Humanity Strikes Back

by ADorjan

Humans mount punitive expedition to Pandora.

DISCLAIMER and AUTHOR'S NOTE

This is a work of fan-fiction, and explicitly non-canon; everything used here is used without permission. Avatar and the characters from the movie are property of James Cameron and whoever else he shares the rights with. Howard Tayler presumably owns the rights for the concept and name for a Chupaqueso. Please don't sue.

I wrote this during the National Novel Writing Month in 2010, as my fourth winning entry in the contest. If my warning that this is fan-fiction didn't imply terrible quality, feel yourself properly forewarned - this is not likely to be good prose in most people's opinion. Nonetheless, I hope you have more fun reading it, than I had writing it. I apologize for any plot holes I've accidentally managed to create.

PS: This work is not intended for hippies, liberals, communists or furries.

PROLOGUE

The story so far:

Humanity has reached the stars, and among the stars, they have found Pandora, the moon of a gas giant in a distant system. A world not unlike Earth itself, lush with plant and animal life.

Or, at least, a world that resembled the Earth of old, for humans have changed their world considerably since they emerged from the mists of time, shaping it according to their wishes. Earth was no longer green, it was metal-gray, supporting the lives of untold billions, kept functioning by the might of the human scientific thought and ambition to achieve more than they were allowed by mere circumstance of birth. From an outsider's perspective, Earth could be considered a dying place, since humanity has exterminated or subsumed all but the most potent of the planet's other inhabitants, and spread wherever they could.

From the night sky in high orbit, one could see that Earth's surface was littered with light, every piece of land deemed redeemable for the purpose of human habitation was made habitable, through sheer force of grand-scale engineering. When the available surface ran out, even with the hundreds of stories they built above and below it, homo sapiens sapiens moved to other places; the oceans, where they built grand metropolises surrounded by bubbles of air, and inhabited by their own kind who were changed to become more suited for an undersea environment; and the space beyond.

So no, Pandora was quite unlike the humans' homeworld, still green and blue, still being the living place of unnumbered species that coexisted mostly peacefully with each other, preying and being preyed by one another. One of these species was the Na'vi, blue-skinned, tailed humanoids who resembled Earth's felines in a superficial way, the moon's solitary sapient inhabitants... or so it seemed.

Humanity, in its everlasting drive for happiness and perfection, found that Pandora housed something they wanted - Unobtanium, the room-temperature superconductor. Fueled by their greed, they set out to harvest it, under the banner of the RDA Corporation. Though the way to Alpha Centauri was long, taking nearly six years, with the starship crew suspended in cryonic hibernation, they have established their outpost on Pandora, and began mining. Here, they have met with the native Na'vi, whom they sought to educate in the ways of modern life, teaching them the English language and giving them the gift of science. This, the Na'vi rejected for their savage reasons, and warred upon the humans.

The human Jake Sully was the brother of a researcher who died tragically before being shipped out to Pandora, to take part in the Avatar Program. Since the Avatars were crafted from the DNA of a particular subject mixed with the Na'vi genetic code, the RDA Corporation approached Sully with an offer - take his deceased twin brother's place, and earn enough money for the operation that would restore his damaged spine. He has accepted and traveled with the others to the alien world. Here, he found that walking around in the artificially created biological Na'vi hybrid body was good enough for him. Though he superficially accepted his superiors' orders to convinced the natives to allow humans to mine for Unobtanium, his weak mind came under the influence of the native's primitive and savage lifestyle, to which he took with an atavistic passion, going so far as mating with one of them, Neytiri, the daughter of the chief of the Omaticaya clan.

Failing at his mission to convince the natives to move away from the Hometree, a gigantic specimen of native flora that was home to the Omaticaya clan, or at least allow the humans to mine there, he has sided with the Na'vi when Colonel Quaritch and Selfridge, the head of security and corporate overseer, respectively, came to the decision that they will take what they want from the Na'vi, regardless of the natives' agreement or disagreement. In the subsequent destruction of the Hometree, after the savages failed to believe that the humans could do such a thing, the Na'vi were routed.

Sully and dr. Grace, the head scientist, temporarily lost the trust of the Omaticaya after it was revealed what the mission they failed so hard at was, but Sully regained it shortly, by dint of taming a rare and dangerous flying predator which impressed the savages so much as to make him their de-facto leader. Unfortunately for Sully, when their rebellion against their very race was found out and they made their escape from the humans' settlement into the wilds, dr. Grace was mortally wounded by Colonel Quaritch, and not even the intervention of the Na'vi world-god, Eywa, could help her.

Sully, using his newfound status, mobilizing the savages from all around, gaining thousands of warriors to his cause. This was detected by the human command, and it was decided that they needed to strike now, before they natives hit them later, which could prove disastrous to the settlement - which was greatly limited in manpower and effectively isolated from the rest of humanity. They did not know, however, that against their technology, they would have to competete against an intellect far greater than the unscientific indigenous Na'vi.

By praying, through the neural connection common to Pandoran lifeforms, Sully has convinced Eywa to help her children against the human threat. In the ensuing battle, at the floating mountains of Pandora, the humans were defeated and decimated by the hostile wildlife summoned by the Na'vi god. Colonel Quaritch was slain by Sully's native mate, Neytiri, and all humans excepting those that survived siding with the savages were expelled from Pandora. Using the Tree of Souls, the physical manifestation of Eywa upon the surface of the world, Sully and his comrades transfer permanently into their Avatars, only to live happily ever after in their little primitive utopia... but will they?

Not if humanity has something to say about that.

ACT I

CHAPTER 1

In the lowest sub-basement of the towering habitation block, a man was drinking himself to unconsciousness. He has been doing so for the past year, and it has aged him noticeably. He was nearly sixty now, but two insterstellar voyages and advanced modern medicine made him look like he was about thirty, even with the effects of alcohol addiction plainly visible on his discoloured face. Since he spent most of his money on booze, he couldn't afford hair regrowth tonics, and his hairline receded considerably - not that he cared. He had very little left, after having been fired from his job, and having his record permanently stained with the stigma of failure to achieve success.

So he drank.

Every day, after coming home from a dreary day of grueling labour at the local Chupaqueso Joint, and grabbing a box of cheap, whisky-flavoured synthohol, he would collapse on a flea-bitten couch and start filling himself up, while watching media streamed to him on an antiquated flatscreen TV hooked up to a somewhat less antiquated, but still substandard compared to what successful people used, funbox. He didn't need to do much to keep entertained, the funbox, while archaic, still did its job - grabbed shows, music, texts, anything that was likely to be considered amusing by the owner - and he had but to occassionally push a button to declare whether he liked a certain item or not. While he was profoundly unhappy about his lot in life, compared to the stellar career that he was previously part of, even in these depths of decline, he could be comfortable.

As he pushed the on-button on his remote, there was a knock on the door. He was about to shout, "Go away!", but something made him reconsider. Maybe it was the mere fact that he had yet to drink up this evening, perhaps something more sinister, like the perception that the knock didn't sound like the usual suspects - landlords or debtors - and by dint of that, it could be someone new and interesting. Grumbling, the alcoholic lifted his bulk, pot-belly included, and went answer the door, disturbing a pile of trash littering the short hallway of his miniature apartment.

Peering out through the camera system mounted at the side of the door - which made a killing about ten years past, when a particularly nasty way to produce armour-piercing ammunition hit the streets, and nobody wanted to stand in front of even a steel plate door - he saw that on his doormat stood a lanky man in a trenchcoat, flanked by a much burlier man, also wearing a trenchcoat. The unhappy alcoholic frowned. Who wore trenchcoats anymore? Only hardline regressives and kids on Halloween, and October was quite a ways off. Nonetheless, they didn't look quite like hitmen - those would have already disabled his door and shot him dead. He punched the button and opened the metal door.

"Yeah?" he rasped at the two. They looked taken aback by his appearance.

"Mister Parker Selfridge?" asked the lanky one.

"Who wants to know?" Selfridge squinted.

"We represent the United Earth Armed Forces," the talkative one answered, straightening. One could believe these men were military, by their appearance - short-cropped hair, straight posture, being well-built - and the manner of their speech, loud and clear. That they represented the UEAF presented some more interesting possibilities; the UEAF was only formed five to six years ago, under leadership drawn from the former G7 countries. So far as Parker Selfridge knew, their agenda seemed to be promoting the interests of humanity at large, rather than any specific faction, and actually trying to make a fleet of warships - space warships. He had dismissed the newsfeed items that brought him this information, and hasn't received any about them since.

"What do you want?"

"Just to check, sir, you were the one in charge of overseeing the operations of the RDA Corporation on the moon Pandora?" The man held a somewhat outdated, holographic PDA in his palm. Selfridge couldn't quite read the information upside down, but it seemed to be his profile.

"That's me." Mental alarms were flaring. What could these people want. "What do you want?" he repeated.

"We are here to offer you an invitation, in the capacity of an expert, to a meeting of certain people involved in certain matters relating to Pandora," the envoy explained enigmatically. "Normally, we would have contacted you electronically, but it appears your provider has ended your telecom subscription last week."

It was probably true. He didn't bother authorizing the payments one time too many, it seemed.

"What if I refuse?"

"Then you refuse. And we will not contact you again. However, consider that accepting our invitation may mean certain opportunities for you, in your current time of need," the man said, rather bluntly - but what do you expect from a soldier?

Selfridge stared. "I'll get my coat."

The meeting room was spacious, occupying about half the penthouse of the skyscraper. Despite its size, you could hear everyone who spoke up clearly, even if they were on the other side of the chamber, thanks to advanced sound technology. Selfridge was familiar with that one, owing to his former career as a manager in his corporation. Up here, the heavy smog didn't occlude the sun, and there were actual live plants sitting in the corners. Yes, Earth was quite unlike Pandora nowadays. Still, this was still much better than the predator-infested jungles.

Besides himself, there were eight people in the room, gathered around the rounded rectangular table. The most eye-catching personages were an obvious civilian, dressed in an immaculate business suit, sitting at the head of the table, leaning back in his chair; a small, middle-aged woman with obvious cybernetics constantly making threat assessments; and a bulky uniformed man with a huge frown on his face, bearing several medals and badges which Selfridge did not recognize. The others were somewhat less instantly interesting, and he didn't have the time to examine them for details before the suited man called for the meeting to start. Selfridge straightened himself, now looking presentable after some makeover, courtesy of the whoever's idea was to bring him over here, almost as sharp and success-oriented as he saw himself being before the calamity on Pandora.

"Gentlemen," the well-dressed man addressed the gathered, "I would like to thank you all for coming. First of all, I would like to reassert the privacy of the conversation we are about to have here. No doubt you are already aware that any leaks that make it into the press will only be coming from someone in this room, and none of us would do such a thing, would one?" He smiled genuinely.

Or, at least, used a smile that was meant to look genuine. Selfridge knew these kinds of people, the real psychopaths at the tops of the corporate food chains. He didn't recognize this guy, but that didn't mean anything - he hasn't been keeping track while in his sulk.

The bulky soldier made a rotating gesture with his hand, a mildly insulting way to indicate that he didn't care for the wool-gathering going on, and would prefer to get to the point. That he did so indicated to Selfridge that he was someone rather high-up in the hierarchy, someone who could get away with such displays of uncaring. The speaker ignored him, and carried on.

"We are gathered here to create a plan of action for the resolution of the Pandoran situation." A holographic image of the moon in question sprang up above the table, getting everyone's attention. A cheap gimmick, but one successfully preying on the human inclination to respond to new visual events. In addition to the rotating image, there were some basic numbers about the sphere. "For such a small thing, compared to Earth, it has caused a fair amount of trouble. As you might have heard from the news at some point, Pandora holds huge amounts of mineral resources, particularly Unobtanium." There were a few chuckles from around the table, while the presenter glanced at a plain ring on his left hand. If that was what Selfridge thought it was, he was no doubt among the richest people on the planet.

"Problem number one," the image changed to a partial map of the Milky Way, depicting the distance between the Solar System and Alpha Centauri. "It's quite a ways away. Over four light years, which we can cross in just under six years, using our starships. Even with limited instantaneous communication, we are unable to give any meaningful support except advice to any mission sent there. This was crucial to the failing of the last operation on the Pandoran surface." That was very true, and Selfridge knew it all too well. He subconsciously hunched up, feeling depression threaten to take hold of him. He needed a drink.

"Problem number two." Once again, the hologram changed to an image of several blue, tailed humanoids. "The indigenous population hates us, and has sent us packing the last time we wanted to benefit from the planet's abundance."

"We?" a short, demurely dressed man piped up. Selfridge didn't pay special attention to that one, who seemed to fade into the background as yet another paper-pusher. "Last I heard, the RDA Corporation had exclusive rights for the colonization and resource extraction from Pandora, and you, mister Waters, never were in their employ."

Waters? That rang a bell. In fact, Selfridge recalled a list of the most successful people on Earth, from an undetermined time. William Waters, yes, he was pretty damn rich. He did not know the specifics on the origins of his fortune, unfortunately.

"Correct, but I used the word, 'we', to describe humanity at large," Waters replied calmly. "While mister Selfridge here," he gestured at him, "is perhaps the only one in the current or former employ of the RDA Corporation, I believe it is humanity's right to not be pushed around by some aliens. This is why I have supported the formation of the United Earth Armed Forces and why I am partially funding the undertaking I am going to speak about in just a moment."

"Okay, continue, mister Waters," the short man nodded.

"Very well. Where were we? Oh, of course, the Na'vi," his smile turned into a frown. No doubt, this was for effect only, not actual feelings. "Large, predatory, savage, primitive, adapted to the Pandoran environment, uninterested in ever crawling away from their roots. Is that a correct summary of the species, mister Selfridge?"

"Absolutely," Selfridge confirmed immediately. Waters might be putting a show up for how he didn't like the blue felines, but Selfridge really hated the fuckers. They cost him his career, his job, his wife - everything he had. He blamed them for everything, and the focal point of was Jake Sully, whose Avatar was brought into view on the holo-projection.

"I'm sure we all know who this is," Waters gestured widely. "A person synonymous with the concept of a traitor in the circles of the more enlightened folks, and a symbol of going back to our roots among the liberal hippies, achieving harmony with nature. What hogwash." There were murmurs of agreement among the gathered, a few nods and smiles. This confirmed to Selfridge what he already suspected - this was a hive of regressives, a political faction ever-growing in strength, proposing coming back to old values, but at the same time pushing onwards with technology. Seemingly contradictory, especially to the liberals, monarchists, corporatives and reclamationists that constituted the mainstream of politics.

"This man has caused more harm to humanity by dint of his actions that any one being alive, past or present," the rich man continued. "I'm sure the United States military would very much like to have a few words with him, especially in the setting of a formal court martial." The uniformed man did not say anything to that, merely grimacing, then pounded a fist into the table.

"This is all publically available information, Waters," he said gruffly in a raspy voice. "Get to your point, so I can get back to something more productive, like playing Bejeweled Resurrection on my holopad."

The two locked stares. It was the wealthy man who broke off first.

"Very well, I suppose I've kept you waiting long enough. Simply put, my plan is to return to Pandora, and this time win it in the name of all humanity." Most of the listeners weren't surprised at all, and it was hard to blame them. "Behold," Waters waved his arm, and the projection transmuted itself into an image of Earth, with three metal shapes in orbit. They were space ships, Selfridge could see that, but were significantly different to designs he has seen so far. "The UESS Gallega, the UESS Santa Clara and the UESS Martin Alonzo Pinzon. They are the first of their kind, starships designed for combat actions."

This proclamation raised a couple of eyebrows, though most of the room seemed to be aware of what the crafts were. In particular, the cybernetized woman seemed besides herself with barely-restrained glee at the very idea.

"The next expedition that's going to Pandora will be a punitive one," Waters revealed. "I want your input and cooperation in this matter. The goal I have imagined for this operation would be to retake the world from the savage Na'vi, and establish a permanent human colony there."

"And how are you going to deal with the fact that humans can't breathe Pandoran atmosphere?" piped up the short man again.

"There are many solutions to such a problem," the cyber-woman answered. "We could terraform the atmosphere, like we are doing it on Mars - which will be quicker than Mars, by the way, since there is already some oxygen there. Also, we could just have the colonists receive genetic treatments which immunize them from the effects of the noxious gases contained in the Pandoran air. I know there's a certain stigma on bodily and gene modification," she shrugged as if not understanding at all what the problem of the objectors was, "but there are bound to be people who would totally do it. Just don't take the Na'vi-sympathizers. That would be bad."

"Yes, thank you, miss Lee," Waters nodded at her. "There you go - it's only a technical problem, not one to be overly concerned about. We have the technology."

"Thank you," the short man nodded vigorously.

"How much military assets are you planning to take on board of our babies?" the presumed US officer asked.

"As much as they can hold," Waters answered instantly. "With the advances in cryogenic technology we have seen in the last years, the space and weight requirements for each module have been significantly decreased. We can take tens of thousands of soldiers, complete with heavy ordinance and support infrastructure."

"And I suppose you want my boys in on this, not some bloody mercenaries?" the soldier glared at Waters.

"In fact, yes. A professional patriot is a much better warrior than a paid mercenary is, this was known since the dawn of organized warfare. General de Luca, I am counting on you to convince the governments to our cause," he put a hand on the military man's shoulder, who in turn glared at him, then assumed a hardass expression of high quality.

"I'll do my level best," the general answered, "but no promises. What I can do, I will, no less, no more."

"Excellent!" Waters brightened gloriously. "Miss Lee, doctor Soyl, you are here as our technological experts. I have heard, from a small bird, that you may be working on something that may greatly enhance our prospects in interstellar warfare."

"Well, that wasn't supposed to be public. At all," the alleged doctor scowled. "I won't ask you how you know of our research, or how you know we're working together, but I am going to ask you to stop spreading it around. I will not discuss this further in the presence of so many people, I am not at liberty to, even should my superiors - which I have no doubt you notified, and thus summoned me here - give me leave to."

The woman merely shrugged. "I must concur with my colleague," she said. "This really isn't the setting."

Waters shrugged expressively and smiled disarmingly. "As you wish, but I have already made preliminary preparations to bring you on-board. Just imagine the amount of funding your research could benefit from, not to mention the service to humanity you will be doing." Before the two could object to such blatant bribing, he waved them off. "This is not the setting to further discuss such matters."

The general and Selfridge snorted, Soyl laughed out loud, the rest of the gathered failed to get the joke. "Good one, mister Waters. Very well, continue."

Internally, Selfridge wondered. He wasn't familiar with these scientists, but they sounded important in their own little world. That Waters knew something about them that could help in the undertaking spoke volumes, as with great riches came great amount of espionage funded. Maybe they were working on some kind of faster-than-light ship drive or planet-annihilating superweapon. Selfridge didn't know, and frankly didn't care - things like that were for the eggheads.

"There is one major matter that needs addressing before we can get down to the question and answer, detail-laden phase of our little meeting," Waters announced. "This expedition will be under the command of the United Earth Armed Forces, with advisory personnel selected by myself. In light of all you have heard here up to this point, general, do you think you can shed some light on the prospective commanders of this mission?"

The general didn't answer immediately. He sat there, looking grim. "I think I have the ideal candidate for that one," he finally said.

CHAPTER 2

Tibet, one of the last places, at least aboveground, that humanity sought to colonize. Arid due the rain shadow effect afforded by the Himalayas, highly elevated due the landmass of India moving north pushing it up, populated by hardy people suspicious of strangers. It took the development of the weather-altering technologies to enabled humans to effectively inhabit the area, but by then, overpopulation and destruction of existinc landscapes was so severe that the colonizers made extra effort to keep the place relatively pretty, even with the towering monoliths of habitation blocks and commercial skyscrapers. In 2160, it remained a very nice neighbourhood, even if the air was thin and took some getting used to. The humidity was comfortable, thanks to engineering, and the melting glaciers created many new lakes around which people clustered. Land value was high, especially for a region so recently changed to humanity's liking.

Retired three-star general Natasha Velasquez enjoyed a pension just high enough to make her home here. She spent her days according to strict routine, something she had inherited from her life of military service, keeping her house immaculate, and growing many actual plants - both genetically engineered and not - in her bona fide open-air garden. The smog wasn't as bad here, in southeast Asia, as its inhabitants have long grappled with technological poverty and overpopulation before the latter became a global trend, thus gaining a tradition of using vehicles such as bicycles instead of more heavily polluting automobiles. With the extremely strict enviromental regulations of modern days, and the severe lack of interest in allowing enough space for roads, it wouldn't have made a difference today, but it made one in the past, which is why Natasha could cultivate her floral hobby without wearing a gas mask.

She did not live alone, attended by a small staff of servants, paid by some pretty good stock market trading she had made during service. Regrettably, her husband did not survive as long as she did, shot in the neck when a group of terrorists ambushed his field HQ in Iran. The troops never stopped telling stories about his mate's rage when she heard the news, and her vendetta against the neo-islamic factions of the Middle-East. If one had access to her files, one could see that she was listed as one of the most ardent supporters of using tactical nuclear weapons on the indigenous peoples of that area, just to be sure that no ounce of resistance remained in the glassed sands. With the global consensus on the use of nukes, however, this stance earned her an early retirement at the age of fifty-five. Naturally, she could have contested that, but it seemed counter-productive, and she instead took to cultivating her connections from the exile of pensionry, all the while pretending to be actually retired.

Natasha had multitudes of friends and allies within the NATO, her native Combined Armies of the European Union, the United Nations peacekeeping forces and the somewhat recently formed United Earth Armed Forces. One of them was Franz de Luca, the US representative to the latter.

She was in the garden, pruning her martian roses, when her manservant came up.

"Madam, there is someone at the door," he announced with a heavy British accent.

"Who?" general Velasquez asked off-handedly, deeply focused on her task of removing a bothersome offshoot.

"I believe it is the mister de Luca."

"Well, send him in, Jeeves, send him in, can't have a friend wait at the door," she said, snipping a bit of plant off. "That would be unforgivably rude."

"Natasha. It's good to see you," the gruff man nodded. He didn't crack a smile. It was not in his style to do such silly things.

"And you, Franz," Natasha did smile rather radiantly. "Tea, coffee, wine?"

"Tea, thanks."

In short order, some drinks were arranged for, with biscuits. Franz sipped on his while regarding his host's impressive array of memorabilia, a collection of pictures, medals, newspaper clippings, awards and random tidbits that she had accumulated throughout her life. Natasha, sat down on a resplendent armchair, and let her long, silver hair out from the captivity of her straw hat. Unlike just about everyone else on the planet, she had allowed herself to show that she was old, well beyond the age of youth and productivity. This was, of course, a ruse to make her enemies put down their guard. It worked like a charm, and she was dismissed as an eccentric yet very active, harmless grandma. The brighter of her actual progeny, who grew up with her, might have seen through that guise, but she doubted that most anyone else did.

Franz was a special case. She had initially tried using her more manipulative ways against him only to come up with extreme hostility despite doing her best. It took her quite some time to realize that this man required bluntness in the extreme and a good deal of openness to become so much as civil towards others. He was her best bet at seizing someone in the UEAF echelons, so she gambled, and that gamble paid off. While not exactly a friend, general Franz de Luca has been a very useful acquaintance so far. She often wondered just how he had survived to gain his rank - but her usual sources turned up only the expected amount of nepotism, and some very well guarded secret files which she hadn't been able to acquire the contents of. Oh, well. For the moment, she just assumed extreme competence.

"You still keep all these," de Luca gestured broadly at the pictures, most of which depicted her and her late husband. "Keeping the memories fresh?"

"Why wouldn't I?" Natasha waved a biscuit in challenge. "You know I'm not one of those Neo-Age junkies with their wishy-washy feel-good idiocy."

"Still, can't expect the reminder to be pleasant," Franz shrugged, sipped some tea.

"Pain keeps my mind sharp and my conviction unbroken," Natasha snapped the buscuit in two. "If I had my way, we would have used atomic persuasion on the goddamned sandniggers and be done with it."

Franz grunted. Whether it was approval or derision, it was hard to tell.

"The UEAF is on the move," he said out of the blue. "I can't give you back your old command in the EU, but I can get you a position in there."

"That's very forward and presumptuous of you, my dear," she said slowly. That the admittedly strange military organization was planning something big was no secret to her. Her spies have already reported that a meeting was held yesterday by their main sponsor, William Waters. Unfortunate that this was the extent of the intelligence, but she felt that she was about to gain some more information presently. "Why would I give up my happy retirement? Who would care for my garden?"

Franz grimaced. "Cut the crap, Natasha. Both of us know that you're itching to actually command some people rather than sitting here, surrounded by lackeys and doing exactly nothing. I've suggested your name to some people who have the power to instate you as the commander of a very big mission. The problem is - will you accept? What do you say?" He locked stares with her.

They were silent for an indeterminate amount of time.

"Yes, I'm interested. Tell me more," she put away her cup of tea and leaned out of the chair.

"The deal is basically this - we're going back to Pandora. Ring any bells?"

"Pandora, the world with the blue cat-people?" Natasha cocked her head. "Yes, I hear about it all the time in the newsfeeds. I'm beginning to feel that the youth of our time are a bit obsessed with these aliens, at is were. I do not approve. Oh, and there's the Unobtanium. Can't forget about that. Very important to the economy, the politicians can't get enough of it in there," she recalled wistfully.

"About right. The RDA mercs got their ass handed to them up there," Franz revealed the obvious, "so we're going to have another go. This time, with proper soldiers, properly equipped and properly supported. What we need is proper leadership, which is why I have recommended you. You have experience dealing with backwards savages and terrorists, partisans and other freedom fighters. You are not above using extreme prejudice and weapons of mass destruction on the enemy," he listed, slowly stepping closer to where she sat, circling. "That's why I suggested you. Are you still interested?"

Natasha smiled, slowly getting up. "Since you put it that way, it would be very foolish of me to refuse, wouldn't it?"

"That's what I thought." The non-retired of the generals grinned fiercely for the first time during his visit. Natasha stood now, looking deep into the fiery eyes of the man.

"Well, then..." she spoke slowly. "Shall we get to the more pleasant part of your visitation?"

Instead of answering, Franz just kissed her.

CHAPTER 3

"So, you're my eggheads?" Natasha looked up from her console, to regard the two people before her with a flinty stare. She had fallen into the routine of a harsh, but fair superior officer easily, almost too easily. Her new uniform was still immaculate, even after two months of commanding this small fleet in orbit around Earth, a deep blue that was no doubt meant to evoke the night sky, brass buttons and ornaments symbolizing the stars. On her head rested a service cap in the same colour theme.

The two scientists were not in uniform. The man was short, easily matching the woman's unimpressive height, and they both seemed scrawny even wearing what they did - labcoats, of the old style, rather than the new that was more like a hazmat suit than not. Natasha assumed that it was because they wanted to look vaguely presentable, rather than shapeless blobs encased in plastic bags. This partially worked; they at least seemed to fall into the meme patterns that made them instantly recognizable as scientists, the two most senior on board the Gallega.

"Hmmm, yes," said the man. A plastic badge pinned to his chest informed all who didn't already know that he was dr. Albert Soyl, the chief special weapons technician aboard. Natasha had done some research on them both, and it was only mildly surprising that this man was actually a Nobel laureate in physics, a very unusual occurrence, as the award was typically given post-mortem, in recognition of the impact one made on humanity as a whole. Still, it was becoming more and more common, the world changing far too quickly for the taste of many. Technological innovations could be concieved, implemented, tested, released into the public and then dropped from official support within just a few months. The Singularity believers still believed, though they might have underestimated how long they were going to wait. "That's me, ma'am."

"And me," the woman grinned somewhat frighteningly with her artificial teeth. She also had a badge, clipped to the coat, proclaiming her to be dr. Ai Lee, chief roboticist aboard. It was somewhat difficult not to stare at her. She had more chrome visible than skin, and Natasha wasn't actually sure that it was actual skin, and not just some synthetic substitute meant to look like it. If there was a word that could describe dr. Lee, it was obsessed. She was just pushing thirty, according to the official documents, but she had fifteen years of hands-on experience with cybernetics - mostly self-inflicted, if her background information was accurate. In addition, there were vague hints that she might be the head of a potentially dangerous transhumanist cult or two, but nothing concrete. Either she was innocent, or hid her dealings well. "You wanted to see us?"

"Yes, indeed, dr. Lee," Natasha put away her holo-PDA, making the impression that she was busy with something incredibly important, while in reality she was only playing Solitaire to pass the time until the two showed up. "I have a few questions for you two. Sit down, please." They did, sparing a glance at each other.

"First, I'd like to briefly confirm your report, dr. Soyl," Natasha said, bringing up a text feed on her holo-monitor. "Is this, in fact, accurate?"

"I'm a scientist, ma'am. Being accurate is my job," the short man replied simply. "You will note that I have included a margin of error for all parameters where it was applicable."

"It's not the margin of error I'm concerned about," the general glared ruefully at the scientist. "Do you have any idea of how dangerous this is? The raw power output is completely off the scale, so to speak."

"If I may be so bold," Soyl replied, "I have a better idea than you do, ma'am. Of course, this is all untested. I cannot verify without field study, and field study in the Solar system is obviously something many people would like to avoid. I should hope we don't get to use it in combat, but there are other places in the Alpha Centauri system which could very well be a testing field, so to speak. I have gotten the appropriate permissions to task the fleet with these tests, after we have dealt with the situation at Pandora."

Natasha frowned, both at the man's words and the man's tone. He spoke quickly, just slow enough to be recognizable, and didn't seem to feel at all threatened by her manner. This spoke volumes, and she did not like what it said. "Very well. One more thing. As far as I'm aware, the Nobel prizes are awarded for contributions to mankind which are not used in warfare. How is it that you have managed to have one, yet work in weapons research?"

"I take absolutely no responsibility to whatever an entity beyond my control does," answered the laureate with a dose of exasperation and large amount of practice. "The Nobel committee is one such entity. My work deals with transmission of energy between matter in atmospheric conditions in relatively strong gravity wells. It just so happens that an offshoot of my research has enabled me to patent a method for improving refrigeration efficiency by over five hundred percent, and a new type of solar engine for automobiles. Most of the contemporary designs that you are liable to encounter are based on my patents. For this, I was deemed worthy the prize, which may have been partially aided by the fact that the committee was not aware, at the time, that I worked on weapons - that part of my work was classified until quite recently. I am getting no end of hatemail on my accounts. Does that satisfy your curiosity, ma'am?"

Natasha waved a hand. "It will do," she said. "Now then," she turned towards Ai. "Dr. Lee, I have been informed that you want to experiment on my soldiers during the transit to Pandora." Natasha left the question implied.

"Correct," Lee answered. "It's strictly volunteers-only, though. Since we are going to spend a lot of time in the freeze following the scheduled exercises and drills, I would like to find out how some of my newest designs hold up under cryonic storage. Particularly, the new filtration system."

General Velasquez raised an eyebrow. The other woman seemed slow on the uptake of such a non-verbal cue.

"Oh, yes, I haven't told you about that, have I?" she seemed cheerful for some reason. Or maybe no reason at all. "You see, the Pandoran atmosphere is somewhat inhospitable to human beings, but that only assumes unaugmented, baselines humans." She upturned her palm to reveal a miniature holo-projector. It projected an image of a collection of tubes and wires. It looked small, but Natasha assumed it was just resized to fit the projector. "It's a fairly simple idea, and the implementation is nothing especially complex. I can make all that I want using the ship's fabricators. We can even run tests using the internal air-locks, with a few modifications. See, this is a cybernetic device that takes in the gases native to Pandora, filters them for those toxic to humans, and spits out mostly palatable air. I've installed one on myself and done some preliminary testing, and it works just fine."

"How do you deal with respiration synchronization?" the other researcher asked. "What with the human body expecting air intake when it is intaken, not necessarily when it's good and filtered."

"Oh, that's easy, you just-"

"Enough," Natasha gestured for silence. "That's quite enough. I can see the merit in this. If - and only if - you can find someone crazy enough among the grunts who wants to have that put into his larynx, by all means do so. At the moment we have manpower to spare, and our sick-bay can handle emergency surgery." Ai brightened considerably. "Do not abuse this trust. A second helping won't be available." The cyborg dimmed a bit.

"You're dismissed. If there's anything else, I'll call for you," general Velasquez stated, reaching for her PDA.

She sighed audibly when the two vanished behind the door. "What a bunch of eccentrics," she muttered to herself.

Sleek, symmetrical, armoured and deadly. These words could be used to describe how the three ships of the United Earth Armed Forces' starfleet looked. They were something humanity handn't done before, and all who lent a hand in their construction or design could feel proud at accomplishing something that was not accomplished before by anyone.

Aboard the flagship, the UESS Gallega, general Natasha Velasquez sat on the bridge. "Prepare to leave orbit," she commanded imperiously. "Ten minutes."

The face of William Waters smiled at her from a nearby screen. "I'd just like to wish you good luck," he said. "It is not every day that our proud race makes the first formal move in effort to engage in warfare against an alien species."

"Quite," Natasha offhandedly dismissed any notion that it was profound. They were simply casting off, leaving Earth's orbit. "As I have already stated before, I will do everything in my power to bring this mission to a complete and full success."

"I know you will, general," Waters grinned. "We'll stay in touch, as much as practical. We will probably not speak face-to-face for quite some time. Again, good luck, and fare well. Waters out." The screen went blank.

General Natasha Velasquez allowed herself to smile, hoping that nobody of the bridge crew was watching, since they should be engrossed in their duties and even if, then they could not read her mind. Internally, she contemplated the prospects of this undertaking. Against a bunch of savages with stone-age technology, it was as good as successful already, as far as she was concerned. The sheer amount of paranoia and overpreparation that Waters had put in this simple task of putting down a wayward rebellion of primitives was daunting, and it did send similarly uneasy feelings through her mind, but she quashed them. She would win. She would win, and prosper from this.

Just as her great ancestor did - regrettably she did not bear his last name, Cortez - in the height of a forgotten age of discovery, she would pound the upstarts mercilessly and with supreme skill in her superiority of both tactics and employed tools. They could not win. They could not even get a draw. Their possible options were limited to surrender or death. She relished the thought, however, that they would not submit. Then they would have to be taught the meaning of pain, and they would learn...

When she came back from this, she would be the great and mighty hero, bringing back a trove of wealth and the news of a species defeated by the hand of humanity, with leverage among governments and militaries that could scarcely be believed. Indeed, she would need to actually think of all the things she will be able to do with all this nigh-unimaginable power. The possibilities seemed endless. The smile spread slowly across her lips, giving her a serene visage. Chatter of the other bridge officers was lost to her for those moments, until the really important one sounded across her hearing centers.

"Leaving orbit in five..." the lieutenant began counting, "four... three... two... one!... We have seperated." There was a moment of weightfullness, as the huge ship began moving away from Earth. "Acceleration under way. We have left orbit, ma'am."

"Take us to Pandora," Natasha commanded.

"Gentlemen," general Velasquez addressed the small gathering in the briefing room. They were en-route for an entire day now, and she had called a meeting of her officers. And Selfridge; the so-called 'expert' was there too. For some reason, she disliked the man instantly. Something about his manner deeply rubbed her the wrong way. Besides him, the present included major general Zhu, major general Hendricks, major general Woodworth and their immediate subordinates. "This meeting's goal is to establish the regimen of training for the troops before they go into cryonic suspension. Due to constraints on our provisions, largely caused by the forty-thousand personnel we are carrying, we cannot drill the entire way," she stated, remembering the data dumps she had memorized. "The exact nature of the training I leave to each of you to decide according to your own initiative. However, I see it as best that they follow the guidelines I have prepared."

Natasha pressed a virtual button on the datapad she brought. "Major general Zhu," she addressed the aging Asian, who wore an unreadable expression. "Your strategic task in the main battle plan will be to command the brunt of the land forces we will be deploying. I have uploaded you specific schematics of the moonside battle plan, and my suggestions. This goes to all of you - while we are still in the battle plan formation phase, I will accept any input you may have, should you imagine that you have important insights into the situation. You will be notified when the finalized version has been set in stone, after which time no pre-battle modifications will be accepted. Is this clear?"

Various yes-sirs and yes-ma'ams reached her ears, and she nodded seriously.

"Major general Hendricks. You get to command the fire support and air force available to us," Natasha told the dark-skinned American. He was by far the most experienced in the matter of using aviation to harry the enemy and support land forces; back on Earth, he was somewhat famous for his resolution of the Hawaii situation back twenty years ago, in a particular stroke of brilliance and overkill. "The data I have sent you includes my comments on our objectives, concerning the preservation of mineral resources and mining potential." Hendricks looked like he was going to object, or say something, but he thought better of it. Inwardly, Natasha smiled.

She turned towards the last of her direct underlings. "Major general Woodworth, as befitting your command of our elite troops and equipment, I have not prepared a concrete plan of action for your men." The Brit raised his bushy eyebrows slightly, but said nothing. "You are to coordinate the training of your assets with major generals Zhu and Hendricks, according to their needs regarding special operations missions. If all goes well, our commandos will have a very boring time, for which I hope, but don't exactly expect."

General Velasquez regarded her subordinates. "Any questions at this point?"

It was Selfridge who raised a hand. "Uh, yeah, ma'am. I have a question," he said with a grin. Since his rise from the depths of despair, he found that he was regaining his optimism and parts of his former charm. Not to mention that he afforded himself a first-grade detoxification treatment back on Earth, and now was completely free of the clinical side of alcoholism. With some willpower and determination, he might never look into a bottle again. "What's my role in all of this? I assume you didn't call me here for no reason."

"Mister Selfridge," Natasha exhaled. "Your objective is to answer any questions my personnel may have regarding the environment, natives and other subjects relating to Pandora, where you are alleged to have expertise. If it were my judgement, not our generous sponsor's, I would have chosen someone else in your place, as you lack military experience, and are therefore of limited utility to our operation. Still, you may have some use, if you stay out of our way most of the time and lend us your knowledge when we ask." She flashed him a very brief, very fake smile. "Understood, mister Selfridge?"

"Yes, I think I understand how this works," the former corporate agent replied, but didn't elaborate further. He looked full of himself, no doubt contemplating some scheme to put him on top of things once again. Natasha wouldn't allow such a thing to happen, even if by some twist of fate he managed to be even partially successful in his machinations. She was the top dog in this kennel, and this mutt had better know who the alpha female is.

"Good. Any more questions?" she scanned the others. They seemed to be engrossed in reading the materials she gave them. "In that case, this meeting is adjourned."

CHAPTER 4

Jakesully of the Jarhead clan coughed in a most inopportune moment, being only paces from the prey he was hunting. A sort of beakless, six-limbed thrush-like creature that sat on an thick branch to the left of him. The animal bolted suddenly, disappearing in the alien vegetation of Pandora. Sully coughed again, and again, going into a fit. Neytiri appeared besides him, dropping down from a nearby tree.

"What is wrong?" she asked concernedly.

"Khh," he wheezed. "I think I caught a bug or something," her mate replied. When she appeared puzzled, he sought to explain. "It's an expression. Means that I'm ill. I've had this cough for the last day or two, can't seem to shake it."

"Those are bad tidings, my love," Neytiri looked saddened.

"It's probably nothing to worry about," Sully shrugged, an expression he kept from the time he was human. "Humans get sick all the time."

"You are NOT human," the Na'vi woman purred, in a combined challenge and flirtation. "If the spirits of illness have made their home within you, then something is wrong."

"Yeah, sure," Jake dismissed the issue, and started back towards the clan's new dwelling. "They'll go away eventually."

Neytiri looked skeptical. "Jakesully, you are one of the people now, but you should watch yourself," she said, moving closer. "It does not befit to ignore such advice. The spirits are powerful, and take lives of the young and old alike. I will help all I can, but please do heed my words."

Jake looked at her. "Huhn. Well, okay, but I think this is just a minor cold, flu, something like that," he said, leaping onto a different branch, and starting to jog along the impromptu path made out of erratically growing dendric protrusions. "The Jarheads are a hardy people, and I'll be damned if something as trivial as this is going to do me in. I'll recover. I promise."

Neytiri smiled, a human expression she had assimilated from him, which he saw as she caught up to him. They stopped, and their gazes met for a drawn-out, romantic moment. "I see you and believe you, Jakesully."

"This is the final call for the cryo-sleep hibernation phase of the journey," announced a mechanical female voice from the speakers nearby. Selfridge did not need to be reminded. He, for one, welcomed the cold sleep that would come. The last two months have been especially taxing on his psyche, even if this wasn't quite the bottomless pit of despair that he was accustomed to. He was convinced that the general in charge of the whole mission hated his guts for no good reason.

It was definitely not his fault. He tried to be friendly - he really did, on numerous occassions when he interacted with the cold bitch, but she treated all those attempts as ultimately completely fake. Almost as if she could read his mind and see that he didn't actually like her much either, but wanted to be civil and perhaps establish some degree of respect. But no. She wouldn't have any of it, and the attitude spread to her officers by diffusion. Selfridge was sure they at least partly understood what was going on, but nobody wanted to go against their commanding officer. Military indoctrination, what complete hogwash. It took a completely fine person and turned them into an obedient slave. He was sick of it, and hoped he didn't have to dream about this whole godsforsaken situation while in cold storage. If this was anything like his previous two voyages, he wouldn't, and that was fine with him.

After taking care of his sparse belongings - he wasn't allowed to take much on board, but he kept his mug and golf set all these years, and it would take more than some official telling him no to prevent him from taking them on the ship - he went directly to his division of cryogenic quarters, dressed in the standard uniform-pajamas for cold sleep. He almost collided with the small guy, doctor Albert.

"Hey, watch where you're going, short round," he called out, with a cocky grin. "Where's the rush?"

"It's the last call. I don't want to be late," explained the scientist, also wearing cyo pajamas. "I'm filled to the brim with anxiety with regards to cryonic suspension. This is the first time I get to be frozen, so you can probably understand my out-of-balancedness."

"Don't sweat it, doc," Selfridge waved dismissively towards the other man's concerns. "If it helps you, you can walk with me to the coffins, heh." They didn't really walk, as that was hard without gravity, but almost everyone used the verb out of habit anyway.

"I wish you wouldn't call our cells that," the small man seemed concerned.

"You must be really out of it," Selfridge grinned. "By the way, where's your friend? Haven't seen her in a while, and nobody ever tells me anything around here anymore." He left out the reasons why - if the researcher had a few spare brain cells, he could figure it out himself, and this was far safer in the day and age of entirely too easy electronic espionage.

"Oh, doctor Lee has tranferred to the Santa Clara two weeks ago," Soyl replied, and for the moment, his anxiety seemed diminished. Simply not thinking of his problem helped. Selfridge was internally amused, but didn't let any inappropriate smiles appear on his face. "General Woodworth's men have a few volunteers for the implants she talked about during our first talk... Oh, you weren't there, I sometimes forget my head."

"Implants?" Selfridge prompted.

"Yes, ones that permit human beings to breathe the atmosphere of Pandora," Soyl explained. "Most of the grunts want nothing of that, but some of the special forces people actually volunteered to test them out. I've heard that the initial tests have been extremely promising, with only minor incompatibility problems, and no actual casualties among the test subjects - that's what she told me when we last spoke."

"Sounds interesting," Selfridge lied, pulling himself through a hatch. "Looks like we're here, doc. I'm in block 1A. You?"

"Um," the doctor hesitated. "3A, I think."

"It's over that way. Mine's right here, so I guess I'll see you around, in a few years," Selfridge extended a hand. Doctor Soyl shook it without hesitation. "Don't sweat it. I've been frozen twice, and nothing bad has happened. It's just a very extended nap."

"Thanks for the comfort, mister Selfridge. I look forward to meeting you again in the future," the short man said, and propelled himself away, with some more confidence.

Selfridge grinned openly, watching the researcher go. One friend made, another potential positive acquaintance in good prospects for the future. Maybe this mission won't be a total waste after all. He turned towards the entrance to Cryo Chamber Block 1A and went to have his body frozen for the five plus years.

ACT II

CHAPTER 5

"Parker..."

"Selfridge..."

Selfridge opened his eyes blearily. He has cold, oh, so cold.

"Selfridge." It was a voice, he understood. A voice was calling his name. He know this voice.

The face of doctor Grace Augustine appeared in his sight. Selfridge shook his head. "Whuh, but you're back on Pandora," he objected to her presence.

"Yes, Selfridge, I am," doctor Grace continued. She seemed dressed in light. "But I sense that you are coming back. I disapprove. I wholeheartedly disapprove. Pandora is no place for humans. You were exiled, and you should stay exiled."

"Nnngh, where am I?" he tried to get his bearings, but that was proving to be difficult. His body did not react to his demands of it.

"I speak to you in this form, mind to mind, for we have touched thoughts when you last trod on the sacred ground," Grace continued, shifting and looking entirely serene. "You must not allow the others to fulfill their dark undertaking, Parker Selfridge."

Her gaze seemed to burn him. He flinched, and saw that his arms were spread to his sides, and melting into the branches of a tree he somehow hung upon. He verbalized only his surprise and pain.

"I can see that convincing you shall be difficult," the phantom who looked like doctor Grace said. "I must use other methods of securing your allegiance."

"What are you-" Selfridge started, but his words were stopped in his throat.

Doctor Grace reached out, her hands turning into clawed appendages made of blinding light. She grabbed his head, and forcibly inserted the sharp lances of illumination into his brain.

Selfridge screamed, and understood.

Parker Selfridge, a corporate manager, salaryman, career person. Sent to Pandora twice - once to oversee the Unobtanium mining operation for the RDA Corporation, and once to see to it that those who would bring the Na'vi to heel were well advised. He awakened from sleep, and noted it was cold. Nonetheless, he had plenty to do. So much... so little time, so little potential in his weak little body.

Natasha Velasquez, great descendant of Hernan Cortez in a greatly winding way across family trees, three star general, widow. She was thawed, and immediately knew that something was wrong. She gazed upon the face of the technician who did it, and his face was stained with blood. "What's... the meaning," she croaked, weak from the cryo hibernation she had endured.

"Ma'am! We've got a major problem!" he said. The general noted that his name tag read, 'Sikorsky'. "It's terrible!"

"I don't care about your opinion, give me the facts!" she demnaded, striving to focus her bleary eyes.

"Someone, someone's killing us," Sikorsky reported, stuttering. "I'm the last cryo tech left. Dear God, Mike's dead and so is Jennifer."

"What?" she could scarcely believe this. "Wake the troops, at once! Bloody hell, you don't need a general to figure this one out!" she screamed, scrambling out of her coffin.

"We can't, we're locked out of the control panels," babbled the tech. "The mission command accomodations are on a separate circuit. I just got to you!"

Nearby, Hendricks was pulling himself out of the cryo unit. His adjutant was a bit slower on the draw, but was also in the process of disentangling from the machinery.

"You mean to tell me all we've got is the people I see here?" Natasha squinted, tumbling through the air, and rebounding from the far wall. "Damnation," she commented, retrieving her clothes from a nearby storage container, and more importantly her sidearm. "Sikorsky, I want a full and detailed report on how this situation came about. Now!"

"Ma'am, yes, ma'am!"

First Class Cryotechnician Ivan Sikorsky sat with his buddies, cryotechnicians Mike Briggs and Jennifer Spragg. They were playing poker this fine daycycle, one of the obscure varieties with multiple house rules to make it more enjoyable. They did this very often, pretty much all the time when off-duty, since regulations expressly forbade the usage of holographic or neuroactive recreation devices on board of starships, following the various disasters that addiction to those kinds of things caused. As far as the lawgivers were concerned, if one could not be entertained by a pack of cards for years on end, one did not belong on board of a starship in the role of its crew.

The days passed by mostly unremembered, filled with the same routines over and over. They needed to check the many and complex instruments throughout the ship on a daily basis, in case one of the computers malfunctioned or the ship hit an asteroid and was hurtling into a nearby sun or something. Ivan did not share the paranoia of those who designed the way this worked, since the computers were way more infallible than the mere humans who oversaw them. Still, it was a job, a well-paying one, and his parents didn't put him through college so he would be some kind of sales assistant in a fast-food restaurant.

"Raise," Sikorsky muttered, piling more chips onto the stack. They had the chips made in one of the ship's fabricators, thereafter deleting all logs of such a frivolous abuse of one of the marvels of human engineering was perpetrated.

"Pass," Mike murmured.

Jennifer stared at her cards. Then, finally, she also spat, "Pass! Bah."

Ivan chuckled. "It's my lucky day, guys. Royal flush," he revealed his cards. "Come to papa," the technician grabbed the tokens before him in a sweeping manner. Just then, his personal assistant beeped in a manner he was not accustomed to hearing.

"What's that?" Mike indicated the source of the sound.

"Dunno. Don't remember that sound code," Ivan snapped the device from his belt and examined it. "Huh. That's strange," he stared at the display. "Says here that one of the capsules has lost an occupant. It's still freezing the hell out of its insides, according to the diagnostics, but there's nobody inside anymore."

"Probably a bug," Jennifer opined. "How would you even get that damn situation? It can't trigger without going for the 'capsule open prematurely' event first, and none of us got that one, right?"

Mike shrugged, confirming. "Nope, silent all day." Just to be sure, he checked his gizmo. "Yep. Nothing."

"Me too," Jennifer agreed.

"Okay, guys, let's check it out anyway. No telling what else went wrong with that fucking thing if it's reporting this bugger erroneously," Mike got up. Jennifer followed in his footsteps. "Coming, lucky?"

"Just as soon as I pack up my winnings," Ivan chuckled. "I'll catch up to you."

Cryotechnician Ivan took his sweet time stowing his new-found fake wealth, partly since when deprived of the ferric attraction of the table, the magnetic chips liked to stray from their rightful owner.

"Goddamn it," he swore, packing them up. Just then, he heard a scream, echoing through the vast corridors of the ship. It was Jennifer's. Disturbed to the core, he dropped the bag, and rushed out, using all limbs to get around. The scream was repeated shortly thereafter, weaker, and cut short. It chilled Ivan to the core, sending shivers running down his spine. "Jennifer! Mike!"

"Ivan! He's got a-" Mike came around the corner, only to have a fire axe lodged in his skull from behind. Some blood splattered on Ivan, who screamed, and immediately turned to flee.

Not daring to look back, he got to the nearest compartment door, which he punched closed immediately upon crossing it. He proceeded to lock it with all due haste, and then some more, just to be sure.

"Shit, shit, shit!" he chanted in a vain attempt to restore his calm enough to figure out what to do next. A face briefly flashed in the visor of the locked door, Ivan couldn't quite catch it, but it looked like a man's face. He decided not to linger here. "Psycho after me, psycho after me!" he mumbled as he climbed in a direction that might as well have been downwards, but has been rendered meaningless by the absence of gravity. "Need protection, need soldiers, yes!" he came to the conclusion that waking up the thousands of troops currently in hibernation would be a completely adequate solution to the problem of some maniac with an axe.

It was fortunate that he could access their modules from here... but it was not to be. 'Access Denied' read the panel beside the door to the compartment that housed the temporary storage for about two hundred personnel. He tried to re-enter the access code. And again - no further effect, beyond the glaring message. "What do you mean, 'Access Denied'?" Ivan screamed at the machine. "I'm an authorized technician, damn it! Fuck!"

The cryotech tried the next one. And the next. And the next after that, until he was out of modules to check. In all, he was denied access. "This can't be happening," he started really panicking. "This should be impossible!"

His options were radically slimming as time went on. He couldn't wake anyone - but wait, couldn't he? The mission command was stored in a separate compartment, isolated from the control circuits that governed the grunts' accomodations. His brain was working overtime at full throtle to give him a chance at survival. Yes, he could try that, his only hope left!

And so he did, leading to the situation that meant having an extremely angry general glaring at him murderously.

In mere minutes, they were all armed. The American general had a spare gun, which he shared with the cryotechnician, who insisted that he had some training in the use of firearms.

"Alright, our first priority is to wake up our damned troops," Velasquez stated, her face a grimace of internal rage. "Other priorities include finding out who the fuck is killing us, killing him instead, and finding out what the hell is wrong with the computer systems. Hendricks, you and your adjutant are to secure the way to the bridge. If our keycards and passcodes still work, we should be able to access the monitoring systems from there, and find exactly where our little enemy is hiding. Meanwhile, me and Sikorsky here are going to try to breach a cryo room open, and get some reinforcements."

"Yes, ma'am," agreed Hendricks, with a determined expression.

"Move out," she sent them off, and the two hurtled through the door. "Come on, boy, we haven't got time to waste." Weak though most of them were, most were also trained soldiers, and if years of doing office duty have softened them up somewhat, the regimens of passive physical therapy first introduced twenty years ago, and implemented fully for the first time only when the United Earth Armed Forces were created kept them in top shape. Their boot camp instincts never actually faded completely, either. Velasquez easily outpaced the craven technician.

Nothing assaulted them on the way to the nearest chamber full of sleeping killers. Velasquez slid a keycard in the slot and punched in her personal override access code.

"It's like I said," Sikorsky spoke, noting the outcome of the action. "Access denied all the same."

"Fucking damn it," general Velasquez commented to nobody in particular. She briefly contemplated just shooting the mechanism, but that only worked in the holomovies, and so the very idea was discarded as blasphemous against reality. "Any bright ideas, Sikorsky?"

"If we had a torch, we could cut our way in," he suggested. "The tool closet is on the other side of the door I sealed." Velasquez supposed that opening that door, however confident in her combat skills she might feel, would constitute a breach of security and a grevious tactical error.

"Fuck," she sought to fill the silence with something. "To the bridge. Hendricks may have had better luck."

As it happened, general Hendricks did have better luck. When Velasquez and Sikorsky arrived, he was already inside the bridge, and lighting everything up.

"No chance in getting in the bloody cryo-rooms without a blowtorch," she informed the other two officers. "Get me some damn eyesight on the perpetrator." While not especially endowned with aptitude for computers, general Velasquez knew how to activate a modern workstation, and had a very good idea of how a station meant for active monitoring looked like. The many displays lit up as the computers booted ever-so-slowly. The technician looked nervous, standing by. The adjutant went to stand by the door, securing it against external threats.

Hendricks sat in the provided chair, and started switching through the locations possible. Since the ship was fairly enormous, it was taking a nontrivial amount of time. General Velasquez peered impatiently at the holoscreens as their contents changed.

"Wait, back up!" she hollered, upon spotting something in one of them. Pointing this out to Hendricks yielded the location again, in one of the corridors. "Pan the camera to the left."

"That's the guy!" shouted Sikorsky, accusingly jabbing his finger at the display. "That's him!"

"That's Selfridge," blinked Velasquez. "What's he doing? What's that door?"

"Oh shit!" the technician's jaw dropped. "That's one of the airlocks!"

Selfridge worked selflessly. Yes, soon it will be complete. He had failed in his attempt to kill off all the technical personnel not undergoing freeze. Regrettable. Further, he had failed in his attempt to make sure none of those frozen ever lived to be unfreezed. Also regrettable. Fortunately, he has prevented the others from getting easy access to the cryogenic suspension chambers, and that was a success. His newfound powers of manipulating computer equipment were very much appreciated. Still, the ones who woke - among them general Velasquez and a couple of other officers - were extremely dangerous. They had to be taken care of swiftly. He did not see a way to destroy the other two ships, but perhaps the loss of one and their leadership would dissuade the humans from making an invasion attempt at Pandora. Therefore, he needed to make certain that this ship and its current inhabitants died. It would mean the loss of himself, but that was not a problem. He was one with all, he would live - after a fashion - in Pandora's worldmind. Selfridge smiled. Yes. Soon. He has rigged the computers to do the exact opposite of what they should do in the case of a decompression - open up wide, and let the void take the air. Now, if only he could get this fusion torch to cut through the doubly-reinforced metal faster...

All four of those on the side of humanity in this small conflict among the stars rushed down the corridors. Sikorsky opened the doors for them, fueled by the intense passion of someone not wanting to die. "If everything goes right, a breach there will only cause localized damage," he breathed heavily now. "But we can't trust the computers responsible for this!"

"Full agreement with you there, Sikorsky!" Velasquez was hot on his heels, wielding a pistol and intensely angry at this turn of events. Nobody - especially not this corporate worm - would try to damage the ship she was riding on. If circumstances were any more to her liking, she would ensure that he suffered to regret his madness to the full extent a human being can suffer. At present, she was forced to decide that she would give him the mercy of a quick execution, even though he deserved far worse.

"This is the last one!" half-shouted the cryotech, punching buttons frantically.

"Ready!" she shouted.

The door opened.

Selfridge noticed the change in environment, had just enough time to turn towards the invading party, locking gazes with the mission commander. For an infinitesimal moment, she saw something inhuman in those eyes. Inhuman and hostile to mankind.

Velasquez put one between his eyes. Hendricks and his adjutant double-, triple- and quadruple-tapped him. This did not quite put him down.

"I want answers," general Velasquez stated calmly. For this meeting, she invited the head engineer aboard the Gallega, the chief medic, and the two attached scientists, Soyl and Lee - all thawed out prematurely expressly for this event. "You're technical people. Provide me them."

Since Selfridge's ill-fated attempt at sending them all to their maker, there has been much recrimination and also much searching for answers to various questions. The questions Velasquez most wanted answered now concerned the motive and abilities of the would-be shipslayer. Selfridge had done multiple things which were supposed to be impossible - rose from cryo-sleep by his own will, manipulated the ship's computers to an amazingly frightening extent only now being reverted by their computer technicians, and fought far too well for a human being. Hendricks was dead, his adjutant might never walk again, the cryotechnician, Sikorsky, was in a coma. Herself, Velasquez got off lightly - her right arm now ended at the wrist; the medical personnel were already cloning her a replacement. The wonders of technology.

"General, we don't have answers as much as speculations and unscientific hunches at the moment," Soyl was quickest on the draw.

"In the absence of real intelligence, that will have to do," Velasquez grumped. "Tell me what you've got. You first," she half-nodded at the physician. "Have you been able to discern why Selfridge was able to perform the various superhuman feats he did?"

Nova Lancaster, adjusted her position before answering. "The autopsy has been somewhat enlightening, but at the same time provided few explanations for the cause of our findings," she handed general Velasquez a holosheet. "This is the summary, you can find the full report in the attachments. We found that the subject was significantly altered biochemically from standard human stock, and nothing in his medical history explains the extent of the transformations." The researchers looked highly interested, so she continued. "Further, the changes were not genetic in nature, but rather phenotypical."

"Meaning?" the general remarked, reading the sheet.

"It means that these alterations did not touch his genotype but instead changed what he was on a specimen-basis," it was Lee who explained. The general looked dubious. "For example, I was born a pure strain human, but in my quest to transcend that dismal state, I have become something else. I did not alter my gene sequences significantly, beyond the flaw-scrubbing therapy I was subjected to as a child. If I were to breed, I would not pass down my cybernetic implants to my children."

"You're saying that someone operated on him?" Natasha frowned. "When was this done?"

"If you're suspecting Na'vi sympathizers back on Earth of planting an agent, ma'am," the doctor spoke up again, "then there's a problem - these alterations were done recently. I have found indications that some changes were actually ongoing at the time of death. According to his physical before the voyage and the autopsy just now, the subject's own body mass was used to fuel the transmigration. You may have noticed that he was signicantly less overweight and much more toned in your encounter."

Natasha recalled the battle. She did not catch it them, but now that it was pointed out, it did seem like the truth. "Carry on," she encouraged. "According to your summary here, Selfridge underwent a 'neural reconfiguration'. What does that mean?"

Lee raised her eyebrows, while Lancaster answered. "Our findings here are vague and inconclusive," she said. "However, what we do know is that the structures we found in place were not human. The subject's brain and general nervous system were altered in a way we believe was intended to ensure greater durability and survivability, at the expense of some other fuctions - such as social behaviour, long term memory and conscious thought."

"So he was some kind of zombie?" doctor Soyl asked.

"No, this is not what I meant. He was obviously capable of intelligent behaviour, but rather than a well-rounded intellect, I think he may have been designed with specific tasks in mind," the head physician explained. "I believe that reflexive action was taken to the forefront of the design's intentions, but again, I cannot say with certainty. This kind of research was expressly forbidden by the United Nations in 2067, in the aftermath of the Pacific Wars, and the amount of practice anyone on board has had with the subject is close to nil."

"Do you have any idea who may have done this? However ridiculous it may sound," the general shrugged minimally. She tapped the holosheet. "I have a hard time believing someone broke into the cryo chamber and made surgery to give this bastard a second heart. Are you certain this transformation couldn't have been done before we set off?"

"Reasonably certain, general," Nova confirmed. "Additionally, we have found no recent sign of surgery on the subject's body. The autopsy and analysis of the additional organs the subject has manifested gives credence to the belief that these changes were effected biochemically rather than surgically."

"Drugs, then?" Soyl commented, waving a hand in a dismissive manner. "Someone gave him a mutagenic serum?"

"We cannot rule that out." There was a moment of silence. Then, general Velasquez put away the holosheet.

"Very well. Keep up your research, and alert me to any new findings," she told the chief medical officer. "Next," Natasha turned to the engineer. "How are the repairs to the computers systems coming along?"

"As well as could be expected, ma'am," Friedrich Hermann answered respectfully. Owing to the gross amount of time he spent in the presence of machines exclusively, he was somewhat less than comfortable in talking to people, and high ranking officers especially. "We think we have all the bugs worked out of the system. Had to do a complete wipe and reinstall the operating system on the access permission subsystem."

"What about ensuring this doesn't, ever, happen again?" the general glared at him balefully, making him want to cower.

"Well, uh, ma'am, the problem is that we don't actually know what to protect against," the tech-head tried to defend himself. "The logs show that this was done by an injection of a long stream of essentially meaningless data into one of the consoles, which somehow was able to break the programming. We still don't know how that guy, Selfridge, did this. This ship runs the best code that open source has to offer, with modifications made by the programmers at the UEAF. I just don't see how this was possible to occur without someone knowing the ins and outs of the system, including all its flaws - which even the designers didn't know about."

"How do you propose to fix this, then?" Velasquez almost pitied this spineless loser.

"I don't, uh, know, ma'am. We'll keep trying."

"See that you do," Natasha squinted at him, then went on to the next matter on the agenda. "You two," she addressed Soyl and Lee, nodding at each in turn. "You are henceforth permanently assigned to the Santa Clara and the Martin Alonso Pinzon, respectively. Given this recent breach of security, we cannot allow you, as our research assets, to be risked being stationed on the flagship. Report to the shuttle bay at 0900 hours."

Albert and Ai looked at each other, then murmured acceptance of this order.

"That is all," the general leaned back in her comfy chair. "Notify me of any status changes."

When all four were gone, Natasha sighed and started writing up the final preparations, plans and exercises. They were not far from Alpha Centauri, the alien sun visible in the sky if one took care to look, already slowing down. They were going to use that time to make all the necessary precautions against surprises, in addition to making sure the men were in top shape for tackling the problem of the Pandoran wilderness and savage indigenous population. If all went according to plan - and there were no more mutated saboteurs on board - this would be a complete cakewalk.

If.

CHAPTER 6

Jake Sully soared in the Pandoran sky on his tamed toruk. He feared none, for none could harm him. He was the predator of the skies, none could contest him. Through the bond, he could feel the animal's great strength and insticts which became partly his own. The sensation was almost better than the hot alien sex he has come to know so well since he betrayed his own people and became one of the Na'vi. Almost. The toruk spotted something below, also in flight, and by that mere fact, it was also known to the toruk makto.

Sully banked to the left, and went into a dive. He levelled out immediately when he became aware that it was another Na'vi riding a banshee. What's more, it was one of the people who he knew rather well.

"Neytiri!" he shouted, trying to be heard over the din of rushing air. He started coughing following that. His illness failed to recede in the recent days. "I, koff!, see you!"

"I see you, Jake!" she hollered back. "We need to speak! Now!"

This was serious, obviously, if Neytiri eschewed small talk in such a fashion, especially since she also sounded urgent, even with the wind doing its best to occlude her tone of voice. Jake changed course for the nearest megatree, so that they could talk without the wind spirits shouting around them. Neytiri followed somewhat more slowly, as the banshees were strictly inferior to the toruks. She joined him on the giant branch near the middle of the enormous plant.

"What is it, Neytiri?" he jumped down from the toruk, and severed their connection. Once again, he was the increasingly frail Jakesully of the Jarhead clan. He'd be damned if he showed weakness, however. That would mean the loss of respect from his newfound family, and possible loss of authority among all Na'vi. Already, he was experiencing a great deal of stigma for failing to successfully produce an offspring, something which also filled him with great rage. He had a feeling the scientists who made him this body were to blame.

"Jake," up close, she was intensely distressed. He had a hard time seeing her like this, the fabled slayer of the demon Quaritch. "I return from the Tree of Souls. Eywa has spoken to me. A time of great sorrow approaches." This could, indeed, be bad news, if their goddess sent visions to Neytiri.

"Was Eywa more specific?" Sully asked, curious.

"Yes. The humans are returning."

"General, we have arrived," said the helmsman of the Gallega. The atmosphere on the bridge was extremely profound, as the three ships parked in high orbit around the moon called Pandora.

"This day," she announced, "will be remarked as the start of humanity's first conquest undertaken in unison. Start deploying the satellites."

The forward missile bays of all three starships opened, and spewed forth a myriad self-propelled vehicles. They were of several designs. Some were fitted with surveillance equipment, designed to be the eyes of the fleet, effectively mapping the entire moon in realtime. Others were communications relays, to enable full coordination among the thousands of soldiers about to be unleashed on the backwards but not nearly helpless world. The third major kind were weapons platforms, with solar-powered lasers and stratospheric missiles, readied against surface targets.

"Estimated complete coverage of the surface in four hours, twenty two minutes," a bridge officer divulged.

"Good," Natasha turned away, and started in the direction of the exit. "I will want a complete report upon the survey's completion. You have the bridge, lieutenant Pudd."

"Almost everything is as the RDA left it, ma'am," the technician assigned to do the report for the survey said. "Hell's Gate has overgrowed, but the permanent structures are still intact, as are the landing strips. We expect that there might be need to repair some of them, due to the trees growing nearby and roots distorting the tarmac. There is a good chance that we can reclaim the site for our purposes."

"Good," Velasquez frowned, but inwardly was relieved. She had hoped for this, and she was validated. The savages were a completely static culture, and couldn't even take apart their enemies' base. All the better for mankind, represented by her and her force here. "This will save us valuable time and effort in setting up the ground-side HQ."

"Also, we believe we have located the site of the new Omaticaya settlement." She remembered that it was the tribe that that traitor Sully became a member of. "Analysis so far has failed to locate Sully himself, however."

"Keep searching. Even without Waters' fiscal encouragement, I'd have him hunted down," Velasquez admitted. "People like this give mankind a bad name." She turned to a holographic display, which evoked the image of a man's face. "Major general Zhu, you will take a strike force with as many engineering teams as desired to the site of Hell's Gate and restore it to functionality ASAP."

"Yes, ma'am," the Asian man confirmed, nodding slightly. His expression of bored determination did not waver.

"Acting major general Salles," she addressed another viewscreen, "provide general Zhu's tranports with escort. You do not have permission for orbital bombardment of any sort just yet. With profits from this venture in mind, we will not risk destroying the potential Unobtanium deposits on the surface without my explicit permission."

"Yes, ma'am!" the recently field-promoted commander of the land forces saluted.

"Move out."

Under the cover of the great forest which covered most of the Pandoran surface, a group of Na'vi warriors watched. They have been sent here by their mighty toruk makto, Jakesully of the Jarhead clan, great leader of the Omaticaya, he who defeated and drove the humans from the world. This was a special place, but nearly forgotten in the years since - it was the skypeople's base of operations, where they dwelt, dug the earth and did a great many insane things. The Na'vi understood the workings, nor the appeal of technology, instead prefering a subtle balance with their environment, subsisting in a state of savagery and primal existence. This suited them just fine, and the knowledge that they would never truly die, for they would live on within Eywa just bolstered their conviction against the mad ramblings of the dreamwalkers. They could not understand why the skypeople wanted what they did, and this was why they have rejected them altogether. Then came the Jakesully and brought them ultimate victory over his former race.

The rumours spread like wildfire - the skypeople were returning. Eywa spoke to Jakesully's mate, the enlightened Neytiri, and the Na'vi began to mobilize for war once again. Once again, they would defeat the invaders from the sky, and drive them back from their world. They did not belong here. They were better off on their own, dead homeworld. Why they would come back, after having been so soundly defeated by the skilled warriors of the Na'vi and the sheer might of their goddess, they could scarcely fathom. What kind of being doesn't learn the wisdom of stopping to eat that which makes them retch? The humans were apparently such beings, incapable of letting anything go and peacefully going about their business, no matter how trivial the matter.

The warriors were here to oversee Hell's Gate, and in the hour of their greatest boredom, they were vindicated when the first of the humans' gray flying vehicles appeared on the sky. They watched for hours, having sent one of their own to report to Jakesully the mere fact of the arrival, as the stream of vessels seemed endless. The first of the flying machines dropped stomping suits containing humans, who took to the vegetation that has overgrown the site of Hell's Gate, reducing it to lumber in short order with demonic weapons known only to the dreamwalkers. When that was done, the stream of vessels only increased, landing, spewing out unnumbered hordes of humans from their bellies. Having delivered their cargo, they took off again into the sky. The warriors could not count how many skypeople arrived, but the throng was so considerable that even they balked at the prospect of fighting these invaders.

But has victory over these enemies of all life not been achieved in the past? It has, surely enough. The hero Jakesully made it possible, by uniting the clans against a common threat, and the toruk makto still breathed. He would unify all Na'vi again, and throw the desecrators of Eywa off their world, once again. This was a virtual certainty, and when finally the stream of demons seemed to waver, the three warriors left their hiding spot and headed home. They had many things to tell Jakesully, and they would not fail in their task here.

"Omaticaya! Na'vi!" Sully addressed the gathered blue felinoids. Continued immersion in their culture has granted him full fluency in their savage tongue, which he began to regard as his own. "Dark times are upon us. You've heard this from Neytiri already, but heed my words also - the humans are indeed come to Pandora. Again, they bring death to us. But we are strong! We bring death to them instead, and we shall rout them from the land, exile them to the sky from which they came!"

A great roar emerged from the throats of scores of gathered Na'vi. They looked up at Jakesully as their saviour, in the past, now and forever. Never would they forget the miracles he has performed for them, and they looked forward to being led to new victories.

Sully himself had gone a long way from a paraplegic ex-Marine, and he greatly enjoyed the position of leadership among the People. He was on top of the heap here, the master in Hell as the humans sometimes referred to Pandora, but he considered it his heaven. There was nothing to equal the present in his past, save only the moment of triumph over his former comrades. He had a beautiful mate, and ruled with supreme confidence. Sometimes he wondered how long Na'vi could live, and more specifically the hybrids created for the Avatar program, but it didn't really matter. Every day, he lived as if it could be his last, and this would be the way it stayed as long as he drew breath.

"The People will unite again!" he vowed. "Send the riders out, gather the clans-!" Sully attempted to to continue, but had to force back hacking cough. If he exhibited such weakness here, it would cost him a lot of credence, even as the clanspeople would pity him. He did not want pity. Luckily, his indisposition caught him in a moment that he could reasonably attribute to intention. Slowly, he drew breath, and the urge to cough his blue lungs out subsided. "War council shall be held in five days hence!"

"What d'ya think 'bout all this?" asked private Levinsky. "Whole deal wit' the invasion and all."

"I don't think shit," replied private first class Fergusson. They were both wearing face masks, as they were stationed outside, otherwise fully exposed to the Pandoran atmosphere.

"I always knew ya never thunk anythin'," the private grinned moronically.

"Don't make me kick your ass," growled his senior in rank. "I hate all the damned green, if you wanna know." The soldier gestured with his gun at the trees. "Ain't nothing like this back home, and it sickens me, no shit. No wonder you can't breathe the damn air around here, if there's all these damn alien trees spewing out poison into the damn air. God damn."

"Tha's not what I hear, eff-cee," Levinsky countered aptly. "The way I hear it, trees are act'lly kinda good for the air, and stuff. Least back on Earth, yeah, 'cause I dunno nothing 'bout the woods hereabouts."

"Did you sleep through the damned Pandora 101 introduction course, Levs?" Fergusson leveled a stare at the other soldier.

"Maybe I kinda did, eff-cee," the private shrugged. "The movies were kinda borin', y'know? Not enough 'splosions and crap. Too much 'em big words, yeah."

"Your damn ass is worthless, you know that?" the senior grunt shook his head. "Our homeworld trees may just be pretty good for the air, produce oxygen and all that, but these here actually fill the atmosphere with god damned poison. There's some oxygen in the air too, but it's damned thin, and you'll fucking aspyhy- asiphy- as-phyx-iate, god damn, in a minute or so. That's why we all have these masks."

"How come those guys over yonder don't, huh?" the private pointed to a squad running by. Judging by their looks, they were some kind of commandos, packaged with twice as much gear as regular grunts, and with glares that could kill.

"Thems the spec ops from the Martin, under general Woodworth, Levs," Fergusson enlightened. "I hear they got special implants that let 'em breathe Pandoran air like it ain't no biggie. That researcher chick, Little Miss Cyborg, gave 'em those."

"'Ow come I ain't heard o' this thing?" the private looked disappointed.

"You idjit," Fergusson facemaskpalmed, and regretted it immediately, as his hands left a greasy smudge on the exterior, occluding his view. "You remember the god damn questionaire we were sent way back before we went into the freezer, don't you?"

"Uhhh. No?" The private's expression was even more moronic than usual.

"Sometimes I wonder how-fucking-ever you got through grade school, Levinsky," the more literate of the two presented an expression of sheer exasperation. The squad of commandos passed them, and ran off down the airstrip runway, towards the forbidding jungle. The two grunts escorted them with looks, wishing they could be as cool. "It said, black on white, that you could either participate or not. I presume you just clicked 'No' to everything, without even reading. Isn't that right, private?"

"Me pop said to me once, 'never sign up fer anything', so I didn'. Plain and simple, eff-cee," the soldier looked positively secure in his blanket of ignorance.

"Yer pop shoulda taught ya ta read while he was addit," Fergusson mocked Levinsky's rural accent. Somehow, things like those survived even when the rural class did not, annihilated in humanity's thirst for land to build stuff on, and the advent of industrial food cloning that provided cheap nourishment to the masses... once the masses were somewhat reduced by the Food Riots of 2072, anyway. Fergusson imagined that Levinsky came from North America's former plains, somehow managing to hold on to the dialect they used there in preference to proper English.

"He did that," objected Levinsky. "I knows all the lett'rs an' numbahs, y'know."

"It's called functional illiteracy, Levs," Fergusson shot him down. "Even if you know all the damn alphabets and numbers, it means nothing unless you damn well know how to use 'em, you know what I mean? If I told you to fill out your revenue tax form, could you do it? Do you even know how that form looks like?"

"I don' like those," informed the private. "So's I just told them at the recruitin' office that I'd like those kinda things figured out for me. They sure kept their word. Ain't seem a holopad in a long time, y'ken?"

"I'm beginning to," sighed Fergusson. "I sometimes wonder how people like you survived, with all the competition in the genepool."

"Superior breedin', eff-cee." The private seemed especially proud of that statement.

Private First Class Magnus Fergusson groaned.

"It wasn' that bad, wazzit?"

Fergusson fell to the ground, dead, with an oversized arrow sticking out of his back.

The first skirmish between the newly-arrived human forces on Pandora had begun.

Though they had no reason to believe that they would be left alone, the invading forces were ambushed by a Na'vi raiding party, coming out of the forest. Reliant on their technological devices to alert them of trouble, they did not anticipate that something could slip through their net, and when something did, the casualties were staggering. A hundred dead, and over five hundred wounded.

High in orbit around Pandora, general Natasha Velasquez read the report on the battle. Nominally, they have won this, having chased away the savages, retained Hell's Gate - but it was a small disaster. They gained nothing but a few kitty corpses, and lost lots of valuable personnel. Most could return to duty once they have been processed by the ships' sick bays and have various organs and limbs replaced, but that would take time. For the moment, it was Na'vi one, Humanity zero. What most troubled her was the lack of warning. Their forces were equipped with heat tracking sensors, automated pattern detectors, vibration scanners and a host of other technological devices, but none of those seemed to have been effective.

"Explain this," she showed the person on the other side of the holoscreen her datapad. "We have satellites spread evenly across the entire world, we have everything that modern technology can provide in terms of seeing and hearing, and yet we were blind!"

To Albert Soyl, she sounded utterly disgusted. He concurred with her appraisal of the situation.

"I actually have a pretty good explanation, ma'am," he said with a note of pride. "We haven't noticed this before, and our gear wasn't set up for that kind of precision, so it wasn't detectable unless someone looked specifically for it, but I think we can actually compensate to a degree. The problem is the flux vortex that was most notable around the region called the Halleluyah Mountains - the floating pieces of rock - now seems to cover all of the surface. It is of much lower intensity than there, but still interferes with our equipment in subtle ways."

"If it's such a big problem, why wasn't it detected as a problem?" Natasha inquired.

"It's got to do with the precision of instruments," the scientist explained. "Distinguishing between a Na'vi and any other Pandoran animal requires high precision, and results which are too far from the expected norm are ignored as noise. I have prepared a set of settings for the universal detector interface our troops use, awaiting your approval to send it down, ma'am."

"Granted."

"Thank you," doctor Soyl pressed a few buttons, visible on screen, and presumably started waiting for the progress bar to start filling out. "I'm afraid that satellites are going to be mostly useless except for gross terrain mapping and similar large-scale operations. The resolution on the hardware is too coarse for my alterations to work. I will continue work on this matter, but I don't expect success."

"Do it anyway, mister Soyl," general Velasquez said off-handedly. He let the omission of his scientific title fly, for no particular reason other than the idea of challenging this woman seemed like a profoundly bad one to him.

She shut off the screen, and ruminated. As far as a projected cakewalk, this mission was turning out to have a fair share of surprises in for them all. First the mysterious deal with Selfridge - which didn't even offer any kind of reasonable explanation on what was the cause of it, no matter how hard her underlings tried to divine who modified the ex-corporate flunky into becoming a machine of destruction. Natasha regarded her newly regrown hand with some dose of fondness. It was a very good job, motor control was fully compatible with her existinc reflexes; it proved to be a valid replacement for her original extremity.

Her thoughts returned to the issue at hand. It was extremely problematic to think of what could possibly go wrong, much like trying to divine what was missing in puzzles where data wasn't conveniently ordered and sorted. If doctor Soyl's solution to the detector problem proved to be sufficient, they might yet do all they planned to do. If not - well, improvisation in the face of adversity was one of the best qualities a soldier could have, and she prided herself a supreme example of military competence.

With the raiding party beaten back, and their gear mostly set up, it was time for the next phase in their plan - systematic subjugation of the native populace. They came equipped for this, both in the military sense and all others. Among other things, they brought a great many portable translation units, which would allow them to communicate with the Na'vi to an extent, the ones who did not learn English anyway. She was sure that at least some of them would be willing to be subservient when the alternative was to be annihilated. Natasha smiled at the prospect, and imagined a rain of explosive munitions from the overwatching satellites and starships. Hopefully, it wouldn't come to that. There was no real need to employ orbital artillery - just yet, anyway.

For the future, time would eventually tell whether such a need would arise.

CHAPTER 7

They were six, plus one. Lieutenant Thompson, the mustang, bearing the scars of a hundred wars. His second in command, the serious Sergeant Tao. The corporals, butchy Tilly and eagle-eyed Hansen. Private First Class Feathers, whose name belied his size, and the regular Private Luther, former mercenary and night owl. That's who the team consisted of. Beyond the team, there was the cyborg scientist, Ai Lee, whom none of the squad trusted as far as they could spit. It wasn't that she was particularly threatening or not loyal to the cause, but she did not belong. She was a civilian, an egghead, and a mighty weird one to boot - either way, not one of them. Though fairly cheerful and personable, she exuded an alien feeling, as if she wasn't completely living, or completely human. Of course, she wasn't. Nobody with that much electronics and chrome in them could possibly pass a physical. They themselves were somewhat enhanced, but nowhere near the total conversion of the researcher.

The team of commandos knew various types of madmen and madwomen, and during the voyage, they have come to understand Lee a little bit. In the broad sense, the cyborg was a gun nut, and a tool user extraordinaire, in addition to having something wrong with her ability to communicate and live in society. Tao and Tilly argued at length whether it was the cybernetics that ate this woman's soul, or was she soulless to begin with, which prompted her to alter her body so. The end result was the same, however - a psychopath with a figurative hard-on for things that went boom. Feathers joked that said hard-on might not be quite so figurative, given the amount of accessories Lee seemed to possess squirreled away under the chromed carapace. Trolled into action by the others, the newcomer to the team, Luther, once made a pass at her, referring to her toys. He eventually recovered from the kick to the groin that he received, thanks to the advanced medicine available on board the Santa Clara.

Before being ordered to hunt for Sully, they did a bit of recon to familiarize themselves with the terrain they would be operating in. They had experience in the simulators, but a holo-sim is nothing compared to the real thing, partly because they haven't yet figured out how to reliably and realistically mimic olfactory and tactile impressions which often served as hints and saved lives if one read them correctly. Granted, olfactory sensorium wasn't a priority, because most of the soldiers sent to Pandora would be operating with face masks, to shield them from the noxious, insufficiently oxygenated alien atmosphere - but they would be operating sans them. This was the only reason they permitted themselves to be bullied by the high command into accepting Lee as a guest member. After all, if anything went wrong with their new implants, they could have the one responsible for their design right on hand, possibly preventing some undue casualties in the process. In return, they had to babysit her throughout the mission, which was going to be a pain, as they knew from their experience with extended hostage rescue operations.

They were also glad to have participated in the Na'vi ambush a few days ago, which let them have a good estimate on the physical potential of the savages - what they found was that the reports on the agility, strength and sheer size of the critters were not underestimated. Unlike the grunt hordes, they did not suffer any casualties, and all came out of the sortie with at least one dead cat to their name. After it was over, it turned out that they have inadvertently managed to tally up most of the enemy force's losses, all by themselves. They were a mean, lean, fighting machine with lots of experience and functioning smooth as a well-oiled piston.

All in all, attitudes were pretty low at the prospect of introducing a fifth wheel. Lee surprised them, when she turned up precisely on time for the debark, and dressed appropriately - indeed, it appeared that she had painted her outer shell with a camouflage pattern, in addition to sporting an outfit similar to the gear the team carried. To top it all of - unsurprising, given how they assessed her character - she carried a custom longarm, something vaguely resembling one of the modern versions of the Steyr AUG, and several apparent sidearms. Gun nut, check. Paranoid? As all hell.

"First waypoint is the former Omaticaya settlement," the lieutenant reminded, slipping the eyepiece monitor one his left eye. "That's one hundred and seventy nine clicks, approximately. Sergeant, take point. Feathers, secure the rear." He didn't need to tell them the rest of the positions, the men and woman formed up using their best judgement. They worked together for quite some time, and it showed.

The trek over the jungle had begun. It would no doubt take at least a week - or even two - for them to traverse this distance. They have all the wonders of technology, such as global positioning devices, compasses, map databases and other gadgets, but this was the Pandoran jungle, reputed to be one of the most dangerous places in the known universe, at least among inhabited worlds.

"Remind me, lieutenant," corporal Tilly spoke up over the comm network, a subvocal means of communication between squadmates, to obviate the need to speak out loud, "why aren't we taking a helicopter, or being dropped directly on the spot?"

"You want the kitties know we're coming, corporal?" the lieutenant did not turn to face his speaker, he didn't need to, and taking his attention off general awareness of their surrounidings have been drilled out of them early on during their careers as professional troubleshooters and elite soldiers.

"They'll know we're coming anyway," objected the corporal. Due to the team's familiary and long-standing unity, they barely acknowledged the traditional forms of respect. They all knew that respect was there, who was in charge, and that they could be trusted. Nothing more was necessary, so everyone spoke more or less freely. "I see it this way - they've been living in this hellhole for god knows how long, they know all about it. Where to hide, what to hide from, how to notice that aliens were here, etcetera, etcetera. I won't be surprised if they already have someone tracking us."

"They don't," interjected the cyborg woman. "The new configuration files doctor Soyl provided us enable us to detect them before they detect us. If there is a Na'vi within one hundred meters, we will know it." She consulted some internal function or display, pausing her speech for a moment while the commandos were somewhat chagrined by an outsider being allowed to speak on their private channel. "I detect several indigenous animals, us, and lots of plant life. Nothing else even comes close to matching the signature of a Na'vi on any spectrum available."

"There you go, then," shrugged Thompson.

"What if the instruments are still wrong?" Luther inquired instead. "They were wrong once, they might be wrong again. I haven't lived this long by relying on stuff that has a habit of failing when you most need it."

The other commandos variously smirked or grimaced. Luther thought himself hot shit, and showed it at every opportunity. To his credit, he was pretty damn good, especially at night. None of the others could ever best him at any task in near-total darkness, night vision enhancements or not. They joked that he was born in the night, and teased him with garlic during meals. The private took this somewhat less than well, but suffered in silence, knowing it to be a hazing ritual. He was with the others for just a year before they shipped out, and they still thought he was new, despite his obvious experience at what he did.

"We have other means of discerning truth from falsehood," the cyberlass spoke with a certain demonic cheer. "Such as using our eyes and ears. You have those, don't you?"

"Yeah, yeah, whatever," the private shut up.

Two days later, the detected the first signs of Na'vi presence. The primordial jungle was truly huge, and moving through it was a chore, but the commandos were well-trained, and augmented to deal with such obstructions. One of the less visible, but extremely useful changes to the baseline human abilities that they possessed was the reduced need for sleep. They still needed to rest, and eat potentially even more than a normal human, but they could keep going so long as they had energy to burn. Their record holder was - no surprise - private Luther, who went for a full month without sleep, during a downtime he shared with the others. He went on playing Killer Instinct all that time, pausing only to consume some meager sustenance and defecate. The others at the same time admired his resistance and ridiculed him for the amount of weight he gained through this stunt. Private Luther was less than pleased.

"Where?" asked sergeant Tao, as it was Lee who detected the signature of the locals. None of the others detected anything yet. With a good dose of jealousy, they surmised that the scientist must have some sort of improved locator device.

"One hundred fifty meters," she said and pointed ahead and to the left. "They're moving. I don't think they noticed us yet, but I can't be sure. The readout is vague."

"How many?" the lieutenant adopted a hunched position, indicative of preparing for mortal combat. He hefted his gun confidently.

"Four. Are we going to engage them or try to evade?"

"Are you sure they didn't see us?"

"No."

"Then it's the death penalty for them," the lieutenant gravely nodded at nobody in particular.

The lieutenant and corporal Tilly went to flank from the left. Hansen was sent up a tree, hopefully overwatching the future scene of the battle. The sergeant and private Luther went to flank from the right. That left Feathers and Lee to approach from the front, the rationale being that the cyborg probably could take an arrow to the face and barely notice, while the heavy weapons specialist would lay down suppression fire that would drive the Na'vi warriors into the flankers, who could easily take them out. That was the plan, clear and simple.

Slowly, the team dispersed, going into stealth mode, trying to make as little noise as possible. It wasn't completely hard, because the jungle teemed with life, and noise could be heard coming from all around, but they supposed that the native savages could distinguish between indigenous noise-generators and invaders such as them.

"Waypoint one Lambda," reported Tilly over the comms.

"Waypoint one Romeo," soon thereafter spoke up sergeant Tao.

"In position at Charlie," Feathers could be heard a few seconds later.

"Contact," said the Lieutenant, spying upon a group of fast-moving blue shapes. "Feathers, fire on this telemetry!"

"Yes, sir!" the big man confirmed, and let loose from the handcannon he carried, guided only by the virtual display on his eyepiece, simulating unseen targets. The noise was deafening for the bystanding Ai, and in the distance plant matter was being shredded into fine bits. "TAKE THAT YOU FUCKERS!" roared Feathers enthusiastically.

"Contact!" the sergeant reported a bit too loudly.

"Fire at will," lieutenant Thompson calmly instructed, and the guns of the other commandos started barking as well.

"One down!" reported corporal Tilly.

"One down... two down..." Hansen could be heard reporting after firing off precise shots at the escaping.

"There's two more here!" Luther could barely be heard over the din of rifles. "One down, can't see the other one!"

"Shit!" swore the Sergeant. "One down, I've been hit."

"Last one down," the lieutenant noted. "Cease fire. Cease fire!"

The gunfire stopped almost as abruptly as it had started. Feathers wiped some sweat off his brow, and looked down on the petite cyberwoman. She seemed besides herself with glee and enthusiasm. "This is very exciting!" she commented, as they began to walk in the direction of the battle.

The site proved to be sprayed with blue Na'vi blood, and guts adorned what remained of the local vegetation. Two of the six savages were prostrated upon the branches of nearby trees, while the others lay dead in the underbrush, barely visible due to the normal Pandoran heavy undergrowth. Lee approached the nearest body and began poking at it. "Remarkable," she said, still keeping that oddly mechanical grin on her face. "Not every day I get to examine real live aliens. Let's see," the researcher took out a knife and began an impromptu autopsy. The commandos were somewhat put off, even though they perpetrated this massacre themselves.

Sergeant Tao was wounded, having been stabbed with a Na'vi knife in the arm. Hansen ignored the spectacle of investigative medicine performed by Lee, and began to administer first aid to the injured petty officer.

"Lucky we've got those counterpoison treatments, huh?" Luther remarked.

"I don't think they poison their knives, private," lieutenant Thompson appraised the bone blade removed from his second-in-command's shoulder. "Still, yes, a very good thing indeed. How long do you need to patch Tao up, Hansen?"

"Ten minutes. Maybe more," Hansen shrugged. "This will need some stitches or it'll get ugly." The team's sharpshooter and medic sprayed the wound with an antiseptic agent. The bleeding was already levelling off, thanks to the modified biological responses all the commandos had done on them - they would not readily bleed to death, as their veins and arteries tightened around the injured region.

"Tilly, Luther, secure the perimeter," Tao instructed, as the lieutenant was busy reviewing data from the gunfight. The two nodded and went to do just that. He did not even grimace when the corporal started stitching his wound.

"Found anything interesting?" Thompson approached the researcher when she looked to be about done with her horrifying work. Hansen was finishing up on the suturing.

"Plenty!" The cyborg was spattered with blue blood and bits of Na'vi stuck to her frame and clothes. "The Na'vi physiology is fascinating. Did you know that their cardiovascular system resembles that of crustaceans?"

"What?"

"It's like a series of interconnected pipes with hydraulic valves," she started explaining. "And their muscle density, especially considering what little gravity this world has, is amazing. If humans had comparable muscle structure, we would be able to lift four hundred kilograms or more," the scientist's eyes almost glazed over, but since they were artificial, that function was unavailable to them. "Even without cybernetics, that is. Augmentation to that effect is already possible, if unavailable due to legal factors and uneven distribution of future technology."

"Fascinating." The lieutenant's expression did not even approximate fascination, however. "We're moving out in two minutes."

"Will do," she said cheerily, as if not catching the lack of caring about what she found irresistably interesting.

"Report?" general Velasquez half-asked, half-demanded of the Lieutenant. Due to the persistent, and growing amount of background fluctuations - and their unclear connection to the biological network reputed to span all of Pandora - connectivity between Hell's Gate and the commando team was limited, and restricted to periodical reports, given by Lieutenant Thompson over a satellite link.

"We're currently about one hundred and fifty klicks away from base," the lieutenant explain. There was some static, and the uplink wasn't exactly great. Natasha cursed the alien nature of the planet for being so unsupportive of their efforts to reclaim it. "Over the last four days, we have encountered an increasing amount of Na'vi patrols, and engaged them three times. We have sustained minor injuries, but no casualties. According to our instruments, we should be nearing the site of the former Omaticaya settlement."

"Anything unusual to report?" Natasha raised an eyebrow.

"Yes, ma'am," the lieutenant paused for just a moment. "Doctor Lee informs us that the distortion field is getting worse. It has begun to affect our communications devices when not shouting distance of one another. As you can see, the uplink itself is doing rather poorly. We may be cut off from communication. Are there any additional guidelines for us to follow, ma'am?"

"No, lieutenant," general Velasquez answered after a bit of rumination. There really wasn't. Their mission was to find and bring Sully to justice. As a civilian at the time of his betrayal, he couldn't be court-martialed, but with the plenipotentiary powers that Waters gave her over Pandora and all who dwell on it, she could call for a summary execution of justice in the field. A bullet to the head was entirely sufficient.

"Yes, ma'am," the lieutenant reflexively said. "We will attempt further communication two days' hence, if we are able, at the standard time."

"Good. Velasquez over and out," she killed the screen, and returned to her other duties.

Preparations for the first phase of the subjugation plan were coming to a close. Soon, they would be ready to bring the full brunt of their military technology and manpower against the savages sitting in the woods. At this moment, there was no reason to rush things - better make sure everything is in order before moving on than feel sorry afterwards. The attacks they were receiving in the recent days were nothing more than a nuissance. Equipped with the improved sensor configurations from doctor Soyl, the ground forces were able to detect coming ambushes, and nip them in the bud, ofter calling in close air support to riddle the jungle with hot lead and napalm, flushing out the natives.

It was quite fortunate that Pandora was covered with a rain forest, as the use of incendiary measures has caused a lot of burned forest, and without rain to quell them, the fires might have threatened their operations. As it was, however, they were doing very well. The Hell's Gate base has been fully restored, and turned into a staging point. Work was already under way into expanding the facility into the surrounding partially-burned wilderness. Further burning would be extremely recommended, since it denied their enemy a place to hide - Na'vi were readily visible on plain dirt. In the coming days, everything would be in place to begin their great undertaking.

"Wow," remarked Lee. "That's the biggest stretch of not-quite-forest I've seen yet." She was looking at the site where the great tree of the Omaticaya once stood, now a husk in the far distance. The terrain had once been levelled to the bare dirt by the RDA Corporation, in hopes of digging up the Unobtanium deposit under the tree. This outraged the Na'vi living there - as those responsible for convincing them to move away voluntarily have failed spectacularly - and the outcome was the defeat of the commercially inclined humans who dwelt on Pandora at that time. Unfortunate, but if they had succeeded, then humanity might never have united against the threat to their collective pride of being the baddest motherfuckers in this part of the Milky Way. Humans, as a species, were perhaps rightly viewed by the Na'vi as insane - when humans engaged in some activity, they continued in it, no matter what, because they had already invested so much time and effort into it. Fueled by this fallacy, they were extremely motivated to annihilate all threats to their ambitions.

In addition, when humans hated someone, they hated them forever. For the longest time, this included only other groups of humans, but now the Na'vi were discovering that humanity was highly enraged at the insult of routing their merchants from the face of Pandora. This insult was being washed out with the blue blood of the alien kitties. There were some Na'vi sympathizers among the people of Earth, but they were the minority, and wielded none of the real power. The people who were in power wanted the Unobtanium that Pandora housed, and also felt that humanity should stick up for itself, even if they personally did not know anyone actually wronged by the natives themselves. This collective rensponsibility brought them here, and would be the undoing of the savage Na'vi. The destruction of the Hometree was merely the earliest sign that humans meant business whatever they did.

CHAPTER 8

The congregation of the People was great. Several thousand gathered beneath the trees, to hear their leaders speak and pass judgement on the situation at hand. This was required, for the situation was indeed very grave. With the humans come again to their world, the Na'vi have experienced first-hand that this time they meant business. These humans brought no scientists, sent out no education missions, diplomats or traders. These were warrior humans, and all remembered that Jakesully was a warrior human once. Based on those assumptions, they were forced to concede that things weren't exactly looking up for them.

In the last days, they have lost many young and enthusiastic Na'vi who sought to bring the fight to the skypeople while they were still unprepared to deal with the attack. Their first ambush, at the site the humans called Hell's Gate, was a moderate success, paid for with considerable casualties, but they have not experienced any similar events since. Wherever there were skirmishes between the Na'vi and the humans, the humans invariably stomped the People flat. Few indeed were the ones who managed to participate and tell about it. It filled them with rage, that they could not be effective in the protection of their homes, even as the invaders burned the great forest, and diminished Eywa.

Jake Sully himself was, as expected, present. He came to the gathering late, having thought ahead and coughed to his heart's desire in private, riding the Last Shadow. He felt confident that he could now speak for a time without appearing weak or ill. Inwardly, he cursed wherever the sickness came from. In a simpler time, he might have sought a cure, and risked that it became public knowledge, but in this time of strife, he believed that his adoptive people needed the leadership only he could provide, and any division among them would lead to untold calamity. Did his former brethren really come here only with death in mind? As far as he could tell, that could easily be the case, but at the same time remembered that little happened on Earth without monetary incentive.

"Eywa is in pain," Neytiri spoke solemnly, recently returned from the Tree of Souls. She looked worn and drained of energy. It was clear that Eywa's suffering rubbed off on her. The humans were like a cancer upon th face of Pandora, spreading without regard for the well-being of others who dwelt upon it. They also had no regard for the spirits of the Na'vi ancestors, passed away to live within Eywa. As the destruction of the forests increased, the souls of the dead vanished forever, their songs silenced, never to return. This was an atrocity beyond all understanding. "We must act," she added, and looked to her mate. The leaders of the neighbouring clans also gazed upon the serious expression that was painted upon Sully's features.

"Neytiri is right!" he boomed, raising his fist. "Once again, we must unite and strike the humans before they take away all that we hold precious!"

There were hoots of approval from all directions.

"With the might of the combined clan, we will teach them the meaning of the might of Eywa's children!" The ovation was louder now, and even the sullen leaders of the allied clans joined in. "Let none stand in the way of retribution! We will drive them from the face of the world, just as we have done before!"

Practically everyone felt the same way. Except one, who voiced his opinion when the enthusiastic crowd stopped screaming to catch their collective breaths.

"No, we must not!" a male Na'vi came forth. He was unusual in that he was scarred, and curiously braidless. The hair sheath ended just above the neck. "This foolishness will only bring us destruction."

"Who are-" Sully began, but was cut off by Neytiri.

"You dare come to our council, Outcast?" she hissed, hand on her knife. The people surrounding the male took a step back, and reached for their weapons. "You are not welcome among the true Na'vi."

"I am An'had," he introduced himself to those who did not already know him. "I was of the plains clan before they rejected me," the Na'vi exile spat.

"What do you want here?" Sully squinted at him. He was not aware of there being outcasts among the Na'vi. Clearly, he was not informed of this, for here stood an example. Neytiri would answer his questions soon enough, but now he had to deal with someone without prior knowledge of any customs associated with dealing with outcasts. Hopefully, he could later plead ignorance, or just barge on through sheer charisma, as he had in the past. "Why interrupt our war council?"

"I have right to speak, just as anyone!" An'had proclaimed. "Though my clan has cast me out, I remain one of the People. I am Na'vi just as you all. I bring you advice in this time of sorrow."

"And what is your advice, outcast?" Sully cocked his head imperiously, looking down upon the speaker. There were some chuckles among the gathered, which all served to piss the exiled Na'vi, but he managed to remain calm for the moment.

"My advice is this: do not go to war with the skypeople," he said. "That was lies only damnation. You - we - cannot imagine what power they have. I have thought on the subject of the humans for a long time, and counted the dead of when they were exiled from the face of the world. The Na'vi still have not recovered from that blow. Too many of us have died, killing too few humans."

"But we have won, with the aid of Eywa," truthfully stated Sully.

The face of the outcast was distorted with rage. "Eywa helps only those who appease her, and live in the squalor of our past!" he shouted. This drew shocked gasps from the crowd, and several warriors hefted their arms, but Jake waved them down, wishing to hear this blasphemer out before he had him thrown out of here. "When the humans came to the Omaticaya, I was there, an envoy and traveler," the braidless outcast claimed. "I have listened to them, and found them speaking truth. I asked their history, and found their past to be like our present. The Na'vi and humans are alike, but we have failed to take up the challenge of thought where the humans have instead grasped it. You should know this all too well, Jakesully!"

"All I know is that Earth is dead, and Pandora is still alive," Sully retorted. "And these humans have come here to kill everyone. We will not let this stand."

"No! You do not know that!" the exile looked tortured by the issue. "You have attacked them the moment they arrived! We must stop this aggression! Try to speak with the humans, not provoke them into greater destruction of the people! Listen to me!"

"I have listened. I have heard. I am unmoved," Jake Sully grimaced, biting back the returning cough. He would need to finish this oration quickly, before he couldn't continue. "Your words are as empty as your soul. Take him away," he commanded the warriors, who complied readily. "This is a gathering of the clans, not a meeting of outcasts."

"No, you must heed my words! You must!" An'had attempted to struggle, but was restrained by two burly Na'vi, and dragged away. "We will all regret this! Not just me, or the clans, but everyone! Cease listening to the voices of the past, listen to yourselves for a while!" His voiced faded into the distance, and a modicum of order returned to the war council.

An'had, the Na'vi outcast, sat alone on a tall rock. It had been a day since he was forcibly removed from the gathering of his fellows - or perhaps former fellows. Now, more than ever before, he felt alone. Not even one who had been adopted by the people, despite being a false-bodied dreamwalker, would heed his words. Hope seemed completely lost, as he pondered what would become of his beloved species. Only the Na'vi, among all those who sprang up from the well of life on Pandora, had been given the gift of thought. And he was made outcast for daring to use that gift for the benefit of all... except Eywa, perhaps.

He had come to hate the manifestation of their goddess so much he had voluntarily severed his connection to her and her creatures. She made them stay in stasis, forever balanced with the other creatures that dwelt on the world, never becoming anything more than a band of scavengers and hunters. When he learned from the human missionaries, he saw a bright future, with wonders yet unheard of, and brought this opinion with him to his home clan, where he was rejected, and cast out. His brethren were too attuned to the cause of Eywa to ever listen to him. He had hoped that the ex-human Sully could regard him as a kindred spirit, but in this he was wrong. Nobody was as fanatical as a convert, it seemed.

The best hope he had has been crushed under the zeal of Sully, and the unthinking savagery of the other Na'vi. Now he sulked, trying to think of any other way to salvage the situation. The humans would surely win over the people this time, there was no doubt about that. They had come in force, and brought many more warriors and war-machines - he saw them, when he spied stealthily, days ago, at Hell's Gate. An'had could not imagine that the Na'vi could field such a number of warriors, much less match the skypeople in the devices they had. Perhaps Eywa would help them again, but relying on that atavistic mind was not something one did without paying a price, the price of dependance. They had been dependant on Eywa for far too long, and he thirsted for the day that Na'vi could be independent, like they humans were. Perhaps they too could reach the stars...

"Lone kitty," said Lee. She hadn't changed much in the last couple of weeks, unlike the other commandos, who have become fatigued by the near-constant encounters with the Na'vi and the paranoia-inducing jungle. They all bore minor wounds, never allowed to heal completely. Hansen did all he could, but field medicine wasn't exactly fine-tuned nanosurgery.

"We're running low on ammunition," reported the sergeant, obviously implying that the default plan was to unabashedly slay the Na'vi.

"He hasn't noticed us yet," the researcher proclaimed. "It appears he is meditating, and facing away from us. If we are stealthy, no bullets need be fire. By the way, I thought you had munitions-producing equipment." She raised a mechanical eyebrew at the commando.

"We do, but they require raw materials," Feathers, who bore said equipment, answered. "If this were Earth, there'd be plenty of metal scrap and raw materials for propellant. Guess the quartermaster didn't think about availability here, because next to nothing we put in the input hole is qualified to be appropriate."

"That's strange," Ai pondered. "The trees are allegedly composed of carbon-based materials. They ought to be processable into gunpowder, at least, and I saw you collect ejected shell casings."

"It still don't work," shrugged the big man.

"Gentlemen. Focus on the problem at hand," the sergeant chastised. "Which is dealing with this Na'vi."

"It is the first time we see a lone one," the lieutenant spoke up. "This is unusual. Theories, miss Lee?"

"Well..." she placed a finger on her chin, looking up at the canopy. "It could be that he's some sort of mystic, or hermit. Or some kind of leader. I'm afraid I'm not well versed in Na'vi psychology and societal structures."

"So he's special," Luther remarked. "We know the lingo, basic stuff, anyway. Bag and interrogate?"

"Yes, private," agreed Thompson. "Let's do it."

It was over in just a moment. The Na'vi was sadly incompetent - in their parlance, he was no doubt called one who cannot see. When the commandos surrounded him, moving with extreme stealthy, he just sat there, until the moment when Feathers and Tao threw a net over his head, and started dragging him off from the precipice of the rock. An'had screamed in indignation, and struggled but he soon saw human weapons levelled at him, and ceased to be counterproductive. Quietly, he waited, while the humans decided what to do next - or were just hesitant for some reason. Even at this distance, he could not readily decide whether his assailants were male or female; his experience with actual skypeople was limited, most of his knowledge about them coming from the dreamwalkers. He was finally approached by one with an air of authority surrounding it.

"Name. You," the human said slowly, in the Omaticaya dialect, with an accent that was so horrible it was barely recognizable as speech.

"An'had..." the Na'vi divulged. He did something surprising - switching to English, which was almost passable. "My name is An'had."

Some of the weapon-toting humans looked at each other. Others did not, intently keeping their firespitters trained on him. Clearly, they did not trust him to remain cooperative.

"Well, then, An'had," the human leader spoke, "tell us who you are. Are you a mystic? A shaman?"

An'had blinked. The question surprised him, and the shock of having such a supposition being thrown at him also made him notice one other thing about these humans. Aside from the fact that they were far too close to Na'vi settlements, a long way away from their base, they had no clear masks on their faces. They seemed to be breathing Pandoran air just fine, as if they were Na'vi!

"No," he finally replied. "I am... outcast." He turned his head slightly. At least some of the skypeople seemed to be catching on that he had no braid, just a severed stump at the base of his skull. Their lips moved, as if they were speaking, but no words could be heard. He watched them for a few moments, and could only suppose that they were either engaging in some strange human custom, or otherwise somehow magically speaking to one another in a fashion that excluded him from the conversation. The wonders of technology! He was almost beside himself that he could at least watch it work, shortly before he was no doubt executed for being worthless to them. These were warriors, and they doubtless captured him hoping he was some kind of important figure, perhaps to torture him for information. Unfortunately, he wasn't. An'had began preparing himself for death. At least he wouldn't be going to join the others in Eywa, though that was a small consolation.

"What were you exiled for?" the one in charge asked plainly. The question didn't state that they knew anything, revealed nothing, simply demanded information from the speaker. An'had could see that the humans were trying to avoid saying anything that could give him ideas as to what they wanted, or what they have already learned through the simple fact of getting to where they were.

"I exiled for crime of thought," An'had struggled with the vocabulary. "I support in past human school. Want learn. Take thought back tribe, chief not happy. I not take back word. Conflict with shaman. I say Eywa bad for People. I outcast." He looked down at the ground, while the humans, all of them, just couldn't help make eye contact with one another.

For hours, the human has grilled him on his life and stance, but also on other information, relevant to the Na'vi forces and the terrain. The sun had set by the time he seemed satisfied, and he wandered off, leaving three of the other humans in charge. During his interrogation, An'had had been cooperative, and allowed himself the luxury of hope. Perhaps they wouldn't kill him. They seemed incredibly intrigued with what he was telling them, even if he could imagine they were dubious. The outcast wondered what their motivations might be, and why they were here. Possibly advance scouts. He couldn't really know, and didn't dare to ask.

"Luther, I'm tasking you with this," lieutenant Thompson stated with an air of finality. "I know you can stay up longer than anyone else. So you make very sure you watch that strange kitty 24/7. Stop only to rest up, the route is already mapped, so you should be moving a lot faster than we did on the way here. Bring him directly to Hell's Gate. Don't dawdle."

"Yes, sir," the private responded with all the proper respect. He knew when shit was serious, and it was serious now.

"Good. If what he's saying is true," the lieutenant theorized, "then it means our mission, the whole damn thing, will be simplified greatly, because we know we can get through their damned skulls and reach some rational bit there. Maybe, just maybe, we can solve this with minimum genocide. Don't fuck this up."

"No, sir. I won't let you down, sir!" Luther saluted crisply.

"Pack your bags, kitty-cat," one of the humans returned. "You're going to be taken to our leader, like it or not." He slowly untied the captive's bonds - the ones on the legs, anyway. "Don't try to escape. I'd hate to shoot your legs off and then have to carry you all the way to Hell's Gate."

"Your leader?" An'had was fairly incredulous, standing up.

"You'll meet her soon enough," the human warrior said, and pointed southwest. "That way. You lead, and don't forget I have na eye on you."

"Ma'am, we got a call from a private Luther on the satellite commlink," the aide said, and Natasha looked up from her bowl of soup. Unlike most of her troops, and like pretty much everyone in command positions, she was allowed some real food, rather than the compressed nutriblocks that were the fare of the grunts until their quickfarms on the surface began bearing some fruit. She was also afforded the luxury of being able to dine in the spinning section of the ship, which was convenient, since it made eating soup possible. What it also made possible was that everyone who wasn't informed that the general was not to be disturbed - which supposed to be a null set - could just waltz in. Just like this aimless aide.

Unfortunately, she couldn't really chastise him - because she recalled who Luther was. One of the commandos she had sent to hunt down Sully. Were they done already? She didn't allowed herself to hope it was that easy. Also, why was a mere private making the call, not Lieutenant Thompson? These questions would soon be answered, she supposed. "Thatk you, corporal," she dismissed the man, and took up her personal assistant. Punching virtual buttons led her to the remote interface through which she could connect with the satellite uplink, and join a call in progress.

The heavily distorted face of a young man appeared on the screen. Even through the distortion, she could see that he bore a bandage on his head.

"Private, you are disturbing my meal," she calmly stated. She felt the surge of pleasure when she saw the fuzzy image of fear on the man's face. She liked exercising her authority whenever she could, as it just felt good in a primal fashion that never ceased to amuse her. "Explain." Unfortunately, she didn't get more chances at chastising, since the soldier composed himself rather quickly.

"Ma'am," he spoke, though the buzzing sound in the background was making his words somewhat hard to understand, "I have a report on the situation, and, uh, a surprise."

"Surprise?" she raised her eyebrows, somewhat intrigued. He did say this was important, but a surprise?

"We have captured and interrogated a certain Na'vi," Luther reported, "who claims to be an exile from their dominant culture. The way he tells it, he's sympathetic to our cause, and opposed to the Na'vi fighting with us. I have been ordered by Lieutenant Thompson to bring him to Hell's Gate for further questioning."

The implications of this simple statement were mindblowing. Natasha took a few seconds to sort them out. "That is extremely interesting. Very good, you are to carry on with your orders, private," she nodded. "And since you are already talking, give me that situational report you said you had."

"Yes, ma'am!"

The thunder of engines was the first hint that they Na'vi settlement had to the impending arrival of the human forces. Heads turned, and all work stopped, be it weaving, tapping out tribal rhythms on primitive drums, or a myriad other everyday tasks. They were not read to face their human foes here, in the safety of their homes, as their enemies have come unexpectedly, dropping from the clouds above. The warriors, few of them that did not go to the great conclave held by Jakesully, readied their weapons immediately.

"Na'vi!" boomed a mechanical voice from overhead, punching through the horrible noise their flying machines made. It spoke in their native tongue, though accented strangely, and pronounced wrongly. "You see before you the forces of the United Earth Armed Forces! Surrender immediately, and you will not be harmed. Do otherwise, and we will be forced to take offensive action! This is your one and only warning!"

"How dare those psh'lui command us?" roared the chief's heir, Or'fidi, in charge of the settlement in his absence. "To the trees! We will show them the true meaning of the people's might!"

Even those for whom the calling for the life of a hunter or warrior was absent took up their weapons, and hooted in agreement.

"You have twenty seconds to comply!" the voice announced.

The Na'vi deftly started climbing the tallest trees in the area, toting bows, arrows, spears and knives.

"Fitfeen seconds!" the voice continued.

There weren't that many flying machines. Merely five. As Sully demonstrated in his battles with the skypeople, their devices were destructible, if shot at from above.

"Ten seconds!"

Fortunately for them, the local canopy was high, standing out from the treeline around the settlement.

"Five seconds! Your time is running out!"

"Attack!" Or'fidi bellowed, drawing his bow, and firing off an arrow at the nearest flying metal box. He aimed for the vulnerable part, the translucent area behind which sat the rider of the machine. Properly aimed - and he was the best archer in their village - an arrow could pierce through that, and kill the one controlling it. That was one of the tricks Sully gave them.

The arrow glanced off. Or'fidi watched in amazement, even as other arrows and spears failed to penetrate the glass. They didn't even make a scratch.

"Nice try, chuckleheads!" the voice said, using a word that was untranslatable. The Na'vi rightly assumed it was an insult of some kind, but did not have time to ruminate how much they were slighted before the humans started shooting at them with explosive munitions.

The first rounds were aimed at the bases of the trees, as much as they could be targetted through the dense undergrowth and surrounding treeline. It proved to be enough, with decent amounts of overkill at that. The Na'vi have foolishly thought to challenge them here, and now they were paying the price of failure, the falling trees being their causes of death - at least for those not quite quick or agile enough to get the hell out of dodge before they were either crushed or fell to their untimely deaths.

The pilots felt secure in their machines, because humans rarely if ever failed to improve upon their inventions, and doubly so if their lives depended on them. In this case, the strengthened diamond-nanotube armoured fiberglass was the improvement in question. Following the obvious lack of appropriate protection demonstrated aptly by the defeat of modern technology at the hands of bow-shooting, spear-chucking tribals, the researchers behind the latest in armoured protection came up with something better. Having tested the new glass technology to be adequate in stopping most low-caliber rounds, as well as high-caliber, high-mass projectiles launched at near-ballistic speeds, they pronounced it ready for service on Pandora. It worked like a charm.

"Look at them run!" a gunner in an armoured gun turrent commented, grinning wildly. "Haha! Take it! Take it all!" he lead machine gun fire after the escaping bluekitties. "Die, die, die! Hahaha!"

"When did ya start to be a psycho, Raj?" the pilot replied, launching fire-and-forget missiles at the few remaining stumps.

"I become one whenever I get to sit behind this baby!" Rajaman answered enthusiastically, over the constant din of automatic fire being levelled at the routed Na'vi savages. "You're already fucking dead, kitty-cats! You just don't know it yet! But now you do! Hahaha! Ain't war great, Jim?"

"Sure is, Raj, sure is," Jim agreed.

Or'fidi has barely escaped with his life, which could not be said of far too many of his friends and relatives from their home villages, which was effectively destroyed by the humans' attack. When the skypeople were done burning the settlement to the ground, the skypeople simply flew off. What was slightly disconcerting, after taking the shock of being unhomed and decimated, was that the humans were heading away from the estimated location of their only base. They were heading for the nearest other Na'vi settlement.

The ragged survivors of the assault could do nothing to warn their brethren from the neigbrouring tribe, slower that they were than the infernal machines of the invaders. Or'fidi and his beleaguered comrades trudged slowly north. It was where Sully's staging area was. They were beaten, but now they thirsted for revenge. For their fathers, mothers, and children. For their uncles, aunts and cousins. For every Na'vi that had the indignity of having to die at the hand of one of the demons that came from the sky.

On the plains, the Na'vi lived a nomadic life, going wherever the herds of the animals they preyed on moved. Nobody ever thought of farming, or herding animals. These things were inventions of the humans, and they had no place on Pandora - at least not in the minds of the right-thinking Na'vi. Their lives were simple ones, filled with hardship, but rewarding in its primitive charm. They were a part of the ecosystem, and lived in harmony with nature, never taking more than they needed, taking care not to disturb the delicate ecological balance between the species of the great Pandoran savannas.

They dwelt to the far north, where the rains were less frequent, and the humongous trees could not grow in the absence of regular downpour. Even farther were the polar forests, where Na'vi did not dwell, for it was too cold, and no Na'vi could withstand such temperature for long before succumbing to death. They did not want to go there, because their place was here, where they were born, and died, and were returned to Eywa.

But it was from the north that death came for them. A lone makto approached the village, riding the hexapedal horse almost to its death.

"Chieftain! Chieftain!" she called, breathless, jumping off her steed. "Disaster!"

"What is the meaning of this?" the aged leader of the tribe emerged from his yurt. The rider was from another clan, and had entered their territory without his permission - he would have known otherwise, as she would have been accompanied by his own clansmen as escorts. "Speak now, for my temper is short!"

"The humans come!" she pointed to the north. "They have burned my tribe, all are dead, all are dead!"

"Unimaginable," spoke the old Na'vi, and indeed it was. That the skypeople would be - and could be - so destructive could not make it far into his entrenched mind. "You lie. The human ts'ay are too cowardly to ever challenge the mighty Ikkoik tribe!" His people agreed, grunting assurances.

"Are you daft, old chief?" the rider spat at his feet. "I, Jik'xat, speak to you. My tribe and clan are no more. Even as Jakesully rallies the clans, the humans are upon us. Look!" she pointed again to the north. A cloud of dust could be seen rising over the horizon. "You must waste no time! When they reach here, they will slay all that live!"

The tribals watched the cloud rise, and move. "If what you say is true, then we must fight, not run!" one of the younger warriors said, thrusting his spear into the sky. "Chief! Lead us to glory and victory!"

"So be it!" the chief readily agreed, fully - and foolishly - confident that they could take on any amount of skypeople, for they were weak, small, and slow. They had their fire-spitters, but those would not save them, if they could never hit the fast riders of the tribe. "Mount, and we shall meet them in the field!"

"Fools!" the rider's face twisted in derision. "You go only to your deaths!" she claimed, and galloped away, in the direction opposite the encroaching humans.

"Coward!" it was the chief's turn to spit, though the escaping woman was too far away to even notice by the time the spittle hit the grass. He called for his horse, and his clan shortly readied for battle.

They were many, for only a few of them embarked at the request of Jakesully of the Jarhead clan to the war council. The chief was too experienced to leave his home unguarded, and didn't see the humans as a threat worthy of gathering every Na'vi who lived on Pandora. Let Sully fight the humans, he decided, and only sent a few envoys to represent them, in order to keep his standing while at the same time staying on their territory and protecting it from those of the neighbouring tribes who thought to do a similar thing.

They were also completely unprepared for what they were about to face. The Na'vi rode their six-legged beasts, eager to meet the enemy and slay them for being so audacious as to even approach their lands. The warriors could see no better way to express their distate for the skypeople and their mindless ways, especially that the lone rider said they were to be feared. Were the plainspeople not mighty? Could they not meet any challenge and crush it beneath the hooves of their mounts? They thought themselves to be invincible, in a fashion that all young men do, but they did so collectively, for the Na'vi were little more than children on the scale of progress from savagery.

What the clansmen saw were rows upon rows of skypeople, marching in usison, clad in metal. After them rode the humans' vehicles, disturbing the dry dust that the grass could not entirely bind. Still others walked in suits as tall, if not moreso, than any of the People, only unlike the garb they had already seen in the past, these did not expose the wearer to the outside. They were supported by the flying, mechanical mounts, the likes of which the Na'vi had seen before, and some that were new. It all looked quite impressive to the makto, but not impressive enough to keep them from thirsting for battle.

"Makto! Charge!" the chief bellowed mightily, and rode faster, building up momentum for the strike, hefting his spear in preparation of plunging it into the heart of the nearest human demon. This resulted in the mere effect that he was shot first, eviscerated along with his mount by heavy machine gun fire. His fellow riders were not far behind, never getting so much as to spear-chucking distance to the skypeople's army.

When the dust settled, and the last drops of blue blood touch the grass, the Na'vi riders were no more. Not a single one had survived the terrible onslaught of the humans' rage. With them dead, the demonic invaders simply marched on, intent on reaching their temporary encampment. The women and children, by the time the sluggishly stampeding horde got there, were long gone. They werely wrecked havoc upon the equipment and shelter left behind, and marched onwards. This wasn't the only Na'vi settlement they planned on executing this day.

"The attacks are proceeding completely as planned, ma'am," reported general Zhu, leering from the holoscreen. He was down on the planet, unlike his air support counterpart, the acting major general Salles. "We're encountered no significant resistance, and taken no casualties," he continued to say. "It is my belief, ma'am, that we have not yet located the brunt of the Na'vi forces, or otherwise that the population estimates we did were overestimating the amount of Na'vi living on the surface of the moon."

"Which do you think is more likely?"

"The former, ma'am," the general said. "Even if it is, however, we should be able to accomplish our subjugation campaign with no statistically significant losses. The new powered armour designs are more than satisfactory."

"Excellent," Velasquez allowed herself to crack a smile. "But how goes the effort to make the enemy submit to our rule?"

"Not so well, ma'am," the lower-ranked general admitted. "Though we have destroyed over a score of their settlements, both temporary and permanent, the Na'vi are extremely reluctant to even talk to us. We have made every effort to convey to them the terms of their surrender, but none of the approached settlements have made so much as a hesitant effort to comply. In all cases, we have been met with what passes as deadly force on this moon, and extreme aggression. It is too early to tell whether it is an inborn savagery, xenophobia or simply underestimation of our military might that triggers this response."

"Very well," grumped Velasquez. She didn't really see the idea behind this 'peaceful resolution,' but her superiors would no doubt be happier if she made a nominal effort towards it. It did not cost her forces very much - perhaps a few dozen seconds of time before the shooting started. "Continue trying. They might eventually see reason."

"Affirmative, ma'am."

Eywa hurt. It was a pain that could hardly be described with words or even thoughts originating from the minds of individual creatures, such as humans, or Na'vi. She was the collective intellect of all those who lived and died on the surface of Pandora, and much more - she was the planetmind. Everything on Pandora was connected, and the sum of those connections made up what the lesser of the sophont races called Eywa. She was in pain, and she was intensely angry.

These upstarts, who didn't even originate within her biosphere, had the gall to come to her surface, and slay her children? It wasn't that the Na'vi were especially beloved by Eywa, as they were not. They were one of the multitude of species that made up her collective consciousness. Each and every one was important. Every single being had a contribution to give to the entity called Eywa, and now the lives of these entities were cut brutally, short - and more importantly, they were cut in a way that prevented her from integrating them into the Song. They were annihilated and forever separated from her vast intellect.

She mourned the fallen, and in her mourning, her anger began to grow. Eywa could not recall, in the millennia of existence she bore witness to, when she was this wrathful. Her beautiful trees! Burned! Her bright, though sometimes reticent, sentients! Slain! Invaders, from the Void beyond, come to her, and inflicting a cruel treatment of those who dwelt upon her, profaning her hospitality! This all filled her with rage, rage that could only be expressed by a being of her immense magnitude.

Generations could live and die, forever filled with their petty hatreds, and never reach the levels of anger that Eywa felt in this moment. Her feelings made themselves apparent to all who could see, and hear, and even those who merely breathed the air and walked on six feet. Every being native to the world could perceive Eywa's distress and antagonistic feelings, and they were afraid. Afraid, not of being targetted by this planetary fury, but by the mere side-effects of that passion turned against the perpetrators of sins against Eywa. They knew, instinctively, that Eywa's vehemence could not be stopped. How could one conceive of stopping a force of nature? It could not be done.

Hell's Gate. Named so for the perception of Pandora itself by the humans who built it to serve as their temporary home and staging area. Posesssing an atmosphere that could not be breathed, hot, covered in verdant jungle full of toxic plants, full of animals that were too huge to dwell in a large world like Earth and far too dangerous to ever have withstood the systematic annihilation by the dominant species of Terra, not to mention inhabited by a species of giant, savage catpeople whose primitive weapons could nonetheless pierce low-level commercial body armour with ease. For many, it was the definition of hell, or something so close that the distinction wasn't really important.

The restored and expanded complex was clearly a military base. The landing strips have been expanded, to accomodate extreme levels of traffic - built with the future in mind, rather than any significant need of the moment. The facilities housing upteen hundreds of human personnel dotted the landscape in neat rows. It was surrounded by chainlink fences, earthworks and concrete walls of sufficient height to discourage even the tall Na'vi. Its staff were mostly soldiers, well-trained and armed to the teeth. There was little that could be imagined which could have a go at harming this impregnable fortress by the most technologically advanced species in the known universe.

Which was all the more daunting, and highly reminding of similar catastrophes that invariably befell those who believed themselves to be unassailable, when something managed to punch through the immense defenses of the human encampment. It was not a stampede of armour-plated megabeasts, nor was it a raid of banshee-riding Na'vi, nor even was it the humans' own incompetence. When Eywa's rage turned upon them, they were completely unprepared - and could hardly be expected to be, the nature of the assault was so unexpected.

The ground shook. At first, slightly, but soon, the tremors built and never stopped for a moment. The soldiers within stopped in their daily tasks, to seek out the cause of these quakes, but found nothing obvious in their surroundings. The very ground began to rumble, and the vibrations still grew. On the verge of panic, humans began to scramble for some sort of cover, though it was hardly necessary. The site was not designed to have tall structures, which were the most vulnerable to earthquakes, and so the most sound-thinking of the people in the affected area merely hugged the ground, waiting for the rapidly mounting earthquake to go away. The less skilled in mental matters went into their quarters, or took up mostly stationary positions holding onto something solid.

They were wrong in this response - all of them. For Eywa was done being passive-aggressive, with her little annoyed emanations that mildly inconvenienced the humans' equipment. This was the full might of her wrath, as far as she could imagine it, for it was not imagined before. Flexing her psychic muscles, she reached deep into the moon's outer crust, and fondled the hot darkness found there. Stirring from its sleep, it rose sleepily, like a giant waking from a thousand year long nap, shaking the crust of dirt and rock from his back to walk the earth again. The giant rose up, and his head pierced the dirt above.

Earth's molten blood flowed freely from the gaping crevice that formed in the center of the human base of operations. Tendrils of red hot stone reached out and groped the plasteel containers which served as accomodations for the skypeople. More ill-tempered ones shot into the sky, becoming separated and falling back down when the inexorable force of gravity pulled them down again. The giant's black exhalation filled the air with darkness, and where that foul gloom fell upon the panicked and fleeing humans, it slew them where they ran. Their workings were undone, even as they themselves were slain.

Tens of thousands died. When Eywa's infernal madness receded, the site that formerly held Hell's Gate was nothing more than a cooling pool of lava, with the higher bits of human architecture still poking out of it. Some few humans have managed to escape her wrath, but they were a mere fraction of those who dwelt in that doomed place. Fatigued with her exertion of power, though deeply satisfied with the outcome, she rested.

CHAPTER 10

"What?" general Natasha Velasquez simply asked upon being given a concise, but information-laden report on what had transpired down on the surface. "If I didn't know any better, I would say that you cannot be serious, and this is some sort of cruel joke. But I do know better, so please say that last part again, to make certain I heard everything correctly."

The lieutenant who had drawn the short straw just minutes ago swallowed, trying to avoid letting it show. She did not know the general too well, but a reputation of cruelty and advocation of genocide was something that oozed through the rank and file quickly, and doubly so through the officer corps. Which was why she could barely contain the massive amount of stress she was being subjected to for the mere lucklessness of being chosen to give general Velasquez the report.

"Around 1400 local time, Hell's Gate registered the first tremors," the unfortunate lieutenant began her speech again. "Over the course of a minute, these tremors grew in intensity, up to 8 in the Richter scale as measured by the instruments on site. One minute, three seconds after the first tremors could be felt, the ground at Hell's Gate split, giving way to a volcanic eruption. Casualties include all equipment stored at Hell's Gate at the time, plus ninety percent of the personnel. One percent managed to escape unscathed, while the other nine were injured in various way. The total casualty count makes up for nearly half the land forces deployed to Pandora, due to the fact that the rest of them deployed in operation Gutenberg in other parts of the continent. Only thirty percent of the air forces were lost, as we have not deployed them in full force yet, and because a part of it was engaged in operation Gutenberg also."

She finished talking, feeling dry-mouthed. The general looked impassive and was silent.

Inwardly, general Velasquez was caught in a flashback to her past. Once before she received such crushing news, even if they were of a somewhat different nature, though the force of the blow was similar. Here, she had just heard that her army suffered extreme casualties - back then, she was informed that the person she truly cared about was dead. The first time something like this happened, she utterly flipped out, substituting rage for grief.

Her husband, Enrico Velasquez, was a general like herself, though of a different command chain, thus allowing for a public relationship. He served in the Middle East, battling the forces of islamic fanaticism. He was charismatic, aggressive and had stolen Natasha's black heart. At the time of his demise, he was in his command tent, establishing a strategy with his direct subordinates. Somehow, a group of terrorists, disguised as his troops, managed to infiltrate the base and successfully broke through the cordon of defenses around the field headquarters. By the time Enrico was hit by a stray bullet in the neck, everyone of his loyal comrades was down, and he was surrounded by enemies - he managed to slay three before one of them finally got lucky. He died as he had lived, bravely opposing the spread of religious nutcases.

Natasha fell into despair the likes of which she had not experienced before. Drifting in an out of mindless fury, she lost much of her reputation for competence and stability. Her advocacy of dealing with the problem in the most expedient way - by using nukes to just glass most of the Middle East - did not help her case, and she was ultimately forcibly retired.

Eventually, she recovered, to a degree that she could, scars remaining on her soul. She appointed herself a mandate - to wipe out fanatics such as those who killed her husband from the face of the planet. Though she was not a military commander anymore, she could still pull strings and socialize in ways only a woman could, and she did. In this way, she had gotten the attention and respect of de Luca, which landed her on Pandora.

As far as she was concerned at first, the Pandoran problem was simply a stepping stone on her way to domination of the decision-making society of the human worlds - but as she learned more about the way the natives went about their business, the less she liked them. In an uncanny way, they were similar to muslim nutjobs, enamored in their strange religion, willing to sacrifice everything to do everything its tenets prescribed, nevermind the mindlessness of it all. More and more, she believed that nothing would do, except the total annihilation of their culture.

"Ma'am?" the lieutenant asked quietly, waking general Velasquez from her daydream.

"Thank you, lieutenant," Natasha assumed a foul grimace. "That is all. Dismissed."

The young officer saluted primly, affirmed the order, and got out of sight with extreme fervor. Natasha wished to be left alone for a while. Walking directly to her quarters, she ignored the looks, salutes and all attempts to get her attention. The situation was tense on board the Gallega, for good reason. Morale took a great dip when the soldiers realized that about half their buddies, or familiar faces as the saying went in the army, were dead - and not even dead fighting the enemy, but because the ball of dirt below just took a dislike to them.

Damnation! This situation just took a turn for the worse. Half her ground forces! This was incredible! Unimaginable, yet here it was. That a natural disaster would target that exact place where they set up camp, and actually be of the magnitude which would cause such extreme casualties was so improbable it did not bear thinking about. She did not plan for something like this - nobody could plan for something like this! It was as if God himself worked against them, which was ridiculous.

Natasha sat down heavily behind her desk. Her subordinates could deal - and no doubt were already dealing - with the immediate measures required to get a handle on the situation. What remained to her in this case was to find out what the hell happened and make up a new strategy, as their old one required the use of Hell's Gate as a staging point. They could set up another camp, but it would be much less impressive than what they had, so much equipment was lost irretrievably. She'd need to call a brainstorming session with her direct underlings - a quick query revealed that general Zhu was still alive, owing to being outside of the base when the catastrophe struck. But first, she needed to talk to someone about a more in-depth explanation.

Natasha pressed a few keys on her desktop intercom, a few seconds later, she was talking to dr Albert Soyl.

"You. Explanation. Now," she steadily uttered in the direction of the researcher. He took a moment to compose himself after this verbal sneak attack.

"Well. I suppose that you want an explanation of what transpired down on the surface," he adjusted his glasses.

"You guessed right," Natasha said acidly, though it was hardly the scientist's fault. He was just in her sight at the moment, and she felt bad. So he got the brunt of the assault, after the young lieutenant got off lightly.

"I just found out a minute ago, but I've got some sensor readouts I'm analyzing as we speak," he looked offscreen for a few moments. "What I can tell you, ma'am, is that it's one hell of a weird occurrence."

"Expound," Natasha squinted.

"As you are no doubt aware, Pandora scores very low on seismic activity," Soyl began a mini-lecture. "Compared to Earth, it is very benign where it comes to tectonic shifts and volcanic eruptions." Before general Velasquez could point out the obvious, he continued. "Which is the very curious part, since we were just victims of one very unfortunate eruption. I must say that I am extremely puzzled. Geology is not my specialty, but even I can tell that this is a huge mystery. The location of the volcanic rupture, Hell's Gate, was chosen partly because of the stability of the region. There never should have been any kind of quakes or the slightest fissure - this entire region is in the middle of a large continental plate, almost completely flat in relative terms to more seismically active areas, and it would take a miracle to produce such an event that actually did occur just now."

"You're not making sense," the general waved a finger accusingly. "Start making some, or I will be forced to replace you. I don't want theory - I want practical information on the subject. Why did a volcano spring up at that precise location? I don't believe in coincidences."

"I don't either, ma'am," the Nobel laureate stood his ground. "In this case especially, because it has all the signs of not being coincidental. While it may sound absurd, I believe this event was somehow engineered by the Na'vi."

"What!" she almost shouted and stared at him.

"Allow me to explain further," the small man adjusted his sitting position, and took a holopad from somewhere offscreen. "According to the readings I have here, there was a massive spike in intereference just before the quakes started, and the base was almost completely out of electronic reach by the time the eruption occured. This kind of interference is associated by very high Unobtanium deposits, such as those in the Halleluyah Mountains. The problem is that the site of Hell's Gate pretty much all its Unobtanium removed due to the RDA Corporation's mining effort."

"Get to the point," Natasha was starting to get sick of the lecturing and uselessness of what she was being told.

"Very well," the scientist shrugged. "My theory is that the Na'vi influenced their planetary mind network, the so-called Eywa, to produce the effect of the eruption."

Natasha stared at him.

"I know it sounds far-fetched, but as far as I know, doctor Augustine was a qualified researcher," Soyl defended his hypothesis. "I've been reading her journals and findings, and what she found is fascinating. Of course, she was a botanist, not a physicist like me, so she didn't notice the correlation between Unotanium deposite emanations and the network node layout. Long story short," he said, noting the general's lack of patience, "pretty much everything down on Pandora is connection into a huge organism. I believe that it may be sentient, and the ability of the Na'vi to communicate with it is unquestionable - again, my citation is the research logs of the RDA Corporation's scientist team."

"Are you saying the entire planet is against us?" calmly, Natasha asked, with a lack of emotion that denoted utter seriousness.

"No, just the biosphere, but..." Soyl trailed off. He found his tongue soon enough. "Said biosphere obviously has some impact on geology, and can manipulate layers as low as the outer mantle. More research is needed before I can say anything more. This is all new to me, and incredibly interesting, as you might imagine, ma'am."

"Inform me if you get anything more," Natasha commanded the researcher, then killed the connection without saying good-bye.

This was astounding. If she understood the scientist correctly, this meant that Eywa, the goddess of the Na'vi, could actually be a physical entity. With the brain the size of a planet, said entity would be extremely intelligent, and if doctor Soyl's hypothesis was correct, extremely dangerous. However, if it could be somehow harnessed, it could prove to be a weapon of incredible power - if somewhat limited to the planet here, at the moment. She imagined importing Pandoran wildlife onto planets deemed habitably by the colonization authorities, and thereby speeding up the rate of terraforming - simply by commanding the planetmind to make it more suitable for human habitation. The value of such a creature would be unimaginable.

They had to figure out how to contact it, through the Na'vi or by themselves somehow. While she hated the former idea, it was the most appropriate solution that she could think of on short notice. They still deserved to die in bulk for their savagery and unwilligness to see reason, but that could be delayed for the meanwhile. Natasha smiled to herself, knowing just the way to establish some sort of communication that didn't involve hurling threats at each other.

"An'had, is it?" Natasha said, addressing the captive across the table. He was securely bound, with handcuffs, anklecuffs, and some other restraints. He sat on a chair modified to suit his gigantic physique, in a room with only one exit, and an armed soldier in every corner. Escape was patently impossible, and general Velasquez felt safe enough to conduct the interrogation in person. In contrariness to the usual way these things worked in this system, it was the felinoid alien who wore a facemask this time, rather than the humans. This was seen as an extra measure of safety - incapacitating the Na'vi would be as simple as sending the shutdown signal to his custom respiration unit.

Perhaps owing to the denseness of the Pandoran undergrowth, he and the human who brought him here, private Luther, were somewhat tardy in their arrival at Hell's Gate, and that was all that saved their lives. If they had arrived a few hours later, they would probably have been incinerated by the volcanic eruption. As it was, they returned only when the surviving forces and the relief manpower sent from orbit was trying to work damage control on the area. They were sent to orbit as soon as it was practical, which was soon enough - just how long it took to procure a modified breathing unit for the Na'vi outcast.

"Yes, that is my name," answered the Na'vi outcast. For expedience, he was speaking his native tongue, and specially designed software translated it into plain English. Private Luther raised the problem of the savage having only a basic grasp of the humans' language, and miraculously, his suggestion was actually being implemented.

"My subordinates inform me that you're some kind of outcast for crimes against the Na'vi dogma," the general left the explicit question out, but it seemed that An'had managed to catch the idea that he was supposed to speak up.

"It is so," he tried to make a gesture that was the Na'vi equivalent to a nod, reflexively, but was denied by the nature of his restraints. "I am a blasphemer against the worship of Eywa, and for this I was cast out of my tribe, and the entire nation of the People. I oppose what she stands for, and wish that my people would not fight you, the skypeople, and instead learn from you. I have severed my connection with Eywa. I am my own, rather than an... unfree, boundman, slave," he struggled with the concept, and the translating software mimicked it rather aptly.

General Velasquez considered this intensely. If he was against Eywa, and further without a braid through which he might make a connection to the planetmind, then he was useless in that respect. She let only a hint of displeasure through to her facial expression, though, as the savage traitor had other uses besides influencing Eywa directly.

"That's a rather refreshing change of pace, for your species," Natasha shifted to a more comfortable position, still looking at the restrained and bemasked Na'vi. "What plans do you have of making your wishes reality? I presume that you don't just sit on rocks and brood on the indignity of your fate."

"That is so," the Na'vi confirmed, and this time performed a human nod, which was much easier to do within the confines of his bonds. "I have attempted to stop the war council from concluding to fight you. But Jakesully thinks otherwise, and the others agree. They see you as bringing only death, and so they find no reason to speak to you. I have tried to explain that the error may be theirs, in attacking all skypeople who go near, but they would not listen."

"Intriguing," remarked the general. "How would you like to try to speak to them again, and change their mind in this respect?"

"How would that help?" the native looked impassive. "They have rejected me once. They are unlikely to listen to me again, for I am an outcast. There is precious little I can say to make them stop and consider, much less change their minds."

"But their point is that we bring death to all," she explained. "If we make it known that we have treated you with less that annihilation, and then send you to them as our envoy, they may find that they don't have a leg to stand on."

The Na'vi hesitated. "Many are very stubborn, but you make a good point, skyleader," he tried to use a word that would reflect on her position among the humans here. "If I am escorted by your warriors, they might hesitated long enough for me to speak to them. Not all are so unreasonable as to reject everything, and if I can get their attention, I might be able to change what they have agreed upon."

Natasha smiled broadly. "This can be arranged," she said. "I will send you down to the planet, with members of my diplomatic corps, and a suitable escort. As your former comrades might know already, our airships have been improved since the last time humans visited Pandora, so you should be quite safe from their retaliatory attacks."

"Thank you, skyleader," An'had attempted a bow, which came out shallow, but the intent of the gesture was plain enough. "I wish for nothing else but for peace between our people."

Still keeping her smile, Natasha considered the course of the plan. It might work, it might not, but chances were good - and this savage was completely expendable. If it worked, great - they could have the diplomats arrange for something tricky to con the natives out of the secret of controlling Eywa and the Unobtanium deposits - sparing her troops the work of killing Na'vi until they caved in anyway. Otherwise, they would just continue the war of genocide against the primitives while they were any primitives to be found, and when they were completely routed, they'd find out the secret of Eywa anyway. If there was anything she liked to do it was trusting in the advances of science to solve all their problems.

As she was leaving the interrogation chamber, she considered the unsolved issue of the assassination squad sent to end Sully. It was unfortunate that she could not give them more orders, for they were outside of communication for quite a while now - probably doing their jobs to the best of their abilities - but it was a minor issues that would probably blow away easily enough. Hell, if they killed Sully, then the negotiations would probably be going smoother, without the traitor to antagonize the Na'vi savages into conflict with their betters. Things were looking up.

Eywa dreamed, following the ultimately exhausting exertion of wielding her newfound power. The voices of the dead, and the small arrogant minority of those who were still alive filled her dreams. They all wanted things, but they were as insects compared to her, and she existed in spite of their motivations. It was they who made her possible, but she had grown beyond the petty needs of her constituent parts, and became something more. Something independent, and capable of crushing those who went against her will. Those who were integrated into her vast body and soul were tolerated - she felt that she owed them that much, they would not be silenced. They could speak with the living, sometimes. At other times, she would take up the great requests from those walking about, which only strengthened her power over them. As she was once dependant on them, they have become dependant on her. This was good.

The goddess dreamed of the conflict ahead. She could foresee only the deaths of everyone who stood against her and her chosen people. Then once again she would have complete hegemony over the world that was her. The arrogant and disrepectful skypeople would learn that they could not win when she was their enemy. It was a shame that they could not be assimilated. She had tried with the ones slain within her jungles, but found them utterly alien. They strived for happiness, which they could never achieve, in ways that caused them endless grief. Eywa had to silence those voices, lest they poison the native ones. Again, a shame, but necessary. Necessity was something she understood well, and would do anything in her power - everything, it seemed - to preserve her well-being, and the health of her life sphere. While she drew breath through the lungs and leaves of Pandoran life, the humans would find no peace here.

CHAPTER 11

Sully took his damn time with the organizing of the tribes, partly because he was organizing much more of them than previously. When they were nearing completion, their scouts noted that the human forces were approaching - as expected. They knew that the skypeople have been steadily eradicating the Na'vi settlements, which only helped swell the ranks of warlord Jakesully's grand army. There were so many that the surrounding wilderness was beginning to look desolate from overhunting and overforaging. They could not remain in one place for long, as it would turn the land where they did into a desolate wasteland, and decimate morale.

The place they chose to meet the humans was a relatively large village in the shadow of the Halleluyah Mountains. The humans' equipment could not work effectively here, so they had the advantage of numbers, and their enemies would be effectively blind. The makings of a glorious victory were all there. Now, all that remained to do was to win.

Sully himself did not bother making speeches this time. His worsening condition made any longwinded announcements extremely dangerous to his reputation. Instead, he pretended to only barely control his rage at the atrocities his former species perpetrated against the Na'vi and Eywa. He regarded the ranks of the gathered warriors. Truly, there were many. A cautious estimate put their numbers at more than a hundred thousand. Now this was a force! Not like the small tactical units which were preferred by the Earthlings' militaries. Watching them, he could truly feel empowered.

Neytiri was at his side, as usual. He looked at her with a sideways glance, and cracked a toothless smile. She responded in kind. They would have time enough to themselves later, now it was time to lead the grandest of the Na'vi armies into battle.

"NA'VI!" he bellowed. "PEOPLE OF EYWA! WE RIDE TO BATTLE!"

The response was a roar of a hundred thousand throats, which would no doubt have shattered any glass nearby, if there were any - but the Na'vi dispensed with technological innovations, instead choosing a down-to-earth lifestyle, in full accordance with their ancestors who lived in the grace of Eywa.

Jakesully mounted his bound toruk, and took flight, being one with the great beast. Neytiri followed suit, astride her banshee - as did the thousands of Na'vi who made up the air force of Pandora. Those below - infantry and cavalry - made to follow the fliers. The entire throng headed south, where the humans' were reported to have set up a temporary encampment. Soon, they would give these demons the hell they so richly deserved.

The humans themselves were dealing with the destruction of their base in a variety of ways. The most apparent one was the deprecation of the plan to so much as have such a central staging point, which turned out to be extremely risky. Instead, the field commanders were instructed to build camps wherever they needed them, using whatever materials and methods seemed appropriate.

Colonel Charles Maigny decided that this small hill was the perfect spot for such as encampment, just outside the Halleluyah Mountains' flux zone. Using a modest amount of shaped charges and modern machinery, his troops cleared the top of the knoll and used the fallen trees to form an impromptu pallisade. It was not exactly a Roman camp, but it served well enough.

At the moment, the small army was resting after the conquest of two Na'vi villages to the southeast. Neither of the two even bothered to respond to their demands for surrender, and the colonel felt they were wasting their time even announcing these sorts of things. These savages preferred death to subjugation, it seemed - so they should get what they wanted. It might save the lives and health of those soldiers of his who somehow managed to get injured during the fighting. No matter how good technology got, the weakest link remained the human element. He had a dozen seriously wounded and three killed. Compared to the three thousand he commanded, they were but a drop in the ocean, but stil. All the wounded would get extra scrutiny for signs of incompetence from here on in, he resolved.

Being so close to the flux zone had some unfortunate consequences. Even if they could rely on some instruments, others went completely unintelligible with their output - and everything suffered occassional malfunctions. The devices which didn't contain critical electronics were the best thing one could have here, and the colonel thanked whatever gods were listening for the tradition to put as little advanced technology in the actual guns. As far as the common soldier was concerned, his rifle needed to shoot when he pulled the trigger, failing to do so only in the case that he ran out of ammunition. Other circumstances of failure were completely unacceptable - and however much the weapon designers lobbied for intelligent personal arms, everyone who had to actually used them opted for the low-tech route.

They first noticed the incoming attack, just before nightfall, when a junior officer, using an artifact from ancient times - purely optical binoculars - noticed some irregularities within the cloud banks overhead. Those irregularities turned out to be banshee riders in short order, diving for the human camp. To the humans' credit, it only took them a few confused moments to figure out what to do - the banshee rider force was met with a hail of anti-aircraft fire. Some were shot and killed, but the momentum just carried them forward, tumbling and spreading body parts in a grisly rain. Most of these happened to have survived, through sheer speed of the dive and the less than stellar marksmanship of he surprised human gunners. When they had almost reached the ground, their riders hurled their spears and shot their bows, inflicting some casualties on the humans - not heavy enough, however, since these humans were wearing improved armour and also did not want to get killed... which did not help much when the full weight of a plunging banshee corpse landed on someone's head. The banshee wing broke sharply, and zoomed off over the trees, gaining some advantage due concealment - but not all, as they have taken a heavy toll for their part in the attack. Among them, the rider of the Last Shadow and his mate survived miraculously unscathed.

The six-legged horse riders were the next to reach the field of battle, and they were met with an overwhelming hurricane of lead and other elements which coated the bullets shot at them by the defending humans. They were fast, but they were not as fast as the banshees, and they did not have the advantage of surprising a half-prepared foe. Only when the corpses of the beasts and their riders mounted up against the wooden barricades where they able to breach the camp and start wreaking havoc among the defending Earthlings. While their spears were relatively useless against powered armour, their mounts were quite another story - overwhelmingly huge compared to humans, they crushed those in their path, before succumbing to the intense gunfire. While they humans were relatively few, they still had automatic firearms and plenty of ammunition, and were trained well - those not immediately slain or disarmed offered the sort of resistance that few Na'vi could have expected. Within five minutes of the intense onslaught, thousands of slain Na'vi and hundreds of human casualties, the surviving riders finally withdrew into the wilderness.

Then, it was time for the infantry. They were late to the scene of the fighting, because they could not very well keep up with the banshees or the horses. Still, only minutes have passed since the bloodbath had begun when the hordes of Na'vi braves arrived on the battlefield. With the makto routed, the humans have had a precious few seconds to regroup, but they did - and once again presented a unified front against the savages' attack. That they did so from behind piles of Na'vi corpses served to bolster their morale, and dishearten their enemies, who nonetheless had an easier time of climbing up to the fortified section of the hill, using their own fallen as stepping stones and cover. The onrushing horde of blue savages was crushingly numerous, easily outnumbering the defending humans by twenty or thirty to one, but they were unarmoured, armed with primitive wooden and bone implements, and completely disorganized. They fought like the savage primitives that they were, engaging targets at random, and attempting to engage in personal combat with their chosen foes. In stark contrast, the humans fought using teamwork - covering each other, never straying from their assigned zones, spreading suppression fire like there was no tomorrow.

"We need backup now!" screamed the colonel, directing his urgency at the satellite uplink operator.

"I'm trying to connect, sir!" the addressed soldier shouted back, though he was barely audible over the hurricane of gunfire raging in the background. "It's not good! We've lost reception!"

"Shit!" the colonel swore, and emptied his sidearm into a Na'vi tribal who managed to get past the line of defense. Gaping wounds the size of fits appeared in the savage's body, and he fell dead. All the ammunition issued to the soldiers was glaser - this accomplished the primary goal of inflicting massive damage on unarmoured targets while lowering the probabality of friendly fire considerably, as the special slugs couldn't penetrate a drywall, much less hardened military armour. Owing to their nativity to a low-gravity world, the Na'vi weren't particularly dense, and thus died by the scores. "Keep trying, private!"

The colonel reloaded his weapon, and joined his subordinates in the fight of their lives.

"Makto!" Jakesully addressed his wing of banshee riders. "Turn and attack!" The primal screams of thousands of throats answered him, and the formation shifted its flight path. Now they were returning to the site of battle, while it raged below. Going very low above the treeline guaranteed them safety from hostile fire while they flew. Their numbers were somewhat diminished, but spirits were high.

In the air, accompanied by the wracking screams of the banshees and the rapidly closing sounds of gunfire from the site of battle, nobody heard their leader coughing his lungs out. The toruk was somewhat distressed, being bonded to Sully, but understood that it must not show any distress. In moments, it was immaterial, because they were upon their enemy once again.

"They're coming back!" shouted a corporal, pointing to the west and upwards. The few other soldiers who heard his cry saw that he was right - the banshee air cavalry was returning to give them hell once again.

The colonel heard this, experienced as he was in perceiving such messages, but found that he could do little. His men were engaged in close quarters with the Na'vi, who even now overflowed into the encampment and were dealt with on a personal scale. Still, it behooved him to give the order anyway, perhaps those few who harkened would make a difference.

"Fire on the fucking banshees!" he screamed at the top of his lungs, pointing upwards. Some, who were less engaged in mortal combat, did hear him and started filling the air with lead. This definitely lessened the impact of the attack somewhat, though not sufficiently to avoid casualties. Good men and women died as they were unfortunately shot with arrows in the weak points of their armour, lifted by the beasts and hurled to the ground, or simply crushed by falling bulk.

"That's fucking Sully! The orange one!" a soldier screamed. Indeed, one of the beasts was larger than the others, and distinct in its colouration.

"Kill it!" the colonel ordered, lifting a fallen comrade's rifle and aiming carefully. He watched the traitor ex-human reach the peak of his flight - no doubt hoping to disappear behind the trees again. The distance was considerable, but the rifle was accurate, and colonel Maigny was an accomplished marksman. He stopped breathing, lest it foul his aim, and squeezed the trigger ever-so-gently to send a single bullet at the accursed betrayer's heart.

"Argh!" grunted Sully, as he felt something impact the right side of his chest. His toruk convulsed in sympathetic pain, letting out an anguished roar. Exercising willpower, Sully steadied his flight and inspected his wound. It looked like he has been winged by some shot, and the wound bled profousely.

"Jake!" Neytiri matched speeds alongside. She was covered in blue and red blood, and held her bow in her hands. The look of distress was obvious on her beautiful feline features. "Jake! You are wounded!"

"I'll be fine," Jakesully shouted back, coughing. "It's just a scratch! I'll..." His coughing overtook him. Blood came out of his mouth, and he collapsed on his toruk's neck.

"JAKE!" Neytiri screamed, as the Last Shadow fell into the forest below.

Down on the ground, the soil ceased to be visible under the piles of carcasses. The battle carried on. Countless lives were lost every second. The natives fought bravely, but they expected their air force to return to harry the skypeople. When it did not, their spirits were shaken. The horde wavered, and the least courageous of the savages began to retreat. They pulled behind them those with average amount of valor, leaving behind only those foolhardy enough to stay and fight on against overwhelming odds. The human forces, though reduced to a fraction of their original size, easily mopped up the remnants.

When the dust settled, the humans had arguably won the battle, as they have remained in their chosen spot while the enemy was forced to flee, but they have lost more than half of their total numbers, and of those, perhaps a quarter were in fighting condition. Colonel Maigny was lightly injured, but alive, and ordered the bodies of the Na'vi removed from the hill - one reason was that the mounds did help the primitives attack, and the other was that they needed to get to the humans injured and crushed beneath the weight of the fallen, but perhaps still alive.

"What's your situation?" general Velasquez asked simply, from her office, when the colonel's call finally made it through all the interference. The image was fuzzy, the sound was distorted, but the connection held for the while. It was a pity it got through just now, as just moments before, she had sent out a short text message with their current status to the higher-ups back on Earth. With the costs of instant communication as they were, she really couldn't afford making another call home just yet. It would have to wait until the next scheduled occassion.

"Bad, ma'am," colonel Maigny reported. "We're down to seven hundred men. A hundred of those are in fighting condition. We have most of our gear intact, and there's plenty of ammunition and rations to go around, but we've got more wounded than we can care for, and that's not even counting the dead which we also have to take care of." The man sounded positively shell-shocked.

"You mentioned that you won this battle," the general raised an eyebrow, now more curious than anything.

"It's a pyrrhic victory, ma'am," the colonel said bluntly. "We haven't exactly counted each and every Na'vi we killed, but at a rough guess, there's fifty thousand dead kitties here. The ground is blue, ma'am, and there were many more of them involved in the attack." The image destabilized for a second before returning to usefulness. "Requesting immediate evacuation. We will not be able to hold them off if they come back for more."

"Granted," Natasha off-handedly gave the soldiers their hard-earned right to get the hell out of there. Within minutes of punching keys and speaking to aides, she had an entire air convoy ready to lift the crumbling force from the hill so many of them gave their lives for.

"Seems like we're going to be traveling together again, Cat," private Luther said to the Na'vi prisoner. They have boarded the shuttle and were being transported from orbit to the surface, to one of the mobile air force encampments, where they would be taken forth in a more convenient atmospheric-only transport.

"It apear be," An'had confirmed. Owing to a modicum of trust, and being outside of the general's presence, he has been uncuffed and wore only the facemask enabling him to survive inside environments made for humans.

"You really think your blue buddies will listen to what you have to say?" the private made conversation. "My gut feeling is that they'll try to shoot you on sight. We'll do our level best to prevent that, though, even if you're just a kitty. Heh."

"I can not say. They may. They may not," the outcast performed the equivalent of a shrug, which was, of course, lost on the human. "I hope they listen. Important they listen. Much suffering if not listen, to you and us."

"More like to you," Luther firmly believed that humanity would prevail.

"Eywa powerful. Not underestimate," the Na'vi cautioned. As a native, he understood full well that Eywa was not simply a fidgement of their imagination, that she was a real being who wielded real power. Unfortunately, it seemed that even with the recent demonstration of her power, the humans were going to underestimate her true, secret might. He admired humans for their tenacity and their technological brilliance, but at the same time, he could not imagine why they were also so stubborn in their perceptions. When they were proven wrong, they just seemed to pretend that the proof hadn't taken place. It was a methodology that baffled him, but he wondered if it wasn't also the source of the humans' positive traits, despite the seeming of extreme illogic. Just as bravery made its own victories in the face of defeat, perhaps unreason made for its own, strange sense, in allowing them to force their view upon the world, where it would normally be the other way around.

"Yeah, yeah, whatever," shrugged the private. "Eywa can't do shit unless we're on the ground. Volcanos and wildlife stampedes are well and good, but they only work if you walk on the dirt. We can fly. And if worst comes to worst, we can just bomb the shit out of everything."

An'had kept silent, but was not so sure.

"Looks like we just missed him," corporal Tilly quietly subvocalized, as Ai rummaged around the clearing they were in, examining tracks and refuse, and the others stood watch. "There was a huge swarm of Na'vi here, maybe up to a day ago, but then they went south. And when I say huge, I mean it. A hundred thousand maybe two hundred thousand, I can't say. The area is ransacked of foodstuffs. Haven't seen an edible animal in hours."

"If they're gathering in such strength, Sully is bound to be with them," adequately theorized sergeant Tao.

"I bet that's what the distant rumble last evening was," suggested PFC Feathers. "Probably met some of ours and had a fight. Can't say I envy the fellers who went against such a horde. I never even knew there was so many Na'vi on this dirtball."

The lieutenant considered this speculation. "Good catch, Feathers," he commended the subordinate. "We move south. Maximum alert, we can't be spotted by such an army."

The commandos spoke their affirmations, and began to slowly and carefully migrate southwards. It was a pity they did not have Luther back with them, but they could deal without. Making a relatively safe assassination while their target was leading such an enormous amount of Na'vi presented a certain problem, especially since they all wanted to survive this mission, but they had no doubt that an opportunity would present itself sooner or later. Perhaps much later, but they were very patient and could wait. Sully was as good as dead, as long as they were on the job, regardless of how well he hid behind the ablative armour of his followers.

The hunt neared its end, they would not give up now.

CHAPTER 12

Jake Sully walked among the gray streets of New York. The skyscrapers were taller and more grandiose than those built by the early 20th century, and blotted out nearly all sunlight. The other passerby were merely nameless and faceless shadows, hurrying along in their daily pursuit of a minimum wage, going from cubicle to cubicle. The street was filled with the refuse of human beings, discarded packagings of their consumeristic culture. Sully waded through the trash of centuries, unremarked by any of the other users of the road - he as well was ignored. A chilling wind blew from down the road, bringing even more refuse, piling it on him.

Jake fought, as hard as he could, against the tide of trash. People have been toppled by the unexpected draft, and joined the heaps of useless junk. They were hurled against him, and crushed him to the grimy sidewalk, toppling him and burying in the depths of the garbage piles which filled every space, up to the highest peaks of the skyscrapers above. Jake screamed for his life, desperately clawing upwards, forever trying, endlessly fighting against the weight of existence on Earth.

Something seized Jake's hand and pulled upwards. He was pulled through the layers of fossilized waste, and brought to the light. He was lifted onto his feet by doctor Grace, who now stood before him among a lush jungle, the place he had come to call home - Pandora.

"Jake," she spoke softly, "your time is not yet come. You still have a task before you. My people - your people - face a grave danger. You must, once again, take up arms against the skypeople."

Sully realized he was having a vision of some sort, and vaguely recalled the last moments before he lost consciousness. He was shot, but perhaps not killed outright. But what about doctor Grace? She was dead. Did that mean that he was as well?

"No, Jake, you are not yet departed from the world, merely wounded," Grace smiled at him pleasantly. "I live within Eywa now, Jake, but the time when you join us has not yet come. You must live, and fight, or else all is lost in the insanity of your former comrades."

"Yes..." he muttered. Yes. He needed to wake up and get back to the fight! There was no telling what the people he once called his could do while he was unconscious. The very battle he fought might be lost without him!

"Go now, Jake Sully," doctor Grace placed a hand on his side, and Jake was filled with a mixture of pain and ecstasy. "Your wounds will heal, and let not your infirmity trouble you any longer. I have alleviated its symptoms... for now. Go, and bring the fight to the invaders. You might just be our best, last hope, Jake. Don't disappoint us."

"Attack!" Jake screamed, as he sat up suddenly, and saw that it was inappropriate to the situation at hand, immediately wakeful as he had become. The soft pink glow which surrounded him could only be the Tree of Souls, and Neytiri was at his side, as well as many of the Omaticaya. They were startled at his awakening. "Uh, sorry about that," he said to the gathered.

Neytiri threw herself at his neck, tacklehugging her mate. "We thought we lost you!" she said quietly, into his ear.

"Well, I'm tougher than that, you should know it," he breathed in, and noticed that he felt a lot better. The low-grade pain of his cough was still present, but much diminished. "How did the battle go?"

He knew the answer before Neytiri answered, it was plainly visible on the faces of the gathered Na'vi. They had lost the battle. "Badly, Jake," she said. "When you fell, the attack fell apart. We barely managed to save you and get you to safety, but the warriors on the ground lost without us. A great many of the devils perished, but the few who remained were taken from the site of battle by the flying machines. A great many of the People have perished."

He could see that not many of the survivors had serious wounds. It appeared that his former species' warriors shot surely and well, slaying most that were unfortunate enough to be hit - either that, or they just bled to death afterwards or died from their wounds.

"How long was I out?" he asked his mate, standing up and flexing his muscles to check whether he was completely fine. His side no longer pained him, and it was scabbed adequately. Given a few days, he would heal that scratch completely - but even now, it remained a non-issue. He would do what he had to do regardless of the wounds he had suffered.

"Almost a day," Neytiri answered, standing up with him, looking protective. Her fears were unfounded, for the Toruk Makto looked as fit as always, perhaps even moreso.

"Where's the toruk?" he asked, somewhat worried. As the bond was wont to do, he had grown very fond of the enormous predator, not to mention that the people have grown accustomed to him being the toruk makto. If he lost his steed, he might also lose authority.

"He survived, and hunts now," Neytiri dispelled his worries. "We have pulled you off him, and he recovered the ability to fly on his own."

"Good," Sully nodded. So, aside from his losses, he was more or less at square one. Whether they won or not, the skypeople have been given a good spanking. Now he needed to regroup and attack again, before they learned anything from their victory here. Perhaps this time Eywa would listen - before the battle last night, she would not. The shamans have reported that a very strange mood had come over their goddess, restful and quiet. They tried to interpret her dreams, but could not until they had heard the news of the destruction of Hell's Gate. Eywa had helped them, working in ways mysterious, but ultimately deadly to the invading humans.

With Neytiri at his side, Jakesully of the Jarhead clan began to rouse the broken spirit of his army. Fortunately, they were susceptible to his natural charm and the fires of his passion to lead them to victory of the invading demons. Said demons may have come to be stronger than previously, but they were still only uninvited guests, and they would fall before the united might of the People and their goddess, Eywa.

Discounting those few who were too badly injured to fight anymore, and had to recuperate, or wait for a slow death while the witch-doctors applied crude treatments, Sully still had about sixty thousand Na'vi under arms. He briefly considered splitting them up into small units to harry the human armies in the way geurilleros did, but discarded that idea quickly enough. His scouts reported that there were small teams of humans raiding them, moving stealthily through the jungle. No casualties from their side were reported, which led him to believe that if they split up, they'd just die sooner. The only real solution, in his mind, was to overwhelm the enemy with sheer numbers, matching the quality of their equipment with a mass of warm bodies and bravery beyond anything they have ever seen.

Soon, they would be ready to assault their wretched enemies again.

"We're almost there," the pilot of the flying machine announced, getting the attention of An'had and the human warrior Luther. "Instruments are going to shit."

"Personally, I hate this flux zone shit," the private commented. "It's goddamn unfair. You learn to rely on your things, drill endlessly with your tools, but when you walk in here, all that goes out the window, and you're left only with your eyes and ears. It's bogus, almost as if it's fucking deliberate. You don't suppose it is, eh, furball?" he looked in An'had's direction. The Na'vi was unfamiliar with that word, but supposed it was yet another insulting name the human seemed to have an endless supply of when talking to him. "Could Eywa have specially engineered this kind of shit to make life difficult for us?"

"I do not know," the Na'vi outcast admitted. "Eywa is mysterious. Eywa do not speak to us for intentions. What she say is fact, people not question Eywa. It may be that Eywa can make it, but we know not this."

"Jakesully, Jakesully!" the sentry was panicked, and out of breath from a headlong rush. "The skypeople come!"

Sully was just preparing to give a proper speech to the gathered masses, but it seemed now that it had to wait, or wouldn't happen at all.

"How many?" he demanded of the Na'vi, whil his followers prepared frantically for battle.

"One flying machine!" the primitive scout reported. "They fly directly here, but slowly, for there is mist."

"Everyone into the trees!" Sully commanded, aware that this may well be some sort of scouting mission. They could not allow themselves to be seen, lest it reveals a soft target for the humans to launch a surprise attack at. The Na'vi horde obeyed, as much as they could, dragging the wounded across the treeline. Jake himsely followed his own advice, and waited in the shade, listening for the sound of jets or propellers. He did not have to wait long.

"Put us down here!" Luther told the pilot, instructing him to touch down at a relatively flat spot near the alleged Tree of Souls.

"Roger that," the flier dipped the machine's nose and slowly descended upon the targetted position, blowing up a cloud of dust and leaves.

An'had was tense, and so were the two other marines who accompanied him in addition to Luther. While the Na'vi and the commando talked throughout the voyage, those two were silent, and now they all were. Luther himself didn't seem to mind the atmosphere of tension, as if such dangerous undertakings were nothing unusual.

Finally, as the time seemed to stretch into infinity, they landed with a dull thump. "End of the road," the pilot cheerfully announced. "I'll keep the rotors running, in case we need to do some running as well. Good luck out there," he wished them and opened the hatch.

"What is this trickery?" Neytiri asked, looking at the rare sight of a Na'vi exiting a human flying machine. She couldn't see well enough to identify the lone Na'vi, flanked by human warriors, but she thought that she saw him somewhere before.

"I have no idea, but I don't trust it," replied Sully. It seemed awfully suspicious.

"Hear me!" An'had bellowed, trying to get the attention of any Na'vi who was at the site. As far as he knew, there should be at least a few at all times, since this was their most sacred place. The shamans who oversaw it did not stray far from the Tree of Souls. "We wish to speak to you!"

Now even Luther looked nervous. "I don't like this," he said. "Something's out there, man. Watching us."

For several minutes, the Na'vi outcast shouted, until finally he got someone's attention. A lone tribal emerged from the forest and approached. He had a bow, and arrows, but wasn't using them to shoot the soldiers or his fellow Na'vi at the moment. His markings identified him as a shaman, interpreter of the will of Eywa.

"How dare you show up at the Tree of Souls!" the witch-doctor was furious with indignation as he rambled in his native tongue. "You blaspheme against Eywa with your very existence, and now you compound heresy upon it, by bringing the demons from the sky here! This is unacceptable! A complete travesty that even one so low as yourself should know better than to engage in!"

"Then you must forgive my transgressions," An'had said, frowning. "I am here in a matter of importance. The lives of all who dwell on the World hinge upon my success. See me and hear me!"

The shaman snarled. "I see you, though I wish I did not," he said. "Speak, and I will adjudge whether your matter is quite important enough to disturb the holy Tree of Souls in your egregious manner."

An'had paused for a moment. "I come here with the skypeople," he began, "bearing peace. The humans wish to talk over the terms of a truce. I have been chosen to speak to the People. Heed my words. I need speak with Jakesully again."

"You are not worthy of standing on the ground the great Jakesully walks upon!" growled the interpreter.

"Nonetheless," shrugged An'had. "I need speak to him. Convey my message, and I will be in your debt."

"I want no debts from a braidless exile," the shaman expressed revulsion. "I will take your words, because honor - which you know not - demands so."

The savage turned fluidly and walked away, back into the trees.

"Now, I guess, we wait until Sully gets his pain-in-the-butt self over here," Luther questioned.

"That is," agreed the Na'vi outcast. "I do not know if he far or not. We wait."

Jakesully of the Jarhead clan listened patiently to the shaman, Po'tin, as he gave a report on what the outcast had said. He didn't think he'd see the face of that weird exile again, but it seemed he'd have to. The thought of the humans trying for peace talks intrigued him. He knew that they talked first at the villages they then slaughtered, but there they demanded surrender, rather than anything resembling a debate on the issue. That they somehow managed to convince a Na'vi - even one so seemingly wretched, according to everyone else - was completely unprecedented and amazing. That didn't make it any less suspicious, his paranoid side advised. He lived by that side's advice for quite some time now, even since being betrayed by his superiors, who violated his trust and used his own video journal against him, not to mentioned destroyed sacred Na'vi sites despite his urging to wait. He would have to deal with his former species cautiously, and with greater cunning that they possessed.

"What do you think, Jake?" Neytiri spoke, rousing him from his ruminations.

"I think I will meet him," he said, in that instant having made a decision.

"That is very dangerous," warned the shaman. Both he and Neytiri looked concerned with his choice.

"I won't meet them there," Sully pointed to the barely visible sillhouettes of the marines and one Na'vi. They were waiting, though they did not have sufficient patience to just stand there. They walked in circles, smoked or sat, in An'had's case. "That's too damn hazardous. I have a different place in mind. Po'tin," he addressed the witch-doctor. "Convey to them these words..."

"You are to come alone, behind the rocks," the shaman, playing the messenger role again, stated simply, pointing behind the humans' envoys. By now, darkness was falling upon the jungle, illuminated only by the shine of the Tree of Souls. "The one who speaks for us will meet you there, and you shall speak. Do not attempt any foul acts, for that way lies only death for all you and all your kind," he cautioned. "Those are our terms."

"Will Jakesully meet me in person?" An'had questioned.

"The one who speaks for us will meet you there," the shaman replied enigmatically. A shrewd move, keeping the enemy guessing. He was glad they had Sully for a leader - his numerous ideas served them well, even if they were often strange and not easy to make sense of. "When you are done, return here, and then leave. We will have you despoil this sacred place no longer than is necessary, outcast."

The shaman turned, and slowly made way out of sight.

"Guess them's the breaks," Luther shrugged.

"That is," agreed An'had. "I go meet this speaker. Even if not Sully, we speak peace. Maybe can find some truce between people and skypeople."

"Whatever you say," nodded the commando. "Just don't get killed. The general will have my head if you are."

A little puzzled at the seeming savagery of their skyleader, An'had went. Past the still-rumbling flying machine, past the Tree of Souls, and to climb the rocks beyond, where he would be meeting with the enigmatic representative of the Na'vi.

"So it is you," An'had said, coming down from a rocky outcropping. He had found the place where the talks would be held easily enough, and spied the Na'vi who seemed to be here alone, idly lounging in the branches of a gnarled tree. It was Sully, of course. An'had had suspected as much, but wasn't sure until he once again faced the four-fingered, alien-faced Jakesully of the Jarhead clan. "Your envoy would not tell us who it was that was going to speak for the People."

"Good," shrugged Sully, a human gesture. While he may have looked mostly like a Na'vi, he was still a human, his mindset was formed when he was still a human, and for all the fanaticism he showed in adopting the ways of his new people, his mannerisms still shined through as to his real nature. He leapt down from the tree easily, and rolled gracefully to stand some distance away from the outcast. His side hurt him just a little bit from that, and as the air was forced out of his lungs from the admittedly gentle impact, he felt that his cough was acting up again. It wasn't in force yet, that would obviously take time, but it was returning. Eywa did not cure so much as delay the onset of his illness. "What do you want to talk about, then?" the leader of the Na'vi said, when he fought back the emerging urge to hack.

"This mutual killing of our peoples must stop," An'had entered his routine easily. In the recent days, he delivered several such speeches, and they were getting easier every time he repeated himself. "The Na'vi and the humans need not fight, must not fight. The annihilation of both our nations will become of this. I come to present the opportunity for peace between our warring factions."

"You should've started with the talks way earlier," Sully grinned fiercely, with an undertone of hostility. "Before the damn marines started burning Na'vi villages. Now that you've done that, there's little to be done. Homes are gone, lives have been lost. How do you think my people should feel about that? They and their children died because they would not submit to the crass demands for unconditional surrender."

"Would not submission have saved them?" the outcast argued. "If they had shown some restraint and reason in the face of overwhelming force, they would not have been killed. There is no dishonor in surrender before a superior enemy."

"Says you, traitor," Sully spat. "You know nothing of pride in your freedom. We will not surrender. We will win against all odds, whether you and your backers believe it or not."

"I'm afraid that both of our peoples are doomed to bloodshed, then," the braidless Na'vi looked at the ground in shame. "The humans will survive, but we might not. I do not come here in the name of their race, but ours. We cannot win this, as we are. We need peace, and learn from the humans, otherwise all is lost."

"Defeatist," the convert scowled. "Enough of this bullshit. Get to the point. You didn't come here with rambling in store. What are the terms of the truce?"

An'had proceeded to explain.

"Are you certain?" lieutenant Thompson inquired of the team's scout.

"I am, sir," confirmed corporal Tilly. "I saw Sully. He's about a click from here, to the east. I think he's alone, and didn't want to act alone without permission."

The commanding officer nodded. It was an adequate solution, if perhaps not the preferred one. Tilly wasn't the sharpshooter, so any long distance pot shots she made could have missed, and that would mean the loss of a golden opportunity to bag them the opposing force's leader.

"Let's stop wasting time and waste the motherfucker!" proposed sergeant Tao, breaking his longstanding temperant attitude.

"So be it," nodded the lieutenant. "Tao, Feathers, take point. We're going hunting."

"Excellent," commented doctor Lee, hefting her firearm. By now she was a part of the team like all others. They'd act in unison, like the limbs of a single creature, accomplish their mission, and return to base.

But first, slaughter.

What the commandos didn't know, and couldn't reliably discover, was that Sully wasn't alone. He wasn't entirely stupid, and life with the Na'vi taught him a few things about leading a bunch of tribals. He knew that some of them were preternaturally capable of hiding in the jungles of Pandora, even against other Na'vi, when the clans inevitably warred with each other over petty issues. Expecting some sort of treachery from the envoys of the skypeople, he had ordered his best stealth warriors to hide in the trees and underbrush, and they had obeyed. An'had was fooled, and so was corporal Tilly, who only saw Sully himself lounging on a branch.

The first to fall was private first class Feathers, stabbed in the neck with a thrown spear from above, even as the others' reflexes took over and they scrambled for cover. Lee didn't, but instead shot the offending Na'vi, having the best suite of aiming and detection devices of them all. Suddenly, the area was full of Na'vi of all stripes, wearing war-paint and primitive camouflage.

"Get Sully!" bellowed the lieutenant, filling a nearby Na'vi warrior with so much lead it would take several strong men to carry him to his grave. There were many, many more that needed the same treatment, however, and a limited amount of guns between the five of them left. "Lee, Hansen, Tilly! Get him!"

The trio, at various speeds, parsed the instructions and went off in the direction where the corporal last spotted the leader of the Na'vi. Following Tilly, they gave her fire support as she led them through the dense underbrush and over corpses she made herself.

Jake Sully was only half-surprised when he heard the sound of gunfire somewhere nearby, behind him. His face twisted with rage, as he snapped back to the envoy of the skypeople. "Treason!" he snarled, and leapt for him.

"No, it's not-!" the Na'vi outcast tried to dodge but he was far too slow. He too but a single step back before he felt the rough edge of a bone knife slice across his jugular. Fighting to the last, he clawed at Sully's face, even as the ex-human stabbed him repeatedly in the chest and underbelly, effectively gutting him. Eventually, after what seemed to be like eternity, he fell away, dead.

Sully spat on the corpse. "Fucking traitor," he remarked, and swirled to face the ambushers.

Tilly was unfortunate, just as the former point man had been just seconds ago. All this could have been avoided if their instruments so much as half-heartedly worked in the flux zone emanated by the immense Unobtanium deposits in these mountains. Alas, it was not so, and the Na'vi ambush was proceeding just as planned. They came out of the woodwork and underbrush, sometimes even from under the soil. No matter how many they shot, and how fast they went about it, there always seemed more. Tao and Thompson were doing their best to distract the savage warriors from those commanded to deal with Sully, but they were just two, and were silenced in short order.

Corporal Tilly herself died as a camouflaged Na'vi grabbed her foot, tripped her and stabbed a long bone knife through the small of her back. She did not even have time to scream, but neither did the Na'vi, as the other two sprinting commandos shredded him with machine gun fire. They carried on, knowing that they could not do anything for their fallen comrade, especially not if they died there themselves.

"I think we're here!" Lee shouted to Hansen, when they emerged from the forest onto a tiny clearing. There was a dead Na'vi here, lying on the ground, and the pool of blue blood around him was just spreading. He had been eviscerated by a native weapon, however, which drew the two's attention. That was the last mistake Hansen made, as he was shot with two arrows in short succession. The third bounced off his body armour, but the other two were well-placed, in his neck and his arm. To the corporal's credit, he managed to turn around, and point his gun at his killer. By the time he pulled the trigger, his aim had wandered, however, and the only thing he hit were trees; the Na'vi vanished into the underbrush.

Suddenly, Lee was left all alone, on an alien planet, surrounded by hostile aliens, and with an extremely limited ammo supply, event considering what she could take from her comrades. The mission was over, she concluded, and her only viable resolution to the situation was to somehow escape and reconnoiter with the human forces. It shouldn't be that difficult, she thought, as she picked up Hansen's rifle and ammunition. Springing into action, she started running all out vaguely southeast, in hopes of rounding the sacred places of the Na'vi and getting somewhere safer.

"You hear that?" one of the marines asked, getting the attention of Luther and his buddy.

They stopped loitering about for a moment to listen. And they heard.

"Shit! Sounds like gunfire!" the other marine concluded. "Over that hill, behind the glowtree!"

"Fuck!" Luther ground his teeth. "The fucking diplo-Na'vi. What the fuck is going on-" he started asking nobody in particular. Then it hit him. He was about to say that he didn't know of anyone operating here, but that was only because he discounted the obvious. That was his team over there, in all probability, trying to assassinate Sully. "Fuck fuck fuck!" he repeated obscenities. "That's my squad! And they don't know we're here, so we can't pick them up! Fuck!"

"That's nothing!" the first marine pointed at the forest. "Look!"

A great horde of Na'vi warriors was emerging from the treeline, looking pissed. Obviously, they had better hearing, and detected the gunfire even from larger distances. And they did not like what they were hearing.

"Pilot! We're fucking leaving!" the second marine started running to the hatch of the vehicle. Luther and the first marine wisely joined him in their haste, pursued by extremely angry tribals whose arrows were already flying at them. "Get us out of here!"

It was a good thing they did, for said pilot was already taking off by the time they jumped inside.

"Situation's gone to hell," remarked Luther, and started loading the flare gun, as they lifted off. In moments - by paying attention to the satellite imagery - the brass would know that the situation was a Charlie Foxtrot, complete fuck-up. And then the payback would fucking begin.

CHAPTER 13

"Do you see this?" Sully held up the severed head of the Na'vi outcast. Due lacking a braid, he held him by the hair. The expression on the dead primitive's face was one that spoke only of the last moments before brain death. The gathered Na'vi rumbled in recognition. "The skypeople have betrayed us! Send this traitor to speak with us even as their assassins tried to kill me!" He threw the head into a nearby pond, where it sank heavily. They were gathered near it, because it was a great place to hold a meeting, as the shamans insisted that the Tree of Souls needed some peace now that the grounds were defiled so heretically by the presence of the sky demons. "We will stand for this no longer! No more truce! No more talking! Only death for the invaders!"

The crowd cheered for him, though somewhat half-heartedly, given that they were recently beaten in battle and could feel the crushing weight of the technological advantage that the humans had over them. He recovered his breath, which was increasingly in short supply. He'd have to pray to Eywa before long, hoping for rejuvenation, but he could last for a while yet.

"They have come here seeking to explore, but they stayed here because of their greed!" he continued the rant. "They want to steal not only the metal they so crave, but also our souls! We will not let them do this! They need to understand that the Na'vi will never surrender, and even faced with overwhelming force, we will win!"

More cheering came from the massive audience, a little more enthusiastic.. Neytiri, who stood beside him, smiled faintly.

"Now that we have been assailed, both physically and spiritually, there is no other outcome that can possibly come to pass! With Eywa's help and everlasting understanding, I will lead you to victory over the demons that came from the sky! Nothing in their armouries can prepare them to meet the full might of our goddess, who lives in all and in whom live our ancestors, and our ancestors' ancestors! With their divine wisdom, we cannot hope but succeed in the task of protecting our world from infestation by these alien scum!"

Sully spotted a few actual smiles in the closest ranks, and this just fueled his passion in the speechmaking.

"Did not their base die in total when Eywa set her wrath upon it?" Jake asked rhetorically. "Did they not burn and die like everything else mortal? Did they not quail before the awesome might of the spirit of all that is alive? Did their technology not fail to protect them from annihilation? I ask you, did they have anything that could save them?"

A significant minority answered - the expected "NO!" Sully was pleased, and went on with demagoguery, for he was just getting warmed up.

"They think they're so smart, so invulnerable in their metal shells, flying in their noisy machines! But their pride will be their unmaking, for the fury of Eywa cannot be imagined by the likes of them, and they comprehend it not! All who live will unite with us in this holy undertaking, the exiling of the human aliens from the face of Pandora, once again! So completely demoralizing will be their defeat that they will not think to send their assassins to our beautiful world ever again, for the sheer fear of getting so thoroughly humiliated!"

Sully paused for his allegations to sink in - and to give his sickly lungs time to recover - and the teeming hordes shouted encouragements, and absorbed his enthusiasm like a giant, blue sponge.

"We stand here today, united, with one purpose only - to protect our way of life from destruction at the hands of these demons," he undertook a new, but related path. "I am only a humble convert to the way of the People, but I have come to call this place my home, more than Earth ever was! Our world is a paradise, and only the blindness and corrupted greed of the humans prevents them from seeing this! In their blindness, they assail us, and it is a pity we cannot influence them with our wisdom, for their are inured to our words, and will never listen. He who is blind and deaf gets devoured by a predator, that fact of life we all know, and in this time, we are the predators, and the skypeople are those who can neither spot nor otherwise perceive the threat we pose to them!"

The hunters and warriors especially took to this line of talking, hooting and bellowed at the top of their lungs in the anticipated triumph of their bodily might.

"Long have we waited for this," Sully talked on, "but the time is upon us! With the full might of the clans at our disposal, we will eject the skypeople from the surface of the planet, and send them packing, back home, where they will spend the rest of their miserable lives on a dead world! This is my vow to you, Na'vi! We will not fail! We will not fear what must be done! And I will lead you to this grand victory of everything we stand for! Will you help me in this? Will you?"

Naturally, just about every blue-skinned felinoid roared affirmation. They were the perfect savage army, impressionable and easy to restore the morale of. In enduring the many hardships of life on Pandora, they have become inured to tragedy and suffering, and this made them especially valuable in the coming engagement. Sully knew that most of them would die soon enough, but those deaths were completely necessary. The future of Pandora relied on them to give their lives to the cause - and they now would give them.

"Let's go kill some skypeople!" Sully bellowed with unequaled ferocity, raising his arms for great emphasis. So mighty was his scream, that he almost started to hack and cough, but in the end, he persevered. As he would in the next battle, and the next. The humans' days on Pandora were numbered.

"Coordinates input," said the technician at the console on the bridge of the Gallega, turning to glance at Natasha. "We can fire at any time, ma'am."

"Well, what are you waiting for?" she actually cracked a smile, but that smile was vicious. It scared the shit out of the technician. "I suppose my permission is necessary," general Velasquez pretended not to know the proper procedure. "Authorization granted. You may fire one high explosive torpedo on the targetted site."

The technician very warily pressed the button, as if this was some kind of test. "High explosive torpedo launched, ma'am," he confirmed. Helpfully, he put the torpedo cam on his viewscreen. The general was interested enough to watch the missile fly.

The monitor showed a rapidly expanding image of Pandora, pretty obviously, since that's where the torpedo was going. As the general requested, it was a high explosive round, designed for maximum yield, but relatively little penetration. It wasn't nuclear or anything especially fancy, just a whole lot of explosive material crammed into a somewhat steerable torpedo chassis. It burst through the clouds, and the aimpoint was centered on a large patch of jungle and mountains. The munition crossed the distance rapidly, and its target was only visible for a split second.

The torpedo exploded, unleashing five tons of advanced chemicals tailor-made for Pandora's particular climate with the help of doctor Soyl. It was not his biggest contribution, but merely something small and practical which the military would no doubt enjoy taking along - and it proved to be highly effective.

"Direct him, ma'am," the technician reported the obvious, as the screen went blank. "I'm working on a visual confirmation from our satellite network right now..."

The technician's fingers worked their magic on the old-style, non-holographic keyboard. The military actually favoured those over the newfangled stuff, because of the tactile response, and greater ease of maintenance and replacement. The power consumption was also a big point, especially on a starship. Within moments, the screen changed to a live satellite image depicting the site of the explosion. The smoke was taking its time to clear.

"I'll patch it through to a holo-projector," the man helpfully supplied as the general had to squint to see what was going on. The image sprang up in the center of the bridge, and was much clearer to everyone - and everyone was watching. The smoke slowly cleared, revealing the landscape of desolation. It was a large, but shallow crater surrounded by the fallen remains of a verdant jungle, and some nearby rocky hills. In the distance, floating hills could be visible.

"Target destroyed, ma'am."

General Velasquez grinned with sadistic glee. "That'll show them to mess with us," she said authoritatively. She wanted to say something more, but reconsidered it. The deed itself spoke volumes.

This was unthinkable! Completely unimaginable! Many depredations have the Na'vi endured, but never something like this. The last great atrocity the humans committed against them was the destruction of the Hometree of the Omaticaya clan, and that was egregious enough - but this, this was pure and unmistakable evil.

They did not see this coming - nobody did, except possibly the humans who perpertrated this barbarity of unequaled proportions. The first hint they had that something went wrong was when the sound of thunder reached them, trailed by the reverbrations of the earth, like a quake, but greater by far. Many fell to the ground, fearing that Eywa herself had done this, but this was obviously not so. They could see it on the horizon, a great cloud of black smoke rising from the ground...

Those who were close enough to behold what the aftermath looked like and managed to survive were shattered by what they saw. The holiest of holies, the most sacred site of their people since time immemorial, was gone. The Tree of Souls, along with all their ancestors who dwelt within, has been obliterated, by human weaponry. This was the first time they truly feared, as a people, but that emotion soon gave way to another, much more potent one - rage.

Sully had worked the throng well, and inspired them to reach for victory, but this recent event was what truly shaped each and every Na'vi, man, woman, child and wizened ancient into a fighting force motivated only by their thirst for revenge. The humans had done the impossible, the inconcievable, something so alien to the Na'vi that they did not even contemplate the possibility of something of this magnitude happening.

The skypeople struck at Eywa directly, obliterating her true outlet into the world, through which the Na'vi communed with their goddess. For this, they would pay dearly. There would be no exiling of the defeated demons. Each and every one of the invaders now had to die to give the people of Pandora some small feeling of triumph and satisfaction. They had previously been lenient on the technological barbarians, but that was the past, now was the time for all-out warfare, no quarter and no mercy for those so depraved as to strike at their defenseless deceased.

Even their leader, Sully, was affected, having been touched by Eywa's divine wisdom. Along with his brethren, he bellowed with sheer powerless rage at what had transpired, shedding tears of utter anguish. Their fury lasted for hours, mindlessly consuming even the most reasonable and controlled among the Na'vi, transcending each and every petty conflict they might have had against one another.

The madness that afflicted all skypeople without fail had shown itself in its true form. By striking down that which they have revered, and held dear more than their own lives, the demonic invaders have demonstrated for all skeptics among the People - they were evil incarnate, and there would be no peace while any of them still breathed on the surface of Pandora. The Na'vi who were by nature a fractitious people were now united, more strongly than ever, behind a single leader, and aiming for a singular purpose: the annihilation of all humankind.

Eywa woke to a sudden pain that seared her being. This pain transcended all that she had ever felt in her humongousity, in all the millennia that she borne witness to. When she slept, she was inured to all that transpired around her, and even the petty pains of her constituent parts being killed posed no threat to her slumber. This, this pain she felt even from the deepest dream, and it punched a burning hole into her consciousness, bringing her instantly to wakefullness, but at the same time incapacitating almost as suddenly.

She had lost something which was an important part of her for thousands of years, the Tree of Souls, as her children called it, her manifestation and avatar on the surface of the world, where all could reach out and become one with her vastness. The Na'vi revered the site, and took care of it, and Eywa would never have suspected that something could happen while they stood guard. And yet, something horrible did transpire - the humans have somehow managed to annihilate the Tree, and everything around it in mere seconds. In one moment, there was the Tree of Souls, the next, it was only a faint dream in Eywa's memory.

How they did something like this, she did not know. As ever, the secrets of most of the technology the humans prided themselves in were a mystery to her, but only now she felt the anguish of regret that she did not pay more attention, that she did not force the issue of understanding the alien patterns! If she had, perhaps the catastrophe could have been averted, and the Tree of Souls could still be growing. But nobody, not even she, could stop time, or make it go backwards, however much they wanted or tried. What was done, remained done, and now Eywa needed to deal with the outcome of this blight.

When she recovered enough from the sudden agonizing emptiness that filled the spot where her focal point once stood, a rage unimaginable surge within her. She was weak, however, from the strike at her very soul, and would take time to recover. Gone was the opportunity to use her newfound volcanic powers against the scattered human forces - no, she had to use other powers that were still at her disposal to deal with the threat before her. The denizens of Earth would sorely regret ever angering her, for even wounded, she was hardly incapacitated and wielded cosmic powers that the humans could not comprehend just as she could not comprehend their technical devices.

For this atrocity against the goddess of Pandora, humanity would pay.

Escaping from the deathtrap that got the commandos wasn't easy for doctor Lee. She spent most of the ammunition she grabbed doing so, and since then relied on her own supply, which too was steadily dwindling. While nothing like the amount of danger she faced from the ambush, the Na'vi continued to hunt for her rather relentlessly, occassionally catching up and dying messily as she reciprocated to their hostility with more violence than they had room for.

Since making her daring escape, she had vacated the promises of the Halleluyah Mountains, as the atmosphere was less than welcoming there. Her own broadcasting equipment wasn't quite so powerful as the one Feathers carried - regrettably lost to the Na'vi scum, who wouldn't even know how to use it - but it should be enough to get a satellite uplink for which she was authorized. She made sure she was before she even set off, and now it was paying off.

Strategically clear of the flying mountains and the flux zone, she sat on a rocky outcropping and instructed her internal modem to make a connection to the communication sats floating far overhead. To Ai's honest surprise, the link was almost instantaneous, with interference caused by resident flux an all-time low since they landed on the god-forsaken moon. After going through the motions with the automated systems, she was connected to the operator, a cheery-looking blonde ensign.

"Can I help you?" she blinked, recognizing that Lee wasn't a soldier. Multi-tasking visibly, the operator had the system identify Lee as who she was, to her relief.

"Indeed you can," doctor Lee responded with unbridled enthusiasm. "I want to inform your superiors up top that the assassination attempt was unsuccessful so far that I could see. I believe I'm the only survivor of the original team, besides private Luther who was not with us at the time the hit took place. Currently, I'm trying to make my way over to Hell's Gate so I can be evacuated."

"This is serious," the woman in orbit agreed, "but general Velasquez and the other high officers are in council at the moment, and are not to be disturbed."

"That's no problem," Lee answered. "Just see to it that my message is properly given to the general. I expect I'll take up to a week to get to Hell's Gate. I don't suppose you have any spare fliers in the area just waiting for someone to pick up?"

"Oh, your information must be horribly out of date," the operator explained. "Hell's Gate doesn't exist anymore. It was destroyed by a volcanic eruption, with all equipment and most stationed personnel. We are running a bit short on supplies, but I will see about getting you a transport as soon as possible."

"Wow," Ai remarked. "A lot has happened while we were hunting. Is there-" she didn't finish, because her proximity alarm has triggered, and by the time she would have otherwise finished her sentence, she would have been shish-kebab, impaled on a Na'vi's spear.

As it transpired, however, she managed to roll just in time to avoid the missile and face the four natives appearing from the surrounding vegetation. She didn't detect them sooner - probably because she was busy, with her attention fully on the communication with orbit, rather than monitoring her sensors - but at the moment, it didn't matter. They were here, she was as well, and her continued existence hinged on their destruction.

The first one fell easily, having taken point, and subsequently taken several high explosive armour piercing rounds from Ai's baby directly to the chest. There was no overkill, Ai believed, only the opening of fire and stopping to reload. Of course, she was being constrained somewhat by the availability of ammunition, but that was a lesser worry. If she survived, she could grumble about that, but if she perished, she couldn't do anything more, because she would be extremely dead.

The other three showed valor appropriate to Na'vi braves, and the foolhardiness inherent in primitive warriors - screaming oaths in their native tongues, they charged her even while she was dispatching their colleague who threw the spear at her. With gun blazing, the researcher cyborg strafed automatic fire over the onrushing unarmoured targets, reducing two of them to kibble. For the last one, she did not have enough rounds - the gun started beeping horribly as she kept the trigger pulled, notifying her to the problem.

The final Na'vi reached her, and tried to take a stab with a long bone knife mounted on a short wooden handle. If she was made of human flesh, she would have been eviscerated, but that was not the case. She was made of steel, titanium and chrome, and neither of those materials were as weak as simple skin and muscle. Taking the blow directly to the chest, Ai retaliated with a sledgehammer of a blow directly to the face of the savage warrior. It broke his neck, and he fell dead.

"I'll call you back later!" Ai called to the still-open connection, and closed it, lest she be ambushed this way again.

"Yes, doctor Soyl? What is it?" Velasquez turned her attention to the call she received. She was just enjoying a good run on the treadmill in the ship's gym, conveniently vacated by the rank and file to give her room.

"Ah, yes," the researcher stumbled somewhat in delivering the news. "There's been some developments regarding our satellite network and I've read some preliminary reports coming in from the surface."

"Such as?" the general raised an eyebrow, not slowing.

"The recent orbital strike to the surface seems to have caused the planetary flux field to abate considerably," the man informed her. "Most of our devices and surveillance equipment should be fully operational, so long as we don't enter any of the established flux zones."

"What are the practical effects of this change?" Natasha asked the obvious question. "I don't care about trivial theoretical aspects."

"You're in luck, general," the scientist brightened up. "Without the flux in effect, we are able to use orbital strikes precisely, detection equipment will work without having to use my workarounds, and the atmospheric vehicles will have a greatly easier time navigating. I don't know whether this will last, but in the meantime, our hands aren't tied."

General Velasquez punched the stop button and stepped off the treadmill, just beginning to realize the consequences of this change of conditions. "This is important news, indeed," she said. "I will require your presence in a teleconference in ten minutes."

"Yes, ma'am!"

"Gentlemen," general Velasquez addressed the high ranking officers who were summoned to take part in the meeting of war. Some were present only holographically, but that was enough under the circumstances, which warranted haste over formality and caution. "Our equipment is temporarily fully online. Our forces can now be supported by precision bombardment from orbit. We believe that our primary enemy, the biosphere's guiding intelligence, is at least temporarily stunned. Finally, our surveillance has revealed that the greatest concentration of Na'vi has recently assembled in sector Q3. This war council is to establish the rough plan of battle, using all our available resources. Victory is at hand, and we will seize it."

General Natasha Velasquez smiled triumphantly, for nothing the Na'vi did now could save them from annihilation. Their doom was certain - and humanity would see to its execution.

ACT III

CHAPTER 14

In planetary terms, the site that would become the field of battle was not far from the smouldering crater that once was the Tree of Souls. In addition, it wasn't much of a field, but a somewhat sparser forest, which made it quite thick by terran standards. For the Na'vi, this was the optimal battleground - less so for the humans who stood against them. The human forces did do simulated combat training in Pandoran conditions, in addition to whatever operational experience the troops had from their original Earthly assignments, and the more recent engagements against Na'vi forces on the face of the savage moon, which was why they could compete easily.

The defenders of the lush world of Pandora were arranged in three essential groups. One of them was the overwhelming horde of infantry, gathered from all around. Most of them weren't even warriors, but every woman and child of the People was a fighter, for they were a primitive and wild species, not yet acquainted with the necessity of extreme specialization which was prevalent on the face of the Earth. Most did not wear armour, and those that did had it made from bone, wood and leather - against modern human weaponry, it was inconsequential. Wielding spears, bows, knives, hatchets and even working tools, they composed the brunt of Sully's forces.

Besides them, there were two others, differentiated only by their steeds - the makto who rode horses, and those who rode banshees. The plainsmen favored the hexapedal beasts of burden, easily four meters tall, six long and incredibly muscled - in the hands of a competent rider, they were death incarnate to all they ground beneath their alien feet. Chiefly armed with short bows and spears, they composed the cavalry wing of the great blue army.

The banshee riders from the Omaticaya, and other tribes - mainly those that dwelt in the forests and mountains - were another kettle of fish entirely. The creatures they rode weren't designed for power, but rather for versality and speed. Jake Sully himself led these, from atop his humongous toruk. Even after all this time, he commanded respect and fear from all Na'vi who beheld him, as he was a legendary figure in his own right. A rider of the Last Shadow was not a common sight, and he was just the sixth to have ever tamed one of the ferocious orange beasts.

They were over seventy thousand, arranged in loose formations that were more tribal groupings than actual battle squads. The Na'vi did not practice organized warfare to the extent that humans did, and that trait left them deficient in their organization. Still, they were extremely many, and quantity had a quality all of its own.

Their scouts had informed them that the skydemons were approaching, and therefore they waited in ambush. While they still burned with rage and outrage at the destruction of the Tree of Souls, they had delayed the satisfaction of plunging their weapons into the still-beating hearts of their alien foes. The atrocious invaders would come to them instead, and would soon feel the true might of the People.

The human forces were extremely few, in comparison. They converged on the positions of the Na'vi with certainty guided by their instruments and intelligence sent down from orbit. The locations of the primitives were known to them in advance, and there would be no ambush - except, perhaps a counter-ambush, if their savage enemies were so incompetent as to fail in detecting them by this time. Some of the soldiers joked about it, but none of the officers were so stupid as to believe something like that. Whatever else, thinking the enemy to be non-threatening was an easy way to get ones balls shot off - or stabbed, in the case here.

Unlike their local counterparts and foes, the human army was equipped extremely well. The infantry wore advanced powered armour, toted high caliber assault rifles loaded with glasers, and often several pieces of other weaponry, such as rocket launchers, grenades and knives for close combat. Originally, they were to be equipped with armour-piercing ammunition, but statistical modeling showed that to be inefficient, compared to employing specialized troops carrying much bigger guns, for the inevitable confrontations with Pandora's wilderness.

There were armoured vehicles among the forces of the terrans, but they were not tanks. Ever since the development of orbital artillery and highly effective armour-piercing rockets, tanks have proven themselves to be an artifact of the past, not fit to be deployed on a modern battlefield. On Pandora, they might have been effective still, but nobody back home thought to dust off the mothballed armanents. The heavy infantry was deemed to be efficient enough in their role as armoured forces, especially since the development of ultra-light, super-protective plating that warded them from most small arms fire.

Finally, their air force was composed of various rotor-based and jet-based aircraft, from advanced helicopters to VTOL jets. While certainly impressive to the locals in the past, the RDA Corporation's forces had very little firepower, compared to what the United Earth Armed Forces brought. Thankfully, most of their fliers survived the volcanic incident, by dint of being away from base. Unfortunately, they were running rather low on fuel, and this was perhaps the last battle in which they could be used so extensively.

All in all, while outnumbered six or seven to one, the humans stood strong, virtue of the human minds back home inventing all their extremely helpful implements of death, and instruments of protection. They approached the Na'vi positions from five directions, hoping to hem the savages in, so they wouldn't have where to run when they inevitably broke under the power of the human war machine.

Fire in their hearts, the humans attacked as soon as they saw the first Na'vi, well outside the range of their opponents' bows and arrows. Taken by momentary surprise, it did not take the warriors much time to realize they were being attacked, and rushed to a furious counterassault, hiding behind the dense foliage wherever possible, and simply running all out, acrobatically leaping from branch to brnch where it was not. Crossing the distance quickly, they met the humans in close quarters, attempting to overwhelm the armoured pygmies that were so foolish as to step down to the surface of their homeworld. The plan was that with the Na'vi in their faces, they couldn't safely use their firewands, and would have to face them in hand-to-hand combat - and die, as they were small and weak, even in their metal suits.

Unfortunately for them, this was somewhat unwise given that their human adversaries routinely used glaser ammo, which did just about nothing to power armour, and killed just about anything organic it managed to hit. An ancient invention, it was nonetheless extremely effective on hordes of stone age primitives attacking them wearing close to nothing for protection. The human ranks sprayed rounds liberally, hitting each other almost as often as the actual enemy, but being highly effective at defending themselves anyway. A rare few actually fell - no armour was perfect, and had to have the imperfections it did to facilitate movement for its wearer. The Na'vi were strong and had excellent leverage, thereby sometimes managing to stab through the joints of the titanium alloy shells, to the obvious surprise of whoever was so injured.

However, as the humans were occupied dealing with them, the west-most united was set upon by the Na'vi cavalry, moving swiftly through the underbrush. They had little warning, so fast and stealthily the savages approached, howling for their blood. The horses were no more resistant to high-caliber glaser ammunition than were the Na'vi themselves, but they were huge, and their momentum carried them forth even after their deaths. Weighing several tons each, they ripped through the first lines in the human formation, crushing armour and bone alike, often falling dead upon their killers, taking them into the dark with them. They seemed infinite, even if they were not, and that human formation effectively ceased to exist - inflicting heavy toll upon the riders, though; when the makto turned their attention to the next unit, they were greatly diminished.

Even knowing about their fellows demise, the soldiers from the central unit could do little about it, since they were still engaged with the endless streams of infantry, and fatigued from having to constantly fend them off. When the horse riders fell upon them, however, they only got so far before they were stopped dead - too many have perished in the initial assault, and by the time they were stomping through the second unit of skypeople, they were mostly wiped out. Only a few remained to aid the Na'vi infantry being slaugheted by the thousands.

"ATTACK! ATTACK! AT-hack!" bellowed Sully, the latter part turning into a cough, as he spat blood. He wasn't feeling well, but there was very little he could do about it. He was a trained soldier, and something like illness couldn't prevent him from participating in what very well could be the last battle he will have to fight, if he was successful here. The humans were massed, and if they defeated them here, they might just get the message and go home. He hoped this would be the case, and in the meantime, he made sure that it was being delivered.

The banshee riders were many, so many that they blotted out the soon when they swarmed high in the clouds, and fell upon the humans' air fleet. They were noticed immediately, and fire was opened, from the flying gunships and just about every other craft that had turrets it could turn upwards. So much for stealth, but they still had their wits about them, and most of the riders were experts in what they did, nimbly maneuvering with the help of the neural interface that made everything feel natural and easy.

Dodging bullets as if in bullet time, the diving swarm of banshees fell upon the humans. As they have learned, even the combined momentum of their steeds and the strength of their arms could not help them pierce the glass sections of the humans' air vehicles with their spears and arrows - for some new trickery has been used to make them invulnerable - but they attempted a new tactic. Targetting the propellers and engines of the humans' flying metal boxes, they hurled shafts of the toughest wood that grew in Pandora's wilderness. Many of them fell in the attempt, but they were successful! Several of the dozens of helicopters and other propeller-using machines wobbled in their flights, and most of those afflicted fell into the jungle below.

Unfortunately, as they climbed to renew the assault, they presented themselves as an excellent target for the human gunners, who tore a giant hole in their ranks, striking down hundreds of airborne Na'vi with their banshee steeds.

Private Luther opted to join this operation, when given the option. He felt it would make him feel better about the fiasco with the diplomacy, and the assassination. He was no ordinary grunt to don a suit of powered armour and walk with the others on the ground, though, and he was instead assigned to a gunship in the air fleet. Reading all those gunnery manuals finally paid off, he thought, filling all banshees he could spot with more lead than they were designed for. Thanks to the electronic targetting system, he had no trouble picking them out against the backdrop of the Pandoran sky. Just then, he spotted something different among the screeching flock.

It was a flash of orange, in the corner of his eye. Strafing fire across all convenient targets, he moved his aim there and saw that his first, reflexive assessment was right. It was the giant, distinctly coloured beast that Sully himself rode on! Unfortunately, the system didn't see fit to assign him that target. Gritting his teeth in anticipation, he switched to manual targetting mode.

Neytiri flew besides Sully, shouting frantically. "We must dive! Into the trees! We are being slaughtered here, Jake!"

He didn't think of this, but it was an excellent idea. The humans' air forces were proving too much for them to handle at the moment, and they had to get out of sight. "Yes! Tell them!" he shouted over, but was seized by a sudden coughing fit, worse than all those before. Blood dripped from his mouth and fell on the back of his steed, blending into the orange skin of the toruk.

"Jake!" Neytiri screamed, flying over closer, taking position behind him - the toruk took evasive measures to compensate for sudden closeness to another flier. This was a unfortunate mistake on Neytiri's, but not one she could have anticipated or prevented knowingly. A sudden burst of heavy machine gun fire reduced Sully's mate to kibble, along with most of her banshee.

"Fuck!" swore private Luther, frantically reloading the gun with another tape of caseless rounds. That damn banshee rider got in the way and made him miss the goddamned leader of the enemy force! And to top it all off, he also ran out of ammo! The odds of something like that were so staggeringly low that they did not bear thinking about, and the soldier only cursed as he tried to make it in time to get another shot.

"NEYTIRI!" Jake turned, only to see the sad remains of his love falling out of the sky, accompanied by her shredded banshee. Anguish like none other flooded his mind, but was soon replaced by a savage fury that overwhelmed him. Blue film seemed to cover his eyes as he turned the toruk downwards and went into a dive, chasing the falling remains of mate.

Private Luther reloaded, finally, only to see his prey escaping him, diving into the woodland below.

"Oh, no, you don't!" he whispered and took only provisional aim before squeezing the trigger and letting fly an endless stream of hot lead.

The toruk grabbed Neytiri's mutilated corpse in its powerful claws, when they were almost at the treeline. Sully kept howling in rage, but a more practical side of his mind directed him to reach the trees. He was almost at them, and when he exited the line of fire from the gunships, he would be temporarily safe, and could surprise them again, by attacking them from below at another location. He would avenge Neytiri! All these humans would die here like dogs for what they did! They would-

Jake Sully didn't have time to think further, because a strafing burst of automatic fire cross his trajectory. He felt a sudden pain in his chest even as he saw bullets flying past and impacting the trees immediately below. Looking down, he saw a hole in the center of his chest, about the size of a human's fist. He spat blood, even as he lost control over the toruk, when his nervous system decided that it was all over. Tumbling and burning with the fires of impotent rage, he fell into the trees.

Eywa felt her children fight, and felt them losing as well. She was not entirely without compassion, and in this matter, her interests were aligned with those of the Na'vi. Given but hours to prepare, she did so most well, and summoned all those who listened to her whispered words, every animal which walked upon the earth, and every flying creature which soared the skies. They listened, as they had no will of their own, and she was Eywa, the goddess of Pandora. She was Pandora. None could refuse. None did.

"Holy crap!" remarked private Luther, gazing upon what was happening down below. The Na'vi were obviously losing the battle, from the scattered reports he was overhearing from the pilot's cabin when he wasn't shooting at something. The new development was somewhat of a surprise, but shouldn't be to anyone who studied the RDA Corporation's prior engagements with Na'vi forces.

A huge stampede of animal life - just about every known Pandoran animal, and several not known yet - were tearing their way through the jungle from the northwest, going directly for the human forces - whose two sneakier units were now attacking the Na'vi infantry from the back, and adding to the slaughter. If those animals reached the battling armies, they would both cease to exist under the rush of fauna, no doubt commanded by Eywa. Though not a religious man, Luther performed the sign of the cross, hoping for some miracle, and went back to shooting the few Na'vi aviators who remained.

Up in orbit around Pandora, brigadier general Lance Salles saw what was happening, and it surprised him not. As was proper of a modern military outfit, they planned for every conceivable eventuality. This was one of those that they had foreseen, and they developed a counter-strategy.

"Just as planned," he murmured to himself, and gave a succinct order.

While the hordes of Eywa were mighty and numerous, and nearly unstoppable, they were not something that had no counter. The humans' counter was simple - using their extensive orbital artillery satellites, they sent several megatons worth of non-radioactive munitions down to the surface. They had plenty of warning, as Eywa's hordes were hardly stealthy. The reinforcements to the fighting Na'vi were obliterated in an orgy of explosions before they had even properly arrived at the field of battle.

Aboard the Gallega, in her quarters, general Velasquez smiled and downed a glass of hundred year old wine to celebrate their victory.

Eywa had had enough. Her children were slain. Even her full might, instructing all that lived to attack the invaders - had been insufficient. But she had learned many things since then, about herself, and about the humans themselves. She realized that they have come to Pandora using great metal boxes which hung above her like shining gray insects, spewing spores which would kill her by sheer attrition. But in this, they had a weakness - she knew that they could not survive outside these boxes, especially not outside of the life-giving atmosphere of the moon. If one were to take away their metal boxes, they would surely perish, even if some were left on the surface. Her resources were unequaled, and the tables would be turned - not to mention that those who stayed behind, whom she could just faintly perceive using her mindsense, would be annihilated.

She extended her mind's hand to the power she wanted, and squeezed, for her very life depended upon this, lest the humans scour the entire surface and rob her of her home and existence. She would not stand for this, and the conviction gave her strength. The conduits that housed the physical aspect of her might groaned, but she could feel it working immediately. Everyone would notice very soon, but by then, it would be too late.

From the few humans who died on her surface and whom she absorbed, some knew things which originally did not make sense. But as the ranks of the dead skypeople grew, her understanding of their technology grew - slowly, but surely, with each corpse that was ingested by her constituent beings. From this, she had learned that the metal boxes which hung above her did so because Pandora's everpresent pull was not strong enough to reach them. If, however, that reach could be extended...

Suddenly, the battle - already diminished, as the humans were finishing off the Na'vi and animal survivors - slowed to a halt. Everyone started feeling heavy, and several fliers ceased being maneuverable, plunging into the ground despite the increasingly slugging efforts of their pilots. Infantry moved as though through molasses, while the wheeled and tracked armoured vehicles sunk without explanation. The screaming started soon thereafter, and everyone, Na'vi and human alike, began falling to the ground, pushed by an invisible force they could not have foreseen to change. Even within powered armoured, the human soldiers could not find the strength to lift their feet. The least fortunate froze in standing positions, while the intense pull threatened to crush them where they stood.

On the bridge of the UESS Gallega, alarms were blaring like crazy, and everyone seemed to be in a stated of panic. General Velasquez ran there on magnetic soles, but experienced a weird sensation that made her feel as if she was toppling forward. She managed somehow to keep her balance, and screamed in the face of the duty officer.

"What's happening?" she demanded. "Are we under attack?"

"Ma'am! We're falling!" the officer shouted back with terror in his voice. He appeared to be correct, if the view on the holographic display was any indication. The moon called Pandora was rapidly approaching, which was not a very happy thing to realize if you sat in a starship.

"What the hell happened?" Natasha pulled herself onto the commander's seat. "Use the damn engines!"

"We're trying!" the soldier answered, furiously punching commands into his console. "It's not working! The pull is too strong!"

"How the fuck did this happen?" general Velasquez lost her composure, which was fairly understandable, given the circumstances. "Who's responsible for losing orbit god damn it!"

"I don't know, ma'am!" the officer claimed. "Suddenly, the gravity has increased tenfold! I don't know how this could have happened."

Instantly, general Velasquez knew. A quick review of the statistics on the efficiency of the engines and the rate of falling confirmed what she suspected would happen shortly. She fished out her identification card, and slammed it into the slot. "I do," she said, punching in a code she never imagined she would use, and took up the microphone. "This is general Velasquez speaking," could be heard over loudspeakers throughout the ship. "The ship is about to crash into Pandora. Evacuate immediately." With that done, Natasha got up rather more heavily than she normally would, given the increasing gravitational pull of the ball of dirt below them, and made her way to the nearest escape pod.

"What are you waiting for?" she called to the somewhat stunned bridge crew.

They did not need to be reminded twice.

The Gallega spewed life pods, tiny spacecraft with powerful engines and only a few of seats each, like a hive of angry bees. They were programmed to reach the nearest available starship, or, failing that, the nearest habitable planet. If those two options failed to bring them to such a location within a week, the chances of survival for the crew were extremely slim. The low probability of the escaped vessels being useful towards preserving life did not discourage the project designers from including enough to ensure that at least the crew under normal operation conditions could escape. Any still in cryogenic stasis would be screwed, but there just wasn't enough room for that much mass. Given that they were in statis, it meant they probably couldn't get to the pods anyway, so it was somewhat more acceptable to screw them over.

The other two ships were faring somewhat better than the flagship. Given that they were built on lighter frames, and not quite as heavy, yet packed the same powerful nuclear engines, meant they managed to slow their descent considerably enough to have some hope of survival. They were experiencing minor glitches - as the flux zone emanating from the planet became so intense that it reached out into space - but held. Still, they couldn't keep this up forever, and there were no signs of the maddened psionic entity wanting to hug them weakening. If nothing changed, they too would share the fate of the Gallega.

A ponderous starship, the punitive expedition's flag vessel could take gravitational abuse no longer. The closer she came to the surface, the stronger the pull became, and there was nothing anyone could do about it. Some enterprising technicians did not readily abandon their charge, but instead programmed the engines to burn for as long as possible, in a small hope that the gravity returns to normal before it went down. Nonetheless, even they abandoned ship, and watched with sadness as the great void vehicle plunged through the atmosphere.

She was never intended to land, and burned with white hot fire as she tumbled through the oxygen-laden air. If the circumstances weren't quite so sad, it would be a glorious spectacle. The starship weighed thousands of tons, and the acceleration she was brought to by the Eywa-fueled pull was considerable. Still, if not for those last-minute programmers, the damage could have been infinitely worse. Accompanied by the mere sparks of the imaging and surveillance satellites, and the glorious explosions of the munition-bearing ones, the Gallega impacted the surface of the moon near the polar circle.

Crushing through the ice cap, she indented a crater that almost instantly started filling with water, which turned to hot steam upon contact with the Gallega's superheated hull. A great rumbling emerged from the site, but would take minutes or hours to reach anyone through the reverbations of Pandora's crust. As far as humanity was concerned, she was gone forever, never to fly the stars again.

Her two metallic siblings were well on the way to join her.

"Use the fucking weapon!" Velasquez screamed into the transmitter. "I will personally court-martial all of you! Launch the fucking thing now now now!"

"We can't!" Soyl screamed back, over the din of emergency klaxons. "The escape pods are too close! We could end up annihilating you as well! And that's not even mentioning the thousands still alive on the surface, friend and foe alike! This is genocide!"

"Hear me and obey you cowardly cunt!" a line of blood rolled down the general's face. "If that, that THING pulls us in we're all dead regardless! Push the big fucking red button, you fool! NOW! You hold everyone's lives in your hands, you bastaaaaaa-!" The transmission cut out, due to the massive amount of distortions in the across the electromagnetic spectrum, so much that it overloaded the technology's ability to cope. One could only suspect the worst.

Albert Soyl hesitated. If he did it, then everyone on Pandora would die, including the entire Na'vi race. On the other hand, if he did not, then he would likely die and his research would die with him, and he would not be able to shape humanity's progress into the future. He undid the transparent plastic covering of the weapons' system's launch button. He inserted the key into the socket.

"May God have mercy on our souls, especially mine," he whispered, and pressed the big, red, button. The machinery began its work, and he remembered a certain quotation. He spoke quietly, to the bridge crew, "I am become Death, destroyer of worlds."

Doctor Albert Soyl's weapons research was highly secret. He had kept it under wraps even as his numerous patents yielded him a small fortune, hidden in a large number of accounts across a variety of economic havens. It was for these contributions that he begrudgingly accepted the Nobel prize, and earned himself a recongnizable name, as well as a huge Neopedia entry - the latter addressing only some concerns as to his shadowy dealings, which he hid very well, because he was a technical person and highly competent besides. He passionately hated the idea that he would be remembered as some kind of pencil-neck working for the common good, even though that was - after a fashion - what he was working towards.

His true obsession was the application of modern technology towards warfare. For the last one hundred years, humanity still warred among themselves, but even as military technology saw some improvement, it was not improvement on the scale that Soyl would prefer to see. He looked to the past, at the two great World Wars, and their contributions to science and the welfare of humanity. The man truly wanted such a thing to repeat itself, bringing humanity into a golden age yet undreamed of by the most daring of futurologists. Unfortunately, something seemed to be holding them back from embracing open global warfare, and instead the nations concentrated on fighting miniature conflicts across the globe in tiny countries otherwise unremarkable, and invariably extremely poor and backwards.

Soyl had a remedy for this - weapons research. Using his education as a physicist and experience in the usage of computers to play on the stock market, he gathered just enough funds to procure himself a relatively cheap helping of land on Greenland, where he began to work furiously on some way to ensure that tensions would spark once again. If he succeeded, he imagined that he would sell the technology to at least two small rival factions, and see their conflict spark the long-awaited third World War. The planet was overpopulated anyway, and with the colonies just starting up on Mars and Earth's Moon, not to mention the outpost on Pandora, he was reasonably certain that humanity would survive and not annihilate itself entirely. He believed whole-heartedly in the proverb that what did not kill you, instead made you stronger. After all, historical evidence backed him up, and he was prepared to pay considerable prices in human lives for the next step along the path to the Singularity.

For years and years, Albert Soyl toiled in his workshop, surrounded by machinery, keeping contact with the rest of society only through the Internet. Just when he was about to give up hope in his ability to think of anything, he noticed something strange. He had just recently procured a small amount of Unobtanium, as a curiosity, and studied its behaviour in a modulated electromagnetic field. He knew beforehand that the wondrous mineral had superconductive qualities, but never did he suspect something which he had discovered. It was breathtaking, and it took him several days of repeatedly encountering the same anomaly before he could allow himself to believe that he reached his Holy Grail.

He seized it, and began working on working prototypes immediately, publishing patents for technologies spawned by the offshoots of his main creative process. Unfortunately, this caught the attention of the scientific society, and within a decade, he was presented his Nobel award in physics for revolutionizing civilian energy usage. Besides that, however, the governments had a good look at him, and before long, his workshop and he himself were seized by men in black suits and mirrored sunglasses. He had a long and exhausting meeting with their higher ups, following which he became a member of their organization, given a huge budget and told to continue his work. Little did he know that the same shadowy organization was funded by William Waters, the billionaire multipotentate. In the end, he wound up on a ship going to Pandora, the two prototypes of his weapon on board the Gallega, and the Santa Clara.

Long before that, however, he realized that his arms could never be used on Earth for the goals he imagined. They were far too powerful. In a tribute to an ancient video game he enjoyed as a youth, he gave the devices a name: Planet Busters.

The hatch in the side section of the UESS Santa Clara opened, and the rail system brought forth a strange device. It resembled a very corpulent missile, and it proved to be one soon enough, as the engines in its rear half ignited following being ejected towards Pandora - they didn't really need to do it, since all that was keeping the starship itself relatively afloat were its rapidly overheating hydrox engines. The gravity well generated by Eywa gobbled up the Planet Buster readily, drawing it into itself. This was about the worst thing it could have done, but Eywa was not all-knowing despite her massive ego and the thoughtless worship of the Na'vi. She had a reliable comprehension of the humans' computers, due to the similarities between it and herself, but their technology was otherwise closed to her. She did not suspect the relatively tiny object of posing any threat to her. Normally, she would be justified in feeling so, but it was not a normal situation.

The Planet Buster impacted at a completely random location, but that didn't make a slightest bit of difference. The moon was heavily interlaced with Unobtanium deposits, which made it special in the universe, but at this point, they also made it even more vulnerable than any other celestial object. If the weapon was used on Earth, it would have ended all that lived upon it, except perhaps cockroaches and some monocellular lifeforms. How much survived was an academic issue, anyway, since nobody except a complete madman with access to doctor Soyl's knowledge would even consider such a thing.

Grotesquely wounded, with roughly half her systems offline from the constant fighting for survival, Ai Lee was beginning to slow in her efforts to maintain her life. The amount of effort she needed to put into remaining standing up given the immense gravity that was suddenly inflicted upon her didn't help. Nor did the amount of flux that accompanied it, impairing the fuctions of what useful apparatuse her body still contained. The Na'vi who harried her ever since the assassination fiasco did not expect to see so much resistance from her, and only realized that she was something more than human after they met her personally, and failed to slay the lone, wounded human. She had been a human once, but since had become something much, much more fearsome, they learned, as she used their own weapons and even bare fists to cripple the warriors who fought her.

Her respirator was only functioning on auxiliary power, she no longer had one of her bionic eyes, and the other was giving her input that was entirely too fuzzy to be true. Her arms and legs were mangled beyond recognition, with wires and bent metal sticking out in unhealthy places, only crude wooden prostheses that she crafted herself in the sparse moments free from battle allowed her to walk. She made way to Hell's Gate, but she would not reach it.

On the horizon, she saw a bright flash, and then the ground under her feet threw her upwards.

In the escape pod, general Natasha Velasquez pounded the console in sheer frustration. It had gone haywire, and she had no confirmation that Soyl would follow her order and deploy the weapon. The gravitational pull was increasing, and the pod's engines were insufficient to battle against it for longer than a few minutes. If the researcher didn't do something, she would be lost, as will every damn two-legged shuffler who came with her to this god-forsaken star system.

Suddenly, every electronic device on board went blank, and a few moments thereafter, the pod experienced the impact like that of an air wave. Natasha brightened the moment it hit her, for she knew the probable cause of the event - Albert Soyl had indeed deployed his brainchild, and they were saved!

She started celebrating, improvised as the circumstances allowed - until the shuttle was hit by a huge chunk of the moon just seconds following the shockwave.

Not even Soyl predicted the effect his weapon would have on the moon. The explosion following the impact blew apart approximately one-sixth of the Pandoran surface, but it also ignited the Unobtanium deposits so readily available in the higher mantle, triggering a sympathetic chain reaction.

Pandora exploded.

"Mister Waters! Mister Waters!" a panicked secretary ran up to him when he was leaving his office for the evening, following a grueling four-hour workday. "An urgent report!"

"Yes, what is it?" he calmly took the holopad she was waving like it was something that decided her life or death.

"We've lost contact with the fleet!"

"That's hardly unusual, given how costly sending anything over the FTL communicator is," Waters said, but frowned, skimming the report.

"But sir, we also received a critical damage code from the Gallega!" the hysterical woman claimed. "When they tried to raise it, there was no response, and also not from the other two ships!"

Waters looked at the report more closely. His face went blank. If this was as grave as he thought it was, they have just lost that entire fleet, just weeks after it had arrived at its destination.

EPILOGUE

The year 2170 brought humanity several advances, including but not limited to a quasi-immortality based on genetic engineering. Though at first highly restricted, the technology became de-facto public domain after enterprising hackers stole the secrets of agelessness from the company that discovered them. But that was not all that had been happening. Despite the mysterfous disappearance of the first United Earth fleet, the UEAF flourished otherwise, supported in their darkest moments by the fortune of William Waters. In the intervening years, more starships have been built, in effort to expand Earth's supremacy over the cosmos, and seek out new habitable planets to colonize. Humanity had been forever changed by space travel, but only now have they truly left their cradle. Earth was still their homeworld, but it would not be their only world - once again, the first time since ages unremembered, could humans spread to a new, yet undiscovered frontier.

But still, the mystery of Pandora lingered. What truly happened there? Humans were curious creatures, if nothing else, and the catastrophe weighed heavily on their attention. Four years thereafter, when light finally reached Earth, astronomers turned their telescopes to Alpha Centauri. What they saw was simply a bright flash of light, following which Pandora was no more. Unfortunately, no more information could be acquired from the grainy, computer-enhanced images. The distance was too great, and the light emitted not enough.

Greatly intrigued, Waters personally funded another expedition to the alien star system, in hopes of learning something more. Like the true remote mover and shaker, he wasn't about to leave Earth for this - instead, the billionaire sent a single ship, small and specialized, to the last known whereabouts of the moon. Due to the optimization done on the vessel, it would reach Alpha Centauri in just five years - and it did. In the early 2170, the civilian ship Victoria decelerated upon reaching the outer limits of the star system, just to be safe. Its crew was awakened, and they were the first ones to confirm that Pandora did not exist anymore.

What they did find was an asteroid belt orbitting the gas giant, where Pandora was supposed to be. Approaching, they had found that many of the asteroids were large chunks whose configuration matched the former moon's. Indeed, much of the biosphere actually survived in recognizable form... including tens of thousands of Na'vi, shriveled by exposure to vacuum. They also found the sad remains of the three UEAF ships, somewhat resembling their original, grand shapes. Human bodies could occassionally be recovered, drifting through space, with the other debris.

Debris which, among other things, still had traces of Unobtanium - whose price went up after the punitive expedition failed. Greedy beings that they were, humanity set out to mine what was left of it.

"Get a load of this one, Slim," said one salvage worker to another. The one called Slim craned his neck, to look.

"Looks like another one 'em bluekitties, Joe," he dismissed the issue.

"No, no, look closer," Joe, with considerable effort, managed to lift the dead Na'vi's arm. "See this? Five fingers. I didn't know that Na'vi had five fingers. Every one of them that I saw in my stint here had four."

"Maybe he's a mutie or sumpthin'," shrugged Slim, pushing a button and sending a load of rock up the cargo elevator.

"Maybe. I'll include it in my report," Joe carted the dead body over to the pile of those recovered this daycycle.

"Dunno why you bother with all them details," the other worker made conversation. "A dead cat's a dead cat. Nuthin' more, nuthin' less."

"Unlike you, Slim, I have a work ethic," he said. "Regulations say we have to report all abnormalities we see, properly document everything we find. This is how it works - we do our jobs properly, we can complain that everyone else isn't doing it properly, and they can't complain back at us."

"That's what ye think," Slim rebutted the argument. "Haven't seen anyone rightly disc'raged from lyin', up top. Those are good liars, Joe. There's nuthin' we can do, if they wanna revoke our privileges or sumpthin', if they really wanna. Plain an' simple."

"Well, I'm going to do it anyway," Joe punctuated his stance by pointing an accusing finger at Slim, "feel good about myself, and hope someone up top is actually decent and notices."

"Suit yourself, mate," the less motivated employee of the SUM Corporation shrugged, and went to get another load of debris from the airlock crew.

Existence ceased to be a problem for him, when his life abruptly ended. It was quite unfortunate, as he wanted to keep on living before that moment, but when desires ceased as a result of his not-quite-unique condition, that was no longer an issue. Being dead had a certain peace to it, and it was quite a shock when he stopped being dead and resumed being alive. The pain that wracked his entire body and mind was unimaginable. He screamed.

"Well, well, well," a voice slowly announced. "Good morning, Jake Sully."

He opened his eyes. Bright light blinded him. He tried to move, but found he could not. He was restrained somehow. Once again, he tried opening his eyes. This time, the light seemed less intense, and the explosion of pain relegated itself to the background, simmering while he tried to make heads and tails of the situation.

"Oh, don't try to move," the voice continued. "It's a waste of your precious time and effort. There are much more important matters that you must experience in your very short time back among the living."

The last thing he remembered was the world exploding under his feet. He blacked out soon thereafter. Then, there was just lots and lots of nothing. An eternity of non-existence, which was suddenly shattered by his resurrection. He could not have imagined a worse fate to be part of, but nobody gave him a choice in the matter. If he could choose, he would choose non-existence over this suffering.

"Where am I?" Jake Sully managed to mutter out. The man standing next to him was dressed in a no-doubt expensive suit. He wore a face mask. Jake found himself strapped to a metal table, propped up so that he could talk face-to-face with the mysterious speaker. They were in an otherwise unremarkable room, which resembled a steel box more than a chamber made for living. He saw that various medical paraphernalia stood nearby, and that he was connected to it via a multitude of wires and tubes.

"Back home. Earth," the man smiled, keeping his hands behind him back.

"I was... dead." He still hurt as if he was.

"Yes, you were," agreed the man. "Thanks to the wonders of technology, however, this is no longer the case. Vacuum has a certain preserving aspect. When you were found, you were frozen at near absolute zero. This technology is only now in process of being approved for use on the market, but I pulled some strings. It tends to work less well with humans. Very unfortunate. We've only been able to revive about five percent of those we found, such as the no longer late doctor Lee, who even now oversees this little meeting from the control room. Perhaps our anatomy isn't as durable as that of the Na'vi."

"Neytiri..." Sully whispered.

"I'm afraid that you were the only Na'vi who we have taken effort to revive," the man revealed. This came as a resounding blow to Sully's resurrected mind. Neytiri was dead, the love of his life would never speak to him again. He had just enough presence of mind to feel the full weight of the loss hit him. Pandora had been destroyed, he knew that much. Eywa, and all the Na'vi ancestors were dead as well. There was nothing left for him to live for, and yet here he was.

"Why?" even almost subdued by ever-present pain, the feeling of loss and barely able to speak, he found the entire situation suspicious.

"Ah, a most excellent question," the man grinned amiably. It was the fake smile of great practice, virtually indistinguishable from the real thing. "My name is William Waters. Were you perchance acquainted to one Peter Waters?"

"No..."

"He was a gunship technician," Waters revealed. "Bright and ambitious. Insisted he wanted to see Pandora, the only other world known to house sentient life, and that he would go there without the backing of a grand fortune, on his own merits. He did."

"And what... happened to him?" Sully mumbled. It was a chore to keep focus, but he thought he saw a grimace cross the man's face.

"He was killed, during the fighting between the Na'vi and the RDA Corporation's personnel on Pandora," Waters stated, carefully pronouncing each word. He drew an antique .38 revolver. "You killed my son. Prepare to die."

THE END

DRAMATIS PERSONAE

(in vague order of appearance, except where not)

Appearing in the movie:

Jake Sully - paraplegic ex-Marine who betrays humanity and becomes one of the Na'vi

Neytiri - Sully's native mate, daughter of the former chieftain

Parker Selfridge - RDA Corporation overseer of the Pandoran interests

Colonel Miles Quaritch - head of security for the human settlement, slain by Neytiri

Dr. Grace Augustine - head botanist for the human mission to Pandora

Appearing in this book only:

General Natasha Velasquez - commander of the punitive expedition to Pandora

General Franz de Luca - US representative to the United Earth Armed Forces

Ai Lee - cybernetics expert associated with the Transhumanist Movement

William Waters - one of the richest men on Earth, sponsor of the UEAF and the new Pandora expedition

Albert Soyl - nuclear physicist and Nobel laureate, despite doing weapons research

Jeeves - Natasha's butler in her Tibetan residence

Major general Zhu - Natasha's Chinese subordinate, in charge of ground forces

Major general Hendricks - Natasha's American subordinate, in charge of the air force and support

Major general Woodworth - Natasha's British subordinate, in charge of special forces operations

Ivan Sikorsky - cryotechnician, first class

Mike Briggs - cryotechnician

Jennifer Spragg - cryotechnician

Friedrich Hermann - head engineer aboard the Gallega

Nova Lancaster, MD - chief medic aboard the Gallega

Brigadier general Lance Salles - one of two direct subordinates of major general Hendricks

Lieutenant James Pudd - bridge officer aboard the Gallega

Private John Levinsky - functionally illiterate grunt

Private First Class Magnus Fergusson - somewhat more savvy grunt

Lieutenant Marcus Thompson - commando squad leader

Sergeant Leonard Tao - commando, second in command

Corporal Beatrice Tilly - commando, scout

Corporal Lance Hansen - commando, sharpshooter

Private First Class Gus Feathers - commando, heavy weapons specialist

Private Bill Luther - commando, night operative

An'had - braidless Na'vi outcast

Joe - salvage worker with a work ethic

Slim - salvage worker

Or'fidi - Na'vi heir to chieftain

General Enrico Velasquez - Natasha Velasquez's late husband

Colonel Charles Maigny - one of the officers in charge of Operation Gutenberg

Po'tin - Na'vi interepreter of the will of Eywa