Chapter 105

"As expected of the Vice President of Takasaki Shipbuilding. A magnificent triumph!"

A man approached Sakura, sporting a grin so meticulously plastered on it could have been applied with a trowel. Sakura racked her brain, vaguely recalling him as some diplomatic lackey from god-knows-where, but the specifics escaped her. Not that she cared. Battling a rising tide of nausea, she forced a polite smile.

"I was merely lucky," she offered.

The hall was a cavernous affair, easily large enough for a gala, functioning as the primary social hub within the EAP Fortress. It was currently crawling with corporate suits and executives from every subsidiary imaginable. Tables stood like a forest across the buffet floor, groaning under the weight of more appetizers than any civilized society could possibly consume.

In the adjacent hall, the big wigs of Little Tokyo were sequestered to discuss the "strategic flow of the war" or some other lofty nonsense. Her father was there acting as the official representative; Sakura was merely the decorative face sent here to play the socialite.

"Surely, luck alone doesn't bag a score like that!" gushed another hanger-on who had joined the circle. "Word is the EAP Second Merit Medal is a done deal. Three Cruisers and eight Destroyers? Plus twenty-two support vessels? That’s the biggest win since this whole mess started!"

The man looked around for validation, and the surrounding crowd bobbed their heads in a rhythmic, sycophantic wave. "Indeed, indeed!" they chirped.

"Well, it was… you know. A situational necessity," Sakura said, trying to shut them down. "Everything was a blur, honestly. I was just acting on instinct. I don't really remember the details, so let’s not get too bogged down in the specifics, shall we?"

She threw out the preemptive strike before they could dig into the tactics. In truth, she had no idea if her commands had been "best," and she cared even less. This whole commander stint was just a way to pad her resume before she officially stepped up as the next Vice President of Takasaki Shipbuilding. After this, she was slated to head back to the safety of the back office. Besides, everyone knew a Transport Company called Rising Sun had done all the heavy lifting.

I still can't believe the enemy actually showed up, Sakura grumbled to herself, making sure her lips didn't move.

The sector was supposed to be a backwater, strategically irrelevant and statistically the safest place in the galaxy. The EAP had only picked it as a construction route for their Fortress because it was empty space. There wasn't supposed to be a war here.

"Quite right," a woman in the group purred, leaning in with a conspiratorial smirk. "Perhaps the enemy had something very important hidden there? What do you think, Commander?"

Sakura caught herself just as she was about to make a snide comment. She suddenly remembered this woman was an android with high-fidelity auditory sensors. Watch it, Sakura. Keep the mask on.

"Who can say? I haven't the foggiest. And even if I did, this hardly seems like the place for classified speculation… Oh, excuse me. It appears my father has arrived."

The crowd stirred, a ripple of hushed awe spreading as heads turned toward the entrance. Sakura seized the opportunity and made a break for it. She knew a meeting with the old man would be a one-way trip to Depression Town, but it was still better than accidentally leaking a corporate secret to a bunch of gossip-hungry executives.

Sakura didn't just 'dislike' her father. To be precise, he was a walking personification of terror.

While everyone else in the world had spent her life coddling her, her father was the sole exception. She didn't have a single memory of him doing anything remotely 'fatherly.' They barely spoke, and when they did, it was either a dry business report or a blistering lecture on her inadequacies. While she could intellectually appreciate the strict upbringing now that she was an adult, there had been years where she’d lived for nothing but the day she could hate him openly.

"Father, it has been some time. I am relieved to see you in good health."

Sakura performed the Imperial Salute—the highest mark of respect in the Empire. She snapped her five fingers together and extended her hand toward him, but kept her gaze firmly glued to the floor. If she looked him in the eye, she’d be paralyzed by his sheer presence and lose the ability to speak entirely.

"Sakura, is it?"

The voice was gravelly but carried the weight of a collapsing star. In the periphery of her vision, she saw hair as black as her own, tied back in the same severe style he’d worn for decades. The long ponytail swayed slightly as he moved.

"I have heard the reports. It seems you’ve been quite the busy bee."

The supreme authority of Takasaki Shipbuilding—the man who held the lives of 220,000 employees in his palm—stepped toward her. Her seventy-four-year-old father stopped inches away and took a sharp, sibilant breath. Sakura’s shoulders hitched instinctively, waiting for the verbal blow to fall.

"WELL DONE!"

The shout boomed across the hall, echoing off the luxury fixtures and silencing every conversation in the room.

"…Huh?"

The volume startled her, but the confusion hit harder. She tried to remember the last time her father had praised her. She dug through decades of memories only to realize, with a start, that it had literally never happened before.

"Don't look so stunned. Stand tall. Your judgment saved the lives of countless employees. I’m leaving the fleet in your hands from here on out. Don't disappoint me."

With that, the Takasaki Shipbuilding President spun on his heel and marched toward the exit. Sakura stood there, staring blankly at his retreating back, until a sudden, uncontrollable surge of euphoria began to bubble up from her chest.

He praised me… He actually praised me!

The hangers-on had already scurried off to follow her father. Seeing as she was finally alone, she didn't care who was watching. "YES!" she screamed at the top of her lungs.

"Uh, hello? Anyone home? It’s Teiro, here for the invite?"

Taro stepped tentatively into the dimly lit room. For a second, he worried he’d wandered into the wrong suite, but the [BISHOP] interface confirmed this was definitely the EAP 2 Commander’s quarters.

"Man, look at this place… Dean’s place was fancy, but this is next level. The rich really do stay rich, don't they?"

The suite looked like a royal residence stolen from a five-star European hotel. Every piece of furniture was hand-carved wood, and the room was a literal jungle of massive ornamental plants. Taro leaned over, squinting at a broad-leafed tree to see if it was real, and gave one of the leaves a casual poke.

"Are you interested in botany?"

A familiar voice drifted from the back of the suite. Taro wasn't particularly a fan of things that required watering, so he just yelled back, "Not really, no!"

"I see. Neither am I. People just keep putting them here. I usually don't even look at them… Well, this is our first time meeting face-to-face, Mr. Teiro. I am Sakura, Director of Takasaki Shipbuilding and Commander of EAP 2."

A woman emerged from the shadows of the doorway. She was a knockout—black hair, dark eyes, and features that looked remarkably Japanese. Most striking was the purple tattoo around her left eye, shaped like a stylized flame.

"Uh, yeah. Nice to meet you. And, uh, sorry about the way I talked to you during the battle. I was a bit of a jerk."

Taro scratched his head, feeling the awkwardness settle in. Man, if I’d known she was this beautiful, I would’ve used my 'polite' voice.

"Not at all," Sakura dismissed with a wave. "To be perfectly honest, you were a godsend. I’m not exactly 'fond' of combat. As you might have guessed, I’m what the industry calls a figurehead… Please, sit."

She let out a small, self-deprecating snort. Taro gave a non-committal "Sure" and sank into a sofa that was so soft it felt like it was trying to eat him.

"So, you said you’re not good at fighting. Are all the other commanders in the EAP like that?" Taro asked. He wasn't sure why he’d been invited, but he figured he might as well get some intel.

"More or less," Sakura replied.

"The EAP’s whole brand is pacifism. We’ve spent decades solving every problem by throwing piles of money at it. We go out of our way not to look threatening. That’s why our military budget is a joke compared to our GDP. Any real 'trouble' gets outsourced to the big security companies in the Central systems. I doubt anyone in this entire organization has seen a real firefight."

She sat down across from him, her shawl sliding slightly. Taro caught a glimpse of what looked like a very thin, very flashy negligee underneath and felt his heart do a nervous little tap-dance.

"I see… but that’s a problem, right? You can't handle a situation like this if you’re just writing checks. What have you guys been doing up until now?"

Even if they outsourced to security firms, no private company was going to take on a full-scale Alliance-level war. Maybe Gigantech Corp could do it, but they’d charge an astronomical sum and then probably just annex the EAP the moment the check cleared.

"Until now? My dear man, 'now' has never happened before," Sakura said, shrugging with an air of genuine bafflement. "War is usually just an extension of economic friction. You resolve the friction, or you offer a better deal elsewhere, and the war goes away before the first shot is fired. But this… I don't even know what to call this. Those people aren't after money, are they?"

She looked genuinely lost. Taro felt a cold sweat prickle his neck as he realized she wasn't joking.

"Uh… yeah. Exactly. Enzio is fighting for independence and survival. They’re not going to take a bribe and go home. In fact, I’m pretty sure they’re going to keep swinging until one of us is dead. It’s going to be a total war."

If the defectors were right, Enzio wanted to break away from the Empire. The only way to do that was to seize and block the Route to the Empire. If they succeeded, the surrounding star systems’ economies would go into a death spiral. Millions would starve.

Taro crossed his arms, groaning at the sheer scale of the mess. But then, Sakura hit him with a line that highlighted the terrifying gap between their worlds.

"Wait," she said, blinking. "What exactly is a 'total war'?"