Chương 202: 77. Brat Is Stressing Me Out 1

The wind on the deck felt a degree colder than a moment before. It wasn't that the temperature had actually dropped. It was that the entire Yukikaze had begun sliding into a very particular state — the kind that says: give it a few more minutes, and no one gets to pretend nothing's happening. Resupply trucks pulled back. Cranes folded away. Dockside crews moved fast along the marked lines and cleared out. The transfer platforms that had been locked against the hull a minute ago detached one after another.

Even that swarm of middle schoolers — who a minute ago had looked capable of reproducing on their own — had finally been squeezed into their designated zones, under the combined pressure of Sergeant Major Takenaka and the homeroom teachers. I was standing near the rear of the upper deck. The morning wind still found its way under my uniform and bit at my shoulders. Maki was beside me. On my other side was D, freshly released from his first shift of forced babysitting duty.

Jess stood a short distance off, wearing an expression that said she'd stopped expecting anything from life — but she was still standing obediently behind the line. Then the ship-wide intercom clicked on. Not last night's hushed, dialed-down night-watch tone. This was shorter. Harder. Like bone striking steel plate.

"All hands. Departure stations." A half-second pause. Then the command that seemed to pull the air across the whole deck taut.

"All hands, man departure stations." Something crawled up my spine for no reason I could name. This was nothing like last night's "0500 wake-up." Last night's order had felt like the ship folding the dark around itself. This one felt like the ship actually opening its lungs, getting ready to breathe.

"Oh, here we go," D murmured — and he sounded, unbelievably, a little excited.

"You sound way too happy about this," I said under my breath.

"Of course I am." His eyes stayed forward.

"This kind of thing reads like romance in a textbook. In person, it's payback. I happen to like both."

"Your taste is seriously broken." Beside me, Maki tipped her chin toward the bridge.

"Quiet. Orders are coming." She'd barely finished when Captain Tobita's voice came through the bridge's external speakers — nothing like last night's easy, unhurried tone. Now every word came shorter, sharper, as if each one had already been filed down to an edge and was being used to cut procedure into place.

"Prepare to cast off." The reply came back instantly from somewhere down the deck.

"Cast-off preparations, aye!" I couldn't see every mooring station along the hull, but I could feel it — through sound, through vibration — the ship peeling itself off the pier, one layer at a time. The metallic clunk of release gear letting go. A low-frequency hum rising from some massive machine below deck spinning up to standby. Confirmations pinging through the comms, one after another, all of it controlled. And that control only made it clearer: this wasn't a drill. This wasn't a demonstration.

We were actually leaving. When the next order dropped, I found I was holding my breath.

"Fore and aft, cast off all lines."

"Fore, aye!"

"Aft, aye!" In that instant, the Yukikaze's hull gave off a feeling I can barely put into words. It wasn't a sudden jolt. It wasn't the exaggerated engine-roar you get in movies. It was the deep, quiet loosening of something enormous finally deciding to move under its own power.

A steady vibration crept up through the deck — into the soles of my boots first, then my calves — as if this one-point-eight-five-million-ton — no, hold on, one-hundred-and-eighty-five-thousand-ton — behemoth had let out a slow breath and quietly taken its weight back from the pier. Someone behind me — a middle school girl — let out a hushed gasp.

"Whoa — whoa, it's actually moving—" The girl beside her sucked in air to match.

"I thought it'd be louder!"

"If you want louder," Jess said without turning around, "you're welcome to go stand next to the reactor later. Assuming Sergeant Major Takenaka lets you live that long." Both girls' necks disappeared into their shoulders on contact.... Good. Jess had officially entered the phase where, having been drafted into crowd management, she considered scaring children a legitimate use of her time. Another order came from up front.

"(Port five degrees."" Port five, aye!"" Both engines, dead slow ahead." The vibration under the deck deepened. This time I could feel it clearly: the Yukikaze was leaving. Not simply moving forward — first pulling her own mass free of the harbor's grip like some vast, unreasonable metal creature, and only then correcting her heading and opening the distance. In the distance, the pier, the supply trucks, the dock crews, the light poles all drifted across my field of vision at a glacial crawl. The world wasn't retreating. We were. I stared at the widening gap of water between us and the harbor, and my chest went strangely warm. Last night, lying in the eight-person bunk room, I'd had my first real sense of I'm on the ship. But watching the dock actually recede, inch by inch, I finally understood those were two completely different things. Boarding was one thing. Leaving port was another. Boarding just meant standing inside the ship's belly. Leaving port meant the ship was taking you away from where you'd been — and not symbolically. Physically. Institutionally. In every ordinary detail of daily life, all at once." You've got a weird look on your face," Maki said quietly. I turned to her." Do I?"" Yes." She glanced at me, voice as flat as ever." If you're about to throw up, tell me first."" Who throws up at a time like this?"" You look like you might."" That's called being moved. Not seasick."" That sounds more suspicious, not less." I opened my mouth to fire back, but Captain Tobita's voice cut through again." Starboard ten. Course correction. Merging with outbound guidance channel." Out of nowhere, something clicked into place for me. A man like Captain Tobita — who normally came across a little lazy, a little loose, the kind of man who could trade deadpan comments with Jess without breaking a sweat — turned into a drawn steel cable the instant he stepped onto the bridge and started giving orders. Not louder. Not harder. Just precise. Every word landed like it already knew exactly where it would fall, and what it would set in motion next. And standing right beside a man like that was Major Elena. The thought made me glance up toward the bridge without quite meaning to. I couldn't make out any detail from here, but I could picture her easily enough: silver-white hair not a strand out of place, grey eyes fixed on the data, tactical glasses throwing off a faint blue light. A quiet blade, planted point-first in the middle of the bridge. If Captain Tobita was the one giving the orders, she was probably the reason none of them were allowed to be wrong.... Thinking about it that way, I could almost understand why the captain seemed the tiniest bit afraid of her. Full-Ship Muster Not long after the Yukikaze cleared her berth, we were called in off the upper deck. The reason was simple: full-ship roll call. And "full-ship roll call," it turned out, was far more like large-scale human inventory management than I'd pictured. This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings. They didn't cram all four hundred and fifty-odd crew — core sailors, logistics, marines, and this whole extra crate of students — into one space and start shouting names. Do that, and the Yukikaze wouldn't get anything else done before noon. Real shipboard muster went by department, by section, by roster, reporting up layer by layer, as if every breathing part of the ship were being slotted back into its coordinates one at a time. We were led into a large assembly bay. The space sat somewhere between a hangar staging area and a full briefing room — wide enough to swallow a serious crowd, but still thick with shipboard character: grey-black anti-slip flooring, recessed light strips along the walls, fixed seating bolted to the bulkheads, several retractable projection screens and compartment schematics hanging overhead. Even the air in there had a particular quality — the kind that says this space wasn't built for comfort. It was built for order. The middle schoolers were herded off to the far side by their teachers and Sergeant Major Takenaka's people. Class 144 was seated front-right — not the center of attention, but clearly positioned where an officer could pull any of us out at a moment's notice." I have a very bad feeling about this," Jess muttered." You've had a bad feeling roughly every ten minutes since we boarded," D said beside her." That's because this ship works very hard to prove none of my bad feelings are unfounded."" Can't argue with that," I said. Akari sat bolt upright, terminal already open, looking ready to transcribe a manifesto. Roy and Lan sat together — Roy's frame giving the fixed seat the distinct look of a chair enduring real suffering; Lan wore the expression of someone prepared to forgive the universe, temporarily, on the condition that this didn't take long. Maki sat down beside me. The moment she did, she went completely still — hands on her knees, spine straight, so textbook-clean she could have illustrated "correct seated posture" in a training manual. I stole a glance sideways and had a sudden, genuine urge to ask if she held that same angle in her sleep. I didn't get the chance. The roll call had already started up front." Engineering Division, report."" Engineering Division — assigned eighty-six, present eighty-six!"" Navigation Division, report."" Navigation Division — assigned thirty-two, present thirty-two!"" Tactical Division, report."" Tactical Division — assigned twenty-seven, present twenty-seven!" The reports locked into place one after another, like a chain drawing the Yukikaze's internal structure tight, section by section. Every department sounded different — some rough, some clipped, some fast, some carrying the gravel of a watch that had only just ended — but they all had the same underlying quality: accurate, clean, no dead weight. When it came to the student trainees, I found myself sitting straighter without deciding to." Trainee Division, report." Ash stood up. He'd clearly been forced to mature by about three months overnight. Clipboard steady, voice with two parts less "student" and two parts more "I understand that if I screw this up, I disappear inside the paperwork."" Class 144 trainees — assigned eleven, present eleven!" Then the report from the teachers on the other side." Middle School Observation Group — assigned one hundred and twenty-seven, present one hundred and twenty-seven!" One hundred and twenty-seven. The moment I heard the number, my stomach gave a small, unpleasant twist. So that crowd earlier hadn't been my imagination. It had been the real thing. Once the roll call finished, the bay went quiet for a beat. Then Major Elena stepped to the front. The moment she took her position, the air pressure in the whole compartment seemed to recalibrate. It wasn't because she made any grand gesture, and it wasn't because she was trying to intimidate anyone. If anything, the opposite — she barely moved, her stance was steady, her voice wasn't even raised. But that low, clear way of speaking, with not a single wasted word, made you feel — on some animal level — that this was not a good moment to cough. It would feel like interrupting her on purpose. She swept her eyes once across the room and began." Roll call complete. I'll now announce the temporary duty assignments for trainees during this voyage." Beside me, Maki shifted — barely. Not nerves. More like the quiet settling of someone who'd been waiting for exactly this. Major Elena didn't glance at notes. She checked the projection once and started down the list." Principles first. Aboard the Yukikaze, you're trainees. Not tourists. Movement range, access clearance, duty participation — all of it follows your assignment. No orders, no acting on your own. No escort, no entering restricted areas. If something feels like it should probably be fine, it usually isn't."" Second. During the voyage, the Middle School Observation Group will be jointly managed by Security, the chaperoning teachers, and section personnel. Class 144 isn't part of the formal discipline chain — but you are part of the temporary support chain. In plain terms: when we need hands, yours go up." From the front row, Jess let out a barely audible, thoroughly insubordinate sound through her nose. Major Elena hadn't so much as glanced at her. She seemed to know anyway." McCallow. If you have an objection, you can die after I finish." The entire row went dead silent. I nearly bit my own tongue. D dropped his head, shoulders shaking in a way that was not remotely subtle.... He was laughing. Obviously. Major Elena carried on, her tone without a single ripple." Assignments." The screen lit up." Aida Rosen, Evelyn Sado — lead escorts for the female observation group, and coordination of order in the living quarters. Support Security as needed. Your job isn't to comfort anyone. It's to get the group where it needs to go, with no one missing. Not one." Aida answered cleanly." Understood." Evelyn offered a small, easy smile. Her voice was soft; the content underneath it wasn't." Copy."" Roy Hartmann, Lan Weiss — maintain order in the mid-corridor sections, and assist with equipment transport and staging-area reorganization. Crowding, stragglers, blocked supplies — you handle it first." Roy nodded. Lan answered in two words." Understood."" Harvey Knox, Akari Flak — rear-section patrol, logistics backup. Watch the numbers, watch the gaps, watch for whoever's about to become a problem. Don't wait for things to blow up before you move." Harvey wore the face of a man who'd known this was coming. He raised one hand, lazily." Got it." Akari straightened a fraction further." Understood."" Dwight Barkley, Jess McCallow — lateral mobile support. Priority on corridor junctions, improvised blockades, and straggler retrieval. Short version: wherever it's worst, that's where you go." D actually laughed this time." That job title sounds pretty badass." Jess rounded on him instantly." Don't get excited. This assignment makes us human traffic cones." Major Elena added, without inflection:"Accurate assessment." Even I nearly lost it." Ash Vander — trainee master log, section handover records, daily report compilation. Since you're the one who submitted this training proposal, you're also the one tracking how it actually runs. Writing it up doesn't count if you don't follow through." Ash's expression went complicated — the specific complication of someone who understood exactly why this made sense and still wanted to ask why karma had shown up so fast." Understood."" Hoshino Shimo, Maki Kushima — central-line mobile supervision, and identification and retrieval of high-risk individuals within the middle school group." For a second I genuinely doubted my own hearing.... Excuse me? Identification and retrieval of high-risk individuals? Was that an actual job title for human beings? Maki didn't so much as twitch. She answered, perfectly calm." Understood." I caught up half a beat late." Copy." Only then did Major Elena's gaze lift toward our side — toward me, specifically. When those grey eyes came through the tactical lenses and found mine, I had the sudden, vivid sense that every stray thought I'd had since boarding this ship was currently playing on the screen behind her." Hoshino. You have a question?" I sat up straight immediately." Ma'am — yes. One question."" Go ahead."" What exactly does 'identification and retrieval of high-risk individuals' involve?" Major Elena didn't need a second to think about it." The ones who look most likely to cause trouble. Wander off. Speak out of turn. Touch things they shouldn't. Ask questions they shouldn't. Decide this is a fine place to prove how brave they are." She paused. Her tone flattened into something bordering on cruel." You handled it well this morning, so keep doing it. Kushima's shutdown rate is high. Your ability to talk people down is barely adequate. Two-person team — works out." I sat there for a second, honestly unsure whether to feel pleased about the half-compliment or hold a small funeral for the fact that, as of today, I was officially a semi-professional problem-child wrangler. Beside me, Jess let out a low, deeply satisfied laugh. I turned to glare at her. She had the nerve to wink.... That woman was going to get what was coming to her. Eventually." Lastly," Major Elena said, "general provisions for everyone." She flipped the projection to the next page." One. All trainee duty rotates in morning and afternoon shifts. Off-shift doesn't mean free time. It means standby. Two. The bridge, CIC, Engineering, the reactor section, the ammunition deck, and flight deck operations are off-limits without specific assignment. Three. If a middle schooler gets into trouble, priority order is: the person, then accountability, then the paperwork. Don't mix that up. Four—" Her gaze swept cold and brief across our row." Don't think that being a few years older than a middle schooler earns you the right to act like one alongside them." That line was clearly aimed at Class 144. And I'd have bet a month's mess credits that at least half of it was aimed specifically at Jess, D, and whoever else had the bad luck to get dragged in beside them. D accepted his fate with a rub of his nose. Jess wore the exact expression of someone thinking is she targeting me specifically — but she couldn't argue, because the answer was too obvious. Major Elena closed her terminal. Her tone didn't shift as she wrapped up." That's all. These duties aren't honors. They're work. You're aboard the Yukikaze now — you operate by Yukikaze rules." She stepped back. And Captain Tobita stepped forward, right on cue, as if he'd been counting the beats. He wasn't as cold as Major Elena, and he wasn't as hard-edged as Sergeant Major Takenaka. He was the type who made you think you could finally breathe — and then dropped exactly one line to remind you that relaxing would be a mistake." What the Major just laid out is the baseline for the next few days." He turned his flight ID tag idly between his fingers, voice as unhurried as ever." Don't take these assignments too seriously. Don't take them too lightly, either. The Yukikaze looks like it runs on a lot of rules. What actually gets people hurt usually isn't the rules — it's someone deciding the rules are only there for everyone else." That sounded like it came from experience. And I had a strong suspicion this ship had lived through that particular lesson more than once. Captain Tobita glanced toward the middle-school cluster, the corner of his mouth lifting briefly." And — welcome to your new part-time jobs, effective today." The compartment went quiet for half a second. Then, for no reason I could fully explain, I almost laughed. Not because it was funny. Because it was accurate. Right. Part-time. We'd come here thinking we were doing shipboard training. Somewhere between the muster and the assignment list, our job description had picked up crowd control, semi-professional escort duty, child retrieval, corridor blocking, and high-risk individual identification. This wasn't an internship anymore. This was the Yukikaze folding every usable body into its daily operations, as efficiently as possible. After the muster broke, the crowd began sorting itself into streams. I was still sitting there, not quite caught up, when Maki stood and looked down at me." Let's go." I looked up at her." You actually think this assignment makes sense?" She considered it. Her tone was calm to the point of being almost offensive." Makes perfect sense."" How?"" You go talk to people. I make them stop." Her voice didn't flicker." Most efficient pairing there is." I froze.... Damn it. I had no way to argue with that classification. Getting up, I muttered, "You're awfully self-aware, for someone like you." Maki glanced at me." Problem?"" No. I just think—" I hesitated, then said it anyway." Ever since the Yukikaze left port, it feels like our lives got dropped into some bizarre, completely inescapable procedure." For once, Maki didn't fire back right away. She just turned to look out at the corridor beyond the bay, where the crowd was still being funneled along, and after a two-count, said, quietly:"That's just what warships are."" What do you mean?"" At first they look like ships. Stay on one long enough, and you realize it's more like a system that eats people." I stared at her, not sure whether to point out how grim that sounded or admit how accurate it was. That was exactly when Sergeant Major Takenaka's voice cracked across the front of the bay." Class 144 — move out to your assignments! First batch of observation students hits the main passage in five minutes. Anyone still standing around spacing out gets hung on a signpost as a visual aid!"