Rei approached Yukikaze, hauled himself up the boarding ladder, and climbed into the cockpit. He was relieved to see that the ejection seat seemed to have been properly installed. He couldn’t stop the bleeding from the gunshot wound in his side. Pressing his left hand to the wound, he started the engines.
Looking out of the cockpit, Rei saw a yellow mass headed for Yukikaze. It looked like the same substance that had filled the pond in the forest. As it flowed toward them across the flat ground, it morphed and reformed like protoplasm. Shapes would rise from the ooze and melt back into it again as it moved. Human shapes. Human limbs and heads and torsos. Above them swirled a glinting cloud of small black objects, like a giant swarm of bees.
Were those insect-like forms the JAM? He switched Yukikaze’s ECM system on. Her engines roared. Parking brake, off. The canopy lowered and locked.
“Let’s go home, Yukikaze.”
The humanoid mass pressed up against Yukikaze’s body. He slid the throttle to MIL, incinerating the portion behind them. Yukikaze turned, accelerated, and took off. Landing gear, up. FCS, ON. Master arm switch to ARM. They shot into a climbing turn. A cold sweat had broken out on Rei’s brow, and he could feel the blood pooling in his flight suit.
Yukikaze fired her last remaining high-velocity missile into the black swarm of insects. The flare of the detonation, like a miniature sun, temporarily robbed Rei of his sight.
When he opened his eyes, Yukikaze was flying in familiar airspace. She was going slow, almost brushing the canopy of Faery’s forest. Rei looked up at the blue sky. The gunshot wound hurt like hell, but he felt a lot better. We made it back, he thought.
But the threat hadn’t vanished. As they began to accelerate and climb, Yukikaze’s radar picked up three JAM fighters to the rear, practically on top of them. Flying as low and slow as they were, there was no way for them to evade.
There was a burst of cannon fire. Yukikaze’s right vertical stabilizer shattered. Fire spouted from the right engine.
Describing a wide turn, she plunged toward the forest.
Rei lost consciousness. When he came to, he realized that he had miraculously survived. They had made an emergency landing on the spongy surface of forest canopy, which was dozens of yards thick, robust enough to support the fighter’s weight. The JAM hadn’t withdrawn but had ceased their attack.
Analyzing Yukikaze to the bitter end, Rei thought. He activated her self-destruct system. No response. He then remembered: the switch in the electronic warfare officer’s seat had to be thrown as well. He started to release the seat harness, his hands slippery with blood, then stopped. His arms weren’t working very well, and besides, it looked like the self-destruct wouldn’t be necessary. Yukikaze’s rear section was burning furiously. It was only a matter of time until the fuel tanks ignited.
Rei closed his eyes. He doubted he could pull the eject lever, and he didn’t even feel like trying.
This was the death he’d always imagined. It’s better this way, he thought. He’d always felt that this moment would come one day... The moment when he and Yukikaze would die together.
He heard a beep. Rei slitted his eyes open. He had the fanciful thought that Yukikaze was saying goodbye to him. As he looked at the multidisplay his eyesight grew dim. He slowly reached out and turned the brightness control up. On the screen was the symbol for a single TAF plane flying toward them.
The FRX00. Too late. Too late...
The canopy was now dyed crimson with the light of the flames burning behind him. Enough, thought Rei. He was going to die with Yukikaze. It was all he’d ever wanted. She had never betrayed him.
However, she then did something he couldn’t have anticipated, a singular action beyond anything he could have imagined. His eyes widened as he read the display.
LINK-FRX00-05003. TRANS-CCIF.
“What?”
TRANSFERRING CORE FUNCTIONS OF SAF-V UNIT 3 TO FRX00.
Rei screamed at her to stop, but no sound came from his throat.
Yukikaze was... She was abandoning this aircraft. She was abandoning him.
Glowing columns of numbers and characters began to flow down the display. Yukikaze was transferring her central combat information file to the FRX. There was nothing Rei could do to stop it.
He became aware that his vision was growing dark. He couldn’t hear anything. He couldn’t see anything... He had the sensation that he was soaring. In skies where fairies danced. Faery airspace.
TRANS-CCIF COMPLETE. blinked on the display. Rei didn’t see it.
Yukikaze had kept him aboard to initiate the self-destruct sequence in case the need for it arose during the transfer. As soon as the transfer was complete, she ejected him. He was thrown clear of Yukikaze and into the air, but he was long past the point of consciousness.
MAJOR JAMES BOOKER sat in the rear seat of FRX00-05003, monitoring the new plane’s electronic warfare armaments.
Just after they acquired the three enemy planes, he noticed an abnormality in the FRX’s central computer. Its learning section was still fairly clean, but the rest of it began to run wild.
“What the hell is this?” he wondered aloud.
A huge amount of data was being transferred from somewhere. Is this a new JAM tactic? In the same instant that the thought formed in his mind, the FRX00 kicked into a high-G acceleration.
“What is it? What’s going on?” the pilot said over the com, his voice tight with tension. “I don’t have control. Major, I thought this couldn’t function as an unmanned plane.”
“Could be the JAM. Kill the flight controls.”
“They won’t disengage.”
“Can we eject?”
“No way. We’re going way too fast.”
Far away, at a distant point in the forest that spread out below them, Major Booker saw black smoke rising.
“Can that be Yukikaze...? Get us over there, now.”
“It’s not responding to anything I do. We might have a fatal defect here. And what’s with all this data input?”
The FRX00 closed rapidly on the three JAM fighters, passed them at full power, and then banked steeply into a high-G turn. The maneuver sent Major Booker and the pilot into GLOC.
It continued its turn around the three JAM aircraft, plotted an orthogonal attack line to their course, and took that heading. It flew direct abeam toward the JAM at supersonic speed. An instant later it was veering up and away, the three enemy aircraft disintegrating behind it, ripped apart by highvelocity fire.
The FRX00 rolled out of its loop and dove toward the forest. It centered Yukikaze in its gun sight and fired a short burst. The rounds impacted precisely on the area of the fuselage housing Yukikaze’s central computer, silencing it forever. The fuel tanks ignited and an orange fireball blossomed on the forest canopy. Metal fragments torn off in the blast danced in the air, reflecting the twilight glow of Faery’s twin suns.
The FRX00 picked up the rescue beacon signaling the position of Yukikaze’s ejected pilot and relayed this information to TAB-15, the nearest frontline base. However, it did not respond to the inquiries of the search and rescue team regarding the condition of the survivor. As though it wasn’t interested in human life and death.
It took a return course for Faery Base, flying in auto mode. Opening a communications link with the Tactical Air Force SAF control room, it relayed the following: DE YUKIKAZE. ETA 2146. AR.
Yukikaze, having obtained a new body for herself, flew on at supersonic speed.
Major Booker and the pilot, still unconscious, didn’t see her transmission to Faery Base of her estimated time of arrival. Neither could they see the setting suns, the sky of Faery as its colors shifted to night, nor the forests below.
Yukikaze landed back at Faery Base and informed control that her mission was complete. Six TAISPs had been successfully dropped at the targeted sites. Mission success rate: 100 percent.
The Faery Air Force acknowledged Yukikaze’s mission completion. Or, at least, the computers did
, if not the humans. And there was no doubt that the JAM recognized it as well.
Yukikaze taxied over to the SAF’s section and was towed onto the elevator platform. She descended, vanishing into her lair to prepare herself for the next battle.
And, however briefly, silence returned to the planet Faery.
YUKIKAZE FACT SHEET
Aircraft Serial Number
79113
Division Attachment Number
SAF-V-05003
Development Number
FRX47
Model Designation Number
FFR31-MR
Model Name
Super Sylph
Attachment
Faery Air Force
Tactical Air Force
Faery Base Tactical Combat Air Group
Special Air Force 5th Squadron
Personal Name
Yukikaze
1. GENERAL SPECIFICATIONS
The Super Sylph’s principal role is to carry out tactical electronic surveillance. To meet the requirements for supersonic cruising and high maneuverability, it is equipped with twin Phoenix Mk-X (FNX-5010-J) engines.
The main airfoils are fixed, backswept clipped delta wings. However, the wing cross-section can be adjusted by the flight control computer in order to compensate for varying flight conditions and thus achieve optimal configuration. A ventral fin is attached to the underside of the fuselage, with a shape different from that of a mainline combat Sylphid in order to facilitate high speed over maneuverability. Its twin vertical stabilizers contain speed brakes, the deployment of which is limited according to CAS (calibrated air speed), altitude, and aircraft attitude. Speed brake deployment in dogfight and auto-maneuver mode is handled by the flight control computer but can be used to effect a sudden attitude change when in manual mode.
The aircraft has two seats, with the pilot in the front and the electronic warfare officer/flight officer in the rear. Both seats recline to relieve the flight crew’s burden during high-G maneuvering. Directly in front of the pilot’s seat is the HUD (head-up display). Below that is the multi-function display, flight instrumentation, and the BIT (built-in test) system display. On the pilot’s right is the side stick flight controller. On the side stick are mounted the dogfight switch, gun trigger, missile release, side force/pitch controls, and G-limiter switch, all of which enable the pilot to control the plane without removing his hand from the stick. On the pilot’s left is the throttle, on which are mounted the target management switch, radar mode selector, and armament selector. The rear seat has no flight control instruments and is equipped instead with the ECM controls, ECM display, electronic data collection controls, IFF display, and communications/ navigation display.
The engine air intakes and exhaust ports utilize a two-dimensional design. Their cross-section shapes can be automatically manipulated by the air intake and nozzle controllers. Variation of the exhaust nozzle area is used to steer the plane and to improve maneuverability. High-maneuverability mode is selected by turning the dogfight switch to ON.
2. AVIONICS AND ENGINE SYSTEMS
The Sylphid’s static stability margin is negative. The pilot’s instructions, as input via the side stick controller, are input into an integrated avionics system that includes the flight control computer, the aircraft’s central computer, and the direct control unit. Under normal flight, the flight control computer combines the input from the side stick with the flight data from a multitude of sensors to control the hydraulic actuators of the aircraft’s control surfaces. If the flight control computer is rendered inoperative, the central computer and direct control unit will compensate, controlling the direct control assemblies set on all control surfaces. The direct control unit can also operate independently of the flight computer and central computer so that flight stability may be maintained even in the unlikely event of a central computer failure. In this case, advanced flight control of the automatic landing, tactical guidance, and supersonic bombing protocols is impossible. However, by interfacing the inertial guidance and aircraft attitude sensors, altitude and course may be automatically maintained.
The engines are twin FNX-5010-J axial compression turbofans equipped with afterburners. These were later replaced with the FNX-5011-B, commonly known as the Phoenix Mk-XI. (The FRX99 and FRX00 are equipped with the FNX-5011-C and FNX-5011-D variants, respectively). The 5011 (Mk-XI) line of engines can burn hydrogen fuel as well as standard jet fuel. When burning hydrogen fuel, it can operate as a ramjet. To select ram air mode, the pilot must slide the throttle past the MAX position to the MR position. However, below speeds of M2.0 and an altitude of 18,000 meters on Faery, it will not operate. The pilot can move the throttle freely between the MAX and MR positions — there is no stopper between the positions — but regardless of the individual lever setting the pilot must maintain a constant fifteen pounds of pressure on the throttle to hold it at the MR position. Selecting the MR mode automatically switches over the fuel system, intake configuration, and engine operation. MR mode should yield a thrust increase of 160 percent over the regular afterburners, although the exact increase will vary according to indicated air speed and altitude.
When the afterburners are engaged, once the fuel level in the feed tank drops below a certain point the afterburner shut-off valve closes and they are no longer usable. It is possible to override this by turning the V-max switch to ON, but because the fuel consumption rate is significantly higher when using afterburners, the danger of running out of fuel also increases significantly.
Switching to V-max will simultaneously cut out all engine system limiters as well as the aircraft’s G-limiter. It should not be used except in emergencies. When the auto-maneuver system is on it may also automatically engage V-max if prompted to do so by the central computer. In that situation, it is impossible to manually switch V-max off. Once the central computer confirms that the emergency has ended, it will automatically return to normal engine mode.
Engine control is executed via an integrated electronic control system based on data provided to it by the flight control computer, various sensors, and the central computer. The engine controller of the 5011 line (the Mk-XI) is programmed to realize maximum efficiency not only in the atmosphere of Faery but also in Earth’s atmosphere, with the flight control computer automatically selecting the appropriate mode.
3. WEAPONS SYSTEM
The Sylphid’s fire control system consists of the FCR (fire control radar), IR (infrared) receivers, passive airspace radar, passive wide-area search radar, the fire control computer, navigation computer, and so on, all under the integrated command of the tactical computer, with the central computer acting as backup.
The fire control computer will automatically select the pulse Doppler FCR mode and then identify and track the target, determine target range, calculate attack vectors, select armaments, determine missile launch timing, number of missiles, guidance data for active homing missiles, and so on.
The fire control radar possesses a wide range of modes, including long-range search and detection, long-range measurement, single target tracking, multiple target tracking, short- and medium-range search and detection, ground attack, short- and medium-range single target tracking, pilotinitiated radar lock-on, and rapid lock-on.
The Super Sylph is equipped with a 20mm Vulcan nose cannon. With its high-velocity ammunition and firing control mechanisms, it can be used even at supersonic speeds.
The Super Sylph can be loaded out with air-to-air and air-to-ground missiles as well as precision guided explosive ordnance. Its main air-to-air missile armaments are the AAM-III, -IV, and -V (short-, medium-, and long-range missiles, respectively). They can function as passive or active homing missiles, or they can be guided from the aircraft. The internal AI systems will self-select guidance mode as well as optimal detonation timing. HAAM (high-velocity air-to-air missiles) armaments were later implemented to increase missile flight velocity.
4. MISCELLANEOUS
The Super Sylph can
also carry a variety of mission-specific tactical data collection pods, such as a TARPS (tactical aerial reconnaissance pod system). The TARPS has electronic intelligence data collection capabilities and mounts a variety of cameras but possesses no AI system of its own. If the plane’s central computer judges the data collected by the TARPS to be especially vital, it will be added to its data file.
The Super Sylph possesses an advanced wireless digital data link function, allowing the plane’s central computer to maintain direct, secure communications with the base tactical control computers via the tactical data line.
Details of engine performance, avionics instrumentation, and exact airframe dimensions have not been publicly released on Earth. The figures below represent estimated performance in Earth-standard gravity.
FNX-5011-B
Dry Weight
2,425 lb (1.1 t)
Maximum Thrust
21,605 lbf (9.8 t) military power
31,967 lbf (14.5 t) full afterburner
49,604 lbf (22.5 t) MB power
FFR31-MR
Length
64 ft 11 in (19.8 m)
Wingspan
44 ft 3 in (13.5 m)
Height
20 ft 4 in (6.2 m)
Empty Weight
26,015 lb (11.8 t)
Loaded Weight
54,010 lb (24.5 t)
Maximum Takeoff Weight
83,775 lb (38.0 t)
From “Appendix – Mainline Fighter Craft of the FAF” in The Invader, by Lynn Jackson.
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