Chương 1: 01.Worst Possible Start to Life

My life is completely fucked. Just to be clear—I'm not talking about you. I'm talking about my life. My grades were bombed to hell, but somehow I was ridiculously good at games. So starting in middle school, I got slapped with the "bad kid" label and carried it straight through graduation. Couldn't peel the damn thing off. Teachers looked at me like some failed educational experiment. Classmates treated me as a convenient hazard—the "don't get too close, but you can ask her to boost your rank" type. My parents?

Busy. Always fucking busy. So busy that every time I came home, I was greeted by dead silence, a cold dining table, and microwave dinners that tasted like chewing on loneliness. After a while, I honestly felt like the robot vacuum was more family than they were. At least it bumped into my foot on schedule, reminding me that someone—or rather, something—still remembered I existed. When I turned thirteen, my life changed. No. Not a good change.

The kind of spectacularly shitty change that makes you wonder if God cleared His calendar just to personally screw with you. That day, our whole family actually went out together. And we got into a car accident. Ridiculous, right? In an age where traffic is completely AI-controlled and there supposedly hadn't been a serious accident in centuries, I still managed to hit the jackpot. If I'd used those odds on lottery tickets, I'd be laughing all the way to early retirement.

Instead, I was sitting under sterile hospital lights listening to adults with their "tragic but you must face reality" expressions explain how exciting my life was about to become. And just like that, I became— Thirteen years old with a house and car? No. Thirteen years old with debt. Astronomical debt. Technically, I could refuse the inheritance, but that meant I couldn't even stay in what used to be my home. Call it "starting from zero" if you want to be polite. More accurately: homeless.

So underpasses, drainage culverts, and maintenance tunnels warm enough not to freeze you solid all became my "home." Romantic, huh? Other people's thirteen was about midterms and first crushes. My thirteen was about figuring out which waste-heat pipe you could sleep next to without rats chewing your toes off at night. At fourteen, I entered one of the Federation's most famous correctional institutions. Prison, to put it plainly. And I earned the distinction of being the youngest inmate in the entire facility.

Sounded like some world-record-level joke. The only prize was guards looking at me with two parts curiosity and three parts disgust. My crime? Even more pathetic. Over a moldy piece of bread. I killed someone. Looking back now, the whole thing seems as absurd as a third-rate tabloid story. But at the time, I had no real concept of what "life imprisonment" meant. I only knew: there was a bed, three meals a day, and sometimes I could play games. Compared to the outside world, that was practically mercy.

Until a Federal recruitment officer walked into that prison.

"Miss Hoshino, would you be interested in joining the Federal military..." Straight to the point. I actually kind of liked the guy for a second. At least he was honest—not like other adults who love laying down mountains of bullshit before pretending to respect your choice. This guy couldn't even be bothered to act. He sat down like he was saying: Alright, kid, your turn to get conscripted by the state. Then he followed up with all sorts of beautiful-sounding visions.

Turn your life around, give back to society, get back on track. Fine, I take it back. He was trash just like the rest of them. Premium trash that wraps garbage in a gift box and shoves it into your hands with a smile. Of course, the recruitment officer knew that with food, shelter, and a bed here, there was no way I'd volunteer for his bullshit army. When the carrot doesn't work, naturally you bring out the stick.

"Starting this year, the Federation has adopted new disposal methods for certain violent offenders." He pushed a file across the table, his tone as casual as a weather report. Frontal lobotomy. Ship to ice planet. Mine for life. I stared at him for ten seconds. Really stared. Not the fake-tough glare kids do, but trying to judge whether this bastard was joking. When I was sure there wasn't a trace of humor in his eyes, I answered cleanly:"I'll sign."

The recruitment officer smiled and collected the paperwork, satisfied. That smile was fucking nauseating—exactly like a loan shark who'd just successfully conned a minor into signing their life away.

"Oh, don't worry." He pushed up his glasses, his tone gentle as a tutor calming pre-exam nerves.

"The Federation is very peaceful now. Once you're there, you'll probably just do clerical work. Serving tea, that sort of thing." Motherfucker. I actually believed him back then. How stupid do you have to be to trust a man who can casually mention "frontal lobotomy" like it's career counseling?

"Thirty seconds to enemy ship breach." The hull shuddered violently. I snapped out of my half-doze, the transport bay still echoing with low alarms and metal vibration. Looking up, a whole row of powered armor stood silent in the dim red light, like iron coffins lined up for the meat grinder. In that moment, all I wanted was to go back and strangle that recruitment bastard. I glanced at the guy next to me—probably another rookie judging by how hard his legs were shaking.

His armored boots rattled against the deck; his breathing behind the visor sounded one step away from tears.... Fine. To be fair, I wasn't much better my first time on a battlefield. For the record, this was my third. If I made it back alive this time, I could finally get out of the cannon fodder battalion. Just thinking about it improved my mood. Like knowing you only had to survive one last class—the kind that makes you want to burn down the classroom—before vacation.

Except this class was "How Not to Get Turned Into Paste in Enemy Corridors."

"Enemy deck breached! Hatch opening! All units—assault!! Assault!!" The broadcast cracked down like a whip. I couldn't help sighing internally. Could they at least give me decent standard-issue armor? This junk strapped to my body looked like second-hand requisitions from some agricultural colony. The previous owner probably wore it to fix irrigation pipes yesterday. Loose shoulder plates, sticky joints, and inner lining that reeked of cheap disinfectant that never washed out.

The Federation's cheapness should really be classified as a war crime. I locked my visor. The HUD lit up immediately; mission objectives flickered at the edge of my vision. —Minimum ten confirmed kills. I paused for two seconds. Right. Today's quota pressure was heavy too. The moment the hatch opened, blinding light from the breach flooded in. I instinctively flinched back—and the old bastard behind me, whether from fear or showing off, actually kicked me out.

"Fuck—!" I stumbled right into enemy sight lines. A second later, someone across the way shouted: "Feind gesichtet!" Shit. Such well-mannered people. They even gave me a heads-up before opening fire. So polite I almost wanted to send thank-you cards. Instantly, a dozen beams laced the corridor, searing white lines that seemed to tear the air apart. I didn't even have time to curse properly—threw myself sideways, rolling ungracefully behind debris.

Almost simultaneously, the bastard who kicked me thought he'd caught a break and charged out after me. He took a beam straight to the face. His helmet and half his skull exploded together. Blood and fragments splattered across the bulkhead in a scene so blunt even I froze for a heartbeat.... Well. Karma works fast. Peeking from cover, I saw several Federation grunts still frozen in place, looking like their souls had left their bodies. I almost laughed from pure irritation.

"Don't just stare—shoot back!" I yelled at them.

"What the fuck are you waiting for? Dinner invitations from the Empire?" That finally snapped them out of it. They scrambled to raise rifles and return fire. Beams crisscrossed the corridor; walls and floor exploded with scorched craters. The stink of burning metal quickly overwhelmed the smell of blood. By the way—don't overestimate beam rifles. On modern battlefields, unless you eat one in the face like that unlucky bastard, they're mostly for suppression and attrition.

As long as your armor plating is halfway decent, taking a few hits won't necessarily kill you instantly. So the really useful weapons were never beam rifles. They were close-combat weapons. Assuming you could survive long enough to close distance. I glanced down. Right at my feet, a dead man had dropped a carbon-tungsten battle axe. The blade edge was still slick with hot blood, and the field generator hummed faintly and dangerously, like some starving beast grinding its teeth. I bent down and picked it up.

The balance was surprisingly good. Heavy, steady, and perfect for cutting someone's life cleanly in half. I gripped the handle tight and activated the field generator. A blurred, distorted energy halo immediately shimmered along the blade edge. Then I turned and grinned at the squad still trading fire behind me.

"Don't shoot me." I hefted the axe onto my shoulder.

"Anyone who hits me is dead." Perfect. These Imperial soldiers were all ship crew. Which meant—no powered armor. Thank God. Thank the universe. Thank whatever goddess of fate might not even exist but was apparently willing to throw me a bone today. If armored grenadiers had been standing in front of me right now, I probably would have dropped the axe, raised both hands, and said with tears in my eyes and utmost sincerity: Gentlemen, life is hard—why don't we sit down and talk?

Unfortunately for them, that's not what they were. So I wasn't the one who had to cry. When the first lucky contestant stepped up, he didn't even manage to bring his rifle around. I gripped the axe in both hands and let my charge's momentum drive the swing down hard. The field-enhanced blade bit into his helmet, shearing through metal first, then splitting skull. The sound was hard to describe. Like someone smashing overripe fruit on stone steps. Splat.

White brain matter mixed with blood sprayed directly across the next Imperial rookie's face, even spattering his eyelashes. We locked eyes for less than half a second, and I could read a complete sentence in his wide stare: Should I be seeing a therapist? Sorry about that. If you get PTSD, remember to apply for combat trauma compensation. Not that he'd need to worry about it much longer. Because my follow-through swing took his head clean off.

The severed head spun half a turn in midair like some festival ball someone had kicked, finally thudding against the wall and leaving a steaming red smear. The headless body swayed in place, then finally seemed to remember it was dead and slowly dropped to its knees. The Imperials in the corridor actually started falling back. Hey? Seriously? You're retreating already? What about my kill count? I blanked for a second, then panicked.

"Hey fuck, don't run—!!" I dragged the battle axe in pursuit, stomping through pools of blood and spent casings, like a high school girl sprinting to the cafeteria in the last three minutes before lunch to grab limited-edition bentos. Except I wasn't carrying a lunch tray—I was carrying a tool that could pop skulls like a can opener. Seeing me howl as I charged after them solo, the Federation soldiers behind me finally remembered they weren't here to spectate and swarmed forward too.

Some people might think I'm strong. That's a huge misunderstanding. I wasn't this vicious because I love killing, or because I suddenly awakened some war god bloodline. It was because—there were only thirty minutes left until lunch break. Chronic sleep deprivation is forever one of womankind's greatest enemies. Worse than shitty men. More persistent than periods. More rage-inducing than discovering your favorite game character got nerfed.

So when a chronically sleep-deprived teenage girl, already running hot enough to fry eggs on her forehead, gets forced into close-quarters boarding action right before nap time, ending up in this rabid dog state is actually entirely reasonable.... Probably. Maybe it was the combat drugs. Anyway, after the third injector kicked in, I was flying completely high. My vision turned abnormally bright. Gunshots and screams stretched into some bizarre rhythm.

My heart threw a party in my chest, and even enemy blood spray looked kind of pretty under the lights. Wow. These drugs were intense. Intense enough that I felt like I could tear this ship apart with bare hands, then swing by to strangle that recruitment officer on the way back. Unfortunately, happiness never lasts. When the system forcibly sobered me up, flushing that euphoric high like a toilet, I braced against the wall gasping and belatedly realized— Shit. What a waste. That godmode state was gone.

What did it feel like? Like you finally got fully made up, picked perfect clothes, mustered courage to see your crush—and stepped in dog shit at the door. Or like finally pulling an SSR only for servers to go down the next second. Utterly hollow. But there was good news. Whether the Imperials panicked or our squad's ancestors were really looking out for us today, the eight of us hacked and slashed our way straight onto the bridge. The surviving Imperial officers stared at us like they'd seen ghosts.

Can't blame them. At this point we looked exactly like debt-collecting demons fresh from hell. Especially me—armor caked in half-dried blood, axe still dripping red, and even I had to admit the whole look was trying a bit hard. I raised the axe, speaking in the calm tone you'd use in a library.

"Resist and die." I swept my gaze across the room.

"Try moving. See what happens." Instant silence. Good. I like people who can read the room. Then I turned toward the central console. And in that moment, I finally understood what they mean by: you only realize how little you know when you actually need it. Dense Imperial text, indicator lights, buttons, switches, and holographic interfaces strobed at me in one overwhelming mess.

Honestly, this thing looked less like a warship control system and more like some alien rice cooker that would make hardcore engineering nerds squeal with excitement while I just wanted to split it open with my axe. I stared at it for three seconds. Then another three seconds. And reached a very honest conclusion.

"What the fuck. I can't read any of this." I turned back to the equally blood-soaked Federation soldiers behind me.

"Anyone here read Imperial?" A guy with glasses immediately trotted out from the group.

"Ma'am, I can." I looked him up and down. He had this bookish, pristine quality that belonged in a completely different universe from the stench of blood on this bridge. Honestly—what kind of life planning goes so catastrophically wrong that a guy like this ends up in the marines? Or had the Federation conscription system just been drunk that day? I raised an eyebrow.

"What's your background?" Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings. He actually straightened up like he was at a job interview, back rigid, tone proper:"National Federal University. Applied Foreign Languages." Oh. A humanities major. No wonder he radiated that particular energy of "supposed to be writing papers in a café but got kicked headfirst into a mountain of corpses by fate."

I looked at him and felt a rare, faint flicker of something almost like sympathy. Just a flicker.

"Got it. I'll make sure that goes on your headstone." I tapped the console with my axe handle. The metal rang out sharp and clean.

"Now tell me—" I smiled.

"Which button fires the weapons?"

"What's the tactical situation, College boy?" I turned toward the glasses guy. He was still at the Imperial bridge's operator station, sweating through his hair but never stopping—ten fingers flying across interfaces full of Imperial text that made me want to commit arson just looking at it. Drop a guy like this into civil service exams and he could probably get promoted on typing speed alone.

Unfortunately, what the Federation needed more of was cannon fodder, so here he was, crouched with me on a bridge we'd just finished killing people on.

"Not great." He stared at the holographic tactical display, his Adam's apple working.

"Empire six, Federation four." I flicked the blood off my axe and casually kicked the still-twitching Imperial officer away from my feet.

"Wrong," I said.

"Empire five now." College boy paused for a beat, then nodded with admirable practicality.

"... Right." Good. I like people who update their numbers. Right then, the comm channel lit up. Static punched through my earpiece, followed by rapid breathing on the other end.

"This is Landing Team Seven. Engine room secured." A pause—the kind where someone's checking whether anyone's about to jump out and stab them.

"Helium-hydrogen reactor intact. Squad leader is dead." I frowned.

"The corporal's down?"

"Affirmative."

"Then who's in command?" Half a second of silence. Then, with complete sincerity:"You." I blinked.

"Me?" I almost laughed. No—I almost choked on pure rage.

"I'm a private first class." The voice on the other end somehow sounded even less confident than I did.

"... We're all privates." My mouth opened. What came out was the most constructive observation I could manage:"Fuck. How wide is the Federation's officer gap, exactly?" This wasn't a promotion problem anymore. This was: you're working part-time at some corner store, the manager gets hit by a truck, and thirty seconds later corporate calls to say—congratulations, the whole branch is yours now. While it's on fire. Just thinking about my afternoon physical therapy session made my head throb.

I'd signed up for that myself, paid through the nose, non-refundable cancellation. If I died here today, that money was going straight into estate dispute territory. Fuck. That alone made me hate the Imperial military on a deeply personal level.

"Understood," I said, pressing the comm and forcing my voice to sound like someone who could at least bluff their way through command.

"We've secured the bridge on our end. Start sweeping for stragglers, lock down the engine room, and nobody touches the main reactor without my direct order. Clear?"

"Clear." I cut the channel. Looked up. All seven remaining people on the bridge were staring at me. Fuck. Stop looking at me. I'm panicking too. What did this feel like? Like you're halfway through skipping class when the teacher suddenly announces you're presenting for the entire cohort, while the principal, department head, and a row of people waiting to mark your every mistake sit in the front row. I took a slow breath. No. Stay calm. Think fast. Think fast, Hoshino Shimo.

You just split someone's skull with an axe—surely you can come up with one dirty idea. I walked to the holographic tactical display in the center of the bridge. A translucent three-dimensional battlefield model hung in the air, Federation and Imperial silhouettes constantly shifting positions among red and blue light markers. One look told me things were genuinely bad. The Federation was down to four capital ships.

They'd originally deployed in a fan formation, trying to bite into the front edge of the Imperial fleet—not elegant, but functional enough to call an encirclement. Then the Empire had somehow produced reinforcements and driven them straight into our exposed flank. Brutal timing, because the Federation's fan was already stretched too thin and pushing too hard. Now instead of the Federation wrapping around the Empire, the Empire was about to fold the Federation shut.

And the ship under our feet was sitting right at the edge of that closing trap. Which meant: if this ship still counted as Imperial combat strength, it was one of the pieces sealing that trap. But if it suddenly turned and opened fire— That was a different picture entirely. I stared at the display for a few seconds. Then something clicked.

Not noble tactical genius—more like that weird spark when you're guessing multiple-choice answers five minutes before the exam ends and your brain randomly connects to live current.

"College boy. Over here." I crooked a finger at him. He jogged over immediately, hands stained with either sweat or someone else's blood, radiating that particular energy of "promising Federal humanities graduate being dragged through a meat grinder by history." I pointed at the display and ran through the plan quickly. Simple. And completely underhanded. The Empire hadn't fully confirmed we'd taken this bridge. The external battle was chaos—every comm frequency drowning in interference and fire-control noise.

If we kept behaving like a normal Imperial flank support vessel, no suspicious maneuvering, just waiting until their main force entered the predicted firing window—then we could punch straight through their overlapping formation from the inside. We didn't need total annihilation. Just knock out the ship holding the key position, or force them to break their own formation in panic, and the Federation would have a window to claw out of the near-encirclement. Not brilliant strategy.

Just the oldest move in the book: wait for them to turn around, then stab them in the back. But war was never a contest of honor. It was a contest of who died last. College boy's expression went complicated when I finished.

"... This is pretty underhanded." Something in me actually relaxed when he said that.

"That's exactly what I needed to hear." I clapped his shoulder—nearly drove him into the console.

"Means it'll probably work." I pointed to the cluster of overlapping Imperial firing arcs on the flank.

"Start calculating the firing axis. Don't go for the biggest target—go for the linchpin, the one that screws up their whole formation if it goes down. I want this shot to make the Empire question their life choices first, then question their allies, then question whether they're even standing in the right place." College boy took a deep breath and pushed up his glasses.

"Understood." He returned to the console, fingers flying. The ship's tactical computer responded immediately—the entire bridge projection system came alive as countless virtual firing lines extended from our position across the battlefield model, iterating through angle corrections, thermal decay, phase drift, friendly-fire risk margins, and Imperial armor refraction coefficients. Honestly, I couldn't follow any of it.

To me it looked like someone had blended advanced mathematics, interstellar navigation, and cursed runes, then transcribed the result in Imperial as a microwave manual. But there was one thing I could read. The converging primary firing solution was aimed straight into the most uncomfortable spot in the Imperial formation. Clean. Vicious. I approved. College boy stared at the final simulation, voice tight.

"Weapons systems online. Forward main cannon, broadside heavy particle batteries, guided missile silos—all functional." He swallowed. Looked back at me.

"... Which weapon do you want to use?" I looked at the dense cluster of Imperial identification codes on the display. Barely hesitated.

"The strongest one, obviously." I grinned.

"Don't be slow." College boy stared at me for half a second, apparently confirming I was serious. Then he gave up. At this point, the most unhinged person on this ship had clearly become the commanding officer by default. One more act of weapons-selection insanity wasn't going to change the big picture. He straightened and pressed both hands to the console. The bridge alert lighting shifted from red to deep blue all at once—like some enormous creature drawing a slow breath deep in its chest.

A low hum rose through the deck as the ship's internal power conduits lit up section by section, glowing like molten light being forced through veins.

"Compound-phase energy cannon. Charging." His voice, for the first time, didn't sound like an Applied Foreign Languages grad at an interview. It actually sounded like a fire control officer. On the main projection, the primary firing solution locked. The Imperial formation kept advancing. They probably still thought this ship was one of theirs. Good. My favorite moment—when the enemy thinks they're safe.

"Compound-phase energy cannon—" College boy took one breath. Then he slammed the firing key.

"Fire!!" The next second, the whole ship lurched like something had punched it in the spine. Not metaphorically. It genuinely felt like an invisible giant had wound up and driven its full weight into our hull's backbone. The bridge deck heaved—I nearly went airborne, knees buckling, stumbling forward and grabbing the edge of the tactical display to keep my face off the console. Fuck. Does the Federation not teach people to brace before firing capital-class weapons?

The main projection whited out in fractions of a second. Not beautiful light—the kind that makes your hindbrain think: something is about to die very badly. When the compound-phase cannon's primary beam erupted from our bow, it launched first as an infinitely compressed silver-white needle, then expanded several kilometers out into two interlocking, spiraling torrents of high-energy phase discharge. It didn't look like a cannon shot.

It looked like someone had ripped a small, unreasonable piece of stellar core rage and forced it into vacuum. No sound. Space doesn't do sound. But I felt it anyway—a numbness that started in my soles and climbed straight to the back of my skull, like someone drawing a heated needle up my spine one vertebra at a time.

Every poorly-secured fitting in the ship vibrated in unison, overhead lighting flickered wildly, and one of the already-surrendered Imperial crew dropped to his knees screaming, hands over his head, like he could intuit just from watching how badly high-energy physics was about to humiliate his civilization. The primary beam crossed the battlefield's edge just as the Imperial heavy cruiser at the key blocking position began to turn. Too late. Way too late.

The enemy bow deflector shield flared once—like someone flicking a finger against glass in the dark—then the entire shield layer began collapsing along the phase resonance lines. Not an explosion. Not shattering. Disassembly. Like cloth being torn apart down the middle with bare hands. And then the beam went in clean. On the projection, the forward half of the Imperial heavy cruiser's hull first contracted inward, then bloated, then ruptured along the keel from the center out.

Heavy armor plating, internal framing, hangar partitions, pressurized bulkheads, and all kinds of obscenely expensive military hardware I couldn't be bothered to learn the names of—all peeling apart layer by layer like something invisible was shredding it from the inside, debris spraying out in continuous sheets. The image was too clean. Too clean to look like death.

Until I noticed the escape pods being flung outward, along with things smaller than escape pods, irregular in shape, clearly not meant to be tumbling through open space—and remembered: oh right, there used to be a lot of people in there. Probably not anymore. I stared at the display. My first thought was:... Wow. The budget for that one shot could fund my manicures for several lifetimes. My second thought was:... Wait, I'm not going to live several lifetimes. That heavy cruiser wasn't just damaged.

It had been turned into the kind of teaching material that makes a military academy instructor stand at the podium in silence for three full seconds before finally saying: "This is why you don't lock your formation that tight." What made it worse was where it died. The position was beautiful to the point of being malicious. The Imperial flank ships had been closing the net, herding those four Federation vessels into the inner ring of the counter-encirclement.

Then that heavy cruiser blew, and massive debris fields with superheated wreckage spilled straight across the approach lanes. The two Imperial ships behind it were forced into emergency evasive maneuvers—one of them, trying to dodge the expanding wreckage cloud, clipped the edge of another's deployed deflector shield and threw cascading electrical arcs across both hulls. The entire formation locked up instantly. Not a collapse. But ugly enough. And on a battlefield, when formations get ugly, body counts go up.

The Federation wasn't about to waste the opening either. Almost the exact moment the Imperial line faltered, the battered Second and Fourth Federation ships seized the gap and opened up with main battery fire—like two dogs that had been half-strangled suddenly sinking their teeth into a wrist. Blue-white cannon salvos sliced inward from the fan formation's edge, forcibly tearing open the nearly sealed encirclement. Half a second of silence on the bridge. Then it erupted.

"H-hit confirmed!"

"Imperial Flank Ship Three has lost forward structure!"

"Federation Second Battleship is breaking through!"

"Jesus—we actually hit them!" The same Federation grunts who'd been securing prisoners with rifles thirty seconds ago were now out-yelling each other, faces lit up like they'd watched a convenience store lottery machine spit out property deeds for an entire colony. One guy got so excited he almost lunged to hug me. I shut that down with a look. Don't touch me. I'm covered in blood, emotionally unstable, and my reflexes might decide to say hello with an axe first. The euphoria lasted exactly two seconds.

Because on the third, the alarms went off. A piercing red alert tore through the bridge, more obnoxious than all the celebrating combined. Blood-red markers cascaded across the upper right of the main projection as the remaining Imperial vessels swung their fire-control radars onto us. Identification codes flipped from yellow to orange to that particular shade of deep red that never meant anything good. College boy went pale.

"Oh shit." He looked up at me, lenses reflecting red light.

"They've made us." I rolled my eyes.

"No shit. We just stabbed them in the back hard enough to rearrange their formation. If they hadn't figured it out by now, I'd start wondering if Imperial officers get promoted by lottery." On the projection, the Imperial main force hadn't broken. Which was fine—if they'd collapsed entirely from one hit, this universe would need renaming to Idiots and the Self-Destructing Imperial Fleet. Instead, their response was fast. Terrifyingly fast.

Of the five remaining Imperial warships, two immediately broke off their Federation pursuit and began cutting wide to realign their firing arcs. A third simply rotated its missile batteries—originally aimed at the Federation—straight toward us. The nastiest move came from the larger capital ship at the rear. It wasn't rushing to fire. It was creating distance. Which meant they had brains. They weren't looking for revenge shots.

They wanted to fall back to a cleaner fire axis and vaporize our entire ship from the center out with their main guns. Professionally speaking, I respected that. Unfortunately, since I was the one getting vaporized, I wasn't eager to leave a five-star review.

"College boy. Report." I kept my eyes on the projection.

"How long until they have a hard lock?" His fingers moved across the interface fast enough to cramp.

"Based on current Imperial fire-control correction speed... first volley hits in under twenty seconds."

"Twenty seconds?" I almost laughed.

"They're really giving me the full honors treatment." What did this feel like? Like randomly guessing an entire exam question and somehow getting it right—and before anyone could start clapping, the proctor walked over and said: Impressive. Since you're so talented, here's another test paper. The universe always loved following up a win with a knife. I clicked my tongue and looked back at the tactical display.

The four Federation ships had used the opening to slip the counter-encirclement, but they weren't clear yet. If we turned tail now, the Empire would most likely vent their anger on us first, then calmly reform and go right back to grinding down the Federation. Which meant this ship wasn't the trump card anymore. It was bait. The kind that had already bitten someone, which made it especially appetizing. Fuck.

I hated how every time I had a stroke of genius, I ended up positioning myself at the front of the line to die.

"Get me a channel to the Federation fleet." College boy blinked.

"What are you doing?"

"What do you think? Collecting protection money."

"... What?"

"Just patch it through." A few seconds later, the public tactical channel forced open. I had no idea whether the captains on those Federation ships would just hang up the moment they saw a blood-soaked, hair-wrecked kid who looked like she'd escaped from a slaughterhouse pop up on their screens. Too bad. I started talking first.

"Good afternoon, Federation command." I pressed my earpiece, watching the Imperial targeting markers creep closer, keeping my tone as level as I could manage.

"This is—actually, doesn't matter. Point is, I've got an Imperial flank vessel, and I just tore you an opening. I assume you noticed." I paused.

"Here's the situation. They're angry. Really angry. The kind of angry where they're about to turn me into cosmic dust." Every Federation soldier on the bridge was staring at me. Yeah, I know I don't sound like an officer. Problem was, the Federation didn't have any proper officers left to spare, or I wouldn't be the one standing here.

"So I need two things from you. First—push forward immediately. Pin those two Imperial ships trying to reposition, don't let them get comfortable. Second—I'm going to run a false withdrawal with this vessel, drag their primary fire toward the edge for five to eight seconds. If you can't capitalize on that window—" I looked at the tightening lock lines on the projection and let one corner of my mouth move.

"I'll come back as a ghost just to curse you out." Silence on the other end. Then a man's voice came through—older-sounding, cold, hard-edged.

"Identification." My face stayed deadpan. Called it. Even half a battle away from losing, these adults' first instinct was checking whether you'd filled out the right paperwork.

"Federation Marine replacement unit. Private First Class Hoshino Shimo." I paused.

"Currently moonlighting as the person saving your asses." Another beat of silence. Then the man said quietly:"... Copy. All ships—execute on her recommendation." I blinked. He actually listened? Something strange moved through my chest. Not gratitude. More like—you'd spent years being treated as the problem student, then one day your exam came back with a single word next to your name: Acceptable.... Fuck. That kind of annoyed me. Because it meant I actually had to pull this off.

"College boy."

"Ready."

"Adjust bow attitude three degrees outward. Make it look like we're trying to disengage from the main battlefield. Not too fast—that screams panic. Not too slow—that looks like a taunt. I need you to sell 'backstabber having second thoughts.'" Two seconds of silence.

"... Is your psychological understanding of backstabbers a little too detailed?"

"Less commentary, more flying." The ship's attitude began to shift. On the projection, our icon drifted slowly outward from the Imperial formation's edge—like a cat that had just stolen something and was now pretending nothing happened. Almost immediately, the two reforming Imperial ships took the bait. Their targeting priority swung back toward us. Good. Come on then. Chase me, you poor bastards who just got robbed blind. Then something prickled at my scalp.

Not intuition—that stupid strand of hair was acting up again, the one that always moved wrong when the ship's systems were off. Artificial gravity fluctuation. No—not just gravity. Something much larger was redistributing power through the ship's internals. A new row of warnings cascaded across the bottom of the main projection. I couldn't read most of the Imperial text, but I'd learned a few words by now—because they never appeared without something going immediately wrong. Overload. Accumulation.

Deflector imbalance. College boy's face changed completely.

"The compound-phase cannon's residual heat from the secondary charge cycle hasn't vented—the main capacitors are back-feeding! If we take a full Imperial volley right now, the forward section could blow from the inside out!" I stared at the warning indicators. My first thought was:... My afternoon physical therapy session is definitely cancelled. My second thought was: Fuck. We might actually be about to die. Outside, the Imperial formation was redeploying. The Federation fleet was pushing in.

On the main projection, both sides' markers moved toward each other again—the gap that one shot had torn was being filled back in with fire and bodies, and our ship was wedged in exactly the wrong position. Like a bone caught in grinding gears. About to be pulverized. I licked my cracked lips and kept hold of the axe I still hadn't put down. Honestly, what I really wanted right now was to be lying in bed with an ice-cold cola. Or a hot shower, face mask, and the sixth volume of that light novel I hadn't finished.

Unfortunately, the universe rarely offered those gentle options. So all I could do was stare at the wall of incoming death markers, take a slow breath, and ask the only question that mattered right now.

"College boy."

"... Yeah?"

"Does this ship have escape pods?"