Brotherhood Chapter 37

Feb 10, 2011 07:15

Aaaand here we go!


Last chapter before the axe comes down, as it were. I'm actually really proud of this one, especially the first scene, that I hadn't even planned but came to me as I was out pounding the pavement a couple of days ago delivering newspapers.

I would also, in this chapter, thank one of my frequent reviewers (she'll know who she is ^_~) for a quote I borrowed whole hog from an old email.

Take a deep breath with me, all of you, before diving in. This one's starting to pick up the pace!

Brotherhood Chapter 37: The Day of Battle Dawns

Sometime in the dark hours of the night, Norm woke to the sensation of fingers tracing lightly along his collarbones. He lay very still, not quite sure if Trudy was actually awake or if she was just moving a little in her sleep, but when the fingers moved up to his lips he couldn't resist the urge to open his mouth and nip lightly at them, his own hand moving to stroke through her hair. She made a little appreciative noise and shifted her leg so that it brushed against him, outlining the fact that he was already reacting quite strongly to her touch.

Norm was no dummy, he could see where this was going, and normally he would have objected, given the fact that the twins were sleeping not all that far from their hammock, but knowing what was to come with the dawn's light, he couldn't find it in him to care. The sides of the hammock curled around them, after all, and he would just have to make sure they stayed quiet. To that end, he moved the hand that was in her hair to tug her up against him until their lips met, and the other hand slid down her back and over the curve of her hip to slide into the panties she wore under a long shirt of his she'd borrowed for sleeping in.

With careful, deliberate movements, she traced her fingers down over his chest and into the flap of his pajamas, cupping him briefly before shifting over until she was on top of him. Norm lay very still, not wanting to overbalance them and end up up-ended, and when she stopped moving again he pulled her down for another kiss.

Then he reached down, pulling her panties to the side, and sank into her more-than-willing body.

They rocked together with a slow, languid sort of urgency, the cocooning nature of the hammock not allowing for any large movements, and Norm could feel her breath, coming in short, desperate little pants that blew against his cheek and over his ear and seemed to curl around his heart like glowing silver threads binding them together. And when she let out a heartbreakingly helpless whimper he caught her mouth with his own to drown the sound, although whether it was to keep the twins from waking or whether it was because he didn't want to hear the inevitability in her voice he wasn't entirely sure. Both of them knew what was coming, whether they wanted to acknowledge it or not, and both of them knew this could be the last chance they had to make love, to revel in the way their bodies fit together like two pieces of an ancient, primeval puzzle.

After, as they lay together, still silent, wrapped in each other, their breaths and hearts finally slowing, Norm couldn't quite stifle the horrible premonition that this was the last time he would ever hold her tiny, curvy body tight against his own, and although he closed his eyes, he dared not go to sleep. Right now, he didn't want to dream.

With a small frown, Jaime tried not to fidget in any obvious way as he waited for the colonel to start. Everyone had been called to the main debriefing hall and they knew it had something to do with the preparations for battle that had been going on since the night before. Well, that "everyone" wasn't quite true, he corrected himself, all the sec-ops and coms-ops folks were here, and the miners as well, but there was one group on-base that was conspicuously absent - the scientists. It was deliberate, of course; even if Quaritch didn't know what they were planning, he had to know he couldn't trust them completely, so Jaime knew that right now he had a very important duty to his cause: He had to listen to every word said here, every hint of tactics, and when the time came, he had to be ready.

Finally, once the hall was full and there was an appropriate level of silence, Quaritch spoke.

"Everyone on this base - every one of you - is fighting for survival, and that's a fact," he started. "There's an aboriginal horde out there massing for an attack." The blinds closed and the screen this created was soon filled with what had to be an orbital infrared image of an area with heavy magnetic flux, given the obvious stone arches.

"Now, these orbital images tell me that the hostiles' numbers have gone from a few hundred to well over two thousand in one day, and more are pourin' in." The next image showed a much larger infrared signature around the same area, and Jaime had to admit he was impressed. For a Neolithic people, the Na'vi sure could move fast.

"In a week's time there could be twenty thousand of them," Quaritch said, "at that point they will overrun our perimeter. Well. That's not gonna happen. Our only security lies in preemptive attack. We will fight terror with terror."

'Great,' Jaime thought to himself, 'now we're relying on that tired old adage. Never worked when they first came up with it either, if I remember right. Gotta add that to the stuff those boys're putting together to send back once what's inevitable goes down.'

"Now the hostiles believe that this mountain stronghold of theirs is protected by their...their deity," the derision of such a "fanciful" idea was clear in Quaritch's voice, and Jaime heard a few quiet chuckles echoing through the assembled men as well. He really was doing quite the job of setting up an "us and them" kind of situation, "and when we destroy it, we will blast a crater in their racial memory so deep that they won't come within a thousand clicks of this place ever again. And that, too, is a fact."

The room erupted with cheers, and Jaime felt a sinking in the pit of his stomach. This was pure stupidity, and he knew it. A lot of these men and women were going to die today, and for what? So their bosses could get rich, that's what for. Humans, as the saying goes, are smart individually, but critically dumb in mobs. But then, that had always been the difference between a sniper and a common soldier. Soldiers were encouraged not to think, but snipers worked on their own, they had to learn to think, or they'd never get the job done. Jaime rubbed surreptitiously at his bad shoulder. One of the med techs who was with the scientists had given him a shot of joint-loosener last night after he'd gone to let them know he was on their side, and he knew that if it came down to it, he'd be able to shoot today if he had to. He just sincerely hoped it didn't come down to that.

"Okay, so before you go running off into the wild blue yonder, I just have one question for you," Tom said as he scarfed down food before linking up that morning, "What the hell were you ever thinking trying for toruk? I mean, seriously!"

Jake laughed as he threw his empty algaepak across the link-mod for a perfect three-pointer into the trash. "Honestly? I wasn't really thinking all that much. It just seemed like the right thing. Especially after the dream I had in my uniltaron, you know?"

Tom blinked. "So randomly jumping onto the back of the biggest areal predator on the planet just "seemed like the right thing" did it? Sometimes I wonder about you. I mean, do we really share the same genetics?"

Jake rolled his eyes. "Well clearly some vital part didn't get switched on in your case," he teased, "but seriously man, you know you would've done it too, if the situation had come down to that. There wasn't much that was going to be able to get me back in the Omatikaya's good books after I screwed up before I even started." He frowned, "and now I've gotta go fix that."

Tom reached over and placed a hand on his shoulder. "Just don't take any really stupid chances," he said. "Semi-stupid chances are, of course, inevitable, but keep the supremely stupid ones to a minimum, would you? You have something to come home to now, a family, not just me, and although I'd always watch over Neytiri for you if something were to happen, I really don't want that responsibility, you hear me?"

"Loud and clear," Jake nodded, "and hey, who's the big brother in this equation? Don't go stepping above your station now, little brother!"

"Oh come on, fifteen minutes' difference is hardly enough for you to be pulling the "big brother" card," Tom laughed, "You know in some tribes in Africa they said the second twin to emerge was actually the firstborn because he..."

"...sent his younger brother to test the path, I know, I know," Jake stuck his tongue out, "you've mentioned it before. Unfortunately for you, we don't belong to any of those African tribes."

"Yeah, yeah," Tom laughed good-naturedly, "just...take care of yourself out there. I'll be thinking of you the whole time, and you know I'll know if something happens."

"You just take care of yourself and the others down here," Jake shook his head, "and try to get out if something goes seriously FUBAR."

Not that it was likely to make any difference, and both of them knew it. If that shuttle dropped its load successfully, the link-mod was more than close enough to Vitrautral to be taken out as collateral damage, and if the link-mod was taken out, it wouldn't matter where their avatars were, they'd be done for. Even so, though...

"It had just better not go FUBAR," Tom shook his head, hopping up into his link bed.

"No intention of letting it," Jake agreed as he hauled himself in as well.

Then both of them hit the relevant buttons and closed the lids, both wordlessly agreeing that they wouldn't bring the topic up again in their other bodies. The time for worrying was past, now it was time for action.

When they woke that morning, Norm and Trudy didn't say anything about what had happened in the middle of the night. They didn't need to. Everything that needed to be said had been said in their wordless sharing, so this morning, they focused on preparing for battle. Norm would be fighting as well (a thought that didn't particularly please Trudy, but she was the last person to tell someone not to fight for what they believed in, and she knew how someone could feel the need to be doing something) and she wanted to tell him to stay safe, but...she knew better. So instead of doing something stupidly clingy (and when had she gotten so clingy anyway? It totally wasn't like her) she changed into her flight suit, tying the long sleeves of the top around her waist. It didn't seem quite right though, it needed something else, something...more. That was when she remembered the armband Tseo'ong had made her way back when. She dug it out of its hiding place at the bottom of her bag, and turned to Norm, who was sitting up in his link-bed pressing buttons to get it running.

"Hey, help me with this?" she held it out to him.

"Sure," he smiled, taking it from her and wrapping it around her left arm. His fingers lingered against her skin, but then his arms fell to his sides again and he looked a little lost. "I...guess I'd better link up," he said, "get some breakfast in the other body before I...do what I have to do."

"I'll meet you out there," she said, then pulled him close for a soul-searing kiss before pushing him back down into the link-bed and shutting the lid, doing the last bit of button-pressing to send him into his other body. He'd taught her how one morning, fair repayment for her own flying lessons, and she remembered the feel of his fingers over her own, her surprise at how calloused his hands were, for a "scientist"...

She shook her head to clear her mind; then headed out through the airlock. She'd made everything ready last night, so she knew she didn't have to do anything for her baby but her usual pre-flight checks, which meant she had a little time. Which was good, there were a few people she wanted to talk to before she didn't have another chance to.

As it turned out, everyone she wanted to talk to was in one place after all. She went over to where Tseo'ong was resting, and he already had a couple of visitors.

"I See you, Tamrrlìn, Laneya," she smiled, "I See you, Tseo'ong."

"I See you, Trrudichakon," Tamrrlìn gestured politely to her, "your speaking is much improved."

"It's not that great yet," Trudy shook her head ruefully, "but I'm working on it."

"You will fly with ikran makto today?" Laneya cocked her head at Trudy, and the pilot had to squelch the urge to pinch her cheeks from the extreme level of cute.

"I will," she nodded, "I'll do my best to keep you all safe."

"Why you don't have paint? All warriors have paint, even your kunsìp but you not," Laneya frowned, "I will get." She jumped to her feet and scampered off, and her mother watched her go.

"She does not truly understand yet," Tamrrlìn sighed, "and I pray to Eywa that she will not need to understand tonight."

Trudy nodded. "I also," she agreed. "She's...I was about her age when I left my Kelutral..." She shook her head. She didn't want to think of that today, to remember the vidscreen images she should never have seen, of her father being killed, their village burned. She hadn't been there to witness it in person, but she wasn't sure if that was just worse. She'd never heard her father's last words, never had a proper chance to say goodbye...

"I am glad you chose to wear my gift today," Tseo'ong smiled, reaching a hand out to pat her arm. "I will pray to Eywa it keeps you safe."

"I'm sure it will," she said, patting his hand, then she turned and smiled as Laneya returned, dragging Norm along by one hand, the other carrying a basket full of...she wasn't sure what, but she figured it must involve paint.

"I have paint brought!" Laneya said happily, "and found also your yawnetu."

Norm smiled a little sheepishly, his ears drooping as he looked at the girl. "She's very persuasive," he said, then gestured politely to the other two adults in greeting.

"I hear you, too, will ride today," Tseo'ong nodded to Norm, "you will make us proud, but you must be careful. You have your yawnetu to return to, as she will return to you."

"I will do my best," Norm smiled over at Trudy.

"You makto also? You we will paint also then." Laneya said firmly, "no time left to weave hair but when next time you here I will for you." Then she looked over at Trudy, cocked her head again as she was thinking, then reached up into her hair and pulled loose her woven headband. "For you can wear," she said.

"I...irayo," Trudy smiled at her.

"How we can put paint on you?" Laneya frowned as she lifted the lid of a converted seedpod to reveal white, yellow, red and blue paints.

"I'll hold my breath," Trudy smiled at her, "and you can paint me quick, then I'll put my mask back on. I won't need it in the Sampson."

"Let me," Norm said softly, meeting her eyes with his.

She nodded, took a deep breath, then switched the vacuum seal of her mask off and lifted it away from her face. She closed her eyes, trusting him to know what her war-markings ought to look like.

"Technically you should wear red, for the dawn, but I think blue would be best, to tie the sky and land and underworld together,"

She smiled and nodded, and with her eyes still closed, felt his large but delicate avatar fingers smoothing the paint over her eyes.

"And white," he whispered, "for the north." His lips brushed her forehead beneath her bangs, and then his fingers slid along below her eyes and over her cheekbones. "There, done," he smiled.

Trudy kept her eyes closed and her breath held just long enough to make sure it wasn't going to smudge too badly, then put her mask back on and opened her eyes. "Now it's your turn," she told him.

He smiled at her. "Okay," he said, "make me look like a warrior."

Trudy grinned at him and dipped two fingers into the white. She could have used any of the other colours, but white was his colour, the colour of the north-man. She passed her fingers over his eyes the same way he had done to hers, creating a wide white band.

"May Eywa keep you safe," Laneya moved in close, dipping her fingers, but not her thumb, into the white as well and laying her three fingers across his left cheek.

"Irayo," Norm smiled at her, "now it's time we must go."

They both stood, and Norm placed his hands on her shoulders. "Take care of yourself," he said; then he turned and started jogging over to where the riders from the horse clans were gathering.

As she was about to step up into her Sampson, she was stopped one final time.

"Be safe, my friend, and fight well," Prrala said, handing her a string of beads with a feather decoration in the middle, "wear this for me. It kept me safe until you could rescue me, and it will keep you safe and in Eywa's view."

Trudy nodded gravely at her and wrapped the beads twice around her right arm. "Eywa watch over you also," she said, "no matter what happens today, I know you'll be busy, so take care of yourself so you can take care of the rest of us."

"I will," Prrala smiled, and jogged away as Trudy hopped the rest of the way into her seat and closed the door, waiting for the door to close and the air to cycle through before lifting her mask off again and slipping the headband on. It was...different, going into battle like this. She'd always been a part of a group before, but she'd never had such a real sense of the "folks at home" depending on her. As she ran through her pre-flight checks, she swore to herself, and to her father's memory, that she would do what it took to keep these people safe. She wanted to return, oh God how she wanted to return safely to Norm like Tseo'ong had said, but if it came out that she couldn't, at least she could ensure the safety of Laneya and her family and all the other Na'vi who'd been hurt by the people she had claimed to belong to for so long.

The sun was up, and Neytiri had already helped Jhake with his war paint, and now she was preparing the last few items she needed, testing the string of her bow and filling Seze's quiver with arrows. She had, at least, managed to sleep the night before, although only because Jhake had managed to completely exhaust both of them. She suspected it was just as much to comfort himself as for her sake. Well, she more than suspected. The echoes of his emotions that flowed through their bond of tsaheylu made it much easier for her to read him now, to truly See him as she hadn't been able to before, even when she had thought she understood everything about him. Her Jhake was much more easily hurt than she had ever thought, although he hid it well. She also, though, knew that he was far more strong than she had thought, even from the first time she'd seen him, when she'd seen he had no fear.

"You wear his mark," Peyral said, and Neytiri looked up from her arrows to see an expression of sadness flash across her childhood friend's face before her eyes settled back into the firm determination of the strong hunter and warrior she was.

"As he wears mine," Neytiri nodded, "I...am glad you will be with us today, Peyral, besides Jhake there is no other I would rather have at my back."

"I have been at your back since we were three years old," Peyral laughed, although it wasn't exactly humour that echoed in her voice, "why would I leave that pride of place now?" She shook her head, "No, I will be at your back, but more than that, I will be protecting Jhake. I swear to you this; I will not leave his side this day. I will protect him as though I were his shadow, since he will not protect himself."

"I..." Neytiri sighed, "Thank you, ma tsmuke, for watching over my mate since you know I cannot." Jhake had been quite firm about that during their planning meeting, insisting that neither one of them would be able to stand the thought of the other in danger, as would inevitably happen in battle. It was enough that they would be able to speak using those strange devices of the sawtute that he had passed out to her and Tsu'tey in order to communicate with them across the battlefield to coordinate the attack. "You must watch over yourself as well, though. I do not wish to lose you either."

"And I do not wish to lose either of you two," Ninat said, drawing them both close against her into a tight hug. "Someday I want our children to spend their nights together as we did. All of us," she added sternly to Peyral, "It's about time you find yourself a mate to keep yourself busy at night. With so many handsome males of other clans about, I'm sure you can manage to convince one of the better ones to stay."

That made Peyral laugh in a much more genuine way. "And of course you have already watched the comings and goings of the warriors of all the gathered clans and have picked out suitable candidates for me already, I am sure," she shook her head, "You always were the most fond of all of us of gossip and guessing who would be chosen by whom to be their mate."

"Come now, if it happens that as a singer I'm a good judge of character, and trained to see the subtle things that others do to conceal their desires, how does that make me a gossip? It isn't as though I spread what I learn beyond you three," she pointed out, pouting the way she often had as a child. It might have gotten her out of arguments then, but they were all older and wiser now.

"You cannot use your training always as an excuse," Neytiri chided her, "some of it may be that, but more of it is your heart. You enjoy watching the love of others blossom, hoping for the same for yourself someday. Now, though, you have all you had hoped for, so you have no need any longer to watch others, kefyak?"

"Ah, but someday far in the future, when you are Tsahìk and I Nawma Rolyu, you will be glad of my keen eyes," Ninat pointed out, and then she hugged them tight again. "Just keep yourselves safe, so that we can enjoy that someday when it comes."

Neytiri looked at Peyral, and both of them nodded. It hurt them little to make the promise to the friend who would have to wait through the horrors of this day unknowing of what they would do. They would do their best to keep their promise to her, of course, but it was understood that this was a promise that could only go so far. In the end, all was in the hands of Eywa.

"We will do our best to take care," Neytiri nodded.

"We will do our best," Peyral agreed.

"I will hold you to that promise, and if you do not return, I will scold you every day in the realm of Eywa and will not let you rest," Ninat smiled, "Now go, my strong warrior sisters who fly with the great Toruk Makto. My heart flies with you this day. Kìyevame, my dear ones."

Neytiri stowed the last of her arrows and turned toward the part of the rookery where Seze waited. "Kìyevame, dear sisters," she called; then loped away. She knew Peyral was behind her, but she couldn't bring herself to turn again. She would see her heart-sisters' faces again when they were safe, and that was all there was to it.

Standing once again on the steps below the Tree of Souls, Neytiri and Tsu'tey again at his side, this felt an awful lot like the last time Jake had prepared to fly out, but at the same time, it was incredibly different. He had taken a moment while the others were preparing to visit the grave they had made for Grace, and he regretted that he hadn't been here to see her returned to the ground she had so loved, but at least he'd been able to lay a few small flowers over the top of it. It was good he'd gone, though. It felt right. Grace was one of the reasons they were doing this, after all. Grace, and Hometree, and a whole lot of other reasons, but Grace had been the tipping-point for him. All she had ever wanted to do was interact peacefully with the People and learn about the forest, in her own way of course, and in trying to help not only the Na'vi but her own people as well, she had been ridiculed, and marginalized, and ignored, and finally imprisoned then shot while escaping. It wasn't right, and something had to be done about it.

He turned to Tsu'tey, nodding that he was about to speak, then turned back to the gathered warriors, a much larger audience than the Omatikaya had been short days before.

"We fly out today to face the greatest threat any of us have known," he said. "The Sky People are out there, and even as we speak they are beginning their own flight, coming here. They want to destroy us, and they think if they move now, before all our warriors are assembled, that they will succeed. It will not be so," he shook his head, "it cannot be so, because although they have their gunships and their explosives, we have the strength of our numbers, and our knowledge behind us. I have shown you how to destroy their ships, and your ikran riders know the currents of the mountains as their pilots never will! We are Na'vi and we are strong!" he shouted, "We fly today, all of us, and when this day is over and the Sky People have run back to their planet like a nantang with its tail tucked between its legs, our songs will tell of this day, will tell of the bravery and power of the Na'vi people, and our children's children will still speak of us in awe! People of the Na'vi, it is time to take back our land!"

His toruk, never one to miss such an opportunity, stood and flared her wings, letting out a roar that was echoed by the warriors of fifteen Na'vi clans, and then, heart pounding, Jake ran through the parting sea of bodies to lead the charge into the skies. He could almost believe they might actually win today, and he was going to keep believing that until the moment he saw the last of the sec-ops taken out. It was a good day to fly!

Louise sighed. She had already hugged Taka and the babies goodbye and sent them on their way out to the perimeter guarding point they were going to be walking, and okay maybe she had clung to him a little, but damnit this was a war, and she was worried for him! No matter how many times he'd reassured her as they lay in their human forms curled up in bed together last night, she still couldn't quite get past the idea that just when she'd finally found herself a really good man who loved her for her, she was going to lose him. Because she knew the statistics, and the chances of an avatar driver surviving his avatar being outright killed were...not good. Even the shock of being "critically damaged" could be enough to have serious, long-term repercussions for the human body, like brain damage or heart arrhythmias.

She shivered and hugged herself. She didn't want to think about this anymore. She wouldn't lose Taka, and that was that. It had to be! They had too much between them for him to be gone from her life anytime before they were both in their eighties at least! She firmly made herself turn away from the point where he had disappeared over the rim of the bowl-like valley they were in, and she turned instead to watch the ikran riders taking off. It was a truly amazing sight, beautiful and terrifying all in one go as wave after wave of riders ran and clambered over the rocks and up to where the many ikran clung to the sides of the bowl, made tsaheylu with their own mount and hopped on, the ayikran then seeming to drop lazily off the rock face before snapping their wings open and taking to the sky. It reminded Louise a little of a vid she'd once seen of bats leaving a cave to hunt, the hundreds of winged bodies somehow able to move in formation without anything but the most basic communication, simply knowing where the rest of the flock was in the sky. Although...was "flock" the right collective noun for bats? She wasn't sure. It worked well enough, she supposed. She'd never been an English major, after all.

She turned when she felt a hand on her shoulder, and managed a smile as she saw Cathy standing behind her.

"It's almost chillingly beautiful, isn't it?" Cathy said softly. "It makes me think of a song. "Óró, Sé do Bheatha 'Bhaile". I think perhaps I'll work on a translation of it for the victory celebrations. "Welcome oh woman who was so afflicted, it was our ruin that you were in bondage. Our fine land in the possession of thieves, sold to the foreigners". It sounds about right, doesn't it?"

"It does, at that," Louise shook her head slowly, "although...are we not among those "foreigners" ourselves?"

"No, we aren't," Cathy shook her head, "not anymore, in any case. They'd just as gladly kill us as any of the Na'vi for being "race traitors" and you and I both know it."

Louise sighed and placed a protective hand over her belly. "I'd like to believe their better natures would come through," she said, "but I know that's not the case. It makes me sad for humanity, to see what we've done - what we're continuing to do - in the name of progress." She closed her eyes as a wave of sadness washed over her, but hidden within that sadness was something else: a little, separate hint of something warm, content and happy. She gasped, her eyes flying open in shock, and then she closed them again, trying to feel that other consciousness again. It was quieter now, just barely discernable, but it was definitely there! She bit her lip, trying to hold back the tears that suddenly threatened to overflow.

"What is it? Are you alright?" Cathy asked quickly.

"Fine, I'm fine," she shook her head, "it's just... Oh, I wish Taka were here right now, I just felt the baby!"

"Kicking already?" Cathy's surprise was obvious in her voice, "but you're barely showing yet!"

"No, no," Louise shook her head, "not like that. In here," she touched her heart, "a little like tsaheylu, except it was really vague. Just...happy. Content." She smiled, "I guess that's a good thing, right? Pämeya told me I'd be able to sense the baby's emotions soon, but I never imagined..."

"See, that's proof everything will be alright," Cathy smiled, "a little "message from Eywa" I'm sure the Na'vi would say. Come on, let's go find Pämeya and you can tell her all about it, then when all this mess is done you'll have a surprise for Taka, won't you?"

"I guess I will at that," she laughed. "You're right, let's go find Pämeya."

While the rest of Hell's Gate was gathered for what had to be a pre-battle pep-rally in the briefing room, the scientists were taking full advantage of the fact that the contingent of guards who had been 'casually' hanging around them were gone again, and had gathered once more in the Terran plant atrium, and the mood in the room was far different than the first meeting only a couple of days before. Everyone was on-edge, knowing that their resistance movement would soon explode into action, but not being able to do a thing about it yet when everyone was still on-base. Max looked around the somewhat rag-tag bunch, and he knew that although they would none of them have signed up for something like this initially (well, except maybe the MacCool brothers) they were all neck-deep in it now, and if things didn't go as planned... Well, they were just going to have to go as planned, at least in some fashion. The alternative didn't bear thinking about.

He cleared his throat and looked around, catching everyone's attention. "Okay," he said, "in a couple hours or less, Quaritch is going to have his fleet loaded up and heading out to take on the Na'vi in the Hallelujah Mountains. Jake Sully has rallied the clans, and that's where the main battle is going to take place. We have to be ready to move, but, but! We can't make any move at all until the tide of the battle has started to turn against the sec-ops! If we show our hand too soon, before Quaritch has totally committed all his forces to the battle in the mountains, he could order some of the Sampsons or Scorpions to return, and quite frankly we aren't equipped to deal with them."

There was a silent chorus of nods as Max regarded his audience, and after a moment to let them absorb that news he continued. "I have a comlink set up with Trudy Chacón, who will let me know when we need to move, or let Jake know when we've started, depending on what circumstances arise. Once we're on the move, our main focus is going to be getting into the link room so the avatar drivers can link up. They'll be able to be much more effective if they're in their avatar bodies, since each avatar has double the height and reach and four times the strength of the average human. Our focus is going to be taking out the Comms-ops center. If we can disable the communications, we disable the nerve-center for coordination of troops. There's no way Quaritch can monitor all of it on his own while also engaging in battle himself, so he's going to be relying on Comms-ops for the routine stuff. Without that, the fleet will quickly turn into an uncoordinated mess, and that will give the Na'vi yet another advantage."

Max smiled slightly as he saw the crowd perk up. Having a concrete plan always helped things. "Once the drivers are in link," he said, "the techs will monitor them - I don't want any glitches causing a random un-linking at a bad moment! - the MacCools will deal with sending out the prepared data we've accumulated with their covert superluminal communications setup that they've apparently had going for years now..." There was genuine laughter at that, and Max could see Bailey was flushing quite pink against his blond hair, "and I'm going to leave you all and do a little judicious borrowing of mine equipment. I spent a few glorious years of my youth working with heavy equipment in order to save up the money I needed to get through school, and I still remember how to drive a slash-cutter, and I do believe I might just find a good use for it." His grin was feral now, and the crowd was getting quite enthused.

"So!" he shook his head, bringing himself back to reality, "until the moment comes, we all have to at least try to act normal, but as soon as we've seen the last of the ships fly off, we get into position, because we're going to need to move quickly when our moment comes."

Max had never thought he'd end up filling the role of the leader of a grass-roots uprising, but as he gazed at his fellow scientists, he couldn't help but feel a little pride welling up within him. Nobody would expect them to do what they had planned, and that was what made it so great. Because nobody thought scientists ever did anything but sit around and think about things...boy would they be proved wrong!

Parker Selfridge frowned to himself. Something was going on, and he had a bad feeling about it. Well, heck, this whole week had been a bit of a clusterfuck, as the saying went, but once they'd managed to get the natives under control he was sure he'd be able to manage to spin it so it came out right, take a bit of a mulligan, as it were, and return to the normal operation of getting as much unobtanium out of the ground as he possibly could before his term was up. He had three more years on this Godforsaken planet. Three. Years. But if Quaritch could deal with the native population as handily as he was implying, well then, things would run a lot more smoothly, and when the rest of his incarceration on this ridiculous place was finished, he could return home, collect his sizable bonus, and buy that place in the Sierras with the biodome where you could golf on real grass instead of synthroturf. And maybe hire a really hot female caddy. The kind the Chinese had come up with for their high-class types back when they thought they could rule the world, or at least the world economy.

Something about Quaritch's plan wasn't entirely sitting right with him though, he'd been running it through his head and checking on the figures of what assets they had as far as weapons and ammo, and he just couldn't quite figure how he thought he was going to have enough explosive potential without...

"Shit," Parker's eyes went wide as he suddenly made the connection. Moving fast, he stormed out of his office and down to the staging area...which had far more people than he'd expected. It looked like everybody but the scientists was down here, all the sec-ops, of course, but it seemed like pretty near all the miners were down here as well, which meant nothing was getting done. This was looking worse and worse, and only confirming what he'd initially suspected.

Everywhere there were miners being handed camo, being handed ammo, being shown how to operate guns, all of which he'd expected, although he didn't like it at all. Damnit the miners weren't Quaritch's to play with! If they lost too many it would set operations back months, maybe even years! And there wouldn't be another supply ship for close to nine months! If he wasted all of their resources in one punch... And then...Ah shit! It was worse than he'd thought! He'd only thought Quaritch would be bold enough to steal half a pallet of explosives, or maybe one whole pallet, but there, right in front of him, there were men busily loading TWO WHOLE FUCKING PALLETS! That was a full third of their supply, and it wasn't something that was easy to manufacture on-planet.

"No No NO. NO!" He ran over to the first of the pallets, slamming his hands against it firmly.

Well, until one of the workers spoke up. "I wouldn't do that, sir," he said calmly, and a little bit of concern for his own limbs managed to filter through the anger that was swiftly taking over Parker's brain.

"Blasting compound goes back to the mine. What's your name?" he asked, pointing to the man who'd spoken, but didn't bother listening for an answer, "You're fired!" he said firmly, looking around for the source of this whole damn problem. He was here, he had to be.

Ah, there he was, fussing with guns of course. "This thing is completely out of control," he frowned, and when Quaritch just muttered something under his breath and turned away, Parker stormed after him. "Listen to me! I am not authorizing you to turn Mineworkers Local into a frickin militia!"

But the man still wouldn't listen! Fuck Parker hated being ignored! Just because he happened to be a little smaller than most of the brainless meatheads the Colonel surrounded himself with didn't give the asshole any right to think he was anything less of a man! Something had to be done here, and it looked like Parker was just going to have to man up and let Quaritch know just exactly how the chain of command worked in this company! Finally the man finished whatever it was he'd been on about to the meathead soldier with the big gun and turned very briefly to Parker before walking off in the other direction, still talking.

"I declared Threat Condition Red, that puts all on-world assets at my command," he pointed out calmly, as though Parker was nothing but a slightly annoying buzzing little fly.

"What? Oh, you think you can pull this "Palace Coup" shit on me?" he yelled, getting up in Quaritch's face the way he'd wanted to a dozen times when the Colonel had tried to walk all over him in those damned army boots, "I can have your ass with one phone call!"

Before he even knew what was happening, Parker was lifted off the ground, his head practically crushed between the security chief's meaty hands, and the man was hissing at him. HISSING for fuck's sake! Quaritch was totally out of control!

"You're a long way from Earth," Quaritch said, and although it sounded calm, suddenly Parker realized he could hear the undertones of "crazy" in the man's voice, and fuck, he could definitely see it in his eyes. He was like something out of one of those ancient early suspense movies...what was it called again? He couldn't quite remember in the mad rush of adrenaline that was urging his bowels to let go, but he knew it had something to do with the phrase "here's Johnny!" for some bizarre reason he could almost hear that coming from Quaritch's mouth, the tiny, sadistic smile widening into a grimace of pure madness.

And then, Parker was being set down, almost gently, the mad eyes still following his, not letting their gazes part, the hands gripping familiarly at his shoulders until Quaritch turned away as though nothing had happened.

"Un-ass this man from the area." He threw the order casually over his shoulder as he continued on his way, off to play with another big gun or get chummy with some other soldier or something like that. Parker didn't know and frankly, now he didn't care. There was so much adrenaline pumping through his system that he suspected if he didn't move now he was going to do something really embarrassing, like faint, throw up or shit himself, and none of those options were anything he wanted to do when surrounded by meathead mercenaries and the miners' militia. "And get that compound loaded!"

"You touch me you are so fired!" Parker gritted through his teeth as he turned to leave on his own, ignoring the meathead escort. He could almost fool them into believing he was leaving under his own steam, but he couldn't quite fool himself. This was going from bad to worse to the worst fucking day of his life. At least, he thought, it can't go any lower than this.

Sitting alone in the southwest gun turret on the perimeter of Hell's Gate, Will Winram was watching the battalions of Scorpions and Sampsons flying overhead, and he was feeling very conflicted. On the one hand, he should have been aboard the Dragon, running communications and navigation, not sitting here grounded as everyone else flew off to glory, but on the other hand, everything was so bollixed up at the moment that he wasn't entirely sure that glory could be considered to be anything even remotely close to what the sec-ops force was going to attain today. Even if they won the battle (and Will had his doubts about that) it was a hopeless conflict, logistically, and he was sure he wasn't the only one who knew it. To go out as a (relatively) small force, no matter how better armed, and expect to cow the occupants of an entire continent, not to mention the rest of the planet, into submission with one massive and devastating explosion taking out a major religious site was to ignore the obvious - that when you stir the hornet's nest, you had better be very sure you're ready to be attacked by every single hornet in that nest. And if the hornet's nest is the size of a beach ball and you're going in armed with one can of bug spray and no way to get more, well...the image spoke for itself. This was no Hiroshima, where the opponents had been fought into near-submission before the final, decisive and scarring blow; in this conflict they were the ones outnumbered, and the supply chain had a six-year gap.
As the old saying goes, when it comes to warfare amateurs speak of tactics and weapons. Professionals speak of logistics. Not that anyone would have listened to him if he reminded them of that. No, they were all far too busy congratulating themselves on how they were going to blow the ignorant natives into next week.

Still, Will had friends out there, and he was concerned for them. He just hoped this thing didn't bugger everything up the arse quite as much as he feared it would.

It was a vain hope, though, and he knew it.

Flying among the floating mountains, Tsu'tey on one side, Neytiri on the other, Jake could almost fool himself into believing they were just out for a little jaunt. Except they weren't. All around them, hanging on the sides of the mountains and well-camouflaged until the moment of battle, there were ikran aymakto, riders from ten different clans, all waiting for his signal, and the moment was fast approaching. They were in the right here; they had the battlefield advantage, as he'd told Trudy last night, but it was gonna be tight.

Guess it was about time he put his money where his mouth was.

And with that, we head into the breach. The next three chapters will be battle, and with any luck I'll be able to blaze through them because of that.

Now, as for the song Cathy mentioned, "Óró, Sé Do Bheatha 'Bhaile" is a well-known Irish song of independance. The tune is the same as "drunken sailor" strangely enough, and the title means "Oro, you are welcome home". Even if you don't understand the words, it's a very stirring song to hear sung, and fitting, I've always thought, for a victory celebration by the Na'vi.

Now on to Vocab:

toruk - Great Leonopteryx
uniltaron - dream hunt, "vision quest"
Vitrautral - Tree of Souls
ikran makto / ikran aymakto - Banshee rider(s)
kunsìp - gunship
Kelutral - Hometree
yawnetu - beloved person, boy/girlfriend
makto - ride, in this case, since it's not part of a colloquial title like "ikran makto" or "toruk makto"
irayo - thank you
tsaheylu - the bond
tsmuke - sister
sawtute - sky people
kefyak - colloquial ending to a sentence; "right?" or "is it not so?"
Tsahìk - spiritual leader
Nawma Rolyu - "high singer"
Toruk Makto - legendary hero of the Na'vi
Kìyevame - "see you soon"
ikran / ayikran - banshee(s)
nantang - viperwolf

fanfic, avatar

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