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The Collectors finalized their plan. On the ground, the controlled Zerg units charged at the Kers, then deliberately hurled themselves into the metal storm unleashed by the Kers' emplacement cannons before reaching the barrier. In an instant, they were blasted into a spray of flesh and flung into the air.

But this had been part of the Collectors' plan from the beginning. Neither the Zerg nor the Kers noticed anything unusual.

To the Kers, an attack by Zerg units was only natural. This lump of flesh sent flying into the air merely seemed a little clumsier than the other Zerg units.

As for the Zerg, the command echelon would not notice anything abnormal about a single ground unit. Attacking the Kers had been an order issued by the command echelon in the first place. As for details such as which foot a ground unit should step forward with first or what posture it should use while running, those were entirely up to the ground unit itself. The command echelon could manage such things, but had no interest in doing so.

Besides, Zerg combat units numbered in the trillions. It would be strange if hundreds of millions of them did not die in every battle. They were all expendable anyway. Who would bother paying attention to one Zerg individual in the vast sea of insects that voluntarily caught bullets with its face?

In the brief interval after it was blasted into pulp and flung away, neither the Kers nor the Zerg noticed the Collectors hidden inside the Zerg unit stripping the neural core from the creature's brain.

The neural core was the channel through which the Zerg's upper and lower echelons communicated. It was equivalent to a communicator in the Kers military, except the information carrier used by the Zerg's "communicator"