Chapter 11: MECO
EIGHT HOURS LATER
Yokosuka Naval Hospital, Japan
Carol awoke to find herself in a hospital bed, in a private room, on the second floor of a building. She knew that she was back in Japan the same way that she knew that she was on the second floor; she could just barely see through the room's window blinds, and could pick out the sprawling buildings of a larger complex beyond, illuminated by midmorning daylight.
She went to raise a hand to rub her throbbing head, but her arm snapped to a halt after a few inches; restrained to the bed frame by straps. In the end, she let her hand drop again, looked up to the ceiling, and tried to make sense of what she'd seen the night before.
The United States Air Force had deployed a nuclear weapon to the Special Region. With the aid of the HML, it could be deployed against a target anywhere on Falmart within minutes, and the whole machine and concept had been sold to both the natives and many of Japan's soldiers as a slapdash means of creating a space program. For a week and a half, she had extolled the rockets to a mixed audience, drummed up support among commoners and academics alike, all while Mullan prepared to use a similar rocket to deliver the single most dangerous kind of weapon that America possessed. That any nation possessed.
There was no good reason for the United States to want to support a Space Program beyond the Gate, and even if there was, the whole thing probably could have been done more efficiently with real sounding rockets. Japan manufactured similar rockets, so there wouldn't have been much of a reason to ask the US for assistance at all.
How did I miss it? But instead of being able to properly settle on any clues, all Carol could think of was Rory Mercury, uncomfortably close, halberd blocking out the sun as she whispered, "Perhaps if you had a bit more fear in your life, you would understand why I am so curious about your missile."
Which was when she realized… the little creep had figured it out! Rory had already guessed correctly at the true nature of the weapon. And she didn't even know what an atomic bomb was, nor did she have any kind of engineering background to demonstrate how it was deployed.
Perhaps the better question was, how the hell did Rory figure it out?
Rory would have had access to three sources of information: the first rocket launch, Itami Youji, and their brief talk before the second rocket launch.
If the Apostle had watched the first launch from Italica, she would have seen the rocket go up… and if she had been patient enough, she would have seen the plasma trail as the reentry vehicle made its way back through the atmosphere. Surely she would have asked Itami what it was, and if Itami hadn't guessed that it was a nuke himself, he could at least positively identify that the rocket was American-made.
And once that piece of information got out, she could almost hear Mullan hiss the word Hakone. There was something foul that had happened between America and Japan, and yet Japan was asking for something from America anyway. To Rory, who was expecting the rocket to produce some kind of explosion (likely having seen Cobra-mounted rocket pods during other battles) this meant that at least one American rocket was likely explosive tipped.
What had likely sealed this as the answer for Rory was the talk by HML-3. Carol had spun her a story about a scientific payload, completely oblivious to the thing lurking inside HML-2. When she had told Rory about it, it was with the belief that she was speaking the truth. With Mullan, Rory had caught on to the gravity of the subject matter and realized that Mullan was lying. If the weapon in question was scary enough that the Americans were being dishonest about it to their allies, that was one thing… but if the weapon was so dangerous that even Carol had been left out of the loop, then this confirmed it—it was not a normal explosive, but a weapon so fearsome that even the Americans were afraid to talk about it.
Of course, when Carol had tried to reassure her once more that it was a scientific payload, Rory had looked up at her and answered with a more eloquent version of, "No. You're a dumbass."
Beyond that, Rory had kept quiet, since not even she knew how powerful the weapon was, or if it could be deployed against her.
The door to Carol's room opened, and Colonel Mullan, a briefcase in his hand, entered and shut the door behind him. She tried to offer him the steeliest gaze she could, but she knew that a person tied down to a hospital bed could only appear to be so threatening.
Mullan pulled up a chair, sat down, opened the briefcase and withdrew a pen and sheet of paper. "I know you have questions," he said. "But I need you to sign this before I can answer any of them. It basically says that if you repeat anything that gets discussed in this room, then you get sent to Federal Prison."
"And If I refuse to sign?" Carol spat.
"Then you get sent to Federal Prison."
"And if I do sign, you'll let me go home?"
"It's not that simple, of course. With things like this it never is, but your best shot of seeing your house again involves your signature on that form."
The Colonel hadn't offered much of a choice, so she nodded, signed, and waited as Mullan pulled a laptop out of the briefcase next, set it on a tray in front of her, and started a video conferencing application.
When Mullan had met Carol for the first time, she had never seen him before. The man on the screen was a different story. "Hello, Dr. Dawson," he said. "My name is Robert Clayton. I'm the United States Secretary of Defense."
Fake space programs, nukes, and now the Secretary of Defense, Carol thought. How deep does this go?
"Before we begin," Clayton said, leaning closer to the camera, "I want to clear up any misconceptions that you have about our intent, so let me ask you: Why do you think that Japan, the most anti-nuclear country on the planet, would have us bring a nuclear weapon to the Special Region?"
The reason seemed obvious enough to her. "To win the war, of course," she said. "You plan on using it against Zorzal."
Clayton sighed and shook his head. "Colonel," he said. "Would you mind?"
"Not only have the JSDF known exactly where Zorzal is for months," the Colonel said, "but they have a guy on the inside that could probably take him down on a minute's notice. Even if that guy didn't exist, Zorzal's operating out of a manor on the northeast side of Telta. Brick, mortar, and wood. It's not exactly Cheyenne Mountain, and it sure as hell isn't a good reason to deploy a five hundred kiloton nuke."
That made no sense to Carol. "If they know where he is, why haven't the Japanese bombed him already?"
"They claim that Pina can only achieve victory and dominion over the Empire if she defeats Zorzal in direct combat," Clayton said, folding his arms. "It's a cultural thing, apparently. If the JSDF did it themselves, then they would be the rightful owners of the Empire, not Pina. Japan simply doesn't have the money or infrastructure to spare for a project of that scope… and all the political capital in the world wouldn't reduce media shitstorm from the surrounding Asian countries.
"And before you ask why they don't give Pina a gun and fly her out to Telta, we've already had that conversation with the Japanese and got nowhere. Bottom line is that, no, we aren't going to nuke Zorzal. Any other guesses?"
Carol tried to think over the Special Region for a reason that would merit such a weapon, and tried, "Maybe a second Gate opened up, and China or—"
She stopped at the strange looks that the two men were giving her. Thinking over it again, that idea was also stupid—a nuclear attack against another major power like China or Russia, even in the Special Region, would easily turn into a nuclear war back on Earth. Not happening.
"Okay," she said. "I have no idea. Why did you bring a nuke to the Special Region?"
Clayton sat back in his chair, unfolded his arms, and asked, "How much do you know about the Gods of Falmart?"
"The Gods of Falmart?" Carol couldn't quite see the connection. "It's a Polytheistic religion. They tie various gods of goddesses to things in their world, kind of like the Native Americans or Polynesians or Ancient Greeks. We had Athena, Hades, Ares, and Apollo, they have La, Hardy, Emroy, and Flare. Since education on Falmart isn't as widespread as it is here, most people attribute natural phenomena to the Gods. Even the academics at Rondel still believe that the Gods control their universe."
"Carol," Mullan said. "They're technically right."
She looked back and forth between the Air Force officer and the man on the screen. "What?"
"The Gods and Goddesses of Falmart are real," Clayton said. "And I don't mean in a spiritual sense, like we have on Earth. I mean, you can go to a place, talk to one, and they can proceed to affect natural phenomena on Falmart as they see fit."
Mullan pulled a dossier from his briefcase and handed it to Carol, who opened to the first page.
REGARDING THE BELLNAHGO EXPEDITION, AND THE GODDESS HARDY
1st. Lieutenant Yanagida
"To give you the short version," Clayton said. "A few weeks after their presentation at the Japanese Diet, Itami Youji was invited to meet with the Goddess Hardy in the northern city of Bellnahgo. The being he described was an ethereal ghost-like presence that could take over the bodies of others to use as a mouthpiece. Apparently, Hardy can influence the direction of breezes, can biologically manipulate those she directly controls, and is solely responsible for punching a hole through space-time from Alnus to Tokyo.
"About two weeks prior, Japan had stepped on the proverbial dragon's tail by attacking Hardy's Flame Dragons. Once the details of this report made it to their Defense Minister, they realized that they'd dug themselves into a hole, and they came to us to ask about the bomb."
"And you just said yes?"
"Hell no! I told Defense Minister Kano to take a long walk of a short pier and hanged up the phone on him."
"But he obviously got you back to the negotiating table, since there's a nuclear weapon at Alnus right now," Carol pointed out. "What did he say to change your mind?"
She should have guessed the answer, and even as the question left her lips, she knew what the answer was going to be.
"Hakone." Mullan said.
And there it was… Carol looked to Clayton and said, "Hazama and Mullan were very evasive about this in the past, so I'm asking you. What's Hakone?"
The Secretary of Defense frowned and looked away. "Here's another question," he said. "Why would the United States want to go into the Special Region?"
"Trade, maybe?"
"They have no middle class, and their aristocracy is about to get shouldered with war reparations to Japan. There's no one with the money to trade with."
"Oil, then."
"To set up the overland infrastructure to carry the oil would cost billions, and that's just to get it into Tokyo. It would still need to be loaded onto ships and hauled across the Pacific. By the time it makes it into a soccer mom's gas tank, it's a hundred times more expensive than if we'd bought it from the Saudis or Canada. In other words, there's no mineral value to the Special Region, and I only hope that the Japanese figure this out before they crash their economy learning that fact. So, no, not oil. Not now, and not in any war prior to now."
"Then I don't know. What does America want from the Special Region?"
Clayton looked back to her. "Intellectual Property."
Carol blanked at that response. "Patents?" she said. "You want to go to Falmart for patents?"
"NASA Administrator Kosinski was correct," Mullan said. "The Special Region is our only known example of a life-bearing exoplanet. This means that every demihuman, every insect, every tree, even the germs are a biomedical goldmine. When reports of a world beyond the Gate were released to the public, it wasn't the mining corporations that were drooling, it was the pharmaceutical industry."
"There's magic too," Clayton added. "We know from the Diet interview that it works on our world, so it must draw on some scientific principle that applies on both sides of the Gate. If we can apply it to technology, who knows how deep that rabbit hole goes? Free energy? Artificial Gravity? You're a rocket engineer; imagine a space probe that requires no fuel, has a power generator that never runs out, and can construct additional science instruments at its destination.
"And yes, the thought of weaponizing magic has crossed our minds. If the fundamental principle is discovered, and we don't do it first, then someone else inevitably will. Magic is the new Nuclear Fission, so to speak."
"How do patents translate to Hakone?" Carol asked.
"Japan didn't want us to go through the Gate," Mullan said. "They still don't want us there, that's why they put so many restrictions on us and prevent us from leaving Alnus. Just like us, they have national interests, and Japanese pharma companies produce their own patents. Samples were being transported by armored truck, and the results weren't being shared with anyone. Then, one day, Itami Youji shows up at Japan's National Diet with three people of interest. Two of them are magic users, and two of them claim to be over a hundred and fifty years old but with the bodies of teenagers. The second the conference ended, President Dirrel called an emergency meeting.
"The topic of the meeting was Russia and China. Both countries had reached most of the same conclusions that we did about SR biology and magic, and a combination of CIA, DIA, and NSA sources told us that they had already deployed armed agents to Tokyo.
"Like I said, Magic is the new Nuclear Fission, so that's where the argument started. National Security Advisor Nelson insisted that we go in and grab Itami's group, or else risk Russia or China developing magic weapons before we could create a proper deterrence. I argued that Russia and China were waiting to see if we went in, because it would mean that Japan wasn't receiving American protection with regards to Special Region assets, and would result in a three-way firefight. After half an hour of shouting at each other, the President called the meeting off, and I found myself boarding a plane for a NATO meeting in Brussels."
Clayton rolled his eyes. "The President didn't have the balls to commit either way and put it to a vote. Nelson's side won by one person. At Three AM, Tokyo time, a CIA Special Activities group moved on Sankai Resort in Hakone. As I predicted, the Chinese and Russians took this as a signal and sent in their own men. Initially, this resulted in a firefight with JSDF Special Forces, but Dirrel blackmailed then-Prime Minister Motoi with an NSA intercept and got the JSDF to withdraw. All three forces arrived at Sankai Resort at about the same time."
He paused and Carol asked. "What happened?"
"Rory happened." Clayton spat. "For all the information that the CIA and DIA had collected on Rory, they managed to miss the part about her being immune to bullets. Try to imagine… Americans vs. Russians vs. Chinese with Rory playing blender with her halberd in the middle.
"I was told during an after-meeting dinner event, and immediately tried to contact the President, but I couldn't get through the flurry of shit that was already flying through the White House as the various Departments went into Damage Control mode. I immediately jumped onto the next flight home.
"By the time that I walked in the door of the West Wing, the entire CIA Far East-Japan branch had been neutralized, half the government was on media-lockdown, and Dirrel was on the verge of a heart attack for causing the worst military fuck-up in US history since Operation Eagle Claw.
"The ultimate agreement between ourselves and the Japanese was that the Hakone Incident would be buried to maintain our current strategic relationship. With China building blue-water fleets and bases in East-Asian waterways, Japan couldn't afford the fallout any more than we could. On our side of the Pacific, we cleared house, and, as far as the general public was concerned, Hakone never took place.
"That, Carol Dawson, is what brought us back to the table. Hardy has the JSDF so terrified that they threatened us with releasing Hakone to the public if we refused to negotiate. So, I sat down with the President and Minister Kano in the Oval Office, they showed us that dossier in front of you, and we worked out a deal. We would give them one bomb. One. In exchange, and to prevent them from claiming that the nuke was sent in without their knowledge, they would give us a regular sampling of any new life forms discovered in the Special Region.
"For example, your friend, Greta? Her sister was selected by the Japanese and transferred to us for study. Don't worry, she's being treated immensely well, she has free living accommodations in Virginia, a $50,000-a-year stipend, and has relative freedom to come and go as she pleases—as long as she's accompanied by handlers and agrees to the occasional medical exam.
"The point is, of course, that if Japan were to ever claim either Hakone or an ignorance of the nuclear weapon, then we present the Special Region samples. At best, Japan becomes a liar. At worst, both sides become complicit in government-sanctioned human trade, and the event neutralizes itself. The governments take a hit, but the long-term security interests of both countries remain secured. In the end, Japan gets their nuke, we get our patents, and everyone feels safer.
"This left one problem: how to move a nuclear weapon into the Special Region without alerting anyone in the Special Region to its capability or intended target. This included Japan; this applies to the JSDF enlisted and officers below the rank of Colonel. Further complicating things was the fact that Hardy had demonstrated the ability to overhear conversations at upwards of three hundred kilometers away—she heard Itami talking about her all the way out in Rondel—so the fewer people that knew about the weapons, the better.
"So how do you keep your plan a secret? The answer is simple—you hide your nuclear rocket between two dummy ones and tell everyone that you're starting a space program. Plenty of nations have used the same excuse in the past; Israel used their Shavit rocket to cover development for Jericho-3, and North Korea and Iran are doing something similar as we speak. If you think about it, the Space Race against the Soviets had a similar premise, with technology being traded back and forth between NASA and the DoD. Technology for the Space Shuttle orbits above our heads today in the Air Force X37-B, while technology for Midgetman lives on in the side boosters for ULA's Delta IV rocket… and will someday be used to help carry US astronauts into space atop Atlas V and Vulcan.
"The rest should be self-evident. Hire an uninformed civilian representative to help sell the Space Program story to the natives, and fly two test flights to gather guidance calibration data so you can update the navigation system on the one rocket that matters."
"And it almost worked," Mullan said. "But then, you got into an argument with a Rondel academic about heliocentricity, and here we are."
"That should cover everything," Clayton said. "I've been talking for a while now, and you deserve some words of your own and any questions you still have at this point."
Carol's mind raced to try and process all the points, so all that she could think of to lead with was, "Why did you hit me?"
"Like Secretary Clayton said," Mullan explained, "We do not know the maximum extent of Hardy's hearing radius, except that it doesn't extend beyond the Gate. When you saw the nuke, I thought you were about to say something. Captain Hines sends his deepest regrets and the one who hit you, Master Sergeant Jones, insisted that I ask you how he can make up for it. The United States Government is covering your hospital bills, by the way, so don't worry about that part."
She nodded. She was catching up, slowly. "Hardy's a Goddess," Carol said. "You said that she manifests as some kind of ghost...thing. What makes you believe that a nuclear weapon will actually work?"
"Yanagida's report leads to believe that even though Hardy has a massive active radius, she cannot actually manifest beyond Bellnahgo," Clayton said. "Even Itami stated in his report that the ghost-form of Hardy was unable to talk without possessing a body, leading us to believe that Hardy is somehow tied to Bellnahgo itself. The logic goes that if we remove Bellnahgo from the face of the Special Region, we either remove Hardy along with it, or severely cripple her ability to respond. Now that we have access to magicians and are gaining a fundamental understanding of magic, we're certain that the EM pulse and radiation will be enough to severely disrupt the forces that generate Hardy, and the physical destruction will be enough to expose any hidden sanctums to the effects of the first two."
"If all this is true," Carol said. "Why haven't you launched against Hardy yet?"
"Because first and foremost," Clayton said, his voice dropping to a low growl. "Nuclear weapons are a deterrence. They are the option you pick when all other options have run out. We have made it very clear to the Japanese government that we will not launch unless Hardy puts Japan in clear and immediate peril, or unless Hardy launches an attack on the United States itself."
"How would Hardy attack the US? The Gate's in Japan."
Mullan pulled a picture from his briefcase if a bunch of stars. "Maybe Professor Shirai told you about this," he said. "Something is affecting the night sky in Falmart, and whatever it is corresponds to earthquake activity. The obvious answer is some kind of gravity distortion, but Yanagida's report claims that Hardy was involved."
He pulled a second picture and presented it. "This picture isn't from the Special Region. It's in the Cygnus constellation. Same gravity distortion, no detectable mass to provide a cause. They're small enough that amateur astronomers aren't regularly reporting them yet, but the message they send is clear. Hardy is trying to extend her influence to our world as well.
"If that isn't enough for you, consider this: if she can open one Gate, she can open up more Gates. And we still don't have a clear picture of how many other military cultures exist beyond Falmart. What if a Gate were to open on the National Mall or in Times Square? Our armed forces would handle the enemy empire. The nuke would handle Hardy."
"What if the other Gods retaliate?" Carol said.
"If we're successful in killing Hardy, would they have the guts to try?"
"Why rockets?" Carol added. "Can't you just drop a nuke from a plane?"
"The Japanese have already demonstrated to the Special Region how that works," Mullan said. "Since we know that Hardy can control air currents, the Japanese were concerned that the bomb or the plane could be knocked away if Hardy were to, say, generate a tornado or hurricane-force winds. A suborbital reentry vehicle moving at seven kilometers per second—that's Mach twenty-something—solves this problem, because wind no longer matters at speeds like that."
"What did you need me for? Couldn't an Air Force Airman have been given my job, then sworn to secrecy?"
"That would have worked on the locals, but not on the Japanese enlisted," Mullan said. "Remember, the goal is to keep anyone from blabbing about nukes. Japan's populace is still heavily anti-nuclear, and the last thing we needed was some Private deciding to speak his mind to the locals. Only Hazama and his Colonels know the truth about the bomb. They were informed here in Tokyo, where Hardy couldn't hear them, and where they could be replaced if they disagreed with the Diet's decision. You're a civilian, so they trust you. Even Itami couldn't figure out what your angle was, and left your orbital science lecture thinking that you were some smart lady who works for NASA. That is precisely what we wanted."
"But no one's perfect," Carol argued. "Surely one of your men has been drunk or high or tired and let something slip. I refuse to believe that no one, Japanese or American, mentioned Hiroshima and Nagasaki at some point."
"If they have, we don't know about it," Mullan said. "And if they did, then either Hardy doesn't know what to make of it, or she has some other reason for not attacking us yet. It's one of two things that keep me up at night. That reminds me, do you know if Rory was ever told about it?"
Carol explained how she suspected that Rory had deduced the true nature of the rocket launches, then asked, "Why do you ask?"
Mullan explained what had happened with Greta the night before, and produced Rory's letter. "We thought that the peril in question was Nariv's angry mob," Mullan explained. "But on second reading, she likely meant the nuke, without knowing exactly what it was. We were being pretty shady about it."
"Oh, and Greta's fine," he added. "Shaken up, but fine. Takagi is taking her shopping in Osaka today."
Carol couldn't help but smile at the idea of wide-eyed Greta, face pressed against a train window as the Japanese cityscape zipped by. "You said that her sister was in America," she said. "Is there any chance that we can take her over there and get the two back together again?"
"We can do that," Clayton said. "You can go with her, if you want. It would probably be good for both of you to get away from it all before going back to the Special Region… if you feel like going back."
"I broke the rules, though," Carol said. "Why would you send me back?"
"Because your general absence after the first and second rocket launches is what messed us up with the natives," Mullan said. "Now Japan wants to launch a satellite on an Epsilon rocket—heaven knows why—and we still need someone to explain what's going on… and what the new star floating through the sky is supposed to be. I meant it back at Kennedy when I said that you were the best person for the job. The pool of Japanese-English bilingual NASA rocket engineers with PR experience is really, really small, and the people over there already trust you."
Before she could answer, he held up a hand and said, "Don't give me your response now. Go with Greta to Washington D.C., think it over, then let us know what you want to do."
The Secretary of Defense glanced at his watch and said. "I have a meeting coming up. Did you have any additional questions?"
"No, I think I understand all of it. Thank you, sir," Carol said.
Mullan closed the laptop and said, "Once the paperwork goes through, which should only take a few minutes, someone will be around to get the restraints off you. Since we're in a Navy hospital, a sailor will be outside if you need to use the restroom. I'm sorry, Carol, but you're going to be watched over for a while. I hope you understand."
Carol nodded then, just as the Colonel was about to leave, she said, "One last question. You said there were two things that kept you up at night. What was the other thing?"
Mullan closed his briefcase with a snap and looked up at her. When he did, she noticed how tired he looked. Between her, the nuke, and the excitement from the night before, she wouldn't have been surprised if he hadn't slept at all. "The other thing," he repeated, then said. "I worked with the 91st Missile Wing out of North Dakota before all of this. Something that everyone there understood was that the only time a Minuteman III would likely ever leave its silo would be on the end of a crane. That's because no matter how bad things got, we knew that no one was ever going to use those rockets. They couldn't. If they did, it would mean the end of the world. It's not like that in the Special Region; if the President orders that bird to fly, it flies.
He stopped, stared off into space for a moment, then added. "Bellnagho, as far as the war goes, is a neutral city. Its citizens have never bothered Japan, and were perfectly hospitable to Itami and his group during their stay—and before you ask, the idiot who started the riot was from one of the sacked towns to the East of Italica. Bellnahgo has a population of a hundred and twenty thousand civilians, with another ten to thirty thousand living in the projected blast and fallout radius. If we launch the nuke, it would be the single largest massacre of civilians since Nagasaki."
Mullan made his way to the door, but before he left he added, "I know you're not religious, Carol, but if you wouldn't mind, pray that the rocket never leaves the ground. I don't know what I'd do with myself after it did."
Author's note: astute manga and LN readers will have noticed something important in this conversation. If you correctly identified it, you will know how the rest of this story goes down.