The Swords
Trevian Saga
Kangin hung upside-down from the scaffolding, safely harnessed, inspecting the underside of Rapier's neck metal rim. The jaeger took a nasty hit there in the last kaiju battle and Kangin was doing the necessary inspection of the replacement parts. The neck area was just tricky as it had a lot of overlapping and interlocking metal parts - it didn't have any crawl space to minimize vulnerability. Only the top maintenance engineers were capable of inspecting that area. Or any other area of the jaeger, for that matter.
Kangin nimbly hoisted the heavy hammer, his arm muscles rippling to compensate for the gravity's pull on it while he was wielding it upside down. He banged the hammer on a suspected weak area of the metal rim but was satisfied to hear it return a solid thunk instead of a clang.
"Owwww, hyung!" Henry cursed into his ear-mic. "Can you not do that while I'm on conn?!" The younger cursed again, even as a couple of chuckles erupted over the once-silent line, drowned out by Chief Shindong's hearty laugh.
"You've been at it for months now, boy," Shindong said. "And you still haven't learned." He did ask Kangin on a serious note. "I take it that sounds promising?"
Kangin didn't answer while he was shifting himself and his tools right side up on the scaffolding. "Yup Chief, he sounds good as new."
"Ok, then, the rest of the boys can get up there for the regular maintenance - we can ok Rapier's Guns for a test drive at 0800 tomorrow, banning any kaiju attack between then and now." The last bit was a murmur, not really intended for Kangin or anybody's ears but Chief Shindong is known to get in a comment or two - he's the only engineer who was never curiously silent.
Nobody could see it, but Kangin still grinned. "The boys would like that Chief. I'll manage maintenance over here. We should be done in 4 hours, tops." Never mind if the test drive was still tomorrow - the kaijus are unpredictable, and it took a lot out of the Cutlass team to be the only working jaeger while Rapier undergoes maintenance.
If it wasn't him feeling the stress, it would be Zhoumi if it happened that Cutlass would be undergoing maintenance. As such, Zhoumi would be feeling a different kind of stress, making sure Cutlass is battle-ready, more so now that Cutlass is the only working jaeger. But for an elite engineer, Zhoumi can handle the stress really well - he had proven it with coming up with a lot of workarounds to compensate for Cutlass' lighter build during battle.
Kangin never had to worry about Rapier as the sturdier jaeger can outlast any battle of brawns - it just needed a little more time to repair. So Kangin and his team tried to work fast and work best - the jaeger has been out for a week, and while it still beat his estimate of 10-days' repair, it was a week too long to be out of commission, for both jaeger and his Guns.
"That's good to hear, Kangin-hyung," Zhoumi's voice came over the line, relieved. Zhoumi was back in his office, just coming in from the daily inspection of Cutlass. He didn't bother mentioning he was waiting with bated breath for days, to hear good news about Rapier's repair. He could now breathe easier. And maybe take a quick bath - he could already smell himself, forgoing days of bathing when Rapier's systems were completely taken offline while the parts were being switched out. At times like these, personal hygiene was the least priority, other than going to the loo, and considering Zhoumi also lacked proper sleep, only taking power naps in his office.
Rapier's systems are back online since yesterday, but Zhoumi seldom rested until Kangin gives the okay - it usually means that even without complete diagnostics, Rapier would be battle-ready. Rapier is Kangin's baby after all, and he knew the jaeger best.
"Oh, then we can take Cutlass out to play, too, tomorrow?" Siwon's enthusiastic voice piped into the line. A couple of voices groaned, including Zhoumi's.
"Siwon, I can use some me time while Rapier goes out for a test drive. Once we get an ok that Rapier's all systems go, then you can take Cutlass out to play." Zhoumi chimed in, knowing when to stem Cutlass' Guns' more enthusiastic ideas. They all knew that Cutlass never goes out without Zhoumi's permission, an arrangement that sometimes grated on Siwon's nerves because the J-Tech engineers aka Grunts had last say over Cutlass, compared to Rapier whose Rangers aka Guns have the last say.
And it was only because out in the battlefield, Cutlass had to be constantly monitored. The jaeger was built for speed, and the offset was that it was lighter. It can take a hit, with its superb armor, but cannot take the same magnitude that Rapier can. Cutlass has the requisite two-pilot configuration, but in reality, there were three, which included Zhoumi and the insane ways he could come up with alternative moves just because he knew the jaeger hardware inside and out. Siwon and Sungmin can do wushu with Cutlass to their heart's content but it was all useless without Zhoumi's more imaginative approaches.
They had one battle where they stripped Cutlass of his armor, converting it into the longest sword needed to kill the attacking kaiju, because help from Rapier would be two minutes too late. Zhoumi had it half-managed from Mission Control, shedding armor while Cutlass was already running, the metal parts only staying glued to the jaeger by its unique magnetic frequency, and calmly instructing Sungmin and Siwon what to do to assemble the sword. By the time they came to a full stop, they were leaping over the kaiju's head with the longsword slicing the kaiju front to back.
Repairs after that battle didn't even take Zhoumi a day, as he just reversed the process he made to make the sword and armor shed, all to the awed oohhhs and ahhs of Cutlass' team - none of them knew to use a jaeger that way. But Zhoumi knew it was a tricky and desperate move - one does not remove a jaeger armor for any reason, as it is the only thing that can save the pilot's lives. He just trusted that Sungmin's and Siwon's skills were enough to make them evade the kaiju.
A good thing about that move, though, was the installation of a secondary armor for Cutlass, and reinforcement of its main shell. Now the main armor forms part of its weaponry, with a lot of possible configurations depending which part of the armor they use. That had rather made Siwon's day, as he spent a better part of a week coming up with weapons designs, and another two weeks where he and Sungmin all tested it out. It made Cutlass slightly heavier, and Siwon and Sungmin could only replicate Cutlass' top speed with all the main armor shed, but they figured it was a fair trade-off - they could now last longer in any kaiju battle, requiring less and less assistance from Rapier. It was all-around good tactics.
--------------------
Henry's ears were still ringing after the banging Kangin gave Rapier. Kyuhyun, to his left, just chuckled. Heechul, to his right, just smirked. Henry ducked down his head, still pulling exaggeratedly at his ears.
"Shall I inform them?" Kyuhyun turned to Marshal Leeteuk, after Chief Shindong announced the ok for a test drive.
Leeteuk just spent a moment getting himself out of that far-away look in his eyes to nod the ok to Kyuhyun before resuming what Heechul coined the Marshal's "unending watch". Whenever he was up in the LOCCENT Mission Control, Leeteuk spent his time thinking, mindful to always be ready for emergencies. Most of the time he never got caught off-guard. He was the only Marshal with limited pilot experience - test drives and simulations didn't count, not to mention no one was drift-compatible with him as going into his mind meant pure chaos. Pretty young to be a Marshal, in fact. But what he had was the uncanny ability to know people. And use them where needed.
He was the one who successfully cobbled together these diverse personalities to form The Swords - the jaeger team based on unified Korea, and currently attached to the reactivated Nagasaki Shatterdome. It took painstaking work the past ten years starting when he was just augmented staff, to five years ago when the last Marshal died in battle and Leeteuk stepped in to direct the Guns who were in battle at that time. It paid that he knew them individually - Donghae, Hyukjae, Siwon, Sungmin - and when the crisis was over, he was awarded that field commission. Turned out that superiors were already eyeing him to occupy the position, having already proven his mettle by forming the only team that had two sets of drift-compatible pilots who are not kin, as well as getting the best people to form The Swords.
Kyuhyun rang the Rapier Rangers' intercom and waited for either Donghae or Hyukjae to answer. Neither were required to wear comms when off duty, as in the case of Rapier's maintenance sked, but there were a couple places the pilots were expected to be in. Like their quarters.
"Hyukjae here," the pilot answered in a sleepy voice. He was obviously woken from a nap.
"Is Donghae also there?" Kyuhyun asked before he said anything further.
That woke Hyukjae up. "Wait." It usually meant an announcement for both him and Donghae. He heard the shower running and assumed it was Donghae.
"Hae!" he called loudly. "Kyu's calling, get your in here!"
Kyuhyun heard a clang and a curse in what Kyuhyun assumed was Donghae hurrying out of the bath.
"Donghae here."
"Hyungs, good news. Chief had okayed you to test drive Rapier tomorrow at 0800." Donghae whooped while Hyukjae muttered about vacation being over.
"Kangin-hyung said maintenance will be done in four hours, you can do diagnostics after." Kyuhyun added.
"That'll be 3 PM?" Hyukjae calculated mentally. "We'll be down 2 PM, just right after lunch."
"Ok then, see you guys at lunch." Kyuhyun signed off.
__________________
© higashinoumi (http://www.asianfanfics.com/profile/view/1108258), 2017. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to higashinoumi (http://www.asianfanfics.com/profile/view/1108258) with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.
Comments