himself into the car. Inside was a man he’d never seen before. Lynn quickly pushed a button.
“FAF intel, right?” Rei said to the man. “You got into that room somehow. How’d you do it?”
“Right,” the man replied. “FAF Intelligence Forces, combat division.”
“He got in through my room,” Lynn said. “From next door.”
“Oh, living the high life, huh?” Rei said. “You were keeping an eye on me from Lynn’s room?”
“Right,” replied the FAF intelligence agent. He was fairly young.
“Why? I’m retired... or were those documents I signed fakes?”
“They were real, hence the welcome wagon from your home country. I was also kind of surprised by how quickly they moved.”
“What you’re doing is illegal. You’re kidnapping me.”
“No, they were the ones acting illegally. They were attempting to kidnap someone who’d just reenlisted in the FAF.”
“Oh. Now I get it,” said Rei with a sigh. “Well, your timing’s perfect. Reenlistment would be very convenient for me at the moment.”
“That looks like the truth, Rei,” said Lynn.
“It is,” replied the agent. “Your reenlistment request was actually accepted by the FAF authorities the moment you left the airport and bought those newspapers.”
Rei thought about this for a moment.
“Major Booker,” he decided. “He had this all arranged from the start.”
“You mean this isn’t what you want?”
Those men claiming to be from the Japanese navy might have been actors, and the whole thing might have been a hoax set up by the FAF authorities to get him back to Faery.
“It doesn’t matter,” he said. “You saved me.”
The elevator car stopped at the entrance level, and the agent hustled them out.
“It’s dangerous to stay here, Lieutenant,” he said. “The guys chasing you haven’t received any official documents from us yet that prove you’re back in the FAF. We’ve got to get you on that shuttle. I’ve ordered my subordinate to take care of that. Just sign this and you’ll be good to go.”
If this was real, and not just a show for his benefit, he doubted having that paper was going to stop a nation from flexing its might against him.
“Ironic, eh? It’s safer for me to be on Faery with the JAM,” Rei said.
“Sorry you couldn’t take some time and let me show you the sights, Lieutenant Fukai. But then, I suppose you’re used to being in a hurry,” Lynn said as they left the hotel. Rei wondered what would have happened to him had this woman not been there. Then he suddenly realized that she was probably in as much danger here as he was.
“It’d probably be safer for you to come to Faery,” Rei told her. “You’re not a human, and it’d be dangerous for you to get mixed up in their stupid wars. With your career, you’ve got the civilian qualifications to come to Faery. You can do your work there,” Rei said, just before he got into a waiting car on the street. But Lynn shook her head.
“I also think the wars humans fight amongst themselves are foolish,” she said. “But I’m not going.”
“Why not?”
“Because I still have hope. I believe humanity won’t always be this mad. It may be true that, like you, I’m not just a regular human. But in other ways I’m not like you at all.”
“I see,” Rei said. “Damn, this leave ended way too soon, but I’m glad I could meet you.”
“Next time you come, I’d like to play guide for you as much as you’d like.”
“As long as the price is fair.”
“Of course. Trust me,” Lynn Jackson said with a smile.
Later on, he could look back over all of this at his leisure and wonder what the hell had happened, but he knew some things for certain. First, his misgivings that Earth no longer existed were laid to rest. Second, he’d met a human who recognized the threat posed by the JAM.
An Earther. That was it. He’d seen the smile of an actual Earther.
“May we meet again, Earther. Good luck.”
“And you, Lieutenant Fukai, man from Faery.”
Rei nodded, then climbed into the car and ordered the driver to go as he shut the door. His leave was over. Yukikaze was waiting.
III
RETURN TO BATTLE
ALTHOUGH REI HAD been in a vegetative state for three months, the SAF medical staff guaranteed that they could have him back to his former strength in half that time. That was dependent, however, on his precisely following the rehabilitation program. The program had been devised when he awakened, but then had to be modified due to his debriefing and trip back home to Earth, so it didn’t kick into full swing until after Rei had reenlisted and returned to Faery. It had been ten days since Rei had rejoined the SAF, and he was following the program diligently. Major Booker called him into his office to see what effect it was having.
Rei appeared to be in good shape. Better shape than Booker was, actually. “It’s nice to be young,” he told Rei. “At my age, you can take twice as much time to recover and never get back to full strength. I still get a twinge in my neck every now and then.”
“It’s your body saying you shouldn’t be riding around in a fighter plane at your age, Jack,” Rei replied.
“That was my call to make, and I don’t think it was wrong. I dragged you back to consciousness, didn’t I?”
“You didn’t need to fly out in the FRX or in Yukikaze.”
“No, I did. In the case of Lieutenant Yagashira, there was nobody else I could trust. This is war. Real combat, not desk jockeying. Going out in a fighter once in a while lets you understand the war situation in your guts, not just your head. The brass should go out on sorties once in a while.”
“So they can feel the JAM threat in their bodies, you mean?”
“Not just for that,” Major Booker said.
“What else would there be?”
“The JAM aren’t the only threat. If they rode in that plane, they’d understand.”
“You’re talking about how wild the Maeve’s combat maneuvering can be, aren’t you?”
They were referring, of course, to the newest model tactical combat reconnaissance fighter: the FFR41. It was named Maeve, after the mythical queen of the wind, and at the moment, Yukikaze was the only one in existence.
“It’s not just about the Maeve,” the major replied. “There’s also the fact that we don’t really know what the FAF’s combat intelligences are thinking. How can the brass not understand that’s a threat to us humans?”
“You mean how this war is between the JAM and the FAF’s combat machines, not between the JAM and humanity, right?”
“Exactly,” Major Booker replied, nodding. “From the very start, when the JAM appeared thirty years ago, they haven’t been at war with humans. You and I understand that, but the higher-ups who control our forces don’t. They probably can’t, and they won’t unless they go to the front and experience the danger of combat themselves. That goes for me too. God only knows what the people living safe and sound on Earth think about all this.”
“The JAM have already invaded Earth.”
