Tendo was sitting in his perch with a cup of coffee in his hands when the breach spiked with activity. Years of practice had him setting the cup down on the desk without spilling a drop and immediately analyzing the info on the LED display.
His brows furrowed at what he saw.
Two incursions from the breach. But only one was a kaiju according to the scans.
His brow furrowed more when the scans identified it as an escape pod. That wasn't possible. There hadn't been any escape pods unaccounted for in the past five years, and none anywhere near the breach.
He cursed then set off the alarms. He notified the Marshal and sent alerts to the pilots bunks. Calling all the remaining, unaccounted LOCCENT techs up, Tendo's eyes never left the LED display even if his rolling chair rolled all around the LOCCENT.
Tendo wasn't getting any data from the escape pod but that could be a side effect of it coming out of the fucking breach. The only upside as of now was that the Kaiju, codenamed Bonemaw, hadn't noticed the escape pod yet. He leaned forward, feeling the chair inch back, his eyes were locked on the escape pod that had just surfaced. Bonemaw was acting in a very odd way, it was moving in a growing spiral starting from the breach.
His attention was dragged away from that display by the first pilots being suited up and ushered into their conn pod. Tendo sighed in relief and guided Cherno Alpha's pilots through neural handshake. He wished they had more pilots on deck, but the last team wouldn't be here until later in the day.
Marshal Pentecost made himself known by guiding the triplets through their own neural handshake. The Jaegers were sent out shortly along with a medical helicopter.
"Alright guys, the Kaiju, codenamed Bonemaw, is a Cat. IV. It's characterized by the large bone growths surrounding its mouth and front legs. Probably meant to rip and tear. So watch out for that. And..." Tendo's eyes flickered over to the LED projector, momentarily muting his comm. Marshal Pentecost followed his gaze when he paused. The pilots confirmed they heard the info and waited for the rest.
"What is it?" Tendo took a deep breath and unmuted his comm.
"Before Bonemaw came out of the breach, there was another incursion. An escape pod came out minutes before Bonemaw did. I'm currently not receiving any sort of feedback from the pod, but I want you to assume that there is someone alive in there." Tendo took a gulp of his coffee, he'd need it. The pilots let out their own expressions of shock and disbelief. Tendo was still grappling with his own but the sensors didn't lie. Marshal Pentecost leaned over him to get a better look at the projector.
"There's also something else, Bonemaw is moving in a way that suggests it is searching for something. I don't want to be a pessimist but the only logical conclusion as of now is that it is searching for the escape pod." Tendo turned to the Marshal, watching his expressions. The Marshal hadn't turned away from the LED projector since he'd started analyzing it.
"You may not be entirely wrong." Marshal Pentecost weighed in. The pilots didn't seem to believe Tendo and he wanted them to be right.
"It hasn't found the escape pod yet, but it is only a matter of time. The other bit of good news is that it's not making any intent towards landfall, but the bad news is that it's going to take longer for you guys to get out there. So settle in for a two hour flight, you'll intercept Bonemaw about two hours away from the breach." Tendo muted himself and turned to the two standing behind him.
He had no clue when Yancy had gotten there but it wasn't entirely unexpected for Yancy to ghost into a room. Not after Raleigh had died.
After Raleigh had been ripped out of Gipsy Danger's conn pod, Yancy had killed Knifehead and spent hours searching for Raleigh's corpse. He hadn't found it.
But the most disturbing thing was when they pulled the recordings from the conn pod after they'd found Yancy and Gipsy Danger washed up on shore. The audio had been eerily silent, and if it wasn't for Yancy's occasional quiet sob of Raleigh's name they would've thought the recordings had been corrupted.
Tendo still has nightmares about the audio files from the conn pod.
Yancy had never recovered from losing Raleigh. He hardly ever spoke anymore, he had lost his vibrance.
After his medical leave ended the Marshal gave him one of two options, be honorably discharged or continue working in the shatterdome (everybody knew that Yancy would never be able to pilot again, not after that). Yancy switched from pilot to J-tech, working on whatever jaeger was in the bay and in need of repairs.
Whenever the jaegers and their pilots were deployed he'd come and watch in LOCCENT.
Tendo's eyes slid over to the Marshal.
"We aren't receiving any data from the escape pod? No signs of life? Nothing?" The Marshal crossed his arms and leaned against a desk. The set of his shoulders conveyed his unease with the situation better than a frown ever could.
"I'm not getting anything from it. This may be due to the fact that it doesn't seem to match any of our previous missing escape pods. Or that it came out of the breach." Tendo's eyes slid over the projector. The ocean currents were tugging the escape pod towards land, but eventually Bonemaw would think to look up. If he had to guess, Bonemaw knew it was looking for something, but not exactly what.
"I don't like it."
"Me neither."
For now it was a waiting game.
Bonemaw looked up.
Bonemaw swam straight for the escape pod and grabbed it in one of its paws. Tendo and everyone in LOCCENT held their breath in horror.
On the LED Bonemaw didn't immediately crush the escape pod like a kaiju has done in the past. Instead it held it and tilted its head to examine the escape pod.
Bonemaw was interrupted from doing anything else when a siren blared from behind it. No one cheered when Cherno Alpha dropped behind the kaiju. Crimson Typhoon was just a few seconds slower. Tendo slid into his chair and directed the helicopters to hang back, but be prepared to grab the escape pod when there was an opportunity.
The fight was mercifully quick. Cherno Alpha and Crimson Typhoon were able to find a way around Bonemaw's impressive defenses relatively quickly. The jaegers only suffered minor damages, the pilots were little more than bruised.
The real concern throughout the fight was making sure the escape pod was undamaged. They were lucky that Bonemaw seemed to want the escape pod as undamaged as they did.
(No one wanted to even start theorizing why that was. Except a K-Science who muttered and paced in the back of LOCCENT.)
Tendo barely spared a glance at the last two pilot's entrance, and directed one of the helicopters to lower and secure the escape pod.
One of the medics on the helicopter had lowered themselves down to the escape pod and confirmed that whoever was in there, was alive and that the life support was functioning. They didn't want to risk disrupting the life support until they got the escape pod back to shore, so they left the man in the escape pod.
"Tendo, I don't recognize him or his drive suit, it's different from all the drive suits I've ever seen. It's new, but it does have the PPDC logo on it. The drive suit is damaged in a few spots, places where a pilot would have damage from being thrown around." The medic's voice rang over the comms. Everyone listened silently to the medics report.
"What did he look like? Can you give me a description? Any identifying features?" Tendo spoke into the comm while Marshal Pentecost briefed the two pilots in the back on the situation. The medic made a thinking sound.
"I didn't see any tattoos, scars or piercings on him. Mind you, the only exposed skin is his face and neck, so my description will be fairly limited." The medic paused, waiting for Tendo's affirmation. Tendo gave it.
"But he's about six foot, give or take without the drive suit on maybe 190lbs. He's got short blond hair, of caucasian descent, decently tanned. His nose looks like it's been broken before and he looks like he's malnourished. Maybe for a couple of years? It's hard to tell without blood work." The medic stopped, having told all the info he thought was relevant. Tendo hummed.
"Can you tell me more about his drive suit?" For lack of anything better to do, Tendo asked.
"Oh, uh, yeah. This isn't really my field so I'll try my best. It's black, shiny. Under his right pec, there are three ports for life support. So he ran the right hemisphere, I think? The forearms also have writing on them in red. It's hard to make out but I think it says danger? Besides that, there aren't any decals or noticeable features." Tendo's heart stopped and he turned towards Marshal Pentecost.
Marshal Pentecost was staring at him too, with an unreadable expression.
"Are you positively sure that it says danger on the forearm?" Marshal Pentecost took over the interrogation of the medic while Tendo shoved his chair towards another terminal. The worker that sat there quickly got out of his way.
Gypsy Danger was still being repaired, but she was almost done. The last few touches would be finished within the next few days. But that wasn't the important part. It was the drive suit. Gypsy Danger's drive suit was the typical shiny black of recent American pilots. It had no markings or decals on it besides the jaegers name on the forearms.
It wasn't possible that this unknown pilot was wearing Gypsy Danger's drive suit. It wasn't even finished yet because its pilots had yet to be confirmed. Marshal Pentecost was still trying to convince Yancy to be a pilot, and the other pilot was to be picked from a pool of candidates selected by Mako. It simply wasn't possible this unknown man had gotten his hands on a Gypsy Danger drive suit.
But.
But this man was in an unknown escape pod, one that wasn't on record. He'd come out of the breach. Bonemaw was looking for him, and didn't make any moves to kill him once it had him.
Tendo massaged his forehead. He didn't like this. His answers would have to wait until they could interrogate him.
"Marshal, I think he's waking up!" Tendo's eyes snapped open and everyone that was privy to the comms sat up straight. Marshal Pentecost and Yancy were leaned over the mic exchanging glances. It was still half an hour til the helicopters and the jaegers were back on shore.
"Shit. Will his life support sustain him until you get back to shore?" Tendo strong-armed his way between the two when it looked like they weren't going to say anything. The medic told him to wait. The wind picked up and a few grunts came over the comm. Then a thud, like boots landing on hollow metal.
"It looks like it!" The medic shouted over the sound of the wind. "I'm going to continue to monitor his status. It looks like he is settling back down, likely just being jostled too much by the air currents." Yancy nodded and leaned against the desk.
"If he still isn't awake by now, there were likely problems getting out of the conn pod. According to the scans the medic sent, the pilot was low on oxygen before surfacing. He shouldn't wake until we get him in the med bay." Tendo grunted and started coordinating the return teams. Along with sending a team of medics to the launch bay.