"My Lord, please come to the command room immediately."
Laojun’s voice echoed in Jin’s ears while he was relaxing at the Stearena residence.
With a hurried word of thanks to Stearena for the meal, Jin rushed to the command room in the laboratory basement. Reiko followed him in silence.
"What’s wrong? Did something happen?"
"The situation has become critical," Laojun replied.
"What!?"
"Satellite 001 is falling."
They were supposed to have deactivated the gravity magic, restored its inertia, and placed it into geostationary orbit. However, after several dozen minutes, the orbit had become impossible to maintain, and the satellite had finally begun its descent.
"What went wrong?"
"Since it's falling, the issue must be velocity. Based on the data obtained from Satellite 001 over the last fifteen minutes, it wasn't actually stationary."
"What?"
"The planet's rotation was faster than the satellite's movement. Satellite 001 was essentially left behind."
"Hmm..."
Jin fell into thought. A geostationary satellite is meant to remain stationary relative to the surface of the planet. He had confirmed in preliminary experiments that when inertia was restored, the object’s inherent velocity was also recovered.
If it took two hours from launch until it reached orbit, the direction of that velocity would shift by about thirty degrees, but he should have equipped it with a Magi Gravity Engine capable of correcting that.
But then...
"Ah, I see!"
Jin realized his mistake. The velocity it possessed while sitting on the planet's surface was nowhere near enough to maintain an orbit.
Without a speed of roughly eight kilometers per second, it couldn't stay in a stable satellite orbit.
Jin hurriedly gave instructions to Laojun.
"Laojun, use the Magi Gravity Engine to accelerate! If we accelerate at 1G for fifteen minutes, it should reach about eight kilometers per second."
"No, that's the problem..."
"What is it?"
"Satellite 001 is spinning."
It had reportedly begun to rotate at a speed that was impossible to manage with attitude control.
"Ah... did it need a gyroscope or something..."
Jin wasn't intimately familiar with the exact mechanics of artificial satellites. It was perhaps only natural for his first attempt to fail.
"...This is frustrating."
His expression shifted instantly, and Jin groaned with regret, his face twisted. Seeing this, Reiko made a suggestion to Laojun.
"Laojun, can we not intercept it with a Falcon or something similar?"
It was Jin, not Laojun, who answered her.
"No, Reiko, that's impossible. There’s no air in space, so the Magi Jet Engines won't work."
"I see..."
Seeing Jin’s dejected face, Reiko’s spirits also sank.
Laojun was the one to offer a solution to the two of them.
"My Lord, I have thought of one method worth trying."
"What is it?"
Because time was short, Laojun explained briefly.
"We will transfer an aircraft capable of atmospheric reentry and have it recover Satellite 001."
"But the falling speed is considerable. Can it be caught successfully?"
"That would be a gamble."
Jin hesitated. If it were an aircraft piloted by a golem, there would be no issue with it being in outer space. However, Jin could not predict what would happen during the actual atmospheric reentry.
If they could successfully capture Satellite 001, that would be one thing, but if they failed, they would likely lose the aircraft as well—along with the golem piloting it.
"Father, I will go in Pegasus 1."
"What!?"
"It is presumptuous of me to say so, but my reaction speed is the fastest. If we are to choose the method with the highest probability of success, I should be the one to go."
"But..."
"My Lord, there is no time for hesitation," Laojun interrupted. "It is accelerating by 9.8 meters per second with every passing second."
"I understand."
Jin made up his mind.
"Reiko, there’s no need for you to go. I won't have you facing such danger."
"Eh..."
"This failure was my mistake. I got too greedy all at once. I should have first built a vehicle equipped with a Magi Gravity Engine to gather data, then launched a normal artificial satellite to collect even more data before tackling a geostationary one. It was my own conceit that caused this."
"Father..."
Jin wore a lonely smile and stared at the ceiling. It was as if he were looking through the walls of the laboratory at Satellite 001 as it continued its terminal descent.
A dejected Jin left the laboratory and headed back toward the Stearena residence.
Watching Jin’s depressed departure, Laojun considered whether there were any other ways to recover the satellite.
"Is there truly no other way...?"
Although his imaginative powers were equal to or lesser than Jin's, Laojun far surpassed him in raw thinking speed and the ability to process multiple tasks simultaneously.
After roughly three minutes of calculations, he reached a conclusion. There was no other way. He could only make slight modifications to the previous plan.
Satellite 001's current altitude had dropped below 20,000 kilometers, and its speed was nearly 18 kilometers per second, increasing by the moment. Capturing it normally was already impossible.
They might have been able to recover it if they could set up a giant Warp Gate in its fall path, but they couldn't prepare something like that on such short notice.
Unless they reduced its speed first, there was nothing they could do.
"Using the small amount of ethenol remaining, we can achieve zero inertia for about three seconds. In that window, we must transfer a Falcon equipped with a transporter and then have it transfer Satellite 001 back to the ground."
With zero inertia, Satellite 001 would stop instantly. They would pinpoint its coordinates and send a Falcon to its immediate vicinity. Then, using the transporter, they would send Satellite 001 back. The Falcon would then undergo atmospheric reentry while deploying its barrier.
This was the conclusion Laojun reached. Since Satellite 001 was originally intended to act as a marker for transfers, pinpointing its position was easy.
And while the principle was unknown, transporters and Warp Gates resulted in a relative velocity of zero upon arrival, regardless of the inherent velocity at the time of sending. They would make use of this property.
Fortunately, Falcon 1, which had been equipped with a transporter to move the Stearena residence, was on standby.
Laojun consulted Reiko via the manacam. As expected, Reiko’s reaction speed was vital.
"Laojun, let's do it. For Father's sake."
Reiko agreed immediately and slipped out of the Stearena residence, making sure Jin didn't notice her. She then boarded Falcon 1, which was parked outside the laboratory.
Jin was currently inside the house reporting the failure to Stearena, so he remained unaware.
"Let us hurry, before it enters the stratosphere."
Reiko put Falcon 1’s transporter on standby, while Laojun prepared the transporter receiver set up outside the laboratory.
"Falcon 1 ready."
Then, Laojun shifted Satellite 001’s inertia to nearly zero.
With the slightest atmospheric resistance, Satellite 001 came to an instantaneous halt. Laojun immediately transferred Falcon 1.
With a delay of only 1.4 seconds, Falcon 1 was transferred into outer space. Reiko immediately aimed the transporter at Satellite 001. Time elapsed: a mere 0.7 seconds. Then, another 0.8 seconds passed until Reiko engaged the transporter switch and the transfer began.
In a total of 2.9 seconds, Satellite 001 was transferred.
An instant later, Satellite 001 appeared in front of the laboratory. Its inertia was restored simultaneously with the transfer, so there was no danger of it drifting.
"That takes care of Satellite 001. Now, it is up to Reiko."
From an altitude of approximately 13,000 kilometers, Falcon 1 began to fall.
The onboard Magi Jet Engines were not yet functional in the vacuum.
Reiko deployed Falcon 1’s barrier.
Atmospheric reentry would occur at roughly 100 kilometers. There were 27 minutes left until then.
"This would be an issue solved all at once if we could teleport ourselves..."
They had not yet finished analyzing the hints regarding teleportation magic provided previously by Arshel the Puppet.
"Reiko, please be safe."
At that moment, Jin came rushing into the command room.
"Laojun! Where is Reiko!?"
"My Lord, Reiko is..."
"Father, I am currently inside Falcon 1."
Reiko’s voice rang out from the manacam.
"Reiko! I told you to stop!"
"I am sorry, Father. But I did not want to see your face looking so downcast. Laojun felt the same way. So, after the two of us consulted, we carried out this operation."
"Reiko..."
Laojun added an explanation for the worried Jin.
"My Lord, Falcon 1 is also equipped with an escape Warp Gate, so Reiko can return through that in the event of an emergency."
"...Just because you say that doesn't mean I'll stop worrying. Reiko, come back safely. When you get back, I’m going to scold you."
"Yes, Father."
And then 25 minutes, 26 minutes, 27 minutes... finally, Falcon 1 entered the atmosphere.