Chapter Text
“Error! Drift failure imminent!”
“Shut the fuck up,” Simon snarled, ignoring the voice of the Iron Lung’s artificial intelligence system.
Whichever side the drift was collapsing on didn't matter - they just needed to hold out long enough to get rid of this damned kaiju.
The thing was a hulking monstrosity before them, two mouths open in a roar that showed the glowing crimson permeating through its body.
“Iron Lung, we're sending reinforcements, abort the mission,” Stratt’s voice crackled through the speakers within their jaeger. “It is not worth the risk of damage.”
“I can handle it,” Simon growled out through clenched teeth, not stopping to think about how unresponsive this latest co-pilot was.
Somewhere along the line he stopped trying to keep track of who he was paired with, they were basically just blood sacrifices at this point.
Simon glanced over at the display saying how many missiles they had left that could possibly launch, drawing back his left arm ready to fire off what they had left.
After that it'd just have to be a fistfight.
Simon drew in a shuddering inhale before releasing a smoother exhale - this sort of fight was nothing new.
And he revelled in the bliss that came from killing another kaiju.
~•~
“Yo, Grace.”
Grace bolted upright from where he'd been hunched over a microscope, looking at where Carl was in the doorway to his lab. “Yeah?”
“Stratt wants you,” Carl said before looking around the lab. “You sure you should be doing science in such a messy environment?”
Grace glanced around at the mixture of drift technology, personal belongings, and kaiju specimens before pointing at the hunk of muscle tissue on the counter beside him. “I can cover that up before we go. Like, put some cling film over it or something.”
Carl let out a sigh and shook his head. “Just- just hurry, okay?”
Grace quickly wrapped up his examination of the cells before covering over the muscle as offered, then jogging over to meet Carl by the door.
His friend held up a hand to stop him before gesturing at… pretty much all of Grace, honestly.
“Oh, right!” Grace quickly removed his gloves and goggles, tossing them onto a nearby table for later, before adjusting his labcoat. “Better?”
“Not really,” Carl admitted but began to lead his way through the labyrinthine halls of the docking complex anyway.
“So, what's Stratt want me for this time?” Grace questioned with a nervous laugh. “She doesn't usually call me out unless it's something serious.”
“You're the scientist with the highest ranking and clearance in literally everything within this compound,” Carl pointed out.
“Well, okay, yeah, I guess, but I thought they just did that after the other place called me uh,” Grace paused and made air quotation marks with his hands as he spoke again. “Mentally unfit for drift science.”
“Well, they were stupid though, weren't they?” Carl snorted before stepping aside as they entered the main control room.
The Hail Mary docking station was one of the many Jaeger compounds based around the edge of the Pacific Ocean but it was certainly showing the wear and tear of its years of service after being converted from a Jaeger development site.
More metal than not was missing from certain places, scrapped to be used as resources in repairing old Jaegers or building new ones.
Due to such cases, it meant Grace was careful to mind the many holes in the floor of the control room from where they'd been removed and welded onto the massive machines.
“Ah, Doctor Grace, you are just in time,” Stratt greeted when she noticed him, having turned around just in time to watch Grace stumble as he tried to jump between a couple large patches of missing floor.
“Oh, uh, yeah, what am I in time for exactly though? Carl didn't say,” Grace replied, pointing to the coffee cups in her hands. “One of those for me?”
“You always ask that, by now you should know the answer,” Stratt replied bluntly before taking a sip from one. “I wanted to ask you about whether you can analyse drift data.”
“Are you joking?” Stratt's unimpressed frown was turned to him. “Alright, not joking - but seriously, analyse drift data? Of course, that's easy. Literally every Jaeger does it constantly, it's how we're aware of everything that goes on and able to tell compatibility out of the usual bonding exercises and experiments and such.”
“So you can do it?”
“Yes, of course, I just said that,” Grace said, stifling a small sigh at the fact she likely hadn't been listening properly.
Honestly he should just be glad he'd gotten this second - no, third? Fifth? Maybe tenth? - chance at actually proving himself in the field of drift technology and kaiju research.
Last Grace had heard, Rocky had quit working for the last corporation that wanted him to engineer another new Jaeger model - he should really try and track him down eventually.
“Doctor Grace? Can you please get your head out of the clouds?” Stratt called and Grace blinked rapidly as he threw himself back out of his thoughts.
Grace clapped his hands together once before gesturing as he spoke. “Oh, yes, I'm here! Sooo, whose data did you want me to analyse anyway? I can check the Niflheim Creeper's data compared to the old set if you want, it's honestly fascinating-”
“I would like you to review the data belonging to the Iron Lung.”
Grace's hands froze mid motion, words halting in his throat before he snapped into slightly more composure, arms dropping to his sides. “Stratt- no, c'mon, we made a deal. We made a deal. Anything but that one.”
“That was not our deal, our deal was that the Hail Mary station would house and feed you and pay you in exchange for your skills,” Stratt reminded, turning to look at him more directly. “It would be a shame for you to go back to your little mechanic friend again. You can do so much better than him.”
Anger flickered in Grace's chest at the blatant disrespect towards Rocky's talent but another, larger, part of him screamed in fear at the idea of being nearly trampled or crushed by kaiju attacks if he was out on the street again.
“So, will you analyse the data?” Stratt asked, holding out a small hard drive to him.
Somewhere along the line she must've put down the coffees but Grace couldn't even begin to try and pinpoint when.
The loud noise of the massive metal doors of the compound opening grated against his eardrums as he shakily took the harddrive, pocketing it in a closed fist that went immediately to his labcoat.
“It seems the Iron Lung has just returned. If you hurry you could go talk to the butcher now,” Stratt suggested. “Ask him some questions about his drift experiences before you then review the data.”
Grace nodded, thought spiralling.
He didn't even know the pilot's name, just knew the title he'd racked up not only from how many kaijus he'd slaughtered but the amount of drift partners he'd killed in the process.
With another slow nod, Grace quickly turned and left the room, heading towards the elevator right next to it and trying to ignore Carl's sympathetic look after passing by him.
This was way too freaking high rank for him to be dealing with.