Time slowed down in Khan's eyes. His efforts and the dangers faced in the past months led to that moment, with Raymond's happy face waiting on the finishing line.
A sense of defeat tried to invade Khan. Raymond had won. That much was undeniable. Khan had been nothing more than a variable immersed in a bigger plan, and he had ended up delivering exactly what Raymond wanted.
Nevertheless, the presence of the Nak's hand made Khan unable to fall prey to the sense of defeat. His mental state was currently unshakable, but that only led to sourer conclusions. Khan could think clearly, so he knew that Raymond was his best bet at defeating that troublesome opponent.
Raymond appeared almost proud to see Khan joining the battlefield. To Khan's surprise, he even managed to muster a nod while the hand kept everyone distracted.
The urge to jump at Raymond showed its presence, but Khan immediately disregarded it. He had bigger problems to handle, and they required him to swallow his pride for the time being.
Raymond's smile broadened when Khan diverted his gaze to assess the situation. The square was a mess of fuming corpses, cracks, and screaming people. Ships had crashed on the staircases, and trails of smoke surged behind them.
There wasn't much to say about the situation. Most of the people in the square were simply useless. They might even become a hindrance to any potential plan, but the scene carried some hope.
Khan's arrival had been quite theatrical, and many of those who had tried to take down the Nak's hand couldn't help but focus on him. That gave Khan a vague idea of the number of warriors willing to fight, which turned out to be far higher than his initial prediction.
The Tors were nowhere to be seen, but a few Bise disregarded the panicking crowd and held their ground while moving their eyes between Khan and the Nak's hand. The same went for some Orlats, who mostly wielded guns already pointed at the alien body part.
Humans and Fuveall were the majority among those willing to fight, and a small group of Nele also stood proud while waiting to decide what to do next. The latter actually was the calmer team for obvious reasons.
Khan recognized some familiar faces among the various warriors. Awiza, Ta-ei, Maban, Jenna, and others who had interacted with Khan in the past months were in the square, and they were ready to fight.
That group wasn't too big and featured only a few third-level warriors. Still, the presence of almost every species could give birth to spectacular cooperation as long as everyone could express their innate qualities.
The unexpected outcome made sense when Khan thought about it. The celebrations brought together multiple factions with deep ties to the asteroids. It was only expected that they would defend it against any threat.
However, the full power of those factions was still unclear since only a few leaders had decided to step forward. Moreover, it would take a miracle to establish proper cooperation. Khan also needed a reliable plan, but he knew where to get that.
"Khan! The street! The street!" Rodney shouted while Khan was busy inspecting the square.
One of the giant streets on the first floor expanded in Khan's vision when he raised his eyes. The ship was on a collision course with that massive structure, and the crash was bound to happen soon due to the high speed.
Khan spread his legs to abandon his footholds, and the seat's back almost instantly landed on his butt. The pressure generated by the high speed hindered his movements, but his training with Snow allowed him to adjust his position and get his hands on the steering wheel.
Rodney shouted in excitement when the ship made a backflip that left it upside down. Khan smirked when he heard that cry, but his face regained its coldness as soon as he looked at his destination.
Raymond was still at the platform's edge. Chaos had spread everywhere, and the group behind him had also started to panic, but he remained unfazed. He behaved like a mere spectator to that terrible crisis.
Khan couldn't help but scoff as he dived toward Raymond's platform while making the ship regain a normal stance. He had to ask that mysterious and unpredictable figure how to defeat the hand, and something told him that he would get answers.
Nevertheless, Khan's sudden arrival could only buy so much time. The Nak's hand snapped out of its surprise and resorted to its most annoying ability in that confusing situation.
Khan's eyes widened when he felt a soft pull. He didn't move, and the same went for the ship, but he knew what had happened and what would follow.
The synthetic mana in a radius that went far beyond the square disappeared, ending inside the Nak's hand. Every trace of energy in the air vanished, and the many engines suffered a similar fate.
Khan's thoughts raced when he saw the control desk going dark. He could sense that the tank still had synthetic mana, but the sudden disappearance of energy from the engine had turned the ship off.
The issue didn't affect only Khan's ship. The vehicles in the ability's range and the platforms also went dark. The latter even saw their tanks turning empty since they had fewer protections against those attacks.
"Khan?" Rodney asked when he noticed that the ship began to turn downward.
Khan pressed a few keys, but nothing worked. The ship had turned into a metal cage ready to crash on Lower Level 1.
"We must jumpstart the engine!" Khan shouted once he found an option that might solve the problem.
"Jumpstart what?" Rodney responded.
"Hit the damn thing!" Khan explained.
Rodney would typically avoid danger, but he was already strapped to a falling ship. Also, he felt heavily inclined to follow Khan's orders after surviving the disaster, so he unfastened the safety belt and did his best to turn without losing his grip on the seat.
The back of the ship wasn't crawling-friendly, especially at that speed. Its surface was smooth, lacking any handhold or similar spot. Still, the vehicle was small, so Rodney only had to cross a short distance to reach the engine.
Khan would have never left that task to Rodney, but he needed to be behind the control desk once the engine turned on. As for Rodney, he revealed his resourcefulness, and Khan had the chance to admire it a bit when he turned.
The back of the ship didn't have handholds, so Rodney created them. He stabbed his fingers into the vehicle's metal and pressed himself down through his thoughts while crawling toward the engine. His advance was clumsy and slow, but Khan couldn't really complain.
Rodney was basically lying on the ship's back when he reached the engine, and he mustered the entirety of his courage to let go of one handhold to deliver a slap.
The engine shook slightly, but nothing happened, and Rodney promptly conveyed his worry. "It didn't do anything!"
"Hit it harder!" Khan shouted. "Hit it until it turns itself on!"
Rodney followed the orders even if he didn't know the reason behind them. In short, the slaps were meant to push some synthetic mana into the engine. The machine would handle the rest afterward.
The second slap didn't lead anywhere, and the same went for the third. The ship continued to descend in the meantime, and its tip had started to tilt toward the floor. The crash seemed inevitable, but a whooshing noise reached Khan's ears when Rodney hit the engine a fourth time.
The control desk lit up, and Khan punched a few keys before pulling the steering wheel. The ship regained its horizontal stance, and Khan made it slow down so that Rodney could jump back on his seat.
The chaos in the square intensified while Khan and Rodney tinkered with their ship. The absorption of mana had made many vehicles and platforms fall, bringing panic even where there had once been calm.
Raymond had to move once his platform began to fall, and he nodded in approval when he saw that Luke had already led his companions to the ships nearby. Those vehicles had been turned off, so the pilots could activate them without issues.
The fall of the platforms forced the entirety of Luke's group to gather on a single ship. The vehicle didn't have enough room for all of them, but Master Ivor opted to go on the roof, and Bruce and Monica imitated him.
Luke's ship was fairly large, so it managed to set off even with that extra weight. As for Raymond, he performed an incredible sprint that brought him before another ship that the pilot had already turned on.
The members of the crews on those platforms weren't as lucky. They moved toward the last free ship when they saw that their employers had discarded it, but they weren't as fast as Raymond. The floor under their feet soon tilted sharply, making them fall into the destruction below.
The crews weren't the only ones to fall. They actually had plenty of company due to the air traffic caused by the celebrations and disaster. Ships and platforms crashed everywhere, with merely a couple of them managing to jumpstart their engines to avoid hitting the city.
Of course, most ships were crash-proof, and the city had enough buildings to dampen the landings. The lack of mana running through the various engines also prevented random explosions, which preserved many lives.
Yet, the Nak's hand was full of energy after absorbing the mana in that vast area, so an offensive arrived. Lightning-like flares shot forward, and Khan barely had the time to prepare the landing when one of those attacks crashed on the ship's tip.
A wave of black smoke invaded Khan's vision and forced him to close his eyes. The absence of synthetic mana in his surroundings made his sensitivity unreliable, so he used the pressure landing on him to gain a vague idea of the ship's movements.
Sadly for Khan, the pressure alone wasn't enough to make him fly blind. His hands remained on the steering wheel, but he could only do his best to keep the ship horizontal.
Rodney voiced cries that Khan couldn't describe with a single adjective. Some shouts made him sound excited, while others resembled complaints. Still, everything turned silent when the ship crashed on a firm surface, forcing both men to hold strong.
The ship's metal screamed as it bent and broke during the crash, but nothing flew toward Khan. When everything stopped, he didn't sense any new injury on himself, but the smoke had increased, and it took him a few seconds to exit it.
Khan took a deep breath when he gained access to clean air. He rubbed his eyes before opening them, and his surroundings became clear. He had landed inside the square, near the staircases' base, and his ship had lost both wings.
Rodney coughed as he stumbled out of the ship before straightening his position and coughing again. He reached Khan, but the destruction around him prevented him from speaking. He was at the very center of the chaos, with the Nak's hand standing in the air behind him.
Khan noticed how the latest attack had taken more lives while also bringing together a few factions. Part of the crowd had given up on escaping and had begun to reach the various leaders to create joint fronts. Some Orlats had even teamed up with humans, but no one attacked just yet.
Various gazes fell on Khan even after the landing, but he only paid attention to the Nele in the distance before turning toward the whooshing noises above him. Two ships were descending toward him, and he recognized both of them.
"Lieutenant Khan!" Master Ivor called from the top of one of the ships. "We must leave! Mister Cobsend's ship has room for both of you."
Master Ivor was sure that an evacuation was necessary, but the second ship startled him when it continued to descend until it landed on the lowest part of the staircases. Its side door then opened, and Raymond crossed it to enter the square.
Khan ignored the first ship to march toward Raymond, and Rodney hesitated for a second before following him. Raymond calmly straightened his suit while the two men jumped on the staircase to reach him.
"Rodney Semmut and Lieutenant Khan," Raymond announced once the two men stood before him. "You two make a surprisingly good team."
Raymond showed a smile that made both men wear cold faces. They were at the center of a battlefield, but Raymond was perfectly calm. Even the sight of the corpses didn't faze him.
"Do we need to play these games even now?" Khan asked.
"Oh, Khan," Raymond voiced. "Nothing I do is a game."
Raymond glanced at the Nak's hand in the distance at that point, and the two men did the same. The alien body part had gone silent after its last attack, but its break would end soon.
"How do I kill it?" Khan went straight to the point as he brought his eyes back to Raymond.
"Kill it?" Raymond wondered. "That thing is not alive."
"Fine," Khan sighed. "How do I make it stop?"
"Brute force should work," Raymond suggested, "As long as you can pierce through that defensive shield."
"There has to be another way," Khan stated. "It must have a weakness."
"It does," Raymond said, and a mysterious meaning joined his smile. "That hand can absorb mana from the environment. You should be able to do the same with its flesh."
