He who fights with monsters should look to it that he himself does not become a monster. And when you gaze long into an abyss the abyss also gazes into you. -Friedrich Nietzsch
The first reminder that she was alive was the pain. Pamtseo opened her eyes, but there was no light. She could feel the cool mud sucking at her back, wicking away the burning sensation. She moved all her extremities and, finding that none were broken, attempted to shift whatever was on top of her. It resisted, but she pulled her feet to her chest and pushed out hard. The large slab of splintered wood moved off of her, and the rainwater splashed in, making her choke and splutter.
She looked around, trying to remember what had happened. One moment she was sitting in the tree next to Eyktan, and the next there was a roar and... heat... there had been an incredible heat.
Then, she realized what she was looking at and froze in terror.
The village, Kayrsk, was gone. The gnarled, fuzed things that used to be trees still gave off a heady smoke that was whipped away by the merciless wind. Dead Na'vi militia lay around her at regular intervals, burned and maimed corpses, some near enough to touch. Several groups of humans were picking through the ruins just yards away, and she could hear more behind her. No one had noticed the piece of wood move, so she let her body lie there, pretending the same slumber that her kinsmen now slept.
She watched the unarmored ones digging in the muck. Occasionally one of the armored monsters would wander into her field of view. A group of them was erecting some kind of metal pole amidst the destruction. She caught a glimpse of the uncooperative one, Colin, hauling the bodies of her comrades out of the way. His carelessness made her want to scream out that those things that he was throwing around used to be living breathing people, with dreams and fears and hopes.
Instead, she rolled over onto her side and began to crawl away, as slowly as she dared. She twisted her body around the stump, inching like a worm, one limb at a time. She heard footsteps and froze, pretending to be dead again. She waited a while, and heard no more footsteps. Deciding it was safe, she began to move again.
Then, disaster.
"A-ha! I knew that one looked a little too fresh to be dead!"
She felt a hand grab her and reacted instinctively, rolling onto her back and reaching out with her arms. Her fingers found the soldier's exo-pack tube and yanked hard, severing it from the tank on his back. Before he had time to react she planted her foot firmly in his chest, and was rewarded by a crack. The man collapsed to the ground wheezing.
She was about to get up when something hard struck her head.
Captain Harris saw the whole scene unfold. He was sitting cross legged on the edge of a trench, trying to forget the bone-chilling deluge, when he spotted something moving on the ground next to Corporal Peakes, who was supervising the group conducting corpse disposal detail. A second later, the Corporal spotted it too. One of the Na'vi was attempting to crawl away from the crater and towards the shelter of the trees beyond. Harris froze, watching Peakes cry out, and then attempt to grab the creature. His touch caused a sudden a frightening transformation. The alien was somewhat smaller than the others, and obviously female. A single stripe of war paint still adorned her cheeks, and her hands were covered in blood. These hands shot out without warning and ripped away the air supply tube from Peakes' face, dealing him a wicked blow with her feet as well.
The Private, Colin, saw what was happening and sprinted over. The Na'vi began to push herself to her feet, but the soldier let out a cry of rage and smashed his rifle butt into the side of her head. She fell to her hands and knees, and Colin kicked her savagely to the ground. After a few more seconds of this, Jasper intervened, physically pulling him off and sitting him down forcefully. The medics moved in to help Peakes, who was coughing up a rich red flow.
"What happened?"
"This one was just playing dead."
Jasper cast a look around at the rest of the men on burial detail who had stopped their work to stare.
"Check the rest of them. Make sure they're dead."
The soldiers began moving down the row of enemy casualties, placing two fingers briefly at each neck.
"What should we do with this one, sir?" A soldier asked.
Jasper paused, and looked back over at Peakes, whose eyes were now staring glassily at the grey sky.
"We don't have room or men to spare for prisoners. Shoot it, bury it with the rest."
"Wait!" Harris interjected, getting to his feet.
Both Jasper and Colin, who had has rifle already in hand, froze and stared at him. The Captain gulped. He didn't know why he was doing this, but he did know that the being before them did not deserve such a fate.
"We should wait for an opinion from HighCom before we make that decision."
"Oh really, and why is that?" Jasper asked, turning around a taking a step closer.
Captain Harris held his ground, refusing to be intimidated by some he outranked.
"Operational Procedure mandates protecting all sources of intelligence until support has had time to evaluate them."
"That 'thing' is not a source of intelligence."
"You don't know that." The Captain replied
The words reverberated lamely, but he kept his face stoic. Jasper fixed with a stare for a long moment, his icy blue eyes boring into the Captain's. Then, he turned away.
"Have it your way then. But you're responsible for it. If it breaks loose and kills someone else, it will be your fault."
Colin flashed him a filthy look before letting his rifle rest back in its sling and returning to the digging, which had begun again in earnest. Harris grabbed the motionless Na'vi underneath the arms and dragged her back to the communication trench, sitting her down across from the transmitter. He bound her hands and feet with flexi-cuffs, and then plugged his guidance helmet into one of the jacks in the antenna.
"Godfather, Godfather, come in Godfather."
A burst of static followed, and he frowned, straining his eyes to see the frequency settings in the dim light. He adjusted them and tried again.
"Godfather, this Falcon 2-5, come in, over."
The response was horribly garbled, but he could hear the listless voice of HighCom's dispatcher in the mix somewhere.
"Say again Fal-shhhh-, coming in weak and unreadable, try-shhhh-"
He slapped the transmitter in frustration and tweaked the controls, trying to hone in on the voice.
"Godfather, this is Falcon 2-5, come in, over."
"Read you loud and clear 2-5, what's the situation down there, over?"
The volume of the broadcast almost deafened him, and he quickly turned it down.
"Viper has secured the hill, but we need resupply and reinforcements to complete the primary objective."
"Scratch the primary 2-5, thermal is picking up several groups of native fighters moving to counterattack. Your new objective is to is hold the hill and disperse all enemy formations. Reinforcements are on their way, and I've got a medivac bird tasked to you. Further fire support is also coming on station. If you think you're going to be overrun, don't hesitate."
"What about the Drop Commando's, over?" The Captain asked.
"HighCom is tasking them with another high value target, so they won't be sticking around. There will be a commissioned officer on the next flight out to relieve you of command. Godfather, over and out."
The speakers in his helmet went dead again and he unplugged his auxiliary cable from the tower. Movement caught his eye and he looked left to see the Na'vi beginning to stir. Thinking quickly he went over to the supply cache, which sat underneath a tarp, hastily erected to keep the extra ammunition dry. He rummaged through the steel cans until he found the epi-pens of morphine, and returned to the captive. As gently as he could he pricked the skin and delivered the dose. Immediately she settled into a deeper slumber. He wasn't a doctor, and so couldn't speculate if the drug would have any adverse effects on her biology, but at least she would be out of her misery for the time being.
Using this opportunity to study the alien, he ran his fingers over her head and back. Several bruises were begging to form, swelling where Colin had laid into her. He glanced over once more at Peakes' lifeless form, and wondered how one small act of pity could ever begin to redeem this godawful, intractable mess.
The pilot's hand shook slightly on the stick. He hadn't slept in almost two days straight. War did not sleep. It did not grow hungry, or tired, or afraid. For the past forty eight hours he had been running sorties with the dropship, back and forth, back and forth. His bay was, for once, clear of men waiting to die, whether on the long, quiet ride out, or the screaming, bloody trip back to unload the wounded. Standard issue go-pills only went so far, and the pilot could feel himself reaching his limit. He steadied himself and took a deep breath. Last run, he thought fervently, then you can sleep.
The bird was sluggish and unresponsive, weighed down by the huge crates of ammo that had been loaded aboard. Two other dropships flanked him, riding the invisible pressure wake he left behind. They skated just above the cloud layer, watching the roiling mass of grey below with something approaching awe. Occasionally a bolt of lightning would crackle between the clouds. He glanced over at the holographic map of his flight plan once more, and then pushed the stick forward gently, sending the craft pitching into the abyss below. For a moment he was blinded by the fog. Condensation gathered on his windscreen and wicked away in fat drops. The rumble of thunder sounded somewhere off to their left, a rolling boom that set everyone's teeth on edge, if they were not already.
Then they broke free and the relentless rain began to pound at them. Visibility wasn't much better below the cloud cover, so the pilot kept one eye on his radar, guiding the formation over the myriad of obstacles, most of them obscured by the weather. Twice the humidity almost proved too much for his engines. They sputtered and whined as he put them through their paces, diving down into a ravine and up the other side without clipping a single tree.
Suddenly, a door gunner pointed down.
"There it is!"
He could see it clearly as they streaked across the sky. A volcanic island of black ash in a sea of green. He rolled to the left and pulled up sharply, turning around and killing most of his verticle momentum. The dropship shimmied a little, and then, like a trainer calming a skittish racehorse, he eased the bird down onto the uneven ground.
"Down the ramp, go, go, go!" The Crew Chief bellowed.
The Loadmaster unhooked the pallets from their moorings and slid them out into the mud, one after another.
Ray watched the convoy of air transports lift off again, the billowing air whipping the branches across their arms and face.
"Shit." He muttered.
"What's wrong?"
"They're reinforcing. It's going to cost Jake to take that hill now."
"Oh." Norm said simply.
For the life of him, Ray could not understand why Jake insisted on dragging Norm along. He meant well, but as Ray's father had reminded him time and time again: "The road to hell is paved with good intentions". The gangly scientist had done nothing but slow them down, and as a result they had lost the Drop Commandos in the jungle. Then Jake had ditched him to assume command of a large formation of mounted Na'vi and had gone galloping back off into the undergrowth, leaving Ray and Norm to blunder through the rain to their objective. What he really wanted, more than anything, was to find out where Pamtseo had gotten to. He couldn't remember when they had been separated, but he hadn't seen in her in more than a week, and something odd inside he chest throbbing just thinking about it, and mulling over all the terrible possibilities.
Now they both sat motionless, well, motionless save for Norm's shivering, suspended in the thick branches of a tree. Ray stared down the massive barrel of an Anti-Material rifle he had lugged along with them. He silently thanked Eywa that he had not chosen to simply toss the heavy gun aside when it started raining. For once, Norm had actually taken the lead while he wheezed and puffed the container uphill and downhill. The erstwhile researcher was staring through an outsized pair of field binoculars.
"What are they doing?"
"Which one?" Ray said, scanning the hillside.
"Those two, the ones shaking hands."
Ray brought his scope on target just in time to see a man in a pilot's uniform salute a uniformed officer.
"Good eyes Norm. He must be taking control. I relieve you, I stand relieved, and all that good shit."
"Maybe you should take him out."
Ray chuckled.
"I like your thinking Norm, but no, we'd just get stitched up and mister pilot over there would take his old position back. No, Jake's people aren't far behind, besides, we're not after officers."
Just as Ray said this he spotted what he WAS after. The Drop Commandos walked in a double line, five on each side and one extra bringing up the front. The lead man saluted the new officer, and words were exchanged. Ray wondered to himself what kind of ruthless psychopath dwelt withing that armor. He had heard stories about the DC's, about their brutal training, their brutal tactics. His index finger itched at the heavy trigger, the crosshairs aligned perfectly on the bulky helmet. Somewhere, an angel was screaming "Do it you fucker, DO IT!".
The exchange concluded, and the formation marched out again, this time away from the perimeter, towards the canyon.
"Are they... leaving?" Norm said, frustration etched in every syllable.
"I think so." Ray replied
An unnatural rustling noise carried above the cacophony of raindrops and piqued their sensitive hearing. Ray looked down and saw Na'vi warriors creeping through the brush. A moment later Jake was speaking into his earpiece.
"You in position Ray?"
"Been sittin' here for hours waiting for you to finish playing hero." Ray half-teased.
"Well I'm all done now, so you can go to work as soon as I give the word." Jake replied, his good-natured humor strained almost to breaking by the events of the last few days.
"You should probably climb down now, Norm. Once I start shooting this baby it's going to get LOUD."
Norm didn't protest, and soon has was shimmying down the tree to join the warriors below.
"Ambush!"
The yell came from the hill, high and clear, a terrible word, which seemed to make everyone stop for a whole, terrifying second. Without waiting to see who had been spotted, Ray picked out his first target and gently squeezed the trigger.
THOOM.
The rifle gave a terrific clap and the soldier was thrown bodily to the ground, which rapidly began to darken with his blood. All around the clearing, Na'vi broke cover and began to sprint. More shooters in the trees opened up on the enemy position. The RDA troops quickly got over their surprise and manned their weapons. Mortars whistled overhead and landed with thumps of thunder-like concussion, mixing dirt with the rain that poured out of the heavens and down onto the hellish scene below.
THOOM.
Ray took out a soldier who was attempting to re-man a machine gun nest.
THOOM.
Another bullet severed the communications mast nearly in half. It listed crazily and then crumpled, adding to the carnage. Several rounds snapped over his head and he curled in farther towards the tree, attempting to shield himself. He peeked out again, trying to spot a new target.
Suddenly, something fell on him.
It wasn't the first time Ray had been shot, but nobody was ever ready for the sensation. It started off simple, like someone swinging a sledgehammer into his shoulder. He recoiled and lost his balance, tumbling out of the tree and striking the ground face-first. Thankfully he had the where-with-all to roll over immediately to avoid the twenty six pound rifle that smacked into the wet earth a second later, crushing the point he had just been a second before. He lay still for a moment, the sounds of battle forgotten. A moan passed his lips. His shoulder began to burn as though it were pressed against a hot poker.
He reached deep, and found his inner strength, letting it flow into his aching body. Slowly, he got to his knees, and then to his feet.
Pamtseo drifted between worlds. Light and darkness flashed in ever more complex patterns. She was aware of the great, terrible noise of reality trying to break through. She attempted to push it away. Whatever reality had become, she didn't know If she wanted to be a part of it anymore. Her home had been turned into a living hell, and nothing was sacred, not the trees nor the peaceful silence nor even life itself. A sluggishness pulsed through her veins, whispering tantalizing lullabies. Gradually, the noise grew more insistent, until she could pick out the harsh shouts of humans. At this, a familiar emotion blazed in her chest: anger. No. Not simply anger, hatred. It coiled in a red mist, spiraling up her spine, licking her with its maddening tongues of flame, prodding her to action.
She opened her eyes.
There was so much happening at once that she could not take in any of it for a few seconds. The only word to describe it was chaos. Men lay dead everywhere. Young bodies, rent asunder by savage weaponry. The rest still cowered behind their sandbags and in their dugouts. Scattered groups firing in all directions. A great blue tide was pressing up the hill, and at it's head she could clearly see Jake, riding hell for leather, pistol in one fist, grenade in the other. The tide broke upon the ashen shores of the human positions, overwhelming them.
Two pairs of boots jumped into the trench with a muddy splash. Pamtseo peeked through her eyelids, pretending to be dead once again. Colin and another soldier ducked under the shattered antenna that lay draped like a fallen tree across the trench. Pamtseo felt her hand reaching to her belt for something that Ray had given her before he had left. Her fingers closed around its hilt and drew it slowly. She crept closer, her throbbing head threatening to incapacitate her. She found that she no longer cared that bullets were zipping just inches overhead. The hate bubbled beneath her chest. She had only one goal in mind.
The other soldier took a round under the chin and slumped into the muck, twitching. Colin turned to run, and ran straight into the Na'vi. With viper-like quickness her arm shot out and buried the knife in his shoulder. He didn't have time to do much except stare at her in shock and drop his weapon. It was not long until he had joined his friend in oblivion. Pamtseo reached out for the hilt of the knife, but found she did not have the heart left to pull it out. She felt the bile rise in her throat and sat back down, retreating once more into her own mind.
Rate&Review. The last chapter is coming. *Ominous drums*