Chương 333: 142.Fujimaru Incident 1

We'd just dropped out of FTL. The silver-blue light bands of the Laniakea Supercluster's border nebula were gorgeous enough to look like a scam travel brochure—and before anyone could even breathe out an ah, civilization, the alarm got there first and strangled the romance in its crib.

"Acting Captain, radar shows—three Galactic Empire destroyers, encircling a civilian vessel." Akari's voice was exactly as regular, as flat, as always. Flat enough that she might as well have been announcing that today's mess-hall soup was cream-based and possibly a little too salty, instead of three hostile ships boxing in a civilian. I stared at the identification brackets ballooning on the main screen and let out a short, cold laugh.

"Is the Imperial Navy's economy so bad they've had to moonlight as pirates?" A brief ripple of laughter went around the bridge. Not because the joke was any good. It was because we'd all just crawled out of the jaws of something like the Sea Wolf—the kind of thing that makes you physically resent the structure of the universe—and now, faced with this traditional, plain, practically textbook tableau of Imperial destroyers bullying a civilian ship, we felt a wildly inappropriate rush of nostalgia. Oh.

So normal villains still exist. I turned my head toward Ash.

"What's the call? Do we save them or not?" Ash thought about it for less than a second. Then he pushed one word out from between his teeth.

"Save them." That single word hit the deck, and everything after it didn't need to wait in line. Maki didn't even bother confirming. She snatched the wall phone off its cradle, her voice cold as a blade leaving its sheath.

"General Quarters, General Quarters! All hands, man your battle stations!" The ship-wide alarm tore open. The Yukikaze, still sitting in transit mode a second ago, lifted her head like a steel beast rousing from hibernation—her whole frame waking joint by joint.

"Bridge shutters, closed!"

"Weapons free!" Maki's orders came down one after another, clean enough to leave almost no gap between them.

"Roy!"

"Copy. Flank speed." He answered so fast it didn't sound like he was taking an order—it sounded like he'd memorized the answer in advance. Honestly, watching the two of them work like that, I sometimes wonder if the Executive Officer and the helm have some undocumented neural link running between them. Then again, it makes sense. These past few months, the eleven of us have spent our time either getting hit, or figuring out how to get hit with a little more dignity. We're not the strongest crew out there.

But ask whether every single one of us knows exactly where we stand and what we're supposed to do, and I'll put my hand on whatever's left of my conscience and say it straight: on that count, the Yukikaze is solid.

"Hoshino, stop spacing out." Maki didn't even glance back.

"Enemy ships entering range. Engage them directly."

"Copy." I pressed my hands back onto the fire-control board, fingertips finding their grooves almost on reflex. Jess had already straightened up, the lazy little smile that had been hanging off her mouth a moment ago wiped clean away.

"Lock complete," she said. On the main screen, the three Imperial destroyers circled their prey like hyenas working a kill. Their spacing wasn't pretty, but it was practiced. This wasn't improvised. At the very least, it wasn't their first time.

"Turret One, switch to positron mode." I fixed on the outermost ship, the one with its guard down, and let the reticle bite steady onto the centerline of its hull.

"Commence firing." A second later, a positron beam flashed out from the Yukikaze's main turret. It didn't feel like artillery fire. It felt more like a white line, compressed to the point of fastidiousness, almost cruel in how clean it was—something even the universe couldn't be bothered to argue with, only step aside for. The beam caught the first Imperial destroyer dead center without warning, clean as an executioner's stroke, with no feeling wasted on the matter. The Imperial destroyer split in half on the spot.

That's not an exaggeration. It really did. The whole ship just came apart on the main screen. The forward section kept sliding forward on inertia; the aft half detonated a second later in fire and debris, as if someone had calmly read out its eviction notice.

"First kill." Jess whistled, pleased with herself.

"The border sure knows how to throw a welcome party." The second destroyer reacted faster than I expected. It broke into evasive maneuvers almost the instant its partner came apart, hull rolling hard, scattering counter-beam charges and decoys in bunches. Jess had already threaded the follow-up attack chain before I needed to ask. Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

"Parsifal, standing by—launch." The Yukikaze's Parsifals cleared their cells, a pack of silver-grey hounds that should have run the destroyer straight down. But the enemy's decoys and counter-beam charges deployed too fast, scrambling the target signature in an instant. The Parsifal swarm veered, teeth snapping shut on the decoys instead, chasing them off wide.

"Not stupid over there." Jess clicked her tongue.

"Shame it still looks so thoroughly punchable." But the words were barely out of her mouth when the third destroyer swung its bow around to face us. And then I saw the single most unreasonable wall of missiles I'd encountered in my life so far.

"... Wait." That wasn't a standard ship-to-ship volley. It was like they'd scooped up every last drop of malice in the sky, balled it into one fist, and thrown it straight at our faces. The main screen erupted with tracking markers, red ID boxes stacked so thick it looked like someone had thrown a bottle of ketchup at the display.

"Saturation strike," I blurted. Akari was staring at the data feed, and for once, a thin thread of surprise leaked into her voice.

"That's... the 'Firefly' missile? The one still in development?"

"This is really not the time to be doing weapons appraisal for the enemy!" I said, already tearing the intercept program wide open.

"Shusui, intercept!" The anti-air rocket VLS cracked open in one motion, and the Yukikaze bared a full row of fangs. The Shusui swarm drove straight into the incoming missiles while I slammed the CIWS up to maximum alert.

"Type-96 CIWS matrix—Fire Bull, activate!" The matrix lit up, and fourteen Type-96 25 cm high-output pulse-laser guns woke with it. It felt exactly like a herd of old bulls that usually just dozed in the corner had opened their eyes all at once and decided, collectively, to grind anything that came near into paste. The space ahead of the screen turned into a wildly flickering web of intercept fire. Shusui bit off the first wave at mid-range; Fire Bull took over and shredded whatever leaked through.

Explosions strung out in chains across the Yukikaze's bow—nothing flashy, just plain, practical ferocity.

"One's come around behind us, Acting Captain!" Akari had barely finished before the whole Yukikaze rang like someone had taken a sledgehammer to her tail. The shock traveled up through the seat and slammed into my spine. The readouts on my board jumped a notch. I nearly bit my own tongue.

"Aft section, direct hit." Aida's voice stayed as calm as if she were reading off a warehouse inventory.

"Shields deployed. No critical damage sustained." Coming out of the Chief Engineer's mouth, no critical damage sustained usually translated to: nobody's dead yet, but you'd better kill them right now. The problem was, the Yukikaze didn't have much heavy firepower aft. The rear turrets were built for small-scale intercept and close-in defense—range and output both looked embarrassing on paper. The destroyer that had slipped behind us clearly knew it, too.

It had wedged itself into position like a tool built for one specific job: prying out someone's back molar. I stared at the aft tactical display. Something clicked in my head. Wait. There's one more. I snapped my head up.

"Ash!"

"Talk."

"I need to use that. Give me authorization!" Ash finally turned his head to look at me. His brow didn't so much as twitch.

"Which one?"... Right. Absolutely zero sense of drama. Wasn't a normal person supposed to just yell granted at a moment like this? But no—our esteemed Acting Captain needed me to read out the full weapon designation first, like I was filling out a requisition slip for school equipment. I nearly flipped the console.

"Broadside secondary cannons—Siegfried!" I ground the full name out through my teeth.

"Hurry up, or if it knocks our tail twice more, the Kamikaze engine's getting renamed Sea Wolf Two by tonight!" This time Ash didn't waste breath.

"... Authorization granted." The armor panels along the Yukikaze's port and starboard aft quarters slid open at once. Two guns that usually stayed hidden—as if the hull itself was embarrassed to admit it owned something this underhanded—rose slowly out of the flanks. Broadside-Mounted Type-Special-1, 180-Degree Full-Traverse Charged Particle Annihilation Secondary Cannon: Siegfried. Honestly, the mere existence of this thing was underhanded.

On the surface, we're calm, orderly, a perfectly respectable Federal warship. In practice, we've got a blade tucked into each hip, reserved specifically for teaching people who like sneaking up behind you a lesson in social etiquette.

"Siegfried, traverse complete." Jess's voice actually brightened.

"Oh, look at that. Our Imperial friend back there looks thrilled."

"Then let's not disappoint it." I pressed the firing switch.

"Siegfried, fire!" Both aft broadside cannons discharged almost together. One round bit straight into the destroyer's bow; the other drove hard into its flank. Not a graze. Not a shield skim. Two streams of charged particles that might as well have scheduled the meeting in advance, catching it between them and finishing the job outright. One to the face. One to the flank. No suspense about it.

The destroyer that had been knocking on the Yukikaze's back door didn't even get the chance to shout one last long live the Emperor. Siegfried's crossfire punched straight through the hull, and the whole ship went up in a bloom of red-tinged debris.

"Beautiful," Roy said. Just those two words—and somehow they were worth more than a whole paragraph of praise from anyone else. Probably because getting a clean compliment out of Roy was about as rare as seeing genuine tears at a Student Council budget meeting.

"Thanks." My voice held steady. My palms were burning.

"I thought so too." As for the third ship out front—the one that had launched the saturation strike and bought itself an extra second—I'd already gotten my reticle biting back down on it. Then it did something I hadn't seen coming at all. It turned and ran. Not a feint. Not a tactical withdrawal. Not that particular Imperial strain of pride where you shout retreat while your body's still leaning back in for one last bite. It really ran.

Clean turn, decisive burn, like the second its two companions blew apart, the whole ship packed up face and His Imperial Majesty's glory together, stuffed them down the trash chute, and chose to survive without looking back. I stared at the main screen. It took me a full half-second to catch up.

"... Wait, hold on." This wasn't the Imperial Navy I knew. Not that they don't ever retreat—that's not what I mean. But the Imperial units I know, the kind that surround a civilian ship and run an operation this dirty and this hard, are supposed to be the type that comes screaming slogans, trying to drag you down with them. But this one didn't. It ran too clean. Clean enough that it didn't look like a rout at all. It looked more like—the mission had failed, and now it was in a hurry to carry the news home.

A faint chill crept up my back. Ash's voice came through, still level.

"Do not pursue." Maki was already moving to the next step.

"Secure the field. Confirm the civilian vessel's status. Lan, open comms. Akari, full resweep of the surrounding sector, confirm no second wave. Roy, reduce speed, maintain maneuverability."

"Copy." The atmosphere on the bridge didn't actually loosen just because we were down to one enemy ship, and that one gone. If anything, the tension that wouldn't ease got heavier. Because compared to an enemy who fights you straight to the end, the kind that suddenly turns and runs is the more troublesome kind. It hadn't surrendered. It had other plans.

And at the center of the main screen, the civilian ship we'd just fished out from between three Imperial destroyers drifted alone in the silver-violet bands of the border nebula—hull visibly damaged, comm lights flickering on and off, looking unlucky in a way that had real content to it. Now there was nothing left in the field but the Yukikaze, and that civilian ship.... No. I stared at the ship, my frown deepening slowly.

What I mean is— What was left was a civilian ship worth deploying three Imperial destroyers for—worth losing two of them, and worth the last one choosing to pull out and keep the secret rather than finish the fight. None of that was ordinary.