When the transport ship from Ja arrived, Sakti was in the middle of discussing their next steps with Clark. This time, the Grey-Wing tribe’s internal strife—essentially the left hand fighting the right—had resulted in a staggering loss. The civil war had depleted a vast amount of resources, prompting Clark to draw a shipment from Ja to replenish their military supplies.
The advantage of having an energy planet with a complete industrial chain became evident at this moment. The instant deep-space communications were restored and Clark’s orders were sent, Ja’s management moved with lightning speed to dispatch the pre-loaded materials. Thus, less than two small cycles after the end of the split, the first batch of supplies reached the Core Sector.
Accompanying the shipment were two Short-Wings and Xiao.
This came as quite a surprise to Sakti.
Selim had wanted to come as well, but he was currently burdened with the production and management tasks of the entire energy planet. During the few micro-cycles he spent on the call with the Core Seed, the dark brown medium-tier female rubbed his wings repeatedly, looking restless and anxious.
Sakti could practically read the aura of resentment radiating from him.
"Stop looking. Xiao left with Gela the moment he got off the ship."
The Red Tai-Sui had placed the thawed Great Information Nest into an orbit near the hive. Now, Gela spent every day immersed there, leading a group of males and females in high-intensity maintenance work.
Upon seeing Xiao, who had traveled from so far away, the white insect was overjoyed, wagging his tail as he pulled the other into a hug. The two males pressed against each other, their scaled tails curling together as they emitted soft, joyful hums.
"Tell me about the recent situation on the energy planet." Sakti tapped the table, pulling his subordinate’s attention back.
"The weapon manufacturing chain is fully operational," Selim replied, his tone becoming reliable once they turned to official business. "Following the suggestions of the Grey-Wing technical insects, we have iterated and updated the energy stone refinement chain. Production efficiency has increased by two percent."
Sakti already knew about this; he had received the report before the King’s Nest was destroyed. After a careful review, the proposal had been approved.
It was a bit different from his original plan. He had initially acquired the energy planet to raise the Red Tai-Sui. As it turned out, raising the Red Tai-Sui was no longer possible, but the remnant models of Kamlan had an appetite for stellar core energy that was no less voracious.
"Next time you send a ship, bring Kai over to me," the Core Seed said.
At the moment, he lacked an insect specialized in foreign trade. Using everything to its fullest potential was his basic principle; failing to squeeze out every drop of surplus value was practically a waste and a crime.
"Do you not intend to return for the time being, My Lord?" Selim asked.
The Short-Wing looked like he was on the verge of death by overwork, and with his male not by his side, his resentment was nearly manifesting into physical form. "You... you aren't planning to never come back, are you?!"
"I can't leave right now." Sakti didn't give a direct answer. He was mentally drafting a schedule, prioritizing tasks by their urgency and importance. "I will have Clark allocate a portion of the Armed-Wings to continue handling Ja’s security. Once all the energy is unloaded, I’ll have them escort the transport ships back."
"There is a high probability of subsequent battles. Continue preparing enough energy stones; I will have use for them."
He felt that the sectors of the Foot-Wings and Broad-Wings were also quite prosperous.
He saw them, and he wanted them. And he was certain Clark wanted them too.
"I’m detaining Xiao for the time being." The black female always knew how to kick a man while he was down. "Gela is short-handed right now. Since your partner is here, he stays to help."
Selim’s vision went dark at the first half of the sentence, but he suddenly turned red at the second.
"He... he isn't my partner yet," he stammered in protest, though he looked quite pleased. His brown tail twisted into a bashful shape behind him.
*Eyesore,* the Core Seed concluded.
He had shot himself in the foot. After he had accidentally burst out laughing to Gela's face last time, the male had been huffing with shame for a long while. Whenever Sakti got close to him, the male’s slender white scaled tail would stand stiffly upright. Consequently, he hadn't received a single kiss in days.
Going from luxury to frugality was hard—truly hard.
***
"Did you and your partner, Sa... have a fight?"
Meanwhile, within the Great Information Nest, the light brown male asked cautiously.
"No," Gela replied with a smile, offering no further explanation.
He wanted to pull Sakti’s excess energy toward himself, rather than having the other constantly focused on a fractured past and painful self-doubt. Over the past few days, as they lay in their nest, Sakti had shifted from silently brooding over unanswerable questions to whispering sweet nothings before sleep, trying every trick in the book to entwine their tails.
Whether human or insect, one didn't have the energy for idle thoughts when busy. He wanted Sakti’s attention on him.
"That’s good." Xiao seemed to breathe a sigh of relief as he walked beside the white insect, who was currently recording data. He liked Gela very much, and he also liked the current tribal leader, Sa; he was terrified they might have a falling out. "I’ll stay to help you. You need more insects to maintain the Great Information Nest, right?"
"Won't Selim worry?" Gela turned his head to look at his companion, though his hands continued to input information into the light-screen. "He has changed a lot, being willing to support you coming alone to such a distant, strange planet."
"I wanted to come myself," Xiao said softly, his tail swaying uneasily.
He was a rare winged male among the medium-tier species, possessing a great possibility of achieving a second genetic breakthrough. But those insect wings had been snapped off by Katra’s hands. "I wanted to see you, and... I wanted to leave him for a bit, to really think things through."
It seemed something had happened.
Gela raised an eyebrow; he didn't even realize how much the expression resembled Sakti’s. Putting away the light-screen, he led the hesitant male to a quiet corner, where the two of them huddled close together.
"What happened?" he asked his friend and subordinate.
"Selim... asked me if I was willing to become his partner." Xiao’s voice was very small as he curled up in Gela’s arms. The white male held him, their tails entwining. "I didn't know how to answer... so I ran away."
"Do you not like him?" Gela asked gently.
Both he and Xiao had endured difficult times, so he understood this feeling well. In truth, they were both afraid.
It was just that while the black Core Seed seemed thick-skinned, he was actually extremely meticulous regarding such matters, taking great care of Gela’s feelings. Once, Sakti had nipped at his insect wings, and Gela’s body had instinctively stiffened; the other had noticed almost immediately, instantly shifting to gentle kisses. His partner was mentally mature, capable of empathizing with his emotions and carefully gauging the appropriate limits.
"I do like him," Xiao said, his voice muffled against Gela’s chest. "He is very, very good. From the moment I first met him, I liked him especially much. Many females were assigned to care for us, but Selim was the gentlest. He looked impatient at first, but he still cleaned every nest and fed us all the xeno-beast mash until we were full. But I don't know why... hearing him ask me that made me feel afraid."
Threads of mental energy quietly wrapped around the other’s painful emotions, offering comfort and allowing the light brown male to slowly calm down.
"He did nothing wrong, and I did nothing wrong, so why did we have to meet Katra?"
The mimicry of a medium-tier species wasn't perfect; they couldn't shed tears like humans. Gela could only feel his companion trembling slightly.
"In the future, I won't be able to hatch eggs with him or raise many, many little cubs." Xiao gripped the male’s hand like a drowning man.
The continuation of the species was the core instinct etched into the genes of this race, yet every decision they made now was forced to defy that nature.
Gela remembered the first time he saw Xiao. He also remembered Kata, whom he hadn't thought of in a long time.
When the light brown male escaped, he had been severely injured. Not only had he lost a pair of wings, but the damage had ultimately cost him his egg-hatching organs. If he never had the chance for a second pupation, he would remain in this broken state for the rest of his life.
Like brothers hatched from the same clutch, the larger white male held his shivering friend close, tail entwined with tail, as he gently pressed against the scars at the base of Xiao’s wings.
"I can't hatch eggs for my partner either," Gela finally said softly.
His genetic defect was innate; whether he successfully fledged or not could not change that fact. Just as he was powerless to change the color of his wings or his body. The Zerg performed self-selection; not only would the kin of the Core Gene tribes discard offspring deemed defective, but their own genes carried instructions for destruction.
Defective species could not reproduce. Once an erroneous sample was produced, it had to be destroyed, or it might evolve into the template for all future generations. An extreme species and an extreme evolutionary path meant he was destined never to have his own cubs.
But Xiao was different. Xiao originally had the chance to have a small family group. Short-Wings loved younglings and would share the duty of caring for larvae. However, after meeting Katra, all of that had come to a screeching halt.
If Sakti hadn't saved him on that raider ship... if they hadn't come to the energy planet... if the battle with Katra had ended in failure... then he, Xiao, all the Short-Wings, and all the males and defeated tribes on the energy planet would have slid into a bloody, cruel abyss of despair.
That should have been their destined fate.
"Don't run away." Gela stroked the head of the light brown male, who was younger than him. He could feel that Xiao had also grown up a lot.
Selim was different from Sakti. The former was a complete Zerg from the start, his growth environment and thought patterns shaped by the primitive forms of their kind. But now, that dark brown Short-Wing was learning to treat his partner as an equal, learning to let Xiao travel to a strange planet, and learning to pour vast resources into a male just as Sakti did.
"Don't run away," Gela repeated softly. "For any insect, escape means failure, and for us, failure is no different from death. If you truly still like Selim, then have a serious talk with him. What we see, what we want—we will take it ourselves."
This was the essence of the Zerg: they plundered, they earned, they demanded. Even the weakest male would use the split of the direct lineage to expand the numbers of the male collective.
In the end, they were not human.
Just as the black Core Seed could never discard the part of his consciousness that was human, Gela had understood and accepted the fact that he could never become a true human.
"This road is very, very long, but we must all walk it." Gela gently patted Xiao’s back, holding his still-trembling friend tight. "I want to see the end of the road."
He wanted to stand by his partner’s side and see what color the world was through those eyes.
***
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