Steve gets his three seconds, and more. Back on his feet, Khan moves with the fast, relentless pace of of a machine, but the blood on his face clearly marks him as a man. Fortunately, his combat education had been thorough, to say nothing of the brutality of it, and it would take far more than a sudden shift in style to throw him off.

Throwing a feint to Steve's left size, Khan draws in close for a strike when he hears Kirk's hoarse call over the comms. There's a growl in his throat, but he is beyond stopping the captain for now, engaged as he is. The aborted punch morphs cleanly into a strike at the not-augment's ribs - a blow that would nearly be lethal for any normal opponent.