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  Yukikaze

  ( Yukikaze - 1 )

  Chōhei Kambayashi

  Yukikaze

  © 2002 Chōhei Kambayashi

  Originally published in Japan by Hayakawa Publishing, Inc.

  All rights reserved.

  Cover illustration by Shoji Hasegawa

  English translation © 2009 VIZ Media, LLC

  No portion of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without written permission form the copyright holders.

  HAIKASORU

  Published by

  VIZ Media, LLC

  295 Bay Street

  San Francisco, CA 94133

  www.haikasoru.com

  ISBN 978-1-4215-3986-7

  Haikasoru eBook edition, October 2010

  FOREWORD

  From “The FAF and the Special Air Force”

  in The Invader, by Lynn Jackson (15th edition)

  AN OBSERVER LOOKING at historical maps of the world would soon note that in nearly every age places free from conflict are the exception, not the rule. Even today, areas of strife paint the map red, staining it with blood spilled in confrontation. The history of mankind is a record of warfare. Humans have fought against other humans and even against nature itself. This remains unchanged, the same now as it was then.

  Yet, when comparing the current world map to the maps of the past, our theoretical observer would be able to see one red mark in the Antarctic indicating a site possessing far greater significance than any battlefield. Being such a small mark it’s easy to overlook, and in point of fact most people these days seem to have forgotten about it. However, it is there. The site is at a point on the Ross Ice Shelf a thousand kilometers from Earth’s south pole, at approximately longitude 170° west, and is barely five hundred meters in diameter.

  This is the hyperspace corridor that we know as the “Passageway,” the portal that the aliens called the “JAM” used in their attempted invasion of Earth. The Passageway looks like a gigantic spindle, with a maximum diameter of just under three kilometers and a height of over ten, its lower end seemingly driven right into the ice shelf. When conditions are right you can see it with the naked eye, an impossibly huge cloud of mist that resembles nothing so much as an enormous missile shot into the ground from the heavens.

  It’s not clear exactly how long the Passageway has been there. The human race first learned of its existence thirty years ago, when the JAM came swarming out of it to launch their first strike. Later, during our counterattack, we traveled back through the Passageway, and when the Earth Defense Force’s reconnaissance units emerged on the other side they discovered a hitherto unknown world. Behind them towered the huge white cloud that pierced our world. Around them spread dense forests. To this day the planet Faery has hid its many mysteries well; we have made little progress in learning about its geography or ecosystem, or even which star system it is in.

  If, say, a laser were to be fired through the Passageway from Earth, the beam would pass through cleanly, stretching into Faery’s airspace as though fired from within the Passageway. The mist itself is not the Passageway but rather encloses a separate space that exists within it. It may be the result of some function of the Passageway. Or perhaps it’s an illusion of sorts. The JAM, however, are not an illusion. Mankind has fought them. It fights them even now. The only difference is that the battlefield has moved from Earth to the planet Faery. The threat of the JAM is still there.

  The Earth Defense Force’s main combat body on the planet is the Faery Air Force, referred to more commonly as the “FAF.” The FAF’s units are arrayed in a roughly even distribution around the Faery terminus of the Passageway and are organized into six enormous bases: Sylvan, Brownie, Troll, Siren, Valkia, and Faery, with Faery Base acting as the general headquarters over all. As the key base there, it is by far the largest in scale.

  At the current time the FAF’s most powerful fighter plane is a twin-engine, all-condition tactical fighter known as the “Sylphid.” It is a high-performance machine boasting advanced electronic armaments and engines that possess a multitude of improvement modifications to optimize them for the skies of Faery. There are not that many Sylphids, owing to their high cost, but the FAF has made great advances in their production processes and is now building more of them.

  Of the few original Sylphids produced, thirteen of them have been modified for tactical reconnaissance. These thirteen planes have been equipped with onboard computers that are even more highly advanced than the ones used in the ordinary fighters. This variant of Sylphid is known as the “Super Sylph,” and while it looks like the other Sylphids it is a completely different beast. In essence, it’s a supercomputer with wings and high-output engines.

  These thirteen tactical electronic warfare and reconnaissance Sylphids have been assigned to the 5th Squadron of the FAF’s Special Air Force. When you look at the official list of the FAF’s corps, divisions, and units, the 5th Squadron seems to just be one unit of an airwing attached to the Tactical Combat Group of Faery Base. In reality, however, it has its own independent headquarters and exists as a corps of its own. Now, when one mentions the Special Air Force, one is in fact referring specifically to the 5th Squadron. Its formal unit designation is SAF-V; however, this is really used only in official documents. Within the Faery Air Force, it is commonly called just “the SAF.”

  When the FAF was formed, the SAF wasn’t regarded as a particularly vital unit. However, the staff officers in the FAF command had to admit the need for more advanced and accurate tactical combat intelligence. Thus it was not by accident that the SAF, which was charged with overseeing the collection of all frontline electronic intelligence, was given these top-of-the-line Sylphids. Indeed, their existence is vital. High-speed computers with the most advanced processing capacities are now essential to the war against the JAM: without these computers, we wouldn’t be able to fight them. The central computers aboard the Super Sylphs that collect combat activity data are extremely powerful: no other fighter plane has such advanced, real-time data analysis capabilities. These onboard computers are directly interfaced with the strategic and tactical computers protected deep under Faery Base in the SAF’s mission control room. In that respect it would be safe to say that the fighters are moving components of a larger, fixed supercomputer.

  The SAF’s digital technology is the most advanced of all the FAF combat units. And the single, overriding order of the unit is: come back alive, at any cost. The SAF’s fighters greedily collect every scrap of data on the front line, record it into a combat intelligence file, and then return to base. Easily disrupted wireless transmission of the data is used only in emergencies.

  The thirteen Super Sylphs attached to the unit are never launched together at the same time. Always just one, or at the very most two, sortie to follow the other aircraft. And even if their fellow fighters are being decimated, they can offer no support; they must simply collect the combat intelligence and return to base. To see this duty through, the Super Sylph is equipped with external fuel tanks and an early warning radar system as good as a reconnaissance aircraft’s, all to protect itself and the data files it carries. And for that one purpose, it also carries powerful weaponry.

  Given the psychological strain of having to watch their comrades die while still remaining emotionally disengaged, the pilots who perform this duty need hearts as cold as a computer. The pilots of the SAF evidently take a certain satisfaction in this requirement, and individuals with “special” personalities outside the range of normal human standards are selected for this duty. These men put more faith in their machines than in other people and can fly their planes with perfect skill. In a way, they are yet one more combat computer, but organic in nature, loaded aboard the Sylphids
to carry out a heartless duty.

  These soldiers are of various nationalities and backgrounds. We do not know much about them, as the FAF will not release to the public the personal data files that record their pasts. What we do know is that what’s necessary to the SAF is not that these men and women have past combat experience but rather that they be machines that are, through some accident of fate, in human form.

  The current war with the JAM demands such individuals. And lately, I’ve begun to think that it was this — the creation of inhuman humans — that may have been the JAM’s primary objective. Even if it isn’t, if these are the characteristics and abilities needed by the SAF to fight the JAM, I imagine we will be seeing more and more of this kind of soldier as the war with the JAM drags on. And that in itself is a threat to the human race.

  THE JAM ARE no longer on Earth. Their invasion has been held at bay on the planet Faery, on the other side of the Passageway. The Passageway is so small and the war on Faery so distant and removed from day-to-day life that the JAM threat has been almost forgotten in the current international situation. People nowadays regard the war between the FAF and the JAM as they do the fairy-tale battles in children’s picture books. But Earth is still being targeted by the JAM. The threat has not vanished. The JAM may be developing plans for a second major invasion. Or perhaps they have prepared an indirect strategy that is unfolding at this very moment.

  The true nature of the alien JAM remains a mystery to us. We don’t understand how they think, and by the time we finally figure it out, it may be too late. We cannot forget about them. The fight against them is nothing like previous wars between humans. They are a reality that threatens all of mankind.

  I

  THE SKIES WHERE

  FAIRIES DANCE

  He had loved many things in his life and had been betrayed by most of them. Now, they only fed his hatred. When the woman he loved finally left him too, he was utterly alone. Now, only one thing gave his heart strength. A delicate, unspeaking machine that would never, ever betray him. A soaring fairy. A Sylphid. Yukikaze.

  TWENTY-FOUR ASSAULT fighter planes in combat formation punched their way through the skies toward an enemy base. They were units attached to the Faery Air Force’s Tactical Frontline Base TAB-16, 1666th Tactical Combat Group, 666th Tactical Fighter Squadron. Beneath them, a brilliant white desert drew near.

  It was a dry, desolate region. Rain clouds couldn’t make it across the bordering mountain range, and even what moisture the air could retain was greedily absorbed by the immense forests and countless forest creatures inhabiting the skirts of the mountains. As a result, the winds blowing through the forests emerged parched and dry. But for a very short time each spring, the vast amount of water released by the snowmelt on the mountains was more than even the forest could drink, and it seeped into the desert environs via underground rivers.

  It was spring, and from the sky one could see veins of water soaking into the sands. The edge of the desert was stained a light purple by the stubby, rugged plants that were now sprouting there. The new buds, glossy and metallic, sparkled brightly with reflected sunlight. Since the vegetation further into the desert grew more slowly than that toward the edge, the boundary between the desert interior and this purplish grassland was demarcated by a glittering line formed by the young plants. The entire effect suggested a ghostly field of purple flame advancing across the sugar-white sands.

  Hidden in the purple grassland were the enemy interceptors. When the 666th fighters’ early warning systems detected the enemy aircraft the strike leader barked out his commands.

  “Small JAM interceptors. The vertical-launch types are taking off. These guys are decoys. Alpha, Bravo, Charlie, take them. Everyone else, climb now! Combat climb!”

  From the grass rose the black JAM fighters. Three of them, four, then five, their boosters spitting out long tails of flame. The planes of the 666th TFS split into two flights, one going into a power dive while the other began to climb at high speed. From above them, a swarm of JAM interceptors dove into their attack.

  At the moment that the black JAM aircraft and the gray fighters of the 666th closed in battle, a formation of strike bombers from Faery Base’s Tactical Combat Group penetrated the JAM defense line, flying on the deck at supersonic speed. The camouflaged buildings of the JAM supply base could not be visually distinguished from the sand dunes they squatted in, but they couldn’t escape the passive sensors of the planes’ ground-attack systems.

  Just before reaching the base the bombers climbed sharply, their objectives locked on in their targeting systems. With the data now acquired and fed to their air-to-ground missiles, the bombers commenced another ultra-low altitude attack run. As soon as they were within range they released their missiles and withdrew, with the tactical fighters providing cover.

  The battle was over. The 666th retook their formation and streaked away from the desert. There were four empty spaces in the formation now, four planes that were not coming back. The 666th strike leader did not know how his subordinates had fought or how they died. Their battle had taken place out of his sight.

  However, it had not gone unwitnessed. There was one tactical combat and surveillance aircraft whose job it was to monitor the entire battle without engaging in it: Special Air Force Unit 3, attached to Faery Base. The model of plane was a Sylphid, its name, Yukikaze.

  The strike leader didn’t know what was in Yukikaze’s combat data file, but he knew it had recorded the particulars of the battle fought by the planes of the 666th TFS that had fallen to the JAM.

  None of the pilots had managed to eject. Four pilots and their beloved aircraft had been lost, scattered across the skies of Faery. Yukikaze’s pilot, Second Lieutenant Rei Fukai, conveyed this information to the squadron with no more emotion in his voice than if he were reading a string of numbers.

  “No survivors of downed planes. This is Yukikaze. Mission complete. Returning to base.”

  The strike leader watched silently as the combat surveillance fighter flew off over the 666th formation after delivering the news of his subordinates’ deaths. Yukikaze glittered in the light, then ignited its afterburners and climbed quickly, vanishing into the higher altitudes of the sky where night was drawing near. “Goddamned angel of death,” he muttered to himself.

  Yukikaze’s pilot had stood by silently as the other pilots died, keeping well away from the combat airspace and not actively supporting any of the other planes. He offered no help and issued no warnings. Those were the tasks of the tactical control unit, not his. Don’t engage, just gather information and get it back to base, no matter what. Those were his orders. The 666th leader knew this full well, and yet he still couldn’t help but wonder: if that powerful, high-performance aircraft had joined in the battle, would his subordinates still be alive? He also wondered about the man who piloted that plane. Anyone who can just sit by and calmly watch his comrades getting killed isn’t human, he thought. The mysterious pilot always just watched and then flew back home, like a boomerang that never hit its target.

  “Useless bastard,” the 666th leader growled, then issued the order to return to TAB-16. As the squadron made its way back no one exchanged a word.

  YUKIKAZE FLEW TOWARD Faery Base, supercruising at an altitude of thirty thousand meters. It flew alone.

  Second Lieutenant Rei Fukai looked out of the cockpit at the dark blue sky spread out around him. Night was coming on and he could see the first stars. Below him, the planet Faery was ablaze with twilight colors. Soon it would match the color of the sky. Faery’s binary suns glowed crimson above the horizon, their mutual gravitational attraction pulling them into flattened elliptical shapes. A jet of dark red gas could clearly be seen spouting out of one of them. It arced up to the sky’s zenith, looking for all the world like the Milky Way, but instead of a pearly white it was a red suggestive of the color of blood. This enormous whirlpool of erupting gas formed what looked like a bloodstained path, and so it had been named the “Bloody Road
.”

  Rei set the cockpit illumination to its lowest level and lifted his gaze from the instrumentation. Nothing was out of the ordinary. It was quiet. He thought back to the battle just fought by the 666th TFS.

  “Delta 4, engage. Break right. Right. Starboard.”

  “This is Delta 4, I can’t see them.”

  “They’ve spiked you! Look out!”

  “Where’s the JAM?! I can’t see it on my radar!”

  Delta 4 had broken into a hard-right diving turn but couldn’t shake the JAM fighter.

  A pilot who couldn’t control his plane perfectly was a dead man. To Rei, that was the natural order of things. Emotions had no place in battle. A fighter plane feels nothing, and a pilot is a part of the plane. Therefore, a pilot who couldn’t set aside his emotions and become one with his plane was no warrior. And with someone like that piloting it, even a high-performance fighter would be no match for the enemy. And then that fighter would be —

  Yukikaze’s wide-area radar warning receiver chimed an alert.

  “What’s up?” Rei asked his backseater, the electronic warfare officer. “Verify that.”

  “Not sure,” the other man replied. “The passive warning system’s activated, but I can’t track the location. It could be a bogey.”

  “A bogey?” asked Rei. “Then... It’s gotta be a JAM. Find it.” Saying that, he switched on the fire control system and set the radar to long-range, moving target auto-search mode. The target was entering radar range.

  “Target sighted,” the EWO called out. “It’s small. A fighter. Pretty fast. Speed is two-point-nine and he’s nose-on. We should merge in approximately two minutes.”

  Rei checked the moving target indicator. Was the other craft a hostile? A friendly? But the MTI’s display simply showed it as UNKNOWN.