Disclaimer: I do not own anything you may recognize.
April 25th 2015
It was so hard to believe it was April if you looked at a thermometer. Most people didn't bother looking. There were possibly six weeks out of the year where the temperature broke past the teens in Siberia, so parkas and boots were everyday attire out in the frozen wasteland, hundreds of miles from civilization where the thermometer never got above freezing in the hottest summers. The isolation from civilization and harsh temperatures made it a perfect place to throw the lawbreakers. Several prisons dotted the arctic wasteland, each simply bearing a number. If an inmate got lucky and made it past the guards and their automatic rifles, the two hundred pound dogs, and survived the harsh terrain the chances of making the three hundred mile trek back into the nearest town were nonexistent. Escapes, therefore, were a rare problem in Prison Camp 34, though that's not to say the prisoners were totally docile at all times. No, these ladies all deserved their incarceration, and proved it too, sometimes on just one another. The chaos provided the less outwardly hostile inmates with entertainment at least, such as Ren Kotko and her cellmate Vera Vorbansk.
Cynicism became Ren and Vera's past time and catalyst for friendship, the form friendship took while incarcerated in a Siberian prison camp at least. They would gossip and make snide remarks about pretty much everything, even going so far as to compare murders in the more intimate moments the two shared. Currently they were lounging about in their cell with Ren sitting against the wall facing the bars and Vera sitting beside her, watching the guards pass them by.
Sasha was here today, her short stature standing out amongst the burly guards, as well as her bright red lipstick. Sasha's refusal to hide her femininity didn't mean she was out of place here though. Ren had personally witnessed the guard reach into a cell to grab an inmate and yank her into the bars that separated them hard enough to put the inmate on her ass. It was to break up a fight she and her cellmate were having, but Ren respected her work. Most guards would just point their guns at you and scream until the inmates obeyed. Sasha preferred to bust an ass or two and let the knowledge that she wasn't afraid of any inmate spread from cell to cell. Vera was almost certain Sasha and another of the guards were dating, claiming to have seen Sasha drag one of the bigger men into a restroom once. She didn't see them leave, their yard time being up before she got the chance, but she swore she saw two guards go in there. Ren thought she was full of shit.
Ren kept on watching as more guards passed them by and noticed another familiar, if unwanted, face…Valery. His mere presence caused her face to sink in disgust. Every prisoner knew him to be a pervert, and more than a few of the inmates claimed he'd assaulted them. Sometimes it was just a beating. The thought made Ren sick that the bastard was walking around on the other side of those bars. She knew she deserved to be locked up, but she still had rules, and Valery was scum preying on the somewhat helpless. Ren always took note when Valery was in the prison. She didn't trust the bastard. The convict wasn't the type to care what happened to the other women, but Vera was an exception. Vera and Ren had each other's back, but neither wanted a fight with the guards; few inmates with a functional brain did.
"You see that sack of shit wink when he walked by?" Ren asked, looking Vera in the eyes as her friend shuddered before smirking. Looking Vera in the eyes was normally impossible for Ren, the brunette only coming up to Vera's neck. It was hard to get under Vera's skin, unless you were dumb enough to bust up her cousin's food truck just because you can't handle your booze.
"Don't worry, most of his friends are off the guard shift for a few months. I'm not exactly going to turn my back on him you know." Vera replied as she winked at Ren, who smirked in return before punching her friend in the arm. "Cause you know I've got your back. Don't worry, so long as you're my bitch I'm not letting anyone else take you under the sheets."
The statement was followed by Ren's nervous laughter. 'I might have to write my brother about this soon before something does happen.' Ren thought. Vera apparently saw the concern in her friend's normally cold blue eyes and gave her a gentle smile, then promptly elbowed her in the boob.
"Cut it out. You might make me actually worried if you don't let up about it. So he winked at me, who the hell cares? It's not like he's got his dick poking through the bars or anything. If he does that I'll kick it back out. Problem solved." Vera said confidently as Ren rubbed where Vera had elbowed her, glaring at the woman.
She was probably right. Valery probably flirted with everyone like this at one point or another, and this just happened to be the first of it Vera's gotten from him. No big deal when you thought about it. Problem was, Ren was thinking more about the inmates she'd heard the stories from. Ren sighed before standing up off of the concrete floor, doing a few squats to get the blood flowing in her legs again.
"Yeah, you're probably right Vera. I just hear conversations in the mess hall about that fucker. Stuff gets to you when you hear it for years I guess," she calmly said, still occasionally glancing at the bars to make sure Valery hadn't doubled back. She was hiding her paranoia for Vera's sake now, but you don't survive long in prison by trusting people, especially the guards.
Vera nodded in response and got to her feet as well, studying Ren as she tried to figure out if her friend was feeding her a line or not. It was always hard to tell with Ren, her eyes nearly always cold and distant. The only time they changed was when she got angry or when Vera coaxed a laugh out of her. From what Vera saw of the athletically built woman outside of their cell, she was very standoffish to everyone. She'd beaten an inmate over the head with a lunch tray for 'looking at her too hard,' yet Vera could call her an ass goblin and the two would laugh over it. Vera knew where she stood with Ren but that was about all she really knew about her cellmate.
Sasha found it hard to accept that the apocalypse was finally here. It was difficult to accept that the giant monsters from the cheesy stop motion films growing up would be how it would all end. It would even be kind of funny if it weren't so very real and happening every five or six months. Four Kaiju had sprung from the Pacific now and each had rampaged for days before nukes finally took them down. That was a horrifying thought in and of itself, really. Those missiles could destroy entire cities, cripple a country with a well-placed shot. Kaiju took two or three nukes to drop them. But what other options were there? How do you fight a force of nature like that? Sasha had no idea, but she knew that it had been a good four or so months since the last Kaiju had made landfall in Sydney. It was getting to be crunch time again and yet Sasha was here, just as stuck in this ice box as the prisoners she was guarding.
The feeling of helplessness she got from thinking about the Kaiju put a bad taste in her mouth. Sasha did not like feeling helpless; she had a disdain for problems she couldn't efficiently deconstruct with a few well-placed shots or one good punch. Not to say she was opposed to diplomacy, but by the time Sasha got involved in things the talking was usually done.
Luckily for Sasha and the prisoners, no one was making much of a fuss today. The guard had shifted again, allowing the last set of guards to go back to civilization since commutes to a frozen wasteland weren't exactly easy. Fresh guards would take over the barracks for the next two months, get paid on the way out, and go back home for the next two months in peace and quiet, provided a giant monster didn't decide to walk all over it in the meantime.
At least Aleksis was on her shift again this time. Having a friend and sparring partner helped pass the time when you weren't on active duty. It was almost necessary to keep your sanity, having to put up with these animals in cages. One snarled at Sasha as she walked past, a relatively new inmate that she didn't recognize right off. She stopped right in her tracks and stared daggers at the woman. The inmate accepted the challenge, grabbing her bars as she began to call Sasha a bitch, among other things, but the guard cut her off by demonstrating why placing limbs outside of the bars was a bad idea. The inmate barely saw the rifle move, the butt of the gun smashing her fingers between the hardened wood and cold steel. Sasha then continued on with her patrol, her etiquette lesson hopefully sinking in. The inmate wouldn't be doing that again anytime soon either due to intelligence or inability due to the broken ring finger. Either way, the glare would be enough next time.
'Well, now I'm bored again,' Sasha thought to herself as she continued slowly stalking the walkways, glancing in each cell as she passed and maintained her icy stare. She disliked the quiet to a degree; it gave her nothing to do but look at people and scowl. The hardy blonde loved busting heads. She got a rush out of brawling and made no attempts to shy away from it. She almost missed her old job on days like this. At least the prisoners would be moving for breakfast soon and she'd have a little bit more to do.
Aleksis would be there as well, no doubt grumpy at having to wake up at the crack of dawn again. Sasha nearly allowed herself a smirk as she pictured the giant holding a coffee cup in one hand and his rifle in the other, slinking along like an old man in fuzzy slippers. It also meant Valery would be there, a fact Sasha tried her best to ignore. He was a piss poor guard on a good day, cruel without reason and made no attempts to hide his lechery. She had slapped him more than once for lying about contraband searches just to feel up an inmate. She would have done more were he not a friend of the warden.
Though now that Sasha thought about it, she and Valery should have crossed paths again by now to begin sending the inmates to the cafeteria. The realization gave her a sinking feeling in her stomach, her pace quickening as she turned off of her assigned route and onto Valery's. She swore to God if that man was attempting to flirt with an inmate again she was going to shove her gun right up his ass and unload a magazine into his head.
The two inmates thought little of it when Valery came back with three other guards, not recognizing them as friends of the bastard and simply thought it was time to be let out for breakfast. Valery wasn't stupid enough to try something without backup knowing he was outnumbered. They would have no qualms about killing him; Ren was already sentenced to ten years and she wasn't afraid of three or four more. Assuming, of course, she let him keep his pulse. Wouldn't be the first person she'd tested that line with.
Vera began walking first, as was the norm for the cellmates, with Ren watching the guards like a hawk before moving off of the back wall. Vera passed by the guards and made it outside of the cell, a relief for Ren, but as soon as it was time for her to do the same she felt a forearm connect with her throat. It knocked her back into her cell but not off her feet as Valery and Vera came back in. Valery was holding a combat knife to Vera's neck with one hand, the other holding her waist with her left arm pinned beneath his arm, the other held by the wrist in his grip. Vera could kick, but the other three guards had their rifles raised. Ren nor Vera would survive retaliation, just like Valery wanted.
"Let her go you son of a bitch!" Ren shouted before the butt of a rifle slammed into her face in response, bloodying her nose and mouth as she fell back and nearly lost consciousness. She was helped the rest of the way to the ground when one scrawny looking guard slammed a boot down on her chest before pointing his gun at her head.
"Don't worry, you'll get your turn." he whispered, leaning down so Ren would feel the heat off of his words.
Valery had acquired more underlings than Ren had guessed. It seemed the prospect of having a harem in the middle of nowhere was very tempting. Vera was screaming now, a hand vanishing beneath her shirt. She squirmed as much as she could to try to get away. A small trickle of blood dripped down her neck where her resistance had caused the knife to dig into her skin a bit too much. Ren's face was growing red as she watched, waiting for one of these guys to screw up and give her an opening. If she moved now she'd just get shot before she got to her feet. Vera wouldn't be saved by a corpse.
Valery made a tactical error, however. Not all the guards on patrol in this section of the prison were buddies of his, and one of them was looking for an excuse to kick his ass. It would have been a good idea to have one of the guards keep an eye out for passersby, but Valery was cocky. He was friends with the warden of this prison. Any accusations needed evidence, which didn't include testimony from the inmates who had no reason to tell the truth. So when the guard closest to the door, a portly bastard that somehow passed the fitness requirements, found the butt of a rifle slam into the side of his head the other three were more than a little surprised to see Sasha standing in the cell. She was holding her rifle by the barrel though quickly spun it back around to hold it properly. The guy she had hit fell to the ground, barely breathing. He may not be able to count when he got up, but he'd live. One down, three to go.
"What in the hell are you doing?! Let the convict go, NOW!" Sasha shouted.
She pointed her rifle at the man whose boot was still planted on Ren's chest. It was all the opening Ren needed. She grabbed the toothpick's ankle and threw up a shoulder as hard as she could to get him off balance and forced him to take a step forward. As soon as the foot was off of her she sprang to her feet and elbowed the man in the face as he turned around. This was happening in slow motion to Ren, who was focusing on her breathing as she went through the well-rehearsed motions. With the man dazed she hooked an arm under his armpit, a simple matter from there to flip him onto his back and followed the move with a crouched punch to his face. All practiced, efficient, and controlled movements.
Sasha watched out of the corner of her eye, wishing she could back the inmate up but knew that her rifle was the only thing keeping her from getting shot. This left Sasha with only one other target besides Valery who still held the knife to Vera's neck. It was a standoff now, Sasha shifting her scope between Valery and his last goon standing. Ren was on her feet now, but wasn't moving for fear of Vera getting killed over it. Vera had yet to stop moving, clawing at Valery's grip through her tears. Valery kept demanding she stop but she'd rather die than let him have his way.
"Valery, there's no winning this. If you kill her, I shoot you and your friends and accept the fallout. If you let her go, I will keep the other inmate off of you until we're both out of the cell. Those are the only two options you have right now!" Sasha shouted, her gun pointing at Valery as she spoke.
The man and his friend looked like scared vermin, twitching and sweating as they tried to figure out a way to salvage this. They hadn't expected Sasha to break from her patrol, or for Ren to knock one of them out. Vera was keeping quiet now that Valery was in as much danger as she was, still whimpering under her breath as she tried to keep calm. Ren was glaring at Valery as her anger grew in her chest. The only move Valery made was slowly inching back, trying to get away without letting go of his hostage. Valery's last goon was unable to decide where to point his gun. The first person to lose their cool was going to set off a chain reaction that few would survive.
Lucky for them, there was another guard in this section of the prison wondering where the hell everyone else was. Aleksis turned a corner and spotted Valery inching out of the cell with his hostage in hand and immediately started speeding up into a hard run to take advantage of the thirty yard straightaway between them. Valery was too focused on the rifle barrel pointed at his face to notice the seven foot man charging, but Vera wasn't. Her eyes had been darting around nonstop to find a way out. With Valery backing away, the only thing keeping him safe was his hostage. Vera hoped to correct this. As soon as she saw Aleksis, she wriggled an arm loose from Valery's grip and pushed the arm holding the knife away from her as she ran forward. Valery still held a grip on her wrist and was trying to yank her back towards him, terrified of losing his hostage before he figured out a way out of this. Unfortunately for Valery his fate was decided as soon as Aleksis' shoulder connected with his ribcage. Vera got yanked along with Valery, but the man's grip loosened as soon as he hit the ground and she fell down outside of her cell. She got a spectacular view of Aleksis mounting his new found bitch before swinging the back of his fist across Valery's jaw. Sasha didn't miss a beat either, taking advantage of the confusion to turn and swing her elbow into the face of the last minion standing and shoved the barrel of her rifle into his mouth.
"DROP THE DAMN WEAPON! NOW!" Sasha shouted, the man replying as quickly as anyone could by letting go of his gun and raising his hands. She was excited now, adrenaline pumping at the rush of dissolving the situation. She'd missed it.
With the hostilities over now, Sasha and Aleksis dragged the unconscious or compliant guards back out of the cell and locked the door back. As soon as this was done, Sasha let out a sigh as the rush faded and reached for the walkie-talkie on her belt.
"Section 12, Sasha Zolnerowich reporting in. An incident has occurred but has been contained in front of cell M one two dash nine. Guards injured after attempted rape of prisoners. No casualties and all prisoners accounted for. Copy?" Sasha said, wincing slightly as she heard a fist smack flesh as soon as she said the word 'rape.'
Aleksis hadn't known what the situation had started from and Sasha had been too focused on establishing order to ease her friend into the details. More guards from other sections would now be on their way and the report would be sent to the warden since guard injury had occurred. The fact the Senior Officer didn't verbally respond was a bad sign.
Aleksis, his anger sated now, stood and popped the joints in his neck before slowly walking over to the cell a good bit of the brawl had occurred in. He looked from Ren, who still had a boot print on her chest, to Vera who was crying into Ren's shoulder.
"Did he…?" He asked, looking back to Sasha, who shook her head no. He nodded back, obviously relieved, and then looked back into the cell. "I am glad then. I am sorry that this happened. It is no consolation I know, but Valery will not be fit for duty for some time with that dislocated jaw." He said, Ren smirking in response.
"Thanks for popping him one extra just now. Was he awake to feel it?" She asked. Aleksis smirked back, nodding once before turning his back to the cell.
Sasha shook her head and looked at the bodies laid out on the floor, then at the blood on the stock of her rifle from her entrance earlier. Regardless of the motives they had, they probably wouldn't be employed after this. Not after breaking the jaw of a friend of the warden's like that.
"I'm glad you're making friends. We might be neighbors with them after all this." Sasha quipped but smiled gently regardless as she looked back at the bodies, "Dumb bastards."
Aleksis ran a gloved hand through his brown hair, nodding in agreement. "Yeah, maybe. There are worse things to be locked up for I suppose. Who knows, maybe we will simply get fired and be forced to walk back home. Have to think positively, Sasha," the big guy replied back, laughing a little as the sound of boots stomping in the distance reached their ears.
Sasha heard it as well and her smile faded as a result. She wasn't looking forward to what would come next but Aleksis had a good point. Despite the spin that would be put on this they did the right thing, if violently, and she would not be ashamed to be locked up a few years as a result. It would quell her boredom to say the least.
"It's been a pleasure working with you, Aleksis. I hope we get the chance to do so again when things are not so crazy, provided a Kaiju doesn't find Russia."
It felt good sitting behind the mahogany desk. It was an honor to sit behind the desk, to have the knowledge that your words could topple empires or create them. If Nikita weren't so intelligent, the weight of his influence might scare him but his ego allowed him to relish the position. There were currently four people in the room, three men and one woman, and at his command any one of them would kill the others without hesitation. The only thing that prevented this (aside from moral decency) was the fact that Nikita's father could have his head on a pike at an hour's notice. So Nikita continued sitting behind the desk, looking at the papers before him as he plotted.
He held pictures of the fifth Kaiju - Karloff he'd been named - but more importantly than that, he held pictures of Brawler Yukon wedging its robotic fist between Karloff's ribs. The first Kaiju killed without nuclear fallout. The first Jaeger. The pictures had been sent by Nikita's father along with a letter from the recently formed Pan Pacific Defense Corp, specifically their Jaeger Program. The world needed pilots, Russia needed protection, and the family did not want to miss a stake in the defense of the planet. The letter was the typical recruitment jargon every high-school kid would know well, but with it came an application to enter the program.
This was where Nikita began to frown. He had read the line several times to make sure he wasn't misreading it, but it unfortunately wasn't a typo. It took two to pilot a jaeger, someone with whom the pilot was close to. The specific example given was siblings. They briefly explained the concept of drifting in the recruitment letter, what it entailed and its necessity, but the thought of sharing a mind with his sister Renata frightened him. He loved his sister, don't get him wrong, but ever since she returned from her eight years in the military she was a demon. She had always been angry as a child and gotten into a lot of schoolyard fights over nothing, but as an adult she had been trained to kill. She was at present locked up because she couldn't control her temper. Nikita didn't think putting her in a giant war machine would be the best of ideas... but he also couldn't think of anyone better to point at a giant monster and let loose. The real question was the same one posed at the end of the recruitment letter, written in his father's handwriting.
Can you control her?
If it was his father's wish, he would certainly try. Which brought Nikita to the next piece of paper on his desk, a letter from Ren. It started off as every letter from Ren did, the words, "Hey, you sorry sack of shit" as the greeting, but then was just a name. Valery. It appeared that a guard in Prison Camp 34 had attempted a series of unsavory actions towards his dear sister and her cellmate. Two other guards ended up beating him within an inch of his life and Ren wanted some strings pulled. It was rare that she wanted favors. She wanted Valery and the guards that helped him dead, something that went without saying honestly, but she also asked that the guards that helped her not end up in jail for it. Looking from the letter Ren had written to the PPDC papers, Nikita nodded before looking up at his employees.
"Grigory, take three men and go find a guard named Valery from Renata's prison. I want him dead. I'll find his exact position and send it to you through the usual means. Prepare until then." Nikita stated calmly, one of the men nodding before leaving Nikita's office.
Next, Nikita turned to his assistant Anya. "Aleksis Kaidonovsky and Sasha Zolnerowich. Track these two down and ensure they are sent to one of our judges, and have one of our lawyers." The woman nodded before retrieving her phone from her pocket and began tapping at the screen.
With these tasks delegated Ren's requests were fulfilled. Nikita leaned back in his cushioned chair and looked about his office, the rosewood walls, the expensive paintings on those walls, including the commissioned portrait of Nikita, instilled in him a sense of relaxation. He smiled about his lot in the world as his eyes drifted back down towards his desk and the PPDC papers. The world needed Jaeger pilots.
"Anya, have their lawyers also give them copies of these forms here," Nikita demanded, tapping a finger on the Jaeger program application.
The decision was made on a whim, thinking two people capable of stopping four armed men from harming an inmate would find work in the Defense Corp even if they weren't drift compatible. He owed them for keeping his sister safe, after all. A job should suffice. Now to get back to business.
"Kazimir, come with me. I'm going to go visit Ren early this month. We have things to discuss with her and the warden. Bring Ivan too. He gets testy when we hurt people without him."
Thank you for reading!