Chapter 9: Recovery Team, Above the Deccan Plateau

Chapter 9:
Recovery Team,
Above the Deccan Plateau

 

THE CARGO PLANE entered a holding pattern over the site where Super Eva had disappeared.

The pilots switched the N2 reactors to standby and directed the planes’ complex sensors below, but Misato knew they would find nothing.

Q.R. Signum dislocation left no traces detectable by current methods.

As the retinue debated what to do next, the red giant, Crimson A1—who’d been pacing the ground where Super Eva had vanished—suddenly leaped into the sky and resumed her previous route.

“It looks like Asuka has realized that Shinji and Unit One are gone,” Misato said, “and that they’re not coming back.”

She didn’t have concrete proof, but no one offered a counterargument.

“Let’s go, too.”

There was nothing left to be done here.

Word had spread among the crew that communications with Tokyo-3 had been lost, and everyone was anxious to get back. Now that Asuka-Eva was no longer saddled with a flight partner, she took off at incredible speed. Likewise, the cargo plane had no further reason to fly slowly. Its massive array of half-lowered flaps rose back in line with the wings, and it picked up altitude and speed.