III Mysterious Battle Zone
The JAM were targeting Yukikaze. She was fighting them to the utmost limits of her abilities. He could not perceive the fierce battle being waged between them, yet he knew the enemy was there. She was warning him: They’re here.
THE MAN CAME bearing nationalism. After touring several sectors of Faery Base, his pale blue eyes protected behind a pair of Ray-Ban Aviators, he announced that he wanted to learn more about the mindset of the soldiers who fought the JAM.
Although he had a press pass issued by the United Nations Earth Defense Force GHQ, Faery Base’s authorities didn’t want him there, which they made clear in the way they treated him. They carefully questioned him to make sure the purpose of his investigation was not simply to reinforce his own preconceptions and warned him not to write an article that would be slanted in favor of a specific country.
“And just what is that supposed to mean?” American freelance journalist, military critic, lobbyist, and writer Andy Lander asked with an irritated air. “Are you suggesting that I’d intentionally write a biased article?”
“Not at all,” answered Colonel Roland of the base’s Office of Public Affairs. “I’m just asking you to recognize the fact that this is a war between all of humanity and an alien race. As to how you do your job—”
“Yes, of course I realize that. But I think that approach is a little too vague. I want to ask the soldiers about what tangible things they’re fighting for here on the front lines of Faery, not about some abstract sense of duty.”
“Our mission is to defend Earth. What’s so abstract about that? The only reason we’re here is to keep the people of Earth from being attacked.”
“I’d still like to try and conduct a deeper analysis than that.”
“Then why don’t I save you the trouble?” Colonel Roland responded with an irritated look on his face. “Here’s what we’re fighting for: self-preservation. In combat, that’s all that matters.” His expression suddenly softened. “A perfect answer, don’t you think? A solid answer. It’s not as if anyone here actually wants this war.”
“Would anyone be that crazy?”
“There are plenty of people back on Earth who might be. A lot of individuals and organizations are making huge profits from it.”
In the end, Lander never heard anyone in the FAF say that they were fighting for their homeland. And he had certainly never anticipated witnessing a scenario in which Russians were fighting using American-made weapons, or even more shocking, vice versa.
Although the materials for the majority of the fighter systems the FAF was equipped with came from Earth, the designs were entirely their own. Lander tried to gather information on the research and development teams but was given no details: each time, his inquiry was blocked for “security reasons.” Finally, in a fit of pique, he declared that he thought it was a misuse of funding for the FAF to be developing fighters on its own without passing that technology back to Earth. He demanded to know what sort of fighters were being developed and was determined to see one for himself. Then he formally requested the opportunity to go up in one. He had never flown in anything aside from passenger jets, but he was an intrepid individual and in good physical health. He was a man who had traveled the world, after all.
The FAF authorities, partially to rid themselves of what was becoming a significant annoyance, granted him immediate approval. Colonel Roland told Lander that he hoped he’d appreciate being able to personally evaluate the sort of highperformance equipment being used to protect Earth. Lander was given a physical exam and some simple anti-G training, and then signed a waiver stating that the air force could not be held responsible if anything happened to him.
“So,” Lander asked, “what sort of plane do I get to ride in?”
“A Sylphid,” said Colonel Roland.
“Huh,” Lander responded with a faint smile. “That’s a pretty girly sounding name.” He adjusted his sunglasses and brushed back his hair, which he had dyed black from its natural blond. Blond hair, Lander believed, looked too effeminate.
“ANDY LANDER? NEVER heard of him”
Rei paused while eating his lunch and looked at Major Booker, who was seated across from him. Rei had lost at cards the night before and as a penalty had to buy lunch, but the major’s tray was a modest affair, with just a ham sandwich and a Coke.
“Has he ever even flown before? Why do I have to have this joker in my backseat?”
“Are you going to make me spell it out for you?” said Booker, miserably gnawing on his sandwich. “Orders. As in General Cooley’s. And more importantly, it’s the central computer’s orders too. It went through the personnel files and came up with a list of possible candidates for this duty. Oddly enough, they were all in Boomerang Squadron. Well, I suppose it was an obvious result given the kind of man Lander is.”
The major laid a printout of a current affairs magazine article down in front of Rei. Rei picked it up and skimmed it; it was a diatribe about the United States not using American-made goods anymore. He checked the date on the bottom of the page. The article had been written just six months ago. He wouldn’t have been surprised if the dateline had been decades before that.
“He’s like a relic from the last century. An ideological throwback.”
“Well, he’s not alone. Considering how tense the current international situation is, the fact that a transnational organization like the FAF even exists is practically a miracle. It’s too dangerous to let him wander around here for very long because he can use the material he gathers to stir up all sorts of prejudices back on Earth. So where do you quarantine an ultra-nationalist prick on a fact-finding mission? Say, oh, a squadron isolated from the rest of the normal combat units. Get it now?”
“Shit. I’m getting tired of being the ‘special’ in ‘Special Air Force’…”
Rei was already short-tempered because for nearly a week he had been undergoing a battery of psychological analysis tests conducted by a Dr. Halévy of the Air Force Combat Psychology Research Center. Halévy was supposed to be the leading man in the field of combat psychology, but to Rei it was a pretty pointless distinction. When Rei commented how ironic it was that the doctor spent his days talking about air combat theory while remaining perfectly safe underground, Halévy folded his hands and looked grave. “Lieutenant Fukai,” he intoned, “I’m fighting, too.” I’d like to see you fight off a missile with theory, Rei thought sourly. On the battlefield, theory and abstract analysis were useless. Why couldn’t anyone not on the front line understand that?
He shook his head and went back to eating his lunch of fried rice and meat loaf.
“Go to General Cooley. Your preflight briefing is at 1440.” The major got up from his chair.
“Yes, sir. This isn’t because I lost at poker, is it?”
Booker gave him a look. “And no matter what Lander asks you, you keep quiet. This is just a simple sightseeing flight.”
Rei shrugged. Then something occurred to him. “Hey, Jack?
Are those sunglasses Ray-Bans?”
Booker picked up his tray. “Nope. Nikons.” Then, a smile playing across his lips, he left the cafeteria.
AFTER A SHORT briefing, Rei boarded Yukikaze. He continued performing the preflight checks on the elevator up from the underground hangar and felt himself calming a little. Having to give a biased journalist from Earth his own personal little flight tour stuck in his craw, but he knew he’d feel better once they were in the air.
After he emerged onto the planet’s surface, a car approached from the side of the shade port and pulled alongside Yukikaze. General Cooley and a man got out. Andy Lander. Lander jovially waved at him. Rei answered with a slight nod. What did this guy come here to investigate? he wondered. Just going by Lander’s looks, Rei guessed he was after material to argue that Earth had to be protected with American-made weapons or something.
Lander was built like a wrestler; the flight suit he wore was ill-fitting and did not favor him at all. Major Booker deftly inspected Lander’s suit, then helped him aboard Yukikaze, fastening his shoulder harness and connecting his anti-G hoses.
Engine start. First the right, then the left.
“Take it away, Captain,” said Lander.
“We’ve got ideal weather for a sightseeing flight,” replied Rei.
Emergency generator test. Data link power display control power, on. Head-up display, activated. Flight control check via the indicators. Display, flight computer, check.
Once the check of authority was complete, they taxied onto the runway. The wind was strong, so Rei set the canopy control to BOOST. It lowered hydraulically and locked.
He called the tower for clearance to take off. Clearance granted. Throttle to military power. They began to climb. Rotation. Landing gear up. Flaps up. Hydraulic system set to flight mode, cutting the hydraulic supply from the landing gear and non-flight steering system. Reconfirm flight instruments. All systems normal.
Informing Lander that they would be climbing quickly, he moved the throttle to MAX. The afterburners kicked in and the thrust increased dramatically. Armed with just four shortrange missiles and a gun, unencumbered by additional tanks or equipment, the agile Sylph could climb nearly vertically. Still, he shouldn’t overdo it. Lander groaned. With a sigh, Rei brought them back to level flight. He performed a loose turn onto their flight path, a square of about 250 kilometers per side that would bring them back to their starting point.
“I heard that Faery’s sun is a binary star,” Lander said as he operated a camcorder, “but I can only see one. Just the main star. Wait, I see it. The companion star is that shadow, right?”
“You’ve got good eyes.”
“The camera’s digital viewfinder is picking it up. Can you fly steady like this for a bit without any maneuvering, please?”
Rei didn’t mind that Lander said this with the tone of a hunter ordering his guide. He couldn’t bring himself to be irritated by someone who he didn’t care if he lived or died.
It was quiet for a while.
Then, perhaps bored with shooting his video, Lander began asking all sorts of questions. Where was Rei from? Had he been on Faery long? What did he plan to do when he returned to his native country?
Rei gave suitable, innocuous answers, but when Lander asked him, “Why do you fly?” he was stumped.
“To kill the JAM,” he said finally, after buying some time with the excuse that he had to confirm their heading.
“That’s just the result of your actions, not the cause,” Lander replied. And with that, he’d crudely and unknowingly cut to the heart of the doubt that had been tormenting Rei. Rei tried to ignore him, but Lander continued, unheeding. “You must have a more concrete reason for fighting than that. For Earth, for your country, for your lover, for money, to get back alive, and so on. What are you thinking of when you’re in combat?”
At least that question was simple to answer.
“Nothing,” Rei said. “I don’t think about anything. I’m blank. Here, I’ll give you a taste of what it’s like.”
He gripped the side stick, cutting off the autopilot, and did some subtle footwork. Yukikaze snapped into a turn, executing a series of continuous barrel rolls. Returning to level flight, he performed a four-point roll in the other direction. They rose up vertical to the horizon, then were completely inverted, then vertical again, and finally back to normal. A steep climb that led into a loop. He performed several small, high-G loops, drawing Q-shapes in the sky. He pulled them into one final steep turn, and then they were back on course.
“How’d that feel, sir?” Rei asked.
There was a pause before Lander answered. “A man always has to be ready for surprise attacks. I was careless. Even though I half-anticipated it.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
Lander kept his mouth shut, and Rei was relieved to have been freed from his annoying questions. Now he and Yukikaze could become one in the silence. Maybe that’s the reason I fly, he thought.
The clear sky was dazzling and lonely. A three-ship formation, most likely flying a CAP, overflew Yukikaze high above. From this distance the planes almost seemed translucent, like they were made of glass.
As he stared at the beautiful sight, a warning tone brought him back. The passive airspace radar was getting a reaction. He output the data onto the multidisplay and frowned, unable to comprehend what he was seeing. The radar was showing an enormous wall about a hundred kilometers ahead of them. It was like a tsunami. Rei lifted his head and looked out of the cockpit, but all he could see was the quiet scene of Faery’s primeval forest and the sky.
He couldn’t confirm the existence of the wall with the standard radar system either. It reflected no electromagnetic radiation. What the hell was this?
The passive airspace radar was a detection system that had been developed to counter the various methods JAM fighters used to mask themselves while attacking. Because it utilized a type of cryogenically cooled visual sensor with an ultra-high receptivity, it had been nicknamed “Frozen Eye.” No matter how an enemy craft might hide itself electromagnetically or optically, as long as it displaced air it could be detected. The system gave the SAF pilots an ability to find and kill the enemy that was so accurate it seemed almost instinctive. And now that same system was telling Rei that something monstrous was before him.
Was it a JAM force? It seemed way too big to be that. It was almost like a massive disturbance of the airspace. The bright horizontal line on the display was drawing closer fast.
The AVOID cue appeared on his HUD. If he did nothing, Yukikaze would automatically maneuver to evade the obstacle when they got too close to it. But Rei didn’t wait for that. He pulled the plane back into a high-G Immelman loop, reversing their direction.
The line on the display bowed inward, seeming to wrap around Yukikaze. Rei didn’t know what was going on, but he understood that they’d fallen into some sort of trap. The line on the display was now closing into a circle. Aiming for the rapidly disappearing gap, Yukikaze accelerated.
She didn’t make it. The circle closed and its diameter began to quickly contract. It fell inward upon Yukikaze, as though intent on swallowing her.
“Brace for impact!” Rei yelled automatically, although the scene outside the cockpit still betrayed nothing out of the ordinary.
The impact, when it came, was like flying into a wall of iron. His ears were ringing. He couldn’t see. A gray haze was obscuring his vision. Must have messed up my eyes, he thought, disoriented from the shock.
He reflexively checked his instruments. Both engines had stalled. The turbine intake temperature read 560°C, only a little below normal. The auto-restart system should have activated after ten seconds, but it didn’t. Rei pushed the airstart button. No response. Had he accidentally pulled the throttle back during the impact? No, he hadn’t. Then had the engines themselves been damaged? He checked the tachometer. It was dropping precipitously. If it fell to 8 percent RPM, the engines wouldn’t be able to supply power or hydraulic pressure. He had to raise his airspeed and force the turbines to spin faster.
Confirm rate of descent and airspeed. confirm sufficient altitude. Canopy defogger switch, ON. He thought maybe the canopy had become clouded, but as they fell, the haze cleared a bit. The sky had been cloudless just moments before. What the hell is going on here? Rei wondered.
A strange panorama spread out before his eyes. The world looked colorless, like a black-and-white photo. The terrain swirled below them as though it were the surface of Jupiter. He could see parts that looked like trees, and others that looked like deserts or the ocean. Where the hell are we?
Lander was stirring in the backseat. “What… We were just flying, weren’t we, Lieutenant?” He had apparently lost consciousness. “My ears… They hurt.”
“It’s Flier’s Ear.”
“What?”
“Otitic barotrauma. Inner ear damage caused by a sudden change in air pressure.”
“You did that on purpose! Why—” Lander suddenly paused. “Hey, am I wrong, or are the engines stopped?”
“I can’t restart them.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t have time to figure that out.”
Rei began searching for terrain that would allow for an emergency landing. He switched the radar to ground mode, real beam ground mapping, but the only thing that came on the display was a strangely fixed image. It looked like the transmitter was off-line.
Then, out of the corner of his eye, he spotted something that looked manmade. He banked into a slow turn to get a better look. It was a long and narrow construction without any crosscuts. A runway. It had to be. Even if it wasn’t, he was going to use it as one, because otherwise he would have to abandon Yukikaze, and he didn’t want to even think about that.
All he could get over the comm system was static. He set the radar altimeter but didn’t think he could trust it. If these weren’t the skies of Faery, he couldn’t be sure of his barometric altimeter, either.
“Mister Lander, do you think you can measure our altitude with that video camera’s range finder?”
“Huh?”
“Quickly.”
“No good, it’s broken. Wait a minute, I’ve got some digital binoculars with me. Let me try it with those.”
Rei inverted Yukikaze.
“Measure in a straight line below us.”
Their rate of descent was increasing. That was the only data he could determine for sure. Rei didn’t know what the linear proportion was between his barometric altimeter and his actual change in altitude, but he could combine them with Lander’s reading for a rough estimate and then reset his altimeter.
He was over the flat expanse that looked like a runway. He executed a wide turn, correcting his attitude, and once again put them on the virtual approach line.
“We’re landing.”
Gear down. Air brakes opened slightly to regulate their speed. Forty-degree bank angle as they turned and descended. While describing a semicircle, Yukikaze’s altitude dropped by a sixth, then a quarter, then to half of what it was. Their altitude was now 700 meters. He had a good line of sight now.
Final approach. Flaps down. Pitch regulated. Glide slope, three degrees. Rate of descent, twenty-six meters per minute. A little high. Yukikaze’s nose floated up due to the ground effect, which felt a little weaker than normal. Touchdown.
The ground rushing by them at 185 kph was a grayish light brown. Rei stomped on the toe brake, nervous that they might hit a rock and cripple themselves. They were approaching the edge of the runway.
When they finally came to a stop Rei was surprised to see that there was still plenty of runway left. He must have underestimated its size from the air. He was relieved that their landing had still been successful, despite his misjudgment.
They were surrounded by what seemed to be a forest the color of seaweed. So who had cut this runway out of it? He couldn’t see any hangar facilities. Maybe it was for super heavyweight planes to land and take off from. If so, the enormous size of the runway implied that these phantom planes would be similarly huge. Since there was only one runway, did that mean there was little wind here, or that the wind direction didn’t vary? Maybe they used both the length and width of the wide surface? Or maybe this wasn’t a runway at all…
“This is a major scoop!” Lander exclaimed. “Who’d believe there was someplace like this on Faery?”
“I don’t think this is Faery.”
“Very funny. You don’t have to hide it. It’s possible you didn’t even know about it. I’ll bet it’s a top-secret area.”
Arguing with Lander wasn’t going to improve their situation, so Rei dropped it and began testing the electronics.
The master caution light was lit, but aside from that, the other system failure warning indicators remained off. The built-in test system itself was also malfunctioning. Most of the highlevel electrical systems were off-line. The multiply protected flight control system was barely operational. Luckily, it had still worked well enough to allow him to land the plane; if it had failed too, he wouldn’t have been able to maintain controlled flight for even an instant.
He switched the jet fuel starter to ON and pulled the starter handle. It worked.
The connection to the starboard engine’s hydraulic accumulator was intact, and the turbines slowly began to spin. Once the engine got past 8 percent RPM, fuel would flow into it and the autoignition would spark… Negative ignition. Rei killed the JFS.
The fuel wasn’t flowing. There were no abnormalities detected in the fuel boost pump, and even if the emergency boost pump had been destroyed, it would still be possible to do fuel transfer via gravity. But if the electronic engine controller was keeping the fuel shut-off valve closed, then—
“Why don’t we get out and look around?” said Lander.
Rei sighed and checked the altimeter and external thermometer. Even taking Lander’s measurement error into account, the atmospheric pressure altitude variance showed that it wasn’t all that different from Faery’s. The temperature was 13°C.
Steeling himself, Rei moved the canopy control to OPEN. Lander loosened his harness on his own and climbed out of the cockpit onto the boarding step on the right side of the plane.
“Lieutenant, can you extend the ladder?”
Rei shook his head. The boarding ladder could be extended from the plane only by operating the control handle in the ladder door.
Lander bent down, took hold of the handgrip, and swung himself down to the ground.
Rei stayed aboard Yukikaze, searching in vain for the cause of the problem. He had twenty minutes of electricity left from the auxiliary power unit. He couldn’t make contact with the base, either. The twenty minutes were soon up.
Yukikaze fell silent.
In this situation, he needed to start the JFS since its generator system provided power to the self-ignition system and to Yukikaze’s vital electrical systems. The central computer’s backup power supply was working normally, so at least he wouldn’t have to worry about that for another twenty-four hours.
But he couldn’t get the JFS to turn over. Lander was gone. Rei scanned their surroundings and saw him at a distance. He was apparently digging a hole in the ground, looking like a child playing by himself.
Rei got down from the plane and inspected the fuselage. He couldn’t see any obvious abnormalities on the outside. Since he had no tools, any problems deeper than that were beyond his ability to fix.
The air pressure here was considerably lower. If this were Faery, he’d estimate their altitude to be around two thousand meters. But he just couldn’t see how this place could be only a few hundred kilometers from Faery Base.
There was no wind. It was quiet.
The sky overhead was cloudy, but it wasn’t dark. The clouds looked white. The gray ground beneath them formed a vast, level plane covered with a blackish green haze. If I could get the engines started, Rei thought bitterly, I could fly above it and see what sort of place this is. Perhaps they’d stumbled upon some unexplored part of Faery. Was this a JAM base? Or maybe this wasn’t Faery at all but the JAM’s home world. He instantly dismissed the thought. If that were the case, he probably would have been shot down long ago.
Rei recalled the image picked up by the Frozen Eye. It looked like a wall, a bright line that pushed relentlessly forward as though aiming for Yukikaze. He didn’t think it was a natural phenomenon. It looked like they’d been caught by some mechanism that could selectively transport objects through space. But Rei couldn’t even make a guess as to what intelligence was operating it or who had brought them to this place. Maybe it was the result of some as-yet unknown natural phenomenon. If this were a JAM trap, wouldn’t they have done something by now?
Rei sat down on Yukikaze’s front wheel and sighed. Lander had returned. There was no hint of concern on his face. Rei couldn’t decide if this intrepidness was a personality attribute or whether the man was just stupid. Maybe a little bit of both. To Lander, Faery itself was an unknown dimension. Perhaps, from his point of view, their bizarre surroundings—which were completely alien to Rei—were merely an extension of an already strange world. And Lander obviously saw himself as a man who would never be beaten, who couldn’t be defeated, even in death. Rei could just imagine the upbringing, environment, and family history that had made him this way. He probably believed that he was carrying on the pioneer spirit of his forebears.
“Well, why don’t we go and have a look?”
“At what?”
“I won’t let you stop me.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Have a look through these, Lieutenant.” Lander patted the binoculars hanging from his neck. “There’s a cornfield just over yonder.”
“A field?”
“A big yellow one. This is a major discovery, you know.”
At the mention of corn, Rei realized how hungry he was. He checked his chronometer. It would have been early evening on Faery. Lander had no objections to holding off on his exploration for a meal, so Rei climbed Yukikaze’s ladder and retrieved some emergency rations from his survival kit along with a thermos of coffee he had stowed away.
The emergency rats were vacuum-packed crackers with jelly. Lander disappointedly asked if that was supposed to be a full meal as he took them.
“No,” Rei replied. “Technically, one-third of the B-type is intended to be a full meal.” He read from the package: 1 MEAL CONSISTS OF 1 PACK CRACKER (A-TYPE) AND 1/3 PACK JELLY (B-TYPE).
“Got it?”
“Yeah,” Lander replied. “So, these crackers…” He sat down on the main wheel and scrutinized them. “I wonder what kind of wheat they’re made out of.”
“Who knows?”
The jelly was a fluorescent orange and tasted vaguely like apricot. Rei made a face. It was pretty bad.
“I’ll bet it’s grown here,” Lander said as he stretched out his arms. “In complete secrecy.”
“This isn’t Faery. The suns should have set by now, but it’s still light.”
The FAF’s clocks were all set to Greenwich Mean Time. Since the base was underground and the fighting didn’t depend on it being day or night, there was no need to synchronize with Faery’s rotation. So it wasn’t unusual for noon in the base to be during night on the surface. The flight plan called for them to return when the sun was setting, yet there was no indication that it was getting dark.
“If that’s true, it makes me even more suspicious.”
“About what?”
Lander chomped on his cracker, as though satisfied he had come to a conclusion about the origin of the wheat in it. “The FAF buys its food from Earth, right?”
“I know that much,” Rei answered. “Our supplies go through the UN food management program.”
“You know why that is, Lieutenant? It’s to prevent the FAF from becoming independent. To prevent the greatest military power there is from standing on its own. That’s why it’s forbidden for it to engage in food production.”
“Huh,” said Rei. This was the first he’d heard of it. “They have restrictions like that? I never knew. So, you’re thinking this is some secret Faery food production base that’s been hidden behind an extra-dimensional wall?”
Lander nodded, either ignoring or not picking up on the sarcasm, and continued to expostulate on his crazy idea. “The FAF has begun to amass money, presumably for industrial use. Now, where there’s money, you’ve got Jews. And then there’s the Chinese. China’s apparently been shipping its surplus labor to work on Faery. To make money for the state, of course. But the FAF authorities—”
“That’s the biggest load of bullshit I’ve ever heard,” Rei said as he balled up the foil wrapper and tossed it away. “You seriously think the FAF is planning to invade Earth?”
“Can you deny it?”
Rei studied Lander’s face for a good ten seconds. “Are you kidding me?” he finally said.
Lander serenely took a sip of the coffee.
“What could we possibly do with only air power?” Rei asked as he got up off the landing gear. He walked back toward Lander and took the thermos from him. “Yeah, we may have the most powerful air force, but we wouldn’t be able to achieve anything on Earth without ground forces.”
“The fact that the FAF has no regular soldiers is important,” Lander replied. “You’re all officers, right? What that means is that you already have the capability to command thousands of regular soldiers. And soldiers don’t necessarily have to be human, you know. They could be robots. Which the FAF has the capacity to manufacture.”
“Our enemy is the JAM. And in case you forgot, they’re your enemy too.”
“I suppose,” Lander answered reluctantly. “The JAM… Maybe the JAM gave up trying to invade Earth a long time ago, Lieutenant.”
Rei was already well past irritated, and the absurdity of this argument was starting to push him over the edge into genuinely pissed off.
“Listen. Every day I risk my life fighting the JAM. Just what the hell do you think I am?”
“You’re a soldier,” Lander replied. “Risking your life is part of your job. That’s why I asked you earlier what you were fighting for. If you don’t actually know the answer to that, well, that would be pretty tragic.”
“Are you saying the Earth would be protected even if the FAF were done away with?”
“I am.”
Lander told Rei that he had come to Faery to confirm that theory. In his view, the FAF was a modern-day foreign legion consisting of a mishmash of ill-bred traitors who had no place back in their homelands outside of prison. And the thought that Earth was being defended by this group did not sit well with him. Lander believed that Earth must be defended by the most advanced nations possessing the greatest power.
“If the JAM’s military power increases,” Rei ground out, “you’ll find out real quick just how bad that idea is.”
“I disagree,” Lander answered. “I think we could handle the JAM just fine. If necessary, we can have our regular forces stand against them.”
Rei found Lander’s absolute certainty unsettling, but at the same time had the strange feeling that he was some sort of a heretic for thinking so. He recalled the words of the historian Lynn Jackson, who had chronicled the history of the war against the JAM.
At that time, the JAM had presented us with the key to building a world federation. But the path we chose was the exact opposite. Perhaps world unification never would have been realized, no matter how strong an enemy we were confronted with. From what I can determine from the materials I’ve gathered—memoranda, official records, and direct interviews with the statesmen of that time—even when Earth was invaded, people held on to their prejudices to the bitter end. Paradoxically, we ended up treating the alien JAM as though they were just another neighboring nation.
When Rei had read this, he had thought it was an extreme viewpoint. But now he agreed with it. Lander’s opinions had just confirmed that again. Still, he reasoned, reality isn’t that simple, is it? The people of Earth wrongly regarded the JAM as an existence analogous to themselves. But the JAM’s true nature remained shrouded in mystery. Humans still didn’t know what sort of life-form they were or even what they looked like.
The JAM had yet to reveal the true extent of their power.
Rei was convinced of this to the core of his being. It was his instinct as a soldier. However, he did not say this to Lander. The man couldn’t understand, or rather, wouldn’t understand. And honestly, Rei had had enough of his delusions. Let him live in his own reality, he decided. He thought soberly that, even if his existence was eventually deemed as unnecessary as Lander evidently believed it to be, by the time the man realized just how wrong he was, the regular forces he believed in so fervently would be wiped out. While Rei hoped that would never happen, a part of him also hoped he could be there to see Lander’s face when the time came. Maybe he would then have an inkling of how a soldier felt, would begin to understand the merciless imperative of survival, which was the opposite of theory. The JAM used extremely powerful weaponry and operated them with flawless reflexes. One needed to be just as cold and ruthless to oppose them.
But Rei remained silent as Lander continued.
“Guys like you are easy to manipulate. You’re the ideal type to be an enlisted man, but you’re not officer material. You don’t have any convictions.”
“You sound just like a missionary.”
“Listen,” Lander said, now sounding as though he were launching into a well-rehearsed speech. “The toughest things an invader has to deal with are the national patriotism and religious conviction of the invaded. If you can remold those, through propaganda or some other means, the invasion automatically succeeds. But the soldiers of the FAF don’t have any sense of patriotism or beliefs, and it’s nothing but a delusion to think the high command of the FAF has any sense of loyalty to Earth. If you’re not careful, one of these days you’re going to find yourself joining forces with the JAM and invading Earth. Do you think that’s impossible?”
Rei took a deep breath and told him their conversation was over. Lander shrugged his shoulders and got up.
Rei’s one imperative now was to figure out where they were. If this was an area that had some connection to the FAF—if it were a secret zone he didn’t know about, for example—then that meant there was the possibility of getting home. But if it wasn’t, then the situation was dire: no matter what Lander believed, they would never make it back to Faery Base again. If that were the case, Rei decided, then he would get in the plane and keep flying till his fuel ran out. It wouldn’t be such a bad way to go, especially since he’d be with Yukikaze. Since he couldn’t get her engines restarted, though, even that was just a pipe dream.
As Rei was stowing the thermos back aboard the plane, Lander pointed at the small kanji characters painted just below the canopy. “What’s that say, anyway?”
“‘Yukikaze.’ It was the name of a destroyer in the old Japanese imperial navy.”
She’d seen thirteen naval battles and survived them all without a scratch. Rei hadn’t known that until Major Booker had told him.
Lander looked impressed. Rei decided not to tell him that the name had been assigned randomly.
Grabbing the survival gun Yukikaze was equipped with, he jumped down to the ground. Lander asked to see it, but Rei didn’t oblige him.
“You’re a civilian. It’s my duty to guarantee your safety.”
It was a short weapon, but since it was a Bullpup design, with the breech at the very rear, its barrel length was longer than it seemed. The trigger and handgrip assembly were in front of the magazine, which held thirty rounds of powerful rifle ammo.
“What’s the caliber?” Lander asked.
“It’s a.221. Air force arsenal-made, but the ammo’s Remington. Fireball.”
“Copy of the Colt, huh?”
“Is it? I wouldn’t know.” He checked the clip. “But I know how to shoot it, so don’t worry.”
Lander looked like he was about to say something when his gaze was suddenly drawn to a spot behind Rei. He grabbed his binoculars.
Rei turned around to look. A bird. No. There was something odd about the way it moved. Black. Flying in an angular, zigzag pattern.
“Looks like a UFO. What is it?”
“It’s shaped like a boomerang.” Lander offered him the binoculars. “Taking the distance into account, it looks pretty big. About the size of a small plane.”
Rei didn’t take the binoculars. The object had disappeared.
“You think it’s the JAM?” Lander asked, almost happily. “Or maybe it’s some weird Faery life-form.” He kicked Yukikaze’s tire. “This is quite a fighter you have here, Lieutenant. If you can’t get the engines started it’s nothing more than a very expensive hunk of metal, but I gotta say it’s allowing me to write one hell of an article.”
“Yeah, well, it might be the last thing you ever write,” Rei said shortly. “Tell you what. If we make it back, I’ll buy you a drink. We can make a toast to your journalistic achievement.”
Lander ignored him and checked to see if the camcorder was still working. “No use. Looks like it got busted in the impact.”
Rei took it from him and peered through the electronic viewfinder. The image it showed resembled a color blindness chart, and after a few moments his vision began to blur. He handed it back to Lander, who finally gave up on it and drew a voice recorder out of his life-vest pocket. It looked old and well used. He turned it on and started walking, recording a narrative description of their surroundings.
Rei was concerned that the UFO-like thing would return. Yukikaze was helpless in her grounded state, and if the object was a JAM fighter it would only need one shot to set her aflame.
Unaware of Rei’s fears, Lander had moved quite a distance ahead. Rei couldn’t just leave him alone, so he followed after.
“This looks like a dried-up wetland,” Lander said to Rei as he caught up with him. “A runway made from mud hardened by a chemical agent.”
That was indeed what it looked like. Yellowish brown earth and scraps of plant matter were encased in a translucent, plasticlike substance that looked almost like glass. Judging from the construction method, Rei thought that maybe this hadn’t been intended to be a proper runway. As they walked toward the forest, the glossy surface gave way to damp mud, and before long they passed into the dark forest itself.
It was quiet, yet the atmosphere seemed noisy somehow. The ground was soft, cushioned with accumulated bark that had peeled off of the trees. All of the vegetation surrounding them was dark green.
It was completely unlike the strangely hued forests of Faery, which were so dense that you needed a tunnel excavator rather than a machete to get through them. Because of that impenetrable density, the animals that inhabited the forest were small, and either lived in burrows under the forest floor or had evolved to live on top of the canopy; as far as Rei knew, no larger creatures inhabited the forest proper. And any humans that had entered it, whether accidentally or deliberately, had been swallowed up by it and never seen again. It was almost as if the forest itself were one enormous life-form.
This place was different. There was quite a bit of space between the trees. But Rei wasn’t so sure the things surrounding them actually were trees. He started listening to what Lander was dictating into his recorder.
“They almost seem made out of metal,” Lander was saying. “Beneath a greenish outer layer, they shine like copper, and they’re shaped like… The little ones are cone-shaped. Cones that look more like they were designed and manufactured than like natural forms. The big ones stretch up vertically, with thick branches that spread out from the top and then droop down, encircling the trunks.”
The branches wrapped around the trunks symmetrically, like precisely wound coils. To Rei, it seemed like they weren’t part of the trees at all but were instead some species of symbiotic plant. Several trees he touched felt warm. There were a few withered ones as well. Some were split, as though struck by lightning, and their exposed cross-sections were blackened as though carbonized, and yet they didn’t seem to have actually burned. Some trees had a golden mold growing on them as well. He couldn’t be sure that it actually was mold, but it was definitely some species of parasite. It looked like fine lace, and the trees that were wrapped in it didn’t seem to be alive.
The overall effect was just as Lander had said: the forest really did look like something somebody had made. It was almost as if some entity had tried to tackle the problem of creating life and had only managed the external appearance of it. Were these trees actually made by some vast intelligence? And if so, what sort of unimaginable power would it possess to be able to do so?
Then, suddenly, Rei knew why Yukikaze’s electronics had malfunctioned. It had to be the result of a powerful electromagnetic interference. The kind that could be generated by a forest of transmitters.
Yukikaze’s resistance to EM jamming should have been perfect. She was protected by a multilayered 120 dB shield, and her electrical components themselves had anti-EMI processing capabilities. Common sense said that his conclusion was highly improbable. Yet he couldn’t rule it out.
He felt his hair standing on end. It was fear of the unknown. A powerful fear born of instinct. He knew they had to get back to Yukikaze, and fast.
Lander wouldn’t hear of it.
“A little longer, Lieutenant. Just a little further on is—”
“That cornfield of yours? Get real. We don’t have time for this. We have to go back, now.”
“Look, it’s right over there.”
He pointed to a yellowish area ahead of them. Rei looked to where Lander was pointing. A sudden sick feeling curdled his stomach. It wasn’t a field. It was a swamp. Involuntarily, the two men exchanged glances. A bizarre, carnal stench wafted from the scene that spread out before them, completely different from the sterile, inorganic environment they had just been in.
“Corn?” said Rei. “This is more like soup.”
As they approached, the increasingly foul odor triggered such a violent physiological disgust that Rei was sure he was going to vomit. The muddy liquid moved in sluggish swirling patterns. No matter how hard they strained their eyes to look, they couldn’t see anything below the surface of the sickly stew. The swamp was further veiled by a light opalescent haze.
Lander continued to narrate excitedly into the recorder.
“You’re wasting your time,” Rei said.
“What are you talking about?”
“I don’t think your recorder got anything. It’s probably just picked up radio frequency interference, which means there’ll be nothing but static.”
“What?”
Lander started to play back the recording. It was just as Rei guessed. Nothing but white noise.
“What do you suppose this is?” Lander asked as he switched the recorder off ruefully. He gestured at the swamp, seeking Rei’s opinion.
“It looks like the material the runway is made out of. I think this planet—although it may not be a planet, so let’s say area—is probably made of the same stuff.”
“Do you think it’s connected with the JAM?”
“Maybe. Maybe it’s some sort of raw material they use to build. Or maybe it’s waste material. I wonder…” Rei trailed off.
“What?”
“No, nothing.”
Rei had had a sudden, inexplicable impression that people had been melted down into the stuff in the swamp, or perhaps were formed from it. He struggled to understand why such an absurdly grotesque image would come to him, and then thought about the equally absurd leap of imagination he’d made in thinking that those trees were antennas. He considered the contrast of the two impressions and realized that it was the inorganic versus the organic, machines versus people…
“Stop!” he shouted.
Lander was reaching out to touch the yellow liquid, and Rei felt as though he were watching the other man reach out to touch a rotted corpse. But the sense of danger and revulsion was even more extreme, and as he realized this, Lander’s body jerked backwards and he screamed out in pain.
“What happened?”
“My hand…”
Rei ran over to him and looked down. There was nothing below Lander’s left wrist. Blood was pouring from the stump.
“The…the haze…above the liquid…it’s vibrating like a saw. God damn it… What the hell is this place?!” Lander gasped.
“We’re getting out of here,” Rei said and began tying off Lander’s wound, using the recorder’s carrying strap as a makeshift tourniquet.
“We can’t get…the engines…started on that damn fighter of yours… We can’t get out of here.”
“I’ll figure something out. If we can take off, we can find a way out of here.” Rei finished tying the tourniquet. “Okay, that’s got it. I’ve got painkillers in the first aid kit back at the plane. Keep your arm elevated.”
He picked up the survival gun and helped Lander get unsteadily to his feet. Sweat beaded on Lander’s forehead, his pale face contorted with the pain, but he didn’t pass out.
Rei wanted to get back to Yukikaze as soon as possible, but he couldn’t hurry the other man. Progress was slow. Lander’s huge shoulders heaved with each breath, step by painful step, but he refused Rei’s offers of help. Neither man spoke. The atmosphere was oppressive.
The space between the trees grew narrower. Their distribution seemed irregular, with denser areas coming in undulating waves. From above, Rei thought, it would look just like an energy distribution chart.
The straight-line distance they’d walked before must have been around 700 meters, half of which was in the forest, so there shouldn’t have been more than 500 meters to go. But there was no sign that the forest was ending. They may have been lost. Lander leaned against a thick tree to rest.
“Go on without me, Lieutenant.”
“We’re nearly there. I can’t leave you. We have no idea what could happen.”
Rei examined the wound. It wasn’t bleeding too badly now, but it needed proper treatment quickly.
Lander croaked out a hoarse laugh. “I just had a hand and now it’s gone. Kinda funny, don’t you think?”
Please, Rei thought, don’t start cracking up on me now.
“Listen up. The only way you’re going to get back to the plane is on your own two legs, and there’s nothing wrong with them, right? So move!”
“Right… Thing is, it’s the shock more than the pain that’s doing a number on me. Feels like it’s stabbing through my heart. Never noticed how much walking can take it out of you.”
“I’ll help you.”
“No, you need to keep your hands on that machine gun. I’m okay. Let’s go.”
Rei nodded. Lander walked forward unsteadily.
The spaces between the trees were widening again. It couldn’t be much further now. Their field of vision suddenly opened up, and Rei guessed that they must have accidentally—and luckily—taken a shortcut. They emerged at a point about 200 meters away from Yukikaze.
Lander stopped. “Lieutenant, wait.”
Rei saw it in the same instant: a strange object hovering directly over Yukikaze at a height of four or five meters. It was an absolute black, like a hole in the sky. There was no sense of it being a solid object. It was a bit smaller than Yukikaze and shaped like a boomerang. No, Rei thought. Like a sickle.
“JAM…”
“Dammit, I wish I had a camera.” Lander sounded like he’d forgotten all about the pain.
Rei clenched his fist, a cold sweat breaking out across his back. They wanted to capture Yukikaze intact.
“What do you think it’s doing?”
“It’s trying to decode Yukikaze’s IFF and other electronic systems. I may have to self-destruct her.”
“How? It’s not touching the plane.”
“I don’t know how, but I’m sure of it. The JAM have always seemed more interested in our planes than in us.”
Rei walked out of the forest and onto the runway, placing himself clearly in the enemy’s line of sight.
“Lieutenant, what’re you doing? Come back!”
“They’ll take Yukikaze over my dead body.”
Rei recklessly approached Yukikaze. About one plane length away, he raised the gun and took aim at the object. It made no reaction. He fired. Short.
Confirming the gun was set to full auto, he emptied the clip at it. Empty cartridges scattered around him. The last cartridge flew from the firing chamber and bounced onto the ground. As the echo of the gunfire faded away, he knew he was going to need more than small-caliber fire to take that thing out. He threw the machine gun down, frustrated at his own powerlessness.
He walked toward Yukikaze. As he did so, there was a sudden movement overhead. The black shadow rotated with a jerk and withdrew from Yukikaze, moving in an irregular manner. It seemed to be out of control. Suddenly, the black camouflage peeled away. It was a silver, forward-swept–wing aircraft. A JAM combat reconnaissance plane. It fell toward the forest. The sound of an explosion followed.
“Lander! Get over here, fast!”
Pale blue sparks were spattering from an electrical discharge line on Yukikaze’s wing. As Rei secured it, Lander reached the plane. Black smoke was rising from the forest.
“They’ll send reinforcements, won’t they?”
“We’ll deal with that when it happens. At least they don’t seem to be interested in us.”
“Maybe they’ll change their minds.”
Rei grabbed the first aid kit from Yukikaze, along with the other survival gun that was stowed in the rear seat. He removed the makeshift tourniquet from Lander’s arm, sprayed the wound with a sealing agent to stop the bleeding, doused it with disinfectant, wrapped the stump with sterile film, and bandaged it.
“There’re painkillers if you need them. I don’t know if you can fire this gun one-handed, but I’m giving it to you anyway.”
“What about you?”
“Well, if I don’t get the engines started, you won’t get that real flight experience you’re here for, right?”
Rei settled into the cockpit, toggled the Jet Fuel Starter switch to ON, and pulled the starter handle. Nothing. He tried again, and then again. In the past, Rei had found this process amusingly similar to starting a motor bike or a lawn mower. In a way, that was exactly what he was doing: the JFS was a small combustion engine that moved the onboard fuel but didn’t have an advanced control system. Now, though, the humor of the situation escaped him. Come on, he pleaded silently.
It started on the fourth try. Engine master switch to ON. Throttle control to BOOST.
Rei got up and climbed along the canopy sill to slide into the rear seat.
Armament control system, ON. The ECM display flickered on momentarily, then faded out.
Rei wasn’t well versed in using the electronic armaments. His work in the front seat had little to do with what went on in the backseat, which was devoted entirely to data acquisition and electronic warfare. His EWOs took care of all that. He flew the plane.
But even with his lack of specialized knowledge, he knew enough to reason that the enemy must be using some specific force external to Yukikaze to arrest the plane’s systems. And if that force could jam Yukikaze’s systems, then chances were it could be jammed in return.
He assumed manual control to operate the dispersion jammer and began noise jamming as well. After a bit, symbols marking the enemy positions appeared on the display screen. The system immediately switched over to auto-jamming mode and the symbols on the display began to change wildly. The computer immediately deciphered the radar waves coded as “enemy” and activated countermeasures. The locations of the targets were determined and displayed.
What was impossible for a human, Yukikaze’s electronic armaments did with ease. With those now on the job, there was nothing left for Rei to do. He got back into the front seat.
He didn’t know if it would help get the engines started, but he threw the switch connecting the JFS to the right engine hydraulic motor and slid the throttle over. The tachometer sprang to life. The power supply to the electronic armaments was dropping because of the extra load that feeding the engine was placing on the JFS, but there was nothing Rei could do about that.
How were the JAM succeeding in keeping Yukikaze’s electronics off-line? Were they analyzing the timing impulses of all the systems and then sending in false data? If that were the case, how was Yukikaze resisting it now? Rei knew this was a battle beyond his level of comprehension, a battle of forces humans couldn’t perceive. He could only watch from the sidelines. Please don’t lose, he prayed.
When the tachometer reached 13 percent RPM the autoignition system switched on. Ignition, activated.
Turbine intake temperature and hydraulic pressure, rising. Fuel flow rate, increasing. The noise from the exhaust was rising to ear-piercing levels.
At 50 percent RPM, the JFS automatically delinked from the starter motor. The right generator caution light went out. All of Yukikaze’s electronic systems came back to life.
Rei connected the JFS to the left engine, reset the throttle, and climbed down from the plane to help Lander in. As he was straining under the weight of the man he was boosting up, Rei was struck with an odd thought: where in this body did Lander keep his ideas?
Ideas were invisible. Humanity had brought into being state organizations, national consciousness, religion… You couldn’t see them with your eyes, yet they were certainly real.
But what about machines? Yukikaze was here, like a monster from a dream materialized in the real world. Machines were the material embodiment of ideas springing from human consciousness. Could humanity continue to control the results of its ideas? Or would it be driven insane by them? Perhaps that was what the JAM were trying to do.
There was no time to reflect on it further. He got Lander’s helmet on, secured his oxygen mask, then connected the anti-G hoses, lap belt, and shoulder harness.
Seizing the handgrip, he hung down off of the plane and folded up the boarding ladder. He pulled himself back up and looked into the cockpit. Once he was sure the ladder caution light had gone out, he got in.
Canopy control set to CLOSE. Fire control power, on. Master arm switch set to ON. Left engine ignition, activated. Jet fuel starter, off.
He called back to Lander. “Whatever you do, don’t touch the ECM panel.”
“Got it.”
“Still think this is a secret Faery Base?”
“No, but I’m not giving up keeping an eye on the FAF.”
“Those painkillers look like they’re working for you.”
“Hey, what’s that beeping sound?”
“It’s a warning that an enemy’s been detected.”
“Where?”
Data appeared on the HUD. Gun mode. A motionless target. Range 2,100 meters, bearing three-nine-L. An aboveground installation? He couldn’t tell for sure without visual contact.
“Looks like it’s in the forest. I’m taking it out before we launch. If they stop our engines after takeoff, we’re screwed.”
He nudged the throttle forward. Parking brake, off. When the engine output reached about 80 percent, Yukikaze began to move. Just a slight motion and he could wring out the thrust. They rotated left, coming to a stop with the target dead ahead.
The target designator box appeared on the HUD, although all Rei could see before them was those weird trees.
The stores control display showed RDY GUN, the letters flashing. That was an abnormal sign for it to display, but Rei didn’t think it was malfunctioning. He got the feeling Yukikaze was urging him to shoot the thing, and fast.
The gun line on the cannon was at slightly above horizontal. If he fired now, he would overshoot the target.
Rei stepped on the toe brake and pushed the throttle forward to MIL. Yukikaze’s nose sank as she knelt forward, her front shock absorbers contracting as they held back the terrific forward thrust to keep her stationary.
The target was moving into the aiming reticule. Without a moment’s hesitation, Rei squeezed the trigger. The Vulcan cannon roared, throwing fifty rounds of ammunition at the target in 0.5-second bursts. He kept firing. Yukikaze shook. Before he’d exhausted his ammunition, the machine cannon drive system began flashing an overheat warning. He ignored it and continued to fire.
Ahead of him, flashes of light ran left and right along the forest edge, their centers forming expanding blue white hemispheres. The explosions merged into an intense ball of light, too bright to look at directly.
Cease fire. Check the displays. The standard radar remained silent, but the passive airspace radar detected something.
A bright point appeared in front of the symbol marking their plane’s position. The point became a disc, and then the disc rapidly expanded.
Outside the plane, it was getting brighter and brighter. A line was moving across the display toward the mark indicating the plane. The shock-wave front was sweeping toward them. There was no way to avoid it.
There was a violent impact. The engines stalled.
Yukikaze was in the air. She was in free fall.
The engines automatically restarted.
“Lieutenant? What’s going on?”
“It looks like I’ll be able to get you back on schedule.”
They were in the skies of Faery. It was near sunset. Rei checked his instruments. The warning tone and the HUD display were telling him to pull up, signaling that if he didn’t the system would automatically do so at four Gs. Air intake temperature had risen to nearly 700°C, but it was still running a little cold. Before exceeding an airspeed of 250 knots, he lifted his leg. No abnormalities. The only indication of the extra time they’d spent was on the onboard clock.
“It really was a fairyland,” Lander muttered. “If it wasn’t for this injury, I’d swear it was just a hallucination. I still can’t believe it.”
Rei felt the same way.
THE FAF SEEMED ready to believe that the incident had been real. As a TAF plane escorted them back, Rei told the authorities what had happened. Upon landing, Yukikaze was washed down with enormous amounts of water to neutralize any possible radioactive contamination while Rei and Lander were isolated for biohazard prevention. Lander’s hand was operated on by a surgeon wearing what looked like a space suit for protection. Rei used the copious time he spent in the tiny isolation room to finish up his written report and answer all sorts of questions.
It was three weeks before the two men were let out of the isolation chambers and released from the tedious examinations. They drank a toast, and true to his word, it was on Rei. Afterward, Lander returned to Earth and Rei returned to normal duty.
Rei was subjected to more psychological tests by Dr. Halévy. They were cognition games designed to produce mock abnormal events to tax his mental processes and then gauge his reactions. It seemed nothing more than child’s play to him. Compared to the actual abnormal events he’d just survived, the doctor’s tests seemed positively innocent by comparison, and so Rei played along as best he could out of a curious sympathy. As a result, the tests proceeded well and he was free of them sooner than he had expected.
About a week later, he was eating in the mess hall and thinking about what the hell that yellow swamp was when Major Booker clapped him on the shoulder and sat down next to him, handing over a magazine as he did.
“‘A Report from the Front Lines of Faery,’ by Mr. Andrew Lander. Read it yet?”
“Does he mention me?”
“Not at all, but he wrote a lot of good things about Yukikaze. Aside from that, it’s his usual stuff.”
“I wonder how his injury’s doing.”
“Fine, I suppose. The doctors here are used to trauma like that. But they were mad that you didn’t bring his hand back with you.”
“There was nothing to bring back. It was weird. Everything past his wrist was just gone, like it had evaporated.”
“Yeah, I saw that in your report. I don’t know if I’d believe it if you didn’t have Yukikaze’s data file to back you up. You know how the ADC dealt with it when they lost track of Yukikaze? You’ll love this. They decided their displays were malfunctioning. Even though a plane had just vanished from this world for thirty seconds.”
The Tactical Air Force was smarter in its reactions than the Aerospace Defense Corps. Their tactical computers had picked up Yukikaze the instant she escaped from hyperspace— Yukikaze’s combat data system automatically linked up with the TAF computers—and had dispatched the nearest interceptor to assist them.
“The generally accepted conclusion,” the major said, assuming an air of mock pomposity, “is that you single-handedly assaulted and neutralized an enemy intelligence center. You might get a medal for it. You should be glad.”
“I couldn’t care less.”
“Figured you’d say that.”
“It wasn’t me that did it, anyway. It was Yukikaze.”
Rei thought that the JAM may have been trying to thoroughly examine an Earth combat machine in an attempt to find out how humans thought and maybe even how to remake them. The moment they know that’s impossible, he thought, their tactics will change.
“The JAM haven’t attacked Earth directly yet.”
Booker looked at him like he was crazy. “What, they’re not attacking directly enough for you now?”
“It’s still an indirect invasion. There’s an intense battle that’s moving into an arena we humans can’t perceive. When they lose there, the target of their attacks will change. They’ll definitely go after humans then. That’s what I think, anyway.”
The annihilation of mankind. Would national patriotism or human solidarity help them survive? “Hell no,” Rei muttered. In the end, it would be the machines that would survive. Machines equipped with intelligence and fighting ability.
“I see,” said Booker, with the barest hint of a smile. “Then I suppose we should eat while we still have the chance.”
The major’s tray was an impressive sight today. No doubt he’d won at cards again and had someone else paying for the grand repast, which was in marked contrast to Rei’s modest meal of soup and cornbread.
“Say, Jack, what’s that book?”
Aside from the magazine with Lander’s article in it, Booker had with him a thick hardcover book.
“Oh, this. Mrs. Mead’s Home Cooking Encyclopedia. I’ve gotten into cooking as a hobby lately. What do you think?”
“Knock yourself out,” said Rei, taking a bite of his cornbread. “By the way, where do you think this corn was grown?”
“Haven’t a clue,” answered the major. “Lander would know more about that. You should have asked him.”
The cornbread caught in Rei’s throat, choking him slightly.