Chương 326: 139.Got You!! 1

The corridor from the bridge to the hangar was long. On an ordinary day, it just made you think the ship's designer probably had a kickback deal with a running-shoe company. Right now it felt like it had been built specifically to give people time to have second thoughts. My footsteps rang on the metal deck, steady as a countdown. Ninety seconds. I knew the number because Maki had just reported it over comms.

"Kamikaze cooldown at sixty-three percent. Higher-dimensional cross-section contraction accelerating. First gravity-dust net still effective, but it won't hold much longer." Her voice came through the earpiece — calm, clean, not a single extra note.

"Hoshino, you get one window. Don't waste it."

"…Isn't that a little harsh for a first-timer?" I ran and talked back at the same time, apparently unable to help myself.

"I already chose the gentler version."

"What's the ungentle version?" Half a beat of silence on the other end. Then, very flatly:"Don't die." …Great. This woman really had a gift for turning comfort into something that read like a medical waste disposal manual. I nearly choked on my own breath. Jess's laugh leaked through the other line right on cue.

"Relax, Shimo. Kushima's actually being pretty nice today. If she really wanted to be harsh, you'd be halfway through crying and signing your sortie liability waiver by now."

"I've never cried."

"During the simulation exam—""That was sweat in my eyes."

"Sure it was."

"It was."

"Okay. We'll call it sweat." I ground my teeth and decided to log this one and settle it with Jess when I got back. Assuming I got back. Great — my brain was already helpfully appending that condition at a time like this. Thanks so much, Hoshino Shimo. Your self-sabotage mechanism is running at peak performance. The hangar's outer door opened, and the sound hit me first. Not an explosion. Not an alarm.

The low hum of machinery, the sharp hiss of hydraulic locks releasing, the friction of tow-cart wheels rolling over the deck, and somewhere in the distance, a mechanic shouting out a serial number at full volume. All of it layered together, like some enormous animal built out of iron and electricity, crouched in the dark, breathing. And the Type-0 was there. I'd seen it countless times in the simulator — three-view diagrams, skeletal schematics, weapons loadouts, cockpit layouts.

I could recite the startup sequence with my eyes closed. None of that added up to a fraction of what it felt like to stand in front of the actual launch cradle and look up at it, once, for real. It wasn't large. At least, compared to the Yukikaze, it was small enough to look like a bone splinter pulled out of a mother beast's ribcage. And precisely because it was small, it made you feel less safe, not more. That slenderness wasn't elegance. It was cruelty.

Like whoever designed it had never once intended for the pilot to be comfortable — only thought about how to pack a living person into a weapon and fire it out as fast as possible. I stopped in front of the cradle. My chest tightened for no reason I could name. The deck crew spotted me and threw a hand signal immediately.

"Type-0 Unit One, launch cradle secured! Phase-oscillation warhead, single-round loaded! Close-in thrusters nominal!"

"…Copy." My voice came out of my throat sounding calmer than I felt. Remarkable, how a human body can perform competence while wanting to throw up. Aida's voice cut into the line.

"Hoshino, listen carefully. You have one phase-oscillation warhead. It's not a firework for you to show off with. The objective isn't to sink it. It's to tear into the edge of its retraction and hold it — force it to stay in three-dimensional space a few seconds longer. A few seconds is enough for us to do the rest. Understood?"

"Understood."

"Say it back."

"Not to sink it. Tear the edge, force it to stay exposed a few more seconds."

"Good." Aida paused, then added: "And don't try anything outside the manual on your first live sortie. I don't want to be fixing the airframe and then your bones when you get back."

"That doesn't sound remotely like a blessing."

"It isn't. It's preemptive complaining." Roy cut in then, his voice steady — steady enough that he sounded less like a man staring down a higher-dimensional predator and more like someone calibrating a sightseeing boat on a calm afternoon.

"Once you're clear, I'll flatten your relative attitude as much as I can. Don't fight the stick. Let the frame settle into its initial velocity first." My mouth answered before my brain caught up: "Copy, Mr. Helmsman." Roy sounded like he might have smiled.

"Don't say it like I'm sending you on a maritime field trip. The road conditions on this run are terrible."

"Thanks for the reminder. I'd been under the impression today was perfect for a picnic." This time even Lan let out a short cough on the open channel — the kind you use when you almost laughed, decided that laughing right now would be unprofessional, and buried the impulse under a cough instead.

"Comm channels cleared," Lan said.

"Type-0 priority loop is yours. Noise suppression complete. Hoshino, if your heart rate spikes or your breathing goes erratic once you're inside, the mic will broadcast it shipwide. Please exercise some restraint."

"…Is that something a comms officer is supposed to say?"

"It's a friendly reminder."

"This ship is genuinely unfriendly to rookies."

"You're only noticing that today?" Jess cut in immediately. I didn't answer her. If I kept going, I was going to convert every ounce of nervous energy into talking back and forget which foot went on the ladder first. I tightened my gloves one more time and stepped onto the boarding ladder. The first step was fine. The second step was fine too. By the third, I could tell clearly that my legs weren't as calm as they looked.

Not obvious trembling — more like every muscle was wound too tight, as if someone had swapped everything from my shoulders to my ankles for brand-new, unbroken-in parts. Embarrassing. Especially since my written scores weren't bad, my sim hours were sufficient, and back on the bridge I could evaluate someone else's maneuver window with a perfectly straight face. But now that it was my turn, the first thought that surfaced the moment I climbed into the cockpit was: … It's so narrow. Really narrow.

Narrow enough to make "coffin" sound like an engineer's idea of a romantic metaphor. One hand braced on the canopy frame, one on the seat edge, I slid in. My back hit the cold, hard shock pad first, then a series of pressure points along my thighs, shoulders, and elbows, leaving almost no wasted space anywhere. The simulator replicated this snugness too, of course. But fake is fake.

The real cockpit smelled of metal, grease, sealant, and a faint trace of burnt insulation — like someone had ground stop dreaming, this is real into powder and sprinkled it evenly into every corner. I let my head fall back against the rest and exhaled. The breath bounced straight back off the inside of the neck seal, hot, like someone breathing directly against my throat. … Great. From now on, even my own breathing could startle me.

"Hoshino, report status." Ash finally spoke. Unlike everyone else's voice, the moment his came through, the whole channel seemed to grow a spine. Not because it was louder. Because every stray emotion on the line automatically knew to line up the second it ran into him. I put my hand on the stick. My fingertips felt a little cold.

"In the cockpit. Securing restraints."

"Follow procedure," Ash said.

"You don't need to be fast. You need to be correct." … This is exactly the kind of thing that makes him so difficult. When someone else says "good luck," you can treat it as background noise. When Ash says "you don't need to be fast, you need to be correct," it makes you actually want to fasten every single latch as if it were going into a military equipment exhibit. I pulled the five-point harness across, one strap at a time. Waist. Click. Other side. Click. Crotch strap. Click.

When I pulled the chest strap down tight, I couldn't stop myself from hissing in a breath of cold air. Too tight. No — I'd pulled it too tight myself. Tight enough to suggest I was afraid someone was going to try to yank me straight out of the seat the next second. … Given that this might actually happen, the judgment wasn't entirely unreasonable.

"Breathe." Maki's voice suddenly cut into my private line. I blinked.

"What?"

"Your breathing is too shallow right now," Maki said.

"In. Slower. Don't let the chest strap strangle you before the enemy even gets a chance. It would ruin their sense of accomplishment." I nearly laughed, and then nearly threw up because of the laugh.

"Is this supposed to be comforting?"

"It is."

"How exactly did your definition of comforting get this broken?"

"About the same way yours did." … There is genuinely something wrong with this woman. Unfortunately, it's the specific kind of wrong that lands exactly where it needs to when you're about to lose it. I followed her rhythm. In. Out. Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit. Once. Twice. By the third breath, my fingers weren't quite so locked anymore. I started the checks. Main power: on. Attitude control: green. Close-in thrusters: standby. Weapons safing: engaged.

Phase-oscillation warhead hardpoint: connection nominal. As the targeting-assist frame deployed, the auxiliary displays lit up panel by panel. Cold white light washed the inside of the canopy, making the already cramped space feel even more like the inside of some precisely engineered, entirely unfeeling organ.

"Type-0 Unit One, internal pressure nominal," Lan reported.

"Cockpit seal check nominal," Aida followed.

"Launch rail clear," Roy said.

"Higher-dimensional cross-section contracting again." Akari's voice ran a fraction faster than before.

"Shear gap opening, gravity-dust net, second-left quadrant. It's trying to switch faces — no, switch folds—""Human speech," Jess cut in immediately.

"It's trying to retract from an angle we're not used to reading."

"Now that sounds like human speech. Thank you."

"Jess. Tactical station. Focus," Ash said, mild.

"Yes, Acting Captain." I listened to the bridge's crosstalk while looking down at my own hands. The gloves dulled every motion just enough to make it clumsier than usual. Not the clean, crisp input delay of a simulator — the subtle, raw resistance of real mechanical feedback. Like the Type-0 was using its own way of telling me: I'm real. You'd better be too. Outside the canopy, a deck crewman gave me the final confirmation gesture. I returned it. Then a heavy sound of closing came from overhead.

The canopy began to shut. It wasn't a simple click and done. It slid, then aligned, then locked. The whole process took only a few seconds, but it felt as slow as a door very politely shutting the world out. While it was open, you could still hear the metal clangs of the hangar, footsteps, someone shouting somewhere in the distance. Halfway closed, the outside sounds seemed swallowed by water. Once it locked, all that was left was my own breathing, and the cockpit systems' faint, almost ghostly hum.

I understood, suddenly. What actually makes a first live sortie frightening was never something as grand as the enemy is strong. It's that once the canopy seals and the whole world shrinks down to just you, you know, with complete physical clarity — if something goes wrong next, there's no instructor to call a stop, no simulation reset, no one who can hit pause for you.

"…Type-0 Unit One. Canopy locked." I heard myself report it. My voice wasn't shaking. That surprised me a little, and irritated me a little too. The human body really does love to perform sometimes — my heart pounding like an alarm bell, and my throat still managing to sound like it was filing a routine report. More hypocritical than the entire student council.

"Copy," Ash said. Then the open channel went quiet for a beat. A very short beat. Short enough that if I weren't crammed into this cockpit right now, I probably wouldn't have noticed it at all. But because I was here, I heard it with unusual clarity. The next second, Jess's voice came through. Not her tactical-report tone. Light, fast, like a line slipped in while everyone else was too busy to stop her.

"Shimo."

"…What."

"Don't throw up in the frame. It's hell to clean." I rolled my eyes on the spot. The pressure that had been about to crush my chest actually cracked open along the seam that laugh line cut.

"Don't worry," I said, gripping the stick and fixing my eyes on the guide-lines glowing ahead.

"Even if I really do throw up, I'll aim for your handover report first." Jess laughed on the other end. Short. But I heard it. Then came Maki. She didn't laugh, just said, flat:"Hoshino."

"Mm."

"Complain after you get back." I looked at my own reflection in the canopy. Pale, young, not remotely convincing — just an ordinary girl who probably shouldn't be stuffed into a combat frame yet. …Unfortunately, there was no one else to stuff in right now. So I drew a breath, pressed my spine flat against the seat back, and locked my fingers, one by one, properly around the stick and throttle.

"Type-0 Unit One, pre-sortie checks complete." This time, the voice finally sounded like mine.

"Requesting permission to enter final launch sequence." Ash's voice came down.

"Type-0 Unit One, permission granted." No extra encouragement. None of the "send the hero to the front" lines movies love so much. Ash was Ash — even signing off on launching a fourteen-year-old girl in a single-seat strike frame, his tone stayed as steady as if he were approving a supply requisition. …In a way, that was more terrifying than anything else. Because it meant everyone had already, silently, accepted: this was really about to happen.

"Charging the launch rail," Roy said.

"Type-0 Unit One, attitude lock stays under ship control until zero-point-five seconds before launch. Don't fight the stick."

"Copy."

"Repeating: don't fight the stick."

"…Roy, do you really have that little faith in my hands?"

"Not your hands." He paused, tone even polite.

"I have little faith in the human instincts of someone flying a real frame for the first time." Fair. Fair enough that I had nothing to say back. Because right now I genuinely wanted to grab onto whatever was in front of me, ideally rip the whole cockpit loose and run with it hugged to my chest. Unfortunately, the Type-0 wasn't a school bag, and running away wasn't standard equipment.

All I could do was press my fingers back onto the stick and quietly tell myself: loosen up, don't look like a foal thrown onto a wild horse right after learning to walk. The cabin lighting shifted to launch mode. The auxiliary information on either side of the main panel collapsed inward, leaving only the essentials — attitude, speed, trajectory, weapons. The display went clean in a way that felt cruel. Once everything extra is stripped away, the things that actually matter have nowhere left to hide.

Same problem as an exam — when there's only one option left, it's much harder to pretend you don't see it.

"Phase-oscillation warhead safety off, electronic lock maintained," Aida reported.

"Hoshino, you get one drop. Don't treat it like a mistake you can wipe clean in sim class."

"Understood."

"Understanding it doesn't mean you can do it."

"…You're really enjoying the morale-boosting today."

"I'm helping you build a proper fear of failure."

"Then congratulations, mission accomplished." A short laugh from Jess on the channel. Maki cut in right after, as if worried I'd spend all my nerves trading barbs with Aida instead.

"Higher-dimensional cross-section rotating left, gravity-dust net thinning in the third quadrant. Akari, update the projection."

"Updating. The Seawolf isn't retreating — it's folding." Akari's pace had picked up again, brain clearly running ahead of her mouth.

"No, 'folding' isn't quite accurate either. More like—""More like someone pulling a snake out from under a tablecloth, and all you can see is the bulge on the cloth changing shape," Jess said, cutting in out of nowhere. Akari was silent for a fraction of a second.

"…That metaphor is crude. But accurate."

"Thank you."

"We maintain a consistently low cultural standard up here," Jess added. I watched the refreshed projection, and whatever was already unsteady in my stomach sank another notch. The Seawolf's "slice," mirrored onto my cockpit display, still didn't look anything like a ship. The thing simply refused to properly play the role it should occupy in three-dimensional space. Sometimes it looked like a stretched black wedge. Sometimes like a mirror in the process of swallowing itself.

Sometimes just an unreasonably thin dark edge, like someone had scraped a small flake off the skin of the universe with a fingernail. The human brain hates this kind of thing on instinct. An unexplainable threat is already exhausting enough. What's worse is when it carries the attitude of this isn't something flat monkeys like you were ever meant to understand. … Honestly, I was starting to understand why ancient people handed everything they couldn't explain off to gods and demons.

If I had to describe what was in front of me right now in religious terms, I'd just say: something wrong is crawling under the outer skin of the universe.

"Hoshino, breathe," Maki said again.

"I am breathing."

"You're currently in a cold war with oxygen."

"…" I inhaled and exhaled properly this time, keeping the chest strap from chopping my breath into pieces. The cabin's circulation system pushed in dry, cold air with a faint mechanical tang — like someone had ground winter and metal filings together into powder and blown it through the vents. My nose was full of that cold, clean smell. Clean enough to make it obvious: nothing extra lived in here. Only what the life-support system permitted to exist. A low vibration rolled up from beneath the launch cradle.

Not an explosion. More like some massive beast grinding its teeth deep in its chest.

"Launch rail charge at forty percent," Roy reported.

"Outer deck hatch, first layer open," Lan said.

"Comm loops holding clear, priority line nominal," Lan added, then asked, almost thoughtfully, "Hoshino, if you want to leave any last words right now, I can switch you to a private channel."

"I don't have last words."

"What about a love letter?" My brain went blank for a beat.

"…Lan, has Jess contaminated you?"

"I'm simply completing the final information consolidation on shipboard interpersonal relationships." Jess drew out a long "oh—" from the other end.

"Should I excuse myself, then? Wouldn't want certain people's private feelings getting read aloud."

"Try it and I will survive this specifically to come back and kill you," I fired back without hesitation. Maki said, mildly: "Good. Still has enough energy to threaten a crewmate. Mental status acceptable."

"Does anyone on this ship actually treat an underage pilot on her first live sortie like a human being?" Ash finally spoke.

"Yes."

"…Really?"

"That's exactly why everyone's on this channel talking nonsense with you right now. So your own head doesn't eat you alive before launch." The channel went quiet for a moment. I froze for half a second before it actually landed — that sentence had come out of Ash's mouth. Not a joke. Barely even comfort. But that flat, plain acknowledgment — I know you're scared, and I know you're holding it together anyway — did more to warm my chest than anything else could have. That's a foul move, Acting Captain.

You spend every other moment measuring people's heartbeats with a ruler, and then you go and sound human right here, of all places. That's practically engineered to knock someone off balance.

"…Copy," I said, quieter. I had no idea if anyone had noticed that came out softer than everything before it. I hoped not. And if they had, I hoped they'd decided not to mention it. The launch sequence kept advancing.

"Launch rail charge at sixty percent."

"Nose restraint arm released."

"Type-0 Unit One, external attitude clamps down to two."

"Higher-dimensional cross-section down another eleven percent!" Akari's voice tightened.

"It's hunting for a new fold-back angle. Gravity signature is thinning!"

"Don't let it get away." Jess, tactical station now in hand, sounded sharper than usual.

"Shimo, once you're out, don't charge straight in. Take the outer line Roy's giving you, come in from where the slice is thinnest. Right now that thing's like a hermit crab pulling back into its shell. Hit it head-on and you'll only break your own hand."

"Thank you. That metaphor's just as refined as Akari's."

"You're welcome. Our bridge's cultural standards have always been consistently low." I couldn't help it. I laughed. Short, but real. It cracked open whatever had been stuck in my throat, just enough to let me settle my attention back on what was ahead, almost like a normal person. I checked my hands. Left on the throttle. Right on the stick. The gloves pressed against my palms, damp with sweat inside.

Not soaked — not like a rag after gym class — but enough to make it clear: my body hadn't been convinced by a single word out of my mouth. The mouth can bluff. The nerves don't. I looked at my own face reflected in the canopy and felt, briefly, unfamiliar to myself. It was me. And also not the Hoshino Shimo who could sit on the bridge, calmly analyze someone's maneuver window, and take casual shots at the student council and the whole system with a straight face. Inside the Type-0, I felt more loaded than seated.

Like a round that hadn't been fired yet — except this particular round happened to breathe, get nervous, and mutter internal complaints about the unfairness of life's assignments. Which, thinking about it, made things worse. I had genuinely just compared myself to expendable ordnance. If a fourteen-year-old girl's self-perception had slid this far downhill, the national education system definitely owed someone an explanation.

"Hoshino." Maki's voice shifted onto my private line.

"…Here."

"When you go out there — don't rush to prove anything." I froze.

"Do I look like that type?"

"Not usually," Maki said.

"But the first time someone's really alone in one of these, they want to do something. To prove to themselves they're not dead weight." I opened my mouth. Nothing came out right away. Because she'd hit it. Hit it in the most annoying possible way. Sim mistakes could be written up as a report. Bridge judgment calls could be shared out among the whole team. But once you're in the Type-0, canopy sealed, every what if automatically becomes personal. You start wanting to prove you're not the one being protected.

Not the one being looked after. Not the kid the whole ship has to clear a channel for, help regulate her breathing, string along on bad jokes to keep her nerves from snapping. I did want to prove it. The thought felt dirty, like new flesh growing under a wound — press on it, and it hurts.

"…I know," I said, finally. Just that. Maki didn't push further. She just answered, very softly.

"Good." Not one word more. But when that "good" landed in my ear, I had the strange sensation of a hand pressing down on the back of my neck, stopping me from bolting forward. Not unpleasant. The opposite, actually. Like an invisible thread had been strung from the bridge all the way here, tied around the exact nerve that was about to spin out from fear and stubbornness combined. …At a moment like this, I really didn't want to admit I'd been even a little settled by that.

"Launch rail charge at eighty percent," Roy said.

"Outer deck, second layer open. Forward vacuum zone confirmed," Lan reported. The next second, the forward blast shield slowly slid open. The universe outside came through. Not scenery. At least, not right now. On an ordinary day, looking out through an observation window, the universe feels vast, distant — a magnificent backdrop that belongs to no one's actual daily life. But sitting in a single-seat combat frame, staring straight at it through nothing but a transparent canopy, it stops being a backdrop.

It becomes reality, immediately. Black. No horizon. No up or down. Only, in the distance, the twisted region marked out by the gravity-dust net, flickering in and out — like a wound in the deep sea that kept changing shape. And that's where I was about to fly. Close, and far. Close enough that one launch would put me there. Far enough that if I said, right now, that I didn't want to go — no one could actually wind everything back to ninety seconds ago.

"… Type-0 Unit One, forward visual confirmed," I heard myself report. Still steady. Humanity's acting skills genuinely deserve some kind of award. Akari said suddenly: "It's exposed." Every sound in the cabin seemed to snap taut in that instant. The Seawolf's slice on the main display shifted violently. The outline that had looked like nothing but dark edges and fractures suddenly pressed a much clearer shape into the gravity-dust net. Not a whole ship.

Some angle of something that didn't belong in three dimensions, forced into a shape we could almost read. Like a black metal skeleton flipping up from beneath the water's surface. Like someone pressing the flat side of a blade against your eyeball — you know, absolutely, that it has thickness, and you still cannot, for the life of you, understand how it's shaped. It lasted less than a second. My spine still went numb. Not because it was impressive. Not remotely. Because it was wrong.

A very physical, very honest kind of wrong. Like having your inner ear flicked gently out of true. Like your optic nerve and your stomach both being forced, at the same time, to agree: that thing is real, and a moment ago, it was looking at you.

"Gravity signature locked!" Akari was almost shouting.

"Three degrees left, outer-line window is open!"

"Now," Jess said. Roy's voice followed immediately, steady as a nail being driven home.

"Type-0 Unit One, attitude lock releasing. Five-second count." My fingers tightened without asking my permission. The cabin went so quiet that all that was left was breathing, system hum, and the sound of my own heart hitting my ribs. That heart was pounding hard enough it felt like it wanted to launch ahead of the rest of me and scout the way first. Four seconds. I stared at the briefly exposed scar of the slice ahead. Three seconds.

The phase-oscillation warhead's arming light glowed at the corner of my vision, cold white as a scalpel. Two seconds. I suddenly remembered Sayo shouting outside the hangar earlier: don't puke in the cockpit the first time you fly a real one. … Great. Thanks. Now I genuinely want to survive and come back just to drag you off to scrub the deck. One second. Maki came onto my private line one last time. No tactical terminology. No procedural reminder. Just one short sentence.

"Hoshino. Come back alive." The moment it landed, I felt my hands go steady. Like it wasn't until this exact second that I'd truly locked myself and this Type-0 together — locked into this absurd, dangerous, entirely inappropriate-for-a-fourteen-year-old fight. So I drew in a breath of freezing air, stared at the darkness ahead that had opened like a wound, and spoke.

"Type-0 Unit One—" I pressed my hands down.

"—launching."