Chapter 20: Landing

THREE WEEKS LATER

Blue Origin/Epsilon Launch Pad, Alnus

Greta finished strapping herself into the flight seat, tapped into the, small display on her left and said, "Comm check?"

"I hear you just fine," Kamikoda called from the other side of the capsule. As space vehicles went, Blue Origin's capsule was fairly roomy… but still not much larger than the passenger/cargo compartment of one of the Hawk helicopters.

She had since gotten used to this space, considering as Blue Origin had flown the entire team back to the United States for training. A week's worth of simulators, evacuation practice, even wind tunnels and airplanes that simulated low-gravity. What amazed her the most through the whole thing was the attention that observers paid to the health of the to-be astronauts, making sure that they were always healthy, calm, comfortable, and competent.

Harris was last to secure himself in his seat, and gave a thumbs-up to the remaining Blue Origin technician who wished them a pleasant flight before leaving the capsule and sealing the airtight hatch behind him.

Greta looked past her feet to the remaining member of the crew, Senator Cicero who, even after the simulations, still seemed nervous about the launch. "This seems like a younger person's field," he'd confided to her during training, "but as a representative of the true Imperial government, I must keep composure."

As such, she could see him tense up as a mechanical buzzing started up from the rocket below. "Relax," Harris called. "They're testing the winglets. It'll help them recover the rocket later."

"Auto sequence start," the capsule communicator's flight loop called out, and Greta glanced out the window once more. Simulators were one thing, as were pictures from Midgetman or the Japanese Epsilon, but she wanted to see this with her own eyes.

"T-minus ten," the loop radio stated. "Nine, eight, seven, six, five-command engine start-s"

The engine started up beneath them with a loud rumble and the capsule began to shake as the rocket fought against its hold-down clamps. Greta gripped the sides of her chair, waiting.

The rest of the countdown lost in the roar as the rocket was finally let loose. To Greta, it was faster and heavier than the acceleration she'd experienced on airplanes, and she could feel herself being forced against the chair cushions as the rocket gained speed. A few seconds later, the noise had cleared enough for the radio connection to become audible again. "Max-Q…passing through the sound barrier now."

The sound outside suddenly dropped off considerably. While Greta couldn't see much from her angle, she could tell that the color of the sky outside the window was quickly darkening from light blue, to deep indigo, and then deep black. On the other side of the capsule, Kamikoda whooped with glee.

The roar from below dropped away as well and the communicator loop announced, "MECO." Main Engine Cutoff. A moment later, there was a clunking noise and the capsule freed itself of the booster stage. "Welcome to Space!" Harris called. "Well, low space, at least. Unbuckle your straps and have fun, just remember that you need to be back in your seats in four minutes."

Greta was quick to do so, and was pleasantly surprised to find herself rising out of her seat. With slow, careful motions, she grabbed the edge of the chair and reoriented herself so that her head was towards the 'floor' and her feet were towards the ceiling. It was a strange sensation, but as she wasn't falling, she knew with certainty that this was it. The 'microgravity' that Carol had spoken of when explaining objects in orbit to her and Flat… what felt like ages ago.

Kamikoda, far more at ease, floated past her with a giant grin on his face. On looking out the window he exclaimed, "Ahh, sugoi!" and waved her closer.

Beyond, she could see the planet spread out beneath her. From this height, she could see what Rondel astronomer Passol had theorized so long ago was indeed true; the world was curved into a sphere. Still, that couldn't have prepared her for the scope, the detail of Falmart, with all its plains, deserts and mountains spread out in a grand display.

The lush green of the forests coating the Dumas Mountains, partially swathed in the large shadows of the mountains above them.

The sparkling oceans to the South and West, at once more vast and brilliant than any sapphire.

The brilliant white of a storm system out at sea, dotted with pinpoint flashes of lightning strikes.

And on the horizon, past the day-night line, at least two orangey dots hinting at cities a quarter of a world away. Greta realized, in that moment, I might be the first resident of Falmart to ever see them… to ever know that they existed in the first place. "I could stay up here forever," she whispered.

She looked over her shoulder and spotted Cicero looking down at his home continent. A man of war, the Senator had been quick to pontificate to the masses about the strength of their Emperor and Pina's Empire, and the military power derived from their close relationship with Japan and America. Despite this, as he looked down at Falmart, with his whole world displayed beneath him like some tiny battlefield map, he couldn't help but mutter. "Dear gods… that's everything. That's all we have."

Perhaps the sight had humbled him a little.

Kamikoda placed a hand on Greta's shoulder and asked, "How do you feel?"

How do I feel? She had gone from being an orphan at a young age to a servant, then a refugee. Diligent study and careful application of knowledge had brought her out of the depths, into lectures and museums, and now, regardless of what her sister had said, she was on top of the world.

"I feel," Greta said, "like I can do anything."

Above Okinawa, Japan

Princess Pina had fought in armor for as long as she could remember, but even after a week of practice, the way that the plate carrier and helmet lay on her body and head felt unusual, and spoke of a different kind of war than the one she was used to fighting.

But then, this entire operation was different from the kind of war she was used to fighting. It had been a different war since Itami and the JSDF had intervened at Italica, and this was merely another phase of that.

"Ready?" Captain Hines called out from in front of her. Some of the Americans from Alnus were still involved in this operation, acting as part of a "24th STS", but there were others too. "Deltas", "SEALs", even some of the Japanese specialist teams that helped her and Itami escape Sadera after her imprisonment there.

Itami himself was standing next to her and placed a reassuring hand on her shoulder. "Hey," he said. "You're doing fine. Just like last time, stay low and follow me, okay?"

Pina nodded, and before them the back of the Chinook helicopter opened once more.

In the early morning light, the shape of the structure below them was just visible; an exact replica of the Royal Manor in Telta. Across from them, another set of Chinooks and Black Hawk helicopters disgorged more Special Operations soldiers onto the mock-up, where they moved from pillar to pillar and cover to cover like some grand play.

Which, arguably, it was. The Americans called this a "decapitation" strike and, if it was successful, then Zorzal and his officers would be captured or killed. By practicing on the building below, they assured that the attack would be so fast, that Zorzal's soldiers would be left with no time to counterattack before their commanders were neutralized. Apparently, this way of ending the war was a demand made by America in exchange for withdrawing its sudden surge of Marines into Alnus.

The final operation, and the end of the war, was one week away.

She felt a soft bump as the rear ramp contacted the roof of the building. "Go!" Hines called, and they rushed into 'battle' once more.

Overlooking the Blue Origin Landing Pad, Alnus

The New Shepherd first stage dropped back to the surface, seemingly about to impact and explode on Alnus. Members of the Rondel Council watched in panic, wincing and raising their hands against the inevitable explosion.

The explosion never came. Just a few thousand feet above the ground, a jet of fire shot out of the bottom of the rocket, and panels toward the base sprang open, revealing four landing legs. There was a sonic boom as the spacecraft came in range, dropping back below subsonic speeds, before slowing to a hover just thirty feet above a concrete landing pad beyond the end of the airstrip. The vehicle wobbled in the air for a moment, making final corrections to its orientation before settling the rest of the way to the ground. New Shepherd announced its own successful landing with a loud hiss as its fuel tanks slowly depressurized.

"Remarkable!" Flat exclaimed, lowering his binoculars. "And it's all done by computer automation? There's no one on board at all?"

"That's exactly the case," Shirai said with a satisfied grin. "Speaking of automation, that reminds me…"

The astronomer opened his laptop and, after paging through for a moment, broke into a wide smile. "They found it!" He exclaimed.

"Found what?"

"You!"

Shirai turned the laptop around to present Flat the picture of a galaxy. "This is NGC 3627, a galaxy in our Leo constellation. It's about 36 million light years away, so this image is technically how the galaxy appeared thirty-six million years ago. With access to Rondel's astronomy records, we were able to establish the position of galaxies in Falmart's night sky to come up with a searchable configuration and geometry. We compared this with galaxy charts from Earth, adjusted for distance changes due to the light-speed time delay, and here we are."

Flat nodded in appreciation, then asked, "Does this mean that, if the Gate closes, people will still be able to travel from Japan to Falmart?"

"Hah! No, unfortunately. Distances like this are prohibitive, and it would take our fastest rocket over a billion years to make the trip. It doesn't matter, though, since we have telescopes and the Gate to help out." He froze, suddenly coming to another realization. "Flat!"

"Yes, Dr. Shirai!?"

"We have telescopes in another galaxy. Do you know what that means? We can look back at the Milky Way! We can finally resolve the debate as to whether it's a spiral or barred-spiral galaxy! We can look back in time and prove or disprove untold theories on galactic evolution! We can use multi-point analyses of the cosmic background to resolve truths on dark matter and dark energy!" He looked about to leap out of his chair, his eyes filled with the list of possibilities.

Flat, completely befuddled, said, "I understood about half of those terms."

"Ah, don't worry, by the time we're through, you will, and who knows?" Shirai said, "Perhaps we'll discover something so profound, that a Japan-Falmart voyage without the Gate could happen after all!"

Overlooking Ginza Plaza, Tokyo, Japan

The corner conference room looked down on a sight that was once familiar and unfamiliar. The dome that had been built over the Gate had been partially disassembled, and the original structure within was now visible. What was unusual, however, was the swarm of men and machines surrounding it.

General Electric, Mitsubishi, Fermilab, Hitachi, Lockheed Martin. All working in an uneasy concert, but together nonetheless as they began integrating their equipment into the magical portal. Weeks of feverish research by a hundred universities and institutions on both sides of the Pacific had led to the construction of the new augmentations to the Gate.

Defense Secretary Clayton watched it all through the conference room window with a sense of pride. The whole situation had started as a geopolitical nightmare. Now science and industry from Japan and America was about to save two planets.

"And this… thing is going to solve the whole problem?" Giselle asked. She was bound up in a straightjacket, and her scythe was a world away. Half a dozen marines stood at the other end of the room with assault shotguns, in case anything went haywire.

"That seems to be their theory," Rory said, leaning on the other Apostle's shoulder. "Nine hundred years has taught me a great deal about magic, but for the life of me I still cannot wrap my heard around quantum… whatever you're calling it this time."

In all honesty, Clayton himself had barely been able to keep up with half the terms thrown around. The device itself had an absurdly long name with more syllables than he cared to pronounce, but had come to be informally called, "The Iris"

"The idea is that this machine reverse-engineers the combination of technology and magical entanglement that Emperor Molt's forces used to enlarge the Gate to its present size." Clayton explained. He felt like a broken record by that point, as he had given the same explanation to not just American and Japanese politicians, but also to European, Russian, and Chinese politicians who were all equally paranoid about the defense ramifications. "This allows us to shrink the tunnel down to the diameter of our fiber optic bundle, and project a Phizon-entanglement bottling effect on both sides of the Gate to prevent the further spread of Apocryph. As a result, your world doesn't melt, our sky doesn't change, and we maintain a means of contact between both ends. If we wish to transport people or materials, then we dilate the tunnel back to its current size just for long enough that the move can occur."

Giselle frowned. "This doesn't solve the problem. As long as the two sides of the Gate are connected, the Apocryph as Knappnai will continue to grow."

"We know," Clayton. "We also know that the reduced-size Gate will slow that rate of growth by a factor of nearly one thousand… more than long enough for our scientists to perfect Magic and Gate technology on their own, so that we can dial up Falmart with ease should closing the Gate ever become necessary."

"Some of the Gods might not be happy to hear that."

"Then those Gods will be made to change their minds," Rory said simply. The atomic bomb had resulted in a crisis in the Special Region's Parthenon. The attack might have been directed at Hardy, but all the Gods had felt the effects.

The State Department had dispatched an officer to press Rory and Giselle for information, and the state of cosmic politics in the Special Region in response to the bomb had been interesting. Lunayur (Music/Beauty), Wareharun (Plants and Forests), and Miritta (Fertility) were each respectively terrified and backed Hardy's contract with Mullan more out of fear than anything else. Zufmuut (Order), Deldort (Contracts), and Elange (Knowledge) similarly backed the contract out of respect for American and Japanese technological superiority. The nature of the destruction left Flare (Sunlight) and Duncan (Smithing) curious, but ultimately cautious.

La (Wisdom) was perhaps the only one of the group to not only support the treaty, but to view it in a positive light. After all, it was one of her prayers that had limited the loss of innocent life, and she fully understood the ramifications of all options involved.

Palapon (Revenge) had been the only one to push for a counterattack, but had been scared off when the other gods pointed out that they had no idea where additional American bombs might be, had no understanding of how well the Americans could hide them, and had no defenses whatsoever if the Americans decided to detonate more of them. Rory had asked if Earth nations encountered the same problems, and Clayton had calmly answered, "All the time. We call it Nuclear Deterrence."

This left Emroy (Darkness). "Emroy has never felt so divided in his entire existence," Rory declared. "On the one hand, to be affected by a nuclear bomb is not a pleasant experience. On the other hand, such a masterwork of fear and devastation… if Gods could cry, my master would have flooded Falmart over the beauty of such a weapon."

"So you intend to master Gate travel with technology," Giselle mused. "And how does America plan to use this newfound power, once you obtain it?"

Clayton thought to the DARPA meetings already ongoing at the Pentagon to discuss just that. Discussions were already calling for everything from Mars missions to instantaneous weapons deployment. The technology was still decades away but someday…

…someday it would change everything.

Ultimately, Clayton answered with, "Pioneering, Ms. Giselle. We shall go pioneering."

Overlooking the Alnus FOB

"So that's it?" Carol asked. "You're leaving?"

She and Mullan were alone, save a few distant guards, on a hill overlooking the Alnus airstrip. The smoke from the New Shepherd Landing had started to dissipate, and in the distance, Carol could see the chutes at the capsule made its own descent.

"There's not much reason to stay," Mullan said. "With the last HML empty and overflights of Reguezal Bay at an end, my job's finished here. Besides, the Marines and the JSDF have things well under control."

"What about the Gods? Don't we still need to keep a nuclear deterrence in the Special Region?"

He gave her a dry grin. "Officially, there are no nuclear weapons in the Special Region. Unofficially, you should know better than to ask that question, Carol. If leaking the Hakone treaty to Itami hadn't saved everyone, you'd probably be in a lot of trouble right now."

"We technically saved two planets," Carol pointed out. "Dirrel should've given us medals."

"You should be thankful that he stopped at an Executive Pardon. You don't know the definition of boring until you've sat through a military award ceremony."

Carol snorted at that one. "Where are you going after this?"

"Seoul, actually. Midgetman performed so well in the Special Region that there's a renewed interest in keeping them as an option against that fat guy north of the 38th. Even if they're not willing to admit it publicly, I'm the first officer to launch a nuke against an enemy target since 1945. That gives me 'experience', apparently. You?"

"Deep Space Gateway."

"Pardon?"

"The follow-up to the International Space Station is a project called the Deep Space Gateway. It's a smaller space station that will sit in High Lunar Orbit and will offer both a platform for moon surface sorties, and a place to construct future Mars ships. SLS will be sending up the main modules while commercial partners help with the fittings. JAXA wants to add their own full-size module, so I'll be sticking around Tokyo for a while longer, helping to coordinate that."

"It's a hell of a project."

"I'm just happy that we're moving along with it." She smiled off at the horizon. "You know…"

"What?" Mullan said.

"It's nothing, really, just a goofy thought."

"Really, what is it?"

"I was just thinking, with people like Greta and the Rondel Council around, there's always going to be some interest in rocketry here in Falmart. I wonder how it will affect their industry, or if they'll try to reach their own moon like we did."

Mullan shrugged. "I wonder if they'll have developed their own nukes by then. It seems like a long way off."

"Sixty-six years from Kitty Hawk to the Sea of Tranquility. About thirty years from the first air-dropped bomb to the first atomic one. We might not see it, but the next generation might."

The Colonel laughed and shook his head. "The Empire of Falmart with rockets and nukes… Carol, are you familiar with the phrase, playing with fire?"

"Sure, but I also know that people who get burned early tend to be more cautious. After all, there's that prayer of theirs, teach me ways to grow from what I learn."

Carol thought back over it all. The natives and the soldiers; the riot and the bomb; standing in the rain outside the Smithsonian; arguments and lectures; and rocket launches both peaceful and deadly.

"And if nothing else," she said, "This has certainly been a learning experience."

Author's Note:

American Spaceflight has always been one of those finicky things… even if plans of the Deep Space Gateway first appeared on paper in 2015, there's no guarantee that it will get built. Still, Commercial Space continues to march along, and SpaceX, Boeing, and Blue Origin all have manned flights penciled in for next year. We're living in exciting times and, even in a cynical world, it makes me smile to think about the fact that, in some respects, we are still growing from what we've learned, and are still moving forward.

This work was heavily inspired by the Axis of Time series by John Birmingham, Arc Light by Eric L. Harry, and Voyage by Stephen Baxter. If you're looking for interesting reads on science, space, or nuclear warfare, they all have unique and interesting perspectives on their respective topics, and I would easily recommend all three.

I do not have any immediate plans to write a sequel to A Sky Full of Fire, but I wrote this story on a whim in the first place. If another good show or book catches my eye, I might return to some of the characters if I need them.

Well, that's it! If you've made it this far, thank you for your patience, feedback, and continued interest in the story. If you still have any lingering questions, comments, or just want to chat, feel free to PM me!

8andahalfby11

May 11, 2017