Chương 254: 103. Helplessness Under War 1

The first thing Maki and I saw the moment we cleared the outer security gate of the spaceport wasn't freedom. It wasn't shore leave. It wasn't any kind of uplifting human hope capable of making a teenage cadet briefly forget that the Federation and the Empire had spent a hundred years grinding each other into paste. It was a sign. A sign big enough to make sure nobody missed the fact that it specialized in fleecing tourists while offering emotional trauma treatment on the side.

The bulbs around it flickered like they were on their last breath. The lettering looked like someone had written it drunk, holding a welding torch. And yet the message itself had absolute confidence in its own worth — Galaxy's #1 Budget Diner — Today's Special Combo I stopped walking. Looked at the shop. Looked at Maki beside me. Then I couldn't help it. I laughed. Not a polite laugh. The kind you get when you picture someone else getting ripped off, and your conscience clocks out for a three-second smoke break.

Maki turned her head toward me.

"Shimo?" Her voice was flat when she said my name. But I was starting to understand that flatness a little better by now. It wasn't the absence of feeling. It just meant she kept the feeling sheathed. You had to get close enough to realize the blade underneath was actually hot.

"Nothing." I tipped my chin toward the shop.

"I was just thinking — if someone like Sergeant Takenaka got taken for a ride in there, I could probably laugh about it straight through until tomorrow morning." Maki paused for a second. Then the corner of her mouth moved. Barely. Not a laugh out loud. More like someone who never wastes an expression handing out a small, limited allowance of approval toward my low-grade sense of humor.

"You're awful."

"I have a perfectly normal sense of humor."

"No. You're awful."

"... Yeah. Not the first time I've gotten that review." I was about to add and usually it's accurate when the comm unit on my wrist gave off a clean, sharp — Beep. Not loud. But it had that distinct military-hardware quality — meaning it could stab through whatever you were thinking with the precision of a death notice. I glanced at the screen. Incoming call: Jess McCallow. I was quiet for three seconds. Maki watched me and said nothing.

In those three seconds, I genuinely considered one question: if I pretended not to have seen it, would that count as tactical withdrawal on the friendship front? Unfortunately, I hadn't fallen quite that far yet. Or put another way — I hadn't learned to make I can't be bothered with you sound like Upper House breeding. So I answered. Jess's face popped onto the screen immediately.

The background was lurching hard — clearly she was walking and calling at once — and her expression had the full weight of someone the entire universe had just conspired to abandon.

"Where are you two?" Her opening line came in with all the energy of a vengeful spirit doing house calls. I didn't even think. My mouth answered for me.

"In your heart." Half a second of dead silence on the other end. Jess produced a dry laugh with zero humor in it.

"Ha... not funny."

"See, that's the problem," I said, dead serious.

"You lack the capacity to appreciate high-level comedy."

"I think you lack friends."

"Those two things aren't mutually exclusive." Maki stayed silent beside me, but out of the corner of my eye, I saw her shoulders move. Just slightly. Good. Support the creativity of authors by visiting the original site for this novel and more. She was laughing. The margin was as small as Federal government generosity, but I saw it. Suddenly the air outside the port even tasted fresher than it had aboard ship.

"Didn't you leave with the main group?" I asked.

"How did you lose faith in humanity this fast?"

"We scattered the second we cleared the gate." She said it like she was filing charges for mass betrayal.

"D and Harvey eloped. The Upper House crowd formed their own little aristocratic circle. And I got left staring at Dead-Fish-Eyes." I nearly choked.

"Who is Dead-Fish-Eyes?"

"Akari."

"Are you trying to die?" I asked, entirely sincere.

"Don't say that anywhere near her face. She probably won't kill you, but she will bury you alive with a look."

"I'm already buried, okay?" Jess pulled the camera in close, letting her aggrieved face fill the whole screen — good enough for a wartime propaganda poster.

"She said four sentences to me the entire walk."

"Four is actually a decent showing."

"Two of them were excuse me and watch it."

"Then yes, your situation is genuinely difficult." Jess let out a heavy sigh.

"And speaking of Roy—" Her voice dropped, low. Gossip radar at full power. I could already tell nothing good was coming.

"I think there's seriously something going on with him and Lan." I blinked.

"Something going on?"

"I turned around and the two of them had just vanished. Together."

"..." That carried a lot of payload for one sentence. I glanced at Maki on instinct. Maki glanced at me. Neither of us said anything, but I was fairly sure we'd landed on the exact same thought. Roy Hartmann, on a normal day, moved through the world like a self-propelled appendix to the accounting regulations. Lan Weiss had don't waste my time carved directly into her soul. Those two disappearing together — Put it this way: either nothing was going on, or something very much was. I gave a dry laugh.

"Any chance they just didn't want to be around you?" Jess's eyes went wide.

"How is that possible? I'm chatty, kind, and beautiful."

"I'll give you chatty."

"But?"

"Kind and beautiful are both still open for debate."

"Hoshino Shimo, are you trying to lose me as a friend today?"

"Not today. It's a long-term project."

"Maki! Back me up here!" Jess pivoted immediately, clearly filing call for outside support under her tactical options. Maki looked calmly at the display on my wrist.

"Jess. Right now you look like a child lost on a street corner."

"... Is that helping me or finishing me off?"

"Stating facts."

"I hate you calm types."

"Likewise," I said. Jess took a long breath, visibly suppressing the urge to strangle me through the comm, and dragged the topic back.

"So? Where are you two, exactly?" The street outside the port spread out ahead of us. Elevated logistics lines cut across the sky like a metal skeleton. In the distance, the commercial district's layered holo-signs were lighting up one by one, like the whole city was slowly peeling off its uniform to put on its loud, festival-only face.

The crowd was a different species entirely from the ship — civilians, people dragging luggage, couples walking close, people who'd barely cleared the gangway before diving headfirst into the smell of fried food. Every single one of them looked more convincingly human than we did. Beside me, Maki stood straight, expression composed, her jacket lines clean enough that she looked like she'd brought discipline ashore as carry-on luggage. For some reason, I really didn't want to hand over our coordinates.

Or more precisely — I didn't want this call turning into a group-assembly notice on day one of leave. I cleared my throat.

"Jess... we'll... catch up tonight..." Before I could finish, Maki reached over and caught my wrist. Her fingers were cool. The grip wasn't heavy, but it was decisive — like she was executing, on my behalf, a tactical decision that should have been cleared a long time ago. A second later, her other hand ended the call. The screen went black. The world went quiet. I stared at the idle display and my brain blanked for half a beat. Then I slowly turned to look at Maki.

"Wasn't that... a little much?" Because, for what it's worth — Jess was the first friend I'd made at the Academy. Most of the time she acted like a self-igniting firework, loud, bright, and prone to collateral damage — but a friend was still a friend. You couldn't strip someone of that title just because they were exhausting. Maki let go of my wrist, expression as settled as someone who'd just closed out a spam ad.

"Shimo."

"Yeah?"

"People like Jess have roughly the survival rate of a desert cactus." I blinked.

"... Is that supposed to be comforting?"

"It's a factual assessment." She finished, then lifted a hand and pointed ahead. There was a shop up there — not large, but the windows were spotless. Warm light spilled out. A specials board stood by the door, the lettering straight for once, the bulbs not looking remotely close to exploding. More importantly, the smell reached us from the sidewalk — ordinary, human, entirely un-military. Toasted bread. Butter. Hot soup. Seared meat.

And something sweet I couldn't name, but that was more than enough to make you temporarily forgive being alive. Maki looked at it and gave me exactly two words.

"Eat first." Strange. Such a simple sentence, and yet it felt more like real shore leave than any dismissed ever had. Not an order. Not a briefing. Not someone on comms demanding your coordinates. Just — eat first. Fill the stomach first. Come back to being a person first. I looked at her profile.

The last of the evening light mixed with the port's commercial glow, brushing her lashes, the line of her cheek, adding a trace of warmth to features that were otherwise far too composed for something that didn't belong on a warship. And then I realized something. With this entire loud, festival-bright street in front of me, what I was actually paying attention to was the brief, cool weight of Maki's fingers on my wrist a moment ago. Not heavy. Very short. But entirely her. Decisive. No explanation. Just done....

Dangerous. I forced my gaze off her face and pretended to study the prices on the shop's specials board instead, so I wouldn't look like some small animal that had lost all higher brain function the second it got let out of its cage.

"Sure." I snapped the comm unit back onto my wrist, keeping my tone deliberately light.

"And if it turns out to be a trap, at least we get to go back and remind Sergeant Takenaka he's not the only casualty." Maki glanced at me.

"You've been thinking about that this whole time?"

"Obviously." I said it honestly.

"It's the most entertaining thing I've imagined all day." She looked like she'd given up on evaluating my character any further, and simply handed back four flat words.

"Remarkably childish."

"Thank you." So we walked toward the diner, side by side. The street noise, the traffic, the low hum of the transit line, the city lights coming on layer by layer — all of it blurred together into a brief, unofficial amnesty from regulations. And as we walked, one thought cut across my brain at exactly the wrong angle — If Jess called again later, I'd probably still pick up. Just not now. Not when Maki had already ended the call for me and, in the same motion, quietly decided the evening's priorities.

Some people are like artillery shells. Some people are like ledgers. Some people are like construction blueprints. And Maki Kushima is probably the kind of person who looks the most like the rules themselves — right up until the world gets too loud, at which point she'll reach over, expression unchanged, and mute it for you.... That kind of person is cheating.