Pacific Rim: The Official Movie Novelization Read Online Free

pathways were interrupted.
    The plasma cannon’s barrel glowed, still functioning despite Knifehead’s attempt to chew through it. They would only get to fire it once. Raleigh raised the arm high and bent at the elbow so the cannon was aimed back down at the kaiju’s head, just behind where its skull disappeared into Gipsy Danger.
    It wouldn’t fire. Even overloading, it wouldn’t fire yet.
    Knifehead reared up and smashed a single claw through the gap in Gipsy Danger’s Conn-Pod. The claw dug around, shredding metal and blacking out all electronics on that side.
    It found Yancy.
    “No,” Raleigh said quietly
    There was no need to scream, Yancy could hear him. Yancy was looking at him, the raw terror of the moment cutting through the shock of the damage he had already suffered through Gipsy Danger...
    “Raleigh, listen to me, you—”
    And then Yancy was gone, torn away into the storm along with that entire side of Gipsy Danger’s head. Freezing rain slashed in through the hole and the Jaeger froze as the neural handshake was broken.
    Raleigh hammered at a bank of manual switches, trying to engage the Crisis Command Matrix.
    Yancy, man, no, don’t be gone, he was saying, or thought he was saying.
    The CCM came online. Raleigh gave it a single command:
    PLASMA CANNON OVERLOAD
    All of Gipsy Danger’s remaining control systems rededicated themselves to the single task of lifting and angling the Jaeger’s arm. Knifehead tore another piece from Gipsy Danger’s skull frame. Raleigh looked it right in the eye, and it looked back.
    It knew we were in here, he thought. How did it know? When did they figure that out?
    Knifehead roared, long and triumphant. It saw the plasma cannon pointed at it, and swiveled to bite down on Gipsy Danger’s arm, tearing at the cannon’s barrel housing and still roaring.
    Raleigh roared back, and fired.
    ***
     
    Dawn was breaking. Raleigh had never been cold like this. He moved Gipsy Danger step by step. He could hear random snatches of incoming comm traffic, morning news radio out of Anchorage, amplified sounds of surf and wind from the shore just ahead. Another step. Yancy was gone. He could not feel Yancy.
    Gipsy Danger stepped onto dry land. Someone somewhere was shouting for recovery teams. Closer by he heard voices, too; chatter over Saltchuck ’s radio. The boat had survived.
    Gipsy Danger stumbled on the shoreline. Raleigh bent, and Gipsy Danger bent, within sight of the Anchorage skyline. He saw two figures, an old man and a boy, gaping at his approach. Sensors picked up the beep of a metal detector.
    Raleigh had nothing left. He couldn’t feel his arm because it had been cut off. No, that was Gipsy Danger’s arm. The Jaeger’s joints squealed and began to freeze up from loss of lubricant through the holes Knifehead had torn in it. Its liquid-circuit neural architecture was misfiring like crazy. Raleigh’s head hurt and he also couldn’t really feel parts of his mind. Something was burning on his skin but if he looked down at it he would lose control of Gipsy Danger and the Jaeger would fall on the old man and the boy. He couldn’t stand upright again.
    Gipsy Danger dropped to its knees and fell forward. Raleigh barely got his arm up and out to stop from going face first into the beach. The Jaeger’s hand was ten feet deep in the frozen sand. Snow blew across the beach, settling in the scalloped patterns carved by the winter wind. Gipsy Danger’s sensors picked up the beep of the metal detector again, faster.
    Shut up , he thought.
    Raleigh disengaged from the motion rig and blacked out for a moment. When he knew where he was again, he was standing on the sand and could hear the sound of approaching helicopters. He looked up. How had he gotten out onto the beach?
    Climbed out. He realized that he’d climbed out through the shattered cranial viewport, climbed out the same hole Yancy had disappeared through. Cold stung his skin, blood was slick under his suit. The old