Good Luck, Yukikaze

by Chohei Kambayashi

  “I can have you relieved of duty.”

  “You don’t have the individual authority to do that. You need to present a reason for a dismissal. But if you’re saying that the SAF isn’t performing up to snuff, that also calls your own command competence into question.”

  General Laitume’s face flushed bright red and it looked as if he were about to explode with rage. But he didn’t. If we were in a regular conference with others in attendance, he probably would have struck an enraged pose in order to save some face, and General Cooley probably took that into account as well, Major Booker thought.

  After glaring at Cooley for a moment, the general picked up the file in front of him and said, “You sly fox… No, forgive me. Calling you that would only convince you that you’ve scored some sort of great success here. I run the FAF’s main force. The SAF gets to carry out major operations only because it serves under me. I’ve put my neck on the line to protect you from the slanders of the other divisions and the high command because I appreciate what you people can do. There is no need to interrupt the current operation, so carry on with what you’re doing. If you have a problem with your equipment, then tell me. I’ll see what I can do. But the situation is severe all around. Once we’re through this, despite my reservations, I’ll do everything in my power to realize the SAF’s selfish desire. This is my idea. Don’t forget that, General Cooley. That is all. Dismissed.”

  “I appreciate it,” General Cooley said, rising. As she looked at the general, she added, “Sir, I strongly suggest you give Major Booker’s report a thorough reading. It may already be too late.”

  “Too late for what?”

  “You can still go back to Earth alive. Once you read that, you’ll understand. If you’ll excuse me, sir.”

  A genuinely complicated look came to Gibril Laitume’s face. The change in expression didn’t go unnoticed by Major Booker. He could imagine how he felt.

  The SAF had achieved a major victory, one that might as well have been his own, one that had worked out well—and then came General Cooley’s words to crush that sense of satisfaction. She’d basically called him a coward who should run home while he still could. That had probably made him sick with rage, but he was nervous also because she’d said that if he read Booker’s materials, he’d see that there was no longer any safe place in the FAF. He wondered who his enemy was, reconsidered why he was here, then understood the reason for General Cooley’s arrogant attitude. She was saying that she had no intention of running back home, but was instead ready to die in battle. He respected her resolve as a fellow soldier.

  No, Gibril, General Cooley isn’t thinking about dying. She’s a tougher woman than you realize. A woman willing to use you to survive this war. You don’t operate on the same plane as she does. Naturally, the major kept these thoughts to himself and simply followed General Cooley out of the conference room.

  Now there was no need to worry about General Cooley’s position. The responsibility was now entirely General Laitume’s to bear. Since he’d said that they were free to do what they wanted, Major Booker could now consider moving their strategic reconnaissance operation aimed at direct contact with the JAM to phase three.

  So, how could he relay to the JAM that the SAF were preparing to make noncombat contact with them? The JAM probably understood human language, so he could just transmit a message, but the last thing he wanted was any humans in the other units to read it. It would be treason.

  General Laitume would never be able to cover for them. Maybe they could load the message into a recon pod and then let the JAM recover and decipher it. He could just put the message in directly, but when he considered the slight possibility that another FAF unit would recover the pod, Booker disregarded that plan as well. It would have to be encrypted. But then how would he be able to transmit a decryption key so that only the JAM could decrypt it? For that, he’d need the wisdom of both the SAF’s tactical and strategic computers—they operated on a level closer to the JAM than any human did.

  Think of a way to declare our intentions to the JAM which they could understand while being indecipherable to other FAF units. When Major Booker fed that question to the SAF tactical computer, it responded with an answer so bold and audacious that he never would have thought of it. Immediately, almost too quickly.

  Select a landing spot the JAM are known to be monitoring, then use human speech, which can only be deciphered after noise removal. Any other FAF planes flying by won’t have any means to reliably pick up the voice aboard their aircraft. A plane equipped with passive airspace radar might feasibly do it under the same conditions, but the likelihood is very small that the tiny pressure changes caused by human speech could be detected by FAF planes. For best certainty, if an FAF plane comes into the vicinity, shoot it down. That is all.

  How interesting, thought Major Booker, smiling unconsciously. I was set on finding an electronic way of doing it, but now that you mention it, people have mouths to talk with. Then Booker inputted, However, the question is if the JAM will be listening. And understanding human language isn’t the same as understanding human speech. Having said that, the tactical computer told Booker to disregard it.

  I anticipate that the JAM possess the means to interpret information from the human body. If not, their human duplicates would be unable to carry out information gathering activities. It may not even be necessary for the messenger you send to express your message in spoken words.

  Does that mean that the JAM would search the memories in the messenger’s brain directly? Booker typed.

  That possibility cannot be entirely ruled out, but in that case the high-information-content message you need to send would become ambiguous. The next most secure method of delivery after spoken language would be a written message. We expect that the JAM would understand that.

  The combat intelligence had come back with a reply more thoroughly pragmatic than Major Booker had expected.

  It was as if the CI is saying that the JAM won’t accept the message unless we communicate it by means of our own flesh and blood bodies, Major Booker thought. And even as he decided to follow its recommendation to make the JAM understand that humans were the main actors in this conflict, he reflected on how he’d still unconsciously sought computer or electronic means to communicate with the JAM in the first place, although he didn’t pursue the thought very far.

  However, had Major Booker simply asked, “Have you made contact with the JAM?” the tactical computer would likely have answered, “Yes.”

  The SAF’s combat intelligences had detected what they took to be a message from the JAM while analyzing data gathered during Captain Foss’s combat mission with Yukikaze. The JAM had aimed a pulsed laser at Yukikaze during the air battle and sent the following message: We desire an exchange of intentions by means of language with an SAF human, especially the one known as Second Lieutenant Rei Fukai, in a way that no other being aside from the SAF would know about.

  Major Booker had never even considered that Yukikaze and the SAF’s machine intelligences—in short, their computers—had already made contact with the JAM in this way. That was why he didn’t ask the question, and because he didn’t ask, the tactical computer did not tell him. Even Rei didn’t know until he had met the whole of JAM existence. Not a single human had realized it. Not until it had actually happened.

  2

  CAPTAIN FUKAI IS the only one capable of communication with the JAM, Major Booker thought. And he’d have to do it as soon as he was ready to. But he wasn’t prepared yet. First of all, there was the critical issue of selecting a reliable contact point. That would mostly determine the success or failure of this endeavor.

  Since it would be necessary to scout out the several JAM bases comprising Richwar, Major Booker rerouted the planes scheduled to be used in the Cookie attack operation for that purpose. Urging Captain Foss to hurry up with her profacting of the JAM, he dispatched Yukikaze on her tactical recon of Cookie base as originally planned. It was reckless to sen
d Rei on a sortie so soon after returning to combat duty, and with his green EWO Lieutenant Katsuragi besides, but the major judged that Rei needed to get his combat intuition back and Lieutenant Katsuragi needed some real combat experience.

  Rei had expressed concern over involving a newbie like Lieutenant Katsuragi in something as important as making contact with the JAM, but Major Booker had had an idea he didn’t tell Rei about. If Yukikaze and her crew were captured, it’d be better to have a crewmember who knew as little about the inner workings of the SAF as possible. Katsuragi fit that description perfectly. Also, if it should turn out that Rei himself was being manipulated by the JAM, that unknown even to himself, he was a JAM duplicate, then Major Booker believed that Lieutenant Katsuragi would be able to deal with that situation as well. As a member of the Intelligence Forces, Lieutenant Katsuragi had had it drilled into him to constantly be on guard for those who were attempting to sabotage the FAF. Aside from that, if by some chance Katsuragi was a JAM himself, Major Booker thought, and the JAM wanted to make contact with Yukikaze and Rei, then they might use Lieutenant Katsuragi to guide her to them.

  Major Booker had also considered the possibility that the JAM would initiate contact from their end, but he’d expected them to use the human duplicates they’d created to understand humans. Of course, he’d also considered that the JAM would try to directly access the SAF’s computers, but he’d unconsciously ignored the possibility because he hoped that wouldn’t occur. In such a situation, the humans would have no recourse. It would mean that the war had completely become one between the JAM and the computers.

  Some things you don’t want to deal with, even as they demand your attention, because you don’t want them to be true. The trouble is that ignoring an unpleasant truth doesn’t make it any less real. To the contrary, he’d been a fool to have forgotten how much of a bitch reality tended to be, Major Booker realized as he monitored Yukikaze’s tactical reconnaissance mission to Cookie base from the command center.

  With Cookie already destroyed, he hadn’t been expecting any surprises. After taking on fuel at their refueling point and conducting the recon, the only thing he expected to hear next from them was “Mission complete, RTB.” And, in fact, that was what had happened with every other fighter before Yukikaze. A detailed analysis of the electronic intelligence gathered from the combat airspace had indicated that Cookie wasn’t seeking aid from any other bases. The humans in the SAF had judged that it was too late for the JAM to try and turn the tables on them there.

  Booker had Captain Foss waiting there with him, since he figured that Lieutenant Katsuragi’s inexperience might start aggravating Rei. But then, seeing as she already had an interest in Rei, Lieutenant Katsuragi, and Yukikaze, Foss had probably intended to come down to the command center to observe their mission regardless of her orders. The same went for General Cooley. Even as she was convincing herself that nothing was going to happen to Yukikaze in this situation, she still couldn’t bring herself to take her eyes off the plane’s mission status data stream and get some rest. The humans in the SAF might not have known that Yukikaze had already been contacted by the JAM, but they all knew how serious a matter it’d be if anything happened to her.

  Which was why all of them felt an awful foreboding when they received Yukikaze’s distress call.

  The action in the command center kicked up a notch as the tactical computer translated the code from Yukikaze into human speech and moved the display from one of the terminals to the main screen.

  This is Yukikaze. We have encountered an unknown type of JAM plane. Taking own initiative and moving strategic reconnaissance operation to phase three. Out.

  “What’s going on here? Have Captain Fukai explain,” Major Booker ordered. The communications officer replied that he couldn’t.

  “Yukikaze is currently engaged in a level-1 combat recon operation and is flying with her comm systems blacked out. We can’t reach her.”

  “I don’t think Captain Fukai is the one calling the shots here, Major,” Captain Foss said. “The way that message says ‘Taking own initiative’ is telling me that it’s Yukikaze making the call, and Rei—sorry, Captain Fukai may not even know about it, or at the very least didn’t make the decision.”

  “Looks like the JAM got the jump on you, Major Booker,” said General Cooley. “From what I see in this scenario, that unknown JAM plane is there to make contact with Yukikaze, not engage her in combat. They’ve moved to make contact from their side.”

  “I knew this would happen,” said Captain Foss coolly.

  If you knew that, Major Booker thought savagely, then why the hell didn’t you bother mentioning it beforehand? And stop looking so damned pleased with yourself. As much as he wanted to actually say it to her, his sense of danger overrode his anger. They could point fingers later. Right now, they had to wrap their heads around what was happening to Yukikaze fast and figure out what to do about it. As usual, the tactical computer won that race.

  Reroute returning Rafe to the scene. General Cooley, grant clearance.

  “Granted. Major Booker, take command.”

  “Roger. ATC, I need emergency access to the Rafe. What’s its current position and remaining fuel status?”

  I’ll do that, the tactical computer indicated on the main screen. Attempting to seize control of Tactical Combat Air Corps and TAB-8 base control and computer systems. General Cooley, grant clearance.

  “Granted, on condition that the seizure isn’t detected. They mustn’t know that we’re doing this.”

  Roger. Your condition is possible to achieve. Initiating mission to track and support Yukikaze by authorization of General Cooley. Arranging for hot refuel of Rafe at TAB-8. Operating Rafe to achieve optimal reconnaissance action. Grant clearance.

  “Granted. Don’t let anyone else know that we’re operating that Rafe. Give me a sequential report of everything that you do.”

  Roger. Generating real-time display of situation in Cookie base battle zone from available information.

  No real-time data was coming in from Yukikaze. For that reason, they had no idea what was happening to her, or even what course she was flying. Usually, she would operate so as to make sure that none of the data she was gathering could be intercepted by the wrong hands, so the command center wouldn’t have any means of tracking her in real time. But that wasn’t the case now. The tactical computer was seizing the data from the computer systems of the other military units. In addition, it’d issued emergency change of mission orders to two SAF fighters they had flying in other areas outside of Cookie and was displaying the real-time data of the FAF telemetry it was now gathering.

  From this, they learned that Cookie had launched one final counterattack and then self-destructed. All FAF fighters flying in the airspace above had been brought down, and now the front line was buzzing with activity, like a beehive someone had poked with a stick. Despite this, they had no clue as to what had happened to Yukikaze. Her presence in the area couldn’t even be confirmed.

  If Yukikaze was still intact, Major Booker thought, and she was simply keeping her contact with the JAM a secret from the FAF, then that was fine. She was just hiding it from everybody. But what if that wasn’t the case?

  The tactical computer sent the Rafe to search for Yukikaze on Cookie’s perimeter for as long as the Rafe’s fuel allowed, but by that time there was no sign of her. All it spotted were the surviving JAM fighters in combat with the FAF.

  The Rafe was temporarily landed at TAB-8 to be hot fueled, with its engines still running. Despite that, it still took more time than it should have. The arrangements for the refueling had been properly made, but the humans at the base had never seen an unmanned Rafe before, so they didn’t know where the fuel ports were or even how many of them it had. The SAF sent the data, but until it was sent to the scene, the Rafe was kept waiting. There it sat, engines running with its nose sunk down in a kneeling position. To the humans who stood watching it nearby, it seemed just like a JAM. />
  “C-could Yukikaze have been shot down?” Unable to stand it anymore, Captain Foss asked the question nobody else wanted to. “She isn’t anywhere. She’s not flying.”

  “There’s no trace of her having crashed,” replied General Cooley. “We’re not picking up any mayday signals either.”

  Major Booker had thought that she’d perhaps landed at Cookie, but the video the Rafe had sent back gave lie to that possibility. There was no Cookie base left to land on. It had been transformed into an enormous crater. Even had Yukikaze landed there, it would be difficult to even discern her wreckage.

  I anticipate that Yukikaze is making contact with the JAM, the tactical computer said. I cannot detect that ourselves. All we can do is wait for her return to base.

  “Have the Rafe continue its investigation,” said Major Booker. “I’m declaring an emergency. Have the other fighters join in.”

  While a search is necessary, putting more search planes in the airspace over Cookie at this time won’t increase the probability of locating Yukikaze, the computer said. I theorize that she has entered the mysterious battle zone.

  “Where’s this mysterious battle zone?” Captain Foss asked.

  “An unknown airspace Yukikaze was caught in once before. It happened during a sightseeing flight with a visitor from Earth aboard her. Yukikaze was flying without a full crew, and the JAM caught her in a strange interdimensional zone, like a butterfly in a net.”

  Even as he explained, Major Booker wondered why the tactical computer had mentioned that little detail, then realized why. There was no doubt in his mind that the computers had already had some sort of discussion with the JAM and foreseen this circumstance. The SAF’s combat intelligences had acted on their own initiative. They were now seizing control.

  Major Booker bit his lip as he realized that he’d been naive. It had been them, not the JAM, who’d gotten the jump on him. Rei had told him that Yukikaze was conscious, that she was alive, but he’d never really taken him seriously. Apparently, he should have.