Fiction: Star Trek: Darkness Visible, Part 7

Previously on A Mind Occasionally Voyaging…

The viewscreen flickered, digital artifacts rolling across the image as the video processors struggled to correct for the signal lost to the massive damage across the ship. Pike squinted at the screen, trying to make sense of the impossible.

“Christopher Pike. You’re still alive, my old friend.”

La’an took a step toward the screen. The color drained from her face. “Is that…” she tried.

“Khan?” Pike asked, uncertain.

“So, you still remember me, Admiral,” Khan mused. “I cannot help but be touched. I, of course, still remember you.”

“Khan?” Pike asked again. “What is this? How? Why?”

“Surely I have made my meaning plain, Admiral,” Khan smiled. “I mean to avenge myself upon you. First, I deprive your ship of power and when I swing around, I mean to deprive you of your life. But for now, you live, and so I wanted you to know who it was who had beaten you.”

It took Pike a second to compose himself. That break gave La’an time to lose the battle she was fighting for self-control. She stepped into the frame of the viewscreen. “Khan. Noonien. Singh.” There was another word, too. Her lips formed it but she could put no sound behind it. “Monster.”

“You destroyed that colony. Killed all those people,” she accused.

Khan regarded the interloper with haughty curiosity. “I don’t know you,” he said. “And yet, your face is not unfamiliar.”

Her features twisted into rage. “Commander La’an Noonien-Singh,” she said through clenched teeth.

Khan smiled. “Of course. You’re from Mannu’s line, aren’t you? A reunion of many sorts. Truly this is an auspicious occasion.”

“Murderer,” she spat. “There were four thousand people on Salius.”

Khan’s smile twisted into a sneer. “I merely liberated a political prisoner from unjust confinement.”

He made a beckoning gesture to his side, and Una Chin-Riley stepped into the frame of the viewscreen. “Sorry, Chris,” she said, her face expressionless. “I wish there had been another way. Do the smart thing. There’s too much blood on your hands already. You were never good at protecting your right.”

He refused to look Una in the eye and focused on Khan instead. “Okay, Khan. It’s me you want. There’s no reason for more bloodshed. I’ll have myself beamed aboard. Spare the others.”

Khan lifted his chin slightly to look down his nose at his abased adversary. “I see the years have not diminished your noble spirit,” he said, “Allow me to make a counter-proposal. I will accept your terms, only if, in addition to yourself, you hand over all your data and materials regarding the project called Genesis.”

“What’s Genesis?” Pike asked, playing dumb.

“Do not insult my intelligence, Admiral,” Khan said. “We observed your flight path from Regula. Had I known you would go there first, we could have avoided this… unpleasantness.”

Pike started to reply, but Khan cut him off. “And furthermore, you are to be delivered to me personally by my beloved scion, Commander Noonien-Singh.” He raised a hand, preemptively silencing Pike’s protest. “I assure you no harm will come to the commander.”

“Time,” Pike struggled. “We need some time to retrieve the data.”

“I give you sixty seconds, Admiral,” Khan said.

By now, Doctor Chapel and a medical team were moving the most severely injured to the turbolift. “Clear the bridge,” Pike ordered. As the cadets joined the wounded in the turbolift, Pike stood, tugged at his shirt to straighten it, then turned away from the viewscreen.

“Admiral, I can’t allow you to-” La’an started.

“Keep nodding,” Pike whispered, “Like I’m giving orders. Nyota-” he looked to Uhura and drew his finger across his throat. She silenced the transmission.

“I can’t believe Una would help Khan,” Pike said.

“She’s been locked up for thirty years, Chris,” Sam said. “Even longer than Khan. She may not be the person you remember.”

“Protecting your right,” Pike repeated. “She said protecting your right. All the hits we took were to port.” He moved to Xon’s station and tried to pretend he was operating the computer. “Can we reroute the starboard capacitor banks directly to phaser control?”

“Forty-five seconds,” Khan announced. Pike nodded urgently at the screen.

“That would give us sufficient power for perhaps two shots,” Xon said.

“Not enough against their shields,” La’an said.

“But,” Pike said, “If he’s going to beam me aboard, he’ll need to lower his shields, just for a second.”

“I don’t know if we can time it that tight,” Sam said. “The state we’re in.”

“We don’t have a lot of choice,” said Pike. “How the hell does he know about Genesis?”

“Khan indicated that he had been to Regula,” Xon observed. “Logic indicates that he was also responsible for the loss of communication with Regula One.”

“Jim…” Sam said.

“Admiral,” Khan prompted. Pike nodded for Uhura to restore communications.

“Khan, please,” Pike said. “The bridge is smashed. We’re working on it, but the computers…”

“Time is a luxury you don’t have, Admiral.”

Pike turned away again. “Prepare to send the data,” he said. “It’s unlikely we have anything in our files that he doesn’t already know. It might buy us a little time.”

When Pike looked back at the viewscreen, one of Khan’s lieutenants had moved into the picture and was whispering something to him. Khan suddenly sprang to his feet and with an angry gesture, cut his transmission.

“The hell?” Sam said.

“Reliant is breaking off,” Sulu said, puzzled. The viewscreen showed the other ship turning.

“Admiral,” Xon said, “I have another vessel on sensors. It’s Galileo.”