6. Final assault
Peeta's rescue from President Snow's clutches nearly brings about Katniss's death at Peeta's hands. It's a narrowly avoided tragedy which perhaps should have been anticipated. Nevertheless Katniss is relieved that Peeta is safe in District Thirteen. She can only hope that he recovers from the torture and brainwashing Snow's regime inflicted upon him. The doctors warn that Peeta will be ill for some time to come, but they are hopeful that he'll eventually regain his sanity. Hopeful, but not certain.
Details of how such a daring, and highly improbable, rescue mission succeeded are a closely guarded secret. Katniss's good friend, Gale, was on the mission, but he knows little of the planning behind it all. Despite being tight-lipped, it is obvious that Plutarch Heavensbee had a hand in the planning. It doesn't take a genius to realise that he must have contacts inside the Capitol who helped with the mission. Curiosity isn't encouraged inside District Thirteen, so Katniss's questioning soon attracts unwelcome attention. Nothing sinister, but she is effectively blocked from finding out anything more. Even Gale stops answering her questions. She must be satisfied with the official version of the rescue.
Would Katniss be surprised if she discovered that Athena was part of the Capitol's rebel team who helped with the mission? Possibly. Katniss has never seen Athena in any role other than as a fugitive or slave. She knows very little of the real Athena. Were it not for an unlikely coincidence ... Fate? ... she would have pushed Athena to the back of her mind and all but forgotten her.
With the mentally unstable Peeta unfit to provide Plutarch Heavensbee with his preferred public face of the rebellion, Heavensbee must be satisfied with the erratic and moody Katniss Everdeen. In fairness to Katniss, she's doing her best now that Peeta is out of President Snow's reach. Haymitch is helping to coach her as well. It's just that Katniss's best efforts fall well short of Plutarch Heavensbee's expectations. In desperation, Haymitch makes Katniss watch some of the television broadcasts of Plutarch Heavensbee taken before the 75th Hunger Games, in the hope that Katniss might learn something about body language. Heavensbee is a master showman and Katniss could learn a lot from watching recordings of his public appearances. She does. But not what Haymitch expects.
"That girl standing next to Plutarch Heavensbee!" exclaims Katniss to Haymitch as they watch a recording of an interview shortly before the 75th Hunger Games. "That's Athena. The Avox who helped me in the Training Centre during the 74th Hunger Games."
"Hmmm," replies Haymitch. "There is a likeness, but I don't think that can be the Avox you mean. After what happened in the medical wing, I think that Avox girl will have met with a fatal accident before now."
"I'm sure it's her," insists Katniss. "What's she doing there? It looks as though she's on Heavensbee's staff. Let's ask him."
"No," replies Haymitch. "You're supposed to be studying how to give speeches that rouse people into rebellion. Forget about the girl and focus on the task at hand."
Katniss isn't so easily deflected from her path. Seeing Athena again revives Katniss's memories of the red-haired girl. Her interest may only be curiosity, but somehow Katniss feels it's something more than that. When Katniss finally gets a chance to ask Plutarch Heavensbee about Athena, his evasive answers only confirm that Athena is far more than a passerby who accidentally got into the picture during a live broadcast. Since Athena never felt the need to tell Plutarch Heavensbee that she and Katniss have met before, Katniss easily spots the falseness in Heavensbee's story. His lies also make Katniss pay more attention to the goals of the different factions within the rebellion. She now realises that, other than the common goal of overthrowing President Snow's regime, not everybody in the rebellion is working towards the same outcome. It makes Katniss become wary of those whom she is helping. By helping the leaders of District Thirteen she may be working towards replacing one tyrannical regime with another. Katniss faces a dilemma.
Athena is also facing a dilemma, although hers is in more immediate need of resolving. The rescue of those imprisoned after the events following the 75th Hunger Games was a costly success. Not quite in the category of a Pyrrhic victory, but not far off. With the help of a military unit from District Thirteen, nearly all of those imprisoned have been freed, and the Hunger Games' tributes flown to District Thirteen. But the military unit ignored the other prisoners, and left it to Athena and fifteen other poorly equipped volunteers to free them. They were too small a group for such an ambitious mission, and as a result the prisoners they freed were left to their own devices. The prisoners scattered in all directions. Some were soon recaptured and executed. Some never even made it out of the prison complex. The loss of life among those working for the organisation is higher than the rebellion can really afford. Sure, the rescue has secured more new recruits for the organisation than the number of lives lost in the assault, but none of the new recruits can match the skills of the six rebels killed in the attack. Worse still, the organisation is now dividing itself into two factions. Those in favour of a closer alliance with District Thirteen, and those, like Athena, who are opposed. Athena must decide what to do. Those favouring an alliance are in the process of taking control of the organisation.
Until now, the nameless organisation has been a nebulous group with no formal chain of command. Such an arrangement has made it difficult for President Snow's agents to infiltrate the organisation, and, so far, it has protected members from betrayal should one of their number be captured. However, as the group discovered when participating in the attack on the prison, such an informal arrangement creates havoc when it comes to military style operations. Lives were lost because of the lack of cohesion between those assaulting the prison. The majority favour an alliance with District Thirteen, and Athena parts company with the organisation. For the first time in years, she is truly alone. At first Athena feels lost, and at times she thinks about her decision to break away from the others. However, Fate always intervenes before she can act and Fate provides her with a new goal. Within a matter of a few weeks, Athena is politically active once again.
Athena isn't the only former Avox working against President Snow's regime. Their shared dislike for President Snow before they were arrested, and their experience as state slaves afterwards, draws them together like a magnet. However, unlike her new friends, Athena hasn't served out her sentence and been officially released from bondage. Since the authorities believe they have executed Avox RH438, Athena is relatively safe from discovery by official eyes, but the risk of betrayal is still a worry to her. A few of her friends probably suspect Athena is an escaped Avox, although none will betray her. Fortunately for Athena, there is a code of honour among former Avoxes.
Before long a plan forms in Athena's mind. One she knows she can carry out with the help of her new friends. Indeed, involving anybody else will only add to the risk of discovery. Once the districts are free, the rebel armies will turn their attention to the Capitol. But President Snow will defend the Capitol with every resource he can muster, making a surface assault very costly. An attack through the underground service tunnels would be safer, providing every defensive position and booby trap can be identified and disabled. A task which an Avox is best placed to achieve. The squads of Avoxes working underground are all but ignored by the sentries watching the tunnels for intruders. Athena and her friends could gather a great deal of information without the sentries being aware of what is happening. Work begins with a matter of days, and the defences in large parts of the tunnel network are mapped within a few weeks. From then on it is simply a matter of keeping the map up to date.
When the districts are finally free of President Snow's forces, the rebel armies move to surround the Capitol. At first they seem content to sit and wait for the lack of basic supplies to take effect on the Capitol's population. Unfortunately such a tactic probably benefits President Snow more than the rebels. Athena knows that the alliance between District Thirteen and the other districts is fragile, and that a prolonged siege will only provide President Snow with a chance to drive a wedge between the different rebel leaders. That's what happened 75 years earlier, when the leaders of District Thirteen abandoned their allies and made a separate peace with the Capitol. That betrayal is never far from any of the rebel leaders' minds.
Nobody expected President Snow to give up power without a fight. In that respect, he lives up to expectations and proves to be quite ruthless. Preserving the life of Capitol citizens is no longer a consideration in President Snow's planning. He clings onto power, even after all of the districts have slipped from his grasp. The Capitol's defences have been reinforced with very kind of weapon and device imaginable. Information gathered by the organisation Athena once helped proves useful to the District Thirteen commanders, but it is by no means complete. Nor do those commanders feel the need to share all their knowledge with the commanders of the armed forces from other districts. It's Athena and the former Avoxes who provide the district commanders with vital intelligence to aid their assault.
The final assault costs many lives on both sides. The casualties among the civilian population are particularly high. Despite these losses, the rebel leaders acknowledge that the losses on both sides would have been much greater had it not been for the information provided by the rebel groups inside the Capitol. A collective sigh of relief is shared by everybody when President Snow finally surrenders and the casualty count proves less disastrous than originally predicted. For Katniss Evrdeen though, there is one casualty too many. Her sister, Prim, is killed by a bomb at the moment of triumph.
Katniss also knows that her own survival is due to the information gathered about the traps in the underground tunnels. The team she was part of was supposed to be for publicity purposes only; fake attacks, heroic speeches and the like. Instead of being safely away from the real fighting, they find themselves lured into a trap, escape from which places them in the vanguard of the assault. Was it a deliberate move by the commanders of District Thirteen that places Katniss in danger, or is it an accident of Fate?
Throughout the whole rebellion, both Katniss and Athena have periodically thought about the other, without ever coming into contact. Each carried out their own duties without realising their actions were intertwined. Things done by one them influenced the actions of the other. Speeches broadcast by Katniss reinforced the determination of Athena to succeed in her mission, while Athena's spying gained life saving information for the rebels.
Eventually Katniss and Athena are reunited. Two dictator presidents ... President Snow and President Coin of District Thirteen ... are both dead by this time. Athena being responsible for the death of President Snow; Katniss for the death of President Coin. In the muddle and confusion during the public ceremony at which Katniss was supposed to execute President Snow, but instead assassinated President Coin, nobody stopped Athena stepping forward with a knife to complete the task Katniss volunteered to carry out. President Snow never saw Athena silently approach the wooden post to which he was bound. He was dead in an instant, and Athena had melted back into the crowd before anybody noticed. Even the ample television coverage failed to capture the moment of Snow's death, nor did it record the identity of his killer.
In a strange reversal of roles, Athena enjoys her first taste of true freedom, while Katniss is imprisoned and must suffer the wrath of President Coin's supporters. It would be easy for Athena to simply walk away and start making a new life for herself. After all, she and Katniss barely know each other, and neither owes any responsibility to the other. But Athena doesn't simply walk away. She could easily attribute her actions to Fate, but saying Fate is involved denies the underlying caring nature of the red haired girl. Athena does what she can to neutralise the hostility towards Katniss, and her efforts are rewarded when Katniss is exiled to District Twelve rather than executed as a murderer. Athena doesn't expect thanks for her work in freeing Katniss, and she doesn't receive any. Katniss is mentally exhausted and in no fit state to appreciate what others have done to help her. However, Katniss has acquired a new neighbour in District Twelve, and after a while she remembers where she's previously seen the red haired woman living next door.
It's the start of a very long friendship.
[The end]