CHAPTER 233: CHAPTER 233 - ESCAPE AT LAST

Dican ran.

His breath came ragged, his shoulder aching under Bian’s weight. The prince hung limp in his arms, unconscious again, his skeletal left arm wrapped in a strip of Dican’s own torn jacket to protect it from jostling. Behind him, the old man stumbled through the smoke-filled corridor, carrying little Quangya—his wiry arms locked protectively around the boy’s small frame. Quangya clung to him tightly, silent, his eyes wide with terror but dry. He hadn’t made a sound since they left the vent. He was too stunned for crying.

They were completely defenseless. A frail human elder, and a child who barely reached Dican’s knee.

And the ship was falling apart around them.

"Keep up!" Dican barked, not looking back. "We’re almost there!"

The old man didn’t respond, but his steps stayed close, shuffling as fast as his failing body could carry the child. The corridor twisted sharply, a wide support beam having collapsed across the floor. Dican leapt over it, pivoting midair and glancing back only long enough to catch the old man’s elbow and yank him forward.

The ship groaned again—deep, wet, organic.

Vines poured from the ceiling, rupturing vent shafts and clawing through exposed wires. The lights flickered violently. As one vine snapped downward toward the old man, Dican turned, brought his Void Pulse blade around with a vicious screech, and sliced clean through it.

Another came. And another.

"Go!" he roared.

The old man stumbled ahead. Dican spun again, cutting down vines as they whipped toward him like striking serpents. He didn’t even notice the glowing spores coating his arms, the faint stinging of his skin where acid had splashed.

They reached the docking junction. One of the emergency escape bays—thank the stars—was still intact. The pressure lights above the door flickered erratically, but the inner hatch glowed green.

Still operational.

Dican lunged toward the panel and slammed the release.

The hatch slid open with a hiss, revealing a small but sleek escape vessel—one of the Farian reconnaissance pods, designed for stealth and rapid evacuation. The old man ran in first, lowering Quangya into one of the crash seats and strapping him in with trembling fingers.

Dican followed, still carrying Bian.

He barely managed to secure the prince in the adjacent seat before another alarm screamed behind them—proximity breach.

The vines had reached the escape bay.

They burst into the room, wild and hungry, slamming into the metal walls, shattering panels. One wrapped around the edge of the doorway just as Dican leapt back inside the pod and slammed his fist against the engage button.

The hatch snapped shut with milliseconds to spare.

Vines smashed against the outer hull. A high-pitched shriek—like metal being twisted from the inside—rattled through the escape pod.

And then, with a sharp jolt, the pod disengaged.

They shot upward—violently.

Dican was flung into his crash harness. Quangya whimpered softly in the background, and Bian stirred once in pain but didn’t wake.

Outside, the viewport showed the massive Farian vessel below them—looming, majestic, and broken.

The vines had spread across its surface like a living net. More flowers bloomed now, of all colors, each one opening in sync like lungs exhaling.

The ship tried to resist. A final pulse of power lit up the main engine core.

But it wasn’t enough.

The vines crushed it inward like a paper sculpture. A massive blossom—twenty meters wide—emerged from the bridge. And then, as if taking one final breath, the entire vessel collapsed in on itself.

Gone.

Devoured.

Dican stared wordlessly, his knuckles white on the armrest.

More pods launched from beneath—he counted three, then five, then one last trailing behind with sputtering thrusters. Survivors. Not many. But not none.

He exhaled slowly.

Beside him, the old man sat hunched over, head bowed.

Quangya clutched at his sleeve with small fingers and whispered, "Are we going to die now?"

Dican didn’t answer for a moment.

Then he reached out, gently resting his hand on the boy’s head. "Not today."

He glanced at the unconscious Bian, at the tattered remnants of the prince’s body, the way his broken arm looked more ghost than limb.

The escape pod shook once, then steadied, systems adjusting to the upper layers of the atmosphere. The deep thrumming of the planet below faded gradually, replaced by the low, quiet hum of the ship’s emergency life support and propulsion.

Dican was strapping a medwrap across Bian’s torso when a faint ping echoed from the front console.

An incoming comm.

He moved forward quickly, tapping the console screen. Static flared, then the image of Rhea flickered into view—blurred, smudged with blood and dirt, but unmistakably alive.

Her usually sharp, composed demeanor was cracked. Her hair was matted to one side, eyes wide, face pale, a fresh gash stretched from her temple down to her cheek.

"Rhea," Dican breathed, stunned with relief. "You made it."

She gave a stiff nod. "So did you."

Dican glanced over his shoulder at the old man and Quangya—huddled quietly in the rear seats—then down at Bian’s motionless form beside him.

"Barely," he muttered.

Rhea didn’t miss the way his voice faltered. "Is the prince...?"

"Alive," Dican said. "But injured. Badly."

She didn’t press, but her silence said enough. After a long pause, she lifted her chin and reported:

"Of the six pods that disengaged, only four are transmitting stable life signs. That’s... that’s just over fifty crew."

Dican froze.

Only fifty?

He had personally signed the departure order with over two hundred Farian personnel on board. Scientists. Engineers. Pilots. Veterans. They had arrived in full glory.

Now they were reduced to a handful of escape ships limping through the upper atmosphere like stunned birds.

"What about the rest?" he asked quietly.

Rhea’s jaw tightened. "Some confirmed killed. Others are still MIA. The vines destroyed the lower decks before most of them even reached the launch bays. Communications went dark immediately after our launch. There’s no way of knowing how many more pods made it—or didn’t."

Dican looked away.

His grip on the console edge whitened, his knuckles going pale.

Fifty. That was all.

Fifty out of hundreds.

His throat tightened. Grief rose like bile in his chest, but he forced it down. Now was not the time.

"We can’t make deep space jumps with these," Rhea continued, as if reading his thoughts. "The recon pods are made for stealth, not distance. The fuel cells are depleted from atmospheric escape alone. We’re essentially deadweight until pickup."

Dican straightened, voice hardening. "Then we stay together. All four pods. No splitting off. We maintain coordinated drift just outside the planet’s gravitational field. Begin broadcasting low-level distress frequencies. Use the Farian naval code matrix—they’ll pick it up eventually."

Rhea nodded. "Already transmitting."

A pause.

Dican’s voice softened. "You did well."

Rhea exhaled quietly. "I’ll keep you updated, your highness."

The feed cut off.

Silence fell once more.

Dican sat down slowly, every bone in his body aching. He glanced at the child. Quangya had drifted into a fitful sleep in the old man’s arms, but even in slumber, his brow was furrowed, small hands still clenched in tight fists.

Dican leaned back and stared out through the narrow viewport.

The planet below was shrinking, wrapped in clouds and bloom and terror.

The flowered surface still pulsed faintly, as if watching.

As if it remembered.

He tightened his hand into a fist.

Fifty.

Just fifty.

The void was vast and cold and waiting. But for now, they drifted, together. Four fragile ships barely holding themselves intact, wounded survivors wrapped in metal cocoons, suspended in silence above a planet that had swallowed their past.

They would wait.

And if no one came?

He would have to find another way.

Dican moved quietly through the narrow interior of the escape pod, careful not to disturb the others. The lights had dimmed into emergency mode, casting long amber shadows across the walls. The hum of the engines was now barely perceptible, reduced to the soft rhythm of recycled air being pushed through narrow vents.

He knelt by the small storage panel near the med-bay seat and slid it open. Inside, compact Farian-standard supply kits were arranged in neat rows. His hands moved without thinking—grabbing the trauma satchel, ripping it open, spreading its contents in efficient motion.

Powdered hemostatic agent.

Stabilizers.

Pain repressors.

High-grade cell-free plasma wrap.

He drew in a slow breath. His fingers hovered over the open pouch of antiseptic clotting powder. A moment’s hesitation.

Then he looked over his shoulder.

Bian was still lying there—strapped into the seat, unconscious, head tilted to one side. His long hair was matted and stuck to his cheek, streaked with dried sap and sweat. His breathing had steadied, but his face was pale, lips cracked. Every now and then, his brow twitched—as if some dream or memory still clawed at him from the dark.

And his left arm—

Dican’s gaze dropped to it.

He had already wrapped it in emergency bandage, but the truth could not be hidden: there was no longer flesh. No longer muscle. Just thin, stripped bone beginning halfway down the shoulder, protruding like the remnants of something ancient, something already dead.

Even Farian regeneration—they couldn’t fix this. No technology could rebuild what had been dissolved, molecule by molecule, by that flower’s terrible sap.