VI Strategic Reconnaissance—Phase 2

VI

STRATEGIC RECONNAISSANCE—PHASE 2

1

MAJOR BOOKER SUMMONED Rei to his office, where the captain got to meet Lieutenant Katsuragi in the flesh. After being introduced by the major, he saluted Rei, but silently, his face devoid of expression. He didn’t even say hello.

Just as predicted, Rei thought.

He had neither the sour expression reading, I wasn’t expecting to get transferred here and consider this a demotion, nor the easy wit of one trying to win friends. He simply felt that nothing needed to be said, and so he said nothing. Jesus, Rei thought, this guy really is just like me. If he wasn’t, then the only other explanation might be that he was nervous.

“I’m Captain Fukai,” Rei said, introducing himself. “Pilot of SAF Unit 1: Yukikaze.”

“I’ve heard talk that you’re an expert Sylphid driver,” Lieutenant Katsuragi replied. “But you haven’t logged much flight time on the new Maeve, have you?”

“That’s right,” Rei answered, becoming aware of the anger building within him. “There something you want to say?”

“That means your skill as a Maeve driver is an unknown quantity.”

“And?” said Rei.

“It goes without saying that I’m new at being an EWO in a Maeve. If you’re as new at this as I am, then there’s a high probability of an unexpected situation arising.”

“So?” Rei replied.

“So, if anything goes wrong, I don’t want to bear all the responsibility.”

“Are you saying I’m the sort of man who’d put all the blame on you? Did Colonel Rombert tell you to watch out for that?”

“No, Captain,” Lieutenant Katsuragi replied, his face as expressionless as ever. “I’m just stating my wishes. I thought it best to say it from the start.”

“At this point, I don’t even know if you have what it takes to be Yukikaze’s flight officer and what you want means about as much to me as a load of shit, but fine,” Rei said. “If you’re going to say that, then I’ll say this from the start: aboard Yukikaze, I’m the pilot, making me the leader. You follow my orders. If I say everything is your responsibility, then like it or not, everything is your responsibility. Never forget that.”

“I didn’t think people in the SAF ever put on the boss face,” Lieutenant Katsuragi muttered. “I heard you especially didn’t do that—”

“There’s a difference between a boss and a leader,” Major Booker said, interrupting him. “A boss can be an idiot who gets by with just brute force, but that won’t work for a leader. We have leaders in the SAF, not idiots. Lieutenant Katsuragi, once you climb out of Yukikaze, I think you’ll find the environment of the SAF suits you. Is there anything else you wish to say to Captain Fukai?”

“No, Major. Nothing.”

“Your first mission will be as you’ve been told. Good hunting. You’re dismissed.”

“Yes, Major Booker. Excuse me, sir.”

Lieutenant Katsuragi saluted and was about to leave when Rei stopped him.

“Hold it. I have a question.”

“What?” asked the lieutenant.

“Did you bring your mirror with you?”

“Pardon?”

“Your mirror. The thing you look at your face with,” Rei said.

“I don’t understand the point of the question. What do you mean?”

“There’s nothing to understand. I’m asking if you brought your own mirror with you.”

“If you mean the one that comes with my electric shaver, then yes, I did,” Katsuragi said.

“All right, I expect you’ll be a fine flight officer. You may go.”

“Yes, Captain. If you’ll excuse me.”

After Lieutenant Katsuragi left the office, Major Booker burst out laughing.

“What’s so funny?”

“Captain Fukai, you can leave as well,” the major said. “Why did you stay behind?”

“Because you still haven’t told me the details of my sortie, Major Booker.”

“Haven’t I? Well, it’s a masterpiece. I wanted to see your face when I laid it out for you. I wish you’d brought a mirror too.”

“Just as predicted, he isn’t interested in looking at his own face. I’ll bet the mirror that comes with his shaver distorts his image.”

“Well, there you have it: hard proof that he’s just like the old you. Man, that profacting stuff is amazing,” Major Booker said, still laughing.

“If he stays here for good, he’s going to really start pissing me off. Coming in here with prejudices just isn’t right. He isn’t like me. He didn’t even say hello. And when you think about what he said, it’s just an excuse to avoid his responsibility in advance. I never made excuses like that.”

“Lieutenant Katsuragi didn’t make any excuses. He was just saying what he thought. And he said hello to you by saluting, didn’t he? Well, I suppose you should actually say something as a greeting when you take up a new post. Still, you did tell him to say what he wanted to say. My point is that he doesn’t have much sense of his place in the organization yet. You used to be like that too. Really, that whole exchange was hilarious. There was nothing for you to get angry over. Besides, it’s better if he’s easy to understand, right? We can use him. He’s like you used to be.”

“I’m not useful the way I am now?”

“You’re useful as a leader. The change in you really is amazing. According to Captain Foss, it’s comparable to a complete personality makeover,” the major said. “She says it’s something that a healthy person shouldn’t be able to achieve in their lifetime. It should be impossible, unless you suffered from schizophrenia or dissociative identity disorder. I agree with her. In your case, being ejected from Yukikaze was like pulling the trigger for you—”

“She said I’m abnormal?”

“Captain Foss won’t admit that your personality has completely changed. She says that if there was ever anything abnormal about you, it was your previous personality. Her opinion is that a part of your personality that was being suppressed by your connection with Yukikaze has been released. It’s like something Wordsworth wrote: ‘The child is the father of the man.’ Your soul hasn’t changed. If not that, then maybe you actually died for a moment and were reborn. Is that something you think might have happened?”

“There’s no way…is what I’d like to say, but I won’t. After I regained consciousness, flying in the new Yukikaze when chasing Lieutenant Yagashira’s plane, there was a moment when I didn’t even know who I was. It was a shock.”

“Hm… Still, Lieutenant Katsuragi rubbing you the wrong way in how he speaks and acts shouldn’t get in the way of you doing your job. I understand why he irritates you. It must feel like you’re getting angry with yourself. I can imagine that it must be unbearable, but Lieutenant Katsuragi isn’t you. It’s like you just said: he’s a totally different person. Perhaps one day he’ll develop the same self-awareness as a leader that you now have. If you can’t handle the irritation, then you should discuss it with Captain Foss. Unfortunately, we need her help on something else before you take off, so you’ll just have to deal with this for now.”

“He’s the one you need to worry about, not me,” Rei said. “I’m sure he’s under orders from Colonel Rombert. Which side will he support more, the Intelligence Forces or the SAF?”

“The SAF, naturally,” Major Booker replied, looking serious again. “He’s now been officially transferred to Special Air Force 5th Squadron. He may have colluded with Rombert to pass on any information that he learns to the Intelligence Forces, but the orders related to sending them the details of that information came from me with General Cooley’s permission, not from Colonel Rombert.”

“It’s possible he’ll contact Colonel Rombert secretly, despite your orders.”

“According to his profact, he won’t. Lieutenant Katsuragi only carries out his orders. According to Captain Foss, what we need to watch out for is how Katsuragi may react if Colonel Rombert makes a direct appeal. Rombert is no longer in any position to issue orders to him, but the man’s a pro at his job. If he wanted to, he could get information he needs out of Katsuragi. But for our part, we have nothing to hide from him at the moment. No matter what anyone says, we’re carrying out this strategic reconnaissance operation. Nobody is going to stand in our way. Even the Intelligence Forces have no reason to oppose it. They and Colonel Rombert aren’t our enemies, but they aren’t our allies either. The profact predicts that Lieutenant Katsuragi will behave in the same manner. He only acts on what interests him.”

“And what is it that interests him now?”

“Yukikaze and you,” Major Booker said. “That and your relationship with the JAM. Colonel Rombert seems to have sent him over here with those interests in mind. That’s what Captain Foss reports that T-FACPro II predicts, anyway. It seems likely, and I didn’t need a profact run on him to expect that. However, the part of the report I found interesting is this—Katsuragi is interested in you and Yukikaze, but he isn’t clearly aware of that himself. I was wondering what that meant, but when I remembered what you were like, I understood.”

“What do you mean?”

“As far as Lieutenant Katsuragi is concerned, anything outside of himself is imaginary. Only the situations that he has to deal with are real, but reality to him means that you and Yukikaze exist strictly as relationships, not physical objects. It doesn’t matter to him if the external world is real or not, and he isn’t interested, anyway. Those were the results of Edith’s profacting of him.”

“That sounds like an illness.”

“One from which it looks like you’ve completely recovered, Rei. Until you went back home on leave, you weren’t sure if Earth really existed. Well, Captain Foss doesn’t refer to it as an illness. She says it’s not that rare,” Major Booker said. “The thing is, as he is now, Katsuragi won’t be able to operate Yukikaze perfectly, because you can’t operate something that isn’t real to you. So, Rei, you don’t have to worry about Lieutenant Katsuragi stealing Yukikaze away from you.” Major Booker smiled.

“Quit teasing me, Jack.”

“Sorry.”

“Let’s hear the sortie schedule.”

“You take off tomorrow morning at 09:15. Your flight officer will be Lieutenant Katsuragi. You’ll be flying regular tactical recon duty in the skies over JAM base Cookie. Your preflight briefing will be forty-five minutes beforehand. Since Katsuragi’s new here, we’ll be cutting him some slack. Your mission details are in this file. Any questions?”

“Has Lieutenant Katsuragi had any training on a Maeve?”

“Yeah. He’s training on the electronic warfare simulator right now. He’ll probably pick it up pretty quickly, since he used to do the same job in the Japanese Air Force. Well, considering his personality, it was only a matter of time before they threw him out of there. Physically, he should have no problems. Being short is a blessing in his case, since his test results show he can take nine Gs without passing out. You want to read his detailed personal history?”

“No, that’s fine. That has nothing to do with him performing his duties. Just let me see the results of his strength and reflex tests.”

“Gotcha. The hard copies are over there. There you go. I’ll lend them to you.”

“You just have to let me see them for a second.”

“There’s a meeting I have to get to now. General Laitume has been throwing cold water on the SAF’s decision to maintain surveillance on Richwar base. It looks like he’ll be giving me an official response to what I talked about at that lunch meeting.”

“Isn’t this a job for the Strategic Reconnaissance Corps?” Rei said as he skimmed through the papers handed to him. “What the hell is the SAF doing? That’s what he’ll probably ask you. I’ll bet the general’s pretty pissed at us.”

“Maybe. Because of our unique position, I think the SAF should be in attendance at the FAF’s highest level strategy meetings, but we always get ignored. In the end, we’re seen just as an organization that operates under Laitume’s command. The brass don’t appreciate our ability. They will, sooner or later, but I have a feeling that, by then, it’ll be too late.”

“It seems like the JAM appreciate our ability,” Rei said to Major Booker, who was busy thrusting papers into a briefcase on his desk as he prepared to leave for his meeting.

“Major, what do you think about the prediction that Yukikaze made? If the JAM succeed in getting the SAF on its side, then the FAF is doomed. It’s not an absolutely impossible situation. I could imagine we might even be involved with a JAM psy-op without even being aware of it.”

Major Booker stopped what he was doing, looked at Rei, then spoke.

“If that strategy would allow the SAF to survive, then it’s possible we’d adopt it.”

“What, join forces with the JAM to survive? Are you serious, Jack?”

“Those were General Cooley’s words. Naturally, she doesn’t think doing that would be the best strategy for us to follow at this point in time. But I wouldn’t be surprised if I heard her say something like that. So did you, if I recall correctly. You said something along the lines of this being a fight for survival. That the JAM and Yukikaze are also our rivals in a struggle for existence.”

“Yeah, but I was speaking from my own personal standpoint. That doesn’t apply to the SAF or the FAF. Our objective is to stop the JAM from invading Earth.”

“As things are going now, General Cooley thinks that it’s only a matter of time before the FAF is defeated. We don’t know to what extent the FAF has been infiltrated by the JAM, so anyone who still thinks that we can win as things stand is nuts. That being the case, the general has decided that we’re now facing the choice of either dying along with the FAF or initiating our own private war. You could say that our fate rests on her decision.”

“If General Cooley decides we should try making friends with the JAM,” Rei replied, “then I’m going to start suspecting her of being a JAM herself.”

“If you’re going to say that, then you’d be just as much a suspect as she is, Captain Fukai. Cooley told me she thought you might have made up this whole story about Yukikaze producing that prediction. Colonel Rombert also suspects you of being a JAM. That’s the reason he sent Lieutenant Katsuragi over here.”

“If I were a JAM, Yukikaze would see through me,” Rei said.

“Don’t bet on it… Still, in the end, Yukikaze considers the JAM her enemy. If the SAF ever decided to cooperate with the JAM, then she’d lose her entire reason for being. Dealing with that could turn into a major problem.”

“The JAM are our rivals in a struggle for survival regardless of whether they’re our enemies or our allies in this war, and that goes for Yukikaze as well. She no longer needs to get her reason for existence from an external source. She’ll choose to do what it takes to survive.”

“You talk about Yukikaze as though she were alive.”

“She is alive,” Rei declared, without a shred of doubt in his voice. “Just like I’m alive. That has nothing to do with being human or JAM. Right now, Yukikaze is neither.”

“That’s fine to say as an individual. You’re free to say whatever you want to. But for me, as someone with command responsibilities, it’s a different story. Personally, I don’t doubt you. Similarly, every individual at the top of our organization that isn’t JAM only acts based on what they believe. What we do, we do based on our individual beliefs. But think about it—the SAF has always been like that. To not only bring all of these sorts of individuals together as a group but also manage them is a kind of miracle, as Captain Foss would say. But the rest of the FAF isn’t like that, and therein lies the problem.”

Major Booker began shuffling his papers again, checking the documents for the meeting as he continued. “At any rate, this idea that the JAM want to become our allies isn’t even the prediction made by Yukikaze’s profacting. It’s only one possible interpretation of it we humans have come up with. One way or another, though, we’ll make use of her prediction. It’s vague, but still very informative.”

“I can also imagine that the JAM might be manipulating us to drive a wedge between our forces and the FAF. I can’t help but wonder about that, Major. Do you think that the JAM we fight in the air might not be their main force?”

“And there you have all the SAF’s doubts in a nutshell. What I hope to learn from this strategic recon operation is the location of their main force. Just like the FAF has the humans on Earth backing it, I want to find the JAM’s main forces, their actual selves, that which backs their forces.”

“And what I’m trying to tell you, Jack, is that there are no ‘actual’ JAM. They may be something invisible, lurking within the information we’ve gathered about them.”

“If you go that far, you’ve just crossed the line from doubt straight into fantasy,” Major Booker said, closing the briefcase. “What we need to get is a realistic image of the JAM, not fantasies about them. Captain Foss is working hard to profact them, and she says that we can’t let ourselves be taken in by the appearance they project. There’s an expression in Japan: ‘One’s true enemy lies elsewhere.’ ”

“The FAF may be coming to that conclusion about us.”

“That would be a very dangerous situation to get into, and we’re analyzing that contingency thoroughly. At present, if we split from the FAF, we have no chance of survival. General Cooley admits that too, so we’ve got the tactical computer working full load on SAF survival simulations. At any rate, I for one don’t want my death to be one of those ridiculous ones you once talked about. The entire SAF is devoting all of its efforts to coming up with a strategy that will allow us to survive.”

“A survival strategy… This really is a fight for survival, isn’t it?” Rei said.

“The JAM are clearly infiltrating the FAF with these human duplicates in order to perfect their own strategy against us. The odds are good that they’re about to make a radical change in their strategy, which until now has been to ignore the existence of humans. The war situation’s getting even more strained, but the brass have no idea just how bad it is. There’s no doubt in my mind that the FAF is teetering on the edge of oblivion,” Major Booker said. He glanced at his watch. “This isn’t something I can bring up at General Laitume’s meeting, but we can’t afford to ignore it now.”

Saying that, Major Booker moved away from his desk.

“Leave with me, Captain Fukai.”

The office door would auto-lock as soon as the major exited. Finishing up with the file folder the major had handed him, Rei acceded to his urgings and left the room.

2

THE NEXT DAY, as scheduled, Yukikaze came out onto the surface for her sortie.

This was the first routine mission for her since she’d gained her new body, the Maeve. Yukikaze had returned to her regular duties. Rei was momentarily overcome with emotion as he realized this. He felt as if his long leave from battle and rehabilitation were finally over. At long last, he was back on the job.

It was not a long gap to have on his record, but it wasn’t an insignificant one. Rather, it had seen a remarkable change in the situation. Now that Yukikaze predicted that the JAM were no longer ignoring humans, General Cooley seemed to be challenging the JAM to a showdown… But so what, Rei thought to himself. It wasn’t his problem; he was only fighting so that he wouldn’t get killed, just as he always had.

Even so, Rei was aware that his situation had changed as well. The need for a new SAF strategy had its origins in the incident in which he and the old Yukikaze had been involved. As a direct participant, he couldn’t well say that this change in the war wasn’t his problem. If he were to survive, he couldn’t simply ignore his relationship with the world anymore. The old him had been like a man walking a tightrope without the benefit of a balancing rod. His life was still a tightrope act, but now he was aware of the need he had for relationships with others to act as that rod. Trying to support himself with one might easily lead to falling from the rope, and the old him had feared that, but he saw now that it was all in how one used it. If he mastered that, it would serve him well. His long break from routine sorties had taught him that, thought Rei.

Lieutenant Katsuragi in the rear seat reported that all systems were green.

This man was living dangerously, just as my old self once did. But it’s not my problem, Rei thought coldly. So long as he wasn’t a threat to Rei’s own survival, how Katsuragi lived his life didn’t matter. Rei wasn’t his teacher or his doctor. If he wasn’t aware of the danger to himself, then no advice Rei offered would matter. It’s Katsuragi’s problem, Rei thought, not mine.

Rei checked Yukikaze’s gauges once more. All warning lights were clear.

“This is B-1, all clear. Ready for sortie.”

The ground crew gave him the good luck sign. Rei answered it by raising his right fist, then pointed Yukikaze’s nose toward the runway. He stopped at the taxiway exit and waited for clearance from the control tower. The weather was rainy, with high winds.

Clearance granted, Yukikaze took off, climbing through the rain clouds. Her objective was a JAM base code-named Cookie. At the moment, it was the next major target after Richwar base, and the FAF was throwing most of its forces at it.

Feeling good that its strike on Richwar base had achieved devastating results while holding its own losses to a minimum, the FAF had adopted a similar strategy of launching an all-out attack on the JAM’s main base, despite the misgivings of Major Booker and the rest of the SAF. The plan was to gather their forces at a front-line base, then attack in continuous waves until the enemy base had been wiped out. To that end, the FAF had committed nearly half of its tactical air forces from their bases. They’d be moved to TAB-8, the largest front-line base nearest the target. From there, they would make their attacks, making the round trip between there and the target as many times as it took. The SAF would be on full rotation to provide recon for the operation. Even a new arrival like Lieutenant Katsuragi was going to get a taste of real combat, whether he liked it or not.

Operations as large as this had been attempted several times by the SAF, but they’d never been effective till now. When they’d try to concentrate on one target, the JAM would come in from an unexpected direction to attack Faery base and then attempt to penetrate the entrance to the Passageway that led to Earth. The FAF would then have to pull its forces back from the front lines in order to repel the threat, and in the end they would fall back into fighting a defensive battle. Aside from that, each time the SAF thought that they’d wiped out a major enemy base, either a new one would be discovered or else the base that had been presumed destroyed would unexpectedly spring back to life. Where the supply routes were that supported these bases was a question that had plagued the SAF for a long time. Their Strategic Reconnaissance Corps had sent out recon planes, launched strategic spy sats, and kept the bases under surveillance till their eyes were bloodshot, but thus far their efforts had borne no fruit.

Thanks to their constant scouting, a map of Faery had been compiled. However, try as they might, they could never discover the location of the JAM’s main forces. Against the advanced interceptors the JAM fielded, the FAF sent out dedicated strategic recon planes that, unlike Yukikaze, lacked the means to repel them in order to see which would get shot down. If the planes returned home, that meant there were no JAM in the area. If they did, then at least it would tell them that the JAM were hidden in the area under surveillance. Up to this point, no manned planes had been sent out for strategic reconnaissance. Even strategic spy satellites didn’t last long before they too were shot down by the JAM.

After decades of fighting this way, the Strategic Recon Corps claimed that they had identified a single pattern: JAM bases seemed to be related most closely with the one that was furthest away in the opposite direction, rather than with the next closest one. In other words, what they took to be the JAM’s main bases scattered in a rough circle around the Passageway were paired, not with their immediate partners, but symmetrically with the ones on the side opposite them.

Each time the FAF would attack one of these bases, there would be no sign of any of their neighboring bases sending aid. However, while they repelled attacks on the Passageway or Faery base launched from another base, the base the FAF had first attacked would recover behind their backs. The only explanation that seemed to fit was that the attacking base was also resupplying the one previously hit. The Strategic Reconnaissance Corps claimed that the behavior pattern they’d discovered indicated that the JAM did not keep all of their bases constantly active. Instead, they would mainly use one pair of widely separated bases, shifting through the pairs one after another as they’d launch their attacks. They had no actual proof of this, though. The neighboring bases, which should have been inactive, did not go completely unused, and the JAM did occasionally launch counterattacks from them. There were also no traces of transport or materials used for repairing the damaged bases coming from the paired bases. Not one JAM transport plane had ever been spotted, nor any JAM vehicles moving overground. Either the JAM used underground tunnels or had access to dimensional transport technology similar to the Passageway. In short, while the supply routes between their bases was a mystery, years’ worth of accumulated recon data suggested some sort of relationship between these pairs of bases. At the very least, the FAF could seize on this point to set up an attack operation that wouldn’t be a waste of time and possibly even break the stalemate they were in. To this end, the FAF authorities had considered the Strategic Reconnaissance Corps’ proposal, but realized that their proposed attack operation would take an enormous amount of resources and planning to carry out.

First of all, the FAF needed to find out what sort of attacks would be effective against the JAM bases. Once they knew that, they’d need to hit both of the paired bases simultaneously. As their forces stood, this was a difficult proposition. Hitting even one of the enemy’s main bases was a major operation in the best of times. Losses would be high. To hit two of them at the same time would require double the number of forces, just in case the Strategic Reconnaissance Corps were wrong. Carrying it out would be a gamble. If they lost, the JAM would swarm the Passageway and invade Earth, which was too high a wager to risk. It was the decision of the FAF’s highest level strategy session that they would have to wait to carry it out in the future. However, the work of the recon corps wasn’t simply ignored. When the operation to hit Richwar base had been put together, Cookie had been declared a secondary target, based on the recon corps’ determination that the bases were paired.

Although the FAF’s mission was nominally to intercept airborne enemy attacks and prevent the JAM from invading Earth, the FAF also knew that launching proactive attacks against the enemy would be met with retaliatory strikes. If the FAF could determine the direction from which the retaliation would originate, they could use that intel to adopt a more aggressive strategy. While the preparations for a counterattack had previously been tentative, FAF fighters would be able to more effectively form a defensive line if they knew where the enemy would be coming from. In any case, unless they discovered the means to completely destroy the JAM infestation, the war would never end.

What was the point of this battle? Rei wondered as he guided Yukikaze to the target airspace. The organization known as the FAF was fighting the JAM so that the organization itself could survive. If the authorities on Earth decided that the war was no longer necessary, then the FAF would be dismantled. Even though that wasn’t a realistic possibility at that point, if FAF methods were judged ineffective then the FAF would be reorganized, with a shakeup occurring at the top. The people who lived in the organization probably feared losing their political lives. Their attitude was that, so long as the battle against the JAM was effective, there was no problem. However, if it appeared that they weren’t getting results on the battlefield, their political influence would be in question. That was why they were desperate. Even as they battled the JAM, there were internal battles that needed to be won if the people at the top were to survive within the organization. The ones fighting these battles worried more about losing their positions than about losing their lives to the JAM. The Strategic Recon Corps is a good example, Rei realized. They’d proposed this plan based on JAM behavior patterns in combat so that their organization would survive. Declaring a major discovery, sans proof, was the act of an organization that needed to report something in order to justify its existence. Now their reputation for providing effective recon results was on the rise. If someone claimed their corps was unneeded, any move to dismantle it and let it be absorbed by the Strategic Air Corps or the Tactical Combat Air Corps would face opposition. If things worked out well, their organization might achieve stability and become an influential voice in the FAF. It was for this purpose, for this effect, that the JAM bases were being targeted.

In short, the humans weren’t fighting the JAM as individuals. The humans didn’t live autonomously. Major Booker had talked about it like it was a matter of course, but something about that seemed strange, Rei thought. Wouldn’t it be more normal to worry about being killed by the JAM than about fighting to protect the reputation or power one had amassed? At the very least, that was how Rei felt. Most other people would probably see it the same way as far as their individual lives went, but survival within their organizations was also a matter of great concern. That probably held true for every respectable human out there. People were living things that existed in groups. When a group known as an organization was threatened, the lives of the individuals within it were similarly threatened, and that was true for everyone from the moment they were born. It was even the same for monkeys and dogs. Living in groups was just safer. Monkeys, dogs, and people all ran this same program for survival. That was just as true for Rei. So then why did this manner of living seem so dubious to him? Wasn’t it more likely that he was the one to be doubted here?

Could I really live on my own? Rei wondered. He thought he could. But as a single individual, he’d ultimately have to admit to being mistaken. The reality was that if he were to be separated from the SAF and Yukikaze, he’d have no chance to survive against the JAM. So then where did this mistaken belief originate? It had to be because the environment of the SAF made you believe it. So long as this organization existed, he wouldn’t have to bother with the discord among the others. That was the job of their leader, General Cooley.

Rei recalled Major Booker once saying that their fates depended on General Cooley’s decisions. And truly, she was doing a good job. Good enough to let himself and the other pilots believe that they could survive on their own. Rei also couldn’t forget the meaning of Major Booker’s words for him to “think of your own survival strategy.”

Of course, that was what made the SAF different from all the other organizations there. Even while they recognized that they could not live alone, they also demanded to survive as individuals. This was tough to pull off. If you weren’t the sort of person who could say that they didn’t care about other people, you probably wouldn’t be able to stand the isolation. This was probably different for people who existed in other organizations.

“Friendlies, approaching. Confirming Tactical Combat Air Corps 9th TFS, returning from TAB-8. Number of planes: nine. Three minutes behind us, port side. Relative altitude: 1800. They’re making a low-altitude fly-by. No JAM detected nearby,” said Lieutenant Katsuragi from behind. It was the first time he’d spoken during the sortie.

“Roger.”

Rei imagined what this taciturn man was thinking. First of all would be his mission. Next, would be…Well, that would be the mission too. Just carrying out his orders and nothing else, especially while he was aboard a plane he still wasn’t used to, like Yukikaze. He probably didn’t have any spare time to think about anything else. Even if he did, he wouldn’t spend it like the guys in the 9th TFS passing below them, listening to the recreational DJ shows the FAF broadcast or the chatter going on between the other planes. He’d be an inhuman man, devoted to carrying out his duty like a machine. That was what other people might say about him, but Rei knew that they’d be wrong. If Lieutenant Katsuragi possessed the same emotions Rei did, then he’d be more concerned with his own existence than with doing his duty.

“Lieutenant Katsuragi,” Rei called back to him. “What sort of work did you do for Colonel Rombert?”

“Nothing that has anything to do with this job.”

Exactly the sort of answer he expected.

“General Cooley’s concerned that it does. Well, it doesn’t matter to me. We can talk about whatever you like, but keeping your jaws moving helps to keep you from getting drowsy. Talk with me. What do you think of the JAM?”

“What do you mean what do I think of them? What do you want to know?”

He really is like a particularly inflexible computer, Rei thought. Did I really used to be like that? Hell, I probably still am, even now.

“Have you ever seen the JAM?”

“No. Never,” Lieutenant Katsuragi replied.

“Even being in the FAF, formerly in the Intelligence Forces, no less,” Rei said. “It’s no wonder people on Earth doubt the JAM even exist.”

“Do you doubt their existence?”

“What makes you think I would?”

“I interpret what you said as doubt, and that you want people from Earth or me to see and confirm that they exist for you.”

“I have no doubts that the JAM exist. Either we kill them, or they’ll kill us,” Rei said. “What I doubt is whether the JAM we see are truly the JAM themselves. Those things are shadows. The real JAM are invisible. We’re fighting shadows, shadows that can pack a real punch.”

“So?”

“So, nothing,” said Rei. “It’s just something that I think. I just wanted your opinion on it.”

“Honestly, I never gave it any thought. The Intelligence Forces are pretty much entirely concerned with humans. What we’re after are human spies, not the JAM. We investigate their methods of monitoring us and transmitting messages back to Earth. My specialty was investigating electronic methods, so my job had nothing to do with the JAM.”

“That’s not going to cut it in the SAF. Unless you think about what sort of enemy you’re fighting and what the JAM are, you’ll never be able to do your job,” Rei said. He could now see the 9th TFS passing by low on the port side. “I don’t know how you feel about it, but I don’t want to get killed by an enemy I don’t really understand.”

“Or by Yukikaze?”

“Yeah. How did you…?”

“Do you really believe this plane has consciousness?” Lieutenant Katsuragi asked.

“Who told you that?”

“Major Booker gave me a lecture about her. He didn’t say she had consciousness, but he told me that, since each plane learns from its pilot’s flying style, it can’t help but pick up their idiosyncrasies. It becomes a combat machine optimized to its individual pilot, so you have to be careful when you fly in another plane.”

“I don’t think Yukikaze has consciousness in the way humans do. The same goes for the JAM. I don’t know if it’s consciousness, but she does have the ability to alter her behavior based on the actions I take. The only way I can interpret it is that Yukikaze possesses something beyond unconscious reflex, something akin to consciousness.”

“It could just be that you don’t completely understand the behavior programs and computer hardware installed in her,” Katsuragi said. “Not just you, though. Yukikaze may be a machine that has accumulated so much knowledge that nobody can understand her at this point. Since you can’t understand her, even though she’s just unconsciously carrying out logical functions, you think of them as representing consciousness. A computer is an advanced simulator that can model anything. It could even simulate conscious behavior.”

“You’re only thinking about this with your head. You say that because you have no physical experience flying her.”

“You believe that what I think is just an empty theory? You’ve been flying Yukikaze for a long time, but say—”

“Whether Yukikaze is self-aware or not doesn’t really matter, Lieutenant. The question is whether she behaves as though she is. That may be due to the reason you just gave, and I’m not saying that it’s wrong. The vital point here is that Yukikaze is a being beyond our comprehension. Even you must realize that intellectually. Yukikaze has a ‘something’ we can’t understand. That may be consciousness, some unconscious function that mimics it, or even some machine consciousness completely different from what humans possess. But what it is doesn’t matter.”

To ask, “What is consciousness?” or whether Yukikaze dreams with purpose, when we couldn’t answer these questions about ourselves, sounds like the subject of some scholarly thesis, Rei thought. It might be an interesting waste of time that could help him understand Yukikaze, so Rei didn’t think the line of inquiry was entirely trivial, but they weren’t questions that would be answered easily or soon. It could be like a huge puzzle, to be solved at his leisure, and not having an immediate answer shouldn’t get in the way of his duties.

“The essential point in all this is to find some way to communicate with that ‘something’ within Yukikaze. That something is her true nature.”

“An unknowable something that’s the computer’s true nature, huh,” Lieutenant Katsuragi said. “What I’m trying to say is that what you’re taking to be Yukikaze’s true nature may be just your own illusion. There have been times when a computer I’m using seems to be conscious to me. The odds are good that this true nature you think Yukikaze possesses is just a fantasy you’ve created. If you try to communicate with it, you’ll just end up talking to yourself. For you, Yukikaze is like a shadow of yourself. In other words, it’s possible that you’re ascribing consciousness to your own mirror image. And that would be stupid.”

“You’re saying my talking to Yukikaze would be a monologue?”

“Yeah, I’d definitely say that.”

“Who do you think you’re talking to right now, Lieutenant Katsuragi?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Do you think that I have consciousness? How do you know that my consciousness isn’t just a shadow that you’re creating? Maybe you’re just having a monologue with a shadow that you call Captain Fukai.”

“Because I’m talking to you in the belief that you’re human. What you just said is the same as claiming that you might not be.” The lieutenant paused. “Are you a JAM?”

“You can’t know that unless you communicate with me. Barring that, the only other way you might be able to infer it is from my behavior. The same goes for Yukikaze. And the JAM. So they may be only my own shadow projections… You know, I’ve never thought of it that way before, but I can see that point of view. That means you should try chatting with me some more, Lieutenant.”

Lieutenant Katsuragi did not reply.

“I think the only way we’ll ever know what the JAM really are is to communicate with them,” Rei said. “Whether they possess humanlike consciousness or not doesn’t matter. If they have a different form of consciousness from what humans have, or some other type of ‘something’ similar to consciousness, then it would be impossible for humans to understand them. After all, even we humans don’t understand human consciousness. But I think even if they have that something I mentioned before, then they also possess consciousness. And if your opponent has that, then I say you can communicate with them, Lieutenant Katsuragi. It’s not an abstract concept that’s hard to understand. It wouldn’t be very different from checking out how Yukikaze handles.”

Adjusting his grip on the side stick while working the pedals, Rei snapped them into a 90 degree roll, then inverted, then into a three-quarter roll before returning them to level flight: a four-point roll. Good response. He then twisted the stick right, yawing her nose to starboard while still traveling straight ahead. Keeping his eyes on the main display and not what was outside, Rei saw Yukikaze flash a warning: she had judged his flight attitude to be erratic and meaningless. Irregular flight attitude, she complained. He could have canceled the warning by flipping the dogfight switch to ON, but didn’t. She then automatically canceled the control input Rei was feeding her, pointing her nose back in the direction it should have been facing. Rei’s actions and Yukikaze’s response was displayed on the rear seat monitors as well.

“See, it doesn’t matter if what she just did was because of some peculiar ‘something’ in Yukikaze or simply because I activated a program to correct her attitude if she deviates from the optimal flight posture. The important point here is that, by doing that, I can determine what her intentions are. Now, if I can build on that—”

“Calling that communication,” Lieutenant Katsuragi cut in, “is like striking a bell and then saying the sound it makes is you and the bell communicating.”

“That’s an interesting example. Yeah, if you strike it, it resonates. Maybe the bell’s sound comes from the bell’s own will. Humans would never know that unless someone demonstrated that the bell possessed that sort of will. But you have to determine if it does by ringing it, because that’s the only method available to you to do so.”

“That’s out of the question,” Katsuragi said. “You just want to talk to Yukikaze like some sort of a pet.”

“I wish she were my pet. Maybe you’re right. If you don’t handle a pet well, they bite you. Anyway, we use Yukikaze to hit the JAM, but the JAM don’t sense that they’re being hit by us humans, and I don’t like that. What I want to make clear to them is that I’m here riding inside of Yukikaze too.”

“You’re a naive man.”

“And you’re like me, just as naive and ignorant of how the world actually works. We may both be men who spend our time just bickering with ourselves.”

The lieutenant didn’t answer, apparently having grown tired of their chat. Rei said nothing either.

A short while later, Lieutenant Katsuragi informed him in a businesslike tone that they were nearing their refueling point.

“Three minutes out. I’ve made contact with the tanker. Weather looks good at the refueling point. Just maintain course and you can’t miss it.”

“Roger.”

If I told him that Yukikaze’s automatically maintaining her optimal flight attitude was an example of her will, Lieutenant Katsuragi would most likely say that was “out of the question” and chalk it up to some foolish delusion on my part, Rei thought. But he would only say that because he had no experience with Yukikaze. It didn’t matter what some stranger who had nothing to do with her said. At any rate, every individual lived in a world of their own delusions. How other people lived their lives had nothing to do with how Rei lived his own. The problem was that this man was riding in the same plane with him, and if he maintained a view of Yukikaze that was different from her pilot’s, they were going to end up operating her differently. In an emergency, that could be fatal.

Rei wanted Lieutenant Katsuragi to feel the same as he did about Yukikaze and the JAM. However, if he could agree that Katsuragi’s cool viewpoint was more rational than his own, then Rei should have no problem matching himself to it. Still, it looked like it was going to take some time—requiring several combat sorties—before they’d be able to harmonize in performing their duties.

After completing their in-air refueling, Rei tensed his body as they headed toward the combat zone. The battle was on.

3

THE JAM BASE code-named Cookie by the FAF had been nearly destroyed by the time Yukikaze arrived for her reconnaissance duty. The fact that they couldn’t detect any JAM radar waves emanating from either the base itself or its surroundings made that clear enough. Radar sites are vital to an air base’s defense, and the FAF had initiated this operation by targeting several of them, and after successfully destroying them after four Faery days of intense resistance, the operation appeared to be 80 percent successful.

The FAF, however, wasn’t letting up the attack and was now engaged in an operation to destroy any JAM that took off to intercept them. In short, their forces were to shoot down any and all enemy planes, leaving none alive.

From aboard Yukikaze, Rei could confirm the destruction of several ground installations with just his naked eye. Black smoke was still rising from the largest one. They could also see the three runways which surrounded the central installation like a triangle—two of them had been torn apart with ballistic missile strikes. The third seemed miraculously untouched, but only because the operation had included orders to keep one intact until the very end.

This operation was going to be the first chance the FAF had ever had to directly explore a JAM base. Major Booker had told Rei that this was being done on the strong recommendation of the Strategic Reconnaissance Corps. The SRC had, naturally, pushed to handle the exploration themselves, but FAF high command had decided that the investigation couldn’t be left to them alone. It would be investigated, of course, but the FAF had plans beyond that: they wanted to seize the base for themselves. They must be worried that the base might recover suddenly if we just hit it without capturing it, Rei thought. The top brass must want the base because its sudden recovery would make this attack meaningless, and they must now see how futile the last thirty years of the war have been in that respect. The SRC’s “discovery” of the JAM’s paired-base operations must have had a great influence on them.

Their assumption was that Cookie was paired with Richwar base, and now that Richwar had been destroyed, Cookie would receive no support from it, creating a perfect opportunity for its capture. And, in fact, no large-scale retaliatory response from the other JAM bases had been seen against Faery base. The FAF high command had judged the SRC’s discovery to be correct.

However, the SAF held a contrary viewpoint. First of all, they didn’t believe that their battles until now had been as futile as some believed. Rather, they felt that the enemy had been engaging to gather information on humanity’s true nature, which the JAM didn’t understand. If the JAM hadn’t been fighting the humans till now, then it meant the JAM hadn’t known or understood that the FAF’s fighter planes were being operated by humans. Had the FAF sent ground forces to occupy a JAM base early on in the war, things might have developed in an entirely different way. The JAM would have realized early on that the humans were their real targets, and mankind might have been exterminated. The idea that the defensive stance they took in prosecuting the war might have actually saved mankind meant that the fighting hadn’t been meaningless. Despite that, as successive generations of FAF commanders came and went without seeing real progress made in their one-sided defensive strategy, the idea that they had to take the fight to the enemy began to take hold. However, with the enemy’s true nature and objectives still a mystery, it was reckless to act on this idea. And, in fact, what attempts they had made in the past never netted them much in the end. But this time it would work, the FAF thought.

Even so, the SAF felt this was premature. The SRC’s conclusion hadn’t been proven at all. It was true that no enemy support was coming from Richwar and they hadn’t seen any JAM retaliation thus far, but it wasn’t known if that had anything to do with the SRC’s discovery. Major Booker had felt that the JAM might be keeping quiet for an entirely different reason. In fact, he was sure that this was a sign of the JAM changing their strategy for fighting the FAF. They mustn’t fall for it, he’d warned, and this plan to try and capture Cookie base was too risky. The JAM might be waiting for them with a large force. He could even imagine that they might be able to replace the FAF occupation force with Jammies, the human duplicates they were now creating. Since there was no way to tell duplicates from the real humans, the FAF could be torn apart from within.

They shouldn’t think about trying to capture the enemy base, Major Booker had continued. They should instead go on as they had, just destroying them. Even if the bases were repaired, it wouldn’t be a waste of time. It would still temporarily reduce the JAM’s fighting strength, and there was always the possibility that the FAF or SAF would find some clue as to how the enemy effected their repairs as well. And if they were intent on capturing the bases, then the FAF should send in tanks equipped with machine intelligences like Yukikaze instead of humans. Unfortunately, Major Booker’s words went unheeded by the FAF high command. Though Booker truly believed that humans needed to be the main actors in this war, he knew what would happen if the JAM began to target men rather than machines. It would become too dangerous for humans to show themselves at the battlefront, and the decision would eventually be made that advanced machine intelligences would be needed to replace them. The FAF authorities must realize that too, Booker had explained, but the SAF had never been told that the FAF’s real intention was to reorganize their troops in order to initiate a full-scale land war. The top brass knew full well that the JAM had infiltrated their forces with human duplicates, so Major Booker couldn’t understand why they were still taking the actions they were. They had kept the details of this plan to capture the enemy base secret from the SAF. It was possible the high command had decided that the old Yukikaze’s contact with the JAM had compromised the SAF, and so they’d taken steps to avoid leaking any information pertaining to the base capture plan to them. If that were the case, then the SAF would eventually be smashed by the FAF itself. How loyal the SAF was or whether the SAF had committed any treasonous acts would be beside the point. Just the appearance of danger would be enough. There was the distinct possibility that the unit and its computers would be wiped out.

In any case, the situation had changed even more drastically than the SAF had originally expected. As far as the SAF were concerned, they had to figure out what the JAM and their own forces were up to and then deal with both. If the SAF hoped to survive, they were going to have to find the answer to all these mysteries on their own.

“Recon the hell out of that place.” Those had been Major Booker’s parting words to Rei and Yukikaze.

The SAF was sending out all of its fighters on rotation to conduct combat intelligence gathering missions, so when Yukikaze arrived on the scene, she was met by the unmanned Rafe fighter that had just finished its sortie. Once Yukikaze approached it and identified herself with her IFF code, the Rafe followed its programming and set out to return to base.

The Rafe didn’t exchange the data it had collected while in flight, since its duty was to carry it back to base without allowing the JAM to intercept it. Rei wondered if it might have been attacked by the JAM, but he decided against that possibility after judging the situation and seeing no sign of damage. It had been sent to scout a greater area than usual because it was able to avoid danger better than any of the SAF’s manned planes. While it wouldn’t approach hazardous airspace, it would still be able to shake off any attackers at high speed if it encountered any. If the enemy didn’t give up, it would avoid combat and retreat. Combat mode was only selected if escape wasn’t possible. Since the Rafe’s fuel had held out till Yukikaze appeared, it meant that there hadn’t been any unpleasant surprises out there.

Protect itself while avoiding direct combat. Even if it judged friendly planes to be in danger, it was to avoid any contact that might endanger itself. Collect combat data and bring it back to base, even if it meant watching your own forces get killed. The SAF’s actions at the scene of a battle made them unreliable allies of their own forces and a hated target that the JAM would go out of their way to intercept. This time, however, the situation was different. Minx, which had been sent out when the operation had begun, had been seemingly ignored by the JAM, with no attempt made to intercept it. This had continued with each mission they flew out there, the Rafe being no exception. It had carried out its duties without any problem, and it didn’t seem to matter that the battle wasn’t over yet. Rei had expected that the JAM would show a different reaction to an unmanned plane like the Rafe, but it seemed that they hadn’t. The JAM weren’t behaving at all like they normally did.

Rei flew closer to the enemy base, telling Lieutenant Katsuragi to begin intelligence gathering as he did so. The Rafe had just flown a simple course around the center of the base. A manned fighter, however, could take a more flexible route based on the flight crew’s judgment. Every sort of tactical recon flight pattern was worked out in advance, and a combat-hardened flight officer could judge a situation and call for, say, a bee dance flight pattern, which the pilot would immediately execute. A predetermined flight pattern like that could also be flown on automatic. However, Lieutenant Katsuragi wasn’t used to combat yet, and Rei thought that making and executing flight pattern decisions should be his call alone. But Lieutenant Katsuragi proved to be even more skillful than expected, understanding what Rei wanted to do and answering him with a request for an Endless Eight pattern. They would fly a continuous figure eight centered over the base below them. It would involve an intensive observation of the base itself, beginning at high altitude and gradually moving lower.

Rei complied with the request. It was a dangerous pattern, but there didn’t seem to be any action in the air at this point. It looked like there were hardly any JAM left to intercept them. There was no sign of any FAF ground attack fighters around them, just a formation of small planes meant for dogfighting that were flying on the perimeter.

There was an installation that may have been the entrance to an underground hangar bay next to the one remaining runway. It looked like a small white hill with a gaping entrance that rose to the runway’s side. If it hadn’t been destroyed, it most likely was the sole remaining escape route the JAM had left on the base. Occasionally, several black JAM planes would appear at it and begin to take off, only to be picked off by the FAF’s fighters. Not on the runway, but immediately after they’d cleared it. It was as if they were swatting flies.

Rei had a feeling that it was an ant queen, not a fly, which lurked underground at the bottom of that hole. It really did feel like they were there to exterminate a nest of ants. He wondered what methods FAF authorities were going to use to capture the base. Maybe they’d try pouring insecticide down the hole. He wondered what the men on the surface there would see when they went underground. Probably nothing, Rei thought. The odds were good that they wouldn’t have time to see anything. They’d be too busy being wiped out in some completely unexpected way by the JAM. If the JAM had really abandoned the base, they wouldn’t leave any clues behind. And if they were intending to defend it to the bitter end, they’d probably use that hole as a trap to draw the enemy to them. The humans weren’t going to get to see the inside of a JAM base that easily. The proof of that lay in bitter experience. They’d had many opportunities to penetrate a base over the decades they’d been fighting, but never once had they managed to do it. Did they really think this time would be any different? Rei wondered.

Yukikaze flew her figure-eight course, descending as she did.

Rei approached the runway, flying at low altitude as though he intended to land. That was when it appeared. A JAM plane. Just one. A relatively large high-speed fighter of the type used for hit-and-away combat. It was out on the runway now, accelerating. All the FAF planes in the air banked around, getting into formation to intercept it.

What happened next was about what Rei had expected, although not entirely as he had imagined. JAM defenses launched from the white sand. Two types. One type was anti-aircraft missiles. They popped up from the sand and ignited their rocket engines in midair, then seemed to self-destruct as they accelerated upwards, scattering smaller pieces in every direction. They hadn’t destroyed themselves, however. The missiles had split into countless micro-missiles, which now sped toward the FAF planes that were still getting ready for their attack. The other type were small fighter planes. Short range interceptors. Too many to count, not that there was any time to count them.

In an instant, Yukikaze had passed over the JAM fighter on the runway. There was no time to target it. Instantly, Rei began coming back around to engage. At roughly the same moment, he saw the JAM attack slam into the FAF formation, wiping it out. The JAM planes already in the air took up a protective formation around the one taking off and flew after Yukikaze. Rei snapped her into a turn and then saw the disaster that had struck the ground below. The planes, probably taking off from the center of the base at supersonic speeds, had produced a shock wave that had left a round hole in the desert sand, which began to cave in. The rumble and roar was loud enough to be heard aboard Yukikaze. Cookie base was turning into an enormous crater right before his eyes.

All to let that one plane escape, Rei thought. They must have been preserving the fire power they needed to escape, waiting for the FAF attack to let up. And then they’d abandoned the base. It didn’t look as though they planned to repair it, as they had in the past. But why? Why now?

“Multiple bogeys. JAM, closing in!” Lieutenant Katsuragi called out, his voice tense. Setting his fire control radar range to super search mode, Rei calmly confirmed the countless JAM contacts flying at them.

“Support fighters won’t make it here in time,” Lieutenant Katsuragi said. “The nearest one’s—”

“Don’t expect any support.”

Rei knew that slipping away from the enemy on his own wasn’t going to be easy. The swarm of JAM planes began to surround Yukikaze.

“The one they’re trying to protect is the plane that took off from the runway.” The other, smaller planes couldn’t fly for long. They were like disposable interceptors. “Lieutenant, find that plane. We’re taking it down. Get me a heading. Engaging!” he demanded, declaring his intention to attack to Lieutenant Katsuragi.

“Roger!” He paused a moment. “Two bandits, on our six! Get ready to break to starboard…now!”

Rei changed direction as he’d been told.

“Target sighted, closing fast,” said Lieutenant Katsuragi. “Locked on.”

It had been picked up on Yukikaze’s antiaircraft fire control radar, which was able to track multiple enemies simultaneously. The ant queen. No, not an ant. A wasp. And Rei could tell that Yukikaze had no intention of letting it get away alive.

She turned to evade the smaller JAM flying up from low in front of her.

It was here that Rei realized that the enemy planes were behaving strangely. They weren’t attacking. And not a single missile that had launched from the desert sands below had flown after Yukikaze.

“Any time you’re ready, Captain Fukai. All loaded missiles are reading green.”

“Understood.”

Leveling off—though by all rights he shouldn’t have had time to do this, he realized—Rei looked outside of the cockpit. He searched for the target with his naked eye. It was heading toward them from the skies to their upper right.

“It’s going to get us!” shouted Lieutenant Katsuragi. “What are you doing?”

“I’m not picking up a target lock beam,” Rei replied. “What is that thing? Look at it. It’s—”

“It’s a JAM! What else do you need to know! Hurry up and fire—”

Just then, Lieutenant Katsuragi choked in shock. Yukikaze was displaying a message that he couldn’t believe.

Don’t touch me…FO/I will try to communicate with BOGEY/do NOT attack…Capt.

What Rei saw was that the enemy plane had lowered its landing gear, and unless it was experiencing some sort of mechanical breakdown, that was a signal that it didn’t intend to attack. It had been waiting for them, Rei realized. It had waited, enduring the intense attack, for Yukikaze to appear in the skies over Cookie base. Hoping that she would arrive so that they could talk to each other.

4

YUKIKAZE’S MESSAGE LEFT Lieutenant Katsuragi in a state of shock. Here was something to indicate that he might have been wrong about Rei’s “delusions.” He stared at the display for several moments, his breath ragged, then shouted.

“What the hell is this? What’s Yukikaze saying?”

Rei shifted his eyes back to the display and read the message as well. She was going to try communicating with the enemy plane and didn’t want Lieutenant Katsuragi to interfere or Rei to attack the target.

“This is impossible,” Lieutenant Katsuragi said. “Captain, you brought that message onto the display, didn’t you?”

“And how would I do that?”

It was utterly ridiculous, of course. He hadn’t had time to do any such thing. If anyone on this plane could, it would be Lieutenant Katsuragi. If this is a trap, then he’s a JAM, Rei thought. He quickly extended the air brake, letting the target plane slip past, then nimbly accelerated to close range and took up the optimal position to fire his gun. The target plane, however, made no moves to shake them off. Rei flew Yukikaze onto its starboard side. It responded by turning in a wide leftward arc.

As though beckoning Rei to follow. Yukikaze was flying faster, but since she was turning in a wider arc, the two planes ended up flying roughly next to each other. Despite the fact that the JAM was in the midst of a turn, it wasn’t banking at all.

Lieutenant Katsuragi could clearly see that it had lowered its landing gear. Its fuselage was as black as a shadow. Even bathed in the light of Faery’s twin suns, you couldn’t tell the surface of the plane from the shadows cast upon it. Even though it was flying close enough that Rei felt he could reach out his hand and touch it, it was difficult to make out what its actual shape was. It almost looked like a section of the background scenery had been clipped out and replaced with a black shape, and it was impossible to tell at a glance what sort of three-dimensional shape this fighter had.

The smaller JAM planes reestablished their escort formation around the main one, splitting into three groups and moving to intercept the approaching FAF planes. Lieutenant Katsuragi touched the control panel, preparing to contact them, when a warning chimed and Yukikaze again flashed a message onto the display.

Do NOT touch me.

She was telling him not to interfere with her communications system. Even Lieutenant Katsuragi would have to admit that, although Rei himself would say that she didn’t need to possess consciousness in order to do that.

Whether this was a simple programmed response or possibly caused by the unexplainable “something” in Yukikaze really didn’t matter in an emergency like this. The truth was that she was making high-level judgments. The question was, should they just sit there and do as she told them to?

Rei could imagine how confused Lieutenant Katsuragi was at this point. As a flight officer, he wouldn’t be able to stand just sitting there doing nothing and was probably wondering whose fault this was.

“Do what Yukikaze says.”

“But, Captain!”

“It’s my call, Lieutenant. Pilot’s orders. Do what she says. It’d be dangerous to disobey her.”

If he wasn’t careful, Yukikaze could quite easily eject the rear seat from the plane. The front seat too. Rei didn’t consider that some wild delusion. Yukikaze could do that if she wanted to.

Inside his flight gloves, Rei’s palms were growing moist from tension. He wasn’t just concerned about Lieutenant Katsuragi doing what he was told. There was also the matter of his not being able to predict what would happen next. Besides that, Rei was desperate to keep Yukikaze away from the target plane. While it hadn’t appeared to change its flight attitude, the radius of its turns was slowly decreasing.

Don’t lose track of BOGEY…Capt.

She was telling Rei not to shake the plane off, but to follow and maintain distance.

G forces were increasing with each revolution. Soon he wouldn’t be able to move his arms freely. Yet the target plane continued to turn serenely through the air. Yukikaze began to drift slightly away from it.

Increase power.

The G limiter automatically cut out. No good, Rei thought. My body can’t take this. He manually reset the limiter to tell Yukikaze that he was refusing her request. The limiter automatically cut out again.

They needed to increase power to keep up with the target plane, but they couldn’t keep turning in a smaller radius at the speed they were traveling. The airframe would eventually tear itself apart, though the humans aboard her would be dead before then. It was like they’d been placed in a centrifuge, and even if he could ignore the stress it was placing on him, he couldn’t ignore the loss of maneuverability the tight turns were causing. Even now, the plane threatened to snap out of the turn line it was describing. One mistake in control and this dangerous balance would be upset, and Rei could foresee it sending them into an unrecoverable spin.

He kept setting the G limiter, and Yukikaze kept cutting it out. Holy shit, Rei thought. We’re having an argument! He was fighting out of concern for his own safety, while Yukikaze wanted to keep going just as badly. They repeated the exchange four times, then Yukikaze spoke again.

Maintain stability/increase power right now/you can do it…Capt.

To keep following the JAM, Yukikaze first wanted him to increase her engine output in order to maintain her own stability, Rei realized.

It was certain that, if he tried to carelessly reduce her speed and pitch her nose while they were still turning like this, Yukikaze would be sent into an uncontrollable spin. To avoid that danger, Rei understood that the logical thing he needed to do now was carefully increase power to the engines.

Yukikaze was telling him that, as the pilot, he should understand that. She probably figured that he’d have to go along with her message if she put it in those terms. And he did understand. But what would happen after he did it?

“Yukikaze, are you trying to kill me?” Rei said, his voice straining against the G forces punishing his body. “What’s this JAM trying to do? Answer me, Yukikaze! I can’t do what you want me to unless you tell me what’s going on! Explain it so that I can understand. Yukikaze, do you understand me?”

Increase power immediately/just do it…Capt.

Had Yukikaze judged her pilot useless, she could have requested him to turn over maneuvering control to her by turning her automaneuver switch to ON. She probably could have done it even without sending a message to him. And yet she hadn’t. Deciding that she was saying that she depended on him, Rei answered her request by moving the throttle lever in his left hand slightly forward. Yukikaze continued with a new message:

I have T-FACPro II/use it…Capt.

“Lieutenant! Open the utility warehouse in Yukikaze’s central computer! Run the program called T-FACPro II! Hurry!”

Lieutenant Katsuragi had also read Yukikaze’s message, but he had no idea what sort of utility T-FACPro II was. He couldn’t remember ever being told that Yukikaze had such a program. But there was no time to think about it. Rei was the pilot, and so Katsuragi obeyed. He accessed the utility program memory area called the warehouse and found T-FACPro II there. The startup indicator was shown, then the display changed completely.

“What am I supposed to do with this?” Lieutenant Katsuragi asked.

The running program itself answered him, displaying a message on the screen.

This is a psychological tool designed to predict a target subject’s behavior. Please input target data. Now inputting…

A section of the main display showed Rei what was happening. Data was being entered automatically. He could guess that Yukikaze was inputting the PAX code for the JAM. Was the program going to output a behavior prediction for the target plane?

No, Rei thought. Even without using T-FACPro II, Yukikaze should have been able to predict what the JAM was doing now. No, she was expressly using the program not as a behavior prediction tool, but rather so that she could translate her intentions into a language comprehensible by the humans aboard her. T-FACPro II had a natural language processing engine to speak fluently to humans. It also had an extensive vocabulary dictionary and apparently could use speech input as well. Rei had a hunch that Yukikaze was using that engine in order to communicate with her human crewmen.

Yukikaze was going to be able to speak freely to him, not just in halting baby talk.

“Yukikaze, what is this JAM doing?”

The answer came immediately. And just as he’d expected, it wasn’t a behavior prediction from T-FACPro II. It was clearly communicating thoughts from Yukikaze. Rei would have been deeply moved if there’d been time for him to be.

The target plane is carrying out communication by means of modulated ultraviolet light. According to the SSL 1.03 protocol, it keeps repeating the tag [follow me].

Prior research had established that JAM planes would confirm each other’s position within visual range by emitting UV light through a slit located near their noses. It could be thought of as the equivalent of the nighttime running lights FAF planes were equipped with. Right now, the target plane was modulating the intensity and wavelength of the light to try and use it as a means of communication. It was saying “follow me” over and over, although none of this could be discerned with the naked eye.

“Impossible,” Lieutenant Katsuragi said. “You mean the JAM have cracked our SSL encryption?”

Having the JAM just come out and tell them that they’d cracked the SAF’s coded communications system came as a shock to Lieutenant Katsuragi. The tag that Yukikaze had mentioned referred to a prepared reference code set used for such things as identifying a message’s sender or marking the end of a transmission. If you had something very simple to convey, it was possible to just use the code number by itself.

To Rei, however, it hardly mattered. Version 1.03 was the one in use when the old Yukikaze had flown her missions. He wasn’t surprised at all that the JAM had cracked it.

Okay, fine. The target plane was saying “follow me.” By why was it turning in smaller and smaller circles? Were the JAM just trying to see how far Yukikaze would go along with it? The G forces the turns were generating were threatening to exceed the limits of human endurance. Maybe the target plane was trying to see at what point a human body would just break, Rei wondered.

“Do you understand the reason for these turning maneuvers, Yukikaze? Answer me. What is this JAM trying to do?”

T-FACPro II predicts, Yukikaze displayed on the monitor, that the target plane desires direct communication with you. It can also predict, however, that the target plane does not want any other FAF plane to hear the contents of the communication, and so it is in the midst of guiding you to a place where you will not be disturbed. I also judge T-FACPro II’s prediction to be correct.

“And where is this place where we won’t be disturbed?”

MYSTERIOUS BATTLE ZONE.

Rei reflexively choked as he read the message. The G forces were making it hard enough to breathe as it was, but Rei didn’t want to accept the reply Yukikaze had just given him. She might as well have been inviting him back to a hell he hoped he’d never have to return to.

“What’s it mean by ‘mysterious battle zone,’ Captain?” Lieutenant Katsuragi asked.

The G-stress on Lieutenant Katsuragi must be even worse than what I’m feeling, Rei thought. That medical exam had been spot on. It was an odd thing to think about, all things considered. The Gs were so bad now that Rei couldn’t even turn his head.

The mysterious battle zone…the place where he’d tasted the flesh of Lieutenant Burgadish. And no, that hadn’t been the first time he’d visited it. He’d been there before, with that journalist Andy Lander, who’d come from Earth to do a story on the FAF. He’d been flying with Rei in Yukikaze to experience it for himself when they were pulled into that bizarre space. They’d found a yellow swamp in a forest that seemed to be made of mechanical devices, and when Lander had reached his hand out to touch it, he’d lost his hand up to his wrist… The entire thing had seemed like a waking dream, but when they’d returned to normal space, Lander’s hand was still gone. They’d never found the zone’s exact location. Indeed, Rei had even written in his report that the zone might not be on Faery at all. That was when he’d named that unknown space the “mysterious battle zone.” It was a unique name, one that Yukikaze knew but Lieutenant Katsuragi did not.

When they’d flown there before, the fuel transfer system had been interfered with, causing Yukikaze’s engines to shut down. They had to defeat the JAM’s intense electronic warfare in order to escape. Yukikaze had been the one who had beaten them. All I’d been able to do was hope that she didn’t lose, Rei thought. This time, the JAM were probably after him, the human component of this partnership.

Even so, there was no way he could run back home after coming so far. This was exactly the situation that Major Booker had hoped would arise, so Rei steeled himself in resignation. Make contact with the JAM, then bring that information back to base. Come back alive, no matter what.

“Yukikaze, get ready for EW jamming from the target plane. Don’t let your guard down. Remember, it’s a JAM.”

Everything is ready/I don’t lose/trust me…Capt.

Yukikaze had switched back to her own words. And Rei did trust her. As much as he trusted his own judgment.

“Lieutenant, monitor the passive air space radar. I’m expecting the JAM to try some sort of trick. Keep your eyes on it and brace for a shock.”

Lieutenant Katsuragi had no idea what Rei and Yukikaze were agreeing to, but they seemed to know what was going to happen, at least.

The information from the various radars was integrated for display on the electronic warfare monitor panel. This time, there was no interference from Yukikaze. Apparently, she was obeying the pilot’s instructions as well.

Well, I can definitely perceive some form of consciousness, but what exactly is this machine intelligence? Asking that question was useless, Lieutenant Katsuragi concluded coldly. The plane would probably just answer, “I am Yukikaze.” He’d just as likely get the same response from Captain Fukai. “I am what I am, Lieutenant,” he’d say. What he was more interested in was what Rei was doing and just what his relationship was with the JAM. Aside from that, there was no need to ask them what was about to happen. He was about to learn that through personal experience.

Lieutenant Katsuragi coolly followed his pilot’s instructions. When you want to know the truth about something, nothing beats personal experience, as Colonel Rombert would say. The lieutenant thought back on the colonel’s favorite phrase. The colonel generally followed that up with, “However, there’s no need for you to judge the value of that experience. That’s for me to do.” In short, the colonel saw the people who worked under him as his eyes and ears, while he was the head, and he made it very clear that he didn’t want them interfering where they shouldn’t.

Lieutenant Katsuragi thought nothing of this. He understood it to mean that all that mattered to the colonel was that his subordinates were able to do their job well. Issues of human trust or betrayal never even came into the picture, as far as he was concerned. It wasn’t that Katsuragi didn’t want to establish any deep relationships out of a fear of betrayal. Rather, he just didn’t see any value in sharing feelings of trust with other people and viewed those sorts of relationships as foolish and troublesome. As far as Colonel Rombert was concerned, a subordinate like Lieutenant Katsuragi made for an excellent agent. Here was a man who would do what it took to satisfy his curiosity without any concern for the feelings or endangerment of others. For Lieutenant Katsuragi’s part, a superior like Colonel Rombert, who didn’t demand him to pursue annoying human relationships, was easy to work for.

Katsuragi understood that Colonel Rombert had released him from service because he wanted information about the SAF. It didn’t matter what conditions the colonel had set up with them, though. He was free to live his life as he wanted and was under no obligation to answer any questions the colonel might have for him. If the colonel were to appeal to the lieutenant, Katsuragi would just tell him that he didn’t work for intel anymore. He could just imagine the look on the colonel’s face were he to say that. Katsuragi lived for his own sake, not for anyone else’s, and couldn’t care less about what their expectations were. He’d do whatever he felt was best for himself. He couldn’t believe that there was anyone in this world who’d criticize him for such a stance…

That was why Lieutenant Katsuragi couldn’t understand how Captain Fukai could trust this machine intelligence called Yukikaze, especially in matters of life or death. He might as well have been taking an action based on an unreliable instrument gauge without any idea of how far off its readings were. An action that may be tantamount to suicide, Lieutenant Katsuragi thought as he watched the display panel.

The formations of FAF planes and the small JAM fighters moving to intercept them had yet to make contact. Only about a minute had passed since they’d begun following the target plane’s flight path. It felt like they’d circled round and round, but the truth was that they hadn’t even made two circuits yet. The target plane and Yukikaze were tracing a whirlpool-shaped course through the sky, the turning radius growing ever smaller as they approached the center.

He could see on the passive air space radar the shock wave the target plane produced as it crossed the sound barrier. Yukikaze was flying out of its range, but Katsuragi realized that it would be dangerous if that shock wave struck them head-on.

Suddenly, a shining white spot appeared on the display panel right before his eyes. Lieutenant Katsuragi couldn’t believe what he was looking at. He thought at first that it was some sort of shock wave caused by an intense explosion, but it didn’t propagate like a shock wave. Instead, the shining spot just stayed as it was. Fighting the G forces tearing at him, he looked out of the cockpit in the direction where the spot should have been. It seemed to be centered over the crater where the JAM had self-destructed and caused the cave-in, but with his naked eyes, he could see no difference from before. He wondered if the radar had broken down. The display appeared frozen.

It had clearly picked up the shock wave of the base’s self-destruction. Enlarging its range to maximum, he could see the traces of the pressure-change waves from the blast still spreading outward, the sound of the explosion itself. So the radar was still working fine, but that glowing dot on the display still wasn’t moving. What did it mean?

The lieutenant knew that the passive air space radar was nicknamed “Frozen Eye” and operated by means of a cryogenically cooled ultra-high sensitivity visual sensor. He didn’t know the details of how it worked, as that was a closely guarded FAF secret, but he imagined that the Frozen Eye picked up irregularities in air density, similar to how heat mirages would cause whatever one saw behind them to seemingly shimmer. Katsuragi understood that these microchanges in air density, invisible to the eye, would then be image-processed by a high-speed computer. If that were the case, it wouldn’t be able to sense differences in density unless there were observable moment-by-moment changes taking place. In short, the lines and points Frozen Eye was displaying on the panel had to be constantly moving.

So, this dot had to be vibrating. The instant he had decided it, the dot became a circle and began to slowly expand. And Yukikaze and the target plane were flying straight into it.

Rei realized this too. The airframe was violently shaking now. It seemed about ready to shake itself apart, but he knew that the plane could handle it. The question was whether or not his body could. Here we go, he thought, bracing himself for the impact. Their turning radius continued to shrink as he maintained power.

Lieutenant Katsuragi felt his eyes burn as sweat ran into them. He knew his body was trembling with a fear he unconsciously felt. His head kept telling himself that he was just experiencing what it was that Captain Fukai and Yukikaze were doing, as though this was all somebody else’s problem. His body, on the other hand, wasn’t buying any of it.

For first time, the lieutenant felt that he was behaving as suicidally as his pilot; he was terrified of these maneuvers Yukikaze was pulling. His life was in danger. He could die here, and he couldn’t accept why he was doing this. Even so, this was real. It was happening, and there was no use in trying to deny it.

That was when he saw something outside of the plane that made him wonder if any of this was real at all.

The air space indicated by Frozen Eye was distorting the scenery around it. The changes there were now visible to the naked eye. It almost seemed like an enormous transparent lens was floating over the ruined base. It extended up and down, in a spindle shape. And it was growing larger.

It’s like the Passageway, the lieutenant realized. The Passageway to hyperspace. He tried to twist his head down to check the display panel, but the G forces were just too strong now. He couldn’t move his body at all.

He saw the target JAM plane suddenly roll over, white vapor trailing behind it. A contrail, he thought, caused by the sudden maneuver. An instant later, he felt a shock like an enormous invisible hand swatting Yukikaze.

5

BLACKOUT. REI HAD no sense of losing consciousness, but he figured he might have blacked out for a moment. He heard the sound of a distant alarm. He swallowed saliva as his hearing normalized. He was clearly conscious but could see nothing of his surroundings. Nothing but gray all around. He raised his helmet visor and checked his instruments. A white vapor was rising in the cabin. He thought it was a fire at first, but the alarm was all wrong for that. It was water. Mist.

“Lieutenant Katsuragi, give me a damage report. Lieutenant, wake up!”

“I hear you. Running diagnostics now… Flight systems are all green,” he answered, breathing rapidly.

“Fix the cabin environment.”

“The defogger’s running. Current position: unknown.”

There must have been a sudden, temporary loss of pressure in the cabin, Rei thought. That was the cause of the mist. Thinking the canopy might have been blown off, Rei rolled Yukikaze through one turn, confirming her flight responses as well as trying to determine which way was up. Even so, his instruments weren’t telling him anything. Not knowing which way was up, he reversed the roll in case he’d unexpectedly changed course during the initial one.

The alarm indicated TARGET PLANE LOST. Canceling it, Rei checked to see if the wide area search radar was still operating.

Lieutenant Katsuragi noticed that the barometric and radar altimeters were now at wide variance in their readings, way more than the usual measurement error. He looked out the now-clearing canopy to see which reading was more accurate. He had a feeling that both were probably wrong. Yukikaze was flying nearly level, very close to the ground.

It was a strange scene. Dim, with thick clouds spreading overhead as far as the eye could see. Below them was exactly the same. The lieutenant suddenly realized that the “ground” below them was just another cloud formation. Yukikaze was flying through a clear layer between two thick cloud banks above and below. Far ahead of them on the horizon he could see a band of blue light, probably a break in this sea of clouds. Craning his head around to make sure that Yukikaze’s tail stabilizers hadn’t been damaged, he saw that the brightly shining gap extended completely around them. It was colored red behind them. Katsuragi’s entire field of view showed only a ring of light, sandwiched between two layers of clouds.

“No visible damage to the wings. Current altitude is around three thousand meters, and I don’t think this is Faery’s environment, either,” Lieutenant Katsuragi informed Rei. “I think this is some sort of artificially created space. Our altimeter readings are unreliable here.”

“Yeah,” replied Rei. “There’s also a huge cloud layer above us that reflects back radio waves.”

“Holy shit…” Katsuragi murmured. The clouds above and below weren’t so much like the ground than gigantic walls, with this clear area suspended between them. “This is a spatial pathway the JAM use to transport themselves around Faery.”

“Maybe.”

“If we keep flying, will we come out of it, Captain Fukai?”

“I don’t know, but I think we’re going to make contact with the JAM before we leave here. Keep your eyes peeled.”

The engines were running smoothly, but there was no real sense that they were moving forward. It was quiet. The situation was bizarre, but Rei was relieved to see that Lieutenant Katsuragi in the rear seat was dealing with it calmly and not falling into a panic. Yukikaze was silent except for the message on the main display, which declared that she was searching for the enemy. No doubt she was using every means at her disposal to search the skies surrounding them.

“Where’d the target plane disappear to?” Lieutenant Katsuragi asked. “It looks like it didn’t come in here with us.”

“You’re probably right, seeing as it’s not here. It was probably just sent to guide us in,” Rei replied.

“Did you know this was going to happen?”

“Are you asking me if I knew beforehand that we’d be lured into this weird space?”

“Well, that too…”

“You said before that this is an artificially created space. How do you know that?” Rei asked.

“Because I doubt anything like this would exist naturally. If the JAM control it, then it stands to reason that they created it too.”

“That’s a cool assessment to make.”

“What are you planning to do here, Captain?”

“Learn what the JAM’s intentions are,” Rei said. “That’s why the SAF put this operation in motion, although the JAM seem to have made the move before we could. I guess you could say we got our wish. Saves us a bunch of work, this way.”

“Did the SAF get some overtures beforehand that the JAM would be open to contact like this?” Lieutenant Katsuragi asked.

“It’d be natural to think that.”

“To think? Are you avoiding the question?”

“You don’t work for Colonel Rombert anymore, meaning you have no right to cross-examine me. Keep your position in mind, Lieutenant.”

“I’m just asking out of personal curiosity, Captain.”

There’s a way of asking things when you genuinely just want to know about them, Rei thought. Still, as much as the way Katsuragi was doing it rubbed him the wrong way, Rei figured he’d sound much the same if he were in the lieutenant’s place. Rei snorted out a laugh as he thought about it. The lieutenant’s questions weren’t about some duty to figure out what was going on. He really was a lot like Rei in that regard. Besides, Rei had a feeling that Katsuragi was going to get nervous if he didn’t have something to talk about.

“What’s so funny?”

“You just remind me of when Colonel Rombert interrogated me. But yeah, you aren’t him. Just go on, Lieutenant.”

“If you people did receive overtures from the JAM before, then that’s a serious matter,” Lieutenant Katsuragi said. “The other units in the FAF don’t know that, do they? Is the SAF trying to set up some sort of private arrangement between itself and the JAM?”

“Overtures were made in advance,” Rei replied coolly. “But to Yukikaze, not us humans. If that weren’t the case, Yukikaze wouldn’t have told me not to attack and that she was going to try communicating with the JAM.”

“Oh… Is that what that was all about.”

“The SAF theorized that the JAM wanted to make contact with Yukikaze because she made that prediction herself shortly before we left on this sortie.”

Yukikaze performed unmanned sorties several times before now, and it’s possible the JAM had made their overtures to her each time, Rei thought. That was how she knew that the JAM desired to “receive” them. He could imagine that the JAM had made clear their conditions for contact with them—she had to be piloted, not unmanned.

“That’s why I was prepared for this,” Rei continued. “But I don’t know what the JAM are going to say to us. Is that good enough for you, Lieutenant?”

“What do you plan to say to the JAM?”

“I want to ask them what they think I am.”

“And after that?” Katsuragi asked.

“Why, out of all the other planes in other units, they want to make contact with Yukikaze. I want to know what they think she is too.”

“Do you only care about you and Yukikaze, Captain Fukai? There have to be more important things to ask them.”

“Like what?”

“Like why the JAM invaded in the first place. That’s what the SAF and the FAF both want to know. Are you serious? Do you really fly Yukikaze for such personal reasons?”

“Yeah,” Rei said. “What about it? Is it wrong to?”

“Is it wrong? That answer is so disgusting, I don’t even know where to begin,” the lieutenant replied.

“That’s not how you really feel about it,” Rei said.

“How do you mean?”

“It’s not that you aren’t answering me out of disgust. It’s because you don’t know how to judge my answer and you don’t understand how you feel about it. You don’t have a personal question to ask the JAM, and that disgust you claim to feel only comes from your being a soldier in the FAF. You’re acting the way you think a good soldier should, but you don’t really care. So do me a favor and stop trying to impress me.”

Lieutenant Katsuragi was silent.

“Think about it for yourself, Lieutenant. I’m pretty sure you know how you feel.”

Captain Foss and her therapy must have had an even stronger influence on me than I ever imagined, Rei thought. But nothing pissed him off more than hearing someone talking as pretentiously as Lieutenant Katsuragi was; the lieutenant wasn’t even using his own words. All it did was underline how mentally immature he really was. It was all Rei could do to keep from just telling the guy to fuck off. The foul language he wanted to hurl at him was the same abuse he wanted to hurl at himself.

“Does everyone in the SAF fly for the same reasons you do?” the lieutenant finally asked.

“I couldn’t care less why they do it,” Rei replied.

“So, the SAF is…yeah. That’s fine, isn’t it?”

You draw the most strength when you fight for yourself, Rei thought, as he silently nodded. He looked outside. The scenery hadn’t changed. Maybe the JAM were carrying out a cunning plan just to annoy him. Rei was concerned about their remaining fuel, but then noticed they hadn’t consumed nearly as much as he’d thought.

“It doesn’t matter what motivates your unit’s pilots to fly, as long as they achieve their strategic goals,” Lieutenant Katsuragi said. “If you find out what the JAM think of you and Yukikaze, we can figure out what their strategic objectives are and develop strategies to anticipate their behavior.” He paused a moment. “I was really shocked when you just coolly said ‘yeah’ like that, Captain. I just couldn’t come up with anything to answer that.”

“You would have said the same thing if you’d been in my position. There was nothing shocking about it. You and I are a lot alike.”

“I was shocked because saying something like that in any other unit would have earned you a trip to the firing squad. If the SAF permits conversations like this to happen every day, it’s in real trouble. Well, I suppose I don’t have anything to worry about.”

“Do you have a meeting arranged with Colonel Rombert?” Rei asked.

“No, but I figure the colonel will approach me somehow. Still, even if he does, I don’t plan to tell him about this. Besides, considering the situation, I doubt he’d believe me even if I did.”

“That colonel wouldn’t ignore intelligence like this just because he didn’t believe it himself. He’d probably anticipate how well you can utilize your intelligence network and demand objective data.”

“Hm…”

Right now, Katsuragi is probably doubting what his five senses are telling him about this whole experience, Rei thought. If they made it back in one piece, he was definitely going to need the data Yukikaze had collected in order to process it.

“Don’t keep monitoring the instruments,” Rei ordered. “Keep a visual watch on our surroundings. No matter what happens, don’t look at the instruments. I’ll tell you again if I need you to run the EW systems. Trust your own eyes. Now, repeat what I just told you back to me.”

“Maintain a visual watch on our surroundings, don’t look at the instruments until the pilot tells me otherwise. That is all.”

“You left out the part about trusting your own eyes.”

“That was part of your orders?”

“Yeah.”

“Trust my own eyes. That is all,” Lieutenant Katsuragi said.

“And can you do that?”

“I follow my orders.”

“It’d be hard for me to do,” Rei said. “Flying without looking at my instruments would make me as nervous as hitting full throttle with my eyes shut.”

“You’re a pilot. That’s not surprising.”

“It’s not that sort of anxiety.”

“Are you saying you can’t completely trust Yukikaze—”

As he spoke, an object moving at high speed was detected on the enemy search radar, triggering an air-raid alarm. Lieutenant Katsuragi’s eyes instinctively fell back to his display panel.

“Bogey, single, bearing low to port. Rising fast on a general intercept course. From its size, I’m guessing it’s a fighter plane, not a missile.”

“Lieutenant, carry out your orders!” Rei snapped. “Maintain a visual watch and give me running reports on the actual conditions you see. Do it in a way that anyone would be able to figure out what happened here if we replay it back at base.”

“Roger. By visual observation…I can’t confirm an enemy silhouette in the cloud bank below us, but it’s probably close.”

“Target is crossing to starboard, right next to us, Lieutenant. I’m matching speeds. No IFF response. I can’t confirm if it’s a JAM. Type: unknown.”

“A section of the bogey has appeared through the cloud bank… Looks like the pointed tip of a vertical stabilizer.”

Like a shark fin breaking the surface of the water, thought Lieutenant Katsuragi. It was very close to them now, barely one hundred meters away. It broke through the clouds as it rose toward them. The surroundings were dim, and in the weak light, its wings looked gray instead of the usual black of a JAM plane.

“I can see some sort of darkish marking on the gray wings of the plane. It looks like…like…”

It was a Boomerang mark. With barely a ripple on the surface of the clouds, the unknown plane revealed itself completely.

“The plane is a Sylphid, a high-speed Super Sylph. I can confirm the markings of the Special Air Force 5th Squadron on it.”

Even Rei could now see with his naked eyes the plane emerging on the starboard side.

“It’s Yukikaze,” he said coolly. “A duplicate of Yukikaze’s old airframe, and this isn’t the first time I’ve run into it.”

Setting the fire control radar to pursuit mode, he locked on to the target plane. It was emitting an IFF signal designating it as friendly, but Rei disregarded that and marked it as hostile.

“I see crewmen in the cockpit,” Lieutenant Katsuragi reported. “Their faces are covered with visors and masks… The one in the rear seat is moving his hand… He’s pointing to his mask. It looks like he wants to talk to us.”

This was the first time he’d seen humanoids riding in the gray mystery plane. Wondering if they were duplicates of himself and Lieutenant Burgadish, Rei began manually searching the comm band, but the auto-scanner locked on before he could. A voice came through into his helmet.

“Lieutenant Fukai, you are fighting a useless battle. Do you hear me? I demand that you abandon your fighting spirit and live as I tell you to. Answer me, Lieutenant Fukai. I repeat…”

That wasn’t Lieutenant Burgadish’s voice. Its tone was neutral, as though mechanically synthesized. While the subject of its speech was easy to understand, it used words clumsily. Besides that, Rei was a captain now, but it was referring to him by his former rank. That might have been deliberate though, and Rei decided against correcting its mistake. No point in giving the JAM any more information than he had to.

“Lieutenant Fukai, you are fighting a useless battle. Do you hear me?”

“This is B-1, I read you loud and clear. Please state your name, rank, and unit attachment.”

“Response confirmed. I lack the type of classification and identification codes you inquire about. Lieutenant Fukai, please respond if you accept or deny my request.”

“If you’re going to make a request of someone, it’s only common courtesy to make your social position clear to them,” Rei replied, knowing that wasn’t true at all. “Who are you?”

After a short, almost embarrassed silence, it responded.

“By your conceptualization, I am the whole of what you refer to as the JAM.”

“The whole… You mean you’re the JAM themselves? Should I think of you as a voice representing the JAM?”

“I would not object to that judgment. Please issue your response.”

Rei switched off the comm circuit for a moment and called out to Lieutenant Katsuragi.

“Lieutenant, what do you think of what it said? Do you think I can believe this to be a representative of the JAM?”

“Hell if I know. I will say that it sounds unnatural, though. Like somebody is ordering it to say that stuff to you.”

“I agree. Maintain observation of our surroundings.”

“Roger.”

He reopened the comm link.

“I can’t understand the meaning of your request,” Rei replied. “When you say my battle is useless, I don’t know to whose advantage you’re referring, so I can’t answer you.”

“I somehow doubt that.”

The suddenly fluent and lively voice he now heard leaping into his ears made Rei shiver. He knew one very similar to it. The man at that mysterious base where Lieutenant Burgadish had met his end. Yazawa. Major Yazawa. The name of the man he’d told Colonel Rombert about over and over again. The JAM human. It had to be him.

“Lieutenant Fukai, I very much doubt that you don’t understand its meaning,” the new voice said. “We’re saying that the FAF has no chance of winning, so we’re offering you a way to save yourself. Come with us. We’ll lead you to a place where you can live in safety. If you don’t comply, you’ll only end up dying a meaningless death.”

“I can’t trust your words,” Rei said. “I reject your demand. I won’t negotiate with you.”

“Ignorant man. We’ve come here to make you understand.”

“I say again, I will not negotiate with you.” He called back to the rear seat. “Lieutenant Katsuragi, I’m engaging them. We’re attacking the target plane to starboard. Get ready for their counterattack and stand by on EW.”

“Roger!”

The stores control panel automatically displayed, letting him see at a glance all of the weaponry loaded on board. Yukikaze was agreeing with his decision to attack. She selected the high-velocity short range missiles, telling him to lead off with those. Rei snapped Yukikaze into a sharp turn. The target plane reacted immediately. In a close-range dogfight between the Maeve and a Super Sylph, the Maeve had an absolute advantage.

He launched the missiles, their range to the target extremely short. Rei counted to himself: three…two…one! and then the target plane vanished. It happened suddenly, without any warning. Having lost their target, the missiles flew straight through where the plane had vanished and then self-destructed.

“It’s useless, Lieutenant Fukai.”

The target plane suddenly reappeared on the starboard side.

“Shit,” spat Lieutenant Katsuragi. “The thing may not even really be there.”

As if chiding the lieutenant’s impatience, Yukikaze scrolled a message onto the display.

This was just a test/next firing will not be warning shots…JAM.

“Such foolishness, even after we offered to save you. Very well. If you insist, I will accept your challenge. Now see who truly rules the skies. This place shall become your grave—” the owner of the voice was saying. Suddenly, with no explanation, the words stopped. There came a shout like “No, don’t!”

Disaster struck the target plane. Its canopy blew off.

“The crew have ejected,” Lieutenant Katsuragi reported. “Confirm ejection of both front and rear seats. Are they running away? But why? What happened?”

The lieutenant followed the two ejected seats with his gaze. They fell behind and to the side of their flight path, tracing a double-helix path through the air as they spiraled away around one another. He saw no sign of the crew’s bodies separating from the seats or of parachutes opening, even as he twisted his neck as far around as he could to keep them in sight. They were enveloped in a reddish phosphorescence, sprouting glowing red tails as they grew smaller and smaller until they finally vanished from sight. It was as if they’d been incinerated in freefall. He instinctively checked the radar display, but saw nothing there. They’d been annihilated.

“Answer me, JAM,” Rei said. “I want to talk to you, not your human duplicates. Respond! This is Rei Fukai in B-1.”

The response came.

“I cannot understand you. Why do you fight?”

Lieutenant Katsuragi shivered. The owner of this voice, he realized, was the JAM themselves, who wished to make contact with Captain Fukai and Yukikaze. The ejected JAM humans had been nothing more than intermediaries whose role had been to act as translators. The owner of the voice had probably discarded them when it judged that they were hindering negotiations. Like they’d been some sort of disposable weapon.

The target plane continued to fly alongside Yukikaze, as though nothing had happened. The JAM voice might have been coming from the plane, but most likely it was acting as a relay transmitter to convey the JAM’s will. No doubt it wasn’t the actual voice of a JAM, but the results of their efforts to convey their thoughts in human speech through the manipulation of radio waves.

What we know as JAM do exist, but they’re some sort of invisible beings, and what we fight are their shadows. What Rei had thought, Lieutenant Katsuragi could now understand as a palpable sensation. A sensation of fear. It hadn’t just been a theory.

“I cannot understand the intelligence known as Yukikaze. I cannot understand the intelligences which comprise what is known as the Special Air Force. Why, Lieutenant Fukai? Why do you fight?”

“So that I can live and not die at your hands. Why can’t you understand that? Are you saying other humans, the groups aside from Yukikaze and the SAF, aren’t like that?”

“I believe that the machine intelligences of the SAF, including Yukikaze and you contained within her, are like me: intelligences that do not possess personlike consciousness. What I cannot understand is why you do not separate from the group known as the FAF and continue to fight to thwart my plans. Yukikaze refuses to ratify my nonaggression pact. You are the only one who can convince her to withdraw her rejection. Lieutenant Fukai, I desire to awaken you. Come back to me.”

“Wait, what… What do you mean, I don’t possess personlike consciousness? Ratify a nonaggression pact? Come back to you?”

“The current people as well as the artificial intelligences that manipulate them are beings that can be made to deviate from their essential natures by our plans. You people, however, are not like that. You are essential beings, and your enemy is not me. It is not my intention to let you be consumed. It is my desire that you choose to come over to me.”

“In short…” said Lieutenant Katsuragi, cutting in. Rei didn’t stop him. He was going to need time if he was going to figure out what the JAM were saying. “You’re saying that since we’re like the JAM, you want us to join you, switch sides, and help you to fight the FAF?”

“Who are you?”

“My name is Akira Katsuragi, Yukikaze’s flight officer and electronic warfare operator. I serve at FAF Faery base in the Tactical Combat Air Corps, Special Air Force 5th Squadron. My rank is second lieutenant and I am a human. If you want to know why I fight you, it’s pretty much because it’s my job to. My job, do you understand? My duty. I do this because there’s no other suitable path I can take through life.”

“You can live without fighting me.”

“I can interpret your thoughts to mean that you want the SAF to be your allies, can’t I? Does that mean you’re offering me a job?”

In this situation, what he’d just asked was so base it was almost funny. But they waited for the JAM’s answer, even as Rei wondered what the lieutenant’s real motives were.

“You people and I are similar, but we are not comrades. But I wish to explain that I see the possibility of forming a common front against the FAF. I judge that will provide a path through life for you, Lieutenant Katsuragi. I seek your answer. If you have any intention of withdrawing from the FAF and joining me, then declare it to me, Lieutenant Fukai.”

Its strained, unnatural circumlocutions made it difficult to follow, but what Rei could basically make out was that the JAM were demanding to know, if he intended to continue fighting, would he join the JAM’s side. His destiny was riding on how he answered this question.

What would the JAM do if he told them no? Would it eliminate him to rid itself of an opponent beyond comprehension? No, it would likely keep working to understand him till the bitter end. The JAM probably wouldn’t let him escape from this space. Maybe lead him, and Yukikaze, to be confined in a safe place, like Major Yazawa had said. Somewhere unimaginable that was neither Earth nor Faery, where the JAM could take its time in figuring them out, with special attention paid to Yukikaze. What if the JAM brainwashed him to get him on their side? If they succeeded at that, he imagined they could bring the entire SAF there to brainwash as well and then use them against the FAF. In other words, turn them all into JAM…

Well then, what if he said yes? What if he joined the JAM? Yukikaze wouldn’t accept that quietly, surely. He had no doubt in his mind that she’d pitch both himself and Lieutenant Katsuragi out of the plane, to end up the same as Major Yazawa and whoever else had been with him.

“Your answer, Lieutenant Fukai.”

Rei sensed that the JAM was in no hurry.

It had plenty of time. It had been observing the FAF for thirty years, so why would it rush? Rei was still under observation in this space, as well. The JAM didn’t seem intent on killing him, but as long as he didn’t answer it, he’d have no way to take any proactive steps toward saving himself. Unless he did something, he would end up starving to death, and Yukikaze would exhaust her fuel and fall silent.

What do I want to do, Rei asked himself. Not what should I do, but do I want to do? Is that the answer?

“I wish to know more details about what sort of beings you are,” Rei said. “I don’t understand anything about you, but you seem to grasp at least a bit about me. I can’t ratify a nonaggression pact with you as long as this unequal state of affairs persists. First of all, I don’t think you completely understand or know how to use human speech. Just what are you people? Living things? Beings that consist only of intelligence, will, and data? Do you have physical forms? If so, then where are they?”

“I cannot explain in a way that would be comprehensible in your terms. I am that I am.”

Lieutenant Katsuragi felt a smile spasm across his face. The tension was so unbearable now that he could feel his train of thought starting to derail. “I am that I am.” Well, fantastic. They are just like Captain Fukai and Yukikaze, then. As he was thinking how the resemblance was astonishing, the feeling of tension returned. He concentrated every nerve on Rei’s answer.

“If you don’t have words that can explain more than that, then any further communication via words is meaningless,” Rei declared. Taking a deep breath and preparing himself for the worst, he gave his answer.

“I refuse your request.”

“Understood,” the JAM replied, without any emotion.

“Strategic reconnaissance, complete,” Rei declared. “Returning to base.”