The day after the Human Federation's secret meeting…
Glaichuser reclined in his ship, sipping fruit juice with satisfaction while scrolling through a data report.
It listed, in exact figures, the surviving population of the Huain.
As a slave merchant, such numbers naturally drew his attention.
Then, out of the corner of his eye, he noticed an unexpected message.
"The Human Federation? What's that again? It seems familiar…"
He leaned back in his chair, thinking for a moment. Suddenly, he slapped his hands together and laughed.
"Ah, right! A few days ago, that fleeing fleet — they belonged to this Human Federation!"
Yes, he had already forgotten.
To him, the matter was trivial. During a hunt, overlooking a rabbit or two wasn't worth remembering. Who would keep track?
Scratching his head, curious what the Humans wanted, he opened the message and lazily skimmed through it.
"Respected Lord Glaichuser, regarding the incident a few days ago, our Human Federation wishes to…"
It didn't take long for him to grasp the gist.
His eyes gleamed with an idea. A cruel smile tugged at his lips.
"I had already forgotten about you… and yet you deliver yourselves to me? Fine then. I'll take more slaves while I can."
He immediately drafted a reply:
---
"Three hundred billion of your population in exchange for two thousand years of peace."
---
In his office, the Federation President read Glaichuser's response. Veins bulged on his forehead, his jaw tightening. He wanted to curse aloud — yet the vast disparity in strength quickly smothered his pride.
The Huain Empire, a power nearly equal to humanity, had been obliterated in days.
The Federation had no means to resist.
The President slumped in his chair, rubbing his temples with both hands. For over ten minutes, he sat as though deflated.
At last, he exhaled heavily and placed a call.
"The frontier colonies… aren't a few of them seeking independence?…"
He had no choice.
---
A few days later, news outlets carried carefully crafted headlines:
"Catastrophic disaster strikes several colonies in the Far East Star Zone. Professor Grani states…"
"In recent operations against the Huain, our fleet suffered unforeseen accidents, leading to serious military losses…"
On the public networks, the stories cycled endlessly. Citizens speculated, argued, even mocked — but none knew the truth.
The Federation's leaders dared not reveal what had really happened. If the masses learned of the Aeldari, rage would surely drive some into reckless provocations — and that would doom them all.
To ensure absolute silence, the government censored all records, purged online traces, and even erased the memories of soldiers and civilians who had witnessed the truth.
Thus, buried in secrecy, the incident became a classified shame, spoken of by no one.
But it did not end there.
The humiliation of being crushed, forced to bleed, and then compelled to pay tribute for survival seared the hearts of the Federation's leaders. It was a wound that demanded an answer.
Under this pressure, a long-forbidden project resurfaced:
The Cyborg Experiment.
Its aim: to overcome the biological limitations of humanity.
Human progress, after all, was bound by flesh.
The brain could never match a computer's efficiency.
The body was fragile, death a mere wound away.
Life required complex, delicate conditions.
Many tasks were too dangerous for flesh alone.
The solution: to create hybrid beings — part flesh, part machine — that could serve humanity, performing what humans could not.
Such beings, in theory, would surpass humans in adaptability, endurance, and versatility, filling the gaps of human civilization.
But there were reasons the project had been banned.
Cyborgs could upgrade endlessly.
Want more intelligence? Install new processors.
Want more strength? Replace the body.
Their growth would outpace humans by hundreds, even thousands of times.
Could a slow-evolving species forever control one that advanced so quickly?
The answer from nearly every researcher was the same: no.
It would be like expecting a cat to forever control a tiger.
Thus, to avoid birthing a catastrophe that could end humanity itself, the Federation once forcibly terminated the project, sealing all records under strict prohibition.
But now, facing the Aeldari — and the unknown terrors of other advanced civilizations — they had no choice.
Even at the risk of extinction, they had to try.
---
So the Federation summoned its brightest experts, dragging them from across every sector.
The most advanced equipment was relocated from private vaults and hidden facilities: machines from planetary governors, prototypes from interstellar megacorporations, even technologies hoarded for generations.
In the past, these elites might have scorned the Federation, flaunting independence.
But under today's iron command, they remained silent. They all understood: resist, and you might become the next example — killed as a warning.
Thus, the Cyborg Experiment was restarted with the Federation's full might.
Old data was unearthed, studied, corrected, expanded.
In the shadows of humiliation, humanity took its first step onto a perilous new path.
_____
T/N:
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