Chương 59: 25.Heavy Armored CQB 25-3

I used to think that military school education meant lining up a bunch of people who hadn't completely gone wrong yet, then sorting them by intended use. Then I realized I'd been thinking about it too gently. What the United Interstellar Military Academy was genuinely good at wasn't just sorting—it also taught you, as a bonus, that if you ever got stuffed into the belly of an enemy ship, here was how to handle the doors, the bones, and your own life in the most regulation-compliant manner possible.

Today's second class: the instructor started covering boarding operations. Location: the breach equipment room behind the heavy assault instruction zone. The entire wall was hung with things that one glance told you were not designed for daily use in civilized society—pry tools, cutting devices, breaching rods, magnetic anchor lines, door rams, folding shields, short-handled entrenching tools, and a collection of items that looked equally capable of legally dismantling a ship or incidentally dismantling a person.

The air was all metal, machine oil, and powder residue, layered with the permanent sweat-and-disinfectant smell that no training ground ever fully scrubs out. Some people would call this atmosphere professional. To me it said: collective preparation for death, organized with considerable care. Today's instructor wasn't yesterday's heavy assault woman. The replacement was a man whose voice sat as low as the final thud of a cargo bay door closing.

Hard to guess his age; his face was more honest about his history—a scar running from cheekbone to ear at a diagonal, like someone had once made a serious effort to turn his life to a new page. He stood in front of the equipment rack and lifted a short black rod.

"Pressure pry bar," he said.

"This can quietly open standard hatches, maintenance covers, and things you'd better hope you never touch in the field, all in a zero-gravity environment." He turned it over in his hand; the hydraulic catch at the tip threw a small cold glint.

"One thing to remember—don't point the release end at a person." He looked at us, his tone flat and brutal about it.

"It's for opening doors. Not for performing chest decompression on the other party." The equipment room went quiet for half a second. Jess said very quietly beside me: "Great. Very educational opening today." I nodded.

"The Federation has always been willing to address ethical questions inside the equipment manual." The instructor hung the pry bar back and pulled out a short-handled entrenching tool from below.

"Type-97 combat shovel." He sighed—genuinely, as though he had a personal objection to this item appearing on his syllabus.

"This should belong in ground defense class, not boarding operations. But the battlefield doesn't check the course catalog." He opened the blade, locked it, and the metal gave a clean click.

"If you're inside a ship and this is genuinely the only thing you've got—remember. Not a slap. A cut. Slapping doesn't kill people. Cutting opens them." Someone in the back row drew a breath. You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version. The instructor didn't even raise his eyelids.

"If you can't handle that, you can change your track right now. The Federation is large. There are always places that need gentle people. Usually in the last column of the casualty list." D was standing on the other side, arms crossed, listening with genuine attention. Not the performed kind—the kind where someone has finally started teaching in a language he understood, and his whole body had relaxed into it. I suddenly had a better sense of why this person smiled so genuinely when he breached doors.

The instructor picked up two thumb-thick explosive cartridges.

"Breaching charges. In principle, each of you will be issued two. Usage is simple: insert the detonator, set the timer, fix the placement, step away. Simple enough that if you get it wrong, it's usually not a technical failure—it's a character failure." Someone in the front row laughed quietly. The instructor set the cartridges down and let his gaze drift over.

"Good laugh. When you set the timer for three seconds and then realize you're still on the interior side of the door, I hope you're still feeling that optimistic." The laugh stopped. The equipment rack also held laser torches, thermite breaching charges, magnetic anchor lines, and door rams.

The instructor took them out one by one, describing each with the manner of someone presenting a fine cutlery set—except this set's purpose was to cause hatches, bulkheads, and unfortunate individuals to lose their structural integrity together. When he got to the long-handled door ram, he paused.

"Door ram," he said. D's eyes visibly lit up. The instructor glanced at him. He clearly knew which type of student this particular item attracted.

"Yes, some of you will find this exciting," he said. He set the ram head on the floor; the sound was low and clean.

"Excitement is fine. Don't be an idiot. Doors are for opening, not for processing whatever happened to you as a child." Jess nearly laughed out loud beside me. I looked at D. The man had actually nodded—seriously, as though receiving personalized guidance. The instructor put the ram back on the rack, braced both hands on the table edge, and dropped his voice half a register.

"Of course, for a pure demolition mission, most of you won't touch any of this." Everyone in the room looked up.

"Because by the time it gets to that level, it's usually not about whether you open the door," he said.

"It's about whether the fleet has decided to remove the door, the surrounding hull section, and everything in it from the tactical map entirely." Wonderful. Federation-style reassurance. Meaning, roughly: don't worry, you won't encounter it—because if you do, you won't be involved in the process. The instructor was quiet for two seconds, then pulled a sealed metal canister from a cold storage box beside him—the shape of a sports drink bottle.

"I know every mistake you're most likely to make," he said.

"But you know too little." The room went still. Not from fear this time. From finally hearing someone admit that the textbook hadn't finished the job. The instructor shook the canister.

"One of the things most likely to get marines and boarding troops killed inside an enemy ship—thermosensitive vapor explosive." He pressed the base of the canister. A layer of fine mist-like particle simulation immediately rose inside the transparent chamber.

"Once the enemy deploys this, your HUD will immediately trigger an alert. From that moment: all heat-emitting weapons are prohibited." A student in the front row frowned.

"Then how do you fight?" someone asked. The instructor looked up, not even bothering to bring an expression with him.

"With a blade," he said.

"Or any method that doesn't ignite the surrounding air in one go, while you eliminate the target." He set the canister back on the table.

"Anyone stupid enough to fire a heat weapon inside a vapor zone will ignite the charge immediately." He added, tone flat.

"At which point you'll receive a posthumous promotion of two grades, your name will appear in the casualty bulletin, and you'll have a chance at a slightly better photograph." The equipment room went very clean-quiet. I liked that kind of quiet. It meant at least a few people had actually absorbed what was said, rather than just registering that the equipment names sounded impressive.

The instructor covered a few more common field errors: breaching too early, everyone crowding through the moment the door opens, blind spots where the rear can't see the front, heavy operators getting excited and dragging the whole unit's rhythm off-course. When he reached that last point, his gaze landed on D without deviation. D, with a reasonable degree of self-awareness, touched his nose. I almost laughed. Apparently yesterday's door hadn't been breached for nothing. The educational outcome was still intact.