The Wrath of Khan

by Vonda N. McIntyre

  Agony took him, and he cried.

  "For hate's sake … I spit my last breath at thee. . . ."

  Joachim's body lay only an arm's length from him. His wife's body, dust, lay half a light-year distant. Soon neither space nor time would have any meaning, and he would join his love and his friend.

  He crawled to Joachim, reached out, and touched his rigid hand.

  Darkness enclosed his spirit.

  Spock entered the engine room. Scarlet warning lights flashed through it, bloodying the forms of its crew. Dr. McCoy knelt in the middle of the main chamber, trying to save the life of an injured crew member.

  The rest of the crew struggled to put more power to the impulse engines, knowing—they must know—that their efforts were useless. When the Genesis wave began, it would spread until it reached hard vacuum, engulfing and degrading every atom of matter within the Mutara Nebula, gas or solid, living or dead.

  Without speaking or acknowledging his presence, Spock strode past Dr. McCoy to the main reactor room. He touched the override control.

  "Are you out of your Vulcan mind?"

  McCoy grabbed his shoulder and dragged him around by sheer force of will, for certainly the doctor's strength could not match Spock's.

  Without replying, Spock looked at the doctor. He felt detached from everything: from the ship, from their peril, from the universe itself.

  "No human can tolerate the radiation in there!" McCoy cried.

  "But Doctor," Spock said, feeling a certain terribly un-Vulcan affection for the man who opposed him, "you yourself are fond of pointing out that I am not human."

  "You can't go in there, Spock!"

  Spock smiled at Dr. McCoy. He was so completely and comfortingly predictable. Spock could go through their conversation in his mind and know everything the doctor would say, everything he himself would reply. The result was the same.

  "I regret there is no time for logical argument, Doctor," he said. "I have enjoyed our conversations in the past."

  With that peculiarly human atavistic instinct for danger, McCoy drew back, knowing what he planned. But Spock was too quick for him. His fingers found the nerve in the junction of McCoy's neck and shoulder. He exerted pressure. McCoy's eyes rolled back, and he collapsed. Spock caught him and lowered him gently to the deck.

  "You have been a worthy opponent and friend," he said.

  Spock hesitated. One possibility remained, before he performed his final duty to the ship. Should he even make the attempt? If he were wholly Vulcan, or if another Vulcan were near to help, he would have less doubt. But young Saavik had no instruction, and in any case he had no time to summon her. McCoy was his only chance. He hoped the doctor would understand, and forgive him.

  Spock laid his fingers against the side of Leonard McCoy's face. He experienced the undisciplined energy of the doctor's mind.

  "Remember," Spock whispered.

  He finished the coding for the manual override of the reactor room and stepped into the screaming radiation flux.

  At first it was quite pleasant, like sunlight. Spock moved toward the reactor. The radiation increased, and his body interpreted it as heat.

  He reached toward the damping rods. An aura of radiation haloed his hands; the rays spread forward, outward, even back, penetrating his body. He could see his own blood vessels, his bones. It was fascinating.

  As he worked, he recalled the events in his life that had given him intellectual, and even—he could admit it now, and who was to despise him?—emotional pleasure. Fragments of music—Respighi, Q'orn, Chalmers—and particular insights in physics and mathematics. Bits of friendship, and even love, which he never could acknowledge.

  He drew the rods from their clamps; the radiation caressed him like a betraying lover.

  He accepted the regrets of his life, the expectations he had never been able to fulfill: neither Vulcan nor human, he was unable to satisfy either part of his heritage. Perhaps his uniqueness compensated in some small way. He had tried to convey that possibility to Saavik, who must face and overcome the same trials.

  Radiation sang in his ears, almost blocking the cries of Mr. Scott and Dr. McCoy, on the other side of the radiation-proof glass, shrieking at him to come out.

  "Captain, please—!" Scott screamed.

  The only real captain of the Enterprise was and ever had been James Kirk. Spock had kept the ship in trust; but now it was time to return it to its true master.

  Spock could feel the very cells of his body succumbing to the radiation. He wiped the perspiration from his face and left a smear of dark blood on his sleeve. Mottled hematomata spread across his hands.

  Pain crept from his nerve ends to his backbone, toward his mind, and he could no longer hold it distant.

  He flexed his fingers around the manual control that would bring the main engines back into use. He strained against it, and the wheel began to turn. His tortured bones and flesh opposed the control under which he held himself. He could feel his skin disintegrating against the metal, which grew slick with his blood.

  "Dear god, Spock, get out of there, man!" McCoy pounded on the window.

  Spock smiled to himself. It was far too late.

  The main engines groaned, and protested, and burst back into use.

  The bridge main viewscreen showed Reliant receding, but slowly, so slowly.

  "Time!" Jim Kirk said again. It could be no more than a minute since last he had asked: they had a few seconds left and no more.

  "Three minutes, thirty seconds," Saavik said.

  "Distance from Reliant."

  "Four hundred kilometers," Chekov said.

  Jim glanced at David. Meeting his gaze, his son shook his head.

  "Main engines on-line!" Chekov shouted.

  "Bless you, Scotty," Kirk said. "Saavik—go!"

  She pushed the ship into warp speed without any proper preparation.

  Reliant dwindled to a speck in the viewscreen.

  The speck became light.

  The Genesis wave hurtled toward them through the nebular dust, dissolving everything in its path. Jim watched, his hands clenched. Saavik forced one more warp factor out of the straining ship, and it plunged from the nebula into deep space.

  The huge collapsed cloud began to spiral around the nexus that had been Reliant. It quickly coalesced, shrinking behind them. Kirk watched, awed.

  "Reduce speed," he said softly.

  Saavik complied. The new planet stabilized in their sight.

  The turbo-lift doors opened, and Carol Marcus came onto the bridge. She did not speak.

  "Carol, my God, look at it. . . ." It was so beautiful it made him want to cry.

  Carol took his hand.

  Kirk opened a channel to the engine room.

  "Well done, Scotty," he said.

  He glanced over his shoulder at the science officer's station.

  "Spock—"

  He stopped, looked around the bridge, and frowned.

  "Where's Spock?"

  In front of him, Saavik shuddered. Her shoulders slumped. She did not face him.

  "He left," she whispered. "He went … to the engine room." She covered her face with her hands.

  Kirk stared at her, horrified.

  "Jim!" McCoy's voice was harsh and intense over the intercom. "I'm in the engine room. Get down here. Jim—hurry.

  For the first time since he began his pursuit of Khan Singh, James Kirk felt cold fear.

  "Saavik, take the conn!"

  He sprinted for the lift.

  Chapter 9

  Jim Kirk pounded down the corridors of his ship. They had never seemed so long, so cold.

  He caught himself against the entryway of the engine room. It was a shambles: every emergency light flashing, sirens wailing, injured crew members moaning as the medical team tended to them.

  He finally managed to catch his breath.

  "Spock—?"

  Scott and McCoy, near the impenetrable glass panels of the reactor room, turned towa
rd him with horror in their faces. He understood instantly what had happened, what Spock had done. Jim forced his way past them to the hatch control. Scott dragged him away.

  "Ye canna do it, sir, the radiation level—"

  "He'll die!"

  McCoy grabbed his shoulders. "He's dead, Jim. He's already dead."

  "Oh, God. . . ."

  Jim pressed against the heavy glass window, shielding away reflections and light with his arms and hands.

  On his hands and knees, trying to stand up, Mr. Spock hunched beside the door.

  "Spock!"

  Spock barely raised his head, hearing Jim's voice through the thick panel. He reached for the intercom, his hand bloody and shaking.

  "Spock. . . ." Jim said softly.

  "The ship …?" His face was horribly burned, and the pain in his voice made Jim want to scream with grief.

  "Out of danger, out of the Genesis wave. Thanks to you, Spock."

  Spock fought for breath.

  "Spock, damn, oh, damn—"

  "Don't grieve. The good of the many …"

  "… outweighs the good of the few," Kirk whispered. But found he no longer believed it; or even if he did, he did not care. Not this time.

  "Or the one." Spock dragged himself to his feet, and pressed his bleeding hand against the glass.

  Jim matched it with his own, as if somehow he could touch Spock's mind through the glass, take some of his pain upon himself, give his friend some of his own strength. But he could not even touch him.

  "Don't … grieve. . . ." Spock said again. "It had to be done. I alone could do it. Therefore it was logical. . . ."

  Damn your logic, Spock, Jim thought. Tears spilled down his face. He could barely see.

  "I never faced Kobayashi Maru," Spock said. His voice was failing; he had to stop and draw in a long shuddering breath before he could continue. "I wondered what my response would be. Not … I fear … an original solution. . . ."

  "Spock!"

  Saavik's voice broke in over the intercom.

  "Captain, the Genesis world is forming. Mr. Spock, it's so beautiful—"

  Infuriated, Kirk slammed the channel closed, cutting off Saavik's voice. But Spock nodded, his eyes closed, and perhaps, just a little, he smiled.

  "Jim," he said, "I have been, and will be, your friend. I am grateful for that. Live long, and prosper. . . ."

  His long fingers clenched into seared claws; the agony of the assault of radiation overcame him. He fell.

  "Spock!" Jim cried. He pounded the glass with his fists. "Oh, God, no …!"

  McCoy tried to make him leave. Jim snarled and thrust him violently away. He hunched against the window, his mind crying denial and disbelief.

  Much later that night, Lieutenant Saavik moved silently through the dim corridors of the Enterprise. She saw no one: only a few crew members remained on duty, forced to grapple with their exhaustion.

  When she reached the stasis room, she paused, reluctant to enter. She drew a deep breath and went into the darkness.

  Far too many of the stasis boxes radiated the faint blue glow that showed they were in operation. Protected by the stasis fields, the body of Peter Preston and the bodies of the other people who had died on this mission waited to be returned to their families.

  But Captain Spock's will stated that he was not to be taken to Vulcan; his wishes would be respected.

  His sealed coffin stood in the middle of the chamber. Saavik laid one hand against its sleek side. Her grief was so intense that she could react with neither rage nor tears.

  In the morning, James Kirk had decreed, Spock's body would be consigned to space and to a fast-decaying orbit around the Genesis world, where it would burn in the atmosphere to ashes, to nothing.

  Saavik sat cross-legged in the corner, rested her hands on her knees, and closed her eyes. She could not have explained to anyone why she was here, for her reason was irrational.

  On Hellguard, if someone died at night and was not watched, their body would be gone by morning, stripped by scavengers and torn to bits by animals. Seldom was anyone buried. Saavik had never cared enough about anyone on Hellguard to remain with them through the night.

  Captain Spock and Peter Preston did not need a guard, not here on the Enterprise. But this gesture was the only one she could make to them, the only two people she had ever cared about in the universe.

  She stayed.

  She hoped Spock had heard her before he died. She had wanted him to know that Genesis worked, partly because he had respected the people who built it, so many of whom had died to protect it, but primarily because its formation meant his sacrifice had been meaningful. The creation was the result of destruction, and the Enterprise and all its crew would have been caught up in that instant's cataclysm had Spock failed to act as he did. Saavik had wanted Spock to know the destruction had ended, and the creation had begun.

  She knew Admiral Kirk misunderstood what she had done, and why. But Saavik's essential inner core had dictated her actions then, as it did now. Admiral Kirk's opinion was of no significance.

  Tears slid down Saavik's face.

  Yet she remained free of the madness. Rage was absent from her sorrow. She hoped, someday, that she might understand why. Someday.

  The hours passed, and Saavik let her thoughts wander. She remembered hiding, shivering and hungry, hoping to steal a piece of bread or a discarded shred of warming-fabric, outside the Vulcan exploration party's Hellguard camp. Saavik had spied on the Vulcans as they argued till dawn, with unvarying courtesy and considerable venom, about the Romulans' castoffs, particularly the half-breed children.

  That was the first time Saavik had had any idea who and what she was. Only Spock had given her the potential for something more.

  When, during the final battle with Khan Singh, Saavik realized Spock had left the bridge, she knew what he planned and what the result would be. She had been a moment away from trying to stop him.

  Only the control he had taught her had kept her at her post, because it was her duty. She had regretted her action—her failure to act—ever since. In death Spock affected all those around him, just as he had in life. Someone should have taken his place whose passing no one would lament.

  She might have been able to stop him: though his experience was enormously greater, Saavik was younger than he, and faster.

  If she had been able to stop him, would she have had the courage to take his place? She wanted to believe she would have; for had she not, everyone on the ship would be dead, dissolved into sub-elementary particles and reformed into the substance of the Genesis world.

  Saavik had no belief in soul or afterlife. She had read various philosophies; she accepted none. A person died; scavengers destroyed the body. That was all.

  Yet as the hours passed and her concentration deepened, her feeling that somehow, somewhere, Spock's consciousness retained some of its integrity grew stronger.

  "Spock," she said aloud, "can you see what has happened? Are you there? Are you anywhere? A world has formed; the Genesis wave is still resonating within the nebula, forming a new sun to give the world light and sustain its life. Soon the wave will die away, and the universe will have another star system. But it will be one among millions, one among billions, and you taught me to value uniqueness. Your uniqueness is gone."

  Suddenly she opened her eyes. She thought, for a moment, she had heard something, some reply—

  Saavik shook her head. The strange hours before morning could give one any mad thought.

  Mr. Sulu woke slowly, coming to consciousness in the dim night illumination of sick bay. He had a raging headache, he felt as if someone were sitting on his chest, and his hands hurt. He tried to get up.

  A moment later, Dr. Chapel was at his side. She made him lie down again.

  "What happened?" His voice came out a hoarse croak. He tried to clear his throat. "Why—"

  "The oxygen dries your throat," Dr. Chapel said. "It will go away." She held a glass so he coul
d take a sip of water.

  "We've been pretty worried about you," she said. "You're all right, though; everything's going to be all right."

  He tried to touch the sore spot in the middle of his chest, but the palms of his hands were covered with pseudoskin, and he could not feel anything. He realized what the soreness must be. He frowned.

  "Did I have to be resuscitated?" he asked.

  Chapel nodded. "David Marcus saved your life."

  "I don't remember. . . ."

  "You shouldn't expect to. You were nearly electrocuted. A little memory loss is normal. Your brain scan is fine."

  "What about Khan?"

  "Dead." She stood up. "Go back to sleep, Hikaru."

  He reached out: his hands were too stiff to stop her, but she paused.

  "Chris," he said, "something more is wrong. What is it? Please."

  "Mr. Spock," she said very softly.

  "Spock—! What—?"

  "He's dead."

  "Oh, gods. . . ."

  Chris Chapel started to cry. She hurried away.

  Sulu stayed where he was, stunned with disbelief.

  Jim Kirk sat alone in the dark of his cabin. He had not moved in hours; his mind kept turning in circles, smaller and smaller, tighter and tighter.

  Someone knocked on his door.

  He did not answer.

  A pause. The knock again, a little louder.

  "What do you want?" he cried. "Leave me alone!"

  The door opened, and Carol stood silhouetted in the light from the corridor outside. She came in and closed the door.

  "No, Jim," she said. "I won't leave you alone. Not this time." She knelt before him and took his hands in hers.

  He slumped down; his forehead rested on their clasped hands.

  "Carol, I just don't … I keep thinking, there must be something I could have done, that I should have done—" He shuddered and caught his breath, fighting the tears.

  "I know," Carol said. "Oh, Jim, I know." She put her arms around him. As Jim had held her when she grieved for her friends, she held him.

  When he slipped into an exhausted, troubled sleep, she eased him down on the couch, took off his boots, and covered him with a blanket from his bed. She kissed him lightly. Then, since there was nothing else she could do for him, she did leave him alone.