James Cameron owns Avatar, not me.
Chapter 5: Here, there be dragons
Date: January 30th, 2163
Location: Toronto, North American Union, Earth, Sol System
It had been weeks since his impromptu vacation in Finland, and Parker was still relaxed. He hadn't even had a migraine since. So he was in a congenial mood when he was brought to Toronto to watch the Canada vs. Germany football match with Oberst Weigand.
It was supposed to be a meeting concerning first the base design, then going over the final construction decisions of the Explorer's Dream. Not that the good colonel had much to say, he was entirely absorbed in the game, which left Parker free to go over some of the possible base plans that Captain Jones had sent him. All were far more practical from a defensive standpoint than Hell's Gate had been, featuring heavy concrete bunkers instead of defensive towers, and secondary defensive positions built into the majority of the buildings. He made notes on numerous, pointing out flaws in the location of the unobtanium refinery in one, in the location of the administration dorms in the other.
"GOTT IM HIMMEL!" Parker glanced up, the rise of red and white on the other side of the field revealing that Canada had just scored without him even needing to check further. The Germanic colonel had leaped to his feat and was shouting what were most likely uncouth terms at his country's team. Ignoring him, he made a small note next to one of the base designs concerning the placement of the greenhouse.
A few minutes later he rose and stretched, slowly meandering over to the window to stand beside Weigand, glancing at the score as he did so. "Two to nothing eh, in the first half even."
The older man glared at him, before turning sharply away from the pitch. "Come on," his voice was gruff, "I cannot bear to watch another minute."
Smirking, Parker followed him back to the table, outlining what he had done thus far.
"Good." Weigand replied when he had finished, "Send those to Jones as soon as is possible, the ICA rep will be here shortly, and we can then go over-"
A tide of noise interrupted him and before Parker could blink he had leaped over to the window, gazing intently at the scoreboard, before his shoulders slumped and he shuffled back, his voice and posture now noticeably depressed "What was I saying... Oh. Yes. We can then go over the final design of the Explorer's Dream."
Parker nodded, "That is good."
The two sat in silence for many more minutes, Parker diligently working on commenting the base designs while Weigand visibly forced himself not to watch the train wreck in progress outside, instead going over Parker's previous work.
The ICA representative came in at half time, and unlike Weigand, she was positively floating, the reason was obvious from the thick sweater with the Canadian logo on it and the maple leaf painted on one of her cheeks.
"Good afternoon Mr. Selfridge, Oberst Weigand.." she utterly beamed at Weigand, who glared at her in response. "I'm Captain Maria Thomes of the Explorer's Dream, glad to meet you both at last. Commodore Bradley would like me to convey his apologies, but he is currently tied up in a meeting with the shipyard contractors."
"Fine, fine." Weigand said, voice still quite a bit gruff, "Let's get to work as quickly as we are able then."
She raised a golden eyebrow at him, "Are you sure you don't want to watch the second half?"
If looks could kill, the blonde Captain would have been dead a thousand times over. Parker howled with laughter.
Date: February 11th, 2163
Location: 75 km north of Vladivostok, Russian Federation, Earth, Sol System
"Did we really have to hold the final training here?" he muttered, rubbing his hands together rapidly in a vain attempt to warm them.
Beside him, Thomes snorted, breath turning to frost, "It's not that cold."
Parker glared at her, in particular at the light jacket she wore, compared to his extremely thick one. "I'm sorry that I spent the last several years in a damn jungle and have a tendency to prefer sane weather."
Her riposte was interrupted when a massive AMP suit strode over, the small image of a skeletal warrior highlighted by a lightning bolt on gun barrel identifying it as Weigand's, his voice boomed over the external speakers, "We've finished the exercise, go ahead and had back into the main facility, I'll meet you there once all the troops are rounded up."
Parker and Thomes waved to show their acknowledgment before heading into the prefabricated building behind them, pausing occasionally to allow AMP suits or teams of soldiers to move past, all heading into their own buildings to escape from the cold.
Entering the small building was like walking into a sauna, and Parker quickly stripped off his heavy jacket, exopack and gloves, and made a beeline for the coffee machine sitting next to a fold-out table. Carefully sipping the holy drink and allowing it to warm his hands, he sat in the chair as Thomes pulled up her own on the side opposite.
"Glad these training exercises are over," he said, "Tired of being rushed all over the damn planet because someone realizes we didn't test something somewhere."
His companion nodded, "I can agree with you there. I'd much rather be back up at Gagarin station overseeing the last bits of construction than be here."
The two sat in comfortable silence, Parker enjoying his coffee and the warmth around him as Thomes pulled out a small computer and began to rapidly type away.
Perhaps ten minutes went by before Weigand entered, still in his combat fatigues. "Well, that is that." he announced, sitting down and pulling out his own PDA.
Parker leaned forwards across the table, "How did it all go?"
"Same as the majority of the rest. Any defensive situation we could think up resulted in the Na'vi being slaughtered in droves trying to get to us, but attacking them is a different story. Superior firepower usually enables us to accomplish the objective, but losses and ammunition expenditure is far higher than I'm comfortable with. We won't be getting any reinforcements for a full year, so any casualties are going to be bad for us."
"That reminds me," Parker spoke up, "One of Quaritch's better ideas, he made sure that most of the miners had at least some combat training to help out in defending Hell's Gate. I already assigned some of the Sec-Ops veterans to go over basic combat with the mining volunteers. They won't be much help as far as heavy combat, but in an emergency situation we can at least arm them."
Weigand eyebrows rose, "Taking some initiative are you? Good. I don't particularly want to arm civilians, all things considered, but if we're desperate, having some additional firepower can always be a useful tool." He entered what appeared to be a short note onto his pad, "Thomes, how's construction going?"
"Almost complete," she replied, looking up from her own pad, "We'll be ready for the July launch time-frame. We've already got the satellites aboard and stowed, and three of the four habitats are functioning. Soon as we're there we can detach the main antimatter reactors and you'll have your very own eyes in the sky."
The colonel jotted down another note, "Excellent. The rest of the ISV fleet should be undergoing final refits right now, and the majority of the expedition crew is en route to Baikonour in preparation. The three of us will be heading there once we're wrapped up here. We've got one final press conference before we leave, but before that we've got one final planning state to go through. The main fleet will rendezvous with the Explorer's Dream at the Gagarin shipyards on May 30th, and we'll meet them there on July 1st. Fleet will depart for Pandora on the 2nd ." he glanced up at the two of them and smiled.
"This is our calm before the storm, so we're stopping by Beijing for a few days leave before we head to Kazakhstan. Let's enjoy it while we can."
Date: April 2nd, 2163
Location: Tyuratam, Kazakhstan, Earth, Sol System
Parker broke off from conversation with one of his assistants as Weigand rose at the head of the main table, "All right folks," the Oberst began, "this meeting is now in session. This is our last chance to hammer out the basic outline of the expedition. Our primary goal is to resume uninterrupted shipments of Unobtanium from Pandora to Earth, in order to ensure both the expansion of humanity into a interstellar civilization as well as to ensure the progress of the reclamation projects here on Earth."
He nodded to Parker, "Administrator Parker will be in charge of the mining operations and will have the final say in all civilian matters. I will be in overall command but will allow him day-to-day control of the base. Captain Thomes will be overseeing the deuterium harvesting of Polythemus from the Explorer's Dream and will be in control of all space assets after Commodore Bradley and the fleet exit the system."
Quiet murmuring broke out at the last, and Parker frowned before rising, he hadn't been told anything about that, "What do you mean, 'leaves the system'?"
Weigand gazed at him seriously, "We are going to follow the example of Hernán Cortés. Once the main fleet has offloaded all of our supplies and has allowed their engines to cool, they will be returning to Sol."
Parker gaped at him, "We won't have any way to retreat if the savages attack again!"
"Exactly." the Oberst replied. "The fact is, the resources on Earth are strapped at the moment, we must succeed here if our race is to survive much longer. There is far too much being put into this expedition for us to panic and pull out. It will also serve as a message to the natives, one that Sully should understand. If they intend to fight us, we will fight to the death. There is no retreat for us, nowhere to run to, we will stand and fight until the last."
Parker tried to say something, but something had seemed to short out in his brain during the colonel's little speech, and he couldn't do more than simply continue to gape.
"Now," Weigand continued, bringing up a map of the region on Pandora containing Hell's Gate. "Our chosen landing site is going to be located here, 35 km southwest of the old Hell's Gate complex. It is located almost on top of a sizable deposit of unobtanium, and the location of the old native hometree and mega-load located there is within accessible distance."
He turned and nodded to Captain Jones, who rose and began his own oration, "Our primary concern upon landing is to immediately begin fortifying our position. There's good news and bad news here. We're timing our arrival to the monsoon season of the region, so we should be able to operate with minimal chance of discovery for at least two weeks. But it will be extremely difficult to work in the rainy conditions, so we're going to be conscripting nearly everyone into the construction gangs to get at least our perimeter established as soon as is possible. Optimistically, we should be able to have the perimeter established and a prefabricated base constructed within a week of landing, and then begin construction of the actual base."
He sat, and Weigand gestured to Parker, who, snapping out of his funk and forcing his voice to remain steady began his own speech, "We.. ahem, sorry, We should be looking to begin preliminary work on the mine as soon as the miners are freed up from construction duty. Dozers will be sent out to create a road as soon as we land and we should be able to position the main diggers within the first two weeks. Full strip mining won't begin until the first resupply ISV arrives with the super-heavy equipment, but we should be able to mine enough unrefined ore to fill it's cargo holds."
He sat heavily, reconstructing his thoughts, as the Oberst stood one more. "As far as relations with the natives goes, we're going to ignore them unless they force the issue. Our location is not near any known tribes, although where Sully and his group relocated is unknown." He turned his gaze slowly across the room, "Remember people, this mission pertains to the future of the human race. I don't care if you're here because of the paycheck, because you believe in it, or if you just want an adventure, in the end, what matters is that you are human, and that you are here. Let's go over everything one final time and fine tune it as much as we are able. We're going to have to, how do the Americans say...ah, 'wing' a lot of what we do out there, and I want to be as prepared as possible."
Next up is Chapter 6: Fading Hope
So, my muse was annoying today, wouldn't shut up until I wrote. Think this chapter turned out all right, tried to give my OC's a bit more character and personality, make them seem more like people. Hope you enjoy.
Again, REVIEW!