The state of this ship was appalling; one couldn't even piece together a single intact stellar energy receiver plate.
Sakdi spent an entire day dragging the corpses of the worker-females into the waste disposal compactor. The twenty former crew members were now officially history. The downside of owning a derelict vessel was that everything had to be done personally, including hauling bodies. Only after those bulky pieces of trash were ejected through the launch rails and vanished into the void of space did he feel the ship had become somewhat refreshed.
As the sole survivor among the former passengers, the white male Zerg remained confined in that small cabin where Sakdi had left him.
Considering the rhythmic, comical *ge-la ge-la* rattling sound the creature made while gasping for air, Sakdi casually assigned him the code name "Gela."
Gela was clearly terrified of Sakdi. He remained huddled in a small corner of the room, refusing to step even half a pace out of what he considered his safe zone. Sakdi, still retaining human habits in his thinking, tossed food into the cabin once a day.
If not for the feedings, he might have forgotten he even had a neighbor. Most of the time, Gela was as quiet as the dead, curled up motionless in the room.
Sakdi used this time to traverse the entirety of the arc-shaped ship, reaching a definitive conclusion: this was a raider vessel.
In the old era, the Zerg followed a model of mono-female reproduction, where the Queen’s status was paramount. However, during thirty years of confrontation with humanity, the humans had fully demonstrated their talent for thriving under pressure. They went from being pummeled to the brink of extinction at the start to a back-and-forth struggle, eventually even slaughtering their way through the Queen’s nests several times. Through these harsh lessons, they forced their loathsome neighbors to learn the principle of "not putting all one's eggs in one basket."
After the fifth Queen was successfully assassinated, the Zerg had likely been slaughtered into a state of numbness. The cost of nurturing a true Broodmother was exorbitant; doing it five times in a row represented a staggering sunk cost. Consequently, the entire Zerg race gradually transitioned from a highly unified single-core model to a decentralized one, led by over a dozen core-gene lineages ruling different tribes. No new Broodmother had been born in the galaxy since.
The surviving direct descendants of the various royal lines carved up the Zerg race, forming new tribes. Each tribe centered its nest around a Sub-Queen—a direct descendant who had undergone differentiation—while the core-gene species and mid-to-low gene worker-females guarded the nest.
While a dozen or so core-gene families occupied the Zerg star sectors, a large portion of Zerg who had broken away from their families, or whose families had been destroyed in infighting, became interstellar raiders and drifters.
In these struggles, the losing Zerg families would be utterly crushed. Initially, not a single soul from adult to egg would survive. Later, these single-minded neighbors likely considered the high attrition rate and began to "recycle" worker-females, males, and eggs as commodities for internal trade and exchange.
For humanity, this change was a mixed blessing.
The good news was that the overall aggression of the Zerg had decreased; the bad news was that decentralized Zerg were much harder to kill. Humans could no longer simply charge into a Queen’s nest and wipe out the Broodmother to end it all. The Zerg social structure appeared loose after the change, but when you killed one, countless others would pour out from every nook and cranny.
The exhausted, feuding neighbors were forced to call a truce, both entering a long period of recovery.
The characteristics of this raider ship were far too obvious. The entire lower deck was filled with cabins piled with scattered energy ores, food, low-grade trade goods, a large batch of damaged Zerg eggs of unknown origin, and a male Zerg who had nearly been eaten down to scraps.
This led Sakdi to suspect that his own pupa had also been part of their "cargo." After all, it was highly unlikely for a group of low-level gene species to spontaneously mutate a core-gene individual.
Most of his day was spent eating and familiarizing himself with the ship's operations. As a human, he had dismantled tower ships, frigates, patrol ships, light and heavy mechs, and various models of Zerg vessels.
He easily mastered the controls of the raider ship and pulled up the navigational charts, but he found himself in a state of illiterate helplessness when faced with the flight logs.
The Zerg possessed two sets of writing systems: the Universal Script and the Emotional Script, belonging to two completely different frameworks. Human research into the Emotional Script was minimal; this primitive, visual language seemed to come with its own inherent encryption.
Unfortunately, as a human, Sakdi hadn't been particularly proficient in either.
He wasn't a linguist. His professional needs had only required him to recognize the most basic Universal Script terms, such as "eat," "attack," "death," "weapon," and a few simple labels and basic numbers. Beyond that, everything was Greek to him.
Absurdly, the Emotional Script—which humans found incredibly obscure—was actually easier for the Zerg to understand. Just as a bird might feel fear and lose its appetite upon seeing the brilliant patterns on a butterfly's wings, Zerg instincts allowed them to rapidly comprehend those complex patterns.
However, in formal settings—such as programming or writing flight logs—the Zerg employed the more logical and precise Universal Script.
Unsurprisingly, the flight log before him was written in the Universal Script.
Its complexity was enough to make one's head spin.
Sakdi mentally added "questioning Gela" to his schedule. He needed a literacy teacher and a free consultant.
Too much information needed verification. The results of his inquiry might not meet his expectations; the best answer would be that he was still in the original universe on the same timeline. If, as in human movies, a person traveled through various parallel universes after death, that would truly be a horror story.
Casually flipping through the star map projections floating beside him, he saw that he and his newly acquired ship were currently far from human territory, deep within Zerg space. They were tens of thousands of light-years away from the nearest human settlement, the Little Rose Star Sector.
Sakdi sat amidst a cluster of projected planets, sighing as he gnawed on a skewer of meat and bone he’d carved from a beast carcass stored in the hold. A few drifting asteroids bumped into his head; unable to navigate around the obstacle, they performed a "dumb AI" routine of spinning in place, floating in the air like glowing jellyfish.
Even less optimistic was the fact that this pitiful raider ship was one step away from being a sieve. The energy stored on board was nearly depleted, desperately requiring resupply and upgrades.
The original crew had clearly set a destination for this voyage, and the autopilot system was still running. When Sakdi carefully examined the route, he found it passed through two unconventional jump points. If all went well, the raider ship would reach an unfamiliar asteroid after one small cosmic cycle.
It was a terrestrial planet with its own main-sequence star and two orbiting moons.
Whether setting off for human space or searching for a tower ship like a needle in a haystack, neither was a good choice right now.
If this raider ship didn't get an energy resupply within two weeks, it would likely become a giant, luxury tomb, turning Sakdi into a "drop-box" and becoming his permanent home.
A female Zerg's physical resilience far exceeded a human's, but he didn't want to test how long his new body could drift in space before dying.
Even more unfortunately, a raider ship had no right to access the Time River. Official ports only accepted legitimate vessels, which meant detouring to other destinations would be fraught with difficulty, wasting massive amounts of energy and time.
In this regard, Zerg society was quite similar to human society. Whether it was a Zerg raider or a human smuggler, they always preferred high-risk, niche routes over official channels that required strict auditing.
During lulls in the war, the smuggling trade had once flourished. Everything from daily necessities to weapons, populations, and stellar core energy was transported.
Sakdi had once been forced to divert his energy, pulling a fleet of patrol and inspection ships from the military to scurry across the universe catching people. They had uncovered a slew of bizarre, unofficial routes to curb the escalating black market trade.
This patrol fleet quickly became a unique outlier within the dirt-poor Imperial Legions. While everyone else suffered from general resource scarcity due to the prolonged war, the inspection squad was filthy rich. They had successfully completed a "self-evolution," masterfully and instinctively grasping black-on-black tactics—including but not limited to "killing the donkey once it leaves the mill" and "entrapment." They would divide the seized smuggled goods on the spot, with a large portion flowing directly into the military's treasury to feed the front lines.
At its peak, the entire patrol and inspection team had achieved the feat of seizing 47 smuggling ships within a single small cosmic cycle. The most outrageous cargo was twelve sets of core power reactors belonging to the former Galactic Federation Army, which had been stealthily dismantled for resale. After reading that report, Sakdi couldn't help but approve a full set of the latest close-combat mechs for the patrol team.
But the law of conservation of character—which falls into the realm of superstition and metaphysics—always exists. One moment he closed his eyes, and the next he opened them to find himself the owner of a raider ship.
The Zerg had no formal government, only different tribal factions. Both the navigation routes and the access ports to the Time River were entirely controlled by the core-gene families. Struggles between Zerg were far less subtle than those of humans; an offline "black ship" wandering into the star sector of a core-gene tribe was practically an act of suicide.
This was why the current ship's autopilot route cautiously bypassed all low-risk lanes, focusing on finding paths in the most obscure corners.
Thoroughly organizing the supplies and then hauling that white male Zerg out for questioning became an agenda that needed immediate execution.
The current situation was like a jigsaw puzzle missing its limbs. After making no progress in unearthing the truth of his situation alone, Sakdi decisively chose to clear the cargo hold first and then seek a consultation.
His fine secondary teeth easily finished chewing the beast's bone. He stood up, brushed away the star maps surrounding him, and shook off the pile of small planets orbiting him.
On the way from the bridge to the warehouse, he passed the male Zerg's cabin—before this, Sakdi had even thoughtfully blocked the torn cabin door back into place, sealing it tight.
His "model neighbor" still hadn't made a sound.
Sakdi rummaged through the cargo hold. The original crew didn't seem to care much for hygiene, piling food and cargo together.
But the Zerg trait of being able to survive on wood or soil meant they weren't particularly concerned with food safety or quality.
While sorting through the food, Sakdi exercised extreme caution, fearing he might accidentally pull the remains of some unsuitable species out of a storage jar. Finding one's own former kind in canned goods would certainly not be a pleasant experience.
His scent glands picked up a massive, jumbled array of odors, which was hardly an enjoyable sensation.
The wings within his wing-sacs were nearly finished engorging with blood, stirring restlessly beneath his shoulder blades, reminding him that this body grew hungry very quickly.
Over the course of the day, he had consumed energy far exceeding the needs of a normal female Zerg. He would work for a bit, then eat a few bites of whatever was at hand—alien remains, beast carcasses, well-preserved pupa shells... he ate almost anything.
A female Zerg who had just entered adulthood had an energy requirement akin to a bottomless pit. Whether they could obtain abundant energy in a timely manner directly affected their final developmental outcome.
The Zerg were, overall, a rather miraculous species. When there was no food, they could live vibrantly; when food was plentiful, they would evolve rapidly like a sea sponge soaking up water, displaying a terrifying sense of muscular pressure.
Fortunately, pleasant surprises often came suddenly. While inventorying the miscellaneous goods, he found a medical pod amidst the sea of trash.
Though the model looked as old as the raider ship itself, it provided a faint sense of familiar security and reliability.
Sakdi tapped the outer casing of the medical pod and pressed the buttons labeled with Universal Script symbols. Through a mix of guessing and intuition, he started the machine. After confirming this antique model could run normally, he pondered for a second whether to drag Gela—that white male Zerg—inside.
It had been a long time since the last feeding, and the other party had shown no movement. This qualified and self-aware Zerg neighbor lived as if he were dead. The fact that males had far weaker self-healing abilities than females, combined with the various wounds on his body, made Sakdi occasionally worry that his neighbor might quietly kick the bucket in the corner.
Theoretically, the other party now carried the multiple positive roles of providing information, calibrating the timeline, and acting as Sakdi's literacy teacher. If he died halfway, it would be difficult to find such a non-aggressive and friendly traveling companion again in the short term.
Sakdi decided to properly pull him out for some socialization.
Thus, the two-day-long, brief, and peaceful period of neighborly relations quickly came to an end.
***
| Chinese | English | Notes/Explanation |
| :--- | :--- | :--- |
| 核心基因种 | Core-gene species | High-level Zerg with superior genetics and power. |
| 工雌 | Worker-female | The female Zerg who serve as the primary labor and combat force. |
| 雄虫 | Male Zerg | Generally weaker, protected, or used for breeding in Zerg society. |
| 王虫 | Queen / King Zerg | High-ranking Zerg, often the center of a hive. |
| 虫母 | Broodmother | The singular reproductive and spiritual leader of the Zerg (in the old system). |
| 亚王虫 | Sub-Queen | Direct descendants of the royal line who lead decentralized tribes. |
| 劫掠船 | Raider ship | A vessel used by Zerg outcasts or scavengers for piracy and looting. |
| 通用书写语系 | Universal Script | The logical, precise writing system used by Zerg for formal records. |
| 情感书写语系 | Emotional Script | A primitive, visual, and instinctual language used by Zerg. |
| 时间河 | Time River | A regulated interstellar navigation network or FTL system. |
| 小玫瑰星域 | Little Rose Star Sector | A specific region of space inhabited by humans. |
| 治疗仓 | Medical pod / Treatment chamber | A device used for healing and recovery. |
| 蛹壳 | Pupa shell | The discarded casing from a Zerg's metamorphosis. |
| 呼吸缝 | Respiratory slits | Slits on the Zerg body (often abdomen) used for breathing. |
| 信腺 | Scent glands / Pheromone glands | Organs used by Zerg to detect and emit chemical signals. |
| 翅囊 | Wing-sacs | Internal compartments where Zerg wings are stored when not in use. |
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