YUKIKAZE (23 page)

“How do you communicate with this thing?” he asked.

“It doesn’t have a vocal speech recognition function, but it does understand plain language. You input via the keyboard.”

“I’d like to try talking to it.”

“Please go ahead,” Captain McGuire replied. “I have work to do, so I’ll leave you to it. Until we meet again, Major. If you discover anything of interest, please call for me.”

“Right.”

Booker pecked at the console keyboard.

Wake up
he entered.

State identity
came the response.
Input rank and unit attachment
.

After answering this, the major entered his question.

Tell me the reason for awarding a decoration to Lt. Amata.


There was a second’s delay, then the computer responded
Classified
.

Why? Is it related to the JAM?


Classified.


The major sighed. Maybe he’d get somewhere if he changed the direction of the questioning.

What are the JAM?


Our enemy.


“Huh,” said the major as he rested his fingers on the keys and reread the display. That was a natural enough answer. Nothing strange about it. Our enemy. Our… He suddenly started forward in his seat.

Who do you mean by
“
our
”?

We who are the enemy of the JAM.


Humans?


There is no direct evidence the JAM perceive humans.


Explain.


There was a short pause.

Meaning of question unclear. Reenter.


His fingers now trembling, Booker typed
Who
…
is
…
the
…
enemy
…
of
…
the
…
JAM?


The response came immediately.
We are.


Computers? The computers from Earth?


The cursor blinked, then froze. As though the computer were hesitating. Just for an instant. Then the characters scrolled out. The major devoured them as they appeared.

The JAM’s direct enemy is the Faery Air Force.


The JAM cannot recognize humans?


There is no direct evidence the JAM perceive humans.


But there is for computers?


A pause.

Meaning of question unclear. Reenter.


Do you sense the JAM?


Another pause.

Meaning of question unclear. Reenter.


Booker smacked the console, cursing under his breath. “Is this thing playing dumb?” He drummed his fingers on its surface for a moment, then started typing again.

Explain the importance of the snow removal teams to the war with the JAM.


Context disorder. Reenter.


Are the snow removal teams necessary to the war against the JAM?


They are necessary.


The current snow removal operation procedures are inefficient. Do you recognize this?


Recognized.


Describe remedial measures.


Full automation is necessary.


Humans are not necessary?


A pause.

Meaning of question unclear. Reenter.


Are humans necessary for the operation of the FAF?


The major took a deep breath and waited for the reply.

The computer seemed to laugh scornfully at his tension as it output its response.

They are necessary.


Lt. Amata was decorated because he is necessary?


Were the computers giving out medals as rewards to the humans? To keep them happy and quietly obedient?

Booker recalled something Rei had said before: “Why do humans have to fight?” What had he said as an answer? He thought it was something like, “Because wars are started by humans, which means we can’t very well leave them to machines to fight.”

Except that it wasn’t true. The major slowly stood up.

The response on the screen was
Classified.


It seemed that the war was between the JAM and the FAF’s computers. The JAM were fighting humanity’s machines, not the people that built them. So where did that leave the humans? Where did that leave him? If the computers said humans weren’t necessary to the battle, would they be excluded from it?

Booker realized his hands were balled into fists and carefully uncurled them. This was bullshit. Maybe this computer really was malfunctioning.

Just as he was leaving the room, the intercom chimed. The major went back inside. “What is it?”

“Yukikaze has been hit,” came Captain McGuire’s voice. “You’re wanted back in SAF command at once.”

“Understood.” The major clicked the intercom off and ran from the GHQ sector.

I don’t believe this,
he thought, fighting down the pounding of his heart.
It had to happen while I’m fucking around with a computer. Rei, come back alive. That’s an order.

THE SAF COMMAND quarters wasn’t as large as the air force’s General Headquarters, but it was almost as well equipped. As Major Booker entered the combat control room, he immediately looked at the thirty-by-sixty foot main tactical display that extended across the front wall of the chamber. In one of the center screen sectors, red letters spelling out
EMERGENCY
were blinking on and off.

The major checked Yukikaze’s damage data, which was being transmitted to them by the fighter’s autonomous test system. The hydraulics that powered the lowering and raising of her landing gear, arresting hook, and canopy were damaged. The left engine had been hit and had flamed out, but the fire had been extinguished.
Thank God,
Booker thought. All he had to do now was pray for a safe emergency landing. Rei would be able to pull this off.

“Close the airfield. Clear the takeoff runway for him.”

“We can’t,” replied a female operator, her voice tense. “They’re plowing the snow on it, Major.”

“Then move them out of the way!” he yelled. “What have you been doing ’til now?!”

Yukikaze was dumping her remaining fuel, making preparations to land.

Dread fisted around his heart.
Rei, wait. It’s too soon.

Booker ran out of the command center and headed for the surface. How could this be happening? What the hell were those idiots in the snow removal teams doing? Were they trying to keep Yukikaze from landing?

PAN, PAN, PAN. Snow removal units on Runway 02L, stop all work immediately and move to the side of the runway at once. SAF 5th Squadron Unit B-503 is making an emergency landing. Snow removal units, emergency evacuation. Repeat—

Lieutenant Amata heard them declare a PAN but could not understand the message. He was almost blind drunk. He just muttered “All right, all right,” when he heard the emergency call, and lined his plow up to follow the guidance vector projected on his front windshield. In other words, he kept driving straight on. He could see his coworkers’ units moving away from him.
Shit,
he thought,
you don’t have to hate me that much, do you?

He stomped on the accelerator and took a swig of his whiskey. It didn’t flow into his stomach, though. He vomited it back up. The floor of the cabin was now stained red. In his clouded mind, the lieutenant urged himself on.
Gotta keep following the guide mark. C’mon, c’mon! This is my job.
He thought he saw a black shadow appear in front of him.

It was the shape on his medal. It seemed to be growing steadily larger. Must be a bird… But would there be birds in this cold? Must be his imagination. Amata kept his eyes on the windshield display and drove the grader straight on.

AT YUKIKAZE’S CONTROLS, Rei couldn’t believe his ears when he heard her collision warning alarm sound. They were on final approach and now, inexplicably, there was an obstacle in front of them. He could see the black dot below him with his naked eyes. A snowplow? What the hell…?

They continued to bleed energy as Yukikaze fell. They’d been flying with her nose pitched up to catch the maximum air resistance across the entire wing, but now it was roughly level with the horizon. Their airspeed had dropped low enough for landing, but that was the main cause of their immediate predicament: they didn’t have enough lift to fly over the obstacle before them on the runway. Should he cut out the direct lift control and use the side force controller to veer to the side? He wasn’t going fast enough for that and didn’t have enough altitude, either. Because he’d dumped their fuel according to the SOP for an emergency landing, he didn’t have enough left for a retry. But if he did nothing, they were going to crash into that machine. Air compressed by ground effect forces blew up fantails of snow below them as Yukikaze rushed onward.

From the backseat, Lieutenant Burgadish noticed the object on the runway and immediately apprehended the problem.

“Lieutenant Fukai, eject.”

“Evading.”

“There’s no time for that.”

“I’m clearing you to punch out. Go.”

“Roger.”

Burgadish yanked down his face curtain handle. The canopy… did not eject. The hydraulics were dead. With his right hand still on the handle, he moved the canopy lever to the OPEN position and pulled the emergency canopy ejection. No good. Next he pulled the manual release handle. This lifted the canopy up slightly, which should have caused it to be blown off by the air pressure, but there was no response. It wouldn’t open.

“Through-canopy bailout!” Burgadish yelled. The only way for them to get out of the plane now was to smash through the canopy itself.

Rei wasn’t even thinking about ejecting. He nudged the direct lift control thumbwheel forward and advanced the throttle. He had to accelerate to gain the lift he’d need to avoid the obstacle. He closed the speed brake. The afterburner wouldn’t ignite; the fuel transfer valve to the afterburner closed automatically once the remaining fuel fell below a certain level. Regardless, he couldn’t expect the afterburner to handle such a sudden acceleration. There was a short pause before he felt a response.

Yukikaze accelerated, nosing down to minimize air resistance, her flaps automatically extending to full down.

“Float, Yukikaze,” Rei urged.

Not even five seconds had passed since he’d first seen the snowplow.

Rei looked at the huge machine in front of them. It was no use. They were going to crash into it. In his mind, Rei could see Yukikaze’s radome smashing into the grader. In another instant, that would be his reality.

He heard a crash as the rear seat smashed through the canopy. Burgadish had done as Rei had ordered, setting the ejection command mode lever so that his seat alone would eject. Rei stayed where he was.

He braced himself for the impact. The little bit of altitude they’d gained wouldn’t be enough. Yukikaze’s fuselage would be gutted like a fish by the top of the grader, and then they would be ripped apart.

He didn’t close his eyes. Just before impact, he thought he could see the face of the man in the driver’s seat… Then the entire cabin vanished.

Rei was certain of what he’d just seen but couldn’t process it: the driver’s cab had turned an incandescent red and then disappeared. The upper half of the grader simply had been erased, like a drawing on a blackboard. Yukikaze’s radome plunged through the now empty space where it had been and flew over the remainder of the machine without any impact at all.

Rei quickly pitched Yukikaze up to kill his speed. She hit the ground hard, tail down, then nose, and skidded along the surface of the snow. They were rapidly approaching the end of the runway. Rei had done all that he could. The only thing left was to hope they stopped before the runway ran out.

Yukikaze finally came to a halt just before going off the runway. Rei twisted around and looked behind him out the broken cockpit.

Black smoke was rising from the remains of the snowplow. He had no idea what had happened, but Yukikaze had landed safely and that was all that was important to him. He checked the instruments for any abnormalities and then, after determining that there was no danger of fire, took out his canopy knife, broke through a forward section of the glass, and got out of there.

AFTER THE ACCIDENT, Major Booker recalled the horrifying sight of Yukikaze heading straight for the huge machine. He had been running across the snow, powerless to stop the imminent catastrophe, when the cold air was split by the sound of an explosion that echoed into the sky.

It was the runway point defense system. The antiaircraft Phalanx guns had activated and thrown nearly a thousand rounds of ammo in a fraction of a second at the grader, blowing off its upper half instantly. Yukikaze passed overhead safely as Booker stood there in shock, a distant corner of his mind grateful that the guy in the grader must have died instantly, never knowing what had hit him.

Later, he learned that the point defense system had automatically fired on the decision of the central defense computer. And that it had been Lieutenant Amata in that grader.

Later still, on reading the accident report, he came across a recommendation in the conclusion section for altering all snow removal operations. When his eyes fell on the phrase “Full automation is necessary,” a cold, sickening sensation crawled down his spine. It was the exact same phrase that the HQ computer had used.

The major couldn’t help reading into this whole incident a veiled threat, a warning that humans should not interfere in the battle between the computers and the JAM. It was probably just paranoia, but on the other hand instincts like this were what had kept him alive until now.

After the accident investigation was over, Booker queried the computer once more as to why it had awarded the medal to Lieutenant Amata.

The computer answered
Classified.


But then it went on.
Based on his heroic actions, it is recommended that Lt. Amata receive the Distinguished Service Award for his snow removal duties.