YUKIKAZE (25 page)

There was a caution indicating an oxygen malfunction in the rear section of the cockpit.

“Lieutenant,” Rei called out. “You okay? Hey, Rich.”

Burgadish gingerly pulled his mask off and made an “okay” sign with his fingers. “Puked my mask. Still feel sick… Some fighter jock I am. First time it’s happened… So, why aren’t we dead?”

“It looks like Yukikaze shot down the missile.”

“No shit? I feel like I’ve been shot in the gut,” the EWO answered, panting like a runner who’d just run a long race.

Yukikaze descended toward Faery Base.

TAB-14 WAS GONE.

After exhausting their onboard store of warheads, the massive JAM carriers crash-bombed the base, finishing it off just as Lieutenant Burgadish had predicted they would. There were no survivors. The JAM attack had been of such devastating power that even the reinforced command bunkers deep underground had been destroyed. The planes flying in the airspace above TAB-14, including the AWACS unit, had been caught in the blast radius and also destroyed.

Only Yukikaze had made it back. Since the TARPS pod had been jettisoned, the data recorded by its cameras had been lost, but the onboard data file was intact.

Rei attended the briefing on the combat intelligence brought back by Yukikaze.

“This is unbelievable,” said General Cooley as she looked up from her screen.

“I agree,” replied Major Booker. The shadowy half-light of the briefing room threw the scar on his cheek into stark relief as he nodded. “An attack with this level of destructive power from the JAM is completely unprecedented. This data is invaluable.”

“If we don’t come up with a counterstrategy fast, Faery Base will be in danger as well. Nice work, Lieutenant Fukai.”

“You can thank Yukikaze. I was unconscious.”

“It’s hard to believe it pulled off a maneuver like that. Super Sylphs may have a strong airframe, but you’re still lucky it didn’t break apart in midair. Or break its pilot. If I’m not mistaken, hitting the V-max switch cuts out your G-limiter too.”

“Better that than getting killed. I just cracked a couple of ribs. I don’t have word yet on my EWO, though.”

“His spleen was ruptured. He’s out of danger for the moment and should recover. You’ve already had your spleen removed, haven’t you?”

“Yeah. That may have saved me.”

Looking at him over the top of her glasses, General Cooley gave him a small, tight-lipped smile. Rei suppressed the urge to flinch.

“Major Booker,” she said, still gazing at Rei. “Put this intelligence in order at once. I’ll be presenting it at an emergency command staff meeting in two hours. That is all.”

“Understood, General.”

Booker stood and saluted the general as she exited the briefing room. Rei remained seated and watched her go, as always mildly surprised that she didn’t actually have eyes in the back of her head.

Down in the hangar on the other side of the briefing room’s glass wall, the maintenance crew was scanning Yukikaze’s airframe with ultrasonic and X-ray equipment, hunting for damage.

“Yukikaze nearly wrenched herself apart. Did you see the strain gauge on her wings, Rei?”

“It turned out okay.”

“It did this time, but we still need to change our approach, on both the software and hardware fronts. And before that we need to rethink our strategy. We’re going to have to be a lot more cautious about getting into dogfights.”

“Yeah, the Fands have no chance. Even we barely made it.”

“The FAF has also been developing high-velocity missiles, but we’re still trying to resolve the issue of the aerodynamic heating and the thermal noise it causes. The JAM have obviously cracked that problem. And we don’t really have a clue as to how their guidance system works.”

“Doesn’t seem like it’s active homing. ECM had no effect.”

“The frequency range may have been wrong. We’ll figure it out eventually. But we have successfully tested the FAF’s air-to-air high-velocity missile. It’s not as fast as the JAM’s, but the accuracy should be about the same.”

“Even if we have the missiles, the fighters carrying them will still be Fands. They’ll be shot down before they can fire.”

“Nope,” said Major Booker, grinning broadly. “Guess what just passed its flight tests? Fand II. It’s a completely different beast from the Fand, a high maneuverability dogfighter. Its engine output is only 60 percent of a Sylphid’s, but its empty weight is only 60 percent of one too. It’s much smaller than Yukikaze, lighter and more maneuverable. Forward-swept wings, canards, high-incline twin vertical stabilizers, a mobile ventral fin… Flying backwards was a miracle for Yukikaze, but I’ll bet a Fand II would have no problem doing it. The airframe is complete. The thing holding us up is the brain.”

“The computer?”

“Right. Because the wings have to be constantly adjusted to an optimal configuration on a second-by-second basis, these planes require a high-capacity, high-velocity computer that can process the huge amount of data needed to do that. And it has to be small, lightweight, and power efficient, too. Yukikaze’s could do the job, but it’s too big to fit inside the airframe. The Fand II is a great plane, but this is a case where the software has gotten ahead of the hardware.”

“You said the flight tests were successful. You can’t fly without a flight computer, though, which means—”

“It’s not enough for it just to be able to fly. The Fand II is a fighter. It has to be able to evade an enemy attack and then launch its own. There are two schools of thought on fighter plane development. One is to have multi-seat fighters, on the theory that having the second crew member minimizes errors made during combat. That works for visual range dogfights, but it’s becoming less relevant. The FAF believes the other approach, the single-seat fighter, is the more successful one. What we saw Yukikaze do this time is a good example.”

“Let the combat computer handle it instead of a human?”

“It can process information much faster than a human brain can, and if it can draw on directly linked sensor data to feed its decision-making abilities, well then… To be honest, sometimes I’m amazed at the capabilities of Yukikaze’s central computer. Its potential is far beyond anything I imagined.”

“Even though you developed it?”

“I didn’t develop it—I just put on the finishing touches. A lot of hands went into designing her systems, and I don’t know what’s in each individual one. But Yukikaze’s grown so intelligent now that you can’t compare her to what she was when she was first developed. She’s been learning. And you’ve been the one teaching her, Rei. In the near future, she probably won’t need you anymore.”

“If that happens, what happens to me?”

“You go home and go back to being an ordinary citizen.”

“I have no home to go back to.”

“How long have you been on Faery again?”

“Four years.”

“Don’t you want to live?”

“I don’t want to die.”

“You only have about another two years as a pilot. Your body won’t hold out beyond that.”

“And so what then? You’ll just cut me loose?”

“Why not help me with my work? I can arrange for you to become a combat technique advisor.”

“I can still fly. Yukikaze needs me.”

“That love of yours is unrequited. She’s becoming independent. And someday soon she’s going to dump you.”

“Jack, you sound like a nervous old man. You running out of fight?”

“Maybe,” Booker sighed. “You have no idea what it’s like for me when I send you and the others out on missions. Day in and day out, air force pilots keep getting killed when we don’t even know what it is that the JAM are really after. If it turns out that they’re not at war with humanity at all, then all those soldiers will have died meaningless deaths. And I can’t accept that anymore. I want it to end, no matter what it takes.”

“You’re saying let the machines fight the JAM for us?”

“There’s a danger there too. We don’t know what the JAM’s aims are. However, we don’t know what the Earth-side defense forces are thinking either. At this point, I wonder what we’re even doing here.”

“We’re fighting a war.”

“Maybe. Maybe not. The battle here on Faery may be nothing but a decoy operation designed to keep our attention occupied while the JAM are already worming their way into every part of Earth. And then they’ll close the hyperspace corridor and leave us stranded here. I’m starting to believe wild ideas like that.”

“Maybe that’s true. But so what? What happens on Earth doesn’t matter.”

“You never change, do you? Still, you should prepare yourself.”

“For when the JAM finally kill me?”

“Rei, you’ve been ready for that for far too long now. No, what I meant was that you need to prepare yourself for the possibility that Yukikaze might one day become your enemy. An enemy of humanity.”

“Bullshit.”

“The possibility exists. Yukikaze isn’t your lover. She’s your daughter, and she’s grown up. She won’t obey you forever, and you have to be ready for that. One day, she won’t need her dumb, stubborn dad anymore.”

“Jack… Major Booker, are you telling me to stop flying Yukikaze?”

“I just don’t want to add any more names to the KIA list. That’s not the job I came here to do.”

Booker didn’t look at Rei as he began organizing the intelligence file.

“You may go, Lieutenant Fukai. Report to the central medical facility for a complete checkup.”

“I’m fine. I’ve already been patched up.”

“I’m ordering you to submit a medical certificate before you can fly again. Dismissed.”

Rei got up, saluted, and left without a word. He walked down into the maintenance bay and stood looking up at the enormous fighter for a while.

“You wouldn’t betray me…would you?”

He reached up and touched his beloved plane’s radome. The metal was cold.

PER THE FAF Medical Corps diagnosis, Lieutenant Rei Fukai would be completely recovered and fit to resume duty in two weeks. But in the meantime, he was grounded.

At the next TAF mission staff meeting, it was decided that the new Fand II assault fighter would undergo a combat flight test in order to get it deployed as soon as possible. Major Booker was placed in charge of this test, and in this capacity he made a proposal that was approved: Yukikaze would accompany the Fand II on its flight. She would go up in full automatic mode and would monitor the performance of the Fand II’s prototype optoelectronic systems in flight.

Of all the units in the 5th Squadron, Yukikaze had experienced the most combat with the JAM, had managed time and again to slip through their traps and make it back. In Booker’s estimation she was therefore the FAF’s best chance for detecting any JAM combat reconnaissance and protecting the Fand II, since the aliens were bound to be interested in the test flight. The major’s second, equally important aim in sending Yukikaze on the flight was to verify whether she could carry out her missions unmanned. If she could, it would open the possibility that one day he wouldn’t have to send his men up in the squadron’s planes anymore, that he would be relieved of the awful tension of waiting for them to return.

Over the next three days, Major Booker wrote Yukikaze’s flight program and refined the test plan.

The major was frank about his desire to wholly automate Yukikaze’s operation.

A bold smile played across Rei’s face as he spoke. “You’re wasting your time, Major. She can’t fly without me.”

“We’ll give it a shot,” Booker replied, although he too had his doubts that Yukikaze’s hardware and software configurations would allow her to be converted to a fully functional unmanned aircraft in such a limited amount of time.

In the end, the combat flight test plan called for the Fand II prototype to be flown by Captain Hugh O’Donnell, an ace pilot in one of the Tactical Air Force Flight Test Center’s squadrons. Yukikaze would fly wing, unmanned. An electronic warfare systems control plane would follow, with Rei onboard to provide support if needed.

Upon hearing this, he didn’t bother to hide his irritation. “So I’m going to just sit pretty in that control plane and pilot Yukikaze by remote control?”

“Yeah, and it was a royal pain to arrange,” Major Booker replied. “But General Cooley insisted on it. You keep banging on about how you want to get back in the air. So now you’ll be back in the air. And you can just sit back and relax. Take a nap, even.”

“Has the Fand II’s central computer system been finalized?”

“Tentatively. A lot of brand-new technology has gone into the build, so we don’t have a firm gauge of its reliability yet. Anyway, if something goes wrong, Yukikaze will automatically link with the Fand and control it.”

“Let me go up in Yukikaze. C’mon, Jack. You know this is gonna drive me nuts.”

“Can’t. Your body wouldn’t be able to take it. Don’t worry, the control plane will be flying in secure airspace. All you have to do is watch. Yukikaze will make it back just fine.”

Booker clapped him on the shoulder. Rei put a hand to his bandaged chest and smiled.
A sad smile,
the major thought. As though his heart had been broken. Not for the first time, a keen curiosity seized him.

“Rei, why do you feel so strongly about Yukikaze?”

“I… Aside from you, Yukikaze’s the only thing I trust. I don’t have anything else. Nothing.”

A drop, a raindrop, a mote. Zero. That’s the meaning of your name, Rei.
Suddenly recalling those words, Major Booker reached out and gripped his best friend’s hand.

YUKIKAZE AND THE first combat-ready Fand II unit waited side by side in the SAF’s maintenance bay. The Super Sylph’s huge shape and sleek, menacing lines seemed to embody all the enormous power that lay dormant within her. The Fand II by her side was smaller and lighter, yet also magnificent.

Major Booker met with Flight Test Center personnel who were taking part in the Fand II test to brief them on the plans. Afterward, he had a one-on-one meeting with Captain Hugh O’Donnell, the Fand II’s test pilot. The captain was a relaxed, good-humored man, and Booker—who was used to dealing with the cool, inscrutable pilots of Boomerang Squadron—found this cheerfulness almost dazzling. He felt none of the cold tension he got from his subordinates, which paradoxically gave him the impression that O’Donnell might be slightly unreliable.