Author's Notes: Thank you all once again for the wonderful reviews! Please keep 'em coming! I noticed that since we're now into 2017, I needed a new president. As a rule, I don't use real people for speaking parts (okay, there'll be one exception coming up later) so rather than employ any real world politician, I borrowed one from another fandom. Anybody recognize him?
Canon Notes: The pilots of Solar Prophet are OCs. There's a little blurb on them at the end of the chapter, but also see my Tumblr post, Pacific Rim Headcanon: The Mark II Jaegers, if you'd like some more detailed speculation on the Jaegers, the pilots, and the countries they defend.
Chapter Sixteen: United Front
Jaeger Academy and Assembly Facility, Kodiak Island, Alaska…
February 5, 2017…
President Santos and just about every other world leader were on television before the day was over, giving nearly identical speeches about the fall of Talon Tasmania. The Jaeger's core was still in meltdown, the desperate cleanup still under way, and people in Ecuador were still running for their lives from the radiation - and dying when they couldn't get away fast enough.
It annoyed Tendo sometimes to hear the press only harping on the two Jaeger pilots. Then he looked at the Beckets, the Hassans, and Steph and Kennedy, and thought he was glad.
It was hard to look at them during the President's speech.
"Two years ago, brilliant scientists and engineers from around the globe gave the human race hope in the form of the Jaeger Program. Since then, the heroic pilots and support crews of the Pan Pacific Defense Corps have stood at the front lines against the strangest, most terrible enemy that the world has ever seen.
On this day, February 5, 2017, two of those heroes gave their lives in the line of duty. Miguel Blanco and Maria Lopez-Blanco, citizens of Argentina, pilots of the Jaeger Talon Tasmania, fought to the very end against the kaiju that invaded another innocent city. The United States of America joins every nation of the world in saluting their courage, and bowing our heads in their memory. They were married only two months ago. I offer my deepest condolences to the people of Argentina, to the Lopez and Blanco families, and to every city and nation that has stood under their protection.
Thank you, Maria and Miguel, on behalf of America and all humanity. God bless you, and may you rest in peace."
"Dammit," someone muttered, and there was a lot of sniffling going on in the war room. Raleigh Becket was leaning forward against the conference table, rubbing his eyes, and Yancy had a hand on his shoulder.
A message went around electronically to all personnel: the PPDC memorial protocol. Hell, I didn't even know those two and I'm never going to keep it together. "Brace yourselves, guys, it only gets worse."
They'd all been issued dress uniforms once they signed on as permanent officers of the Corps, and joked about holding a ball. Tendo wondered bitterly if the brass had always realized this was what the real purpose was. Black armbands were distributed before the flag-lowering ceremony, and people helped each other put them on with nary a wisecrack to be heard.
He did keep it together at the formal proceeding, but God, it was depressing. He tried to make his mind blank, to not remember K-Day or Yeye or all the memorials in the aftermath of that and every attack since, to not consider what a microcosm this was of the thousands upon thousands of people who'd died since it all started.
The newbie Rangers reported that the Engineering crews were taking it hard. Talon Tasmania had been one of the Mark I Jaegers built here. Miguel Blanco and Maria Lopez had been pilots in the Argentine Navy, part of the iconic "first class" of the Academy along with the Gages. They had helped train the Tunaris and most of the Mark II pilots, helped establish the Lima Shatterdome, then cheerfully accepted the assignment to defend the opposite side of the Pacific Ocean.
Rumor had it that they had barely known each other before Argentina sent its delegation to the PPDC. But they'd been the only pair from their home country to meet the physical standards set for potential Jaeger pilots, and being from a tango-loving culture, they'd danced for fun.
Maybe that was all it had taken to make them drift compatible. By the time Talon was launched in late 2015, everyone in the Corps had known they were in love.
They'd been the first pilots to make their Jaeger dance. The PPDC brass had shit kittens and reprimanded them when videos of that training run hit YouTube. But only a week later, Talon Tasmania had taken down the kaiju Digonek in Vladiovostok. The majority of the Corps had decided that the dancing must have brought them good luck.
The fact that their first kill had been on Valentine's Day 2016 had only added to the mythos. Maria Lopez had been wearing an engagement ring in the post-battle media appearances, and they'd married during holiday leave in Argentina.
Now they were dead. Not fair.
Not that any part of life on Earth with kaiju has ever been fair.
Talon Tasmania had been assigned to Australia and New Zealand, so those countries led the memorial ceremony. Then their military bands played the Argentine national anthem while the staff of every PPDC facility around the world stood at attention at the coordinated time to the lowering of the flags. Then many of the local governments played their own tributes.
Tendo had always hated Taps, and he hated it even more today.
Marshall Gagnon called a personnel assembly late that night after making another address to the Academy. "We are going to lose people in action," he informed them, directing his remarks very much to those of non-military background. "Those of us who have worn a uniform before have had to face this sad truth, and if there is one thing that these past four years have taught us, it is that the kaiju are as indiscriminate and merciless as any natural or unnatural disaster. There is no dissuading them, only the effort to prepare, to learn, and refine our techniques to save as many lives as possible. So far the death toll of Guayaquil is at fourteen PPDC personnel, sixty-one local military, and three hundred thirteen civilians. It will rise before it is over." He paused to let that sink in, seeming to take note of everyone who flinched.
"You all have a choice about being here. If you want to resign and return to civilian life, you're free to do so. No one will be shot. But don't think for an instant that leaving this base will spare you from what is outside. And do question for the rest of your lives if by risking yourselves, you could have helped save others."
March 2017…
Nobody left.
The final death toll of Vaulimi's attack was nearly two thousand civilians, including the people in the Marshall Islands and French Polynesia who'd had no Jaeger to protect them and almost nowhere to run. The PPDC lost sixty-four personnel; the first responders from other militaries on the scene gave a hundred twenty lives.
Routine and normalcy gradually resumed, and the horror of Vaulimi's attack faded just as the others did. The nuclear waste and Kaiju Blue was cleaned up, the dead were buried, the flags went back to full height.
Solar Prophet came up to Anchorage for a brief refit after the Guayaquil engagement. Prophet's pilots, a Peruvian couple named Alex Quispe and Sunya Flores, brought several boxes of Argentine wine, a gift from the government to the PPDC. All the Rangers on base and the engineers and trainers who'd known the Blancos held a little wake in the Assembly Building. There were so many people that it was just a medicine cupful of wine again, but they all drank a toast to fallen heroes.
Afterward, Anchorage bade a reluctant farewell to Vic and Gunnar Tunari as Coyote Tango returned to her post in Tokyo. Stephanie and Kennedy decided they would have to take up the Tunaris' mantle as resident dancing Rangers, and the off-duty tournaments resumed.
A new group of candidates came through the first cut of Class 2017-A at the Academy: seventy-two. Among them were a few familiar faces: the EMT woman who'd come to Raleigh's aid after his Final Spar left him unconscious (Raleigh didn't remember her, but Yancy did), and the Inuit woman who ran over him in the hallway on Groundhog Day.
Gipsy Danger was being readied for a July launch to coincide with the opening of the LA Shatterdome. The Gages were outraged at the notion that the Beckets might get to reside in sunny California with Yankee Star's crew while they were stuck in the Icebox, much to everyone's amusement. A large group of Class 2016-B veterans put in requests to join Gipsy's strike group and support crew, to Raleigh and Yancy's gratification.
By the end of March, they were out on the proving grounds testing Gipsy's paces nearly every day, doing the same Bushido drills they'd been taught in Academy in their Jaeger. Class 2016-B had watched Eden Assassin, Coyote Tango, and Yankee Star on those practices any chance they got. It gave Raleigh a thrill, knowing another group of future Rangers were standing outside watching them just as they'd once done.
Most of the transfer requests were granted; the PPDC still had more positions available than applicants, and they were constantly poaching personnel from other military branches. Brandon Pines, the Air Force Pave Hawk pilot from Monterey who'd been cut during pons testing, signed with his crew from Los Angeles Air Force Base on as one of Gipsy Danger's rescue/recovery pilots.
Antwan Ferrier ended up one of their main personnel coordinators/cat herders, and when they started having full-on deployment test runs, was heard yelling "Muster drill, muster drill!" into the comms.
"Muster drill?!" Raleigh demanded, passing him on the way to the elevator with Yancy.
"Shuddup, I used to work on cruise ships!" Before long, they all were calling it a muster drill, and someone made Antwan a fisherman's cap with S.S. Gipsy Danger and her emblem stitched on the front. Everybody wanted one after that, but Raleigh and Yancy were informed they weren't allowed to take possession of their bomber jackets until launch day.
April 2017…
Midway through the spring, there was a buzz around Kodiak because some enterprising reporters had taken a very close look at the arrangement of the Corps personnel during the public memorial - and worked out who the up-and-coming Rangers were.
Raleigh came up to the conn-pod for a test run one day, only to be greeted by a bunch of wicked grins. "Morning, Sunshine!" said Priya Katwal.
That was... odd, but Priya like to harass them, so he just grinned and ignored it. Then Yancy came in. "Morning, Strawberry!"
"Huh?!"
The whole pod engineering crew broke up laughing. Then someone patched into the comm - for the whole Assembly Building. Of course, it was Tendo, reading out loud with glee. "'The pilots of America's newest Jaeger could not be a more perfect matches for the ideal image of apple pie and the Fourth of July.'"
"The HELL?!" Raleigh blurted, while Yancy imitated a fish.
"I didn't think you looked that much like fireworks," hooted Priya.
"Shut up! Don't interrupt my dramatic reading! 'It took us several weeks of investigation to dig up the names of the newly-minted Rangers: Yancy and Raleigh Becket, sons of an Alaska hydraulic engineer and a French national, locals from the land that gave us dog sledding, polar bears, and Sarah Palin.'"
"Oh, God!" Yancy groaned and buried his face in his hands.
"Wait, it gets better! 'Pay attention, Jaeger Flies: these men are gorgeous!'"
"WOOOO! YEOW!" came the commentary from somewhere downstairs.
"'Yancy, 21, stands six feet of sculpted muscle, Adonis good looks, and strawberry blond hair! His little brother, Raleigh, 18, is a five-foot-eleven sunshine blond with a smile that will be slaying teen hearts around the world by this summer!"
"Awwww!'"
"I think that's supposed to mean you're pretty, Baby Becket!" someone yelled.
"Kill me, Yance, kill me now."
"'Almost nothing is known about the new Jaeger or its pilots, but enthusiasts are waiting with baited breath - and for the record, they spelled it like fish bait - and all the ladies who love a man in uniform should turn their eyes towards the Land of the Midnight Sun in a few months. The launch of America's first Mark III Jaeger will also catapult these breathtaking new pilots into the spotlight. That day can't come fast enough!"
"April Fool's Day was two weeks ago!" Yancy protested weakly, only to have Priya dance up to him brandishing a teen magazine.
"Read it and weep, Strawberry!"
"Oh, we'll be weeping, all right," Raleigh muttered. "Hell." The picture of them was a rather fuzzy shot from his high school graduation, when he'd been about an inch shorter and... had he put on that much bulk?! He could not have looked more dorky - good thing it wasn't a yearbook shot.
"I think we should put that on the back of all their drive suits so we know whose is whose: Strawberry and Sunshine!"
They ran for the stairs, only to find Bruce and Trevin Gage lying in wait. "Welcome to the heart-throb club, boys, there's no escape!" And they were manhandled back into the drive suit room to do the whole test with everyone ribbing them over the comms and reading that purple prose out loud over and over again. "Don't laugh too hard, girls, your day is coming!" The Gages admonished the Hassans, Steffie, and Kennedy.
The day after that exercise in mortification, Marshall Gagnon introduced them to their new Crew Liaison and Public Relations Adviser. "Gentlemen, this is Carolina Olivares. Ordinarily she wouldn't be coming on board until closer to launch, but since the media has pictures of you and the bit in their teeth, we need to get on top of it."
Raleigh regarded her curiously. He'd imagined some suited-up stuffed shirt who looked and acted like Pentecost and was allergic to people having fun on company time (or ever). Instead, they had a middle-aged Hispanic woman with a sly grin, looking them up and down. "Marshall Pentecost warned me you two would be a handful."
"Hey, we didn't know anything about that article!" Yancy protested.
"I believe you, but you're trouble. I can see it in your eyes." She didn't seem that bothered by it. "And it happens to all the pilots. I was doing public relations with the PPDC from almost Day One. That drift of yours turns you all into class clowns." She looked at Marshall Gagnon. "Have they got their demerit for Jaeger-dancing yet? No? You may as well just give it to them now; they're going to do it."
Gagnon looked from her to Raleigh and Yancy, and heaved a sigh. "I'll just put it on your record and get it over with. No twerking."
"Oh, Marshall, now you've done it. They won't be able to resist!"
"No twerking!"
Raleigh felt a dazed laugh burst out, and even Yancy's lips were starting to twitch. (They'd investigated that very possibility, only to conclude, much to everyone's disappointment, that Gipsy's lower back didn't have the flexibility. Stephanie and Kennedy had high hopes for accomplishing it in the Mark IV. For Gipsy's dance move, Tendo was advocating fiercely for disco, and they actually had a few on the list.)
Gagnon departed in defeat, and Raleigh was almost sorry to see him go. He wasn't sure he wanted to be left alone in a room with this crazy woman who already had them on the defensive. He murmured to Yancy in French, "She is not what I was expecting from the PR people."
"Better or worse?" she asked in French.
Now Yancy lost it and started laughing as Raleigh went bright red. "I love it when that happens!"
"Except when you do it," Raleigh grumbled.
"I haven't done it since I was fifteen, kiddo; not my fault you haven't learned not to talk in front of people! Just smack him if he's a brat, that's what I tell everybody," he told Carolina.
"I'm afraid you come as a pair, my dear, so that counts as standing permission for yourself," she replied. "Especially when you bully your brother!"
"I don't bully him!" Yancy exclaimed.
"Bullshit!" Raleigh coughed.
"Stop that before I put you both in separate corners. Now let me explain what my job is. Yes, public relations, but also inter-department relations. Starting six months ago, you two have demands on you from every corner of the PPDC, and thanks to the paparazzi, that is now going to increase to the rest of the world. You'll never be able to give everyone everything what they want from you. No human being can. I will be helping coordinate your schedules, especially once the public appearances start. That stupid article is just a taste of what's coming."
"Geez, I'd almost managed to forget about that," Yancy groaned. "We got a dramatic reading from the support team during tests."
She laughed. "Also par for the course. They'll get bored with it… eventually." Now Raleigh dropped his face into his hands, but she went on, "My job is not to follow you around telling you what to do or what not to do or make your lives miserable. I'm certainly not here to turn you into an image for the PPDC – regardless of what some of your superiors would like."
"Really?" Raleigh asked doubtfully.
"Really. You're young; don't you read celebrity news? Everyone breaks character eventually and reveals what's behind the curtains. If the Academy, the Corps, school, and your family's child-rearing haven't made you into good men, then it's a lost cause by now."
Raleigh cringed. "Ouch."
She fixed him with a stare as if trying to see into his head, and a sly smile. "Have a little faith in yourself, Raleigh Becket. I don't think many bad people make it this far."
He felt a smile tugging his mouth again. "I thought we were trouble."
"Oh, you are. Lots of good people are hell-raisers under the skin. Look at the Gages. Twenty-eight years of military upbringing and training, but after two years of drifting, they've turned into the Weasley twins!" Now Raleigh was laughing. She finished, "And they've admitted to me that they're happier than they've ever been."
"You know them?"
"I do; I started as a volunteer after the Seoul conference. I worked in human resources and public relations for the Judge Advocate General for nearly thirty years, now I do the same for the Jaeger program." Olivares winked. "Marshall Pentecost recommended this assignment to me. He said you needed a firm hand, never imagining that's not my secret. Now be gentlemen and introduce me to some of your support team."
"That's for me," Yancy said. "This kid's no gentleman." He got his knuckles rapped.
To be continued...
Coming Mid-Week: Our heroes continue preparing for the summer launch of Gipsy Danger, and another team from Class 2016-B is introduced to their Jaeger. But Yancy is having a hard time facing the painful lesson the Rangers have been given by Talon Tasmania, and it leads to another quarrel between the Becket brothers only weeks before launch in Chapter Seventeen: Through Nature To Eternity!
PLEASE remember to review!
Original Character Guide
Gipsy Danger's Crew
Carolina Olivares: Team Liaison/Public Relations Representative, handles internal and external non-combat-related scheduling, public appearances, etc for the Jaeger team and the Rangers. Late 60s, Mexican-American from San Francisco, widow who came out of retirement to join PPDC after K-Day.
Antwan Ferrier: Strike troop Personnel Coordinator, leads a team of Gipsy's support personnel. Jamaican national, age 39, former cruise ship steward who witnessed Kaiceph's attack on Cabo San Lucas.
Brandon Pines: Rescue/Recovery chopper pilot, age 30, American from Monterey, CA. Lost most of his colleagues in combat with Trespasser on K-Day.
Cady Spencer: LOCCENT technician (along with Tendo Choi), mid 20s, Filipino-American from Portland, Oregon
Christian Warner: Drivesuit technician. Age 25, African-American from Atlanta, Georgia, join PPDC with his younger sister, Chloe.
Rangers
Devi and Susanti Hassan: Indonesian-Australian sisters, ages 26 and 24, who graduated the Academy along with the Beckets and are expected to be assigned to an Australian Jaeger. (Which one? You can probably work it out from the canon sources, but if not, wait and see!)
Miguel Blanco and Maria Lopez-Blanco: Rangers of the Mark I Jaeger, Talon "Tango" Tasmania. Late 20s. Argentinian Navy pilots, they discovered their drift compatibility by dancing, and started the Ranger tradition of making their Jaeger dance. Married shortly after Christmas 2016. Tragically, they were the first Rangers to die in battle only a few months after their wedding.
Alejandro "Alex" Quispe and Sunya Flores: Rangers of the Mark II Jaeger, Solar Prophet of Peru. Early 30s, Peruvian/Quechan couple who joined PPDC and graduated in second "class" of pilots in late 2015.
Other PPDC Personnel
Marshall Vincent Gagnon: commanding officer of Jaeger Academy, PPDC Proving Grounds, and Anchorage Shatterdome, successor of Stacker Pentecost. Canadian Air Force officer, age 50.
Priya Katwal: Jaeger Engineering officer, primary designer/testing engineer for conn-pods. Mid-50s, NASA veteran, American of Indian ancestry.