Yukikaze

“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