15-A
Jackie
Of Ice and Fire (She/They)
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Chapter 15-A:
Asuka Strikes
The sound of metal striking metal startled me. I'd never admit it to anyone, but I was scared. We'd come under attack, soldiers had boarded the carrier. They took over the cockpit, and we ran. Misato shot at them, she probably hit some of them.
And I was on foot, where I couldn't do anything. I was an Evangelion pilot, an air-force Captain. I wasn't a foot soldier. Bright red was poor camouflage, at that. Didn't matter though. I was scared, but I wasn't stupid. I knew what the game was.
Win or die, there is nothing else.
Well, that was the idea at least. And there was the gun sitting on the decking at my feet, so there was that too.
"Asuka, run!" Misato yelled as the arm wrapped around her neck and the man pulled her off her feet.
I felt myself trembling, I dropped into a crouch and snatched the pistol up off the ground, I could do this, right? I was trained for this, just in case. I never thought it would have actually come to it though.
But that was exactly where I was, staring down the sights of a Sig Sauer P226 pistol. Locked, loaded, and ready to fire. And I couldn't pull the trigger, because I couldn't stop my treasonous hand from shaking, couldn't keep the sights on target. Couldn't stop the cold sweat inside my plugsuit. What a fucking failure.
The solider dragged her backwards through a hatch, and a single gunshot ran out. There was a sudden intense burning in my side, I felt like throwing up, my knees got weak. I was hit, I was shot. The alarms in my plug suit started to screech.
The burning hot sting of the coagulants that the suit injected into the wound brought me back around. I felt jumpy, twitchy, ready to go. Adrenaline response had me absolutely lit up. Fight or flight, live or die.
I ran. I could access Unit Two, tear this whole place apart. That must have been their mission. Capture Unit Two, capture an eva pilot.
They weren't getting my Unit Two, and they sure as hell weren't getting me.
Left foot, right foot. The soles of my plug suit clicked across the decking. The burning went all the way through. They were using submachine guns. Full metal jacket probably, there was an exit wound and it wasn't very big. Bullet went straight through me.
It was kind of funny, I went from terrified to analyzing my wound and sprinting through the aircraft after being shot. Adrenaline was a hell of a thing, my neuro-chemistry was shot. Didn't matter. There was a mission to be completed. I had a goal, right?
I couldn't show the world who I was if I didn't make it through this. That would be unforgivable.
I dropped down the stairs at the end of the corridor and felt the wind knocked out of me when I hit the deck, felt the wound shifting around the hot foam plug that was keeping my blood inside me. I grit my teeth and pressed on. It wasn't far now. People were going to die today, and I was going to kill them. It was a fact that I was beginning to realize, and yet I couldn't make myself care, not really.
They were here of their own will, they consented to combat, right? They already shot me once. What was that old saying? My sympathy for your cause ends at the barrel of your gun? Yeah, I could relate.
There was noise and light up ahead, I sped up, intent on using the adrenaline while I had it. If I could get to Unit Two, this entire thing would be over. I wasn't doing it to play the hero, no. That wasn't my role in this, I was doing this for me.
Or maybe I was doing it to show up stupid Ikari. She killed an angel with a fighter jet? Lucky. I was going to end this entire confrontation by myself.
My eyes darted left and right as I turned the last corner, I heard footsteps on the decking head. I snapped the pistol up and my eyes followed it, a single soldier standing guard in front of the hatch, the last barrier between me and my Evangelion.
My finger snapped down on the trigger and the gun jumped in my hand, I heard screaming after the first shot. My finger snapped down again, again, again, again, again. Each step closer, another shot. I watched the man turn, turn. Blood sprayed against the wall next to him, he turned more, fell.
I ran past him, through the hatch way. The screaming stopped, my throat was sore. I stopped and leaned against the frame of the hatch, panted for breath. I started to slide down the wall and caught myself. If I sat down now I might never get back up again.
I stumbled away from the wall and across the deck plating, the entry plug was right in front of me, all I had to do was climb in, and I was home free.
I grabbed onto the side of the slick white cylinder to steady myself and tapped my code into the keypad with the muzzle of the pistol, couldn't bring myself to put it down, not now. Not after that.
The hatch slid open and I dropped climbed into the plug. My feet hit the LCL in the partially full plug, and I finally closed the hatch behind me. It was then that I finally put the pistol on safe and dropped myself into the soft control seat.
My back tensed up when I hit the cushion, the jarring of the impact sent a jolt of pain through my wound, and that woke me back up. Now that I was finally sitting, I wasn't quite so tired anymore. Probably for the best, I definitely had internal bleeding.
I dropped the pistol into a pocket on the side of the control seat and grabbed the sticks. The bottom dropped out and I felt the plug sliding down, down into Unit Two. The autostart had kicked in, good.
Wouldn't be long now, just lean my head back against the seat and wait.
xxx
The taste of LCL and the cool motion of liquid across my skin were the first things I noticed. Then, the jarring vibrations. I'd dozed at some point during the start-up procedure, but the Eva was active, and still running on the standby power from the carrier.
Which was listing to one side.
I blinked away the fatigue as the radio crackled in my ears, "Asuka, if you're listening, I have Misato. Repeat, I have Misato. Get out of there."
Ikari? How the hell did she… I looked down and behind me, toward Two's feet. Yeah, there was that stupid fighter jet.
I looked up again and saw the bottom hull of the carrier. So it was just bad guys then? They'd killed the crew, I'd watched that.
Hell with em. "Well, you gotta die of something. Unit Two activating."
I settled myself into the control seat and hauled back on the control sticks, felt the sympathetic feedback of the restraints on Two's arms and legs, and pushed. I could feel the metal creaking, hear it through the microphones, feel it in my hands.
And then all at once it snapped and I felt myself in freefall.
I smirked despite myself "Nah, not that easy." I snapped a hand out and grabbed the carrier as I fell away, got a nice big chunk of the leading edge of the wing root in my hand and ripped right through it. They weren't getting far without that wing.
I coughed into the LCL and opened a link back up with the jet, with Ikari, "Unit Two… Is away."
I shook my head and bit down on my tongue. The endorphins were starting to wear off, being shot had this way of hurting unimaginably when you had to actually calm down and deal with it.
I tapped out the necessary commands into the MFD set in the center of the control panel and activated the glider pack that my unit was equipped with. Twenty minutes of power in the pack, well… with the rocket assist and the right glide slope, I could make shore easily, almost certainly get to an auxiliary power hookup for Unit Two before the batteries ran dry.
As I finished punching in the autopilot corrections I finally chanced a glance over at the F-2 and… wait, where the hell is the canopy? There was red trailing down the side of the fuselage too, hydraulic fluid? No, it didn't look like it took damage, wasn't trailing smoke.
I clicked a few buttons on my left control stick and zoomed in.
"Oh, fuck."