xeid

The sun of Xerex did not warm. It burned.

Under that burning sun, Imperial soldiers held a Xerexian just entering maturity. At his feet lay his older brother. They had already dealt with him.

Only moments earlier, the boy had watched his parents' execution. They made him watch. When he tried to look away, hands found his head and held it facing forward.

Now the hands were gone.

The pain moved through him in waves. From that place without edges, he screamed at his captors. One word, again and again, until his voice cracked:

"Why?"

A spear found the line of his throat. The blow was about to fall — when a gray Xerexian, towering over two meters, came out of the smoke and crashed into the soldier. A dozen others followed. They seized the moment.

One reached the kneeling youth. The boy was still producing the word — still repeating it at diminishing volume, eyes unfocused. The warrior's hand found the back of his collar and propelled him forward by force.

The ship received him.

Imperial forces spotted it before it could leave the atmosphere. The hull struck wrong. The ship reached miners moon and fell.

The impact was not a landing.

Several of the escapees were killed. The young Xerexian survived — his left arm shattered in three places. He drew it to his chest, held it there, and did not make a sound.

The moon was rich in minerals. That was why the Empire mined it. Thousands of beings from different species passed through each year.

He hid among them.

He stained his skin red with ground plant roots. He shaped his body with wooden prosthetics fitted beneath his robes — hunched, narrower, mimicking the Dovenel race. He introduced himself as deaf and mute. He descended into the stone each cycle, hauling ore from depths that had already killed weaker species.

He studied everything that moved through the facilities. Languages. Habits. Patterns.

The years accumulated.

When his pay increased enough, he began visiting the market. Small purchases. Wires. Circuits. Components. He carried them back to his single carved room and laid them on the table.

At its center waited a helmet — Imperial model, purchased without expression and carried home in silence. Rumors described what it did: controlled the minds of those who wore it. Stripped away free will.

He had looked at it for a long time.

A small creature lived nearby — four-armed, violet-skinned. He learned its language, identified its patterns, then crossed the distance between their dwellings and knocked.

Years passed in this arrangement. He modified the helmet. The creature wore it. He powered it on. Each time, the same focused hope. Each time, the same flat result. The creature never felt the device. It swung its arm and struck him, unbothered and unchanged.

No one could count how many coins moved from his hand to the creature's across those years.

Then the component arrived — a regulator, rare, expensive, two years in the searching. He hit the door with his shoulder and dropped into the chair, unwrapping the piece with hands that had to slow themselves.

"Did the Emperor send you?"

The stone giant's head moved — a single, slow shake.

"He sent me to remove you from this place and to offer you a new purpose."

Xeid looked at his hands. The red dust had mostly fallen.

His feet began to move.