Chương 4: 03.Barely Breathing, But Alive 03-1

The moment the escape pod launched, I finally understood what it meant to be "kicked out of a coffin." Not flying. Kicked. The whole pod lurched like some ill-tempered god had grabbed it and flung it into deep space without looking. The harness slammed into my shoulders, I crashed back into my seat, and every bit of air got punched from my lungs. My vision went black for a full second. Fuck. If I ever get to write a complaint letter, the first one's going to the escape pod design department.

This thing was less comfortable than a prison bunk. The pod was spinning. Half a roll left, then the shockwave from the explosion behind us whipped it hard right. Warning lights strobed like a bar running its final promotion before closing. The Federation grunts around me were either dry-heaving, praying, or—in one case, probably concussed—clutching the safety rail and muttering Mom, I'll study harder from now on.... Right. Great time to become a model student. I forced my head sideways to check on College boy.

He was right there to my right, harness cutting diagonally across his chest, breathing hard. His cracked glasses were gone—no idea when they'd flown off. Without them, his face was suddenly clearer than I needed it to be. Brow ridge, corner of his eye, the scorch mark from where the beam had grazed him. All uncomfortably close. Honestly, this was already past normal squadmate social distance. Unfortunately, the pod was the size of a tin can, so I didn't have much room to complain.

He seemed to notice me looking and turned his head.

"You're still alive?" I rolled my eyes.

"Disappointed?"

"No." He caught his breath, and his mouth actually moved.

"Just wanted to confirm I didn't risk my ass for nothing."

"Relax, you got your money's worth." I wiped something from the corner of my mouth—blood, probably mine.

"Suicide-charge tactics on that scale don't come around every day."

"I'd prefer they never came around at all."

"Then you should've gone to a library, not the front line." He laughed quietly. Strange man. We'd just gambled our lives on a bridge, nearly had our insides blended by impact shock, and he was still capable of laughing. Either his nerves were made of something unusual, or he'd caught my particularly unhealthy attitude toward survival. The second seemed increasingly likely. The pod's stabilizers finally kicked in. The violent tumbling eased, and through the small forward observation port, the view steadied.

I got my first clear look at the Imperial cruiser we'd just rammed.... Wow. Up close, it was genuinely horrific. Not ordinary horrific. The kind you'd show first-year military academy cadets while the instructor stood silent for five seconds before saying: This, class, is why you don't let lunatics near main reactors and thrusters. The cruiser had broken completely in half. The forward section still held some structure—like a massive creature gutted but not yet aware it was dead, trailing fire and debris.

The rear section was more direct about it: almost entirely destroyed. Internal explosions were still peeling outward layer by layer, venting decompression jets mixed with flame, wreckage, and things better left unexamined. Every so often, emergency escape pods ejected from the breach. Some made it. Others cleared the hull only to be immediately struck by spinning armor plate or superheated debris, turning into brief points of light. Brutal. But that was the battlefield.

Everyone wanted to live—some people just lived more slowly than others. Further out, the Federation fleet had seized the gap and was pushing through. The Second and Fourth Ships, which had been getting hammered minutes ago, seemed to suddenly remember they had teeth. Main batteries cycling in steady salvos into the Imperial center line. The beam that had finished the cruiser had barely dissipated before First Ship's secondaries were already correcting onto Imperial hulls thrown off-axis by debris avoidance.

The Empire hadn't broken. Good—if they'd collapsed entirely from this, I'd have started wondering whether I'd been fighting some kind of tutorial simulation. They were still falling back, still blocking, still trying to reform. But the tempo wasn't theirs anymore. A battlefield was like mahjong. You could be drawing perfectly, but if someone flips the table at the right moment, every turn after that plays ugly. The person who'd flipped the table was me. Thinking about it that way—actually kind of satisfying.

"Looks like a turnaround," College boy said quietly. I watched the crossing artillery and tumbling ship silhouettes, the smell of burnt plastic still heavy in the recycled air, and took two seconds before answering.

"Don't call it yet."

"You're usually the first to say something bold."

"That's because I'm usually not the one cleaning up after." I paused.

"Besides, the Federation's greatest talent is finding ways to lose when they're almost winning." The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

"... That's unfortunately convincing."

"Right." One of the Federation grunts finally broke, voice shaking: "D-did we actually do it?" I glanced at him. His face was still smeared with someone else's blood, but his eyes had that particular brightness of someone who'd just won his first lottery ticket. That expression was dangerous on the front line. People who got excited too early usually died fastest.

"Probably," I said.

"As long as you don't start writing your victory speech." He blinked.

"What?"

"The moment you start thinking you're impressive, the universe tends to schedule a correction." I looked back out the port.

"Stay quiet. Like me." College boy turned to look at me.

"Do you have a serious misunderstanding of what 'staying quiet' means?"

"Not at all." I kept my face neutral.

"I just survived ramming a warship. If that's not restrained, I don't know what is."

"It really isn't."

"You're very loud for someone who almost got vaporized." He smiled more visibly this time. Without the glasses, that scholarly quality—the kind that suggested he normally organized professors' paperwork—had mostly washed away. Especially now, with his hair disheveled, collar loose, and that scorch mark still visible. He had this look that was— No. Stop. Why were certain men completely unremarkable until after a battle, then suddenly they looked like problematic light novel side characters?

I turned back to the debris field outside. Not avoiding anything. Just strategically repositioning my attention. Much safer out there. Nothing was going to make eye contact.

"Why did you come back for me?" he asked suddenly. I nearly choked.

"What?"

"The last Imperial soldier." His tone was completely even.

"You could have dodged first, or let someone else take the shot. But you came straight at him."... Was something wrong with this person? First thing after surviving a battle and he wasn't checking his limbs or asking about the fleet outcome—he was asking this. I frowned.

"I told you. Because you read Imperial."

"Just that?"

"What else would there be?" He looked at me. Said nothing. Just looked. Without the glasses, his gaze had no business being this inconvenient. Somehow he had this effect where your own deflections started sounding obvious even to you. I got tired of being looked at and went on the offensive.

"If you'd died, who files my report? Who reads the console? Who translates Imperial? You had very high functional value on that ship, College boy."

"So I'm just highly functional."

"What did you think you were?" He was quiet for half a beat. Then, very quietly: "I thought maybe you'd mind losing me, a little."... What. That was completely unfair. The low-key, almost offhand delivery made it worse—that was always worse than something said with intent. Heat rushed to my ears again. Thank God the pod lighting was chaotic. Probably.

"You're overthinking it." I turned forward, forcing my voice into something impatient.

"I just didn't want to waste a rare resource."

"Ah."

"What's that supposed to mean."

"Nothing." The corner of his mouth moved.

"Just that your stubbornness is very consistent."

"Keep talking and I'll kick you out of this pod."

"Technically impossible. Not enough space."

"..." Fuck. The moment he learned to talk back, he got immediately insufferable. The worse part was that I almost wanted to laugh. Which made it more insufferable. The pod's navigation system hummed and made a small course correction, steering around a tumbling chunk of armor plate. As it scraped past the observation port, I caught my own reflection in the glass. Hair like something had chewed it. Blood still drying near my ear. Face striped with ash and red, like I'd gone AWOL from a horror film set.

Honestly ugly. I clicked my tongue.

"Fuck."

"What?"

"I look terrible right now." College boy blinked, clearly not expecting that conclusion at this moment.

"... Seriously?"

"Obviously." I reached up to push my bangs back and immediately felt dried blood clumped through them. The texture made me want to cut the whole section off.

"Brain matter, blood, coolant, debris—all of it hit me at once. My hair's probably knotted like scrapped cable. Ear's still bleeding. There's probably scorch marks on my face. If anyone photographed me right now, I'd rather go ram another ship." He looked at me for two full seconds. Then said, with complete seriousness: "You're fine." I frowned.

"What do you mean, fine?"

"You don't look terrible."

"Are you trying to comfort me?"

"More like stating a fact." I narrowed my eyes.

"Did almost dying make you bold?"

"Possibly." He paused.

"Or maybe I just can't see the details clearly without my glasses."

"Do you want me to hit you?" He actually laughed out loud. Some of the Federation grunts were still rattled, but a few had snuck glances our way—expressions somewhere between are these two broken and how are they doing this right now. I stared them down immediately. Nothing to see. I'll start charging admission. Outside, the battle was still moving. The Federation fleet had clearly stabilized—not just holding, but pushing back.

The Imperial flank ships that had been closing the net had turned conservative after losing the cruiser. Not broken, but cautious now. They had to manage the Federation main force, the debris fields, their own fire axes, and the lingering possibility that another supposedly friendly ship might suddenly go insane and ram them. That kind of psychological pressure was hard to quantify. But it was useful. The moment people started worrying, they slowed down. And on a battlefield, slowing down was enough.

Another Imperial hull took a Federation secondary hit on the port side—blue-white sparks across the outer armor. Not fatal, but the whole line pulled back a fraction. I leaned into my seat and finally let some tension go. The moment I did, every injury remembered itself. Shoulder. Ribs. Ear. And apparently my left thigh had gotten bruised without bothering to notify me. My whole body felt like it had been disassembled and put back together with two screws missing.

"Hss—" I drew a sharp breath. College boy turned immediately.

"Where does it hurt?" Too natural. He said it too naturally. I had a brief internal malfunction. Lines like that were supposed to come with softer lighting, quieter surroundings, and at minimum a pause in the artillery outside.

"Everywhere," I admitted finally.

"Especially the shoulder. And the ribs. And my dignity."

"Dignity hurts?"

"I just flew, rolled, hit a wall, bled, and my hair looks like this—in front of you. What do you think?"

"... That part I can't treat."

"Obviously." He looked at me like he was about to say something, then just made a quiet sound of acknowledgment. Small sound. But somehow more distracting than the artillery had been. I tipped my head back against the seat, annoyed at myself. Fuck. War was really something.

Not content with covering you in someone else's blood, splitting people in half, and watching kilometers of steel coffins come apart in space—it also had to drop a reasonably tolerable humanities graduate next to you at your most wrecked moment and make your pulse more erratic than a fleet bombardment schedule. Completely unnecessary design choice.

"What?" he asked. I pressed my lips together.

"Nothing." I looked at the wreckage of the Imperial cruiser we'd rammed, drifting outside, and quietly reached a conclusion.

"Just thinking—since we've already gone crazy together, I should at least know what to put on your headstone later." He was quiet for a moment. Then he smiled. Faint this time—but more alive than any of the ones before.

"Fair enough," he said.

"Make sure you get yours carved nicely too." I gave him a look.

"Don't worry." I settled back against the headrest, listening to the pod's engine hum, watching Federation salvos push the battle further back as Imperial ships retreated trailing fire.

"Someone like me doesn't stay ugly for long."