Chapter 2
I slipped into Raleigh and Yancy's minds on the way to the Drop bay.
Yancy smiled at the familiar tickle of me hearing his thoughts.
Raleigh responded. 'took you long enough.'
'I could be sleeping.'
He smirked as they began installing his circuitry suit. 'you can sleep after we bag this one.'
'You bring him back to me, Raleigh.' I laid back into the pillows. 'And you'd better come back with him.'
'Whatever you say, Angel.'
Countless simulator battles and 4 deployments passed, I was used to sharing the mind of Gipsy Danger.
The motions leading up to Drop were always the same. I tracked the boys through the neural handshake, listening to the familiar voice of Tendo Choi through Yancy's ears.
I settled back into bed, I backed into the mind of the machine. Settling between Raleigh and Yancy into the Handshake itself.
I drifted, listening to the orders.
'Marshall is really going to let them die out there?' I heard cross their mind.
"You know what I'm thinking?" Raleigh looked at his brother.
"I'm in your brain," Yancy snapped back. "I know."
"Let's go fishing."
'You never did appreciate the importance of the many.' I mumbled out loud, tossing my feet over the bedside and getting down.
Pride spread through the neural as the boys picked up the boat, saving the civilians.
I felt their muscles pull as the machine around them reacted. Blasts landing effectively.
"Gipsy, what the hell is going on?" Crossed the comms.
"Job's done, Sir." Raleigh answered. "Lit it up twice. Bagged out fifth kill." The youngest Beckett was full of pride and confidence.
Nothing would bring that attitude down for at least a month.
"You disobeyed a Direct Order!" Pentecost shouted back.
"Respectfully, Sir," Yancy began, bringing out his formal tone, "We intercepted a Kaiju and saved everyone on that boat."
"Get back to your post, Now!"
I saw through each brother's eyes as they smiled at each other.
"Yes, Sir."
Stepping out of the kitchen, I pulled on a pair of pants and started lacing my boots. I was going to meet the boys once they'd docked back in the bay.
"Gipsy!" Pentecost shouted over the speakers. "We're still getting a signature! That Kaiju is still alive!"
The brothers looked at each other.
"Grab the boat and get out of there." Came the order. "You copy? Grab the boat and get out of there now!"
The Jaeger had hardly turned around when the Kaiju jumped out of the water and slammed into the robot.
Sparks flashed across Yancy's vision as the Jaeger took full force. The cockpit was taking damage.
Growls from the Kaiju could be heard through the hull.0
"Take it, Raleigh!"
"I got this," He prepared the plasma cannon to fire another shot. He had just reached over to aim when the Kaiju rammed its horn into the shoulder of the Jaeger. 'Knifehead' had stabbed the Jaeger.
Data from the Jaeger shot through the relays. That was Raleigh's hemisphere of the machine and pain quickly shot through that side of his body, and settled deep into his mind, I felt the pain spread along my own body.
Through Yancy, I registered the cry of pain that came from the Ranger and matched it with my own scream as I tumbled down onto the floor of our barracks.
"Loccent, We're hit!"
The Arm of the Jaeger was ripped off. And in the process, both Raleigh and I felt the data communicate as through our own arms had been ripped from our bodies.
Adrenaline prevailed and I managed to get up from the floor just as I watched talons crash through the cockpit.
Getting up, I rushed from the room, heading straight for Loccent and the control room.
The Ranger's slept as close to the bays as possible and that meant Loccent was only a few minutes away.
I heard the Comms from the Jaeger echoing through the control room as I mounted the stairs. "The Hull! It went through the Hull!" Raleigh's voice blasted from the speakers, causing the stairs to shake.
I felt Yancy's equipment shake as he looked up as the system controls linked to his suit shook from the hull damange. Seeing the talons sink into the metal and cabling of the ship. He saw the claws come to tear him from the ship. It was like drowning in fear, before a cloud of calm crossing the mind as He accepted the possibility.
"Raleigh, listen to me!" I was so deep into Yancy's mind that it was suddenly me in the drift, me in his brain along with Raleigh. Me shouting at my kid brother, "You Need-"
I felt the circuity system linked into the suit pull as I was ripped into the air. The terror combining with the whiplash and freezing rain. Moving so fast in the air, there was a flash of the clouds and lightning, like a snapshot, just before I felt the impact onto the water.
I felt Raleigh's fear and anger as I watched Yancy ripped from the ship.
Shock set in as the Right hemisphere was ripped away from the Left. As Yancy's final through faded from the Drift. Faded from my mind.
My boots met the threshold of the control room as I dropped. My mind suddenly more empty than it had ever been. I didn't even register as people raced towards me. My eyes saw only black and my mind saw everything Raleigh was seeing.
The empty hole in the Hull of the Gipsy. The hole of sparks and missing pieces and more importantly, missing Yancy.
"No! No!"
I felt my own lung burn with the force of the screams now echoing through the speakers in the comm room.
Shocks passed through the suit as the Computer programming and Artificial Intelligence buffered, struggling to make sense with the amount of damage taken to the ship.
A Jaeger missing an arm and half a head along with a pilot, Not a single gauge or panel related to the Gipsy was making sense. The humans operating the panels took their hands away and watched in horror as the prepared to lose another Pilot.
Funneling my conscience into Raleigh's head, I felt him switch hands, taking the trigger mechanism in his right hand. Bouncing around in the Jaeger as he prepared the Plasma cannons on the right arm.
Knifehead forced its horn through the chest of the Gipsy Danger. Effectively piercing where a heart would have been placed on a human. Pain once again tore through both Raleigh and myself.
Drawing the plasma cannon up, the Kaiju bit down onto the torso of machine. Tearing off chunks it failed to notice the cannon loading right beside its head. The kaiju reeled up, preparing to attack the Jaeger again and Raleigh set the plasma cannon off, blasting into the Kaiju.
Transmissions from the Jaeger stopped.
