More missiles crashed into Gipsy Avenger. They weren’t penetrating her armor yet, but external systems were taking damage, and the kinetic impacts kept Gipsy off balance.
“We’re losing power!” Jake shouted, as alerts flashed across the system’s monitoring screen. The missiles were doing damage even if they weren’t getting through Gipsy’s armor.
“Rerouting systems,” Lambert said. He worked the holo screen on his side of the cradle.
“Jake!” Mako’s voice was splintered by static. “That Jaeger’s power reading is the same as—!”
In a flare of white noise, her voice cut out. Jake saw readings on the monitors that told him the Jaeger was jamming comms. Someone had planned this attack for this moment, right when Shao was about to announce the end of piloted Jaegers. Right when she and all the PPDC administrators would be in one place.
Jake wondered who. Kaiju nuts? Some terrorist group that had gotten hold of Jaeger tech? How could that have happened?
He looked in the direction of Mako’s helicopter, and in his field of view saw the strange Jaeger raising and powering up what looked like a particle cannon… aimed at the helicopter.
“Nate,” he said, his voice high and tight with fear.
Thanks to the Drift, Nate understood instantly. “Power’s up!” he said—and in the next instant, Jake threw the chunk of the Council Building across the plaza at the hostile Jaeger.
Debris showered down over the crowd as the multiton chunk of concrete and steel smashed into the hostile Jaeger, knocking it off balance and ruining its aim at Mako’s chopper.
Jake and Lambert sprang forward in the cradle, and Gipsy Avenger charged toward the Jaeger, barreling into it and trying to grapple. But the black Jaeger was quicker than they had expected. It shook Gipsy off and raked her armor with claws.
Gipsy reeled back into a building, shattering its front walls and windows. She planted her feet, narrowly avoiding the crowds of fleeing people in the street below. That moment of inattention to the hostile Jaeger cost them. It caught Gipsy Avenger by one leg and smashed her into another building, driving her down to the street in a pile of collapsing rubble.
Then the black Jaeger sprang onto Gipsy and sank claws into the armor around the Conn-Pod, trying to rip her head off.
Inside the Conn-Pod, Jake wrestled against the Jaeger’s grip. Lambert punched commands into the holo pad projected from the forearm of his drivesuit. Gipsy Avenger’s chain sword shot out from her forearm, forcing the hostile Jaeger to let go. Pivoting as she got to her feet, Gipsy swung, but the other Jaeger was too fast—much faster than any other Jaeger they’d ever seen. It dodged the sword stroke and kicked Gipsy into another building. The street was treacherous footing now, with collapsed facades and destroyed cars littering the pavement.
Answering Gipsy Avenger’s chain sword, the other Jaeger flexed its arms and twin plasma weapons sprang from its forearm mounts. At first Jake thought they were swords, but then he saw the edges start to spin. Chainsaws. It had plasma chainsaws.
They barely got their own chain sword up to block the first strikes, in a shower of sparks and discharged plasma. Arcs of energy shattered nearby windows and scorched buildings. The hostile Jaeger cut loose with a wild swing that nearly split an office tower down the middle from roof to atrium.
Gipsy stepped back, looking for another opening to attack, but both Jake and Lambert knew they were up against an opponent that was faster than they were. If they went in recklessly, they were going to end up in pieces.
The other Jaeger dropped into a fighting posture and came at them again.
* * *
Mako’s pilot was turning the chopper in wide circles, looking for a safe place to land. “We need to land!” he shouted.
“No!” Mako wasn’t going to leave Jake alone to fight this thing. Gipsy Avenger was clearly overmatched—even if she knew Jake and Lambert would never admit that. They would go down fighting. “We have to help them! Target that Jaeger!”
The pilot complied, but she could see on his face he didn’t think it was a good idea. “Target locked,” he said.
Mako’s eyes narrowed. This was her brother’s life on the line. “Fire!”
* * *
Jake and Lambert were pushed to the limit of their abilities countering the foreign Jaeger’s attacks. It was faster than any Jaeger they had ever seen, and so quick on its feet that they felt like they were in an old Mark I trying to tackle a Mark V. Jake was getting into the rhythm of operating Gipsy Avenger again, after so many years, and he felt his Drift connection with Nate getting more solid as they worked together—but it wasn’t enough. The hostile Jaeger scored hits on Gipsy’s torso and shoulders. If they couldn’t find a way to anticipate its technique, sooner or later it would land a fatal blow with the plasma chainsaws.
Pressed back by a fresh assault, Gipsy sidestepped to avoid a crowd of people trapped by a cascade of rubble from a nearby office building. The other Jaeger took advantage, rearing up for a downward stroke before Jake and Lambert could get Gipsy’s chain sword up.
But as the plasma weapon arced down, a barrage of missiles from Mako’s helicopter detonated on the hostile Jaeger’s arm and head, deflecting its stroke. Missing Gipsy Avenger by scant feet, the plasma saw chewed through several floors of another building. It jammed against something in the building’s interior, and the Rangers saw their chance.
Gipsy Avenger pounced, using the time Mako had bought them to power up another of Gipsy Avenger’s combat abilities. The Jaeger’s right arm had a force-multiplying rocket piston assembly designed to accelerate the velocity of a thrown punch. The rockets fired at the moment before impact, turning an ordinary punch into a supersonic impact that in testing had destroyed older model dummy Jaegers with
