“Katsuragi, don’t!” Rei yelled. “Get your hands off of those handles!”
Rei wasn’t going to let him eject. He couldn’t afford to lose the plane’s canopy now. It would lose both speed and stability, and they still hadn’t left the mysterious battle zone. Lieutenant Katsuragi had come back to himself. He wanted to say that he hadn’t meant to eject, that his hands had moved unconsciously, but he couldn’t speak. Wasn’t there some way to stop the ejection sequence?
“Lieutenant, relax your grip,” Rei said. “Release the handles slowly. It’s all right, you can still cancel it.”
Rei could hear the man take a deep breath, as though he had finally remembered to breathe. After acknowledging the attack failure indicator and canceling all alarms, Yukikaze flashed a new message onto the display:
You have control... Capt/let’s return home.
Rei quickly flipped both the automaneuver switch and the G limiter off. Gripping the throttle tightly, he pushed it to maximum thrust and lit the afterburners.
Yukikaze’s twin Super Phoenix engines began generating thrust beyond their rated safety limits. Rei’s body was thrown back into his seat with a bang. Having turned over flight control to Rei, Yukikaze immediately assumed control of the electronic warfare duties. All jamming systems were engaged at maximum output.
The way out was dead ahead. It was an aperture, gray now instead of blue. It seemed to have moved there from the missile impact point instantaneously, by the JAM, no doubt.
Lieutenant Katsuragi looked behind him. It was complete blackness now. He got the rough impression that the airspace in which they were flying was somehow spherical, and rapidly shrinking. Looking toward the gray, circular exit ahead of them, he could see it contracting.
The rate of the gray circle’s closure seemed to slow. In fact, it hadn’t slowed at all, but as Yukikaze rapidly closed the distance, the relative speed made it appear that way. Lieutenant Katsuragi knew that they were now close enough to get a true sense of distance from it. The aperture conversely seemed to begin growing larger.
“Brace for impact!”
No sooner had Rei said it than the lieutenant inhaled sharply and tensed.
Just before the violent shock hit them, he managed to make a rough eyeball estimate of just how big the exit was — about two hundred meters in diameter, and Yukikaze was thrusting toward just about dead center of it. The crash felt like they’d run into a solid wall.
He could still think, so they obviously hadn’t been smashed to smithereens.
There hadn’t been any room to spare. It had felt like being on a train car rushing into a tunnel, except Yukikaze didn’t have a track to follow. One slip up on the controls would have ended in a nasty failure.
“Check for damage.”
His pilot’s voice rang out. Lieutenant Katsuragi switched the plane’s onboard self-monitoring systems on. Their engines had stalled out. There was a hydraulic system malfunction on one of the tail stabilizers. He visually checked each wing. The left primary tail stabilizer was gone, and the plane’s fuselage was pocked with holes near it. He could tell that the force of the blast had come from inside of the plane. The other flight systems seemed to be fine.
“We lost our left primary tail stabilizer. I think we had some kind of major mechanical failure in the left engine. There’s no fire or smoke coming out, but there’re traces of a small explosion. Both engines have flamed out, and fuel transfer to them has been automatically cut. The emergency fuel shut-off valve has been activated.”
Rei checked the flight instruments. They were flying inverted. Righting the plane, he saw that they had altitude to spare. They were flying at 24,100 meters and descending gradually. He could already tell that the left engine was unusable now. Losing the primary tail stabilizer didn’t have much of an effect on them. There were two pairs of them and, as they were in close proximity to the main wings, were referred to as the primary and secondary tail stabilizers. They moved up and down in relation to the fuselage, with the sweep of the angle between them adjusting variably on a moment-by-moment basis according to the plane’s flight attitude. Because of this, there was little meaningful distinction between a horizontal or vertical stabilizer as far as a pilot was concerned, so losing one meant that, aside from advanced air combat maneuvering, flight was completely unaffected. As long as the flight system was still functioning properly, it could probably keep the plane flying stably with only one wing. Their problem was thrust, as in a lack of it coming from the engines.
Rei attempted to restart the starboard engine. If that didn’t work, he was going to have to consider an emergency landing. The airspace in which they flew was wrapped in gray fog and offered no obvious place for them to set down. But then Yukikaze canceled electronic warfare mode. Switching on the communications monitor, Lieutenant Katsuragi heard the familiar white noise fill his ears. This was normal airspace.
“Aside from the passive airspace radar, our radar systems are functioning normally. Flight path is clear,” said Lieutenant Katsuragi. “Unidentified aircraft sighted. It’s close.”
“Give them a chirp with our IFF,” said Rei.
“On it. I have a response. It’s SAF Unit B-2: Carmilla. No other aircraft sighted.”
“Roger.”
Rei succeeded in getting the right engine started. Almost simultaneously, their field of view cleared.
Yukikaze had been picked up by Lieutenant Zubrowski, Carmilla’s pilot. Her sudden appearance hadn’t surprised him, since he’d been advised of the possibility by the tactical computer back in HQ. Even so, the circumstances of it had taken his breath away. His passive airspace radar had detected an abnormal airspace form on a point of the sector he’d been told to keep watch on. It then burst almost immediately after. While he couldn’t see the bubblelike formation pop with his naked eye, a roughly spherical black cloud had appeared immediately after it happened.
There was a thudding crash that had shaken Carmilla violently. The black cloud swelled, grew larger, then dispersed. And from it flew Yukikaze on a mostly level course.
“B-2’s central computer is saying it’s ready to give support and is requesting a direct link.”
“Refuse it,” said Rei.
“Roger,” replied Lieutenant Katsuragi. “Refusal sent. I’m amazed. They’re in open communication with SAF headquarters.”
“Record everything.”
“I confirm all auto-recorders are running.”
“Where are we?”
“In the airspace over Richwar base. Taking the shortest return course, it puts us closer to home than from Cookie. About 75 percent of our current maximum range. The nearest base to us is TAB-4, which is 47 percent. I can’t say for sure yet what our fuel consumption rate is without us flying on one engine for a while, but I don’t think we’ll need to be refueled. If nothing else happens to us, it should hold out till we get back to Faery base.”
“Let’s head for it, then. Plot the shortest return course.”
“Roger. Take a heading of 031 and cruise at an altitude of 21,200.”
“Roger. Stay focused, Lieutenant.”
“Understood. B-2, approaching. It’s taking up position behind us.”
The attack radar sounded an alarm as it picked up an attack-targeting beam. Rei raised the throttle to military power.
“B-2 is preparing to attack. They’re tracking us with their fire control radar,” the lieutenant announced coolly. “Looks like they don’t trust us.”
“Contact SAF headquarters. Use voice communications,” said Rei.
“Roger... I have HQ on the line. Go ahead, Captain.”
“This B-1, Captain Fukai. Returning to base. Advise B-2 to cancel attack preparations. If attack isn’t canceled, we will engage.”
“This is General Cooley at headquarters. Roger, B-1. Captain Fukai, give me a damage report.”
“Nothing major, just have an anti-ABC decontamination wash ready for me. I want to wash any JAM filth off of us. Out.”
“This is HQ, roger.”
Confirming that B-2 was no longer painting them with its FCS radar, Rei throttled back. He put them on
