Author's Notes: So here it is, dear readers, the end of 5 years, 4 months (ironically) of labor and love in the Pacific Rim universe. In another strange irony, Herman Wouk, author of many sprawling, seminal works about World War II including the two novels who influenced me so much, Winds of War and War and Remembrance, for which this epilogue is named. Thank you all so many times over for your feedback, your patience, and your support through some very difficult times. Please let me know your thoughts on how the whole series played out!

Epilogue: War and Remembrance

December 26, 2025…
Whistler, Canada…

It wasn't even 5:00 pm, but it was already getting dark when 19 Jaeger pilots arrived at a remote private ski lodge in Whistler, Canada: Raleigh Becket and Mako Mori, Herc and Chuck Hansen, Kennedy LaRue and Stephanie Lanphier, Cheung and Jin Wei, Carlos and Jordana Chen of Puma Real, Ben Gonzalez and Felipe Jara of Diablo Intercept version 1, Sasha and Aleksis Kaidanovsky, Hedy Keres of Eden Assassin, Pang So-Yi and An Yuna of Nova Hyperion, and Ami and Rena Tanaka of Echo Saber. Only one living pilot hadn't made it: Tanisha Davis of Yankee Star, but Raleigh carried a letter from her and a phone number. (Scott Hansen, while reportedly alive, did not count in anyone's mind.)

All gathered to reunite with the two pilots who began it all: United States Air Force Captain Sergio D'onofrio, and Dr. Caitlin Lightcap.

Caitlin and Sergio knew they were coming; Sergio had prepared her as much as he could.

Caitlin didn't break, but she was hesitant, too consumed with the awareness that of the sixty-seven men and women who had ever piloted a Jaeger in combat, forty-eight hadn't lived to see this day.

Sergio knew all the surviving pilots were aware of that. It was the Mark-1 survivors, Herc, Sasha, and Alexsis, who addressed it directly. Sasha put her hands on Caitlin's face and said firmly, "Were it not for you, none of us would live today."

Herc nodded. "We'd still have fought in the war. Pilots, volunteers, first responders, any way we could. We'd have died. Billions would've died, because humanity would've lost."

The Weis, her surviving golden boys, approached next. "Hu would agree. He would beg you from the grave not to blame yourself. We knew the risks we took."

Caitlin sobbed and pulled both men into her arms. She'd aged so much; Sergio had seen the hastily-concealed shock on some of the pilots' faces. She was only forty-one, but she looked some ten years older. After the twins' deaths nearly a year ago, her hair had rapidly grayed. Now it was nearly white, and grief and horror had lined her face. She looked frail.

So did some of her pilots, of course, there was no getting around that. Carlos and Jordana were both wheelchair-bound, holding their own against cancer (for now, anyway), but the ravages of illness and chemotherapy showed. Felipe Jara and Kennedy LaRue were both paralyzed from the waist down from combat injuries to the spine. Jin Wei might walk again some day, as might Ami Tanaka.

It was Aleksis who dared to say it. "Bruce and Trevin would be grateful, for the choice you made in January. You made the decision that none of us had the strength to make. Even Illisapie and Zeke agreed."

Caitlin shuddered, and the huge man enveloped her in his arms. "Did they really?"

"They spoke of it to many of us. They never blamed you. None of us did. You knew Bruce and Trevin as well as any of us." He nodded to Sergio. "Seeing so many pilots lose their partners," Caitlin sobbed again and he squeezed her, "they never wanted to end that way. They would have chosen as you did. We all know that. In the end, Trevin couldn't bear it."

But Caitlin abruptly looked at Raleigh, then winced as he went pale. "Sorry," she whispered.

"'s okay," the younger man said softly. He trembled as he came closer. "I...no one could hear what - what Yancy told me, in the last second. He didn't say it aloud, he was..." His breath seized, and it was a moment before he could speak. Caitlin released Aleksis, and to Sergio's intense relief, she was steady as she went to Raleigh, putting a hand on his shoulder. Raleigh finished, "He wanted me to live, to go on no matter what happened. That's...probably the only reason I didn't..." He couldn't finish, and Caitlin wrapped her arms around his neck, then freed one arm to reach for Mako, who joined them.

"I know the truth, about you and Stacker afterward, you know," she told him, surprisingly calm.

"We all do now," Kennedy LaRue confirmed. "Raleigh and Chuck told us everything. They've cleared his name."

"Good," Caitlin sighed. "Stacker deserves that."

"I lied to him," Raleigh admitted, eyes on the ground. "I threatened to kill myself, but...I wouldn't have. Yancy told me not to."

"Oh, kiddo," Caitlin said, cupping his face. "Nobody will ever blame you for anything you said or did, not all of us knowing what you were going through. We all took it for granted that...that wasn't possible. Even when we found out we were wrong..."

"None of us would've chosen it," Sergio confirmed, and every one of the others nodded in unison - many tighten their grips on their co-pilots. Sergio and Aleksis had their arms around Hedy Keres now, but even Hedy nodded, tears sliding down her face.

"I know," Raleigh murmured. But he forced a shaky smile and squeezed Caitlin's shoulders. "But it's true. Yancy would never have blamed you. Even if it'd...been me instead of him. He never would have. You gave us all a fighting chance. You gave the world a fighting chance. You've got nothing to be ashamed of, Caitlin."

"Amen," many of them murmured.

Caitlin cried and cried as she found herself at the center of a massive group embrace, but for the first time in nearly a year, she was smiling too.

"Come now," Sasha said. "Bruce and Trevin would tell you to be happy again, Caitlin. Every one of them who is not here would want that. You were the earth's salvation."

"Vic and Gunnar too," said Hedy. She laughed weakly. "If they were here, they would dance for you."

They all laughed. "So would Maria and Miguel," Sasha agreed. She pointed at Herc and Chuck. "You must make Typhoon dance again. And we must all make sure the tradition is kept."

Raleigh and Mako nodded, all seriousness. "I can feel Pentecost scowling from the other side," someone said. A few hissed, but Mako giggled.

"He softened to that eventually. Vic and Gunnar danced for me in the Academy mess hall, only six months after Sensei adopted me. I didn't realize they were Coyote Tango's new pilots until weeks later. They only said they were Rangers."

"Yeah, he was mostly putting it on after that to give Tamsin a hard time," Chuck confirmed. Herc gave his son a funny look then that Chuck answered with a quirky half-smile. What secret they were sharing in the ghost drift, Sergio couldn't guess. I wonder what it was like for our ferocious little bulldog, drifting with Stacker? Only a co-pilot would ever know unless Chuck chose to say. Sergio and Cait would never have expected to find Chuck Hansen mellowed as a result, but he did seem calmer. Maybe peace just agreed with him.

They spent that night crowded onto beds and floors and couches in guestrooms and living rooms and sun rooms, drinking, telling stories, dissolving into crying jags followed by animated talk of the future. That night was the first night in over a year that Caitlin Lightcap had let herself think of the future. She and Sergio still had a strong enough ghost drift for Sergio to know that.

Duc Jessop wasn't buried in Whistler; his ashes had gone back to Japan to mingle with Kaori's. But in the morning, Sergio and Cait showed the pilots where Andrés Alcazar and Daniel Moreno of Matador Fury were buried, safe and free where they'd died, out of the clutches of an ungrateful, grasping government. "We should let that truth get out now," Caitlin remarked. "They had no family. There's no one at risk if we expose what we had to do to protect them."

Raleigh straightened after he and Mako laid flowers on the grave. "Mako and I are...we're giving our first interview in a few days. I...I know I wasn't there then, but..." he hesitated, but several of the others scoffed and nodded to him. "We could tell it now. Andrés and Daniel's story."

"Who is the reporter?" asked Yuna.

"Naomi Sokolov."

"I like her," Cait said immediately. "She understands us, even if she didn't when she was a kid." Raleigh blushed, and she grinned. "She interviewed me once, a few years back. She reminds me of you, even."

Raleigh blinked. "Really?"

"She understands the value of preserving history. It made me think of you and your World War II map."

Looking thoughtful, Raleigh murmured, "I was thinking...it'd just be about Mako and me, but maybe...maybe not interviews, but we should all tell our stories." Everyone nodded.

"You trust this reporter with all this?" asked Sasha. Raleigh, Mako, and Caitlin nodded along with several others.

"She kept her word to Duc about keeping the things he said off the record until after his death. And she has defended us," said Cheung Wei. "We have written much about Hu, and we wrote even when he was alive, knowing the risks in this line of work. It was a way of preserving our memories, of our lives and our fellow pilots in Hong Kong. We wrote about Jing and Min Li, Xichi and Lo Hin, Chane and Maina Siddha, Yan-Jie and Fang, every pilot we ever rode with. Much of it is on social media, but it should be compiled in one place." He smiled and put his sole arm around Caitlin as he told Raleigh and Mako, "We will give it to you to take to her. Maybe it should become a book."

"She's interested in writing a book, if there's enough material," said Mako. "Do any of you know Tanisha's son Matthew? He also wants to write one. They may collaborate."

Chuck and Herc exchanged a long look, then Herc nodded. "We're in. We didn't exactly document like you kids, but we'll sit for interviews, if they want us."

Caitlin was quiet through the murmurs of agreement of the other pilots, but slowly said, "You're right. We should tell our story. Everyone's stories. How soon do you see her again?"

"Next week, but compiling all this will take months or years," said Mako. "There's no need to rush."

Raleigh nodded. "We're visiting my sister first."

December 31, 2025…
Boulder, Colorado...

"This isn't inconvenient on New Year's Eve, is it?" Mako asked when they joined Naomi at her apartment.

"I'd have done this on Christmas Day if you wanted," Naomi said. "Matthew Davis and I've signed a contract to write a full biography and history of the Jaeger Program. He's working remotely from Oklahoma." Her traitorous yellow lab promptly parked himself in front of the two Rangers and Raleigh's younger sister with her fiancé. "I'm really glad to meet you." Naomi told Jazmine Becket.

The younger woman kept one hand clutching her fiancé's and the other petting the dog. "Thanks, I...I dunno if anything I can tell you makes me look very good."

Naomi smiled ruefully. "If it makes you feel any better, I'll probably have to confess to propositioning one of your brothers only to go out with the other." Jazmine gaped, then they all started to laugh. "If there's one thing I've learned from journalism school and inpractice, it's that there aren't any saints in the real world." She looked at Raleigh and Mako. "Not even among the heroes."

"That's a fact," Raleigh agreed, though he too had fixated on the dog. "Though as far as Jazmine was concerned, I was never a hero."

Jazmine quietly scoffed. "Don't be stupid. I knew different after Yamarashi. I just never admitted it. Until a few weeks ago, anyway."

He and his sister didn't look physically very alike, Naomi mused. But their mannerisms made up for it. It was a little different from the acquired shared mannerisms between the pilots. Interesting to see both right before her eyes in the same room.

"So?"

Raleigh met her eyes. "So...uh...where do we begin?"

Naomi got that question a lot, and she knew the answer: "At the beginning."

Mako and Raleigh exchanged a long look, then Mako raised her eyebrows at him, giving a small nod to whatever beginning he was considering. Taking a deep breath, Raleigh began:

"When I was a kid, whenever I'd feel small or lonely, I'd look up at the stars. Wondered if there was life up there." His sister smiled and put her arm around him.

"Turns out I was looking in the wrong direction."

~Fin~