A/N: Okay boys and girls, here's chapter 3. I'd really like to thank Prehensile, Robby Cartwright, and The Black Trifecta for their reviews and input. (I hope I spelled your names right). For Prehensile, the question of why Chapter two ended with Alejandra speaking with Jake live should be properly answered in this chapter. I really hope you all continue to enjoy this story. For Trudy fans, I would like to say that she will make an appearance later, in more than a flashback or reference. You'll just have to wait and see :3
Oh and Halo fans, I hope you catch my reference to the game in this chapter. :)
Chapter Three: Ghosts
The tension during the ride from the Hallelujah Mountains was thick enough that if the Samson they rode in had to navigate it, they would quickly run out of fuel. The pilot, for the most part, had remained silent, which was a small blessing. Norm went over everything he had been able to gather before he left Hell's Gate, but there wasn't much more information regarding the incoming ship that Norm hadn't gone over. Jake hoped that Max would have more information about the situation.
Parker Selfridge and Miles Quaritch had been in charge of the RDA facilities for years before he had arrived on Pandora, which meant that if there was something regarding this ship and why it was early; it would those sectors of the RDA mainframe. The thought that more humans would be arriving to pillage and plunder the riches of beautiful Pandora angered Jake greatly. Worse more was that this ship would be arriving merely days after the evicted humans had left.
Jake sighed as he looked down at the ground passing rapidly below them. For the first time in a long time, he was happy. He had his legs back, he was able to walk again for the first time in years, he was mated to a, no, the most beautiful woman he'd ever met, and he had a family again. The last part made him very content. With his parents long dead and the death of his twin brother mere days before he left Earth for this world, he had lost everyone he'd ever cared about. However, when he arrived here on Pandora, he gained that back and so much more. This was why he would never stop fighting. He would never give up his mate, his family, nor would he allow the humans and their Resource Development Administration destroy this world like they had Earth.
With that thought, Jake paused for a moment. He didn't realize when it happened, it was strange, but Jake didn't think of himself as human any longer. Technically, he wasn't. Technically, Jake Sully was dead. He'd died two days ago when the People had helped him transfer his mind, his soul, or whatever it was that made up a person fully into his avatar body. Funny that only a few months ago, he'd have been sitting, laughing, and raping this world right alongside Selfridge and Quaritch, he mused.
Jake was brought out of his thoughts when he saw Norm remove his exopack and wipe his eyes and then replacing his exopack. "Hey Norm, you alright?"
Norm nodded his head and forcing himself to smile he said, "Yeah Jake I'm fine. I've just not slept well in the past few days. Plus, I'm worried about this ship, the Dark Star. I'm concerned we're gonna have another war on our hands."
Jake nodded to his friend. What Norm had said was very true, but it wasn't what was bothering him. No, Trudy's death was what was wrong with Norm. He'd had lost the one he loved most only hours after they had finally admitted their feelings for each other. Jake and Neytiri had presided over a funeral for the fallen pilot the night after the battle, along with every one that was lost that day, and the whole time Norm had wept openly for her. Truth be told, there wasn't a dry eye there, even he Toruk Makto had wept for the pilot and his adoptive brother Tsu'Tey.
Deciding not to broach the subject of Trudy, Jake placed his large right hand on his hu man friend's shoulder. Norm would heal in time, and he would find another woman. She wouldn't be Trudy, but she would be whom Norm would need. His only hope was that she found him sooner rather than later. Until then, he would do what he could for the scientist. Maybe I should get him to go hunting with me and Neytiri when his avatar heals, Jake thought.
The rest of the flight to Hell's Gate proceeded quietly, and the skies were beginning to turn orange when the Samson set down on the airstrip at the former RDA compound. Upon their arrival, Jake and Norm headed for the control room in the administration building. Jake felt his stomach tighten as he crossed the threshold into the building. I said I would never come back here, he thought as Norm removed his exopack after the air finished cycling in the airlock. Jake found it funny on a level that while he and the Na'vi could breathe the filtered air of the humans, the humans could not breathe Pandora's atmosphere.
The walked down the corridors toward the nearest elevator that would take them to the control room, Jake having to occasionally duck under a conduit, light, or duct as the human base was not designed to accommodate the average two-and-a-half to three-and-a-half meters that the Na'vi measured. A few moments later, the two entered the control room.
Inside, Max was standing alongside several other scientists at the room's central holo-projector. The projector was currently displaying Pandora floating relative to Polyphemus on the right side of the projector. On the left side, a small red dot was depicted moving along a yellow line that was arcing in toward Pandora. The red dot was marked ISV Dark Star RDA# 03432401.
"Hey Max, what's up," Jake asked as he and Norm approached the projector. Max looked up and gave an exasperated smile.
"Jake, good to see you. How's the avatar body treating you?"
Jake smiled back and rubbed the back of his head. "It's working great, you should seriously think about cloning yourself one and trying it out." Jake knew that if he broke the ice first, it would make dealing with the situation on hand easier.
"Maybe I'll try it out sometime, but I imagine that you are wanting to get down to business," Max replied nodding to his friend. "I assume Norm informed you about what's going on."
Jake nodded. "Did you find anything else out about the ship?"
Max tapped a few commands into the projector's keyboard and the image shifted to show the Dark Star cruising through space. Like other Capital Star class ships, the Dark Star was comprised of three primary sections. The ship's bow section was dominated of two matter/antimatter-powered engines, radiator fins for reactor heat dissipation, and matter/antimatter containment pods. Behind the engine assembly, a reinforced carbon nanotube support structure that stretched well over a thousand meters, which looked incredibly fragile to the naked eye. On the rear quarter of this section, the habitation sections, command sections, and cargo sections that also held the docking umbilicals for the Valkyrie shuttles. However, unlike other ships of the class, the Dark Star had a complement of three Valkyries instead of the usual two.
The last dominant feature was the large mirror attached to the rear of the ship to reflect laser radiation from superluminal communication bursts from Earth and other cosmic radiation. Below the ship, a series of numbers were displayed. The most notable was the ship's velocity, which was steadily decreasing, as it would have been for the past five and half months. Since the ship cruised at seventy percent the speed of light, it took months to accelerate safely and an equal amount of time to safely decelerate.
Coughing, Max sighed. "Yes, we found out more about our incoming guests that I would have hoped. At first glance, she just looks a little larger than the typical Capital Star class ship, but as the saying goes 'appearances can be deceiving.' She's not just larger; she's armed and capable of initiating in orbital combat.
"The Dark Star is carrying over one hundred Kinetic Strike Warheads, which are basically dense tungsten-alloy rods with attitude controls and a rudimentary guidance system. The KSW's pretty much are meteor strikes on demand, but that's not the worse part."
Norm laughed hysterically at Max's words and threw his hands in the air. "So having the ability to launch a hundred kinetic warheads and wipeout a hundred Na'vi villages isn't the worst this ship can do. What's the worst part? Do they have the ability to nuke us or blow up a star or something?"
"Actually," Max said rubbing the back of his head nervously, "they do have a complement of six nuclear warheads. Three low yield tactical warheads of less than a megaton, two two-megaton units, and a high yield fifty-megaton warhead."
"Fun for the whole family," one of the other scientists in the room muttered to himself gaining a slight glare from Jake.
Jake walked over to the table, which he had never really seen from any higher than waist before and leaned down for a closer look at the starship it displayed. "Okay, so the ship is loaded with enough shit to ruin everyone's day. What else to they have to bring to the party besides fifty megatons of bitch slap?"
Picking up a tablet off of the nearest computer terminal to the projector, Max tapped an icon on the lower left of the screen and brought up a window displaying the Dark Star's manifest. "From what I can see Jake, the ship is carrying over five hundred personnel, mostly military, a few miners, and a few scientists and techs. They also have thirty or so modularized Samsons, these would be assembled after transporting them groundside, and it looks like three dragons that would have to also be assembled groundside. Other than that, the manifest is fairly consistent with other shipments this base has received in the past." After glancing once more to make sure he had not missed any details, he handed to tablet to Norm.
Norm took the tablet from Max and looked it over himself, then handed it to Jake. Norm crossed his arms before and stroked his chin before adding to the discussion. "Do we know any thing about who's in charge? I mean, we were able to negotiate with Captain Renaldo of the Venture Star weren't we?"
"Well it says that the Captain is a guy named Richard Matthews and the second in command is a guy Darren Fisher; never heard of either of them," Jake said as he expanded the crew section of the manifest displayed on the portable computer; though he struggled with his larger avatar hands. "Whoa, this is odd."
Everyone in the room immediately turned to Jake. "What's odd," Norm asked hoping that there wasn't something else that could make this FUBAR or 'Fucked Up Beyond All Recognition' situation any worse than it already was.
"Well it's who the outgoing Captain is. If I'm reading this right, I think the backup captain might be related to Trudy," Jake replied with surprise still showing on his face. "Here Norm, look for yourself." He handed to tablet back to his friend.
Max shook his head and raised an eyebrow. "Why would the ship have two commanding officers?"
"Standard operating procedure," Jake replied. "It takes nearly six years to get here and another six to return to Earth. They usually have one set of crew members operate the ship on the trip here, and another to operate the ship on the return trip. The set that's not active travels in cryo to keep them from aging as fast. If they only used one crew, they could only make a couple of trips back and forth before they hit retirement age."
"Captain Alejandra Chacon, yeah the last name definitely throws up a flag," Norm said before setting the tablet down on the edge of the projector.
Nodding at Norm's assessment, Jake continued. "Indeed it does. We may know nothing about these other two, but maybe we might be able to talk with this Alejandra Chacon. Max, are we able to communicate live with the Dark Star?"
"We'd still have to use the superluminal COMM transceiver to communicate with them since they haven't actually entered this star system yet, but yeah we can talk with them. The question is, do they want to talk with us, or will we get radio silence," Max replied to Jake's question and speculated in the same breath. He was a scientist through and through, always questioning every last detail.
Considering his options, Jake chewed on his lower lip for a moment before he turned to ward Selfridge's office. "Well there's only one way to find out. Can you patch me through in the office? I'd like to see if anyone's home."
"Yeah, just give a moment to orient the dish and we'll see if they're up for conversation." Max replied as he moved to the COMM terminal in the control room.
Jake walked over to Norm. "Would you mind checking to see if Neytiri has arrived yet? If they've made it, tell them I'll be down shortly. Tell them I'm going to try and talk with these tawtute." Jake could see Norm look down at the ground before nodding.
"Yeah, I'll get right on it," he answered before leaving the control room.
Max looked over to Jake as Norm left the room. "Why'd you as Norm to go instead of one of these guys? You know he's practically your second in command."
"I know. I hated having to do that, but we don't even know if this back up captain is related to Trudy or not, and I don't want him to get his hopes up of seeing someone who might not even know who Trudy is," Jake said grimly. "Norm's been through a lot, and I'd hate for him to have anything else rip him up until he's over Trudy enough to move on."
Max nodded before returning to his computer. A few moments later he looked back up. "I've locked onto the Dark Star; you can go in Selfridge's office and broadcast any time you want."
"Thanks Max," Jake said patting his friend on the back before heading to former Administrator Parker Selfridge's office. Ducking under the doorway, he entered the office and moved the chair out of the way and sat on the floor. Being ten feet tall had its disadvantages, Jake mused as he adjusted the computer's monitor angle to suit him. He then tapped the screen to wake the slumbering computer.
The computer whirred to life and displayed the login screen. He used his RDA username and password, which had been kept active per his request to Max and Norm the evening he had fully became one of the 'People.' After the computer finished the login process, Jake accessed the superluminal transceiver and initiated a transmission to the Dark Star. "This is Jake Sully, leader of the Omaticaya tribe to the ISV Dark Star, do you copy?"
He heard nothing but silence. Frowning, Jake was about to repeat himself when the COMM window opened to show a blonde woman. "This is Lieutenant Kristen Lawson of the ISV Dark Star, acknowledging transmission from Hell's Gate Admin," she replied curtly to the once-avatar.
Bitch, was Jake's first thought of the woman, but at least he'd gotten through. "Is your captain available, Lieutenant," he asked adding a little bit of acid to his voice at the end.
She glared at him, and then nodded. "The Captain and Executive Officer are currently in a meeting. I'll have to see if they are willing to engage with you."
"I'll wait," Jake replied. Oh, so that's how your gonna play, well I can do asshole too, he thought. Why don't you come down here? I'd love for you to see what attitude really is.
Lawson merely nodded. "Very well, I'll see if they want to talk with you."
The screen went blank for a few moments before Lawson returned. "The Captain will speak with you Sully. Transferring you now," she said in the best Ice Queen voice she could manage.
The screen went blank again. Jake found himself rather annoyed with the situation of being put on hold like he was calling some crappy store's customer service department. How ever, his growing impatience was quieted when the screen flicked back on with an image of a woman…a woman he never thought he'd see again.
The woman on the screen had the same dark hair, the same dark eyes, the same Hispanic features, and the same characteristic smirk of the late Trudy Chacon. If he had not known that she was dead, he'd say that this woman was Trudy. The only visible difference was the tired expression she wore instead of Trudy's more lively expression. From her appearance, this woman was routinely pulling late nights and all nighters, and living on pot after pot of coffee.
Jake was torn from his analysis of her face when she cleared her throat, apparently growing impatient from the continued silence from since they connected. "You must be Jake Sully. I'm Alejandra Chacon, Captain of the ISV Dark Star. I've been wanting to talk to you," the woman on the screen said.