“You’re looking to ‘remove’ me?” Foss said.
“I think you occupy a very dangerous position. The problem is on your end.”
“Thanks for the warning, Captain Fukai.”
“Am I dangerous?”
Captain Foss gave a vague nod in answer to his question.
“Yes, very. I’m afraid of you, although it’s mainly because of the attitude you’ve shown me here.”
“I understand your unease. Even if you don’t authorize me to fly combat missions, I’ll do it eventually. And you’re afraid that, even if I’m nominally fighting the JAM, they won’t be the only ones I’ll attack. You’re afraid that I’ll end up attacking anybody I judge to be an obstacle, even those on my own side. You thought that about me before and you still do now.”
“I want to think that I’m wrong,” Foss said.
“You’re not. That’s the mission of the SAF. If necessary, we will attack our own side. That’s an act of combat allowed in war, just another type of tactic.”
“But you just said this isn’t a war. That idea is surely the core of what is becoming a major problem here.”
“It’s true that I’ve started thinking of it that way lately,” Rei said. “If I were fighting humans rather than the JAM, I wouldn’t have come back here. ‘Let other people fight their wars and leave me out of it’ was what I thought. But I can’t leave the war against the JAM to other people. I tried to ignore it and act like it wasn’t my problem, but it felt like there was no place I could go to escape the threat. I’m afraid that this conflict here is even more grueling than a war. There’s no striking a deal or turning traitor here,” Rei said. “The one rule in effect is that the strongest side gets to survive. In a war with humans on both sides, you can get away with the strategy of letting a few die so that the many will live. You can even let your allies kill noncombatants. But fighting the JAM requires even harsher strategies.”
“Such as?”
“Such as adopting a strategy where you’d let the entire human race die if it meant that you alone could survive. That’s what I think. It’s extreme, but you won’t lose as long as you don’t die. That’s the sort of battle this is. I think the JAM operate under that strategy too. If I went back to Earth and treated what goes on here like it’s an illusion, I might be able to live my life. But when I finally notice the JAM threat there, it would be too late. I hate the thought of that. I don’t want to lose. That’s why I came back to Faery. You can’t understand what I sense, so you’re trying your damnedest to throw out all these hypotheses, trying not to drown in them.”
“Like you’re a specialist in theories —”
“You can’t live with normal sensitivities in the FAF, and that goes double for the SAF. If you want to survive, you have to become as nuts as everyone else here. It’s not so bad. You just have to accept that the JAM are real.”
“What exactly do you have in mind?” Captain Foss asked, a worried expression now on her face.
“Write a report saying that I’m fit for combat duty and sign it. In return, I’ll help you perceive the JAM.”
“How?”
“The JAM aren’t phantoms. They exist on the same level as Yukikaze. There’s more to her than what you can see. Similarly, you can monitor my psychological state from my reactions in flight. Surely a military doctor like you would be willing to take the risk for that.”
“You’re saying you want me to fly with you?”
“Right,” Rei answered. “I’ll take you up in Yukikaze with me.”
In SAF Unit 1: Yukikaze.
Captain Foss stared straight at Rei, not saying a word. Then she answered, her tone firm.
“If General Cooley authorizes it, I’ll do what you want. But that’s —”
“You’ll get the authorization, Captain Foss. You’ll be the one who’ll convince General Cooley and Major Booker. If you can’t do it, there’ll only be one thing for you to do — apply for a transfer out of the SAF.”
“You’d really go that far... Suppose I still find you unfit to fly, even while we’re in the air?”
“You won’t be making that call. The JAM will just shoot us down.”
“You’re saying we’ll be flying in a combat zone?”
“There’s no absolutely safe place in the FAF, Captain Foss. You can’t escape that, no matter where you go. Get me my flight authorization. Then Major Booker will stop ignoring you. I think it’s a good proposal.”
“I’d like some time to think it over.”
“This isn’t practice. It’s real combat. I need your answer now, Captain Foss. You won’t get a chance like this again.”
“Fine,” she replied, standing up. “I’ll accept your proposal. The truth is, I’ve always wanted a ride in one of our state-of-the-art fighters.”
“Oh, is that what you were really after? You certainly took a roundabout way to get it,” Rei said, his expression deadly serious. “I wish you’d just been upfront about that from the beginning. Then nobody would have ignored you. Though had you just been honest, you absolutely never would have been given a chance to ride in Yukikaze. Well played. How do you feel?”
“Like I went for wool and ended up getting fleeced,” replied Captain Foss, holding out her hand. Rei shook it and said, “Which one of us is getting fleeced here? I don’t think either of us has yet. I think this is going to settle the problems between us, but your battle is just beginning. I’m praying we aren’t your enemy.”
“Are you saying that the SAF sees people who don’t accept the reality of the JAM as their enemies?”
“Not in that sense. I’m saying that there’s no guarantee that you aren’t a JAM.”
“Me? A JAM?”
“That’s the sort of battle we’re fighting here now. More than any other unit in the FAF, we know that in our bones, not our brains,” Rei said.
“So, admitting that... are you taking me out into a combat zone as some sort of a test?”
“Major Booker will make that call. He’s a tough one. All I’m looking for is to fly Yukikaze. Anything beyond that is your own problem. You risk your life by choosing to fly in her. Be prepared for whatever happens.”
The same goes for me, Rei thought, though the probability that this person is a JAM is pretty low. Rei left the room to report the deal he’d just set up to Major Booker, prepared for the chewing out he’d receive for causing his commander even more headaches.
4
CONTRARY TO REI’S expectations, Major Booker received his news calmly and then, after considering it for a moment, told him “Good work. That was probably the best way to handle it.” The major didn’t smile when Rei told him that Captain Foss might be a JAM. He instead nodded and replied that anyone whose history was unknown to them had to be suspected. Considering that, taking her out into an actual combat zone was a good idea, the major said.
If she were a JAM, she was extremely dangerous, but only the SAF could deal with it. And even though she likely wasn’t a JAM, having her spreading the idea that they weren’t real was going to cause chaos in the FAF. It wouldn’t affect those in the SAF, but it might affect people in other units. For that reason, they couldn’t just expel her. And if she simply had an interest in advanced fighter planes and the abilities of the people who flew them, then she needed to get it through her head that reality wasn’t as simple as she thought it was, or else she’d never be of any use to the SAF as a military doctor.
“I’ll draw up a plan to get Captain Edith Foss into combat,” Major Booker said. “If she’s a JAM, she’ll show her true colors.”
“She may not and just come back here to stay,” Rei replied.
“I’ll keep my eye on her,” the major said. “Let’s hope this turns Captain Foss around.”
“She’s got a fighting streak in her, the same as we do. She won’t be an easy nut to crack.”
“ ‘We,’ huh? You really have changed. I just hope that hasn’t made you less effective in battle.” Having a medical
specialist aboard the plane with him to make sure of that was a reasonable choice, thought Major Booker. Captain Edith Foss was going to have an important duty to bear.
TWELVE DAYS LATER, wearing flight suits and with helmets in hand, Rei and Captain Foss were back in the sortie briefing room. Their mission briefing had already been completed. They’d been told that their mission was to reconnoiter the environs of one of the JAM’s main bases, code-named Richwar, which the FAF had hit recently. Major Booker had decided to commit two SAF planes to the task. He hadn’t been able to determine if the FAF strike had knocked it out completely, and he was sure that there were survivors still there. They’d probably made contact with the other bases and summoned support. Naturally, the SAF had already conducted recon of the area, but hadn’t been able to tell for certain what was going on. The human pilots didn’t know how the JAM communicated with each other or how they organized support lines. Because of that, a JAM base that had been struck could one day spring back into action without any warning. The only way they’d ever learn how the JAM regenerated so quickly was to keep an apparently dead base under surveillance. These chances didn’t come very often, and they had one now. Major Booker was just barely managing to send out continuous surveillance missions while balancing them with the squadron’s other duties. They’d also dropped a recon pod in the area, and part of this mission was to collect the data it had gathered.
Captain Foss participated in the briefing as well, and Major Booker gave her specific instructions to keep careful watch on Rei’s condition and report on it as the mission’s medical specialist. These were orders from General Cooley, he added.
Their preflight briefing had covered the details of their flight plan, weather conditions, flight route, navigation support environment, fuel stores, and weapons loadout... All simple stuff, but it wasn’t simple to Captain Foss. Her job of observing Rei had already begun, but the task at hand was first and foremost to deal with her fear of entering a combat zone for the first time. Worse for her, there wasn’t anyone else on the sortie team with whom she could share the fear she felt. Rei was the subject of her observations, so she naturally couldn’t confide in him, but the other plane teamed up for this mission with Yukikaze was an unmanned drone fighter. It was nicknamed the Rafe, a name Major Booker had chosen. This truly unmanned fighter, newly supplementing the squadron as its thirteenth plane, was the Maeve prototype: the FRX99.
Major Booker never sent out an unmanned plane to operate alone. There was much to learn about their performance, and that data was vital. Even so, he’d wanted at least one of the new drones sent out as the backup plane for this mission. If the SAF judged that this mission was too dangerous for Yukikaze to fly alone, they could use the drone. He was aware of the possibility that the drone could become a danger to Yukikaze’s crew as well, and acknowledged that part of the SAF’s job was to monitor just such a situation.
As she settled into Yukikaze’s rear seat, Captain Foss also felt some trepidation at the sound of the engines starting up on the black-skinned Unit 13, although her fear was different from Major Booker’s. She wondered if the unmanned plane charged with escorting Yukikaze and providing backup could be trusted not to abandon them if things got rough. After all, wasn’t that how SAF planes normally operated? Even their manned planes would do that. In that respect, the humans in the SAF were much like their machines. She’d never really realized that before. Rei had said as much during their exchanges, but only now, in this situation, did the reality of Rei’s words sink in.
Yukikaze’s engines spun to life with power supplied by a support truck outside.
“Contact,” Rei declared.
Fire screamed inside of Yukikaze’s Super Phoenix engines. Captain Foss tensed up as the plane changed its posture, the front tire shock absorber compressing as it bore the enormous thrust from the engines. Yukikaze was roaring like a wild animal preparing to leap onto its prey.
Rei looked back. Captain Foss realized that he wasn’t checking on her. His helmet visor was raised, and she could see that in his gaze. He was just making sure that Yukikaze’s vertical stabilizers had unfolded into their proper configuration. He then checked to make sure that all of the plane’s control surfaces were operating normally. Preflight checks, completed. All systems, normal. The ground crew pulled the safety pins from the missiles loaded onto the plane. The sortie crew chief then pulled the pin of his headset from the jack on Yukikaze’s side and gave them the “Go” sign.
“Let’s go, Yukikaze,” Rei said.
The canopy lowered and locked in place. Releasing the brakes, Yukikaze moved forward. Captain Foss felt the plane’s tires bumping along. To her, each thump seemed to be an amplified version of her own pounding heart.
Rei hadn’t said, “Let’s go, Captain Foss.” She made a note of that on a small memo pad, similar to the ones used by test pilots, affixed to her thigh. She then regained her composure. Rei called back to her.
“Tell me right away if you feel sick. I’ll try to compensate if I can.”
“I’ve had some training, you know. I’ll be fine. Don’t worry about me.”
“Okay, good to hear that you’re ready for this. I’ll be counting on you.”
“Counting on me?” Foss said.
“Of course. You aren’t a guest back there; you’re flight crew. In battle, it’s nice to have an extra eye. Lucky for me, you’ve got two.”
“My eyesight isn’t that great, so —”
“That doesn’t matter, Edith. Any creature whose life is in danger can see its enemy. Let’s go, partner.”
The Rafe made a mad dash down the runway and began to climb. Yukikaze followed a moment later, her engine output at maximum. The acceleration was so intense that Captain Foss couldn’t even speak.
A formation takeoff. Rei wondered if his ability to sense the enemy was still as sharp as it had been, but forgot about that once they were in the air.
“Hang in there, Yukikaze. The wolf’s going to leave you behind.”
They soon reached cruising altitude and the planes began to speed along high above the ground. Freed from the G-force pressure of acceleration, Captain Foss took a breath, then asked Rei about the wolf he’d just mentioned so urgently.
“I meant the Rafe, Unit 13,” he replied. “The name means ‘counsel of the wolf.’ It’s like a hobby for Major Booker. He knows the weirdest things.”
Captain Foss looked for the plane. It was flying a few hundred meters off their port side, matching their altitude.
“You don’t want to lose to it?”
“Yukikaze is a manned fighter whose design is based on the Rafe. She’s not as maneuverable, so I was just shouting a little encouragement. Nothing really more meaningful than that.”
“Who were you encouraging? Yourself or Yukikaze?”
“Both, probably. I guess you could theorize that it’s hard to tell where I end and Yukikaze begins.”
“Does that concern you?”
“Analyze that and give me a diagnosis when we get back. It’s dangerous to distract me up here. It affects your safety too.”
Captain Foss stopped talking. The forests of Faery spread out below her, mostly gleaming a metallic purple. With its undulations, eddies, and striped patterns, she felt as though she were looking at some sort of abstract painting. Like peeking directly into somebody’s mind, she thought. It was an incoherent mass of shapes, and yet beautiful. Would the JAM be as wondrous and beautiful if they came from somewhere in there?
Rei responded to the few external communications they received with silence. A warning chimed twice, indicating a group of FAF planes crossing beneath them. A differently toned warning chimed, signaling that they’d reached their mission air space.
“Edith, I want you to please stop observing me for a while and keep watch on our surroundings.”
“Roger,” replied Captain Edith Foss.
The forest was now gone. A desert of pure white sand spread out around them. Not flat, but undulati
ng.
The Rafe activated its high-powered look-down radar and began searching for the enemy. As Yukikaze monitored the electromagnetic environment of their surroundings, she transmitted her IFF (Identify Friend or Foe) signal to the reconnaissance pod deployed onto the ground below to transmit its collected data to them. The pod had been placed there by the SAF after Richwar base had been destroyed, and it had been searching its surroundings from ground level. It should have responded to the SAF plane’s IFF signal.
“That’s funny,” Rei muttered. There was no response.
There was an area on the ground that looked like a long, thin mirror with a crack running across its surface. It was the remains of Richwar base’s center and shattered runway. The recon pod should have been planted somewhere around there, and Rei was about to bank Yukikaze to try to make visual contact when the pod’s connection-ready tone chimed. It was responding now. The powerful ground search radar the Rafe was using had probably disrupted the IFF signal, Rei thought. Still, he wasn’t totally convinced that something wasn’t wrong here.
They had to recover the information contained in the pod, and so he transmitted the command code for it to begin uploading its data to them. It seemed to be working, but then Yukikaze sounded a warning tone and flashed a message onto the main display screen:
TRP32157: decode error.
The pod wasn’t answering the command code correctly, so Yukikaze couldn’t decode the data it was transmitting.
Had the pod malfunctioned, or had the JAM contaminated it? If the JAM had gotten to it, they were probably trying to introduce false data into the FAF. In that case, it was a lucky thing that Yukikaze couldn’t decode the probe’s data transmissions — it meant that the JAM hadn’t cracked the FAF’s data encryption.
Engage, Yukikaze flashed on the screen, declaring her intention to attack. She now recognized tactical reconnaissance pod 32157 as an enemy and was suggesting that they destroy it. Rei authorized the action and sent the Rafe to do the deed.
Good Luck, Yukikaze y-2 Page 15