He had been shot by another Rei Fukai, he said. A human copy created by the JAM. Some sort of antihuman weapon the JAM created from the mirror images of the molecules that make up humans, he went on. He didn’t know how long he had been at their base, but when they saw that he couldn’t digest food made from the same optical isomer material, they had ended up feeding him meat from the body of his dead flight officer, Lieutenant Burgadish.
Major Booker and General Cooley remained silent, listening to the mechanical exchange between Rei and the CI. They couldn’t interrupt. The questions the CI asked were precise, unswayed by emotion, fear, or unease.
Had the major opened his mouth, he figured he would have said, “Impossible!” or “I don’t believe it!” or some such meaningless nonsense, and so he remained silent and let the sentiments swirl in his heart. Rei has no such whirlpool in his heart, the major thought. As he listened to Rei’s disinterested speech, he found himself fighting a growing urge to shake him or punch him in the mouth.
After the tactical computer had extracted the information from Rei, it was silent for a while. Then it displayed, I predict that the cause of the thrust fault in the 505th TFS is in the AICS on the monitor. Major Booker objected to the sudden shift in topic, insisting that Rei was not yet fully conscious and that he needed further stimulation. However, the tactical computer ignored the major, playing back the information gathered by Yukikaze on the main display of the command center. Its explanation was clear.
During her combat maneuvers with Mayle’s plane, Yukikaze had gotten a clear optical scan of its air intake port. The ramps in the intake port controlled by the AICS were essentially movable planks that directed the flow of air into the engines. The major could see that they were not in their normal position. It was the shock waves up in the intake port that had limited the maneuverability of Mayle’s plane. The violently disrupted airflow had drastically reduced the engine’s combustion efficiency. The unfavorable conditions from the resulting superheating added to that had destroyed the engines.
The plane never would have reached the edge of the performance envelope except during combat. The Sylphid’s engines had blades that could maintain an even airflow even during extreme turbulence. However, in air combat, a pilot will push the engine output and rev them past their design limits—Mayle’s plane being a typical example of this. Flying at maximum speed to escape the JAM, the AICS units in the planes of the 505th had operated abnormally. With the air intake flow so disrupted, afterburner flames and black smoke streaming from the rear, it was only inevitable for the engines to either stall or for their output to fall. The pilot, probably half-panicked, would likely slam the throttle as far forward as possible. If the engines were stalled out, he’d have to restart them. If he had time, he might figure out that the problem was in the AICS, in which case it was possible for him to cut out auto mode and set the ramp position manually. If there was a breakdown in the simple AICS system, you could do that. However, Lieutenant Mayle hadn’t realized that the AICS was the problem, and it was likely that none of the other pilots had either. If they had, well, they were already under attack by the JAM. Engaging the JAM in a high-altitude dogfight would have been suicide, as they would have to make a hectic transition from low speed to high in order to win, so all they could have done was set the ramps for ultra-high speed and then escape at maximum thrust.
Since none of them had done that, it meant there likely hadn’t been an alarm to warn them of a fault in the AICS. The major could only think that they either had realized there was a fault and hadn’t switched over or else doing so hadn’t yielded any response. That meant this wasn’t a simple mechanical failure, and so the CI had determined that the AICS units had been contaminated by the JAM.
The CI didn’t believe that the central computer on Mayle’s plane was malfunctioning. The central computer controlled the engines and control surfaces in an integrated system, but the AICS was independent. All it did was react to the plane’s speed. So, even though it was an independent system, that normally presented no problem. The JAM had apparently exploited this blind spot.
But how? The AICS’s circuits had secure electromagnetic shielding, so it seemed unlikely that electromagnetic wave exposure in-flight had caused the malfunction. That left only one answer: the AICS units aboard the 505th’s planes were malfunctioning from the moment they took off.
I believe the AICS units were modified by the enemy. The only thing that could touch the planes without arousing suspicion would be a human. A human working against the FAF or possibly a JAM in human guise. The probability of it being a JAM is high. If so, my guess is that the JAM have assumed human form.
Even if they searched for the lost planes, the AICSes were vital units that would have been destroyed by the planes’ self-destruct systems. If they’d made it back to base, it might have been possible to return the AICS units to normal operation. The CI went on to say that a humanoid JAM replacing or tampering with AICS units without anyone noticing wasn’t out of the realm of possibility.
I do not have a countermeasure for this problem, it continued.
A humanoid JAM weapon. Major Booker shivered. If what Rei claimed to have experienced was true, then JAM infiltration seemed possible. If there was a type not made of optical isomers that merely looked human, but a perfect copy that could eat and live like a real one, then there’d be no way to tell the difference between a JAM and a human.
“You’re saying this isn’t simply a problem with the AICS,” Major Booker said. “How do we find out for certain?”
The probability is high that humans who have gone missing on the front lines have made contact with the JAM. Probability high that the rescued humans are the new type of JAM.
There were two humans like that in the SAF: Rei and Lieutenant Yagashira.
“You mean Yagashira is… That can’t be!” said General Cooley, almost with a groan.
His mind still fogged in a sense of unreality, Rei thought that he’d never heard of Lieutenant Yagashira before.
AS REI CHECKED the AICS aboard Yukikaze after being told of the abnormality in the planes of the 505th that she had observed, he soon realized that the planes were being controlled by the JAM and rethought the situation. Yukikaze also determined the 505th TFS were no longer friendlies. Rei figured that the only way the JAM could have turned the 505th would be for them to have infiltrated TAB-15. The JAM.
He felt as if that had been a dream. A nightmare. He had been flying Yukikaze, but then suddenly communication had been cut and Yukikaze had gone away. Yukikaze, leaving him, as he had dreamed again and again. All of it was a dream.
But this wasn’t a dream now. The AICS was malfunctioning, but no fault light was lit. Switching over to manual yielded no response. The situation was desperate. If he didn’t do something and fast, they were going to be destroyed by the JAM.
Keeping the throttle right on the limit where the abnormal vibrations began, Rei activated the onboard test system. The recorded data on the plane’s preflight check seemed wrapped in a watery, unrealistic veil, but he could see that the AICS hadn’t showed any abnormalities. The test signals had yielded the correct responses.
So how about now?
The main display showed IN MISSION as though Yukikaze were shouting, Don’t run tests in the middle of combat, I’m flying here! She might have even been scared. The test program wouldn’t initiate with her interference. Even if Rei told Yukikaze to stop it and stay out of this, he knew his words probably wouldn’t reach her.