The flash wasn’t fading at all, as if time had been dramatically slowed down. Why weren’t things fading to black? he wondered. Why can I still think? Is there really a world for humans after death? As he was thinking these thoughts, Rei then sensed that the missile was still overhead and hadn’t exploded.
He didn’t physically see it with his eyes. He just knew. Right overhead, the lens of the missile’s seeker was looking down on him like a black eye.
The counter hadn’t reached zero yet, he realized. The hundredths of a second column hadn’t yet reached zero. He suddenly became aware that he was reaching for the flight stick.
That’s right, Rei Fukai. It’s not too late. You can still make it out of this. Evade the missile. Don’t accept death at Yukikaze’s hand.
He sensed a voice speaking to him. Was it the JAM? Or perhaps it was a part of him that still wanted to survive. Even as he thought this, his heart told him not to give in to its temptations. The voice continued.
You don’t really want to die. You may have decided that being killed by Yukikaze wouldn’t be death, but you’re wrong. She’s killing you. If you act now, you could still survive. I can stop her. Answer me. Do as I say.
“Fuck off,” Rei screamed in his heart. “No!”
But why? Why won’t you accept my offer? Why won’t you trust me?
—Because you can’t understand.
And he couldn’t trust anyone who didn’t, much less do what they told him to.
Do you prefer annihilation while you still don’t understand what I am?
—I’d be killed by Yukikaze and not by you. I don’t give a damn about you anymore. I won’t let you come between us, so get the hell out of here! This is the relationship I share with her, and I’ll be damned if I’ll let you get in the way of it. I’m busy here trying to perfect my relationship with Yukikaze. Quit bothering me! My life or death is my own business. I won’t let anyone take that from me!
He felt violent rage. A terrible anger he’d never experienced before. Whether it originated from himself or the owner of the voice, Rei couldn’t say for sure.
The anger became an explosion of energy. Or at least that was what Rei thought. He couldn’t see the main display anymore. The intense light spread. He felt the force of it blast the missile hanging over him away. This being, whatever it was, would not have him.
Rei sensed that he’d won, and joy filled his heart. It became a wave of force, shaking his surroundings as it spread.
He was filled with a terrific sense of euphoria, and the external rage turned to vague resentment, and then to bewilderment. Why was he so confused? he wondered, regretting that the feeling was already fading. Rei realized that the anger and confusion weren’t his own, but the sense of joy he felt was also fading along with them. The light was fading. It grew dark. A powerful fatigue began to take the place of the sense of triumph he’d felt. Discomfort with his own body.
Once more, he had a sense of his own physical form. The beating of his heart, his ragged breathing, the sweat that soaked him from head to toe, the ache in his head. As his sight brought back his sense of reality, the readouts on the display grabbed his attention.
The countdown to impact had been replaced with the word FAIL.
The attack had failed.
The perfection of my ideal relationship with Yukikaze has failed, Rei thought, his mind still drifting in a dreamlike state.
The warning alarm that followed snapped him back to consciousness. The seat ejection sequencer was being activated, setting off a warning strobe. This was happening. He was in danger.
If the pilot in front activated the sequencer, the person in the rear had no choice but to be ejected as well. But the person in the rear could select to eject either both seats or just their own. At the moment, it was set to eject the rear seat only. The ejection call could be executed by pulling on either a handle located next to the crewman’s knees or the ones overhead. Checking his rearview mirror, Rei saw that Lieutenant Katsuragi was grasping the overhead handles.
“Katsuragi, don’t!” Rei yelled. “Get your hands off of those handles!”
Rei wasn’t going to let him eject. He couldn’t afford to lose the plane’s canopy now. It would lose both speed and stability, and they still hadn’t left the mysterious battle zone. Lieutenant Katsuragi had come back to himself. He wanted to say that he hadn’t meant to eject, that his hands had moved unconsciously, but he couldn’t speak. Wasn’t there some way to stop the ejection sequence?
“Lieutenant, relax your grip,” Rei said. “Release the handles slowly. It’s all right, you can still cancel it.”
Rei could hear the man take a deep breath, as though he had finally remembered to breathe. After acknowledging the attack failure indicator and canceling all alarms, Yukikaze flashed a new message onto the display:
You have control…Capt/let’s return home.
Rei quickly flipped both the automaneuver switch and the G limiter off. Gripping the throttle tightly, he pushed it to maximum thrust and lit the afterburners.
Yukikaze’s twin Super Phoenix engines began generating thrust beyond their rated safety limits. Rei’s body was thrown back into his seat with a bang. Having turned over flight control to Rei, Yukikaze immediately assumed control of the electronic warfare duties. All jamming systems were engaged at maximum output.
The way out was dead ahead. It was an aperture, gray now instead of blue. It seemed to have moved there from the missile impact point instantaneously, by the JAM, no doubt.
Lieutenant Katsuragi looked behind him. It was complete blackness now. He got the rough impression that the airspace in which they were flying was somehow spherical, and rapidly shrinking. Looking toward the gray, circular exit ahead of them, he could see it contracting. Like the pupil of an eye, he thought. It was like Yukikaze was flying out of the JAM’s own evil eye.
The rate of the gray circle’s closure seemed to slow. In fact, it hadn’t slowed at all, but as Yukikaze rapidly closed the distance, the relative speed made it appear that way. Lieutenant Katsuragi knew that they were now close enough to get a true sense of distance from it. The aperture conversely seemed to begin growing larger.
“Brace for impact!”
No sooner had Rei said it than the lieutenant inhaled sharply and tensed.
Just before the violent shock hit them, he managed to make a rough eyeball estimate of just how big the exit was—about two hundred meters in diameter, and Yukikaze was thrusting toward just about dead center of it. The crash felt like they’d run into a solid wall.
He could still think, so they obviously hadn’t been smashed to smithereens. Nice. Great job, Lieutenant Katsuragi thought, in appreciation of Rei’s flying skills. Even at this speed, he’d managed to fly through that tiny exit.
There hadn’t been any room to spare. It had felt like being on a train car rushing into a tunnel, except Yukikaze didn’t have a track to follow. One slip up on the controls would have ended in a nasty failure.
“Check for damage.”
His pilot’s voice rang out. Lieutenant Katsuragi switched the plane’s onboard self-monitoring systems on. Their engines had stalled out. There was a hydraulic system malfunction on one of the tail stabilizers. He visually checked each wing. The left primary tail stabilizer was gone, and the plane’s fuselage was pocked with holes near it. He could tell that the force of the blast had come from inside of the plane. The other flight systems seemed to be fine.
“We lost our left primary tail stabilizer. I think we had some kind of major mechanical failure in the left engine. There’s no fire or smoke coming out, but there’re traces of a small explosion. Both engines have flamed out, and fuel transfer to them has been automatically cut. The emergency fuel shut-off valve has been activated.”
Rei checked the flight instruments. They were flying inverted. Righting the plane, he saw that they had altitude to spare. They were flying at 24,100 meters and descending gradually. He could already tell that the left engi
ne was unusable now. Losing the primary tail stabilizer didn’t have much of an effect on them. There were two pairs of them and, as they were in close proximity to the main wings, were referred to as the primary and secondary tail stabilizers. They moved up and down in relation to the fuselage, with the sweep of the angle between them adjusting variably on a moment-by-moment basis according to the plane’s flight attitude. Because of this, there was little meaningful distinction between a horizontal or vertical stabilizer as far as a pilot was concerned, so losing one meant that, aside from advanced air combat maneuvering, flight was completely unaffected. As long as the flight system was still functioning properly, it could probably keep the plane flying stably with only one wing. Their problem was thrust, as in a lack of it coming from the engines.
Rei attempted to restart the starboard engine. If that didn’t work, he was going to have to consider an emergency landing. The airspace in which they flew was wrapped in gray fog and offered no obvious place for them to set down. But then Yukikaze canceled electronic warfare mode. Switching on the communications monitor, Lieutenant Katsuragi heard the familiar white noise fill his ears. This was normal airspace.
“Aside from the passive airspace radar, our radar systems are functioning normally. Flight path is clear,” said Lieutenant Katsuragi. “Unidentified aircraft sighted. It’s close.”
“Give them a chirp with our IFF,” said Rei.
“On it. I have a response. It’s SAF Unit B-2: Carmilla. No other aircraft sighted.”
“Roger.”
Rei succeeded in getting the right engine started. Almost simultaneously, their field of view cleared.
Yukikaze had been picked up by Lieutenant Zubrowski, Carmilla’s pilot. Her sudden appearance hadn’t surprised him, since he’d been advised of the possibility by the tactical computer back in HQ. Even so, the circumstances of it had taken his breath away. His passive airspace radar had detected an abnormal airspace form on a point of the sector he’d been told to keep watch on. It then burst almost immediately after. While he couldn’t see the bubblelike formation pop with his naked eye, a roughly spherical black cloud had appeared immediately after it happened.
There was a thudding crash that had shaken Carmilla violently. The black cloud swelled, grew larger, then dispersed. And from it flew Yukikaze on a mostly level course.
“B-2’s central computer is saying it’s ready to give support and is requesting a direct link.”
“Refuse it,” said Rei.
“Roger,” replied Lieutenant Katsuragi. “Refusal sent. I’m amazed. They’re in open communication with SAF headquarters.”
“Record everything.”
“I confirm all auto-recorders are running.”
“Where are we?”
“In the airspace over Richwar base. Taking the shortest return course, it puts us closer to home than from Cookie. About 75 percent of our current maximum range. The nearest base to us is TAB-4, which is 47 percent. I can’t say for sure yet what our fuel consumption rate is without us flying on one engine for a while, but I don’t think we’ll need to be refueled. If nothing else happens to us, it should hold out till we get back to Faery base.”
“Let’s head for it, then. Plot the shortest return course.”
“Roger. Take a heading of 031 and cruise at an altitude of 21,200.”
“Roger. Stay focused, Lieutenant.”
“Understood. B-2, approaching. It’s taking up position behind us.”
The attack radar sounded an alarm as it picked up an attack-targeting beam. Rei raised the throttle to military power.
“B-2 is preparing to attack. They’re tracking us with their fire control radar,” the lieutenant announced coolly. “Looks like they don’t trust us.”
“Contact SAF headquarters. Use voice communications,” said Rei.
“Roger…I have HQ on the line. Go ahead, Captain.”
“This B-1, Captain Fukai. Returning to base. Advise B-2 to cancel attack preparations. If attack isn’t canceled, we will engage.”
“This is General Cooley at headquarters. Roger, B-1. Captain Fukai, give me a damage report.”
“Nothing major, just have an anti-ABC decontamination wash ready for me. I want to wash any JAM filth off of us. Out.”
“This is HQ, roger.”
Confirming that B-2 was no longer painting them with its FCS radar, Rei throttled back. He put them on course, maintaining the altitude and speed given to him by Lieutenant Katsuragi. Yukikaze began to take a steady course straight to Faery base.
B-2 rolled to the side to maintain observation on Yukikaze’s condition, rolling over her midpoint and taking up an escort position to her port side. While Rei couldn’t see its cockpit from Yukikaze with his naked eye while they had held range for counter-JAM combat, he recognized the plane’s shape. It was a Super Sylph. Identical to the ghost plane. As he looked at it, Lieutenant Katsuragi spoke.
“Yukikaze isn’t saying that B-2 is an enemy, but how do we know if this world is the real one, Captain Fukai?”
“What do you think?”
“I’m alive. That’s the only thing I know.”
“Same here,” Rei said. “That’s good enough for me.”
“Really? You’re willing to leave it at that?” Katsuragi said.
“Knowing that you’re alive is a pretty major thing, isn’t it? You want to have something more certain than that, then you’ll have to get it for yourself.”
“I guess so,” the lieutenant said after a pause. “I didn’t think we were going to make it. The JAM must have somehow deflected the missile. Or teleported Yukikaze, the same way that the ghost plane could. Did you know that the JAM would do that? Were you sure of it?”
“No,” Rei said, shaking his head. “That was Yukikaze’s judgment. I had no idea any of that would happen. I never would have guessed that Yukikaze would take us hostage. And I’ll bet that even she wasn’t absolutely sure that it’d work.”
“Dangerous gamble, huh?”
“I don’t regret that she did it,” Rei said.
“Even if Yukikaze had ended up killing you?”
“Yeah.”
“I understand.”
“Do you?”
“Because I’m alive. If I was dead, I wouldn’t,” Lieutenant Katsuragi said.
“What?”
“This longing you have to be killed by her. I understand how real it is for you. Yukikaze was willing to take that gamble because she understands it too. I would have taken evasive action. She wouldn’t have made that bet had I been flying her.”
“Hmm…”
“The JAM waited till the very last instant so that they could confirm your relationship with her for themselves. Even they must see now that you genuinely would accept death if it was Yukikaze killing you,” said Lieutenant Katsuragi. “The thing is, what I don’t get is why the JAM let us out of there. This is probably the world we came from. The JAM could have recaptured us if they wanted to. So why didn’t they?”
Typical stubbornness of a former Intelligence Forces man, Rei thought before replying. “The JAM probably figured there was nothing to gain from recapturing us.”
“I suppose. That’s the only thing I can think of too. I don’t know why, though. Do you think Yukikaze does?”
“I’m not sure. We can do a detailed analysis once we get back to base,” Rei said.
Analysis of this data is going to be a lot of work. The results may change the entire meaning of the war against the JAM, Rei thought.
“Yukikaze is definitely an autonomous intelligence. I know that now, Captain Fukai. A very dangerous one. As dangerous as the JAM. No, I take that back. You can’t compare them with her. She possesses an incredible power, one that no human can ever compete with. That’s clear to me. Besides that, I have no idea what the JAM want from us. That scared me,” Lieutenant Katsuragi said. “The thing is, I’d like to talk to them again.”
“Are you serious?”
“I think I can discuss things
with them better than you, Captain Fukai.”
“That’s a hell of a thing to say,” Rei said. “Not something I’d expect to hear from the guy I flew out with.”
“It’s because I’m still alive. I can say anything now.”
Lieutenant Katsuragi smiled as he spoke. Their narrow escape from death had excited him. That’s right, Rei thought. The lieutenant had gone into battle for the first time, had met the JAM as they truly were, and had escaped with his life. It wasn’t surprising that it had changed his outlook on the JAM, if not his entire outlook on life. Rei had a feeling that, left to his own devices, the now loquacious Lieutenant Katsuragi would keep right on talking and forget to do his duty. Rei ordered him to confirm their course, and he fell silent.
Rei once again thought back on what he’d just experienced.
What had that voice been? What was that voice that had crept into his heart just as the countdown till Yukikaze’s missile hit reached zero? In the moment, he’d thought it was some survival instinct that had come to life within him, but it wasn’t, was it? That had been the voice of the JAM. He had a feeling that Yukikaze hadn’t heard it, and that it hadn’t been recorded. But that was no hallucination. He was positive that what he sensed then was the JAM. The temptation, the anger, the confusion.
Take evasive action, it’s not too late, listen to me. That was what it had called on him to do. What would have happened if he’d listened?
When he realized that the counter had reached zero and the missile still hadn’t hit, he was aware that he had his hand on the flight stick to evade it. That action hadn’t come from his intelligence, but rather from an animalistic instinct to survive. The JAM had given him the extra time for that to happen.
Evade the missile. Don’t accept being killed by Yukikaze. You don’t really want to die. You may have decided that being killed by Yukikaze wouldn’t be death, but you’re wrong.
That was what the JAM had told him. Do as I say. If he just did what the voice said, he’d be saved.
He’d understood that, but he’d still rejected them.
Good Luck, Yukikaze Page 35