Chapter 13
One week after the escape from Earth, the Spero was arriving at Pandora, and the timing left no margin for error. The ship decelerated, approaching the light speed boundary from the other direction. They were timing the transition to be as close to Pandora as possible.
Rydberg called out the numbers."Cel one decimal two … one decimal one … stand by—"
"Engine reserves at one percent," added Dixon, with an I-told-you-so glance at Enzo.
The main viewscreen, showing only numbers up until this point, convulsed and started displaying a starfield.
Everyone had rehearsed their jobs. Enzo wheeled toward Huang, who had just one. It takes only one bit to change the universe.
"Supraluminal is coming online!" she announced.
"Position established," said Rydberg. "Scanning ahead for the Dreadnought."
"Ready to fire," said the weapons tech. He would fire their complement of two armored smart missiles at the ISV Dreadnought as soon as it was located. Each was programmed to seek out a Valkyrie shuttle.
"Starting SL synchronization."
"I have the Dreadnought!"
"Missiles away!"
"Missile inbound! Time to impact, forty-five seconds!"
Enzo: "Retask one of ours. Intercept!"
"TS one!"
"Inbound is defending itself … our missile destroyed!"
Enzo cursed. "Send our other missile after it."
"TS two!"
"Time to impact, twenty seconds!"
"TS three!"
"Closing … ten seconds …"
"Inbound destroyed!"
"Bit one is away!"
The exchange had taken less than a hundred seconds. But what were they going to do about the shuttles on the Dreadnought now? As they decelerated towards Pandora, the image of the ISV clarified.
There were no shuttles attached.
They were too late. The attack had already started.
Victor turned to ask Dimitri for advice, but the question died on his lips. Dimitri was staring into the distance, wide-eyed, tears pouring down his cheeks, his expression unfathomable. Victor put a hand on his shoulder.
"It's her, Victor," said Dimitri, in a voice a thousand years old. "It's Eywa. I feel her."
"From here?"
"She's everywhere. She's beautiful. I can't begin to … if only you could feel this."
Huang picked up and decoded signals from the Dreadnought. It had launched its two Valkyries already: One was to land ground forces, the other to bomb the largest concentrations of Na'vi. They had duplicated Colonel Quaritch's plans without realizing it: RDA tacticians were not very creative. From the reports, the first shuttle had already landed and was engaging the Na'vi with devastating results.
They had failed.