Author's Notes: Thank you all so much for the feedback! Please keep it coming! This chapter deals with the events in Aurora Australis Chapters 12-13, although they're not really required reading.
Trigger Warning: This chapter discusses rape and murder by a Ranger.
Chapter Six: Plots Within Plots
Raleigh was technically the most senior Ranger remaining at the Hong Kong Shatterdome with Herc, Sasha, and Aleksis leaving, but he said no to command so fast that Herc's head spun. Not that Herc was all that surprised. Cheung and Jin were less than thrilled by the prospect either, but at least politics would be on their side if anything happened while Herc was gone, since the Weis had local authorities in their corner.
"Between you and me, I'd put Mako in command if I thought I could get away with it," he confessed.
Chuck was quiet long enough for Herc to hear it coming. "I should be going with you."
Forget it, kid - no, Hansen, don't put it like that. "All things being equal, yeah, you should. But ask Sasha if my word's not enough for you. It's a bad idea."
Chuck got between Herc and his suitcase. "Why?! I'm not sixteen anymore!"
Herc fought back the urge to snap at him. "Look. Can you honestly tell me you wouldn't blow a bloody fuse the first time some pompous stuffed American shirt goes off about Stacker being a screw-up?"
Judging by the way Chuck flushed with anger just at the thought of it - nope! "Why the hell would you let 'em get away with that?" his kid hissed.
"Because you and I both know Stacker intended it that way," Herc shot back. That, to his astonishment, made Chuck flinch and turn away. He sighed. "You, Mori, and Becket are the ones the suits most want to see, and the Kaidanovskys and I are all agreed it's asking for a disaster to let them near any of you."
"Our brains aren't completely addled - or at least mine aren't," Chuck muttered, sounding more like himself than he had since returning from Pitfall. "I never went solo. I can handle it."
Herc shoved his dress uniform into his case with some malice. Towards the uniform, anyway. "The decision's made, Ranger. You and Team Gipsy stay here with Team Typhoon. No one goes who doesn't absolutely have to." Jerry Fucking Lunk can't have you. Bad enough he and his landowner cronies will get their claws into Stacker's memory. They don't get to make you his stand-in.
Chuck could still hear him. One drift with Stacker and several weeks after weren't enough to muffle the ghost drift. "What are you gonna do, then? You and Sasha? What'll you say for Marshal?"
That part at least was a relatively easy answer. "Remind the fuckers that Stacker's the reason they're not struggling to dig deep enough bunkers. Remind them we've got one Jaeger who just might be functional again, just enough funding to get him up and moving again, and we decide where Typhoon goes and for what."
Chuck frowned. "Do the triplet - I mean, Cheung and Jin, do they know that?" Neither of them'll be able to pilot him again. He couldn't bring himself to say it aloud.
Herc nodded. "Aleksis talked to them. They understand. They're actually more for it than I thought they'd be." As long as he rides, a part of Hu does too. He didn't say that aloud either. But both he and his son knew that was the most likely explanation. Mako told me Raleigh was moved to see Gipsy again. Then again, he'd get to pilot her.
He felt a pang through the ghost drift, a longing for a jaeger who'd vaporized in the Marianas Trench along with Stacker. Who by all rights should've taken Chuck with them - "Hey." Don't think that way, kid.
Chuck couldn't look at him anymore. Herc impulsively put out a hand, but the kid backed away. "Better finish packing then." He hurried out of their quarters.
Herc dropped onto the lower bunk and shut his eyes. Damn it, Stacks. He knew what Chuck was thinking: Both of us would've pitched an epic fit if Striker ended up being piloted by someone else. Hell, if it'd been anyone other than Stacker, I'd have pitched a fit about anyone co-piloting with my kid. There weren't many people Herc would've deemed worthy of Striker, let alone...let alone co-piloting with Chuck.
Only weeks ago, the ghost drift would've rung with Chuck's pride at sensing a thought like that from Herc. Now it wrenched with his disagreement.
"Egotistical jerk with daddy issues." That was nothing compared to what the fucking UN was about to say about Chuck, and everyone knew it. Maybe Herc wasn't doing him any favors by keeping him away.
Maybe he was.
It was a media circus when the delegation from the Jaeger Program arrived in Washington, and President Lunk's inevitable Twitter tantrum only made it worse. "Disappointed to see so many cowardly Jaeger Pilots afraid of Congress!"
Herc went red in the face when one of the reporters read the Tweet out loud to him, and Mako held her breath, but Sasha Kaidanovsky subtly elbowed Herc in the ribs - forestalling the likely explosion of profanity directed at the President of the United States.
Back in the mess hall of Hong Kong Shatterdome, things weren't so restrained. Jake nearly knocked his breakfast tray off the table as he shot to his feet, cursing Lunk as a "fathead, puddle-of-piss bastard." The Weis scoffed quietly while half their crew roared profanity in Mandarin, Cantonese, and several other languages, and some of Striker's crew hurled food at the screen.
Even as Mako hissed at Jake to calm down, it struck her sharply that the two people she'd have expected to react the most violently weren't making a sound: Raleigh and Chuck.
Not that there weren't a dozen people in the room who knew Japanese, but Mako slipped into it anyway as she leaned toward Raleigh. "You can't take anything that miserable man says seriously; you know that!"
Avoiding her eyes, Raleigh shrugged and lied, "I'm not."
Chuck shrugged and toyed with his food in a manner so similar to Raleigh that Mako wondered if these two stubborn men might've ended up drift compatible. "Don't give a damn what that moron says, president or not," he muttered.
They were both lying. Mako could tell, and from the way some of the crew were looking - half like they wanted to shake Raleigh and Chuck, the other half like they wanted to hunt the president down and stone him - she wasn't the only one who could tell.
Almost as soon as the Congressional hearings began, Tendo and the other crews began chivvying Mako and the other ex-pilots away from the screens. "This is gonna be a shitshow; we all know it. Don't put yourselves through watching it."
A rotating shift of crew soon had Raleigh and Chuck preoccupied in the Kwoon, and the Weis and their crew decided to devote themselves to repairing Crimson Typhoon and pretending current events didn't exist. Mako drifted between the groups and keeping an eye on Jake, who was having almost as much trouble ignoring the broadcasts as Chuck.
Not only are they questioning Sensei's fitness as a commander, they're questioning Marshal Hansen's, she reasoned. Of course this is hard for Chuck to tolerate. I can barely tolerate it.
Hell, the easiest part was when she happened to be near a screen when an American Senator, some pompous windbag who invoked God every other sentence and who all the women hissed at due to his tendency to make misogynistic remarks, brought Mako up by name.
"What about this Mako Mori girl, Pentecost's adoptee? Isn't that nepotism that Pentecost chose her to co-pilot Gipsy Danger with Becket?"
Funny, all the men in the mess hall yelped and dithered in panic, while most of the watching women just sighed. Mako snorted when Tendo made a move to turn the channel. "Don't you dare. I'm fine."
In Washington, Herc glowered. "Marshal Pentecost didn't choose Ranger Mori; she demonstrated drift compatibility with Ranger Becket far beyond any of the other pilot candidates. And since you're wondering whether her relationship to the commanding officer affected his opinion, he was against it for valid reasons!"
"What reasons?"
Herc rolled his eyes. "They're in the records, Senator, and I haven't got them memorized, sorry."
"So you don't recall Marshal Pentecost raising any concern that Mori and Becket were both mentally unstable?"
Amid an explosion of furious words and hisses to be quiet in the room around her, Mako felt like a little island of calm, untouched by anything this callous politician could say. She felt Raleigh sprinting into the room behind her; either he'd sensed she was watching or someone had called him. Jake appeared at her other elbow; she nudged them both gently. She could handle this.
On the screen, Herc retorted, "No, I do not recall him saying either of them were 'mentally unstable' because I don't believe he ever put it like that, as a matter of fact. He had concerns about risks in the drift, which is a unique condition affected by the pilot's individual memories, and yes, as every one of you hear know, Raleigh Becket and Mako Mori both lost loved ones to the kaiju and witnessed it firsthand. Those kinds of memories are dangerous in the drift."
"The Mori girl nearly blew up the Shatterdome because she couldn't control herself, didn't she?"
"PIECE OF - " Jake exploded, and Mako snapped.
"Quiet!"
But behind her, she could hear Chuck, muttering, "Shit," over and over. At her right, Raleigh was rigid and silent. In front of her, Herc kept his temper (barely), and ground out, "We were days away from the next kaiju attack with very limited time to get Gipsy Danger up and running. The accident was caused by the drift going out of alignment combined with a technical malfunction, and resulted in no injuries or damage. And forty-eight hours later, those two Rangers saved the city of Hong Kong."
It was a little gratifying to hear the roar of approval from the spectators in the congressional chamber. It took a lot of gavel-banging from the Senator in charge of the hearing to quiet everyone down.
Another Senator took over the questions. "But two Jaegers and substantial property were lost in the Hong Kong attack because Pentecost held Gipsy Danger back. Doesn't that call his judgment into question?"
"Your mate there just suggested his judgment is questionable for putting Gipsy into combat, Senator - what's it gonna be?" Herc snapped, and got another roar of agreement.
"At least the crowd's with us," said Tendo.
"If they call you 'the Mori girl' one more time…" Jake snarled.
"That's Gill Block; he hates women," said Hien Nguyen. "He used to back Marshal Ketteridge's misogynistic bullshit in Sydney." She glanced past Mako at Chuck and made a face. Mako vaguely recalled Sydney's commander being accused - more than once - of sex discrimination. She couldn't help glancing over her shoulder, and judging by Chuck's scowl, at least part of it was true.
The remainder of the day's questioning was just variations on the same themes: Marshal Pentecost had been unfit. Mako had been unfit. Raleigh had been unfit. Chuck had been unfit. Herc Hansen was still unfit. Despite all evidence to the contrary - namely, the Breach being closed and no attacks since - a whole cadre of politicians insisted there were things the Jaeger Program could've, should've, would've done better if only they had been in charge, and clearly the last Shatterdome and last Jaeger should be under American control.
Herc looked ready to pop several blood vessels by the end of it, while Sasha Kaidanovsky was cool and unmoved. "It is not up to anyone in this building to decide who controls Crimson Typhoon. The Jaeger and the Hong Kong Shatterdome are China's property, under China's control and command. Since you Americans chose to sell all of your Shatterdomes, you will have to start from scratch."
Crew laughed and jeered in the mess hall, and spectators laughed and jeered in Washington, but the more politically-savvy personnel, especially the Americans, were uneasy. "What's the problem? They're standing up to the assholes!" Tendo protested.
"Yeah, they are," Hien agreed. "And the assholes like those have no moral compasses, so they won't think twice about playing dirty. They know they need to discredit us, and they're going to double down on it by any means necessary. This is going to get very ugly."
Hien was right.
The session had adjourned for the day and Hong Kong Shatterdome was on the night shift when the vidcomm buzzed in Mako's room. Raleigh stirred awake quicker than she did to answer. "Wha's going on?"
It was Jake. Mako awakened fully at the agitation in his voice. "Turn on the news. Wake Mako up."
Mako fumbled for the the Associated Press feed, and her stomach went straight up her throat when she saw the headline:
JAEGER PROGRAM COVERED UP HANSEN RAPE SCANDAL! COMMITTEE DEMANDS ANSWERS!
"Jesus fuck!" Raleigh hissed and rolled out of bed. "Where's Chuck?"
"Talking to the Weis and Tendo Choi. He's completely flipping out, something about his uncle, not making any sense. The press is saying it was his dad that raped someone!" Jake choked out.
Pulling his clothes on, Raleigh told Mako, "I know what this is about; I was there. Stupid lying shits."
Mako scrambled after him and scanned the dull memories washing through the ghost drift. Manila - Meathead - Horizon Brave and Lucky Seven and Gipsy Danger. Shock and disbelief and disgust, grief and anger - hugging Yancy through it. How could he...how could he...
Raleigh blew past security and barged into Typhoon's bay to join the chaos already building. Some of Typhoon's burlier crew were wrestling Chuck back from the comms - God knew who he was trying to call - and Cheung and Jin were trying with limited success to calm him down. "It WASN'T my dad, it was my fucking, stinking uncle!" Chuck raved, wild-eyed. "HE'S the one who tried to pin it on my old man and it didn't even work, they can't do this!"
Raleigh shoved through the babbling crew and grabbed Chuck by the shoulders. "HEY! Chuck, take it easy! You weren't the only ones there, remember? Your dad's got a billion alibis!"
Mako remembered more: Yancy holding Herc by the shoulders in Raleigh's memories, Herc even more frenzied and desperate than his son was.
"Someone's got to go public and say something," Kyrra Taior, Striker's chief engineer, was spitting. "We can't fucking less this stand."
"Don't the records speak for themselves?" someone protested. "Scott's the one serving life in prison!"
"Not to conspiracy theorists or anybody with an agenda against Herc," sighed Tendo, scrubbing his face. "Chuck, c'mon, flipping your shit's not gonna help. Sasha and Aleksis are on the line for Cheung and Jin."
The Weis quickly moved aside, but the crew decided against letting Chuck go with them. Bao Wang, one of Raleigh's friends on Team Typhoon, insisted, "They've got access to a lot of records. They'll have a better idea of what to do with this so it blows up in the committee's faces."
"I need to talk to my dad," Chuck mumbled, starting to wind down.
"Is he okay?" asked Raleigh. Kyrra grimaced at him. "Well, still, it's a fair request."
"Yeah, I know. Hang on. Herc's not going to want to talk to the whole Dome." Kyrra beckoned them to a side office, muttering, "I cannot believe this is what they're throwing in Herc's face, out of all the filthy shit to dig up!" She buzzed Herc, then scowled at the comm and yelled at it, "Hercules, your son is going apeshit, now be a man and pick up!"
The comm screen came alive slightly off center, with Herc grunting, "All right, all right!" as if somebody'd been shoving him. Satisfied, Kyrra turned and caught Mako's elbow with one hand, Jake's with the other.
"C'mon, let's give them some privacy."
Raleigh nodded to her. "Go. I'll stay a minute."
Mako would've gone, but Herc started talking before Kyrra pulled them from the room. His voice was resigned. "Listen, kid, this is going to be shit, so you may as well prepare yourself. My credibility's shot to hell."
"Hey, do not talk like that!" Raleigh snapped before Chuck could even react. "You were proven innocent! Jesus, you sound like those douchebags who bitched about being scared of Me Too! Just tell the goddamn truth!"
"Ooh, I haven't heard that tone in a long time!" said Tendo from the doorway, but he sounded delighted.
Raleigh flipped him off without turning around, but Mako felt (even with Raleigh's back to her) the temptation to smile. On the screen, Herc looked startled. "Some of them won't believe me."
"Screw the conspiracy theorists. They never believe anyone. You run the program, so you've got access to the classified information - I assume that includes the investigation records after Manila. Shit, nobody even suggested it might be you!"
Herc sighed, and Chuck spoke up. "You're wrong. My uncle did."
Raleigh did a double-take between the two of them, and Mako and Jake stared at each other. "...what?"
"Fucking coward," Chuck growled, not really looking at anyone. "After my dad turned him in, he just...babbled shit, trying to get out of it. Once, he said it wasn't him, it was Herc, and he saw it in the drift. Only once - even his own bloody lawyer didn't believe him, and he admitted it later - Marshal had the records," he explained to Herc, seeing his father's startled expression. "I remember."
"So if the media crucifies Scott, he deserves it twice over," said Raleigh, more gently. Again, in Raleigh's voice, Mako heard Yancy.
Herc snorted. "I won't lose any sleep about Scott, believe me. But if I touch those records, they're suspect."
"Sleep on it, Hercules," Sasha ordered from off-screen. "We're all tired. Let them have their frenzy; it will happen no matter what we do. Then we'll decide how to answer before the hearings resume."
"A lot of us were there," said Raleigh, gesturing to himself, Tendo, and Kyrra. "Really there, for the arrest and the first parts of the investigation. Yeah, some stupid shits'll say it's a conspiracy, but they don't have any power."
"More people are still inclined to believe you than trust their officials who abandoned them," said Sasha. "They will see this 'conspiracy' as it is - one by the American government in a desperate effort to take control of the Jaeger Program by eliminating you."
When they all woke up in the morning, Sasha had already acted. This time, Tendo supposed they probably should've realized what she was planning.
Jaeger Program Insider Leak: Scott Hansen's disappearance explained at last!
Former pilot serving life in prison for 2 counts rape and murder!
Supporters of Hercules Hansen as Marshal and commander of the remnants of the Jaeger Program feel vindicated this morning after viewing a leak of classified military court records of the investigation, trial, and conviction of Australian former Ranger Scott Hansen for 2 counts of sexual assault and murder! Critics of the Jaeger Program maintain that while the DNA evidence and detailed confessions clear Marshal Hansen of wrongdoing as to the crimes themselves, they reveal a disturbing culture of silence and obstruction within the PPDC regarding crimes by its officers. Women's rights advocates add that the Hansens' home base, Sydney Shatterdome, was the target of a sex discrimination investigation that occurred after Scott Hansen's imprisonment. Former PPDC Marshal Blake Ketteridge received a verbal reprimand for inequity in deployment between male-piloted Striker Eureka and female-piloted Vulcan Specter.
"Sasha strikes again," Tendo sighed. He couldn't bring himself to be as pissed as he'd been about her leaking the Operation Pitfall records. In this case, it had exonerated Herc in a way that prevented Herc from being accused of tampering with the records.
Chuck just looked dazed by the whole thing. Tendo hadn't been in Sydney for the Scott Hansen debacle, though he'd seen the immediate aftermath in Manila. Rals and Yance had refused to ever talk about it and threatened anyone who did with demerits - well, there was that "culture of silence" people didn't like. But, hell, was it really such a bad thing to tell crews not to gossip about a disaster that'd claimed the lives of two pilots and at least two innocent people?! They'd all made their official reports; what else were they supposed to do, just spew their guts to the press so the world could drool and slobber over shit that wasn't anyone's business?
Then again...I wonder what anyone said to the families of those girls Scott murdered.
Tendo did remember - vividly - the fiasco that was Marshal Blake fucking Ketteridge's treatment of Devi and Susanti Hassan, culminating in the near-mutiny Herc had led when Ketteridge tried to deploy Vulcan alone against a Category III almost as big as Knifehead.
He caught Jake Pentecost staring at him as if trying to see into his head, and forced a smile. "Long story, kid."
"Culture of silence?" the kid answered pertly.
Wow. If Marshal Pentecost and Raleigh's mom had a kid...that thought made Tendo want to both burst out laughing and hide in a corner.
Raleigh was, fortunately, not looking in Tendo's direction; he was focused on Chuck. "You okay?"
Chuck nodded absently, not even bothering to make a smart remark. Shit. "You know my dad saw it in the drift."
"Yeah."
"I saw it in the drift. When I drifted with my dad."
Jesus fucking Christ. Of course, it stood to reason, but still...Tendo'd thought the worst fate imaginable was Raleigh living through Yancy's death in the drift. To have been drifting with Scott Hansen and seeing...feeling...fuck, fuck, no, stop, brain, do NOT want to chase that rabbit! "What's the committee agenda looking like now?" he blurted desperately.
Hien and Kyrra and the other political-minded crew were muttering over and the political analysis sites, as usual. "Officially, it's not changed much, but you can bet Gill Block and the rest of the fuckers were not prepared for this much information slamming into cyberspace within twenty-four hours," said Hien. She shot a satisfied look at the other Americans. "Lunk hasn't even managed to tweet about it; he's probably still in bed over there."
"HAH!" Chloe Warner let out a triumphant shout as a breaking news alert popped up on everyone's tablets. "Agenda's just changed! Suddenly they're all terribly interested in K-Science!"
Most of the crew laughed, but Raleigh looked worried. "Is Newt gonna be ready to testify on such short notice?"
Everyone who'd spent more than a few weeks around Newton Geiszler scoffed in unison, as if they were all drifting at that moment. Raleigh had to grin, and Mako was relaxing too, sliding an arm around his waist. "I doubt there was much chance of preparing Newt to begin with. He'll say what he'll say - though many of his concepts will be too advanced and incoherent for most politicians to understand. We'll just have to hope he doesn't say anything too controversial."
"Do they know he and Gottlieb drifted with an effing kaiju yet?" Christian Warner asked.
"Yeah, that was in the Pitfall report, though fewer reporters than I expected latched onto it," Tendo mused. "Newt may find himself on the hot seat about whether his first drift prompted the Hong Kong attack."
"Shit," someone muttered.
However, Cheung and Jin were unconcerned. "Our government knows about it. Yes, it was dangerous - stupid, even. But this Shatterdome and Crimson Typhoon are worth too much for them to risk alienating us. Gottlieb predicted it; the double event would have happened in any case, and the kaiju would have gone somewhere. We're all lucky in a way that they came here instead of towards America or Australia or another place with no Jaegers posted. Hundreds died in Hong Kong, but millions would have died in another city."
Security buzzed Tendo then, and he read their message, then snorted. "Speaking of K-Science, the 'private scientific industry' is lining up thick and fast to get a piece of J-Tech now that the apocalypse is canceled. Better than government goons, but we're gonna have some guests."
To Be Continued...
Coming Soon: A drift science team visits Hong Kong Shatterdome with credentials to begin studying other uses of the drift apart from Jaegers. But they need test subjects. Still doubtful as to whether he's done enough in the final months of the war, Raleigh volunteers. Big mistake in Chapter Seven: The Rabbit Hole!
PLEASE don't forget to review!
Original Character Guide
Senator Gill Block: Midwestern American Senator who represents landowners who had a lot to gain by the kaiju threat driving people inland, now has an axe to grind with the Jaeger Program.
President Jerald "Jerry" Lunk" President of the United States, elected 2020, tweets a lot, used the platform, Make America Safe Again.
Hien Nguyen: Former personnel coordinator for Gipsy Danger's strike troopers, now works for Team Striker Eureka. Vietnamese Amerian, mid-30s.
Chloe and Christian Warner: African-American who attempted and failed drift testing in Class 2016-B alongside the Beckets at the Jaeger Academy. Christian became a drivesuit tech with Team Gipsy while Chloe joined K-Science, but Christian left J-Tech for K-Science in his grief after Yancy's death in 2020.
Kyrra Taior: Chief Engineer of Striker Eurekak, Aboriginal Australian, former lover of Susanti Hassan, late pilot of Vulcan Specter
Devi and Susanti Hassan: Deceased pilots of Vulcan Specter, which was destroyed in September 2024, close friends of the Hansens.