“He could.” Vulcan though he was, the science officer still managed to make the observation sound like a curse.
“Yes, sir,” a subdued Sulu replied, returning to his instruments.
Another pause, followed by a startled exclamation from Sulu. “Got something. One life-form.” He looked back at Spock. “Whoa—he just jumped thirty feet!”
“That’s him,” Spock declared with confidence. “Can we beam him up?”
Try as he might to make it possible, in the crowded confines of the compound and the city below, the effort required exceeded even Sulu’s exceptional skills.
“He’s moving too fast, and there are too many other people around. I can’t get a lock on him.”
“Keep trying,” Spock directed the helmsman as he turned.
Sensing a presence at his back, he turned to find himself gazing at Uhura. Their eyes locked. Hers were wet, but her voice was low and thick with anger. “Go get him.”
* * *
By the time Spock reached the transporter room, there was a tech team waiting for him. As he adjusted the phaser he was holding from stun to kill, he calmly addressed the officer in charge.
“Stand by for coordinates.”
“Yes, sir!” responded the tech manning the console.
Hands poised over the console controls, the officer nodded expectantly. A moment later Chekov reported from the bridge.
“Enter T-one-five-seven by two-five-nine-eight. Target still in motion. I can track him, but I can’t lock on him.”
“Coordinates confirmed,” announced the transporter officer.
“Energize,” Spock ordered him.
There followed a rising whine, a coalescing of light and energy, and then Spock was gone.
* * *
He rematerialized amid smoking chaos. Emergency vehicles screamed only slightly louder than some of the injured as medical teams attended to wounded Starfleet personnel and civilians. Spock’s eyes were scanning his immediate surroundings even before he had fully reintegrated. If he had been put down in the right place by the transporter team . . .
A moment later, he had picked out a stolid figure on the other side of the crowd, trying to make itself as inconspicuous as possible as it attempted to get farther from the crash site. There was no mistaking the individual outline or the determination with which it was moving away from the point of impact, despite its evident injuries.
Turning toward the sound of the transporter whine, a frustrated Khan locked eyes with the science officer. An ordinary man might have offered a derisive gesture or uttered a frustrated curse. Khan did neither; he simply turned and ran.
Holstering his phaser, Spock took off in pursuit, his legs pounding the ground beneath him with unrelenting ferocity.
Khan ran without looking back. But no matter how hard he ran, he was unable to shake the pursuing Vulcan. Spock’s expression never changed. He was wholly focused on closing the distance between them. When Spock thought he might be faltering, the image of Kirk drawing his last breath sent a fresh surge of strength into his legs.
Turning to his right, Khan raced through an open doorway into an undamaged building, speeding past startled onlookers. Racing through the lobby, he headed directly for the opposite side and the street beyond. The fact that there was no exit on the far side of the lobby did not stop him, nor did the wall of glass that appeared to block his way. He went through it like a projectile, sending shards flying in all directions.
And still he could not lose his stolid-faced pursuer.
* * *
Kirk’s eyes were closed, his body as unmoving as when it had finally become safe enough to enter the sealed-off core area and remove him. Now he lay on a gurney in sickbay, awaiting final disposition.
Among those present was Carol Marcus. She stood staring at the body of a man she had hardly known. Yet he had died to save her life as surely as he had done so to save those of his crew. Chekov looked on from a distance, unable to bring himself to move any closer.
Bereft of such choices, Dr. McCoy prepared his examination. A formality; part of his job. One he had to do.
Except that he couldn’t. Not just then, anyway. Turning, he walked away from the gurney, away from Scott, who had been standing by his side. McCoy was angry at himself as he sat down. Kirk wouldn’t have approved. Doubtless he would have chided McCoy about his failure, would have made some stupid, half-assed joke that would have . . .
Closing his eyes, McCoy struggled to regain control of his emotions. He was failing miserably when something distracted him.
Movement. On the worktable beside him.
That should not be. Things did not move independently on tables in the fully sterilized sickbay, especially things large enough to be seen without the aid of a microscope. Also, they did not purr.
Turning toward the table, McCoy looked on first in confusion, then in disbelief. As he leaned closer to the source of both the slight movement and the appealing noise, it was clear that the object of his attention was very much alive.
The tribble. The only one on board. It was, impossibly, alive. It ought not to be. But it most certainly was, which suggested that . . . which meant that . . .
His eyes widened. Turning to the officer in charge of the detail that had brought Kirk in from Engineering, he issued what was perhaps one of the more unusual requests in the history of the Starfleet medical service.
“Get me a cryotube. Now.”
* * *
How determined was the Vulcan? Could he keep pace even with an enhanced human, albeit an injured one? What Khan needed, he realized as he raced across yet another busy city avenue, was transportation. He could have stolen a private vehicle, but that would mean being confined to the ground.
The battered antigrav garbage scow was just lifting off ahead of him, on the other side of the raised street. On board there would be no human operator to contend with . . . or report his position. A single leap carried him to the top of the dull red machine. He was finally able to momentarily relax, catch his breath. A small smile played across his perspiring face. It didn’t matter where the automated collector was going, so long as it was anywhere but there.
Khan never saw the solitary figure that came pounding around a corner, running hard in the superhuman’s wake. Executing a leap no human could duplicate, Spock managed to grab hold of a metal brace on the underside of the rising garbage scow. As the vehicle continued to ascend, preparatory to completing its daily round in the city, Spock slowly but steadily worked himself from the underside of the machine to one side, and finally to the rough edge that rimmed the top.
Khan now saw him.
Rushing to the side of the vehicle, he struck out repeatedly. One kick sent the science officer’s phaser plummeting over the side toward the ground below. When Khan reached for it, Spock managed to pull himself onto the top of the self-piloting machine before his opponent could kick out again. The unmanned vehicle continued on its programmed path, indifferent to the life-and-death struggle that was taking place on its topside.
The two men continued to trade blows, each combatant searching for a weakness in his opponent. Spock had the advantage of Vulcan strength, speed, and martial arts training, but Khan was enhanced, modified, improved—no ordinary human.
Spock managed to apply a full Vulcan nerve pinch. Paralyzed, Khan somehow remained upright. Fury and pain fought for dominance in his expression as he refused to go down. Screaming “Noooo!” he did the impossible and broke free.
* * *
Sickbay swarmed with activity as multiple medical and engineering personnel combined their efforts and expertise to prep the motionless body. Refusing to be sidelined, Carol hobbled about on a cane and did her best to assist, even if only with advice.
Standing beside the cylinder that had been moved into the main bay, McCoy spoke anxiously to the techs who had brought it in as he referred to its present occupant.
“Get this guy out of the cryotube. Keep him in an induced coma.?
?? He turned back to the table on which rested the motionless form of James Kirk. “We’re gonna put Kirk inside.” With Carol Marcus at his side, he returned to prepping the body of the captain for insertion into the device. “It’s our only chance of preserving his brain function: induced hypothermia.”
She turned from contemplating the still body on the table. “How much of Khan’s original blood draw is left?”
His expression tightened. “None.” He whirled on a watching med tech. “I’ve already started cardiopulmonary support. Set up an automated maintenance system. Two beats per minute. You understand? Two beats.”
As soon as he was certain everything that could be done to support Kirk’s remaining physiological functions had been put in place, McCoy rushed to a nearby communicator.
“Enterprise to Spock.” What seemed like an endless wait but in reality was scarcely seconds produced nothing but maddening static. “Spock!”
* * *
On the garbage scow, the two men—one super human, the other half Vulcan—continued to grapple. Getting the science officer in the same skull-crushing grip he had applied to Alexander Marcus, Khan began to squeeze. Spock countered with another nerve pinch that, while still not putting his enemy down, forced him to release his grasp. Khan came around with a knee strike that sent the science officer onto his back but failed to render him unconscious.
Frustrated, backing away from both his opponent and the terrible pain he had again inflicted, Khan noticed a second garbage scow approaching below the one on which he was riding. Throwing his relentless opponent a look of utter defiance, he jumped.
The landing on the other vehicle would have shattered a normal person’s legs, driving both leg bones upward into the pelvis. Unharmed, though, Khan was on his feet immediately, glaring up at the transport he had just abandoned.
The last thing he expected was for Spock to follow.
Spock landed hard on the second machine. Khan hadn’t noticed him at first, but he did now. Reaching the science officer, Khan lashed out with a vicious kick that sent the Vulcan flying backward. As Spock lay on his back, Khan bent forward and began to pummel the helpless officer without mercy.
* * *
In sickbay, McCoy stood over the cryotube into which Kirk’s body had been carefully inserted.
“Activate the cryogenic sequence.”
This time it was Carol Marcus following McCoy’s orders. Her fingers adjusted the relevant control on the top of the cylinder. The transparent cover slid shut over the recumbent captain. The procedure as complete as he could make it, he turned his attention to the nearest communicator.
“McCoy to bridge. I can’t reach Spock from sickbay. Listen to me. Khan—I need Khan alive. You get that murderous sonuvabitch back on this ship right now.” He took a deep breath. “I think he can save Kirk.”
As he closed the communication, he found Carol gazing at him intently. “What about bringing one of the other members of Khan’s crew out of cryosleep? Even if they don’t revive . . . properly . . . it’s not their opinions we need.”
McCoy looked toward the form of Kirk lying motionless on the gurney, where he continued to be prepped and monitored by the team of medical technicians.
“Too risky. I think this might work with Khan. I don’t know how much alike he and his crew are, and I don’t have time to find out. If there’s even the slightest unresolved difference between their respective physiologies, then we might be doing nothing but wasting our time and what little, if any, Jim has left. And I have to have Khan alive, because I don’t know what death might do to his body . . . or the viability of its respective components.” He shook his head in dismay. “It’s Khan—or nothing.”
* * *
The bridge was the scene of almost as much activity as sickbay as Sulu and his fellow officers sought to track the movements of two people in a crowded city far below. Beyond placing the Enterprise in a stationary orbit above San Francisco, there was little more the helmsman could do.
“Can we beam them up to the ship?” Sulu asked his current second-in-command.
Chekov studied his instrumentation. “I think they’re on a transport of some kind. They keep moving too fast in and out of structural surroundings filled with people to still be on foot. I can’t get a lock on either of them.”
Looking over Sulu’s shoulders, Uhura had already come to a decision of her own. And for once there was no one to contradict her as she spoke to the helmsman.
“You can’t beam them up. Can you beam someone down?”
* * *
Training had made Spock every bit as good a fighter as his opponent, but Vulcan or not, he didn’t possess the endurance of his artificially enhanced adversary. Khan continued to pound his opponent, until the science officer was sufficiently weakened so that his enemy was again able to apply his two-handed grip to the Vulcan’s head.
And this time Spock was too beaten down and too tired to respond with a third nerve pinch.
With Spock trapped beneath him, the fight was as good as over. But it was not in Khan’s nature to dwell on this kind of victory. Killing the science officer was simply something that had to be done, a next step in securing the latest iteration of his freedom. Focused on his now-pinned foe, Khan continued to apply pressure to the Vulcan’s skull. Pressure capable of breaking bone.
Only to be distracted by a glimmer in his prey’s eyes. A flashing of light that ought not to be there.
Whirling, he saw Lieutenant Uhura materialize, phaser in hand. Taking aim with the pistol, she began firing. One shot after another struck home. They slowed but did not put him down.
Why isn’t her weapon set on kill? the battered, injured Spock wondered as he struggled to clamber back onto his feet. Ignoring the contradiction as well as the pain that now racked his body, he staggered erect, stumbled forward, and reached Khan.
Slowed by the repeated hits from Uhura’s phaser, Khan was unable to counter the punch Spock threw at him. It caught his opponent across the face, dazing him and spinning him around. As Khan staggered, refusing to go down, Spock grabbed the enhanced human’s extended arm and executed a formal Vulcan martial-arts move. Only unlike in training, this time he did not stop himself halfway through the movement.
The arm snapped. As Khan cried out, Spock employed another move to lift him, spin him, and slam him to the metal deck. Crouching atop his now-helpless enemy, the Vulcan proceeded to throw a closed fist into his face. Again and again, harder than Kirk ever had on Qo’noS. Blood pouring from his wounds, Khan no longer possessed the energy to fight back—but he refused to pass out, refused to surrender.
That was fine with Spock, who continued to pummel his adversary with the steady determination of a machine, his right fist descending in pulverizing rhythm.
Strike after strike landed, sending more blood and then bits of flesh flying. If fortune was with him and the universe possessed any degree of fairness, Spock thought grimly, Khan would remain aware until the science officer could beat him to death. It was a most human desire, but at that moment, emotional control had long since fled from the science officer’s mind.
It remained for someone else to remind him of who and what he was.
“Spock!” Uhura staggered toward the two men. “Spock!” Another crushing blow landed. “STOP!”
Overcome with fury and bloodlust, only a lifetime of training enabled Spock to make sense of what she was saying—much less pause in his assault to turn and blink at her.
Kill him, Spock told himself. Kill him now, here. So he will never have the opportunity to harm anyone ever again. Kill him because of all he has murdered. Kill him because of . . . Jim.
He drew back his right hand for the final, executioner’s blow.
Then Uhura was there, kneeling in front of him. “Spock, Spock—stop! He’s our only chance to save Kirk!”
What is logical in such a situation? he asked himself. What is the rational decision? It might not necessarily be what he personally would want to do.
It might not necessarily be what even would be considered justice.
Eyeing the beseeching Uhura, the Vulcan brought his closed fist around one last time to smash the recumbent Khan square in the face.
* * *
Kirk opened his eyes.
Sunlight. Surprising how, no matter how advanced the simulation, a human could always tell real sunlight. It meant that unless he had been placed in a very peculiar corner of the ship indeed, he was no longer on the Enterprise. He tried to sit up. That didn’t work so well and, for now at least, he had no problem giving up on the notion.
He was surrounded, all but engulfed, by a concatenation of medical instrumentation. They beeped softly and flashed occasionally, flooding his surroundings with an assortment of color extensive enough to be more readily associated with a freshly decorated Christmas tree.
A white-clad figure appeared at the side of his bed to grin down at him. Since he recognized it, it was not, properly, an angel. He could not sit up, but it seemed as if his mouth worked well enough, so he grinned back. So hoarse were the words he formed that he almost did not recognize his own voice.
“I died.”
“Oh, don’t be so melodramatic.” McCoy frowned down at him as he placed the instrument he was holding close to the side of Kirk’s head. “You were barely dead. It’s the full effects of the transfusion that really took a toll. Your body fought it right from the beginning. You were out cold for two weeks. Someday I’ll give you a full list of the anti-rejection drugs and other medications we had to pump into you to make it work. Makes for extensive reading.” The grin returned. “Tribbles handle it better.”
His mind not working quite as well as his mouth, Kirk struggled to digest all that the doctor had said. “Transfusion?”
“Your cells were heavily irradiated. We had no choice. The radiation poisoning had begun to affect your organs.”
It took a moment, but the slowly reviving Kirk gradually put everything together. The implications . . .
“Khan?”
McCoy nodded. “Once we caught him, I synthesized a serum from his super blood. Kind of like how an antivenin is produced from the actual venom? Once we got your body to accept the stuff, it . . . repaired you. Fixed damaged cells, protected healthy ones, replaced with astonishing speed those that had died. In all my career, I never saw an individual’s immunity levels rise so fast. Very useful stuff, that blood. I anticipate an assortment of awards once I get around to publishing the results.” He leaned closer. “As to possible side effects, none have been observed so far. How about it? Are ya feeling homicidal? Power mad? Despotic?”