“The whole… You mean you’re the JAM themselves? Should I think of you as a voice representing the JAM?”
“I would not object to that judgment. Please issue your response.”
Rei switched off the comm circuit for a moment and called out to Lieutenant Katsuragi.
“Lieutenant, what do you think of what it said? Do you think I can believe this to be a representative of the JAM?”
“Hell if I know. I will say that it sounds unnatural, though. Like somebody is ordering it to say that stuff to you.”
“I agree. Maintain observation of our surroundings.”
“Roger.”
He reopened the comm link.
“I can’t understand the meaning of your request,” Rei replied. “When you say my battle is useless, I don’t know to whose advantage you’re referring, so I can’t answer you.”
“I somehow doubt that.”
The suddenly fluent and lively voice he now heard leaping into his ears made Rei shiver. He knew one very similar to it. The man at that mysterious base where Lieutenant Burgadish had met his end. Yazawa. Major Yazawa. The name of the man he’d told Colonel Rombert about over and over again. The JAM human. It had to be him.
“Lieutenant Fukai, I very much doubt that you don’t understand its meaning,” the new voice said. “We’re saying that the FAF has no chance of winning, so we’re offering you a way to save yourself. Come with us. We’ll lead you to a place where you can live in safety. If you don’t comply, you’ll only end up dying a meaningless death.”
“I can’t trust your words,” Rei said. “I reject your demand. I won’t negotiate with you.”
“Ignorant man. We’ve come here to make you understand.”
“I say again, I will not negotiate with you.” He called back to the rear seat. “Lieutenant Katsuragi, I’m engaging them. We’re attacking the target plane to starboard. Get ready for their counterattack and stand by on EW.”
“Roger!”
The stores control panel automatically displayed, letting him see at a glance all of the weaponry loaded on board. Yukikaze was agreeing with his decision to attack. She selected the high-velocity short range missiles, telling him to lead off with those. Rei snapped Yukikaze into a sharp turn. The target plane reacted immediately. In a close-range dogfight between the Maeve and a Super Sylph, the Maeve had an absolute advantage.
He launched the missiles, their range to the target extremely short. Rei counted to himself: three…two…one! and then the target plane vanished. It happened suddenly, without any warning. Having lost their target, the missiles flew straight through where the plane had vanished and then self-destructed.
“It’s useless, Lieutenant Fukai.”
The target plane suddenly reappeared on the starboard side.
“Shit,” spat Lieutenant Katsuragi. “The thing may not even really be there.”
As if chiding the lieutenant’s impatience, Yukikaze scrolled a message onto the display.
This was just a test/next firing will not be warning shots… JAM.
“Such foolishness, even after we offered to save you. Very well. If you insist, I will accept your challenge. Now see who truly rules the skies. This place shall become your grave—” the owner of the voice was saying. Suddenly, with no explanation, the words stopped. There came a shout like “No, don’t!”
Disaster struck the target plane. Its canopy blew off.
“The crew have ejected,” Lieutenant Katsuragi reported. “Confirm ejection of both front and rear seats. Are they running away? But why? What happened?”
The lieutenant followed the two ejected seats with his gaze. They fell behind and to the side of their flight path, tracing a double-helix path through the air as they spiraled away around one another. He saw no sign of the crew’s bodies separating from the seats or of parachutes opening, even as he twisted his neck as far around as he could to keep them in sight. They were enveloped in a reddish phosphorescence, sprouting glowing red tails as they grew smaller and smaller until they finally vanished from sight. It was as if they’d been incinerated in freefall. He instinctively checked the radar display, but saw nothing there. They’d been annihilated.
“Answer me, JAM,” Rei said. “I want to talk to you, not your human duplicates. Respond! This is Rei Fukai in B-1.”
The response came.
“I cannot understand you. Why do you fight?”
Lieutenant Katsuragi shivered. The owner of this voice, he realized, was the JAM themselves, who wished to make contact with Captain Fukai and Yukikaze. The ejected JAM humans had been nothing more than intermediaries whose role had been to act as translators. The owner of the voice had probably discarded them when it judged that they were hindering negotiations. Like they’d been some sort of disposable weapon.
The target plane continued to fly alongside Yukikaze, as though nothing had happened. The JAM voice might have been coming from the plane, but most likely it was acting as a relay transmitter to convey the JAM’s will. No doubt it wasn’t the actual voice of a JAM, but the results of their efforts to convey their thoughts in human speech through the manipulation of radio waves.
What we know as JAM do exist, but they’re some sort of invisible beings, and what we fight are their shadows. What Rei had thought, Lieutenant Katsuragi could now understand as a palpable sensation. A sensation of fear. It hadn’t just been a theory.
“I cannot understand the intelligence known as Yukikaze. I cannot understand the intelligences which comprise what is known as the Special Air Force. Why, Lieutenant Fukai? Why do you fight?”
“So that I can live and not die at your hands. Why can’t you understand that? Are you saying other humans, the groups aside from Yukikaze and the SAF, aren’t like that?”
“I believe that the machine intelligences of the SAF, including Yukikaze and you contained within her, are like me: intelligences that do not possess personlike consciousness. What I cannot understand is why you do not separate from the group known as the FAF and continue to fight to thwart my plans. Yukikaze refuses to ratify my nonaggression pact. You are the only one who can convince her to withdraw her rejection. Lieutenant Fukai, I desire to awaken you. Come back to me.”
“Wait, what… What do you mean, I don’t possess personlike consciousness? Ratify a nonaggression pact? Come back to you?”
“The current people as well as the artificial intelligences that manipulate them are beings that can be made to deviate from their essential natures by our plans. You people, however, are not like that. You are essential beings, and your enemy is not me. It is not my intention to let you be consumed. It is my desire that you choose to come over to me.”
“In short…” said Lieutenant Katsuragi, cutting in. Rei didn’t stop him. He was going to need time if he was going to figure out what the JAM were saying. “You’re saying that since we’re like the JAM, you want us to join you, switch sides, and help you to fight the FAF?”
“Who are you?”
“My name is Akira Katsuragi, Yukikaze’s flight officer and electronic warfare operator. I serve at FAF Faery base in the Tactical Combat Air Corps, Special Air Force 5th Squadron. My rank is second lieutenant and I am a human. If you want to know why I fight you, it’s pretty much because it’s my job to. My job, do you understand? My duty. I do this because there’s no other suitable path I can take through life.”
“You can live without fighting me.”
“I can interpret your thoughts to mean that you want the SAF to be your allies, can’t I? Does that mean you’re offering me a job?”
In this situation, what he’d just asked was so base it was almost funny. But they waited for the JAM’s answer, even as Rei wondered what the lieutenant’s real motives were.