The air in Hydroponics Bay 3 always smelled the same. It was a clean, dead smell—the scent of recycled oxygen, sterile soil substrate, and the faint, green perfume of the nutrient paste that kept my plants alive. It was the smell of my entire life on Xylos-7.
My fingers, calloused and stained, worked their way through the roots of a struggling soy cultivar. Another day, another fight against the blight that always seemed to find a way in. I pushed a stray strand of sun-streaked brown hair from my face with the back of my wrist, leaving a smear of dirt on my cheek.
I caught my reflection in the condensation on the plasteel wall. The woman looking back was twenty-eight, but some days she felt a hundred. Her face was plain, made for function, not beauty. Brown eyes, a mouth that had forgotten how to do much besides form a straight line, and skin tanned by the harsh glow of the grow-lamps. My body was the same—functional. Strong legs from standing all day, sturdy arms from lifting supply crates. No soft curves, no delicate grace. I was a piece of the colony’s machinery, as vital and as overlooked as a water purifier.
A deep loneliness ached in my chest, a constant, dull pressure. I was surrounded by the hundred or so souls scraping by on this rock, but I was alone. My work was my only companion. I poured my longing into the fragile green shoots, whispering to them, willing them to grow, to be something more than just another meal ration. It was a stupid, secret habit, but it was all I had. I wanted more. I just didn’t know what ‘more’ looked like.
Then the universe answered.
It started as a vibration in the soles of my boots, a low hum that rattled the tools on my workbench. The grow-lamps flickered. A tremor, I thought. Xylos-7 was geologically dead, but not entirely silent.
But the hum grew, deepening into a bone-shaking roar that was felt more than heard. It wasn’t coming from below, but from above. The colony’s emergency klaxons blared to life, a shrieking, panicked wail that cut through the sterile air.
I scrambled out of the hydroponics bay, my heart hammering against my ribs. People were running, their faces pale with terror. They pointed up at the sky, their mouths open in silent screams.
I followed their gaze.
It blotted out the pale, distant sun. A ship. But that word was too small, too simple. This was a mountain of black metal, vast and brutal, bristling with weapon emplacements that looked like sleeping gods of destruction. It hung in the sky over our pathetic little settlement, a predator deciding which mouse to eat first. Its shadow fell over us, and the world went cold.
Panic was a tidal wave. People shoved past me, desperate to get back to the imagined safety of their habitation modules. But I was frozen, my boots rooted to the dusty ground. I couldn’t look away. It was the most terrifying, most magnificent thing I had ever seen. My small life, my tiny worries about crop yields and nutrient levels—it all felt so utterly insignificant under the weight of that impossible machine.
A ramp lowered from its belly, a long tongue of metal unfurling to kiss the ground. Light and smoke spilled out, and a figure emerged.
My breath caught in my throat.
He was a giant. He had to be over eight feet tall, a monolith of flesh and armor. His skin was the color of wet stone, a smooth, hard-looking grey that seemed to absorb the light. Plates of black metal were fused to his shoulders, chest, and thighs, gleaming like polished obsidian. He moved with a heavy, deliberate grace that spoke of absolute power, his every step shaking the ground.
He was the Emperor. Rau’xan. Tales of the K’tharr Empire were whispered on the outer rims, horror stories to scare children and colonists. A ruthless, dying race of warriors scouring the galaxy. I’d always thought they were just stories.
He walked down the ramp, and the panicked colonists scattered before him like dust motes in a hurricane. He didn’t even seem to notice them. His head turned slowly, surveying our pathetic settlement with an air of complete disinterest. Then his eyes, as black and empty as the void between stars, moved across the crowd.
They stopped on me.
The world went silent. The klaxons, the screaming, the frantic thud of my own heart—it all faded away. There was only the weight of his gaze. It wasn't a look of curiosity or interest. It was a look of assessment, like a scientist identifying a specimen. He saw me. In a way I had never been seen before in my life.
He started walking. Straight towards me.
He ignored the colony administrator who tried to step in his path, simply moving through him as if the man were a ghost. He ignored the frantic pleas and the useless shots from a security guard’s pulse rifle that sparked harmlessly against his armor.
Every heavy footstep was a drumbeat counting down the last seconds of my life. Fear was a cold, sharp thing in my gut, but underneath it, something else flickered—a terrifying, shameful spark of awe. I was the center of his universe. Me. Liana, the lonely botanist. The most powerful being I had ever seen was walking towards me, and he didn't see anyone else.
He stopped just a few feet away, close enough that I had to crane my neck back to see his face. It was a harsh, unforgiving landscape of sharp angles and brutal planes. No softness, no mercy. Just power. He smelled of ozone, hot metal, and something else—a dark, animal musk that was purely male, purely alien. His shadow swallowed me whole.
He lifted his left arm. A gauntlet of the same black metal covered his hand and forearm. A device on its back hummed to life, casting a pale blue light that washed over my body, from my messy hair down to my dirt-caked boots. It felt invasive, like a physical touch, probing and cataloging every cell in my body. I shivered, wrapping my arms around myself.
The light died. The humming stopped.
For a long moment, he just looked at me, his jet-black eyes unreadable. Then, he spoke. His voice wasn’t a sound. It was a geological event, a deep grinding of stone on stone that vibrated through the ground and up into my bones.
"You are pure."
The words were flat, a statement of fact.
"You will carry my heir."
My mind stalled. The words didn’t make sense. Heir? Me? I was just… me. A nobody on a forgotten rock.
"You will be my Empress."
He took the final step forward, closing the distance between us. Before I could process the words, before I could even scream, his hand shot out. His massive, grey-skinned fingers wrapped around my waist. His touch was rough, possessive. It wasn’t a caress; it was a claim. I felt like a doll in his grip, my feet barely touching the ground. His thumb pressed into the soft flesh above my hip, a brand of ownership.
Terror finally found its voice, and a choked gasp escaped my lips.
He ignored it. He simply bent his knees, slid his other arm under my legs, and lifted me off the ground.
I was in his arms, cradled against a chest as hard and unyielding as a rock face. The world spun. All I could see was the thick column of his neck, the hard line of his jaw. My entire body was dwarfed by his. I was nothing. A possession.
He turned, without a word, and started walking back towards his ship.
I looked over his shoulder at the faces of the other colonists. They stared back, their expressions a mixture of horror and a strange, sick relief that it wasn't them. My old life—the quiet, lonely, predictable safety of it—was right there, just a hundred feet away. And it was gone. Vanished.
He carried me up the long ramp, his steps never faltering. The dark, cavernous interior of the ship swallowed us whole, and the light of my world was snuffed out. The ramp began to retract, the grinding sound of its closure sealing my fate.
I was his.
