"A mobile humanoid bomb." Augustus nodded: "Their movement speed looks very slow, but we absolutely must not let down our guard."
"Do they still have consciousness?" Augustus pointed at those hideous infected.
"Unclear." The doctor said: "Until now we still cannot figure out whether they still possess the ability to think, or whether their consciousness is trapped in a lightless space, endlessly having a nightmare that never ends."
"Imprisoned inside their own bodies… that truly is a nightmare." Raynor said: "I really do not wish to see the people around me turn into this one day."
"Is there any chance of researching an antidote?" Augustus let out a long sigh: "An antidote against Zerg infection."
"Very regrettably, with our current medical technology, Zerg infection is almost unsolvable. We can only pin our hopes on the Umojans or the Confederacy's scientists making breakthroughs in this area." Flanx said with regret.
"Right now, we can only study the way Zerg enzymes work inside these infected, attempt to analyze the complex combinations of gene mutation, and from there find patterns." He said: "I believe this will allow us to make great progress in the fields of medicine and materials science, to develop new powered armor and restorative agents."
"If we can figure out how the unstable chemical substances work inside the infected, new biological explosives and poison gas weapons can also emerge accordingly."
"Very well done, Doctor." Augustus did not spare praise.
At this moment, a staff officer walked quickly through the laboratory, holding a report as he approached Augustus.
"Marshal, the investigation squad you sent to look into the signal anomaly point in Chau Sara's southern hemisphere reports that they discovered a secret Confederacy base there and defeated the Confederacy troops stationed inside." After saluting Augustus, the staff officer spoke.
"The Confederacy unit guarding that place had the designation Cerberus. It was a force composed of a large number of Firebats and Goliath combat robots. Their other name in the Confederacy communication network is Hellbringers."
"According to the intelligence obtained, this unit seemed to exist specifically to deal with emergency situations. Their mission on Chau Sara was to clear all out-of-control Zerg, but the severity of the situation clearly exceeded what the Cerberus Recon Squad's commander had imagined." The adjutant reported.
"Based on the data backups in that Confederacy base, we have ample evidence that the Confederacy had always been attempting to breed and control Zerg on Chau Sara, and they had at least seven Zerg research centers in the southern hemisphere."
"Good." Augustus said.
"Now, we have ample evidence to prove that the Confederacy is the true culprit behind the Chau Sara tragedy."
...
Central Command Room of the Fortress
SET: 2491.6.4
"What else did that commander of the Confederacy Hellbringers unit confess?"
Augustus was standing inside the Central Command Room beneath its half-dome ceiling, holding a cup of military instant coffee so bitter it tasted as if someone had thrown in scorched eggshells. Over these past few days, Augustus had always worked for a very long time, and his rest had been very little.
His expression was still firm, yet the faint but persistent dark circles under his eyes made his gaze always look somewhat fierce.
All four walls of this Central Command Room were covered with massive holographic projection screens, like a giant monitoring room. The images on the screens came from command posts of various Revolutionary Army corps and from several Revolutionary Army warships in the Sara star system, and at the moment most of the screens were either offline or in the process of connecting.
Right now, aside from Augustus, only his adjutant, bodyguard, and girlfriend Sarah Kerrigan was here. His staff officers were still in the conference hall, formulating the next plan according to the policy Augustus had given—how to deal with Omega Squadron and the Jormungandr swarm in the Sara star system, and to rescue as many Mar Sara people as possible.
"Apart from Chau Sara, Mar Sara also secretly built multiple alien-research laboratories of the same level as Vyctor V," Kerrigan said. "The records we found in the Confederacy base can fully prove this—Zerg in the Sara star system were all brought in by Terrans themselves."
"It's truly ironic. The reason Zerg launched such a large-scale invasion of the Sara star system was only because Terrans provoked them, abducting large numbers of their broods. It has nothing to do with whether they were savage or not," she said. "The ones who started the war were actually Terrans."
"We now have another piece of dirt on the Confederacy." Augustus nodded, already beginning to consider whether he should find an appropriate time to occupy the UNN Headquarters Building on Tarsonis once again.
Normally, such a thing would be nearly impossible, but perhaps the people at UNN would never expect the Revolutionary Army to be that bold.
"What exactly happened to that Cerberus Recon Squad? I think that being stationed at a base deeply trapped in a sea of Zerg should never have been their original mission." Augustus quickly shifted his attention back to the issue before him.
"According to the Confederacy's usual practices for its covert departments, they should have completely erased all the evidence and then left directly, and, in the end, burned alive the scientists in the laboratory along with the commanders and soldiers in the base who knew the truth."
"This unit arrived roughly within one week of the large-scale Zerg invasion on Chau Sara. At that time, sightings of alien organisms had already appeared across the entire planet."
Wearing a fitted dark-gray military uniform, Sarah Kerrigan answered immediately.
"The person in charge of the alien-research project had once been a member of the Confederacy Ghost Program, and the Zerg laboratory on Chau Sara was overseen by an unnamed senior official under the Confederacy Parliament." Kerrigan furrowed her brows, seemingly reminded of unpleasant memories from her days at the Ghost Academy.
"At first, the Confederacy thought only an accident had occurred at the Chau Sara alien-research laboratory, so they dispatched an elite squad from the Confederacy Hellbringers unit to clean up the mess, eliminate all Zerg, and ensure that the Zerg research project on Chau Sara remained under an extremely high level of secrecy."
"However, what this Hellbringers squad faced was far more than just a few 'stragglers' from the laboratories."
Augustus had already guessed the full sequence of events, as well as why this unit had continued to remain on Chau Sara, ultimately being discovered by the Revolutionary Army.
"To be precise, the Hellbringers squad only realized the number of enemies far exceeded their expectations after the destroyer deployed them down onto the surface of Chau Sara," Kerrigan said.
"But the destroyer had already departed, so in reality, before we found them, they had been trapped inside the Confederacy base on Chau Sara."
"Why were they able to hold out for so long in the Zerg-infested southern hemisphere of Chau Sara?" Augustus asked.
"That Hellbringers squad's commander didn't know why either. Around their Flannum base were main nests and underground tunnels of the Jormungandr swarm everywhere," Kerrigan said. "Just like the siege on Los Andares, every attack by the Jormungandr swarm left the people in the base exhausted and constantly responding, yet the base was never completely overrun."
"At the same time, this unit truly was a well-equipped and highly capable special-operations force. From the moment it was established, it was intended to deal with alien enemies Terrans might encounter in space. During the Guild Wars, Hellbringers units always appeared on the most brutal battlefields, and whenever they were found, it was often while they were walking out from piles of corpses and seas of blood," she said.
"This earned the Hellbringers the title of Hellwalkers, and the honors and medals attached to them even surpassed those of the Heaven's Devils."
"You saying that won't make me jealous."
A smile finally appeared on Augustus's face. He knew Kerrigan was only teasing.
"The Confederacy also calls the Zerg on Chau Sara the Jormungandr swarm?"
Augustus had thought Jormungandr was only the Revolutionary Army's own name.
"It seems the Jormungandr swarm's leader might be observing Terran attack methods and testing the combat strength of its Zerg underlings."
"More likely, it is using battles to filter out the strongest individuals in the species, or using brutal war and harsh environments to force some Zerg to mutate—then selecting those beneficial mutations and ultimately copying the new genes into other Zerg members," he speculated.
"The Confederacy also designated the swarm on Chau Sara as the Jormungandr swarm, following the same naming logic as ours. The Zerg that appeared formed a massive ground force mainly composed of Hydralisks and Zerglings. Those serpentine creatures with tail-like bodies and terrifying musculature naturally remind people of monsters from mythology," Kerrigan explained to Augustus.
"Maybe your guess is correct. The Zerg—at least some of them—still possess very high intelligence," she said.
"But the Zerg's way of thinking is absolutely and completely different from ours. They are not Terrans."
Augustus swallowed a large mouthful of strong coffee.
"Negotiation is useless. When dealing with Terrans, we can wage war and then force them to the negotiating table, using talks and agreements to fight over territory, interests, and honor," he said. "But when facing Zerg, it is only a war of life and death."
"So? Has that Hellbringers squad's commander decided whether he'll join the Revolution?" Augustus asked Kerrigan again. "I've met him. He possesses the kind of professional military competence and strategic-level thinking that our officers and NCOs rarely have. He's a remarkably capable career soldier."
"I know you like 'collecting' the most outstanding talents from every field," Kerrigan said with a teasing expression.
"I prefer you call it a thirst for capable people and valuing talent."
Augustus finished all the coffee in his cup.
"And not that I have some kind of strange collecting fetish. I don't have any special fetishes."
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