“If General Cooley decides we should try making friends with the JAM,” Rei replied, “then I’m going to start suspecting her of being a JAM herself.”
“If you’re going to say that, then you’d be just as much a suspect as she is, Captain Fukai. Cooley told me she thought you might have made up this whole story about Yukikaze producing that prediction. Colonel Rombert also suspects you of being a JAM. That’s the reason he sent Lieutenant Katsuragi over here.”
“If I were a JAM, Yukikaze would see through me,” Rei said.
“Don’t bet on it… Still, in the end, Yukikaze considers the JAM her enemy. If the SAF ever decided to cooperate with the JAM, then she’d lose her entire reason for being. Dealing with that could turn into a major problem.”
“The JAM are our rivals in a struggle for survival regardless of whether they’re our enemies or our allies in this war, and that goes for Yukikaze as well. She no longer needs to get her reason for existence from an external source. She’ll choose to do what it takes to survive.”
“You talk about Yukikaze as though she were alive.”
“She is alive,” Rei declared, without a shred of doubt in his voice. “Just like I’m alive. That has nothing to do with being human or JAM. Right now, Yukikaze is neither.”
“That’s fine to say as an individual. You’re free to say whatever you want to. But for me, as someone with command responsibilities, it’s a different story. Personally, I don’t doubt you. Similarly, every individual at the top of our organization that isn’t JAM only acts based on what they believe. What we do, we do based on our individual beliefs. But think about it—the SAF has always been like that. To not only bring all of these sorts of individuals together as a group but also manage them is a kind of miracle, as Captain Foss would say. But the rest of the FAF isn’t like that, and therein lies the problem.”
Major Booker began shuffling his papers again, checking the documents for the meeting as he continued. “At any rate, this idea that the JAM want to become our allies isn’t even the prediction made by Yukikaze’s profacting. It’s only one possible interpretation of it we humans have come up with. One way or another, though, we’ll make use of her prediction. It’s vague, but still very informative.”
“I can also imagine that the JAM might be manipulating us to drive a wedge between our forces and the FAF. I can’t help but wonder about that, Major. Do you think that the JAM we fight in the air might not be their main force?”
“And there you have all the SAF’s doubts in a nutshell. What I hope to learn from this strategic recon operation is the location of their main force. Just like the FAF has the humans on Earth backing it, I want to find the JAM’s main forces, their actual selves, that which backs their forces.”
“And what I’m trying to tell you, Jack, is that there are no ‘actual’ JAM. They may be something invisible, lurking within the information we’ve gathered about them.”
“If you go that far, you’ve just crossed the line from doubt straight into fantasy,” Major Booker said, closing the briefcase. “What we need to get is a realistic image of the JAM, not fantasies about them. Captain Foss is working hard to profact them, and she says that we can’t let ourselves be taken in by the appearance they project. There’s an expression in Japan: ‘One’s true enemy lies elsewhere.’”
“The FAF may be coming to that conclusion about us.”
“That would be a very dangerous situation to get into, and we’re analyzing that contingency thoroughly. At present, if we split from the FAF, we have no chance of survival. General Cooley admits that too, so we’ve got the tactical computer working full load on SAF survival simulations. At any rate, I for one don’t want my death to be one of those ridiculous ones you once talked about. The entire SAF is devoting all of its efforts to coming up with a strategy that will allow us to survive.”
“A survival strategy… This really is a fight for survival, isn’t it?” Rei said.
“The JAM are clearly infiltrating the FAF with these human duplicates in order to perfect their own strategy against us. The odds are good that they’re about to make a radical change in their strategy, which until now has been to ignore the existence of humans. The war situation’s getting even more strained, but the brass have no idea just how bad it is. There’s no doubt in my mind that the FAF is teetering on the edge of oblivion,” Major Booker said. He glanced at his watch. “This isn’t something I can bring up at General Laitume’s meeting, but we can’t afford to ignore it now.”
Saying that, Major Booker moved away from his desk.
“Leave with me, Captain Fukai.”
The office door would auto-lock as soon as the major exited. Finishing up with the file folder the major had handed him, Rei acceded to his urgings and left the room.
2
THE NEXT DAY, as scheduled, Yukikaze came out onto the surface for her sortie.
This was the first routine mission for her since she’d gained her new body, the Maeve. Yukikaze had returned to her regular duties. Rei was momentarily overcome with emotion as he realized this. He felt as if his long leave from battle and rehabilitation were finally over. At long last, he was back on the job.
It was not a long gap to have on his record, but it wasn’t an insignificant one. Rather, it had seen a remarkable change in the situation. Now that Yukikaze predicted that the JAM were no longer ignoring humans, General Cooley seemed to be challenging the JAM to a showdown… But so what, Rei thought to himself. It wasn’t his problem; he was only fighting so that he wouldn’t get killed, just as he always had.
Even so, Rei was aware that his situation had changed as well. The need for a new SAF strategy had its origins in the incident in which he and the old Yukikaze had been involved. As a direct participant, he couldn’t well say that this change in the war wasn’t his problem. If he were to survive, he couldn’t simply ignore his relationship with the world anymore. The old him had been like a man walking a tightrope without the benefit of a balancing rod. His life was still a tightrope act, but now he was aware of the need he had for relationships with others to act as that rod. Trying to support himself with one might easily lead to falling from the rope, and the old him had feared that, but he saw now that it was all in how one used it. If he mastered that, it would serve him well. His long break from routine sorties had taught him that, thought Rei.
Lieutenant Katsuragi in the rear seat reported that all systems were green.
This man was living dangerously, just as my old self once did. But it’s not my problem, Rei thought coldly. So long as he wasn’t a threat to Rei’s own survival, how Katsuragi lived his life didn’t matter. Rei wasn’t his teacher or his doctor. If he wasn’t aware of the danger to himself, then no advice Rei offered would matter. It’s Katsuragi’s problem, Rei thought, not mine.
Rei checked Yukikaze’s gauges once more. All warning lights were clear.
“This is B-1, all clear. Ready for sortie.”
The ground crew gave him the good luck sign. Rei answered it by raising his right fist, then pointed Yukikaze’s nose toward the runway. He stopped at the taxiway exit and waited for clearance from the control tower. The weather was rainy, with high winds.
Clearance granted, Yukikaze took off, climbing through the rain clouds. Her objective was a JAM base code-named Cookie. At the moment, it was the next major target after Richwar base, and the FAF was throwing most of its forces at it.