could see that in his gaze. He was just making sure that Yukikaze’s vertical stabilizers had unfolded into their proper configuration. He then checked to make sure that all of the plane’s control surfaces were operating normally. Preflight checks, completed. All systems, normal. The ground crew pulled the safety pins from the missiles loaded onto the plane. The sortie crew chief then pulled the pin of his headset from the jack on Yukikaze’s side and gave them the “Go” sign.
“Let’s go, Yukikaze,” Rei said.
The canopy lowered and locked in place. Releasing the brakes, Yukikaze moved forward. Captain Foss felt the plane’s tires bumping along. To her, each thump seemed to be an amplified version of her own pounding heart.
Rei hadn’t said, “Let’s go, Captain Foss.” She made a note of that on a small memo pad, similar to the ones used by test pilots, affixed to her thigh. She then regained her composure. Rei called back to her.
“Tell me right away if you feel sick. I’ll try to compensate if I can.”
“I’ve had
“Okay, good to hear that you’re ready for this. I’ll be counting on you.”
“Counting on me?” Foss said.
“Of course. You aren’t a guest back there; you’re flight crew. In battle, it’s nice to have an extra eye. Lucky for me, you’ve got two.”
“My eyesight isn’t that great, so —”
“That doesn’t matter, Edith. Any creature whose life is in danger can see its enemy. Let’s go, partner.”
The Rafe made a mad dash down the runway and began to climb. Yukikaze followed a moment later, her engine output at maximum. The acceleration was so intense that Captain Foss couldn’t even speak.
A formation takeoff. Rei wondered if his ability to sense the enemy was still as sharp as it had been, but forgot about that once they were in the air.
“Hang in there, Yukikaze. The wolf’s going to leave you behind.”
They soon reached cruising altitude and the planes began to speed along high above the ground. Freed from the G-force pressure of acceleration, Captain Foss took a breath, then asked Rei about the wolf he’d just mentioned so urgently.
“I meant the Rafe, Unit 13,” he replied. “The name means ‘counsel of the wolf.’ It’s like a hobby for Major Booker. He knows the weirdest things.”
Captain Foss looked for the plane. It was flying a few hundred meters off their port side, matching their altitude.
“You don’t want to lose to it?”
“Yukikaze is a manned fighter whose design is based on the Rafe. She’s not as maneuverable, so I was just shouting a little encouragement. Nothing really more meaningful than that.”
“Who were you encouraging? Yourself or Yukikaze?”
“Both, probably. I guess you could theorize that it’s hard to tell where I end and Yukikaze begins.”
“Does that concern you?”
“Analyze that and give me a diagnosis when we get back. It’s dangerous to distract me up here. It affects your safety too.”
Captain Foss stopped talking. The forests of Faery spread out below her, mostly gleaming a metallic purple. With its undulations, eddies, and striped patterns, she felt as though she were looking at some sort of abstract painting.
Rei responded to the few external communications they received with silence. A warning chimed twice, indicating a group of FAF planes crossing beneath them. A differently toned warning chimed, signaling that they’d reached their mission air space.
“Edith, I want you to please stop observing me for a while and keep watch on our surroundings.”
“Roger,” replied Captain Edith Foss.
The forest was now gone. A desert of pure white sand spread out around them. Not flat, but undulating.
The Rafe activated its high-powered look-down radar and began searching for the enemy. As Yukikaze monitored the electromagnetic environment of their surroundings, she transmitted her IFF (Identify Friend or Foe) signal to the reconnaissance pod deployed onto the ground below to transmit its collected data to them. The pod had been placed there by the SAF after Richwar base had been destroyed, and it had been searching its surroundings from ground level. It should have responded to the SAF plane’s IFF signal.
“That’s funny,” Rei muttered. There was no response.
There was an area on the ground that looked like a long, thin mirror with a crack running across its surface. It was the remains of Richwar base’s center and shattered runway. The recon pod should have been planted somewhere around there, and Rei was about to bank Yukikaze to try to make visual contact when the pod’s connection-ready tone chimed. It was responding now.
They had to recover the information contained in the pod, and so he transmitted the command code for it to begin uploading its data to them. It seemed to be working, but then Yukikaze sounded a warning tone and flashed a message onto the main display screen:
TRP32157: decode error.
The pod wasn’t answering the command code correctly, so Yukikaze couldn’t decode the data it was transmitting.
Had the pod malfunctioned, or had the JAM contaminated it? If the JAM had gotten to it, they were probably trying to introduce false data into the FAF. In that case, it was a lucky thing that Yukikaze couldn’t decode the probe’s data transmissions — it meant that the JAM hadn’t cracked the FAF’s data encryption.
Engage, Yukikaze flashed on the screen, declaring her intention to attack. She now recognized tactical reconnaissance pod 32157 as an enemy and was suggesting that they destroy it. Rei authorized the action and sent the Rafe to do the deed.
The Rafe followed Rei’s orders from Yukikaze. Readying itself for battle, it designated the recon pod as its target. Diving swiftly down, it strafed the pod with its gun. One shot, and the target exploded.
Just as Rei was banking to confirm its destruction with his own eyes, he heard Captain Foss’s tense voice in the back. Yukikaze sounded a warning as she spoke.
“Below, right, to our rear! Two JAM fighters, closing!”
Yukikaze did a barrel roll. Rei confirmed for himself, then sent them into a sudden Immelmann turn. Yukikaze initiated an auto-attack, locking onto the targets and immediately releasing her short-range missiles. The lock wasn’t steady and the shots missed.
Yukikaze quickly pulled her nose up as she turned to pursue the JAM, suddenly spinning her fuselage. The maneuver was beyond her design limitations. Without Rei doing any of the work, Yukikaze operated her control surfaces at maximum efficiency and quickly recovered, but Rei sensed that she was about to accelerate and killed the auto-maneuver switch. He pulled the throttle back to IDLE. The exhaust temperature was already fairly high, and if he didn’t pull back, the engines could superheat and destroy themselves. Rei set the dogfight switch to ON, telling Yukikaze that he would handle this threat.
Yukikaze.
Yukikaze didn’t object.
They had altitude to spare. Pushing the throttle as high as he dared, Rei took them into a nearly vertical dive. Confirming that the engines had cooled down, he cautiously increased their output. It was just like swimming. If you rushed and messed up the timing of your breathing, you’d drown.
Rei’s eyes found the enemy fighters. Having for a moment evaded Yukikaze’s attack, the JAM banked steeply and turned toward Yukikaze. They’d predicted the optimum attack course to take. Rei heard the warning buzzer sound as Yukikaze picked up their weapons lock. Rei instantly selected gun mode. Taking Yukikaze into a loose climbing turn, he waited till it felt right, then recklessly snapped over into a sharp bank. The high-G forces caused him to black out for a few moments. When his vision cleared, just as he’d figured, the JAM fighters were crossing right in front of him. His intuition was as sharp as ever. The enemy fighters were still turning.
