Kahn’s knuckles turned pale from the exertion as he gripped the frigid, void‑shrouded spine dagger tightly, his fingertips brushing against the ribbed texture of its spine‑shaped handle. In the subzero cargo hold of the starship wreck, the cold glow of the emergency lights periodically swept across the dagger’s icy blue sheen—this was an item he had barely managed to unearth from a pile of spoils on the outskirts of the Zerg hive. During the skirmish just half an hour earlier, a teammate’s high‑frequency thermal blade had chipped off half an inch of the worker bee’s exoskeleton, yet only this seemingly ordinary short dagger effortlessly sliced through that tough outer shell capable of withstanding pulse rounds. Suddenly, a sharp scraping sound echoed off the bulkhead; Kahn jerked sideways into the shadow of a ventilation duct. A faint, chilling mist began seeping from the dagger’s grooves, condensing his breath into tiny specks of frost atop his lips. He reached for the tactical terminal at his waist, only to find the signal completely jammed—not by Zerg interference. At the end of the dagger’s hilt, nestled in a small loop, lay a faintly visible metallic fragment bearing the Federation’s top‑secret seal. As Kahn’s Adam’s apple bobbed, he suddenly realized that what he’d picked up was no ordinary piece of loot.