Chapter 1 (1/2)

第一章「赤い彗星の残照」1

CHAPTER.01 – AFTERGLOW OF THE RED COMET (1)

“Hey, Arlette. We’re up.”

Arlette Almage opened her eyes, disoriented, as a hand roughly nudged her on the shoulder.

“T minus 180.”

“Relative velocity to the target is +30.”

“No response from the pa.s.sive sensors.”

The operators’ voices buzzed about from the speakers next to her ears, as she realized she had fallen asleep. Noticing the vibrations in the seat against her back had grown slightly while she slept, she figured that the s.h.i.+p had begun decelerating. She turned to the large man sitting next to her.

“We’re here?”

“Yeah we got here while you were konked out.”

As Danton Hyleg muttered in judgment, Arlette’s annoyance with him showed on her face. “He’s is always like this,” she thought to herself, “I just woke up. Would it kill him to be a little more pleasant?” As she was just about to pick a fight with him, she noticed another man standing in the front of the room and quickly sat up, putting on a more professional face.

She took in her surroundings again. There were several men clad in the same normal suit as she was, sitting quietly in simple seats lining the outer wall. It was a cold, dull gray wall, without a single window. It was quite a stark sight.

“We finally come back, and we can’t even see the view…”

Just as she was regretting missing the scenery beyond those walls, a voice rang out from her helmet’s speaker. It was the young man standing in front of her.

“Ms. Arlette, I’d like you to take a look this.”

The man, Lieutenant JG Mehmet Merca, held out a tablet towards her with a peaceful smile on his face, rather uncharacteristic of a soldier.

“Are you certain this is the port you told us about?”

Arlette looked into the screen, which displayed the feed from one of the s.h.i.+p’s external cameras. A dock rolled out from a rough, angular rock surface, with a peculiar design drawn on it, exactly like the one she remembered.

“I’m sure of it. That’s the research facility’s private port.”

“Thank you.”

Mehmet gave her a slight smile and immediately went back to the control room. Once again, Arlette found herself staring at the windowless walls, and again she thought of the view that lay beyond them.

She was aboard an a.s.sault landing craft prepared by Mastema, a unit under the direct control of the Federation government. She knew that one more s.h.i.+p of the same model was traveling with them nearby. Each s.h.i.+p had a full Mastema company aboard. These two s.h.i.+ps were headed somewhere that Arlette and Danton were very familiar with, but it was not the same place they’d once known.

It was Axis, once an asteroid base, a stronghold for Neo Zeon. But on that fateful day – March 12th U.C.0093 – the asteroid was split in half. Their destination this time was on one of those halves.

×　　×　　×

“Our destination, the research facility, lies on the half of Axis further ahead in orbit – on the side where asteroid Moussa was attached.”

“Yes, but the facility is not on Moussa itself. Moussa only contained residential quarters and some defensive weapons facilities.”

“Is Moussa a special place?”

“To the people who lived on it, yes. It’s existence is… how do I put it… a symbol of sorts – a place of origin.”

This is what Arlette explained to Mehmet and the others, as they traveled there in a high-speed transport s.h.i.+p disguised as a civilian transport. During the discussion, Danton just stood to the side, nodding silently. Though he had also lived on Axis for a while, he had never been granted permission to enter Moussa. Newcomers such as him – who’d survived the One Year War and fled to Axis – were never allowed to even step foot in Moussa. It was treated as a kind of holy land.

×　　×　　×

The increasing vibrations of the seats signaled that they would be docking soon. They had arranged for s.h.i.+p number 2 to land first and confirm that the area was safe, before s.h.i.+p number 1, with Arlette and the crew, would dock. The initiation of the docking sequence on their s.h.i.+p meant that s.h.i.+p number 2 had landed safely and there were no signs of danger. Before long, the light above each seat turned green, and the hatch creaked open, revealing a pa.s.sage.

“This is some real VIP treatment.”

As Danton sighed, complaining under his breath, Arlette took his hand gently. She switched her speaker to touch communication, and her voice entered quietly into his helmet.

“We’ve come back.”

“It’s not like this is our home.”

“But the fact that it’s special hasn’t changed, right?”

Arlette’s voice was normal, but there was a slight flicker of emotion in it. Danton had been with her long enough to notice that much.

“I guess so. It is where the Flanagan Inst.i.tute fell, after all.”

“This is where our lives were decided!”

“Yeah…”

Danton’s feelings didn’t change. They never had, and they never would.

“The only thing I’m thinking about is how to get you out of here alive. That’s all I ever thought about.”

“Just following the Captain’s orders, huh?”

“Of course.”

Arlette gave a slight giggle and gripped his hand a little tighter.

×　　×　　×

Arlette and the crew got off the landing s.h.i.+p and pa.s.sed through the pa.s.sage from the docking port, entering the urban district, directly beneath the area where Moussa had been attached. This was where the research facility’s personnel and families had once lived.

However, three years had pa.s.sed since Axis had fallen – more than enough time for the district to cease all functions.

“It feels so different. I remember it being smaller and messier.”

“s.p.a.ces feel bigger when there are no people around.”

Arlette and Danton, along with the Mastema special forces unit, lead by Mehmet, made their way down the district’s main street. The entire residential sector was built to rotate to create artificial gravity, but the equipment had stopped functioning. The team kicked off the ground with each step, being careful not to float too high. This made the place feel even more foreign to Arlette.

“The target facility should be at the end of this street, correct?”

Mehmet’s voice rang in from the speaker.

The Minovsky particle density inside Axis read very high, as if it were a lingering scent from the war. In their close formation, the radios were working fine, but if they were to spread out enough to lose sight of each other, it was likely they’d lose communications as well.

“It’s going to be a ha.s.sle if we get separated.” thought Danton as he answered Mehmet’s question.

“Yeah, it should be…”