Fandom: Star Trek: The Original Series
Pairings: Khan/Marla
Rating: PG
Warnings: minor character death
Summary: “Vengeance! Not for himself, but for the memory of his wife whom he adored.”
The Road to Hell
The jungle air of Ceti Alpha V was thick and dry. The powerful rains had not come for nearly a week now. Khan Noonien Singh left the doorway of the cargo carrier that had become his new home, checking the water reserve that collected rain water from the roof. It was still half full, good. It was not important for him, as an augment he could go nearly three weeks without water if necessary. However, Marla was a normal human and her needs were different.
Khan looked over to where she was already working, tying up the logs that would become the extension of the shelter in the next small clearing. He could never be more grateful that the weather of the planet had let her stuffy formal Starfleet uniform and ways disappear in the name of practicality. Her hair was always down now and tied back so it moved gracefully whenever she turned her head. The sleeves of her uniform had been cut off, as had the middle so that her stomach was now on full display. She had thrown herself into the fray of building a life on a new world. Saying how it was such a wonderful change from just being in her quarters and painting all the time. The physical labour had toned her into an even more beautiful sight. She was strong, she was gorgeous, and Khan knew he had chosen well when he took her for his wife.
Turning away from her Khan started in on his own work, clearing away more trees with the few tools they had built with minerals they had unearthed. He easily hauled the new lumber around, cutting it into smaller pieces for building material.
He had just started to sharpen his crude ax when he felt Marla’s arms wrap around his bare chest as she leaned against his back.
“You know if anyone else was watching you toss trees around like they were made of foam they’d think you were showing off.”
Khan smirked. “I have the strength, my dear, it is only proper that I use it.”
“Yes, as you were using it when you admired me earlier.” She smiled. “Don’t think I didn’t notice you were watching.”
Khan shifted her arms and turned around, lightly caressing her hair and face with one hand.
“It is not my fault, you tempt me.”
She leaned up and kissed him deeply.
“Perhaps I could continue to tempt you.”
She kissed him again, moving her hands down his chest. Khan kept his movements slower though knowing that he would have to be careful now. As one hand continued to caress her face the other hand traced down her stomach, feeling the slight curve it now had.
Khan was content in the knowledge that she could bear him children. That he would be the first to have a child on this world, as leader of his people it was just as it should be.
***
“We didn’t even make it one year,” Khan said, as he listened to the winds hollowing outside, piling up sand and dust against the sides of the carrier that had once only belonged to him and Marla, but was now housing more than thirty others as the planet died all around them. The rains never came anymore. Water had to be mined from the ground. What little food was left was sickly itself and almost useless to them.
“He knew about this!” Khan shouted. “He didn’t have the ruthlessness to kill us outright so he left us to a fate worse than death!”
The shouting woke the newborn baby and he started wailing. Marla turned her attention to her son, soothing him. When she had managed to get him to nurse she looked up at Khan.
“Khan, Captain Kirk is not a sadistic man. He never would have left us here if he had known this would happen! He will come back to check on us. The Federation and Starfleet runs on rules and regulations. You can’t just leave a colony alone forever. You have to check on their progress, give medical assistance or evacuate the people if necessary. The Enterprise went on such missions when I served there. He’ll come back and help us, you’ll see.”
***
They had struggled hard against the planet for years, and just when it seemed like they had finally managed to eke out an existence on the desert wasteland Ceti Alpha V took another victim.
Like the others she had to be isolated so the eel’s young could not travel to any other hosts. Now that they were all dead Khan could approach Marla’s body. He knelt down next to her, frowning at the dried blood running from her ears and eyes. Her hair in clumps around her from tearing at it, trying to get the eel out, and what was left of her clothes covered in dirt as she had thrashed on the ground in agony. He gathered her into his arms, whispering that he was sorry he had failed her. That for all his superior strength and mental abilities he had been helpless to stop this, that as she screamed for him to help her he could do nothing.
No, no he told himself he hadn’t failed her at all. The Enterprise and her captain had failed her. She had been a foolish girl to put her trust in an inferior man like James T. Kirk. She had put her faith in her former captain, trusting that he would come and rescue them and he had not.
Even if he came now it was too late. Still as he held his wife’s body Khan began to hope that one day Kirk would return, because If Kirk every came back Khan would kill him, and not instantly to be sure. He would make sure that Kirk died slowly and painfully just as she had.
As his followers came in to prepare Marla for burial Khan left the room and found his son asleep on the floor in the corner, next to two men playing a crude game of chess made from scrap metal. The flames of wrath burned in Khan anew. Wrath against Kirk who had robbed of the chance to be a true leader again, robbed him of his duty to be a protector and provider to his wife and child. He vowed that when the opportunity came he would take revenge on the man who had ruined him.
One day he would have revenge against the man who had thrown him in hell.
The End