#c:kirk

In one episode, he and Kirk fought hand to hand until they’d fallen to the ground, at which time they became a writhing mass of limbs, wanton and angry and indiscriminate. In another, they spiraled towards the Vengeance, skirting past debris against the backdrop of deep space. In the final dream, Kirk was no more than a playground bully, demanding not his lunch money, but his supplication, his very affection. The young Kirk crushed their lips together, engulfing Khan in unfamiliar sensations. His stomach turned, sickened and confused by the prospected of such completion…

Khan awoke with a start. The shock of being awake was enough to send him clambering onto the floor of the storage bay, retching up the meager surfeit of chemicals suspended in his stomach. Around him, the bodies of the seventy-two others remained asleep. He stared around in disbelief, dismayed that he was yet again left completely and utterly alone. Not a single cryo-tube had opened to release its contents- only his. 

As his mind slowly ramped up, the augment made a hasty exit before his captors could sense something was amiss. Khan did not have time to question the circumstances of his timely awakening. Instead, he navigated through the corridors of the automated Starfleet archive. The structure was perhaps eight floors deep, with a logistical center at ground-level. Once he reached the top, Khan slipped out a utility dock and headed for the nearest transit station. 

According to the news, it had been a little over a month since Khan had crashed the Vengeance in the San Francisco Bay. Today, none other than Admiral James T. Kirk would be reinstating the Enterprise, which was set to launch for five years of exploration the very next day. Unthinking, Khan went with his instinct- he needed to find Kirk. He sought answers. One did not simply dream of a half-stranger during a month of cryo.

The solution was simple. While all of Starfleet’s gaze was turned toward the reinstatement, Khan stowed away on the Enterprise by means of an equipment shuttle. He stayed out of the sight of signature detectors. Once the ship had launched into warp, the augment was free to roam the tunnels and viaducts as he pleased. Every so often, he committed a minor damage to the ship’s systems, as if to say, “Hello, Kirk. I’m here.” 

It took the crew three and a half weeks of “minor systematic failures” to realize that a more nefarious force was at work within their ship. It took another three days before Kirk and several of his best found him. Khan did not go down without a fight. He killed no one, instead opting to fracture necks or femurs. For Kirk, he saved a broken wrist, administered with a gleaming smile. The last thing he could recall was the triumph that bloomed in his gut as the captain winced, stepping back as Spock stepped in to silence Khan with a death grip.