Chương 37: 17.Skybound Overdrive 17-1

The next day, I heard the laughter before I even walked into the centrifuge training zone. Not normal laughter. Normal people laugh with boundaries—they know when to stop, when to leave some room for basic human coexistence. This didn't. This laugh came ricocheting down the metal corridor, bright as someone cramming a burning comet into the ventilation system and cranking the volume. I stopped outside the door and looked up at the sector sign.

HIGH-G ACCLIMATION / SINGLE-SEAT ZERO-G COMBAT CRAFT TYPE-0 NEURAL LINK PRETEST ZONE Perfect. Even the signage came with death omens built in. The duty NCO by the door swiped my ID through the lock, looking considerably more serene than the one who'd escorted me to Renard yesterday. Not calm. More like the mature sympathy of someone thinking: You'll understand in a minute. I suddenly wanted to turn around. Not out of fear.

Just based on a normal fourteen-year-old's last shred of self-respect—I felt I should at least hesitate symbolically. Too bad the door was already open. The next second, sound, light, warning chimes, and an aggressive mechanical rumble all hit at once. The centrifuge training zone was massive. Massive like someone had gutted an entire industrial facility to research how to efficiently spin people until they doubt their soul is still attached.

At the center stood a colossal multi-axis centrifuge rig, silver-black rings nested inside each other like some ritual device designed to execute the concept of balance. Around it: simulation pods, neural-link chairs, maintenance arms, and suspended observation screens. The whole space was viciously bright—layer after layer of white light on metal surfaces, as if the room had made a deliberate decision not to leave anyone a shadow to fail in gracefully.

And the owner of that laughter was standing on the main centrifuge arm. Yes, on it. Not beside it. Not at the controls. Directly on the outer rail of the still-slowly-rotating mechanical arm, one hand gripping the safety bar, the other holding a helmet, looking like a walking OSHA violation who considered gravity and workplace safety purely theoretical social contracts. The man was tall and lean, moving with a lightness that didn't look like standing on metal—more like stepping on a beat.

Flight suit unzipped to the waist, wearing only a dark compression top underneath. Narrow shoulders, narrow waist. He looked less like a military officer and more like the kind of premium troublemaker who could trash a bar and exit through the third-story window without breaking stride. His hair was technically a mess, but the kind that took skill—like he'd just been personally styled by vacuum turbulence.

His eyes were painfully bright—not warmly bright, but the kind where you instantly know this person enjoys doing terrible things. The corner of his mouth held a permanent almost-smile, his whole expression broadcasting: Come on. We're going to have a great time today. Only you won't. I stood in the doorway, watching him. He spotted me a second later. The smile got considerably brighter.

"Ah, there she is." He looked down from the rotating arm, voice exactly as advertised over the comms—bright, fast, carrying that effortlessly punchable quality.

"The little silver fish we pulled out of the black water." …Called it. This kind of person can't manage normal human interaction even on first contact. I kept my expression flat.

"Hello." He dropped from the arm. Not jumped—dropped. Like something that had genuinely fallen out of orbit, touching two guardrails, borrowing a fraction of the arm's rotation, landing in front of me so lightly it wasn't quite landing. More like he'd arrived. My first instinct wasn't surprise. It was to step back. Because this person carried velocity around with him.

Even standing still, there was this sense that he might accelerate in any direction without warning—less like a person, more like a dangerous vehicle with the engine recently cut but still hot. He tossed the helmet onto a nearby workbench and grinned.

"J. J. Rikos." He stuck out a hand.

"The reason you're going to want to puke for the next few weeks." …At least he's honest. I looked at the hand. Sharp knuckles, old scars across the back, thick calluses at the base of every finger from years of high-stress control work. Not a pretty hand. Exactly the kind that would haul you back from a stall—or casually push you into something worse. I shook it briefly.

"Hoshino Shimo," I said.

"The trainee who's going to want to file for early decommission for the next few weeks." J. J.'s eyes lit up immediately.

"Oh." He laughed.

"Now I understand why Mira didn't dismantle you." Great. My operational status here had apparently evolved into instructor discussion material. J. J. walked a full circle around me. Not inappropriately—an inspection. Like checking a new airframe that had just arrived in the hangar, looking for what was solid, what was brittle, what might break if you breathed on it wrong.

"Shoulders still a bit tight," he said.

"Footwork's good. Center of gravity steadier than I expected."

"Color's average, no puking—looks like you recovered from yesterday's pharmaceutical incident." He stopped in front of me, tilting his head.

"Eyes look fine too. At least you don't have that I want to write a will just from seeing the centrifuge expression." I blinked.

"So you do care about my mental health."

"No," J. J. said, completely serious.

"I care whether you puke inside my Type-0." …There it is. The Federal instructor standard I've come to know and despise. I looked up at the central multi-axis rig.

"For the record," I said, as sincerely as possible, "if I do throw up, I'd like it officially recorded as heroic physiological protest, not operator error." J. J. burst out laughing.

"Relax. If you lose it, I'll write it up beautifully," he said, walking toward the control console.

"Something like: Trainee Hoshino Shimo exhibited heightened visceral engagement under high-G conditions, conclusively demonstrating that breakfast is unsuitable as a training partner." I followed, staying quiet for two beats. Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

"Do you always talk to people like this?"

"Nope." J. J. glanced back and winked.

"Some people don't last long enough for me to start liking them." … Every line out of his mouth begged for a punch. Annoyingly, it was also persuasive. He slapped the data panel to life. A suspended display unfolded—Type-0 schematics spreading like anatomical diagrams, with a slender, vicious single-seat model at the center. Long narrow nose, tight cockpit, stubby wings, vector nozzles, and a ring of attitude thrusters. The whole frame spelled out: I'm fast and I will kill you very inelegantly. J. J.

tapped the model.

"Meet the family," he said.

"Federal official designation: Single-Seat Zero-G Combat Craft Type-0." He paused deliberately, smiling like a bastard.

"Colloquial names vary. Type-0. Zero. Tin coffin. Single-occupant casket. Pick your poison." I stared at the model.

"I'm leaning toward no comment until I've survived my first ride."

"Too cautious," he said, looking genuinely disappointed.

"You're young. You should be adventurous."

"I'm fourteen, sir."

"Exactly. Brand-new stomach." He sounded perfectly reasonable.

"Better durability." …Insane. Coherently, structurally insane. He kept working the interface, words coming like automatic fire.

"Let's be clear—I'm not here to turn you into one of those shining textbook pilots they print in recruitment materials."

"Those people are great. Stable, straight-backed, perfect for speeches under the flag."

"I've got nothing against them. They're just not my type." He turned, one arm leaning on the console, grin back in place.

"What I'm going to teach you is how to do the most aggravating, least dignified, most likely to make the enemy want to bomb your ancestors' graves things possible in three-dimensional space." I stood there for two seconds. Then answered, honestly:"That sounds extremely compatible with my current personality development." J. J. blinked once, then burst into louder laughter. The sound ricocheted around the centrifuge bay like small, high-velocity asteroids playing pinball with the bulkheads.

"Yes, exactly." He pointed at me, delighted.

"You're not here to learn how to look cool. You're here to learn how to win. Big difference." He pulled up the first simulation set. A low-orbit combat zone—two medium ships, six escorts, a debris field, and one capital ship's main battery arc sweeping across.

"Standard doctrine will teach you dogfighting, tailing, angle advantage, how to use vector thrusters to cut in," he said.

"And I'll teach you that too, because if you don't know those, you die too fast and it's boring." He drew an arc on the display, hooking one enemy fighter straight into the capital ship's firing line.

"But this is more important," he said, tapping the line.

"You don't always have to land the hit yourself. You can make someone else do it." I looked at the trajectory and got it immediately.

"Drag them in front of the guns." J. J.'s eyes lit up like someone had hit the perfect note.

"Exactly." He was thrilled.

"See? You've got it already." …Do not use phrases like that in this context. It makes it very hard to decide whether to file a disciplinary complaint. He flicked through the next slides rapid-fire.

"Looks like you're running." Second frame.

"But actually you're herding." Third.

"Looks like a mistake." Fourth.

"But you're luring them into the debris." Fifth.

"Looks like you're about to die with someone on your tail." Sixth.

"But you only want them to chase three extra seconds—just enough to drag them into the escort's side-gun deployment arc." His pace accelerated, hands moving faster, the whole performance feeling less like instruction and more like flirting with orbital mechanics.

"Air combat isn't about who's braver."

"Or who looks more like a recruitment video."

"It's about who gets the other bastard's brain to run on the rails you laid out first." He stopped abruptly and looked straight at me.

"Hoshino. Remember one thing." I met his eyes. J. J. flashed a bright, slightly dangerous smile.

"The sky isn't for flying pretty."

"It's for lying." Standing there, listening, I suddenly felt like Renard's make the station sick had already been bad enough. And now this was the upgrade package: turn the entire sky into a con job. How does the Federal system grow these people? Maybe there's a training manual somewhere titled: How to Become a Technically Excellent Military Professional Completely Unfit for Normal Society. J. J. had no intention of giving me time for sociology. He walked up to the centrifuge pod and slapped the hull twice.

"Theory's over," he said, grinning.

"Come on, little fish." The pod door slid open without a sound. Inside was a single-seat neural-link sim chair, reclined at an angle that suggested someone had optimized it along a curve titled human structural failure. Head restraint ring, shoulder harness, chest and abdominal pressure pads, limb feedback bands, and a full row of neural contact points that made me want to preemptively organize my own memorial service. I stood at the threshold and stared at it for three seconds.

"Sir."

"Yeah?"

"This thing looks like it's going to make me reconsider the value of being born." J. J. stood beside me, openly delighted.

"Relax. First time usually doesn't get that far." He paused.

"At most you'll start doubting whether your stomach belongs where it is." … Thank you. Deeply immersive reassurance. I stepped in. The instant I sat, the backing and side supports came up, locking me in place—not crushing, more precise than that. It didn't want me comfortable. It wanted my remains neatly retrievable when everything went upside down. J. J. leaned in to fasten my shoulders. Up close, I caught the odd scent on him more clearly—metal, cold air, machine oil, and the faintest trace of smoke.

Not Mira's heavy tobacco. This was quicker, thinner, like wind dragged down from a high-altitude dive.

"Don't tense up," he said, still smiling as he clicked the last restraint home.

"Today I just want to see if your brain is worthy of arguing with a Type-0." I turned my head toward him.

"And if it isn't?" He blinked those bright eyes.

"Then we let you lose first." …Every sentence out of his mouth deserved a slap. Every sentence also hid something brutally professional. He stepped back and looked me over in the chair, then let out a low whistle.

"Not bad," he said.

"Strapped in, you almost look the part."

"Thank you," I said flatly.

"I'll carve that on the back of my headstone." J. J. barked a laugh and rapped the pod wall.

"Good. Keep that expression. When your eyes die later, I want the before-and-after." The hatch began to close. In the last sliver of gap, I saw him outside—hands in his pockets, smiling like a comet about to hit atmosphere. Bright. Fast. Dangerous. And clearly very invested in how spectacularly I was going to embarrass myself. Just before the seam sealed, his voice cut in over the internal line.

"Welcome aboard, Hoshino Shimo." He was still smiling in his voice.

"First rule of Type-0 preflight—" The neural-link indicators along the pod interior flicked on in rows. On the other end, J. J. finished, bright enough to burn:"You can be scared. You can puke. You can even curse me and want to die at the same time." He paused.

"But you'd better learn how to throw someone else into the firing line when the world's turning so hard you don't remember your own name." The pod lights snapped up. Systems online. I sucked in a breath. The contacts at the back of my neck snapped live with a sharp, cold click. The moment the hatch sealed, the world shrank. Not physically. Psychologically—the specific compression of being loaded into something expensive, hard, and professionally designed to reduce human dignity to powder.

The Type-0's neural-link test pod was tighter than I'd expected. Shoulder supports hugged close; the chest strap cinched me into the seatback; the head ring rested just behind my ears like a polite reminder: even if your soul tries to run, your body won't agree. Three curved projection panels in front of me came online. First, black. Then stars.

Then orbits, heat signatures, velocity vectors, IFF brackets—layer after layer, like someone compressing the entire universe into one glass surface designed to humiliate beginners. A small tock sounded by my ear. J. J.' s voice slid into the internal channel.

"Ground rule—this doesn't count as real training." I stared at the interface, expression flat.

"What does it count as?"

"A physical," he said cheerfully.

"Seeing if your stomach, your brain, and your inner ear are on speaking terms." …Called it. Low hum from the machinery below. From my feet, my back, my shoulders, I felt something begin to climb—not a punch, more like a very heavy animal resting its front paws on my chest while deciding whether to sit. I took a deep breath. The neural contacts at my neck lit in a ring of soft blue. J. J.'s voice drifted in, lazy.

"Don't be so serious, little fish. I don't usually kill anyone on the first run."

"Usually?"

"Mm. Usually." …I would like to file a formal complaint with the academy's instructor vetting committee. Three, two, one. The pod moved. It wasn't just spinning. It was my inner ear getting grabbed, yanked left, tossed up, and then told: Go on, decide whether gravity is still real. My view slid sideways, then snapped back as the sim enforced horizon. Chest dropped. Shoulders clenched. The invisible hand on my sternum pushed me into the seat; my blood slipped backward; breathing got heavier by half a step.

"Two-point-five G," J. J. reported, far too pleased.

"Warm-up. Don't make that the world betrayed me face—there's better coming." I bit my teeth together.

"You always build rapport through terror, sir?"

"No, usually through making them puke," he said.

"You're special. I'm starting with talking." Spin increased. Three-point-five. Four. The starscape blurred for a second, dragging. My stomach dropped like it had revised its contract with the rest of me. My chest tightened; every breath took work, like the air had gained weight and needed clearance stamps to enter. J. J., naturally, sounded more excited.

"Good. Oral exam time." The projection flicked; the starfield became a stylized low-orbit engagement.

"One escort ship, two friendlies, four hostiles. Debris field to starboard. Our capital ship's side-gun arc down-left."

"Question one: if you're the one being chased, the first thing to look at isn't where you can run. What is it?" My throat was dry. A normal person would focus on staying conscious right now. Unfortunately, J. J. wasn't normal. He didn't want to see if I could hold on; he wanted to see if I could make someone else miserable while holding on. The pod yawed; my whole visual field dropped half a beat. I almost swore.

"Hoshino," J. J. said, in the tone of someone urging a kid to recite multiplication tables.

"Don't let your brain slide out with your stomach." I fixed on the capital ship's arc, then the debris field, then the chasing fighter's angle.

"Don't look at escape vectors first," I said between breaths.

"Look for the moment the guy behind me thinks he's got me." J. J. laughed instantly.

"That's the taste. And then?" I forced my focus onto the projected path.

"If he cuts in here, I don't run for the debris," I said. I traced an arc toward the left-lower quadrant on the holo.

"I fake a break toward the capital's blind side, let him commit to angle. Once he's here—" I tapped a spot just outside the side-gun deployment boundary.

"—then I flip." J. J. whistled softly.

"To where?"

"Back toward the main battery edge, make him chase that extra half-second," I said.

"If he's greedy for that half-second, I'm not the one killing him. Our ship is." Silence for half a beat. Then he laughed, satisfied.

"Nice. See? Utterly ill-mannered." …Thanks. I'd never expected to be complimented on my lack of manners while being spun hard enough to see my ancestors. The pod changed axis.