There are three great Hive Cities on Prawa V: Prawa Prime, Prawa Secundus, and Prawa Ten Drugi. Ten Drugi is my home, the home of my brothers and sisters in the Miners' Guild of Shaft VII. The Imperial overseers rule with iron fists, their myriad bureaucrats ensconced within towering spires, tallying each unit of ore we rip from the rock. They ensure that every shortfall is met with punishment—banishment to the sands rather than execution. After all, our labour is vital for the sector, despite no conflicts in the Prawa system for over a century.

Long ago, war raged across this world. Beneath the shifting dunes, the carcasses of great war machines lie entombed, waiting for a call that may never come.

Every three or four Terran years, the rains come. Torrential downpours turn dust to flood, swallowing our mines, drowning my friends and family by the hundreds. The overseers do nothing. They call these losses acceptable. No protections are given, no warnings sounded. How many times can we watch our kin be swept away before hatred takes root? A deep, festering resentment—a slumbering ember, waiting for a desert wind, a scirocco, to fan it into flame. Until that time, we toiled, cowed beneath the yoke of our oppressors.

Then she came.

She walked out of the desert with grace, grit, and the storm at her back—our desert wind. Mona. She was a vision—her beauty sharp and untouchable, her voice soft enough to soothe yet strong enough to set hearts ablaze. She whispered truths we had only dared mutter in darkness. Small acts of defiance followed—barely noticeable at first. A misplaced tally. A ‘forgotten’ shift. Meaningless in isolation, yet exhilarating in our veins. For the first time, we felt control.

Months passed, and then came the stranger. Cloaked and silent, always in the shadows. Mona told us he, too, was a victim of our oppressors. That he hid his scars from us. Still, she called him Father. Spoke of his wisdom, his kindness. At first, we only glimpsed him—a shifting figure at the edge of firelight. Watching. Waiting.

Then, one day, Mona took me aside. She asked about my family. About my dreams. What would I do to make their lives better? To free them? To ensure they never feared the floods or the overseers again? I had no answer. What could I possibly do? Small acts could only take us so far before the overseers uncovered our defiance and sent us to die in the sands. As much as rebellion stirred my heart, it would never be enough.

Mona leaned in, her lips close to my ear, her voice like silk over steel. “Family is everything,” she whispered.

Her cheek brushed mine. I felt the warmth of her breath, scented with cinnamon and cloves. My pulse quickened.

“He is ready to see you now.”

A shiver coiled down my spine. Who?

Mona’s smile was radiant, knowing. The shadows behind her stirred.

“Father.”