OXYGEN

I used to watch Earth from the observation deck. Before we sold it. Just a blue dot... getting smaller. I never had a home to watch disappear. Just the ones they took from me. I was MUD before I knew what MUD was Born on a ship, never felt the ground because My great-great-grandparents signed the contract Traded dirt for stars, now the stars are hacked And sold and stripped and hollowed out I spent my whole life learnin' how to doubt Every mission brief, every "peace initiative" Every time they said "this planet's a gift to us" Gift from who? Gift from where? Gift from a species that ain't breathin' air 'Cause we took it all, bottled it, priced it Then stood on the bridge and romanticised it Called it "manifest destiny," called it "expansion" I called it what it was — a slow-motion manslaughter But I wore the uniform, I flew the ships I signed the requisitions with my fingertips Till the day we hit a world with nothin' left No minerals, no resources, just a single breath Of atmosphere hangin' like a question in the void And command said "take it anyway — we can't be destroyed By somethin' as fragile as a species needin' air" That's when I knew... I was already there On the wrong side of history, starin' at my face In the helmet of a soldier who forgot her place We breathe the same air Same oxygen, same stars, same prayer You built your empire on takin' what we share But you can't sell the sky You can't put a price on why We keep fightin' We keep fightin' [Beat builds] For air. Kaelen found me on a ECOS station Half-dead from desertion, full of resignation Said "Vex, I got nowhere else to go My people think I'm traitor, yours think I'm the foe But I watched my own ship drain a world of sky And I couldn't breathe for a different reason — why? Why do we do this? Why do we take? Why does every boundary have to break?" I looked at him, this boy from the divine This product of a system that taught him to sign His name on the dotted line since birth And I saw every soldier I'd put in the earth On our side. Their side. Same blood, same breath. Same moment of silence before the void death. I said "You're not traitor, you're not foe You're just someone who finally said no To the oxygen tax, to the breathin' fee To the idea that sky belongs to anyone but we The ones who live beneath it, the ones who need it most The ones who watch it vanish like a goddamn ghost" I never felt ground I never had ground to feel I only know stars I know which stars are real The ones that don't go dark when MUD arrives? The ones that keep burnin' despite their lies Can we win this? Vex? I don't know if winning's real. But I know if we stop... They win by default. And I can't. I can't let the last thing I breathe be their air. Priced and packaged and sold back to me. No. We breathe the same air! Same oxygen, same stars, same prayer! You built your empire on takin' what we share! But you can't sell the sky! You can't put a price on why! We keep fightin'! We keep fightin'! For the worlds that still got atmosphere! For the ones who ain't disappeared! For the breath in my lungs right now! You can't have it! Take a bow! Council of Thieves! Your show's over. Kaelen. Yeah? Welcome home. First time I ever felt like I had one.