We had taken complete hold of Hope when a single ship approached. It was the fighter, and it seemed like they found a spare windshield. It was completely repaired and was working great. I saw it approach, but the plasma cannons were offline at the moment rebooting. I checked the cameras. I was on the bridge, and the others were at the armory or the detention cells. I grabbed the microphone for the PA.

"We have a ship approaching. Intent unclear. Get to the hangar and prepare for combat. Ship is a single person fighter. Be careful, " I said. I put it down and ran to the hangar, Trudy right behind me. We were on the way to the hanar when something exploded. It came from the hangar. I wasn't sure what it was, but I was about to find out. I burst into the hangar, Ben's group just entering from the other side. In the hangar was the fighter. It had already fired on four of the helicopters, and was aiming for the other two.

"ARC fighters, engage the enemy!" I hadn't taken ARC out of the helicopters yet, so he should be able to take over. They powered on, one of them flickering shields. The fighter fired and destroyed one, but the shields on the other held. It rose and fired on the fighter. It turned and left the hangar.

"ARC fighter, stand down. " The ship landed, but kept the shields on and guns ready. I surveyed the damage. The one we had wouldn't fit us all at once, so we would have to take two trips to get everybody down. The fighter reentered the atmosphere on Pandora and disappeared from our sight. The other helicopters were badly damaged. We couldn't fix them for space flight again.

"ARC, how are the landing gear on Hope?"

"Repair is impossible without supplies we have on Pandora. "

I turned to the others. "We've got one helicopter now. I don't want to risk two trips down, they might shoot you guys down. If we lose the helicopter, your sitting ducks. We'll have to split up. We can fit ten, maybe eleven people in the helicopter. The rest will have to stay up here and defend Hope. "I would like volunteers for the two teams. If you want to stay, on the left. If you want to head down, on the right please. "

They split up. Ten on the right, nine on the left, five in the middle. The five were the five remaining Hope crew members. "You're our captain, John. Where do you want us?"

"Stay with Hope, please. She'll need you if you get attacked. "

"We'll die before they get Hope. " They joined the group on the left. I joined the right group. In it was Sergeant Brand, Trudy, and several of his survivors.

"All right, lets go. I had a tracker put on that fighter a while ago. ARC, where is it going?"

My watch lit up with a map of Pandora. A red dot blinked where the fighter was. It was headed towards where Hometree used to be. Since it was destroyed, the Omaticaya had moved to the soul tree up north. At least, I'm pretty sure it was called soul tree. "They've landed here before, and it lines up with where they are headed. " A yellow dot appeared quarter mile away from Hometree. I nodded.

I closed the map and looked at the others. "Anybody know how to fly?" Trudy's hand went up. "You want to fly?"

"Sure. " She was a better pilot than me, especially with the helicopters. We boarded and descended. We landed at the Omaticaya camp. As soon as we landed, a large group of guards was right beside us. I think they were more to keep us from attacking them. "Where's Jake?" I asked in Na'vi. The survivors looked at me quizzically.

"This way, " One of the guards said. We followed him to the center of the camp. Jake was there with Neteri, talking to an injured scout.

"Jake, sorry I wasn't here when the uprising started. I was off planet. "

He turned to me. "Why didn't you tell me you were leaving? We've lost a lot of Omaticaya, and the nearby clans are getting ready to come in for a full out war. " He stepped closer, obviously angry at me. "You brought them here, so you get them out. I won't let you use any of my people until you succeed or die. I lost all my best troops in a war you could've won on your own, and that's what you're gonna do this time. I don't have the resources to help you, and I don't want to see you until you finish this war. "

He had the right to be angry, but I never meant for any of this to happen. "Understood. We'll be leaving now. " We left the camp and returned to the human base. Once we got there, I pulled up the map with the attack locations from the upstarts. "ARC, run some numbers please. I need to find a pattern in these attacks. Do whatever you have to, I need to know where the next attack will be. "

"Yes sir. I'll have them ready in thirty minutes. "

I walked the rest of the compound, making sure everybody got settled in well. We would stay here until we had to move out to stop an attack. Once ARC had the numbers done, I looked at the pattern. He had predicted the next four attacks, which seemed to me to be in random places. "What am I looking at ARC?"

"This is the randomized formula his ARC created. We are linked, so I have access to all of his data. The formula he used is very complex-almost to many variables for me to compute. "

"This is the next one, right?" I asked, pointing to the dot labeled '1'.

"Yes. It will occur tonight at 2115. "

"We'll be there. How many troops do you think will be there?"

"About thirty. Mostly humans, but about ten will be Atlantians. "

"That'll be annoying. Humans we can easily take care of. The Atlantians can cause a lot of trouble though. " I'd seen fifteen Atlantians taken out by a rogue soldier once. They had been taken by surprise, and it wasn't pretty to watch someone be torn apart from the water inside their veins.

"I know, but if you take them by surprise, it shouldn't be much of a problem. "

"Alright. We'll arrive at 2117 and fight them off. Take prisoners where we can and kill the ones that don't surrender. We'll need to figure out where all of their camps are. Let the others know. "

"Yes sir. "