Chapter Seventeen
With General Anderson's approval, things began to move quickly. A quick call to the hangar bay had the flight crew swarming over the Blue-Eyes White Dragon, readying the mech for the experimental gestalt. Even so, it was still several hours later before everything was finally in place for what the tech crews were already calling an historic event.
From his vantage point at the giant Duel Mech's feet, Mokuba watched the white-jumpsuited techs as they double-checked the mech's gantry couplings, making certain the giant robot was in full lock-down mode and that all its safeties were in place. It wouldn't do to have the mech shift in its gantry while the techs were clambering all over its surface.
Given the untried nature of what they were about to attempt, Mokuba had demanded to be present in the hangar, rather than at his usual post in the Control Center. If Seto needed him, Mokuba was determined to be there for him, not just over the comm and through the pilot/Anchor interface, but where he could reach Seto physically if he had to. Mokuba was hoping it wouldn't be necessary, but this was his big brother and he wasn't taking any chances.
Mokuba's Anchor Specialist, an intense red-head from one of the Lagrange colonies, crouched in the cramped secondary cockpit located inside the mech's chest cavity and prepped the white, ovoid Anchor cradle for Mokuba's use. The Specialist, Alister Cromwell, was giving the equipment a thorough going-over, as well as getting it warmed up and ready for the gestalt. The built-in cradle had lain dormant for almost a year, since shortly after the loss of Jupiter Station, and it was imperative to make certain everything was still in top working order.
Alister felt Mokuba's gaze and called down to him, "Almost set, Lieutenant."
"Thanks, Alister," Mokuba called back, raising his voice to be heard over the clamor of activity surrounding them in the busy bay.
Like the Dark Magician, the Blue-Eyes White Dragon was a first generation Duel Mech. And like the Dark Magician, it had once carried both pilot and Anchor, so there was a pod-like Anchor cradle built into the secondary cockpit located in the mech's torso. Dark Magician still had its Anchor cradle, though no one had lain in it since Anzu Mazaki's death. Likewise, the Blue-Eyes had retained its original equipment, even though changes in regulations meant that all Anchors now remained in the relative safety of the station, rather than accompanying their pilots into the heat of battle.
Mokuba tilted his head further back and peered up at the pair of technicians using a small crane to carefully remove the Blue-Eyes' face-plate and lower it to the floor, where a manned loader waited to carry it safely out of the way. Ordinarily, the face-plate, which served as an escape hatch, remained in place. The pilot and flight crew entered through the mech's chest plastron, then climbed a short metal ladder up to the primary cockpit in the massive machine's "skull." But the circumstances were far from ordinary. With the plate removed, everyone who might need it would have immediate access to both pilot and AI interface in the event of an emergency. Mokuba was crossing his fingers and hoping with all his heart that the precaution would prove unnecessary.
He brushed shaggy black hair back from his eyes and turned just in time to spot his brother as Seto stepped into the hangar, flanked by Doctors Korone and Churchill. Gears trailed a few steps behind them, her nose buried in her omni-present datalink, seemingly oblivious to everything else around her.
Ignoring the others, Mokuba ran to meet his brother. "Seto!"
The blue eyes that met his own gray gaze were distracted. "Mokuba. What are you doing down here? You should be in the Control Center, getting ready for--"
Like that had ever been an option. Mokuba rolled his eyes. His mouth settled into a thin scowl that perfectly matched the one on Seto's face. "Alister's prepping the AC in the Blue-Eyes. If you're gonna go through with this crazy 'passive gestalt' thing, I'm gonna be right there with you."
Seto didn't stop frowning, but his eyes lost some of their cool distance. He studied Mokuba closely for a long moment, then nodded. And that, as far as the Kaiba brothers were concerned, was that.
Finally acknowledging Seto's companions, Mokuba nodded at the others. To Korone, he added a warm, "Hi, Doc."
"Hey, kiddo." Korone's grin was a bit tighter around the edges than usual, but no less friendly. "You ready to make history?"
"You bet!" Mokuba sneaked a glance up at his brother's stoic expression and felt his own grin blossom. "Hey, Seto... You do realize you're gonna be the first pilot to ever do this, right? You'll beat Yami to a place in the history books."
For a moment, there was silence. Then Seto snorted, a tiny smirk twitching the corners of his mouth, and some of tension went out of his rigidly correct posture.
Mission accomplished, Mokuba laughed.
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Alister bent over Mokuba, testing the readings on a hand-held device to make certain the sensors woven into Mokuba's uniform jumpsuit were sending their telemetry properly to the computers in the Control Center. "You comfortable in there, Lieutenant?"
Mokuba nodded, then touched the controls on his headset, keying up the comm to the dedicated line that would connect him to his pilot. For the moment, he left it on "mute" so that he could monitor Seto's preparations for gestalt without disturbing him.
Virtual head-up displays lit up on the inside of the cradle canopy, showing his respiration, heart rate, adrenal output and other bio-values alongside an empty space that would fill with the same information from his brother once the sensors in Seto's flightsuit went live.
Mokuba could not only monitor Seto's progress, he could actively help him achieve the necessary state to attain gestalt. Mokuba reached up and brushed his fingers lightly over the dragon-shaped device pinned to the front of his 'suit. Before climbing up into the primary cockpit, Seto had removed his RID and attached it to Mokuba's jumpsuit. Seto hadn't said anything, but Mokuba had understood the significance of the gesture. He tapped the dragon's nose.
"We'll keep him safe, won't we?" he whispered to the Blue-Eyes. His other hand reached out to brush lightly over the panel outside his capsule. "We always keep him safe."
Almost, he could imagine he felt the Blue-Eyes' firm agreement.
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In the main cockpit inside the mech's 'skull' cavity, Seto tried not to tense as the sensor ribbons slid into place against his skin. Tensing up would only make things more difficult for him, and the last thing he needed was to make achieving gestalt any harder. He scowled, then forced his facial muscles to relax, smoothing out the expression. No negativity, dammit! He could do this.
He had to.
Drawing in a deep breath, he centered himself using one of the techniques he had been taught. His extensive martial arts training had served him well, giving him the focus and discipline so necessary for a pilot of his caliber.
The flight tech hovering beside him, monitoring the sensor ribbons as they slid into place, nodded at him. "Everything looks good, Captain."
Seto absently returned the nod as he accepted his helmet from the tech, who gave his sensors one last check, then stepped from the cockpit onto the platform outside. The missing faceplate left the cockpit wide open to the hangar, a novelty Seto found more unsettling than he would have imagined.
He was startled from his unhappy contemplations by Gears hopping over the rim of the mech's open 'skull' and into the cabin with him. She was still clutching her datalink and refused to meet his gaze as she set to work untangling a mess of cables that she began plugging into ports in the command sling. When she finally approached him, he instinctively leaned away from her touch.
"What are you doing?" he demanded, his voice as flat and cold as his eyes.
She recoiled. "I... I just n-need to attach this to your helmet, Captain Kaiba. So I can monitor your progress. During the gestalt, I mean." She gulped, her words speeding up as she continued, "It's a direct connection with my datalink, so there's no lag-time while I monitor your progress, and I'm sure there will be progress this time, because of how well you were doing with the remote interface, and I know you won't let Blue-Eyes down."
She took a deep breath and concluded, with a faintly sheepish shrug and smile, "I will need the readings as fast as possible to adjust things, if need be."
"Very well." Seto didn't like it, but he recognized the necessity, so he only nodded curtly, indicating that she could proceed. He watched her suspiciously as she attached the new leads to a jack on the side of his helmet.
"I'll be outside on the gantry," she said, adjusting the cable so that it didn't interfere with any of the mech's sensor ribbons. "This relay will transmit the readings to me fast enough, so don't worry. Just concentrate on Blue-Eyes."
She hesitated, one foot in the cockpit, the other stretched across to the gantry platform. "Um. I just wanted to say that I... I'm sorry, Captain Kaiba. For underestimating your degree of... professionalism, I guess. Your dedication to Blue-Eyes. Sometimes, I ... I don't read people very well."
Seto snorted. "I don't care about your social short-comings, Doctor Mann. All I care about is fixing this mess." He looked away, his gaze almost caressing the controls that surrounded him. "Stop apologizing and do your job -- right, this time -- so I can get back to doing mine."
Gears' face flamed scarlet and her grip on her datalink turned knuckle-white, but she simply gave a spastic nod and stepped completely onto the gantry. "Of course, Captain."
Mokuba's voice over the comm interrupted any reply Seto might have made. "Seto?"
"I read you, Mokuba." Gears already dismissed from his thoughts, Seto's voice warmed infinitesimally.
"You're coming through loud and clear, big brother."
In front of Seto, a bank of screens lit up with biofeedback readings and the status of the mech's active systems. The comm was green and active; the pilot/Anchor interface was on stand-by.
"All systems are 'go' on this end. Looks like your crew kept the AC in good shape, even if I wasn't using it," Mokuba continued briskly, though there was definitely a smile in his voice.
"Good." Seto would have expected nothing less of the techs caring for his Dragon. "You ready to do this, Lieutenant?"
"Ready when you are, Captain."
Even though his Anchor couldn't see him, Seto nodded as he swept his gaze once more over the banks of controls before him. Everything was reading in the green. He took a deep, centering breath.
"All right," Seto said. "Let's do it."