Suspicions; confirmed or denied

As the exploration team resumed their long journey through the treacherous snow, they continually uncovered nest after nest of that same species of invasive Zerg. Hioch, was their official name. There were only so many sub-nukes at their disposal, but luckily, before anyone else fell into a collapsed tunnel, they had managed to leave the deepest part of the colder region, and reach the edge of where land marked new terrain to takeover.

Now, instead of the vast coat of snow, before them starkly sat rocks of various sizing, all coated in natural clay that gave it a red hue, and cracked ground carved through with lava. Both from what Khylon could see and the automatic landscaping of his mecha; there were currently three volcanoes on the planet.

From the vague sounds and slight tremors, at least one of them was active.

It was very weird that one, two steps, was all it took to change areas. The 360 degrees view on his mecha indicated that, yes, behind him still stood a field of snow that hadn't melted despite the sharp increase of temperature.

Khylon felt there was something vaguely wrong. Every step he took forward, he took a look back. It remained the same. But still, the feeling was like they'd cross a threshold maintained by some sort of barrier.

It was just another abnormality to note down.

BOOM!

Just then, in the distance, he saw one of the closer volcanoes eject a sort of black mess. It wasn't lava; whatever it was didn't act anything like a liquid but moved just as uniformly.

His system beeped with a notification, (HIGH WAVE VEIL ACTIVITY SPOTTED). The writing jumped out of a side screen in a thick font with a bold shade of red.

Wave Veil(W-V). A common sign of a higher organisms(alien; non-human) evolutionary trait. They weren't human so weren't assigned the same term as EVOS. That and they weren't typically something that was visible to normal eyes, and, even scarier, to their current technology. The most it could do was detect when it was present, but not where, or how.

Some systems didn't even know when W-V were released; a lot of the time there was a delay, or later recovered data long after a W-V attack or interaction had passed.

Khylon only accurately caught it because his mecha was practically infused with his skill; so there was no way this Veil frequency was happening in anytime but the present.

Ahead, the black mass terrifyingly swim in their direction. It was too accurate for the distance between them. Khylon had made sure none of their mechas had traces of Hioch on them after every scuffle, so how this gross fluid tracked them—he honestly had no idea.

Perhaps it was just an instinctual reaction to a threat, but if that were truly the case, then shouldn't they be moving in the opposite direction?

However he gets his answer much sooner than he thought.

In the gap between them and the moving, crawling mass of what could only be Zerg, opened multiple slim disk-like objects. They hovered in the air for a moment before widening with a quiet sound Khylon likened to one strum on the deepest string on a violin.

Someway, somehow; something had opened a rift.

He frowned.

Khylon knew there were currently no empty spaces around for him to utilise. So not only did it not come from him, but neither from anyone he knew of. There were always limits to spatial EVOS—as there were with all skills—but this.. this looked like it had overwritten preset rules.

The ones that spanned the entire universe, and that Khylon himself found loopholes to operate his own EVOS in. The fact that something else apart from him could do such a obnoxious thing was rather worrying.

Now, because of these illegal portals, the Zerg surround them almost immediately. The sound of guns firing and general chaos around was not unrecognisable to him. Khylon swung his own sword and made sure to one-hit kill these Zergs.

The noises they let out is horrible and really grating on the ears.

A slightly bigger Zerg grabs a hold of his leg with its mandibles. It doesn't leave a mark, and neither does Khylon when he decapitates it. The cut was too clean.

He shakes his leg and once its airborne, he boosts the engine on his other stationary leg and ends up turning in a circle and sweeping a load of Zerg with the long limb. None of them survive—and why would they? Douflux was ten times harder than their shells, and so was the force in which Khylon used.

The immediate area around him is void of life.

['Boss! Incoming!']

Overhead, he sees a flash of light. He easily side steps the flaming carcass and doesn't thank whoever said that because they should've known he was already aware of it.

Staring at the squeaking mess that flailed around, it was probably a product of Lt. Jarma — his Skill was, after all, control over a parasitic flame that couldn't even be doused with water. But before it had a chance to turn to dust, Khylon skewered it with Trianthe.

This particular cold weapon of his had been infused with his own Skill for so long that it had the properties of nullification. At least that what he thought had happened. It could just as well be somehow linked to one of his owned spaces he'd lost track of.

The remaining flickers of flames were swallowed into the blade before it could spread. Next, he zoomed in his mecha's focus to pinpoint a specific area on the carcass. The body was charred through for there to be anything recognisable left.

Still.

Before things had gotten to this point, Khylon had noticed that the closer they came to the Volcanic side of the planet, the more and more these Zerg-och were becoming something different. So much so that it felt less like they took a different evolutionary path, and that they were an entirely different species of Zerg all together.

He couldn't help mumbling to himself, "Where did you come from?" Even though they were damaged beyond repair, he could still see the abnormalities beneath its charred outer-shell.

The oddities were piling up into a suspicious amount; the harmless bugs from earlier, intricate networks, and the fact that their mechas had not picked up any Zerg interference — not ever since that initial blare of alarms when they'd first landed.

For all intents and purposes, their mechas weren't picking up on any of the usual Zerg activity.

Why?

And then there was whatever the source of that rift opening was.

['Ah..? Did you say something, Captain?']

Perfect timing. He could only thank himself for not muting his mic to the team-comms like he typically did.

"Gabrielle," he called. After he got a verbal acknowledgement he said, "Come over here!" Instead of him trying to figure this all out on his own, it was better to ask someone who specialised in this subject.

Amongst the roaring of his team's passionate slaying of Hioch, Khylon didn't need to turn to know when Gabrielle had arrived. The footsteps of her mecha could be heard crunching through all the rocks and random debris… and maybe all the Zerg corpses he'd slain.

When she arrives, he makes sure to mute her mic from the chat, as well as his own. He was Admin, obviously, and what they were talking about didn't need any extra ears.

"What do you think of this?" He nudged the—still impaled—corpse with his 'foot'. The bug was actually quite large — around three times the size of an average human, at least. Of course, when inside a Mecha, they were reduced to ants.

Annoying and persistent "ants" that were ten times more deadly.

['It's.. don't you think they're a bit strange?'] Gabrielle answered instead, to which Khylon felt like throttling her with the dull side of Trianthe.

… why else did she think he asked her? Oi.

He quietly sighed and chose to go back to his own musings; as of the moment, she seemed to be of little help.

The Zerg-och they'd come across this time was indeed the strangest and yet most recent finding, so it was.. mildly understandable for Gabrielle to not have amassed enough comprehensive data to make a full analysis.

For starters: they no longer had any fur. Which, of course, made sense seeing as with the sharp increase in temperature, if they continued having such dense fur as those living deeper in the Antarctic regions, then they risked overheating themselves. Their deep blue mandibles matched their outer-shell and were longer, tougher. If he looked close enough he could see another sharper pair below their main ones. The only similarity with the colder Hioch were their ten set of legs remained thick yet wiry in the oddest places, with the two sets of joints that made them annoyingly flexible.

However the weirdest thing yet, had to be their flattened body shape that was split into three parts that used to be round and bulbous on the other Hioch that lived in the colder regions.

What the hell?

He ground his teeth annoyance and.. maybe a bit of anger.

It was odd that they had evolved so fast. The earliest time frame for their arrival on the planet that he'd been given, was two years. This adaptation though, seemed more like something that would happen over, say, five. And by that he means, a long enough time for later generations to start including that specific evolutionary trait into their DNA, and then another few years for it to actually stick.

The camouflage trait of those other Hioch seemed relatively new, so the changes in these particular Zerg-och could be too. It was either that, simply an abnormality, or..

..or Khylon had been given false information.

His expression darkened.

It wasn't like he wanted to doubt the orders he was given, but, well. That was a hard thing to do when things weren't as they should be.

And they hadn't been for a while now.

"Gabrielle," he calls, paused to purse his lips, and then cautiously inquired, "how long do you think this strain needed to lose that insulated fur?" Khylon didn't bother pointing out every change in these Hioch. Just noting one was enough to get Gabrielle thinking.

She was quiet for a moment; he left her to her thoughts.

Before he did anything extreme, Khylon thought it would be best to get a somewhat definitive time frame. He didn't even want to entertain such wily thoughts as 'sabotage' or 'betrayal' without gathering any solid proof. That meant he first had to see how much the information he's been given correlates with what was actually right in front of them. Which is really something he should've done in the first place, so why didn't he?

He'd gotten too complacent, it seems.

['Sir?' Should I start..?'] Gabrielle calls to him unsurely. At his gesture to go ahead she then went on to say, ['The Hioch Zerg have an unusually long period of infancy for its race..'] Then, she paused to hum and haw.

Khylon was patient. The two of them stood side by side, tense. To outsiders it seemed as if they were doing nothing, but in fact what they were doing in the privacy of their own mechas was handling highly sensitive information.

['Useless people should just go home!!'] … and to Freiyar especially it just seemed like they were slacking off.

"Are you trying to 'mutiny' again?" Khylon soundly shut him up by reminding him how well that worked out for him last time. It didn't. Work well, that is. In fact: it failed, terribly.

.. probably because Khylon cheated and used his EVOS to quickly deal with the issue and dump Freiyar out in the snow to deter the rest of them from 'rising up'.

Was it petty of him? Maybe. Did he care? No.

Honestly. He was a bit annoyed at how easily they gave up after his little display of power. Where was that soldier do or die courage?

All Khylon hears on the line is a quiet cough and then it seems Freiyar cuts the direct line to his comms.

Heh.

['If what we're actually seeing are still the Zerg-och we know of..'] Eventually, the zoologist seems to come to a conclusion which draws the majority of his attention.

Right, that.

Just when he was starting to tune back in to what she was saying, Gabrielle trails off. He gets it. Khylon doubted these evolved Hioch were even the same species as the others in the colder region, too.

[Then.. '] Finally, she gathers herself. [Then, if I was to guess: I'd say they were well over ten.. ye..ars.. old.'] Almost immediately, she snaps her jaw shut.

In the ensuing silence, the look in Khylon's eyes darkens. If that really was what she'd painstakingly deducted — then they were well and truly… f*cked.

A moment passes before she quickly objects, ['No! That can't be right!!']

"It can't?" He retorted somewhat sarcastically. They both knew better; they knew the truth. If the information was off by a few months instead, or even maybe a handful of years if Khylon was feeling particularly merciful then things would have been fine. With such a vast organisation and army that ran across multiple galaxies containing countless soldiers; errors were to be expected.

But for the estimation to be not even close to the actual data? That the recorded information detailed Zerg in their infantile stage of two years instead of the ten year old ones they had faced down?

No. The data had been tampered with on purpose.

['Sir! Do you really think that—!'] Gabrielle begun to shout in outrage, only to suck in a sharp breath before she'd finished speaking. It was almost like she didn't want to fully say it, as if doing so would make it more true. But facts were facts. Nothing could change that.

Khylon immediately opened the team-wide comms. "Fall back!" He barked out the order—and instead of explaining himself, he just sent the entire recorded conversation he'd just had with Gabrielle to the group.

They react almost immediately.

['What the hell is this?!'] [Captain, is this true??!! Sh*t!'] ['F*ck—I knew we shouldn't have taken this mission!!']

Before they'd disembarked from the shuttle, in order to make sure the mission proceeded smoothly, instead of repeating the initial, short rundown of it like he'd done on the main ship to the whole crew; Khylon had instead directly shared the missive in its entirety with the exploration team.

Which happened to include the supposed 'arrival' time of these Zerg-och.

['Let me talk to Commander Beulof. I just want to talk to him, I promise.']

"It's too late." Khylon says to Sir Lueyun, who probably did not want to talk to the Commander, and just kill him on sight. He then explained, with gritted teeth, "He blocked me, the b*stard." Which was a smart move on his part, really, because Khylon hadn't even tried to calmly communicate with him but sent a slew of swear words and foul language wishing death upon the man and his stupidly gold mecha.

He only knew he'd been blocked when the system told him the messages had failed to be delivered.

Annoying b*stard.

['PFFT-']

".. who laughed just now?!"

['It was Gabrielle.'] ['Gaby!'] ['Gaby, boss.'] ['F*ck you all, I—']

"Just shut up and head to the shuttle — we're getting out of here immediately!" There really wasn't any time for their stupidness right now. Khylon could multi-multitask so it was different for him.

Like how he continuously send threatening messages to Commander Beulof—the same trusted elder who'd issue him this mission—as to why there were so many discrepancies in the report. That and he.. may have insulted him a few times but he can't remember it clearly; right now he had a slew of transparent windows open that took up more of his focus.

When he was continuously ignored not by just the Commander, but others of similar ranks—he tightly gripped the ergonomic panel in his hand that acted as controls. "Sir Lueyun, give me a break down of our inventory."

The no-contact from anyone outside made it seem like they'd been abandoned.

But that couldn't be the case, right? Surely not after how much blood, sweat, and tears he'd put into serving the Galactic Union.

Beep!

The file from Sir Lueyun is timely sent over, but it's contents… simply make Khylon wither.