Good Luck, Yukikaze

GOOD LUCK, YUKIKAZE

© 2001 Chohei Kambayashi

Originally published in Japan by Hayakawa Publishing, Inc.

All rights reserved.

Cover illustration by Shoji Hasegawa

English translation © 2011 VIZ Media, LLC

No portion of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without written permission form the copyright holders.

HAIKASORU

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VIZ Media, LLC

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San Francisco, CA 94133

www.haikasoru.com

ISBN 978-1-4215-4235-5

Haikasoru eBook Edition

“I am that I am.”

CHARACTERS APPEARING

First Lieutenant Rei Fukai

Yukikaze’s pilot; later promoted to captain

Major James Booker

FAF Special Air Force mission sortie manager

Brigadier General Lydia Cooley

Deputy commander of the FAF Special Air Force

Second Lieutenant Burgadish

Flight officer of the old Yukikaze

Second Lieutenant Yagashira

Pilot of SAF Unit 13

First Lieutenant Gavin Mayle

TAB-15 505th Tactical Fighter Squadron leader

Captain Edith Foss

Military doctor in charge of Rei’s rehabilitation

First Lieutenant Vincent Bruys

Pilot of SAF Unit 7

Lieutenant General Gibril Laitume

Commander of Faery Base’s Tactical Combat Air Corps

Colonel Ansel Rombert

An influential man in the FAF Intelligence Forces

Second Lieutenant Akira Katsuragi

Yukikaze’s new flight officer

Lynn Jackson

A journalist from Earth

A Letter from the FAF Special Air Force Lynn Jackson, from notes on her sequel to The Invader

I WONDER HOW many people nowadays have a palpable sense that Earth is under attack by the aliens we know as the JAM. It seems to me that the typical Earther now lives his life thinking that the JAM threat has nothing to do with him. You might even go so far as to say that people living their ordinary lives have forgotten about it completely.

The JAM threat, and even the existence of the JAM themselves, doesn’t enter into the consciousness of most people. That’s probably because they can put it out of their minds and still live their lives without disruption.

That could be taken as evidence that the group structures that we as individuals belong to — towns and states and nations and so forth — are somehow still functioning well. But it would be foolish to think that we can relax and expect this state of affairs to continue indefinitely. Even nations have a limited life span. The possibility is great that these invaders called the JAM are shortening them.

What I want to do is warn people of this.

In our Earthbound disputes between groups here, there is a margin for compromise, for striking cease-fire agreements. But I’d like you to think about trying to do that with the JAM. The JAM are an alien life-form, possessing completely different values from those of humanity. Negotiations with them may be impossible. All we can do is keep fighting and never stop. The sacrifices our task demands are enormous, but if we ease up, we’ll lose.

IN MY LAST book, The Invader, I wrote that when the JAM drove the huge spindle-shaped cloud into the Ross Ice Shelf in Antarctica thirty years ago and from there flew forth to begin their invasion of our world through the hyperspace Passageway, it was a golden opportunity for humanity to transcend their membership in squabbling tribes and nations and to truly become “Earthers.” I also wrote that it still wasn’t too late to achieve this. But the truth is that we failed.

On Earth now, there is no transnational organization that unites the people of the world. As always, we exist simply as mutually antagonistic groups of nations, economic blocs, religions, and peoples, and in truth there is no organizational level existing above them. I wrote in my last book that such a state of affairs demonstrates that we people of Earth see the alien invaders as just another nation, religion, or people. I still don’t think that this belief is necessarily incorrect, but I now believe there’s a different reason for its persistence.

In short, I think it’s because we were not able to find a strong leader who could transcend all the political,