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The readout showed 20k km/hour towards the end. It was definitely near orbital speed.

You might be looking at the first stage’s data.

Edit: 24,124 km/hr when telemetry stopped on the stream; 15k mph.

A 'k km' is an Mm, so 24 Mm/h , (or 6.67 km/s , if you'd like to go full SI)

Technically correct but not really clear of it helps clear communication in this context. SI natives think of a "kilometre" as its own thing (in the same way one thinks about a "mile") rather than thinking about it as a thousandfold multiple of a metre.

It was doing ~24,000km/h which is ~15,000mph.

I think you googled the April launch. Starship was going 24000+kmh, needed 27000, it was like 20-30 seconds away from successfully inserting itself into its target orbit.

They also weren't targeting orbit but just bellow it.

Well the technical term is "suborbital", which literally means "below orbital". (It's the energy that's below orbital, not the height...)