Chương 10: 06.Pack Your Bags, Soldier 06-1

I woke up to someone yelling: "Fuck, who kicked my socks into the sink?" That was morning in Warehouse 6A. No birdsong. No sunlight. No youth. Just male profanity, creaking metal bed frames, the half-dead hum of engines, and a cabin smell that had fermented overnight from "stench" into "fully developed personality." I opened my eyes, stared at the underside of the top bunk, spent two seconds confirming I was still alive, and used the third to regret actually falling asleep yesterday.... Still, sleep beat insomnia.

Even if my dreams had featured an Imperial cruiser exploding next to my ear, complete with someone's quiet voice saying: "Relax." Fuck. The brain really had exquisite taste in what to replay. I kicked that thought straight into the mental trash and sat up. My ribs immediately demonstrated their professional dedication by reminding me that yesterday's ramming hadn't been a hallucination. Pain. But considerably better than last night.

At the foot of the bay, Reis was standing on one leg searching for his socks, an unlit cigarette hanging from his mouth. Alvin had half his body hanging over the top bunk, hair like an abandoned bird's nest, making his defense with complete righteousness.

"I just kicked them out of the way because I almost stepped on them getting up in the middle of the night."

"Kicking them into the sink counts as 'out of the way'?"

"At least I didn't kick them into the toilet."

"You actually think you're being considerate?"

"Occasionally." I sat on my bunk watching this completely pointless seven-AM argument, genuinely impressed by Warehouse 6A's collective talent. Other people woke up and regained consciousness. These people woke up and immediately started trying to murder each other—verbally, for now. Han Xi already had her jacket on. She sat lacing her boots—fast, precise, silent, like a machine running a pre-loaded program.

Lin Wei was fixing her bangs in a small mirror, that bottle of civilization-destroying cheap perfume within easy reach. As for Yurik—he was blocking the central corridor. Not intentionally. With his build, just standing up automatically turned Warehouse 6A into a post-disaster evacuation drill. I sat hugging my blanket for two seconds, then accepted reality. Right. New day. What a waste. I threw off the blanket and stepped down, immediately nearly getting killed by a belt someone had abandoned in the walkway.

"Which idiot left their gear in the middle of traffic?" Alvin's hand shot up immediately.

"Not me." Reis's smile was cold.

"When he says that, it's usually eighty percent his fault."

"That's prejudiced."

"Not where you're concerned." I picked up the belt and flung it at the top bunk.

"Yours." Alvin caught it with impressive reflexes and still had bandwidth for an insufferable grin.

"Morning, Crash." My expression didn't shift.

"Give me one more nickname and I'll introduce you to early-morning gravity lessons."

"Bit extreme, don't you think?"

"I've always been a realist." Lin Wei snorted beside me.

"You've got serious morning aggression." I turned to her.

"Six-person bay, old-ship air, cracked ribs, and the bunk next to me rolled over six times last night. Show me someone who wakes up pleasant under those conditions." Han Xi finished her laces and added without inflection: "Alvin rolled over eight times." I looked straight up at the top bunk. Alvin appeared genuinely wounded.

"... You were counting?"

"Couldn't sleep," Han Xi replied in the same tone you'd use to announce the time. Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road. Good. So I hadn't been the only one tortured last night. That restored a small but meaningful sense of cosmic balance. The cruelest thing about Warehouse 6A wasn't sleeping. It was waking up and fighting five people for two sinks. I'd lived under overpasses, next to drainage pipes, in correctional facility dormitories.

Theoretically, I should have developed maximum resistance to communal living. The Federation, using one old ship, had managed to educate me once again that there's always another circle of hell—complete with its own queue management system. The wash station was around the corner from Warehouse 6A. Two basins. One mirror that had cracked and been glued back together. One fluorescent light that flickered with obvious maintenance needs the Federation would clearly never address.

At the moment, two-thirds of Warehouse 6A had jammed themselves into the space. Reis had claimed the left basin. Lin Wei had seized the right side of the mirror. Alvin stood in the middle with his towel, calculating angles to cut the line. Yurik waited behind them like a polite wall that had no intention of shrinking. I stood at the entrance for two seconds and reached my conclusion. This wasn't morning hygiene. This was urban warfare.

"Move," I said. Reis didn't look up.

"Get in line."

"I rammed a cruiser yesterday."

"Which is exactly why you should queue today. Learn how civilization works."

"Your mouth is genuinely asking for trouble."

"Thank you." Lin Wei was applying lip balm in the cracked mirror, tone cool: "Don't fight. First come, first served."

"Yesterday you said front-line priority isn't always first-come-first-served."

"Seizing bathhouse time slots and seizing sink access fall under different jurisdictions."... Right. She'd developed case law distinctions now. I was about to force my way in anyway when Han Xi, operating on pure practicality, pulled a bottle of no-rinse cleanser from the side locker and pushed it into my hand.

"Saves time." I looked at the bottle. Then at the fully blocked sink combat zone. Finally admitted honestly: "You're right." On the front line, dignity took many forms. Choosing not to brawl with five weirdos over a sink was apparently one of the mature ones. I leaned against the wall, rubbed cleanser over my face, handled the morning's minimum human maintenance with wet wipes, and listened to Alvin making noise.

"Hey! Who took my hot drink ration?" Reis, completely calm: "I did."

"Why!"

"Because you said you didn't want it."

"I said I didn't want it right now, not forever!"

"Then your communication skills need work." I wiped my hands and observed: "The fact that you people have survived this long means the Empire really isn't trying hard enough." Yurik, standing beside me, replied flatly: "The Federation hasn't given up either." Fair point. Devastatingly fair. I almost wanted to applaud. The hot drink distribution point was at the next corridor junction.

Calling it a "hot drink" was generous—this was more accurately a liquid endurance test the Federation used to gauge soldier tolerance. Color somewhere between muddy water and failed milk tea. Taste like someone had blended grain powder, painkillers, and despair. But mornings required something in your stomach. Otherwise you'd sway and someone would assume yesterday's ramming was finally catching up with you. Warehouse 6A drifted toward the distribution point as a loose unit.

Nobody had officially said let's go together. That was just how bay living worked—one night in the same room and people automatically developed a weird provisional squad dynamic. Not friendship. More like: if something goes wrong, at least I know whose snoring is loudest. Two lines had already formed ahead of us. I looked at the queue and sighed immediately.

"I'm suddenly nostalgic for being locked by Imperial main batteries yesterday." Lin Wei glanced sideways.

"Why?"

"Because that would have been faster than this." Reis nodded.

"Valid point." Alvin, predictably: "But if you hadn't survived yesterday, you wouldn't get to enjoy this industrial runoff today." I looked at him.

"Are you trying to say it's precious?"

"I'm trying to say life is built from small mercies like this."

"Your standards for small mercies are disturbingly low."

"The Federation taught me that." The collective weirdness concentration in this room was really achieving impressive consistency. When I finally reached the front and looked at what dispensed into my cup, I felt zero reconciliation with existence.

"This genuinely isn't recycled cannon-cleaning water, right?" The distribution clerk didn't even blink.

"Next." Perfect. Federation logistics professionalism in its purest form. No explanations, no reassurance, no returns. I carried my cup back, took a sip, and nearly decided to go find a second cruiser to ram. Right then, someone called from down the corridor: "Private First Class Hoshino Shimo!" I stopped walking. Reflexive irritation engaged immediately. In the military, being called by full formal name meant one of two things: more work, or paperwork about the work you'd already done. I turned around.

An orderly, as expected. Life truly had no surprises.

"What." The orderly had clearly developed immunity to front-line dead-eyed responses. He held out an electronic notice board.

"Combat commendation supplementary filing and tactical review record. Command Room Two, documentation section. Report within ten minutes." I stared at the board. Option two, then. Alvin leaned over immediately.

"Ooh, the legend goes to give testimony."

"It's called supplementary filing, not testimony."

"Same thing. Either way it's a wall of text." Reis sipped his muddy water with complete leisure: "Go on. Maybe you'll come back as the face of a recruitment poster." I gave him a flat look.

"If the Federation puts my face on a poster, I'm suing for unauthorized use of likeness." Lin Wei leaned against the wall, laughing: "The most unrealistic part of that sentence is thinking they'd ask first."... Also fair. Everything was devastatingly fair today. I drained the hot drink in one go, swallowed through the industrial-accident flavor, and shoved the empty cup into the return slot.

"I'm heading out." Han Xi gave a single nod.

"If you're back before noon, the left sink is less congested." I looked at her.

"You track that too?"

"Survival requirement."... Right. Everyone in this room was reliable in their own specific, deeply strange way. I'd just turned to leave when Alvin called out again.

"Hey, Hoshino." I looked back.

"What." He was draped over the rail, grinning obnoxiously.

"If that good-looking documentation guy who walked you back yesterday happens to be there, ask him how to say 'stop flattering yourself' in Imperial for me." I paused for one second. Then answered very calmly: "How about you learn how to practice 'shut up' in Federation Standard first?" A chorus of completely unsympathetic laughter erupted behind me. Fuck. Warehouse 6A really was full of freaks. And the worst part was—I was starting to get used to it.