The Nullifier collapsed. A tremor ran through Rylos IV. Dust plumes rose, thick and acrid, tasting of scorched metal and alien blood. Maw-Kins roared. A low, guttural triumph. Elias joined them, a primal sound tearing from his own throat. He raised a clawed fist, mirroring his unit-mates. His body still throbbed. Chitin plates ached. He ignored it. He focused on the roar. He had done it. He had exposed the leg joint, precisely as the game knowledge dictated. His unit had swarmed. The behemoth was scrap. But the victory felt hollow. R’sharr’s gaze still burned on him. A physical weight. Elias could almost feel its multifaceted eyes dissecting him, peeling back the layers of his Maw-Kin disguise. He was 734. A Maw-Kin. Mindless. Fearless. Obedient. Yet he had shown initiative. Too much. He had shown strategy. Deadly. He watched the Progenitor’s shadow-form. It remained on the distant observation ridge. Still, unmoving. A predator assessing its prey, or a farmer scrutinizing a prize bull. The K’tharr tactical chatter filled Elias’s inner ear, translated by his embedded systems. Orders for cleanup. Scavenge. Reposition. The war machine churned on. His immediate unit, 733 and 735, closed ranks around him. Their chirps were short, sharp. Approval. Or perhaps just instinctual acknowledgment of a pack leader, however temporary. Maw-Kins rarely recognized individual skill. They followed effective action. Elias grunted in response. A K’tharr affirmation. He scanned the pulverized landscape. Other Maw-Kin units were consolidating. The ground shook as supply transports landed. The fight was won, but the planet was not yet pacified. An officer-caste K’tharr descended from the ridge. Not R’sharr. A Shard-Commander. Its posture was rigid, its numerous limbs twitching with controlled energy. It moved directly towards Maw-Kin unit 734. Elias tensed. He forced his carapace to remain still. No sudden movements. His internal fear receptors screamed. He kept his mandibles slack. “Unit 734. You are effective.” The Shard-Commander’s voice was a dry rattle, magnified by comms. “Your engagement sequence. Atypical. Highly efficient.” Elias simply lowered his head slightly. A deferential gesture. He kept his gaze locked on the officer’s midsection. Not a sign of challenge. Not a sign of intelligence. Just obedience. “Progenitor R’sharr notes your… output.” The word “output” hung in the air, a sterile term for Elias’s brutal ingenuity. “Proceed to processing hangar Gamma-9. Immediate recall.” Recall. That wasn't normal. Maw-Kins were patched up on the field, or recycled. Individual recalls were rare. Never for a front-line shock troop. Elias uttered another grunt. His unit-mates shifted, chittering softly. They seemed to sense the deviation from routine. 733 nudged him once, a confused inquiry. Maw-Kins only understood routine. “Go.” The Shard-Commander snapped. No explanation. No further data. Elias turned. He lumbered away from his unit, away from the familiar carnage. Every step felt heavier than the last. Hangar Gamma-9 was not a repair bay. It was a transfer station. Sleek, polished metal walls replaced the grimy, blood-splattered surfaces of the forward operating bases. Other K’tharr moved through here. Higher castes. Technicians. Tacticians. They wore more elaborate armor. Their movements were deliberate, not the frenetic twitching of frontline warriors. They glanced at Elias. Not with fear. Not with contempt. With cold, analytical curiosity. A Maw-Kin in a transfer hangar. Unusual. A K’tharr drone, all whirring lenses and delicate manipulators, floated towards him. “Unit 734. Designate yourself for immediate re-assignment. Follow.” Elias followed. His mind raced. What was R’sharr’s plan? To dissect him? To study him? To use him as some sort of experimental weapon? His human brain screamed for answers, for control. His Maw-Kin body simply obeyed. He was led into a small, sterile chamber. The drone hovered, its lenses focused. “Processing complete. Awaiting new directive. Standby.” Elias stood. The silence was unnerving. No distant battle roars. No chittering of his unit. Just the hum of machinery. He felt exposed. Every joint, every chitin plate, felt like it was under a microscope. Then, a voice. Not through comms. From a speaker mounted high in the chamber. It was R’sharr’s voice. Deeper. More resonant. Less a rattle, more a grind of stone. “Unit 734. Your recent performance has been… reviewed.” Elias remained rigid. His internal thought processes were a whirlwind. He knew, instinctively, that any deviation from the expected Maw-Kin response would be catastrophic. “Your tactical efficiency against the Nullifier-Class Siege Construct was statistically improbable for a standard Maw-Kin unit.” R’sharr paused. The silence was agonizing. “Your actions deviated from programmed combat doctrine. Significantly.” Elias held his breath, or the closest K’tharr equivalent. His compound eyes were fixed on a blank wall. Maw-Kins did not deviate. Maw-Kins did not think. “This deviation,” R’sharr continued, “resulted in a 98.7% reduction in expected K’tharr casualties for that engagement. An unacceptable anomaly, yet a desirable outcome.” Elias’s gut clenched. An anomaly. That was the word. He was an anomaly. “We do not understand your method of operation.” R’sharr’s voice held a new edge. Not anger. Not curiosity. Something colder. More predatory. “But we understand its efficacy.” Elias wanted to shout. To explain. To beg. He was human. He had a human mind. He was just trying to survive. But he couldn’t. He was a Maw-Kin. He was a tool. “You are no longer designated as Maw-Kin Unit 734 within a standard Hegemony shock-troop contingent.” The words hit Elias like a physical blow. He was being de-listed. Was this the end? Was he to be dissected after all? A failed experiment? A discarded weapon? “You are hereby reassigned.” R’sharr’s voice hardened. “To the Progenitor’s Specimen Group. Designation: Prototype X-1.” Prototype X-1. Not a warrior. A *specimen*. A *prototype*. Elias understood. He was no longer just a soldier. He was a subject. R’sharr wasn’t killing him. R’sharr was studying him. And in the K’tharr Hegemony, being a subject of a Progenitor was far worse than being a disposable soldier. “Your mission profile has been updated.” A schematic appeared on the chamber wall. A sprawling, complex structure, unlike anything Elias had encountered on Rylos IV. It was an Arachnid-aligned bio-foundry. Deep behind enemy lines. A fortress. “Penetrate. Disable. Extract designated genetic material.” R’sharr’s voice was utterly devoid of emotion. “No support. No reinforcements. Failure is not an option. Your value as a prototype depends on this.” Elias stared at the schematic. The bio-foundry pulsed with heat signatures. Its defenses were layered, complex. Not a place for brute force. A place for precision. For stealth. For strategy. His human mind recognized the challenge. It was a raid mission, high-level. Exactly the kind of scenario he had mastered in the game. But this wasn't a game. This was his life. “You will be deployed via solo infiltration pod. Immediately.” The chamber door hissed open. Beyond it, a small, sleek pod awaited. Not a troop transport. A single-occupant insertion craft. The ultimate isolation. Elias lumbered towards it. His fear was a cold knot in his stomach. He was being used. He was being tested. R’sharr saw something in him, something unnatural, and instead of destroying it, the Progenitor intended to harness it. He entered the pod. The hatch sealed with a metallic sigh. The internal monitors flickered to life, showing his trajectory. Deep into enemy space. Alone. He had sought to hide his intelligence. He had sought to blend in. Instead, his very effectiveness had ripped him from the relative safety of anonymity. He was now R’sharr’s personal weapon. A weapon with a human mind, forced to act as a K’tharr anomaly. His internal systems confirmed launch sequence initiation. The pod vibrated. Elias pressed himself against the interior, claws flexing. He had survived the front lines by being a better Maw-Kin. Now, to survive R’sharr, he had to be something else entirely. But what? The acceleration slammed him back. The stars smeared into streaks outside the viewport. He was heading towards a mission designed for a ghost, a phantom of war, something Maw-Kins were never meant to be. And R’sharr would be watching. Always watching. He was no longer just a disposable warrior. He was on a leash, an experimental animal, and the first test had just begun.

The Weight of Attention