“Heligen,” Blin said, forcing down his fury, “I order you to stop your ship. We’ll renegotiate terms both sides can accept.”
He’d tried video first. Heligen ignored it. So Blin sent a written ultimatum instead.
“For the sake of Edean’s remaining humans, don’t make innocent people pay for your rabid behavior. Humanity’s future is already razor-thin. Are you going to bury our last hope as well? Maybe this isn’t what you truly want—maybe you’ve been seduced by an ideological imprint, like demons hooked into your mind. Think back to—”
“Metal storm incoming alert…”
The ship’s system announcement cut him off.
New Sunflower opened fire on Limit without warning.
At this range, the spray spread wide. Limit’s shield flared, and the slowed barrage hit like thrown gravel—loud, but harmless.
A few seconds of rattling, and the attack dissolved into nothing. If Heligen had wanted a reply, that was it.
Blin snapped.
“All main guns and missile bays one through eight: lock New Sunflower.”
Three seconds later:
“Target locked.”
Blin exhaled. “Dr. Morag… I’m sorry.” He was about to give the order to fire when the system spoke again.
“Dense high-energy reaction detected ahead…”
“What is it?” Blin demanded.
“Some kind of… unknown life-form…”
“I don’t see anything,” Mesha said, staring at the main screen.
“Look at the asteroids,” Merc said. “They all have the same shape.”
“They do…”
Only then did the bridge realize it: the asteroids varied in size, but their silhouettes matched—oval, top-heavy, tapering down, like countless inverted insect eggs.
Zoomed in, their color still mimicked rock, but their surfaces were carved with intestinal grooves—like brains, like knotted rope, like something that should not exist. And within those folds, countless tiny “flies” crawled in and out. From this distance they seemed small, but the scale said otherwise: each “fly” was three to four times the size of an adult human.
“Miller’s monster army,” Merc whispered.
“We’re too late,” Dancer said, panic finally breaking through his composure. “I didn’t think Miller could expand this fast.”
…
By now, New Sunflower was already weaving between the brain-like hives.
Onboard, the hijackers had slipped into a state of feverish devotion.
Heligen broadcast on internal comms to the entire ship.
“We did it, brothers. Plando didn’t survive the apocalypse, but her spirit will be sung by the gods of the cosmos. Plando fell to vile machine mongrels—but we avenged her. Today, we’re heroes. As the last Plando people, let’s sing our final war song and drag these machine bastards down into hell with us. Fire!”
At his command, every metal storm tower on New Sunflower opened up on the nearest hive.
At such close range the first strike was sudden and devastating. Several hives shattered into fragments.
But it was like stabbing every beehive at once.
After a brief, eerie pause, the “flies” poured out in a mass exodus. In the emptiness of space, it looked like a tsunami made of insects, rolling toward New Sunflower to swallow it whole.
Blin and the others stared at the screens in disbelief—when Limit’s system announced:
“New Sunflower has accepted the video call.”
The main display switched to the hijackers’ bridge feed.
It looked like a madman’s apocalyptic carnival. People sang at the top of their lungs. They rotated through the camera laughing, screaming obscenities, flipping off the lens, pulling faces, performing crude gestures. One man dropped his pants and urinated. Punklis executed Morag on camera and then tossed his severed head back and forth as if it were a toy.
Dancer shook with rage. Mesha covered her eyes, unable to watch.
Limit’s system kept repeating:
“Target locked. Awaiting fire command…”
“Fire,” Bit snarled. “Blow those animals into fragments.”
“No,” Blin said—calm, suddenly cold. “Cancel the lock.”
Then he gave the order that sealed it.
“All units: retreat. Maximum speed.”
…
***
Aurora Plateau — Edean
After several days of repairs, Wyatt was fully restored. Azure Thunder was mostly repaired as well—two more days, and it would be battle-ready again.
A new tally came in for Edean: 670,000 human embryos. 3,988 humans on-site. Another 1,536 humans stationed elsewhere were being recalled.
Lord Julian released the full truth to the public. The humans who’d been kept in the dark finally understood what Graham and Soren had done. Most were still able to tell right from wrong, and most accepted the decision to leave Lansen Planet.
As a result, no one talked about rebuilding after the battle. The damaged warships, outposts, and turrets were left as they were—frozen in the aftermath.
For days, everything focused on the coming journey.
The busiest place was Bubble Farm. All crops had to be sorted—ripe ones harvested and stored, unripe ones collected for transplantation into New Sunflower’s cultivation decks. Most livestock were slaughtered, sorted, and frozen; the rest were prepared for the ship’s pens.
Then the news arrived: New Sunflower had been hijacked.
Not long after, worse followed.
In Five-Color Fortress’s central tower command room, Julian summoned Wyatt, Little White, Big Blue, Dorian, and the others, and shared Blin’s video.
Morag’s brutal death enraged everyone. Linneya, remembering the long flight and struggle they’d shared, cried until her voice cracked. The scale of this reversal was hard to accept.
After a long silence, Big Blue asked, “Why didn’t Lord Blin destroy New Sunflower? At least that would show where we stand.”
“At the time, New Sunflower was already surrounded by the swarm,” Julian said. “If he fired, he would have struck the swarm. Retreating immediately was the correct decision—otherwise the fleet could have been trapped.”
Tears shining, Linneya asked, “I still don’t understand. We’ve so many ships. Why do we need New Sunflower so badly?”
“Because an interstellar ship isn’t an ordinary ship,” Julian said gently. “Within a star system, reaching the edge of the asteroid belt takes six days. But the straight-line distance to the nearest Beyond system is twenty-three light-years. Past the asteroid belt is a vast expanse of nothing—open void. We would fly through that emptiness for a hundred years before reaching the next star system. Returning to Earth would take ten times longer. A ship meant to carry humanity that far must meet many necessary conditions.”
Linneya sniffed. “All right… then how long to build a new New Sunflower?”
“At least six months.”
“We don’t have six days,” Big Blue muttered.
Little White asked, “What happened after that? Did we manage to retreat?”
“By an impossible margin,” Julian said. “We escaped the battlefield without going to war with the swarm.”
Wyatt began, “Lord Julian, please arrange a ship. I need to go and—”
“Wait,” Julian said sharply. “Lord Blin is requesting a direct connection. Let’s hear him first.”
The link opened. Distance added a slight delay to every word.
Blin appeared on the screen. “Oh. Everyone’s here.”
“Everyone is worried,” Julian said. “What’s your status?”
Blin spoke fast. “New Sunflower is done. It lasted seconds before the swarm swallowed it. Then—Titan whales, Titan jellyfish, Titan crabs… cha-cha-cha, I swear it felt like someone opened the gates of hell and everything ugly poured out. We retreated just in time—”
“Lord Blin,” Julian interrupted, “we’ve already shared that. We need the current situation.”
“Right.” Blin’s jaw tightened. “After we pulled away, those monsters chased us within half an hour. Slower than our fleet, but still close. I tried to lure them off with a small detachment—failed. Then I ordered the entire fleet to turn. And you know what happened?”
Big Blue leaned forward. “What?”
“They ignored us,” Blin said. “Straight line toward you. Toward Lansen Planet.”
Linneya’s face went pale. “I hate bugs. Why are so many coming?”
“Either they’re coming to move in,” Blin said, “or they’re coming to send us on our way. Either way, it’s bad. At their speed, they’ll arrive in four days. We’re racing back. We should be about a day and a half ahead of them.”
Silence.
Julian nodded. “Then I understand. In these four days I’ll restore the orbital defense grid, every turret, every missile tower, every power net, and every ground unit we can field.”
“Can you do it?” Blin demanded.
“Barely,” Julian said. “Tomorrow I’ll deliver a detailed defense plan.”
Blin exhaled. “Build the main defensive ring around Edean. With over seventy thousand warships and two hundred thousand fighters… maybe—”
He paused, honest for once. “I don’t know if we can hold. We know too little about Miller now.”
Little White gave a brittle laugh. “Are you kidding me? People have already packed. They’re ready to leave. Now we tell them they can’t go—and they’ve to fight Miller. This… I’m going to lose my mind.”
“Who could’ve predicted this?” Blin said. “Even a novel wouldn’t dare—”
He cut himself off.
“Doesn’t matter. Get moving. In four days, it’s humans versus swarm.”