Chương 344: 148.Attending in Perso 1

Stepping back onto the bridge, the quiet here felt wrong. Not empty. Not silent. It was the kind of quiet where everyone was talking, but every sentence had been trimmed down to the minimum, like they were conserving oxygen. That usually means one of two things. First: the situation is serious. Second: the situation is serious enough that nobody has time for anything unnecessary.... Alright. There's still someone on the Yukikaze with time for unnecessary things. Just less of them today.

On the main screen, Dunan's outline had already been pulled up large. Not the romantic blue-white sphere you'd see in a travel brochure. Not the standard diagram schools use to convince children that the universe is a beautiful place.

What hung in front of us now was a world where people genuinely lived, genuinely held meetings, genuinely fought over power, and had genuinely organized a memorial service for us — a capital world that had also hung twelve unreasonably large Skyshield fortresses in its near orbit, wrapping itself into a high-grade political fruit with a sign reading: hands off. I stepped in, and Ash didn't even turn around.

"Hoshino. Get to your station."

"I'm starting to wonder if you've installed a sensor at the door specifically calibrated to me."

"Is that necessary?" Ash's tone was flat.

"Every time you walk onto this bridge, you look like you're about to disassemble half the equipment."

"... That's prejudice."

"That's experience." Fair enough. I walked to my station. Maki was already there. Uniform immaculate, shoulders squared, expression the precise shade of composed that could go on the cover of How an Executive Officer Intimidates the Entire Ship Before a Major Operation. And only I knew that a few hours ago, this same person had been curled up in my bunk, refusing to let go. Humans are genuinely hypocritical. Especially the ones who wear uniforms. Maki glanced at me. Brief.

"Did you sleep?"

"A little."

"Good."

"Not good," I said, keeping my voice low.

"Every time I thought about attending my own memorial service, I felt like my life had taken a slightly unreasonable turn." The corner of Maki's mouth moved. Not a smile. More like: if there's ever been a part of your life that was reasonable, let me know. Up front, Ash tapped the armrest once. Every eye on the bridge snapped back.

"Begin final confirmation," Ash said. Just that. No rallying speech. No thank you for your hard work — the kind of line that looks good at the top of a report but that everyone skips when things are actually busy. Ash was never that type. Ash was more the type who, when your heart was about to pound out of your chest, would calmly tap the second hand against your forehead and tell you: this isn't the time to shake, it's the time to report in order. The main screen split into three tiers.

Top: the Capital Ring system approach vector. Middle: the memorial venue's airspace and broadcast nodes. Bottom: Hedwig's quiet transfer line — its color pressed so faint it looked like something no one was supposed to remember. Ash looked at Roy first.

"Approach vector." Roy stood beside the navigation station and enlarged the main chart.

"The Yukikaze is currently sixty-seven parsecs outside the outer commemorative corridor of Dunan. At current speed, we will reach Skyshield's outer identification boundary eight minutes and forty seconds ahead of the scheduled window. The main ship will not enter the core defense corridor. We press in along the outer edge of the ceremonial airspace. First sightline: the ship's port profile. Second sightline: picked up by the venue's primary camera."

Roy paused, then added:"If everything goes as planned, it'll look good." I almost laughed. Because that was so completely Roy. When anyone else says if everything goes as planned, the next word is usually we complete the mission safely. Not Roy. Roy thought of looks good first. But honestly, I understood. If we were already doing something calibrated to spike every Academy instructor's blood pressure, the approach had better not be ugly. Ash just nodded.

"If it doesn't go as planned?" Roy's tone didn't shift.

"If the electronic warfare screen fails early, the Yukikaze immediately shifts to the backup arc, away from Dunan's primary defense axis, and avoids a direct crossing with Skyshield. If ID acknowledgment is delayed, Lan pushes a second round of markers three seconds early. Worst case: abort the public approach, revert to low-visibility return-to-port procedure." Jess propped her chin on her hand.

"You make 'worst case scenario' sound as simple as a backup plan in a romance novel." Roy didn't even lift an eye.

"If you want to fall in love under Skyshield, I won't stop you."

"Thanks, but that's a bit intense for my taste." Someone on the bridge laughed. The author's content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon. Very briefly. But useful. Because when you've got twelve capital defense fortresses hanging over your head and you're planning how to publicly attend your own memorial, any two seconds you can actually laugh are worth something. Ash turned to Lan.

"ID chain." Lan pushed her headset up slightly.

"First-round ID injection activates seven seconds before entry. Target nodes: primary venue broadcast, military ceremonial chain, and the Capital Ring system's public subtitle system. Visual before audio. Ship's name before full registry data. The goal is to make sure the scene recognizes the word Yukikaze before it understands what's happening."

"Why not push everything at once?" I asked. Lan kept her eyes on her screen, voice level.

"Because when people are hit by something unexpected, seeing one familiar name first strips their organizational capacity faster than being buried under a wall of data."... That is genuinely evil. Aida added from the side:"It's also more politically efficient. If the crowd screams first, it becomes very difficult to put things back in a filing cabinet afterward."

"Senpai, you've been sounding more and more satisfied with yourself lately." Aida's expression didn't move.

"I'm just stating facts." Right. This woman's just stating facts has recently started sounding like malice with an official stamp on it. Ash turned to Evelyn.

"Skyshield." The air on the bridge tightened a notch at those two words. Evelyn stood in front of the EW station, cane beside her, posture not relaxed — but not carrying a trace of the fragility a patient was supposed to show. Her terminal floated nearby, dense with scripts and verification chains, the kind of thing that made you feel a component loosen in your brain after three seconds of looking at it.

"Skyshield won't truly let us through," Evelyn said.

"What I can do is not blind it. It's to make it decide, within a short enough window, that it shouldn't fire immediately."

"Plain language," Jess said. Evelyn glanced at her.

"I'll make it believe the Yukikaze is an anomaly too unusual, too sensitive, too much in need of escalation for a baseline defense protocol to handle directly."

"Oh." I got it.

"So you're upgrading us from 'shoot on sight' to 'this thing should be someone else's headache.'" Evelyn actually nodded.

"More or less."

"... Senpai, you really do have a gift for making things that are probably illegal sound like administrative procedure."

"It's not illegal," Evelyn said.

"It's making the other party loyal to its own process."... Right. That one was worse. Ash didn't offer a moral opinion on any of this. At this stage, moral instincts are mostly useful for slowing a ship down.

"Success rate?" Evelyn didn't hesitate.

"If the gear Harvey fixed doesn't decide to self-immolate mid-operation, seventy-eight percent."

"Is that qualifier a little terrifying?" I said. Harvey's voice came from the back.

"They won't self-immolate." Harvey leaned out from the equipment section, darker circles under his eyes than two days ago, hands still carrying what might have been lubricant or the dying testimony of some electronic module.

"At most, two of the backup module sets will lose coherence under high load and start running their own independent commentary."

"Isn't that worse?!" I protested. Harvey was very calm.

"Which is why I said I already fixed it." Engineering really is the profession least suited to reassuring anyone. Ash just said:"Seventy-eight percent is enough." Harvey pulled back. I watched that exchange and felt something absurd settle over me. Sometimes the most reliable thing about this ship isn't we'll definitely be fine. It's there's a problem, but it'll hold.... The fact that we've survived this long is honestly something of a miracle. Next: Aida.

"Transfer line." Aida switched the display to the faint secondary track.

"Hedwig and her retinue begin separation twelve minutes before the Yukikaze's entry. The first group to move is the escorts and the maid — routed through the Capital Ring system's inner service corridor under a medical evacuation designation. Hedwig herself departs four minutes later, through a second chain, into a non-public reception window arranged by the Defense Committee Secretariat." The moment I heard the maid, a face surfaced in my head — calm enough to handle things elegantly and permanently.

"Wait, Miss Maid is being routed out separately?" I asked.

"Obviously." Aida looked at me.

"Did you want her standing at the edge of the memorial venue watching us publicly come back from the dead?" Fair. The mental image alone was too dangerous to entertain. Aida continued:"Only four people know the complete timeline. Everyone else knows only their own switching point. Even under questioning, no one could reconstruct the full picture. The Yukikaze's public return will pull over ninety percent of all attention. The remaining ten percent, the Committee handles on their end."

Maki added from the side:"I've also re-partitioned the watch roster and shuttle assignments. Hedwig's corridor is now on minimum-necessary security only — no general access. The memorial landing shuttles are split into three waves. Hoshino leads the first, Jess is in the second. Roy doesn't disembark — he stays aboard to manage attitude and the exfil chain." Jess raised an eyebrow.

"Why am I not in the first wave?" Maki didn't look up.

"Because the moment you land, there's an eighty percent chance you'll make a gesture at the media that has no business being on camera."

"... XO, your assessment of my character is genuinely low."

"I'm being generous." I nearly choked trying not to laugh. Because Maki wasn't exaggerating. If Jess went down in the first wave, she might genuinely produce an expression in front of the entire Federation that was purpose-built for a year-end news highlight reel. Ash finally turned to me. Unfortunately, this usually meant the part people most wanted to escape had arrived.

"Hoshino."

"... Yes."

"After you disembark. What do you do?" Without thinking, I recited the core answer that Maki and Aida had taken turns grinding into me over the past several hours.

"Stand straight. Let everyone know I'm alive. Don't sound like an emcee. Don't sound like someone reading a eulogy." Jess made a sound behind me. Ash, though, didn't laugh.

"First line?" The whole bridge went quiet for a moment. Honestly, I'd known this question was coming. And I'd known I couldn't keep pushing it to the last second. But I genuinely wasn't fully settled on it yet. Not because I had nothing. Because I had too many options, and none of them felt real. So I stayed quiet for two seconds, then said, honestly:"Not completely decided." Maki didn't cut in. Aida didn't say anything. Everyone was waiting to see how Ash would take it. Ash looked at me. Expression unchanged.

Then he said:"Good." I blinked.

"What?"

"If you had it memorized right now, you'd risk delivering it like you rehearsed it when you get there." Ash's tone was flat.

"I don't want a line. I want a living person."... Right. Very Ash. And very accurate. That thing lodged in my chest that had still been slightly stuck — it actually loosened a little. Jess smiled and said:"See? Even your on-the-spot mouth has been officially recognized as a tactical asset."

"Shut up."

"That's an honor."

"That's an occupational hazard." Ash didn't bother with us and moved straight to the final close.

"Any remaining questions?" Maki raised her datapad, almost like a hand.

"Yes."... Here it comes. Every time Maki says yes in response to that question, it's never something that lets anyone relax.

"If families lose control of their emotions at the venue, or the military ceremonial detail approaches without authorization — how does the first wave handle it?" I answered first this time.

"Stand still." The whole bridge looked at me. I touched my nose.

"What? Isn't that the most reasonable answer? We're not there to suppress the venue. As long as we're standing there, visible, that does more work than a hundred things we could say." Roy nodded.

"Correct. The image matters more than the words." Aida agreed.

"The initial impact will do most of the work for us." Maki looked at me for a second.

"... You occasionally say something worth hearing." I was immediately offended.

"What kind of assessment is that?"

"An accurate one." Thanks so much. But honestly, I knew that was her version of approval. Maki Kushima has probably never, from birth, learned how to make approval sound like something a normal human would say. Ash swept the room, confirmed there were no more additions, and slowly stood. At that moment, the entire bridge seemed to sit up straighter, all at once.

"Good. Final confirmation complete." No applause. No one saying we're going to make it with any kind of heat. Because by this point, everyone already understood— We weren't chanting slogans. We were taking a ship that should have died a year ago and putting her back under her own name. Ash looked at the main screen — at the twelve Skyshield fortresses in Dunan's near orbit, at the venue marker — and in a voice that wasn't loud, but landed clearly in every corner of the bridge, gave the final order.

"All stations, return to execution positions."

"Aye."

"Aye."

"Understood."

"Copy." The responses lit up one after another. The screen's light moved across each face. Roy back to navigation. Lan pressing her headset back into place. Evelyn turning back to the layers of script designed to give Skyshield a seven-second headache. Harvey's section producing the sound of tools and a very quiet string of swearing. Aida lowering her head to confirm the transfer timeline. Maki beginning her final roster check.

And Jess, grinning while pulling her gloves up, looking like someone about to attend a crime scene of slightly above-average scale. I stood where I was and looked at Dunan. A very strange, very clear feeling came over me. The fear was still there. The tightness in my stomach was still there. But they weren't the kind of things that drag you to a stop anymore. More like engine vibration. Yes, this is real. Yes, you're going in. Yes, the moment that hatch opens, no one is going to finish your sentences for you.

Maki passed by my station and paused.

"Hoshino."

"Mm?"

"Don't look down when you get out there." I looked at her. She didn't explain further. Just dropped the line and kept walking. But I understood. Of course I understood. Because this wasn't about posture. It wasn't about etiquette. It wasn't even just about looking good. It was — if we'd already decided to stand in front of the entire Federation and refuse the death someone else wrote for us, then at the very least, when we walked down, we weren't going to walk down looking at the floor.

I watched her back and found myself smiling.

"Got it, XO." Then I walked back to my own station.