The Last Hurrah (The Vestige)
βMaβam,β Lebreau murmured.Β βWe need to evacuate.β
Lightning stared at the holographic display. Eden Cityβs Eidolons were all locked in mortal combat against the most powerful falβCie in recorded history. There were four Category Vs and a Category VI. Even with Chaos, Spira, Shiva, and Bahamut on the battlefield, it just wasnβt enough. The Category Vs were holding the Eidolons at bay while the Category VI advanced toward the Ark itself.
βClever bastards,β Lightning whispered.Β βTheyβve worked out that weβre the ones in charge. Theyβre not prioritising the Eidolons anymore. This isnβt a raid or a conventional offensive. Itβs a decapitation strike. If they destroy the Ark and wipe out our command and support structure, they donβt need to kill the Eidolons to win.β
βMaβam,β Lebreau repeated.Β βWe need to evacuate now.β
βThereβs no point.β Lightning pointed at the holographic display.Β βLook.β
The Hawks and Knights had engaged the Category VI, Tyraneant, in a desperate bid to beat the colossal falβCie back. It had to be at least twice the size of even the largest of the Category Vs. It lashed out with speed that should have been impossible, knocking the aircraft out of the sky with its tail or tearing them to pieces with its claws. There was a brief flash of light before a shockwave rippled outward, pulverising all of the remain aircraft and shaking the Ark to its foundations.
βEven if we tried to evacuate, we wouldnβt get far.β
βWe canβt just stay here,β Lebreau pointed out.Β βAll of the Eidolons have already been deployed. There arenβt any left to defend the Ark.β
Lightningβs lips curled.Β βWe still have one.β
βWhat?β Lebreauβs eyes widened.Β βYou canβt be seriousβ¦β
Nora rushed after Lightning as the marshal hobbled down the corridor as fast as her bad leg would allow.Β βMarshal, this is insane. If you get into that Conn-Pod, you are going to die.β
Lightning didnβt bother to stop as she replied,Β βAnd what would you suggest, doctor? If we do nothing we are all dead, and trying to flee isnβt going to help. Weβd be lucky to last five seconds against that thing.β Tyraneant had continued its advance. The Ark was pummelling it with every weapon it had, but the titanic creature continued to press forward. The Arkβs Eidolons were still locked in combat against their opponents. By the time any of them were in a position to help, it would be too late.
βCanβt someone else pilot?β Nora asked. She reached out and grabbed Lightningβs arm.Β βLightning! You donβt have to do this! It doesnβt have to be you!β
βWho else is there?β Lightning growled.Β βThe cadets are too raw. None of them have seen any real combat, and you want them to go up against a Category VI in an unfamiliar Eidolon? You might as well line them up against the wall and shoot them.β
βIs you getting into the Conn-Pod any better?β Nora hissed.Β βYouβre a mess, Lightning. We both know that. Your brain isβ¦ the damage you took from solo piloting Odin years ago never fully healed. If youβre lucky, you might last five minutes before you have a seizure, a stroke, or an aneurism. This is suicide.β
βFive minutes is better than nothing.β
βHow will you pilot? You can barely walk. Thereβs no way youβll be able to actually operate the controls.β
βDr Dia,β Lightning snapped.Β βIs the support ready?β
Vanille winced. Sheβd been trailing after the pair, unwilling to insert herself into the argument.Β βI meanβ¦ it worksβ¦ and it hasnβt melted the brains of any of the volunteers, but Iβm not sureβ¦β
βGet it. Bring it to the preparation room.β
βWhat are you two talking about?β Nora asked.
Vanille made a face.Β βI might have been working on a neurally operated prosthetic that can be attached to someoneβs leg to support them. Assuming it works properly, it would give the marshal the leg strength needed to operate an Eidolon.β
βAnd itβs neurally controlled?β Nora threw her hands up in despair.Β βAs if connecting your brain to the Eidolon isnβt bad enough, youβre going to connect it to a prosthetic as well? Forget five minutes, Lightning. I doubt youβll have even three.β
βWhy are you so against this?β Lightning shrugged off the hand Nora had put on her shoulder.
βBecause youβre my friend, damn it.β Nora grabbed Lightning again.Β βAnd I donβt want to see you die in a Conn-Pod. Iβve seen what solo piloting does to people. I know more about your medical history than anyone. You are going to die if you get in there. Doesnβt that matter?β
βNot when you weigh it against everything else.β Lightningβs jaw clenched, and she continued down the corridor.Β βI watched my parents die - my whole home city die - because I wasnβt strong enough to do anything. I promise myself that day that I wouldnβt let it happen again.β She snarled.Β βIf this Ark falls, then Eden City will fall with it. I refuse to let that happen. If it takes my life to hold the line, then thatβs what Iβll do. Now, you can either help or get out of the way.β
Lightning shivered as the connection to Odin activated. How long had it been since sheβd stood in a Conn-Pod. Wrapped around her damaged leg, Vanilleβs prosthetic gave her the strength to stand unaided.Β
βWeβre not getting a stable connection,β Lebreau said over the communications channel.Β βMarshalβ¦ youβre not connecting to Odin well enough to pilot.β
Lightningβs jaw clenched. She hadnβt come this far to fail.Β βCome on,β she whispered.Β βAmodar always used to say that we left something of ourselves behind whenever we piloted. I donβt know if thereβs a bit of me or a bit of Serah still here, but if there is, Iβm begging you, please. You didnβt fail me all those years ago. Donβt fail me now. Even if itβs just this one time, even if you never move again, I need you to move now.β
Maybe it was her words, or maybe it was just the connection taking some time to warm up, but she felt the connection deepen. For a moment, she was back in the shallows off Bodhum, her leg mangled in the wreckage of Odinβs Conn-Pod as she screamed her hate and fury at SIN. And then the moment passed. Shadows danced at the edges of her vision, and the Conn-Pod was filled with the echoes of a thousand half-remembered conversations.
βHow is the connection?β Lightning asked.
βItβsβ¦ wellβ¦ itβll do,β Lebreau said.Β βBut are you sure about this?β
βAs sure as I can be.β Lightning swallowed thickly and willed Odin to move.Β βClear the area around the main doors. Iβm going to greet our guest.β
βHow are her vital signs?β Lebreau asked Nora.
βA mess.β The doctorβs expression was grim.Β βLook at her brain scan.β
It was customary to keep track of a pilotβs neural activity during piloting. Green was good. Red was bed. Lightningβs brain was a single mass of angry red.
βHow is she even still conscious?βΒ
βI donβt know. Her brain scans looks like someone in the middle of having a seizure. I have no idea how sheβs still standing, never mind piloting.β
βI guess sheβs just too stubborn to die,β Vanille said.
The other two women stared.
βWhat?β Vanille asked.Β βWe were all thinking it.β
Tyraneant braced its claws against the massive blast doors that protected the Ark and pulled. Ten thousand tonnes of alien muscle strained, and the doors began to give way. A cruel gleam entered theΒ monsters eyes. It was not intelligent in the way a human was, but it could still savour the prospect of victory.
And then the doors jerked all the way open.
And two thousand tonnes of humanityβs finest weaponry smashed into the falβCie. Odin slammed into Tyraneant at a full sprint, somehow pushing the titan back despite the disparity in weight. As the falβCie staggered to get its balance back, the Eidolon drew one arm back.
Electricity crackled along the robotβs fist, and a rocket ignited at its elbow. With the force of ten jet planes, Odinβs Thunder Knuckle caught Tyraneant right on the point of its chin. The falβCieβs head snapped back, and its knees sagged. A dozen giant teeth flew through the air, and the water lapping at the base of the blast doors hurtled outward as the shockwave of the blow rippled through the air.
A massive blade unfolded from a holster on Odinβs back. It was the prototype Blazefire Sabre 2.4, a plasma-edged weapon designed to cut through just about anything. It had yet to see widespread deployment since the power demands were so insanely high that it couldnβt operate for more than five minutes at a time in the field.
Lightning likely had less than five minutes before she collapsed, so that was perfectly fine.
As Tyraneant finally got its bearing back, the huge sword swung down. The blade bit deeply into the monsterβs shoulder and jammed, unable to cut cleanly through the unbelievably dense flesh of the Category VIβs body. Tyraneantβs tail swung out, and Lightning had no choice to let go of the sword or lose the upper half of her Eidolon to the blow.
As the tail reached the end of its arc and slowed before coming around for another attack, Odinβs left fist transformed. This was another prototype weapon - a rail gun built into the Eidolonβs arm and deployed by retracting its wrist to create a suitable barrel. Lightning jammed the weapon into Tyraneantβs chest and fired.
A tungsten-tipped pole weighing roughly ten tonnes hit the falβCieβs chest at close to 65 miles per second. The impact had energy output comparable to a 10 kiloton tactical nuke. Of course, there was a reason Odin was the only Eidolon with a weapon like this. Dr Dia had never quite been able to work all of the kinks out. Firing the rail gun at full power instantly slagged most of the interior of Odinβs left arm.Β
There was a brief alarm in the Conn-Pod before the entire limb went dead and unresponsive. Lightning didnβt care. She couldnβt possibly hope to beat a Category VI in a fair fight, especially with a time limit. She had to sucker punch the bastard and keep it off balance if she wanted to have any chance of winning.
The rail gun blew a hole right through Tyraneant chest and out through its back. The exit wound was a terrifying sight to behold, a vast, crater of mangled flesh that took up most of the colossal creatureβs back. As Tyraneant staggered, one of its secondary brains completely destroyed, Lightning reached out with Odinβs working arm and grabbed hold of the Blazefire Sabre. Already, she could feel the buzzing in the back of her head, the swarm of angry bees that told her that her time was running short.
Just a little bit longer.
She wrenched the weapon free and then drove it up through Tyraneant chin and into its brain. The falβCie quivered, its whole body thrashing at the sudden onslaught of damage to its brain. Yet even with a sword driven through its brain, the creature refused to die. Itβs tail swung round and ripped Odinβs left arm off at the elbow. Another savage swipe of its claws cleaved through the armour on the Eidolonβs chest to expose its core. Radiation spewed out of the gap, and the Conn-Pod became a nightmare of alarms and warnings.
Lightning grit her teeth. She was losing power. Odinβs reactor was doings its best, but it was haemorrhaging energy into their surroundings. Another swing of the monsterβs tail cracked Odinβs left leg and shattered the right leg at the ankle. Hobbled, crippled, and with only a single working limb, Lightning bet everything on her next move.
The rocket on the elbow of Odinβs right arm ignited one last time, and she drove the Eidolonβs fist up and into the hilt of the Blazefire Sabre. Odinβs knuckles shattered, and half a dozen fractures raced through the super structure of the right arm, but the limb had struck true. The impact drove the Blazefire Sabre up and through Tyraneantβs skull, completing tearing off the top and front of the falβCieβs head.
For a long moment, there was only stillness as Eidolon and falβCie alike remained locked together before the gigantic monster toppled back and sank into the shallows just off the Ark.
βSon of a bitchβ¦β Lebreau whispered as the entire command deck stared in awe at the battered figure of Odin slumped against the blast doors.Β βShe actually killed that thing.β She grinned.Β βAnd it looks like the others arenβt doing too badly either.β
With their leader dead, the other falβCie seemed to have lost confidence, and the Arkβs Eidolons were finally on the front foot.
βLebreauβ¦β Lightning said.Β βTheβ¦ targetβ¦ isβ¦ isβ¦ isβ¦β
βSheβs slurring her speech,β Nora looked around.Β βLebreau! Cut the connections to Odin now!β She shot to her feet.Β βGet a med-evac team to Odin and someone start prepping the operating theatre.β When nobody moved, Nora grabbed the closest person and simply shoved them at the communications console.Β βStop standing there and do what I said!β
Theyβd won, but Fang could help but feel like a failure. The falβCie had managed to separate the Eidolons from the Ark, allowing that behemoth of a Category VI to lay siege to the facility. Somehow, Lightning had managed to get back into Odin and pilot him long enough to kill that damn thing.
Even now, just thinking about it made her shiver. Lightning hadnβt piloted in years. With her brain still damaged from her last mission and her leg only working because of Vanilleβs prosthetic, the marshal had somehow found a way to win against an opponent she should never have been able to beat.
Nora had operated on Lightning for close to eight hours.
βItβs a miracle sheβs alive,β Nora said, peering through the glass at where the marshal was hooked up to far too many machines.Β βI didnβt think sheβd last three minutes piloting, but she lasted a solid four.β
βHowβ¦ how bad is it?β Fang whispered.
βWe donβt know if sheβll wake up,β Nora replied grimly.Β βAnd even if she does, we have no idea if sheβll even be coherent, never mind able to walk or talk. Weβre not talking a bit of minor brain damage. Weβre talking about massive, systematic damage across most of her brain. Quite frankly, weβve done everything we can. All we can do now is hope.β
βPretty much.β Noraβs lips twitched.Β βBut Vanille said it best. The marshal is too stubborn to die. We justβ¦ we have to hope she pulls through this too. If anyone can do it, she can.β
This scene is a rough version of a battle that takes place near the end of the Vestige. Since Pacific Rim: Uprising was so horrific it basically obliterated my will to go on with Pacific Rim crossovers, I thought Iβd post up some of the ideas I had, so people can get a feel for where things would have gone.
If youβre interested in my thoughts on writing and other topics, you can find those here.
I also write original fiction, which you can find on Amazon here. Iβve recently released two stories, Attempted Adventuring and Surviving Quarantine, as well as two audiobooks, Two Necromancers, a Bureaucrat, and an Army of Golems, Two Necromancers, a Dragon, and a Vampire, and The Hungry Dragon Cookie Company. If you like humour, action, and adventure, be sure to check them out.
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