90: Chapter 90: The Overlord said the new agreement could be signed, and then told the Queen to prepare for the next target to devour.

Three hours after the negotiations ended, the creep pipes in the central control room of the Metallis United Industrial Complex completed their final cycle of Universal Armor Plate coolant. The Brood Queen still crouched before the control console, the newly grown Blackstone Resonance Chamber calibration interfaces on her adamantium-chitin carapace slowly closing in a cold green glow. Marcus Aurelian's shuttle had already left Metallis's orbit, and the safe passage rights for Heinrich's Shield of the Emperor were automatically revoked the moment the negotiations concluded. Only the Brood Queen and two Blackstone Cerebrates remained in the control room, along with the Photonic Crown left on the console—a replica of the Old Ones, its cold green light pulsing steadily across the crown woven from living metal.

The Overmind's directive lit up within the Hive Mind—not as text, nor as quantum-state code, but as a complete gene-devouring sequence. The title of the sequence file was written in the native syntax of the Zerg Hive Mind, and translated into the Imperial high gothic as just two sentences: 'Evaluation of the new agreement complete. The Coalition's current military deployment, fleet rotation cycles, Universal Void Shield Coordinator local mode vulnerabilities, Universal Armor Plate anomaly code backdoors, and passive monitoring data from the Psionic Void Network's read-only ports—all of the above intelligence has been continuously updated and archived by the Brain-Bugs during their tenure as Coalition War Council observers. The War Council observer permissions remained active throughout the agreement negotiations. All mooring anchorages, supply routes, and command chain backup node coordinates of the Imperial Fleet have been synchronized to the fire control database of the Leviathan Battle Group.'

All the terms the Coalition had fought for at the negotiating table—the renewal mechanism with fixed cycles and automatic evaluations, the asset division of the United Industrial Complex, and the zoned patrol plans for joint defense cooperation—were merely real-time data collection targets within the coverage of the War Council observer permissions on The Swarm's intelligence interface. The Swarm had not deceived the Coalition during the negotiations; they had simply utilized the observer clause unanimously passed by the Coalition itself to quietly read through all the defense vulnerabilities of the Imperial Fleet after losing advanced fire control coordination, straight from the local mode logs of the Universal Void Shield Coordinator on every Coalition vessel.

At the end of the sequence file, the Overmind marked the next target. The coordinates of Griffin IV's orbital shipyard and the permanent anchorage of the Third Assault Fleet had been designated as priority targets, complete with full fleet rotation schedules and Void Shield charge cycle prediction models. The note contained only one sentence: 'The new agreement has not yet been signed. Until the Coalition War Council completes the signing process, The Swarm is not bound by any joint defense clauses in the agreement. It is recommended that the Brood Queen complete the target evaluation before the signing countdown ends and execute it before the agreement takes effect.'

The Brood Queen stood up from the control console, fully loading the Overmind's strategic directives into the combat databases of all Blackstone Cerebrates, and then swiped her translator to connect with the flagship of the Leviathan Battle Group still on standby in Metallis's orbit. The Living Railgun arrays of the leviathan mothership reported their fully charged signals one by one within the Hive Mind. The Titan-Eater slowly raised its head from the deck of the base ship, the cold green light of its void-class core flashing in synchronization with the replica of the Photonic Crown left on the console above the Brood Queen's head. The Blackstone Cerebrates accessed the backup production lines beneath the Metallis Forge Temple, injecting all the latest ship identification codes of the Imperial Fleet, extracted by the Overmind from the Coalition observer data, into the passive sensor calibration templates of the adamantium-chitin composite armor.

Having done this, the Brood Queen swiped open her translator and sent a brief point-to-point transmission to Marcus, who was still on his return journey: 'Negotiation records have been archived. The Swarm awaits the Coalition's signature. As a side note—Griffin IV's Orbital Defense Platform had local mode firmware installed during the Coalition's last Universal Void Shield Coordinator upgrade, and this firmware version is incompatible with the leviathan mothership's advanced fire control. If both parties require zoned patrols after the agreement takes effect, it is recommended that the Coalition complete the firmware update in advance.'

When Marcus received this transmission on the bridge of the Wrath of the Emperor, he was reviewing the next cruise schedule of the Joint Fleet Command. After reading the Brood Queen's reminder, he ordered Heinrich to notify the Griffin IV orbital platform to complete a firmware compatibility check before the next round of joint patrols. Heinrich forwarded the order to Griffin IV, and the orbital platform's defenders replied, 'Firmware testing will be completed within this cycle.' The Shield of the Emperor continued its return journey along the Gravity Reef Channel, and everything remained normal in the fleet channel.

Within the Hive Mind, the Overmind finished reading the human communication logs forwarded by the Brood Queen, confirming that the deployment of the final node was complete. The next target of the gene-devouring sequence was locked, and the status of all defense nodes of the Coalition's United Fleet in The Swarm's fire control database had switched from 'observing' to 'pending evaluation.' He wrote the final addendum of the sequence file into all Brood Queen nodes: 'Once the new agreement is signed, the Coalition will automatically fall under the binding scope of the joint defense cooperation clauses. Until then, The Swarm can operate freely in any airspace of the Milky Way where the Coalition has not signed. A reminder to all Brood Queen nodes: the struggle for hegemony does not begin with war, but from the moment one stands up from the negotiating table.'