Closed;

[khan_artist]

Characters: Jim Kirk (jirk), Khan (khan_artist)
Date: September 8th
Location: Fire Sector
Situation: So a genetically-engineered human augment walks into a bar...
Warnings/Rating: Physical violence.

Most of Khan's finances, weapons, and food came from shaking down the numerous gangs in the Fire Sector. Now that he had relocated to another suite, one with three floors, he had spent most of his juulan customizing it to suit his needs and now he needed more. Grabbing his hooded trench coat, phaser pistol that Jim had given him, and a few well placed knives on his person; Khan left his suite.

Finding them would be easy enough since he already knew which establishments were paying them protection money. One of them was one of the older bars that could be easily be missed were one driving by, a rare thing in the sector since most of it's buildings were rather lavish.

Pausing only briefly to eye the red car outside, obviously one from Earth, Khan walked into one of the very few dive bars in the Fire Sector. Here he could simply wait for them to arrive, their collection schedule simple enough for him to figure out.

However, he wasn't the only foreigner here.

Comments

[jirk]

"Don't even start," Jim said flatly. He wasn't going to let Khan goad him further. Hard to miss that pointed look at Pike's graduation ring, he's worn it ever since he found it in Sinbrilee. It was too big for him, in a lot more ways than literal. That, as well as the statement about his crew, thinned the line of his mouth. "You have no idea what you took from me."

[khan_artist]

Both his eyebrows rose, almost politely. At least, it would be to those who didn’t know him. Know that underneath that inquisitive motion was derisive and humor, the kind very few found worthwhile.

There had been plans laid in motion by Khan to kill Marcus, fully aware that he had a daughter. Family.

That wasn’t going to stop his vengeance, and he was hardly concerned for the toll that would be left behind if his organized attack went through. If Jim hadn’t stopped him.

"Something so important that you can’t live without it. And yet, here you are."

[jirk]

"I didn't say I couldn't live without it," Jim hisses, fists clenching. He's so close to lashing out again, he has to walk that very fine line. "I said you have no idea what you took. Do you feel anything but superiority?"

[khan_artist]

Everything so far, even Jim’s hostile reaction had been for Khan’s amusement. All that he could get really given the conditions he was forced to be under. That question though catches his eye and they sharply move to home in directly on Jim’s, his pupils reflecting the outside light of the bar.

"What does that matter to you, Kirk?" Purposely dropping his title of Captain that Jim had imposed. The suddenness of the question felt like someone flicking an exposed nerve for their amusement.

Something he would have done.

[jirk]

"Because you know what I think? I think for all that you talk about being better, you aren't any different than the rest of us." He keeps his tone derisive. Pitying. He has a feeling it's the one thing Khan can't stand.

"And I think if I played chess against you, I'd win. Because at the end of the day, you're only human."

[khan_artist]

With each passing word, Khan’s fingers slowly folded into a fist. A small tilt upwards of his chin happens as his lips thin, though his eyes never move from Jim; as if locked in place.

"As your executive officer would tell you, were he here," Those words were said with more sting than any he’s given so far. "your theory is illogical and has already been proven invalid."

A page right out of Spock’s book, mocking Jim in the wake of his absence. "You can’t afford to play that game, Captain. There is too much at stake for you." Using his title as a reminder that he knows how much Jim values his crew.

Something he understands to well, but him it is on a different level entirely.

[jirk]

"Oh? Has it? Because I don't actually remember it ever being proven. I remember you going on a psychotic bender against an entire planet because you thought you lost your crew. Good job, by the way. Very Machiavellian. Too bad a super being couldn't stop and do his homework first, right? You blew up Sector 31 on a whim? Does that sound like the action of a rational man to you? Someone smart as you, I'm sure you had a million ways to find out if your crew was unharmed, but no. You went for the throat. Like an animal. 'Savagery', right?"

Jim snorts in disgust and throws his hands in the air. "Did you seriously just say there's too much at stake for me? My people aren't popsicles, Harrison. And you can't touch them while I'm the one hope you've got."

[khan_artist]

There’s no retort. If anything, Jim’s rebuke is a bit magnanimous. His actions to him reflected the savagery that was hard wired into his DNA, a step above the rationality that Starfleet as a whole tried to keep at their core.

Alexander Marcus had made it seem like it was nothing more than timed disaster to explode over galaxies as opposed to one building.

At least, from Khan’s skewed perspective.

"No. I cannot." Says the man who is seeing less hope the more he learns of what it is they are facing and their slim odds of success.

[jirk]

When that didn't earn the reaction he was looking for (violence), Jim's shoulders sag like a weight's struck and settled there. It occurs to him, not for the first time, how similar he and Khan really are. Wouldn't Jim do anything for his family, after all? Wasn't it making him crazy to be apart from them?

He flexes his fingers, there's blood across the back of his knuckles - his own - but he barely feels it. Finally, "How long were you even active under Marcus?" Because if he can't goad Khan into the fight he wants so badly, he's damned well going to learn something, anything of value.

Not that Khan couldn't lie to him. But they both have such hatred of Marcus he doesn't see the point.

[khan_artist]

Crazy is one way to put it.

"2258 to 2259." His answer coincides with him clenching and unclenching his fist. "Seeking a way to militarize Starfleet, Marcus found me. That much you know. Once he corralled me into working for him, I instantly began looking for a way to turn the tide in my favor."

There was fair warning in that statement.

"I designed and built the new dreadnought class starships, and other weapons." His eyes glance at the ring on Jim’s hand. For all he knew, the information given to the admirals, captains, and commanders included the origin of the explosion.

"Whatever he wanted made, I created while having to live the lie that was John Harrison."

[jirk]

Jim's attention, fogged though it is by the alcohol and the haze of adrenaline, sharpens on that detail. "What other weapons?"

[khan_artist]

"Phasers focused on destruction and collateral damage than merely one target, anti-spacecraft." The humor isn’t lost on him and the corners of his mouth twitch. A weapon would have served Jim better than the rifle he used.

"Chemical explosives that could level an entire archive and are easily concealed in a Starfleet Academy graduate ring. Simply add water." He‘s listing them off unconcernedly, Marcus wanted most of them and he had every intention of taking them all back once the admiral was dead.

"There were other projects, but they were all pushed back in favor of the dreadnought starship."

[jirk]

Jim curls a lip, and unselfconsciously turns Pike's ring on his hand. "What made him uncork you in the first place? Why you? It's not like we have a lot of records of the wars you started. You could have pretended to be someone else. Hell, why were you guys frozen in the first place?"

[khan_artist]

He was sure that Jim knew everything about him and why it was him, why he did what he did. But this string of questions gives him pause and he takes him time in silence before answering.

Patience isn’t something he favors, but he can appreciate its usefulness. Especially when Jim, apparently, could not.

"After the Eugenics Wars began to take a turn for the worse, I rallied those who wished to escape. They became my crew. The SS Botany, our only means of escape, experienced an irreparable power failure in space during our exile. I made use of the cryostasis pods and saved us all." His tone is less mechanical.

"It wouldn’t have mattered who he chose to release, Kirk. The outcome would have been the same."

[jirk]

Khan's deliberation snaps him back. He's giving away information with all these questions, he realizes. And he was too damned inebriated to see it. His mouth thins.

"I don't know if I believe that. 'Khan Noonien Singh' controlled most of Asia and Europe by, what. 1997?" He didn't believe it was an accident, that Marcus chose him. In fact, given what he knew of the man, he'd bet on it. He was crazy and Jim didn't regret his death even a little, but he was driven, focused, determined, and smart. All qualities expected in 'Fleet officers.

"My guess is that if he'd picked anyone else, they wouldn't have been quite so-- efficient."

[khan_artist]

"1992." He corrected the slight passively. That reign was a little over a year ago for him even though centuries had passed.

"Perhaps. I was content to sleep." He didn’t sign up for any of this, not when he had his crew in suspended animation. An eternity of merely being in their presence is more to him than any person’s highest wants. "Starfleet’s mistake."

[jirk]

"And why is that, exactly?" he says, harsh. He can hear the words in Khan's voice, you should have let me sleep, and the sick sight of him crushing Marcus' head between his hands. It's a sobering thought, and this is the guy who, minutes ago, Jim had wanted to take a swing at him.

"You conquer a world, escape, and then you want to kick back on a beach somewhere? Isn't that a little against type?"

He doesn't like this conversation for a variety of reasons. It's not going where he wants it to, it's not doing what he needs it to, and the worst part of all? It's making him empathize with Khan. A warlord. Someone Jim hates.

[khan_artist]

"Human Augments were being hunted, exterminated." He knows the irony there and his words are as hateful as the sneer that mars his otherwise impassive face. "We were the last ones left and escape was our only option. There was little we could do except take advantage of being in stasis; wait until our time had become nothing more than a memory. So yes, Kirk, I was prepared to spend an eternity with my crew if need be."

He resisted the need to make the jab about letting sleeping dogs lie, besmirch Starfleet further for all that it had done to him. Dig in at Marcus supposedly being the paragon of the organization itself.

Instead he just inwardly seethed at the situation he was in. Apart from his crew, indefinitely for all he could calculate and relying on the Emperor’s word, let alone Jim’s. As if anyone from Starfleet was really worth trusting.

[jirk]

"You act like it's some kind of injustice. Your people subjugated an entire planet! All because you think you're better. You really don't have a leg to stand on when you're whining about extermination, jackass."

Jim sighs, steps away from Khan. Drags a hand through his hair, watches his breath in the cool night. Against his better judgement, his curiosity gets the better of him. "What was it like? Back then."