“I didn’t mean any offense, Captain, sir.”
Rei took his right hand off the side stick and saluted.
“Keep your eyes on the road, Lieutenant.”
“We’re fine. I trust Yukikaze.”
“I trust your skill. I know the Super Sylph demands advanced piloting skills.”
“We’re nearly there. I’m switching on the armament control system. Prepare for combat.”
“Roger.”
Five minutes passed with neither of them speaking. Suddenly, an emergency transmission came in: PAN, PAN, PAN. DE FTNS. CODE U, U, U. AR.
“It’s from the tactical nav support satellite. ‘Your plane is drawing dangerously close. Change course.’ It’s weird to see that when we’re not closing in on an enemy. Respond to the IFF code.”
“Roger.”
After Yukikaze’s identity was confirmed, Banshee-IV’s exact position was sent to them in real time. A short time later, the carrier appeared on Yukikaze’s active radar as well. They began their descent.
“Call Banshee for landing clearance.”
The IFF was operating. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary. Banshee confirmed Yukikaze’s side number and granted them landing clearance. Arresting hook, down.
“What’s the deal? There’s nothing weird at all here. Maybe those Banshee pilots were having a mass hallucination.”
They passed the marshal point. Range forty kilometers. Relative altitude from Banshee 1,500 meters. The carrier’s automatic precision guidance system was operating.
Autopilot, off. ACLS, set. Auto-throttle, set. Fuel level, weight, tank distribution, and center of gravity, check.
They passed through the 30-kilometer gate. Speed 200 knots.
Landing gear and flaps, down. Anti-skid brake controller, off. Speed brake, extended.
They passed through the 10-kilometer gate. Relative altitude 300 meters. Banshee-IV came into view.
“Jesus, that thing’s huge. It’s so big, it’s kind of unsettling.”
“It says to use Fly 3 for landing.”
Banshee’s flight decks were designated as Fly 1, 2, and 3. Fly 3 was used exclusively for landings.
“I’ve got a bad feeling about this. Don’t you think they’re being way too accommodating?”
They received the cue to begin their descent. They fell at a rate of 18 meters per minute and soon crossed the glide slope. The carrier’s landing guidance system meatball was now in sight.
“001, Sylph, meatball,” Rei called in.
The target designator on his HUD had now captured Banshee. As they approached, the carrier loomed larger and larger. The TD indicated part of Banshee’s starboard side, then suddenly jumped to the left: the target was so large that the system couldn’t capture the entire thing at once.
“Executing manual approach.”
“Why?” asked Tom. “You can use the ACLS.”
“Didn’t you say you trusted my skill?”
Rei cut off the approach power compensator. The auto-throttle caution light lit. Auto-throttle, off. Throttle mode to BOOST. He deactivated the ACLS and direct lift control systems.
Throttle to MAX. Lineup and elevation check. He was on approach now, taking care not to stray off of the glide slope. They passed over the landing threshold of Banshee-IV’s flight deck. Yukikaze executed a break turn and veered off to the port side of the carrier to get into the one-eighty position for landing. A head-up call came from Banshee.
“Nice of them to guide me in like this.”
“Let’s just land this thing, Lieutenant.”
“It’s the JAM. It’s gotta be. They want to take Yukikaze. They want to capture a Super Sylph.”
“That’s just speculation. We need proof. Isn’t that why we came here?”
“It is. But we’re not gonna land on Fly 3. I’m bringing us down on the aircraft stowage elevator.”
“Can you do that?”
“Yeah. I don’t want Yukikaze being restrained by Banshee.”
They entered final approach, moving away from the center indicated by the meatball. Yukikaze drew near the main elevator at the edge of the deck. Working the pitch control, Rei slowed his plane to match Banshee’s airspeed, managing to keep her roughly level despite the poor conditions caused by the wild air currents.
They fell slowly to the deck. Touchdown. For a second it seemed like they were going to bolter, and Rei broke out in a cold sweat. He worked the engine output control and flaps so that the counter airflow forced Yukikaze down. Success. They were on the elevator. Rei fired the wire anchors fixed to the fuselage, and the heads punched into the deck. The spotting dolly standing by approached and moved onto the elevator deck, its emergency light flashing red. The elevator began to descend.
Engines, off. Rei unhooked his harness and drew his service pistol from his vest. He checked the indicator pin to make sure that a round was chambered, then bent forward and pulled out the survival gun stowed under his seat.
The elevator came to a stop. A sliding bulkhead sealed off the egress above them. Rei popped the canopy open, then jumped down from Yukikaze, machine gun in hand, and opened fire on the dolly. The robot, which had been readying to tow Yukikaze into the hangar, exploded in a shower of sparks and fell silent. A burning smell hung in the air.
“Okay, you can come down now, Tom. We’ve got a job to do.”
It was dark inside the cavernous hangar. Only the emergency lights were on. Normally, the space would have been filled with carrier-based aircraft packed closely together with their wings folded up, but now it was deserted and seemed oddly huge. In the midst of the expanse there was only Yukikaze, her wings spread atop the elevator floor, looking like an animal pricking up its ears as it strained to listen for a predator.
“Why’d you shoot the spotting dolly?” asked Tomahawk as he climbed down from Yukikaze, a small all- purpose system analyzer in his hand. “Aren’t you being a little overcautious?”
“We should consider this place a JAM base. So watch your step. We don’t know what might come at us. This may be our chance to gather some intel, but it’d be worthless if we don’t make it back alive.”
“You’re thinking we could be the first humans to come into contact with an actual JAM?”
“We have no idea what form the JAM really possess. We assume they’ve been hiding from us and that they’ve never appeared in front of a human. That’s Lynn Jackson’s opinion, but I have a feeling that may be wrong. I wonder if it’s not that they won’t appear to humans, but that humans aren’t able to sense them.”
“Like spirits, you mean?”
“Maybe, maybe not. There’s also the possibility that we look at them without actually seeing them. We see JAM fighters, and we have no doubts that there are JAM inside of them or, even if there aren’t, that they were made by JAM ‘people.’ We don’t consider the possibility that the fighters may be the JAM themselves because that’s just too strange to us. The JAM also seem to be perplexed by the existence of these ‘humans’ they observe. Maybe they’re wondering, ‘What are those organic things attached to the fighters? What are they doing, wandering around on their own? Well, they seem harmless enough, so just ignore them.’ You can practically hear them saying it.”
“No way.”
Rei shrugged. “Let’s get going. We’ll leave Yukikaze’s ECM armament running. As soon as the secondary power supply runs out, we’re out of here, okay?”
“We could leave the engines running — ”
“We can’t assume the exhaust will be vented out of here. We’ll end up croaking from carbon monoxide poisoning. Major Booker beefed up the auxiliary power, so we should have an hour.”
“Just one hour?”
“Personally, I’d like to get the hell out of here right now.”
Rei adjusted his grip on the machine gun.
The ventilation system in the hangar wasn’t operating. It was quiet. There were no vibrations. It almost seemed like they weren’t even flying. Rei urged Tomahawk onward as they headed for Banshee’s bridge. They
