I The Skies Where Fairies Dance
He had loved many things in his life and had been betrayed by most of them. Now, they only fed his hatred. When the woman he loved finally left him too, he was utterly alone. Now, only one thing gave his heart strength. A delicate, unspeaking machine that would never, ever betray him. A soaring fairy. A Sylphid. Yukikaze.
TWENTY-FOUR ASSAULT fighter planes in combat formation punched their way through the skies toward an enemy base. They were units attached to the Faery Air Force’s Tactical Frontline Base TAB-16, 1666th Tactical Combat Group, 666th Tactical Fighter Squadron. Beneath them, a brilliant white desert drew near.
It was a dry, desolate region. Rain clouds couldn’t make it across the bordering mountain range, and even what moisture the air could retain was greedily absorbed by the immense forests and countless forest creatures inhabiting the skirts of the mountains. As a result, the winds blowing through the forests emerged parched and dry. But for a very short time each spring, the vast amount of water released by the snowmelt on the mountains was more than even the forest could drink, and it seeped into the desert environs via underground rivers.
It was spring, and from the sky one could see veins of water soaking into the sands. The edge of the desert was stained a light purple by the stubby, rugged plants that were now sprouting there. The new buds, glossy and metallic, sparkled brightly with reflected sunlight. Since the vegetation further into the desert grew more slowly than that toward the edge, the boundary between the desert interior and this purplish grassland was demarcated by a glittering line formed by the young plants. The entire effect suggested a ghostly field of purple flame advancing across the sugar-white sands.
Hidden in the purple grassland were the enemy interceptors. When the 666th fighters’ early warning systems detected the enemy aircraft the strike leader barked out his commands.
“Small JAM interceptors. The vertical-launch types are taking off. These guys are decoys. Alpha, Bravo, Charlie, take them. Everyone else, climb now! Combat climb!”
From the grass rose the black JAM fighters. Three of them, four, then five, their boosters spitting out long tails of flame. The planes of the 666th TFS split into two flights, one going into a power dive while the other began to climb at high speed. From above them, a swarm of JAM interceptors dove into their attack.
At the moment that the black JAM aircraft and the gray fighters of the 666th closed in battle, a formation of strike bombers from Faery Base’s Tactical Combat Group penetrated the JAM defense line, flying on the deck at supersonic speed. The camouflaged buildings of the JAM supply base could not be visually distinguished from the sand dunes they squatted in, but they couldn’t escape the passive sensors of the planes’ ground-attack systems.
Just before reaching the base the bombers climbed sharply, their objectives locked on in their targeting systems. With the data now acquired and fed to their air-to-ground missiles, the bombers commenced another ultra-low altitude attack run. As soon as they were within range they released their missiles and withdrew, with the tactical fighters providing cover.
The battle was over. The 666th retook their formation and streaked away from the desert. There were four empty spaces in the formation now, four planes that were not coming back. The 666th strike leader did not know how his subordinates had fought or how they died. Their battle had taken place out of his sight.
However, it had not gone unwitnessed. There was one tactical combat and surveillance aircraft whose job it was to monitor the entire battle without engaging in it: Special Air Force Unit 3, attached to Faery Base. The model of plane was a Sylphid, its name, Yukikaze.
The strike leader didn’t know what was in Yukikaze’s combat data file, but he knew it had recorded the particulars of the battle fought by the planes of the 666th TFS that had fallen to the JAM.
None of the pilots had managed to eject. Four pilots and their beloved aircraft had been lost, scattered across the skies of Faery. Yukikaze’s pilot, Second Lieutenant Rei Fukai, conveyed this information to the squadron with no more emotion in his voice than if he were reading a string of numbers.
“No survivors of downed planes. This is Yukikaze. Mission complete. Returning to base.”
The strike leader watched silently as the combat surveillance fighter flew off over the 666th formation after delivering the news of his subordinates’ deaths. Yukikaze glittered in the light, then ignited its afterburners and climbed quickly, vanishing into the higher altitudes of the sky where night was drawing near. “Goddamned angel of death,” he muttered to himself.
Yukikaze’s pilot had stood by silently as the other pilots died, keeping well away from the combat airspace and not actively supporting any of the other planes. He offered no help and issued no warnings. Those were the tasks of the tactical control unit, not his. Don’t engage, just gather information and get it back to base, no matter what. Those were his orders. The 666th leader knew this full well, and yet he still couldn’t help but wonder: if that powerful, high-performance aircraft had joined in the battle, would his subordinates still be alive? He also wondered about the man who piloted that plane. Anyone who can just sit by and calmly watch his comrades getting killed isn’t human, he thought. The mysterious pilot always just watched and then flew back home, like a boomerang that never hit its target.
“Useless bastard,” the 666th leader growled, then issued the order to return to TAB-16. As the squadron made its way back no one exchanged a word.
YUKIKAZE FLEW TOWARD Faery Base, supercruising at an altitude of thirty thousand meters. It flew alone.
Second Lieutenant Rei Fukai looked out of the cockpit at the dark blue sky spread out around him. Night was coming on and he could see the first stars. Below him, the planet Faery was ablaze with twilight colors. Soon it would match the color of the sky. Faery’s binary suns glowed crimson above the horizon, their mutual gravitational attraction pulling them into flattened elliptical shapes. A jet of dark red gas could clearly be seen spouting out of one of them. It arced up to the sky’s zenith, looking for all the world like the Milky Way, but instead of a pearly white it was a red suggestive of the color of blood. This enormous whirlpool of erupting gas formed what looked like a bloodstained path, and so it had been named the “Bloody Road.”
Rei set the cockpit illumination to its lowest level and lifted his gaze from the instrumentation. Nothing was out of the ordinary. It was quiet. He thought back to the battle just fought by the 666th TFS.
“Delta 4, engage. Break right. Right. Starboard.”
“This is Delta 4, I can’t see them.”
“They’ve spiked you! Look out!”
“Where’s the JAM?! I can’t see it on my radar!”
Delta 4 had broken into a hard-right diving turn but couldn’t shake the JAM fighter.
A pilot who couldn’t control his plane perfectly was a dead man. To Rei, that was the natural order of things. Emotions had no place in battle. A fighter plane feels nothing, and a pilot is a part of the plane. Therefore, a pilot who couldn’t set aside his emotions and become one with his plane was no warrior. And with someone like that piloting it, even a high-performance fighter would be no match for the enemy. And then that fighter would be—
Yukikaze’s wide-area radar warning receiver chimed an alert.
“What’s up?” Rei asked his backseater, the electronic warfare officer. “Verify that.”
“Not sure,” the other man replied. “The passive warning system’s activated, but I can’t track the location. It could be a bogey.”
“A bogey?” asked Rei. “Then… It’s gotta be a JAM. Find it.” Saying that, he switched on the fire control system and set the radar to long-range, moving target auto-search mode. The target was entering radar range.
“Target sighted,” the EWO called out. “It’s small. A fighter. Pretty fast. Speed is two-point-nine and he’s nose-on. We should merge in approximately two minutes.”
Rei checked the moving target indicator. Was the other craft a hostile? A friendly? But the MTI’s display simply showed it as UNKNOWN.
“What is it?” Rei asked.
“Negative on the IFF.” If there was no response on the Identification, Friend or Foe system, then…
“It’s a hostile,” said Rei.
He entered the unknown craft into his tactical computer as an enemy. The system automatically adjusted the radar search pattern, frequency, power output, and pulse width to their optimal efficiency and tracked the target.
“Hey, Boss?” said the EWO. “We should confirm this first. It might be a friendly. Maybe their IFF’s off-line. I doubt any JAM would be flying around here.”
The unknown plane was closing fast, its course unwavering, on a straight line for Yukikaze. Like a giant bullet, thought Rei.
“Lieutenant, take evasive action.”
In response to the rapidly approaching target, the tactical computer switched the radar mode to super search and automatically locked on to the target.
“Okay, let’s reconfirm this. What is that thing? Contact them on the emergency channel.”
“I’m trying, but there’s no response. Looks like their communications equipment is out.”
Yukikaze turned ninety degrees and dived. The unknown plane climbed rapidly, opening from them. However, Rei could still easily track it: Yukikaze was equipped with a powerful, omni-directional pulse Doppler radar that could accurately detect the target and display its location, velocity, and acceleration data on the MTI.
The target banked steeply and began to dive toward Yukikaze at high speed.
“He’s a hostile,” said Rei. “I’m engaging.”
“It’s not a JAM!”
“How do you know that?”
As Yukikaze pulled a sudden high-G evasive turn, from his seat in the rear the EWO caught sight of the unknown craft nipping at their heels. It was just under a kilometer away, a large fighter plane glittering in the light of the setting suns. Via the digital camera in their tactical reconnaissance pod he could make out the distinctive, sharply pointed twin vertical stabilizers on its back.
“You see that, Lieutenant Fukai?” he called out over the com. “That’s a Sylph. A Sylphid.”
“A Sylph? Who’s it attached to?”
“Unknown.”
Rei loosened his turn radius and craned his neck back to look in the direction his partner indicated. The other craft was closing on them. It was definitely the same model of plane as Yukikaze. It was now initiating a high-G turn to try and come around to their twelve o’clock. Rei rechecked the IFF. UNKNOWN was Yukikaze’s reply. Then, detecting the waves of enemy targeting radar, it signaled that the unknown plane was preparing to attack.
Rei set the master arm switch to ARM. The stores control panel displayed his onboard armaments. RDY GUN, RDY AAM III-4. Their antiaircraft gun and four short-range air-to-air missiles. He had no long-range missiles to fire.
“I’m shooting it down,” said Rei as he hit the dogfight switch.
“Stop! It’s not an enemy! That’s a Sylph!”
Before his EWO could finish speaking, Rei banked Yukikaze steeply, then burned into a combat climb to face his target, performing a 180 degree head-on snap-up as he prepared to attack. The radar switched to boresight mode. He squeezed the trigger. The antiaircraft cannon fired a burst. No hit. The unknown plane had evaded him. He turned again, maneuvered to about 900 meters behind it and attacked from the rear. The remaining ammo indicator now read zero. Still no hits.
“Have you lost you mind, Lieutenant Fukai?!”
The unknown dived to the right, with Yukikaze in pursuit. It went into a six-G turn to try and come around to Yukikaze’s rear, but Rei pulled six-and-one-half Gs at the maximum angle of attack and closed to a range of less than 400 meters.
He now could see the unknown clearly with his own eyes. It was a Sylphid. But he didn’t abort his attack. His IFF couldn’t determine if the unknown aircraft was a friendly or not, and as far as Rei was concerned, if it wasn’t a friendly, it was a hostile. Yukikaze’s central computer wasn’t canceling its warning, and the unknown was still preparing to attack. If he had hesitated while wondering if it was friendly or not, Yukikaze would already have been shot down. Although his eyes told him that the other plane was an FAF fighter, it had to be a JAM. He was certain of this. It was a formidable enemy too, as fast and maneuverable as Yukikaze.
Rei pressed the missile release button. There was no launch. The fire control system readout on his head-up display was warning him that the target was too close. The FCS had calculated the relative velocities of the unknown aircraft and Yukikaze, and had used those figures to determine the minimum safety range for the short-range missiles. It had come up with a value of 450 meters; firing a missile any closer than that would endanger the plane that launched it.
Rei pushed the missile release button again and held it down, commanding the central computer to ignore the FCS’s warning and execute an emergency attack. If he missed this chance, they could be killed in the next instant. The central computer issued the order to attack, and the subordinate tactical computer then overrode the FCS and cleared the minimum mode from the missile seeker’s armament control. In that instant, the missile was launched from Yukikaze’s belly.
The range was less than 370 meters. Yukikaze withdrew quickly, but the unknown executed a sudden Split S maneuver and moved in on a collision course with Yukikaze, as though intending to lead the missile back toward it. The missile banked steeply, thrusting toward the unknown, and barely slipped in on its right.
Yukikaze was now less than two hundred meters away. The FCS had been transmitting guidance data to the missile, but sensing the new danger it cancelled the guidance control. The cut-off of guidance data from Yukikaze and the change in the Doppler frequency should have locked up the missile’s detonator. A comparison of the Doppler shift of Yukikaze’s radar pulse to the pulse reflected back from the target would cause the missile to detect that it was at the minimum Doppler gate when it was at its closest distance to the target, resulting in a detonation system abort. However, its optical sensor fuse still detected the target and activated the thermal battery, which then issued its signal.
The missile detonated. Barely three seconds had passed from its initial launch. The explosion blew apart the right main wing of the unknown plane. Fragments rocketed in every direction.
A piece of the missile’s shrapnel hit Yukikaze. It happened in an instant, penetrating the canopy and striking Rei directly in the forehead, smashing into his helmet visor. The pain was intense, and he let out a groan.
“Lieutenant, both engines are out! Flight control’s messed up, too.”
Yukikaze rolled lazily and began to go down, spinning.
Rei put his hand to the wound, staining his flight glove with blood. If the explosion had happened any closer, the shrapnel probably would have punched its way into his head and torn it off. He felt no fear, though. There was no time for fear. Yukikaze was falling.
“We have to punch out!”
“Wait… I can’t leave Yukikaze.”
The blood was streaming from him now. The right side of his head and his right shoulder ached.
“The engines are gone. It’s no use!”
“Don’t panic. There’s no way Yukikaze’s going to crash.”
“Lieutenant!”
“The turbines are spinning. I can airstart the engines.”
“It’s too risky to waste time trying for a restart!”
Yukikaze was now roughly level, and the EWO wasn’t going to let this chance slip away. He made sure the command lever was set to eject only the rear seat and then quickly yanked it. The canopy blew off the plane, followed by the rear ejection seat. The shock of it sent Yukikaze back into a tailspin.
Rei checked his altitude. The cold stabbed at him, the wind howling in his ears. He still had enough altitude to try for an airstart. The engine burner pressure was low. He tried the auto-restart switch, but there was no response. The low-voltage generator wasn’t giving him enough electrical power. There wasn’t enough time to activate the jet fuel starter, and he feared that using the secondary power unit would kill his computer systems completely.
The right engine was now burning. Fuel transfer to it was automatically cut off. Rei checked the turbine revs indicator, then pushed Yukikaze into a dive. She eagerly nosed down, as though intending to fly straight into the ground.
The increased airflow spun the turbine blades faster, and the generator circuits came back to life. Rei hit the airstart button. The engine ignition system activated and the ignition exciter spark plug flared. The airstart lamp was now lit. Yukikaze plummeted. The left engine came back to life. The turbine intake temperature rose. The revolutions increased. Cutting off the ignition operation, Rei gripped the side stick. Yukikaze climbed quickly, still spinning. He focused all his attention on the side stick, executing a sudden roll to the opposite side to arrest the spin.
The flight control’s failed, he thought. He worked the stick cautiously. They were no longer rolling, but now Yukikaze was beginning to fall backwards. He nudged the plane into a gentle roll to try and level it. Suddenly, Yukikaze began rising quickly, bucking like a wild horse. Rei was feeling tired now. There was no time to check the gauges to determine exactly what was out of order. Without the canopy’s protection the cockpit was freezing, and the wind pressure kept him from seeing clearly. His arm was numb. Yukikaze began to buck harder.
A signal indicated a fault in the flight computer system. Of the five high-speed parallel processing computers that analyzed his flight data, three were now completely off-line. Of the two remaining, one wasn’t working properly, and it was unclear which of them had the fault. Because the calculations they came up with didn’t agree, the central computer had cut off the entire flight computer system. It entered the signal for control of the wings via the direct control assembly.
Rei saw this at the top of his display, and the cause of Yukikaze’s wild flight suddenly became clear to him. He loosened his grip on the stick and switched on the autopilot. Yukikaze’s violent shuddering immediately ceased.
Rei himself had been the cause of Yukikaze’s strange behavior. The injury he had sustained had left him with almost no sensation in his right arm. Yukikaze had been just faithfully following the input from the side stick even though Rei was exerting much more force on it than he should have been. The stick was pressure sensitive: every control surface on it responded to the way the pilot changed the grip of his right hand. The stick itself was immobile—there was no need for motion since it was pressure sensitive—and so under the correct conditions it could execute a pilot’s will with lightning speed. Now, the lack of sensation and the pain of his injured arm had caused Rei to accidentally send it the wrong instructions.
He adjusted the altitude on the autopilot, inputting a groundrelative setting of 300 meters. Yukikaze began to descend, her radar altimeter monitoring the distance. By the time the pressure altimeter read 1,260 meters above sea level, the fighter was flying roughly level. They were over an area of low mountains, and as Yukikaze flew she followed the soft vertical undulations of the landscape. Rei set the radar to real beam ground mapping mode and activated the forward surveillance system.
“Let’s go home, Yukikaze.”
The data for their return course had been lost. With his EWO gone, Rei had to work out his plane’s position himself with the help of the central computer. The navigation computer linked up with high-altitude support satellites, and the central computer used the data to calculate their current position. He flipped the auto-maneuver switch to ON and the tactical computer initiated guidance, with Faery Base as the objective.
Yukikaze was now locked in enemy auto-search, a mode where in the event of enemy contact she would automatically attack any opponents, fly to a position above the objective, and then bomb it. Fortunately, since she wasn’t carrying any bombs at the moment, there was no danger of inadvertently bombing the base.
Rei could have flown back to base via autopilot alone, but if they met any other enemies on the way he wouldn’t have the strength to fight them. Sticky, clotted blood had already dried his right eye shut, and the wind pressure was keeping him from opening his left eye all the way. His helmet visor was too damaged from the impact to deploy. So he input the target data into his tactical computer—he could do that using just his left fingertip—and sat back in his seat.
Tactical operations were easier than inputting coordinates into an autopilot. Rei was a warrior, not a navigator. He set the head-up display to its brightest level. Normally, it would be set to its lowest level for nighttime combat, to allow his eyes to adjust to the darkness, but right now he needed it that bright just to be able to see it. The steering cue marker above the HUD showed a straight line toward Faery Base.
Subsonic speed. Flying on one engine. Bleeding heavily. It took him barely thirty minutes to reach the skies over the base, but he was half unconscious by that point. He heard Yukikaze signal to him that they were over the target as though from a great distance.
“B-3, report. Say your status.”
“Mayday… Can you read me? I’m in bombing mode… Is this Faery Base?”
“Affirmative. How long are you planning to circle over us?”
“I’m bringing her down now. Emergency landing. I’m wounded. Can’t see clearly.”
“Can you still land?”
“I’m bringing Yukikaze down in one piece, even if it kills me. I’m coming down. Give me ALS guidance.”
Auto-maneuver switch, OFF. Auto-landing system, activated. Auto-throttle control and direct lift control, activated. Yukikaze went into final approach. Gear down and locked.
The suns had set, and Rei knew that Faery Base had to be brightly lit, but he couldn’t see it. He tasted blood. Like a Bloody Mary, he thought. A little salty. He felt drunk, his mind fading in and out.
Touchdown. Auto-brake. Speed brakes extended to full. Better landing than I can do, Rei thought, just before he lost consciousness completely, breathing in the night scents of Faery.
A SKY FAIRY, a sylph, was flying. It soared on glittering, translucent wings, scattering golden particles of light as it went, flaxen hair fluttering behind it. White skin, almond-shaped silver eyes, red lips engraved with an odd smile. Gently curving breasts without nipples, taut thighs, long, slender legs.
A sylph, a fairy of the wind. It flew freely through the skies, rising upon gentle breezes, churning up fierce gales.
The sylph bent both knees at right angles, its lower legs quickly tapering off to knifelike vertical points. It reached its arms back and grasped its wings, which angled back and turned opaque. Its head elongated and darkened to gray.
Large thrust engines ignited. A Sylphid. Twin vertical stabilizers. Clipped delta wings. Underneath the canopy sill was its name. Small, written in kanji characters. Yukikaze.
It flew at supersonic speed, its shock wave mowing down the forests of Faery.
It was Yukikaze. Rei was watching Yukikaze fly. He was in the cockpit. But then, who was he now watching this? Yukikaze turned and approached him. Rei looked at the cockpit. There was nobody in it.
Yukikaze flew away faster than the speed of sound and vanished into the empty sky.
Yukikaze. Yukikaze, where are you going? Are you deserting me?
“YUKIKAZE…”
“Are you awake?”
Rei opened his eyes. He was covered in sweat. The pain of reality. A bandage was wound around his head. From his right eye, he saw only blackness.
“My eye… My right eye!”
“Calm down.”
The Faery Base military doctor held down Rei’s shoulders as he tried to get up.
“It’s not that bad a wound, but it’s a miracle you didn’t lose your sight in that eye. Some fragments of your helmet visor were embedded in your right temple. If it’d been a little worse, you probably never would have flown again. You’re a lucky man.”
“What about Yukikaze? How damaged is she?”
“Your beloved plane? Well, I don’t treat fighters, so I wouldn’t know about that. Just get some rest, and then you can get out of bed and go check yourself. The vice-commander of the SAF is calling for you, by the way. She wants you to report to her.”
“General Cooley? That old bitch. If I was dead, she’d probably have me dug up out of my grave to report to her.”
“They’re thinking of court-martialing you.”
“For what?”
“Do you need a sedative?”
“Of course not. You can’t fly when you’re fucked up.”
The doctor gave him a look full of doubt, and then shrugged.
“Well, you were sent to Faery because you’re guilty of something. But I’m not going to pass judgment on you. Just keep quiet and do what you’re told, and in two or three years your tour of duty will be up. If you want to get back to Earth faster, don’t go causing trouble.”
“Look. First of all, to me Earth’s just a big ball of water filled with a lot of bitter memories. Second, what do you mean if I want to get back sooner I should keep quiet? You saying I should just shut up and let the JAM kill me? Screw that. You either kill or get killed out there.”
Now the doctor’s expression shifted to one of active disdain.
“Is that how you lived back on Earth?”
“My past is none of your goddamned business.”
“I figure a normal person would want to get away from the battlefield as soon as possible. But there seem to be more and more of your kind lately. The soldiers of the Special Air Force really are ‘special,’ aren’t they? Have you ever read The Invader, by Lynn Jackson? She predicted an increase in the number of people like you. That there’d be a problem once there weren’t enough wars waged on Earth. She also talks about how the nations all disagreed on how to control the Passageway. So the countries that weren’t military superpowers on Earth passed the Space Heavenly Body Treaty to try and prevent the superpowers from monopolizing control of it.”
“‘The Space Heavenly Body Treaty’? Is there even such a thing?”
“It was around long before we ever discovered Faery. ‘The general principles limiting national activities regarding the exploration and exploitation of the Moon and any other heavenly bodies comprising space.’ In the end, the United Nations established the Earth Defense Force as an independent entity, which led to the establishment of the Faery Air Force. Members don’t advocate any one-sided ideologies and it has none. It just requires you to be human. The FAF is now a truly supranational group. Its reputation is good, but the truth is that the quality of its members has been gradually dropping as nations use it as a dumping ground to get rid of their criminals and malcontents. The FAF is like humanity’s garbage dump. A prison annex. I figured it out before that you weren’t just a normal criminal. I can tell just by looking at you. That there must be some other reason why you’re such a coldhearted, inhuman killer. You’re like a machine.”
Rei had begun to tune out during the doctor’s lecture, distracted by the throbbing pain in his head, but a surge of irritation brought him back.
“You’re the same, aren’t you? You were sent to Faery too.”
“I chose to come here for research. I’m not like you. I didn’t choose to join the FAF because I’d committed a crime and didn’t want to go to prison. Let me ask you: you were trained to be a fighter pilot using conditioned response through a direct neural interface, weren’t you?”
“Yeah.”
“I wish I could have seen what your personality data was like before they did it. I’d like to know if your current personality was caused by the training destroying your previous one or not.”
Anger was now burning in the pit of Rei’s stomach.
“And what would you do if you knew? Claim that I’m inhuman? Humanity has nothing to do with fighting the JAM, because they’re not human.”
“That’s true. But I wasn’t saying it was a question of one’s humanity.”
“Didn’t you go through the training, too?”
“No. I don’t fly a fighter.”
“But you’re a lot like me, aren’t you? You only value what you’re interested in and couldn’t care less about anything else. This isn’t some aftereffect of my training. I haven’t changed at all. I hate anything that can’t do the job, whether it’s a human or a machine. And I’ve had enough of you. Let me see my data from the medical computer. My chart. I’ll let the computer decide if I can leave or not. I’m done with you. Get out. You’re pissing me off.”
Rei got up off the bed and undid the bandage around his head. He touched the wound. Just as the doctor had said, it didn’t seem very deep. He tried to open his right eye, then squeezed it shut when the bright light hit it. The wound opened up and began oozing blood. The doctor left the room without a word. Rei did not rewind the bandage and instead just pressed the wadded-up mass to the wound.
A nurse arrived and made a fuss over his undone bandage. As she was getting ready to rewind it, Rei brushed her off and demanded that she just put an adhesive over the wound. She did what he told her to do.
PEOPLE WERE ALWAYS asking him, “What were you thinking?” or “Why did you do that?” And that was what the uniformed military court-martial judge asked him too.
“Why did you shoot down an ally aircraft, Lieutenant Fukai?”
“It was a JAM.”
“Your gun camera took pictures of a Sylphid.”
“It was a JAM. It wasn’t responding to me. The IFF read it as an unknown, and I made a decision.”
“Yukikaze’s transponder was working properly,” said General Cooley, who was acting as his defense. “No abnormality in its function was found.”
“The other plane’s IFF or communications equipment may have been nonfunctional,” said the judge.
“If I hadn’t attacked it, I would have died,” replied Rei shortly. “It may not have been identified as a hostile, but it wasn’t a friendly either. And that makes it an enemy.”
“But it was clearly a Sylphid. Don’t you trust your own eyes, Lieutenant Fukai? You made visual contact with that Sylph, didn’t you?”
“The way that you trust your own eyes is the way that I trust the warnings Yukikaze gives me. That’s exactly why I’ve managed to stay alive so far.”
“I have a request to make as defense counsel,” said General Cooley, pushing the powerful glasses she wore for nearsightedness up with her index finger as she spoke. “I’d like to find out which unit the plane in question was attached to.”
“That’s right,” Rei said, nodding. “I don’t recall seeing any unit insignia or personal marks on it. At the very least, it wasn’t a fighter from Boomerang Squadron.”
“It may have been a unit with the Aerospace Defense or Defense Reconnaissance air groups.”
“A strategic recon Sylph would have had a ramjet booster attached for greater speed, and it would’ve been flying angels above me, at 45,000 meters at least. And it wouldn’t have attacked me either.”
“You were attacked?”
Rei pointed at the dressing on his forehead. “This is a combat injury.”
“Caused by Yukikaze’s own missile, I believe.”
“If I hadn’t fired, I would have been shot down. Wait a minute, what about my EWO? The second lieutenant who was assigned to me. Why don’t you ask him?”
“He’s dead,” answered the judge after a brief pause. “Killed by one of the native reptiles.”
“I warned him. If I hadn’t gotten the engines restarted, I would have ended up just the same.”
“It looks like his parachute got fouled in a tree and he was attacked from below during the search and rescue…” The judge trailed off, then resumed. “I recognize the validity of the defense counsel’s request. We’ll adjourn for today. Lieutenant Fukai is restricted from operational activities and confined to quarters.”
There was no stockade on Faery. Anyone guilty of a crime that didn’t rate the death penalty was shipped back to Earth for imprisonment.
The punishment for a second offense varied according to the individual’s national origin, but if you were lucky you’d have only attempted escape added to the original criminal sentence. If you were unlucky, you’d face the death penalty with no chance for appeal. Rei wondered what Japan’s policy was, then took a deep breath; thinking about his homeland brought with it the usual associated irritation.
As he exited the temporary preliminary courtroom—which most of the time was known as Tactical Combat Group Conference Room #7—Rei was stopped by General Cooley.
“Do you want to smash my face in right now, First Lieutenant?” she asked in a chiding tone of voice.
“I must be going deaf,” he replied. “Did you just say ‘first lieutenant’?”
“I did—but on the assumption that you’re innocent. However, I am glad that you made it back here in one piece.”
I’m not surprised the general’s glad, Rei thought. The Sylphid was an extremely expensive piece of FAF property.
“What’re you going to do with me while we wait for the preliminary court to hand down its verdict? Probably confine me to quarters, right?”
“You are ordered to assist Major Booker.”
“Be Jack’s aide? I expected some kind of ground duty, but aren’t I restricted from all operational activities?”
“There’s something the major has to take care of that’s been driving him crazy, and it has nothing to do with the war against the JAM. You’ll get the details when you see him. That is all. Any questions?”
“None.” They saluted.
BEFORE GOING TO see Major James Booker, the only man whom Rei could call a friend, he went back to the air force hospital to get his bandage changed. Although the SAF had its own medical facilities, Rei had been taken to the main base hospital for his treatment. After receiving confirmation from the computer there that his injury wasn’t getting worse, he headed to 5th Squadron’s quarters.
Faery Base was underground.
The base was the general headquarters for all the forces on the planet, and the importance of its role was reflected in its massive size. Buildings containing the residences that countless people returned to at night as well as military operational facilities had been constructed within an absurdly large underground cavern. Walking its streets, one would perceive no difference between Faery Base and an aboveground city on Earth: the sky seen between the gaps in the buildings was always bright and clear. Most of the time, the inhabitants would forget that the sky they were looking at was artificial. But occasionally showers of groundwater would rain down from this clear sky, and they would look up and think how strange it was for there to be rain when the sky was blue, and then be reminded that it wasn’t a real sky they were looking at after all.
Boomerang Squadron was located at a bit of a remove from the base’s center. The other squadrons had been given generous arrangements in consideration of their need to scramble quickly, but the Super Sylphs were boxed in a cramped hangar that resembled the below-decks of an aircraft carrier. The hangar was where Rei was headed now. He’d heard from the general that Yukikaze was being brought back from the factory and that he’d be able to see her there if he was lucky.
The sight of ten Super Sylphs arranged with their noses all in a row was something to behold. The ceiling was low—just under seven meters high, leaving barely a yard of clearance between it and the Sylphs’ vertical stabilizers—which made the hangar feel even more cramped. It was nearly three hundred meters long, but it could house only sixteen planes with a space of barely three meters between their wingtips.
The Super Sylph was a giant among fairies.
The hangar’s top floor was for maintenance and launch preparation. As long as the damage wasn’t too severe, a plane would receive its repairs up there, and most of the parts had been designed to be interchangeable between units. However, it wasn’t enough for Yukikaze this time; she’d had to be taken to the air force factory, a facility that had the capacity to produce entirely new planes.
Yukikaze had already been returned to the spot reserved for Unit 3. As luck would have it, Major Booker was there too. He was seated in Yukikaze’s cockpit inspecting her electronics, holding in one hand a thick sheaf of paper that looked to be a maintenance report. Rei walked around the plane, sidestepped a fat external power cable hanging from the fuselage’s underbelly, then crossed under to the left side and climbed the boarding ladder. Hanging on to a grip with his right hand, Rei raised his left in a salute.
“First Lieutenant Fukai, reporting for duty as your aide, Major Booker. Hey, Jack.”
“You all right, Rei—wait, did you say first lieutenant? Congrats on that.”
Booker told Rei to wait for him down below. He didn’t take long to complete his inspection of Yukikaze, only another fifteen minutes or so, then came down and handed the paperwork to Rei. It was a written report detailing every aspect of the repair, servicing, and refitting of the plane. The major folded up the boarding ladder and stowed it in the fuselage, then detached the comm headset and replaced it in a storage compartment in the floor.
“She may look the same, but she’s been made even better. The airborne weapons control set, the gun control unit, the central air data computer, the digital data link, the standby compass, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. We’re doing a power test tomorrow, and no, you can’t do it. I’d be shot if I let you. I practically feel like I’m standing in front of the wall right now.”
“Sorry if I caused you trouble.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
Major Booker frowned, which briefly made the scar that lined his cheek more prominent. There was a certain air of menace to him. It was rumored he’d murdered someone back on Earth and had been sent to Faery for it, but nobody had ever dared ask him about it to his face.
Rei knew the major better than anyone else, so he knew that the man was full of surprises. For example, Booker knew even more about Japan than Rei did. The expertly painted calligraphy below the cockpit that spelled out “Yukikaze” in kanji characters had been the work of the major’s brush. It was so artistically stylized that even Rei had trouble reading them, but it was beautiful. And Rei also knew that Booker’s past was the opposite of what his face implied. After his initial tour of duty ended he had continued to serve by choice and had been on Faery for a long time now. He’d once been a fighter pilot but was now mainly in charge of aircraft maintenance and duty scheduling. Since pissing him off could result in losing leave time, Rei had initially kept a respectful distance from him.
Then one day, out of the blue, this strange major asked him if he believed in God. Rei wasn’t sure if it was a joke, or a test, or if he was just being hazed. When he decided to do the most prudent thing and stay silent, he got punched. There was an unwritten rule acknowledged by everyone in the FAF that ignoring rank was acceptable once you were back on the ground, so the major probably would have let it pass if Rei had punched him back. But Rei hadn’t done that. He didn’t turn the other cheek either, but simply licked the blood away and went back to reading the equipment inspection chart he had been studying. “I see,” said the major. “You’re like me, then.” Rei had hung out with him ever since.
“You said you were my new aide? Dammit, if you don’t learn to get along with the guys at the top, you’re gonna make trouble for us poor sods down below. Did Old Lady Cooley tell you anything about this job? Never mind, let’s head upstairs. We can talk once we’re up there.”
The two men rode a small, human-use elevator to the upper floors and entered the squadron’s private briefing room, the most notable feature of which was a broad expanse of window that looked out over the maintenance bay. No sorties were scheduled, so nobody was in it. It was a narrow room, but with a high ceiling and an open layout designed for a good field of vision. There was a lounge nearby that was nicer and also had a higher than usual ceiling, but the soldiers of Boomerang Squadron preferred this unassuming room. They treated it as their own, and various personal belongings and hobby items were left scattered around it: books on philosophy, trashy magazines, an abstract painting sitting on an easel, a box full of electronic parts, even a basket full of knitting. Major Booker picked up a curved piece of wood that was leaning against the wall and stroked it idly as he sat down.
“So…first lieutenant?”
“It’s not decided yet,” Rei replied as he placed a paper cup under the spout of the coffee maker. “Anyway, it’s not that big of a deal.”
There weren’t any enlisted soldiers on all of Faery: all personnel were commissioned officers. Once they had completed their training on Earth and were deployed to Faery for active duty, they were given the rank of second lieutenant. It may have been a ploy designed to improve the reputation of the FAF on the outside, but the result had been the historically unprecedented creation of an army consisting entirely of officers and not a single rank-and-file soldier. Fully half of them were second lieutenants. Effectively they played the same role as enlisted soldiers, but they had the power of numbers behind them, and it was from this that the dynamic arose for people to treat each other equally when they were on the ground. (Combat time, however, was a separate matter.) It was a convenient system, and there wasn’t a person on Faery who opposed it.
This system applied to everyone, from the command staff on down to the girls working the streets in the red-light districts. Prostitution had been decriminalized on Faery, and so the women had volunteered to come there and work for the military. Like any other segment of the armed forces, they had their own fixed hierarchy of ranks and pay grades. They didn’t wear uniforms and of course bore no insignia on their dresses, but you could generally tell who was higher ranked by the amount of makeup on their faces: the older and more accomplished they were, the less they wore. The women also possessed a strong sense of professional pride.
If one didn’t want to use the services of the military prostitutes there were plenty of other potential partners for romance, since there were about an equal number of women as men in the uniformed ranks. But “romance” perhaps was not the best term to describe these relationships, and the women were a tough lot. At least once a year a man would be shot in the name of “legitimate self-defense.”
“Anyway,” Major Booker continued, “the salary bump is nice. Back when I first got here, I couldn’t even afford to get drunk after the alimony payments to my ex.”
Rei thought the major’s wife might be Japanese but kept that speculation to himself.
“Here,” Rei said, setting down a cup of coffee. “You finished making the perfect boomerang there?”
“Thanks. No. And perfection isn’t necessarily something to be desired. This scar on my cheek is proof of that… Anyway, it doesn’t matter. The truth is, General Cooley drew the short straw in all this.”
The major put down the three-foot-long boomerang and sipped at his coffee.
“The first woman I banged when I came to Faery,” Rei said as he seated himself in a chair opposite, “was just like the general. She was a captain. She’d knock me down whenever I’d salute her. It was pathetic.”
“Heh…That’s what’s called being young.”
“Young, huh? So what did you mean before about her drawing the short straw?”
“You hate having to line up, don’t you?”
“Huh?”
“I hear there’s some big-shot general from the Japanese air force coming to inspect us.”
“So?”
“So there’s your problem.”
“You mean…” Rei tried to imagine the squadron members assembling for review and guessed what the problem was. “You want me to be in an honor guard? Me? The boomerang soldier who fell from the sky? Should I present a boomerang over my shoulder, too? You gotta be kidding.”
“Every other squadron had pretty much the same reaction. So we had a lottery and General Lydia Cooley, deputy commander of the SAF, drew the lucky winner. And since the 5th hasn’t made an appearance at one of these things before, we got handed the collection plate.”
“I don’t want to do it.”
“That’s what everyone else said. It’s a mutiny. I don’t know what else to do. That wrinkled old hag told me to take care of it. Do you want to get me killed?”
“It’s not my fault we don’t have a formal honor guard.”
“That negative attitude isn’t going to get us anywhere. Come on, can’t you give me some useful advice on this?”
“How ’bout you stand out there by yourself, Major?” said Rei as he refilled his coffee cup. “I don’t think they’d shoot you for that.”
“A drop, a raindrop, a mote,” said the major. “Zero. That’s the meaning of your name, Rei.”
“Look, I was born trouble,” Rei replied without turning around, still standing in front of the coffee maker. “My parents split up right after I was born, and I was raised in a home along with plenty of other kids like me. But the truth is, I was happy back then.”
“Sounds depressing. What time is it?”
“Coming up on 1658 hours. Wanna check things out up top, Jack?”
“Sure,” said the major. “I’ll allow it.”
The two men left the briefing room and headed for a huge elevator bank on the opposite side of the hangar. They walked in silence. The major carried his boomerang.
Elevator Three, the closest one, was a hundred meters away, around a tractor and a maintenance ramp. There were no elevators just for people here. Rei grabbed a remote control box hanging on the wall and inserted his ID card into the top to activate it as they stepped onto the elevator floor.
“Shall we go?” said the major.
The thirty-by-twenty-meter-wide platform began to rise. As they ascended Rei kept his head tilted back, looking up the shaft. He’d always found the pattern made by the rings of light panels encircling it beautiful. The platform paused briefly as they waited for an isolation bulkhead above them to open. There were three of these bulkheads between them and the surface, each ensuring that its respective level was kept airtight. The elevator’s power source switched over at these points too; in the event of a failure, power drawn from the previous level would act as a backup system. Between each level there were also emergency bulkheads, each with their own independent power systems, which protected against fire, bombing, and contamination. At the last level, there was also a thick concrete blast wall that merged organically with the deck.
Once the platform stopped moving, the two men exited through an enormous square opening in the wall and were then on the planet’s surface. They were in the receiving hangar, although it was more of a shade port than an actual hangar. Bright sunlight streamed down. The generator vehicles, emergency power support units, and fire trucks stood silent.
The two of them did not walk out onto the runway but exited through the rear instead. The grassland outside was pale green. Facing them only about five hundred meters away was the edge of the primeval forest. Rei had heard that Faery didn’t have a formal land army because the forest was just too nasty. I can believe it, he thought.
With a thunderous roar, three interceptors took off in formation for an air patrol mission. The lieutenant and the major walked until they were clear of the shadow cast by the building’s enormous roof, then sat down on the grass. Faery’s version of grass was soft and pliant, and did not prickle at all. The blades were a blueish green, with deep blue streaks in the center. When cut, it smelled like irises.
“The wind’s delicious,” Rei said, taking a deep breath. “Nothing like the filtered air below.”
“I like it out here in midday because you can’t see the Bloody Road. I can’t relax when that thing’s there to weird me out.”
“That’s something I wouldn’t expect you to say.”
Major Booker drew the large combat knife he carried at his hip from its sheath, studied the trailing edge of the boomerang in his hand, and began cautiously shaving it. “Human instinct,” he said without stopping his whittling. “Not accurate, but very rarely wrong.”
Rei urged him to try the boomerang out. Blowing the wood shavings off, the major stood up and threw it with a practiced hand. It sailed into the clear, nearly cloudless afternoon sky, making a faint whirring sound as it cut through the air.
“It’s not coming back.” The boomerang traced a large circular path and then fell about fifteen meters away from them. “Was it because of the wind?”
“This doesn’t even count as a wind,” said the major as he went to retrieve the boomerang. “I made one that always came back, no matter the wind conditions or how badly it flew.”
He sat back down and took his knife to the wood again while Rei sprawled out at his side, looking up at the sky.
“Did it break?”
“What?”
“That perfect boomerang. The one you said you made.”
“I broke it. Actually, I didn’t make it to begin with. A computer did. I fed it the requirements and it executed thousands of simulations in a virtual airspace before spitting out the wing shape data. Then I input the data into a digitally controlled tooling machine and manufactured it. That was Unit 1.”
“I take it from your tone that it didn’t work.”
“The virtual airspace in the computer wasn’t a close enough model to real airspace. Next, I got the idea of putting an accelerometer into the wing and then fed that data into the computer. It could do variable pitch and all sorts of things. The one I fitted with a leading edge flap control was the best. That was Unit 2.”
“And what about Unit 3?” asked Rei as he spit out a bitter stalk of grass he’d been chewing. “Was that one perfect?”
The major stopped whittling and pointed his knife at the scar on his cheek. “This was the result. The wound that sent me to Faery. Ruined my good looks too.”
“I didn’t know that,” Rei said, raising himself up on his elbows and peering at the major’s cheek. “You got that scar from a boomerang?”
“It was fast. It pitched back at me from an angle I didn’t expect, and I couldn’t dodge it. Even though it had enough load resistance to give me a nasty clip, it still flew past me, made another turn, and came back again. I barely managed to catch it. I’d designed it to come back in a way that would make it easy to catch, but how it actually flew… It made that decision itself, based on the conditions at that moment. I never wanted to throw it again after that.”
“Did you put a rocket motor on it or something?”
“No. In the end, it was just a boomerang. But I’d installed a super-layered, single-chip artificial intelligence LSI into it. Since I could never get the feedback control to work, it was necessary to give it a control method to let it look ahead.”
“Predictive control, you mean?”
“Yeah. I threw the prototype boomerang again and again. Each time, the LSI would judge the conditions, master them, search for the causes of failure, and gradually learn to accurately predict them and respond instantly. Since the learning function was coded into the circuitry of the AI unit’s hardware, I didn’t even have to teach it the basic process. I just ordered it to use all the data from its sensors to adjust its flight path so that it would return to the launch point. That’s it. I flew it for six months and eventually lost the ability to predict how it would fly. Just when I was thinking that it was getting kind of dangerous, wham! I got three stitches from it. The doctor was clumsy and it hurt like hell. I thought about suing the wanker for malpractice, but he’s a doctor in the SAF. And since I’m technically his CO, I’d have to sue myself too.”
Booker re-sheathed the knife and stretched. He got up, brushed bits of grass off his fatigues, and threw the boomerang. It flew level and then climbed steeply from about twenty meters away, tracing a large arc.
“That’s the real thing,” the major said. “Machines are too stiff to fly naturally.” The wooden boomerang flew gracefully and landed lightly. “That’s why I can’t stand them.”
“Is that a warning, or are you being ironic?” Rei asked. He had a hard time taking that statement seriously from a man whose livelihood was building and operating advanced mechatronics.
“Take it however you want,” the major answered in his usual offhand manner. “My likes and dislikes have nothing to do with you.”
Rei was about to answer him, but figured that was a reasonable thing to say and so just watched silently as Booker retrieved the boomerang. As he was about to lie back down on the ground, the remote in his breast pocket chirped.
“This is Lieutenant Fukai. We’re busy with Unit 3.”
The voice on the other end asked if he knew where Major Booker was. General Cooley was looking for him.
“Major,” he called. “Grandma Wrinkles wants you.”
Booker shrugged.
“Is it too much to hope that it’s news the Japanese commandant dropped dead?”
“They say the review schedule’s been finalized and that she wants to give it to you.”
“I won’t die alone. Let’s be chums and line up in front of the wall together. We’ll take everyone here with us.”
As the two of them rode down on the absurdly oversized elevator, Rei wondered about the major’s extraordinary dislike of machines. He was struggling to understand it. It wasn’t a matter of how safe or dangerous they were, or how high they let you fly or didn’t; it was a visceral aversion that Booker had somehow developed. As he turned this over in his mind, a vision of the honor guard standing stiff as toy soldiers suddenly came to him.
“Say, Jack…” After hesitating a moment, Rei voiced his thoughts. “What if we built some dolls?”
Booker stopped the irritated tapping of the boomerang against his shoulder and tilted his head.
“Androids,” Rei explained. “Or robots, I mean. We can have them line up and salute. I doubt we’d even need AI units for them. The commandant is nearsighted, right? So if we get the faces and skin texture down there’s no way he’d be able to tell from that distance. It’d work great, since he’s the only one that would get anywhere near them anyway.”
“Aw, kid, don’t be crazy.”
“I bet you’d do it if it was your idea.”
“I’d have to be the one to call up the general and present that insane proposal. You think she’d say yes?” Booker flipped the boomerang over and continued. “Still… The idea’s worth considering. It is absurd, but I think I know a way to make it work.”
He turned to face Rei and adopted a pompous tone. “I hereby order you to make the proposal to the general and persuade her to do it.”
“Screw that,” Rei replied. “I’m no good with Super Granny.”
“I’ll have you court-martialed for disobeying the orders of a superior officer, for mutiny, treason, and going AWOL.”
“Oh, get real. When did going AWOL come into this?”
“Add insulting a superior officer. Think about it, Rei. Which would you rather do: try to persuade thirty squadron members or one woman?”
“The woman would be harder.”
They had reached the maintenance level. Rei replaced the remote control on the wall.
“There are women in the squadron, too. Look, you came up with the idea. I’m busy,” Booker said, walking quickly.
“You seriously want to do this?”
“I’ll check how feasible it is back in my office. Go see the general in my place. It’s just your good luck that I was ordered to be in charge here. Remember, you and I are coons from the same hole.”
“You mean badgers.”
“Oh, is that a real expression? Maybe rats would be better…”
Rei had lost. He’d bought himself a mess of trouble that he didn’t need. Feeling depressed, he headed for the SAF’s command level.
IN THE END, it was the selfish intransigence of the squadron’s human members that propelled the machine-hating Major Booker into the task of building their mechanized replacements. The members of the other squadrons behaved similarly, but the ones in Boomerang took it to a new level. Although it was hardly surprising they did so. Using data on childhood backgrounds, environmental histories, and a variety of other personal profile statistics, the FAF command computers had broken everyone down into several personality types and then compiled a group that had the lowest scores on the sociability and cooperation indices. The result was the 5th Squadron of the SAF. It was General Cooley who had put it together.
The task of greeting VIP visitors should have been regarded as an honor, but the soldiers of Boomerang Squadron regarded it as an insult. Mainly because none of them thought of their visitors as honored guests. And so the consensus reaction was to show no courtesy at all. This didn’t arise from any group discussion, but merely from one person telling another that they didn’t want to do it, and the other person agreeing, and then telling another person, until by the end of the process it had become the general sentiment.
Of course, Major Booker was a soldier in Boomerang Squadron as well, but his position and personality were different from those of the other members. He didn’t want to be demoted, whereas the vast majority of the rest couldn’t be busted any lower than they already were. Booker no longer held the bold, some might say nihilistic, worldview of those who lived constantly in the shadow of the fact that they might not return from their next sortie. He was a victor who had survived his environment. You needed to appreciate reality in order to win and live to see another day. If he had to put it into words, he would say that he was a man who knew what fear was.
Rei understood the major’s position, but he now realized that there was a slight, or possibly significant, difference in how they saw things. In the end, Rei couldn’t quite completely understand Booker’s mentality. Rei was a soldier. And in any case, he wasn’t nearly the veteran that the major was.
Despite everything, Rei was able to successfully make his difficult case to General Cooley. Booker greeted the news with a handshake and a “Great job,” saying that she never would have gone for it had he been the one presenting the proposal. He said it was Rei’s “youthful zeal” that had convinced her, and while their moods were buoyed they set about analyzing how to turn their abstract idea into an actual success.
Naturally, the general’s condition for going along with the plan was that the dolls had to be well made. She had even told him that if the robots exceeded standards they would be used for honor guard duty from now on. The whole thing had quickly grown bigger and hairier than Rei had thought it would. “Leave it to me,” said Major Booker, spreading out his concept sketches. “No worries.” The project was already out of Rei’s hands. It may have been his idea originally, but he had the sense that it was growing into an enormous monster that he couldn’t control. They had two weeks to get it done.
General Cooley talked the polymer materials branch of the Systems Corps into promising to produce some synthetic skin on short notice. She even arranged to set up a direct data link between the air force factory production system and the computer in Booker’s workroom, which allowed him to use the CAD/CAM system remotely. Using just the computer’s graphical display and keyboard and a light pen, he could immediately direct parts to be made. Noting Booker’s skill as he worked, Rei once again wondered why he had broken his perfect boomerang. To be honest, the major seemed to be enjoying using the computer. Enjoying it a lot more than shaving down wood with a knife.
In the meantime, Rei acted as the pipeline between General Cooley and Major Booker, riding the automated monorail to the military manufacturing plant on errands, being the punching bag for the bitching from the plant team, and helping to put the prototype together. He thought he would die of boredom.
He wanted to be back in the air with Yukikaze as soon as possible. Each time he saw the general he would ask her when the next hearing would be.
“It seems they’ve been frustrated by the fact that they haven’t been able to find any evidence to support their position. You may as well consider yourself a full lieutenant now. Congratulations, Lieutenant,” she had said.
Every time after that when he tried to get a more concrete answer out of her, she’d duck the question. Rei suspected she was working secretly with the authorities of their huge organization to destroy the evidence. The chances of that were slight, but if it were true it would be convenient for Rei.
The frame of the prototype doll was completed five days before the commandant of the Japanese air force was due to arrive. Rei went to report this to the general. Walking into the SAF deputy commander’s spacious office, Rei saw a severed head sitting on the large desk and blanched in disgust. He knew it was a doll’s head, but it looked very lifelike. On top of that, it had the face of his former electronic warfare officer, the one who had got himself killed.
“That’s the height of bad taste, General.”
“Yes, Your Excellency. It’s an honor, sir,” said the head. “Yes, Your Excellency. It’s an honor, sir.”
The general unfolded her hands and pressed the nape of the doll’s neck to silence it.
“I’m making our honored dead into our honor guard. Don’t question my decision.”
“The body frames have some slight defects. I thought you’d want to know,” Rei said, still standing. “We’d planned to use stronger materials but ended up having to use cheaper ones.”
“It can’t be helped. For this batch, getting them ready in time has to take priority. Get them on the production line as soon as you can.”
“Roger that.”
“Wait. We’ll be receiving the preliminary hearing’s decision the day after tomorrow. I think you’re going to be all right.”
“If they’re saying that wasn’t a Sylph I shot down, then what—”
“If it wasn’t a Sylph, it was a bitch. It had to be a JAM. We’ll have a short meeting about it tomorrow. Dismissed.”
THE MILITARY JUDGE pronounced Rei clear of charges in the same conference room that the preliminary hearing had been held in.
“We have found no physical evidence of misconduct by the accused.”
“I’m innocent,” Rei said, standing. “I want that made clear. The site where that plane was shot down must be in the combat record. If you’d investigated the wreckage I’m sure you would’ve discovered that it was a JAM unit. So what are you playing at?”
“If you are making any accusations against this court, we are more than ready to address them.”
“We have no objections,” General Cooley said smoothly, rising to get Rei under control. “The lieutenant is currently in an emotionally unstable state.”
“Lieutenant Fukai, if you would please sign here of your own will and volition, we can end these proceedings.”
Although he wasn’t satisfied, Rei decided he’d rather not deal with any more of this annoying bullshit and signed the document they handed him.
“Court is adjourned,” the judge declared.
The general told him to come to her office, wherein she proceeded to chew him out for his behavior.
“I told you to say as little as possible, and you go and say that to them?!” She paused in mid-rant. “Coffee?”
“No, thanks.”
“I did tell you that, didn’t I?”
“But, General, why didn’t they make an onsite inspection?
It’s not that far away. If they found a piece, just one piece of that plane, it’d prove that I was innocent—”
“Shut up at once,” the general said in a tone of voice that was low but oddly charged with emotion. “It doesn’t concern you, Lieutenant Fukai. As of today, you are a first lieutenant. You may go now and resume your current duties. Any questions?”
“None,” he replied, and saluted.
WITH ONE DAY to go until the big show, they had completed thirty-six dolls. The birth of ghost soldiers, all in uniform. The robots had been brought from the factory to the maintenance floor for a test run. Major Booker attached a wireless mike to his breast to transmit his commands.
The Boomerang Squadron stood, or slouched, inside the glassed-in briefing room. Most of them regarded this strange corps without any expression, although some wore faint smiles. Rei walked along the standing ranks of the dolls, pushing the main power switch on the nape of their necks, and couldn’t help shuddering at the coldness of their skin as he did so.
“Salute!” the major ordered. The dolls obeyed.
This was met with applause, laughter, and catcalls.
“Controlling these guys is kinda hard… Column, right! Forward, march! Boomerang Squadron, how about showing some gratitude for our replacements?”
The dolls were taken up on the huge elevator to the surface, where they were bathed in sunlight for the first time.
Rei came along as well. The dolls marched out toward the side of the receiving hangar at the base of the runway. And then one fell. Its arms and legs continued their marching motion even after it had fallen. The dolls coming up behind it began to fall as well.
“No, no, no! Shit! All units, halt!”
Upon the major’s order, the chaos instantly ceased. Booker sighed and then sat down on a toolbox.
“Looks like we’ll have to cancel the march.”
Rei, who had watched all this without a word, let out a sigh as painful as the major’s.
“This world really is incomprehensible.”
“Did you say something?”
Rei shrugged his shoulders as he leaned against a power supply truck.
“I’m talking about the hearing. I just don’t get the general’s attitude. And I don’t get why she’s on my ass all the time.”
“It may not have been a Sylph or a JAM. I saw the pictures taken by your gun camera too, and although it looked like a Sylph, I can’t say for sure if it was one or not.”
“What do you mean?” asked Rei, still brooding.
“It’s possible it could have been a trespasser from Earth. A unit that entered the Passageway in violation of international law.”
“Why would they do that? What could they possibly be after in this place?”
“Look at this green land, this sweet air. If an Earth nation sent a spy plane, they couldn’t exactly complain about it being shot down. If it became public knowledge they’d have to face international censure. On the other hand, Faery isn’t a sovereign state, so if we make noise about shooting down a plane from Earth it would cause big trouble for us as well. We don’t know what the truth is. It probably was the JAM. You should just forget about it.”
“I don’t understand at all.”
“Don’t worry about it. Gimme a hand here. We need to get these dummies back up again.”
“Sure. The thing is, this scar on my forehead from shooting down that unknown hasn’t gone away. And my partner is dead.”
“How about this scar on my cheek? And everyone has to die sometime.”
THE FAF METEOROLOGICAL Corps had forecast that the weather would worsen soon but should hold out for the ceremony. The guest of honor came through the Passageway and arrived at Faery Base. The sudden change of environment was probably hard on his old body, but the commandant was known for his love of pomp and circumstance and wasn’t about to let it get the better of him.
Since Rei and Major Booker were in charge of preparations for the ceremony, they excused themselves from attendance and headed for the grassy field by the receiving hangar on the surface. Rei brought a portable broadcast monitor with him while Booker carried his hobby boomerang. The grass was soft and the air was warm. If you excused the lack of a blue sky, it was as perfect holiday weather as you could ask for. After dozing off for a bit, Rei was awakened by the major.
“What?”
“It’s about to start. Turn on the monitor.”
“What…? Oh!” Rei sat up.
The ceremony was apparently being held in the plaza near the control tower, far away from the field they were sitting in. The runway was huge. As they turned on the monitor, a recording of a military band playing the FAF march blared from it.
“Looks like a long opening act has just finished. Okay then, now the review is starting.”
The commandant of the Japanese air force walked out to the ghost troops, accompanied by a single Faery Air Force commissioned officer. He was a bantam of a man, walking with his chest puffed out, but did possess a certain dignity.
“Okay, if this works, it all will have been worth it.”
“Jack, that officer…”
“Who else would do it? It’s the least she could do. It’s her responsibility, after all.”
They heard voices now.
“You’re doing a fine job,” said the commandant to one of the dolls.
“Yes, Your Excellency. It’s an honor, sir,” replied the soldier.
“So, where are you from?”
“Yes, Your Excellency. It’s an honor, sir.”
White text was crawling along the bottom of the screen now.
This is a message from Faery Air Force TV service, with an explanation from Boomerang Squadron. These dolls can only say “Yes, Your Excellency. It’s an honor, sir.” This is a message from the Faery Air Force TV service…
“Who the hell did that?!” yelled Major Booker, leaning forward. But he soon relaxed. “Oh, well. Not my problem.”
They cut to a close-up of the commandant’s grave face.
“Truly remarkable!” he said. “Not a quiver from them!”
This prompted a laugh from the major.
“Present arms!” General Cooley called out.
The robot soldiers raised their rifles and presented them. At which point there was a motion in the rear. The view switched to a wide shot. Both arms, still tightly holding a rifle, had fallen off of a doll.
It looks like one of them was imperfectly adjusted. Fortunately, it wasn’t in the front row. This is the FAF TV service…
“Damn right it’s lucky,” said Rei.
Major Booker snorted a laugh.
“What’s that, General?” asked the visitor.
“Sir? Oh, that’s one of our Sylphids, which we’re quite proud of,” said General Cooley nonchalantly as she led the commandant away from the dolls. There was the sound of aircraft overhead. Rei looked up at the sky to see five drones flying by in a 5-Card formation.
Please enjoy this high-quality flight by our target training drones. They feature a turbo-prop power source with variable-pitch propellers. Naturally, they are all radio-controlled. This is the FAF TV service…
With a completely straight face, General Cooley began to describe the various abilities of the real Sylphid to their guest.
“Hm, mm, mm!” he said. “I’d like a few of those planes for my air force, too!”
The formation executed a perfect 5-Card loop.
Major Booker burst out laughing.
“Why…Why aren’t you laughing, Rei? Look, even the general’s smiling!”
“It’s not funny.”
“You need more calcium in your diet.”
“Would you just stop?!”
Rei suddenly snatched the boomerang from the major’s hands and stood up. Booker reflexively scrambled into a crouch, his knife out at the ready. But after a split second he shook his head, looking embarrassed. He lowered the knife and straightened up, stretching out his back.
The boomerang shook in Rei’s hand. He was enraged.
“A boomerang is a weapon! It doesn’t need to come back!”
He threw it at the monitor. It bounced off without breaking the screen. He sat down hard, arms clasping his knees as his whole body trembled.
“Rei…”
“I feel like I’m as blind as that commandant. I mean, what the hell are the JAM? We hit them and hit them and they still keep coming… Why don’t they just finish us off ? What are we even doing here? Why are we…”
“You’ll have plenty of time to think about that,” Major Booker said as he picked up the boomerang and lovingly brushed it off. “As long as you stay alive.”
“I’ve been on leave too long,” said Rei. “Way too long…”
REI RETURNED TO regular duty early the next morning. He entered the squadron briefing room wearing his flight suit. Prior to getting the details of the mission operation, he skimmed the general outline. Mission number, conditions for returning to base, Yukikaze’s duties, comm frequency and channel, call sign, nav support, weather and visibility, onboard armaments…
Once the meeting was over, it was time to complete the preflight preparations on Yukikaze. Wearing his G-suit and accompanied by his new EWO, he inspected Yukikaze’s fuselage. They boarded and checked the ejection seats and the interior systems, then went down the rest of the seemingly endless checklist.
After ascending the elevator to the surface they carried out the final check of authority. Canopy, down. Engine master switch, ON. Engine start. The engine revs climbed. Throttle open. Ignition. More checks to do as they idled. Adjustments made. Outside, it was raining.
“Good luck.” Major Booker disconnected the comm jack from the plane’s fuselage.
Parking break, off. Rei taxied out onto the runway. As he released the brake, the oleo strut extended. In an instant, the engines hit MAX afterburner and Yukikaze shot forward like a bullet. Nozzles, full open. Takeoff. Up above was clear, as always. The Bloody Road was bleached of color by the dawn light as Yukikaze rendezvoused with 1st Squadron.
When the AWACS plane informed them of the enemy fighter position, 1st Squadron lit their afterburners and streaked off after their quarry. Yukikaze flew in a large circle at the edge of the combat airspace.
“Enemy units,” the EWO warned. “Bearing ten o’clock. Low altitude, high speed and closing.”
Rei set the radar to downlook mode and searched for them. There were eight blips on the display. A formation of eight planes. The computer scrolled out the enemy target data: speed, altitude, acceleration, approach vector, threat level—
“They don’t have any long-range missiles,” said Rei.
“Should we attack?”
“Prepare for air-to-air combat.”
The EWO looked for signs of any electronic countermeasures or any counter-ECM activity while Rei checked the stores control panel. RDY GUN, RDY AAMIII-4, RDY AAMV-4, RDY AAMVII-6. All antiaircraft ordnance was loaded.
“Enemy units are starting to climb,” came the word from the backseat.
An H-shaped mark appeared on the HUD. “Type-1s in firing range. Bandits number eight, range two-five-zero, head-on and closing.”
The pulse Doppler radar acquired the fast-moving JAM. Rei looked outside. The planes weren’t in visual range yet. He pushed the missile release button on the side stick, signaling the fire control computer that it was free to attack. The FCC made its judgment and released all six long-range missiles at once. A vibration shuddered through the airframe, and then thin vapor trails stretched out toward the enemy Rei could not see. A fairy can see them though, he thought suddenly.
The numbers on the HUD were rapidly running down. Missiles would arrive in…three…two…one…zero.
“Direct hits: four. Unclear: two. Three enemy units closing at high speed. They’re breaking into two groups and preparing to attack.”
Sensing the radar waves of enemy missile guidance, the warning receiver trilled an alert. Yukikaze jettisoned its external fuel tanks.