A Day Among Years

Ten years passed in a flash. During this time, he mostly practiced all his abilities and went over knowledge in his head until he gained a considerable amount of freedom. Every day he'd run along the vines towards the area called the grave of ships.

An area the elders move all the crashed ships to hide them from future visitors. The area is completely sealed from sight as a weave of vines covered the sky.

There he'd scavenged for parts to disassemble and learn. No matter how he searched, his race didn't keep books or records. Everything is passed down by word of mouth. 

With nothing to reference he had to learn on his own, a task he thoroughly enjoyed.

Khan ran atop a vine, his body no longer a pale gray but a healthy wheat color. While he can't change his shape, he has full control over color.

He arrived at the familiar bend in the vines and leaped into the air. His body flew forward like a grasshopper, his strength augmented by the force.

As he landed on another vine a distance away, he heard a familiar scream from behind him. "Khan, wait for me!!" The shriek of a female, another kid the same size jumped into the air to try and follow his path.

Khan turned his head and sighed, with a simple glance he can tell she failed to make the leap. His hand stretched forward and grabbed at the girl. When he pulled his hand backward, the girl's speed increased and flew right towards him.

Unfazed by the sudden increase in speed, she landed steadily on the vine after taking a few steps. Anyone could see she has practiced this before. "You left without me again Khan! If I didn't know any better I'd guess you didn't want me to come!"

Khan looked into the girl's hollow eyes before turning to continue his journey. "Why would I come and get you when I already knew you were waiting outside my burrow."

"Then why didn't you say anything?!?" The girl chased after Khan's back. She had to try her best to keep up with his speed.

Khan doesn't even bother to answer. From the day of the naming ceremony, he knew who this girl was. Despite the hideous appearance of his race, he wanted to get close to this girl. The future Dark Lord of the Sith Belia Darzu.

When he heard her name, he knew he was over fifteen hundred years away from the movies he was familiar with. More importantly, he was in the dangerous extended universe.

After meditating for five years in the forest around him, he grasped an understanding of the force. The serene environment of this planet helped him tap into the light side, finding inner peace with himself.

He already partially achieved his life goal once and died, something few people can ever accomplish. While his ambitions are still great, they don't consume him as they did before.

This surprised him, he thought he'd be drawn to the dark side immediately. To further test this, he started training Belia in the force two years ago. To see if she too could be trained in the light side as an experiment.

She thought it was nothing but a game, the innocence of a child.

"Can't answer! That's because you know I'm right!" Belia finally caught up to Khan, her breathing haggard and her pale skin flush.

Khan slowed down a bit, knowing he'd be there soon anyway. "You're too worked up Belia, your unbalanced mood makes it harder to run than it should be."

"I wouldn't be upset if you didn't try and ditch me every time!" Belia puffed, while the action sounded cute, it looked rather disturbing.

Khan reached over and poked her in the middle of her forehead. "Next time."

Belia smiled at the touch of his fingers, completely letting go of her previous resentment. "Ok! Don't forget."

Khan nodded ever so slightly, showing that his training has paid off. Taking a cue from a popular show, he picked this gesture. By tapping her forehead he can reset her emotions into a state of bliss, and make her do whatever he wants.

After countless taps and promises, her body has become conditioned. Almost hypnotized by his touch. As someone who's seen sleeper agents and brainwashing, he knows the power of words and gestures.

From the moment he met Belia at the age of one, he began training her for his use.

Soon, the spares light shining through the leaves had disappeared, replaced by the luminescence of the vine nets above.

A graveyard of ships appeared before their eyes. Some were completely overgrown with moss while others still have a metallic luster.

Khan jumped to the ground with Belia right on his tail. He doesn't even look at the ships near the entrance as he already picked them clean. They walked further back until they arrived at a small mossy hill.

Khan stretched out his hand and flicked his wrist. The hill turned out to be nothing more than a blanket of moss covering a circular frame.

Inside the frame are parts and equipment pieced together by Khan over the years. A pile of scraped droids took up one section, surrounding the chassis of a more complete droid.

The chassis is shaped like a mechanical spider, although a bit rough around the edges for now.

"Can you really build a spaceship from this junk Khan? This just looks like a hollow ball." Belia walked into the center and looked around. No matter how many times she looked, this was no bigger than a large room in her burrow.

"Don't worry, It should work." Khan walked to the back of the sphere and looked at his power system and thrusters. "We need to find more parts, but there's absolutely no problem with what I've built."

Khan picked up a ragged datapad off the power system. Assembled from scraped computers on different ships. After hitting it a few times it finally turned on.

Belia shivered when she saw that, feeling as though this ship is a death trap. "The clan has ships, why don't we use one of those?"

Khan shook his head. "There are still fifty-one years before we're adults and completely unlock our shapeshifting abilities. Do you want to sit around and play with those kids who just became adults? Watch them practice shapeshifting all day?"

"No way!" Belia backed away when she thought about their constant bragging and showing off. "Those guys are stupid and boring!"

For years he's installed the incompetence of others in her head, especially when she saw the other kid the same age as them. Making her more dependent on him. It wasn't until two years ago when his status reached its peak that he brought her here and trained her in the force.

With a shared secret, her dependence only grew. Impressed by his knowledge and ability, his status in her mind is supreme. Reaching the point where she talked about leaving with him in the future.

"Then let's just enjoy our time here." Khan moved to his droid chassis and plugged in a data cable. He assessed the personality matrix and began further tuning and programming.

Whenever he noticed Belia was getting bored, he'd ask her to pass him a part and help him attach it to the chassis of the droid; Teaching her as he did.

This made it feel like she was helping him out. For hours they worked on the droid until it was finally completed.

The spider droid flipped on its legs, without a protective covering they could see all of its moving parts.

A camera scanned Khan and Belia before it turned to face Khan. It bounced into the air and its legs folded in, turning the droid into the shape of a ball. The repulsorlift activated and the droid floated in the air.

"You did it! You fixed the droid!" Belia jumped around the droid in excitement. Even if it only has its chassis, she thought it was marvelous.

"Yes, with its scanners it'll be easier for us to find working parts from these ships." Khan unplugged the data cable with a smile. After researching droid programming here, he combined it with a subroutine of the self-learning AI that he stole on Earth.

"Let's go look for parts now, I bet we can find some interesting things!" She looked at Khan in excitement.

Reaching out he tapped her forehead. "It's late, it's time to go back."

"Ah?" Belia looked at the dimming glow of the vines above and nodded. "Yes, we have to get back before nightfall."

Khan turned towards the droid hovering in the air. "There's a list of parts we need on this datapad, try and find any before we return tomorrow." Khan waved the datapad in his hand before placing it on the power system.

The droid flew over and extended a jack to interface with the pad.

"I need to work on wireless in the future." Khan shook his head when he saw this. 

He led Belia out of the ship frame and covered it with the moss blanket, not worried about the droid beneath.

The two ran back to the settlement and arrived before darkness fell.

For the next few years, the two continued working on the ship. With the help of the droid scouting out locations, navigating the vast ship graveyard was a lot simpler.