Chapter 14

Chapter 14

Yor slowly rose to his feet. Leonius's sudden appearance naturally made him nervous—the last time a bug clan lord had suddenly appeared and taken notice of him was when Zane had captured him on Blue Star, and the consequences had been disastrous.

He took a breath and tried his best to remain polite: "Lord, welcome..."

Welcome to my surveillance cabin? This wasn't his place—the entire starship belonged to Leonius. Yor stumbled, feeling awkward.

His super dynamic vision easily caught the faint blush creeping across Yor's cheeks.

Leonius turned on his heel and took two steps closer to Yor.

"When the Broodmother lays eggs," he said directly, his voice low with a strange metallic quality, "the mental seas of every war bug on deck feel like they're shrouded in a layer of ash."

He turned around, finally looking directly at Dexter and Taste. "Only two bugs have mental seas that are clean and pure—so obvious it's... blinding."

The look was light, barely even a glance, just settling on the two male bugs.

But Dexter and Taste simultaneously felt a pressure from the depths of their genes—like rabbits encountering an eagle, mice encountering a cat. Something etched into their bones, requiring no thought, purely instinctual... submission.

Their bodies screamed at them to kneel, but... Yor was at their backs.

Both bugs were drenched in sweat, but their feet stayed planted, unmoving.

Even Yor's shoulders tensed slightly.

"I pulled the ship's records." Leonius's gaze shifted back to Yor's face. Dexter's little tricks for covering his tracks could fool most bugs, but before a lord, they simply didn't cut it. "You went to see Taste."

And shortly after, Taste had awakened.

Leonius's gaze was too sharp—he seemed to know everything Yor had been hiding: his mental strength, his honey, even... the truth about the Broodmother's collapse!

Yor couldn't help stepping back.

Dexter instantly caught Yor's cowering movement and stepped forward, shielding him entirely behind his body.

Taste was even more agitated—the bone spurs at his waist had already snapped out.

"You'd betray your clan for him?" Leonius asked lightly.

Dexter and Taste dropped to their knees at the same time with a sharp crack, bones grinding audibly.

Under the pheromone pressure the lord released—even a fraction of it—willpower was useless. All they could do was grovel in submission.

"Please..." The pain made Dexter's voice raspy. "This is all my fault. Yor, he..."

"Spare him!" Taste's throat muscles seized up, his voice cracking as he fought to speak. "If you gotta punish... punish me. I've got thick skin..."

Leonius didn't look at them. His eyes stayed locked on Yor.

Yor's heart was racing, but at this point, he'd calmed down instead.

"You didn't come here," he said, "to chew me out."

Otherwise, he'd have done what Zane did—grabbed him without a word and left. Why bother with all this talk?

Leonius shifted his foot. There it was again—whenever this Little Broodmother's face showed a different expression, he couldn't help wanting to draw closer.

He wanted to see more clearly, to see more, to see what other vivid changes might appear.

"You want me to treat those war bugs with damaged mental seas." Yor probed. Maybe there was also curiosity about him, but probably no real malice.

Leonius looked at him. He didn't say "yes," and he didn't say "no."

He just stood there, watching Yor, like he was studying a brand-new species that had never existed before.

Yor forced himself to meet that gaze and finish what he needed to say: "My abilities are limited. I can clean at most two bugs' mental seas a day. For so many war bugs, it's just a drop in the bucket."

"But for the bugs you treat," Leonius cut in, "it's nothing short of rebirth."

Yor was taken aback.

He hadn't expected Leonius to say something like that.

He'd thought the other would say "not enough," and then he could negotiate.

But what Leonius said was that for the war bugs being treated, this mattered.

This lord saw every individual in the War Department.

Yor dropped his gaze, his fingers unconsciously clutching the hem of his clothes.

"I'll pay you a salary, per military medical regulations." Leonius's voice came from above, calm and matter-of-fact, as if the intimidation moments ago had been Yor's imagination. "Since you're Dexter's dependent bug, you're one of the War Department's bugs now. Do good work."

With that, he turned, took two steps, then suddenly stopped. From somewhere, he produced a shoebox-sized gray box and set it down gently on the table beside Yor.

"You probably want this." Leonius didn't turn around. He even cracked a joke. "Saves Dexter from having to steal it."

The cabin door slid shut.

Taste and Dexter were still on their knees, both looking completely lost.

Yor stared at the box.

Square and neat, dark gray, with no patterns or markings on the surface. But he had a pretty good idea what it was.

He fought back his trembling and opened the box gently.

Inside were some grayish-white ashes, and... bone fragments.

No label, no explanation needed. Yor knew—these were the ashes of the centaur clan's experimental subject.

Dexter finally snapped out of it, walked over to Yor's side, and looked down at the box, brow furrowed. "This is... the Broodmother's?"

"It's the centaur's." Yor's voice was a little raspy. "What it originally looked like."

Yor had gotten the idea from a post on the experimental subjects' support forum.

The post was about the OP helping handle the funeral arrangements for a fellow experimental subject from the same race—cremation, packing, and shipping the remains back to their home planet.

Because of the bug clan gene invasion, they couldn't go home while alive. But at least after death, they could rest in their homeland.

He'd glanced at it back then and quietly formed a thought—once he saved up enough money, he'd send the centaur home too.

He'd never told any bug about this. He didn't even know why he wanted to do it.

That experimental subject wasn't his friend. They weren't even acquaintances. They'd seen each other a few times through the glass in the lab. The other had a violent temper, always slamming his head against the glass wall, cursing and refusing to cooperate with the experiments.

Until the very end, when he became a pile of mush. They still weren't close. Yor didn't even know his name.

Yor closed the box, snapped the latch shut, his knuckles going white from the effort.

If that day ever came for him, even if his soul scattered to nothing and he lost all awareness, he still hoped his body could return to his homeland.

He might not be able to fulfill that wish for himself, but at least he could let someone else go back.

He simply wanted to do it.

Yor opened his terminal and, recalling the records of the centaur clan experimental subject, found his homeworld—a planet at the edge of the Spiral Arm, arid and dusty, far off any major shipping lane.

"You want to send it back?" Dexter had already snapped out of his daze and leaned in to ask.

Yor nodded, gently placing the box on the shelf beside the sleep pod, cushioning it with a folded jacket underneath. "Once we're back on the War Department's home planet, I'll send it."

Taste was still on his knees, legs numb, grimacing as he pushed himself up against the bulkhead.

He glanced at the box, then at Yor, and for once, kept his mouth shut.

"The interstellar courier is a bit of a hike from our place. When we get back to the home planet, I'll go with you to send it," Dexter said.

Yor didn't refuse, but he didn't say thanks either. He just rested his chin on his knees, stared at the gray box, and let out a soft "mm."

Maybe it was the talk of going home, or maybe he didn't want Yor to get down—Taste suddenly perked up.

His knees were still numb, but he was already gesturing wildly: "Our home is deep underground, super safe, so hidden even scout bugs can't get in, and the humidity's just right—comfortable whether you're in humanoid or bug form. I love rolling around in the nest, I'm telling you..."

"You don't wanna live underground?" Dexter noticed Yor's expression and suddenly asked.

Yor paused, then shook his head honestly: "Not sure. I've never lived underground before."

Most Blue Star humans, he figured, liked houses where sunlight could get in. Just imagining a space with no windows and only artificial light made him feel suffocated.

Taste froze for a second, then waved his hand with a flourish: "Easy! We'll move above ground!"

Dexter shot him a look: "You gonna stay with Yor?"

Above-ground houses were cheap and roomy, but the security was way worse than underground. They were both active-duty bugs—they couldn't stick around the Little Broodmother 24/7.

Taste's momentum instantly deflated, but he still stubbornly insisted: "Then we'll just install the best security system money can buy..."

Then he remembered he was broke, and his voice trailed off...

Yor couldn't help it—the corner of his mouth twitched up.

He had a family now, and they were willing to move above ground for him.

As Taste chattered on about their home, Yor suddenly spoke up: "So... I'm safe now, right?"

His identity, his abilities—all of it had been laid bare before the War Lord.

Leonius hadn't arrested him, hadn't threatened him, had even given him a job.

The fears hiding in the shadows, the cold sweats that woke him at night, the nightmares of "what if I get found out"...

It seemed like, at this moment, he could finally put them down for a while.

Dexter didn't say anything, just reached out and pulled both Yor and Taste into his arms.

Taste froze for a second, then, like a sulky little animal, wrapped his arms around Yor from the other side.

Yor buried his face in Dexter's chest and mumbled: "...I'm a war bug now."

"You're a war bug now," Dexter repeated.

"Our family's dependent bug!" Taste said loudly, as if scared someone might steal Yor away.

Yor let out a laugh, muffled in the fabric—soft and short, but it seemed to echo through the whole monitoring bay.

He clenched his fist: "First thing tomorrow, I'm starting work!"

A soft *ding*—the terminal chimed.

The War Department was faster than Yor expected. After all, the Lord had personally ordered it. The info on the first war bug needing treatment had already arrived on Yor's terminal.