Overlord Vessig stood on the ridge above the main camp and watched the planet bleed into his machines. His purple scales caught the desert sun. His tail dragged a slow line in the dirt behind him. One antenna twitched as he counted crates. This world was called the Vael by the soft things that lived on it, and Vessig meant to take every ounce of it back to his own planet to feed the shipyards there. The siphon tower did the loud work. It was a black spire of interlocking plates and glowing conduits, planted at the center of the camp. Ore and split wood rose through its clear middle column in a green-lit rush, chunks of rock and timber tumbling upward like water poured the wrong way. Each load thumped into the collection basins at its base. Every thump was another warship, closer. A line of captive workers shuffled between the tower and the water tanks. The tanks sat clamped to bare rock, tall glass cylinders lit soft blue, filling by the minute. Vessig watched one worker stagger under a crate of ore. He came down the slope in four long strides. "Faster," he said. His voice cut across the camp. The worker did not look up. Vessig struck the crate from below with his tail. Ore spilled across the sand. "Pick it up. All of it. You waste one stone, I take one hand." The worker dropped to their knees and scraped. The others moved quicker. Vessig walked the line and let them feel him behind their shoulders. A scout crossed the camp toward him at a run. Purple-scaled, smaller, one antenna bent forward. The scout's clawed hand rested on the panel at their belt. They stopped at a careful distance and bowed the head. "Overlord. The east ridge." "Report." "The barrier panel is dim. Two sections. Something struck it in the night." Vessig turned his head toward the east edge of the camp. Two rock spurs stood there, joined by a clear wall traced in blue light. One trace flickered. The barrier was what kept the local heat signatures out of his perimeter while the siphon ran. If it failed, anything with a pulse could walk into his operation. "Double the scouts on that line," Vessig said. "Kill what comes through. I do not stop the tower." "Yes, Overlord." The scout ran. Vessig climbed back to the ridge and set both hands on the rail. Below him, the tower pulled another load up its throat. The tanks glowed brighter. The line of workers bent lower. He had the camp. He had the day's haul. He had a soft wall at his back and something out in the dunes that already knew where he was. Vessig bared his teeth at the horizon and told the scout captain to bring him the first body before sundown.