A gale force wind blew through the courtyard of the school. Matsuri was busily bundling up the parachute and shutting it inside the orbiter’s nose. Yukari stood at the edge of the pond, looking up at the helicopter and barking into her transceiver.
“We’ll be picking up one extra person. Take up the girl behind me first. She’s a civvy, so be gentle.”
“Roger that. Lowering the harness now.”
The helicopter descended until it was hovering just above the school buildings. A sliding door opened and something like a thick belt began to play out from one side. The helicopter pitched slightly forward to get one end of the belt into the pond in order to disperse any static electricity. Sand whipped up from the ground, stinging Yukari’s cheek.
She grabbed hold of the harness with one hand and beckoned Akane over. The girl stepped up beside her, cardboard box under one arm and her other hand holding down her skirt.
Yukari passed the harness beneath Akane’s armpits and attached the v-ring to the hook at the base. Then she took the cardboard box out from beneath the other girl’s arm and gave it to her to hold with both hands.
“All you have to do is hang there. The people on the helicopter will do the rest. Got it?”
Akane nodded, a nervous look on her face.
Yukari gave the pilot a thumbs-up and Akane began to rise until she was close enough to the helicopter for one of the soldiers to grab her arm and pull her inside. Next, they plucked Matsuri off the top of the hatch. Meanwhile, Yukari waded through the tiny whitecaps rippling across the pond to scramble up one side of the orbiter.
“Okay,” Yukari said through her transceiver, “next up is the orbiter. It’s taken on some water, so it should be a good four to five tons!”
“No problem. Lowering the freight hook.”
“I’m ready for you.”
A large hook used for carrying minesweeping equipment extended from directly beneath the main rotor.
“Just one meter more, that’s it. Come forward, keep it slow.”
The helicopter pilot made some minute adjustments, expertly compensating for the inertia of the hook. Yukari braced herself against the wind and shouted into her transceiver.
“Steady, steady, steady—all right.”
Grabbing the heavy hook with both hands, she passed the hook through the carabiner on the parachute harness.
“She’s all hooked up. My turn!”
Yukari jumped back into the pond and grabbed the harness that came swinging down. She pulled it around behind her back, attached the hook, and gave the thumbs-up. Matsuri and Akane were already buckled into seats along one wall when Yukari arrived. Akane sat rigid, cradling the cardboard box in her arms like a child holds a stuffed animal.
“You okay, Akane? We’re safe now.”
“Y-yeah.”
The pilot turned and shouted back to Yukari. “Okay to take her up?”
“Go for it! The water will spill out, so take it slow.”
“Roger.”
The pilot’s bronzed left hand tensed and the whine of the turbine engine grew noticeably louder.
Yukari peeked out from the helicopter to take a look at the scene below. The seven blades of the main rotor had created a dust storm in the courtyard the likes of which Yukari had never seen. It looked like the gardening club’s greenhouse had collapsed. Every tulip in the planters lay flat, and one or two of the older planters had completely disintegrated. Oops.
The cable connecting them to the orbiter went taut and the orbiter began to move, sloshing water from inside.
“Your craft’s at a bit of an angle,” the soldier manning the winch shouted. “That okay?”
“No problem. That’s how it’s supposed to lift!”
The soldier shouted something into an intercom, giving directions to the pilot.
The helicopter slowly began to rise.
The wind from the rotor blades turned the water spilling from the orbiter into a fine white mist spraying every which way across the courtyard. Every window in the school buildings and even the rooftops were filled with students waving and cheering.
Yukari waved back.
Goodbye, Nellis Academy. She didn’t imagine she would ever be coming back there.
One of the soldiers closed the sliding door. At last, it was quiet enough inside the helicopter to talk normally. Once they leveled out, Yukari went up to the cockpit and greeted the pilot. “That went really well. I’m Yukari Morita, captain of the orbiter you’re carrying.”
“Commander Kimura with the Fifteenth Minesweeper Company,” the middle-aged pilot announced brightly, turning his tanned face to look back at his passenger. “I have to admit I was surprised. I’ve seen your ship on television a number of times, but I never expected it to come down here.”
“We were just as surprised as you. I didn’t expect the SDF to come pick us up, either.”
“The Coast Guard sent us. They’ve never retrieved an orbiter, and they wanted to make sure they had enough horsepower to do the job—speaking of which, Petty Officer Kuwabara!”
“Sir!” One of the soldiers answered from the back.
“Get up here and take a picture of us!”
“Yes, sir!”
“Here, I’ll turn around and look back so he can get both our faces.”
“Huh?”
Petty Officer Kuwabara motioned to the other two girls. “Why don’t you get in too?”
“Hoi! I love pictures! Let’s go, Akane!”
“What? Me?”
“Yeah. Don’t you want to remember the moment?”
Grinning like a madwoman, Matsuri undid Akane’s harness. Akane gently set down her cardboard box and came up to the front.
“Commander, I’d like to get in the shot as well, if I could,” another of the soldiers called out. “Me too!” said another.
“Maybe I could get one with just Yukari first—”
“I want one with Matsuri!”
“I’ll take one with the girl in the Nellis uniform.”
They took pictures in various combinations as the helicopter swiftly made its way toward Sagamihara airspace. They were almost at their destination when the helicopter from the Kanagawa Police Department caught up to them.
“Someone told the Space Lab we were coming, right?” Yukari asked.
“Affirmative,” the pilot told her.
Yukari peered out the front window. “That straight line right there is the Yokohama Train Line, which means…is that it?”
“That’s the place.”
Several perfectly square buildings formed a small compound below. There was a green in the very middle and a thin rocket on a display stage off to one side.
The helicopter hovered over the green until someone from the lab came running out to direct them. Slowly, the copter began to descend, the orbiter drawing closer to its own shadow cast on the grass until the two met. The orbiter toppled on its side and the helicopter gently set down a short distance away. The sliding door flew open, and the crew jumped out to secure the landing zone.
“Time to go.” Yukari motioned to Akane.
Shrinking away from the idling rotor above her head, Akane left the chopper, led by the two astronauts. One of the helicopter crew was busily unhooking the orbiter.
A man in his mid-fifties wearing a suit and necktie came running from the main building.
It’s Miyamoto, thought Yukari. Professor Miyamoto was head researcher in charge of the goldfish experiment—or more accurately, the vestibular adaptation experiment. She remembered him from his visits a month before to the Solomon base for a practice run. He had been running around then too. He was a likable man, with short legs, a chubby belly, and bushy eyebrows.
Miyamoto wiped the sweat from his forehead with a handkerchief and greeted them. “Hello there! Welcome, welcome! I’d arrgh—” The professor’s voice was lost in the sound of the helicopter taking off.
Yukari turned and saluted the crew. In a matter of moments, the helicopter receded into the distance and relative silence returned to the complex. Yukari turned back around to face the professor.
“Well, we’re back. We landed in Yokohama, of all places.”
“So I heard, so I heard. I certainly wasn’t expecting you to get here so soon, that’s for certain. Well, how are they? Still living?”
“They’re right here.”
Yukari pointed at the cardboard box in Akane’s hands.
Akane offered up her box, and Professor Miyamoto thrust his face inside. He was a bit nearsighted.
“Hey! They are still alive! Doing quite well, as a matter of fact! All right!” His head popped back out. “Well, this is really something! Thank you! Thank you so much!” One by one, he grabbed each of their hands in turn and gave them a vigorous shake. Yukari half expected him to shed a joyful tear or two. She smiled.
“Akane threw that transport container together all by herself!”
“You don’t say? Very nice, very, very nice!” Hefting the box in his left arm, Miyamoto gripped Akane’s hand and pumped it vigorously.
“Sorry—I know it doesn’t look like much.”
“Not at all, not at all. Now, quickly, to the lab!” The professor scurried off, muttering happily to himself as he left.
Akane shook her head, watching him leave.
“He seems happy,” Yukari said. “If I didn’t know any better, I’d say he was going to start skipping any moment now.”
“No kidding,” Akane said, allowing herself a little chuckle.
Far ahead of them already, the professor turned and shouted, “What are you waiting for? Come on, come on. You have to tell me about everything!”