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Chapter Four: Reunion
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For Rei Fukai, it felt like walking back into a nightmare.
I stare at Yukikaze. Her left engine has been removed, panels of composite skin pulled away like gaping wounds. Her nose cone is turned aside, as though broken from some terrible blow. Where a human would scream – hell, a human would have gone into shock and lost consciousness! – Yukikaze can only sound her alarm tone. As I climb up, she keeps flashing a single word, over and over again: CAUTION.
As she lies helpless on the runway, the only thing she can do is warn me of the danger ….
"Rei? Are you all right?" Jack asked quietly.
The moment of déjà vu passed, and Rei blinked away the image. The plane sitting before him was not the FFR-31MR/D Super Sylph Yukikaze had once been. Instead, technicians and maintenance crews walked about the FFR-44MR Mave fighter jet. Rei had to remind himself that the missing panels and exposed machinery were due to extensive repairs – that the people moving about Yukikaze were there to heal her, not to harm her.
Still, the sight of her like this was like seeing a friend laid out on an operating table.
Jack looked on sadly. The pain in Rei's heart showed on his face. "He'll be okay," he said, putting a hand on his friend's shoulder.
Rei took a deep breath. "I know." Glancing behind them at the MP, he said, "I need to talk to Yukikaze."
"Go on," Jack replied, waving him toward the fighter plane – as much so the guard would know it was all right as to give Rei his consent.
It was all the pale pilot could do to keep from running across the maintenance deck. Spotting a technician with a laptop and a WAI headset, he walked over and promptly asked to see the device. One look into the pilot's intense gray eyes, and the tech handed it over without a word.
Computer in hand, mic and headphones in place, Rei walked toward Yukikaze, typing as he went. Immediately, a message appeared:
ERROR: INVALID ACCESS
PASSWORD REQUIRED
Rei's brow furrowed. They haven't even managed to connect to her computer? he thought. Still, if what Jack had told him was true, there was a good reason they didn't have Yukikaze's information. With the Fairy Air Force disbanded, its assets had been dispersed among various branches of the United Nations Peacekeeping Forces. Tracking down access codes for MIA fighter jets from the Fairy War was probably like hunting for a needle in a bureaucratic haystack.
With a few rapid keystrokes, Rei punched in his password. A moment later, the laptop screen flashed:
PASSWORD RECEIVED
VOICEPRINT ID REQUIRED
Voiceprint ID? When has she ever asked me for that? Rei wondered. It was as though Yukikaze was uncertain it was really him. Damn idiots must have tried typing random passwords, he thought, feeling a brief flash of anger. "Mode VC. First Lieutenant Fukai to B-3. Confirm voiceprint ID."
The screen went blank for a long moment, and Rei could almost feel Yukikaze's disbelief, as though afraid even to hope it was really him. Feeling tears at the corners of his eyes, Rei spoke quietly into the mic. "Yukikaze, it's me."
Another pause. Then:
PASSWORD CONFIRMED
VOICEPRINT CONFIRMED
WELCOME BACK,
Lt. FUKAI
The lines of text appeared all at once, as though spoken in a rush. Rei felt the tears rolling slowly down his cheeks; the confirmation was like a joyful shout, a warm handshake, a hug from a long-lost friend. "I missed you too," he said softly.
Reaching the ladder at Yukikaze's side, Rei climbed up into his familiar seat. He heard the quiet whirr as Yukikaze's cockpit camera focused on his face. On the instrument screen, a new message appeared.
REQUESTING PILOT STATUS
Rei smiled at her concern. "I'm all right," he replied. "Display systems status."
A schematic appeared on the screen. Patches of red indicated damaged or offline components. Rei felt his gut clench at the sight; the readout looked like a red-and blue checkerboard. Leader lines and text appeared around the image, highlighting the status of vital systems. Engines were offline but miraculously intact, although Yukikaze's punctured fuel tank had been removed. Her electronics were running off electrical power from the Hogosha's nuclear reactor. Shrapnel from the JAM cloud around the Passageway had taken a heavy toll; Yukikaze's tough yet lightweight composite skin had been pitted with tiny impact craters, interfering with her usually perfect aerodynamics. Nearly half of her optical sensor clusters had been destroyed or damaged, and her right side-looking radome had been rendered nonfunctional. Several bent and shredded control surfaces had been removed. Some of the damaged parts had already had replacements fabricated by the Hogosha's automated machine shop, while others were still awaiting repair.
"Damn," Rei sighed, sinking back into the pilot's seat. "I guess we've both been better, huh?"
Of course, Yukikaze had no reply to that offhand remark. Even so, Rei was certain the sentient fighter jet understood the camaraderie, the good-natured sharing of sympathy behind it.
No doubt a tech would have told him otherwise – Yukikaze was a fighter aircraft, designed to destroy targets, gather information, and protect itself and its flight crew in the process. Its Combat Intelligence had never been programmed with human emotional responses, or meant to trade jokes and chitchat with human beings. It was a machine, and a killing machine at that.
But then, none of them has ever flown with her. None of them has ever had a JAM antiaircraft missile five feet behind their exhaust nozzles, felt her spin around tail-first and destroy it faster than any human being could blink. None of them has ever had her save their lives, or heard her call out their name.
Or seen her crying in their dreams….
REQUEST INFO
Rei felt himself jolted back to reality. "Specify query."
DATE AND TIME
PROVIDED BY BASE COMPUTER
SHOW UNACCEPTABLE DISCREPANCIES
LAST DEPARTURE
FROM BANSHEE 3 0746 FST, OCTOBER 1, 2054
MISSION TIME ELAPSED: 2 HRS 57 MIN 23 SEC
JDS HOGOSHA ATC REPORTS
ARRIVAL AT
JDS HOGOSHA 0103 GMT, JUNE 15, 2059
DISCREPANCY OF 4 YR 8 MO 15 DY 5 HR 17 MIN
NO ENEMY DETECTED
IFF VERIFIED
REQUEST CLARIFICATION
Rei sighed. Well, at least this isn't another JAM illusion, he decided. Yukikaze had proven her uncanny ability to detect and see through such things. If she said that the carrier, its crew, and the information in the ship's computer were real, then Rei would trust her judgment. "Unable to clarify," he said tiredly. Hell, I wish someone could clarify it for me! he added mentally.
Again, while he knew that Yukikaze hadn't been programmed to understand that last statement, and would have had no response if he'd spoken it aloud, he felt sure that she could still read his own helpless confusion.
Yukikaze seemed to consider his reply for a few moments. Then, apparently choosing not to dwell on the matter, her screen flashed with a new message as she decided to broach a slightly more immediate problem:
UNABLE TO ACCESS
FAF CENTRAL COMPUTER
JDS HOGOSHA
DOES NOT RECOGNIZE SAF COMM PROTOCOLS/
YUKIKAZE UNIT ID
DATABASE SEARCH INDICATES
FAF/SAF/BOOMERANG SQ
DISBANDED
REQUEST CURRENT DEPLOYMENT STATUS
REQUEST MISSION DATA
Rei felt a pounding in his temples as her question hit him. If there's no FAF, and our unit is gone, then who are we working with now? What are we going to do now? "Unknown," he admitted. "Will investigate. Stand by for further information."
UNACCEP—
The almost angry-looking message began, then disappeared. There was a long, uncomfortable pause, then:
ROGER Lt.
STANDING BY
Rei winced, as though Yukikaze's frustration were as plain as a scowl, or as audible as a huff.
"I'm sorry," Rei said quietly, knowing that Yukikaze would not respond to it with words, but certain that she would somehow understand his. "I'm going to find out what's going on. As soon as they tell me, I'll be back."
Silence from the speakers and blank space on the screen. Then, letter by letter, somehow conveying sadness and longing,
GOOD LUCK, Lt. FUKAI
Rei put his hand on the top of the screen, slowly running his hand over the camera blister, a sort of reassuring pat on the fighter's "head". "No need to worry, Yukikaze. As long as I have you to keep an eye out for me, I'll be just fine."
The screen went dark a moment later. Looking around, Rei noticed Jack standing on the deck beside the plane, looking up at Rei as he sat in the cockpit. "How's it doing?" his friend asked.
Rei smiled, relief etched across his long, pale face. "Yukikaze's just fine. Needs a little work, but these UN techs are doing a decent job on repairs. We should be ready to go within the next day or two."
Jack's face clouded, and Rei felt a sharp stab of fear. He glanced back at Yukikaze's camera and heard it whirr softly, the two looking at one another as the same thought raced through both minds:
We are going up again … aren't we?
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Just to clarify: I know that in the subtitles for the Japanese dialogue, the cast often refers to Yukikaze as a "he". In Rei's dreams, though, Yukikaze appears as a female, so I decided to have him treat "her" as a female character. Maybe the other characters just aren't as good at telling the gender of fighter aircraft?
Also, according to freedict, Hogosha is Japanese for Protector. In case anybody was curious ….
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