Good Luck, Yukikaze

over it. The canopy automatically lowered and locked.

Major Booker quickly moved away from Yukikaze, running back to where Rei sat. When he turned back, panting, Yukikaze had already moved out onto the taxiway.

“Look, Rei,” the major said. “You should be riding in there. Yukikaze’s taking off without you. Doesn’t that bother you?”

The noise of the engine was distant. Yukikaze looked small on the end of the runway. Then, just as soon as you’d noticed that the engine roar had increased, she was tearing savagely down the runway.

She trembled like a wild animal showing its antipathy for being grounded. Then, as if thrusting her rage at the earth beneath her, suddenly she was in the air. Quickly retracting her landing gear, Yukikaze initiated a combat climb.

Major Booker had seen all of this. It was summer at Faery base, with thick clouds hanging overhead. Yukikaze vanished into the cloudbank, leaving only the roar of her mighty engines echoing into the sky.

“Major? Major Booker?”

One of the nurses was calling him. When he turned, Rei’s eyes were open, but his gaze was not in the direction of Yukikaze.

He knows, Major Booker thought fiercely. Rei knows. Once the sound of Yukikaze’s engines had faded, Rei closed his eyes again. But this was a good sign. The major was sure of it.

“We’re going down. To the command center,” he said. “Come on, Rei. Let’s see how Yukikaze fights.”

Major Booker indicated to the nurses to follow, and together with Rei he descended back underground, headed for the SAF command center where Yukikaze’s flight status was being monitored.

4

AT TAB-15, THE the FAF’s tactical air base closest to the front, multiple fighter squadrons were scrambling into the air.

The main attack force consisted of the twelve planes of TAB-15’s 505th Tactical Fighter Squadron, flying Sylphid fighters. They were equipped with a minimum air-to-air weaponry loadout consisting of the plane’s gun and four short-range missiles so that they could carry four large air-to-ground missiles as well. Charged with covering the 505th strike team was the 515th assault group, consisting of seventeen Fand IIs.

Confirming his course, 505th team leader First Lieutenant Gavin Mayle headed straight for the JAM base. The team broke into four groups of three planes each. Normally, they’d fly in one formation, but lately they’d lost three planes, one after another. Their best pilot had been Lieutenant Yagashira. Lieutenant Mayle recognized his skill, but at the same time he felt a bit relieved when Yagashira was transferred out of the unit. The realization of this came to him in a flash as he checked the planes flying to his left and right and thought how Yagashira wasn’t in either of them.

Lieutenant Yagashira was the type of man who tried to fight the JAM single-handed. He was a troublemaker. He was just perfect for the SAF. They’d been the ones who yanked him out of his unit. Well, Lieutenant Mayle thought, I owe the SAF thanks. The guy didn’t understand how to fight as part of a team, or maybe it was just that he didn’t want to understand. You could put it in a favorable light by saying that, in a touch-and-go battle, Lieutenant Yagashira was the kind of guy who did everything he could to fly his plane to protect himself. The problem was that there was a part of Yagashira that liked those touch-and-go battles. There were times that his antics endangered not only the formation but the entire strike group. Nobody in the group wanted to fly with him, no matter how good a Sylph driver the guy was.

Normally, a pilot like that would be reassuring to fly with. When your plane gets into trouble, you’d expect him to come swooping in to cover you. And it was true that Lieutenant Yagashira would do that when the occasion arose. On the other hand, thought Lieutenant Mayle, it was also true that Yagashira was the cause of that trouble on many of those occasions. As far as Lieutenant Yagashira was concerned, he was attacking to destroy the JAM, and it was fine when he sent them crashing to the ground with one blow. The trouble was when the JAM who escaped that blow served up their counterattack, because it was Yagashira’s fellow pilots who would usually end up having to swallow it.

Certainly, Lieutenant Yagashira’s piloting skill was unmatched by anyone else there, but the most important thing for the team was ensuring that they did not lose. Attacking an enemy that could beat you was just foolish.

Nobody wanted to fly with him, and the reason for that was pretty simple: everybody hated him.

Including me, Lieutenant Mayle thought. Yagashira didn’t inspire confidence in other people. He was missing a fundamental part of what allows basic human interaction. Mayle wanted to know what sort of environment he’d grown up in, since Yagashira wasn’t even aware that he lacked basic human kindness.

“I’m so glad he told us how he felt about dogs,” Mayle murmured to himself sarcastically.

One day, the guys had been talking about how much they liked dogs. Lieutenant Yagashira had unexpectedly joined in and, upon hearing that the subject was dogs, had said, “I hate dogs. Let’s talk about cats,” and then started rambling on about them. Nobody was particularly interested, but the lieutenant didn’t notice. It was like he’d forgotten that he was talking to people. If he’d been talking to a computer, it would have been fine, since computers could change subjects without any trouble. In fact, it’d be best if he exclusively interacted with computers. Aboard his plane, the man could work wonders. Once he’d climbed down out of it, he could do everyone a favor by not talking to anyone and especially by not mimicking them. That was really irritating. The man just couldn’t communicate with humans. Hell, you could go so far as to say he wasn’t human, period. Despite that, he wasn’t aware of it and thought of himself as being as human as the rest of them. That was why he was so hard to deal with.

The guy must know that nobody likes him, Lieutenant Mayle thought. But he probably didn’t know why he was so disliked, and he’d probably go to his grave still wondering. The SAF might be able to make use of Yagashira, though. He’d heard that their pilots didn’t mix together much. They were an inhuman group. Truly not human. There, Lieutenant Yagashira probably wouldn’t be liked or disliked. He lived his life dressed in the skin of a human, but the guys in the SAF had stripped themselves of it. If Lieutenant Yagashira realized that, he might understand why people hated him. If he cared, that is.

But no matter where he goes, Lieutenant Mayle thought, that guy will never change. The guys in the SAF wouldn’t want to be friends with him. It would be okay if he’d then just keep quiet and withdraw from his comrades, but since Lieutenant Yagashira thought of himself as human, he wouldn’t do that. When he tried to make friends they’d grow irritated with him. Visibly. And when the SAF pilots got irritated, the lieutenant would probably hate them for it.

Before they got irritated though, the SAF pilots would likely just tell him, “We don’t want to have anything to do with you,” but the lieutenant probably still wouldn’t get it. He’d try to “act human.” A truly human response would be to respect a request of “Leave me alone,” but Yagashira wouldn’t get it. The SAF will eventually figure out his true nature, Mayle thought. Maybe they’d grabbed him from his unit because they knew. Maybe they were confident that he could be used as a perfect combat machine. A man who would be an asset in the war against the JAM.

Lately, the number of people like Yagashira was increasing, thought Lieutenant Mayle. Well, he’s somebody else’s problem now. The guy probably couldn’t care less about his old unit, and here I am still thinking about him, and no way does that make any sense. I hope the JAM kill that guy soon, the lieutenant thought.

Nobody said it out loud, but everybody thought that. The time that Yagashira’s plane had been shot down, Mayle’s plane had been the one in the covering position. Yagashira’s plane had two JAM fighters on its tail, and he was in a high-G turn trying to shake them loose. I can handle one JAM fighter, he’d probably thought. Mayle had understood at once that Yagashira wanted him to take care of the one on the starboard side, so he’d put his plane on a course to allow Mayle to easily attack it. Lieutenant Mayle had understood that. It was a precise decision, made with lightning speed. Ingenious. Like a trap sprung with mechanical precision on the two JAM fighters. In hindsight, Mayle agreed with the plan, but at the time, he didn’t.

Lieutenant Mayle’s covering fire had been an instant too late. Yagashira’s plane is going to get it, he’d thought in a rush. Come on, kill him! It was stupid to think that that