Chapter Text
“Hey, if you damage one of those things, you’ll be personally responsible for whatever comes out of it!”
The alto voice echoed through the nearly-empty hanger. Several cryogenics pods were slowly being lowered by crane onto the concrete hanger floor. Several more were already in place. Rows upon rows of metallic tubes that barely showed the faces of their occupants through windows frosted over by three centuries of use. The pods were being moved to this new location after their previous storage hanger was requisitioned to build a new type of exploratory shuttle meant for long stints away from the main Starship.
“Sorry ma’am,” Cadet Williams apologized immediately, steading the cryo-pod he had inadvertently set swinging with his head. He didn’t sound particularly sorry.
“Damn right you’re sorry,” the woman muttered to herself. Lieutenant Wendy Cole was the science officer in charge of moving what were considered to be seventy-three of the most dangerous human beings, known as Augments, to their new “home” in Hanger Three of Starfleet’s San Francisco base. The process had taken the better part of the day and, so far, had gone off without a hitch. And Wendy intended to keep it that way.
Once all the pods had been lowered onto the hanger floor, she personally went up and down each row. Inspecting the pods for signs of damage. Checking and double checking the health of the people inside. She checked her watch. It was almost 5 o’clock. That meant she had been at this for almost 10 hours. Heaving a frustrated sigh, she made her way over to the main power switch, which was inconveniently located on the other side of the hanger. She was just about to turn off the lights and be done for the day, when a voice drifted over from the open doorway.
“Dr. Cole?”
In the doorway stood two men. Wendy guessed they were in their late 20s or early 30s, and both quite attractive. One was clearly a Vulcan; his haircut gave him away long before Wendy would be close enough to see his ears. The other was human. His face was all sharp cheekbones and sharp angles offset by piercing soft blue eyes. Wendy recognized them immediately. While they were both young officers, they had already earned quite the reputation. No introductions were needed.
“Captain Kirk,” she greeted, a bit surprised. “And Commander Spock. To what do I owe this . . . pleasure?”
“Sorry. We were in the area and just wanted to check on the progress of the transfer. See if maybe you needed a few extra hands” Kirk apologized with a flirtatious smile.
He probably smiled like that to every girl he met, but Wendy couldn’t help smiling back. She caught a glimpse of the First Officer rolling his eyes out of her peripheral as she did so.
“I just finished checking these guys for the last time. Everyone seems to be in perfect health, and all cryo-pods are in excellent shape. Considering they’re 300 years old.” She led the two men along the same path she had just taken, talking as she went. “I discovered an interesting failsafe that seems to be programed into each cryo-pod. Apparently if a pod is heavily damaged, the reanimation sequence will automatically start, preventing the person inside from dying.”
“That doesn’t sound like good news,” Kirk frowned.
“It’s brilliant, actually. Very innovative for its time.”
“Whatever you say. . . .”
“What about Khan?” Spock asked. “Are there any signs of life from his cryogenics pod?”
Dr. Cole tucked a strand of dark hair behind her ear. Damn unruly thing kept falling out of her bun. She shook her head, “None at all. Everyone is sleeping peacefully.”
The two men nodded and, after a few more questions, took their leave. No one noticed the tiny fracture on the pod that had collided with the head of Cadet Williams.
The cryo-pod’s failsafe had been activated and within a few hours, the woman inside would wake up.
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Around three o’clock, the top to the cryo-pod opened with a low hiss and the woman inside opened her eyes for the first time in over three hundred years. Sitting up slowly, she scanned the darkness, taking in her surroundings. It looked like some sort of airplane hangar. The other cryo-pods were lined up in neat rows. This was definitely not the Botany Bay. There were no visible threats save for some security cameras. She could see the pinpricks of red light in the darkness.
She examined her own pod, noting that she was only awoken because of the failsafe. That meant whoever had packed them in this hangar like cargo had no intention of ever waking them up. Making her decision, the woman slowly climbed out of her cryo-pod, her joints and muscles popping and aching from lack of use. There was someone she needed to find.
The woman found what she was looking for. Crouching low, she studied the man inside the cryo-pod for a long moment. Khan Noonien Singh looked peaceful enough. Far more peaceful than he should have, she thought. From what she could see through the frosted-over glass, he wasn’t wearing the same shirt as he had been when they boarded the Botany Bay. He had some explaining to do. Like why she hadn’t been let in on the fun. She quickly punched in the sequence for reanimation. Now all she had to do was.
There was a click behind her. It almost sounded like the safety of a gun, but not quite.
“Don’t move.”
The woman raised her hands, turning slowly to the men behind her. Six men, all armed, were staring her down. The weapons they were holding didn’t look like any gun she was familiar with. But it didn’t really matter. This would be easy.
“Turn it off,” one of the men barked, gesturing toward the cryo-pod. They had noticed that it was running. So maybe this wouldn’t be as easy as she thought.
“No,” she replied smoothly.
“Turn it off, or I blow away one of your friends.”
The man pointed his weapon at a nearby cryo-pod, his finger on the trigger. He held his ground as she stared him down. She had to hand it to him, this man had balls. It was tough to get a read on him. Several seconds passed.
The woman frowned, deciding that he meant what he said. And there was no way to know if the weapon could actually penetrate the glass and kill the person inside. It was a risk she wasn’t willing to take. Slowly she leaned over, and powered down Khan’s cryo-pod.
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Wendy practically ran down the hallway of hospital. Earning herself strange looks from both patients and staff alike. She figured she should be nervous; one of the Augments had woken up on her watch, even after she had personally declared the cryo-pods to be in perfect working order. And yet she couldn’t help that she felt excited. She had studied these people for her entire adult life-what little of it there was so far. They had even been the subject of her doctoral thesis. And now she had the chance to talk to one of them.
She skidded to a stop just outside of the room she had been looking for. It was easy to spot, with two guards posted outside the door. She could see six more guards through the open door, blocking her view of the Augment-and any staff-inside.
“I’m sorry, ma’am,” one of the guards in the hallway addressed her politely. “But we can’t let you in.”
“All of those people are my responsibility. I want to know if she’s alright.”
“I’m sorry, but my orders–”
“It’s alright,” a voice called from in the room. “She isn’t resisting right now.”
Wendy slipped inside before the two guards could even react. Sitting on the edge of the bed was a woman with blonde hair almost touching the stark white sheet, her jade green eyes studied the med scanner with mild curiosity. She glanced over as Wendy squeezed through the rest of the security team, causing the doctor to look up as well.
“Dr. Cole,” he greeted impassively.
“Dr. McCoy,” she returned. “I’m surprised to see you here.”
“Since I was the person to examine one of these freaks the last time, they asked me to come in and examine this one.”
Dr. Cole glared at his terminology, and the woman turned back to stare at McCoy. He shifted uncomfortably.
“Would you stop that?” he snapped. “It’s freaking me out.”
“Freaks? It’s nice to know people haven’t changed in the past three hundred years,” the Augment replied.
McCoy stared at her in surprise.
“It’s not polite to call someone a freak,” she continued. “Especially when you’re just met them. From the warm reception and your earlier comment, I believe that it’s safe to assume that you dealt with another Augment. Probably recently.”
“Yeah,” Dr. McCoy answered. “Khan. The man you were trying to wake up.”
The woman’s eyebrows rose slightly in a self-satisfied smirk. Before she could reply, two other men entered the room. Both Captain Kirk and Commander Spock appeared rushed. Kirk’s chest rising and falling slightly more than usual. Meaning that he probably ran there. Spock didn’t appear to be out of breath, but then again, he was also a Vulcan.
“How the hell did this happen?!” Kirk demanded, stalking toward Dr. Cole. She glared at him, not appreciating his tone of voice.
“Apparently her cryogenics pod had a minute fracture in the glass. It must have expended during the night. To the point that the failsafe was tripped.”
“How could you miss something like that?”
Wendy turned to face him fully. She drew herself up to her full height and squared her shoulders before answering, “I realize that those people are my responsibility, but sometimes shit happens. It’s entirely possible that the fracture was so small that it didn’t register on the scanners. Technology isn’t infallible, you know.”
Kirk stared at her, a mixture of shock and confusion written all over his face. He probably couldn’t remember the last time a woman had snapped at him like that Wendy thought.
“That is a possibility,” the Vulcan said. “But no matter what happened, fact remains that another Augment is awake.”
Kirk seemed flounder a bit before he regained his bearings and said, “Well, fine, but what are we going to do about this?”
“You could always just, you know, let me go” the woman drawled from the bed.
“Absolutely not,” the three men said in unison. Her only response was to roll her eyes.
“The only thing we can do is fix her cryo-pod,” Dr. Cole offered.
“Fine,” Kirk agreed. “But I’ve submitted a request that she be put in my custody until that happens. My crew handled this threat the last time, and we’ll handle it this time, too. She’ll be transferred to the Enterprise as soon as she’s cleared medically.”
“I don’t mean to be rude,” Dr. Cole interrupted in a tone that said she actually didn’t care if she was being rude or not. “But I’m the only one in Starfleet who knows anything about her people aside from being the foremost scholar on the Augment program and the Eugenics Wars. She should stay with me.”
“I’ll request you be transferred as well,” Kirk replied. “We leave in an hour. You’d better be ready.”
And he left. Wendy glared at his back.
A tense silence followed. It was eventually broken by the woman sitting on the hospital bed.
“My name is Leo. Just in case anyone was wondering.”