Chương 348: 150.Racing Against Clock 1

I scanned the crowd. Then again. Then one more time. There were a lot of people. Really a lot. Families, officers, media, venue staff, security, medics, unlucky civil servants dragooned into emergency overtime, plus a whole cluster of high-end bystanders who clearly had no idea what they were doing here but had decided this is history so they might as well stick their noses in and get a whiff. Everyone was looking for someone. Someone looking for a daughter. Someone looking for a son. Someone looking for a junior.

Someone looking for the name on the ship's roster that had been marked, a year ago, as missing, presumed dead. I was looking for someone too. Just not the same kind of someone as the rest of the venue. — Don't get me wrong. It wasn't those two who dumped their debt on me and then very efficiently went off and died. If those two actually appeared out of some corner right now, I wouldn't be the one sprinting into their arms in tears.

I'd be more likely to check whether there was a suitably heavy blunt object within reach. Family is family, sure, but accounts still need settling. Dying once doesn't automatically qualify you for debt forgiveness. I was looking for Colonel Weislan. And Dr. Steiner.

I stood at the edge of the landing zone, eyes passing over row after row of shoulder boards, visors, ruined makeup on crying relatives, military PR officers whose expressions had stopped working, ground crew running in every direction, pushing every face through my head, one by one. Nothing. Once more. Still nothing. Not even that maybe they're watching from a distance, not ready to step out yet kind of high-level shadow presence. Which was logical. And made me want to punch something.

I suddenly felt like an idiot. Hoshino Shimo, what exactly were you expecting? Expecting those two to stand at the edge of the venue like normal guardians, normal superiors, normal researchers — watch you walk down alive and show a thank god you made it back expression? As if. People like Colonel Weislan and Dr. Steiner care about outcomes, not you as a person. To put it less politely, they'd treated me like a test subject from beginning to end. If I survived, the data had value. If I didn't, that was data too.

Someone made you a coffin, someone wrote you a report — the only real difference was the format and the department filing it. I pulled my gaze back and swore under my breath. Great. I'd just clawed my way back from a memorial with ten thousand people in attendance, and the first thing I'd wanted to confirm was whether anyone had cared — only to get the answer: no, and you were probably just another line item on someone's test record sheet. A beautifully stabilizing day for mental health.

At some point Jess had drifted back to my side, clutching an insulated bottle some staffer had shoved at the survivors. Having cried herself out once, she now looked more like her usual mouthy self.

"What are you looking at?" Jess asked.

"Checking if this world has a conscience."

"Oh, then you're going to be very disappointed today."

"That sentence has nothing to do with comfort."

"I know," Jess said, completely unbothered.

"But it's practical." I shot her a sideways look and let it go. Because this woman has a very annoying, but very hard-to-deny virtue — she's always able to yank you back to ground level at the exact moment you're trying to stuff your feelings into a black hole. Though the way she yanks mostly feels like getting poked with a mop handle. Right then, the third and fourth waves of personnel came down. Oh. The damn middle-school brats.

The second I saw them, the dark heat that had been building in my chest over Weislan and Steiner evaporated by half. The reason was simple. Because a pack of loud, stompy, chaotic kids trampling the landing zone like it was a field-trip assembly point was, in itself, the crudest and most effective proof there was that at least everyone actually came back alive. The third-wave hatch opened, and a bunch of heads popped out first. Each louder than the last. Each more obnoxious than the last.

Two of them even looked up and waved at the Yukikaze overhead before stepping down — like they hadn't just crawled off a death list, but were getting off some overcaffeinated summer camp bus, waiting to pick up their commemorative merch. I couldn't help it. I laughed. The kind of laugh where you're mostly annoyed.

"Hey. Line up. Don't scatter like a flock of ducks after a failed release." I dropped my tone and pasted on a smile so fake even I didn't buy it, and waved them over.

"Over here. Move it. Don't let the cameras catch you all slack-jawed — you'll be paying for PR cleanup yourselves when you're older." A couple of them visibly froze. Probably hadn't expected the girl who'd just blown up the entire memorial on live feed to switch into kind upperclassman mode in the very next breath.... Okay, kind was fake. Upperclassman mode was real.

Smiling, I herded the pack toward the family and medical zone, counting heads, and shoving two little punks back into line when they tried to peel off toward the cameras. The efficiency of it even unsettled me a little. Apparently, if you spend enough time on a ship cleaning up other people's messes, you really do grow a natural good, next batch, move them along logistics instinct. One twig-thin kid looked up at me, eyes still bright. This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author's consent.

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"Senpai, that line you said just now — super cool."

"I know."

"Senpai, did you really fight in a warship?"

"Yes."

"Senpai, did you really fire the guns?"

"Yes."

"Senpai, did you—""Keep going and I'll assign you to transcribe media coverage verbatim." He shut up immediately. Good. The Federation might still be salvageable. At least the kids know what a real threat sounds like. Of course, not every brat was that endearing. The little bully who'd laughed at my body and lost two teeth for it was not, right now, even slightly cute. He came out on a stretcher.

There was treated blood at the corner of his mouth, his whole body wrapped up like he'd just gone a couple of rounds with a doorframe. The medics beside him wore very professional expressions and, I suspected, a very unprofessional internal question: how does a survivor also manage to do this to himself along the way. I looked at that face — which, minus two teeth, had instantly shed about thirty percent of its former swagger — and found my mood unexpectedly calm. Almost merciful.

So I stood there, hands folded in front of me, and watched the ambulance doors close with a smile.

"Poor kid," I said, with complete sincerity.

"God have mercy on him." Jess's shoulders beside me were shaking so hard I genuinely worried she was about to honk like a goose right there in front of everyone.

"Shimo," Jess managed, barely breathing through the laughter, "is that expression on your face right now a little too evil woman who stabs someone in church and then helps pull the white sheet over them?"

"You're loud."

"But I'm accurate."

"One more word and you'll be the fifth casualty of the day." Jess threw both hands up, signaling that she was purely here to observe and had no intention of interfering with the artistic process. I snorted and pulled my eyes back to the main venue. And that's when I saw that Aki Kushima had finished crying. More precisely — Aki Kushima had wiped her tears dry. The difference matters. Because the first is a sister. The second is a Student Council President.

A minute ago she'd been leaning on Maki's shoulder, crying like a whole year's worth of restraint had finally snapped under my I kept my promise. But just a few minutes later, she'd already regulated her breathing, straightened her spine, and even the motion of her fingers wiping the corner of her eye had come back clean and precise. That wasn't heartlessness. That was training. Or more accurately — that was being a Kushima.

Watching Aki fold her emotions back into her bones, piece by piece, I suddenly understood a little better why Maki is the way she is. This family probably never learned how to express feelings first. They learned how to fold them neatly, tuck them into a pocket, and decide later whether to take them back out. Though Aki is a degree harsher than Maki. Because Maki runs cold. Aki is the type who, once she's finished crying, turns around and gets straight back to work.

And the first thing she did after crying was block the military. Literally. Because just as the first wave of collisions between families and survivors was settling, as medical teams and security lines tried to reform and the media kept shoving forward — a colonel wearing a Capital Ring system Defense Command temporary-takeover badge was already moving in with his people. I knew that walk. Very well. Military proceduralist.

Not fast, but every step carrying the official flavor of I'm taking over from here, kindly step aside, all you emotional creatures. Beside him: a records officer, a medical officer, a security liaison — the whole formation neat enough to look like a freshly printed personnel roster, still warm from the machine. His opening line was textbook, too.

"Surviving cadets and crew are now under military custody. Families, please step back temporarily and cooperate with identity verification, medical screening, and preliminary isolation protocols—" I'd heard sentences like that too many times, in the Academy and across the Federal system. Every word reasonable. Every word correct. Put together, they meant exactly one thing: hand the people back to the system first; feelings can wait. I was about to roll my eyes when Aki stepped forward. Not far.

But precisely placed. She stepped directly between the colonel and Maki. There were cameras everywhere, and somehow, at that exact second, I still had spare bandwidth to think: wow, that's a beautiful stance. Because Aki wasn't the type to shoulder-check people, raise her voice, or use raw emotion to hold a room.

The way she stepped out was completely Academy, completely upper-echelon, and completely infuriating — infuriating because the moment she moved, the whole scene automatically registered: ah, this person isn't here to argue. She's here to rewrite the rules.

"Colonel," Aki said. Her voice still carried a slight roughness from crying, but the edge of it stayed perfectly smooth.

"Until formal jurisdiction and responsibility have been clarified, cadets belonging to the United Interstellar Military Academy remain, as first priority, bound by the Academy's protection clauses." The colonel's brow tightened.

"President Kushima, the site is under military emergency takeover—""Emergency takeover presumes a breakdown of on-site order," Aki cut in — politely. Politely, the way a table knife is polite after being wiped clean of blood.

"Medical teams are already engaged. The survivor manifest can be verified. Public broadcast is still live. If the Capital Ring system's defense unit forcibly removes cadets who have just been confirmed alive during a national memorial ceremony, Colonel, how exactly do you intend to explain that to the public?" Beautiful. Genuinely beautiful. I stood there and almost applauded. This was the Student Council President's version of touch them now, and I will make sure you die ugly on live Federal broadcast.

Wrapped in the finest paper available. The colonel's expression visibly locked up. What the military fears most isn't trouble. It's trouble that's public and impossible to spin. Especially at a venue this size — forget forcibly removing anyone, one wrong hand on the shoulder of one recently-crying family member could be cut into sixteen angles and looping across the Federation inside thirty minutes. The colonel's mouth twitched, apparently searching for a different angle.

Then Calando Rosen stepped forward, unhurried, by half a pace. Just half a pace. But that half a pace did more work than a full line of guards.

"Colonel," Calando said, voice not raised.

"The President's point is: stabilize the scene first. Jurisdiction can wait." The moment that landed, I wanted to light a candle for the colonel. Because Aki blocking him could still be written off as the Academy protecting its own. But once the Chair of the Galactic Federation Supreme Council's Defense Committee put his heel down on the same line, that wasn't protecting anyone anymore.

That was a public announcement: whoever screws up this scene today should start preparing to write incident reports for the rest of their career. The colonel snapped to attention.

"Understood." Yes. Very much understood. Off to the side, Admiral Vander had also moved to a position where he could see the whole flow of movement, but he didn't step in. He just stood there — like a very polite, very senior, very inadvisable wall to walk into. For a moment, I genuinely felt the biggest casualties of the day weren't the emcee, the PR officers, the media, or even the little tyrant now short two teeth. It was anyone who'd hoped to seize procedural control back by force.

Because standing in front of them was Aki Kushima, who could flip from sobbing to committee mode in under three minutes; beside her, Calando Rosen with his foot already in the door; and off in the distance, Admiral Vander, watching. This wasn't a steel wall anymore. This was feeding people straight into a political shredder. Maki stood half a step behind Aki, saying nothing. But I could see her eyes shift, slightly. Not surprise. Not some big, tearful, dramatic reaction. More like: ah — sis is working now.

A very small loosening. Very Maki. And, honestly, kind of nice to look at. The second that thought surfaced, I cursed myself internally. At a time like this, and your brain still has room for "kind of nice to look at," Hoshino Shimo? You really did break something out on the border. Jess drifted over again and muttered, low:"I suddenly get why you saluted the President first."

"I'm not that deep."

"Please. That move was lethal. Make the sister cry, then let the sister shield the little sister from the military? If you ever took that playbook to a negotiation table, the Federation would be finished."

"That wasn't a playbook."

"A gift, then?"

"That was a small goodwill investment I made after surviving the year." Jess looked at me like she couldn't quite believe me.

"You are so unromantic."

"Thanks. It's kept me alive." Jess actually nodded.

"Fair point." Up front, Aki had already pushed back the first wave of military takeover and was redrawing zones with the on-site liaison. Her voice had recovered fast; orders came down one after another, clean and precise. Survivor zone. Family-contact zone. Medical screening line. Media buffer. Even what needed to be shielded first and what couldn't be hard-blocked took shape in a few sentences.

Watching the woman who'd been sobbing a mess minutes ago now standing in the wreckage of the memorial, reorganizing everyone's order, I felt something close to unease. And a fair amount of awe. Which made it all the more unsettling when— Ash's voice came through my earpiece again.

"Ground team, report." I pressed my comm, trying to sound like someone still capable of functioning.

"Reporting," I said, watching the Student Council President who had dried her tears and was now deciding, for the entire venue, who could touch whom.

"President Kushima's finished crying." The line went quiet for half a beat. Then Ash asked:"And?" I looked at the colonel who'd just been jointly walked back into the procedure manual by Aki and Calando, and let the corner of my mouth curl.

"So the military can't touch us right now." This time, the silence on the line ran a little longer. Finally, Ash said, mildly:"Understood. Let her keep blocking for a while." I almost laughed. There it was. The Yukikaze in full. Other ships buy time with firepower. We buy time with the residual authority of a Student Council President who just finished crying. Completely irregular. Damned effective.

And somewhere in all of it, I finally felt that hollow spot in my chest — the one Weislan and Steiner had rattled open — start to press back down. Fine. So they hadn't come. From today on, I probably didn't need those two to tell me what I was worth anyway. Because everyone standing in this memorial venue had seen it. I wasn't anyone's failed sample. I wasn't a barely-surviving row number on some test record. I was the person who walked off the Yukikaze alive.

And now the entire Federation would have to learn to live with that.