Little Adieu about Much
Avatar, all names, locations, logos and trademarks created in James Cameron's Avatar universe, belong to James Cameron and the team who pulled off such majesty as to awaken a beleaguered soul according to my heart- but Avatar, all names, locations, logos and trademarks are property of Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation and Dune Entertainment LLC according to most laws.
Events heretofore occur throughout the 24 hour expanse after Quaritch gives his 'That is a fact' speech.
... ...
(Terran Doomsday on Pandora) T + 22 minutes
Only one minute left, no possible way to save his life. His heart had kissed poison and hammers at the deathly passion it found; squeezing and beating tremulously faster and faster. The rubicund spattered head of Liam Thoms dipped right, his vision rolled towards the slicing pain in his shoulder and the sleek jutting shaft pinning him to the fallen tree.
"Sky demon! Why did you put your clothes on my head." Li'sal barked, throwing the drenched bloodied garment at him.
"To save your life." He whispered in Na'vi. His eyes, growing bloodshot from the increasing pressure his ailing heart filled him with, met captivating ones of gold. In death he had the power to hold the gaze.
... ...
(Terran Doomsday on Pandora) T - 12 Hours, 3 minutes
"I am telling you, this is all a stinkin' load of BS." Corporal Apothecary Liam Thoms said, throwing his worn white muscle shirt over his head. "Where the hell is the hardware?"
"Yeah, you've told me yer gripes a couple hun'red times already."
"And look who was right?"
"Not me or you."
"C'mon Andy, don't this remind you of that old movie, uh.." Thoms flicked his callused fingers, stumbling on his speech. "You know, VHS, twentieth century- Aliens, that was it."
"Haven't seen that one." Private Andy Milor flexed the triangular bulges of his shoulder muscles, drawing vertical lines all across his neck. He grinned at the intimidating reflection cast by the small tarnished mirror in his locker.
"Yeah. Those sorry blokes walked into a bunch of hostile aliens with civilian crap, shotguns and whatnot. If they had their miniguns, or if at O-six hundred tomorrow we had high-gauss rifles instead of blackpowder, hell's no any of us would be goin' home in body bags."
Milor slammed shut the flaking green locker door, rolling his square coarsely shaven head out of cricks.
"You want to mow down some Na'vi with a minigun?"
"I want to be alive tomorrow night-"
'Alright maggots, quit tiptoein' around and get some.' Sergeant Wainfleet's hoarse bawl came from beyond the rows of fragrant and defaced lockers.
"Shite." Thoms muttered. "What is his problem now?"
'I will bring the pain with the wet tip of my towel to any airsucking maggot still in here.'
"Airsucking? Wainfleet has mental problems. How the hell did that clown end up our superior anyways?"
"Better him than me." Milor whispered.
"You're the only one that can say that." Thoms palmed his locker door with careful tenacity, tickling the heavy silence with a gentle click of mechanical lock.
'You guys here that? That's me bouncing my towel o nine tails... I know there's some fellas in here.' Footfalls of military sole on concrete tapped rhythmically behind the silent gesture.
Thoms stared at his juggernaut compatriot a mischievous moment and snickered in zero decibel. He reached under the kicked-in hole through the steel guard by his feet, grabbing a nose-sized rock while gave a roguish nod.
"Wainfleet you're a blimey limp dick wingnut-" Milor shouted in his near spotless impression of Second Lieutenant Briggs. Thoms hucked the stone in a low lazy arc at the far corner of locker upon locker.
'That's just wrong.. You goin' down Briggs.' Wainfleet hollered, stomping ominously.
There was a clatter like a hammer hitting a symbol and breaking it.
'Oi! what the 'ell is this, a stone?' The second lieutenant swore.
'Hope you like nine tails Briggs.' Wainfleet sneered, slamming his feet ominously with each step as he descended on his prey.
'Sod you Milor, only a dimwit like Wainfleet could confuse-'
Thoms reached an arm out the fire exit, holding it open just wide enough that his large friend could slip by while a one sided argument involving a wet towel ensued out of sight.
Outside in the spartan hallway the duo were the only two not taken by the gripping mood that infused the very air with a sense of gung-ho grim purpose. The Colonel himself gave them an icy flinch as they passed, his three distinct scars zigzagging in the process.
"See, this is what I mean. The wasp revolver? A damn revolver?"
"You want it gauss right?"
"Gauss is a measurement- never mind. If we had the finest weaponry the RDA could equip us with we wouldn't have to arm those loony miners with guns their drool will cause to malfunction. And we wouldn't be stuck relying on them to toe the line in the fight of our lives."
"Maybe we could send 'em ahead of the real force, fin' out if Na'vi use traps.."
The two slowed to witness and sneer at a small posse of mock-nerve toting civilian miners huddled loosely around one of their pals strapped down into the worn chair of the rec shop. A one eyed veteran with three metal teeth adorning his repulsive smile, affixed with a conspicuous cackling joy a piece of glowing red metal to the seated miner's shoulder.
"Wha t'u lookin' at?" The largest of the motley, clearly war-shocked group said.
Milor started to turn on him, causing the speaker's face as well as his friends' to draw further ashen until Thoms held up his hand.
"You guys getting branded with tridents, show the savages how crazy you are?" The corporal apothecary asked.
Several nodded, looking down at their enflamed and salved skin.
"Tridents have three prongs, not four." Thom's finished, picking up his gait again without further word, nor bothering to listen to the ensuing ruckus.
"Quaritch is going to dope 'em big guy, don't worry about it." Thoms responded to his friend's heavily furrowed brow.
"Won' have ta smell their shite tomorrow in the bush." Milor grunted.
"Only their spilt innards."
Upon the cafeteria, when the malfunctioning doors refused to slide more than a finger's breadth open, Milor clinched their edges with meaty worn hands and flung them to useless, sparking, red-light blaring states at their outside confines, drawing near by nervousness-releasing laughs. The pair entered the expansive mess hall and did their dramatic best to seem pissed off and otherwise not worthy of being approached. GI's cloistered in tightly knit ensembles of determined burden bearers quickly lost interest in them.
" 'Bout before, don't get me wrong, it's not that I want to butcher the pretty blue savages, but just thinkin' of one of them giant arrows splitting my head in twain is awful good reason to bitch aloud." Thoms said.
"I was just teasin' ya 'bout the minigun. They want to kill us all, I'll blow 'em up."
They sat across from each other at a deserted table.
"Wha', you don' want to blow up some Na'vi?" Milor asked in his guttural voice.
"Sure, now that they'd pincushion me on sight. But we're the twenty second century, privately owned version of colonial marines."
"Yeah, we trained three years to kill things, and me ano'er year ta blow stuff up."
Thoms shook his thick black half-inch long hair that would need trimming the moment human extinction on the planet wasn't threatened upon them.
"And I've put in three and three, basic-triage." He fixed his stout jaw'd massive friend with a firm pewter gaze. "That's what I'm talking about. We're the cream man, we're better than this."
Milor nodded, jutting his jaw out even further. "You got a point."
"Daisy-cutting some damn tree the locals think is a god, about to rain futuristic brimstone on their sorry arses. It's what you do to a rabid animal, not neolithic tribals. Hey, you believe this nonsense about Jake Sully leading the savages?"
"Haven't gi'en it much thought."
"I don't think so." Thoms gazed speculatively into the back wall. "First recon goin' over to the enemy, even for some extra fine tail? No way, Quaritch has it wrong."
Milor was also shaking his head in small arcs.
"My friend, it was that Spellman character, he's the mastermind behind all this." Thoms said confidently.
"You sure? Spellman seemed real daft when I was helpin' 'im make like a real man wi' that Trudy lass."
"True that, he is daft, most of 'em science geeks are. I'd know, I had to mentor under enough of 'em in triage. But let me ask you this; would someone who isn't daft, say anyone of us GI's other than Wainfleet, try playing cowboys and indians as the damn indians?" Thoms slammed his forefinger into the wooden surface of the table, emphasising his point.
"No, 'spose not.. But Spellman?"
"Yes, Norm Spellman. After you hooked him up, did he ever put in for his side of the bargain?"
"No, my boots 'aven't been polished worth shit."
"He had lots of time. What was he doing with all that time, besides humping fair Trudy for thirty seconds a go?"
Andy Milor lolled his head, keeping his look ever cast on the more gangly man's forehead. After nodding he began setting about the task of cracking all of his knuckles in turn.
"Yeah, you see.. You see my friend, you see. He's behind all this, mark my words." Thoms said.
Milor's dry lips parted, he was about to say something when Thoms raised the flat of his hand to indicate silence.
"Shite. Bloody Brigg's just entered." The corporal apothecary said. There was a large ruckus spreading by the entrance to the mess hall. "And look at the size of that welt on his cheek!"
"Hope he 'aint same unit as us tomorrow."
'Oi! There you limey blokes are.' The ruckus grew in temper as it drew closer.
"I'd rather he be guarding my back than one of the loony miners."