I don't own, or claim to own, James Cameron's Avatar. You can tell, because my name isn't James Cameron. Also, I'm not a millionaire.
Chapter 11: The Game Begins
Date: March 20th, 2170
Location: Camp Augustine, Pandora, Alpha Centauri A System
The rain had finally let up, and Max was thankful for that. They had started to run very low on meat in the last several days, and all three of them were heartily sick of eating just produce. Katrina was in their Samson, carefully bringing the aged craft through the pre-flight checklist. Personally, Max was amazed she had been able to keep it running. She had been only an amateur pilot, and they had had to scavenge the old base to find both parts and the manuals on how to keep it running.
Norm was locking up their shacks as Max carefully loaded a box of ammunition on the door gun mounted on the left of the Samson, the other gun having been cannibalized years ago to keep at least one of them functional.
The years since the brutal deaths of Bruce and Walsh had been hard. Though the Avatars had stepped up their help as best they could, the Na'vi had not been as accepting. Though Jake and especially Neytiri had been sympathetic, and helped dealing with the aftermath of their deaths, the rest of the Na'vi had been fairly indifferent, and over time, the goodwill had once more faded. It had been two years since he had spoken to Jake, and the last time he had seen Neytiri had probably been at the funeral.
Even the Avatar team is distant to us now, he mused as he settled into the Samson, making sure the weapon was loaded and the safety on. Most of them became full members of the clan long ago, and only a few are clinging to their humanity.
He sighed and settled back as Katrina started up the Samson's rotors, Norm holding his battered ball-cap to his head as he raced over and climbed in.
"It's going to be good to eat good again!" The other scientist said with a smile, strapping himself in.
Max smiled in return. Norm had had a bad time of it after the deaths of their friends. He'd been nearly catatonic the entire two weeks of the radiation storm, and had barely spoken at all for months afterwords. Working him out of it had been hard, and it had been nearly a year before he was back to his usual self. He still had problems with it, but Max thought it was mostly linked to his feelings of jealously towards Jake and the rest of the Avatar team than it did with the bleak memories.
"Damn straight Norm, no more plant food for us, let's get something real!" Katrina laughed over the comms, slowly raising their bird into the air and heading to their hunting grounds near Hell's Gate. She had not had as many issues as Norm had, though she still would slip occasionally into a brooding depression, usually sparked by an off-hand comment about something Walsh or Bruce would have liked or done. She coped by obsessing over the Samson, to the point where one Avatar who had been visiting had commented that she loved the machine more than any Na'vi loved their Ikran. They had all had a good laugh about it then, but Max had noticed that the Avatars hadn't laughed as hard as the three of them had.
He sighed again, and closed his eyes as they flew. It had been fifteen years now, fifteen years of working harder than he had in the rest of his life combined simply to stay alive. Of putting up with prejudice from the very people he had saved, of-
"Hey, Max?" Katrina's voice came over the speakers, it sounded.. stressed.
Blinking, he looked around and realized with a start they were already near the old mining site. Old age will do that to you, he thought, mentally chuckling, "What's up Katrina?"
"Where's the excavator?" her voice was still off.
Trading a frown with Norm, he turned and leaned out of the Samson, looking at the mine.. and at the mine. He shook his eyed, closed his eyes, and looked again. The excavator was massive, the largest human land vehicle every built, it had survived, albeit in a rusting fashion, for years despite Eywa's best efforts to destroy it, it could not just be gone, that made no sense!
Yet when he looked again, the multi-ton, multi-story behemoth was still missing from its place in the center of the crater.
Norm was also looking, and his voice was very small, "I have a very, very bad feeling about this Max."
"Katrina.. get us to Hell's Gate as fast as you can, but stay low!" he shouted into his mic, hanging on as Katrina immediately brought the craft in a sharp bank, the engines roaring up to full speed.
He glanced at a pale Norm, "You think they're back?"
His friend, glanced back at the mining crater behind them, "What.. who else could have done that?"
Max grimaced and nodded, hanging on tightly as they approached the old RDA base. It was immediately evident as she brought them in closer that something had happened here as well. The base looked like it had been attacked, rusting towers had been torn down, walls shattered and the machinery within removed. The heavy door to the armory block had been opened and Max could tell even from here that the ruined AMP suits and Samsons had all been taken as well. Even the rusted husk that had been intended to become the second Dragon gunship was missing.
"Get us out of here, take us home." he shook his head, Humanity is back all right, but where are they, who are they, and why are they here?
He mentally slapped himself at the last, the first two were unknowns, but the last question had an obvious answer.
"We need to warn Jake and the others about this Max!" Norm shouted over the noise of the engines, "And we have to do it right now!"
"Only way to get there quick is in this metal beast, and they'll freak out as soon as we get close!" Katrina's voice came on again.
"What will they do if they find out we waited to tell them?" Max countered, "This is too important to wait, take us there!"
"I told you so in advance then!" she replied, and with that, they headed to bring news that no one would want to hear, in a vehicle that many could very well try to kill them for daring to bring there.
Date: March 20th, 2170
Location: Omaticay Kelutral, Pandora, Alpha Centauri A System
They had not been shot at as they approached, but Max felt that was due more to the lateness of the hour than anything else. He could already hear shouting and see angry Na'vi moving towards them as they landed. Kat hadn't bothered to slow down, at all, as they banked hard around the home tree, and he knew the noise would have been loud enough to wake everyone inside.
He leaped from the Samson before it had finished touching down, and glanced around before heading for a severely angry looking Neytiri.
"We have told you not to bring your machines here!" she snarled as soon as he was close, "How dare-"
He snapped at her, "We don't have time for this Neytiri, they're back."
She froze, anger still in her posture as she stared at him. "You are sure? How? When?"
"Hell's Gate's been ransacked for anything salvageable, as has the mining site. Sometime in the last few weeks, since everything was there before the monsoons began, but it's hard to be sure." he shook his head, "Sorry about intruding like this, but we felt it was something you needed to know immediately."
The anger slowly drained out of her posture, and she nodded, "Have her take it from here until you must leave and it will be enough."
Nodding, he turned and moved back over to the Samson as Neytiri called for calm and for someone to fetch Jake.
He nodded to Katrina and shouted so she could hear through the canopy, "Head out a ways, we'll contact you on the radio when we're done here."
She nodded and brought the rotors back up to full speed as Norm jumped out, following Max back over to Neytiri, who was speaking to a grim looking Jake.
The Olo'eyktan turned to him as soon as he arrived, "They're back then." It was a statement, not a question.
Norm and Max both nodded, the former speaking "They ransacked Hell's Gate pretty good, looks like they grabbed everything they could try and salvage or re-purpose during the monsoon."
"Which brings up a problem," Max chimed in, "It means that they aren't planning on using it as a base, which means we have no idea where they are."
"The people can find them." Jake stated confidently, "And when we find them, we'll drive them back to their dying world as we did before."
The tribe cheered at this, the warriors pumping their bows above their heads.
"You need to be careful Jake! They could be well prepared for a fight.. maybe they'll even be willing to talk?" Max spoke, slightly alarmed at this.
"Like they talked before?" Jake countered, anger evident in his tone, his tail thrashing behind him, "All they will do is destroy and take as they did before, we can't let them harm Eywa or the people." He frowned down at the pair of them, "After what happened last time, you two are the last ones I would expect to say that we should talk to them!"
He shook his head, "Jake, if you fight them people, both human and Na'vi, are going to die, if there is anyway to avoid fighting you should at least consider it!"
Neytiri broke into the conversation, "And when they lie? As they lied before, both to each other and to us? Must I watch my son slain before me as I watched my sister and my father? No, friend Max, we cannot talk to them, not if they allow their insanity to continue, not if they harm Eywa."
Max tried a different tract, "Jake, you used to be a marine, fighting them in they open, wherever they have their landing site is going to be very different than fighting at the Tree of Souls."
The former marine frowned at that before nodding slowly his head, "It will be, but there are many other tribes nearby who also suffered at the hands of the RDA. We might not have the numbers for a full frontal assault, but we can make them pay for harming Eywa until the other clans can come to our aid."
"But what if it's not Sec-Ops? What if it's full blown marines like you used to be?"
Jake snorted at this, "The RDA had full control on Earth and everyone knew it. No, it will be those money-obsessed mercenaries again, and we'll rout them just as we did before. Thanks for the warning guys, we can take it from here. Try and keep your heads down eh?" he finished with a smile before turning back to his mate and speaking in rapid Na'vi.
He and Norm backed away, heading back to the small clearing. Before he could summon their friend on the radio though, several members of the Avatar team broke off from the tribe and walked over, all with worried looks on their faces.
"Is it true Max, the RDA is back?" one of them asked as soon as she was a few feet away.
He shook his head, "Humans are back, but we don't know if it's the RDA or not."
"Who else would it be?" another spoke up.
"Oh come on," a third countered, "Despite what Jake seems to think, the RDA wasn't that much of a political powerhouse, and if our signal got back the public could have torn them apart. It's more likely it's one of the super-governments, like the EU or the NAU."
Before the debate could gain more steam, Max interrupted them, "It might or it might not be the RDA, but making any kind of conclusions or assumptions at this point is dangerous." he glanced at the assembled Na'vi, currently holding conference with Jake as Neytiri spoke to a ruffled, sleepy looking Mo'at.
"I want you guys to be careful if Jake sends any of you out scouting all right? I've lost enough friends for one lifetime."
"We will Max," a few of the murmured, serious looks on their almost human faces. Most departed then, but a few stayed, glancing around before crouching down to his height and leaning in.
Miguel spoke quietly and quickly, "Max, if they.. I mean, if we attack the humans right off the bat it could be bad. I remember the battle man, and it wasn't much like the singers here like to depict. They were stomping the people before Eywa intervened. I know Jake's been training the warriors and such, but still..."
John and Dana looked equally worried, their faces drawn as they glanced at the other avatars who had moved to join the rest of the tribe. It was Dana who finished the thought for Miguel, "But if they do a full on attack against dug-in humans with heavy weapons, even with a bunch of other tribes helping, it'll be a slaughter, not a battle."
Norm winced and spoke, unconsciously rubbing his chest as he did so, no doubt remembering the pain of that last battle, "Any chance you guys could try and talk to them about it?"
Miguel snorted, "Are you kidding? We're practically outcasts here because we still act like scientists instead of becoming full members of the tribe like we're supposed to."
"Dammit." Max murmured, "Do what you can guys. I don't want to see humans strip-mining Pandora anymore than the Na'vi do, but I don't want to see a war either. There has to be something that can be used to negotiate."
"Like what?" Dana broke in, "Humans have nothing the Na'vi want, and they have everything the humans want. Not a good bargaining position man."
He sighed and signaled Katrina. "I'll try and think of something. Stay over here would ya? We have a few back-up radios in the Samson, I want you to call us as soon as something happens. I have the feeling that this is going to get bad real fast if we're not careful."
Next up is Chapter 12: Howling Wolves
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