And An Undiscovered Country — Chapter V
Bridgehead City
"Undies?" Wade shouted over the prop wash of the kestrel.
"Uh-yeah, check," answered Asher.
"Ten pairs of shirts?"
Asher nodded.
"Ten pairs of pants?"
"Can we do this later?" Asher shouted back.
"We can but don't complain to me when you forget something! And don't expect me to share. I hate sharing! By the way, did you bring clothing for the avatar?"
Asher thought about it for a moment, then shrugged. "I thought that was your job?"
Wade laughed. "I'm not the one driving the damn thing, buddy!"
"Don't worry," Danielle yelled, passing them up. "Two containers full of clothing and gear for the avatar, all onboard the kestrel."
Asher was impressed. "Someone is on top of things."
Wade waved his hand, dismissing the arbitrary comment.
Looking to the kestrel, Asher saw the massive avatar sitting in one of the passenger seats, its head slumped to one side with an almost lifeless expression that both complemented the comatose body and greeted Asher. Stepping aboard the gunship, Asher flinched when he saw the tail flicking at him.
"Does it always do that?" He asked Danielle.
She caught the involuntary muscle movement of the avatar when she looked over to Asher. "The twitches?"
"Yeah, what's wrong with it?"
"Nothing." She said, patting the avatar on the forearm. "He's about as unconscious as a doll. But that does not mean he's dead. The body still reacts to the environment. Which is good, otherwise if he didn't, then he really is dead and you're in deep shit."
Asher mouthed an 'ah' before turning to stare up to the blue being that was a mirror reflection of himself. Though not quite, he would say. Inside the amnio tank, it looked completely alien. Outside the tank, and breathing? It looked more like Asher. The feline nose, no. The ears? Definitely not him. But he can see that the cheeks rounded in a way that hinted it was him and he imagined that if it smiled, it would also sport some dimples. The jawline was a little off balance, but Asher chalked it up to how it had its head tilted to the side.
However he did have a problem with the choice of shirt.
"Really? 'Resources Development Administration Property'?" Asher said, pointing to the RDA logo and the word 'Property' in big red letters on the white shirt.
"We ran out of those tiger strip shirts. Sorry!" answered Danielle, her face shrinking behind the apology.
Might as well wear a billboard that says, hey I'm human! Shoot me! Asher begrudgingly thought. At least they gave it a decent green ballcap with a pair of nice sunglasses, even if the sunglasses were somewhat tilted, exposing the underside of one of the closed eyelids. Asher corrected that.
"Dibs!" Wade cried out. The best spot according to Wade Kingston was right next to the cockpit. He believed that that somehow being near the cockpit gave him good luck.
Danielle grinned after Wade's antics while she hunched down to avoid the netting of supplies hanging above her seat. Slipping her bag beneath it, she sat down, hoping to provide some company to the avatar as well as keep it safe from any unforeseen problems they might accrue during the flight. Of course, Danielle would not be any good at her job if she forgot to check the harness. Leaning over it, she checked that the harness was indeed secured but like any good technician, she tugged on it.
Secured, good!
Looking up to Asher, she motioned for him to do the same.
Asher followed her signal and leaned around it, concluding it was also secured on his side. Flashing a thumb's up to her, Asher then slipped his duffel bag beneath the seat before sitting down. At five-eleven, Asher felt a slight intimidation crawling up his back when he cranked his head to see that he was missing at least three whole feet. What were they feeding this thing?
Removing a pair of dangling headsets from the hook above her, Danielle slipped them on and flicked the switch that allowed her to be heard by everyone aboard the gunship. A small crackle of static interrupted her thoughts before she looked to both Wade behind her and Asher beside the avatar.
"Can you all hear me?"
Wade, still fiddling with his, heard her voice come through the headset. He felt it was appropriate to respond with a: "Loud n' clear Danny!"
Danielle smiled, pleased to hear it. Since the day she returned to the RDA, she felt lost, isolated, and humiliated. It was no secret to everyone at Bridgehead and Hell's Gate that she, along with twenty others, were traitors. It took a long time for her to come to grips that she effectively betrayed the Na'vi to save her own skin. However, she now regarded her actions in a more humble light. She knew that if she did stay with Jake, the Na'vi would have certainly been killed, along with herself. By surrendering, they staved off death for the Na'vi and gave Jake's family enough time to leave Hell's Gate.
Though her excuses did not help her ease back into the fold of the RDA. Everyone tried their best to make her feel uncomfortable, unwelcomed. She would find herself shunned at the mess hall, or outright ignored in meetings with other engineers and scientists. Some have even yelled out traitor to her for no other reason than to embarrass her. One night, she came back to her quarters to find that her door was vandalized with blue lettering that read, 'Blue lover go back!'
One of many reasons she chose to sleep in the lab afterwards.
Everyone, she felt, was out to get her. Except Wade. The moment she met him, he shook her hand without a second thought to hesitate and spoil his actions. He also had a big smile on his face that made her feel comfortable; clearly innocent of the rumors of who Danielle was. She felt that he only saw her for who she was and that sincerity in him drove her to be protective of Wade. Because like herself, Wade was bullied by other employees who found him to be too eccentric, too weird, too… much. And he was not a traitor.
"Yup, five-by-five, Miss Danielle!" said Asher.
"Whoa, that's loud." Wade commented, adjusting his.
"Pilot, looks like we're all good here."
"Roger that." The pilot answered back to Asher.
Both the pilot and co-pilot went down a quick pre-flight checklist. Outside, a marshall in an orange vest stood in front of the kestrel, his hands occupied with guiding lights. He wore an impatient expression that was barely visible from behind the glint of sunlight reflecting off his mask. Kicking at some pebbles on the tarmac, he waited, wondering if this bird was ready to take off.
"Thank you for choosing Just Cause, my name is Silas 'Corkscrew' O'Connell and I'll be your aviator on this good Pandora afternoon. A little reminder for all the new passengers aboard our flight—for the love of all things holy, do not stick your head out while in flight." The pilot said, flicking at hat switches above him. "Yes the forests are lovely around this time of year but as the Good book says, 'don't be deceived, my brothers and sisters'. She's a temptress and as seductive as she is, she wants you dead. So I heavily advise that you all stay in your seats. If you do happen to test your luck and die—then that is your problem, not ours. That's all and thank you again for choosing Just Cause."
"Cheery," Danielle quipped, her face giving that expression to say, 'weirdo'.
"Gauges look good on my end, Silas." His co-pilot said.
"Yup, got it. Clear on one and…. Two. We're good to go brother."
"Uh, yahoo!"
Signaling to the marshall that they were ready, the marshall then directed the pilot with his guiding lights to face southwest.
Asher immediately felt his stomach doing those turns again. Unlike the previous flight to Bridgehead where all he had to do was hold back his lunch, this flight reminded him of all those missions back on Earth. It always started the same. The burning fuel tainting the air, the searing adrenaline stinging the tip of his fingers, his feet fidgeting against the hull, antsy to leave while anxiety rode up and down his sides, all combating against the thrill of inserting into some dangerous environment that he had no clue about.
He honestly missed it. God he missed all of it. He made a mental note that as soon as he got back to Earth, he was going to return to the Army.
The rotors of the kestrel started to spin faster in opposite directions, creating a unique mechanical whine before being overcome and defeated by a soft rattling of the engines that shook the cabin within. They were ready. Pulling the stick back caused the nose of the gunship to lift but not all the way, only enough to make the turn towards the south as directed by the marshall. Asher pleaded with his stomach to settle down and just as he was getting to that point, the kestrel leapt into the air, pushing down both their breakfast and necks.
Wade clutched around his harness from the sudden jolt of the gunship.
Danielle grimaced against her seat. Her time on Pandora made her hate these kinds of flights. Too often, the reports of Na'vi attacks largely came towards the kestrel. They were easy prey for their best warriors, leading Danielle to whisper a small prayer that the Na'vi lacked the appetite to ambush them now.
Below, they noticed various trucks driving in the opposite direction, creating a wake of dust that the passengers of the kestrel followed, and it seemed by the direction of the dust that they were heading for the marina. The rumor that both Danielle and Wade heard was that Ardmore ordered the construction of some kind of massive sea ship. Potentially to be used to explore other frontiers of Pandora. But then they also heard about some substance that brought a great deal of attention to the marina.
Whatever it was, neither of them knew. Their primary focus for now was on Rayan Asher.
"Bridgehead is getting bigger by the day." Danielle said to Asher over the headset. "Before I came to re-settle here. All I saw… was dirt. Just dirt everywhere. The construction crews used a chemical that killed the trees. I'm guessin' they were toxins of some sort. Because the trees died within hours. The only thing they had to do was remove the trees with bulldozers and soon, they brought in construction vehicles to fabricate the buildings. "
"Yup. You've seen one RDA colony. You've seen them all," said Asher. He was well acquainted by the way the RDA worked back in the Sol System.
"As you know—" Danielle said, "the backpack we brought has a built-in network system. Complicated system, too complex to explain to you… no offense."
Asher shook his head, he did not mind being spared an exhaustive lecture on some technology that was well out of his league of understanding. The only thing Asher asked for was that it worked. There was nothing worse than some technology you depend on, failing on you at a critical moment.
"It will keep your avatar operational inside the floating mountains. If the battery dies, you are disconnected. You can walk away from the backpack but do not walk too far or you'll disconnect, that's what the watch is for." She said, pointing to the watch on the left wrist of the avatar.
Asher leaned in, his eye catching the brand.
Coros… expensive.
"The watch will tell you both the battery life and how far you are away from the backpack. If you get the backpack damaged, you will disconnect. It can handle several feet of water pressure but don't test that theory out, okay? The backpack has silicon wafers woven on top, so anytime you're under direct sunlight, it will charge. Do not keep it in the shadows!"
Asher nodded along as she continued.
"One more thing! If you disconnect, there is no way we can get you back into your avatar. You abuse the backpack—you lose your avatar! Simple! Any questions?"
"Yeah," he leaned out to look at her. "Tell me about the Na'vi."
Her face changed to one of confusion. "What?"
Asher spoke louder over the headset. "The Na'vi—tell me about them."
"What's there to tell that you don't already know?"
"Ma'am. This is my first time to Pandora. I have only ever read about the Na'vi. You—you have direct experience with them."
She sunk back into the seat. "What's that supposed to mean?"
"Dr. Hurley told me about you—"
Danielle hated where this was going.
"—that you were with Jake and the Na'vi. I'm very curious to know both before I meet them."
She remained quiet for a moment, pondering on her next words carefully while the landscape beneath them changed from concrete to dirt.
"You think because I was with Jake and the Na'vi that I'm some kind of traitor?" She asked, her words intertwining with an agitated tone.
Furrowing his eyebrows, Asher was unsure what he triggered. "Ma'am?"
"Listen. Driver." Danielle said, her tone now subdued with grievous annoyance. "I don't know what Dr. Hurley has told you about me. But I am not a traitor. Ardmore was willing to pardon us if we surrendered Hell's Gate. I agreed like many others that day because there was no way we could win."
Asher listened beneath a silent fortitude of his cautious gaze, unsure where this conversation was leading her.
"The real traitor is Jake—he betrayed the Na'vi and us. I, along with many others, fought tooth and nail to protect the Na'vi. They were willing, and supporting of some truce, some treaty. Something you want to bring to the table now. But Jake? He was preparing the Na'vi for war. Thirteen damn years, that's what he did. Prepare. Prepare. Prepare. Even after Ardmore threatened total annihilation of the Na'vi! He still did not care. He sent them into space, hoping to defeat them. Can you imagine? Na'vi in space! Ludicrous! But he did and what happened? Well, some Na'vi died, some of our own died, and the RDA still won and… now I'm here. Because he ultimately betrayed us, and he betrayed himself."
The acerbic words echoed through her voice. To Asher, she sounded as though she hated the man.
She started thumbing her chest. "I. Did. Not. Betray anyone."
Asher steadied himself; half-measuring and half-surveying the truth of her conversation to make sure he did not just step into a quagmire that he could not get out of. When there was a pause in her words, he tip-toed, figuratively, towards a reclamation.
Wade on the other hand, or rather, by the corner of the gunship, was listening intently to Danielle. He was afraid that by digging up old painful memories, that Danielle would have a hard time bottling them back again.
"Forgive me… ma'am." Asher said, he was deliberately quiet with his words, choosing a diplomatic approach to making amends to any offense he might have made. "I did not mean to imply anything about you. I came to you about the Na'vi, about Jake because I believe you are the closest expert to both of them." He swallowed that dry hard lump in his throat as he continued. "And I appreciate what you said about Jake. I will write that down in my notes. Is there anything else you can say about the Na'vi?"
Danielle brushed the strands of black hair behind her ear, wishing for this wave of remorse and bitterness to fade out from her mind as the question of the Na'vi came to her.
"They're…" she smiled a little, reminiscing of her time with them. "They're kind people. Innocent. Gentle. But proud and powerful. I would advise you, Mr. Asher, that you tread lightly with them. The Omatikaya have had their unsatisfying fill with us humans and with you crawling into their space is like throwing a snowball into hell."
Asher scratched his neck. That sounded concerning. "Thank you ma'am."
Soon, an awkward silence filled the space in-between Asher and Danielle before a crackling interjection from Wade interrupted it. "Hey bud," he said. "Have you learned their language yet?"
Asher turned, finding Wade past the metal frame of the seats. "No?"
Wade cocked his head, saying, "What? Serious?"
Even Danielle looked at Asher with a dumbfounded expression. "Hold on. You went through avatar training, right?"
Asher nodded.
"Then you should have been taught their language? Everyone who goes through the Program are experts on the Na'vi language by the time they leave for Pandora."
Asher shrugged, his eyes blinking at the notion. "The Program was half-staffed by the time I entered training. The RDA fired a ton of people and by the time I graduated. The entire Program was killed. Learning the language was nowhere near the qualifications to drive the avatar."
Danielle sighed, her head knocking against the headrest so as to look up to the ceiling of the kestrel with disbelief weighing on her face. She silently mouthed shit.
Wade, however, found this to be an opportunity to flex his skills with the language. "Well, you're in luck buddy! You're looking at an expert!"
"You?" Asher asked, surprised that an engineer had to learn it.
Wage smiled. "Yes sir! Three years. Caltech! Go beavers!"
"O…okay, cool. Why do I need to learn it?"
"Why?" Danielle repeated, her underlying frustration with Asher was finding its limitations. "Because you need to speak with the Na'vi! How else are you going to get that treaty of yours signed? Charades?"
Asher shrugged again. He always relied on translators to get the work done. If he had to stop to learn every single language on Earth, then he would never get his job done. The only other language he knew was bad English.
"I'll use a translator then." He answered almost meekly, expecting retaliation from both Wade and Danielle.
"No you will not," Danielle protested. "You have to learn at least some of the basics. Otherwise you're going to get that avatar of yours killed out there."
"Ma'am," Asher said, finding his courage again. "I do not have time. Besides. I'm only going to talk to Jake. I do not see a reason to talk to the Na'vi. If he speaks for the Na'vi, then I speak to him."
Danielle clenched her fist. How ignorant was this man that she was talking to? Did he not pay attention about the mention of Jake betraying the Na'vi?
"Jake might…" she hesitated for a moment, her gaze falling over the avatar that sat between them. For reasons she could not explain, the avatar took her back to a place where she was talking to Jake. Face-to-face.
'Being a,' he looked at her with a funny expression that suggested to Danielle a certain kind of weight pressing down on him. 'Olo'eyktan—a leader—feels strange. I don't know how to explain it. I try. I really do but every single day just gets harder and harder. I don't know if I'm making it hard on myself or if they really do see me as Na'vi or they're respecting the title because of Neytiri. Heh… honestly? I wish Tsu'tey was still here.'
'You're too hard on yourself, Jake. Of course the Na'vi look up to you as their leader.' She said to him.
He looked down to her with a face that said I wish.
'Yeah… I guess.'
Danielle cleared her throat. The time warp made her feel nostalgic but also sad as she looked back to Asher. "Jake only represents the Omatikaya. But he is not representative of all the Na'vi. That treaty, if it's meant for all of them, means you need to seek out an unbiased third party."
"Who?" He asked.
She gave a light shrug, "I would try asking around when you get there."
The kestrel began to disappear behind the tree line as General Frances Ardmore quietly sipped the last of her coffee. Watching from behind the comfort of the observation deck that was inside the administrative tower; Ardmore stared in silence, her mind ruminating on Rayan Asher. The plan she developed was delicate, fragile, and volatile. It required enormous willpower on her part to no just kill Asher and bury his body somewhere on Pandora. Because at the moment, she felt Asher was going to do something stupid to upset this plan and ruin everything.
But she also knew that he was the key to getting to Jake and if she can get to him without destroying those floating mountains, then it was a victory. Asher was lucky that he served her better by staying alive. The gamble, as it was, lied on whether or not he was foolish enough to play the role of Jake Sully.
She hoped he did.
"Good luck, Mr. Asher. You'll need it." She said, raising her cup in gratitude to the man.
Pivoting on her heel, she had another meeting with this Aussie who claims to be the best there is in hunting tulkun and he wanted an hour's worth of her time. He better be worth it, she thought.
The shadow of the aerial vehicle ran unevenly over the barren land of the kill zone, projected by the second star of Alpha Centauri that loomed over the easterly horizon. Out in the kill zone was a wasteland of death. Evidence of trees stuck out from the earth. Like bones of an ancient world, they remained behind, a cautionary tale, as it were, to the fruitless endeavors that Humanity had undertaken against this Paradise.
And before long, Asher fell into a calming trance as the brown dead dirt transformed instantly into the emerald green of the forest. He was no stranger to the Pandoran jungles, perhaps by his very experience of a few days on the moon had given him permission to declare the jungles a 'concrete of green' that could—no—would in time, swallow the imprints left behind by the RDA. However, just seeing them again lulled him into a tranquil peace that within a matter of minutes, caused the heavy eyelids to finally close… while the muffled sound of the rushing wind told him that everything was going to be all right.
5 Hours Later — Forward Operating Base Ticonderoga
Built in conjunction with Bridgehead, Ticonderoga was less of a colony like her cousin, Hell's Gate, and more of an observation post with teeth. Teeth being the foundational word and reason the octagonal fort contained fifty-five SEC-OPS troopers, five amplified-mobility platforms, and a small detachment squadron of four scorpions. Supported by a fifteen-foot-high concrete dual-layered wall that encased the fort, topped by barb wiring, and surrounded by seven gun towers just for good measure.
She was ready to chomp.
She was anything but a mere staging ground for combat operations. She was quickly proving herself to be quite the lethal obstacle for any suspecting Na'vi trying to get the drop on them. And like any imposing obstacle, she sat nuzzled inside the overgrowth of trees and bushes, deliberately hidden whereas Bridgehead and Hell's Gate made their presences known by clearing bush for up to several kilometers wide.
Circling above the air, Danielle and Wade got a bird's eye view of the place that was to be their new home. From Danielle's point of view, she was awestruck by how much SEC-OPS was prepared to go to war with the Na'vi. With Wade, he was taken a little by surprise. He suspected, partially in his mind, that Ticonderoga was more or less like Hell's Gate. But seeing the gun towers shimmering in the sunlight and the parade of troopers standing by the landing pad, he reconsidered that belief and substituted it with the fact that Ardmore was planning something.
For Asher, Ticonderoga appeared to him no different than any other military base he had been to. Only difference was, he felt safer here than at Bridgehead, where he suspected that Ardmore would have controlled him more directly from there.
Upon landing and departing from the kestrel; Asher, Danielle, and Wade spent the next hour greeting everyone at the landing pad. It was a who's-who of SEC-OPS' finest. Beginning with Captain Nathan Richter, a man whose veteran status earned him immense respect among his SEC-OPS cohorts. He sported a horseshoe mustache, with grey streaks running through his black hair. The muscles on this man's arms made Wade take a second look. He was plenty of brawn, but easily fooled people with his eloquent speech that threw Asher for loop.
After a brief talk regarding each other's military past, the kind that made Danielle yawn and Wade fiddle with his fingers, the Captain then ushered them to the main complex. Along the way, the Captain was determined to make it a point that he did not endorse Asher's mission.
He showed Asher the ingrooved scar on his left leg, a 'gift' as he called it, from the Na'vi when he came to Pandora. He stated that the first wave on Pandora came across an embedded group of guerrilla fighters, and among these fighters was a warrior who gave him that scar.
Indifferent to the story, Asher nodded, taking the story with a pinch of skepticism on whether or not that was not merely an accidental scar the Captain received while traversing through the unknown wilderness.
Regardless of how the Captain felt about Asher's mission, he told them to prepare a small speech to summarize their mission. If there was one thing Asher hated it was doing public talks. Especially about his mission that could cause some suspicion among SEC-OPS who did not hold the Na'vi in a good light.
After some meandering with words, the so-called speech and explanation of why they were here did not rouse suspicion in the slightest, but rather, laughter—at first. The crowd arrived at the conclusion that Asher was here to get it on with a Na'vi woman. In their own words of course.
But Asher was neither bothered by that belief nor offended by how they saw him in that light. They all knew the story of Jake Sully. Fighting against the big oppressive RDA to protect the one he loved. Someone that Asher read in the profile of Jake Sully to be Neytiri.
Strange alien name but he had no idea who she was, let alone care who she was to Jake. He just knew that Jake took to fighting against the RDA over a woman and all the men and women at Ticonderoga assumed Rayan Asher was planning to do the same.
'Nope,' he said. 'I'm only here to see their side of the story.' That did not get a laughter but a silent, awkward stare by all fifty-five faces.
'When you do find out he's nothing more than a traitor. You should kill him!' someone erupted. The crowd cheered.
Sighing, Asher could not wait to leave and the moment they did leave the main complex, Asher busted out laughing.
Wade crooked his head, asking, "What are you laughing about?"
"That they think I'm here to lay with some alien woman."
Wade shared a serious expression. "Are… you?"
"No, of course not. Why the hell—" Asher noticed that Wade was about to laugh. "Oh…"
"Aha! I'm just yanking your leg." Wade said, elbowing Asher in the arm.
Asher bobbed his head with the momentum of the elbow, grinning. It was a silly idea.
Walking alongside Asher was Danielle, her hands in her pockets and her face searching the ground while they walked back together to the concrete bunker that was to be their home for the next several weeks.
"When we first came to Pandora." She started to say, her head shaking in disapproval. "There was a secret going around. A secret that quite a lot of people wanted to keep to themselves. That we as humans, had a genuine attraction to the Na'vi."
Asher yawned behind the mask. "Miss Danielle. Humans have had strange attractions to anything remotely looking, erm, hot."
"True, but I believe that is what drives a lot of people to hate them. They cannot form any basic relationship with the Na'vi, so they relent and attack them, out of some primal destruction of 'if I cannot have you then no one can' mentality."
"So you believe the RDA attacked the Na'vi because they cannot have sex with them?" Asher said, a mischievous look teasing the corner of his lips.
"Not in such a vulgar point of view. We simply did not care. We were still every bit in need of unobtanium and the Na'vi, no longer perceived as obtainable, were now regarded as disposable."
"Poetic," Asher noted behind a slight drip of sarcasm.
"Mr. Asher," Danielle begged. "Don't turn this into a joke. Even if you think this is funny, the Na'vi have died by human hands."
"And so have humans by the Na'vi."
"Whose side are you on?"
He looked at her, his expression falling between seriousness and vagueness as he answered, "My own."
"Huh?"
"Ma'am." Asher said, softly. "I want to protect both our people and the Na'vi. I can't do my job if I start taking sides. Whether you believe the Na'vi are as oppressed as you make them out to be or the RDA claims they are truly the attackers in this conflict, is none of my concern. My job is to find out from both sources directly and work my way in finding the truth."
Her eyes narrowed. "So what are you exactly? Some kind of asshole who gets a thrill by playing politics with people's lives?"
He chuckled. "No-no. If I take sides, then that means I'm working on their behalf. That's something I can't do. Ever."
"So if you believe what the RDA says about the Na'vi?"
"I have to find that out on my own. If the Na'vi are indeed the ones causing this so-called war. Then Ardmore has the UNE's permission to continue her campaign against them."
Danielle froze, her eyes quivering with disgust. "How could you?"
"How could I what?"
"Be so… so, callous!" She said, spitting out the final word.
"I'm not," he answered, shaking his head. "Emotional attachments invites a ton of unique problems that can harm everyone. If I automatically side with the Na'vi, then I'm hurting very good people who are just working to make a living. If I automatically side with the RDA, then I'm hurting the Na'vi. I don't want to hurt anyone, ma'am. But if their actions fits the story the RDA has been saying, then I cannot do anything else about it."
He sounded cold, calculating, uncaring. Leading Danielle to say, "It sounds to me like you already found a side to take."
Asher was about to take another step towards the bunker when the statement was tossed to him. Tilting his head to her, he shared an expression that suggested 'I don't know'. He had no real answers to her questions and the more she wanted to find a good answer that benefited her wellbeing, the less interested he was to remain standing around.
Danielle Ibarra remained quiet for the rest of the evening, her thoughts rebelling against Rayan Asher while Wade Kingston silently trailed after him. No one, it seemed among the trio, were interested in talking, least of all, Danielle, who slid her card against the security pad, allowing them to enter their home.
Their home, if one had the audacity to call it that, was grey all around, with windows big enough to face the courtyard. They suspected, at least by the black shelves inside, that the bunker was used to house munitions by the evident copper casing founds all along the floor. Wade, through his mild case of OCD started to pick at them, like some city pigeon before placing them elsewhere in the bunker.
Asher gravitated towards the makeshift link room. One link unit against the side of the wall, with a computer station squeezed into the corner. It was not much but it was entirely doable.
"So buddy!" cried Wade, his hand patting on Asher's shoulder. "Excited?"
"No."
"Huh?"
"I'm not excited."
"You're not? Do you hate being here?"
"I hate being away from my family."
"Family? You have a wife?"
Asher snorted, a slight smile appeasing his face. "Never found time to settle down," he said, adding, "But no, I just miss my family. My sister, my parents. Y'know—that family."
"Well, I'm kinda jealous you're going to be driving an avatar."
"To be honest, it's not my cup of tea."
Wade gasped. "What are you? Some contrarian? You don't like being on Pandora. You don't like driving an avatar—I mean, while I was in school everyone wanted to be an avatar driver. To think, being in some other body, but not entirely human. Gives you chills, buddy!"
"Yeah?" Asher said, looking at him. A puzzled feature flashed across his expression but faded as he started to turn towards the doorway. "Not my cup of tea."
"You're going to change your mind when you meet them! Just you wait. Before you know it, you're going to do nothing but talk about how cool they are!" Wade cried out with his voice echoing throughout the bunker.
Asher found Danielle sitting at the only table they had in this place with her back facing him and her chin cupped by her hands. Leaning over, Asher tried to catch a small glimpse of her mood, but the brunette veil of her hair denied him access.
"Goodnight, ma'am." He said to her.
She refused to acknowledge him and without a response to hear, Asher moved on and into the next room where the supply of boxes laid stacked on top of one another beside the wall. Taking a look around, he found that his cot was nestled in between these boxes. Along the brick wall, he found scribbling of curses, likely scratched in by bored SEC-OPS troopers. Sitting on his cot, he heard the familiar creak of metal whining against his weight.
He sat staring at the floor, feeling the pre-mission jitters worming their way into his gut. They were kind of jitters that made him stay up all night, laying out his plans and pondering what was going to happen.
All his life, he had only seen Pandora from news clippings, movies, and documentaries. All produced by the RDA with a propaganda slant to them. Their argument was how frightening the forests were on Pandora. How often people were attacked by the animals, by the Na'vi and how many people have died as a result of Jake's inclination towards violence.
Breathing in the recycled air, Asher did not know what to make of Jake or the Na'vi. To him, they were one and the same, with the small benefit that Jake use to be human. That was what Asher needed to do, tap into that aspect of Jake, and reach down into that human side to pull out the truth. Because somewhere in there, had to be truth of what happened on Pandora all those years ago.
July 18th, 2168 — Somewhere in the outskirts of the Hallelujah Mountains
"Okay, there's no way I can land so you're gonna have to jump!" The pilot shouted over the headset.
Bracing himself with the handrail, the avatar peeked out to see if that was possible. By an educated estimate, the kestrel had to be somewhere between twelve and fourteen feet high and if the pilot was suggesting he jump at this height, then he had another thing coming for him.
"Get me closer!" Asher yelled.
"No can-do friend!"
"I'm gonna break my damn legs!"
Asher heard him laughing. "You're in an avatar!"
Avatar or not, this was high. Looking out again, Asher ran through a series of suggestions to entice the pilot to bring him lower to the ground when he heard, "I'm bingo on fuel. So you better jump now or forever hold your peace!"
Shit, shit, shit!
Asher took a step back, pulled on the backpack straps and… "Gah!"
A split second flashed before Asher's eyes from which a tranquil thought fooled him into believing that he somehow made it—until he realized the world he jumped into was now turning upside down.
Oh no…
In the middle of falling, he remembered faintly of his air school instructor yelling: Tuck in your shoulder, roll with the speed!
Tucking in his arm, he gambled on the instructor's words as he felt the ground striking into his shoulder. The momentum of the roll was pursued by the physical throttle of gravity as he slammed against a fallen tree log. The instructor's words paid off but—
The backpack! He screamed inside his head. Danielle warned him about the backpack. If it gets damaged in any way, then this mission was over.
"Crap!" He choked out, his lungs still assessing what was lost as he scrambled to his feet.
Within the tornadic wash of the kestrel, debris of dead leaves to twigs swirled around Asher, creating a cyclone of violent lashing that made it difficult for him to see his way out. Arm raised to protect his face; he followed his way out by looking down to the ground until he bumped into a tree.
Walking around the tree, Asher then turned the backpack over from his shoulder to find any damage. There was nothing. The protective waterproof Teflon cover had some green smearing from rolling on the ground but otherwise it was on good condition. Checking his watch, the radial dial told him that the network connection remained stable.
Peering out from behind the tree, Asher waved the pilot on, letting him know by his signal that he was okay.
"What a dumbass," said the pilot, laughing.
The hurricane-like winds immediately grew stronger as the gunship ascended higher into the blue empyrean skies.
This was the first time Asher had been inside the Pandoran forest and somehow, it was every bit unremarkable as he expected it to be. Unlike Earth where the last vestige of a forest was encapsulated inside a biodome, this forest looked to him like a maze that went on forever.
Ears flicking back, Asher heard the humming motors clapping into a melodic echo, letting him know it was safe to venture back into the open space.
A twig snapped under his weight, earning a rather curious look from the avatar who stared down at the jungle earth. He could not recount when he had managed to 'touch' grass, but this seemed like a first. Lifting his boot, he found the brown mud leaving behind an imprint of his sole.
"Damn." He muttered. He should've brought something with less impact to obscure his trail. No matter, he had to make do.
Looking around, he found the stillness of the jungle to be overwhelming. Asher had been absorbing the sounds of human noise for so long that he had forgotten what silence was like to occupy his thoughts. He tried to shake it off by playing a tune in his head but then came the sound of animal chirping off into the distance, its noise making a clapping echo that drew the sharp ears to lean towards it.
He looked about, his eyes scanning the tree line, then the bushes, then the faint rustling of a stream. There was an undercurrent of awareness that made the blue skin of the avatar shiver and his tail jerk.
A buzzing sound pulled on his ears to alert him of the insects flying across his vision, earning a curious look from a pair of small golden-rim eyes as Asher followed them. Unaware of what he was doing, he stopped and blinked out of the spell. Some part of him wanted to look, some part of this alien body was far more fascinated by the bugs than he would ever be in his human body. Blinking, he started to walk when he stopped again, only to find himself looking at a strange upside-down mushroom, dangling from some tree limb. Taking a step back, he heard something crunching. It was another plant of some kind. The limited knowledge he had about Pandora rendered his thoughts mute. It was distinctly red to him, round and bulbous but small and squashed.
"Sorry little guy." He said, apologizing. The hell am I apologizing to this… this thing?
Shaking his head of such thoughts, he kneeled down and slipped the backpack from his shoulder. Unzipping the top cover, he shoved his arm into it and fished out what appeared to be a square folded metal frame. Unfolding it, it turned out to be a personal defense weapon, though unlike the variants the Skel operators used which was the M69-AR. This was a stripped-down Century Arma close-quarters submachine gun; one that use to be a rifle.
Removing the optics from his vest pocket, he attached it to the picatinny rail of the weapon and aimed down the sights. Inside the view, Asher found that he could switch from normal vision, to FLIR, to thermal, all by a switch on the side. The benefit did not outweigh the cost of how much weight it applied to a rather small form factor of the submachine gun itself. But beggars can't be choosers.
Removing a magazine from the left breast of the vest, he slammed into the magwell and pulled the charging handle back before slipping the weapon's sling over his body. He was almost ready.
Asher was told that the RDA only had enough GPS satellites in orbit to provide information for their vehicles and their infantry squads. Not for a lonely avatar, as he was told. He did not mind it however, since he much preferred the use of paper maps to GPS-led devices. He argued that in many situations, he had no access to GPS satellites, forcing him to utilize local knowledge or to refer to maps.
Pulling a fiber-mesh rolled tube from the backpack, he unrolled it and leveled it against his knee. The map was protected by a plastic cover and on the map was the topographical outline of the surrounding area and the Hallelujah Mountains. Turning his wrist over to see the watch face, Asher then clicked on the screen until a compass appeared on the watch face.
"Okay, north is this way." He pointed with his right hand to his rear. "And I need to go northeast."
He turned around to face northeast. "I am here… I think." He told himself with the blue fingertip tapping over the area with a red circle. This had to be the LZ. Asher was told by Danielle that he was to be dropped off in the vicinity of B2, which was the red circle and had to arrive to the first checkpoint, marked in a yellow circle. He had to reach C3, encircled in purple before sundown.
Looking back up to the horizon, he knew that his Ranger training was going to be put to the test. The jungle was dense and scarce of geographical anomalies, making this journey rather difficult for him and that idea alone both excited him and scared him somewhat. He rolled the map and stuffed it into the backpack.
'Remember Asher, keep an eye out for dangerous animals.' Danielle reminded him.
"Now you tell me." He said, climbing to his feet.
Pushing the activation switch from push-to-talk to automatic, Asher called in, "Ticon, this is Olympus, are you receiving me?"
"Lo- nd- -ar b-buddy."
The voice hissed with static, prompting Asher to adjust his earpiece while looking down at the radio nestled into his vest. Turning the frequency, he checked again.
"Say again, Ticonderoga."
"Loud and CLEAR, big buddy!"
Asher flinched back, yanking the earpiece away. "Damnit! Not so loud." He cursed. Fiddling the earpiece back, he tried again.
"Correction: Big buddy is Olympus, I repeat, big buddy is Olympus." Asher said, shaking his head that Wade did not sit through proper radio etiquette.
"Ticonderoga to Olympus, we have you. Over."
The voice now belonged to Danielle to which Asher thanked God above for giving him.
"Olympus to Ticonderoga, good to hear your voice. I am at the LZ in B2. Over."
"Roger. Good to hear you as well. Observe the following coordinates: You will walk three-hundred and twenty-one degrees northeast. After twenty-eight kilometers, turn three-hundred and fifty-one degrees northwest. You should then be close enough to see the mountains above your head. Breaks at each of the checkpoints that you have mapped out. We will be in the blind once you enter it. Acknowledge."
"Roger, Olympus is oscar-mike, out." Flicking the switch from automatic to push-to-talk, Asher was now alone in a labyrinth of green, brown, and whatever else crawled around.
"Good luck out there, Olympus. Out."
Asher breathed in the warm afternoon air, tasted the moisture that sought to suffocate him and looked ahead.
"All right, lets go." He told himself. Gripping the PDW, he flicked the safety off and marched off into the forest.
An hour passed into the day when his mind suddenly had the urge to tell him how otherworldly it was to be in an avatar. There was not a moment he spared to absorb this fact and since the only other time he had been in his avatar was for thirty minutes, minus the puking episode, he really did not quite understand what it was like to be in an avatar.
Standing perched on a rock, Asher scouted the environment ahead when the burning urge brought him bearing down upon his arm. The dark stripes across the elongated arm was truly alien but this was his arm, or at least, an arm that he had controlled. It did not belong to him but somehow, he felt it did. Raising his hand to his face, he flexed each finger. Was this him? Yes but… no.
Worse still was this uneasy feeling growing at the pit of his stomach that this was probably him.
"It's not." He told himself. "It's a tool. Like a hammer and a skillet." Why a skillet?
Strange animals howled into the far-off distance, causing his tail to snap side-to-side. Ears leaning back, he pulled his attention away from what he was looking at, to peer off to the side of his peripheral vision.
He felt that ugly feeling again. His senses were heightened in this avatar, telling him to keep going, to keep moving. But this forest rebuked his presence. The animals were a symptom to something more dangerous, more frightening. He compared it to diving into the deep end of the pool and realizing you have forgotten to take your swimming lessons.
Not that Asher would ever drown, he was an Army Ranger after-all. Best of the best, he reminded himself. He could stalk any human through cold or steel, follow a platoon through war torn urban hellscapes. It was the biggest reason the UNE brought him aboard their Colonies Division. Who else do they send but veterans to talk down a rabble of rebels?
But here? Here, he felt like the entire moon wanted him gone.
Swallowing that hard lump in his throat, he shook his head and calibrated his bearings to focus on the mission.
He spun his wrist over to see the compass watch-face, the needle danced a little as it pointed north. Aware of the excitement flowing throughout his body, the blue-tail behind him snapped unexpectedly.
This was one limb he could neither control nor influence aside from the stray emotion that electrified it to move.
"Give it a break," he told the tail, somehow expecting to obey his words.
Pushing forward, the Pandoran jungle became an assault on the senses. Everywhere he looked, he caught something he could not quite explain but worse still was the uneven nature of the terrain. He was more use to falling through a sheet of ice or moon dust cutting into his suit than this. Thankfully, he would give credit to the engineers for designing the khaki-colored boots to withstand the harsh environment of the jungle.
The first checkpoint was coming up or at least he hoped it was coming up. Leaving the weapon to hang from the sling across his chest, he fetched for the map again and unrolled it; the laminated map offered clues as to where he was. The compass on the watch also provided additional information while the blue finger traced from the red circle of the LZ to the yellow circle with a '1' next to it, indicating the first checkpoint. The topographical information read that there was a nearby stream. If that is true, then he would use it to walk along it. It should take him to the next checkpoint further north.
Checking his watch, he allowed himself a break even if he wanted to do without one. By now, he would be pouring sweat and dehydrated if he was in his human body, but this avatar felt perfectly fine to him, which as Asher knew, was never a good indicator of thirst.
Testing this theory, he grabbed the mouthpiece hooked into the water reservoir behind him and sucked on it. As usual, the water tasted warm. Also, unknowingly behind Asher, the tail swung from side-to-side, indicating enjoyment of the refreshment.
"I guess that will do," he surmised of the experience.
The slow methodical trek was not filled with the boredom he came to expect with such a journey. Instead, his heightened awareness for his surroundings tugged his gaze to the exotic plants.
He noted that some looked like spirals blossoming up from the ground. Bitten by curiosity, he took a closer look and even stretched out a hand, not thinking in the moment what would happen when his finger barely graced along the fin-like edge of the spiral.
—fwoomp!
The spiral shot back down, hiding into a shoot and spooking the avatar away from the plant, unsure what else it could do.
Ears flicking back and forth, Asher placed an asterisk next to the thought of wanting to touch something again. If it looks strange, don't touch it, he told himself. After all, it would be embarrassing to end this mission because he touched a plant that shared toxins with his avatar instead of friendship.
Coming across a bush, he realized it was no ordinary bush but a vibrant one, teeming with flowery petals that looked nothing like the ones in a botany museum back on Earth. Over on the other side were white-tipped bulbous looking plants blooming alongside a dead log. He walked over to it, took one look, and shrugged but not before nearly stumbling into an array of blue-green fruit-like things that he described as 'candy shaped'.
It was all too strange, even his best dreams would never describe this place perfectly. He was like a wide-eyed child again, only this time with spherical golden-rim eyes, matched with a mouth line that refused to close, and flaring feline nostrils that took in the scent of the environment.
Drifting from one step to the next, Asher started to realize there were no animals to be seen, only heard. Not even the fearsome thanator, which he was told could kill him instantly, was heard or seen. Not even the viperwolves, that were described to him as 'wolf'-like, as the name implies, were seen or heard. Lifting the weapon, he searched through the sights to see if any unique heat signatures could be outline— just in case they were stalking him.
Nothing.
Lowering the weapon, he moved on.
Hours faded away into the day, allowing for the sun overhead to sail towards the horizon. Stopping by a stream, he unhooked the water bottle from the backpack and began unscrewing the cap when he noticed how clear the stream looked. Not an ounce of pollution, even Mars water was dirtier than this and that was filtered water, the best kind!
Pouring out the water from the bottle, he chanced at scooping in some of the stream water to have a taste. He knew it was drinkable, but he was not so sure how drinkable it was. Doing the typical sniff test, he then took a hesitant sip; finding that not only did it taste good, but it also tasted way better than any water he had ever drunk before in his life.
His ears stood up when he swished the water in his mouth, taking in every bit of the taste before swallowing it.
"Not bad," he mused.
Funneling in more water into the bottle, he screwed the top back on and hooked the bottle back over on the backpack. Shuffling the weapon sling around, he then continued.
Being in an avatar was different than being in his human body. A body that currently sat in a bed, with eyes closed and two people he trusted to monitor him. It was also far enough away that it felt unreal for him to be here. It was a dream, a waking dream of sorts but this was a reality he was enduring. The technology was nothing new to him, having known about it for much of his lifetime, but he never had the opportunity to use it until now. Nonetheless, it did not quite feel real and yet it did… all at the same time.
How difficult it was to explain.
Ears flattening, he wondered briefly what it would like to be a scientist. Pandora was a gold mine of information to exploit from and he imagined the program drivers had a lot of fun being in their avatars. They probably spent hours, countless hours just scouring the moon for the next discovery. In some way, he wished he was here with them years before. Instead, he was here with the intention of seeing if Jake or the Na'vi were as much of a threat as the RDA claimed.
Five more hours flourished out from his mind and two more checkpoints later, he finally arrived to C3, at least according to the map.
"Need to make camp," he told himself with eyes searching around.
The forest was far too thick to set up a bivouac. Not without searching further about but then he would be wasting valuable time. Danielle had reminded him of the creatures that crawled over the forest floor, suggesting instead to set up a hammock when possible and avoid using a bivouac altogether.
Locating a pair of trees situated close enough, he believed he could use their thin trunks to create a hammock of sorts. Jumping over a root, Asher walked over to the pair of trees and slipped the backpack off. He gently laid it beside one tree where he also placed his weapon next to before removing the hammock net from the backpack. Unspooling the hammock, he looked around to see the cold darkness encroaching upon the short amount of time he had left.
Pandora never had true nights like on Earth. Not quite dark but not quite bright enough to be stirred awake by it. In his human body, it took time to adjust to both the odd time of day and the weird shifting night. But in his avatar, he was already yawning.
Lucky bastard.
Bringing up the rope, he went around the trunk and tied it. He did the same with the other tree. In less than two minutes, the hammock was raised, and a proud look overcame Asher's expression. The last time he had to set up a hammock was in Timor-Leste during a civil war; now he was making hammocks on an alien world four light-years away.
"Wild," he said of the notion.
Looking to the canopy that shrouded above him, Asher counted on the weather not to pour cold rain this evening, otherwise he was going to wake in this body drenched.
"I know you don't like me," he started to talk to the forest like a lunatic. "But if there is one thing I would like to ask you, is to not rain."
In response, Asher heard silence. Not that he expected the forest to talk (and he was glad it did not!) but he felt that the forest knew he was here. He could not quite explain it in scientific terms, but in a way that if he did, he knew he most certainly come across as a crazed kook who lost his marbles by playing the role of a diplomat in an alien body.
Thanking the forest, he turned his attention to setting up a perimeter. The perimeter devices that he brought with him were ideal in setting off a silent alarm to his watch back in his human body. But it could only detect the presence of the Na'vi, not animals. He just hoped no other animal was eager to have a snack while he was gone. Taking them from the backpack, he began going around and staking them into the ground. They were colored in brown, matching the jungle floor, and deceiving any curious looks from the Na'vi who might know what to look for.
Turning to his watch, he tapped on the screen a few times and set the trip devices to active. To test that they were active, he moved his boot against the trip laser, causing an alarm to beep incessantly until Asher tapped on his watch to reset the devices. They were live again.
Nodding to himself of the good work, Asher about-faced to the hammock where a meal awaited. Scooping up both the weapon and the backpack from the ground, Asher then carefully coordinated himself over the hammock. A tricky lesson was that he could not swing too much, otherwise he'll fall over. One leg over and soon he was completely in the hammock.
With the hammocking holding, Asher unzipped the backpack and fished for the meal ready-to-eat package. It was the typical brown MRE that the RDA gave out to their security personnel or when someone was stupid enough to take a mission like this.
Reading the label, he then mouthed the following title of the MRE package, 'protein paste with raisin cookies'.
"That sounds yummy," he said sardonically.
With a pinch of two fingers, he tore the tear line and began dining on his expensive dinner this night.
The paste was first, which instantly resulted in him gagging on it. Choosing the more desirable cookie, he took a bite and found it tolerable but just barely.
The sole purpose for this meal was to deny animals from sniffing out his location, though the reality was he was denying him satisfaction of feeling full. Though by the taste of it, no animal was really going to indulge in this food.
Several minutes passed and crumbs began forming around his neck and chest while an absent-minded Asher attempted to roleplay his meeting with Jake.
"Mr. Sully," he said, "I'm Rayan Asher, UNE. It's good to meet you." Shaking the invisible Jake and the air, crumbs spat out between the words, making an unfortunate mess that Asher did not care to notice.
At the same time that his mind was creating this fictitious story, his eyes caught something glimmering in an unusual fashion to the tree canopies above.
He tilted his head, wondering if it was his vision that was getting screwy. Rubbing one eye and then the other, he blinked to see if what he was seeing was trick of his imagination.
If this was a trick, then these cookies were laced with some good hallucinogens. But as Asher continued to watch, he started to comprehend in his mind of what he was seeing was not an illusion. The trees, they were…
…glowing.
Chased by a racing mind of reason, it then struck him, like a shot through space-time itself, that this forest was coming alive.
Gleaming across the glistening surface of his avatar's eyes, the forest lit up in a mesmerizing way, transcending over his face of thousands of colors—all of which he barely had the education to describe them with. The plants, the flowers, even the floor radiated in some way. His gaze searched around, wondering how this was all possible when he saw that a bush was glowing in the most intense and beautiful way imaginable. The entire forest was glowing!
Cookie resting in his mouth, Asher remained silent in the hammock, watching in awe while the forest bloomed into the glittering exhibition of purple, malachite, periwinkle, and whatever else he could not quite describe in the moment.
Eventually, reality had to wake him back up when the cookie limped over his lips and fell against his throat, causing the avatar to startle himself.
Picking up the cookie, he tried again and placed it into his mouth, chewing slowly while keeping his attention glued to the forest around him.
Spending the next hour simply looking, Asher came to recognize the sounds of the forest as well. It grew alive and wild, with sounds of distant animals cooing or hissing, some even yiped angrily, spooked by an unseen predator or fighting for a mate. The entire time that he spent enchanted by the forest, his ears swiveled like tiny radars, picking everything up for him to decipher.
Beep-beep, Beep-beep
Snapping out of this dream, he pulled away from the forest to look at his watch. Midnight. He had to get back.
Lifting the MRE bag, he shook it and felt that all of the contents were eaten. Shoving the bag into his leg pocket, Asher reminded himself to deal with the trash later. It was getting too late for him to continue being in his avatar form.
Resting the rifle between his legs, he made sure the butt was against his chin while the barrel pointed away and towards the rear of the hammock.
Now all he had to do was sleep. But the damn Pandoran forest was putting on a show for him. He needed to get back, to write a report, to eat, then sleep and plan for the next day. So much to do and so little time.
Soon enough, sleep caught up with him and the heavy eyelids ultimately won out. As for the avatar, it remained behind on the hammock. Sleeping and alone once again.