“Just like me,” Ryoichi said.
They reached out and tapped fists, careful to keep Saber Athena motionless in the launch gantry. Weapons systems checked out, the readings from the thruster pods were all green.
“A Kaiju is going to be all like, ‘Not in the face!’ Just like you, Ryo,” Renata said. “But I’m gonna pop it in the face anyway.”
“I knew my suffering would pay off,” Ryoichi cracked back. They were both nervous, but they also couldn’t wait to get rolling. Riding the Drift and experiencing the power of Saber Athena, they felt like they were born for this moment.
* * *
Suresh felt his pulse hammering as the neural handshake kicked in, but Ilya steadied him as he always did. Ilya took a deep breath, relaxing into the Drift. Suresh calmed too. Guardian Bravo felt solid and steady around them. Their neural handshake wavered for a moment, then settled into a strong equilibrium. They ran weapons checks. The Arc Whip had twin monitors: one for the plasma feed that energized its electrical discharge and the other for the integrity of the graphene strand of the whip itself. Both read out perfectly. The Drone assault hadn’t touched them. A missile had hit the cradle near the left shoulder intake turbine, knocking it slightly off center, but Shao Industries tech crews had gotten it shipshape. All in all, Guardian Bravo was ready for duty. Suresh and Ilya didn’t talk much as they got ready. Ilya didn’t have much to say, and Suresh knew he had a tendency to start rattling on if he didn’t keep his mouth shut when he was nervous. So they kept it low-key, checking everything out and waiting for their final launch orders.
Man, I can’t believe I’m doing this, Suresh thought.
Ilya was right there. Be cool, Suresh. You and me, we’ll handle it.
* * *
Jake and Lambert leaned into the Drift, just like the old days, running the checks on Gipsy Avenger and taking brief note of the changes the techs had made since the second encounter with Obsidian Fury. Jake felt none of the nerves from the first fight in Sydney. Then, he hadn’t been inside a Jaeger for ten years. Now, with two combat deployments in the last ten days, he felt like he’d never been away. Lambert, whose training and conditioning ran back uninterrupted to when he was fourteen, rode the Drift like it was second nature.
They’d gotten a last status report on the location of the Kaiju before entering the Conn-Pod. Just as Jake’s fingertip extrapolations had suggested, Raijin, Shrikethorn, and Hakuja had converged off the east coast of Kyushu, the southernmost of Japan’s four main islands. From there they were covering the last four hundred miles or so together, apparently aiming to come ashore in Tokyo. That wasn’t a direct approach to Mount Fuji, which had Gottlieb confused. He had developed a theory that they could not detect the location of Fuji while they were underwater, and so were guided by what seemed to be a Kaiju instinct to approach the largest city they could find. Whatever the cause, the Kaiju were holding steady on their course. Submarines from the Chinese, Russian, and American navies had attacked them with every torpedo they had, with little effect. The Kaiju either ignored the subs or destroyed them if they got too close. They were due to enter the Uraga Channel and then Tokyo Bay within the next hour or so.
This was grim news, because it meant the Jaegers wouldn’t be there in time to stop the Kaiju from attacking Tokyo. Already the city was being evacuated ahead of the expected attack. Those who could were getting out of the city, heading north because the PPDC had briefed Japanese authorities on the Kaiju’s expected path. But evacuating a city of twenty million took days if not weeks, and those who could not leave in time were filling Tokyo’s hundreds of Kaiju shelters. The shelters had a decent track record from the Kaiju War. A big Kaiju intent on getting into one could do it, but the shelters were strong enough to withstand buildings collapsing on top of them, and provisioned with enough supplies to feed people trapped inside until rescuers could dig them out. In this case, if Gipsy Avenger and the other Jaegers didn’t stop the three Kaiju, it wouldn’t really matter whether the shelters survived or not.
Making an effort to look on the bright side, Jake realized that if the three Kaiju had made a beeline for Mount Fuji via Suruga Bay, a hundred miles to the west, the Jaegers wouldn’t have been able to intercept them in time.
As it was, they were cutting it very close.
Within the next two hours, Gipsy Avenger would be toe to toe with the Kaiju, and that battle would only end with one of them dead. That was what mattered.
“All Jaegers,” Lambert said over the commlink. “Sound off. Go/no-go for launch.”
“Guardian Bravo, go,” Ilya said.
Renata, almost simultaneously: “Saber Athena go.”
“Bracer Phoenix,” Amara said. “Let’s go already.”
“Copy that.” Jake took one last look at the thruster pod readings, making sure there were no fuel leaks or pressure warnings. He didn’t see any. “Command, we are go for launch.”
* * *
In the War Room, Gottlieb surveyed the main holo screen, watching the data readouts from the four Jaegers. Everything looked good as far as he could tell, but the proof would come when the thruster pods ignited. Jules Reyes hurried in from the Jaeger bay, scooting past War Room techs at support terminals. She stopped next to Gottlieb, spawning a holo screen at a terminal of her own to monitor the internal effect of the thrusters on the Jaeger’s systems and hull integrity. She glanced over at Gottlieb, who acknowledged her and leaned into the comm. “Roger, Gipsy Avenger. Ignition in ten seconds. Nine… eight…”
Inside each Conn-Pod, Rangers and cadets alike stared a little harder at their HUD readouts,
