The augment colony converged towards a massive, tall building in the center. Its first floor was occupied by a large conference room used for political and administrative purposes, while the upper levels consisted of offices and the control rooms for the colony's defense system as well as the observation post on the edge of the Mutara Nebula. Both were of vital importance, given the fragile position of the Ceti Alpha system. The closest explored space belonged to the Federation, with which they had an uneasy entente, but even past that border stretched nothing but a vast emptiness all the way to the distant Velara Base and Alcyone. The little known Gorn Hegemony and the Klingon Empire, their other neighbors, were a lot farther away, which heightened their isolation for both better and worse.
However, the immediate security threat came not from the established interstellar powers. The Federation and the Klingon Empire were still exhausted by their recent conflict and struggling to recover. The mysterious Romulan Star Empire preferred total isolations. Similarly the Tholians only cared about themselves and their space. The Cardassians had been slowly agonizing their way to decay for centuries now. Under the circumstances both the Beta and Alpha quadrants were at the mercy of privateers and crime lords. The Orion Syndicate had practically built an empire of its own.
Khan knew an attack from them was inevitable. He had taken a calculated risk into going after the Syndicate to supplement the technological needs of the colony and permitting their run-away slaves to settle on the planet. But even if he hadn't, he was aware it was only a matter of time, until their isolated position and lack of a fleet would make them a target for marauders. So instead of waiting for it to happen, he had opted to take the initiative, acquire what they needed while at it, and provoke the largest and most dangerous wolf in the pack. A decisive victory against the Syndicate would send a strong message to whoever would otherwise make the mistake of thinking them easy prey. The fact that he would strike at slave-traders in doing so was merely a welcome bonus.
Meanwhile, they had prepared. Despite the difficulties in making the unorthodox blend of left-over Federation technology with that raided from the Orions and what they had managed to buy off the interstellar marked, they had a functional, albeit skeletal defense system; he had maintained the Vengeance in good operating order and had ordered regular evacuation drills to the safety of the Morningstar Mountains for both his people and their new Orion neighbors. He was just in the process of reviewing the results of the latest such exercise. The augments had fought in a war together and had all the discipline of a soldier so even with children slowing them down, they always moved fast and with great efficiency to the chrysalite caves, but as former slaves, the Orions tended to adopt a defeatist attitude, panicked easily and failed to evacuate at optimal speed. Ling had made him a few recommendations to improve on that.
The doors to his office unsealed themselves and familiar steps walked up to him. Her perfume reached him first: a subtle combination of iris and the zesty scent of alien flowers. Carol came to stand behind his chair, her eyes sweeping over the screen of his computer.
"The evacuation drills for the Orion settlement are still not working out, are they?" she asked, her hair brushing faintly against the side of his face, as she leaned over to read past his shoulder.
"No," he admitted. "But Ling has the situation well in hand."
Carol pulled herself a chair to sit next to him. "Ling is very efficient, but she can come across as harsh, especially to people who are not used to keeping up with your pace. Maybe she could use a hand from someone more personable."
He considered it."I know, but you barely have time to sleep and I cannot spare Otto and Idir from their work on the installations, or Kati from the hydroponics, for that matter."
Her brow furrowed in thought. "It might be premature, but... ."
She was interrupted by an alarm sounding from his terminal. From the corner of his eye, Khan saw her jump to her feet, because the sound was familiar to them both: it was a red alert sent by the observation post outside their system. He pressed a few keys on his console, prompting a holographic imagine of the incoming transmission: no less than eight ships had just entered the Mutara Nebula. The sensors were too weak to conduct any spectral analysis so they had no way of knowing what kind of ships they were, but he was certain they heralded no good news. He didn't even have to give the word, because she scurried away, ripping open the cover of a panel by the door and entering a sequence of codes into it.
The general alarm blared through the building. It was not a unique occurrence, as the warning would ring in every building on the planet, both augment and Orion, as well as put the automatic system of the Vengeance on high alert. Khan activated the comm system to contact Ling.
"Ling, coordinate the evacuation of the Orions," he ordered. "Otto is to do the same with our children." He lifted his eyes to Joaquin who had just burst into the room. "Joaquin, you will stay here in charge of the ground defense, should it be needed. Have Kati, Zuleika, Idir and Daniel meet me on the Vengeance."
He flickered a gaze to Carol. Her relaxed posture was gone, replaced with the tension radiating from the terse line of her shoulders and the severity of her expression. For a split second he hesitated. The correct tactical decision was to take her with him, as she not only the only weapons expert he had and, as a trained Starfleet officer, she had experience with various 23rd century military threats. Moreover, she was never the one to shy away from a fight and would be the first to protest, if she so much as suspected he would leave her behind to protect her. He had ordered friends into combat before, but it was different with her, because she was his and his only, separated in his heart from the duty to protect his family. He had almost lost her once and did not want to give her up again. But to shield her from harm against her will would infringe upon one of the traits he most admired in her: the strength of her character.
"Carol, you are also coming," he said, voicing it as a suggestion rather than a command.
She did not reply verbally, merely nodding in confirmation. Something tight coiled in the left side of his torso, even as he steeled himself inside, his mind already calculating between strategies both new and planned-ahead. He rushed past Joaquin on his way out, deliberately measuring his steps so that his wife could keep up, and his eyes briefly met those of his old friend. Understanding flared in Joaquin's dark orbs, as his second in command seemed to tacitly try to convey that his family would not have judged him, had he made other decision about Carol.
They had no transporter facilities outside the Vengeance, but Khan had swiped a few portable beaming devices from Section 31, back when they still had a base on his planet. One was located in an emergency compartment on the command level of the meeting house. He and Carol used it in turns to get to the bridge of the Vengeance.
The static discharges and the highly ionized gases in the Mutara Nebula rendered sensors, communications and even shields either unreliable or completely inoperable, depending on the ship, but Khan and his people had had ample time to explore the cloud and modify their equipment accordingly. Any captain with a modicum of sense would attempt to compensate for the disadvantage by trying to cross the Nebula at maximum warp speed, which would under normal circumstances be a good a strategy, but the Vengeance's ability to interfere with another ship's warp bubble trumped that move.
Khan used his knowledge of the nebula to drop atop the enemy fleet. Surely enough, it was composed of five Orion interceptors and three Naussicaan raiders that, according to Carol, had come along for the plundering. He had the Vengeance maneuvered to force the invading ships to drop out of warp. The confusion caused by their inability to communicate with each other had made them easy pickings for the Vengeance, the shields of which took the few hits that had managed not to miss in stride. It had been more of an effort to disable the opposing ships in such a manner that they would not be all completely destroyed, as they could be of service, once repaired. He had initially wanted their crew killed, but Carol had insisted upon only beaming them directly to the brig, arguing that they could have valuable information and perhaps be of use to them in some other capacity in the future.
The battle was over quickly. Towing the impaired invading ships back to Menkar had been much more work and taken a great deal of synchronization. Then Carol had visited their Orion guests to make sure they were fairing well after the scare of their former masters possibly returning. At last, he had found her on the Vengeance, in the command center of the weapons bay, cataloging the impact of the fight and evaluating the performance of the defense systems. It was important work to be certain, but nothing stringent. Still her sense of duty compelled her to do it instead of resting, given the trying day she had just had.
Khan drank in the sight of her. Normally he had a firm enough grip on his body and its responses, not to allow the carousel of wayward adrenaline reactions cloud his judgment in combat situations. Fog of war brought about enough complications without throwing impulsiveness into the mix. Besides, starship battles were devoid of any physicality and his body was probably making it up for it. But regardless of how short and lacking in casualties on his side the fight had been, he was still overcome by both relief and gratitude at seeing Carol alive, well and preoccupied with torpedoes. On the footsteps of the exuberance came passion and he did not waver, as he strode up to her, prompting her to lift her head to look at him. There was a question in those beautifully mismatched eyes.
The answer was burning in his veins, his desire ratcheting up a notch at her trustful expression. His hearing zeroed onto the beating of her heart, echoing faintly in the still room. He grabbed her by the shoulders to raise her from her seat and pressed her up to him so he could crush his mouth to hers in a ravenous kiss. His teeth tugged on her lower lip, before thrusting his tongue inside her mouth, demanding nothing less than absolute control of the kiss. She opened to him, her mouth sweet and pliant against his, as her hands slipped under his shirt to stroke against the skin of his back. He shivered at the gentleness in her touch but could not find it within himself to slow down in response. Normally he did not allow himself to be so far gone as to not be at least marginally mindful of the discrepancy of physical strength between them. But this time it was different. He only clutched her tighter, wishing he could imprint the memory of her touch onto his very ribs.
However, Carol was not asking him to stop but instead losing herself in his embrace, eyes closed, an expression of abandonment etched onto her face. He tore his mouth from hers to nip his way down her neck. The material of her blouse broke under the pressure of his fingers scrambling to pull it off her left shoulder in their haste to get to her skin.
"I love you," she whispered.
His head snapped up. Her eyes were now open, her pupils blown wide, and glittering with both heat and tenderness. She smiled with unmitigated joy at him. The same emotion bubbled into his chest. She lifted a hand to his face, smoothing the creases between his eyebrows with her index finger. His eyelids fluttered and he leaned in closer to kiss her again this time with savoring softness.
# # #
Carol did not understand how she had ended up in San Francisco, but she was there now, wandering the eerily empty streets of the area around Starfleet HQ, her baby daughter held tight against her chest. Her heart and mind were racing, terror washing over her in waves. They were after her child, who was crying loudly, hiccuping as she did. Carol begged her to be quiet or else they would find them. To no avail. She heard a faint hum above her and looked up, her arms trembling around the tiny, fragile body of her first-born. The shuttle closed in on her and through its front window, she could see her father inside, once more wearing the uniform of a Starfleet admiral. Carol screamed... .
She woke up to Kati's soothing words, her friend's concerned face filling her view. Carol looked past her to discover she was still in the hospital room in Perth. She sucked in a deep breath, trying to calm herself. Kati was calling for a doctor over the comm system. Carol's head lolled on the pillow, even as she grasped onto the augment's sleeve.
"Kati," she murmured. "Let's go home."
TBC