Chapter 31: The Voice

Rhaevia froze as she stared into her mother’s eyes, the hum of the medical suite’s life-support systems filling the heavy silence. For several seconds, she said nothing, her body rigid against the sterile examination table.

Her three brothers immediately noticed the sudden change in her expression. The eldest brother’s brows drew together, his sharp gaze cutting across the room.

"Rhaevia?" he asked, stepping closer.

She slowly lowered her gaze to her lap, her knuckles turning white against her tactical trousers. There was no point in lying, especially not to her mother, who was watching her every move with hawkish intensity.

"Yes," Rhaevia said softly.

The single word made the atmosphere inside the room grow unnaturally heavy. Her mother leaned forward in her chair, her regal posture breaking into an anxious tilt.

"What did you hear?" her mother demanded.

Rhaevia hesitated, swallowing down the phantom echo of a cold power that still vibrated in her skull. Then she carefully described the voice.

"It was inside my mind," Rhaevia explained, tracing a finger against her temple. "I didn’t hear it through my ears."

Her fingers tightened slightly into a fist.

"It sounded like an old man."

Her mother listened in total silence, her hands clasped tightly over her knees without interrupting.

"It called me..." Rhaevia paused, her throat tightening. "My Lord."

All three brothers exchanged startled glances, their eyes wide in disbelief.

Rhaevia continued before any of them could interrupt. "It happened after I touched something on that planet. A black crystal." ℯ

"The same crystal found during the wilderness trial?" her eldest brother asked, his tone dropping an octave.

Rhaevia nodded firmly. "After I touched it, my Guide pathways reacted instantly. Then I heard the voice."

She remembered the subterranean chamber beneath the planetary crust. She recalled the glowing ancient symbols carved into the stone, the massive stasis pod humming with contained power, and the terrifying creature’s crimson eyes opening in the dark.

"And later, inside an underground facility, another creature looked directly at me and called me King," Rhaevia revealed.

The youngest brother’s face paled, the color draining completely from his skin. "King?"

Rhaevia nodded again.

Her mother had become completely motionless, sitting as rigid as a carved marble statue.

"What?" the Duchess’s voice was barely audible, a faint whisper against the cold air of the suite.

Rhaevia looked directly at her. "You know something."

Her mother slowly withdrew her hand, resting it against the armrest of her chair. "There are records."

"Of what?" Rhaevia pressed.

"Ancient Zerg consciousness," her mother replied, her gaze fixing on the floor.

A heavy silence descended over the room. The three brothers stared at their mother, waiting for her to elaborate.

The Duchess continued carefully, choosing her words with extreme precision. "Most Imperial historians believe the earliest Zerg civilizations were purely instinctive. Swarm organisms driven by simple collective intelligence, with nothing resembling individual consciousness."

"But that’s not true," Rhaevia stated, her tone flat.

"No," her mother agreed.

Her mother’s expression became grim as she raised her eyes. "Buried military records describe something entirely different."

She glanced cautiously toward the sealed medical door, ensuring no external recording devices were active.

"Extremely old fragments mention entities referred to as Sovereign Consciousnesses," the Duchess revealed.

Rhaevia’s pupils contracted sharply. "Sovereigns?"

"Yes," the Duchess nodded slowly. "According to those classified records, certain ancient Zerg entities possessed intelligence far beyond ordinary commanders. They could control vast swarms, manipulate biological evolution, and establish what the records describe as an absolute form of mental authority."

The second brother’s expression hardened, his hand resting instinctively on his sidearm holster. "And the voice?"

Her mother looked directly at Rhaevia. "The description matches."

Rhaevia’s breathing slowed as she absorbed the horrifying implication. "The voice?"

"The title," her mother corrected, her eyes darkening. "An ancient Zerg Sovereign would never address an ordinary human as My Lord."

The room became deathly silent once again. Rhaevia remembered the creature trapped inside the stasis pod.

"My Lord..."

Then, the Zombie King’s menacing voice from her impossible, fragmented memory echoed through her mind.

"You will return."

Something connected them across time and space. She simply hadn’t discovered what that thread was yet.

Her eldest brother immediately activated his wrist-mounted military terminal, a holographic projection illuminating his face in pale blue light. "If this is true, V-17 isn’t just a barren frontier planet."

"I think so, too," his mother replied, standing up slowly. Her expression became increasingly grim as she looked at the glowing terminal screens. "The planet may have been hiding something enormous for centuries."

Rhaevia looked toward the sealed door, her mind racing through the recent chain of events. "And someone knew."

Her brother’s fingers stopped dead above the holographic terminal.

Everyone in the room understood the terrifying implication of her words.

The deliberate assassination attempt, the sabotaged shuttle, the abnormal Zerg activity, the subterranean facility, the black crystal, and her own sudden Guide awakening were not random occurrences. None of it might have been a coincidence.

BEEP.

The eldest brother’s military terminal suddenly flashed a vibrant, alarming red.

[PRIORITY INTELLIGENCE ALERT]

His expression changed instantly from calculated focus to outright shock. "What?"

He tapped the screen to open the encrypted report, scrolling rapidly through the lines of text. His eyes widened with every passing second.

"The high military archives just responded to my clearance query," he announced.

Rhaevia stood up from the medical bed, stepping beside him. "What did they find?"

His voice became cold and grim. "Planet V-17."

A heavily redacted classified designation appeared across the primary display screen in bold letters.

[IMPERIAL MILITARY INTELLIGENCE]

[PLANETARY CLASSIFICATION: RESTRICTED]

[CLASSIFICATION AGE: 327 YEARS]

Rhaevia stared at the glowing blue display, her heart thumping against her ribs.

Her mother slowly rose to her feet, moving toward the holographic projection. "Three hundred and twenty-seven years..."

The eldest brother’s face hardened into a wall of stone. "Someone classified that planet long before any of us were born."

Then, a secondary line of automated text decoded across the bottom of the monitor.

[CLASSIFICATION AUTHORITY: IMPERIAL HIGH COMMAND]

The room fell into a profound, suffocating silence. The barren, forgotten frontier planet had never been abandoned by the Empire at all. It had been intentionally hidden from the galaxy.