-.-Invaders-.-
Jake still wasn't back yet - he'd been out with Neytiri all night - and Grace had linked up and gone out looking for him.
Suddenly, the peacefulness of the shack was shattered by a whirring overhead: a scorpion was landing outside their camp, armed military personnel climbing out, led by Miles. Nix and Norm exchanged an equally worried and confused glance. They always went back to base, folks from base never came to them.
The door opened and in stormed the visitors, cutting right through to the link beds.
"No! No! Sir, you can't - you can't interrupt a link in progress-" But Quaritch just shoved past Norm.
Now it was Nix's turn to try. "He's right, you can't! It's dangerous!" He just stared down at her, stone-faced. "Miles, please."
"It's Colonel Quaritch to you."
Okay, that stung. But she had also stormed out on him last time, but for good reason. Still, she held her ground. "I can't let you do this."
"Outta my way."
"No."
When both refused to move, she and Norm were forcibly shoved down, guns to their backs.
"No! You can't do this! You don't know what you're doing!"
"I'm the only one 'round here who knows what I'm doing."
"It's too dangerous!"
Despite their screaming protests, Quaritch smacked the red button, releasing the link.
Jake flailed awake as soon as the bed opened. "Are you out of your goddamn mind?!"
"You crossed a line." And Miles promptly punched Jake back down.
"Jake!"
"Jake?" Grace demanded, shooting up from her own bed. "Jake? What the hell is going on?"
Back at base, the whole crew sat around and watched surveillance footage: Jake's Avatar at a Tree of Souls site that had just been bulldozed. In the footage, Jake was trying to dismantle the giant machine.
"You let me down, son," sighed Miles. "So what? You find yourself some local tail and you just completely forget what team you're playing for?"
Grace was having none of this BS. "Parker, there is still time to salvage this situation."
Nix had never met Parker Selfridge officially, but he seemed to do a lot of standing around quietly while the people working for him argued. "Except for the dead trees," she mumbled.
"Parker-"
"Shut your pie hole!" snapped Miles.
"Or what, Ranger Rick? You gonna shoot me?" Grace fired back.
"I can do that."
"No!" jumped in Nix. "No! No one is shooting anyone!"
Grace turned back to Selfridge. "You need to muzzle your dog."
"Yeah can we just take this down a couple of notches please?" the boss said, looking pointedly at Miles.
"You say you want to keep your people alive?" Jake cut in. "Then you can start by listening to her." He nodded to Grace.
"Those trees were sacred to the Omaticaya in a way you can't imagine," Grace tried.
Selfridge shook his head. "You know what? You throw a stick in the air around out here and it's gonna land on some sacred fern for Christ's sake!"
"We're not talking about some pagan voodoo here, I'm talking about something real, something measurable in the biology of the forest. What we think we know is that there is some kind of electrochemical communication between the roots of the trees, like the synapses between neurons, and each tree has ten-to-the-fourth connections to the trees around it. And there are ten-to-the-twelfth trees on Pandora! "
Selfridge raised his eyebrows - not impressed, but confused perhaps. "Which is a lot, I'm guessing."
"It's more connections than the human brain! Get it? It's a network. It's a global network and the Na'vi can access it." Grace was smiling, passion blazing in her eyes, in her voice. "They can upload and download data, memories. At sites like the one you just destroyed."
"What the hell have you people been smoking out there," he laughed. "They're just goddamn trees."
"Hey, it's not funny!" hissed Nix, but everyone besides their little group were laughing
"You need to wake up, Parker."
"No, you need to wake up."
"The wealth of the world isn't in the ground, it's all around us. The Na'vi know that and they are fighting to defend it. If you want to share this world with them, you need to understand them."
"I'd say we understand them just fine, thanks to Jake here-" Miles opened his mouth again, tapping on one of the many screens. One of Jake's video logs popped up and began to play:
"They're not gonna give up their home, and they're not gonna make a deal. And for what? Lite beer? Blue jeans? There's nothing that we have that they want. Everything they've sent me to do out here is just a big waste of time. They're never gonna leave Hometree."
From behind them, another log was playing. But Jake's voice was overtaken by another - another familiar one.
"The Clan is incredible! Like one big family. They're so tight-knit, no one is ever left behind," her excited voice rang out.
Nix rushed over. "Hey, those are mine, that's my log. Where did you get it?" She looked to Miles. Her answer was pretty obvious. "I thought, I thought you were interested in what I was doing..." It all came down on her in one giant crash: he had never been interested, he was just after any information she could provide. And there she was, blabbing on and on and on about anything and everything Na'vi. She had literally handed him all he needed to know, and with Jake's logs, he was set. He had everything.
"So, now that we know a deal can't be made - Jake, thanks, I'm getting all emotional. I might just give you a big wet kiss."
On that note of defeat, they were exiled back to the lab.
"This is how it's done." Jake was seething. "When people are sitting on shit you want you make them your enemy. Then you think you're justified in taking it."
"Colonizers, all of them," Nix hissed. Her father had been French, of African descent, and her mother English, so her own family history was full of colonization, and, if you looked back far enough, from both sides: the invaders, and the invaded.
Why did humans never learn?
They had destroyed themselves, and their own home, and now they were going to do the same here.
Trudy jogged into the lab just then, out of breath "Quaritch is rolling the gunships - he's gonna hit Hometree."
"Calibrate fast! We're going in now!"
Selfridge had given them an hour, one hour to try and get the Na'vi to clear Hometree. It was going to be impossible, but they had to try.
"I'm going with you!" Nix jogged over to a link.
"One hour, clock's ticking people," Selfridge reminded them. He was flanked by military officers, who would stay in the lab during the mandated hour.
Moments later they were in Hometree.
"Eytukan, I have something to say."
"Listen!" Grace implored.
"Please!" Nix also tried.
"Speak, Jakesully."
"A great evil us upon is. The Sky People are coming to destroy Hometree." There was muttering. "Look, tell him they're gonna be here soon!" he begged Neytiri, who relayed his message. "Look, you have to leave, or you're gonna die!"
"Are you certain of this?" demanded Mo'at.
"Look, they sent me here to learn your ways, so one day I could bring this message and you would believe it."
There was stunned silence. Neytiri broke it. "What are you saying, Jake? You knew this would happen?"
"Yes. Look, at first it was just orders, but then everything changed. Look, I fell in love. I fell in love with the forest and with the Omaticaya people. And with you."
Neytiri was backing away, shaking her head. "I trusted you..."
"With you, with you-"
"I trusted you-"
"Trust me now, please!"
"I TRUSTED YOU!" Neytriri began screaming at him, and understandably so. "WE ARE MATED BEFORE EYWA!"
"What?!" cried Nix. She was happy for them, but she knew it was going to cause a lot of uproar within the Clan, especially since Neytiri was basically betrothed to Tsu'tey. And cause a lot of uproar now, for that matter.
"YOU WILL NEVER BE NA'VI! You will never be one of the people!"
"Neytiri, please-"
"We're trying to save you!" Grace tried.
"Bind them," Eytukan ordered. And that was that.
"You have to go," Grace begged. "They're coming!"
"We're out of time," cried Nix.
But their pleas were drowned out by a war cry, followed by the telltale whirring of inbound ships.
War had come to Hometree.
Ah man, now I have to write all the sad scenes :( I guess we all knew it was coming.
As always, thank you so much for reading and I hope you enjoyed!