Author's Note: Many thanks for your patience, dear readers! You can probably assume that updates will be coming every two weeks in general from now on. The hours I'm putting in at my new job are incredibly long, and sadly it's not looking like it's going to let up for awhile. If I get a respite, I'll try to post updates sooner. Please keep the reviews coming, they're a very welcome respite for me from legal mind-bending all the time! The latest chapter of my missing moments/Shatterdome Shenanigans story, Tales From The Front Lines, is also up!
Chapter Thirty-Five: Hardship
December 2018…
Lima Shatterdome…
It was a strange, dissonant Thanksgiving for the Americans in the Jaeger Program, seeing the world around them celebrating and glorifying another decisive win against the kaiju, while they were mourning three more Rangers and several dozen support crew. Worse were the undercurrents, the whispers that Silver Lion hadn't actually gone down in combat, but that something had gone wrong.
There was also Kaori Jessop's death. Had it really been breast cancer, just missed until it was too late when all the Rangers went through such constant, exhaustive tests and scans?
Maybe the policy changes that followed were just part of the ever-changing, ever-developing and expanding book of experience in this strange new world of the Kaiju War. Or maybe this was as close to learning from mistakes as the brass would let them get.
All the Mark-2's were grounded for a massive review of their systems, and the radiation review of all the nuclear Jaegers continued. Shatterdome coverage rules were changed, as were the alert schedules, since Raythe had shown her ugly face even before orange alert.
K-Science actually had some theoretical gender worked out on the things, which lightened the mood at last and sparked some hilarious late night television. ("I'm telling you, Raythe can't have been female – she'd just have asked for directions to Tokyo!")
Plans changed for Gipsy Danger too. "We're not going to cart the Jaegers around anymore than we absolutely have to, so instead, Anchorage is coming to you!" Priya Katwal informed them.
Things were a little glum around Lima for the rest of November, especially when Team Romeo and Marshall Pentecost returned from Hawaii, having attended Kaori Jessop's funeral in person. "That's the third Mark-1 Ranger we've lost," Carolina pointed out sadly. "Silver Lion's pilots were also part of that first class. It began with them."
Trying to keep on top of the competition, all the engineering and weaponry industry honchos operating the Sao Paulo Assembly Facility got the Brazilian government to green-light a new Proving Ground outside the city for testing Jaegers in the Southern Hemisphere. So that was where Raleigh and Yancy finally got back into Gipsy Danger again. They and Diablo Intercept got the joint honor of being the inaugural users of those grounds, and the Brazilian locals gathered on all the approach roads whenever it was allowed.
Better still, Dr. Schoenfeld's group from Anchorage included another old friend: Lea Franklin, now with a Master's in Electrical Engineering, on track to have a Ph.D. in eighteen more months, and still six months shy of her twentieth birthday. Antwan Ferrier marched his six-foot-six, three-hundred-pound frame up to loom over her and announced to the Brazilian engineers, "This woman intimidates me." Lea just laughed and hugged him.
Most of the Rangers and crews were resigned to not being allowed to set foot off-base much anymore – especially not the ones under Marshall Pentecost's command. However, the stern Briton surprised them all. "I am requiring two deployment-ready teams to be on-base at all times, and the orange level alert will now begin at eight weeks. If your crews can agree amongst yourselves on the leave schedule, you'll be more likely to be accommodated."
The new schedule meant that half of the crews would have to be on-base for Christmas, and the other half for New Year's, and two months after Raythe, nobody would be allowed off-base at all. Bruce and Trevin had a quick, private discussion with the Beckets, and the four of them conceded Christmas to the Khouris and Team Diablo. Neither the Beckets nor the Gages were terribly religious, while Christmas was a big deal for the Ecuadorian and Chilean teams, so it would mean more to them to be with their families.
The Peruvian government was all too happy to hear the PPDC crews would be sticking closer to base for longer periods of time, and offered to cordon off the nearest beach for the personnel. So Team Gipsy and Team Romeo celebrated the holidays in proper Southern Hemisphere style, on the beach in sight of the Shatterdome.
The Gages and Beckets were given leave for New Year's, but while the Gages went back to Monterey for a few days and all of Gipsy's crew had the chance to go home, Raleigh and Yancy didn't. "Home's where Gipsy is," Yancy told their friends cheerfully. Those who were closest to them must have realized what he really meant: there wasn't anyone "back home" for them to visit anymore.
But their dedication impressed those who didn't know, and it did pay off: after weeks of testing and drilling, just as 2019 began, Gipsy and her pilots were finally cleared to return to active duty.
January 20, 2019…
The orange alert had begun now on January 8, 2019, eight weeks after the previous attack, and all crews were recalled to base. Pentecost was a little more tolerant of on-base recreation than before, recognizing the need for personnel to have ways to unwind. He even issued beach passes to small groups at a time for a few hours each day, up until the ten-week point when the new red alert began.
Nobody could claim he was overly cautious, since the next Breach Alarm came in at exactly ten weeks after the last one. It was a Category III, codenamed Hardship, coming in just shy of Yamarashi in terms of water displacement and toxicity reports from K-Watch.
"He's bipedal, and got some nasty armored blades on the chest and head," Chloe Warner reported from Hawaii. "His toxicity readings are coming up shy of the last few, but those plates are going to make up for it. Taking him down is going to be tough – you'll need a big ship on this."
Worse still, also like Yamarashi, Hardship managed to drop completely off the grid for over a day. "That actually does give us something, if only by process of elimination," the Tunaris told them as the Rangers hung out in their Shatterdome war rooms, chatting and Skypeing on the network. "He'd have been picked up by now if he was aiming for Asia. I'd bet good money it's Lima."
"Place your bets, ladies and gents!" ordered Antwan, getting snorts and catcalls.
"Ten bucks on Lima!" called the Gages.
"We're staying with the home team. Ten on Panama!" announced Steffie.
Nikki Harris was searching the local coastline reports. "I'm not sure if this is related or not, but Concepción just report another big earthquake."
"Huh. Ya think?" Antwan mused.
"This guy even kind of looks like Trespasser. The USGS never did decide if the K-Day quake was actually caused by the Breach or not."
"I'll take it. Ten for Lima," said Raleigh.
"Aw, come on, somebody's gotta bet against their own base, otherwise it's no fun!" protested Yancy.
Raleigh shot him a mock-wounded look. "You'd bet against me, bro?"
"No, no, the Rangers bet in pairs," Team Matador urged from Los Angeles. "We'll put ten dollars on Panama."
"Heyyy, there you go!" Brandon Pines chimed in, and threw a bill to Antwan. "Ten on LA."
"Traitor, traitor!"
The ones who bet on the favorite won the pool; Hardship was next detected by the buoys and echo sounders off French Polynesia, although luckily, he passed the islands by. There wasn't time for any more goofing off in the Lima Strike Group after that. All the orange alarms sounded, jolting people off their cots and out of their drowsy night watches and sending the western Shatterdomes into pre-deployment mode.
The four teams gathered around the monitors. "Amazon Delta's being dropped to Manta, Ecuador; they'll be covering Ecuador and Columbia's section of the zone," announced Tendo. "Diablo Intercept is going down to Concepción, Chile; Romeo Blue to Valparaiso. And we…are… looks like we're staying put in Lima, defending the home turf, my friends."
Raleigh raised his eyebrows at Yancy, unsure if they should take that as an honor or an insult. Yance looked uncertain too, but Antwan leaned towards them. "Lima's the biggest city under this Dome's protection, Becket boys." He nodded to the screen with the enormous map of the South American coastline and the blips that indicated their fellow Jaegers' destinations. "This is strategic and political. Romeo is defending the Santiago region, and Diablo is going to the site of the quake – and their own country. Amazon deploys to the countries that funded her."
That eased their minds a little, though it was hard watching their Dome-mates lifting off from their bays. "You guys take care of yourselves," Yancy called over the coms.
"We will. Hold down the fort, Gipsy! Gonna be a big day!" one of the Gages replied.
It was a long day. Nearly twelve hours later, Raleigh and Yancy were dozing in full gear, and all the other members of the Lima Strike Group had safely touched down, but were still yet to initiate handshake. They finally did when the bogey popped onto the spectrometers installed at the Juan Fernández islands off Chile. "Direction is still southeast. Romeo and Diablo are deploying," Marshall Pentecost informed the Dome crews. "Gipsy Danger, remain at ready. Amazon Delta, preparing for liftoff to Antofagasta."
Team Gipsy heaved a collective sigh. "Think we'll see action this time around?" Raleigh mused, trying not to sound sour about it.
"They may run us down there once they know where he's making landfall. But they can't risk exposing Lima. Amazon got stuck on guard duty in Panama City for Grindylow, so it's their turn to get some action," said Yancy, shrugging. "Let's run a circuitry check. It can't be much longer unless he really changes direction."
Hardship ran sharply south, intriguing the theorists who had been tracking the shockwaves from Concepción's latest earthquake. "Diablo Intercept's got this one," Tendo told them from Gipsy's station at LOCCENT. "I think Team Romeo's a little disappointed."
"Valparaiso ain't, I guarantee you," Christian Warner replied. "Poor Concepción, first another big quake, now a damn Category III kaiju. How you doing, Lea?"
"Fine," Lea Franklin told him over the com from Gipsy's bay. She sounded confident enough, but Raleigh grimaced at Antwan and some of the others. If Nikki and K-Watch had noticed similarities between this bogey and Trespasser, Lea and the other survivors definitely had. But Lea added, "I'm looking forward to watching the devil's lash readouts."
"Go down to Diablo's bay; I bet they'd let you look over their shoulders," urged Tendo. Team Gipsy heard an alarm sound from LOCCENT over Tendo's com. "And, here we go! Target sighted by spotters, incoming to Concepción. ETA, forty minutes. Diablo Intercept and Romeo Blue, fully deployed and ready."
"That's kind of early for Romeo, isn't it?" muttered Antwan.
"They're already airborne, should be touching down in Concepción right after Diablo makes contact. They'll be backup for this horny armored freak."
They wound up needing serious back-up. Concepción, Chile definitely went on the list of "cities that just can't catch a break," in Tendo and Cady's view. And Hardship wound up being a very aptly-named kaiju.
Diablo Intercept's pilots, Ben Gonzalez and Felipe Jara, were damn good. They met the bastard on the peninsula that rose to the north of the city proper and tore into him with their lash and their missiles, backed up with Romeo's Gatling guns. But he kept coming back, and after four hours, they weren't drawing nearly enough blood.
"At least the evacuation's going well," the on-site strike troopers reported. "This population knows not to mess around with natural disasters."
"Or unnatural ones," muttered Cady, as the devil's lash wrapped around Hardship's neck again. The monster roared, but it seemed more like anger than pain. He looked over his shoulder at Diablo's LOCCENT station and Marshall Pentecost, then made a face at Tendo.
Yeah, they might not have been drift compatible enough to pilot a Jaeger, but Tendo knew what he was thinking. "Sir, I think they need back-up to get in there and get physical," he said. Romeo weighed almost twice as much as Diablo. He might be able to overwhelm the bastard.
Pentecost nodded without taking long to think about it, and even Diablo's mission controllers weren't surprised. "Agreed. Amazon Delta, what's your ETA?"
"Eight hours, sir."
"Copy that. Diablo, damage report?"
The Rangers were breathing heavily as they scrambled to cut Hardship off again, at the cost of smashing up one of the coastal fishing towns, but they sounded okay. "Superficial, sir, but this kaiju's not slowing down either."
"Let's mix it up. Let Romeo take point when he joins you, see if the two of you can break through that armor. Romeo Blue, move in."
"Copy that."
One thing for Ben Gonzalez and Felipe Jara, they weren't as full of it as some of the other pilots. As my boys can be, Tendo thought with a wry smile. Or at least, Ben and Felipe didn't let on whether they were miffed about back-up being called in. They'd been together on a Chilean submarine for years before K-Day, so they had experience with being part of a diverse team.
But Hardship decided to mix it up too. The bastard took a flying leap off a cliff into the ocean, dodging lash and mortars, and headed for the mainland. "Fuck, he's running!"
"Gipsy Danger lift crew, get her to Concepción."
Tendo slapped the deployment alerts at his station as Cady grabbed the com. "Gipsy Danger, this is LOCCENT. We're deploying immediately. Hawk crews, prepare for liftoff."
"Get the boys into the conn-pod, pronto, suit crew!" Tendo ordered, and saw the pod doors opening even before he finished the sentence. But his heart was starting to sink. Even as fast as those Jump hawks could fly, it would be close to twelve hours to get Gipsy from Lima to Concepción, and still close to eight before Amazon arrived. If Romeo and Diablo couldn't get on top of this bastard in a hurry, they were going to be in serious trouble.
"I've got Marshall Quijano on the line from Panama, sir. She wants to know if you want Hydra Corinthian to start for Lima," said someone.
"It can't hurt."
Romeo was one of the slowest Jaegers, but they had a good read of their opponent, and were getting into position to cut Hardship off before Gipsy was even off the ground. The hours started to drag again, but they were all breathing easier.
Then it all went to hell. Diablo snagged the kaiju in his lash again, but Hardship had had enough of getting zapped. He gnawed on the thing, sparks flying and kaiju blue spraying, then lunged back towards the Jaeger. Felipe and Ben's bellows and curses rang through LOCCENT, as Tendo and Cady tried to hiss a report of what was happening to the airborne Gipsy. They were still too far away for their instruments to give a good visual.
"Shit!"
"We can't see more than the damn blips, Tendo, what's going on?!" demanded Yancy.
"Fucker's taking the offensive on Diablo Intercept… Romeo's opening up the Gatling on him again, but he's got his back to them. Dammit! He's closing on them!"
"This is gonna be a mayday," Cady muttered as Hardship lunged for Diablo's upper body, overbalancing the Jaeger backwards. "Oh, shit. Shit."
On Diablo's com, they could hear Felipe and Ben yelling. Then one of them was screaming, and red lights and alarms were blaring at Diablo's station.
"Lift crew, where the hell are we?" Now Yancy sounded more dull. Gipsy at least had a voice comm link to the other Jaegers. They could hear what was going on.
"Still ten hours, sir, and believe me, we're at top speed."
"Tendo, can we get permission for the R&R crews to go ahead?" Raleigh asked.
"Hang on… Romeo's on them – wait…" Come on, Gages, come on, give us a miracle here!
They couldn't hear Felipe and Ben anymore, but the Diabo's conn-pod still had two sets of viral signs. Romeo caught up and bodily hauled Hardship by shoulder and tail off their partner and hurled him onto the beach. "Lager, Chicha, get to the pilots. We'll hold him!" one of the twins ordered. They maneuvered around Diablo and charged after the kaiju, putting themselves between him and his prey.
"This is Lager Two, we're descending now!"One of Romeo's R&R choppers was already over the stricken Jaeger.
"I've got vital signs," breathed someone at Diablo's station. "They're alive, at least. The conn-pod is compromised – the right side is partially collapsed. Lager Two, enter on the left shoulder. The right hatch is probably inaccessible."
"Copy that, LOCCENT!"
"Sir?" Tendo said quickly to Pentecost. "Gipsy's R&R team can get there faster than the lift crew; pilots are asking permission to release them."
Pentecost paused, eyeing the displays, then stepped over to Tendo's com. "Gipsy Danger, this is Marshall Stacker Pentecost. You have permission to release two of your R&R teams to assist in Concepción. I want two on your shoulders when you arrive."
"Copy that, sir," said Yancy. "Whiskey Alpha and Beta, you're clear to move ahead to Concepción, top speed. Gamma and Delta, stay with us." Two of Gipsy's support choppers went roaring ahead of the group surrounding Gipsy and her lift hawks.
It would still take Alpha and Beta upwards of eight hours to get there, and if Romeo couldn't stop Hardship, there might not be much left.
Bruce and Trevin were putting everything they had into driving the kaiju away from Diablo and the rescue crews. Tendo pulled his rosary out of his pocket with one hand, and alternated between monitoring Gipsy, monitoring the scene in Concepcion, and bead to chain to bead, silent prayers in his head. It couldn't hurt. He knew he wasn't the only one doing it. Down on the catwalks opposite Diablo's bay, he could see a lot of the crew clustered around the monitors and the speakers, holding hands. That wasn't just camaraderie and anxiety; there were a lot of Catholics in Diablo's South American crowd.
Sometimes they joked about it: praying for Diablo. Team Diablo and Team Amazon started deployment with prayers; Team Gipsy had an elaborate dap that Antwan had taught them, declaring a simple fist-bump was insufficient. Team Romeo had an army chant; Team Yankee had a Marine one. Team Hydra had the group clap and chant from Steph and Kennedy's swim team days (in defiance of their popular image as cheerleaders).
"This is Rescue/Recovery Lager Two; we're reached the pilots. Starting emergency treatment; we'll need to evacuate them immediately."
So Ben and Felipe were alive, but... Come on, guys, pull through this.
"LOCCENT, this is Chicha One. We're picking up radiation spikes near Diablo. He's face-down, but the reactor may be damaged."
"Can you get the pilots out of there without ground aid?" asked Pentecost.
"I think so, sir. We're still inside the safety band inside the pod."
"Copy that. Rescue/Recovery, tell the local first responders to clear out until we get the nuclear crew in there, and get yourselves away from Diablo as soon as you can."
"LOCCENT, this is Amazon Delta. We're hitting some heavy weather north of Valparaiso! ETA six hours."
"Dammit," muttered Tendo, and he heard Raleigh or Yancy echo it in Gipsy's pod. At this rate, Romeo would be fighting Hardship alone all night. No drift could last forever, not even one as strong and stable as the Gage twins'. If they couldn't take this bastard down, how long could they hold out?
"How long since their handshake?" asked Raleigh, apparently thinking along the same lines.
"Almost nine hours. I don't even know how long they can go."
The night wound on, and the battle raged through the streets of Concepción and its surrounding towns and hills. Romeo's R&R crew managed to get Ben and Felipe out of the conn-pod and fled for Santiago. Diablo's remaining support teams got to work tailing Romeo and Hardship and trying to assist people caught in their path.
"We have a nuclear emergency building here," the first cleanup specialists reported. "We need everything evacuated for a ten-mile radius, including the shelters."
"So, now we have an earthquake, a kaiju, and a crashed Jaeger with a leaking reactor. Concepción is definitely moving down on the real estate market," muttered Tendo.
"I know, right?" Cady sighed, handing him a refilled cup of coffee. "Christ, we knew we couldn't win 'em all without setbacks, but still… this blows."
"It really, really does."
"ROMEO, WATCH IT!" Among some of Concepcion's tallest buildings, Romeo and Hardship had closed again, and everyone in LOCCENT let out shouts of horror as the kaiju leapt onto the Jaeger. It was a repeat of the maneuver that had taken down Diablo. Tendo heard shouts and even screams from the watchers down in the bays -
- thank God for Romeo's chest fin, and for the spiny armor on Hardship's own front. He couldn't get a good enough grip on Romeo's head, and Bruce and Trevin, panting and snarling, managed to throw him off.
"They're okay, they're okay," Cady hissed into his headset for Gipsy's benefit. "He went for the pod, but they knocked him off - "
"We're all right," the twins confirmed in unison. An hour before, even as they fought, they'd started speaking and moving in a level of synch that was astonishing even by Ranger standards.
"I've never seen them so completely lined up, and that's really saying something," one of their LOCCENT techs was reporting.
But Marshall Pentecost was in contact with Anchorage, and reportedly on a direct line with Dr. Lightcap. "It can only break down from here," he muttered. "We're running out of time."
The Gages seemed to know it. They'd abandoned most of their efforts at keeping the kaiju out of the city and preventing damage, and were now just hacking at the bastard with anything they could get their hands on. They'd ripped a spire or antenna off of a tower and stabbed him in the face and neck, getting some beautiful gushers of blue, but the fucker was still fighting.
Finally, as Jaeger and kaiju staggered back in the general direction of the ocean along the highway, Romeo seized one of the bridges itself, throwing his considerable weight behind it and ripping it free. As Hardship came back in for another shot, they swung, and blue sprayed as they pegged the monster below his axe-shaped head. "Come on, guys, come on!" Tendo yelled, forgetting himself.
"Amazon, where are you?" demanded Pentecost.
"We're over Penco, ETA twenty minutes! Neural handshake initiated!"
Maybe, just maybe, Romeo wouldn't need them. He plowed through the buildings and hammered down on the stunned Hardship with his concrete bludgeon. "Oh, yes, yes!" hissed Cady. The kaiju fell, and the Gages pressed their attack. Again and again, under the skull armor, right over the eyes, under the chin at the jaw.
"I think they've got him, I think they've got him..."
"Kaiju's down!"
"Still have signature, Romeo!"
"We hear you..." Tendo sucked in his breath and felt Cady's hand tighten on his shoulder. Those guys sounded exhausted. Worse, if they were hurt...
He could just make out Isabel Khouri's voice over Amazon Delta's com. "Hang on, hang on, hang on..."
It was as if the Shatterdome shook with every blow. Romeo planted a foot on Hardship's arm and pounded the kaiju until their slab of earthquake-reinforced bridge crumbled, then seized its head by the skull fin and wrenched it, back and forth. Sound wasn't coming through the spotters' pickups very clearly amid the sizzling and crashing of buildings and explosions and the Jaeger's movements, but Tendo could almost see the monster's neck breaking.
They still breathe in some form or fashion, more like reptiles than humans, K-Science reported. Breaking the neck is just as fatal for them as it is for us mammals.
People were standing up around the LOCCENT stations, chanting, praying, hanging onto each other...
"NO SIGNATURE!" It was Team Romeo's mission controller who made the call, and the Lima Shatterdome erupted into wild cheers.
"QUIET!" Pentecost bellowed, and they all shut up. "Romeo Blue, report!"
For a minute, there was only ragged panting on the speakers. But if they're breathing, they're alive, they'll be okay...
"Romeo?"
"We got it," the twins chorused, sounding weaker than Tendo had ever heard. "'s done."
"This is Amazon Delta, touching down eight hundred meters from you, Romeo. Are we late to the party?" asked Rey Khouri.
Someone was speaking urgently on the line with Pentecost. " - need to shut down NOW," a woman was saying. Dr. Lightcap?
"Romeo Blue, this is Marshall Pentecost. Move away from that carcass. I want you to deactivate handshake and power down immediately."
No answer.
"Romeo, do you copy?"
Oh, shit.
"This is Amazon, we're moving in to assist. Bruce, Trevin, can you hear us?"
"C-copy." The Mark I had taken some nasty blows from the long battle, but Tendo imagined him swaying from sheer exhaustion as he picked his way around the fallen kaiju and climbed back over the bridge towards the beach.
Tendo shamelessly stood up to look over Romeo's mission control crew's shoulders at their readouts. Bruce and Trevin were still at a crazy level of alignment, but their heart rates and breathing were uneven. No joke; no way could they have kept that up much longer. Tendo wasn't sure what exactly happened if a neural handshake destabilized mid-combat… and he was deeply relieved that this hadn't been the moment to find out.
Amazon Delta skirted the wreckage of the city and came to meet them. Tendo mused that this would be another money shot: the Mark-3 glittering green and beautiful in the rising sunlight, supporting the battered, larger Mark-1 as though he were a wounded human. LOCCENT carefully talked them through the power-down, and Amazon's R&R choppers moved in to get Bruce and Trevin out of the pod.
"Pilots disengaged. Vitals are good, no major injuries… We need to evac them on a rig. Severe drift shock, Romeo One's unconscious – make that both, both pilots unconscious."
"Almost sixteen hours," breathed Dr. Faison next to Marshall Pentecost. "They're going to need brain scans as soon as they're back."
"Plan on it. Gipsy Danger, this is Marshall Pentecost. The kaiju is destroyed. Return to base."
"Copy that, sir." Yancy paused. "R&R crews are asking if you need help on-site?"
"That's a yes," someone called grimly.
"Confirmed, Gipsy, Whiskey Gamma and Delta are cleared to proceed to Concepcion." Pentecost mobilized the rest of Lima's remaining strike troops for good measure. "Amazon Delta, rejoin your drop crew and get out of there; I don't want you damaged."
"Understood, sir. Lima Lift Four is picking us up from the beach."
"So we went halfway down to the coast and had to turn around again," Raleigh grunted, stumbling out of the pod to the cheers of Gipsy's suit crew. "Figures."
"Hey, it could be worse; Amazon got all the way there only to find Romeo hogged all the food!" laughed Christian Warner.
"What's the word on Team Diablo?" Yancy asked, his bones making alarming popping noises as he stretched after each armor piece came off. He had a feeling Team Amazon was going to be pretty wiped out too when they got back. He couldn't even imagine how flattened Bruce and Trevin were.
Tendo came in with his tablet, checking the reports from Diablo's crew. "So far, looks like they're going to make it. Not good, but..." He made a face. "Not dead. A lot of broken bones, internal injuries... Ben's got a skull fracture."
Raleigh tripped over his own feet as they got him out of his circuitry suit. "Are the Gages coming back here?"
"Yeah, only Diablo's staying in the hospital down there, and that's for emergency treatment. Bruce and Trev seem to be okay. No injuries really severe, but Dr. Faison wants to get them in the brain scanner ASAP. She didn't even think it was possible to drift sixteen hours, and Dr. Lightcap is really worried."
Christian finished wrangling the layers of their suits off and announced, "That's it, Becket boys. We'll finish up in here; go get some sleep."
"Did you guys get any?" Yancy asked wryly, fumbling into his clothes.
"Yeah, we had shifts once you lifted off. One other bit of good news; K-Watch is installing a new batch of monitors down here, so guess who's comin' to town?" Christian grinned.
"Chloe? Hey, that's great, man!" Raleigh exclaimed, high-fiving him. "When's she getting here?"
"Well, they were planning on getting to work as soon as Pain-In-The-Ass-Horny-Toad was taken down, so they're probably already on their way." Christian waved them cheerfully towards the door. "Everyone should be back on-base in a couple days, rested up, and God willing, we'll have some good news on Team Diablo. Class reunion."
"It's a date. Good job, everyone!"
By mutual unspoken decision, they stopped off at Diablo's bay to check in on their crew and wish them well. "Call us or any of our guys if you need anything," Yancy told them seriously.
"Thank you, Rangers." Their support chief looked wan and tired, but she smiled. "We're just thanking God they're alive. The rest will follow. Go and rest. Every one of you earned it."
I wish we could've done more. Objectively, he knew it might not have helped, and he knew Diablo's crew knew it too. That had been a fast, powerful, and especially-unpredictable kaiju. Yancy and Raleigh were a little surprised that he'd ended up below Yamarashi on the scale - but smaller definitely didn't mean safer. Yamarashi hadn't been able to jump like that.
The Dome was eerily quiet with so many personnel down in Concepción, but it didn't stop Yancy from collapsing into his bed to plunge gratefully into sleep.
He woke with a lurch and a strangled yell, shaking the whole bunk. Heart hammering, he looked at the lower bunk: empty. But Raleigh - Raleigh -
Pure instinct drove him, and he stumbled barefoot to the floor and out of their room and started running.
Raleigh must have woken up earlier, maybe restless as usual - he was down in Diablo's bay. Yancy knew that without having to think about it, but something was wrong, terribly wrong...
He vaguely noticed Tendo coming from the opposite direction, probably from LOCCENT, heard him calling, but he burst into the bay to see a crowd of people standing around one of the monitors..
Among them, Raleigh. Slack-jawed, eyes wide and shocked. Wreckage and smoke were on the screen, a familiar image in the aftermath of an attack, but what had happened -
"Oh my god," people were whispering. "Oh dear God."
"What the hell was that?!"
"Dunno, some kind of explosion - shit, there was no way they could've dodged it - "
" - What?" Yancy caught his brother's arm. Raleigh blinked at him. "What's happened?"
Raleigh just stared, his eyes darting from Yancy back to the screen. He couldn't answer. So Tendo did, his voice strained, jaw clenched.
"Whiskey Gamma's down."
To be continued...
Coming Soon: Even before Knifehead, before the war's turning point, the Jaeger Program lost some of its heroes in action, and Team Gipsy was no exception. Raleigh and Yancy grieve lost friends, and glimpse the ugly side of PPDC propaganda - and back in the United States, an interview with Kaori Jessop's widower gives student journalist Naomi Sokolov a change in perspective in Chapter Thirty-Six: With Their Laughing Comrades.
Original Character Guide
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.
Benjamin (Ben) Gonzalez and Felipe Jara: Diablo Intercept's Rangers, mid-30s, Chilean, worked together on a submarine in the Chilean Navy before K-Day.
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.
Chloe Warner: K-Watch worker in Honolulu, transferred after she and her brother Christian failed to become Rangers at Academy. Age 25.
Cady Spencer: Gipsy Danger LOCCENT Technician (along with Tendo Choi), Filipino-American, age 27 from Portland, Oregon.
Lea Franklin - age 19, lived in San Jose, California. Sole survivor of K-Day out of her family because she was traveling abroad with a school group. Extremely gifted, but has intense social anxiety due to PTSD. Failed the second cut, but stayed with PPDC as an Engineer.
Strike Troop Whiskey Gamma
Brandon Pines: PAVE Hawk pilot, early 30s from Monterey, CA, transferred from the US Air Force, went through Jaeger Academy Class 2016-B with the Beckets and Tendo.
Nicola Harris: Rescue/recovery EMT, age 21 from San Diego, CA, black/Latina. Occasionally has a casual hook-up with Raleigh, graduated Jaeger Academy Class 2017-A as a support officer.
Antwan Ferrier: Gipsy Danger Personnel Coordinator. Age 39, Jamaican national, oldest member of Class 2016-B in the Jaeger Academy with the Beckets and Tendo.