Na'dia was bored. Bored, bored, bored, bored.
She would trail the alien patrols, cloaking herself in her ability to fade into the background, and pick them off one by one. Once she killed an entire patrol, but that left a bad taste in her mouth – not literally, of course. She was swok txe'lan after all, and there was no way she was going to eat some disgusting tawtute. It had just been no fun, not pursuing the terrified survivors of the patrol back to the alien encampment, making them jump at shadows. All she had left was a pile of steaming corpses.
The tawtute soldiers were whispering about something they called the ghoul. Apparently she had been honoured with a nickname. The Ghoul. She liked it.
What was worse than being bored was there was almost nothing around here that she could eat, and she was starving. The search for food was cutting seriously into her killing time.
And she missed Ninat. And Txep'ean. And Uniluke with her sisters.
Na'dia was as horny as hell.
Not only that, she was filthy. Her skin was itching with the layers of accumulated dirt and tawtute blood and gore. Even her teeth felt furry. She wanted to be clean, but there was nowhere to wash. Why hadn't the tawtute set up somewhere closer to a nice river or stream? Or even a pond? It was most inconsiderate of them. She could smell her own stink – Na'dia smelt almost as bad as a tawtute herself. She was, after all, wearing almost enough of their blood to be considered a tawtute herself.
Na'dia had forgotten that she had ever been anything else than what she was now.
She had to give up her position on the low rise. The aliens had established an observation post there, and emplaced three automated turrets to protect the approaches. So she couldn't even watch over the alien camp any more, and observe the aliens scurry about doing their incomprehensible alien things.
Why, oh why wouldn't they do anything different? She had been here for over a week now, and the aliens were showing a distinct lack of imagination.
Bored.
She had seen some scouts from the Autìrol, but they had withdrawn back from the alien position, after they had made contact with a patrol and lost one of their number. That had made her angry, that the aliens had killed one of Eywa's children, so she had wiped out the entire patrol in a fit of pique. The orgy of killing had left her curiously unsatisfied, so she had hovered around the perimeter of the camp that night, barely out of range of the guns, and howled for several hours. Just to spook the stupid aliens, and interrupt their sleep. That had been fun, if only for a little while.
A pack of nantang had come along, attracted by the scent of rotting carrion. She tolerated them, as they tidied up the numerous corpses she left lying in the long grass, so at least the area around the tawtute encampment didn't smell too bad – apart from the stench of the living tawtute, of course. At least the nantang showed her a proper amount of respect, unlike the tawtute. Although she did like the name they gave her, even if it was hard for a Na'vi to say. Na'dia sang out her name, "Ghooouuul."
Still bored. And icky too. Not to mention hungry.
Na'dia had dreams about utu'mauti fruit that were almost orgasmic in intensity – especially when they involved her sisters of the tsumuke'awsiteng.
Her ears pricked. Something was happening. Something different.
Different was good.
An alien was coming out in an AMP suit.
A few ideas on how to kill an AMP suit had been cycling through her head over the last few days. Given that no-one had really seen her, a smart operator would not be looking out the window. Instead, the alien would be watching the AMP suit's sensors, and shooting at what they showed instead of trusting its eyes.
So it was going to be hard to sneak up on one. But she had an idea of how to manage around the sneaking up problem. There were a couple of other troubles as well. The AMP suit was going to be stronger than her, but Na'dia was sure she was faster, so she could manage around that little issue. The other problem was the Big Fucking Gun – if the alien was able to get a clean shot off the result would be a rather large hole in her. The BFG had to go.
This was going to be fun.
Na'dia crouched in wait, hidden in a particular thick clump of razor grass. It was painful, each movement against the grass like a papercut, but it provided her with the best cover against the sensors of the alien machine. She concentrated on thinking that she was an injured predator, helpless before the power of the aliens, lying just past the grass clump. It wasn't too hard to imagine – the cuts from the razor grass stung like crazy.
The heavy thumping steps of the AMP suit came ever closer, hardly masking the whine of the gas turbine powering the metal beast. She could smell the hot metal and oil reeking from the machine. It had to die. Na'dia waited patiently until...she sprang into the air, and every muscle strained to swing her sword, so precisely. Her blow was perfect, the tip of her blade tearing through the ammunition belt feeding the BFG – and even better, it didn't totally sever the belt.
The AMP operator swung around, its finger tightening involuntarily on the trigger, firing it at nothing. Blam! Blam! Blam! And then there was nothing. The twisted and bent links in the belt jammed in the ammo feed, and the BFG fired no more.
Unfortunately for Na'dia, as the AMP suit turned, she was struck hard in the ribs by its elbow, flinging her at least ten metres. Somehow, she managed to retain a grip on her sword as she hit the ground. That hurt!
"It's a Na'vi bitch," shouted the alien, unable to believe its eyes. Na'dia shoulder-sprang to her feet, and drew her other sword, hissing at the alien in its evil metal monster. At least the alien got the bitch part right, even if it was so blind that it did not See she was palulukan, not Na'vi.
She bared her teeth in a vicious snarl at the alien, willing it to die. It would soon enough.
The AMP suit ran at Na'dia, swinging the BFG like a club. It was so slow, she almost laughed, as she parried each blow, deflecting each one just enough so it did not strike her. It then tried to skewer her with the bayonet, driving her back, but then stopped, giving her room to move.
"Nadia Khudoshin," it said. "You were in the Avatar program."
For a moment, Na'dia was stunned by its words. She remembered dimly that her skin had not always been blue, and her swords slipped out of her hands.
The alien continued, "Why don't you come in? You are human, one of us." It slung its gun over its back, and held out a huge metallic hand towards her. "What have they done to you?"
Na'dia took a step towards it, only for the AMP suit to swing a brutal roundhouse punch at her. She ducked under the fist, catching at the limb with both hands. The follow-through ripped her off her feet, and she swung up over the limb, letting go at the peak of her trajectory. Na'dia landed on her feet on top of the canopy. She whipped a small cylinder off her belt, slapped it on the glass canopy, and did a backflip off the AMP suit, landing in front of it.
The alien looked dumbfounded at her agility and grace, and the curious expression on her face. She held up her hand to show the alien the pin from a grenade held between her thumb and forefinger, grinning broadly.
Its eyes crossed as the alien saw an object wrapped in a razor-palm frond, stuck firmly to the glass canopy directly in front of its face. Forgetting in its panic that it was in an AMP suit, the alien tried to push the grenade away using its real hands. But it was too late.
Na'dia dropped to the ground, just before the grenade detonated, blowing a small hole in the glass canopy.
The arms of the AMP suit slumped by its sides as she returned to her feet. Na'dia leapt up onto the canopy and wrenched it open. The alien was still alive, air bubbling through the bloody remains of its face. It looked as though it would be a race between death from shock and blood loss, or asphyxiation from the poisonous atmosphere.
Even treacherous tawtute deserved a clean death, when they had given her this much fun. She drew her knife, and gave it the blow of grace.
To stop the AMP suit from activating its return to base function, she reached down and switched off the ignition, the whine of the gas turbine dying, almost as quickly as the operator.
She didn't have much time. If the tawtute were smart, they would send out a patrol and a couple of AMP suits to recover this one. She leapt off the suit and removed the huge ceramic blade from its scabbard to the left of the canopy, and used it to pry the cover from the ammunition hopper. She pulled the ammo belt from the hopper, and yanked the BFG away from the inert AMP suit, slinging it and the ammo belt over her shoulders. Her final action was to take another grenade, flip open the cover for the fuel filler, and stuff the grenade into the neck, backing off quickly.
Grenades were such useful little toys. It was so nice of the tawtute aliens to carry so many of them for her to play with.
The AMP suit caught fire in a most satisfactory manner, burning fiercely, the plastic from the canopy slumping into a sodden mass. Na'dia retrieved her blades, and carefully sheathed them. There was work to do, and she couldn't hang around here watching the pretty flames burn the metal monster.
She wasn't bored now.
If only the BFG wasn't so fucking heavy.