Chương 15: 08.Bad News in Uniform 08-2

Past Zone B, the air changes completely. If the port and outer lobby still carried some residual human energy—the kind that comes from too many people in one space—this corridor has none left. Hospital-quiet, surgical-white, and everyone moving through wears the same uniform colors, same expressions, same measured footfalls, like they'd all been assembled in the same factory to bureaucratic spec.

The wall sign reads: Joint Operations Command — Personnel Reallocation and Mission Assignment Division Looking at that sign, I get a specific sense of foreboding. Departments with names this long are never good news. Either they specialize in sending you to die, or they specialize in making you sign three waivers before sending you to die. The officer who receives me looks less like military personnel and more like a government functionary who successfully completed a mimicry program.

Uniform immaculate, shoulder insignia polished to aggression, hair combed at an angle that suggests ruler involvement, smile calibrated to a precision that makes me wonder if he practices in mirrors. The exact setup designed to give you the impression that the government genuinely values you. Completely unnecessary, in my opinion. You could train a monkey for this job. The script's always the same. First they flatter you. Then they analyze you. Then they slot you wherever gives the Federation the best return.

He gestures for me to sit.

"Private First Class Hoshino Shimo. Welcome to the Joint Operations Command."

"Sure." I sit, making zero effort to look flattered. His smile doesn't shift. If anything, it softens slightly. That particular softness reminds me of prison recruiters. Same voice, same let's-discuss-your-future expression. The only difference: back then the poster read REHABILITATION AND SERVICE ARE EQUALLY HONORABLE, here it's the Federation flag. Same packaging either way.

"So," he slides three files across the desk, "have you given it thought?" I stare at those three options and fight a massive urge to jump across and break his nose. The first is transfer into the Council's military police corps. I almost laugh reading the title. Absolutely not. Stand guard for the people in the most heated rooms? I'd rather be dropped directly into an Imperial main cannon. At least that death would be clean. The second is garrison duty. A polite name for a freezer.

Go in, you're functionally half-dead. Patrols, rotations, watch duty, reports. Live long if you're lucky, die of boredom if not. No trajectory, no future—the Federation's standard waste bin for personnel who are useful but not worth investment. The third— Federation Naval Infantry — Combined Arms Qualification Track I read that twice, my jaw twitching. Fuck. All three are terrible. This isn't career selection.

This is asking if you'd prefer to be hit by a vehicle, burned alive, or jump from a building—then smiling and calling it freedom of choice. I look up at him.

"Is there anything where I could wake up gracefully, drink coffee, deliver some documents, maybe organize a calendar, and be home before dark?" I'm mostly just venting. He nods.

"There is." I actually pause. …Shit. There really is. Something comes alive in me for about a third of a second. I lean forward slightly.

"Really?" He looks at me with mild satisfaction that I'm finally reacting like a human. Then he smiles. Not the standard pleasantries smile. Something deeper. More dangerous.

"Yes," he repeats, his gaze locking onto me with nothing casual about it.

"But for you, it's too early." A beat of silence. I blink slowly. Motherfucker. What does too early mean? That phrasing is wrong. Very wrong. Not just wrong—dripping with Federation subtext from the seventh circle of hell. Would normal clerical work be described like that? No. If he's phrasing it like that, the position almost certainly isn't about documents and coffee.

More likely it's handling reports that can't see daylight, scrubbing casualty figures, rewriting death lists, or turning dirty orders from people at the top of white towers into legally formatted documents. In other words— The secretary is camouflage. The tool is real. I settle back, staring at this smiling bastard, mentally dropping him into the same incinerator as every recruiter I've met.

"Let me put it this way, sir," I say very calmly.

"The Federation has demonstrated remarkable consistency in providing terrible options." His smile doesn't move. He just folds his hands on the desk.

"And you've demonstrated equal consistency in making dangerous remarks, Private."

"We're well matched." I look at the three futures on the desk and suddenly feel like laughing. Outside, the twelve Skyshields are still casting silver-blue light. The white towers are still pristine. The slogans will keep reading ONLY THROUGH SERVICE DOES ONE BECOME A CITIZEN. And I'm sitting in an office cold as a morgue drawer, picking which flavor of meat grinder looks least offensive to climb into. The Federation. Truly remarkable.

I'm about to open my mouth—I have something prepared about whether signing coffee orders here requires NDAs—when the internal line on his desk flashes. He glances at it and takes the call.

"Yes. …Understood. …Now?" His perfectly reproduced bureaucrat smile finally shows its first real crack. Not panic. Not rigid formality. Something subtler—a slight contraction meaning this just got more complicated than projected. He sets down the comm stylus and looks back at me.

"It seems you won't be choosing after all, Private." If you encounter this tale on Amazon, note that it's taken without the author's consent. Report it. I stay slouched, raising an eyebrow with minimal effort.

"What, has the Federation developed a fourth way to die?"

"You've been summoned by a superior." He says it simply, then pulls all three files back—efficient enough that the entire exercise suddenly feels like it was only ever measuring how difficult I'd be. I watch the files collapse into tiny light points and arrive at one conclusion. Fuck. Of course. Every door in this place has another door behind it, like a cheap horror game—only the ghosts wear uniforms.

"Which superior?"

"You'll find out when you get there."

"How mysterious," I say flatly.

"Should I thank you for preserving the surprise?" He doesn't register the acid in my voice at all.

"Please follow me." Naturally. Every time someone says please follow me, nothing good follows. Teachers meant the principal's office. Prison guards meant someone was about to make your life difficult. In the Federal military, it translates roughly to: congratulations, someone more expensive is about to reprice your life. I stand, grab my voucher, and follow him out. The inner corridors of the Joint Operations Command are quieter than outside. Not peaceful quiet.

The kind that makes you automatically lower your breathing. The floors are polished bright enough for death portraits. Light-guide strips embedded in both walls—thin enough to be nearly invisible—cast cold white light that cuts every corner like a scalpel. I follow behind him, my boots hitting the floor with most sound absorbed, leaving only dry, hollow echoes—like someone lightly knocking on the inside of a coffin lid. People pass occasionally. Black uniforms. Grey uniforms. White uniforms.

Different colors, identical expressions. Everyone looks like they checked their humanity into storage lockers before badging in. We pass an enormous transparent observation wall. Outside: Dunan's near-orbit military port. Rows of warships sit in docking cradles like gravestones, hull lights layered in tiers. In the distance, a tugboat slowly maneuvers a severed armor module—it looks like torn metallic viscera, edges curled and blackened from burn damage.

Further out, the twelve Skyshield orbital fortresses line the horizon, their silver-blue halos hanging silent—a ring simultaneously expensive and completely dishonest. I look at the view for half a second. Beautiful. Beautiful enough to make you sick. Those docked warships, those maintenance cranes, those military shuttles coming and going—all of it was the Federation's way of proving to itself that it was still alive.

But zoom in a little, and you'd see the scorched blood still caked in the seams of armor plating, the burn-blackened fingerprints fused into hatch edges, the numbered bags stacked on transport carts that nobody wanted to claim. The last lighthouse of human civilization. Bullshit. This place is more like grinding corpses into oil to keep the sign lit.

"Private." The officer ahead of me stopped walking. I almost walked into his back.

"What?" He stepped aside and gestured at the door in front of us. It was a solid black pressure door—no decoration, just a single line of silver text set into the right door frame. Joint Operations Command / Operational Oversight Bureau / Special Personnel Authorization Room I read it and nearly laughed. The longer the department name, the more dangerous it is. That's the second professional truth I've learned today. The officer swiped his card, entered an identification code, pressed his palm to the scanner.

The door slid open without a sound.

"Please go in." His tone was slightly more polite than before. That kind of politeness only made me want to flip the table. It doesn't mean respect. It means the person inside is someone even he doesn't want to offend. I walked in. The room was large. Too large for an office—more like a conference hall that had been deliberately reined in. All four walls were deep grey sound-absorbing panels.

The ceiling was high, but the lighting was kept low, and the whole space had a quality that made you straighten your back without deciding to. A long table occupied the center, but the only occupied seat was at the far end. There was an enormous tactical observation window behind it. Not a real view. A live tactical projection of Dunan's entire defense perimeter.

Twelve Skyshields, three orbital defense layers, the near-orbit port, supply lines, patrol corridors—all suspended in cold blue-white lines, like an exquisitely designed box of killing toys. And the person standing in front of that projection had their back to me. The uniform was black. Not the obnoxious polished black of the MPs. The kind of black that absorbed light, with only a trace of cold silver at the shoulder and collar insignia. The figure was tall. Held upright with a precision that bordered on severity.

What I noticed first wasn't the rank. It was the position—standing exactly at the intersection of Dunan's main planetary marker and the outer defense ring, like someone who could reach out and cross off ten thousand lives on a whim, just because they were in a bad mood. He didn't turn around immediately. My escort officer saluted first.

"Sir. Private First Class Hoshino Shimo, as requested." The man made a sound. Low acknowledgment, nothing more. Not loud. But precise. Like the spine of a blade tapping glass—no ring, but you'd instinctively want to step back. Then he turned. … Shit. I almost let that word out loud on pure reflex. Not because he looked frightening. The exact opposite—he looked like the Federation had assembled him specifically to trick people into enlisting. Early thirties, maybe.

Strong features, straight nose, black hair combed back neatly, uniform without a single misaligned crease, cuffs included. His eyes were a cold grey, like a winter sea that never quite froze over. The entire person—clean, controlled, expensive—radiated a specific quality, head to toe: I'm not here to discuss your feelings. I'm here to determine your value. If they put this man in a recruitment ad, he'd get two star systems' worth of young people killed. The worst part was that he was genuinely good-looking.

My internal alarm went off immediately. Not good. That face is extremely dangerous. Not romantically dangerous. Politically dangerous. People who look like this and still climbed to a position like this are usually more of a threat than the ones who look like villains. I killed the thought that had surfaced for approximately one second—he actually looks like a high-end fashion spread standing there—killed it thoroughly, and fed it into the mental incinerator. Absolutely not.

Hoshino Shimo, your daily allocation of romantic sentiment has been spent. Whatever's left goes toward surviving the afternoon. He glanced at the temporary ID tag on my chest, then looked up at my face. No second look, unlike everyone outside. No visible reaction to the number fourteen on my file. Just a quiet, precise assessment. Like checking whether a piece of equipment was worth repairing.

"Hoshino Shimo."

"Yes, sir."

"Purelis front withdrawal operation. Imperial flanking attack on Critical Supply Corridor Four. Bridge damage sustained; remained aboard; completed secondary fire control correction and close-range bow ram; resulted in enemy cruiser main-axis deviation and Federation right-flank breakthrough." He glanced down at the data pad in his hand.

"Confirmed kills: forty-seven. Indirect combat results tallied separately." He read that off in the same tone you'd use to recite a procurement list. I stood there and had exactly one thought. So everything I nearly died for—once your people organized it into a report—sounds about as significant as warehouse inventory.

"Do you know why you were brought here?"

"Possibly because your department finally realized I'm better suited for a relaxed desk position—coffee duty and document delivery, starting tomorrow?" The escort officer's face almost cracked. The man in front of me looked at me. A very flat look. Then—he laughed. Not the performance smile from the officer outside. An actual trace of amusement, but only a trace—like a hairline fracture opening across ice.

"The officer outside showed you three options?"

"He did," I said.

"All terrible."

"Those weren't for you to choose from." I blinked.

"Oh. So that whole process was just for humiliation purposes."

"For assessment."

"Testing whether I have a brain?"

"Testing whether you'd voluntarily slot yourself into the most corrosive position available, just for a little security." That kept me quiet for half a second. Fuck. This man isn't funny. But he's accurate. I don't like accurate. He moved back behind the table and tapped the light screen. The three job recommendations that had been hovering to the side went dark. In their place: a single transfer draft marked in red. The title was short.

Special Tactical Operations Unit / Provisional Assignment Review The moment I saw the word special, something clenched in my stomach. Everything in the Federation with special attached to it is abnormal. Special budget, special mission, special management, special disposal. Translated into plain language: in the event of an incident, it's inconvenient to leave too much paper documentation.

"Introduction first," he said.

"Operational Oversight Bureau, First Special Operations Section. Colonel. Leo Vreeland." Right. Name's dangerous too. Colonel Leo Vreeland. I filed it away mentally, with an addendum: good-looking, cold voice, speaks like a scalpel, probably has something wrong with him. He turned the data pad toward me.

"I've reviewed your complete combat record from Purelis."

"Then you've also watched a lot of footage of me nearly dying."

"What I reviewed was this: with the bridge breached and an exit route already open, you chose not to withdraw. You completed fire control correction in minimum time."

"Because running might not have worked anyway."

"But you gambled." I pulled one corner of my mouth.

"Isn't that exactly what the military loves? A low-ranking grunt gets fired up, makes a heroic stand for Federation glory—""It wasn't heroic." He cut me off. The room went quiet for a moment. He was looking at me, those grey eyes passing straight through the performance and landing on what was actually in my head that day.

"Not for glory," he said.

"You just calculated faster than anyone else on that ship that staying put and hitting hard gave you a better survival rate than running." Something pulled tight along my spine. Very quietly. I hated this feeling. Like someone had sorted through a pile of scrap metal and dried blood and found the component you'd hidden, and simply said: there it is. I stared at him.

"So the Colonel appreciates my pragmatic approach to problem-solving?"

"I value people with judgment," he said.

"Specifically people who, in environments where everyone else just follows orders, still know when to break the rules." …That's unsettling. No normal superior says that. Normal superiors tell you to maintain discipline, demonstrate loyalty, recite the code of conduct. Someone who encourages you to know when to break the rules is either a genius or a catastrophe. The Federation doesn't typically invest in geniuses. So the answer is fairly obvious.

"Just to be clear," I said, "if you're about to say anything along the lines of your country needs you, I may actually vomit on your floor. That floor looks expensive. Choose your words carefully." The escort officer audibly inhaled. Colonel Vreeland didn't move an eyebrow.

"Don't worry," he said.

"I don't need you to be patriotic." He raised a hand and pulled up another document. This time I saw my name placed at the center of a block of formal terminology, with a line item beside it I barely recognized. Combat Merit Citation: Class One Tactical Response Medal / Under Special Review I stared. …What?

"Your actions at Purelis have been submitted for a formal merit citation," he said.

"If approved, your rank, compensation, and subsequent assignment will all be reassessed." I looked at that line for several seconds without speaking. Not moved. More like the specific bewilderment of receiving an anniversary membership upgrade notice from a funeral home. The Federation doesn't give out treats for nothing. When it hands you something that looks like a reward, there's almost always a heavier chain attached to the back.