Evolution - Chapter 62
Chapter 62
The sub-leader was at a loss for words.
Adonis was formidable, true, but confronting him like this was hardly the attitude of someone seeking to cooperate as an ally.
Ji Changqing watched him with her arms crossed.
The two faced off in silence for a good while before Ji Changqing held up two fingers and wiggled them. “First, we let you leave safely and give you some support for your revenge. Second, the people from the Empire don't want to let us go, and they certainly won't let you go either. What do you think?”
The sub-leader’s lips moved, but he remained silent.
Ji Changqing sighed, feigning deep consideration. “I know it’s a difficult decision for you, but it’s not really yours to make. You just need to make a call. Let Adonis handle the rest.”
Those words really hit a nerve.
The sub-leader felt deep down that if he didn’t agree, this lunatic’s next words would likely shift from persuasion to threats, and might even resort to violence.
So he silently held out his hand.
Ji Changqing thoughtfully handed him the optical computer.
The call connected quickly.
Adonis’s resolute and steady face appeared on the screen. “Roy.”
Roy subconsciously straightened his back, his posture impeccable. “Adonis.”
Adonis smiled. “How are you doing? Hmm, you look alright. Are those Alliance people?”
Roy picked at his fingers, a little uneasy. “Yes. They want to talk to you.”
Adonis gave a slight nod, indicating that talking was perfectly fine. “It seems they haven’t given you too much trouble.”
Ji Changqing adjusted the optical computer’s angle and waved magnanimously. “Hey, Adonis. Interested in joining forces to keep the Empire’s people here for good?”
Adonis stroked his chin and smiled.
“It seems you know who I am. Frankly, I’m very interested in keeping the Empire’s people here forever, but I don’t trust you.” He tapped the screen, his eyes filled with scrutiny. “A bunch of military academy candidates. Even if the Fourth Military’s candidates are a cut above average, there’s not much you can do.”
“Hmm, perhaps you’re right.” Ji Changqing wasn’t surprised that he looked down on their abilities and spoke nonchalantly. “But we have about three hundred prisoners on our hands.”
The same military academy candidates you look down on have captured every single one of the companions you sent out.
That was the best testament to their strength.
Adonis’s expression grew serious, and he finally began to regard them with a measure of respect.
“What kind of cooperation do you have in mind, and what’s your offer of sincerity?”
“We’ll return your three hundred-plus men to you,” Ji Changqing said readily. “We have enough manpower, and, uh, we can also help you repair your warship as quickly as possible.”
Adonis smiled. “You provide the labor, we provide the military equipment? Manpower is the cheapest commodity here right now. Some of your candidates have probably been hunted, haven’t they?” A flash of disgust, fleeting and sharp, crossed his eyes.
He paused for a moment. “Since you know who I am, you’re probably hoping I can help increase your chances of rescuing your people.” He sighed softly, as if talking to himself, yet also to Ji Changqing. “It’s been thirty-five years. If the Empire’s military warships haven’t changed much, I might really be able to help quite a bit.”
“The question is, what price can you afford to pay?”
“That depends on what you want.” Ji Changqing raised an eyebrow, perfectly calm. “If it’s reasonable, we can talk.”
“Can you make the decision?”
Ji Changqing looked at him in surprise, as if baffled by such a strange idea. “I can relay the message. After all, I’m just a military academy candidate.”
Adonis couldn’t help but chuckle. He briskly reported the warship’s current condition and the type of personnel needed for repairs. He also offered to provide assistance, enabling the candidates to break through the interstellar communication blockade and send out a distress signal.
The two parties ended the communication on relatively pleasant terms.
The others had already begun relaying the information via flag signals from one station to the next, instructing candidates with the relevant expertise to gather near the base where Lu Youwen and Lu Youxia were located.
Ji Changqing’s group no longer headed for the prisoner holding area. They simply sent a message to have the confiscated weapons delivered to Lu Youwen and Lu Youxia’s location, then hastily changed course and made straight for the base.
By dusk, their party finally arrived and rendezvoused with Lu Youwen and Lu Youxia. By then, in addition to the handpicked technical specialists Adonis had requested, over a hundred other technicians specializing in warship maintenance, information communications, and military ordnance research had also gathered.
There were nearly five hundred technicians, plus about six hundred combat-ready individuals who were equipped with weapons seized from the star pirates and had not yet used their rescue devices.
The large group, with Roy in tow, marched to the rendezvous point where Adonis had sent people to meet them.
This cooperation was an open move to exclude the star pirate leader’s faction.
Ji Changqing had made this demand, and Adonis had agreed without hesitation. Roy was somewhat unhappy, as it showed that neither side trusted their leader, believing his integrity to be questionable.
It was one thing for Ji Changqing and her group; military students naturally had a poor impression of star pirates.
But Adonis was different. They had been comrades-in-arms for over thirty years. Moreover, when he had been at the end of his rope all those years ago, it was their leader who had extended a helping hand!
Adonis was consumed by hatred. Just like last time, when he had ignored the leader’s objections and acted recklessly, bringing this disaster upon them all. And now, instead of repenting, he was doubling down!
Ji Changqing could see Roy’s dissatisfaction, but what of it? They couldn’t risk being betrayed at any moment just to spare his feelings.
When Adonis saw the formidable procession of nearly twelve hundred people enter, a smile touched his lips.
Their warship was designed to accommodate ten thousand people, with at least two thousand required for maintenance, repairs, power, and operations. The star pirate crew had always numbered only two to three thousand, so to conserve energy and manpower, they had to shut down most of the ship’s functions.
So, for him, manpower was actually very important.
Without enough hands, not only would repairs be slow, but they couldn’t even utilize half of the warship’s capabilities, which was both frustrating and a pity.
Technicians had their uses, and non-technicians had theirs. Adonis quickly assigned everyone their roles. After observing for half an hour, he turned to Ji Changqing’s group. “Can you find more people? With another batch this size, the warship can be ready to depart in six hours.”
He tapped the console in the command room. “You’ll stay with me in the command room. That way, everyone can be at ease. To be frank, we have fewer than six hundred of our own people on board right now. You can pick another eight thousand to bring aboard.”
During the hours it took to get here, the two sides had already hammered out most of the terms of their cooperation. Honestly, Adonis’s conditions weren’t steep—after this collaboration was successfully completed, any members of the star pirate crew who had not shed the blood of Alliance civilians could, if they wished, remain in the Alliance. They would be provided with legal identities and settled in designated areas.
If they didn’t want to stay, the Alliance military would secretly support them in stirring up trouble within the Empire.
This was what he had always wanted to do; he had just lacked the opportunity to speak with the Alliance high command. Now that fate had delivered this group of second-generation elites to him, he would certainly seize the chance.
Roy sidled up to him and nudged him in the ribs. “Are you really going to work with them? The Alliance is no saint either…”
Adonis raised a hand to cut him off.
His gaze drifted to the virtual starscape projected in front of the command room. “Roy, you know what? Never underestimate humanity’s capacity for malice. Just like those people in the Empire who persecuted you and me, and just like the leader who once saved us but is now preparing to sell us out.”
Roy’s face was a mask of astonishment!
Even after Adonis presented him with evidence that the man he had always regarded as his savior was planning to betray them to win favor with the Empire, he remained stunned, lost, and in disbelief.
Adonis said no more. His perspective had always been fundamentally different from Roy’s.
Before becoming a star pirate, Roy had been an ordinary person with some proficiency in physique techniques. After his misfortune, he hated the Empire, but he also resented the Alliance, believing that if the Alliance were truly so good, it should have overthrown the Empire long ago and saved everyone.
But he, Adonis, had once served in the military. Even though promotion was difficult, requiring him to work several times harder than others to achieve nearly the same advancement.
He saw things clearly.
The Empire had existed for far longer than the Alliance. Strictly speaking, the current Alliance was composed of starfields that had rebelled against the Empire.
The people of that era had fought indomitably, wave after wave, using the lives and blood of countless martyrs and pioneers to irrigate the freedom, equality, and justice the Alliance now enjoyed.
But behind the light, there will always be darkness.
The Empire was never completely destroyed because the great figures who founded the Alliance’s golden age had a deep understanding of human weakness—the human mind is both the most fragile and the most unbreakable of things. There would always be those filled with malice toward others, clinging to their own privileges; and there would always be those who preferred to take the path that seemed easy but was in fact treacherous…
Just as after Jeff’s suicide, many Betas and Omegas had furiously denounced the powerful, criticized the laws, and taken to the streets in protest, there were also vicious speculations and attacks from Alphas. But what was even more chilling was that a considerable number of Omegas, both foolish and malicious, had argued, “Isn’t the Empire good enough to Omegas? We have privileges from the moment we differentiate, we’re supported by the Empire, we don’t have to struggle like Alphas or work as hard as Betas to make a living. If he made a mistake and went into heat in public, he should accept the punishment. Besides, the Alpha who fully marked him was a noble!”
Just as people from the Empire tried every year to find ways to live in the Alliance, there were also people from the Alliance who defected to the Empire.
One man’s meat is another’s poison.
No matter how flawed the Alliance was, at least here, people had the right to say no!
He glanced at Ji Changqing, who was lounging with a sleepy look on her face; at Gu Changge, who was squatting by the command console, constantly pestering Lu Youxia as she tried to establish an interstellar connection to send a distress signal home, only to be swatted by Eve; at the high-spirited He Qingping; and at Lu Youwen, who was generously seeking advice from his first mate…
Some were Alphas, some Betas, some Omegas, but they seemed largely unaware of their gender differences, focusing instead on each other’s strengths.
The non-technicians crowded around the technicians, letting out gasps of amazement and lavishing them with praise, only to be shooed away with laughing scolds by the technicians themselves.
He turned his face away, his eyes moist.
This was the life Jeff had always dreamed of! A life where one could freely display their abilities and choose their own path, unrestricted by gender.
Not a life that seemed privileged and comfortable, carefully protected by the Empire, yet was in fact a deeply shackled, ornamental existence defined by one’s gender.
If only his Jeff could have lived in a place like the Alliance, he wouldn’t have suffered such a calamity and ended his young life so soon.
Jeff, if you can see this from heaven, you would agree with your brother’s actions, wouldn’t you? No one else should repeat this tragedy. We can’t let more people be destroyed by those beasts.
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