Chương 352: 152.Rather Lose Whole Ship Than Lose One's Seat 1

The Federation's adults gave up pretending they were only here to check on survivors very quickly. They started performing an autopsy. On the Yukikaze. Right there, next to the wreckage of a memorial service, with family members still crying within earshot and media lenses still hot enough to fry something, they pulled out a ship that had been lost for a year and started dissecting her like a public anatomy lesson.

Watching the wave of technical officers, JAG staff, navigation record analysts, vessel assessment specialists, and a whole contingent wearing Federal Central Research Institute badges advance with portable access modules and clearance terminals, the first thought that surfaced in my head was very simple: Right. Memorial's over. Now we're in the autopsy. And the body was our ship.

"They won't even let her catch her breath," I muttered. Maki stood beside me, voice flat.

"The Federation has never had patience for things that come back from the dead."

"That sounds like an insult."

"It is." Good. Honesty at a time like this is always refreshing. Ash stood at the front, finished a quick exchange with Admiral Vander, Aki, Calando Rosen, and the handful of senior authorities on-site, and managed to negotiate something that at least kept us from being immediately disassembled and questioned in pieces — ship first, then people. That sounds like an improvement. In practice, it just meant dismantle the Yukikaze first, dismantle the Yukikaze's crew later. But it did give us one small advantage.

Because the ship's records don't lie. And sometimes, evidence lands a harder slap than any person could. Part One: The Navigation Log Opens, and the Researchers Nearly Have an Existential Crisis Once the Yukikaze's remote mirror access was linked up, the first thing pulled was the navigation log. Reasonable enough. For the military, figuring out where a ship that's been missing for a year actually went is more efficient than grilling a bunch of half-dead cadets first.

For the research side, it meant something else — they were finally going to find out exactly how we'd managed not to die at the hands of cosmic geography itself. A large tactical display was dragged to the center.

Data lines unfurled one by one, coordinates surfaced, route fragments auto-assembled, and the fragmented records from the missing period were stitched back together, segment by segment, under algorithmic compensation — like watching a mechanical body that had already been declared dead get its nervous system forcibly reconnected. I didn't enjoy it. Because that route was one we'd actually traveled. It wasn't set dressing for the Capital Ring system crowd to gawk at.

A row of Federal researchers stood up front, faces still politely professional. The kind of we've seen worse; no matter where you drifted back from, we can analyze it calmly professional. Until the track drew itself. Until the drift curve of the Yukikaze after she went dark looped into an extremely unfunny arc. Until the projected coordinates finally punched through a region so large that any sane person's first reflex, seeing the name, would be to close the file. The Boötes Void.

The balding chief researcher up front squinted first, then frowned, then stepped closer — until his nose was nearly pressed to the screen, his whole expression rearranging into something like did this terminal just get possessed.

"... Hold it," he said. The tech officer froze the feed. The chief stepped in again, nearly pressing his nose to the display.

"Run that segment again." They reran it. Same result. Once more. Still the same. Beside him, a younger woman who'd been quietly taking notes just stopped. Her hand went still.

"This isn't possible," she said. I thought: Here we go. This is my favorite moment — when the Capital Ring system experts finally realize we didn't just get lost coming back from a convenience store. The chief lifted his head, eyes moving from Ash to Lan to the screen, wearing the expression of someone whose soul had just been slapped by the universe itself.

"You... went into the Boötes Void?" Ash's expression didn't change.

"Through the perimeter sector." The chief went dead-quiet for two full seconds. I swear, somewhere in those two seconds, there was an academic-grade scream happening in his head. Because someone beside him had already voiced it for him.

"You actually made it back alive?!" Good. Someone finally hit the main point. I almost applauded. Jess pressed her voice low beside me.

"I like that one."

"Same," I said.

"Way more sincere than any official welcome."

"At least it sounds like genuine shock."

"Right. Because when humans encounter something truly absurd, their first reaction is usually the most honest one." The research row dissolved into a very high-education flavor of losing it. No sobbing, no shouting — just everyone talking over each other, flipping through files, zooming star maps, pulling up gravity models and radiation projections. The more they looked, the quieter they got. The quieter they got, the paler their faces became.

Because the Boötes Void isn't the kind of place you route a training vessel through. That place's very existence feels like the universe saying: you small things had better stay away. The Yukikaze hadn't just gone near it. The Yukikaze had come back from it. A younger researcher nearby looked at our group, his expression going complicated.

The look of someone who'd expected a batch of lucky surviving cadets, and had instead found himself standing in front of a group of walking statistical anomalies — people who'd stepped along the edge of a cosmic exclusion zone and walked off the ship under their own power. This novel is published on a different platform. Support the original author by finding the official source. Satisfying. I admit it. Moments like this put me in a good mood. Because being called lucky is one thing.

Watching them stare at us with this shouldn't be scientifically possible is something else entirely. Shouldn't be scientific is exactly right. If we'd followed the science this past year, we'd have been dead ten times over. Part Two: The Firing Log Comes Up, and I Get Dragged Out for a Public Mental Flogging Once the navigation log had landed its first shockwave, the military side seemed to remember they hadn't come for an astronomy conference, and immediately called up the second set of data. Firing logs.

Engagement counts. Weapons authorization chain. Ammunition expenditure. Target identification fragments. In short: everything needed to remind the Capital Ring system crowd that this ship hadn't just come back alive. She'd fought her way home. The moment I saw that header pulled onto the main screen, my stomach tightened. Because I knew exactly what happened when this came out. Some people were going to get very excited. And some people were going to start hunting for war criminals.

Worse, those two groups tend to look remarkably alike. The records officer began reading entries. First complete engagement, up. Second. Third. Enemy vessel ID codes, engagement windows, range, weapons response, evasive maneuvers, hit records — pulled up one after another, hardening the air across the entire venue. An officer somewhere muttered a curse under his breath. Someone else took a step forward. Then the summary screen was compiled. Three Galactic Empire high-speed cruisers.

One Galactic Empire trans-dimensional attack submersible. Two Galactic Empire destroyers. With a supplementary note alongside: One additional Imperial destroyer confirmed disengaged prior to completing an exchange of fire. Good. That finally locked in the assassination thread that had needed to stay sealed. Two ships had genuinely engaged. One had turned tail. Turned tail to report a failed assassination. I nodded internally. That's the right read. The faces around us weren't quite so settled.

"... This is a training vessel's combat record?" The operations officer's tone had passed shock and landed somewhere closer to accusing the universe of secretly rewriting the tactical doctrine manual. I wanted to tell him: Yes. And the training vessel you're talking about is the same kind you people normally use to write up educational outcomes, shoot recruitment brochures, and have cadets scrub the deck for on Founder's Day. Exciting, isn't it? That's when the Superintendent appeared.

Or more accurately — the Academy Superintendent had finally found his ideal entrance cue. Crying families, the Yukikaze crashing the memorial, the Student Council President blocking the military, the medical pod coming down — none of that suited someone like him. Too emotional. Not his kind of battlefield. But now the display carried a genuine combat record: engagement count, firing sequences, a return-fire diagram no training vessel had any business producing. So he arrived.

Radiating a composure that made me want to roll my eyes. The expression on his face roughly translated to: See? Our Academy produces results. I added a line internally: Superintendent, if you step any closer to that screen, I'm going to start wondering if you personally fired those guns. Sure enough, his first line carried exactly that flavor.

"The Yukikaze has always been an important platform in our institution's practical training framework," the Superintendent said slowly.

"The cadets' ability to maintain combat effectiveness under such extreme conditions proves that our educational—" I almost choked on my own breath. Proves, he said. If the venue hadn't been this size, I would genuinely have reminded him: Superintendent, the Yukikaze surviving mainly proves we didn't die fast enough. Not that your syllabus was beautifully written. Jess's shoulders were shaking badly beside me.

"What are you laughing at?" I muttered. She pressed the words out in a strangled whisper.

"I'm imagining that if you had a cannon right now, your first target might not be the Empire. It might be the Superintendent."

"That's slander."

"No. That's understanding you." Maki coughed, lightly, from the other side. The meaning was clear: Both of you, get your faces under control. I did. About halfway. Because the next second, I got dragged out. Not physically. Spiritually. A military technical officer enlarged a section of the firing authorization chain, and his voice went very polite.

"Please confirm — this close-range main-gun and attitude-adjustment combined operation. Who executed it?" The operational window on screen was short enough to look like a bet placed on someone's life, and placed in a deeply unhealthy way. One glance and I knew exactly which engagement it was. The kind of maneuver that throws yourself, the enemy, hull integrity, and survival probability into a blender and hits go — no one else would have been willing to run it. Every eye in the venue turned.

I stood there with the feeling of being called on in class to answer a math problem, except the question was: please explain why you decided to lose your mind in space.

"... Me," I said. Two seconds of silence. The officer clearly wanted to hold onto his professionalism. He failed. He glanced down at the log, then back at me.

"You?"

"Who else?" I said.

"Do I look like the type who'd hand something like that off to somebody else?" Maki murmured beside me: "Say less."

"I'm already being very restrained." The military pressed: "Basis for that decision at the time?" I went quiet for a moment. It was a reasonable question. Reasonable enough to be infuriating. Because a lot of things are easy to describe as decisions in hindsight. At the time, it wasn't like that. At the time, it was closer to: do this, or die. I looked up at the operational record I didn't particularly want to see a second time, and answered slowly.

"My basis was: if I hadn't taken that shot in that window, none of you would be standing here asking me about it." The whole place paused. The Superintendent's face — which had been inching steadily toward his own list of achievements — froze too. I added:"So write it up as tactical instinct, on-the-spot judgment, curriculum outcome, whatever you like. What was actually in my head at the time was simpler."

"What?" someone asked.

"Stay alive." Good. Even I thought that one landed pretty well. Though half of it was the truth, and the other half was me not wanting to describe, to a room that hadn't been there, exactly what that fear had felt like when it was trying to climb up out of my throat. Please. I'm the one who nearly died. The story's not here for your entertainment.

Part Three: The Science Records Open, and This Time It's the Federal Central Research Institute's Turn to Lose It If the first two rounds had belonged to the military, the third round got hijacked outright by the Federal Central Research Institute. For a very simple reason. Because on top of returning, fighting, and not dying, the Yukikaze had also, apparently, been too restless not to compile a substantial pile of scientific records along the way. Not because we love research.

Because when you're that close to dying, you scan what you can and record what you can. If you're going to go, at least don't go for nothing. The Institute clearly hadn't been prepared for a group of cadets to crawl back out of their coffins and hand over a set of records capable of costing an entire department its collective sleep. The moment the data opened, the researchers stopped pretending to be calm. First up: a frozen dwarf planet.

A complete thermal-layer profile, crustal fracture mapping, volatile-compound sampling models, localized gravitational distortion charts. Researcher One: "What's the resolution on this?" Researcher Two: "You stayed there?" Researcher Three was already flipping through the clearance table, as if confirming whether he was cleared to faint on the spot. Then the second file dropped. A high-temperature cadmium planet.

The screen filled with the kind of deep-red heat imagery that makes you feel humans have no business anywhere near it — surface metal vaporizing, magnetic field torn apart, localized jets unstable enough to reduce a small-to-medium vessel to a warning illustration in a textbook. The Institute's people looked ready to ascend. Still not done. Third file. A lethally corrosive planet. Fourth file. An extremely unstable, highly volatile indium planet.

This time, a senior researcher who outranked the chief lunged forward, his voice cracking.

"How do you have this?!" I looked at the data model of the indium planet and answered internally: Because our luck is garbage. We ran into pretty much everything the universe keeps around specifically for people to stay away from. The way the Institute's people were looking at us now wasn't as survivors, or cadets, or the lucky entries in a combat log. They were looking at us like walking databases. The kind where, if you let one slip away, your entire department gets nailed to the wall by whoever's above you.

The chief's voice was shaking.

"All these records go into Central Archive — no, back them up first — no, verify first—" The colleague beside him had stopped listening entirely and was already scrolling ahead. Then the whole research section went briefly, completely quiet. I knew that kind of silence. It's the one that happens when someone sees a name in a document that shouldn't exist, but that they very badly want to be real. The next second, the shout came.

"You found the Texas?!" Good. Someone finally said it. Several groups who hadn't cared about the science data five minutes ago turned their heads now. Because even without knowing exactly how nasty an indium planet is, most people knew that a missing vessel at the Texas's classification level didn't belong in an appendix as a footnote. I looked at Ash. Ash looked at Lan. Lan looked at the record. In the end, Ash answered.

"Yes." One word. The effect was roughly equivalent to tossing a grenade into a crowd. The Institute's people surged forward almost in sync.

"Location!"

"Condition!"

"Recoverability!"

"Hull integrity!" Watching their faces — like a barbecue stand that had finally seen the delivery truck pull in — I felt a rare sense of balance. Oh. So you people have moments like this too. Ash stayed calm.

"Wedged between a binary blue-giant system and a protoplanetary disk." That sentence landed, and people on the Institute's side started inhaling. Not the normal kind. The kind that means: good news, we found it; bad news, you're now telling me it's stuck in the single worst salvage location in the universe. Watching their faces, I genuinely wanted to hand each of them a glass of water. Not out of sympathy. Out of concern that someone might dehydrate on the spot. Jess said quietly:"Notice something?"

"What?"

"Since we got back, the happiest people here aren't the families. Aren't the military. It's the Federal Central Research Institute."

"They're not happy," I said.

"They're losing their minds."

"Is there a difference?"

"A big one. Happy people smile. People losing their minds start filing for emergency funding." Jess nearly folded in half. Maki finally turned her head and looked at me, a trace of exhaustion in her eyes.

"The fact that you can still talk like this right now means your mental state's holding up."

"Thanks for the endorsement."

"That wasn't an endorsement."

"Then what was it?" She paused.

"An observation report."... Perfect. Very Maki Kushima. Very annoying. And for some reason, not bad to hear.