Brotherhood Chapter 38
Wheee....and the battle begins!
*groans with effort* alright folks, here's the first chapter of the battle, all fought out for you, and indeed it was a battle for me, too! Any complaints for how long this one took can be directed to me, any praise, on the other hand, should be handed over to Liferefined, for it was only through his efforts and encouragement that I managed to get through the battle scenes here and get this out in anything resembling a timelly manner. Hope you enjoy the rest of the scenes, ma 'eylan!
As far as the next chapter, it should go much more quickly, as I've gotten quite a bit of it sorted already. I've been writing these three chapters in conjunction with each other, much more like one big long chapter than three shorter ones, so it should be ready in a day or two, all things being equal.
Anyway, on with the story, and I hope everyone can follow the action. Just keep in mind, all of this is happening over a relatively short period of time and you should be okay!
Brotherhood Chapter 38: Let Slip the Dogs of War
Even though she should have been relaxing in the lovely hot springs she'd found, or doing a little lazy research, or even just sunning herself, Grace couldn't enjoy the blissful afterlife she'd been given right now. In fact, all she could do at the moment was pace back and forth in the narrow corridor between her sink and her bed (the rest of the house she'd made herself was crammed full of specimens, samples and the crude equipment she'd managed to make to examine it all, so that was the only pacing space left with a clear, straight run) and worry about what was going on back down (up? Kitty-corner? Tesser?) on the surface of Pandora. She knew something was going on, and she just wished there was some way to know what was happening before she found out because someone showed up on her doorstep.
She managed two more turns between the bed and the sink before a hand reached out and stopped her.
"Mawey, ma 'ite." Grace looked up to see a kind smile on the face of the Na'vi woman who...wasn't really a Na'vi woman, but Eywa.
"I can't stand it!" Grace bit out, "I need to know what's going on! I need to know they're safe, or if they aren't safe I need to at least know what's going on!"
"It's alright, my daughter, I understand," Eywa said soothingly, "I had planned to wait a little longer before I showed you how to peek in on what happens in the world you have left behind, since it can be tiring and you are still recovering from all that troubled you there, but this, it seems, cannot wait. Come with me, and I will show you how you may know what your children do."
Eywa took Grace by the hand and led her out of her little house and into the woods, and soon Grace realized they were standing in front of a tree that looked very much like the trees the Na'vi called "utral aymokriyä", the tree of voices.
As the massive fleet of Scorpions and Sampsons, led by the Dragon gunship, all entered the Hallelujah Mountains surrounding the Valkyrie shuttle and its precious payload, the mood over the radio was upbeat and jubilant. It looked like they might've gotten the drop on the blue monkeys after all. They were almost within visual range of their target and not one flicker of blue to be seen.
Spencer Davies, the pilot of Scorpion 2H, was feeling almost amused as he listened to the chatter. Maybe they'd manage to keep this down to a minimal casualty strike after all, although he did wish they didn't have to do this in the flux. He fucking hated the way it messed with his instruments, gave him a fucking sick headache. He glanced down at the display, giving it a swat to see if it'd straighten up just a bit, and almost missed seeing what happened to his wingman. He heard a scream - or...a screech? And looked up just in time to see a blazing streak of red fall out of the sky and grab 4P by the tail and throw him into the side of a floating mountain.
And as if that was some kind of signal for the world to fall apart, all of a sudden the sky was writhing with banshees, and gunships were going down all around him.
"All aircraft weapons free! Weapons free!" came the command over the radio, although he'd already flicked his targeting computer on. Looked like they weren't gonna have it so easy after all.
Sitting on the back of the pa'li, Norm could feel its restless feet shifting beneath him, and whether the nervousness was his own or the animal's or both, he really couldn't tell. He was grateful to the horse clans for letting him ride with them, he...somehow he wouldn't have felt right if Trudy was risking herself and all he was doing was sitting back in the camp and hoping for a good outcome. Besides, someone had to be here to coordinate the ground and air forces.
He heard Jake's voice crackle over the radio then and nodded grimly. The Na'vi air force was making its move, time to get the cavalry going. He raised his arm, catching the attention of the riders around him, and then he punched forward, and the command was given.
"Maktoko!"
As one the horses and riders leapt forward, the thundering of their hooves echoing in his brain still not loud enough to drown out the war cries of the men and women around him.
Norm brought his machine gun up to his shoulder the way Trudy had showed him, his mouth opening and a surprisingly feral sound emitting from it.
With barely a thought they crossed a small stream and then they were in the thick of things, arrows and bullets flying, and Norm's finger closed over the trigger as he let the adrenaline carry him forward into a self he never would have suspected hid within him.
As he and Eampin dove into the thick of the battle, his arrows, with the boost of his mount's speed, easily piercing the windows of each kunsìp he fired upon, Tsu'tey felt a fierce joy envelop his heart. It felt good to be finally moving against the sawtute, and it felt even better to be doing it alongside Toruk Makto. Over the past couple of days, Tsu'tey had come to a decision. With all the efforts Jhake had made, he was more than ready to accept the man as Omatikaya despite his background. After all, one could not fault the unfortunate circumstance of his unusual birth, and he had done everything he could to make up for his mistakes, and when it came right down to it, that was all anyone could ask of a man, that he recognized and admitted his mistakes, and worked to make better that which he had wronged.
Truly, he was now glad to call Jhake "brother". With Toruk Makto at their head, the Na'vi could not lose!
He let out a joyful ìley as he drew and fired another arrow, sending yet another kunsìp spiralling down from the sky into the mountains below. They could not lose! The People must be kept safe at all costs!
Taka frowned to himself as he shouldered his rifle and ducked beneath a branch, following 'Ontu, the young hunter who'd been assigned as his partner for their patrol. He hadn't heard the whole reasoning behind why the boy wasn't flying, but it was obvious in his carriage that he was...less than pleased with the fact.
"I should be up there," 'Ontu growled, "I should be flying with Toruk Makto, with Jhake! Not down here hidden among the trees where no enemy will ever come!"
Taka shook his head. He wasn't going to get into that argument, he knew better. Sure, he was old enough to know better than to want to throw his life away - he had a mate now, and a child on the way, but even before that he had grown up enough to know that going down in a blaze of glory didn't do anyone any good - but he could still remember what it was to be a teenager, almost an adult, and wanting to take on the world to rub its face in the mistakes it was making.
"It...would be good to fly," Taka agreed carefully, "but here we, too, are filling an important duty. If all the warriors took to the air, then while they flew and fought valiantly against the sawtute in their ayhunsìp, there would be no one left to protect the people who do not fight, the singers, the healers, the weavers...all those who support the lives you lead. If it were not for us here, on the ground, the sawtute could slip through the forest and attack those left behind, and the fliers might fly home to emptiness and death."
'Ontu frowned thoughtfully. "I...had not considered it that way," he said, "it would be like fending off a flock of ikranay only to discover that your family had been attacked by a pack of nantang while you were in the treetops."
"Exactly," Taka nodded, breathing a sigh of relief, "So we must do our duty with care here. We may not fly today, but we walk so that all will wake tomorrow."
As she watched the battle begin from her position hidden behind and between two of the larger floating mountains, Trudy frowned. Not from emotion - no, she'd turned that side of herself off the moment her Sampson lifted above the trees - this frown was pure concentration. She was a well-trained Marine combat heli-pilot, after all, and some things, once branded into your flesh and your psyche, never really go away. She knew she was about to fire on men she'd gotten drunk with, men she'd sat around on sleepless nights trading crazy stories with, and she knew she'd feel the regret for it later - if she had a "later" after today - but right now none of that mattered. Right now, she had a job to do, and a friend whose back needed watching, so that was what she was going to do.
A Scorpion neared her position, putting itself right into her line of fire, and she hit the trigger, blowing it out of the sky, just the first of more than she wanted to keep count of. If she hadn't been an ace before today she'd be one by the end of the battle; that was for sure.
As he and his toruk flung yet another scorpion around like a toy, smashing it into the side of a Sampson, Jake let out a roar of pure visceral pleasure that was echoed by his mount. The sensation of being linked with such a consummate predator as they worked together to decimate their prey/enemies was almost addictive, an adrenaline rush transmitted straight to the brainstem, bypassing all the higher functions.
He snarled as he scanned the sky for more targets - more prey - all six sets of eyes zeroing in on a straggler near the rear of the pack. Yes, that would do nicely. He jinked, rolling to one side and then levelling out, the push and pull of air against his wings bringing him a rushing pleasure as he dropped down over the unsuspecting prey and grasped it with his talons...
And all of a sudden, Jake felt like he'd been dunked head-first into a bucket of ice-water.
"You're getting in a little too deep there, my boy," the toruk warned him, "perhaps when the battle is over you can come with me as I hunt, but for now you need to remember how your brain works, not lose yourself in me. You have people to keep an eye on, after all, don't you?"
"Right, sorry," Jake shook his head, feeling a little sheepish. Still, it had been incredible for those moments when they had become one being, and it reminded him how privileged he really was.
Only for a moment, though, then they saw a scorpion going after Peyral on her familiar cream-and-cyan mount and they were back into the battle, assessing, planning on the fly and taking out threats as they made their way toward the ultimate target, the Valkyrie shuttle and its deadly payload of mine explosives.
Back at Vitrautral, Tom, Ninat, Cathy and Antsu had found themselves a quiet spot and were trying to keep their minds off what was going on, although they couldn't do it entirely. Their sensitive ears could catch the sound of the rotors in the distance, and Tom could feel the echoes of Jake's emotions as he fought.
Ninat reached out and took his hand in hers. "What do you think?" she asked softly, "do the words in that order give us the meaning we wish?"
"Pardon?" Tom blinked, and then realized he'd been wandering in his mind again. "Sorry," he said, and flashed a smile to Cathy, "what was it you'd suggested?"
"Don't worry about it," Cathy shook her head, "Why don't we just sing something else for a little while, to take our minds off things?"
Tom smiled and shook his head, "I'm sorry I'm so distracted. I was never this bad when Jake went away when he was in the marines."
"The situation is different," Ninat patted his hand.
"And I'm more aware now of what can happen," Tom smiled at her, "but Cathy is right, we should sing. A little distraction is just what we need."
"Perhaps," Ninat said thoughtfully, "but I may have even a better suggestion than a song. It occurs to me that you do not yet know what it is to make tsaheylu with the trees. A prayer to Eywa might make all of us feel a little more calm."
Antsu wrapped an arm around Cathy's waist and pulled his mate against him, "My sister has a wise suggestion," he nodded, "a prayer is never a bad thing, and it might, indeed, put all our minds at ease."
Tom leaned over to kiss Ninat's forehead. "Perhaps we should do that, then," he nodded, "it would be something new to think about, in any case."
All four of them stood, leaving their instruments to come back to later, and headed through the bowl toward the great tree. They weren't the only ones to think of prayer, clearly, there were many Na'vi sitting at the base of the tree, linked to its boughs, but even so they managed to find a nice quiet, private spot where they could reflect within the bonds of their small family.
As the battle raged around her, Neytiri narrowed her focus, much like she did on a talioang hunt. Jhake had told her that the most important target was to take out the men in the belly of the largest tawsìp and so that was what she would do. She let Seze take care of the flying, jinking away from the attacks of the smaller ayhunsìp and directed all her attention to the men hiding in the now-open belly. The tawsìp seemed almost to be preparing itself to empty its belly, so she would lead the charge to remove the men so that it could no longer perform its deadly defecation.
She took aim on one of the gunners balancing on the very lip, balanced herself, drew back and loosed her arrow with a harsh cry, feeling a fleeting sense of satisfaction as she saw it pass through the man's belly. She turned away, beginning the manoeuvre to get back into position for another run, and felt Seze's satisfaction echo their own. The battle seemed to be going well, although as she glanced around she could see that there seemed to be fewer ikran in the sky than there had been. She tried not to let it concern her too much, however, and concentrated instead on evading the many enemy ships that seemed determined to block her access for a second shot.
The wait had been interminable. Max had thought he knew the meaning of that word before, but now...now he had a deep, internal understanding of it born through pure, mind-numbing frustration and anxiousness.
Everyone had wandered, in twos and threes and small groups to allay suspicion from the few remaining sec-ops guards who patrolled the corridors, down to the med-lab so that they'd be close to the link-room when the time came. Now they were all here, and it was probably a really good thing that there weren't any sec-ops guards around, because the room all but vibrated visibly with the accumulation of anticipatory anxiety.
Finally the brief, agreed-upon signal came over the handheld radio Max had been resisting the urge to fiddle with and they were on the move. Max grabbed one of the sterile instrument trays and pushed it out the door and down the hall toward the biolab and its adjacent link room, unbelievably glad to finally have an outlet for all his nervous energy. He stopped two panels away from the sliding doors. This should about do.
"Here," he called out, getting Dave's attention, and the two of them lifted the table up, hefting it through the air and shattering the glass wall-panel. Well, now there was glass all over the floor but at least it was safety glass. It'd be easy enough to find someone to clean up the mess later, for now they had a bigger mess to clean.
Nala had hopped through the hole, and Dave right after her, and they used the internal motion detector to open the doors, at which point the whole Science Corps flooded into the room like a...well, like a flood of quick-moving bodies.
"Rogue One, Rogue One!" Max called out over the radio, "Tell Jake we are in motion!" He belted down the short corridor into the link room proper, and started calling out orders. "Power up! Calibrate! Go, go go!"
The cacophony as the techs started shouting to each other would have been nothing but babble to the uninitiated, but they all knew what they were doing, starting with links one, two and four. There was no sense, after all, in trying to get everything going at once and overloading the system, causing a crash. The avatars and their drivers were too precious to risk like that.
"Adam, get over here," Max called one of the bio-techs whose hands weren't needed at this precise moment. He dismantled a rolling screen, pulling the pole from the rollers, and handed it to him. "Barricade the door!" There was, after all, something else Max had to do, now that he'd gotten his people in here. He pulled the door closed behind him as he ducked back out into the corridor, tested it and was pleased when it didn't open. He peered through the tiny window, giving Adam a thumbs-up, and then dashed away toward the outside-access door. Time to go wreak a little havoc!
Amhul, Olo'eyktan of the ikran people of the eastern sea, was both heartened and dismayed by turns as she watched the fight around her and did what she could herself to aid the People's cause. Certainly when Toruk Makto had come to them and spoken his rallying cry she had been drawn to the cause. His words were good, truly, and after all he was a figure of legend standing before her, only the sixth Toruk Makto ever to fly the skies of Eywa'eveng, but, she had thought, his words surely must be exaggeration, at least a little. Surely the situation was not as bad as he said, although her mate at tsahìk had assured her that at least in terms of the echoes of pain heard through utral aymokriyä what they were told of the fate of the Omatikaya's home was indeed true.
Now, though, as she watched her people and the ikran aymakto of other clans falling as they fought desperately to protect ayVitraya Ramunong she knew his words had been true, and she knew that even if she lost her life here alongside so many others, that their sacrifice was what was needed. Eywa would restore the People in time, many children would be born after the deaths of this day, but only if she was protected. It was the place, no it was the honour of the People to protect their mother, and that was what they would do.
With the sounds of battle echoing back to them from the sky, Louise and Pämeya sat together processing the herbs that had been collected the day before. Even if she didn't precisely plan to become a healer or anything like that, Louise figured it couldn't help to have some practical local knowledge of how the plants were used, whether for food or healing or even ceremonial uses. She laughed a little to herself. Look at her, going all "anthropologist" on herself. Since when had she cared about anything more than how plants grew and interacted with each other? Still...things were changing, and they were changing fast. She could see where things would go if today went to the People - and she couldn't hope that it didn't, for the sake of her baby - she was going to have to learn to live among them, and if that meant learning how to make a productive contribution, then that was what it meant.
"Here," Pämeya handed her another bushel of leaves to be chopped fine before being ground down with mortar and pestle into a thick paste that, when watered down, was a highly effective painkiller. "We have almost finished this batch; it's lucky you and Newey found such a good supply, I suspect we may have need of it by day's end."
Louise sighed and shook her head, "I suspect you're right," she agreed as she placed the leaves out on a flat stone and began passing the knife over them. She was about to say more when they were interrupted by a young girl who came running up to them.
"Pämeya! Pämeya!" the girl skidded to a stop in front of them, "Thank Eywa I found you! Txilte says something is wrong with the baby, and I can't find any of the other midwives!"
Pämeya reached out and took the girl by the shoulders gently. "Mawey, ma Kamet," she said, "Breathe and gather yourself, then tell me what troubles her."
"She says she is cramping, and she's doubled over in pain. She can't even sit up," Kamet bit her lip, "Please, you must come to her!"
Pämeya glanced over at Louise. "We will both come," she said, "it is too soon for Txilte's baby to come, but if it is coming then I will need another set of hands for sure."
"What do you need me to bring?" Louise asked. She should have been concerned that she hadn't been asked but had been "voluntold", but instead she felt honoured that Pämeya trusted her enough to use her as a second set of hands.
Pämeya quickly pointed out all the medicines they might need and the two of them packed them into a carry-basket, and then hurried after Kamet. This day was turning out to be quite different from what Louise had expected, but then, who could predict what any day would bring, let alone a day when the whole rest of the world was dissolving into chaos.
In the chaos as the battle raged around him, Norm could never remember later just exactly how it was or when that he had been unseated from his pa'li but somehow he ended up on his backside in the mud, still clutching his gun. He scrambled to his feet, firing again and then plunging through the stream, lifting his free hand to his throat-mic. "Jake, Jake do you copy? We're falling back, we're getting hammered!" he exclaimed. He almost couldn't hear Jake's reply over the explosions going off around them. There were bullets whining past his ears, and there were men and fa'li screaming, the sharp "rattattat" of automatic weapons fire and the sudden, alarming "whoosh" of the flamethrowers that were somehow the most disturbing of all.
"Copy, get out of there," Jake replied, the crackle of his voice in Norm's ear sounding frustrated even over the thunderous chaos around him.
This really was going all to hell. Norm felt a sharp burst of heat score the side of his ribs as he turned to fire again, and he almost paused to try to pull himself up onto a riderless pa'li that galloped by him, but he didn't have the skill and he knew it. Even in his much more athletic avatar there was no way Starbright Norman Spellman was going to run alongside a cantering horse of any derivation, grab onto its saddle and pull himself up, not to mention trying to make tsaheylu in the midst of all that, with the brief disorientation that seemed to accompany it.
So Norm put his head down and ran.
Tom sank to his knees beneath the Tree of Souls, his queue in one hand and a tendril of the tree gently held in the other, and he closed his eyes as he made the connection, truly not knowing what to expect of this.
He took a deep breath and then his eyes opened wide. It was as if he was peering into another dimension, echoes of voices sounded in his ears, and he caught himself glancing around looking for where they might be coming from. They weren't from the people around him, though, he quickly realized that the sounds were being transmitted directly into his brain by his connection to the tree.
"They're...who are they?" he asked Ninat in a whisper.
"They are the voices of our ancestors," she smiled, "the voices of those who have gone before to live within Eywa."
He felt a wave of amazement and reverence wash through him. He'd known, of course, how important the grove of the Tree of Voices was to the clan, at least in an intellectual sense, but until now he hadn't truly Seen just what it meant.
And then, things got a whole lot weirder. Instead of the disconnected chorus of many, one personality came to the fore.
"I am happy you're safe," the soft female voice said, "Please tell Ninat not to blame herself. It is not her fault that I was in the wrong place as Kelutral fell."
"Ama', is that you?" he asked silently, hardly knowing what to think.
"It is I," she confirmed, "I have little time; to speak makes me so tired...please, just tell Ninat I am well, and happy."
"I will," he whispered, "I promise, I will."
Grace leaned back against the Tree of Voices she was using to watch the battle and bit her lip. She almost didn't want to see what was happening, it was the most terrifying chaotic mess, and not only were people dying in horrible ways on both sides, but the humans were bombing, slashing and burning their way through the forest. Still, it would be worse if she wasn't watching and something happened, so she took a deep breath and looked away from Norm's struggle to check on Jake. Jake, who had done the seemingly-impossible and become Toruk Makto for her...well, okay not just for her, but her injury had been the catalyst to send him off into the air after the largest areal predator in the world.
And that was why she had to watch, had to be witness to what happened today. Some of this was being done for her sake, and if she turned away from their sacrifice, how could she ever face them when they came to her after? Not that she wanted them to, but she greatly feared that at least one of her dear ones would join her here before the day was out.
Still watching from behind her "sniping post", Trudy winced slightly at the panic she could hear in Norm's voice over the radio. Her heart went out to him, but there was nothing she could do about it right now. The best she could do was to try to stay alive, and hope that he would do the same so that later they could comfort each other and help each other carry the burden of the day.
She could see Jake now, hiding briefly behind the floating mountain next to hers as he directed battle, and she felt a cold wave go through her as she watched the nose of the Dragon clear the edge of his mountain and come into view. Shit. Everything depended on Jake right now, they couldn't afford to have him become a martyr, not when he was the one who'd tamed the mythical flying lizard and got all the Na'vi clans on his side.
She watched him skilfully deeking and jinking, diving to get out of Quaritch's path and she grit her teeth with determination. Time to stop playing Hide and Seek and get her ass in there.
As she pulled a lovely strafing run along the back of the Dragon, Trudy couldn't help but feel an odd yet familiar sense of pleasure. After everything Quaritch had put her through on this damned place since she showed up, it felt pretty damn good to fire on him, really. Stupid warmongering bastard. All she'd wanted to do on this place was have a reason to fly, and maybe enjoy the green a little.
"Oops," she chuckled as she pulled around in front of the Dragon, putting herself between it and Jake as he got out of there and back to what he was supposed to be doing, which was going after the Valkyrie. That was, after all, why he was the one carrying all the grenades.
When Louise and Pämeya arrived at the quiet corner where Kamet had left Txilte they could hear the woman before they saw her. She was curled up in a hollow between the roots of one of the trees on the edge of the depressed bowl of ayVitraya Ramunong. Pämeya frowned at the sounds her patient was making and knelt next to her, reaching out to touch her forehead with careful fingers.
"We are here, ma Txilte, be calm," she said soothingly, "You will not help your baby if you panic. Tell me what it is you feel and how long it has been happening."
"It hurts," Txilte whimpered, "It hurts so very much. My belly cramps around itself and it will not let me rest. It has..." she broke off with a gasp as she was rocked by another wave of pain, "it has been troubling me since early this morning, although then it was not so strong. I was able to hide it from Ìstaw when I sent him off but..." she paused again, "but it has gotten worse and worse... Please, what is wrong? It is too soon for the baby to be coming, you said it will be one more month at least!"
"I expected the baby to wait one more month," Pämeya shook her head, "but it seems that is not the baby's plan." She turned back to Kamet, who was still hovering around behind her looking worried. "I need you to continue looking for one or other of the midwives," she said, "I have Luuisì here to help me, but it would be a great comfort to have another pair of trained hands. It would be best, I think, to look where most of the injured are resting."
"I will do my best to find them," Kamet nodded and dashed off.
"What can I do?" Louise asked, moving up beside her.
"For now, you can hold Txilte so that she can sit up. If you sit behind her and lean her against you, we can get her into a better position for her body to do its work. Txilte," she turned her attention back to the prematurely labouring woman, "for now I want you to rest in the arms of Luuisì and do the breathing we have taught you, I must gather soft mosses and cloths, but I will be back more quickly than you will know."
"Please hurry," Txilte whispered as she let herself be shifted into a sitting position and leaned back against the uniltìranyu woman on whose face Pämeya could see determination and fear. Good. Louise and she would need both those emotions if they were going to get through this day and have a happy result for Txilte at the end of it all.
Trudy let her drift bring her around behind the nearest mountain as the Dragon fired on her, waiting to fire again herself when she had a clear avenue. She had to keep Quaritch's attention long enough for the rest of them to take out the shuttle, and she just prayed to whoever might be listening that her luck would hold out long enough to keep her mostly in one piece until that was done. She hadn't wanted to be a martyr - didn't want to be a martyr - but she knew full well what mattered in this battle, and her part was only a small one, after all.
She had a fleeting memory of the night before, as Norm had been painting up her Baby, and she and Jake had been discussing strategy over the guns they were automating so she could use them without needing door gunners.
"How's "Rogue One" suit you for a callsign?" Jake had asked, and she had laughed lightly.
"Suits me well enough, I guess," she'd said, "you got some wild inner geek there, Sully."
"Naw," he'd grinned that boyish grin at her, "just a fondness for the classics."
"Alright then," she'd nodded, "I guess I'm "Rogue One". It rolls off the tongue easy enough."
"It does," Jake had nodded a little more solemnly then, "just make sure you're a Wedge not a Porkins, you hear me?"
She'd never answered that statement. She didn't like to lie to a brother-in-arms, after all.
She shook her head as all the Dragon's missiles missed her; then hit her trigger when her hole between the cluster of mountains appeared.
"You're not the only one with a gun, bitch," she hissed with feral pleasure as she saw her shots impact and the standing figure that had to be Quaritch flinch off to the side. 'Fuck yeah, you otta be scared,' she thought as she gripped the trigger hard and feathered the cyclic with the lightest of touches. She was going to see if she couldn't use the rest of the nearby mountains and get up high enough to really get the drop on the ol' Colonel.
She winced as the concussive blast of a missile impact on one of the smaller mountains to her right threw her unexpectedly back into the window she had so recently used to her advantage...and straight into the path of the Dragon's machine guns. Crap. Forget getting the drop on him, she was gonna have to drop herself if she didn't want to get taken out of the equation completely. If she could just make a landing on one of the mountains without being seen again she could put out any fires and snipe from a stationary position. She really didn't fucking feel like being a martyr today damnit!
As Nala opened her eyes, back in her Avatar for the first time in days, she sat up slowly, her whole body aching. She slowly went through her sensory-motor exercises, wiggling her toes, touching fingers to thumb, curling and uncurling her tail, and turning her head slowly back and forth. Lying still for so long had not been kind to her avatar's body, and she could feel pressure points that she was sure would develop into bruises, and would have become skin-breakdown if much more time had been spent immobile.
She sat up and looked around, watching the others wake and stretch, and finally, when the tingling was gone from her limbs for the most part, she carefully pulled out the iv tube from her arm (with a wince of pain and a quiet swear word or three when she realized she'd forgotten to grab cotton and a warm trickle of blood was tracing a chaotic pattern down her forearm) and got to her feet. Pressing a hand over the inside of her elbow to stop the bleeding she rummaged around until she found cotton and tape and patched herself up, then headed for the rest of the group, helping each one of them as they sat up. They'd had to link up in waves, so it was a good five minutes before everyone was up and ready to move, but they used the time well with a quick discussion of strategy.
And then it was time to move. Nala, being the remaining zoologist, was the only one with iris-scan access to the avatar armoury, and luckily since they'd been locked out of the link room nobody had thought to bother taking that access away. After all, it wasn't as if someone could manhandle her empty avatar over to the iris scanner and somehow get it - her - into position to unlock the door! She leaned over the scanner and grinned as she heard the familiar whoosh of the doors opening, then stood back as LeJun darted inside and started handing out guns and ammunition to everyone. There wasn't a whole lot to go around, but it was going to have to do, and that was that.
Swiftly and as silently as possible, the now-armed avatars headed across the compound, spreading out and trying to stick close to walls and other cover. The base hadn't been completely abandoned, after all, only mostly emptied of troops and miners in order to maximise the strike force sent into the mountains, and it was a long way around from the avatar compound to the comms-ops tower, their ultimate target.
Second Lieutenant Jody Nkumo, once of the Tanzania People's Defence Force, looked around him and frowned. He didn't like the way things were going here, and it wasn't just because he'd woken with a headache this morning. He had come to Pandora when he realized that, having been passed over four times for promotion to First Lieutenant, he wasn't going to reach the goals he'd wanted within the TPDF. Having come to that conclusion, the pay and the respect afforded those who fought on Pandora and survived had caught his attention in a big way. The reality of conditions on the inhabited moon of Polyphemus, however, had turned out to be quite different from what he had expected and hoped. Sure, the pay was great, but he'd seen far too many men eaten up by the jungle and the conditions here - some literally! - to retain any illusions about his own chances. He knew that probably the only reason he was still alive was that he'd learned to respect the forest and its beasts. In some ways, they reminded him of the stories of what his homeland had been like two hundred years ago, and the longer he spent here, the more it was starting to seem wrong. He hadn't said anything to the higher-ups, though. Impulsive Jody might be, and occasionally foolish with what he did when he'd been drinking, but he'd never been accused of stupidity, after all.
With the battle echoing around him, Jody looked around at the rest of his squad, and he knew he wasn't alone in his distaste for what was happening here. These people they were fighting...they were the ones who'd been provoked first. The quiet rumours had worked their way through the troops, and most figured it was "just what was needed", that the confrontation was inevitable, but Jody'd never quite agreed with that assessment. Something seemed off about it, and even though he stood now with his squad, firing on their opponents, wounding them, likely killing some of them, he found himself less and less enthusiastic about the whole thing. He'd love to just drop his weapon to the ground and refuse to fight, but that was a thing he had never done in his life, and he wasn't about to try his luck against both forces now. After all, why would any of the Big Blue Folks believe him if he said he was sick of fighting and just wanted to be left alone?
'Shit!' Neytiri swore to herself, almost unconsciously using one of the Ìnglìsì bad words her mate often used. It didn't look like she was going to get in a second shot at the large tawsìp, at least, not quickly. Right now she and Seze were far too busy just trying to stay alive. There was a kunsìp on their tail, spitting out its tiny metal sling-stones, and they couldn't seem to lose it.
Going back to what she knew, what had worked before when trying to escape pursuit, Neytiri urged Seze to drop beneath the canopy where they were more manoeuvrable and the kunsìp much less so. Surely she would lose him in here!
She was glancing over her shoulder at their pursuer when Seze was hit, so she never saw where the shot came from, but she felt it burn through her ikran's chest as though it was her own, and it had to have come from somewhere on the ground.
Seze shrieked, and Neytiri with her, as they tumbled through the air, and Neytiri heard a last "Sorry. Weregoodpartner" come across their link before Seze used the last of her strength to break the bond and throw her off, sending her tumbling across the forest floor.
As she hit the ground, Neytiri screamed.
OMG I think that's probably the choppiest thing I've ever written v_v. It was sortof necessary though, to truly convey the chaos that is battle. I just hope everybody managed to follow that without getting totally lost.
Anyway, on to the vocab:
mawey - calm, "be calm"
'ite - daughter
utral aymokriyä - tree of voices
pa'li / fa'li - direhorse(s)
maktoko - the command to ride, but can also be roughly equivalent to "roger"
kunsìp / ayhunsìp - gunship(s)
tawtute / sawtute - sky person/people
Toruk Makto - legendary hero of the Na'vi
ìley - battle cry
ikranay - forest banshee
nantang - viperwolf
toruk - great leonopteryx
Vitrautral - the Tree of Souls
tsaheylu - the bond
talioang - sturmbeest
tawsìp - sky ship, in this case, the Valkyrie shuttle
Olo'eyktan - clan leader
Eywa'eveng - Pandora
tsahìk - spiritual leader
ikran (ay)makto - ikran rider(s)
ayVitraya Ramunong - the Well of Souls
Kelutral - Hometree
uniltìranyu - avatar, "dreamwalker"
Ìnglìsì - English language
*groans with effort* alright folks, here's the first chapter of the battle, all fought out for you, and indeed it was a battle for me, too! Any complaints for how long this one took can be directed to me, any praise, on the other hand, should be handed over to Liferefined, for it was only through his efforts and encouragement that I managed to get through the battle scenes here and get this out in anything resembling a timelly manner. Hope you enjoy the rest of the scenes, ma 'eylan!
As far as the next chapter, it should go much more quickly, as I've gotten quite a bit of it sorted already. I've been writing these three chapters in conjunction with each other, much more like one big long chapter than three shorter ones, so it should be ready in a day or two, all things being equal.
Anyway, on with the story, and I hope everyone can follow the action. Just keep in mind, all of this is happening over a relatively short period of time and you should be okay!
Brotherhood Chapter 38: Let Slip the Dogs of War
Even though she should have been relaxing in the lovely hot springs she'd found, or doing a little lazy research, or even just sunning herself, Grace couldn't enjoy the blissful afterlife she'd been given right now. In fact, all she could do at the moment was pace back and forth in the narrow corridor between her sink and her bed (the rest of the house she'd made herself was crammed full of specimens, samples and the crude equipment she'd managed to make to examine it all, so that was the only pacing space left with a clear, straight run) and worry about what was going on back down (up? Kitty-corner? Tesser?) on the surface of Pandora. She knew something was going on, and she just wished there was some way to know what was happening before she found out because someone showed up on her doorstep.
She managed two more turns between the bed and the sink before a hand reached out and stopped her.
"Mawey, ma 'ite." Grace looked up to see a kind smile on the face of the Na'vi woman who...wasn't really a Na'vi woman, but Eywa.
"I can't stand it!" Grace bit out, "I need to know what's going on! I need to know they're safe, or if they aren't safe I need to at least know what's going on!"
"It's alright, my daughter, I understand," Eywa said soothingly, "I had planned to wait a little longer before I showed you how to peek in on what happens in the world you have left behind, since it can be tiring and you are still recovering from all that troubled you there, but this, it seems, cannot wait. Come with me, and I will show you how you may know what your children do."
Eywa took Grace by the hand and led her out of her little house and into the woods, and soon Grace realized they were standing in front of a tree that looked very much like the trees the Na'vi called "utral aymokriyä", the tree of voices.
As the massive fleet of Scorpions and Sampsons, led by the Dragon gunship, all entered the Hallelujah Mountains surrounding the Valkyrie shuttle and its precious payload, the mood over the radio was upbeat and jubilant. It looked like they might've gotten the drop on the blue monkeys after all. They were almost within visual range of their target and not one flicker of blue to be seen.
Spencer Davies, the pilot of Scorpion 2H, was feeling almost amused as he listened to the chatter. Maybe they'd manage to keep this down to a minimal casualty strike after all, although he did wish they didn't have to do this in the flux. He fucking hated the way it messed with his instruments, gave him a fucking sick headache. He glanced down at the display, giving it a swat to see if it'd straighten up just a bit, and almost missed seeing what happened to his wingman. He heard a scream - or...a screech? And looked up just in time to see a blazing streak of red fall out of the sky and grab 4P by the tail and throw him into the side of a floating mountain.
And as if that was some kind of signal for the world to fall apart, all of a sudden the sky was writhing with banshees, and gunships were going down all around him.
"All aircraft weapons free! Weapons free!" came the command over the radio, although he'd already flicked his targeting computer on. Looked like they weren't gonna have it so easy after all.
Sitting on the back of the pa'li, Norm could feel its restless feet shifting beneath him, and whether the nervousness was his own or the animal's or both, he really couldn't tell. He was grateful to the horse clans for letting him ride with them, he...somehow he wouldn't have felt right if Trudy was risking herself and all he was doing was sitting back in the camp and hoping for a good outcome. Besides, someone had to be here to coordinate the ground and air forces.
He heard Jake's voice crackle over the radio then and nodded grimly. The Na'vi air force was making its move, time to get the cavalry going. He raised his arm, catching the attention of the riders around him, and then he punched forward, and the command was given.
"Maktoko!"
As one the horses and riders leapt forward, the thundering of their hooves echoing in his brain still not loud enough to drown out the war cries of the men and women around him.
Norm brought his machine gun up to his shoulder the way Trudy had showed him, his mouth opening and a surprisingly feral sound emitting from it.
With barely a thought they crossed a small stream and then they were in the thick of things, arrows and bullets flying, and Norm's finger closed over the trigger as he let the adrenaline carry him forward into a self he never would have suspected hid within him.
As he and Eampin dove into the thick of the battle, his arrows, with the boost of his mount's speed, easily piercing the windows of each kunsìp he fired upon, Tsu'tey felt a fierce joy envelop his heart. It felt good to be finally moving against the sawtute, and it felt even better to be doing it alongside Toruk Makto. Over the past couple of days, Tsu'tey had come to a decision. With all the efforts Jhake had made, he was more than ready to accept the man as Omatikaya despite his background. After all, one could not fault the unfortunate circumstance of his unusual birth, and he had done everything he could to make up for his mistakes, and when it came right down to it, that was all anyone could ask of a man, that he recognized and admitted his mistakes, and worked to make better that which he had wronged.
Truly, he was now glad to call Jhake "brother". With Toruk Makto at their head, the Na'vi could not lose!
He let out a joyful ìley as he drew and fired another arrow, sending yet another kunsìp spiralling down from the sky into the mountains below. They could not lose! The People must be kept safe at all costs!
Taka frowned to himself as he shouldered his rifle and ducked beneath a branch, following 'Ontu, the young hunter who'd been assigned as his partner for their patrol. He hadn't heard the whole reasoning behind why the boy wasn't flying, but it was obvious in his carriage that he was...less than pleased with the fact.
"I should be up there," 'Ontu growled, "I should be flying with Toruk Makto, with Jhake! Not down here hidden among the trees where no enemy will ever come!"
Taka shook his head. He wasn't going to get into that argument, he knew better. Sure, he was old enough to know better than to want to throw his life away - he had a mate now, and a child on the way, but even before that he had grown up enough to know that going down in a blaze of glory didn't do anyone any good - but he could still remember what it was to be a teenager, almost an adult, and wanting to take on the world to rub its face in the mistakes it was making.
"It...would be good to fly," Taka agreed carefully, "but here we, too, are filling an important duty. If all the warriors took to the air, then while they flew and fought valiantly against the sawtute in their ayhunsìp, there would be no one left to protect the people who do not fight, the singers, the healers, the weavers...all those who support the lives you lead. If it were not for us here, on the ground, the sawtute could slip through the forest and attack those left behind, and the fliers might fly home to emptiness and death."
'Ontu frowned thoughtfully. "I...had not considered it that way," he said, "it would be like fending off a flock of ikranay only to discover that your family had been attacked by a pack of nantang while you were in the treetops."
"Exactly," Taka nodded, breathing a sigh of relief, "So we must do our duty with care here. We may not fly today, but we walk so that all will wake tomorrow."
As she watched the battle begin from her position hidden behind and between two of the larger floating mountains, Trudy frowned. Not from emotion - no, she'd turned that side of herself off the moment her Sampson lifted above the trees - this frown was pure concentration. She was a well-trained Marine combat heli-pilot, after all, and some things, once branded into your flesh and your psyche, never really go away. She knew she was about to fire on men she'd gotten drunk with, men she'd sat around on sleepless nights trading crazy stories with, and she knew she'd feel the regret for it later - if she had a "later" after today - but right now none of that mattered. Right now, she had a job to do, and a friend whose back needed watching, so that was what she was going to do.
A Scorpion neared her position, putting itself right into her line of fire, and she hit the trigger, blowing it out of the sky, just the first of more than she wanted to keep count of. If she hadn't been an ace before today she'd be one by the end of the battle; that was for sure.
As he and his toruk flung yet another scorpion around like a toy, smashing it into the side of a Sampson, Jake let out a roar of pure visceral pleasure that was echoed by his mount. The sensation of being linked with such a consummate predator as they worked together to decimate their prey/enemies was almost addictive, an adrenaline rush transmitted straight to the brainstem, bypassing all the higher functions.
He snarled as he scanned the sky for more targets - more prey - all six sets of eyes zeroing in on a straggler near the rear of the pack. Yes, that would do nicely. He jinked, rolling to one side and then levelling out, the push and pull of air against his wings bringing him a rushing pleasure as he dropped down over the unsuspecting prey and grasped it with his talons...
And all of a sudden, Jake felt like he'd been dunked head-first into a bucket of ice-water.
"You're getting in a little too deep there, my boy," the toruk warned him, "perhaps when the battle is over you can come with me as I hunt, but for now you need to remember how your brain works, not lose yourself in me. You have people to keep an eye on, after all, don't you?"
"Right, sorry," Jake shook his head, feeling a little sheepish. Still, it had been incredible for those moments when they had become one being, and it reminded him how privileged he really was.
Only for a moment, though, then they saw a scorpion going after Peyral on her familiar cream-and-cyan mount and they were back into the battle, assessing, planning on the fly and taking out threats as they made their way toward the ultimate target, the Valkyrie shuttle and its deadly payload of mine explosives.
Back at Vitrautral, Tom, Ninat, Cathy and Antsu had found themselves a quiet spot and were trying to keep their minds off what was going on, although they couldn't do it entirely. Their sensitive ears could catch the sound of the rotors in the distance, and Tom could feel the echoes of Jake's emotions as he fought.
Ninat reached out and took his hand in hers. "What do you think?" she asked softly, "do the words in that order give us the meaning we wish?"
"Pardon?" Tom blinked, and then realized he'd been wandering in his mind again. "Sorry," he said, and flashed a smile to Cathy, "what was it you'd suggested?"
"Don't worry about it," Cathy shook her head, "Why don't we just sing something else for a little while, to take our minds off things?"
Tom smiled and shook his head, "I'm sorry I'm so distracted. I was never this bad when Jake went away when he was in the marines."
"The situation is different," Ninat patted his hand.
"And I'm more aware now of what can happen," Tom smiled at her, "but Cathy is right, we should sing. A little distraction is just what we need."
"Perhaps," Ninat said thoughtfully, "but I may have even a better suggestion than a song. It occurs to me that you do not yet know what it is to make tsaheylu with the trees. A prayer to Eywa might make all of us feel a little more calm."
Antsu wrapped an arm around Cathy's waist and pulled his mate against him, "My sister has a wise suggestion," he nodded, "a prayer is never a bad thing, and it might, indeed, put all our minds at ease."
Tom leaned over to kiss Ninat's forehead. "Perhaps we should do that, then," he nodded, "it would be something new to think about, in any case."
All four of them stood, leaving their instruments to come back to later, and headed through the bowl toward the great tree. They weren't the only ones to think of prayer, clearly, there were many Na'vi sitting at the base of the tree, linked to its boughs, but even so they managed to find a nice quiet, private spot where they could reflect within the bonds of their small family.
As the battle raged around her, Neytiri narrowed her focus, much like she did on a talioang hunt. Jhake had told her that the most important target was to take out the men in the belly of the largest tawsìp and so that was what she would do. She let Seze take care of the flying, jinking away from the attacks of the smaller ayhunsìp and directed all her attention to the men hiding in the now-open belly. The tawsìp seemed almost to be preparing itself to empty its belly, so she would lead the charge to remove the men so that it could no longer perform its deadly defecation.
She took aim on one of the gunners balancing on the very lip, balanced herself, drew back and loosed her arrow with a harsh cry, feeling a fleeting sense of satisfaction as she saw it pass through the man's belly. She turned away, beginning the manoeuvre to get back into position for another run, and felt Seze's satisfaction echo their own. The battle seemed to be going well, although as she glanced around she could see that there seemed to be fewer ikran in the sky than there had been. She tried not to let it concern her too much, however, and concentrated instead on evading the many enemy ships that seemed determined to block her access for a second shot.
The wait had been interminable. Max had thought he knew the meaning of that word before, but now...now he had a deep, internal understanding of it born through pure, mind-numbing frustration and anxiousness.
Everyone had wandered, in twos and threes and small groups to allay suspicion from the few remaining sec-ops guards who patrolled the corridors, down to the med-lab so that they'd be close to the link-room when the time came. Now they were all here, and it was probably a really good thing that there weren't any sec-ops guards around, because the room all but vibrated visibly with the accumulation of anticipatory anxiety.
Finally the brief, agreed-upon signal came over the handheld radio Max had been resisting the urge to fiddle with and they were on the move. Max grabbed one of the sterile instrument trays and pushed it out the door and down the hall toward the biolab and its adjacent link room, unbelievably glad to finally have an outlet for all his nervous energy. He stopped two panels away from the sliding doors. This should about do.
"Here," he called out, getting Dave's attention, and the two of them lifted the table up, hefting it through the air and shattering the glass wall-panel. Well, now there was glass all over the floor but at least it was safety glass. It'd be easy enough to find someone to clean up the mess later, for now they had a bigger mess to clean.
Nala had hopped through the hole, and Dave right after her, and they used the internal motion detector to open the doors, at which point the whole Science Corps flooded into the room like a...well, like a flood of quick-moving bodies.
"Rogue One, Rogue One!" Max called out over the radio, "Tell Jake we are in motion!" He belted down the short corridor into the link room proper, and started calling out orders. "Power up! Calibrate! Go, go go!"
The cacophony as the techs started shouting to each other would have been nothing but babble to the uninitiated, but they all knew what they were doing, starting with links one, two and four. There was no sense, after all, in trying to get everything going at once and overloading the system, causing a crash. The avatars and their drivers were too precious to risk like that.
"Adam, get over here," Max called one of the bio-techs whose hands weren't needed at this precise moment. He dismantled a rolling screen, pulling the pole from the rollers, and handed it to him. "Barricade the door!" There was, after all, something else Max had to do, now that he'd gotten his people in here. He pulled the door closed behind him as he ducked back out into the corridor, tested it and was pleased when it didn't open. He peered through the tiny window, giving Adam a thumbs-up, and then dashed away toward the outside-access door. Time to go wreak a little havoc!
Amhul, Olo'eyktan of the ikran people of the eastern sea, was both heartened and dismayed by turns as she watched the fight around her and did what she could herself to aid the People's cause. Certainly when Toruk Makto had come to them and spoken his rallying cry she had been drawn to the cause. His words were good, truly, and after all he was a figure of legend standing before her, only the sixth Toruk Makto ever to fly the skies of Eywa'eveng, but, she had thought, his words surely must be exaggeration, at least a little. Surely the situation was not as bad as he said, although her mate at tsahìk had assured her that at least in terms of the echoes of pain heard through utral aymokriyä what they were told of the fate of the Omatikaya's home was indeed true.
Now, though, as she watched her people and the ikran aymakto of other clans falling as they fought desperately to protect ayVitraya Ramunong she knew his words had been true, and she knew that even if she lost her life here alongside so many others, that their sacrifice was what was needed. Eywa would restore the People in time, many children would be born after the deaths of this day, but only if she was protected. It was the place, no it was the honour of the People to protect their mother, and that was what they would do.
With the sounds of battle echoing back to them from the sky, Louise and Pämeya sat together processing the herbs that had been collected the day before. Even if she didn't precisely plan to become a healer or anything like that, Louise figured it couldn't help to have some practical local knowledge of how the plants were used, whether for food or healing or even ceremonial uses. She laughed a little to herself. Look at her, going all "anthropologist" on herself. Since when had she cared about anything more than how plants grew and interacted with each other? Still...things were changing, and they were changing fast. She could see where things would go if today went to the People - and she couldn't hope that it didn't, for the sake of her baby - she was going to have to learn to live among them, and if that meant learning how to make a productive contribution, then that was what it meant.
"Here," Pämeya handed her another bushel of leaves to be chopped fine before being ground down with mortar and pestle into a thick paste that, when watered down, was a highly effective painkiller. "We have almost finished this batch; it's lucky you and Newey found such a good supply, I suspect we may have need of it by day's end."
Louise sighed and shook her head, "I suspect you're right," she agreed as she placed the leaves out on a flat stone and began passing the knife over them. She was about to say more when they were interrupted by a young girl who came running up to them.
"Pämeya! Pämeya!" the girl skidded to a stop in front of them, "Thank Eywa I found you! Txilte says something is wrong with the baby, and I can't find any of the other midwives!"
Pämeya reached out and took the girl by the shoulders gently. "Mawey, ma Kamet," she said, "Breathe and gather yourself, then tell me what troubles her."
"She says she is cramping, and she's doubled over in pain. She can't even sit up," Kamet bit her lip, "Please, you must come to her!"
Pämeya glanced over at Louise. "We will both come," she said, "it is too soon for Txilte's baby to come, but if it is coming then I will need another set of hands for sure."
"What do you need me to bring?" Louise asked. She should have been concerned that she hadn't been asked but had been "voluntold", but instead she felt honoured that Pämeya trusted her enough to use her as a second set of hands.
Pämeya quickly pointed out all the medicines they might need and the two of them packed them into a carry-basket, and then hurried after Kamet. This day was turning out to be quite different from what Louise had expected, but then, who could predict what any day would bring, let alone a day when the whole rest of the world was dissolving into chaos.
In the chaos as the battle raged around him, Norm could never remember later just exactly how it was or when that he had been unseated from his pa'li but somehow he ended up on his backside in the mud, still clutching his gun. He scrambled to his feet, firing again and then plunging through the stream, lifting his free hand to his throat-mic. "Jake, Jake do you copy? We're falling back, we're getting hammered!" he exclaimed. He almost couldn't hear Jake's reply over the explosions going off around them. There were bullets whining past his ears, and there were men and fa'li screaming, the sharp "rattattat" of automatic weapons fire and the sudden, alarming "whoosh" of the flamethrowers that were somehow the most disturbing of all.
"Copy, get out of there," Jake replied, the crackle of his voice in Norm's ear sounding frustrated even over the thunderous chaos around him.
This really was going all to hell. Norm felt a sharp burst of heat score the side of his ribs as he turned to fire again, and he almost paused to try to pull himself up onto a riderless pa'li that galloped by him, but he didn't have the skill and he knew it. Even in his much more athletic avatar there was no way Starbright Norman Spellman was going to run alongside a cantering horse of any derivation, grab onto its saddle and pull himself up, not to mention trying to make tsaheylu in the midst of all that, with the brief disorientation that seemed to accompany it.
So Norm put his head down and ran.
Tom sank to his knees beneath the Tree of Souls, his queue in one hand and a tendril of the tree gently held in the other, and he closed his eyes as he made the connection, truly not knowing what to expect of this.
He took a deep breath and then his eyes opened wide. It was as if he was peering into another dimension, echoes of voices sounded in his ears, and he caught himself glancing around looking for where they might be coming from. They weren't from the people around him, though, he quickly realized that the sounds were being transmitted directly into his brain by his connection to the tree.
"They're...who are they?" he asked Ninat in a whisper.
"They are the voices of our ancestors," she smiled, "the voices of those who have gone before to live within Eywa."
He felt a wave of amazement and reverence wash through him. He'd known, of course, how important the grove of the Tree of Voices was to the clan, at least in an intellectual sense, but until now he hadn't truly Seen just what it meant.
And then, things got a whole lot weirder. Instead of the disconnected chorus of many, one personality came to the fore.
"I am happy you're safe," the soft female voice said, "Please tell Ninat not to blame herself. It is not her fault that I was in the wrong place as Kelutral fell."
"Ama', is that you?" he asked silently, hardly knowing what to think.
"It is I," she confirmed, "I have little time; to speak makes me so tired...please, just tell Ninat I am well, and happy."
"I will," he whispered, "I promise, I will."
Grace leaned back against the Tree of Voices she was using to watch the battle and bit her lip. She almost didn't want to see what was happening, it was the most terrifying chaotic mess, and not only were people dying in horrible ways on both sides, but the humans were bombing, slashing and burning their way through the forest. Still, it would be worse if she wasn't watching and something happened, so she took a deep breath and looked away from Norm's struggle to check on Jake. Jake, who had done the seemingly-impossible and become Toruk Makto for her...well, okay not just for her, but her injury had been the catalyst to send him off into the air after the largest areal predator in the world.
And that was why she had to watch, had to be witness to what happened today. Some of this was being done for her sake, and if she turned away from their sacrifice, how could she ever face them when they came to her after? Not that she wanted them to, but she greatly feared that at least one of her dear ones would join her here before the day was out.
Still watching from behind her "sniping post", Trudy winced slightly at the panic she could hear in Norm's voice over the radio. Her heart went out to him, but there was nothing she could do about it right now. The best she could do was to try to stay alive, and hope that he would do the same so that later they could comfort each other and help each other carry the burden of the day.
She could see Jake now, hiding briefly behind the floating mountain next to hers as he directed battle, and she felt a cold wave go through her as she watched the nose of the Dragon clear the edge of his mountain and come into view. Shit. Everything depended on Jake right now, they couldn't afford to have him become a martyr, not when he was the one who'd tamed the mythical flying lizard and got all the Na'vi clans on his side.
She watched him skilfully deeking and jinking, diving to get out of Quaritch's path and she grit her teeth with determination. Time to stop playing Hide and Seek and get her ass in there.
As she pulled a lovely strafing run along the back of the Dragon, Trudy couldn't help but feel an odd yet familiar sense of pleasure. After everything Quaritch had put her through on this damned place since she showed up, it felt pretty damn good to fire on him, really. Stupid warmongering bastard. All she'd wanted to do on this place was have a reason to fly, and maybe enjoy the green a little.
"Oops," she chuckled as she pulled around in front of the Dragon, putting herself between it and Jake as he got out of there and back to what he was supposed to be doing, which was going after the Valkyrie. That was, after all, why he was the one carrying all the grenades.
When Louise and Pämeya arrived at the quiet corner where Kamet had left Txilte they could hear the woman before they saw her. She was curled up in a hollow between the roots of one of the trees on the edge of the depressed bowl of ayVitraya Ramunong. Pämeya frowned at the sounds her patient was making and knelt next to her, reaching out to touch her forehead with careful fingers.
"We are here, ma Txilte, be calm," she said soothingly, "You will not help your baby if you panic. Tell me what it is you feel and how long it has been happening."
"It hurts," Txilte whimpered, "It hurts so very much. My belly cramps around itself and it will not let me rest. It has..." she broke off with a gasp as she was rocked by another wave of pain, "it has been troubling me since early this morning, although then it was not so strong. I was able to hide it from Ìstaw when I sent him off but..." she paused again, "but it has gotten worse and worse... Please, what is wrong? It is too soon for the baby to be coming, you said it will be one more month at least!"
"I expected the baby to wait one more month," Pämeya shook her head, "but it seems that is not the baby's plan." She turned back to Kamet, who was still hovering around behind her looking worried. "I need you to continue looking for one or other of the midwives," she said, "I have Luuisì here to help me, but it would be a great comfort to have another pair of trained hands. It would be best, I think, to look where most of the injured are resting."
"I will do my best to find them," Kamet nodded and dashed off.
"What can I do?" Louise asked, moving up beside her.
"For now, you can hold Txilte so that she can sit up. If you sit behind her and lean her against you, we can get her into a better position for her body to do its work. Txilte," she turned her attention back to the prematurely labouring woman, "for now I want you to rest in the arms of Luuisì and do the breathing we have taught you, I must gather soft mosses and cloths, but I will be back more quickly than you will know."
"Please hurry," Txilte whispered as she let herself be shifted into a sitting position and leaned back against the uniltìranyu woman on whose face Pämeya could see determination and fear. Good. Louise and she would need both those emotions if they were going to get through this day and have a happy result for Txilte at the end of it all.
Trudy let her drift bring her around behind the nearest mountain as the Dragon fired on her, waiting to fire again herself when she had a clear avenue. She had to keep Quaritch's attention long enough for the rest of them to take out the shuttle, and she just prayed to whoever might be listening that her luck would hold out long enough to keep her mostly in one piece until that was done. She hadn't wanted to be a martyr - didn't want to be a martyr - but she knew full well what mattered in this battle, and her part was only a small one, after all.
She had a fleeting memory of the night before, as Norm had been painting up her Baby, and she and Jake had been discussing strategy over the guns they were automating so she could use them without needing door gunners.
"How's "Rogue One" suit you for a callsign?" Jake had asked, and she had laughed lightly.
"Suits me well enough, I guess," she'd said, "you got some wild inner geek there, Sully."
"Naw," he'd grinned that boyish grin at her, "just a fondness for the classics."
"Alright then," she'd nodded, "I guess I'm "Rogue One". It rolls off the tongue easy enough."
"It does," Jake had nodded a little more solemnly then, "just make sure you're a Wedge not a Porkins, you hear me?"
She'd never answered that statement. She didn't like to lie to a brother-in-arms, after all.
She shook her head as all the Dragon's missiles missed her; then hit her trigger when her hole between the cluster of mountains appeared.
"You're not the only one with a gun, bitch," she hissed with feral pleasure as she saw her shots impact and the standing figure that had to be Quaritch flinch off to the side. 'Fuck yeah, you otta be scared,' she thought as she gripped the trigger hard and feathered the cyclic with the lightest of touches. She was going to see if she couldn't use the rest of the nearby mountains and get up high enough to really get the drop on the ol' Colonel.
She winced as the concussive blast of a missile impact on one of the smaller mountains to her right threw her unexpectedly back into the window she had so recently used to her advantage...and straight into the path of the Dragon's machine guns. Crap. Forget getting the drop on him, she was gonna have to drop herself if she didn't want to get taken out of the equation completely. If she could just make a landing on one of the mountains without being seen again she could put out any fires and snipe from a stationary position. She really didn't fucking feel like being a martyr today damnit!
As Nala opened her eyes, back in her Avatar for the first time in days, she sat up slowly, her whole body aching. She slowly went through her sensory-motor exercises, wiggling her toes, touching fingers to thumb, curling and uncurling her tail, and turning her head slowly back and forth. Lying still for so long had not been kind to her avatar's body, and she could feel pressure points that she was sure would develop into bruises, and would have become skin-breakdown if much more time had been spent immobile.
She sat up and looked around, watching the others wake and stretch, and finally, when the tingling was gone from her limbs for the most part, she carefully pulled out the iv tube from her arm (with a wince of pain and a quiet swear word or three when she realized she'd forgotten to grab cotton and a warm trickle of blood was tracing a chaotic pattern down her forearm) and got to her feet. Pressing a hand over the inside of her elbow to stop the bleeding she rummaged around until she found cotton and tape and patched herself up, then headed for the rest of the group, helping each one of them as they sat up. They'd had to link up in waves, so it was a good five minutes before everyone was up and ready to move, but they used the time well with a quick discussion of strategy.
And then it was time to move. Nala, being the remaining zoologist, was the only one with iris-scan access to the avatar armoury, and luckily since they'd been locked out of the link room nobody had thought to bother taking that access away. After all, it wasn't as if someone could manhandle her empty avatar over to the iris scanner and somehow get it - her - into position to unlock the door! She leaned over the scanner and grinned as she heard the familiar whoosh of the doors opening, then stood back as LeJun darted inside and started handing out guns and ammunition to everyone. There wasn't a whole lot to go around, but it was going to have to do, and that was that.
Swiftly and as silently as possible, the now-armed avatars headed across the compound, spreading out and trying to stick close to walls and other cover. The base hadn't been completely abandoned, after all, only mostly emptied of troops and miners in order to maximise the strike force sent into the mountains, and it was a long way around from the avatar compound to the comms-ops tower, their ultimate target.
Second Lieutenant Jody Nkumo, once of the Tanzania People's Defence Force, looked around him and frowned. He didn't like the way things were going here, and it wasn't just because he'd woken with a headache this morning. He had come to Pandora when he realized that, having been passed over four times for promotion to First Lieutenant, he wasn't going to reach the goals he'd wanted within the TPDF. Having come to that conclusion, the pay and the respect afforded those who fought on Pandora and survived had caught his attention in a big way. The reality of conditions on the inhabited moon of Polyphemus, however, had turned out to be quite different from what he had expected and hoped. Sure, the pay was great, but he'd seen far too many men eaten up by the jungle and the conditions here - some literally! - to retain any illusions about his own chances. He knew that probably the only reason he was still alive was that he'd learned to respect the forest and its beasts. In some ways, they reminded him of the stories of what his homeland had been like two hundred years ago, and the longer he spent here, the more it was starting to seem wrong. He hadn't said anything to the higher-ups, though. Impulsive Jody might be, and occasionally foolish with what he did when he'd been drinking, but he'd never been accused of stupidity, after all.
With the battle echoing around him, Jody looked around at the rest of his squad, and he knew he wasn't alone in his distaste for what was happening here. These people they were fighting...they were the ones who'd been provoked first. The quiet rumours had worked their way through the troops, and most figured it was "just what was needed", that the confrontation was inevitable, but Jody'd never quite agreed with that assessment. Something seemed off about it, and even though he stood now with his squad, firing on their opponents, wounding them, likely killing some of them, he found himself less and less enthusiastic about the whole thing. He'd love to just drop his weapon to the ground and refuse to fight, but that was a thing he had never done in his life, and he wasn't about to try his luck against both forces now. After all, why would any of the Big Blue Folks believe him if he said he was sick of fighting and just wanted to be left alone?
'Shit!' Neytiri swore to herself, almost unconsciously using one of the Ìnglìsì bad words her mate often used. It didn't look like she was going to get in a second shot at the large tawsìp, at least, not quickly. Right now she and Seze were far too busy just trying to stay alive. There was a kunsìp on their tail, spitting out its tiny metal sling-stones, and they couldn't seem to lose it.
Going back to what she knew, what had worked before when trying to escape pursuit, Neytiri urged Seze to drop beneath the canopy where they were more manoeuvrable and the kunsìp much less so. Surely she would lose him in here!
She was glancing over her shoulder at their pursuer when Seze was hit, so she never saw where the shot came from, but she felt it burn through her ikran's chest as though it was her own, and it had to have come from somewhere on the ground.
Seze shrieked, and Neytiri with her, as they tumbled through the air, and Neytiri heard a last "Sorry. Weregoodpartner" come across their link before Seze used the last of her strength to break the bond and throw her off, sending her tumbling across the forest floor.
As she hit the ground, Neytiri screamed.
OMG I think that's probably the choppiest thing I've ever written v_v. It was sortof necessary though, to truly convey the chaos that is battle. I just hope everybody managed to follow that without getting totally lost.
Anyway, on to the vocab:
mawey - calm, "be calm"
'ite - daughter
utral aymokriyä - tree of voices
pa'li / fa'li - direhorse(s)
maktoko - the command to ride, but can also be roughly equivalent to "roger"
kunsìp / ayhunsìp - gunship(s)
tawtute / sawtute - sky person/people
Toruk Makto - legendary hero of the Na'vi
ìley - battle cry
ikranay - forest banshee
nantang - viperwolf
toruk - great leonopteryx
Vitrautral - the Tree of Souls
tsaheylu - the bond
talioang - sturmbeest
tawsìp - sky ship, in this case, the Valkyrie shuttle
Olo'eyktan - clan leader
Eywa'eveng - Pandora
tsahìk - spiritual leader
ikran (ay)makto - ikran rider(s)
ayVitraya Ramunong - the Well of Souls
Kelutral - Hometree
uniltìranyu - avatar, "dreamwalker"
Ìnglìsì - English language