minutes behind her planned return time, her actions were roughly on schedule. What had actually happened was entirely different, although the only ones who knew the details were Yukikaze and her two crewmen.
While taxiing over to the SAF’s squadron area, the SAF fire brigade sprayed them down, though they used pure water instead of fire retardant foam. After the washdown, Rei throttled up Yukikaze’s right engine to vent it. The left engine was completely dead; he thought it would never start again. It would need to be replaced. If the damage had been just a little more severe, the right engine might have been completely destroyed.
Rather than heading down to the SAF’s underground squadron area, Yukikaze’s crew deplaned on the surface and entered an isolation container prepared for them. Inside, they washed themselves down from head to toe with the showers inside, just as had been done to Yukikaze.
In a full decontamination routine, the crew would have been kept in an isolation room for at least three weeks, but the SAF didn’t take that step. They didn’t want anyone in the SAF to know the importance of the information Yukikaze had returned with, and General Cooley had decided that there was little risk of the SAF being contaminated with an unknown organism. The isolation container was brought to the SAF medical facilities rather than to their quarantine center.
Major Booker was also of the opinion that had the JAM wanted to release a weaponized virus, they would have already done so via the JAM duplicates. That was why he’d raised no objections to the general’s decision. If they went by the FAF manual, Captain Fukai and Lieutenant Katsuragi would have had to be subjected to a full- scale quarantine, and there was no way that the JAM hadn’t considered that contingency.
Rei and Lieutenant Katsuragi were told to change into the white sweatsuits in the container and then were ushered into simple plastic isolation tents that surrounded a couple of beds in a room in the SAF med center. Since they couldn’t rule out the possibility that the JAM had accidentally exposed them to a contamination source, the pair were ordered to these quarters until medical tests had cleared them of any danger. The two men knew that was another way of saying they were being held, kept in confinement and under observation.
Each bed had its own tent stretched over it, and it might have been a nice, private environment in which to rest, but they weren’t told that they could take it easy. Their orders were given to them by a doctor named Balume of the SAF medical staff. The written orders on clipboards he passed to them in their tents were from General Cooley, and they said that the two men were to write up reports of what had happened on their mission as soon as possible.
“Slave driver. And she wants it handwritten with pen and paper?” Lieutenant Katsuragi grumbled in his tent, but Rei just ignored him and began to write. Orders or not, he wanted to write down his experiences while they were fresh in his mind. Yukikaze probably hadn’t recorded the JAM’s temptation, or their anger and confusion.
Watching Rei begin writing, Lieutenant Katsuragi eyed his clipboard and sighed. What was he supposed to write when everything had been recorded by Yukikaze?
“Captain Fukai,” he called out.
“What?”
“What are you writing?”
“What happened out there.”
“Yukikaze recorded that.”
“They expect a report on the experience from a human perspective, seen through our own eyes,” Rei said.
“They gave me a guide to writing up reports, but I didn’t really read it.”
“The format doesn’t really matter right now. Just write it however you feel. It could be anything. For instance, Yukikaze’s actions. What did you think about that?”
“I thought they were dangerous,” Lieutenant Katsuragi said.
“Just like that. They want your personal evaluation of Yukikaze, what happened aboard her, and what the JAM did. Write down your impressions as clearly and simply as you can. You can write what you’re thinking about right now. You had a lot to say when we were flying back, didn’t you?”
“I can’t be accurate now unless I watch Yukikaze’s recording of —”
“Even unreliable descriptions are vital data,” Rei said. “You might change your mind later, and that’s fine. This isn’t about which data set is the correct one. Both are reality. Unless you write it down, if you change your mind later on, you won’t be able to assess how it changed or whether it was for better or for worse. This is for your benefit, not anyone else’s.”
“Hmm...”
Lieutenant Katsuragi remembered what Colonel Rombert had told him.
So the SAF was demanding that he do the opposite of what the Intelligence Forces colonel had told him to do. This was the first time he had been in such a situation, and Lieutenant Katsuragi was confused.
Rei looked up at the lieutenant and saw his newbie partner glaring at the blank white page as if his task now was more difficult than any of his duties aboard the plane. But he must have sensed Rei’s gaze, even through the thick plastic walls, and turned toward him.
“Captain Fukai,” said the lieutenant again.
“What?” replied Rei.
“Have you written your reports for your own benefit up till now?”
“What’s got into you all of a sudden? You must have written them for Colonel Rombert.”
“Not reports on my subjective impressions. Those wouldn’t pass muster with the colonel.”
“He doesn’t see any point to subjective impressions?”
“I don’t know how to write it down. There’s some stuff I don’t want them to know,” he said. “Like how pissed off I was when you just let Yukikaze handle the flying and wouldn’t take evasive action.”
“You must have felt angry with me, wondering how what I was doing would save us. Don’t try to hide it.”
“Major Booker will just see that as me making excuses for myself. He’ll be the first one to read these, right?”
“Lieutenant, if you keep thinking about that, you’ll never write anything. The SAF doesn’t care about that stuff. We made it back alive. Survival is our most vital duty. The SAF wants what we’ve learned in order to survive, that’s all.”
“You mean nobody’s going to give me any grief no matter what I write?”
“Are you afraid Major Booker’s going to punch you? Or that you’ll be reprimanded? Getting punched for no reason and then stifling the complaint is part of being in the military. I’d think knowing why you were being hit is better, not that I have any experience with that.”
“Hmm...”
“You’re getting hung up on trivial stuff because you think you’re being made to write it. We’re now in a position to suggest what they should do. This is a privilege, not a duty,” Rei explained. “We’ve met the JAM, so we can tell our superiors what we think they should do to keep from getting killed by the enemy, or what we want them to do. That’s vital information for forming strategies to counter the JAM. If you want to meet the JAM again, ask for the opportunity. If you think fighting them is useless, write that. Nobody can criticize you for what you write in that report. Not General Cooley or Major Booker or anybody. What we feel, what’s in our hearts here and now, that’s reality. The SAF can’t ignore reality or criticize us for it.”
“The SAF could suspect us of being JAM,” Lieutenant Katsuragi replied. “The truth is, they already do.”
“If they doubt us, we can suspect that this is all a virtual space created by the JAM and doubt them right back.”
“You’re saying it isn’t necessary to deal with that risk?”
“I think we should be prepared for the possibility,” Rei said. “Believe in yourself, Lieutenant. That’s all we can do right now. That’s what you can do for yourself. I started writing my report by being honest and keeping that in mind.”
Thinking about how Major Booker hadn’t shown his face since they’d returned, Rei returned to his writing.
