Chapter 2: Rollout

Ginza, Tokyo

Thirty-six hours later, Carol felt more exhausted than she'd ever been in her entire life. The lack of sleep and jet lag, compounded by the rushed travel planning, note gathering, and studying made it so that it was a struggle for her to remain upright as the Humvee carried them in a seemingly endless convoy from Yokosuka Naval Base into the heart of Tokyo…a heart that she had already crossed once from Narita International Airport.

Even then, as they finally pulled to a stop in Ginza, Carol found herself blinking at the early-morning sun and pulling her jacket more tightly about her shoulders. Colonel Mullan, seemingly unaffected by anything, stepped out of the other side of the vehicle and joined her before gesturing down the road and saying, "remarkable, isn't it?"

In the middle of the intersection sat a giant, steel-paneled dome. At a glance Carol estimated that the dome was at least a hundred feet in diameter, and that the massive doors on the front were at least another thirty feet across. Even then, Carol imagined that it would still be a tight fit.

She turned and looked at the monster of a vehicle idling several feet behind their Humvee. The Hardened Mobile Launcher, HML for short, was a relic from the final years of the Cold War and was exactly what its name implied. It was a 14-wheel, 100-ton ICBM platform designed to go almost anywhere her little Humvee could.

Within it, she knew, was a similarly powerful piece of machinery: the MGM-134A "Midgetman" Missile, a solid-fuel rocket designed to lob a nuclear reentry vehicle from San Diego to Moscow in less than an hour. Fortunately, the nuclear weapons meant for Midgetman had long been reassigned to Minuteman IIIs after the program was shut down in the early 90s; the rockets heading through the Gate carried scientific payloads. The President himself had reactivated the three HMLs in their convoy and the Midgetman rockets as part of the new 94th Missile Wing, in an effort to provide Japan and NASA with the equipment needed to carry out the mission for their allies. "At least at first," Mullan had clarified when she'd first seen them. "Once the Japanese have a proper pad built over there, we hope to move to JAXA's Epsilon and NASA's Minotaur LVs."

Still, being next to the heavy vehicles made her feel small, and passers-by were quick to pull out their cellphones and cameras to take pictures of the giant machines. "Are they allowed to do that?" Carol asked Mullan.

"Yes."

"But aren't you worried about—I don't know—the Russians or the Chinese?"

The Colonel grinned down at her. "No need. We told them in advance that we'd be here."

"Why?"

"Imagine that one day, your enemy placed ICBMs on your doorstep without any warning. How would you feel? Just look how China's reacting to THAAD in South Korea, and that's a defensive system. No, we warned them days ago that we'd be doing this, and we reached an agreement with their diplomats. Basically, we are required to send the loaded HMLs through the GATE before sundown tonight, and any missiles carried through to the Special Region cannot be carried back out. Besides," he pointed a thumb back towards the vehicles. "That's forty-year-old tech, and the Russians and Chinese have been operating platforms like Topol and Dongfeng since forever. I think that it's fair to say that their land-mobile systems are better than our systems, so they don't have much to learn from our traveling museum exhibit."

Before them, JSDF personnel had just finished moving aside the last of the concrete barriers and were cycling the Gate open. Within, Carol could barely make out the lines of a boxy, pillared structure, like some old Grecian temple.

Mullan waved her back into the Humvee, and in minutes they were on their way again. As they charged into the darkness, Carol wondered briefly if they would experience any vertigo as they made the jump from one world to the other, but the event turned out to be far more mundane—boring, really, to the point that she stubbornly slapped herself awake before pulling out a stack of flashcards and a penlight as she returned to memorizing the more popular phrases of the Special Region's language. She had been promised an interpreter, but she still wanted to know enough to get by in case she became lost or the interpreter was unavailable.

Carol had expected her first experience of the Special Region to be bright light, clean air, and the quiet sounds of a place untouched by modern technology. She was dead wrong, of course, and the sight of the forward operating base reminded her of what she was truly heading into. Rather than clear air, she was met with the gritty stench of aviation fuel and diesel motors. Rather than general quiet, the continued bustle of tanks, trucks, and other personnel carriers penetrated even the noisy rumble of the Humvee…to say nothing of a helicopter that was approaching the nearby airfield for landing. Most remarkable of all, rather than the bright midday sun she had experienced in downtown Tokyo, it was approaching sunset. This last item settled it for her—in her notes, the length of the day was different from Earth, not unlike Martian Sols, which ran about half an hour longer than Earth days. Since the invasion, the asynchrony had built up, and time in the SR was now a few hours ahead of Japan.

It truly was another world.

After a few minutes, their Humvee and two others separated from the convoy and proceeded through the fortress to a medium-sized, prefabricated building just beyond the first of what appeared to be many large, concrete walls. If anything, it reminded Carol of the large trailers issued to under-refurbishment schools in the United States…sans the large Japanese flag flying on the pole out front.

The Japanese officers were already waiting for them out front, including one, Carol noticed, in a wheelchair.

One of the older officers stepped forward and reached out a hand to Mullan. "A pleasure to meet you at last, Colonel."

"The pleasure is mine, General Hazama," Mullan said with a smile, and shook the officer's hand. "If I may introduce you to the critical elements of my staff. Maj. Becker, 94th Operations Group; Capt. Hines and Lt. Garcia, 94th and 794th Security Squadrons; Lt. Maxwell, 94th Maintenance Group; and Dr. Carol Dawson, a consultant from NASA."

Hazama nodded and pointed to the small group around him. "This is Colonel Ishihara, 5th Combat Unit; Major Kamikoda, on loan from the 302nd Squadron; Colonel Mitsukuri, Logistics; and the one in the chair is 1st Lt. Yanagida, whose report is responsible for your presence here today."

Carol looked over at Yanagida, who was calmly examining the Americans through his glasses. On seeing Carol looking back at him, he raised an eyebrow and kept the stare until she looked away.

"Naturally, we still have much to discuss," Mullan said. "Though, due to the sensitive nature of the technology, I'd rather have the rest of this conversation in private."

"Of course! If you and your Operations officer can follow me…and, Major Kamikoda, if you and Mitsukuri could see to the remaining officers, that would be wonderful."

As the men started off in their different directions, Carol raced out in front of Mullan and said, "Excuse me, Colonel, but I was hoping that I would be able to be involved in the discussion regarding launch control and splashdown zones—"

"Already covered," Mullan stated. "I know that you've only had a limited time to study the overall plan, but I promise you, the things that the General and I have to talk about are outside of your field and cover things are beyond your security level."

"Yes," Hazama added, then looking to his side said, "Lt. Yanagida, I believe that your interpreter should be here soon?"

Yanagida, in shockingly fluent English, replied, "Yes, sir."

"Excellent, please stay with Dr. Dawson until they arrive."

"Yes, sir."

The officers either entered the building together or departed in the Humvees towards the airfield, leaving Carol alone with the Lieutenant. She knew that the situation was out of her hands, but it frustrated her to be stonewalled like this—what could possibly be so secret about technology that was soon to be half a century old? She was used to similar treatment in some engineering circles due to her gender, but this…

"It isn't worth worrying about, Dr. Dawson," Yanagida argued. "Military matters often aren't as interesting as they are in the movies."

It was then that Carol noticed that Yanagida shifted his legs as he talked—whatever injury had placed him in a wheelchair must have been something else. Noting her staring, he said, "Stab wound, during an incursion. It may be easy to forget inside the base walls, Dr. Dawson, but you are standing in a combat zone."

Carol didn't know what to say. Sure, she had worked with plenty of airmen and sailors during her time at the Cape, but a solider wounded in combat? Perhaps it was her social circles or her media of choice, but things like Iraq and Afganistan had always felt so distant. "Did you…um…"

"Shoot her? Yes. Neither of us died, and she works for me now." He grinned at the deepening look of confusion on Carol's face and added. "It is one of the more interesting stories—at least, one of the more interesting stories that doesn't involve Itami and his… friends… so tell me, what have they told you about the state of Alnus and the Special Region?"

"Only what was in the briefing," Carol replied. "The current civil war between Pina and Zorzal, the interventions that chased the Imperials from Sadera…and some of the adventures of Lt. Itami."

She shook her head. "I still don't feel like I've fully accepted some of the things in this world. In my days at JPL, Magic and Dragons were the punchline of jokes. Here, they're fact."

"Perhaps I should've had Delilah attend with me today."

"Who?"

"Nothing." Yanagida folded his hands in his lap. "I recognize that you come from a world of office politics and public relations, so it's only fair to warn you: the land of Falmart will make you rethink what you know—about people, about science, about society. The key is to take a deep breath and ask yourself if you're taking things too seriously, too realistically. It seems like those who are the most successful here are those who—I think the term is 'think outside the box'? Ah, I see that Specialist Takagi has arrived."

Takagi was a short woman (most Japanese were, weren't they?) with short, auburn hair. Most surprising to Carol was how young she looked. The interpreter snapped to attention and in Japanese called, "Reporting as ordered, sir!"

Yanagida's reply was also in Japanese, "This is the important person you'll be working with. Keep her in your sight at all times whenever she travels through the native settlement."

"Sir!"

"One more thing, she speaks fluent Japanese. I trust that you will keep others informed and aware of this."

The girl's eyes widened at that one—unlike your average American who assumes (incorrectly) that most people have some basic comprehension of English, Japanese typically expect Europeans to not know any functional Japanese.

"That is all," Yanagida said, then, switching back to English, said, "Dr. Dawson, I would advise against traveling through native portions without _ along with you. Unlike you, she is fluent in their language, and she has picked up on most of their culture too. I look forward to hearing how things progress, yoroshku."

The officer departed for the command building, and _ clearly still unsure about Yanagida's claim, turned towards the scientist and asked, "Nihongo-ga wakarimaska?"

Dawson nodded. "Nihongo-ga wakarimasu"

"That's amazing," Takagi continued in her native language. "I speak English too, but this is way easier."

She gave a quick bow and added, "Takagi Sayo, pleased to meet you!"

"Thanks! I'm Carol Dawson, did Yanagida tell you about me?"

"Yes! He said you work with NASA… I must bring you to meet Professor Shirai at some time, he would be delighted to see another space scientist!"

Dawson was familiar with the name, but had never interacted with him. Turns out that astronavigation and deep-space astronomy share only limited ground.

"I should show you around," Takagi said. "We don't see much action, but you should still know about where it is and isn't safe to go, and where you should be going if something goes wrong."

"Do things go wrong often?"

"Did you see Yanagida-san?"

She had nothing else to say.

Meanwhile, Hazama sat with Mullan over a cup of tea in the corner office. Mullan was generally satisfied with the whole affair so far, and while some of the other officers were giddy over the whole concept of a fantasy world, Mullan was one of the sorts that "steely-eyed missile man" was drafted to describe.

"It is a very interesting team you have created, Colonel Mullan," Hazama said. "When they told me that I would be working with an Air Force missile wing, I was expecting a group of people that had never ventured far from your silos. Instead, Yanagida tells me that many are veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan."

"Due to the delicate nature of the technology, Secretary Clayton didn't want to go cheap on defense." Mullan said. He took a sip of tea, examined the cup for a moment, then added, "Originally he wanted to send an entire MEU through, but if your government won't tolerate more than the HMLs and a few helicopters, then we must acquiesce."

"You speak as if you were expecting to fight World War III over here."

"You know what we're up against. Are we?"

Hazama thought about it and said, "It is difficult to say, for the reasons we discussed over email. I can say, however, that Alnus stands no risk from Zorzal's forces. Moles and saboteurs are still a problem, but we have made some changes as a result of Yanagida's incident. The biggest concern at this point is dragons… speaking of which, did all of the samples your government requested arrive that their destination?"

"Of course."

"Good. One last thing… about Dr. Dawson, how much does she know?"

Mullan smiled and said, "As much as she needs to and nothing more."

"So she is not aware?"

"As far as Dawson is concerned, were are here to do exactly what we said we would do, and that's illustrate American goodwill to the Special Region through the virtues of our space program."

Hazama gave a derisive snort. "I am amazed that your Congress approved of this."

Mullan ignored the statement and said, "I also have one more question. How do you think that the region's civilians will react to a space program?"

Hazama shook his head. "Many of them cannot read or do basic math. I will be amazed if Dr. Dawson gets anywhere at all."