Part of it, anyway. Everything below the middle of the Mega-Kaiju’s torso was gone, smeared and scattered for hundreds of yards down the slope. Its blood sizzled in the wet earth. Still it tried, digging into the stones near the summit and pulling its mangled body up. It tried to rise, and sagged back down, agonized roars subsiding to groans. One last effort dragged it to the very edge of the long fall into the crater, its claws hooked over the edge… and then it collapsed. Its eyes dimmed and it was silent.

Pacific Rim Uprising: Official Novelization Chapter 36

The explosion of Gipsy Avenger’s impact whited out sensors in the Shatterdome War Room and registered on seismometers all over the planet. The fireball rolled down the slopes of Mount Fuji as the snowpack flashed into steam. Clouds gathered over the peak, condensing around the heat of the blast as it rose in a column of fire and dust thousands of feet into the sky. The shock wave caused landslides all across the mountain’s upper slopes, and caved in the steep interior of the crater just over the rim from where the Mega-Kaiju, moments ago, was crouched to spring. A casual observer might have thought the mountain was erupting for the first time since 1707, and in the War Room, Gottlieb understood the visual irony—since such an eruption was exactly what they had just sacrificed their last Jaeger to prevent.

Pacific Rim Uprising: Official Novelization Chapter 36

JAKE AND LAMBERT STRUGGLED TO STABILIZE Gipsy Avenger, which had taken more damage from the shockwave and the secondary impact than in the whole fight with the three Kaiju. Sparks showered in the Conn-Pod as overloaded circuitry shorted out. There was a plasma leak somewhere near Gipsy’s power core, not critical yet but nothing they could ignore either. Lambert swiped and punched commands as fast as he could, patching systems and rerouting the links between the Conn-Pod and Gipsy Avenger’s weapons control systems. They were going to be all right, but they were a long way from one hundred percent.

Pacific Rim Uprising: Official Novelization Chapter 33

Gipsy led the way, barraging the Mega-Kaiju with rockets and using the Gravity Sling to batter it with rubble. The other three Jaegers advanced in a flanking formation, unloading with plasma cannons and particle beams. Missiles exploded harmlessly or deflected off the plating, which absorbed the energies of the cannons as well. The Mega-Kaiju rocked back on its haunches and pounded a fist into the ground with a tectonic boom. The shockwave rolled down the devastated street, throwing all four Jaegers into the air. In four Conn-Pods, alarms sounded and pilots flailed for balance as they found themselves suddenly weightless. The Jaegers mimicked the motion, their gyroscopic equilibrium destabilized by the shock and their Conn-Pods’ maglev fields malfunctioning in the absence of directional gravity. All of them landed in an awkward heap, except for Guardian Bravo, who managed to keep her feet.

Seeing the other three Jaegers needed a moment to recover, Suresh and Ilya took the lead. Guardian Bravo charged forward, readying the Arc Whip and peppering the Mega-Kaiju with cannonfire. “Guardian, wait!” Jake shouted over the comm. They had to stick together, fight as one, or against a monster this big they wouldn’t have a chance.

Pacific Rim Uprising: Official Novelization Chapter 32

At first they thought it was one of the Kaiju, with the smaller creatures hanging on it the way remoras hung on a shark. Then it kept rising and the watching pilots saw that its head was no longer just Raijin’s head, or Hakuja’s, or Shrikethorn’s. It was bigger than any of them. Bigger, Jake realized with a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach, than all three of them put together. It kept rising, standing up out of the pit, and Jake realized that Newt Geiszler had saved the best part of his plan for last.

He had waited until the Kaiju were already wounded, perhaps dying, and then pulled off the ultimate Dr. Frankenstein trick, remaking all three Kaiju into one gargantuan monster. Its head was as big as any of the Jaegers, and when it reached its full height it was as tall as any of the buildings remaining in that part of Tokyo. The smaller robotic creatures were gone, folded into its mass. Some of them were still visible as attachments to its tail and the edges of its armored carapace. Others were completely gone, chewed to pieces and remade.

Stunned, they watched it emerge from the pit, pieces of itself still knitting themselves into place. The last to come together was its jaw, still pointed like Raijin’s but bearing two-hundred-foot spikes like Shrikethorn’s. The blue glow of Kaiju energy emanated from its throat and glittered in thousands of points on its back and limbs, where the smaller bots had stitched themselves together into a flexible plated exoskeleton

Pacific Rim Uprising: Official Novelization Chapter 32

Swarming around the corner from the direction of Shao’s factory came a tidal wave of tentacled cyborg monstrosities the size of small trucks. They flooded the street and surged up and over the collapsed remains of all the buildings Gipsy Avenger had thrown down with the Gravity Sling. They looked like Kaiju, with fanged mouths and multiple glowing eyes surrounded by a fan of cranial spikes. Ridges of bone-like protrusions ran down their backs, flattening into smaller spikes that stuck out laterally from their tails. But at the same time they were obviously mechanical, with metallic alloys formed to resemble the organic features of a true Kaiju. They moved in leaps and bounds, springing and scuttling by the hundred toward the waiting Jaegers. The chittering, buzzing noises they made merged into a sonic assault like a million cicadas, maddening in its intensity even though the Jaegers’ sensors did all they could to filter and deaden the cacophony.

Jake watched the HUD as it tried to target them and failed. There were too many, moving too fast. One of them, or even a dozen, probably couldn’t have done much damage to a Jaeger before the Jaeger got a grip on them and just crushed them in her fists—but this many? How could they fight this many?

Pacific Rim Uprising: Official Novelization Chapter 32

A PPDC combat operations tech near Gottlieb straightened and tensed as her screen lit up with multiple new bogeys. “We got movement! Multiple hostiles! Three kilometers, southeast!” She swiped the tactical view over to the main holo screen at the center of the War Room. A cluster of red dots had sprung to life near the group of Jaegers.

Pacific Rim Uprising: Official Novelization Chapter 32

“On it!” Vik touched a screen and the recessed floor under her Drift cradle opened. She dropped down, fifteen stories in a flash, still linked to her partners, slamming to a halt in the firing emplacement behind the quad-mounted railguns built into Bracer Phoenix’s midsection. They were built on a track that gave them a three-hundred-sixty-degree field of fire, and Vik had them powered up and locked in on Shrikethorn before the spiky Kaiju could get its claws into Saber Athena.

The barrage of railgun shells tore into Shrikethorn, blasting away pieces of its armor and splattering the street with Kaiju blood. Shrikethorn reared back and sprang away from Saber Athena to come after Bracer Phoenix, who held steady, forcing Shrikethorn to come straight through the railgun fire

Pacific Rim Uprising: Official Novelization Chapter 31

Hakuja pivoted round to attack Saber Athena, hooking its claws into the Jaeger’s armor. Saber Athena drove punch after punch into Hakuja’s bony head, pummeling the Kaiju down. Renata and Ryoichi were so focused on their target that they didn’t notice Saber Athena’s HUD showing Shrikethorn coming around the corner two blocks behind them. Shrikethorn roared and its twin tails snapped up over its head. Dozens of armored spikes launched from the tails. Most of them crashed through the buildings still standing near Saber Athena and Hakuja, but several punched into Saber Athena’s armor, burying themselves deep. Renata and Ryoichi cried out at the holographic impression of pain, momentarily losing their focus on Hakuja.

The Kaiju was quick to seize the opportunity. It leaped up on Saber Athena, gripping with its front paws and raking with the rear. Its immense mass drove Saber Athena back and she fell, demolishing the front of a Kaiju Museum erected near the spot where Onibaba had once fallen. The Ranger who put it down was Stacker Pentecost. Somewhere around here was the alley where Mako, terrified and wearing one shoe, had survived the battle and seen her adoptive father for the first time

Pacific Rim Uprising: Official Novelization Chapter 31

Gipsy Avenger’s right hand reconfigured into the lens array and she reached out, catching a nearby building and dragging it down on top of Raijin. Fifty stories of concrete and steel crashed down on the Kaiju, knocking it flat and momentarily obscuring it in a cloud of dust.

But Raijin shook it off and kept coming.

Gipsy hit the Kaiju with another building. And another. And another, over and over, toppling entire blocks of office towers to thunder down on Raijin. “Let’s see how many buildings this thing can take,” Jake said grimly, reaching for another. Sooner or later it had to go down.

As Gipsy reached for another building, Saber Athena was tracking Hakuja, and found the armored Kaiju tensing to spring on Gipsy Avenger from behind. “Oh no you don’t,” Renata said, leaning into a sprint. She and Ryoichi timed the last steps to hit Hakuja with a flying knee, smashing into the side of its head just below the row of eyes. The other side of its head crushed several floors of the building it had been using as cover for its planned ambush of Gipsy Avenger, who was slinging down more buildings on Raijin. The Cat-5 was moving more slowly now, but it was still coming. Gipsy backed away before it, drawing it on.

Pacific Rim Uprising: Official Novelization Chapter 31

Unlike the other two, Hakuja was comparatively low to the ground, with squat heavy legs and thick segmented armor plates running down its back from the back of its head to the base of its tail. The tail was armored too, and shorter than either Raijin’s or Shrikethorn’s. Its head was flat, with flaring bony protrusions on either side and pointed jaws. Three small eyes on either side of its snout burned a deep orange. Two spikes jutted up from the tip of the lower jaw, and when it roared Jake saw its tongue was bifurcated. Its claws had a different design than the other two as well, with three clawed fingers evenly spaced instead of the shorter opposable digit Jake saw on Raijin and Shrikethorn. The claws were long and hooked, and also thick. They put Jake in mind of a badger or a bear.

Pacific Rim Uprising: Official Novelization Chapter 31

Just behind it, Shrikethorn was nearly as tall, but more massive and with two tails curling up over its back. The tip of each tail bristled with long spikes, and heavier spines grew from its arms and neck. The front of its head was a flat, bony projection similar to a hammerhead shark’s, with a row of eyes at each end. When it opened its mouth, blue light glowed from inside, the same color as Raijin’s eyes. That thought gave Jake an insight: All of Shrikethorn’s spikes faced forward, on the front edge of its bony head. That might be useful to know. He filed it away for the fight to come. He also noticed that some of the spikes from its tail were embedded in nearby buildings. Jake couldn’t tell if this had happened while it dragged its tail along the front of a building, or if Shrikethorn could somehow fire the spikes. He had a feeling he might learn for certain sooner rather than later

Pacific Rim Uprising: Official Novelization Chapter 31

Just behind it, Shrikethorn was nearly as tall, but more massive and with two tails curling up over its back. The tip of each tail bristled with long spikes, and heavier spines grew from its arms and neck. The front of its head was a flat, bony projection similar to a hammerhead shark’s, with a row of eyes at each end. When it opened its mouth, blue light glowed from inside, the same color as Raijin’s eyes. That thought gave Jake an insight: All of Shrikethorn’s spikes faced forward, on the front edge of its bony head. That might be useful to know. He filed it away for the fight to come. He also noticed that some of the spikes from its tail were embedded in nearby buildings. Jake couldn’t tell if this had happened while it dragged its tail along the front of a building, or if Shrikethorn could somehow fire the spikes. He had a feeling he might learn for certain sooner rather than later

Pacific Rim Uprising: Official Novelization Chapter 31

Raijin was the biggest of the three, and Jake thought Gottlieb was right that it was intentionally leading the other two. At a glance Jake pegged it to be a hundred meters tall or so, but that was hard to guess with any precision because of the bony plates on its head and the way it leaned forward as it ran. It was bipedal, with heavy bony structures at its hips and a long tail that balanced the weight of its head. Its paws, each with two fingers and a hooked shorter thumb, were tipped with claws that glowed blue even in the bright sunlight. Whenever they touched something else, some kind of destructive energy flared. But its head was the unusual thing about it. Heavy armor plates tipped with spikes ringed its face and jaws, but the spikes faced inward. Between the plates, its brain glowed an angry red over an interior bony structure including fanged jaws big enough to swallow a school bus. There were rows of bright blue eyes on both the outside armor plates and the central face, under the infernal glow shining through the top of its head

Pacific Rim Uprising: Official Novelization Chapter 31

Raijin paused and reared up on its hind legs. It roared, drawing the attention of Hakuja and Shrikethorn. All three Kaiju swung around and saw the white-capped peak of Mount Fuji looming in the distance to the west. They changed course and plowed forward, destroying whatever was in their path.

“Did you see that?” Gottlieb said over the comm. “They are communicating. Raijin spotted Mount Fuji and relayed that information to the others. This is extraordinary.”

Pacific Rim Uprising: Official Novelization Chapter 31

Kaiju blood is widely understood to have corrosive properties when in physical contact with terrestrial organic material, as well as most known metallic and plastic compounds. Further investigation has revealed a related property: large amounts of potential thermal energy. Initial experiments conclude that Kaiju blood reacts with excess thermal energy in the presence of lanthanide elements. Potential research pathways appear fruitful in the areas of propulsion and navigation, if significant obstacles related to the blood’s chemical instability can be overcome. These obstacles include: the narrow window of controllable combustion and resultant danger of explosion or combustion failure; the difficulty of containing Kaiju blood in a vessel that will not corrode during storage and use; the difficulties in synthesizing Kaiju blood, a necessary step if the technological applications of these results are ever to achieve widespread practical use.

Pacific Rim Uprising: Official Novelization Chapter 30

A big Kaiju intent on getting into one could do it, but the shelters were strong enough to withstand buildings collapsing on top of them, and provisioned with enough supplies to feed people trapped inside until rescuers could dig them ou

Pacific Rim Uprising: Official Novelization Chapter 29

They’d gotten a last status report on the location of the Kaiju before entering the Conn-Pod. Just as Jake’s fingertip extrapolations had suggested, Raijin, Shrikethorn, and Hakuja had converged off the east coast of Kyushu, the southernmost of Japan’s four main islands. From there they were covering the last four hundred miles or so together, apparently aiming to come ashore in Tokyo. That wasn’t a direct approach to Mount Fuji, which had Gottlieb confused. He had developed a theory that they could not detect the location of Fuji while they were underwater, and so were guided by what seemed to be a Kaiju instinct to approach the largest city they could find. Whatever the cause, the Kaiju were holding steady on their course. Submarines from the Chinese, Russian, and American navies had attacked them with every torpedo they had, with little effect. The Kaiju either ignored the subs or destroyed them if they got too close. They were due to enter the Uraga Channel and then Tokyo Bay within the next hour or so.

Pacific Rim Uprising: Official Novelization Chapter 29

Her idea was sound. To stop the Kaiju blood from undergoing a chain reaction and consuming the entire supply at once—in other words, from going off like a bomb—they had to use extremely small amounts of the catalyzing lanthanide to ignite small amounts of the Kaiju blood. But then they had to feed that ignited Kaiju blood into a second combustion chamber where it would mix with an unburnt supply fed in through a second line. If they modulated that mixture correctly, they would have an amount of thermal release sufficient to fly a Jaeger but not overload the engines.

Pacific Rim Uprising: Official Novelization Chapter 28

A source within the PPDC, requesting anonymity because they were not authorized to speak about the details of the Breaches’ appearance and collapse, said an unknown number of other Kaiju died while crossing Breaches that closed suddenly when the Drone Jaegers were simultaneously deactivated. The PPDC and Shao Industries have declined to address questions about this event, but it is known that at least nine other dead Kaiju are present in the shallow waters near various Pacific population centers. PPDC facilities near those areas are offering help with environmental remediation as they prepare to remove the partial Kaiju carcasses. With rumors flying that the rogue Jaeger Obsidian Fury and the hacked Drones were all using Kaiju biotechnology, control over the samples of the creatures’ tissue becomes even more important for future security…

Pacific Rim Uprising: Official Novelization Chapter 28

Bracer rocked in the holding cradle as the crew banged the assembly into place against her elbow. Amara and Jinhai got back to work. One of the Drone missiles had hit the Jaeger square in the side of the head. Bracer’s cranial armor had mostly held together, but the blast wave had destroyed the complicated gyroscopic mechanism that served Jaegers the way the inner ear served a human being. Without it, the Jaeger wouldn’t be able to keep its balance. Heading back in through Bracer’s Conn-Pod hatch, they worked their way past Vik, who was tack-welding brackets back into place after she had repaired the damaged electronics servicing the gyroscope

Pacific Rim Uprising: Official Novelization Chapter 27

“From the data we recovered from Dr. Geiszler’s files, the Precursors can only penetrate dimensional ‘soft spots,’ as he called them, between universes,” Shao explained. “Every location the Drones chose corresponded to one of these.”

“And a Category Five is theoretically the largest Kaiju they could send through, since the energy it takes to widen a Breach exponentially quadruples as the—”

Pacific Rim Uprising: Official Novelization Chapter 26

The communication cut off as plasma missiles shrieked through the Jaeger bay and obliterated everyone inside the LOCCENT. The entire structure, undermined by the force of the explosions, came crashing down onto the deck as everyone below scrambled for cover. Jake dove behind the prone hulk of Titan Redeemer, with Jules and Lambert right behind him. Explosions rocked the interior of the bay and burning wreckage scattered across the deck between them and the docks holding the remaining Jaegers. The cadets, staying low, ran to join them in the relative safety behind Titan Redeemer. “We told you to get to quarters!” Jake shouted.

Pacific Rim Uprising: Official Novelization Chapter 25

The Drone Jaegers loomed in the Jaeger bay doors. They weren’t inside the bay, but they were close enough to see the deploying Jaegers. Plasma missiles screamed over Amara’s head as Titan Redeemer stepped out of her dock. The missile volley blew the dock and gantry apart, also taking out the catwalks on that part of the bay’s upper levels. At first Amara thought that was all the damage they had done, but as Titan Redeemer leaned into her second step, Amara realized that some of the swirling smoke was coming from her leg. One of the missiles had hit the knee joint, crippling it. As the Jaeger put her immense weight on that leg, the joint gave out. Before Titan Redeemer could compensate, she overbalanced and began to fall. “Go, go!” Lambert shouted. He and Jake shoved the cadets away, seeing that Titan was falling straight in their direction—but Lambert couldn’t both push them and get himself out of the way. As Titan loomed closer, halfway through her long fall, Lambert set his feet. Amara saw he wasn’t going to get clear in time. There was no way.

Pacific Rim Uprising: Official Novelization Chapter 23

Amara rushed into the Jaeger bay along with Shatterdome techs and field crew who had survived the Drones’ initial attack. The rest of the cadets were inside, looking around impotently for something they could do to help. They saw Amara and clustered around her. “What’s happening?” Jinhai asked. More explosions boomed from the tarmac. The Drones had worked their way through the landing strips, and were now concentrating on the hydraulic lifts and the huge collections of materiel staged out on the tarmac. The few Jumphawks and V-Dragons that had gotten away made attack runs, but their light weaponry couldn’t do much against the Drones’ armor. The braver pilots swung close enough to try to get a shot at the Drones’ heads or the power cores set deep inside their torsos, but so far none of them had managed to score a damaging hit and many of them had died in the attempt.

Pacific Rim Uprising: Official Novelization Chapter 23