I don't own Avatar, how about that eh?
Chapter 21: Unheard Prayers
Date: May 3rd, 2170
Location: Camp Augustine, Pandora, Alpha Centauri A System
It had been an uneventful two weeks since they had sent Weigand their data. The small group had hunted, gathered, researched, and more or less lived just as they had for the last decade and a half.
The only good news had come in a week ago, when Katrina and Norm had returned from a hunting trip to report that they had run into a Samson patrol from Tartarus.
Katrina had been able to sweet-talk the pilot into revealing that they had, more or less, stopped their extermination flights, relying instead on some new defenses that the engineers had thrown together. She had also managed to get out that the survey of Hell's Gate and its attached mine was to be the first of several over the coming weeks.
Max had felt cautiously optimistic about that. That Weigand seemed to be holding his word was massively good news as far as he was concerned, but he was keeping his optimism tempered. Things could always go wrong, and at the end of the day, he could only trust Weigand so far.
"There's no reason for us to rush this," he had told everyone after they had all gone over the information, "We'll give them another two weeks before we send them more data, make sure they don't start their hunting trips up again."
Everyone had agreed on that.
In hindsight, he knew he should not have felt even as slightly optimistic as he had. Nothing on Pandora had ever gone to plan, not in the twenty plus years he had been there.
The call came in just before dinner, the caller id proclaiming it as being from Miguel. He almost broke his neck rushing over to activate it. They had not heard from him or Dana since John's exile.
"Miguel! It's Max, what's going on? You haven't called in weeks!"
"I know, I know," his Avatar friend's voice was low, whispered, "I've had to keep my head down and go with the flow after they kicked John out. I'm not exactly what you'd call popular over here Max."
He frowned and glanced at Katrina, the only other person in the shack with him, before resuming his questions, "What's going on over there Miguel? Are they going to attack? What did Eywa say?"
"It's still crazy. They've got warriors from all different tribes coming in to start trying to raid the humans, they want to launch a huge attack but Jake's reigning them in at the moment, says it's a bad idea until they've weakened them." their friend spoke in a rushed tone, speaking as quickly and quietly as he could while still managing to be intelligible, "Neytiri and Mo'at both communed with Eywa, the feelings they got is that Eywa is even more pissed at the humans for something new they did."
"Something new?" Katrina asked, "They stopped the hunting, are going to start reclaiming the mine site, there's nothing new to be angry about, right?"
Something new. The thought clicked in Max's head, "The pilot said they had 'new defenses' to keep the animals out right? Must be something about those, whatever they are. Maybe mines or something?"
Miguel replied, "I dunno man, but I don't think the people are in any mood to negotiate anymore. Jake's got scouting parties trying to find holes in their defenses so they can launch another raid, and with everyone thinking Eywa supports driving the humans out, I don't think there's anything me or Dana can say. We're just trying to keep our heads down and avoiding getting in fights with the other Avatars."
He winced, "Dammit. Go, Miguel, before someone catches you talking to nothing. Contact us if anything huge happens, but stay out of trouble as best you can."
"Sorry I didn't have good news Max." their friend apologized before he cut the signal.
He had just started to slump backwards into his seat when he heard the sound of something slamming into metal.
"Dammit! Dammit Dammit!" Katrina swore, punching the wall again. "Everything we've tried to get them to listen, to not attack, and they're ignoring it! It's going to happen all fucking over again!"
"Shit! Katrina! Calm down!" he stepped up, grabbing her arms as she went to continue her abuse of her bleeding fists and the wall.
Norm and John, naturally, chose that moment to walk in. "What the hell?" the gawky scientist asked as he saw the bloodied woman struggling in Max's grip.
"Help me dammit!" he shouted, an elbow slamming into his gut. Norm raced over, John carefully moving in and setting their food far to the side before also helping.
Between the three of them they managed to get her calmed down and into one of the cots.
"Katrina, what the hell was that about?" he was massaging a bruise on his cheek.
Her sigh was almost sub-vocal, and her voice was.. cold, emotionless, "Why do we still try Max.. why the hell do we bother... they listen to Eywa, not to us... the humans.. just do as humans do.. veni, vidi, vici.. They were always going to fight.. fight for unobtanium... fight for eywa... I'm sick of it.. sick of trying so hard to stop the fighting.. only for no one to care how hard we're trying... neither side wants to compromise.. both say they're fighting for their survival.. and I'm sick of them. Both of them."
Everyone stared at her as she finished her slow, inexorable speech.
She's been keeping that bottled up for along time now he thought to himself, not health.. not healthy... but then again.. aren't we all keeping that buried? The frustration of the tribe not listening to us, of the humans returning to repeat what happened before? Are they truly here because humanity is self-destructing?
He sat heavily in his chair, silence hanging like a thick fog in the shack.
A war is going to start soon. Not a fight like lat time, this time.. this time the humans aren't going to cut and run, and far too many will die... Depression slowly settled over him, Was it our fault? Did we not try hard enough? Was there anything we could have done to stop this madness?
"There's nothing we could have done." he whispered quietly. "We did everything that a handful of people could do to keep peace... and we didn't even delay the war at all."
"We didn't." she agreed, voice remaining disturbingly slow and exact, "And soon fire and death will spread. If the Na'vi win, maybe humanity dies. If humanity wins, maybe Eywa dies."
John spoke quietly, "Logic says that that Eywa and her Na'vi will win once more, through overwhelming numbers if nothing else. But the casualties... it'll destroy more tribes than we can count."
"And do we trust Weigand?" Norm asked, slumping slowly down to the floor, staring at his feet, "Is unobtanium really our species last hope? If they Na'vi win, is that it for the Earth, would we be the only humans left? Three scientists trapped in a bunch of prefabs on a hositle world.. the only remainder of a dead species?"
"I don't know Norm," he answered.
They sat in silence for what felt like hours. Dusk turned to darkness outside as they sat. Their food grew cold.
"If the Na'vi win... what will happen to us?" Norm asked finally.
Katrina's still emotionless voice responded, "We die. They don't kill us, as long as we stay out of the way. Maybe help them. But eventually this world will kill us. We can't stay lucky forever."
A choked sound in the dark shack, "Like the others.. eaten..?"
"Probably." was her response, Max could dimly see her shrugging.
He could hear Norm whimper softly. "Dammit, show some sensitivity." he snarled.
A bit of light glinted off her eyes as she glanced at him, "Oh. Right. Sorry."
The silence deepened.
John spoke, "You're only chance to ever leave would be for the humans to win."
Max winced, he had thought of that as well. "But you wouldn't be able to come with. Nor Miguel, or Dana. And do we want to leave?"
No one answered for a long time.
"Yes." Katrina replied, finally. "I've had enough. Enough of trying to help those who don't want it. Enough worrying if I'm going to wake up in the morning. Just enough of it all."
Norm remained quiet.
Max sighed, "I don't know if I'm ready to give up yet. We're trapped between to irreconcilable worlds, and I know that we don't really have any chance of peace at this point, but I can't just give up. I swore an oath to protect life, all of it. I'm going to remain true to that."
"I don't have much choice, but I'm with you Max." John spoke quietly from the floor.
"Norm?" he asked gently.
"I'm... i'm with you... just.. just remember the promise." his friend's shaky voice responded.
"I will. Katrina? You want to leave then?'
He heard a sigh. "Yes. But you idiots wouldn't have a chopper then, or a pilot. I'll stay, for now, but if the UN manages to win this, I'm going home."
"I understand." he did. He really did. Part of him longed to return to the Earth, as shitty as it was, it was still home. It still held the lure of a place where he would not have to worry about his next meal, or whether or not he would even wake up the next morning. But the rest of him... the rest of him reminded that portion of his soul that he had an unfinished job to do. "Let's get some rest then. We can eat in the morning, and we'll work out what our next move is."
Date: May 4th, 2170
Location: Camp Augustine, Pandora, Alpha Centauri A System
Katrina was acting more normal by morning. Her voice still had a brush of coldness to it, but she was at least smiling a bit. Norm seemed better as well, but for him it felt forced. Like he was putting up a brave front for everyone, while desperately trying to forget what had been said.
John seemed as calm as ever, carefully making small talk as they ate. He seemed more worried about Norm than himself, but then again, he had known he could never go back to being human long ago.
Running a hand through his increasingly more salt, and increasingly less pepper, hair, Max started speaking. "All right everyone. We need to go over how we're going to handle this. First, we need information. Miguel will give us what he can, when he can, but we're also going to need to know that the UN is up to. I'm going to call up Weigand today and fish for information. I don't think I'll get much, but it's worth a shot."
Norm spoke up, "Me and Katrina can head over to Hell's Gate, see if that survey crew is around again."
"Good idea. John, this is going to be dangerous. I want you to head over to Tartarus and see if you can figure out what those 'new defenses' are."
The avatar frowned, then nodded. "That I'm wearing clothes should stop the humans from shooting, but it might take me a while to avoid the Na'vi patrols you said Miguel informed you were in the area."
Max nodded, "I know. This is probably going to be a long term project, and it's going to take a lot of luck for us to find something to get both sides to sit down and talk like civilized beings."
Katrina chuckled quietly at that, "At least we know we're still human."He blinked at her, and she laughed harder, "What other species is insane enough to do something like this?" Still laughing, she headed to the airlock, no doubt to start the preflight check list on their aged Samson.
Shaking his head, but feeling glad that she had at least made a joke, he turned to Norm, "Keep an eye on her, try to make sure she doesn't lose it again."
"I'll try." his friend promised, "But I dunno man. I never thought she'd flip out like that."
Max grimaced before starting to head inside, "Norm, we've been here for fifteen years, watched our friends die, and are on the edge of failing to uphold our oath entirely. That it took her this long to crack a bit is amazing."
Norm called after him, "What about you?"
"Me?" he paused before turning to Norm, "Norm... we're all walking on the knife's edge of sanity here. Her. You. Me. John. We can't stop to think about that.. not while we still have a chance to try and stop this."
He headed inside. And if I stopped to think about it, I'd snap too. I don't know if I'd get as violent and uncaring as her, or withdraw completely into myself in depression like Norm, but I don't want to find out.
He shook himself, Enough introspection, there's work to be done.
Next up is Chapter 22: A God's Might
And our good scientists are starting to break down as nothing goes right for them, on top of the fifteen years of isolation. Hope you enjoy it, trying to flesh out all of the characters a bit more now that we're in the third act.
Probably going to slow down the pace of updating, down to a solid once a day instead of a random amount each day, hopefully that will keep writers-block and any kind of burn-out at bay for the duration of the fic.
Review please, I like reviews, make me enjoy writing when I know I have an audience.