Almost as soon as he got the words out of his mouth, warning lights started to flash.
* * *
In the Moyulan Shatterdome LOCCENT, a technician noted strange energy signatures coming from the two Drones now approaching the Shatterdome tarmac.
* * *
In the Remote Conn Lab at Shao Industries, warning lights blazed across Newt’s command screen. The closest remote pilot was Shao’s favorite, Burke. He wrestled with his controls as the holo displays around him started to change color and deform. “Losing uplink to Drone 375!”
Other pilots echoed the warning. Newt spun back to the command readout. All over the Remote Conn Lab, warning lights flashed and the colors of the screens around the pilots coruscated and changed. Something about the sight was familiar to Newt, but he couldn’t think what…
22
VALOR OMEGA STOOD SENTINEL OUTSIDE THE Jaeger bay doors of the Moyulan Shatterdome, awaiting the arrival of the final Drones that threatened to make it and all the other human-piloted Jaegers obsolete. That was the feeling among the Rangers and J-Techs, despite Shao Liwen’s assurances to the contrary. The lights of approaching Jumphawks, together with the running lights on the Drones they carried, came steadily closer, approaching the Shatterdome from the south. Amara looked up at them as PPDC security escorted her to a helicopter that was going to take her… well, she didn’t know. Home? There was nothing there for her. What was she going to do next?
Jake caught her eye from across the tarmac, where he had been about to board another Jumphawk. Amara wondered where he could be going in such a hurry. She hoped it had something to do with the information she’d given him about the cables inside Obsidian Fury, but she couldn’t know. Nobody was talking to her about anything right now, except when they gave her commands to go somewhere. The sound of the Jumphawks was getting loud now, as Jake came trotting across the tarmac toward her. Was he going to tell security to let her go? Amara’s heart leaped at the possibility, but she knew it was more likely Jake was just coming over to say goodbye one last time.
* * *
Before Jake had taken ten steps, an urgent voice broke through the background noise in his commlink. One of the techs up in the LOCCENT was shouting in Mandarin. He stopped and looked back at Marshal Quan, who translated. “There’s something wrong with the Drones!”
Jake looked up just as vivid purplish energy crackled out from the Drones’ heads. Tendrils of pulsing Kaiju flesh bulged out at the seams in their armor plating, coiling into each other and fusing with the Drones’ electronic systems. The system overload made the Drones spasm and thrash their limbs, destabilizing the Jumphawks’ flight patterns. The Jumphawks spun into one another and the cables holding the Drones snapped. They fell the last few hundred feet to the tarmac as the Jumphawks spun down and disintegrated in a blast he could feel all the way across the tarmac.
As the Drones hit the ground near the hydraulic lifts providing water access to deploying Jaegers, they were already opening fire. A barrage of plasma missiles raked the tarmac, destroying vehicles and exploding at the edge of the Jaeger bay doors. Then the Drones turned their attention to the rows of parked Jumphawks and V-Dragons, methodically smashing their way through them. Some of the V-Dragons and smaller helicopters got into the air, but the Drones blew them out of the sky, their flaming wreckage falling to the waters of Qingchuan Bay. Those that got close enough to fire on the Drones were swatted down to the tarmac, where they burned amid the wreckage of Scramblers and forklifts.
“Get to Gipsy!” Marshal Quan ordered Jake and Lambert. They took off running as Quan issued more orders into his commlink. “All pilots! Man your Jaegers and engage hostiles!”
Inside the Jaeger bay, Rangers and J-Tech crews sprinted to their stations. Valor Omega was outside the bay, and the Kaiju Drones turned their attention in that direction. A double volley of missiles blasted Valor Omega apart before her crew could even get the Jaeger online. The violence of the explosion killed her crew and both of her Ranger pilots. Pieces of the destroyed Jaeger skidded across the tarmac and rained down for hundreds of yards in every direction, splashing into the bay and pinging off the outside of the Shatterdome. Valor Omega’s severed head bounced twice and then rolled, missing Amara by only a few feet as she dove out of the way at the last second. Her security escorts weren’t so lucky. The head smashed through them and demolished the chopper waiting to take her away before crashing to a halt against the outer wall of the Shatterdome. Still on the ground, she looked around, overwhelmed by the horror of the attack. Missile after missile blasted parked Jumphawks, J-Tech transports, clusters of fleeing Shatterdome personnel. The Drones were working methodically across the tarmac, from the landing strips to the far side, where the deployment gantries still stood untouched.
Satellite feeds inside the LOCCENT showed the same unfolding catastrophe all over the world. Drones went rogue and attacked in Anchorage, Guam, Lima, Attu… and Santa Monica, where November Ajax burned against the backdrop of the Kaiju bones at the pier. Quan saw the Shatterdome at Fukuoka collapse, sending up a mushrooming ball of smoke. In the shallow waters of Lake Washington, a Jaeger lay face down, the ripples of its impact still spreading outward as a Drone pumped missiles into its back. In Manila, Drones strode up the Pasig River, the North Harbor waterfront ablaze behind them. The feed from Jakarta showed one Drone down, but the second stood over the inert remains of the defending Jaeger. All over the world, the scene was the same. Only on the Sydney waterfront, defended by the few anti-Kaiju cannons that had survived Obsidian Fury, did the PPDC appear to be winning. The cannon batteries
