Good Luck, Yukikaze

by Chohei Kambayashi

  GOOD LUCK, YUKIKAZE

  © 2001 Chōhei Kambayashi

  Originally published in Japan by Hayakawa Publishing, Inc.

  All rights reserved.

  Cover illustration by Shoji Hasegawa

  English translation © 2011 VIZ Media, LLC

  No portion of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without written permission form the copyright holders.

  HAIKASORU

  Published by

  VIZ Media, LLC

  295 Bay Street

  San Francisco, CA 94133

  www.haikasoru.com

  ISBN 978-1-4215-4235-5

  Haikasoru eBook Edition

  “I am that I am.”

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  A Letter from the FAF Special Air Force

  I Shock Wave

  II A Soldier’s Leave

  III Return to Battle

  IV Combat Awareness

  V Strategic Reconnaissance—Phase 1

  VI Strategic Reconnaissance—Phase 2

  VII Rethinking Fighting Spirit

  VIII Good Luck

  I Am That I Am

  Commentary by Maki Ohno

  About the Author

  CHARACTERS APPEARING

  First Lieutenant Rei Fukai

  Yukikaze’s pilot; later promoted to captain

  Major James Booker

  FAF Special Air Force mission sortie manager

  Brigadier General Lydia Cooley

  Deputy commander of the FAF Special Air Force

  Second Lieutenant Burgadish

  Flight officer of the old Yukikaze

  Second Lieutenant Yagashira

  Pilot of SAF Unit 13

  First Lieutenant Gavin Mayle

  TAB-15 505th Tactical Fighter Squadron leader

  Captain Edith Foss

  Military doctor in charge of Rei’s rehabilitation

  First Lieutenant Vincent Bruys

  Pilot of SAF Unit 7

  Lieutenant General Gibril Laitume

  Commander of Faery Base’s Tactical Combat Air Corps

  Colonel Ansel Rombert

  An influential man in the FAF Intelligence Forces

  Second Lieutenant Akira Katsuragi

  Yukikaze’s new flight officer

  Lynn Jackson

  A journalist from Earth

  A Letter from the FAF Special Air Force

  Lynn Jackson, from notes on her sequel

  to The Invader

  I WONDER HOW many people nowadays have a palpable sense that Earth is under attack by the aliens we know as the JAM. It seems to me that the typical Earther now lives his life thinking that the JAM threat has nothing to do with him. You might even go so far as to say that people living their ordinary lives have forgotten about it completely.

  The JAM threat, and even the existence of the JAM themselves, doesn’t enter into the consciousness of most people. That’s probably because they can put it out of their minds and still live their lives without disruption.

  That could be taken as evidence that the group structures that we as individuals belong to—towns and states and nations and so forth—are somehow still functioning well. But it would be foolish to think that we can relax and expect this state of affairs to continue indefinitely. Even nations have a limited life span. The possibility is great that these invaders called the JAM are shortening them.

  What I want to do is warn people of this.

  In our Earthbound disputes between groups here, there is a margin for compromise, for striking cease-fire agreements. But I’d like you to think about trying to do that with the JAM. The JAM are an alien life-form, possessing completely different values from those of humanity. Negotiations with them may be impossible. All we can do is keep fighting and never stop. The sacrifices our task demands are enormous, but if we ease up, we’ll lose.

  IN MY LAST book, The Invader, I wrote that when the JAM drove the huge spindle-shaped cloud into the Ross Ice Shelf in Antarctica thirty years ago and from there flew forth to begin their invasion of our world through the hyperspace Passageway, it was a golden opportunity for humanity to transcend their membership in squabbling tribes and nations and to truly become “Earthers.” I also wrote that it still wasn’t too late to achieve this. But the truth is that we failed.

  On Earth now, there is no transnational organization that unites the people of the world. As always, we exist simply as mutually antagonistic groups of nations, economic blocs, religions, and peoples, and in truth there is no organizational level existing above them. I wrote in my last book that such a state of affairs demonstrates that we people of Earth see the alien invaders as just another nation, religion, or people. I still don’t think that this belief is necessarily incorrect, but I now believe there’s a different reason for its persistence.

  In short, I think it’s because we were not able to find a strong leader who could transcend all the political, religious, and cultural systems they were attached to and declare to the world, “I am an Earther, and I represent the people of Earth.” Essentially, rather than find such a person, we settled back and waited for one to appear. However, the environment of modern Earth isn’t conducive to giving birth to such a saint. Earth is vast, with varied environments and an exceedingly great number of lifestyles, values, and histories. To have an appreciation of all of that, empathize with it, and then moreover dispense wisdom widely to all those different people without discrimination in order to help them live their lives well is beyond the capabilities of any one person. The scale of the target group to be led is just too big, crossing over too many divergent personal desires, and moreover individuals know how complex reality already is.

  The human race has now established an unprecedented advanced information society and lives surrounded by a vast quantity of data. Truth and lies mixed together in the vast bulk of information available make everything seem ambiguous, and this vagueness breeds distrust. Indeed, modern people evaluate everything not by how trustworthy it is, but rather by how untrustworthy. Following the physical law that the reliability of transmitted data decreases as the bulk of information increases, relationships based on good faith and trust between people suffer. As the amount of material to evaluate increases, so too do the seeds of doubt bloom. We can call this the pitfall of the advanced information society. So, even if we found some self-proclaimed saint who could walk on water, modern humans have lost their original naive sense of awe for such a person.

  And so, with no saint forthcoming, we didn’t set out to look for one. While the reasons are varied for why we never made an effort to form a truly worldwide organization to oppose the JAM, I now think it was the right choice. Consider what might have happened had the human race put its efforts into selecting a leader for all of Earth. To preserve their various group interests, we might have touched off a world war between nations, or a destructive religious war. If such a war to appoint humanity’s representative had been sparked, the JAM would have used it to their advantage, and their invasion would have succeeded. You could say that humanity managed to dodge that bullet. If a true representative for the people of Earth exists, his or her identity remains unclear.

  Therefore, the people of Earth cannot now properly be called “Earthers.” Who then exactly are the JAM at war with?

  We individuals have entrusted the war with the JAM to the Earth Defense Organization, and to be truthful, it operates in a democratic and efficient manner. I’m not being ironic here. It’s true. It’s because of them that we can forget about the JAM and live our day-to-day lives.

  However, the truth is that this organization, established mainly by an array of people from all nations—all with their own fluid, individual expectations�
�has become a precariously fragile entity. As you might expect, each member views the war according to how they can benefit from waging it. Despite all of these various expectations, or perhaps because of them, they are still able to turn their strength on the JAM without being destroyed. This is, in a way, a far preferable situation than being led by some lone, foolish, half-baked leader. Following along from this truth, we can express another: the various groups that participate in this organization are fighting the JAM for their own sakes. In short, they’re not doing it for the sake of all Earthers.

  We are at a dangerous juncture in human history—specifically, we will soon discover whether this method of opposing the JAM will always be successful. True, it’s working for now. Thanks to the Earth Defense Organization, most people have forgotten about the JAM. But in the future, if this system should stop functioning, the time may come when we think of ourselves as Earthers on a personal level. Because of the JAM.

  When the system of which we are a part can no longer protect us from the JAM, we will be forced to individually and collectively confront the aliens as Earthers. The JAM who will be gunning for me are not of this Earth, not a part of any system on Earth. Even if I had the title of president of some great nation, it wouldn’t matter. All that would matter would be that I was an Earther. Furthermore, we don’t have any other planet to retreat to. There’s no place for refugees from this world to flee to. If the human race can’t form itself into a group called “Earthers,” then we as individual Earther representatives will have to fight the JAM.

  The truth is that we’re at war with the JAM. If we don’t want to die, we’ll need to fight with our own strength. Am I prepared to do that? Are you?

  Fundamentally, we cannot just entrust this war to strangers because it’s a problem for all Earthers, for every individual. So long as there is no true leader of all Earth, and so long as we can’t expect such a messiah for the reasons I discussed previously, it’s a problem that you and I have to think about as individuals.

  THE THING THAT’S got me thinking about all of this again is a letter I received a few days ago.

  Not an email, mind you. It was a literal letter in an envelope. It’s rare for someone not to use the computer network these days, but the sender of this letter had no choice. He had no access to any computer network here on Earth.

  That’s right, it came from the other side of the hyperspace Passageway, from the planet Faery, where the war against the JAM is being fought. There, the combat organization of the EDO known as the Faery Air Force fights day and night to hold back the JAM invasion of Earth. If the FAF were to be defeated, the JAM would surge through the Passageway and arrive on Earth itself.

  The sender of the letter wasn’t concerned about having his full name, attachment in the FAF, or rank published. In fact, he made it clear that he wanted them known if possible, saying that he wanted the people of Earth to know his thoughts about his war with the JAM. In other words, he was using me as a megaphone to pass his message on to all the people of Earth.

  His name is Major James Booker. FAF Faery Base, Tactical Combat Air Corps, Special Air Force 5th Squadron, more popularly known as the mission sortie manager and the de facto second-in-command of the SAF.

  The major sent me a letter once before, after he read my book The Invader, which was my report on our war with the JAM. I answered his original letter, and we have since maintained an infrequent correspondence. I even managed to meet and speak to him one time.

  “You don’t know the real threat the JAM pose,” he wrote to me in that first letter. Coming as it did from the battlefield, his prose brimmed over with a sense of tension. That was natural, I suppose. And owing to the special duties of the SAF, the war they fought had developed a dimension even more severe than that faced by other squadrons.

  By way of simple introduction, a description of the duty of the thirteen fighter planes that comprise the SAF would be as follows:

  Gather all data from the airspace where the FAF is engaging the JAM. Return the collected data by any means necessary. Even if an allied plane is in danger of being shot down, you do not have to offer them proactive support. In other words, stand back and let friendly planes be destroyed.

  It’s a heartless duty, but the pilots of these planes don’t consider it heartless. The SAF is comprised of people who possess that sort of personality. If you were to ask one of them how they felt about watching their comrades’ planes being shot down, they would answer “So what? It’s not my problem. What do I care about people in other squadrons or on Earth?”

  I can only guess at the hardships Major Booker must suffer in trying to command subordinates who think like this. But heartless people like these are necessary to pursue the war against the JAM. If we could make some sort of gentleman’s agreement between ourselves and the JAM, then maybe we could be more careful about who gets to play in this game, but the problem that reality poses to us is that humanity doesn’t have that luxury. The FAF recognizes that as well. In short, the duties of the SAF require these sorts of people, and they have been given high-performance fighter planes suited to them. These are the Super Sylphs, tactical combat electronic reconnaissance planes even faster than the FAF’s mainline Sylphid fighters, with greater acceleration and maneuverability. Developed by the Systems Corps, the elite engineering unit of the FAF, it is a fighter plane truly worthy of the word super. I doubt that there is any fighter plane on Earth that could beat them. At the very least, no Earth fighter can match one in the environment of planet Faery. This is only natural, since the Super Sylph was developed for the skies of Faery, which is why the FAF needs to have the Systems Corps as its own research and development unit.

  The Systems Corps has developed numerous models of fighter plane, but as we’ve now reached the point where manned planes are no longer enough to beat the JAM, they are now rushing to put a superior unmanned mainline fighter into service. It was with this development concept as the background that the second letter from the SAF came. The theory was that integrating the weak human element into the system was degrading the system’s efficiency as a whole, and so the human element had to be eliminated. The human body is like a fragile egg compared to a fighter plane, with its inability to withstand the violent maneuvers of combat, the fear of battle felt by the human heart, and in its far inferior ability to think. Playing nursemaid to a human pilot prevented the Super Sylph from demonstrating its true potential, and so the human wasn’t necessary, or so they said.

  From this idea was developed the FRX99, the SAF’s next-generation tactical reconnaissance fighter plane. The engineers felt that even the Super Sylph would be ineffective against the JAM so long as humans rode inside of them. But the SAF’s Major Booker didn’t simply accept this conclusion. The major had concluded that the superiority of the SAF came from the pilots’ possession of a combat sense computers did not have, and that their planes’ central computers had developed their own version of that combat sense. What had been burning the JAM’s fingers on the now-aging Super Sylphs was the tactical combat judgment the planes had picked up from their human pilots, and human behavior was something the JAM found impossible to predict. It was for that reason that the unmanned planes, lacking a learning function, could not perform the duties that the current SAF did. The major felt that since the computers on current Super Sylphs had learned enough by that point, they should be converted to unmanned versions and then the new planes be deployed as manned fighters.

  The major then requested that the Systems Corps produce an FRX99 designated as a manned fighter. That became the FRX00 prototype. Whereas the FRX99 is a recon version of the next-generation mainline fighter plane that the Systems Corps are developing, the FRX00 became a version modified for manned flight. While the details have not been made public here on Earth, several FRX99s and at least one FRX00 have been completed. Both types of plane are prototypes, with production versions pending.

  The reason Major Booker was so adamant that there be a manned versi
on is that he doesn’t want this war to become one between the JAM and our combat machines. The major’s feelings on this matter are complicated and cannot be easily encapsulated in a few words, but if I had to summarize the misgivings of a soldier such as he who has been on the front lines fighting the JAM for many years, it would be like this:

  As things stand now, analysis shows that the JAM disregard the existence of human beings. Their direct enemies are the FAF’s fighter planes, and thus the JAM take no tactical actions against the humans who reside within the bases on Faery. I wonder if the JAM have declared war, not on humanity, but on Earth’s war machines. We may not even be the JAM’s enemy.

  If this is the case, if this war becomes one between the JAM and the war machines and computers humanity has developed, then humans aren’t necessary.

  However, humans can’t simply ignore the situation; the reason being that while we can no longer live without the existence of our computers, if the computers tell us that we humans are no longer necessary to them, then a new front on the war will open, and this time our opponents will be our own machines. We’ll have to deal with a challenge from the computers as well as from the JAM. In fact, the decision to end production of manned fighter jets came from a proposal by Systems Corps’ own computers. If we humans just unconditionally accept our obsolescence, then we’ll be surrendering control of the FAF and, later, the entire Earth to the computers long before we’d have to surrender them to the JAM.

  I want the JAM to be humanity’s enemy, because if they aren’t, then what’s been the point of anything that I’ve done so far? Humans are the main leads in this war. We need to convey this to both the JAM and to our computers. We can’t just leave this war to the computers to win.

  It’s difficult for me to accurately convey Major Booker’s feelings, separated as I am from the war with the JAM and the computers he uses to analyze the data about the conflict. It’s possible this is because of some misunderstanding of my own. However, I will add only this: the JAM’s true form remains a mystery to us, and we can’t ignore the threat they pose, no matter how indirect. They are a danger to all of mankind, and Major Booker is someone who senses that danger in his very bones.