Chapter 169 - The Vanguard's Return
The male Zerg who had once appeared scrawny and malnourished was now a creature transformed.
En sat before the restoration pod, his heavy tactical harness unbuckled for a rare moment of respite. His stature had filled out, standing taller than the vast majority of males. As the brothers had officially crossed the threshold into adulthood, the raw, savage edge of their youth had been tempered into a steady, imposing gravity. The days of them issuing defensive, high-pitched hisses like frightened hatchlings were long gone; they had become silent, tempered steel.
Their return to the core star sector was primarily for follow-up medical treatment and to face the consequences of their unauthorized maneuvers under the judgment of the Core-species.
The reality of their situation was far more grim than the lighthearted version Sakti had presented to little Liber.
For nearly three Great Cycles, En and his brother had been rooted in the deep space war zones, drifting from one conflict theater to another, slowly and painfully carving out a fleet of their own from the chaos.
When Sakti and Gera entered the medical bay with the cub in tow, the low-grade male was carelessly tossing aside his upper-body exoskeleton armor. The heavy plating, along with a mountain of weaponry, cluttered the floor in a jagged heap. For a male Zerg, such equipment was an agonizing burden, yet it had seemed fused to En’s body, never removed except for these brief returns to the core sector.
The low-grade male had learned to sleep pillowed upon cold, hard steel and wake to the thunder of orbital strikes, swallowing the copper tang of blood in his mouth and the stinging ache of minor wounds without a word. His body was a map of scars—countless marks, some old and deep enough to have once exposed the bone.
A male’s regenerative capabilities were far inferior to those of a female. Even away from the front lines, the ghosts of past battles refused to fade from his skin.
These two brothers, originally intended to be raised as private security guards, had been reassigned to the peripheral battlefields by Gera’s decree following a long, private conversation with the white male Zerg.
"I want to protect you," En had said then, having just emerged from his sub-adult phase. He had knelt at Gera’s feet, his arms wrapped tightly around the other’s waist, his mastery of the Common Tongue finally fluid enough to give voice to his soul. "But all the other Zerg... they want to protect the males too. They want to protect the ones who could be sent back to Angon at any moment."
"So I must leave. I *must* go," he had insisted. His beast-like pupils had locked onto his gentle kin, his voice thick with the scent of blood and saltpeter. "I am going to fight. I am going to kill. In the battlefields where only females are meant to tread, I will seize a place of my own."
"They cannot kill me," he had vowed. "I will crush the skulls of those who seek to strip us of our lives."
That dialogue had taken place between a low-grade male and a Core-species burdened with genetic defects. Gera had held the youth—who had grown from a tiny thing into a warrior of his own size—and tenderly kissed his brow.
"Go then," Gera had said, his pale eyes calm and resolute. "We are the Swarm. We have walked the path of survival longer than any other race, and we do not fear the cost of trial and error. Go, fight, seize your victory—and then come back to me alive."
The dark-patterned male had let out a humming vibration identical to the one he had made as a larva, clinging to the hands that had led him through his darkest years, returning the kiss with equal fervor. He was saying goodbye in the emotional language of their kind.
"Thank you... to you and Sa."
It was the first time the bug, who once couldn't string a sentence together, had articulated his gratitude so clearly. It was as if a chaotic beast, incapable of erasing its savage nature, had finally cultivated a soul with a singular, driving purpose.
"I am your cub. I am the cub of every male living on Ja and the core planets." Standing on the precipice of fate, the once-weak brother had looked toward a future unlike any he had known. "As long as my heart beats, the fires of war will never reach our home. I will bring you victory when I return to the nest."
The cub who once spoke in broken syllables had been a man of his word.
En and his brother had drifted through the void for nearly three Great Cycles, their feet touching solid ground only a handful of times. They had started at the very bottom—the "dregs" who required the pitying assistance of the Armed-species—and had rapidly tempered themselves in the crucible of death, climbing the ranks through sheer attrition.
A male’s physical strength was roughly equivalent to that of an untrained human male; they possessed no innate biological advantages. When Enna could easily hoist a multi-ton heavy sniper rifle, En still struggled with the bone-jarring recoil of a standard issue. Thus, the male relied on his predatory instincts to find a different path.
Sakti, watching from his command post, had witnessed the brothers' performance. He recognized it immediately: En was walking his own old path. Or rather, En was annihilating his enemies using the very tactics humans once used to suppress the Zerg tides.
Without formal instruction, the male—having survived the training of the Great Sacrificial Arena on the energy planet and the brutal drills of the Armed-species—had mastered the rhythm of the hunt. Had his physical vessel not limited him, this low-grade male would have reached a terrifying height of power.
Genius was a rare gift, a sharp edge some were born with. Sakti had it, Evelyn had it, Arthur had it, and so did En. In the moment between life and death, intuition was a better savior than dogma, yet it was the hardest thing to command.
On this return to the nest, the brothers, now leading their own squad, had decimated twelve raider vessels. Having been trafficked together, rescued together, and trained together, the two shared a bond of such terrifying synchronicity that they moved as a single mind.
Enna had been injured during a tactical withdrawal. The shockwave of a ship’s explosion was more than a male could endure, so the hard-shelled female had shielded his brother with his own body, absorbing the brunt of the fire.
The regenerative powers of a mid-tier species were nothing compared to a Core-species. After so long in the void, the pair had decided to return to the core habitat for an extended rest and to personally report their overdue status and accept their punishment. They had brought a string of raider heads as a "greeting gift," but after a hushed, chirping discussion before landing, they concluded the other males might be horrified by the grisly trophies and left them on the ship.
The moment Gera and Sakti stepped into the treatment nest, En scrambled to pull on his tunic. The former sub-adult, once more ferocious than most females and prone to running around half-naked with his four scaled legs scrambling in every direction during a brawl, was suddenly struck by a wave of belated shyness upon seeing his guardians.
Their current combat gear was similar to the standard issue of the Armed-species. En grabbed a piece and threw it on haphazardly, not caring if it was backward. He then snatched another garment and draped it over the restoration pod, effectively veiling his brother, who was currently floating in the healing fluid.
Enna, suddenly plunged into darkness: "..."
He tried to sit up, but his decisive brother slammed the pod lid shut with a firm hand.
The disheveled low-grade male then lunged forward to embrace the white male Zerg, his scaled tail clinking against Gera’s as they huddled together. After three cycles of blood and toil, En was now as tall as Gera. He let out a soft, joyful hum, burrowing into the other’s embrace just as he had as a child.
Enna, still trapped in the pod: "..." *How cunning.*
Liber, watching from the sidelines, charged forward and wrapped his arms around En’s waist with unstoppable momentum. The three males huddled close, a chorus of rhythmic buzzing filling the room.
En released Gera only to hoist the cub—who was barely half his height—into the air with powerful arms. The cub’s tail thrashed with delight as he peppered En’s face with enthusiastic kisses.
The sidelined Sakti and Enna: "..."
By the time everyone was settled, Liber had wiggled out of En’s arms and over to Enna’s side. Despite his youth, the silver-grey cub had already revealed himself to be a "social bandit," inheriting the silver-tongued charm of the blue-eyed human youth. He would nuzzle one person, then immediately scamper to the next for more affection, ensuring no one was left out.
"I’ve reviewed the report you submitted," Sakti began, his gaze fixing on the brothers. Enna was currently busy digging through a pile of miscellaneous items to find a "greeting gift" for the cub. "The duration of your final operation exceeded the mission parameters by one micro-cycle. You provided no specific explanation for the delay."
The Core-species’ tone turned stern as he entered "settlement mode." Regulations and laws were immutable, but before he passed judgment, he needed to know the truth. Based on their records, these brothers weren't muscle-brained fools who lost themselves to bloodlust.
"Deep-space raids have strict energy consumption protocols. Without a valid reason, you must return according to the schedule," Sakti reminded them. "This is a discipline every Zerg must follow—whether it’s you or the Alliance forces."
"There was... a special reason," En said, sounding like a cat that had just encountered a cucumber for the first time, his Common Tongue reverting to halting, single words under the pressure of the report. "Could not... put in report."
"We... dug out the raiders'... nest."
The scent of the wild never truly left En; his eyes narrowed into thin, vertical slits. "An entire hidden planet."
"They preyed on their own kind," Enna took over, placing a hand over Liber’s head to shield the cub from the coming words. As the traditionally silent brother, Enna’s voice was a rare occurrence. "Even when their stockpiles were full, they continued to hunt."
Gera gently pulled the little male into his arms. Sensing the shift in atmosphere, the cub stopped his playful squirming and rested quietly in the warm embrace. A thin veil of psychic energy rose like an invisible barrier, ensuring the youngster wouldn't be exposed to the gore of the conversation.
"We waded through stinking blood-mud that reached our ankles," Enna continued. Because he had grown up with En, Enna possessed a level of attentiveness toward males that other females lacked. Their squad hadn't expected what they found, but the brothers had tracked the raiders back to their hidden colony.
"The entire planet was a hub for trafficking males and larvae. But because the Grey-wings have cracked down so hard on the trade these last two cycles, many 'shipments' couldn't be moved. The 'goods' that didn't look right were simply left to rot where they stood."
"Some tried... to run... with cubs," En said, his hand resting on the heavy particle rifle across his lap. He stroked the weapon as if it were an extension of his own body; he never truly let it go, even in sleep.
"Caught. Brought back."
"Limbs and tails... broken. Chained up."
"Planet too big... no escape."
"The ones who ran... and the cubs... were cut open. Lower bodies... rotted away. Hung in the nest... half-eaten."
Fine scales began to creep up Enna’s neck as he added the final details, his body shifting into an alienated form identical to his brother’s. "They couldn't leave. The raider tribes guarded the entire habitat. They slaughtered every female who still had the strength to resist."
"There was nowhere to go."
"They could only rot in that nest."
"So," En said, his eyes like those of a predatory beast, staring unblinkingly at the black Core-species, "I cut off the heads of every raider."
"I blew apart their limbs. I shattered their wings," Enna added, the warmth of a moment ago vanished. "They created agony, so I made them howl with the same intensity. They chose barbarism, so I became more barbaric than they could ever imagine."
For a fleeting second, Sakti saw his own reflection in the youth. They were both beasts from the wilderness, sharing the same blood.
The Core-species had long ago learned the human concepts of love and morality, but En and Enna possessed them innately. It was because of that love—the desire to give back to their kin and protect all males—that they had chosen such a grueling path. This low-grade male, born with "trash" genes, had stumbled onto a battlefield where only females were supposed to play, and he had forcibly silenced all opposition to build his own command.
After a long silence, the Core-species finally understood the sentiment of the Imperial Marshal who had once protected the synchronizer of the Red Tai Sui.
"Short-term probation. Fifty pages of self-reflection report. I will not strip you of your command over the squad for now," Sakti announced, his expression unreadable as he finalized the decision.
The brothers had met his baseline, though they still had much to learn. He would teach them, slowly.
"In two days, the Sub-King of the Grey-wings and the administrator of the Armed-species will need to see this report before we decide on the next steps."
"I understand why you refused to use the information connectors to upload this data—to avoid leaving a permanent record that might distress others. But a violation is a violation. You will provide a handwritten copy to me." Sakti tapped the armrest of his chair, a final reminder. "As for the survivors, coordinate their resettlement with Gera. He will assist you."
"...Fine." The response was reluctant, but the notoriously defiant low-grade male actually obeyed. "I will write it."
En clutched his heavy rifle, his gaze never wavering. "When finished... can I go to the battlefield? Again?"
He and Enna sat pressed together, identical in their alienated states, identical in their stubbornness. Only the slight, nervous twitch of their intertwined tails betrayed their anxiety.
Sakti smiled.
Gera, sensing his partner’s emotional shift, couldn't help but smile as well. Holding Liber, the white Zerg winked at the brothers, signaling them to relax.
"I’ll be leading the next purge myself," the black Core-species said.
"I will take you with me personally."
***
