To Reign in Hell: The Exile of Khan Noonien Singh

The Exile of Khan Noonien Singh

GREG COX

Based on
Star Trek
created by Gene Roddenberry

POCKET BOOKS
New York  London  Toronto  Sydney

STAR TREK
®

T
O
R
EIGN
I
N
H
ELL

ALSO WRITTEN BY GREG COX

Star Trek
®
: The Original Series

The Eugenics Wars, Volume One

The Eugenics Wars, Volume Two

Assignment: Eternity

Star Trek: The Next Generation
®

The Q Continuum: Q-Space (Book One)

The Q Continuum: Q-Zone (Book Two)

The Q Continuum: Q-Strike (Book Three)

(Also available in a single volume Signature Edition)

Dragon’s Honor (with Kij Johnson)

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
®

Devil in the Sky (with John Gregory Betancourt)

Star Trek: Voyager
®

The Black Shore

STAR TREK
®

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
www.SimonandSchuster.com

Copyright © 2005 by Paramount Pictures. All Rights Reserved.

STAR TREK is a Registered Trademark of Paramount Pictures.

This book is published by Pocket Books, a division of Simon & Schuster, Inc., under exclusive license from Paramount Pictures.

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever.

For information address Pocket Books, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020

ISBN: 0-7434-5713-7

eISBN-13: 978-0-7434-5713-2

POCKET and colophon are registered trademarks of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

Visit us on the World Wide Web:
http://www.SimonSays.com/st
http://StarTrek.com

To John Ordover, thanks for ten years of expert editing!

Thanks to Ed Schlesinger, Paramount, and the whole gang at Pocket Books for letting me continue Khan’s story beyond
The Eugenics Wars
. As before, I have to thank Gene L. Coon and Carey Wilber for creating Khan in the first place, and Jack B. Sowards, Harve Bennett, and Nicholas Meyer for resurrecting Khan so memorably fifteen years later. They gave me plenty of great material to work with as I strove to connect the dots between “Space Seed” and
The Wrath of Khan
. I also need to acknowledge Vonda N. McIntyre, whose novelization of
TWoK
I consulted frequently (even if I occasionally chose to go another way), as well as the
TWoK
photonovel by Richard J. Anobile.

And then, of course, there are Ricardo Montalban, Judson Scott, Mark Tobin, and the late Madlyn Rhue, whose performances as, respectively, Khan, Joachim, Joaquin, and Marla McGivers brought those characters to life in my mind.

Thanks also to the Katzel family, whose generous donation to the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America Emergency Medical Fund, at a charity auction two summers ago, earned them a place among the superhumans. And to Inge Heyer and her scientific colleagues for helping me try to figure out what really happened to Ceti Alpha VI (although any scientific inaccuracies are strictly my own). And to the avid posters at alt.startrek.books and trekbbs.com for refreshing my memory on arcane points of Trek lore.

Finally, as always, thanks to Karen, Alex, Churchill, Sophie, and Henry, just because.

Have you ever read Milton, Captain?

Personal log, James T. Kirk, Stardate 8415.9.

No longer an admiral, I am a captain once more, but a captain, as of yet, without a ship. The
Enterprise
-A remains in spacedock, while Chief Engineer Scott prepares our new starship for final testing and service.

With time on my hands, and my future on hold, it is the past that occupies my thoughts. Old decisions, and new regrets, haunt me, compelling me to embark on a solemn pilgrimage to the site of what may have been one of my greatest mistakes….

“We’re approaching Ceti Alpha V,” Sulu announced from the helm. “Switching to impulse.”

“Very good, Mr. Sulu,” Kirk responded. “As always, your piloting is to be commended.”

The
Yakima
was a compact, warp-capable cruiser, only slightly larger than a shuttlecraft. Besides Kirk and Sulu, the chartered vessel held only two other passengers: Spock and McCoy.

“I still think there are better places to spend our vacation
time,” McCoy groused. The doctor sat opposite Kirk in the cruiser’s cabin-sized passenger compartment, next to Spock. Like the captain and Sulu, McCoy had eschewed his Starfleet uniform in favor of civilian garb. A rumpled brown jacket hung over his bony shoulders. “Next time we’re going to Yosemite or something.”

“Nobody forced you to come along, Bones,” Kirk said with a smile. A turtleneck sweater and trousers served as casual attire. He knew McCoy too well to take the doctor’s grumbling too seriously. “This is a personal matter, not a Starfleet assignment.”

McCoy’s tone softened. “That’s what friends are for, Jim.” All kidding aside, the doctor’s innate compassion was written upon his weathered features. “You shouldn’t have to make this trip alone.”

“Indeed,” Spock concurred. “For once, Dr. McCoy and I find ourselves in agreement.” Clad in an austere black robe, the Vulcan maintained a dignified posture upon his seat. His hands were clasped before him as though in prayer. “One does not have to be human to understand that this particular voyage is bound to trouble your emotions.”

That’s putting it lightly,
Kirk thought. It had been less than a year since the deadly return of Khan Noonien Singh, who had blamed Kirk for his disastrous exile on Ceti Alpha V. Since then, Kirk had often pondered whether Khan had been justified in his quest for revenge.
Was I wrong to maroon Khan and his followers there so many years ago? Am I responsible for all those deaths?

Kirk felt he owed it to the memory of those who had died on Ceta Alpha V to visit the planet himself, and perhaps learn more of what had transpired there after he’d
left Khan behind all those years ago. “Thank you,” he told his friends sincerely. “I’m grateful for the company.”

He glanced out a porthole at the surrounding space. The stars, which had been streaking by the windows at warp speed, coalesced into discrete points of light as the
Yakima
dropped to impulse. Isolated chunks of solid matter bounced off the cruiser’s deflectors, while the ship gracefully wove through an obstacle course composed of larger rocky fragments.

“Heading through an asteroid belt,” Sulu warned them by way of explanation. “Things could get a little bumpy.”

“Wonderful,” McCoy drawled, buckling his seat belt. “I’d forgotten how delightful this system is.” He rolled his eyes. “You know, I never did understand how the
Reliant
managed to mistake Ceti Alpha V for Ceti Alpha VI in the first place. Mind you, I’m a doctor, not an astronavigator, but how do you misplace an entire planet?”

“More easily than you might suppose, Doctor,” Spock replied. “This remote sector has not yet been extensively charted, so Captain Terrell had to rely on the
Enterprise
’s original survey of the Ceti Alpha system, conducted many years before. According to that survey, there was a total of only six planets in the system, bordered by an extensive asteroid belt.” He tilted his head at the porthole, where myriad granite boulders continued to zip past the window. “As
Reliant
approached the system from the outside, they naturally assumed that the outer planet was Ceti Alpha VI—and mistook the remains of the
real
Ceti Alpha VI for a portion of the asteroid belt mentioned in the survey.”

Exactly,
Kirk thought. Reliant
had no reason to suspect that the sixth planet had been completely destroyed
. He seized on Spock’s argument to help ease his own pangs of conscience.
Just as I had no way of knowing that Ceti Alpha VI was going to explode.

Or did I?

Should I have looked harder? Anticipated every possibility?

The nagging questions gnawed at Kirk’s soul.

“All right,” McCoy conceded. “But that just raises another question. How in blazes did Starfleet manage to forget where we put Khan? Didn’t they realize that maniac was, at best, only one planet away?”

“Blame Starfleet secrecy,” Kirk explained grimly. He’d asked himself many of the same questions in the weeks after their return engagement with Khan. “The details of the
Botany Bay
incident had been classified top-secret by Starfleet, which didn’t want to advertise the existence of a colony of genetically engineered superhumans on Ceti Alpha V. As a result, Captain Terrell, immersed in the equally top-secret Genesis Project, was completely unaware of the system’s history.” Kirk’s frown deepened as he remembered how that lack of information had ultimately cost Terrell his life. “Lord knows it wouldn’t be the first time that Starfleet’s right hand didn’t know what the left one was hiding.”

“Or, to be more precise,” Spock observed, “had hidden eighteen years earlier.”

McCoy shook his head, still not satisfied. “But Chekov was right there on the
Reliant
, not to mention John Kyle. They
must
have remembered about Khan and the others. Hell, Khan personally attacked Kyle that first time around. I treated his injuries.”

Kirk had to admit that Khan Noonien Singh was hard to forget. “I spoke with Chekov about this, afterward,” he divulged. “You have to remember that Ceti Alpha VI—or,
rather, what
Reliant
believed to be Ceti Alpha VI—was just one of several planets that he and Terrell had checked out in hopes of finding an ideal site for Stage Three of the Genesis Project. They’d had every expectation of Ceti Alpha VI being rejected as a candidate just like all the others.” Kirk smiled wryly. “Apparently, Carol was being extremely picky when it came to choosing just the right planet for her experiment.”

“Dr. Marcus is known for her rigorous scientific methodology,” Spock confirmed.

Kirk knew that was high praise coming from a Vulcan.
I wonder how Carol is doing?
he thought sadly; it had not been easy telling her about David’s death on the Genesis Planet.
Bloodthirsty Klingon bastards!

He pushed his vengeful thoughts aside—for now. “Chekov was caught in a bind,” he continued. “Like the rest of our original crew, including Kyle, he had been sworn to secrecy regarding the
Botany Bay
affair, on a strictly need-to-know basis. And, at the point that he and Terrell beamed down to what they thought was Ceti Alpha VI, Terrell did not need to know … not when Chekov had every reason to believe that Ceti Alpha VI would be quickly rejected as a test site, and that
Reliant
would be leaving the entire system shortly.”