Free Rocket Girls: The Last Planet by Housuke Nojiri Page A

supposed to. If you don’t mind, I’d like to discuss the malfunction in the sequencer next.”
    “Malfunction? You make it sound like there was something wrong with the electronics.” Mukai snorted. “What happened was, Yukari left the protective cover on the activation switch open while she was dealing with the goldfish, and she accidentally bumped the switch. Yukari says so herself, and that account fits the telemetry records.”
    “So it was operator error.”
    “Not that I blame her. Everything happened with incredibly bad timing,” Kinoshita said. “What Yukari is saying is that we can’t have one person doing two jobs up there. Well, I suppose it’s two people doing two jobs, but both of them are supposed to be checking the other’s operations, so when you add an experiment to their list of duties, it’s too much. They get confused.”
    “So they need a third person?” Nasuda crossed his arms.
    Everyone in the room was aware that on the U.S. space shuttle, duties were divided between mission specialists and payload specialists.
    “How is development going on the three-person orbiter?”
    “As smoothly as could be wished for. All we’re basically doing is cramming another seat into the MOB2 transport locker space.”
    “The trick is finding a mission specialist with the same dimensions as Yukari and Matsuri.”
    “No kidding. Whoever it is, they’ll have to cram into a space barely fifty centimeters across.”

[ACT 2]
     
    “ YOU KNOW WHAT we really need here? A disco.”
    It was lunch break. Yukari and Matsuri were sitting in the shade of a palm tree along the beach, sipping coconut milk.
    “ Hoi? What’s a disco?”
    “It’s a place for young people to get together and dance and drink and stuff like that.”
    “Sounds like a sing-sing.”
    “What’s that?”
    “That’s where everyone sings and dances, and men choose good women. The women decorate themselves and shake their hips and busts to attract the men. Oh, it’s lots of fun.”
    “Erm…I guess that sounds similar,” Yukari agreed, a vivid image rising in her mind of tribal people in a circle, beating on drums. “My point is, if we’re going to try to get another high school girl out on this island, we need a disco, at least. You saw what it was like in Yokohama, right? There are boutiques and accessory shops and fast food and all kinds of stuff like that. Here, there’s, well, this!”
    Yukari gestured across the scene in front of them.
    Palm trees. White sand. Coral reefs. The South Pacific.
    “Sure, it’s beautiful when you first get here, but the ‘ooh’ factor only lasts a couple days. No one is going to stay here long if there isn’t a real potential for sustained fun, you know what I mean?”
    “But you’re here, Yukari.”
    “I don’t have anyplace to go home to.”
    “ Hoi? ”
    “I got kicked out of school, remember?”
    “Oh.” Matsuri made a sort of confused half smile. She reached down and pulled something resembling a rockfish, baked whole, from beside their little campfire. “Perfectly done!” she declared.
    “Yeah.”
    Matsuri took a bite of the fish and passed it to Yukari.
    It didn’t taste bad once you got used to it, but boy did she miss the pizza back in Yokohama. Yukari checked the Omega Speedmaster on her left wrist. Lunch break would be over soon. “Guess we should be heading back.”
    Yukari slipped a light jacket on over her swimsuit and pressed the button on her transceiver. “Hi there, security? Pick up, please.”
    “Roger. We’re on our way.”
    A short while later, a Humvee appeared down the beach. Using base security as a taxi service was one of the perks of being an astronaut.
    With the entire future of the SSA resting on their shoulders, Yukari and Matsuri could get away with quite a bit. As long as they had a reasonable excuse, they could take chopper rides to the Chinatown on the other side of the island and use the private Gulfstream jet to go shopping in Australia. If