Pacific Rim: Legacy

Chapter 15 - Analia

"Oh, no."

The tremor in Gottlieb's voice made Analia freeze for a split second. Around her, the hangar was a nightmarish landscape—bodies moving in chaos, fire leaping toward the sky, and the acrid smell of burning fuel thick in the air. Her heart pounded in her chest, and the crackling comm was the only clear thing cutting through the noise.

"Oh, no what?" she asked, breathless. She was already moving again, her boots slamming against the cracked concrete of the hangar floor, dodging twisted metal and shattered debris with the instinctual agility of a seasoned pilot.

"Three Kaiju have gotten through," Gottlieb's voice came through the static, barely concealing his panic. "South Korea, Russian coast, and East China Sea. Two Cat-Fours and a Cat-Five."

The weight of the news hit her like a freight train, a cold shiver running through her spine despite the heat of the burning wreckage around her. Analia's mind spun, trying to process the enormity of what she was hearing. Cat-Fours and a Cat-Five—three monsters, all at once, and they were coming fast. Her pulse quickened, a knot of dread tightening in her stomach, but she shoved it aside.

"Copy that. Get back to the dome," she ordered, her voice clipped and urgent, masking the fear gnawing at the edges of her thoughts. "We're gonna need all the help we can get."

The ground beneath her shook from a nearby explosion, but Analia pushed harder, running through the smoke-choked hangar as the scale of the destruction unfurled around her. Flames danced across the ruins of fallen Jaegers, their once towering forms now crumpled into twisted metal carcasses. The air was thick with smoke and dust, reducing visibility to a fog of orange and black, while the distant sound of screaming alarms and shouted orders created a jarring backdrop of noise.

She couldn't afford to slow down, couldn't afford to let herself feel the crushing weight of grief sitting in her chest. Raleigh was gone. Grace—where was Grace? Panic flared, but she buried it deep. There would be time to grieve, time to find her daughter, but not now. Not while the base teetered on the edge of collapse. Not while three Kaiju were ripping through the world.

As she sprinted through the chaotic maze of destruction, she glimpsed familiar faces—people she knew—bleeding, working, some barely clinging to life. She pushed the rising fear back down. Her people needed her to be strong.

She caught sight of Amara and Vik, their faces streaked with grime and ash. They were hunched over, lifting a heavy slab of metal off of a trapped crew member. The strain on their faces was clear, the physical effort immense, but they didn't stop. They couldn't stop.

"You girls okay?" Analia called out, her voice rising above the noise as she slowed for a moment, just enough to check on them without losing momentum.

"Yes, ma'am!" they shouted back in unison, their voices tight with determination, though their movements were sluggish with exhaustion. They were battered, covered in cuts and bruises, but they kept working, pulling the debris free to save the trapped crewman.

Analia gave a curt nod of approval before continuing forward, her breath coming in short, sharp bursts. The air was hot and thick, her lungs burning with every inhale, but she couldn't stop moving. The shattered dome around her was a battlefield, a testament to the catastrophic attack they'd barely survived, and she could see that everyone was working beyond their limits just to hold things together.

Her boots crunched over shattered glass and twisted metal, the sounds of the world around her barely registering as she focused on getting to the control center. She felt the heat from burning wreckage radiating off of ruined Jaegers and collapsed buildings as she dodged around fallen beams and heaps of smoldering debris. Each step felt heavier than the last, but she powered through, adrenaline coursing through her veins, keeping her on her feet.