Author's Note: This is a very dark fic, shedding some light on why Quaritch became such a bastard, and how he got his scars. Note that his rank is listed as Major. This is not an error, he achieves the rank of Colonel later. Apologies for the re-post, FF messed up the first posting somehow (it wasn't getting listed).

A Beast Within

Quaritch's Story

There was something different about this world, some lingering hostility that seemed to waft in with the morning breeze. Even the atmosphere here was toxic, wanting no more than to steal his breath and leave him gasping for air. For a moment he wondered if the pay was truly worth it, if traveling for years in cryo just to land on another hellhole was worth any amount of pay. The thought came and went, replaced with a driving need to stay in the game, to keep his edge. Major Miles Quaritch wasn't one to let his nerves rule his mind.

Feet touched upon the concrete of the shuttle runway, the warm, toxic air of Pandora surrounding him, held at bay only by the thin protection of his exopack. Others behind him struggled with their gear but he hardly even noticed the weight anymore. Fifteen years with the Corps truly left its mark, death could come for you at any time, best not to be fiddling for your things when the reaper came looking.

"Major Quaritch." Miles recognized the voice, one never forgot the tone of a superior officer, or the voice of a comrade in arms. It was part of the code, part of the life.

"Colonel Harrison, sir." Quaritch saluted promptly.

"At ease. Things aren't so formal here, marine." Harrison smiled, but it was an expression that had a certain edge to it. This was a man who had been hardened by the elements here, a man who had looked down into that endless abyss just one too many times. It was the only twinge of fear Quaritch allowed himself, for if Harrison was put on edge by this place, it had to be worse than any hellhole he'd ever seen. But what of it? If this world thought he was going to just roll over and die, it had another thing coming.

"So where am I going?" Miles asked informally, losing the military decorum only with extreme effort. It was hard to shake the habits of so many years.

"Well, you will be my right hand man here, directing day-to-day security ops. But I'm afraid that's going to have to wait. We have a little situation developing, I need my best people, and we need to deploy in the next hour. Get your gear stowed and have the armory officer set you up. Meet me on the pad in 45, marine." Harrison skipped the rest of the pleasantries, jogging over to a Samson pilot, directing the weapons load-out. Well, he thought, so much for taking it easy. At least this will be interesting.

It only took him fifteen minutes to find his bunk, stow his gear and get fitted out with body armor, rifle and ammunition. It helped that he brought along his own sidearm and had his measurements sent over ahead of time. One could never be too careful about such things. No doubt the others were still trying to find their bunks, confused and afraid. Why RDA had hired such weaklings, he would never understand, but he was determined not to become one of them. As he trotted out towards the Samson, Harrison smiled approvingly, obviously impressed by his preparedness. For Quaritch, it was comforting, in a sense, to know his superior officer was a combat-proven hard-ass few could match.

"I see you're still a marine." Harrison began. "We'll do full introductions later, but this is Corporal Leonard Adams, our demolitions expert." He nodded to a rather scrawny, scarred man who was bobbing back and forth with a detonator in his hand and a portable missile launcher at his side. Obviously sanity isn't a requirement for this job, Quaritch thought acidly. " We also have Lieutenant Larry Iverson in the cockpit and Corporal James Patterson on the other door gun." Harrison finished quickly.

"So what's going down?" Quaritch asked impatiently.

"There was an attack on our eastern mine site last week, something about plowing a sacred tree or some shit. Real bloody affair, we lost a lot of good people. We hit the natives' camp in retaliation, full air strike. Now they want to talk peace." Harrison laughed.

"Always works that way, sir." Quaritch explained. "You only want peace when your ass is on fire."

"Something like that. Anyway, Doctor Augustine's people are already on site, they will be doing all of that. We just have to make sure the party doesn't go bad. The agreement was for five 'warriors' on each side, no more. So I wanted my best people, that means you and these assholes."

"Nice of you to think of me, sir. I'm getting all teary-eyed." Quaritch answered sarcastically.

"Don't thank me yet. This place is a one clusterfuck after another. Anyway, lets get moving." Harrison slammed his fist on the cockpit divider, the pilot lifting up the Samson as Miles reached for the door gun, instantly on alert. If attacks here were that frequent and that bloody, there was a very good chance he'd see combat today. The reaper was always out there, always hungry. Already, that queasy feeling in the pit of his stomach was returning, the anticipation, the adrenaline. Some part of him knew, then, that things wouldn't go according to plan, that death was already reaching for him, always smiling.

**

"How long?" Harrison demanded over the radio.

"We're coming up on the eighteenth mile marker, sir. Meeting site is at mile marker twenty-four." The pilot replied. "Visibility is shit, though. Goddamned fog bank moved in."

"Perfect." Harrison cursed. The weather patterns and magnetic fields of this planet really fouled up the instruments, making an ambush by the natives a relatively simple affair.

"So what's his story?" Quaritch asked, pointing to the demolitions expert, who thus far had remained stoically silent.

"Only survivor of a bad expedition out here. Twenty men were slaughtered, but somehow he managed to rig his mining truck to blow. Took out dozens of the natives, and he escaped. Hasn't talked much since." Harrison nodded to the man, but he didn't even bother looking up, focusing on tweaks to his missile launcher.

"This is some serious bush, then." Quaritch stated flatly.

"Yeah, you could say that..." Harrison stopped a moment. "Hear that?"

"No, what did..." A screech came from the distance, at first weak and indistinct, but Quaritch wasn't going to wait for it to get any closer. His eyes were scanning the cloud cover, searching for any sign of the offending noise, finger poised on the trigger of his door gun. Then he saw it, some flying dragon with a native riding atop it, bow already drawn.

"Ambush!" Quaritch yelled, lining the sight up perfectly before opening fire. Tracer rounds lanced out into the cloud cover, reaching for the native's blood, tearing his creature apart underneath him. Even as the Na'vi twisted towards the ground, his arrow flew straight and true, impaling Corporal Patterson, the tip emerging from the other side of his body, blood spraying outward in great gushes. For his part, the soldier merely stared for a moment, shock etched on his features, before tumbling out of the chopper.

"Shit. Iverson, get us out of here. Get some altitude, NOW!" Harrison yelled, reaching for the unmanned door gun himself. Corporal Adams, the silent demolitions expert, readied his launcher, crouched in front of the seat with the weapon poised for any new target that might present itself, as if he were a tiger ready to pounce. Shrieks came from everywhere around them, banshees mobbing them from all sides. Arrows bounced off the air frame as tracer rounds lanced out from all sides of the Samson, lighting up the clouds. Adams' missile launcher belched fire that burned dangerously close to Quaritch's facemask, but the missile flew true, annihilating a Na'vi rider, converting him and his mount into barely recognizable blood and burning chum that tumbled from the skies.

"The've got rocks. They're going for the rotors!" Harrison yelled over the gunfire. It hadn't taken long for the natives to figure out that little trick, to just drop large rocks through the rotors and foul them up. The tactic had brought down many gunships in recent years. Quaritch lined up his sights again, dispatching another rider as arrows flew by his face, sticking into the cushion of the rear seat. Adams' launcher belched again, annihilating a rider just about to lob his payload into the rotors, blood and burning flesh raining everywhere, bathing the chopper in death. He never got his reload in, an arrow piercing his heart, the launcher flying from his hands out of the wildly banking Samson. His body tumbled out seconds after, stretched out as it reached for the treetops. The demolitions expert had able to survive so much, but not this.

"Iverson! Altitude, get us above these things." Harrison ordered as he killed a Na'vi, bullets tearing through mount and rider, chewing their flesh. It was too late, the Samson just didn't have enough time to climb above the ceiling of these banshees. Rocks tumbled into the rotors, the motors groaning in protest, splinters of the shattered blades impaling Harrison, blood and flesh spraying out violently, soaking the cargo area, covering his exopack and uniform in sickening wetness, as the pilot struggled desperately to slow their descent. Quaritch didn't care, firing wildly as the chopper tumbled from the skies, wanting nothing more than to kill just one more, to dispatch another of these blue devils to hell.

The reaper was there, reaching for him, arms outstretched in sadistic welcome, but he would have none of it, gripping the lifeline with one arm, holding on with all of his strength as he held the trigger, sending rounds firing wildly all over the skies. Tree branches and leaves were everywhere, some striking him, but he held on anyway, determined to stay alive. For a single moment, blackness embraced him, but he fought unconsciousness, for that led only to death.

Ages seem to pass, the forest going on forever, but a small part of the Major was thankful for it. The slowing of their descent was the only thing that had saved his life. "Iverson, you okay in there?" He yelled as the craft became tangled in vines and branches near ground level. Only silence greeted him in turn. Quaritch shoved the cockpit door open, struggling around the side of the craft. Blood was everywhere, he couldn't even tell if that had ever actually been a person. The radio and the emergency kit were wreckage, mangled by the furious descent. There was nothing left, no way he could report the situation.

"Another fine fucking day in paradise." He mused angrily, tossing his door gun down before leaping out of the wreckage himself. Pain shot through his body, from myriad of cuts and bruises, but somehow nothing had broken. He was alive, and if Iverson's last report was true, he had an eighteen mile hike back to base, something no man had ever survived before on Pandora. Well, he thought, I'm not dying in this shithole. Fuck Pandora, fuck the native shits, fuck the whole goddamned thing.

Quaritch heaved the door gun, it weighed a ton, but somehow he suspected he would need the firepower in this cesspit. Strapping his rifle to his back, he moved forward, ignoring the pain that crept with every step. He was a marine. He would survive, he would kill these motherfuckers back.

How long he had been hiking alone in the forest, he didn't know. He wasn't even entirely certain he was headed in the right direction, but he distinctly remembered the base being in the direction of the great gas giant in the sky, it seemed right, for now. As night began to creep in, the sounds of this place became more ominous, rustles in the bushes, fierce howls sounding ever closer.

Quaritch was entirely unprepared for the fearsome beasts that emerged from the trees, leaping for his throat, vicious claws extended outward. The door gun belched fire, dispatching the fierce beast, tearing its midsection apart like a knife through butter. Yet there were more, entirely fearless, none even hesitating as the sound of the bullets tore through their comrade. The gun continued to speak, body after body thudding on the ground, until finally the weapon clicked on empty.

Claws tore at his face, knocking his exopack away, nearly taking his right eye with it. Not one to lose his presence of mind, Quaritch reached for his sidearm, sticking it directly under the creature's head and blowing its brains all over the glowing leaves. Ignoring his mask for the moment, he screamed at the creatures, blood dripping down his mangled face.

"You want more?! Come get it! Come on you motherfuckers!" But apparently the creatures had finally had enough, and they began to slink away into the night, even as the toxic Pandoran air overcame his lungs. Somehow he reached his exopack before passing out, shoving it over his face desperately, taking in fresh air with great, heaving gasps. How many miles had he managed so far? There was simply no accounting for distance in this place, so he trudged on, blood pooling at the bottom of his mask.

Hours more passed, the Major couldn't say how long, and the forest began to quiet, becoming ominously silent. He gripped his rifle, ignoring the searing pain of his mangled body, searching the iridescent darkness for this new enemy.

"Show yourself!" Quaritch screamed, losing his patience. Some primal instinct forced him down to the ground just as the arrow shot overhead, practically parting his hair. His rifle barked in reply, sending bullets flying wildly at the source of the attack, flare lighting the forest around him in a staccato orange glow, his primal scream surprising even himself. As he burned through his only remaining clip, the alien emerged from the darkness, clutching a single bullet wound in her midsection, her other hand clutching a massive, curved, bony blade. Who says you can't hit a woman, he thought wickedly.

The alien warrior leaped into battle, knife held out before her, nearly eviscerating the soldier. Quaritch fell backward, the air of the knife swipe blowing by, screeching as it brushed against his body armor. He reached for his sidearm, firing wildly at the Na'vi huntress, but the bullets only slowed the alien down. Out of sheer chance, a single round hit the knife, the weapon falling away from her hand violently, but the other hand came around and connected with Quaritch's midsection, physically lifting him from the ground with impossible strength, sending him flying through the air. The solider felt the familiar pain of snapping ribs as he flew backward, smashing against a tree trunk.

Somehow he forced himself to his feet, swaying weakly on the verge of unconsciousness, firing the handgun empty, reaching for his own knife. The Na'vi fell to the ground as she finally succumbed to sheer blood loss from something like a dozen bullet holes, moaning in terrible agony. Quaritch didn't even hesitate, drawing his knife across her throat in a swift motion, her lifeblood pumping out of the massive blue body in great spasms. The creature's sorrowful eyes met his own, but Quaritch was beyond sanity, the agony of it all having crossed some primitive barrier in his mind and broken it completely. Spittle flew from his mouth, covering the dying alien's face, even as he stabbed the body again and again, rage emanating from his mouth in terrible screams. Shifting his knife around, he cut the dead woman's queue at the base, tucking it into his vest pocket. Whatever was left of the once-honorable marine died with his enemy. What remained was merely a conduit for the reaper, a direct line to Death.

**

"Open the gate!" The guard screamed. "Get Parker out here now!"

Major Quaritch limped in, holding his shattered midsection, blood caked in and around his exopack, fearsome gashes all over his body. The soldier was covered in blood, sweat and grime, his uniform torn in a hundred places, clothing tangling in mangled strips, a bloody, severed queue dangling from his vest. How he still breathed, no one could fathom, but even the oldest veterans backed away as they saw the gaze in his eyes. It was a thing they had seen before, in the haunted expressions of men who had been taken just one step too far, who had seen just a little too much.

All knew that dark place, full of madness, that threatened to take all soldiers who had seen and lived through such terrible things. The other men instinctively increased their distance from the man, a primal fear of this insanity taking hold in the their subconscious. It was as everyone said of Pandora, no man could survive alone in the forest for that long, not without becoming one of the very beasts that threatened to consume him.

Parker Selfridge rushed out onto the tarmac, one of the only times anyone had actually seen the lazy administrator run.

"What happened!"

"Dead. All dead. Too soft." Quaritch reported mechanically. "So, I think you have a job opening. I'll be submitting my application in the morning." The wounded soldier's firm voice, the haunting gaze in his eyes scared the administrator deeply. Somehow, Selfridge knew the man was entirely serious and that granting the man's request was definitely in his own best interests, lest he stand in the soldier's way.

"All right..." He began, resigning himself to the promotion. "Colonel. We'll discuss the details later..." Parker visibly gulped as the man smiled through his pain. Medical techs reached for the man, and Quaritch finally allowed himself to blank out, falling peacefully into the gurney, a cruel smile etched on his features. He knew it was a face the Na'vi would soon fear...