must not be very good either.”
“And you’d better not forget that, Colonel Rombert. Captain Foss, be careful with your pin from now on.”
“Yes... sir,” replied Captain Foss.
“Is there something you’d like to say to me?”
“No, sir.”
“Good. Well, General Cooley, shall we get started?”
General Laitume moved off. Cooley followed, suggesting that they start with some champagne as she showed him to his seat.
“I appreciated that, Colonel,” Captain Foss whispered. “The general has a reputation for doing things like that.”
“Can’t hear you,” Colonel Rombert replied with a smile. “Didn’t you hear me say that my ears were bad? Although I do think my eyesight is quite keen. Well, it doesn’t detract from his skill as a soldier, so that’s a saving grace, at least. Now then, you think I could get a Guinness here?”
“All ready for you,” said Major Booker. “I made sure to find out what you liked.”
“You really do prepare well. It’s hard to tell who are the real Intelligence Forces around here. So just what is the SAF up to? No, wait, the whole point of this lunch meeting is to ask about that. Let’s relax and enjoy ourselves first. Captain Foss, would you do me the honor of joining me?”
Captain Foss looked at Major Booker, wondering what to do. The major gave a tiny nod, and Captain Foss moved off with Colonel Rombert.
Rei sighed.
“I know exactly how you feel,” Major Booker said. “It’s such a pain in the ass.”
“The general and the colonel are a lot alike,” Rei replied.
“I guess that’s what they call the ‘secret intentions of men.’ The colonel’s a smart one. I think you know just how intelligent that man is. When it comes to relationships between men and women, what goes on in your head isn’t always logical, but people who ignore logic end up hated. On that point, the colonel’s —”
“Yeah,” Rei said with a nod. “That’s exactly right.”
“...success rate is pretty high. Wait, what are you agreeing with? Did something happen between you and Edith?”
“Not between her and me. I meant my relationship with Yukikaze. I thought it wasn’t logical, but that’s absurd. Yukikaze is nothing but a mass of logic. If I ignore that, of course she’d hate me.”
“Yukikaze isn’t a woman, Rei.”
“I know that. I know. Captain Foss taught me that a little while ago. I’ll give you a report later.”
“Please. Oh, and while you might not like it, the two of us are strictly alcohol-free here.”
“You’re not Colonel Rombert, so quit kidding around, Major.”
“How am I...?!”
“Until Yukikaze’s back in the hangar bay, this is a combat mission,” Rei said. “Of course I wouldn’t joke around or have a drink. I want to finish this up as soon as we can. So get to work, Major Booker.”
“You really are some kind of high-efficiency combat machine, aren’t you? And you’ve gotten tougher than I thought you were, although ‘tough’ can be another word for ‘idiot.’ ”
“You’re right... I’m sorry. I’m afraid of Yukikaze, but I think it’s different from the threat you sense from her.”
“Why don’t we have a drink later, then?”
“Sounds good. Let’s do that.”
The lunch meeting, seemingly calm on the surface, began.
GENERAL LAITUME, HOLDING, holding his glass in one hand, his cheeks stuffed with meat, looked at Llanfabon and Yukikaze in the distance. “The SAF certainly has some nice fighters. I’m jealous,” he said.
“The SAF only has thirteen fighter planes at its disposal,” General Cooley replied. “I believe you have two hundred seventy-nine of them under your command.”
“They’re yours, don’t worry, General Cooley. Besides, I don’t have two hundred seventy-nine planes in my air wing anymore. It’s two hundred seventy-seven now. We lost two of them yesterday. I thought the SAF had confirmed that.”
“I beg your pardon, General.”
Rei knew General Cooley wouldn’t make a mistake about the number of planes. She was testing General Laitume, and obviously he knew his job.
“We hit them and hit them, but the JAM keep coming. It’s like they spring out of nowhere. I’ve really come to hate it.”
“We can’t ignore the fact that war weariness is spreading, even through the FAF’s upper ranks,” added Colonel Rombert. “The brass have that luxury. The lower ranks are too busy fighting to complain about how much they hate doing this. They’re the ones who are keeping the FAF afloat.”
“What do you mean by that, Colonel?”
“If you resign your commission, a man of your position is guaranteed a life back on Earth. It’s not like that for the soldiers at the front lines. Many are convicts. That’s why they can’t say how much they hate this.”
“And which are you?”
“I’m a man who’s enjoying his work here. I’ll have many happy memories of this place after I retire. Even more so if we win the war with the JAM.”
“Saying that war weariness is spreading through the upper ranks is inexcusable, Colonel,” General Cooley said. “If I were to say something like that, a commissioned officer in the Intelligence Forces like you would probably have me court-martialed.”
“Hardly. I don’t have that sort of authority. I might want to, but I doubt you’d ever willingly abandon your position and status. I expressed myself poorly. My point was that the high command doesn’t have a way to break this stalemate we’re in. That’s related to the feelings of helplessness we have toward the JAM, because we still don’t even know what we’re fighting. The SAF exists because it possesses a system that can help us discover what the JAM are. Do you have any leads on that, Major Booker?”
“If I had good news, I’d have thrown a huge gala party instead of this lunch meeting. Unfortunately, I don’t,” Major Booker said. “There’s something the people in charge of the Intelligence Forces and the regular forces want to hear from the SAF.”
“And are you going to tell us?”
The general, who’d been happily grazing at the buffet, sat down for the first time. The others followed suit, all save General Cooley, who began to speak.
“The information I’m about to tell you is secret. SAF Unit 7 over there has been assigned the task of disrupting any attempt at spying on this meeting. Our unit can’t interfere with how you use this information after I give the report, but I hope that you will be extremely careful with what you choose to do with it.”
“Hm. You’ll put this down in a memo, won’t you? I didn’t bring my private secretary because you told me not to, but —” General Laitume said.
“There will be no memos made. The details are simple. I’ll have Major Booker give the report. Major?”
Major Booker was about to stand up when General Laitume told him to stay seated and just get on with it.
“All right, regarding the first point,” the major began. “I’d like to amend the official record on the shooting down of the former SAF Unit 13, piloted by Second Lieutenant Yagashira. While it was reported that his plane was shot down by the JAM, in truth he was downed by Captain Fukai here, a first lieutenant at the time, piloting Yukikaze. I was also aboard Yukikaze when it happened. It was not a mistake. The shooting was intentional.”
“Was Yagashira attempting to desert under fire?” asked Colonel Rombert. “If he was, then shooting him down would have been the normal thing to do. There was no reason to cover it up.”
“We determined that Lieutenant Yagashira was a JAM,” Major Booker replied. “He was a human duplicate created by the JAM. Captain Fukai gave us a report of encountering these JAM duplicates. We suspected that these humanoid weapons had already infiltrated the FAF, and I’m here today to report that they have.”
“Hm...” said General Laitume. “That makes things even more complicated for us.”
