assist you. Major Booker will give you the details. Dismissed.”
“Understood.” He snapped a salute.
He left Cooley’s office and went to Major Booker. Upon seeing Rei, the major shrugged his shoulders and said he sympathized.
“You probably said something to piss off General Wrinkles again, Rei.”
“Apparently I piss her off just by standing there in front of her. It’s not my fault.”
Booker sighed. “Just please don’t make her any madder than usual. Please. Any shit you dish out ends up being served back to me.”
“Come on, it’s not like you’re getting shot at.”
“The JAM you can dodge. The general, there’s no escape from.”
Booker gathered up some papers, shuffled through them, then slapped them down on the desk again.
“Strange incident, though. She told you about it, right?”
“If it’s such a big deal, why am I getting tagged with the investigation?”
“There’re reasons, which she would’ve explained to you — if she felt like it. Rei, don’t misunderstand: the FAF isn’t a business and we aren’t employees. It’s an air force, and it’s run on orders, not complaints. Orders that run from the top to the bottom. It doesn’t work in the other direction. An army can’t be run from the bottom.”
“Yeah, I know. But Jack, why is she always so mad at me? What should I do?”
“A beaten dog will still obey you... as long as it doesn’t get too big to control.”
“Right. So is Earth beating the JAM? Or is it the other way around?”
“I fail to see the humor, Lieutenant.”
They left Booker’s office and went into the SAF briefing room. The major switched on the wall display and pulled up some radar imagery.
“This is Banshee-IV. It’s maintaining its usual course even though no one’s aboard. Actually, we don’t know that for sure. Someone may be aboard.”
“Where’s this imagery from? An ADC recon plane?”
“No,” replied the major as he filled his coffee cup. “This is real-time data from Boomerang Unit 6, Minx. They’re using our proprietary SSL encryption to transmit. The reason why is that the FAF brass have begun a confidential investigation. They’re grilling Banshee’s crew for information and keeping the guys from the fighter squadron canned up like Spam. They hope that it’s the JAM that caused this. The second-best scenario would be a mechanical failure, which would be more serious but still relatively simple to deal with. But if it’s neither, if this incident was caused by someone from Earth, then it’s not just the FAF’s problem anymore.”
“And it would be a pretty damn good justification for a fight between the FAF and Earth. How pissed off would the general be if I said that?”
“Rei, please. You go around staying stuff like that and FAF Intelligence’ll have your arse in the stockade in a heartbeat. The FAF’s duty is to protect Earth from the JAM, but it has to protect itself as well. There are a lot of people on Earth lately who’re saying the FAF isn’t necessary, and Intelligence has to counter that.”
“Counter it without anyone noticing they’re countering it.”
“Exactly. They can’t be obvious about it. People on Earth are so far removed from the battlefield that they don’t understand how bad the JAM really are. Some are even wondering if the FAF
Rei turned the coffee cup the major gave him around in his hand. “They think the FAF have created the JAM, you mean? What do you think about that, Jack?”
The major shut off the display and sat down. “I’ve definitely noticed a change in the JAM’s behavior between now and the time when I was a fighter pilot.”
“As in, they’re not as openly aggressive as they used to be?” Rei asked. “The JAM are altering their strategy, Jack. I think the threat now is higher than it used to be. The fact that there are now people saying the FAF isn’t necessary is proof that their invasion has advanced. If the JAM were a mirage created by the FAF, they wouldn’t be using that strategy.” Rei sipped his coffee. “But it doesn’t really matter to me. I’m a grunt. I just gotta follow orders. Right, Major?”
“You say ‘It doesn’t matter’ an awful lot lately for someone so talkative, you know.”
“The JAM are a powerful enemy. I’ve finally come to understand that, but that’s all I understand. If Lynn Jackson had spent time here, she probably wouldn’t have written such an optimistic book.”
“That’s possible,” said Major Booker, nodding. “She needs to write a follow-up. But I doubt she ever will. Back on Earth they just don’t understand how much of a threat the JAM is. It’s frightening.”
“I’ll leave that to the Intelligence forces to handle. We aren’t intelligence operators. We’re soldiers.”
“You got that right.”
Booker worked the display controls and brought up data on Banshee-IV. “You’re going to land on this thing with Yukikaze. You don’t need to worry about being attacked. We’ve confirmed that Banshee’s exhausted all her weaponry. I want you to find out what’s happened on board. Yukikaze is being installed with a special-purpose landing system as we speak, so it should be easy for you.” The major gestured toward the glass wall of the briefing room that overlooked the maintenance floor. Yukikaze was being towed out.
“So it’s going to be kind of like a carrier landing? I thought they had to extend a hook from Banshee to recover its fighters.”
“That’s what they did in the old days, back in the age of airships when they’d have the planes hanging beneath the carrier. But times have changed. Any plane can land on Banshee, and it’s been designed to take on aircraft making emergency landings. Special equipment isn’t necessary. You should be able to land there with just a standard arresting hook, but we’re still installing an automatic carrier landing system. It’s nothing fancy, just modifying the avionics software a bit. And to be safe, we’re fitting six wire anchor launchers along her underside as well.”
Major Booker suggested that they test them out, so he and Rei went down to the maintenance floor. After the mechanics gave them the thumbs-up, Rei got into Yukikaze’s cockpit while the major settled into the rear seat. The mechanics removed the external ladder and moved away from the plane.
“Rei, look at your arresting hook control panel. There should be an AUX control switch. That should trigger the launchers for the wire anchors. Give it a try.”
Rei turned the switch. With a loud
“Normally, you wouldn’t need this because the plane would be caught by the arresting cables. There’s a self-propelled, robotic spotting dolly on Banshee’s deck. It keeps the plane’s attitude correct and shuttles the launch bar back, but we don’t know if it’s working. If it isn’t, the aircraft stowage elevator may not be working, either.” Booker climbed out of the plane.
“If it isn’t,” Rei said as he followed the major down, “Yukikaze will be stuck on Banshee’s deck. I won’t exactly be able get out and stroll around out there. The thing is flying, after all.”
“It’s moving at less than 120 knots, but yeah, it’d be certain suicide if you tried it.”
“Even if I wasn’t blown off I probably wouldn’t even be able to breathe because of the wind pressure.”
“Don’t worry. I’ve got an idea.”
“It better be a good one, Jack. If I go rolling off of there, ‘Oops, sorry’ isn’t gonna cut it.”
“You’ve had wind tunnel resistance training, right? Relax. Leave it to me.”
Rei followed the major across the maintenance floor and into the personnel elevator.
“We have another place to go?”
“I want to introduce you to your partner. His name’s Tom John, from the Systems Corps. Everyone calls him “Tomahawk.” I think his real first name may be Thomas, but I’m not sure. What I do know for sure is that he’s a genius at avionics.”
“Tomahawk? He’s an Indian?”
“Yeah. They say he’s a genuine Native American. Think he was born in Canada.”
They entered the SAF mission control room. It was a highceilinged chamber, its walls filled with battle progress displays crowded with code letters and data transmitted from the Tactical Air Force’s GHQ.
Tom John was drinking coffee and chatting with a female operator. Seeing Major Booker, he put the cup
