YUKIKAZE by CHŌHEI KAMBAYASHI

Author:CHŌHEI KAMBAYASHI
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: ebook, book
Publisher: Hayakawa
Published: 2010-10-07T16:00:00+00:00

Lieutenant Amata heard them declare a PAN but could not understand the message. He was almost blind drunk. He just muttered “All right, all right,” when he heard the emergency call, and lined his plow up to follow the guidance vector projected on his front windshield. In other words, he kept driving straight on. He could see his coworkers’ units moving away from him. Shit, he thought, you don’t have to hate me that much, do you?

He stomped on the accelerator and took a swig of his whiskey. It didn’t flow into his stomach, though. He vomited it back up. The floor of the cabin was now stained red. In his clouded mind, the lieutenant urged himself on. Gotta keep following the guide mark. C’mon, c’mon! This is my job. He thought he saw a black shadow appear in front of him.

It was the shape on his medal. It seemed to be growing steadily larger. Must be a bird… But would there be birds in this cold? Must be his imagination. Amata kept his eyes on the windshield display and drove the grader straight on.

AT YUKIKAZE’S CONTROLS, Rei couldn’t believe his ears when he heard her collision warning alarm sound. They were on final approach and now, inexplicably, there was an obstacle in front of them. He could see the black dot below him with his naked eyes. A snowplow? What the hell…?

They continued to bleed energy as Yukikaze fell. They’d been flying with her nose pitched up to catch the maximum air resistance across the entire wing, but now it was roughly level with the horizon. Their airspeed had dropped low enough for landing, but that was the main cause of their immediate predicament: they didn’t have enough lift to fly over the obstacle before them on the runway. Should he cut out the direct lift control and use the side force controller to veer to the side? He wasn’t going fast enough for that and didn’t have enough altitude, either. Because he’d dumped their fuel according to the SOP for an emergency landing, he didn’t have enough left for a retry. But if he did nothing, they were going to crash into that machine. Air compressed by ground effect forces blew up fantails of snow below them as Yukikaze rushed onward.

From the backseat, Lieutenant Burgadish noticed the object on the runway and immediately apprehended the problem.

“Lieutenant Fukai, eject.”

“Evading.”

“There’s no time for that.”

“I’m clearing you to punch out. Go.”

“Roger.”

Burgadish yanked down his face curtain handle. The canopy… did not eject. The hydraulics were dead. With his right hand still on the handle, he moved the canopy lever to the OPEN position and pulled the emergency canopy ejection. No good. Next he pulled the manual release handle. This lifted the canopy up slightly, which should have caused it to be blown off by the air pressure, but there was no response. It wouldn’t open.

“Through-canopy bailout!” Burgadish yelled. The only way for them to get out of the plane now was to smash through the canopy itself.

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