Chapter Text
It’s pouring in Panama City, a fact that neither pleases nor displeases Kleya.
On one hand, everyone is either hiding beneath a hood or an umbrella. There’s fewer wandering eyes, which means less chance of drawing the attention of a nosy passerby. The late hour also helps. And when one is trying to smuggle hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of illegal kaiju specimens, the fewer people who notice, the better.
On the other hand, thousands of dollars worth of illegal kajiu bits are bulky, and she will not lose this battle against an unwieldy specimen jar, an umbrella, and the weather.
She’d walked to the dealer’s shop from the hotel with more cash than most people earned in a year squirreled away into several pockets. Kaiju are a controlled substance - once they were dead at least - and as someone with seniority in the jaeger program, she could have done this via official channels. But the program’s governing council doesn’t like it when they spend money on specimens; they should spend it on jaegers instead.
But Nemik had been so insistent.
Finding a piece like this is astronomically rare - thyroids almost never make it through a jaeger fight intact. Think of what the hormones could tell us! This will fuel years of research!
Nemik did occasionally fall victim to hysteria when kaiju were concerned, but he was also a genius and fiercely loyal to the program, so she tried to not let his mania annoy her as much as it should. She also didn’t want to listen to his complaints if they didn’t get the damn piece, so here she was. In Panama. In the pouring rain.
It would have been so much easier if the Panama shatterdome was still operational. No need for such secrecy; hell, she wouldn’t have even needed to make the trip herself. A simple phone call (put nothing in writing unless you want it on the front page of a newspaper was her guiding principle) to the Marshal’s adjutant, like placing a takeaway food order, and the piece would have been on the next chopper to Alaska and Kleya wouldn’t be slogging through sodden streets.
But there was no Panama shatterdome, not anymore. Devoid of jaegers and personnel, it was being picked clean for materials to build the sea wall. The spindly arms of the dome’s massive skeleton were all that remained, and even those were being pulled down. It had made for a pretty sobering sight from the plane window and Kleya could only be grateful that it wasn’t Anchorage, wasn’t her shatterdome that was being dismantled, piece by piece.
Thunder rumbles off in the distance and Kleya squares her shoulders and quickens her pace.
It had been a pleasant enough trip to the dealer’s shop - gently sloping streets with only a few people out braving the drizzle - but while she’d been examining and haggling; the rain had picked up. Now it’s driving in sheets, the rest of the walk is very much uphill, and the spray is making her grip tenuous.
A sudden gust of wind sends the tails of her coat flapping, the umbrella lifts, and the jar slips from her arms.
A pair of hands catch it before it shatters on the pavement.
“Careful now. This is expensive.”
The familiar timbre of Luthen’s voice instantly soothes her, even as the words make her brow twitch.
“Really? I had no idea,” she says dryly.
Luthen looks like a drowned rat, with his silver hair plastered to his scalp and rivulets of water running down his cloak so thick they look like little streams. Under the relative privacy of her umbrella, he holds the jar up and twists it, peering into the blue liquid from all sides. Illuminated from above and below by dim lights inset into the canister, the thyroid looks downright eerie, like it might suddenly grow teeth and throw itself against the glass.
“Paak’s intel was right,” he says appraisingly. “It is in good condition.”
“Put it down!” She goes to swat his arm but then realises that could make him drop the jar. “You can look when we’re back at the hotel.”
Luthen rolls his eyes even as he lifts his coat to tuck it under one arm.
“Who’s going to see?” he quips as he takes a moment to adjust his hold. Kleya angles the umbrella to block them from the view of anyone passing by. “The only ones crazy enough to be out in this weather are you and I.”
“It’s better not to risk it,” she shoots back and then, without warning, turns on her heel and walks off, leaving Luthen to break into a half-jog to catch up. She doesn’t say anything, but she does raise the umbrella a touch so he doesn’t have to duck his head.
“Was it as expensive as we feared?” he asks after a moment.
She thinks of the cash she’d started the evening with and how much lighter her pockets are now. “More so.”
“Our funding isn’t infinite, Kleya.”
“I know that,” she snaps. She’s the one who moved the damn money through several accounts, both official and unofficial. He doesn’t need to scold her about their spending.
They’re quiet for a few minutes as they trudge along the winding streets. Only a few cars pass them on their journey, sending rainwater sloshing over their shoes. They’re almost back at the hotel when she asks, “was your evening successful?”
Luthen had been tight-lipped about his reasons for joining her on this trip, but Kleya hadn’t pried. He’ll tell her if she needs to know.
“I think so.”
“Hmm, that’s vague.” And annoying, but she’s used to that.
“No point in being specific; it might not pan out.”
“And if it does?”
He looks down at her and smiles. It’s small; but genuine. One might even say hopeful, if she believed in that sort of thing anymore.
“Then I think we might just win.”
–
Two weeks later, she’s in a helicopter heading back to the Anchorage shatterdome. Her meeting with Mon Mothma still leaves a sour taste in her mouth, even though it’s been hours since she farewelled the other woman.
She’s going to have to tell Luthen that they’re losing more funding. The early warning system is being shut down. Senator Mothma had tried her best - or so she said - but the rest of the council had been united. What's the point of an early warning system if you’re building a wall? No need to listen out for those horrible, wailing sirens telling you to go to the nearest bunker, not anymore.
Millions of dollars, siphoned off into the coastal wall project. The frontline staff would go first, dozens, if not more than a hundred personnel across the remaining domes who, by Monday, would no longer have jobs. Then the peripheral staff would go - the technicians, the IT specialists. With less work for them, the council would make an easy argument to slash their numbers even further. Death by a thousand budget cuts.
The beacons, the cornerstones of the system, would stay, bobbing on their moorings. But eventually they would go too. Fall into disrepair, snap their cables.
A once marveled piece of technology developed for the fight against the kaiju, now left to drift aimlessly among the waves. It would almost be poetic, if she cared about that sort of thing anymore.
“Coming up on the dome, ma’am,” the pilot announces over the headset, pulling her from her musings.
Kleya nods, although the other woman can’t see her, and turns her attention out the window.
The shatterdomes are a marvel of human engineering, even when you consider the machines they house. She can remember the awe she felt the first time she saw it, emerging from the mist to loom over all the tiny people below.
She can remember the sensation of Luthen’s eyes on her during their approach, remember digging her nails into her palms to stop any outward show of emotion.
“Cool, huh?” he’d asked his young shadow after they’d landed, when they were far enough away from the spinning blades to hear each other without shouting.
“I guess.”
Her tone mustn’t have been as nonchalant as she tried to make it because he’d given her a knowing smile. She’d frowned at him and he’d laughed.
He’s waiting for her now. From up here everything looks like a drab mess of rust brown and slate grey, steel in a constant battle against the sea spray and the elements, but his black coat and silver hair stand out amongst the mess. His features come more into focus the lower the chopper gets until she’s walking across the landing pad with her shoulders hunched against the wind at her back and the spark in his eyes is readily apparent. He’s in a good mood. She wonders how long it will stick around after she tells him about her meeting.
“Remember that thing in Panama City?” he says in greeting.
“The thyroid?” Kleya is momentarily thrown, wondering why that has him in such high spirits.
“No, the other thing.”
“Ah.” Now that makes more sense. “You mean the thing you wouldn’t tell me about?” she reminds him as they make their way inside.
“There was no point in telling you unless it came good.”
“And I’m to guess it came good?”
He doesn’t say anything else, just gestures for her to enter the lift before following her in. Such a gentleman, she thinks sarcastically. The ride down is silent. If he’s waiting for her to prod him again, then he’s going to be waiting a while. She isn’t the sort of woman who asks twice.
The doors open onto the orderly mayhem that is the dome’s main floor. Something settles in her as soon as she steps into the space, like an anxiety she didn’t know she carried with her until it’s suddenly put at ease. Kleya will go where she is needed without delay or complaint but she doesn’t enjoy leaving the dome. She tells herself it’s because the domes are safe; there’s no need to fear a kaiju attack when you live above the machines that kill them. She doesn’t tell herself it’s because this place is the closest thing she has to a home. She had a home once. And then it was destroyed, and she hasn’t had one since.
The space is cavernous and noisy and there’s people everywhere but one figure immediately draws her attention.
They’re lurking in the shadows nearby, incongruous in their stillness while everyone else bustles to and fro. They’re waiting for them because they peel off the wall as soon as they both draw near - a man, Kleya discerns when he steps into the light. Taller than her, shorter than Luthen. Dark hair, dark eyes, tanned skin. His expression is casual, disaffected. His tense shoulders and measured footsteps tell her it’s a front. This man is nervous - she’d like to know why.
“Kleya, this is Cassian Andor.” Luthen makes the introductions. “Cassian, this is Kleya Marki. I told you about her.”
Cassian nods at her when she doesn’t make any move to offer her hand. “Ma’am.”
Kleya’s wondering why this little meeting is even happening when Luthen’s next words bring her mind to a screeching halt.
“Cassian here is our newest addition to the pilot pool for the mark three program.” He punctuates this with a friendly clap on the other man’s shoulder as though he’s introducing an old friend and not a new headache. “Kleya is the head of that program. You’ll be answering to her.”
Cassian nods again. “Nice to meet you, Ms Marki.”
Kleya’s brow twitches but she smooths it over with a pleasant smile. “Pleasure. Luthen, a word?”
–
The door to Luthen’s office has barely closed behind them when Kleya rounds on him.
“I distinctly remember being given full control over this project. That includes the pilots!”
It’s not that she’s protective of her work - they work well together after all - but they drew lines down this for a reason. He has bigger things to worry about than chasing down candidates for a project Kleya’s now pretty sure will never see the light of day.
“And you still have it.” Luthen stops to hang his coat on the rack by the bookshelf before turning back to her. “I’m not saying you should give him special preference. I just want him on the roster.”
“He’s an unknown quantity. I have no idea what his skills are, or if he’s even suitable!”
“He’s suitable, trust me.”
She bites back a growl. Luthen’s always blended his pragmatism with more than a healthy dose of blind faith. It drives her mad, but what makes her even madder is that it almost always seems to work out for him.
“I trust you; I don’t know him.”
“He’s good, Kleya.”
She pauses. Takes stock. Changes tack.
“That’s why you came to Panama with me. You didn’t care about the specimen, you were there for him.”
Luthen doesn’t confirm it, but he also doesn’t deny it. Instead, he goes to the wall of floor to ceiling windows that look out over the hangar bay and its dwindling number of jaegers. Standing smartly at parade rest and with his dress blues on, he looks every inch the dedicated Pan Pacific Defense Corp Marshal Rael the world knows him to be.
He’s also the only marshal remaining in the PPDC. At the height of the program, there were a handful of senior officers overseeing more than a dozen shatterdomes at key strategic locations along the Pacific rim. But in recent years, with every jaeger and her pilots that fall in battle, with every growing mile of the wall’s so-called ‘protection’, domes were being shuttered and marshals were being stood down. Luthen’s authority used to extend along the western seaboard of the United States and Canada, and a bit down the Mexican coastline as well. It now covers the entire Pacific. It’s a lot for one man.
Kleya narrows her eyes at his back. “How long have you had your eye on him?”
“A while,” he admits without turning.
“A while,” she scoffs. “As if you don’t have other, more important things to worry about. No, instead you devote your time to bringing one man into the fold.”
She begins to pace, she can’t help it. “How? Why him? Who even told you about him?”
“Bix Caleen.”
Faces and names whir in her mind until it settles on the one she needs. Bix Caleen is one of their best, a mark three jaeger mechanic with a level head and strong work ethic. She’s unafraid to share her opinions - and she has a few - but she also has creative workarounds to their funding shortfalls that Kleya is a fan of.
“Again, you have better things to do than chase ranger hopefuls around the world. There’s still enough clout behind the word jaeger to draw recruits to us, not the other way around.” A thought suddenly occurs to her. “You don’t trust my judgement?”
He turns to face her now. “I do,” he quickly reassures.
“Then why are you going behind my back on this?”
“Call it a gut feeling,” is all he says.
There’s that damn faith again. Sometimes she wishes she could share in it. But there’s no space for faith in her life anymore. You don’t get things by wishing for them; you get them by working. She starts pacing again.
“Does this ‘gut feeling’ meet the requirements? Does he even want to be here?”
“He’s been through the training before, at the academy before it closed down. Exceptional marks, top of his class.”
That’s news to her. She stops wearing a hole in the floor and turns to Luthen.
“That’s why I was so interested,” he says. “Bix mentioned him once and I recognised the name. I dug through our files, pulled up his profile. He’s good, Kleya. Twenty drops, twenty kills.”
They could have used a man that skilled years ago. “Then why isn’t he in a jaeger already?”
“Didn’t say. My guess is a sudden change of heart. Or a girl,” he adds after a moment. Kleya rolls her eyes. “Since then he’s been doing not much, odd jobs here and there.”
“So he’s a washout.” She doesn’t have time for people who crumble under pressure. She’s prided herself on never cracking, even though some nights it’s very tempting to.
Just one night. Just one. Fall apart, unravel at the seams in the privacy of her bunk and then patch herself up so the next day no one is none the wiser. But while the temptation is strong, her fear is stronger. What if she can’t pick up the pieces the next morning? What if despair sinks its claws deep into her and never lets go? Dread is a constant companion, kept only at bay by constant effort. If she lets it in, lets it make a home in her chest, she can’t do her job and if she can’t do her job - well, what good is she? So the veneer never cracks. It can’t.
“He needs a cause, Kleya.” Luthen gives her a meaningful look. Our cause. “He needs something to fight for.”
“Does he even care about the kaiju?”
Has he ever lost, is what she means. Has he ever felt the crushing realisation that the kaiju have taken something from him that can never be replaced, has he learned to dread the ocean and the monsters it holds. Has he lost, and has it made him angry?
Judging from the little she’s learned about Cassian from their brief meeting and this terse conversation, she doesn’t think he does.
Luthen nods understandingly. “He’s good, Kleya, I can feel it. He can fight and he has the conviction. It might not look like that from where you’re standing, but he does. He’s the future of the jaeger program.”
Kleya sighs. Time to rip the bandaid off then.
“The program is dead, Luthen.”
That brings him up short, his eyes widening briefly in apprehension. “What do you mean?”
“My meeting with Senator Mothma. The council will vote tomorrow to put an end to the early warning system, effective from Monday.”
Kleya watches as he processes the news. Sees the grief, the anger, the outrage, all flash across his face till it settles behind a facade of stony acceptance.
To most people, Luthen Rael is an inscrutable man. Unflappable. One has to be when you’re in charge of a shatterdome and the lives of millions of people rest in your hands. But to Kleya, he’s an open book. She’s grown up watching big emotions play out in the small creases of his brow and the minute downturn of his lips.
"The money saved," she curls her lip distastefully over the word, "will go straight to the wall. While it doesn't represent a large part of our operating budget, it is still a significant loss. We'll be able to keep some staff, those with enough transferrable skills who can be placed in other, more securely funded parts of the program, but we're still going to lose a lot."
Luthen moves away from the window slowly, like each step is a conscious effort. Walks the short distance to his desk, pulls out his chair, sits back heavily in it. Steeples his fingers under his chin and stares blankly at the opposite wall. Kleya ignores the other seats in the room and remains standing. She’s had time to process this.
His voice carries no trace of emotion when he asks, “And the jaeger program?”
“Funded. For now.”
He sighs, running a hand over his face.
“The writing’s on the wall, Luthen. I’d give it two weeks, a month tops. They’re going to shut us down.” It’s not a prediction she wants to come true, but it’s one she shares anyway.
“How many staff will we lose?”
“Dozens, easily. Maybe more. From all the domes remaining, not just ours.”
“Did they even think this through?” Luthen asks bitterly. “Do they know how many civilian alert networks rely on our systems, our data? They’re happy to let every kaiju just be a surprise now?”
“There’s the wall now.”
He falls into a contemplative silence. She can almost hear the gears turning as he hunts for a solution. “What about Senator Mothma and her support?”
Kleya shakes her head. “She’s one woman on a council of nine. She could spend every free moment singing our praises and it still wouldn’t be enough.”
“Senator Farr?”
“Switched allegiance to the coastal wall project as soon as he realised it was the popular choice. We won’t get him back.”
“This cannot be the end of it.” His voice is soft. Weary, Kleya realises with a jolt. “It can’t be. We still have a job to do.”
Compared to the man he was on the helipad - hell, compared to the man at the window he was less than a minute ago, this Luthen looks a little lost, sitting there behind his desk. His shoulders are bowing under the epaulets that adorn them and that’s not what Kleya needs right now, not who she needs him to be right now.
“Then do it.” Luthen startles as she slams her palms on his desk and leans intently into his space. “Don’t sit here and wallow. Get up and do something about it. You think I’m going to sit here and feel sorry for myself?”
“No.” He has the decency to look chastened, at least. “No, I know you wouldn’t. But this has to work, Kleya. We have to stop it at the source, take the fight to them.”
“I know that.”
“Then you know how much is riding on the mark three program. How much we need these pilots. We won’t get a second chance at this.”
He’s right, she knows he’s right. Kleya straightens and sighs, then holds up a hand to forestall whatever it is that Luthen is going to say next.
“Cassian Andor. You say he’s suitable. Fine, I’ll add him to the list.”
“I have a good feeling about him, Kleya.”
“Whatever.”
He doesn’t smile at her snappish retort but there is a brief flash of fondness in his eyes before he turns serious again. “How are we tracking on the other pilot?”
Kleya scoffs. She doesn’t mean to, but she can’t help it. “Still in the wind.”
“The senator didn’t give her up?”
“The senator,” Kleya says bitterly, “has the utmost respect for her cousin’s privacy. She told me nothing but to wish me luck on my search.”
“We need her, Kleya.”
“We have plenty of other candidates.”
None of them hold a candle to the former pilot of the Aldhani Star, but she refuses to pin the hopes of an entire project on one woman. She has others, and if this Cassian Andor is as good as Luthen thinks he is, then she can make a passable pair with him and someone else. Anyone else.
“Keep looking. I know you don’t like it, but no one will know how to pilot the Star like she does. If she doesn’t want it, fine. But she should get the chance.”
Kleya doesn’t say that the last time they gave Vel Sartha a chance she disobeyed orders and got her co-pilot killed. Instead, she nods and leaves the room.
–
The death blow comes two weeks after Cassian joins.
Kleya already knows what the council is going to say. Luthen does too. The atmosphere in the conference room is icy. As they wait, she vacillates between madly planning for the little time they have left and trembling with indignant fury that they’re being shut down before they can actually finish the fight.
“Maybe it’s good news?” Nemik - ever the optimist - offers when the silence becomes oppressive.
Luthen doesn’t move, doesn’t react, so Kleya shoots Nemik a glare. He wisely shuts his mouth and turns his attention forward.
The screens on the wall flicker to life and in an instant, Kleya is staring up at the faces of the nine men and women who hold the fate of their program in their hands. Mon is the top-left corner with her short auburn hair perfectly styled and mouth set in a grim line, an expression Kleya realises she is mirroring. She can’t even take consolation in the fact that the senator is as upset by this decision as she is because she can’t do anything with feelings like regret or anger or disappointment. What she needs is funding. Support. Some more goddamn jaegers, time, and some goddamn faith that they can win this fight.
She stonily keeps her gaze fixed ahead the entire time they speak. Out of the corner of her eye she sees Luthen flinch minutely when they speak about Lima and Seattle and Vladivostok and seethes at their gall to use those deaths as an excuse to put an end to their work. Bastards, the lot of them. As if they need reminding of the battles they’ve lost; the rangers who have died.
Kleya is not normally a person inclined toward dramatics but she realises, looking at the faces of the men and women on the screen, that the fate of the world lies in the hands of these nine (well, eight, she supposes) self-important, self-serving narcissists. She’s just one of the poor suckers who has to live in it.
In the end, it’s just as she expected.
Total shutdown of the jaeger program. The closures of the few shatterdomes still standing, de-commissioning of the remaining jaegers. A tokenistic force of four jaegers in Hong Kong to defend billions of people. That they have eight months left is a surprise. Then again, the council isn’t completely stupid. Building a wall around the largest ocean on the planet takes time. Time they still have up their sleeve.
“Eight months,” Luthen remarks bitterly as he marches down the halls. The heels of her boots click on the floor as she tries to keep up. “We have to find her, Kleya.”
Two months later, she does just that.