This story is written for entertainment purposes only. All copyrights belong to their respective owners.
Keep in mind that English is not my first language and so I do not claim to have written an error free text. Also, if there are any inconsistencies in this story, let me know and I will correct them.
Chapter 2: The world of shadows
Only the sounds of the rainforest could be heard. The chirping of insects, the rustling of leaves in the wind, the occasional call of a small tree animal; all of these added to a background noise which seemed to go on forever. One could say that the nervous back-and-forth pacing of one particular Na'vi added another layer to this noise.
Right now, Elynin found it most difficult to stand still in one place. She wasn't feeling well at all. She had been pacing up and down between her altar against a rock wall, and the base of the nearest tree. It was difficult for her to remember when she had started doing this. Maybe she had started this morning, or maybe just now. Although she knew it couldn't be true, time did not seem to flow right for her anymore. Or maybe she had problems with her memories. Whatever the case was, she couldn't talk to anyone about it, or ask anyone to help her. She was completely alone.
Elynin was a young adult Na'vi. Physically, she looked a lot like any other fit young hunter would look, except perhaps her hair and the tired look on her face. Apart from the braid surrounding her queue, she had her hair loose. Her unkempt and messy hairdo, which had some twigs stuck in it, gave the impression that she spent little time caring about her personal appearance. She wore a simple loincloth, and minimal jewelry. The jewelry she did wear only consisted of a necklace with several bright orange colored gemstones.
Her altar, which had been constructed against the nearby rock wall, contained many more trinkets, though. Several hanging woven constructions occasionally moved in the wind. There were jars full of gathered plant and animal materials stacked up until almost waist height. Right in front the stack of jars, there was an unusual tree root exposed. Most tree roots in the forest had a dull brown to green color. This one was glowing purple, even though it was midday, and while the altar was reasonably well lit by the light of the sun.
Elynin realized she was feeling exhausted. Did she sleep last night? Or had that been the night before that? Anyhow, perhaps she should take a rest, but she couldn't stand still. Then she suddenly remembered why she was pacing: she wanted to ask her one more time. Unfortunately, the last time she had tried, it had left her in agony. She had no idea why this was happening. She had no idea why she was being abandoned by her.
She now walked back to her altar, knelt down facing the glowing root, closed her eyes, and whispered something in her native language. "Eywa, please tell me. Tell me what I have done wrong. I have nothing but love for you, for my people, for my world." Elynin was almost in tears. "If you cast me away, like my people already have, I might drink something to go to sleep and never wake up."
With a slightly shaky hand, she took the end of her queue and held it near the orange glow, waiting for the tendrils to connect. Once, they had, she felt slightly better. It convinced her that Eywa had not abandoned her just yet. But then the feeling quickly disappeared. A sense of dread came over her, and she felt her heart sink. Next, a sudden pain shot through her entire body. It made her arch her back and almost caused her to fall over. Then she could see.
She could see a grassy plain. It had to be a long way from the rainforest. There was a strong wind, as the long grass was being blown into one direction. The sky was dark, but it wasn't a clear night. There was mist, a lot of it, which had a pale greenish teal color. It was not something she had seen before, or ever heard of. It looked quite unnatural to her.
The next thing she could see was a figure out in the mist. It had the shape of a person, a person who was walking towards her. Once the person was close enough to see details, she was startled. It was a Tawtute, a human, or at least partially. She remembered what humans looked like, because she had seen some in her childhood. But this was an abomination. The person looked relatively normal except for one important thing. It was a tall pale-skinned human with a broad-shouldered physique. He had white hair and bright blue eyes. This would all be relatively fine, as far as human appearances went; only this person's head was upside down on his neck. His forehead and eyes were near his neck, and his mouth and jaw on the top of his head. It was a disturbing sight to see.
The scene was interrupted by a bright flash of light. The ground shook and the sky turned white. There was a beam of some kind visible, which reached from the ground up into the sky. Next, she was floating in blackness. A ring then became visible. It was a ring she could not touch, for it was too far away, yet large enough to appear to be very close by. It had the same color as the mist she had seen earlier. A human vehicle was now moving towards it. Whatever the vehicle was, it was quite different from the human constructs that had once flown through Pandora's sky. She had a feeling that it had been made to defy and conquer the blackness.
After another bright flash, she was back again at her altar. In a way she was glad to be back in a familiar environment. Nevertheless, she was also still feeling desperate. She stood up and turned around, ready to go pacing again, only to face a massive heap of rotting bodies. She jumped and let out a short yelp in shock. How was this possible? She quickly concluded that the vision wasn't over. This simply could not be the reality. There had to be hundreds of them. At first she couldn't bear to look, and turned away. After a moment, she convinced herself that it wasn't real. Eywa had given her this vision, so she must want her to see this. Elynin turned around to look again. She could see quite clearly that there were two kinds of dead bodies, which had been randomly dispersed. Some were Na'vi, some were human.
Elynin then broke out of her trance with a jolt. She found herself panting and sweating, still kneeling before her altar. Without thinking twice about it, she removed her queue from the root. She had seen enough. She did not have the feeling Eywa had taken her back, because she believed that otherwise the vision would not have been so painful. What Eywa had shown her, though, might be symbolical of what was going to happen. There were so many questions to be answered, so many events and images which needed to be interpreted. She didn't know where to begin. She was so tired now, that she thought of just taking a nap right here on the forest floor, once her breathing had calmed down.
The sounds of the rainforest went on as they always did. However, not long after falling asleep, she was awoken by strange noises: leaves were moving and branches were breaking. She sat up and faced the direction whence it came. A strange figure came falling from the sky. It had a skin which was patchy and strangely colored. It landed on the cap of a torukspxam, the last shadow fungus, which gave the figure probably the most pleasant landing one could have, after having fallen from such a great height.
"Phooey! I don't believe it!" the figure called out astonished, but relieved. "I'm still alive? That must have… aargh, my leg! That fucking bat-bird thing had me in its mouth!"
Elynin watched the figure standing up with some difficulty. He seemed to be injured, although she couldn't see any obvious wound or blood. It had been a long time, since she had heard someone else speak. She wasn't used to interacting with others anymore. And she couldn't remember ever having directly interacted with someone who appeared to be a Tawtute. Except for a select few, the Tawtute were generally considered to be insane and evil by all Na'vi she had once known. What would this one do to her if he would see her? Still, she couldn't help but admit what she felt right now. "Eywa has not abandoned me. I am alone no more."
Charlie's ambient microphone picked up the sounds of someone speaking. He nervously turned around and faced a Na'vi and her altar. "Guess I'm not alone down here… after all…" he remarked in surprise.
For a moment, they just stared at each other. Charlie soon noticed that his rifle was dangling from the safety strap attached to his backpack. Realizing that he was facing a likely enemy, he snatched his weapon and aimed it at his target. He was about to squeeze the trigger, when Elynin closed her eyes and turned away while holding her hands in front of her face.
Charlie removed his finger from the trigger. Had he been misinformed? The local people were supposed to be a race of battle-hardened killing machines. Yet this one was actually cowering before him. He quickly rationalized it for himself that she was some sort of non-combatant who would call out for the real warriors the first chance she would get. She had to die. He promptly placed his finger back on the trigger.
Again, he found himself to be unable to fire his weapon at this apparently unarmed Na'vi. Instead he tried something else. "Stay there! Don't move! If you move, I will shoot!" he warned.
Next, he tried to get into radio contact with the rest of the squad. "Is anyone there? This is Charlie from squad alpha. Repeat, this is Charlie from squad alpha. I survived the fall. Requesting whatever assistance you can provide." He knew that they couldn't help him get back up, and that these might be his final hours. Nevertheless he felt they owed it to him to at least maintain radio contact until his demise.
Unfortunately, there was no response. Charlie tried several similar messages in an attempt to be heard. In the meantime, Elynin had opened her eyes and had turned back to face him. She couldn't understand any of his words, but she didn't need to. It was clear to her that he had fully intended to use his weapon on her, but for some reason had changed his mind. Despite that, she knew it would be unwise to startle him, or he might still shoot her. Therefore she remained silently where she was, for now.
Suddenly, Charlie stopped halfway one of his messages, when he heard some radio static. "Is anyone there?" He asked again. Some more static could be heard, followed by some barely intelligible words. "… Ha-ha … bloody bird is dead!" the voice exclaimed.
Charlie recognized it at once and this filled him with hope. "Ralf, is that you?! Where are you? This is Charlie; I made it down in one piece!"
Some distance away, another soldier had just gotten to his feet. He was now standing pompously over the corpse of a dead banshee lying on the jungle floor, while talking to himself. "I like the sound of that: Ralf, the banshee wrestler! Nobody dares to challenge him to a wrestling match. Nobody."
It was only several seconds later that Ralf realized someone was talking to him over the radio. He also recognized the voice. "Charlie?! You dog, you made it! Where the fuck are you?"
He received a slightly distorted message back from Charlie. "I'm in the jungle, near a rock wall of about 10 meters high. There's one unarmed native here, who I'm keeping as a hostage in case more of them pop up. But my leg's been hurt. "
"Alright, don't move, then. I'm in the jungle now too, but it's a long story. I'll home in on your signal and come get you. In the meantime, keep your eyes on that native. There's no telling what it might try." Ralf replied as if he was Charlie's protective older brother.
Ralf used his wrist display to locate Charlie's signal and started moving away from the area in which he had landed. However, he realized he had forgotten something. He quickly went back to pull the axe out of the banshee's neck. "This will no doubt come in handy; for close encounters." he muttered to himself.
With his machinegun in his hands, and the axe fastened to his belt, he started making his way through the jungle. He tried to stay clear of any suspicious looking plants or bushes, as his training had taught him. Luckily for him, the vegetation was not so dense here.
After having walked about 80 meters, he came across a large open spot in the middle of his path. In this spot, bundles of sunshine managed to come through the canopy and reach the ground. Sunlight also fell on what appeared to be the corpses of several deer-like creatures. Ralf carefully moved in closer. He could then see that they appeared to be fresh kills, having been slashed open by something with large claws. "Shit." he said to himself, knowing that whatever had made the kills was probably still nearby.
"Get up here, you asshole! And bring my axe, before I have to get it out of that thing's belly." the voice of an unseen woman yelled to him over the radio.
"What the…" Ralf started, before he saw several nearby ground bushes moving. He quickly looked up into multiple directions. "Who in the… How in the blazes am I supposed to get up there?" he asked when he found Astrid about fifteen meters up in a tree.
"Rope. Ascender." Astrid said, sounding far beyond annoyed. Ralf then noticed the rope hanging from the tree, reaching all the way to the ground. "Right… Of course…" he replied nervously. Fleeing from one monster to go up a tree to join another one wasn't what he had in mind. When he heard a loud roar coming from the nearby bushes, he immediately moved over to the rope, however.
Ralf quickly grabbed his rope ascender, a small handheld device, from a side pocket of his backpack and promptly attached and activated it. He was immediately propelled upwards along the rope; soon getting high enough to grab Astrid's outstretched hand.
After being helped up to the branch of the tree, Ralf regained some confidence. He steadied himself and waited to see what would come out of the bushes.
"How thick are you?! Get that rope, we have to get up even higher!" Astrid angrily lashed out to him. "And watch out for her." she added, while she pointed to a nearby tree. Ralf turned his head and could see one of the natives, an agile female Na'vi warrior, who was climbing higher as well.
"And I thought this place was a shithole up on that bloody rock…" Ralf remarked snidely, before hurrying to follow Astrid's lead.
If assault unit leader Lockwood could bite down on his fist at this particular moment in time, he would have done so already. However, with a full-face breathing mask, he had to make do with grinding his teeth. Three of his troops had fallen over the edge, and had disappeared into the jungle below. So far all attempts at contacting them had failed. Joseph had a theory about magnetic interference caused by their proximity to large quantities of UNOB-1. At this point, Lockwood couldn't care less about any theory, though.
"E.T.A: thirty seconds." Joseph announced to the squad. The shuttle was already visibly approaching. Ten soldiers remained on the floating rock target area. After the incident with the banshee rider, no further shots had been fired, as no further threats had arisen. Nevertheless, the defensive circle was still being maintained, only smaller in size. The UNOB-1 cone floated silently in its special harness and had been temporarily tethered to the rest of the rock. Lockwood slowly walked over to Joseph and started speaking.
"As soon as the package is aboard the shuttle, I want you to take command of the mission. I'm going after them." Lockwood said unnaturally calm, while looking away into the distance.
"With all due respect, sir, I believe it would not be appropriate for me to assume command." Joseph replied without any emotion whatsoever.
"I don't want to hear any more of that. You may not be human, but you are one of us. If you take command, they will not be able to ignore you any longer. They will have to admit publicly that your kind can serve the human cause." Lockwood insisted.
"Sir, you have risked your reputation and career for bringing me along. So I see it as my duty to at least attempt to talk you out of this." Joseph replied, just before the shuttle came to a stop about 5 meters above the rock.
The conversation was interrupted as Joseph caught a tether that had been thrown from the open rear door of the shuttle. He attached it to the harness of the package. Several more of such tethers were quickly lowered from the shuttle and attached to the package by Joseph, with Lockwood's help. Next, Joseph gave the ground tethers some leeway and signaled the shuttle. "Ground is ready for package retrieval." he radioed.
"This is Peace Three-One, understood. Package retrieval commencing. Repeat, package retrieval commencing." the voice on the other side informed them. The package was then slowly hauled inside the shuttle, with Joseph and Lockwood controlling the amount of leeway of the ground tethers. Once the package was inside, two rope ladders were lowered, which was essentially the signal that their mission was almost over.
"All troops, return to the shuttle for extraction. Joseph and I will guard the rear." Lockwood ordered. As the troops left the floating rock two at a time, Lockwood and Joseph stood guard. "You can't stop me, Joseph. You must know this by now." Lockwood then told Joseph over a separate personal radio channel.
"Of course I know, sir. My plan was never to stop you; my plan is to join you." Joseph answered like it was one of the clearest known facts in the world.
"Well, I'm the one who should have known better. You really are something else entirely. I'm not sure I'll ever understand that mind of yours, but I wish there were more like you." Lockwood replied, sounding quite sincere.
Joseph didn't respond to this positive statement about himself, but instead, he immediately returned to the point of the conversation. "What is your plan, sir?"
A moment later, after the two rear guards were the final ones to have climbed back up to the shuttle, Lockwood revealed his plan to the squad.
"Troops! We have almost achieved our primary objective. But no-one gets left behind on my watch. The communications officer has informed me that the shuttle has picked up some very weak signals, but these appear to indicate survivors. Joseph and I are going down to assist them, right now."
Multiple soldiers immediately offered themselves as volunteers, but Lockwood declined them all. "My decision is final. All of you have done your duty well. Now it is time for me to do mine. We're taking B-crew's rover down to the surface. Since we succeeded in retrieving the package, B-crew won't even need to be awoken. Call it an improvised rescue version of the old plan B."
After silently confirming that no-one objected anymore, he continued. "Alright, we load up the rover with our fair share of the supplies. I want food, water, atmosphere scrubbers, fuel, batteries, a standard field toolkit, extra weapons, extra ammo, navigation gear and enough geographic information to fill a fucking atlas. We'll be bailing out in 7 minutes. Yijun! Once I've left this shuttle, you'll be in command. You will proceed according to the mission parameters. See to it personally that the package is taken to the Cathedral."
"I won't let you or Wilhelmus down, sir. Hominum summa!" Yijun replied like a fierce loyalist. And she immediately took charge. "Alright scumbags! You heard the man. Don't stand there gawking like a bunch of baboons, let's give them that rover!"
The squad proceeded in high gear to get the rover ready. The package with the UNOB-1 cone was moved aside, as was a full row of seats. Next, the rover was brought up all the way from the front of the cargo bay towards the rear door. The unneeded B-crew hardware, such as laser cutters and other heavy machinery, was removed and discarded, while at the same time the rover was filled with all the gear and supplies Lockwood had requested. It was a six-person rover with an unpressurized cabin and with a small trailer attached. It had its own parachute system.
Soon, all preparations were finished. Less than seven minutes had passed. Everyone was clear of the rover and it was ready to go. Joseph was at the wheel, with Lockwood beside him. "Take care of yourself, my comrades. Your journey will go on, as will ours." Lockwood said, before Joseph quickly floored the pedal, making the rover roar and shoot out of the back of the shuttle towards the jungle below.
Thank you for reading this story. Since you have made it so far, I'd like to know what you think about it, and if you would want to read more. Feel free to let me know.