Aviophobia (Leonard McCoy)

20. My Name is Khan

When they arrived in the brig, Jim didn't take any time to begin addressing Harrison.  He crossed the room quickly and asked, "Why is there a man in that torpedo?"

Harrison stepped toward the barrier and replied, "There are men and women in all of those torpedoes, Captain.  I put them there."

Kate couldn't believe what she was hearing.  Why on earth would Harrison have put people, in cryotubes, in torpedoes?  She blurted out without thinking, "Who the hell are you?"

Harrison smiled over at her, making her feel uncomfortable, but she tried to hide her reaction of discomfort.  She felt like it would be allowing Harrison to win if he knew she was growing uncomfortable.  He looked back toward Jim and Spock as he said, "A remnant of a time long past.  Genetically engineered to be superior so at to lead others to peace in a world at war.  But we were condemned as criminals, forced into exile.  For centuries we slept, hoping when we awoke things would be different."

Kate couldn't help herself again.  She was too hung up on what he had said initially and asked, "Genetically engineered?  Do you mean you were made in a test tube or you were given injections after you were born?"

Jim looked over at her, not seeming to be happy with her disruption, but she wasn't sorry.  She and Leonard needed a better understanding of him to understand why his cells regenerated so quickly.  Harrison turned his attention back toward her and said, "Genetically engineered, Dr. Kirk.  The strongest parts of people were chosen and enhanced to form us.  We were scientifically made to be substantially stronger, quicker, and smarter than the well above-average person."

Kate shook her head, almost not able to believe what she had heard.  Harrison was at least three hundred years old.  She doubted that Star Fleet had the technology to engineer people the way he was describing, so it seemed impossible to believe it had happened three hundred years ago.

This stumped her for a moment, so Harrison regained his story and said, "As a result of the destruction of Vulcan, your Star Fleet began to aggressively search distant quadrants of space.  My ship was found adrift.  I alone was revived."

Silence settled in the brig for a moment, then Jim said, "We looked up John Harrison.  Until a year ago, he didn't exists."

Things made more sense to Kate now, so she said softly, "Because, according to any records, he wouldn't have existed.  Someone had to make up this identity for him, to cover up what they had found."

Harrison seemed pleased with her conclusion and nodded once as he clarified, "John Harrison was a fiction created the moment I was awoken by your Admiral Marcus to advance his cause.  A smokescreen to conceal my true identity.  My name is Khan."

Jim seemed to paused to take in Harrison's....well, Khan's words, and Kate was having to process too.  He was woken by Marcus.  Marcus must have known his history, but chose to work with him anyway.  It made no sense, and it went against everything Star Fleet stood for to have a man that had been condemned as a war criminal working for them.

Jim shook his head and asked what she had been thinking, "Why would a Star Fleet admiral ask a three hundred year old frozen man for help?

A smug look settled on Khan's face as he said, "Because I am better."

Jim shrugged and asked, "At what?"

Kate could only imagine, from what Khan had described before, that he was better at almost everything.  Almost as if reading her mind, Khan said, "Everything," then continued to explain, "Alexander Marcus needed to respond to an uncivilized threat in a civilized time, and for that he needed a warrior's mind, my mind, to design weapons and warships."