We got out of warp.
After everything that had happened, we got on our way to Chakra.
Thinking about it, we really got some nasty looks at the space port. In the middle of all the chaos when we went to the counter and said our code name, “Lovely Angel” all of the customs officials, as well as about thirty other staff suddenly vanished. As we were trying to get processed we were bombarded with wordless, hate-filled glares. The staff connected to the fuel base especially looked at us like the fuel base explosion was our fault. I am not kidding.
And then after that, the walk to the gate wasn’t any better. All the grounded pilots and flight attendants told all the travel agencies and passengers they could blame us for the delays. Why us? Who is fueling these baloney rumors?! We were just about on our last nerve. Yuri was about to cry, (though past history would suggest that she wouldn’t really cry), and I was so incensed that I had to do everything I could to not seriously hurt somebody, causing some serious stomach upset (I did knock down two or three people, though). If you had known what we really went through with those damn shadows you’d be a little nicer to us!
And while I was exasperated with rage, Chakra grew close.
Chakra was a planet without night. This was because there were two suns. The position of the planet between the red giant and blue and white dwarf rotating around each other meant that when one sun’s day in the sky ended, the other sun’s began. There are some areas where both suns shine down at the same time. Usually you wouldn’t expect people to move to a place like that, but Chakra is an unsophisticated mining planet rich with radokite and the rare element buddijium. After Mandala took control over Chakra, only people associated with mining and such emigrated there. From what I understand, because of that Chakra has some unique laws of self-governance. For example, it is written that portable weapons can be carried freely. Hmm, I was getting a bad feeling about this.
Lovely Angel locked into orbit over Chakra. From here, it looks like a relatively small planet. Its diameter is 7,800 kilometers. The standard gravity is 0.87G. The sea to land ratio is five-to-one, so there really isn’t a whole lot of dry land.
Chakra has no relay station, so all immigration procedures are done on the ground from a control tower. I was imagining a young, good-looking hunk for our examiner, but no such luck. The examination was done by a computer system. Oh, well. It isn’t an independent planet-state, anyway. It’s basically a mine on the outskirts of the galaxy run by another planet-state. That’s the most reasonable way to look at it.
Out of boredom I tried to get the examination over with as quickly as possible so we could get Lovely Angel on the ground. Lovely Angel is our ship exclusively, and she’s named after our codename. Normally we are not referred to by our regular codename, but are better known by our absolutely ghastly nickname, “Dirty Pair.”
Lovely Angel is nose-to-tail 80 meters, a long, skinny spindle-shaped vertical-type spaceship. She has two large fins and two smaller fins attached to her body, and she comes in a little at the waist. She has a brilliant scarlet paint job. Anyone seeing her can immediately tell she’s our ship. That’s why at space ports no one comes near us. It’s kind of depressing, actually. Breaking through the stratosphere, and then through some light cloud cover, Lovely Angel continued down toward the planet’s surface. Piloting the ship is Yuri’s job, so after the immigration check I didn’t have anything I needed to do. I eased my seat back and played with Mugi’s paws.
“Almost there,” said Yuri.
The main screen blacked out when we entered the atmosphere, but then it flickered back to life. The cone-shaped Lovely Angel has no windows in the control deck. Instead there are dozens of screens, big and small, lined up on the walls that let us see what’s going on outside.
What we saw on the main screen now was an overhead view of Chakra’s biggest continent, Bassara. The red giant sun, Indola, was shining down now, so the continent of Bassara looked as if it were dyed with a reddish-brown ink. Aslaville is almost in the deadcenter of Bassara. That’s near where the space port was, so that’s where we were headed for landing.
Yuri concentrated seriously on her flying as she took us down through the atmosphere. Even though I was in relax mode, I kept an eye out on the view screens and stayed on guard. Especially after the looks we got leaving Lyonesse. Who knew how they would respond to us here on Chakra?
But as it turned out, there was nothing to be concerned about.
Lovely Angel docked safely at the Aslaville space port. Small and dusty, it seemed more like a cargo port than a real transportation hub. On top of that, most of the ships resting around the landing pad were of the large-size container cargo variety.
We docked our ship in the port and rented a car. This was all automated. We dealt with almost no actual people. It was kind of weird, but better than dealing with a bunch of stuffy old codgers. I held my patience.
What I couldn’t keep quiet about was the car. It wasn’t an air car. There were like, wheels on it. Six of them! It had a solid-looking body, and all, but it had not a single part emoting grace or elegance. It was a real backwoods utility vehicle. To make matters even worse, it was slow. No matter how hard you hit the accelerator, its highest speed was two hundred kilometers per hour. Well, it’s not like this was a planet with well-maintained highways. Actually, this was probably the kind of car we needed. An air car would probably get blown off the road with all the uneven, bumpy streets. Even still, I preferred a faster, sleeker vehicle.
I was the one to drive to downtown Aslaville. It was only fourty kilometers away, but it took us over ten minutes to get there. This must be a record. A proper highway is a real must. Why didn’t anyone think of that?
After getting into Aslaville, Yuri turned on the auto-navi from the passenger seat. It was one that you could use to search destinations.
Yuri broke the silence with a question.
“Where is it that we are going?”
I died right on the spot. It was after I died that I remembered. We didn’t know where we were going yet.
Yuri and Mugi died.
We wanted to find Landis, the engineer who’d been bitten by the invisible fangs, to hear his story, but his whereabouts weren’t included in the data we received from the WWWA. I wanted to contact the Headquarters and chew them out, but I just didn’t quite have the courage to face the chief yet.
For the time being, we went to the center of Aslaville to retrace the steps that led up to the attack. It was an optimistic investigative approach, but sometimes it led to results. Anyway, there wasn’t much point in quickly solving the case and rushing home before things cooled down a bit.
After driving for a while we entered what looked like a shopping district. Actually, it was probably downtown. There were many garishly decorated stores lined up next to each other, and a shady-looking crowd of people moved up and down the street. This may have been the area where Landis’ leg was bitten.
I let up on the gas and took a long look around the scene there. Since the sun was always out, I didn’t know if it was day or night, but looking at the clock on the dashboard, I saw it was early evening. In a mining town, the time of day when things start to get a little wild. But it was too bright, so maybe not.
“Why don’t we stop over there and take a little stroll?” I asked Yuri.
“Sounds good to me,” Yuri said, showing her approval.
I pulled to the side of the road and opened my door.
—and just as I did…
I was struck by a beam.
In the blink of an eye I threw myself to the street. From my holster I drew my heatgun. Pulling out her ray gun, Yuri jumped from the car. Mugi followed right after. The beam grazed the base of the car door and left a burn.
Across the street was a crowd of people. In the middle of the crowd was a man standing, aiming a ray gun.
It’s him. He’s the shooter.
I held my heatgun in front of me, pointed it at the man, and took off toward him. Pushing my way through the crowd, I closed in on him.
“Hold it!”
Somebody grabbed my shoulder. I turned my body, knocking the hand off my body. I lifted the heatgun looking for the face of my assailant.
My breath was caught in my throat. Fireworks started exploding in my head.
I—I couldn’t believe it. I really couldn’t believe my eyes. All my strength slipped away from my body. What was standing before me was Apollo… or was it Adonis? …Whatever. Either way he was fantasy-level handsome!
The face of a virile young man. Thick manly eyebrows. A long straight nose. Nice thin lips. Bright, clear eyes. Golden strands of blond hair poked out from under his ten-gallon hat. How could I choose my favorite part?
“I don’t want you to stop him,” said Handsome, lifting the brim of his hat with two fingers. He spoke with a clear, deep voice. His smile gleamed a row of shiny, perfect, pearl-colored teeth.
“That was a legitimate weapons discharge.”
Fine. I had already forgotten my name. Anything was fine. I’d listen to anything he had to say!