Yukikaze

He sighed and listened to the rhythmic thump of the windshield wipers, the crackling static of snow beating against the grader, and the whistle of cold air blowing through a gap in the door frame. Needles of snow were driving through the gap, gradually forming a soft pile at Amata’s feet. He took off his gloves and bent over to try and fix the door. A thick layer of ice had crusted over its bottom edge, and he clicked his tongue in annoyance when he saw the problem: some of the insulation had been improperly installed. The cold outside air was causing moisture to condense inside of the door panel, drip down, and then freeze at the bottom. Amata scraped at the ice with his fingernails, wondering if the warmth of his hands might be enough to melt it. His fingers turned red, then began to go purplish from the cold. He finally gave up, tried blowing on his now numb hands to warm them, and held them over the windshield defroster. They were stiff and senseless. He couldn’t even tell if they were cold anymore.

The lieutenant tried to remember when the door had been bent and knocked his legs together to make sure that all feeling hadn’t been completely lost from his seemingly frozen lower extremities. He sourly eyed the little stream of snow as it came in through the gap. So, when had the door been bent? Oh, yeah. The day before yesterday, during a furious snowstorm, he’d lightly bumped the machine driven by his coworker. At least the storm today was better than the one a couple of days ago. Visibility wasn’t zero: he could actually see five or six meters ahead.

His hands gradually regained sensation. His skin hurt as though it’d been flayed off. He put his hands back into the gloves he’d warmed on the defroster. The windshield had now fogged up and was pure white. He wiped at it with the shell of his glove. It didn’t change the view much. Just white. If he stared at it for long, it almost became mesmerizing. The snow danced and whirled before him, seeming to invite him out into the storm. God, it’s cold. Amata wrapped his arms around his chest and rubbed his sides. If he didn’t keep moving, he’d probably freeze.

Suddenly, the grader’s engine rumbled to life; its automatic ignition system had activated. Even the truck’s scared of the cold, he thought with a bitter smile. He wondered why they even bothered to build an energy conservation system into it. Two seconds of flight in a jet fighter probably used up more fuel than idling a snowplow on standby for an hour. He wished they’d let him just run the damn thing while he was waiting so he could get some heat out of the defroster.

The driver’s seat shook with the vibration of the engine. It didn’t warm things up much. Amata reached into his back pocket and pulled out his own fuel: a pocket flask of whiskey. Just a little nip to warm himself up. Through the limited space cleared by the windshield wipers, he could faintly make out the machines of his coworkers, the rotating lights on their rooftops visible as hazy amber globes in the white.

The whiskey burned his throat. Cheap stuff. The heat of the alcohol in his stomach began to spread to his limbs. It was the only thing that kept him warm, that made the duty out here bearable. He’d be damned if he was going to give it up because of some idiotic regulation.

How long did they expect him to wait? As he hitched himself forward and returned the whiskey to his back pocket, he pressed his face to the window and peered outside. The last plane of the 167th Tactical Fighter Squadron had not yet returned. Probably flying somewhere above the storm and taking his sweet time. Lieutenant Amata pounded his fists together, trying to return some feeling to them. Obviously command was fine with them all just freezing to death waiting for that last plane to come in.

He could see a figure on runway 03R, the one used exclusively for landing aircraft. Probably a hook runner, poor bastard. In wintertime, because of the icy runway conditions, the fighters would land using arresting hooks, as they would on an aircraft carrier. The arresting cable and its support gear were laid out over the runway now, waiting for the last 167th plane, which meant that Amata and his unit couldn’t plow over it. While they sat there watching, the snow continued to pile up. If they left it for very much longer, the arresting cable wouldn’t be able to lift up because of the weight of the accumulated snow.

In general, though, clearing snow from landing runways was an easy job. Even if a grader broke one of the huge landing lights on the sides of the runway, it wasn’t a big deal. Takeoff runways, however, were a pain, since even in weather like this takeoffs were done the usual way, not by catapult launch. To ensure they went smoothly, with no resistance from the snow, the maintenance units had to plow the runways if the snow accumulation exceeded three centimeters. They couldn’t use ice melt compound or sand, since the substances could get sucked into the fighters’ air intakes and damage the engines.

Lieutenant Amata scraped up the snow on the cabin floor with his boots and tramped it into the gap in the door. Then, as though mocking him, as though it were the funniest thing in the world, a sudden squall popped the clod of snow out of the gap, and a fresh blast of icy wind gusted in and danced around the driver’s seat. The tiny particles of ice melted in the relative warmth of the cabin air, and soon the lieutenant’s upper body was soaked with cold mist.

“Shit! Shit! Shit! Just land already, you piece of crap plane! Are you trying to make me freeze to death here?!”

Some of the mist condensed on the interior of the cab roof and dripped onto the back of his neck and down his back. It was so cold it almost felt like it was scalding him. Another icy blast blew in from the gap in the door. Amata rubbed at his side. It was aching so badly he could cry. It had been for a while now. His liver was probably wrecked. Or maybe it was his gall bladder. The military doctor hadn’t told him anything except that if he didn’t give up the booze, he’d die. Maybe it’s cancer, Amata thought. He’d ignored the doctor’s advice to skip hospitalization and treatment on Faery and just return to Earth. The only thing waiting for him there was either prison or a detox facility. For an offender like him, no place else on Earth offered the freedom that Faery did. The FAF command knew that well and used him and all the others like him for as long as their bodies held out. A man’s body was just one more expendable resource. They could always get more human garbage from Earth.

The fact that sitting here shivering in the freezing cold was better than whatever awaited him on Earth was so pathetic it forced a bark of a laugh from Amata. His life was a four-part litany of booze, women, brawls, and lock-ups. Even he could see how he was going to die. He knew the alcohol had taken over his life, but he was still honest enough with himself to know that he couldn’t blame it for everything. Other people always said that when sympathizing with him, but his life still would’ve been royally screwed up even without the alcohol. And what the hell was a non-screwed up life, anyway? Was there even such a thing? I didn’t have any other choices than the ones that I made, he thought. When you’re trapped on all sides with no other options, you walk the only path that’s open to you.

Most people thought he was just irresponsible, that he was just drowning himself in the bottle. But given the life that he’d led, if he hadn’t turned to escape through the booze, that would’ve been it. The End. People back on Earth would tell him to straighten up and fly right, but they may as well have been telling him to put a gun in his mouth and pull the trigger. He didn’t want to go back to that. If he was still alive in the spring, when his tour of duty was up, he’d apply to have it extended. Better that than being driven to suicide.

His brooding was interrupted by the sound of distant thunder. He looked up. At long last, it had returned: the last plane of the 167th TFS. As it approached the roar of its engines gradually drowned out the howling of the storm. Suddenly, the shape of a giant bird appeared out of the whiteness, followed by the sound of an arrester hook snagging the cable. The fighter shook the ground as its wheels made contact with the runway. The hook runner ran out to unhook the cable from the arrester. The ground guide signaled the pilot with powerful flashlights, moving them quickly from belly level to chest: Raise hook. He then lifted his left arm and swept it in a large circle to the left: Proceed to taxiway.

Finally, Amata could do his job. He cut off the intermittent starter and stepped on the accelerator, revving the engine as the black fighter taxied right by him. The metallic whine of its jets grew distant, and he readied himself to get to work. But just as he stepped on the grader’s heavy clutch, he saw someone running toward him. He took his foot off the clutch. The figure made a beeline for the cabin, banged once on the door, then opened it without asking. Icy wind blew into the cabin full force.

“What?!” shouted Amata.

“The de-icer on the gear’s broken down,” the man shouted. He was covered with snow and ice from head to foot. “The storage trench is buried in snow, so we can’t get the arresting gear back into it.”

“Hurry up and close my goddamned door!” Lieutenant Amata shouted back.

“Fine,” the man said. “Just take care of it. You know what to do.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Clear the snow without breaking the gear, okay?”