aware that a most complex alignment of multiple relays was necessary in order for this present exchange to take place. Am I correct in assuming that Lieutenant Uhura continues to be responsible for such Communications expertise?”
“You are.” From her position at the Communications station, she smiled at the image of the famous savant.
“Your conclusions are both correct,” the younger Spock confirmed to his elder self. “Therefore I will be brief, so as not to waste time neither of us has to spare. In your many travels and experiences, did you ever have occasion to come across a man named Khan?”
While his face could not show shock, certainly not to a degree any human could detect, a slight shiver seemed to pass through the elder Spock’s entire frame. He paused for a long moment, plainly composing his intended response. Unusual for him, it was prefaced by an exception. “As you know, I have made a vow never to give you information that could potentially alter your destiny. Your path—whatever it may be, wherever it may lead you, and however it may differ from the one I walked—is yours to walk and yours alone. I can and should have no influence over it. I always felt that way would be best for you.”
“As do I,” admitted his younger self.
“That being said, I have to tell you that the individual called Khan is the most dangerous adversary the Enterprise and her crew ever faced.”
Not only young Spock but everyone on the bridge was now attending upon the words of the older Spock to the exclusion of all but the most inescapable tasks.
“He is a psychotic despot,” the senior Spock continued, “whom we—I and my chronologically pertinent colleagues—once made the mistake of trusting. He is brilliant, ruthless, and will not hesitate to kill every single one of you in the pursuit of whatever personal goal he has set for himself. Nor will he spare others, including innocents and unknowing civilians. Wherever he is, I urge you to stay as far from him as humanly possible. And if you do not? I can all but guarantee you—lives will be lost.”
The subsequent silence on the starship’s bridge was complete. Nothing could be heard save the automated beep and hum of instruments.
“Did you defeat him?” the younger Spock finally asked.
A nod from a distant place and an even more distant time. “At great cost, yes.”
The acting captain of the Enterprise stared forward, his voice and posture fixed, as he uttered a single word in reply.
“How?”
“I don’t mean to tempt fate here,” Scott muttered as they moved quickly along the newest corridor in Khan’s wake, “but where is everybody?”
“The ship was designed to be run by a minimal crew,” Khan told him. “One, if necessary.”
“One!” Scott blurted. “I don’t see how—”
The three boarders took the oncoming security team equally by surprise.
With bodies slamming into one another, there was no time to make use of phasers. All the rules of hand-to-hand combat Kirk had studied at the Academy were brought into play. Caught in high, constricted corridors, he also made use of earlier, less academic techniques he had acquired in the course of too many less-disciplined fights in too many bars.
Fists and the occasional leg flew, taking down first one of his opponents and then another. Nearby, Scotty was giving a vibrant if slightly more desperate account of himself. Their tight surroundings actually worked to the chief’s advantage, as his better-trained opponents had less room in which to operate. Elaborate martial-arts techniques gave way to sharp elbows and simple punches.
Meanwhile Khan was demolishing everyone with whom he came in contact. The ease with which he dispatched members of the security team was at once impressive and disconcerting. One moment a blur, the next an implacable and irresistible force, Khan paid only minimal attention to whatever was being brought against him.
Two of their opponents tried to jump him simultaneously. Khan slammed one into a far wall, then turned and lifted the other before throwing him down the corridor. At no time in the course of the confrontation did he break a sweat. Indeed, Kirk saw, the former prisoner did not even appear to be breathing hard.
The fight was over much sooner than the captain expected. Every member of the security team was down: unconscious or too badly hurt to offer further resistance. Arms of certain individuals had been twisted absurdly far behind their backs, breaking them at the shoulder. Khan’s work. As efficient as it was brutal.
And speaking of their