Chapter 3: A Conversation Across Light Years

When the third buzz from the hibernation pod release echoed through the silent ship, Xia Qing’s fingers were pressed against her temples. The words she had logged three years ago still glowed coldly on her retinal display: "If they come to seize our sun, I will be the one to fire the first torpedo." Now, she stared at the countdown pulse on the bridge’s holographic screen: 20 light-years to Alpha Centauri, with the quantum communication startup sequence stuck at 97%.

"Professor Lin, the science lab requires your presence." The adjutant’s voice crackled through the comms, carrying the distinct, sharp resonance of metal.

As Xia Qing turned, the epaulets of her combat suit brushed against the alloy armrest of the command chair. Three years of cryosleep had left her muscles stiff, but that did not hinder her from sweeping a glance across the bridge: the navigator was calibrating the antimatter engine parameters, while the weapons officer stared blankly at the empty weapon bay interface—per the contact protocol, all offensive armaments were locked in "defense-only" mode. She recalled Oleg’s laughter during the pre-departure video conference: "Captain Xia, civilizational contact requires sincerity."

Sincerity? Xia Qing tapped her knuckles against the tactical panel. Three months ago, they had narrowly dodged a rogue comet; when the debris grazed the shields, the automated red glare of the weapon systems had nearly scorched her retinas.

As the science lab door slid open behind her, Lin Shen was crouching before the quantum entanglement generator. The hem of his white lab coat was stained with pale blue cryogenic fluid, and his silver-rimmed glasses were fogged over—the result of leaking low-temperature particles during the generator's startup.

"The temperature compensation system is throwing another tantrum," Lin Shen said without looking back, his fingers tapping rapidly on the generator’s nano-interface. "Three years ago, the engineers at the Lunar Base claimed this thing would last a decade, and now look at it..."

"How much time do you need?" Xia Qing cut him off.

Lin Shen straightened up, his eyes brightening behind his lenses. "Twenty minutes at most. We just detected rhythmic quantum fluctuations from the direction of Alpha Centauri, matching the signal frequency we intercepted three years ago perfectly." He held up a holographic tablet, a green waveform unfolding between them. "Look at this decay cycle—the Dreamweaver race's quantum resonance network is actively matching our entanglement pair."

Xia Qing stared at the pulsating light points within the waveform. Three years ago, when Lin Shen had rushed into the United Academy of Sciences with similar charts, she had been commanding the meteorite defense battle at the Mars base. His eyes had shone with that same light then, like a child discovering a new galaxy: "This isn't a random electromagnetic storm; it's a quantum signal modulated by stellar energy!"

"If they can truly share emotions..." Xia Qing said, "how can you be sure it’s not a trap?"

Lin Shen’s finger traced a timeline on the tablet. "For three years, we’ve sent 17 civilizational parameter packets, from Earth’s atmospheric composition to the human DNA double helix. If they were a malicious civilization, they would have destroyed us with directed beams long ago—but they chose quantum entanglement, a method of low energy and high latency." He pushed up his glasses. "This suggests..."

"It suggests they are afraid, too," Xia Qing finished for him. "Afraid of exposing their coordinates, afraid of the threat posed by technological disparity." She thought of the "Exclusion Protocol" in the civilizational contact laws, her throat suddenly tight. "Lin Shen, you and I both know that once we crack their communication technology..."

"That is why they sent a contact officer." Lin Shen pointed to the diamond-shaped crystal atop the quantum generator, crafted from quantum entangled matter extracted from the lunar core. "Amiel, that is their name. Based on signal analysis, they are a young resonater."

An alarm blared at that moment.

The holographic screen abruptly turned blood-red, and the hum of the quantum generator climbed three octaves. As Lin Shen lunged for the control panel, Xia Qing had already triggered the ship-wide alert: "All personnel, evacuate the science lab! Repeat, all personnel..."

"Wait!" Lin Shen’s palm slammed onto the emergency stop key, beads of cold sweat forming on his brow. "It’s not a malfunction. Look at the direction of the particle flow—" He pulled up a real-time monitoring chart, where purple ribbons of light were expanding outward from the crystal. "They are adjusting the entanglement intensity. They... they are adapting to our equipment!"

Xia Qing’s breath hitched. She saw pale gold veins emerging on the surface of the quantum generator, resembling an ancient star chart. Those veins crawled up the bulkhead and converged on the ceiling into a rotating cocoon of light—identical to the Dreamweaver carrier description in their files.

"Prepare to receive the projection," Lin Shen’s voice trembled. "Per protocol, initiate the emotional resonance buffer."

The center of the light cocoon began to collapse. First came a point of deep blue, followed by a translucent silhouette: a humanoid torso with no specific facial features, yet one that allowed others to clearly perceive the warmth of a "gaze." When the voice sounded, Xia Qing was reminded of the first meteor shower she saw through the observation window while on duty at the space station when she was twenty—every grain of stardust struck the strings of the resonator, *ting, ting*.

"Humans, greetings." The voice carried a slight static, the tail end of the sound seemingly abraded by interstellar dust while crossing 23 light-years. "I am Amiel, a contact officer for the Dreamweaver civilization."

Xia Qing’s hand rested on the sidearm at her waist. It was a habit—she needed to touch cold, real metal when facing the unknown. Lin Shen had already removed his glasses to wipe them, his movements so slow that Xia Qing could see his eyelashes trembling—a sign of his emotional fluctuation.

"Amiel," Lin Shen spoke, his voice three degrees softer than usual. "We received your response signal three years ago. We are very pleased to confirm your existence."

"It should be 'thank you for waiting'." A soft ripple spread across Amiel's projection. "The quantum resonance network requires stellar energy to maintain, and the star of our home world..." The ripples distorted for a moment. "Apologies, is this... sadness?"

Xia Qing looked up sharply. She saw Lin Shen’s fingers unconsciously clutching his lab coat pocket—where he kept a photo of his mother, who had passed away three years ago during Earth's ecological crisis.

"You can read emotions?" Xia Qing’s voice was as cold as the cosmos outside the ship.

"Only perceive their intensity and type." Amiel’s projection turned toward her. "For example, right now, your emotion is... vigilance, mixed with a trace of anger. And Mr. Lin’s emotion contains anticipation, as well as... longing for those who have passed."

Lin Shen’s hand froze in mid-air. Xia Qing noticed his Adam’s apple move, and he finally just said quietly, "This is a limitation of our technology. We cannot share emotions like you; we can only use language."

"Language also has temperature." A warm-toned light radiated from Amiel’s projection. "Poets on our home world once said that sound is a starship traveling through darkness."

Xia Qing felt something inside her loosen. She thought of her twelfth birthday, the voice message her father had sent from the Lunar Base—he had been repairing solar panels at the time, the background filled with the roar of machinery, yet his voice remained soft and warm: "Qingqing, when Daddy comes home, I’ll bring you a moon rock." Later, that rock sat on her nightstand until the asteroid defense war, when she tucked it into a comrade’s emergency kit.

"What do you need?" Xia Qing asked, skipping all pleasantries. As a soldier, she was more adept at using questions to build a defensive line.

Amiel’s projection suddenly became slightly blurred. Xia Qing saw streaks of silver light flashing at the edges of the light cocoon, as if some protective mechanism had been triggered.

"Survival," Amiel said. "Like all civilizations. Our star is aging, and the quantum resonance network requires more and more energy. And you..." When the projection re-condensed, Xia Qing caught a hint of anxiety. "Your sun is very young."

The bridge alarm sounded at that moment. A tactical alert popped up on Xia Qing’s panel: it was the Earth United Government, and Oleg Petrov’s face occupied half the holographic screen. His silver hair was perfectly groomed, and the corner of his mouth held that habitual smile, as if everything were under control.

"Captain Xia, Professor Lin." Oleg’s gaze swept over Amiel’s projection. "I heard the communication was successful?"

"We just established the link." Lin Shen’s voice carried clear wariness. Xia Qing knew that three months ago, Oleg had privately demanded he provide the core parameters of the quantum entanglement generator, a request Lin Shen had refused on the grounds of "violating contact protocols."

"Excellent." Oleg’s fingers tapped on the desktop, a habit Xia Qing recognized as his thinking gesture. "I need you to collect the technical parameters of the Dreamweavers. Especially the energy model of the quantum resonance network—"

"Mr. Oleg!" Lin Shen interrupted him. "The civilizational contact laws explicitly forbid—"

"Laws are meant to be broken." Oleg’s smile remained unchanged. "When two mid-level civilizations meet, technology sharing allows us to leap to a high-level stage simultaneously. You should remember the 21st-century European Union; think of how many times their development speed increased after member states shared technology."

Amiel’s projection suddenly fluctuated violently. Xia Qing saw fine cracks appearing on the surface of the light cocoon, as if being forcibly torn by some power.

"Pain..." Amiel’s voice became fragmented. "You... are discussing... reverse engineering?"

Lin Shen rushed to the quantum generator, his fingers flying across the console. "Cut the connection to the government terminal! Their signal is interfering with the resonance network!"

Xia Qing pressed the red button on the tactical panel. Oleg’s face was instantly replaced by static, but Amiel’s projection was still trembling. Xia Qing noticed dark purple energy streams darting through its light cocoon, like blood seeping from a wound.

"I’m sorry," Lin Shen said, his voice laced with apology. "That was the radical faction within humanity, they..."

"We know." Amiel’s projection slowly stabilized. "The quantum resonance network can perceive the tides of emotion. Within your civilization, there is benevolence as scorching as a sun, and greed as all-consuming as a black hole."

Xia Qing remembered the intelligence she had read before departure: Oleg’s private laboratory was researching "Dyson Membrane" technology, the signature tech of the Star-Eaters. And the Star-Eaters, those mechanical civilizations that devoured stars, were expanding at a rate of one galaxy every hundred years.

"Do you know the Star-Eaters?" Xia Qing asked.

Amiel’s projection suddenly became extremely bright, like the eruption of some intense emotion. Xia Qing felt a surge of scorching emotion—fear, despair, and the survival instinct etched into the very genes of a civilization.

"They have already destroyed three of our colonial stars." Amiel said. "The quantum resonance network allows us to sense the gravitational disturbances of the Dyson Membranes in advance, but we cannot fight them. We need..." The light of the projection dimmed. "We need your help."

Lin Shen’s fingers traced a blue light across the quantum generator. "We need help, too. Earth’s ecosystem is still recovering, and the oxygen circulation system of the Mars colony collapses every three months. If the Star-Eaters come to the solar system..."

"That is why we chose contact." Amiel’s voice held warmth. "Not for plunder, but for symbiosis. The quantum resonance network can share stellar energy models, and your controllable nuclear fusion technology can optimize our light cocoon carriers..."

"Wait." Xia Qing raised a hand. "The civilizational contact laws state that technology sharing leads to the collapse of civilizational structures. Are you not afraid?"

Amiel’s projection rippled gently. "The laws were set by higher civilizations. And we are just children learning how to hold hands."

The alarm in the science lab had stopped at some point. Xia Qing looked at Lin Shen; he had replaced his glasses, and his eyes behind the lenses were startlingly bright—the same look he had when she first met him at the academy three years ago, when he said, "The universe shouldn't be a dark forest; it should be a star abyss, where every civilization is a shining star."

"We need time," Xia Qing said. "To communicate with Earth’s leadership and discuss this with the crew."

"We have plenty of time." Amiel’s projection began to dissipate, the light cocoon shrinking into a pale blue starlet. "The quantum resonance network will remain connected. Next time we speak, I can show you the sunset on our home world—using the medium of emotion."

The moment the starlet extinguished, the quantum generator emitted a soft chime. Lin Shen bent down to pick up his glasses, which had fallen to the floor; a faint blue light mark stained the lens, looking remarkably like a forget-me-not from Earth.

Xia Qing reached for the sidearm at her waist, the chill of the metal seeping through her gloves. But this time, her fingers did not tighten.

The bridge’s holographic screen suddenly lit up, displaying real-time imagery of Earth: Oleg’s private spacecraft was detaching from low-Earth orbit, headed toward a secret base on the far side of the moon—where the quantum entanglement generator parameters backed up from the *Ark* were kept.

Xia Qing pressed the internal comms. "Weapons officer, disengage the defensive lock on the weapon bay."

"Captain?" The weapons officer’s voice sounded surprised.

"Not for attack." Xia Qing gazed at the starry sky outside, toward Alpha Centauri, 23 light-years away. "For defense. For the sake of a possible... symbiosis."

Lin Shen walked to her side, their shadows overlapping on the metal floor. In the distance, the cheers of the crew could be heard—they had just received the news that the quantum communication had succeeded.

Xia Qing remembered the words in her log and said softly, "Perhaps I should revise that entry."

Lin Shen smiled, the light mark on his glasses flickering. "Change it to 'If they come to protect the sun together, I will be the one to light the first firework'?"

Xia Qing did not answer, but the corners of her mouth curled up. Through the bridge’s observation window, she saw the Milky Way’s band of light like a flowing river; every star was glowing, and every star was waiting.