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The negotiations between the Precursor civilization and humanity concluded successfully. Both sides set aside past grievances—or at least agreed to table them temporarily—and established formal diplomatic relations. It was historic. Unprecedented. The first time humanity had forged official ties with an alien species.
Earth had officially entered the interstellar community.
Now they just had to wait for the technology transfers to begin.
The public reaction was... complicated.
The debate that erupted across human society wasn't about whether the alliance was strategically sound—most people grudgingly accepted that cooperation beat extinction. The controversy centered on the speed of reconciliation. These were the same aliens who'd spent years sending bioweapons to destroy coastal cities, who'd killed millions, who'd traumatized an entire generation.
And now, suddenly, humanity was shaking hands with them? Acting like allies? Pretending the past didn't matter?
The Planetary Warfare Council didn't try to hide the negotiation results. Secrecy was impossible anyway—they needed to recruit personnel for the Anteverse expedition. Scientists, soldiers, Jaeger pilots. Everyone had to know what they were signing up for.
The scientific community responded with enthusiastic fervor. Getting to study an alien civilization's technology? Access to hundreds of millions of years of accumulated knowledge? Researchers were practically fighting each other for assignment slots.
The military recruitment was more challenging. Piloting a Jaeger was many people's dream, sure, but this required traveling to another dimension to fight an alien parasite threatening a species that had recently tried to exterminate humanity. That was a harder sell.
Though honestly, once you framed it as "piloting Jaegers in another world with Earth as your backup," it started sounding pretty cool. Interdimensional warfare. Fighting alongside aliens against existential threats. The resentment was real, but so was the appeal of being part of something historic.
The recruitment drive launched with appropriate fanfare and government advocacy.
Then, three days after the negotiation meeting, the Planetary Warfare Council issued another announcement:
February 25, 2025. San Francisco, USA. Public trial of interstellar war criminal Achilles Ares, architect of the Kaiju invasion.
The location was deliberate, symbolic, calculated for maximum emotional impact. San Francisco—where Trespasser had made landfall in 2013, where the nightmare had begun, where humanity had learned that monsters were real and were coming to kill everyone.
The city was still technically ruins, though years of reconstruction had begun reversing the damage. Safe zones had been cleared, decontaminated, rebuilt. But large sections remained abandoned, contaminated by Kaiju blue, standing as monuments to that first terrible day when everything changed.
Holding the trial there wasn't just about justice. It was about catharsis.
The announcement ignited something volatile in the collective human psyche. All that pent-up rage, that grief and hatred and trauma that had nowhere to go—suddenly it had a target. A single Precursor, standing trial, accepting responsibility.
People needed this. The cooperation with the Precursors had left many feeling betrayed, helpless, voiceless. Protests had erupted, but what could they accomplish? The alliance was fait accompli, decided by governments and councils far beyond individual citizens' influence.
Without an outlet, that anger would fester. Resistance movements would form. Domestic terrorism. Vigilante violence against anything perceived as pro-Precursor.
Better to provide a controlled release valve. One very public execution. Justice served, closure achieved, society moves forward.
On the day of the trial, Aidan Parker received an invitation to join the judicial panel. Observer status, mostly. His presence added weight, legitimacy. The magician who'd invaded the Anteverse, who'd captured the Precursors' commander, who'd brokered the entire alliance.
He arrived early, before the crowds assembled, and found Achilles being held in a corridor beneath the trial platform. Armed guards stood watch—more for show than necessity; the Precursor wasn't going to run.
"How does it feel," Aidan asked, approaching the holding area, "facing death?"
Achilles stood quietly, hands bound with reinforced restraints designed for his alien physiology. His red bone crown caught the harsh fluorescent lighting, making it look like dried blood.
"Some fear," Achilles admitted, voice soft. "And considerable regret."
"Regret about not seeing your homeworld again?"
"Yes. I would have liked to witness the crisis resolved. To know that my people survived." The Precursor's compound eyes were impossible to read, but his posture carried genuine sorrow. "Unfortunately, I certainly won't have that chance."
One of the guards—a young soldier, maybe twenty-five—shook his head sadly. "Many people on Earth feel the same way. Dying without seeing their families again. Without knowing if their sacrifice mattered."
Achilles went silent at that. Not guilt, exactly. More like the crushing weight of moral equivalency. Both sides had done terrible things. Both sides had suffered. Both were fighting for survival using whatever tools they possessed.
War didn't have heroes and villains. Just people trying not to die, making impossible choices.
"Alright," the team leader said, checking his watch. "Time's almost up. Prepare to move."
"Yes, sir!" The guards straightened, professionalism replacing momentary empathy.
The execution platform stood in the center of San Francisco's rebuilt central square—a temporary wooden structure, deliberately reminiscent of ancient public execution stages. No pillars, no gallows, just a raised flat surface about two meters high. Visible from every angle. Theatrical by design.
The square was packed. Thousands of people, maybe tens of thousands, pressed together in a massive crowd that spilled out of the plaza into adjacent streets. Every available vantage point claimed—windows, rooftops, fire escapes. Global news crews broadcasting live to every nation on Earth.
The noise was incredible. Thousands of overlapping conversations, debates about justice and vengeance and cooperation, speculation about Precursor biology, arguments about whether this was necessary or barbaric.
Some people came seeking catharsis, needing to see the creature responsible for their trauma face consequences. Others were simply curious—this was the first time most humans would see a Precursor in person, not filtered through news footage or government briefings.
"I think since we've established cooperation, there's no need for public execution," someone said in the crowd.
"Are you kidding? This monster coordinated attacks that killed millions! Death is the minimum—"
"Easy for you to say when the Kaiju never hit your city—"
"Should've captured more of them. One execution isn't enough—"
The arguments rippled through the crowd, passionate and irreconcilable.
Near the front, standing quietly, were familiar faces from the Shatterdome. Mako Mori, expression carefully neutral. Raleigh beside her, hands in pockets, watching the empty platform. The Wei Tang triplets, still showing faint scars from their near-death. Herc and Chuck Hansen, the Australian pilots maintaining their usual stoic demeanor.
They'd fought the Kaiju. Killed them, been nearly killed by them. If anyone had earned the right to witness this, it was them.
The trial began.
Armed soldiers emerged from beneath the platform, leading the shackled Precursor up wooden stairs. The moment Achilles's form became visible, the entire square went silent. Like someone had flipped a switch, cutting off thousands of voices simultaneously.
All eyes locked onto the alien.
Three meters tall. Four arms bound at his sides. Red bone crown catching sunlight, making it gleam like fresh blood. Compound eyes scanning the crowd, taking in the sea of human faces staring back with expressions ranging from hatred to curiosity to pity.
This was a Precursor. The enemy made flesh. Real, present, undeniably other.
Achilles walked to the center of the platform with dignity intact, accepting his fate without resistance. The guards formed a perimeter around the stage's edge, weapons ready but unnecessary.
Then a figure emerged from the crowd. A woman with short black hair cut precisely at neck length, moving with fluid grace that suggested extensive martial training.
Mako Mori.
Many people had volunteered—demanded, even—to be the executioner. Survivors who'd lost families. Veterans who'd fought Kaiju. Citizens who simply wanted someone to pay for years of terror.
But Marshal Stacker Pentecost had made a special request. His adopted daughter would carry out the sentence. The woman who'd almost become a Jaeger pilot, who'd trained her entire adult life to fight these creatures, who carried trauma from childhood that would never fully heal.
She would strike the blow.
Mako climbed the platform steps slowly, each footfall deliberate. Sunlight streamed down, passing through her bangs, casting her eyes in deep shadow. Her expression was impossible to read—face turned slightly downward, features hidden, revealing nothing of what she felt.