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

they tried to pull a stunt like that as public officials in Japan, there would have been a firestorm of criticism, but here where the media rarely trod, there was no one to watch them.
    The people on base called it “Solomon sickness”: a feeling that grew with time spent on the islands that it was okay to do whatever you liked as long as you could get away with it. It was a pretty pleasant condition, as sicknesses went.
    The Humvee drove past the launch platform and onto the two-kilometer-long road that went straight from the launching pad to the vehicle assembly building.
    The white, crushed-coral pavement shimmered in the heat. Palm trees stood to either side of the road, like some ritzy boulevard in an exotic city—but here there was no one else but them.
    The CB radio on the dashboard squawked.
    “Car 5, Car 5, what’s your current position?”
    “Just passed the VAB, over.”
    “Mind stopping by the front gate? We’ve got a visitor there who won’t budge.”
    “Roger that.”
    The driver returned his radio mic back to the dashboard and said to Yukari, “Sounds like we’re going to take a little detour if that’s all right.”
    “Sure. What’s this ‘visitor who won’t budge’ all about?”
    “Probably a local taro-root salesman. They’re pretty persistent.”
    “You think?”
    Up ahead, a red-and-white striped crossing bar came into view. Off to the right of the road stood a small guard post and a stand of the broad-leaved tropical trees that grew all over the island.
    Yukari spotted two people in the shade of the trees.
    One, standing, was clearly a security guard, and the other—probably the visitor—was sitting on the ground. She wore a skirt, and her head hung slumped down between pale white shoulders. A wide-brimmed hat covered her face from view.
    The Humvee stopped and the guard walked over to them. “It’s a girl. Just arrived here by taxi. Seems like she got a little carsick—that is, the driver tells me that by the time she arrived at the port in Sanchago, she was already half-dead with motion sickness. I doubt the ride here made it any better.”
    When civilians visited the island, they had to take a rusty old ferry that left once every three days from Guadalcanal. Once they arrived, they had to take the sole taxi on the island over the mountains along twenty kilometers of dirt road. Anyone who wasn’t riding in a Humvee or other vehicle made for off-roading was in for a nightmarish trip in the “taxi,” which in this case was a makeshift collection of scrapped Datsun parts that might as well have had a bumper sticker reading A UTOMOBILE INSPECTION? W HAT’S THAT?
    The security guard jumped out of the Humvee and knelt in front of the girl. Her hat shifted and she looked up, revealing her face.
    Yukari practically leapt out of the car. “Akane! What in the name—”
    Akane Miura’s eyes swam up to Yukari. “Well,” she croaked, “I’m here.”
    “I can see you’re here! But why?”
    “I thought…I thought I might become an astronaut.”
    “For real? But what about school?”
    “I dropped out. There’s no going back,” she said, her head slumping forward again.

[ACT 3]
     
    AFRAID THAT ASAHIKAWA would start endurance tests on the girl if they took her to the infirmary, Yukari decided instead to take Akane to her own room in the dormitory. Once Akane had lain down on the bed and drunk some water, the color returned to her cheeks and she seemed to recover a bit.
    “You still alive?” Yukari asked.
    “Mostly.” Akane slowly sat up.
    Yukari and Matsuri brought chairs up to the bedside and joined her. Yukari offered her some coconut milk with tapioca, but Akane didn’t seem interested.
    Her stomach’s still turning somersaults.
    “I have to admit, this is a complete surprise.”
    “I’m sorry. I thought that if I called, you might tell me not to come.”
    “No need to apologize. I’m really happy you’re here.”
    “Really?” Akane said.
    “Really. You’re