“Yeah, and get buried in a ton of miscellaneous crap.”
“Being a captain might be the best position for you, but someone with higher rank can still get in your way. The smart move would be to leave when you get the chance.”
“I have Yukikaze here. I’m not going to retire.”
“Figured you’d say that,” the major said with a nod. “I’ll talk to the higher-ups and try to negotiate a temporary leave for you. You’re going to come back here, no matter what, because Yukikaze’s here.”
Rei looked up at Yukikaze, his face expressionless.
Her airframe carried an air of menace. She was a modified FRX99, a plane developed as an unmanned fighter. Compared to the Super Sylphs on either side of her, there was no softness to the design at all.
“She... she looks like a JAM fighter.”
“Because they borrowed the good points of their planes in the design,” Booker explained. “I realized that too. When you just come out and say it, it sounds awful, huh? The JAM planes don’t have cockpits, but we added that onto this design. It’s built to be piloted by humans, but it was designed to be unmanned. She can pull maneuvers that can kill her crew.”
Yukikaze was no longer the FRX00 prototype. As their new tactical combat electronic surveillance plane, she’d been given an official name: the FFR41, nicknamed “Maeve” after the goddess who ruled the wind fairies.
“A pretty wild goddess, this one. It’d be dangerous to piss her off. Even on a Super Sylph, it’s the human pilot who chooses to fly it. This one leaves that all behind. Not just any person can fly her. You’re necessary, Rei. Make sure you come back here, because I don’t want to lose you either.”
Rei silently stroked Yukikaze’s fuselage. Her body felt warm.
While Rei had been making the rounds to his various debriefings, Yukikaze had flown a mission unmanned, one determined to be simple as far as SAF operations went and not a problem for a pilotless plane. Major Booker had thought it was dangerous to have Yukikaze fully exhibit her new abilities without Rei in the cockpit. The likelihood was steadily increasing that she could behave in wholly unexpected ways while in flight, and they’d need a crewman aboard to find out why. Moreover, Rei would probably be the only one who could completely understand her, and Rei knew that perfectly well. Even so, he wanted to leave the battlefield, to leave Yukikaze, and try to find himself.
“Make the arrangements for me to go back to Earth,” Rei said. “I’m counting on you, Jack.”
“Gotcha,” the major answered, and said nothing more.
AS MAJOR BOOKER had expected, the Faery Air Force authorities didn’t okay Rei’s leaving. The FAF didn’t want him to retire, the major told Rei, who’d been waiting for Booker’s return in the major’s office. And even if he reenlisted, he went on, they’d probably delay his request for temporary leave with the review process. It’d be a minimum of a month’s wait.
“And if we spent a month arguing it, they probably still wouldn’t grant my request, would they?” Rei answered.
“That’s correct, Lieutenant Fukai,” said the man Rei had never seen before.
“Rei, let me introduce you. This is Mr. Chang Pollack, international attorney. He’s here to help us.”
“A lawyer,” Rei replied. “So essentially I’m still a criminal. I’d actually forgotten that I agreed to come here instead of serving time in a Japanese prison.”
“That’s only until you retire from the Faery Air Force,” Pollack said. “You already agreed once before to extend your service here and became a second lieutenant as a result. The moment you did that, you gave up your right to be discharged. That’s why you’re not just being automatically discharged this time around. In order to retire from service, you’ll need to make a formal request. If you choose to extend your contract, your situation won’t change. You were handed down an indefinite sentence, after all.”
Since Rei had never thought of returning to Earth until now, he’d never considered the difference between discharge and retirement.
“In this case,” the lawyer continued, “I’d recommend applying for retirement. You haven’t given up that right. Even though the FAF can try and pressure you to abandon the case, they have no right to just quash a request for it. If you do that, you’ll be free of them. As far as the nation of Japan is concerned, you’ll have fulfilled your debt to society. You’ll be a free citizen once again, with all of your rights restored, including the right to receive help from your government.”
“I think that’s a good deal,” Major Booker said. “When you get back, you can do whatever you want. People who choose to enlist here are automatically given the rank of second lieutenant. In your case, you’d probably make captain.”
“I don’t like it,” Rei said.
“What?” Pollack asked.
“Any of it,” Rei said. “I’m a human being, and I want to return to Earth as a regular human. I couldn’t care less about organizations or some country called Japan.”
“Even so —”
“I understand how you feel,” the major said, cutting in. “But the reality of the situation is that you aren’t just a single, independent human being. You have to make a choice. If you get leave as an FAF soldier, you’ll be bound by military regulations. They’ll control where you can go and who you can see.”
“They’ll be spying on me?”
“On the other hand, you’ll have the FAF as a powerful ally, backing you up. It’s not all bad. Nobody would be able to lay a finger on you, even if you had an entire nation as your enemy. Although the same could be said if you became a civilian. If you retired and the FAF still tried to control you, you could request that the Japanese government assist you.”
“I can’t depend on anyone there,” Rei protested.
“You’ve got me,” Pollack said. “I work to protect the rights of people like you.”
“Would the JAM say something like that?” Rei asked. “Only humans talk about things like ‘rights.’ The JAM don’t play that game. They’re my enemy, and the only person I can depend on in fighting them is myself, except now, I... Dammit, I don’t want to die at their hands the way I am now!”
“Lieutenant Rei Fukai, apply for retirement,” Major Booker said firmly. “Then go and get your head together. This isn’t a problem you can solve by yourself. Having you dicking around here being unsure of everything is just going to make my life difficult. I don’t care how you settle it, just settle it.”
“Just sign these papers,” said Pollack, holding out a pen. Rei took it and signed several pages.
“Good,” said Major Booker with a nod. “This is the only way you can go back. Once you sign these, no matter what the FAF brass says, in three days, you’ll be free. Assuming you live that long.”
“You’re saying they’ll try and kill me?”
“It’s possible,” Booker said. “There’ve already been moves to get you away from the SAF. Our organization is big enough that I think we can protect you for three days. General Cooley doesn’t want to lose you either, and she’s been fighting it too.”
“If you should be killed, your signature is still valid,” Pollack said. “Your honor will be protected. I’ll take care of those for you.”
“I’m not giving these papers to you,” Rei said.
“Major Booker is still a member of the SAF, Lieutenant. You can’t be certain that he won’t rewrite them or try something else. I don’t trust him. You’ll have to trust me.”
“I said I’m not giving these papers to anyone else. I’m going to walk them over to the administration office and hand them in myself.”
“Have it your way,” Pollack said with a shrug. He left the office, not looking particularly disappointed.
“Is he trustworthy, Jack?”
“For what he’s charging, he’d better be. I took it out of your future pay, so you’ll need to work off that debt.
