“Good,” Pentecost said to her.
In the dimly-lit LOCCENT, to her he appeared distracted and worn down. She owed this man everything, and seeing him like this worried Mako deeply.
But she had not come to meet him just to inform him that his orders had been followed. Stacker Pentecost was not the kind of commander who needed constant reassurance. He chose good people and let them be good at what they did, as long as they understood the rules from the beginning. Overcommunicate. It’s better to tell someone something they already know than to not tell them something they needed to hear. Do your job and let your colleagues do theirs. Once a decision is made, it is made for the entire team.
Mako was here in violation of that last principle. She was going to broach a difficult subject, and not for the first time. She already knew what he would say. He had said it before. It made no difference. She would keep trying.
“There’s one more thing,” Mako said.
He turned to look at her, anticipating her question.
“We’ve talked about this, Mako. We are not talking about it again.”
She ignored his warning.
“You promised me,” she said. Then she switched to Japanese. “Gipsy no noru kata ga jibun na no.” I should be the one riding Gipsy.
“Mako. The kaiju took everything from you, but vengeance is like an open wound. You cannot take that level of emotion into the Drift.”
“What level of emotion is Raleigh Becket taking into it?” she countered. “Has he forgotten about his brother?”
“You are not responsible for Raleigh Becket,” Pentecost said. “I am. As I am responsible for you.”
“For my family,” she said. “I have to do this.”
“Motto jikan ga areba,” Pentecost said. If we had more time.
“But we don’t,” Mako said.
Pentecost turned away from her, looking out over the Jaeger bays, where the future of the human race stood catching the first rays of the sun. Mako knew that move. She had seen it more times than she cared to remember. When Stacker Pentecost turned his back, that was all there was to say.
For the moment, thought Mako.
She went to finish preparing for Raleigh’s trial.
TRAINING MEMO
11
IN THE KWOON, RALEIGH BOUNCED ON THE BALLS of his feet, waiting. He was up, ready, a light sheen of sweat on his skin and the first tingle of the internal fight groove in his brain. His irritation with Chuck Hansen was already fading. He owed nothing to a guy like that, except to do his duty in a fight, and Raleigh would have done that for anyone.
He balanced his hanbō, getting a feel for it. He hadn’t touched one in more than five years, but he didn’t think he’d forgotten everything. It was about three feet long and an inch thick. Just a stick, unless you knew what to do with it.
Somewhere back in the early days of Ranger training, someone—maybe it was Pentecost—had figured out that a good way to predict Drift compatibility was to see how two people fought. The logic wasn’t obvious at first, but it had come to make sense in Raleigh’s mind. First: The more a fighting pair could anticipate and counter each other’s moves, the more likely they were to be able to anticipate each other’s thoughts… which strengthened the neural handshake. Second: If you could kick someone’s ass easily in a fight, how could you take that person seriously as an equal when you had to share your inner-most thoughts with them and trust them with your life? There was also the question of style and temperament. That would have been the basis of Mako’s initial screening of Raleigh’s potential co-pilots.
Five of them stood across the fighting mat. Holding an actual paper clipboard and standing at the side of the mat nearest the door was Mako. Raleigh wondered if she had in fact, by gripping it too hard, snapped her tablet in two.
A little behind Mako, stood Stacker Pentecost. No doubt here to see for himself whether his gamble on Raleigh was going to be a disaster right from the start.
Mako nodded and Raleigh stepped out onto the mat. The first of the five candidates met him. The two men nodded to each other and assumed their stances.
“Go,” Mako said.
Number One came right at Raleigh with a series of aggressive strokes: slash, butt, slash. No finesse, no attempt to feint or draw Raleigh out. What that meant to Raleigh was that Number One didn’t respect him.
Okay, pal, he thought.
Flicking aside the initial sally, Raleigh pivoted and tapped Number One on the back of the knee, just as he was putting his weight down to reset and defend. He went down, springing back up as Mako checked a box on the clipboard.
Raleigh squared up, Number One came at him again, and Raleigh set him down again, this time with a little hook sweep inside the ankle. He hadn’t even tried to hit the kid yet.
“Two to zero,” Mako said.
Number One came at him a little slower now, probing, trying to get a sense of how he could provoke Raleigh into a rash attack. He was learning already. Raleigh decided to take him out before he learned too much. He stepped hard ahead and to his right, but as Number One shifted his weight to anticipate a strike from that direction, Raleigh had already swapped the hanbō to his left and slipped it under Number One’s guard to poke him in the ribs.
Three.
Four was much the same as two, since Raleigh’s opponent was getting angry.
The fifth point was over before it started. Number One took a step and Raleigh saw his lunge coming a mile away. All he had to do was catch the outside of the lead foot and give it a little tug.
Bam, down went Number One for the fifth and final time.
“Five point wins to zero,” Mako noted.
Raleigh had been watching her out of the corner of his eye. She didn’t look happy about something. He shook a little tightness out of one shoulder and waited for Number Two.
Thirty seconds later, Mako said, “Four points to one.” She still looked… not angry exactly, but disappointed. Disgusted, even.
Number Three made Raleigh work a little harder, touching him twice because Raleigh was getting a little bored. None of the three had posed the least challenge.
“Three points to two,” Mako said. She looked even more disgusted now.
Raleigh waved at her.
“Hey,” he said, taking a couple of steps toward her. “You don’t like them?”
She looked at him over the clipboard.
“Excuse me?”
“Every time a match ends you make this little…” Raleigh didn’t know the word, so he imitated the way her mouth pursed as she counted up the scores. “Like you’re critical of their performance.”
He was feeling a little sorry for the candidates. None of them was remotely in his league, but that wasn’t their fault. He didn’t want them to get flak from Mako or Pentecost just because they weren’t as good as he was. Not too many people were.
Mako looked to Pentecost as if seeking permission for something. Pentecost nodded.
“Frankly,” Mako said as she looked back to Raleigh, “it’s not their performance. It’s yours. You could have taken all of them two moves earlier.”
Oh, Raleigh thought. Interesting. He suddenly understood that they’d never intended for him to compete against these five. Rather he was competing against Mako and Pentecost’s idea of what Raleigh Becket ought to be.