The flash was blindening...literally.
It was just by sheer luck that Jake had caught only part of the brilliance on the right side of his face. The left was on the side of his ikran, as they were flying away on a hunt from the Tree of Souls. When the blast wave hit, he was a few kilometers away, and despite the hurricane winds, able to keep control and in the air. Then, with his good eye, he turned back to see ...the monstrous mushroom-shaped cloud forming from the fireball. For a moment, he flashed back to his days as a human and a Marine, "Atleast two megatons, maybe three." Then it all sunk in.
Neytiri was dead...as was their two children, the younger born just months earlier. So were all the Omaticayas that were his family.
"They" had returned....the humans. 11 years after they had defeated them. 11 years. Just long enough for the RDA miners, including Parker Selfridge, to get back to Earth...tell them what happened...and a second military force to be sent back to Alpha Centauri.
And they had decided on "no half measures this time"...Jake easily imagined the meeting between RDA, the Earth governments, and men who made Colonel Quaritch look like Gandhi.
Nukes....dropped from orbit. Wipe out the "hostile in one fell swoop". More nukes or air-fuel bombs of near equivalence to take out any other Na'vi groups and "potentially threatening animal life". Gunships, AMC mech suits, and ground troops to clean out any remaining "dregs". The mining operation was robotic, so the residual radiation from the blasts wouldn't bother them.
His final thoughts, as he turned the ikran back into the still expanding mushroom cloud, to join his people in death...was of a history book he once read. It spoke of "Custer's Last Stand"...a decisive battle between American soldiers against the Native Americans in 1876. Like the Na'vi, the "Indians" had won the battle. But within fifteen years, they lost the rest, until the final battle. And though this may not be it for all Na'vi, for himself and his clan, the battle against Quaritch had been "Custer's Last Stand", but this was....
"Wounded Knee".