Chương 2: 02.Desperate Gamble 02-1

The moment I asked, College boy gave me a very subtle look. Something between "You're finally making a sane decision" and "I might be celebrating too early." His fingers were still pressed to the console, lenses full of flashing red warnings.

"There are," he said.

"Emergency escape pods on the third deck, aft section. Theoretically still functional." Theoretically. I hated those three words. Because in Federation vocabulary, "theoretically" usually translated to "good fucking luck." Before I could press further, the Empire's first countervolley arrived. Not looked like it was arriving. Actually arrived.

The cluster of blood-red targeting lines on the right side of the main projection—looking like someone's period had gone completely haywire—had just finished overlapping our ship's outline when the entire vessel lurched hard to port. BOOM—— That wasn't sound. It was impact. The kind of full-body shock where an entire warship gets slapped across the face by high-energy fire and you can feel every structural beam screaming. The forward armor bulkhead on the bridge buckled inward.

The outer deflector shield shattered into cascading blue-white fractures like tempered glass hit with a sledgehammer. Overhead lighting died instantly, then strobed back to life on backup power. I was thrown clear across the bridge, shoulder slamming into the corner of the tactical table hard enough that I nearly cursed out eighteen generations of ancestors. Fuck. That hurt. These Imperial bastards really didn't pull punches. The Federation grunts behind me had it worse.

Two went tumbling into the walls; one cracked his forehead on a mounting bracket and started bleeding immediately. The last one had been restraining a surrendered prisoner—now they were both tangled on the deck in a heap. The whole scene looked like my room after a failed deep-cleaning, plus an earthquake. An entire row of control panels on the port side blew simultaneously. Sparks fountained bright and vicious.

One unlucky Imperial crewman was kneeling right there—superheated shrapnel shredded his entire upper body before he could finish screaming, and he just folded sideways. Blood ran across the tilted deck, mixing with coolant and some foul-smelling insulation compound, turning a color as ugly as spilled cheap cafeteria food.... Disgusting. My boots definitely needed washing again. I grabbed the tactical table and hauled myself upright, ears still ringing.

Whatever satisfaction I'd felt about our successful backstab had just been vaporized to cosmic dust by Imperial main batteries. But they hadn't hit the ship's heart. That meant their first countervolley was a hasty corrected salvo—not a precision execution shot on our vitals. Which meant we had a few more seconds to be people. After that, probably just debris.

"Damage report!" I yelled, scooping up the battle axe that had nearly rolled away. Honestly, standing on a starship bridge holding an axe was absurd. But for some reason, having this thing in my hands made me feel safer. Like how some people need a stuffed animal to sleep. Mine just happened to be capable of bisecting people. College boy was death-gripping his console, face drained white.

"Forward outer armor compromised twenty-seven percent. Deflector shields collapsed across three layers. Port fire-control array offline. Primary comms unstable. Artificial gravity fluctuations worsening—" The bridge shuddered again from a second wave of near-misses. Not direct hits, but worse in a way—it meant they were walking their fire onto target.

"—and," he said through gritted teeth, "forward observation window three is cracked." I looked up. It was. White fracture lines were crawling down from the upper left corner of the thick transparent observation layer, spreading like someone was raising a massive spider behind the glass. Through it, the blue-white artillery fire, exploding debris, and tumbling ship silhouettes outside were all sliced into fragmented pieces. Pretty, actually. Assuming I didn't have to shatter along with it.

"Everyone up!" I barked at the Federation soldiers still sprawled on the deck.

"Save the crying and puking for when you're alive! Move!" The words were barely out when the rear corridor access blew open with a bang. A cutting beam swept through the gap, immediately shearing a massive chunk of armor plating off a Federation grunt who'd just gotten to his feet. He went down screaming—lucky it hadn't cut into meat, or there'd be another pile of viscera I'd have to step around.

"Imperial internal security forces!" someone yelled. I turned and almost laughed. Not because it was funny. Because the universe genuinely loved bundling all its shit into discount packages. Outside the bridge doors, three Imperial soldiers in heavy breaching gear were pushing inward along cover. Not the bargain-bin ship crew from earlier—this was clearly higher-tier suppression units.

Thicker chest plates, narrower visors, close-quarters cutting rifles and collapsible shields that definitely weren't designed for conversation. My stomach dropped looking at that gear. Shit. I'd spoken too soon earlier. This was getting uncomfortably close to armored grenadier territory.

"Keep them out!" I kicked the nearest gasping Federation grunt toward cover.

"College boy, keep working the ship—I've got this!"

"Alone?"

"You volunteering?" The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

"... I'm better at paperwork."

"I can tell!" I was already moving. The bridge wasn't large. Upside: however good their equipment was, they couldn't fully deploy their firepower. Downside: however good their equipment was, I'd probably get turned into Swiss cheese before I closed distance. The first Imperial saw me coming and immediately raised his shield, cutting rifle leveled at my chest. Textbook. Too bad I was in a spectacularly shitty mood.

I feinted hard right to force his tracking, then dropped low and slid through the blood-slicked deck into his blind spot. The axe came up from below, aimed straight at his knee joint. The moment the high-frequency field bit into the armor seam, it felt like a can opener catching on tin. Resistance. Then it gave. His leg folded outward. Before he hit the deck, I drove the axe blade under his shield edge and dragged it upward along his abdominal plating. Blood didn't spray immediately.

First came superheated steam and shredded synthetic fibers. Then dark blood started pulsing out through the gap I'd carved. As he collapsed, his throat made a sound like a dying water pump. My first thought was:... This blood spatter is going to be a nightmare to clean off the axe. The second Imperial moved to hit my flank. The rookie behind me—the one whose shaking had annoyed me earlier—finally proved he wasn't pure decoration. A burst of beam fire caught the edge of the Imperial's shield.

Didn't penetrate, but threw his stance off. Good. Progress. He'd evolved from standing there waiting to die to creating opportunities for someone else to die. I brought the axe around in a reverse swing at the Imperial's temple. Not a cut—a hammer blow. The high-frequency edge scraped his visor while the main impact crushed the entire faceplate and half the helmet inward. The muffled crunch of fracturing bone felt like denting a tin can packed with meat.

"Next," I panted. The last Imperial made the smart call: I was more dangerous than the grunts, so he pivoted and charged straight for the operator station. I almost respected that. Not contempt—correct tactics. Take out the one flying the ship before wasting time on the lunatic with the axe. Problem was, the one flying the ship was College boy. Sure, he talked like a job interview, ran like a charity marathon, and looked pale enough to need vitamin D supplements.

But right now he was the only person aboard who could read Imperial. That kind of rare resource wasn't something I could let someone just cut down. I moved without thinking. The Imperial's cutting rifle was already coming up, muzzle ring flaring bright. I couldn't close the gap in time, so I just let the axe go. It spun once in the air. The flat of the head slammed into the side of his helmet—not the blade, but enough to knock his aim wide.

The cutting beam scorched past College boy's ear and neatly sliced the entire metal frame behind his chair into two glowing halves. College boy froze completely. I used that half-second to tackle the Imperial from behind, locking my arm around his throat while yanking the monomolecular utility knife from my belt. I started stabbing into the armor gap at his armpit. Once. Twice. The third thrust hit flesh. Warm liquid flooded over my hand, running down my wrist.

He went berserk, driving his elbow back into my ribs hard enough to make me see stars—but I didn't let go. I shoved the blade deeper and twisted. He finally went limp. When I threw the body aside, my heart was hammering. Not the shoujo manga kind of heartbeat. The we almost died together thirty seconds ago kind. College boy turned to look at me, one corner of his glasses cracked.

"You..." he started.

"What."

"Did you just save me?" I glared at him.

"Don't flatter yourself. I just didn't want to break in a new Imperial translator." He actually smiled. In this blood-soaked hellhole with alarms screaming and main batteries outside winding up for another volley—he smiled. And it was kind of... No. Not going there. I physically tore my gaze away from his face and went to retrieve the axe from where it had landed in the deck. Fuck. Had I seriously thought, even for a split second, that he looked good when he smiled? I definitely had a concussion.

"Hoshino."

"What."

"Your ear's bleeding." I touched the side of my head reflexively. Fingers came away red. Oh. That explained the warmth.

"Just a scratch," I said, flicking the blood off.

"As long as my makeup's fine."

"You're not wearing makeup."

"Shut up." I walked back to the tactical display. The situation outside had gotten even messier. The Federation fleet had used the seconds we'd bought them—pushed forward successfully, forcing those two Imperial flank ships out of comfortable formation. But the cost was obvious— Our ship had become the center of everyone's attention. The Empire wanted to blow us up first. The Federation was waiting for us to hold out a little longer. Hilarious.

All I wanted was to finish my service term, pay off my debt, and maybe get my nails done once in a while. Now I'd somehow become the critical shit-stirrer for this entire local engagement. Was the universe expecting a bit too much from me? College boy adjusted his cracked glasses and looked at me.

"The escape pods are still viable."

"Yeah, I know."

"Then why did you ask—""Just felt like asking."

"... What?" I stared at our ship's power flow diagram on the tactical display, and a significantly worse idea started growing in my head. The compound-phase cannon's secondary charge heat hadn't vented. Main capacitors still back-feeding. Port side damaged, attitude control unstable. Main reactor intact. Bow heavily compromised. Outer shields patchy and uneven. In other words—this ship was currently a half-cooked bomb. Since we were going to blow anyway, why not make it count? I licked my dry lips.

"College boy."

"I have a bad feeling about this."

"Good." I pointed at the Imperial capital ship pulling back to reset its firing solution on us.

"Lock our bow attitude like we've lost main control. Then hide every remaining thrust correction until the last five seconds." He stared at me.

"... What are you planning?" I grinned. Actually smiled this time. Not a healthy one—more like the smile you get when you spot the last limited-edition pudding in a convenience store and notice there's no security camera in that corner.

"If they're so eager to hit us," I said, "let's give them a target worth hitting." I tapped the axe handle against the display, right on the approach vector between us and that Imperial flagship.

"Once they commit their full fire solution to us, we drop what's left of the outer shields and broadcast every reactor overload warning we've got. Make it look like we're tearing ourselves apart." College boy went pale.

"And then?"

"And then," I said quietly, watching that Imperial marker, "the moment they classify us as a dying derelict and move in to confirm the kill—""We dump main reactor output into the attitude thrusters and ram them." The bridge went silent. Even the Federation grunts behind me shut up. Probably because this plan had crossed the line from tactics into this woman never intended to survive territory. College boy's mouth twitched.

"... This isn't underhanded anymore."

"What is it then?"

"It's insane." That actually made me feel better.

"Perfect." I clapped his shoulder.

"If you're calling it insane, it probably has real potential." He looked at me with an expression caught between we should get you psych evaluated and I kind of want to laugh.

"You realize how low the success rate is?"

"Yup."

"And if the angle's off, we'll get shredded halfway there?"

"Yup."

"Then why—""What else?" I cut him off and glanced up at the cracked observation window. Space was black. Artillery was bright. The crossing ship silhouettes looked like deep-sea monsters tearing at each other, every bite chewing up hundreds or thousands of lives. Our broken ship was wedged in the worst—and best—possible spot. I spoke quietly.

"Escape pods are for normal people." I turned back to him.

"Do I look normal to you right now?" College boy was quiet for two seconds. Then he let out a very soft sigh. Not surrender—more like acceptance.

"... No."

"Exactly." I swung the axe back onto my shoulder and planted my feet. My ear was still bleeding. My shoulder still hurt. My ribs were probably bruised. My hair looked like it had been styled by a blast wave, and someone else's blood was drying in my bangs. Honestly, all I wanted was a shower, ice-cold cola, a face mask, and to dump all this bullshit on tomorrow-me. Unfortunately, today-me wasn't dead yet. So I had to send someone else to die first.

"College boy."

"... Ready."

"Prepare for a suicide charge." He lowered his head toward the console, fingers settling on keys that would decide whether we pulled off a miracle or got collectively vaporized.

"Copy."