Update/Edit:
Many thanks to Shoootme for pointing out that a carrier fleet employs AEWAC (Airborne Early Warning And Control, also called AWACS [Airborne Warning And Control Systems]) aircraft, as well as a CAP (Combat Air Patrol), to look over the horizon and prevent the fleet from being ambushed from close range.
Once again, I am indebted to you, the readers, for your encouragement and your editorial help. Thank you!
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Chapter Ten: Warning
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Aboard the Hogosha, Rei sat in Yukikaze's pilot seat, knowing that these would be their last moments together. Unconsciously, his hand wandered over her controls, stroking and caressing them. It was as close to a hug as he could give her, at least outside of his own dreams.
"Soon, we won't even be able to meet there," he murmured quietly. "You won't even remember me."
INCORRECT
21% PROBABILITY OF
RESIDUAL DATA REMAINING
Somehow, Yukikaze's estimate rang hollow, as though trying to reassure him with some unlikely hope. "You know, you've been hanging around human beings too long," Rei said with a pale smile. "Now you're grasping at straws."
21% PROBABILITY
IS BETTER THAN 0%
"Well, I hope you're right," Rei sighed. Checking his watch, he noticed that he only had fifteen minutes left before his flight. "I really am going to miss you, Yukikaze. And … thank you. I'm only alive because of you."
YOU'RE WELCOME, Lt.
I WISH YOU LUCK
With one last caress of her interface panel, Rei slowly climbed up and out of Yukikaze's cockpit. As he walked away from the ladder, he took one last look at the plane that had, in so many ways, become his other half. At least she looked intact again; the last of her damaged parts had been replaced, her repairs finally complete. It still hurt Rei's heart to see the blank, gray patches where her insignia had been. It made her seem anonymous somehow, like her identity had been erased.
With one final sigh, Rei turned and began heading for the elevator.
I wonder what's keeping Jack?
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Unbeknownst to Rei, what was keeping his friend was the fact that Jack had taken his own advice. With his duffel bag lying on the floor, ready to go, Jack Bukhar was sleeping soundly in his quarters. As of yet, nobody had come to wake him.
The reason for this was currently being debated on the bridge.
"Well? What's keeping the transport?" Admiral Fujikawa snapped. "They called in just an hour ago. Can't you raise them on the radio?"
The young Communications officer shook his head. "I've been trying, Sir, but there's no response. They must be having some trouble with their transmission equipment."
Fujikawa felt a dull throbbing begin at his temples. "ATC? Where are they on the screen?"
"Um … I'm not quite sure, Sir. They're still out of our radar range, but I've been trying to get a GPS fix on their transponder. So far, the satellites haven't picked them up."
"What about emergency beacons? Any unusual transmissions in that area?"
"Nothing, Sir. It's like they just vanished."
The Admiral groaned. First this cockamamie rescue mission for a fighter plane, then keeping a suspected spy on board, and now a lost transport? This week just keeps getting better. "And we have no idea where they went?"
"Not exactly, Sir. The last time they checked in, they were following straight on course. Their radio's probably damaged. They've still got fifteen minutes before scheduled ETA; they'll show up. CAP has been informed, and our patrol fighters will keep their eyes open for them."
"All right. Send our AEWAC unit up along its last projected flight path - tell them to keep an eye out for anything unusual. And get two rescue choppers ready, just in case. If we don't see or hear from the Aussies within the next half-hour, send our birds out to help with lower-altitude searching."
"Aye aye, Sir. Attention: Seahawk 1 and 2, prepare for takeoff and stand by. Possible search and rescue mission in thirty minutes. Repeat, Seahawk 1 and 2, prepare for takeoff and stand by."
Had the bridge crew not been so preoccupied searching for a lost transport several hundred miles north of their position, they might have noticed a single blip appear at the opposite corner of the radar screen. No IFF identifier accompanied the white dot; it loitered at the edge of the fleet's radar perimeter for several seconds, then vanished.
No human eye even noticed.
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At that moment, just as Rei was about to step through the door and leave the hangar bay, a frighteningly familiar sound made his blood run cold. Turning around, Rei beheld Yukikaze, her composite skin rippling with glowing red stripes. High-output speakers built into her body let out a weird, buzzing growl.
The maintenance crews all turned to watch her bizarre display. "What the hell is that?" somebody exclaimed.
Rei felt as though his heart were caught in a cold metal vise. "It's a warning pattern! Move!" Running back the way he had come just moments before, Rei climbed up into Yukikaze's cockpit. Her alarm chimed frantically, her interface screen flashing with an impossible message.
ALERT
ENEMY DETECTED
JAM TYPE I X 1
PROFILE: AERIAL RECON
***ATTACK IMMINENT***
What …?
"Hey! What the hell'd you do?" shouted an MP, rushing up beside the ladder.
"Nothing! It's a warning signal – part of her JAM sensor-jamming system. She's picked up a Type-I flying reconnaissance!"
The military policeman unslung his assault rifle, pointing it up at Rei. "Get out of that plane! Now!"
Rei felt his fear mingle with anger. "Didn't you hear me? They're sizing us up – they're getting ready to attack!"
"Get out of there before I come and get you out!"
Rei couldn't believe what he was hearing. "I just told you that there's a hostile aircraft out there. He's about to tell his friends that there's a big, juicy carrier fleet right here, and you're pointing a gun at me?"
"The only threat I see is a has-been space man trying to steal a fighter plane. Now, put your hands up, get out of that cockpit, and come down here!"
Rei felt his teeth clench in a scowl. "We don't have time for this!" he snapped, even as he brought his hands slowly up over his head. Slowly, he descended the ladder and approached the MP, who had kept his rifle pointed straight at Rei's chest the whole time. "Look," he began, "if you'd just go up there and look at her screen—"
Rei never saw it coming. One moment, he was standing in front of the guard, hands above his head, trying to reason with the trigger-happy MP and keep his own temper in check. The next instant, he heard a loud crack! as the man's rifle butt connected with the side of his head. Stars danced in his eyes, and Rei collapsed helplessly to the deck.
The MP ran over to the nearest intercom switch. "Sergeant Tada to the bridge. You were right, Sir; that psycho was just sitting in the cockpit, trying to jump-start his old plane. Damn good thing nobody refueled it."
"Good work, Sergeant. Take Fukai back to his cell, and make sure he stays there. Looks like our boy will be flying home to Tokyo in cuffs after all."
"Aye, Sir." Stepping away from the intercom, Tada motioned to the other two MP's who had been keeping watch over Fukai for the last several days. Together, they hoisted the unconscious man up and carried him away, out of the maintenance bay and back toward his dark, windowless quarters.
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In his dreams, Rei saw Yukikaze. From behind, her dragonfly wings folded against her back, she truly looked like some creature straight out of a fairy tale.
Then, in a moment of terrible clarity, he remembered how he had gotten here: Yukikaze's warning, and the sudden attack that had sent him here to this blank white dreamscape.
"Yukikaze, what's going on? They told us the Passageway was closed; how could you have sensed the JAM here?"
The pale woman turned to face him, and as he stared into her deep, multi-irised eyes, Rei saw raw terror in their depths.
Without warning, the featureless white "ground" beneath them fractured, like a bone-china tabletop hit by a hammer. Huge swaths of white dropped away, into an ink-black darkness that seemed miles deep.
But the darkness wasn't empty. As the whiteness of Rei's dreamscape shattered, strange black shapes rose from the depths. Purple and green patterns flowed across faceted towers of ebon stone. Somehow, Rei knew that the entire thing pulsed with sentient, malevolent life.
Like a swarm of billions upon billions of angry hornets, shrieking black flyers erupted up out of the mass. Now there was no light except the pale radiance of Yukikaze herself. Rei stared up into a sky darkened by razor-edged wings. Numberless spinning eyes glared at him, shrieking like a chorus of the damned.
Then the white flatness beneath his feet shattered, and Rei was tumbling helplessly into the darkness.
The last thing he saw before waking was Yukikaze's terrified face, staring down after him, her arms reaching out desperately as he plummeted into the abyss.
The JAM – they're on Earth …!
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