The bridge of the command vessel was silent.
Not because there was nothing to say, but because every mind present was occupied with the same thing.
The stream of data still dripping in from the blue world below.
They called the ship a "bridge" by translation convenience.
In reality, it was a hollowed core at the heart of a machine the size of a small moon, wrapped in layers of armor, processors, and life support.
No windows.
No sky.
Just an ordered forest of interfaces casting thin, pale light over the beings that commanded the invasion.
Arch-Strategist Kael stood at the primary node, limbs folded neatly behind his back.
His skin if it could be called that was a smooth charcoal membrane shot through with faint bioluminescent lines, each pulse synchronized with the processing lattice embedded in his skull.
The lattice was busy now.
"Replay the Carson sample," Kael said.
The command ship's system obeyed.
The air in front of him shimmered, spinning up a volumetric projection a small segment of a planet's surface, rendered in cold blue lines and red overlays.
He watched, unblinking, as the scene unfolded again.
Metal shelters.
Rectilinear structures.
Rows of immature bipedals in matching garments.
Then the arrival of the drones his drones dropping like steel insects from the sky.
He saw the sensor pulses, the beams sweeping across the training yard.
Heart rates spiking.
Thermal signatures flaring.
Neurochemical surges erupting like sparks in a dry field.
Fear.
Panic.
Chaos.
He watched them scatter, cluster, fall.
He watched one of the smaller males hurl himself toward another, dragging him behind cover without hesitation.
He watched them fire their primitive projectile weapons with shaking hands yet still manage to strike a drone's joint casing after mere seconds of induced stress.
This was his seventh review of the footage.
It disturbed him more on the seventh than it had on the first.
"Stop," he said.
The image froze on a frame of three of them huddled behind a burned-out vehicle, one turned outward, body angled to shield the others.
Kael studied the pose.
The limb positions.
The micro-expressions on their faces.
The density of stress indicators overlaid in red.
"How old?" he asked.
"Approximate biological age range: eighteen to twenty-two local cycles," answered the Analysis Core, its voice soft and toneless. "Combat experience prior to this engagement: negligible."
"Survival rate?"
"Forty-five percent of the targeted training cluster survived the contact event."
Kael was silent for a long moment.
"That's too high," said a voice behind him.
He didn't turn.
The presence was familiar Strategist Veth, second-circle officer, his carapace marked with the subtle ridges of a seasoned campaigner.
"Define 'too high,'" Kael replied.
"For untested juveniles with obsolete weapons against live drones and vanguard infantry? It exceeds projected tolerance. Our models predicted a retention of under fifteen percent under similar stress."
"Yes," Kael said quietly. "I've seen the projections."
Veth drifted closer, head tilting as he considered the frozen scene.
"They adapted," he said.
"They adapted very quickly," Kael murmured.
The Analysis Core took that as permission to expand.
"Updating: Human juveniles demonstrated an adaptation rate 3.7 times greater than baseline projection. Stress-related paralysis resolved rapidly in a majority subset. Cooperative behavior increased under fire, not decreased. Instances of self-sacrificial positioning exceeded typical primitive patterns by sixty-two percent."
"That," Veth said flatly, "is not comforting."
Kael's eyes tracked the overlay data spikes of cortisol analogs, adrenaline floods, electrical storms in the motor cortex.
Terrifying, disorganized reaction that then, seconds later, began to align into rudimentary tactics.
Move.
Cover.
Return fire.
Protect wounded.
"This was supposed to be a calibration strike," Veth continued. "A small impact on future enemy capacity. Instead, we may have accelerated their evolution curve."
Kael exhaled slowly.
On his species' homeworld, in the old era, that might have been called a sigh.
Out here, it was the small release of pressure in a closed system.
"The Carson event has been integrated into the theater model," he said.
"And?"
Kael issued the query wordlessly; his lattice pulsed, forming a link with the Analysis Core.
The response unfolded across his inner vision graphs, probability densities, branching trees of possible war-paths.
"Primary projection before Carson: ninety-eight point seven percent success in planetary pacification within three cycles post-descent," the Core recited. "Projected average losses: three point two percent of deployed assets."
Veth nodded.
Acceptable.
Efficient.
"Updated projection after integrating Carson sample," the Core continued. "Success probability reduced to ninety-two point one percent. Average asset loss increased to fourteen percent. Confidence interval expansion: plus/minus eight percent."
Veth's ridges stiffened.
"Fourteen," he repeated. "For a Tier-3 world with no interstellar infrastructure and no validated Tier-2 allies."
Kael understood the unspoken part.
Fourteen was not catastrophic.
But it was… noisy.
Messy.
It exceeded the thresholds that the Expansion Directive liked to see in its ledgers.
It also brought them dangerously close to another threshold one the strategists did not speak of casually.
"Overlay Protocol limits," Kael said.
A new set of lines appeared hard, bright markers cutting through the probability clouds.
"Conquest Accord, Article Seven," the Core intoned. "Loss protocols for expansionary actions into developing clusters. If asset attrition exceeds twenty percent against any primitive species rated below Tier-2, automatic review by Oversight Entities is triggered. If repeated, species may be reclassified as protected."
Protected.
The word tasted wrong in Kael's mind, as if it were a contaminant.
Veth's membrane darkened.
"We are not at twenty percent," he said.
"Not yet," Kael agreed. "But the model's confidence interval now touches it. Especially if unseen variables persist."
"Such as?"
Kael's gaze flicked across the frozen image again.
"Psychological elasticity," he said. "They bend under stress. They do not snap. Not as easily as projected."
He gestured, and the tactical feed resumed.
They watched the juveniles again.
The moment of shock.
The scream.
The first dead.
The flinch.
And then the change.
The way the one with the short hair dragged another to cover.
The way another turned back to grab a fallen weapon even while under fire.
The way they responded to the instructor's shouted instructions faster with each repetition.
"This is not unusual for primitives under threat," Veth said.
"No," Kael replied. "But the rate is."
The Core confirmed.
"Within one hundred and twelve seconds, several individuals demonstrated behavior more typical of trained lower-echelon soldiers than untrained civilians. This exceeds previous references."
Kael closed the projection.
The bridge seemed darker without it.
"All of this from a single training compound," Veth said. "We do not know if this is representative."