Jack dreamed about Jaegers the first time he saw Yukon Brawler on the television. Growing up in Minnesota was as far from the coast as one could get, and the townfolk had been caught up in the fervor as the rest of the world, but their enthusiasm quickly waned when the action remained distant. Only Jack still hungered for more after Yukon's televised debut. He scoured the shelves for the few plastic figures that made it to the toy aisle of the general store, and imagined himself at the helm. Any spare cent went towards books and stat cards, tracking the transition from the Mark 1's to the 2's. When he came of age, there was no question where he wanted to be- the only delay had been telling his father, who like others had come to believe that the Jaegers were pure propaganda to justify the ration cards the federal government rolled out. The rest of the world called it survival- the midwest called it theft. In the end, Jack wasted his time trying to find the right time to enlist; there was no right time.
The first time he laid eyes on the Academy's resident Jaeger, Sensei, Jack's heart had pounded so hard Sensei's profile had jumped and bounced in his vision. Now Belladonna Banshee did the same. She towered taller than even Sensei had that first day, topping him by at least another hundred feet and spanned another 5 decks above them. In one moment, her immensity made it seem as though he could reach out and touch her. The next, Jack caught sight of the technicians barely visible against her hull. Technicians worked on key points of her hull, mere ants against her massive bulk- he spied one cluster on her left shoulder, another spaced evenly across the dead center of her breastplate, sparks flying as they welded the edges of her plating.
Banshee's helm evoked the style of the medieval greathelms he saw in history books, with a flat top and a narrow eye slit to serve as the viewport of the connpod. Sparks from the technicians working on her shoulder flared against the red tint of the viewport screen, dancing across the metal like a heartbeat. She stood at a proud attention, her chest plates closed to present a battle ready warrior, just waiting for her pilots. Jack could barely breathe as he continued to stare.
In the shadows, her hull gleamed a rich, thick black, but the rays of light filtering down from above caught oddly on her edges. A shifting sheen of green, purple, and deep blue all shimmered like oil in a puddle, distorting her planes and angles to blur her true shape to the naked eye. Jack tilted his head this way and that, piecing together as whole an outline as he could. As he did the oily colors spooled and glimmered against Banshee's base black, as though she wore the galaxy as a cloak.
Jack returned to his senses when a passing technician called sharply to a colleague. Heat crept up his neck when he realized he'd been staring. He sent a guilty glance to Carter, but froze when he found her similarly entranced. He pulled his eyes away immediately, certain she would catch him looking, but Carter's gaze didn't budge. Her previous exhaustion melted away in her admiration for the Jaeger looming before them, and the stiffness of her expression softened noticeably. She looked at Belladonna Banshee like she was the only thing that existed, her eyes warm with an affection Jack had yet to see her direct towards any human. A gentle smile curled her lips, belying a devotion Jack only recognized because he felt it deep in his own soul.
Someone bumped him from behind, thumping his shoulder against Carter's, dispelling the trance Banshee cast on her. A blush rose to her cheeks, and suddenly Jack found himself on common ground with her. "She's gorgeous," he said reverently. He hitched his bag higher on his shoulder as he stepped as far back as their alcove would allow. It put less than a foot between them, but it was enough for Jack to regain his breath.
Carter smiled again, quickly this time, not lingering longer than an instant. Her eyes flickered back to the Jaeger across the bay. Jack's gaze followed the movement, again drinking in the sight of the Jaeger that would be his. "She is," she confirmed. "There's nothing like Banshee in the entire fleet."
Jack tore his eyes away again to look at Carter, and found her looking at him. Her gaze skittered away upon being caught in a stare. "How long have you been working on her?" He carefully pushed his luck. The Carter he'd met on the roof had intrigued him, but this Carter drew him in as inexorably as a magnet. His pounded, as though any wayward syllable could spring the trap, and either he'd be lost, or she would.
"A little over six years," she replied. She leaned her forearms against the rail, chin tilting up to keep her eyes on Banshee. "She's changed a lot in that time."
Jack braced his hands on the top bar of the railing, shifting his weight forward. "Yeah?"
"She had to. Each new Kaiju through the Breach is different. Bigger, faster, stronger. The last Jaegers to come off the line tried to compensate, but the funding dried up before we could implement a lot of the design changes. Now we're lucky to get a Mark 3. So we've been trying to beef up the existing Marks. Banshee has been the guinea pig for a lot of those changes."
"Wow," Jack whistled. "I had no idea. Have the improvements been implemented on the other Jaegers?"
Carter shook her head. "Not yet. Command wants to see the changes in action before they commit to outfitting the rest of the fleet. In just the past six months alone she's had 80% of her systems overhauled, including a complete re-armoring using a new polymer designed to mimic the resiliency of Kaiju hide. Once she proves herself in battle, we'll have the clearance to implement the changes to the rest of the Shatterdome. Eventually, the other 'domes will follow suit. That's why the Marshal was so eager to find a new pilot."
Her words opened up a pit under Jack's feet. He loved Banshee at first sight; even now, he felt the connection, sparking that tiny voice whispering mine whenever he looked at her. He had completely forgotten the uncertainty of his situation. He hadn't even met his prospective copilot, let alone have any idea whether they would share enough compatibility to drive the beautiful mech. Carter's reminder crashed over him in an icy wave. His stomach lurched at the sudden realization that this Jaeger might not be his after all.
"If you can do all of that, the Kaiju won't know what hit them," he joked.
"It won't matter if we can't get her moving."
His attempt to distract himself from his impending failure fell flat. He'd meant to earn a smile and a quick agreement from his guide, but her gaze had turned thoughtful, and didn't seem to register the predicament he faced.
"Yeah, no pressure, huh?" The words released in a sigh. Carter blinked, and suddenly he was the focus of her attention instead of Banshee.
"That's not what I meant," she corrected, her expression softening as she tried to allay his concerns. She straightened, palming the rail as she pulled back to her full height. "A lot of people assume the Jaegers give us the upper hand in this war. That assumption is false."
Jack blinked, uncertain how to respond. He had no idea where she was going with this, and when their gazes met he saw an intelligence that hinted she might not be on the same plane as he was.
"Jaegers only level the playing field," she continued. "They give us scale, but not the edge humanity needs to win."
"Then what does?" Jack asked, his thoughts racing to keep up. Aside from the catastrophe and then slowly increasing casualties of the Kaiju events since, humanity hadn't done too badly for itself so far. Even now, human casualty numbers were far lower than was recorded before the inception of the Jaeger program, and to date the Jaegers had terminate every beast that emerged from the breach. They had to be doing something right.
Carter's eyes glimmered as a heavy batch of sparks bounced off Banshee's chestplate. "Their pilots do."
Jack straightened in place. He was a pilot, or would be if he tested well. A slight flush crept up his jaw, then deepened when Carter's gaze warmed at his reaction. She continued.
"Every new Kaiju through the Breach tries to outmatch our Jaegers. Our mech gets bigger, and so do they. The Marks get faster, and the kaiju eventually keep up."
"But they can't match our tactics," Jack surmised, finally catching on. He was rewarded with a nod.
"The one thing a kaiju can't adapt to is human ingenuity. When faced with certain death we will do the impossible to survive. Our tactics, our martial skills are always changing, and that makes us unpredictable. The kaiju can mimic our tech, but not our resourcefulness. Our pilots are the pinnacle of our combined innovation. They are the ones who give us the edge. Without them, the Jaegers are just hunks of metal. Impressive, and pretty to look at, but empty."
Jack took a deep breath. In the Academy, their training put a pilot's value in their scarcity. Each round of testing was designed to separate the wheat from the chaff, from the physical tests of endurance and strength, to the mental evaluations to the IQ tests, all of it designed to find those precious few capable of piloting a Jaeger. The Jaegers were the weapons: the pilots were their fragile power source. No one had put the value on the pilots' resourcefulness.
He cleared his throat, grinding against the sudden lump lodged there. "So, then, the system overhaul would be…?"
"Our responsibility to provide our pilots with the best weapons we can. Otherwise, it'd be like sending you into a nuclear war armed with BB guns." A wry smile twisted her features, revealing yet another facet of the engineer. "The greatest value lies in the balance between pilot and Jaeger. I just happen to know that pilots are harder to replace, and tougher to beat."
Jack grinned. He liked her, he realized suddenly. Not just because she had indirectly suggested that he as a pilot had more worth than the titan towering over them, which inflated his ego to roughly the same size as Banshee herself. Rather it was because of the new perspective she'd lent him, or perhaps the easy rationale she'd used to deliver it.
"Well, then," he said, grinning broadly, "as Banshee's potential new pilot, thanks."
Carter rolled her eyes, just a bit. Not enough to erase her tiny, persistent smirk. "You're welcome."
"What kind of changes-" Jack's attempt to learn more about Banshee's upgrades was interrupted by a shout from behind.
"Hey! New guy!"
The unexpected shout cut through their comfortable bubble, and suddenly the trap Jack had almost forgotten about sprang shut. The warmth in Carter's gaze doused immediately, and her expressive features shuttered completely. Her stance stiffened shifted from one of animated enthusiasm to defiant professionalism. The clipboard she'd tucked under her arm returned to her chest, an ineffective shield against the hail. Jack turned to face their visitor, irrationally angry with whoever had thwarted the fledgling friendship sprouting from their shared awe of Banshee.
"Hey, old guy!" Jack drawled in the direction of the bearded man jogging towards them. Carter stiffened beside Jack, stifling a sudden, muted giggle. Jack bit back a grin of his own, and kept it close.
"Old guy?" The man, a Ranger from his off-duty attire, glanced at Carter in suspicion. "What exactly have you been telling the man, Sam?"
"Nothing he didn't need to know, Hanson," Carter replied frostily. When Hanson's gaze darkened, Jack stepped between them.
"She was showing me the ropes," he explained.
Hanson gave him an appreciative nod. Carter stepped from behind him, sidling away to give her space between them, and suddenly Jack had the sinking suspicion he'd somehow chosen a side, and that somehow he'd chosen Hanson's. Hanson turned back to Carter before Jack could find a way to undo his mistake. "Don't you think you should be leaving the ropes to the actual Rangers, Sammy?"
Carter's jaw twitched, vibrating with tension as she grit her teeth. "Marshal's orders, Hanson. If you've got a problem with that, take it up with Pentecost."
Jonas' smirk stretched until he was grinning darkly. "I'm sure we don't have to go to that kind of trouble. In fact, I bet you have plenty of very important things to do in engineering."
"Actually, I do."
"You know, Dr. Carter and I were just getting to the good stuff," Jack jumped in desperately, sensing that Hanson was about to win the bid for his company, and suddenly very aware he did not want that to happen. "About Banshee, that is. I'd really like to continue, if that's okay-"
"Let me guess: she was about to pull out her color-coded binder of stats and outputs." Hanson scoffed, dismissing Jack's request with a wave of his hand. "There's more to a Jaeger than just numbers, any pilot can tell you that."
A tightening of Carter's grip on her clipboard told Jack that Hanson's dig had hit its mark. She turned on her heel to face Jack. Please don't leave, please don't leave, please don't- She handed him a small memory card sheathed in plastic. "This is Banshee's manual. I recommend you take the time to study it, as any files you may have read in the Academy are likely outdated."
Jack accepted the small square with stiff fingers, acutely aware of Hanson's hand now clamped tight on his shoulder. "Thanks," he muttered. Traitor. Then he brightened as a thought occurred to him. "If I have any questions…?"
He silently begged her to take pity on him. Carter's gaze darted briefly to Hanson. Some pilots relied on instinct to drive a Jaeger, Jack knew, and surmised that Hanson was one of them. His jabs about stats hadn't been promising. Jack didn't adhere to that school of thought, and he could only hope that his prospective copilot didn't share Hanson's opinion either. Carter offered him a tiny glimmer of hope.
"If you have questions, I'll be happy to answer them," she affirmed. Hanson's smirk into a dour scowl.
"Great!" Jack chirped. He cleared his throat, taking his enthusiasm down a notch. "Where can I find you?"
"Ask anyone in Banshee's docking bay. They'll point you in the right direction."
"If you're finished," Hanson butted in again, stoking Jack's temper even more, "I'm gonna take O'Neill here and introduce him to his fellow pilots."
"All yours, Ranger," Carter returned with a sickly sweet smile. It didn't reach her eyes, and resulted in a painful grimace. "You kids have fun." Her eyes met Jack's again briefly before she turned and went on her way, leaving Jack to fend for himself against Hanson, who tsked mockingly.
"What?" Jack growled.
"You're barking up the wrong tree on that one, brother. She's stone cold frigid."
A spark arced down Jack's spine. His skin crawled as he maneuvered himself out from under Hanson's arm. Everything about Hanson rubbed Jack the wrong way- caustic, sexist, crude… all qualities Jack abhorred in a fellow officer wrapped up into a single, sauntering package.
"I don't think that's any of our business, is it?" Jack snapped. "And what makes you think that was even on my mind?"
Hanson waved his indignation away. "It's nothing to be ashamed of. Everyone's had a hard-on for Carter at some point or another. It's better to just get it out of the way now before you get in over your head."
"I need to learn more about the Jaeger I might be piloting, and Dr. Carter is the best person to learn from." Jack stopped short, spearing Hanson with a suspicious glare. "And you still haven't explained who you are, and why you seem to think you're so much better than her."
Hanson smirked, a gleam of something sparked in his expression. He extended his hand in greeting. "Jonas Hanson. I've piloted Banshee for the past six years. And you," he said, shoving Jack's shoulder when he failed to accept the offered handshake, "are my new co-pilot."