Author's Notes:Here it is, dear readers, the final installment of Generation K! It's not completely drafted, but I just had to try to get it out before the whole damn thing gets jossed by Uprising next month! This is the grande finale of a full four years of blood, sweat, and tears, and joyous world-building, so I really hope enjoy it!
Canon Note: Obviously, the relationship between Jake Pentecost and Mako and Stacker doesn't follow where the movie has hinted it's going. I took it a different way, and my retcon of him into the Generation K verse is found in Chapters 11-12 of Tales From The Front Lines!
Character and Fitness
Chapter One: Bay 05
Hong Kong Shatterdome…
Ten days after Operation Pitfall…
Mako woke with a strangled cry, grasping for the controls to her weapon and flailing to keep the beast at bay that loomed over her, its stinking maw open wide to swallow her…
Her gaze fell on the shadows of shelves in the dim light of her quarters, the little tea set that she'd tried to match to the ones her parents had used, the sword that had belonged to her father, and reality settled back into place.
She sat up and squinted at the clock: 0300.
Before Operation Pitfall, Mako had been good at training herself back to sleep if her nightmares woke her up. Now she could tell that it wasn't going to happen. With a weary groan, she pulled herself out of bed and went to wash her face.
In the back of her mind was the faint, indescribable sensation of another mind connected to hers. How strong would the ghost drift be if she and Raleigh had had the opportunity to drift for as long as pilots like the Kaidanovskys, the Weis, and the Hansens? Experienced Rangers could figure out each other's locations, sense their moods, and even talk back and forth through the ghost drift. Mako knew she and Raleigh hadn't drifted long enough to build that yet. She wished they had.
Or did she?
She envied the Kaidanovskys and the Hansens...and she'd once envied the Weis, and Sensei and Tamsin.
Thanks to the drift with Raleigh, she now knew what it felt like to lose a partner forever. Chuck still had Herc, but after only one drift, he would never have Sensei again.
Mako shivered. Suddenly, she just wanted Raleigh. Forget the ghost drift; she needed him with her to remind her they hadn't been ripped. She got dressed in a rush and left her quarters.
He wasn't in his room, and at that hour of the night, she knew where he'd be when he couldn't sleep. Sure enough, she found him in the gym. He stopped his weight-lifting mid-set and turned, even though she hadn't made a sound coming in, and came to meet her. Despite how sweaty he was, she wrapped her arms around him.
For long moments, neither of them said anything. She listened to his heart beat and felt his nose in her hair. She shut her eyes and just breathed.
Safe. Together. It's over.
Except...
"I thought it would be over when we defeated them," she finally murmured aloud. I thought the nightmares would stop.
"Yeah." Raleigh must have known better, but he hadn't tried to tell her. What would the point have been?
Destroying the Breach hadn't brought back Yancy. It hadn't brought back Mako's family, or Sensei, or all the other Rangers and crew who had died. And it hadn't stopped Mako's bad dreams or let Raleigh sleep easier.
They both needed to stop this train of thought. Raleigh abandoned the weights, and they headed into the Kwoon for the world's clumsiest, most sluggish spar - they were both too tired and distracted.
After an attempted pin sent them both crashing to the floor in a tangle of arms and legs, they just lay there staring at the ceiling. They needed to give it up and try to get some sleep. Raleigh didn't want to end up back in his room alone, tossing and turning all night…but he wouldn't reach for the obvious solution. He'd never been this shy about anyone, and felt stupid for being that way about his co-pilot.
So it fell to Mako. "Stay with me."
They didn't look at each other, just kept staring at the ceiling and listening to each other breathe. "You sure?" he whispered.
She smiled. "I'm not saying we have to get naked tonight." He laughed wearily. "Just stay with me."
It would be a complete lie if either one of them claimed that the thought hadn't occurred…more than once. But Mako wasn't really thinking about love or lust, and she didn't get the feeling Raleigh was in that mood either. She just needed him with her.
They walked in unconscious sync back to Mako's room. Her bed wasn't any bigger, but her room was a little oversized to accommodate an engineer's work table. She and Sensei had privately used it for tea when they had the chance.
Now Sensei was gone.
They squeezed onto her bed and searched for sleep. Dreams wouldn't bring either of them much peace, but the closest they could come was being here together.
Tendo was in high spirits a few days later. Alison and the baby would be on their way in a few days. Flight restrictions were finally lifting, as reality was starting to settle into the world that the Breach wasn't open anymore. There'd be no more kaiju. People could think about things like travel to be with family again.
With no more Jaegers to power, the Shatterdome energy supply could be devoted to little luxuries again...like hot water for longer than five minutes. When that cry went up, half the population of the Dome went stampeding for the showers. Everyone yelled and jostled and argued and some even pulled rank for first dibs, until Marshal Hansen jokingly threatened to shut it down if they couldn't be adults about it.
So Tendo sportingly waited his turn for the men's showers, and yelled back and forth down the hall that the guys' line was moving faster than the women's, swapping insults with the ladies. (He quit when somebody threw a wet towel at him, only to miss and hit Newt Geiszler.)
"Now this is sweet victory," he crowed, once he finally got himself under a near-scalding spray. The faucet nearest to him was already occupied by Raleigh, who'd been ahead of them in line.
A draft of chilly air kept blowing in everytime somebody opened the door, getting yells of protest from all of them, but most of the guys were considerate enough to move fast and not take more than their fair share of hot water or leave the door open any longer than necessary.
"Man, we don't even need the coolant running full blast anymore," one of the J-Techs complained. "Why the hell don't they turn it off?"
"Can't, until they figure out how to run the fans without running the a/c," said someone else.
"Figures," said Raleigh, making a face when someone opened the door again.
A gale of laughter caught their attention away from growling when the door stayed open longer than usual, and they quickly worked out way: Aleksis Kaidanovsky was not about to let a piddling little wheelchair prevent him from enjoying the spoils of victory in the hot water shower. His oversize wheelchair would rust, but he'd somehow persuaded two burly security guards to slide poles through a regular quarters chair and carry him into the damn showers!
He looked like a damn Egyptian pharaoh or something. Guys laughed, Raleigh applauded, and Tendo bellowed, "Bow low to the mighty Wazir!"
Aleksis improvised a royal wave, and everyone broke up laughing. One of the Chinese crew got a little carried away and started "fanning" him with a towel, only for Aleksis to yell, "Stop that, it's cold!"
"Eh, cold, I thought you are Russian!" the Typhoon crewman taunted, only to get a stream of Mandarin profanity that made all the other Chinese crewmen whoop in delight.
Typhoon's crewman scoffed and departed, making rude gestures at his crewmates, who were evidently declaring Aleksis the winner - then Tendo saw him go for the environmental control switches. "Oh no!"
"You not like cold, uh?"
"Nononono!"
"AHHHH!" Lots of very high-pitched screams followed, as the asshole flipped the water source lever back to cold and sent frigid water blasting out of all the faucets. Several people sprinted after the prankster, men leaped out of the water cursing in multiple languages, Aleksis bellowed like an angry grizzly bear, and -
Tendo caught sight of Raleigh as he scrambled out of the suddenly-freezing spray, and his heart lurched. Raleigh had stumbled against the tiled wall, but the look on his face...like after 2020, staring at something haunting and hopeless in the distance.
"Rals? Oh, shit," Tendo hissed. "Turn that off, dammit, turn it off!"
Aleksis looked back and saw the expression on Raleigh's face, and barked a command, sending several guys scrambling back to the water switches, and in a moment, the frigid torrent was gone and steam was rising from the tiles again. "Raleigh? Rals, hey, c'mon." Tendo cautiously put out a hand to his friend, and when Raleigh didn't recoil or lash out at him, he guided him back into the heat. "Easy, buddy, you're in Hong Kong, remember?"
The other guys began to swear more quietly as they worked out what was going on. A couple of them hurried over to pick up Raleigh's discarded shower kit. "Take him out," Aleksis urged. "Get him warm and call Mako."
"Right. C'mon, Rals," Tendo urged. Raleigh let himself be led, but still didn't seem to be quite aware of the present.
Typhoon's crewman watched them with a guilty face. "Sorry," he mumbled. "Sorry."
"Don't worry about it, man, you didn't know," said Tendo, as they led Raleigh into the locker room and dried him off. As they got him dressed, Mako and Sasha Kaidanovsky came barging in.
Naked guys yelled protests and dove for cover; Mako absently put up a hand to block her view as she hurried to where Raleigh was sitting, but Sasha just scoffed. Not that there was much chance of Mako looking around; the minute she came through the door, she only had eyes for Raleigh.
She had a towel in her hands that was radiating heat; she must have grabbed it straight from the laundry on the way. Raleigh blinked at her as she wrapped it around him, murmuring in Japanese. He couldn't seem to concentrate. Tendo had seen that look in a lot of Rangers' eyes over the past few years (and most of the crews' eyes, for that matter), but it jolted him to see Raleigh this way again.
Maybe because my Becket boy was the first I ever saw like this. He towel-dried Raleigh's hair and got himself dressed, then helped Mako lead his friend back to quarters.
Raleigh shivered uncontrollably, and once they were back in his room, he abandoned trying to hide it, sitting with his eyes squeezed shut. Tendo wrapped an arm around his shoulders. "It's okay, Rals. It's okay."
Mako dug the thickest of Raleigh's sweaters out of his trunk, and she and Tendo wrestled him into it. Raleigh didn't complain, he was just completely out of it. Tendo decided the best thing would be to just leave them alone. "You good? Need anything?"
Wrapping her arms around Raleigh, she shook her head. "I don't think so. Thank you, Tendo."
He patted her shoulder and let himself out.
"Raleigh?" Her voice seemed far away. His face was cold. There was blood in his eyes...Raleigh squinted and rubbed them. His hand came away clean. But there was a hole the shape of his brother in his soul.
"I'was cold," he tried to explain to her, but the words came out as slurred as if he was drunk.
"I know." I felt it. "I'm here." You're not alone anymore.
Raleigh lifted his head and whispered what had been in the back of his mind for...a really long time. "I shouldn't've gone. They were right. I should've stayed."
Mako pulled him into her arms. She couldn't envelop him like Yancy and Antwan or even Tendo...but he was still in her arms, and it felt just as good as when it was Yancy.
"Don't do that to yourself, Raleigh-chan. Everyone understood."
"Except Chuck."
She would have been glad to hear him slip back into irony - if it weren't for the stab of renewed grief that went through her before she could respond. Not thinking of Chuck, but rather, of Chuck's last partner. Sensei…oh, Sensei… Raleigh sensed it and winced, looking her in the face. He'd come out of his own fog of memory only to see her tumble into her own. She pressed her face into his neck; he rubbed his cheek against her hair.
"I think..." she had to pause and swallow hard. "I think now he does." Turning the subject back to people who'd been far more forgiving than Chuck for far longer (or at least recognized how little actually required forgiving), she said, "Sensei... he told your old crew to keep their distance when you arrived, unless it was necessary. He didn't want to make it harder for you than it already would be. But many of them asked about you."
Raleigh sat back and stared. "Some of them - other than Tendo? They're here?"
Mako nodded, running her fingers through his hair. "A few came with the crews." He'd calmed from the flashback, so she stood up, keeping his hand in hers. "I want to show you something." Raleigh wavered, and she said, "They'll wait until you're ready. But there's something here in Hong Kong you should see."
Curiosity won out, and Raleigh got fully dressed and let Mako lead him down the hall. To their shared relief, there were no looks from the personnel in the corridor, just relief on people's faces to see Raleigh up and about again.
There was nobody in the halls outside Bay 05. It hadn't been in use since the fall of Horizon Brave. Mako couldn't find the words to prepare Raleigh for what was inside, so she took the coward's way out and said nothing. Raleigh must have gotten the vibe from her, but it wasn't enough to prepare him for what he found when they came through the doors.
The sight still took Mako's breath too, no matter how many times she entered.
The walls of Bay 05, once lined with computer screens, readouts, and equipment, were now covered with pictures. The tables along the walls were covered in candles and incense, tokens, even little shrines representing nearly every religion on the planet.
Anyone who knew the Jaeger Program could work out who the bay was arranged: all the memorials were grouped by the Shatterdome where the deceased pilots and crew had been assigned when they died.
"You know that early on, the memorials were in a room or a corridor in their Shatterdome," Mako explained. Raleigh nodded mutely. "As the Domes began to close, the crew who transferred brought the memorials with them to the next post. Nobody wanted to abandon them as long as there was even one Jaeger operating. So in the end, they all arrived here."
Raleigh turned, drawn to the section for the Anchorage Shatterdome like a compass needle, unerringly drawn to point north. Mako kept silent, letting him have the moment to himself, but stayed at his elbow in case he needed her.
The wall pictures reminded Mako of web diagrams. At the center was always the pictures of the pilots. Surrounding the pilots were pictures of their crew who had died in the line of duty. The photos weren't the professional, impersonal headshots that appeared on PPDC documents. Nearly all of them were candid. The image of Yancy was all too familiar from the memories Mako had seen in the drift: he was sprawled on a couch, probably in a Shatterdome rec room, looking up from his tablet with a lazy grin.
Years ago, Raleigh would have pounced on him, or at least seized the opportunity to sit on the edge of the couch and poke him in the ribs, initiated wrestling or just sprawling, depending on how recently they'd drifted. The impulse ghosted through Mako now and made her throat tighten up. She slipped an arm around his waist as he raised his hand to brush a fingertip along the image of his brother's face, careful not to smudge it.
Even through the remnants of a ghost drift lingering from what barely amounted to a day of neural handshake, Mako felt an itching under her skin, the desperate need for someone who was gone and would never come back. She could work out all too well how powerful that ache still had to be for Raleigh. She tightened her hold on him.
From Yancy, Raleigh trailed his fingertips over the thirteen images that surrounded his brother's. Mako didn't know the cause of death for all the crews, but she did know what had happened to the lost personnel of Team Gipsy. Twelve of them had died in a single command chopper crash in the aftermath of Hardship. The last, Valentina Medina, had been a spotter pilot for Team Striker, whose chopper had gone down after the defeat of Vodyanoy in 2023.
Up until 2024, when so many Jaegers had begun to fall, vehicle crashes had been the primary cause of fatalities among the personnel. Then the battles had grown more deadly, both to the pilots and their crews, and radiation had claimed hundreds by the time Sensei had initiated Operation Pitfall.
At the thought of Sensei, both of their eyes were drawn to the even larger and more diverse collection, assembled to represent Hong Kong Shatterdome. Crew from every Jaeger who'd ever served in Hong Kong were memorialized there.
Mako hadn't had the chance to put a picture of Sensei on the wall...but to her and Raleigh's shared surprise, someone had beaten her to it.
Hu Wei was there as well, among the images of Crimson Typhoon's strike troopers who'd been killed in various engagements over the years. No doubt Cheung and Jin had taken care of that. Parallel to the other pilot images was a picture of Stacker Pentecost - also not a professional portrait. It was a rare casual picture that someone must have taken during shore leave in Hawaii. He was seated on a bench in a garden with Tamsin at his side.
Reunited.
Seeing Hu Wei's picture on Hong Kong's wall, Mako supposed that the remaining triplets had also put Sensei's picture up. Except...where would they have gotten that picture with Tamsin? Maybe Sasha and Alexsis had found it.
The answer hit her in the gym that evening, seeing Chuck Hansen coming out of the locker room. He saw her watching him and waited for her in the corridor. "In the memorial bay. The picture of Marshal Pentecost and Tamsin. You put it up?"
Chuck hesitated only a second before he nodded. "It was my dad's." His chin went up a little, as if he thought Mako would be unhappy.
She certainly wasn't. "Thank you. It's a perfect picture of them."
"Yeah, he loved that one..." Chuck trailed off, as if suddenly thinking he'd spoken out of turn - which was ridiculous, because Chuck Hansen had never cared about whether it was his turn in all the time Mako had known him! He walked away quickly.
Mako almost went after him. Then she considered: in those first months, even years after Yancy was killed, Raleigh had barely been able to think of him, let alone speak of him to others wthout becoming completely overwhelmed. Five years and four months had eased it a little, but for Chuck, this agony was new.
Sensei hadn't been Chuck's family, but they'd drifted, sharing each other's minds and memories for hours, and the only reason Chuck hadn't died with him...it stabbed Mako again to think of it. What those memories had to be doing to Chuck now...the fact that he'd only drifted with Sensei once might mean the pain was less...but Mako doubted it.
To Be Continued...
Coming Soon: Our heroes get the chance from some genuine celebrations of a hard-one war, even as the sharks are circling in the political waters surrounding the last Shatterdome in Chapter 2: Salvage!
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