Lieutenant Katsuragi coolly followed his pilot’s instructions. When you want to know the truth about something, nothing beats personal experience, as Colonel Rombert would say. The lieutenant thought back on the colonel’s favorite phrase. The colonel generally followed that up with, “However, there’s no need for you to judge the value of that experience. That’s for me to do.” In short, the colonel saw the people who worked under him as his eyes and ears, while he was the head, and he made it very clear that he didn’t want them interfering where they shouldn’t.
Lieutenant Katsuragi thought nothing of this. He understood it to mean that all that mattered to the colonel was that his subordinates were able to do their job well. Issues of human trust or betrayal never even came into the picture, as far as he was concerned. It wasn’t that Katsuragi didn’t want to establish any deep relationships out of a fear of betrayal. Rather, he just didn’t see any value in sharing feelings of trust with other people and viewed those sorts of relationships as foolish and troublesome. As far as Colonel Rombert was concerned, a subordinate like Lieutenant Katsuragi made for an excellent agent. Here was a man who would do what it took to satisfy his curiosity without any concern for the feelings or endangerment of others. For Lieutenant Katsuragi’s part, a superior like Colonel Rombert, who didn’t demand him to pursue annoying human relationships, was easy to work for.
Katsuragi understood that Colonel Rombert had released him from service because he wanted information about the SAF. It didn’t matter what conditions the colonel had set up with them, though. He was free to live his life as he wanted and was under no obligation to answer any questions the colonel might have for him. If the colonel were to appeal to the lieutenant, Katsuragi would just tell him that he didn’t work for intel anymore. He could just imagine the look on the colonel’s face were he to say that. Katsuragi lived for his own sake, not for anyone else’s, and couldn’t care less about what their expectations were. He’d do whatever he felt was best for himself. He couldn’t believe that there was anyone in this world who’d criticize him for such a stance…
That was why Lieutenant Katsuragi couldn’t understand how Captain Fukai could trust this machine intelligence called Yukikaze, especially in matters of life or death. He might as well have been taking an action based on an unreliable instrument gauge without any idea of how far off its readings were. An action that may be tantamount to suicide, Lieutenant Katsuragi thought as he watched the display panel.
The formations of FAF planes and the small JAM fighters moving to intercept them had yet to make contact. Only about a minute had passed since they’d begun following the target plane’s flight path. It felt like they’d circled round and round, but the truth was that they hadn’t even made two circuits yet. The target plane and Yukikaze were tracing a whirlpool-shaped course through the sky, the turning radius growing ever smaller as they approached the center.
He could see on the passive air space radar the shock wave the target plane produced as it crossed the sound barrier. Yukikaze was flying out of its range, but Katsuragi realized that it would be dangerous if that shock wave struck them head-on.
Suddenly, a shining white spot appeared on the display panel right before his eyes. Lieutenant Katsuragi couldn’t believe what he was looking at. He thought at first that it was some sort of shock wave caused by an intense explosion, but it didn’t propagate like a shock wave. Instead, the shining spot just stayed as it was. Fighting the G forces tearing at him, he looked out of the cockpit in the direction where the spot should have been. It seemed to be centered over the crater where the JAM had self-destructed and caused the cave-in, but with his naked eyes, he could see no difference from before. He wondered if the radar had broken down. The display appeared frozen.
It had clearly picked up the shock wave of the base’s self-destruction. Enlarging its range to maximum, he could see the traces of the pressure-change waves from the blast still spreading outward, the sound of the explosion itself. So the radar was still working fine, but that glowing dot on the display still wasn’t moving. What did it mean?
The lieutenant knew that the passive air space radar was nicknamed “Frozen Eye” and operated by means of a cryogenically cooled ultra-high sensitivity visual sensor. He didn’t know the details of how it worked, as that was a closely guarded FAF secret, but he imagined that the Frozen Eye picked up irregularities in air density, similar to how heat mirages would cause whatever one saw behind them to seemingly shimmer. Katsuragi understood that these microchanges in air density, invisible to the eye, would then be image-processed by a high-speed computer. If that were the case, it wouldn’t be able to sense differences in density unless there were observable moment-by-moment changes taking place. In short, the lines and points Frozen Eye was displaying on the panel had to be constantly moving.
So, this dot had to be vibrating. The instant he had decided it, the dot became a circle and began to slowly expand. And Yukikaze and the target plane were flying straight into it.
Rei realized this too. The airframe was violently shaking now. It seemed about ready to shake itself apart, but he knew that the plane could handle it. The question was whether or not his body could. Here we go, he thought, bracing himself for the impact. Their turning radius continued to shrink as he maintained power.
Lieutenant Katsuragi felt his eyes burn as sweat ran into them. He knew his body was trembling with a fear he unconsciously felt. His head kept telling himself that he was just experiencing what it was that Captain Fukai and Yukikaze were doing, as though this was all somebody else’s problem. His body, on the other hand, wasn’t buying any of it.
For first time, the lieutenant felt that he was behaving as suicidally as his pilot; he was terrified of these maneuvers Yukikaze was pulling. His life was in danger. He could die here, and he couldn’t accept why he was doing this. Even so, this was real. It was happening, and there was no use in trying to deny it.
That was when he saw something outside of the plane that made him wonder if any of this was real at all.
The air space indicated by Frozen Eye was distorting the scenery around it. The changes there were now visible to the naked eye. It almost seemed like an enormous transparent lens was floating over the ruined base. It extended up and down, in a spindle shape. And it was growing larger.
It’s like the Passageway, the lieutenant realized. The Passageway to hyperspace. He tried to twist his head down to check the display panel, but the G forces were just too strong now. He couldn’t move his body at all.
He saw the target JAM plane suddenly roll over, white vapor trailing behind it. A contrail, he thought, caused by the sudden maneuver. An instant later, he felt a shock like an enormous invisible hand swatting Yukikaze.
5
BLACKOUT. REI HAD no sense of losing consciousness, but he figured he might have blacked out for a moment. He heard the sound of a distant alarm. He swallowed saliva as his hearing normalized. He was clearly conscious but could see nothing of his surroundings. Nothing but gray all around. He raised his helmet visor and checked his instruments. A white vapor was rising in the cabin. He thought it was a fire at first, but the alarm was all wrong for that. It was water. Mist.