Work Text:
No Problem With Life
They were the first generation, the pillar that raised the foundation of so many Jaegers and pilots to follow. Cherno Alpha, Sasha and Aleksis Kaidanovsky, trained and launched in a blaze of hope and glory that heralded the Mark-1 glory days.
Even among reputed “bad boys” like Scott Hansen and the street-fighting teen triplets, the Kaidanovskys were deemed the senior badasses of this first generation. Between a decade as prison guards and more black belts than most fightmasters, they had quite the reputation.
They declined every proposed stint to serve as Academy Instructors. “You’d still deploy on duty from Anchorage Shatterdome,” wheedled the commanders.
“Thank you for the invitation,” Sasha said. “It is most flattering, but the Academy is not the place for us.”
Russia’s commanding officer and senior PPDC personnel bore them out. “We cannot spare our strongest team from Vladivostok. They can teach what our young pilots need to know when they are on assignment. Formal lessons are overrated.”
When the Wei triplets went north or Cherno Alpha went south, “informal lessons” meant a bloody Jaeger Program fight club. Stacker Pentecost nearly suffered a psychotic episode when he found out. Russia’s C.O. refused to halt the practice. He said it purged tensions. It was much like the way Sasha and Aleksis had purged tensions in between shifts at the prison where they’d spent twenty years.
Their long years of practice against groups of all sizes and skill levels had made them all but unbeatable – until the Wei triplets came along. Perhaps Sasha and Aleksis underestimated the boys. Cheung, Jin, and Hu were lean and lanky, barely clearing five-foot-six, not even eighteen yet the first time they challenged the Kaidanovskys to a match. Sasha and Aleksis had gone against teams of five or six at a time. They expected no real challenge.
They were wrong. Two of the triplets pinned Aleksis and the third pinned Sasha, all three wearing matching smirks of triumph. Sasha was growling for another bout, but it was her husband who defused both her and the crew of Vladivostok Dome. “Now, now, let the young pups have their moment. They’re new to the world of Jaegers, only practiced at these play fights. Of course, they’re well practiced at a little romp.”
The triplets scowled as the Russian crews’ applause took on a more condescending tone, and accepted the bottles of top shelf vodka as their winnings, and departed with ill grace.
So was established a trend for Cherno Alpha and Crimson Typhoon interactions that amused the Russians and thoroughly irked the Chinese. Sasha and Aleksis did everything but pat the triplets on the head when they met from that point on. It wasn’t terribly fair, since Sasha and Aleksis could tell that respect was a serious thing for the triplets and their crew, so when they were together in Vladivostok, they felt compelled to defer to the Russians. But Sasha in particular had no real interest in being fair.
“Fair is not an operating principle of the universe,” she once told the visiting crew of Gipsy Danger.
The Americans chortled, and Tendo Choi intoned, “Life’s unfair, and then you die.” Sasha liked that saying and promptly adopted it.
So they blasted their Ukrainian hardhouse without shame in their Jaeger Bay, despite knowing it drove their fellow Rangers – particularly the Weis – insane. Especially in Russia, it did not hurt at all to give the visiting Rangers and crew a reminder of who ruled this roost.
However, as Crimson Typhoon racked up a kill score of its own, the triplets worked out a subtle retaliation: they soon realized that the staccato punch of their basketball annoyed the Kaidanovskys, since it was dissonant to the rhythm of their music.
Or at least that was Sasha’s conclusion of why those three gaudy little rats insisted on dribbling that damned ball everywhere they went for hours on end. No sooner would Crimson Typhoon be installed in a bay than they would install the basketball hoop and start playing. Sasha and Aleksis were too stubborn to admit outright how irritating the sound was, but they caught more than a few sly smirks from Weis and crew.
“Welcome to the most passive-aggressive Shatterdome on the map,” Marshal Pentecost sighed on one occasion.
Sasha was mortally offended, and only Stacker’s rank prevented her from demanding he take it back. “There is nothing passive about this base, Marshal. We are simply aggressive.”
He shook his head, at ease with them in private in a way he rarely showed with the newer generation of Rangers. After all, they had all launched together in the Mark-1s. “The talk of assigning you as instructors at the Jaeger Academy has begun again. You’ll be glad to know it has already been shot down.”
“Good,” said Aleksis, his arm around Sasha’s waist.
Sasha shook her head. “We’re not leaders, Stacker. We have no wish to be. We are soldiers and fighters, and we’ll teach by example, but not in some sterile room with books. That’s not our way.”
“I know. And most of us with any experience among Rangers understand that.” He shot Sasha a side-eye that made her smirk in response. “But I do wish you would stop thrashing the youngsters as part of the victory celebrations. Sooner or later, someone’s going to get hurt.”
“I take offense that you think I do not know when to hold my punches.” She said it with a frigid voice that would cause most men and women to quail in terror. (At first impression, most personnel found her husband the more intimidating. That impression rarely lasted longer than a conversation, and both she and her husband found that one of the more entertaining ways to pass time during boring meet-and-greets.)
Stacker Pentecost, however, was not such a man. Sasha and Aleksis quite admired that about him. They were among the few active duty pilots aware of his physical condition, but it only made them admire him more. A man who stood firm against all forces, even those internal to his body, was deserving of admiration.
Sasha and Aleksis admired anyone who could muster the strength and skill to beat one or both of them in a fight. Well, almost everyone. They partnered in deployment with Nova Hyperion frequently, and sparred without restraint after each engagement. An Yuna and Pang So-yi were quiet, dedicated, and greatly disciplined, and hated noise – yet they could fight Sasha and Aleksis to a standstill even when two-on-two. They hated the noise of Vladivostok, but somehow, the quartet got along well. (Well, Sasha and Aleksis found it appalling that the Korean girls didn’t drink alcohol. How in God’s name could they even survive?!) When the ruckus got to be too much, the fencers simply kept to their own bay and stayed out of everyone’s way.
Not so with the Wei triplets. The little wretches invaded the Jaeger bays with their smirks and their basketball and their trademarked gear and millions of shrieking fans. They spoke of respect for more senior pilots, but something in their eyes suggested it was lacking. Sasha and Aleksis turned up their music, and somehow, the Chinese always seemed to make that basketball louder.
They all caught the apprehensive glances that Stacker Pentecost shot them when Cherno Alpha moved permanently to Hong Kong.
Now they were in Crimson Typhoon’s turf, and at last, after nearly ten years on duty, the triplets let them know it.
“Your music is horrible!” Hu shouted on the very first day that all four Jaegers were on base.
“Horrible!” Jin agreed.
“Don’t disrespect the Dome!” demanded Cheung.
Sasha suspected that the boys had been waiting to say this for a very long time. She and Aleksis exchanged a look, then strode down from the catwalks surrounding Cherno and glared at the trio. “If you have a problem with Ukrainian hardhouse, you have a problem with life,” Sasha announced. “If you have a problem with life, maybe we can fix that!”
Amid the stare-down, however, she nudged her husband. “So, the little crimson wretches have finally grown up enough to stand up for themselves aloud.”
“Stacker has forbidden combat outside of the Kwoon here,” Aleksis sighed. Such a pity, he added in the ghost drift. All these years, and we can’t even finish this rivalry properly before we go into battle.
Only for Stacker would we let that go, Sasha thought.
Four days later, PPDC rescue crews pulled Sasha and Aleksis from the floating wreckage of their conn-pod. Aleksis could not move thanks to his broken bones, but Sasha clawed free of the medics to get to his side. “Calm yourself, zolotse,” he mumbled. Barely in possession of one unbroken limb, battered and hypothermic and in pain, he nonetheless smiled at her. “I’ll be fine.” He cast an assessing look over her, and asked the medics directly, “How is my wife?”
As if she couldn't speak for herself. I will get you for that later.
“She’ll be fine too,” the medics told him. “Minor concussion, but as you see, she’s very coherent!” The crew laughed around them. “The Breach is closed, Rangers. Mission accomplished. Striker Eureka and Gipsy Danger were able to finish it. The pilots are all expected to recover.”
Sasha saw no reason not to be elated by this news, and when she felt the pang of dismay from Aleksis, she assumed it was shame that Cherno Alpha had not properly gone to guard Striker and Gipsy’s flanks. What is it, my love?
“The boys?” he asked quietly.
Then she remembered. Crimson Typhoon’s conn-pod, crushed by Otachi’s accursed tail. “Let’s get this bastard!” How dare that beast kill Hong Kong’s protectors, here in their home, on their own nation’s soil, protecting their own people? She hoped it had suffered brutally.
But Tendo Choi, supervising the chopper crew, perked up. “Oh, didn’t anyone tell you? The Weis are gonna be fine. Their escape pods jettisoned in time; Crimson Typhoon may even be salvageable. Some broken bones, Hu Wei’s got a nasty concussion, but they’ll be all right. We picked them up twenty-four hours ago.”
Sasha and Aleksis were silent as that sank in, then she took her husband’s one uninjured hand in hers. That is good to hear, she mused through the ghost drift. So the little rats didn’t have a problem with life after all.
It was unlikely that they would ever get on with the Weis. Still, she was glad they didn’t have a problem with life.
~Fin~