Exiting the elevator into the weapons loadout bay, Rei watched from the cockpit as she was armed and fueled. It was the same as the usual procedure to prepare a plane for sortie, except this was the first time he realized that it was fully automated. It gave him a feeling of excitement mixed with a little fear.
An automatic crane hanging from the ceiling lowered a huge drum full of autocannon ammunition into the upper side of Yukikaze’s fuselage while four short-range missiles were loaded onto her underside, two on each side. Fuel was pumped into her tanks, though Rei couldn’t be sure if the tanks were being filled completely since he didn’t know how much fuel she was cleared to carry. That was a new experience for him as well. The most he could figure out was that the fuel tanks in the wings weren’t being filled, so she wasn’t expected to fly very far.
The entire loadout procedure was completed automatically. It wasn’t just Yukikaze who was acting without any care for his thoughts on the matter. The combat intelligence in SAF headquarters didn’t seem to care either.
But he was heartened to see she wasn’t just ignoring him when a message appeared on Yukikaze’s display. The warning said that his oxygen hose and ejection seat weren’t properly set. In short, she couldn’t take off until he’d taken care of that. Rei reminded himself not to be too happy when he realized that was the point of concern.
Maybe she was telling him that he, unprepared for flight as he was, was now an obstacle. Once they reached the surface, she might decide he wasn’t needed anymore and just activate the ejection sequence. He definitely didn’t want to get thrown out in his seat. Without his parachute or even being properly strapped into it, a stunt like that would be hazardous to his health. Normally, the crew safeguards wouldn’t allow the ejection sequence to initiate if the ejection seats weren’t properly set; however…
The dolly began towing Yukikaze back to the elevator so that she could exit to the surface. Rei seriously began to think he should deplane right here. He was considering what would be safest for him. Before he’d made a decision, another message appeared on Yukikaze’s warning display:
Action…Captain FUKAI.
The message was blinking, as though Yukikaze was irritated and asking him why he was still dicking around inside of her. And he, even as he was thinking there was no way that she’d understand, told her that he wasn’t coming with her.
“I, Captain Rei Fukai, will be participating in the lunch meeting that Llanfabon has been assigned to escort. Yukikaze, you will protect me. When I reach the surface, I’ll deplane. Do you understand?”
Yukikaze did not answer. He knew she wouldn’t, but Rei didn’t feel discouraged. He’d said what he’d wanted to say. All that was left to do was pray that he’d be able to get out safely. Giving full control to Yukikaze was dangerous. He hoped his fears would prove baseless.
The sunlight from Faery’s skies streaming into the exit of the elevator building was dazzling. It was nice weather today. A little ahead of him, he could see Llanfabon. She was stopped.
Outside, Captain Edith Foss approached the newly emerged Yukikaze.
Rei tensely flipped the automaneuver switch on, declaring “You have control, Yukikaze.” She was now free to fly as she pleased.
And then Yukikaze replied. All of the warnings vanished from her display, a new message taking their place:
I have control/I wish you luck…Captain FUKAI.
Rei was scrambling up out of his seat to deplane when the second half of the message caught his eye. He stared at it, unable to look away.
“I wish you luck” was nothing more than a clichéd phrase, carrying no more meaning than “roger.” But was that the case here? Rei had never seen Yukikaze display a message like that before. There was really no need for it, was there? He considered the possibility that her specific choice to display that message meant that she understood human speech and was going out of her way to convey that to him. He should be happy about that, shouldn’t he? No, if that was the case, he was going to have to rethink his entire method of interacting with Yukikaze. This wasn’t something he could simply be happy about.
Still, he didn’t have time to consider any of that.
“Don’t close the canopy till I’m out,” he said. “You got that, Yukikaze?”
No message was displayed as a reply. The fact that the canopy isn’t automatically closing was Yukikaze’s answer, Rei thought as he yanked his headset cord and climbed down from her. He folded up the collapsible ladder into her fuselage and locked it down.
He looked up at the canopy but saw no sign that it was closing. Rei was surprised, and just as he was wondering if he was going to have to close it manually, he heard a warning chime from the cockpit. As if Yukikaze had read his mind. The tone indicated that the missiles could not be fired. Of course, Rei realized. The safety pins. Yukikaze was asking him to pull them out of the missiles.
There were weapons control personnel also there on the surface, but Rei personally walked Yukikaze’s perimeter and pulled the safety pins from all four of her short-range missiles. Once he’d finished, the canopy automatically lowered and locked. She was now ready to take off without a pilot.
“Good luck, Yukikaze,” Rei murmured.
“Yukikaze is your best friend,” said Captain Foss to Rei as she approached.
“My best friend?” he replied.
“Or perhaps your lover?”
Rei turned to face Captain Foss. “You’re wrong,” he said.
“It must be reassuring to have such a powerful friend, Captain Fukai.”
Yukikaze’s onboard engine starter system activated, despite the fact that Llanfabon’s engines weren’t started yet. Her vertical stabilizers unfolded from their horizontal storage position and rose into place. Her twin turbofan engines then started up, first the right, then the left. Rei and Captain Foss stepped away from her.
“Yukikaze isn’t my friend either. Lover? That’s ridiculous.”
“So then, what is she to you?”
As the scream of Yukikaze’s engines nearly drowned out Captain Foss’s question, Rei raised his voice to answer her, as though not wanting to let his plane have the final say.
“Yukikaze is the most dangerous combat machine on this planet,” he yelled. “She has a combat awareness that’s uniquely hers! Human relationships don’t apply to her!”
If she was anything, Yukikaze was a wild animal.
He didn’t say that, but that was what Rei thought. She was a partner with whom he was entangled in a dangerous relationship. One in which she cooperated only so long as they sought a common prey. Or perhaps, rather than a partner, he could more accurately be thought of as a trainer, teaching her how to hunt. A coach, instructing her how to fight.
Yukikaze was neither a best friend nor a lover. She was a being beyond human understanding. And he was going to get closer to her.
She wheeled around and stopped, lowering her nose. Her cannon was fixed on Llanfabon nearby, her stance now saying that she could fire at any time. Rei could just imagine the look on Lieutenant Bruys’s face as he sat aboard his plane. He must have felt like he was being stalked by a wild animal.
Yukikaze’s airframe was a little smaller than Llanfabon’s. But the Maeve aiming at the graceful body of the Super Sylph somehow seemed larger and more ferocious.
3
REI LOOKED OUT across Faery base’s vast runway but could make out nothing but fighter planes. If this lunch meeting were going to take place in the air, he’d expected there to be a large transport plane, but it looked like he’d been wrong.
So then where was it going to be?
Before he could ask, Captain Edith Foss told him to follow her and began walking in the direction of the control tower.
“The food’s probably going to be very good,” Rei said as he walked along beside her. “I’ll bet Major Booker got his hands on some food that you normally can’t get here and didn’t want the computers to know about the delicacies we’re going to have. Are you in
vited too?”
“Yes,” she replied.
“Who else is coming?’
“I don’t know. And as appealing as a delicacy-tasting party sounds, somehow I don’t think this is going to be such a pleasant lunch. In your manner of speaking, my guess would be that Major Booker has called me in to act as a poison taster for his food. I doubt my role as the attending physician in your psychological care is unrelated to this.”
“Hm.”
“I noticed you arrived in Yukikaze. Quite a display you put on there. Did you mean that as a threat to the other participants in this meeting? Major Booker certainly knows how to liven up a show, doesn’t he?”
Captain Foss didn’t know that Yukikaze’s appearance had been wholly unexpected, and he figured she probably didn’t know that Llanfabon had been assigned to observe and protect the meeting either.
Rei said nothing. Captain Foss gave him a sidelong glance and then asked, “Or did you and not Major Booker plan that little production?”
“You don’t have to examine me anymore, Captain.”
“I’m asking this out of personal interest. I know you aren’t the sort who’d take offense at the question. You didn’t show up here in Yukikaze for some other duty, right? I don’t know why you’d go out of your way to do something like this, though. There’s a lot of things about you SAF people that are a mystery to me.”
“Having Yukikaze show up here wasn’t my idea or Major Booker’s. It wasn’t a show. It didn’t happen by chance, and it wasn’t for any other duty.”
“Could you just talk straight with me? The inability to get to the point is sometimes evidence of mental illness—”
“Okay, I don’t like you. Is that straight enough?”
“Perfectly. Now why did you show up here in Yukikaze?”
“No comment. Major Booker didn’t tell me it was okay to tell anyone else about it.”
“But you just said it wasn’t a show and it wasn’t by chance. Was it okay to say that?”
“He didn’t say to keep completely quiet about it either.”
“So then why do you say ‘no comment’ about anything more than that?”
“Because I’ve always wanted to say ‘no comment’ to somebody.”
“Are you mocking me?” Foss asked.
“Boy, there’s no hiding anything from you, is there? Yeah, I am.”
“You have some serious character issues.”
“You and me both. You’re the one who said I rode up in Yukikaze to liven up the show here. I figured, fine, have some fun and mock her right back.”
“You thought I was making fun of you?”
“I don’t get what you mean,” Rei said.
“I’m still interested in your relationship with Yukikaze. Did you really think I was mocking you when I asked if she was your lover?”
“No, you were being serious, so I answered you seriously. Why are you asking me this?”
“Why? Because this isn’t fun for me. There’s nothing fun about being mocked. You aren’t the only one who engages in this roundabout game of tit for tat. Everyone in the SAF is like that,” Foss said. “Talking to any of you pisses me off, and it’s all I’ve been able to do to maintain my personal feelings in the face of it. That goes for me both as a doctor and as an individual. But everyone has their limits, and I’ve reached mine. I hate you. I don’t want to talk to you anymore. Do you understand?” A long time ago, a woman whose face he could no longer remember had said the same thing to him. Rei stopped walking and looked Captain Foss in the eye.
I hate you. I don’t want to talk to you anymore. Do you understand?
What was it about him that prompted such words? What thing, what deficiency inside of him inspired such black rage?
Captain Foss also stopped walking and met Rei’s gaze. Her mouth was open, but she noticed the hard expression on his face and slowly pressed her lips back together. Rei didn’t overlook how the pupils in her eyes contracted.
This doctor had been personally angry with him before, but now something had changed. His reaction was unexpected, and so either out of curiosity or her sense of duty as a doctor, she had raised her head to study him. What was it about this patient that made him constantly contradict what she said and react so excessively?
Rei himself was bewildered by his reactions.
He thought he’d forgotten everything about his past, so why was he dredging it back up now? He’d heard similar words from other people ever since he’d joined the FAF. He’d never once been bothered by anyone saying that they hated him. All he’d said to Captain Foss before was “I don’t like you,” to which she’d responded, “I hate you. I don’t want to talk to you anymore. Do you understand?” That was all it was. So what of it? He shouldn’t have any problem with that.
So why did he feel the way he did?
Was Rei’s distress over this woman declaring her hatred of him due to some unconscious desire to court the favor of the opposite sex? Would he feel the same way if this doctor had been a man? But he couldn’t count the number of times other women had said that they hated him.
Captain Foss held her breath for a few moments, waiting for Rei to say something. When it looked like he wasn’t going to, she spoke instead.
“What happened between you and Yukikaze?”
Rei sighed and asked which way to go, ignoring her question.
“We’ve got a meeting to get to. Show me the way.”
“I can’t take much more of this, Captain Fukai. Even you must have emotions. There isn’t a human alive who can be told that they’re hated and not feel something about it. I know there’s some sort of wound in your heart.”
“I’m not here to fight with you, and I don’t know you well enough to have some sort of lovers’ quarrel either.”
“The meeting’s over there. You can’t miss seeing Major Booker, can you? Rei, don’t try to avoid talking about things. This is a serious problem for you.”
“What problem?”
“You want to have a fight. You want your ‘lovers’ quarrel’ to turn into an actual loving relationship.”
“That’s ridiculous. Why would I want that sort of relationship with you—”
“Not with me. With Yukikaze. Captain Fukai, I’ll ask you again: what happened between you and Yukikaze?”
“No comment.”
“Then I’ll do the talking. Think of this as a monologue. You’ve been told by Yukikaze that she hates you. Not a while ago, but very recently. And so what I said reminded you of that—”
“Yukikaze has no emotions.”
“But you do. Even you don’t know what will happen if, for example, somebody says that they hate you, and now Yukikaze is ignoring you. When I asked you before if Yukikaze was your lover, you knew already that she wasn’t. That wasn’t the relationship you shared before. You want to go back to that relationship, but you also know now that you can’t. So you attempted to erase your irritation, your feelings of being jilted, by mocking me. But when I refused to play along, you felt how empty you really were inside.”
Foss continued. “The problem is that Yukikaze is changing, whether you like it or not. When I said I hate you and don’t want to talk to you anymore, it felt like it was coming from Yukikaze. The reason for this must be that something similar happened between you and she. That’s why I asked you what it was. You don’t have to tell me, but then I want you to please stop using me as your emotional outlet. I’m an individual human being too, Captain Fukai. I’m not your lover, your best friend, your caregiver, your mommy, or your babysitter, and I’d like you to please stop mocking me. If I wasn’t a doctor, I’d tell you that you’re not the only human being and that you should try to be aware of how self-centered you are.”
“You have been telling me that,” Rei said.
“I said this was a monologue.”
“Well, since you are a doctor, I’ll tell you this: You see me as a patient with psychological problems. You wouldn’t say what you did to most pe
ople, because there’s no need to. If you hate somebody, you can just stay away. So was everything you did planned from the start? Did you intentionally try to piss me off just to see what my reaction would be?”
“You’re letting your imagination run away with you,” Foss said. “You really don’t understand how to interact with people at all, do you?”
“Because your attitude is constantly changing on me.”
“I haven’t changed one bit. Or maybe you’re asking me to wear a little meter on my chest that’ll tell you when I’m angry or sad, in a good mood or a bad one.”
“That’d actually be a big help to me,” Rei said.
“Even if I did wear one, you wouldn’t look at it. Or maybe you would, but you wouldn’t understand it. That’s the sort of person you are. You should restrict your lovers’ quarrels to Yukikaze. She’s got plenty of meters for you to read.” And with that Captain Foss stalked off.
I think I’m the one being used as an emotional outlet here, Rei thought. More taken aback than shocked, he followed after her.
Still, he thought, I have to take my hat off to her powers of insight. Captain Foss had transferred into the SAF only a short time ago, but she already understood very well what Yukikaze meant to him. While Rei had been busy lately seeing what changes were going on in Yukikaze, this doctor had observed changes in him instead.
Feelings of being jilted was what Captain Foss had called it. In response to Yukikaze’s peculiar actions lately, he found himself feeling as though he’d been betrayed by his lover. Having the fact pointed out to him, he had no choice but to agree.
But Yukikaze wasn’t that sort of companion. Their relationship wasn’t the sweet one of lovers, and he could see that now. It was much harsher than that. Yukikaze would cast him away if he wasn’t able to provide what she asked of him. That wouldn’t lead to an emotion as sentimental as being jilted. Being cast aside by Yukikaze was a matter of whether or not his life had meaning.
Much as he didn’t want to talk about his feelings of abandonment, there was no denying that he did feel fear in his heart. Captain Foss had pointed out something like that to him.
Good Luck, Yukikaze Page 18