Thankfully, that ended the speeches and the band started up. I didn’t even bother to ask how they got Radworld to perform. I’ve taken quite a liking to music since it allows me to relax as I pour through innumerable reports. Radworld is another band I like, but not nearly as much as I love Essence. They start off with the song I love most by them, ‘Get what you deserve.’

I waste little time dragging Chinatsu and Ryu out to the middle of the dance floor. I‘m happy to see our sisters and their boyfriends join us. Right after them, Jenny and Mark join our little group. It takes some of the guests gulping down several what I assume are rather strong drinks to slowly begin filtering onto the floor to dance. By the end of the third song, the floor is packed with laughing and smiling people.

Several songs later, I’m hot and need a break to cool off. The three of us thread our way back to our table, and while Chinatsu and I sit down, Ryu makes his way over to the bar to get us something cool to drink.

After I’ve rested for a while, people begin coming by to ask me to dance, which I accept. Several of them try to use it as a means to talk about work, and I immediately shut that down. I really wasn’t trying to be rude, but tonight is about me and having fun, not work. Work can wait until tomorrow. We continue dancing, talking, giggling and generally having a wonderful night, until finally, Mama comes to collect me and takes me to the table where my cake is.

Last year, Dad gave my birthday toast, this year, it seems Mama’s going to do it since she taps her glass and loudly asks, “May I have your attention please?” When it quietens down, she looks around and asks, “Does everyone have a drink?”

She waits for a few minutes and then continues, “Hello, I’m Sora’s Mama, Haruka Kobayashi. I’ll try to keep this short, but I would like to say a few words before I lead the toast to Sora.

“It’s been less than two years since Sora joined our family, and so much has happened in that short amount of time. I seriously thought she was going to give me a nervous breakdown from how much she worried me at first. I still worry, but then again, what Mama doesn’t worry about her child? Though, not for the same reasons. She’s grown to be such a lovely and elegant young lady. She’s far too smart for her own good at times, headstrong, perceptive to the point it can be scary, and so very driven, but no one could ask for a more loyal, loving daughter.”

I reach over to hold her hand. She looks down at me and smiles. “If someone offered to take the worry, hurt and pain away from me, but in return you’d no longer be my daughter, I’d instantly refuse. I can’t imagine a life without you in it. I can take everything else, but losing you as my daughter? That I would never survive. You’ve grown to be an extremely beautiful young lady, but that pales in comparison to how beautiful your soul is.

“Your Dad has always told me, ‘There's beauty in life's struggles.’ I never understood what those words meant, until you came into our life. You've struggled with so many things all your life and somehow came out of it all even stronger, even when the odds were stacked against you. When life knocked you down, you always stood right back up, ready to fight on. There's true beauty in everything you do.

“Sora, the road you've chosen is a challenging one, but you've persevered and in most cases triumphed, regardless of the obstacles in your path or how unattainable it might seem to be. You’re a shining example of what it means to be brave and resolute. You've proven all the naysayers wrong time and time again. What’s more is that you did it so gracefully that you made it seem easy, even though everyone knows that it wasn’t. You should be very proud of yourself. I know I am. Everyone here feels the same way as well. With you leading us along that path that only you seem to be able to see, humanity has a bright future. You, my darling daughter, amaze me, and I love you.”

She raises her glass and says, “Happy birthday, Sora! May you always see in yourself what we see in you.

“Kanpai!”

You know me, even as I’m smiling, tears are streaming down my cheeks. I touch glasses with her and Dad, then take a sip. Setting it down, I don’t even care that we’re surrounded by people as I bury my face between her breasts and hug her. It takes me several minutes to calm down, but when I have, I release her. Mama and I then serve cake to our guests.

After we eat, it’s time to open presents. First up is one from Jenny. Carefully unwrapping it, I see it’s a leather bound folder.

Jenny gestures to it and says, “Go on, open it.”

Inside, I find a large paper, and the further I read, the wider my eyes become.

Mama asks from behind me, “What is it Sora?”

Looking back over my shoulder, I haltingly reply, “I-its from them. The coalition, I mean. It's a treaty guaranteeing my safety in any signatory country. Every single member signed it.” I hug the folder to my chest as I look around smiling with tears in my eyes and finally settle back on Jenny. “I have no idea what to say.”

She’s smiling like the Cheshire cat as she says, “There’s nothing to say, my little princess.” She gestures to everyone. “We know your travel has been heavily restricted due to security concerns, but we want you to be able to see the world you are working to save. The 73 signatories have agreed to go to war with anyone who threatens your safety or freedom.”

Wonderingly, I murmur, “I can travel. I never thought...” Tears again begin streaming down my face as I cover my mouth with my hand to stifle my sobs.

Jenny holds me close, rubs my back and quietly says, “There’s no need to cry. Everything’s fine.”

Mama tells her, “That’s not it, Jenny. Sora isn’t upset. She cries when she’s happy, too. You’ve overwhelmed her, that’s all.”

Once I’ve calmed down, and believe me, this time it takes quite a while, we continue opening presents. Many of them are vouchers to visit places in various coalition countries. I also received an invitation to visit Buckingham Palace to meet King George VII and Queen Anne.

There's lots of jewelry, much of it I will probably never wear, especially since many of them are rings. The only ring I wear and probably ever will is my engagement and wedding band. Several gorgeous watches that I couldn’t even begin to put a price on. I might wear them, but that would also mean that Dad would have to modify them before I could. Many different hair clips, pins and jeweled bows, which you can bet I will be using. Several bracelets and bangles, which I'll also wear, with the right outfit, that is.

My second favorite thing I was given was from Mark. It’s the 1st edition of ‘A Brief History of Time,’ signed by Steven Hawking. That got him a hug and kiss on the cheek.

I’m not going to relate everything I received, but I’m sure you get the gist of it. A couple of hours later, the night ended. We make our way home and then help each other undress. Gratefully, I crawl into bed, pull the covers up and moments after my head hits the pillow, I’m asleep. I don’t even stir when Ryu and Chinatsu crawl into bed on either side of me and cuddle.

[Wednesday, October 1]

Erica, Katsuo and I were on site at the Tanegashima Space Center when Helios intercepted 19355 at 0926 UTC. It took 12 minutes after his arrival for us to find out that he intercepted it safely. Not surprising since he’s slightly more than 220 million kilometers away from us. I’ll be grateful when Enrico figures out a workable long distance QC device.

A few minutes later, he took up a close orbit around it. Then he deployed several tons of nanites to begin extracting the metals necessary to make the grade 5 titanium alloy that will be used as the materials to tow the asteroid back into geosynchronous orbit. According to Hestia’s calculations, the nanites should take between 78 and 92 hours to extract the amounts necessary.

Once they have them, they then fuse the alloy into hundreds of very deep anchors around the asteroid, then begin extruding more from the anchors to make the cables needed to secure it to the Captis. Simplistic, I know, but simpler is better when it comes to things like this since there is much less that’s even possible to go wrong. He estimates that it will take approximately twelve to seventeen days to complete everything.

Getting it back here is going to take longer than it did to get to 19355 since Helios will be keeping his thrust down to levels that won’t stress the anchors and cabling. Even so, Metis calculates he will enter geosynchronous orbit with it in mid-January 2060. Then there’s jockeying it around to get it into position. Metis and Athena agree that could take as much as an additional two to five weeks. One needs to be extremely careful here because one slip up and it could hit Earth, causing massive amounts of damage.

This is also the time when we'll be going public with the space elevator project. We don't have a choice. There'd be no way to hide a fairly high albedo object of its size in orbit.

[Friday, October 3]

Mirai calls me first thing this morning as I’m dressing to go into DTI.

“Good morning, Mirai.”

“Good Morning, Sora. I called because I have some good news and some not so good news. The good news: the first million doses of the fertility treatment are ready. The not so good news: there are far more orders than doses, and I don’t want customers thinking that we’re snubbing them in preference of another.”

“There's a simple solution. Base the shipments going by their total order and percentage of the world's population. Everyone gets some that way. Mirai, I wouldn't fret about it all that much. According to what Mr. Anno told me, the new nanite production facilities will be online soon, and that should help reduce the backlog.”

“Alright. I wish he’d told me as well... Oh, before I forget again. Dakota finished monkey testing. The nanites again performed as designed with no side effect. Although we had to replace their cages with much stronger ones. They kept tearing the doors off. Anyway, I've sent in the request for human testing.”

I laugh for a moment at the picture that formed of that in my mind, even though super strong monkeys running around loose wouldn’t be funny in the least. “That's great to hear. I'm sure the military is jumping for joy.”

I can almost see her rolling her eyes by the tone of her voice when she replies, “Far from it. The liaison was angry that we didn’t tell him we’d moved on to testing on monkeys.”

I stop trying to put on a stocking. “Tell him that I said that his overblown ego isn’t going to dictate the speed at which we proceed with this and you aren’t there to hold his hand during the whole process. Explain, again, that we want these finished as quickly as possible too, but this is virgin territory, and we have to be sure that the nanites perform as designed, or we will see a lot of dead and/or maimed people. You can further tell that man that if he has a problem with anything I just said that he can make an appointment with Akari to talk to me. I guarantee that when I drag Prime Minister Koya into this, none of them are going to be happy.”

She chuckles for a few moments. “God, I love working for you, Sora.”

Honestly, it’s more like I love having her work with me since she makes my life so much easier. Can you imagine all of the additional workload I would have to shoulder? Yeah, no thank you, I’d much rather not.

“You mean with me... Mirai, have Hestia start contacting and hiring the people on the list she approved to help Dakota with the next project. Dakota’s assistant project manager is to take over, but still report to her, when human trials begin. I’d like her new team to begin work on reverse engineering my nanites. Hestia has the programming code for them as well as what she needs to actually produce the nanites.”

“Of course. Umm, Sora, why are there only females on this list?”

“It’s a necessary precaution. Mirai, I can’t stress enough just how dangerous these nanites can be. They won’t harm females, but any male over the age of sixteen that comes into contact with them would die. Therefore, no male is ever to be allowed inside that lab, period. In fact, move her labs to sublevel 7 since it’s still empty. Also, give Hiro orders that males are not allowed past the elevator lobby on that sublevel, and he is authorized to use any amount of force necessary to stop them from going further.”

“Sora, there’s a lot you aren’t telling me.”

“That’s true, but these nanites have been classified at the highest levels by the Diet, so I can only tell you so much. Some of what I did tell you, I shouldn’t have… If that’s all, I need to finish getting dressed so that I can eat. I’m starving as well as running late.”

　◇ ◆ ◇ ◆ ◇ ◆ ◇

As I’m walking by her office, Erica calls out to me, “Sora, do you have a moment?”

Stepping inside, I reply, “Sure, what’s up?” as I take a seat.

“Nothing bad, I promise. I was contacted this morning by the space elevator nanite production manager. They’ve finished producing the nanites to build the foundation on Suwanosejima.”

The news makes me smile. “They’re well ahead of schedule. I’m not complaining, mind you, since Captis is ahead of schedule as well. Alright, would you please contact Colonel Dubois and arrange for them to be picked up? I’d like to deploy them ASAP. Metis’s calculations are usually correct, but you never know when we might run into something that might delay us.”

“Sorry, but who’s Colonel Dubois again?”

“He’s new, so it’s no surprise you don’t know him. He’s our liaison to the newly formed Coalition Airlift Command. You should have a memo about his appointment in your email. Erica, I will be leaving for Washington DC on Monday, and I’ll be gone for two or three days, I’m not sure which it will be.”

“No problem. I’m sure I can hold things together for a few days.”

I stand up as I say, “Thanks. Well, I have a few things to do, so I’ll see you later.”