Yukikaze

“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.

II NEVER QUESTION THE VALUE OF A KNIGHT

He didn’t believe Earth was something worth risking his life to protect. When others, especially those who felt passionate about its defense, would discover this, they would usually accuse him of possessing exactly the kind of negative attitude that would lead to the planet’s destruction. To which he would simply reply, “So what?”

EARTH HAD BEEN fighting the JAM for thirty long years. Rei Fukai couldn’t imagine a reality without them. The war had already begun by the time he was born, and he had been raised in a world where the existence of the Earth Defense Force was a mundane fact of life. So much so, in fact, that back then he never seriously thought about the war itself, nor wondered about its origins or its significance. Since the battle was being fought not on Earth, but on the planet Faery, the staging ground for the JAM’s attempted invasion, and since the JAM’s military might was not far superior to that of humanity’s, it hadn’t affected his day-to-day life in any significant manner. And so he’d had no reason to consider it.

Now, Rei was a soldier. He had passed through the enormous, white, spindle-shaped cloud at the South Pole that enveloped the hyperspace corridor connecting Earth to Faery and had arrived at the front lines of battle. But despite this, despite having experienced the war with the JAM firsthand, and despite having access to reams of