Chương 466: 220.Escape to Safety 1

The ship lurched. It wasn't a heavy jolt, but it was enough to drop that knot in my stomach — the one that had been stuck under the shadow of the Hohenzollern's main guns — down a full notch. One second earlier the bridge had felt like it was being crushed in the grip of an invisible giant hand. The next, that pressure peculiar to warped space simply let go, like a rope finally snapping. It seemed we had jumped successfully.

The reason I say "seemed" is that after having the whole ship, souls included, crammed into a wormhole seam and hauled through by main force, I honestly couldn't bring myself to feel all that confident about being "still alive and still in one piece." But Maki clearly didn't have my surplus of sentiment. She hadn't even let her breathing slip out of rhythm. She simply started giving orders.

"Jess, check the entire ship for damage. Don't leave a single spot unchecked."

"Lan, keep monitoring our surroundings. Report the instant anything is off."

"Akari, scan the area immediately."

"Roy, be so kind as to fix our position with the celestial navigation system." Four orders, four nails, driving the bridge order that had nearly come apart in the instant after we burst out of the wormhole right back into place. Sitting in the tactical seat, I couldn't help turning my head to glance at Maki.

Not flushed, not winded — her tone was so steady you'd think she hadn't just come tearing out of an Imperial fortress's throat, but had merely moved a student council meeting from Conference Room One to Conference Room Two. Was this woman's nervous system simply thicker than everyone else's, or was her will just harder? No. Knowing her, probably both. Which only made it worse.

"Captain, our approximate position is the outer reaches of Ursa Major." Roy reported quickly. He stared at the navigation board, fingers gliding across the star map as though he were doing the final paperwork on the escape we had just bought with our lives.

"We are still some distance from the capital system, but we are definitely inside Federation territory." The instant that landed, the air on the bridge finally changed. Not cheering. And not some collective flood of tears dramatic enough to earn a spot in the school paper, either. Just a very quiet, very practical kind of loosening. Like everyone aboard had swallowed the breath stuck in their throats back down into their lungs in the same second, and remembered that living people are allowed to breathe normally.

I looked down at the tactical map in front of me too. The Federation identification marker on our lane glowed there, calm and steady, and the background was no longer that stretch of dead space over Hohenzollern that made you sick even in your dreams. Honestly, in that moment I almost wanted to flop down on the console and sleep for twenty hours straight. But Maki was still awake. Which meant Asgard had to stay awake with her.

"Hull's all fine, by the way." Jess's report came in first. She was reading the whole-ship maintenance status that the damage control system had thrown up, and her tone was so light you'd think she had just spent the past hour counting folding chairs after a school festival, not living through an emergency jump.

"Except for a few unlucky idiots who didn't grab onto anything and got banged up." My eyelid twitched. That was a very Jess way of describing things. Warmth with a little callousness in it, and even in the callousness a bare-minimum human decency. Roughly meaning: nobody died, so everyone should count their blessings first, and as for those few who got shaken to pieces, the medical bay will put their bones back where they belong later.

"No ships anywhere around us. Not even civilian traffic." Akari reported right after. Her eyes were probably still glued to the scan data even now; she would have liked nothing better than to pluck every suspicious speck of dust within several million kilometers and hold it up to the light one by one.

"Captain, everything I'm receiving is civilian signal traffic." Lan said it while she played back the audio she had captured. The next second, what came out over the bridge almost made me wonder whether I had jumped too hard and slammed headfirst into some excessively peaceful parallel universe. The first one was a financial news anchorwoman, her delivery so calm it was almost cruel.

"The cross-sector stock index hit another quarterly low today. The finance commissioner of Dunan Star stated that the public need not panic over short-term fluctuations. Furthermore, the three major sectors — interstellar shipping, rare-earth mining, and high-orbit agriculture — still hold value for long-term observation." The second was a breakfast program host, shouting in a tone that suggested the universe would end tomorrow because someone's fried egg had been cooked wrong.

"Welcome back to Sunrise Kitchen! Today we're teaching you how to make Federation butter pancakes that come out crisp outside and tender inside, and won't float up to the ceiling in one piece in your zero-point-three-gravity home!" The third was a brisk service announcement from the traffic channel.

"Attention all civilian freight vessels on the Kapra lane: a high-density micrometeor swarm has appeared east of the Number Eleven debris belt. We recommend the B-7 bypass lane. Repeating once — don't test your life against your insurance company's patience." The fourth was even more absurd. It was an elderly woman's public lost-and-found notice, delivered in a tearful voice.

"If anyone has seen a grey-and-white house cat with a notch missing from its left ear, name of Butter, please contact Mrs. Melissa of the third colonial ring on Ursa Minor. It doesn't bite. It just looks down on people a little. Please, everyone, lend a hand." Silence held on the bridge for one second. Even Akari seemed to pause half a beat. And the fifth — the fifth was some local merchant's advertisement, overenthusiastic to the point of embarrassment.

"The Silver Arc shopping district anniversary sale is on! This week, buy a home air conditioner, a children's study terminal, or anti-radiation curtains — spend fifty thousand and get two thousand back; spend a hundred thousand and we'll throw in a limited-edition mascot thermos! Life can be hard, but you don't want to miss a discount!" When the broadcast ended, the bridge went quiet in a very peculiar way. Staring at the console in front of me, I suddenly felt something deeply unreal.

Less than ten minutes ago, we had been running for our lives along the edge of the deadliest fortress guns the Empire had, gravity shells chasing us from behind, a wormhole we had to punch open by force ahead of us — half a beat slow and we would have been reduced to an illustration in a history textbook. And now, here on the Federation side, people were discussing stock prices, butter pancakes, stray cats, and free thermoses. Sometimes the gulf between civilizations is cruel in a way that's genuinely funny.

You're on the front line, trading your life for tomorrow. And the people on the other end of tomorrow are fretting over whether to add extra honey to breakfast. And somehow, it was precisely because that absurdity existed that I felt it for the first time — ah. We're back. Maki had clearly caught that meaning too. She didn't let herself smile visibly. The corner of her mouth just moved the slightest bit.

"Good." She turned to me.

"Stand down the alert, then place a call to every class representative for me." I was still savoring the echo of "it doesn't bite, it just looks down on people a little," and nearly missed it.

"Huh?" The moment that syllable left my mouth, I regretted it. Maki looked at me. It wasn't a glare, but it had a very definite "Vice Captain, kindly let your soul catch up with your body" kind of effect. I cleared my throat.

"What for?"

"I'm convening an emergency all-year representatives' meeting." She said it as if it were the most natural thing in the world, as if the first thing anyone should do after escaping death at the edge of an Imperial fortress was hold a meeting — not eat, not shower, not sleep, or at the very least let everyone sit and stare into space for ten minutes first. This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it Then she added one more line.

"Before we indulge ourselves, we settle a few things." Looking at Maki, I suddenly couldn't decide whether to feel admiration first, or to hold a moment of silence in advance for everyone who would be at that meeting. That's Maki for you. Even indulgence has to have rules. From anyone else, that line would sound like a joke. Coming from her, it was a governance principle that could plausibly be printed as an official notice and posted on every public bulletin board on the ship.

"Interim Administrative Measures Concerning Limited Relaxation and Maintenance of Discipline Following This Vessel's Departure from Enemy Territory." The articles would probably come with supplements. One: it is strictly forbidden to dismantle interior fixtures while cheering. Two: requests to convert the bridge into a dance floor on the grounds that "we survived" are prohibited. Three: Jess McCallow may not use the occasion to hold any event named as a celebration and actually a disturbance.

At that thought, I nearly laughed out loud. Then I turned my eyes — and there was Jess, wearing exactly the face of someone asking "am I being targeted again?" She had even crossed her arms in protest. She didn't say a word, of course. But that face had already finished writing the complaint in full. Holding back a laugh, I pulled up the all-ship alert cancellation procedure and pressed confirm.

The red alert lamps went dark section by section, and the bridge's color scheme — the one that stretched everyone's nerves to the breaking point — faded along with them. What replaced it was a gentler standard lighting, as though the ship had finally given itself permission to switch out of "liable to become cosmic debris at any moment" mode and back into "still a whole pile of trouble, but at least not dying for the moment" mode. I picked up the internal comm.

"All hands, red alert is cleared. All class representatives are to assemble in the conference room within ten minutes. Repeating — all class representatives are to assemble in the conference room within ten minutes." Once I'd finished, I paused, and suddenly realized I was picking up bad habits too. So I added one more line.

"This is an official notice. It is not a suggestion, and it is not a cute reminder." Jess laughed first. Lan turned her face aside, shoulders shaking once. Roy fought hard to preserve the dignity of a chief navigator, but the corner of his mouth didn't hold. Even Hedwig raised an eyebrow, as though the Federation military academy's peculiar governing style — halfway between military discipline and farce — had once again sparked her interest in cultural research. Maki gave me a light glance. She didn't smile.

But I swear something thin, something close to indulgence, passed through her eyes. It lasted an instant. Too brief to be anything but an illusion. And precisely because it was so brief, it stuck with me more. Honestly. This woman could deliver four life-saving orders with perfect solemnity on the bridge, then turn around and convene an emergency all-year representatives' meeting — and still, with a single glance, make me feel like the quip I had tacked on at the end hadn't been all that stupid after all.

I put the handset back and sat down in my seat again. Ahead of us, the star map of the outer reaches of Ursa Major glowed steady and calm. Asgard's hull was in normal condition, the surrounding space was clean, no enemy contacts. The whole ship had finally dropped out from under the Empire's guns and back into its own world. But I knew that didn't mean it was over. Quite the opposite. It meant the next phase was about to begin.

Because the moment Maki said "settle a few things," it guaranteed that somebody was about to be sat down in a chair and, in a highly organized fashion, made to relearn the meaning of order, responsibility, and the reality that they had just come within a hair of sending the entire school year onto the memorial roll together. And for some reason. Thinking about it, I actually felt a flicker of anticipation.

Probably because it's only at times like this that this ship — part warship, part student council, and occasionally part psychiatric practicum — truly starts to feel like our place. After I handed temporary control of the tactical seat back to the duty officer, I scooped up the meeting materials I had just sorted and walked from the bridge down to the conference level. And at the very first corner, I saw the most standard Asgard scenery there is.

Exhaustion, dishevelment, and human beings who will not shut their mouths for even a moment.

"That's why I said it. Before an emergency jump, you grab onto something fixed." Lan was leaning against the corridor wall, tablet in one hand, the other pressed to her temple, her tone as placid as if she were writing an addendum to an after-disaster textbook.

"Some people treat the alarm as background music, and end up kissing the floor with the back of their skull." Roy was standing beside Lan, a smear of dust still on his shoulder that he hadn't gotten around to brushing off, and he protested the instant he heard that.

"Your description is unfair. I did not kiss the floor. I was persuaded of the necessity of gravity's existence by inertia, in an extremely malicious manner." I stopped walking and looked at him.

"In plain language: you fell."

"Vice Captain, please do not destroy my last shred of dignity."

"You still have any of that?" I asked in complete sincerity. Roy choked on the spot, and Lan turned her face away with the corner of her mouth twitching. A person like her normally treats even smiling as if she were rationing her facial expressions — so getting that one twitch out of her today counted as remarkably positive support for Federation peace.

"That's enough out of you three." Jess drifted over from the other direction, maintenance terminal still swinging in her hand, walking like someone who had just come back from browsing school festival stalls rather than from the edge of death. She looked at Roy first.

"You got off easy. Down at the hangar there's a junior who rolled straight out clutching a fire extinguisher. Apparently the posture was flawless. Like a bowling ball cradling its dreams."

"That's not comforting." Roy said, face blank.

"It's statistically speaking a kindness." Jess patted his shoulder.

"When you find out there are people worse off than you, you feel a little better."

"That's you." Lan supplied coolly.

"Normal people don't get psychological equilibrium out of other people's disasters."

"Which is why I'm the irreplaceable morale specialist." Jess answered with perfect self-righteousness, even tilting her chin up, her whole expression full of a professional confidence that said Asgard would lose thirty percent of its chaos and seventy percent of its laughs without her. Looking at her, I suddenly thought: for this ship to have made it this far alive, besides Maki's command, Roy's flying, Lan's comms, and Akari's vigilance, it probably really did need someone like Jess. Not because she's so serious.

But because she's so thoroughly unserious. When the whole ship's nerves are stretched to the snapping point, somebody has to be responsible for easing that string back a little — otherwise everyone was going to blow apart on the spot sooner or later. Viewed from that angle, she isn't a damage control officer. She's the ship's psychiatric damage control. Even if her repair methods usually are asking to be punched.

"Speaking of which, Shimo." Jess suddenly leaned in, glanced at the stack of documents in my arms, and her eyes curved into the smile that always meant she was about to say something strange.

"Right now you look exactly like someone who just finished fighting a war and is now on her way to a model-student award ceremony." I looked down at myself. Uniform jacket still more or less in order, hair a bit of a mess, and probably some unbeatable fatigue under my eyes — while my arms were stubbornly wrapped around a great stack of class representative meeting materials, as if someone insisted on finishing the administrative paperwork before the end of the world.

"This ship was already sick to begin with." I said.

"It's just that the rest of you are visibly sick, and I'm institutionally sick." Lan finally laughed out loud. Very softly — but she did laugh. Roy let out a low sigh too, as though resigning himself to switching from chief navigator mode into attending member of the all-year representatives' meeting mode.

"Honestly, I still find this absurd." He raised a hand and rubbed his neck.

"Half an hour ago we were running for our lives next to an Imperial fortress. Now we're going to a meeting."

"That's normal, isn't it?" Jess said.

"What students are best at is getting hauled into a debriefing the instant a disaster is over."

"Why is your understanding of the student system so pessimistic?"

"Because it's usually right." Just then, footsteps came from the far end of the corridor ahead. Not hurried. Not disordered. Steady as a metronome. All of us went quiet for half a beat at the same time. Maki walked over. She was carrying a folder too, her uniform buttoned with not a single thing out of place, and nothing on her face showed what she had just been through. But if you looked closely, you could find a faint fatigue in her eyes as well — just pressed down under that too-proper restraint of hers.

Sometimes this woman really is like some kind of advanced material. No visible cracks on the surface doesn't mean there's no stress inside. She just refuses to let anyone see it. Her gaze swept over the lot of us first. One second. Two seconds. Then it stopped on the dust smear on Roy's shoulder, and on Jess's face, which clearly still wanted to cause more trouble.

"So you all still have the energy to chat." She said mildly. She hadn't raised her voice. You could even call it calm. But for some reason, the air in the corridor instantly became very suitable for standing at attention. Jess raised her hand first.

"Reporting — I do."

"I didn't ask you."

"Right. Suddenly I don't." Roy turned his head away, and his shoulders shook very suspiciously. Lan simply dropped her head to her tablet, pretending to be studying some extremely important civilian signal noise. And as for me — I held onto my documents and worked hard to keep my face inside the credible range required of a vice captain. Maki glanced at the lot of us, then didn't bother with more, only issuing a short set of orders.

"Roy, go tell the ones who haven't shown up yet not to drag their feet. Lan, confirm the conference room's recording and internal projection are working. Jess, if you're not on your way to the medical bay, then put away that face of yours that anyone can see is out to cause trouble."

"Am I really that obvious?"

"Extremely obvious."

"So mean."

"That wasn't an evaluation. It was an observation." I nearly laughed. Jess wore the aggrieved look of someone academically bullied, but shut her mouth obediently anyway. To get her from "here to make trouble" to "fine, I'll cooperate, provisionally" in three seconds — across all of Asgard, probably only Maki can manage it. Once the others had scattered on their errands, the corridor went a little quieter.

Not silent — it was more that the loose, noisy feeling that belongs to a crowd had temporarily withdrawn, leaving only the ship's air conditioning, distant footsteps, and the things between us that hadn't been said out loud right away. Maki took a step closer to me.

"Give me half the documents."

"No need. I can carry them." She looked at me. That look is infuriating. Not fierce, not cold. Too accurate. Accurate enough that she didn't even have to ask to know that I was currently holding myself up on one breath and a bit of pride.

"I know you can carry them." She held out a hand, her tone still strictly business.

"But I don't intend to let the vice captain work herself to death before the meeting has even started." I was silent for two seconds, then in the end handed her half of the stack. Our fingers touched in the handover. Just a very brief touch. Too brief for anything like ambiguity to form — at most, static electricity.

And yet, in that exact moment, I remembered the warped light inside the wormhole; remembered that pressure inside the Hohenzollern's gun range where even breathing had to be rationed; remembered her sitting in the captain's seat, knowing full well that half a second's delay would finish all of us together, and still finishing every order with perfect calm. So that touch — light beyond light — suddenly became a little excessive. I cleared my throat.

"You're not in much better shape than me."

"I'm still standing."

"That statement has no persuasive power whatsoever."

"But it's very practical." She answered without a flicker of expression. Looking at her, I suddenly thought that the most cunning thing about Maki is exactly this. She is obviously worried about you, but the moment it leaves her mouth it sounds like she is confirming whether the ship's equipment still meets basic functional requirements — so that even wanting to say "thanks" makes you feel like you would be embarrassing yourself. She glanced down at the documents I had handed over, then asked one more thing.

"Can you hold out?" Very short. Very faint. Like nothing more than a routine pre-meeting check. But I knew it wasn't. Because she hadn't asked anyone else that way. And I couldn't be too honest with that question either — otherwise she really might park me somewhere to rest and go clean up that pack of class representatives by herself. The picture was certainly full of student council president gravitas. But I didn't want to miss it. So I thought about it, and gave an answer somewhere between bravado and honesty.

"If the meeting doesn't run until tomorrow morning, I should live." The corner of Maki's mouth moved, very faintly. It barely counted as a smile. At most, it was a thread of humanness she had allowed herself to leak out from behind order and duty.

"Then that's enough." She said. And for some reason, though it was such an ordinary line, the knot in my chest that had come all the way back with me from Imperial territory actually loosened a little. That makes no sense. I'm not the kind of person who takes comfort well. And yet the way she packages comfort like a combat assessment conclusion is somehow especially effective. The conference room's automatic door ahead had already lit its standby indicator.

It would soon be filled with class representatives, officers, and a whole crowd of classmates who were ostensibly there for a meeting and actually in assorted states of psychological damage. What waited for us was probably review, explanation, rules, warnings, and the kind of cold-blooded meeting Maki excels at — the "I'm not scolding you, I'm helping you avoid actually getting written onto the KIA list next time" kind. Only the two of us were left in front of the door.

Cradling the remaining half-stack, I turned my head to look at her.

"Student council president."

"Mm?"

"I feel a little sorry for the people who are about to walk in." She pressed the conference room's door release, her tone flat and cruel.

"That means you still have margin to spare." The lock clicked softly as it released.