Good Luck, Yukikaze

“And can you do that?”

“I follow my orders.”

“It’d be hard for me to do,” Rei said. “Flying without looking at my instruments would make me as nervous as hitting full throttle with my eyes shut.”

“You’re a pilot. That’s not surprising.”

“It’s not that sort of anxiety.”

“Are you saying you can’t completely trust Yukikaze —”

As he spoke, an object moving at high speed was detected on the enemy search radar, triggering an air-raid alarm. Lieutenant Katsuragi’s eyes instinctively fell back to his display panel.

“Bogey, single, bearing low to port. Rising fast on a general intercept course. From its size, I’m guessing it’s a fighter plane, not a missile.”

“Lieutenant, carry out your orders!” Rei snapped. “Maintain a visual watch and give me running reports on the actual conditions you see. Do it in a way that anyone would be able to figure out what happened here if we replay it back at base.”

“Roger. By visual observation... I can’t confirm an enemy silhouette in the cloud bank below us, but it’s probably close.”

“Target is crossing to starboard, right next to us, Lieutenant. I’m matching speeds. No IFF response. I can’t confirm if it’s a JAM. Type: unknown.”

“A section of the bogey has appeared through the cloud bank... Looks like the pointed tip of a vertical stabilizer.”

Like a shark fin breaking the surface of the water, thought Lieutenant Katsuragi. It was very close to them now, barely one hundred meters away. It broke through the clouds as it rose toward them. The surroundings were dim, and in the weak light, its wings looked gray instead of the usual black of a JAM plane.

“I can see some sort of darkish marking on the gray wings of the plane. It looks like... like...”

It was a Boomerang mark. With barely a ripple on the surface of the clouds, the unknown plane revealed itself completely.

“The plane is a Sylphid, a high-speed Super Sylph. I can confirm the markings of the Special Air Force 5th Squadron on it.”

Even Rei could now see with his naked eyes the plane emerging on the starboard side.

“It’s Yukikaze,” he said coolly. “A duplicate of Yukikaze’s old airframe, and this isn’t the first time I’ve run into it.”

Setting the fire control radar to pursuit mode, he locked on to the target plane. It was emitting an IFF signal designating it as friendly, but Rei disregarded that and marked it as hostile.

“I see crewmen in the cockpit,” Lieutenant Katsuragi reported. “Their faces are covered with visors and masks... The one in the rear seat is moving his hand... He’s pointing to his mask. It looks like he wants to talk to us.”

This was the first time he’d seen humanoids riding in the gray mystery plane. Wondering if they were duplicates of himself and Lieutenant Burgadish, Rei began manually searching the comm band, but the auto-scanner locked on before he could. A voice came through into his helmet.

“Lieutenant Fukai, you are fighting a useless battle. Do you hear me? I demand that you abandon your fighting spirit and live as I tell you to. Answer me, Lieutenant Fukai. I repeat...”

That wasn’t Lieutenant Burgadish’s voice. Its tone was neutral, as though mechanically synthesized. While the subject of its speech was easy to understand, it used words clumsily. Besides that, Rei was a captain now, but it was referring to him by his former rank. That might have been deliberate though, and Rei decided against correcting its mistake. No point in giving the JAM any more information than he had to.

“Lieutenant Fukai, you are fighting a useless battle. Do you hear me?”

“This is B-1, I read you loud and clear. Please state your name, rank, and unit attachment.”

“Response confirmed. I lack the type of classification and identification codes you inquire about. Lieutenant Fukai, please respond if you accept or deny my request.”

“If you’re going to make a request of someone, it’s only common courtesy to make your social position clear to them,” Rei replied, knowing that wasn’t true at all. “Who are you?”

After a short, almost embarrassed silence, it responded.

“By your conceptualization, I am the whole of what you refer to as the JAM.”

“The whole... You mean you’re the JAM themselves? Should I think of you as a voice representing the JAM?”

“I would not object to that judgment. Please issue your response.”

Rei switched off the comm circuit for a moment and called out to Lieutenant Katsuragi.

“Lieutenant, what do you think of what it said? Do you think I can believe this to be a representative of the JAM?”

“Hell if I know. I will say that it sounds unnatural, though. Like somebody is ordering it to say that stuff to you.”

“I agree. Maintain observation of our surroundings.”

“Roger.”

He reopened the comm link.

“I can’t understand the meaning of your request,” Rei replied. “When you say my battle is useless, I don’t know to whose advantage you’re referring, so I can’t answer you.”

“I somehow doubt that.”

The suddenly fluent and lively voice he now heard leaping into his ears made Rei shiver. He knew one very similar to it. The man at that mysterious base where Lieutenant Burgadish had met his end. Yazawa. Major Yazawa. The name of the man he’d told Colonel Rombert about over and over again. The JAM human. It had to be him.

“Lieutenant Fukai, I very much doubt that you don’t understand its meaning,” the new voice said. “We’re saying that the FAF has no chance of winning, so we’re offering you a way to save yourself. Come with us. We’ll lead you to a place where you can live in safety. If you don’t comply, you’ll only end up dying a meaningless death.”

“I can’t trust your words,” Rei said. “I reject your demand. I won’t negotiate with you.”

“Ignorant man. We’ve come here to make you understand.”

“I say again, I will not negotiate with you.” He called back to the rear seat. “Lieutenant Katsuragi, I’m engaging them. We’re attacking the target plane to starboard. Get ready for their counterattack and stand by on EW.”

“Roger!”

The stores control panel automatically displayed, letting him see at a glance all of the weaponry loaded on board. Yukikaze was agreeing with his decision to attack. She selected the high-velocity short range missiles, telling him to lead off with those. Rei snapped Yukikaze into a sharp turn. The target plane reacted immediately. In a close-range dogfight between the Maeve and a Super Sylph, the Maeve had an absolute advantage.

He launched the missiles, their range to the target extremely short. Rei counted to himself: three... two... one! and then the target plane vanished. It happened suddenly, without any warning. Having lost their target, the missiles flew straight through where the plane had vanished and then self-destructed.

“It’s useless, Lieutenant Fukai.”

The target plane suddenly reappeared on the starboard side.

“Shit,” spat Lieutenant Katsuragi. “The thing may not even really be there.”

As if chiding the lieutenant’s impatience, Yukikaze scrolled a message onto the display.

This was just a test/next firing will not be warning shots... JAM.

“Such foolishness, even after we offered to save you. Very well. If you insist, I will accept your challenge. Now see who truly rules the skies. This place shall become your grave —” the owner of the voice was saying. Suddenly, with no explanation, the words stopped. There came a shout like “No, don’t!”

Disaster struck the target plane. Its canopy blew off.