Chapter 10: The Awakened from the Cryogenic Chamber

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The quantum communicator in the science module was still emitting a faint hum. Fragments of Aemil’s cocoon of light hovered in midair like a galaxy crushed to pieces. Lin Shen’s fingers remained suspended above the confirmation key, his knuckles white with strain.

“We need to initiate the emergency awakening procedure.”

Xia Qing’s voice came from behind him. The heels of her tactical boots struck the floor more heavily than usual. She stood before the holographic star map, where the shadow of the dark-matter cloud continued to churn along the edge.

“The Star Hunters’ Dyson membrane is expanding three times faster than predicted. The Dreamweavers’ cocoon network won’t last more than three months—and our antimatter fuel will sustain only six months of travel.”

When Lin Shen turned, the mist on his lenses had already condensed into tiny beads of ice.

“You want to awaken the sleepers?”

He remembered the hibernation plan approved by the entire ship three months earlier. To conserve resources, ninety percent of the crew—everyone except the core team—had entered cryogenic chambers, with staggered awakening scheduled for two years later.

Xia Qing nodded. Her tactical glove gave a sharp click as its wrist lock disengaged.

“Chen Mo is on the list.”

She called up the crew files. A scarred face sprang onto the holographic screen.

“Gunner at Defense Station Three during the asteroid war of 2195. He shattered a three-kilometer carbonaceous asteroid with nuclear warheads. Someone like him is more useful right now than any artificial-intelligence tactical adviser.”

Lin Shen swallowed. He remembered the historical footage: a young gunner drenched in blood, pressing the launch key at the final instant before the command module exploded.

“But sudden awakening carries physiological risks...”

“Better that than being turned into an energy block along with the ship by the Star Hunters.”

Xia Qing was already heading for the hatch.

“Come with me to the cryogenic bay. You monitor their vital signs. I need living combat personnel.”

The cryogenic bay was twenty degrees colder than the rest of the ship. Lin Shen’s breath froze into frost flowers across his mask. Before him, three hundred silver chambers gleamed beneath the dim blue emergency lights, like enormous silkworm cocoons.

Xia Qing pressed her palm to the main console. Red retinal-scanning light swept across her pupils.

“Awakening sequence initiated.”

When the mechanical announcement thundered overhead, the nearest chamber released a long hiss of escaping gas. Lin Shen watched condensation spill through the seams of the hatch and freeze into crystals on the metal floor. The instant the lid slid fully open, he heard a familiar cough—not the hum of electronic instruments, but the unmistakable vibration of human lungs.

“Damn it...”

Chen Mo’s voice was thick with nasal congestion and the acrid tang of cryogenic fluid.

“I was dreaming I was fishing for salmon in the Caspian Sea...”

He braced himself against the chamber wall and sat up. Ice crystals still clung to his ash-gray cropped hair. The scar running from his brow to his jaw shone bluish in the cold light.

Xia Qing removed her tactical glove and handed him a warm nutrient drink.

“On July 12, 2195, at Defense Station Three on the far side of the Moon, you altered the orbit of the asteroid Nemesis with five nuclear warheads.”

Chen Mo paused with the nutrient pack half-open.

“The major general has a good memory.”

He tipped back his head and drained half the pack. As his throat worked, the scar seemed to come alive like a serpent.

“What year is it now? Have we reached Alpha Centauri?”

“2207.”

Lin Shen adjusted the life-monitoring equipment.

“We’re at the edge of a dark-matter cloud. We encountered the Dreamweavers... and the Star Hunters.”

“Alien bugs?”

Chen Mo’s pupils contracted abruptly—the instinctive alertness of a man who had looked death in the face.

“Like that asteroid that came for Earth back then? Trying to steal our sun?”

Xia Qing did not answer. She merely pointed to the countdown mounted on the wall: 437 hours until arrival at the ruins of the Dreamweavers’ homeworld.

When the holographic projection in the tactical conference room flickered to life, Chen Mo’s combat suit still carried the chill of the cryogenic bay. He dropped heavily into a chair, its metal legs scraping across the floor with a grating shriek.

“All right. What do you want me to do? Fire? Dismantle the ship? Or...”

His gaze swept over Aemil’s translucent projection.

“Sign a peace treaty with an alien ghost?”

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“We need to combine the Dreamweavers’ quantum resonance network with our own to fight the Star Hunters.”

Lin Shen summoned a simulation of the Star Hunters: a black, membrane-like structure wrapped around a star like a giant python swallowing its prey.

“Their Dyson membrane can absorb ninety-nine percent of a star’s energy output. Humanity’s antimatter cannons alone—”

“Bullshit!”

Chen Mo slammed his palm onto the table and surged to his feet, making the holographic projection tremble.

“Back then, the experts who said there was merely ‘a probability the asteroid would deviate from its orbit’ left me repairing a thruster in vacuum for three days! And now you want to let alien bugs use our sun? I blew up asteroids with nuclear warheads back then, and I can blast their cocoons with antimatter cannons now!”

Lin Shen placed a hand on Chen Mo’s wrist. The scholar’s palm was cool, yet possessed of extraordinary strength.

“The Star Hunters have already destroyed the cocoon networks of seven Dreamweaver colonies. If we attack one another, the Dyson membrane will cover the solar system within six months... including Earth.”

Chen Mo’s wrist trembled. Lin Shen could feel the artery pulsing beneath the skin, like an engine running beyond its limits.

“You’re saying... they’re hiding from the Star Hunters too?”

“Their homeworld is now a cloud of radiation.”

Aemil’s voice suddenly rose. Starlight within the cocoon flowed more rapidly.

“Before the Dyson membrane covered it, the final Resonant infused the memories of their civilization into a quantum-entangled pair. That is why we sent a signal to Earth. That is why we need the sun’s energy to repair the cocoon...”

Silence descended over the conference room. The ventilation system’s hum became distinct, mingling with Chen Mo’s rough breathing. Beneath the table, Oleg tapped one finger in rhythm with the countdown: 436:59:23.

“So the problem isn’t the Star Hunters.”

Xia Qing pressed her knuckles against the tabletop, whitening the metal beneath them.

“The problem is that someone among us can’t wait to negotiate an alliance—someone who had people dismantle the quantum-communications core three days ago.”

Every gaze turned toward Oleg. The deputy councilor’s silver hair was perfectly arranged, and the United Government emblem on his suit collar glinted with cold light.

“Captain Xia, I thought we had reached a consensus...”

“The consensus was humanity first.”

Xia Qing cut him off. A tactical display lit up beside her, showing the dismantled remains of the quantum collider.

“But your people didn’t dismantle a machine. They dismantled the chain of trust between us and the Dreamweavers. If they sever the resonance network now, we’ll be vaporized before we even touch the Star Hunters’ shadow.”

The corner of Oleg’s mouth lifted.

“Trust? During Professor Lin’s resonance experiment, the Dreamweavers saw the riverbed of his childhood. But what about us? Have they shown us any of their secrets?”

He turned toward Aemil.

“For example, is the stellar energy required to repair the cocoon really meant to maintain the resonance network—or to activate some kind of weapon?”

Aemil’s cocoon convulsed violently. Shards of stardust scattered like dandelion seeds caught by the wind.

“Our technology...”

Her voice was threaded with fractures.

“Under the Laws of Civilizational Contact, it cannot be transmitted to a lower civilization...”

“Enough.”

Lin Shen’s voice was quiet, yet it cleaved through the taut air like a blade.

“Mr. Oleg, you and I both know the truth. Reverse-engineering Dreamweaver technology would trigger the exclusion protocol and expose Earth’s coordinates. The so-called prohibition on technological sharing is not a legend. It is a blood-written testament composed from the collapse of a million civilizations at the hands of advanced societies.”

The temperature in the conference room seemed to drop several degrees. Chen Mo sat down again, absently rubbing the hilt of his tactical knife. Oleg’s gaze moved between Lin Shen and Xia Qing before settling on the countdown: 436:21:47.

“Then what do you suggest?”

Chen Mo spoke suddenly, his voice rasping like rusted gears.

“We tie ourselves to alien bugs and gamble that they aren’t the next Star Hunters?”

Lin Shen removed his glasses and wiped the fogged lenses with the edge of his sleeve.

“It isn’t a gamble.”

Without his glasses, his eyes appeared darker.

“We have all seen what the destruction of a civilization looks like. I saw the riverbed of my childhood crack and dry. Aemil saw the starlight of her homeworld freeze. And you...”

He looked at Chen Mo.

“You saw the fire of an asteroid shattering the lunar base.”

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Xia Qing placed her hand on the tactical display. The star map brightened again, linking humanity’s blue solar system to the Dreamweavers’ purple field of ruins with a golden line.

“In twelve hours, we will enter the Star Hunters’ detection range.”

Her voice was as precise as a calibrated laser.

“We have two choices: distrust one another while waiting to die, or entrust our backs to companions who can feel each other’s fear.”

Chen Mo’s fingers came to rest on his tactical knife. When he looked up, Lin Shen saw the scar in his eyes shining—not with anger, but with something older, like an ember newly awakened.

“I trust Professor Lin,” he said.

“Back at the defense station, one expert said, ‘Give me ten more minutes and the nuclear trajectory will be calibrated.’ Then he went into the radiation zone himself to repair the instrument. The rest of us survived. He...”

Chen Mo paused.

“So I trust people who dare to stake their lives on a civilization.”

Oleg’s fingers ceased tapping. He rose with a smile, adjusting his suit cuff in a movement so slow it seemed rehearsed.

“Apparently, I should go inspect the technical officers’ progress.”

He walked toward the hatch, then stopped at the threshold.

“Captain Xia, I hope you won’t regret the trust you placed today.”

The instant the hatch closed, Aemil’s cocoon suddenly steadied. Stardust gathered once more into a vaguely human form, and she looked toward Lin Shen.

“Thank you.”

“What for?”

Lin Shen put his glasses back on. His gaze behind the lenses was gentle.

“For trusting me? Or for trusting Chen Mo?”

“For being willing...”

Aemil’s voice was soft as stellar wind.

“To leave a little space for resonance beyond the instinct to survive.”

The tactical display suddenly sounded an alarm. Xia Qing glanced down at it, then raised her head, her pupils narrowing to slits.

“The dark-matter cloud’s disturbance frequency has changed. The Star Hunters’ Dyson membrane has entered detection range seventy-two hours ahead of schedule.”

Lin Shen walked to the window and looked out through the reinforced glass. The dark-matter cloud was no longer a churning beast. It had become a pattern of ordered ripples, like black velvet crumpled by an enormous hand. He knew what it meant: the Dyson membrane was unfolding its electromagnetic interference.

“Prepare the entire ship for battle.”

Xia Qing’s voice rang through the communications channel.

“Chen Mo, go to the weapons bay and inspect the antimatter cannons. Professor Lin, calibrate the resonance network with Aemil. I’m going to the command module...”

She paused.

“I’ll keep Oleg’s people under my personal watch.”

Chen Mo seized his tactical knife and headed for the hatch. As he passed Lin Shen, he clapped him on the shoulder. The force was nearly enough to knock him off his feet, but Lin Shen knew it was the veteran’s particular way of expressing trust.

Aemil’s cocoon drifted to Lin Shen’s side.

“Would you like to conduct another resonance experiment?” she asked. “It may strengthen the stability of the resonance network.”

Lin Shen looked into the eyes formed from her stardust. There were no human whites, only endless starlight.

“All right,” he said. “But this time, let’s look together... and see whether the memories of our two civilizations hold a light in common.”

Beyond the window, the dark-matter cloud continued to churn, yet it could not conceal the deeper starlight. Those stars had been traveling through the universe for tens of thousands of years. At last, in this moment, their light entered the tactical conference room of the Ark and fell upon the shoulders of both humanity and the Dreamweavers.

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