Chương 263: 108. First Sortie 2

By the time we got back to the bridge, the four boys who'd gone ahead were already changed. The second I registered that row of rank tabs, I genuinely wondered whether the Federal personnel system had just taken incidental splash damage from the Imperial fleet too. Aside from Ash, the other three were all Ensigns. Only Ash was different. He stood there, uniform crisp enough to have been peeled straight off a recruitment poster, and the rank tab on his shoulder caught the light with an absolute lack of shame.

Captain, Third Class. I stared at it for two seconds while my brain automatically translated it into plain language. Captain, Third Class. In other words: somewhere in this batch of cadets hastily conscripted to plug holes, someone had slipped in what amounted to a monster practically equivalent to a Major.... Why, exactly? I turned to check whether I was the only one who found this absurd, and caught the corner of Maki's eye twitch — very slightly.

Small enough that anyone who didn't know her well would probably write it off as an optical glitch. But precisely because it happened on Maki's face, it landed as more credible, not less. Not simple surprise. Not pure irritation either. More like this assignment is obviously deranged, but this is not the moment to litigate it — that exact, very Maki blend of frustration and impatience. Good. So I hadn't lost my mind. Even Maki thought this was ridiculous.

"Good. You're finally starting to look like soldiers." Tobita looked us over the way you'd inspect a batch of parts freshly off the line — barely cleared for use, but usable. The man was just standing at the front of the bridge, and yet he had a way of making it feel like even the air needed his sign-off before it was allowed to circulate.

Especially now, with the Yukikaze locked into pre-sortie readiness — lighting dropped, main screen holding at tactical standby — Tobita's face, never exactly built for kind words on a good day, looked under that cold light like it had NO NEGOTIATION engraved straight into the forehead.

"In principle, I'm keeping the station assignments from your last practicum," Tobita said.

"I'd have liked to rotate you through other positions — but safety first." Out of an ordinary instructor's mouth, that might have carried a trace of humanity. Out of his, it sounded more like: I wanted to play a bigger game today, but I don't have time to supervise your deaths personally. He glanced down at his terminal and started calling names.

"Ensign Akari Flak." Akari stepped forward. She still looked like she'd been running on caffeine and grievances for roughly ten thousand years. The uniform didn't sharpen her up any — it just turned her into a fully legalized, overworked ghost. Tobita pointed toward the forward station.

"Operations Officer and radar."

"Fine." Akari's voice stayed in that same half-dead monotone.

"Isn't that... one more job than last time—" Tobita didn't acknowledge it. No — not so much ignored it, as automatically filed it under cosmic background noise. As long as she was still upright, the assignment stood.

"Ensign Lan Weiss." Lan's shoulders snapped back, clean as a blade going home in its sheath.

"Communications."

"Sir." Her voice came out steady. If I hadn't seen her expression in that corridor less than an hour ago — the one that said mention last night and I make you disappear — I might genuinely have believed she'd been born to be this kind of regulation-grade, riot-suppressing model soldier.

"Ensign Roy Hartmann." Tobita's hand shifted toward the engine telegraph and the main navigation console.

"Helmsman and Chief Navigator."

"Y-yes, sir..." Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions. Roy's answer came a beat slow. Not hesitation, exactly — more the pace of someone whose mouth already knew it had to say yes, while his soul was still actively trying to make a run for it. I didn't even need to look to know his face had probably reached the advanced stage of I want to cry, but I can't cry on the bridge.

Setting everything else aside — being yanked straight out of shore leave and dropped directly into Helmsman and Chief Navigator was enough pressure on its own to send anyone's stomach acid climbing straight into their skull. Honestly, the fact that Roy hadn't said I'd like to request disembarkation on the spot already counted as a genuine display of loyalty to the Federal military.

"Ensign Aida Rosen."

"Understood." Aida practically answered before he finished, clearly having already read on Tobita's face that she had no leverage to negotiate her job description.

"Still on damage control," Tobita said.

"But this time, add engine monitoring and scientific analysis." The corner of Aida's mouth twitched, barely. Not refusal. Just the brief, involuntary middle finger a person extends toward fate the instant they hear their workload doubled in a single sentence.

"Ensign Jess McCallow."

"Here—" Jess had a quality, even standing at attention, of radiating is there something entertaining I might get to watch energy. She was, fundamentally, a life form poorly suited to an actual regulation bridge. Tobita looked at her once.

"Same station. Tactical support."

"Copy."

"But pay attention this time," Tobita added, twisting the knife.

"If Lieutenant Hoshino gets called away to the fighter mid-operation, you take over weapons control immediately." I'd been quietly mourning for Jess in my head, and then it hit me a second later — Wait. What? My head snapped up. Jess turned to look at me with perfect timing, her whole face lit up with oh — so your turn's come too, gleeful enough that I genuinely considered strangling her on the spot — or at minimum, halfway. Tobita seemed to be thoroughly enjoying the half-second my expression stayed frozen.

He took his time bringing his gaze around to me.

"Lieutenant Hoshino Shimo." Done for. Even the way he said my name carried a distinct flavor of all right, your turn now.

"Just as you heard." Tobita gave a short, dry laugh. That laugh was rare. And infuriating. Not the kind of warmth a superior offers a junior officer. This was the laugh of an adult whose prank had just landed exactly as planned — legal revenge, finally collected.

"On top of your duties as tactical officer, this ship's one and only fighter craft is yours." I stared at him.

"... Why." He answered without a beat of hesitation.

"Because you beat me." My brain went blank for half a second. Then the first thought that surfaced was plain, unadorned, and entirely human. Motherfucker. This was nothing but public revenge for a private grudge. You beat me, so congratulations — go fly the ship's only fighter. What kind of logic was that? At this rate, the Federal military might as well scrap its entire promotion system and replace it with a gladiatorial arena — beat your CO, get promoted; lose to your CO, clean the latrines.

The efficiency would probably be better anyway. But Tobita clearly had no interest in fighting me on it. He'd apparently already predicted the explosion and cut cleanly to the next batch of assignments before I could actually deliver it.

"Evelyn, Harvey, D — CIC." Three voices answered in unison and moved out fast. The entire assignment sequence ran without a single wasted beat. Every name, every station, every order sounded like it had already been drafted in Tobita's head long before this moment, just waiting for the chance to pour out all at once. That fluency was the most unsettling part. It meant he hadn't grabbed us at random to fill gaps. He'd already calculated, in advance, exactly which slot each of us could be jammed into.

Then his gaze moved to Maki.

"Captain Maki Kushima." Maki came to attention.

"You remain Executive Officer," Tobita said.

"Assist anyone who falls behind."

"Sir." She answered with total calm. Calm enough to be infuriating. Not at her. At the universe. Because the assignment made terrifying sense. Standing there — the tabs, the posture, the voice, the eyes — every part of her said the same thing: yes, this is exactly where she belongs. And I felt a specific, unpleasant sensation settle in.

The kind you get when you'd thought you were standing close enough to someone, only to watch a real wartime structure click into place and lift them smoothly back up to a higher, more correct, more self-evident position. You hadn't lost her. You'd just suddenly seen, with total clarity, that the distance had been there all along.... Deeply irritating. And unfairly impressive. Finally, Tobita's gaze landed on Ash.

"Captain, Third Class, Ash Vander." Ash stepped forward. Movements clean, economical — even his breathing sounded pre-calculated.

"Assist me. And learn."

"Sir." Three words. I understood them. So did everyone else. This wasn't a standard emergency bump up the ladder. This was being dropped directly at the Captain's side to shadow him from the opening move — which meant he'd been seated, from minute one, in the highest observation post the Yukikaze's entire improvised command structure had to offer. I stared at the tab on Ash's shoulder and had exactly one question left in my head.... How much had that guy paid Tobita under the table? No — seriously.

This was absurd, wasn't it? Even under wartime conscription, you can't just deal the cards like this. Was the Federal military's personnel system actually built on merit, seniority, and ability — or on some kind of esoteric tabletop rulebook only the upper tier ever got to read? But no matter how hard I flipped tables in my head, Captain Tobita clearly had no intention of providing customer-service-grade explanations for why Ash had just cleared half a dozen rungs of the promotion ladder in a single step.

Because the next second, he'd already put on the peaked cap. The gesture was light. It still worked like a switch. The instant the brim came down, the whole atmosphere of the bridge dropped with it. Tobita looked forward. His voice wasn't loud, but it carried clean across the entire bridge without any effort at all.

"All right. Stations." Nobody spoke. Nobody sniped. Even Jess — whose mouth was constitutionally incapable of idling for more than thirty seconds — only managed one long breath. And Captain Tobita gave the final order.

"Yukikaze. Prepare to sortie." At that, the status lights across the bridge shifted into combat mode one by one, as if they'd understood the words themselves. Consoles lit up. The search display unfolded. Comm channels unlocked. The ship's low system tones rolled through the hull like some vast metal creature slowly waking up from the inside. I stood at my station, watching the tactical interface come alive in front of me, and a completely inappropriate, brutally honest thought surfaced.

A few hours ago, I'd been trying to figure out how to pretend I hadn't noticed the obscenely oversized, obscenely soft bed in a love hotel. Now I was Lieutenant aboard the Yukikaze — tactical officer, and the ship's one and only fighter pilot. Life really isn't something you should examine too closely.