Author's Notes: Thank you all once again for the amazing feedback and reviews! It's been great seeing your discussion and speculation, so please keep it coming! For those interested in the explanation that Stacker gave Tendo (and Alison Begay's bar fight), read Chapter 1 of Conflict of Interest. The World War II table map is a feature from Chapters 21 and 22 of Aurora Borealis (it also featured in Chapter 4 of Tales From The Front Lines). The conversations that Herc and Chuck recall in the drift with Devi Hassan took place in Chapter 15 of this fic. There was more to those Boxing Day commiserations than appeared in the chapter.
Fanon Note: Just a reminder - neither Herc nor Chuck are always reliable narrators, especially not in their expectations of each other.
Chapter Twenty-One: Only What You Take With You
Anchorage Shatterdome…
April 1, 2020…
Stacker's initial plan was to keep absolute silence on the bargain with Raleigh and the reasons for it.
When his co-conspirators confronted him, he braced himself for Caitlin's to be the first storm of rage, but instead, she was quiet. "We may never have drifted, but I poked around your brain enough. I know how you operate, Stacker. I watched you in 2016, and after Clawhook."
He sighed. "Meaning?"
"Sometimes I think you told everyone including yourself that you didn't like Raleigh just to distract from how much you liked Yancy." There was sadness and far too much understanding in her voice. Stacker stared at her. "He was a lot like you. I noticed that. So did Duc, when they were here after Yamarashi."
Duc nodded. So Caitlin, Sergio, Marshal Gagnon, and Duc Jessop were more cognizant of the situation than he'd realized, and they were on to him. So it remained a conspiracy, and he could only hope that whatever consequences were unleashed would fall on him alone, not them.
Caitlin understood far more than he had ever realized, or at least more than he'd ever been prepared to admit. "We won't let you take all of the burdens or all of the blame, Stacker, so get that idea out of your head."
But I failed him. I let him die, and leave his brother alone. He tried to muster an argument. "If there are questions, the digging will start." It was the only way to put her off. "He wants it this way. The choice was his."
"But we're not going to tell his crew that, and they'll assume the choice was yours. So will Krieger and the UN," said Sergio. Stacker just nodded.
"They're going to go after you now," Gagnon warned. "They're not fools."
"Shall I resign now, then?"
"No. We need you, and so do the rest of the Rangers. They need someone who puts them first. But I'll stay in command here."
"Vince, can you manage that?"
"Don't worry about me. I'll send Duc to the lodge." Gagnon gave Stacker a keen look. "You should go join Tamsin for a little while, until it blows over. The next attack will force them to pay attention to something else."
Stacker shook his head. "I'm not running from the call I made."
And so the fallout began. It was Stacker's doing, and he steeled himself to endure it. Mrs. Olivares put her resignation letter on his desk, effective immediately, and said coldly, "I pity that girl with such a cold father." He hadn't come up with an answer before she was gone.
Cady Spencer resigned, looking torn between either attacking Stacker physically or just having a nervous breakdown. Christian Warner resigned and left with his sister for Hawaii, where she would rejoin K-Watch. Hien Nguyen requested a transfer to another Shatterdome, as did Valentina Medina and most of Gipsy's remaining officers.
Tearful goodbyes took place in the Shatterdome in the wake of Raleigh's departure, but the crew inevitably fell into silent glares when Stacker came upon them. He vowed not to let it get to him. This was his choice, after all. What right did he have to deny them their anger?
And better that they direct it at Stacker Pentecost than at Raleigh Becket.
Within the bounds of regulations, he let them vent their rage when they wanted, and sat through multiple meetings for those who could stand looking him in the eye long enough to speak their piece. Most left afterward, unhappy with his explanation. He did reprimand Alison Begay for her bar fight with her ex-boyfriend, and another tech for smashing a piece of equipment. He stood immobile as the crew divided up some of the Beckets' keepsakes and memorabilia that Raleigh had left behind, and broke down the table map in the officer lounge.
Tendo Choi stayed, and presided over the distribution of the gifts/bequests. Principal among them was the division of the miniature Jaegers and kaiju that had adorned Raleigh's World War II-style table map. It had gone with the Beckets to every posting, a centerpiece of every officers' lounge whenever Gipsy Danger was around.
Each of the little model Jaegers went to that Jaeger's pilots, and the miniature kaiju to the teams who'd killed them. Stacker came across Ilisapie Flint and Zeke Amarok, receiving their little Chrome Brutus and urging Tendo to send Gaduka to Panama. "That was Carlos and Jordana all the way; Puma Real really landed the death blow. They should get the trophy."
Then they spotted Stacker, and the Canadians hardened in unison. Tendo looked awkwardly away, and with curt nods, the pilots left.
Apart from their rigidly-formal letters of protest, Bruce and Trevin, Sasha and Aleksis, and Herc Hansen didn't communicate with Stacker at all. So ends the Mark-1 glory days. Maybe all the glory days.
Stacker wondered if even Tamsin would never forgive him.
He expected the little Coyote Tango to go to the Tunaris, but to his shock, the next day, Tendo came silently into his office and put two small objects down on his desk: Coyote and Onibaba.
There was a tag around the model kaiju's neck. The crews had composed epitaphs for all the kills (with varying levels of crudeness and artistry.)
O Onibaba
Godzilla lasted longer
But you're uglier
Coyote Tango
Beat your freaky ass to death
Say Sayonara
A haiku by Yancy Longfellow Becket.
Something inside Stacker cracked, and it was at that very inopportune moment that Herc Hansen walked in.
Every time Herc Hansen thought he'd seen the worst life could dish out, someone managed to prove him wrong.
He'd thought the Rangers' darkest hour was in the Anchorage Shatterdome on Leap Day, declaring Yancy Becket dead with his kid brother still screaming in the infirmary.
But it was the day they learned Raleigh had been dismissed from the Corps for insubordination that the entire Ranger population erupted. It went through the Corps like shock waves from a nuke… first disbelief, then anguish… and rage.
"What the FUCK?!" Sweet, laid-back Ilisapie Flint threw a hanbō across the Kwoon and might have started breaking things if Fightmaster Tessori hadn't tackled her. "That – that – son of a BITCH!"
"How the hell could he do that? Who authorized it, who the fuck could justify it?" Zeke demanded.
The candidates, Chuck among them, just clustered on the far side of the Kwoon in dismay as the active-duty Rangers went into collective meltdown.
At first, Herc was inclined to simply join them in storming the Shatterdome and rioting in Stacker Pentecost's office. How could you? Why, why would you do it? How dare you?!
But something stopped him. At first he couldn't put his finger on it, and it finally came to him a few days after Yancy's funeral. Raleigh had left the Shatterdome and his heartbroken crew, and the Jaeger Academy personnel were struggling to find their feet again and resume training the remaining candidates.
Herc and the remaining Rangers in Anchorage took some small consolation that Raleigh's dismissal hadn't been disclosed to the public. The formal press release said only "discharged," and everyone collectively seized on the little white lie – just by implication – that it had been a medical one rather than a disciplinary one.
"Not that I wouldn't love to see Pentecost hauled in front of Congress for this, but Rals doesn't deserve the press freaking out on him," Ilisapie muttered. Zeke and Cascade Victor's pilots nodded, while Caitlin and Sergio just looked away.
That was when it finally dawned on Herc: Caitlin Lightcap hadn't said a word.
Caitlin had a temper, and her protectiveness of the Rangers was famous throughout the Corps (if virtually unknown outside of it.) From all Herc knew of her, from all he'd seen and heard of her since those first days in 2015… she should have been on a bloody rampage. She should have been roaring for Stacker's head the loudest, leading the charge to reverse this atrocity.
She wasn't.
She was no less heartbroken than any of the other Rangers and crew who'd known Raleigh and Yancy. But she wasn't angry at Stacker Pentecost for what he'd done.
So rather than question her, Herc decided to go to the source, and confirm a nagging suspicion that was starting to grow.
He got that confirmation in a way he'd never imagined. Coming quietly into Pentecost's office, he actually startled the man. "Why did it have to be like this?" he asked calmly.
Standing motionless with – was that a toy kaiju?! – in his hands, Stacker looked at Herc, and for a split second, Herc thought Stacker would break down right there. Instead he turned away.
And Herc knew: There's more to this than just Stacker Pentecost being rigid about the rules. Secretary General Krieger and the UN had plans for Raleigh. "I get that you can't let it get out," he said softly. "You could tell me anyway."
Stacker's shoulders were hunched, and he was clutching that toy like a talisman. For a few long minutes, Herc thought he'd get no answer. But then, in a ragged voice, sounding like the words were dragging themselves out against his will, his fellow Ranger started talking.
"I made a deal with him. If he swore not to harm himself, I'd do as he asked and discharge him for insubordination. I would never have agreed… if I could see any other way of stopping the UN from pursuing him for propaganda. He agreed not to tell his crew about our bargain, so that the reason for his discharge is kept from the public. Krieger and the Americans will be all too glad to let him vanish now, rather than let the media learn about this. And his friends will blame me for his leaving, rather than him. I let him go. It was the only way I could find to give him his freedom."
Neither Herc nor Stacker had ever been ones for baring their souls… but the way the man sounded made him think of that conversation with Devi on Boxing Day, desperate for someone to understand.
When the story was over, and the only sound in the room was Stacker's ragged breathing, Herc murmured, "Caitlin knows."
"Yes."
"Who else?" Stacker didn't answer, and finally turned around again to shoot Herc a look. Herc didn't comment on the glitter in his eyes. "What are Krieger and the brass going to do?"
"Nothing, if they want this to stay internal." Resolve was coming back to him, and Herc shared it now. "And when Duc announces the end of his tour 'for health reasons,' they'll put up and shut up and let him go if they don't want this to replace all their propaganda."
"What about Raleigh? Can he even take care of himself? Do you know where he's gone?"
Stacker met his eyes and slowly nodded. Breath rushed out of Herc from sheer relief. "He believes he's alone. He wants to be alone, so I'll let him believe that," Stacker said quietly. "But if he changes his mind, or is in trouble, I'll know. Let the rest pass. It's the closest thing to freedom we can give him."
Herc nodded. "When I get back to Sydney, I'll tell the Hassans – not details, just enough to ease their minds," he insisted, seeing Stacker's alarm. "See if I can put them and the others off; otherwise, they won't be content just to accept this, and they might take it into their heads to try to find him."
"If he wants to come back, he will. But until then, all he wants is to be left alone. It was the only wish of his that I had the power to grant."
So Herc let it go and went back to the Academy and his son. They resumed synch testing, and their score started going up again. Sometimes, Herc was still incredulous.
Other times, he felt something like relief. As if drifting might bridge the void that existed between him and his kid, since he was too cowardly and inept to do it any other way.
Jaeger Academy, Class 2020-A, Term 3
Mid-April 2020...
Five teams passed the second cut.
"Weren't we graduating six or seven per class before?" Chuck heard his dad mutter. "What happened?"
"Initial applications went down for this term," said Dr. Lightcap. "With no new Jaegers being ordered, national governments aren't funding recruiting prep anymore, so fewer pass screening or make the first cut. And the - the fatalities..." She flushed and looked away, and Chuck realized she wasn't talking about Knifehead.
The same disaster in Manila that he'd jumped on as an opportunity, a lot of other prospective pilots might have seen as the opposite.
As the ten candidates – Herc included – were getting the pre-testing tour of the full-input simulator, Chuck's dad was off to the side in muttered conversation with the D'onofrios a lot. "I know Bruce and Trev had a lot of rabbit trouble five years ago, but I can't ask them to come up here now."
So it was Lightcap who pulled Chuck aside the day before their full drift test. "Don't assume it's a sure thing now, Chuck. Full drift is an even heavier minefield for any team. You and your father have a lot of mental obstacles to get through."
"We can control it," Chuck insisted, but Lightcap shook her head.
"That's the thing: you can't 'control' it. That's the one thing you can't try to do if you want the handshake to survive. You have to be prepared to face it, let it flow right through and not try to stop it or turn away from it or distract yourselves. You have to look it in the eyes, and it's not easy." She dropped her eyes for a minute, then asked awkwardly, "Do you understand what I'm getting at? What you're going to see?"
"A…" Chuck's mouth went dry. Rabbits were often traumatic memories, the instructors said. They candidates had been encouraged to write down the ones they could predict. That had been difficult enough, but Chuck had done it, aware that it would only get harder. So he forced himself to say it. "Scissure. My mum, the day she died. The way she died, if he knows. Some of my dad's combat missions. Manila. Whatever it was Scott did."
"You don't know?" she blurted.
Chuck slowly shook his head. "I mean… I kind of know. Wasn't hard to figure out," he muttered. "He killed someone. A girl. I think he raped her." He hadn't seen anything during the synch tests, but had felt the wash of Herc's shame and guilt, the sense that of all people, he should have seen the warning signs and prevented it. Lingering fear for the Hassans… Chuck had picked that up.
"You need to talk to him about it today. He… it's not up to me to get into it, but if you're not prepared, you won't succeed."
"If we fuck up, it'll be him, not me," Chuck grumbled.
"For God's sake!" Lightcap exclaimed, rounding on him. Chuck jerked back in surprise. "Drifting isn't about proving badassery, and if you keep that attitude up, you are the one who's going to fail. And your father's not the only one who questioning whether you're mature enough when all you can talk about is how invincible you are!"
There was a long silence, then Chuck pulled his scattered thoughts together and blurted, "'Badassery?'"
She blinked, then laughed and looked down. "Well, there's another symptom of drifting for you: you pick up your partner's choice of language." She looked back and regarded him. "Your father's not setting you up to fail. I'd know if he was. But you can't think about succeeding with him as beating him, or it won't work. There aren't any secrets in a successful drift."
"So he's gotta tell me... about Scott. What actually happened."
She nodded.
Chuck wished they could be outside to talk about it, but it was thirty-five degrees and pouring rain, so they were stuck in quarters, feeling like the walls were closing in.
"What'd Scott do?" he asked curtly. Herc glared at the wall. "I need to know, so it doesn't get me off-guard in the drift."
"You haven't worked it out?" his old man muttered, sounding like he thought Chuck was slow if he hadn't.
"He raped a girl and killed her," Chuck said. "Sometime before Manila. Dr. Lightcap said you need to warn me… what you saw."
Herc was silent for so long that Chuck thought he was going to refuse… and wondered if he wasn't just trying to keep Chuck in the dark for once. Finally, Herc muttered, "More than one." Chuck's stomach lurched and started crawling up his throat. "It started in Sydney, a few weeks before. I didn't see it until Manila." The shame and self-loathing in his voice only made the roiling mass of disgust in Chuck worse.
"It wasn't your fault." Now Herc looked up in shock and Chuck realized he'd said that out loud… and meant it. He swallowed hard against the nausea and made himself repeat it. "It wasn't."
Herc kept staring at him, and it was almost like the drift floating around them, where sensation and emotions shimmered in the air, just a little, as if they could actually understand each other. Chuck felt something like disappointment when Herc looked away again, but his dad said, "You need to realize… Caitlin's right, that rabbit's gonna be a strong one. You'll… feel it, not just see it. From… his perspective. How he… liked it…doing that to those girls. Imagining other women, women we know."
The Hassans. Probably. Other girls who'd turned Scott down too. "Who were they? The girls he hurt?"
"Prostitutes. Poor girls, off the street, no one to miss them. He knew what he was doing, when he picked them, the bastard. The investigators think some probably got away, ran off…he liked the power."
"Shit." Chuck had to sit down. This was the closest to full-blown second thoughts he'd ever had. I don't want that in my head, not ever… "What do I do? How do I stop it?"
"I'm not sure," Herc admitted. "It's killed the drift with other candidates."
"How many tries do we get before… they give up on us?"
"It varies. It's more our call." Herc met his eyes. "It's not the only rabbit you'll have to dodge. Sydney too."
Now it was Chuck's turn to look away in a hurry. He had to face that too, had to be ready for it, or he was done. How bad did he really want it? "Did you see? That day?"
"…no. Stacker Pentecost told me what happened."
Chuck swallowed hard. He and his old man both had to face it down, then. "Say it."
After another long silence, Herc did. "The MLC Center came down during Scissure's first pass, and he went over it twice before the bomb went off." This wasn't so shocking to hear, but heat filled Chuck's guts again. "You'll see the cloud from the bomb."
He fought down another wave of nausea. "I've seen pictures."
"I know."
But to Herc's surprise, the memory that derailed their first full drift wasn't Sydney. It wasn't even Manila.
They plunged into the bluish drift space, then Herc could feel Chuck's heart pounding.
He was five, and one of the kids in school had sneered that his daddy was gonna die and never come back from Yemen, and his heart pounded when he went home to ask Mummy, and Mummy cried as she tried to explain it wasn't true…
He was eighteen on his first leave from training, and very drunk, and there was a girl with strawberry blonde hair and freckles and green eyes at a bachelorette party. "Let's have one for you next! I volunteer!"
Her friends called her Efficient Angie. She never forgot anything. She hoped to get a degree, but her mum was sick with liver cancer, her dad long gone, and she was the only caretaker. She rarely had the chance to get out. Scott had charmed her mum so she and Herc could date when he had leave…
He was nine, and Mum discovered Scott had taught Phineas how to curse, and chased him around the house with a broom. Chuck and his friends had shrieked with laughter while Scott ran for his life and Mum bellowed threats and over it all, Finny just kept repeating, "Eat shit! Eat shit!"
"Phineas died last night, Herc," Angie told Herc on the phone.
"Aw, hell, you said you thought he was sick. How's Boyo taking it?"
"Trying to put a brave face on. The vet's going to give us his ashes to bury."
"Maybe have a funeral with some of his mates," Herc suggested, wishing he was on the same continent to give his kid a hug.
"I thought the same, but he says no. I don't think he wants them to see him cry."
Hell...
Hell was coming down on Sydney, smoke choking the air and some acrid, chemical stench that eyewitnesses always talked about: Kaiju Blue...
"Jesus..." One or both of their throats got tight, and Herc fought to stay in the drift. "Hang on, kid, this is it."
"I got it..." Chuck croaked.
The handshake wavered and they focused, focused through smoke and ash and the echoes of screams and sirens - look at the window, look at Caitlin, look at the HUD readout, don't chase the rabbit...
The mushroom cloud over Sydney... it meant she was dead... maybe she wasn't dead, maybe she'd gotten far enough away...
"Herc, you're drifting out of alignment!"
"Sorry... I got it..."
Chuck shivered... his memories of that moment were dark with his face hidden under Scott's jacket... he'd done what Dad and Scott said, hadn't looked, hadn't looked, but he'd known... he'd been cold and he'd felt the chopper shake and he knew Mum was dead...
Dad had said there wasn't time, and there they'd been, Dad and Scott and Chuck but not Mum...
"Chuck, you're drifting..."
Why were they here and not Mum, why? Why hadn't he gone to get Mum first?
The world was tilting and swaying and he was sick with guilt and anger and hurt and the sour taste of alcohol in his mouth, he pounded on their door...
He shouldn't be burdening fellow Rangers, but he wound up at her door...
She opened it...
She opened it...
Holy shit, they'd both been there that night...
But it was Chuck's memory that flooded in and overwhelmed them and sent them spiraling out of alignment and reality into the past...
"Chuck!" Devi and Suze stood in shock at the doorway at the state of him, drunk off his ass and practically sobbing, barely able to stay upright and no idea what he was doing there, only hours after he'd said he was ready to be a pilot.
He couldn't hold anything back anymore. "He doesn't want me! I knew it! I knew he regretted it - he can't stand me, I'm not good enough - "
"Oh my god." They pulled him bodily into their quarters and made him sit down.
"Do we need a medic?"
"No!" he tried to pull away, but too off balance to get free of their hands.
"Chuck, look at me. Look at me. Hang on, Suze – Chuck, what'd you drink? How much have you had?"
"Where'd you even get it?"
"Was Scott's," he mumbled. "His stash. Nobody got rid of it yet."
"How much?" Indra's face floated in front of him, looking at his eyes.
"Dunno, bottle was half full." Someone put a glass of water under his nose. He took it and drank. He didn't want the infirmary. Ketteridge might change his mind.
"I don't think he needs a medic," Indra said. "Probably better to give him water and let him sleep it off.
Then they were gone and it was just Devi, sitting next to him as he slumped on the couch and tried not to cry. So pathetic, of course his dad didn't want him to be a Ranger, he wasn't good enough, he was a waste like Danny Oliver said, and Herc had been so stupid to go after him instead of his mum.
He didn't realize he was talking out loud until Devi shook him. "Chuck, kid, that's not true. Your dad loves you."
"Y'only think that 'cause you like everybody," he muttered. "Your sister even thinks I'm bad news."
He didn't realize she'd come back, or maybe she hadn't gone and he just hadn't noticed, but then Susanti was in front of him. "For god's sake, Chuck, is that really what you think?" She practically had him by the sides of his face to make him look at her. His head seemed to keep lolling down, or maybe he was just too ashamed, too pathetic. "I do not hate you. Nobody in this Dome hates you. You're what we're all fighting for."
"Then why can't I fight? She's dead and it's my fault - "
"They're chasing the rabbit. We need to deactivate."
"Wait...wait, I got it..." Chuck breathed, and their minds tottered back to the center, moving forward again, able to see reality again.
So that was why Devi'd been so awkward that night - Herc had showed up looking for a shoulder to cry on when his kid had been there hours before.
Herc winced as Chuck's resentment flashed through the drift. He didn't like Herc looking at her and liked even less the idea of her looking at him. If she chose him, she'd side with him too.
But she'd spoken up for Chuck. Suddenly he and Herc could both remember that in the drift. "Give him a chance," she'd urged Herc. "Give Raleigh his freedom."
"Raleigh!?" Resentment flared into fury, and they tumbled out of alignment like a derailing train, thoughts flying in every direction.
Herc flinched, trying to hold back, suddenly embarrassed at that half-formed affection and longing he'd felt for that kid –
- another kid, any kid better than me - knowing his dad was looking at other candidates was bad enough, but this one he'd actually wanted -
- so young to be alone –
- but you'd leave me alone, leave me behind again -
"That's not true!" Herc shouted aloud.
The test pons hummed as they powered down and the handshake was gone but it was like they were still awash in anger and shame and bitterness and loneliness and hurt and jealousy and Chuck was practically ripping the gear off trying to get away from him.
"Anyone was better than me, right?" Chuck hissed when Herc tried to stop him from stalking out of the lab. "All these months I've heard about it, you running all over the fucking world, Shatterdome to Shatterdome for candidates, anybody you could put in front of me!"
"You're taking it too personally - "
"Yeah, personally, like it wasn't personal for you with Raleigh Fucking Becket." Now the memory of pity mingled with jealousy and loathing. "I work for years and I'm not good enough, but you'll run to take care of that fucking mental patient 'cause even a bloody failure's a better choice than me - "
Herc lunged for him as the door burst open. "You stupid, ignorant, little shit, you're damn right I'd rather give Raleigh a second chance when you're too goddamn arrogant to even appreciate your first!"
"Yeah, and we all know Devi likes the Beckets better! What's the plan? Replace Yancy in the conn-pod and maybe she'll let you replace Yancy in her bed too?"
"Get the fuck away from me!"
Chuck dodged around Caitlin on his way out of the lab, and Herc nearly knocked her to the floor. Only some vestige of consideration made him stop and steady them both. His face, already flushed with anger, now flushed deeper with embarrassment as he caught fleeting glances of all the techs who'd borne witness to this.
He tried groping around for an apology, but Caitlin pulled herself together and pointed at the door. "Go after him, Herc."
She had to be joking. He snorted and turned away. "It's no use, Cait. It's not going to happen."
Her hand came down on his shoulder - hard - and she spun him around with enough force that it nearly knocked him off balance. Her face inches from his, Caitlin hissed, "I don't give a shit about the handshake, Hercules Hansen! This isn't about the Jaeger!" Stunned, he just stared at her, and she repeated, "Go after your son."
To Be Continued...
Coming Soon: Herc and Chuck must face down the demons in their hearts and in their heads in drifting together is going to work, but sometimes they feel besieged on all fronts in Chapter Twenty-Two: In Common!
PLEASE don't forget to review!
Original Character Guide
Marshal Vincent Gagnon: commanding officer of the Jaeger Academy, late 50s, formerly Canadian Air Force. Facing retirement soon due to health problems.
Marshal Blake Ketteridge: commands Sydney Shatterdome. Australia's senior liaison to the PPDC, a former Air Vice Marshall of the Royal Australian Air Force. Intensely nationalistic, he considered the Hansens his poster boys and intended them to be pilots of the Mark-5 Jaeger. After Scott was drummed out of the Corps, Ketteridge assisted Chuck in applying to the Jaeger Academy over Herc's protests, essentially blackmailing Herc into giving permission.
Carolina Olivares: Gipsy Danger's Public Relations Representative, handles scheduling, public appearances, etc. Late 60s, Mexican-American from San Francisco, widow who came out of retirement to join PPDC after K-Day. Initially working with Romeo Blue, she was reassigned to Gipsy Danger at Stacker Pentecost's request due to his belief that the Beckets needed a firm hand. Resigned in protest after Raleigh Becket was dismissed.
Cady Spencer: one of Gipsy Danger's LOCCENT officers who served with Tendo Choi, Filipino-American from Seattle, late 20s. Resigned in protest after Raleigh Becket was dismissed.
Christian Warner: Gipsy Danger's drivesuit technician, age 30, African-American from Atlanta, GA, attended Jaeger Academy with the Beckets and his sister, Chloe, who is now in K-Watch. Resigned from Gipsy's crew and relocated to Hawaii with his sister after Raleigh was dismissed.
Chloe Warner: K-Watch worker in Honolulu, transferred after she and her brother Christian failed to become Rangers at Academy. Age 28.
Hien Nguyen: Gipsy Danger Strike trooper, National Guard transplant, Vietnamese-American in her early 30s. Seeking transfer to another Shatterdome after Raleigh Becket's dismissal.
Valentina Medina: Gipsy Danger support chopper pilot, mid-30s, Mexican-American Marine from Corpus Christi, Texas. She joined Gipsy's crew as a replacement for the crew of Whiskey Gamma, who were killed when the chopper was destroyed in the aftermath of Hardship in 2019. Seeking transfer to another Shatterdome after Raleigh Becket's dismissal.