“You never change, do you? Still, you should prepare yourself.”
“For when the JAM finally kill me?”
“Rei, you’ve been ready for that for far too long now. No, what I meant was that you need to prepare yourself for the possibility that Yukikaze might one day become your enemy. An enemy of humanity.”
“Bullshit.”
“The possibility exists. Yukikaze isn’t your lover. She’s your daughter, and she’s grown up. She won’t obey you forever, and you have to be ready for that. One day, she won’t need her dumb, stubborn dad anymore.”
“Jack… Major Booker, are you telling me to stop flying Yukikaze?”
“I just don’t want to add any more names to the KIA list. That’s not the job I came here to do.”
Booker didn’t look at Rei as he began organizing the intelligence file.
“You may go, Lieutenant Fukai. Report to the central medical facility for a complete checkup.”
“I’m fine. I’ve already been patched up.”
“I’m ordering you to submit a medical certificate before you can fly again. Dismissed.”
Rei got up, saluted, and left without a word. He walked down into the maintenance bay and stood looking up at the enormous fighter for a while.
“You wouldn’t betray me… would you?”
He reached up and touched his beloved plane’s radome. The metal was cold.
PER THE FAF Medical Corps diagnosis, Lieutenant Rei Fukai would be completely recovered and fit to resume duty in two weeks. But in the meantime, he was grounded.
At the next TAF mission staff meeting, it was decided that the new Fand II assault fighter would undergo a combat flight test in order to get it deployed as soon as possible. Major Booker was placed in charge of this test, and in this capacity he made a proposal that was approved: Yukikaze would accompany the Fand II on its flight. She would go up in full automatic mode and would monitor the performance of the Fand II’s prototype optoelectronic systems in flight.
Of all the units in the 5th Squadron, Yukikaze had experienced the most combat with the JAM, had managed time and again to slip through their traps and make it back. In Booker’s estimation she was therefore the FAF’s best chance for detecting any JAM combat reconnaissance and protecting the Fand II, since the aliens were bound to be interested in the test flight. The major’s second, equally important aim in sending Yukikaze on the flight was to verify whether she could carry out her missions unmanned. If she could, it would open the possibility that one day he wouldn’t have to send his men up in the squadron’s planes anymore, that he would be relieved of the awful tension of waiting for them to return.
Over the next three days, Major Booker wrote Yukikaze’s flight program and refined the test plan.
The major was frank about his desire to wholly automate Yukikaze’s operation.
A bold smile played across Rei’s face as he spoke. “You’re wasting your time, Major. She can’t fly without me.”
“We’ll give it a shot,” Booker replied, although he too had his doubts that Yukikaze’s hardware and software configurations would allow her to be converted to a fully functional unmanned aircraft in such a limited amount of time.
In the end, the combat flight test plan called for the Fand II prototype to be flown by Captain Hugh O’Donnell, an ace pilot in one of the Tactical Air Force Flight Test Center’s squadrons. Yukikaze would fly wing, unmanned. An electronic warfare systems control plane would follow, with Rei onboard to provide support if needed.
Upon hearing this, he didn’t bother to hide his irritation. “So I’m going to just sit pretty in that control plane and pilot Yukikaze by remote control?”
“Yeah, and it was a royal pain to arrange,” Major Booker replied. “But General Cooley insisted on it. You keep banging on about how you want to get back in the air. So now you’ll be back in the air. And you can just sit back and relax. Take a nap, even.”
“Has the Fand II’s central computer system been finalized?”
“Tentatively. A lot of brand-new technology has gone into the build, so we don’t have a firm gauge of its reliability yet. Anyway, if something goes wrong, Yukikaze will automatically link with the Fand and control it.”
“Let me go up in Yukikaze. C’mon, Jack. You know this is gonna drive me nuts.”
“Can’t. Your body wouldn’t be able to take it. Don’t worry, the control plane will be flying in secure airspace. All you have to do is watch. Yukikaze will make it back just fine.”
Booker clapped him on the shoulder. Rei put a hand to his bandaged chest and smiled. A sad smile, the major thought. As though his heart had been broken. Not for the first time, a keen curiosity seized him.
“Rei, why do you feel so strongly about Yukikaze?”
“I… Aside from you, Yukikaze’s the only thing I trust. I don’t have anything else. Nothing.”
A drop, a raindrop, a mote. Zero. That’s the meaning of your name, Rei. Suddenly recalling those words, Major Booker reached out and gripped his best friend’s hand.
YUKIKAZE AND THE first combat-ready Fand II unit waited side by side in the SAF’s maintenance bay. The Super Sylph’s huge shape and sleek, menacing lines seemed to embody all the enormous power that lay dormant within her. The Fand II by her side was smaller and lighter, yet also magnificent.
Major Booker met with Flight Test Center personnel who were taking part in the Fand II test to brief them on the plans. Afterward, he had a one-on-one meeting with Captain Hugh O’Donnell, the Fand II’s test pilot. The captain was a relaxed, good-humored man, and Booker—who was used to dealing with the cool, inscrutable pilots of Boomerang Squadron—found this cheerfulness almost dazzling. He felt none of the cold tension he got from his subordinates, which paradoxically gave him the impression that O’Donnell might be slightly unreliable.
But the difference is to be expected, the major thought. Rei and the other Boomerang pilots were constantly fighting on the front line. The captain was a noncombatant test pilot, not a soldier. Danger was nothing new to him, but he didn’t fight in actual battles and wasn’t constantly confronted by a strange, irrational enemy like the JAM.
There was one other thing that differentiated Captain O’Donnell from the Boomerang pilots: he was one of the elite. The soldiers here were mainly those who’d been sent to Faery because they couldn’t fit into Earth society, but the captain wasn’t like that. Back where he’d come from, he had been a top-ranked test pilot in the air force. He had chosen to come here. He’d wanted to be a pilot for the FAF so that he could help defend Earth and his homeland. This bloke, the major thought as they continued to talk, is a straightforward person. He isn’t a man like Rei, his heart maimed by the wounds life’s given it. Not like Rei. Not like me, either.
Captain O’Donnell always brought an aide with him, which was unusual for someone of his rank. Lieutenant Eva Emery reported directly to the captain and was an engineer trained in the field of aviation optoelectronic systems. Her official role was to liaise with the engineering specialists involved with his flight tests, and she performed this duty well, but the captain used her for various odd jobs beyond that, making her essentially his personal assistant.
As Captain O’Donnell attended to the briefing and cheerfully cracked jokes, Lieutenant Emery sat behind him, taking notes. She’s probably the reason he’s in such a good mood, thought Major Booker. In public, she addressed him as “Captain O’Donnell” and did so curtly, as though to give the impression there was nothing more between them.
However, some hours after the briefing had ended, when Booker went down to the dark and now abandoned maintenance bay, he witnessed a scene that made it clear their relationship was more than just a professional one.