Chapter 1: Pruning The Loose Ends.

"The aliens went back to their dying planet. Only a few were allowed to stay." Jake Sullivan.

Well, it was a few in relative terms. Before the astonishing beating Quaritch and the rest of the RDA forces had taken at the hands of the Na'vi, with more than a little help from Jake Sully and a couple other humans, the Hell's Gate mining colony had been home to 873 souls. Now, between the casualties and those military or civilian personnel who had left, there were just 35.

Some had realized that with the unobtainium mines out of commission, and the Na'vi now in control of the compound-and showing goodwill towards equally well-behaved and friendly Sky People in lieu of their former aggression-there was now no more reason to stay on Pandora. Others, like Selfridge, had been bluntly told that none of the Na'vi wanted to see their faces again, and that they could get the fuck out. And faced with a vastly larger force of taller, stronger, quicker adversaries, what could even a seasoned Marine really do but oblige? Yet others had leapt at the chance to finally return to their parents, their children, their wives, their friends and communities, all they'd left behind on an Earth that was broken and tattered, but still home.

Thirty-five people usually weren't considered a few, Dr. Murray Chong thought broodingly, but damn, did Hell's Gate feel like a ghost town all the same. Sitting at his desk, he looked out the triple-paned picture window, watching several direhorses gallop over the asphalt in different directions, their Na'vi riders sitting tall and confident. The pterodactyl shadow of an ikran swooped overhead, and two of the horsemen briefly stopped to shout a greeting at their fellow warrior.

Murray shook his head for the hundredth time in amazement. He'd always respected the Na'vi, and had had a persuasive sense that they were far more sophisticated and adept than the majority of the people in Hell's Gate, including many of his fellow scientists, gave them credit for. But to think that they could or would be able to defeat trained mercenaries and gunships, bearing vastly superior firepower and technology, and then ever be able to have free run of the exterior portions of the base...he never could've imagined such a thing.

Of course, having a real-life extraterrestrial version of Gaia on your team's side doesn't hurt either, Chong wryly thought. That had been especially shocking to discover, flying in the face of everything he and the other humans understood about nature and its workings, presuming that it was essentially a complex, connected, but blind and dumb machine. It was a system powered and challenged by luck, natural selection, opportunities, sunlight, water, minerals, and geologic forces, none of which required an intelligence to perform their magic.

But a sentient world mind, a sort of organic Internet that could link to its creatures, speak to them, transfer their spirits, and even make them do its bidding when it chose! The more they thought they knew about this moon, the more they realized that they actually didn't understand the half of it, he reflected. And Selfridge, Quaritch, the RDA all honestly believed that they could master this place and dominate it, twist it to serve human needs? What were they fucking thinking?

Glancing at his watch, specially calibrated for Pandoran time, Murray saw that it was time for him to leave his new office and head down to the big conference hall where Coronel Quaritch had once addressed his troops. Now, he was going to be the chief at this meeting.

During the past four days, so many massive changes had happened in this outpost of humanity that it had made even Dr. Chong's raven-haired head swim, and the ground sometimes feel like it was lurching under his feet. Perhaps the most significant one as far as he was concerned was when the remaining civilian and military staff had elected him Head Administrator.

He had to admit that it was a great honor, and that their decision was a logical one. For one thing, he had worked on the Avatar Project almost from the get-go as the lamented Dr. Augustine's second-in-command and right-hand man. And with his 47th birthday coming up in three weeks, he was older than many of the other scientists on base, which he supposed gave him an aura of wisdom, experience, and maybe even a sort of grandfatherly vibe.

Then too, Dr. Chong had served in the military himself as a young man for four and a half years before deciding to pursue a Ph.D, and he still worked out regularly. On an Earth overrun with desperate, hungry, feral people, he had become skilled at martial arts, learning judo, aikido, and getting a second degree black belt in karate. It all resulted in a honed, lean, tall and stocky figure that demanded respect and projected authority.

He knew how to be objective and fair, and prided himself on being able to keep his head on straight even in the midst of a hurricane or Leonopterex attack. Even Quaritch had had a lot of respect for the Chinese geneticist, calling him "a bear among a flock of bleating, cowardly sheep."

All the same, Chong still had something of an ambivalent feeling about succeeding Parker and Miles as the new king of Hell's Gate. He was used to stress and deadlines, but this was a whole different ballgame, he thought as he locked the door behind him and strolled down the hallway. He just prayed he could live up to expectations and keep the place functioning without looking too incompetent. No matter many times the rug got yanked though, or how hard, he meant to stay on his feet.

In a deliberate move, Chong had left his new office at a time which assured that he would arrive ten minutes before the meeting was actually due to begin. Not only did it give him some time to make sure that everything was in order, but it helped set a good example for those below him and let them know that he took his duties seriously. He was pleased to see that a good number of the remaining personnel had also arrived before the fact, giving them a raise of the hand and a nod of acknowledgement before seating himself in "the power chair."

As he'd expected, everyone arrived in good time, taking a seat in one of the front rows, including Max, Norm, and their fellow Avatar drivers. The only person conspicuously absent was Major Jake Sullivan in his wheelchair.

No doubt he was in an uplink in the control room, holding a meeting himself with the Omaticaya Clan as their new chief. After all, it had been a pretty hardcore four days for the Na'vi too.

"Great to see you could all make it folks," Chong addressed the diminished crowd before rising to his feet. "I have called this meeting to discuss our future on Pandora, and how we shall design that future. More specifically, now that the overwhelming majority of our colleagues, friends, and superiors have left to return to Earth within the past 12 hours, every man and woman on this base must now shoulder a heavy degree of responsibility to help keep it operational and capable of sustaining human life."

"It is true that this facility is heavily automated and if need be, can be run with minimum supporting staff," he continued, displaying diagrams of the power grid, control room, and airlocks behind him. "In addition, the Na'vi have graciously offered to assist us in meeting our material needs when or if required. I and my fellow Avatar drivers can also use our Na'vi bodies as a practical way of helping our colony live off the land, so to speak."

"Still, the fact remains that in some areas at least, we remaining personnel will have to learn how to make do with less and be more efficient with how we utilize our available resources if we don't want to face a crisis in the future. Trimming the fat, so to speak."

A hand shot up. "Question."

"Yes?"

Frank Gonzalez commented, "But Murray, now that practically everyone else has hightailed it out of here, we now have an absolute glut of food, medicines, clothing, and raw materials for construction. Our two water treatment plants are still working beautifully, and we also have plenty of handheld filters to back those up. I think it's scarcely an exaggeration to say that we've suddenly found ourselves living in a land of milk and honey here. Why, we could conceivably even lift the ban on reproduction to a limited degree!"

"I know," Chong replied, "but that's all the more reason to make sure we don't get carried away here and squander all those additional resources through poor planning and a lack of foresight. Remember, it takes nine years for a signal from this colony to reach Earth, and five for a ship to reach us, so we're basically on our own if we screw up. I'm not advocating socialism or starvation diets here, just some common sense streamlining."

"Well, that's good to know," Max playfully joshed. "I go crazy if I don't get a snack at least every hour," he grinned, causing the others to laugh.

"Anyway," Chong went on, "one of the areas I intend to do some trimming in concerns our power usage at Hell's Gate. To maintain an Earthly atmosphere in this facility requires quite a-Yes Wallace?"

Lowering his hand, engineer Bryan Wallace politely mentioned, "Dr. Chong, you're correct that keeping the environmental support systems stoked up should be our highest priority, but I really don't see any obvious need to restrict or shut off power to any portion of the base in the name of conserving energy."

"Say what you like about Selfridge and his pals at corporate headquarters back on Earth," Wallace went on, "but you gotta admit, they weren't stupid when it came to planning how to carve out a long-term niche for humanity on Pandora. Before this place was even half built, we engineers already had a power plant up and running that uses the exact same hydrogen fuel cell technology as our spaceships and helicopters-generating electricity with just water! We then constructed a second power plant that uses geothermal energy to generate power, and after that, a final plant that makes use of superconductor technology, driven by our favorite rare-Earth mineral."

"Tch, not anymore, and sure as hell not the Na'vi's," someone muttered.

"That's a total of three diverse, redundant, relatively self-contained systems for generating power, which need little maintenance or attention on our part-the geothermal facility especially, we could completely turn our backs on, and it would still meet our energy requirements for at least several decades, probably more, all by itself. There's no need to cut or reduce our power usage in any form Murray, believe me," Wallace assured.

"I do believe you," Chong told the engineer, "but considering the drastic changes that have taken place, there are nevertheless some sections of the base and aspects of how we formerly allocated power that have now become redundant in the scheme of things. I just can't see the sense in keeping them up and running when no one needs them or will use them any longer."

"What portions of the base are you planning to have shut down exactly?" Brett McCormick, one of Chong's fellow Avatar drivers, asked.

"Well, one of the biggest areas, now that the Na'vi are back in control of the place, is the majority of the defenses installed by RDA. Not only are they a moot point now, but removing them will give this little enclave a more positive, less hostile and suspect aspect in the eyes of the Na'vi. Remember, every one of us has been allowed to remain here only because the Na'vi felt that we could each be trusted as an individual, that we were judged to be 'Righteous in our hearts before Eywa,' as Mo'at put it. Whatever we can do to help reinforce that trust, the better."

"But that would make us into predator bait!" Sgt. Diane Guhl protested. "The Na'vi might not have designs on harming us anymore, but there are still plenty of things out in that jungle, from Leonoptrex to rattler-centipedes, that would love to drop by for dinner-with us as the main course!" Quite a few heads nodded in concerned agreement.

"I'm fully aware of those hazards Sergeant," Chong acknowledged, "and I intend to keep this place as well protected against Pandora's more unsociable wildlife as possible. I don't want viperwolves showing up while I'm taking a walk to play predator tag any more than you do, trust me."

Norm's hand frantically shot up. "Wait a sec," he said. "Dr. Chong, when you talked about shutting down the majority of the defense system, can we assume that also means the fences?"

"Yes Norm, that includes the electric fences," Chong replied.

"All of them?"

"The fence surrounding the Avatar longhouse and environs will remain operating, and so will the inner fence surrounding our living and working quarters, but the others will be shut off permanently."

"But some of those fences are needed to keep M-16 contained!"

M-16. That's what they called the only successful result of RDA's ill-conceived Project Schutzhund. The black leopard/thanator hybrid owed his moniker to being the 16th male cub born live to one of the she-thanators that the project had used to carry the embryos to full term. His twin brother, sickly and born with a heart defect, had died after three weeks, but M-16 had thrived beyond anyone's expectations.

And in a grimly appropriate coincidence, the hybrid also shared his name with the famous American-made assault rifle, originally designed, as the panthanators were, for use in jungle warfare.

"I know," Chong sighed gravely, "and that leads me to another decision I have to put forward, unpleasant as it may be, concerning M-16."

"You mean-" Max gasped in shock.

"Afraid so," Murray replied simply. "We no longer have the manpower or the time available to adequately tend to his needs, which leaves us with two difficult choices. We can either allow him to slowly die from neglect...or have him put down."

"Kill M-16!" Norm exclaimed.

Lucy Quan, one of his geneticist colleagues, protested, "But that's stupid! Murray, you know as well as I do that we all went through a lot of blood, sweat, and tears to achieve that one hybrid, even if we all hated having that idiot project wasting time and energy we could've been directing towards the Avatars. Do you seriously mean to throw all our hard work down the toilet?"

"That's also awfully unjust," Max added softly. "Grace vowed that the panthanator would always have a home here at the labs, and now you display such disregard, both for her wishes and the creature's right to life?"
That stung like a slap to the face.

"Look here," Chong said sharply, "this is not a decision that I enjoyed making. At all. I think it fucking sucks, to tell you the truth. And in all sincerity, it sickens me to have to willingly destroy what we invested a hell of a lot of time, hours, and risk in. Do you have any idea how nerve-racking it is to impregnate a sedated she-thanator?"

"Oh, I can imagine," Pilot Steve Chandel wryly droned, causing some of the others to chuckle.

"I do," Chong continued, ignoring him, "and I don't need to mention what happened to the late Dr. Kriya when one came out of her nap a little early. But what choice is there? We don't have the manpower anymore to keep M-16 fed regularly. Yeah, we could try to cut corners, but his health would still suffer and decline, eventually reaching the point where he'd die anyway."

"Does anybody think Grace would want to see that happen? Would any of you want to see that? I sure don't, or feel that that's the fate such a magnificent animal deserves."

"How about just cutting the critter loose in the jungle?" Brock Tuttle proposed. "Just do it far away enough that it won't show up here, and everything'll be dandy."

"Which is exactly what we did with the she-thanators after Selfridge had the project canceled," Quan added.

"On the surface, it would be nice to let M-16 go free and wash our hands of the matter," Chong sighed regretfully, "but that would almost certainly result in a lingering death for him too. I mean, we've always served him his meals, so he wouldn't know the first thing about hunting and taking down prey. Nor has he ever had to fight, discover how to stand up for himself. No, the poor thing wouldn't last five days before being killed by starvation, wild thanators, or his own incompetence if we released him."

"So then we're the ones who have to kill him," Norm said sadly.

"That's right, much as I hate the prospect," Chong regretfully replied. "The question now is how."

"And that is a good question," Hank Gamez concurred. "I've personally seen one of those monsters just get hosed with bullets, and it simply thought it was all one big joke. You can still kill one of them if you pump enough rounds into it, but the chances that it'll get you anyway before dying are pretty damned good."

"Yeah, I know," Chong said thoughtfully. "Not that we lack enough bullets, grenades, and other military ordinance to use for that purpose. Like you said though, it would take a while for that hybrid to go down, and he might go all Superman from the pain, clearing the fence and wall in some desperate, adrenaline-fueled attempt to escape. Then we'd have a wounded panthanator running loose and on the rampage. Dear God," he muttered, closing his eyes briefly as the horrifying image played in his mind.

"Anyhow, I'd like to use a poisonous gas like cyanide, but the trouble is that it lives in a ten acre outdoor enclosure where any gas would just disperse, causing it little lasting harm. Besides, the chances that some innocent Na'vi and/or their mounts passing by could accidently breath it in and die aren't worth it-and just think of the royal shitstorm that would result!"

"How about poisoned food, like they used in the past to kill coyotes? That'd be both effective and quick," Norm suggested. "If cowardly," he added under his breath.

"Sounds like a good idea," Chong replied, nodding. Turning to Wallace, he asked, "Bryan, could our factories be used to produce enough of a liquid poison-strychnine say-for this purpose?"

"Heh, they can be used to produce damn near anything Murray, you know that," replied the engineer. "But the answer is yes."

"Okay then. Now, who wants to volunteer to do the deed?"

There was a fidgety silence for a few moments, people looking at their new administrator, then at each other.

Brock held up his hand then. "I'll do it Murray," he offered. "Just tell me what I need to do."

After the meeting ended four Terran hours later, Chong brought Tuttle to his office to speak with him in private.

"From what Bryan has told me, it'll be 24 hours before the industrial plant can produce the amount of strychnine we'll need. Now, we generally feed M-16 either half a direhorse or an entire hexapede every two days, so you'll have to don an AMP to carry the meat to his enclosure, and of course, to defend yourself if he leaps at the feeding hatch-it's not the first time he's done it at a feeding either, I can assure you!"

"He's also been altered to be even smarter than an ordinary thanator, which are already pretty cunning as you know, so while I want you to stay and make sure that the poison takes effect, if he shows even the barest hint that he suspects something's up-especially if he's looking in your direction-you bail and bolt that cast-iron door behind you. Understood?"

"Hey, I'll be careful," Tuttle assured him. "We military men know when to retreat if we have to."

"Well, just don't do it too slowly off the mark," Chong grinned. "After all, you're one of the few guys left who can give me a decent challenge as a sparring partner, and I'd rather see you on the mat than in M-16's belly."

"Heh, me too," Brock wholeheartedly agreed. "And that reminds me, I still mean to pay you back for how you made such a fool out of me during that aikido bout."

Chong grinned again.

"Dude, you want to impress me, how about starting with jumping into an AMP and wrestling a mountain banshee into submission? Or better yet, use it to make the thanator creature your bitch first before euthanizing it," he chuckled. "Seriously though, watch your step tomorrow," he cautioned.

"Don't worry Murray, it'll be an open and shut affair," Brock said confidently.

How wrong he would prove to be...

Looking over this chapter, I realized that I kind of made Doctor Chong look like a heartless dick. In his defense, he was just trying to do right by M-16 and be responsible.

And if anyone is disappointed, I promise our hybrid thanator will be making his first "in person" appearance during the next chapter.

Speaking of which, while I already have a general outline for what happens to M-16 on his journey from Hell's Gate to the Hallelujah Mountains, I certainly wouldn't mind taking some suggestions from reviewers about additional interesting scenarios he could encounter, ranging from the comical to the dangerous. After all, seeing how Mr. Cameron is graciously allowing me to play with his toys, I guess I can let you play with mine a bit too. ;) No Na'vi can be involved yet though.

Thanks for your reviews! Next up: Escape From Hell.