Alex Irvine - Pacific Rim

The marine-combat environment was addressed in early-phase Jaeger design sequences by creating sealed environmental systems within each Jaeger Conn-Pod. These have proven resilient, and existing failsafes are performing as expected, but the Mark III has added individual recirculating oxygen systems for each Ranger, integrated into the drivesuit helmet and fed from a supply separate from the internal atmospheric maintenance of each Jaeger as a whole. These systems should provide for increased survivability of battlefield encounters in which the integrity of the Conn-Pod hull is breached in a marine environment.

A number of Rangers experienced battlefield fatality within unbreached Jaeger cranial Conn-Pods due to the impact of falling as their damaged Jaegers lost balance. The Mark III now has updated and enhanced gyroscopic stability as well as internal enhancements to the cranial framing. In testing, these cranial architectures survived falls from distances far exceeding the height of a Mark III. Ranger survivability is increased by the inclusion of motion-dampening resistance mechanisms within the motion-capture rig. Together, these improvements should markedly improve Ranger survivability of falling and high-impact events.

New to the Mark III is an automated escape-pod system capable of ejecting each Ranger individually. This system is integrated into the control-arm assembly that forms each Ranger’s interface with the motion-capture rig. It is triggered through commands given either to the holographic HUD or manually through switches on the gauntlet-interfacing control panel. Upon activation, the system encloses a Ranger within an individual escape pod, which is then ejected through an aperture in the upper hull of the cranial structure. Each escape pod provides full life support for up to one hour and incorporates homing beacons, visual location assistance, and flotation devices.

ON THE HORIZON, WITH THE STORM SYSTEMengulfing Hong Kong far below, dawn gleamed like an empty promise. Raleigh and Mako kept one arm wrapped around Otachi’s torso. The other was working overtime deflecting Otachi’s claws and trying to land a shot of their own once in a while, maybe damage the wings and force Otachi into a controlled descent back to terra firma.

Raleigh was glad they’d already torn Otachi’s tail off. No way they could have held off attacks from three different sources and still kept the kaiju from puking more of its napalm bile all over Gipsy Danger. More of the nasty blue gunk was leaking from the hole in Otachi’s throat where Gipsy Danger had torn away the bile sac. Otachi seemed to have an endless supply.

The feed from the LOCCENT was full of worried faces.

“You’re at seven miles,” Tendo Choi said.

“At least we won’t overheat,” Raleigh said. The temperature outside was well below zero and Gipsy Danger was shedding waste heat through the holes Otachi’s bile had melted in her armor.

“Funny,” Tendo Choi said. “We’ve got… shit. Raleigh, we’ve got nothing. We can’t help you.”

“I’ve always been the self-sufficient type,” Raleigh said. Mako was… what was she doing? He could feel her mind working at a problem but he didn’t have the conscious bandwidth available to figure out what it was.

She spoke. “Surprising that it can still breathe this high. Also that its wings can give it enough lift.”

“Yep, surprising. Kaiju are full of surprises,” Raleigh said. “Now how are we going to kill it? Both plasma cannons are shot. We’ve got no—”

“There’s still something left,” Mako said. “One of my upgrades.”

“One you didn’t tell me about?” Raleigh asked.

“You would have seen it if you’d looked,” she answered. She hit a switch on the motion rig’s command console and a glowing sword appeared.

“This is irony, right? Because Otachi is a kind of sword, isn’t it?” he said.

Mako ignored his joke. “Like I said, my father was a swordmaker.”

“Altitude coming up on fifty-thousand feet,” Tendo Choi said.

Mako flicked her wrist. Raleigh felt the motion and duplicated it.

From Gipsy Danger’s right gauntlet, a long whip made of serrated metal segments woven together with a high-tension cable spilled out into the stratosphere. Mako clenched her fist. Again, feeling and anticipating the motion, Raleigh did the same, even though he didn’t know what she was up to.

The whip stiffened and its links knit together and drew taught with a rattling clank that vibrated throughout the Jaeger. Otachi kept hacking away, and with her wounded arm Gipsy Danger kept parrying.

“What the hell is that?” Tendo Choi asked.

“Ask Mako,” Raleigh replied.

“Are you really going to—”

Tendo never got to finish his question. Mako pivoted on the command platform, and their perfect Drift drew Raleigh into the motion as well. He could feel the weight of the sword in his hand, balanced and deadly.

“Kamei no tame ni!” Mako cried out. For my family’s honor!

They let go of the kaiju, shoving away for a few meters of critical space.

The sword was so thin and moved so fast that all Raleigh saw was a line of reflected sunlight passing diagonally down through Otachi’s body. The kaiju’s wings curled, one of them coming loose and fluttering away. A long moment later, Otachi’s upper torso divided cleanly in two, the halves peeling apart and beginning their long tumble back to Earth.

Seven, Raleigh thought.

Two , Mako answered.

“What do you call that thing?” Raleigh asked. She shrugged. The words “Chain Sword” floated into Raleigh’s head. Plain but descriptive. Okay, he thought. Chain Sword.

Then the last of their upward momentum dissipated. They were weightless for long enough that Tendo Choi could say, “Beautiful.”

In the background of the feed from LOCCENT, they heard Pentecost ordering recovery teams and choppers to scramble.

“Hawks launch! All crews to the roof!”

Gipsy Danger began to fall.

The math was pretty clear. They were a little over fifty-thousand feet. Call it fifteen-thousand meters. Given that distance and the good old formula of nine-point-eight meters per second, plus some fiddling because of atmospheric resistance, they would hit the ground in approximately one hundred seventy-seven seconds. A hair under three minutes.

At which point they would be moving right about two-hundred miles per hour. Maybe a little less if they decided to take the fall spread-eagled to maximize resistance. Both of them immediately adopted that stance, stabilizing Gipsy Danger in a horizontal descent posture. Below them, they could see the storm churning from Hong Kong well out toward the Philippines. It was a huge system.

One sixty-five. The pieces of Otachi fell with them, tumbling, trailing clouds of vaporizing blood.

“Gipsy. Listen to me.” They both looked at Pentecost, who had come up close to Tendo in the LOCCENT feed. “I’ve done this before.”

You have? Raleigh thought. He could sense the same question in Mako’s mind, along with some irritation, like she should have known this already.

One fifty. Otachi’s body parts were no longer visible.

“Loosen every shock absorber,” Pentecost instructed. Raleigh put the command through, maximizing the amount of give in each of Gipsy Danger’s hundreds of hydraulic shock-management assemblies.

“Done,” he said when the readouts showed full loosening of every assembly that had survived Otachi’s attacks.