Chaos' Heir

Khan's gaze inevitably sharpened, and his aura intensified, threatening to destroy the underground chamber. His steps grew heavier, weighed down by a torrent of emotions. Getting close to the Nak always put him in that mood, and his new power worsened his reaction.

Everything seemed about to break, but nothing happened. As intense as Khan was, he knew better than to destroy his first real clue in over six months of travel. He approached the engine sticking out of the rocky wall, stopping in front of it before carefully inspecting it.

Khan breathed out, generating a weak gale that blew away all the dirt and dust on the piece of technology. The alien engine was broken in many spots, with large cracks tearing through its sturdy fabric, but everything else was strangely well-kept. It seemed the passage of time didn't ruin it too much.

That vouched for the engine's quality, but Khan also blamed the underground chamber. That isolated environment had shielded that piece of technology from the sandstorm on the surface, preserving its integrity.

Khan memorized every detail while placing his hand on the rocky wall. His scarlet fingers easily and carefully dug through it, creating a new cavity that could expose the rest of the ship. He could use far quicker methods, but that wasn't the time to be careless.

The wall did hide more of the alien ship, and Khan couldn't help but occasionally stop to inspect the many similarities with the human designs. Humankind had truly ripped the Nak off, copying their technology to skip centuries of necessary research. Even the hull's alloy felt the same to the touch. The only stark difference was its size.

That wasn't much of a surprise. The Nak were bigger than humans, so their technology had to reflect that feature. Still, Khan mostly dismissed it as his careful digging opened the path toward the ship's front.

Khan did and didn't know what to expect. The call in his nape raised his expectations, but he had already studied everything there was to know about the Nak. He had even talked with their remains, obtaining relatively fulfilling answers to his many doubts.

Khan only lacked a single piece now. He needed to discover the Nak's home, the azure star system they had implanted in his mind. Still, Khan didn't know how much that millennia-old ship could help.

The technological similarities gave Khan hope, but uncovering the rest of the ship crushed it. The canopy was no more. The vehicle's whole front was either flattened, broken, or completely missing. Khan couldn't find a single trace of the bridge.

Nevertheless, Khan didn't give up. Ships had many consoles, and some even featured black boxes. He might be able to get his hands on priceless data if he somehow retrieved and found ways to activate them. Everything could be fried, but his vehicle might have the necessary replacements.

The ship had no visible menus or handles, so Khan tore through its hull with his bare hands, exposing its insides. He found himself in what looked like an engine room, only illuminated by his eyes' light, and everything was pretty much a mess.

The ship's insides didn't fare as well as its hull. Everything was broken, including the floor and its many tubes. Whatever protected those environments had vanished before the apparent crash, turning that valuable technology into useless rubble.

It didn't help that the similarities with human technology ended there. Khan didn't recognize any of the broken equipment. Even that multitude of tubes felt out of place, forcing him to reconsider his approach.

'The Nak's technology heavily relied on mana,' Khan recalled, sorting through everything he had studied about the topic. 'Did they use the mana itself to record data?'

That idea would explain the many tubes but would also make the finding useless. Whatever had filled those containers was long gone, leaving nothing for Khan to study.

'I should still bring something back to the ship,' Khan concluded. 'Maybe there are storage units I'm unaware of.'

Khan studied the room for a while, trying to spot anything worthy of bringing back to the surface. He even did his best to plan the eventual climb back to the desert, thinking about strategies to keep whatever he decided to carry safe.

The sand wasn't a problem, but Khan worried about that underground chamber. Finding and reaching it had been quite annoying, so Khan didn't want to risk its structural integrity.

As slow as it would be, Khan could only think about going for the careful and methodical way. It would be far safer, especially since he didn't know how many similar locations the universe had left.

'I should explore some more, too,' Khan thought. 'Maybe I can find ships in a better state. There's also that thing …'

Khan crawled out of the ship and returned to the underground chamber. He patted his open uniform, cape, and hair to remove all the dust and soil they had captured, and a sigh escaped his mouth afterward. His glowing eyes focused on a seemingly random rocky wall, but his mind prepared for battle.
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"Isn't it about time you came out?" Khan asked, his voice carrying emotions that could overcome language barriers. "I smelled you as soon as you arrived."

An outsider would believe the prolonged solitude had finally gotten to Khan, but the wall reacted to his words. Its surface trembled, and its rocks moved as if floating through a dense liquid. A circular shape eventually took form, and Khan felt able to spot three eyes on it in the exact locations where the Nak had them.

The circular shape trembled again, releasing something into the symphony. Emotions Khan's brain could translate reached him. That was the Nak's language, and he clearly heard the word "heir" in it.

"Yes," Khan announced, putting extra effort into imitating that language. He didn't need to since speaking it felt natural, but he focused anyway to avoid misunderstanding.

"I'm the Nak's heir," Khan continued. "Do you happen to know where I can find them? I sort of have a grudge going on here."