Vol. 2 Chapter 6 – September 2047, Sirius

The point where the Lysthea fleet warped out,『Sirius Line Beta』was a void of darkness where no star systems existed nearby.

Mikako experienced the moment of warp while aboard her recovered Tracer as it was being transported back to the hangar.

When the countdown echoing throughout the ship reached ten, all major power sources were shut down, and the interior of the ship was sealed in darkness.

The container carrying Mikako’s Tracer also came to a stop along the track.

For safety reasons, the power inside the Tracer was forcibly shut down in synchronization with the ship, and Mikako too was left completely alone in darkness.

The sudden appearance of the Tarsians. And her first real battle.

The lingering heat of that excitement still had not faded, and Mikako’s heart was pounding, her breathing rough, her knees trembling uncontrollably.

More than the joy of victory in battle, the fear she had felt when directly facing the Tarsians struck her with a far stronger impact, numbing her senses.

The indescribable terror when she had been surrounded by the cage of tentacles. The vivid, sickening sensation of flesh bursting apart when she sliced through them with the beam blade. None of the pleasant exhaustion she used to feel after repeating drills over and over remained.

──This isn’t just some club activity!

Only now was Mikako being forced to truly realize that she had become involved in something outrageous.

All alone in the darkness. She wanted to hurry back to her comrades and spill out everything that had happened, everything she had seen, everything she had done. She felt that if she let it all out, perhaps this heavy feeling weighing down on her chest would ease a little.

At the moment of warp, the booth shook violently. Every part inside the Tracer emitted high-frequency creaking sounds. An unpleasant sensation unlike anything she had ever experienced before assaulted her, as though each and every cell in her body were being ground down with a pestle. At the same time, she felt a strange sensation, as if her entire body were being pulled upward somewhere, or drawn toward something.

The warp was completed in only a few seconds.

Power returned inside the Tracer, and shortly afterward, the container carrying it began moving again with a rattling sound. A shipwide announcement echoed through the vessel, declaring the completion of the warp.

The ship’s mechanisms recovered smoothly but it took some time before the crew members themselves could move again. The indescribable discomfort gradually faded away but the numb sensation and exhaustion lingered throughout her entire body, refusing to leave, and she could not move.

──Ah. I have to tell Noboru-kun.

The cellphone that had fallen onto the floor, she desperately twisted her body and stretched out her arm to pick it up. Her fingertips would not move properly, and she could not add anything more to the message. Pressing the send button was all she could manage.

──Will it reach him?

Perhaps because it was struggling to determine the current location, the cellphone took an unusually long time to display the estimated delivery time.

〈398 days, 13 hours, XX minutes, XX seconds〉

It was a display that expressed uncertainty in its own humble way.

──Noboru-kun will be in his second year of high school.

Loneliness welled up inside her.

She crawled out of the Tracer booth, took a shower and tumbled back into the private room she had been given. The moment she did, she was called.

It was from the bridge.

The living space for Mikako and the other Tracer pilots was strictly separated from the living quarters of the ship operation staff centered around the bridge, and the two sides rarely met face to face directly.

Mikako had never once seen any of the ship operation staff inside the ship, despite having heard there were a little under thirty of them. She was surprised when, for the first time, she was summoned from the bridge, and learned that the one who had called her was not the captain, but someone even higher, the fleet commander-in-chief.

The path to the bridge felt longer than it actually was.

The one who invited her into the commander-in-chief’s room was Gilbert Locomov, a blue-eyed commander around fifty years old. She had seen him many times in video but meeting him in person for the first time made her nervous.

Greeting her with a gentle smile, Commander Locomov spoke to her in fluent Japanese.

“Nagamine-kun, thank you for your hard work.”

He offered her a chair.

“Thanks to your splendid performance, we were able to collect valuable data regarding the Tarsians. I am sincerely grateful.”

He extended his rugged hand for a handshake. Mikako accepted it.

“We are considering some kind of reward for your achievement. Is there anything onboard that is inconveniencing you? Is there anything you want, or anything you would like to eat?”

So he meant to give her a reward. It felt like she was being treated like a child, and she could not honestly feel happy about it.

“More importantly, there is something I want you to tell me. Please answer me properly.”

“Let me hear it.”

Taking his seat at his desk and straightening his posture, the commander said that.

“Was it right for us to fight the Tarsians?”

The commander did not answer immediately.

“Are the Tarsians our enemy?”

The commander fell into thought.

“To be honest, I still do not know either. We still do not possess any means of speaking to them. As a result of analyzing the many artifacts excavated from the Tarsis ruins, we were unable to find even a single thing that could serve as a clue to understanding their language. In other words, they may not have anything equivalent to our writing.”

“Then what I did when I fought might have been wrong too, right?”

“No, we still had no choice but to fight. There has, in fact, been a casualty. If we had not fought, we would have been the ones killed.”

“Then, if we meet the Tarsians again next time, it is all right for me to fight them again, right?”

“It depends on the situation, but you will follow orders. I will decide whether we fight or not.”

“I understand. So I just have to follow orders.”

Nodding deeply, Commander Locomov changed his tone and said,

“Oh, yes, there was one thing I wanted to ask. During the battle, there was a moment when the Tarsians surrounded you with something like tentacles. Was that some kind of attack?”

“I’m not sure. It did not feel like an attack, but maybe they intended to attack afterward. They stared at me with those huge eyeballs, and it was really embarrassing… and creepy.”

“Being stared at embarrassed you… I see. Perhaps they, too, are trying to learn about us by feeling their way around. Hmm, thank you. You are exempt from shift duty today. Get some proper rest. Ah, yes, the day after tomorrow, the fleet will be making a major relocation. We will perform a warp using a Shortcut Anchor. Our destination is the Sirius star system. A place eight point six light-years away from Earth. If there is anyone you need to contact, do so sometime today or tomorrow.”

──Eight point six light-years away from Earth!

Just hearing that alone made her feel faint.

■ ■ ■

Noboru-kun,

Right now, Mikako is in a place one point one light-years away from Earth.

So Noboru-kun is already a second-year high school student now, huh.

Did yesterday’s email reach you properly? Sorry it was such an incomplete message. You’ve probably already heard roughly what happened and why no emails arrived for more than a year without any contact.

Yeah, the Tarsians suddenly appeared out of nowhere. And the hyperdrive decision was made so suddenly that there wasn’t even time to write an email.

Yesterday’s message was something I sent right after warp-out because I at least wanted to let you know I was safe, even though it was unfinished.

But really, I made you worry so much. Sorry.

Or maybe, after waiting for so long, Noboru-kun has already completely forgotten about Mikako.

Anyway, Mikako is doing fine.

By the way, today I have an important announcement.

Tomorrow, the fleet will be warping again.

This time, it’s a really huge jump using a Shortcut Anchor. From Earth, it’ll be a place eight point six light-years away.

Mikako is really going far, far away into space.

What that means is that from now on, it’ll take eight years and seven months for our emails to reach each other.

We’re just like lovers torn apart between outer space and Earth.

By the time the next email arrives, Noboru-kun will be twenty-four years old.

I wonder if you’ll still remember Mikako.

Well then, good night.

From Mikako, pretending to be the heroine of a tragedy.

■ ■ ■

The sight that greeted the crew members of the Lysthea fleet after warping out was something that somehow evoked a sense of nostalgia.

A blazing crimson sun and the planets orbiting around it.

During the preliminary survey stage when the Shortcut Anchor was discovered, it had been determined that the fourth planet, named Agartha, possessed an environment very similar to Earth’s.

On the night before the warp, all of the Tracer pilots, including Mikako, were gathered in the lunch room and given a brief lecture about the Agartha investigation plan.

In the short term, they would conduct a surface survey of the entire planet to investigate whether there were traces of Tarsian civilization on this world. In the long term, they intended to establish a base on the planet and use it as a foothold for extending their Tarsian exploration farther into deep space.

However, this was only the outline of the survey plan, and the duration of the investigation would be decided based on the progress of the survey.

After warp-out, the fleet immediately moved into orbit around Agartha.

Over the course of half a day, satellite photographs were taken, and based on those images, highly accurate maps were created.

Using those maps, survey areas were assigned to each ship. Furthermore, survey teams were organized for each vessel, the areas were subdivided into grids, and assignments for each member were announced.

Half of the Tracers would descend to the surface for investigation while the other half remained aboard the ships, working in twelve-hour alternating shifts. Members assigned to surface surveys would devote the full twelve hours to investigation activities, while those on standby aboard the ships would spend their time resting and remaining ready for emergency deployment. The survey period itself was not explicitly stated, but if everything progressed smoothly according to schedule, all grids were expected to be explored within one month.

The ten ships descended and spread out over their assigned regions.

And from each ship, approximately fifty Tracers from the first survey team of day one sequentially descended toward the planet’s surface──.

After successfully entering the atmosphere and seeing the landscape below her feet, Mikako felt an almost relieving sensation.

It was greenery, something she had not seen in a very long time.

The land of Agartha was covered entirely in green.

Ever since she had been forcibly confined at the lunar base camp, she had lived surrounded only by metallic, monochrome tones. Throughout the solar system, on every planet and moon they had stopped at, she had never once seen colors that suggested the activity of life.

Looking upon Agartha’s greenery, Mikako truly realized how dry and lifeless the environment she had spent the past year and several months in had been.

White clouds drifted through the low sky, and between those clouds she could glimpse the yellow-green grasslands and deep-green forests covering the land below. As her altitude decreased, the state of the world beneath her became clearer and clearer. There were mountains, hills, valleys, flowing rivers, and sunlight reflecting off lakes.

The fifty Tracers that had descended together reached an altitude of one thousand meters above the ground, then spread out in every direction like umbrellas opening.

Mikako formed a squadron with five nearby allied craft assigned to the surrounding area and flew toward their destination.

Even birds-like creatures flying in formation through the low sky could be seen.

It was a deeply moving sight.

Beyond Earth, there truly existed a planet overflowing with life, and she herself was witnessing that scenery as one of its very first discoverers.

When they approached their assigned grids, the formation flight was dissolved.

Mikako was alone.

She descended onto the ground. Around her stretched gently rolling grasslands.

From the grass beneath the Tracer’s feet as it stood firmly upon the earth, numerous small animals leapt out in surprise, their forms briefly revealed in the sunlight before they quickly dove back into the grass and disappeared.

Mikako’s assigned grid was a square measuring approximately one hundred kilometers on each side. It was a much wider area than she had expected. There was no way she could properly cover it all through ordinary searching.

Even so, following orders, Mikako began her ground survey.

The Tracer pressed down upon the earth, advancing step by step.

To think that the basic movements she had practiced endlessly at the lunar base would end up being useful in a place like this.

As far as the eye could see, there was only grassland, and it did not look as though traces of the Tarsians could exist there even if she wanted to find them.

A tedious march began.

──Traces of what, exactly?

It had already been made clear during the map-making stage that no surface structures existed.

After piloting manually for about two hours, Mikako decided to leave the rest to the onboard computer.

It really did resemble Earth’s scenery, she thought once again.

But on the real Earth, scenery like this could not possibly exist.

The nature here on Agartha was truly untouched wilderness. Agartha’s land overflowed with life. Yet nowhere could she sense anything like the presence of intelligent lifeforms.

That decisive difference instead made Mikako feel nostalgic for the familiar landscapes of Earth.

She walked for another two hours.

The grasslands began rustling noisily. Wind had started to blow. Dark clouds began covering the sky.

Mikako stopped the Tracer’s steps.

──Ah, rain.

Raindrops began falling from the sky, light and scattered like a summer shower.

The Tracer stood motionless beneath the rain. As the rainfall grew heavier, the colors of the land were repainted. Sunlight pierced through the gaps in the clouds like a spotlight.

As Mikako gazed up at the sky, tears welled in her eyes.

──I want to feel the rain.

──I want to go to the convenience store and eat ice cream together.

Closing her eyes, Mikako let out the feelings she had been holding back.

──I want to see you, Noboru-kun!

Tears rolled down her cheeks and fell, soaking the skirt of her uniform.

■ ■ ■

Hello, twenty-four-year-old Noboru-kun.

It’s fifteen-year-old Mikako.

Hey, even now, I still love you very, very much.

■ ■ ■

Mikako pressed the send button with a prayer in her heart.

──Please, let it reach him.

Ever since she had been taken away, she had spent every day buried in training, doing the tasks she was given and struggling just to acquire the skills she needed. She had not even had time to look back on herself. No, by deliberately pushing herself, she had been closing her eyes to the unreasonable reality she could not accept.

But now, she had reached her limit.

Mikako cried. She cried exactly as her feelings told her to.

The tears she had not shed for a whole year overflowed without end and streamed down her face.

She cried until her tears ran dry, then, exhausted from crying, slumped weakly back against the seat.

Suddenly, she sensed someone’s presence.

──Who?

The moment she opened her eyes, a dazzling light leapt into them.

Countless images instantly brushed across her retinas.

Her high-rise apartment building at home, herself in a kendo uniform, herself waiting at a railroad crossing for a freight train to pass, an empty classroom, messy desks, a scribble of an umbrella shared by Terao Noboru and Nagamine Mikako on the blackboard, herself riding double on Noboru-kun’s bicycle, herself swaying on the bus and pretending to doze off as she leaned against Noboru-kun’s shoulder…

Every one of them was nostalgic, an unforgettable image stored away in the album of her heart.

But someone was secretly peeking at them. Peeking with a huge eye.

For an instant, the figure of a Tarsian passed through her field of vision.

With a start, Mikako raised her face.

In the grassland, there was herself, floating softly as she faced someone.

And before her stood a slightly younger version of herself.

《Hey, we finally made it this far.》

The young Mikako spoke gently to her.

《To become an adult, pain is necessary too but you all can go much, much farther, even to the farthest edge of a more distant galaxy…So please, come with us. We want to entrust it to you.》

With a sorrowful expression, Mikako shook her head again and again like a spoiled child refusing.

“But I only want to see Noboru-kun… I only want to tell him I love him…”

The tears she thought she had cried dry began overflowing again.

Mikako collapsed forward and cried. In an empty middle school classroom, she cried with her face down on the desk.

The western sun shone in, dyeing the classroom red.

《It’s all right. I’m sure you’ll meet him again.》

This time, an adult Mikako gently comforted the Mikako who had collapsed in tears.

The adult Mikako turned her back, saying,『Well then.』

When Mikako looked back, railroad tracks and a crossing separated her from the two Mikakos.

When Mikako tried to chase after them, the crossing gate came down.

A JR freight train passed right in front of her.

After it passed, no one was there anymore.

Before she knew it, both the crossing and the tracks had vanished.

What spread out before her eyes was the grassland of Agartha.

At some point, the rain had stopped and the leaves of grass in the plain were shining with vivid colors.

──What was that? A dream? Was I dozing off?

But the images had been far too real for that.

──Were you really a Tarsian? Why did you speak to someone like me, your enemy?

With a start, Mikako looked around.

The Tracer was standing at the edge of a cliff beside a fissure in the earth.

──When did I end up in a place like this?

She bent the Tracer as if crouching down and peered over the cliff.

“What is this?”

It resembled scenery she had seen somewhere before.

──Yes, the Tarsis ruins!

Ruins of dwellings shaped exactly like them were stacked one upon another, clinging to the cliffside.

──I found them! Since they’re on Agartha, they’re the Agartha ruins.

Just as she opened a communication channel, thinking she had to report it at once, an alert sounded, calling Mikako instead.

《Tarsians sighted! Tarsians sighted!》

The screen instantly switched to the mission map.

《Tarsians appearing in various locations are attacking the survey teams. Attention, all members. Engage immediately.》

──Why? Is this the pain you were talking about?

Something came falling from the sky at tremendous speed.

It pierced the ground about one kilometer away and sent up a massive pillar of fire.

──Why do we have to fight?

Mikako wiped her tears with the back of her hand and her expression changed.

She had the face of a warrior.