Part IVb -The Warrior's Choice
[Master Post]
Part IVa
"This is a bad plan, Jensen. You betrayed the Omaticaya, what makes you think they're going to help us with this?" Norm is running diagnostics on the nearest available link bed even as he complains, punching at buttons as quickly as he can manage, his face a mask of calm and efficiency even though Jensen knows he must be feeling as panicked and disoriented as the rest of them. Thank God for people calm under pressure, he thinks, shifting painfully on his wheelchair. "And no offence, but you look like utter shit. You looked like shit before, and now you look like shit that's been worked over by a bunch of really aggressive marines."
"Yeah, I'm aware," he rolls his eyes. "But it's the only plan we've got. Trudy, you think you can move these units to a different location? Quaritch knows where they are, he'll aim a missile right at us first chance he gets."
"No problem. I can take them into the forest, hide them away at least for a little while. Can't promise you won't get motion-sick, though."
Norm doesn't let himself get derailed that easily, though. "I'm not kidding, Jensen. What if you have another seizure in there? God only knows how all this is going to translate in the link."
"I have to try," Jensen shrugs. "Give me a second," he says, wheeling himself through the narrow passageway to the infirmary, where Grace is lying on the only bed, looking pale and drawn under the oxygen mask strapped to her face. He can see the plastic fogging up every time she breathes, far too infrequently for his liking. He doesn't want to think about what he'll do if the Omaticaya refuse to help after all. He doesn't think they will -the People aren't needlessly cruel, and Grace has always been their ally, even when they haven't agreed with her- but he's not willing to take the risk, not now after everything. For all he knows Tsu'tey has taken over the tribe already, and he's angry, rightfully so, and there's no telling what he might do if Jared isn't there to rein in his temper.
Jensen comes as close as he can to her bed, smoothes a hand over her head. She looks small like this, diminished. Fragile, even. It never occurred to him before today that she might die. "Grace, I need you to hang on for me, okay? I'm going to get help. Norm's going to take care of you until I get back. You stick with him and Trudy, and we'll get you fixed up, okay?"
She doesn't answer, her breathing loud and agonized even under the mask, but her gaze goes to him and he can tell she's understood. There's no time left to waste. He wheels back to where Norm has finished setting up the link bed. Jensen tries to pull himself up onto the bed, and to his embarrassment finds himself folding in half instead when the pain from his ribs threatens to rip him in half.
"Come on," Norm says, and Jensen kind of wants to hit him for using such a gentle tone, like he's suddenly turned into porcelain that might shatter at any moment. Norm hoists him up by his armpits, ignores his muted groan of pain, and briskly arranges his arms and legs form him, but his expression is twisted with worry and disapproval. "Jensen, I don't know if you're up for this -physically, I mean. Look, the last time you went in without being in good shape it just about killed you, and―"
"No choice, Spellman," Jensen interrupts. "Just get on with it."
"It's your funeral. Okay, you ready?"
He forces a grin. "Born ready," he manages, and lets himself fall.
Home Tree is burning.
He wakes up under a bush, his body stiff and a little cramped from being casually dumped there, and the first thing his sees is flame and smoke, rising in a column into the sky above the forest canopy. It's just like in his dreams, he realizes, a cold lump forming in his stomach, and he scrambles to his feet, swallowing the bile that keeps trying to rise in his throat at the sight of what he's come to think of as his home going up in flames. There's no going back, not to the human base, and now it seems like there's nowhere to go to, either. He swallows, eyes stinging, feels anger coiling inside him, replacing the cold, dark feeling from before. God damn them all, he thinks, they're not going to get away with this. Not while he still draws breath.
Jensen takes off at a run faster than he's ever managed before, even when he was sprinting to warn the Omaticaya of the impending human invasion, clearing small streams and underbrush in leaps and bounds that on any other day would have made Jared proud.
Jared, God.
He has no idea what he's going to say to any of them, no idea how he's going to ask for help after everything that's been done to them. Home Tree is all but gone, its branches set alight by Quaritch's flamethrowers, its roots torn up, its trunk split and burnt. The Na'vi are no longer there, driven away into the forest in the wake of the destructive fire, but they haven't gone far. The Vitraya Ramunong, for all that it's their spiritual dwelling-place, is also extraordinarily well-protected. It's the one small blessing in all of this, that even Jensen hadn't been able to tell just how sheltered it was by huge rocky formations on three sides, making it accessible only by one path.
He finds the Omaticaya gathered in a large clearing not far from the Mother Tree, the huge boughs of the willow brushing against the ground, a strange echo of the sadness and despair he can see in all of the people.
"Jared!" he yells, spotting him standing a good head above most of the other Na'vi. "Jared!"
A shocked murmur goes through the crowd of remaining Na'vi, but they part when Jared turns and hurries toward him. Jensen braces for his reaction, is at once relieved and disappointed when Jared stops just short of him, his face like stone.
"You are back."
"I came back as soon as I could. We escaped from the base, we're setting up camp in the mobile units, trying to stay under the military radar. I saw what happened to Home Tree...Jared, I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry, I know you can't forgive me, I wouldn't forgive me either..."
"You bring news of the Sky People's attack?" Jared interrupts. His expression has changed, but Jensen still can't read it, wonders if hope is making him read something that isn't there.
"Not exactly. I have information too, but I need your help, Jared. One last time. It's not for me," he says, forestalling the protest he can see forming on Jared's lips. "It's Grace. We escaped, but she got shot. I know I have no right to ask this of you, but...can you help her?"
Jared purses his lips, looks back to where his mother is sitting at the foot of the Mother Tree, in a cross-legged pose of meditation. "I can't help, but perhaps the tsahik can."
It's still the middle of the night by the time Jensen is able to fetch Grace back from where Trudy has moved the mobile outpost. He wastes no time, scooping her up into his arms as easily as if she was a rag doll, explaining the decision in a few curt sentences. Her head lolls against his arm, but she's still alive, still conscious even. Norm is already protesting their decision, but half-heartedly, as though he knows there's no other option for them, not if they want Grace to live out here where there is little by way of human medicine, and where it's the Na'vi way that holds sway. He's already linked to his avatar, further proof that his arguments are pro forma rather than truly sincere.
"Grace, are you sure this is what you want?" he asks, jogging at their side, trying to keep up with Jensen. They left Trudy behind to monitor their vital signs, although Jensen figures that that's a luxury they won't be able to afford for very long. Soon, they'll have to fend for themselves and just hope for the best. "You won't be able to go back after this. You'll be stuck here forever!"
"It's not nearly as awful as you're making it sound," Jensen pants, beginning to tire in spite of himself. He's been running on no sleep and little food and pure adrenaline in this form since the day before yesterday, and even if this body is far from weak, it still can't run on fumes forever.
"Easy for you to say," Norm snaps at him. "You're not the one making a permanent change here."
Grace laughs breathlessly. "Hen," she accuses Norm. "I'll be fine." She doesn't have the strength to do much more than that, until they arrive at the clearing and are greeted by Mo'at, standing at the end of the path that leads into the Well of Souls.
"I see you, Jensen," she greets him, "and I see you, Dok-tor Grace. You have been told of what lies ahead?"
Grace nods. "Yes."
"You see and you understand what it is we will do? You will become one body, where before you had two. No more will you walk with us only in dreams, but in life as well. You will learn to become one of the People. Your cup has been full for many years. Do you consent, now, to empty it?"
"Yes," Grace says simply, and that seems good enough to Mo'at, who motions to Jensen to follow her.
He moves carefully along the path, through the grove of willows, is surprised when Grace speaks again. "It's so beautiful," she murmurs. "I should take samples..."
He huffs a laugh. "Why don't we wait a little bit for that, okay? Right now we're kind of worrying about making you better first."
Two of the Na'vi who came with them lay Grace's avatar at the foot of the Mother tree, curled up in a foetal position, stripped naked -maybe as a symbol of new life, Jensen isn't sure. At Mo'at's direction he lays Grace down facing it, making sure her mask is still firmly secured, then steps back as Mo'at and Jared begin to work feverishly to prepare both bodies for whatever it is they're about to do. Jensen is sketchy on the details of what this transfer is going to entail, but he's had enough talks with Grace to realize that the Mother Tree can act like a sort of conduit of information, so if anything can preserve Grace's mind and spirit inside another body, he figures it's this.
Jared and Mo'at each dip their fingers into bowls of pigment, tracing elaborate patterns quickly and efficiently over the two prone forms. Jensen watches Jared at work, sees him glance repeatedly at what his mother is doing, maybe to see if she's all right, maybe just to double-check his own work, it's difficult to tell, and Jensen doesn't want to disrupt their concentration. Finally they both step back, and Mo'at approaches him.
"The Great Mother may choose to save all that she is, in this body."
"So it is possible?" He still can't quite believe it, even after all this time.
"Possible, yes. She must pass through the eye of Eywa. But, Jensen, she is very weak. It is possible that the Great Mother will choose to bring her spirit home to rest, to give her life back to the forest. Do you understand?"
"I understand," Jensen says, even though he doesn't quite believe it. Grace is indestructible. What force in its right mind would ever dare try to rob her of life? To his surprise, Jared comes to stand next to him, and the soft smile he directs at him almost makes Jensen burst into tears on the spot. Slowly, tentatively, he lets one hand creep toward Jared, feels his heart swell to what feels like five times its normal size when Jared reaches out to grasp it firmly, squeezes it once before letting go again in order to tend to Grace. This, he thinks, is all the forgiveness he's likely to get, but it's enough.
He stands back as Mo'at begins a long, ululating chant. All around him he can see the Na'vi gathering close, linking arms and hands together, swaying to the rhythm of the chant. Then, slowly, tiny white root-cilia appear from the ground all around Grace and her avatar, off-shoots from the Mother Tree. They undulate and grow, longer and longer until both of the bodies are almost entirely covered, like a shroud, fused to the root floor by a thousand connections. The cilia entwine with the avatar's tswin and begin to pulse and glow in the darkness, radiating white energy as the chant grows louder.
Grace is stirring a little, her eyes open and staring at something that Jensen can't see. She grips reflexively at his hand when he works up the nerve to go kneel by her side. If she's dying, he tells himself, then she shouldn't be allowed to die alone.
"She's real, Jensen," she murmurs. "I can see all of it...she's real..."
Her eyes close then, breath expelling itself in a quiet sigh. Jensen strokes her face. "Grace?" he whispers, but he can tell she's gone from this body.
He looks over to where Grace's avatar is still curled on its side, watched over by Mo'at. The tsahik looks up at him, shakes her head. "I am sorry, Jensen. She is with Eywa now."
Jensen swallows the lump in his throat, nods, even as he feels Jared's hands on his shoulders, strong and comforting. There'll be time for mourning later, but right now there's a war to be fought.
Jensen spends a sleepless night trying to think through this mess he's gotten them all into, with memories of Grace intruding on everything else, making his thoughts spin in unproductive circles. Then, just when the night was at its darkest, he drifted into an uneasy sleep that was filled with the same dreams as before, the great black shadow drifting along the ruined ground, and that's when he remembers the Toruk. The way Jensen sees it, Toruk is the baddest cat in the sky-just like Trudy said. It's death from above, death to anything in its path. Nothing can stand before it. So it follows that Toruk never expects anything to come at it from above.
Jared laughs incredulously when he tells him his plan.
"You are insane!"
"Crazy like a fox," Jensen grins, his heart already speeding up just at the thought of what he has in mind. "Jared, we have to do this, it's the only way. The Omaticaya alone can't hope to defeat all those ships, but with the other tribes on our side, we can do this. I know we can. It has to be you, Jared."
"No," Jared shakes his head. "What you are saying cannot be done. No one has ridden Toruk in a thousand years."
"But it was your ancestor," Jensen insists. "This is in your blood, it's your destiny. I dreamed this, Jared. I didn't know what I was seeing before, but I know it now. I dreamed of flying and fire, and I saw Toruk in my dreams. You can't ignore this."
Jared snorts, but Jensen can see he's won him over already. "Eywa gave a sign about you."
"The atokirina, I remember. So Eywa trusts me, right? What about you? Give me a chance, here. I know I'm right about this. You're the best flier of the Omaticaya, your ancestor was Toruk Macto. You can't ignore this," he repeats. "It's destiny, Jared."
"You are insane," Jared repeats, but this time the corners of his mouth lift into a smile.
"That settles it, then. Let's go!"
And then they're both aloft on their banshees, sailing up into the clear blue sky of Pandora.
Jensen leads the way, sensing Jared's hesitation. This way, at least, he knows Jared will follow him, and he's pretty sure that once they're in position, Jared won't hesitate. This is his destiny, it's been in his blood for generations, calling to be let out again. Toruk doesn't always hunt along the same paths -all the creatures learn to avoid the places where it goes, so it has to change up its routine in order not to starve- but it's so enormous that it's impossible to miss even so. Jared's right, Jensen thinks with a giddy laugh -he's got to be insane for thinking this is ever going to work, but then again, he's pretty sure all the last-ditch attempts at saving the day over the years have been insane. They've been remembered, whether they worked or not. The Light Brigade, the Battle of the Schism, the Alamo...
He spurs Beidai to greater and greater heights, can feel the ikran's heart pounding with fear and exertion as he takes them further up than any rider has ever dared to go. Jared is an indistinct blur to his left, but Zeizei is taking him up as well, ever higher, until the air turns thin and the ground becomes nothing but a great patchwork of colours below them.
"There!" Jensen shouts suddenly, pointing at a patch of scarlet several dozen yards below them. Up hear he can barely make himself heard above the whistling of the wind, but Jared sees his gesture, yells back something that sounds like agreement, his words snatched away by the wind.
There's no time for hesitation now, no room for mistakes. Jensen brings Beidai around in a great arc, aims her almost directly at the Toruk's back. His trajectory will take him just past the leonopteryx, but if they've timed this properly, then Jared will land directly astride its back. At this stage, Jensen's presence is a formality. He's here only if Jared should happen to miss his landing, if he falls, but if that happens then they're both dead anyway. They're too far from the tree line to escape if the Toruk gives chase, and give chase it will, Jensen is sure of it.
All these thoughts flit through his mind in a split-second as he hurtles through the air. There's a loud whoop of defiance from Jared, and suddenly the air is filled with a screech that seems to echo off all the mountains of Pandora. Jensen is aware of a great beating of yellow and crimson wings, of Beidai banking sharply to avoid being caught in the backwash from the Toruk's struggles, and he brings her around again, trying to see whether or not Jared is still astride the great beast.
There's another shout, and Jensen finds himself uttering an answering whoop of triumph as the Toruk's wild thrashing ceases almost immediately and it levels out above him, the great wingspan blocking out the light of the sun and casting a flickering shadow on the ground below. Jared is standing on its back, his tswin firmly entwined with its antenna, holding on with the tips of the fingers of one hand, the Toruk inescapably under his dominion. Jensen pumps a fist into the air.
"Toruk Macto!"
Jared swoops ahead of him and it's all he can do to keep up on his banshee, until all he can see ahead of him is the enormous silhouette of the Toruk, ridden by its master and framed by the smouldering ruins of the forest leading to what is left of Home Tree. Zeizei has already banked to soar away over the treetops back toward the eyrie, and for a moment Jensen feels a pang of sorrow for her -she and Jared won't be riding together until the battle is won and Toruk is set free to roam the skies again, which might very well be never. There was no choice, though, none at all. Jensen falters a little, feels Beidai hesitate under him, forces himself to focus. This is it, he realizes, it's everything he dreamed about: the dreams of flying, the nightmares of fire and destruction. He's seen all of this before, and he has no way of knowing whether or not it's for good or ill.
Jared, unaware of the turmoil in his mind, is setting a gruelling pace for them, taking them back toward the Omaticaya, and Jensen puts on another burst of speed. There's no way of communicating any of this to Jared now, and anyway, he reasons, it would serve no good purpose. They can deal with this later, if there even is a later.
Shrieks of terror greet their arrival, and the tribe begins to scatter even as Jensen lands first and scrambles to the ground, yelling as loudly as he can. "Stay where you are! Stay! There is no danger! No danger!" he repeats, shouting at the top of his lungs, another cry goes up.
"Toruk Macto!"
It's Tsu'tey who realizes it first, who leaps nimbly up onto the tallest root of the Mother Tree to proclaim it as loudly as possible. "Toruk Macto!"
Jared forces his mount to fold its wings, jumps to the ground and runs toward Tsu'tey, who meets him halfway, claps both hands on Jared's shoulders.
"Tsu'tey..."
But Tsu'tey isn't minded to listen just yet. "Ìla'rey! It is Toruk. You are Toruk Macto," he breathes, his expression a mixture of awe and joy. "You have fulfilled the destiny of the ancestors!"
Jensen risks interrupting. "The tribes must be united, and only Toruk Macto could do it. Jared's ancestor was Toruk Macto, and all of history is changing now, a thousand years later. It was time."
Tsu'tey rounds on him, but he's visibly uncertain. "You..."
"It was Jensen who brought me to Toruk," Jared says firmly. "Without him, I would not be Toruk Macto. We will unite the tribes, fight against the Sky People, but all together. The Omaticaya alone cannot prevail."
"Toruk Macto can't lead the tribes without the blessing of the chief," Jensen adds. "Tsu'tey, brother, will you ride with us? We will ask the other tribes to unite with us, but we will need you to lead the Omaticaya, just as the other chiefs will lead their tribes. Be the first to come with us, please!"
Tsu'tey clasps Jared's wrist just above the pulse point then turns and, after a moment's pause, clasps Jensen's as well, his grip firm and unwavering. "I will fly with you, Toruk Macto. We will bring the people to victory!"
Many years from now, Jensen will tell the story. "We rode out to the four winds," he will say. "To the horse clans of the plain, to the ikran people of the mountains. When Toruk Macto called them, they came."
It sounds much more impressive than the frantic call to war, the impassioned pleas they make to the clan leaders. But in the end, no one wants to be left behind when it's the voice of Toruk Macto, filled with the power of ancestral prophecy, that calls to them. Jared brings Jensen with him, riding aloft on the back of Toruk, but it soon becomes clear after that that they are perilously short on real, tangible intelligence that will tell them how to go after their enemy. So he does the only thing he can do, which is to regroup with Norm and Trudy at the newly-relocated base camp, and try to formulate their own plan of attack. He leaves his avatar under Jared's guard, forcing himself back into his own body if only to eat and drink and make sure that he doesn't jeopardize everything by letting himself grow too weak to maintain the link.
Their only source of intel is Max, and his latest report isn't encouraging.
His voice shakes over the comm, the fear evident in his face. "I don’t know how secure this channel is," he says, glancing over his shoulder. "I can't stay for long."
"Talk fast," Jensen urges.
"It’s crazy here, Jensen. It’s full mobilization. They’re rigging the shuttles as bombers. They’ve made up these big pallets of mine explosives for some kind of shock and awe campaign, I think. It looks like they're just going to try to flatten everything in sight."
"Fuckin’ daisycutters," Trudy mutters under her breath.
"We're screwed," Norm buries his head in his hands, even as Max hurriedly switches off the comm at the first hint of a commotion nearby.
"And I was hoping for some sort of tactical plan that didn't involve martyrdom," Trudy addresses the ceiling of the mobile outpost. "We're going up against gunships with bows and arrows. Tell me how this isn't the same as just pointing my chopper at the base and politely requesting that they shoot me out of the sky?"
Jensen grits his teeth, because he knows she's right. But they still have to try. "I have fifteen clans out there," he points out. "That's two thousand warriors. We know these mountains. We fly them. You fly them. They don't. Their instruments won't work up here, missile tracking won't work -they'll have to fire line of sight. If they bring this fight to us, then we'll have the home field advantage."
"You know he’s gonna commit those bombers straight to the Well of Souls," Trudy says.
"If he takes out the Well of Souls, it’s over. It’s their main line to Eywa, to their ancestors -it’ll destroy them," Norm adds, entirely unnecessarily.
"Then I guess we better stop them," Jensen says grimly. He gave the information to Quaritch on a platter, before he knew what it meant.
"Jensen, no offence, but you couldn't stop a lemur from licking your hand right now," Trudy says bluntly. "You just got the crap beaten out of you, and if we're honest, you weren't doing too good before that."
"So everyone keeps telling me," Jensen sighs, as though even breathing isn't an exercise in pain.
"At the very least, you need to get some rack before we try anything."
Jensen look down, clasps his hands in his lap to keep them from shaking, offers up the most shit-eating grin he can muster. "Gonna have to settle for coffee for now. I'll sleep when I'm dead."
"Yeah, that's what we're worried about."
Eventually Jensen, Jared and Tsu'tey agree to stop trying to actively bring in more of the tribes. Already the vast majority have joined in, and runners have been sent out to the more remote tribes on the off-chance that they might make it back in time. It's been days, though, and they have run out of time. There's nothing left now, no choice except to fight down to the last man and woman, to make the invaders pay for their actions as dearly as possible. Jensen's stomach is roiling, threatening to empty itself at any moment. He's been in his avatar for well over twenty-four hours now, needing to be with the other warriors as much as possible. They're looking to Jared, to Tsu'tey for guidance, and to a lesser extent to him, if only because he's the one with the most insight into the enemy's weakness. Jensen knows this much about warfare, no matter where it takes place or what race is waging war against what race: without troop morale, there's no point in waging a war at all.
He's been spending as much time as possible linked up to his avatar, only breaking contact for a few minutes a day for food and water before linking up again. He can't spare too many thoughts for his human body, lying battered and neglected in its link bed. All he can do is keep his fingers crossed that it will survive long enough for him to see this through. Keep his fingers crossed, and pray.
It's with that thought in mind that he finds himself walking down the path to the Well of Souls in the evening. He figures Quaritch and his forces won't attack until dawn -night attacks are only useful if you're planning on exploiting the element of surprise, and Quaritch knows they know he's coming. He doesn't need the element of surprise, anyway. He'll be coming in from the air and simply trying to carpet-bomb the entire area.
Before long Jensen is standing underneath the Mother Tree, staring up into the branches, the hanging tendrils undulating softly, their white glow pulsating gently in the darkness. Even like this, it's easy to imagine a presence there, though he'll be damned if he can tell what it is. He takes a breath, grabs the end of his braid before he can change his mind, kneels at the base of the tree, allows his the tendrils of his tswin to coil around those of the tree. There's a familiar jolt of sensation, a flood of emotions he can only barely keep at bay.
"I, uh," he clears his throat, "I never pray. I'm not really the type. Back home, our God, well, He's not around much. But...I figure I should talk to you. I might just be talking to a tree, but I don't think I am."
"Listen... if Grace is there with you, then you know what I'm talking about. You can look into her memories. If you can, or if you want, you can look into mine, too...you can see what humans can do, what our world looks like now. Nothing grows there anymore, because we weren't paying attention. We're not all like that, but the ones who are coming? It's going to be bad."
"You chose me for something, all those months ago. At least, that's what Jared thinks. Ila'rey. When all the atokirina floated by. So, I'm gonna honour that choice. I'm gonna stand and fight, and I'm not gonna quit, not until they cut me down. But I'm just one guy, and there are ten billion humans back where I come from. If they decided to, they could come down on this place like a never-ending rain. So I'll fight to keep them out, but I could use a little help, here. Anyway, that's it. Thanks for listening."
Jensen pushes himself to his feet, the bond severing itself automatically, and finds himself facing Jared, whose approach he never even sensed. "Oh, uh, hey. How long have you been there?"
Jared looks at him sadly. "Jensen, the Great Mother does not choose sides. Eywa protects only the balance of life. You know this. She does not want war."
Jensen shrugs. "Sometimes prayer works, back where I come from. It was worth a shot. This war... it's not going to preserve the balance of life anywhere. Too many people are going to die already for this."
Jared nods. "I know."
That's when it occurs to Jensen that maybe the reason Jared is here isn't because he followed him in. "Jared, do you want me to leave? If you want to be alone..."
But Jared shakes his head. "My mother has given me her staff..."
"What?"
"I am not ready for this burden," he says, to Jensen's surprise. "First I ride the Toruk, and now the staff... I never wanted to carry it. I never wanted to be tsahik, Jensen. My mother prepares to join Eywa, and I am alone now."
On impulse Jensen steps forward, cups the back of Jared's head with one hand and pulls until their foreheads are just barely touching. "You're not alone."
Jared's breath hitches ever so slightly. "I don't want this."
"I know," Jensen says gently. "But sometimes life really doesn't give a rat's ass about what we want."
That gets a surprised huff of laughter, and Jared presses closer to him, his breath warm on Jensen's lips. "Will you stay with me tonight?" he asks softly. "After tomorrow, there is nothing certain."
Jensen nods, can't help but wonder if, after tomorrow, there will be anything left of him either. "Of course I'll stay."
It's nothing like their first night together. Jared curls around him on the soft ground, and Jensen lets himself be pulled up snugly against Jared's broad chest, their tswin entwining seemingly of their own accord. There's no electric current of desire this time, just a lingering sweetness tinged with sorrow, the feel of Jared's skin pressed up against his own, mirrored by his skin against Jared's, until Jensen no longer knows or cares which sensation originated where. He feels himself slide a hand along Jared's waist almost before he consciously decides to do it, brushes his lips against the tender spot where Jared's jaw meets his neck, just below the ear, and is rewarded with a full-body shiver.
This time when Jared rocks against him, penetrating him with two fingers all at once, he feels as if he's known this was coming for months, or maybe years. There's no surprise, no shock, just a familiar pleasure that suffuses him, a feeling that it takes him longer than it should to recognize as happiness. He pushes back a little, reaches between them to where he's achingly hard, cock trapped against his stomach with a friction that's at once wonderful and yet not enough, only to have Jared push his hand away and replace it with his own, stroking and twisting until Jensen is writhing, gasping quietly against Jared's mouth. When he finally comes -echoing Jared's own near-simultaneous climax- it seems to last forever, like he's caught in this moment eternally, one of those insects suspended in amber. Jared makes a soft sound of contentment, moves his hands up to clasp Jensen's shoulders, keeping him drawn close into his arms.
They're still inextricably entwined in each other when Jared drifts to sleep, Jensen struggling to stay awake. Neither of them is willing to let go just yet, not until the harsh light of day brings them inexorably closer to the end of everything.
Jensen has never seen so many people amassed all at once, not even when he was caught in the peak of the action back on Earth. The style of combat back home was always to move in small units -quick to get in and out, precision work rather than massing on a large scale. This is troop movement on a scale he only knows about in theory, let alone learned how to lead. He's sort of glad that Jared is the one who is nominally in charge of all these people. Except, of course, that it's Jensen's plan of attack, and he's the one to whom, ultimately, they're going to turn to when the shit inevitably hits the fan.
Preparations begin long before dawn. The warriors each have their own rituals, each tribe their own war paint that they apply to pa'li and ikran alike, tracing elaborate patterns on hide and wing, preparing them for battle in some way that Jensen can't even begin to understand. Jared attempts to explain it to him, but his stomach is filled with butterflies, his mind buzzing with anxiety, and he only half-listens to the explanation as he tries with limited success to apply his own paint to Beidai, who tosses her head impatiently, no doubt picking up on his anxiety even though they aren't joined yet.
For a while, when the sun is still so low over the horizon that the whole forest is still bathed in the glow of pink and orange rays, Jensen allows himself the wild, desperate hope that this is all unnecessary, that by some miracle Quaritch and Selfridge will somehow have seen reason and won't bother attacking. That a message will come that they want to renegotiate terms. He climbs onto Beidai's back, pats her neck reassuringly, finds himself waiting for something, anything. A sign, maybe. Off to the side, Jared has mounted Toruk, and the great leonopteryx tosses its head in impatience, as though it wants nothing more to take to the sky, to lay waste to everything in its path. It tosses its head again, and Jensen thinks he might not be so far off in his initial assessment. Toruk is the ultimate predator, and what predator is content without prey?
They fly high into the mountains, join the wild banshees perched upon the sheer walls of the floating rocks, and wait. The world seems to hold its breath,
When the first bomb hits, a section of the forest goes up in flames, and another fireball strikes, barely twenty yards from the first. It's all the signal Jensen needs. Beidai hurls herself into the air, spreading her wings with a surge of elation. Jensen feels rather than sees Jared take flight on the Toruk's back, and with a few beats of the banshee's wings he finds himself aloft, flying to meet the fleet of ships coming toward them at top speed, followed by hundreds of banshee riders, leathery wings beating a fearsome tattoo. The fleet itself isn't that big, Jensen knows, but it's big enough. The sky before him is filled with Samson tilt-rotors, looking for all the world like armoured beetles, the same kind of ship Trudy flies on a regular basis. They're the smallest and quickest of all the ships, although they'll never beat the banshees for speed and manoeuvrability.
Leading the formation is Quaritch's Dragon. It's the largest thing in the sky, larger even than Toruk, huge and hulking, its guns bigger than some of vehicles. It's flanked by two Scorpion ships, and if Quaritch were smart, Jensen thinks, he'd be on board one of the Scorpions, using the Dragon as a distraction. But Jensen knows better. The Dragon is Quaritch's flagship, his pride and joy, and Quaritch is convinced that he's invincible. He's going to be on board that ship, Jensen can sense it, knows it like he knows his own name. The tilt-rotors are swarming in front of him, hovering and darting in and out of formation, serving as protection for the huge Valkyrie shuttles that once served to bring passengers down from orbital transport, and which are now, Jensen knows, packed to the gills with ground troops, many of them in ampsuits. The wave sweeps toward the mountains, bearing down on Jensen and the Na'vi forces like a tsunami straight out of the mouth of hell.
As much as Jensen wants to launch his forces at the threat directly, as much as he's itching to just jump in the fight and do what he does best, he forces himself to stay calm, sends a calming pulse through the bond to Beidai. He reaches up to the walkie-talkie strapped to his shoulder.
"Does everyone still read me?"
There are only five radios, and so he's given one to Jared who's leading the whole outfit, and one to Norm who's accompanying the leader of the ground troops. He and Tsu'tey have the remaining two free ones, and of course there's the radio in Trudy's Samson. There's a crackle of static, but everyone answers him, loud and clear on the channel.
"All right, let's do this!"
It's a bloodbath.
Even from the start, Jensen knew it was a long shot. They all did, and yet they all came anyway, all the Na'vi from miles around, united against a common enemy. For the first few minutes things go their way, which surprises him to no end. The banshees swarm above the human gunships, darkening the sky, and soon the air is filled with the sound of gunfire and the screaming of warriors as they sent arrows winging at the vulnerable spots of the Samsons that Jensen told them to aim for. One by one the enemy ships find themselves out of control as the glass of their cockpits shatters under the impact of massive arrows and the pilots are either impaled or suffocate in the unbreathable atmosphere.
From his vantage point Jensen can't see what's taking place on the ground, and he has to trust to Norm and the others leading the ground troops to know what they're doing, to stick to the plan. They're outgunned but not outmanned -two thousand Na'vi against less than a hundred trained mercenaries, two hundred if you count the miners who've been given arms and told to shoot anything that moves. It's the only advantage the Na'vi have, and it's not much in the face of the incendiary rounds that are ripping apart the forest below, nothing in the face of the huge bombs that Quaritch is prepared to drop, preferring to raze the entire world rather than concede a single inch of ground.
Jensen has never led troops into battle before. He's never been anywhere other than in the thick of the fighting on the ground, in quick, dirty skirmishes that took place in the pre-dawn gloom against enemies whose faces were all so similar to his that they blurred into an indistinct mass. He's never been aloft like this, never been responsible for the lives of so many, and it's easy to lose track, easy to let himself be swept along by the high of battle-fever. Beidai careens through the air, instinctively drawn to the side of Toruk, fighting in tandem with the great leonopteryx, but she has to swoop away at the last minute to avoid being rammed by a Scorpion, and Jensen loses track even of the massive form of Toruk in the confusion. He brings Bedai around, shouting at the others to regroup as he realizes that the tilt-rotors are trying to scatter them, isolate each banshee so they can be picked off one by one, then aims himself directly at the Dragon, firing arrow after arrow into the open bay doors where the soldiers are preparing the huge pallets that Max warned him about.
"Jared!" he yells into his mic. "Jared we need to split up and concentrate on the Dragon! The Dragon, Jared!"
He doesn't know if Jared hears him. There's a burst of static, then the sound of distant orders being yelled above the fray, and the banshees begin to come about, but slowly, far too slowly. Jensen fires his last arrow, snatches up the spear that he lashed loosely to Beidai's back, hurtles directly at the remaining soldiers who are scrambling to regroup themselves, to find replacements and execute their orders. He knocks one aside, dimly aware of Jared off in the distance, the great form of the Toruk taking hold of a Samson as though it were nothing more than a turtle-dove and tearing it apart with mighty jaws and talons. Tsu'tey's banshee is dead, and he's alone in the cargo bay of the Dragon, using his bow as a makeshift staff, knocking soldiers out of the ship to go falling to their doom.
Beidai shrieks and jerks under him even as he's trying for another pass, and suddenly they're falling, hurtling toward the forest canopy so fast that all Jensen can see are wisps of cloud and spray hurtling past, his mind filled with the pain and terror of his dying mount. With a desperate effort he forces her to spread her wings one last time as they crash into the tops of the first trees and tumble headlong toward the ground, their fall barely broken by the broad, strong leaves of the trees. Beidai lands hard, cushioning his fall, and he only just manages to retain his seat long enough not to fall off and break his neck. He rolls to the ground, shaken and winded, the whole world spinning as he tries to tell up from down, still bound to Bedai in the throes of death.
"Beidai..." he crawls back to her, reaches out to place a hand on her neck, feels the small surge of comfort the motion produces. "I'm so sorry... Ngari hu eywa salew tirea, tokx 'ì'awn, " he repeats the words of the hunt, even as he feels the last of her life ebb away.
The bond severs.
When Jensen staggers to his feet a few moments later, the sounds of the battle are ringing in his ears. All around there's nothing but death. The forest is burning, littered with the bodies of Na'vi and humans alike, along with the carcases of their mounts and the smouldering remains of broken-down ampsuits. Smoke coils along the ground, among the splintered and burning trees, the ground churned to a bloody slurry, the water of the streams running in crimson eddies toward the river. A direhorse canters by, its mane on fire, its whinny so shrill it's barely recognizable as belonging to a living creature. He reels, sick and disoriented, hears Trudy's voice come over the intercom.
"Rogue One is hit! I'm going in! Sorry, Jensen..."
He keys his mic, finds himself automatically requesting a report, but only Jared answers him, and the answer is curt and barely audible before disappearing in another welter of static. Jensen takes a few faltering steps, goes to his knees, eyes filling with tears. All around him, Pandora is dying, and it's all his fault. It's his fault, and nothing he does now is going to change all that. He squeezes his eyes shut, feeling as though every single part of him has turned to stone, weighing him down, pinning him to the spot.
He's so lost in his misery that he barely registers the first creatures running past him, only comes to his senses when the ground begins to tremble beneath him like an earthquake. His eyes snap open and he barely has time to hurl himself out of the way as a herd of sturmbeest thunder past, the entire forest quaking at their passage. A flock of what seems like thousands of parrots swoops by in a flurry of brilliant reds and blues and purples, shrieking and cawing. The forest is crawling with life all around him, with lemurs and stingbats springing from tree to tree, and clouds of orange and green insects come seemingly out of nowhere to swarm the remaining human troops.
"Jensen! Eywa has heard you! Eywa has heard you!"
Jensen's heart feels like it's going to explode in his chest when he hears Jared's jubilant voice ringing out clearly over the comm. Jensen lets out a whoop of triumph, even as the forest continues to burn around him. Off to the side a gunner fires from the door of a stranded Samson, only to be ripped from his position by a banshee lunging in and burying its razor-sharp teeth into his neck. Other banshees tear at the pilot’s windshield, leaving him barely enough time to scream and throw up his arms in a useless attempt to shield himself from death.
Overhead the huge Dragon ship is going down in flames, careening out of the sky, taking Quaritch down with it. Further above it, the Toruk swoops in enormous circles, following it down in a controlled spiral, screeching its victory to the skies. Jensen watches in awe as, all around, the ground troops scatter in disarray, chased down by viperwolves, trampled by sturmbeest. The animals flash past him, ignoring him completely, until he feels an ominous prickling sensation on the back of his neck. Turning slowly, he finds himself eye to eye with an enormous Thanator, newly-emerged from the smoke behind him. For a moment it's his first day in the jungle all over again, and he's nothing but an ignorant jarhead with no notion of what's in front of him. He stands frozen before the Thanator's gaze, waiting for death, until all at once the beast lowers itself to the ground, stretching out its front paws stiffly in obvious invitation, waiting.
"You've got to be kidding me," Jensen breathes, but there's no mistaking what's happening here.
A running leap has him astride the monster's back, his tswin entwining with the Thanator's, and power like he's never felt before surges through him, primal and ferocious and thirsting for blood. Before he knows it they're crashing through the smouldering jungle, knocking aside what few soldiers are left with great, sweeping strikes of the creatures massive claws. They soldiers are milling about in complete disorganization, panicked and shooting at shadows, desperate just to escape. High above Jensen's head he hears the shriek of the Toruk, knows that this isn't over, not by a long shot.
"Come on," he urges the Thanator. "Quaritch ain't the type to lie down and die that easy."
He finds the Dragon lying half-submerged in the lake where he and Jared once went swimming, the lilies ripped up by their roots by the crash, petals crushed and scattered, scarcely a hundred yards from where the mobile unit containing Jensen's human body lies. It doesn't take long before Jensen spots a figure rising from the water, riding a fully-functional ampsuit. It's Quaritch, his face visibly bloody even from Jensen's vantage point, his eyes burning with unchecked madness. He slogs out of the water, covered with mud, then strides purposefully into the forest, gaze firmly fixed on his goal-the mobile unit where Jensen and Norm's human bodies are still in their link beds, completely defenceless. They'd been painfully short of resources and left the station unguarded, hoping it might go unnoticed for the duration of the battle, but there's no mistaking that Quaritch knows exactly where he's going now.
Jensen catches up with him just as he reaches the clearing where the units have been hidden for the past few days. His only hope now is to distract the Colonel from his objective, to keep him away from those units at all costs until help can come for it. Already he can hear Jared's voice coming over the comms, promising that he's on his way.
"It's over, Quaritch!" he yells, as the Toruk's cries grow closer, although it's still much too far to be of any good to him now.
"Nothing’s over while I’m breathing!"
Quaritch hasn't so much as bothered to turn toward him, intent on destroying the outpost before Jensen can get to it, but he hasn't banked on just how strong and fast the Thanator really is. The great cat clears the distance in a single bound, knocking the ampsuit several yards to the side, although Quaritch's incredible control of the machine prevents it from toppling over. For a few seconds Jensen thinks he might actually gain the upper hand, the Thanator's claws tearing at the suit and opening fissures in the canopy -right until Quaritch pulls the trigger on his GAU-90, and Jensen feels the animal buckle beneath him, its life bleeding into the wet ground even before it has time to fall completely.
He manages to twist free before he gets trapped beneath the great corpse, barely manages to roll away before the ampsuit's huge arm comes crashing down right where he lay a moment ago in an attempt to crush him. The canopy is cracked beyond repair, but Quaritch has already ejected it, donning a re-breather mask instead, the better to fight with his opponent. Distantly Jensen is aware of someone shouting his name -Jared, he thinks, but there's no time to dwell on it now. Quaritch reaches down again, and he parries the great arm with the splintered remains of a piece of the suit that the Thanator ripped free during its initial attack. Quaritch redoubles his attacks, driving Jensen back inexorably, until finally a lucky blow sends Jensen tumbling head over heels to land several dozen yards away, winded and helpless. Instead of coming after him to deliver the coup de grace, though, Quaritch carefully steps back toward the mobile unit, and under Jensen's horrified stare, deftly rips a gaping hole in the roof. He brings the great arm of his ampsuit crashing down into the unprotected insides, and Jensen feels himself falling.
A moment later Jensen is back in his original body, pain slamming into him from all sides. He chokes, tries to pull in a breath, but the air is already beginning to burn in his lungs. He shoves weakly at the splintered lid of the link bed, destroyed by Quaritch's last attack, finds himself staring up into the smoky sky. For a few terrible seconds that feel like years he can't find the strength to free himself from the confines of the link, scrabbling helplessly to even get so far as to turn over. The emergency exopack is hanging on the wall less than ten feet away, but it may as well be ten miles for all the good it does him. Finally he manages to hook a hand over the side of the link bed and pulls himself free. He collapses in a heap on the floor, his back shrieking in agony as he tries to pull himself along. He inches forward, lungs on fire as he tries to hold his breath, reaching out with one hand until the tips of his fingers brush against the hose. He yanks on it, but it doesn't come loose, and the effort of trying again proves too much. He falls back to the floor, mouth opening and closing fruitlessly, and when the darkness closes in he thinks with some bemusement that dying feels nothing like how he thought it would.
For a while there is nothing at all, and then he opens his eyes again, finds himself staring up at the foggy interior of a re-breather mask, Jared's worried face staring down at him.
"Jensen, Jensen can you breathe?"
He's not sure anymore, but he tries to nod. He can taste blood in his mouth, wonders just how badly all of this has screwed him up, but at least he's not going to die. He's cradled in Jared's lap, safe enough for now, it seems. Above Jared's head the sky is still filled with smoke, with the silhouettes of hundreds of banshees circling. He mouths 'Quaritch?' at Jared, who shakes his head.
"He is dead. We have won, Jensen."
"Good," his voice is strangled, strange to his own ears. He swallows a mouthful of his own blood, wonders if maybe he wasn't premature in thinking he wasn't going to die, after all. "Glad...I got to see you again."
"I am glad, too. We will get you help, Jensen. You can't die now."
"Not so bad," he tries to reassure him. "Can't live in two worlds anyway. Not real..."
To his surprise, Jared bends and presses a kiss to the plastic of his re-breather mask. "You are real to me, Jensen Ackles."
Jensen opens his mouth, finds he can't draw enough breath to speak again, smiles instead, and is rewarded with a smile in return from Jared.
"I see you."
Epilogue
Part IVa
"This is a bad plan, Jensen. You betrayed the Omaticaya, what makes you think they're going to help us with this?" Norm is running diagnostics on the nearest available link bed even as he complains, punching at buttons as quickly as he can manage, his face a mask of calm and efficiency even though Jensen knows he must be feeling as panicked and disoriented as the rest of them. Thank God for people calm under pressure, he thinks, shifting painfully on his wheelchair. "And no offence, but you look like utter shit. You looked like shit before, and now you look like shit that's been worked over by a bunch of really aggressive marines."
"Yeah, I'm aware," he rolls his eyes. "But it's the only plan we've got. Trudy, you think you can move these units to a different location? Quaritch knows where they are, he'll aim a missile right at us first chance he gets."
"No problem. I can take them into the forest, hide them away at least for a little while. Can't promise you won't get motion-sick, though."
Norm doesn't let himself get derailed that easily, though. "I'm not kidding, Jensen. What if you have another seizure in there? God only knows how all this is going to translate in the link."
"I have to try," Jensen shrugs. "Give me a second," he says, wheeling himself through the narrow passageway to the infirmary, where Grace is lying on the only bed, looking pale and drawn under the oxygen mask strapped to her face. He can see the plastic fogging up every time she breathes, far too infrequently for his liking. He doesn't want to think about what he'll do if the Omaticaya refuse to help after all. He doesn't think they will -the People aren't needlessly cruel, and Grace has always been their ally, even when they haven't agreed with her- but he's not willing to take the risk, not now after everything. For all he knows Tsu'tey has taken over the tribe already, and he's angry, rightfully so, and there's no telling what he might do if Jared isn't there to rein in his temper.
Jensen comes as close as he can to her bed, smoothes a hand over her head. She looks small like this, diminished. Fragile, even. It never occurred to him before today that she might die. "Grace, I need you to hang on for me, okay? I'm going to get help. Norm's going to take care of you until I get back. You stick with him and Trudy, and we'll get you fixed up, okay?"
She doesn't answer, her breathing loud and agonized even under the mask, but her gaze goes to him and he can tell she's understood. There's no time left to waste. He wheels back to where Norm has finished setting up the link bed. Jensen tries to pull himself up onto the bed, and to his embarrassment finds himself folding in half instead when the pain from his ribs threatens to rip him in half.
"Come on," Norm says, and Jensen kind of wants to hit him for using such a gentle tone, like he's suddenly turned into porcelain that might shatter at any moment. Norm hoists him up by his armpits, ignores his muted groan of pain, and briskly arranges his arms and legs form him, but his expression is twisted with worry and disapproval. "Jensen, I don't know if you're up for this -physically, I mean. Look, the last time you went in without being in good shape it just about killed you, and―"
"No choice, Spellman," Jensen interrupts. "Just get on with it."
"It's your funeral. Okay, you ready?"
He forces a grin. "Born ready," he manages, and lets himself fall.
Home Tree is burning.
He wakes up under a bush, his body stiff and a little cramped from being casually dumped there, and the first thing his sees is flame and smoke, rising in a column into the sky above the forest canopy. It's just like in his dreams, he realizes, a cold lump forming in his stomach, and he scrambles to his feet, swallowing the bile that keeps trying to rise in his throat at the sight of what he's come to think of as his home going up in flames. There's no going back, not to the human base, and now it seems like there's nowhere to go to, either. He swallows, eyes stinging, feels anger coiling inside him, replacing the cold, dark feeling from before. God damn them all, he thinks, they're not going to get away with this. Not while he still draws breath.
Jensen takes off at a run faster than he's ever managed before, even when he was sprinting to warn the Omaticaya of the impending human invasion, clearing small streams and underbrush in leaps and bounds that on any other day would have made Jared proud.
Jared, God.
He has no idea what he's going to say to any of them, no idea how he's going to ask for help after everything that's been done to them. Home Tree is all but gone, its branches set alight by Quaritch's flamethrowers, its roots torn up, its trunk split and burnt. The Na'vi are no longer there, driven away into the forest in the wake of the destructive fire, but they haven't gone far. The Vitraya Ramunong, for all that it's their spiritual dwelling-place, is also extraordinarily well-protected. It's the one small blessing in all of this, that even Jensen hadn't been able to tell just how sheltered it was by huge rocky formations on three sides, making it accessible only by one path.
He finds the Omaticaya gathered in a large clearing not far from the Mother Tree, the huge boughs of the willow brushing against the ground, a strange echo of the sadness and despair he can see in all of the people.
"Jared!" he yells, spotting him standing a good head above most of the other Na'vi. "Jared!"
A shocked murmur goes through the crowd of remaining Na'vi, but they part when Jared turns and hurries toward him. Jensen braces for his reaction, is at once relieved and disappointed when Jared stops just short of him, his face like stone.
"You are back."
"I came back as soon as I could. We escaped from the base, we're setting up camp in the mobile units, trying to stay under the military radar. I saw what happened to Home Tree...Jared, I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry, I know you can't forgive me, I wouldn't forgive me either..."
"You bring news of the Sky People's attack?" Jared interrupts. His expression has changed, but Jensen still can't read it, wonders if hope is making him read something that isn't there.
"Not exactly. I have information too, but I need your help, Jared. One last time. It's not for me," he says, forestalling the protest he can see forming on Jared's lips. "It's Grace. We escaped, but she got shot. I know I have no right to ask this of you, but...can you help her?"
Jared purses his lips, looks back to where his mother is sitting at the foot of the Mother Tree, in a cross-legged pose of meditation. "I can't help, but perhaps the tsahik can."
It's still the middle of the night by the time Jensen is able to fetch Grace back from where Trudy has moved the mobile outpost. He wastes no time, scooping her up into his arms as easily as if she was a rag doll, explaining the decision in a few curt sentences. Her head lolls against his arm, but she's still alive, still conscious even. Norm is already protesting their decision, but half-heartedly, as though he knows there's no other option for them, not if they want Grace to live out here where there is little by way of human medicine, and where it's the Na'vi way that holds sway. He's already linked to his avatar, further proof that his arguments are pro forma rather than truly sincere.
"Grace, are you sure this is what you want?" he asks, jogging at their side, trying to keep up with Jensen. They left Trudy behind to monitor their vital signs, although Jensen figures that that's a luxury they won't be able to afford for very long. Soon, they'll have to fend for themselves and just hope for the best. "You won't be able to go back after this. You'll be stuck here forever!"
"It's not nearly as awful as you're making it sound," Jensen pants, beginning to tire in spite of himself. He's been running on no sleep and little food and pure adrenaline in this form since the day before yesterday, and even if this body is far from weak, it still can't run on fumes forever.
"Easy for you to say," Norm snaps at him. "You're not the one making a permanent change here."
Grace laughs breathlessly. "Hen," she accuses Norm. "I'll be fine." She doesn't have the strength to do much more than that, until they arrive at the clearing and are greeted by Mo'at, standing at the end of the path that leads into the Well of Souls.
"I see you, Jensen," she greets him, "and I see you, Dok-tor Grace. You have been told of what lies ahead?"
Grace nods. "Yes."
"You see and you understand what it is we will do? You will become one body, where before you had two. No more will you walk with us only in dreams, but in life as well. You will learn to become one of the People. Your cup has been full for many years. Do you consent, now, to empty it?"
"Yes," Grace says simply, and that seems good enough to Mo'at, who motions to Jensen to follow her.
He moves carefully along the path, through the grove of willows, is surprised when Grace speaks again. "It's so beautiful," she murmurs. "I should take samples..."
He huffs a laugh. "Why don't we wait a little bit for that, okay? Right now we're kind of worrying about making you better first."
Two of the Na'vi who came with them lay Grace's avatar at the foot of the Mother tree, curled up in a foetal position, stripped naked -maybe as a symbol of new life, Jensen isn't sure. At Mo'at's direction he lays Grace down facing it, making sure her mask is still firmly secured, then steps back as Mo'at and Jared begin to work feverishly to prepare both bodies for whatever it is they're about to do. Jensen is sketchy on the details of what this transfer is going to entail, but he's had enough talks with Grace to realize that the Mother Tree can act like a sort of conduit of information, so if anything can preserve Grace's mind and spirit inside another body, he figures it's this.
Jared and Mo'at each dip their fingers into bowls of pigment, tracing elaborate patterns quickly and efficiently over the two prone forms. Jensen watches Jared at work, sees him glance repeatedly at what his mother is doing, maybe to see if she's all right, maybe just to double-check his own work, it's difficult to tell, and Jensen doesn't want to disrupt their concentration. Finally they both step back, and Mo'at approaches him.
"The Great Mother may choose to save all that she is, in this body."
"So it is possible?" He still can't quite believe it, even after all this time.
"Possible, yes. She must pass through the eye of Eywa. But, Jensen, she is very weak. It is possible that the Great Mother will choose to bring her spirit home to rest, to give her life back to the forest. Do you understand?"
"I understand," Jensen says, even though he doesn't quite believe it. Grace is indestructible. What force in its right mind would ever dare try to rob her of life? To his surprise, Jared comes to stand next to him, and the soft smile he directs at him almost makes Jensen burst into tears on the spot. Slowly, tentatively, he lets one hand creep toward Jared, feels his heart swell to what feels like five times its normal size when Jared reaches out to grasp it firmly, squeezes it once before letting go again in order to tend to Grace. This, he thinks, is all the forgiveness he's likely to get, but it's enough.
He stands back as Mo'at begins a long, ululating chant. All around him he can see the Na'vi gathering close, linking arms and hands together, swaying to the rhythm of the chant. Then, slowly, tiny white root-cilia appear from the ground all around Grace and her avatar, off-shoots from the Mother Tree. They undulate and grow, longer and longer until both of the bodies are almost entirely covered, like a shroud, fused to the root floor by a thousand connections. The cilia entwine with the avatar's tswin and begin to pulse and glow in the darkness, radiating white energy as the chant grows louder.
Grace is stirring a little, her eyes open and staring at something that Jensen can't see. She grips reflexively at his hand when he works up the nerve to go kneel by her side. If she's dying, he tells himself, then she shouldn't be allowed to die alone.
"She's real, Jensen," she murmurs. "I can see all of it...she's real..."
Her eyes close then, breath expelling itself in a quiet sigh. Jensen strokes her face. "Grace?" he whispers, but he can tell she's gone from this body.
He looks over to where Grace's avatar is still curled on its side, watched over by Mo'at. The tsahik looks up at him, shakes her head. "I am sorry, Jensen. She is with Eywa now."
Jensen swallows the lump in his throat, nods, even as he feels Jared's hands on his shoulders, strong and comforting. There'll be time for mourning later, but right now there's a war to be fought.
Jensen spends a sleepless night trying to think through this mess he's gotten them all into, with memories of Grace intruding on everything else, making his thoughts spin in unproductive circles. Then, just when the night was at its darkest, he drifted into an uneasy sleep that was filled with the same dreams as before, the great black shadow drifting along the ruined ground, and that's when he remembers the Toruk. The way Jensen sees it, Toruk is the baddest cat in the sky-just like Trudy said. It's death from above, death to anything in its path. Nothing can stand before it. So it follows that Toruk never expects anything to come at it from above.
Jared laughs incredulously when he tells him his plan.
"You are insane!"
"Crazy like a fox," Jensen grins, his heart already speeding up just at the thought of what he has in mind. "Jared, we have to do this, it's the only way. The Omaticaya alone can't hope to defeat all those ships, but with the other tribes on our side, we can do this. I know we can. It has to be you, Jared."
"No," Jared shakes his head. "What you are saying cannot be done. No one has ridden Toruk in a thousand years."
"But it was your ancestor," Jensen insists. "This is in your blood, it's your destiny. I dreamed this, Jared. I didn't know what I was seeing before, but I know it now. I dreamed of flying and fire, and I saw Toruk in my dreams. You can't ignore this."
Jared snorts, but Jensen can see he's won him over already. "Eywa gave a sign about you."
"The atokirina, I remember. So Eywa trusts me, right? What about you? Give me a chance, here. I know I'm right about this. You're the best flier of the Omaticaya, your ancestor was Toruk Macto. You can't ignore this," he repeats. "It's destiny, Jared."
"You are insane," Jared repeats, but this time the corners of his mouth lift into a smile.
"That settles it, then. Let's go!"
And then they're both aloft on their banshees, sailing up into the clear blue sky of Pandora.
Jensen leads the way, sensing Jared's hesitation. This way, at least, he knows Jared will follow him, and he's pretty sure that once they're in position, Jared won't hesitate. This is his destiny, it's been in his blood for generations, calling to be let out again. Toruk doesn't always hunt along the same paths -all the creatures learn to avoid the places where it goes, so it has to change up its routine in order not to starve- but it's so enormous that it's impossible to miss even so. Jared's right, Jensen thinks with a giddy laugh -he's got to be insane for thinking this is ever going to work, but then again, he's pretty sure all the last-ditch attempts at saving the day over the years have been insane. They've been remembered, whether they worked or not. The Light Brigade, the Battle of the Schism, the Alamo...
He spurs Beidai to greater and greater heights, can feel the ikran's heart pounding with fear and exertion as he takes them further up than any rider has ever dared to go. Jared is an indistinct blur to his left, but Zeizei is taking him up as well, ever higher, until the air turns thin and the ground becomes nothing but a great patchwork of colours below them.
"There!" Jensen shouts suddenly, pointing at a patch of scarlet several dozen yards below them. Up hear he can barely make himself heard above the whistling of the wind, but Jared sees his gesture, yells back something that sounds like agreement, his words snatched away by the wind.
There's no time for hesitation now, no room for mistakes. Jensen brings Beidai around in a great arc, aims her almost directly at the Toruk's back. His trajectory will take him just past the leonopteryx, but if they've timed this properly, then Jared will land directly astride its back. At this stage, Jensen's presence is a formality. He's here only if Jared should happen to miss his landing, if he falls, but if that happens then they're both dead anyway. They're too far from the tree line to escape if the Toruk gives chase, and give chase it will, Jensen is sure of it.
All these thoughts flit through his mind in a split-second as he hurtles through the air. There's a loud whoop of defiance from Jared, and suddenly the air is filled with a screech that seems to echo off all the mountains of Pandora. Jensen is aware of a great beating of yellow and crimson wings, of Beidai banking sharply to avoid being caught in the backwash from the Toruk's struggles, and he brings her around again, trying to see whether or not Jared is still astride the great beast.
There's another shout, and Jensen finds himself uttering an answering whoop of triumph as the Toruk's wild thrashing ceases almost immediately and it levels out above him, the great wingspan blocking out the light of the sun and casting a flickering shadow on the ground below. Jared is standing on its back, his tswin firmly entwined with its antenna, holding on with the tips of the fingers of one hand, the Toruk inescapably under his dominion. Jensen pumps a fist into the air.
"Toruk Macto!"
Jared swoops ahead of him and it's all he can do to keep up on his banshee, until all he can see ahead of him is the enormous silhouette of the Toruk, ridden by its master and framed by the smouldering ruins of the forest leading to what is left of Home Tree. Zeizei has already banked to soar away over the treetops back toward the eyrie, and for a moment Jensen feels a pang of sorrow for her -she and Jared won't be riding together until the battle is won and Toruk is set free to roam the skies again, which might very well be never. There was no choice, though, none at all. Jensen falters a little, feels Beidai hesitate under him, forces himself to focus. This is it, he realizes, it's everything he dreamed about: the dreams of flying, the nightmares of fire and destruction. He's seen all of this before, and he has no way of knowing whether or not it's for good or ill.
Jared, unaware of the turmoil in his mind, is setting a gruelling pace for them, taking them back toward the Omaticaya, and Jensen puts on another burst of speed. There's no way of communicating any of this to Jared now, and anyway, he reasons, it would serve no good purpose. They can deal with this later, if there even is a later.
Shrieks of terror greet their arrival, and the tribe begins to scatter even as Jensen lands first and scrambles to the ground, yelling as loudly as he can. "Stay where you are! Stay! There is no danger! No danger!" he repeats, shouting at the top of his lungs, another cry goes up.
"Toruk Macto!"
It's Tsu'tey who realizes it first, who leaps nimbly up onto the tallest root of the Mother Tree to proclaim it as loudly as possible. "Toruk Macto!"
Jared forces his mount to fold its wings, jumps to the ground and runs toward Tsu'tey, who meets him halfway, claps both hands on Jared's shoulders.
"Tsu'tey..."
But Tsu'tey isn't minded to listen just yet. "Ìla'rey! It is Toruk. You are Toruk Macto," he breathes, his expression a mixture of awe and joy. "You have fulfilled the destiny of the ancestors!"
Jensen risks interrupting. "The tribes must be united, and only Toruk Macto could do it. Jared's ancestor was Toruk Macto, and all of history is changing now, a thousand years later. It was time."
Tsu'tey rounds on him, but he's visibly uncertain. "You..."
"It was Jensen who brought me to Toruk," Jared says firmly. "Without him, I would not be Toruk Macto. We will unite the tribes, fight against the Sky People, but all together. The Omaticaya alone cannot prevail."
"Toruk Macto can't lead the tribes without the blessing of the chief," Jensen adds. "Tsu'tey, brother, will you ride with us? We will ask the other tribes to unite with us, but we will need you to lead the Omaticaya, just as the other chiefs will lead their tribes. Be the first to come with us, please!"
Tsu'tey clasps Jared's wrist just above the pulse point then turns and, after a moment's pause, clasps Jensen's as well, his grip firm and unwavering. "I will fly with you, Toruk Macto. We will bring the people to victory!"
Many years from now, Jensen will tell the story. "We rode out to the four winds," he will say. "To the horse clans of the plain, to the ikran people of the mountains. When Toruk Macto called them, they came."
It sounds much more impressive than the frantic call to war, the impassioned pleas they make to the clan leaders. But in the end, no one wants to be left behind when it's the voice of Toruk Macto, filled with the power of ancestral prophecy, that calls to them. Jared brings Jensen with him, riding aloft on the back of Toruk, but it soon becomes clear after that that they are perilously short on real, tangible intelligence that will tell them how to go after their enemy. So he does the only thing he can do, which is to regroup with Norm and Trudy at the newly-relocated base camp, and try to formulate their own plan of attack. He leaves his avatar under Jared's guard, forcing himself back into his own body if only to eat and drink and make sure that he doesn't jeopardize everything by letting himself grow too weak to maintain the link.
Their only source of intel is Max, and his latest report isn't encouraging.
His voice shakes over the comm, the fear evident in his face. "I don’t know how secure this channel is," he says, glancing over his shoulder. "I can't stay for long."
"Talk fast," Jensen urges.
"It’s crazy here, Jensen. It’s full mobilization. They’re rigging the shuttles as bombers. They’ve made up these big pallets of mine explosives for some kind of shock and awe campaign, I think. It looks like they're just going to try to flatten everything in sight."
"Fuckin’ daisycutters," Trudy mutters under her breath.
"We're screwed," Norm buries his head in his hands, even as Max hurriedly switches off the comm at the first hint of a commotion nearby.
"And I was hoping for some sort of tactical plan that didn't involve martyrdom," Trudy addresses the ceiling of the mobile outpost. "We're going up against gunships with bows and arrows. Tell me how this isn't the same as just pointing my chopper at the base and politely requesting that they shoot me out of the sky?"
Jensen grits his teeth, because he knows she's right. But they still have to try. "I have fifteen clans out there," he points out. "That's two thousand warriors. We know these mountains. We fly them. You fly them. They don't. Their instruments won't work up here, missile tracking won't work -they'll have to fire line of sight. If they bring this fight to us, then we'll have the home field advantage."
"You know he’s gonna commit those bombers straight to the Well of Souls," Trudy says.
"If he takes out the Well of Souls, it’s over. It’s their main line to Eywa, to their ancestors -it’ll destroy them," Norm adds, entirely unnecessarily.
"Then I guess we better stop them," Jensen says grimly. He gave the information to Quaritch on a platter, before he knew what it meant.
"Jensen, no offence, but you couldn't stop a lemur from licking your hand right now," Trudy says bluntly. "You just got the crap beaten out of you, and if we're honest, you weren't doing too good before that."
"So everyone keeps telling me," Jensen sighs, as though even breathing isn't an exercise in pain.
"At the very least, you need to get some rack before we try anything."
Jensen look down, clasps his hands in his lap to keep them from shaking, offers up the most shit-eating grin he can muster. "Gonna have to settle for coffee for now. I'll sleep when I'm dead."
"Yeah, that's what we're worried about."
Eventually Jensen, Jared and Tsu'tey agree to stop trying to actively bring in more of the tribes. Already the vast majority have joined in, and runners have been sent out to the more remote tribes on the off-chance that they might make it back in time. It's been days, though, and they have run out of time. There's nothing left now, no choice except to fight down to the last man and woman, to make the invaders pay for their actions as dearly as possible. Jensen's stomach is roiling, threatening to empty itself at any moment. He's been in his avatar for well over twenty-four hours now, needing to be with the other warriors as much as possible. They're looking to Jared, to Tsu'tey for guidance, and to a lesser extent to him, if only because he's the one with the most insight into the enemy's weakness. Jensen knows this much about warfare, no matter where it takes place or what race is waging war against what race: without troop morale, there's no point in waging a war at all.
He's been spending as much time as possible linked up to his avatar, only breaking contact for a few minutes a day for food and water before linking up again. He can't spare too many thoughts for his human body, lying battered and neglected in its link bed. All he can do is keep his fingers crossed that it will survive long enough for him to see this through. Keep his fingers crossed, and pray.
It's with that thought in mind that he finds himself walking down the path to the Well of Souls in the evening. He figures Quaritch and his forces won't attack until dawn -night attacks are only useful if you're planning on exploiting the element of surprise, and Quaritch knows they know he's coming. He doesn't need the element of surprise, anyway. He'll be coming in from the air and simply trying to carpet-bomb the entire area.
Before long Jensen is standing underneath the Mother Tree, staring up into the branches, the hanging tendrils undulating softly, their white glow pulsating gently in the darkness. Even like this, it's easy to imagine a presence there, though he'll be damned if he can tell what it is. He takes a breath, grabs the end of his braid before he can change his mind, kneels at the base of the tree, allows his the tendrils of his tswin to coil around those of the tree. There's a familiar jolt of sensation, a flood of emotions he can only barely keep at bay.
"I, uh," he clears his throat, "I never pray. I'm not really the type. Back home, our God, well, He's not around much. But...I figure I should talk to you. I might just be talking to a tree, but I don't think I am."
"Listen... if Grace is there with you, then you know what I'm talking about. You can look into her memories. If you can, or if you want, you can look into mine, too...you can see what humans can do, what our world looks like now. Nothing grows there anymore, because we weren't paying attention. We're not all like that, but the ones who are coming? It's going to be bad."
"You chose me for something, all those months ago. At least, that's what Jared thinks. Ila'rey. When all the atokirina floated by. So, I'm gonna honour that choice. I'm gonna stand and fight, and I'm not gonna quit, not until they cut me down. But I'm just one guy, and there are ten billion humans back where I come from. If they decided to, they could come down on this place like a never-ending rain. So I'll fight to keep them out, but I could use a little help, here. Anyway, that's it. Thanks for listening."
Jensen pushes himself to his feet, the bond severing itself automatically, and finds himself facing Jared, whose approach he never even sensed. "Oh, uh, hey. How long have you been there?"
Jared looks at him sadly. "Jensen, the Great Mother does not choose sides. Eywa protects only the balance of life. You know this. She does not want war."
Jensen shrugs. "Sometimes prayer works, back where I come from. It was worth a shot. This war... it's not going to preserve the balance of life anywhere. Too many people are going to die already for this."
Jared nods. "I know."
That's when it occurs to Jensen that maybe the reason Jared is here isn't because he followed him in. "Jared, do you want me to leave? If you want to be alone..."
But Jared shakes his head. "My mother has given me her staff..."
"What?"
"I am not ready for this burden," he says, to Jensen's surprise. "First I ride the Toruk, and now the staff... I never wanted to carry it. I never wanted to be tsahik, Jensen. My mother prepares to join Eywa, and I am alone now."
On impulse Jensen steps forward, cups the back of Jared's head with one hand and pulls until their foreheads are just barely touching. "You're not alone."
Jared's breath hitches ever so slightly. "I don't want this."
"I know," Jensen says gently. "But sometimes life really doesn't give a rat's ass about what we want."
That gets a surprised huff of laughter, and Jared presses closer to him, his breath warm on Jensen's lips. "Will you stay with me tonight?" he asks softly. "After tomorrow, there is nothing certain."
Jensen nods, can't help but wonder if, after tomorrow, there will be anything left of him either. "Of course I'll stay."
It's nothing like their first night together. Jared curls around him on the soft ground, and Jensen lets himself be pulled up snugly against Jared's broad chest, their tswin entwining seemingly of their own accord. There's no electric current of desire this time, just a lingering sweetness tinged with sorrow, the feel of Jared's skin pressed up against his own, mirrored by his skin against Jared's, until Jensen no longer knows or cares which sensation originated where. He feels himself slide a hand along Jared's waist almost before he consciously decides to do it, brushes his lips against the tender spot where Jared's jaw meets his neck, just below the ear, and is rewarded with a full-body shiver.
This time when Jared rocks against him, penetrating him with two fingers all at once, he feels as if he's known this was coming for months, or maybe years. There's no surprise, no shock, just a familiar pleasure that suffuses him, a feeling that it takes him longer than it should to recognize as happiness. He pushes back a little, reaches between them to where he's achingly hard, cock trapped against his stomach with a friction that's at once wonderful and yet not enough, only to have Jared push his hand away and replace it with his own, stroking and twisting until Jensen is writhing, gasping quietly against Jared's mouth. When he finally comes -echoing Jared's own near-simultaneous climax- it seems to last forever, like he's caught in this moment eternally, one of those insects suspended in amber. Jared makes a soft sound of contentment, moves his hands up to clasp Jensen's shoulders, keeping him drawn close into his arms.
They're still inextricably entwined in each other when Jared drifts to sleep, Jensen struggling to stay awake. Neither of them is willing to let go just yet, not until the harsh light of day brings them inexorably closer to the end of everything.
Jensen has never seen so many people amassed all at once, not even when he was caught in the peak of the action back on Earth. The style of combat back home was always to move in small units -quick to get in and out, precision work rather than massing on a large scale. This is troop movement on a scale he only knows about in theory, let alone learned how to lead. He's sort of glad that Jared is the one who is nominally in charge of all these people. Except, of course, that it's Jensen's plan of attack, and he's the one to whom, ultimately, they're going to turn to when the shit inevitably hits the fan.
Preparations begin long before dawn. The warriors each have their own rituals, each tribe their own war paint that they apply to pa'li and ikran alike, tracing elaborate patterns on hide and wing, preparing them for battle in some way that Jensen can't even begin to understand. Jared attempts to explain it to him, but his stomach is filled with butterflies, his mind buzzing with anxiety, and he only half-listens to the explanation as he tries with limited success to apply his own paint to Beidai, who tosses her head impatiently, no doubt picking up on his anxiety even though they aren't joined yet.
For a while, when the sun is still so low over the horizon that the whole forest is still bathed in the glow of pink and orange rays, Jensen allows himself the wild, desperate hope that this is all unnecessary, that by some miracle Quaritch and Selfridge will somehow have seen reason and won't bother attacking. That a message will come that they want to renegotiate terms. He climbs onto Beidai's back, pats her neck reassuringly, finds himself waiting for something, anything. A sign, maybe. Off to the side, Jared has mounted Toruk, and the great leonopteryx tosses its head in impatience, as though it wants nothing more to take to the sky, to lay waste to everything in its path. It tosses its head again, and Jensen thinks he might not be so far off in his initial assessment. Toruk is the ultimate predator, and what predator is content without prey?
They fly high into the mountains, join the wild banshees perched upon the sheer walls of the floating rocks, and wait. The world seems to hold its breath,
When the first bomb hits, a section of the forest goes up in flames, and another fireball strikes, barely twenty yards from the first. It's all the signal Jensen needs. Beidai hurls herself into the air, spreading her wings with a surge of elation. Jensen feels rather than sees Jared take flight on the Toruk's back, and with a few beats of the banshee's wings he finds himself aloft, flying to meet the fleet of ships coming toward them at top speed, followed by hundreds of banshee riders, leathery wings beating a fearsome tattoo. The fleet itself isn't that big, Jensen knows, but it's big enough. The sky before him is filled with Samson tilt-rotors, looking for all the world like armoured beetles, the same kind of ship Trudy flies on a regular basis. They're the smallest and quickest of all the ships, although they'll never beat the banshees for speed and manoeuvrability.
Leading the formation is Quaritch's Dragon. It's the largest thing in the sky, larger even than Toruk, huge and hulking, its guns bigger than some of vehicles. It's flanked by two Scorpion ships, and if Quaritch were smart, Jensen thinks, he'd be on board one of the Scorpions, using the Dragon as a distraction. But Jensen knows better. The Dragon is Quaritch's flagship, his pride and joy, and Quaritch is convinced that he's invincible. He's going to be on board that ship, Jensen can sense it, knows it like he knows his own name. The tilt-rotors are swarming in front of him, hovering and darting in and out of formation, serving as protection for the huge Valkyrie shuttles that once served to bring passengers down from orbital transport, and which are now, Jensen knows, packed to the gills with ground troops, many of them in ampsuits. The wave sweeps toward the mountains, bearing down on Jensen and the Na'vi forces like a tsunami straight out of the mouth of hell.
As much as Jensen wants to launch his forces at the threat directly, as much as he's itching to just jump in the fight and do what he does best, he forces himself to stay calm, sends a calming pulse through the bond to Beidai. He reaches up to the walkie-talkie strapped to his shoulder.
"Does everyone still read me?"
There are only five radios, and so he's given one to Jared who's leading the whole outfit, and one to Norm who's accompanying the leader of the ground troops. He and Tsu'tey have the remaining two free ones, and of course there's the radio in Trudy's Samson. There's a crackle of static, but everyone answers him, loud and clear on the channel.
"All right, let's do this!"
It's a bloodbath.
Even from the start, Jensen knew it was a long shot. They all did, and yet they all came anyway, all the Na'vi from miles around, united against a common enemy. For the first few minutes things go their way, which surprises him to no end. The banshees swarm above the human gunships, darkening the sky, and soon the air is filled with the sound of gunfire and the screaming of warriors as they sent arrows winging at the vulnerable spots of the Samsons that Jensen told them to aim for. One by one the enemy ships find themselves out of control as the glass of their cockpits shatters under the impact of massive arrows and the pilots are either impaled or suffocate in the unbreathable atmosphere.
From his vantage point Jensen can't see what's taking place on the ground, and he has to trust to Norm and the others leading the ground troops to know what they're doing, to stick to the plan. They're outgunned but not outmanned -two thousand Na'vi against less than a hundred trained mercenaries, two hundred if you count the miners who've been given arms and told to shoot anything that moves. It's the only advantage the Na'vi have, and it's not much in the face of the incendiary rounds that are ripping apart the forest below, nothing in the face of the huge bombs that Quaritch is prepared to drop, preferring to raze the entire world rather than concede a single inch of ground.
Jensen has never led troops into battle before. He's never been anywhere other than in the thick of the fighting on the ground, in quick, dirty skirmishes that took place in the pre-dawn gloom against enemies whose faces were all so similar to his that they blurred into an indistinct mass. He's never been aloft like this, never been responsible for the lives of so many, and it's easy to lose track, easy to let himself be swept along by the high of battle-fever. Beidai careens through the air, instinctively drawn to the side of Toruk, fighting in tandem with the great leonopteryx, but she has to swoop away at the last minute to avoid being rammed by a Scorpion, and Jensen loses track even of the massive form of Toruk in the confusion. He brings Bedai around, shouting at the others to regroup as he realizes that the tilt-rotors are trying to scatter them, isolate each banshee so they can be picked off one by one, then aims himself directly at the Dragon, firing arrow after arrow into the open bay doors where the soldiers are preparing the huge pallets that Max warned him about.
"Jared!" he yells into his mic. "Jared we need to split up and concentrate on the Dragon! The Dragon, Jared!"
He doesn't know if Jared hears him. There's a burst of static, then the sound of distant orders being yelled above the fray, and the banshees begin to come about, but slowly, far too slowly. Jensen fires his last arrow, snatches up the spear that he lashed loosely to Beidai's back, hurtles directly at the remaining soldiers who are scrambling to regroup themselves, to find replacements and execute their orders. He knocks one aside, dimly aware of Jared off in the distance, the great form of the Toruk taking hold of a Samson as though it were nothing more than a turtle-dove and tearing it apart with mighty jaws and talons. Tsu'tey's banshee is dead, and he's alone in the cargo bay of the Dragon, using his bow as a makeshift staff, knocking soldiers out of the ship to go falling to their doom.
Beidai shrieks and jerks under him even as he's trying for another pass, and suddenly they're falling, hurtling toward the forest canopy so fast that all Jensen can see are wisps of cloud and spray hurtling past, his mind filled with the pain and terror of his dying mount. With a desperate effort he forces her to spread her wings one last time as they crash into the tops of the first trees and tumble headlong toward the ground, their fall barely broken by the broad, strong leaves of the trees. Beidai lands hard, cushioning his fall, and he only just manages to retain his seat long enough not to fall off and break his neck. He rolls to the ground, shaken and winded, the whole world spinning as he tries to tell up from down, still bound to Bedai in the throes of death.
"Beidai..." he crawls back to her, reaches out to place a hand on her neck, feels the small surge of comfort the motion produces. "I'm so sorry... Ngari hu eywa salew tirea, tokx 'ì'awn, " he repeats the words of the hunt, even as he feels the last of her life ebb away.
The bond severs.
When Jensen staggers to his feet a few moments later, the sounds of the battle are ringing in his ears. All around there's nothing but death. The forest is burning, littered with the bodies of Na'vi and humans alike, along with the carcases of their mounts and the smouldering remains of broken-down ampsuits. Smoke coils along the ground, among the splintered and burning trees, the ground churned to a bloody slurry, the water of the streams running in crimson eddies toward the river. A direhorse canters by, its mane on fire, its whinny so shrill it's barely recognizable as belonging to a living creature. He reels, sick and disoriented, hears Trudy's voice come over the intercom.
"Rogue One is hit! I'm going in! Sorry, Jensen..."
He keys his mic, finds himself automatically requesting a report, but only Jared answers him, and the answer is curt and barely audible before disappearing in another welter of static. Jensen takes a few faltering steps, goes to his knees, eyes filling with tears. All around him, Pandora is dying, and it's all his fault. It's his fault, and nothing he does now is going to change all that. He squeezes his eyes shut, feeling as though every single part of him has turned to stone, weighing him down, pinning him to the spot.
He's so lost in his misery that he barely registers the first creatures running past him, only comes to his senses when the ground begins to tremble beneath him like an earthquake. His eyes snap open and he barely has time to hurl himself out of the way as a herd of sturmbeest thunder past, the entire forest quaking at their passage. A flock of what seems like thousands of parrots swoops by in a flurry of brilliant reds and blues and purples, shrieking and cawing. The forest is crawling with life all around him, with lemurs and stingbats springing from tree to tree, and clouds of orange and green insects come seemingly out of nowhere to swarm the remaining human troops.
"Jensen! Eywa has heard you! Eywa has heard you!"
Jensen's heart feels like it's going to explode in his chest when he hears Jared's jubilant voice ringing out clearly over the comm. Jensen lets out a whoop of triumph, even as the forest continues to burn around him. Off to the side a gunner fires from the door of a stranded Samson, only to be ripped from his position by a banshee lunging in and burying its razor-sharp teeth into his neck. Other banshees tear at the pilot’s windshield, leaving him barely enough time to scream and throw up his arms in a useless attempt to shield himself from death.
Overhead the huge Dragon ship is going down in flames, careening out of the sky, taking Quaritch down with it. Further above it, the Toruk swoops in enormous circles, following it down in a controlled spiral, screeching its victory to the skies. Jensen watches in awe as, all around, the ground troops scatter in disarray, chased down by viperwolves, trampled by sturmbeest. The animals flash past him, ignoring him completely, until he feels an ominous prickling sensation on the back of his neck. Turning slowly, he finds himself eye to eye with an enormous Thanator, newly-emerged from the smoke behind him. For a moment it's his first day in the jungle all over again, and he's nothing but an ignorant jarhead with no notion of what's in front of him. He stands frozen before the Thanator's gaze, waiting for death, until all at once the beast lowers itself to the ground, stretching out its front paws stiffly in obvious invitation, waiting.
"You've got to be kidding me," Jensen breathes, but there's no mistaking what's happening here.
A running leap has him astride the monster's back, his tswin entwining with the Thanator's, and power like he's never felt before surges through him, primal and ferocious and thirsting for blood. Before he knows it they're crashing through the smouldering jungle, knocking aside what few soldiers are left with great, sweeping strikes of the creatures massive claws. They soldiers are milling about in complete disorganization, panicked and shooting at shadows, desperate just to escape. High above Jensen's head he hears the shriek of the Toruk, knows that this isn't over, not by a long shot.
"Come on," he urges the Thanator. "Quaritch ain't the type to lie down and die that easy."
He finds the Dragon lying half-submerged in the lake where he and Jared once went swimming, the lilies ripped up by their roots by the crash, petals crushed and scattered, scarcely a hundred yards from where the mobile unit containing Jensen's human body lies. It doesn't take long before Jensen spots a figure rising from the water, riding a fully-functional ampsuit. It's Quaritch, his face visibly bloody even from Jensen's vantage point, his eyes burning with unchecked madness. He slogs out of the water, covered with mud, then strides purposefully into the forest, gaze firmly fixed on his goal-the mobile unit where Jensen and Norm's human bodies are still in their link beds, completely defenceless. They'd been painfully short of resources and left the station unguarded, hoping it might go unnoticed for the duration of the battle, but there's no mistaking that Quaritch knows exactly where he's going now.
Jensen catches up with him just as he reaches the clearing where the units have been hidden for the past few days. His only hope now is to distract the Colonel from his objective, to keep him away from those units at all costs until help can come for it. Already he can hear Jared's voice coming over the comms, promising that he's on his way.
"It's over, Quaritch!" he yells, as the Toruk's cries grow closer, although it's still much too far to be of any good to him now.
"Nothing’s over while I’m breathing!"
Quaritch hasn't so much as bothered to turn toward him, intent on destroying the outpost before Jensen can get to it, but he hasn't banked on just how strong and fast the Thanator really is. The great cat clears the distance in a single bound, knocking the ampsuit several yards to the side, although Quaritch's incredible control of the machine prevents it from toppling over. For a few seconds Jensen thinks he might actually gain the upper hand, the Thanator's claws tearing at the suit and opening fissures in the canopy -right until Quaritch pulls the trigger on his GAU-90, and Jensen feels the animal buckle beneath him, its life bleeding into the wet ground even before it has time to fall completely.
He manages to twist free before he gets trapped beneath the great corpse, barely manages to roll away before the ampsuit's huge arm comes crashing down right where he lay a moment ago in an attempt to crush him. The canopy is cracked beyond repair, but Quaritch has already ejected it, donning a re-breather mask instead, the better to fight with his opponent. Distantly Jensen is aware of someone shouting his name -Jared, he thinks, but there's no time to dwell on it now. Quaritch reaches down again, and he parries the great arm with the splintered remains of a piece of the suit that the Thanator ripped free during its initial attack. Quaritch redoubles his attacks, driving Jensen back inexorably, until finally a lucky blow sends Jensen tumbling head over heels to land several dozen yards away, winded and helpless. Instead of coming after him to deliver the coup de grace, though, Quaritch carefully steps back toward the mobile unit, and under Jensen's horrified stare, deftly rips a gaping hole in the roof. He brings the great arm of his ampsuit crashing down into the unprotected insides, and Jensen feels himself falling.
A moment later Jensen is back in his original body, pain slamming into him from all sides. He chokes, tries to pull in a breath, but the air is already beginning to burn in his lungs. He shoves weakly at the splintered lid of the link bed, destroyed by Quaritch's last attack, finds himself staring up into the smoky sky. For a few terrible seconds that feel like years he can't find the strength to free himself from the confines of the link, scrabbling helplessly to even get so far as to turn over. The emergency exopack is hanging on the wall less than ten feet away, but it may as well be ten miles for all the good it does him. Finally he manages to hook a hand over the side of the link bed and pulls himself free. He collapses in a heap on the floor, his back shrieking in agony as he tries to pull himself along. He inches forward, lungs on fire as he tries to hold his breath, reaching out with one hand until the tips of his fingers brush against the hose. He yanks on it, but it doesn't come loose, and the effort of trying again proves too much. He falls back to the floor, mouth opening and closing fruitlessly, and when the darkness closes in he thinks with some bemusement that dying feels nothing like how he thought it would.
For a while there is nothing at all, and then he opens his eyes again, finds himself staring up at the foggy interior of a re-breather mask, Jared's worried face staring down at him.
"Jensen, Jensen can you breathe?"
He's not sure anymore, but he tries to nod. He can taste blood in his mouth, wonders just how badly all of this has screwed him up, but at least he's not going to die. He's cradled in Jared's lap, safe enough for now, it seems. Above Jared's head the sky is still filled with smoke, with the silhouettes of hundreds of banshees circling. He mouths 'Quaritch?' at Jared, who shakes his head.
"He is dead. We have won, Jensen."
"Good," his voice is strangled, strange to his own ears. He swallows a mouthful of his own blood, wonders if maybe he wasn't premature in thinking he wasn't going to die, after all. "Glad...I got to see you again."
"I am glad, too. We will get you help, Jensen. You can't die now."
"Not so bad," he tries to reassure him. "Can't live in two worlds anyway. Not real..."
To his surprise, Jared bends and presses a kiss to the plastic of his re-breather mask. "You are real to me, Jensen Ackles."
Jensen opens his mouth, finds he can't draw enough breath to speak again, smiles instead, and is rewarded with a smile in return from Jared.
"I see you."
Epilogue