I walked toward the jets, transfixed. Being so close to real fighters that I would actually get to fly hypnotized me. I reached out and placed my hand up against one of the engine intakes. It felt both new and old at the same time, as if someone had meticulously built an airplane that looked like it’d been put through its paces.
Miss Takahashi put her hand on my shoulder, breaking my trance. “What do you think?”
I looked at her, then back at the MiG. “I get to fly one of these?”
“At least for as long as we’re here. You might call these test models.”
“What do you mean?” I turned my head to her, perplexed.
“Take a look at the root of the left wing.”
The gunport. I blinked, then looked back at the MiG. Crouching down, I passed underneath it in front of the landing gear and stood on my tiptoes to look at the wing root. Where I expected to see a dark hole, I found a lens, set into where the barrel of a thirty-millimeter cannon should be.
Shizuka joined me, curious to see what the fuss was about. “Is that a laser?”
I looked at Miss Takahashi. “You’ve integrated it into the airframe.”
Miss Takahashi nodded. “That’s right!” She looked at Shizuka. “Normally they field-modify jets before doing mock air combat. They’ll do things like unload all the ammunition from the gun and retrofit a laser onto it that’s linked to the trigger. And then they’ll place receivers on different parts of the jet that give off a signal if the laser hits them. They use modified missiles too.
“All of those features are directly integrated into these airframes. They’re built like normal MiGs, but underneath the skin, they’re MAC-jets: Jets purpose-built for mock air combat.”
I turned away from the jet to face Miss Takahashi. “Why go through all that, though? Wouldn’t it be cheaper just to buy some used fighters and modify them like PMCs do?”
She chuckled. “Sure, it’d be cheaper, if that’s all we had to do. But then we’d have to build those modifications to the gun ourselves, as well as the sensors to attach to the outside of the plane. Those sensors also ever so slightly change the aerodynamics of the airplane. The PMCs accept it, since they use their planes for other things most of the time, but since we’re not mercenaries, we can build without that compromise.
“Not to mention, then we’d have to train you to fly a normal MiG, as well as the normal version of any other plane we want to put you in. The avionics in these jets are modified too, and they’ll be pretty standard across all the MAC-jets the company has manufactured. Kisaragi is a media company, not a security contractor. These planes are built to win competitions and that’s it.”
“Don’t take that to mean they’re built for showing off, ladies.” A man’s voice echoed through the hangar, followed shortly by the man himself emerging from the other side of the MiG. He wore a tan flight suit, peeled down like a banana, with the sleeves tied around his waist and a plain black t-shirt on his upper half. “These planes are made to defeat opponents in MAC. They’re the best dogfighters that don’t carry real guns or missiles.” He held out his right hand. “You must be Camillia.”
I looked up at him and shook his hand. “Camillia Ryder.”
He nodded. “Nice to meet you, Ryder. I’m Merlon Weaver. Callsign ‘Jackal.’ Sounds like Vixen’s been doing a good job giving you the rundown.”
Shizuka and I both blinked. “Vixen?” I questioned.
Miss Takahashi peeked her head out from behind Mister Weaver. She gave a slightly embarrassed smile and a small wave. “Vixen’s my callsign. Everyone on the team will have one. Even you, Shizuka.”
Mister Weaver nodded. “Another time, though. C’mon. You two must be hungry after the flight. We ordered food at the office. We’ll eat and go over the whole plan.” We gathered our bags and he led us out the back door of the hangar. The four of us started walking toward the terminal building.
I couldn’t help but ask, “Hey, Mister Weaver. Are we the only people here?”
He nodded. “Besides the people in the office, yeah, we are. The company purchased this airfield not too long ago, but it was mostly abandoned until then.”
Shizuka chimed in, “That explains the state it’s in.”
He nodded again, “This far away from the frontier, away from major trade corridors, and not that far from a bigger airport, this place doesn’t get many visitors anymore. But that’s exactly what makes it perfect for practice.”
Miss Takahashi added, “And that’s part of why the owners sold it for so cheap.”
As we approached the terminal building, Mister Weaver turned, walking backward through the automatic door. “Also, no need to be so formal. Just call me Jackal.”
We crossed through the building and reached a door to a small office space. The four of us entered into a small conference room, with a table in the center and a whiteboard on the far wall. A blonde-haired woman in a shirt and vest sat in the chair nearest the whiteboard, staring at a stack of three pizza boxes in the middle of the table.
She jumped as the sound of the door closing woke her from her trance. “Oh! Oh, good, you’re here. I’m starving and I didn’t want to start eating until the rest of you got here ‘cause how would that look, am I right?” She chuckled nervously as she lifted a box from the stack and placed it in front of her. “Go on, dig in! Let’s get started.”
As the woman took a slice from the box, the four of us sat down. Jackal took a box for him and me, while Miss Takahashi shared one with Shizuka. As we began eating, the woman set the crust of her slice down inside the box and stood. Her pantyhose-clad legs suggested she hadn’t been outside in the sweltering heat at all.
“Thanks for coming, everyone. My name’s Mary, I’m the marketing VP at Kisaragi in charge of ensuring our demonstration team’s success. I’m the one who originally proposed this program, so I’m here to see it through. My callsign is ‘Mama Bear.’”
She turned to the whiteboard, uncapped the marker, and started writing the word “Kisaragi” at the top of the white space, with several lines extending downward from it. As she spoke, she filled in the spaces at the ends of her lines. “We’re partnering with several companies to make this happen. Each of them has done us a favor in return for the hopefully positive marketing they’ll get for being associated with our demo team.
“The MAC-jets you’ll be flying are all built by General Aerodyne, and their avionics are made by Sentinel Electronics. Nova Corporation manufactures the missiles you’ll be using. As for you, Shizuka, you’ll be working with Sabercat Records on music, and we have a merchandise deal with Shin-Akiba to look forward to, should this all succeed.
“We have just over five weeks until Fox One. Our ground crew and our stage crew are coming in tomorrow morning. Camillia, you’ll be going up with Jackal every day. You’re a good pilot already, but Jackal will make you good enough for Fox One. Shizuka, you’ll be working closely with Vixen. She knows how to put on a show.
“It’d be a bit of an understatement to say we have a lot riding on this. You four are our stars. If there’s anything you need, let me know and I’ll get it for you. Welcome to Unicorn Squadron! Now let’s eat!” She eagerly sat back down and lifted another slice of pizza from the box. “We’ve set up a bunch of trailers in the parking lot for everyone to stay in. After we’re done eating, find one, write your name on the door with a marker, and it’s all yours. Get plenty of rest. We’ll get started early tomorrow.”
I shut the door to my trailer and set my bag down. It was small, just enough room for a bed, a small table, a bathroom, and some storage space. I reached for my flight suit’s zipper, but my gaze was caught by something else. I could see the hangar where the MiGs were stored from my window. I quickly fished my camera out of my bag and left.
The sun was near setting, and the temperature outside was finally bearable. I briskly walked over to the hangar’s rear door. Quickly glancing around, I carefully turned the handle and slipped inside, slowly closing the door behind me. I turned back around and released an excited squeal as I ran up to the MiG on the right. I crossed from right to left, running my hand along the two massive engine nozzles, the closed airbrakes separating them, and the parachute fairing in the center of the tail.
Remembering my camera, I brought the viewfinder up to my eye and walked around the plane, snapping photographs of everything I could think to look at: The engines, the tailfins, the wings, the intakes. As I approached the left side of the nose, I looked up. I hadn’t noticed earlier, but the canopy was wide open. I let my camera hang from its strap and frantically looked around the hangar. “There!” In the corner, a red stepladder was leaned up against the wall. I carefully set my camera down by the MiG’s nose wheel and ran over to the ladder.
It was heavier than I expected as I lifted it off the wall. I leaned over and let it rest against my shoulder, lifting it just off of the ground and shuffling over to MiG. A metallic clang rang out as I set the ladder’s feet on the ground and opened it next to the MiG. In an excited scramble, I grabbed up my camera and bounded up the ladder.
Standing at the top of the ladder, I took a moment. I could see the entire top of the airplane. My vision traced every smooth curve up the MiG’s back, until my gaze settled on the canopy. I carefully stepped one foot onto the top side of the airplane and dipped the other into the cockpit. Crouching down, I slipped into the cockpit, sitting down in the seat.
On instinct, my right hand found the stick and my left hand found the throttle. I wiggled my hips, settling into the seat and resting my head back against the headrest. The base of my ponytail pressed against the headrest. Lifting my head, I quickly raised my left hand and pulled the ribbon from my hair, shaking my hair loose before setting my head back against the headrest.
“How did I know I’d find you in here?”
I jumped as a familiar voice echoed through the hangar. I looked left, peeking over the side of the canopy. Jackal was standing at the foot of the stepladder, looking up at me. He chuckled and climbed the ladder, sitting down on the top step. “I could tell you were eager. I was coming back to make sure everything was set up for training tomorrow, and I thought to myself ‘how much you wanna bet that girl’s in here, skulking around at dusk like a bobcat?’” He paused. “Matter of fact, yeah. A bobcat. A lynx. That’ll be your callsign: ‘Lynx.’”
I blushed, an embarrassed smile on my face. “I guess I’m in no position to argue. Am I in trouble?”
Jackal pointed at my camera. “Just don’t show any pictures you took to anybody. That, and now you get to sit through my lesson on the instrument cluster.” He smirked and stepped onto the plane, standing beside the cockpit and leaning on the edge as he pointed at the plane’s instruments.
I recognized things like the navigation instruments, altimeter, vertical speed, and airspeed indicators from my time flying. Almost everything else was quite intuitive: Angle of attack, airspeed in Mach numbers, engine heat and RPM. Jackal even turned the electrical power on to explain the HUD and the single multi-function display.
As I left the cockpit with strict instructions to get some sleep for tomorrow, I welled up with excitement. Tomorrow I would get to use all of those instruments, see them lit up and moving, all to help me fly a real fighter jet.
I flopped back onto my bed, staring at my flight suit hanging from a hook on the back of the door. Jackal had told me that we’d be going up tomorrow afternoon, right after lunch. The ground crew would arrive in the morning. They would pull the MiGs out of the hangar and preflight them for us.
As I drifted to sleep, I wondered what Shizuka would be up to tomorrow.