Haris first met the android on a brittle winter morning, two years earlier, down on Vyr’s southern docks where frost clung to rusted cranes and the air tasted of coolant and salt. Back then he was just another port worker, anonymous among thousands, moving cargo that never belonged to him between ships that never stayed. Androids weren’t rare, but they weren’t common either. The old Union–Vidyan accords kept synthetics visibly distinct, a quiet pact to keep everyone in their place. Most drifted in and out with freighters, as impersonal as the cargo they supervised. She wasn’t what he expected. Yes, there was rigidity. But also patience. Kindness. A quiet stoicism he rarely saw on Vyr, a world that taught you to be loud or invisible. They spoke often after that. About power pooling in the same few systems. Forgotten worlds. Aliens. Species no one bothered to remember. And always, somehow, it came back to Vyr. A planet caught between fronts. A place that never chose its own future. E...