Chapter 34: Call to Arms

Mako, Raleigh, and Miranda's apartment

July 5, 2025

1657

Mako and Raleigh rarely turned on the TV for news, but Herc had insisted that they watch tonight for some reason. As such, they were waiting as the news anchors made a brief statement about an impending speech from the President of the United States, then promptly switched their feed to the White House.

The President was already waiting to speak, and began right away. "Before I begin, I ask my speechwriters for forgiveness for not using their wonderful speech. I do appreciate their efforts over the last day to write the speech that is waiting for me on the Teleprompters… but I feel it's more important tonight to be candid."

The President paused briefly, gathering his thoughts. "Six months ago, we were staring the end of days in the face. The Kaiju were coming faster, they were bigger each time, and the Sydney Wall had just been breached. There was seemingly no hope for mankind's survival. Then, the Battle of Hong Kong cost us two of the four remaining Jaegers, and even I was terrified. I could see the writing on the wall. I remember thinking, 'There's no way we're going to make it out of this one.'

"Then, the remains of the PPDC blitzed the Breach and closed it. They paid a heavy price to do so, but it has been worth it so far. Not a single Kaiju has emerged for nearly six months, giving us a much needed breather and a chance to repair the damages and reopen trade.

"Yesterday evening, however, I received word from the Pan Pacific Working Group that this is just a lull in the Kaiju War. The Breach, though closed, is not sealed. And reputable sources give us two years before the Kaiju return. Now, I know that doesn't seem like a long time, but plans have already been put into motion to not only rebuild our defenses, but to improve them dramatically. As we speak, the PPDC is preparing a new line of Jaegers, the Mark VI, to defend the Pacific Rim once again. New Shatterdomes are slated for construction, as well.

"Now, I'm sure many of you are panicking right now. Deep inside, I am too. Trust me, I was terrified when I heard the news last night. I still have trouble believing it. But the mere possibility of the Kaiju's return cannot be taken lightly. As such, I call upon not just the Pacific Rim nations, but the whole world to pitch in again in a bid to not only beat back the Kaiju once more, but to take the fight to them, on their turf, on our own terms.

"I now give you the speech that Marshall Stacker Pentecost gave in the Shatterdome before the launch of Operation Pitfall, the attack that closed the Breach. I have found it to be an inspiring, moving speech, and I hope it carries the same power and emotion as it did when he gave it…

"'Today… today. At the edge of our hope, at the end of our time, we have chosen to believe not only in ourselves but in EACH OTHER. Today there is not a man nor woman in here that shall stand alone. Not today.

"'Today we face the monsters that are at our doors, and bring the fight to them! Today, we are CANCELLING THE APOCALYPSE!'"

Mako wiped tears from her eyes as she heard a cheer rise up from the whole apartment complex.

Raleigh hugged her, remembering that speech in person nearly six months earlier.

-.-.-

PPI R&D Offices

July 7, 2025

0811

Mako opened her email and saw her inbox was flooded with messages from PPWG representatives. Half of them were asking for what kinds of weapons they could put on their Jaegers. The other half were wondering what styling options were available. Mako just marked everything to be read later, then settled back to work on the Jaeger systems.

Raleigh felt her frustration from across the hall and came over to see what was wrong. "Hey, need help?"

"Yes. Give me an idea off the top of your head for a new Jaeger weapon."

Raleigh thought for a moment, then snapped his fingers. "Got it: chemical weapon."

Mako didn't even look up to show her skepticism, instead letting the Ghost Drift carry the emotion.

Raleigh carried on, undeterred. "Well, think about it… The Kaiju are acidic, right? So we inject something basic into them and disrupt their biochemistry."

Mako looked at Raleigh, delight flashing across her face. "That's brilliant!" She hugged Raleigh and gave him a quick kiss. "Thank you!"

"Hmm… another idea…"

"Go for it."

"One of the issues with Cherno Alpha's Spark Fist was maintaining enough contact to deliver a solid shock. What if we were to use some sort of spike coming off of the gauntlet area, in the same spot as the Chain Sword? We've got the power conduits there from the cannons, right?"

Mako smiled. "Yes. That could certainly work…"

Raleigh smiled and ducked out of Mako's office as he felt the gears start to churn in her head. Go get 'em.

-.-.-

1104

Aki looked out the door of her office to see if Mako had gone out yet. She had, so the Crew Chief pulled up a particular website and looked at the products offered. "Hmm… not big enough… not enough options…"

Crunch came in. "Find it yet?"

"No, I'm still… wait. This it?"

Crunch looked at the page she pulled up. "Mori Seiki? Any relation to her family?"

"Not that I know of, no. But… look at this unit here. JUST what we need."

"Hmmm…" Crunch muttered under his breath as he read the specs before finally speaking up. "Yeah, that's the ticket. Let's see what we have to do to get one in the hangar, shall we?"

-.-.-

1457

Caitlin D'Onofrio stuck her head into Mako's office. "Hey, you got some time to talk?"

"About?"

"You're the only Ranger I've never talked to about their Drift experiences."

"Oh. Uhm…"

"It'd be you, me, and Raleigh."

Raleigh walked out of his office. "What about me?"

Mako flushed. "Caitlin wants to talk about our Drift."

Raleigh scowled. "Doc, we're doing fine with the Drift. It's stronger than it was between Yancy and myself."

The older woman smiled. "I know. That's why I want to talk with you two."

Confusion clouded the faces of the younger Rangers.

"Come on, let's go for a walk."

-.-.-

The three Rangers walked along the sidewalk in silence for a while before Raleigh finally spoke out. "Okay, Doc, what is it you wanted to talk about?"

"Raleigh, you have much more practical experience in the Drift than Mako. Your time in the Academy saw to that, right?"

Mako nodded. "I… I never Drifted with anyone before Raleigh. No one was compatible."

"So I'd heard. And yet your compatibility with Raleigh is basically off the charts. Even the Gages, who were identical twins, weren't as compatible as you two are. I can't figure out why."

Raleigh stared at the ground for a while before responding. "I… No. I can't…"

Mako held Raleigh's hands in her own. "It's okay."

Caitlin waited patiently for them to finish.

Raleigh took a deep breath and let it out slowly, then spoke again. "I… I think it's because of some of the shared elements of our PTSD. Losing the ones who mean the most to us to Kaiju, despite the best efforts of the Jaegers…" Raleigh trailed off again, and Mako squeezed his hand in reassurance. Raleigh shook his head. "I can't explain it, Doc. There's just some stuff I can't put into words. We just… click."

Caitlin chuckled. "I understand. Really, I do. With so few examples of Drift compatibility, we're not sure what the mechanism is. It just is."

Mako's phone beeped at her, and she tapped her earpiece. "Sir? … I'll be right there." Another tap and Mako nodded to Caitlin and turned to Raleigh.

"Go. I'll stay out of trouble."

Mako grinned and began to jog back to the offices.

Raleigh watched his copilot/girlfriend hustle down the sidewalk.

"So, when you going to ask her?"

Raleigh smirked and shook his head as he turned to face the First Lady of the Ranger Corps. "When the time is right."

"Ah." She was silent for a bit.

They walked along for a few blocks before turning back towards the offices. Finally, Caitlin couldn't hold back a question she'd been trying to wrap her head around. "Raleigh… you know how bad Sergio's cancer is."

"Yeah… I hope that they can get it into remission again so that you two can jockey again."

Caitlin stiffened.

"Sorry. Didn't realize that was such a raw nerve."

"It's not that, Raleigh… Sergio's cancer is into his pancreas. There's no stopping it now. All they can do is buy him two, maybe three more months." Caitlin stopped walking and looked at Raleigh. "I'm scared, Raleigh. I mean, I've seen people die before. Good friends, colleagues… fellow Rangers." She sighed and looked down. "It's just that I don't know how I'm going to deal with losing Sergio. He's been such a part of my life for the last decade… I can't imagine life without him."

Raleigh guided the older Ranger to a park bench and sat down next to her. "I don't know what's worse, having your partner taken mid-Drift, or knowing its coming and being unable to do anything about it." He looked at the sky, seeking answers he knew weren't there. "I hope I don't have to experience the latter. Not with Mako."

Caitlin nodded absently. "I just hope I don't get dragged with him. It's happened before."

Raleigh paled as he recalled the way Tacit's crew had gone down. Duc got fatally wounded by in the Conn Pod and died after being rescued from the wreckage. When he died, Kaori crashed too and died a few hours later. That was a hard loss. "But Herc's survived two copilot deaths out of combat…"

"But both of them were sudden onset, and both times there was a third Ranger involved."

"Sensei did…" Raleigh trailed off as he realized what he had just said, eyes wide.

Caitlin stared at the younger Ranger. "Who?"

"Pentecost." Good point, though, Mako.

Mako's wry smiled flitted across the Ghost Drift. You're welcome.

"Hrm… yeah, he did outlive Tam. But it was only for a few months."

"Exactly. Everyone else who got dragged along died within hours, not months later. Doc, if you make it past the first few days, you'll be fine."

Caitlin was about to respond when Raleigh's face went white as a sheet. "Mako…" Raleigh tore off down the street towards the office and their hangar-come-workshop across the street.

Caitlin ran after him as fast as she could, which was surprisingly fast given her prosthetic right leg. "What's wrong?"

"Mako's in trouble!" was the only response she got before Raleigh rushed into the hangar…

-.-.-

5 minutes prior

Mako walked into David's office. "You wanted to see me, sir?"

"Yes. I have something I need you to do for me."

Mako took a seat. "What can I do?"

"Who do you want to make the elbow rockets for the Jaegers?"

Mako answered without hesitation. "Aerojet Rocketdyne. They did a fantastic job on Gipsy's set, and were very helpful during the overhaul. I have literally trusted them with my life, and I have the utmost respect for their work."

"Then you'll be taking them this contract for the engines on Thursday morning." He handed her a packet of papers. "They also offered you a tour, if you want it."

Mako's eyes lit up at the mention of the offer. She'd grown up watching the Japanese H-II rockets lift off from the southern tip of her home island, and still harbored a deep love of spaceflight. To go to the hallowed halls that made the engines that brought the Apollo astronauts home from the Moon? Of course I'm in! "Thank you, sir."

David grinned at her. "Try not to drool all over their workshops. Ms. Mori."

Mako laughed. "No promises."

David laughed, and Mako headed out the door to go clear out the wasp nest she had noted earlier in the hangar. She found Jazmine staring at it from a respectable distance. "What, afraid of a few wasps?"

"Deathly so. I'm allergic to the venom in their stingers."

"Ouch. Well, stand back. I'm going to get rid of that nest."

"Thanks."

Mako grabbed a broom and waved it at the nest to drive off the wasps, then proceeded to knock it off of the I-beam it was attached to.

However, Mako failed to notice the wasp that settled on her right arm… until it stung her. "YAI! Orokana suzumebachi wa watashi o sasa..." Stupid wasp stung me… Mako's eyes bugged out as the spot she'd been stung began to swell before her eyes… as did her airway. "Jaz… is this normal?"

Jazmine's eyes bugged out too, as she saw Mako's reaction to the sting. "No, definitely not!" Jaz began to scramble through her purse. "De tous les temps à égarer cette chose maudite, il devait être quand j'en ai le plus besoin!" Of all the times to misplace that damned thing, it had to be when I need it most!

Mako began to panic as her airway closed entirely.

"AHA! Mako, hold still. This is going to hurt like hell at first, but it'll open your airway, okay? Just hold still for a minute, please." Jazmine helped Mako lay down, then pulled the safety cap off the Epipen and slammed the tip into Mako's thigh, hard.

Mako's eyes bulged as she felt the inch-long needle slam though her pants and into her leg.

Jazmine quietly muttered something under her breath for a few seconds before removing the autoinjector. "Stay with me, Mako." She pulled out her cell phone and dialed the paramedics.

Raleigh raced into the hangar. "MAKO!" He saw her on the ground, the Epipen, and the crushed wasp nest and put it all together. He ran over and cradled her in his arms. "Shhh… Hang on, Mako."

Mako relaxed at the sound of his voice, but her eyes were still wide with panic.

"How long since Jaz hit you with the Epipen?"

Not long.

Raleigh blinked at the incredibly clear thought in his mind. Must be the adrenaline… "Give it a few more seconds…"

Suddenly, Mako gasped slightly as her airway opened enough to allow her to breathe. "Ahhhh…."

"Shhhh… save your breath. JAZ! How long until…"

"Two, maybe three minutes."

"Grrrrrr….."

"Oh my god… Mako? What happened?"

Raleigh turned to see Caitlin behind him, with the rest of the staff hustling across the street. "Apparently, Mako's allergic to bee and wasp stings. Didn't know until now."

"I… I was stung once as a kid. Didn't do this, though."

The whoop of a siren broke up the group, as the medics arrived to pick her up for a mandatory trip to the hospital.

"How long ago?"

Jaz looked at her watch. "Five, maybe six minutes. Hit her with my own Epipen about four minutes ago."

Raleigh let go of Mako and let the paramedics pick her up and put her on the stretcher.

"Does she have any family?"

Herc spoke up. "We're the closest thing she has to a family, but Raleigh here's her copilot."

"Sorry, rules are…"

Herc stepped up and stared down the 5'8" paramedic. "Rules be damned. These are paired Rangers. He's going with you, end of story."

"And if he doesn't?"

Herc's voice turned ice cold and totally level. "Then you're going to be getting a phone call from, at the very least, the U.S., Japanese, and Australian representatives to the Pan Pacific Working Group, and possibly the heads of state for those nations, too. And all of them will be asking, very politely, for your head on a pike."

The paramedic backed down. "Fine. Get in."

Raleigh wasted no time getting in and sitting out of the way of the other medic, who hooked up a few monitoring leads to Mako and gave her oxygen as a precaution.

Herc watched the ambulance leave for the hospital, then walked to his car. "Right, everyone get your stuff. It's gonna be a long night."

-.-.-

Author's notes: I'm not a medic by any means, so I'm not sure if the timeline given here for Mako's reaction is realistic or not. However, that response time is, given the proximity of the nearest fire station to the office and hangar that I've picked to be the ones used in the story. The trip to the hospital is also realistic, especially with cases like this one where the airway closes. Had one happen at a summer camp I worked at one year. Let's just say that I've never seen anyone move as fast as that camp medic did, before or since.

Also, I don't know if Mako's allergy is canonical, but developing a severe reaction after being stung even once is not uncommon. Let's just hope it doesn't happen to me!

Finally, I don't remember where I saw or heard something about paired Rangers dying in quick succession. All I know is, it's not my original concept. Sorry if it was someone around here, but it's a valid concern in the case of the D'Onofrios for reasons to be expounded upon later.