A/N: Okay here's chapter 7. I'm sorry I took so long in posting. With Mom's Day and the other stuff I've had to do since yesterday, I've not been able to right as much as I'd like. Hence the late night submission. :) I hope you all enjoy this chapter. In the next chapter, Alejandra will arrive on Pandora and she'll discover Trudy's fate. How will she take it? Well stay tuned and find out :)

Part Two: Pandora

Chapter 7: Preparations

Jake found himself walking around the perimeter of Hell's Gate triple checking the surface-to-air missile sites he'd chosen for tomorrow's guest. Each SAM site was placed strategically to offer clear line of site of the Valkyrie shuttle as it approached Hell's Gate tomorrow morning when the Dark Star arrived at Pandora. He hoped that the missiles would not be necessary, but he wasn't about to caught without his 'loincloth' when Alejandra dropped the ball on them and landed scores of troops two of her three Valkyries to retake the base.

Jake didn't think that she would betray him, but he didn't think that Quaritch had enough gall to both destroy the Omaticaya hometree and assault the Tree of Souls. He'd been proven wrong on both counts. However, Quaritch had been predicable. Alejandra was anything but predictable. The first time he'd talked with the captain, there had been a number of tense moments between them as they had agreed upon their current arrangement.

This arrangement was something he had reluctantly agreed to. He'd agreed to allow her to send down one Valkyrie loaded with one person who would serve as a negotiator between him and the RDA. However, letting the Valkyrie land was a risk. She could easily hide about a hundred troops in the shuttle's bay, or God forbid an armed nuclear device, which was why he'd ordered a number of manually controlled SAM units to be spaced around the perimeter. If she tried anything other than bringing a negotiator to Hell's Gate, she'd find herself permanently lacking one Valkyrie.

After Jake finished checking the perimeter, he began to walk back toward the base. As he walked, his mind wandered back to the conversations he'd been having with Alejandra. The more he talked to her, the more he was convinced that he'd been speaking with Trudy. While Alejandra was a different person with different personality, she was very much like her sister in many ways. She often made the same facial expressions Trudy made when she talked, used the same tones, and spoke her mind like her fallen sister had. These traits made talking with her difficult because she was easy to like, which made keeping his guard up next to impossible.

Often times, he found himself relaxing and laughing with her as they as they talked. The two would usually spend about an hour speaking to one another before she would disconnect to finish her duties for the day, and he would attend to his. Jake's mind wandered to one particular conversation they had a few days earlier.

Alejandra's image winked on the screen but this time with more static than usual. She was sweaty and wearing a tank top, which was out of character for her as she usually appeared very clean and crisp in her uniform with her hair in a tight ponytail. He'd asked her about her appearance, and she'd told them that the ship was passing in close proximity to the star Alpha Centauri C for a braking maneuver called a slingshot, which would use the star's gravity to decelerate the ship and place them on an intercept trajectory for Pandora. The proximity to the star and its heat were taxing the environmental controls aboard the Dark Star that normally kept the interior a comfortable twenty degrees Celsius. However, they were only able to cool the interior to a sweltering 31.5.

After she'd answered his question regarding her appearance, Alejandra had gotten down to business. For most of the hour, they'd discussed what time the shuttle should arrive, where it should approach from, and what to expect if she betrayed him.

During this time he'd asked her if she had chosen the negotiator, which had caused the human captain to hesitate. She them simply smiled at him, and said that she'd eliminated it down to two or three candidates; all of which were avatar drivers. In that moment, when she hesitated, Jake knew that she intended to come down to the surface herself. He'd suspected that to be her plan originally, but her reaction had confirmed his assumptions.

Alejandra struck him as a person who would go to any lengths to protect her crew, but he doubted her decision to come down herself was coming from her selfless sense of duty. The preoccupied look she wore every time they talked that she diligently tried to hide gave her true motivations away. She was coming down herself because of Trudy. He could see the hope that she was alive, and the desperation to find out in her eyes.

Jake wanted to tell her about Trudy, to reveal that he knew her sister and her fate, but he was held back by two things. First, he didn't believe something like telling a person that their only living family member was dead from a billion kilometers away was right. Something of this magnitude was only revealed in person.

Secondly, as much as he hated the thought, Trudy could be his leverage on Alejandra. If he could break down her resolve and teach her to see like he had been taught, then perhaps he could save his people. From what he could tell, she was possibly halfway there to seeing the world from his point of view already. She had the same strong sense of right and wrong like her sister had. All he would need to do was nudge her in the right direction, and she'd realize the rest on her own.

Feeling satisfied with the current state of their relationship, Jake turned the conversation back to a casual tone. It was then that he'd decided ask some questions about her.

The question of why she was in command of the ship in stead of Richard Matthews had come up during this time. Alejandra had sighed before replying. As it turned out, Matthews was in command for the first three years of their trip from Earth, but had suffered an unexpected fatal heart attack nearly two and half years ago. He was and older man, and who had routinely disregarded his doctor's requests of a healthier diet with less caffeine. The Dark Star had a competent medical staff and facilities, but sometimes that wasn't enough.

After Matthews died, his XO, Commander Darren Fisher, had decided to thaw out Alejandra instead of assuming command himself. Since then, she had been in command and had inherited the mess that would have been Matthews had he lived.

He even asked her about her reasons for coming to Pandora. For her part, she'd spoken honestly. Alejandra revealed that she had a sister that had been stationed at Hell's Gate, whom she was very close to. When their parents had died, they didn't have any other living family members to hold them in place. Her sister, who she confirmed was Trudy, had come ahead of her looking for a new beginning. Alejandra had originally decided to remain on Earth, but grew lonely without her sister.

She had finished her tour aboard one of the US Navy's super carriers, and signed up for a position as Captain of the ISV Alpha Star, which would be arriving to Pandora two years from now. However, after the Dark Star's departure window had been moved up to barely six months after the Venture Star had left Earth; she had been reassigned to her current position as the Dark Star's outgoing captain.

He'd asked her for her version of why the Dark Star had been launched so early. Her re ply revealed that the former military commander of Hell's Gate, a man named Karl Falco, Quaritch's predecessor, had ordered that the RDA ship out some stronger, more powerful weapons to contain the Na'vi. Her ship was pressed into service ahead of schedule to bring those supplies in as quickly as possible.

When Quaritch became the new head of security shortly before Falco's death, he'd simply picked up where Falco had left off. She'd known that both Falco and Quaritch would have been insane enough to use the Dark Star's weapons, which was why she had already begun negotiations with RDAcom to add limitations for using these weapons of mass destruction before the RDA forces on Pandora had fallen to the Na'vi, or so she said.

A short time later, they had disconnected. That was when he'd decided his next move in the game the two had been playing. It was a move that he knew she wouldn't like, but she'd understand his reasons for it.

As Jake reached the entrance to Hell's Gate, he decided that seeing Norm would be the most prudent course of action to take. Norm had been analyzing Pandora's closest moon for several days now with the Hawking Space Telescope in search of anything that might shed light onto the mysterious Na'vi legend of the Txon Tanhì, or Night Star in English.

Nearing the Administration building, he noticed one of the few remaining marines standing guard outside the entrance. The man saluted Jake as he entered the building. Funny, Jake thought as the airlock cycled the Pandoran atmosphere from the room. Somehow in the last week or so, humans and Na'vi had done something that the RDA had failed to do in decades of occupying Pandora. Humanity and the Na'vi, the Omaticaya at least, had blended together. Out side the building, Na'vi aided human in repairing and maintaining Samsons, and human aided Na'vi in hunting and guarding.

However, these were the few humans who had been able to see Pandora for more than its mineral wealth. These were the humans like Grace Augustine, who knew the wealth lay in the natural world around them. Unobtainium had its used, Jake agreed, but the diverse plant and animal life meant more than a mineral to Jake. The plants and animals could be used in cures for many diseases and ailments for both human and Na'vi alike. The plants could be used to repair Earth's rapidly dying ecosystem if the RDA would get their heads out of their asses long enough to see the peril humanity was in, and then there was Ewya.

Ewya was something that Jake was still only just beginning to comprehend. Somehow Pandora had developed a biological communications network that enabled the life on Pandora to be able to download, upload, access, and backup information on a biological level. Also, it appeared that this global network was sentient on some level as Ewya could control the life of the world. This was something that the RDA forces had learned during Quaritch's assault on the Tree of Souls when Ewya or whatever she was used Pandoran wildlife to fight off RDA forces both in the air and on the ground.

He didn't know what to make of Ewya. Was she a long deceased Na'vi whose personality continued on in the global network, or was she a collective of all of life on the planet? Jake didn't know the answer, and perhaps never would. Did he think her a God? No, but Ewya was a powerful entity.

Reaching the Stellar Cartography lab, Jake waited as the doors slid open in front of him. The room was similar in layout to the control room upstairs, but on a smaller scale. This room only had a few workstations running with a holo projector in the center of the room instead of the dozens of terminals that the control room held. Norm was the only one who remained in the lab as the evening began. He was at one of the terminals against the wall analyzing data as it came in from the Hawking. On the room's centrally located projector, a holographic image of the nearest moon slowly rotated with the current section that the Hawking was analyzing highlighted.

Jake walked over to Norm, who had not noticed that he wasn't alone until Jake grabbed his right shoulder. "Hey Norm," Jake said startling the scientist from his work.

"Oh…Jake, sorry you scared me for a second there," Norm replied catching his breath.

"Sorry," Jake apologized. "Is this a bad time?"

Norm shook his head. "No buddy, this is fine. I was just going over the last set of pictures the Hawking sent in," he added as he gestured to the lunar images on his terminal's screen.

"Have you found anything yet?"

Again, Norm shook his head. "No Jake, nothing to report but craters and more craters, but that's not the problem."

Perplexed, Jake cocked an eyebrow up at his friend. "What do you mean?"

Norm walked over to the projector and tapped a few commands that removed the visual enhancements the computers had made to the image. The moon now looked blurry and pixilated to the point of being almost unrecognizable. "That's the problem Jake."

"Damn that's bad," Jake commented. "How come the Hawking's images are so poor? I thought this thing was supposed to be able to take super high-res images of the universe and what not."

"It is Jake. However, it was never designed to take pictures of objects so close. To the Hawking, looking at the moon is like trying to read a book or use a computer with binoculars. Both devices are great for looking at objects from long distances, but they can't see shit from up close. If the object of your interest was a thousand light years away, I'd have no problem analyzing it, but you'd have better luck looking at the moon with a backyard telescope than with the Hawking." Norm replaced the computer enhancements to correct the lunar image. "These enhancements are largely based off pictures taken by probes launched by ships like the Capital Star and Venture Star that are headed out of the system right now on deep space missions the RDA was conducting; all of which show nothing out of the ordinary"

Jake sighed. He'd hoped that Norm would be able to find something out with the billions of dollars worth of equipment they had. "Dammit. Is there anything else we could use?"

"There is," Norm began, "but you're not gonna like it." Norm brought up an image of the Dark Star as she was beginning her orbital insertion maneuvers.

Growling, Jake shook his head. "You're right Norm, I don't like it."

"I thought you wouldn't," Norm added. "However, I've checked their materials manifest, and the Dark Star is carrying four deep space probes with high-res cameras that would be perfect for scanning the moon. All they'd have to do is reprogram one or two of them and launch them at the moon where they could orbit and take as many photos of the surface you want."

Jake pinched his nose and shook his head at Norm's suggestion. "Yeah, and I'll just bet that Captain RDA will want some sort of concession for her allowing us to use her probes. Let's see what's first; the base, resumption of mining?"

"It wouldn't hurt to ask Jake."

"I know, I know. It's just that I want to find out what, or if this has anything to do with this Txon Tanhì legend." Jake was beginning to look desperate before he threw his hands up in exasperation. "Fine, I'll ask her."

Norm placed his hand as high up on Jake's shoulder as he could manage, "It'll be alright Jake. If you want, I'll talk with the negotiator about the probes," Norm said in a comforting tone.

"I know Norm. I just wish that we didn't have to deal with this crap…at least not so soon." Jake's tone wasn't angry or depressed. It was just tired.

Norm reached over to the projector and turned it off and allowing the room's lights to brighten some. "Why don't we go get something to eat? I'm sure Neytiri must be worried about you being so late."

"Yeah that sounds like a good idea. I don't think I've eaten since breakfast," Jake answered feeling suddenly very hungry.

The two exited the Cartography room and began down the hall toward the nearest exit. "Hey Jake, my avatar's healed. I was thinking of testing it out tomorrow. Would you and Neytiri like some company on your morning hunt, or would I be butting in," Norm said striking up a casual conversation. He knew that Jake and Neytiri hunted in the mornings often. However, they'd have to make it only a short hunt tomorrow since the Dark Star's negotiator was arriving that afternoon.

Nodding, Jake smiled. "Yeah that sounds fun. Neytiri's wanted to teach you to use the bow for a while now, so yeah sounds good."

The two continued to walk in companionable silence.

"Three minutes till orbital insertion," Ensign Ulysses Jericho announced as he manipulated the Dark Star's navigational controls.

Alejandra nodded from her position at the Operations console. "Thank you Mr. Jericho," she acknowledged. She was using the console to run through her checklist for tomorrow's departure.

In a short while, she would finish briefing her pilots on what to expect regarding their mission. Earlier in the week she had them brought out of cryo storage to inform them of the situation and request that they transfer her down to Pandora's surface. Alejandra had decided to ask for volunteers instead of ordering them because she had already accepted the possibility that she could be taken prisoner upon her arrival at Hell's Gate.

She looked up from her screen and turned to face the large flat screen monitor located at the front of CIC, which currently displayed a vivid live feed of Pandora's northern hemisphere with Polyphemus shining its blue brilliance from behind. She wished that the ship had windows to look down upon the world, but that was out of the question since all current transparent construction materials weren't very good at repelling harmful radiation. Not to mention the fact that windows would be the weakest points on the ship's structure. Even the Valkyries' viewports remained covered by a protective layer of composite, which retracted after they were past all the hard radiation.

Jericho tapped a few more commands into his console, and they felt the ship shudder slightly as the braking thrusters fired once more and were silent. "Orbital insertion complete," he reported. "Confirming geosync orbit above Hell's Gate," he finished before releasing the con trols and switching them back to automatic. In reality, most of the ship's NAV controls were handled automatically. It was only in instances of plotting courses and destinations where ma nual controls came into effect. The orbital insertion had been mostly handled by the computers, leaving only the fine tuning to Mr. Jericho.

"Good work," Alejandra congratulated her navigations officer. She placed her hand on his shoulder and squeezed it for emphasis. Letting her officers know that she appreciated their hard work was essential for their continued morale. She turned to face the rest of the command staff. "Good work to all of you," she gestured to everyone present. "I know it's not much, but you have my appreciation for your diligence. In response to it, I'll be authorizing a bonus to everyone for all your hard work," she added. "And I want you all to spend it responsibly on things like booze, sex, and drugs," she continued her tone joking, which elicited laughs from the crew…genuine laughs.

Alejandra wished that she had something to give them now, but there was little available on the ship that she could offer. "I think a celebration is in order," she heard Fisher say from his station.

Nodding in agreement, Alejandra smiled. "I agree. Too bad we don't have something to toast with"

"I wouldn't worry about that Captain," Jericho interjected while he smiled innocently

"Worry about what," she inquired skeptically.

Jericho's smile became mischievous. "Well, I think that a crew member, whose name shall not be known," he replied as his grin seemed to spread, "has brewed up something that would be more than appropriate for a celebration."

For her part, Alejandra tried to look surprised. In reality, she'd known about his science project from the beginning, and she'd let him continue provided that it didn't jeopardize the ship and crew, and that any partaking of his product occurred during off duty hours only. "And what am I supposed to do when RDAcom contacts us to find the entire crew drunk from homemade vodka? How am I going to explain it to Nathan Andrews, Mr. Jericho?"

Jericho contemplated her questions for a moment before cocking one eyebrow. "I sup pose you would have to explain it very…carefully Captain," he replied with an undercurrent of sarcasm.

"Indeed I would," Alejandra said nodding in agreement. "Very well, mess hall one hour. Just don't get too shit faced. We've got a busy day tomorrow." She turned to leave the CIC. "I've got some business to take care of, and then I'll join you."

Alejandra left the CIC and walked down the corridor toward dormitory module. In there, she found her two Valkyrie pilots playing cards in the small commons area. "Gentlemen," she said as she entered the room. They both stood and saluted her as she joined them at the table and returned their salute. "At ease," she ordered allowing them both to relax their stance.

"Need something Captain," one of the pilots asked.

She shook her head. "No, I'm just offering you two one more chance to opt out of flying me down tomorrow. As I said before, I don't know what will happen down there tomorrow. Everything may go fine, or it may go straight to FUBAR. We could find ourselves prisoners, or worse yet…dead."

The other pilot looked across to his partner, and then to Alejandra. "Captain, with all due respect. I'm not willing to let you go down there by yourself, and I'm sure Lieutenant Allen agrees with me."

Allen nodded. "We're right behind you one-hundred-ten percent."

Moved by their dedication, she fought to maintain her composure. "Thank you," was all she could say for a moment, then she added, "C'mon boys, I let's go get something to drink." The trio left the dorm module and headed for the mess hall where very shortly there would be many soon to be inebriated crew members.