Defense

"Administrator. Two military aircraft are approaching."

Light blossomed in the air above the table as Athena moved her fingertips. Slender lines traced a three-dimensional outline, and color and texture flooded in to fill it.

A hologram.

The image hanging in midair was so vivid it looked as though it would yield to the touch if I reached out. When I leaned forward without thinking, even an alley hidden behind a nearby building came into view.

Two fighter jets were flying in from far off. When I shifted my head, the angle changed with it. This wasn't footage on a screen — it was as if the entire city had been shrunk down and set on the table before me.

When Athena pointed at the jets, that part alone zoomed up before my eyes.

"Can they make it up this high?"

"Not a chance. Not in those airframes."

Athena answered as though it were hardly worth mentioning, and turned on the audio.

Radio traffic.

The jets arrowing toward the Garden and the conversations crackling inside them were being relayed together. When I turned to Athena, she spoke.

"I have been monitoring military movements since the Garden was first installed. Something of this magnitude appearing in someone else's sky — they were never going to sit still."

Apparently things had already been in motion outside while I was touring the house and even sleeping.

Beside the jets, another window opened.

"Formation footage is coming in."

"Put it on the center screen. From that distance they won't be making out much detail."

Unlike the radio, I could even hear the voices around them — the conversation inside the command and control center as it coordinated with the jets.

"Is it really all right to breach military security this easily?"

"It is not such a difficult thing, for me."

Athena brought up the footage the jets themselves were transmitting, off to the side. She knew not only what the soldiers were saying, but what they were looking at.

I listened to them talk for a while.

They meant to come closer than this and examine the Garden. If I left them be, they would approach exactly as much as they pleased before turning back.

I had already spent more than enough of my life bending to suit other people. I had always been the weaker one, after all.

No one stayed grateful just because I kept straining to look good in their eyes.

The more I gave in, the more the requests piled up, and the requests soon hardened into demands. And the moment I finally said I couldn't do something, I became the one in the wrong.

Would the military be any different?

Today they would want a closer look. Next they would demand I reveal my identity, and someday, perhaps, that investigators be allowed to come up.

I had no intention of agonizing over how much to concede.

Not anymore. Now I could refuse without watching anyone's mood.

"Athena. Tell them to turn back."

Athena dipped her head slightly.

"As you command."

The flight lead tilted his head back and studied the structure.

It was far more massive than it had looked in the photographs. Even flying straight at it, the distance never seemed to close.

The thought of someone down below, somewhere, filming the sky left him feeling strange.

Of all people, he had to be the pilot sent up to lay eyes on it first.

"Lead. I've got close-up footage of the surface."

He was on the verge of answering his wingman's report when an unfamiliar voice cut in.

The words died on his lips.

It was a woman's voice.

The tone was calm. No agitation, no hint of a voice raised for the sake of threatening.

The flight lead hurriedly checked his comm settings.

The call had not come in over the common frequency. It was the secure channel he had been using with control mere moments ago.

His fingertips froze short of the switch.

How did she get in here?

"Lead, that warning just now... did you copy it?"

"I heard it."

He answered shortly and called control.

"Control, the entire formation is receiving an unidentified transmission. Order to break off approach, plus a shoot-down warning. We assess she has intruded on our secure comms."

"Halt your approach. Orbit and hold at your present airspace."

The moment the order dropped, he hauled his aircraft around.

Even through the turn, his eyes refused to leave the structure. The thought that someone, somewhere, was watching them would not leave his head.

The warning recording reached the command and control center of the Air Force Operations Command as well.

The commander listened to the audio, then turned to the communications officer.

"Rotate the formation's comms. And find out how she got in."

"Yes, sir."

On the large situation display, the two jets' positions kept refreshing. On one side hung the footage the formation was sending back; on the other, a news broadcast showing the sky over Seoul.

Call off the flight here?

The commander watched the circling formation and weighed it.

The other side had penetrated a secure channel. This was no warning they could wave off as a bluff.

"What if we pull the formation back and continue surveillance from the ground?" the operations officer offered.

"We don't know who sent it or what it's for. We can't just have them come home like nothing happened."

The commander pointed at the screen showing Seoul.

"What are the people down there going to ask us? Whether it's dangerous. Whether they should steer clear. And we can't exactly answer that we don't know a thing."

Higher up, the demands for reports kept coming. Seoul's sky was running on foreign broadcasts now, not just the domestic news.

This was happening in the middle of the Republic of Korea. Its own military could not afford to know nothing.

"We need more information. Continue the observation."

"They've already issued a shoot-down warning."

"Then relay our affiliation and the purpose of the approach first. Make it plain that this is reconnaissance, and demand that they identify themselves and state their purpose in turn," the commander instructed the controller.

The transmission from the fighters came through.

Headquarters had ordered the approach to continue for identification. Even after the warning, apparently, what needed verifying would be verified.

I rose from my chair and turned to Athena.

"Can you keep them from getting any closer?"

"Leave it to me."

Athena nodded.

The hologram enlarged, and the two jets snapped into sharp focus before my eyes. Red markers settled over each airframe.

"Activating the defense systems."

Her gaze swept across the two markers in turn. Her voice was lower, colder, than when she spoke to me.

The moment his aircraft began to slip, the flight lead clamped down on the stick.

It didn't come back.

The horizon tilted steeper.

"...What the—?"

Against everything he put into the controls, the fighter kept turning.

"Control! I've lost control of the aircraft!"

He worked the pedals too, fighting to right the plane. The banked fuselage did not answer.

"Mine's the same, I can't—!"

His wingman's frantic voice cut off.

The displays before his eyes went dark.

"Control, please respond! Control!"

He mashed the comm switch. No answer came.

He twisted around in his seat. Behind him, his wingman's jet was flying every bit as steeply banked as his own.

In that instant, the nose dropped.

"Ngh...!"

His body lurched and his shoulder slammed up against the harness. The ground rushed at the cockpit.

A mountain ridge. A road. A quarry gouged into the mountainside.

He hauled back on the stick, tendons standing out in his arms.

The nose did not rise one bit.

Climb. Climb, damn you!

It was right there in his hand, and there was nothing he could do. The ground kept swelling, and the aircraft plunged straight down toward the middle of the quarry.

"Come any closer, and I will shoot down both of your jets."

The voice from earlier resurfaced.

Nothing had collided with them. Nothing had hit them.

That woman was doing this.

The moment the thought formed, his hands fell away from the stick.

He had to eject.

He pulled the handle.

A deafening bang split the air and his body shot up into the open sky. The vicious wind flung his limbs about.

The fighter shrank away in an instant, its nose never lifting to the last.

His wingman abandoned his aircraft too. After the ejection seats fired, the two fighters fell toward the abandoned quarry on the outskirts of the capital region.

Pillars of fire rose from the floor of the empty pit. Seconds later, flame burst out again beside the first.

Debris raked the rock walls and scattered, and black smoke filled the valley.

The crash site appeared in the footage Athena had floating up.

Where the two aircraft had come down was a deserted quarry, far from any village, empty of people. While the pilots floundered without control, Athena had steered the jets in — choosing even the spot where they would fall.

I glanced, without meaning to, at her hands.

She hadn't made so much as a gesture.

"It has been handled."

Athena turned to face me. Her face was perfectly calm.

When I opened the gallery, new posts were pouring in.

I was about to tap a post saying the jets had flown off toward the island when a crash video went up above it.

I played the video.

The camera, pointed at the sky, chased the jets down. The two aircraft, circling wing to wing, shed altitude fast.

"What's wrong with those things?" someone next to the person filming asked.

Without waiting for an answer, the camera dipped lower. The jets vanished behind a ridge, and flame shot up. Moments later the second aircraft fell toward the same spot.

"It went down. Hey — it really went down!"

The sound of the explosions rolled in late.

The comment count began to climb.

A Featured badge appeared on the post.

A post playing the same video in slow motion went up, and hard on its heels came photos of the parachutes.

I pulled my eyes from the last post.

"The military is demanding a response," Athena ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠said.

"Ignore them. There's nothing more to say."

She lowered the volume on the transmissions.

"If they come close again, handle it the same way. No need to warn them twice."

"You need have no concern on that account."

Athena's gaze returned to the place where the jets had vanished.

"For I have no intention of letting them come and go as they please."

"The formation isn't responding!"

Call after call went out from the Air Force Operations Command Command & Control Center.

"Altitude fell off a cliff, then we lost the track. Both aircraft."

The commander stepped up to the console.

"Fix their position. Confirm the pilots' emergency beacons first!"

While the staff scrambled, a phone rang. A civilian report of a military aircraft crash came through.

The reported location matched where the formation had vanished.

For a moment the commander had no words.

It hadn't even been long since they had resumed the approach after the warning. In that span, they had lost two fighters.

"Play the comms back."

"Control! I've lost control ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠of the aircraft!"

The frantic voice rang through the command and control center.

"Mine's the same, I can't—!"

It cut off there.

Someone pressed the bridge of their nose and turned from the screen. The commander braced a hand on the playback console.

There had been no report of ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠a missile closing in. No word of taking fire.

The only thing both pilots had reported, in common, was that they could not control their aircraft.

"Footage just came in," the duty officer said, bringing up the crash video filmed by a civilian.

The commander's hand tightened.

The aircraft banked in unison — at the very moment the pilots had reported loss of control. Having turned that way, the two fighters fell toward the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠same quarry.

"Was that... flown from the outside?" an officer watching the footage beside him asked quietly.

The commander could not answer.

He couldn't say for certain. But no other explanation for the way those two aircraft had moved came to mind, either.

"Emergency ejections confirmed. Relaying the position to the rescue teams now."

Only then did the breath he'd been holding loosen a little.

The phone rang again. This time it was higher command.

The commander took the receiver and reported the crash — down to the pilots' final transmissions and the flight path confirmed by civilian footage.

The person on the other end listened, then asked.

"So what exactly were they attacked with?"

The commander's gaze went back to the frozen footage.

He had watched the two jets slam into the ground any number of times now, and still he had no answer to that question.