Chương 353: 152.Rather Lose Whole Ship Than Lose One's Seat 2

Part Four: The Final Cut Wasn't Science. It Was the Kempeitai. Just when everyone seemed to think today's main revelations had already been dragged out into the light, the question that actually resembled a blade finally arrived. Not from a flag officer. Not from the Institute. Not even from the Council. It came from the Federal Kempeitai.

An MP captain, shoulders pressed into a perfectly straight line, cap badge polished bright, wearing the exact expression I'd been instinctively routing around since childhood — not someone here to understand you, but someone here to confirm exactly where you could be written up. He hadn't tried to speak once, up to this point. He waited until now. This type is the worst. Because when they finally open their mouth, it's rarely filler.

He had a summary pulled from the Yukikaze's materiel and supply anomaly logs in hand. He looked up, directing his gaze at Ash. Then, in a tone that was extremely polite and extremely well-prepared to ruin someone's day, he asked:"You seized a Helium-Hydrogen Power Plant. How do you explain that?" The venue went instantly quiet. Beautifully quiet. Quiet enough that I almost wanted to compliment the captain on his timing.

Everything before this — the achievements, the tracks, the engagements, the survival, the scientific miracles — all of it was exactly the kind of material suited for report covers and commendation citations. But this one sentence yanked the entire picture out of heroic return and dropped it right back into hold on, did you also help yourselves to something on the way? Very Federal. Very MP. I looked at Ash, almost on instinct. Then at Lan. Then at Maki. Then I very much wanted to bury my face in my hands.

Because that Helium-Hydrogen Power Plant didn't just exist — it had an extremely loud presence. And we hadn't just taken it. We'd survived because of it. I thought, internally: Right. Here it comes. The commendations are done. Now it's time for the record. Ash didn't answer immediately. That kind of pause from him wasn't guilt, and it wasn't panic.

It was closer to him sorting through a dozen possible versions — what could be said, what couldn't, what would set off which department if spelled out too plainly, what would leave someone writing reports for the next three months — trying to pick the one least likely to detonate the Capital Ring system on the spot. I knew it. A place like the Federation never lets anyone finish looking impressive.

One moment, everyone had been struck collectively speechless by the Yukikaze's tracks, her combat record, her scientific data — as if we weren't a training vessel at all, but some anomaly that had clawed its way back out of a crack in reality and dragged the Federation's pride and knowledge base home along with it. The next moment, one MP captain opened his mouth, and the entire mood swung from these people being alive is unbelievable to hold on, did you also commit a felony on the side? Very Federal.

Very irritating. The venue held its breath for a few seconds. A strange kind of quiet. The military said nothing, because they knew exactly how loaded the question was. The Institute said nothing, because their heads were still full of the Texas and the indium planet, and they had zero interest in letting the topic drift right now.

The Academy said nothing, because this kind of emergency requisition versus unauthorized taking boundary question has always been the type that drags everyone in together if you're not careful. As for me — I gave the Helium-Hydrogen Power Plant half a second of internal mourning. Sorry, buddy. You saved our lives. And now you're the first one on the chopping block.

Ash stood at the front, exactly as calm as always — as if the crowd in front of him wasn't a group of adults trying to dismantle the Yukikaze into legal clauses, military reports, and research appendices, but just a slightly noisy meeting. Lan stood just behind his left shoulder, terminal still open, clearly already pulling the acquisition record for the power plant. Maki stood beside me, the line of her profile pulled tight and clean.

The quieter she gets at moments like this, the faster I know her mind is turning. Jess was on my other side, already deep in the dangerous state of I know this is about to be spectacular, so I'm pre-suppressing the laugh. Finally, Ash spoke.

"Not seized." His tone was level.

"Borrowed." The venue paused for half a beat. I almost laughed out loud. That line was gorgeous. Not because it actually made anything sound more legal. It was that cold, hard quality of his — knowing perfectly well the other side would never accept it, and saying it anyway without so much as a flicker of expression — that was so completely Yukikaze. The MP captain's eyes shifted, right on cue.

"Borrowed?"

"Borrowed," Ash said.

"From whom?"

"Pirates." Right. I genuinely had to work to hold it together. Because heard through an ordinary person's ears, that exchange landed about as absurdly as: We didn't steal the car — we just took out a short-term lease from the guys who carjacked it. If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation. Someone in the crowd — I couldn't tell which department — let out a small, sharp breath. I'm fairly sure they'd meant to cough and forced it back down at the last second.

The MP captain kept his professional face intact.

"I hope this isn't a joke."

"I also hoped border pirates issued donation receipts," Ash replied, flat.

"Unfortunately, they don't." Oh. That one had teeth. Very politely delivered teeth. I almost added, out loud: Sorry, we were a little busy not dying at the time. Didn't have a chance to ask for a stamp of authenticity. Lan threw the record up onto the shared display.

"Acquisition of the Helium-Hydrogen Power Plant falls within the window where this vessel's life support and primary propulsion had entered simultaneous failure," Lan said. Her voice always works like a scalpel — never loud, always clean.

"The source was the wreckage of an unregistered, unflagged predatory hull with a documented armament history. At the time of acquisition, the target had already lost full propulsion, defensive capability, and communications." The MP captain came in immediately.

"In other words, once the opposing party had lost the ability to resist, you dismantled and removed their core power system."

"In other words," I finally couldn't help cutting in, "when we were about to die, we took something from pirates that they no longer had the capacity to use to kill people with — so that we wouldn't die." Maki shot me a very light glance. Translated: You can talk. Just reel it in. I gave her the courtesy of not adding a second line. The captain turned to me.

"Cadet Hoshino, this involves—""Survival," I said.

"—involves Federal property and wartime disposition regulations."

"Right. And survival." He paused, clearly trying to work out whether I was just running my mouth, or genuinely intent on framing this in the ugliest possible terms right here. Obviously the latter. Because once someone like him gets to define this as a regulatory question first, everything after that becomes a mess. And the Yukikaze's single biggest advantage this past year has been that we never let anyone else define what we did before we defined it ourselves. Ash raised a hand slightly, signaling me to stop.

Fine. The acting captain had spoken. I pulled back, reluctantly. He looked at the MP captain, his tone flatter than before.

"The situation at the time was as follows. First: this vessel's primary propulsion could not sustain a return transit. Second: life support had entered terminal countdown. Third: Federal rescue was unavailable. Fourth: the source was a hostile predatory hull with no legitimate claimant. Fifth: this vessel conducted a minimum-necessary extraction of equipment in order to complete self-rescue and return to port." He paused.

"If you're asking whether this complies with peacetime regulations, the answer probably won't look good. If you're asking whether it was necessary — the fact that the Yukikaze is currently parked over your head should be evidence enough." Good. That worked. That worked very well. No denial, no flinching — and he'd quietly dragged the entire question back into a results-based frame: You only get to ask this because we did it. The MP captain didn't back down immediately.

People who back down that easily don't get assigned to Kempeitai. He checked the record again.

"Has this hostile predatory hull been formally confirmed as pirates?" Lan answered fast.

"Hull markings had been overpainted multiple times. No legitimate Federal or Imperial registration codes. Internal fit-out included modified raiding bays, non-standard confinement cells, mixed-mount weapon hardpoints, and detachable cargo partitions. Prior to the engagement, the vessel initiated active pursuit and attempted to seize this ship's supplies." Jess added, very softly:"And our lives, while they were at it." The captain acted like he hadn't heard her, eyes staying on Lan.

"Where is that power plant currently located?" This time, the answer came from neither Lan nor Ash. It came from Evelyn. She leaned against the barrier, leg still dragging slightly, her voice cold enough to frost the air.

"Aboard the Yukikaze. Still running hot. We didn't borrow it to put it on display." Someone nearby nearly laughed, then forcibly swallowed it. My mood improved considerably. Exactly. Everyone gets to be uncomfortable together. I wasn't about to let the Yukikaze be the only ones out here sounding like we were drafting supplementary notes to our own wills. The MP captain finally frowned.

"The Federation will need to impound that equipment as—""No." Maki spoke. Short. Clean. Clean as a blade. Every head turned. Maki stepped half a pace forward, placing herself precisely in the narrow, still-polite gap between Ash and the captain. She's never been one to circle a point, and she clearly had no intention of starting now.

"The Yukikaze just returned. Hull stabilization isn't complete. The alternative-power assessment hasn't concluded. If you impound that power plant right now, that's not evidence preservation. That's killing us twice."... Maki really can be lovable, sometimes. Lovable enough that I want to pre-write her incident report for her. The captain looked at her.

"And you are?" Aki's voice came smoothly from behind.

"Maki Kushima. One of the personnel who assumed Executive Officer duties aboard the Yukikaze during her return transit." I almost whistled. See that? That's the benefit of having a President for a sister. You finish a sentence, and half a breath later, someone's already nailed your title into place at maximum weight. Maki didn't care whether he'd processed that yet. She kept going.

"You can log it. Photograph it. Seal it. Monitor it remotely. Post a technical team on it around the clock. But until the Federation completes an alternative power configuration, whoever puts a hand on that Helium-Hydrogen Power Plant had better have their liability statement ready — for causing secondary destabilization of a returning vessel." The MP captain went quiet. Not convinced. Stuck. An interesting kind of stuck. Not because he didn't recognize she had a point.

Because he knew that if he pushed, the liability might genuinely end up hanging around his own neck. Federal adults fear exactly two things. First: cameras. Second: signatures. Right now, both were present. The Superintendent, of all people, chose this moment to interject.

"Looking at the outcome, the Yukikaze's successful recovery of hostile equipment under extreme conditions, used to complete a self-rescue return, is itself a demonstration of our cadets' adaptability and resource integration — which reflects this institution's educational—" I genuinely wanted to cut him off. Just how much of this did this man intend to staple to his own list of administrative achievements? Jess clearly felt the same way.

She leaned in and muttered:"Is he trying to count the pirates as teaching material too?"

"You're being conservative," I whispered back.

"At this point I wouldn't be surprised if he put the Helium-Hydrogen Power Plant in next year's recruitment brochure." Jess's shoulders started shaking violently. Admiral Vander finally spoke, dragging the whole argument back from the brink of becoming a campus achievement showcase.

"The dispute over the equipment's origin is deferred to closed review," he said.

"For now: no disassembly, no removal, no physical impoundment. Joint monitoring by the fleet's technical team and the Academy." That line functioned as a ruling. The MP captain couldn't keep pressing for the hardware itself. But he wasn't finished.

"Then its acquisition status—" This time, the one who answered was, unexpectedly, Calando Rosen. He stood a short distance back, his tone as level as if he were adding a footnote to a budget proposal.

"Can be provisionally classified as wartime emergency requisition of hostile, unclaimed materiel." The venue went quiet for half a beat. I let out a silent oh. Brutal. The moment that sentence landed, the entire center of gravity of the argument shifted. What did borrowed from pirates actually mean? Translated into the Federation's polished, high-level language, it became: Wartime emergency requisition of hostile, unclaimed materiel. Same action. Completely different flavor. The first sounds like robbery.

The second sounds like jurisprudence. That's what makes the Rosens so frightening. They don't turn black into white. They take you're about to be court-martialed and repackage it as this is open to discussion. Aida walked back in right on cue, delivering the final cut.

"If the Kempeitai still have reservations about the phrase 'emergency requisition,'" Aida said, looking at the captain, her eyes clean and cold, "I'd suggest first confirming whether Federal law imposes any obligation on survivors at the deep-space border to preserve the asset integrity of pirates' energy equipment." Done for. That one was worse. The kind that doesn't use a single dirty word, and only gets more uncomfortable the longer you sit with it over the next three hours.

I worked very hard to hold my expression together. The MP captain's mouth twitched. I actually felt a flicker of sympathy for him. Not because his situation was tragic. Because he was standing in front of a group of people using words, jurisprudence, and the raw fact of their own survival to forcibly rebrand a power plant stolen from pirates into a survival-critical core we had no choice but to borrow — and he couldn't afford to lose too visibly. That's a hard fight.

Especially against opponents operating at Calando's and Aida's level. In the end, he could only step back half a pace.

"I'll enter my objection on the record." Ash nodded.

"Understood. Please make sure the full acquisition context goes in with it." That line mattered. Because sometimes an objection isn't the dangerous part. What's dangerous is when the context gets cut away and only the conclusion survives. And context was the one thing the Yukikaze could least afford to lose right now. We didn't strip a pirate reactor because we wanted to steal something. We did it because not doing it meant dying. A significant difference. The difference between a commendation and a charge sheet.

I let out a long breath and found the whole thing almost funny. The Federation really is something. Other people's homecomings involve flowers, applause, speeches. Ours was different.

Ours went: appear over our own memorial, make the families cry first, have the Student Council President body-block the military, nearly give the Research Institute a stroke with the data logs, watch the Superintendent scramble for reflected glory, and finally have the Kempeitai start interrogating the legality of the Helium-Hydrogen Power Plant we "borrowed" from pirates.... What can I say. Busy. And exactly in keeping with this ship's particular relationship with fate. Maki brushed my arm, lightly.

"What are you thinking about now."

"I'm thinking that if Captain Tobita woke up right now and saw what his welcome-home scene looks like, he might just decide to lie back down." This time, Jess genuinely couldn't hold it and laughed out loud. Maki closed her eyes briefly, like she was enduring something entirely unnecessary but thoroughly familiar by now.

"Shimo."

"What."

"That kind of thinking isn't healthy."

"I know." I looked at the crowd of adults still recording, still frowning, still trying to file this past year into something human comprehension could handle, and let the corner of my mouth curl up.

"But it works." And honestly— If we could borrow a pirate's Helium-Hydrogen Power Plant and still make it home alive, then whatever the Federation planned to write into their report from here on, I had no intention of being particularly polite about it.