Chapter Fifty-Three Seeds that Bloom

CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE

SEEDS THAT BLOOM

When I finally see an end to the corridor, I find Shimin’s ship stopped in front of a massive spiraling gateway smashed in at the middle. I fly through the distorted hole, just big enough to have accommodated Helan’s ship.

I bump into a floating corpse.

My mind goes blank. Red and green flashes catch on an array of floating glassy shards around the body.

Bit by bit, I make sense of the flickering chaos farther ahead. The lights are being emitted by a storm of huge, rotund ships engaged in a wild chase across a vast openness, so vast I momentarily wonder if we’re outright in space. Except the pulses occasionally reflect off distant walls.

Helan’s ship hovers nearby, entrance popped open. Qin Zheng’s and Yizhi’s spirit signatures zoom among the moving ships instead.

Those must be the weaponized transport vessels Yizhi spoke of, engineered with spirit metal. The more I stare at them, the more they stir my memories of being surrounded by Hunduns in the ocean. It looks like they’re literally whole Earth-type husks fitted with complex attachments, including wide thrusters in the back and long, swiveling barrels that can shoot Fire and Wood qì. All are noble class, at least three stories tall. It’s extremely obvious which ship Qin Zheng and Yizhi took—the one every other ship is firing at. However, most flares are faint and puny, barely causing a hitch upon striking true. Their ship fires back with thicker, brighter blasts that tear the others apart on impact. The wreckage hovers in limbo, heaved around by the force of the remaining ships giving chase.

No wonder the gods sent Shimin after me. Their own pilots have pathetic spirit pressures.

I look back to the corpse in front of me. Within a shattered helmet, its blue lips gape in immortal shock at whatever final sight it saw. Pale orange lashes frame its empty green eyes. I didn’t know a person could look so colorful and yet so washed out. Globules of dark blood float near its gloved hand, which is infested with tiny holes that make my skin crawl.

The last thing this pilot saw must’ve been Qin Zheng’s piercing black eyes as he lunged to siphon their qì.

Grimacing, I turn the body around. Might as well use it as a shield to get to Qin Zheng’s ship.

I pause at the sight of the pilot’s spinal brace, embedded over a padded jumpsuit connected to their helmet. It’s not just one color, one type of spirit metal. It’s multiple. A long stretch of Earth yellow, a shorter length of Fire red, then a small segment of Water black.

Huh.

I once asked Qin Zheng if it’s possible to incorporate Fire-type spirit metal into our armor so we can launch qì attacks while retaining Earth-type protection. He told me trying to conduct qì through different types of spirit metal at the same time blows out your spine. Something about the pressure differential.

Was that another lie passed down through generations to suppress our abilities?

I hold the corpse in front of me with no more reluctance and flap my wings toward the racing ships.

“Zetian?” Yizhi’s voice comes out of a speaker system when I edge into the flashing madness. “Zetian, over—”

“Over here, empress!” Qin Zheng cuts him off. “Touch the base of this ship!”

Swinging the corpse like a shield, I dodge several qì blasts while pressing closer to their ship. It careens toward me. I reach out over the corpse’s shoulder.

The moment my fingers meet the spirit metal hull, I sense its entire contour and the complex parts within. A rippling force tugs me along the bottom to a spiral hatch that hisses open. I toss the corpse away before pulling myself in.

The hatch seals shut beneath me, then a second one swirls open above with a sighing noise. I hoist myself out of the nook, easy with no weight to my body.

My helmet antlers bonk against the ceiling of a dark chamber. Soft lines of light illuminate bundles of piping, clusters of tanks of various sizes, and shelves of transparent compartments with things floating inside. The ship’s inner surface isn’t spirit metal; it’s regular metal, covered in panels and blinking lights. With no room to spread my wings, I use the various items—all solidly secured—to propel myself forward. Everything keeps tilting and bumping into me with the ship’s movements as I follow Qin Zheng and Yizhi’s spirit signatures to a hatch on a wall. It spirals open, leading into a dim corridor dappled with more light--encircled hatches. Some are transparent, showing shadowy glimpses of beds in pods, plants in incubators, and equipment I can’t begin to name. I haul myself through the corridor using the neon-lit handles all over it, their different colors maintaining my sense of up and down. One hatch opens by itself ahead of me. When I pull inside it, I emerge through the floor of what must be the ship’s cockpit.

Yizhi, Qin Zheng, and Helan are strapped to seats spaced out along a wide, curved dashboard with vibrant widgets, appearing as if suspended over the zooming ships outside. An illusion of transparency, like in Helan’s original ship. A neon framework outlines the rest of the ship’s structure. The cockpit seems to be nestled deep within the hull’s protection, relying on digital displays to see what’s happening outside.

Qin Zheng tips his head toward an empty seat between him and Yizhi. “Come! This is but the first vessel we reached. Our true aim is to commandeer the Hive Queen.”

“The what?” I sail forth with a swoosh of my wings.

“The largest ship in this fleet,” Yizhi explains, before saying something to the dashboard in Melian. An artificial voice responds, then the display ahead highlights a ship beyond a blockade of attacking vessels. It’s so big I would’ve thought it was the far wall without the special indication. I have a guess as to why it’s called the Hive Queen: it’s made from a King-class husk.

Yizhi peers at me over his shoulder, mouth open to say something more. Nothing ends up coming out, but I know which question he’s holding back. The weight of it grows heavy in his gaze.

“He’s gone,” I force out of my throat.

Yizhi’s eyes pinch closed. A second later, they fly open with a renewed resolve. We’ve both been prepared for this outcome for a long time.

I reach for my seat.

Qin Zheng jerks the steering handles in front of him. The ship lurches away from a particularly bright qì blast. My scrambling fingers barely snatch hold of a handhold atop my seat. My legs smash into the back of Qin Zheng’s.

“Sit down!” he chides.

“Trying!”

Through my gauntlet’s contact with the seat, I get another sense of the ship’s interconnected Earth-type parts. The bulk of the seats is made of it, extending in long paths down to the hull. But there’s a lot more engineering around these than Chrysalis seats, and their connection columns contain other types of spirit metal.

The fear of my spine snapping in half nags at the back of my mind, but when I see another qì blast coming, I swing myself into the seat at once. Automatic straps buckle down my torso and legs. Helan shouts a Melian command. The ship’s systems respond in a cheery voice. I wince as a thin line of light from the dashboard scans over me. The voice announces something else, then control panels light up before me.

“Welcome to the crew of the Stinger Dame,” the cheery voice says, switching to Hanyu. “I am its intelligent systems, here to assist you on your journey. To call upon me, say my name followed by your command.”

A set of steering handles pushes out of the dashboard. A diagram of the battle projects above it, featuring tiny moving models of the ships around us.

“Peel up your spinal brace to plug into the other types!” Qin Zheng shouts, while doing a drastic turn that briefly spins us upside down.

Gripping my straps, I concentrate on where my connection column’s Earth stretch ends. I mentally ease away my spinal brace beneath that point, leaving a gap to the bottom part of my spine. My armor instantly strains my mind more with the decrease in contact with my spine, feeling heavier. If there were any gravity, I doubt I could stand up in it anymore.

The rest of the connection column pierces through the gap. A gasp shudders into me as I become aware of more parts in the ship, the different types of spirit metal feeling distinct from one another. I don’t think we could embody the ship like a Chrysalis, but I can sense the flow of Qin Zheng’s qì through its components. A fainter pressure comes from Helan’s seat as well. Yizhi is the only one not connected, though that’s not a surprise when he gave most of his qì to me and Qin Zheng.

Heat builds in the Fire-type pathways leading out of the ship’s long barrels. I infuse my own qì to strengthen the blast.

Enemy ships rupture and explode in our hot red torrent, shot through with Wood qì like green lightning. The sheer force of the blast makes the ship slip backwards. Qin Zheng shoves against his steering handles. Attached to the seats on movable joints, our connection columns have some give, allowing him to lean forward. The ship’s engines hum louder, driving us forward against the recoil.

My own steering handles are locked from turning independently of Qin Zheng’s, but there’s no such restriction on my mental control of the Stinger Dame. I can feel and influence every tip and turn. It makes for a few awkward stutters in movement when my will clashes against Qin Zheng’s or Helan’s, but soon I blend with their momentum. Our three minds converge on the goal of breaking through to the Hive Queen.

A flare of my spirit sense picks up on at least twelve spirit signatures inside it. Powerful combined blasts of qì shoot at us from its barrels, but we have the advantage in speed. We dodge the beams and eviscerate a path through the smaller blockading ships until we slam like a magnet against the Hive Queen.

In a sweeping wave, the primal particles in its hull assimilate to the Yellow Dragon’s unique configuration, etching into my awareness like a cosmic-sized sketch. The mental strain sends sparks popping through my vision. An ache builds in my nose, on the verge of bleeding again. But we don’t need to move the whole thing to win. Once the assimilation reaches the pilot seats at the core, I realize what we can do.

From the connection columns, we drive spikes all the way through the pilots’ spines, killing them in an instant.

The Hive Queen slows, gliding on momentum alone.

Nausea rolls through me at how easy it was to take a dozen lives at once. But it’s nothing I haven’t done before. I think back to something Qin Zheng once said: “ Every oppressor, through their denial of humanity, sows the seeds of their own destruction. ”

Here we are. The seeds that bloomed.

“Move to the bottom of the Hive Queen!” Helan points and shouts. “It will be easier to enter through its cargo hatch!”

By our collective will, the Stinger Dame glides along the Hive Queen’s hull, narrowly escaping the concentrated fire of the remaining ships. When we get to the hatch Helan means, we blast it open and fly inside. What awaits us is a cavernous cargo hold that could fit half a dozen smaller ships. At Helan’s further direction, we lower onto a dock with spirit metal parts connected to the hull. Through it, we mentally seal the hole we made to get in.

Now safe to leave the Stinger Dame, we unbuckle from our seats and maneuver through the ship’s cramped corridors until we make it out from the top. Light flutters out of the soles of Helan’s shoes, producing a force that boosts them through the huge cargo hold. They link arms with Yizhi to bring him along. Qin Zheng and I fan our wings to follow them, though I quickly lag behind, having not replenished myself with a random person’s qì like he did.

Qin Zheng holds his arm out to me. I give it a dirty look. He makes an incredulous expression, shoulders rising. When the Hive Queen trembles from persistent blasts, I loop my arm through his with a grunt. If those ships focus on one spot, they might just melt through the thick hull and break something beyond repair. We hurry to a hatch on the far wall. Qin Zheng and I rip it open with our swords. The corridors inside the Hive Queen are spacier than the Stinger Dame’s, but there’s a lot more to navigate, practically like going through a maze.

Once we break into the cockpit at last, we find a dozen corpses slumped in a semicircle of pilot seats, the dashboard extinguished before them. Helan grimaces. They touch their fingers to their lips while whispering something, then they put their closed hand to their chest. I quash any budding guilt or pity in my own heart while Qin Zheng and I tear four corpses out so we can take their seats. If these pilots were the ones looking down at us after crushing us, how much thought would they give us?

Qin Zheng reshapes the connection columns so we can safely plug in. The dashboard rouses under Helan’s fingers. They swipe through luminous panels and options while speaking commands to the systems. A light scans each of us, then the engines reactivate.

The Hive Queen glides forth, though it’s so massive I can’t feel it. I can only tell it’s moving by the reeling view projected around the cockpit. We build up speed toward the hangar wall. With a blasting stream of qì, we carve a large exit into it. Roaring engines smash us through to the beyond.

The universe opens before us, more stars than I have ever seen in my life. Every racing thought in my head falls still. For what could be a century, all I can do is stare. The Hive Queen keeps sailing forth. If it could go on forever, where would we end up? Is there a possibility we could just…leave everything behind?

The sound of a long exhale scatters my absurd fantasies. Helan buries their face in their hands, shaking. I check the battle projection in front of me. The remaining ships have stopped shooting at us. They’re fleeing to the sides instead.

Softly, Yizhi says something in Melian to Helan.

“No, I am all right.” Helan rubs their temples, their earpiece translating their reply. “This is what I wanted. To give your people the leverage to negotiate.”

“When you say ‘negotiate,’ what precisely do you mean?” Qin Zheng’s question slows with each word.

Helan frowns. “A new contract with Vivasi Minerals, of course. With this ship in your possession, you can now demand a much larger sum of knowledge from Melian databases in exchange for further production of orichalite. Although some of the materials required for the most advanced technologies cannot be found on your planet, the wealth of information should still greatly advance your civilization.”

“Why should we enter into another contract at all?”

Frown deepening, Helan shakes their head. “Orichalite is too valuable for you to withdraw from the galactic markets. Other planets would come with military fleets to enforce their trading rights, particularly Melia. Believe me, these ships are far from the most powerful kinds that exist. And you would stop receiving technological aid. Why did you come here if not to improve conditions for your people?”

Silence hangs over the cockpit. So this is the catch. I knew Helan wasn’t helping us out of pure altruism. They want to be the one who convinced us to stand down and go back to fighting Hunduns for spirit metal after supposedly being kidnapped by us. They must think they’ll have our gratitude while taking advantage of our attack as a talking point in whatever convoluted political game they’re embroiled in at home. I assume this new contract would extend a cut of the benefits to them, as well, for being the one to facilitate it. This is the negotiation.

So, do we…accept?

Almost absently, Qin Zheng turns his steering handles. The Hive Queen creeps around in slow motion, then its engines fade out. We’ve flown so far that the entire trade station is visible at a glance, hovering off the side of our planet. Its twin habitat rings spin lazily in opposite directions. A halo of tiny specks drifts away from them, spreading out.

I squint. “What are those?”

“Escape ships.” Helan gestures to a red panel full of text on their dashboard. “There was a station-wide order for all residents to evacuate half an hour ago.”

I sit up straighter. Qin Zheng squeezes his steering handles.

“Careful!” Helan’s hand darts out. “If you hit the station from here, you might break it apart.”

Qin Zheng’s face remains perfectly blank.

Helan’s eyes going wide. “Please do not make any rash decisions. You do not understand what you are facing. The Prosperity Party has indeed been awful to you and your people, but once the Unity Party wins the next election, they will treat you on much better terms. It believes in equality and justice for all humans.”

“Does it?” Qin Zheng says.

“Yes, I promise. Or why would I have helped you at all? The Unity Party can make sure Vivasi abides by a new, less exploitative contract. You can fly the Hive Queen back to Huaxia as permanent leverage. Whenever you are ready, I can open the communication channels and begin the negotiation. You will give your people much better lives than before.”

Qin Zheng and I look at each other. I wonder if we’re thinking of the same quote from the Book of Laborism : “ As long as the yoke of power remains in the hands of the profitizers, any concessions won by the laboring class can be taken away. ”

I don’t understand this Unity Party and Prosperity Party nonsense, but I know this: both want our war with the Hunduns to continue so they can sell the husks to the hundreds of other worlds we never knew existed. Even if one party is “nicer,” it’s showing no indication of granting us true freedom.

There’s no scenario where we fly back to our lives with no consequences. Systems like this don’t maintain themselves by tolerating rebellion. Once the Melians catch their breath from the shock of our attack, they’ll retaliate one way or another to make an example of us. Either they have the ability to kill us all, or they don’t. The only thing we can control is how easy we’ll make it.

Qin Zheng and I reach for each other’s hands.

Something about it puts Helan on alert. They unbuckle their straps and detach from their connection column before we can kill them with it. “Hive Queen, revoke access of bio-signatures—!”

A whip of spirit metal shoots out from Helan’s seat and clamps around their mouth. They tip over, legs floating, hands grasping at their face.

Yizhi springs out of his seat to yank Helan’s arms behind them. “Aim for the junctions!” he shouts.

Helan’s gaze swings back with the horror of betrayal. Something I’m no stranger to. I almost feel sorry for them.

But I knew Yizhi never intended to compromise either.

Qin Zheng clasps my hand harder. “Fear has never ruled me,” he says, like a mantra, a red blaze igniting in his irises.

A matching heat rises through my meridians. “Neither will gods.”

Together, we sweep our strongest blast of qì across the trade station.