Hostage (We Bleed The Same) - Ur_Local_Neek (2024)

Chapter 1: A New Star

Chapter Text

“Come,” Neteyam grabbed at Alyara’s hand and began to pull her along, “Dad showed me how to hunt at the creek. I’ll show you how.”

“Is it far?” Alyara asked, only resisting a little.

“It’s just through the brush,” Neteyam promised. “Come on, Aly. I caught one yesterday, it was huge.” He let go of her arm and spread his arms as wide as they could go.

“Whoa,” Alyara breathed. “How did you do it?”

“I’ll show you, come.” He grabbed her arm and set off again, pulling Alyara along behind him.

Mother had warned her not to wander, but she was with Neteyam, so surely it was okay. He had said it was only a little way away after all. So, she followed him, jumping over the roots and ducking beneath branches until the sound of running water began to dominate the forest ambience.

There was a little slope leading down to a wide, shallow creek with large rocks all through the middle splitting the water’s path. Neteyam ran to the edge of the water, stopping short of it, and crouching down.

Alyara peered into the water, looking for anything. She heard a plop to her right and her ears perked up, then Neteyam laughed to her left, a rock in his hand. “Not funny,” she pouted, pushing at the boy as he laughed.

“I’ll show you how to spot them,” he said. He pointed to the rocks and she followed. “They like to stop behind them, where the water pulls and pushes less.”

Alyara peered in and saw nothing. She said as much, but then, as if a gift from Eywa, some of the dirt raised off the bed of the creek, and she saw a tail sweep slowly from side to side. “Do we get it?” she asked.

“No,” he said, “we don’t need to take it. So we don’t.” He crouched beside her, resting his hands on the ground. He lifted a pebble and let it land in the water, to fall slowly down. When it hit the bottom, the fish panicked and swam away, leaving a mass of muck all raised up in the water. “You try,” he said, guiding her to the waterside, “see if you can spot one, then drop a little stone near it.”

Alyara’s eyes took a moment to adjust to the disturbance of the flowing water and she peered into its depths, scanning the floor of it around the rocks. For a moment she excited herself, thinking she had found one. But it proved only to be a stray reed poling out from the sand, not one of the feelers the fish stuck out above their hiding places to look for predator and prey alike.

Neteyam counselled patience, so she was patient. She sat, utterly still everywhere but for her eyes which darted around looking for some telltale sign of movement. And there it was, a small cloud of sand rising and falling nearer the creek’s other shore.

Alyara was so surprised she had actually spotted one that she forgot she had to throw a pebble to rouse it until Neteyam pressed it into her hand. She threw it and watched as it struck the surface of the water and sunk, whooping when the animal was scared away from its hiding spot and vanished down the creek.

And just in time, there was a loud rustling behind them and out tumbled Neteyam’s little brother and sister, Lo’ak and Kiri with her own brother, Atan’tey at their sides. “Come on, Nete,” Lo’ak said, mom wants us back now.

Neteyam nodded and stepped back from the creek. “Okay,” he said, “let’s go.”

Alyara’s eyes widened in surprise and then narrowed warily as they fell upon the small figure that seemed to be Lo’ak and Kiri’s shadow. Spider, she remembered Lo’ak call him. He was small, barely as tall as Alyara’s legs were long, and over his face he wore some transparent covering. His eyes looked too small, his nose looked too large, his hair was an odd, sandy colour. He was without the queue that she had and the tail too. He was alien. And yet he moved so well, nimble and light on his feet.

All she knew of humanity she knew from stories, terrible stories of great metal monsters that the sky-people made to do their fighting for them. They said the sky-people were demons who had come to kill Eywa and turn Eywa'eveng into a smoking ruin. Anger filled her at the sight of the sky-person child, and the confusion. Why is he here? Alyara knew some good sky-people remained, there was some odd sky-person word that Alyara couldn’t remember for what they were, but they were far away at the old human camp.

And yet he was here, in Na’vi territory, wearing Na’vi clothing, running around with blue stripes painted on his skin, playing and talking with Na’vi children, fluent in their tongue.

Neteyam must’ve seen her looking as the child tugged playfully at Kiri’s tail, because he whispered to her, “It’s okay, Spider is a friend.”

Alyara nodded. There were too many questions in her head for her to possibly ask, so she held her silence and followed the rest of the group back to the Omatikaya village.

When the dense brush gave way to the open space of the village and all its woven maruis dotted amongst the trees, Atan’tey came to her side as they made for the marui their family was borrowing for the visit.

“Enjoy your date?” he asked, grinning stupidly.

Alyara shoved him, muttering that it wasn’t anything like that. But he just chuckled and kept on grinning that stupid grin at her.

There were voices at the marui, more than just mother and father. Though she knew she shouldn’t have, Alyara snuck around the side of the marui and crouched to listen. Atan’tey crouched beside her, copying her as she listened.

“I cannot say when because I don’t know.” It was the voice of the Omatikaya Olo’eyktan, Jake Sully. “But the sky-people will return.”

“How can you know this, Toruk Makto?” her mother, Ikeyni, the Tayrangi Olo’eykte, said.

“Because I know them,” Jake Sully said, “because I know that they are desperate.”

“One of them said it wasn’t over,” came the voice of Jake Sully’s mate, Neytiri. “They speak falsely of much, but not this.”

“Surely you do not suggest we live our entire lives in fear of their return?” her father, Tsentey, asked. “Our eldest child is only nine years old, too young to spend her life fearing a distant war. I won’t have her live and grow like that.”

“Of course not,” Sully replied. “But we can’t afford to be unprepared for their return.”

Crack. Alyara spun to see Atan’tey had shuffled a little and stepped on a stick, snapping it. She scowled at him as their parents came to investigate. “You skxawng,” she hissed at him as he looked sheepishly away.

“Alyara,” she spun back, hearing her mother, “Atan’tey, it is rude to eavesdrop.”

“We were just-“ Atan’tey started to protest.

“Sorry, mother,” Alyara interrupted, bowing her head, knowing whatever excuse her little brother would come forth with would most likely fall flat.

“It’s all right, my wildflower.” Her mother swept down to them and must’ve seen the wide-eyed look on their faces, for she said, “Forget the things you have heard here, children. What we spoke of will not come, I promise.”

---

Five Years Later

That promise fell apart the night a new star began to shine in the sky, or so it appeared. But Alyara knew better, as did the rest of them. The elders recalled it, every time the sky-people descended upon Eywa’eveng, their machines burned bright.

As Toruk Makto had warned, the sky-people had returned, and with them would come fire and death.

Alyara watched from a jagged hilltop as the light brightened and then faded. Then, far away, a faint orange glow settled in place far over the horizon. She felt something tighten horribly within her stomach as she spun on her heels and swung herself into the saddle of her ikran, Caelys. Their tsaheylu melded their senses and intentions, and, without need for instruction, Caelys took wing and rose into the air. Caelys dipped her left wing and swung around the hilltop to make for the coast and her village.

They’re back. The demons are back. Alyara looked over her shoulder, a prickling feeling rising along the skin on the back of her neck. She willed Caelys to go faster, her fear crossing the bond that joined them and impressing an urgency upon the ikran.

Mother was addressing the people when Alyara approached their family marui, asking them for calm. “If our fears are true,” she said, “then the sky-people have returned.”

“Fight them!” a voice cried out from the throng of people, bringing a clamour of vocal agreements.

“We may have to,” Mother said. “We are not a people to seek war, but we must prepare for it should it come.” She said that of the hunters a number would always be patrolling their territory, making certain that they could never take them by surprise. More preparatory precautions were set in place and the people dispersed to see to all that needed doing.

Alyara worked her way through the people and into the marui where mother, father, Atan’tey and her youngest brother, Atxayni.

“Oh, sweetling,” her mother took her into her arms, pressing kisses against her forehead. “Where have you been?”

“I was at the grey hills,” Alyara said. “I saw the new star.”

“Do they come to fight?” Atan’tey asked.

“We cannot know,” father said. He turned his eye from son to daughter. “And we cannot assume. This war is not ours to start.”

“If it’s going to start eventually, why should we wait for it?” Alyara muttered.

“Because we do not know that it will, sweet,” Mother said. “When last the sky-people came it took years for conflict to begin. They came first in peace, before they became greedy. Perhaps the years have let their kind reflect.”

“Or prepare,” Alyara said, her hands itching to feel the familiar weight of her bow between them.

“Perhaps,” her mother conceded. “War might come, and if so we must fight. But we will not seek to make war unless we must.”

“How can we know?” Atan’tey asked. “How can we know what they want? How can we know whether there will be peace or war?”

“Because I will go and find out,” Mother said. “Jake Sully will, no doubt, call a war council with the other olo’eyktans. I will simply arrive early. Whatever is to come, I will not let us be in the dark about it.” She pressed a kiss to Atan’tey and Atxayni’s foreheads and commanded them to sleep.

When she swept over to Alyara, she said, “I want to go with you.”

“Of course you do, my wildflower. You are tall and strong and fierce . . . that is why I need you here, defending the people as I am away, defending your brothers. You’re in charge of them.” Her mother leaned in and, with a smile, whispered, “Even your father. Keep them all safe for me until I return.”

“I will.” Alyara stood straight and proud. “I promise.”

“I’ll be home again soon.” Her mother gave her father a quick kiss and murmured something in his ear. “Keep each other safe until I return.”

Alyara wanted to follow her mother as she mounted her ikran, she wanted to be astride Caelys beside her in the sky. She went so far as leaving the marui, but no further. Only one ikran rose, for Alyara had a job, a duty, to her people and to her mother. She re-entered the marui and, with her newfound authority, pointed at Atan’tey and said, “You heard Mother, I’m in charge now.”

He looked hopefully at Father, who simply shrugged with an amused grin on his face and said, “Olo’eykte’s orders. Listen to your sister.”

Alyara enjoyed being able to boss around her brothers, not that Atxayni needed much bossing. Atan’tey, though, grumbled and griped as he tidied the marui as Alyara had ordered. “This isn’t what she meant,” he mumbled.

“It’s exactly what she meant,” Alyara said, glad that father was allowing her this pleasure. Luckily for her brothers, there wasn't much that needed cleaning and soon they took to their sleeping mats.

Her father waited at the Marui’s entrance, sat with his legs hanging over the edge, looking out to the sea as the stars flashed in the night sky. He beckoned Alyara to sit beside him, smiling. “Come, sweet.”

“Father,” Alyara said as she lowered herself to his side, “do you think it will come to war?”

He cast a searching gaze over her and sighed. “This you keep between us, Alyara.”

“Yes, Father.”

“I think it is inevitable, if not imminent. As does your mother.” He rested a hand on her shoulder. “I did not want to believe they would return. I hoped you might grow and live in peace . . . but Toruk Makto saw the truth of it. He will have the right of it again when he will advise that we prepare for imminent conflict.”

“You are so sure that it will come to that?”

“It is not a certainty, but the way the sky-people are . . . their greed, it will push us back until we have no choice but to lash out from our corner. Unless they have come with a fight in mind, or unless we strike first.”

“You said we wouldn’t make war,” Alyara asked, “did you not?”

“Wars are made long before the first blow is ever struck. This one, I now see, was made the day we defeated the sky-people fifteen years ago. Perhaps we can delay it, or, by some miracle, find peace, but it is unlikely.”

“I will fight,” Alyara said quickly, “you can’t stop me. If they come I want to defend the people.”

“No, I can’t,” Father said. “I wish I could hide you from it all . . . from them all. But you are your mother’s daughter, and so you will face whatever is to come. We can only prepare you and be at your side.”

Alyara nodded. “What were they like? What was it like?”

“Terrifying. The sky-people may be small and weakly built, but their minds are sharp and their hearts are empty, so they make weapons of the forbidden metals that unleash death as we could never.” Father looked to her again, as though trying to see what her reaction would be. “Our strength lies in that we know the land, and that Eywa knows us. When we strike first, we strike fast, we move fast in great numbers; we can surprise and overwhelm them.” He pointed to his bow which lay within the marui. “Deadly as they are, they are also frail, one true strike will kill any of them. But you must be precise and powerful.”

“I can be,” she said quietly, then with more conviction: “I am!”

Father laughed. “No-one is more so. The demons will rue the day they meet you, I am sure. But even you need rest. Sleep, sweet. Tonight we are safe.” He pressed a kiss to Alyara’s forehead and stood, drawing her to her feet with him.

She pulled herself into his arms, safe in his embrace as she allowed herself a moment of fear that she knew she would have to keep hidden. Tonight we are safe, she thought. But how many more after that?

Chapter 2: The Dying World

Chapter Text

The skyrail cut its path through the city of London, speeding along at breakneck pace, hanging beneath its raised rail tracks high above the city streets. From the windows all there was to see was the silver-grey of the steel city and the thousand blaring lights besides. Adverts on massive screens and holograms for everything a man could possibly buy; food, insurance, medication, brothels, strip clubs . . . anything someone could make money off. Even breathing.

Half the people he saw had one mask or another covering their face, probably more. Not Jace Callon, though, he had to savour the last few hours he had of being outside without needing a mask, grim as the air’s tinge was.

Where he was going the air was fresh, clean, unspoiled; the only problem being that there was enough carbon dioxide in the air to kill a person in four minutes, that and all the hydrogen sulphide which made a single breath of the air a potential death sentence.

And yet it seemed a paradise, just not one meant for him. Here, on Earth, hell was near. They’d f*cked up the planet so badly that the mass extinctions that had long been prophesised were distant memories, just as were the flora and fauna that had gone with them. Forests, woods, jungles, reefs; most of them were gone. And soon we will be too if we don’t find another place to go, he thought.

The skyrail began to slow, and Jace braced himself against the deceleration so as not to crash into the masked woman stood before him with a masked toddler in her arms. It was his stop. He squeezed his way between two elderly men and then past a girl who couldn’t have been more than thirteen, also masked. The glass door was right ahead of him now and, looking ahead, he could see the station coming into view.

“Approaching Montague Street Station,” the robotic voice announced. “Please mind the gap between the pod and the platform.”

He looked below and saw a sea of people crossing the street below as the red light halted the traffic. Masks and veils on almost all of them. Humanity had built itself a tower to the sky without so much as a thought on what to do if they needed to take a step back. Now it was in freefall, with only a distant dream providing hope for its salvation. Pandora.

He stepped onto the platform, minding the gap as per the robotic announcer. There was no coverage for mishaps, and Jace’s only chance to get away hinged on his health being perfect. The opportunity was almost one in a billion, all because he had some skills and knew the right person.

There was a choice, elevator or stairs. Well . . . not really. The former was so full it was already a certainty that someone would get pushed off just so the doors could slide closed. That wasn’t to say the stairs weren’t full either. Jace just managed to slip in front of a guy with crutches and a foot that clanked against the floor with every step. He tried to ignore what he knew that meant as he almost ran down the stairs to escape the sound of the man’s footsteps.

He made it to the ground before the elevator, but he could see the light of it pulsing its way down the glass tube. He pushed and squeezed his way through the masses, moving his hand to his pocket to check his wallet and phone hadn’t come loose. Content, he continued on, trying to rush to beat the green light that would stop the foot traffic in its path. He didn’t, and the crush began. A thousand bodies all packed together just waiting for a light to free them. Ten seconds, twenty seconds, a minute, two minutes. Finally at two-fifty-five the cars and bikes stopped and the people started, easing the pressure on Jace’s chest.

He cut a diagonal path, making for one of the myriad alleys that weaved in between the bases of the great skyscrapers. The tide of moving people threatened to sweep Jace away, but he managed to slip his way through and escape the throng for the quieter alley.

Purple, red, blue and yellow holograms shone above him, casting their lights onto the ground and setting a hundred shadows of him where he blocked their path. Jace stopped at a dingey convenience shop to buy a small carton of milk and then continue on. He chugged it down, hoping it would line his stomach quick enough. He tossed it into an almost overflowing bin and moved on. He ignored the call of a dealer, and then the soft call of a night-worker who reached a silk-gloved hand out to brush at his shoulder. Jace brushed them away and pressed on, looking from sign to sign for the right name. The Kingpin, The Sugarhouse, Silver Night. No, no, no. Then there it was. Lady Midnight. The bar had a neon sign depicting the outline of one of Pandora’s resident Na’vi females. Jace frowned, then chucked as a bouncer critically examined his ID. Fitting, he thought, pushing open the door and being washed over with blue light.

“There he is!” Kyra Walcot’s voice was loud and boisterous. “My fellow adventurer to be!”

A number of eyes fell on him, Kyra’s friends, he gathered. One guy looked in utter disbelief. “This kid? You said he was young, but god f*cking damn it, he’s young!”

“Is he even old enough to drink?” a red-haired girl asked.

Hell, he wasn’t that young. Jace pulled his military school ID out and made a show of displaying it to them. “Matter of fact, I can.” He turned to the bar, ignoring the mutterings of ‘only just,’ and decided to start himself off light, ordering a bottle of Corona. He frowned when the bartender pushed the lime wedge into the bottle instead of letting Jace do it. He’d always liked watching the beer fizz when the citrus plopped into it.

“So, Private Callon,” Kyra said, “how do you feel?”

“I’m sh*tting bricks,” Jace said truthfully. He’d managed to avoid thinking about the well in his stomach that had been there for weeks now. He noted there were still some of Kyra’s friends gawking at him. “Hey,” he muttered, “I came here to drown my fears, not talk about them.”

“Fair point, fair point,” Kyra said. “Though, if it helps, I don’t think I’ve slept more than an hour a night for the last week.”

“Well, you’ll have six years of cryosleep to make up for it, so I wouldn’t worry,” Jace jested, sipping at the beer.

“Seriously though, how does a kid who isn’t even nineteen yet get himself a flight to Pandora?” the first guy asked.

“Tom,” Kyra chastised, “why else but because he’s damn good at what he does?”

“That being?” Tom prompted.

“Shooting, running, hand-to-hand, working in low gravity,” Jace listed. “General fighting stuff, you know?”

“You must be pretty good to catch the RDA’s eye,” the red-head girl said.

“With one good connection, I forgot to add.” Eyes rolled all around. Jace was used to it, he needed to be. “It’s not that I didn’t work for it, I just got a little more spotlight, some job-specific training and a good word.”

“He’s not some nepo-baby if that’s what you’re thinking,” Kyra told her friends as Jace took another swig. “His dad was military, died in Venezuela when Jace was young, but saved the life of some other guy who had connections of his own.”

“I take this job, my sister can go to university and maybe book her own ticket off this sh*thole via the academic route,” Jace said. “The guy knew my mum was struggling, so he asked a favour, pulled a string or two and showed me off. Luckily, I was good enough to make the cut.”

“That’s putting it modestly,” Kyra said. “The kid’s good, really good.”

“And just how do you know him?” the redhead girl asked.

“Same mutual connection, Jynn,” Kyra said dismissively. “Jace has been helping me get the language perfected by graciously letting me teach him.”

“Go on then,” Jynn prompted, “show us.”

Kyra looked at Jace, “Do you wanna start to or should I?”

“You go,” Jace said.

“All right, here goes nothing.” Kyra took a moment before saying, “Kxì, Jace.”

“Kaltxì,” he replied, choosing the more formal greeting only because it was easier to pronounce. “Lu nga so’ha?”

“Sran.”

It was as short a conversation as there could have been but the others broke out into applause at its end regardless, with Tom proclaiming that the next round of shots was on him. “Go on, kiddo, what do you want?”

“Tequila Rose,” Jace said.

“Boo.” Kyra said loudly. “Boring! Have some vodka.”

“Vodka makes me sick almost every time. No, not tonight.” Jace finished the last of his Corona and walked to the bar to return the bottle so it could be binned.

Tom followed him. “Sambuca then, you can get the raspberry flavour if you’re feeling scared.”

Jace scowled. “No, I’ll have the normal.”

“You like liquorish?” Tom asked after he had ordered the shots.

“Never had it,” Jace replied. “What should I expect?”

“Oh man, it’s sweet but in a way that you’ll either love or completely f*cking hate.” The bartender brought a tray with eight shot glasses filled with a clear liquor, two for each of them. “Do you mind if I video your reaction?”

“Go ahead, it’s not like you can use it against me while I’m asleep in a box hurtling through space.”

“That’s my man,” Tom said, setting the tray down on their table and clapping Jace on the shoulder.

Jynn looked distastefully at the shots and said, “Sambuca, really?”

“Stop complaining,” Kyra said, “it’s nice, Jace, I promise.” She took one and tilted her head back as she shotted it, swallowing and cringing just a little. “You next.”

Jace shrugged, picked up one of the shot glasses and knocked it back. Its flavour was sweet, as Tom had said, but ungodly so. Jace stuck out his tongue, creasing as the aftertaste hit. “For once, I prefer the aftertaste,” he said. Only then did he remember he was being videoed and regretted giving his permission for it.

The second one went down easier and Jace began to feel a pleasant buzzing feeling in his chest, his thoughts moving ahead to the world he was about to visit and all that he would see there. When the others got their next round of shots, Jace got himself the Tequila Roses he had wanted earlier and joined the rest shot for shot as they had vodka. He felt good about his choice when he watched Tom, Kyra and Jynn’s faces after they had taken their shot.

And on the night went, Jace excused himself from the shots to a chorus of boos and hisses, buying himself a cider instead. He did partake in the drinking games though, sipping instead of shotting as a thought struck him. “Kyra, do you reckon if we go into cryo with a hangover it’ll still be there when we come out.”

“I don’t plan on finding out,” she said, “I’ve got hangover tablets to take before bed, you can have one if you want. It goes well with the fasting tablets you will take before you sleep tonight.”

“I will, thanks.” Jace was more liberal about his drinking from that point on, finding himself swaying on his chair, humming a tune he had made up when Kyra eventually grabbed at his arm to tell him it was time to go.

“Come on, kiddo,” she said, also swaying a little. “You still need a good night’s sleep.”

“I’ll have six years to sleep,” Jace drunkenly protested, a dumb smile on his face, “I can miss one night can’t I?”

“Not this night,” Kyra hoisted him up, “come on, soldier.”

“Like hell I’ll get ordered around by some scientist,” Jace mumbled, but he didn’t resist, rising from his seat and following the rest out of the bar and onto the street.

“Right,” Kyra said, taking a bottle of water from her bag and passing it to Jace, “one tablet and wash it down, got it?”

“Got it.” Jace took the small white tablet she pressed into his hand, put it in his mouth, then swigged from the bottle.

“You should be feeling right as rain come morning.”

Jace could only think of how that metaphor didn’t work anymore given that the pollution that shrouded Earth had even seeped into the clouds.

“Get home safe,” Kyra said, “set your alarm, because I’ll be banging on your door at six o’clock sharp and woe unto you if you’re not up and at it by then.”

“Yeah, yeah, I get it,” Jace said. “See you tomorrow.”

“See you tomorrow.” Kyra ruffled his hair and turned away, disappearing into the masses just like that. Jace turned away and made for the station, the alcohol-induced warmth and very slight numbness prompting him to run the distance so he could catch the earliest train possible.

His alarm went beeping at five, and Jace sluggishly roused himself and dressed. It seemed the hangover pill had worked, for he felt none of the usual effects drinking as much as he did would usually bring. The effects of the fasting tablets he felt too, as his body clamoured for something to eat in light of the pill’s purging, but Jace had to deny it.

He wasn’t the only one roused, though. His sister, Ami, was at his door, that same pout on her face that she had worn since the day he had told her he was going away.

Don’t look at me like that, he thought, tortured, you’re gonna make me change my mind.

“You’re going,” she said quietly. “It still doesn’t feel real.”

Jace pulled her tight into a hug. “No, it doesn’t.”

“You don’t have to go,” Ami said, burying her face into his chest. “Why are you going?”

Jace couldn’t explain it to her, because he was never satisfied with the explanations he gave himself. He just tightened the hug and combed her hair with his fingers. “It’s ok,” he murmured. “I’ll only be gone a while-“

“Years, Jace! You’ll be gone for years! Asleep in cryo or fighting and getting hurt.”

“I’ll be ok, I promise,” Jace said strongly. “I won’t let anyone hurt me.” He put his sister at arm’s length, holding her shoulders. “I want you to record videos for me, tell me about the things you are doing. You can send them to a database which the RDA then gives to me. And I’ll send videos back, keeping you updated on everything.”

“Promise you’re gonna be ok,” Ami demanded, silently crying, “promise it.”

Jace wiped the tears from her eyes, going to the effort of keeping his own from falling. “I promise. I’ll be ok.”

“Your bags are packed?” his mother’s voice came from behind him.

“Bag, mum, there’s just one,” Jace said as she toed her way into his room. “And yes, it’s packed. Everything is set, transport, belongings, everything.”

She came to him, cupping his face in her hands. “Oh, my sweet boy. My sweet, little boy.” She pressed a tearful kiss to his forehead, and then to both his cheeks. “Wherever you go, remember that my little boy goes with you. Keep him safe for me.”

Jace couldn’t stop the tear from falling as he nodded. “I will, mum. I won’t let him out of my sight.”

She laughed her gentle laugh. “Good, good.”

Jace turned back to Ami. “When I get out of cryosleep, you’ll be older than me.”

“Only technically,” Ami said. “I’m not ready to be an older sister.”

“You never will be,” Jace chuckled. “No matter what you’ll always be my little sister, nothing can change that.”

“I got you something,” Ami said, “close your eyes.”

Jace obliged as his sister grabbed his wrist and, with tender, shaking hands pushed something around his wrist.

“You can look now.”

It was a bracelet of small, shiny, pea-sized stones of all colours. Some he recognised; quartz, rose quartz, opal, onyx, obsidian, pearls too. They felt smooth, with a strong elastic string holding them firmly together and tight to his wrist. It wouldn’t have been inexpensive for him, for her . . . “This must’ve cost a fortune,” Jace murmured.

“It wasn’t that much,” Ami said quietly. “To remind you of home, of us. Whenever you feel sad, or alone. So you know you aren’t.”

Jace felt like he might cry. He pulled Ami close and hugged her tight, wishing he never had to let go. “Thank you,” he whispered. “You’re going to go to school and become the smartest girl that ever was. Okay?”

“Okay,” she said. “And then, I’m going to come and see you on Pandora, and we can live there together. Just promise me you’ll be there when I come.”

“I promise.”

There were a hundred tearful goodbyes given before they finally let him go, plastered with a hundred kisses and with every well wish in the world. And the moment Jace stepped into the car with Kyra he felt a cold wash over him.

It persisted for the length of the journey until they reached the airfield north of the city where a shuttle was going to transport them onto a great rocket already in orbit. There would be shuttles from America too, multiple, he had heard. The only one from the Isles was to be the one he was on. They were to be the second wave sent to Pandora, the first having gone to establish a footing on the moon. Whether they had succeeded or failed, no-one knew, for they were only six months into the journey of almost six years.

There were marines all around going through registration and identification, and, as he had expected, Jace felt eyes pointing his way from all over. He heard their whispers too, a chorus of ‘what the f*cks’ and ‘how in hells’ all pointed his way. Laughter sounded too, but Jace paid it no mind. There was always going to be one who was the youngest, it just so happened that it was him, a novice to the art of war they must’ve thought.

He couldn’t even blame them, it wasn’t like he was some giant for his age, or freakishly muscular. To all eyes he seemed little more than a kid in clothes a few sizes too big for him, going to a world that would eat him alive.

Jace passed through the identification, even if it took a deal longer than he would’ve liked as the security guards couldn’t believe anyone had sanctioned his presence. And from there he reunited with Kyra.

“Remember,” she said, “don’t let any of them tell you that you don’t belong. You’re special, kid, else you wouldn’t be here. Now come on, we’ve got some sleep to catch.”

The shuttle ride was bumpy to say the least, Jace sat in silence as the ship broke through the atmosphere and finally stopped shuddering as it accelerated towards their rocket. The docking was surprisingly smooth and, once he had taken off his seatbelt, Jace found himself floating.

It was all he could do to maintain his composure and not push himself off to float from one side of the shuttle to the other, but God he wanted to. Through the docking hatch they went and into a great cylindrical chamber lined with cryopods named alphabetically.

They were at the bottom of the chamber, where there were a few Zs one X and a number of Ys. He spotted Kyra’s pod easily enough on the third circular column of pods. His looked a half-mile away as he gazed out to the chamber’s end high above him.

“Alright ladies,” some high-authority voice called out. “Find your pod and wait there to be put in for your beauty sleep. And be sure to not throw up when you get out or I’ll have you lick it clean.”

“See you in six years,” Kyra whispered excitedly. “I’ll be twenty-seven when we get out.”

“But you won’t,” Jace said. “I’ve forgotten, do they take this into account when saying how old we are on documents and stuff?”

Kyra shrugged. “No clue, kid. Now, best not test any of these good folk’s patience. Go, find your pod.”

Jace smiled, a giddy excitement passing through him as he floated, a hand on Kyra’s pod. “See you on the other side.” He pushed off and began to pull himself from pod to pod, noting the surname initials he was passing as he went. When he got to his own he began to circle the chamber. And there it was, Jace Callon. He grasped onto the metal bar and looked in. There was a harness of some sort, there to hold him in place.

“Hey, kid,” a voice called from below him.

Jace rotated himself and looked down at a thirty-odd year-old man with ebony skin and neatly shorn hair. “What?”

“No offense, but how the hell did you get yourself here?”

“I’m just that good,” Jace said, deciding that being meek and mild would earn him no accolades.

“No doubt,” the man said. “I’m looking forward to seeing you on the range.”

“I’m afraid you’ll have to wait a while for that,” Jace said. “Five years and nine months if I’m correct.”

“I’m sure it’ll pass quick enough,” the man chuckled. He extended a hand, “I’m Callum, or just Cal.”

“Jace,” he replied, accepting the handshake. “So, what’s got you here?”

“I guess I wanted some fresh air,” Cal said. “Shame I didn’t read the fine print before putting pen to paper.”

Jace laughed. “Any air is better than what we have back home, even if we gotta filter out some deadly toxins first.”

“True that.”

One by one the men and women all at their pods began to be loaded into their no-so-comfortable looking beds, strapped down by harnesses and pushed in as though they were sleeping in some high-tech draw.

Jace tried to relax himself as he was pushed into the pod, waiting, waiting and waiting. A sharp hissing sounded and then-

Chapter 3: A Policy of Peace

Chapter Text

Shiala kept close to the low clouds, her eyes fixed upon the activity of the sky-people on the ground far below. It had been months since they had come from the sky, as they had many years before, and already they were wounding the world in their greed.

She swept lower on her ikran, Keroxe, observing. They had been cutting some pathway through the forest for days now, but the Kekunan Olo’eyktan, Tare’ten, had forbidden any interference so far. Now, Shiala could see the glinting of metal as small, metal things crawled around.

They don’t even do their own work now, she thought scornfully. The only sky-people she could see were stood around, apparently guarding the crawling, scuttling metal things. Some were in the metal suits she had heard made them as tall as a Na’vi, others were just on foot. Two of their flying machines patrolled too, Shiala took care to rise back into the clouds whenever they turned her way, lest she found herself fleeing the steel arrows they apparently called bullets.

She had followed the pathway from its source to its end. At one end the sky-people had erected a giant settlement of metal towers, surrounded by walls and crawling with their guards and sentries. At the other end, as she’d heard they had done so many years before, the sky-people had begun digging deep into the ground for the minerals that they so coveted.

Shiala remembered how her fear had turned to rage when she had seen what the sky-people had done to the forest surrounding their settlement. A witness had spoken of a wall of fire that killed everything for thousands of meters, Shiala hadn’t believed him. She’d refused to believe even the sky-people would do such a thing until she saw the vast expanse of ashen, grey ground surrounding the rising settlement. Then she’d stopped placing any limits on what the sky-people would and wouldn’t do.

What was worse was that it seemed there was nothing that could be done to stop them. It was said that Toruk Makto was leading an insurgency against the demons, but his fighting spirit was shared by only a few. Tare’ten had forbidden the Kekunan from involving themselves, and so Shiala had been forced to content herself with flying high overhead and dreaming of all the arrows she would loose into the black hearts of the demons.

She had briefly entertained the thought of making for the Omatikaya, where Toruk Makto led his war party, aided in part by the Tayrangi of the eastern sea and the Olangi of the plains. But no, she couldn’t leave behind her mother, Eytua, not since her father had died fifteen years ago in the great battle against the sky-people. Shiala had been barely three years old then, not old enough to understand what she’d lost. She understood now, when she saw the other kids playing with their fathers, that a piece of her had been torn away. She saw too, the look of longing in her mother’s eyes when a mated pair would announce a pregnancy or join to let a newborn commune with Eywa for the first time. They tore him from her, she thought, feeling again the desire to fight.

She hissed with frustration as she urged Keroxe to rise back into and above the clouds. One day. One day we’ll strike. We have to.

But that day was not this day. Shiala urged the ikran to bank left and away from the sky-people and their project. She made for the village, for the mother who was all she had left, for the mother to whom she was all that remained.

It stood at the base of a high cliff face where a natural alcove had been worn into a cliff face. The trees rose high, and their canopies were dense enough that, from her landing point on the top of the cliff, she could hardly see evidence of settlement, only the thin, spraying waterfall that cascaded down the cliff to feed the pool at the village’s centre and the creek that meandered out from it, along with the occasional person wandering beyond its borders to hunt or gather.

This is how it is meant to be, she thought as she dismounted Keroxe. The sky-people seemed to work against the world, making things that were obtuse and ugly, just as she’d heard they were. She’d never gotten close enough to look, though.

A pathway ran down a slope to the side of the cliff, trodden in by animals and the people’s shared use of it, allowing Shiala to work her way quickly down to the village. There was another way, a set of roots and vines that fell in a tight tangle down the cliff face just off to the waterfall’s side. The children would often first learn how to climb and scramble on those roots, Shiala remembered the days that she had; how many times she had fallen only to get back up and try again. She remembered it fondly, with a smile. That had been a good time, but now danger loomed like a great black cloud over them.

It was almost terrifying, seeing just how calm and normal the lives the people were living were. They knew of the sky-people’s proximity, but even better they knew the dangers. Perhaps that was why, perhaps the calm was all an illusion, wordlessly maintained by the masses so the panic would never spread.

Shiala didn’t know whether to fear that she was alone in her anxieties or that everyone was just as terrified as she was. How long would it be until the sky-people came too close, got too curious, became too greedy? How long would it be until their fragile peace would be shattered? How long? It was all she could think of . . . all she could think about.

Her fingers tightened around the grip of the bow slung over her shoulder. It could be any moment. The prospect was terrifyingly real, Shiala’s imagination painted a vivid picture, one of fire and blood, the loud popping sounds the sky-people’s weapons made, the great whirring of their flying machines.

She wasn’t alone in her fears, nor in her view that they couldn’t sit idle. But it was a small enough group that they could only sit and murmur about what they might do. A number of young hunters, herself included, was all it was.

‘Those who know no better’ she remembered her mother naming them. And that had resonated. As much as she wanted to stop the sky-people in their tracks and send them flying back to their far away world, she needed only to think of all that she had already lost to remind herself why it could never be more than a dream.

Mother was cooking when Shiala entered their shared marui. “The mighty warrior returns,” she said softly.

“I was only watching,” Shiala said. “The pathway they’ve cut through the forest, it comes too close to the village. Any of them might stray and find us.”

“They’ll have known where we are since long before now, child.” The sound of her mother cutting the spartan fruit filled the air. “I expect they’ll leave us be here, so long as we do the same. It seems Toruk Makto is drawing their focus well enough on his own.”

“You don’t approve?”

“I think it is foolish to make war at the earliest opportunity, as most of us agree. Toruk Makto thought conflict to be a certainty, so he simply struck the first blow.”

“Is it not a certainty?” Shiala asked. “The sky-people have already destroyed the forests and begun digging into the ground for what Eywa forbids that we take. It came to war last time. Is it not better that we strike before they have a foothold?”

“They already have a foothold, daughter. You’ve seen it. One we cannot sneak up on, nor threaten with numbers.”

“Then should we not work to dislodge them? Or will we leave the Great Mother to their mercy?”

“The Great Mother is at no-one’s mercy, not so long as her creations draw breath. We cannot do nothing, that I do not deny, but dying pointlessly will hardly help.” She stood and pulled her daughter into an embrace, holding her tightly. “I prayed this wouldn’t come, not in your time. I prayed you wouldn’t have to know war, to know fear, any of it.”

“And yet it has come,” Shiala said. “The question now is of our response.”

Anguish painted her mother’s face as she held Shiala at arm’s length, gazing softly at her. “Curse them,” she whispered. “Curse them all. For all they have done, for all they are doing, for all they will do.”

“They won’t,” Shiala said strongly.

Her mother smiled, pressing a gentle hand to Shiala’s cheek. It was a sad smile, but it reached her eyes as so many others did not. “You have your father’s heart, Shiala. Keep it safe for me. Promise you’ll never let it grow cold.”

“How could it ever with you here to warm it?”

“Shiala.”

“Fine. I promise.” Shiala kissed her mother’s forehead, and then her cheeks. “My heart will be safe and sound, I promise.”

“You won’t engage the enemy unless permitted to.”

Shiala paused. Only for a moment did she consider whether it was a promise she could truly make, for she knew she had to. “Not unless I must,” she said.

Her mother seemed contented with that. “I’ve kept you long enough, I assume you have findings to report to Tare’ten from your flight.”

“More of the same,” Shiala mumbled. “More destruction, more construction. They are cutting the forest in two to make way for something.”

“To make way for themselves,” Mother said. “From where they dig to where they live, they live to make things simple for themselves, no matter the cost.” She began to usher Shiala from the Marui. “Go to him, he will want to interrogate you for all you know. No doubt he’ll squeeze something from you that you didn’t know was there. Go.”

Shiala set off towards the alcove, where the olo’eyktan’s marui stood, praying to the Great Mother that whatever he found from her report would bode well and not ill, but such hopes seemed too far to grasp.

---

Bridgehead was quite something to behold. Still mostly in construction but growing taller by the day with the swarm assemblers piecing units together in mere hours, or so Cal had said. Jace anxiously fingered the seals of his exopack as he walked from the shuttle into the open air, still acclimatising to wearing the mask, and to the fact that he would never be able to step outside and feel the wind buffeting his face, nor smell the air as it truly was.

“Hey, kid,” Cal said, “don’t mess with it, it works.” He had his own on and was walking at Jace’s side. “It’s expensive tech too, there’s a new design for special ops.”

“I was listening to the briefing as well,” Jace said. In truth the new design was purely more compact, with the filtration system of the exopack built into the mask so it needn’t be worn at the hip. He wanted to have the chance to try it out, the way the old exopack’s filter bumped against his hip as he walked was irksome. He turned and looked to the curtain walls that circled the entire city, manned turrets spanning the entire length of it. And then he saw Kyra running over. “Enjoy your nap?” Jace asked her.

“I had to use the sick bag when they pulled me out,” she admitted, “but that aside it was fine. I’ve got a few days to get situated now, I was gonna go look at the rooms they’ve got for me whilst I’m here and not out on the water.”

“I imagine they’ll be characteristically uninspiring,” Jace said dully. “The barracks will be worse, at least you get your own room.”

“So, are you just gonna mope about it or what?”

“I’m gonna go to target practice, make sure I didn’t lose anything in the six years.”

“Alright then, hotshot, I’ll see you around.”

And just like that she was gone, disappearing back into the moving mass of people as Jace and Cal made for the SecOps barracks, ignoring all the sideways glances he could feel coming his way. He dumped his pack at the foot of the bed with his name on it and picked up his dog tag, pulling it over his neck.

“So,” Cal said, as Jace unpacked his stuff and folded it away into his drawers, “am I gonna get to see why a kid such as yourself warranted himself a place here in hell?”

“How far are is the range?” Jace asked.

“About ten minutes’ walk, I’d guess. I know the way.” Cal beckoned him to follow. “Come on.”

Jace shrugged and followed him out of the barracks, refixing his exopack before stepping into the depressurisation chamber. Cal led him along a long concrete stretch with a large airfield off to its right. The shooting range was within one of the newer buildings, and crawling with SecOps marines.

He could feel their stares, spotting double takes from the corners of his eyes. The thrum of chatter was too loud for him to hear anything said, but he could guess easily enough. Head high, he told himself. Don’t let anyone tell you that you don’t belong here. Jace set his gaze straight ahead, not even glancing at anyone until he had crossed the threshold of the unit.

The range’s targets were all moving, some along the ground, some higher up against the wall, each representing some type of Pandoran fauna. “There’s a combat simulation unit coming online next week,” Jace heard a marine say as he signed himself in for a session.

“Callon,” the woman at the desk murmured, flicking down a list on the projected screen with her finger. “There you are. Is a thirty minute slot enough?”

“Should be.”

“Right.” The woman stood and pointed to the further side of the actual range, where marines were stood, methodically firing rounds at the moving targets. “You can pick up whatever weapon you choose from there and your rounds too. Then, wait for a slot to open, sync your weapon to your slot and wait for the green light.”

“Can you check my files again, I have a specific piece to my name for me to collect if I remember.”

She looked again, scanning the text. “I see it. Give me one moment, we have it stored in the back.” She made off through a biometrically locked door which she opened with her handprint and left Jace stood rather awkwardly at the desk. A minute or so later she returned with a briefcase. Here you have your custom miniaturized Zarkov-33, the suppressor you have to assemble,” she handed him the smaller briefcase. “Ammo is the same as the standard issue handgun, sixteen bullet rounds, works with FMJs and hollow points.”

“Got it,” Jace took the briefcase. “Cheers.” He turned from the desk and followed Cal, who had already signed himself in, to the weapon racks.

“So,” Cal said, “I assume you’re familiar with the standard issue kit.”

“Familiar enough,” Jace said. “I’ll keep this in its case for the moment, keep it shiny for a little longer.”

He looked along the racks from the handguns to the rifles. He picked from it a standard-issue handgun that just about every SecOps marine would have at their hip. He was glad he had a custom Z-33 to work with instead, the standard issue was horribly underwhelming against the native wildlife and hostiles he had heard.

But, it shot the same as his would but for a little difference in the weight distribution, so it would do for target practice. A slot was just opening as Jace slotted a number of magazines into his belt, he moved quickly to take his place there and scanned the base of his handgun on the holoscreen to his right.

The lane went black and Jace loaded in his first magazine. Sixteen shots, he reminded himself. A target lit up, rising slowly. Bang! The bullet struck and the target darkened. Fifteen. The second was descending, his aim was true and its light disappeared. The next two came together, crossing over one another as they moved horizontally at head height. Two shots and one fell. It took him a third shot to strike it. Twelve. But he should still have thirteen, and he berated himself for that. It might not matter so much here, but out there he knew he needed to do better.

There were two more that he missed before his magazine ran out and he had to reload. Thirteen for sixteen wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t perfect. It has to be, he knew, raising the gun and awaiting the next targets.

He struck fourteen in the next mag, and twelve in the mag after. With every miss he berated himself. His blood pumped and, as he loaded his fourth mag, he imagined himself alone in that jungle, surrounded by whatever monsters lurked out there. There would only be a moment to react, only a moment to fire, and every bullet wasted was one such monster at his throat.

The first lit up. Bang! It fell back. The second and third followed one after the other. The fourth and fifth came together and fell together. Viperwolves, banshees, thanators, Na’vi; they were all around him, with claws, teeth, bows and arrows. It was life and death. The seventh he shot as it rose quickly upwards, the eighth as it fell. The ninth and tenth were moving fast towards him, but barely advanced a foot before their lights shut off. Eleven, he counted. Twelve. Thirteen, fourteen. Fifteen. The sixteenth hung stationary, Jace almost pulled the trigger, but held for a moment as the target jerked leftwards. He angled the pistol and fired.

An exhilarated sigh escaped him. Sixteen for sixteen. He lowered his weapon and punched the termination button, ending the session. “Impressive,” a voice spoke from behind him.

Jace turned and saw a man in his forties stood before him. After a quick look for the insignia he wore on his arm, Jace saluted. “Commander.”

“Private Callon, your file said you were a good shot.”

Jace read the man’s nametag. S. Gwyne. “I’m still defrosting I think, sir.”

The commander smiled. “Come, and don’t forget that custom piece of yours.”

“Yes, sir.” Jace nodded to Cal, who was watching on, set his handgun in the used box and followed the commander, briefcase in hand. The man’s office was close enough, within there were two seats and a number of holoscreens surrounding his desk.

Commander Gwyne seated himself and gestured for Jace to take the opposite. “Private, I don’t know what sins you committed to find yourself in this hell, but it seems you came prepared.” He flicked down a large body of bullet-pointed text. “Trained in low gravity, excelled in hand-to-hand combat, trained in simulations for a jungle setting. Seems to me you had this place in mind, Callon.”

“If I were smart enough to make this sort of money any other way, I’m sure I would, commander. I figured early this job was my route.”

“You put in the work to get here, that I don’t doubt. But that’s barely a fraction of it. I know you will have hoped for a little time to get yourself situated, but we’re already being put under some serious pressure by the insurgents.”

“The Na’vi?”

“Aye. Believe it or not they don’t take kindly to our incursions. The dead zone keeps ‘em far enough from Bridgehead, but our supply chains are taking hits.”

The commander closed Jace’s file and opened out a map, zooming out with a pinch of his fingers. Bridgehead sat on the eastern coast, far to the north of the Tayrangi Clan who also bordered the sea. The Omatikaya were closest, just a little way inland to the northwest, with the plains clans further off in that direction. And to the southwest were a number of other clans, the Tawkami and Kekunan were far away, but still the closest in that direction. And then there was the Western Frontier, dotted also with clan names and an unmarked base of some sort.

“The traitor, Jake Sully and his clan are the most active in their resistance against us, but the Resistance has a base of operations further afield on the Western Frontier. They fight much the same as the Omatikaya, engaging in guerilla style attacks on bases, trains and pipelines before just pulling back. We haven’t had much trouble southwest, but with new mines and rail lines coming online in that area we’ll need to get manpower on those fronts. We have bases of power from which we can operate dotted along the rail lines, but they are vulnerable to attack should we lose our grip on the situation.” The commander selected some tool and drew out a number of lines sprawling to the north, west and south. “I doubt it’ll be anything like what we have on that northern front, but vigilance will still be demanded.”

“And you want me for that, sir?”

“You and a good few others as a precaution. The Kekunan and Tawkami clans have not impeded any of our work near their territory yet, but, we don’t plan on taking any risks.” He stood. “It is a necessary measure, if we can avoid conflict with another clan, we will. Orders are to only engage any hostiles if attacked of if an attack seem imminent, we’ve kicked the hornets nest with the Omatikaya and the Resistance and that’s hell enough for us to deal with already. The Resistance’s second front to the west is another pain in the ass. We’d sooner avoid fighting a third front so soon.”

“Understood, sir.”

“You’ll miss General Ardmore’s big induction speech, so I’ll give you the gist of it now, only without any of the eloquence. Earth is a dying world, and humanity needs a new home. For that, Pandora has been chosen. While we would wish to have a peaceful transition into coexistence, the Na’vi will resist, as they have already done. So we must sometimes fight where we would rather negotiate. Now, when you do fight, remember that twenty billion lives are in your hands. Your family, friends, and everyone else.”

“One life on my shoulders is motivation enough, sir,” Jace said, fiddling with the bracelet Ami had given him.

“Go on then, dismissed. I’ll see more precise orders come to you when I’ve got everything ironed out with the general.”

Jace saluted and turned to leave, torn halfway between excitement and terror. It was day one and he was already getting shipped into the wilderness. Maybe it would be hell, but at least it wasn’t home.

Chapter 4: Eye to Eye

Chapter Text

The Zarkov-33 hung at his right hip, a knife rested horizontally on his lower back and a standard-issue assault rifle hung at his side, its straps hanging over his shoulder. The body armour hugged tight to his skin to the point of discomfort, but it was the best there was, hardening upon ballistic impact. His chest was lined with modular plugs that held in place all of his mags, a frag grenade, a smoke grenade, a flair, a replacement compact filtration system for his exomask and various antivenoms in case he ran afoul with the local fauna. His backpack was light, carrying some food and an emergency medical kit, but little more. It weighed on him, but it was nothing he wasn’t well used to by that point.

He had one of the new compact exopacks in his hand, it was slightly heavier than the mask of the two-piece exopacks, but overall, it was much lighter and more practical. He had accustomed himself to the weight it put on his neck and the aching tiredness it brought after he’d worn it for long enough. The filters could last a week or two before they needed cleaning, and Jace had taken care to learn how to remove them from the base of his mask and replace them with the utmost efficiency. If out in the Pandoran wild, he would need to hold his breath for a fair while whilst changing them, so he practiced that too.

Jace paced around his barracks. He made sure the bracelet Ami had given him was secure, fussing endlessly with it. His eyes darted to the clock, zero six hundred hours was fast approaching. He looked around frantically one last time, praying he’d remembered everything.

Just get on with it, he told himself. Get your foot out the damn door and go.

So, he did. Donning the exopack, he made for the depressurisation chamber and waited for the hiss of the changing atmosphere to finish and for the green light to flash on. And out into the Pandoran air he stepped. He was getting more and more used to the constant of the lower gravity; extensive as his training in artificial conditions had been, there was much it didn’t prepare him for. Sleeping was one, it wasn’t uncomfortable, just different in an uncomfortable way. Walking, running, jumping, it was all the sort of stuff he had learned to be more efficient at. How to spring forth without slipping due to the lack of friction given by the low gravity. It had been an impossible challenge at first, but eventually, Jace had gotten the hang of it.

He jogged along the concrete floor towards the airfields where a number of Kestrel gunships and Seawasps stood. The commander was there, stood talking to a pilot and one other man in an officer’s getup, Jace noted, so he made his way to him.

“Sir,” he saluted. “Reporting for duty.”

“Private,” Gwyne nodded. “I’d like you to meet my captain, Angus Colton, he’ll be overseeing the escorts,” he gestured to the officer, who was regarding Jace coldly. Behind his mask, he wasn’t a pretty sight to see, with pale skin, a pinched look to his face, thin, sandy hair under his hat and a pair of weaselly black eyes. But, inhibitions aside, Jace saluted the man as Commander Gwyne introduced the pilot. “This is Isilla Montoy, she’ll be your escort in the sky."

She certainly had a much more appealing look, with bright eyes and a slight smile on her face. She nodded to Jace, who nodded back as the commander launched into a brief overview of the numbers of the guard. Two Kestrels, each manned by a pilot and two gunners, and fifteen men would be on the exterior guns of the cargo train.

“You’ll escort it along its route and back, get a lay of the land, see if we should expect any problems from the locals.” Gwyne looked to Jace, “You have your orders regarding engagement. That aside, keep your eyes peeled. While we want to avoid further unnecessary conflict, we’d best make sure it doesn’t take us unawares should it come.”

“Yes, sir.”

The commander walked away, so too did the captain, who seemed to have finally taken his flinty gaze away from Jace. Jace decided he certainly wasn’t the talkative type, not like the commander.

Isilla must’ve noted Jace’s eyes boring into the back of the captain’s head, for she said, “Don’t mind him, kid. He looks that way at everyone, it’s when he looks at you some other way that you’d best be scared.”

“Has he ever smiled?” Jace asked, brushing off her calling him ‘kid’.

“He’s threatened to, and what a threat it is. A twitch of his lips gets everyone under him stood to attention as though they are being yelled at by a drill sergeant for the first time.” She grinned. “Best hope he keeps that frown. Come on, I’ll show you the gear you’ve got.” Jace followed her beneath the rotorwings and up into the open centre. “Hydra machine guns,” she pointed to the mounted weapons in the doorways, “you can use those or keep to what you have in hand.”

Jace hoisted himself up into the gunship’s gunner hold and got behind the gun. It was manoeuvrable enough, but as long as he operated it, Jace knew he wouldn’t be. He didn’t much plan on being stuck with an arrow on his first outing.

“There’s a direct comm channel between here and the co*ckpit so you can talk to me if you spot anything unusual or have a funny joke to tell. Flying solo can get boring.”

“I was never much of a comedian,” Jace said, “but if something comes I’ll let you hear it.”

“Most of the grunts are already loaded on the train on the other side of Bridgehead,” Isilla said, “once the captain loads himself onto it, we’ll be off. It’s a couple hours each way at the pace we’ll be going, so try and keep your legs from locking.”

Jace nodded as Isilla made for the co*ckpit. “Will do,” he murmured.

“Oh,” Isilla said, swinging back around for a moment to point a finger at him, “and don’t fall out, it’s a damn hassle to get your dog tags if you do.”

“I’ll keep it in mind.” Jace noticed someone else approaching the Kestrel. Another SecOps marine. He looked a few years older than Jace, and stood a few inches taller, but from the greeting he seemed well-natured enough.

“Ryan,” he said, holding out a hand.

He took the handshake. “Jace.”

Barely a few minutes later, they were off into the air. It was a smooth ascent, but loud as hell, and the wind buffeted him hard as it was sucked through the rotors and pushed out the underside. Jace couldn’t help but let out an exhilarated whoop, one hand clutching a steel handhold and the other catching the wind as it blew between his outstretched fingers. The other gunship was trailing behind them as they rose above the highest buildings Bridgehead had yet to offer and began to cross the city towards where the northwestern line began its route. Jace could see it begin its journey, a huge, armoured thing, built to withstand much more than the arrows the Na’vi utilised and to carry great loads of unobtanium, which was so vital to the proposed solutions for the energy crisis back home.

Home. Jace thought on it as they passed over the heavily defended walls of the city. It was so far away, and Ami, she must be what now, seventeen? Almost eighteen even? He patted the bracelet, admiring each and every stone on it. She’d be doing a number of examinations soon, the ones that would get her into some big university for which his stint on Pandora was paying. He smiled, remembering that she had said she would come and meet him here, on this new, exciting frontier.

The train was picking up some decent speed, but, for the sake of its airborne escort, it would never reach the speeds of the passenger maglevs in operation back on Earth. Even so, the wind violently whipped against Jace’s clothes and through his short-cut hair as the gunship picked up pace to level with the maglev. His face was spared thanks to the exopack that was sealed onto his face by strap and vacuum lock. He looked down and noted the men dotted atop the train standing guard at the turrets stationed on each carriage, each of whom who were probably facing a much worse buffeting at the hands of the wind.

The deadzone soon came to an end and the train cut its path through the forest. All the flora blurred together beneath him, but Jace could see the colours that were hidden amongst the masses of green. So much green, he thought. And the colours too, it was odd knowing that they were real, authentic and not simply the product of some lights. He hoped Pandora would stay this way. He hoped it would stay alive in the way Earth was not.

The further out they flew, the larger the forest grew. Some trees rose high above the rest, higher than he knew anything had ever been on Earth. Hometrees, he seemed to remember from the lessons Kyra had given him. Trees that, when large enough, could house entire Na’vi clans. He looked to the closest one which was, admittedly, a long way away, and wondered if it housed any of the Pandoran people.

Most of the talk he heard was reductive, but Kyra had educated him that they were anything but the flea-bitten savages that he heard them denounced as no more than.

“Their societies are arguably better than ours,” she’d told him. “Without things like money, they all work towards the community and the individuals within, without selfishness or greed.”

And along we come with our world-ending capitalism, and all the weapons that it led us to make. The thought made Jace feel sour and uncomfortable. He hoped beyond hope that what he saw before him would survive whatever would come.

The gunship hung low, just off to the side of the train. Ryan’s side was facing the maglev as it shuttled along the traces, Jace’s view was of the forest. His eyes flickered from spot to spot, fearful that something might appear from the foliage, an arrow, a banshee. He reminded himself that, beautiful as it seemed, Pandora was still a nightmare, wild and untamed.

Luckily, as the foremost of the Pandoran sun’s reached its height, naught had befallen them. Jace hadn’t even seen anything, not that it did anything to shift away his unease. Guerilla warfare was waged from where the eye did not see, and so anything less than constant vigilance was utter negligence. So, Jace watched, waiting with one hand on his rifle and the other frozen around the handhold as the cold wind whipped against him.

“You two okay back there?” Isilla called over the intercom.

Ryan and Jace both made non-committal responses and heard the pilot chuckle from her windproofed co*ckpit. In truth, it wasn’t all that bad. It was just the knowledge that a few feet away someone was completely shielded from the wind made the wind’s bite all the colder.

It was mid-afternoon when Isilla called over the intercom to say the quarries were just a few minutes away. Sure enough, when the Kestrel rose a little higher in the air, Jace could see the RDA’s machinery at work, digging into the ground of a site that had been left for fifteen years unattended.

Though it wasn’t the sole focus of the RDA’s operations on Pandora, the mining of unobtanium still helped cover the brunt of the costs, so old incomplete mining projects had been resumed.

“You’ll have an hour or so to kill whilst the mining squad loads the goods onto the maglev,” Isilla said as the Kestrel touched down, “maybe longer if the flash storm turns out to take a little longer to pass. The compound has a rec room where we can rest, I’ll show you both.”

Jace leapt onto the tarmac of the small airfield, casting his eyes onto the unfathomably large excavator machines that tore into the ground, feeding a conveyor belt that ran all the way to a large building just by the compound and the end of the rail line.

Ryan was also on the ground, soon joined by Isilla who leapt nimbly from her co*ckpit. Jace kicked his legs out, loosening the tension that standing still for so long had wound into his muscles and joints. “You been here before?” he asked Isilla.

“Once or twice,” she replied. “I was flying to guard the construction of the rail line. But mostly I’d end up going back to Bridgehead, not here. It’s nice enough, there’s a spot for us to sit and rest between flights. Come on, I’ll take you.”

They made quickly across the airfield and to the compound’s decompression chamber. A loud hissing sounded as the Pandoran air was siphoned away and filtered, and then the silence of its completion came. Jace pulled off his exomask and affixed it to his belt.

“Since when did you get special gear?” Ryan asked as he hung up his two-piece exopack.

“Commander took an interest in him,” Isilla said, off-handedly. “You’ve had job-specific training or something like that, I presume.”

“Something like that, yeah.” Jace could feel both sets of eyes heavy on him, awaiting an explanation. “I was trained for Pandora, for its people, for its wildlife. I’m just on standard missions until something more . . . specific pops up. Keeps me sharp, I guess.”

“I heard General Ardmore is throwing everything at trying to kill the leader of the Na’vi insurgency,” Ryan commented. “Why not you?”

“Hell, I’m not a super-soldier or anything like that, man. Just better trained to fight and survive here. So, if I get stuck out there,” he patted the mask, “the thing runs on solar power. All I gotta do is clean the filter every week or so and it’ll keep on working for as long as needed.”

“Must be nice not having the filter stuck to your hip,” Ryan grumbled as they started up a flight of stairs.

Jace chucked. “Does a number on your neck muscles at first. It is worth it, though.”

“I’ll bet it is.” Ryan gave him a gentle cuff on the shoulders as they entered the rec room, which looked more like a small mess hall with a pool table at its end. But it was somewhere to relax, and that was enough for Jace. It would be darkening when they set off again, so some rest would do him good. “Kid,” Ryan said, “I don’t care how much you trained, I’ll put my life savings I can beat you at pool right here right now.”

Jace’s first thought that he kept from rolling off his tongue was: There’s no money here. He bit it back for fear of sounding too know-it-all and instead said with full confidence, “You’re on.” He could always rest later, after all.

---

It had been terrifying to behold, the great metal mass shuttling through the forest as fast as an ikran at full tilt. Shiala had watched from Keroxe’s back, high above the flying vessels that were escorting the long, grey thing.

In the day it had only been loud. Now, with the sky darkening, she could see a faint glowing from far away. She was moving swiftly through the forest floor, hoping to see it up close as it sped past. Tare’ten had been firm in his adamance of non-aggression but for utter necessity, but he had allowed Shiala to continue observing the sky-people. So she had done so. The metal pathway had been finished for a while, and now it was finally in usage, transporting the sky-people and the forbidden things they stole from Eywa’s grasp for their own greedy purposes.

She had picked her place to wait once the short spurt of heavy rain and fast winds had passed through, not far from where a young tree whose roots hadn’t dug deep enough for purchase had fallen onto the metal path.

She wondered what would happen. Would the sky-people be forced to stop, or would they charge straight through it? Given their nature, Shiala expected it to be the latter, but her curious side wanted them to be forced to stop. Then she could see them, properly, closely; the demons that came from the sky.

She’d heard of their odd looks, of their five fingers, of their small eyes and ears, of their pointed noses and all else. But it was one thing to hear, and another to see.

When the storm had battered against the forest, the winds had come in suddenly, rising and howling for a short time and then dissipating just as fast. Perhaps it was the Great Mother, showing her strength, saying that she would never be at the mercy of the sky-people. A rush of anger, a surge of defiance. Shiala liked the thought.

The lights were glowing a little brighter, and the sound of its movement was just starting to sound loud enough that her ears picked them up. Shiala’s heart began to beat a little faster as she stepped closer to the edge of the foliage. She tucked away her two, loose, thin braids behind her ears, rolling a finger and a thumb over the red bead at the bottom of the left one.

It was getting louder by the second, and brighter too. It was no wonder the sky-people saw not the beauty of Eywa’s dominion when they flooded the world with such harsh, colourless light that sucked away the vibrancy of the forest. They couldn’t see that Eywa had already set the world alight herself, it didn’t seem they ever would. That was why they couldn’t stay. That was why fighting was inevitable; Tare’ten knew it, her mother too. The young hunters were the only ones who spoke it openly, bet they were too few to sway the olo’eyktan, and their arguments were too feeble.

A horrible screeching noise tore through the air and Shiala’s ears perked up. She looked through the thin layer of brush that separated her from the open air and saw the vessel slowing down, with red and orange sparks flying from its base. The sound grated and tore at her ears, but, as the thing slowed more and more it became somewhat quieter.

In its absence, she could instead hear the flying vessels hovering above the one that had come to a screeching halt as a few sky-people looked down at the felled tree. The flying machines were not so loud that she couldn’t hear their odd chatter in their alien tongue.

Shiala moved further through the foliage, parallel to the metal tracks that the halted vessel ran along, getting closer to it and inspecting the creatures. One was pointing around at the tree and to the forest all around him, his voice high and clearly agitated.

Always in such a rush, she thought, bemused. More and more sky-people were milling around; some she knew were warriors as they were carrying those metal weapons of theirs in hand, but most didn’t seem to be. They were all out, chattering and looking at the blockage.

From one of the two flying vessels, she saw a sky-person being lowered slowly to the ground by some metal rope. They were a warrior, she could see the weapon it had one hand on, hung from his shoulder by some strap. It was peering around into the forest, its eyes passing over her without seeing.

To her surprise, the sky-person moved into the foliage a short ways away from her. Her first instinct was to retreat, to find Keroxe and fly back to the village, but she couldn’t shake the insistent feeling of curiosity. So, she gave in to it and, slipping deeper into the forest, began to move silently towards where she had seen the sky-person walk in. Shiala scaled a tree and moved quickly along its branches, her eyes darting around, looking for the sky-person. It was her ears, though, that found it. Its steps were loud, with those solid foot coverings making steals near enough impossible for any who wore them to move with any stealth or subtlety.

And there it was . . . he, she noticed upon looking. His hair was a light brown colour, something she’d never seen before, and cut shorter than any of the people, falling only far enough for a few strands to touch his rounded ears. She couldn’t see his face, not with Eywa’s glow reflecting off the thing he wore over his whole face.

The lights from the vessel were less prevalent here, and the sky-person seemed to enjoy that fact, looking around and making an amused sound. He was waist-deep in leaves, taking his hands away from his weapon to paw curiously at them like a child might.

Shiala might’ve found it endearing, had she not known all that she did of them. The humans were only so curious as to discover what they could tear away from the world for their own benefit. But still, it was amusing watching it move slowly around, head twisting and turning to look at seemingly everything they could.

And then they looked up.

Shiala’s bow was drawn in an instant, and she saw the sky-person start back, saying something in their language, some exclamation of surprise, by the tone of it. His hand moved down, towards his weapon, and Shiala pulled the bowstring taut, hissing a deadly warning. His hand froze, along with his entire body, as he looked up at her through his mask.

Go on, she thought, reach for it.

He didn’t. Instead, both of his five-fingered hands slowly rose. She hadn’t expected that, especially not with so many of his own kind so close. What happened next she had been even less prepared for.

“Peace.” He spoke the word in her own language, with admittedly poor pronunciation. But it caught her off guard all the same.

Shiala’s tail swished behind her as she eased the tension from the bowstring, holding it half drawn, the arrowhead still trained on the sky-person’s heart in case his word was nothing but a ruse. Beneath his heavy garments, Shiala could see his chest rising and falling fast with every breath he took. He was nervous, scared. As he should be, she thought with a smirk.

“Peace?” he said again, a more questioning note to his voice.

It certainly wasn’t what she had expected, not from a warrior, least of all. But it had snagged her attention and interest. Maybe it was a rare chance to see one properly, eye to eye. Shiala didn’t expect such chances would come often, if ever again.

So, tentatively, she agreed, “Peace.”

She fit the arrow back with the rest and slung her bow back over her shoulder, keeping her eyes fixed on the sky-person, wary for any movement.

Still watching him, eyes keen as an ikran’s, Shiala dropped from the branch upon which she had been perched to land in front of him. He jolted a little with surprise, but, to Shiala’s relief, did no more than that.

At her full height, she dwarfed him, the top of his head only reaching as high as her chest, if even that. She co*cked her head at him, peering through the see-through visor he wore over his entire face to look at his eyes. They were small, not made for the darkness, and, curiously, one was coloured differently to the other. His left was blue, his right was brown. She took a step closer to get a better look at what lay behind the visor. Was this something common in sky-people? She opened her mouth to ask, then held her tongue. It was dangerous enough what she was doing now, reckless and foolish.

It had to end.

A voice called from behind the sky-person, in their tongue, and their head turned to look. As they did, Shiala slipped back into the dense foliage, disappearing before they could glance back.

She ran to where Keroxe was perched, her blood pumping with an odd exhilaration. Was it wrong, what she had just done? She didn’t know. Mother had said the sky-people most likely knew already about the village, so there was nothing at risk but herself.

As she bonded with the ikran in tsaheylu, her excitement passed through to him and he shook his wings a little before pumping them and propelling himself and her off into the air. She looked back to the vessel, seeing its light as little more than a distant glow, and she wondered for just a moment what the sky-person must’ve been thinking; if he had been excited, terrified or just curious. As the wind rushed past her, blowing past her visor and through her hair, sending the beads and bangles in her two small front braids whipping against her face, she shivered a little.

He had seen her, in the way perhaps a human only could. But it had been more than she had been expecting. Maybe, she decided, just maybe, they weren’t all the demons the stories spoke of.

Chapter 5: Their Wild and Untameable Ways

Chapter Text

“Callon!” The shout came from behind him, dragging his gaze from the Na’vi to the direction of the train. When he turned back, she was gone. She’d barely even made a sound, not when leaping from the branches to the ground. Come to think of it, she’d barely spoken a word but to agree to a peace between them.

Heart still pounding out of his chest, he gave one last look into the forest, searching but no seeing, praying that some bit of the bioluminescence might light her up. And then came the cold, white light of someone’s torch, cutting through the foliage and draining the forest of the vibrancy it had possessed just moments before. I didn’t even ask her name, he realised with a twisting disappointment.

“Jace!” The call came again, louder.

He groaned, turning and moving through the foliage back towards the rail line and into the path of a raised gun. “I hope you’re not planning on using that,” he said dryly, staring down the barrel of the rifle.

“Hell, man.” Ryan lowered the gun. “There was a native in there with you. I thought you were gonna get skewered or something.”

“Huh?” Jace feigned surprise, looking back. “Some first mission that would’ve been.” He turned and passed Ryan, patting his shoulder. “Let’s get back into the open.”

They would have to wait for another hour before the blockage was cleared, so Jace hooked himself to the ascension cable and was pulled back up to the Kestrel. “You good, kid?” Isilla asked.

“Yeah,” Jace said, “I’m . . . I’m good.” He switched his rifle’s sight to thermal and scanned the forest looking to see if she was out there still. But there was nothing but a group of prolemuris swinging through the treetops. Curling his fingers around the handhold, Jace set his sights up to Polyphemus as it shone great and blue in the night sky. Some part of him missed the moon he had grown used to, but he couldn’t deny the beauty of having a gas giant hung in the sky.

Eventually, everything was cleared and the train set back on its path. The forest sped by as Jace gazed out at it, the wind biting at his skin and whipping through his hair. Ryan was behind him, stood tall, his head turning as he kept his rigid vigil. But there was nothing to watch for, no disturbances, nothing but the blur of green and the steadily rising glow of the sun.

Bridgehead soon came into sight and Jace immediately felt an approaching yawn that needed stifling. Much to his annoyance, a summons came for him when he touched down, so, instead of going to his bunk and catching some sleep, Jace trudged to the office of Captain Colton, pressed a button to announce that he was there and waited without.

When a green light flashed by the door, Jace tentatively pulled down the handle and stepped inside. It was as bland and beige a room as he had ever seen, without a hint of personalisation or decoration.

The captain sat at a metal desk before a holoscreen, his eyes only flickering up to Jace for a moment before resuming his analysis of whatever it was on that screen.

“Sir?” Jace ventured.

“Sit, private,” Colton said, gesturing to the small, plastic seat just on the other side of the desk. Jace obliged and settled himself. The captain returned to his silence, swiping a finger along the holoscreen. It looked like some sort of footage of something taken under a thermal lens. The man finally broke his silence, rotating the screen to face Jace and zooming it in. “Explain this to me, if you would, private.”

Jace only needed to look for a moment to realise the footage was of him, and it was of the Na’vi. “I encountered a native whilst the train was stationary on a sweep of the surrounding forest.”

“A peaceful encounter,” Colton commented, “one it looks like you initiated.”

“Sir?” Jace said warily at hearing the sour tone of the captain’s voice. “I believe the Na’vi had been watching me long before I noticed them.”

“Yet you, as you can see here, made no move to defend yourself,” he said, rewinding the footage to the moment Jace had looked up and seen a pair of yellow eyes peering down at him, an arrow knocked and drawn, “it seems you tried making some sort of peace with the creature.”

“Naturally, sir. I was sure every other course of action would most likely leave me with an arrow through my heart.”

“You were lucky, private. The Na’vi are not merciful creatures, diplomacy is foreign to them. All they understand is knock, draw and loose.”

Jace bit back a retort, feeling an odd sort of second-hand offence.

The captain continued, “Maybe this one’s curiosity overcame its violent nature for once, but such luck will not be afforded to you again.” The man’s small, black eyes finally rose from the screen to fall on Jace. “If you find yourself in such a situation again, leave it not to chance; shoot and kill.”

Jace raised an eyebrow. “Sir, Commander Gwyne ordered that I avoid conflict unless necessary.”

Colton scoffed. “Conflict is necessary, private. Our every operation here is resisted and endangered by those flea-bitten savages. The commander is sympathetic to the view of the scientists, he hopes for a diplomatic solution.” There was a frenzied look in the captain’s eyes as he spoke. “I promise you, there will be no diplomacy, only a strong hand to subdue the natives. So, I’ll say again, if you encounter any natives, shoot to kill.”

“I’m sorry, sir,” Jace said, “but the commander’s orders stand.”

There was a dark look in the captain’s eyes and an odd, misshapen twitch to his lips as he rose to his feet. “You are dismissed, private,” he said coolly.

Jace gave a stiff salute and turned to leave, the back of his neck prickling uncomfortably as he felt those eyes heavy on him. Tired as he was, he felt a deep uncertainty coursing through him, a twinge in his neck, a twist in his stomach. So, he made for Commander Gwyne’s office and, seeing the light was red, he punched in a notice and took a seat outside.

The green light flicked on and Jace pushed open the door to find not only the commander at his desk but the general, Frances Ardmore, seated opposite him. He immediately straightened his back and saluted. “Sir, General.”

The general, a short, thin woman with an aged face and cool eyes looked him up and down, giving a short nod.

“I can wait, sir,” Jace offered.

“We were just concluding our business, private,” Gwyne said as the general stood from her seat and walked out, briefly shooting a curious glance at Jace as she passed him. “Sit. I presume the mission was without incident but for the blockage on the rails.”

Jace sat, considering how to broach the topic. “There was something that happened; not an incident per se, but worthy enough of note that the captain took note of it.”

“I haven’t had his mission report sent through just yet,” the commander said, pressing a button to summon his holoscreen which he quickly scrolled along. “Tell me.”

“I . . . happened upon a Na’vi whilst foraying into the brush just beside the tracks. I think all the noise must’ve drawn their attention.”

Gwyne raised an eyebrow, terminating the holoscreen projector and turning his full attention to Jace. “Go on,” he prompted.

“Nothing came of it, sir,” Jace said. “It was barely a moment’s eye contact.”

“You speak the native language, do you not?”

“Only a little.”

The commander nodded in approval. “More than most marines here, I’ll say that for certain. So, did you speak?”

“Only enough to agree not to kill each other,” Jace said. “After that she just . . . well, she just looked at me, sir.”

“Naturally,” he murmured. “You would’ve been just as alien to her as she was to you if it was her first time seeing a human up close.”

She had looked young, now that Jace thought on it. Though he couldn’t quite remember the specifics of the species’ lifespan he knew it bore some resemblance to his own. He hummed an understanding and nodded. “And then one of the marines I was with called out to me, I looked away, and then I looked back, and she was gone.”

“Let me guess,” Gwyne said, “the captain disapproved of your peaceful approach.”

“I . . .” Jace paused for a moment. “He did. He said I was lucky to be alive.”

The commander gave a sigh. “In a sense, he is right. Only the youngest Na’vi, who have no first-hand experience of us, would be so curious as to take the risk the one you came across did. We well sated the curiosity of most of those who had been old enough to understand what we were fifteen long years ago. Most of them would’ve remembered only the war and shot you where you stood the second they decided you had come too close.”

“He said that I should’ve killed them,” Jace added quietly. “And I told him I was just following your orders.”

“Ah,” the commander breathed. “There it is. You must forgive him for his belligerence, private, he had a brother who served here when the RDA came to Pandora for the first time. That brother was killed in the war that set us back fifteen years. I suppose you can imagine how that might shape his view on the natives.”

Jace nodded. He understood the man’s anger, but for him to call them flea-bitten savages made clear to Jace there was far more than just resentment behind the man’s words.

“As you can imagine, he is not so inclined towards the view that we will reach any diplomatic resolution to our predicament without applying significant force upon the natives.” Clearly, the commander saw the look in Jace’s eyes, for he continued: “You needn’t worry, his control is on a mission-by-mission basis. As long as he is captain, he will not do anything I do not authorise.”

Jace dared to raise an eyebrow.

“Your situation might’ve easily required you to do as Colton suggested,” the commander continued. “He might lean towards a less peaceful approach, but he will not make war, by my order. My command is over this arm of our operations, General Ardmore also understands that a war on two fronts is the last thing we want, with Jake Sully and his Omatikaya guerillas aggrieving us as they do, and, further afield, the Tayrangi too.” Gwyne sighed. “More and more we’ll have to divert forces to one front and hope the Kekunan don’t become inspired by the insurgents and open another.

“Don’t concern yourself with what Colton may or may not do, private, it will be nothing more than what I allow. But, perhaps it might be best that I keep you out of his sight for a bit while he simmers. For now, rest. When the battle-simulation unit comes online I’ll see you’re booked in for it and we’ll get a proper measure of you, and from there on you’ll be assigned.”

“Sir, yes, sir!”

---

The village was still asleep when Shiala dismounted Keroxe and descended the tangle of roots that fell with the cliff face. Naranawm hung high, vast and beautiful in the sky, casting her gentle glow upon the ground. Shiala touched her feet to the soft ground, feeling the earth beneath her feet and sighing as the tension that had coiled within her slowly eased away.

She found her marui exuding the flickering glow of a fire and stepped in, coming face to face with her mother, who was kneeling at a cookfire, cutting chunks of yerik meat into a broth. “I’d thought you must be returning soon,” she said softly.

Shiala inhaled, the scent of roasted meat filling her nose and setting her stomach to growling just a little. She kneeled down and pressed her forehead to her mother’s. “Safe, as ever.”

“I know,” Mother said, smiling and pulling away. “I know. But I worry, I always will with the sawtute so close.”

Shiala paused, looking away and wondering for just a moment. “Do you think they are all dangerous?”

Her mother’s eyes rose, asking a question Shiala wouldn’t yet answer. “Why the sudden curiosity? Just a short time ago you only cared to think about killing them.”

“If we are to fight them . . . or make peace, would it not help to understand them?” she asked.

“We can try, and we have tried. We know now as much as we ever will. Their ways are alien to us, without the guidance of a mother such as ours they are wild and untameable. They do not see, because they cannot see.” Her mother took a deep breath, stirring the broth around and adding in the meat as the fire crackled beneath it, bringing bubbles to pop at the liquid’s surface. “To answer your question, maybe not all of them are dangerous. Some, I have heard, are curious simply for the sake of curiosity. But they are too few and overshadowed by the warriors that come in their droves.”

There was a confession on Shiala’s tongue, but she was scared to say it. Should I? Shouldn’t I? What reprimand will I face? Shiala went back and forth, debating whether to say it or whether to not. A lack of the truth wasn’t inherently a falsehood, after all. But it was a falsehood enough to make guilt swell in Shiala’s stomach. “I saw one,” she eventually decided to say.

“On that vessel they cut a path through the forest for?”

“Well, I saw many.” Shiala paused, noting the cautious gaze her mother held. “One I saw from close.”

“Well . . . as long as they didn’t see you.”

The silence that followed her words told the truth as it was.

“Shiala!” her mother hissed. “Of all the foolish ways to get yourself killed-”

“There was no danger,” Shiala insisted. ”I was the one in control.”

“Do you know how dangerous the weapons of the sky-people are? Do you know how little it would take for one to kill you?”

“My bow was already drawn on it, from high in the branches,” Shiala said defensively. “If anything, it knew how little it would take for me to kill it.”

Her mother sighed a defeated sigh. “If you had any knowledge of the destruction they could wreak . . . if you knew of the desolation they brought you would’ve steered as far clear of them as possible.” Mother paused, her eyes flitting up from the fire to find Shiala’s. “But, young blood runs hot and careless, as did mine once, and your father’s too.”

Shiala’s lips curled into a snarl. “I wasn’t careless. It was a lone human who had walked into the forest, away from the rest of them. He only saw me when I let myself be seen, and by then my arrow was already pointed at his heart.”

“You overestimated their restraint.”

“If I had, the sky-person would’ve been dead before they could reach their weapon. But, I didn’t.”

Her mother’s eyes did not lose the frustration evident in them, but they softened a little. “So, tell me; what did the sky-person do?”

“At first,” Shiala said, “he froze.”

Her mother let out a little chuckle at that. “It was smart enough to know fear, then. A rare trait among them.”

Shiala smiled and continued, “He moved his hand away from his weapon, and then he spoke, in our tongue, asking for peace. I accepted, just to get a chance to see him . . . properly.”

“Another foolish decision,” her mother smiled. “Go on.”

“I dropped down from the branches, close enough to see through his visor, and I just looked at him, and he looked back.” She paused, letting the memory play in her head. “I wondered if you knew, do most sky-people have one eye coloured differently to the other?”

“If I once knew, I have since forgotten. But I think I never did. This was something you saw in the sky-person?”

“Yes. I . . .” Shiala paused, an odd feeling welling in her stomach. “Is it wrong that I am curious?”

“Curiosity is in our nature, as it must be in theirs,” her mother said, “so, it cannot be wrong. You had never looked upon the enemy before, and now you have." She paused and observed Shiala. "Do you think it has changed anything?”

“I don’t know.” The answer was honest.

“You won’t,” her mother said, returning her attention to the broth and reaching for a bowl. “Not until the moment comes that you must make an irreversible decision. And in that moment, you will know yourself as you are.” She poured a healthy serving of the broth and passed it to her daughter. “Eat, my sweet. Then sleep.”

“I’m not-“ Shiala began to protest.

“You are,” her mother asserted, “you do not know it yet but you are. So eat, and then sleep, there is time enough before the day begins.”

Shiala let herself roll back to sit, the warmth of the fire finally spreading through her. As she ate, she felt a yawn that she needed to stifle, and felt her eyelids becoming just a little harder to lift. “Thank you,” she whispered, just loud enough to be heard.

The eyes that gazed upon her were soft and loving, and under them, Shiala felt safe. Though her thoughts strayed to imaginings of the horrors ahead, she couldn’t feel anything but calm. She didn’t want to leave this feeling, she didn’t want to leave this calm. She didn’t want war, not just because she now felt so confused about the sky-people, but because she remembered all that she had never had as a result of it.

Peace, the sky-person had said. It sounded a wonderful idea, but, as Shiala lay upon her bedroll, she felt a twisting fear that it couldn’t last. Yet, she was resolute that she would not be the one to bring it to an end.

---

Alyara pushed gently on her riding visor, moving it back to its right place on her brow as her ikran, Caelys, hung just beneath the clouds. Moisture from them clung to her skin and to the crimson and white paint that covered her eyes and brow in two triangular shapes arrowing forth from the bridge of her nose. Her mother had helped paint it onto her, adding patterns on her shoulders, arms, torso, legs and even her tail. Mother was ahead, riding her own ikran, warpaint adorning her own face too. Father’s ikran glid level with Caelys, and he caught her eye, flashing a reassuring smile.

The sky-people were pressing further forwards, on more fronts than Toruk Makto could manage. So, far away from the coast, her mother had been taking small parties to attack the sky-person vessels. But now they were coming closer and closer to the village with every foray.

“Quickly in,” she had told Alyara, “strike and exit. Never fly level with their vessels, attack from above, like you are an ikran hunting its airborne prey.”

Four other riders were with them. Her brother, Atan’tey, had been vocal about his desire to fly with them, but Mother had kept him back. Alyara knew it was because he was too young still, but Father had given him a big speech about how protecting the village was now his responsibility. That had delivered enough self-importance to placate Atan’tey and keep him home with Atxayni. He would be old enough soon, her brother. Atan’tey was a good flyer, and a brilliant shot, but lacking in restraint, Mother and Father had agreed.

The air was cold on her skin, but there was a fire simmering in Alyara that staved away the chills. She pressed a hand to the bow that was slung over her shoulder and cast her eyes down, searching. Toruk Makto had warned of some so-called ‘gunships’ making east towards the Tayrangi territory, and Mother had been quick to react. It had been so many days since the sky-people had returned Alyara had long lost count. And finally, this day was her first chance to fly against them. A curious mix of fear and excitement was roiling in her; she remembered her father’s warning from that first night.

Their minds are sharp and their hearts are empty. His words rang in her mind, and her stomach tightened a little. The war with the sky-people had come to drive a wedge into the routine of her life. Gone, it seemed, were the days that she could spend a day safe without wondering if it would be the last such day. Gone were the days that she could fly to the Omatikaya village with Atan’tey to meet Neteyam and the other children of Jake Sully. The sky-people had taken that away. They had driven the entire Omatikaya clan into hiding and begun patrolling the sky as though it was theirs. But no, it wasn’t theirs, Alyara would show them that.

Her mother made a loud vocalisation, and Alyara’s ears perked up. She had spotted the gunships and was turning her ikran up into the clouds. Alyara followed her mother’s lead, along with the rest of their party, disappearing from view of the flying metal vessels that hung below them.

“Three,” her mother shouted, and the party split into the same number of groups. “Alyara, with me.”

Alyara obliged, bringing her ikran close to her mother’s as her father dropped back to join with another hunter.

“Dip below the clouds, flower, look.” Her mother lowered her ikran just enough to break out from the clouds, and Alyara followed. She could see them now. Three gunships in a triangular formation. “Ours is the front, daughter. I will take the pilot, you the warrior in the body.”

Alyara nodded, trying to remember how the vessels worked. Father had lectured her on it, one sky-person drove the machines, another one or two stood in a hollow in the ship’s centre. “I’ll follow you,” she called out.

Another loud vocalisation sounded, the signal. Alyara brought her bow into her hands and took one last deep breath, urging Caelys into a vertical dive as she knocked an arrow.

The wind rushed through her hair as she leaned into the dive, her eyes flicking to the six other descending ikrans as she heard the war cries of the other warriors. Hers was not yet perfected, but she let it loose anyway, feeling the blood rush as the gunships drew closer and closer.

Mother fell upon them first, loosing an arrow that punctured the glass of the nose of the ship. Alyara was close behind, her eyes locking onto the sky-person stood in the hollow. Their balance was thrown off as the ship began to veer off, a clear sign that Mother’s arrow had found its mark.

Alyara drew back the bowstring to its full tautness and loosened the arrow with a yell. It hit the sky-person dead centre, she saw with exhilaration. They wobbled and fell backwards, skewered, before sliding out from the hollow to fall into the open air to the ground. As frail as she had been told.

The sound of the sky-people’s weapons blitzed through the air for only a moment until the other two vessels were falling. A twinge of sympathy ran through Alyara, for the life lost, but it was overrun by the excited heat pumping through her veins as she urged Caelys to turn.

She hadn’t expected it to be over so quickly, but such was the nature of an ambush. A deep sigh escaped her as her mother’s ikran pulled up beside her. “Well done, my wildflower,” she called, a smile on her face. “Home now.”

Alyara felt a smile cross her own lips as she looked around, spotting her father soaring overhead. Home, she thought. Safe now for a little longer, thanks to me. As the excitement melted slowly away, a more contented warmth began to spread through Alyara. She was doing as was her duty, protecting the people. If this was all it was, she knew she could do it forevermore.

Chapter 6: It Is Already Upon Us

Chapter Text

“You did f*cking what?” Kyra gasped. “Come on, tell me this is a wind-up. There’s no way.”

Jace chuckled swallowing his spoonful of rice. “I’m still reeling from it,” he said.

“I don’t doubt you are.” Kyra began to circle the small floor of her bedroom, where they had both taken their food from the mess hall. Jace was sat on her bed, finishing off his chicken and rice, thankful that she was letting him finish eating before bombarding him with a hundred questions.

Jace slowly scraped out the last bits of rice from the bowl and set it aside. “Go on, then,” he sighed.

“Hmm?” Kyra murmured.

“Don’t pretend you don’t have half-a-hundred questions already thought out,” Jace said. “This is your chance to ask them.”

“All right, all right; just give me a moment to figure out which one to ask.” she paced the small room a little as Jace felt a surge of jealousy at realising her mattress was much more comfortable than the one he had in the barracks. “Ok, I’ll get your memory going to start. What did they look like?”

“Do you want a full, in-detail description?”

She snorted. “Do I want a full, in detail- Of course I f*cking do! Now, soldier, out with it!”

“All right, all right. Well, she was big and blue, with yellow eyes.” Kyra rolled her eyes as Jace smirked. “She was wearing one of those visor things on her forehead.”

“A taronyu,” Kyra murmured.

Warrior, Jace remembered. Rider of ikran. He felt just a little more surprised that he was alive, which he hadn’t thought possible. “Half of her hair was in some sort of ponytail at the back,” he continued, trying to keep the memory clear. “She had two little braids, one in front of each ear, with these long beads at the end.” Jace drummed his fingers on his legs as he tried to recall more. “She had feather earrings, a bunch of armbands and stuff like that. And there were . . . lines of bioluminescent spots all over her skin.”

“You really were transfixed weren’t you?” Kyra grinned, earning a scowl from Jace. “What? I would’ve been too.” Jace didn’t let the gaze drop. “Okay, okay, sorry. Continue. What was she wearing?”

sh*t, Jace thought as he felt the blood rush to his face. “Not much,” he admitted stiffly, looking at the ground as Kyra chortled.

“Get a good look, did you?” She punched his arm lightly.

“f*ck off,” he grunted, punching back, but only succeeding in making her laugh more.

“I’ll bet she was absolutely beautiful,” Kyra said after finally getting her giggles under control and holding a thoughtful silence.

You have no idea. Jace just managed to stop the words from rolling off his tongue, but that they were in his head was enough to press an uncomfortable truth upon him.

“So, how exactly did this all happen?” Kyra asked, oblivious to Jace’s confusion.

Jace sighed, happy for a distraction, and told the story again, not missing a detail and watching as Kyra nodded, a poorly hidden but well-meaning jealousy written all over her face. She asked what felt like a half-hundred questions, just as Jace had predicted, and he answered each and every one.

“I hope you know just how damn lucky you are, Jace. That’s a one-in-a-million sort of meeting. With the way the RDA is going with this whole operation, I doubt I’ll get so much as a sight of any Na’vi unless they’re coming to kill me,” she said sourly when Jace was done.

“Honestly, when I looked up I thought it was gonna be lights out any moment,” Jace replied. “And surely you’d be in with more luck than me, being a scientist and all.”

“You would think,” she sighed. “But, it just so happens that the boat I’ll be doing my research on with Doctor Garvin is made for hunting a sentient species closely tied to the reef Na’vi, so I doubt any visits I get will be friendly.”

Jace kissed his teeth and frowned. “When do you head out?”

“Soon. A couple weeks at the latest.” Kyra sighed. “And you, what’s next for mister diplomacy?”

“Well,” Jace said, “I think I pissed off the captain I was under by not trying to kill the Na’vi, as the commander told me not to, by the way. The commander likes me though, I think, so I reckon I’ll get reassigned fairly promptly. The simulation unit comes online in a few hours so I’ll get to flaunt my stuff and probably get myself sent straight into the thick of it.”

“That’s not a good thing, Jace,” she admonished. “The Na’vi have learned how to fight us, and they’ve learned well. What are you going to do if you get an arrow shot through your chest?”

“Walk it off,” Jace said. “See this?” He pulled down his sleeve to show the bracelet Ami had given him. “I promised my mum and sister that I’d keep myself alive, by any and all means. I don’t care what happens, I don’t care how much danger I get thrown into, I’m not breaking that promise.”

“And here I thought you were the exception to marines being complete numbskulls.” A wry smile crossed her face. “I’m going to ask that you make that same promise to me,” Kyra said, reaching into a draw and pulling out a small, black box.

“What is that?” Jace asked.

“A gift. Once you promise me you aren’t going to do anything stupid, I’ll give it to you.”

He rolled his eyes and smiled. “Alright, I promise not to do anything remotely stupid. With one exception; I won’t disobey orders because that is almost certain to end up getting me killed.”

Kyra nodded. “It’ll do.” She prised open the box and pulled out what looked like a pair of bracelets. She handed one to Jace and said, “Put it on.”

He obliged, stretching its elastic length around his wrist and letting it snap back into place, fitting snugly. “So, what is it?”

“A direct comlink, between the one on your wrist and the one on mine,” she poked the centre of it where Jace now noticed a small button. “Speak into it and then press the button again when you’re done, go on.”

Jace raised a sceptical eyebrow, but shrugged and lifted his wrist to his mouth. “Yo,” he said.

The other bracelet sat open in Kyra’s hand vibrated as she rolled her eyes at him. She strapped it onto her wrist and pressed the button on hers and through came his voice. It was grainy and quiet, but there. He smiled, imagining how much the tech would’ve cost given it was so small and slim.

“Really?” she asked. “ Of all the things to say you chose ‘yo’? I swear to God if you start a single communication with ‘yo’ I’m gonna find you and take the thing away.”

“All right, all right. Reformed, I promise.”

Kyra pressed the button on hers and said, “Good.”

Jace’s bracelet buzzed and he pressed the button, and out came Kyra’s voice. He grinned. “Thanks for this.”

Kyra grinned back at him. “Well, I wouldn’t want you to spend all that time with only those all-American jarheads for conversation, your brain would surely start rotting. And, this way I can keep you updated on all the things I learn whilst on the seas, and you can let me know you’re still breathing at the end of each and every day.”

“Got it.”

“I mean it, Jace, each and every day. You have a promise to keep, and if you break it-“

“Yeah, yeah, I hear you, you’ll find my corpse and feed me to a thanator.”

Kyra smiled. “Something to that effect, hotshot.” She looked down at the watch on her wrist. “I’ve gotta head to the lab,” she said. Tapping the comlink bracelet she added, “Let me know how your simulation thing goes.”

“Alright,” Jace agreed, standing up and making for the door, picking his exomask off of Kyra’s bed. “And when you tell me about your stuff, please use words I’ll understand, not all that technical jargon.”

“You got it, kid.” She pushed open the door for Jace to leave and followed him out. As he turned right to go outside, she turned left to where all the science labs were. “I’ll see you around, if not . . .” she tapped the bracelet.

“See you.” Jace looked to his watch. Two o’clock was approaching, and he wanted to be early, determined to keep up the good impression he hoped he had made on Commander Gwyne.

Exomask on, Jace set off in the open air, the Pandoran sun beating heavily down upon his skin. Off to the right, a group of swarm assemblers were crawling along a skeletal frame, melding metal and sending sparks flying. To the left were the tactical centres, where the high-ups made their decisions from. And straight ahead was Jace’s destination.

Like the shooting range, there was a reception desk which, once he had passed through the depressurisation chamber, Jace walked up to.

“You got a booking?” the receptionist asked.

Jace gave his name and ID number and waited as they were typed in by the man at the desk.

“Gotcha,” the man said. “Your slot is for half-past, if you follow that corridor down, wait outside chamber four until that slot begins.”

“Cheers,” Jace murmured as he walked past the desk and through the hallway. He looked through the windows into the other chambers, seeing what he could only guess we’re artificial projected settings. He tried to recall what he had read about these units but could only remember that it was supposedly as immersive an experience as virtual reality; not that Jace had ever tried it, but he’d watched others do so.

As Jace took his seat outside the room, he was struck by a curiosity. Why, he wondered, is the commander taking such an interest in me? If there was any ill feeling between a marine and his superior, it would always be the marine’s job to patch up the rift. Yet here, Jace was being taken from the situation and reassigned. My training résumé is good, he thought, but not so outstanding as to warrant this. He sat and he thought and, to his frustration, nothing came to him. He decided to ask, whenever the commander arrived, as he had said he would.

Bored, Jace looked down to the bracelet Ami had given him, rotating it around his wrist to look at each and every stone, the quartz, pink and white, the pearl, silvery, the obsidian, black as night. As the smile came to his lips the tears came to his eyes. He’d have to check the messages saved for him over the six years sometime, but it was too soon. Jace didn’t know if he wanted to see his little sister all grown up into an adult, but he couldn’t hide from it forever.

A voice snapped him from his musings, the commander’s. Jace had been too deep in his mind to have heard what was said, but he stood and saluted all the same.

When the commander continued to look at him, clearly expecting an answer, Jace shuffled uncomfortably. “I’m sorry, sir, I didn’t hear whatever you said.”

“It was just a greeting, lad. It’s polite to return them, you know.”

“I’ll be more attentive next time, sir,” Jace promised.

“Good to hear.”

A silence took prominence for a while as Jace found himself somehow lacking the courage to ask the question rattling around in his mind. Gwyne’s eyes were on him, steadily observing. “Sir,” he eventually started, “I feel like you’ve taken an interest in me here. Is there a reason for that beyond the asset you think I could be?”

“There is,” the commander accepted. “But, I won’t put it on your shoulders just yet. Just focus on your fighting, and I’ll tell you soon enough.”

When the half-hour came around, Jace stepped through into the chamber and looked around. He was in the first, and much smaller, of two rooms separated by a large glass window. There was a weapons rack loaded with assault rifles, marksman rifles, pistols, shotguns and all sorts.

“Take your pick and put in any modifications on that screen there,” Gwyne said, gesturing to a holoscreen hooked up to the wall.

Jace chose his usual assault rifle with a pistol for the sidearm. “Sir,” he began as a thought struck him, “do I know what sort of terrain or situation I’ll be entering?”

“It’ll put you through a number of situations, you can chop and change your loadout in-between.” Gwyne peered down at the screen. “First is an on-the-ground encounter, in the jungle.”

Jace looked through to the other room, wondering just how such an environment would be simulated. He turned back to the weapons rack and noticed a set of combat blades, from daggers to full-on swords.

If the brush was thick, he reasoned as he picked through the blades, he’d need a sizeable blade to cut through. The dagger sat diagonal in its sheath on his chest, the longer blade he chose rested on his hip, hanging from his belt. It was halfway between a knife and a sword, with a dulled edge and a rounded point.

Satisfied with that, Jace picked out some dummy grenades, smokes and frags and fitted them all into their respective slots.

“Just scan the guns you picked in front of the screen,” the commander instructed him. Jace did so and, when the guns came up on the screen, picked the modifications he had on his own kit.

With awe, he watched as some sort of projector cast the likeness of a suppressor on the barrel of his pistol. A thermal sight was projected onto the rifle, and Jace was set to go. With the commander’s assent, he stepped through a pair of sliding glass doors into the larger room.

Projectors all across the room started whirring and, in a matter of seconds the large, empty space had become a dense jungle. As Jace pushed his hand onto one of the projections, though he felt nothing he saw it move as though he was actually touching it.

Jace took his pistol into hand, moving towards a projected tree. “So what’s my objective in this one?” he asked.

Gwyne’s voice came over the intercom: “Survive.”

Suddenly the sounds of a forest kicked in, surrounding him with that familiar buzzing drone. Jace lowered his body, so the low foliage covered most of his body as he peered around the tree. Nothing, only more vegetation.

Remembering how the Na’vi had snuck up on him, Jace’s eyes flashed up to the branches above . . . nothing. In every direction, there was nothing but the flora, which was everywhere.

Keeping his every breath slow and steady, Jace rounded the tree to its other side, his head on a constant swivel. Survive. If there was no other aim, it meant something was coming for him. Na’vi most likely, but perhaps the wildlife. Viperwolves, thanators, ikrans, medusae; Pandora certainly didn’t lack for beasts that could inflict upon him a very painful death.

Calm as he knew to be, every second that passed without event quickened Jace’s heartbeat. He remembered the day in the jungle, he hadn’t been wary enough and he was lucky it hadn’t cost him his life. Again he looked up to the branches above, and this time noted a flash of movement a ways away.

Whatever it was, it had seen him. So, Jace ducked low beneath the masses of vines and leaves, scrambling to the base of a different tree and keeping behind it. His eyes were locked on the canopy above, only ever briefly dropping to glance at whatever was eye level, that, luckily, being nothing.

And there it was again, above him, moving to where he had just been, its tail swishing over the edge of the branches. Jace steeled himself and moved silently to the side as the Na’vi above peered down to where he had been before. The shot was a clear one, so, Jace raised his pistol and trained it on the Na’vi. With every shot he let off a whispering sound escaped the weapon, each finding its mark. And every time they did, Jace could only imagine one face on that Na’vi.

The Na’vi’s bow clattered to the ground, followed by them as they lost balance and fell from their perch. And it all cut out; the forest faded away, the ambience went silent and the harsh pale lights of the chamber came alive again. Away faded the plants and the trees, and away faded the Na’vi. Only then, did Jace remember it wasn’t real.

The commander’s voice sounded . . . a congratulation, but Jace barely heard it. All he could hear was the sound of each flying bullet, and all he could see was that face again.

---

“They are coming by every day now,” Txunir said as Shiala swished her tail impatiently. “Every day, with their noise and their weapons. Don’t you want it to stop, Shiala?”

“I want lots of things, Txunir, most are far beyond my reach.”

“Not this,” he insisted, “we can stop them.”

Shiala regarded him cooly. “This more than most,” she replied. Txunir had barely passed his iknimaya, but his heart had long before been that of a warrior. “And even if we do, what will it do but bring the sky-people upon us?”

“What happened?” he asked. “Last time we were on the same side.”

“Last time I hadn’t seen what it was that I wanted to stop, now I have.” It was half the truth, but better than none of it.

“We’ve all seen it,” Zau’we said from behind Shiala, her voice quiet. She was Txunir’s older sister and, though less hot-headed, she was often in agreement with him regarding the clan’s inaction against the sky-people.

“Then you know,” Shiala said. “You know that it is impossible.”

“No,” Zau’we murmured, “you said it yourself, the metal thing stopped when its path was blocked. It can be stopped.”

“Only until they remove whatever is in their way.”

“It’s enough time to strike,” Txunir said. “If there are enough of us.”

“To strike,” Shiala repeated. “You do know they will strike back? What happens to us then?”

“We fight and we win,” Txunir said. “As we did in the first war.”

“The clans were united then,” Shiala reminded him. “We are not even one clan united. Most wish to be left in peace, not to have a war brought upon them.”

“It is already upon us, Shiala,” he hissed. “Can you not see that?”

She balked. She could see the threat that hung over them, better than she wanted to admit, she could see it. “It may soon be . . . but it is not yet. It may never be.”

“Is this what your mother told you?” Zau’we asked.

“She knows more of the sky-people than any of us,” Shiala hissed. “She has lost more to them than any of us. Everyone who has fought the sky-people before wishes never to do it again.”

“That is why the fight must be ours, Shiala,” Txunir said. “Mine, yours, Zau’we’s. This fight is for the sons and the daughters, to make sure our own sons and daughters do not need to fight it.”

Shiala shook her head. “I see every day what war leaves us with . . . what it leaves us without. I will not seek it out, I will not bring the sky-people upon us with their fires and their weapons and their machines.” She rounded on Txunir, baring her teeth. “You will not seek it out.” Her eyes swivelled to look sternly on Zau’we. “This fight . . . we will not fight it unless we must.”

Txunir’s ears flattened and he looked to the floor, his fist closed with all the impertinence of a child being told off. But, under her cold eyes, he bowed his head slightly and slinked off. Zau’we held her gaze a little longer before quietly slipping off to follow her little brother.

Shiala felt a long breath escape her as her stomach uncoiled. The day’s light was waning, but Shiala felt too restless to return to her marui. Instead, she yipped a call to Keroxe and waited to hear the flapping of his wings in the air.

She wanted away from it. She wanted away from Txunir’s idiocy and stubbornness, she wanted away from her own conflict. She just wanted away from it all.

Keroxe landed, inquisitively nuzzling his head into Shiala as she murmured his name. A foot in the stirrup, she swung nimbly into her saddle and urged him into the air.

As the wind whipped by her she felt finally free. Free of the fear, free of the ever-growing shadow that the sky-people cast, free of it all. The ground fell away and the clouds grew closer as the air thinned and grew colder.

Shiala saw the distant glow of the lights on the sky-people's vessel coming on its way to pass them. Txunir was a fool to think he could stop it. Perhaps he could attack some of the sky-people aboard it and in the flying vessels, but what would it achieve but to anger them? The nantang would always live with the threat of the palulukan in sight, but it does not ever attack it unless absolutely necessary.

Palulukan, tawtute. She almost laughed at the ridiculousness of comparing the two, it was absurd, so different was one from the other. And yet, she thought, her humour fading, they are still a threat. She looked back down to the white glow. If the sky-people are a threat as one, what of each sky-person? She pondered the question as Keroxe sailed on through the sky, the wind under his wings. Every story of them she had heard they had been the same monsters. And yet she had seen one and, queer as it had looked, it was not a monster she had beheld.

But the stories had been of fire and of blood, and they had been many. She had visited the battlegrounds, she had seen the machinery in the trees, the scores on the bark. Monsters, demons, that was all anyone said them to be; even those in the clan who wanted peace spoke with poison on their tongues of the sky-people.

Did any of the people have the chance to look upon one as I did? she wondered. Probably not. It was the Omatikaya who had engaged in a tentative contact with the sky-people the first time, before they overstepped. Perhaps their view was different, perhaps not. Shiala knew thinking of such things would bring her only confusion, she tried to ward the thoughts away, but they came regardless. Dive, she thought, and Keroxe heard, tilting towards the ground, arrowing towards the sky-person vessel. Shiala knew her curiosity was foolish, but she wanted to know more for herself of them. It is always helpful to know more, she reasoned. She had seen one of the people from close, that opportunity might never come again, but she could fly level with them.

The sound the thing made as it moved along the metal lines was ugly and grating, but, as Keroxe edged closer, Shiala was able to filter it away. With the dark sky hiding her from sight, Shiala rose above the flying vessels that seemed to be guarding the larger one. The noise that came from them was different, it did not hurt so much to hear.

It has a rhythm, Shiala noted. It was a fast beat, and without variation, but it made for easier listening than the odd cacophony the ground-vessel made.

Veering off to the side and dropping lower, Shiala could see two sky-people stood in the hollow of the flying vessel, their little heads swivelling around.

Looking but not seeing, Shiala thought.

It had taken the other sky-person a good while to look up and see, so curious had he seemed about the forest all around him. Shiala wondered if he was amongst this group of sky-people, and she remembered her musings about the colours of his eyes. Narrowing her eyes she peered closer at the sky-people in the flying vessel, but couldn’t see anything identifying. They all wore the exact same excess of clothing, the exact same masks, there were no intricate hair patterns. Some had skin of differing colours and shades, perhaps to do with where on their own world they came from, but that aside, they seemed mostly uniform.

What gives them their individuality? she wondered, and as she wondered she cursed that she hadn’t tried to learn more from the sky-person she’d had in her grasp. But what could she have done? His own were already calling to him, and she could hardly have kidnapped one just to sate her own curiosity, for it would surely bring the sky-people looking. Such a chance as she had been given would never come again, she was sure of it. Now, all she could do was what she was already doing.

Keroxe dipped lower and Shiala set her sights on the vessel that ran along the raised pathway the sky-people had constructed. As she inspected it, she realised it was not one vessel, but a collection of many, joined together. They were different shapes, presumably for different purposes, all moving one after the other, like a pa’li might pull along a load behind it.

Shiala wondered which part of it was pulling or pushing it along. The front and back were so far apart it couldn’t surely just be one, so maybe all.

Conscious of the risk of being spotted, Shiala urged Keroxe to pull up and let the vessel speed away. It was a marvel, ugly and obtuse, but fascinating; much as were the sky-people. As the sounds of the vessel faded and the sounds of the forest grew again, Shiala hoped she wouldn’t grow too curious, if she hadn’t already.

---

Alyara sat, ears perked up as her mother spoke. They were finally taking their first great step into joining forces with the Omatikaya. Her tail swished excitedly behind her as she felt herself itching to get back in her saddle and set Caelys off into the sky.

“We have been taking out gunship convoys from an outpost of the sky-people’s to the west which had been advancing close to our villages and cutting us off from the Omatikaya,” her mother said. “But, they will keep coming unless we take that outpost from them. And that is what we will do.”

“As it will be well defended, we will have help,” Father said.

“From the Omatikaya?” Alyara asked.

“They cannot spare much,” Mother replied, “but, yes. A number of their warriors will join us, armed with sky-people weaponry.”

Alyara co*cked her head. Sky-people weaponry? The way of the sky-people broke the Na’vi way, their weapons were made from the metal of the ground, they could burn and break and set entire forests aflame. “Why?” she asked.

“Because, against some of their weapons and machines, our methods are completely ineffective. It is a concession we must make to defend Eywa’eveng from the sky-people.”

Alyara nodded. “When will this be?”

“A few days. The Omatikaya warriors will need to arrive at the village and finalise our plan. Until then you should rest.”

“I don’t need rest,” Alyara said defiantly. “I want to help.”

“Everyone needs rest, Alyara,” her father said. “Even your mother and I. If you don’t then you’ll be a liability in the fight. So, rest, or be left behind.”

Mother came close, her voice quiet. “This is our great step over the precipice, my wildflower, it will be more dangerous than anything we have yet done. Rest, as your father says. You need it.”

Chapter 7: Weather the Storm

Chapter Text

The outpost was a great rectangular base enclosed by large walls dotted with manned turrets. Jace looked out of the gunship to the airfield at the base’s bottom end that it was descending towards and saw a flurry of movement on the ground. The rest of the base was made up of other smaller buildings all connected by pathways both airlocked and external.

The commander’s words played again in his head. “There have been an increasing number of attacks on our gunships as they push further out to the east. And, we received word of a number of mounted banshees flying to the Eastern Sea along with one of the insurgency’s gunships from the Hallelujah Mountains. We fear there is set to be an attack on one of our outlying sites, staged by members of both the Tayrangi and Omatikaya.”

Jace could already feel his heart nervously pounding, heavy enough that he thought it was a wonder no-one else could hear it. He had passed through all the other simulations, each in a different environment with a different objective, much to his own satisfaction. But, the commander had held off on divulging whatever truth he held regarding Jace, and the question of what that might be had not left Jace’s mind.

He steadied his breathing and, as the Kestrel closed in on the concrete ground, made sure all his gear was in place and fastened securely. After all, he might need it in hand at any second. The commander had stressed that fact enough that Jace could still hear the words ringing in his head.

The on-ground captain Jace found more amicable than Colton had been by a longshot. Well, to the extent a loud and angry man who looked just about ready to burst a blood vessel at any moment could be amicable at all, Jace thought with a slight grin.

Gwyne had made the introduction, speaking almost embarrassingly highly of Jace’s talent and potential. The captain, Jacob Smith, only nodded and said, “He’d better be. It’s his head on the line when he’s out there.” Though his voice was cold, his eyes were not; they had observed him with a mild curiosity, as Jace had become well accustomed to.

The Kestrel jolted a little as it touched down, and Jace jumped off, following another marine along into the barracks which stood beneath a guard tower that overlooked it, the command centre, the airfield and the armoury. There was a second tower situated just behind the northern wall, overlooking the generator, water resupply, fuel tanks ammo dump, training ground and backup generator. Every major building was linked by pressurised walkways so there was no need to step outside every time he needed to get from one place to another.

Jace had familiarised himself well with the base’s layout, with nothing else to do during the sleepless flight through the night. It was the morning now, the Pandoran sun rising slowly in the sky, and Jace was finally feeling the lack of sleep kick in as his eyelids grew heavy. But there was no time for rest, the briefing was set to start ten minutes on, and from there, he would be assigned.

If he had felt fear before when sent to escort the maglev, Jace had no idea how to describe what he felt now. He felt like he could already see the shadows of the banshees and hear the whistling of arrows in the air. His hand instinctually tightened around his rifle as he took a long, deep breath.

Remember your promise, he told himself. Keep it. that’s all you have to do; obey your commands and keep your promise. But deep down he knew it was never quite so easy as that.

---

The Omatikaya who came were led by Jake Sully and his mate, the tsakarem, Neytiri. With him he brought odd-looking weapons of metal, as was his custom.

They were pouring over a map of what Toruk Makto said was the target; a large rectangular area supposedly filled to the brim with sky-people and their machinery.

“Fly-overs haven’t given us much to go off,” he said, “but, we know the curtain wall has manually operated machine gun turrets all over it. If we want any success, we need to take those out. So, the first swoop will be my Omatikaya with our RPGs to take as many out of commission as we can.”

“And then the rest of us follow in?” Mother asked.

“Yes. If the first attack is a success the sky-people will be in disarray, then we can pick them off. We won’t be able to take and hold the position, but we can make it obsolete for them.” Sully pointed again to the map he had drawn. “There’s a generator here just behind the northern wall, if we take that out along with any fuel or water source they’ll have to abandon the position even if we can’t overwhelm them. Then those excursions onto your land will come to a halt.”

Alyara took her leave when the meeting ended, she had been a little disappointed when she had heard that none of the Sully children were flying this mission with them, but she supposed it was better that they were safe, it had just been so long.

Atan’tey was outside, grinning at her. “So,” he asked. “What’s the big plan?”

“You know you’re not coming, right?” Alyara said.

“Yeah, yeah, I know. Just let me pretend for a moment.”

Alyara chuckled a little. “There’s a sky-person base to the west. We’re going to destroy it . . . sort of.”

“Sound’s fun,” Atan’tey grumbled.

“Babysitting Atxanyi can’t be too boring,” Alyara said, a mock consolation, but not untrue.

“I’d rather it was boring, at least then I could rest. I tell him to sleep and he decides to start sprinting around like a headless yerik, whooping and screaming. And he knows it annoys me.”

“And that’s exactly why he does it, little brother,” Alyara said matter-of-factly, whipping her tail against Atan’tey’s hip and making him his in annoyance, “because you are so easy to annoy.”

“Aren’t we supposed to be united against him?” Atan’tey muttered.

“You know I fought this same battle against you when we were younger,” Alyara said airily. “The war has passed to you now, I’m just happy to watch.”

He scowled. “I still don’t get why Mother won’t let my fly with you.”

“Soon enough, little brother,” Alyara promised. “You’re just a little too . . . little.”

“We’re the same height, Alyara.”

“Yes, I meant in here.” She prodded a finger against his temple, eliciting another annoyed hiss. “For now, your fight is to keep Atxanyi from burning down the village whilst we’re gone and, soon enough, you’ll fly with us.”

“Alyara,” he called as she turned to leave.

“Yeah?”

“Come back safe, okay?” Atan’tey’s eyes betrayed his concern.

“I will,” Alyara promised, stepping forwards to pull him into a hug. “We’ll be back before dawn tomorrow. And I’ll tell you all about it.”

---

“Situation is,” Captain Smith announced to the room full of marines, “we’re in the thick of it. Na’vi have been flying at high altitude over the base, no doubt reconnaissance flights. That hasn’t been reported anywhere else within a hundred clicks north or south, so it seems we are the target.

“Now, some of you will have encountered the natives before, some of you will not. So, for all of you who are in the latter grouping, I’ll make this clear now, do not underestimate them. They know the land, they know the weather, they know everything that we need scanners for by instinct. Their arrows, whether poisoned or not, will skewer you like a piece of meat if you get in their way. So, keep your heads low and on a swivel. Our scanners will tell us when they are getting close, but an intermittent signal will be worth f*ck all when they are swarming us. The Omatikaya have adopted our weaponry, so expect bullets to rain down as well as arrows.

“We number one-hundred and seventy-four fighting men, their numbers cannot be spoken to, not yet, but more likely than not we’ll be outnumbered.” The captain pressed a button on the console before him and a large screen was projected up in the centre of the room, showing videos of Na’vi attacks on the RDA’s forces. Arrows puncturing the front windows of gunships, explosives shattering rails and crashing trains, blue figures swarming and killing soldiers like it was nothing. And all of a sudden it felt real . . . the war, the reason he was here. It wasn’t supposed to happen at all, but whatever attempts at peace there had been in the months before Jace landed had failed and faltered. And now, the Omatikaya and Tayrangi were descending upon them.

Jace’s hand moved to the bracelet on one wrist and then the comlink on the other. He mouthed his promises again, determined that he would keep them. But uncertainty coursed through him as he watched the footage.

“As it seems we are going to be faced with an imminent attack,” the captain continued, “aid is incoming, but it will not arrive until past midnight local time. Until then, we hunker down and spray bullets at anything that comes too close. Keep to your squad, obey every command and we’ll make it safely through the night.”

A wave of assent passed through the gathered, Jace adding his voice to theirs, trying to get himself pumped up. Man battered their hands on the walls and the tables, building a racket that continued to crescendo until Smith raised a hand.

“Now,” the captain said, “to your posts.”

Through the tide of bodies Jace pushed himself. Where most men were set around the perimeter, Jace’s post was to be in the command centre with its three-sixty view of the compound and every other protection besides. It was some blessing, he had to admit, having a commander for an admirer, uncomfortable as Jace found it not knowing why.

The command centre had four floors, each a little smaller than the one beneath it, so it almost looked a little like a pyramid. There were walkways outside on each floor with ladders between them and stretching up to the roof. Jace took the indoor route, following a couple others up the helical stairwell that went from ground to top floor. Captain Smith was already there, surrounded by a bunch of technical staff all operating different consoles and monitors.

He retrieved his gear from the storage unit it had been stashed in and took his position at the captain’s side. The chatter of the room was a constant drone, so, to keep his mind from going numb, Jace zoned in on the conversation nearest to him between two women at their adjacent desks.

“Orbital scans still showing no signs of mass movement from the main Tayrangi village,” one said.

“The scans update every ten minutes, next time we look the place may well be abandoned,” the other replied. “They move fast, and when they do leave they’ll be on us in a matter of hours.”

The first woman seemed to sigh. “Do you reckon they take prisoners?”

“Best hope we don’t find out.”

Jace very much agreed. As he picked his exomask from his belt and stepped through the small depressurisation chamber, he did ponder the question. What value was a hostage to them? What value was the life of a human being to them? Precious little, Jace imagined. He couldn’t much blame them, desperation had made decisions for them, poor ones. But, he forced himself to remember, it was the lives of twenty billion that were at stake; the lives of his mother and his sister, of all his friends . . . of everyone; good and bad.

Jace only hoped it all might de-escalate. Command had their vision for that, the first step being to kill the insurgency’s leader, the one they all called a traitor, Jake Sully. He was hazy on the details, but knew the gist of the story, at least the one he had been told. But, he had never been overly trusting of stories, he only truly knew what he learned for himself. What he did know was that whoever this Toruk Makto was, he had once been human, and no longer was.

The air outside was cool against his skin, providing something of a respite from the heat that was building beneath his body armour. The sun’s light was beginning to fade as it touched the horizon to the west, and with the night, Jace knew, would come the Na’vi. He couldn’t afford to falter, not with his own neck on the line. He had almost done so in the simulation chamber, seeing the inquisitive face of that Na’vi from the first night in the field on the face of every Na’vi he came up against. He prayed he wouldn’t be similarly afflicted here, there was no room for his conscience to take power. But, all the same, he could feel the questions creeping in.

Never before had Jace fought in a life-or-death bout, it had always been tactical matches with stun bolts or the sims here on Pandora. He had inflicted pain and discomfort on others in those training games, but never death. He didn’t know what to expect, nor how it would weigh on his conscience. He didn’t want to know, but he would soon enough, it was inescapable.

A hand drifted down to rest on the grip of his rifle, its weight was a comforting familiarity in his hand where so much else was alien. He knew none of the men or women around him, he was new to the base, new to the world, new to everything. It’s all so . . . Jace paused, his eyes drifting out to look to the forest. I’m the alien here, we all are.

He remembered watching all the old movies from that period in the twenty-first century when everyone was obsessed with aliens. And now that was what they were . . . what he was. They had been predicted to come from Mars, from Saturn, from portals beneath the sea, from everywhere. But instead of becoming the site of an alien invasion, it had become a staging ground for one. Jace remembered the scenes of crowds on the streets of cities screaming at sights of horror.

So that’s what they think of us.

Jace sucked in a breath of filtered air through clenched teeth and, feeling the wind rush through his hair, realised just how much he missed the feel of it on his face.

He sighed, resting his hands on the railing and fiddling with the bracelet on his wrist. The videos from home had been there for Jace to watch, six years’ worth of them, but he couldn’t face it. Not yet. Ami would be older than him, in university, possibly fulfilling her end of the promise that she would meet Jace here on Pandora.

It gave him a damn lot of surviving to do, but he could manage, one day at a time, one night at a time. All he had to do was survive the night. Suddenly, a siren blared for a brief moment. And a voice came out over a speaker somewhere. “Na’vi inbound, be prepared.”

---

There were so many of them, flying together. Toruk Makto had warned that the sky-people at the base would know that they were coming, but only vaguely, giving them a slight advantage of surprise. Alyara found herself as nervous as she had ever been. It was not an attack upon some isolated gunships, it was an attack on a settlement of the sky-people, one made for their warriors, filled by their warriors.

Mother had warned it would not be easy, she had warned that there was great risk, and she warned that Alyara shouldn’t spend any more than a moment close enough that the sky-people might see her, lest their metal weapons hit their marks and send her plummeting to the ground.

She had heard so many terrible stories of the weapons of the sky-people, it felt almost wrong that they were being used by her allies now. She turned her eye to Toruk Makto who was flying ahead, one such weapon hanging from his shoulder just as her bow hung from her own shoulder.

Even after so many years, Jake Sully, it seemed, was still part sky-person. Though it broke that the laws the People held sacred, perhaps it was necessary. He said so. An arrow shot from a dive might break the glass window of a gunship, but it would do nothing, Sully had said, against more protected machinery. Wrong as it seemed, Alyara was curious about the weapon hung from Toruk Makto’s shoulder. Some parts of it were made from wood, but not enough to make it adherent to the law. But with everything at stake, perhaps it was a necessity.

The sun soon disappeared over the western horizon, casting Eywa’eveng into its vibrant darkness. Alyara tried to free herself of the anxious feeling that clung tightly to her mind, but no number of deep breaths could drive it away. The hours had passed, and they were closing in, hundreds of hunters and warriors, silently gliding just beneath the clouds towards their target. Mother was at the front, with Father, and the Omatikaya Olo’eyktan and his mate. Alyara hung just behind, suddenly wishing she had someone of her own to fly beside, be it Atan’tey or Neteyam or anyone else. It was not that she knew none of the hunters who surrounded her, but she was the first and only of her friends to have the privilege to fly and fight with the adults.

Alyara didn’t have long to ponder that loneliness; her mother’s yip announced that their target had been sighted. And there it was, a hazy glow far far away that grew with every second.

Remember the plan, Alyara told herself, urging Caelys to hang back as the Omatikaya who carried weapons of the sky-people took the front. Remember. Dive. Kill. They would fly down from directly above and make balls of fire burst within the sky-person base, then the others would swoop down as the enemy were in disarray.

Closer they drew, and the base became less of a glowing haze and more of a series of lights all confined within a rigid rectangular shape. When she squinted, Alyara thought she could make out the movement of little sky-people. She wondered if they knew it was coming, if they knew they were coming.

The Omatikaya at the front began to dive, ululating and yipping as they did, Toruk Makto amongst them, whilst Mother, Father and Neytiri slowed to watch them. Alyara watched as they disappeared into the darkness and continued to watch as nothing happened.

The fire appeared suddenly, in many places, at first a series of specks and soon many great blazes that joined with one another.

So that is what those weapons do, Alyara thought as she heard her mother’s yip signal their descent. As Caelys tilted forwards Alyara lifted her bow from over her shoulder and knocked an arrow. The sound came just a moment later, a powerful cascade of bangs that made Alyara’s heart jump and her ears ring.

Breathe, she thought. In, out, in our. The calm came upon her and with it came a clarity. She could see more now, see the chaos on the ground, see the sky-people running back and forth.

Closer she drew, and closer still. Her eyes were sharp and they found a target. A sky person on top of one of the longer walls, they were stood still, weapon in hand, aiming up. But through the smoke and the darkness, Alyara was certain he could see nothing. She wondered if he would be scared when the arrow came, if there would be enough time for fear to cross him before he died. A pinch of sympathy twisted inside her, but she had grown accustomed to it and learned to ignore it.

Caelys levelled out and sailed over the wall and Alyara drew the bowstring taut. She took a moment to make certain of her aim, and released.

She didn’t think there was enough time for fear when she saw the arrow strike the sky-person’s chest and punch right through to the other side. Perhaps not even shock, she thought, watching as the sky-person stumbled off the wall and fell to the floor.

The sound of the sky-people’s weapons tore through the air and Caelys veered away as bright flashes began to appear from the ends of the guns. It seemed they had finally collected themselves, and now they fought back.

---

“They’re using RPGs on the damned turrets,” the captain growled, watching through the glass window as banshees swooped in and out of sight.

He was right. Jace moved around the room, hands gripped tight on his rifle, looking out the windows to see fires along the wall all over the base. “What’s the ETA for our aid?” he called out.

“Thirty minutes to an hour,” a voice called back.

“Whatever move the Na’vi are hoping to make they need to make it fast,” Smith said. Jace heard his voice drop: “What’s your play, Sully?” he muttered.

Jace moved back to the east-facing window, praying he’d survive as long as it took. An hour seemed an eternity The popping sound of gunshots was everywhere; just moments ago everything had been in a deathly mutual silence. It had held for an eternity in those minutes the announcement had come that the attack was imminent; it had continued on and on and on, and all hell had broken loose.

Jace could feel sweat glistening on his forehead as he turned his eyes to the great monitor that showed the vital signs of every marine. Blue was turning to red and the vital lines were going flat. Jace found his own name, his own face, half expecting it to be in bloody crimson with a flat line at its side. But he was alive. So many weren’t, by bullet, rocket and arrow. Another name flashed red, Thomas Lorne, dead. And another, Sarah Moore, dead. Images flashed in Jace’s head, those faces smiling on the screen instead placed upon a limp body, torn and twisted by death’s agony, arrows sticking into their hearts.

Not him. He had a promise to keep.

But, the thoughts came unbidden, what of their promises? What of their mothers and fathers? What of their brothers and sisters? His stomach twisted at the thought of all the reunions that would never happen.

He hadn’t expected to feel anger coursing through him then. But there it was, side by side with the fear and the anxiety, giving him the resolution they seemed to strip from him.

“All entrances to the command centre are locked, sir,” one of the workers called out.

“Good,” Captain Smith said. “Keep the controls open, I’ll need them opened and closed at a moment’s notice.”

“Yes, sir.”

Jace could see men falling from their posts, names turning red on the screen. Another. Another. Another.

A fallen banshee crashed against the window, the Na’vi on its back too. It was not like the one he had seen before, not at all, there was no curious head tilt, only furious golden eyes that stared through the glass at Jace as though it had been his bullet that had felled its mount. Its lips were pulled back in a feral snarl; anguish and anger, rage and resolve.

A spray of bullets took it in the back and blood splattered onto the window as the Na’vi fell. Jace realised he had been holding his breath. So, he breathed as the sound of bullets kept ringing out in the darkness.

He looked back into the room and saw every set of eyes wide and terrified and locked on the window. Every set but the captain’s; his fell on Jace as Jace’s fell on his. And then they flickered to look outside, and they widened.

---

Jake hissed in frustration, He’d hit the damn generator twice and nothing had done it in. He was out of rockets, so he switched to his rifle. It felt better in his hands, but if an RPG couldn’t break the thing what good would a few damned bullets do?

There was only one thing for it. He pressed the button on his comlink to Neytiri, Ikeyni and Norm. “I’ve gotta go to ground to get the generator down,” he said.

“Jake,” Norm said, “there’s too many of them on the ground. You’d get swarmed.”

“Ma Jake, he is right,” Neytiri’s voice crackled in his ear.

“Then we draw them away,” Ikeyni suggested. “The base is large, what is on the other side?”

“An airfield,” Norm said. “Some gunships, an armoury and a barracks. She’s right Jake. It could work.”

“You’d have to hit it with a lot,” Jake said. “Give them time to react.” Time . . . of that they had precious little. “Do it. I’ll hang back.”

“I am with you, Ma Jake,” Neytiri said. “No-one goes alone.”

“We’re on it,” Norm said.

Jake pulled Bob back from another dive and the ikran spread his wings to glide on a gentle updraft. Neytiri was at his side, her ikran gliding level with Bob. Three more hunters waited with them; Ka’rey, So’mey and At’laya. They didn’t have long, and now they had even less time. With the generator down they could bypass the doors and set explosives in the command centre to take the base out of commission. It would be a weight off the Tayrangi’s shoulders, and off his own. How he felt that weight now.

He saw the light of the explosions on the west side of the base and heard the booms just moments later. The sky people were in disarray, firing fearfully into darkness. The People were taking some losses, but nowhere near as many as the RDA.

He looked keenly down and saw humans running along the wall to the west side. The guard tower overlooking the eastern wall was burning, the manned turrets on that side too. All the sky-people had was their men, their guns, their far-away reinforcements . . . and that damned rocket-proof generator. He waited and waited and waited. As little time as there was he couldn’t afford to rush anything.

Jake waited a little longer, not letting his gaze stray to the raging battle that was being directed upon the base’s western side. The sky-people were following the bait, grabbing it with both hands. And they had left the east’s defences open.

“Go,” he called out and was answered by a chorus of ululations as the five ikran descended on the west side.

Jake saw a sky-person, he aimed, he fired. They fell fast. Another fell with an arrow through their midriff. Jake broke the tsaheylu with Bob and vaulted onto the wall. Another sky-person rounded one of the turrets, gun raised. At’laya’s arrow struck them and they toppled from the battlements as she leapt from her own ikran.

They were just ahead of the guard tower, to the north of the generator. Jake arrowed towards it, letting the others dispatch the occasional sky-person whenever they had the misfortune to come upon them.

Jake scaled the human-sized ladder down to the floor and ran. There was no-one to see on the ground. He looked past, and then found the generator. It was surrounded by a reinforced steel dome, a locked door between him and it.

sh*t.

He circled the thing. Surely his RPG had done something to it? And it had. The metal was cracked on one side, almost enough for him to crawl through. But the door was close enough to grasp the handle through the crack. Ignoring the way it scratched and tore at his skin, Jake reached in, feeling around for the handle, every movement drawing more blood and another wince. He found it and pulled down. The lock clicked free and the door swung open.

“Ma Jake,” Neytiri said, her tail swishing behind her as her head swivelled around, her eyes doubtlessly darting for any sight of a sky-person. “Be quick.”

Jake slipped one of the grenades from his vest and freed his arm from the crack in the metal. “You might all wanna get back,” he said as he slipped into the room. It was dark, but he could see the generator whirring along, the beating heart of the base, and he was about to lodge a frag grenade right in its centre.

He pulled the pin free and threw the grenade in, turning and sprinting from the area. A few seconds and a deafening bang shattered the air. Tongues of flame writhed from the open door and Jake saw with jubilation that the lights of the command centre had all gone down but for those emergency flashing red lights.

---

They got the generator, Jace thought it before the first one said it. And then everyone was saying it.

The lights had cut out and the dim red glow had switched on. They were running on the building’s emergency power, as were only a few other things, namely the depressurisation chamber.

“Weapons in hand everybody, exopacks too,” the captain said. Jace was stood next to him. “They’ll come for us in here now,” he whispered to Jace.

“Are the door locks-“

“-still operational? Yes. But only for a little longer. Remote connection to the backup generator is shot, without it we’re sitting ducks just waiting for the doors to break down.”

Jace sucked in a long, slow breath between his teeth. Your promise. Remember your promise. But what was there to be done? Waiting for the Na’vi to come in and kill him wasn’t an option, he knew that. So he cast aside all sense.

“Send me out, sir,” he said, “I can get the generator manually back online.”

“Some honourable suicide this is, private,” Captain Smith breathed.

“Only if I let them kill me,” Jace muttered. And he wouldn’t, he couldn’t. “But I can go unnoticed.” He lifted the rifle from over his shoulder and set it down, instead taking his suppressed Z-33 in hand.

The captain nodded. “I’ll be in your ear,” he promised. “If I see anything coming your way, you’ll know.”

The depressurisation chamber hissed as Jace fitted on and sealed his exomask within it, his heart already beating out of his chest. The door opened and he stepped outside onto the walkway, overlooking the entire east side of the base.

He made for the ladders that ran down the side and began quickly descending, looking over his shoulder for any movement. There were Na’vi out there; warriors, killers. His chest tightened as he landed on the level below. He took a moment to look out for any Na’vi, but no, there was nothing out there.

Nothing he could see. Something took off the generator from the ground. It seemed so clear now; all the destruction in the airfield and armoury was just a ruse to draw away attention from what really needed defending.

So there was something out there, and Jace had to move fast. But that was what he was good for, all the training, all the simulations, all the years. He wasn’t a marine, he wasn’t some cannon fodder to throw on the front lines. He was made for this, for those desperate moments. The Na’vi had every advantage in the forest, but not here. This he knew.

He leapt to the ground, rolling on his landing, looking up again, his eyes wide and sharp. There it was, a flash of movement behind the burning guard tower, and another just by the burning generator. They were moving towards him.

He noticed the motion of one, one arm outstretched ahead, the other drawing slowly back. sh*t.

He darted for the cover of the ammo dump, hearing the whistle of an arrow a few feet behind him. A queer yipping echoed through the air, a signal. One had seen him, now they all knew.

The captain’s voice crackled in his ear. “Private you got five hostiles coming your way from the generator.”

“Copy.”

Jace rounded the ammo dump and scaled one of the drainage pipes, clambering his way onto the roof of the building. He dropped low and heard the padding of footsteps; quiet, so quiet, but audible.

In, he said to himself as he sucked air into his lungs in a long and slow inhalation. Out. He pushed it all away slowly.

Another pair of footfalls was close. Jace rolled to the little barrier that stood between the top of the roof and the empty space just beyond. He peered over the edge and saw one stood there. A male, his bow knocked and half-drawn. Jace’s eyes darted in every direction, it was just the one in the narrow alley below.

Silently, Jace hoisted himself up and took his pistol in both hands. The Na’vi was moving slowly, making it easy. Jace raised his arms and set his aim. Before his mind could comprehend the enormity of the action, his finger squeezed, the gun whispered and the Na’vi immediately crumpled to the floor.

Kill or be killed, he began to repeat in his head, remembering the whistle and clatter of the arrows that would’ve cut right through him. He had to move. Jace hoisted himself to his feet and ran along the top of the roof, making desperately for the backup generator. An anguished howl drifted from where the Na’vi had fallen, laced with a terrifying rage. His gut clenched at the sound, at the memory of the warrior falling, at the comprehension of what he had done.

Jace just kept running. He couldn’t stop, if he did they’d be onto him. He glanced over his shoulder and his heart jumped. He threw himself to the floor and heard the arrow whizz overhead. He felt the wind shift around it and watched as it clattered against the wall of the ammo dump’s much smaller second floor. He scrambled up and dashed around the corner of it, his breaths coming thick and fast. They would swarm him if he didn’t move, he had to get out. But one step in the open would have arrows flying his way. He tried to regulate his breathing. He failed.

Promise, he thought. Remember your promise. He brought a semblance of calm upon himself and peered around the wall, and the arrow flew terrifyingly close by. Afforded a moment, with his blood rushing, Jace growled and stepped out. The Na’vi was just making for cover, but it wasn’t close enough. Jace shot three bullets and ducked back behind the wall. Now or never, he thought as he set off at a sprint again. The generator was right there, he could make it, he knew he could. He ran to the edge of the roof and jumped, the sound of gunfire opening behind him.

Jace botched the landing, stumbling and sprawling on the ground as Captain Smith’s voice crackled over the comlink in his ear again. “Two hostiles down, private.” There was a brief pause and then: “Oh hell! It’s him! It’s Sully, his woman too!”

“Oh . . . f*ck.”

---

Ka’rey was dead, So’mey too. At the hands of one sky-person who had dared to venture out from the command centre. Jake had barely caught a glance of the soldier, but it had been enough for him to send a spray of bullets at him as he leapt off the top of the building.

“The demon will die for this,” At’laya hissed as she gazed sorrowfully into So’mey’s empty eyes.

“He will,” Neytiri agreed, a hand on the young hunter’s shoulder.

“Come on,” Jake said, “we don’t have long.” The fighting had grown intense over the west side of the base, Norm had told him. The success of the operation was hanging in the balance and Jake was half-ready to cede defeat. RDA reinforcements would be incoming at any time, and they needed to be out of there well before.

“Jake,” Norm’s voice came through his earpiece. “We’re taking losses, they still have some turrets operating and we’re all out of rockets.”

Jake growled in frustration. “Damn it.”

“The command centre might be a lost cause,” Norm said. “But we can still screw them over. There’ll be a backup generator, fuel tanks, water resupplies. Take those out and they’ll have to abandon the post sooner or later.”

“Copy,” Jake said. He felt on his vest for his grenades. Three were left, he could do damage enough with that.

He looked to Neytiri and she looked back, her gaze resolute. She nodded and whispered a word to At’laya, who promptly rose to her feet.

“Let’s blow some more stuff up,” Jake muttered.

---

Jake Sully. The f*cking Jake Sully. Bane and betrayer of the RDA. Leader of the Na’vi resistance . . . And Jace was stuck out there with him!

Any attempts to regulate his breathing were utterly pointless, each came shorter and shallower than the one before as Jace ran for the generator.

There was a pulsing heat coming from his left knee, something from the botched landing . . . a problem to consider later. He ran, forcing obedience from his limbs, Jace ran. The Zarkov was still clutched tightly in his hand as he looked over his shoulder, terrified of what he might see.

Come on you bastard. Run faster!

He tried. But adrenaline and terror could only do so much. Jace looked over his shoulder again and cold fear shot through him. Instinctively he dove for the cover of a small barricade as an arrow cut through the air just where he had been.

Sully’s wife. Ten times the enigma with the same terrifying reputation. Jace forced himself to take a long, deep breath. Promise. Promise. Remember the damn promise.

His own words came bitterly back to him as he looked at the arrow on the ground. He didn’t know if he could walk that off. He glanced around and . . . oh god, he certainly wouldn’t walk it off. Just ahead lay another marine, skewered all the way through, dead and gone.

No, focus, damn it. Jace turned his eyes to the tops of the buildings and thankfully saw nothing and no-one. Over the barricade, he glanced again, and the Na’vi with the bow was coming closer.

Keeping low, Jace moved along beside the barrier, turning his eyes to the generator. It was just there, just a short sprint away. He could make it, a single biometric scan and he was in.

With one final look to confirm the Na’vi was still a ways off, Jace stood and sprinted for the door to the generator room. Come on, he thought. Come on. He stopped at the door, glancing around as he pressed a hand to the scanner of the console by its side. It lit up as it scanned, and Jace counted. One, two, thr-

BOOM! A shockwave struck him and sent him flying through the air. He rolled gracelessly into a wall and stopped, stunned, his open eyes taking in the blaze of fire that had just erupted from the fuel tanks. The door to the generator had clicked open, he could still make it, he had to.

But as Jace pushed himself to his feet, he swayed violently, only stopping his fall by latching a hand onto the wall at his side. He couldn’t make out the voice in his earpiece, the ringing was too loud. But he could see well enough. As he started forwards towards the door, he saw a silhouette against the flames, freakishly tall and freakishly strong, a rifle in hand.

Jace let instinct take over, but his aim swayed as he pulled the trigger, emptying the magazine and watching the figure slip away to the side. He started to sprint for the door, the hairs prickling on the back of his neck as he saw movement to his left. The arrow missed its mark and Jace kept running. He reached the door and slammed it closed as another arrow battered against it. The lock kicked in and Jace collapsed against the door, panting through his exomask.

“Callon!” The captain’s voice was in his ear again, finally discernible. “You’re in, just pull the damn activation lever!”

“Yes, sir,” Jace gasped, looking hazily up and seeing it just out of reach. He forced his shaking limbs to obey as he forced his way to his feet and reached desperately out. “Come on,” he grunted as one hand closed on it. “Come on you bastard.” His other hand grasped the lever and Jace let his body sag, his weight yanking down the lever. Something clicked and he let out a sigh of relief, collapsing to the floor, his head spinning.

---

“Son of a bitch,” Jake growled as he pressed his palm into the wound on his shoulder. That one sky-person had done it, lights were flashing back on all through the compound. One of them against five and he’d slipped through.

“Ma Jake!” Neytiri came running, At’laya close behind her.

“Jake, their reinforcements are inbound!” Norm called. “We’ve got to go.”

“Go on,” Jake said, looking to the backup generator where the one human was sealed inside, protected by metal on all sides. “We’ve done all the damage we’re gonna do.”

Neytiri placed a hand over his, and another on his cheek. “Come, Ma Jake.”

He nodded, turning for the wall, calling out to Bob as he reached the base of the ladder that rose to its top. At’laya’s eyes were set coldly on the building of the generator. Neytiri saw her too and exchanged a sympathetic glance with Jake. “Go,” he whispered.

She nodded and disappeared up the ladder as Jake turned back and walked to the young hunter’s side. “He’s still out there,” she said quietly. “The demon . . . I have to make him pay. I have to.”

“He will,” Jake promised, rounding the girl to look her in the eyes. “They all will. But you can’t do anything if you get captured or killed.” He grasped her forearm. “At’laya, look at me.”

Her eyes flickered up, full of anguish and bitter rage. She nodded and walked past him, slipping free of his grasp. Bob was at the top of the wall, waiting for Jake as he followed At’laya up the wall. He hoisted himself into the saddle on Bob’s back and felt the wonderfully familiar rush of the wind through his hair as he shot up towards the sky.

He looked back and, though the harsh lights had all flicked back on, illuminating the base, Jake looked to the rising fires from the fuel tanks, the water supply, the airfield and the main generator and saw success. The base would be a point of vulnerability for a time now, and the RDA’s advances would halt.

Time. They had bought time, and it was more than Jake had been prepared to hope for. He saw the crimson paint of Ikeyni, and her daughter who had fought too. And in his mind, he saw Ka’rey’s blood spilling from his head, and So’mey’s from his chest. A bitter reminder that victory was never absolute. But it was victory, nonetheless.

Chapter 8: Desperation

Chapter Text

The pale white light flooded Jace’s eyes as they opened, harsh and intrusive. It was all there was until his eyes managed to adjust and saw a curtain drawn all around him. A haze of memories flashed by and Jace couldn’t make sense of even one.

His head hammered as he fought to recall, but there was nothing. He tried to shut his eyes to ward away the light but it permeated the membrane of his eyelids, filling his vision with just an ugly redness.

He laid back, feeling aches growing all over his back and legs, and he remembered nothing and slipped slowly away into a half-sleep. And then he was running, amongst the giant trees and through the florescent brush. Pandora, he finally remembered. I’m on Pandora. He kept running and felt more and more memories coming and going. The people he’d met, the places he’d been . . . the things he’d done.

A wave of nausea passed through him as he ran and ran and ran. He didn’t know towards what or what from, but he was running. You’re a killer, a voice told him.

It was war, another countered. You would have died otherwise.

And Jace just kept running as the voices yelled back and forth inside his head. He slipped beneath a root that rose from the ground and hurdled another. Running, running, running. And then he yelled out as something struck him heavy in his side. He stumbled and fell and clutched at the place it hurt, but there was no arrow protruding, just a welling ache.

He gasped as he fell. He remembered a face as he hit the ground. He heard an anguished howl as he rolled. He felt a large hand close around the back of his neck and twist him onto his front.

It was her, but she looked so different. Blood was spattered on her blue skin, her eyes were wide and terrifying and her lips were drawn back in a snarl that revealed those lengthy canines. There was a knife in her hand, and suddenly it flashed downwards.

He shot upright in his bed, a silent gasp of pain escaping him and a hand flashing to his stomach and feeling desperately around to stem the bleed, but there was nothing. It was just a dream, he finally asserted. But he couldn’t forget the furious snarl, the manic eyes. The memory of the dream overlaid the true memory, and Jace fought to keep them separate. But they merged together and pulled apart, the curious and the enraged, the bow lowered and the knife raised.

The curtain was pulled back and a man and a woman stepped in dressed in white. They spoke soothing words, reassuring Jace he was safe as they did numerous checks on him.

He’d been concussed, they said, partly by the shockwave, partly by the wall he’d flown into courtesy of the former. And as they spoke, Jace remembered more, the unbelievable and the things he wanted to forget. The feeling of relief when the backup generator started to whir again, the feeling of horror when he watched the first Na’vi crumple to the ground at his behest.

Shooting ranges, ballistic dummies, simulated enemies. Jace had learned well how to shoot . . . but he hadn’t learned to kill. Was it meant to make him feel as he did? Was it meant to unsettle him so? Was it weakness or compassion that twisted his gut? Were the two the same thing? Jace didn’t know.

You did what you had to do, he told himself firmly as something was jabbed into his right arm.

“Contusions on the back, arms and-” Jace heard, but his head grew very heavy all of a sudden and his mind began to sway. He didn’t resist his own exhaustion.

And there he was again, running. Why? From what? He didn’t know but his breaths were coming fast and his blood was pumping adrenaline all through him. He ran and he ran, a baseless dread sitting deep in his chest. Something was wrong.

He crashed through the thick tangles of flowers and leaves, looking over his shoulder. What was it? He looked and saw nothing out of the ordinary, but so well disguised were the animals of Pandora that it would appear that way even when he was surrounded.

They never know until it is too late. It was the words of a documentary he remembered on some extinct Earthen predator of the South American jungle. The same words would apply here, he knew it. He reached for the pistol on his hip and held it close, his eyes darting as he continued to retreat.

He stepped over a root and almost took one step too far. A cliff fell away behind him, the drop sheer and unforgiving. He had only one choice, face whatever it was. Gun drawn and loaded, Jace set his breathing to a slow and steady rhythm and set himself on his toes. Whatever came crawling out of there, Jace would be ready. He had to be. Be it an animal or a native, the signs would be the same, a flash of movement, the sound of leaves rustling, the sound of a twig snapping underfoot... Bang!

And he was falling, falling, falling.

---

There was celebration for success and mourning for loss. Alyara found her gaze moving from face to face and, in amongst the jubilation, there was the occasional set of eyes that stared vacantly down, underlined by dark shadows and the marks of tears that had only half-dried. She had heard a vow of vengeance made by an Omatikaya warrior, one of five who had gone with Toruk Makto to make something in the base explode . . . and one of three who had returned. Even Jake Sully had suffered a wound to his shoulder. Alyara had heard him say that his injury and the two deaths had all come from one warrior, one brave fool who had bought the sky-people just enough time to save them from total defeat.

The children of Toruk Makto were all there, revelling in the joy of their people’s victory . . . of Alyara’s victory; Mother had said it was hers as much as anyone else’s, but Alyara was ever hesitant to see that there could ever be victory in war. She’d heard an elder say to Toruk Makto that war had only the dead and the survivors, and those words she hadn’t been able to forget. Yes, whenever an arrow found its mark Alyara felt an excited rush, but afterwards, she could only wonder what her arrow had cut short.

But here there was no time to dwell on that, not with Atan’tey wobbling drunkenly around trying to pretend he hadn’t had anything he wasn’t meant to have had, making Lo’ak and Anxayni laugh out loud. Neteyam was watching too, an amused grin on his face, with his little sister, Tuktirey seated between his legs.

“I wish you had been there,” Alyara told him. “With Mother and Father always leading I feel like I am always flying alone.”

“Soon,” he smiled. “Father is just . . . hesitant. I think he still gets some parts of us and the humans confused.”

“How do you mean?”

“Well, of course, he was one; born and raised. So I think he sometimes forgets that we become adults before humans do.” Neteyam sighed, rubbing little Tuk’s head. “He means to keep us safe, but I want to be a part of it.”

Alyara took a seat beside him, watching as Atan’tey tried to pretend he was sober before Father who had come over to scold him. “You are younger than me,” she pointed out. “Soon, we’ll fly together. Just keep asking.”

He nodded. “And if I go, Lo’ak will demand he does too.”

“Atan’tey tried the same. Mother was stern.”

“I don’t think Atan’tey could complain like Lo’ak,” Neteyam said. “He’ll use Na’vi and human obscenities and make them seem like they belong together.”

“Sky-person obscenities? Like what?” Alyara asked, truly curious.

“I’m not the best. Lo’ak gets it all from Spider, who gets it all from the lab guys.” Neteyam paused. “Tuk, cover your ears.” She did, and Neteyam spoke a word which he then explained to mean the same as dung. It sounded very crude; short, simple and effective.

Alyara rolled the word around in her mouth and spoke it back, giggling a little.

“Almost,” Neteyam encouraged. “It's all about the emphasis and tone. You have to emphasize the T at the end, like this.” He said it again, making it sound so much more vulgar than she had been able to.

She tried again. Taking care to say the last letter with as much emphasis as possible . . . too much.

Neteyam chuckled. “Practice makes perfect,” he said, quickly adding. “That’s a human saying Dad uses.”

“I do forget he was once one of them,” Alyara said. “It’s hard to imagine Toruk Makto all . . . well, small and pink.”

“I know. He had pictures he showed us of him before he became Na’vi, and it was weird. It looked so much like him, but it was so different at the same time.” Neteyam paused. “Now every time I see or think of a sky-person I see what they share with us as well as what they do not. Spider doesn’t help with that confusion either.”

Spider. Alyara remembered the human boy, she had seen him time and time again over the years, and it always felt like just as great a shock as it had felt the very first time she had seen him. “He moves well, not like other humans,” she remembered.

“He’s a better climber than me, Lo’ak, Kiri, maybe everyone in the clan, it’s why we call him Spider.”

“What do you mean?” Alyara asked. “Is Spider not the name he was born to?”

“No, he has a human name, but he doesn’t use it. We call him Spider because of an animal from Earth called a spider. It’s small, like Spider, has eight legs and crawls around really fast, just like Spider does.”

“I must’ve been blind every time I saw him because I’m sure he only had two legs just like you and me,” Alyara chuckled.

“He just hides them,” Neteyam joked. “Lots of humans are terrified of them, apparently for no real reason. Norm said there was a proper, scientific term for having a fear of spiders, even when most of them were tiny and harmless.”

“Truly?”

“Yeah. He did say some were very dangerous though, but only in certain places on Earth. Potent poisons in their bites.”

Alyara had never much considered the fact that there were other things besides humans on ‘Rrta. She wondered if she was supposed to think about such things. It couldn’t hurt, after all, to know more; could it?

There was a loud crashing sound and Alyara’s eyes shot up. Atan’tey had fallen over and knocked an arrow stand over, and a commotion had risen. A grin split Alyara’s face as she saw Mother break away from Toruk Makto and Neytiri and sieze her first son by the ear.

“It’s a wonderful thing,” she murmured, “watching them getting the justice they always seem to avoid.”

“Lo’ak might need some tips from your brother, he never seems to be able to escape Mom and Dad’s notice.”

As Mother dragged Atan’tey away, Alyara couldn’t help but grin. It was this she had missed. It had felt so long since she’d felt comfortable in carelessness, vigilance had become so necessary a part of life that Alyara couldn’t remember the last time she hadn’t expected to be called to action the next moment. So, she thanked Ewya for the moments she had now for she knew they wouldn’t be forever. They had attacked and made obsolete the greatest threat to their village and clan. The sky-people might not stop, but they wouldn’t be so dangerous for a time, and that was worth everything.

---

The nurses kept him in the bed day after day, no matter how much Jace pleaded to be able to do something more than lie there and contemplate everything. And, by God, there was a damn lot to contemplate. But he supposed it was a good sign that he was contemplating it. He’d heard how a first taste of death could send someone spiralling in any number of directions. Jace knew, at least, there was one path he thankfully wasn’t taking.

He remembered to send a message to Kyra over the comlink, quickly emphasising that he was, in fact, alive and recounting everything that had happened. And, with naught else to do, he fell asleep again.

At some point, Commander Gwyne graced Jace with his presence. “Private,” he greeted.

“Sir,” Jace raised a hand to salute. “Reckon you could pull any strings to get me out of this damn bed?”

He smiled at that. “Sorry, kid. Doctor’s orders supersede my own. And besides, you need the rest. Getting blasted into a metal wall by a shockwave isn’t a little thing. Hell, it’s a miracle you got up and reached the generator at all after that.”

“Adrenaline, sir,” Jace suggested, ignoring the aches that came with the memory of it.

“Well, thank God for adrenaline, because you clearly got pumped full of it . . . enough to send Jake Sully scampering away with a bullet in his shoulder.”

“He survived?” Jace had expected no less in truth.

“Yeah. And we can’t safely go after him or the Tayrangi with our most outlying site out of commission for the foreseeable future.” Gwyne sighed. “He knows war and he knows it well, not that marines are trained to become guerillas . . . but they are trained to adapt. And that is what Sully has the Na’vi doing. This was the largest scale attack we’ve seen from them so far, and a success from their perspective.”

“Are we to expect more such attacks?”

“It depends on how far forwards we push. Sully knows he can’t come too close to Bridgehead, so here we are secure, but he will attack anything that he deems to come too close, and his attacks are, more often than not, successful. We lack the manpower to continue pressing forwards, after all, what good is a gun with no-one to shoot it?”

“A war of attrition then,” Jace said. “Is there a strategy, sir?”

“As a matter of fact, yes. And that strategy will be arriving from outer space in about six weeks. For now, we just hold back and soak up the pressure where we can.”

“I’d be out of the bed if I could, sir,” Jace said.

“I’m sure you would, but here the doctors reign supreme. A couple weeks and you’ll be on the ranges again, a month and you might be ready to get back out there.”

“Can I ask a favour, sir?” Jace said.

“You can.”

“In my barracks, I have a book on the Na’vi language. Figured whilst I’ve got nothing to do I might as well devote myself to something.”

The commander studied him for a long moment and then nodded. “I’ll see it gets to you.”

It came that afternoon and, with nothing else to do, Jace poured through section after section regarding sentence structure and verb conjugation and useful phrases, no doubt pissing off the people in the adjacent beds as he worked tirelessly on his shaky pronunciation.

He spent the days that followed doing much the same, lacking for anything else to spend his time doing. Progress came, recognisably enough, and Jace felt a little surge of pride as he swept through the test sections at each chapter’s end. Of course, it was a very basic level, but it was something.

Kyra sent occasional updates of the things she was studying on her giant sea ship, the SeaDragon. Her work clearly fascinated her, by the fervour with which she spoke of it; the work of the other Cet-Ops she was less inclined towards, to put it lightly. Jace remembered learning about how so many whale species had died out because of hunters like the ones Kyra had to endure being in the presence of for the sake of her science. There was a reason it was happening, some valuable part of the animals, as ever with hunters and poachers. He couldn’t quite remember the name of it from what Kyra had said, only that it could halt human ageing completely.

He still scoffed to think of it and felt a bitter twist in his heart at the realisation that only the most undeserving would ever have it. They hoarded wealth, and now they could hoard life too . . . to the extent that they didn’t already with the truly brilliant array of medicine that was almost always too expensive to buy.

And this is what I’m fighting for?

For a moment he wanted to cast it all aside, but the memory of his little sister brought back his purpose to him. It was not for the rich few that he fought, but for the poor billions they had screwed over. Earth was dying, in truth it had been for hundreds of years; that process began the moment some dead man burned coal under water to generate steam power, and every step since then had made it worse. Energy had become the world’s currency, and the renewable sort wasn’t profitable enough for the men who already had everything.

So, day by day, year by year, Earth had grown weaker, her colour had drained away and they had replaced it all with neon lights and signs as the air grew blacker and blacker. Some old people had reminisced of the fresh scent of the forests and woodlands, when the air was clean. Now, it tore at the body, so polluted was it. Soon enough, everything and everyone would be choking on it.

Twenty billion would die on the crash course Earth was upon, and they said Pandora was the solution. Hate it as he did, Jace knew of no alternative. The clocks only ever ran forwards and there wasn’t enough time for anything else. It had to be Pandora; so, Pandora it was.

Chapter 9: Safe Tonight

Chapter Text

As Shiala had become so used to, the great vessel of the sky-people’s flew by twice each day, accompanied by the smaller, flying ones and a rather constant number of sky-people guarding it and the metals it carried to their settlement. Shiala had taken to trying to count the individual sky-people, failing to catch them all with how fast the thing moved each time.

She watched it now, making its return to the sky-people’s settlement as eclipse stole the sun’s light away. She tried again to count. Two on one flying vessel, one in another, two more controlling them. And on the ground vessel; one, four, ten, thirteen, seventeen... She couldn’t catch the rest of them as it sped noisily off into the distance.

Vegetation had begun to regrow in the pathway the sky-people had burned through the forest for that vessel, and with the return of all the greenery it looked just a little less ugly. The great track of raised metal was still a sore sight upon the eyes, but Shiala supposed it might’ve been worse.

The hour was late and the sun’s light was fast fading. Keroxe turned back for the village, cutting through the still air. Night had truly fallen upon her arrival, the people had all gone to sleep and the cookfires were just smoking embers. Not a soul was awake, it seemed at first, but Shiala caught a glimpse of movement from the corner of her eye at the village’s edge.

She cautiously pulled her bow from her shoulder, an arrow ready to knock in her hand, and moved silently towards it. But when she heard the voices that were speaking she put away her weapon. Txunir and Zau’we were talking, other young voices joined with theirs, hushed but not hushed enough.

“You just heard it?” Shiala heard Zau’we say as she peered around a tree to see a group of young hunters and warriors all crowded around each other.

“Yes,” Txunir said. “Toruk Makto has won a great victory against the sky-people. The Tayrangi and Omatikaya came together and attacked a stronghold, and the demons have been forced to abandon it.”

“This is certain?” a younger voice asked.

“It is,” Txunir said. As ever, it was certainly him who’d had this group congregated.

A joint attack by two clans? Shiala knew that hadn’t happened since the great battle that had sent the sky-people fleeing home all those years ago.

“What does it have to do with us?” a girl who’d just passed her iknimaya asked.

“It shows what so many of the people are too scared to see.” Txunir stood and raised his arms. “This war can be won and it is already being fought. All Na’vi should stand together and fight these demons, and if we need to disobey orders just make that known, then so be it.”

Fool, Shiala thought sourly. But she heard the truth behind the arrogance. It was a truth she forced herself to turn a blind eye to so she might keep a promise.

“We can start small,” Zau’we said, standing to join her brother. “We can show the people that we can fight, and that we shouldn’t cower whilst these demons desecrate our land.”

“What would we do?” a young hunter asked.

“Every day a vessel of the demons’ making cuts its way through the forest, loud and terrible.” Txunir’s voice had risen. “A felled tree stopped it in its tracks once, it will do it again.”

“And when it does,” Zau’we continued on from her brother, “we attack. The sky-people have come to expect that we will not act against their encroachments, they will regret that complacency.”

“When will we attack?” The voice was eager, spoken without a hint of understanding, but with a sentiment Shiala understood all too well. Even now she felt it, the desire to act instead of wait; it was strong.

“Soon,” Txunir said. “It will take time to plan . . . to perfect. Until I say, do not speak of this. Now go, before your absences are noted.”

And away the hunters dispersed, all but Zau’we and Txunir. They remained, whispering to one another hurriedly, tails anxiously swishing behind them. Shiala stepped forth and locked eyes with the brother, casting a searching gaze at him. He glared back, his ears flat against his skull. “A great victory, you said?” Shiala co*cked her head. “Do tell.”

“Will you tell Tare’ten of this?” he asked.

“I’m sure the olo’eyktan already knows of this victory,” Shiala said innocently. “What is there for me to tell him?”

Zau’we hissed a little. “You were listening,” she accused.

“You were conspiring,” Shiala shot back.

Txunir stepped between Zau’we and Shiala, placing a hand on his sister’s shoulder. “Be calm,” he said. He frowned as he turned back to Shiala. “I know you know it is wrong to do nothing. I know you want to fight, for the people, and for Eywa.”

“What I want and what I should do are two very different things. I want to fight, but I promised I would not unless I had to. I should tell the olo’eyktan of this, but I know I would only provoke you into idiocy.”

Txunir nodded. “Your mother lost a great deal in the last war . . . we all know it. Her sentiments and her fears bleed through to you. Her pain bleeds through to you, her anger and her caution too. I understand it would make for some conflict within you.”

“I am not afraid of fighting,” Shiala said strongly. “But I made a promise. I cannot join this fight of yours. I can only ask that you be careful. The others look up to you, they will follow where you lead. Be quick, be strong, be decisive . . . and be careful.”

Txunir seemed to soften. “Oel ngati kameie, Shiala,” he said with a slight bow of his head.

“Oel ngati kameie,” she returned, matching the gesture. "Now go, beforeyour absences are noted."

Her mother was asleep when Shiala returned to the marui but stirred at the sound of her footsteps. “You are late,” she murmured sleepily, facing away from Shiala.

“I prefer the night,” Shiala replied.

“Did the demons do anything different than usual?”

Shiala shook her head. “They came later than usual, but nothing else.”

“So, I shouldn’t expect to hear the rotors of their gunships flying overhead? Good.” Mother rolled over to look at Shiala. “That would not be a welcome sound to hear.”

“I think we are safe tonight, Mother.”

“Under your watchful eye, I do believe we are safe from everything.” Her mother was smiling as Shiala felt her lips curl into that same smile. “Now sleep, my daughter; you need your strength. Protecting the whole village must be exhausting work.”

Shiala didn’t bother to argue or resist when her mother rose to her feet just to usher her down onto a sleeping mat. The air was cool but the old embers from the firepit brought a comfortable warmth upon her skin as she closed her eyes and let the dreams come forth.

---

That same nightmare sent Jace jolting upright in his bed, sweating. Three weeks had gone by and that was the ninth such dream. Each was always just slightly different to the last, but he could never quite make out how.

Jesus, he thought as his breathing gradually slowed to its natural pace. The room was pitch black but for the intermittent green light that flashed above the fire exit, but in the darkness, Jace could still see those eyes piercing into him, from somewhere in the darkness, no matter where he turned they were always straight ahead. wide and curious one moment, cold and narrowed the next. No, you’re going crazy. He shook his head and looked again, and it, thankfully, was gone.

He turned to the clock, which read zero-three hundred, sighed and buried his head back into his pillow to try and get back to sleep. The prickling feeling down his spine never left, so he soon gave up, pulling the string of his bedside lamp and grabbing his book on the Na'vi language. He was still pouring over it, whispering little phrases to himself to try and drill them into his memory when the medical staff came in to bring him his breakfast. And as he ate the porridge they went around performing their various checks, asking intermittent questions as they poked and prodded at him.

“I declare you hale and healthy, Private Callon,” one of them said, grinning, “you’ll be out of here by the day’s end.”

“It’s about time,” Jace muttered, unable to keep a slight grin from his face.

True to their words, Jace was back in his own barracks in the mid-afternoon, enjoying having free reign to just roam as he liked until a summons came. The weeks in bed had stiffened his knees, so he spent a fair amount of time just pacing around, familiarising his body with actually being in use.

At times he forgot just what had left him in that hospital bed, and when that memory came back he always whispered a silent prayer of thanks. In truth, he hadn’t seen Jake Sully clearly enough to know, but he’d been told it was him. And who else in the Na’vi insurgency would shoot at him with bullets instead of arrows? He remembered the sound of bullets striking metal, of arrows whistling just past him. He remembered the sound of his racing heart, of his footsteps beneath him. He remembered that last sprint for the refuge of the backup generator room.

And he was pacing again, his mind rushing to new scenarios, to fights that had yet to be fought, ones he might escape unscathed, or ones he might not escape at all. He tried not to think on it, but the thoughts came all the same. He paced as his mind raced, terror and excitement melding into some confusing mix. It was there as he fired on the ranges, when he stood in the sim-unit and ran through all possible combat scenarios, every minute of every day, it was there.

Only when the notice of summons came ten days after his discharge did Jace manage to shake free of his own imagination. He slipped on his exomask and started for the offices. It was nice to feel the wind on his skin again rather than the still inside air of the infirmary, exomask aside, at least.

Commander Gwyne was alone in his office, his eyes fixed on a holoscreen recording of something out in the wilderness. Jace walked in and took a seat opposite him as he continued watching. It was a video, Jace could see the forest and some gunships, and further away were some banshees in the distance.

“The Western Frontier is growing more and more troublesome,” Gwyne said slowly. “The Resistance’s second front isn’t as dangerous as Sully’s, but it’s no less of an annoyance. And now Captain Colton is growing more agitated regarding the threat of the Kekunan and Tawkami Clans to the southwest.”

“Are the Tawkami not expressly peaceful, sir?” Jace asked.

“They are, but there have been more and more men reporting sights of banshees and their riders coming too close for comfort these last weeks. No signs of belligerence, nor that we ought immediately expect it, but the risk is there.”

“As it always was,” Jace said, remembering the Na’vi in the forest one moment, then the Na’vi in the base the next.

“As it ever will be,” Gwyne agreed. “But his concerns have merit. There’ll be an increase in the manpower of the escorts through that region.”

“And I’ll be a part of that, sir?”

“You will,” Gwyne said, nodding. “And, to make certain it all runs smoothly, so too will I.”

It was all logistical talk from there: boring, but necessary. Perpetually on the tip of Jace’s tongue was the question he so wanted to ask, but there never seemed a right moment.

It was only when Jace sensed his dismissal was near that he finally said, “Sir, you said there was a reason you’d taken an interest in me.”

“I did.”

“Can I know what that reason is, sir?”

Gwyne considered him for a moment, casting a long gaze upon him. “It was your father. We fought together in Venezuela up until the day he died. He saved my life, and the rest of our squad’s when we were under fire by some guerillas, not all too dissimilarly to how you almost managed to get your ticket punched at Jake Sully’s hands.”

Jace took it in for a moment. “I knew he saved the guy in charge of the military admissions and recruiting for the RDA; I thought that was it, though.”

“No. Nine lives he managed to save with his own. I never forgot that . . . but I forgot he had a son until the day I was looking down the list of incomers and saw that son’s name. As to why I’ve made something of an effort to ease you into the operations here, well, I felt I owed it to your father to do what I can.” The commander’s eyes were kind and warm. And Jace felt a little sense of home, and, suddenly, Pandora felt just a little less alien.

“Thank you, sir,” Jace quickly said, bowing his head, “for telling me . . . and for everything else.”

“There’s still time for us to be people here, private,” the commander said kindly, “God willing, by the end of this, there’ll be no need for any soldiery and we can co-exist with our blue neighbours.”

Jace felt his gut twist. “You think that’s possible, sir? Peaceful co-existence, I mean?”

“We have to hope, private. But I don’t think that hope is blind. Some Na’vi have tolerated and even integrated humans into their lives in the Resistance, the only issue there is that they are staunchly opposed to our operations. But, if it was possible for them, it may well be for us. We just need to approach from a different point.” Gwyne looked curiously over the desk at Jace. “Do you not think it possible?”

“I just . . .” He paused, the words he needed evading him. “I can’t see how we could get them to peacefully stand by whilst we load another world’s population onto this moon.”

“One step at a time, son. One step at a time.” Gwyne sighed. “What is to be done with Earth’s population is still under heavy debate, perhaps there is time for other options to be found, perhaps not. But that isn’t your job or mine; your job is to protect supplies, and mine is to protect you and everyone else here. And, on that note, the maglev makes its stop here at Bridgehead overnight, you’ll be joining it and Colton along with a platoon of marines and me, just so I can be sure the captain only pulls the trigger when he needs to.”

Jace rose from his chair, sensing the meeting was at its end. “You’re going to advise I sleep further, sir?”

“I was going to order it, private.” The commander stood. “The bunks you’ll use overnight at the mine aren’t comfortable in the slightest, so make as much use of that soft mattress as you can.”

“Sir, yes, sir.”

Chapter 10: Sanctity

Chapter Text

Jace had noticed the banshees drifting high and far away from the train as he stood atop it, the wind rushing against his mask and through his hair. Whether they were ridden or wild he couldn’t know, but the sight of them did put him on edge.

There had been none on the first day, and none on the second. No signs that anything was amiss at all. But now Jace’s eyes had narrowed and his focus had sharpened. The sight of one had put him immediately on edge; he remembered the way his heart had dropped when the arrows had come for him; the way the wind shifted around them as they whistled by.

He stood at his post on the top of the maglev as it sped along, gazing out at the forest. His hand was only half on his rifle, he didn’t want to have to properly grasp it, to lift it, to aim it, to pull that trigger. He didn’t like the power he’d felt when he had done so; it scared him to know he had that sort of power hanging from his shoulder and resting in a holster on his hip. Maybe it was just a matter of time; perhaps he just needed more to come to terms with the fact that he could point the thing at anyone, pull a trigger and watch them fall. Maybe . . . maybe he never would. Was that better? Did he want to become numb to it?

No, he decided. It should feel wrong, naturally, instinctively. It was different to the killing of an animal to make a meal, Jace couldn’t justifiably reason why, but the killing of something sentient, intelligent . . . that would always be wrong. Intelligence, he mused. And he realised that, for all his recent devotion to the language, he hadn’t given time to the culture.

He knew the basics; the laws they followed that held them back (without which he didn’t doubt they’d have advanced so much further). He knew that they understood that fundamental law: energy cannot be created nor destroyed, though they interpreted it in a vaguely different way.

Intelligence, Jace thought again. And he remembered her. There had been intelligence in her eyes, curiosity perhaps, but wariness too. And it was well merited; Jace was the alien, wandering in lands that weren’t his because necessity demanded that he did.

Maybe Colton had been right, maybe he was lucky not to have died that night. But what did it matter what might’ve happened? It hadn’t. And after all, Colton had his predispositions, as the commander had said, maybe everything he spouted was sh*t.

No. Jace remembered the dead bodies on the floor of the outpost, he remembered the arrows that might’ve killed him. There was danger in every encounter, by virtue of their own doings, but danger, nevertheless. The Na’vi in the forest had drawn her bow on him, a precautionary measure, it had become clear, but it’d been just a slip of the fingers away from being a killing act, nevertheless. He wondered if he was reckless.

‘Honourable suicide’. That’s what Captain Smith had called it. But here he was, breathing one breath after another watching for signs, a flash of movement in the brush, a banshee swooping low, anything. Maybe there’d be another moment for him to recklessly throw his life on the line. He hoped not, he had two promises to keep, or one, two iterations of the same one. Is that two promises or one? He didn’t know the answer. One promise, two promises, as long as he kept it . . . or them.

Jace spent the rest of the maglev’s journey reciting the promises he had made, out loud and in his head. It went by without incident, without technical fault or so much as a sighting of a banshee or Na’vi. Good signs all, according to Commander Gwyne, and it seemed he was right. As Jace’s feet touched down on the tarmac of the mine’s rail station floor, he looked around for a face he recognised. But no luck.

The train would be stopped overnight. As the mine picked up its operational efficiency there was more and more to load onto the maglev’s new carriages, affording an opportunity for rest which Jace eagerly grasped at. The bunks weren’t the most comfortable, but after hours on his feet, he didn’t much care. Rest was rest, and Jace was all too happy to oblige when Colton’s voice ordered them to the sleeping quarters over the comm channels. He trudged along the concrete floor of the mine complex as Polyphemus moved slowly between the sun and Pandora for the evening’s eclipse.

It was a relief to take off his exomask when he moved into the depressurisation chamber with a few other marines, and an even greater relief when he got himself a bottom bunk and crashed into it. The aches all faded from his feet and legs, and he let out a pleasant sigh, smiling as he laid his head back against a pillow. Sleep came quick and, for once, free from any dreams or nightmares; a welcome change. It felt odd to wake up normally, but Jace was glad for it. Waking up sweating and shaking was something he’d long had enough of.

He awoke early, five, to be exact, and found sleep impossible to return to. So he swung his legs from the bunk and rose groggily to his feet, seeking the showers. After blasting himself with hot water and washing his face and hair, Jace got into his gear and just wandered around the complex, enjoying the last few hours of darkness before the sun would rise.

The sight of the Pandoran night sky still took away his breath when he beheld it, with Polyphemus hanging there just above the distance horizon. And the stars too . . . on Earth the city lights hid them away, but here they were all on display; tens of thousands of little lights glittering high in the night sky, and so many colours.

And again he felt sour at his own presence there, silently praying that they wouldn’t make sights like this go away. The sourness gave way to guilt, and Jace let out a sigh. Remember why you’re doing it, he told himself. And he whispered his sister’s name to himself once, twice, thrice. The bracelet of little, polished stones sat tight on his left wrist, and Jace absent-mindedly pushed and pulled at it. “I promise,” he whispered, a fool for it.

He had made that promise and then volunteered to face down the one the Na’vi named Toruk Makto. Jace only knew enough to know that that name meant Sully had tamed a great leonopteryx, a feat revered by the Na’vi. Brave, certainly, but stupid. But so too had been Jace, slipping out amongst a hail of bullets and arrows, all to pull a lever.

“I promise,” he started again, imagining Kyra moaning at him about being reckless, “not to be so stupid again.”

Just how to keep the promise, he wasn’t quite sure; idiocy was not something so easily remedied in his experience, at least not with some of the lads from secondary school and the military academy. Some of them were just made to be yelled at by an angry drill sergeant and to yell back. But then again, Jace was just like them; a dumb grunt somewhere he’d soon wish to be free from. Six years he’d be here as it stood, but perhaps he could work his way up, his path seemed a little clearer, not that he approved of nepotism. But an officer’s post certainly came with a lesser risk of imminent death which, of course, made it a very attractive prospect.

Survive, he told himself. First you have to survive. He looked up to the sky as the first shades of light crept into it and saw a winged silhouette high in the sky. God how he wished he could fly; just spread his wings and get away from everything whenever he wished. But he remembered someone had once told him the key to success was to keep his feet on the ground, so that was what he did, not that the alternative was an option for any more than a half-second at a time. Pandora’s gravity was lower, but not quite low enough for that.

Again he looked, and the banshee was still floating. A breeze blew in and his skin prickled. A yawn escaped him and he stretched his arms wide, and for just a moment he imagined he had wings, and that he could fly. And that moment was blissful, but it was only a moment. The bells rang through the air and Jace was ripped from his reverie; it was some general assembly most likely, what for, he didn’t much care. He only wanted to feel like he was flying again, to pretend that he could. But instead, he turned and trudged on two sore feet back to the barracks, sending one last glance to the sky, and finding the banshee gone.

---

Shiala sighed, floating upon the air, watching the world so far below her become smaller and smaller. There was something about the sky, being in it and amongst the clouds that let her cast away everything else, all her worries, all her doubts; she could forget them all. Some piece of her wanted to go back to Txunir and assert that he couldn’t do as he wished, the other wanted nothing more than to join him and Zau’we and all the others who stood with him. But no, she couldn’t, not unless she had to. Mother had lost enough, Shiala couldn’t take the risk that she might lose her all that she had left.

So away she had flown, to avoid the temptations, to keep herself from stopping it, and to keep herself from joining in. She would have no part in their success, in their victory, in their glory; she longed for the fight, to stop the burning of the forests, the breaking of the ground, to cleanse the air of the putrid smells there were wherever the sky-people had settled themselves.

One day, she thought as Keroxe rose on an updraft above the thin clouds. He had carried her further west than she’d been in a long time. Not since the old site had been revitalised by the sky-people had Shiala been this far, but now she was. It’s ugly, she decided upon seeing the splattering of dull grey where once had been green and blue and every other colour that the flora could be.

That was their mark, in a world of so much colour the sky-people were a blot of grey, utterly and eternally out of place. They could only last so long where they did not belong, or so Zau’we insisted. But Mother had said that they had spent many years on Ewya’eveng before, so Shiala was not sure. Perhaps it was their duty to see it done; Shiala imagined thousands of ikran descending on that great abomination that the sky-people had made their home. They could overpower and outnumber them, of that she was certain. The uncertainty was of the cost such an attack would incur for the People and for the animals and for Eywa.

All life was sacred, it was said, and war would destroy so many. All life is sacred, she repeated in her head. All of Eywa’s children are sacred . . . but they are not Eywa’s children.

Where that left the sky-people, Shiala was not sure. It was a quandary new to the Na’vi and to her, one the sky-people posed simply by their obtuse presence. They came from a place where there was no Eywa, she had heard, a place where the forests were made of stone and metal, a place where all that was green was gone. It was said they would inflict the same fate upon Eywa’eveng if they could. Shiala couldn’t even imagine that; everything that was beautiful and right burned away to make room for . . . she didn’t know, but it couldn’t be good.

All life is sacred, she decided, even theirs. It was the only logical truth. Eywa’s arms were open to those willing to see. We kill because we must, to preserve the order of the world. We kill the yerik for its flesh, but its life is no less sacred. We kill the sky-people to halt their destruction, but their lives are no less important. We stop the flame from spreading too far, but sometimes we need its warmth. Shiala recalled her mother’s words. Wild and untameable . . . like fire. Perhaps they need only guidance.

She remembered the warrior she had come close to, she remembered the childish curiosity with which he had wandered around, pawing inquisitively as the plants against which he had looked almost comically small.

Fire, Shiala thought. No thing was so curious in its nature as that. So very beautiful, but so very dangerous. Two facets on the same face. Perhaps they were the same. But, one could only allow the fire to burn so long that it did not spread too far, and the sky-people were spreading day by day.

Txunir and Zau’we had the right of it, extreme as their intents were, they followed the right path. Shiala only hoped they would not walk too far along it.

---

It was easy enough to pull Lo’ak out of his sulk whenever Jake got angry with him, Spider always found. Even after Jake had grounded him for disobeying orders on a mission, to which Spider had been witness, Spider was able to get his brother chuckling again quickly enough. All he seemed to ever need to do was let himself be the butt of a joke or two and Lo’ak was back to grinning like an idiot. He knew the hurt ran deeper than the surface, but those were depths Spider was afraid to plunge himself into, for Lo’ak never seemed to want to talk about it.

Spider’s brother seemed his usual happy self as he walked alongside him and Kiri towards the labs where they so often liked to hang out, mainly because it was one of the few places Spider could go maskless on Pandora. He cursed that impediment upon his life every time he had to slip the exopack over his head. The things he would’ve done to be born like Lo’ak and Kiri, to have been born Na’vi instead of human . . . he would’ve given everything. But, there was nothing he could do to become any more Na’vi than he was. The stripes made the animals pass him over with less suspicion, and his hair he’d tried to fashion after Jake’s own to limited success. He refused to let anyone tamper with his attempts, they were his and his alone, not that anyone had really offered, human or Na’vi, besides Kiri.

He wasn’t Na’vi, it was a bitter truth, one he still couldn’t quite accept; no matter how well he moved through the forest, spoke the language, knew the customs, he lacked the most vital pieces of it. He couldn’t connect; tsaheylu was beyond him, a distant dream and a desperate delusion. It was a hope he had long relinquished, but one that always seemed to be on the periphery of his thoughts. Hell, even an avatar for himself would be beyond a dream come true, but there wasn’t so much as a hope in hell that he could ever have one.

He led the way through the avatar tent, Kiri and Lo’ak just at his back. He tried to keep his eyes downturned, so he didn’t have to suffer to look at all the drivers who had everything he never would. But the towel that snapped against his leg jolted him from his jealousy. Norm, co*cky as ever when in his avatar body.

“Your ass is mine!” Spider promised, accompanying the joking threat with a pointed finger.

“I’m right here,” Norm replied, his arms wide in challenge.

Yeah just wait till you’re out of that damn pod, Spider thought, returning the gesture as he walked away.

“Avatars only, go round,” he heard Jocelyn lecture behind him.

Kiri responded behind him with a mocking, high-pitched imitation as Lo’ak said, “Sorry.”

“I swear,” Spider started, “if he keeps talking big while he’s in his avatar I’m gonna have to-“

“What?” Lo’ak interrupted as he vaulted over the railing of the stairs to the lab. “Beat him up? You know those stripes don’t make you any bigger, bro.”

“Yeah, well I can still kick your ass,” Spider shot back as he slipped through the door Lo’ak held open for him. “Don’t need blue stripes for that.”

“Sure, sure,” he chuckled. “I’d love to see that. The day you beat me in a fight is the day I let Tuk start braiding my hair with flowers and beads.”

“You should let her,” Kiri said from behind, “how else will she learn?”

“She can practice on Spider,” Lo’ak said, “those locs need desperate attention, bro. And it’s not like you’d be able to stop her. I’m sure even she could lay you out now.”

“Really? You’re gonna aim that low?”

“I can’t really aim anywhere else with you being so small,” Lo’ak teased as the hiss of the decompression chamber kicked in.

“Wow,” Spider muttered.

“He is right,” Kiri joined in, grinning. The chamber’s hissing ceased and the door to the lab’s inside was greenlit. “You’re so small, like a little annoying bug.”

Spider pushed the door open and stepped through as Lo’ak and Kiri chuckled together at their jokes, pulling off his exopack. “Yeah, ha-ha, real hysterical, guys.” He watched Lo’ak picked up a rebreather which he hung around his neck, taking a breath from it and letting it fall back. “You know what really sucks, though? You can breathe Earth air for hours and I can only breathe your air for, like, ten seconds.”

“Yeah, Monkey Boy,” Kiri said, “that really sucks . . . for you.” She laughed and leapt forwards, trying to wrestle, but Spider kept her at arm’s length, chuckling too. As she turned away to pick up her own rebreather, Spider snatched at her tail, giving it a yank and leaping backwards as she spun to try and grab at him.

Kiri hissed playfully at him, and he hissed back. She waved behind him to the lab guys, smiling. “Hi, Max.”

“Hey, kids,” he waved back.

“Hey, what’s up, Max,” Spider waved himself, fist bumping the scientist and making his way to Norm who’d just got out of his pod and was waving to Lo’ak. “Right here are you?” he grinned.

“Right there I was,” he replied.

“Come on, you can’t talk all that sh*t when you’re big and blue and then shrink when I come at you in your real body.”

You want a level playing field?” Norm grinned. “Tough.”

“Come on, man, I have to get an avatar,” Spider said with the fool’s hope in his voice.

“Well, just hand over the forty-million dollars and we’ll get started right away.” Norm grimaced after saying it, even though Spider well disguised his disappointment, the scientists knew how it stung him to not be able to do everything Lo’ak, Kiri and the rest of the kids could do. “Kid, if we could get you one, I swear we would, it’s just . . . impossible.”

“I know,” Spider muttered. “I appreciate the sentiment.”

“Hey, Spider,” Norm called at him as he turned away. “Remember, it’s not the size of the dog in the fight.”

“Yeah, I know, it’s the size of the fight in the dog.”

He slipped away from Norm and Max to where Kiri was watching one of her mom, Grace Augustine’s video logs from so many years before when she was still alive. It was what he and Kiri shared, their orphanage, that void in their life had brought them together.

At least she could be proud of her parents, he thought bitterly, unfairly. It wasn’t like Spider hated his mother, he loved her, or the memory of her, at least, as little of that as there was. That faraway memory of comfort, along with a picture of him in her arms was all he had of her. She hadn’t been evil, just an RDA pilot who got with the wrong guy. Quaritch, on the other hand, was a demon dragged from the pits of hell to set Eywa’eveng alight, or he had been. But he was dead, by Jake and Neytiri’s hand, and everything was better for it.

Thinking of them brought another impersonal wave of resentment to course through Spider. The Sullys had taken Kiri in from birth, claimed her for their own and raised her as a daughter. Such luck wasn’t afforded to the other orphan, Spider had been left in the care of the McCoskers after his parents had died, and they’d kept him alive, but that was about all. He’d never loved them and they’d never loved him, not like how Jake and Neytiri loved Kiri. But that was just another ache he’d learned to suffer, for it’d never go away, and that was fine. He didn’t need parents, he didn’t need to have been claimed for a son when he’d been claimed for a brother.

As Kiri took a breath from the rebreather, Spider's eyes fell on her, just admiring for a moment who and what she was. A million words came to mind but not one did justice to any piece of her. She was a miracle in the most literal sense, born to Grace by a father nobody knew, who, some suspected, didn’t exist at all. Whatever the truth to that was, Spider didn’t care, it was fun to speculate and joke, but even if the devil himself was her father it wouldn’t change so much as a single thing.

Lo’ak was a little more brazen in his speculation, walking past Grace’s stasis pod to where Spider and Kiri stood and, after watching Grace’s log for a moment, asking, “So, who do you think knocked her up?” Spider allowed himself to chuckle as Lo’ak continued, “Pretty sure it was Norm.”

“Totally,” Spider said, running with the joke.

Kiri looked as offended as Spider would’ve felt to have such an accusation levied against him. “You do not deserve to live,” she reprimanded both of them.

“No, no, no,” Lo’ak held a hand out, “think about it, right? I mean, he’s a teacher’s pet.” He pointed to the screen where a shot was playing with Norm and Grace both in shot. “He’s out at the lab with her all the time.”

“I would kill myself,” Kiri stated plainly as Spider continued his silent chuckle. “I would drink acid.”

Spider was happy enough to jump on the bandwagon. “Bro, you’re right. He’s in every shot.” A new recording popped up which didn’t help Kiri’s case, Norm was leaning over her shoulder, reaching for something just out of shot. He chuckled some more. “Bro, look, look, he’s giving her looks.”

“Hey!” Kiri said sternly, fixing Spider with a harsh glare which put his outward chuckling to an abrupt end.

He pursed his lips as Lo’ak continued. “See, I’m thinkin’, their two avatars were out in the woods,” he softened his voice to a more romantic tone and laid his hand over his heart as he said, “all alone.”

Kiri pushed at him. “Gross!” She and Lo’ak started wrestling at arm’s length as he kept on laughing away.

“Oh, come on, Kiri,” Lo’ak said. “Norm’s not so bad.”

Kiri only scowled at him, offering one last shove into his chest that made him stumble backwards.

“I mean,” Lo’ak continued. “There’re definitely worse guys to have for an absentee father. You could have . . .” It was only when Lo’ak’s eyes found Spider’s that he seemed to understand the insinuation he made.

“Lo’ak,” Kiri hissed lowly at him as Spider’s cheeks flushed with shame.

“Spider . . . I-I’m sorry,” Lo’ak started.

“Whatever,” Spider mumbled, slipping off the stasis pod he’d been leaning on and looking away, trying to hide his face from them so they didn’t see. “I don’t even remember him.”

“No, Spider,” Lo’ak. “I didn’t mean-“

“Dude,” Spider said, just wanting them to drop it.

“Spider,” Kiri whispered. He heard her soft footfalls just behind him before her arms wrapped gently around his midriff from behind. “You are not him.”

But how was he not? The man’s blood ran through his veins, and the weight of the man’s actions weighed on his shoulders. He couldn’t just be the son of any sky-person, it had to be him, he who had killed so many, he who had destroyed the old Omatikaya hometree, he who had killed Kiri’s mother.

Some shadows couldn’t be uncast. Even with an arrow still through his skeleton’s chest, that man’s darkness still hung over Spider. And he wasn’t the only one who felt it.

Chapter 11: Ambush

Chapter Text

“Hold!” he heard a muffled voice yell out from outside.

And then came the screeching of the brakes from the washroom within the maglev, and then he felt the rapid deceleration. The soap fell to the floor, Jace managed to grasp onto the door handle to keep himself upright as everything jolted around him.

He stepped out of the room as the sound of the breaks only grew louder. What the hell is it? he thought grumpily, a hand warily moving to his rifle as he slipped its strap back over his shoulder. Everything jolted around him again as the train came to a halt, Jace ran for the hatch and pushed it open, resurfacing into the open air.

“What is it?” he called out.

“Tree fell across the tracks,” a marine called back. “Easy enough to handle, bitch of a delay, though. We'll be set back a half hour at the least.”

Another hatch a short way off opened just as Jace closed the one through which he had come, it was Captain Colton, with a nasty scowl on his face. It only took one look for him to see it, just as Jace did.

Behind him came the commander. Gywne seemed tense in a way Jace had never seen before. Pressing a finger to his ear, the commander said. “Alright, let's get this thing cleared and out of the way, we might yet make it back for dinner. Same procedure as last.”

The Kestrels and Seawasps jumped into action, dropping steel cables from their bases towards the great hunk of wood that had uprooted itself to cross the tracks. Colton set forth organising the men on the maglev into groups that would attach the hooked cables to the tree so it could be shifted, and a group that would hold back and keep watch.

Jace found himself in the latter group, patrolling the railed walkways of the train as the rest busied themselves with the hooks. The clouds were looming high, blurring the sun above, but not so much that Jace couldn’t feel its warmth on his skin. The air was damp with a rain that had only just stopped falling, droplets of water were clinging to the hairs on Jace’s arms and starting to dampen his hair just a little.

The downwash from the rotors of the hovercrafts added to the chill, far away as Jace was from them. He shuddered a little at the thought of how cold it would be directly beneath them and spoke a silent thanks that he had been assigned to stay on the maglev. The rotors were all he could hear too, a constant and heavy thrum that made his ears feel as though they would pop at any moment. There were no impairments on his vision though, the air was clear and cool and the clouds were high.

From carriage to carriage, he patrolled, keeping a keen eye to the sky and to the ground, for he knew there were keener eyes than his out there. What he couldn’t see might very well be able to see him. He did see a flash of movement, but it was just a few hexapedes poking their heads from the brush to look before quickly retreating. Later there was a pack of viperwolves he glimpsed to the maglev’s port side. He’d never seen them before but on a screen, and that did no justice to how large they were. As long as he was tall, hunters who massed in packs of ten, twenty, even thirty to hunt.

Jace was glad for the train, and all the noise of the rotors. The fauna knew nothing of their technology, what it was and why it was, and so they all feared it. It was loud enough for Jace to have half a mind to get as far away from it as he could; it was no doubt the animals of Pandora felt much the same on that account.

Commander Gywne was stood alongside one of the corporals – Jace couldn’t remember the man’s name – scanning around with a pistol in his hand. Jace made his way slowly along to him, keeping his eyes moving from spot to spot as he did.

“Anything to report, private?” Gwyne asked, turning from his conversation with the corporal.

“Some curious wildlife poking their heads out the bushes, sir,” Jace replied. “Hexapedes and viperwolves. That aside,” he shook his head, “nothing.”

“Good, good.” The commander pulled out a datapad and its holoscreen set alight with an array of heat signatures. The red dots were everywhere, moving constantly all around them. “I still don’t know what good these things are unless you have an entire army coming after you,” he muttered, stowing it back away. “They pick up almost everything that has a damned pulse within two thousand feet.”

“What do you think it was that knocked the tree over?” Jace asked, looking at the groups of men working to hook the tree up so it could be shifted by the five gunships.

“A hammerhead titanothere most likely,” the corporal said.

“Agreed,” said Gwyne. “It might’ve been knocked over in some tussle between two of them for territory.”

“Or simply as a means of spreading their scent, if I remember,” Jace said.

“Perhaps. Whatever the reason though, the sooner we get back underway, the better.”

“Aye, sir,” the corporal agreed. “I’ve got no care to be a sitting duck for any longer than I-“

“Na’vi!” came the cry from further down the maglev, and Jace spun on his heels to see a banshee flash over the occupied gunships, swooping low and rising again afterwards. One of the Seawasps promptly veered off its course, and Jace didn’t have to see to know there would be an arrow puncturing its front window. The Seawasp collided with the Kestrel beside it, and Jace’s blood ran cold as they spiralled downwards together towards the tracks at the train’s front. Men scattered as a ball of fire erupted from the explosive-laden gunships. A blast of heat powered into Jace, and his goosebumps started to prickle as though the air was ice.

His rifle was instantly in his hands and his eyes were darting. The other three gunships tried to move free, but only two could. The third, another Seawasp, couldn’t escape its own cable that was hooked to the felled tree. Jace saw the descending banshee from high above and opened fire, but he was too far for accuracy. The Na’vi on the banshee’s back drew back its bow and released. And the Seawasp began to loop its way towards the ground.

Gywne was making a frantic call over his radio as the sound of gunfire erupted, streaks of yellow were painted in the air by the spray of bullets. Another banshee descended, and the Na’vi astride it fired an arrow into the heart of a man a ways away down the maglev. Jace added his bullets to the spray and watched that banshee fall, by his bullet, or one of the dozens of others fired at it, there was no way he could tell.

The two remaining Kestrels were moving fast to evade the attackers as more and more banshees began to swoop down. Two, four, nine . . . there were always more, and their arrows rained down as bullets were shot up. Jace moved back towards the commander, hearing an arrow strike the metal floor where he had been stood just moments before.

“Sir!” he yelled between fast breaths, turning to the commander. “Sir, you should get inside!”

But the man wasn’t listening, he had his gun raised and was firing shot after shot before reloading quickly and expertly. So, Jace had no choice but to join him and the corporal in a tight defensive circle, firing bullets at the swooping banshees as the ululating Na’vi who had sprung the ambush upon them.

“He’s right, sir,” the corporal said. “Your safety is a priority.”

“What commander deserts his men for his own safety?” Gywne growled. “I’ll not be known for a coward when this day is done.”

And so on they fought, constantly moving, for there was no cover behind which to hide but that of the man at the other’s back. Jace couldn’t pay attention to any of the men on the ground or the Kestrels giving chase to the banshees., he could only look frantically from one point in the sky to another, his finger shaking upon the trigger. Two swooped over and Jace opened fire, emptying what was left of the magazine before quickly reloading. He hit one of the banshee’s, dead centre by the way it went into an almost immediate freefall.

But from the other came an arrow. Jace could feel the air bend around it as it sailed down over his shoulder. And there was a scream. Jace couldn’t turn, his rifle was empty. Quickly he reloaded and span, there was a flash of relief upon seeing that it hadn’t been the commander, and then a jolt of guilt for his lack of care for the corporal. The man was already gone, the arrow had speared him through the chest, right where the heart was. A quick death it was, as meagre a solace as that was.

“Eyes up, private,” Gwyne said as a gunman in one of the Kestrels brought down a banshee. He picked up the corporal’s rifle and opened fire on a banshee that was flying in from the port side, forcing it to veer away from them. But the Na’vi managed to fire an arrow off the back of its mount.

The projectile moved fast, and it arrowed at Jace. Too fast and too strong for body armour to stop; he realised that with a lightning flash of chilling horror. ‘I promise,’ he had said, not once but twice. And now it was all he could hear, his own promise, shortly to be broken, ringing through his head again and again and again as the arrow came fast as light, but slow enough that he could see it coming steadily closer.

I promise, he thought hopelessly. I promise, I promise, I promise . . . “I promised,” the whisper finally came from his lips, a note of defeat. He wondered what it would feel like: how long the pain would last, how much it would hurt, what would come next. He felt his body tense and shut his eyes, praying it would strike true.

But what hit him wasn’t sharp; it was forceful, heavy. It he stumbled back from it, his eyes opening as a soft thump sounded where he had been moments before. He placed a foot where there was nowhere for it to land, and, with flailing arms and a yelp, he fell backwards.

The fall to the walkway below was a short one, but the landing was no less painful. It was the railing he hit first, in the small of his back, and then the metal floor, knocking the wind from him as gunfire, yells and ululations echoed all around. He was alive; the realisation came as he lay stunned, chest heaving to recoup the wind that had been knocked from it.

Another realisation followed. If he’d been knocked from its path, what had taken his place? A surge of horror wound up within him, and he reached a gloved hand up to grasp the railing and pull himself to his feet. He hoped he was wrong, he uttered wordless prayers as the air around him rang with the sound of war, he hoped and he hoped and he hoped.

But what good was hope? As he pulled himself up onto the roof of the train, he saw the captain laid there on his side, eyes open and vacant, blood dribbling from his mouth and pooling at the base of his exopack just as it pooled beneath him. The obsidian arrowhead was coated the same crimson as the fletching at the other end, half of it sticking from one of Gwyne’s sides, half from the other.

No, he thought, kneeling at the man’s side and rolling him limply over, looking for any sign of life, praying for hope, for a sliver of a chance, for anything. Folly. Gwyne was gone, all in a moment of suicidal self-sacrifice. Gone because of them. Why? Why had they attacked? What cause had they given the Na’vi for this? Why?

Jace didn’t know. He didn’t want to know. He rose back to his feet and set his sights on a banshee. He put it within the sights of the rifle, guiding it until the crosshairs were dead centre on the beast. He pulled the trigger, and he held it until the magazine was emptied. Quickly, he jammed a new magazine into the rifle and looked again for a new target. But the banshees were disappearing over the treeline in all directions, gone as suddenly as they came, leaving death and devastation behind them.

He slumped to the floor as the sound of gunfire ceased, leaving only a violent ringing in his ears and that queer, half feeling of guilt that he’d felt welling in the pits and cavities of his chest after killing for the first time. And now he’d done it again, one more foot on the line of apathy, and he felt no urge to take a step back. They had attacked them, without warning, without voicing so much as a complaint. And he realised he’d been a fool to expect anything different, to expect that, just because one single Na’vi hadn’t killed him, that they might not be what Colton had said. And now the commander was dead, and with him died everything Jace had hoped to learn about his own father. All that was gone . . . lost to a damned arrow because shot from a banshee’s back. All because he had frozen in f*cking place.

His every breath was still deep and gasping. He sat there, chest heaving, eyes stinging, ears ringing. The wind blew in cold on his skin, the setting sun ushering in a gradual darkness. Jace could feel eyes on him, men shouted the commander’s name, and Jace brought himself to his feet, the rifle still tense in his hand.

And then there was another voice: the captain barking orders. “Form up,” he yelled, and Jace found his body responding where his mind didn’t, moving to where those still able were gathered.

Colton noticed him coming and looked to where he had come from. “He’s gone?” The question was quiet, and the man’s voice lost its edge for just a moment.

Jace nodded. “Yes, sir.” He looked up at the captain. Was that a hint of sadness he saw in the man’s eyes? Behind the optical resin of the mask’s visor, it was difficult to see.

Colton nodded his understanding and loudened his voice. “There’s been extensive damage to the rail lines. Hence, we are stranded. Any aid will be hours away, and the natives might come back to finish us off before such a time.” He paused, letting that fact sink in for a moment. “We could hunker down, set a perimeter, wait this out, survive whatever comes next. Perhaps it would work . . . perhaps not.” The captain’s eyes were flickering around, stopping on each of the dozens of men. “Or we could take our firepower to them. We have the numbers, we have the gear. The Na’vi have made a statement to us here today: that they aren’t afraid of us; that they think they can attack and kill with impunity. That is not so. We will make our own statement, and, once we have, they will understand the order of things.”

Jace added his voice cautiously to the rising chorus of assent, torn. He didn’t know how many clicks from Bridgehead, but he knew the Na’vi were much closer. The Omatikaya had a stronghold, so too must these insurgents. Colton, the most senior, was reassuming his command, barking orders which were followed without question.

“A word, private?” the captain asked when the bustle of activity had resumed.

“Yes, sir?”

“I understand we’ve had our differences in approach to the natives,” he said, “just as I had with the commander. I hope you now understand, we cannot hope to find security but with a strong hand.” He sighed, looking over Jace’s shoulder to where Gywne was being carefully removed from the carriage’s roof by two men. “Your misgivings are not without reason, but a threat is a threat, and we can’t afford not to respond.”

“But how do we respond, sir?” Jace asked. “And where? How can we know who was responsible?”

“The Tawkami we can discount. The Kekunan, not so much.” Colton paused, turning slowly to look at the dense treeline on the train’s starboard side. “If it is the latter, it is only a subset. An entire clan would not plunge itself into war with us without provocation beyond any it might claim to have already been given by us.”

“Perhaps it was incited by the Resistance on the Western Frontier, sir?” Jace suggested.

“Perhaps, perhaps not. Our response is all that matters. The ones who attacked us will have a base to operate from beyond their village, old records from the first operation on Pandora noted it. That is where we will go, and we will pacify the hostiles so they don’t think to attack us again.”

Jace nodded stiffly, following the captain’s gaze as he forced himself to remember the commander’s vacant stare, to keep his heart as cold as he knew it needed to be. “How far?” he asked.

“Two Kestrels can’t carry enough men, so we’d go in on foot. Quietly. At the right pace, we’d arrive in the quietest hours of the night and take them by surprise. Then we can learn why this happened, if the Resistance incited it, or if we need to treat the clans who have stood aside with more caution.” Colton paused. “Commander Gwyne knew you had skill, you’ve proven it here, today. I’m not blind to that, private. All I need to know is if you can do what must be done to protect your people, unsavoury as it might be.”

“War is war, sir,” Jace said. “Warriors are warriors.”

“And orders are orders, private.” Colton gestured to the forest. “You know why each order needs following, why we defer to the authority of our superiors?”

Jace scowled a little at being treated like an impertinent child. “I understand well enough, sir.”

But Colton continued: “Out there, one bit of disunity fractures everything. War is war, and orders are orders.”

“You direct, I follow, sir,” Jace confirmed.

“Good,” Colton nodded. “Now, go help with the fallen.”

Chapter 12: Rescue and Loss

Chapter Text

Spider followed Lo’ak down off the branch, the same anomaly having caught his eye as his brother’s. Footprints; boots, by the look of them, pressed deep into the mud.

“What is it?” he heard Kiri asking from behind as Lo’ak crouched down.

“We’re always supposed to be home by eclipse,” Tuk said impatiently, stepping lightly down to where Lo’ak and Spider were.

Lo’ak was pressing gently against the footprints, bow in hand, just like Spider. “That’s way too big for a human,” he murmured.

“Avatars?” Spider suggested as Kiri came to crouch beside them.

“Maybe,” Lo’ak said, turning to follow the trail, “but they’re for sure not ours.” He and Spider set off, Spider just ahead.

As they passed beneath a root mossy raised high above the ground Kiri called out, “What are you doing?”

“Shh,” Lo’ak cautioned as he pressed on, “I’m tracking.”

“Lo’ak, we have to get back before eclipse,” Kiri insisted.

“Dad will want to know about this. We have to see what it is at least.” Lo’ak pressed on. “C’mon, bro.”

Spider nodded, following closely at his side, a spike of nervousness cutting into him. He knew where they were headed, he and Lo’ak had been before. They weren’t supposed to, but they had, once or twice a long time ago, but never had they been this close. It wasn’t far, not even on foot, and, soon, they could make it out through the dense foliage. Spider lowered himself to a crouch and moved through the leaves. There were people at the shack, Na’vi it looked like, but dressed in the clothes of the humans.

“We are never supposed to come here.” Kiri dropped her voice to a whisper. “Dad is going to ground you-“

“Shh,” Lo’ak hissed, “can you stop?”

“-for life,” Kiri continued.

Lo’ak turned away from Kiri, scowling, only to grin and whisper to Spider, “Bro, we have got to check this out.”

“Let’s go,” Spider agreed. Moving from where they crouched to get closer. Whatever they were, Na’vi or avatars, they weren’t supposed to be there. His footsteps were careful, practiced and silent. Spider moved along the top of a log whilst Lo’ak moved with equal silence just a little to his side. The only sound beside the faintest rustle of their footfalls was the hiss of his exopack. Closer they drew, and closer still until their sight was as clear as it could be.

Avatars. It had to be them. Spider could see five fingers on each hand, military gear and rifles at their side. The RDA must’ve finally restarted that old programme which had brought Jake to Eywa’eveng in the first place. They were moving around the old shack, and Spider felt an excited shiver pass through him as he remembered all the stories he had heard of this place, of what happened here. He and Lo’ak had played pretend a half thousand times with those stories.

“Bro,” he whispered, “that’s where your dad and my dad fought.”

Lo’ak was no less charged. “That’s your dad’s actual suit,” he whispered back, a look of excitement on his face.

Spider chuckled quietly. “Holy sh*t.”

One of the avatars, a male with short-cut hair, moved away from the shack and pointed to the mech suit. “Lyle, see if you can pull some data off that dash cam,” he said in English.

The one named Lyle, who was hairless but for the hair around his queue, replied, “That thing’s deader than sh*t, colonel.”

“So were we.”

“All right.”

Lo’ak turned to him, dropping his voice to a more serious tone. “I gotta call this in.”

“No, bro,” Spider hissed back, “we’re gonna get in trouble.”

But Lo’ak just kept pulling away. “Let’s go,” he whispered, retreating to where Kiri and Tuk were anxiously awaiting them.

“What is it?” Kiri asked.

“Avatars, I think,” Lo’ak replied. “RDA ones. I’m calling Dad.”

“Quickly then,” Kiri whispered.

Lo’ak nodded, turning back to face the shack, which was a ways behind them now. He pressed a finger to the comstrap around his neck and said, “Devil Dog. Devil Dog, this is Eagle Eye, over.”

Only Lo’ak had an earpiece, but Spider just knew what would come from the other side.

Lo’ak, after a pause where Jake must’ve been talking, said, “I got eyes on some guys. They look like avatars, but they’re in full camo and carrying ARs. There’s six of them. Over.”

Another pause, and Spider tightened his finger over the handle of his bow.

Lo’ak murmured hesitantly for a moment. “We’re at the old shack.”

Spider sighed, if they got out alive, Jake would certainly have words, with Lo’ak, and with him. And that was never something to be excited about.

Lo’ak made another hesitant noise. “Me,” he said, “Spider, Kiri . . .” he paused again, “and Tuk.”

Kiri draped a protective arm over Tuk’s shoulder, her other hand pressed to the comlink in her ear.

“Yes, sir. Moving out.”

“See,” Kiri whispered, “I told you.”

“Go, go,” Lo’ak said, turning as Kiri led Tuk on and away. Spider was right at their backs, keeping pace as they began to run through the trees and the brush as fast as they could. He overtook Lo’ak and Kiri and slowed his pace just behind Tuk, following her as she vaulted over an overground root.

“You’re going to be in so much trouble,” Kiri said matter-of-factly to Lo’ak.

“Shh!” he hissed. “Kiri, stop.”

Spider scowled. Their hissing and arguing was too loud, quiet as it was. “Guys,” he whispered, “come on.”

Tuk turned as she ran. “It’s almost eclipse, come on.”

And then she shrieked as one of the avatars jumped from the brush to grab her.

“Tuk!” Kiri yelled as Spider knocked an arrow, drawing the bow to immediate full tautness with a snarl as Lo’ak did the same. But more avatars came from the trees, their weapons raised high.

“Put it down!” one of them yelled. “Down!”

“Put it down or I’ll shoot you!” another threatened. “Drop it! Right now.”

Spider kept the bow taut, a snarl twisting his lips.

“Do not move!” another yelled.

Lo’ak lowered his bow slowly and turned to Spider, speaking the tongue of the People. “Put it down,” he said. “Put it down.”

“Put your hands up!”

“Spider,” Kiri called, bringing him to lower the bow. ”Down!”

“Hands up!” another one of the avatars insisted. “Get ‘em! Get ‘em!”

Tuk was still struggling. “Kiri!” she yelled.

The avatars were all over them, grabbing them without so much as an ounce of care. As Kiri groaned in pain one hissed, “Get down!” at her, kicking a foot into the back of her knees to drop her down. “Stop fighting.”

“Check ‘em for weapons,” one said, and the avatars began to grapple all over them for their knives and anything else.

“Tuk!” Kiri yelled.

“Kiri,” Tuk whimpered back, her little voice breaking in agony and terror.

Kiri’s tongue turned to Na’vi. “Be calm,” she whispered.

She continued to speak comforting words until one of the avatar’s harsh voices cut her off: “Shut up. Don’t move.”

Amongst the avatars one stepped forwards, his voice calmer than the rest, and more imposing. “What have we here?”

Tuk cried out again as the avatar that held her tightened its grip around her queue and yanked her to her feet.

The calmer avatar looked around disdainfully, his scowl resting on Spider for an eternally long moment as the avatar that held him tightened their hold on his locs.

Lo’ak was calling out to Kiri as the avatar that held her lifted her hand for the other to see. “Hey, colonel, check it out.” The realisation came as a look spread on Kiri’s face. “Four fingers. We got a half-breed.”

“sh*t,” Spider whispered. The one that held Kiri, the bald one, gripped her tighter, eliciting another pained yell from her, one that twisted Spider’s insides with anger and hate. She was breathing heavily, gasping for each breath.

The colonel turned to Lo’ak and pointed at him. “Show me your fingers,” he commanded.

Lo’ak fixed him with a customarily insolent gaze and raised his hands, letting the middle finger of each rise in a very pronounced ‘f*ck you’.

The colonel only chuckled, a sly grin on his face. “You’re his, aren’t you?” he said.

Lo’ak snarled back, baring his teeth.

“You’re his, all right,” the colonel said, stepping forwards and grabbing Lo’ak by the queue for himself, drawing a groan of pain.

“Lo’ak, don’t,” Spider warned. Lo’ak’s insolence was a dangerous thing, especially here and now, before people such as these. “Don’t,” he yelled again as the colonel tightened his grip on Lo’ak, forcing the boy to growl in pain again.

“Where is he?” the colonel asked shortly, shaking Lo’ak violently by his queue.

“Sorry,” Lo’ak said in Na’vi, “I don’t speak English . . . to buttholes.”

But the colonel clearly knew Na’vi, for he spoke crudely in that tongue with a dark look on his face: “Where is your father?” He shook Lo’ak again and brought another prolonged, agonized snarl from him. Spider didn’t have a queue, but he knew there was no greater agony for a Na’vi than to have it damaged.

“No!” Tuk screamed as Lo’ak gave off a hoarse snarl.

“Really?” the colonel asked. “You wanna play it this way?” From the sheath on his belt, he drew a knife as Kiri shouted fearfully, turning the blade’s point slowly towards Lo’ak. But then he let him go and threw him to the floor to be picked up by another avatar.

But it wasn’t the end of their torment, for the colonel turned to face Kiri. Oh no, Spider thought.

“Kiri!” Lo’ak yelled. “No! Stop!”

“Hey!” Spider yelled in a desperate attempt to get the knife-wielding maniac’s attention off of Kiri. “Hey! Don’t touch her!” The avatar holding him pulled him back, but Spider wouldn’t be silenced. “Hey!”

As Lo’ak said desperately, “Don’t hurt her, please,” the colonel turned to Spider, the blade in his hand still glinting in the little sunlight that had found its way through the canopy to the ground.

“Don’t move,” the avatar holding Spider warned as the colonel fixed him with another confused stare.

“What’s your name, kid?” he asked, a queer softness in his voice.

“Spider . . .” he spat back, “Socorro.” It was his mother’s name, and for that he was thankful, he was alien enough amongst the People as a human who carried that monster’s blood and his first name, but to carry his family name too . . . nothing could’ve reconciled anyone but Lo’ak and Kiri with that.

Spider stared up at the colonel, confused. The man’s face, it was . . . familiar, horribly familiar. He’d only seen it a few times, but nobody forgets a face that ugly. Spider had his mother’s, he knew it from the picture he’d had of her before the RDA returned. f*ck, he thought as he realised who and what was stood before him. It can’t be. He’s dead, there’s no-one to drive the avatar. How?

A look of stunned realisation showed on the man’s face too . . . on Quartich’s face. He gestured for Spider to be let go, and the avatar behind him released his grip as Quartich took a knee. “Miles?” he asked.

Spider just scowled. “Nobody calls me that.”

“Well, I’ll be damned,” Quaritch said, his ears flat against his skull. “Well, I figured they sent you back to Earth.”

Spider scoffed. “They can’t put babies in cryo, dipsh*t.” The hand in his hair came back and another came gripping his arm.

“What are we doin’, boss?” the avatar who held Kiri asked.

Quartich put a hand to his neck, pressing the comstrap. “Iron Sky, Blue One, Actual,” he said. “We’re standing by for extract, over.” And Spider knew their intention, and that time was running out. “Be advised,” Quaritch said, "we are bringin’ in high-value prisoners.”

“Let us go!” Kiri demanded.

The avatar who held her only hissed back at her, “Shut up.”

The avatars slapped cuffs on all of them and began roughly ushering them back to the open of the old shack where they roughly threw them down. The gunships would soon be there to take them away to the RDA’s stronghold, and once there it would be hell for the others to free them. But they would, Spider knew it. Jake would.

Quaritch was stood by his old mech, holding a datapad. “Lyle,” he called, “get me some audio on this.” The bald avatar - or perhaps not - came over and pressed on the datapad. A video appeared on the screen, it was Neytiri, all covered in warpaint, hissing up at the camera. “That’s Sully’s woman,” Quaritch said with disgust in his voice.

“She’s an animal,” the avatar called Lyle, said.

Spider turned from his place at the mech suit’s foot to watch the screen better and saw Jake leaping in front of the camera. “Give it up, Quaritch,” Jake’s recording called, a knife in his hand.

“Sully,” Quaritch mumbled.

“It’s all over,” the recording said.

“Son of a bitch,” Lyle mumbled.

And then Quartich’s own voice came over the recording, Quaritch who had been a human, who’d died here. “Nothin’s over while I’m breathin’.”

“I kinda hoped you’d say that,” Jake said, snarling and rushing forwards.

It was a brutal battle, Spider could see, worse than his and Lo’ak’s recreations ever came close to being. And it seemed ready to end when the shack’s windows were broken in and Jake was losing control of his avatar. But before the human Quaritch could cut Jake’s throat, an arrow punched a hole in his chest. And then came another from Neytiri, freed from the palulukan she’d been trapped under.

Quaritch seemed haunted as he lowered the datapad. Spider couldn’t say what it must’ve been like to watch himself die, if he was himself. Lyle took the datapad away from him and said, “Yeah, there’s nothin’ after that.”

Quaritch leaned down and reached into the old, overgrown mech suit, pulling something free. It was a skull . . . his skull. Quaritch looked at it almost contemptuously as Lyle pulled free the dog tag from the body.

“You want us to recover these remains?” Lyle asked.

His question went unanswered as Quaritch continued to inspect the skull. And then his fingers tensed. The bone cracked and shattered apart in his grip, leaving only a sticky residue on his hand.

Eclipse was upon them and a rain had begun to fall as the avatars awaited their extraction and as the kids awaited their rescue. One of them had both Spider and Kiri in his grasp, his huge hand holding him by his dreadlocks. They’d vacated the clearing for the better-covered treeline.

“Head’s up,” Quatitch’s voice came amidst the sound of falling rain and buzzing animals. He came to the avatar who had Spider and Kiri and told him, “Watch our six.”

The avatar promptly dragged Spider and Kiri with him to face a new side of the forest. And somewhere far away there was a high vocalisation. Spider saw Kiri’s ears witch at the sound; he knew it too. Their captors wouldn’t, but they would. Amidst all the other sounds, it could so easily be ignored, but Spider knew. He turned his head, searching around but seeing nothing. He looked to Lo’ak, who gave him a slight but knowing nod. Spider returned it and looked away, they’d soon be free.

Kiri began to whisper a prayer, and the avatar who held her yanked on her queue, hissing, “Shut up.” But Kiri didn’t stop, her prayer continued. The avatar pulled on her queue again. “Shut up.”

Thud. He fell back, an arrow embedded in his eye.

“Contact rear!” Quaritch yelled, pushing Spider and Kiri to the side as the sound of gunfire erupted.

“Lo’ak,” Neytiri’s yell came from far away. Spider saw him reach and activate a gas grenade on Lyle’s vest before skinking his teeth into the arm of the avatar that held him. Tuk did the same and they ran away together.

“Run!” Spider yelled at Kiri, grabbing her by the arm and sprinting away.

“Grab ‘em!” Quartich yelled and a female avatar seized Kiri by the queue. But an arrow took her in the chest and Kiri kept on running.

“Come on!” Spider said, grabbing Kiri and pushing her ahead of himself. And away they ran as fast as they could manage.

Quaritch and Neytiri’s voices sounded behind them, threats and insults. And then more gunfire. Spider just kept running, Kiri ahead of him, he pushed her along, heart racing.

“Go, go, go,” he encouraged as they began running along a high root, with the sound of explosions added to the cacophony behind them. He ran and he ran and he ran.

Bang! He felt the heat, and the shockwave. It knocked him forwards off his feet, and he started slipping. He caught hold of a vine but was falling too fast to get any purchase on it. He lost grip and fell into the open, his ears ringing and his eyes blurring.

The last he heard was Kiri’s panicked shout: “Spider?” And again, “Spider!” As he struck the ground, rolling and crashing, everything turned red and then black, her voice and his name echoing all in his head, and there was nothing...

Chapter 13: Falsehood

Chapter Text

They took him. It was all Kiri knew, it was all she could think as she slipped off her father’s ikran, and it was horrible. Spider . . . her Spider . . . stolen by the demons. She’s called his name a hundred times, but Mom had dragged her away without a thought for the boy who’d just fallen so far. They had to get him out, they had to. She uttered the question without thought, rounding on her father the moment his feet touched the ground.

“We can’t, Babygirl,” Dad said quietly.

“We have to,” Kiri insisted. “We can’t leave him with them . . . with him.”

Mom flinched, the demon from the first war, somehow he was back and in an avatar, no less.

“Kiri,” Dad said softly, “it’s impossible.”

“No,” Lo’ak interjected. “There has to be a way. I won’t . . . we can’t leave him, not with them.”

Neteyam had taken a trembling Tuk into his arms and was murmuring soft words of comfort as her father paused, his eyes flitting from daughter to son, and from son to daughter.

“Dad,” Lo’ak said, his voice wavering in its strength. “He might not be your son, but he’s our brother.”

Mom flinched again, as she always did when anyone professed that fact. She’d never liked him, perhaps she’d tolerated him for the sake of her children, for the sake of Kiri, but she’d never liked him. It was unfair; all because of the blood that ran in his veins she’d never given him a chance.

“Please,” Kiri whispered.

Dad sighed. Jake Sully, Toruk Makto, the Olo’eyktan of the Omatikaya, Kiri had never seen him with this look on his face, not since the demons first returned, burning the forest in their descent. “It’s too big a risk.”

Lo’ak wasn’t willing to take that for an answer. “Would it be too big of a risk if it was me?” he demanded. “If it was Kiri? Or Tuk? Or Neteyam?” He was strong in his will, but not strong enough to break Dad.

“We would risk losing everything in the attempt,” Jake said quietly. “We haven’t the power to take the fight to them, we haven’t the numbers. We’d never succeed.”

“It is done, children,” Neytiri said firmly, her eyes passing long over Lo’ak and Kiri. She laid a gentle hand on Tuk’s shoulder and led her away, Neteyam following closely behind.

“Dad,” Kiri whispered, feeling her eyes well with unbidden tears. Be strong, she chastised herself. Be strong for him. “We can’t let them have him.”

“It’s okay,” Dad said. “Spider’s human, just like them. They won’t mistreat him.”

Kiri resisted the sudden urge to shout her defiance. He isn’t one of them! she thought bitterly. He is one of us. And he was. Small and pink-skinned, maybe, but he was of Eywa’eveng by birth, raised in the forest alongside Kiri, and Lo’ak, and Neteyam, and everyone else. All she could say, though, was, “How can you know?”

And Dad had no answer. “He’ll be okay, Babygirl,” he said. “I promise.” But as he turned to leave Kiri knew those words were empty assurances.

Left alone with Lo’ak, Kiri felt lost. She could see the empty, dejected look in his eyes, and she could sense the blame he was heaping onto himself. It wasn’t without cause, but she couldn’t stand to let him wallow in it. So she brought him into her arms, whispering those same empty assurances that she so hated to hear.

---

Jace was ahead of the main group of men, foraging a way through the dense jungle with a couple other marines, Ramires and Marr, as they had said in their short introduction. They had a datapad with the map Colton had transferred onto it showing on the screen, and from that they knew the vague direction to go in. But it was not some simple trek, there were cliffs, streams and waterfalls in their way with every step they took. Jace felt glad for all the hours he’d spent in the gym working on free running and calisthenics, and for the time he'd spent working in simulated low gravity. It seemed the other two men he was foraying forth with were misjudging every step, jump and landing, stumbling and slipping at every turn. Ramires seemed better suited than Marr, but still entirely a fish out of water, stepping cautiously, but equally clumsily, where he couldn’t see through the swathes of leaves.

So, Jace had slowed his pace to allow them to keep up as he sought the higher routes atop felled tree trunks and along the many roots which sprung up from the ground making moss-covered pathways and arches all through the brush. It was better than begin waist-deep in the greenery on the ground. He couldn’t remember if there were snakes, or any equivalent, on Pandora, but it was a chance he didn’t want to take.

Sweat made his skin glisten as he ran, and his heart had taken up a steady but fast rhythm. Gwyne’s killing couldn’t go unanswered, nor the other twenty-two fatalities. It was needless, completely and utterly needless. As Jace fell into his silent rage he realised he was speeding far ahead of the other two, so he slowed himself and took a moment to breathe and to reflect.

“Calm,” he whispered to himself, trying to bring his emotions to heel. It was not a revenge mission, he forced himself to remember, but a preventative measure. If the Resistance were involved in that attack, they’d find out, and if not, they’d capture the insurgents who’d done it. Just how many there were, Jace wasn’t sure, well over twenty was as narrow as he was willing to place his bets. Their advantage had been mobility and surprise, but now the surprise would be sprung on them. If the men could surround the Na’vi hideouts they could force a quick surrender of the insurgents, with aid swiftly on its way to escort prisoners back to Bridgehead.

It was a speculative plan at best, Jace knew, but it had to be done. The execution needed to be precise . . . everything needed to be precise, or it would turn to another bloodbath. And that couldn’t be afforded. If it could end bloodlessly, then it had to.

Jace kept his balance well as the other two hissed at him to wait up. He slowed himself a little more, one hand resting on the holster for his Z-33. He’d left behind his rifle with the rest of the men so that he might move lighter, and if he needed to shoot, he could do so in silence. Na’vi senses were sharp and an unsuppressed gunshot was no quiet thing. If one went off, his little party of three wouldn’t stand to survive long on their own. Well, maybe the other two wouldn’t. Jace looked back to them wading through a pack of low leaves. Nature was deadly enough back on Earth, or it had once been, but here was another matter entirely, and, with night swiftly falling, it was set to get a hell of a lot worse.

With that motivation, Jace encouraged the other two to pick up their pace to which they grumbled but acquiesced, clambering up to the felled tree trunk he was moving expertly along. Off to his right, he saw a flash of movement and stopped dead in his tracks, holding out an arm to the men behind him.

“What is it?” Ramires hissed at him.

“Just stay still,” Jace hissed back, peering into the brush and slowly reaching for his pistol. And then he saw it, coming straight for them. “Drop,” he said, lowering himself and hugging the tree trunk beneath him.

He heard the scraping and thumping of Ramires and Marr following suit and he heard the rustling of leaves. And from the brush burst a hexapede, pumping all six of its legs and slipping beneath the branch they were on to escape the very thing Jace had seen. It was a giant thanator, giving furious, single-minded chase. Powering forwards with its sleek, muscular legs as it sought its prey, snarling and salivating all the while. Jace’s breath caught in his throat as it came full tilt at them and leapt high over the tree trunk with stunning strength and grace. He held his breath a moment more until the sound of the chase had dissipated amidst the forest’s ever-present ambience.

“f*cking hell,” he heard Marr breathe from behind him.

“You piss your pants, Marr?” Ramires teased as he brought himself to his feet.

“f*ck off, man,” Marr muttered.

“Come on,” Jace said quietly. “The night doesn’t last forever.”

“Copy that,” Ramires muttered with a nod.

The forest grew ever darker as Jace, Marr and Ramires pressed on, keeping regular comm contact with the rest of the men who were advancing a fair way behind them. Luckily enough there were no more monstrous chases intersecting the path they were making, and so they started to make good time.

“Hey, kid,” Marr called out to him between heavy breaths. “It’s up and over a few hills and we’ll be there.”

Jace paused, turning his eyes to the rises off to the north and suddenly feeling the aches in his legs from all the running. He took a moment to catch his own breath and psych himself up to scramble up the incline. “Right,” he muttered.

The ascent started slow and smooth but interspersed with the long stretches of uphill walking, there was the odd vertical Jace had to climb using hanging vines, hopes and prayers. On the third such climb Ramires’s grip on one of the vines he was using slipped and fell, cutting his knee open on a rock below. Marr was, fortunately, quick with his administration of first aid and Ramires refused any offers of respite once patched up, promptly scrambling his way up faster than before.

Once they’d made it to the hill’s top they dropped straight down its other side. The hill that followed was a much easier ask to ascend; Jace let Ramires and Marr make their ways up it first, following along closely behind. They stopped at the crest of the next rise, knowing that their target was only a short way further, from the heat signature-based map.

The others were about twenty minutes behind, or they should’ve been. But something had held them back. So, Jace took the time to whisper calming words to himself that he might forget Gwyne and all the other dead men and women.

They’ll attack more if we don’t stop them, Jace knew. More will die if we don’t stop them. He rested one hand on the pistol holster, and the other on the sheath of his knife and, as it slowly clicked that he might be fighting again so soon, he noticed his hands beginning to shake. Visions of arrows flying one way and bullets flying another filled his mind, and he saw blood on both sides.

‘War had no winner’ it was so often said, and Jace knew better than to think any differently. But how could it be avoided? These people despised humanity, and not entirely without cause. The only hope was that they had some sense of self-preservation and didn’t resort to immediate belligerence, but Jace held that hope at an arm’s length.

“Captain’s inbound,” Ramires said, pulling Jace from his musings. He looked up and saw movement below as a platoon’s worth of men were rising up the hill, Colton at the front.

The captain came right up to them, his voice dropped low. “Anything go amiss?”

“A close call with a thanator, sir,” Ramires said. “That aside, no.”

“Good. Take the men to approach from the ground, I’ll give the signal and, when I do, you move in.” Colton stopped for a moment, looking ahead into the thick brush. He held out a hand to Marr, who handed him the datapad. He switched it on and looked at them map, and then back into the brush. “Callon, come,” he said, starting forwards. “I need you at the cliff’s top protecting me as I direct this operation.”

“Yes, sir,” Jace nodded, following as the captain set off towards the insurgents’ hideout, leaving behind Ramires and Marr who, with the rest of the men, began trailing off to the right to approach from the ground.

“Keep low,” Colton warned, “one sight of us and they’ll go into fight or flight.” He paused and added, ”Fight, most likely.” The captain seemed well used to the jungle and traversing its uneven footing, stepping lightly over and under roots, one hand resting eternally by his sidearm, a motion Jace assumed himself, his eyes darting left and right, alert for any flash of blue in the distance. His heart thumped heavier and heavier with every step.

A fast-moving creek came careening in from their left, curving towards the Na’vi camp. Jace and Colton began to follow along its bank, creeping ever closer. The sound of a distant spraying slowly grew louder and louder. Soon enough, Jace could feel droplets of moisture falling onto him, dampening his hair and settling on his skin. It was a waterfall, he realised, dropping down a cliff face just ahead of them. He crept further forwards, passing the captain, moving ever closer to the drop he knew was just ahead. He could see flashes of bioluminescence off and around in the distance, but where he stood it was pitch dark. Jace’s eyes had long adjusted to that, but he couldn’t help but feel as though there was something just out of sight, something he was missing. He half expected each new step to bring something charging from the brush at him, an arrow, a viperwolf, or, God forbid, a thanator. Yet, he reached the drop-off unmolested.

The water dropped down into a forested alcove below where, through the canopy, Jace could see the faint glow of torches. They were here, the Na’vi insurgents, he knew it. His breath caught in his throat as he peered down over the edge.

Colton was occupied with his comlink behind Jace, listening and speaking in a voice so low even Jace couldn’t hear it. He didn’t bother himself with trying to listen, his job was to protect Colton as he’d failed with Gwyne; as much as they disagreed, it was his duty. The many trees made seeing anything beneath their cover difficult, but Jace managed to spot the triangular top of one of their tent-like structures, a marui. The fact that there was anything that could be seen at all confused Jace a little. Surely the insurgents would’ve expected to be chased back to their base and would’ve made it better hidden. The marui he could excuse for it blended well with the foliage, but to light fires seemed the height of idiocy at best.

He scoffed a little. Some rag-tag insurgency this is. And then he reminded himself of the success of their attack upon the maglev and pushed away any derisive arrogance. But as he did that, he started to wonder. No . . . that’s . . . But, he couldn’t quite discount it, sick a thought as it was.

Again, Jace peered over the edge, looking for any movement amidst the lights. No, there was nothing. When something finally did move down there, his stomach gave an odd twist. It was a Na’vi, fully grown, that much was certain. But they were unarmed, he could tell that with an utter surety even from a distance. They were just wandering into a clearing in the trees, seemingly without aim. Jace raised an eyebrow as the Na’vi held out a hand behind it, and his heart dropped when he saw a child running behind them into the clearing to join hands with the adult.

What sort of military camp is this? There shouldn’t be any children. Children should only be at the clan’s village . . . Jace rose to his feet and turned to the captain, who lifted his head to look at Jace. “Sir,” he said, quietly, praying there’s been only an honest mistake.

“What is it, private?”

“This isn’t . . . this isn’t a military camp, sir,” Jace said, every snide thought and remark turning to ash on his tongue. “It’s a village.”

Colton’s voice was cold and passive. “One and the same with these savages, private.”

Jace’s mouth dropped. “Sir, you can’t . . . there are innocents here: children, elderly, those who had nothing to do with what happened.”

“Nothing to do with it? Even if they didn’t partake, they are harbouring the insurgents, one and all. They are accessory to rebellion.”

Jace looked back down to the village, for he realised now that it was nothing more than that, a sickness welling deep in the pits of his stomach. He prayed it was a dream, he prayed it was all a mistake, a misreading of the map, a poor piece of intel, anything other than what his gut told him was the truth. He wouldn’t . . . even Colton wouldn’t, hate the Na’vi as he did.

“You can’t,” Jace said, his mind flickering to the Na’vi he had met in the forest, wondering fearfully if she had been Kekunan . . . if this was her home. “This is wrong, sir. You . . . you can’t.”

“Can I not, private?” The man’s voice was pure ice, filled with a hateful apathy. Jace shivered at the sound of it. “I remember I asked you a question, I assume you remember your response?”

War is war, he remembered, warriors are warriors.

But these were not warriors, just people.

You direct, I follow.

Jace shook his head. Colton had lied. This was not right. He had sworn himself to this under a falsehood. He could forswear himself under the light of truth.

A plan came piece by piece to his mind. Kill Colton, fire his weapon, alert the Na’vi, run. It was simple, built on a moment’s thought, but he had to try. The words came unbidden from his lips as he moved his right hand so succinctly to his right hip to grasp the grip of the gun. “No.”

His head turned back to Colton and saw only a cold smile in his dead eyes . . . and the barrel of his pistol. Jace drew his own as fast as he could.

Bang!

And he was falling, falling, falling…

Chapter 14: The Mark of their Monstrosity

Chapter Text

It was time to return, Shiala decided. Whatever Txunir and Zau’we had planned to do they must’ve done by now, so, the temptation was gone. She hoped it would work as they had planned, that the sky-people would lessen their encroachments and that more Na’vi people would feel inspired to join the cause against them. But hope was a dangerous thing to hold onto.

Shiala had heard much of the endless greed of the sky-people, so, naturally, she was sceptical if they would ever stop unless it was made impossible for them to do anything else. But, she supposed that was the point. All the Na’vi needed to unite to force back the threat that the sky-people were.

Keroxe was waiting for her in the clearing; just returned from a hunt of his own, he was in a good mood. When she walked to him he nuzzled his snout into her hands, humming deep in his throat as she stroked his neck affectionately.

“It’s time to go home now,” she murmured, reaching for her kuru and making the bond with him. He hummed gently back as, through their tsaheylu, Shiala impressed her will and he made clear his understanding.

She leapt up onto his back and settled herself in the saddle. With a powerful flap of his wings, Keroxe lifted into the night sky and angled for home. Eclipse came and went and evening slowly became night as Shiala drew ever closer and closer to home.

And then she heard it.

It was not a sound she’d heard ever before, but Shiala knew what it was . . . and what it meant. Her panic flowed through her tsaheylu with Keroxe and his wing strokes became harder and faster. And the sound continued, tearing through the air, heralding so many horrors.

All the prayers that Shiala whispered to the Great Mother melded together as she shot on and on and on through the air. And the sounds continued. Every time she heard it shake the air she felt some part of her jump in terror, because every time she heard it, it was louder than the last.

And then she saw it. One of the flying metal vessels the sky people used . . . and it was shooting down an ikran. Such powerful anger shot through Shiala that she cast aside any notion of self-preservation and, pulling her bow from over her shoulder, urged Keroxe upwards into the night’s clouds, high above the vessels. She remembered what had been said of how to fell the vessels, that only when descending from directly above would an arrow have enough momentum to break the translucent visor of the vessel and kill the one who controlled it.

She rose and she rose and she rose, readying herself bit by bit for what she was about to do. She didn’t give a moment’s thought to why they were doing what they were doing, only that she had to stop them, and that she could.

Keroxe began to dive, arrowing downwards, faster, faster and faster. She knocked an arrow and pulled the bowstring taut, setting her aim as she came into range. She waited and waited and waited, and then, when she was right upon it, she released the arrow with a cry. It flashed forth and crashed through the window, there was the sound of shattering glass and the vessel began to swing off course. Down it went, crashing into the forest floor, and up into the sky came a twisting torrent of flames.

A wave of seemingly pure energy shot up from it, faster than the flames, and struck them with a resounding boom. For a moment Shiala was stunned by it, but then the sound of the sky-people’s weapons began tearing through the air and Keroxe turned sharply to escape them.

She set her eyes on one sky-person and drew her bow. The arrow was loosed and it found its mark, going right through the sky-person and embedding itself in the ground behind them with a satisfactory thwack. She wasn’t the only fighter, there were more warriors in the air, but they fell as they rose amidst the chaos.

Shiala loosed arrows at every human she saw as Keroxe swung left and right, avoiding every bullet fired at them from the ground. With all the movement, she found more arrows were missing their marks than hitting. The sky-people were well placed to attack, hiding amidst the trees. Shiala’s heart set to an even higher rhythm as she directed Keroxe straight for the village, she had to get there, to protect the people. But behind her she heard that staggered humming noise, and she knew what it meant. She looked over her shoulder and one of the vessels was on her tail. Keroxe dove immediately as the sound of their weapons blazed, he dove for the cover of the trees and he found it as the human weapons tore through the foliage.

But it wasn’t enough. Bonded, Shiala felt the wound as though it was her own and she screamed in tandem with the ikran. And the pain didn’t stop, another hole was torn in his wing, and they screamed again. He couldn’t keep straight, he tried . . . they tried, but they veered. They couldn’t slow, they couldn’t turn. Keroxe’s wing smashed into the trunk of a tree and Shiala felt the bones snapping. She cried out again, feeling the hot pain of the punctures in his skin and the breaking of his bones. And then she was jolted from her saddle and her bow slipped from her grasp. The bond was broken, and Shiala felt only her own agony as she struck the ground and rolled over and over and over until she came to a stop. Her chest was bruised and heaving, her back was scraped and bleeding.

Shiala pushed herself from the dirt and saw Keroxe, still but for the heaving of his chest. He breathed his last before she could even get to him, eyes staring vacant into the sky. “No,” she whispered. “Great Mother, no.”

The metallic scent of blood drifted through the air, mixed with the smoky taste of fire and the foreign scent of the sky-people. Shiala heard the crunching of footsteps behind her and saw something small moving towards her. It was a black rage that filled her as she saw it raising its weapon at her, but a cold, instinctive fear that sent her scampering from her ikran’s body to find cover behind a tree. The sound of their weapons was worse up close, terrifying almost. Shiala hoisted herself up the tree, finding a high branch to crouch upon as the sky-person crept closer.

She’d been here before, she realised, hiding in the canopy, watching an armed sky-person walk below her. Then she’d felt curiosity, now she felt only hate. For just a moment Shiala wondered whether that particular sky-person was here, but she shook that thought away as she saw the one beneath her stepping over Keroxe’s body to search for her.

Hate, she’d always wondered what such a thing could feel like. Now she did. It was like anger, but darker, more focused . . . a tool at her disposal. She slipped her hunting knife from its sheath and waited for the demon to move beneath her. It was coming closer, step by cautious step until it was right there. She didn’t make a sound as she dropped upon it, the force of her landing knocking its weapon from its small, covered hands. It grunted as she bowled it over, rolling backwards, getting its bearings and scrambling away; but it couldn’t escape her.

All it took was a few bounding steps and Shiala was on the demon. She grasped it by the clothes it wore at its neckline and drove her knife to the handle in its chest. She heard its death rattle, she saw the fear in its eyes, and she felt the intoxicating power of the act. But, her anger fell away as she pulled free her blade and let the demon’s body drop back to the floor, leaving her only time to think, and to remember . . .

The village!

Shiala began to run as fast as she could for home, ignoring the warm trickle of the blood from the scrapes she’d acquired in her crash. She felt the blood trickling from the blade of her knife onto her right hand, and jammed the weapon back into its sheath, reminding herself to clean it later. She found the creek and followed it along, flinching at the sound of every gunshot. The only piece of hope she could hold to was that, the further on she pressed, the less she heard them ringing out.

Soon, they were stopped, and the sound of the flying vessels had faded. Shiala didn’t stop or slow for breath, her focus was singular, as was her fear. She didn’t wonder what had happened, she didn’t wonder why, she only ran, faster and faster and faster. But, as she ran, dread crept slowly into her, coursing through her veins like a dark, polluting poison. There was blood spattered occasionally on the leaves and the grass, she came across another dead ikran and, a short way away, its rider. He was one of the young hunters who had gone with Txunir and Zau’we, and now he was gone. Shiala shed a tear for him but, driven by worry, kept running along the creek’s bank.

The dread deepened as she passed a man’s body floating in the water, bleeding from a series of wide, gaping holes in his chest. She couldn’t pass that by; she had to drag him out. So she did. It was easy enough to do, but she couldn't bear to look at him as she did, not wanting to believe their fate had been shared by any more than she already knew, for that was too many as it was.

Shiala had no such luck, though, as more and more bodies littered her path. The sick feeling of hopeless dread grasped her with gnarled fingers that grew tighter and tighter by the second, digging deeper and deeper into her skin. She found herself uttering voiceless prayers again, her lips moved as she ran, silent but for the sound of her inhalation and exhalation.

But what prayers could the Great Mother answer? The dead were dead, the dying were dying, and the sky-people had slunk away. The village came into sight, and it only promised more of the same. She saw them lying broken, warriors who had taken bows and spears to hand, weavers and gatherers who had not. Fathers, grandfathers, mothers, grandmothers. Even the children...

Shiala wanted to scream, she wanted to weep, she wanted to turn and kill every sky-person there was, she wanted to fall to the ground and sink into Eywa’s embrace; but, she just kept running.

Great Mother, please. She repeated the prayer with every step she took as she arrowed for her own marui. Her chest felt hollow as she saw it, and hollower still when she peered within. It was empty, and that brought Shiala no relief. She turned and ran out of it, crying out, “Mother! Mother, please!” She ran for the alcove where the olo’eyktan’s marui stood. He was gone too, but the tsahìk had not escaped; her blood pooled beneath her and her eyes looked on, filled only with the fleeting terror of her final moments.

Shiala ran, and she searched, and she continued to call, holding onto a hope that was fast fleeting. She ran to the cookfires, to the medical marui, everywhere one might’ve gone for refuge; they were filled with the dead and the wounded, the broke and the bawling. That there were living faces brought hope to Shiala, but the dead robbed it immediately away. A chorus of lamenting cries began to float through the air, broken, disjointed. Prayers and curses, hopes and dreams, love and hate; Shiala heard it all.

She slipped away and resumed her desperate search, reaching the village’s end and hearing a distant and agonized howl. She recognised the voice, but it was just beyond placement. She ran for it, her eyes darting madly . . . and she saw its source.

Zau’we. She was knelt over someone. No, not someone . . . Txunir. Zau'we was screaming, begging, praying. Shiala ran to her, for the first time forgetting her own fears, intent only on giving comfort.

But when she saw the second body over which Zau’we knelt, her heart gave out and her body froze.

No, she thought.

It couldn’t be, it was a nightmare, a hallucination, a manifestation of her fear. She blinked once, twice. It was still the same.

“No,” she whispered.

It was a trick, a lie. It had to be . . . But it wasn’t. It was the sky-people’s doing, it was the mark of their savagery . . . the mark of their monstrosity.

“No!” she screamed out, the tears beginning to fall. They had taken her . . . they had taken him . . . they had taken everything...

Chapter 15: The Only Choice There Was

Chapter Text

Mom and Dad were arguing. Kiri laid her hand gently on Tuk’s back as the girl knelt down to peer into their family’s marui. She could only listen, desperate to know what was going on, to know what they weren’t supposed to.

“This thing,” Dad said, “this Quaritch. Whatever he is. He can walk right in here, he can walk right under Eywa’s nose.” Kiri flinched at the name of the man who had killed her mother, she had been so torn up worrying for Spider that she had forgotten just what had taken him. Not that the distraction made any of it any easier. She held up a hand to shush Neteyam and Lo’ak as they approached, curious as to the source of the commotion.

“This is our family!” Mom insisted. “This is our home!”

“This is about our family,” Dad confirmed strongly. “This is about our little ones.”

“I cannot,” Mom said shortly. “You cannot ask this.” She sounded scared, and Kiri had never heard that before. “I cannot leave my people,” she insisted. “I will not.”

“He’s hunting us.” Dad’s words were simple, but they carried a meaning so blunt and terrifying Kiri didn’t even want to countenance them. They were not prey to be hunted, they were people. But Dad sounded so scared . . . so convinced. “He’s targeting our family.”

“You cannot ask this!” Mom was incensed, anger and fear welded together in the shaking tone of her voice. “The children. Everything they’ve ever known. The forest. This is our home!”

Dad’s voice dropped to a whisper. “He had our children. He had ‘em under his knife!”

Kiri wasn’t watching, but her imagination made up for what she couldn’t see. She heard her mother sigh, step and pick something wooden up – her bow. Her words confirmed what Kiri thought. “My father gave me this bow as he lay dying.” Mom’s voice was breaking, resolute, but so terrified. “And he said, ‘protect the people.’ You’re Toruk Makto!”

“This will protect the people!” Dad was breathless and utterly determined in proving his point to Mom. “Quaritch has Spider,” he said. “And that kid knows everything! He knows our whole operation, and he can lead them right in here.”

Kiri flinched as Dad said that, and Lo’ak laid a hand on her shoulder. Spider was more than just ‘that kid’, he was her friend, the best one she had. And he was not a liability . . . he would never betray them, she knew it beyond a shadow of a doubt. It made her angry, the only thought anyone should’ve been giving for Spider was to see him freed from his prison, because he deserved his freedom. But the risk was too great, or so Dad said.

“If the people harbour us,” Dad continued, “they will die. Do you understand?” Kiri heard him breathing deeply, sounding so lost. “Look, I got nothing. I got no plan.” And then he sounded as though he had found himself again. “But I can protect this family . . . that I can do.” There was silence, until Dad’s voice came again, almost too quiet to hear against Mom’s muffled sobs. “I know one thing. Wherever we go, this family is our fortress.”

Some fortress it is, Kiri thought, for one piece of it had already been lost. Mom and Dad didn’t see it, maybe even Neteyam didn’t. But Spider was her family, and Lo’ak’s, and Tuk’s. And without him, it was a fortress that would be ever incomplete.

---

Spider struggled with all the might he had as the humans dragged him from his cell. Their grips were tight and they were strong, but Spider was stronger. When, first, two had come for him, one had taken a chair to the head and fallen to the floor. Spider had watched with satisfaction as the other man balked before him as though he’d just come upon a wild and dangerous animal. That satisfaction ended when four more men ran into the cell and threatened him with electroshocks if he didn’t comply.

And then they dragged him into a room filled with men like Max and Norm in white coats, and a few others in the sky-people’s military camouflage. There they strapped him stood upright into some sort of device, the mass of which stood high above his head, fitting a plastic mask over his face that held his head firmly in place. A human woman pressed a button once the others had properly restrained him, and the machine began to whine as the thing above his head began to spin.

“Where is Jake Sully?” she asked. “Where is his base?”

Spider shook his head as much as the restraints allowed. What sort of an idiot was this woman to think he’d betray the Sullys, the Omatikaya and the Na’vi? “Eat me!” he spat. Somewhere deep inside his skull pain began to stab, starting as a dull throb but soon stabbing at him.

“Is he still in the mountains?” she asked.

“How should I know?” Spider grunted through the pain. “Any more questions I couldn’t possibly know the answer to?”

The woman strode forwards and looked coldly at him. She turned to the white coat-wearing men and said, “Turn it up.” The whine and whirr of the machine grew louder, and the pain stabbed harder, a white-hot knife slipping in beneath his skin, beneath his bones, burning, cutting, crawling. Spider bit his tongue so as not to cry out and tasted the metallic tinge of his own blood. “Where did he go?”

Spider began to thrash against his bonds as the daggers grew hotter and sharper. It hurt. They came from within, from without, crushing him in and tearing him apart. The agony spread, he could feel it in his chest, his arms, his legs, his neck, everywhere.

“I’ll ask again,” the woman said calmly. “Where is Jake Sully?”

“I don’t know!” Spider cried out, he couldn’t give them up, but it hurt so much. Be strong, he told himself. Just hold out and they’ll come. They’ll come for you.

“We know that you know,” the woman said.

“I don’t know!” Spider shouted, between gasps for air.

“Just form a picture in your mind,” she said. “Is it one of the floating mountains?”

Spider dragged his mind away from the woman’s voice and questions. There was one way to resist, one way. He immersed himself in the agony, focused on it so he could focus on nothing else. He was strong. He had to be strong. He couldn’t give them up . . . he wouldn’t give them up.

“Let me outta here!” he pleaded. “I don’t know!”

“Just form a thought,” she said, “and we will see it.”

“I don’t know!” his voice cracked. It became his mantra, he shouted the words out within his mind and from his mouth, often enough that he didn’t even know what it was he didn’t know.

“Look, I don’t like this any more than you do.”

It got louder, the blades dug deeper, Spider screamed out. Strong, strong, strong, but so weak.

“Which clans would be harbouring him?”

“I don’t know! You’re gonna have to kill me!” He was strong for a moment, then screaming his agony the next.

“It’s not gonna stop until you give us something. Where is he?”

Spider shook and he fought and he screamed out. “I don’t know, you buttholes, okay! I don’t know!” He screamed and he prayed it would end, he screamed and he screamed and he screamed. And the whirring faded away. His ears rang and his vision was blurry, but he saw a tall blue figure and heard his distant voice.

Nothing had ever felt so good as the cessation of that machine. Spider took long and slow breaths, feeling the warm trickle of blood running down into his lips and into his mouth.

He wasn’t aware of exactly how he found himself back in his cell, but the moment he was dumped onto the cold metal floor he crawled beneath the table, hugging his knees to his chest, rocking back and forth, praying that he would stop shaking. But he couldn’t, he pressed his hand hard against the floor and it still shook, his legs too, his arms, everything. His thoughts seemed to waver and stutter, coming from someplace far away and echoing in his head as though it were some great empty chamber. The walls hadn’t broken, they hadn’t been caved in, nor pulled apart. He’d held fast and he’d held strong.

So why didn’t he feel any hope? Why didn’t he feel any pride? Why did he feel so lost? It came quickly to him, the most coherent thought he’d ever had. He didn’t need to wait in false hope for days, weeks and months to know it, the truth was plain, reverberating in the back of his mind.

They’re not coming for me.

He didn’t want to cry, but he couldn’t do anything else. So, he sat there, on the cold, metal floor, beneath the cold, metal table crying hot, stinging tears. He knew it was the right choice, leaving him behind. Logic made that abundantly clear. But a parent would always abandon logic for their love of their child, and Spider had no-one to love him, he had no parents, and he refused to count whatever iteration of his father had taken him to be tortured as such. But knowing why no-one had come made the idea of it no easier for him to stomach. He dipped his head and wiped away his tears, whispering that he needed to be strong.

But there was nowhere to draw strength from. He was alone, surrounded by people he hated and people who hated him in turn. There was no hope, not of escape, not of finding home . . . not of anything.

The sliding of the door to his cell registered somewhere far away. Spider’s head turned, and he saw Quaritch stepping into the room and taking a long breath through his rebreather. The door hissed closed, and Spider turned his eyes back to stare at the floor.

He could only think to escape. If no-one else would free him, he’d do it himself. He waited for Quaritch to move away from the door and around to the other side of the table. And he sprung for the exit.

“Woah. Woah.” It was like nothing, the way Quaritch grabbed him, lifted him and set him down on the table. “Easy, tiger. Easy.”

Spider tried to force himself up, but the man placed a huge hand over his chest and kept him down. Spider tried to prise it free, grunting and hissing, but eventually gave up.

Quaritch held his hands up in what he must’ve wanted to be a calming gesture. “We good?” he asked.

Spider only sighed and looked away from him, taking in breaths as deep and heavy as when he’d been under the machine’s bone-breaking grasp. He scowled off at the wall, not wanting to even look at the man before him. He was a monster, renowned and reviled by all Na’vi. The reason all but a few who knew had never looked at Spider without suspicion in their eyes. The reason he had only ever been accepted by a few . . . by Kiri, Lo’ak and Tuk. Spider hated him; he hated him with every bit of his mind, body and soul.

“Kid, you got heart,” Quaritch told him, lowering himself to one knee so he might be eye-level with Spider. “Those science pukes leaned on you pretty hard, but you gave them nothin’. I respect that.” The half-Na’vi man pulled something metal from his pocket, a military dog-tag. He held it out to Spider. “I thought you might want this.” Spider made no move, only looked at the man, incredulous, and then looked away. Quaritch grabbed his hand, placed the tag in it and closed the hand with a gentleness uncharacteristic of his name and reputation. “That’s Colonel Miles Quaritch. Deceased. Killed in action.”

Who was he to think Spider would care to keep any memory of him? Spider threw the dog-tag to the floor and fixed Quaritch with a cold stare, before turning his gaze away again.

“I’m not that man,” Quaritch said, rising from his knee to his feet to fetch the tag. “But,” he said, “I do have his memories. Enough to know that, uh,” the man paused for a moment, “well, he wasn’t always the best of fathers.” He took a seat on the table next to Spider. “But, that’s not an apology. I’m not your father. Technically, you and I, we’re nothin’ to each other. But . . . I can help you. I can get you outta here.”

No, Spider thought without hesitation. He wouldn’t betray them, not for anything, not if he had to walk straight into that machine a hundred times over. But Quaritch didn’t press any such condition.

“I’m not gonna ask you to betray Jake Sully. I know you’d never do that. You’re loyal, and I admire loyalty. Just . . . ride along. Otherwise I gotta give you back to the lab coats.”

For the first time, Spider looked up at the man with something other than contempt. It was a way out of the jungle of stone and metal he was trapped in, and, if he played his cards right, it was a way back home. It was the only choice he had, the only choice there was. He gave a stiff, scared nod, and whispered, “Okay.”

Chapter 16: Give Us Strength

Chapter Text

The morning had come around, and, with it, a heavy rain that washed everything away . . . everything except the agony. Zau’we had taken Shiala’s hand in her own and had not let go for hours. Their grief was the same, that hollow pit in their chests was the same, their guilt was the same, and their hate was the same a flickering flame that, when she allowed, would burn brighter than anything the demons could conjure up.

When the demons had retreated, the Tawkami had come in, bearing all the relief that they could . . . but they couldn’t bring back the dead; no power existed that could right that wrong. Their tsahìk, Ni’vera, had come to oversee the consecrations and the burials, for the Kekunan had lost their own tsahìk and their tsakarem in the bloodshed. She sat with Shiala and Zau’we now as they grieved for a mother and a brother respectively.

“I convinced him to take this path,” Zau’we whispered shakily. “He was scared to, but I swore it was best.” Shiala could faintly hear her shuddering breaths. “I knew the sky-people would react, but this evil . . . I thought nothing was capable of such.”

There was no answer to give. Shiala’s gut welled with regret as she stewed over everything she should’ve done differently. She wanted to be angry with Zau’we. No, she wanted to be furious with her, but she only held the hunter’s hand in silence.

There were moments she felt only fury, and moments she felt none at all, where all that she was and all that she felt swayed around like a fallen leaf in the wind. The only constant was the emptiness in the middle of her chest, or the feeling of it. Just what it was and what it signalled, Shiala had no idea, but it hurt. Oh, how it hurt. She felt as though it was her own chest that had been torn open by bullets and drained of its blood, such was the agony.

It hurt no less as the funerals began; one after another, mothers and sons, fathers and daughters, adults and children, warriors and weavers, hunters and healers. There had been no selectiveness to the slaughter; the death had been brought upon all by the demons, without care or consideration for anything that was good or right. And with every body that was returned to the Great Mother’s arms to the sound of the clan’s slow, keening song, it was all the more apparent.

Shiala let her heart out in song as the tears vacated her eyes without end, stinging on their way down her cheeks. Mother had taught her to sing, she had taught Shiala everything, every skill that she had, every strength and morsel of knowledge.

I am her, continued, she thought. In Eywa, she lives, and in me too.

It did not make the agony any less, nor did it temper the flame of hatred she had forcibly hidden away until the moment came to let it rage. But it dragged her mind into a somewhat more cohesive state.

As they went on, the cloudy haze that had fogged Shiala’s mind faded, and she found new purpose creeping into her bit by bit. But she bit it back and held her place as one victim of the sky-people’s after another was given back into Eywa’s arms.

“Great Mother,” Ni’vera said, her own young tsakarem at her side as she performed the rites for a young, mated pair who would go together into Eywa’s arms, but had left a baby behind them, “we return to you your children. Take them and hold them in your heart so that they may never be forgotten. Let them walk through eternity, with those who came before, and those who will come next.”

Shiala had heard a hundred iterations of the same blessing in her life, but never had their true meaning found her until it was one who she had loved who was to be given back to the Great Mother.

Eywa was truly the only consolation there was, for she held all her children in her heart, in life and in death. Nothing was ever lost so long as Eywa remained, so long as she was protected. But the demons sought to kill her, and to kill the Na’vi. It was clear that was their intent, and now there could be no claim it was anything else. Their falsehoods had melted away in light of their barbarity, their savagery, their monstrosity.

Shiala knew the conclusion she came to was not hers alone, and she looked to Zau’we’s narrowed eyes as she thought it.

The only way is to kill them. To kill as many of them as she could until they scamper back to whatever cold, cruel place they came from.

It was not a thought she wanted to have, she knew it would have sickened her just days ago to have thought, but she could think nothing else of them. She remembered once being curious, not so long ago. She remembered staring into the eyes of one of them, and them staring back, seemingly as intrigued as she.

It had all been for show; they were all monsters, every one of them, and Eywa’eveng needed cleansing of the stain they left.

Txunir was given to the Great Mother after a mother was put to rest with her daughter to the sombre melody of a man’s howl. Shiala’s mother was returned soon after, and Shiala let the atokirina fall with her with a stony face and tear-brimmed eyes.

And then it was done. Shiala realised her mother had been the last to be given away. And she turned away, stalking off to do as there was no reason not to.

But she was followed. Zau’we grasped her by the arm and said, “Where are you going?”

“To get my bow,” Shiala said coldly.

“So that you can die too?”

“We will all return to Eywa one day, why not this day?”

“Because your mother would not have wanted that for you,” Zau’we pleaded. “She wanted you to be safe . . . to be happy . . . to live.”

“How can I be safe or happy so long as those demons have free reign to prowl about and kill as they please?” Shiala hissed. “How can any of us?”

“We can’t, but we cannot just attack senselessly.”

Shiala gave a derisive snort. “Those were not your words. You said there was no other way than to do exactly that!”

“I was wrong!” Zau’we cried. “And I cost us everything! I have left us broken and bowed, leaderless and hopeless! You should’ve stopped me . . . I should’ve stopped myself! I should’ve seen, but I didn’t! Everyone is dead, and it is all my fault!”

“No,” Shiala whispered.

“What?” Zau’we wavered.

“No, it wasn’t your fault.” Shiala raised an arm and pointed to the east. “It was theirs. It has always been theirs. It will always be theirs.” Shiala stepped back from Zau’we. “There’s nothing they can take from me now . . . nothing they can take from you. What better time will there ever be to attack senselessly than now?”

Zau’we looked up to Shiala. “I want to kill them,” she admitted quietly. “I want to make them pay.”

“If you seek blood, it will be all that you find,” a voice said from the left, Ni’vera’s. The Tawkami tsahìk approached slowly. “No justice would be more righteous than yours, if you took it. But take care not to lose yourself to the pursuit, to the hate that fuels it.”

Shiala didn’t care to argue, it wasn’t as though Ni’vera could stop her. With the Kekunan’s leaders dead, there was no-one to dictate what she could and couldn’t do until some semblance of a structure was reestablished.

“I seek justice for all Na’vi,” she said, “and I will start here. There may still be demons nearby, hiding away, separated from their pack in the attack.”

“I will join you,” Zau’we offered, a cold edge returning to her voice and to her eyes.

Ni’vera looked from one Na’vi to the other and nodded. “Your people will most likely take up residence in our village until the future of your clan is made secure,” she said, “there will be food and shelter there when you return for as long as you need it.”

Shiala bowed her head. “Thank you.”

Zau’we repeated the motion and the words.

Ni’vera turned to go but turned back a moment later. “The Resistance will bring aid when they hear of this too. If you want to fight, then you might consider joining them.”

Shiala nodded. “Thank you, again, Ni’vera, for everything.”

“It is nothing,” Ni’vera brushed off. “We are all children of Eywa. We must stand together as a united front, regardless of who joins the war and who doesn’t.”

Shiala was left alone with Zau’we, who seemed already prepared for the hunt, with a knife sheathed at her hip and her bow slung over her shoulder. Zau’we looked to her, and her eyes flitted to the south. “You said you lost your bow?”

“Yes, when . . .” Shiala’s words caught in the back of her throat; one loss had kept another so far from her mind and her heart, “when Keroxe fell.” As she spoke the words, her hate pulsed red hot again. She wanted to go out and fight, she wanted to go out and kill. If the demons loved the spilling of blood so much, she would give it to them.

“I’m sorry,” Zau’we whispered.

Zau’we’s own ikran had been wounded in the attack on the demon’s vessel, badly wounded, it had barely made it back to the village alive. Zau’we had said the passing had been quiet, but Shiala had heard the shake to her voice that betrayed her fury.

There were no words that could bring the right comfort, nor anything else that could ease that pain. But Shiala refused to not try. “Oel ngati kameie,” she said quietly.

Zau’we nodded stiffly, a tear falling from her eyes as she looked on past Shiala to the forest. “Let’s get your bow.”

It wasn’t hard to find, Shiala well remembered where Keroxe had fallen, and rushed back to that place with Zau’we close behind her. But, the first thing she found was the demon, still laid there, its spilled blood staining its cloth coverings, a vacant expression in its wide open eyes. Brown eyes, she saw, both the same colour.

Her memories went back to that night in the forest, when the wind had blown down the tree across the demons’ transport thing and that one single one had stepped into the forest. Had it been one of the attackers here? No. Surely not? It was one of them, but she wanted to believe her judgement of it had not been wrong, that that one had been different. It had not attacked then . . . surely it would not have partaken in this.

She shook her head to try and escape from the musings. Vengeance, that was all she needed to consider, for Mother and for Keroxe. No confusion, no musing, just blood. Shiala’s eyes turned back upon the demon that lay dead, and she looked into its lifeless eyes.

It was only the second set of demon eyes she had seen properly, besides the one whose eyes had been curiously miscoloured, but it was not a good look. It had been dead a night, and its skin had paled in a way that even one who’d never seen a tawtute before would know looked wrong.

“This was you?” Zau’we asked.

“It was.”

“Did it suffer?”

“Shortly.” Shiala lifted her eyes from it as she thought bitterly, Not for long enough.

She went past where she knew Keroxe lay, not able to so much as look at him for fear she might break then and there. She couldn’t risk that, she needed her strength . . . all of it. Her bow was a short way past, unbroken, its arrows scattered across the forest floor. Zau’we helped her to collect them all, combing the ground for each and every one until Shiala was satisfied with the number she had.

“May the Great Mother grant us strength,” Zau’we said once the last had been found.

Shiala didn’t need her strength granted, though. Her hate fuelled her well enough. If any demons still lurked in the forest, they had best have prayed that a palulukan found them before she did.

Shiala prayed for the opposite, for a chance at vengeance, for a chance at justice. And nothing would step between it and her . . . nothing at all.

---

Falling, falling, falling.

From the highest of heights, he fell, through cloud and through mist, down, down, down.

Above him the sky was grey and black, beneath the ground was a blur of green that came into better and better clarity by the minute.

Closer, closer, closer, but never there. He fell, heart racing, chest throbbing; half-awake, half-asleep; half-alive, half-dead.

Closer it came. The trees, he could now see. He tried to straighten himself so he would stop spinning, but he only span faster. Sky and ground blurred. He tried to think of an out, of a way to live. He hoped and he prayed, he yelled with a silent voice, he screamed apologies for the sins he had forgotten.

Closer still. There was no hope, no help, nothing but the ground that came ever closer. He screamed again. And heard nothing. Closer.

Please, he thought, desperate.

The canopy took shape, the cliffs and the creeks that punctured it too. High and low, near and far. Closer.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered. “Please. I’m sorry.”

He landed . . . and he shot upwards, taking deep, agonizing breaths through the filter of the exomask. He was . . . where was he? His eyes darted; on one side there was stone, on the other there was nothing but the black of night and the sound of a waterfall.

Memories flooded, pain flashed. He heard the gunshot, he felt the impact, he remembered the fall, but he didn’t remember the landing. He felt it though, with every wheeze knives pressed further and further between his ribs. Bruised, broken, perhaps both.

Jace Callon lifted a hand and gingerly pressed at his left side. The dagger pressed deeper. He hissed between his teeth, biting back a curse as his side flashed with pain. He was alive, his body armour was to thank for that. Point blank, it had been. Colton must’ve been a really lousy shot, or Jace had been really fast. Either way, it had most likely glanced off his armour, saving him the trouble of a metal bullet ripping through his guts.

The memory lingered, the feeling of horrific realisation persisted, and a sickness welled as Jace saw his idiocy. Colton had planned it, he knew it, from the moment Gywne drew his final breath the man had set in motion his plan. He had weaved a web of lies, one Jace should’ve seen. And now . . . Jace didn’t know, but he knew. He knew all too well what had happened. He didn’t need to see, he didn’t need to hear, he didn’t need any confirmation to know it.

His imagination painted a picture, and Jace felt the bile rise up in his throat. With the mask on he couldn’t spit it out, so he swallowed it back, grimacing with disgust and shuddering with agony as the movement drove the daggers in his torso deeper.

Massacre, it could have been nothing else.

He rolled a little, cursing and shaking as he did, to look down. Lights flickered, and then hope did too, but only for a moment. He didn’t know Colton, not for the c*nt he probably was, but Gywne’s overview of his past let Jace know all he needed.

This had been his vengeance, for the brother who had died so long ago. And his revenge, for the disrespect he’d suffered in his office. For that he had . . . he had ordered death upon so many.

The sickness came back stronger – too strong. Jace fumbled at the exomask, grimacing in pain as he did so, and just managed to lift it as his guts emptied onto the ledge upon which he so precariously rested. He was careful not to breathe as he did and slipped the exomask back on. The taste lingered, vile and acidic on his tongue. And he still felt sick.

Get up, he told himself. Get up and get away. And he did. He lifted himself back up to a seated position, grunting as the pain flashed in his side and in his left leg and then throbbed, and ignored it as he worked his way to his feet.

The heat he felt in his left ankle turned to a quickly burning pain, and Jace winced and cursed, tentatively pressing his weight down on it. That he could was good news, or as close as anything could be to it. A twist or a sprain, something he couldn’t afford to let rest until it healed. Wherever he was, he needed to get away. So he stood, blotting out the pain and pushing his weight a little more onto his right side.

That his legs seemed unbroken was enough of a miracle that Jace uttered a quiet prayer. His eyes were still adjusting to the light as he patted softly along his belt and realised that the gun was missing. He’d drawn it to kill Colton, but he didn’t remember dropping it. There were three possibilities and one of them would leave him weaponless.

He still had his torch, he reached to the modular plug that it was fitted into and grasped it. And then he thought better of it. If the Na’vi saw his light, they’d be on him in a flash, if any remained to see it that was. Instead, he waited for the clouds above to clear away so that the light reflected off Polyphemus could fall on the ground of the ledge he was on.

His eyes were better adjusted to the dark, and he could see how precariously small his little ledge was.

How did I not fall? Another miracle, another prayer.

The gas giant’s light eventually shone down on him, illuminating the stone outcrop. Jace looked and realised that the favourable option was lost; his Z-33 was either high above or far below, and Jace wasn’t enough of an idiot to go down.

As luck would have it, the cliff face was streaked by vines and roots dropping from above. Fortuitous, he thought, and wholly undeserved. But he was not going to pass up on a way out of his predicament.

He reached an arm up to grab one of the thicker vines that was about the girth of his arm and, ignoring the pain that stabbed at him in his chest, pulled on it. It held firm. Jace tested his entire body weight against it, and it held.

Planting his feet against the wall, Jace ignored the agony and began to climb, using every tiny, jagged outcropping in the wall to find some purchase with his feet as he used the vine as a rope to pull himself upwards.

He hadn’t fallen far else he would’ve died, it stood to reason, but in the dark Jace couldn’t see the top of the cliff nor just how far away it was, and he refused to look down. It was possibly the most commonly stated bit of human knowledge: ‘don’t look down’, and Jace knew better than to oppose it. So, up he climbed, filtering out every flash of pain, muttering prayers and curses as he did. Every time he pressed his foot against the cliff, he did so with an utmost care. One slip and he was dead, it was that simple, and Jace didn’t survive getting shot by some racist egomaniac just to slip and fall off a cliff.

But as he climbed, the pain grew stronger and sharper. He was well practiced for climbing, expert among most, but he had to stop so often just to wait for the pain to dull before he continued. He cursed Colton’s name a hundred times as he went, and he cursed his own just as many for being so stupid as to fall for the man’s deception. Then he cursed himself for the failure that came before that, for failing to protect Gywne as had been his mandate. If he had . . . if he had then everything would’ve been different.

The top came into sight and Jace found an uncanny strength coursing through him as his adrenaline pumped him along, dulling what agony had once burned at him. Grab, step, pull. It was a monotonous process, but it paid its dividends as the cliff’s top came closer and closer. And it was right there, he reached out a hand and grasped the ground, heaving and kicking until he rolled, gasping, onto the soft grass.

The adrenaline fell away and, as he lay there panting, the agony rolled over him. The gunshot, the landing, he couldn’t tell what hurt had what cause, not that it mattered. He lifted a hand gingerly and pressed the place beneath his left armpit where the bullet had struck. He drew the hand away with a hiss, muttering and cursing.

Get up, Jace told himself, not all too excited with the prospect of going survivalist against the forests of Pandora, but knowing he had no choice in the matter. Get up and find somewhere safe, you have a promise to keep.

It was a miracle he hadn’t broken that promise yet. He supposed that was something good, but how he would keep that up . . . he had no clue.

Up, he directed himself. He rose to his knees, and from there to his feet, looking around for the Zarkov and spotting it laying in the grass not twenty feet away. Maybe there was a sliver of hope for him. He walked over, grabbed it and stowed it into its holster.

The forest all around was opening into its bioluminescence, flora glowing blue, pink, red, green and every other bright colour there was. And in its depths, Jace saw something move. A hexapede was all it was, but the momentary cessation of his heart’s beating was a stark enough reminder that worse was certainly out there.

Quickly, he moved, ignoring the pain with little more than a perpetual grimace on his face, looking for a tree that looked climbable. But most had their lowest branches just out of reach, even with the lower gravity, Jace knew they were just a bit beyond his reach.

When finally Jace found a suitable tree, he realised with discomfort that he would have to climb it.

It’s just pain, he thought as he stretched his arms up to grab one of the low-hanging branches, get over it. He secured his grip on the branch and swung his legs up and over the branch. “See?” he muttered, releasing a hiss between his teeth at the stabbings of agony from ankle and chest. “You’re fine, you’re definitely not going to die some grizzly death.”

He climbed further, muttering more empty self-assurances just to try and keep his heart rate down. The higher he climbed, the more confident he felt that he would see the sun’s light again.

He tried not to think any further along than that; he failed. “What the f*ck am I going to do?” he muttered as he finally found a suitable spot for him to sit, with a branch rising behind his back and another just in front of him. He mused on his options and they were all bleak.

I go to the RDA, I get shot on sight for a traitor. I get caught by some animal, I get gored to death or eaten alive. I get found by a Na’vi, I get an arrow in the chest . . . and whatever else they do to humans. He shook his head, trying desperately to send away the image he’d just presented himself. Hopelessness wouldn’t help, but he could feel nothing else. I need a plan.

A plan. As likely as it was that some animal knocked him off in the next fifty hours, Jace set his mind to figuring out what he’d do if he did make it past that mark. Only one option seemed properly viable. Gwyne had mentioned it a few times, he remembered. The Resistance. Made up of RDA defectors, new and old, and Na’vi. It stood to reason that they’d not kill him, at the least. He had a case to plead and fingers to point. It had to be worth something.

The question of what came after could wait, he just needed to live long enough to get there. He knew it was further west, but nothing more than that. If luck was with him, maybe they’d find him before anyone else did. If not . . . he shivered in his place. Maybe he could beg for the mercy he didn’t deserve.

Fat chance, he thought sourly.

If a Na’vi caught him, well, the Zarkov was always there to keep them away. And, if it looked hopeless, it was a quick way out.

“I’m f*cked,” he muttered, leaning his weight against the branch behind him and staring up into the canopy. “Well and truly f*cked.”

Sleep found him soon, his eyelids quickly grew too heavy for him to hold up, and the pain, with all other sensation alongside, dulled away for the onrushing wall of darkness. Before he went, Jace uttered three things: a prayer, a thanks, and an apology.

“I’m sorry,” he repeated, again and again and again, until the only sound that left his mouth was the whisper of his breaths.

Chapter 17: Blood for Blood

Chapter Text

“Just a little way up the tributary,” Zau’we said, sitting on her heels and peering around the stem of a fkxakewll plant that hung over a fork in the creek. “It’s limping.”

Shiala looked and saw that it was. They had caught the demon’s scent almost an hour past and had been tracking it since. And now they saw it, alone and wounded, but armed. “We must be careful,” Shiala whispered. “A wounded nantang still has a vicious bite.”

“And each demon is still armed with their metal weapons,” Zau’we finished.

It was the third they had caught the scent of. They had decided beforehand to have the honour of the kill once each in turn. The first had been Zau’we’s and it had been a close affair. The demon had shot its weapon fearfully into the trees, so they had both had to retreat so they might reapproach unseen. When they did, Shiala took to drawing its attention as Zau’we approached from behind. The attack had been swift, and the demon had died before Shiala had even got to where Zau’we stood with it hooked on the blade of her knife.

Shiala’s had been less of a challenge. The demon had seemed disoriented, ill, and so slow. She hadn’t even needed any distraction . . . there had been no reward in it. The wretched thing had seemed half dead already, and, when she had brough it slashing down, her blade had been more of a mercy than a punishment. That had not been her hope.

Upon inspection, she had seen a puncture wound in its arm, ugly and bulbous, the mark of the kali'weya’s sting. It was meant for killing smaller beasts than the demon, and inducing trances in larger ones, so the toxin had been slow to act, but it would most likely have been fatal eventually. Shiala wasn’t sure exactly how long the thing would’ve survived, but it would have been a time of agony for it so long as it did.

Perhaps I should have just left it to die from the venom, she reflected. But, underwhelming as it had been, there had still been pleasure in killing it herself.

“You can have this kill, if you did not feel your first was enough,” Zau’we offered, peering through at the demon.

“No,” Shiala said, “it was enough.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes. This is yours.”

Zau’we nodded. “So, how do we approach this time?”

“Separately. I’ll push on and draw its attention from the ground, you encircle it and approach from above and behind. Stay high, in the trees.”

A cold smirk crossed Zau’we’s face. “Wait for the moment to be right and then fall upon it,” she said.

“Go,” Shiala said, and Zau’we slipped away, leaping across the creek to find a wide route around where the sky-person was. She let her heart’s beating slow as she watched the wretched creature pushing fearfully through the brush. It was almost a mercy, killing it. After all, if she and Zau’we didn’t, a pack of nantang would, or a palulukan, or another one of Eywa’s children.

The sawtute demons were not meant to be there, not in the forest, not in the plains, not anywhere on Eywa’eveng. They were of a world somewhere amongst the stars, but they had come here to steal and break and kill. For that, Eywa had rejected them. The Great Mother had made the air a poison, and set every animal against them. It was only right, Shiala decided, that the Na’vi give their aid in the removal of the stain they presented.

She edged forwards, passing the fkxakewll and slipping behind a tree to peer at the demon. By the erratic way it’s head was moving Shiala knew it was fearful, but just what had made it so, she didn’t know.

She left behind the tree and pressed on, keeping to the cover of the bushes as she watched it kneel down by the water to fill some sort of container. The sun’s light glistened off its surface in the early afternoon, scattering up and around onto the tawtute and flashing off the surface of the visor it wore so it could breathe.

What would happen if I took it away, she wondered, a cruel curiosity seeping into her as she watched the demon lift its visor away from its face and swig the water from the container. The demon stowed the water container away in a larger container that hung from both of its shoulders and started looking quickly around itself again.

Shiala could only wonder just how long the demon had been keeping this up since it had been stranded here. Their desecration had been almost a whole day past, so this demon had been alone for all that time.

Does it regret? Shiala wondered. Does it know the pain it has wrought? Does it even care?

She’d never know, for she’d never ask, she only cared to capture the demon’s attention long enough that Zau’we could sneak up on it and pounce from above. Then, it was at her mercy . . . of which it would receive none.

It had been long enough, she decided, letting her gaze wander through the canopy for a moment to see if she could see Zau’we – she couldn’t, so expert was the huntress at the craft of stalking her prey.

Shiala decided to test a high vocalisation, one that didn’t seem out of place amidst the continuous buzzing of all the animals of the forest, one that only a practiced ear would recognise.

For a moment she went unanswered, and then the sound came back to her from up ahead and beyond the demon. Shiala broke forwards, edging closer and closer to the demon, close enough that it could see her. But it didn’t, blind, unable to see, as all the sawtute were.

She would have to be deliberate, obvious, but only for a second could she safely let herself be seen. This was not like that night by the sky-people’s vessel – that creature had been outwardly curious, so she had been confident it would not attack – this one’s fear was clear to see in the way its head twisted quickly around one way and then the other, and in the way it brandished its weapon, pointing it all around in frantic, jerking movements.

She unhooked her bow from her shoulder as she edged even closer, so close she could smell its entire scent wafting through the air and hear its every single clumsy footstep.

Calm, she urged herself, peering through a small gap in a bush to stare at the demon which had returned to its earlier action of walking in little circles, its eyes darting.

She raised the bow and rapped its length against the trunk of a tree before darting off to the left as its head span towards where the sound had come from. A flash of herself was all she’d wanted to show it, she didn’t stay long enough to know how much it had seen, pedalling back into a dense clump of flora and circling round to approach from a different angle.

The demon called out in its tongue, fear so plain in its wavering tone of voice. Shiala almost pitied it; she might’ve, had it not done what it had done to her people. But, no, it was not deserving of pity, or mercy, or any other consideration. An almost quick death was all it could hope for. She turned from her retreat to look back at it from the side. The demon’s weapon was raised, pointing to where she had been. Its attention was well captured, Zau’we’s time and place to pounce was then and there.

The sky-person was none the wiser to the true extent of the danger it was in, Shiala stepped out boldly and caught it in her glare. It stared back dumbly for a moment as she looked coldly upon it, then it raised its weapon. Too late, far too late.

Zau’we dropped from above, driving a closed fist into the demon’s chest and slamming it into the ground. Shiala pounced forth and kicked at the demon’s weapon, which it had dropped in its confusion, knocking it far from its reach as Zau’we seized it by the fabric around its neck and lifted it a little from the ground so that its legs still dragged almost horizontally against the floor.

It started to gasp and blather, scrabbling ineffectually at Zau’we’s hand with its own in an attempt to dislodge her grip, pleading in an obtuse tongue that Shiala didn’t know a word of. Its eyes were wide, each the same identical shade of dark blue.

Zau’we was looking at it, a mix of intrigue and disgust painted on her face and in her eyes. “Did the other ones make so much noise?” she asked.

“We didn’t give them time to,” Shiala replied.

The sky-person’s eyes were darting between them, it stopped its babbling, instead just taking in deep and heavy breaths as both of its hands grasped onto Zau’we’s. Zau’we glanced from it to Shiala and back. There was a dangerous frenzy in her eyes, a fury unlike anything Shiala had seen before; it was calm and it was precise, but that made it only all the more terrifying.

Shiala could barely imagine the fear the demon must’ve been feeling. She hoped it was great, she hoped it felt it in its bones and its blood.

Its eyes kept on darting, and its mouth opened and closed soundlessly. It wasn’t struggling. Perhaps the demon expected to live, perhaps it knew it was dead and that no struggle would save it; Shiala didn’t know. This kill wasn’t hers to make, it belonged to Zau’we, who had lost a brother and a father the night before to demons just like the one in her grasp. Perhaps this had been the one that had committed the mortal sin.

Slowly, Zau’we reached to her hip for the dagger’s handle. The tawtute’s eyes followed and grew even wider. It started to kick out in a panic and scrape again at Zau’we’s fingers, making its noise again. The whisper of the blade against the sheath sounded, and Zau’we held it right where the demon could see. Shiala watched as she fixed it with a cold and deadly stare, her eyes narrowing. The demon whispered a short and final word, and Zau’we drove the blade into its chest.

It gasped and it shuddered and then went limp in her grip all in a few seconds. Zau’we pulled free the knife as hot, crimson blood began to come out in pulses, staining its clothes and dripping onto the floor below. She let it slump, dead, to the ground, a look of disgust on her face.

“They die quickly,” Zau’we said, sounding disappointed, “again.”

“Perhaps you shouldn’t aim straight for the heart,” Shiala suggested as Zau’we wiped her knife clean on an as-yet not blood-soaked bit of clothing.

“It is instinct,” came the muttered reply. “I am too used to delivering mercy to the animals I hunt. It is like I do not know how to cause hurt.”

“It is not our way to do so.” Shiala looked down at the sky-person with its wide eyes and gaping mouth. “It is theirs.” She rested a hand on Zau’we’s shoulder and slipped it beneath her armpit to pull her to her feet.

“You’re right,” Zau’we said. “It’ll take practice to learn to kill slowly.” Shiala and Zau’we winced a little at the weight of the words, but heavier still was the desire to make the monsters pay.

“This one’s blood will attract predators,” Shiala said. “We should try to find another scent.”

And their search began anew. They had to move a good distance before the scent of the demon they had just killed lost its prominence in the air. Once they had, the hunt was on. There were so many scent trails left by so many demons, the stronger, the more recent. As ever, so many trails led to nothing: scents lost over water, scents faded with time. From area to area, they moved, searching for something to latch onto.

They followed the creek a great distance, but only found the scents weaker and weaker. So, they turned back, making for the slope that led its way to the cliff’s top. There were different scents that way, sky-people for certain, but different ones. Most faint, Shiala could tell, but one was strong . . . so strong.

Zau’we caught it too, from the look in her eyes. She gave Shiala a quick nod in the direction it led, and Shiala set off in pursuit of whatever unfortunate demon had left the trail. They went up the slope with an even quicker pace, all the way to where the waterfall was.

There were footprints, small and in the odd shapes of the sky-people’s foot coverings, scattered without any common pattern besides the two trails in and two trails out. Shiala crouched and pressed against the prints with her fingers, looking at the two outgoing trails.

“This one is more recent,” she said, pointing to one which veered straight into the depths of the forest. “Much more recent.”

Zau’we nodded. “Looks like one fell off the edge from the look of the grass over the cliff’s edge . . . or it came close.” She looked up to Shiala. “How long apart were the prints made?”

“Many hours, half a day apart, maybe more.” Shiala considered it. “Something happened here, perhaps something went amiss for one of them.”

“Good,” Zau’we said. “Whatever the cause, it doesn’t matter. We just need to follow the recent trail.” She gestured along in the direction of the footprints and set off, and Shiala followed closely behind. It was only a short way into the forest that she stopped at the base of a tree. “It stopped here, perhaps for the night. I can’t see where the trail picks up again.”

“There,” Shiala pointed. Amidst the grass it was difficult to spot, but it was there, a trail of slightly irregular footsteps going away from where a branch hung low off the tree, and a scent with it to follow. She stepped lightly over to them and crouched down to inspect. Recent, very recent. The demon had only lowered itself from the tree within the last hour. Shiala grinned at the good fortune, hoping this one wouldn’t be so laborious in its movements as the one already suffering the kali'weya venom.

“Let’s get it,” Zau’we said, that cold, excited spark in her eyes again.

Shiala felt the fire herself, the promise of another hunt so close, it gave her strength. She rose and began to follow the path of it, her eyes searching deep into the brush, waiting to find the unfortunate creature. This one was hers, its life was hers to take. It was here, so its guilt was certain; that was all Shiala needed to know to clear her conscience.

Closer, she drew, closer and closer. Its scent grew stronger with every step, her conviction grew surer alongside it. This demon was hers, its fate, its life, in her hands, on the point of her knife. What a power it was, just to think about it made Shiala dizzy with excitement and sick with shame. But, she cast off the latter feeling. What shame could there be in taking such monsters as the sawtute out so that they might not harm anyone or anything ever again?

Zau’we set off to make a wider approach, to cover more ground, and to close in on it all the quicker. Shiala kept to her trail, and, after so long of nothing, it came good.

She rounded a tree and, on the ground at its base, was a stash of items; amidst them was a gun – the great and terrible weapon of the demons’.

Shiala reached down, keeping her eyes drawn to look for danger, and picked up the weapon. It was small in her hand, so very small, and cold too. Most of all, it was dangerous, terribly so.

Shiala slunk back, keeping the demon’s weapon in hand despite the odd feeling of revulsion she felt holding it. She slipped behind a dense thicket and looked down at the weapon, wondering how something without a single sharp edge could be so dangerous.

Then, the unbidden thought came. Has this killed any Na’vi? Quickly she stowed it away in her pouch, certain of the answer to the question she never should’ve asked.

It only filled her with more hate.

She watched and she waited for it to come into sight; so engrossed by the wait was she that the turning of day to eclipse almost passed her by. In the moments that Eywa’eveng’s beauty shone through, she felt all the more determined to protect it. But, waiting so long set a feeling of impatience deep in her, as though it was late to an arranged meeting.

Just as Shiala considered going on after it instead of waiting, she heard the rustle of its footsteps, one after another, coming closer by the second. And then she saw it. There was something wrong with the way it walked, she noticed with disappointment; it was something of a limp, its every movement made gingerly, as though fearful of exertion.

It came closer, right to where it had stashed its belongings, the same container in its hand that had been in the hands of the sky-person Zau’we had killed. It must’ve left for the creek to fill it with water just before she had happened upon it.

How unfortunate, she thought, her lips quirking into a cruel smile.

The demon crouched at its little stash and paused, patting at it with a quickly increasing rapidity. It stood back up, looking around with fast twists and turns of its head. And then its gaze fell right on her, and it froze.

How could it . . .

Shiala had been so well hidden . . . the demon had a sharp eye, sharper than those of its ilk, at least. It looked at her, frozen in place, and she looked back watching to see what it did. But it made no move, it seemed locked in place, staring into her eyes.

And then it spun away and started to run.

With a high, alerting vocalisation, Shiala chased. She was faster, much faster. But she wasn’t quite upon it fast enough. It looked over its shoulder as it ran and threw the metal container at her with some venom, but not quite enough accuracy. She sidestepped the projectile as the demon jumped and grabbed onto one of the lower branches of a tree. It swung a leg over and righted itself, not inexpertly, and began to climb.

It wasn’t fast enough, though. Shiala got to the tree’s base and leapt up, stretching an arm out. Her fingers closed around the demon’s ankle, and she let her weight do the rest, dropping back to the floor and dragging the demon down with her.

The fall seemed painful; the demon crashed off branch after branch as it fell, grunting and yelping with every heavy impact. And then it was on the ground, winded and gasping. It clutched at its ribs for a moment before it seemed to remember what had dragged it down to the ground, spinning over just as Shiala aimed a vicious kick at its side.

It grunted and gasped in pain at that, defensively and instinctively, but pointlessly, raising its arms across its middle. Shiala stepped over the demon, crouched low and slid her knife from its sheath, and it noticed. It noticed fast enough to shoot a hand up and grab onto the blade with one hand, and then two as she tried to bring it down.

Valiant a resistance as the demon put up, Shiala was stronger than it by far, and, with all her fury, she pressed the blade closer and closer to the demon’s chest. It looked from the blade, up to her face, and, in its eyes, recognition flashed. It was a look of surprise, mixed with mortal terror.

“Wait!” it gasped. “Please!”

Shiala faltered.

She recognised the language, and she recognised the voice; she peered down at the demon in the bioluminescence of the dark, halting her pressure on the knife and saw what she had seen only once before. Two eyes, one brown, one blue, both widened in utter terror.

No, she thought. It can’t be . . . not this one. But it was, right there, right before her, grappling with her for its life.

Shiala could only say the one thought that was rattling through her mind, echoing in disbelief.

“You?”

Chapter 18: Hostage

Chapter Text

“You?”

The demon flinched at the tone of Shiala’s voice, its hands still clutched, tight and bloody, around the blade of her knife, pushing it up and away from itself.

You? No, it cannot be. You weren’t supposed to be here! You weren’t supposed to have done this! You were supposed to be the exception!

It was him; the one from what seemed an eternity ago, whom she had made a moment’s peace with for the sake of curiosity alone. He was here, where only monsters were to be found . . . which could mean only one thing.

And it made her blood boil all the more furiously.

I should’ve killed you that night, she thought coldly. I should kill you now.

But, she never drove the knife down. Instead, she pulled the blade sharply up and away, holding it high. The sky-person yelped as blood spattered from the gashes it had opened on its palms and then started to drip down upon it.

She wanted to drive the knife into its chest, like the rest, she wanted to have that vengeance. But, first, she wanted, from it, the truth before she did.

She made her decision and stowed away her knife, and she saw an immediate look of relief on the demon’s face. Her blood rushed. This is not mercy, she thought coldly. You shall not feel relief.

Shiala reached quickly down and closed a hand tight around its neck, rising to her full height and dragging it up to its feet. Small, bloody hands grasped desperately at her own, so, she strengthened her hold and made it scrabble all the more, spluttering for air, the pale skin of its neck reddening a little under the tightness of her grip. The hot feeling of blood tickled its way down her hand, wrist and arm.

“You,” she said again, slower but just as cold and accusing, more statement than question. And its eyes shot up, meeting hers for barely a moment before looking almost determinedly away.

Shame, guilt, culpability, all three were the same, admitted by that look in the demon’s eye. This one, this demon that had somehow seemed so innocently curious, had so much blood on its hands. The truth was there, so very plain to see.

It had tricked her.

Her rage returning, Shiala took a step forwards, pushing the demon back before shoving it roughly against the trunk of the tree. It grunted and winced as Shiala leaned in, so close that it couldn’t look at anything but her, that it couldn’t escape her deathly cold gaze.

“You did this,” she accused slowly.

It brought the demon’s eyes back to her, and it had the gall to shake its head . . . to deny.

She tightened her grip on its throat and lifted her arm until both the demon’s feet were raised, kicking, off the floor. “Don’t lie!” she spat.

Its mouth opened and closed, but only a choked sound came from between its lips. Shiala loosened her grip, bringing the demon down to its feet and watched as it took in gasp after desperate gasp.

I could just take its mask, she thought, wondering what it would look like to die like that, choking upon the very air she breathed. “Don’t lie,” she said again, shoving it roughly against the tree trunk.

“I’m not,” it wheezed. “Please . . . I didn’t.”

“You are here,” Shiala accused, “that is proof enough!”

It shook its head furiously again, denying the undeniable. “No,” it gasped. “No, I wouldn’t . . . I didn’t.”

Shiala lowered her right hand from the demon’s throat to grasp it by the hem of its clothes, at its neckline. With her left hand, she redrew her knife and brandished it before the demon.

“You wouldn’t?” she said so slowly, her lips curling into a snarl. “No . . . You did.”

She could hear the quickening of its breaths, she could see the panicked frenzy in its eyes, she knew that she had two options. Kill, or don’t. She hadn’t decided. So, she let the blade rest ever so gently upon the skin of the demon’s throat, biting just a little just below its jaw and sending blood trickling down onto its chest.

There was a certain, terrible allure to the power of life and death being rested so firmly in her hands. The demon knew she held it too, its every word would be whatever it thought would keep her blade as far from cutting its throat as possible. Lies.

“No,” it gasped, trying to pull itself away from the blade at its throat as it continued to try and dislodge her grip on it. “I speak truth, I swear it.”

It spoke Na’vi well enough to plead coherently, if only in short, malformed sentences, unlike the demon who had found itself so helplessly under Zau’we’s grasp. But that was no saving grace. A postponement of death was no escape from it.

Zau’we is coming, Shiala remembered. She would demand the death of the demon, without a doubt or hesitation. Shiala had to be quick.

“Why are you here?” she asked.

“I thought . . .” it started and then trailed off, shuddering breaths breaking its voice. “I-I was tricked . . . by my own. Whatever happened, it . . . it was him.”

“Whatever happened?” Shiala repeated the words almost in disbelief, her grip tightening. It was really trying to deflect blame? She could hardly believe the gall. “You know what happened! You were there!”

It violently shook its head. “No!” Its voice was strangled. “I didn’t see. I-I only guess.”

Shiala paused and contemptuously considered the demon and its words. Tricked? she mused, considering its drivel for what it might be worth. Him . . . there’s a him? A ringleader, perhaps. Someone to kill, and slowly. She looked down at the demon again, considering, contemplating, deciding.

She had questions . . . it seemed to have answers . . . she could always kill it afterwards.

Perhaps its answers would be helpful, she’d certainly kill it if not, she probably would anyway.

“Him?” she asked.

It nodded and said two words that she didn’t know; a name, perhaps. Maybe, she decided, for just the briefest of moments, it was worth keeping alive.

“Kill it, then,” a voice came from behind . . . Zau’we’s.

The demon’s eyes flashed frantically in that direction, and Shiala looked calmly over her own shoulder. Zau’we was walking from the brush, her knife drawn and her eyes flashing.

“This one claims innocence,” Shiala said slowly, rising to her full height and pushing the demon harder back against the tree.

Zau’we barked out in derisive laughter. “Does it?” She moved to stand at Shiala’s side and peer down at the demon. “Do you, demon?” she asked it, taking a fistful of its hair and turning its head up to face her.

It made a pitiful noise of anguish and looked up at her, wide-eyed and helpless, its hands abandoning their attempts to dislodge Shiala’s and moving to grasp at Zau’we’s as she pulled slowly and painfully on its hair, tilting its head back so its throat was utterly bared.

“Did you not do it?” A snarl was set into Zau’we’s visage, colder than the one she had held for any of the other demons, for this one could hear her, and she could hear it. “Tell me, did you not do it? And, demon, I’ll know if you lie.” She drew her own blade and slowly twisted it before the demon, showing the glimmering obsidian edge to it as its eyes were wide and transfixed on it.

“I did not,” its shaking voice pronounced as it continued to pull helplessly at the hand Zau’we had in its hair, getting blood all over it just as it had with Shiala’s, hot and sticky.

Zau’we hissed and the knife glinted. But, before she could do anything, Shiala fixed her with a hard glare.

“He is mine to kill,” she hissed.

Zau’we gave her a curt nod and looked disdainfully back to the demon. “I don’t believe you.”

It was almost comical, the flash of despair that crossed the demon’s face. Shiala could almost read its mind; she could see, written on its face, its desperate wondering of what it could possibly do to save its own life. It was so plainly futile.

Shiala remembered what it had said earlier: a name . . . a culprit. She drew the demon’s attention back to her with a pointed addition of pressure with her blade upon its neck, digging just the slightest bit deeper – but not quite enough to breach its airway – as Zau’we stepped back and started to stalk around behind, as though just waiting for an order to pounce.

“You said something,” Shiala said, “a name.”

The demon nodded and repeated the name. Shiala listened, determined to remember. “Angus Colton,” the demon said. It sounded ugly rolling off its tongue, like its every other mispronounced word.

“Who is he?” she pressed.

“He . . . he took . . . control after you killed . . . after you killed our leader.” Shiala almost snickered with derision at the way it spoke. Clearly, the demon wasn’t the most adept at speaking the tongue. It glanced up at her, fear and desperation painted so plainly on its face, and continued. “He said there was . . . a warrior camp . . . but it . . .” The demon hung its head, as though in shame.

“He knew?” Shiala pressed her balled fist that had it grasped by the fabric it wore up into its throat, determined to impress only the demon’s helplessness upon it, not that it was needed, with her blade already biting there.

“He knew,” it wheezed through its clearly tightened airways. “He wanted to kill. I didn’t see then . . . I didn’t think . . .”

“No,” Zau’we said coldly, interrupting. “No, you didn’t. You didn’t think, you didn’t care to. This . . . this is your fault. My brother, my father,” she pointed at herself, “her mother,” she pointed to Shiala, “they are dead because of you, demon! And this,” she pointed her knife at the demon’s chest, “when I slowly strip the skin from your flesh, it will be what you deserve.”

Shiala raised her blade from the demon’s throat and held it across Zau’we to stop her, looking coldly down at the demon which seemed to be withering under the weight of her gaze and Zau’we’s accusations. “This life is mine,” she said cooly, before turning her attention back to the demon. She slid her blade down to rest upon its collarbone. “You deserve pain,” she told it. “You deserve death, a hundred times over.” She let her blade cut into its skin, long and shallow, and watched with satisfaction as it winced and gasped, just about holding back a loud exclamation of pain as blood began to flow. Maybe killing it now was too merciful. “You can identify the others responsible besides yourself?”

It nodded slowly, but without any hesitance.

Shiala kept her gaze upon it, considering, calculating. If its words had any truth, there was more vengeance to be sought, and it might be useful to that end. It was worth the postponement of this little piece of justice. Decided, she lifted the blade, bloodied, away from the demon’s skin but kept a tight grip on its collar. “I claim va’se tìrey,” she told Zau’we. “It lives as an accessory to my vengeance.”

Zau’we scowled, her tail swishing agitatedly. “If you would keep it to kill later, do so,” she spat. “This one’s life is yours. But, I will not suffer to share the same air as it any longer than I must.” She stepped back, wrinkling her nose. “I will find pa’li to ride to the Tawkami.”

Zau’we twisted on her heels and disappeared off into the brush, leaving Shiala stood there with the demon whose life she had claimed for her own possession in her grasp.

What was she doing?

There, stood beneath her, breathing heavily, its torso cloth still clutched in her fist, was a demon. One she had chosen not to kill, one she had seen before and made that same decision. But it was all different now. She had claimed the right to a debt of life, and she would not be denied by any Na’vi that right.

But what to do with it now?

Everything seemed to spin around her in a dizzying haze, as though it were some fever dream she was yet to awaken from. She looked down at the demon and noted that its eyes were glassy, its gaze aimlessly pointed past her and into the forest.

Demon.

Shiala felt a surge of disgust that such a monster was in her presence, breathing her air. But she couldn’t let it go. Such a creature was like to run, or fight, as any animal would when ensnared and cornered. So she kept a hand tightly closed around its torso cloth, trying to find some way to ignore its presence. Then, she remembered, looking down at its belongings, that there had been a rope. It was a perfect solution. So, she started walking, pulling the demon, stumbling and limping, along behind her.

When she reached the tree where it had all been deposited, she finally released her grip on the demon, shoving it roughly down to the ground. “You run, I cut,” she warned it in as simple words as she expected it to understand.

It nodded mutely, its mismatched eyes seeming to lose and find focus over and over again. As she grabbed the rope, it rose slowly up to a seated position on the floor. Shiala lifted the rope, looped it over her shoulder and then, crouching, took a firm hold of the demon’s wrists, which, she noticed, were plainly accessorized, and dripping red with blood, the same that was staining her hands. It flinched away, a slight hiss escaping its lips. Shiala’s eyes followed the trails of blood that had dribbled down from the cuts on the insides of its hands all down its forearms to drip onto its leg cloths from its elbows. It was all over her left hand, and had run down her wrist, red and warm and sticky, and already drying. Shiala looked down at the blood that stained her fingers, and down to the demon to whom the blood had belonged. A memory came of a time she had cut her sole on a particularly jagged rock once as a child, and the wound had festered and brought a nearly deadly sickness upon her.

I can’t let it get infected, she let herself think rationally. It is useless to me dead of a festering wound. When it dies, it will be clean, and it will be by my hand alone.

So, Shiala forewent the rope for the moment and pulled from her pouch a pod of dapophet gel, setting it on the ground beside the demon, whose gaze had finally found direction and fallen on her, eyes wide and fearful. Shiala looked back through its items and grabbed a cloth of some sort and a roll of some white, cross-hatched fabric she assumed to be bandages of the demons’ make, plain, rudimentary, but useful enough.

She set them down and noted the water container just an arm’s reach away. It was all she needed. She reached down and grabbed one of the demon’s wrists, but its fist was tightly closed.

“Open your hand,” she ordered coldly.

It complied after a moment, gingerly, as though it was not obvious that she was acting so as to help it. It was hard to tell how deep the cut ran, even when Shiala let the water from the container wash away the blood, she could not see the damage’s extent. Then again, it didn’t much matter how useful its hands were, she just needed it to point out the demon responsible for it all. She tried to recall the name, but she had already forgotten.

Next, she wiped the demon’s palm dry and waited to see if more blood came. A little trickled out of the gash, but not much. One more wipe and Shiala was satisfied enough to dip her thumb in the dapophet gel and rub it methodically over the wound. At first, the demon gasped and cried out a little at the coldness of it, but it swiftly resumed its silence.

You’re being too considerate, she berated herself as she wrapped the bandage around its hand. But how else could one appear when mending another’s wounds?

It seemed she was right, for the demon said in a quiet voice, “Thank you.”

Shiala hissed at it, pulling the bandage tight with a little more force than the task needed, enough to make it slam shut its eyes and suck in its breath between its teeth as daggers of pain most likely stabbed at it. “Do not think this is mercy, demon,” she growled.

It flinched at the last word.

The name wounds it? she thought. Good. Let it hurt. Let it know what it is.

She tended to the other hand quickly and bound it. Through the process, the demon kept its head bowed and its eyes downturned, not uttering so much as a whisper.

When she was done with the bandages, Shiala finally picked up the rope. The demon, understanding her intention, quietly presented its wrists together for her to begin to tie the rope around. She made the binding secure just as she heard the padding of the pa’li’s footfalls closing in behind her.

Zau’we came, riding one and leading another forwards. “Any trouble with the demon?” she asked.

“Not so far,” Shiala said, rising to her feet and, grasping it by its bound wrists, pulling the demon to its feet with her. She saw it scrunch its face up a little as it straightened, still bothered by something, not that she cared in the slightest as long as it didn’t inconvenience her.

Zau’we nodded. “To the Tawkami?”

“Yes, we need somewhere to rest for a moment before we decide what to do next with . . .” she gestured to the demon.

“Let’s go, then. The sooner we can be rid of its stench, the better.”

Shiala first moved all of the sky-person’s stashed items into the large, fabric container the demon had brought, slung it over her shoulder as she presumed was its intended method of use and walked to the pa’li. The beast whickered and stamped its feet a little as Shiala rubbed its snout, murmuring words of comfort and soothing. She reached behind her head for her kuru and made the bond with it, impressing that same thought of calm upon it.

Once the pa’li was well settled, Shiala turned to the demon which was looking up at it with the same fearful reverence that had been in his eyes when he had looked at her all that time ago in the forest. She reached down and lifted the demon roughly by its armpits and deposited it on the back of the pa’li before swinging nimbly up to seat herself behind it and taking a firm hold of it by the back of its collar.

“Don’t do anything stupid,” she warned. “It is a long fall . . . for you.”

It nodded its understanding stiffly, shuffling a little in its seat and placing both its bandaged hands before it on the pa’li’s back for support. Shiala was sure that, even if it did start to fall, she could catch it; it was just an effort she couldn’t be all too bothered to go to for so wretched a creature.

Forward, she thought, and her intent flashed across her tsaheylu bond with the pa’li. Slowly, it set off, ambling in the direction Shiala set it to, following Zau’we’s pa’li. What has befallen me? she mused quietly, staring off ahead. The demon was her prisoner, her hostage, eternally at her mercy. And what an odd feeling it was. When her blood had rushed with hate and excitement it had been so much more of a palatable prospect; now, she didn’t know. The pathway ahead was shrouded in fog, all she knew was to press onwards…

Chapter 19: Home

Chapter Text

Awa’atlu was a strange place, beautiful in so many ways, built upon rocks and roots that jutted up and over the crystalline, blue water. The sea people, the Metkayina, they were strange too, but beautiful in the same sense. Kiri didn’t quite know what to make of it, perhaps because it hadn’t quite resonated yet that this was home, now and forever on.

And he isn’t here.

That thought . . . that agony had been at the heart of her general discontent and standoffishness. She felt a failure, she had failed him. They had left him all alone with the RDA, the RDA who would do anything to get to her father and mount his head on a spike. Dad had said they wouldn’t mistreat Spider, but Kiri couldn’t believe after everything that they wouldn’t.

Dad had even said that Spider was a liability, that what he knew, the RDA would soon know. But Kiri knew better. Spider was strong, in heart and soul, he loved the Na’vi with all his heart, he wouldn’t give them anything unless they prised it from within his skull, and luckily that was impossible.

That was about the only bit of luck there was, though. She wondered and wondered what Spider must think of them all now. The family that was never quite his abandoned him in the clutches of the demons without so much as a thought for him as a person.

Kiri wondered if he hated them, if he hated her. Perhaps he should, she mused. We abandoned him as though he meant nothing. If the choice had been hers, they would’ve gone straight for him. Kiri had never been a fighter, but she would’ve learned to if it came to that, willingly too. For him, anything.

But she hadn’t done that . . . she hadn’t done anything, she had just meekly followed her parents and siblings as they left him behind.

The tears stung her cheeks as they rolled slowly from her eyes. Kiri wasn’t ashamed of them, only everything else; most namely the very reason why she was crying, the reason she had only confessed to Lo’ak. She hadn’t realised it until he had been gone. She wished she’d known sooner . . . or never at all. The sky-people had an odd saying, ‘better late than never’, but that wasn’t true. Never was better than too late.

“Kiri?” The voice was Tsireya’s. Ronal and Tonowari’s daughter was a gentle thing, always shyly smiling and trying to make everyone feel welcome. “Are you okay?”

Kiri nodded stiffly, her legs dangling high over the water below. “Yeah,” she said, quietly.

Tsireya gave her a searching look before moving to sit at her side. She knew there was more not being said, but Kiri found she didn’t much mind. For so long, Tsireya just sat at Kiri’s side in a silent, mutual companionship. But the silence had to break eventually.

“You disappeared on us when we were swimming,” Tsireya said meekly. “Where did you go?”

“I was exploring,” Kiri said truthfully, “in the corals, where all the fish swim and hide.”

“It is beautiful there,” Tsireya said.

“It is beautiful everywhere,” Kiri agreed. “It is almost like a forest, in its own way.”

“But, it is not home. That is what bothers you, is it not?”

Kiri held a thoughtful silence, gazing out to the western horizon, thinking about what was beyond it and who was beyond it. “It’s what we left behind . . . who we left behind.”

“It must be so hard to leave everything you know behind you. To go so far away from home, somewhere so vastly different, to have to learn a new way of life: it will be difficult.” Tsireya placed a hand gently on Kiri’s own. “Whatever I can do to help, please, ask it of me.”

“You’re doing so much for us already,” Kiri said. “All of you. Just taking us in means everything.”

“We are all children of the Great Mother, are we not? We should help each other whenever we can.”

“Still, it is very kind of you to teach us.”

“Aonung doesn’t help much,” Tsireya murmured. “The first thing he told your brothers and sister was that they were not good divers. He should’ve encouraged them.”

“They weren’t good, though,” Kiri asked, “were they?”

Tsireya’s lips twitched in a masked smile. “They could stand to get a little better at it.”

Kiri let herself laugh a little. “I’m sure we could.”

“We were showing the others how to ride ilu, you were not there.”

“I’m sorry,” Kiri murmured.

“It is no matter. I will show you, if you would come. It is not so difficult. Then, you can ride whenever you wish.”

“I’d like that.”

Tsireya rose to her feet. “Then come, it shouldn’t take long. We can be done before eclipse.”

Kiri rose to her feet and followed the girl. The aching in her heart had not ceased, the longing neither, but it was a little more palatable. Maybe there was a home here after all, if it only found its one missing piece…

---

It was a half freedom, what Spider now had. He’d quickly come to appreciate that it had been the best-case scenario that he had been given leave to spend his days out in the forest with the recoms. As much as he hated them all, they made better company than the glass windows and white walls of his cell.

Not that that was a high bar to vault.

They’d all made camp in a way that was so . . . human. A military-style perimeter set, soldiers on watch acting as though there was something out there desperate to get them and Quaritch barking orders loudly. The fire was the only good thing about it, Prager had built it well enough, taking Spider’s suggestion of a very particular tree resin to help the fire catch.

It was warm. Almost warm enough to ward away the cold emptiness in the pit of his stomach. There hadn’t been a word of Jake or Neytiri, or any of the kids besides that they had disappeared. The Omatikaya had a new olo’eyktan now, a new tsakarem too, Spider presumed.

He had heard the news from Z-Dog when eavesdropping, and it had only confirmed what he had already known. That they weren’t coming for him, that they weren’t just waiting for a better opportunity. They just turned tail and disappeared to who knew where.

If it hadn’t been for Quaritch, Spider would’ve gone back under the brain-scanner machine again and again until he gave the sky-people what they wanted or . . . he didn’t want to think about the ‘or’. They weren’t pretty thoughts.

The recoms had it in mind that, as part of ‘going full tilt Na’vi,’ as Quaritch had put it, they would tame ikran. That was to be on the morrow, and Spider couldn’t sleep. He needed to, but he couldn’t. He didn’t even know why, his head was aching, as it had barely ceased to since he’d been strapped into that machine, but surely it couldn’t just be that.

Maybe it was shame: at being amongst these demons in false skins, brought back from where no-one should ever return, at helping them move through the jungle as the Na’vi did, at teaching them the language. He had engaged in one treachery to avoid another. He didn’t know whether that deserved shame or not, but he felt it regardless.

“You’re not on watch, kid, you know that?” he heard someone say. He looked around and spotted Ja approaching from the bushes.

“I can’t sleep,” Spider muttered.

“I’m afraid I can’t accept that,” Ja walked quietly over to where Spider was seated. “It wouldn’t do for our personal tour guide to doze off whilst swinging your way up some vine in the mountains.”

“I’d survive,” Spider muttered.

“The gravity ain’t that low, kiddo. So, answer me, why can’t you sleep?”

“Headache.”

“The machine?”

Spider nodded.

“Tsk. Never liked scientists, only thing they’re good for is solving the problems they made in the first place.” Ja pulled the medkit from his belt and opened it up, picking through. “So, painkillers or sleeping pills? Your choice.”

Spider looked up at him, and then suspiciously down at the assorted bottles and bandages. “The painkillers,” he said slowly.

“Right.” Ja pulled a little bottle from the medkit and tipped a couple little tablets into his open hand. “You got some water?”

Spider reached for the bottle Quaritch had given him.

“Right, so you just need to-“

“I know how to take a pill, dumbass,” Spider grunted. “Just hold them for me whilst I do the water.”

Ja nodded, only slightly taken aback, and waited as Spider took a deep breath, lifted the mask of his exopack and let some water run into his mouth. He opened a hand and Ja deposited the tablets into his hand. Spider chucked them into his mouth, pulled down the mask and swallowed.

“All right, kid. Twenty minutes and you should be feeling better. So, get some sleep. You’ll be better for it.”

“Why do you care?” Spider shot at him.

“Should I not?” Ja shot back. “You’re a kid, I got nothing against you. And, it’s my job to make sure everyone here keeps well; that means you too. Now, sleep, doctor’s orders.”

“I know damn well you’re not a doctor,” Spider scoffed.

“Medic’s orders don’t have quite the same ring to it, so I'll stick with doctor. The order stands, get some sleep.”

Ja closed the medkit back up and walked over to Z-Dog to shake her awake. Spider watched him, an odd feeling rolling through him. He laid himself on his back and closed his eyes. The whisper came unbidden to his lips, “Thank you.”

---

“Gone?” Alyara asked. “What do you mean gone?”

“Toruk Makto has left,” her mother said. “Flew over the Eastern Sea with his family to keep them safe.”

“Why?”

“Because, as I have been told, he is being hunted by false Na’vi who fight for the enemy. He has left to protect his family.” Mother had brought her into their family marui with news. “The new Omatikaya Olo’eyktan, Tarsem, will continue to fight, as will we. But Toruk Makto and his family have left the fight.”

“It was already war,” Alyara murmured, “how is it any more dangerous with a few Na’vi betrayers fighting against them.”

“Not betrayers, Alyara,” Father said from behind. “Sky-people who died in the battle your mother and I fought before you were born, returned in half-Na’vi bodies. Not dreamwalkers, creatures that live entirely in that false body.”

“One of them was the demon that led the attack on the Omatikaya Tree of Souls,” Mother continued. “It knows Toruk Makto, and it can slip under Eywa’s guard in its new body. It is as dangerous a weapon as the sky-people have at their disposal. The path ahead will be all the more difficult to walk now, and dangerous too, but we will walk it because we must.”

Alyara forced herself to nod, despite the swelling confusion. He would leave so easily? In the midst of a fight to protect Eywa? She could hardly believe it. They had all just . . . left. Neteyam, she thought sadly. She had known him since they were both so very young, and now he had left.

They had promised to see each other again when he had left after the success of the attack on that human base. What was there to do with that promise now? Was it just lost?

“We understand you and Neteyam were . . . close,” Mother said carefully. “But, you must keep your focus ahead. If you wish for normalcy to resume, for peace to return, we must win this fight.”

“Will we fight more alongside the Omatikaya?”

“We will, and soon. The Omatikaya have been attacking supply chains for the sky-people’s more outlying sites. As they do so, it will make those sites less sustainable, more vulnerable.”

“These outlying sites, what do they do?”

“Taking resources from Eywa’eveng, polluting the air and the ground,” Father said. “There is a long list of terrible things.”

“Good,” Alyara said, desperate to do all she could to bring the war to an end. “When do we start?”

Chapter 20: Irayo

Chapter Text

The direhorse’s every step jolted Jace’s entire body. But, he held his silence every time, keeping his eyes pointed down at his bandaged hands and his lips firmly shut. The horror hadn’t subsided yet, it was still as bone-chilling as the moment he’d returned from filling his water bottle to find his pistol pilfered and a pair of yellow eyes staring at him from the bushes.

He could still feel the fingers grasping at his ankle and yanking him down to the floor, he could still feel each and every agonizing impact as he’d fallen, and the dagger cutting into the skin of his palms as he fought to keep it from plunging into his chest. And the realisation that he recognised the face of the Na’vi who attacked him; he’d not forgotten that either. Hope and horror, half and half.

And the look on her face, fury, shock, even betrayal. And then she had spoken, with every same terrible emotion flooding through the notes of its voice. Somehow Jace had kept his own life, in spite of the second Na’vi woman arriving and so plainly demanding his death.

Jace looked up for just a moment. Swallowing silently and wishing desperately that he could have drunk from the water he’d collected before he had been apprehended. That Na’vi was just ahead, riding silently along the way to the Tawkami clan’s village. Jace looked back down, for a moment wishing that Colton’s bullet had killed him, for there was not so much as a hope in hell that he would make it out alive. And then, he silently berated himself.

Your promise, he thought, steeling himself. Remember your promise.

But how was he to survive? Prisoner to someone who held him responsible for the deaths of so many, lost in a world so hostile that even the air itself would kill him in mere minutes. To the humans . . . Jace didn’t know. Was he marked as killed in action, or as executed for insubordination?

f*ck, he thought. If he had just shot the c*nt, none of it would have happened, he could have emptied the man’s magazine into the air, set the entire village on alert and ran. Maybe they would have had a chance . . . maybe not.

But what then?

The moment Gwyne had died, everything had been doomed, and Jace had been stupid enough to walk himself right onto the plank without question, and then the ground had fallen away beneath his feet, leaving him to swim with the sharks.

It was his fault. He hadn’t shot a bullet, but all the blood was on his hands as a result. If he had just kept Gwyne alive . . . if the man hadn’t shoved him out of the arrow’s way none of it would have happened. Why? What had possessed him to do that? Why did he save Jace?

None of it made a modicum of sense. At every turn, he should’ve died, and here he was, his wrists bound and chafed, his chest heaving and stabbing, his hands, throat and shoulder throbbing with the open cuts, and a Na’vi’s hand tightly gripping the back of his collar, leaving only a consistent tightness around his throat, stinging at the wound, and making every breath laborious.

The other Na’vi, whose hair fell in beaded locs where the hair of the one he sat before fell mostly loose, spoke out in her tongue, and Jace tried to listen. “We are near the village. Stay here whilst I go in, I don’t think they’d appreciate its stench in their midst.”

He flinched at the insult, his senses still with him enough that he knew any rebuttal would get him nowhere but deeper in the mire . . . if that was even possible.

“Go,” the Na’vi behind him said. “I’ll wait here.”

Jace watched as the other direhorse disappeared off into the distant darkness staring hazily into the brush, seeing eyes where they weren’t. They all looked, and they all hated.

He was vaguely aware of the Na’vi behind him dismounting the direhorse, but the vagueness faded sharply as he felt her large hands seizing him under the armpits and lifting him up. He bit back the hiss of pain that threatened to escape him from the pressure put on his ribs and braced his legs to touch the ground.

Numbness threatened, but Jace managed to keep himself stood when he was set down, kicking his legs slightly to shake away the pins and needles, doing all he could to ignore the burning in his ankle.

He wasn’t stood for long, though. The Na’vi pressed a hand firmly to his shoulder and ordered, “Sit.”

Jace knew better than to do anything else, bending his knees and letting himself fall back into a seated position on the soft grass. The urge came to lie down and, after shooting a furtive glance at the Na’vi who was pacing around impatiently, no doubt awaiting the return of the other, he set his head down upon the grass. It was only then that he realised how tired he was; his eyelids grew heavy . . . too heavy. He forced himself to sit back up and stare off into the night, not entirely confident that, if he did fall asleep, he would wake up.

The other Na’vi came back astride their direhorse and said something too quietly for Jace to hear to the other. The Na’vi with the beaded locs’ eyes flickered down to him and he diverted his own, shrinking back. But it did nothing, he could feel her gaze in the prickling sensation on his skin just as he could feel the gaze of his captor upon him too. It had been curious once, he remembered, now it was hateful. They had been wide, and now they were only narrow.

The one without any braids besides those two that dangled before each of her ears stepped before him and, with both hands, gripped him beneath the armpits. He burned with humiliation as he was lifted, again, like a child and deposited on the direhorse’s back. But there was nothing to do, so he just stared furiously down. He set his tightly bound hands in front of him and closed his eyes praying without any hope for some upturn in fortune.

The ride was shorter than the first, with the direhorses coming to a stop at the base of a large, solitary marui, presumably just beyond the outskirts of the village. The Na’vi dismounted behind him and Jace, perhaps brazenly, swept his left leg over the direhorse’s back and slipped off it to land firmly on the ground, catching himself mostly on his right leg before setting down his left. The impact hurt, but no more than it did being hoisted up and down by his armpits and roughly deposited in the saddle or on the ground.

The Na’vi didn’t seem to appreciate the act, fixing him with a hiss and a glare before pushing him not all too gently in the way of the marui with a hand in the small of his back. Jace went with it, for there was nothing else to do, keeping his pace as fast as he could, slow as that was compared to those of the Na’vi and their much longer strides. Inside the marui a fire was crackling, giving off a comforting warmth and, within were two more Na’vi women, one clearly older than the other.

“Oel ngati kameie, Tsahìk Ni’vera,” the two Na’vi behind him said one after the other, gesturing to the older of the two, the tsahìk, clearly. Which meant the other Na’vi was the tsakarem.

“Oel ngati kameie, Shiala,” the tsahìk made a gesture to the mostly braidless Na’vi. “Oel ngati kameie, Zau’we,” she gestured to the one with locs.

Shiala, Zau’we, Jace repeated the names in his head, silently speaking them so as to remember. Ni’vera. The tsahìk. How useful all those books Kyra had forced him to read were turning out to be.

“So,” the tsahìk said, “this is the demon you captured?”

Demon. Jace flinched, as he always did at the word that had apparently become his name. Vrrtep.

“Yes,” the one named Shiala said, pushing Jace to stumble forth with a firm and open hand in the back.

The tsahìk swiftly approached and Jace’s eyes reflexively closed . . . nothing happened. He opened them again to find a pair of large, yellow eyes staring right into his own. The tsahìk had sunk down to crouch at an eye level with him and was just watching, a very cautious curiosity painted on her face.

“You say it speaks the language?” the tsahìk asked looking up to Shiala and Zau’we behind him.

“Not well,” the one named Zau’we said scornfully.

“It will do.” The tsahìk waved a hand. “You two may go to the village and rest, I will see to it. ”

The tsahìk looked intently at him as he heard the fading shuffle of footsteps behind him and stepped around behind him. She reached a hand and placed it gently, but firmly on his back and guided him closer to the fire. It was a soft touch, but, all the same, it hurt and Jace sucked in the air between his teeth in a faint hiss.

The tsahìk, Ni’vera, noticing his quiet exclamation, co*cked her head at him and gestured for him to sit. “Sa’kara,” she said glancing back to her tsakarem and nodding to Jace as he complied hesitantly with the order. The tsakarem, who he could only be named Sa’kara, walked cautiously forwards, drawing a knife.

Jace eyed it suspiciously, pushing with his feet to retreat a little.

“No,” the tsahìk said, stopping Jace’s retreat with a palm on his back. “She won’t hurt you. Just raise your arms.”

Jace did so, slowly and suspiciously, and the tsakarem grasped quickly at his wrists, brought the knife in between and cut through the rope that bound them together. As they fell away, the friction burned at him and he let out an involuntary gasp, but it felt better to have his hands free. He rubbed gingerly at the sores that had sprouted, looking up at the tsahìk and her tsahìk in-training, who looked right back.

The younger seemed almost fearful, ready to jump back from him at any moment, but the elder seemed calmer and more curious. It’s not as though there’s anything I can do, Jace thought sourly, glancing around.

“Are you thirsty?” the tsahìk asked.

“Yes,” he said without thought.

She reached behind her and passed to Jace a waterskin which he reached for and grasped. He just had to hope she wasn’t deceiving him, for taking a whiff of whatever was in the skin was not possible, lest he inhale the deadly excess of carbon dioxide and toxic hydrogen sulphide. He quickly lifted his exomask and drank from the skin that was, thankfully, filled with water until there was nothing left.

The tsahìk seemed amused enough as Jace pulled the mask back down over his face and sheepishly passed the waterskin back to her, keeping his eyes diverted from all of her but her face. Her eyes flitted down. “Your feet coverings, remove them.”

There was no choice but to comply, so Jace leaned forwards, holding back a wheeze of pain as his side complained bitterly at him, and undid the laces, removing the boots, and then the socks he wore beneath. He didn’t bother to look at the damage, he had been all too aware of the sensation of it swelling against his boots, he didn’t need to be any more so.

The pain was no less to bear as the tsahìk grasped, lifted and inspected his left ankle. Jace had to set his hands on the ground behind him to steady himself. She looked from one side to another, then dipped her finger in a clear gel and rubbed it over his ankle’s skin. It was cold, soothing, but the contact hurt terribly. Jace grew accustomed to just pressing shut his eyes and pretending nothing hurt . . . it almost worked.

“It is a twist,” the tsahìk said, “a bad one, but nothing more. Rest and it will heal itself in time.” Jace nodded his understanding, his eyes wandering lazily around. “When I touched your back, it hurt,” the tsahìk then asked, “did it not?”

Jace was silent for a moment. Why do you care? he wondered and wanted to say, but, instead, he bit that back and nodded.

“Can I look?”

Jace nodded again, almost immediately regretting it as he realised that meant shedding his clothes and armour, all that he had to his defence. But, he’d already assented, so he just swallowed back his change of heart and closed his eyes as the tsahìk worked silently at the clips to the modular vest he wore, working them loose and lifting the vest away to set on the ground. The short-sleeved shirt was more difficult. The tsahìk tried at the buttons, but her fingers were just a little too large and unpractised to undo the buttons.

“Let me,” Jace muttered quietly, to which the tsahìk removed her hands, backed away and watched.

He could also feel the tsakarem’s eyes watching him as he undid the buttons from top to bottom and pulled off the shirt. Then, all that remained was the body armour. Looking down, Jace could see the little glancing mark where the bullet had landed just beneath his left arm etched its mark into it.

After taking a deep, preparatory breath, Jace lifted away his exomask and placed it on the floor beside him, the little solar panels on the top of its frame glinting in the little, flickering rays of light that fell upon it from the fire. All of a sudden, he realised his luck. Solar-powered recharging batteries. The standard exopacks had no such feature and, without a battery replacement ready, would run dry of charge in a week or so; his needed only the right amount of sunlight and its filter rinsed every week or so and it would serve him indefinitely.

Thank God for technology, he thought, a bitter gratefulness working in him as he glanced down at the only think that kept him from breathing in the Pandoran air’s deadly toxins.

He then started working to remove the armour from over his head. It was a tedious enough job without the threat of not being able to breathe, but his side began to scream vehemently out at him as he tried to free himself. Worse, the tight-fitting body armour was barely budging. For a moment Jace felt he was about to start panicking, but a second set of hands joined his, lifting the armour up and off him.

Jace quickly grasped for his exomask and slipped it back over his face. He waited for the hiss of the depressurisation to finish and took in a long, deep breath. All the while, the tsahìk just watched curiously, as though Jace was some animal in a zoo. It felt odd, better than feeling the hateful weight of murderous glares, but odd.

“Tsk,” said the tsahìk, looking down at Jace’s torso.

He hadn’t seen it yet, whatever mark there was on his side. He almost didn’t want to, but he couldn’t stop himself from looking down. On his left side was a massive splotch of dark purple, surrounded by a wider spread of red. Jace winced just to look at it. Better than a bullet hole, he told himself, but he didn't feel any such confidence. Dried blood caked his skin from various cuts and scrapes, some from scrapes earned in the fall halfway down the cliff, some from the Na’vi’s knife, all over his upper body.

Jace had never before felt so vulnerable as he did then, the wind whispered its cold kiss upon his skin. He could feel their eyes upon him, bruised and bloodied as he was, and raised his arms to cross his torso, knowing how little it shielded him.

His dog tag clinked against his chest, scattering the fire’s light throughout the marui. It seemed to have caught the tsahìk’s eyes, for she pointed and asked, “What is that? Some part of your culture?”

“No,” Jace murmured, “not culture. All . . . all warriors wear them. It says who I am so . . . so, if I die, they can recognise me as me even if I . . . even if die in a way that means I can’t be recognised.” He gestured to his face.

The tsahìk nodded her understanding, beckoned to her tsakarem, who stepped slowly forth and crouched close to Jace, inspecting his face, and then his wound. “Feel it,” she said to Sa’kara, “it will not be so different to our own, I don’t think.” The tsahìk gestured with an open hand towards Jace and he sucked in a breath, turning his eyes from her to the tsakarem.

She moved slowly closer, looking uncertainly at Jace as she hovered a hand over the skin of his torso, and said quietly, “Can I?”

He considered the Na’vi girl for a moment. She seemed almost more scared than him, which, he supposed, there was plenty precedent for. “Yes,” he said quietly, giving a little nod.

The tsakarem, Sa’kara, pressed a gentle palm onto the bruising. Gentle as she certainly tried to be, it felt like hundred daggers being driven into his flesh and bone all over again. But, he kept his reaction to a sharp intake of breath and locked his jaw as the Na’vi girl felt tentatively around the wound, muttering something not quite silently as she did, but too low for him to make out what it was. Afterwards, her hands gently pressed around the rest of his torso, testing.

“Breathe in,” she told him, “slowly.”

Jace did as he was asked, drawing in a long, slow breath as the tsakarem’s hand felt the rise and fall of his chest. It hurt.

“And out.”

He let go all the air with the same slow pace. It hurt more.

“Three,” she said, retracting her hand into her lap and looking back to the tsahìk. “Three breaks on the left, thin fractures, I think. And some bruising on the ribs to the right side too. No great impact on his breathing, though it will hurt him.”

Sounds about right, Jace thought. With the bullet, the fall and everything else besides, he was surprised it wasn’t worse.

“Just how did you do that?” Ni’vera asked.

“I don’t think I speak well enough to explain,” Jace said slowly, a moment’s pause between each word as he sought the next, infinitely glad for Kyra’s lessons and his time with the language textbook.

“You have done well enough so far,” the tsahìk looked at him, her lips curling just a little. “Try.”

Why the hell is she smiling at me? She should want me dead like the rest, or, at least, be wary of me like the tsakarem. But it was only a look of curiosity in the tsahìk’s eyes. He voiced the confusion. “Why do you care?” he asked quietly. “Why do you not hate me? Am I not a demon?”

The tsahìk co*cked her head. “I pressed Zau’we for every detail before I decided to see you. One detail she gave me was that you said you were innocent.” She paused. “Of course, it might be a lie, spoken to save your own life. But, I will trust your word until I have reason not to.” She gazed down at Jace and smiled again. “After all, what reason could you possibly have to lie?”

It was a joke, Jace knew it by her tone, an attempt to ease his nerves, but it sent a cold chill running down his spine. He had every reason to lie, and they all knew it, so who amongst them would ever trust his word? “I-I don’t know where to start.”

“Take your time, it is only one night’s sleep we will miss.”

With a shrug, Jace started a recounting of all that he thought was relevant, starting with Gwyne and Colton and the disagreement he’d had with the latter. It took him painfully long, as he searched for alternatives to the technical English terms that certainly had no translations in the native tongue.

It was with poison on his tongue that he spoke of Angus Colton, explaining: “He said you were dangerous, and that if I saw another Na’vi I was to kill on sight.”

“And what did you tell him?” Ni’vera asked.

“No.”

“And how did this . . . this Colton react to that.”

“To make a long story a short story, he shot me.”

The tsahìk’s eyes widened. “That would be the cause of your injury?”

“Yes. Mostly.”

“I’ve treated wounds cause by your . . . your . . . what do you call them?”

It took Jace a moment to find the word in his own tongue, so heavily had he leaned into using the Na’vi language. Eventually, he found it. “Guns?”

“Yes, your guns. They cut through skin and flesh with devastating effect. Why not yours?”

Jace pointed to his armour suit on the floor and the tsakarem lifted it up and observed it curiously, fingering at the score mark. “It hardens when something fast-moving touches it.”

“Spreading the impact across a wider area,” the tsakarem said, pressing a hand against the armour. “Bruises and breaks in place of a cut.”

“Yes,” Jace confirmed quietly.

“So,” Ni’vera said, “how did it come about that this man did try, so clearly, to kill you?”

“The same way he killed so many of your people,” Jace breathed, realising it was a story he didn’t want to tell, not before one who would certainly have seen whatever carnage there had been left by the RDA.

The tsahìk raised a brow at that. “Go on,” she prompted.

Jace sucked in his breath and dropped his eyes, not wanting to see the reactions to any of the words he would speak. “We were guarding a supply transport, a day or two ago, and the . . . train,” he spoke the word in his own tongue, certain there wasn’t a Na’vi equivalent, “it was blocked by a tree that fell. As it was being taken away, we were attacked.”

“I have been told of this,” the tsahìk said.

Jace nodded. “A man called Gwyne, our leader, was killed. Colton became the leader when the attack ended and said . . . he said . . .” Jace sighed. How had he believed it? How in all the damned hells had he believed it? “. . . he said that the attackers had a camp, a base away from the village. I believed him. So, we went to where he said it was. I was alone with him at the waterfall, overlooking the village, and I looked down and . . .” Jace bowed his head in shame, wishing he could bury his face in his hands and hide away, “. . . I saw a child.”

“You realised his intention?” the tsakarem said.

“Too late,” he muttered bitterly. “I tried . . . I thought if I killed him . . . I don’t know,” he trailed off. “I tried to shoot him, but he already had his . . . his gun pointed. He wanted to kill your people, and he wanted to kill me. He shot me, and I fell.”

“Fell?” the tsahìk asked. “From the cliff’s top, you would surely have died. And we would’ve surely seen a sky-person lying in the village’s centre.”

“I landed on a ledge on the cliff, it wasn’t a far fall, but it . . .” he searched for the right words and found himself lacking, so he compromised at, “. . . it made me sleep.”

“And then you were found by Zau’we and Shiala?”

Jace nodded.

“And now, you are her captive.” The tsahìk considered him with those large, yellow eyes. “I do wonder. Shiala and Zau’we set out to kill any sky-people they found, knowing any that they did would have been involved in the desecration of their clan. Why, do you think, are you alive?”

“Because Shiala was the Na’vi I saw in the forest . . . before the ambush, before everything,” Jace admitted. A twisted grimace crossed his face then. “I don’t know if that makes it all worse or better for me.”

“You are alive. Is that not proof enough?”

But to what end? For how long? Jace remembered the hate in her voice when she had told him his life was not kept in mercy and shuddered at the thought of what that might mean.

“For better or worse,” the tsahìk continued, “you are alive. Now, to see to your wounds.” She hovered a hand over his left arm. “Lift your arm.” He did and she, as her tsakarem had done, tested the breaks and drew a pained hiss from him. “There is little to do for that besides let it heal itself. The cuts and bruises we can tend to. Sa’kara, a cloth and the dapophet gel, please.”

The tsakarem stood and went to rustle through a set of pouches on the floor, returning with a little pouch and a dampened cloth of some sort. The tsahìk briefly wiped away the muck and blood from his skin and then took the pouch from the tsakarem, into which she dipped her fingers. It was the same gel as Shiala had put on his palms, some medical miracle plant; he decided he’d have to ask Kyra what it was if he ever got the chance. He wouldn’t, but it was nice to imagine he wasn’t doomed.

“I’ll tend to his wrists,” the tsahìk said to the tsakarem, taking the pouch and dipping her own fingers into it. She gently took a hold of his hand and inspected the red sores that encircled both his wrists before rubbing the gel in. It felt cool, cold even, but the soothing feeling was immediate.

As she did Sa’kara tended to his torso, spreading the gel over his skin and, ever so gently, massaging it in. It hurt, but the cool, soothing sensation it brought drew a sigh of relief from him. Whatever it was, Jace was glad for it as the tsakarem tended to the bruises and cuts both on his arms and torso.

When he noticed that the bandages on his hand were being unwrapped, Jace consciously kept his hands open for the tsahìk. It felt wrong that he was being treated for his wounds instead of . . . it didn't bear thinking about. He just tried to hold still for them.

When she was done with his torso, the tsakarem turned her attention to the cuts on his collarbone and throat. His breath caught and held as she lifted his chin with one hand to reach the skin of his neck; when her fingers pressed to the cut, all he could feel was the dagger’s edge.

Hold still, he told himself when the shake crept into his body. You’re safe. They aren’t going to hurt you.

Yet, another voice whispered coldly at him, sending a shiver down his spine. They aren’t going to hurt you yet.

“The cut is deep here,” Ni’vera said, looking down at his hands and drawing Jace out of his fearful haze. He glanced to the wounds on his hands and saw angry red lines running down the width of both his palms. “But, it will heal without any effect on the use of your hands. This is from grabbing the blade, no?”

“It is,” Jace agreed quietly.

“It is the wound that saved your life, then. You should cherish it.” The tsahìk looked down at the cuts, murmuring, “At least she had the sense to clean the wounds before she bound them. Many would not have offered you such consideration.”

Jace cast his eyes down upon the wounds again. Whatever that gel had been, it had done its job well enough in that the wound barely stung anymore, reduced to a hot, throbbing sensation. The redness had receded from just about everywhere besides just encircling where the flesh was still open and exposed.

As he looked down, the comlink bracelet buzzed at him, once, twice. Two messages, he was two messages behind. He saw from the corner of his eyes the ears of the Na’vi twitching at the sound, and their eyes falling down to the black strap on his wrist, and Ami’s bracelet on the other.

“What is that?” he heard the tsahìk say, jabbing a finger at the black band which rested below where the chafing from the ropes was.

“It . . . it lets me talk to a friend . . . from far away.”

“A friend? One of the sky-people?”

“Not a warrior,” Jace explained quickly, “a . . .” he didn’t know the word, “. . . a learner. She taught me to speak Na’vi. She’s out on the Eastern Sea, learning.”

“Why does it make that sound?”

“Because she has just said something, and this lets me hear it and speak back when I want.”

“I don’t hear a voice,” the tsahìk said plainly.

“I have to press something to hear, so I can choose when to listen.”

“Then listen,” she prompted, seemingly curious again.

He cautiously pressed the button on the comlink bracelet and, after a moment of static which made both of the Na’vi flinch, Kyra’s voice jumped out. “Hey, Jace. So, there’s some stuff the RDA didn’t disclose about the marine biologist gig here before I came, that being that I have to watch them hunt and kill sentient creatures because old rich assholes want to live forever. I expect you missed your message yesterday because you’re on some mission. So, just stay safe and make sure to send one as soon as you can. Okay, kid. Kyra out.” The static came again and Jace frowned.

“What did she say?” the tsahìk asked.

“She . . .” Jace paused, glancing up at the Na’vi, “. . . she just told me to stay safe,” he said, deciding that whatever it was Kyra was talking about was not something he wanted to bring up with two Na’vi who were, he was completely aware, fully capable of killing him, as little as they’d shown any such intention. The tsahìk just nodded. “That was from the day before; there’s another message,” Jace said, and, after waiting for the tsahìk to nod, pressed the comlink’s button again.

“Kid, you’re scaring me. That’s two days without a message. Just tell me you’re not dead, or I will make good on my promise, I swear to God.”

“She sounds scared,” Sa’kara said. “Why?”

“Because I didn’t reply. We promised each other we’d talk once a day. And I also promised her I wouldn’t die or . . .”

“Or what?”

“. . . or she’d find my body and feed me to a . . . a palulukan,” Jace said, smiling weakly as he worried over his pronunciation of the beast’s native name.

“But you’d already be dead,” Sa’kara pointed out, “what does it matter? Do your kind have sacred burial practices?”

“Some do, some don’t. For me, no.”

“All the same,” the tsahìk said, “I presume you don’t want to be eaten by a palulukan, alive or dead.” Jace raised an eyebrow as she continued, “You said she speaks Na’vi; reply to her in our tongue so we know you will say nothing . . . dangerous.”

Jace nodded, slightly confused. He took a moment to think what to say, pressed the button on the comlink bracelet, lifted it to his mouth and started: “Kyra. If the RDA say I am dead, I’m not . . . yet. If they say I am a traitor, then I might be. I don’t know what story Colton is going to use, but it won’t be true.” He paused. “I am a captive of some Na’vi. Safe, for now, I think. I will tell you more another time. Please don’t do anything stupid for me. Jace, out.”

The tsahìk observed him for a moment, and her eyes flickered down to the bracelet. She held out a hand. “You will understand if I keep this whilst you are here. I will give it to you to use every day when it makes its . . . noise, but I will keep it the rest of the time.”

He couldn’t have expected any less. Jace pulled it off, the elastic stretching as it moved past his hand and jumping back to its resting state once it had come free. He placed it in her hand and, as he did, she grabbed hold of his right arm, turning it over and peering at Ami’s bracelet upon it. But she quickly released her hold of it without any word or question.

“You will stay here and rest until you are healed,” she eventually said. “It is safe from predators and all else.”

Jace had a hundred questions to ask as the tsahìk rose to her full height, followed by her tsakarem, but bit them all back. Seated on the floor, Jace was all too aware of how small and weak he was to them by comparison, even to the younger one, who seemed only a teenager and yet looked to be just over eight feet. He was still thirsty, but didn’t dare ask for more to drink; his stomach rumbled but he didn’t dare ask for a morsel to eat . . . sleep, that was what he needed.

“Don’t go anywhere,” Ni’vera warned him. “You would make easy prey for most animals here on Eywa’eveng, but, in here, you will not be troubled. If you wish to try walking on your ankle, stay very close to the marui’s walls. There will, of course, be warriors stationed to make sure you do nothing you shouldn’t and that you are not harmed.”

Irayo, Jace thought, thank you. He had said it to Shiala, but she had spat it back at him with venom on her tongue. He feared the same here, but feared more making a worse impression of himself. As she turned to leave, he asked, “Can I say thank you?”

The tsahìk and tsakarem turned, amusem*nt on the one’s face and surprise upon the other’s. “You know the words,” Ni’vera said.

“Irayo,” he said, bowing his head in what he hoped was a universal gesture of respect, regardless of species and the lightyears between their worlds.

Ni’vera dipped her head in return and, after a curious look his way, so too did Sa’kara.

And, he was left alone; bruised, bloodied and broken, but somehow alive . . . for the moment.

---

Shiala and Zau’we trailed the slow path back to the Tawkami village from the marui at its outskirts, passing a tall warrior armed with a spear and a bow who, Shiala surmised, was to guard the demon.

She looked down to her hands, and saw that there was still blood upon her skin, dried and stuck to her . . . the demon’s blood. A grimace twisted her face and she made for a stream she had seen on the way to that marui, washing it away, as Zau’we did the same.

“I think it would be easier if they just trussed it up like a yerik to be turned over a flame,” Zau’we said absently as they wandered away from the stream back along the path to the village. “It is a waste of energy to watch it over.”

“It is a waste of energy to give it anything,” Shiala muttered. “But, if it can bring my vengeance closer, I suppose I can stomach that waste.”

“Va’se tìrey. I have never seen a life debt claimed before, only ever in the stories the elders would tell.”

“It is the only way to keep the rest of the clan from tearing and cutting it apart the moment they learn of its presence, if they do.” Shiala was only half-aware of the weight of the right she had called for her own, but she was fully aware of that fact. “You told Ni’vera?”

“She knows,” Zau’we replied. “She said no-one would dispute it except perhaps to claim its life for their own . . . but none will. If it does come to it, I will back your claim.”

“Thank you,” Shiala murmured.

Zau’we’s pace picked up a little. “Come, I can already smell a stew upon the cookfires, you are hungry, are you not?”

Shiala’s stomach rumbled at the mere mention of food. She gave a nod and sped up to match her friend’s pace. Through the heavy brush, they followed the trail until it led them right into the village, passing by marui after marui until the great one in the centre came into sight, and from within came the light of a great fire and the wafting scent of meat and spice.

They found a place to seat themselves and gorged themselves, making up for missed meals with every quick and hungry spoonful of it, hot and delicious. It was not quite so brilliant as the food Shiala cooked for herself, or that her mother had cooked, but she had no heart nor mind to complain.

“Shiala,” a voice hissed, Akal, a young teen, fourteen, maybe fifteen years old. “Is it true? Sekey said you had a demon bound and in your possession. Do you?”

Shiala sighed. “I do.”

Akal grinned. “Vengeance.” Shiala saw the fire in his eyes, and knew she had no choice but to smother it.

“Not this one.”

“Not- Why?”

“Its life belongs to me.”

Akal scoffed. “Surely you can allow me one cut before you kill it, for my grandfather?”

“This one, she needs alive,” Zau’we cut in.

That brought a hiss from Akal. “Alive?”

“For the time.”

He shook his head. “Its life belongs to all Kekunan, its life is all of ours to take from it.”

“Not this one,” Shiala growled. “I have claimed va’se tìrey over it . . . until its debt is paid, its life is mine.”

The boy had an insolent scowl on his face. “The debt to pay is its life. Death for death, blood for blood . . . surely you see this?”

“It will die,” Shiala said coldly, unwilling to sour her mood any further with the discussion, “by my hand, once it has given me what I want. The claim is made, dispute it if you wish, I will win. Until then, if you want vengeance, seek a demon of your own to kill. I will not begrudge you that.”

The boy gave a stiff nod and shuffled sullenly away.

“Children,” Zau’we muttered. “Though I do understand the sentiment. If it would not deprive you of this path you seek to tread, I would happily drive a blade through its chest.”

“As would I,” Shiala agreed. “But, it knows the demon responsible and can show me which it is. For that, its black heart needs to beat for just a little longer.”

“Until the moment its use is done.”

“Until the moment its use is done.”

Chapter 21: Hunter

Chapter Text

It was only when Shiala had laid her head down upon a bedroll to rest that she realised just how long she had gone without sleep. Two days, almost. Certainly longer than was healthy. The moment that wave of exhaustion came, she didn’t even have to quell her discomfort at letting the demon out of her sight, she was knocked out within mere moments.

She woke up, the day’s first light just barely starting to shine, every bit of anxiety immediately biting back at her.

The demon, she thought. What if it ran away?

The tsahìk, Ni’vera, had promised before sending Shiala and Zau’we off that it wouldn’t leave, so they must’ve restrained it in some way. Anxiety gnawed at her as she imagined it sneaking its way into the village and . . .

No, it can’t. She had its weapon still. She reached into the odd, fabric container she had taken from it and her hand immediately fell upon the cold metal of the weapon and she breathed a sigh of relief.

But, she still wanted to be certain, so, she rose to her feet and stepped as silently as she could manage from the great communal marui which was hosting most of the Kekunan survivors. Once outside, she took a breath of the forest air and turned for the village’s southern edge where that outlying marui had been.

It was not difficult to find, she had only to search for the demon’s scent and then follow where it led. And there the marui was, just beyond but also just within the village confines, where those who wished to ignore it could, but those that didn’t could access it so easily. A warrior was prowling the periphery, a bow in his hand, keeping the demon where it was . . . she had forgotten about that detail.

Inside of it, there was a shuffling sound and, with a brow raised and her lips ready to peel back into a snarl, Shiala peered round the fabric of its wall to look in. The demon was there, seated side-on to her a waterskin at its side. It seemed to be fiddling with the bottom of the visor it wore, but she wasn’t quite sure just what it was doing until it took a deep and audible breath and lifted the visor away.

What is it doing? Is it dying on purpose? She snarled and readied herself to force the thing back onto the demon’s face. No, only I decide when it dies.

But, as she watched, it removed something from the base of the mask and began to pour water gently onto and through it. It then shook whatever it was, sending little droplets of water everywhere, and put it back into the mask with a little, audible click. And it returned the mask to its face and breathed again.

Odd, she thought. Why would it do that?

She watched for a little longer, but it only laid itself back down and entered a stillness that bespoke an attempt at sleep, though the little rises and falls of its chest never seemed to find a proper rhythm.

Her anxiety lost, Shiala, turned away and started to walk slowly back to the village, unsure. Exactly what the source of her confusion was, she didn’t know, but it was there, just distant enough that she couldn’t dislodge it.

There was a rustling ahead and, from the bushes walked Ni’vera and her tsakarem. Shiala quickly brought a finger to her forehead and offered the customary gesture of respect, extending it to the tsakarem too. “Oel ngati kameie, Ni’vera, Sa’kara,” she said.

They returned the greeting, the tsahìk raising a questioning brow, but maintaining the look of calm composure on her face. “Shiala, it is early.”

“I was just making sure it hadn’t run,” she quickly explained.

“What would you have done if he had?” the tsahìk questioned.

Hurt it, she thought, enough that it wouldn’t try again . . . or couldn’t, but she didn’t speak such words. “Given chase,” she decided to say.

“It wouldn’t have been difficult I don’t think,” Ni’vera said, gesturing for her tsakarem to go on ahead without her, “three broken ribs, many more bruised and a twisted ankle would slow one down considerably.”

Three? I didn’t kick it that hard, did I?

“He had quite a story to tell,” the tsahìk said quietly, placing a hand on Shiala’s shoulder. “Perhaps it might do you some good to hear it.”

“I don’t want to hear any more words out of its mouth than I must,” Shiala said firmly. “I only want it to point me to the demon who ordered the massacre of my people without sneaking back to them.” She paused, realising just how unformulated her plan was. “I’ll take it with me to the Omatikaya and Toruk Makto. If any clan will be able to give me my chance at vengeance, it will be them.”

“You will have to wait,” Ni’vera said.

“Wait?”

“Until his wounds are healed enough to travel. His life may be yours to do with as you please, but it is my duty to see to the health of all people that I can.”

Shiala snorted. “You have empathy for it?”

“He, Shiala,” Ni’vera said quietly, “a sky-person is still a person, no matter the crimes that they or their ilk commit. His life is yours to do with as you see fit, but only once he is healed enough to walk and move without impairment. And judgement upon that matter is mine.”

What lies could it have told her to make her so considerate? Shiala wondered as she bit back a reply and bowed her head deferentially. After all, she was patient. “How long will that be?”

“Not long, so long as he rests and eats well.” Ni’vera raised a basket of various fruits for Shiala to inspect. “I know some of our foods are poisonous to them, but I don’t know which. I only hope he does.”

Shiala just about stopped a grin from breaking onto her face at the thought of the demon surviving her attack only to fall ill and die at the hands of a poorly chosen fruit. But it would mean she had wasted both time, energy and a healthy dose of dapophet gel on it – which she had needed to go foraging to replenish – and that was not so amusing a thought.

“I will watch, I don’t want i-“ she paused and considered her wording, “I don’t want him dying before he has given me what I need.”

“Then come,” Ni’vera said, walking past Shiala towards the marui where the demon was.

Shiala watched her go for a moment, shrugged and followed. I suppose I should get used to its stench, she thought; though, in truth, that of the demon’s was not all too different from that of most animals, even a little less noticeable amidst the pantheon of interweaving scents and smells that cross-hatched their way through the forest.

The demon was sat up side-on to the entrance of the marui. The tsakarem, Sa’kara, was passing it a skin of water, which it took, uttering a mispronounced word of thanks. As it had earlier, it took a deep breath and lifted its mask up and swallowed down the water. As it pulled the visor back over its face it held the waterskin out for Sa’kara to take.

“How does your side feel?” she asked it.

“Sore,” it replied, “but better.” It looked up to Ni’vera, but she couldn’t quite see the look on its face thanks to the light reflecting off its visor, but it sounded calm enough.

“We brought food,” Ni’vera said, approaching from the entrance where Shiala lingered.

It turned its head and Shiala saw its mismatched eyes fall upon her. It tensed up and she had to suppress a little, derisive laugh at the sight of its fear. It looked away from her to Ni’vera and the basket she carried.

“Do you know what foods of ours you can eat?” asked Ni’vera.

“Yes,” it replied. “Some.”

“That is good.” Ni’vera set down the basket. “It would not do to have wasted dapophet gel on you just to accidentally poison you.”

The demon slowly picked through the various fruits that, in its hands, seemed all too large. It put aside a shell fruit and picked up a slice of ball fruit, inspecting it. “This is from rumaut?” it asked.

“Yes,” Sa’kara said.

“I can eat,” it set the fruit slice down, “the yovo fruit,” it pointed, “and shelter fruit,” it pointed again. “The rest either kill me or I don’t know if I can eat.” Its words were laced with a comical number of little mispronunciations, but it seemed to comprehend just about everything said to it well enough.

“Eat, then,” Ni’vera ordered it and it obliged, picking the slice of the ball fruit and lifting its mask to take a large bite. It chewed, swallowed and took another hungry bite before slipping its mask on and breathing. “I will look at your side now, if you would remove the garment.”

The sky-person nodded and, setting aside what remained of the fruit, it started to undo the little circular things that held its torso-covering fabric together. It shrugged the fabric, now split down the middle, from off its shoulders and showed a torso that, on one side, its left, was bruised a dark purple shade. There was bruising on its other side too, but not so much.

Shiala tried to recall the memory of kicking it, wondering which bruise she had caused. The right, she remembered. So, what caused the other? Not the fall from the tree, surely?

Ni’vera gently palmed the purple bruise and Shiala heard the demon sharply suck in its breath, but it held still under its examination, only quivering a little. Shiala watched impassively, wondering just how long she would have to wait for it to be healed.

“Shiala!” it was Zau’we’s voice from behind. She turned and saw her approaching the marui. “Na’vi from the Resistance have come.”

Shiala glanced back into the marui. It’d be there for a while, she reminded herself, there was nothing she’d miss. She stepped back into the open and followed Zau’we. “What are they here for?”

“Bringing aid, they say. But it is clear they want warriors to join them . . . that means us, Shiala.”

They were milling around the village, helping tend to the wounded. The first one Shiala saw was a man, wearing what looked like the sky-people’s vests for carrying things, and off it hung a great number of metal tags like the one the demon had hanging from his neck. It was certainly an intriguing sight.

Zau’we angled for him. “So’lek,” she said, “this is Shiala.”

“You are the other huntress?” he asked. “Who killed the RDA’s stragglers?”

“I am,” Shiala accepted.

So’lek bowed his head a little. “A most thrilling hunt, it is, when it is one fuelled by vengeance. And yet I hear you gave one the mercy of life.”

“It is not mercy,” Shiala said firmly. “The demon knows the name and face of the one responsible for the attack . . . and it claims not to have participated.”

“An easy lie to tell in fear of one’s life,” So’lek said. “But perhaps the truth. What do you think of what it says?”

“I don’t care what it says. I only need it to identify the one it says is responsible so I can kill them.” Shiala gazed down at all the metal tags hanging from its vest. Intrigued, she pointed and asked, “What are these?”

“Marks of my own quest for vengeance. Before the RDA returned to Eywa’eveng, I was lost; my clan had been so broken by the Battle for the Tree of Souls that its remaining members dissolved into other clans . . . and I went into solitude. I blamed every human for the losses I had suffered, even the ones allied with the Na’vi, and wanted no part in their peace. But I wouldn’t break it.” So’lek paused. “When the RDA did return, I rejoiced that I would have my chance at vengeance. I went out alone, waiting for small groups of soldiers to pass through so I could pick them off one by one. I took the tag of each demon I killed so I might revel longer in my victory, and now I wear them as a marker of each and every battle I have fought.”

“We should’ve done that,” Zau’we said grumpily.

“Two for you, one for me,” Shiala said slowly, “it isn’t quite so impressive.”

“You have two, Shiala,” Zau’we reminded her. “Just because you are keeping it alive to use, it doesn’t mean the life isn’t yours.”

She just nodded. “So’lek, I have my own direction I must go, so I cannot join your Resistance yet. But, until the demon heals from his wounds, I am free to hunt, if you would hunt.”

“My attentions have since been mostly refocused on attacking RDA bases and convoys,” So’lek said slowly. “But there are always roving squads of RDA soldiers that need taking out.”

“That sounds good,” Shiala said, and Zau’we nodded her agreement.

“I will see what comes up close to here and tell you. And Zau’we, we will speak more about you joining the Resistance.” So’lek considered them both. “You might soon consider finding new ikran,” he said.

Shiala had not even thought to grieve Keroxe, so deep had been her rage. “It is too soon,” she said slowly. “I will go by pa’li for now, or by foot.”

“Very well.” So’lek nodded his understanding. “You must know, the RDA will be bolder than ever now; we need to set fear of what we can do back into the sky-people so their warriors are reluctant to so much as risk facing us.”

“Sounds like fun,” Zau’we said, grinning, and Shiala couldn’t help but agree. Her hunt had been cut confusingly short, after all.

So’lek smiled and, from one of his vest’s compartments, grabbed a sky-person device. He spoke into it. “See what communications you can intercept for RDA activity near to the Tawkami Clan’s village,” he said.

“On it,” an oddly accented voice replied. It sounded odd in the same way the demon’s voice did.

“Is that . . .” Shiala started.

“. . . a human?” So’lek finished. “Yes. You must know we work alongside some in the Resistance.”

Zau’we gave a little hiss at that. “I’d hoped to avoid any I didn’t plan to kill.”

“I’m sure you will be able to. You needn’t stay at the base but for briefings,” So’lek assured her. He turned back to Shiala. “As to the human, her name is Priya and she is one of many who have chosen to right the wrongs they did in even coming here. They can be useful, humans, once you learn to tolerate them. But I have little care for them.”

Shiala nodded. “You make use of them?”

“Of their weapons, their technology, their ability to listen in to what the RDA plans. They help me take revenge for my lost clan, I help their resistance effort. It is mutually beneficial.”

Shiala thought of the demon whose life was hers. I suppose it is mutually beneficial, in the sense that it gets to live longer and I get my vengeance. It certainly couldn’t complain, she decided.

“So’lek,” the voice from the sky-person device called, “just intercepted a transmission, looks like there are going to be some rescue missions for the soldiers unaccounted for in the attack on the Kekunan.”

Shiala’s ears perked up, and Zau’we shifted excitedly beside her. “How soon?” So’lek asked.

“They’ll be there by the evening, a lot of them.”

“Thank you, Priya,” So’lek said into the device. He turned his eye back to Shiala and Zau’we. “So, how sated is your thirst for revenge?”

Chapter 22: Heartbeat

Chapter Text

“Every step you place, you must do so with the utmost care,” So’lek whispered. “One footfall placed a little too loudly could see a hundred bullets flying your way.”

Shiala nodded, peering down from the little crag she, Zau’we and So’lek were crouched upon. Down below there was a group of six demons, one caged up in some giant suit of armour that walked slowly and loudly around, its every step seeming to shake the earth beneath it.

“That,” Zau’we said, her eyes falling upon the same target, “what is it?”

“An AMP suit,” So’lek said, blending the Na’vi’s and demon’s tongues with what was a practiced ease. “I will take that out, it is built to face bows and arrows, though the right shot can kill the demon within.”

“We kill the others,” Shiala caught on.

“Yes. It will be difficult right now, for they have not split yet, but they will. Then, we follow and pick them off.”

“Slowly,” Zau’we said. “I want them to fear.”

“They do not need long to understand when something is not as they think it should be. Go too slow and they’ll catch you.”

Zau’we snorted. “Slow enough that one of them might catch me? Never.”

“Where should we wait?” Shiala asked.

“In the canopy,” So’lek replied, “where you can move fast. Fire an arrow and disappear just as the others look to where you once were.” He had his demon-weapon in his hand. “If we take this group out quickly and quietly enough, the others will be oblivious to it . . . for a time, perhaps long enough that we can fall upon them with the same element of surprise.”

“Then what are we watching and waiting for?” Shiala brought her bow into her hands, itching to get out there.

He chuckled. “That’s the spirit, young one.”

So’lek went off the closest so he could stalk the large AMP suit. It was an odd-sounding thing, but then again, so too was every demon-named thing. Shiala hung back a little, keeping her eyes set on the group of demons that were prowling so noisily through the brush.

She hoisted her way into the canopy and started running along the branches towards where the demons were, waiting for just one to step away from the rest.

Patience, she lectured herself, feeling an itching desire to just jump out and attack. She had practiced a most agonizing restraint with the demon she had chosen to keep alive; this was a different restraint, but difficult all the same. It will not be long.

She peered down, taking note of the demeanour of the demons, the almost casual way they walked as though it was their domain in which they stepped foot and not that of the Na’vi’s.

How they will come to regret that, Shiala thought. Or not, their deaths will come quickly, after all. A mercy they do not deserve.

She waited and watched and, eventually, the sky-people exchanged some words amongst themselves and began to fan out, just as So’lek had said. Shiala turned her focus to two that had come her way, walking right beneath her without so much as a clue that a Na’vi huntress was stalking their every move.

She moved silently, following them as they pushed through leaves and hopped over branches, talking to each other almost casually, as though they had no notion of what had happened so close to here at their own hands. It made her all the more determined to do as she intended.

She drew forth two arrows, resting one along her bow’s grip and knocking the other. She paused, hunting animals never needed this consideration. Shoot one and all around it would scatter away; the demons’ weaponry made them unique. Even if she killed one, the other could turn and kill her before her second arrow was knocked.

I have to be fast, faster than ever. Suddenly unsure, Shiala removed the arrow from its place pushing on the bowstring and practiced knocking it quickly. She could do it easily enough, she found, but all the same, it set a fast pace to the beating of her heart as she drew that first arrow again. One of the demons had walked a little further on; the other had lingered to crouch and inspect something through its glass visor.

Shiala decided on killing the one further off first, hoping the other might remain oblivious. It was a half-hope, but enough to be actionable. She calmed her breaths and drew back the bowstring, setting the arrow’s point upon the further demon.

It hissed through the air upon its release, burying itself in the demon’s back and knocking them from their feet. A loud yelp escaped it as it fell, alerting the other, whose head snapped up at the sound. Their whole body stiffened at the sight of the arrow protruding from their companion and they sprung to their feet as Shiala slotted another arrow into place and drew. The demon looked frantically around, raising its weapon, shouting.

Is it shouting at me? She peered down at it as it spun, looking everywhere but up, everywhere but where she was. Frantic, fearful, pathetic . . . and the greatest danger to Eywa that was or would ever be. How odd.

Shiala loosed the arrow. It was almost ridiculous to think that something so terrible could fall so easily.

Quickly and efficiently, Shiala dropped to the ground and pulled the blood-soaked arrows free from the demons they had killed. They did not seem dangerous then, small and crumpled on the ground, dead or soon to be, only wildly out of place. They were pathetic. It was a quicker and cleaner end than any of their kind deserved . . . their blood would bring predators, and their bodies would feed the cycle of energy that kept all things in balance.

In a way,she thought,dying is the best thing that they can do here. She gazed disdainfully upon them and quickly set off towards where So’lek and Zau’we had started their hunts and found the latter returning just as she did.

“No problems?” Zau’we asked.

“Two arrows fired,” Shiala replied, “two demons killed.”

“It took me three,” Zau’we admitted with a twisting scowl. “The second started moving erratically once it realised it was in danger, it threw off my aim.”

“So’lek went further north, did he not?” Shiala gestured in the direction.

“He did, but if anyone needs no help killing them, it’s him.” Zau’we turned in that direction. “Though, I suppose we could try and see if there is any help needed.”

There wasn’t. They found So’lek stood over the collapsed metal suit, which had a great spear right through its shattered front window. Another dead human was a short ways away, skewered by an arrow.

“I presume you didn’t need to use their weapons against them?” Shiala said.

“Why do that when I could do it in silence? The sky-people are presumptuous, they think themselves better than us, that we are some low savages. So, they underestimate us at every turn.”

Savage, Shiala thought. The word struck somewhere deep inside her, bringing forth a welling of anger like magma spilling from a volcano. We are savages? We, who maintain the balance of life, are savages to the demons that seek to destroy it? She paused, blood running hot. “I wasn’t sure I could hate them any more than I already did,” she said. “Are there more demons out here that we might kill?”

So’lek nodded, a smile on his face. “Plenty.”

---

Tsireya and Rotxo were walking them slowly through some breathing exercises meant to gradually greaten the capacity of their lungs and slow their hearts so they might dive longer and deeper. Kiri listened intently, keeping her inhalations and exhalations in rhythm with Tsireya’s. The days since her talk with the girl had certainly been better; Spider’s absence stung all the same, but Kiri had learned to lose herself in the beauty of the reef and in riding the ilu that they rode like the pa’li back home in the forest.

“Breathe in,” Tsireya said slowly as Kiri glanced to Rotxo and followed his lead, slowly drawing in breath. “And breathe out. Imagine flickering a flame. You must slow down your heartbeat.”

Lo’ak and Neteyam were doing as best they could to follow as well, but, Kiri noticed, Lo’ak was distracted, constantly glancing to Tsireya. It was not, she suspected, because he was trying to copy her motions, but because he simply couldn’t take his eyes off her. It was kind of adorable, she didn’t think she’d ever seen him so eager to submit to someone’s teaching in his life.

Even more amusingly, Tsireya leaned over to him, placing one hand over his heart and the other just over his stomach. It was a recipe for disaster. “Breathe in,” she said, and Lo’ak did. “Breathe from down here, and breathe out slowly.”

And Lo’ak’s gaze, which he had been keeping straight ahead dropped down to Tsireya. He did as was asked, but Kiri could see that whatever concentration he had mustered had been lost.

“Lo’ak,” Tsireya said, completely oblivious, “your heartbeat is fast.”

“Sorry,” he breathed.

“Try to focus.”

“Okay.”

Kiri knew there wasn’t a hope in hell that Lo’ak would be able to. A smile curled upon her lips as she watched it with some amusem*nt. And she didn’t seem to be the only one. Rotxo and Neteyam were audibly snigg*ring.

Kiri could only roll her eyes. They could at least make fun of him in silence, she thought. But, then again, where was the fun in that? She grasped a little pebble and threw it at Neteyam. It struck him square in the chest and his face straightened promptly but for the slight upside-down smile that remained etched on his lips.

“What?” he mouthed. “He’s hopelessly in love.”

“At least laugh about it when Tsireya isn’t here,” Kiri mouthed back, glaring at both Neteyam and Rotxo.

“Fine.”

Neteyam kept his promise up until the moment Tsireya and Rotxo went off to fulfil their other duties around the reef. But, the moment she was out of earshot he put a hand on Lo’ak’s chest and imitated Tsireya’s soft tone. “Lo’ak, your heartbeat is fast.”

“You shut up,” Lo’ak muttered as Neteyam chuckled. “Bro, I’m serious, why were you-“

“Come on, you weren’t helping yourself one bit,” Neteyam continued.

Lo’ak looked desperately to Kiri for help but she just shrugged. “Maybe if you weren’t shooting looks at her every two seconds it might’ve helped.” She let herself smile. “But you were gone the moment she put her hands on you.”

“I swear,” Neteyam laughed, “I could hear your little heart going, thump, thump, thump, bro.”

Lo’ak’s skin was flushed with his embarrassment, but Kiri could only chuckle, remembering every time he had teased her about anything. Especially that little stunt about Norm and her mom.

“Just keep your giggling away from her,” he mumbled.

“Aww, are you scared?” Neteyam teased.

Lo’ak glared at him. “That you’ll say something stupid? I’m not scared, bro, I’m certain.”

“I won’t,” Kiri promised, feeling bad enough for Lo’ak to offer that assurance.

“If it means this much to you,” Neteyam eventually composed himself enough to say, “I’ll let you spill your own secrets. Not that they are all that secret with how obvious you’re being. You’re just lucky she is utterly oblivious to it.”

Lo’ak slipped away, muttering lowly as he called for an ilu. Kiri was impressed with the sound he made, it sounded almost comparable to those of the Metkayina. It made sense, he had quickly become the most eager learner of them all; even more so than little Tuk, which was quite the achievement for anyone, for Lo’ak no less.

“We shouldn’t tease him,” she said quietly, watching him disappear underwater.

“No,” Neteyam agreed. “But if not us, then who? As his brother and sister, it is our sworn duty to tease him at every opportunity, just as he does to us.”

“All the time,” Kiri agreed. “As long as you keep your promise.”

“I will. I mean, he’ll have to come clean about it soon to her. Rotxo definitely knows and I get the feeling that Aonung suspects something.”

“Aonung is the problem,” Kiri muttered.

“He’s not so bad on his own, or with Rotxo. It’s just those other kids.”

“Pocket-sized Rotxo, you mean?”

Neteyam laughed out loud, catching the attention of a nearby fisherman who was drifting along the water’s surface on his ilu. “Yeah,” he coughed, “that guy, I think.” He paused. “Well, I don’t think we could’ve expected a warm welcome from everyone.”

“I suppose not. Tsireya and Rotxo have been nice, though.” Kiri sighed, the memories flickering through her mind. “Ronal . . .”

“It was wrong of her to call you demon-blood,” Neteyam said quietly. “I’m sorry I didn’t say something about it.”

“I’m glad you didn’t. There’s a time and a place to speak up, brother, and that wasn’t it.” She looked down at her four-fingered hand, a mark and feature of humanity, something that was so rightfully reviled by Na’vi people. She protectively wrapped her other hand around the pinkie finger that set her apart from everyone, trying to pretend it didn’t exist.

“I am as human as you are, Kiri,” Neteyam said softly, holding a hand over her own. “It doesn’t matter how many fingers I have. My dad was a human who became Na’vi, your mother would have walked the same path had Eywa not called her to be with her. There shouldn’t be any shame in that.”

“I know,” she murmured. “I just wish I was . . . normal.”

Neteyam sighed. “Was Dad a demon?” he asked Kiri.

“No.”

“Was your mom?”

“No.”

“Then you are not a demon-blood, and neither am I.” He squeezed her hand. “I only ever think of calling the humans who fight to destroy Pandora demons. It is not a matter of blood or species, it is a matter of character . . . of who someone is, not what they are.”

Kiri nodded mutely.

“Is Norm a demon? Max? Are any of the humans who chose to help us fight the RDA? Is Spider a demon?”

Kiri’s ears twitched and flattened against her skull. “No,” she said with a certainty, that bleed in her heart reopening.

“You miss him?”

She nodded. “Every second of every day.”

“He’s going to be okay. Whatever they try to throw at him, he’ll hold fast.” When Kiri said nothing, Neteyam made a little hiss of frustration. “I should’ve spoken up then too. Maybe if I-“

“No, Teyam,” Kiri murmured. “Nothing any of us said could’ve changed anything. They were never going to get him. He was never their son . . . he wanted to be that so, so much, but he never was.” The guilt and regret started to well in her stomach, a cold, unshakeable sickness. “I was taken in and loved and raised, and he spent his entire life chasing what I had. He hardly said a word about it, but I knew and I never did anything besides offer empty consolations.”

A sadness had crossed her brother’s face when Kiri raised her eyes to look. “He deserves to be Na’vi,” Neteyam said slowly. “He deserves to be able to smell the air, to eat all the foods, to live as one of us in body as well as in spirit. He deserves to live as freely as we do.”

“He always hated that he was human . . . worse, that he was the son of that one. The one that stole him from us.”

“Quaritch,” Neteyam said. “I couldn’t imagine having so terrible a man as a father; to share that demon’s blood, it must be horrible.”

“It was. Mom only ever saw that part of him . . . his blood. She hated him for it.”

“She didn’t hate him. She just-”

“-never wanted him around us, never wanted to look upon his face because she knew she would only see the look of his father.”

“Mom lost everything to the RDA.”

“And Spider lost everything to us,” Kiri said quietly. “His mom and dad both died at the hands of Na’vi, and yet he chose to live among us, to hold our ways as his own, to do everything as we do.” She let herself remember his smile, his voice, the stripes she painted on his skin so that he could feel like he was one of them. They were hazy already, but there enough that she felt some warmth coming from them.

“When we’re allowed to go to the Metkayina spirit tree, we can go to our memories with him,” Neteyam promised.

“I’d rather be able to make more,” Kiri could only say. She then realised how unappreciative she sounded. “But yes, I’d like that too.”

Neteyam offered a soft smile. “We’ll see him soon again, Kiri, I promise. And I mean see him.”

She allowed herself to believe him. In spite of the fear that gnawed so strongly at her, Kiri chose to believe he would break free from the RDA and find her. When he can, she told herself, he will.

She let her hope turn to a steely certainty.

He will.

---

“You are awake?” the voice came as he lay exhausted but restless, awaiting the sleep that seemed as though it would never come, dark as the night was.

Jace rolled over and saw, in the entryway of the marui, the tsakarem, Sa’kara. She was more of a silhouette against the light of Polyphemus, but he knew it was her from her smaller stature alone. Sitting himself up, he said, “Yes.”

The young Na’vi crossed the threshold, stepping lightly towards him, a basket in her arms. She set it down just before him as he couldn’t help but glance anxiously up at her. What was it she wanted? Jace was simultaneously conscious of the fact she had seemed more afraid of him the previous day and that, regardless of that, she was still a Na’vi, capable of overpowering him easily . . . and with a knife hanging at her left hip.

Sa’kara crouched before him. “Your torso cloth,” she said, “remove it.”

There was no room for any dispute, so Jace did as he was bid, slowly and in spite of the immediate vulnerability he felt when the wind brushed his skin.

“I have ointments for the cuts,” she said quietly, “and new bandages for your hands.”

“Thank you,” he said quietly, straightening his posture as the girl shuffled a little closer and unwrapped the bandages around his palms.

She did not respond but to take a cold, wet cloth to his upper body, wiping over the little cuts and scrapes, of which it seemed there were a good many more than he had first thought. A lot were on his back, courtesy of his fall, or so he presumed.

The little twitches and jabs of pain and discomfort poked at him, but Jace kept himself steady as she worked, all too conscious of the risk he faced if he pissed so much as one of them off . . . well, if he did so any more than he already had, and that seemed utterly impossible.

“I’m going to apply the ointment to the scrapes on your back first,” the tsakarem said carefully. “Then your hands and your front. It will sting a little, so don’t . . . react unreasonably.”

Sa’kara didn’t wait for so much as a nodded response before setting to her task, and Jace immediately felt the hot, biting sensation digging into his back. His entire body tensed and a slow hiss escaped through clenched teeth, but nothing more, though a slew of violent curses flashed through his mind.

And the tsakarem continued at her work, dabbing whatever that ointment was onto his back and moving from abrasion to abrasion. Jace became somewhat used to the stinging, in that a shudder soon became the only outward reaction he gave.

And then it was done, and she was asking, “Open your hands.”

Gingerly, he complied, refusing to look down, knowing the pain he saw he would surely feel. She grabbed a hold of his left hand, which he kept the palm of open as wide as he could. How deep that blade had cut, he still wasn’t sure, at the least he didn’t think his movement of either hand was impaired much . . . he hoped not; here, he doubted there was so much as a shadow of a chance of survival if that fate befell him.

“f*ck,” the pained exclamation whispered past his lips as Sa’kara dabbed that same ointment onto his palm. It was worse, but for the best . . . or so he could only hope. The Na’vi weren’t cruel, at least he prayed they weren’t.

“Calm,” the girl murmured, turning her attention to the other palm. “It stops the wounds from festering.”

Jace had already surmised that, but he kept his response to a simple nod, holding shut his mouth as needles and daggers stabbed at his skin. There was a moment’s reprieve as Sa’kara rewrapped the bandages around his palms. And then her hands were upon his collarbone, working the ointment gently in, drawing a quiet hiss from Jace’s lips.

But it was not that which had his body rife with tension. “Raise your chin,” she said. Though it was not a commanding tone she used, it was an order, so Jace had no choice but to acquiesce. Though it seemed he wasn’t quick enough, for the girl’s hand pressed to the filter component at the base of the mask and forced his neck to be bared. “Stay still.”

“Yes.”

But the moment her hand pressed to the hollow of his throat, where that blade had left its mark, he shirked back from her and covered the spot with a protective hand. There was no thought or rationale in it, only instinct.

“I’m sorry,” her voice whispered through the cold air, “but you have to let me see to it.”

“I know,” Jace breathed. “I know.”

“Can you keep still?”

“I’ll try.”

Against every instinct, Jace raised his chin and bared his throat, shutting his eyes as he felt a gentle hand press there. But the gentleness was negligible to the sting of the ointment, and the power of his memories, so recent were they. But he kept himself as still as he could, shivering a little, but holding his place as a finger worked in the stinging, hopefully antiseptic, solution.

And it was done. The hand pulled away and Jace let his eyes open, watching the tsakarem as she reached back for her basket, returning a vial to it and taking another out, setting it on the ground.

“This is for washing your mouth and teeth,” she said. “Hold in your mouth mixed with water for a time, but do not swallow.”

Jace nodded. “Thank you.”

“It is nothing. Just basic necessities. It only took this long because Ni’vera needed to make sure they were safe for your use.”

Jace dipped his head again.

“Before go leave, there is something you should know.”

“What?”

“When Shiala took you for her hostage, she claimed an old right to mark you for her own. Va’se tìrey.”

Tìrey. It meant life, but he didn’t know the other world.

“You do not know what it means?”

“It is something, then life.”

“A payment owed.”

Debt . . . a life debt. “Va’se,” Jace murmured. “I understand.”

“Va’se tìrey. It is an old right across most clans, called when one person has committed an offense against another great enough that their life is deemed forfeit. But, instead, the claimant takes the offender’s life under their control, instead of depriving them of it. Shiala has taken your life for her own possession. And, until you are released by her, or until you die, your life belongs to her. Unless it is agreed that the claim is unjustified, which it will not be, your life is bound to her will.”

He took it in and mulled it over. So what did that make him? A thrall of some sort for every day until his last? It probably won’t be all that long.

“In part, I think she made the claim to stop any other vengeful Kekunan from trying to kill you, which, most likely, they would.”

A life debt . . . until I help her kill Colton? But what then? Will she still kill me when it is done? Or will I be freed? No, that’s stupid, why would she? He sighed and stared down at the floor. “Am I going to die?”

“We all die,” Sa’kara said, non-committal, uncomfortable even.

Jace wasn’t willing to accept that. He had to know. “Will she kill me?”

The Na’vi girl looked down at him with . . . was it pity? Maybe disgust, he didn’t know . . . he didn’t even want to. “It is possible,” she said quietly, “perhaps probable. Your life belongs to her . . . so it depends on her.”

To hope is to be disappointed . . . but I have no choice. He was barely even aware of the tsakarem standing up and lifting her basket away. He could only feel the cold wind rushing over his skin. My life is no longer my own.

Jace looked up, and he was alone, with that large vial of mouthwash there for his use.

I suppose I should.

So, he rose to his feet and took the vial into his right hand and a waterskin into his left and stepped out of the marui. It was a Na’vi woman who stood just outside and looked down at him with a cold, sceptical eye.

“Wash mouth,” he said shortly, and received a short nod in return.

Just how he was supposed to use it, he didn’t know. There was no label on the vial, surprisingly enough, so he just went with his gut, lifted his mask and took a mouthful of water and a small bit of the liquid in the vial. God, it was bitter. Jace’s immediate urge was to spit it out, but he was sick of the taste of sickness in his mouth, so he shifted his mask back into place and swilled the solution around, trying to ignore the taste as best he could as he counted his way up to a hundred.

On ninety-nine, he raised the mask, spat it all out, and rinsed his mouth with water, also spitting that to the ground. Finally, he allowed himself to drink from the water skin and trudge his way back to the marui. The guard’s eyes were on him as he passed her and, as he approached the entrance, she slipped away to make some long, looping perimeter check.

Inside he stepped and the back of his neck prickled.

“Demon,” the cold voice said.

Jace spun and saw, in the darkened corner of the marui, a pair of yellow eyes looking narrowly upon him. His heart was racing within a moment, and his legs were ready to run . . . but he was frozen. From a crouch, the Na’vi rose to its full, towering height and stepped into the dim light of Polyphemus’s reflective glow. He recognised the way the hair was styled in locs that almost all fell free but for a few bunched and knotted at the top.

“Zau’we,” he breathed.

She flashed forwards with a obvious drunken sway and grasped his shirt in her hands, hate written upon her face. “I do not want to hear you speak my name, demon.”

Jace flinched back as far as her hold on him allowed. Surely she wasn’t here to kill him? Not with Shiala’s claim of a life debt upon him . . . surely? But he couldn’t be certain, he opened his mouth to shout for the guard and-

“Do not speak a word,” Zau’we hissed, her knife drawn and pointed.

Jace shut his mouth and looked up at her, the beat of his heart thrumming so loud he was sure she could hear it. What does she want? Why is she here? The Na’vi’s eyes were upon him, cold and burning, daggers of ice digging into his skin. “Are you going to kill me” he dared to ask in a quiet voice.

“You are not mine to kill.”

“Then wh-“ A tight hand around his throat cut the words from his lips.

“Call it . . . curiosity,” Zau’we drawled, her grip slowly tightening. “I want to know how best to kill your kind; I want to know how to do it quickly, and how to do it slowly.”

Jace scrabbled at the hand, desperately trying to prise it free so he might breathe, but her hold was tight . . . too tight.

“Of course, this is one way,” she said, a dangerous glint in her teary eyes as the fingers closed tighter and tighter, choking him more and more as his lungs cried out in agony at their deprivation of air. Whatever she had been drinking, it had gotten to her, he saw it, looking into her eyes, all red and puffy, she was crying and had been for some time. “I want you to know, demon. You killed my brother. You killed my little brother. You killed Txunir. He was bright, he was kind, he was happy and . . . and you killed him.” Tighter, her hold became. “If your life did not belong to Shiala, I would kill you here and now, know that.”

It was only when tears came to his eyes and his lungs felt ready to give out that the hold was released. Jace dropped to one knee, drawing in long and deep breaths, his whole body shaking. He wanted to whisper an apology, but knew better in the moment. The pain in his chest eased a little with each, but around his neck it hurt more and more by the moment.

“What else?” the Na’vi murmured absently, lowering herself onto her haunches before him, having seemingly forgotten the words she had just spoken, and the accusation she had thrown into his face. She jabbed a finger into his chest and he realised dumbly that his shirt still lay discarded on the floor to his side. “The heart, easy to pierce with a blade, or an arrow.”

Jace consciously crossed his arms over his chest, a futile attempt to shield himself from her touch and her gaze . . . he hated them both but could stop neither. And, as he did, a hand darted up to his throat and pressed in right upon his pulse point. Reflex sent a hand up to push hers away, but the glint of a dagger stayed him in place.

“You are Shiala’s alone to kill,” Zau’we said dangerously, “but not hers alone to hurt. I can make this a much worse night for you if you do not comply, demon, so long as your use is preserved once it is done.”

Two fingers pressed in right upon his carotid pulse, feeling for it, the feel of his heart’s beat . . . and the place to make the fatal incision. Edgeless as they were, the sensation was still a sharp one. He wanted away; he wanted to skirt back and hide himself away, but she would only give chase and make it worse. There’s no such thing as an empty threat with you, he thought bitterly.

“Take off that mask.”

Jace looked up. There was no ambiguity in the words or the tone with which they were spoken, he only wondered if she knew how deadly the Pandoran atmosphere was to him. He saw the impatience in her tear-stained eyes and knew there was nothing to do but get it over with. He took a long, deep breath and lifted the mask away, holding it tightly in his hands.

Zau’we’s hand was quick to grasp him, with her fingers digging into one cheek and her thumb into the other. With a terrifying strength, she turned his head side to side as he stared fearfully up at her, praying that her curiosity and rage would abate and that she would leave him to his misery. But it did not seem likely. There was anger in those eyes of hers . . . a great and terrible anger, a cruel intrigue too. As her left hand held him in place, her right brushed over his features, as though mapping them for memory, prodding at his eyes, pinching at his skin, brushing through his hair.

Eventually she did release her hold on him, and he brought the mask quickly to his face, heaving in breath after desperate breath with his eyes shut tightly closed.

A hand grasped him by the collar and Jace looked up. “Don’t run off, demon,” Zau’we said coldly, hate in her teary eyes. “I would hate to have to hurt you.”

And away she went, leaving him with only the cold, cold wind for company. The shiver didn’t leave his body even as he returned his shirt to his torso and wrapped his arms around himself.

I’m dead, he thought. I don’t know when, where or how . . . I only know that I’m dead.

Promise. Remember your promise.

He had to try, but it seemed so hopeless.

Dead.

He could feel the blade at his throat again, the hand closing his airways, the kick in the ribs, the bullet in the side . . . he could feel the wounds that had yet to be inflicted, and there were many.

Dead.

Jace curled up on the floor, holding his knees to his chest as his breathing began to hitch and the tears began to fall.

Dead.

Chapter 23: Don't Say Anything Stupid

Chapter Text

“Jace, you’re scaring me. What the hell’s going on? I tried to ask around but nobody knows anything. Stay safe and tell me more.”

Jace had told some more, and the day after that he had been met by an ever more panicked response. Day by day there was little that Jace could say to Kyra besides assuring her that he was alive and planned to remain so. The only news of interest that came was about a week into his captivity.

“Jace. I just got a hold of some new records. They have you as killed in action. Nothing about the attack on the Kekunan, only that there was an ambush on the cargo transport.”

So, he was dead. Officially. He didn’t know when that message would reach his family, if ever at all. And further, officially, the massacre had never even occurred.

He didn’t know why he was surprised. He remembered the stories of brutality from his history lessons in school, on the sides of good and evil. And they were always the stories nobody ever told.

He saw nothing of Shiala in the days that he stayed in the marui and he preferred it that way. The thought of her came with only shame and anguish, the sight of her brought fear, and the weight of her gaze was heavy and crushing, filled with vitriol and disdain. And Zau’we, there was nothing of her either, not since that night . . . it had been difficult to explain away the bruising around his throat, but he had found some bullsh*t reason and the tsahìk enquired little further but to treat it.

Ni’vera and her tsakarem, Sa’kara, came each day to check on the state of his broken ribs and to ask mostly mundane questions.

Jace appreciated the kindness, or what felt like it could be taken for such, at least. But, for all he knew, it was a means to an end. He wasn’t alive because of some moment of mercy, he was alive only because he had told Shiala that he could and would identify Colton to her. And now his life was bound to hers, bound to her vengeance, a debt that only that death would pay for . . . and most likely his own too.

Shiala wanted the man dead most of all, or so Jace figured, and he was all for that. Just how they would pull it off, he had absolutely no idea, but he supposed she had something of a plan. He hoped so. Watching that weasel of a man die was just about the only thing he could think to actually look forward to.

But, aside from dreaming blissfully about putting a bullet between Colton’s eyes, or watching Shiala kill him, and the occasional moments he could talk to Kyra or the tsahìk and her apprentice, Jace’s days were monotonous and boring, melding together until he didn’t know whether it had been weeks or months by memory.

One time, a Na’vi equipped with human gear and sporting an array of RDA dog-tags on his vest came to take away his bullet-proof vest and all the other gear that Jace had handy besides his mask. Jace had soon learned that he was from the Resistance, the organization Jace would’ve tried to find refuge with had he not been found by the Na’vi. Whether he would have fought for them . . . it was a different question. He remembered was Gwyne’s words about twenty billion lives resting on their shoulders.

“Yeah,” he muttered, “no pressure, whatsoever.” And then the words sank in. Twenty billion humans, and they wanted to send them to Pandora . . . Pandora, that was smaller than Earth and already inhabited. “Where the f*ck do twenty billion of us go here?”

There was no answer . . . at least not one that boded well for anyone. He understood the resistance’s fight, and yet the Earth issue remained.

Maybe we should just go extinct for the good of the universe, he mused. “Maybe it’s what we deserve for our sins.”

“What are you muttering about,” a Na’vi voice asked from the marui’s entrance flap behind him, it was the tsahìk’s.

“Nothing,” Jace mumbled, turning his tongue to Na’vi.

“I doubt that.” The tsahìk stepped in and moved around to his front. “You are frustrated,” she said knowingly. “With us?”

Jace shook his head. “With everything. With me, with the sky-people here, with the sky-people at home.”

“Home. Your home?”

Jace nodded. “Bad people here, bad people there.”

“There must be good people too, here and there?” Ni’vera asked.

“Some,” he said, shrugging. “Few.”

“Are you?”

“I don’t know.”

Ni’vera passed him a wooden bowl with small-cut chunks of shell fruit and a skin of water, which he took with an uttered thanks. He ate and drank quickly as the Tsahìk observed him with the usual look of restrained curiosity on her face. He set the things aside and looked up to her.

“Your side and leg, do they hurt still?”

“Not as much,” Jace admitted. “I can walk for short distances and it only . . .” he didn’t know the word.

“Aches?”

“Yes, aches. But I go longer and it starts to hurt.”

“It will take time to heal,” the tsahìk said. “But I cannot tell Shiala to wait forever. Stand.”

Jace did as he was bid, cautiously rising to his feet, wincing a little as he did.

“I will see how easily you move besides just pacing in the marui,” she said. “Do you want to wear your . . . foot guards.”

And wear the same pair of socks every day? Jace thought. He’d already had to learn how to make the Na’vi loincloths so he wasn’t wearing the same underwear day in day out. “No,” he said, shaking his head. He just had to walk enough that he developed callouses to protect his feet from the wear and tear of walking. “I need to learn to walk without them, like you.”

He had come out of the marui often enough, but never had he really walked more than thirty feet from it, as he had been warned not to. As he followed the tsahìk out of the marui and into the trees, he couldn’t help but wince at the constant jabbing of twigs and little stones on the bottoms of his feet. But, he supposed, it was better than wincing about his ribs or ankle.

He did feel more conscious about where he was placing his feet as he moved, and it slowed him down until he forced himself to just start moving and bear the jabs of pain. Ni’vera lead him into the forest and urged him to follow at the pace she set as she seemed only to jog her way through the brush. Jace had to adopt longer strides just to keep up, and as a result he felt a wide stab of pain with every footfall he placed upon the ground.

Deal with it, he told himself as he quickened his pace just to keep up with the tsahìk, who vaulted over a root that jutted before him at head-height. He slipped beneath it with enough ease and looked up to see Ni’vera had climbed atop one of the roots.

The lowest one ahead hung at head height, low enough. Jace got both hands on it and swung a leg up and over so he could sit straddling it. His body jolted and he let go a little cry, just loud enough to catch the tsahìk’s attention.

“I’m okay,” he quickly said, pushing himself up to his feet, breathing a little heavily. “It is nothing.”

As he worked his way slowly into a rhythm, Jace found the pain dulled a little, feeling like more of a throbbing sensation at his side than a stabbing pain. The most obvious pain was that on the soles of his feet, soft as his skin was there, it scraped, cut and bruised very easily.

By the time Ni’vera led him back to his marui he could feel a little cut widening on the bottom of his left foot. She seemed to notice it too for when he dipped through its entrance she immediately ordered that he sat.

The moment he did she seized his left ankle and lifted his leg to inspect the bottom of his foot, pressing the pad of her thumb against his sole. Jace winced when she pressed over his grazes and made a little tutting noise.

“Your feet are too soft, it is like you do not use them to walk ever.”

Jace frowned. “I just-“

“-wear those heavy foot coverings all the time instead,” she interrupted, letting his foot fall and lifting one of his boots from off to the side to inspect it. “Your people made these to avoid getting cuts, but the feet harden with use anyway, so why use them?”

“To keep clean, I think.”

“Hmph.” Ni’vera tossed aside the boots. “You will get more cuts and scrapes before the skin hardens. It will hurt.”

Jace shrugged. “It will.”

The tsahìk started tending to the cuts on the soles of his feet, washing them first with water. “Tell me truly,” she said quietly as she did, “did you speak the truth about the attack?”

“I did.”

She nodded and continued tending to him. “You are a curious creature. I jumped at the chance to see and treat you, just to sate my curiosity. I ignored the fear that you would be some dangerous beast, because I wanted to learn. But you weren’t.”

“Many of us are,” Jace said quietly. “The worst of us came here.”

“You think you are . . . the worst?”

“Maybe not,” he sighed. “I don’t want to be, at least. I am just . . . what is your word for it?”

“A skxawng?”

“Yes.” Jace sighed with relief at the cold soothing feel of the dapophet gel. “I believed so many lies before I came to Pandora, and I fell for so many since, and they all lead to this.” He gestured widely.

“What were they?”

“That what we are doing here is good and justified. That we have no choice. That there is a good ending to this story.” He spoke the last lie with an added derision.

“You don’t think there is?”

Jace paused as the tsahìk looked intently at him, searching for the truth in whatever words he would speak. So, he opted for the truth. “I don’t know. There isn’t . . .” He tailed off with a sigh.

“There isn’t what?”

“There isn’t a way forwards, not one that works. Maybe I can’t think of it, maybe it doesn’t exist. But . . . I don’t think we can save ourselves without dooming Pandora and you.” He paused, catching the tsahìk’s eye and seeing the question in it. He let out a sigh and sunk back to lie on the floor.

“Save yourselves?” she asked. “What do you mean?”

“Our world is dying,” he said. “I don’t know if it can be saved.”

Ni’vera nodded. “That is why your kind are here? Why they came here the first time?”

“I think, in part. But there is greed too. Pandora has what greedy people want, and greedy people make desperate people do their work for them.”

A silence fell as Ni’vera wrapped a tight cloth around Jace’s left foot where the larger cut still was. She went on to a more broad assessment of him checking his ribs and the gashes on his shoulder, neck and hands. “You moved freely enough,” she said. “How did your side feel?”

“Mostly okay. When I jumped and landed, it hurt. But not so bad.”

“That is good,” Ni’vera said as she applied some more dapophet gel. “Your body heals fast. Soon you will be ready to go with Shiala.”

Jace’s heart dropped at that. He’d almost forgotten the bargain that saved his life, and that what little comfort and consistency he’d found would only have ever been short-lived.

Soon, he’d be out of the care of someone who actually cared . . .

No, he chastised himself, she doesn’t. She only doesn’t hate you so much as everyone else.

He sighed, not even wanting to wonder what awaited him. There was just one question on the tip of his tongue, but he refused to lower himself to ask it, to show that fear.

Am I going to die? He considered the question for a moment and, looking down at the bracelet Ami had given him, decided he wasn’t. I can’t.

Jace took in a long deep breath and looked out of the marui’s entrance to the forest. So terrifying, so hostile, but so very beautiful.

“How long?” he asked.

“Days only,” Ni’vera said. “Shiala has been patient, but there is only so much time she is willing to sacrifice for . . . one of your kind.”

Days until I’m thrust back into hell, Jace thought in silence as he offered a nod in recognition of the tsahìk’s words. “Do you have any advice?”

Her lips quirked in an amused smile. “Don’t say anything stupid.”

Chapter 24: What Sort of Brother?

Chapter Text

“The way of water has no beginning and no end,” Tsireya recited, her hand gently pressing on Lo’ak’s stomach as he practiced his breathing. “The sea is around you and in you.” She could hear him finding that slow steady rhythm, inhaling slowly from deep inside his lungs and carefully expelling all that air. He had been improving, brilliantly, faster than any of the others. “The sea is your home before your birth and after your death.” She was impressed, not even Tuk had shown his enthusiasm to learn, his willingness to listen and do as was asked of him without question or hesitation. “Our hearts beat in the womb of the world. Our breath burns in the shadows of the deep.” The forest boy had taken to the ilu, too the hunting and harvesting, he had taken to it all so so quickly. “The sea gives and the sea takes. Water connects all things: life to death, darkness to light.”

Tsireya lifted her hand from his stomach to his chest and felt the pace of his heart, slow and steady.

“Come,” she said, taking her hand away from his skin and rising to her feet. “There is one last exercise for today.”

“What is it?” Lo’ak asked.

“A test . . . of sorts,” she replied. “You have learned to slow your heartbeat, and to widen your lungs. Now you must be able to keep your heart slow whilst you swim, to preserve your strength.”

“Okay,” he nodded. “What’s the test, then?”

Tsireya crouched and picked up a shiny black shell from the rock upon which they had been sat. “You will dive, deeper than you ever have before, after this,” she placed the shell into his hand and let him look at it.

Lo’ak placed it back into her hand, continuing to maintain his slow rhythm of breathing, in and out with a slow, deliberate consistency.

Tsireya stepped away to the rock’s edge and waded into the blue, dipping her head beneath the lapping water so she might see where the deepest parts were. Her eyes scanned and found a drop-off just a few meters away. Rising back above the surface she beckoned Lo’ak to follow her. “Come,” she smiled, “just here.” Lo’ak followed her in, stepping carefully into the waves and visibly maintaining the depth and length of his breaths. “I will throw this and let it sink,” she continued. “You must wait for five seconds and then chase it.”

He nodded and pushed in to where the rock fell away and started to tread water. “Just say when.”

Tsireya co*cked her head at him, smiling. “Now.” She gently threw the shell and watched it plop into the water.

Lo’ak just grinned back at her and dipped his head beneath. Tsireya followed suit, watching as it spiralled downwards in the water. She lifted her head back just to see Lo’ak taking in a long, final breath and dip below.

He swam as a forest Na’vi only could, lacking the paddled arms and tail possessed by the ocean Na’vi, but he swam well, using a breaststroke to dive deeper and deeper. A great school of fish passed him by as he went through one rock arch overgrown with vibrant coral, and then another, chasing.

Tsireya gently treaded the water, watching him go lower and lower and lower, pride swelling in her chest, along with a little pinch of concern. Was it too soon for this? Would he be able to keep from panicking when he looked up and saw how far away the surface was? Would lose his calm and start to fray about? She watched on, praying to the Great Mother she’d been right.

At the third arch, he grasped onto the rock, levelled himself and used it as a springboard to propel himself further downwards. The deeper he went, the more difficult it became to see him, with his deeper skin colour blending all too well with the murky depths where the sun’s reach was weak.

Just before he reached the sea bed, Tsireya saw Lo’ak snatch at something, halt his descent and push back upwards, kicking his legs to propel him on his way. She had been right, he had been ready. Whatever anxiousness had been there expelled itself for a joy that felt almost alien.

And through the surface he burst, smiling delightedly and raising high the shell. “I got it!” he called as she swam over, laughing joyfully. “Tsireya!”

“You did it!” she exclaimed, laughing as she closed both of her hands around his. “How do you feel?”

“Good!” he gasped. “Great.” His breaths came quick and deep now. “Did I pass the test?”

Tsireya smiled widely. “You did.” She started kicking her way back to the rocks, dragging him along with her. Lo’ak clambered up behind her, grinning like the idiot Kiri swore that he was. Tsireya didn’t think so; he was brilliant: kind, intelligent, quick to learn and eager to help.

But, all of a sudden, he seemed subdued, turning his back to her and staring off westwards.

“Lo’ak?” Tsireya queried. “Is something wrong?”

Lo’ak shook his head. “This place, Awa’atlu, it's beautiful.” And it was, with the sun lowering on the western horizon, there was almost no sight so beautiful. He sighed. “It’s just missing something . . . someone.”

Tsireya placed a tentative hand on Lo’ak’s shoulder. “Kiri said that she regretted leaving someone behind. Is it the same for you?”

“It’s the same person,” he said quietly.

“A friend?”

“He’s more than that. He’s like another one of my brothers . . . but Mom and Dad never saw it that way. It was their decision to leave him behind.”

“That . . . that must’ve been hard for you,” Tsireya murmured kindly, “and for him. But at least he is with his people.”

Lo’ak just shook his head and made a little hiccupping sound . . . a sob.

“Lo’ak?”

“The sky-people took him.” Lo’ak shuddered again. “Mom and Dad wouldn’t go back for him. They said it was impossible to rescue him.”

Tsireya’s ears pressed back against her skull. No, it couldn’t be. Na’vi never abandoned their own. She relayed the thought.

Lo’ak just shook his head. “In a way, they weren’t.” He turned and looked at her, a tear rolling down his cheek. “He isn’t Na’vi.”

Tsireya froze a little. She’d known that some of the sky-people had chosen to fight with and for the Na’vi. But for Lo’ak to call one brother? She couldn’t believe it but found no reason not to. “What was his name?” she asked quietly.

“Spider,” Lo’ak replied. He must’ve seen the look of confusion on Tsireya’s face at the foreign word, for he continued. “A spider is an animal from the world of the sky-people, they climb very well, and so does he, so, we call him Spider.”

“And how did he become so close that you would call him brother?” Tsireya asked.

“He was an orphan after the war,” Lo’ak said. “The only sky-person child on Ewya’eveng, alone. But he loved the forest, he would always leave the human settlement to come to the forest and play with me, Kiri and Neteyam. He learned our ways, our language, everything.” Lo’ak paused, a little chuckle escaping him. “Kiri said he was a better Na’vi than me. I don’t even think she was wrong.”

Tsireya stopped, wondering what it would’ve been like to have grown up around a little sky-person. “How small was he when you were both little?” she asked.

Lo’ak held a hand at his knee. “He still wrestled like he was a Na’vi, even if we were all faster and stronger than him. I-I chose him to be my brother because he had no-one else to call brother. And he just became it. And I failed him.” The little smile that had split his face faded. “What sort of brother leaves his own in their hands?”

Tsireya couldn’t even begin to contemplate the guilt Lo’ak must’ve felt. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “That is a terrible weight to carry upon your shoulders.”

He nodded.

“Spider, is he strong?”

“Yes.”

“Then he will be okay. And he is their kind too, will they not treat him well?”

Lo’ak shrugged. “They treat all who oppose them the same. Spider always hated that he was human, he hated that he couldn’t breathe our air, that he couldn’t eat all our foods, that he couldn’t make tsaheylu with anything.” Lo’ak put his hand over the one Tsireya had rested on his shoulder. “He deserves to be one of us . . . properly. He deserves to be Na’vi. He deserves to be here, with me, with Kiri, with Tuk, with Neteyam, not a prisoner of the demons.”

There weren’t words of comfort that could patch over the wounds he carried. Tsireya wanted to help, but didn’t know how, she didn’t have a solution, she didn’t know adequate words of comfort and consolation.

She could only wrap her arms around him from behind, hug him tightly and whisper over and over, “I’m sorry.”

---

Aonung’s voice wasn’t difficult to miss by any stretch, nor was its tone easy to mistake. And, with the chorus of his little troop of lackeys laughing along, Lo’ak doubted it could by anything good. He followed the sound, treading lightly, and heard a voice.

“Are you some kind of freak?” It was Aonung, and Lo’ak didn’t need any more than one voice to guess who it was he was antagonizing.

“He asked if you are a freak,” Lo’ak heard another one of Aonung’s kiss-asses call.

“No,” Kiri’s voice was quiet and all too telling of her discomfort. Lo’ak turned a corner and saw Aonung and three of his goons following Kiri as she tried to walk away.

“Are you sure?” Aonung stepped around behind her. “I mean, you’re not even real Na’vi. Look at these hands.” He reached for Kiri’s arm and she tugged it away, and Lo’ak felt his blood boiling. “I mean, look at them.” He seized Kiri with a two-handed grip on her arm.

“Hey!” Lo’ak called out, marching onto the beach. “Back off fishlips.”

“Ohh, another four-fingered freak,” Aonung drawled, backing slowly away. He pressed his hands to Lo’ak’s shoulders, and Lo’ak pushed them away.

A hand grabbed at his tail. “Look at his little baby-tail.”

Lo’ak span and pushed the boy away. “Don’t touch me,” he warned.

The mocking chorus only grew louder as Kiri shouted, “Leave us alone!” And louder it grew as the assholes just kept on grabbing at him.

It only stopped when Neteyam came in, pushing Aonung away and glaring with that glare Lo’ak remembered him saying he’d learned from Dad. “You heard what she said,” Neteyam said coldly, pressing a forefinger into Aonung’s chest. “Leave them alone.”

“Big brother com-“ one of Aonong’s long-haired friends started, but Aonung stopped him with a hand to his chest.

“Back off.” Neteyam’s voice was low and dangerous. “Now.” And Aonung did, raising his hands in defeat, but not dropping the mocking grin from his face. “Smart choice,” Neteyam said, turning to the others. “And, from now on, I need you to respect my sister.”

Long-hair hissed, but Aonung forced him to subside as Kiri made a rude gesture at him.

“Let’s go,” Neteyam muttered, guiding Kiri away. Lo’ak, conscious of Dad’s orders to not make trouble, let go the desire to punch Aonung in his smug mouth.

“Bye-bye,” one of the voices called out mockingly as they walked.

“Look at them,” Lo’ak heard Aonung’s voice lower. “They’re all freaks. The whole family.”

f*ck it, he thought, turning back to Aonung with as placid an expression on his face as he could manage.

“Lo’ak,” Neteyam warned.

“I got this, bro,” Lo’ak said, walking slowly over to Aonung. You think you’re the funniest guy in the world, don’t you? There were smug grins on each face there, and Lo’ak wanted only one chance to punch each. He’d show them the value of having a father who was once a warrior of the enemies’. “I know this hand is funny,” he said, raising his left and extending what Dad had called the ‘pinkie finger’. “Look, I’m a freak. Alien.” Aonung just smiled. How wonderful this was going to be. “But, it can do something really cool. Watch. First I ball it up real tight like this, okay. Then.”

Bang!

Lo’ak knew how to punch, turning his fist as he jabbed Aonung right across his chin. Lo’ak’s right fist next caught him on the nose with a delightfully vicious hook, and he finished with an uppercut that sent the water boy falling back onto the sand, his nose red, leaking and beautiful.

“It’s called a punch, bitch!” Lo’ak told him, pointing a finger. “Don’t ever touch my sister again.”

They all hissed, and Lo’ak balled up his fists as Aonung dive-tackled him back onto the sand and tried to get over him. But Lo’ak knew the art of the fistfight and threw him off and punched him again in the face.

Before he could go again, hands grabbed and dragged at his tail, yanking him back so one of them could smack him in the face with his great paddle of a tail. Four on one, Lo’ak would lose. But he wouldn’t be alone.

Whack!

Lo’ak grinned to himself as the sound of Neteyam’s fist catching one of them in the face sounded loud and clear.

Knees, elbows, feet, fists, tails and all else went into the brawl. The sound of splashing water, smacking skin and Kiri’s call for it to cease.

Lo’ak watched Neteyam beating down on the little Rotxo lookalike with the smug grin as was punching on long-hair. Hands grabbed at his foot and his tail, pulling away. So he latched onto an ear and kept a firm grip on it, delighting in the boy’s begging that he let go.

Only when an authoritative voice roared that they stop did Lo’ak feel the hands on him let go, so he did too, scrambling to his feet and to Kiri’s side as Neteyam let go the little Rotxo and rose triumphantly to his feet.

It was one of the Metkayina hunters, whose eyes scanned all the belligerents disapprovingly. “Leave,” he said to Lo’ak, Kiri and Neteyam, turning from them to the Metyakina boys. “Your parents will know of this . . . all of you. Now, cause no more trouble.”

Lo’ak dipped his head and turned away, already bracing himself for what he knew would be the chewing out of a lifetime.

---

“He is ready,” Ni’vera said. “Movement won’t agitate his wounds further, and he has shown he can still run and jump.”

Shiala nodded, glancing to Zau’we, who was affixing a little section of one of the demon identity tags to her songcord, so she might remember her first moments of revenge. They had gone together to find the body of the first demon Zau’we had hunted to get that particular one.

Shiala hadn’t opted to do the same, deciding she’d find some less crude way to commemorate the attack and her response to it.

Zau’we looked up to her. “Your search for our vengeance begins today then.”

“It does,” Shiala said almost numbly. Close as it had ever been, the moment had always seemed so far away. All she’d done was occupy herself with half-vengeances as she waited, and those had so engrossed her she had almost forgotten the captive tawtute . . . the demon whose life was hers, by the right of va’se tìrey.

“I don’t envy the path you will walk,” Zau’we said slowly. “But, I suppose, the path’s end will make it worth it.”

“Colton.” Shiala wondered what the demon was like, the faceless embodiment of everything she hated, she wondered if it was just as ugly as the rest, or perhaps even uglier.

“Why must their names always be so short and stumpy,” she heard Zau’we ask. “Did their mothers not care to choose any names with grace to them?” Shiala just shrugged, watching Zau’we finally get the little metal tag onto her songcord, a note of glorious revenge and one of great sorrow. “What was your one’s name again.”

“It was . . .” Shiala paused. The only word that came to mind was demon. She was sure she’d heard it, she must’ve. “It was . . .” Nothing came forth.

“Jace,” Ni’vera said from behind her, “Jace Callon.”

Shiala spoke the name, it was easy enough to say; simple, perhaps a little boring. “Why are their names so short?”

“He would tell you about how the sky-people name their children, I’m sure, if you asked,” Ni’vera told her pointedly.

Shiala frowned as Zau’we shot back, “The only words I would want to hear from the demon’s lips would be those that would point out this Colton creature so I could kill it. Then, I would make certain it never spoke again.”

Ni’vera’s ears flattened against her skull and her teeth bared as she gave a frustrated hiss. “If you are going to join with the Resistance, Zau’we, rid yourself of this close-minded hate. All are not one. There are those who fight with and for the Na’vi, at great risk, because they chose to.”

“And there are more who fight against us because they chose to,” Zau’we hissed. “Like the demon who we spared.” She looked to Shiala. “Ask him if he has killed Na’vi and watch him stumble and stutter. Regardless of whether he partook in the attack on our clan, he is one of them . . . he is a demon.”

The tsahìk paused at that, mulling it over as Shiala did too, unsure whether she would, or could. “Your judgement is your own to make,” Ni’vera said softly to both of them, stepping around to look at them. “But do not make it so quickly. You will both have to suffer the presence, as you say, of one or many sky-people. If you would not hear them, then watch them, not as warriors, but as people. See what they are for yourselves . . . judge each for their own merits.”

Shiala watched Zau’we huff indignantly and turn away and felt a frustration of her own creeping in. “Perhaps,” she said, in part to get the tsahìk to cease whatever her pursuit was.

“I mean it for you most, Shiala. You will be travelling with him, eating with him, making camp with him. For your own ease, do not make him feel a monster, else he might fear he has no choice but to be one.” Ni’vera pressed a gentle hand to Shiala’s chest. “You will find him willing to help you see this to its end.”

Shiala offered only a mute nod in response. She glanced from Zau’we’s annoyed snarl to Ni’vera’s almost pleading expression.

“We will leave tomorrow, at first light, on pa’li,” she said, hoping it would end the conversation.

Ni’vera turned away with a nod. “I will tell him.” And Shiala was left with Zau’we, whose anger still seemed ready to boil over.

“Whatever you do,” Zau’we said quietly, “don’t let it forget what it is. Don’t let it forget what it has done. Make sure it knows what it is and what you have done to its ilk . . . what you could do to it.”

Shiala focused on the girl. “You want me to make it terrified of me?”

“It should be, it should know that every second it lives is because you are letting it. And that it could change all in a moment if it places just one foot wrong. Va’se tìrey. Its life is yours. Make sure it knows that.”

It would certainly keep it quiet, Shiala thought. But she was unsure. A thousand paths lay ahead and she couldn’t see the way any of them paved.

Zau’we’s voice then softened. “Shiala, let tomorrow’s decisions be for tomorrow. Let us eat and drink and enjoy some good company.” She offered a grin as her tail swished behind her. “Who knows how long you will go without?”