Chapter 15: The Politician's Choice

At 3:17 a.m., the cold light in the medical bay dimmed by a notch. Oleg Petrov stared at the flickering light spots on the ceiling, his fingertips clutching a half-rolled, unopened bandage. The edge of the gauze was stained with a pale brown smear of blood—a souvenir from Chen Mo’s punch, which had caught him squarely on the cheekbone and jolted him awake from the medical bay’s suspension bed.

The holographic screen at the head of the bed remained lit, the United Government’s encrypted telegram pulsing in the eerie blue glow: "In view of the exclusive agreement risks triggered by reverse engineering, terminate all non-essential technology sharing with the Dreamweaver race immediately. Prioritize the survival of the Ark; abandon the Earth Defense Plan if necessary."

He tore off the last of the bandage. His face in the mirror was swollen like over-fermented dough, the bruise beneath his left eye bleeding from pale purple into a deep, sickly brown. Oleg reached toward the bottom of his nightstand. The metal drawer groaned with a faint friction, revealing a stack of gold-embossed documents—asset transfer agreements for the Lunar Polar Helium-3 mines and preferential subscription rights for Martian antimatter fuel reserves. These had once been his sharpest bargaining chips in the theater of politics; now, they felt like dead batteries, heavy and drained of power in his palm.

Footsteps echoed in the corridor—light, yet marked by the distinct, rhythmic strike of hard-soled tactical boots. Oleg pressed the agreements against his chest and watched the door slide open automatically. Xia Qing stood in the doorway, the stars on her shoulder insignia glinting with the cold hue of iron. She held a silver medical kit in her left hand—the painkillers he had requested last night, though they were no longer needed.

"The doctor says you are cleared to leave the ship." Her voice was as devoid of temperature as the tactical screens on the bridge. Her gaze swept over the documents in his hand. "Lunar mining rights? It seems you were planning your exit strategy."

Oleg smiled, a gesture that pulled painfully at his bruised skin. He rose slowly. His uniform hem brushed against the tablet on the edge of the bed, causing the United Government’s telegram to shift into a red-alert status: "The Star Hunter main fleet has crossed the dark matter cloud region. Expected arrival in the solar system: 72 hours."

"An exit strategy?" He held the stack of agreements up to the light, the federal emblem on the cover glowing brightly. "Three days ago, when the lunar base exploded, I was in an underground bunker listening to the sound of the Helium-3 refinery blowing up. Old Zhou’s last message was that his grandson was turning one today—now that child will never receive his grandfather’s space-bear."

Xia Qing’s fingers curled slightly at her sides. She remembered the surveillance footage from Chapter 11, where the engineer, eyes red and swollen, was still shouting "Retreat!" ten seconds before the blast, his voice trembling like quantum strings in a gale.

Oleg suddenly applied pressure, and the document cover crinkled sharply between his fingers. As the first sheet tore, he recalled signing the first Earth-Moon transport contract at the Space Agency twenty years ago; the sensation of the pen nib piercing the paper was identical. The second sheet, the third... the paper scraps drifted like snow into the recycling bin at his feet. The official seal for the Martian fuel reserves flashed one last time among the debris before vanishing beneath the metal grate.

"Have you lost your mind?" Xia Qing stepped forward, the magnetic buckles of her tactical gloves clicking softly.

"What I thought before was the madness." Oleg ripped the federal badge from his collar, the metal pin pressing a red mark into his palm. "Reverse engineering, technology theft, using an alien civilization as bait—we were running wild through a dark forest, brandishing torches. The Star Hunters don't want our technology; they want the energy of our stars. If humanity and the Dreamweavers continue to fight separately..." He tapped the fleet coordinates on the holographic screen. "We don't even qualify to be bait."

Xia Qing stared into his eyes. In this politician who usually sneered during tactical meetings, there was something burning that she had never seen before—not ambition, but fear, yet something far hotter than fear.

"That is why I need to show you something." Oleg turned and pulled open another drawer, retrieving a file sealed with a quantum strip stamped with the gold emblem of the 'Special Committee for Civilizational Contact.' "This is the technology-sharing proposal the Dreamweavers submitted last week. They offered to open the base algorithms of their quantum resonance network in exchange for our antimatter engine’s energy management module. I suppressed it before..." He broke the seal with a gentle motion, as if opening a love letter twenty years overdue. "I am approving it now."

As Xia Qing took the file, her fingertips felt the residual warmth of his body on the paper. A holographic projection unfolded between them; streams of pale green code flowed like a galaxy. She recognized it as the energy spectrum of an Emiel light-cocoon, perfectly overlapping with the Ark’s engine thermal efficiency curve.

"Why?" she asked. "The United Government’s order is to terminate cooperation."

"Because the masters in the United Government are looking at star charts in Earth's underground bunkers, while I am on the Ark—" Oleg pointed out the porthole, where the Emiel light-cocoon was drifting near the engine exhaust, its pale purple halo weaving with the blue glow of the antimatter engine like ribbons. "I saw that when the resonance network unfolds, Chen Mo’s rage, Lin Shen’s obsession, and even the hesitation you feel when writing your logs all turn into weapons that can tear through metal. That isn't technology. It is..." He paused, his voice suddenly hoarse. "It is the proof that we are still alive."

Rapid footsteps sounded in the corridor. Lin Shen appeared in the doorway, his lenses clouded with a thin mist—the temperature in the science bay was always five degrees lower than other sectors. He glanced at the document in Xia Qing’s hand, then at the pile of shredded agreements on the floor, and raised an eyebrow. "Has Lord Petrov had a change of heart?"

"It is the universe that has changed," Oleg said, bending to pick up an untorn scrap of the agreement. He held it to the light, then tossed it into the bin. "It made me realize why advanced civilizations set up isolation zones. It’s not for fear of a technological explosion; it’s for fear that lower civilizations will learn how to destroy themselves before they ever learn how to coexist."

Xia Qing’s fingers brushed lightly over the code in the hologram; those symbols she had once viewed as a threat now seemed to breathe. When she looked up, Oleg was staring at the light-cocoon outside the porthole. His silver hair was illuminated by the glow of the engines; he no longer looked like a calculating politician, but an old man watching the last spark of a fire.

"I need to confirm the feasibility of this data with Emiel," she said, her voice softer than before.

"He is waiting for you in the science bay," Lin Shen said, lifting the quantum drive in his hand. "Half an hour ago, the resonators voluntarily requested to open the core interface."

Oleg watched their retreating backs as the medical bay sank back into silence. He pulled an old-fashioned pocket watch from his trousers—one his father had used during the Asteroid Defense War. Engraved on the inside of the cover were the words: *Beyond survival, there is legacy.* The hands were stopped at 3:27, the exact second the lunar base had exploded.

The holographic screen suddenly popped up a new telegram from Earth: "Deputy Speaker, do you confirm the termination of cooperation with the Dreamweaver race?"

Oleg pressed the delete key, watching the button for "Confirm" vanish from the screen. He then walked to the porthole, watching the light-cocoon and the engine fire intertwining in the starry void, like two flames that were meant to die out but had now huddled together as one.

In the distance, the metallic sparks in the dark matter cloud region grew denser, yet that cluster of light seemed, somehow, a little brighter than it had been yesterday.