by Alex Irvine
“Told you we needed that!” she yelled.
“It worked, didn’t it?” he yelled back.
“How long before Ajax can reboot his systems?”
Jake thought it was interesting that she thought he would know. Maybe she’d figured out by now that he knew a little about Jaegers. He also admired her cool, for wanting to be sure how much of a head start she could expect before the Jaeger was back in action. Before he could figure out what to say, November Ajax’s enormous foot slammed down in front of them, kicking up a huge blast of sand and bits of concrete.
“About that long,” Jake said.
“Power down and exit your Conn-Pod,” November Ajax’s pilot boomed. “This is your final warning.”
Jake was surprised when the girl spun Scrapper around and ran off. She had more guts than he’d figured, to do that on twelve percent reserve power with no chance of actually getting away.
Their dash for freedom didn’t go on for long. November Ajax raised one fist and fired a set of grappling hooks, trailing cables across the empty space. They clamped onto Scrapper’s fuselage, and as soon as they had attached, an electric pulse surged through the cables.
Inside Scrapper’s Conn-Pod, Jake felt his hair standing up. Circuits were sparking and smoking all over, including the suite of scavenged electronics controlling the gyroscopic cradle. It jammed as the Conn-Pod went dark. The only light was what filtered through Scrapper’s visor and down from its head into the torso.
Slowly Scrapper tipped over backward and crashed to the ground, leaving Jake bruised again and the pilot hung up on her back in the cradle. She looked mad. Jake couldn’t decide whether that was to cover fear, or whether she was just really feeling more anger than anything else. People fronted all kinds of stuff when they were about to go down for serious crimes.
A series of heavy thumps sounded in the confined space. November Ajax was tapping on Scrapper’s hull.
Jake looked at the girl and shrugged. They’d made a good run. Did themselves proud. But they weren’t ever going to get anywhere against a full-sized Jaeger.
He levered the hatch open and climbed out, raising his hands. The girl followed him, looked up at November Ajax and screamed, “Look what you did to my Jaeger, you dick!”
3
ILLEGAL JAEGER WORKSHOP BROKEN UP IN SANTA MONICA
LA WORLD STAFF
Working in coordination with local law enforcement, a Pan Pacific Defense Corps security detail located a black-market Jaeger workshop in the former PPDC cargo facility located on the Santa Monica waterfront. The area, devastated by a Kaiju attack near the end of the Kaiju War, has suffered from high crime and mass out-migration in the years since the closing of the Breach. More recently, according to PPDC staffers, it has become a hotbed of illegal trade in Jaeger parts and other related technological components.
The workshop in question contained one completed Jaeger approximately forty feet in height, as well as hundreds of parts that PPDC and local forensic technicians are still cataloguing. It is believed that the homemade Jaeger and the workshop may have ties to the underground mech racing circuits that have gained popularity within the criminal underworld of the Santa Monica slums. Officials cannot confirm or deny this at this time.
The suspects attempted to escape in the Jaeger and damaged several PPDC vehicles before being apprehended by November Ajax, the PPDC’s designated patrol Jaeger for the Southern California region. PPDC staff would not confirm reports that November Ajax was damaged during the struggle.
The names of those arrested are being withheld pending confirmation of their identities.
Jake held it in as long as he could, through the ride in the back of the van to PPDC to the regional HQ where they were processed into a holding cell. But eventually he couldn’t keep it in any longer.
“Should’ve let me pilot,” he said.
“Like this is my fault?” Amara snapped back. He’d just learned her name, when she gave it to the security officer who booked them. “You compromised my command center.”
“Command center—?” That term was a little more elevated than Scrapper’s makeshift Conn-Pod deserved, Jake thought. He shook his head and looked away, trying not to laugh. “I’m not talking to you.”
She didn’t say anything. Jake sat, trying not to look at her or say anything either, but in the end he couldn’t help himself. He had to know. “Why’d you build it?”
“What happened to the not talking?” She glanced over at him long enough to register his displeasure, then looked back at the doors, as if she was planning her risky escape.
“You said you weren’t gonna sell it, so what? Rob a bank or something?” Jake had heard of that. It was a good way to have your robbery caper end with a missile strike instead of police sirens, but some people liked to go out that way.
Amara had a faraway look in her eyes as she remembered something, and it took her a moment to speak. “I built her because one day they’re gonna come back,” she said, all her bravado melting away. “The Kaiju. And when they do, I’m not gonna be stuck waiting for someone else to come save my ass. Not like before.”
Jake absorbed that. It wasn’t what he’d expected. She was different when she let the tough facade slip for a minute.
He didn’t have more time to consider that, though, because PPDC officers were at that moment opening the cell. “You,” one of them said to Jake. “Let’s go.”
* * *
Holo emitters on different sides of the interrogation room flickered to life and a hologram appeared. Ah, Jake thought. The old remote interrogation. Usually they got started that way, then brought a real cop into the room when they thought you needed to be scared a little.
Not that Jake had spent a lot of time talking to cops over the past few years.
The hologram took a moment to resolve, and then Jake found himself looking at the last person in the world he’d have expected to see at that moment:
Mako Mori.
She looked great, in her PPDC Secretary General’s uniform. After she’d survived the closing of the Breach, she’d risen through the ranks fast, eventually surpassing her father—well, their father—to become head of the PPDC.
“There she is!” Jake said brightly. He was happy to see her. He also hoped she might help him get out of this jam. “My sister from another mister! You make some calls, pull some strings, I gotta sign some paperwork?”
She didn’t answer him right away, and when she did, the air went right out of his initial exuberance. “I was really hoping to not see you like this again.”
“Just a stretch of bad luck,” Jake said, feeling a little abashed. “I’ll figure it out.”
She wasn’t buying it. “Father used to say we make our own luck.”
That was the wrong approach to take with Jake, bringing up their father. Last thing in the world he wanted to talk about. “Yeah, Dad said a lot of things.”
He was being flippant to get a rise out of her, but it didn’t work. Maybe she was too grown up for that now. “You were in a rogue Jaeger with stolen PPDC tech.”
“Wasn’t mine.”
“You have priors. This is serious, Jake.”
Jake’s charming act faded a little. Was he in real trouble here even though his sister ran the PPDC? “Which is why I need my big sister to get me the hell out of here,” he prompted.
“They’re not going to let you just walk out,” she said. “But there might be another way.”
“Great. Love it. What do I gotta do?”
“Re-enlist,” she answered without missing a beat. “And finish what you started.”
This wasn’t what Jake had expected. He couldn’t help it. He laughed at how ridiculous the idea was. “I’m a little old to be a cadet, Mako.”
“I don’t want you to be a cadet. I want you to help train them.”
Train them? Jake had barely gotten past the cadet stage himself. How could he train anyone in anything? “What’s behind door number two?” he asked.
She ignored the question, like she always did when she’d made up her mind. “The transport is standing by to bring both of you to Moyulan.”
Moyulan. The big Shatterdome. China. She was serious. But… “Both of us?”
“You and your new recruit,” she said. “Enjoy your flight, Jake!”
“Mako? Mako!”
She broke the connection and the hologram disappeared. “Sonofa—” Jake was all by himself again.
4
MEMORIAL SERVICE DISRUPTED BY KAIJU CULTISTS
FROM WIRE REPORTS
Agitators from several Kaiju-worshipping sects disrupted a ceremonial dedication of a memorial to siblings Stacker and Luna Pentecost in their home city of London. The long-planned memorial, delayed by conflict over its siting and design, was approved after years of wrangling for a corner of Bruce Castle Park, near White Hart Lane in the Tottenham neighborhood where the Pentecost siblings were born.
Luna Pentecost, a pilot with the Royal Air Force, was killed in the first battle of the Kaiju War, when the creature later dubbed Trespasser came ashore in San Francisco Bay. RAF support elements assisted the American Air Force, and both suffered heavy losses. She was posthumously awarded the Victoria Cross.
Stacker Pentecost, also initially a RAF pilot, later became one of the founding Rangers in the fledgling Jaeger program, and piloted the Jaeger Coyote Tango on a number of missions, including the famous encounter with the Kaiju Onibaba in Tokyo, during which Pentecost saved the life of current PPDC Secretary General Mako Mori. Sickened by radiation from Coyote Tango’s poorly designed reactor, Stacker moved into PPDC oversight, becoming Marshal. His final mission, to close the Breach in March 2025, was successful, but at the cost of his life and that of his copilot, Chuck Hansen.
Police quickly broke up the demonstration and the memorial dedication proceeded without incident. The Metropolitan Police declined to say how many arrests they had made or characterize the amount of property damage.
By sunset, the PPDC transport carrier had crossed the Pacific Ocean, bringing the Moyulan Shatterdome into view. Jake took it in with what might charitably be called mixed feelings. He’d seen Shatterdomes before, and his memories of them were not all positive. Moyulan was a newer location, built in the round of consolidations and relocations following the end of the Kaiju War. It occupied the largest of a group of mountainous islands in Qingchuan Bay, about four hundred kilometers south of Shanghai. The main Shatterdome, containing the Jaeger bay and mechanical operations, was at the center of the complex. To the left as they approached was the main body of the base, a bunker-style complex eight to ten stories tall and hundreds of yards long, reaching from the Shatterdome out to a large parking area for Jumphawks, V-Dragons, and the transport helicopters that made up the bulk of the PPDC’s aerial fleet. The Jumphawks looked much like they had when Jake was around Shatterdomes before: massive helicopters designed to carry Jaegers from Shatterdomes to field deployments more quickly than the Jaegers could get there themselves. The V-Dragons were different, and newer. The V in their designation referred to the rotating engine mounts that gave them vertical takeoff and landing capability, or VTOL for short.
Curving from the fleet parking area across the front of the Shatterdome was a broad tarmac with hydraulic lifts at its waterfront side. Jaegers rode those down into the water for local deployments and training exercises in the relatively shallow waters around the islands. Each elevator platform was a rectangle roughly forty by thirty yards in size, giving a Jaeger plenty of room to stand clear of the deck as the platform descended toward the water level.
Beyond the elevator platforms, on the far side of the installation from the Jumphawk parking, the tarmac narrowed and curved into a long arm, supported over the water by immense steel-reinforced concrete pilings. Here were four external staging gantries, where Jaegers stood while they were linked to Jumphawks for deployment. Elevators ran up the interior of the gantries, which were made of heavy girders. At the side of each gantry stood a control tower, staffed by J-Tech supervisors tasked with making final readiness checks once the Rangers were inside each Jaeger and it was powering up for action.
The exterior tarmac area was bustling with activity. Tech crews ran refueling hoses out to waiting Jumphawk transports, while other crews ran carts of supplies and machinery to various destinations in the complex. Everything was tightly controlled and perfectly synchronized, thanks to the crew’s superb training. Jake remembered the scene from his previous life as a cadet. He’d been amazed then at how such a giant facility could run so smoothly, and he felt some of that amazement again now.
The carrier came in low past a stand of old rocket thrusters in a row at the edge of the tarmac. When it landed, Jake and Amara stepped out, duffel bags slung over their shoulders. They’d already been issued gear back in California.
Amara was nervous, and showed it by talking nonstop. She’d commented on the size of the transport, the size of the Shatterdome, the size of the Pacific Ocean, and now that they were on the ground she finally got to what was really on her mind. “Why me? I mean why do they want me for the program?”
Jake didn’t know for sure, but he could guess. “Built and piloted your own Jaeger,” he said. “Don’t see that every day.”
As if he’d conjured it, Scrapper came into view right then, suspended between two Jumphawks. They’d followed the personnel transport across the Pacific, but this was the first time Amara had been able to lay eyes on her creation since November Ajax disabled it back in Santa Monica.
The Jumphawks hovered low over the tarmac and released the cables holding Scrapper. The little Jaeger dropped and landed solidly on its feet… then tottered and fell face down with a loud crash. “Hey!” Amara protested, as crews ran to reattach cables so the Jumphawks could set Scrapper on its feet again. “Be careful with Scrapper!”
Jake was about to tell her it would be all right, since the Shatterdome techs would be doing a complete refit of Scrapper the minute they got the little Jaeger into a hangar gantry—but he didn’t have the chance, because an old familiar voice cut through the din of Jumphawk rotors and shouting techs.
“Will you look at this?”
The voice belonged to Ranger Nathan Lambert, the strapping, square-jawed poster boy for the Ranger service… and once upon a time Jake’s partner. He was wearing a military tank top, managing to walk with a swagger that made his dog tags jingle even though he carried a heavy gear assembly in both hands. “Didn’t believe it when they told me you were inbound,” he said, addressing Jake.
“Nate.” Jake nodded. “This is Cadet Amara Namani—”
“You’ll address me as Ranger Lambert,” Nate interrupted.
Jake paused. “You having a laugh?”
“This is a military base,” Lambert said, dead serious. “Remember how those work, Ranger Pentecost?” Turning to Amara, he lightened up a little. “Welcome to the Shatterdome. This is where you learn how to save the world.”
He strode off toward the open bay doors that led into the Shatterdome. Jake followed, Amara right next to him.
“Did that haircut just call you Pentecost?” she asked incredulously. “As in badass Stacker Pentecost, pilot of Coyote Tango, hero of—”
“It’s just a name,” Jake said. He was still stewing over Nate’s snub. Clearly Nate was holding a grudge about how Jake had left the Ranger program, but that was Nate’s problem. The only way it would be Jake’s problem was if Nate couldn’t let it go.
“A really cool name,” Amara said, looking at Jake in a whole new way. Jake didn’t like it. He didn’t want her to admire him. He didn’t want anyone to admire him. “Explains why you got a golden ticket,” Amara added.
This got under Jake’s skin. He didn’t see any golden ticket. He saw a one-way ticket back into a life he’d tried his best to get away from. “You know, moving forward, let’s limit the conversation, okay?”
He could feel her eyes on him as they followed Lambert through the thirty
-story-tall ocean-facing hangar doors that led into the Shatterdome’s Jaeger bay. Amara forgot all about Jake and goggled at the sight. Just inside the door, Valor Omega was docking into her service cradle. Jake took a long look at her, remembering his own training, when most of these Jaegers were either still under construction or completing their pre-deployment final technical screenings. Valor Omega was all about firepower, her whole torso designed around massive arms and shoulders ending in forearm-mounted energy cannons. Orange and yellow against a black layer of ballistic under-armor, she made Jake think of fire.
Looking around the vast bay, he saw the rest of Moyulan’s complement of Jaegers. There was heavy, broad-shouldered Titan Redeemer, her left arm ending in the massive Morning Star Hand she could lash out on the end of a charged cable. Nearly sixty feet in diameter, the Morning Star had a superdense liquid-metal core that gave it extra punching power, especially when it was fired from its emplacement on the cable. Testing simulations indicated it would have put a Cat-2 Kaiju down with a single shot. The hundreds of spikes on the Morning Star lay flat when it was inert, but flared out when it was deployed, adding damage to the outer armored layers of any target. Titan blended into the shadows falling near her service cradle, her olive coloring acting as camouflage.
Guardian Bravo, by contrast, was a brilliant red and silver, her graphene Arc Whip retracted while it was at rest. Other than her color scheme, Guardian Bravo was set apart from the rest of the Shatterdome’s complement by the tall vent stacks that stood up from the backs of its shoulders. Jake hadn’t learned much about Guardian Bravo’s design, but he thought he remembered the stacks having something to do with creating a static charge, using internal fans to generate extra power to the Arc Whip. In demonstrations, the whip had proven capable of cutting through a meter of steel, while delivering an electrical charge roughly comparable to an average lightning strike.
Saber Athena, on the other side of the bay, was built much leaner and smaller. She was the PPDC’s most up-to-date effort to design a Jaeger that could potentially match a living creature’s speed and quickness. All of the Mark VI Jaegers were faster on their feet than the previous generations, just due to improvements in neurotransmitting systems in parallel with more sophisticated hydraulic damping that allowed for better lateral movement. Compared to the Mark II or Mark III Jaegers, the Mark VIs all looked like acrobats—but Saber Athena made the rest of them look slow. Her weaponry, twin plasma swords, was designed to work with her quick-strike capability. She didn’t have a ton of firepower, but her pilots were trained to hit a target five times while another one of the Mark VIs was still winding up for a second shot.