Rocket Girls: The Last Planet (2 page)

“I’m uncomfortably put in mind of the
Apollo
1 tragedy,” the NASA director said to Nasuda. “So tell me. What else do your ‘astronauts’ do?”

TWO HOURS LATER
, the orbiter entered its final orbit.

“Solomon, this is
Rambutan
. We’re preparing for reentry.”

“Roger that, orbiter. You finish collecting the loose objects?”

Yukari detected the faintest hint of sarcasm in Kinoshita’s cool voice.

“All, er, objects have been collected…and all indicators are green. We’re ready to come home.”

“Roger that. Over and out.”

“All right.” Yukari glanced over at her copilot. “Let’s nail this splashdown and win back some of the reputation we’ve just squandered. All’s well that ends well, right?” She grinned. “Woo-hoo! Seychelles coral reefs, here I come!”

Yukari opened her landing checklist. “So, what’s first? Helium pressure?”

“
Hoi
, HePRS, open!”

“Nitrogen supply?”

“N2SPLY, on!”

“Attitude adjustment…RCS-MAN.” Yukari set the controls to manual and began adjusting their attitude by hand. Once you got used to it, it was a lot faster than entering numbers with the sequencer. Control panels throughout the capsule began to chirp and blink as the orbiter rotated until its stern was facing forward.

“
Hoi
, we’re in position.”

“All right. Solomon, this is
Rambutan
. Standing by for reentry burn.”

“
Rambutan
, you’re cleared for reentry burn.”

“Starting reentry burn sequence.”

Yukari flipped up the sequencer start switch cover and placed her finger on the button.

Beep beep beep beep.

“
Hoi?
We’re getting an error from the fish tank.”

“Great, what now?” Yukari swore under her breath and undid her harness. Her body floated up into the cabin and she twisted until she was facing the control panel behind her seat. “Okay…so what’s wrong?”

“Rambutan
, this is Solomon. You have an error in your testing equipment?”

“
Hoi
, we do. Yukari’s checking it out.”

“We’re putting a hold on reentry until it’s fixed. Bringing those goldfish back alive is a success condition for your mission.”

“We know, we know,” Yukari snapped. “We’re getting error code...115.”

“Error code 115, roger. They’ll look into it at Sagamihara. If we can get that fixed within twenty minutes, you can come home as planned. Otherwise we’re going to our second splashdown target.”

“No way! That’s in the South China Sea! There’s, like, pirates there!”

“If you don’t like it, you’ll just have to make those repairs in time. But don’t rush it.”

“Roger.”

A communication came in from the Space Science Laboratory in Sagamihara almost immediately.

“
Rambutan
, this is Space Lab. According to our telemeter the error code is 315. Confirm.”

“
Rambutan
to Space Lab, the panel’s showing error code
one
-one-five, not
three
-one-five.”

“Roger that. None of the device monitors are showing problems. Can you send us a video feed of the fish?”

“Our video channel’s closed already. Should we assume this error’s a glitch, then?”

“Hold on, we’re still looking into it. We’ll be with you shortly.”

“Roger.”

Yukari returned to her seat and awaited instructions. “Nine minutes…I was really looking forward to doing some skin diving.”

“Space Lab to
Rambutan
. We have an IFM request for you. You’re going to have to do some maintenance. First we need a visual check of the goldfish.”

“Roger.”

Yukari frowned and once again left her chair. “Sorry, Matsuri, we gotta hug again.”

“
Hoi
.”

She was submitting a design change request as soon as they got back. It was ridiculous to have to get out of her seat every time she wanted to do anything with the testing equipment.

Yukari slid over Matsuri, pushed down her seatback, and peered into the fish container. The goldfish were swimming erratically in every direction, which wasn’t unusual, except that their mouths were opening and closing a little too fast.

“Space Lab, this is
Rambutan
. The goldfish are all alive, but they seem to be opening and closing their mouths more quickly than usual.”

“How fast, exactly? Like, open...open...open?”

“No, more like open, open, open.”

“Can you check the reading on the diffused oxygen monitor? Go to MON, press the up arrow twice, code 107.”

“Roger that. MON, up arrow twice...”

“Yukari, did you hear that?”

“Hear what?”

Behind her, Matsuri shrugged. “I dunno. It sounded like a compression pump starting up.”

“Could you be quiet a sec? I forgot the code!”

“Oops, sorry.”

“Space Lab, could you give me that code again?”

“That’s 107.”

“Right, 107. The monitor’s reading 0218.”

“Yukari, the sequencer’s started up.”

“Huh?”

“
Rambutan
, the DO levels are too low. I want you to check the QD on the fish container.”

“Roger that, Space Lab. What did you say, Matsuri?”

“I said the sequencer’s going! It’s going to start a burn soon!”

“But we didn’t start the sequencer!”

“Then someone else did. Look at the SEQ display scroll by.”

“No way!” Yukari’s face went pale. It occurred to her that she had left the switch cover open. Had she accidentally bumped it when she was maneuvering around the cabin?

“Well we have to stop it right away!”

The shock of the burn came just as Matsuri was reaching for the instrument panel.

“Yipes!”

The experimentation panel hit Yukari’s face at 0.1 G.

“Ow ow ow ow! Matsuri, cut off the OMS, now!”

“Your butt’s in the way!”

Yukari grunted and twisted. “It’s not
that
big. How about now?”

“Just a little farther.”

“Will you stop that thing already!”

“There, got it!”

The sound of the compressor faded.

“
Rambutan
, this is Space Lab. Our telemetry’s stopped. Is something wrong?”

“Oh, uh, well, I just ran into the panel. Maybe I accidentally turned the switch off with my nose—”

“
Rambutan
, this is Solomon. Our monitors are showing a brief OMS burn. What’s going on up there?”

“Well, the sequencer just started up and—”

“Yukari,” Matsuri whispered, “we’re losing altitude.”

“Could you read off the switch positions on panel one—”

“Wait. You stopped the burn manually—”

“This is Space Lab again. Once we have a signal can you resume your check of the QD—”

“That partial burn is problematic. Better prep for a crash landing—”

“Yukari! We’re losing altitude fast!”

“Will you all just shut up for one second!” Yukari wailed. “I told them it was too much to do experiments and pilot this thing at the same time!”

Yukari had a laundry list of things she wanted to check with base, but their altitude had already fallen below 130 kilometers and the capsule was beginning to bump atmosphere. When the vivid orange plasma of reentry covered the windows, their radio would cease to function.

Yukari pushed all thoughts of the goldfish from her head and strapped herself in. Their angle of reentry was good. They’d make it into the atmosphere at least. But where would they land? Last estimates had put them somewhere between Northeast China, the Sea of Japan, the Japanese islands, and the North Pacific...

“Hope we don’t land in North Korea,” Yukari muttered, gritting her teeth against the rising gravity.

They were past 4 G now. It was becoming difficult to speak.

Six G. Yukari’s body weighed six times more than it did at sea level, six times more than her bones and muscles were used to. The capsule vibrated like a saltshaker in the hands of an impatient child.

Yukari wondered for what seemed like the one-hundredth time why it always shook so much. She felt her body sinking into the seat until she felt like a human pancake, and she knew that the worst was yet to come.

ON A CONSOLE
at the Ministry of Transportation Aircraft Traffic Control Center in Tokorozawa, a red light flashed.

“Chief! I got something here!”

The air controller in charge of Japan’s central and northwest region stood up from his chair. “ID unknown...maybe a bad transmitter? It’s going over the sea near Noto Penninsula at...Mach 11!”

The chief leaned over to look at the oval radar screen. A point of light was crossing it, headed straight for the Tokyo region at an incredible speed.

“No vessel name or identifying number? What’s its altitude? Any secondary surveillance radar reading?”

“I’m not getting any response from the air-traffic control transponder. Nothing on audio, either. Think it’s an American test flight? Didn’t they have something called the Aurora—”

“What would a test flight be doing in our airspace? The SFD moving on this? Any word from Komatsu?”

“Haven’t been able to get through to them.”

“That better not be a North Korean missile.”

“At that velocity we’ll find out pretty damn soon if it is.”

“The unidentified craft is over here now—in the West Kanto sector,” the controller sitting at the station next to them called out. “It’s heading for Tokyo, correct that, for Atsugi.”

“Keep trying to contact Komatsu. Send all local flights for Narita and Haneda to Nagoya and Sendai. International flights can go to Osaka.”

“Aircraft of unidentified nationality, this is Tokyo Control. Respond. Aircraft of unidentified nationality, respond immediately.”

“The Komatsu airbase just scrambled its F-15s,” the central Japan controller announced.

“Good luck catching that thing. Its speed is off the charts.”

“Actually, it’s decelerating. It’s at Mach 3.2 now.”

“Already? What
is
that thing?”

Just then, an unfamiliar voice came in on an emergency frequency.

“Uh...Mayday, Mayday. This is the spaceship
Rambutan
. Can anyone read me?”

“Spaceship?”

“Think it’s some kind of prank?”

“Wait, what if it’s those high school girls—”

“That’s it. Answer them!”

“
Rambutan
, this is Tokyo Control. Give us your current altitude, rate of descent, and target destination.”

“Our current altitude’s 18.4 kilometers and we’re coming down at about...two hundred twenty meters per second.”

“Whaa—?” The flight controller gaped. “Eighteen point four kilometers, that’s about...sixty thousand feet, okay. And the velocity’s in meters per second, so, uh...”

Sweat beading on his forehead, the flight controller mashed the buttons on his calculator. Not only were the units totally different than the ones he was used to working with, but the numbers were higher by such a degree of magnitude his years of experience weren’t doing him a bit of good. “Er,
Rambutan
, what’s your splashdown target?”

“Our target was off the eastern coast of Africa, but we got the timing a bit wrong.”

“Okay...so you missed Africa, and that’s why you’re here in Japan?” The controller shook his head. “Where are you headed right now?”

“I’d tell you if I knew. We’re kind of in freefall here.”

“Freefall? Wait, so—what?” Tossing his headset to the desktop, the controller began furiously scratching his head. “Chief! What the heck am I supposed to do with a spaceship?”

“Give me that.” The chief grabbed the microphone. “
Rambutan
, you’ll be in Atsugi Base airspace momentarily. I can’t guarantee you won’t be knocked out of the sky by a land-to-air missile.”

“But Solomon should have contacted all the major airports and military bases!”

“We didn’t hear anything.”

“What about the other airports?”

“No idea. We are looking into it now.”

“That won’t be quick enough. Could you contact the U.S. military and the Japan Self-Defense Force for us?”

“Will do.” The chief turned to the flight controller for central and northern Japan. “Get word to the U.S. military and the SDF right now. I don’t care how you do it. Call every number you got.”

“Right away.”

“I’m not sure the Americans are going to like this much,” one of the other controllers said.

“I’m sure they’re already tracking her. And if they thought she was a missile, they’d have contacted us by now—or shot them down.”

“
Rambutan
to Tokyo Control, we are at nine kilometers. We just deployed our main parachute. Our position is a little to the west of Tokyo, I think. Our GPS map isn’t very detailed.”

The flight control chief glanced at his radar screen. They had slowed to eight knots per hour.

“
Rambutan
, you’re right over the city of Ayase, in Kanagawa Prefecture. I understand you can’t control your descent?”

“Affirmative. We’re dropping at about ten meters a second now. Hope we find some water to splashdown in.”

“I’m not sure you will. You might even hit Yokohama. Want us to send out a rescue crew?”

“Yokohama...”

The voice over the speaker stopped abruptly. There was a brief moment of silence before Yukari spoke. “Yes, please. In Japan, I’m guessing that would be the police’s jurisdiction?”

“I’m not sure we even have protocol for dealing with spacecraft, but I’ll let the Kanagawa police know you’re coming.”

“Thank you.”

“Good luck,
Rambutan
. Tokyo Control out.”

Matsuri’s eyes were glued to the periscope. The periscope tube ran through the middle of their instrument panel, down into the floor and through the hull, where it opened into a fish-eye lens.

“Whoa! Look at all the houses! I’ve never seen so many!”

“What about water? Can you see the ocean?”

“No. Oh, there it is. Pretty far off, though. Wow! What’s that big tower?”

“Landmark Tower, by Yokohama harbor, probably.”

“Aren’t you from Yokohama, Yukari?”

“Actually, yeah.”

Of all the places they could have crash-landed in the entire world, why Yokohama?

She hadn’t even set foot on Japanese soil in ten months—and now she was about to leave a shallow crater in it.

“Will you stop gawking out the window and help me prep for splashdown?”

“
Hoi!
Where are we?”

“I need to switch power from the fuel cells to the shielded batteries and purge O
₂
and H
₂
.”

“Got it.”

“Voltage normal. Okay, next cut off life support and get some ventilation going.”

The air circulator for their life support system stopped and the smells of the greater Tokyo-Yokohama industrial area poured in through the vents.

Matsuri crinkled her nose. “Smells like the fuel factory on base.”

“Smells like home.”

They were only three hundred meters up now. Thirty seconds to the ground. Yukari took a look through the periscope.

No way are we making it to the ocean.

“Tokyo Control, this is
Rambutan
. We’re below one thousand feet. Looks like we’ll be crash-landing in the city.”

“Roger that,
Rambutan
. We’re tracking you on the high-res radar at Haneda. The police have a chopper en route. I think we’ve got you covered.”

“Thanks for the help.”

They’d be hitting the ground at ten meters per second—an impact they’d trained for. The problem was, what if they didn’t hit open ground? There could be anything down there. High-voltage electrical lines, factories with hazardous materials, an expressway...

Yukari wrested her gaze from the outside and read the altitude gauge.

Two hundred meters.

“Is it just me, or have we been here before?” Yukari muttered.

“
Hoi?
”

One hundred meters.

“I mean, one time out of two, we’re facing imminent death.”

Fifty meters.

“No problem, Yukari, we’ll be fine!”

Thirty meters.

“Today’s a good day to die,” Matsuri added.

“That’s not what I’d call fine, Matsuri!”

The two girls braced for impact.

Zakooooosh.

There was a brief jolt as they hit the surface of something, sank a short distance, and came to rest. A water landing, amazingly enough. The only window on the orbiter was in the overhead hatch. Yukari looked through it and saw only sky.

She took a deep breath. “We made it?”

“We sure did!”

“Looks like we hit water.”

“Looks like.”

“Well, follow procedure. Inflate floats and release the dye marker.”

The dye—an oily mixture that would float on the surface of the ocean—began spraying from the cone of the orbiter. A VHF/HF antenna extended at the same time as a buzzer began to sound in the cabin.

“System alert! Where is it?”

Yukari frantically scanned the instrumentation panel. There was a short in their preliminary power source. They were taking on water.

“Uh-oh, looks like we’ve sprung a leak!”

“
Hoi?
What do we do about that?”

Yukari looked down. Water was already beginning to puddle around her feet. “Nothing
to
do but evacuate. Get your survival kit on and let’s deploy that life raft! Quickly!”

“Hoi hoi!”

The girls slid out of their harnesses, opened the lockers at their feet, pulled out survival kits, and slung them around their waists. Matsuri twisted around in her seat and pulled out the life raft from its storage compartment.

Yukari’s hand went to a panel on the wall. She opened it, revealing a single, large red button. She put her finger on it. “Get ready, I’m blowing the hatch!”

A dry report, like a pistol shot, went off over their heads, and the hatch flew upwards, away from the orbiter.

The two girls crawled out onto the hull and removed their helmets. A strong, mid-spring sun shone down on them. There was a light breeze.

“Where are we...?”

The capsule’s dye marker had stained the water around it a fluorescent green, but the water only extended a few meters before it ended in a straight line of brick-colored tiles. Above the tiles stood a single sign that read:
THE DRAGONFLIES THANK YOU FOR KEEPING OUR POND CLEAN!
Beyond that were carefully cropped patches of lawn and neatly laid brick walkways. There was a greenhouse, a flower stand, and an aging nature observation post—the kind they put in school gardens for the science class to test water samples and the like.

Beyond that, she saw a concrete building, three stories high. Another building next to it was connected to the first by a covered walkway. Yukari turned around and saw more buildings on the other side. They were in a central courtyard surrounded by identical concrete buildings.

“I think we’re okay, Yukari. Look at all those people!”

Yukari scanned the buildings. Faces filled every window. They were all wearing the same clothes. They were all girls.

“I know where we are,” Yukari said. “I know where we are!”

“
Hoi?
Where’s that?”

“Nellis!”

“Who?”

“We’re at Nellis Girls Academy! We landed on my school!”