November 3rd 2014, Sidney, Australia
It had been a quiet two months since Scissure, there had not been any new Kaiju attacks. People – optimistic as usual – had dusted themselves off and carried on. It was an almost funny thing to watch. They had done the same after each of the three attacks before, and it seemed obvious that they would do the same after – quite possible – future attacks. Once again, everybody joined forces in the effort to get back into the routine they called life. The military helped civilians with reconstruction and cleaning away the debris. The human race was built to just overcome hardship and move on. What doesn't kill you, makes you stronger, wasn't that how the saying went?
Kylie had spent that time of rebuilding the city and faith recovering from the injuries sustained in the car crash and the trauma of losing her family – she had slowly begun to rebuild herself. After the "divine intervention" she had experienced in her dead daughter's room, she just couldn't bear to be alone any longer. The doctors, concerned with the physical and psychological injuries, did not share her newly obtained enthusiasm and made her rest at home for another month and have a couple of more check-ups. The psychologist seemed more than surprised to hear about how Kylie was able to drag herself out of that black hole she had gotten stuck in, but finally, during the last mandatory doctor's visit she was deemed satisfactorily recovered and given green light to return to work.
Her body still complained more than she cared to admit when she got ready to back to the office that Monday morning when she but it felt a little better now that she didn't have to deal with herself on her own anymore.
She had thought about Hansen more than just once during her time off but hadn't dared to look for him those past few days, worried about any possible consequences her contacting him could have. After all, she had helped him steal a chopper. She was also worried about what might happen to her. There had not been any official communication from the RAAF except for the medical updates, but there had to be repercussions for her actions. Most likely not for leaving the workplace, as she had been the last to leave and when there was nothing left that could have been done, but assisting Hansen in stealing the Kiowa Bell was not something that usually sat well with her superiors. Not that it had happened before, Kylie thought wryly.
She went to RAAF headquarters, since there was nothing left to do at Towra Point, and as expected, Air Vice Marshal Roberton called her into his office as soon as she arrived. She hadn't even made it to the main area where she supposed most of her colleagues were - if they hadn't perished in the catastrophe the Kaiju had unleashed on the city.
Roberton sat behind his desk, seemingly having aged a lot since the last time she had seen him - they all had. The catastrophe had hit close to home for everybody and it showed.
He was quiet, simply motioned for her to sit, obviously searching for the right words to say. Kylie beat him to it: "I am fine…"
Roberton sighed and procured a lopsided smile, then put his hands flat on his desk.
"The country has been through a lot, we all have." He paused for a second and studied her thoroughly. "Listen, Command wanted to suspend you for being involved in the unlawful apprehension of the chopper but laid down any accusations against you, holding up your clean record against the offense. Listen, as a human being and your friend I would have no spent any other thought on that since it seems that the world went to hell, but as your boss...I mean, what in the world were you thinking?" He had never been one to hold back, neither had she.
Kylie looked at him, realizing that it had not been a rhetorical question. "What I was thinking? I wasn't thinking, I was acting on instinct. An alien monster was destroying our city and there is nothing I could do against it. I tried everything, just like everybody else, and we all know how that turned out. So when I received the call for help, I helped. A man asked for help to at least try to save his family. Being suspended or even let go over facilitating the unrightful use of a military helicopter to another staff member who was determined to get his family out of the blast radius wasn't something I felt would matter in the future. It was the least I could do since I couldn't do anything for my own family." She paused for a second, biting back upcoming tears. The she cleared her throat: "Was his wife found?"
Roberton tilted his head a little to one side, looking at her curiously. Kylie could almost see the question that burned on his tongue but he never asked what this all was to her. He didn't have to ask. "No." he simply said and that was enough of an answer for her. Two months were a long time to be found.
"As I said," Roberton now continued, "Command wanted to suspend you. Well, they didn't but they suspended the fighter pilot for two months. Now, Hercules Hansen has quite the reputation, that's why they went down on him. But that was about it. He's back to his job as well, in case you wondered." He leant back in his chair.
"Now..." he said. "We need to get ahead of things and work together with the other Pan Pacific countries. Four attacks are more than enough to not take measures but I am more than sure that this has not been the last Kaiju attack and we need to be prepared for the next. They are coming from somewhere and I am pretty sure it's not outer space. I am assigning you to the new Pan Pacific Defense Corps program, they need people with your particular skill set to provide insight. So, I want you to get back into the data that was collected during the attack to find a pattern and corroborate that data with what was retrieved in Mexico, the Philippines and the USA. You were controlling tactical officer during the attack and had first-hand access to all the incoming data, so patterns might be easier to catch for you than anybody else. You will work together with Tactical from the other countries as has been decided by United Nations. You need to be technical about it, and if necessary, travel to the individual attack sites to figure out what happened. I am sure that there are parallels, we just need to find that one common denominator. They must come from somewhere. We need to find out how to stop these attacks from happening. Our regular weapons are useless, that we found out the hard way as the only thing that was able to stop the monster was a nuclear blast, and that's not something I want to repeat anytime soon. Victory came at much too high a cost."
Kylie nodded, she was definitely not in the position to make any demands on where she would continue her service. She had kind of followed the live transmission of the two-day Seoul United Nations Conference on September 14th and 15th - there had been almost no way of not seeing the relay as it was broadcasted on every single channel on either TV or radio. An American University professor, whose name she didn't care to recall, presented his idea for some sort of weapon strong enough to fight the Kaiju - another piece of information that she hadn't retained. A weapon was direly needed but she could not imagine anything as powerful to destroy the monsters as a nuclear blast without the repercussions it brought.
Roberton was right. She probably was the person for the job. She was an Air Battle Manager within the Airforce after all. So far, RAAF had been the only ones to be able to at least push the Kaiju into the desired direction, whilst during the attacks on San Francisco, Manila and Cabo, the monster had ploughed a path through the city, seemingly without bother. Tactical and combat organization were her field of play, especially Joint Terminal Attack control. And that seemed to be the thing that this newly established Pan Pacific Defense Corps now needed the most. She could - however - not imagine all the Pan Pacific Countries working together, even though after the catastrophes brought by the Kaiju there might have been a change in thought.
"Things have changed, Kylie. Nothing is the way it used to be, for any of us. But we need to move forward and get this under control because I am sure that we won't be only losing one half of a city next time."
She was very aware that things had changed. She had changed. The moment she stepped foot into Air Vice Marshal Roberton's office to report back for duty, she knew that she could not continue her professional life the exact way she had before this life-changing incident. It wasn't that she didn't feel like being around people anymore, she simply didn't want to be around the same people she had been around before. She also didn't want to be in command in the very likely event of another Kaiju attack. She knew that it had not been her fault that her team couldn't come up with any valid and viable solution during the Kaiju attack as there had been simply too many variables. But deep down, it had left her doubting her abilities and she knew that she couldn't work at her best with doubts in the back of her mind.
Roberton's "offer" to reassign her came almost as a blessing, a possibility to get her life back on track and move forward. And she could maybe even serve a bigger purpose and be of actual help in this search for a solution.
He now shifted in his chair to get up. He leant over the desk, looking at her with an apologetic smile. "This has not been your fault, Kylie. None of it. But we need to handle it before it goes south big time. I need you to attend the PPDC meeting this Sunday, 08:00. Until then, gather whatever intel you can get your hands on from Towra Point and the connected servers. There's no time to lose."