Author's Notes: Just a reminder, details about my original characters (human and Jaeger) can be found on my Tumblr, 3Fluffies, which is linked in my profile. This chapter's first segment draws from a side-story that Travis Beacham wrote about Nova Hyperion. I expanded on the narrative a little bit, but cut it for length - if anyone's interested, perhaps I can be persuaded to post it as a ficlet on Tumblr!
Canon Note: Lima's Chief Medic is actually not an original character - she's a canon character that I borrowed from a television show. Anyone recognize her? (Here's a hint: she was unmarried and went by a nickname in her original canon, from which I've previously borrowed another character.)
Chapter Thirty-Two: Pushing the Envelope
June 2018…
Jaeger Program Tour, Central America…
The Victory Tour (only so-called unofficially, since the officials tended to wince over comparisons between the Jaeger Program and The Hunger Games) traveled from Guatemala up through Mexico, and then back down to Panama. Mexico was publicly as celebratory and warm as the other stops, but behind the scenes, there was quite a bit of tension among the crews. Team Gipsy, Team Hydra, and Team Prophet stuck very close to Team Matador, smiles on all their faces but eyes constantly on the lookout for trouble.
"Nobody would dare mess with them," the more confident souls insisted. "Not after what they did for that ship, not with all of us right here."
Raleigh Becket and Team Hydra seemed to agree, but Tendo could tell that Yancy and the elder Rangers of Solar Prophet weren't about to take that for granted. And there was an awfully large police and military presence at the Mexican events, more so than any of the other countries.
Mexico was still fun. Many passengers on the Esperanza had been from there, so between that and simple patriotic fervor at having their homegrown Rangers visiting, the general public lavished adoration on Andrés and Daniel. Matador's pilots in turn were gracious and happy to receive it. The Rangers and crews partied their way from Acapulco to Mexico City.
The public relations brass happily capitalized on the drama of the long battle. The blow from the "Hydra's breath" cannon didn't need much help to turn into a viral media sensation; it really was a spectacular shot. But as the post-engagement reports got put together with all the instrument readings, somebody got the bright idea of hiring some animators to reconstruct the dramatic underwater drag-and-chase that Gipsy had gone through.
The result really was an Indiana Jones-esque action sequence that inspired the crew to buy fedoras for Raleigh and Yancy. "Now we know what you can say when anyone fusses about your age," Christian Warner told Raleigh.
"'It's not the years, it's the mileage,'" Raleigh chorused with everyone in the vicinity. "I think I need that on a T-shirt."
He got it. Yancy picked "I've nearly been incinerated, drowned, shot at, and chopped into fishbait."
Soon everybody on Gipsy Danger's support crew had Indiana Jones quotes or paraphrases on their team shirts. All the reptile-phobic crew members had "Snakes, why'd it have to be snakes," and Nikki Harris got yet another fifteen minutes of fame with a money shot of her climbing onto Tendo's back, shrieking in terror when a local performer was showing off his pet anaconda.
Tendo had "Not that Becket, the other Becket," and was informed that he was giving Christian a run for the money as Team Gipsy's Punner-in-Chief.
Brandon Pines and the other chopper pilots had "Fly, yes. Land, no."
Diablo Intercept's crew prepared a playful "statement of protest" for the media, complaining that they should've been the ones to get the Indiana Jones comparisons since they were the ones with the whip.
"Remember what happened LAST time somebody stole Indy's whip!" Carolina threatened in response, getting a chorus of "oooooh!" from Team Gipsy.
Down in Panama City, Class 2016-B had another reunion, this time with former second-cut survivors Brian Patrick and Janet McDonald, who were now on Rio Sentry's Rescue/Recovery crew. "I told you we'd see you again!" Janet laughed, hugging the Beckets fiercely. "You were fantastic - here and in Los Angeles."
"These two were beside themselves," Rio Sentry's left-hand, Elida Morales, told them.
Rio Sentry's team was an interesting duo; the first time they met was during pre-screening after making the first cut. "The Academy's had a few who were only casual acquaintances or recently introduced, but so far Elida Morales and Nicho Conte are the only pair who never even had a conversation until after the first cut," Carolina told them.
Tendo knew he wasn't the only curious one, but he suspected that Elida and Nicho were constantly fielding those types of questions, so he politely held his peace (and gossiped behind their backs, because he wasn't that polite).
"She's American, but spent most of her life Central America," said one of the Rio Sentry support crew who'd been in Class 2017-A with them. "Parents were Peace Corps lifers, environmentalists, that kind of thing. He's Ngäbe from Costa Rica. When he started at Academy, Nicho didn't even talk a lot because his English wasn't great. Nice guy, great scores on the tests, picked up the Bushido like he'd been doing it all his life, but he was just still finding his feet. We all did the pre-drift testing and matching, they matched up with each other and a couple others - you know how the drill went."
"Yeah, I had three matches," Tendo confirmed. "Didn't crack eighty percent with any of 'em."
"That's standard for the majority," Rio's crew agreed. "I think maybe Elida's family spent some time around the Ngäbe populations in Panama, so they spent some time together, him teaching her his language and her helping him with English. Nobody really noticed anything, 'cause everybody was working on ways to synch up. They go in there - BOOM. Eighty-six percent, first try! It was crazy!"
"I remember," said Andrés, having been in the same class. "Sometimes people connect, and there is no explaining it. Or there is an explanation, but not to outsiders."
Nicho now spoke English more than well enough to chat and handle communicating with LOCCENT. His bond with Elida seemed just as strong as Raleigh and Yancy's, Tanisha and Caleb, or Andrés and Daniel's. To each other, they spoke a combination of English, Spanish, and a native language that Tendo assumed was Nicho's. There were nudges and raised eyebrows, people wondering if they were an item, but nobody on Team Rio would talk.
After Panama and a belated launch party for Rio Sentry, Team Gipsy and Team Hydra went back to LA briefly for the launch of Mammoth Apostle, America's second Mark-4. Raleigh and Yancy were tickled to discover that Marshall Ramirez had ordered another Jaeger-kaiju table map for the LA Shatterdome.
At that point, Tendo and most of the support staff headed down to set up shop in Lima for Gipsy's convalescence in the Sao Paulo Assembly Facility. Raleigh and Yancy, along with Team Hydra, got the special honor of being sent to the other side of the Pacific for the launch of Nova Hyperion.
Seeing the images of the two girls – formerly Olympics-level fencers – and the other pilots surrounded by press and admirers in Shanghai, Busan, and Nagasaki, Brandon Pines said with some envy. "Damn, Rangers have a good gig!"
Tendo smiled. "They should. None of them are ordinary people."
Crazier still, the day after Nova launched, China announced the upcoming launch of Crimson Typhoon, the Mark-4 that would be piloted by the Wei triplets... all three of them.
"Are you SHITTING me?!" was the general initial reaction.
Tendo got a Facebook message from Raleigh in Nagasaki that evening: We were hanging out with the Tunaris when we saw China's press release. Gunnar says he can't decide whether he wants to kill those guys or build a temple to them.
Tendo wrote back, Now we know what Doc Lightcap's "special project" was in Hong Kong for the past three years: a 3-way pons!
From Yance: Why the hell hasn't anyone built a temple to HER yet?!
August 30, 2018…
Lima Shatterdome…
Lima's chief medic, Dr. Eleanor Faison, was a quiet, strictly-business American married to a genetics researcher who'd gone from working with fruit flies to studying kaiju. The rowdy crew of Team Gipsy weren't sure what to make of her, though she did pass the "map test," (meaning she smiled when she saw them putting it together in the "personnel lounge" off the mess hall).
After Team Gipsy settled into Lima Shatterdome, they started doing regular simulations. A few weeks in, Raleigh had a nagging headache that no amount of Ibuprofen or Excedrin seemed to halt. At first it was just annoying, then he woke up with a strange, familiar pressure in his skull.
It was familiar not because he'd experienced it, but because Yancy had. "Yance?" he muttered, thumping his brother's bunk.
"Mm? Rals? What's..." Maybe it was ghost drift, or just the fact that Raleigh wasn't already bouncing out the door that tipped him off. "Uh-oh."
Yancy got dressed in a rush and helped his brother fumble into his clothes, then ushered him down to the infirmary. "Whoa!" Trevin Gage did a one-eighty in the corridor as they passed. "You okay?"
"Not sure," Yancy told them, and kept Raleigh moving. Trevin trailed after them.
Yancy was irked with Dr. Faison when her first question was: "Hangover?"
"We don't drink after ten weeks," he told her curtly. "It's not a hangover. I've had Jaeger-head, but Raleigh hasn't."
"Ah. Have a seat, Ranger. Let's dim the lights." She was gentle with him from that point on, pulling up his and Yancy's charts on her tablet and keeping her voice low. Bruce Gage slipped into the infirmary within a few minutes and stood silently at Trevin's side, just keeping watch. "How bad is it?"
Raleigh hissed when she looked into his eyes, but wasn't completely flattened - yet. "Not too bad so far. Not as bad as I remember Yance being, but there's this pressure... that's how it started, like everything's echoing and pushing out of my head."
"Okay. Before it gets any worse, let's get you through the scanners and rule out any other causes."
Yancy watched and gnawed on one of his knuckles until it bled. "It's not hitting him as fast as it did me," he muttered.
"The onset with you was really fast," mused Bruce. "You'd just fired Gipsy's plasma for the first time, then, right? That might've aggravated it. It was a couple of hours for Vic and Gunnar and the others who got it. You getting any of it now?"
"Maybe a little. It does feel the same... sort of pain, if that makes any sense." Yancy wasn't worried about himself, though his phantom drift with his brother had only grown in strength since his first round with Jaeger-head. He could deal with drift pain... he was more worried about the agony Rals was about to go through.
Somebody tipped off Reynaldo and Isabel Khouri, and soon Amazon Delta's pilots had joined them, as silent support along with more and more Team Gipsy personnel. "You ever had it?" Nikki Harris asked them.
They shook their heads. "We have migraines," said Rey. "Especially Isabel. Hers are very bad, but..."
But Jaeger-head is worse, Yancy finished mentally. Carolina arrived and made him stop chewing his knuckle. He paced instead.
"I know it's small consolation, but better Jaeger-head than something dangerous," Tendo pointed out. "You guys are all at high risk for bleeds, aneurysms, the works."
It wasn't much, no. But there was some relief to be had, seeing Dr. Faison eliminating strokes and hemorrhages from the possible diagnosis list. After an hour, she let Yancy join Raleigh in the darkened scanner room while she finished reviewing the results. "It's not too bad," he murmured, leaning against Yancy.
"But it's getting worse?"
"...Yeah."
The doctor came very quietly back in, and Yancy noticed with a rush of gratitude that she'd turned down the lights in the adjoining room so it didn't bother Raleigh when she opened the door. "It's definitely Jaeger-head," she told them softly. "There's a signature that Neurology has identified in the MEG scans; it's neuronal, vascular attack similar to a migraine, just stronger. Apart from that, you've got a very healthy brain. We'll get you into the dark room and some painkillers - "
- The alert sirens went off. Phantom pain lanced through Yancy's head, and Raleigh let out a strangled yell, clutching his hands over his ears. The scanner room wasn't sound proof, and he could hear the explosive curses and shouts from outside as people ran for stations.
ATTENTION. ATTENTION. Movement in the Breach. Yellow Alert.
"Aw, shit, PERFECT timing, motherfuckers!" someone bellowed.
"Christ. Yancy, take him to the - "
" - No!" Raleigh blurted, trying to get to his feet. "I can't, not now!"
Yancy exchanged a baffled look with Faison. "What?"
Cringing even in the dim light of this room and the noise muffled by the closed door, Raleigh nonetheless insisted, "We're on alert. I can't be grounded! There's a treatment now for attacks, right? Give me that."
"The stimulant blast? No, that's ridiculous; you two don't even have a Jaeger."
"I don't care!" Raleigh snapped. "I'm not sleeping through an attack!"
But he winced again when someone rapped on the door, and Marshall Pentecost appeared. "Doctor? What's the status?"
"Give me the shot - "
"Wait." Faison stalked out of the room and shut the door.
Yancy caught Raleigh to try and stop him from following, but his brother pulled free. It had to look ridiculous, him barely able to stand as he came out, cringing from the full light. Faison was speaking to Pentecost in a hushed, urgent voice, pointedly ignoring Raleigh, and now Yancy was the one who cringed. Damn, that is the absolute worst way to deal with Rals when he gets in a mood like this.
The look Pentecost gave them definitely didn't help: it was... dismissive. "There is no point in subjecting yourself to the stimulant rebound, Ranger. Your Jaeger is still in pieces in Sao Paulo."
Gritting his teeth, breathing shallow from the pain Yancy could tell was only getting worse, Raleigh stood his ground. "I know we're not being deployed, sir. But we're still on alert, and somewhere, there is gonna be deployment. I can't be sedated."
"Rals!" Yancy near-enough pleaded, but his brother shot him a furious glare.
"You promised," he growled.
Fuck. Yancy almost, almost contradicted him. Almost told Pentecost and Faison that Raleigh wasn't thinking clearly, of course, they shouldn't consider something so pointless as pumping him full of stimulants to hold the attack back for a few hours with the inevitable rebound afterwards making it that much worse later. This was just bravado talking, him trying to see how far he could go again and not being willing to stop until he was flattened again...
...but he couldn't. Because as frustrated as Yancy was, he knew Raleigh was still thinking clearly... if stupidly and rashly. I promised I wouldn't interfere with your life again, even if I thought I knew better. He'd promised himself, and then he'd promised his brother.
"Raleigh, this is crazy," Carolina protested. "You can't do anything!"
"I can be on top of what's going on," Raleigh shot back. He eyed Pentecost. "It's my choice, sir."
Faison had gone for back-up; she was on the vid comm to Dr. Tán in Anchorage. "Do you have any idea how painful that rebound is?!" Tán was saying. "It shouldn't be authorized unless there's no other choice!"
Pentecost wasn't looking at them; he was looking at Raleigh, and his expression was... contemptuous. Yancy felt his fists tighten. Even now, as exasperated (bordering on desperate) as he felt, he still bristled at that attitude directed at his brother. Near the door hovered Tendo and a few of the crew who should probably already be in the war room, but they were frozen, watching the standoff with wide eyes.
"Do you know the difference between perseverance and ego?" Pentecost had asked. Raleigh had said he didn't think it mattered. Here was the case in point.
Nikki leaned toward one of Dr. Faison's assistants. "What's in that stimulant blast?" she muttered. Whatever the guy whispered made her eyes go wide, and she looked urgently at Raleigh, trying to catch his eye, shaking her head. Yancy could guess what she was thinking: Don't do it, Spunky.
What are you trying to prove, Rals?!
The Fightmasters had managed not to hurt him, but Tessori wasn't here. This wasn't a test or a spar. But Pentecost wasn't overruling Raleigh, and Raleigh had turned his attention back to Faison. "Is that stuff actually dangerous?"
She was examining the vials, scowling. "We don't know," she ground out. "Jaeger-head is probably just a harmless neural surge, but we don't know for sure. This is an asinine reason to pump you full of powerful drugs."
"Is it my decision or not?" Raleigh hissed. But he was having to hold onto the nearest counter to stand up straight, and Yancy could see he was starting to shake.
Pentecost stared at him for a long time, lips thin, eyes scathing, then, at last, he gave the faintest snort. "Fine. If you're determined, Ranger Becket, then fine. Give him the treatment." He turned away in disgust, but Faison didn't move.
"Is that an order, Marshall?"
Pentecost looked at Raleigh. Yancy held his breath. "Yes. If he wants it, then do it."
God damn it.
But Faison shut her eyes for a moment, then slid the pharmaceutical locker drawer closed again. All her staff visibly braced themselves, and Yancy figured it out just before she said it: "No, sir."
Now Pentecost gave her his undivided attention, and finally, Raleigh's own self-important stance faltered. Pentecost's voice was low, level, and fucking terrifying. "Are you refusing to obey my order, Doctor?"
"Yes, I am." She turned her head, eyes hard. She was a small woman, soft-spoken and clearly no military medic, but at this moment, she was an immovable object, challenging everyone else to be the unstoppable force. "I won't administer medication for purposes of torture, even by the patient's own choice." She shot Raleigh a glance no less scornful than what Pentecost had given him. "Whatever macho point you're trying to make, I will not help you." She turned back to the Marshall. "So you can report me for insubordination - "
" - Wait!" Raleigh took a step forward, and almost dropped; he had to grab the counter again. "Okay. Just - don't, okay. Ground me."
There was a collective whoosh of breath from the Gipsy staff by the door, but the medical staff were still anxiously watching Pentecost. He didn't betray any obvious satisfaction, but said, "Then the matter's closed. You're in Dr. Faison's supervision until she releases you. Now let's proceed with the small issue of the kaiju currently in the ocean."
Ouch.
Pentecost stalked out, barking "Stations!" at the Gipsy personnel who lingered. Shooting Yancy pained looks, they scattered, leaving him to deal with his idiot brother and the now-thoroughly-peeved medics.
To Dr. Faison's credit, she didn't rub Raleigh's nose in it, just beckoned to Yancy. "C'mon. Dark room. Martín, give him a hand."
"Dumbass," someone muttered, slipping past them, and the big orderly who came to help keep Raleigh on his feet was rougher than he needed to be. But the fight had gone out of Raleigh, and he slumped in their grasp, squinting in the lights.
In its own way, this was starting to feel like that night in Anchorage after he and Raleigh had fought. Everyone was glaring at them. Why were so many of them glaring at Yancy too? He hadn't... but we come as a pair now. I should've been able to stop him before it got that far.
Shouldn't he?
The dark room in the Lima Shatterdome was bigger than the little store room where Yancy had spent his Jaeger-head vacation. It was essentially another full-sized room of the infirmary, big enough for several beds, cool, silent with thickly-padded, reinforced walls. Dr. Faison shot Martín a warning look when he more or less dropped Raleigh once they reached the bed. "Turn the lights out as you go," she said curtly, pulling a pair of night vision glasses over her nose.
Yancy was still easing Raleigh into the bed when the place went black, and he was blinded. He felt Dr. Faison press a pair of goggles into his hand and fumbled them on. Raleigh was starting to shake harder, and the phantom throb in Yancy's own head was growing... along with a strange tightness in Yancy's throat that he realized was Raleigh, not him.
"'m sorry, Doctor," his brother mumbled, his eyes squeezed shut.
"Shh." She put a cold pack on his forehead with gentle hands - but she didn't tell him it was okay. "I'm giving you some painkillers. The worst should be past in a day." He bit his lip as she injected him, then she asked Yancy, "Do you know where the pressure points are? That can help."
"Yeah. I can stay, right?"
"Of course." She pointed to the pager next to the bed. "I'll be on call as long as the alert goes on, so page me anytime. If he starts seeing glare or hallucinates, call me right away."
"Yes, ma'am." She patted his shoulder and then let herself out. Not a sound came into the dark room once she'd closed the door, although Yancy knew the Shatterdome had to be full of activity with the alert going on. Feeling drained, he started cautiously rubbing Raleigh's temples. Raleigh's breath hitched, and he hesitated. "Did that hurt?"
"Yance... I'm so sorry." He sounded broken, with more than just pain. "I didn't... didn't want..."
Oh, Rals. What the hell am I gonna do with you? "Just rest, kiddo."
"Can't!" Raleigh was breaking, and the worst of this damn attack hadn't even hit yet. "Yance, don't... please..." It was getting worse, fast, and the painkillers were only making him less coherent.
There wasn't strictly-speaking a ghost drift between their minds now. Probably a good thing, because now all Yancy had to deal with was a dull, phantom throb and sympathetic pain from his own memories, rather than a repeat performance of his neurons blasting and all his blood vessels contracting. So he couldn't hear/feel what Raleigh was thinking the way they did in the drift... but they'd drifted more than long enough for him to work out what his brother meant:
Don't hate me. Don't be disgusted with me. Don't be ashamed of me. I can't rest if you're mad at me. After all, Yancy felt the same desperation every time he fucked up. God knew, he'd fucked up his share of the time.
He sighed and ran his fingers through his kid brother's hair, gently massaging his scalp. "It's okay, Rals. It'll be okay. I'm not mad." Not anymore. "We'll get through it." They both knew he didn't mean the Jaeger-head.
Of all the puffed-up, reckless, immature Jaeger hoodlums, Raleigh bloody Becket is surely the worst! It was just as well that Razorfin turned in the exact opposite direction of Lima, because Lima's Marshall wasn't in the best of mindsets. I shouldn't have let him change his mind. I should have ordered Faison to do it and let the brat writhe for a few days. Maybe he'd have learned his lesson about priorities.
Once it was clear the bogey was headed towards China, Stacker and his fellow Western Marshalls issued the stand-down order and breathed a little easier, but that only left him free to wallow in pent-up frustrated energy. He exercised in his own quarters to escape the nervous stares of Gipsy Danger's crew and the medical staff, and seethed at Becket and Faison. Well, he had a little more understanding of Faison's position, though her defiance rankled him. Still, even that turned most of his ire on the mass of over-inflated ego and brainless-muscle-in-a-drivesuit that was Gipsy's left hemisphere.
After several hours of trying to work off his frustration while watching the bogey's deadly red blip meandering around the East China Sea, he felt a little more himself. Or rather, he at least felt that he'd regained enough composure that he was no longer in danger of beheading the next person who looked at him wrong.
Back in LOCCENT, the Gages and the Khouris were quietly observing the pre-deployment shuffle, musing on Razorfin's movements with the local K-Watch staff. "Horizon Brave and Nova Hyperion are going to Shanghai. Crimson Typhoon's staying in Hong Kong with Silver Lion, and they'll float Shaolin Rogue out if they need to," Tendo Choi reported. "Tidal Dragon's with Coyote Tango in Naha. Lucky Seven's in Manila, Vulcan Specter's staying in Sydney in case he veers off. The Russians are all at pre-dep."
"Nasty weather in Nagasaki. Let's hope he doesn't run north," Bruce Gage remarked.
"The only thing I ever hope for is that these fuckers turn around and go back into their hole," snorted someone.
"If wishes were Jaegers, we'd all be Rangers," Choi replied.
"Oh, good one, Señor Choi," chuckled Isabel Khouri. She spotted Stacker in the reflection of the screen and nodded to him. "No landfall imminent, Marshall."
Well-warned, Señora Khouri, he thought, mostly without rancor as the staff and other Rangers straightened up quickly.
An hour later, Razorfin moved into the shallower parts of the reefs making up the Okinawa Islands, and Tidal Dragon went out for offshore intercept. Stacker caught Choi whispering to Brandon Pines. "Maybe go let Yancy know, just so he and Rals are up on what's going on."
They stiffened and eyed Stacker when they realized he'd heard them, and Stacker maliciously pondered ordering Pines to stay where he was. Let them stew... No. That sort of vindictive motivation was no better than Becket's pride-driven posturing earlier. So he nodded to Pines, who departed with visible relief. After all, Yancy doesn't have the benefits of sedatives, and now has both his brother and the alert to worry about.
Nor had Yancy been the one whose arrogance had triggered all this additional tension. He didn't deserve to be punished for Raleigh's behavior.
Dragon had been designed for water combat, and her engineers had to be dancing with joy at her performance. She took point and drove bunker-buster torpedoes into the kaiju's flank, then tore into it with her talons. She could also draw water straight from the ocean, blasting it out superheated and flash-boiling at close range. Coyote waded to the nearest uninhabited shore until Razorfin nearly blundered into her, then delivered still more punishment.
Sadly, the bastard escaped and dove, but K-Watch tracked him as he aimed next for Shanghai, and Horizon Brave was waiting, joined by Nova Hyperion. They dispatched him at the ten-mile mark after three hours of combat, sustaining what looked like only minor damage to themselves.
In Lima, the staff and Rangers applauded happily, and Stacker gave the LOCCENT crews their usual assignment to assist in the post-engagement investigation. "I like my job so much more when it's a clean kill!" sighed Choi.
Clean was a relative term in the Kaiju War, of course. There had been fatalities in the shipping and fishing traffic and the smaller populated islands, as usual. But Okinawa's northernmost cities with their thousands had been spared, as had Shanghai, a city of twenty-four million.
This was progress.
Stacker logged onto the network in his quarters for his usual post-engagement routine. Even as cross as he felt, his first order of business was the same as it had been for two years:
SPentecost: Online
[Private]: Online
[Private]: Is it dead, Sensei?
SPentecost: It is dead. Japan, Korea, and China drove it away from the cities.
[Private]: Which Jaegers were they?
SPentecost: Tidal Dragon, Coyote Tango, Horizon Brave, and Nova Hyperion.
[Private]: Do you miss Coyote Tango?
SPentecost: Sometimes.
He changed the subject to her studies, and spent a relaxed hour talking with her. After the next engagement in the winter, assuming all went well (granted, that was still a large assumption in the war), he would take her to Hawaii to visit Tamsin. As he logged off, his comm buzzed.
It was Cady Spencer and Tendo Choi. "Sir, we have a preliminary report from the Okinawa engagement for your review."
Spencer and Choi were among the formerly civilian recruits still intimidated as hell by Stacker and the other senior officers - Rangers excepted - and avoided any contact not absolutely necessary. They could have just transmitted it to the Marshall's review, knowing Stacker would be expecting it. Instead, they wanted to walk it down.
This was going to be irritating. "Anything interesting, gentlemen?"
To their credit, the LOCCENT officers kept professional detachment as they handed him the tablet and explained the issue. "Tidal Dragon has had to be moved into an exclusion zone, sir. There's a problem with the cooling system on their reactor."
Actually, that was fairly urgent. "Status of the pilots?"
"Evacuated, but they and the recovery crews are being hospitalized for exposure."
Damn. And we were ready to call this another decisive win. "What about Coyote? How close was she?"
"The Tunaris are clear, but their lift crew is under observation. Only minor damage to her systems. Admiral Yamamoto and General Liang are asking for a full medical review of radiation protocols in the Mark-2's and Mark-3's," said Choi.
Hadn't they focused on prevention after all the problems with the Mark-1's? "Done. I'll instruct Dr. Faison to form a task force."
Now the pair exchanged glances, and Stacker knew what else was coming. Choi was the one who decided to go for it. "Permission to speak freely, sir?"
His lips twitched against his will. He could always tell when the civilian transplants had internalized more military protocol from Star Trek than from the real world. "Granted."
"Raleigh Becket's been punished enough, and it wasn't Dr. Faison's fault."
Choi and Spencer were closer in age to the Gages than the Beckets, but they were another pair who acted more like eternal college students. The only thing that prevented Stacker from brushing them off sharply was the fact that they were at least making an effort to be professional. He ought to encourage that, even if it felt more like child-rearing than commanding a military base.
So he informed them neutrally, "As far as Dr. Faison's role goes, the matter is closed."
He knew who they were really worried about. "Sir... he knows it was stupid, and he's still in there now. Isn't Jaeger-head enough?"
"Ranger Becket disrupted this base during an alert for no better reason than his ego, Mr. Choi." I'm not going to let him off with a pat on the head.
But Spencer narrowed his eyes. "May I have permission to speak freely, sir?"
"You already have it."
"Very freely?"
Oh, this'll be interesting. "Granted."
The Beckets' snarky, loud, frequent partner-in-crime visibly braced himself, and said, "He wasn't the only one." Stacker raised an eyebrow. "It... appeared to me that Ranger Becket wasn't the only one whose ego was talking during that confrontation."
Well. No wonder Spencer had wanted to confirm freedom to be blunt. "You think so?"
Choi nodded. "He... Sir, you could have ordered him grounded. Dr. Faison was all for it. So was Yance - I mean, Ranger Beck - I mean Gipsy One. That would have ended it. But you..." he trailed off. Impatiently, Stacker gestured at him to continue. "There didn't have to be a standoff, sir. There were two people in it."
Keeping his face straight, Stacker mulled over that. Spencer cautiously dropped another weight onto the scale. "At Raleigh's final spar in 2016, I was there, sir. I remember the way you looked at him."
Now an incredulous snort escaped Stacker. "Are you laboring under the impression that I have a grudge against Raleigh Becket?!"
They looked at each other, and something heavier began to settle in Stacker's insides… something that he couldn't brush aside so easily. "He can be immature, we all know it," said Spencer. He gave a wry half-smile. "He's not the only one, we know that too. But... sir, with you, it seems more... personal."
At that moment, he heard Luna and Tamsin in the back of his mind, imagined them sniggering somewhere behind him, watching the show. "Zing!" Luna would hiss in delight.
"You're down on points, Stacks!" Tamsin would add.
If they'd seen the confrontation with the Beckets in the infirmary, they'd have been rolling their eyes, calling it nothing more than a pissing contest…
... with two contestants: Raleigh bloody Becket and Stacker bloody Pentecost. "Horns locked and measuring tape out," Tamsin would have announced loudly. Too bad she hadn't. Then it might not have gone on as long as it had.
Damn. "I don't have any sort of personal dislike of Ranger Becket - either of them."
"That's a lie, that's a lie!" Luna sang in his head. "He reminds you of someone, big brother!"
Especially when he's being stupid, little sister, now be quiet and let me work.
Choi said urgently, "He won't try anything like that again, sir. We've all been checking on him; he's apologized over and over even when he shouldn't be talking at all."
Enough. He stood up. "I'll take your concerns into consideration. Dismissed." He said nothing about what he would actually do to or about Becket, and the men knew it, but they went.
To be continued...
Coming Next Weekend: Tamsin Sevier is in the house... sort-of. Stacker gets some advice and insight from his best friend, and our heroes have learned some lessons after getting knocked down a peg in Chapter Thirty-Three: Middle Ground!
PLEASE don't forget to review!
Original Character Guide
Andrés Alcazar and Daniel Moreno: Matador Fury's Rangers, Mexican nationals, age 39. Andrés was a historian and Daniel was a lawyer, both writing and working against institutional corruption before being imprisoned for an unknown period. They were released along with other non-violent prisoners to attempt the Jaeger Academy, but have not yet been granted a pardon.
Elida Morales and Nicho Conte: Rangers of Rio Sentry, a Panamanian Mark-4 Jaeger. Late 20s, Elida is Hispanic American and Nicho is native Costa Rican. They met for the first time at the Jaeger Academy but succeeded at drifting.
Brian Patrick and Janet McDonald - First cousins, Irish nationals, mid-20s. One of four teams in the Jaeger Academy's Class 2016-B (including the Beckets) to survive the second cut, but failed to make the third cut. They joined support staff at the Panama Shatterdome and are now on Rio Sentry's crew.
Reynaldo ("Rey") and Isabel Khouri: Rangers of Amazon Delta, a Mark-3 Jaeger jointly funded and built by Peru, Colombia, Ecuador, and Brazil. A married couple from Guayaquil, Ecuador in their early 30s. Reynaldo is of Lebanese descent, and Isabel is mestizo.
Carolina Olivares: Gipsy Danger's Public Relations Representative, Mexican-American, mid-60s, crew den mother.
Christian Warner: Gipsy Danger drivesuit technician, late 20s, African-American from Atlanta, GA, attended academy with Beckets and his sister, Chloe, who is now in K-Watch.
Nicola Harris: Rescue/recovery EMT with Whiskey Gamma, one of Gipsy Danger's strike trooper teams, age 21 from San Diego, CA, black/Latina. Occasionally has a casual hook-up with Raleigh.
Cady Spencer: Gipsy Danger LOCCENT Technician (along with Tendo Choi), Filipino-American, age 27 from Portland, Oregon.
Brandon Pines: Support chopper pilot for team Whiskey Gamma, one of Gipsy Danger's four strike trooper teams, early 30s from Monterey, CA, transferred from the US Air Force.