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Chapter One: Recruitment

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Sarah Jackson gazed out the window of the tilt-engine transport, watching fluffy white clouds flash by. The thirteen-year-old was used to flying: she took jets at least twice a year, heading from her father's apartment in New York to her mother and stepfather's farm in Iowa every summer, then back again. She had always loved listening to the roar of a passenger liner's engines as they cycled up, then the roller-coaster thrill of acceleration and liftoff. Where most other people hated turbulence and choppy air during a flight, Sarah just hung on and enjoyed the ride.

Now, as she flew through the skies over the Indian Ocean, Sarah marveled at just how fast this Air Defense Force transport could go. There were no queasy passengers on this flight – Jack, her mother, and the flight crew were no strangers to high-speed flight. After making sure Sarah was all right with it, the pilot had gradually accelerated to over seven hundred miles per hour. Eventually, the quad-engine jet transport had passed the sound barrier, a fantastic sonic BOOM! sending tremors through its sturdy metal frame.

For the first few minutes, Sarah had been pushed back into her seat, her eyes watering, gripping the armrests tightly, a huge smile plastered all over her face. This was way better than the big, clunky civilian jets she was used to!

Once they had reached supercruise, Colonel Wright, the man who had brought them all together, hit a switch. A metal table rose up from the floor, a cover sliding off its small holographic projector system. "If you'll all join me over here, we can begin our discussion."

"About damn time," Jack grumbled, unbuckling his seat belt and making his way over. Sarah didn't quite understand why her stepfather was being so grumpy: when last she'd seen him, Jack Bukhar had been calm and content, watching the evening news with Sarah and her mother, Lynn, before they had all gone off to bed.

The next morning, Sarah had woken up alone in the house, with only a note from her mother that had told her Jack had been called away during the night. When her mother had come home by herself later that morning, Lynn would only say that Jack had been asked to help with some kind of classified mission in Antarctica. Even though she could read the worry on her mother's face, Sarah couldn't help but think it was cool that her stepdad, a retired Special Air Force pilot and squadron leader, was still important enough to be called out on top-secret missions.

Then, three days later, this big, high-tech ADF transport had touched down on their driveway, and this same Colonel had invited Sarah and Lynn along to pick up Jack.

"First of all, I'd like to know where you get off roping my family into this," Jack growled. "If you want to talk to me, then fire away, but if you think you can influence my decisions by threatening them—"

"Whoa! Hold on there, Major! Nobody's threatening anyone. It's just that we wanted to give you the opportunity to consult with your family. I'm afraid we need your help, and given that you're a family man, we were sure you'd want to consult with your wife and daughter before making any important decisions. This way, we can all sit down and talk things over without having to use unsecured communications."

"Well, that seems very considerate of you," Lynn said, settling into a seat by the table. "But just what sort of decisions are you expecting my husband to make?"

"To be frank, Mrs. Bukhar, the United Nations Air Defense Force isn't ready to fight the JAM yet." The Colonel tapped a few keys, and a holographic blue globe of the Earth appeared, with part of Asia and a wide swath of Africa highlighted in red. "For the last decade, most of our operations have centered on assisting relief efforts in Africa and searching for jihadis in the Middle East. Air-to-air combat has become a kind of lost art, I'm afraid.

A red dot appeared in the Southern Ocean. "As you now know, forty-eight hours ago, a squadron of alien Jet-powered Airborne Mechanoids, or JAM, attacked the Antarctic carrier fleet."

"Yeah," Jack said. "I was there, remember?"

"Exactly. For the last two days, the ADF has been trying to put together some kind of effective response to the JAM threat. However, as I'm sure you're aware, the Security Council has been reluctant to acknowledge the true extent of the problem for years. They feel that our resources are stretched to the breaking point as it is, without having to commit to a full-on war with the JAM. The United States, Japan, Russia, and others are pressuring the Security Council to keep a lid on the Antarctic raid."

"But that doesn't make any sense!" Jack exclaimed. "They just crippled an entire carrier fleet! And they would have killed us all if Rei hadn't taken out their command unit. The JAM are more dangerous than all the roadside bombs and hijacked airplanes of the last fifty years put together!"

"But nobody wants to believe that," Lynn said quietly. Having researched the JAM threat for most of her life, she was all too aware of humanity's tendency to ignore them. "To most people, the JAM are an enemy 'out there' somewhere. They haven't attacked ordinary people, just military personnel. They retreated back to Fairy after just a few air battles over a frozen continent at the bottom of the world, where hardly anyone lives anyway. Compared to terrorist attacks, which can target anyone anywhere, or humanitarian crises where you see images of starving children on the news every night, it simply doesn't have the same emotional impact on ordinary people. And without massive popular support, no politician in his right mind would dare launch a serious offensive against a well-armed, technologically advanced enemy like the JAM."

"It's still stupid," Jack replied. "If we keep on ignoring the JAM, even when they launch attacks like the one I saw, it just gives them more time to get stronger. Eventually, they'll be powerful enough to come out of hiding and wipe us all out. Then all those starving babies in Somalia will die, all right – along with every other human being on the planet!"

The Colonel nodded. "Now you understand how we feel. Not everybody in the ADF is blind to the severity of the JAM threat, Major, but I'm afraid we're in the minority. General Cooley has managed to squeeze some additional funding out of the ADF budget for anti-JAM operations, but in all honesty, it's nowhere near the kind of support we need."

"Hold on: General Cooley? As in Rydia Cooley?"

The Colonel smiled. "I thought the name might be familiar to you. She's the one keeping the UN from sweeping the JAM under the rug. Since she's the head of Special Operations, the Security Council has to give her at least some respect, even if they don't want to deal with the whole JAM issue."

Jack nodded. "All right. So, not everybody in the ADF has lost their minds. I still don't see what all of this has to do with me, or with my family."

Colonel Wright sighed. "Well, given the lack of experienced combat pilots in the ADF, we've been trying to form a small special-ops unit of FAF veterans. You know as well as I do that the Security Council made a lot of lousy decisions after the Fairy War. Most FAF personnel were simply let go, without pensions or benefits, except for commissioned officers with a rank of Major or above. We've been going down a short list of experienced FAF combat pilots, but most are so bitter about the UN's decision that they refuse to work with the Peacekeeping Forces. Hell, we've even offered promotions and pay raises. But with the exception of your friend Lieutenant Fukai and a few others, most of the people we've spoken to just blow us off. Finding qualified pilots has been difficult, and finding an experienced commander to lead them is even tougher."

"Experienced commander, huh? So you don't just want me to consult; you want me as a full-time unit commander. Is that right?"

"Exactly."

"Well then, I refuse," Jack replied bluntly.

The Colonel nodded at this. "I read your file, so I can't say I'm really surprised by your reaction. You're committed to the people you care for; your friends, your family. You have a good, comfortable family life. And here I am, asking you to jump right back into the fray, fighting for a political entity that left you and a lot of your friends high and dry. Does that sound about right?"

"You left out the fact that the UN left us all 'high and dry' after we'd spent years fighting to protect it and its people. If you're trying to make me out to be an ingrate, you might want to remember that you and your bosses didn't show much gratitude to us after the Fairy War."

"I'm not making you out to be anything, Major. And frankly, you're not the only one who had to adjust after the FAF was disbanded. My unit was dissolved just two days after the Passageway battle. A lot of my pilots were cut loose, and it's taken me five years to get any kind of recognition for the ones who didn't make it back. But even after all that, I still stuck with the ADF. Do you want to know why, Major?"

"Not really, but I'm sure you'll tell me anyway."

"I transferred to the Air Defense Force because I care about the human race. Sure, there are plenty of idiots filling chairs on the Security Council. Sure the bureaucracy can be like a goddamn maze at times. But even with all that, the UN Peacekeeping Force is the only military dedicated to serving the interests of the entire planet.

"To be perfectly frank, Major Bukhar, the human race needs you right now. You, your wife and I are among the few human beings who understand just what our species is up against. You have real combat experience, both as a pilot and as a unit commander.

"And unlike any of the other officers we could be contacting for this position, only you have experience commanding Rei Fukai and the Yukikaze." The Colonel tapped a few more keys, and the globe disappeared, replaced by the image of a beautiful, streamlined fighter jet with forward-swept wings. Everyone recognized it:Yukikaze, the sentient fighter jet which, in many ways, had brought them all together. "You know what they're capable of, and you know just how important their detection and combat capabilities are to waging an effective campaign against the JAM. Tell me, Major, just what do you think most commanders would make of Lieutenant Fukai?"

Jack couldn't help but wince. He knew better than anyone what Rei Fukai was like: intense, taciturn, at once hot-headed and coldly rational. A withdrawn young man with no patience for what he deemed to be unnecessary distractions – things like having a social life, or respecting authority or protocol for their own sake. Rei's whole life revolved around two primary goals: destroying JAM and flying with his sentient technological "partner", Yukikaze. The real, sensitive, insightful Rei Fukai was buried deep beneath layers of defense mechanisms, accessible only to the few people he knew he could trust.

My first reaction was, "Please, don't let this guy be assigned to my unit." I can't even imagine the hell he'd raise with a commander whom he doesn't know or trust, plus flying with other pilots he doesn't feel comfortable with.

My duty to my family, or my duty to my best friend. How the hell can I choose?

Jack glanced at his wife. Lynn met his gaze with her own soft, brown eyes. Jack saw the compassion in them. Lynn knew enough about his friendship with Rei to know that abandoning him would be unthinkable, even if it were for her sake. And in that sympathetic face, he saw Lynn's acceptance.

"Jack," she said quietly, "he's right. I don't want you to leave any more than you want to go. But if you don't, and this special unit doesn't work out, then the JAM will destroy everything sooner or later."

Jack sighed. "Lynn, you know that this special unit is probably going to be mobile. That means I'll be stationed on a carrier somewhere. They won't let you stay with me on a military ship."

Lynn nodded. "I know that. But as much as I wish we could just go back to Iowa and lead a normal life, I'm not sure I could. Not knowing that the JAM are out there somewhere, and that the man best able to fight them won't do it because I'm keeping him at home."

"It doesn't have to be me running this thing. They've got hundreds of top-notch commanders to choose from."

"But none who could lead a Special Operations squadron as well as you, and we both know it. If I have to choose between being a military wife and having Armageddon hanging over both our heads, I'd choose the first one." Jack's wife offered him a wan smile. "Besides, don't tell me there isn't a part of you that wants to be where the action is."

Jack sighed. He and Lynn hardly ever argued; even after only three years of marriage, they knew each other too well. They both knew the facts, and knew that the right decision – the most responsible one – was for Jack to take charge of this new anti-JAM unit.

But that doesn't mean we have to like it, Jack thought. Turning back to Colonel Wright, he looked the man straight in the eye. "All right," he muttered. "I'll do it. I'll put this unit together for you. And once you've managed to bring in the other poor saps crazy enough to fly in it, I'll do my best to keep them alive." Glancing back at his family – Lynn with her sad yet understanding smile, Sarah looking on with her wide, innocent brown eyes – he added. "Just promise me that, whatever happens to me, my family will be all right."

Wright nodded in understanding. "We will. And we won't whisk you away from them just now. Once we reach our base of operations, I'm sure you'll be given at least a few days together. Maybe a week."

Jack cocked an eyebrow. "You'd let civilians onto a military base? For days at a time? Isn't that against regulations?"

The Colonel smiled. "You'll find that Special Operations Command has the leeway to be a bit … unorthodox sometimes. Besides, on our base, we don't exactly have a civilian neighborhood nearby."

"Colonel Wright, Sir!" the pilot called back, "We're almost there."

"Thank you, Captain," the Colonel replied. To Jack and the others, he said, "All right, everybody. I'll need you to strap back in again; we'll be decelerating from supercruise shortly. We're about ten minutes from base."

Sarah looked out the window. "But we're still over the ocean. Are we landing on another carrier?"

The Colonel smiled. "Technically, yes. Though in this case, the term 'landing' is used very loosely."

As the ADF transport slowed from supersonic to conventional flight, Sarah noticed that they were staying at pretty much the same altitude. Normally, on the passenger jets she flew on, the pilots made a long, slow descent while cabin pressure was adjusted. I wonder why we're staying so high?

"Attention everyone: we are now on final approach. Please make sure all passengers and loose objects are properly secured."

"But we're still so high up!" Sarah said. "Are we dropping straight down or something?"

Colonel Wright's smile just got wider. "Relax," he said. "If you like military jets, just look ahead of us. This one is the mother of them all."

Following the Colonel's advice, Sarah craned her neck to look down the aisle. In front of them was a dense cloud bank, obscuring the view ahead.

Then the clouds parted, and Sarah felt her jaw drop open in shock.

A long time ago, when Jack had told her about the last battle of the Fairy War, he had mentioned a big transport plane called a Banshee. Out of curiosity, Sarah had Googled it that night. There had been some aerial photos of a strange-looking aircraft with six wings, two forward-swept and four backward-swept, stacked on top of one another. She had read a Wikipedia article about Banshees: how they were basically flying supercarriers, with room inside for two full wings of military aircraft, including several cargo planes. Back then, she had thought they were big.

Up close, this Banshee was enormous.

As the transport drew closer, the Banshee filled the view in front, and Sarah could see its uppermost starboard wing stretching away on her right. It occurred to her that its expansive surface area, along with those of the other five wings, was what kept the gigantic airship aloft. That, and the power of the twin fusion reactors feeding its fourteen massive turbofan engines.

Banshees were simply too big to land. Regular refueling flights brought tritium pellets for their reactors, and cargo and tanker planes brought up whatever material their crew and aircraft needed. They were so huge, powerful and expensive that only four had ever been constructed, two for the UN Air Defense Force and two for the Fairy Air Force. All four had been in service for nearly forty years, since shortly after the JAM first came through the Passageway.

Banshees had been designed to deploy overwhelming air power anywhere in the world within hours, and could loiter over an area for nearly unlimited periods.

And if necessary, a single Banshee carried enough missiles, bombs, troops and combat aircraft to fight a small war by itself.

Coming toward the behemoth from its rear, the VTOL transport slowed, letting a catch arm slide up and clamp onto its forward landing gear. There was a dull thud, a jerk, and a quick ratcheting sound as the arm brought them to a gentle stop. No, Sarah realized, we're only stopped relative to the Banshee. Just how fast is this whole thing moving?

Within moments, the transport was guided onto a rectangular platform, where clamps attached to its landing gear to hold it in place. With a mechanical whir, the platform slid forward, taking them in through the protection gate. The platform moved along a track, sliding into the middle of the upper maintenance bay. Then the platform turned and took them left, sliding along the length of the lowest portside wing.

Dozens of aircraft passed by the side windows: F-22 Raptors, F-35 Lightning IIs, Su-37 Terminators, Su-47 Golden Eagles, Kawasaki P-1s, F2 Typhoons, FFR-31 Sylphids, FA-2 Fand IIs, and a host of others. This entire deck seemed dedicated to housing fighters and interceptor craft. That makes sense; if the Banshee gets attacked, the fighters are right here next to the catapults.

Then their platform reached a vertical shaft, descending beneath the fighter deck. Sarah tried to remember just how many hangar decks Banshees had. Three? Four? I know the lowest one is the biggest; that's where they keep the cargo planes.

The second deck seemed to be their stop. The platform ramped forward again, then turned into an empty slot. Their VTOL transport slid in between two similar-looking aircraft, its nose pointing toward the track in the center of the deck. With a shudder, the platform locked in place.

I'm on board a Banshee. With my family. For maybe a week. This is going to be the most awesome summer vacation ever!

Smiling, Colonel Wright unfastened his harness and walked over to Jack. Clapping a hand on the man's shoulder, he said, "Welcome aboard Banshee One, Lieutenant Colonel Bukhar."

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