GATE: A Sky Full of Fire - Episode 1

"If all of human history could be compressed into a single idiom, it would probably be "Playing with Fire." On the one hand, mankind has always prided itself in advancement through pushing boundaries, whether social, technological, or geographical. On the other, fire can and will eventually burn you. This was also the idiom running through Defense Secretary Clayton's mind as he sat on one of the Oval Office's couches and considered the request of the Japanese man sitting across from him. Japanese Minister of Defense Taro Kano was not smiling, a true rarity for a Japanese man conducting business. Robert Clayton could recall the polite grins and head-bobbing nods he would see whenever the Japanese came to talk to him directly. Even in the aftermath of the Hakone Incident, the Ambassador would speak of the case as if it was no worse than a glass of spilled milk. The same ambassador was sitting next to Kano now, and looked like he was about to be sick.

"President Dirrel sat at his desk at the other end of the room. The man had a grim smile on his face, and Clayton wondered if the President wasn't thinking back to the many loud arguments that had taken place in the Pentagon. The past several weeks had been a minimally publicized hell, but hell nonetheless. The National Security Advisor had been fired outright, and the directors of the CIA and DIA had both quietly handed in their resignations. The Secretary of State had almost resigned over the news as well, but had been encouraged to remain, at least for a few months, to keep up an air of normalcy in the administration. If Clayton hadn't been at a NATO summit during the whole incident, he reflected, his head might have joined the others on the chopping block. The American public knew little about the Hakone incident, the only noticeable change beyond the top-level personnel had been the unannounced and unpublicized addition of stars to the CIA memorial wall. A vague statement by a female JSDF member at a Ginza ceremony had gone largely unnoticed. Even so, the truth was that Japan now had America's President in just as troublesome a position as the President had once placed Prime Minister Motoi… and that was just the international scene. Dirrel had been forced to blow through an immense amount of political capital to get the Senate and House minority leaders to keep quiet, and the concessions involved had sealed the fact that he would *not* be running for reelection."

"She turned to point back at the pad, and that was when she saw the other group approaching them. The first member was Jake, also from PR, and who was supposed to be out on vacation. The second was a man in his mid-fifties with thinning hair and sporting the dark navy service dress of an Air Force officer. The third was her boss's boss, NASA Administrator Kosinski. Her first thought was that the officer and administrator were also on a tour—a sizeable chunk of Atlas V launches were for the National Reconnaissance Office, after all—but as she started into her explanation of the launch pad's new crew access arm, she saw the administrator give her a small wave and gesture for her to follow."

"There you have it, America's best rocket… at least, according to ULA. "The Atlas V booster, that's the orange part there, is just under a hundred-fifty feet, half the length of a football field. That white part at the top, the fairing, can be up to another fifty feet long, but we're using a slightly shorter one for Thursday's launch."

"So, if astronauts were flying on this rocket, they'd go at the top, up there," Carol said, pointing. "In fact, Boeing plans to start flying people on Atlas V in a few years, and they'll all be launching from the pad behind us. If you look back over there…"

"Only what they put on CNN, I missed the live broadcast of those girls they brought to Japan a few weeks back, but I watched a shorter version of it later. Aside from that, there was some special that aired last week on NHK and was translated for 60 Minutes where they showed some of the stuff on the other side… I wasn't really paying attention because I was prepping for a conference on GOES-R... Why?"

"I heard a lot about you on the way here. That Venus probe—Akatsuki, I think it was? Really impressive work."

"Again, this is classified. Japan has two major problems that they're dealing with in the SR right now. The first is that there's a civil war occurring within the nation that attacked Japan last year. They know that it's only a matter of time before Japan becomes involved, and they want to start gathering weather and topography data so that they can plan and coordinate attacks better."

"Yes, but that leads us to the second problem. The JSDF has also encountered some really nasty stuff like that Fire Dragon they talked about at the Diet meeting. They also keep getting reconnaissance reports of other tribes and kingdoms beyond the one that they're currently interacting with. Japan would rather start doing long-distance recon to gather useful information now than be caught with their pants down later."

"I take it that you understand the gravity of what you're asking us to do. I would hope that General Hazama does too, considering the contents of this dossier."

"--IF the threat is real. If it isn't, then we would look pretty stupid, if word of this ever gets out. Understand, Mr. Kano, that we are already on thin ice over Hakone."

"The suggested measure would make Hakone look like a joke in comparison."

"We believe the report assembled by First Lieutenant Yanagida to be accurate. "If the threat is as real as Lieutenant Youji makes it out to be, then this is the first time that the JSDF have encountered something that we don't have a home-made response for."

"Aside from full, unrestricted military access to the Special Region, We are deeply sorry, Mr. President, but that is still off the table."

"We recognize that this is a difficult decision, but surely you must see the long-term dangers posed to us, and potentially, the whole world. What can we offer?"

"It's fine, I wanted to introduce you to Colonel Richard Mullan, from the 94th Missile Wing."

"Yeah, that was my reaction."

"Outside of the military stuff, this is an excellent opportunity to gather data on a bona-fide habitable exoplanet. After all, the world beyond the Gate is just that, its own world with its own physics and orbital dynamics. What we discover there might speed up our own exoplanet searches here with the Kepler and Webb telescopes by giving us a better idea of what we should be looking for."

"So, for this one, where do the astronauts go?"

"Look mom, it's a real, REAL rocket!"