Didn’t there?
And how would she have designed and built a rogue Jaeger without Newt knowing about it? He’d been working with all the Drone program pilots. He saw all of the quarterly manufacturing reports, especially from the fully automated plants that now made up nearly forty percent of Shao Industries’ production capacity. Wouldn’t he have noticed the diversion of enough resources to make a Jaeger?
Not if the company was also concurrently making a hundred Drones…
Even so, it was a lot to take in all at once. Maybe it was Shao, but he had a little voice in his head telling him there was probably more to it than met the eye.
“This Shao Industries?” he asked, just to be sure. China was a big place. Maybe there was another company doing business under the same name. Maybe Hermann hadn’t done all of his research yet.
“No, the Shao Industries that makes knickerbocker glories,” Gottlieb said. Newt was thrown off by the joke—Hermann rarely made them—and also confused because he had no idea what a knickerbocker glory was. Gottlieb kept going before he could ask. “Yes, this one. I came to see if you would help corroborate from the inside, but now that Liwen has shown her hand with these Drones—”
No, Newt thought. Shao had spent years building up the Drone army. Her career, her reputation, her company, all of it was wrapped up in this project. It defied logic that she would do it all just to sabotage it. And Newt still couldn’t believe Shao had anything to do with the rogue Jaeger. Whatever evidence the PPDC thought they had, there must be another explanation. “Why would she build Drones to go bananas and attack? It doesn’t make any sense. And what the hell’s a knickerbocker glory?”
“She used you,” Gottlieb hissed as they hustled down the corridor toward a bank of elevators. Gottlieb moved fast even with his cane. That all by itself told Newt how pressing he thought the situation was. “Lured you with money and a fancy title. And while you were basking in the glow, she took your research and twisted it.”
Newt chewed his lip, a nervous habit he’d acquired in the last year or so. “You really believe that?”
“It’s not your fault. She’s been playing all of us. Help me stop her, Newton. Help me save the world, like old times.”
“Well, you were technically helping me last time,” Newt pointed out.
Gottlieb rolled his eyes. “Fine. Help me help you save the world. What do you say?”
Newt wanted to say yes. It was obvious he should say yes, if what Gottlieb said was true. But he couldn’t quite make himself do it. He felt almost like something inside him was preventing his mouth from forming the words. His mind spun, trying to get around this internal block, see what it was. “I say…” He looked up at a movement behind Gottlieb. “Don’t shoot!”
Newt raised his hands and stepped back as Chief Kang and a group of his officers rushed toward them down the hall, guns drawn. Gottlieb was looking at him, the thought plain on his face: Now do you believe me?
I guess I do, Newt thought. But it’s too late.
* * *
Amara rushed into the Jaeger bay along with Shatterdome techs and field crew who had survived the Drones’ initial attack. The rest of the cadets were inside, looking around impotently for something they could do to help. They saw Amara and clustered around her. “What’s happening?” Jinhai asked. More explosions boomed from the tarmac. The Drones had worked their way through the landing strips, and were now concentrating on the hydraulic lifts and the huge collections of materiel staged out on the tarmac. The few Jumphawks and V-Dragons that had gotten away made attack runs, but their light weaponry couldn’t do much against the Drones’ armor. The braver pilots swung close enough to try to get a shot at the Drones’ heads or the power cores set deep inside their torsos, but so far none of them had managed to score a damaging hit and many of them had died in the attempt.
Ryoichi could see outside. “Are those Jaegers?”
“Drones, from Shao Industries!” Amara said. They hustled along the deck, keeping to the side so they were out of the way of Jaegers coming out of their storage docks.
“What are they doing?” Tahima looked out onto the tarmac. Like Ryoichi, he seemed utterly unable to process what he was seeing.
“I don’t know!” Amara said. “They just went crazy!” She couldn’t get the carnage out of her head. Amara had seen people die before—you couldn’t go long in the Santa Monica slums without seeing death—but on this scale, and so violent…
Jake and Lambert jogged past, in full drivesuits, weaving around some of the debris from Valor Omega on their way to Gipsy Avenger. “Clear the deck!” Lambert ordered the cadets.
At the same time Jake shouted, “Get to your quarters!”
The Drone Jaegers loomed in the Jaeger bay doors. They weren’t inside the bay, but they were close enough to see the deploying Jaegers. Plasma missiles screamed over Amara’s head as Titan Redeemer stepped out of her dock. The missile volley blew the dock and gantry apart, also taking out the catwalks on that part of the bay’s upper levels. At first Amara thought that was all the damage they had done, but as Titan Redeemer leaned into her second step, Amara realized that some of the swirling smoke was coming from her leg. One of the missiles had hit the knee joint, crippling it. As the Jaeger put her immense weight on that leg, the joint gave out. Before Titan Redeemer could compensate, she overbalanced and began to fall. “Go, go!” Lambert shouted. He and Jake shoved the cadets away, seeing that Titan was falling straight in their direction—but Lambert couldn’t both push them and get himself out of the way. As Titan loomed closer, halfway through her long fall, Lambert
