The Zerg fleet moved the way a storm moved, not fast in a single burst, but steady, layered, and impossible to ignore once it arrived.
From far away, it looked like darkness had learned how to travel. Not a single ship, not a neat line, but a spread of living hulls and pulsing cores, each one keeping pace with the others through instinct and shared command.
Inside the lead hive ship, the General stood near the forward sensing organ, its body still and heavy, while the ship around it breathed.
There were no windows. No glass. No metal frames. The forward "view" was a membrane of translucent tissue stretched across a ribbed arch. It showed space not by sight, but by translation, turning heat, radiation, and motion into images the hive could read.
The General watched the pattern shift.
Nexera was still ahead, a small point in the void, but it had changed from "unknown world" to "world of interest." That label didn't come with poetry. It came with a colder truth.
