Good Luck, Yukikaze

there.

IDs were checked prior to boarding. The note on Rei’s passport that he was retired from service and was no longer a Faery soldier was checked and verified by a crewman, who then demanded that everyone except those in uniform present their boarding passes. You paid your own way home, although there were no first class seats on this plane.

The shuttle plane’s pilot seemed like a veteran. Without any hesitation, he entered the hyperspace Passageway in the cloud pillar from the proper course and altitude. The plane emerged on the Earth side with barely any turbulence. When the clouds cleared, they were greeted by the sight of the Antarctic skies spreading out around them. One of the seating rows broke out in cheers. The blood red river of the Bloody Road was nowhere to be seen in Earth’s skies. I’m home, thought Rei.

REI WAS RELEASED in Sydney, Australia.

Lynn Jackson was waiting for him. The author of The Invader, which dealt with the JAM threat, she had never lost interest in the JAM or the Faery Air Force. She greeted the man returning from Faery — who knew the JAM so well — the way she might an acquaintance she hadn’t seen in a decade. Rei had met her once before, though they hadn’t spoken. She seemed a little older, but her eyes still held their intelligent sparkle.

“Welcome home, Lieutenant Fukai. Congratulations on making it out alive,” she said as she fell into step with Rei at the airport exit.

“What’s the deal?” Rei said. “You gonna follow me everywhere I go?”

“Major Booker asked me to help you out. Do you remember me?”

“Yeah.”

“So, what are your plans? What do you want to do?”

“Travel around the world.”

“You mean until you feel like going back to your homeland?” she asked.

“None of your business.”

“Isn’t it? Lieutenant Fukai, don’t you think you have an obligation to tell all of humanity about the JAM?”

“I’m back here because I’ve fulfilled all my obligations. If you want to know about the JAM, enlist and go to the front yourself.”

“Participating in a war means losing your objectivity.”

“If being human means believing there’s a fair, balanced, and objective position to take on the JAM, then I guess I’m not human. I couldn’t live as a human.”

“In a way, you may be right, Lieutenant, but as for me —”

“I’m not a lieutenant anymore.”

“Does that mean you have no intention of returning to Faery?”

“No comment.”

Amidst the whirlpool of noise and color in the bustling airport, Rei was starting to feel a little seasick.

“Even though we’re alike?”

“Alike how?”

Lynn dropped the professional tone from her voice. “It’s true that there are all sorts of things I want to ask about. You and I both appreciate the threat the JAM pose. We don’t know what they’re after, but if we try to perceive them objectively, human sense and common sense become unreliable. I agree with what you said about not being able to live as a human. That’s you now, isn’t it? That’s how it is for you.”

“Well, if I’m not human, then what am I?” Rei asked as he stopped midstride.

Lynn Jackson looked Rei straight in the eye and answered without any hesitation. “A Faerian.”

“An alien, you mean?”

“Yes, exactly. So, as an alien who’s come to Earth to sightsee, you’ll need to hire a guide. You’re ignorant of human customs, I’m sure.”

“And in return, you want exclusive access to my story, right?”

“This may wound your heroic pride, but I can’t market you as a hero. The war with the JAM isn’t the sensation it used to be,” Jackson said. “Only a very small specialty market exists with any interest in the exploits of returning soldiers. Very few in the media would have any interest in interviewing you.”

“What happened on Faery seems like a dream already,” Rei said. “It feels like I was hooked up to some machine designed to induce nightmares as part of some psychological punishment. Actually, I kinda suspect that the machine they used to force-inject basic fighter piloting skills into my brain was exactly like that.” Rei sighed. “If here on Earth the JAM are now treated like characters from a fairy tale, then you may as well say that it all really was the sort of punishment I just described. There wouldn’t be much difference between trying to convince people they’re real and me just saying it’s not my problem now.”

“As much as I think public consideration needs to be paid to the psychological wounds our returning soldiers have to deal with, you’re still wrong. I just can’t believe that.”

“I’ve had enough of public consideration and the rest of that crap,” Rei said.

“I’m here as an individual.”

“So you have a personal interest in me?”

“I do. I don’t think you can handle human society as it is now. You can’t live here on your own.”

Rei considered what she said and finally gave in.

“I’ll hire you as a guide.”

“I warn you, my fee’s pretty high.”

“I’ve got money,” he replied. “There isn’t a lot to spend it on back at Faery base.”

“If you tell me about that too, I’ll let you pay me in installments.”

“If the balance gets too depressing to look at, I’ll consider that,” Rei said.

“Don’t lose count of what you owe.”

“I’ll expect you to charge me an honest price.”

“Trust me,” she said.

Lynn Jackson started walking toward the airport lobby exit.

“Where are we going?” Rei asked.

“You need a place to relax, right? I’ve booked you into the Meridian Hotel.”

“You’re prepared, aren’t you?”

“I’m living there right now. It’s convenient, being as close to Faery as it is.”

“Nice status you enjoy, huh?”

“I can live comfortably if I economize.”

“You published a best seller, after all. When you write the sequel to The Invader you’ll sell that too, right?”

“I’m just starting to write it now,” Lynn said. “The thing is, my agent’s having to wrack his brains before he can sell it to someone.”

“Why’s that?”

“If we sell it as a work of fantasy fiction, we may be able to find a publisher who’ll buy it. That’s what the times are like nowadays. See, anything having to do with the JAM is fantasy. If the JAM are mentioned anywhere, nobody takes the contents of the book seriously. I wasn’t intending to become a novelist, but my agent’s been telling me he has a feeling that the publisher is going to make me do it that way. If it looks like I’m writing some kind of quickie cash-in job, it’ll damage the trust people have in me as a journalist. So, I’m writing some other ‘hard’-subject books to keep from seeming too far out of my usual line.”

“So how is The Invader viewed now?”

“Probably as nothing but fantasy, like the vast number of books, good and bad, that came out about the JAM for a while. They’re not popular anymore. I’m basically seen as a has-been popular writer. I always saw myself as a journalist and not a pop writer, and that hasn’t changed, but the world doesn’t see me that way. With my insistence on still writing about the JAM, I’m seen as a bit of an anachronism.”

“That’s nuts.”

“It’s the result of the FAF’s success at containing the JAM threat,” Lynn said.

“And there’s a whole bunch of other problems that reality has for people to worry about, right?”