As I approach Yukikaze I am stopped by a safety control officer. I ask him to tell Major Booker that I’m here. He refuses. I raise my arm and wave broadly at Yukikaze. The major recognizes me. He must know what I look like or else has deduced who I am; in my fur coat I must stand out in the swarm of colorful uniform shirts. Slipping off his oxygen mask and raising his helmet visor, he climbs down Yukikaze’s ladder and steps onto the flight deck. The pilot stays in the cockpit, presumably to see to the plane, but I catch a glance of an air force-issue automatic pistol in his hand: he’s protecting the safety of his plane and of the major.
The soldiers of Boomerang Squadron trust only each other and their planes. If they didn’t, they couldn’t survive on Faery.
“You’re Lynn Jackson?” says Major Booker, propping his helmet under his arm. “Why’re you here?”
“I came to gather material on Earth’s response to the FAF’s message,” I reply. “But I never dreamed I’d get to see you here. Or that I would witness a battle with the JAM. It’s an honor to meet you.”
I offer him my hand. It’s enveloped by his large, strong one.
“The JAM are tough. That one got through by sticking to Yukikaze’s belly like a remora. Never expected it. I’m Major Booker, by the way.”
“Yes, I know. I received your letter.”
“So it did get through to you. Didn’t think you’d read it... Anyway, there’s no place to get coffee around here, is there?”
“I’m afraid not. I doubt they’d let you into the ship.”
“Huh. We’re ghosts here. Yukikaze, too.”
Major Booker regards me with a bit of awkwardness and embarrassment. He speaks with a slight British accent, but the language is that of the FAF. It’s essentially English, but stripped of adjectives and any extraneous words. What can be omitted is omitted, detail sacrificed for brevity. It’s logical, but impersonal. Listening to it is like hearing a machine speak.
I speak to the major slowly, as though reciting a poem, as though I were a professor trying to teach her student how to speak proper English.
“You brought down that JAM magnificently, Major Booker. Admiral 56’s weaponry couldn’t defend against that. If it hadn’t been for Yukikaze...”
“If it hadn’t been for Yukikaze, I doubt the JAM would’ve targeted the ship. But she’s a good plane. And he’s a good man.”
Major Booker glances back toward Yukikaze’s pilot.
“I don’t suppose I could interview him, could I?”
“I can guess what his response would be. You better ask me your questions instead.”
“Was your mission here successful?”
“No engine trouble. The new Phoenix worked better than we expected.”
“And your confrontation with the JAM?”
“The JAM weren’t after Yukikaze. So no problem. Or that’s what Rei — what the pilot would say, I’ll bet. But... I had the sensation that we weren’t going to make it.”
“Sensation...?”
“Seems the EDF objected to Yukikaze’s test — ” Major Booker halts his rapid-fire speech and looks at me with a start. “Did I just say ‘sensation’?”
“Is something wrong with that?”
“It’s just so... nostalgic.” As though finally remembering his mother tongue, he now speaks in a more normal cadence.
“I haven’t been home in over five years. Being in the FAF is changing even the way I speak, and I never really noticed... It’s unsettling. I really am on Earth now...”
I put my micro recorder away in my bag and smile at him.
“The FAF is what protects Earth. You people. No one could blame you for the JAM attack that just occurred. At least any reasonable citizen of Earth couldn’t.”
“A ‘citizen of Earth,’ huh? And where would you find such a person?”
“They’re me and others who think the way I do, Major.”
“That was one of the things you said in your book. Which soldiers in the FAF are reading.”
“With greater enthusiasm than people on Earth?”
“Yes. We can believe the contents more than anyone. It’s the work of a first-class journalist. Are you freelance?”
“I was a reporter for a newspaper when I wrote it. After the book’s success I grew dissatisfied with my salary, my bosses, and my company. I thought I was worth more. I wanted to do something big, and — Are you cold?” An almost imperceptible shiver has passed through the major’s tall frame.
“I can smell the sea... It’s full of life, full of the smell of life. The smell of blood. The lifeblood of the Earth. There are seas on Faery, but they’re lighter and... they smell sharp. Or thin, somehow... Dammit, I can’t find the words. Thanks to the JAM, even my feelings have become dulled.”
“Faery truly must be a place where the air carries the scent of battle spirits, not of humans. Of the mechanical, not of the organic.”
“You’re right. Humans and machines there are converging, and it scares the hell out of me.”
“And you think there’s no such thing as a common human identity on Earth?”
“Yeah. Take this carrier, for instance. It’s part of a U.N. force, but its purpose — the reason it was built — is to kill people in other countries, right? How is that an Earth military?”
“I’m in the minority, Major, but I do believe that there are many people like me who believe in a common humanity.”
“Then where are they? Why hasn’t there been any move to establish an Earth-wide federation?”
I shrug apologetically. There are so many reasons I don’t know what to say. The major tilts his head to the side, the skepticism on his face plain to see.
“I believe that the FAF is also part of that common humanity,” I tell him.
Major Booker regards me silently for a bit, then suddenly turns away and looks back at Yukikaze.
“Yeah, you could say that,” he replies, “if only because we’re fighting to save Earth. And it’s a nice idea, but... you don’t know the JAM, what it takes to fight them. The FAF’s chief strength isn’t our people: it’s our mechatronics, like Yukikaze. The battle spirits... Maybe that’s the real humanity. But then, where does that leave us?”
I look into the major’s anguished eyes and words fail me. Once again, the thought floats up in my mind: in this world, in this universe, perhaps humans really are a singular life-form. Major Booker had written in his letter that the JAM were more like computers than humans. If we had no computers, perhaps the JAM never would have attacked us.
I’m jerked out of my thoughts by Yukikaze’s pilot, Lieutenant Rei Fukai, yelling “Shit! No, not like that!” He’s quickly barking instructions in the FAF argot to the deckhands from his own country, but they can’t follow his digital, machinelike speech. Major Booker had written that to survive in the FAF one needs to become like a machine in every way. When I had read this, I thought it was mere rhetoric, words of no great import calculated to get my attention. But having met him in person, and now hearing how Lieutenant Fukai is unable to communicate with his own people, I realize that it’s true. It’s as if Yukikaze’s pilot has forgotten his mother tongue. It couldn’t be that hard for him to use, could it? Or perhaps he’s afraid of becoming human again...
“Yukikaze is the only thing he has faith in. He can’t stand to see her even get scratched. In his own way, he’s trying to speak for her and protect her.”
The weather is shifting, and the seas steadily have been growing rougher. However, stabilizers dampen the movement of the massive ship so that the flight deck barely shifts. I look out over the frigid waters and ask Major Booker the one question I desperately want answered.
“What do you think the JAM really are?”
The major’s cheek, which bears the scar of a terrible gash, twitches slightly. “I don’t know what they are,” he answers and falls silent. Just when I think he’s not going to say anything more, he continues.
“But I know what I want them to be. Humanity’s en
emy.” He gives me a sharp look. “Do you think that’s crazy? But if the JAM aren’t our enemy, then the men and women in the FAF are dying for nothing. And that would be truly unforgivable.”
“What if the war became completely automated?”
“The moment we give the fight over to the machines is when we start running the risk that they’ll challenge humanity. Actually, don’t you think they’re already doing that here on Earth? Computers keep getting more and more advanced. We’ve developed AIs that possess consciousness. They wouldn’t have to kill humans directly. All they’d have to do is make our automated control systems go haywire. What could we do if this carrier started moving of its own free will?”
YUKIKAZE’S REFUELING IS complete. Admiral Nagumo wants the Sylph off his ship as soon as possible, seeming to regard it as an ill omen, as an angel of death. And so, without even so much as a cup of coffee from their hosts, the soldiers of the FAF depart from Admiral 56.
“Be careful, Ms. Jackson,” Major Booker warns me as he climbs into Yukikaze’s cockpit. “Keep an eye on the computerized systems that surround you. The JAM may already be in control of them.”
Yukikaze’s canopy lowers and locks. I return to the bridge and watch as the fighter is locked to the catapult and then hurled into the Antarctic sky. The afterburner flames of the Phoenix Mk-XI engines glow as the plane climbs quickly. It turns, its wingtips etching white vapor trails in the sky. It makes another wide turn, accelerates, and then, as if menacing Admiral 56, practically scrapes the top of the bridge as it flies over us at supersonic speed. There’s a terrific boom and the ship’s superstructure shakes, as though it’s been hit by lightning. Admiral Nagumo sees Yukikaze off with a flurry of profanity.
The Sylph’s silhouette shrinks for a few seconds, and then vanishes from view. Silence returns. In barely fifteen minutes, it is gone from the radar display as well. They’ve returned. To the skies of Faery. To battle.
Perhaps what I had witnessed really was a spirit of the air. If so, what enormous size it had, what awful power it bore.
I take out my favorite notebook and pen from my bag. I begin writing down what Major Booker had said, intermittently looking out at the sea. I wish I’d brought a portable wordcom with me... and then I suddenly remember Major Booker’s warning and shake my head.
If I had written this on a wordcom, the contents probably would have been changed.
VIII
SUPER PHOENIX
The JAM had never attacked humans directly. Yet when they changed their strategy, Yukikaze did not protect him. In that moment he knew the truth. She was a weapon, but one that defended neither him nor humanity. She abandoned her burning body and rose from the flames like a phoenix, reborn and free.
MAJOR BOOKER WAS analyzing the recent state of the JAM’s tactical weaponry development in comparison to the FAF’s, desperately searching for a weakness.
The FAF Systems Corps’ Technology Development Center had been putting in strenuous efforts to create effective counters to the JAM’s various assault aircraft and armaments. For decades now, both sides had been locked in a game of technological one-upmanship, but recently the pace had escalated rapidly.
When the JAM threw high mobility fighters at their defensive lines, the FAF deployed new light fighters with high thrust-to-weight ratios. When the JAM developed advanced electronic countermeasures, the FAF created more advanced electronic counter-countermeasures. The JAM responded to that with even more advanced ECCCM, which the FAF then managed to crack using high-powered radar. The power output of this radar was unimaginable, a frightening correction to the common assumption that radar waves didn’t really affect humans. Even at two to three kilometers away, an unprotected person would be in danger. At close range exposure would be like being thrown into a gigantic microwave oven.
Missiles were countered with high-velocity missiles, which were countered by hyper-velocity missiles, which were in turn countered with laser guns, and the lasers guns with baryon guns. As the FAF worked to neutralize the JAM’s weapons, in order to keep their own from being neutralized as well, they had to develop ones that not only met that same level of technological achievement but surpassed it. Obsolescence was simply a matter of time, and the periods they had before their weapons became obsolete were getting steadily shorter.
As Major Booker compared the data from each side he noticed something strange. Although it required a significant amount of time to develop and perfect such advanced technology, the FAF and the JAM seemed to be doing so at roughly the same rate. Depending on the situation, one side may have achieved overwhelming dominance for a few weeks using a new device, but countermeasures would soon appear and the war would grind back to a stalemate again. The main issue was that neither side could give concrete form to new tactical theories in only a few weeks. No matter how far in advance the JAM or the FAF could plan something that would utterly crush their opponent, by the time it was ready for use, it would already be obsolete.
Sometimes it seemed to Booker that the war was nothing more than a practical test of weapons development, with the planet Faery as the test lab. Or maybe the JAM were just matching their countermeasures to the FAF’s level of technology. If that was the case, they were being toyed with. Toyed with by aliens whose true nature was unknown.
There weren’t many people at the FAF’s Technology Development Center these days. A supercomputer sat in a refrigerated room, keeping its head cool as it endlessly analyzed JAM tactics. The analysis data it generated was sent to a development computer equipped with an artificial intelligence that would then propose potential countermeasures. Among these proposals were things a human wouldn’t have thought of, as well as some that were completely novel but also largely incomprehensible and impossible to execute given the current level of technology. An example was a proposal for a transdimensional bomb. The computer had been deadly serious, predicting the JAM would eventually develop one and advising the FAF to implement countermeasures accordingly.
The development computer would pass on its ideas to a lower-level practical implementation computer that would devise plans for the new weapon to be manufactured at the development center. With computer aid, of course. This entire development process wasn’t so much computer-aided as it was computer-driven. New fighter planes were designed based on new tactical theories. Materials were chosen, and new ones created if necessary. Load strengths were calculated, wing shapes determined, and the onboard armament systems were developed all simultaneously. The new fighters had to be utilized according to the new tactical theories they were based on, and so the pilots couldn’t simply fly them according to their own judgment. It wasn’t necessary for the pilots to think at all.
The days of a pilot taking into consideration a plane’s unique qualities and using his creativity and imagination to fly in the way best suited to take advantage of them were long past. The system created the tactics as well as the planes. No matter which pilot flew it, the plane would deliver the same performance. The best pilots for these new fighters were the ones who could quickly adapt to the machines without any questions, without wondering why they were fighting or how best to destroy their opponents. All they needed were the physical strength for the task and faith in the machine. There was no need for thought; the computers would think for them. At the very least, the computers could understand and execute tactics faster and with greater precision than any human could.
Despite the vigorous efforts of the FAF computers, the JAM countered them one by one with seeming ease. As though they were testing the abilities of humanity’s machines, not of humans themselves, just as Major Booker suspected.
However, there was one exception to this dynamic. Even the JAM were at a loss when it came to the Sylphid, the treasure of the Earth Defense Organization’s Faery Air Force. While models with the same name and basic configuration had been released, their parts and designs tweaked to make them more easily producible, the original Sylphid’s maneuverability and reliability s
till went unmatched.
The Sylphid, originally developed for hit-and-away attacks, boasted a huge thrust-to-weight ratio. Its avionics system was now even more advanced than when it had first been developed, and its wing shape had been subtly modified to give it extreme maneuverability. The original Sylphid was an FAF mainline fighter, but only three air groups — a total of forty-nine planes — were produced.
Of those, thirteen strategic reconnaissance variants were delivered to the SAF. These planes had one section of stabilizing wings removed to make them even faster and more capable than the mainline fighters at evading low-level antiaircraft munitions. These thirteen, the most powerful of the Sylphid variants, were unofficially referred to as “Super Sylphs.”
Although the JAM had managed to hit them on different occasions, they had yet to shoot one down. How these planes, now ancient in terms of production time, still managed to remain the strongest in the war was a riddle that vexed both the computers and the humans at the TDC. They’d developed — and continued to develop — several new fighters that according to their specs should have been superior to the Super Sylphs. But none of them were.
But then, Major Booker thought, they’ve probably never seriously tried to determine what the key factor is in the Super Sylph’s survival rate. The Sylphs of SAF-V, the Boomerang Squadron, had a return-to-base rate of 100 percent. And Booker knew the reason why: it was their exceptional pilots. It was common sense that the SAF would select only the most elite pilots to fly the air force’s best planes. But he knew that the computers probably didn’t want to admit that, since it would gut the entire premise that these fighters would deliver maximum performance no matter who was flying them, or even if they flew unmanned.
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