Chương 332: 141.Destroyed 3

After the Seawolf had been blasted into pieces its own ancestors wouldn't recognize, the air on the bridge finally retreated from the kind of tension that feels like it might shear your lungs, back to something closer to just busy. The difference was small. The first was when everyone had their nerves wired straight to the main-gun triggers. The second was when everyone was still alive, still working, but every life in the room had just been clawed back from between death's teeth.

On the surface, everyone looked normal. Under the skin, the bones were still hot. When I sat back down at the tactical station and touched the control board, I realized my fingertips still weren't quite behaving. Not the humiliating kind of shaking, but enough that if someone asked me to carry a cup filled to eight-tenths right now, I'd seriously consider jamming it straight into their mouth and telling them to find out for themselves what combat aftereffects felt like.

Jess leaned against the deputy station, still wearing the expression of someone who had just casually blown up an Imperial hyperdimensional submarine like she'd kicked over a trash can in a hallway. People like that made you want to hit them on a good day. After a fight, they made you want to hit them more, because they gave you a very unfair illusion — as if that insane, razor-thin engagement had just been her in a decent mood, hitting two extra switches.

Maki stood at the exec's station, head lowered over the border-scan and higher-dimensional residue data Lan and Akari were feeding her. Ash sat at the command position, expression as unchanged as if even the end of the universe would only warrant half a millimeter of movement in his brow. The bridge was quiet. Not silent. Everyone was filling the space with sound and deliberately keeping it at that professional, Federal, we are absolutely not going to admit we almost died together register.

Until the engine room feed lit. Lan tilted her head to verify the identifier, flicked a finger, and patched the voice into the main channel. The next second, Harvey's face appeared on the right-side auxiliary comm display. The image quality was, as always, an insult to human aesthetics. The background was the engine room's permanently industrial-hellscape white, with half a disassembled unit and a cloud of cooling mist that had clearly overshot its target visible behind him.

Harvey himself looked like he'd just finished a brutal argument with the Kamikaze — hair a little damp, work suit collar loose, wearing the particular exhaustion that belonged exclusively to Engineering: not about to die, but about to finish killing someone else in the process of fixing things.

"Engine room reporting." Harvey's voice was a little rough, but solid.

"Kamikaze primary cooldown procedure complete. Superconducting confinement ring temperature back in the safe zone. Emergency replacement modules operating normally. Primary coil shows no new deformation. Simply put—" He paused, apparently deciding to take pity on a bridge full of people who had technically all passed the relevant reports but had just come out of a fight and had exactly zero brain capacity left for engineering terminology.

"—the Kamikaze is cooled down. The Yukikaze can jump again." The breath that had been sitting half-dropped in my chest finally settled the rest of the way. Not relaxation. More like someone had taken their finger off my throat. Jess was the first to whistle.

"How touching. Engineering is finally willing to open the door for us again." Aida didn't even turn around.

"Engineering isn't willing. Engineering is preventing you from treating the ship like a disposable firework."

"My, the Chief Technical Officer is just as full of love today."

"If you'd like to experience Engineering's love, I can send you down here to touch the outer casing with your bare hands. It hasn't fully cooled yet."

"I'll pass. I prefer to appreciate it from a distance." Harvey's mouth twitched on the screen — like he wanted to laugh, then decided it wasn't worth the energy.

"One more thing," Harvey said.

"Can jump doesn't mean we can go another round with the Empire. The forced ejection earlier plus everything the Seawolf put us through has already put the Kamikaze in a bad mood today. If we're going to jump, do it now. Waiting too long won't help."

"Hear that?" Aida added mildly.

"That's not a suggestion. That's a rare, good-faith warning from Engineering to the rest of the ship." I looked at Harvey's face on the comm display and couldn't help asking:"You're really not going to mention your own survival status while you're at it?" Harvey raised an eyebrow.

"Oh? Is the tactical officer, fresh off her first live sortie, now checking in on the physical and mental wellbeing of Engineering's male personnel?"

"I'm just confirming that if something else goes wrong, there's still someone down there who can keep this ship alive."

"Don't worry," Harvey said, flat.

"I'll lock the Kamikaze down before I die. What the bridge needs to worry about is not getting bitten a second time by whatever four-dimensional stray dog that was." Jess immediately chimed in from beside me.

"Wow, Harvey. That was almost human."

"Thank you. I've been down here long enough that I occasionally miss having a language function."

"You two, enough," Maki finally said, not loud, but effective enough to press the air that had been drifting toward break-room small talk back into combat readiness.

"Report complete?" Harvey nodded.

"Engine room reporting complete. Kamikaze is operational. Recommend completing the interrupted FTL transit immediately — straight to the Federal border lane. Any longer, and if the Empire has another hunter of the same type in the area, I can't promise the Kamikaze will be this cooperative next time." Ash finally spoke.

"Copy. Engine room maintains Level Two standby. Kamikaze monitoring continuous."

"Understood." Harvey answered clean, then added one more line before cutting off.

"Also, Hoshino." I blinked.

"…What?"

"First live frame," Harvey said.

"Not bad." My brain went blank for half a beat. This novel is published on a different platform. Support the original author by finding the official source. Before I could answer, the comm display went dark. … What was that about. Was it some kind of collective occupational condition for Engineering types — constitutionally unable to finish a compliment properly, so they had to drop it and run? Was this a thing that happened to people who spent too long around reactors?

Jess was laughing beside me, in exactly the way that made you want to hit her.

"Wow."

"What are you wow-ing about."

"Nothing. Just thinking you're very popular today."

"Maybe you'd like to explain where your hand was on that first positron shot."

"That was a tactical hand tremor."

"I sincerely hope that phrase doesn't exist."

"It does now." I stopped engaging with her, because Ash had already stood up. It was a small motion. But whenever Ash stood, the air in the whole bridge automatically knew where to arrange itself. Not intimidation. Not a dramatic leader's aura. Something older and harder — the fact that this ship was still moving forward because someone was willing to be the first one to say here's what we do next while everyone else still had the concussive echo of explosions rattling around inside their skulls.

"All stations, attention." Ash's voice wasn't loud. It held the bridge the way a structural beam holds a room.

"The previous FTL transit was forcibly interrupted by an Imperial hyperdimensional submarine. The Kamikaze has now recovered to minimum safe output. The Yukikaze will immediately complete the interrupted transit." He looked at the recalculated course projection on the main display.

"Destination: the Frontier Nebula at the edge of the Laniakea Supercluster." Honestly, that place name, at this moment, sounded almost like proof that civilization existed. Not because it was gentle. Because it had order. Boundaries. Federal navigation records. Which meant that if we actually made it there, this whole return trip — chewed up and spat out by the universe — could at least get back to a state where the world still has a map. Roy was first.

"Helm, copy. Re-acquiring point-to-point jump course. Correcting to Federal lane entrance at the Frontier Nebula." Akari followed immediately.

"Radar, copy. Final pre-jump full-sphere scan initiating. Confirming no significant large-mass anomalies in surrounding three-dimensional space. Continuing higher-dimensional residue monitoring." Lan's fingers moved across the panel in a quick sweep.

"Comms, copy. Switching to long-range jump silent mode. Federal border identification codes on standby." Aida didn't look up, just watched the Kamikaze output and cooldown recovery curves.

"Technical, copy. Kamikaze ignition window recalibrated. If anyone drags my engine out for another four-dimensional labor, I will personally go to the Empire and dismantle whoever did it." Jess added immediately:"Take me along. I'll handle the applause."

"You handle being quiet," Aida said. I nearly laughed, and then realized — this kind of mutual contempt, exactly like normal, was actually the most valuable thing in the room right now. As long as everyone still had the margin to bicker, this ship hadn't been broken by what just happened. Maki stood at the exec's station, gaze sweeping through the full ship status before settling on me and Jess.

"Tactical." I pulled back the smile that had almost gotten out.

"Tactical, copy. Absence of enemy contact treated as unconfirmed, not safe. Post-jump priority: establish border-sector identification sequence immediately. Tactical station assumes direct control of close-range response as needed." Jess straightened up too.

"Deputy, copy. Weapons systems maintaining hot standby. Any anomalous contact after landing goes straight to intercept procedure."

"Good," Ash said. He looked up at the main display.

"Roy, course."

"Course locked."

"Aida, watch the engine."

"Kamikaze thermal balance complete. Primary coil sync nominal. If it gets dragged back again this time, I will seriously begin to suspect the universe has a personal grudge against us."

"Lan, comms silent."

"Done."

"Akari, space window."

"Window stable. Jump is clear." Ash laid his hand lightly on the armrest of the command chair, voice level and nearly cold.

"Yukikaze. Continue FTL transit." No one cheered. No one said anything polished. Everyone simply followed their station, cleanly and without ceremony, pushing the ship back onto the course that should have been completed — the one that had been torn apart once and was now being stitched back together. I watched the space ahead on the main display begin to stretch, star-points one by one elongating into thin lines, and felt something strange. The first time we jumped, it felt like we were trying to go home.

The second time, it felt more like we were forcibly reattaching a severed road. That difference wasn't romantic. But it was real. The bridge lights shifted to FTL transition mode, overall brightness dropping one level. The cold white light on the control panels caught everyone's faces in profile, illuminating the kind of exhaustion that usually got hidden behind tone and small movements. Ash's jaw line was tighter than usual. Maki's eyes were still as ice.

The corner of Jess's mouth, which almost never quite behaved, had mostly settled. Even Roy's particular brand of stability — the kind that treated tension as a personal bad habit — was heavier than usual. Then the Kamikaze ignited. This time the sensation was nothing like being forcibly dragged back. No violence. No tearing. None of that malice of being grabbed by the back of the neck and hauled outward. Just the Yukikaze sliding cleanly forward. Not a metaphor.

The whole ship genuinely felt like it had finally found the track it was always supposed to be on, and followed that line — silent, steady, with a kind of cold self-possession — back into FTL. I stared at the view through the main display: stretched, bleached, until the concept of "starfield" almost ceased to exist. The breath I'd been holding finally settled all the way into the bottom of my ribs. … There we go. This time, nothing dragged us back out. At least not yet. Jess let out a quiet whistle beside me.

"Nice. The universe finally decided to be a decent person."

"Don't plant death flags every time something goes right," I said, low.

"I call that optimism."

"I call that asking for it."

"You just flew a round trip through death's mouth and now you're getting picky about my attitude."

"Because I now have a thorough understanding that being polite does not improve survival rates." Jess laughed. Short. Short enough to not disturb the return lane that had just barely been reconnected. The experience of FTL transit, honestly, wasn't glamorous. Not for bridge crew.

The glamour was what happened outside — the transformation that moved faster than language — while the people inside stared at data, attitude, load, heat, and alert thresholds, watching a science-class nightmare where one wrong number meant everyone got to become fertilizer for the universe together. Time got strange under the Kamikaze. Every second still passed, but each one felt compressed thinner than usual.

The bridge stayed mostly quiet, only the necessary status calls surfacing now and then, nailing the facts back into reality — that we were still alive, still in transit, still hadn't been yanked back a second time.

"Transit stable."

"Engine output nominal."

"External space readings smooth."

"Federal border beacon contact in thirty seconds." Thirty seconds. That number, and my shoulders quietly dropped a fraction. Not going slack — just the kind of exhaustion that lets you finally unclench your teeth from the bone, a little. If I were being honest, my mental state right now was something like being dragged through a three-day fever and then asked to sit a final exam. I could still answer the questions. I just very much wanted to murder whoever wrote them.

"Laniakea Supercluster — Frontier Nebula, approaching," Akari said. The FTL-specific whitening and stretching outside the main display began, slowly, to take on color. First, a trace of blue, faint as breath. Then violet. Then, deep inside, a silver-white band unfurling like a vein. Something shifted in my chest. That wasn't the deep-space wasteland we'd just been stuck in. This had cloud. Layers. Sheets of dust and light.

Like the universe had finally agreed to put a face back on the darkness — something a person could actually use to find direction.

"Exiting FTL," Roy said.

"Attitude locked," Maki followed.

"Weapons standing by," Jess said, low.

"Comms identification codes loaded," Lan said. Ash didn't repeat any orders. He just looked ahead, like he wanted to see with his own eyes that the Yukikaze had genuinely stepped back onto the map called the Federal border. Then: exit. No violent impact. Just a very light, very clean drop in sensation, like the whole ship had slid down an invisible slope and handed its weight back to the three-dimensional universe. Outside, the Frontier Nebula spread open. The image was almost aggressively beautiful.

Vast swaths of silver-blue and violet nebula like silk laid across the dark. In the distance, Federal border-lane beacon lights — a patient string of lights, arranged quietly between cloud and dust band. Compared to the nowhere-land we'd just left, this place looked like civilization itself, waving at travelers coming home from a long road. I was about to say finally, somewhere a normal person might actually live — The alarm went off. Sharp. Clean. Merciless.

The moment it hit, whatever sense of civilization the Frontier Nebula had just offered was torn to pieces by the bridge's collective combat instincts. Akari looked up first, voice spiking.

"Alert! Multiple anomalous contacts in close range! High-energy combat residue in the left-forward sector — no, there are also active heat sources moving!" Lan came in almost simultaneously.

"Catching incomplete identification signals! Federal standard codes are intermittent — untagged armed contacts incoming!" Jess sat up straight, the last trace of casual amusement gone from her face completely.

"Wow," she said, low.

"Looks like the border doesn't plan on letting us have a glass of water first." I stared at the cascade of alert frames lighting up across the main display, the heart that had just settled back into my chest being picked up again. …Great. We'd just finished stitching the road the Seawolf had bitten through, and the destination was welcoming us with alarms. The Frontier Nebula at the Federal border sure knows how to make an entrance.