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Chapter 26: The Line

- 7 days until projected Na'vi assault -

Date: 0800, May 20th, 2170

Location: Mining Site Zero-One, Pandora, Alpha Centauri A System

They had used the excavated dirt to create a man-made hill near where the road and the mining area met. Into that hill, both within and on top of, concrete had been hastily poured to create a make-shift fortress.

His first though on seeing it was that it was as ugly as the rest of Tartarus. Then again, Jones and his engineers hadn't had time to make it look pleasing. Then again, they probably would not have bothered, even if they had the time. The bright concrete clashed horribly with the muted earth it was mounted both onto and into, and looked incredibly out of place when viewed in front of the jungle background.

"Come, we must give your men the tour." Kozlov rumbled beside him, motioning for Parker and the mining team to follow him, as he headed towards the only visible door.

For the next hour, Parker found himself being led around the place. From the outside, it had looked like what it was, the modern idea of a fortress. Bunkers and pillboxes mounted into the ground around the small hill, more mounted into the sides of the hill, and a long, low rectangular bunker with gun slits facing every direction atop it.

On the inside.. it was a rat's nest. The hallways had been built as small as possible while still allowing weapons to be moved along them, the only maps were the ones carried on their pda's, and the lighting system was a combination of the what light could get in through the gun ports and their flashlights.

When one of his miners bitched about it, Kozlov had returned, "The blue-skins will have a hard time moving around in here, much less fighting. We have more to worry about from the local beasts than we do them."

He had a good point, but it was still dark, slightly disturbing, and all kinds of uncomfortable. Several times they had to all crowd into a bunker to let men pass bearing weapons bound for the higher levels. Everyone was extremely pleased to get outside after Kozlov had finished showing them where the armories were and leading them back out.

"Make sure you all have your maps, we can have no one getting lost. Once you reach the armory, remain there. I will give you your orders once the battle has begun and I know where I need you." the big Kapitan spoke to the assembled mining team, "Your foreman will be your commander, and I want no one disobeying his orders or mine."

A general rumble of agreement met this, and he bid them a good day before heading back into the complex to oversee its completion.

Parker sighed and headed over to a waiting Samson. It had been a long several days, controlled chaos had occasionally degenerated into actual chaos as something, inevitably, went wrong, and it had been all he could do to keep his men working.

At least morale isn't too low. Yet. He thought to himself as he strapped into the Samson. Weigand's speeches and his wandering around and talking to the people seem to be helping.

Morale was something they were all worried about. Even with nearly-savage-proof bunkers, the idea of the horde gathering out there was terrifying to everyone. Heavily dug-in positions would not matter if the people in those positions broke down when the attack began. They had to make sure that everyone was willing and ready to fight when the time came. Which.. was a bit of a problem for him. He did not want to be stuck in the middle of the fight. At all. He wanted to vomit at they very idea of it. Being up on the Dream, with Thomes and her crew, sounded much better to him.

Of course, he was not so stupid as to actually say that out loud.

Weigand would just stare at me and tell me to get the fuck back to work. He grumbled mentally as they overflew the gravel mine, and he waved halfheartedly at the miners and soldiers on the ground near their own bunker-complex.

What was worse, he knew, intellectually, that he should be on the ground when the attack came. All the little morale games he had been doing had caused his RDA mining teams to start actually liking him as a boss, and since they were risking their lives, they expected the same from him. If he left, they could very well break down, which would lead to a slaughter, which.. which meant that he was stuck there.

Sighing once more, he stared out as they flew back to Tartarus.

As soon as the Samson touched down he hopped out and began to head to the Ops-Center. For a second, he thought the Samson was following him, then he realized the noise was more general than that. The second human colony was.. well, loud was a bit of understatement.

Apparently Jones's engineers had started their work on finishing the defensive positions in the remaining buildings, even though the buildings themselves were incomplete. On top of all of their cutting, welding, clamoring, and swearing, they had apparently impressed Thomes' crewmen into work digging a trench system around the Ops-Center, adding to their din.

He winced as a migraine began. Dammit. I'd forgotten how much fun these aren't.

And if that was not enough noise, Adler had his own men swarming over Brunhilde, welding additional sheets of armored metal to her miniature bunkers. More were all over the sitting Samsons, hooking up their missile pods and running tests. A few more were cutting out sheets of metal, trying to fit them to their door guns as shields of some form.

Escaping into both the cooler and quieter Ops-Center was extremely welcome. Only the quiet buzz of conversation and background electricity could be heard, and he felt the pain in his head lessen somewhat. He was really looking forwards to going into his office, locking the door, and trying to relax for at least several hours.

At least, until one of his assistants saw him walk into the main control room and ran over, "Sir, the Oberst has called a meeting, two hours from now, for the senior staff."

Barely managing to suppress a twitch, he thanked the young woman and made his way into his office.

Two hours... he grumbled as he tried to relax in his chair. What the hell does that old german want now?

Date: 1400, May 22nd, 2170

Location: Conference Room, Tartarus, Pandora, Alpha Centauri A System

"Another Valkyrie appropriated! I know you had something to do with this." Thomes hissed at him as soon as he entered.

Warning bells went off immediately in his head, and he held up his hands and spoke, as calmly as he could, "I just got here Maria, I don't know what you're talking about."

From the death glare she continued to give him, he did not think she believed him.

He choose a chair on the opposite end of the table from her, just to be on the safe side. The black eye he had gotten the last time he had pissed her off had started up all sorts of rumors. That they were sleeping together and it was a lover's quarrel, that she had elected to take some revenge for her football team's defeat, and a dozen others. Whenever he had told the truth, people had smiled sympathetically and nodded their heads, politely waiting for him to leave before laughing.

Having to go through everyone giving him sympathetic, or envious, looks every-time he walked past was not something he wanted to go through again.

There was not much time to wonder about what had the Captain in an uproar, as Weigand entered the room and headed to his place at the table.

"Guten abend alles." he greeted, taking his customary seat, "A few things to go over. Firstly, our defenses should be complete on schedule, which is of course, very good news. Secondly, we must discuss our battle plan. Although I have already drafted our primary order of battle, we must ensure that everyone will know what their role is when the time comes."

The Oberst flicked a button on his computer, and the lights dimmed as the wall screens activated. "As you know, the blue-skins have grown to, we estimate, between five and six thousand strong. Heat trails indicated the full forces from every major tribe on this continent will be gathered in five more days, and they'll arrive here in two more, if speed is their goal. We must assume it is."

Another button tap, and the screen changed from showing the heat blooms of the enemy, to an expanded map of Tartarus and the surrounding area. Four large arrows, naturally colored blue, showed where the enemy would be attacking from. Two from the north, one from the east, and one from the south.

"Our greatest concern will be the enemy numbers. If, as past experience on this world seems to indicate, the native fauna joins the assault, we will be even more outnumbered than we already are. Our only recourse is to eliminate as many natives as possible before they can reach our primary defenses."

He blinked, "A pre-emptive assault, like Quaritch did?"

Weigand shook his head marginally, "We will hold back until the natives begin to move. Hopefully, Dr. Patel is still attempting to negotiate, and I won't risk any chance of him achieving something." He gestured at the screen as a red arrow appeared, aiming at the southern native force. "Once Captain Thomes has confirmed that the natives are en-route, Hauptmann Adler will take Brunhilde, the entire Samson squadron, and a customized Valkyrie to intercept them."

"Customized Valkyrie?" this was Thomes, looking less than pleased.

"Unfortunately my dear Maria, yes. We will be receiving new shuttles with our reinforcements, and though I know this will leave you with only one remaining, it must be done. A bit of stealing from Herr Quaritch's idea is needed here, but we cannot turn a shuttle into a bomber. We simply don't have any explosives to spare, or enough to make effective bombs even if we did. Instead, she will be kamikaze."

Thomes winced and looked like someone had just gut-punched her.

Parker grimaced as well, "How?"

"She will be slaved to the Dream for control. At Hauptmann Adler's signal, the shuttle will detach in orbit, make a high-speed burn through the atmosphere, and re-engage her fusion engines to accelerate once she nears the target zone." the screen had updated again, showing a side-on view of the diving path that the suicidal ship would take. "We intend to fill her with as much heavy scrap metal as possible. Hopefully we can increase her mass sufficiently to produce a sufficient blast yield to obliterate the majority of the enemy forces. Brunhilde and the Samsons can finish off any survivors, then return, reload, and assault the eastern force conventionally."

Adler spoke up when his superior finished, "We do not know if we will be able to stop them cold. At the very least, we should deplete them significantly, in addition to delaying them. Once we have fought as much as we can, my squadrons will retreat to Site zero-one and hold them there."

The Oberst nodded and continued, "There are few clues as to how the natives will attack. Given the relative directions of the home-trees they will be attacking from, one will most likely assault Tartarus itself. The other will either attack our north-western border, or they will bypass us to attack Site zero-two. Site zero-one should be secure until they are able to overcome Adler. As far as command and control, Kapitan Kozlov will command at Site zero-two, Captain Jones will take command of the outer defenses here. Herr Adler will command at Site zero-one after their return. I will be in overall command and will be personally leading our AMP suit teams, which are our only reserves. If I fall, Captain Thomes will assume overall control from the Dream. The Administrator will be in command of his civilian teams, and will handle any negotiations in the event of my death."

Everyone nodded quietly.

Parker did the math. Even assuming they were able to destroy the southern force entirely, and maybe half of the eastern one before their air unit had to retreat, they would still be outnumbered over seven to one. Better than ten to one odds, but not by very much.

"In the end, however," Weignad had gone on, almost as though he was reading his mind, "Our survival will depend upon our morale and our fixed defenses. It will be a hard, grueling fight for all involved. Our best chances rely upon inflicting maximum shock and casualties upon the natives, to entice them to retreat and reconsider."

"I wish we had artillery." Jones muttered, "Some heavy missile batteries or cannon would be nice to have here. The light mortars we have will help some, but artillery would really scare the hell out of them."

"Well, if we survive, we know what to have the stereolithogropy plan make you for Christmas." Thomes cooed at him.

Everyone laughed, because the alternative was weeping.

Next up is Chapter 27: Hail Caesar

And there we have humanity getting ready to defend with everything they have available. Wonder if their plan will work, hm? We'll be back into Max's head next, as he continues to strive in his efforts to stop everyone from killing each other.

Hope everyone is enjoying, even though this chapter was a bit shorter than normal. Next chapter will be a little longer, and then we wrap up Act III: Upheaval with an interlude about what's happening back on Terra, before Act IV: Heaven's Divide begins.

Again, Review please! I like seeing what people are thinking about my work, and it does inspire me quite a bit to write more.

So, Review!