“Humans are necessary in battle.”
Rei said it aloud, testing the sound of the words. Why? Why did he think that?
Maybe, he thought, it’s to secure the budget. Nobody cries when a machine is broken, but dead bodies are a silent appeal to Earth to counter the JAM threat.
You couldn’t say that the Faery Air Force’s budget was adequate, but then that was the nature of budgets, wasn’t it? They weren’t infinite, and where there were limited resources there were naturally a lot of people arguing forcefully about what constituted a necessity. That was why they needed to be persuasive. One flag-draped coffin sent back by the FAF spoke more eloquently of how terrible the JAM were than any list of necessary expenditures spat out by a computer.
Is that why people are needed? Rei thought. So then did I come here just to become a corpse? The more he worried at the concept, the more that conclusion seemed to be inevitable. Starting to feel like he was slowly throttling himself, he shook his head and drove the ominous thought away. He took a deep breath, feeling foolish for even having considered such a thing.
The oppressive feeling stayed with him into the late afternoon, which was when General Cooley called for him. He found his EWO already seated in the SAF deputy commander’s office when he arrived. He was a dependable partner aboard Yukikaze but a cold, blunt man on the ground. The same as me, Rei thought. He looked at Second Lieutenant Burgadish, a man who was like a part of him, and had a sudden sinking feeling. A living corpse. That odd thought took hold of him and wouldn’t let go. They were living corpses preserved in an illusion of life.
General Cooley launched into a rambling explanation of the flight test to be conducted with the Flip Knight. Rei mostly ignored her. The general continued feverishly. “Think of the honor,” she said. “The fact that Boomerang Squadron has been chosen for this task is in recognition of our being the strongest unit in the FAF.”
Rei was bored. Realizing this, the general seemed to wake from her trance and stopped talking.
“What is the point of this?” Rei asked.
“The point?” The general pushed her glasses up with her index finger. “Lieutenant Fukai, what exactly are you asking?”
“If this is a test of our combat technique, then let me load Yukikaze with live antiaircraft ordnance. The Knight’s unmanned. There shouldn’t be any problem with that.”
“Don’t be absurd.”
“What that tells me is that the point of this is to satisfy Colonel Guneau’s ego. We’re meant to be the sacrifices in his little game.” Nothing but pawns for the man who saw people as unnecessary. “This whole thing is stupid.”
“I fail to see a reason for this type of reaction on your part.”
“I’m saying that it’s bullshit.”
“Lieutenant, it doesn’t matter whether you win or lose. It won’t be an issue.”
“That doesn’t make me like it.”
“Like it or not, it’s an order. Just pretend that you’re fighting the JAM.”
“We fight the JAM for real. And when you say to a Boomerang pilot who’s recently come back from a mission after barely escaping with his life, ‘Hey, come on, let’s practice,’ what he hears is that you just insulted him.”
“This is going to be a real battle,” the laconic Lieutenant Burgadish said in a clipped tone. “So I don’t mind.”
Rei understood what he meant. The lieutenant was saying that anyone who wasn’t on their side was an enemy. Be it a hypothetical enemy or an unknown one, the single necessity was to get back home without getting killed.
General Cooley, however, let out a deep sigh, clearly not understanding what the problem was. She waved her hand at them to leave.
“I’ll give Major Booker the details. You will abide by these commands, readily and immediately. That is all. Dismissed.”
MAJOR BOOKER MET them in his office with a tired look on his face. He seemed harried.
“They’ve decided to initiate the big op in five days,” he told them. “The mission code is FTJ83. It’s going to be the largest one we’ve had in years, involving all our forces… What’d you come here for again?”
“The duel,” said Rei.
“Right,” the major replied. He picked up two copies of a booklet from among the papers scattered on top of his desk and handed them to Rei and Burgadish. “Let’s get out of here. I’ll explain in the briefing room.”
They filed into the high-ceilinged chamber. Rei and Burgadish sat with their backs to the panoramic glassed-in view of the maintenance bay, facing the flat-panel display that took up the entire opposite wall. The major punched up a map of Faery.
“The combat flight test will be tomorrow. You’ll take off at 0900 hours and are scheduled to return at 1156.”
“We’ll be in the air for nearly three hours?”
“We got a complaint from the Aerospace Defense Corps. They said they didn’t want us doing this damn fool stunt inside our air defense ID zone. It’s a pain in the arse, but since I’m assuming you’d rather avoid the possibility of getting toasted by friendly fire, it can’t be helped. That’s why we have to go all the way out here.” The major pointed to the map. “Sugar Desert.”
“That’s out in D-zone, isn’t it? What about the training areas closer in?”
“They’ve been closed because of Operation FTJ83. Right now, all airspace is classified as combat airspace. The early warning satellites launched by the ADC were all shot down recently, which has them in a sweat. Now they’ve got AWACS planes buzzing around all over the place. This is a hell of a time to be doing training flights.”
Centered on the Passageway connecting them with Earth was the Absolute Defense Line, which extended to a radius of 200 klicks around it. If the JAM broke through the line, they would pour through the Passageway and onto Earth itself. The six giant bases of the FAF were arrayed around the Passageway along this line. Other defense lines had been established further out, at distances of 600, 1,200, and 2,000 klicks from the Passageway, and were known respectively as “A-line,” “B-line,” and the “Early Warning Line.” The area between the Absolute Defense Line and A-line was known as “A-zone,” with the B- and C-zones following out. D-zone lay beyond the outermost defense line. The FAF did not have absolute control of the airspace out there, but since it wasn’t JAM airspace either, it was tentatively considered to be neutral territory. Of course, the zones were entirely of human invention and so were not recognized by the JAM or by Faery’s primitive life-forms.
Major Booker brought an aerial photograph up on the display. It was dazzlingly white. Casting a large black shadow on the pure white sand was a three-thousand-meter-tall mountain that most of the pilots affectionately referred to as “Sugar Rock,” since it looked more like an enormous piece of rock candy abandoned in the sugary sand than a mountain. There were no other peaks around it, and it rose up so unexpectedly that it made for an excellent landmark.
“You’ll fly straight out to here, engage in a mock air battle for three minutes, and then return. On your way there and back, you’ll be flying a combat air patrol. If you encounter the JAM, you will intercept and engage. In that event, the nearest front line bases are TAB-13, 15, and 16. We’ll also have an in-air refueling tanker on the rear line as backup. If you encounter the JAM while outbound, the flight test will be cancelled.”
Rei looked at his onboard stores list.