Chương 6: 04.Next-Bunk Stranger 04-1

What a shame. I'd genuinely thought that after today's spectacular cascade of bullshit, the Federation might show a shred of consideration and let me sleep until I woke up naturally. Reality, as always, proved that people who overestimate institutions usually develop ulcers first.

Because my repair patch had barely finished adhering, and I hadn't even finished that hot drink—which tasted like Kushima Heavy Industries had brewed it from coolant—when an orderly appeared at the medical bay door, uniform sharper than a coffin edge.

"Private First Class Hoshino Shimo." I looked up.

"What." His expression didn't twitch. He'd clearly developed immunity to front-line casualties cursing while bleeding.

"Superior officers request your presence. Immediately." I glanced at the patch on my shoulder, then at the half-completed triage form.

"Are Federation commanders really that desperate for conversation? Dragging wounded straight off medical beds for interviews—is this some new welfare initiative?" The orderly answered flatly: "I only deliver orders."

"Right. That makes you officially the most innocent component in this entire system." I kept complaining while slowly sliding off the triage bed. Shoulder still hurt, ribs still protesting, and the repair membrane behind my ear itched badly enough that I wanted to claw it off. Every part of me was operating below optimal capacity. But at least I was operating. Alive meant meetings, signatures, and listening to whatever adults wanted to say. Same as always.

I was two steps toward the door when I noticed David had followed. I glanced sideways.

"You got called too?"

"Apparently." He adjusted his temporary visors, tone carrying that steady quality he used for roll call.

"The orderly looked at me before he came in."

"Probably checking whether their rare humanities asset was still breathing."

"I'd hope the Federation's talent retention strategy extends beyond confirming vital signs."

"You're being optimistic." I snorted.

"The Federation's definition of talent management is usually: can we squeeze a little more out before they expire." He actually nodded with apparent sincerity.

"I have a thorough understanding of that now." Damn. The problem with complaining to someone too perceptive was losing all the satisfaction of hitting a soft target. We followed the orderly through the medical corridor. The whole stretch was full of people dragged back from the front—some missing half their armor, others with entire limbs locked in regeneration frames. Some were technically alive but had already checked out emotionally.

Automated stretchers moved constantly, medical arms crossed overhead, warning lights strobed like a cheap nightclub, and the air carried the honest atmosphere of a lot of people almost died today. There it was. That was the Federation I recognized. Not like the quiet medical bay, which had been peaceful enough to almost trick me into thinking the world was gentler than it actually was. They brought us to a temporary command room. The moment the door opened, my first thought was: aggressive air conditioning.

My second: these people definitely know how to write reports. Three officers stood inside, along with a woman who had intelligence written all over her, and an old man whose hair had gone so white I suspected he'd spent his entire career frowning. He sat behind the desk with insignia that outweighed my entire life history. David and I were positioned in front of the desk. I should have stood at attention.

In practice, with ribs that complained every time I moved, I settled for something that technically respected the occasion while every muscle quietly took the day off. The old officer looked at me. Then at David. Then back down at the combat record.

"You're Hoshino Shimo?" I nodded.

"For now." The intelligence officer's eye twitched slightly. The old officer didn't react. He pulled up a tactical projection—semi-transparent light spreading across the desk, showing our boarding action and subsequent ramming. Oh. So this was a debrief. Suddenly I wasn't tired anymore.

"Enemy bridge seizure. Fire control takeover. Compound-phase cannon reverse engagement. Simulated loss of control. Deliberate ramming of Imperial cruiser..." With each item he read, I felt the room's collective attention shift toward me. Honestly uncomfortable. Like being a problem student who'd blended into the background for years, then suddenly getting called to the front—not for scoring first on an exam, but for blowing up the principal's office and having it somehow ruled beneficial to the school.

Hard to know whether to feel proud.

"These were all your decisions?" The old officer looked up. I thought about it.

"Mostly."

"Mostly?" I tilted my chin toward David.

"Firing solutions, weapons parameters, fire control integration, Imperial interface operation—that was primarily him. Without him, I'd probably have just split the console with the axe and hoped it figured out how to fire itself." David clearly hadn't expected to be volunteered. His gaze shifted toward me slightly. The intelligence officer turned to look at him as well, her terminal immediately pulling up his profile.

"Applied Foreign Languages graduate..." She read it with a particular inflection. Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings. I added helpfully: "Right. The Federation sent an Applied Foreign Languages major into a boarding action. Very innovative use of resources." Half a second of silence. Then the white-haired officer made a short sound—something between a breath and a laugh. Brief, but I heard it. Interesting. So this one wasn't completely unreachable.

He tapped the desk.

"The innovation wasn't in how the Federation deployed its people. It was in the fact that the two of you actually managed to break that cruiser." He looked at me.

"Private, do you understand how much time you bought the main fleet today?" Honest answer: "No."

"At least eight minutes." The intelligence officer picked it up.

"At that engagement density, eight minutes was enough for a formation on the verge of reverse-encirclement to successfully reform. You didn't just tear open a gap—you forced the Imperial fleet to voluntarily contract their fire axis by one full cycle." Two seconds of silence. Then I reached the most important conclusion.

"So." I paused.

"That counts toward a commendation, right?" The room went quiet. Then the old officer actually laughed. Not loudly, but genuinely.

"It counts," he said.

"More than counts. When we return to port, I'll file the commendation personally." Personally. Coming from someone at this level, those two words carried roughly the same weight as guaranteed promotion. I should have been pleased. Theoretically. But my first actual thought was: Is there a cash bonus? Couldn't help it. After enough years of being broke, the first response to hearing "honor" was automatically converting it into debt repayment potential. I cleared my throat.

"Sir."

"Speak."

"Do commendations typically come with any... tangible... supplementary compensation?" The intelligence officer nearly choked. David very visibly turned his face away. I strongly suspected he was suppressing a laugh. The old officer looked at me like he was trying to determine whether I was exceptionally bold or simply direct. Finally: "If you survive to collect it when we return to port, yes." Right. Very Federation answer. Translation: the money exists, but first don't die. I nodded.

"I'll make every effort."

"See that you do." He turned to David.

"As for you." David straightened slightly. Remarkable—the same person who'd looked like a civilian being dragged through hell on that bridge now automatically shifted back into institutional mode the moment there was a desk and a superior officer in the room. Some people were built for the system. I was apparently built to flip it over. The old officer reviewed the file.

"You're misallocated in the assault infantry sequence." David said nothing, just listened.

"Your language capability, information processing, and fire control support are considerably more valuable than putting you in a charge formation. After we return to port, you'll be reassigned to the front-line tactical documentation office, with additional duties in Imperial language analysis and boarding engagement data review." Not bad. At least they'd stopped using his Applied Foreign Languages brain to fill casualty quotas. David paused briefly, then answered quietly: "Understood."

Whether it was my imagination or not, that understood carried something looser than pure acknowledgment—not quite relief, but adjacent to it. More like: finally positioned somewhere that fits, while knowing the front line is never really far away. I got that. In the Federation, the distance between a documentation office and the firing line was often just one order. The old officer gave us both a final look.

"You both performed well today." He paused.

"Particularly given that no one expected you to." That line landed quietly. But I heard exactly what it meant. I'd heard too many variations of no one expected you to over the years—from school to prison to military service. The difference was whether what followed was contempt or surprise. Today's version was barely the second kind. I didn't say anything. Just nodded once. Responding too earnestly would feel like I'd changed overnight, and the thought alone gave me secondhand embarrassment.

After brief formalities, we were finally released. The door closed. I exhaled slowly.

"Fuck." David glanced sideways.

"What?"

"Talking to senior officers is exhausting."

"You seemed perfectly comfortable."

"That was the surface." I worked at my aching shoulder.

"Internally, every time I see that much insignia, I get a premonition that I'm about to be handed something worse to do."

"Understandable."

"And that line about filing the commendation personally—that sounded exactly like the opening of some elaborate institutional trap."

"Such as?"

"Such as: from this point forward, people start expecting things from me." David was quiet for two seconds. Then, very evenly: "You were reliable today." My step hitched. Just slightly. But it did. Fuck. He was getting too natural at saying things like that. Which made it worse—because he wasn't trying to be charming. He was just accurately describing what had happened. And somehow that kind of statement was harder to deflect than deliberate flattery. I cleared my throat and kept walking.

"You weren't bad either." I kept my tone carefully offhand.

"Proved that Applied Foreign Languages graduates aren't purely decorative. Occasionally useful in practice." David smiled slightly.

"I'll take that as a compliment."

"You're very good at translating everything I say into something positive."

"Occupational habit."

"... Fair enough, future documentation officer." He glanced sideways.

"Not official yet."

"It'll happen." I thought for a moment, then added: "And it suits you." He didn't respond immediately this time. We walked in parallel for a stretch. The corridor outside was a return-transit resupply section, lighting dimmer than the medical area, most soldiers passing through wearing hollow expressions. In the distance, maintenance arms knocked rhythmically against armor plating—steady and mechanical, as if the ship was working hard to maintain the fiction that it was still an orderly place. David spoke suddenly.

"I'd assumed my first reassignment would come from a strong performance review." I looked at him.

"Instead it came from helping a lunatic ram an Imperial cruiser?"

"More or less." I laughed. Brief, but genuine.

"Rough luck."

"Is it?"

"Yeah." I pushed my hands into my pockets and walked slowly.

"People who end up around me don't usually get quiet lives." He looked forward, tone even.

"But if I hadn't ended up around you today, I'd probably be dead on that bridge."... Damn. Not heavy-handed, not sentimental. Just flat enough that there was no obvious way to block it. I was quiet for a beat, then made a short sound.

"Then stay close going forward." The words were out before I'd processed them. I stopped internally. Wait. Had that come out wrong? I corrected immediately.

"Work-wise. I mean professionally." David turned to look at me. That faint amusement was back in his eyes.

"I know."

"Make sure you actually know."

"Mm."

"What does that mean."

"Nothing." Fuck. The worst was this—nothing stated directly, nothing confirmed, and yet somehow feeling completely transparent anyway. Fortunately, new problems arrived before I could dwell on it. At the residential assignment counter, the duty NCO slapped a room card onto my palm without looking up.

"New quarters. Personnel reorganization—previous bunk assignment voided. Report to new allocation." I looked down at the card. Three seconds passed. I looked up.

"... What?" The NCO glanced at me impatiently.

"Problem?"

"Several, actually." I flipped the card over and read the section code and room designation again. Six-person bay. Section A mixed-housing module. My eye started twitching.

"The Federation isn't even pretending anymore, is it." David looked at the card beside me and went quiet. I began translating the situation aloud.

"Official justification is probably something like 'enhanced unit cohesion,' 'flexible accommodation management,' 'front-line gender equity and resource sharing.' Some variation of that bullshit." I flicked the card.

"Human translation: when Kushima Heavy Industries subcontracted the internal life support systems, they cut costs on plumbing and partition infrastructure by just mixing the male and female quarters together." The NCO's expression didn't change. Clearly not the first complaint of the day. I stared at the card and felt a headache forming.

"Six-person bay? Section A? I knew the Federation wasn't going to suddenly develop a conscience just because I earned a commendation. So this is where the reward was hiding." David asked, with admirable restraint: "At least it's better than an eight-person open bunk?" I looked at him immediately.

"You're already finding silver linings in institutional garbage?"

"Trying to survive."

"Fast learner." I looked at the bay number one more time, then exhaled slowly.

"Fine." I pocketed the card and turned toward the assignment area.

"I've slept under an overpass, next to drainage pipes, in a prison dormitory, and in a cannon fodder billet. One Federation cost-cutting mixed housing module doesn't rank as a new humiliation." Two steps later, I looked at the card again and added the most honest observation of the day.

"... Just please let there be a separate refrigerator in there."