15
STATUS REPORT ON CADET CLASS, MOYULAN SHATTERDOME
RANGER NATHAN LAMBERT
The current cadet class has made satisfactory progress toward Drift fluency and Jaeger technical understanding. Interpersonal rivalries and personality clashes are within expected ranges.
Current provisional backup assignments to Moyulan’s Jaeger detail would be:
Ilya/Bracer Phoenix
Jinhai/Valor Omega
Meilin/Gipsy Avenger
Renata/Saber Athena
Ryoichi/Saber Athena
Suresh/Guardian Bravo
Tahima/Titan Redeemer
Viktoriya/Valor Omega
UPDATE: The late addition of Cadet Amara Namani has destabilized the equilibrium of the class. Her skills are still being assessed but this writer questions her overall fitness for the program due to her background and lack of discipline. Assignment to a Jaeger would be premature.
The cadets were clustered around a stored newsfeed of the Sydney attack, swiping back and forth through Obsidian Fury’s battle with Gipsy Avenger. Amara held the data pad, mesmerized by the rogue Jaeger. Had someone really built that? She knew how hard it was to design and make something even the scale of Scrapper. How had someone found the resources to do this without the PPDC noticing? They kept track of the international trade in technologies used in the creation of Jaeger systems. Drift tech was strictly controlled. Had someone invented it independently? Or was there a mole in Shao Industries or one of the other companies that manufactured Jaeger parts?
However it had happened, Obsidian Fury was an impressive piece of work.
Tahima, leaning over her shoulder, snorted. “Obsidian Fury. Doesn’t even sound like a real Jaeger name.”
“I don’t think Tahima sounds like a real name,” Renata shot back, “but your mama did.”
Amara ignored the sniping. It was all part of the cadet game, the way they established their pecking order. She didn’t want to be part of it. “There’s never been a rogue like this. How’d the Kaiju nuts build it? Ones where I’m from couldn’t change a battery without getting fried.”
“Maybe they stole it,” Ryoichi suggested.
“Da,” Ilya agreed. “You can steal anything in my country with overalls and a work order.”
“These pilots… they’re too fast. I don’t understand how they’re exceeding the neural load.”
“Ballerinas,” Jinhai said, for maybe the hundredth time that day. “I’m telling you.”
For some reason this idea drove Tahima crazy. “Shut up with that crap, man. You know how many people died in Sydney?” He acted like it was an insult to them that Jaeger pilots might have ballet training, but to Amara it made sense. Learning that kind of balance and grace couldn’t help but be an asset in a fight.
“Newsfeed said they’re posting a dozen Jaegers at the memorial,” Meilin said. A dozen Jaegers. That was a real mark of how much respect Mako Mori had commanded.
“When I die, I want that many to send me off,” Suresh said.
“Your pop’s gonna make you work with boobs when you wash out,” Renata said.
“Jaegers do not show up when the boob guy dies,” Ilya observed.
“Your dad works with boobs?” Amara had never heard this.
“He’s a plastic surgeon,” Suresh explained, exasperated. “He doesn’t just work with—” He caught himself, realizing he was wasting his breath. “And I’m not washing out. I’m gonna be a pilot.”
“Still,” Jinhai said. “You die—meh. I’d post one Jaeger at your funeral. Maybe half a Jaeger.”
“I heard that’s where they found Amara,” Vik said. “In half a Jaeger.”
Amara dropped the data pad on her bunk and stood up. She wasn’t going to stand there and be insulted when she was the only one in the room who had ever done anything like build Scrapper. “It was a whole Jaeger. It just wasn’t very big, Viktoriya.”
The other cadets went quiet when they heard Amara use Vik’s full name. That was a challenge, and all of them knew it. Vik stepped up to Amara, looming over her. She was used to scaring people with her size and strength. “Bigger is better,” she said.
Amara sized her up. She was starting to reconsider her strategy of escalating the confrontation. It was one thing to stand up for yourself, another to get your ass kicked for no reason. “Look, uh…” Amara paused, trying to remember what she’d learned from Jinhai the day before. “Idi na fig.”
Ilya’s head snapped up. He was the other Russian speaker in the group, and his reaction told Amara she hadn’t said exactly what she meant to say.
Vik laughed out loud in disbelief. “What did you say?”
Amara tried again. “Idi na… fig?” She looked over at Jinhai. “Am I saying that right?”
Jinhai, clearly trying not to laugh, nodded and said, “Yep.”
Amara had just figured out that Jinhai had pranked her when Vik lunged forward and grabbed her in a chokehold. Amara struggled, but Vik was much bigger and much stronger. She couldn’t break free.
“Whoa!” Jinhai said.
Ryoichi tried to break them up. “Vik, come on, let her go—”
“I worked every day of my life to be here! You didn’t do anything! You were just picked up off the street like garbage,” Vik snarled, squeezing harder.
The insult snapped something inside Amara. With strength she hadn’t known she possessed, she broke free of the chokehold. But she didn’t try to get away from Vik. Instead she used Vik as a pivot point, scissoring her legs up and around Vik’s neck. The counterattack knocked Vik off balance and she went down, with Amara now in control.
“Know where I learned that?” Amara hissed. “On the streets, you big dumb—”
“Namani! Malikova!”
Every one of the cadets—even Vik, thrashing against Amara’s scissor hold—looked over at the barracks door to see Nate Lambert.
“Ranger on deck!” Ryoichi shouted. All of them except Amara and Vik snapped to attention. Amara let Vik go and scrambled to her feet. “She jumped me—”
Now Vik was on her feet too. “She does not belong here—”
“Enough!” Lambert snapped. He glared at both of the combatants, daring them to say another word. Neither of them did. Amara could tell he wasn’t just angry. The day’s events had wounded him, and he was not in the mood to deal with dumb status fights among his cadets.
He
