his people, but he was cold, and he never played and didn't have any friends."

Nolan frowned. "Play wif' him?"

Anthea smiled. "One day, the prince's sister was kidnapped by an evil dragon. So he went to rescue her, because she was the only one who loved him. Along the way, he met a beautiful princess, who was kind and didn't care that he was mean. Since he was tired from his journey, the princess offered the prince a place to stay for the night, and some food, so he could continue on to rescue his sister."

"Dwagon?"

"A dragon is a terrible, scary beast, with claws and fangs, that growls and lives in dark places," she told him. "They have scales and glowing eyes, and they don't like people."

"Oh."

"The prince stayed for a time with the princess, and he fell in love with her. He'd never been in love before, since he had been mean for so long. He told the princess he wanted to marry her, but he needed to slay the dragon first. The princess, who had been alone for a long time, had seen the special boy he had been, and loved him, too. She told him she would wait for him.

"So the prince left to go defeat the horrible dragon, and the princess waited. He found the dragon, and he slew it, but it was a trap! He was imprisoned with his sister, and had no way to get free, because he had been mean, and no one wanted to come save him.

"No one except the princess! She got tired of waiting for him, so she gathered up her army and she went to find the dragon's lair. There, she found the prince and she rescued him and his sister. They were married, and they joined their kingdoms, and lived as king and queen in a place where no one would be mean to each other."

"Dey have babies?"

Anthea ruffled her son's hair. "They had lots of babies! They had sons, and daughters, who all grew up happy because their mummy and daddy loved them very, very much."

Nolan traced a chubby finger over the Starfleet insignia on Anthea's breast. "Want Dada."

"Me, too, sweetheart. Me, too."

The Enterprise had a recreation area with a pool, a lounge, a holodeck, and a workout area. Khan's men, trapped for so long in cryotubes and on a planet with only felling trees and construction for a workout, were rather excited about the exercise equipment.

They'd been on the ship for a few days now, going from system to system-the Enterprise managing to do its assigned exploration duties as well as hunting for the Klingons-and Khan was nearing the absolute end of his patience. Ordinarily, he had nearly infinite control; after all, he'd managed to stay Marcus's puppet for a year.

But worry for Anthea, for Nolan, and for their unborn child, made him feel like a fraying rope.

He was seriously considering implanting tracking devices under their skin when he got them back.

The workout area had a punching bag, but Khan was worried that he'd break the thing, so he spent an hour doing nothing but laps in the pool, trying desperately to use up the excess emotion he wasn't accustomed to.

Meditation didn't work. Given what he was, working himself into exhaustion took days and wasn't an option. He needed his strength for when they found his wife.

Most of the crew of the Enterprise hadn't seen Khan or his men in action, so if they weren't on-duty, they tended to gather in clusters and watch, especially when they cleared the deck around the pool and began sparring.

Khan refrained from the sparring sessions; he was the fastest, the strongest, and the most ruthless, and with the way he was currently feeling, he didn't want to end up hurting anyone.

That was, until Commander Spock came to watch.

"An impressive force," the Vulcan said to Khan. He stood with his hands folded behind him, watching impassively as Otto and a huge black man named Yenge wrestled.

A few other crew members wandered in, including Kalim, the security officer. Khan noted that there were a lot of female crew watching, and privately thought that he wouldn't be the least surprised if some of them defected to join their colony, especially that redhead over there. What was her name, again? McGivers?

Khan turned to the ship's first officer. "This is merely play, Mr. Spock."

"Play?" the Vulcan repeated.

"Much like tigers, Mr. Spock," Khan murmured. "How they play to keep their skills sharp for the hunt."

Spock's dark eyes flicked to his face. "Indeed? And why do you not participate?"

"You have seen me fight, Spock," Khan retorted. "That was after over two centuries asleep. They do this to keep occupied, not because they need it."

The Vulcan eyed him in silence for several long moments. "And yet, I had little trouble defeating you."

It took so little to make Khan's blood boil over. He lashed out, catching Spock by the throat, and had him in a choke-hold in a second flat.

"'Little trouble'," Khan repeated bitterly. "You only defeated me because I was exhausted from nearly four days without sleep and I was injured from the crash. And then your woman showed up. Hardly fair odds, Spock. Would you like to try me now?"

The Vulcan's face was turning green from the blood trapped by Khan's grip. "No," Spock managed to gasp out. "I would not."

Khan released him, aware that everyone watched them. Spock fell to one knee, then stiffly got to his feet.

"One of these days," Khan said darkly, "I will have my revenge for what you did."

"You may try," Spock retorted.

The commander turned on one foot and strode out, shoving through the crowd of onlookers.

Otto, dripping with sweat, came over with a towel around his neck. "That is the Vulcan that broke your arm, ja?"

"Yes," Khan hissed. "And someday, I will break him."

Sleep was uneasy and difficult for Khan of late. He'd been prone to nightmares since Marcus had forced him into servitude, and Anthea had been a balm against them. With her gone, and the added fear of not knowing where she was or if she lived, made Khan's sleep restless and fitful.

He lay in the dark, staring at the display on the nightstand clock, watching one minute tick to another, and considered asking Otto to beat him senseless just so he could spend an hour or so unconscious.

There was a faint sound at his door, and light from the corridor spilled into Khan's quarters as the panel slid open. He was instantly alert, calling for the lights.

That lieutenant he'd noticed earlier, McGivers, stood just inside the door, dressed in off-duty garments with her red hair loose around her shoulders. She stared at him with big, brown eyes as he rose from the bed.

"What are you doing in here?" he demanded.

She was very pretty, but didn't compare in any way to his Anthea. "Um. I thought . . ."

The woman stammered, eyes taking in his pale skin, muscles, and the hint of dark hair at the waist of the pants he'd been sleeping in.

It wasn't difficult to guess what she'd thought. A lot of women tended to assume he was offering things he wasn't if he looked at them. And if he hadn't been married, hadn't been so all-consumingly in love with his wife, he might have taken what she silently offered.

Khan gritted his teeth, crossed the room, and backed her against the wall, his hand wrapped loosely around her throat. "Lieutenant McGivers, isn't it?"

"Yes," she whispered.

"Lieutenant," he said softly. "Do you have any idea who I am?"

"Khan Noonien Singh," she breathed. "A twentieth-century man who once ruled a huge nation."

"And you are not threatened by me?"

She shook her head.

He smiled darkly. "Lieutenant. Do you know why I am on board?"

"One of your men's families was kidnapped."

Khan slammed her against the wall. "MY WIFE," he thundered. "My wife and my son were taken, and you sneak in here, in the middle of the night, seeking favours?!"

He released her and she slumped to the floor, rattled by his response. "I- I'm sorry! I didn't know!"

He glared down at her. "If you want to offer yourself to one of my men, feel free. But if you ever come near me again . . ."

McGivers rose shakily to her feet. Her eyes were full of tears. Without a word, she hurried from the room.

A tiny sliver of him felt remorse for scaring her so badly, but the rest didn't care one bit for her feelings whatsoever.

Khan stood there, hands clenched, breathing hard with rage. He couldn't believe the woman's audacity!

The door chimed. Khan said, "Enter!" and Otto stepped in.

"Kaiser, I heard you yelling," his friend said.

"Yes," Khan murmured. He took several deep breaths, forcing himself to calm down. "I just had a visit from . . . someone who misunderstood."

"The red-haired woman in the corridor?" Otto guessed dryly. "If I were into women, I would say she was pretty. Perhaps even your type once."

"Once," Khan said. "Now there is only one woman for me, and I very, very much want to find her."

Otto jerked his head towards the door. "I saw that one watching the men. She does often. If she chooses to come with us, when we go back to Sitara . . .?"

"She is welcome to, if one of the men-or the women-wants her. I think I made it clear that I am not interested. And after that . . ." He smiled, just a little. "I'll let Anthea deal with her."

". . . You are evil sometimes, Khan," Otto said, and he laughed. "Good night, my friend. You lock the door now, ja?"

"Ja," Khan replied wryly.