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Four signatures.
The computer spat out displacement calculations that made everyone's blood run cold. Based on the water volume displaced at the breach, two of the contacts were Category-5.
Category-5.
The first humanity had ever encountered. And there were two of them.
Every screen in the PPDC network showed the same data. Across the world, in command centers and government bunkers, people stared at those numbers with expressions that ranged from grim determination to barely-suppressed terror.
Inside the Shatterdome, the alarm triggered a choreographed chaos. Personnel sprinted to battle stations with the efficiency of countless drills. In the central command center, Pentecost and Mako stood before the main tactical display, with Raleigh watching over their shoulders, arms crossed tight against his chest.
Mako's face was carefully neutral, but anyone who knew her could read the disappointment. The other pilots were already suiting up in their respective Jaeger bays. She was still here in the LOCCENT, which meant only one thing—her drift compatibility test with Raleigh had failed. Gipsy Danger was down a pilot.
"Multiple Kaiju signatures detected off the Hong Kong coast," Mako reported, her voice steady despite whatever she was feeling. "Four contacts total. First contact: rat-like morphology, Category-4, designate 'Raiju.' Second contact: turtle-like morphology with enhanced armor plating, Category-4, designate 'Scunner.'"
She stopped mid-sentence, staring at the third data stream like it had personally offended her.
"What about the other two?" Pentecost demanded, leaning forward.
Mako's voice dropped half an octave. "Third contact: tentacled morphology, multiple prehensile appendages, designate 'Slattern.' Category..." She paused, like saying it out loud would make it more real. "Category-5. Fourth contact: lizard-like morphology, heavily built, designate 'Leatherback.' Also Category-5."
The words hung in the air like a death sentence.
"Two Category-4s. Two Category-5s." Pentecost's mind raced through tactical scenarios, discarding each one as fast as it formed. The entire command center had gone quiet except for the constant stream of tracking data being called out by analysts.
"Deploy all available Jaegers," Pentecost ordered, his voice cutting through the noise. "And get me a direct line to Strategic Command. I want nuclear weapons on standby."
"Sir." Mako's hesitation was barely perceptible. "We can only deploy three Jaegers. They have four Kaiju."
Four against three. With two Category-5s in the mix. The math was brutal.
"Crimson Typhoon takes Leatherback. Striker Eureka takes Slattern. Cherno Alpha handles both Category-4s."
It was a terrible plan. It was also the only plan they had.
"Understood," Mako said quietly, fingers already flying across her console to relay the orders.
"And Mako—evacuate the city. Close every bridge. Get civilians into the shelters. Now."
Night had fallen over Hong Kong. The sky was impossibly clear—stars scattered across black velvet, a perfect crescent moon hanging like a theatrical prop. The kind of peaceful evening that made you forget the world was ending one monster at a time.
On the ground, that peace was an illusion.
The three operational Jaegers had flown out beyond the Seawall and splashed down in the shallow coastal waters. Water came up to their calves, which meant they were standing in maybe sixty feet of depth—close enough to shore that the city's neon glow painted them in electric colors. Blue and pink and gold reflecting off metal and ocean spray.
Three titans standing in a line, staring at the dark horizon. Waiting.
"Gentlemen," Pentecost's voice crackled through the comm channel into each Conn-Pod. "This is humanity's first encounter with Category-5 Kaiju. Expect unprecedented size, weight, and aggression. Do not underestimate them."
"Cherno Alpha, holding position in designated patrol zone," came Sasha Kaidanovsky's accented voice.
"Crimson Typhoon, patrol zone secured," the Wei Tang triplets reported in eerie unison.
"Striker Eureka in position," Chuck Hansen drawled, sounding almost bored. Almost.
The three Jaegers spread out, each taking a sector of the coastline. The Kaiju had been detected the instant they emerged from the breach—LOCCENT's systems were good for that much at least. Travel time from the Challenger Deep to Hong Kong: approximately one hour.
Which meant sixty minutes to prepare defenses, evacuate millions of civilians, and figure out how to win a fight they were outnumbered in.
By the time the Jaegers reached their stations, half that time had already burned away.
The ocean was dark and quiet. Too quiet.
Then Hu Wei, the middle brother in Crimson Typhoon's three-pilot array, caught something on sensors. "Contact! Three o'clock, right side, coming in fast!"
The water exploded.
Raiju erupted from the depths like a missile, all crocodilian speed and predatory rage. "RRRAAAHHH!" The sound was primal, deafening. It lunged straight at Crimson Typhoon, moving faster than anything that large had any right to move.
But the Wei brothers had been drift-compatible since birth. They'd fought together for years. They moved as one organism, Crimson's triple-clawed arm extending with perfect timing to intercept the charge. The plan was simple and brutal—catch Raiju by the throat mid-lunge, deploy the rotating saw blade, instant kill.
Should have worked.
Raiju twisted mid-flight, serpentine body coiling impossibly fast. The Kaiju had been expecting the counter.
Crimson's claws adjusted, compensated—the combat prediction system Aidan had installed working overtime to overcome mechanical lag. Not a perfect catch, but good enough.
"Schllkt!" The plasma-heated claws ripped through flesh, tearing five ragged chunks from Raiju's flank. One claw punched straight through the Kaiju's eye socket, popping the organ like a grape.
Raiju crashed into the shallows, thrashing in pain and fury. Its tail whipped around with devastating force, catching Crimson Typhoon across the torso and hurling the Jaeger backward.
"Contact!" Another set of claws caught the tail mid-swing. The combat prediction system had seen it coming, positioned Crimson to turn defense into offense.
"Second contact, directly ahead!" Jin Wei's warning came half a second too late.
No time for the killing blow. Crimson pivoted, hydraulics screaming, and threw Raiju away from them with both hands. The wounded Kaiju tumbled through the air like a rag doll.
"GET AIRBORNE!" Jin Wei's voice cracked with urgency.
The triplets didn't question it. Crimson's back-mounted jets ignited, and the Jaeger rocketed straight up.
The water where they'd been standing exploded as Slattern surged up from below, massive jaws snapping on empty air. The Category-5 was enormous—easily twice the mass of anything they'd fought before. It crashed back down, creating a shockwave that rocked Crimson Typhoon even in mid-flight.
"BANG!" A plasma cannon bolt streaked through the darkness, catching Slattern's tail array. Several of the tentacle-appendages sheared off in a spray of bioluminescent blood.
Crimson hit the water hard, stabilized, and immediately began charging another shot. The plasma cannons hummed with building energy, casting red light across the water.
Raiju, meanwhile, had been thrown directly into Cherno Alpha's patrol zone. The ancient Russian Jaeger caught the wounded Kaiju with both fists and proceeded to beat it like a drum. No finesse, no technique. Just brutal, overwhelming force delivered by pistons that could crack a mountain.
But Striker Eureka's situation had gone sideways.
Leatherback emerged from the depths ahead of the Australian Jaeger—massively built, head like a battering ram with fan-shaped plates extending from its skull. It charged with the inevitability of an oncoming train, each step creating miniature tsunamis.
The battlefield had fractured into chaos.
Crimson Typhoon versus Slattern. Striker Eureka versus Leatherback. Cherno Alpha versus Raiju.
Three separate fights. Three Jaegers. Four Kaiju.
Someone was missing.
"Where's the fourth contact?" Pentecost's voice was ice-cold. "Someone find me Scunner!"
Analysts scrambled through sensor data, triangulating, searching.
"LOCCENT, we have a problem!" Herc Hansen's voice came through, tight with controlled panic. "Scunner's on the beach! Repeat, Scunner has made landfall behind Cherno Alpha's position!"
Every screen in the command center snapped to the same view.
Scunner stood at the edge of the Seawall, water streaming from its armored shell. The bony plates on its back glowed with building energy—bright, electric blue.
"No," Mako breathed. "Not that—"
The EMP pulse erupted in a sphere of electromagnetic chaos, expanding outward at the speed of light.
Every electronic system in range began to die.
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