“It’s going to get us!” shouted Lieutenant Katsuragi. “What are you doing?”
“I’m not picking up a target lock beam,” Rei replied. “What is that thing? Look at it. It’s—”
“It’s a JAM! What else do you need to know! Hurry up and fire—”
Just then, Lieutenant Katsuragi choked in shock. Yukikaze was displaying a message that he couldn’t believe.
Don’t touch me… FO/I will try to communicate with BOGEY/do NOT attack… Capt.
What Rei saw was that the enemy plane had lowered its landing gear, and unless it was experiencing some sort of mechanical breakdown, that was a signal that it didn’t intend to attack. It had been waiting for them, Rei realized. It had waited, enduring the intense attack, for Yukikaze to appear in the skies over Cookie base. Hoping that she would arrive so that they could talk to each other.
4
YUKIKAZE’S MESSAGE LEFT Lieutenant Katsuragi in a state of shock. Here was something to indicate that he might have been wrong about Rei’s “delusions.” He stared at the display for several moments, his breath ragged, then shouted.
“What the hell is this? What’s Yukikaze saying?”
Rei shifted his eyes back to the display and read the message as well. She was going to try communicating with the enemy plane and didn’t want Lieutenant Katsuragi to interfere or Rei to attack the target.
“This is impossible,” Lieutenant Katsuragi said. “Captain, you brought that message onto the display, didn’t you?”
“And how would I do that?”
It was utterly ridiculous, of course. He hadn’t had time to do any such thing. If anyone on this plane could, it would be Lieutenant Katsuragi. If this is a trap, then he’s a JAM, Rei thought. He quickly extended the air brake, letting the target plane slip past, then nimbly accelerated to close range and took up the optimal position to fire his gun. The target plane, however, made no moves to shake them off. Rei flew Yukikaze onto its starboard side. It responded by turning in a wide leftward arc.
As though beckoning Rei to follow. Yukikaze was flying faster, but since she was turning in a wider arc, the two planes ended up flying roughly next to each other. Despite the fact that the JAM was in the midst of a turn, it wasn’t banking at all.
Lieutenant Katsuragi could clearly see that it had lowered its landing gear. Its fuselage was as black as a shadow. Even bathed in the light of Faery’s twin suns, you couldn’t tell the surface of the plane from the shadows cast upon it. Even though it was flying close enough that Rei felt he could reach out his hand and touch it, it was difficult to make out what its actual shape was. It almost looked like a section of the background scenery had been clipped out and replaced with a black shape, and it was impossible to tell at a glance what sort of three-dimensional shape this fighter had.
The smaller JAM planes reestablished their escort formation around the main one, splitting into three groups and moving to intercept the approaching FAF planes. Lieutenant Katsuragi touched the control panel, preparing to contact them, when a warning chimed and Yukikaze again flashed a message onto the display.
Do NOT touch me.
She was telling him not to interfere with her communications system. Even Lieutenant Katsuragi would have to admit that, although Rei himself would say that she didn’t need to possess consciousness in order to do that.
Whether this was a simple programmed response or possibly caused by the unexplainable “something” in Yukikaze really didn’t matter in an emergency like this. The truth was that she was making high-level judgments. The question was, should they just sit there and do as she told them to?
Rei could imagine how confused Lieutenant Katsuragi was at this point. As a flight officer, he wouldn’t be able to stand just sitting there doing nothing and was probably wondering whose fault this was.
“Do what Yukikaze says.”
“But, Captain!”
“It’s my call, Lieutenant. Pilot’s orders. Do what she says. It’d be dangerous to disobey her.”
If he wasn’t careful, Yukikaze could quite easily eject the rear seat from the plane. The front seat too. Rei didn’t consider that some wild delusion. Yukikaze could do that if she wanted to.
Inside his flight gloves, Rei’s palms were growing moist from tension. He wasn’t just concerned about Lieutenant Katsuragi doing what he was told. There was also the matter of his not being able to predict what would happen next. Besides that, Rei was desperate to keep Yukikaze away from the target plane. While it hadn’t appeared to change its flight attitude, the radius of its turns was slowly decreasing.
Don’t lose track of BOGEY… Capt.
She was telling Rei not to shake the plane off, but to follow and maintain distance.
G forces were increasing with each revolution. Soon he wouldn’t be able to move his arms freely. Yet the target plane continued to turn serenely through the air. Yukikaze began to drift slightly away from it.
Increase power.
The G limiter automatically cut out. No good, Rei thought. My body can’t take this. He manually reset the limiter to tell Yukikaze that he was refusing her request. The limiter automatically cut out again.
They needed to increase power to keep up with the target plane, but they couldn’t keep turning in a smaller radius at the speed they were traveling. The airframe would eventually tear itself apart, though the humans aboard her would be dead before then. It was like they’d been placed in a centrifuge, and even if he could ignore the stress it was placing on him, he couldn’t ignore the loss of maneuverability the tight turns were causing. Even now, the plane threatened to snap out of the turn line it was describing. One mistake in control and this dangerous balance would be upset, and Rei could foresee it sending them into an unrecoverable spin.
He kept setting the G limiter, and Yukikaze kept cutting it out. Holy shit, Rei thought. We’re having an argument! He was fighting out of concern for his own safety, while Yukikaze wanted to keep going just as badly. They repeated the exchange four times, then Yukikaze spoke again.
Maintain stability/increase power right now/you can do it… Capt.
To keep following the JAM, Yukikaze first wanted him to increase her engine output in order to maintain her own stability, Rei realized.
It was certain that, if he tried to carelessly reduce her speed and pitch her nose while they were still turning like this, Yukikaze would be sent into an uncontrollable spin. To avoid that danger, Rei understood that the logical thing he needed to do now was carefully increase power to the engines.
Yukikaze was telling him that, as the pilot, he should understand that. She probably figured that he’d have to go along with her message if she put it in those terms. And he did understand. But what would happen after he did it?
“Yukikaze, are you trying to kill me?” Rei said, his voice straining against the G forces punishing his body. “What’s this JAM trying to do? Answer me, Yukikaze! I can’t do what you want me to unless you tell me what’s going on! Explain it so that I can understand. Yukikaze, do you understand me?”
Increase power immediately/just do it… Capt.
Had Yukikaze judged her pilot useless, she could have requested him to turn over maneuvering control to her by turning her automaneuver switch to ON. She probably could have done it even without sending a message to him. And yet she hadn’t. Deciding that she was saying that she depended on him, Rei answered her request by moving the throttle lever in his left hand slightly forward. Yukikaze continued with a new message: