What Can Five Fighters Do?
What could anyone do with five fighter jets?
It wasn't just any offer — Song Dana, the adjutant, was proposing to hand over actual aircraft. No matter that they shared the same rank, hearing something so unexpected from a person he'd met mere minutes ago set a faint wariness stirring in him.
"That seems a little excessive for a joke. Even so — do you have any idea how expensive just one of those is…?"
He answered with a slightly awkward smile, but the look she turned on him was utterly serious.
"I'm not joking. Of course each plane is considerably expensive — but what's even more precious is a pilot who can fly them. From what you've said, it sounds like you already have someone who can handle the controls?"
"Well… we do have someone, but…"
"Then there's no further need to deliberate. We have spare aircraft on standby as we speak, so take a few. Even if they get shot down, we won't lose much sleep over it — so don't feel burdened."
"Hmm…"
It was true. Even among Hunters, people capable of simultaneously piloting multiple unmanned craft were vanishingly rare. And just as it had been with manned aircraft in the past, the real cost of running an air force — many times that of the planes themselves — was the time and money spent training pilots. Veteran pilots were always in short supply. In that light, Adjutant Song Dana was recommending that a Hunter belonging to Dreamouth put the surplus aircraft to use.
No… even so, are airplanes something you can just casually lend out like this? Never mind the loss if one gets shot down — you'd still have to account for the fuel burned on every sortie…
Ordinarily, unless it was a case like the 28th Guild — where external circumstances left the guild master's authority unreasonably strong — an adjutant did wield considerable discretion over internal military operations. Even accounting for that, however, handing over aircraft meant absorbing a serious hemorrhage on their end. He couldn't help being thoroughly flustered, and a further question began to take shape: what exactly was this woman basing such a casual decision on?
And yet…
For all the suspicious points, the opportunity that had fallen into his lap was simply too good to throw away. There might well be some agenda he couldn't see — but that was something he could handle by locking everything down properly on paper beforehand and double-checking the details. Having dealt with similar situations more than once during his years as a military adjutant, he already knew exactly what was required and how to process it so nothing came back to bite him later.
And crucially, if aircraft operations were authorized, he could put to the test a number of things he'd long wanted to verify in actual combat — and extract far more reliable intelligence for dealing with the Abyss packs currently crawling their way toward this place.
There'll still be limits as the mere adjutant of a bunch of Black Hunters… but if I can learn more about them, I should at least be able to find ways to fight as efficiently as possible — and without casualties.
In any other situation he might have deliberated longer. Right now, though, he was hungrier for information than usual. He had predicted their appearance — but they had shown up far sooner than expected. The so-called Abysses that knew how to use their heads. To face those things, he needed to pull information out of them beforehand, by any means necessary.
Even if they're moving with intelligence, they must still have fixed behavioral patterns… Finding those will clearly be the key to winning this commission. And for that, nothing beats air power.
And so he decided to accept the irresistible temptation. A deep, unreadable smile began to bloom at the corner of Adjutant Song Dana's mouth.
Five unmanned fighters slowly circled above the airfield on a demonstration flight. Watching Glass pilot them with practiced ease, Kwon Soon and Are wore bright expressions.
"Even after all this time, her skills don't look the least bit rusty. I never knew, since she usually just shoots guns — but a former air force pilot really is something else."
"Indeed, Glass. I was under the impression that the average number of aircraft one air force Hunter can handle is about four — and yet she's managing five with that kind of fluency."
"With skill like that, she could easily have made S-class in the air force, don't you think? Looking at it that way, it seems she was cutting it pretty close."
"France, like our country, doesn't allow S-class Hunters to discharge. If she'd served even a little longer, she probably would have been stuck for good."
"And Glass would have been walking around with that face she's worn ever since she got here."
"She absolutely would have."
The two of them offered their own brands of admiration for Glass's skill. Meanwhile, quite apart from their reactions, he watched the planes weaving skillfully through the sky and felt the worries he'd been carrying ease considerably.
As those two said, this level of skill ranks as outstanding even among pilots. I've heard there's someone in America who can handle eight — but here, this much is more than enough.
Confirming Glass's ability with his own eyes, he began to feel a real sense of anticipation for what lay ahead. After finishing the practice flight, Glass brought the planes down one by one onto the runway in a measured sequence of landings.
"Hah…"
A sigh of mild relief escaped her — the first demonstration flight in a long while, completed without incident. Looking at her, he held out the drink he'd been carrying and asked,
"How does the handling feel?"
"Not bad. At this level, the performance doesn't seem to lag much behind a Rafale. The differences in the control terminal aren't that significant either, which is good."
"That's a relief, then."
Glass accepted the drink with her characteristic goddess-like smile. He felt the primary concern he'd been nursing settle — but she looked at him with a faint question in her eyes.
"But Aide. Even if I can handle aircraft, five is about my limit right now. Force on this scale doesn't seem like it would meaningfully shift the overall war situation — and factoring in the usual shoot-down rates, even these won't last long, will they?"
They may have lucked into free aircraft, but if they burned through all five fighters in this battle, demanding any further air power would naturally be difficult on multiple fronts. In that sense, this flight capability was something to be treasured and used sparingly — and even then, given the current reality that more than half of anything committed to the battlefield typically got shredded, two or three sorties was the absolute maximum.
And yet…
To Glass's question, he answered in a voice full of quiet confidence.
"You don't need to worry about that. I have my own methods for dealing with it."
"…What?"
At his words, a questioning look crossed that goddess-like face. Watching her, he let a calm smile form at the corner of his mouth — a smile carrying anticipation for everything still to come.
I still haven't had the chance to verify it in actual combat… but it should succeed, more or less. Among all the data I've reviewed so far, there hasn't been a single exception.
Thorough analysis and statistics do not lie. Reminding himself of that fact once more, he decided to use this opportunity to put to the test something he had been researching, bit by bit, since his days as an adjutant.