Chương 467: 220.Escape to Safety 2

The moment the conference room door opened, a few layers of low conversation were still drifting inside. Not noisy. More like people who had survived something, who needed to trade whispers just to prove they hadn't died all the way.

Some were quietly discussing where they had hit themselves during the jump, some were guessing which clause the student council president would scold first, and some were clearly still caught in the daze of "we actually made it back to the Federation" — their whole faces looking like souls that had just gotten their exit stamp from cosmic customs. Then Maki walked in. The next second, the whole room went dead silent.

So silent it was as if someone had pressed mute on the entire conference room, three hundred throats included. I stood at her side, holding the remaining half-stack, and my eyes naturally swept the room first. Class representatives, officers, people dragged in to sit in — every one of them sitting noticeably straighter than usual.

Not because everyone's manners had suddenly reincarnated as a group, but because every person here knew perfectly well that the woman standing at the front had just hauled the entire ship out of an Imperial fortress's main gun range by main force. At a moment like that, anyone who still dared to see her as just an ordinary student council president was genuinely tired of living. Then I saw someone. My eyelid twitched slightly. I turned my head and lowered my voice to ask Maki.

"Did you bring that one in?" Maki followed my gaze, her eyes landing on the rear right of the conference room. Nikaido was sitting there. Back ramrod straight, expression as unappealing as ever, and an aura like a school regulation that had learned to walk on its own.

She sat among the crowd but still somehow kept half a step of distance from everyone around her, as though even with the whole ship just back from the edge of hell, she was ready at any moment to leap up and announce whose posture failed to meet the standard. Maki answered me calmly.

"If you mean Freya Nikaido, then yes, I brought her in." She paused, her tone so flat she might have been stating something entirely uncontroversial.

"Because I have work to assign her." I looked at her and almost burst out laughing on the spot. Excellent. Maki had already become a frighteningly competent CEO. You can dislike someone without that meaning you can't use her. Those are two separate matters. Kushima Maki had clearly memorized that corporate gospel so thoroughly she could have it for breakfast with her coffee. She stepped forward and took the head of the table.

That little whispered explanation audible only to me was packed away in an instant, and she switched fully back into student council president mode.

"The emergency all-year representatives' meeting is now in session." Her voice wasn't loud, but it pressed down over the whole space with perfect steadiness.

"First of all — we have successfully returned to the Federation." The moment that line landed, the air in the room froze for a beat. Then it wasn't cheering that came first. It was a very strange kind of sound. Someone let out a long breath. Someone made a soft gasp, as if a clenched jaw had finally come unstuck; in the back row a boy even buried his face straight into both hands, shoulders collapsing heavily, looking like he hadn't just been sitting in a meeting but had brushed past his own headstone.

Only then did scattered laughter, table-slaps, and low cheers start bubbling up. Not out-of-control noise, but the reaction of people finally able to admit they had survived. Some exchanged looks, some couldn't help wiping at the corner of an eye, and someone cursed under their breath — "Shit, we actually made it back" — with such sincerity it could have opened a Federation border-education promotional film.

Standing to one side, watching that whole late-arriving loosening, I suddenly thought Maki had picked her moment well. She knew that line had to come first. Not because it was the most important thing, but because it was the premise that let every coming trouble keep being discussed. People have to admit they are still alive before they have the mood to face the next document. Sure enough, Maki didn't let that little burst of joy run on too long.

"What I promised you before — use of the ship's facilities — I won't go back on." At that, several faces below lit up instantly. Wonderful. Students will be students. The mere mention of "indulgence" or "facilities opening," and people who had looked like survivors of an ordeal a second earlier immediately grew back the luster proper to adolescence. But Maki's next line shaved that luster right off.

"Before that, however, there are a few matters we need to discuss with each class." The conference room went quiet again. She opened the first document.

"First: the ownership of this vessel." Those five words landed like a basin of ice water, faster than any school regulation could ever be poured. Leaning just behind her shoulder, I added a timely cut.

"If we just sail brazenly back in, what greets us may not be family and flowers." Watching those faces below gradually stiffen, I smiled as warmly as I could.

"It's more likely to be Bureau of Thought Control and Kempeitai. Especially since it would be under the command of the Galactic Empire's third princess, in Imperial uniforms." A conference room that seconds ago still carried the leftover joy of survival turned into a different, much more realistic kind of silence. Then Class C's class rep jumped to her feet.

"We were forced into—""Yes, forced." I caught her sentence with a smile, and even nodded politely.

"But if you're the only one saying it, who believes you?" That cut was too clean. Class C's class rep looked as if I had pressed her back into her chair on the spot. Her lips moved — clearly she wanted a few more words in defense of herself and everyone else — but in the end she gave a small shudder and sat back down without a sound. I understood exactly how she felt. Because reality is that unpleasant. It isn't that no one wants to hear the truth; it's that evidence usually has better acoustics.

And the evidence on everyone aboard this ship, to put it plainly, practically saved the interrogators the labor of organizing their materials.

"Not to mention some idiots who are still posing for photos in Imperial military uniforms." I pressed my smile down a little deeper.

"Doesn't that just announce, 'I'm a traitor, come arrest me'?" A burst of unstoppable whispering broke out below instantly. Some people started glaring at whoever sat next to them; some muttered in their own defense that it was called documenting a historic moment; and some clearly remembered they had joined in that stupidity, their faces as spectacular as if they had been corrected in public with red ink. Watching that stir, I felt only that it was fair.

We had just been educated in turns by main guns, gravity shells, and a wormhole over on the Imperial side. Now it was social reality's turn to teach everyone another lesson. Maki waited until the whispering dropped a little before she continued.

"So I'll offer a suggestion." Her tone was impossibly calm.

"There's a Kushima Heavy Industries drydock near here. We can swap ships there." I nearly turned my head to look at her again. Because the way she said it really sounded like — my house is just ahead, would you like to come in for tea? But it wasn't tea she was talking about, and it wasn't a guest room either. It was a drydock.

A drydock that could take a warship fresh off a smuggling run out of Imperial territory — carrying a princess, three hundred witnesses, and a whole chain of potential political trouble — and hide it away before anyone dealt with it. Being able to make that sound like an invitation to drop by on the way home is a talent in itself. Sure enough, someone below started to speak. Maki raised a hand and cut them off outright.

"I know you were going to say something like 'this belongs to the second year as a whole.'" Without even giving that class rep a proper look, she swatted the entire prepared speech back at them.

"So I'm not asking for it for nothing." Then she named a figure. Help support creative writers by finding and reading their stories on the original site. The instant that number came out, the air in the conference room turned profoundly realistic. Not a gasp. Not an outcry. But a silence in which the whole room rapidly divided it by headcount in their heads, multiplied it by future expenses, and quietly arrived at "you really can't refuse this money."

Standing to the side, I could practically hear the abacuses banging away inside everyone's skulls. Maki went on.

"The Kushima family will buy Asgard at the price I just quoted." At that, she shifted her gaze to Hedwig.

"Naturally, the ship remains registered under Her Highness's name." Sitting to one side, Hedwig inclined herself very slightly. The motion was so elegant it looked less like she was sitting in on an emergency all-year representatives' meeting about warship ownership, political risk, and collective survival, and more like she was at a court tea party, graciously accepting an arrangement whose answer she had known all along. I couldn't help applauding Maki in my heart. Two problems settled in a single stroke.

She cut Asgard out of the dangerous narrative of "these students smuggled an Imperial warship home on their own," preserved the princess's name and face, and incidentally made sure everyone would get a cut of money big enough to persuade their consciences to sit down and rest for a while. All I can say is: that's Kushima Maki for you. At that point Class D's class rep raised a hand.

"Then how do we get home?" An excellent question. And a very student one. No matter how much you talk about the big picture, politics, and secrecy, in the end people still have to go home. And preferably not with the word "escort" attached. Maki didn't even pause.

"Don't worry. I'll arrange transport." As she spoke, she pulled out another document and handed it to the front-row representatives to pass back.

"A nondisclosure agreement. Three hundred people, not one short. As for how to persuade them—" She paused, her tone flat and cruel.

"That's up to your methods." The sound of paper turning rose in the conference room at once. It wasn't the ordinary sound of pages being flipped. It was the sound of money negotiating with morality. Watching the front-row representatives read with their heads down, I nearly laughed.

Especially when the agreement reached Nikaido's hands — I even caught myself holding my breath, waiting to see whether she would rise like justice itself suddenly growing legs and deliver a speech on discipline, conviction, and the refusal of dirty money. She didn't. She looked down at the number on the agreement. Looked for two seconds. Then quietly signed, without a word. … I nearly burst out laughing right there. Not because her signing wasn't funny. But because she signed too fast.

So fast that the stage I had just finished building in my head — "head of the Disciplinary Committee angrily refuses hush money for justice" — hadn't even been dressed yet, and the lead actress had already brought her pen down with crisp efficiency. It really was no small amount of money. Big enough that even a woman like Nikaido — who feeds on discipline and breathes through regulations — looked at it and chose to let her principles sit to one side and cool off first.

Unfortunately, my ability to hold down the corners of my mouth was clearly still insufficient. Nikaido raised her head and caught my insufficiently contained smile with perfect precision.

"Hoshino Shimo. What exactly do you mean by snickering over there?" Her tone was cold with textbook precision, and her glare carried the full professional dignity of a head of the Disciplinary Committee. I waved my hands at once.

"Nothing. I just thought, so you're an ordinary person after all. I was sure you would refuse in the strongest terms." Her eyes turned more dangerous.

"Are you trying to make fun of me right now?" I swallowed the second half of my sentence by force. Because I had nearly said — I think you would be perfect playing a corrupt officer. But I was absolutely certain that the moment those words left my mouth, Nikaido would go off like a bomb on the spot. So I held it in. After all, I didn't want to be executed by the head of the Disciplinary Committee's glare during the first half of an emergency all-year representatives' meeting.

"Next item." Maki drew back in one breath all the smell of money, the smell of politics, and the smell of certain people's souls briefly leaving their bodies the moment they finished signing the nondisclosure agreement, still lingering in the conference room. Her tone was as steady as a teacher holding a pointer.

"Use of the ship's internal facilities." The moment those six words came out, everyone below pricked up their ears at once. It was a magnificent sight. If a moment ago, discussing Asgard's ownership, they had looked like survivors forced to grow up — then now, each and every one of them instantly regressed into students who had finally gotten the free-time briefing for a field trip. Every face said the same thing — the rules can wait, just tell me where I can play. So young. And so beyond saving.

Maki turned a page of her document.

"Facilities including the artificial beach, the recreation room, the bathhouse, and the sauna… will open daily at nine thirty in the morning and close at six thirty in the evening." A soft stir ran through the room at once. Not protest — the expectant tremor of "so it really is opening." A few class reps even started exchanging looks on the spot, as though they had already laid out the operational sequence for tomorrow morning: sunbathe first, or hit the steam room first.

Then Maki paused half a beat, as if checking the next item. Someone in the back row, in a small voice, said the key word for the whole room.

"The bar."

"The officers' club." Hedwig corrected it calmly. Even when correcting a name she carried that precision and insistence unique to the Imperial upper class, as though a word like "bar" were too common, and would make the alcohol content of the entire space look underbred. I nearly raised a hand to rub my brow. They are both places for drinking, and yet the way she says it makes it sound as if the place doesn't sell alcohol so much as retail a kind of liquid dignity that only officers and nobles deserve to touch.

Maki, for her part, didn't move a facial muscle and simply went on along the correction.

"The officers' club will operate from eight every evening until three the following morning." Her gaze swept the room. It was a light glance, and yet it had the effect of calling every drunkard's soul to roll.

"And anyone scheduled for bridge duty the following day is forbidden to drink. Other posts will be handled at the discretion of their supervisors." Listening to this, I couldn't help sliding a glance sideways. Lan was very quiet. Roy was looking at the document in his hands with an expression so grave he might have been reading a solemn bulletin about revisions to sector law. Jess had her mouth pressed tightly shut, wearing the look of someone who would immediately follow if anyone laughed first.

And as for me — Naturally I was grave too. Grave enough to join them in pretending not to notice that Maki had never once mentioned the hot spring. So the several of us bridge veterans exchanged one look of perfect tacit understanding, then swiftly moved our eyes apart. Those who looked at the floor looked at the floor. Those who studied the fluorescent lights studied the fluorescent lights.

And the ones with genuinely nowhere left to look suddenly developed a deep academic interest in the texture of the paper in their hands. Nobody said a word. Because some things don't need to be officially recorded. Especially when history is highly likely to be mixed with alcohol, hot steam, and scenes capable of making a Disciplinary Committee member drop dead on the spot. Maki acted as though she hadn't seen our little pocket of delicate silence at all, and pressed on.

"The Disciplinary Committee will please keep a particular focus on the bar… The officers' club." She paused half a second on the word "bar," clearly unwilling to play along with Imperial court-style naming for too long, and in the end dutifully supplied the full name. She raised her eyes to Nikaido.

"As for the Disciplinary Committee members' rest schedule, I'll leave the whole of it to you to arrange. The student council won't interfere further." Nikaido nodded, not a ripple on her face. That face would be perfect on any number of terrifying propaganda posters for "discipline is love." But the moment I thought about what she was about to be in charge of, I couldn't help holding three seconds of silence in my heart for the Disciplinary Committee members on duty. Too brutal.

Other people survive an ordeal and get ready to lie flat on the artificial beach; they survive an ordeal and get ready to stand at The officers' club entrance catching drunks. Youth really isn't distributed fairly. Maki turned to the last page.

"One last point." She said.

"It doesn't officially open until tomorrow morning. Class representatives, please keep your own classes in line, and don't add to the Disciplinary Committee's workload." When I heard that, I made one very calm complaint to myself. That's pointless. These students just came back from the gates of death; their heads are currently a mix of lingering fear, excitement, exhaustion, and the impulse of "I nearly died today, so nobody gets to tell me anything tonight."

If they would actually obey, we wouldn't need a Disciplinary Committee at all — a few cautionary posters and an automatic water dispenser would do. And yet, as part of the meeting's order, that kind of pointless line still has to be said. Human civilization, much of the time, is held up in its surface elegance by exactly these rules — rules everybody knows no one will fully follow, and which still have to be spoken out loud in earnest.

"That's everything." Maki closed the document, then turned her head to look at me. That look was very level. Level, as if she were asking me about the weather.

"Does the vice president have anything she'd like to add?" I blinked. Honestly, I strongly suspected she did it on purpose. Because she had to know that in a situation like this — where she had already covered the key points, listed the rules, and drawn the line between alcohol and discipline — leaving me the floor was not going to grow anything particularly safe. But the whole room was looking at me. Hedwig was watching. Lan was watching. Roy was watching.

Jess was watching too, and that expression of hers was clearly waiting for me to say something she could mock later. Fine. If that's how it is, then I can't let everyone's expectations down. I cleared my throat and stepped forward.

"Ahem. Then I'll add a few words." The conference room went quiet. I looked at the rows of faces below, still carrying the fatigue of having survived, and first put on the grave expression that would fit perfectly in an official school publication.

"First, everyone worked hard today." I said. An opening like that is boring. So boring I nearly hypnotized myself with it. But there's no helping it — the reason pleasantries survive for thousands of years is that, boring as they are, they genuinely work. Especially in front of three hundred people who had just run back out of Imperial main gun range. You can't just open your mouth to order each and every one of them not to get frisky in the corridors tonight. That would be too fast. You need rhythm.

Very professionally, I kept laying down the groundwork.

"The fact that each of us can sit here today isn't luck. It's because every person on this ship gritted their teeth and held on — the bridge, engineering, communications, damage control, every class acting on the spot — all of it together carried this stretch of the road." Some people below sat up a little straighter. Good. That one landed.

"So opening the facilities next, letting everyone catch their breath — that's entirely reasonable. Since Maki… since the student council president has given her word, it means this isn't charity. It's the rest everyone earned by coming back alive." I deliberately paused. Let that line sit in the room half a second longer. At moments like this, people really are easy to move with a few decent-sounding lines. Everyone is tired today, still shaken, and softer-hearted than usual.

As long as your tone holds steady, even sentences that would normally be laughed at for being too earnest come off with weight right now. So I laid down one more layer.

"But rest that's earned doesn't mean acting out that's earned." Some people below started putting away the expression that had been about to fly off. Good. The knife was nearly ground to the edge.

"Those planning to drink, check whether you have duty the next day first. Those planning to use the facilities, think first about whether you'll still be able to walk back to your room straight. Those planning to celebrate — all of you, girls and boys, please keep at least a shred of the last dignity due a Federation military academy second-year. Don't make the Disciplinary Committee spend tomorrow morning going around collecting bodies with stretchers and incident reports."

The moment that landed, several stifled snorts came from below. Even a few class reps who had been wound tightest twitched at the corners of their mouths. I knew it was about time. So I took a breath, put on the face of a vice president genuinely concerned with campus order and public decency, and delivered the last line that was destined to become the core of the post-meeting rumor mill.

"Also — please go back and spread the word properly." I swept my eyes over the room, my tone earnest to the point of being unassailable.

"Don't do horny things in public. It only adds to the Disciplinary Committee's troubles." The next second. Jess shot a mouthful of water right across the room. Clean and crisp. With a decisiveness that suggested her esophagus hadn't had time to consult her brain before delivering the most sincere possible assessment of the entire sentence.

"Koff, koff—what even was that?!" Choking, she covered her mouth with one hand, shoulders shaking so hard she nearly slid off her chair. The conference room was silent for one second first. And then it was as if someone had thrown a high-pressure laughing grenade into the crowd. A few people in the front row bit their lips for dear life. Someone in the back snapped their head down and buried their face in their documents, playing dead.

And one class rep, having fought laughter too hard, let out a deeply undignified noise and immediately started fake-coughing. Roy pressed a fist to his mouth, and his ears visibly went a little red. Lan simply turned her face away, shoulders shaking harder than before — clearly she had given up maintaining the poise proper to the general affairs officer. And Nikaido— She raised her head and looked at me with an expression of extreme rarity. Not fury. Not disgust.

And not her usual pre-sanction face of "you had better go write a self-criticism right now." But plain, unmistakable— You really dared to say it. The moment our eyes met, I nearly failed to hold back a laugh. Because that expression was so rare. So rare that I even had the illusion that just seeing this one moment had made today's meeting worth the price of admission. Maki, seated at the head of the table, tapped the tabletop once with a fingertip. Not loudly.

But just enough to press the laughter that had been about to spread into collective loss of control back within the bounds of reason. She didn't speak at once. She only looked at me very calmly. The meaning of that look was probably— Vice president. You said it after all. And I was innocent. After all, wasn't what I said a very practical matter of discipline?