So long as he could remember, he could feel its call.
When someone came of age among the people, they were allowed to craft their own bow from the wood of the Hometree. Like any other na'vi, Ar'kadi did so.
But after a few weeks he more or less put it on the shelf as it were. Not because there was anything wrong with it, it was an okay bow, but for some reason, he wasn't happy about it.
It was a good bow, but it was just that: a bow. Just another bow like anyone else's in the tribe.
After a while, he realised he wasn't satisfied with ordinary. He wanted something more than that. He wanted something new. Something better.
The others thought he should have been out hunting more, rather than
After ten failed attempts at making something that worked, finally he got an idea: he crafted his bow with a different shape: central short handle, leather strap covering, and curved limbs. It was much better than the others, its arrows covered greater distances and it didn't lose an ounce of its efficiency. One of them even managed to hit a hexapede sixty metres away.
The first time he had showed up in Hells Gate, one of the scientists took an interest in it.
"Is that a compound bow?" the human had asked.
"A what?"
"A compound bow. It's like a bow made from bits and pieces glued and strung together, rather than one bit of wood. Yours is the first I've seen. It's quite impressive."
"Um, thanks." It was possibly the first bit of real praise he had gotten about it. "Hey, do you have bows on Earth?"
"Not anymore, we kinda chucked them away when we started making guns… but if you want, I can get one of our bows fabricated or made for you to see."
"You can just make stuff like that?"
"If we've got the materials at hand, yeah, the machinists can make one up."
The next time Ar'kadi was sent to the colony on business as it were, the scientist had come back with something that almost made his jaw drop off. It was a fantastic creation, a bow made from plastics, metals, pulleys and other materials he was only slowly starting to understand. When he got an opportunity to test it out in the yard, he barely had to strain himself pulling the cord. And the arrows just seemed to hit the target themselves.

If he was a human, he probably would have made a good engineer. He was always fascinated by machines, by technology. The Sky people had only fuelled that thirst.
Technology to him was a door to power; something that would open the gate to whole other worlds. It would allow him to discover the bare essence of life, reveal parts of the universe no other na'vi would imaging looking at. He could discover how life itself worked.
But most of all, it would give him power.
He started experimenting with some of the human guns, machines that could cut through the air at rapid fire speeds. Why limit oneself to a bow when one could blow the enemy apart with machinegun fire? Why throw rocks when one you had grenades? Or hell, what if Ar'kadi could create bullet proof body armor? A power suit big enough for a na'vi to use?
If he could build any of those, then he would empower his people like never before. They'd be stronger than the tawtutes could ever hope to be, and his tribe would be the greatest to ever rise from Eywa!
If only…

"If only…." Ar'kadi muttered out loud.
He was rummaging around in his gear. The room that the scientists had provided the na'vi was pretty Spartan: it was more or less just a storeroom that was converted to act as a dorm for any na'vi visitors. It wasn't exactly the Hometree, but it was warm, and mostly dry. It was a shame it didn't have any windows, it felt like a cave because of it.
Things had become pretty tense when the Khalistheya had started laying siege to the colony. One moment he was dozing in his cot and getting ready to go to sleep, the next minute, he and the other five na'vi that were sent here had been dragged out of their beds at more or less gunpoint. Well, it wasn't really gunpoint, the militia had been surprisingly cordial, but he could tell they were thinking about tossing them all in the brig. Once it became clear that the attack wasn't their fault, the humans had settled for sequestering them in the science block until the attacks had subsided, after which they'd be kicked out. It wasn't exactly nice, but it was better than being put up against a wall.
He was in the process of checking that he had everything that he needed to head back to the Hometree, when he voices.
Huh... he figured inside his head. I hope those Khalistheya haven't gotten closer.
He was just about to fasten his bag up when he heard shouting outside of his door. It sounded like there was an argument or something going on in the main lab.
One of them must have dropped a beaker or something. Ar'kadi mused.
Then the voices started to really get loud. The argument was really starting to heat up.
"Ah hell, I better go look..." he muttered fastening his quiver and gear onto his straps. He was just about to open the door when he heard the burst of gunfire.

His hand hovered right above the door handle.
Okay, okay, okay what do I do, what do I do, what do I-
The door smacked right into him, almost pushing him off of his feet. Because of his large size, the door was only opened a bit. He instinctively slammed into the door.
A revolver pistol had been squeezed through the door. The voices on the other side were yelling indistinctively. The revolver itself was now firing wildly into the room, blasting the walls past Ar'kadi.
The na'vi quickly opened the door for one split second. Just as the shooter fell into the room slightly, he slammed it right on the man's head.
He looked down at the RDA mercenary. The human was out cold, head slightly bleeding, and exo mask slightly dislodged.
Ar'kadi realised that the yelling had stopped. He crept over to the main lab.
"Oh no..."

The room was a mess. Normally the place would be stacked with equipment, the scientists busying themselves with whatever they did. Now that equipment had been trashed, and some of the scientists were now bleeding on the floor. The attackers must have just left.
It wasn't just the humans that had been killed. Two of Ar'kadi's friends were lying on the ground. They weren't moving.
Ar'kadi was shaking out of his daze when he heard a voice nearby. He looked over one of the desks to see a scientist pumping the chest of one of the other scientists.
"C'mon Jack... c'mon... stay with me." The man whispered to the bleeding man on the floor.
"What are you doing!"
"Trying to get his fucking heart started again, that's what!" the scientist snapped. Another human burst out of one of the corridors, carrying these red packs with white crosses. Healing bags from the looks of it. He took one look at Ar'kadi and shouted "Don't just stand there! Do something!"

"Okay assholes let's see how you fare now!" The driver of the Militia Revenant AMP snarled to himself.
Revenants weren't just AMP's that could be used for standard 'on the line' odd jobs. They were one of the few AMP models that were still designed to carry modular integrated weapon systems. In this particular case, Nick's Revenant was equipped with a magnetic chaingun system, incendiary grenade launchers, and a 'shoulder' mounted 20mm autocannon. They were blazing at full auto as he charged into the enemy.
The returning militia were met with fire as soon as they approached the main door to the Armor Vault. It looked as if the mercs had set up a perimeter around the main door utilizing containers, vehicles, anything that could take a beating. Then there were the mounted turret guns that were shooting at the militia as soon as they came in sight. It was a hastily slapped together fortification, but it was going to be an adequate one for the time being.
As the militia started to move onto the fort as it were, they disembarked their transports and started to return fire. Orders came quickly from the squad leaders to try and get around the fort and breach into the main complex from another door. If they didn't do something fast then they were sitting ducks outside.
Nick moved over to the right of the main fort, doing his best to avoid enemy fire while covering the squad he tasked himself with protecting. As bullets slammed into his armored carapace, he struggled to keep his cross hairs trained on the enemy forces. The militia he was with moved from cover to cover as he drew the brunt of the enemy fire. As long as no one brought out anti armor weapons, he should be okay.
That was until the sound of an AMP auto gun started thumping. The salvo of explosive rounds almost threw his suit on back, the three rounds that hit causing shock waves and concussive force to reverberate through the armor. Nick quickly turned to face his opponent: An AMP wielding one of the usual auto cannons. It was still firing its gun at Nick, causing large scale damage. He started roaring as he attempted to return fire.
He didn't have to. A round from one of the militia's incendiary grenade launchers smacked right onto the AMP's gun, burning through the metal and causing the next round to make the gun explode right in the mech's hand. Nick could see the pilot start to swear and curse inside his glass cockpit. He started to rush the bastard where he was.
The AMP whipped out a ceramic knife. The merc pilot was smiling at first. It became a look of "Oh Fuck!" as soon as he saw what was attached to Nick's mech arm. He frantically attempted to parry the oncoming blow.
His whole arm was cut in off in a blaze of sparks. The pilot looked down at his arm, and then he looked back at the spinning ceramic chainsaw that was attached to Nick's arm.
Just in time to see it get rammed through the cockpit glass.

"Sir, the militia are attacking the gate in force."
"Yes, I can hear them Manderley." Carson snapped testily. "Tell our men to hold their ground. Are the runways clear?"
"Affirmative."
"Has Vector returned with Carnegie and his notes?"
"He's currently being sedated as we speak."
"Good. Start readying the transports for take-off. Let's not spend any more time in this death trap than we have to."

"Is he going to be okay?" Ar'kadi asked.
"We've done all we can…"
The lab had turned into a make-shift hospital for the wounded. The real infirmary was more or less on the over side of the base, but with all of the bullets flying around, colonists came to the labs with their wounded, guessing that there had to be some medical equipment around of some kind. Soon, the place was being filled to the rafters with patients and people doing what they could to help the wounded.
"Just hang in there." Ar'kadi quietly said to the na'vi on the table. "You'll make it. You've been through worse."
The patient cracked upon one of his eyes and almost smiled a little. "Wasn't that what you said about the time my leg was nearly eaten off?"
"Yeah, well, you've always done your best to shrug off crap like this…"
Ar'kadi, the na'vi on the table, and another man were the only na'vi who were still alive. The other three were now lying in the makeshift morgue that used to be their room. There wasn't a lot of time to mourn though.
"Hey, na'vi!" a human colonist walked up to Ar'kadi.
"What?"
"My boss says he wants to speak to you."
"I'm busy."
"He wants to speak to you NOW." The human replied with a bit more force. "Just come over here for a second."
Ar'kadi then got up and began to carefully make his way through the makeshift beds, the patients and the doctors that filled the place. There wasn't a lot of room for an overgrown cat man to walk around. By the time he got to the console, he had already stepped on three angry humans feet by accident.
"Hello?" he said when he finally crouched down to the screen. A familiar face emerged upon it.
"Oh good, it's you." Halverson replied. "Listen, I need your help-"
"I'm not helping until you go and tell me what the hell is going on!" the na'vi interrupted.
"Look, I don't know okay! In case you haven't got it yet, all of the green shirted RDA goons have just stabbed us all in the back. None of them have told us why, they're just packing their bags, and shooting anybody that's in the way. I'd tell you if now was the time, but right now, I don't know any more than you do."
"So why did you call me?"
"I need your help. Almost all of my men are tied up with trying to retake the armor vault away from those goons, but there's a problem." Halverson briefly glanced to the security cams on his side of the monitor. "It looks like Carson's goons have placed a bomb in the reactor complex."
Ar'kadi drew a blank.

Halverson sighed. "What I'm saying, is that if the bomb goes off, the resulting chain reaction will wipe out the entire base…"
He realised that Ar'kadi still had a blank look.
"For fuck's sake… If that bomb goes off, EVERYONE DIES." Halverson blurted out in exasperation. "Do you understand me? EVERYONE, including you, DIES."
"Okay, okay!… jeez…" Ar'kadi responded, a little taken aback. "So what do you need me to do?
"I need you to go to the reactor building and do something… I don't know what exactly, and stop that bomb from going off. Get a radio set from someone; I'll get a technician here to walk you through it."

"Where the hell are those mechs that I asked for sir?" Lieutenant Daniels shouted into his radio.
"We're still loading them with ammo for chrissakes, hang in there!"
"Shit! Would somebody frag that emplacement already!"
"Don's got the missile launcher! We could try and smoke 'em with it!"
"Then do it already, we can't move up if that thing is plowing us!"
As Daniels started to reload his weapon, he heard the sounds of a rocket flying out of its launcher and exploding on to the enemy position in an almighty crack. There was a brief moment of silence.
"Did it work?"
The emplacement opened up again.
"No it did not!"
"Shit!"

"Okay, just go right here…"
"Okay…."
Being guided by a voice in his ear was a strange feeling for Ar'kadi. When he was little, he once laughed at a human that he once saw talking into a strange black box. Now he felt like a complete idiot himself. Henka must have thought he looked like an idiot, following him around like this.
Getting from the labs to the reactor building was easier said than done. More than once they had to keep their heads down after sniper rounds cracked perilously close. Sometimes they had to sprint behind containers and vehicles, other times they had to crawl on their bellies so the shooter couldn't see them. He guessed it was coming from the Hangar bay buildings, somewhere.
After about ten minutes or so they finally found themselves leaning against the buildings main entrance. The reinforced vehicle gate seemed to be a bit of an impediment though.
"So how does this thing open?" he said into the little black box he carried.
"Not sure…" the technician, Johnson, replied over the radio. "I'm trying to override the locks, but it looks like the mercs put up a firewall between the main console and my own master codes. I think that-"
The technician remembered who he was speaking to.

"I'm working on it okay?" Johnson sighed into the console.
"Can't we just bash the door down with something?"
"Possibly… but I don't think that you-"
The sound of repeated thumping echoed over the radio.
"There! WE got it open!"
"Yeah yeah… you guys are big and strong… we get it."

"C'mon are those mechs loaded or not? We need them now godammit!"
"They're almost done dammit! Give us-"
The voice on the radio paused for a moment.
"Holy shit…"
"Command, don't leave us hanging!"
"Daniels… it appears that Delta squad and some other civilians have found an alternative solution to the mech support…"
"What the hell are-"
Daniels was going to finish when he felt the rumbling under his feet. He'd been on Pandora for long enough to know what that sound and feeling signalled.
"You might want to tell your men to make some room."
Sure enough, the militia started to move around to let the big rumble come past. Then they began their cries of 'Holy shit!' and 'Hell yeah!'

A gigantic dump truck rumbled out from one of the buildings. Hell Trucks were easily bigger than the average three storey building. This particular one was packed with a whole squad of militia, as well as some colonists packing guns themselves. The gigantic yellow monstrosity, spewing gunfire and harsh language, went at ramming speed into the mercenaries position.
"HEEEERRREEEE'S JOHNNY!" the truck's loudspeaker blared out insanely.
The mercenaries panicked. They tried to stop the machine with rockets and gunfire, but it was just too big to stop without anything less than an airstrike. They ditched their position and ran back inside the hangar facility.
At least most of them made it inside. Some of them, including a few AMP's weren't fast enough. They didn't even slow the monster down. Going at full speed (30 mph) the truck smashed into the main door, with enough force to destroy a small building. The soldiers on the beast were nearly shaken off, but the monster burst right through the gate.
The newly loaded mechs finally arrived, running past the militia footmen like people trying to catch a bus that had already left.
"Oh man I can't believe we missed that!" one of them yelled as raced forward.
Daniels shook himself out of the shock. He noted his men were wooping and cheering like crazy.
"What the hell do you think you're doing?" he shouted. "We haven't won this yet! FORM UP!"

"They've breached the gate!"
"Son of a… All personnel!" Carson shouted into his radio. "Get to your aircraft. We are taking off immediately!"
The Hangar had been packed with aircraft when the operation had been initiated, but most of the aircraft had been sabotaged by now. The mercenaries would have preferred to just blow the unnecessary vehicles to scrap, but it wasn't the right environment to just blow everything up. They decided to settle with scrapping the vital components. Aside from the sabotaged Samson's, Scorpion's and Haast's, the only operational aircraft were ten Samson's, five Scorpion gunships, the three Valkyrie shuttles and the AC-320 Gunship. All of them were taxiing out to the tarmac right then. Mercenaries and RDA cronies were rushing on to their birds and returning fire from the militia pouring in from the breached gate, the giant dump truck resting to a stop after crushing a Samson. Thankfully, RDA had set up a second line of defence, so they still had time to bug out while they could. The real issue now was how many planes would be destroyed before they could extract.
Carson settled down in the make shift command room his men set up in one of the Valkyrie shuttles. He opened comms.
"Emperor, you'll leave first. Take Snake and Viper to serve as your escorts and eliminate your assigned target. Rendezvous at Citadel after you are done."
"Understood."
He felt his shuttle move up. The technicians and officers race on their consoles to coordinate the take-off for RDA. He was fairly satisfied that they would be able to get out in time, barring something like a meteorite smashing in. He was about to close the channel when a voice came out of the computers speakers.
"I know you can hear me Carson."
The mercenary leader looked back in interest. "Halverson. What a surprise. I appear to have forgotten to say my farewells to you.
"Yes well, the men you sent to do that for you weren't exactly polite." A rugged voice replied in a somewhat dark fashion. "What the hell are you trying to do?"
"Why I'm leaving." Carson said matter-of-factly. "Is that not obvious enough?"
"And what about the stabbing in the back? That bomb you put with the reactor?" the voice snapped. "What the fuck, are you and Selfridge trying to accomplish by running away?"
Carson gave a disappointed sigh. "Major, if it makes you feel any better, running away just because some savages attacked us is not what we're doing. Do you honestly think we could have planned this within the time we had after they attacked?"
"You mean… You've been planning to do this all along."
"Exactly. For your information, we do care very much about what happens to this place. Namely that it gets destroyed at some point. And right now, it couldn't come at a better time."
"You son of a bitch."
"Goodbye Carson. If the bomb doesn't deal with you, I'm sure the savages will make you feel right at home."
He cut transmission.

The inside of the building was a veritable maze of pipes, machinery, and walkways, all more or less leading to the big giant core in the middle of the place. It was a mammoth piece of machinery, three storeys high and shaped like a planted turnip. There didn't seem to be anything wrong with it.
"So where do we go from here?" Henka asked.
"The first place anyone would plant the bomb:" Johnson radioed. "Right at the top of that really big looking machine over there."
"Okay, so how do we get there?" Ar'kadi asked as he walked in.
"Well you could climb the stairs, but if you're so big, then you could just climb the whole machine..."
"Wait, did you hear that?"
There was a faint beep. It was coming from one of the stairwells.
"Let me have a look..." Henka muttered as he walked cautiously over to the stairs.
"What are you guys talking about?"
"There's some kind of beeping coming from the stairs, Henka's taking a look."
"What! Oh fuck, GET AWAY FROM IT GET A-"
As Henka approached the stairwell, a burst of gunfire hammered into him. He fell back, screaming at the wounds in his legs. The na'vi was lucky to have fallen back, out of the shooters line of fire, because whoever it was simply kept firing near his feet, thick bullets breaking up the concrete floor. Ar'kadi managed to drag the wounded man away and rest him against a container.
"Are you okay?"
"Does it LOOK like I'm okay?" Henka cursed in reply. "It... I'll be fine... What was that..."
"It must have been a sentry turret the mercs left behind." Johnson radioed. "Those things would have been placed to prevent anyone from heading up the stairs and to the bomb."
"So... what now?"
"Well you can't climb the stairs now. Judging from the one or two cameras I got, the ladders have been busted with thermite, the machinery's too big to climb..."
There was a short second of silence.
"Oh yeah..."

"We're taking off sir."
"Very good."
The shuttle started to lift up off the tarmac and before he knew it, they were in the air. The shuttle didn't wait for the others so it started to blast off to Citadel, leaving behind a battered colony. The rest of the merc fleet more or less got away, thanks to the cover the choppers provided with the exception of the last shuttle, which fireballed into the main walls.
Acceptable losses
Carson pulled up his comm channel with one hand, and grabbed a detonator from his armor with the other one. It was a simple device; a small device with a big red button covered by a plastic cap. Idiot proof.
"All personnel, detonating in three... two... one..."
He clicked the button. From the camera placed on one of the other Samsons he could pick out an explosion from the reactor complex. He bit his tongue in anticipation of seeing the reactor cooking off and annihilating the colony.
He was thoroughly disappointed.
He tossed the detonator on the floor. "Well... I guess they did have some aces up their sleeve after all."
"Do we have to blow apart that place ourselves?" an officer asked.
"No. We had a contingency plan in the event this happens. Let us wait until we are at Citadel." Carson replied. "We'll be back with a surprise for them."

Halverson allowed himself to have one cigar. There may have been a lot to do, wounded to take care of, colonists to arm and defences to shore up, but Halverson allowed himself to enjoy the little victory he had.
"Sitrep Novac."
"The colony's fully secured, we put up a few SAM defences in place in case they come back and we have men plugging up the gaps in the walls."
"Wounded?"
"Triage is full. Our doctors are doing the best they can, but we think we've lost, or are going to lose about sixty militia and thirty colonists."
"Aircraft?"
"Most of them have been sabotaged sir, but the fabricators are still intact. We estimate that we can have a squadron up in the air by the end of the day."
"Comms?"
"The Mckinney's trashed sir. It's a complete right off. We've got no means of contacting Earth, or the Magellan when it arrives in a few days." Novac said. "Local comms are still more or less back online."
"Good. How are our boys and girls holding up?"
"They're shaken but not stirred. Most of them are holding up and doing their job."
"I meant our REAL boys and girls."
"Oh... The kindergarten and school weren't touched. I've sent men over there to keep them under watch. I've also allowed some parents to head over and talk to their kids."
"Good... Keep me updated if anything changes with them."
"Will do."
"And lastly, could someone tell me where Carnegie is?"
"He's missing. The science crew say that the mercs kidnapped him or something like that. Don't know why."
"Hmm."
A large blue figure stooped inside.
"Ah… what's your name again?"
"Ar'kadi."
"I've been wondering… how come that bomb didn't kill us all?"
Ar'kadi shrugged. "I chucked it out the window."
Halverson stared a little. "You chucked it out the window?"
"Yes. The voice in my ear kept talking about defusing or something like that, but I didn't see what was wrong with just taking it away from the reactor."
"Right, right… Listen, there's something I need to tell you."
"I'm listening."
Halverson stubbed the cigar. "As you know, we are in a really tight spot. That bastard and his men trashed our defences when they left and left behind a lot of my people dead. And right now, we still do not know why the hell he did this. But we do know what he plans to do."
Ar'kadi did his best to understand. He nodded.
"A while back, one of my squads managed to find a wounded mercenary in the science bay. It looked like his head had been smashed around with the door."
Ar'kadi gave a small 'heh'.
"Anyway, my boys worked over him a little. We couldn't find out why they did it, but before he died, he mentioned that his friends would be returning with a certain surprise. And do you know what his last words were?"
Ar'kadi braced himself.
"Daisy Cutter."

The na'vi had little use for the many names of the human war machines. They preferred to use their own. But everyone knew the words Daisy Cutter. It only denoted the most ridiculously overpowered bomb in the humans arsenal.
"Well…" Ar'kadi said quietly, taking a deep breath. "That's… bad."
"Very." Halverson said. "The biggest problem is that our own air defences are nowhere near enough to fend something like that off, if they come with an escort, there's no way we can stop them. We'll be fucked."
"Then what do we do?"
"Well we can't leave that's one thing. Even if everyone was brave enough to go outside of the defences we have, we've got too much wounded to take care of."
"So we make our stand here?"
"We're going to rebuild as much of our birds as possible in the short time we have, and then we'll have to strike first." Halverson answered. "We need to get them before they're even in the air. It's the only real chance we've got."
"How much time do we have?"
"They'd still have to actually make the bomb, so I'd say two days. And let's not forget the crazies outside the fort…"
"If I may Hellboy…"
"What?"
"What if I tried to get help?"
Halverson laughed humourlessly. "Hey, if you could somehow convince Jake to lend us a hand, I'll be your best man at your wedding."
Ar'kadi laughed a little. He didn't get the joke, but he got the message.
"What I wonder more though is whether or not our boys and girls out there are still alive…"

"Dwight!"
"What…"
"Dwight!"
"What!"
"I think there's something on the bank!"
The words were meant to be whispered, but everyone else, na'vi and human alike, on the boat heard.
"Did they find us?"
"Where is it, where is it?"
"I think I heard it too!"
"Oh god, I think I saw something!"
"OH MY GOD IT'S OVER THERE, IT'S OVER THERE!"

The boats crew were a fraction away from blowing apart the bush on the bank, when a small shiva monkey popped up. It regarded the crew with disinterest, scratched its behind and climbed away in to the canopy.
The sighs of relief could be heard across the boats.
"Jesus Christ…" Jade breathed. "I don't know how much more of this I can take…"