1. Chapter 1

Space Seed: Into Darkness

"Space Seed" was one of my all time favorite episodes of the original series. But there were a few important elements of it that didn't make it to "Into Darkness" I felt it could have used—namely Lt. Marla McGivers. So here is my humble attempt to ret-con her into the 2013 film. A prequel of sorts. If you enjoy and think I should keep going, do leave some feedback:)

The communicator on Lieutenant Marla McGivers desk buzzed insistently.

With a sigh she pushed aside the stack of papers she was grading and picked it up.

"Lt. McGivers here."

"McGivers, Captain Rivers here, adjutant to Admiral Marcus."

Marla frowned. "Uh, good afternoon, Captain. How can I help you?"

She was genuinely puzzled. Since she had come to teach at Starfleet Academy five years before she had had almost no interaction with the brass that actually ran the place. And she hadn't really expected any. After all, she taught history—and not just history, but Earth history, the dullest, most unglamorous subject a space jockey could imagine.

In all her classes she worked hard to convince cadets that Earth history was worth knowing, that a solid understanding of humanity's past as a species would only help them as they traveled out into the universe. She always held up the Vulcans as an example. She'd yet to meet one who did not have an encyclopedic knowledge of Vulcan history.

But it seldom worked. Usually a cadet only took the one or two history courses required of them before moving on to more fun courses like Klingon linguistics and warp engine repair.

"The Admiral would like to know if you'd be available to meet with him at 1600 hours today."

She glanced at her tablet computer, and then at the pile of essays on First Contact she had yet to read. "Two hours from now? Umm…"

"It is on a matter most urgent, Lieutenant, I assure you," said the cool, crisp voice on the other end of the communicator. The use of her rank, she knew, was not accidental. Most of her students just called her 'Dr. McGivers.' But the Captain was reminding her just how low on the Starfleet totem pole she ranked.

She carefully modulated her tone. "Of course I shall be there. I would not want to disappoint the Admiral."

"Excellent. Tower 15, 4th floor conference room. Rivers out."

"Goodbye," she said. But the speaker had already clicked off. She was talking to dead air.

She sighed and rubbed her eyes. So much for getting through her grading today.

Standing, she grabbed her communicator and her satchel and walked down the hall to see her department chair. Outside the enormous glass windows a light rain was falling on San Francisco, but the sun was already peeking through the clouds. The moisture made the towers and walkways of the Academy glisten.

Captain Laurence Tibbideaux was in his office. He waved to her through the glass. The door slid open as she arrived.

"Hello, my dear! I hear you are going to see the big boys this afternoon." In his heavy French accent it sounded like 'ze beeg boys.' Marla carefully stifled a laugh.

"Word travels fast. Do you know what's going on?"

The older man gestured for her to sit down. "I do not, I'm afraid. But there is nothing to be frightened of."

Marla shook her head, which knocked loose a piece of her red hair from her bun. She had to tuck it behind an ear.

"I'm not afraid of Admirals. I'm just puzzled and hoped you knew something."

"Oh, the military does not speak to us lowly academics. As you know our ranks are purely bureaucratic. I am a captain but I could no more pilot a starship than I could dance on the surface of Venus." He gave a Gallic shrug. "But since you are here, may I ask how goes the new book?"

"Slowly. Very slowly. It seems like I have been crunching data for years. But I think I'll have some very interesting things to say when I finally publish."

Tibbideaux's academic specialties were the histories Vulcan and Romulus, two planets with cultures very much alive and with readily accessible sources. Of course humans were not welcome on Romulus. But Tibbideaux had spent years on old Vulcan and now new Vulcan working in their archives. He had more than a dozen well-received books to show for it. Even Vulcan historians acknowledged Tibbideaux's prowess as a scholar-the highest possible praise, indeed.

As she did at least once a day Marla rued her decision to specialize in a rather obscure field of pre-United Federation Earth history. The Eugenics Wars of the 1990s had been a brief and turbulent time, and few sources had survived the dark ages that had followed. She spent her life tracking down tiny pieces of information and trying to put them together into some kind of coherent narrative. Granted, she was regarded as an expert in her field, too. But it was field no one else cared about.

Captain Tibbideaux poured her a cup of tea and passed it to her. "Patience, Lieutenant. What I've heard of your new work sounds well worth pursuing. You must stick with it." He sat down opposite her and regarded her steadily while she sipped her tea. "May I give you some advice on dealing with the brass?"

"I was rather hoping you would."

He nodded. "Well, first of all, never forget they are military men and women, first and foremost. Answer their questions directly and honestly and in few words as possible."

Marla raised an eyebrow at this. Her department chair chuckled.

"Yes, I know, we historians tend to be long winded, full of 'maybes' and 'perhaps' and 'it may be.' They hate that." He thought for a moment. "You should know this, though-your mamma and papa were Starfleet, were they not?"

"Yes, but I was so young when they died that I barely remember them or how they behaved. And Grandpa was even more of an academic than you are, Captain."

He chuckled. "Ah, yes, Professor Finbar McGivers, terror of the University of London for nearly half a century."

Marla smiled, even though her heart ached a bit. Her much-loved grandfather was gone now, too. She still missed him bitterly.

"So, when you go before the Admiral, speak to him truthfully. He must need your expertise on something, else why summon you at all?"

"I doubt that. What could I possibly have to teach him?" Marla finished her tea and set down the cup. "What do you know about Admiral Marcus?"

"Alexander Marcus is one of the longest-serving and most respected men in Starfleet," the old man said. "Also one of the most powerful." He regarded his junior faculty member seriously. "You want this man on your side, Marla."

She nodded and stood. "I understand. Thank you, Laurence."

"Not at all, my dear. Good luck. And Marla?"

She paused. "Yes?"

"Do fix your hair before you go and see him. Marcus is a stickler for protocol."

* * *

Marla heeded her colleague's advice and was neat as a pin when she walked into the conference room on the other side of campus.

She was always rather unhappy about her red Starfleet uniform, feeling it was too close to the color of her hair. But the tunic-length garment was spotless, as were the matching trousers underneath. Her hair was coiled atop her head to within an inch of its life. She looked every inch the serious academic.

A thin man with mocha-colored skin stood as she entered. "Lt. McGivers, good of you to come on such short notice. As you can imagine the Admiral's schedule is quite full."

"Captain Rivers?" She asked.

The man nodded, and they shook hands.

"Not at all," she told him. "I am happy to assist in any way I can."

No sooner had she said this than the doors slid open behind them and four men trooped in. Two were enlisted men, between them toting a large hard plastic carrying case almost as big as Marla herself. They placed it gingerly on the conference table and left the room. She couldn't help but notice that they then stationed themselves outside the door, so no one else could enter.

The third man busied himself setting up a projector and a relay—for some sort of conference call, Marla surmised.

The fourth man approached and stood in front of her. His pale blue eyes scanned her up and down. "She's younger than I thought she'd be," he observed aloud to no one in particular.

If they had been in a crowd of thousands Marla still would have been able to pick this man out as Admiral Marcus. And it wasn't just the uniform. It was in his bearing, the way he held his body. The sharp planes of his face may have softened a bit with age, and he was a bit thick around the middle. But he still had the coiled energy and steely-eyed gaze Marla always associated with Starfleet officers.

Captain River introduced them formally.

"Do you go by 'Dr. McGivers' or 'Lt. McGivers'?" The Admiral asked.

"Either one is fine, Admiral."

"OK, Lt, McGivers, have a seat." The Admiral pointed at a chair opposite him. The other three men sat down as well. "Captain Rivers you've met. This is my personal assistant, Commander Rhodes."

The man who'd been fiddling with the relay nodded at her. "The link should be available now, Admiral," he told his commander.

"Good. Bring him up."

Rhodes pushed a few buttons on the relay, and an image appeared in the air. It was perhaps four feet high and three feet across. The link wasn't perfect, as there was a bit of static around the edges. Marla wondered if they were connecting to someone too close to a sun or other interplanetary activity that might be interfering with the transmission.

But the picture was clear enough that she could see a fifth man looking back at them. He appeared to be a control room of some sort. He had a lean face, with dark hair swept back from a high forehead and piercing blue eyes.

"Starfleet Agent John Harrison, meet Lt. Marla McGivers. McGivers, Agent Harrison. He's consulting on this project," the Admiral said absently, looking down at the tablet his adjutant had just set before him.

"Good afternoon, Lt. McGivers," the agent greeted her. Marla identified the round tones of his accent to be upper-class British in origin. Yet there was something about him that didn't seem to match that social class. After a moment she realized it was because even from a great distance he was radiating the same kind of personal energy the Admiral did. Here, too, was a man who was used to commanding and to being obeyed without question.

Marla reminded herself that Starfleet agents were often recruited from the officer ranks. She tried to shrug off her uneasiness.

"Hello," she said simply.

With introductions out of the way the Admiral nodded at Rhodes. The other man pushed the packing case across the table in her direction.

"I would very much like your academic opinion on what is in this case," the Admiral told her.

Curiouser and curiouser. Marla stood so she could better lean forward and unlatch the case. She eased the lid back and gasped aloud at what was inside.

"Where did you…oh, hang on, hang on…" Marla grabbed her bag and pulled out the cloth gloves she always carried around with her as a precaution. Once they were on she gently reached into the case and lifted the artifact from its plush confinement.

"Oh, it's beautiful," she breathed. "Wow."

"Do you recognize it, Lieutenant?" The voice came over the speaker again, and Marla jumped. She'd been so excited she'd forgotten where she was for a moment.

She glanced around her. Everyone—Admiral Marcus, Commander Rhodes, Captain Rivers, and Agent Harrison—were looking at her expectantly.

She cleared her throat. "Of course I do. It's a class M pulse rifle, manufactured by the Tatami Corporation. They were in business from 1985 to 1999." She studied the plastic casing, the barrel, and the trigger guard. "Pulse rifles were beautiful weapons—light, easy to operate, almost indestructible. That's why they were so popular during the wars."

"Efficient, would you say?" The Admiral asked.

"Oh yes. Designed specifically for maximum kill rate with a minimum of effort. Only a few survived the dark ages. There are two here in Starfleet's archive, and the British Museum and the Smithsonian each has one. I've never seen one in this kind of condition, though. It looks…well, I mean, it looks almost…"

"New?" The Admiral supplied.

Marla blinked at him. "Well, yes. But that's not possible."

"Actually it is, Lieutenant." He nodded at his adjutant. Captain Rivers leaned forward.

"Fourteen months ago a derelict ship was discovered by a Starfleet research vessel. Designation S.S. Botany Bay. This gun is from its airtight hold." He pushed a tablet at her, and Marla saw the image of a late 20th century vessel, badly battered from its time in space.

"Does the name mean anything to you?" The voice came from the projection again. Marla glanced back at Agent Harrison, puzzled that he'd been the one asking most of the questions so far.

"No. I mean, 'Botany Bay' is of course a reference to the penal colony established on the shores of what became Australia in the 18th Century. But this ship? I have not heard of it. But that doesn't mean much. The records for this period are fragmentary." Marla's head was spinning. "I'll have to do some research…"

"The weapon, Lieutenant," the Admiral reminded her, jolting her back to the here and now.

Marla remembered her department chair's advice. She took a breath. "An airtight environment would explain this artifact's rather remarkable state of preservation. And if you're asking me whether this weapon is the right period to be found in that ship then I'd say it's dead on."

"And what other weapons would you expect the find in a ship of this era?" Marcus asked.

"Well, starships from the late 20th Century were pretty basic. Not really designed for combat because they didn't have much maneuverability yet. And since they had no warp engines they couldn't travel very far anyway. At most they'd have a few laser cannons, if that. Any other weapons they wanted they would have had to bring on board: pulse rifles, flash grenades, fragment bombs, really nasty anti-personnel stuff…"

Marla trailed off as the implications of what she was saying hit her. "Hang on, are you saying you have more of these?" She once again held up the weapon in her hands. "That you've got a cache of late 20th century weapons in mint condition?"

The men in the room all exchanged glances. Marla once again had the uneasy sensation she'd waded into very deep waters here.

The scholar in her plunged ahead. "Admiral, forgive me, but if we could be taking about one of the most important historical finds in recent memory here! Where is the ship now?"

"The ship is in a secure location, Lieutenant," Captain Rivers told her flatly. "Starfleet is taking every precaution with it, I assure you."

"I'm sure they are, Captain, and I meant no disrespect to the Admiral, of course." McGivers frowned, frantically trying to think of some way to get through to these men. Was it possible they really did not understand the importance of such a find? All the questions it might help answer? She thought of the half-finished book on her own tablet computer. Oh, what these new findings might add to her story!

"Your concerns are duly noted, Dr. McGivers," the Admiral said. "Which is why I suggest you come and see what we've found for yourself."

Marla's jaw dropped open. "I'm sorry?"

"We could use someone with your expertise on this." Marcus glanced over at the screen, where Agent Harrison was staring steadily back at him. "Don't you think so, Harrison?"

The agent was silent for a long moment. Marla became convinced he was about to say 'no.' Then what would she do? The thought of going back to grading papers when this remarkable find was out there was unbearable.

But Harrison finally smiled. It was a cold smile, but a smile nonetheless. Marla's heart skipped a beat as he spoke.

"By all mean, Admiral. Bring her along. The more the merrier."


	2. Chapter 2

Thanks to all of you who were kind enough to review so far! As you know I'm trying to stick to cannon as much as reasonably possible in the context of "Into Darkness." Therefore some of the dialog below is from the original episode, written by Gene L. Coon and Carey Wilber. Thank you, gentlemen!

Please don't sue. I own nothing

Ch. 2

Marla eagerly peered out the front view screen of the shuttle craft.

They finished passing over Jupiter in all its multi-colored glory, and a moment later the research station came into view.

For security reasons it didn't have a name, or a number. Marla had not even been told its exact coordinates.

That didn't particularly trouble her. There were lots of things in Starfleet no one talked about. As an academic she had only ever had low-level security clearance, although she'd been told it had been bumped a bit higher so she could participate in this project.

"There it is," Captain Rivers told her from the jump seat next to her.

"So I see. Looks…industrial."

The station was a hulking black mass, quite unlike the elegant starbases and starships she was used to. A narrow opening in the front allowed for crafts to arrive and depart. She could see the faint blue glow of the interior from where she sat. It reminded her of nothing so much as a hive, with the shuttlecrafts the drones swarming in and out.

"It is industrial," he said with a nod. "Deep space salvage, R&D, experimental propulsion. There's nothing in this universe these guys couldn't build or take apart and put back together."

"And completely off the official books, of course." Marla laughed at Rivers' expression. "That's not an insult, Captain. Just a statement of fact. What did you tell my department to get them to release me before the end of the semester, anyway?"

"That you were needed to examine some parchment discovered by a research team in Greenland."

Her eyebrows arched. "They bought that?"

"Your department chair did."

"That's all that matters, I suppose." Truth be told Marla did not feel that sorry her students would have to complete their studies with a substitute professor. There were only a few weeks to go after all. They'd be fine.

The shuttle craft had entered the station. The massive size of the facility was now becoming clear. She could see the many levels of either side of them, and the docking bays for dozens of ships of all different sizes and shapes.

Marla let out a low whistle. "You guys have been working on this for some time."

Rivers only nodded.

"Shuttlecraft Beta, proceed to docking bay ninety four," a voice announced through the speakers.

"Shuttlecraft Beta confirms docking bay ninety four," their pilot echoed, turning them slightly to port.

When they'd left Starbase 1 that morning Marla had been surprised to see that she and the Captain would be traveling with a civilian crew, not Starfleet officers. Judging by their clothing and the roughness of their hands she guessed they were workers heading to the project.

They had all eyed Marla with suspicion. She had smiled and tried to chat with a few of them. But after getting mainly grunts in response she had given up sometime around Callisto and had sat in quiet contemplation instead.

She hadn't been in space since she was a child. She'd forgotten how beautiful it was.

They docked and Marla paused to allow the workers to disembark ahead of her. She then pulled on her coat and gathered up her bags.

"Let me help you with that." The Captain grabbed a battered leather satchel out of the overhead bin and grunted with surprise. "What do you have in here, rocks?"

"No, Captain. Books."

"Books? Real paper books?" He looked at her as if she was quite mad.

"Some of them, yes. They're too fragile to scan; some are the only copies in existence. I didn't dare ship them ahead with the rest of my gear."

"I guess not." He hefted the bag in one hand as they descended the gang plank. "So would you like me to show you to your quarters, or…"

"If it's all the same, I'd like to get started right away."

"I understand, Lieutenant." He hailed one of the only men around in uniform. "Ensign, arrange to have the rest of Dr. McGivers' bags taken to her quarters on C Deck." He handed over the satchel. "And make sure this gets to her lab. Be extremely careful with it."

"Yes, sir." The ensign turned smartly on his heel and hurried away.

Marla smiled at the older man. "I have a lab?"

"You have a lab. Besides the equipment you sent ahead we weren't sure what else you'd need…"

"I'm sure I can manage, Captain." Marla rubbed her hands together eagerly. "Now, let's get started. Take me to the ship, please."

The S.S. Botany Bay was in a forward hanger all to itself, under extremely tight security. Marla counted three different checkpoints between the turbo lift and the entrance to the hanger itself.

Admiral Marcus and his assistant were there waiting for her.

"Good afternoon, Lieutenant," the Admiral greeting her. "How was the trip?"

"Fine, Admiral, thank you."

"They treat you well on Starbase 1?"

"Yes, I had a very nice evening. And of course I never get tired of that view." Starbase 1 was the very first one humans had ever built, hovering just beyond the moon. It was famous for the beautiful views of Earth framed in nearly every window.

"Good. Sorry I couldn't get you on a direct flight from Earth but the long-range shuttles were all booked. Even I only have so much pull around here."

They all chuckled at the joke.

"Shall we?" The Admiral nodded at Commander Rhodes, and he signaled to the closest security station. The doors rumbled open on their enormous rollers.

Marla was the first one inside.

"Well, Lieutenant?" Marcus asked her. "What do you think?"

The Botany Bay was seated directly on the steel floor, its landing gear supporting its weight like a grasshopper on its haunches. Compared to modern starships it was small, square and squat.

Marla whistled. "The meteor pitting is a lot worse than in the photos you showed me. I think it's a miracle it survived."

She stepped closer. The designation was barely readable. Metal plates were scarred and scorched from its long journey. Several of the heat shields were twisted the wrong direction.

And it was still the most beautiful thing she'd ever seen.

"Do you know who built it?" Marcus asked her as they walked around the vessel.

"This one in particular? No. I've been combing the records but no information on the Botany Bay or its destination has survived. But in the late twentieth century individual nations still existed. Each built their own starships, if they could. That's why there were so few of them. Most couldn't afford it." Marla chewed her lip as she thought. "The design is American—most DY100 class starships were American-designed. But the welding seams, the orientation of the deflectors, makes me think this is Asian-built. Chinese, maybe. There was a huge starship construction company based in Hong Kong, and that city fell in the early days of the Wars. The Botany Bay may be part of that fleet."

"Interesting," the Admiral observed.

"I'd know more if I could get inside it," Marla said hopefully.

"We've anticipated that." The Admiral gestured to heavy-duty electrical conduit that snaked from the ship across the floor. "Our technicians got enough auxiliary electrical power going that you won't be stumbling around in the dark. Commander Rhodes will go with you, make sure you don't get hurt."

Marla beamed at him. "Thank you, Admiral."

Without waiting for her escort Marla went to the underside of the ship. She'd studied hundreds of technical manuals from this period and, sure enough, the hatch was located exactly where she expected it to be. Tentatively she reached out and pulled down on the latch.

With the groaning creak of old metal the hatch swung back.

Unlike modern spacecraft the old ones did not have a side opening that allowed for easy entrance and exit. You had to climb into them.

Marla reached up into the belly of the vessel and found a series of metal rungs embedded in the side wall.

"Need a boost?" She heard Rhodes ask from somewhere behind her.

"No, thank you," Marla said primly. "I've got it." She grabbed hold of a rung and pulled herself up and into the Botany Bay.

With just the auxiliary power on it was dim inside. As her eyes adjusted Marla could see she was in the main hold. The ship was not divided to serve different functions. Instead it was one large space, with a control panel to one side.

Marla went to it. She examined the panel, experimentally flipping a few of the switches. Most refused to budge. The gauges appeared to be frozen in place as well.

"About what you expected?" The Commander asked her as he approached.

"Yes. Old school atomic power." She pointed further up the board. "And look—transistor units. All blown out from the look of it. The ship would have been dead in space."

"It was just drifting when it was found," Rhodes confirmed.

Marla moved further into the ship. Built into the walls were glass and steel enclosures, three and four high, each perhaps seven feet long.

She gasped. "It was a sleeper ship! You didn't tell me that!"

"A what?"

"A sleeper ship. I've seen photographs. Since it took so long to travel from one planet to another in those days they'd put the crew to sleep until the ship arrived at its destination. These were bunks, see?"

Marla couldn't resist: she pulled open one of the doors. The thin pad that would have supported the sleeper was crumbling with age. But she still felt dizzy to think that she was touching something put in place more than two hundred years earlier.

"You didn't find any human remains?" She asked.

"Remains? No, we did not."

She sighed. "No, that would have been too much to hope for. Bones could have told us so much: who used this ship, where it came from…"

"Perhaps whoever launched it abandoned ship when it began to malfunction," the man suggested.

"I hope so. Otherwise it would have been a very slow death in here."

Glancing around her Marla suppressed a shiver. It was cold in here now, but out in space it would have been colder. Without any mechanism for internal heat frost would have built up on every surface; the air would have been so cold you would have been able to see your breath. As the other systems failed the navigation would have gone next; then the lights; finally, life support itself…

"Doctor?"

Marla jumped at the sound of the Commander's voice. She realized to her embarrassment she'd been standing there staring off into the distance as she'd imagined the scenario.

She cleared her throat. "Sorry, Commander. Overactive imagination. The bane of the historian, I'm afraid."

"Of course. But if you've seen everything you'd like to see perhaps we should head over to the lab? That's where we've placed the items from the airtight hold."

"Oh, yes, please."

* * *

The lab space they'd set aside for her was on C deck, not far from her quarters, the Admiral promised. The glass doors required a key card for access. Commander Rhodes swiped his, and then handed it to Marla.

"Yours while you're here."

"Thanks." Marla scanned her work space. Four large computer screens were side by side on one table as she had requested, so she could work with multiple documents at once. A scanning microscope from her office occupied another table. Her books had been carefully laid out on the third alongside her personal tablet.

But Marla only had eyes for the artifact boxes. There were perhaps a dozen of them, a few larger but most smaller than the pulse rifle she had examined at Starfleet headquarters. She felt like a kid at Christmas.

"Have you made a preliminary survey of the contents?"

"We have." Captain Rivers handed her a tablet with a spreadsheet. "We indentified each item and its likely origin to the best of our ability."

Marla quickly scanned down the list. "Hmmm, no—they didn't make fragment bombs until 1995…that's got to be Jaipur, not Mumbai…" she murmured aloud as she read. She looked up. "Well, this is a start, at least. I can work with this. Thank you."

The doors slid open again.

"John, there you are," the Admiral said. "Lieutenant McGivers, you remember Agent John Harrison?"

Still distracted by the tablet, Marla only glanced at the tall man who had entered the lab. "I do. Hello again, Agent Harrison."

"Hello, Lieutenant McGivers," he told her.

"The Lieutenant is going over the data we've put together so far," the Admiral explained.

"I don't know why she's bothering. Half of its wrong," Harrison told him.

Marla looked up in surprise. "Why, yes, it is." She glanced apologetically at Rivers. "It's a very good effort, though, and I can fix it quite quickly."

She took another moment to look at the Starfleet agent. How had he known it was wrong? Had the Admiral brought in another expert without telling her?

He certainly looked like a Starfleet agent. Or at least what she assumed one would look like: tall, handsome, an exceptionally intelligent expression in his bright blue eyes…

Harrison caught her looking at him and smiled. Marla hastily looked away.

"It would be helpful, Admiral," she began again as she starting setting up for artifact analysis, "if you told me what you'd like to know. I mean, of course I'll be happy to catalog everything you've found and make suggestions for preservation on a case by case basis." She pulled on her cotton gloves and set out support blocks that would prevent the precious finds from resting directly on the table. "But I suspect you didn't bring me all this way just for that."

"You're very perceptive, Lieutenant." The Admiral nodded in satisfaction. "What we need to know from you is the specifications for each of these weapons, along with known origin and usage."

"The specs?" Marla frowned. "Well, it's not as if they ever had instruction manuals that went with them. But I can get you usage and origins, or at least as near as the records will allow." She was already snapping open the first case.

"That's all I ask," Marcus said.

Marla withdrew from the first case another rifle, setting it down gently on the support blocks. "Another one in beautiful condition," she said happily. "Thank heavens for airtight storage compartments. If this had been out in the open it would have rusted away to nothing by now. Even so, you can see some of the pitting and scoring around the edges and seams. We should probably treat it to stop further corrosion."

The men had gathered around her.

"Another pulse rifle?" Rivers asked.

"No, this one's called an arc rifle." She slid open the compartment just in front of the trigger. "See here? There would have been a tiny arc reactor installed here. The gun then emitted an electrical shock out the barrel when you pulled the trigger. If it helps, think of it as a very basic version of a phaser. Nasty, but effective. When they worked."

"'When they worked'?" Marcus echoed.

"Yes. According to the sources I've read arc rifles had a tendency to short out at the most inconvenient times. Like, say, in the middle of battle."

"Which is why," Agent Harrison explained, "people would sometimes remove the arc reactor and substitute an electrical circuit instead. Less powerful but much more reliable."

"Theoretically, yes," Marla corrected. "Although none of the modified weapons have survived so we can't confirm that."

Harrison just shrugged.

Marla was starting to grow annoyed with this man. She'd never been one for ego, but the one thing she'd always taken pride in was the quality of her scholarship. The last thing she wanted was some rank amateur interfering with her work.

The Admiral cleared his throat. "Thank you, Lieutenant. That's just the sort of information I'd like to know. Gentlemen, let's leave McGivers to it, shall we?"

Marla breathed a sigh of relief when the door closed behind them. "Finally," she said to herself. "Now, we can get to work."

* * *

As often happened when she was doing research Marla quickly lost track of time. It might have been a hour, or it might have been several, before she heard the door slide open again.

She glanced over her shoulder. Agent Harrison was back.

Knowing she had her back to him Marla felt safe in rolling her eyes. But she was determined to be polite.

"Hello again, Agent Harrison. May I help you with something?"

"I just thought I'd come and check on your progress." He came to stand next to her at the table.

Marla couldn't help but notice he'd used the word "I." Not "the Admiral and I" or "we." Just "I." That seemed very strange. She hoped the agent hadn't somehow gotten it into his handsome head that she was working for _him_.

But she was determined to be polite.

"Certainly." She gestured at the screens. "I've linked up to the databases on my office computers back home and I'm running some analyses now. I've decided to only do one artifact at a time, so I can be as thorough as possible." She turned so he could see the stack of books at her elbow. "And I'm including in my notes all the contemporary references I can find in case the Admiral finds that useful."

Harrison's eyes seemed to light up at the sight of the books. "I'm sure he will." He reached down as if to pick up one of them, but at the last minute he noticed Marla's expression of alarm.

"I'm sorry. May I?" His long-fingered hand was just inches away from the book on top of the stack.

"Well, yes. But please be careful, Agent Harrison. These are exceptionally rare. They are irreplaceable."

"I understand. I've missed books," he said rather absently as he picked up the first one. He studied it for a moment, set it down, and took up another. He finally paused as he examined one well-worn spine. "Who was Raul Hyssop Singh?"

Seeing the careful way he handled her books Marla relaxed slightly. She leaned against the table.

"He was a scientist. One of the ones who triggered the Eugenics Wars. Of course that book you're holding came out before any of that had happened."

"Indeed?"

"Yes." Marla reached out and opened the book for him, so he could see the flyleaf. "See there? The imprint? New York City, 1979. The title may be 'Building A Better Man' but everyone thought what was in there was only theoretical." She shook her head. "Of course if the world had know how far Singh and others like him had already gotten by '79…"

Harrison nodded. "Is this a rare book?"

"It is now. Most were burned during the Wars as being heretical. I supposed you can understand why."

"I can. But I can't say I approve of book burning under any circumstances."

Marla had to smile at that. "No, nor do I."

He handed it back to her. "Thank you, Lieutenant."

"You're welcome." Marla folded her arms. She was reasonably tall for a woman, but she still had to look up at Harrison as she spoke. "So, tell me, Agent Harrison. Do you collect antique weapons?"

"No, I do not."

"Oh. I thought maybe you did. That bit about the arc reactors being swapped out for circuits—that's pretty obscure knowledge. I've only run across it a few times in the literature." She regarded him seriously. "How did you know about it?"

"I pick up all sorts of knowledge in my line of work," he told her smoothly.

Marla couldn't quarrel with that. "Yes, I imagine you do."

She turned back to her work, but after a few minutes she realized Harrison was still looking at her. She sighed.

"Did you have another question, Agent?"

"I was wondering why you wear your hair in such an uncomplimentary fashion."

Marla's mouth dropped open. She quickly snapped it shut.

"Excuse me?"

"I asked why…"

She waved her hand. "I heard you the first time." For a moment Marla contemplated whacking him with one of her priceless books. But he was bigger than she was, and a Starfleet agent besides. She'd probably end up in the brig for assault if she did that.

"It's comfortable," she snapped instead. "And it's regulation."

"But it's not attractive," he told her. Before she could stop him he had reached out and pulled out some of the hairpins on the left side of her head. Tendrils of her red hair worked loose from her bun, brushing her shoulders.

She should have smacked his hands away. She meant to do so.

But she didn't.

He did the same thing on the other side. Then he took her by the shoulders and positioned her so she could see her reflection in one of the monitors.

"There," he said in her ear. "Soft. Natural. Simple."

For a moment she stared at her reflection and that of Harrison just behind her. Her eyes were wide and shining.

She quickly pushed him away.

"Agent Harrison, I'm here on business," she told him abruptly.

"You can't find pleasure here?" He asked her with a smile.

"My interest is scientific, men of...that is, the world of the past." She was babbling, and she knew it. She really, really disliked this man!

"I'd like to get back to work, if you don't mind," she said flatly.

But he still reached out and curled a piece of her hair around his finger for a moment before releasing it.

"There. Simple. Soft. Please remember."

Marla straightened her spine. "Leave now, Agent Harrison."

"Of course." He bowed his head slightly and left the lab. The doors closed behind him with a soft _woosh_.

Marla pulled out a stool and stand down.

She felt dizzy.

And she had no idea why.


	3. Chapter 3

Ch. 3

Marla dreamed of war.

_She stood on a battlefield outside a ruined city. Most of the buildings had been reduced to rubble. Smoke and screams filled the air._

_The humans were mounting a fresh assault. She could see waves of their soldiers disembarking from armored vehicles in the distance._

Foolish humans,_ she thought to herself in the dream. _Why do they not bow to us? We are their superiors in every way. Why do they resist us?

_She felt frustration, and anger that the humans were fighting. But no fear._

_Looking to her left and right she saw her brothers and sisters, her fellow Augments. They were male and female, and of every race on Earth: white, black, Native American, Asian. But they were all tall and beautiful and terrible to behold._

_The humans, weighed down by their armor and weapons, were working their way towards them through the debris field._

_Marla waited patiently with the others until her commander gave the order. Then they rushed towards the humans._

_The humans outnumbered the Augments five to one. But it was still a slaughter. The genetically-enhanced fighters were simply too strong and too fast. _

_Marla used her weapon until it ran out of ammunition. Then she used her bare hands. Under their armor the humans were so fragile! It took barely a blow or a kick to incapacitate, and just the tiniest twist to snap its neck before moving on to the next one. _

_Soon her hands were dripping with their blood._

_In the chaos she heard one, wounded, no doubt, feebly calling for help. She leapt over bodies and broken concrete, finally finding the human wedged in a shell crater. Its helmet had slipped sideways and a wound on its side was making it mewl pitifully._

_She reached down and grasped it by the head, twisted it sharply so the vertebrae and the spinal cord snapped._

_In so doing the helmet slipped off the body._

_Marla found herself looking down into her own vacant blue eyes, now staring sightlessly into the sky. Her own body hung limply in her hands…_

She awoke with a start. Sweat was trickling down the back of her neck, and she'd kicked the blankets into a tangled mess at her feet.

With a shuddering laugh she ran her hands over her face.

"That is absolutely the last time I re-read my own work before I go to sleep," she murmured ruefully to herself.

With a sigh she rolled over and turned up the light in her quarters so she could see where she was going. She went to the small sink in the bathroom and ran cool water. She bathed her face with it until her heart rate slowed back down to normal.

"Computer, what time is it?" She asked as she dried herself.

"It is 5:45AM Earth Greenwich Mean Time," the pleasant female voice told her. "It is 10:06:04 solar hour on New Vulcan. It is fifth minute and third hour on Betazed. It is…"

"That's enough, thank you." Marla shook her head. On the one hand it was really too early to be up. But thanks to her exceptionally vivid dream she was wide awake.

On the other hand, a facility like this one never really shut down, she reasoned. There would surely be people up and around, even at this hour.

She dressed in her spare uniform and took her time combing the knots out of her hair. She was already twisting it up into her customary bun when she remembered her rather disturbing conversation with Agent Harrison the day before.

He'd called her hairstyle uncomplimentary.

Marla paused and stared at her reflection in the mirror. She'd been putting her hair up for so long she'd never really thought about how it looked. Next to cutting it all off, which she refused to do, a bun had always seemed like the most practical thing to do with it. And none of the men she'd dated had ever complained about it.

She picked up a lock of hair, as Harrison had, and studied it. She had to admit it was pretty, silky and a vivid red inherited from her Celtic grandfather.

But she wasn't about to wear her hair down. She wasn't about to let Harrison know he'd gotten to her.

After some more thought she settled for only drawing the top section up and back, leaving the rest to brush her shoulders.

What had Harrison called it? "Simple. Natural"

"Well, I don't know if this is either, but I like it," she told her reflection.

Before leaving her quarters she picked up her sketchpad and some pencils. Perhaps she could get some drawing done before settling down to work in her lab for the day.

The corridor outside her quarters was quiet. She managed to find her way to the turbo lift. Once inside she studied the buttons.

There were more than thirty of them—not surprising in a station of this size. But what was a little odd was that ten of them were blacked out. Not only did they have no label or sign indicating what deck they went to but when Marla pushed them nothing happened. She even experimentally swiped the access card for her lab. Nothing.

Whatever top secret work Starfleet was carrying out here was clearly on those floors. She wondered idly if the deck that held the Botany Bay was one of these levels. If so she would have a heck of a time ever finding her way back to it if she needed to do so.

"Computer, where can I get a cup of coffee at this hour?" She asked aloud.

"The mess is located on deck 14B," the computer told her.

"Thank you," Marla said absently. Fortunately for her that button was labeled. She pushed it and waited the few seconds it took to travel that far.

Once again she had the troubling sense of dark currents eddying just outside of her reach. She was starting to wonder if this station, and whatever work was being done on it, was beyond Starfleet's usual line.

She hadn't been joking with Captain Rivers the day before when she'd admitted aloud she knew this whole project was off Starfleet's official books. While she'd had the evening to kill on Starbase 1 she'd used her research skills to comb through lists of every known current project underway in the Milky Way Galaxy. Nothing she'd read about seemed to correspond to this place.

What could Admiral Marcus be up to that involved so many decks of a facility this big? And why did he need a Starfleet agent on staff?

Walking into the mess hall Marla forced herself to set those questions aside. She was here to work on the Botany Bay project. That was all. Poking her nose in where it didn't belong would be a sure way to lose Marcus' goodwill. And if that happened she had no doubt she'd be off the project in the blink of an eye.

She couldn't let that happen. She _wouldn't_ let that happen.

"Coffee, strong, milk and one sugar," she told the food replicator. Once she had her hot drink she found a table to herself in the corner.

It was so early in the morning the place was nearly empty. Only a handful of workers were eating breakfast.

Marla was amused to see that like had clustered with like. The engineers all seemed to be at the same table; the enlisted personnel were at another; and so on.

It was like Starfleet Academy all over again. She still hadn't forgotten those first few weeks when hundreds of cadets, herself included, had milled around the dining hall looking for someone, anyone, to sit with. Some place to belong.

Marla had never really found her place there. Most of the people in her graduating class wanted to be officers. They had ambitions of leading great explorations to the stars.

She had only ever been interested in the past. She'd applied to the Academy only because they were willing to support her advanced studies.

She could not have been less like her classmates if she had tried.

Sipping her coffee Marla amused herself by sketching. To warm up she started by doodling, and then she made a couple of quick character studies of the men in the room. Once she found her focus she launched into a more detailed sketch done solely from memory.

"Good morning. May I sit with you?"

Marla jumped. She'd been so focused on what she was doing Agent Harrison had managed to sneak up on her again.

"If you'd like," she said, quickly turning her mind back to her work. Drawing was as much an intellectual exercise for her as her research was, and she hated to be interrupted.

But with Harrison sitting opposite she found she could no longer concentrate. With a sigh she set down her pencil and picked up her coffee cup.

Harrison was looking at her in that focused way she was already coming to recognize. It was as if he was able to see what was going on inside her head.

"You've rearranged your hair for me," he said. Before Marla could protest he held up a hand. "But I apologize if I offended you yesterday. I did not intend it. You would have every right to be angry with me."

Marla shook her head. The agent did have a way of trying her patience.

"I'm not angry with you," she said carefully. "I just don't like it when strangers invade my personal space without asking. That's all."

He smiled at her. "Then I'll be sure to ask next time."

She shook her head. "Cute. Very cute. There isn't going to be a next time, Agent Harrison."

"Isn't there?"

"No."

They stared at each other for a moment, a small contest of wills taking place right there at the table.

He continued to smile at her, but glanced down at her sketchpad. "May I?" He asked.

"Help yourself."

He picked it up and gazed at the drawing she'd been working on. "You did this from memory?"

"Yes. It's good practice, I think. That's—"

"Napoleon Bonaparte," Harrison supplied.

"Yes. You know your Earth history, Agent Harrison."

"I try to learn as much as I can," he said. He studied it closer. "It's very good. Very accurate."

"It should be. Growing up our house was full of portraits of Bony here. My grandfather loved him."

"'Loved him'?"

Marla smiled. "Yes. My grandfather was a historian, like me, but his specialty was Earth's 18th and 19th Centuries. The Napoleonic Wars, in particular. While other kids were told bedtime stories about princesses and castles he told me stories of Bonaparte and Wellington and Nelson. He even named my poor father 'Horatio.' I don't think Father ever really forgave him for that," Marla laughed.

"But your father was not a historian."

"No, he was a Starfleet officer. First Officer on the USS _Lincoln_."

"And killed in action."

Marla took a deep sip of coffee before nodding. "Yes. They were testing an experimental warp core when it exploded. Several officers died. I was only four—I don't remember him very well."

"And your mother was Starfleet as well."

It was a statement, not a question. "Agent Harrison, if I didn't know any better I'd say you've been looking at my personnel files."

He did not bother to deny it. "Does that bother you?"

Marla thought this over for a moment. "I suppose when you have the kind of security clearance you do you're allowed," she admitted. "But it must have made for dull reading."

"Not at all. I find you very interesting, Marla McGivers." He turned back to the sketch pad, flipping through the pages. "Was it your mother who taught you to draw?"

"It was. She was a botanist. She always made sketches of the new species she and her team were discovering. She died when I was ten. That's when I went to live with Grandfather in London."

Marla looked at Harrison. He was still absorbed in her drawings. "And you, Agent? Where in Britain did you grow up?"

"I did not 'grow up' in Britain," he corrected smoothly.

She was surprised. "Really? Your accent…"

"I was raised in India," he told her.

"Oh. That explains it, I guess," she said sheepishly. She tried again. "Is your family still in India? Parents, siblings, children?"

"I have no family." He held up an older sketch of a wild-looking man with a beard. "Who is this?"

"Leif Ericson. Well, my best guess, since we don't really know what he looked like. Richard the Lionhearted is in there somewhere, too," she admitted.

"All bold men from the past. Richard, Leif Ericson, Napoleon. A hobby of yours, such men?"

"Historians like to speculate in our spare time." Marla shrugged. "And bold individuals are more interesting to speculate about, I suppose."

"You should be careful, Lieutenant. Such men dare take what they want."

Marla laughed. "I'm sure I don't know what you mean, Agent Harrison."

"Don't you?" His blue-eyed gaze was steady. Steely. Under it Marla felt rather like the insects impaled on pins that used to hang in her grandfather's study.

She cleared her throat. "It was nice chatting with you, but I'm due in the lab. Lots of work ahead of me."

"Of course." He closed the sketchbook and handed it back to her. "Thank you sharing your drawings with me."

"Any time."

As he handed the book back to her their fingers brushed. Marla felt his touch like an electric shock. It seemed to travel all the way to her bones.

She quickly pulled away and headed for the door. "Good day, Agent," she threw over her shoulder, determined to get out of the room before he noticed her blushing.

"Good day, Lieutenant," he said with a smile.

Marla had the sinking feeling he knew exactly what she had felt when he had touched her.

* * *

The days quickly slipped into weeks.

Marla kept her word to the Admiral. She'd put together hundreds of pages for him on all the weapons from the Botany Bay, along with their origins and usages. As she worked she also distilled that information down into a more basic, tablet-friendly version he could use for briefings or however he liked.

She had not seen or heard from Marcus since the day she'd arrived. His assistant, Commander Rhodes, did stop by from time to time to check on her progress. He always told her that the Admiral was a very busy man, but that Marcus was happy with her progress so far and to keep up the good work. Even Captain Rivers looked in on her once or twice.

In quiet moments she still wondered what the three men were up to, and how it related to the prohibited decks. But she never asked, and they never offered any explanation.

Agent Harrison, however, always seemed to be around. He visited her daily, sometimes twice a day. He was interested in what she was doing, and always wanted to hear about her latest findings.

"Aren't you ever needed back on Earth?" She asked him one day as they stood studying the maps she'd put up on her screens. "You know, Starfleet business and all that?"

"This is Starfleet business," was all he said. "Now tell me again what we are looking at?"

"Population loss from the Wars, represented in graphics. Each dot you see represents a net gain or loss of one thousand people. We estimate somewhere between thirty and thirty-five million people died in the Wars, most of them in Asia. You see that here." She tapped the screen to move to the next image.

"I see."

"Of course that pales in comparison to the death toll from World War III. There you're looking at something like six hundred million dead, with most of the major cities destroyed."

"But they were separate conflicts."

Marla shook her head. "I know that was probably how you were taught about them in school, Agent. But most scholars today agree the two were directly connected. If one had not occurred the other probably would not have. It's a bit like Earth's 20th century conflicts. Without World War I there likely would not have been a World War II."

Harrison regarded her seriously. "You believe this as well?"

"I do. War has a way of causing more wars. That's the way it always has been, and it's the way it always will be. Something to do with human nature, I guess. That's why the Federation works so hard to keep us out of military conflicts." Marla took down the images and replaced them with those of the artifacts she'd been working on when Harrison had arrived.

"May I ask you something, Lieutenant?"

"Marla. Since you're my most regular visitor I guess you can call me Marla, Agent Harrison."

He smiled. "Marla. Then call me 'John,' please."

"If you like."

"Have you ever met a Klingon, Marla?"

It seemed like such a random question she laughed aloud. But she could see he was quite serious. She composed herself. "Um, why do you ask?"

"Just answer the question, please, Marla."

"No. Don't get me wrong, I'd love to, if I didn't think a Klingon would kill me on sight."

"Why? Why would you like to meet one if they're so dangerous?"

Marla sat down. "I find them fascinating. I remember at the Academy I took a xenobiology class with Dr. Maru Hashimoto. When he was a young man he'd been part of a survey team captured by the Klingons. He was held prisoner for several months before the Federation arranged for the team's release. He got to observe them rather closely, and he used to talk about them in class."

"And what did you learn?"

"They're a warlike culture. That we had all had pretty much guessed, given how much trouble we've had with them. But Hashimoto argued, convincingly, I thought, that it was because their whole culture revolves around honor. A Klingon's honor is everything to him or her. Battles are a way to gain it, or to preserve it if need be. To me that makes them rather like some of the societies that used to exist on Earth—the Vikings, or the Aztecs, for example. Or even the Augments."

That got his attention. "I thought you said the Augments believed they were offering humanity order, not war."

She had to smile. "You're a good student, John. If you ever get tired of being an agent you really should come back to the Academy. True, the Augments thought they were offering humanity order. In fact, the analogy they themselves often used was that of Rome under the Cesars. But," she continued, "the fact remains that they started a war to get what they wanted." She regarded him with a thoughtful expression. "Does that really make them that different from the Klingons?"

He was quiet for a long moment. "And what of the rest of humanity?"

"We're not that different, either," she admitted as she stood up again. "We've started plenty of wars on the flimsiest of excuses. But the good news is that the neutral zone between us and the Klingon Empire has held for decades. I guess all we can do is cross our fingers that it keeps holding, right?"

To her surprise John came to stand in front of her. He rested his hands on her shoulders.

"Marla, listen to me. Don't trust Admiral Marcus. Don't trust any of them."

She looked up at his handsome face, his serious expression. She was sure he was in earnest. But why the warning?

"John, I don't understand."

His grip tightened. "Promise me."

"John, you're hurting me…" she whispered just before he claimed her lips with his own.

As she had expected, it was a spectacular kiss. Starbursts erupted inside her skull. She grew so dizzy she could have fallen had he not been holding on to her.

One of her hands involuntarily snaked around his body to rest against his waist. She could feel the hard, coiled muscles of his back.

He broke off the kiss. One of his hands cupped her chin. Once again his grip was strong, almost painful.

"Open your heart," he demanded. "Will you open your heart?"

"I don't know what to do," she admitted breathlessly. "I'm confused…"

It was the wrong answer. He pushed her away from him so hard that had she not caught the edge of a table she would have fallen.

That infuriated her.

"Who are you to tell me who to trust and who not to trust?" She retorted. "You work for Admiral Marcus too, or have you forgotten?"

His disgust was visible. "I do not 'work' for Marcus."

"The Admiral, Starfleet, same difference!"

"It is not the same." He grabbed her arm. "Listen to me, Marla."

"Why? Can I trust you? You've already made it clear that I can't. Now let go of me."

She tried to pry his fingers off her arm. It was impossible—each one was like steel. She suspected she would have bruises the next day.

"I said, let go!"

Instead he tried to kiss her again. This time she turned her face away. "Don't."

He let her go then.

She rubbed her sore arm. "Get out of my lab, Agent Harrison. Right now. Or so help me I'll call security and have you thrown out."

That made him laugh. It was the first time she had ever actually heard him laugh. The sound of it frightened her more.

Who the hell _was_ this man?

She was deeply relieved when he left without a backwards glance at her.

But also deeply sad.


	4. Chapter 4

Ch. 4

Author's note: thank you for all the kind remarks so far; it really does help keep me going! I'm rating this chapter T for Teen for a tiny bit of, ahem, suggestiveness.

In case you're curious at this point I'm envisioning somewhere around 6-7 more chapters to tell this story. So with no further ado, on to chapter 4!

* * *

Marla ordered another cup of coffee from the synthesizer and took it with her to the small sitting area in her room.

The blinking lights on her tablet demanded that she get back to work. She ignored them and picked up her sketchbook.

During breaks in her research she'd taken to sketching Harrison. She was surprised she could do so easily just from memory. But she could.

She picked up a pencil and set to work, trying to shift focus long enough that her mind could pick apart the threads of the problem for her. She had a feeling there was something important she wasn't seeing, something just below the surface. Something her subconscious had been trying to tell her but that she couldn't yet quite see…

Marla's time was still consumed with her work on the contents of the Botany Bay. She estimated she had another month of work ahead of her. She certainly didn't need to be taking on any additional research projects.

Yet she had.

Since their unfortunate encounter in her lab Marla had been more puzzled about Harrison than ever. His behavior had been so odd, so unlike any Starfleet personnel she had ever met, that she'd decided to do some digging. At first she'd told herself it was only to help her better understand him.

They hadn't met again since it had happened. She was still digging. What did that mean?

"It means I hate mysteries," she grumbled to herself as she sketched. She'd come at the problem with research skills honed by years of practice. And she kept coming up empty.

Oh, Harrison was in the computer system as Starfleet personnel. Or at least his name and photograph were. All the other details, the computer had claimed, were classified, and thus Marla could not access them.

No historian worth his or her salt would have given up that easily. So she'd changed her plan of attack. Instead of trying to use Starfleet records she'd tried civilian records on Earth. He'd told her he'd grown up in India, so that's where she had started.

She'd found nothing. No birth records, no information on his parents, his schooling, his acceptance into Starfleet Academy…She'd then broadened her search to Britain, where there were certainly more 'John Harrison's in the records. She'd even tried multiple spellings of his name in case there had been an error somewhere. But she'd found no one who would be the right age and have the right service record to be the man she knew. After a few nights' work she admitted defeat.

That had suggested something new to her—his possible involvement in Section 31.

Of course Starfleet insisted Section 31 did not exist. So did the Federation. And Marla had never actually met anyone connected with that organization. At least, she had never met anyone who had been willing to admit it.

But every human society in the past had had some sort of clandestine organization that operated behind the scenes and carried out the dirty work of those in power. On 20th Century Earth alone there had been several: the CIA, the KGB, and so on. She had never seen any reason to assume the Federation would not have something similar. For more than a century rumors had swirled that Section 31 was the Federation's secret branch, carrying out its own agenda behind closed doors.

Over the last several weeks she had become convinced that the installation where she was currently working had to be, at least in part, one of their operations. Why else would the discovery of the Botany Bay have been kept from the press and from other scholars? Why else would so many floors be inaccessible? Why else would it have a Starfleet agent assigned to it?

However, a problem remained. If Harrison was a Section 31 agent, did that help explain his rather extraordinary behavior?

Marla wasn't sure it did. It certainly wouldn't explain his attitude about Admiral Marcus. Section 31 agents, she theorized, would have to have absolute respect for authority in order to carry out their assignments.

Harrison was many things. But respectful of authority? She thought not.

So she'd shifted her focus yet again, searching Marcus' records instead. Here she found exactly what she'd originally expected to find for Harrison. Marla had read the Admiral's academic records; of his long and decorated service career; and of his commendations from Starfleet. She'd even found information about his deceased wife and adult daughter. Of course there was nothing that would connect Marcus to Section 31, either. But then there wouldn't be, would there?

Marla shook her head. She hated thinking like this. It reminded her of the conspiracy theorists she'd run into from time to time on the streets of San Francisco. They'd push their homemade pamphlets at passersby and rave that the President was a Romulan or some such nonsense.

And yet…

She'd then tried to link the two men to one another. They must have met somewhere, worked together before, something like that. Their paths must have connected at some point in the past or they would not both be on the same project now.

But without Harrison's service record it was an impossible task.

Marla now took a deep breath, and concentrated on her sketch.

For all practical purposes Agent John Harrison did not appear to have existed before Stardate 2258.

How was that possible?

* * *

Marla stood in the doorway of the mess hall until she spotted her quarry.

Commander Rhodes was hunched over his breakfast. He glanced up reluctantly when she approached. The stocky man looked up at her in mild annoyance as she greeted him.

"You're up early today, Doctor," he observed.

"I haven't been sleeping very well," she admitted.

"Huh. Too bad. Why don't you get yourself some breakfast?"

She eyed his plate and then shook her head. "No, thank you, Commander. Replicator eggs always taste like replicator eggs to me no matter how much Cardassian hot sauce I put on them."

His expression softened a bit and he chuckled. "You just haven't been out in space long enough, Doctor. You get used to it."

"I was born on a starship," she reminded him, "and lived on one until I was ten. I never did 'get used to it.' Some of us are just better sticking close to Earth, I guess."

The man shrugged indifferently.

Marls plowed ahead. "Forgive me for interrupting your breakfast with business, but I was wondering if you could tell me when the Admiral will be returning? I have some new findings I'm anxious to share with him."

"He's scheduled to be back early next week." Rhodes blotted his mouth with a napkin. "Shall I see if he can pencil you in for a meeting?"

"That would be very kind of you, yes. And will Agent Harrison be with him?"

The older man looked at her oddly. "Harrison? No, Harrison is here, Lieutenant."

"Really?" She blinked innocently. "I haven't seen him in two weeks so I assumed he was rotated back to Earth."

"No. He never left the station."

"Oh. My mistake, then. But do tell the Admiral I'd like to see him if he has the time."

Rhodes grunted. "Will do, Lieutenant."

She smiled appreciatively. "Thank you, Commander. I'll let you get back to your breakfast."

Rhodes tucked back into his food with gusto. Marla slipped from the room. She went back to her own quarters and retrieved her sketchpad.

"Computer, what is the location of Agent John Harrison's quarters?"

"Deck B, room 14C."

"Thank you."

Marla took the stairs this time, pleased that she passed no one else in the halls. This early the evening shift was still at work, and the afternoon shift was still asleep.

When she arrived she carefully propped her sketchpad just next to the doorway so Harrison would be able to find it easily. But no sooner had she set it down than the doors slid open with a hydraulic hiss.

With a guilty smile she picked it up again and stood.

"Hello, John. I'm sorry—I was trying to be quiet so I wouldn't disturb you."

He just stared at her. He looked pale. Marla wondered if he'd been ill and that was why she hadn't seen him in so long.

When he still didn't speak Marla held up her sketchpad.

"I brought you something. You can call it a peace offering, if you like." She flipped to the correct page and handed it to him. "It came out rather well, if I do say so myself. I thought you might want it. But of course, if you don't, that's fine, too. I'm not a professional artist, after all…"

Harrison looked at the sketch she had made of him in silence for a long moment.

"I'm honored," he finally said. "Thank you."

She smiled with relief. "I'm glad you like it."

He seemed to remember himself. He gestured to the room behind him as he set the sketchpad down on a table. "Won't you come in?"

Marla could see over his shoulder that the room was virtually identical to her own. The cabin was without any personal adornment at all. It was one open space, with a small seating area, a tiny bathroom to one side, and a bed in the middle.

She took a deep breath. "I don't think that would be wise. How about a walk instead?"

"As you wish."

They crossed B deck and took the turbolift down towards the center of the ship. Marla had pushed one of the buttons at random. They ended up on one of the construction decks. From high above on a catwalk they could look down at the workers busily welding away on what looked to Marla like a nacelle. Whether they were putting it together or taking it apart she could not tell.

They stood in silence for a long moment. Marla had hoped John would feel comfortable enough in her presence to tell her what was troubling him. But he just stood there in his dark blue uniform, silent as the grave.

"Did I ever tell you what my mother actually did for Starfleet?" Marla finally said.

He turned his face towards her. "She was a botanist."

"Well, yes, but what does a botanist _do_ for Starfleet? After all, Class M planets that actually contain new plant life in need of identification and cataloging are not that common. My mother—Maria, was her name-actually specialized in designing, installing and maintaining botanical gardens on starships. The one she designed and had built on the _Lincoln_ is still considered one of the very best ones in the fleet."

As she had expected, this idea amused him. "Gardens in space," he said thoughtfully. "A waste of space on a combat vessel."

"But starships aren't purely for combat—they haven't been for a long time," she argued. "People live _and_ work on them. Children are born there. There are weddings and graduations and funerals, just as on Earth. Starfleet discovered very early on that the longer people were in deep space the more they needed some kind of connection to terra firma. And maintaining a botanical garden on a starship is not as easy as it sounds. Plants are much more sensitive to changes in gravitational pull than we are. And then there's soil and air quality issues, water needs for plants from a thousand different worlds…it's an endless amount of work."

"I imagine so."

"But the good thing is that a garden always gives you some place to go. If we were on a starship, John, that's where we could have gone for a walk, instead of here." She gestured to the flying sparks below them.

He gazed at her in silence for a long moment. "Were you happy on the _Lincoln_?" He finally asked.

She nodded. "That's why even after my father died my mother and I stayed there. Starfleet offered her reassignment; a lot of her friends told her she should take me back to Earth. But the _Lincoln_ was home, and her crew was family." Marla smiled. "Assuming they don't kill each other first, that's what usually happens when a group of people are thrown together in a small space for a long period of time."

"Yes, I know."

"I'm sure you do."

"You never told me how your mother died."

Marla blinked. "Well, no, I haven't."

"She died in service to Starfleet, as did your father."

"You've been reading my service records again." She looked down at her feet for a moment before continuing. "I'd like to say I'm the only person who lost both parents that way. But I can't."

She shook her head. "When people sign up for Starfleet they know the risks it involves. My mother was part of an away team that had beamed down to a planet to take some soil samples. The Federation was interested in possibly claiming it. They ran across a Ferengi scouting party that evidently had the same idea. Things got ugly, weapons were pulled on both sides, and my mother stepped between the two groups to try and calm things down. It was exactly the kind of thing she was always doing. Always the peacemaker, my mother."

Marla sighed. "It wasn't even the Ferengi who killed her. It was a stupid accident. An ensign who hadn't been in Starfleet more than a month panicked and mistakenly pulled the trigger on his phaser. His shot went wide and…that was that. But with her gone I lost my family on the _Lincoln_, too. Starfleet policy is to return orphaned children to their nearest living relatives. That was my father's father, Finbar McGivers. I've told you about him."

"Yes."

"I loved my grandfather very much but it was just the two of us after that. And now he's gone, too."

She blushed. "I'm sorry. Too much detail—you don't need to know all that. I guess I'm just feeling nostalgic this morning." She glanced around them.

"Or maybe floating around in a steel box in space is finally getting to me. I thought maybe it had gotten to you, too. I thought you'd gone home, and that was why I hadn't seen you in awhile," she admitted.

"No, I've been here."

He did not add the word _unfortunately_, but Marla could hear it implied in his tone. She frowned.

"Then perhaps you should consider rotating back to Earth for awhile, John."

His gaze was direct. "Why?"

"Because you don't seem well," she said honestly. "I consider you a friend, John, and I'm worried about you."

"I am quite well, I assure you."

She shook her head. "I don't believe you."

The corners of his mouth quirked a bit, as if he was suppressing a smile. "Don't you?"

"No." She reached up and laid a hand along the side of his face. He was clean-shaven, and his skin was cool to her touch. He smelled like the standard-issue soap she herself had been using, but also of something else, subtle and indefinable, something the primitive part of her brain identified only as _male_.

This time she was the one to initiate the kiss, but it was every bit as spectacular as the last one.

She willingly let John pull her close and deepen the kiss. When his tongue slid past her lips her whole body sizzled. She found herself clutching his arms.

Heat bloomed deep within her. She was uncomfortably reminded of how long it had been since any man had made her feel this way…

Even though they had not yet been observed, both of them were acutely aware of the crew working below. They reluctantly withdrew from one another.

Marla had been counting on that. She'd never considered herself a particularly passionate woman. But she'd known instinctively that if she'd gone into John's quarters, if she'd kissed him again with a bed that close by, they would have ended up _in_ it. Then all her careful self-control would have been for naught.

John clearly knew it, too.

"You are a stubborn woman, Marla McGivers," he now told her. "It seems we are once again at an impasse."

"Looks like it. But at least we're speaking again," she said happily.

* * *

Commander Rhodes came through for her. He was able to arrange a dinner meeting for her with the Admiral on the night he returned.

Dinner in the Admiral's quarters was a sumptuous affair, certainly a cut above what the food synthesizers could come up with. There was roast capon, new potatoes, vegetables, bread with fresh butter, and even Romulan ale to drink. Romulan ale was illegal in the Federation, but Marla supposed if anyone could lay their hands on a supply it would be an Admiral.

She made sure to sip it slowly. Romulan ale was notoriously strong.

It was the first time she'd ever been alone with the Admiral. Truth be told it did feel a little odd. She'd hardly seen the man since the day she'd arrived.

_Don't trust Admiral Marcus_, John's voice whispered again in her head. _Don't trust any of them_.

_Why? Can I trust you?_ Her own voice answered him. _You've already made it clear that I can't._

The Admiral asked her to bring him up to speed on her work, and she obliged. She explained about cataloging the weapons, and the cross-referencing of the makes and models that had narrowed their origins down to the Asian fields of battle during the Wars. She then told him about the Battle of Shanghai and the Battle of Jaipur, of the Hong Kong Siege and of the Massacre of the Innocents that had occurred when Saigon had fallen to the genetically altered humans.

It was not really appropriate dinner-table conversation, but the Admiral seemed interested.

"And what do you think would have happened, Lieutenant, if the Augments had not taken to quarreling amongst themselves?" He asked over dessert. "If they had been able to unite under a common banner? As we did in the Federation, say?"

Marla shook her head. "Everything we know about genetically altered humans suggests that would have never been possible, Admiral. They may grow fast and have outsized strength and intelligence, but with all that came outsized ambition as well. Since they couldn't all be kings and queens they inevitably resorted to trying to kill each other off."

"But if it had been possible? Indulge me."

"Well, it's purely speculation, of course. But if they had been able to work together under one leader I'd say they would have been unstoppable. Then the rest of the free world would have fallen to them just as Asia and parts of Europe did."

"So you're glad they failed?" The Admiral asked her.

It was a strange question, and Marla had to think about it for a long moment. "Admiral, I'm a historian. I try not to get emotional about my subject. The Eugenics Wars were a particularly brutal and bloody time in our history, and for humans that is really saying something. But their end also nearly plunged us into a second dark age. In essence, you're asking me what's worse: life under tyranny, or life under chaos? That's a question I am not qualified to answer."

But her answer seemed to have pleased him. "Yes. Tyranny or chaos. That's always what it comes down to, isn't it?"

"Not always," Marla reasoned while an ensign cleared the plates and set out coffee cups. "There's peace. Like what we have now."

"Ah, peace is a tenuous thing, Lieutenant," the Admiral said as the ensign filled their cups and then left the room. "Academics like you have no idea how tenuous."

"No, I suppose we don't." Marla sipped her coffee, troubled by the turn the conversation had taken.

"And your new book?" The Admiral continued. "Does it tackle any of these issues?"

"In a way it does. It deals with the last year of the Wars, and then the first few years afterwards."

"Ah. You cover the executions, then?"

"I have to. And, yes, most of the Augments were executed. Remember, this was a different time, Admiral. It was believed to be too dangerous to leave any of them alive. How could there be peace while they lived? But actually I don't regard that part of the story as the focus of my book. My focus is going to be on the ones who _weren't _executed."

The Admiral set down his cup. "Pardon me?"

"I can't take all the credit. It's been the work of generations of scholars to piece the records together. But a pretty clear picture is now emerging in my own research. I estimate that anywhere between eighty and ninety individuals known to have participated in the Wars were unaccounted for in their aftermath. They just fall completely out of the historical records. It's almost like they disappeared."

"You don't say."

"I do." Marla knew she was probably taking too much, but it was hard not to get excited about her work.

"How can you be so sure?"

"Oh, they all had names. It always struck me as a bit odd that a human grown in a lab to be a super-soldier would be given a name, but they all were. We also have the names of those executed, because executions were always held in public to reassure the crowds that the Augments were really dead. Now we have both lists I've been cross-referencing them. That's how I found the discrepancy."

The Admiral was staring at her. "Why doesn't everyone know about this?"

"Well, my theory is that whatever happened to the others, those who escaped execution, was covered up by the authorities at the time. They couldn't let word get out without jeopardizing what little stability society had left." Marla frowned. "Not that it did them much good, because things fell apart anyway."

"This will all be in the new book?"

She smiled. "It will. Along with whatever data you are willing to let me use from my studies here. Honestly, I cannot thank you enough for bringing me on board this project. It's been one of the highlights of my career so far."

"I'm glad you've gotten so much out of it. And Agent Harrison hasn't been too much trouble?"

"John? No, John has been fine."

"'John' is it? I didn't realize the two of you were on a first name basis."

"We have been working together," Marla explained. "He's…well, to be quite honest with you, Admiral, he's a strange man."

"Strange in what way?"

"I'm not sure how to explain it. If we were playing chess I'd say he's always three or four moves ahead of me."

"Yes, that's him, all right."

"Is that typical of them, Admiral?"

The older man's gaze sharpened. "Typical of whom, Lieutenant?"

She was a bit taken aback by his sudden shift in tone. "Why, Starfleet agents, of course," she said quickly. "After all, he's the only one I've ever met."

The Admiral pushed away his coffee cup. "I couldn't say. Well, it has been a most stimulating evening, Lieutenant. But if you will excuse me it's late and I still have a pile of paperwork ahead of me."

Marla got to her feet. "Of course, Admiral. Thank you for the invitation and for the lovely meal."

He nodded at her and left the room.

She was left alone, suspecting she'd said or done something wrong, but helpless to understand what that might be.


	5. Chapter 5

Ch. 5

After sleeping late and grabbing a quick breakfast in her room Marla threw on her jacket and headed over to the lab.

As she walked she visualized herself back in her office at the Academy, reworking her book. It was going to be a groundbreaking work, she was certain of it now. She couldn't wait to get started.

But when she arrived she could see immediately that something was wrong. Her key card worked, but…

Her lab was empty. The tables had been cleared—all of her books, notes, and artifacts were gone. Even the computers had been removed.

She stood perfectly still for a moment, too stunned to do anything.

"What the hell…?" She murmured to herself.

She stepped out and summoned a passing ensign. "Excuse me, I'm Dr. McGivers. Do you know if they've relocated my laboratory to another floor?"

The young man shrugged. "No, I'm afraid I don't. Oh, here comes Security. They'll know." He walked away, and two uniformed security officers approached her.

"Lieutenant McGivers?" One asked.

"Yes. You're just in time. Do you know if…"

"Ma'am, we have orders to bring you to the Admiral's office," he interrupted her. "Would you come with us, please?"

"Oh." She frowned. "Yes, of course."

As they walked Marla ran through possible scenarios in her mind. Had the Admiral had her materials moved? If so, why? If he'd wanted a closer look at them all he would have had to do was ask.

Admiral Marcus' office was in the aft section of the station, away from all the construction noise and debris. It had glass doors but otherwise the walls were solid steel. A conference table and chairs were the only furniture in the room.

The Admiral was waiting for her. Commander Rhodes and John Harrison were with him.

The doors slid open and Marla followed the two guards into the room. A third security guard followed them in.

Her stomach fluttered nervously. "Admiral, you wanted to see me? Is something wrong?"

"You might say that, Lieutenant. You might. Do sit down."

She did as he bade. He sat opposite her.

She frowned. "Admiral, I don't understand. I just found that my lab has been emptied out. All the artifacts, the data…gone."

"Yes, well, I'm afraid your work here is done, Dr. McGivers."

She shook her head stubbornly. "No, it isn't."

"Oh, it is," he corrected. "After our chat at dinner last night it's become clear to me you know everything you need to know."

She was genuinely puzzled. "Do you mean my telling you about what's in my book? That really isn't that relevant any more, Admiral. As I started to explain last night I'm going to be rewriting the whole thing based on what I've learned since I've been here," she said. "It will take some time, of course, but…"

"The project has ended, Marla," Commander Rhodes told her. "It was terminated as of 0800 hours this morning."

Marla was genuinely disappointed. But on the bright side she would be able to start writing that much sooner.

"Oh. Well, of course that is the Admiral's decision to make," she admitted. "In that case I'm going to need transportation, I'm afraid. You see I wasn't planning on returning to Earth for a few more days, Admiral."

"Plans change, Lieutenant."

"So I see." She glanced over at Harrison, but as usual his expression told her nothing.

The room fell silent. Finally Marla grew uncomfortable. "Forgive me, Admiral, but I feel as if I'm missing something here."

"We owe you a debt of gratitude, Lieutenant," Rhodes said. "Your extensive knowledge has proved invaluable."

"Yes, I'm sure it has," she agreed.

The Admiral chuckled. "Lieutenant, I think I'm going to genuinely miss you," he said as he typed something into his tablet. "You are a remarkably gifted scholar in your field. It's just really too bad no one will be able to follow in your footsteps."

"I don't understand. What do you mean?"

"Thanks to you, as we speak every last bit of information on the Eugenics Wars is being removed from archives around the world and destroyed." The Admiral didn't even bother glancing up as he said this.

"What? Why?" Horrified, Marla put a hand over her mouth. "You can't…"

"This is about the greater good, Lieutenant. I would have thought you'd recognize that."

"'Greater good'?" She jumped to her feet. "In destroying priceless historical records?"

"The world's done just fine for three hundred years without knowing all the details of the Wars." The Admiral shrugged. "They'll do just fine without that information now."

She forced herself to breath steadily. Surely this was all a mistake—a horrible, awful mistake. Surely she could fix this…

"My life's work…my book…" She said, keeping her voice calm.

"All the copies of your book manuscript have also been deleted from both your own computers and Starfleet's, as have all of your notes." He gestured at one of the security men, who stepped forward and set the broken remains of Marla's tablet on the table top. It was little more than fragments now.

Marla's control snapped. "I've broken no laws!" She protested. "I've violated no Starfleet orders. I've been a good officer—you have no right to confiscate my research!"

"You have been a very good officer, and a fine scholar." He rose and walked around to her side of the table. "But sacrifices have to be made. War is coming, Lieutenant. We will be prepared, or we will die."

"'Sacrifices?'" Marla didn't know whether to scream or to cry. "I don't understand any of this. _You_ were the one who recruited me to come here, Admiral!"

"I did. And now I'm done with you."

A chill ran down Marla's back. He couldn't possible mean what he was saying. Could he?

"If anything happens to me you won't get away with it," she bluffed. "My colleagues…"

"Your colleagues are too busy mourning your untimely death to pay any attention to what happened to your notes."

The world seemed to tilt on its axis. "My death? What do you mean?"

The Admiral looked at her with those strange, pale eyes and smiled.

"You died two days ago in a freak shuttle accident over the North Sea, Lieutenant McGivers. An explosion, I'm afraid. Not even anything left to bury. Your memorial service is scheduled for next Tuesday, I believe."

Her legs no longer wanted to support her. It was all she could do to stay on her feet.

_I'm going to die_, she finally realized. _They're going to kill me_. _They've _already _killed me_.

Last night, as they'd chatted amicably over dinner, the Admiral must have already moved to wipe her off Starfleet's books. And she'd suspected nothing.

Horror threatened to overtake her but she tamped it down. Her brain frantically tried to put all the puzzle pieces together.

She'd thought the only mystery afoot was who Harrison really was. But now she realized it was the Admiral who all along had been the much bigger cipher.

'War is coming.' What did he mean, and what did that have to do with Harrison and this research station? Did Starfleet know what he was up to? And, if they did, what the hell kind of an organization had she been working for all this time?

She's missed all the warnings, ignored all the little things that hadn't fit because she'd been greedy to get her hands on the artifacts Marcus possessed.

And now those hunks of metal were going to cost her her life.

She tore her eyes away from the Admiral and looked at the others in the room. The three security personnel gazed back at her without expression. Commander Rhodes glanced away. Agent Harrison was somewhere behind her, but she doubted any help would come from that quarter.

"Please," she said to no one in particular. "You can't do this. I haven't done anything. Starfleet protocols…"

Admiral Marcus turned away from her. "This operation is not under Starfleet protocols, Lieutenant. Never has been. You know that."

Without thinking about it Marla grabbed a shard from her ruined tablet. The jagged piece of metal and plastic dug into her right palm, drawing blood. But she barely felt it.

Instinctively she lunged at the Admiral, missing his back by a fraction of an inch before a security officer intercepted her. He grabbed her wounded hand, twisting it until she was forced to drop the weapon.

A second officer punched her in the ribs. Twice. Hard. She dropped to the floor in agony, barely able to draw breath.

Tears of pain streamed down her face, but she was still able to look up at the Admiral. He looked almost amused.

"Kill her," he ordered.

Three Starfleet-issued phasers were pointed at her.

_No matter what the Admiral says, it was Starfleet that brought me here_, she thought as she closed her eyes and waited for death. _And it's Starfleet that's about to kill me._

"Stop."

The voice came from behind her, from the Starfleet agent who wasn't really a Starfleet agent.

Marla opened her eyes. She was still on the floor, still alive.

"Don't interfere, John," she heard the Admiral say. "She knows too much. The safest thing to do is to eliminate her."

"She may _know_ a great deal," Harrison corrected. "But thanks to you she now has no proof of any of it."

"She's served her purpose."

"To you, perhaps. Not to me. Marla, get up."

The voice did not change tone. But Marla sensed her life depended on doing what John told her now.

She struggled to her feet, one arm pressed against her injured ribs. She realized she'd split her lip in the fall to the floor. There was blood trickling down her chin as well as down her injured hand. Her hair had come undone and was hanging in her face.

_Am I in shock?_ She wondered to herself. _I don't feel well. I think I may be in shock_.

Her brain was sluggish and slow, but she kept her eyes fixed on the Admiral. She tried to stand as straight as her injuries would allow.

"Oh, I see." The Admiral smiled again. He reached out and took Marla's chin in his hand. It was all she could do to keep from biting him.

"Are you sure you want her?" He asked John. "She's a bit of a mess just now."

"She is mine. She has been mine since the first day she boarded this station."

Dimly Marla remembered that first day in the lab, when John had started unpinning her hair. And she had let him.

_Was that what set all this in motion?_ She thought dizzily. _Is he saving my life just so he can kill me himself later? After he…_

For the first time since she'd been brought into the room Commander Rhodes stepped forward. "Admiral, surely you don't condone giving her to this man," he said.

Marla blinked at him. Rhodes had not lifted a finger when she'd been about to be murdered. But he was objecting now because Harrison might rape her? What a strange set of priorities the man had.

Marcus just ignored his assistant.

"Fine. Get her out of here," he told John.

Harrison tried to take Marla by the elbow, but she jerked away from him. Searing pain laced down her side again. "I can walk," she managed to hiss out from between teeth clenched in pain.

Reluctantly she followed Harrison to the door.

"Oh, and Lieutenant?" The Admiral called.

Marla glanced over her shoulder.

"Just so you know. Make any trouble, any at all, and I'll have you thrown out the airlock. Understood?"

"Y-yes, Admiral," she said.

"Good. Dismissed."

* * *

Marla was proud of herself for getting all the way back to John's quarters without passing out. Harrison had led her there, but he had not tried to touch her again.

She sat on the edge of the bed, wondering idly if her ribs were broken or just badly bruised.

She stared blankly at the clock on the nightstand, realizing to her amazement it wasn't even noon yet. Everything had been normal when she'd awoken. How could so much have happened in just a few hours?

Marla heard water running in the bathroom. John was in front of her a moment later with a Starfleet standard issue first aid kit and a washcloth in his hands. He knelt in front of her, wiping away the dried blood on her chin and then carefully washing her injured hand. The gash was long but not deep.

"Are there any painkillers in that kit?" She asked quietly. "I need them."

He handed them to her. She swallowed them quickly.

John put a dermal patch over the injury that would help knit the torn skin back together. He worked in silence for a long moment. When he did finally speak, he said something she did not expect.

"What do you want to do now?"

"'Do?'' She echoed. "What do I want to do?"

"Yes."

Marla closed her eyes, trying to get her mind to function again. "I want…I want…"

Her eyes opened.

"I want Admiral Marcus dead."

"Good." John finished bandaging her hand. He pressed it between his own until she winced. "So do I."

She looked directly into his blue eyes. "I know who you are, you know."

"Do you?" He smiled amusedly.

"Yes. I figured it out more than a week ago. I didn't say anything because I didn't think Marcus or Rhodes would believe me without hard proof." She paused. "If I'd told them my suspicions I'd be dead already, wouldn't I?"

"You would," John agreed.

"Very few photographs survived," Marla observed idly. "We talked about that a lot, in my field—'oh, isn't it too bad we don't have more images from the wars'?"

"Hmmm."

"But we had descriptions of events, places. People even. Some of them are pretty accurate. Uncannily accurate, you might say." She looked in his eyes. "Turns out I wasn't just sketching from my own memory after all."

John neatly folded the washcloth and laid it to one side. He took her hands in his own again.

"Then tell me my name, Marla. My real name." He reached up and placed one impossibly strong hand on the side of her face. "I want to hear it from your lips."

She stared at him for a long moment without speaking.

"Khan," she finally offered. "Your name is Khan."

He smiled at her

"You are indeed a superior woman, Marla McGivers."

He eased her back against the pillows, an action that to her surprise didn't alarm her nearly as much as it should have.

"Sleep now," he told her.

Exhausted from her ordeal and with the painkillers rapidly taking effect, Marla found she could do nothing but comply.

* * *

When she opened her eyes she knew instinctively that several hours had passed. Her head felt like it was stuffed with cotton, and her mouth was dry. To her relief she saw a glass of water sitting on the nightstand.

She sat up gingerly. It hurt, but not as much as she expected. No broken ribs, then, she thought absently. She drank the water greedily.

John—Khan—was still in the room. He was working at the computer station. For a moment she just stared at him.

It had been one thing to have a wild idea about who he really was. She now found, however, that was quite another to have it confirmed.

For four years, at the height of the Eugenics Wars, Khan had ruled over nearly one quarter of the Earth, his empire stretching from Asia to the Middle East. His rule had been relatively stable by the standards of the time: there had been no massacres, and no wars until human forces had attacked him. Khan had been the very last of the tyrants to be overthrown.

Then he had disappeared.

Only to reappear almost three hundred years later on a secret Section 31 installation, working for an Admiral who was most likely insane.

Marla rubbed her eyes.

She still wasn't sure how it had happened, but apparently she was now Alice in Wonderland. She'd fallen down the rabbit hole and she had no way to climb out.

Even as a child she'd hated that book…

Khan noticed she was awake and brought her a tablet. "Your obituary has been posted, if you'd care to read it."

She shuddered. "No, I do not." She hesitated before reaching out to take it from him.

He noticed her hesitation. "Are you afraid of me now?"

"No."

"You should be." He studied her calmly. "After all, your own history regards me as, what was the phrase? 'A psychotic despot who terrorized humanity?'"

Marla cringed. "Please don't quote the late Dr. Ibrahim's work. He was a fine scholar but he and I never quite saw eye to eye on our interpretation of events. _I_ never called you psychotic."

"No. You called me a megalomaniac."

"And, for the moment, I'm standing by that." She stared at him again for a long moment. "How is it even possible you're here? Obviously you fled Earth in the _Botany Bay_, I get that, but where did you think you were going?"

"Marla, we were condemned as criminals and forced into exile. We were headed for some uncharted planet where we could rebuild without…interference. We planned to eventually return to Earth when things were different."

His posture was straight as he stood before her, his stance firm. He seemed more at ease with her now she knew his true identity.

Marla's mouth dropped open. "'We'? There were others?"

He nodded. "My crew."

She swung her feet over the edge of the bed and stood up, leaving the tablet behind. "The missing six dozen Augments! You took them with you!"

He smiled. "Yes."

Khan wasn't alone. Her mind reeled at the implications.

One augment was dangerous. More than one…

She raked her hands through her disheveled hair. "God, I've been such an idiot! They should revoke my doctorate!" She paused. "But, Khan, a sleeper ship like the _Botany Bay_ was never designed to support life for hundreds of years…"

"It was never my intent that it should do so. Whatever malfunction set us adrift also caused eight of the individual life support systems to fail before we were found."

His voice was rough when he said this. Marla reminded herself that these were men and women he had known. To him those deaths would have been as fresh as if they had happened days and not decades ago. As the group's leader he would have felt it all the more acutely.

"I'm so sorry." She placed a hand on his arm. "OK, so Starfleet found you. By accident or by design?"

"Marcus maintains it was accidental."

"He might be telling the truth. After the mess with Nero Starfleet has been aggressively searching even the most distant quadrants of space, looking for potential dangers," she admitted. Then she frowned. "Section 31 isn't stupid—they must have quickly figured out who you were. But the Admiral still had you woken from cryogenic sleep?"

"He did."

"Why didn't he wake the others…No, never mind, of course he wouldn't—that would be too dangerous, even for a madman like Marcus." Marla turned away and refilled her water glass. She took a deep gulp before continuing. "But he woke you, and kept you awake. What did he want from you?"

"He wants a war, Marla."

"A war? With whom?"

"The Klingon Empire."

She was stunned into silence for a long moment.

"No, that's…that's…intergalactic war!" She was finally able to say. "That will make World War III look like a playground spat!"

"I assume so, yes. You've met Marcus, observed him. You can perceive that he wants a militarized Starfleet above all things. A war will bring him that."

"With himself at its head, yes." She paused. "And you're covering the 'militarized' part of things, I assume?"

"I've provided my knowledge of and experience in warfare in return for preserving the lives of my crew."

"Hostages. Charming." Marla set down her glass and picked up the tablet again. "And now he's got my research too. Based on the specs I've given him he's probably already reverse engineering all the weapons he needs, only this time without all the 20th century bugs."

Khan nodded.

She rubbed her face, still trying to figure out when and how she'd landed in this nightmare. She quickly scrolled through several screens on the computer.

"I wouldn't bother. They've locked you out from all your access points."

Marla didn't look up from her work. "Can you get me back in?"

"No. I've tried."

He was telling the truth. Every account she had ever had was locked. There was no way to reach anything that had once been hers. Her service records, bank accounts, communications, research notes: it was all gone.

_She_ was gone.

Marcus had been thorough, that was for sure.

She put it down again. "John—Khan—I appreciate what you did for me this morning. I really do," she said slowly. "But you do realize that at most you've bought me, what, a week, maybe two, before Marcus kills me anyway?"

"Yes.

"There has to be someone who can help me…"

"There is no one. Every member of Starfleet personnel you have met here is also Section 31. They believe in Marcus' vision without question and follow him in all things. The civilians who work here are paid well for their loyalty and their silence."

Marla was tempted to weep for a moment, until she remembered this was no longer just about her own life.

"Khan?" She asked tentatively. "Your crew? Where are they now?"

His expression darkened. "My surviving crew were transferred into stasis chambers and kept here under heavy guard. I soon came to realize, however, that Marcus had no intention of reviving them. And as long as they were helpless the Admiral held the upper hand. I resolved to smuggle them off this station to safety."

"How?"

"When I designed new photon torpedoes for the Admiral I made certain each was large enough to also contain a stasis chamber."

"That's…rather ingenious."

"I thought so." He took her hand. "And that is where you enter the picture, Marla."

"Me? How do I fit into this?"

"Marcus wanted you here not just for your expertise. If anyone would have been able to recognize 20th century weaponry deployed in the 23rd it would have been you. He had to make sure you did not know too much."

She shook her head ruefully. "As it turned out I knew just enough to be dangerous."

"Exactly so. But for me your arrival provided enough of a distraction to move forward with my plans. The Admiral and his minions were so busy fretting about you that for once I was able to operate more or less undetected here."

"But something went wrong." Marla understood where he was going. "Two weeks ago? Around the time you seemed to disappear?"

He scowled. "As always, you are very perceptive. My plan was discovered, and the torpedoes with my crew inside them taken from me, taken to Earth."

She held her breath. "And destroyed?"

"I do not know. In all likelihood, yes."

"I'm so sorry, Khan. I know that's not really an adequate thing to say in these circumstances but I truly am." She was thoughtful for a long moment. "However…"

He caught the change in her tone and released her hand. "Yes?"

"I think you may be mistaken about Marcus destroying them. Your crew is the greatest leverage he has against you. Maybe he just wants you to _think_ the chambers have been destroyed."

He shook his head. "Marcus' plans are nearly complete. My crew was of no further use to him. I have no doubt that when the time comes he will attempt to eliminate me as well."

"What are you going to do?"

He smiled again, that cold smile that sent shivers down her spine.

"I am going to escape to Earth. And you are going to help me."


	6. Chapter 6

Ch. 6

Marla laid her head against the plastic tile in the shower as hot water sluiced down her back.

It was a good place to think, the shower. And she had a bit of childish hope that she might deprive Admiral Marcus of some hot water if she stayed in long enough.

Almost two days had passed since she'd nearly been executed. She hadn't left Harrison's—Khan's—room since then. She was frankly terrified that the moment she stepped into the corridor Starfleet security would appear and finish what they'd started.

_ Make any trouble, any at all, and I'll have you thrown out the airlock, _Marcus had said.

For the last two nights she'd had long, drawn-out nightmares of a slow death by suffocation. The circles under her eyes were now the same charming shade of blue as the bruises on her ribs and on her injured hand.

Khan has been her savior, in more ways than one. He'd given her a problem to occupy her mind before her fear and anxiety could drive her mad.

She's promised to help him get back to Earth.

It had been a rash thing to do. She might have been in Starfleet for years, but she was no secret agent. She probably knew less about how to bypass Starfleet's systems and protocols than Khan did.

She'd told him that in a fit of pique the night before.

He'd only gazed at her mildly. "You have already proven yourself a clever woman, Marla," he's said before turning his attention back to the computer monitor before him. "I have faith in you."

"I'm glad one of us does," she now grumbled to herself as she finally turned off the water. She toweled off quickly and spared only a glance at her reflection in the small mirror. She looked like a wild woman, all bruises and wide eyes and tangled hair.

_No wonder he hasn't tried to lay a hand on me_, she thought ruefully.

Because the Augments had focused so much of their energy on war and conquest historians didn't know much about how they had viewed sex. But there was strong evidence in the record to suggest that ordinary humans had often offered themselves quite freely as potential sexual partners. And why not? The genetically-enhanced humans had been—were—beautiful, strong, and charismatic. She vaguely recalled reading somewhere that some rulers, perhaps even Khan himself, had actually kept harems.

Why would someone like that want someone like her?

_ Good thing I'm not in an amorous mood anyway, _she thought as she yanked a comb through her wet hair. The strands snapped and snarled under the teeth.

Actually, she did have at least some idea of what Khan was up against. She was a student of Earth history, after all, and she'd sometimes had lunch with acquaintances in the Strategic Security Department back at the Academy.

Of all of Starfleet's many security protocols, none was older or more carefully protected than the shields around Earth itself. Originally designed with help from the Vulcans, the shields prevented any unauthorized arrivals or departures from the planet.

For more than a century the shields had been accessible only with a series of codes. Only those highest up in Starfleet and the Federation had access to them.

Then the Romulan Nero had captured and tortured a Starfleet captain until he surrendered those codes.

No one, least of all Marla, blamed the captain (what had his name been—Pool? Peters? Something like that) for what had happened. But with the codes Nero had very nearly succeeded in destroying Earth as he had destroyed Vulcan.

So in the last year the procedures had all been changed. The scuttlebutt around the Academy had been that the codes were now divided into two parts. One half was provided to Starfleet and civilian captains who needed to cross the shield. The other was provided to security teams down on Earth. In order to gain clearance the correct half had to be given by the shuttle or starship. Then and only then would the other half of the code be entered by someone on the Earth's surface.

It was simple, but effective.

She threw on a bra, panties, and a robe and went into the main living area. She had no idea where Khan was, and hadn't felt it appropriate to ask. But she wasn't about to wander about in just her underwear.

Marla turned her mind back to the matter at hand. She was willing to admit that under the old system maybe, just maybe, she or Khan might have been able to lay their hands on a code to get them through Earth's defenses. But now? Impossible.

"Impossible," she sighed to herself as she ordered a cup of coffee from the replicator. The unit was so small it couldn't make a full meal. So far food had been delivered to her on trays from the mess hall. She hadn't eaten any of it.

The door chimed, startling Marla so badly she dropped the hot drink. It splashed across the floor, just missing her bare legs.

Khan would have just walked in. And Marla was well aware that thanks to the Admiral she didn't have another friend on the station.

The chime sounded again. Marla pulled her robe closer around her. Her heart was beating so loudly she could hear it in her ears.

Finally, reluctantly, she spoke. "Come in."

The computer relayed her words to the door mechanism and it slid open.

Captain Rivers was standing there. Marla hadn't seen the slim man who'd originally recruited her for more than a week. She had no idea why he was here now.

"Did the Admiral send you?" She demanded.

"No, he did not. May I come in?"

Marla glanced at the man's hands. They appeared to be empty. But she knew phasers and other weapons were easy to conceal. There was no way to be certain.

She straightened her back.

"If you must."

He followed her inside. She could see his eyes track from the rumpled bedding to the clothes scattered about. The mess was in fact entirely Marla's, but she didn't feel inclined to tell Rivers that.

He eyed her robe. "Would you like to get dressed?"

Marla bristled. Her clothes had been brought down from her old room. But since they were mostly versions of her red uniform she'd been reluctant to wear them. Instead she'd been living in a grubby t-shirt and an old pair of trousers. But she'd be damned if she changed even into those for this man.

"I'm comfortable like this," she lied. "Now state your business and get out."

With a false casualness Rivers went over to the computer. He glanced at it but the screen was dark.

"Where's Harrison?"

"He isn't here, as I'm sure you know. And that isn't his name. You should call him Khan."

The older man frowned. "Is that what you call him?"

Marla just stared at him coldly.

After a moment he sighed. "Marla…"

"Dr. McGivers," she corrected.

"Fine. Dr. McGivers. I wanted you to know…" He paused.

She was growing irritated. "Yes?"

"That is, I want you to know that I…I didn't agree to this. To any of this."

She stared at him. "OK."

"OK?" He echoed.

"Yeah, OK. You can go now."

"You don't believe me?" The man's mocha colored face darkened with anger.

"I believe you follow the Admiral's orders. The Admiral told you to bring me here, so you brought me here. The Admiral told you to lie to me, so you lied to me. The Admiral …"

"I never agreed to having you killed."

"Bully for you."

"And I never agreed to giving you to Khan." He glanced briefly at the bed again, his gaze quickly skittering away. "I have daughters of my own. I would never…"

Marla hastily stifled a stunned laugh. First Rhodes, now Rivers! Was everyone on the station obsessed with her sex life?

Of course the Captain didn't know Marla had thus far been occupying the bed alone. Khan hadn't touched her, and he didn't seem to need to sleep. Or at least he hadn't so far.

She felt a fierce stab of satisfaction at Rivers' discomfort. It was cruel, she knew, but she decided to twist the knife a bit.

"It's a little late for you to get upset."

He shifted uncomfortably. "If I had been here…"

"What, you would have reasoned with the Admiral? Protected my virtue?" She mocked. "And, now, what, you feel sorry for me?"

"I do."

"Don't feel sorry for me!" She hissed through clenched teeth. "Help me!"

But he just shook his head. "I can't." He took a breath. "Is he..hurting you?"

Marla then did something that surprised even herself. She pulled open one side of her robe.

Rivers sucked in his breath as he saw the technicolor mass of purple, green, and blue bruises down her side. They were the same ones left by Starfleet security's fists. But she wasn't about to tell him that.

"What do you think?" She said.

He blanched and swallowed.

"I'm…"

"Yeah, you're sorry." She quickly closed her robe and knotted the sash. "I know."

The door slid open again. Khan entered. If he seemed surprised to see Rivers there he did not show it.

"Captain. May I help you with something?" He asked.

When the officer did not answer Khan glanced at Marla.

"The Captain was just leaving," she said shortly.

"Of course." Khan came to stand next to her and laid a hand on her shoulder.

Marla knew Khan made the gesture to reassure her, and she appreciated it.

But she was also delighted to realize that Rivers read the gesture as one of possession. She could tell by how the older man's scowl deepened.

"Dr. McGivers. Agent Harrison." Rivers nodded, his vowels clipped as he spoke. He left the room as abruptly as he came.

Khan raised his eyebrows.

"It's nothing," she told him. "I'll explain later.

* * *

It was later than evening when the note arrived. She hadn't intended to eat anything on the meal tray this time either. But fortunately she'd picked up the water glass to fill it. The note had been concealed underneath.

She read it and then re-read it. Finally a slow smile spread across her face.

She turned to Khan.

"I know how we're going to get you back to Earth."


End file.
