Renshaw had detailed the three women to clean up the bodies of the tawtute crew. Sharon had muttered under her breath about gender stereotyping and the tyranny of the fucking male patriarchy. She did not, however, dispute his right to give her orders to his face.
The job required them to collect the various bits of bodies and take them to the second hab module, which was primarily occupied by life support.
When they lugged the first load to the algae organic waste digester, Na'dia laughed.
Tania and Sharon looked at her curiously. "What's so funny?" asked Tania.
Na'dia pointed to the manufacturer's plate on the digester feed. She said, "Even tawtute have sense of humour."
Sharon read the plate aloud. "A product of the Soylent Green Corporation, an RDA subsidiary. I don't see what's so fucking funny."
"Obscure tawtute cultural reference," replied Na'dia, in apparent explanation for her laughter.
"Would you really eat humans?" asked Tania.
"No," said Na'dia. "Self likes food, will not eat flesh that smells bad like tawtute – food for nantang. Tawtute blood tastes good though, very salty." She smiled, showing her pointed canines. "Self knows that two legs taste very good."
Sharon looked ill. "You're shitting me," she said. "Tell me you haven't eaten Na'vi."
"Self has not eaten two legs," admitted Na'dia, stuffing the lower half of a tawtute body into the digester. "Self knows what taste is like from memories of sensei."
Sharon could not let it go, asking curiously, "Would you eat Na'vi?"
Na'dia replied without a moment's hesitation. "Yes."
"Jesus fuck!" responded Sharon. It seemed an appropriate thing to say.
The palulukan woman decided to expand on this point. Life could become difficult if the Na'vi on the starship were continually worrying if they were going to be eaten. "Self finds thought of killing two legs distasteful, so likelihood of eating two legs is minimal, no matter how good taste is. And self would only eat two legs that self killed."
Tania chuckled, "So I can sleep well tonight, secure in the knowledge that I will not become a late night snack."
"Unless I feel like some late night muff-munching," said Sharon crudely.
Recycling the bodies and mopping up the floating blood took much of the next two days. It was important to remove the floating blood from the zero-g areas of the starship – inhaled liquid could cause some serious medical issues. Renshaw insisted on making a personal inspection of the entire starship to ensure that the cleanup was adequate.
Once the inspection was complete, he called the uniltìranyu together in the mess hall to brief them.
"The ISV Venture Star will be braking for Pandoran orbit in five days. Due to our success in boarding the Dog Star while in radio shadow from Pandora, the crew of the Venture Star is unaware that the RDA is no longer in control of this vessel." The colonel paused, and smiled briefly. "Well done."
"Our mission requires us to board and take control of the Venture Star. Due to the circumstances of its last visit to Pandora ten years ago, our target is equipped with only one Valkyrie class shuttle. The orders to the former commander of the Dog Star required him to permanently transfer one of her shuttles prior to the Venture Star landing any RDA personnel on the surface. This will give us the opportunity to take control through another boarding action."
"However," said Renshaw, "This will be more difficult than the action we have just won. Unlike Dog Star, which was just carrying the starship crew itself, the Venture Star has a full load of passengers – both miners and soldiers. Our mission, our lives and the lives of our loved ones require us to pursue this action with total ruthlessness."
Na'dia listened to the colonel outline the plan for the boarding action. It was much as she had first discussed with Renshaw. He had both simplified and elaborated the plan, using his knowledge of military tactics and starship layout to come up with an optimal solution for her basic concept.
There wasn't much for Na'dia to do while they waited for the Venture Star to make orbit, unlike some of personnel that had come on the assault. They were engaged in modifying the life support systems to produce Pandoran atmosphere throughout the ship – they had only extended to the cryogenic pods previously. Once that was done, they could take off the damn exo-packs and breath real air – if you could call the damned canned atmosphere in the starship real air, which it wasn't.
Others were engaged in hacking the computer systems, to disguise video communications with the faces and voices of the late crew, while Renshaw started work on mission parameters. That left Na'dia with nothing to do other than to gaze through an observation port at her world below. Well, that, and eating the gloop that the algae digester produced.
It was a relief when Renshaw broadcast over the intercom that the boarding crew was to assemble on shuttle one for the assault on the Venture Star – the starship that had brought her tawtute self to Pandora so many years ago.