“Where the hell is Mia?” Roland glared at Keiko, who gave him an indifferent shrug. “When was the last time you talked to her?”
“We talked over video chat yesterday, when she left Johannesburg,” she said.
“Well, she has three hours.” Roland rolled his eyes and took a small swig of water.
“One hour,” Nao said, looking at his watch. Roland gave a baffled look. “We had to push the launch forward to coincide with the Expeditionary Forces.”
“Call her now!” Roland demanded.
Keiko dialed from her earphone and continued nursing her drink. Nao downed his dry whiskey in a single gulp and made a few phone calls of his own.
“I have to meet with Admiral Ito. Make sure everyone is on that shuttle, Roland,” Nao said as he swiftly left the lounge area with his bodyguards.
“She's already in the dressing room, Roland,” Keiko said.
“Alright, good. Everyone finish your drinks, it's showtime.” Roland clapped his hands together.
Frank chugged his beer and covertly filled a flask full of whiskey. The crew departed for the dressing rooms.
On the horizon, hundreds of tiny silhouettes dotted the sea. American F-35s and Japanese F-3s swooped in low over the island, performing barrel rolls and tight banks.
Inside the dressing room, Roland unlocked pressurized suit containers. Within, six onyx-colored spacesuits, complete with outer and inner garments, sparkled in the light. Cleaned and polished dark-tinted helmet visors caught everyone’s collective attention.
“So sexy.” Alexei removed his helmet from the container.
Frank donned his suit, not worrying about modesty in the presence of females. He took everything off.
“A little warning would have been nice,” Mia scorned as she took her suit to an adjacent room.
“Doesn't bother me,” Keiko shrugged as she undressed next to Frank.
“It's not like anyone hasn't seen the opposite sex naked before,” Renee said. She followed Mia with her suit into the other room.
Alexei couldn't help but sneak brief glances at Keiko. She had a full-figured body with an hourglass curvature. His mouth salivated at the sight of her—until Frank noticed his ogling eyes and called him out passive-aggressively.
A loud thud rang out from the door as security wrestled an intruder on the other side of the wall. A man got past the tight perimeter, hoping to get a glimpse of the crew. “Doke! Doke!” the intruder yelled as men yanked him away. “Kutabare!” he shouted once again.
“What was that all about?” wondered Frank out loud.
“Madness. I'm sure the Apollo crew didn't have to deal with this,” Roland stated.
“How the hell did he make it past the cipher lock door?”
Roland shook his head in disbelief. He reached for his bag and emptied its contents. A light caught his eye, glinting off of a metallic surface jutting out from Frank's bag. He looked closer and saw the outline of a pistol.
“Frank, what's that in your bag?” Roland questioned.
“Oh, this?” Frank pulled out an old .45 caliber Colt 1911.
“Ooh! I wanna hold it!” Keiko squealed, reaching for the pistol grip.
“Let me clear it out first,” Frank replied with excitement. Renee walked through the doorway to see what all the commotion was about.
“Frank, no guns!” she shouted.
“What if there are aliens, Renee?” Alexei asked sarcastically.
“I don't care. This is a peaceful mission. There are enough guns outside this room as it is,” Renee said.
“Look, it's my fathers handgun from the war.” Frank took back the pistol from Keiko.
“And which American-caused war was that? I've lost count now,” critiqued Alexei, turning halfway serious.
“Shove it, Alexei. You wouldn't understand the price of freedom if it bit you in your hammer-and-sickle ass,” Frank exclaimed.
“You really believe that bullshit, don't you?” Alexei continued.
“Whoa, whoa!” Roland interrupted, standing between the two men to de-escalate the situation.
“It's not a big deal. It might even be useful having a weapon with us. Frank will keep it out of sight and away from everyone else, isn't that right, Frank?” Roland ordered Frank, who subsequently agreed.
“All Yamada crew members report to launch bay,” a voice rang out from the building's communication system. It repeated once more, and once every minute in a loop.
The main hangar was filled to capacity with employees, news crews, and the political elite from around the world. The crew emerged from an automatic door as flashes erupted from cameras and phones.
People from all over the world shook their hands one by one. Journalists asked questions and fans tried to touch their suits. Each crew member's national patch was painted on the left shoulder module of their suit. Canada, England, Russia, Japan, South Africa, and, finally, the United States of America.
The main launch platform for the mass driver sat at the far end of an aircraft runway. A two kilometer long vacuum tube stretched along the length of the volcano at an ascending twenty-five degree angle.
Superconducting coils, powered by Mount Nishiyama's geothermal power plant, would provide the necessary acceleration. A Sakura-class space capsule, connected to an aluminum transport vehicle, would receive motion by electromagnetic induction.
Weighing an extra 170 pounds each, the crew struggled to walk. Clomp-clamp came the noise from their boots striking concrete.
“I feel like a mech,” Frank said to the others.
“You will feel light as a feather on Mars,” someone responded.
People crowded around the astronauts for a time as Nao allowed snap interviews to take place. Tiny ship silhouettes had become larger and larger as a contingent of American-Japanese warships approached the island.
Frank took a few quick questions from American reporters and pictures with tourists waving the stars and stripes. He couldn't help but watch as Roland hugged his grandchildren and wife. Cameras clicked like wildfire when Renee hugged her husband of twenty-five years goodbye.
To take his mind off of his own situation, Frank analyzed his surroundings, like always. Right away, he noticed the laser defense system cleverly pre-positioned around the fenceline. White cupolas with green refractive lenses gave the anti-air batteries away.
Frank's detective work came to an abrupt end as American and Japanese fighter jets screamed overhead. It made the crowd cheer even louder. Some shed tears of joy as they witnessed history.
Air superiority sorties continued overhead with the final two birds descending right above the flight line vertically. A Lockheed F-35 and Mitsubishi F-3, stealth STOVLs, hovered slowly. They positioned themselves and lowered flags from their internal weapons bays. The stunt was met with thunderous applause.
Nao ordered his security teams to begin an orderly dispersal of all spectators behind a preset cordon. He personally walked with the crew to an awaiting company flatbed truck. It carried them the rest of the way to the launch platform.
“I am proud of all of you. You are making history today,” Nao shouted, his voice having to compete with engine noise and wind. An open-air lift transported the crew to the top of the platform. Nagoya handlers met them all at the top next to a titanium vaulted airlock.
Frank's mouth was parched and he felt dizzy. Second thoughts rushed through his mind and he wondered if he really wanted to leave Earth after all.
Nao said his farewells to each of the crew individually. He stopped at Frank last and grabbed ahold of his arm.
“We had two launches this morning to resupply Yamada. I have a few surprises planned for everyone.”
Nao stood at the edge of the platform facing east with the Pacific Ocean at his back. The massive Expeditionary Fleet had now encircled the island. Littoral combat ships hugged shoreline and sent out unmanned aerial vehicles for reconnaissance.
Frank’s eyes were fixated on the supercarrier USS Gerald Fo
rd while Nao spoke to the crew. Frank kept rehearsing the flight controls to the Sakura capsule and the Yamada in his mind.
The radio on Mr. Tajika’s hip crackled as authorization was given for launch. Nao gave his final regards and squeezed his daughter one last time. She gave a customary bow of respect, going as low as she could.
Inside the Sakura capsule was cramped, enough space for six passengers and luggage. Compartments lined the walls of the craft, utilizing every possible inch.
They entered the capsule through a narrow port in the vacuum tube acrylic frame. Like crawling through a drain pipe, each person struggled to get through.
“Look!” Mia pointed towards the ocean.
A large missile head breached the surface of the water in a bulbous wave. A fiery rocket propelled it up out of the water, creating a circular wake of mist and smoke. It ascended into the sky as three more missiles broke the ocean surface in similar fashion, each parallel to the last.
Silence followed as spectators and crew alike were fixated on the missiles arcing in the sky. Keiko exited the capsule and joined Frank on the platform. Roland and the others watched from inside the capsule.
“You need to go now!” Nao yelled from the tarmac below. “We are out of time, get them off the ground!” he shouted into his radio.
“What was that?” Keiko asked.
“Submarine-launched cruise missiles,” Frank replied. “Your father is right, we need to leave.”
“Let’s go!” Roland shouted from within the capsule.
“Sakura capsule Delta-2, ready for launch in one mike, undulator active,” a Nagoya flight controller said over radio transmission as Frank sealed the airlock behind him. “Spinning up coil number one, high flux.”
Frank turned on capsule stabilizers and monitored data and fuel levels. There wasn’t much else he could do; the capsule pretty much ran itself. The interior light changed to low-power red spectrum.
“Spinning up coil number two, thirty seconds to launch.”
Mr. Tajika and his entourage made their way back to the control tower. They sped past worried onlookers and confused media outlets with cameras still rolling.
Nao stepped inside the operations center with a complete 360-degree field of view of the mass driver and the ocean. He walked over to the flight controllers and opened his mouth to speak, but was interrupted by the sound of chain guns in the distance.
Red tracers swarmed the skies above the fleet. They looked like long, fiery whips. Nao attempted to call Admiral Ito but failed to get reception on his phone. “Get me the admiral on the radio!” he shouted.
The flight controllers were mesmerized at the powerful display going on in front of them. They were shaken by reality, however, as a large Chinese missile impacted an American-guided missile destroyer, splitting it in half.
A bright flash of light illuminated the control tower as the laser defense system kicked in and stopped a would-be missile from striking. The shock wave and resulting debris cracked the control tower’s thick glass.
“Launch now!” Nao yelled in a high pitch, his voice cracking in falsetto.
Thunderous explosions rocked the mass driver complex as the laser defense system became overwhelmed by intense barrages of incoming missiles. Remaining turrets focused on defending only the launch platform, creating a protective bubble.
Fires burned and ships sank to the ocean floor. Anti-air weapons fired everything into the sky as the storm of missiles showed no sign of waning.
“Sir, one of the substations was hit. We’re at eighty percent power and dropping,” a flight controller said to Nao, who took shelter behind a concrete pillar.
“Do it!” Nao said.
The light flashed from red to green and Frank slammed on the launch button, catapulting the Sakura capsule with tremendous speed. Inside, the crew were glued to their seats, unable to move from the immense exterior G-forces.
Sakura Delta-2 rumbled along the electromagnetically-charged rail as strategically spaced coils provided the energy necessary for lift. Reaching the tube’s end, the capsule burst through a plastic containment wall, discharging its transport vehicle into the volcanic chasm below.
Traveling at 17,000 kilometers per hour, the Sakura capsule hurled itself into the upper atmosphere. Below, now the size of miniature toys, invisible particle beams and directed energy weapons fought off enemy attacks. Tracers and missile plumes discharged in flower-like formations from various ships.
“Reaching maximum trajectory. We are way too far below target altitude to achieve escape velocity,” Frank said to Roland.
“Can we make it to the thermosphere?” Roland asked.
“I’ll try everything I can,” Frank said.
Frank activated the single-stage nanoaluminum ice rocket. A new wave of G-forces propelled the capsule as near-invisible silver flames jutted beneath a single rocket nozzle.
Blue sky turned to black the closer they got to low Earth orbit. The curvature of Earth became obvious as the craft began to travel in an arc. Thick clouds obscured the ground below and the crew could see the eye of a distant typhoon crossing the Pacific Ocean.
“Single-stage rocket fizzling out. I have one more trick to try that they taught me,” Frank said as Roland stressed.
Frank used reaction-control thrusters to make course corrections towards Fussa Space Station. The lack of power from the mass driver caused them to burn most of their fuel shortly after launch. Instead of a thirty minute trek to Fussa, they would have to endure a slow six hour excursion around the Earth.
The crew breathed a sigh of relief and congratulated Frank for getting them into the thermosphere. The jubilation was cut short, however, as mission control radioed in.
“Delta-2, this is Mission Control.”
“Go for Delta-2.”
“The Japanese military is tracking two high-altitude, intercontinental ballistic missiles, non-nuclear, heading in your direction. Copy?”
“Roger, I copy two missiles. What do you advise, Mission?”
“Keep your current heading, we are working on a solution.”
“Good thing we can’t change our heading,” Alexei joked nervously.
“ETA of missiles?”
“ETA: eight minutes,” came mission control’s reply.
“How the hell did the missiles catch up with us? Aren’t we going fast?” Keiko asked.
“They most likely launched them shortly after we left,” Frank conjectured.
“You think they had submarines under us?” Alexei asked.
“Probably, who knows.”
“Whatever happened, it doesn’t matter now. We should have never left Earth. The whole place is going to be a bloody war zone now,” Mia broke her silence.
Keiko gave Mia’s hand a reassuring pat as Alexei unfastened his harness and drifted towards the window. “It was already a war zone,” Alexei rebutted, watching Earth spin slowly.
“You good, Renee? You haven’t said much,” Roland asked.
She removed her helmet to reveal tears streaming down her face.
“Yes,” she said meekly.
“Frank, how are we going to decelerate once we reach Fussa?” Roland asked with concern.
“Well, we have a little bit of hydrazine left, but not enough to stop us. We will have to make contact with Fussa Space Station.”
“Keiko, I am promoting you from marine biologist to communications,” Roland said.
“It’s nice to have connections, eh Keiko?” Alexei said.
“Get into contact with Fussa Station!”
Chapter 9
Pale orange gases licked the underbelly of the Shintaro on the edge of Titan’s mesosphere. Using thrust vectoring, the ship descended slowly into the detached haze layers above the northern hemisphere.
Delilah used onboard infrared scanners to map potential landing sites. An assembly line located in the aft hangar bay loaded rovers and satellites into the ship’s rail gun magazine.
Scans of the northern pol
ar regions were complete and a suitable landing site was found on the shores of Ligeia Mare. Delilah forwarded the information to mission control and received authorization to proceed.
Powerful electromagnetic currents pulsed through the rail gun’s coils, blasting four research satellites into Titan’s orbit. The rail gun changed its alignment for each subsequent firing revolution.
Aiming at grid 78°N, 249°W above Ligeia Mare, Shintaro's rail gun sent a volley of rovers and supply drops barreling towards the surface. The rovers deployed air brakes and parachutes, making use of the thick atmosphere to land safely on subdued coastal terrain. The robotics were heated by radioisotope thermoelectric generators to keep sensitive parts from succumbing to cryogenic temperatures.
Delilah shot the final probe into Titan’s atmosphere, carrying special signs and flags for future settlement. She radioed back to mission control, sending back maps and data.
•••
In Antarctica, Dr. Jang Hyuk sat alongside his team in mission control. They shared stories over coffee and waited to hear back from the Shintaro. The television played a delayed live broadcast from Hachijo-jima. Employees watched intermittently.
“Sir, I’m getting success confirmation on the Titan settlement drop. All payloads have been delivered,” Curtis said.
Dr. Hyuk took another drink of his coffee and watched as the Yamada crew were interviewed on international news. He glanced at his watch and turned to Jade.
“Time until launch?” he asked.
“Schedule was changed last minute, I can’t get ahold of anyone at the operations center,” Jade replied.
Dr. Hyuk nodded and crossed his arms. “Keep trying to make contact.”
“Yes, sir,” they both acknowledged.
“Sir!” A man walked swiftly, right up to Dr. Hyuk with cell phone in hand.
“What is it?” he said to the employee, grabbing the phone.
“Radar at Arctowski Station isn’t picking anything up.”
Dr. Hyuk gave the man a perplexed look. “Hello?” he said.
“This is the commander of the Japanese submarine Soryu. We have detected multiple missile launches headed your way,” the voice said, muffled.
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