Brotherhood Chapter 39
>.> the tension mounts, although you may notice the first small changes in how the battle turns out for certain folks in here...
Once again a little difficult, as we're into the hardest part of the battle now, but fear not, we only have one real battle-chapter left!
Brotherhood Chapter 39: No Plan Survives
Grace shivered as the world exploded again and again, feeling helpless fear as she watched all of her friends - her children, as Mo'at had called them - in danger.
"Your Jake spoke to me last night," Eywa said, and Grace opened her eyes long enough to look over at the all-mother. She'd thought Eywa had left. Well, perhaps she had for a time, but now she was back.
"What did Jake talk to you about?" Grace asked, even in her state of fear and worry her curiosity winning out.
"He spoke to me of the sky people, and how they had damaged their own home, their own mother, to the point of death. He said that if they are not stopped today they will not be stopped, that they will continue to come like a rain that never ends," Eywa shook her head, "and certainly that seems to be what he believes, but I cannot examine his memories in the same way I can yours. Will you tell me...is that truly how you, too, see the people of your birth? As a relentless force that will not heed a warning unless it is hammered into them?"
"Go ahead and look if you want," Grace shrugged, "but he's probably right. Humans are...well, I guess stubborn is the nicest way to put it, and they - we - tend not to like it very much when someone tells us what we can or cannot do...or have.
"Hmm..." Eywa nodded thoughtfully, "yes, I suppose that makes sense. My sister always was a bit stubborn; it would only be natural that she pass that stubbornness along to her children. She - and they also, I would guess - have many good qualities, but as with anything they can be twisted." She smiled then and patted Grace's shoulder, "the decision is made, then," she said, "now do not let me disturb you any longer. You have children to watch over, do you not?"
Grace just nodded and closed her eyes again, not truly wanting to, but unable to ignore the draw of knowing. When you got right down to it, knowing was at the heart of everything, after all. Any scientist worth the title knew that knowledge always trumped ignorance.
Goddamn that woman! Goddamn her! Quaritch flinched as Captain Chacón's attack shattered the display and punched through the window not inches from his head. She'd been trouble from day one, and he should've grounded her long before now, except that she was just about the only pilot crazy enough to like flying the mountains on a regular basis, and he'd needed her for that. Damn woman was too soft though; had always been soft. She couldn't see beyond the "peace-loving" bullshit Grace had fed her. Just like a woman; fuckin' estrogen fuckin' poisoned their minds; that had to be it. Fuck, it looked like she'd even painted her damn "baby" up in a bad attempt to make it look like a damn banshee.
"Keep her in your sights," he ordered. "Arming all pods." He reached out over the pilot's shoulder, making sure the IFF was disabled (even if it had worked in the flux, which he was pretty sure it didn't) and putting the Dragon's impressive arsenal at his disposal. They fired a volley of missiles along her flight path, practically close enough to see the smirk on her face, but somehow every single one of them missed, hitting vines, mountains and fuck knows what else instead. Goddamn flux!
"That's it!" he snarled in triumph as he saw a line of bullet holes appear across her window and down her tail, hitting one of the fuel tanks. He watched in satisfaction as she disappeared behind a mountain, her crippled Sampson obviously not long for this world. He knew she'd come 'round again, and then he'd take her out. Nice surgical strike. It would be a mercy really. Anyone so obviously sick in the head as her was better off dead, after all, and out of her misery.
As the soft tones of Ama''s voice faded into the rest of the chorus again, Tom sighed. It just made the loss all the more real, even if, in a way, she still existed and he could be sure of it. She had been a sweet girl with so much promise, and he couldn't help remembering times when they had wrapped their voices together in harmony or as part of the chorus. Now that voice would be forever missing. He knew the other singers would miss her too, but more than that, he knew Ninat still blamed herself. Hopefully she would listen when he told her Ama' had spoken to him, and it would help soothe her mind.
All of this simply amazed Tom. He never would have suspected that for the Na'vi the afterlife was so very, viscerally real, and as he came to that realization, many things about their culture came into a focus that until now they had not, even though he had been totally immersed in the culture for months and had come to begin to adopt it as his own.
"Great Mother," he said softly, "I..." He hesitated. His parents hadn't really been religious, although his dad had insisted on holding respect for any belief system, whether Christian, Sikh, Shinto or Aboriginal, but respect didn't really teach you how to pray... "I thank you for keeping my mate safe when our Hometree fell," he said finally, "and I pray that if possible you might keep my brother safe as he fights for all of us...and you today."
It was short and to the point, but he figured it was a start, anyway. He shifted back onto his heels, beginning to disengage his queue, and just at the last second he heard what had to be Grace.
"We both pray for that," she said, "but I figure he's too damn crazy to die."
Tom leaned in close again, trying to strengthen the connection, but it was gone. He sighed and let his queue drop into his lap. He could still hear the battle overhead, and the closer it got, the stronger he could feel Jake, but somehow he wasn't quite so worried anymore. Grace was right, as always, Jake was too crazy to die!
As he set up for his run on the belly of the large tawsìp, Apxey's eyes followed the magnificent form of Tsu'tey in front of him as the Olo'eyktan leapt from the back of his ikran and onto the deck as he shot a deadly arrow, and then slashing out with his bow, decimating the sawtute warriors who guarded their weapon. He was amazing and inspiring to watch, and the sight of him almost made Apxey's heart lift, but only for a moment. Truly, nothing mattered to him any longer but destroying as many of the sawtute as he could before he died. He had neither any hope nor desire to survive this battle, with his Ama' gone there was, after all, nothing for him to come home to. No home to come home to either, the sawtute had stolen both from him in one fell swoop.
As he watched, getting into position for his own attack, Apxey almost thought he was going to have no one left to kill. Tsu'tey swung his bow and yet another tawtute fell to the deck, but just as Apxey sprang up from the back of his ikran onto the deck, one of the seemingly endless flow of enemies managed the presence of mind to fire his gun and Tsu'tey fell.
Apxey's arrow pierced the man, but not without cost. The bullets slammed through his chest from side to side, piercing his lungs and then his abdomen as he fell backward onto the deck and then down over the edge and into the air hundreds of feet above the ground. The searing pain of his wounds soon faded though, and as he fell he closed his eyes and almost felt warm comforting arms wrap him in their embrace. It was not so bad, that he might die. No, it was a good thing to go out a hero; it was a good day to die.
After all, there was a little pain at the end when he landed hard on the top of one of the floating mountains, but it was brief and then there was nothing more, just calm, and warmth, and bliss knowing that soon all would be right for him again.
As she rocked the moaning, labouring Txilte against her chest, trying to help her breathe through each contraction as it came, Louise wracked her brain for anything that might be a distraction. At first she thought of asking the woman to tell her about her mate, about her hopes for the baby, but she quickly realized that wouldn't work. Breathing exercises and talking didn't always go along so very well together, after all.
Instead, Louise had begun to talk. She talked to Txilte about her childhood back on Earth, about her parents who had taken her to places where there were trees - not many, but some - and how that had made her fall in love with plants, wanting to know everything about them, about how they worked and how they lived. She told the story of her first plant, the Venus flytrap that her mother had allowed only because it was functional, and she told about the tomatoes she had grown all through university, how they had made her incredibly popular in the dorm because everyone wanted just one tart fruit for themselves.
She babbled on and on, not sure at times that Txilte even heard her, and it seemed like forever before Pämeya returned, although it had probably only been five minutes at the most.
"How is she managing?" the midwife asked, "Have the times between her pain changed in any way?"
"Her contractions are definitely getting closer together," Louise nodded, "They're less than two minutes apart now."
Pämeya nodded and put the soft cloths she had gathered to one side, building up half the moss into a pad between Txilte's legs. Her fingers made quick work of the soon-to-be-new mother's loincloth and then felt along her stomach. Louise could see the muscles ripple as another contraction hit, and her eyes met Pämeya's, silently asking what to do next.
"She is very close," Pämeya said softly, unsheathing a small, sharp knife from her hip and pouring a liquid from a stone bottle over it. Where the liquid dripped onto the ground it sizzled, and Louise realized it had to be some kind of acid. She stoppered the stone bottle and opened an earthenware jar, reaching in and dusting the knife with something that looked like nothing so much as baking powder. Clearly it was something close, because it fizzed, neutralizing the acid on the blade, and then Pämeya wiped it clean.
"The baby is early," she explained, "so we will need to help it to be born. The caul will not have thinned as it does when birth comes as expected, so I will need you to hold it steady once Txilte has delivered it so that I may cut it open and free the child inside."
"Okay," Louise nodded. She didn't quite know what Pämeya was talking about, but she knew it would all make sense eventually. Just holding something was easy enough for her to manage, after all.
As she tried to get to safety, Trudy soon realized it wasn't an option. From the way her Baby was reacting it was clear that one of the rotor mounts had been compromised. Asymmetric lift, the eternal curse of the tiltrotor, was to be her curse as well. Without the capacity to steer, she couldn't get anywhere to set down, at least, not anywhere that Quaritch couldn't see. There was nothing below her but air until she hit the jungle, and she'd never make it that far. Damn it!
"Rogue One is hit, I'm goin' in," she said over the radio, her voice retaining the outward calm that all true pilots learn early to project, even if inside she was both furious and immensely sad. "Sorry Jake."
She reached down and closed her hand around the eject handle, shut her eyes, and took a deep breath. 'Norm, I love you,' she sent the thought out into the aether, 'please, please don't do anything stupid!'
As soon as she was out of sight behind the biggest mountain her injured baby could be persuaded to drift toward she yanked the handle hard, feeling her head snap back with the harsh positive G's as the escape rockets under her seat fired and the panel over her head blew off, lifting her free of her crippled and dying Sampson. She'd left it to the last minute, though, and that came back to bite her. Just before she passed out from all the blood leaving her head, she felt the fireball of her Baby's final explosion envelop her. 'Shit. That's gonna leave a mark,' was all she could think as the blackness took over.
Even though he did his best to slow his descent with large leaves, not even the mighty Tsu'tey could make his limbs cooperate through the haze of pain wracking his body. He hit the ground hard, sending another wave of pain shooting through his very bones. He was almost surprised that he was still alive, he'd seen what bullets could do to even the greatest and strongest of warriors...he'd seen what they did to Sylwanin...
He rolled, aching and bleeding, onto his back and closed his eyes, not wanting to face the likelihood of his own death, at least for a moment. He was a great warrior of the Omatikaya, of course, and he would die with pride if it came to that, but for just a little while he let go of that. He didn't feel like being the great warrior right now, he just wanted to be free of the pain.
He breathed as deep as his wounds would allow and let his mind drift. Somehow, the first thing that came to mind was Sylwanin. He remembered how she'd walked, the grace in her every step, and he remembered the way she had smiled at him when they had been promised to each other. They had known each other forever, had known each other inside and out even without having ever made the bond of tsaheylu, and he knew that even if she were angry at him for letting himself get injured she would still be proud of him. She would have insisted on tending his every injury with her own hands, even though healing was not her strongest skill.
He remembered how frail and delicate her broken body had looked when he had carried her back to Kelutral, and then he couldn't stand to remember any more. He forced his eyes open, feeling hazy from pain and blood-loss, and clutched at his wounds. Sylwanin would never forgive him if he gave up. No matter what, he had to struggle to live, despite how tempting it was to simply give up and join her.
He thought, somehow, that through the delirium of pain he felt someone settle next to him and begin to tend his wounds, their rough, damp cloth cleaning the blood from him and stemming its flow, but he couldn't seem to sort out the person's face.
And then a sense of true exhaustion came over him and he closed his eyes. Best to reserve his strength and let the healer do his or her work, better not be awake to feel it. He would thank them when they were finished and sort out who they were then.
Dear Goddess Norm almost wished he didn't have the throat-mic receiver in his ear; that he'd never heard what he'd just heard Trudy say. Damnit he'd told her to be careful, Jake had told her to be careful, but when it came down to it what could any of them do? It was a battle, and they were outnumbered and out-gunned and they'd all known it. Still...
He closed his eyes in pain and anger, and all of a sudden he felt something rise from within him. He'd known it was there, had suspected in any case at the outset of the battle, but it hadn't fully made itself known before this moment. Now, though, with nothing to lose, some deep, primal part of him - perhaps a vestige of his mother's Saxon blood or the distant echo of his father's one-eighth Cayuse heritage - brought a red haze over his vision. He would run no longer. Setting his feet firmly on the ground, he crouched over his gun and pulled the trigger, gripping hard, no other thought in his mind but to take as many men with him as he could. If Trudy was... If she... She would have told him not to be stupid, not to risk himself for her sake, but right now he was so furious...
As Neytiri knelt by the head of her fallen mount, her heart aching with mourning, she was at once aware of nothing and everything around her, the world seeming to slow as it passed around her but did not touch her.
She could see the explosions, although she almost couldn't hear them; she could see men and fa'li being thrown about by the concussive blasts, although they didn't touch her, crouched as she was behind a fallen log. There were flames, and there was smoke and a strange, metal smell that reminded her of the sparks that came when one struck certain stones together. A pa'li galloped by, flames streaming from its crest, maddened with fear and pain...
And then time began again, the pain in her heart turning to anger. She got to her feet, gripping her father's bow and what arrows remained to her, and she turned away from those who retreated, running instead closer to where the sawtute waited. She would take out all that she could.
There was, after all, nowhere that she could run.
Finally safe and away from the dragon, Jake paused for a moment to breathe. He had seen Trudy come in, creating a distraction, and he didn't know whether to be intensely grateful or lividly furious with her. Damnit, if she got herself hurt and it was his fault Norm was gonna kill him. Truthfully, if she got herself killed and it was his fault, he might just let Norm kill him. Grace had died, and her death was already one death too many, now Trudy... No. He refused to believe that Trudy would be taken from them too.
He heard her last radio transmission and swore. Damnit no, you can't tell me you're sorry, he wanted to say; you aren't forgiven.
Nothing was going the way he'd planned damnit. The Na'vi were being decimated and it was all his fault.
He raised his hand to his neck, pressing against the throat-mic. "Tsu'tey, brother do you read?" he called out, hoping, "Rogue one, you copy? Trudy?" Goddamnit come on! Somebody had to be out there still! They couldn't all be gone! He couldn't be the last of them!
He scanned the skies, desperately seeking a familiar form, but he saw none.
As the sounds of battle drew closer, Mo'at found herself gazing at the sky overhead, unable or unwilling to look away. She could see the tiny forms of ayikran swarming around the many ayhunsìp, and she could see the looming form of the massive tawsìp which threatened their very existence, but from down here it was difficult to get a true idea of what was going on.
Even at this distance though, she could see ayikran falling from the sky, their wings no longer supporting them, their riders falling alongside, and she felt a sick dread in the pit of her stomach. She did not fear death for herself - no tsahìk feared death, truly, only leaving behind those that they loved, and Neytiri was taken care of now, her last obligation - but she feared for her people, not only the Omatikaya, but all Na'vi. The sky people were a virus, an infection which must be cleansed from the body before it could do more damage than the body itself was able to repair. Truly there were some who were benign, and perhaps some would be allowed to stay, if their hearts sang in harmony with the forest, but as for the others...
She shook her head and continued to scan the skies. Was that Jhake on his mighty toruk approaching the tawsìp? She couldn't be sure, but she prayed to Eywa to keep him safe.
In the adrenaline rush of his berserk fury, Norm almost didn't feel the bullets as they passed through his shoulder, but as he slammed back against the ground the red he saw now was not fury but blood from his wounds. His heart was pounding, his shoulder was on fire...and then he was there no longer, the link was broken.
The pain wasn't gone though.
He woke in the link bed, his heart still pounding, covered in cold sweat and with pain radiating from his left shoulder across his chest and down his arm. He pushed up the lid and rolled out, almost spilled out onto the floor, falling against the fridge and the pod in the small space that remained of the floor, only remaining upright by virtue of the fact that there wasn't enough room for him to lie down with the way he'd fallen.
He clutched at his chest, almost out of his mind with the pain, and tried desperately to get himself back under control. If he couldn't link back up then he was going to have to go out there in his own body. Everything was going to shit, it seemed as though they were doomed, and if Trudy... If what he hoped wasn't true had happened, he was going to need the avatar. He...wouldn't want to be human any longer without her to share his nights, his bed, his arms...his heart...
Max was panting hard by the time he made it to the airlock door that led to the mine equipment hangar. He hadn't run so much in longer than he wanted to think about, and dangit his age and sedentary lifestyle were starting to show. Apparently he wasn't seventeen and a first-flight footie player (or soccer player, for those North American types) anymore. He leaned his hands on his knees, panting hard into the mask of his exopak as he waited for the air to cycle through, and had mostly managed to get his breath back by the time the light went green and the outside door unsealed.
Now to find himself a nice big toy to play with!
He dismissed the "devil machines" out of hand. He'd worked with heavy equipment, sure, but never anything that big; and it wouldn't do any good if he couldn't figure out how to drive the thing in a straight line, after all. His eyes passed over dump trucks and earth movers without anything really catching his attention, until he got to the slash-cutters. They weren't mine equipment per se, but they'd do. They'd definitely do! He could open up comms-ops like a frickin' sardine can with one of those babies!
Now the real question, how to start one. He had some idea of how to hot-wire, but it was all theoretical knowledge, nothing hands-on. Of course, there's no way he would luck out and find out that somebody had left the keys in the ignition... Well, it couldn't hurt to check, he shrugged. At least while he was poking around in there he might get a better look at the wiring.
He had just hauled himself up into the first slash-cutter in the row when he heard someone clear his throat nearby.
"You're looking for this I'd wager,"
Max looked up from the glove box he was rooting through (and why on earth did a slash-cutter need a glove box?) to see a man holding a key dangling from a key-ring decorated with a lion's-head charm. Max wracked his brain trying to remember the man's name, he'd seen him in executive meetings, and he thought he had something to do with running the mining operations, but he just couldn't seem to bring his name to mind. The man continued to smile his sardonic smile and jingled the key ring enticingly.
Max eyed him warily. He didn't seem to be carrying a gun or a knife, or anything other than the key, but...
"How did you know I was here?" he asked, still not getting down from the box of the slash-cutter.
"Heard you go thundering past my room, figured something was up," the man shrugged. "You looking to tell the company to shove along, I figure I might as well let you. It'll be some entertainment in any case."
Max blinked and shook his head. Clearly the man was, if not on his side entirely, at least indifferent, and at this point he wasn't about to look a gift horse in the mouth, so to speak.
"Entertainment," he laughed slightly, "yeah, I guess it probably would be at that." He held out his hand and the man (his last name started with "K" Max thought, or a "C". A hard "K" sound anyway) lobbed the keychain in a perfect arc toward him, so that all Max had to do was close his fingers around it as it landed in his hands. "Thanks," he said as he settled properly into the seat and turned the key in the ignition, "I'll try to be as entertaining as I possibly can, just for you."
"I'll get my lawn chair," the man - Kater, that was it! - grinned as he offered Max a sardonic grin and a very obviously intentionally sloppy salute.
Max saluted back and then all of his concentration went to the controls. Just like riding a bike, you never really forgot how to run a machine like this, but it always took a minute or two to pull the requisite information up from the depths of storage.
"Ma Jhake!" The blessed sound of his mate's voice coming over the receiver tucked into his ear made Jake breathe a deep sigh of relief. It didn't last long though.
"I read you," he confirmed then paused, waiting to hear more, "Neytiri?"
"Seze is dead," she whispered in a broken voice, "they are very close, they are many."
Shit. Just...shit!
"Do not attack," he urged her, knowing even as he did that it was futile. "Do you read me Neytiri? Do not attack! Fall back now! Get outta there, that's an order!"
As if she had ever obeyed an order. Neytiri was a wild being, a creature of pure emotion who did as her heart led her, and she would not hear nor heed his orders and he knew it. She might hear his fear for her though, and let it sway her to keep herself safe for his sake. "Neytiri!"
The silence on her end was deafening. 'Please, for God's sake, or Eywa's, whoever, just be smart about this!' he thought furiously.
The sound of her voice this time, though, was more blessed than he could ever have hoped. "Jhake," she whispered, "Eywa has heard you." He glanced around and felt his heart lift at what he saw. The skies were literally swarming with riderless banshees, and every one of them was attacking the RDA ships. "Eywa has heard you!" she cried triumphantly, and he knew the burst of joy that filled her heart, remembered what it felt like with the memory of their bond.
"Come on!" he called to toruk, swinging around. Time to take the Valkyrie out; time to end this once and for all!
As they carefully walked their "beat" through the forest, Taka and 'Ontu kept their eyes open and their ears on swivel, but mostly they watched to see what Ama, Tsuki and Sano, who ranged out in front and to either side of them, were doing. Their senses, after all, were far more powerful than even those of an avatar and a full-blooded Na'vi youth, and they would almost inevitably be the first to discover any intruder into their territory.
All of a sudden all three thanator cubs stopped dead in their tracks, their heads up and questing, their sensory quills bristling. Taka signalled to 'Ontu to stop as well, then crept very slowly forward and joined his queue to Tsuki's.
"What is it?" he whispered.
«Big-tree-momma,» the cub replied, and even her mental voice seemed to whisper as well, «she calls to all children, says "time to fight, children! Time to make meat the pink ones, the ones who not like her, not love their mother.»
Taka's eyes went wide. All of a sudden, whether because he knew to seek for it or because of his connection to Tsuki he couldn't' be sure, he became aware of a heaviness in the air, a sense of anticipation, as though something truly epic was about to begin.
«Big-tree-momma says we three fighting already,» Tsuki added, «stay with Daddy and 'Ontu-brotheruncle to protect.»
"Good," Taka nodded, "I'll let 'Ontu know and we'll get back to our patrol." He disconnected from his "daughter" and turned to smile back at his partner for the day. "The day will be ours," he said joyfully, "Eywa has joined the fight!"
As he sat up in his turret, listening to the radio with almost obsessive focus, Will Winram could only count himself lucky. At first the radio chatter had been upbeat, then serious but still encouraging as battle began, then, when it looked like things were turning to the RDA the chatter had become almost mocking, but that had been brief. Now the only thing he heard in the voices of his (former) comrades was panic, and although he felt bad for Steve and Calvin and the rest of the Dragon's crew he was counting himself incredibly lucky that he was back here, that he'd made the decision to stand up, even in a small way, for what he saw to be right.
Something caught his attention just then, a flicker of khaki and blue out of the corner of his eye, and he turned just in time to see the avatars begin sneaking across the compound, heading in the direction of comms-ops. Even though he should by all rights be appalled, he couldn't help but feel a slow grin passing across his face. Looked like the science zoidies, as Chacón had liked to affectionately refer to them, had some guts after all, and were willing to stand up for what was right. Well! He'd have to just see if he couldn't do something to give them a little hand there, now wouldn't he?
He scanned the compound out in front of them, looking for "enemy" targets, and took each one out with a precision strike. He was, after all, a weapon systems officer, he'd been trained to take out targets from much greater altitudes than this!
The avatars shied away at the first couple of shots, but they quickly realize he wasn't shooting at them, and he got a few cheerful waves as they resumed their advance, picking up speed as they trusted him to keep the way free in front of them.
Will had to laugh. It was all so ridiculous somehow, and yet it was the best he'd felt about any kind of action in longer than he wanted to think about, the most free he'd felt since he was a boy.
As she stuck close on Jhake's tail, Peyral wasn't entirely sure where all the other ayikran had come from, but at the same time, she wasn't about to question it. She knew it had to be Eywa's doing, and if the great mother had blessed them with her protection to the extent that she had sent the younger brothers and sisters to their aid, then Peyral could only do her best as well, and right now doing her best meant protecting Jhake's back. Even if she should lose her life in the attempt, she knew it would be a life well spent for a cause and for a man worthy of both her loyalty and her deep, abiding love. He had, after all, pretty well ruined her for any other man, but then, she could hardly blame him. After all, he had been honest with her from the start, it was only her heart that had refused to listen and had deceived her.
Jhake swept low over the back of the giant tawsìp, and Peyral followed him there as well. This had been a part of their plan from the beginning, and Peyral remembered what Jhake had said she must do. Her duty here was to ensure that he was able to run to the very front of the beast and loose the thing he called a "pom" into its lungs, crippling it and sending it plummeting from the sky.
He had agreed that she would watch his back, but he had made her swear that before he dropped the "pom" into its lungs she would leap back to her ikran, so she sent her partner the information of their plan and then, as Jhake landed and began to run, she too jumped down, catching herself in a controlled roll and then getting to her feet again and drawing her bow all in one smooth motion.
She managed to take out two of the tawtute warriors on her side before she felt a sharp pain pass through her thigh and lost her footing, tumbling off the side of the tawsìp just as she saw the tiny green "pom" disappear into its target.
As he watched the pack of viperwolves advancing on his troop's position, flowing across the ground like liquid darkness in the middle of the day, Jody Nkumo swore darkly. This wasn't normal. It wasn't fucking normal to have different species all attacking together like this! He'd already seen men taken out by sturmbeest and hammerheads, and somebody on his left flank had been picked off by a forest banshee, just bitten almost in half! They couldn't expect him to actually keep fighting in the face of all this! They were cut off from everyone else and surrounded by animals that could kill them almost without even thinking about it...It was total bullshit!
The worst of it was, nobody had yet had the common sense to call for evac, so they were stuck down here being picked off by the animals...by the fucking forest itself! Jody watched, shaking his head, as another man ran from the viperwolves only to end up impaling himself on one of the nastier examples of Pandoran botany. He shook his head. Enough was bloody enough! He raised his gun, about to charge the viperwolves, who usually respected threat displays, at least in the daytime and if they weren't too hungry, but just then he caught sight of a Na'vi warrior - it looked to be a woman, hiding against a tree. She was striking of course, as all Na'vi are, but that wasn't what caught his attention. All the animals were completely ignoring her. They hadn't gone mad after all, there was some kind of...intelligence directing their actions.
Taking a chance - a crazy chance, but what other kind did he have left? - Jody threw down his gun. "Okay!" he called out to the viperwolves, to the trees, to whoever or whatever was listening, "Okay you were right! Just spare me and my men and we'll leave you in peace."
A viperwolf jumped at him then, and he thought for sure he was dead, and not just dead but stupid as well, but the animal snarled in his face briefly and then jumped off, leaving him without even a scratch.
All the men around him, having seen what happened, started throwing down their weapons as well, and for each man, as soon as he dropped his weapon and shouted an apology he was spared. The waves of beasts parted around him and moved on, heading, no doubt, in the direction of more sec-ops grunts to deal with.
When all the animals were gone, Jody sank to his knees and then just sat on the ground, laughing. Today had been way too fucking crazy, and it wasn't over yet. They still had to get the fuck out of here somehow! Fan-fucking-tastic.
He was never quite sure just what it was that had alerted him to be in just the right spot to catch her. Whether Ripa, his ikran, had caught a glimpse of her, or perhaps he had heard some faint noise that had heralded her arrival, but eventually Mrrket just put it down to Eywa's will that he just happened to be where he most needed to be at that moment. He had run out of arrows, and was flying low, just above the tops of the trees, trying to stay out of the line of sight of any tawtute weapons, when he got the insistent sense that he was needed. He glanced above him just in time to see a warrior slip from the side of the largest kunsìp, and almost without any further thought he moved to position himself to catch her. Even then, it was a close thing. She landed across the back of his ikran and he turned in the saddle to pull her in front of him and almost missed one of the small kunsìp turning to fire on them. Thank Eywa for his Ripa, though, she saw the attack coming and ducked down into the trees.
"Irayo," the woman he'd caught turned to look at him, and he was surprised by the look of desperation in her eyes. "If you will land, I will join the fight on the ground. I am sure my ikran will find me there, if she still lives, and if not I will join those who fight on their feet."
"I was going to ayVitrayä Ramunong to stock up on arrows," he smiled at her - she was very pretty under the parti-coloured mask of her war paint, "so I will bring you there." He shifted his grip on her where she was slipping against his legs and suddenly realized the state she was in. "You're bleeding!" he gasped.
"I will be fine," she grated from between clenched teeth, "I can still fight."
He shook his head firmly. "No you won't," he said, "and no, you can't. Not with the amount of blood you're losing. My mother is a healer; I know how much blood a woman can safely loose, and you're bleeding far too hard."
"Tsa-hey! Just let me down!"
She started to struggle, and he almost dropped her, but he managed to hold her - clearly she was already weakening from blood loss - and wrapped one arm around to press on that special spot at the base of her skull in the precise way that his mother had taught him, rendering her unconscious. No doubt she would be angry at him when she woke, but Mrrket had seen enough death today; he wasn't going to let her become one more life lost, not if he could help it.
Neytiri grinned as she watched the many angtsik and salioang thundered around her, bypassing her with precision and falling upon the sawtute instead. She watched for a moment, catching her breath, and then she ran, joining the attack with a pack of nantang, feeling their joy of the hunt as her own.
She paused to loose an arrow with a sharp cry, then froze as she heard a growl off to her right. She slowly turned her head and there, snarling in all its bone-chilling glory, stood a full-grown palulukan. She'd grown almost accustomed to the presence of Taka's children, but they were still, after all, young and quite small in comparison to this one. She wasn't sure, at first, that she wasn't staring death in the face, and what irony it would be to survive the death of her ikran and being surrounded by sawtute only to fall prey to a palulukan now.
That was not her fate, however. The palulukan made a soft chirring that she knew from the little ones to be a friendly sound, and it folded its lips back down over its teeth and knelt, the position reminding her of how the babies had reacted to her mother upon first meeting her.
She tilted her head curiously and a slow smile spread across her face. She almost thought...was this an invitation to join with this powerful beast? None had ever been "Palulukan Makto" before...but perhaps Eywa had decided it was time.
She stepped carefully forward, tilting her head a little more so that her tswin slid over her shoulder and into her hand, and the palulukan brought its tswin forward as well, and then her smile bloomed into a full grin. A ride would be more than welcome!
Jake sighed in relief as he landed on the back of his toruk and hurried away from the fatally crippled shuttle. He'd seen someone catch Peyral and disappear below the canopy, and hopefully whoever it was would keep her safe. She'd been practically throwing herself at anyone who threatened him today, and he didn't want to be responsible for her sacrificial death. She was his battle-sister after all, and he loved her like a sister, even if he couldn't love her the way he knew she'd wished.
He both felt and heard the explosion as the left front engine, where he'd thrown the grenade, exploded, and he grinned. Right down to the fucking wire, but he'd done it, and as long as the shuttle kept its forward momentum once it began to fall, it would land well out of the way of the danger zone. He hadn't wanted to risk it falling backward and dropping its deadly cargo out of the open hold, so he'd been very careful to make sure he took out a forward engine. That way it nosed down instead of tilting back and kept its aerodynamics enough for a glide.
He watched as it fell, drifting helplessly into the side of one of those bizarre rock loops and shearing off the damaged wing, dragging it around almost like a kid swinging around the pole on a bus to sit down. Good. It wasn't going to land anywhere near the Tree. Now there was just one last thing to do: he had to take out Quaritch once and for all.
With a mental command he directed his toruk after the dragon. Now this oughtta be fun!
Dan Hogarth, co-pilot for the shuttle Valkyrie one-six, frowned as he listened with half an ear to Doug, the pilot, giving the excited order to drop their deadly cargo. This whole thing was stupid, as far as he was concerned. They weren't military, had never been military, they were commercial shuttle pilots for goodness sakes! Just glorified flying bus- or lorry-drivers really. No, they weren't military and yet here they were, crammed full of high explosives made into an improvised bomb, scraping through terrain their ship was never designed to negotiate, and not only that, but they were being attacked by giant flipping pterodactyl-things, and he just knew one was going to end up in the air-intake sooner rather than later. The thought of trying to put down with a damaged engine and a massive load of blasting compound was more than enough to make him burst out into a cold sweat.
When he felt the aircraft shudder after a massive blast rocked the left wing, he knew his nightmare was coming to pass. He grit his teeth, swore very quietly to himself and gripped the controls. There was still a chance he could set them down gently enough, there weren't any more of those damn floating mountains in front of them, and if he could just keep them to a glide maybe he could...
And then he saw the archway rise in front of them. He tried to use the right-side engines to turn them, but it was no good, they were just too damned close. There was a horrible screech of metal as the left wing impacted the side of the arch and shear off, and then the Valkyrie nosed-down and he knew it was over. Still gripping the controls in a gesture he knew was futile, he closed his eyes, not wanting to watch the ground come up on them, particularly.
'Sorry,' he thought, although he wasn't sure if he was apologizing to the troops still trapped in the belly of the shuttle or the folks who had just been trying to defend their home or the whole damned planet, 'I never wanted to be a part of this mess, but I did what I was told. Should've just sat the whole thing out.'
Thankfully the darkness took him quickly. He hadn't wanted to feel the heat of the explosion. In the end, that was all he had hoped for; not to burn.
As the shockwave from the explosion of the Valkyrie passed through ayVitrayä Ramunong, Louise barely noticed. She was deeply involved in her own life-or-death struggle and it consumed almost all of her attention. Pämeya had encouraged Txilte up into a squatting position with her hips angled forward, and it was all Louise could do to help the young woman keep her balance as she pushed.
She had been confused and worried at first when the active part of labour truly began, because from her vantage point what was emerging between Txilte's legs didn't look like a baby at all. It was pale and leathery and pinkish, and Louise was terrified that the young woman was somehow turning inside-out, the Na'vi equivalent to the uterus somehow being forced from the body due to the strength of the contractions. Pämeya didn't seem concerned at all, though, and that was reassuring, so Louise had forced herself to calm down and keep Txilte focused. She wouldn't be much help if she hyperventilated and had a panic attack on them, after all.
After a couple more strong pushes, as more and more of the...sac emerged, Louise realized that this must be what Pämeya had meant when she referred to a "caul". It almost reminded her of alligator or turtle eggs! Were Na'vi babies born inside their amniotic sac or something? She supposed she was about to find out!
Three more heavy pushes and the entire soft, reptile-egg-like sac was out, and Louise could see the baby inside through its almost-opaque wall. There was something still connecting it to Txilte, and Louise supposed this was the umbilicus and the reason for the sterilized knife, but once again her supposition was wrong. Pämeya brought the knife down, but not to the connection, instead she used it to slice open the sac, spilling out a thick, viscous liquid and freeing the baby from its...his!...prison.
"You must tell him to breathe, Txilte," Pämeya urged the new mother, "he doesn't yet know he is born, show him what he must know."
Louise couldn't help but take a deep breath along with Txilte, the command almost as suggestive as yawning, and all of a sudden the baby opened his little mouth and breathed as well, letting out a small whimper as Pämeya cleaned his mouth and used the cloths to dry him and swaddle him. There was, Louise saw, something like an umbilical cord, but it seemed to have detached on its own, and somehow the end that had been attached to the outside of the caul had disappeared. Had it retreated back up inside Txilte? She was obviously going to have a lot of questions over the next nine months or so, that was for sure.
"You have a son, Txilte," Pämeya said softly as she laid him on Txilte's chest, "You and Ìstaw will raise him well I know. He is small now, but he is strong, and will grow only stronger."
Txilte smiled, clearly exhausted, and stroked her baby boy's head. His hair was still damp, and of course it wasn't braided, and Louise could see the tiny queue bare, a thing she had never seen before.
"I would like you both to meet my son," Txilte said, shifting him so that they could see his face. His eyes were open, deep pools of dusky grey-green, and he yawned as they watched. "This is my son Tsamut," she introduced him, "who was so eager to become a strong warrior and defend the Omatikaya that he insisted on arriving early."
Louise had to laugh at that. "A strong name for a strong boy," she agreed. "I am very happy to meet him after all he put us through."
Okay! So I should definitely put a disclaimer here: this is entirely my interpretation of how Na'vi birth may or may not occur. We aren't given any other information than that it's somewhat similar to a placental mammal but different, and that they nuse their babies for about four months (which I'm taking to mean nurse exclusively, as I'm sure there's some overlap during the transition to other foods) All this information, btw, comes from the "pandorapedia" section in the collectors' edition blu-ray, just in case you were wondering. As far as the "caul", I'm using the English word because there's no way in heck I'm going to make up a na'vi word for something that might not even exist! I have way too much respect for the language and its proper expansion for that!
Anway, speaking of language, how about some...
Vocab:
tawsìp - skyship, in this case referring to the Valkyrie shuttle
Olo'eyktan - clan leader
ikran / ayikran - banshee(s)
tawtute / sawtute - human(s)
tsaheylu - the bond
Kelutral - Hometree
kunsìp / ayhunsìp - gunship(s)
tsahìk - spiritual leader
toruk - great Leonopteryx
Irayo - "thank you"
ayVitrayä Ramunong - the Well of Souls
Tsa-hey! - this is an exclamation of warning or frustration roughly equivalent to "crap!" or "Oh hell!"
angtsik - hammerhead titanotheres
salioang - sturmbeests
nantang - viperwolf
Palulukan Makto - Rider of the Thanator
tswin - queue
Once again a little difficult, as we're into the hardest part of the battle now, but fear not, we only have one real battle-chapter left!
Brotherhood Chapter 39: No Plan Survives
Grace shivered as the world exploded again and again, feeling helpless fear as she watched all of her friends - her children, as Mo'at had called them - in danger.
"Your Jake spoke to me last night," Eywa said, and Grace opened her eyes long enough to look over at the all-mother. She'd thought Eywa had left. Well, perhaps she had for a time, but now she was back.
"What did Jake talk to you about?" Grace asked, even in her state of fear and worry her curiosity winning out.
"He spoke to me of the sky people, and how they had damaged their own home, their own mother, to the point of death. He said that if they are not stopped today they will not be stopped, that they will continue to come like a rain that never ends," Eywa shook her head, "and certainly that seems to be what he believes, but I cannot examine his memories in the same way I can yours. Will you tell me...is that truly how you, too, see the people of your birth? As a relentless force that will not heed a warning unless it is hammered into them?"
"Go ahead and look if you want," Grace shrugged, "but he's probably right. Humans are...well, I guess stubborn is the nicest way to put it, and they - we - tend not to like it very much when someone tells us what we can or cannot do...or have.
"Hmm..." Eywa nodded thoughtfully, "yes, I suppose that makes sense. My sister always was a bit stubborn; it would only be natural that she pass that stubbornness along to her children. She - and they also, I would guess - have many good qualities, but as with anything they can be twisted." She smiled then and patted Grace's shoulder, "the decision is made, then," she said, "now do not let me disturb you any longer. You have children to watch over, do you not?"
Grace just nodded and closed her eyes again, not truly wanting to, but unable to ignore the draw of knowing. When you got right down to it, knowing was at the heart of everything, after all. Any scientist worth the title knew that knowledge always trumped ignorance.
Goddamn that woman! Goddamn her! Quaritch flinched as Captain Chacón's attack shattered the display and punched through the window not inches from his head. She'd been trouble from day one, and he should've grounded her long before now, except that she was just about the only pilot crazy enough to like flying the mountains on a regular basis, and he'd needed her for that. Damn woman was too soft though; had always been soft. She couldn't see beyond the "peace-loving" bullshit Grace had fed her. Just like a woman; fuckin' estrogen fuckin' poisoned their minds; that had to be it. Fuck, it looked like she'd even painted her damn "baby" up in a bad attempt to make it look like a damn banshee.
"Keep her in your sights," he ordered. "Arming all pods." He reached out over the pilot's shoulder, making sure the IFF was disabled (even if it had worked in the flux, which he was pretty sure it didn't) and putting the Dragon's impressive arsenal at his disposal. They fired a volley of missiles along her flight path, practically close enough to see the smirk on her face, but somehow every single one of them missed, hitting vines, mountains and fuck knows what else instead. Goddamn flux!
"That's it!" he snarled in triumph as he saw a line of bullet holes appear across her window and down her tail, hitting one of the fuel tanks. He watched in satisfaction as she disappeared behind a mountain, her crippled Sampson obviously not long for this world. He knew she'd come 'round again, and then he'd take her out. Nice surgical strike. It would be a mercy really. Anyone so obviously sick in the head as her was better off dead, after all, and out of her misery.
As the soft tones of Ama''s voice faded into the rest of the chorus again, Tom sighed. It just made the loss all the more real, even if, in a way, she still existed and he could be sure of it. She had been a sweet girl with so much promise, and he couldn't help remembering times when they had wrapped their voices together in harmony or as part of the chorus. Now that voice would be forever missing. He knew the other singers would miss her too, but more than that, he knew Ninat still blamed herself. Hopefully she would listen when he told her Ama' had spoken to him, and it would help soothe her mind.
All of this simply amazed Tom. He never would have suspected that for the Na'vi the afterlife was so very, viscerally real, and as he came to that realization, many things about their culture came into a focus that until now they had not, even though he had been totally immersed in the culture for months and had come to begin to adopt it as his own.
"Great Mother," he said softly, "I..." He hesitated. His parents hadn't really been religious, although his dad had insisted on holding respect for any belief system, whether Christian, Sikh, Shinto or Aboriginal, but respect didn't really teach you how to pray... "I thank you for keeping my mate safe when our Hometree fell," he said finally, "and I pray that if possible you might keep my brother safe as he fights for all of us...and you today."
It was short and to the point, but he figured it was a start, anyway. He shifted back onto his heels, beginning to disengage his queue, and just at the last second he heard what had to be Grace.
"We both pray for that," she said, "but I figure he's too damn crazy to die."
Tom leaned in close again, trying to strengthen the connection, but it was gone. He sighed and let his queue drop into his lap. He could still hear the battle overhead, and the closer it got, the stronger he could feel Jake, but somehow he wasn't quite so worried anymore. Grace was right, as always, Jake was too crazy to die!
As he set up for his run on the belly of the large tawsìp, Apxey's eyes followed the magnificent form of Tsu'tey in front of him as the Olo'eyktan leapt from the back of his ikran and onto the deck as he shot a deadly arrow, and then slashing out with his bow, decimating the sawtute warriors who guarded their weapon. He was amazing and inspiring to watch, and the sight of him almost made Apxey's heart lift, but only for a moment. Truly, nothing mattered to him any longer but destroying as many of the sawtute as he could before he died. He had neither any hope nor desire to survive this battle, with his Ama' gone there was, after all, nothing for him to come home to. No home to come home to either, the sawtute had stolen both from him in one fell swoop.
As he watched, getting into position for his own attack, Apxey almost thought he was going to have no one left to kill. Tsu'tey swung his bow and yet another tawtute fell to the deck, but just as Apxey sprang up from the back of his ikran onto the deck, one of the seemingly endless flow of enemies managed the presence of mind to fire his gun and Tsu'tey fell.
Apxey's arrow pierced the man, but not without cost. The bullets slammed through his chest from side to side, piercing his lungs and then his abdomen as he fell backward onto the deck and then down over the edge and into the air hundreds of feet above the ground. The searing pain of his wounds soon faded though, and as he fell he closed his eyes and almost felt warm comforting arms wrap him in their embrace. It was not so bad, that he might die. No, it was a good thing to go out a hero; it was a good day to die.
After all, there was a little pain at the end when he landed hard on the top of one of the floating mountains, but it was brief and then there was nothing more, just calm, and warmth, and bliss knowing that soon all would be right for him again.
As she rocked the moaning, labouring Txilte against her chest, trying to help her breathe through each contraction as it came, Louise wracked her brain for anything that might be a distraction. At first she thought of asking the woman to tell her about her mate, about her hopes for the baby, but she quickly realized that wouldn't work. Breathing exercises and talking didn't always go along so very well together, after all.
Instead, Louise had begun to talk. She talked to Txilte about her childhood back on Earth, about her parents who had taken her to places where there were trees - not many, but some - and how that had made her fall in love with plants, wanting to know everything about them, about how they worked and how they lived. She told the story of her first plant, the Venus flytrap that her mother had allowed only because it was functional, and she told about the tomatoes she had grown all through university, how they had made her incredibly popular in the dorm because everyone wanted just one tart fruit for themselves.
She babbled on and on, not sure at times that Txilte even heard her, and it seemed like forever before Pämeya returned, although it had probably only been five minutes at the most.
"How is she managing?" the midwife asked, "Have the times between her pain changed in any way?"
"Her contractions are definitely getting closer together," Louise nodded, "They're less than two minutes apart now."
Pämeya nodded and put the soft cloths she had gathered to one side, building up half the moss into a pad between Txilte's legs. Her fingers made quick work of the soon-to-be-new mother's loincloth and then felt along her stomach. Louise could see the muscles ripple as another contraction hit, and her eyes met Pämeya's, silently asking what to do next.
"She is very close," Pämeya said softly, unsheathing a small, sharp knife from her hip and pouring a liquid from a stone bottle over it. Where the liquid dripped onto the ground it sizzled, and Louise realized it had to be some kind of acid. She stoppered the stone bottle and opened an earthenware jar, reaching in and dusting the knife with something that looked like nothing so much as baking powder. Clearly it was something close, because it fizzed, neutralizing the acid on the blade, and then Pämeya wiped it clean.
"The baby is early," she explained, "so we will need to help it to be born. The caul will not have thinned as it does when birth comes as expected, so I will need you to hold it steady once Txilte has delivered it so that I may cut it open and free the child inside."
"Okay," Louise nodded. She didn't quite know what Pämeya was talking about, but she knew it would all make sense eventually. Just holding something was easy enough for her to manage, after all.
As she tried to get to safety, Trudy soon realized it wasn't an option. From the way her Baby was reacting it was clear that one of the rotor mounts had been compromised. Asymmetric lift, the eternal curse of the tiltrotor, was to be her curse as well. Without the capacity to steer, she couldn't get anywhere to set down, at least, not anywhere that Quaritch couldn't see. There was nothing below her but air until she hit the jungle, and she'd never make it that far. Damn it!
"Rogue One is hit, I'm goin' in," she said over the radio, her voice retaining the outward calm that all true pilots learn early to project, even if inside she was both furious and immensely sad. "Sorry Jake."
She reached down and closed her hand around the eject handle, shut her eyes, and took a deep breath. 'Norm, I love you,' she sent the thought out into the aether, 'please, please don't do anything stupid!'
As soon as she was out of sight behind the biggest mountain her injured baby could be persuaded to drift toward she yanked the handle hard, feeling her head snap back with the harsh positive G's as the escape rockets under her seat fired and the panel over her head blew off, lifting her free of her crippled and dying Sampson. She'd left it to the last minute, though, and that came back to bite her. Just before she passed out from all the blood leaving her head, she felt the fireball of her Baby's final explosion envelop her. 'Shit. That's gonna leave a mark,' was all she could think as the blackness took over.
Even though he did his best to slow his descent with large leaves, not even the mighty Tsu'tey could make his limbs cooperate through the haze of pain wracking his body. He hit the ground hard, sending another wave of pain shooting through his very bones. He was almost surprised that he was still alive, he'd seen what bullets could do to even the greatest and strongest of warriors...he'd seen what they did to Sylwanin...
He rolled, aching and bleeding, onto his back and closed his eyes, not wanting to face the likelihood of his own death, at least for a moment. He was a great warrior of the Omatikaya, of course, and he would die with pride if it came to that, but for just a little while he let go of that. He didn't feel like being the great warrior right now, he just wanted to be free of the pain.
He breathed as deep as his wounds would allow and let his mind drift. Somehow, the first thing that came to mind was Sylwanin. He remembered how she'd walked, the grace in her every step, and he remembered the way she had smiled at him when they had been promised to each other. They had known each other forever, had known each other inside and out even without having ever made the bond of tsaheylu, and he knew that even if she were angry at him for letting himself get injured she would still be proud of him. She would have insisted on tending his every injury with her own hands, even though healing was not her strongest skill.
He remembered how frail and delicate her broken body had looked when he had carried her back to Kelutral, and then he couldn't stand to remember any more. He forced his eyes open, feeling hazy from pain and blood-loss, and clutched at his wounds. Sylwanin would never forgive him if he gave up. No matter what, he had to struggle to live, despite how tempting it was to simply give up and join her.
He thought, somehow, that through the delirium of pain he felt someone settle next to him and begin to tend his wounds, their rough, damp cloth cleaning the blood from him and stemming its flow, but he couldn't seem to sort out the person's face.
And then a sense of true exhaustion came over him and he closed his eyes. Best to reserve his strength and let the healer do his or her work, better not be awake to feel it. He would thank them when they were finished and sort out who they were then.
Dear Goddess Norm almost wished he didn't have the throat-mic receiver in his ear; that he'd never heard what he'd just heard Trudy say. Damnit he'd told her to be careful, Jake had told her to be careful, but when it came down to it what could any of them do? It was a battle, and they were outnumbered and out-gunned and they'd all known it. Still...
He closed his eyes in pain and anger, and all of a sudden he felt something rise from within him. He'd known it was there, had suspected in any case at the outset of the battle, but it hadn't fully made itself known before this moment. Now, though, with nothing to lose, some deep, primal part of him - perhaps a vestige of his mother's Saxon blood or the distant echo of his father's one-eighth Cayuse heritage - brought a red haze over his vision. He would run no longer. Setting his feet firmly on the ground, he crouched over his gun and pulled the trigger, gripping hard, no other thought in his mind but to take as many men with him as he could. If Trudy was... If she... She would have told him not to be stupid, not to risk himself for her sake, but right now he was so furious...
As Neytiri knelt by the head of her fallen mount, her heart aching with mourning, she was at once aware of nothing and everything around her, the world seeming to slow as it passed around her but did not touch her.
She could see the explosions, although she almost couldn't hear them; she could see men and fa'li being thrown about by the concussive blasts, although they didn't touch her, crouched as she was behind a fallen log. There were flames, and there was smoke and a strange, metal smell that reminded her of the sparks that came when one struck certain stones together. A pa'li galloped by, flames streaming from its crest, maddened with fear and pain...
And then time began again, the pain in her heart turning to anger. She got to her feet, gripping her father's bow and what arrows remained to her, and she turned away from those who retreated, running instead closer to where the sawtute waited. She would take out all that she could.
There was, after all, nowhere that she could run.
Finally safe and away from the dragon, Jake paused for a moment to breathe. He had seen Trudy come in, creating a distraction, and he didn't know whether to be intensely grateful or lividly furious with her. Damnit, if she got herself hurt and it was his fault Norm was gonna kill him. Truthfully, if she got herself killed and it was his fault, he might just let Norm kill him. Grace had died, and her death was already one death too many, now Trudy... No. He refused to believe that Trudy would be taken from them too.
He heard her last radio transmission and swore. Damnit no, you can't tell me you're sorry, he wanted to say; you aren't forgiven.
Nothing was going the way he'd planned damnit. The Na'vi were being decimated and it was all his fault.
He raised his hand to his neck, pressing against the throat-mic. "Tsu'tey, brother do you read?" he called out, hoping, "Rogue one, you copy? Trudy?" Goddamnit come on! Somebody had to be out there still! They couldn't all be gone! He couldn't be the last of them!
He scanned the skies, desperately seeking a familiar form, but he saw none.
As the sounds of battle drew closer, Mo'at found herself gazing at the sky overhead, unable or unwilling to look away. She could see the tiny forms of ayikran swarming around the many ayhunsìp, and she could see the looming form of the massive tawsìp which threatened their very existence, but from down here it was difficult to get a true idea of what was going on.
Even at this distance though, she could see ayikran falling from the sky, their wings no longer supporting them, their riders falling alongside, and she felt a sick dread in the pit of her stomach. She did not fear death for herself - no tsahìk feared death, truly, only leaving behind those that they loved, and Neytiri was taken care of now, her last obligation - but she feared for her people, not only the Omatikaya, but all Na'vi. The sky people were a virus, an infection which must be cleansed from the body before it could do more damage than the body itself was able to repair. Truly there were some who were benign, and perhaps some would be allowed to stay, if their hearts sang in harmony with the forest, but as for the others...
She shook her head and continued to scan the skies. Was that Jhake on his mighty toruk approaching the tawsìp? She couldn't be sure, but she prayed to Eywa to keep him safe.
In the adrenaline rush of his berserk fury, Norm almost didn't feel the bullets as they passed through his shoulder, but as he slammed back against the ground the red he saw now was not fury but blood from his wounds. His heart was pounding, his shoulder was on fire...and then he was there no longer, the link was broken.
The pain wasn't gone though.
He woke in the link bed, his heart still pounding, covered in cold sweat and with pain radiating from his left shoulder across his chest and down his arm. He pushed up the lid and rolled out, almost spilled out onto the floor, falling against the fridge and the pod in the small space that remained of the floor, only remaining upright by virtue of the fact that there wasn't enough room for him to lie down with the way he'd fallen.
He clutched at his chest, almost out of his mind with the pain, and tried desperately to get himself back under control. If he couldn't link back up then he was going to have to go out there in his own body. Everything was going to shit, it seemed as though they were doomed, and if Trudy... If what he hoped wasn't true had happened, he was going to need the avatar. He...wouldn't want to be human any longer without her to share his nights, his bed, his arms...his heart...
Max was panting hard by the time he made it to the airlock door that led to the mine equipment hangar. He hadn't run so much in longer than he wanted to think about, and dangit his age and sedentary lifestyle were starting to show. Apparently he wasn't seventeen and a first-flight footie player (or soccer player, for those North American types) anymore. He leaned his hands on his knees, panting hard into the mask of his exopak as he waited for the air to cycle through, and had mostly managed to get his breath back by the time the light went green and the outside door unsealed.
Now to find himself a nice big toy to play with!
He dismissed the "devil machines" out of hand. He'd worked with heavy equipment, sure, but never anything that big; and it wouldn't do any good if he couldn't figure out how to drive the thing in a straight line, after all. His eyes passed over dump trucks and earth movers without anything really catching his attention, until he got to the slash-cutters. They weren't mine equipment per se, but they'd do. They'd definitely do! He could open up comms-ops like a frickin' sardine can with one of those babies!
Now the real question, how to start one. He had some idea of how to hot-wire, but it was all theoretical knowledge, nothing hands-on. Of course, there's no way he would luck out and find out that somebody had left the keys in the ignition... Well, it couldn't hurt to check, he shrugged. At least while he was poking around in there he might get a better look at the wiring.
He had just hauled himself up into the first slash-cutter in the row when he heard someone clear his throat nearby.
"You're looking for this I'd wager,"
Max looked up from the glove box he was rooting through (and why on earth did a slash-cutter need a glove box?) to see a man holding a key dangling from a key-ring decorated with a lion's-head charm. Max wracked his brain trying to remember the man's name, he'd seen him in executive meetings, and he thought he had something to do with running the mining operations, but he just couldn't seem to bring his name to mind. The man continued to smile his sardonic smile and jingled the key ring enticingly.
Max eyed him warily. He didn't seem to be carrying a gun or a knife, or anything other than the key, but...
"How did you know I was here?" he asked, still not getting down from the box of the slash-cutter.
"Heard you go thundering past my room, figured something was up," the man shrugged. "You looking to tell the company to shove along, I figure I might as well let you. It'll be some entertainment in any case."
Max blinked and shook his head. Clearly the man was, if not on his side entirely, at least indifferent, and at this point he wasn't about to look a gift horse in the mouth, so to speak.
"Entertainment," he laughed slightly, "yeah, I guess it probably would be at that." He held out his hand and the man (his last name started with "K" Max thought, or a "C". A hard "K" sound anyway) lobbed the keychain in a perfect arc toward him, so that all Max had to do was close his fingers around it as it landed in his hands. "Thanks," he said as he settled properly into the seat and turned the key in the ignition, "I'll try to be as entertaining as I possibly can, just for you."
"I'll get my lawn chair," the man - Kater, that was it! - grinned as he offered Max a sardonic grin and a very obviously intentionally sloppy salute.
Max saluted back and then all of his concentration went to the controls. Just like riding a bike, you never really forgot how to run a machine like this, but it always took a minute or two to pull the requisite information up from the depths of storage.
"Ma Jhake!" The blessed sound of his mate's voice coming over the receiver tucked into his ear made Jake breathe a deep sigh of relief. It didn't last long though.
"I read you," he confirmed then paused, waiting to hear more, "Neytiri?"
"Seze is dead," she whispered in a broken voice, "they are very close, they are many."
Shit. Just...shit!
"Do not attack," he urged her, knowing even as he did that it was futile. "Do you read me Neytiri? Do not attack! Fall back now! Get outta there, that's an order!"
As if she had ever obeyed an order. Neytiri was a wild being, a creature of pure emotion who did as her heart led her, and she would not hear nor heed his orders and he knew it. She might hear his fear for her though, and let it sway her to keep herself safe for his sake. "Neytiri!"
The silence on her end was deafening. 'Please, for God's sake, or Eywa's, whoever, just be smart about this!' he thought furiously.
The sound of her voice this time, though, was more blessed than he could ever have hoped. "Jhake," she whispered, "Eywa has heard you." He glanced around and felt his heart lift at what he saw. The skies were literally swarming with riderless banshees, and every one of them was attacking the RDA ships. "Eywa has heard you!" she cried triumphantly, and he knew the burst of joy that filled her heart, remembered what it felt like with the memory of their bond.
"Come on!" he called to toruk, swinging around. Time to take the Valkyrie out; time to end this once and for all!
As they carefully walked their "beat" through the forest, Taka and 'Ontu kept their eyes open and their ears on swivel, but mostly they watched to see what Ama, Tsuki and Sano, who ranged out in front and to either side of them, were doing. Their senses, after all, were far more powerful than even those of an avatar and a full-blooded Na'vi youth, and they would almost inevitably be the first to discover any intruder into their territory.
All of a sudden all three thanator cubs stopped dead in their tracks, their heads up and questing, their sensory quills bristling. Taka signalled to 'Ontu to stop as well, then crept very slowly forward and joined his queue to Tsuki's.
"What is it?" he whispered.
«Big-tree-momma,» the cub replied, and even her mental voice seemed to whisper as well, «she calls to all children, says "time to fight, children! Time to make meat the pink ones, the ones who not like her, not love their mother.»
Taka's eyes went wide. All of a sudden, whether because he knew to seek for it or because of his connection to Tsuki he couldn't' be sure, he became aware of a heaviness in the air, a sense of anticipation, as though something truly epic was about to begin.
«Big-tree-momma says we three fighting already,» Tsuki added, «stay with Daddy and 'Ontu-brotheruncle to protect.»
"Good," Taka nodded, "I'll let 'Ontu know and we'll get back to our patrol." He disconnected from his "daughter" and turned to smile back at his partner for the day. "The day will be ours," he said joyfully, "Eywa has joined the fight!"
As he sat up in his turret, listening to the radio with almost obsessive focus, Will Winram could only count himself lucky. At first the radio chatter had been upbeat, then serious but still encouraging as battle began, then, when it looked like things were turning to the RDA the chatter had become almost mocking, but that had been brief. Now the only thing he heard in the voices of his (former) comrades was panic, and although he felt bad for Steve and Calvin and the rest of the Dragon's crew he was counting himself incredibly lucky that he was back here, that he'd made the decision to stand up, even in a small way, for what he saw to be right.
Something caught his attention just then, a flicker of khaki and blue out of the corner of his eye, and he turned just in time to see the avatars begin sneaking across the compound, heading in the direction of comms-ops. Even though he should by all rights be appalled, he couldn't help but feel a slow grin passing across his face. Looked like the science zoidies, as Chacón had liked to affectionately refer to them, had some guts after all, and were willing to stand up for what was right. Well! He'd have to just see if he couldn't do something to give them a little hand there, now wouldn't he?
He scanned the compound out in front of them, looking for "enemy" targets, and took each one out with a precision strike. He was, after all, a weapon systems officer, he'd been trained to take out targets from much greater altitudes than this!
The avatars shied away at the first couple of shots, but they quickly realize he wasn't shooting at them, and he got a few cheerful waves as they resumed their advance, picking up speed as they trusted him to keep the way free in front of them.
Will had to laugh. It was all so ridiculous somehow, and yet it was the best he'd felt about any kind of action in longer than he wanted to think about, the most free he'd felt since he was a boy.
As she stuck close on Jhake's tail, Peyral wasn't entirely sure where all the other ayikran had come from, but at the same time, she wasn't about to question it. She knew it had to be Eywa's doing, and if the great mother had blessed them with her protection to the extent that she had sent the younger brothers and sisters to their aid, then Peyral could only do her best as well, and right now doing her best meant protecting Jhake's back. Even if she should lose her life in the attempt, she knew it would be a life well spent for a cause and for a man worthy of both her loyalty and her deep, abiding love. He had, after all, pretty well ruined her for any other man, but then, she could hardly blame him. After all, he had been honest with her from the start, it was only her heart that had refused to listen and had deceived her.
Jhake swept low over the back of the giant tawsìp, and Peyral followed him there as well. This had been a part of their plan from the beginning, and Peyral remembered what Jhake had said she must do. Her duty here was to ensure that he was able to run to the very front of the beast and loose the thing he called a "pom" into its lungs, crippling it and sending it plummeting from the sky.
He had agreed that she would watch his back, but he had made her swear that before he dropped the "pom" into its lungs she would leap back to her ikran, so she sent her partner the information of their plan and then, as Jhake landed and began to run, she too jumped down, catching herself in a controlled roll and then getting to her feet again and drawing her bow all in one smooth motion.
She managed to take out two of the tawtute warriors on her side before she felt a sharp pain pass through her thigh and lost her footing, tumbling off the side of the tawsìp just as she saw the tiny green "pom" disappear into its target.
As he watched the pack of viperwolves advancing on his troop's position, flowing across the ground like liquid darkness in the middle of the day, Jody Nkumo swore darkly. This wasn't normal. It wasn't fucking normal to have different species all attacking together like this! He'd already seen men taken out by sturmbeest and hammerheads, and somebody on his left flank had been picked off by a forest banshee, just bitten almost in half! They couldn't expect him to actually keep fighting in the face of all this! They were cut off from everyone else and surrounded by animals that could kill them almost without even thinking about it...It was total bullshit!
The worst of it was, nobody had yet had the common sense to call for evac, so they were stuck down here being picked off by the animals...by the fucking forest itself! Jody watched, shaking his head, as another man ran from the viperwolves only to end up impaling himself on one of the nastier examples of Pandoran botany. He shook his head. Enough was bloody enough! He raised his gun, about to charge the viperwolves, who usually respected threat displays, at least in the daytime and if they weren't too hungry, but just then he caught sight of a Na'vi warrior - it looked to be a woman, hiding against a tree. She was striking of course, as all Na'vi are, but that wasn't what caught his attention. All the animals were completely ignoring her. They hadn't gone mad after all, there was some kind of...intelligence directing their actions.
Taking a chance - a crazy chance, but what other kind did he have left? - Jody threw down his gun. "Okay!" he called out to the viperwolves, to the trees, to whoever or whatever was listening, "Okay you were right! Just spare me and my men and we'll leave you in peace."
A viperwolf jumped at him then, and he thought for sure he was dead, and not just dead but stupid as well, but the animal snarled in his face briefly and then jumped off, leaving him without even a scratch.
All the men around him, having seen what happened, started throwing down their weapons as well, and for each man, as soon as he dropped his weapon and shouted an apology he was spared. The waves of beasts parted around him and moved on, heading, no doubt, in the direction of more sec-ops grunts to deal with.
When all the animals were gone, Jody sank to his knees and then just sat on the ground, laughing. Today had been way too fucking crazy, and it wasn't over yet. They still had to get the fuck out of here somehow! Fan-fucking-tastic.
He was never quite sure just what it was that had alerted him to be in just the right spot to catch her. Whether Ripa, his ikran, had caught a glimpse of her, or perhaps he had heard some faint noise that had heralded her arrival, but eventually Mrrket just put it down to Eywa's will that he just happened to be where he most needed to be at that moment. He had run out of arrows, and was flying low, just above the tops of the trees, trying to stay out of the line of sight of any tawtute weapons, when he got the insistent sense that he was needed. He glanced above him just in time to see a warrior slip from the side of the largest kunsìp, and almost without any further thought he moved to position himself to catch her. Even then, it was a close thing. She landed across the back of his ikran and he turned in the saddle to pull her in front of him and almost missed one of the small kunsìp turning to fire on them. Thank Eywa for his Ripa, though, she saw the attack coming and ducked down into the trees.
"Irayo," the woman he'd caught turned to look at him, and he was surprised by the look of desperation in her eyes. "If you will land, I will join the fight on the ground. I am sure my ikran will find me there, if she still lives, and if not I will join those who fight on their feet."
"I was going to ayVitrayä Ramunong to stock up on arrows," he smiled at her - she was very pretty under the parti-coloured mask of her war paint, "so I will bring you there." He shifted his grip on her where she was slipping against his legs and suddenly realized the state she was in. "You're bleeding!" he gasped.
"I will be fine," she grated from between clenched teeth, "I can still fight."
He shook his head firmly. "No you won't," he said, "and no, you can't. Not with the amount of blood you're losing. My mother is a healer; I know how much blood a woman can safely loose, and you're bleeding far too hard."
"Tsa-hey! Just let me down!"
She started to struggle, and he almost dropped her, but he managed to hold her - clearly she was already weakening from blood loss - and wrapped one arm around to press on that special spot at the base of her skull in the precise way that his mother had taught him, rendering her unconscious. No doubt she would be angry at him when she woke, but Mrrket had seen enough death today; he wasn't going to let her become one more life lost, not if he could help it.
Neytiri grinned as she watched the many angtsik and salioang thundered around her, bypassing her with precision and falling upon the sawtute instead. She watched for a moment, catching her breath, and then she ran, joining the attack with a pack of nantang, feeling their joy of the hunt as her own.
She paused to loose an arrow with a sharp cry, then froze as she heard a growl off to her right. She slowly turned her head and there, snarling in all its bone-chilling glory, stood a full-grown palulukan. She'd grown almost accustomed to the presence of Taka's children, but they were still, after all, young and quite small in comparison to this one. She wasn't sure, at first, that she wasn't staring death in the face, and what irony it would be to survive the death of her ikran and being surrounded by sawtute only to fall prey to a palulukan now.
That was not her fate, however. The palulukan made a soft chirring that she knew from the little ones to be a friendly sound, and it folded its lips back down over its teeth and knelt, the position reminding her of how the babies had reacted to her mother upon first meeting her.
She tilted her head curiously and a slow smile spread across her face. She almost thought...was this an invitation to join with this powerful beast? None had ever been "Palulukan Makto" before...but perhaps Eywa had decided it was time.
She stepped carefully forward, tilting her head a little more so that her tswin slid over her shoulder and into her hand, and the palulukan brought its tswin forward as well, and then her smile bloomed into a full grin. A ride would be more than welcome!
Jake sighed in relief as he landed on the back of his toruk and hurried away from the fatally crippled shuttle. He'd seen someone catch Peyral and disappear below the canopy, and hopefully whoever it was would keep her safe. She'd been practically throwing herself at anyone who threatened him today, and he didn't want to be responsible for her sacrificial death. She was his battle-sister after all, and he loved her like a sister, even if he couldn't love her the way he knew she'd wished.
He both felt and heard the explosion as the left front engine, where he'd thrown the grenade, exploded, and he grinned. Right down to the fucking wire, but he'd done it, and as long as the shuttle kept its forward momentum once it began to fall, it would land well out of the way of the danger zone. He hadn't wanted to risk it falling backward and dropping its deadly cargo out of the open hold, so he'd been very careful to make sure he took out a forward engine. That way it nosed down instead of tilting back and kept its aerodynamics enough for a glide.
He watched as it fell, drifting helplessly into the side of one of those bizarre rock loops and shearing off the damaged wing, dragging it around almost like a kid swinging around the pole on a bus to sit down. Good. It wasn't going to land anywhere near the Tree. Now there was just one last thing to do: he had to take out Quaritch once and for all.
With a mental command he directed his toruk after the dragon. Now this oughtta be fun!
Dan Hogarth, co-pilot for the shuttle Valkyrie one-six, frowned as he listened with half an ear to Doug, the pilot, giving the excited order to drop their deadly cargo. This whole thing was stupid, as far as he was concerned. They weren't military, had never been military, they were commercial shuttle pilots for goodness sakes! Just glorified flying bus- or lorry-drivers really. No, they weren't military and yet here they were, crammed full of high explosives made into an improvised bomb, scraping through terrain their ship was never designed to negotiate, and not only that, but they were being attacked by giant flipping pterodactyl-things, and he just knew one was going to end up in the air-intake sooner rather than later. The thought of trying to put down with a damaged engine and a massive load of blasting compound was more than enough to make him burst out into a cold sweat.
When he felt the aircraft shudder after a massive blast rocked the left wing, he knew his nightmare was coming to pass. He grit his teeth, swore very quietly to himself and gripped the controls. There was still a chance he could set them down gently enough, there weren't any more of those damn floating mountains in front of them, and if he could just keep them to a glide maybe he could...
And then he saw the archway rise in front of them. He tried to use the right-side engines to turn them, but it was no good, they were just too damned close. There was a horrible screech of metal as the left wing impacted the side of the arch and shear off, and then the Valkyrie nosed-down and he knew it was over. Still gripping the controls in a gesture he knew was futile, he closed his eyes, not wanting to watch the ground come up on them, particularly.
'Sorry,' he thought, although he wasn't sure if he was apologizing to the troops still trapped in the belly of the shuttle or the folks who had just been trying to defend their home or the whole damned planet, 'I never wanted to be a part of this mess, but I did what I was told. Should've just sat the whole thing out.'
Thankfully the darkness took him quickly. He hadn't wanted to feel the heat of the explosion. In the end, that was all he had hoped for; not to burn.
As the shockwave from the explosion of the Valkyrie passed through ayVitrayä Ramunong, Louise barely noticed. She was deeply involved in her own life-or-death struggle and it consumed almost all of her attention. Pämeya had encouraged Txilte up into a squatting position with her hips angled forward, and it was all Louise could do to help the young woman keep her balance as she pushed.
She had been confused and worried at first when the active part of labour truly began, because from her vantage point what was emerging between Txilte's legs didn't look like a baby at all. It was pale and leathery and pinkish, and Louise was terrified that the young woman was somehow turning inside-out, the Na'vi equivalent to the uterus somehow being forced from the body due to the strength of the contractions. Pämeya didn't seem concerned at all, though, and that was reassuring, so Louise had forced herself to calm down and keep Txilte focused. She wouldn't be much help if she hyperventilated and had a panic attack on them, after all.
After a couple more strong pushes, as more and more of the...sac emerged, Louise realized that this must be what Pämeya had meant when she referred to a "caul". It almost reminded her of alligator or turtle eggs! Were Na'vi babies born inside their amniotic sac or something? She supposed she was about to find out!
Three more heavy pushes and the entire soft, reptile-egg-like sac was out, and Louise could see the baby inside through its almost-opaque wall. There was something still connecting it to Txilte, and Louise supposed this was the umbilicus and the reason for the sterilized knife, but once again her supposition was wrong. Pämeya brought the knife down, but not to the connection, instead she used it to slice open the sac, spilling out a thick, viscous liquid and freeing the baby from its...his!...prison.
"You must tell him to breathe, Txilte," Pämeya urged the new mother, "he doesn't yet know he is born, show him what he must know."
Louise couldn't help but take a deep breath along with Txilte, the command almost as suggestive as yawning, and all of a sudden the baby opened his little mouth and breathed as well, letting out a small whimper as Pämeya cleaned his mouth and used the cloths to dry him and swaddle him. There was, Louise saw, something like an umbilical cord, but it seemed to have detached on its own, and somehow the end that had been attached to the outside of the caul had disappeared. Had it retreated back up inside Txilte? She was obviously going to have a lot of questions over the next nine months or so, that was for sure.
"You have a son, Txilte," Pämeya said softly as she laid him on Txilte's chest, "You and Ìstaw will raise him well I know. He is small now, but he is strong, and will grow only stronger."
Txilte smiled, clearly exhausted, and stroked her baby boy's head. His hair was still damp, and of course it wasn't braided, and Louise could see the tiny queue bare, a thing she had never seen before.
"I would like you both to meet my son," Txilte said, shifting him so that they could see his face. His eyes were open, deep pools of dusky grey-green, and he yawned as they watched. "This is my son Tsamut," she introduced him, "who was so eager to become a strong warrior and defend the Omatikaya that he insisted on arriving early."
Louise had to laugh at that. "A strong name for a strong boy," she agreed. "I am very happy to meet him after all he put us through."
Okay! So I should definitely put a disclaimer here: this is entirely my interpretation of how Na'vi birth may or may not occur. We aren't given any other information than that it's somewhat similar to a placental mammal but different, and that they nuse their babies for about four months (which I'm taking to mean nurse exclusively, as I'm sure there's some overlap during the transition to other foods) All this information, btw, comes from the "pandorapedia" section in the collectors' edition blu-ray, just in case you were wondering. As far as the "caul", I'm using the English word because there's no way in heck I'm going to make up a na'vi word for something that might not even exist! I have way too much respect for the language and its proper expansion for that!
Anway, speaking of language, how about some...
Vocab:
tawsìp - skyship, in this case referring to the Valkyrie shuttle
Olo'eyktan - clan leader
ikran / ayikran - banshee(s)
tawtute / sawtute - human(s)
tsaheylu - the bond
Kelutral - Hometree
kunsìp / ayhunsìp - gunship(s)
tsahìk - spiritual leader
toruk - great Leonopteryx
Irayo - "thank you"
ayVitrayä Ramunong - the Well of Souls
Tsa-hey! - this is an exclamation of warning or frustration roughly equivalent to "crap!" or "Oh hell!"
angtsik - hammerhead titanotheres
salioang - sturmbeests
nantang - viperwolf
Palulukan Makto - Rider of the Thanator
tswin - queue