A Ticket to Space
"Space?"
"Yep!"
Lee Ha-neul's eyes were dead serious.
She pointed to the tip of the ballistic missile.
A slight protrusion on the straight, cylindrical body caught my eye.
"It even has a cockpit!"
"So it's one of those coffin-types..."
In the early days of the war, humanity had rained down ballistic missiles, but after two years, they became a precious, scarce resource. The production facilities had been blown to pieces. Because of this, strategies were developed to maximize the efficiency of every single missile.
The goal was to target the production and supply facilities run by the Machine Species.
However, ballistic missiles stripped of their guidance computers couldn't make micro-adjustments. For humanity, which was overwhelmingly disadvantaged in the information war, hitting those targets was a pipe dream.
To overcome this hurdle, engineers from old Japan created a ballistic missile equipped with a cockpit. Its official name was the Kamikaze MK-2, but everyone commonly referred to it as the "Coffin."
I had heard it was never actually deployed.
Even though we were modifying humans and grinding lives to fight this war, there was a strong consensus that we had to maintain a baseline of morality and humanity. There was a massive psychological difference between a soldier walking into a battlefield where death was certain, and strapping someone to a missile and launching them.
Though rumors persisted that during the test-launch phase, a missile pilot pulled a U-turn, leading to the project's cancellation...
"Ballistic missiles are designed to go up into space and then come back down to Earth anyway. It's exactly like a rocket-powered spaceship! You go to space, and then you return to Earth!"
But ballistic missiles land cockpit-first...
"Oh, and this isn't as inhumane of a weapon as you'd think. Look at this!"
Lee Ha-neul climbed up the ladder, reached the top of the ballistic missile, and popped open the cockpit hatch.
A red ejection direction indicator was engraved above the seat.
"It even has an ejection seat! You can escape right before impact! If we use this, couldn't we go to space and then eject before we crash?"
Even if there was an ejection system, the place where you'd leisurely drift down with a parachute would be the exact spot where the missile you were just riding had detonated.
If you were lucky, you'd drift down through a mushroom cloud. If you were unlucky, you'd land right on top of the surviving Machine Species.
"...So, what do you want me to do? I know nothing about missiles. Even less about rockets. And I definitely don't know how to pilot one. If you're looking for a pilot, look elsewhere."
"What are you talking about? Of course I'm going to be the pilot. Did you think I'd let anyone else have the seat?"
Lee Ha-neul glared at me defensively, her eyes flaring.
"Besides, the favor I want to ask of you isn't here."
Then why did you show me the ballistic missile in the first place?
"Because I wanted to show off."
We got back into the car and drove deeper into the ruins of the city.
Lee Ha-neul's electric car came to a stop between collapsed buildings.
Walking into an alleyway, we found a deactivated Machine Species slumped between two buildings.
It was an early model of the eight-legged multi-legged tank.
Somehow, it had been flipped onto its side, with a gaping hole blasted through the bottom of its chassis.
"Did they flip it over and target the underbelly where the armor is thinner? Sounds easy, but how did they manage to flip it? Early models had so many legs that their stability was terrifying..."
I see friction marks from steel cables on the opposite legs. It looks like they tied it with ropes and pulled it over.
It seemed they had tied a cable to one side and pulled to flip it over.
They must have used heavy machinery.
In the early days of the war, people did all sorts of crazy things to take down those tanks.
"Hey, don't just stand there staring. Give me a hand with this, will you?"
"Did you kill it?"
"No. I just found it."
Lee Ha-neul was already prying off the tank's armor plates with a crowbar.
"Are you going to sell them?"
Machine armor plates fetched a hefty price. They were harder than any metal you could find in Maetan, durable enough to withstand a direct hit from a rocket launcher.
However, the armor of the machine in front of us wasn't in great shape. It had been left exposed for too long, and even the internal frame was rusted through.
"No. I'm going to use this to make the outer hull of my rocket."
The Wardenclyffe system, deployed to strip the Machine Species of their wireless communications, had stripped humanity of just as much.
Not only had humans lost wireless communication forever, but they could also never gaze upon a blue sky again. The starlight that used to adorn the night sky could no longer pierce the nanomachines in the atmosphere, becoming nothing more than a lost memory.
And above all, it had become a prison trapping humanity on Earth.
The nanomachines of Wardenclyffe drifted through the atmosphere, generating their own power, a process that produced extreme heat and plasma.
If a missile or rocket entered this plasma zone, it couldn't withstand the intense heat and would simply go boom!
Spaceships were no exception.
This was another reason why humanity had abandoned ballistic missiles.
Because of this, the people who had gone to space in the early days of the war were stranded, never to return to Earth.
I wonder if they're doing alright up there.
"Machine armor is highly heat-resistant, so it should be able to break through the plasma zone."
Theoretically, it's not impossible.
However, passing through the plasma shielding layer in the upper atmosphere generates temperatures of about 7,000 to 9,000 Kelvin on the outer surface. To withstand this, even with Machine Species armor, you'd need a thermal shield structure at least 200mm thick.
If you apply that to the entire warhead, the mass will increase by an average of 1.8 times, and up to 2.3 times for certain structural parts.
Assuming a propellant efficiency of ISP 270 seconds, the amount of fuel required to launch to the same altitude would be at least 2.4 times higher... You'd have to redesign the entire structure from scratch.
For starters, you'd probably need to secure additional ballistic missiles.
CC brought up a message window.
Perhaps she found the topic surprisingly interesting, as she analyzed it with rare precision, even throwing in actual numbers.
It seemed she wanted me to pass the information along to Lee Ha-neul, so I briefly summarized her points.
"It's going to get heavy."
"I'll just slap on more engines."
Right. Now that was human communication.
We made several trips back and forth between the factory and the fallen machine.
Even working through the night, there was only so much we could transport in Lee Ha-neul's tiny electric car.
Before I knew it, dawn was breaking.
Just as I was starting to worry about getting to work, Lee Ha-neul spoke up first.
"Let's head back. The car battery is about to die..."
She wiped the sweat from her forehead with a look of regret.
Her tank top was soaked through.
"Thanks. We managed to move quite a lot thanks to you. Doing it alone, even just prying off the armor is a nightmare."
"It's just business. But from now on, mixing fuel next to my house is strictly forbidden."
"Huh?"
Lee Ha-neul stared at me, her eyes wide.
What's with that look? Why now? It's making me uneasy.
She spoke.
"I never said this was a part-time job, though?"
What.
"I thought you were just helping out of goodwill, fueled by our shared military camaraderie."
Bzzt!
A blue light flickered across my prosthetic arm.
Lee Ha-neul cackled and tossed something from her pile of junk.
"Just kidding! Take this. You can get a pretty penny for it if you sell it to a pawnshop. Probably 500,000... maybe even a million?"
It was a complex bundle of machinery centered around a large camera lens.
"...Is this the eye of a Search-type Machine Species?"
"Bullseye. You won't find one in such pristine condition easily. Maetan would pay more, but you said they'd just seize your Maetan Points anyway. If you look around a few pawnshops, you'll find one that'll give you a fair price. But... it's true that the real job is separate."
I tossed the module into the back seat of the electric car and looked at her.
"I'm listening."
But I warned her with my eyes that my patience was already wearing thin.
Lee Ha-neul stroked the ballistic missile as she spoke.
"You said you're a Player, right? Find this guy's initial trajectory input program on the Internet."
"What is that?"
"This thing has had its computer stripped out. I can handle the mechanical side of things, but I have absolutely no data on how much thrust is needed to reach space, what the trajectory should be, or how much a flip maneuver will move it. But there's bound to be data on the Internet from when they were building these things. I need you to retrieve that."
Since she can't run launch tests, she wants you to get the data obtained from previous tests.
As I placed a hand on my head, concentrating to parse the meaning of Lee Ha-neul's words, CC neatly summarized it for me.
"Then it's classified military data... It won't be easy to get."
"We have plenty of time. It's going to take a while to finish building this anyway... Just wait for the right opportunity and grab it when you can."
We might find it if we access a military base or the creators of the Hyunmoo. If all else fails, just find a launch site on the Internet. I can hack the rest.
CC had been strangely enthusiastic ever since she saw the ballistic missile.
Was it because of her past experience launching missiles back in the day?
"Why didn't you dive in and find it yourself? You would've gotten much more accurate information."
"I tried to get a Player License, but I failed. I couldn't pass the Aptitude Test... Seriously, what is up with that test? It's literally designed to recruit Maetan's obedient little dogs."
Grrr... Woof! Woof!
"You could have just lied on the answers. Compared to the ideological indoctrination we went through, shouldn't that test have been a joke?"
"I couldn't bring myself to write down that I'd obey, even as a lie. My life of taking orders from others ended the moment I was discharged."
Lee Ha-neul took off her gloves and swept back her stray bangs.
The sweat on her forehead glistened under the LED lights.
"So, what do you say? Will you do it?"
I stared at the ballistic missile.
I didn't appreciate her trying to trick me multiple times, but there was no reason to refuse. It would protect my house, too.
More than that, I suspected this had been her plan all along.
Spending the whole day chasing her dream, seeing the physical manifestation of that dream with my own eyes, and then finally being asked to help achieve it.
Her intention to pull me into her dream was glaringly obvious.
"Fine. I'll look for it."
"Awesome!"
"But I expect separate payment."
Anything involving military intelligence was highly dangerous. Even for the Royal Canin, the police had swarmed us.
This time, I might actually have to infiltrate a military base.
It was practically diving straight into the belly of the Machine Species.
Lee Ha-neul spoke.
"Payment, huh... I'd love to give you money, but as you can see, I have a lot of expenses myself..."
Lee Ha-neul slipped off her heavy work jacket.
Revealing her upper body clad only in a tank top, her left prosthetic arm was visibly thicker than her right arm. It was because there were no female-sized models available.
"I'd prefer it if it were something I could pay off with my body."
(>_<) Oh my goodness, oh my goodness, oh my goodness!
She stepped closer and grabbed my left hand.
She whispered directly into my ear, as if sharing a deep secret.
"I'll upgrade your prosthetic arm."
"My prosthetic arm?"
"Yep."
Lee Ha-neul raised her own left prosthetic arm.
Snikt!
A razor-sharp dagger slid out from beneath her wrist.
It was a standard-issue military combat knife.
Wow.
"How's that? I've been told I'm quite the expert at this."
Even during the war, there were plenty of guys who customized their prosthetic arms.
But for most, it was just a hobby. Prosthetic arms were consumables anyway, and complex modifications usually just compromised their durability.
"I'm not interested. Punching someone is far more effective than stabbing them with a dagger."
"True. In that case..."
She retracted the dagger, then flicked her arm, folding only her middle and ring fingers.
Clack.
The underside of her prosthetic arm slid open, and a gun barrel popped out.
"How about this?"
"I'm in."
Eh?!