Chapter Text
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“What exactly is Genesis? Well, put simply, Genesis is life from lifelessness.” –Carol Marcus
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Haven, Maine—July 10th, 1983
On the morning of the day Harold Erickson buried his daughter, he woke to the familiar smell of coffee brewing. Today was the first day he’d woken up to a world without Holly in it and, although he didn’t know it yet, today would also be the last day of Harold’s life. By the time tomorrow morning rolled around, Harold would be dead, and a man known as Khan would rise up to take his place.
But that’s another story.
This story begins with a cat. Specifically, a grizzled, grey tomcat named Leo.
Once upon a time, Leo had been Holly’s beloved pet. After years of begging her parents for a furry friend, Harold and Marla had finally acquiesced and taken her to the local animal shelter for her fifth birthday. Much to their surprise, she’d showed little interest in the adorable four-month-old goldendoodle with the wagging tail, or even the mewling litter of wriggling kittens.
Instead, Holly insisted on bringing home the crusty, elderly cat in the corner kennel, the one everyone else (understandably, in Harold’s opinion) had simply overlooked.
“Wouldn’t you rather take home one of those kittens, honey? Look how cute they are,” Harold had attempted, with a meaningful glance in their direction.
There were four of them in the litter, all stumbling around like tiny drunkards on their dime-sized paws and gazing blurrily at the world with their freshly-opened, baby blue eyes.
Holly sighed and rolled her eyes heavenward. “Everyone wants a kitten, Daddy,” she explained patiently, as if SHE were the college professor and HE were the five-year-old. “Everyone but me. I want Leo,” she declared, leaving no room for argument.
She pointedly hoisted Leo’s soft, stocky body into her arms and stroked the cat’s blue-grey fur. In response, Leo closed his golden eyes and purred so loud it drowned out even the needy, high-pitched mews of the nearby kittens.
Leo lived with them for a little over a year. He was an unassuming, almost homely-looking thing. His fur was scraggly, one of his crooked ears was clipped from his time as a stray, and his eyes were perpetually rimmed with gunk. He stomped stiffly and gracelessly around the house on account of his arthritic right hip.
Still, Holly loved the hell out of that cat, and he returned all the love he was given, ten-fold. He allowed her, without complaint, to carry him around the house like stuffed toy. He slept with Holly every night, paws kneading in her red-hair where strands of it splayed out over the pillow case, and she woke up every morning to the sound of him purring loudly in her ear—
—until, of course, the morning she woke up to silence and an empty bed. Leo, it turned out, had been skillfully hiding the signs of illness, as cats were wont to do. He’d crawled under the couch sometime in the night—to die with dignity, or maybe even to spare Holly the sight. That seemed like the kind of thing Leo would’ve done. He was a good cat.
Leo had already been old when they got him, Harold explained later that morning to his grief-stricken first grader. The end of Leo’s life had been a good one, he reminded her. He’d been warm, well-fed, and well-cared-for ever since that day in the shelter, and he’d died peacefully in his sleep.
“That’s about as good as any of us can hope for, honey…to die peacefully, in our sleep,” Harold assured her.
Holly wailed louder, burying her small face in her hands. Harold was faced suddenly, shamefully, with his own powerlessness in the face of death. He remembered the day Holly had been born, how he’d supported her soft, downy head in his overly large hand, how he’d thought so fervently in that moment that he would do anything to protect this little girl…anything.
But Harold could not protect her from this, and somehow his attempts to do so only made things worse. “Leo’s in a better place, honey. He was a good cat…a really, really good cat, so I’m sure he’s in heaven now, and God will take real good care of him,” he tried.
Harold didn’t even believe in God. He’d been a staunch atheist since that first intro to philosophy class he’d sat in as an undergraduate. He was grasping at straws now, desperately trying to find the magic words to soothe Holly’s heart.
It was the wrong thing to say.
“Harold,” Marla ventured, warningly, but it was too late.
“Yeah, well I HATE God...I HATE HIM,” Holly screamed, dropping her hands from her face and glaring fiercely at her father. “Leo isn’t God’s cat. God can get his own damn cat for all I care, but not Leo. Leo’s MY cat. He’s mine.”
Harold was reminded again of the howling, red-faced newborn she’d been only six years before. How was he supposed to do this? How could he look his daughter in the eyes and explain to her the immutable reality of death?
As Holly sobbed, the lamp on the side table began to rise slowly, threateningly, into the air behind her. It was soon joined by Marla’s ceramic unicorn figurine, the vase of flowers on the kitchen table, the half-empty glass of orange juice—
“Honey,” Harold started, cautiously. “You’re doing IT again…you—”
The objects, a ramshackle assortment of all the most fragile, breakable belongings they owned, came crashing down around them all at once.
“I’m sorry, Daddy,” Holly shrieked afterward, mercifully ending the oppressive stretch of silence that had fallen over their family like a magic spell. The floor was littered with sharp, jagged pieces of broken things that had once been whole.
Marla swooped in and scooped Holly into her arms. She looked helplessly at Harold over Holly’s shoulder, appearing about as lost as Harold felt.
A year later, Marla was dead too.
Harold hadn’t even had time to bury her. He’d been too concerned with finding Holly, and then, too preoccupied with keeping Holly safe from the government agency that had killed her mother, and that would kill Holly too—or worse—if they got their hands on her. Harold had taken his young daughter and gone on the lam, leaving his wife’s body stiff body behind on the laundry room floor, lying in a spilled pool of liquid detergent. Her eyes were open, and he could see what looked like fingerprints around her neck.
But that’s another story.
This story began with a cat, because that cat had been Holly’s first brush with death. Everyone had to face death eventually—Harold knew that— and how a man dealt with death was at least as important as how a man dealt with life.
Harold couldn’t help but feel like he’d failed some test of cosmic importance. He was reminded of the many, many students who had stormed up to his desk, demanding a better grade than the one he’d assigned them. It’s not fair, they always cried, and they were right… it WASN’T fair.
God could’ve taken some other little girl, Harold thought, bitterly. Holly had been HIS. HIS, damn it. But there was no use in bemoaning the unfairness of it all—that was a battle no mortal man could ever hope to win.
What’s done is done, and what’s dead is dead.
Harold’s daughter was dead, and today…he would bury her.
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Starship Enterprise, Stardate 8130.3
Admiral Kirk could still remember his first attempt at the Kobayashi Maru test. He had been a fresh-faced cadet, impossibly young, and already well on his way to becoming the youngest captain in Starfleet history. As was the case with many gifted young people, he was used to things coming more easily for him than they did for his peers. To make matters worse, he had exceptionally high standards for his own performance and expected nothing short of success from himself, no matter the odds.
Bones accused him of being too smart for his own damn good, and sometimes, Kirk suspected he was right.
The then-cadet Kirk had taken the loss of the Kobayashi Maru personally and responded with, he could admit it now, more than a little hubris. In a demonstration of characteristic stubbornness—some might call it “persistence” or “grit” but Kirk liked to call a spade a spade— he flat-out refused to accept defeat. On his third attempt at the Kobayashi Maru, he became the first cadet in history to win the no-win scenario.
Spock liked to call his solution “unique.” Others called it “inspired.” Kirk called it “cheating.”
Kirk could not help but feel somewhat hypocritical, then, being the one to administer the infamous Kobayashi Maru exam. Decades now separated the aging Admiral Kirk from his younger self, but here he was—lecturing another fresh-faced captain-in-training, just as impossibly young and bull-headed as he had once been: Lieutenant, Junior Grade Saavik.
Saavik was like a daughter to him, despite the fact that Kirk had not had the pleasure of raising her himself. She’d been sent to live with Spock’s parents on Vulcan after her rescue from Hellguard. Kirk and Spock had discussed the possibility of adopting the foundling themselves, but had ultimately decided that their careers in Starfleet necessitated a lifestyle unconducive to child-rearing. They simply were unable to provide the…stability…a child needed: especially a child as traumatized and mal-socialized as Saavik had been.
When Kirk had first made Saavik’s acquaintance, she’d been a ten-year-old, semi-feral street urchin… hell-bent on survival by tooth and claw. Of course, one would never know it, looking at her now. The young woman sitting before him was poised, polished, professional: the very picture of a Starfleet officer.
Kirk’s relationship with the Kobayashi Maru had come full-circle. His role now was to look this beautiful young woman in the eye and impress upon her the immutable reality of death, hoping against hope (as all parents did) to spare Saavik the same mistakes he had made at her age. It was no small task, and Saavik was not inclined to make it any easier on him.
“I don’t believe this was a fair test of my command abilities,” Saavik protested, obviously (to Kirk) perplexed and unnerved by the direction the exam had taken.
Saavik’s posture was impeccably straight, and her uniform, unwrinkled. Her impassive features did a passable job of concealing the emotions Kirk knew to be roiling beneath the calm surface. The veneer might have fooled someone else, but Kirk had been married to Spock for too long for that trick to work on him. No, Saavik was having feelings, alright. Underneath her strict Vulcan control was a little girl screaming—“But it’s not fair!”
The kicker was that she was right: it wasn’t fair…and that was the point.
“And why not?” he queried, bluntly, ensuring his own tumultuous emotions were concealed neatly beneath his professional mask. Despite her unique heritage, Saavik had been brought up in the Vulcan way, and Vulcans had learned to expect a certain degree of emotionalism from humans. There were times when it behooved one to act contrary to expectations.
“Because…there was no way to win,” came her response.
“A no-win situation is a possibility every commander may face. Has that never occurred to you?”
“No, sir. It has not.”
“How we deal with death is at least as important as how we deal with life, wouldn’t you say?” he ventured.
Saavik’s jaw tightened, almost imperceptibly. “As I indicated, Admiral, that thought had not occurred to me.”
And how that acknowledgement must rankle—Kirk thought, but did not say. “Well,” he said. “Now you have something new to think about. Carry on.”
Perhaps the reason Kirk was taking such pains to impress this lesson upon Saavik was because there was no way for him to do so for his younger self. That ship had sailed—not that he entirely regretted the direction his voyage had taken him, he thought, as he emerged from the bridge simulator room and spotted Spock waiting for him in the corridor.
“Aren’t you dead?” Kirk asked him. “Your cadets destroyed the simulator room, and you with it.”
Spock tilted his head in acknowledgement of the fact. “The Kobayashi Maru scenario frequently wreaks havoc with students…and equipment. As I recall, you took the test three times yourself.”
“Don’t remind me,” Kirk muttered.
Spock raised an eyebrow. Kirk had been maudlin on the subject of time, as of late, and everyone close to him had noticed.
As difficult as it had been watching Saavik in that chair (instead of him), there was a part of him that found the abdication of responsibility a relief. The Kobayashi Maru hit differently when the people in that room were people you loved.
“Hey, what about me?” McCoy groused from somewhere behind him. Kirk hadn’t noticed him filing out of the simulator with another wave of cadets. “I was dead too. What about MY performance?”
“Physician, heal thyself,” Kirk murmured.
“That’s it? Is that all you got to say?” McCoy complained.
“Fortunately, as you have reminded us on numerous occasions: you are a doctor…not an actor,” Spock retorted, dead-pan.
Kirk snorted in surprised amusement, while McCoy stood staring at Spock with an expression of disbelief on his face…which bore a lot more wrinkles than it used to (not that he would ever tell Bones that).
“Why, Jim…I think I’ve just been insulted.”
“Observant as always, Doctor,” Spock confirmed.
Kirk decided it would be prudent to change the subject. He cleared his throat. “By the way, Spock…thank you for the birthday gift.”
Before he’d left the house that morning, Kirk had discovered a beautiful antique tome on his desk—The Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens.
“I know of your fondness for antiques,” Spock acknowledged, his voice soft and warm as he gazed steadfastly back at him.
McCoy scoffed. “Hey, Spock’s not the only one who gave you a birthday gift. I got you something real thoughtful, too. Where’s MY thank you?”
Kirk grinned. McCoy had slipped Kirk his birthday gift—a bottle of illegal Romulan ale and…insultingly…a pair of reading glasses—into his hands before the simulation with a minimum of fanfare. Kirk knew for a fact that McCoy was only demanding a “thank you” for comedic effect. Kirk had never met anyone more uncomfortable with being on the receiving end of gratitude than McCoy, and that included Spock.
McCoy had offered a mumbled “happy birthday, Jim” and made a swift exit before Kirk could open it.
“Yes, about that. THIS ONE…” Kirk pointed at Spock. “…got me a book, an ANTIQUE book…with exceptionally small font, I might add, and YOU…” Kirk pointed to McCoy. "...got me READING GLASSES. Why, one would almost think the two of you were ganging up on me. Reading glasses and a book…and OLD book…Any chance you were trying to tell me something?”
They both blinked back at him, innocently. Spock spoke first. “None that I’m conscious of…except, of course, happy birthday…surely, the best of times.”
McCoy shrugged. “For most patients of your age, I generally administer Retnax Five, but…”
“I’m allergic to Retnax Five.”
“Exactly. Now, be a good patient and wear your reading glasses so your eyesight doesn't get any worse than it already is. Oh, don't look at me like that. I've seen you squinting and holding the damn padd an inch away from your face. Anyway, enough about that. How did you like the OTHER thing I got you?”
“Oh, you mean the ILLEGAL contraband you just gifted me with…on Starfleet property? THAT other thing?”
“It’s for medicinal purposes,” McCoy said, smugly, rocking back on his heels and looking exceedingly pleased with himself. “I've got a border ship that brings me in a case every now and then across the Neutral Zone.”
“…Thank you,” Kirk managed, glumly. He’d shoved the reading glasses deep in his bag. When he got home, he’d bury them deep in a dresser drawer and, if he had anything to say about it, they’d STAY there. The ale on the other hand…
“Now don’t be a prig. It’s your BIRTHDAY, not a damn funeral.”
Kirk was spared having to come up with a response by the sudden (but not unwelcome) intrusion of a voice over the comm—“Captain Spock, Captain Spock…space shuttle leaving in fifteen minutes.”
Kirk looked up at him. “Where are you off to?” he asked him.
Spock pulled down on his uniform top to straighten it as Kirk looked on fondly. He’d witnessed his husband perform this same small, almost self-conscious gesture more times than a mere mortal could ever hope to count, and he hoped to see it a million times more before it came time for him to leave this mortal coil behind.
“The Enterprise. I must check in before your inspection. And you?”
“Home,” Kirk answered.
McCoy’s ears perked up. “Any chance we can open your… birthday gift… together, Jim? I’ve got a hankering for some good medicine.”
“Don’t you have an entire case of it back home, Bones?”
McCoy scowled, but not too deeply—he knew in his heart that Kirk would share.
Kirk extended his hand to Spock, who reached back. Their index and middle fingers brushed against each other in an ozh’esta…and then Spock was walking away from him, down the corridor, his figure growing smaller as he moved further away—and then he was gone.
Notes:
Much of the dialogue is a remixed version of the dialogue from The Wrath of Khan. There are also some direct quotes from Pet Sematary...can you find them?
Chapter Text
Haven, Maine—July 11th, 1983
That night, Khan dreamt.
Marla was standing before him, watching him intently, as if she had been waiting for him all this time. She did not appear to him as she had in life. Instead, she appeared exactly as she had been when he’d last seen her, many months ago, lying stiff and dead on the laundry room floor.
His deceased wife was clad in the same pair of red athleisure shorts he’d seen her wear around the house when doing housework more times than he could possibly count. They’d become as familiar to him as the back of his own hand. He’d never thought he would see them again, that he would see HER again. She was barefoot, and…as he lifted his gaze toward her unblinking face—
—Yup, there were the murderer’s fingerprints, marring her slender neck like a brand. Her slim chest beneath the oversized t-shirt was still, motionless, unmoved by any sign of respiration. The spilled laundry detergent that had pooled around her body during the struggle that resulted in her death was matted in her long hair. A tangle of dark, coppery strands stuck messily to the side of one white cheek.
“I’m dreaming,” Khan whispered.
Marla did not look away. She did not so much as blink at him with her wide, dead fish eyes.
“I’m dreaming,” Khan repeated. “You’re dead. I’m dreaming.”
“Harold,” Marla croaked, and her voice…it was terrible.
He had loved her voice in life, but the voice with which she spoke to him now was not the voice of a living woman. This was the voice of death. It was wrong…monotone and cold in a way it had never been before. It made him want to claw his eardrums right out of his head.
“I’m not…I’m not Harold, not anymore.” Khan managed to choke out. “You’ve been dead a long time, Marla, and I…I’ve…changed.”
“Harold,” Marla repeated, a second time.
He did not correct her again. Khan knew the dead felt no pain, but every word that escaped her tortured throat sounded effortful…agonizing.
“The door must not be opened,” said the voice of death from Marla’s beautiful mouth.
“What door, Marla? What are you talking about?” Khan exclaimed; his voice was almost as hoarse as his dead wife’s. He tried to scream, to wake himself up, but he could not. He felt numb, paralyzed, rooted to the spot where he stood, staring at the specter of the woman he’d loved.
This is a dream, he reminded himself. You WILL wake up, soon. It’s only a dream.
“Don’t go beyond the door, no matter how much you feel you need to, no matter how much you WANT to. The barrier was not made to be broken, Harold. There is power there. It is old and it is restless—”
Khan cut her off. “Don’t open the door. Don’t go through it. Fucked up shit will happen if I don’t heed your warning. Roger that, honey. Message received. Is that all? Can we…can we stop this now? I’m ready to wake up. Please.”
Khan felt more than half-way hysterical. Dread sickened his stomach and acid rose threateningly up into his throat.
It’s only a dream, he reminded himself. He’d been through a lot of fucked-up shit over the past few days…months…YEARS. His wife and daughter had been murdered, he’d killed the men responsible using the power of his own mind as a mortal weapon, and just yesterday, he’d thrown in his lot with some kind of weird, supernatural cult of telepathic vampires. It was only natural that he’d have nightmares. That’s all this was. That’s all.
Marla waited for him to fall silent with a patience only the dead could achieve, and then— “Your reasons will seem like good reasons, but all the sweetest-smelling reasons in the world won’t change the fact that you do it because you want to. You play God because you WANT to, Harold…but you leave Holly out of it, you hear me?”
“What about Holly? What are you…what are you TALKING about?” Khan demanded.
Khan stumbled back as Marla approached, recoiling from the body of the woman he’d once loved – was she still in there? — but Marla reached for his arm and held it with an iron-clad strength that belied her frail form. Her hand was cold, and her palm was tacky with liquid detergent. And yet, somehow, it BURNED. He shuddered involuntarily and gooseflesh rippled over his skin.
“Remember…” Marla whispered in that painful, scratchy voice. She leaned closer, close enough to kiss him. Her mouth smelled of dirt and rot. “Sometimes, dead is better.”
Khan woke up.
He did not scream. He did not flail. The dream simply receded as consciousness returned, and the pain with it: a package deal. He was greeted with a headache that put yesterday’s post-telepathy hangover to shame. His throat felt worse than it had the day after that Grateful Dead concert he’d attended as a young man, a million years ago.
Yesterday, Harold had sacrificed whatever was left of his humanity, and for what? Oh, he’d had his reasons…grief, revenge, desperation, apathy, survival…but in the end, maybe Marla was right: all the sweetest-smelling reasons in the world wouldn’t change the fact that he’s done it because he wanted to. Whatever he was now, whatever he had become when he’d breathed in the Steam wafting out of the cannister—he was powerful, and he was HUNGRY. The worst part of it was… he LIKED it.
Marla and Holly were in the ground, and Harold—the person he’d been only yesterday—was buried deep within his psyche where he could no longer protest the things Khan’s new life—and the beings he shared it with—would require of him.
By the time Khan stepped out of the RV and into the deceptively bright light of a Maine summer day, he’d almost forgotten about the dream. But then, he spotted the fingerprints on his bicep, still tacky with drying detergent…and he remembered.
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Starship log, stardate 8130.4
Log entry by First Officer Pavel Chekov. Starship Reliant on orbital approach to Ceti Alpha VI, in connection with Project Genesis. We are continuing our search for a lifeless planet to satisfy the requirements of a test site for the Genesis Experiment. So far, no success.
“What is it, Captain?” Chekov asked. Truth to be told, he wasn’t certain he wanted to know.
Preliminary scans had indicated the planet was incapable of supporting lifeforms. And yet…the readings from one of the dynoscanners had picked up a minor energy flux. Captain Terrell and Chekov both beamed to the planet’s surface, more than half-expecting the source of the flux to be nothing more than a particle of preanimate matter, or some other fluke confounding their machinery.
Instead, Chekov’s tricorder had led them through the ruin of Ceti Alpha IV, all the way to the dry, ridged invertebrate that lay at their feet. The organism, Ceti Alpha IV’s only surviving indigenous lifeform, writhed beneath the dry sand like a monstrous eel.
Captain Terrell sighed. “Well, whatever it is…it’s alive. Dr. Marcus is not going to be pleased. She said we can’t have so much as a single microbe or the show’s off.”
“Perhaps…it can be transplanted, sir?” Chekov ventured.
“….Where?” Terrell asked.
Chekov had no answer to that.
Terrell let out a resigned sigh and flipped his communicator open. “Captain Terrell to Reliant.”
“Commander Kyle here, sir,” came the response.
“Looks like the scanners weren’t malfunctioning after all. There’s life here alright, or what passes for it, at least. Prepare a science team to beam down to our coordinates. If Ceti Alpha VI ends up being another dead end, we can offer this to Dr. Marcus as a consolation prize. It IS a previously unknown species, even if it’s not much to look at.”
“Acknowledged, Captain,” Commander Kyle responded, sounding amused. “But I doubt it’ll do any good. That woman has a one-track mind. She eats, sleeps, and breathes that Genesis Device of hers.”
“Worth a try, Commander. Terrell out.”
Chekov was crouched over the organism, watching with morbid curiosity as it wriggled through the sand at a snail’s pace. “We are bringing it with us, sir? Back to the ship?”
At Terrell’s confirming nod, Chekov asked, hesitantly—“Do we…have to, sir?”
Terrell nodded again.
Chekov shuddered. He couldn’t have said why, but he had a bad feeling about the last survivor of Ceti Alpha VI. If it were up to him, he’d leave the thing in the ground where they’d found it and break out of orbit with all due haste.
Truth to be told, Chekov had a bad feeling about this entire endeavor. Genesis, if it worked as Dr. Marcus intended, would be a miracle of truly biblical proportion. A device that could create life from lifelessness, if used as Dr. Marcus intended, could be the difference between life and death for Federation colonists seeking to terraform a new world to inhabit. Genesis could transform a previously barren, hostile landscape into a habitable paradise in a matter of mere hours.
If used by someone less scrupulous and well-meaning than the good scientist; however, Genesis could become the most effective means of genocide in the known galaxy. If enemies of the Federation, say the Klingons, were to get their grubby hands on it… The Genesis Device could wipe out life as we know it on planet earth, leaving behind a beautiful but empty tabula rasa where billions of human beings had once lived.
As a Starfleet officer, Chekov was an enthusiastic proponent of progress and scientific discovery. He was not a superstitious man by nature, and he was far from a luddite. However, Chekov suspected Dr. Marcus, like Icarus, was flying too close to the sun by giving human beings —and worse, Klingons—the power to play God.
Some doors were simply not meant to be opened, no matter how good your reasoning and how pure your intentions. Humanity hadn’t opened a pandora’s box of this magnitude since the advent of nuclear power. If history was anything to go by, once that box was open…there’d be no going back.
Captain Terrel did not seem plagued by the same apocalyptic premonitions that plagued Chekov, and if he was, he hid his emotions with such control that even a Vulcan would have been envious.
The organism was transported on his command to a tank in one of the Reliant’s labs, where the scientists greeted the incoming specimen with more of an enthusiastic welcome than the poor, homely thing had received from the away team.
Surprisingly, Dr. Carol Marcus did not respond to their communications when the away team had returned to the bridge. Nor did her son, David, or any of the other scientists working on the Genesis project.
“I’d have thought she’d be having kittens waiting for us to deliver the verdict,” the captain said, with no small amount of confusion. “Try them again.”
There was a moment of uneasy silence on the bridge as this communication, too, went unanswered. “Plot a course to Regula I,” Terrell ordered after a moment’s deliberation.
The captain rerouted the vessel— with both Chekov and the sole specimen from Alpha Ceti VI on board—towards the silent space station. Days later, Starfleet Command would receive an SOS from the Reliant at its last known location, stationed at Regula I. There had been no further communication from them ever since.
Admiral Kirk, as the highest-ranking officer aboard the closest starship to Regula I, was given the order to investigate. He’d gone straight to the quarters he shared with Spock to inform him of what he’d learned. He paced as he waited for Spock to respond, his hands fluttering nervously at his sides like a pair of panicked birds.
“If memory serves, Regula I is a scientific research laboratory. A former partner of yours, a Dr. Carol Marcus, works there, does she not?” Spock spoke serenely. He’d been meditating before Kirk’s abrupt arrival.
Kirk nodded, gravely. “And the Reliant…our Mr. Chekov is the ship’s first officer. Anyway, I told Starfleet all we had was a boatload of children but…we’re the only ship in the Quadrant. Spock, these cadets of yours, how good are they? How will they respond under REAL pressure?”
“As with all living things, each according to their gifts. Of course, the ship is yours.”
“No,” Kirk answered with a frown. “That won’t be necessary. Just get me to Regula I.”
Spock stood in one smooth, liquid motion, the voluminous silken folds of his Vulcan meditation robe pooling around him. “As a teacher on a training mission, I am content to command the Enterprise. If we are to go on actual duty, it is clear that the senior officer on board must assume command.”
“It may be nothing…garbled communications. You take the ship.”
“Jim, you proceed from a false assumption. I am a Vulcan. I have no ego to bruise.”
As always, Kirk was reminded how well Spock knew him, and how well he knew Spock in return. “You’re about to remind me that logic alone dictates your actions.”
“I would not remind you of that which you know so well. If I may be so bold, it was a mistake for you to accept promotion. As I believe I told you at the time, and on numerous occasions thereafter: commanding a starship is your first best destiny. Anything else is a waste of material.”
“I would not presume to debate you,” Kirk said, smiling fondly at Spock despite his undeniable irritation at Spock’s statement. A Vulcan, of course, would never say: I told you so. That would be…illogical. Spock would, however, be certain to remind Kirk of this one error in judgment at every available opportunity for the remainder of their days.
“That is wise,” Spock answered, his lips quirking upward with pleasure before he could entirely prevent it. “In any case, were I to invoke logic, logic clearly dictates that the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.”
“Or the one,” Kirk finished. This was not the first time Spock had spoken those exact words to him. He could recite the saying in his sleep.
“You are my superior officer. You are also my t’hy’la. I have been and always shall be yours.”
Kirk laid a hand on Spock’s shoulder and squeezed. With one final, lingering look at Spock’s face, Kirk turned to leave.
They walked to the bridge together, steps in sync, through the corridors that were so familiar, and yet so different, from the ones they had walked when they were both young men…when they had gone through one life and death scenario after another over the course of their original five-year mission.
Kirk’s hair had been dark blonde then, not a single grey strand in sight. His uniform had been gold, and he had never even entertained the notion that he might one day need reading glasses.
“So much for the little training cruise,” Sulu remarked when they told him. “Plotting a course for Regula I, Admiral.”
With Sulu at the helm, looking scarcely a day older than he’d been when Kirk had served as his captain, and Scotty in the engine room, preparing for warp speed, this moment could have belonged to another era of Kirk’s life. If not for the grounding sight of Saavik seated beside Sulu with her hair in its customary tight bun…Kirk might have believed himself to be a man displaced in time.
“I’m sorry,” Kirk said…to Saavik…to the rest of her peers on the bridge. They were so young. “I’m going to have to ask you to grow up a little sooner than you expected.”
Well, there was only so much you could do to prepare your kids for the world, Kirk reflected. He could only hope that what he had done…what Spock had done…would be enough.
Notes:
Just like in the last chapter, some of this dialogue was taken from Wrath of Khan, and there are some quotes from Pet Sematary too.
Chapter 3: The gut feeling
Chapter Text
Haven, Maine—July 11th, 1983
Like Khan, every member of the True Knot received a new name after completing the initiation rite. Mostly, SJ had explained— slipping her small hand into his and speaking directly into Khan’s mind in lieu of speaking allowed and risking another lapse into stuttering—the name was chosen by the member who had initially recruited them. Members had a certain level of responsibility for those they’d personally recruited, just as parents were responsible for their children.
Since Black-Eyed Susan had recruited both of them, SJ and Khan were, in a sense, siblings; although they could not have been more dissimilar in physical appearance. Khan was tall and gangly, with light blue eyes and thin hair as pale as straw. His facial features were distinctly Nordic. SJ, in comparison, was dark-skinned and small, with a soft, full body type and a round, moon-shaped face. Her black hair was twisted into long locs that she twirled around her short fingers in a blur of perpetual motion. The locs were adorned with colorful beads. When she thought no one was looking, she would put them in her mouth, parting her rose bud-shaped lips to chew on the soft plastic.
Black-Eyed Susan, having a taste for the literary, had named SJ after a famous writer and Khan after an epic poem. Some members of the True Knot bore such idiosyncratic and alliterative monikers as “Apron Annie” or “Diesel Doug.” Others boasted nicknames inspired by personal attributes, as was the case with “The Irish Rose”—a looker who originally hailed from...you guessed it…Ireland.
Khan’s own name was fine enough, he supposed, but he doubted he would be able to keep a straight face while addressing the man dubbed “Crow Daddy.”
According to SJ, Crow Daddy had been an unwashed street urchin when he first joined the True Knot, some three or four odd millennia ago. There’s only so long a man can stand to be reminded of childhood deprivation before he gets a mighty hankering to rebrand himself. Say what you will about “Crow Daddy,” but it certainly beat being called “Rank Hank.”
By late afternoon on that first day, Khan was already getting used to people calling themselves the strangest things. Therefore, he didn’t so much as raise an eyebrow when the woman introduced herself as “The Wendigo.”
“Any chance I can call you ‘Wendy’ for short?” Khan asked, not even turning to face her as she approached from behind.
“No,” the woman said. She hitched up the hem of her overly-long skirt and sat beside him in the dirt.
Khan, an introvert by nature, had found it necessary to retreat after being subjected to a whirlwind of introductions to the members of his new “family.” He sought solitude a way away from the campsite and found it here, on a large outcropping overlooking the rocky shoreline.
“No, of course not,” Khan sighed. “That would be too damn easy. Someone might even mistake you for a normal person.”
“Can’t have that, can we?” The Wendigo retorted.
Khan turned his head to look at her. She was not an attractive woman, by any means, although she might’ve been once. She was underweight and pale, with wide dark eyes set like gemstones in a gaunt, hungry-looking face. She’d chewed her fingernails to the quick, and it looked like she’d had a field day chewing on her lips too.
The Wendigo noticed Khan’s shudder and smiled broadly, revealing sharp teeth that rivaled those of a shark. “Do you know where I got my name?” she asked.
“I know the myths,” Khan answered. “Some native tribes believe the Wendigo is an evil, cannibalistic spirit. I remember hearing about that one guy who killed and ate his entire family, kids and all. When they caught him, he claimed he was possessed by The Wendigo.”
“Full marks, professor,” The Wendigo said, with a bow of her dark head. “Now, why do you suppose the name was given to me?”
Khan shrugged, but she had his attention now. “Is that not what we are? I may be new to this, but I had no illusions when I joined. Our immortality is bought and paid for at the expense of our humanity. You and me, madame, we’re the stuff of nightmares now. We’re monsters…cannibals who eat our own.”
The Wendigo’s smile grew somehow wider, becoming a grotesque rictus that contorted her thin features and drew blood from the cracks in her dry, abused lips. “Essentially correct, although I would argue that what we do doesn’t fit the definition of cannibalism. We don’t, as you say, eat our own. We may have been humans once, but we’re GODS now.”
Khan turned away from the gruesome sight of her smile. “Whatever you say, lady. Listen, I get it. Really, I do. We all have to come up with stories to help us sleep at night. My guess is, that’s all the Wendigo ever was. Some starving bastard ate someone he used to love, and he needed someone else to blame. The Wendigo fit the bill.”
“Just because something is a story doesn’t mean it isn’t true,” she asserted, her voice toneless and soft.
“Sure. The thing is, I just joined a supernatural vampire cult. I’m ready to believe pretty much anything at this point,” Khan conceded, quickly. He wanted this conversation to be over. He wanted her to go away so he could be back to being alone.
“I can show you.” She permitted a slim sliver of silence to pass, and then— “Where did you bury your daughter?”
Khan reared back at the sudden mention of Holly. “I don’t see how that’s any of your damn business,” he snarled, baring his teeth at her. They weren’t nearly as sharp as hers, but they threatened violence, nonetheless.
Yesterday, Black-Eyed Susan had offered to help him bury Holly’s body. He’d politely but firmly declined and shook his head at SJ when she’d moved to follow him. He walked into the woods alone, his arms full of the blood-stained, blanket-wrapped bundle that had once been his only child. He couldn’t help but feel that the grim task was for him and him alone.
Holly didn’t belong in Khan’s new life. He didn’t want Black-Eyed Susan’s hands on her body. He didn’t want Holly’s name on The Wendigo’s dirty lips. He wanted Holly to be left OUT of this.
‘You leave Holly OUT of it, you hear me,’ the specter of his dead wife had said to him in his dream last night. Hearing its echo chilled him to the bone.
The Wendigo paid little heed to Khan’s unspoken threat, but she seemed to know when it was time to leave well enough alone. She rose to her feet and beat the dirt off the fabric of her long skirt.
“We’re gods, Harold,” she repeated.
“Whatever. Are you even allowed to do that…call me by my dead name?” Khan asked.
“Who’s going to stop me? That’s the thing about being a god. We can do whatever we want. And I mean WHATEVER we want. Just because something is dead…doesn’t mean it has to stay that way.” The Wendigo turned to leave.
Khan stood up and spun around to face her, hands curling and clenching at his sides. “What the hell does—”
“Meet me here, in this spot, at the witching hour and…bring your daughter. Her body, I mean. Do as I say, and I promise that your daughter will breathe again.”
Khan couldn’t speak. He gripped the place on his bicep where his dead wife had touched him last night, as he dreamt.
“Oh, and Harold?” The Wendigo said. “Don’t tell Black-Eyed Susan…or SJ. They’ve never faced death, as you have. They wouldn’t understand.”
She turned and walked away, leaving muddy footprints in the damp ground and a sick feeling of dread in Khan’s stomach. This wouldn’t end well, he knew.
He would do it anyway.
-------
Starship log, stardate 8130.4
Log entry by acting captain, Admiral James Tiberius Kirk. An emergency situation has arisen. By order of Starfleet Command, as of eighteen hundred hours, I have assumed command of the Enterprise. Our new mission is to investigate the disappearance of the starship Reliant at its last known location, the Space Laboratory Regula I. This is an…unusual and…unanticipated situation, which I can only hope will be resolved peacefully, and in short order, so we can return to our scheduled training mission.
“Space Station Regula I. Please come in. Doctor Marcus. Please respond. This is Enterprise calling…It’s no use. There’s no response from Regula I…or the Reliant,” Uhura said.
“But no longer jammed?” Spock asked.
“No sir. No, nothing.” Uhura responded.
“There are two possibilities,” Spock reasoned. “They are unable to respond. They are unwilling to respond.”
“How far till we reach Regula?” Kirk asked Spock.
“Twelve hours and forty-three minutes, present speed.”
Had it not been an emergency situation, Kirk might have teased Spock for neglecting to calculate the remaining seconds, just to be treated to Spock’s (undoubtedly sassy) response. As it was, Kirk saw fit to refrain. There would be ample time to savor the sight of his husband’s face…later.
“Uhura, have Dr. McCoy join us in our quarters,” Kirk instructed.
“Aye, sir.”
“Mister Saavik, you have the con.”
Saavik wordlessly nodded her assent. Kirk couldn’t help but notice she’d let her hair down from its tight bun, allowing it to fall in thick, voluminous waves around her slim shoulders. The hairstyle was not one traditionally worn on Vulcan, but then again…Saavik was not a traditional Vulcan herself. Her mixed heritage had seen to that.
Kirk inwardly rejoiced to see Spock’s young mentee let her hair down in such a way—literally, in this case, but perhaps one day…figuratively too. He hoped it was a sign that the young woman would be spared the rigid, self-punishing adherence to Vulcan traditionalism. Spock, of course, had not been spared the same in his own youth, when he had subjected himself to perfectionistic standards in his endeavor to be more Vulcan than Vulcan.
Spock’s excoriating efforts to make up for the perceived failings of his half-human heritage had led to years of needless shame and suffering, culminating in his time at Gol, where Spock had nearly destroyed himself in pursuit of Kolinahr. Kirk could only be grateful that the fate of the world had intervened before the ritual could be completed.
Kirk fought his way free of nostalgia’s grip and stood from his seat. He made eye contact with Spock before making his way to the turbo lift. Spock likewise nodded before falling into step at his place beside him. They did not speak until they reached their destination. In this moment, there was no need for words between them.
McCoy was waiting inside their quarters when they arrived, having undoubtedly used the medical override code, as he always did.
“Well, I've got the sick bay ready. Now will someone please tell me what's going on?”
“Computer. Request security procedure and access to Project Genesis Summary,” Kirk said.
Once the computer took the necessary steps to confirm his identity with a retinal security scan, he requested a summary. Kirk had seen the recording before; he’d watched it earlier when Starfleet had sent him the briefing for this mission. Nevertheless, he could not suppress the flood of familiarity at the sight of his old flame’s once-loved features appearing on the viewscreen.
“Project Genesis. A proposal to the Federation,” Dr. Marcus began.
“Carol Marcus…” McCoy muttered. He knew full well who this woman was, and what she was…or had been…to Kirk.
Spock, too, had heard the stories of Kirk’s ill-fated relationship with Carol, the end of which had been so devastating and (at the time) confounding to Kirk, although he had since come to accept the outcome as inevitable. It was even, as Spock would have said: logical.
The thing is, there had been no outward explosions—no screaming matches with harsh words spoken or objects hurled at one another in a fit of temper. One day, their previously amicable relationship had simply…soured…beyond repair. It had been, Kirk suspected, a gradual process, as such things sometimes were. Every time Kirk missed a date or his attention lapsed while Carol was talking…the relationship collapsed in on itself, rotting from the inside…until it eventually succumbed entirely to the poisonous influence of Kirk’s unrelenting workaholism.
Not many relationships could survive the stringent requirements of a Starfleet career, even when both parties involved were members of that same organization. Kirk and Spock were luckier, far luckier, than most officers in their position. Their love had gone through the wringer only to emerge on the other end…whole, and even stronger than it had been in their youth.
Kirk and Carol had not been so fortunate. By the end of it, Carol had been so filled with resentment that she could barely stand to look at him. Kirk had received the news of his paternity only after the dust had settled…years later, when the boy was already three. Carol had made it perfectly clear, in both word and deed, that she did not want Kirk to be involved in David’s life.
It was a source of sorrow for Kirk that he had never before met the boy who shared his DNA…and who was now a man in his own right. He must be Saavik’s age by now, Kirk realized with a start. It had been some time since he’d allowed thoughts of David to cross his mind.
On the viewscreen, Carol was still talking, her eyes alight with a passion and intensity Kirk had not seen on her face since the early days of their courtship.
“What exactly is Genesis?” Carol was saying. “Well, put simply, Genesis is life from lifelessness. It is a process whereby molecular structure is reorganized at the subatomic level into life-generating matter of equal mass. Stage One of our experiments was conducted in the laboratory. Stage Two of the series will be attempted in a lifeless underground. Stage Three will involve the process on a planetary scale. It is our intention to introduce the Genesis device into the pre-selected area of a lifeless space body, such a moon or other dead form. The device is delivered, instantaneously causing what we call the Genesis Effect. Matter is reorganized with life-generating results. ...Instead of a dead moon, a living, breathing planet, capable of sustaining whatever lifeforms we see fit to deposit on it.”
“Fascinating,” Kirk heard Spock muse, almost to himself.
“The reformed moon simulated here represents the merest fraction of the Genesis potential, should the Federation wish to fund these experiments to their logical conclusion. When we consider the cosmic problems of population and food supply, the usefulness of this process becomes clear. This concludes our proposal. Thank you for your attention.”
“It literally is Genesis,” Spock concluded.
“The power of creation,” Kirk agreed soberly.
“Have they proceeded with their experiment?”
“Well, the tape was made about a year ago. I can only assume they've reached Stage Two by now.”
Kirk should have anticipated the storm brewing in McCoy’s suspicious silence.
“Dear Lord,” Bones exclaimed, breaking the silence and the dark mood that had come over him since the recording began. “Do you think we're intelligent enough to... Suppose, what if this thing were used where life already exists?”
“It would destroy such life in favor of its new matrix,” Spock hypothesized.
“Its new matrix? Do you have you any idea what you're saying?”
There it was...the storm. McCoy was working himself into a frothing irritation that rivaled the unease Kirk found himself feeling at the sound of Carol’s voice.
“I was not attempting to evaluate its moral implications, Doctor. As a matter of cosmic history, it has always been easier to destroy than to create,” Spock continued.
Kirk could only assume Spock knew what he was doing, stoking the fires of McCoy’s temper as he was doing now. Spock understood McCoy’s temperament as well as Kirk did, after all. Perhaps he was aiming for a… controlled burn. If the temper was going to explode, better for it to do so in a controlled setting, under supervision.
“Not anymore! Now we can do both at the same time! According to myth, the Earth was created in six days. Now, watch out! Here comes Genesis, we'll do it for you in six minutes.”
“Really, Dr. McCoy… you must learn to govern your passions. They will be your undoing. Logic suggests...”
“Logic? My God! The man's talking about logic! We're talking about universal Armageddon, you green-blooded, inhuman...”
Saavik’s voice on the intercom interrupted before the conversation could devolve further. McCoy undoubtedly had more insulting epithets in his arsenal, each one of them ready to be aimed directly and unerringly at Spock’s steadfast Vulcan reserve. They would have to keep till later.
“Bridge to Admiral Kirk. Admiral, sensors indicate a vessel in our area, closing fast,” Saavik said.
“What do you make of her?”
“It's one of ours, Admiral. It's Reliant.”
“Reliant!” Kirk exclaimed to McCoy and Spock.
This should have been good news. Perhaps Kirk’s gut feeling was wrong. Perhaps the approaching ship had come with assurance of the safety of the Reliant and her crew. The captain would, naturally, be able to offer Kirk a reasonable explanation for their strange disappearance. The Enterprise’s training mission would resume as planned, with scarcely a hiccup to their itinerary.
One look at the faces of the men on either side of Kirk confirmed that his companions felt as uneasy as he did. His stomach sank. He could believe it possible for his own instinct to be wrong in this case. But McCoy’s…Spock’s?
Kirk adjusted his uniform and prepared himself for war.
Chapter Text
Haven, Maine—July 11th, 1983
The soil, so recently disturbed, was still soft. It was a different color and texture from the soil surrounding it, as if Holly's grave was a scar in the earth itself. When Harold Erickson had buried her, only yesterday, the rocky ground had been hard-packed and unyielding. The shovel’s handle had bit into his hands, leaving blisters he would not even feel until after he’d finished his grim task. In a grave, there’s never enough dirt to fill the hole up again*. In this respect, a grave is not unlike the human heart.
Today, Khan’s shovel cut through the earth like butter. It was easier than it should’ve been.
Khan dug until he could see the patterned blanket in which he had wrapped his daughter’s body. She was waiting inside, he thought to himself, with something very much like awe. He’d mistakenly believed her to be dead, but all this time, she’d merely been dormant.
Holly was a caterpillar in a cocoon waiting for the right conditions. Soon, her transformation would be complete, and she would emerge changed…but alive.
Khan remembered when he and Marla had brought their infant daughter home from the hospital. She’d been wrapped in a blanket, like this. They did not know who this larval being would become as she grew, but they were determined to love their child—no matter what. He would’ve loved his daughter if she’d had a cognitive disability or a mental illness. He’d have loved his daughter if she were gay, or if she turned out to be a son. Hell, he’d have even loved her if she’d converted to evangelical Christianity or become one of those socially conservative republicans.
Surely, the Holly that awoke tomorrow morning couldn’t be much worse than that. Why would the unconditional love he had for his daughter change now? Holly would undoubtedly be…different, after tonight, but Khan resolved to love her just the same.
Besides, how was THIS any different from the decision to have a kid in the first place? If you thought about it, every man and woman who participated in the act of creation the old-fashioned way was meddling in something beyond humanity’s puny ability to understand. Every horny bastard doing the hanky-panky in the back of his dad’s Cadillac was playing God by daring to introduce sperm to egg. Life from lifelessness…the stuff of miracles, when all you’d wanted was to get off.
At least Khan could admit that to himself. At least he was willing to reap what he sowed, whatever that might be.
Of course, Khan remembered Marla’s posthumous warning NOT to do the very thing he now did. Khan could be a stubborn ass, but he was far from stupid, as much as he sometimes wished for the simplicity of a simple mind. If anything, Khan’s mind weaponized his formidable intellect against him by generating surprisingly believable excuses that defied common sense and good judgment. He could make ANYTHING make sense, provided he wanted to believe something badly enough.
“You make up reasons,” Marla had said to him, in his dream. “They seem like good reasons…but mostly you do it because you want to.”
Khan superstitiously avoided the urge to unwrap the blanket and take a peek at his daughter’s face. It would be like pulling a baby out prematurely from the safety of the womb. No, she would come out when she was good and ready. He lifted the bundle into his arms. Rigor mortis had come and gone, and the small body within shifted grotesquely within the confines of the blanket. He shuddered and tried not to think too hard about it. He set the bundle down long enough to shovel the dirt back into the waiting hole.
She wasn’t going back in there. The earth couldn’t have her. She was HIS.
The Wendigo was waiting in the appointed place, moonlight glinting off her pale skin and emphasizing the dark hollows of her face. She made no comment as Khan emerged from the woods, carrying the body and the shovel. She simply nodded and said: “Follow me, and bring the shovel. You’ll need it.”
Khan followed. The journey took a long time, although he couldn’t have told you exactly HOW long. Time contorted itself strangely in the dead of the night as they hiked through the dark wood, climbing wordlessly over dry leaves and rotting fallen logs until they reached the deadfall. The Wendigo looked back at him and tilted her head, as if to ask—are you sure?
He nodded jerkily, impatiently, as if to say—well, obviously…I’m here, aren’t I? He lifted the body in his arms for emphasis. The Wendigo kept moving. She did not look back again. He understood why she’d done it as soon as they made their way past the deadfall. They were passing some kind of threshold, he realized. The air was different here, warm and heavy…almost electric. But of course, it had to be, he thought, remembering the electrical current that had brought life to Frankenstein’s monster.
“This is Little God’s Swamp,” The Wendigo told him as they walked, their feet squelching in the damp ground beneath them. “Also known as Dead Man’s Bog. The Mi’kmaq people buried their dead here for many years.”
“So it’s…haunted?” Khan asked, adding a devil-may-care lilt to the words as if the chase away the dread that threatened to settle into his bones and stay there for good.
“It’s a dangerous place, yes, but not because of the buried dead. The sacred ground went sour, you see, after the Wendigo came.” Khan knew she was not speaking of herself, now, but of her fearsome, blood-thirsty namesake. “The Mi’kmaq were starving, so the Wendigo came and gave them a taste for the flesh of their own kind. They abandoned this ground after that.”
There was a pause, and then she said: “You may…hear things.”
He waited for her to continue, but she did not. She did not speak to him again that night.
He DID hear things, although he would’ve been hard pressed to tell you exactly what kind of things they were. He saw things too…little lights dancing in the swamp like will-o’-the-wisps, or the glowing golden eyes of a monstrous giant. He kept walking.
The Wendigo led him up the narrow stairs carved into the mountainous rock that loomed before him in the dark (he counted forty-five steps) to a plateau at the top. It was as smooth and flat as if the tip of the mountain had been sanded clean off.
Khan looked to the Wendigo, and she nodded in confirmation. He did not ask for help digging the hole. Each buries his own*.
Not much longer, baby— he silently promised his daughter. He maneuvered the blanket-wrapped bundle into the yawning maw he’d gouged into the rocky ground. This would not be her final resting place. It was only a temporary stop on the way to something else.
They did not speak on the way back. The return journey seemed faster than it had been on the way there. He remembered his friend Stuart from the psychology department, gone now, telling him that the mind perceived time as happening more slowly when you were experiencing something for the first time. New experiences required more extensive processing, Stuart had said.
Maybe that’s all that it was. The creepy swamp was already old hat to him the second time around.
When he returned to the trailer at the campsite, he removed his shoes and left them outside. He did this partly so he would not track the dirt from that place inside on the soles of his shoes…partly to avoid waking the women sleeping within. He did not bother trying to remove the dirt streaked across his face, his arms, his shaking hands…
After a night like this, he more than half expected his sleep would be uneasy and pockmarked with nightmares, but instead, he slept like a stone…or the dead. When he woke, light was filtering in through the window, and the other inhabitants of the trailer were up and moving. He could hear the sounds of someone making coffee.
There was a knock at the door.
-------
Stardate 8130.8
The Reliant loomed before them like a behemoth, its dark form blotting out the stars. It remained silent and did not respond to their hails, although it slowed at their approach.
Saavik turned to face them. “Sir, may I quote General Order Twelve: on the approach of any vessel, when communications have not been established...”
How like a schoolgirl, eager to prove her mettle! Now, however…was not the time.
“Lieutenant,” Spock interrupted. “The Admiral is well aware of the Regulations.”
“…Aye sir,” Saavik conceded.
Kirk frowned at the Reliant continued to give them the cold-shoulder. “Is it possible that their Comm system has failed?”
“It would explain a great many things,” Spock responded doubtfully. Both knew the malfunctioning Comm system was unlikely to be to blame, but he was humoring the human need for optimism.
“This is damned peculiar. ...Yellow Alert,” Kirk ordered.
“Energize defense fields,” Saavik said in acknowledgement.
“I'm getting a voice message,” Uhura interrupted. “They say their Chambers coil is overloading their Comm system.”
“Spock?” Kirk looked expectantly as Spock, now standing in his familiar place at the science station.
“Scanning. Their coil emissions are normal,” Spock confirmed.
Damnit, Kirk thought, and then—
“They’re locking phasers.” Spock did not raise his voice, but the urgency came through clear enough.
“Raise shields,” Kirk ordered.
It did little good. The explosion ripped into the Enterprise’s hull like a knife cutting through butter. The lights flickered and the bridge rocked violently beneath their feet, as if tossed by stormy, invisible waves. The more seasoned members of the bridge crew held their own, but the inexperienced trainees were less practiced in hiding their trepidation. Their young faces were pale in the flickering light, and they looked more than a little seasick.
They were all depending on Kirk. He was well-acquainted with the responsibility of command, but it hit differently today: stranded in shark-infested waters with a ship full of fresh-faced babies.
“Sulu! Get those shields up,” he barked.
“Trying, sir! I can't get power, sir!” Sulu shouted over the din.
“Scotty! Uhura, turn off those damn channels!”
“Mister Scott on the screen, sir.” Uhura patched him through.
Montgomery Scott’s familiar face appeared on the view screen, blotting out the Reliant and the visible evidence of the damage it had wrought. Kirk thanked his lucky stars that the man was here in this mess along with the rest of them. As much as he wished, for Scotty’s sake, that the man was on a sunny beach somewhere, thumbing through a vintage mechanics magazine, the truth was: there was no one Kirk would rather have in Engineering during a crisis such as this one.
“We're just hanging on, sir. The main energizer’s out.”
“Try auxiliary power.”
“Aye, sir.”
Scotty ended the communication. On the viewscreen, metal debris from their ship swam in the blackness of space all around them, like a school of silvery fish in the dark depths of the ocean. Starlight glinted off the tritanium wreckage.
“Damage report.”
“They knew exactly where to hit us,” Spock answered, soberly.
Kirk glowered. “Who? Who knew just where to hit us? And why?”
“One thing is certain,” Spock continued. “We cannot escape on auxiliary power.”
Kirk already knew as much. “Sulu, divert all power to phasers.”
“Too late,” Spock interrupted before Sulu could answer.
The bridge was rocked by another wave. “Hang on!” Kirk shouted behind him, mostly to the trainees, who perhaps didn’t know better. One of these days, Starfleet would finally come to its senses and install seatbelts on the bridge.
The sickening rocking motion stilled as the wave passed. “Scotty...what's left?”
“Just the batteries, sir. I can have auxiliary power in a few minutes.”
“We don't have a few minutes. ...Can you give me phaser power?”
“A few shots, sir.”
“Not enough against their shields,” Spock informed him.
“Who the hell are THEY?”
Uhura’s voice broke the tense atmosphere, like a cloud parting to reveal the sun, before Kirk’s mind could reach any conclusions as to the identity of their attackers. “Admiral! The commander of the Reliant is signaling. He wishes to discuss terms of our surrender.”
“Visual on screen.”
The face that appeared on the viewscreen was not someone Kirk recognized. It was also not a “he”…despite what Uhura had assumed
The young woman in the captain’s chair was skeletally thin. She wore a low-cut dress that dipped below the protruding clavicles, revealing a silvery, starfish-shaped scar that marred the skin between her small breasts. Her hair was red.
Her face broke into a wicked grin that slashed through her sharp features like an open wound.
“Kirk,” the woman said. “I believe you knew my father.”
Notes:
*From "Pet Sematary" by Stephen King
Chapter Text
Haven, Maine—July 12th, 1983
At the sound of the knock, Khan sprang instantly into alertness. He swung his legs over the side of the bed, which afforded him a better view of the door. Black-Eyed Susan opened it. As Khan had hoped (and feared), the small, bedraggled form of his formerly deceased daughter stood there at the threshold.
Holly’s long hair was horribly tangled with dry leaves, and her face was streaked with the same soil that still covered Khan’s own hands from burying her last night (for the second and, hopefully, final time). Her yellow butterfly shirt was ripped and blood-stained, but the skin on her chest where the bullet had torn through her had healed, as if by magic. The only visible evidence of the terrible wound that had killed her was a large, white scar stretching out across the expanse of her sternum.
The child tilted her head, her face alight with an uncharacteristic malice. She could be said to resemble an old, beat-up Raggedy Ann doll, if said doll happened to be possessed by the spirit of Satan himself.
“Black-Eyed Susan,” Holly spoke in her sweet, lilting little girl’s voice. She had no way of knowing the woman’s name. They’d never been introduced. “Named after the flower, and of course, your eyes—black in color and blackened by bruises. Your father used to beat you while your fat cow of a mother stood by and did nothing…how you hated her.”
Khan gaped at her, ashamed and appalled at the words coming out of her mouth. This was his daughter. His gentle, kind seven-year-old daughter.
“Holly!” he scolded.
But Black-Eyed Susan only appeared mildly irritated, as if Holly were nothing more than a demonic fly buzzing around her face. She did not respond to Holly’s goading words. Instead, she glared pointedly over Holly’s shoulder at someone standing just out of Khan’s view.
“Again, Wendy? We talked about this." Her voice was low but dangerous. Black-Eyed Susan did not need to raise her voice to be heard.
La Cuca, the petite spitfire who shared Black-Eyed Susan’s bed, came to the door to see what all the fuss was about. She was wearing a black, lace pair of matching undergarments—and nothing else.
“What the FUCK,” she spat out, furiously, at the sight of Khan’s daughter, who had been a corpse the last time La Cuca had seen her. Cuca stormed past Holly, outside in her bare feet, where she could be heard screaming at the top of her lungs at The Wendigo.
“Are you kidding me, Wendy? Are you fucking KIDDING me? You’re fucking obsessed, you fucking lunatic!”
Black-Eyed Susan rolled her eyes heavenward at the scene with a devil-may-care attitude.
“You deal with it. She’s your problem now,” she grumbled to Khan. She ambled over to SJ, who was rubbernecking by the coffee machine, chewing silently on the tip of her thumb while watching the proceedings with wide eyes.
Khan came to the door. His dead daughter was standing there. For a moment, Khan didn’t know what to do, what to say. His daughter had died in his arms, and now she was standing there, trash-talking his new friends.
Finally, he settled on the first thing that came to mind. “Hi, honey.”
Holly stared at him incredulously. “Hi? Really, Daddy? Just…hi? That’s all you have to say to me? Not…Gee, it’s so good to see you, Holly. Welcome back to the land of the living. I’m sorry I let you get murdered.”
“Hey, I did everything I could to keep you safe,” Khan said, unable to keep the defensive edge out of his voice despite his resolution to accept…whatever the hell Holly had become.
It wasn't her fault. Her resurrection had been his choice, and his alone.
“You got me and mommy both killed, you piece of shit, and then, if that wasn’t enough, you rip me out of the grave and drag me back into this shit show. I didn’t ask for this. Maybe I was better off being dead,” Holly accused.
“Bringing you back was entirely my choice, and I take full responsibility for it.”
After all…what you buy is what you own. And what you own… always comes home to you. *
Holly was not mollified by his quick agreement. She narrowed her eyes. “I know EVERYTHING, Daddy. What only the dead can know, I know it now, too. All of it.”
“That’s great, honey. I’m sure that makes for a great parlor trick.”
“Do you remember when Mommy had that real bad flu and you stayed in the office late…grading term papers? Turns out, you were out all night fucking some slutty grad student. I didn’t know that before, but I do now.”
“Well, Holly: if you know EVERYTHING, you should also know that Mommy knew exactly where I was, and she consented to that whole thing in advance. Mommy and I had an ARRANGEMENT, you see.”
“You can justify it however you want, Daddy. You did it because you wanted to.”
Khan flinched at the familiar refrain. Then, he let out a tired sigh. “You must’ve heard that from your mother.”
Holly crossed her arms and waited.
“Oh, Holly. C’mere. I love you, kiddo.”
He wrapped his arms around her and made a big show of obnoxiously peppering the top of her dirty head with kisses. Before, she would have squealed and wriggled. He would’ve tickled her until she was crying and laughing at the same time. Now, she just stood there and took it, still as a stone…or a corpse.
This close, Khan could feel the wrongness of her. Gooseflesh rose, and his entire body screamed at him to stay away. Instead, he squeezed her tighter and planted another exaggeratedly sloppy kiss in her hair. She didn’t react, but she didn’t push him away either.
Small victories.
La Cuca stomped back up the stairs, managing to sound like a ten-ton beast despite the limitations of her small frame. The Wendigo trailed along behind her with her big, shit-eating grin.
Khan glared at her over the top of his daughter’s head. “I thought you said I couldn’t call you Wendy,” he complained.
“YOU can’t,” she responded, mercilessly. “Using my nickname is a privilege, not a right.”
The Wendigo turned on her heels and followed La Cuca into the RV, which was suddenly much too crowded.
Holly stared at the door. It began to tremble, as if nudged by a ghostly hand. Suddenly, and loudly, the door slammed shut behind them. The entire RV shook with the force of it.
Khan had fully expected Holly would go through the typical teenage door-slamming phase, but he’d assumed he had at least a few more years before that happened. Of course, their lives now bore little resemblance to the lives he’d once envisioned for them. All that time spent planning for the future and fretting over Holly’s college tuition, and well…here they were.
What had been the point of putting himself through all that stress, he wondered, if things were just going to turn out the way they were going to turn out, regardless.
Khan sighed again and turned back to Holly. “C’mon, kiddo. Let’s go rustle you up some clothes. But first…” he wrinkled his nose. “Whoo-ee! You need a bath. You smell ripe.”
“I’m going to fucking murder you, Daddy. I’m going to murder you in your sleep.” Holly sulked.
Khan’s answering grin was as wide as The Wendigo’s.
Holly’s hair ended up being too tangled to salvage. Khan clipped it close to her scalp, the clean strands of shorn copper standing up every which way, as if the kid had stuck her finger in a light socket. The effect was almost comical.
Clean and dressed in a slightly oversized pair of jeans and a ratty old t-shirt, she looked remarkably presentable. One would never guess that the kid had been dead and buried just yesterday.
The Wendigo surveyed the finished product, grinning down at her with her sharp teeth on display. “She looks just like you,” she proclaimed.
“Does not,” Khan and Holly said, both at the same time. They looked at each other. Holly mimed stabbing him with an invisible knife.
“I’m going to call her Harold Jr,” The Wendigo said.
Khan grimaced. “You’re kidding me. Can’t we name the poor kid something cool? Like I don’t know…Zombie Lord? Queen of the Cemetery? Lazarus?”
The Wendigo scoffed. “Lazarus is so traditional. I don’t go for biblical names.”
Khan bristled. “She’s MY daughter.”
“She’s just as much mine as she is yours. She’s only alive because of me,” The Wendigo said.
“I brought her into this world! And I carried her,” Khan protested.
“Harold Jr,” The Wendigo repeated.
Harold Jr. said nothing. She took her lower lip between her teeth and bit down, sinking her pointed teeth into the skin until it bled.
-------
Stardate 8130.8
“Who are you? What is the meaning of this attack? Where is the crew of the Reliant?” Kirk asked.
The woman’s smile didn’t falter. “Admiral James T. Kirk,” she said, sounding out the syllables with something like satisfaction. “The ‘T’ is for Tiberius. Perhaps you remember my father. He was a man from the 20th century…went by the name of Khan? Surely you remember. You’re the one who killed him, after all.”
It had been years ago, of course, but Kirk was unlikely to forget the name of a man who had tried to murder his entire crew, himself included. Khan had come terrifyingly close to asphyxiating Spock right in front of Kirk's eyes. Kirk could still remember his t’hy’la stretched out limply on the bridge of the old Enterprise, Bones desperately trying to revive him with CPR. Spock’s face had gone grey.
The woman grinned, as if reading his thoughts.
“Yes, I remember Khan mentioned having a daughter. I seem to recall his daughter… died.”
“You recall correctly,” she confirmed. She did not elaborate.
“You’re here to avenge your father, I assume. Well, I’m the one who killed him. If it’s me you want, I’ll have myself beamed aboard. Spare my crew,” Kirk implored her.
The woman tilted her head. “I have no particular desire to avenge my father. His choices were his own, and we were long estranged by the time your paths crossed. Besides, revenge is a small, petty motivation. I have loftier goals in mind.”
Kirk frowned. “And what would those be?”
“The Genesis Project, Admiral. Hand over all the data and materials you have, and then, perhaps, you might live long enough to learn of the Reliant crew's fate.”
“Genesis…what’s that?” Kirk asked. He doubted she’d believe his feigned ignorance, but it was worth a try.
“Don’t insult my intelligence, Kirk.” The smile was gone now.
“Give me some time… to recall the data on our computers,” Kirk pleaded.
“I give you sixty seconds, Admiral.”
“Clear the bridge,” Kirk commanded to the frightened trainees behind him.
They scattered, and the turbolift closed behind them. Kirk turned back to face the remaining bridge crew to prevent their opponent from reading his lips. Spock intuitively did the same.
“At least we know she doesn’t have Genesis,” Spock whispered in a quiet aside to Kirk.
If Khan’s daughter had managed to obtain the materials from the lab, there would have been no need for any of this.
“Keep nodding as though I’m still giving orders,” Kirk instructed the bridge crew. “Mister Saavik, punch up the data charts of Reliant’s command console.”
“Reliant’s command…” she started.
“Hurry,” Kirk snapped.
Only forty-five seconds remained.
“The prefix code?” Spock asked Kirk.
“It’s all we got.”
“The chart’s up, sir,” Saavik said.
“Admiral!” the woman shouted.
“We’re finding it,” Kirk snapped.
“Admiral!” she shouted again.
“Please, please…give us time. The bridge is smashed, computers inoperative…”
“Time is a luxury you don’t have, Admiral.”
“Damn!” Kirk cursed. And then—“It’s coming through now,” he assured her, hurriedly.
As always, Spock had come through…just in the nick of time. “Reliant’s prefix number is one six three zero nine,” he whispered.
What would Kirk do without him?
“I don’t understand…” Saavik murmured.
Crisis or no, Saavik's query sent Kirk immediately back into the familiar professorial role. Teach long enough at the academy, and didactic rhetoric becomes second nature. “You have to learn why things work on a starship,” he instructed her patiently.
“Each ship has its combination code—” Spock added.
“—To prevent an enemy from doing what we’re attempting...using our console to order the Reliant to lower her shields,” Kirk continued.
“...Assuming she hasn’t changed the combination,” Spock concluded.
Fifteen seconds remaining.
Kirk looked back towards the viewscreen and raised his voice to an audible level. “How do I know you’ll keep your word not to destroy us after we send over the data?” he asked, desperately stalling for time.
“Oh, I’ve given you no word to keep, Admiral. In my judgement, you simply have no alternative but to do as I ask.”
“I see your point. Stand by to receive our transmission,” Kirk said, addressing the woman on the viewscreen. Then, he turned to Sulu. “Mister Sulu, lock phasers.”
“Phasers locked,” Sulu confirmed, softly.
“Time’s up, Admiral,” she said, testily.
“Here it comes…Now, Mr. Spock!”
The shields dropped.
From the viewscreen, Kirk heard a second woman's voice. “Harry," it said, sounding alarmed. “Our shields are dropping.”
“Raise them!” The woman (…Harry?) said, turning to her left in the direction of the other voice, the owner of which was presumably out of view.
“I can’t!” Harry's companion cried.
“Fire!” Kirk ordered.
Sulu fired, expertly targeting photon-control and the warp drive to cripple the Reliant. The viewscreen abruptly cut off, restoring the view of the Reliant and the surrounding wreckage. The Reliant's wreckage mixed seamlessly with the Enterprise's own, both floating in the velvet darkness before a backdrop of stars.
“Sir, you did it,” Sulu crowed.
Kirk shook his head. “I did nothing…except get caught with my britches down. I must be getting senile. Mister Saavik, you go right on quoting regulations! Sulu, gets us out of here. Plot a course for Regula I. And in the meanwhile... let’s find out how badly we’ve been hurt.”
As Kirk said those words, the burned and blistered body of a young man already lay atop one of the beds in sickbay. Scotty stood next to him, tears flowing freely and unselfconsciously down his ruddy face. In life, the young man had been a promising engineer—and, more importantly, Scotty’s own beloved nephew…his sister’s only child.
“He stayed at his post…when the trainees ran,” Scotty said, choking on the words.
“I’m sorry, Scotty,” McCoy said. He placed a supportive hand on the man’s shaking shoulder.
The young man, Peter Preston, had always looked up to his uncle, ever since he was a wee lad. Scotty could still remember how Peter had followed him around, pretending to fix things around the house with his little toy wrench.
He’d gotten the boy killed. It was his fault. And now, Peter would be coming home in a coffin, that is...if he ever came home at all.
Notes:
*From Pet Sematary
Much of the dialogue in the second half of this chapter is taken from The Wrath of Khan film, but not all of it.