Author's Notes: Here follows a shift in POV to Stacker, and a look at the intrigues occupying some of the other crews! Fei-Yen Wang is an original character, but in this headcanon, she is the beautiful Chinese woman that we see posing when Raleigh mentions "propaganda" during the opening montage of the movie.

Chapter Twenty-Nine: Still in the Game

K-Watch Headquarters, Hilo, Hawaii...
Autumn, 2020...

Stacker Pentecost observed the launch of Striker Eureka and the next few kaiju engagements from Hawaii at Tamsin's side. When he arrived at K-Watch headquarters that summer, he'd half-feared that even she would be too disgusted to even look at him over his handling of the Knifehead investigation.

In his heart, he found it hard to turn away from the focus on the war that had consumed his life for seven years, even though as far as PPDC Command and the UN were concerned, he was in permanent exile. He rather suspected that some of the Rangers would prefer that.

While he'd still been in Anchorage helping Marshal Gagnon finish the delicate handling of Chuck Hansen's readiness, the Gage twins had come right out and asked if they had a choice about being reassigned to a Shatterdome under Stacker's command.

After brief deliberation, Stacker had said yes, they did have a choice. So the Gages had declined the transfer. They hadn't explained their reasons, and all involved knew it wasn't necessary. Message received.

While Caitlin Lightcap had held her peace with everyone who hadn't been involved with Stacker's little conspiracy, she had still refused to let him take on any more of a burden than he had to. So Tamsin was waiting for Stacker at Hilo airport, and told him, "Don't worry. I know everything."

She didn't elaborate, and neither did he, but through the ghost drift that still flared faintly between them even after four years, he'd felt it. Tamsin knew. She understood, and she didn't hate him for it. He brought the Beckets' little Coyote Tango with him for her, and the toy Onibaba with Yancy's haiku, and let Tamsin hold him. She was the only person on Earth he'd allow to do that.

Stacker found it very difficult to look at her. Her hand was on his back as she let him work up to it. He sat with his shoulders hunched, a posture few other people would ever see, and muttered, "Herc Hansen knows. Bruce and Trevin don't. I don't think they'll ever forgive me."

"Caitlin thinks you should tell them," said Tam. "Sasha and Aleksis know better than to jump to conclusions, but you're a terrible one for hiding what's in your heart, Stacks."

"It's none of their business what's in my heart," he grumbled, but it was half-hearted. He couldn't seem to muster the same feeling as before.

And Tam wouldn't have fallen for it even if he had. "Maybe not, but it is their business to want to know what's become of their friend. And it's every Ranger's business to know whom they can trust these days. You should be someone they can turn to and feel safe."

"You don't think that horse has already left the barn?"

Tamsin shook her head. She was looking better now than she had in years, if clearly still not in the health that she'd had before chemotherapy started in 2016. Her hair had grown back, and she was putting on some weight again. She even had the energy to ride a bus into the inland parks for walks a few times a week. Like Stacker - and probably many others in the Jaeger Program and around the world - she was wary of the beach. She and Luna had been girls of the city and the nightclubs, but since K-Day, she'd pulled away from those old pleasures. Hawaii's greenery and birds had given her something like peace.

"From what I heard, you were a good instructor. You should go back to it. New pilots will need guidance and fair warning of what they're in for. With Duc gone, there won't be any experienced Rangers at the Academy."

Stacker sighed. "There aren't nearly as many candidates at the Academy these days."

She folded her arms and glared at him. "This doesn't have to be the end, but if you give up, you'll be part of that. Even if the world is ending. What would you rather be, Stacks? Another part of the fleeing mob or the last man standing?"

Tam did have a way of coming up with questions he couldn't answer.

Attacks were coming less than two months apart now. The acceleration and the increasing size were ominous trends, but... since Knifehead, the engagements had been going well.

With Hodag in September, the Panama and Los Angeles Domes formed a new Western triple team: Puma Real, Solar Prophet, and Amazon Delta. They pursued and contained the Category IV through Golfo Dulce, keeping it off Costa Rica's vulnerable beaches, and destroyed it in the shallows of Golfito Bay.

The "B-Team" in the East, Cherno Alpha, Nova Hyperion, and Shaolin Rogue, made their debut in combat with Atticon in November. Atticon was another "Big III" as some had nicknamed the newest generation of kaiju, and a disturbingly savvy one. It kept to the deepest ocean floor through the Philippine Sea and then the East China Sea, making it almost impossible to intercept until the monster finally took aim at Seoul, South Korea. K-Watch's sonar and spectrum detector network did their job, however, and the Jaegers made the intercept in the islands well away from the population.

Maybe the optimists were right, and Manila and Alaska had just represented one of the tragic setbacks of a war that could still be won and needed only resolve. Hell, maybe Stacker could indulge himself and linger in Hawaii with Tamsin, and not charge himself with neglect of the Rangers.

Then, in November, after Atticon met his end in the Yellow Sea, Stacker's pseudo-holiday ended in a way he hadn't expected. He received a very cryptic message from Sasha Kaidanovsky:

Come to Hong Kong. There is trouble with Shaolin Rogue.

Stacker stared at his phone like an idiot until Tamsin gave him a poke in the ribs. "Off you go, Stacks. It seems some of our old Mark-1 comrades still value your help."


Hong Kong Shatterdome…
November 25, 2020…

General He Liang of Hong Kong Shatterdome was a powerfully-built man whose commanding presence could cow both officers and civilians. Silver-haired, in his late sixties, he was the eldest of the commanding officers. He tended to keep clear of the politics involved in the Jaeger Program, running his base and his personnel as he saw fit, without asking permission or forgiveness for his choices. He was something of a mystery to most of the Western officers, although less so to Stacker. They'd always gotten on well; they had the same sensibilities about formality and presence in front of the personnel. The two of them had certain interests in common outside of the Jaeger Program – namely, two young girls in the same school in Pennsylvania. Liang's granddaughter was Mako's roommate and best friend.

However, on this occasion, Liang was not pleased to see Stacker. The same was true of Shaolin Rogue's absurdly large PR team. "I am not sure who sent for you, Marshal, but this can be handled internally by the Hong Kong Shatterdome."

Once the Rangers themselves realized he was there, however, it was clear where the lines were drawn. The Wei triplets approached him at once, not exactly beaming, but definitely glad of him. "Marshal Pentecost. It is good to see you, welcome," said Hu. The way the triplets shot hard looks at their own commanding officer told Stacker that whatever this trouble was, he was no longer the only CO who had lost the faith of his crew.

All of the crews, it seemed. The Weis were swiftly followed by Xichi Po and Lo Hin Shen of the newly-relaunched Horizon Brave, and Maina and Chane Siddha of China and India's jointly-owned Mark-4, Butterfly Sword. The only team not in evidence was Shaolin Rogue.

General Liang and the Chinese higher-ups were bristling, correctly seeing this as a rebellion and interference by someone from outside their jurisdiction. In their shoes, Stacker would have felt the same.

He was surprised to find the Kaidanovskys and Nova Hyperion's pilots there as well. Whatever was going on, it was distressing the other pilots enough that Shaolin Rogue's fellow "B-Team" Rangers had come in person. "Rangers. General. I've been... advised that a situation has come up?"

While Liang and the Chinese seniors were still sputtering, Sasha (unsurprisingly) took the bull by the horns. "Marshal Pentecost. You have been in contact with the Academy, yes?" Stacker nodded. "Are there teams available from China who could be trained to pilot Shaolin Rogue?"

Well. No wonder General Liang and his cohorts were in a tizzy. Shaolin Rogue had come through the engagement with Atticon with almost no damage, and his pilots with barely a scratch. Yet for some reason, the Rangers themselves were making noises about replacing Fei-Yen and Huan.

Cautiously, Stacker ventured, "There are two Chinese teams who have passed the second cut. Currently both are in contention for reassignment of Silver Lion once the repairs are complete. Perhaps I should speak with Rangers Wang and Che - "

"Where - are - they?" General Liang practically snarled.

Stacker did a double-take, shocked by the implied news and by the edge of Liang's usually-controlled temper. He was met by three identical scowls as the twins glared from him to Liang, arms crossed in the exact same pose. Xichi Po and Lo Hin Shen looked equally obstinate, flanked by the Kaidanovskys, and the Koreans, while more visibly nervous at all the hostility, were nonetheless sticking with their fellow Rangers.

This conversation was already well into ugly territory. Stacker picked a triplet at random and beckoned him to one side, ignoring the protests from the brass. Something very serious was in progress, and first, he needed to find out the facts. "What's happened?" he muttered. The other two Weis clustered around them, gesturing at the remaining Rangers to wait. Even the Kaidanovskys deferred.

And Hu quietly gave him the three words that explained everything: "She is pregnant."

Good God.

It took a few moments to sink in, and then, Stacker's first impulse was to slap himself on the forehead. What idiots had the commanding officers all been, to not address things like contraception and family planning more heavily with Medical? It had been a foregone conclusion that the pilots of the nuclear Jaegers would be rendered infertile, if not by the radiation, then by the cocktail of medication they all had to take.

So implodes another foregone conclusion, and we're all caught flat-footed yet again. As irony would have it, the pilot forced into the epicenter of this new eruption was Fei-Yen Wang, China's favorite propaganda icon, their beautiful, untouchable goddess, who loved her co-pilot but was under orders to pretend he was no more than a surrogate brother. Huan Che wasn't deemed good looking enough for a storybook romance.

One of the UN senior representatives came stalking over. "A Jaeger pilot can't just resign!"

It didn't take Stacker long to work out his own position. "Can't she? It sounds as if there's a medical reason."

"This isn't your affair, Marshal Pentecost," growled Liang.

"No, it's Ranger Wang's, and Ranger's Che's. What exactly do you propose to do, force them back into the conn-pod at gunpoint next time there's movement in the Breach?" Now it was Stacker's turn to scoff. "You had plenty of opinions about the decency of the Mexican government in their treatment of Matador Fury's pilots," he remarked to Liang. "Does that not still hold for your own pilots?" For god's sake, man, not only that, you have a daughter and granddaughters. What the hell do you propose to do to this woman?

Liang glared, but now at the ground. "This is not the time to be having babies," he muttered. "Fei-Yen Wang's role in this program is a vital one. She can't be replaced."

Well, Stacker agreed with part of that. "None of our Rangers can be replaced. Up until now, we've lost many fine pilots to tragedy. But there are others ready and willing to step forward." He nodded to Xichi and Lo Hin. Stacker and Tamsin would never stop missing Min and Jing Li, Duc and Kaori Jessop, Yan-Jie and Fang, but two of that first class of Jaegers were ready to go back into battle, and the third would be soon. There could be no doubt that their fallen friends would be as pleased by their successors as Stacker and Tamsin were with the Tunaris.

So he joined the younger Rangers in staring the brass down. "The decision of how to handle her medical condition and the results thereof," he smirked to himself - how Victorian he made it sound - "lies with Ranger Wang and no one else, except possibly her partner. The decision of whether to go into combat lies with every man and woman in this program. We agreed at its inception that we would not engage in drafting, and there's still no need. At this moment, we have only two Jaegers expected to be launched in the next year. That will give us a surplus of Ranger Ready pilots. If need be, Shaolin Rogue can be reassigned."

Liang sighed heavily, suddenly looking his sixty-five years. "The crisis is not over. We need experienced pilots. Shaolin Rogue now has a kill. The next attack could be in a month, and if Wang and Che are not here, Hong Kong will have only the Weis with combat experience."

One of the triplets snorted. "You've made a fetish of her," he spat. With no identifying sunglasses, Stacker still had trouble distinguishing Jin from Cheung. "It is not her experience you fear losing, it is her face and her body and her hair for your posters and dolls. She has had enough," he told Stacker. "If only to pilot, it could be different. Fei-yen wants her husband, her family without interference. She wants her freedom."

A chill went through Stacker at those words. "Raleigh deserves his freedom," the Hassans had told Herc in the wake of Yancy's death. They'd called Herc's idea of co-piloting with Raleigh a fairy tale.

The triplets and the other Chinese pilots were too busy nodding in agreement to notice, but he saw the keen look that he got from Sasha. Is it a fairy tale to imagine that one pilot might get her freedom for a reason other than total loss of all she holds dear?

Not to mention the other half of this equation who was so often overlooked in the blinding light of his co-pilot's beauty and charisma. Stacker wasn't surprised to hear Huan referred to as Fei-Yen's husband. No doubt they'd eloped at some point, but were still under orders to keep their relationship secret so marriage didn't detract from Fei-yen's allure. This was Huan's child too.

But was General Liang simply being the pragmatic one? After the losses that the program had already suffered, among them some of the top pilots, was it just a simple matter of letting Fei-Yen and Huan depart to start their family and train up an entirely new team for Shaolin Rogue? And a new member of the B-Team squadron?

"Jasper and I didn't build Jaegers to turn people into slave gladiators." He knew where Caitlin would come down on this debate.

"I take it she's told you what her wishes are?" he said to the triplets. They nodded in unison.

One of the UN representatives fumed at Liang, "You can't just let them desert."

"They have given you everything," Hu retorted. "Enough. No more. Not their child too."

Sasha and Alexis were in murmured conversation with An Yuna and Pang So-yi. The Koreans nodded, and Sasha turned to the brass to drop another weight onto the scale. "We will not allow it." She considered Xichi and Lo Hin, then the Siddhas. "Cherno Alpha and Nova Hyperion will ride together, but not with Shaolin Rogue if you force the pilots. Let us ride with Butterfly Sword or Horizon Brave. We will not have this."

"Why don't we just involve all the commanding officers?" growled someone.

"Maybe we should," said Sasha, all blithe unconcern. Incredibly, Stacker felt his lips twitch. No, Russia's Colonel Rabinov wouldn't be interested in disciplining the Kaidanovskys for defending Fei-Yen. Stacker wasn't so certain about Nagasaki's Colonel Okita, but Tokyo's Admiral Yamamoto remained a vocal advocate for the Rangers themselves along with the "greater good" that ruled so many decisions.

He searched for a way to defuse the situation without backing down from the defense of the pilot. "As I understand it, Cherno Alpha and Nova Hyperion are both under repair after their engagement. Once they're cleared, the regular testing will take at least a few more weeks, which – unless we're all very fortunate and the rate of attacks slows down – means B-Team will not deploy for the next engagement or two in any case. Crimson Typhoon, Butterfly Sword, and Horizon Brave remain available to deploy from Hong Kong. The Corps Psych Analysts have ordered teams grounded in the wake of attacks for reasons beyond mere physical injury. If a pilot feels unable to deploy, that is no less legitimate."

"And if she decides she wants maternity leave?" asked one of the American UN reps, sounding scornful.

The line had to be drawn. The Weis and Kaidanovskys had already drawn it and put themselves firmly between their commanders and their fellow pilot. Stacker added his own weight. "Then we determine whether the time has come to reassign Shaolin Rogue, because the choice of whether to see a pregnancy to term lies with no one other than her."

"I want to talk to her," insisted Liang.

He sounded a little more conciliatory now, but the triplets stood their ground. "You already talked to her, and you said enough," said Hu.

"More than enough," added Maina Siddha. To Stacker, she added, "They do not want to hear more condemnation."

"Well, we don't want to hear more insubordination!" snapped one of Liang's aides.

"Then there's nothing more to say," concluded Sasha, as unconcerned as before. She cast a red smirk on the brass. "Unless you plan to court martial every pilot and officer in the Hong Kong Shatterdome."

Liang was outnumbered and knew it, but he wasn't conceding the ultimate point. "This program needs Fei-Yen Wang. This world needs her to do her job, not abandon her duty and her country."

"She has done everything you have ever asked of her," Chane Siddha retorted. "She has played the part, even hidden her family as you demanded. She has given enough. If you will not let her have her child, then find someone new to serve in your publicity."

Be careful what you wish for, Stacker thought. Chane and his sister were a handsome pair. If the Chinese propaganda machine lost Fei-Yen as their poster image, they might well look to Maina to replace her. Rangers of Indian ancestry wouldn't be called upon to inspire the local patriotic fervor that Hong Kong had drawn from Fei-Yen, but there was still money to be made off good-looking pilots.

To his relief, after Liang and most of his cohorts stormed off to regroup, he discovered that a few Rangers did still trust him, and were willing to confide in him. "Am I to take it you know where they are?" The triplets exchanged a brief look with the Kaidanovskys. Getting a nod from Sasha, they nodded in unison. "And they're safe? She has access to a doctor?" The Weis nodded again.

"She knew what the UN would say," said Maina tightly. "That her baby is an inconvenience to be disposed of so she can take more pictures and flirt with men in front of Huan. They've had enough. They've gone because they don't trust General Liang and the rest not to order Medical to intervene."

That thought had occurred to Stacker too.

He shamelessly checked into quarters in the Hong Kong Shatterdome without waiting for an invitation from General Liang, horning in on a commanding officer's territory in a way that would have enraged him if he'd been the recipient not long ago. But a standoff was still in progress.

He played it off by contacting Gagnon at the Academy for an update on the status of Class 2020-B. The two Chinese teams remained in the running with excellent simulator scores and had begun logging time in Brawler Yukon. There was a pair from Chile and another from Colombia also in contention for the nearly-repaired Diablo Intercept.

Officially, Shaolin Rogue was inactive along with Cherno Alpha and Nova Hyperion for the usual post-engagement repairs and assessments. Those who weren't aware of the showdown taking place would see nothing amiss.

The medical staff, he was pleased to learn, were very much in the pilots' corner. "Command treated it as a foregone conclusion that no pregnancy could survive deployment, but so far, it has," one of them insisted. "Fei-Yen was pregnant at the time they deployed for Atticon; she's several weeks along now. We should have caught it," he added, embarrassed. "This was a stupid oversight."

"That oversight made have saved her from being subjected to 'treatment' without consent," murmured Sasha.

The doctor glared. "Not by me or any of my staff, Ranger. We will not administer any drug or therapy without informing a patient, no matter what orders we're given."

"I'm glad to hear that," Stacker said. "Can we take it, then, that if Ranger Wang is forced to return, you will maintain that position?"

The doctor nodded, but bit his lip. "I have already told the Weis, she must be seen regularly by a doctor. This cannot fail to be a high-risk pregnancy, after all the stresses her body has undergone. If needed, I can go to her."

The rest of the Rangers focused on diverting media attention from Fei-Yen's absence. It didn't hurt that the newly-launched Striker Eureka timed their fulfillment of the Jaeger Program's dancing tradition for then, so the media was preoccupied with the spectacle of a moonwalking Mark-5 and the gossip surround its seventeen-year-old pilot. As worried as Stacker had been for Herc and Chuck under the added pressure of the spotlight, the coincidence was a good one for giving the besieged Chinese Rangers a reprieve. He even considered contacting Herc to ask him to draw the media attention and explain the reason, but decided against it. Herc and his son had enough to worry about, and it would be best not to let this scandal spread and stress the program any further than necessary. (On the other hand, he rather suspected that given the number of Rangers and crews here in Hong Kong who knew, it would not be long before Herc did, at the very least.)


December 10, 2020…

Stacker remained in Hong Kong as tensions mounted and more senior PPDC and UN personnel arrived, and the public relations reps desperately tried to keep the facade of normalcy. By coincidence, Stacker was in public with the Weis when the standoff ended.

The triplets were giving one of their last public appearances before the one-month mark confined all Rangers to their bases again. Age twenty-one, the good-looking trio remained one of Hong Kong's top attractions, and the press in the vicinity went wild when Fei-Yen Wang and Huan Che came strolling up.

They were far too used to the spotlight, and none of the Rangers betrayed a hint of discomfort, but Stacker's heart sank. It could only mean one thing.

Most of the reporters were too busy having hysterics over the fact that she'd cut her hair short to think to ask where she'd been for the past month. To the ones who did inquire, she replied smoothly, "I've been making a full recovery, that is all."

General Liang and the rest of the brass had little choice but to "roll with it," as the Americans would say, and no one gave a hint that anything had been wrong except to exclaim over Fei-Yen's haircut. She called it a casualty of war.

Once they were out of the public eye, Fei-Yen and her fellow Rangers glared at their General Liang and the UN representatives, daring them to say anything. To Stacker's surprise, she approached him. "Thank you, Marshal."

"I am glad I - could help." He hesitated, uncertain of what to ask, but she knew the question on all their minds.

Her voice was steady, hinting at no distress, but Stacker knew by now that along with being a skilled pilot, Fei-Yen Wang was an accomplished actress. "A miscarriage. Not unexpected so early."

"So all this was pointless," grumbled Secretary General Krieger.

"Not pointless," Aleksis Kaidanovsky retorted before any of the others could. Stacker hadn't seen him move, but he now hovered at Fei-Yen's shoulder on the other side of her husband, a looming guard against any threat.

Fei-Yen shot him a quick smile. "Yes, I have had time to think. I will fight again. I will use birth control now, and you will announce we have married after Atticon." Without giving Liang or Krieger or anyone else time to argue, she and Huan pulled their wedding rings off their dog tags and put them on their fingers.

Stacker managed not to smirk. The Kaidanovskys and the Weis didn't bother to try not to. "Then the squadron will reform," said Sasha. "As soon as Cherno and Nova are repaired, we can deploy again."

Stacker eyed Krieger and Liang. "It sounds as if we're all very fortunate to come through this latest engagement with so little damage. Congratulations," he added to Fei-Yen and Huan. "I'm sure your country and the rest of the world will be very happy for you." And they can all sod off if they're not. "Your fellow Rangers certainly will be."

"And I think your haircut is lovely," added Maina Siddha.

Krieger heaved a put-upon sigh but conceded the match. "Fine. Get all the Rangers on contraception so this doesn't happen again. And stay in your own Domes."

"Until the next attack, yes?" asked An Yuna, daringly. Maybe not out of her teens, but still a former Olympic-level athlete, she'd also spent much of her first two years as a pilot in close contact with Sasha Kaidanovsky. The young Korean pilots had learned quite a bit from their mentors, and didn't hesitate to remind Krieger who the actual fighters were in this lot.

We wield a great deal of power over them, Stacker thought. Perhaps too much. But the UN does not have all the power, and the Rangers won't ever give it all to you. They are not your puppets, and they are the ones who control the Jaeger, not you.

Krieger scowled at the girl, and Sasha stepped forward in her defense as well by diverting attention back to Stacker. "The Academy will need pilot trainers now that Duc has gone. You should go back."

Stacker ignored Krieger and directed his answer to the Rangers alone. "I'll go wherever I'm needed." Whether the UN likes it or not.


December 24, 2020...

With this skirmish past, Stacker returned to Hawaii for the holidays. No public word ever got out about the reason for Team Shaolin Rogue's absence, apart from the assumption that Fei-Yen had been recovering from an injury and decided to elope with her co-pilot. Stacker smiled to himself when that hit the headlines, but as he predicted, most of the public were just swept up in the romance of it all.

Times changed. Fei-Yen Wang might no longer be a sex symbol, but that didn't diminish her status as a heroine, and her husband and partner was finally elevated to that place at her side.

Apparently, however, word did get around that Stacker had been involved in her defense. Shortly after Yankee Star and Chrome Brutus disposed of Goad outside Los Angeles, Marshal Gagnon contacted him. "I need a pilot trainer. How about returning from retirement?"

"Why me and not a current pilot?" Stacker hedged.

Gagnon smirked. "Because we need the current ones to stay on duty. Quite a few active-duty Rangers suggested you: the Kaidanovskys, the Hansens, and the Weis. Even the Tunaris."

That last one startled Stacker. He hadn't heard from Vic or Gunnar since Yancy's funeral and suspected that like the Gages, they had no wish to be in contact with him.

But the Tunaris shared a Shatterdome with Nova Hyperion. Maybe the Korean pilots had let slip the events of Hong Kong.

He was rather embarrassed by the sense of hope that gave to him.

His intention was to respect Bruce and Trevin's wishes, however, and not contact the twins apart from official business - but that plan was put to the test soon after he returned to Anchorage, on Christmas Eve.

He received a message on a secure line that had him diving for the personnel roster. His heart sank when he saw that the twins were the nearest to the location he needed, but that didn't stop him from sending them a secure message:

Raleigh Becket is in the workers' barracks for the coastal defense projects in Santa Cruz. He needs help. You're the closest.

He got a text from Bruce within thirty seconds: On our way.

To Be Continued...

Coming Soon: Bruce and Trevin Gage thought they could never forgive Stacker Pentecost for dismissing Raleigh from the Jaeger Program - until Raleigh is in danger and Stacker calls them for help. The twins learn that there was far more to Stacker's actions than they ever imagined in Chapter Thirty: Wheels Within Wheels!

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Original Character Guide

General He Liang: Commander of the Hong Kong Shatterdome. Chinese Army General, late 60s, one of the founders of the Jaeger Program and Jaeger Bushido drift compatibility system, he is devoted to the war and the cause of the Jaegers... only sometimes at the expense of the individual officers. His daughter's family moved to the inland United States after Reckoner attacked Hong Kong, and her children attend boarding school in Pennsylvania along with Mako Mori.

Fei-Yen Wang and Huan Che: Pilots of Shaolin Rogue, China's Mark-3. Fei-Yen is one of China's first generation of female fighter pilots, and Huan was formerly one of her plane crew. They were in a long-term, clandestine-by-orders relationship, because the Chinese Commanding Officers wanted the beautiful Fei-Yen to continue serving as the untouchable poster girl for propaganda, or at least by the side of a handsomer man than Huan.

Chane and Maina Siddha: Pilots of Butterfly Sword, a Mark-4 jointly launched by China and India. Early 30s, brother and sister of Indian ancestry, but living in Bejing. They're military engineers in their early 30s.

Marshal Vincent Gagnon: commanding officer of the Anchorage Shatterdome and Jaeger Academy, late 50s, formerly Canadian Air Force. Facing retirement soon due to health problems.