Chapter 22: A night to remember

The supreme group leader, the highest-ranking individual of the SD, Natalya Vassileva, was inspecting twin newly built Dragon Assault Ships parked on the grounds of Hell's Gate.

"This… should do for now. However, the last commander to use one of these on this planet didn't fare so well, now did he?" Vassileva commented towards the male junior officer in charge of the presentation.

"True, ma'am, but he was not even a member of the Storm Division." the junior officer replied rather boastfully.

"And that makes him unworthy in your eyes, junior assault leader?" she replied sternly, looking down alongside her nose at him. "I had hoped my men would value courage, resolve and the right skillset, not the mere association to an organization."

"Of course, ma'am. Sorry, ma'am." the junior officer tried to rectify half-heartedly.

"Quaritch was just a man, this is true, but he had some admirable traits and skills that most of you men can only dream about. I could have used a man like that. Instead, I am stuck with you." Vassileva elaborated.

"Well… ma'am… I…I…" the junior officer bumbled in return.

"Be quiet. If Quaritch had not failed, none of us would have come here. So, consider this to be the excuse you need to continue walking around." she said disdainfully. At that instant, a loud explosion could be heard. The ground shook and cracked open a few dozen meters away. Pieces of concrete and dust were ejected into all directions. The glass front of a nearby building shattered, and it appeared the floor inside there was opening up as well.

Vassileva looked at the cloud of dust in bewilderment before an expression of shock formed on her face. The junior officer was still holding his arms in front of his face to shield against the debris. Before he realized what was happening, he was pulled by Vassileva into the path of an arrow as large as a spear. It went straight through his torso, but just missed the supreme group leader. Vassileva leapt back just before a second arrow popped up from the junior officer's abdomen.

"Don't look so down. You fulfilled your purpose." she told him as he collapsed onto the ground while she took out her twin pistols. Crouching behind his body, she then turned to the other troopers nearby. "Board the Dragons, we will crush them from above!"

As Vassileva stood up to run towards the nearest boarding hatch to join them, another volley of arrows was launched at them, hitting half of the troops. She only narrowly avoided getting hit herself.


Ralf was in a storage room to restack on toilet-cleaning supplies when he heard the battle alarm going off, indicating a security breach of outside origins.

"What the fuck now?" he said to himself as he dropped what he was doing and ran out of the room and into the corridor. Once there, multiple armed troops ran past him.

"Get your gear, soldier! The natives are staging a major attack!" one of them shouted at him.

Ralf thought for a few seconds and then went into the opposite direction of where they were heading. Not only was he going to get his weapons, he was going to get reinforcements. He knew a bunch of people who would be eager to get out and get medieval: Thorpe and his cronies.

Several minutes later, he made it to the jail, and saw them still being held in the cells. There was only one guard on duty at the moment.

"Let us out, you buffoon!" Thorpe roared at the guard. "We need every trooper we have to defend the base!"

The guard was distracted by the angry prisoners, and thus he was too late to react to Ralf coming up from behind. The latter floored him with a single punch to the face, took his security badge, and started unlocking all cells one at a time.

"Oh, I love you, man!" Thorpe said, even coming close enough to Ralf to kiss him. However, Ralf firmly held him at bay by sticking out his hand to block the man's shoulder.

"Weapons. Rifles. Grenades." he said to Thorpe. "To the armory!"


Selyat and Tsa'kan had just emerged together into the blueish fluorescent light with their bows drawn. The dust had settled a bit, but the air wasn't completely clear. They were in a large utility room with a relatively low ceiling. They could not stand-up straight. The room appeared to have multiple exits towards larger corridors. Two appeared secured, the third was contested. They knew where they had to go.

The two warriors in front of them were suddenly hit by machinegun fire and went down. Though unfortunate, it did allow Selyat and Tsa'kan to shoot and take out two of the ones responsible. Several Na'vi warriors from the earlier wave, crouching behind a metal cupboard, made use of the opportunity to shoot arrows as well. The entire machinegun squad of six troopers ended up being taken out.

"Advance!" one of the warriors called out. Selyat and Tsa'kan then found themselves at the front as they moved at pace through the corridor. Bodies of Na'vi and humans littered the floor. At least the ceiling was high enough for them to run and stand up straight.

"Where is their leader?" Tsa'kan asked one of the warriors of the earlier wave.

"Fighting was most intense in this area. This must be the right direction." the warrior replied.

Tsa'kan became slightly worried that they might be wrong, as they kept moving without encountering further resistance. To Selyat, it felt like they were heading into a trap of some kind. The question was how quick these Sky People were and if they had had the time yet to set up something like that.

When they rounded a corner, Selyat immediately saw that it was bad. She tackled Tsa'kan to the ground and let herself fall down as well. Both of them rolled to the side and crouched behind a parked maintenance vehicle as the humans opened fire. Warriors who didn't move in time were cut down.

From behind the vehicle, Selyat and Tsa'kan could see the leader of the soldiers. He was a strange sight among the others. Whereas normal soldiers had black armor and face-concealing helmets, this one was wearing beige armor and a helmet with a transparent face-plate. His girth was something else entirely, being more than double that of the regular troopers. Tsa'kan wondered if he was even the same species as the others.

While the human soldiers were taking cover behind improvised barriers, the leading figure was foolishly standing right in the open. When an arrow was launched directly at him, he didn't move. The arrow then unexpectedly bounced off something barely visible. It appeared the person was wielding some kind of rectangular transparent shield that extended to the full height and width of his body.

The female warrior who had shot this arrow at him, the one who had been boldest and had come the farthest, was shot by the other soldiers before she could raise her club against the shield-wielding human. When she fell down at his feet, dying but still conscious, he stepped forward. He raised his shield and brought the dull edge down on her neck with force. He repeated the action multiple times without mercy until she didn't move anymore.

"I am Deputy Leader of the Tempest! Drive these savages back to whence they came! Protect your Leader! I am willing to give my life! What about you?!" Oswald Torr, son of Wilhelmus, bellowed at the troopers.

An entire wave of them subsequently left the safety of the barriers and aggressively charged forward, firing their weapons in short controlled bursts. Several of them carried metal or plastic shields as well.

As the humans drew closer, Tsa'kan had to pull his head down behind the cover of the vehicle and heard the bullets impacting all around him. He had seen something important, though, and called out to Selyat: "That is him! The white hair! Their leader! We almost have him!"

"That is not him! Their leader is as tall as one of us." Selyat disagreed just after firing an arrow and taking out one of the advancing soldiers.

"No, it is him!" Tsa'kan replied stubbornly. "We just need to defeat this final attack!"

However, the Na'vi attack party, at least the section which had advanced up this corridor, was dwindling fast. Selyat stood up to shoot again, but was quickly hit in the shoulder, making her arrow go into the ceiling.

For a moment, Tsa'kan had had a taste of victory, but now it was falling apart. He wasted no time and pulled the injured Selyat away from the vehicle. Staying low and near the wall, with the vehicle still as their cover, they crept back around the corner. There were almost no fresh warriors joining up. Those who were still heading into that direction would end up in the grinder.

"Retreat! Back to the entrance. Defend the entrance!" he shouted to them as he supported Selyat, who was stumbling and leaning against him.


In the meantime, Ralf, Thorpe, and the other troopers with them had reached the armory. Ralf pulled a protective vest over his head, fastened it, and then turned to the weapons. He saw Thorpe taking his longbow and subsequently a broadsword.

After Ralf shot him an incredulous look, Thorpe justified his choice of weaponry: "As a great warrior once said: any officer who goes into action without his sword is improperly dressed."

"Your funeral." Ralf said simply before he took a machinegun and attached an oversized 200-round drum magazine to it.

"All of you, take an exopack with you. I wouldn't be surprised if there is a breach." one of the troopers said.

"Aye, there have been too many breaches for one day, I daresay!" Thorpe answered in a quasi-gentlemanly voice as he put on a breathing mask and attached the filter pack to his belt.

"Hey, Wild Hog!" a confident and familiar female voice called out. "I hope you weren't planning on joining the fun without me?"

Ralf looked up from his rifle and saw Astrid, already fully equipped and armed. She wore an expression on her face as if he had left her waiting at the ball or prom or something.

When Ralf didn't reply and simply turned up one corner of his mouth into a semi-smile, Thorpe answered for him.

"The Wild Hog is ready to rock and roll! I hope you are too, Princess!" he called out as he slapped Ralf on the shoulder.

Soon, they were moving in formation through the corridors, towards the site of the battle. When they opened a door at a certain point, it led to an uncontrolled mixing of the inside air with the Pandoran air, leading to a momentary blurring of the visibility around them.

"We're getting close." Ralf commented.

"Scared?" Astrid asked him smugly in return.

"No, Princess." Ralf answered, using the nickname for her that Thorpe had just invented. "Hungry."

As they snuck through the next deserted corridor, Thorpe, who was the point man, suddenly gave a hand signal. He communicated to them to stop and take up defensive positions. As they did so, he advanced slowly and stealthily, with his longbow drawn. When he neared the inside corner, he stopped and took a shot. Though it was out of view for the group, Thorpe had hit a Na'vi scout in the abdomen with his comparatively small arrow.

The Na'vi was stunned by what was happening. After letting out a scream of agony, he asked: "Who? What?" He was not even sure he had been shot by the enemy. Thorpe wasted no time and planted a second arrow in his face. He then signaled for the others to advance. As they passed the warrior who was now lying on the ground, struggling, Thorpe walked up, drew his broadsword and stabbed him in the neck to finish him off without hesitation.

However, stealth was only temporarily useful as a tactic. They soon encountered two more warriors, probably warned by the scream of the scout, who shot their arrows and then tried to retreat. They both went down after a volley of rifle rounds, but not before impaling one of Thorpe's cronies right through the middle of his chest. The second arrow narrowly missed the group.

"Get them, Thorpe… cut them down…for me…" he said as Thorpe crouched to hold his shaking hand, staying with him until he passed away. The others formed a defensive circle around them in the meantime.

After a moment, they left him behind and moved on, until they could get a good view of the grounds through a large broken window.

"Jesus, shit!" Ralf exclaimed as he saw dozens of Na'vi warriors on the concrete outside, battling a large number of troops in what appeared to be a disorganized brawl. It was not at all clear who was winning.

"No blaspheming!" Thorpe shouted to him, before turning to the others. "What are you looking at? Go out there and kill something! Help those guys there, behind those crates! We can set up a proper defensive line with their help!"

They climbed out of the window in pairs, each covering the other's back. Ralf and Astrid went out onto the grounds together. They had to be quick and unpredictable in their movement. Arrows and bullets were flying everywhere. Both of them got the opportunity to fire their weapon multiple times. At one point, Astrid pushed him clear of a Na'vi swinging a long club that knocked at least three other troopers several meters away. Seconds later, they saw Thorpe sliding past, cutting the heels of the warrior with his sword and forcing him to his knees.

By the time they reached the steel supply crates to reinforce the defenders, Ralf estimated that his first magazine was about half-full. Astrid was checking her own ammo reserves for her assault rifle as well.

"You still have your axe!" he remarked excitedly as he noticed it strapped to her belt.

"For close encounters. Which we haven't had yet." she replied somewhat sarcastically with a smirk.

In the sky above them, both Dragon Assault Ships were hovering in position, but they were not able to engage the enemy without inflicting heavy friendly fire.

"What are they doing down there?" Vassileva commented in frustration whilst standing in one of the cockpits. "These are supposed to be our finest troopers, yet they run around like scared children. They are just inviting me to blow them up."

"You there!" she then said to one of the operators. "Drop a few gas rounds into that crack at least!"

"Roger. CS-40's going hot. Firing." the gunner replied eagerly. Multiple gas grenades were subsequently launched.

"And what are they doing up there?" she said as she turned her head to look out of the cockpit window to the colorful sky above. "Did Barros' balls drop off completely? Somebody get him on the screen for me!"

"Yes ma'am." another operator answered. A few seconds later, somebody did indeed pop up on a communication screen, but it was the face-obscuring-helmet-wearing Mulholland.

"What is this? Where is the slime that calls himself governor?" Vassileva barked at him.

"He is sleeping at this hour, ma'am." Mulholland answered quickly before continuing to what she actually wanted to hear. "We have enough fuel to reverse direction, but we are in the wrong orbit. It will take hours to move there. Therefore, we cannot support at this time. Regardless, it might be wiser to let the natives grow confident that we cannot fire at night. So that we can get our payback when the time is right."

"Well, at least you are honest. And you might even have a point there." she said, contemplating the situation. Then she saw something alarming out of the corner of her eye.

"Are we blind?! Banshees landing on the perimeter! Did they take out our air defenses too?! Fire missiles! I do not care what we blow up! I will not have these flying rats crawling all over the base!" Vassileva bellowed.


Charlie smashed the alarm speaker in the Avatar locker area with a metal bar. He was sick of the loud sound that prevented him from hearing himself think. He also took the opportunity to destroy the nearby camera. Elynin was with him, but naturally kept her distance from the violence.

All of a sudden, a bright flash of light could be seen over the forest, followed swiftly by multiple balls of fire and an avalanche of noise. Elynin quickly covered her ears and squeezed her eyes shut. Charlie instantly recognized the blasts to be missile hits. The perimeter fence might actually have been damaged by these impacts.

When it was over, all Elynin and he could hear were the muffled sounds of gunfire and exploding hand grenades some distance away from them. The fluorescent lights in the room flickered briefly; dust fell from the ceiling. The locker area was deserted except for them.

"Here." he said as he kicked in a locker door and wrenched it open with the bar he was still holding. "Put this stuff on. They have to think you're an Avatar, not a Na'vi. With the right clothes, those dumbasses won't see the difference."

"But… why? I do not want to go out there!" Elynin protested, close to panicking.

"Do you want to escape or not? We won't get a better chance than this!" Charlie replied earnestly.

Elynin reluctantly decided to do as he said and started undressing. Meanwhile, Charlie disappeared out of sight. Before she could call out to him, she heard him kick and smash another locker.

"Are you alright?" she asked, but she didn't get a reply. As she was pulling on beige shorts, she saw him walking into view again, carrying two rifles and two backpacks.

"This is for you." he said as he put a weapon and a backpack down onto a table next to her. "Put your stuff in that bag."

"I am not touching that." she insisted stubbornly while eying the rifle and then pulling an Avatar t-shirt over her head.

"Then we're not getting out of here!" Charlie said with a happy smile which was clearly not genuine. "What kind of soldier runs through a battlefield without a weapon? Please, try to understand what is happening here. We have to go with the flow. Do you want them to shoot you?"

Elynin really felt out of her depth in the current circumstances. She didn't even know what to say to this.

"Shoes. Don't forget them." Charlie said impatiently, pointing at the inside of the locker. He proceeded to shove some food containers into his own pack and then started loading his rifle.

Elynin stepped into the pair of beige shoes that Charlie had pointed out. Maybe they were a bit oversized for her, but it was better than being too small. She knew how to tie the laces; she had watched others do so several times. When she was done, she eyed the rifle on the table again.

"Do you expect me to… kill… somebody?" she asked with a shaky voice.

"Hey…no, no, no…that's not what this is about, okay?" Charlie said as he turned to face her. He briefly stroked the side of her face to calm her, until she finally made eye-contact with him again.

He then took a black sweatband from the locker, and gently placed it on her head, with the skull and crossbones emblem of the SD facing the front, before saying: "You need to blend in. If everything goes alright, I won't even have to fire a single shot. And I'm not expecting you to pull any triggers. I'll leave the safety catch on for yours. I'll defend us both if there's need. Okay?"

"Okay." she said softly after a short silence, sounding at least partially comforted. Charlie felt they didn't have the time for anything else, and intended that they would talk it over properly when the circumstances permitted.

When they were ready shortly thereafter, Charlie led the way. Both were carrying backpacks and rifles. Unfortunately, when they exited the building and went out into the garden, they immediately encountered another Avatar.

"Wow doc, it's us!" Charlie called out in surprise at Dr. Singh. "What are you doing with a gun?"

"Trying to help by not using it." she said, sounding pretty serious. Her subsequent changing expression gave away that she clearly noticed something strange was going on with them. "I almost did not recognize you, Elynin. That is a… cute head decoration."

"Yeah, and her gun is cute too. We don't have time for this shit. I'm getting her out through the destroyed perimeter. Are you stopping us?" Charlie answered curtly.

Dr. Singh thought for a moment, sighed, and replied: "No."

Charlie immediately turned around and took a few steps before Dr. Singh called out to him: "You know, maybe you called in that you're pursuing a Na'vi saboteur. And maybe it's a long and tedious pursuit involving infiltration. You could be weeks away, months even; who knows? They'll be sending agents everywhere to find out how tonight's disgrace could have happened. It'll be an administrative nightmare. They might even end up rewarding those who took the initiative."

Charlie stopped briefly to listen to what she had to say, only turning around to face her again when she finished. After giving her a single nod, he resumed leading the way, beckoning Elynin to come with him.

They tried to be as inconspicuous as was possible for two three-meter-tall blue humanoids. They went over to the fence, then started following it in the hopes of encountering a damaged section. Their main advantage was that the garden and the forest were some distance away from the battle, so they encountered neither friendlies nor hostiles. Both weren't sure anymore which side would even be the friendlies and which would be the hostiles.

There was a problem though. When they reached the end of the fenced-in forest, they had not yet found an opening in the perimeter. Charlie thought that maybe he had misjudged the impact zone. He cursed to himself for a moment, until Elynin put a hand on his shoulder.

"And over there?" she asked, trying to be helpful.

Charlie looked up ahead. The perimeter fence had indeed been breached there. The opening was so wide, a tank could move through it. There were SD troops and Na'vi running all over the place, though. If they wanted to escape, it looked like they didn't have any other choice than to pass through the periphery of the battle.


"What the hell is that incompetent woman doing up there?" Astrid asked to no-one in particular as she was taking cover behind a supply crate. "How nice to blow a hole into the fence and leave our backs exposed."

Meanwhile, Ralf was shooting his rifle from behind another crate. He fired until his weapon suddenly clicked.

"Shit! Out of ammo. Out of magazines as well." he regretfully informed Astrid.

"What in the…" she replied, but when Ralf looked over to her, he noticed she was not surprised by his statement. Rather, she was distracted by something else entirely. He turned around to see what she was looking at. He subsequently saw Charlie and the native they had once captured, being not even ten meters away from them.

They stared at each other for what felt like a long time, though it was actually only a second at most. Charlie swiftly took aim, but Astrid was quicker. She threw her axe and hit him in the side of his right hand, causing him to scream out loud and drop his weapon.

Elynin immediately rushed to help Charlie, who was down on one knee in agony. When Astrid reloaded and aimed her weapon, however, he stood up stubbornly and attempted to shield Elynin from the danger.

"Well, well, well, look at that. Isn't that just plain old heroic. Saving the blue bitch. Only, you failed." Astrid said in mockery before she laughed loudly. She then intended to finish them off after giving a final farewell: "To blue hell with you!"

"Elynin!" Tsa'kan called out at the same time he launched an arrow on a perfect trajectory. It went straight through Astrid's upper back and out of her chest. The force of the impact launched her several meters far, until she fell down onto the ground.

Ralf uttered a drawn-out scream and ran to retrieve Astrid's weapon. Charlie, however, leapt forward and punched him right in the face with his uninjured left fist. He knocked Ralf's breathing mask clean off his head.

"Elynin!" Tsa'kan shouted again, this time with a lot of emotion in his voice. When he saw her trying to help the injured person who seemed to mean a great deal to her, he realized what he had to do. He went back into the building through the broken window and retrieved the injured Selyat who was sitting on the floor, her back leaning against the wall.

"Get out of here! Come on!" Charlie said through gritted teeth. He stopped momentarily to pick up his weapon. Elynin and he then ran out of the hole in the fence, with Tsa'kan supporting Selyat following closely behind them.

Ralf and Astrid were both left lying on the ground, choking. However, Ralf wasn't really injured and therefore, after a few seconds, he managed to turn himself over and crawl towards his breathing mask. After putting it back on and sealing it, he moved to sit on his knees in front of Astrid.

She was shaking and panicking. Her transparent facemask was red on the inside from the blood she had already coughed up.

Ralf didn't know what to do and desperately looked around for someone who could help.

"Thorpe! Astrid's been hit! Help her!" he bellowed at him.

Thorpe, who by now had resorted to using an assault rifle like most other troops, looked over to them and replied: "I can't do anything! I'm not that kind of miracle worker. You know her. Talk to her! I'll hold them off!"

Ralf then turned back to Astrid, but he wasn't really prepared for this.

"Hey, it's alright, just look at me, eh?" he said as he took her hand. He felt her almost crushing his hand in return. "You are the fiercest woman I've ever known, and I love you for it. We showed those bastards, didn't we? We are a good team, you and me."

Astrid looked like she wanted to say many things in return, but she was not able to. She could only cough up more blood and talk with her eyes, widening them at the things he said to her.

Ralf could then feel her grip loosening and see her breathing slowing, but he continued talking: "Your grandfather…he will not forgive them. He will never forget what they did. He will make them pay! I will make them pay! I will hunt them down like dogs! They… will suffer!"

It was over now. She was no longer clutching his hand, no longer struggling, no longer coughing up blood, no longer moving her eyes, no longer breathing.

He stood up and refocused himself on the battlefield. The intense rage was making him see very clearly somehow as if it had made a full circle. Everything seemed to have slowed. The natives appeared to be down to their last warriors. He realized what was missing. Why weren't the perimeter guns firing? He looked back and noticed some of them to be intact, but locked into forward position facing away from the base. It smelled like sabotage. He knew what to do to remedy that.

Ralf ran over to the fence, climbed a ladder, approached one of the guns, released it from its clamping mechanism and took it into his arms. He then ripped off the cover to expose the manual trigger. He activated the motor, causing the six barrels to start spinning rapidly, making a high-pitched electrical whirring sound. Finally, he pulled the trigger.

The mechanical monster fired about thirty rounds per second. It was fed with an ammo belt attached to a large container holding about a thousand rounds, still located in the fixed tripod on the fence. He braced his body against the tripod as he started clear-cutting the battlefield.

"EVERYONE DOWN!" Thorpe shouted over the radio as he realized what was happening. Ralf instantly mowed down the two Na'vi about to attack the former. He proceeded to finish them all one by one, screaming alongside his weapon. Sometimes he only narrowly missed the nearby Tempest soldiers.

Even after he couldn't find more enemies, he held his ground, weapon ready, with the barrels still spinning whilst emitting the high-pitched noise.

He actually jumped slightly and fired a short burst into the air when he noticed Thorpe approaching him from the side.

"Easy there, partner. They're all dead. Why don't you… let go of that thing, huh?" he said cautiously to Ralf. "Come on, put that thing down. Yeah, that's it."

After the Dragons, escorted by several Scorpion gunships, had moved out to patrol the perimeter of the base, it turned a lot quieter. Still, there was the screaming and groaning of the wounded. Ralf looked around the battlefield. Bodies littered the ground. When he closed his eyes momentarily, he was still shooting those natives and still holding Astrid's hand.