NIRI TE 'S FANFIC "LAST FLIGHT OUT "

Started by Niri Te, January 10, 2013, 08:37:46 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

Niri Te

HERE is the start of my FanFic below. Let me know what you think of it on my FEEDBACK thread.
Tokx alu tawtute, Tirea Le Na'vi

Niri Te

#1
LAST SHIP OUT
CHAPTER ONE
The lights inside the capsule went green.  Steve Hobbs hit the pneumatic release for the dry side door of the lock, to Open.  Pamela Wright and John Williams tumbled in, with John saying, "We have to get out NOW!"  Pamela injected, "The planet is coming apart, the ship is ready to go and flight crew is aboard awaiting our arrival."
     Steve Hobbs replied, "We heard some of the radio traffic down here, before everything went silent.  Did that Tidal Wave from the undersea earthquake reach the coast?"
John said, "The military radios that we have in the Submersible picked up military and emergency traffic.  A three hundred foot high wall of water has killed everyone from L.A. to Tijuana.  The only thing that stopped the water were the mountains and hills of the Los Angeles Basin."
 Pamela injected, "If we don't leave here within the hour, we will never leave."
 With that Jim Hanson, Chief Biologist, and Chip Higgins, Project Chief, stuck their heads in the room from the companionway.  "We have data coming in from the remote seismographs that is OFF the scales.  How fast can the Submersible carry us up?"
 Pamela replied, "I can have us configured and ready to go in five minutes."  Chip replied, "We are downloading all data into our optical drives, we will be ready in minutes."  Steve turned to Chip and said, "For God's sake, don't forget the BOOK."
  At that moment, Sharon West came running down the companionway into the room with a knapsack full of ten years of data saved on RAM chips, slung over her shoulder.  A camera was in her right hand and "The Book" was in her left.   "I'm glad you guys didn't leave me behind!"  Chip chuckled, "Yeah, like we are going to leave behind our Chief Engineer, Pilot Extraordinaire, and all around Ms.Fix It!"
  "How much time we got?" asked Sharon with a wry grin, ignoring the compliments.
 "Three minutes!" said Pamela.  "Pack your undies and toothbrush, and remember, you only have stowage space of 2'x2'x2 feet for carry-on.

CHAPTER TWO
  John Williams looked over his shoulder as he announced, "Release is activated.  We are out of here."  Pamela, her eyes beginning to mist, looked in the direction of the underwater sea lab that they were leaving and said, "Fare thee well, Old Friend, Fare Thee Well."  Sharon slid her arm around Pamela's shoulder and gave her a gentle squeeze, saying, "We knew this day was coming ten years ago.  11,232 feet below the surface is a world of its own.  Yet this world, as hostile as it can be to the unprotected, could not stop the bastards on the surface from destroying it along with its Mother.  We need to make sure that the story of what happened here and why, is told throughout the universe."
 Pamela rocked her head to one side until her left temple touched Sharon's right temple and said, "I know, my friend.  But it still hurts."
  Sharon replied, "It makes me feel bad too, things are going to get interesting here, real soon."
  Twenty minutes later the craft broke the surface and John started the three minutes of pre-operational checks for the air-breathing propulsion drives.  When these were completed, the twin turbo-fans were fired up and the underwater descent vehicle morphed into its other design; a ground-effect flying machine.
  At five minutes out, Chip Higgins looked at Sharon and asked,"Has your brain shifted over to your pilot's duties yet?"  Sharon replied, I was ready to go halfway up the ascent".  Steve Hobbs, occasionally the worrier asked, "Is there going to be an 'official' welcoming party waiting for us at Dillingham?"  Sharon responded, "Why should there be?  Anyone of any official capacity would expect us out of there, until things calmed down.  We are just part of a U.H. Research team, going to our hanger."   As they went "Feet Dry" she reminded everyone, "If anyone asks about the weird looking plane, tell them we are going to do magnetic anomoly studies with this new aircraft, to check for any near future major tectonic events and assure them we will have finished that mission in two hours."
  Chip Higgins smirked and said, "As geologist of this bunch, I can make them believe it. And Hell. In two hours, we will be ready to dock with the transport."  Pamela laughed, squeeze Sharon's wrist and said, "Well I guess that would finish this part of the mission."
  "John, leave me plenty of room to get the aircraft out of the hanger.  That is one big wing span."  said Sharon.
  The "hanger", was an old B52 hanger left over from the days of the Cold War, when Dillingham was an Air Force Base, and alternate field for Hickam AFB should the runways at Hickam be too badly damaged to land there.  In the years following the conclusion of the Cold War, Dillingham became a private airfield for general aviation and the University of Hawaii.  The Air Force reclaimed it during the Venezuelan and Nicaraguan Wars, only to return it to civilian control after the Wars concluded successfully.
 With the hanger doors opened, "Star Shooter" was an impressive sight with her seventy foot wing span.  Her blended body plan form left no locations for vortices to start.  She was one slick ship.  That, would be what most people, including other pilots, would think if they saw her. What they would not see, is the purpose-driven design of the ship that took eight years to build; and whose sole purpose was to carry these people to a docking with one of the original deep space mining transports parked in high Earth geosynchronous orbit.
 William Treycott, 60 year old retired navigator of the early mining ships that fanned out looking for minerals, stood beside the ship, polishing cloth in hand. "She's all ready, Captain", in deference to Sharon's job of flying them from here to the mining transport affectionately named "Old Dog."  John, a qualified pilot in his own right, and Sharon's trusted co-pilot on this flight, slapped her on the shoulder and said, "Let's kick the tires and light the fires."
  Once the ship was outside on the tarmack, and as they were strapping-in, Sharon looked over her right shoulder at William and said, "So do you think the finest renegade navigator in the universe can help us find Old Dog among all those other ships parked in high orbit?"  Just before Sharon fed the throttles forward on the turbines, William replied, "With my eyes closed."

CHAPTER THREE
  It was a strange sight to see seven people board this long winged, very sleek craft that looked like a very high tech, jet powered motor glider, all dressed in decade old military pressure suits, their helmets in hand.  The moment they were aboard and the door closed and sealed, the two small turbines were fired up and "StarShooter" taxied to the runway.
  Due to the phone circuits being totally over loaded with calls to and from the Main Land, filing a legitimate flight plan for a reasonable sounding, critically important research flight was out of the question by telephone.  Likewise, no one would question the need for this flight to get airborne as quickly as humanly possible.  So as soon as the aircraft was line-of-sight to Honolulu, Sharon filed her plan over the radio.
 "Honolulu Tracon: University of Hawaii Research Experimental November Two Seven Six Six Zero, seven souls aboard, on critical emergency research flight climbing out of Dillingham, requesting most direct route possible to the south point of the Big Island, with expedited climb out to flight level Four Niner."
  "Experimental Six Six Zero: squawk One Zero One Seven"
  "Experimental Six Six Zero squawking One Zero One Seven"
  "Experimental Six Six Zero we have you, Proceed at heading Zero Four Zero to flight level Two One.  Maintain own navigation, clear for expidited climb out.  Contact Honolulu Center at One One Niner Point Three.  Good Luck."
  "Experimental Six Six Zero: turning Zero Four Zero, switching to Honolulu Center. Out.   Honolulu Center, University of Hawaii Research Experimental November Two Seven Six Six Zero, seven souls aboard, requesting flight following."
  "Experimental Six Six Zero: Squawk One One Zero Five."
  "Honolulu Center, Experimental Six Six Zero squawking One One Zero Five."
  "Experimental Six Six Zero. We have you. Your aircraft has a priority expedited climb to flight level Four Niner.  Turn to a heading of One Six Five degrees. Maintain own navigation.  Good Day."
  "Honolulu Center. Experimental Six Six Zero turning to heading of One Six Five degrees. Expedited climb to flight level Four Niner.  Maintaining own navigation, Good day."
  The formalities of air traffic navigation taken care of, Sharon looked over her shoulder for a moment and said, "You guys will be earning your astronauts wings in less than an hour.  Grab your pressure helmets and be ready to put them on like I taught you."
CHAPTER FOUR
  A few moments later, Sharon handed over the control of the aircraft to John, walked to the unoccupied launch chair and sat down. "O.k. folks, time for a fast history lesson and preview of coming attractions.  This ship is one of three built for the RDA for planetary magnetic field studies and was completed four months before the Battle for the Well of Souls.  I was one of the design engineers on the project and the first test-flight pilot for all three aircraft.  I am the only person to have flown this one until I just handed it off to John.  These ships were designed to fly at the edge of space and land and take-off from ground bases. They were designed to do magnetic measuring to learn more about, and locate deposits of, not just Unobtanium, but other magnetic rare-earth metals as well.  I was slated to go with this ship to Pandora on, what would have been the second ISV sent to Pandora once its test flights were completed.  It would have been boxed up in three segments and reassembled on Pandora. But when the RDA launched  the Battle for the Well of Souls, all these plans were jettisoned.  As we all know, mass riots  broke out world wide because of the RDA's treatment of the Na'vi.  But even before that, the RDA wanted to keep the very expensive equipment that had been recently built - SECRET.  So they fanned out the three ships.  One went to the University of Madrid, One to the University of Tokyo, and this one to the University of Hawaii, officially for studies of the Magnetic Fields of the Earth."
  "So that's why no one questioned your flying this thing out of Dillingham so quickly," remarked Chip.
  "That's why, and it is also why they won't try to blow us out of the sky when we make the next jump out of Class 'A' airspace into what is usually reserved only for military and approved research vehicles," remarked Sharon.  "The next jump that we make, will take us to the edge of space, so I want your helmets on, secured, and your suits' umbilicals all hooked into their receptacles in each of your launch chairs.  You will still be able to talk to each other on the intercoms."

CHAPTER FIVE
  After sliding into the Command Pilot's Chair, Sharon looked at John before either of them was hooked up to the intercom and said, "Looks like that went well with the  crew."
  "Throttles to 100%, fuel burn on the curve," reported John. "Going through sixty-thousand, D.C. buses for oxidizer pumps hot.
  "If things get interesting with the Fuzz, it should happen now."  Sharon stated.  She called out, "Approaching seventy thousand, oxidizer feed initiated, please watch my temps, John."   And he gave a thumbs up.
  "Temps in the green.  We are stabilized.  Eighty thousand.  We are GO for insertion." shouted John with glee.
 "Tail cone jettisoned." replied Sharon.  "Igniting rocket motor. in Three---Two---"
  "Jet fuel cut-off." said John.
  "ONE---Mark!"  said Sharon, as the solid fuel rocket motor fired.
  "Clock started."  said John.  Sharon looked in a small mirror on the top of the windscreen brace, and saw four very scared people, and then William Treycott, tapping out navigation calculations on his micro-computer.
  "OK, listen up." said Sharon to the the four Space Newbies in the back.  "Once we shut off the engine, John and I will check the hull integrity.  Once we have determined that everything is OK, and the air is OK in here, we will clear you to remove your helmets.  Keep them fastened down to something stationery.  We do not want stuff floating around here.  You may want to float around here. DON'T.  There will be so much time for you to do it on the trip HOME, that you will get bored with it soon enough.  Stay put in your seats, we don't want you banging into things, trying to learn how to float in space.  John and I have done this, training for space flight."
  Three minutes later John announced, "Two minutes to BECO."   Sharon gave a thumbs-up, and told the rest of the crew. "In a little over a minute, things are going to get real quiet in here.  The booster engine will cut-off."
  Steve Hobbs asked, "Then we free-fall in orbit until we are picked up?"
  "That is correct, Steve, we should get picked up late in our second or third orbit." responded Sharon.
  Once the solid rocket motor burned all of its fuel, John adjusted a mirror that he stuck to the panel with double-sided tape, and Sharon floated to the rear of the cabin.  Once there she opened a panel,and reported, "At current consumption, we have ten days, four hours,and eighteen minutes of oxygen."  She then made it look easy, floating forward to a gauge panel, and after examining it, declared the craft Airtight.
  Once Sharon was lightly strapped into the aft launch chair, Pamela asked, "We are going to have to make two or three passes between the earth and the RDA base in exile on the Moon.  Aren't we going to get spotted?"
 "OK folks, let me explain part of the answer and William will explain the rest," said Sharon.  "The moon is still over one-hundred-thousand miles away, and what is right behind us, is a boiling atmospheric cauldron. Unless we fire a high-powered laser at them, the RDA on the Moon will assume that we died over an hour ago with the rest of the human species on Earth.  As for them mounting some great interstellar war party bent on revenge to Pandora, that will never happen.  I will let William explain that to you now."  William cleared his throat and began his part of the presentation.
 "The RDA on the Moon are not some grand military industrial government in exile, as much as they would like to think so.  They are a bunch of feudal groups constantly jostling for power among the other groups up there.  They have no large ISV's like they used to, only four shuttles that were spares for the ISV's shuttles, and a bone yard of ISV parts. that when they stop fighting among themselves, could possibly assemble three-quarters of an ISV with only half of its drive system usable.
  "The biggest interstellar threat that they have, is a group of twelve of the old near- light speed interstellar mining transports, each with two shuttles.  These shuttles are capable of much of what the newest models of the ISV's could do, but not with as much glitz.  I, and my two crew mates, whose job it is to keep all of these in excellent mothballed condition, have selectively cannibalized all but ours and one other.  Only those two will be able to fly out of here.  Ours will fly all the way HOME, without a hitch.  But the OTHER one will go super-critical as soon as they try to go near light speed, once they clear the Oort Cloud.
 "With that. guys, I suggest we all try to take a nap.  Sun rise happens quick up here." counseled Sharon.
CHAPTER SIX
 Sharon, John, and William slept like logs, while the four new astronauts had a fitful time of it.  Here in space with no atmosphere to scatter light, the sun "rising" over the Earth was like turning on a flood light inside 'StarShooter'.  Seven pairs of eyes were almost instantly accosted by the sun's unfiltered light.  "Morning Guys, did you have a nice nap?" said Sharon cheerfully.
  John and William immediately unbuckled and floated forward to the flight deck.  Once both were secured in their launch chairs, they started tracking across a thirty degree swath of sky with a medium-powered laser.  After four tries, a bright red light was seen from inside the 'StarShooter'.  "He has us!" said William.  Once the two ships located each other, they modulated voice onto the laser carrier.  A brief, forty-five second conversation ensued, breaking off before "moonrise", so as to have no chance of anyone on the Moon spotting them.
  "Dan Warren can grab us next dark-cycle when we are almost diametrically opposed to the Moon in our orbit of Earth." said William.
  "Let's make good use of our time 'til the hook-up, and practice what we have to do." said Sharon. "Before we go Dark-Side we will all be hooked into our E.V.A. packs."
  "E.V.A. packs?!" exclaimed Jim, "You mean we have to Space Walk to the Shuttle??"
  "There is no other way,"replied Sharon, "We could not modify 'StarShooter' to be grappled, and have her stay together on the ride up here."
  "Not to worry." said John, "Sharon, William, and I will be tethered to you guys, and we will float you over to the Shuttle."
  "We are going to leave this Brave Lady here, aren't we?" mused Chip, and Sharon answered, "We wanted to bring her, but there is just no way."  It seemed to Chip that she caressed StarShooter lovingly as her hand ran along the bulkhead.
  Most of the light side of their last orbit of the Earth, was spent verbally rehearsing every step; from hooking into their E.V.A. packs, to how they would tie into each other, to where each person's place in the line was, and what movements they would make during the transfer.
  As the sun set behind the Earth, Sharon could see their trepidation, and told them, "You Guys will do fine, we will make sure no one gets hurt.  Now grab your gear and secure your carry bags to your E.V.A. packs.  Once that is done, help each other with your packs, and one of the three of us will inspect them all."  They had been finished for three minutes when the Shuttle pulled alongside.
  "Well, it's SHOW TIME!" voiced William, and he, Sharon, and John opened the doorway.  William was the first one out and fired his thruster, stringing a quarter-inch polished single strand wire between the two vessels.  Once that was done, Sharon lead them along the wire to the Shuttle, where William helped her unhook them, and get them inside.  The entire transfer took seven minutes from the start to finish; when Sharon disconnected the wire, cast it to the StarShooter, saluted the ship, turned and entered the Shuttle.
  Once inside the Shuttle, Sharon immediately joined the others on the pressurized Flight Deck, and Dan Warren fired the Shuttle's main engines at full power until just before their exhaust would have been seen from the Moon.
CHAPTER SEVEN
  Sharon settled down in her seat, closed her eyes, and let out a long exhale.  In the next seat to her right,  Chip reached over and patted her wrist saying, "She is a Grand Lady and a Noble Warrior,"  he mused, guessing at the meaning of her sigh.  "I know that when the Na'vi hear her story, they will write a song honoring her sacrifice for us to bring documentation to others of the price of greed."  Sharon looked at Chip, but only nodded and smiled.  It was hard to imagine the fabled Na'vi honoring a machine, no matter how Grand and Noble Sharon believed her StarShooter truly was.
  As soon as the last of the moon was hidden by the Earth, Dan Warren fed full throttles to the Shuttle's engines, and broke Earth orbit, the Shuttle's speed increasing to 57,000 MPH, in a straight line for their ship to Pandora.  During the hour long trip to the transport, Dan asked Sharon to come forward and sit in the co-pilot's chair. He didn't have to ask twice.  Sharon was buckled-in as quickly as was safe.
  During the remainder of the flight, Dan explained the operation of the Shuttle to Sharon, while everyone else was in conversation about the chain of events since the first massive tsunami which had leveled most of Southern California.
  With 15 minutes left, Dan flipped the Shuttle backwards. He performed a braking burn in three stages, the final burn slowing the Shuttle's closing velocity of 1,000 MPH.  The moment that the final burn was made by the Shuttle, the  Mining Transport also performed two burns cutting the Shuttle's closing velocity to Fifty, and then 10 miles per hour, when the Shuttle was five miles astern.
  When the shuttle pulled abeam, it used its maneuver thrusters to dock with the transport.  As the shuttle was partially powered down, Dan said, "Well Folks, let's climb aboard the Magic Carpet Ride to Pandora."
CHAPTER EIGHT
  As Sharon strapped herself into her seat on the Mining Transport Vessel, she greeted the pilot Captain Wendy Stallings, of the thirty-year-old, ion-driven, near-light speed, mining transport.  With the higher altitude of the parking area of the old mining transports, this ship's new crew, now totaling ten, was able to sit tight.  They were waiting until the moon had just slipped behind the rapidly becoming, more lethal planet Earth.  The surface of the Earth was now completely obscured from space by a sold mass of acidic, micro-dust laden cloud cover, that went from sea-level, to eighty-five thousand feet.
  From their vantage point, the once verdant Earth, now looked like a smaller rendition of one of the gas giant planets. Everywhere that two techtonic plates met, a huge number of volcanoes had all erupted within five hours. Huge, continent-sized, hyper-low-pressure systems, with three or four hundred mile-an-hour winds, were driven by the devastating heat rising from the volcanic maws.  The opacity of the thick, dense, cloud cover was created quickly by the planet- wide pyroclastic flow of the great number of now-reactivated volcanoes.  This was added to by the worldwide infernos that were ignited by the super-heated air.  To add insult to injury, there were thousand-mile-long atmospheric flash-overs of the layer of methane that had accumulated in the upper altitudes for two centuries, caused by greedy global warming of the planet.
  The sky rocketing temperatures of the atmosphere had another effect that was unseen from space:  The last of all ice, glacial, permafrost, and polar;  melted, raising the sea-level fifty-three feet.  This caused the peninsula of Florida and Long Island, New York; and all coastal lowlands and oceanic islands world-wide to disappear beneath the waves within several hours.
CHAPTER NINE
  Once the docking and crew transfer were completed, Wendy powered up the Transport while the Earth was still blocking the moon from view.  During the hour and minute burn, the Transport reached an inner-solar system speed of ONLY 60,000 miles per hour.  The slow speed was chosen because of the crowded nature of the solar system from the asteroid belt to the sun.
  Due to their "head start" on the RDA, who were now the only resident humans left alive in the solar system, and their selective use of propulsion, the Transport would be gone five more days before the "brass" at the RDA Moon Base realized that one of the parked Transports was missing.  Even if the first Transport that they came to was one of the two that would move, they would be over -a-week behind the Transport with the ten rebels aboard.   Wendy shut-off the conventional rocket motors making the Transport that much more difficult to detect from the RDA base.  "We will only need to play Hide-and-Seek with the Moon Base one more day-cycle, and  then we can engage the Ion Drive.  Dan, work-up the Burn Numbers for me and Course Change to get us over the top of the asteroid belt.  Give them to me as soon as you have them," instructed Wendy.
  Dan made his way to the Nav Station, and started working up the numbers, while Sharon made her way over to her fellow ex-marine biologists.  "Hey guys, I'll bet you like the artificial gravity on this ship, don't you?"  They each stated that though the flight off-world was exciting, and they were all glad that they did their tasks properly, it would be a good thing if there was a bit less excitement for a while.
  "Well, before too long you will have one more thing to add to your resume: you will have spent six years at eight-tenths light speed," said Sharon with a wry smile.
  Four hours later, Dan brought a series of Burn Times, "Z"  axis changes, and headings based on where, on their anticipated flight path, they were for the next six hours.  This data was all on a computer storage drive not that much different in appearance from the "ancient" early twenty-first century computer flash drive, except that this flash drive had a 500 TerraByte capacity.
  Wendy smiled at Dan as he handed her the drive, and asked, "How many hours?"  Dan replied, "Twenty."
  "Great!"
  Fourteen hours later, the Earth blinded the Moon and Sharon announced, "We are going to make our last conventional rocket burn that will place us on the correct trajectory to allow us to go N.L.S.* for an overflight of eighty percent of the asteroid belt.
* Near Light Speed

Tokx alu tawtute, Tirea Le Na'vi

Niri Te


CHAPTER TEN
   Wendy looked over her shoulder and said, "Come here and grab the Number Two Seat, Dan.  I want you hands-on for this maneuver."  Dan sat in the co-pilot's seat, strapping himself in. Wendy chose to start the course correction fifteen minutes in the future, loaded the correction data into the NAV computer, synced the two clocks, and started the count-down of the NAV computer's clock.  As the clocks hit zero the nose of the Transport pitched to a positive AOA*, and the craft attained the pre-programmed flight parameters.
   One-tenth of the way through the "Z axis  climb" to clear the height of the asteroid belt, the Transport flew outside the orbit of the moon.  When Dan made the announcement, a cheer went up in the transport.  After that, a certain routine set in on the Transport.  People used the stair-stepper and stationary bike in shifts, to stay in shape.  Sharon spent half her free time picking Wendy's brain on how the Transport was flown, and the other half pouring over the engineering manuals and drawings of the Transport.
   As Sharon's trusted back-up pilot, John Williams spent quite a bit of time learning "Old Dog's" flight characteristics as well.  John was the first one of the researchers that said anything about the Transport's name.  He and Sharon both liked the entire "Old Dog" series written by Dale Brown, who was a favorite writer of both of them.  Sharon had all his books in her quarters down in the deep sea lab, but there was no room for them during their hurried exit.
   During the next awake cycle, for the non-flight-critical crew members, Sharon suggested that they make good use of their time by spending two hours each day learning to speak some Na'vi.  Dr. Augustine had included several chapters in the back of her book dedicated to the Na'vi language.  And while her book only included a vocabulary of five hundred words and the most elementary grammar, learning it over the next five plus years, would show the Na'vi that THESE humans cared enough about the Na'vi culture and language, to learn what they could of it.  The suggestion was met with enthusiasm all around so they all started as soon as lunch was eaten.
*Angle of Attack
Tokx alu tawtute, Tirea Le Na'vi

Niri Te

#3
CHAPTER ELEVEN
  "Rewon lefpom oeyä eylan. Srak ayoeng 'efu ohawk?" (Good Morning my Friends.  Yes/No do we feel hunger?) asked Sharon as she entered the Transport's galley.
  "Of course we're hungry, Sharon.  We haven't eaten since last night," groused Steve.
  "Well then let me make for, nìwotx oeyä eylan", (all my friends), "some mushroom and cheese omelettes," she replied.
  "Oh Lord, powdered eggs, dehydrated mushrooms, and we are not sure WHERE the cheese comes from," chided Chip with a smile.
  "I don't care WHERE they come from, I'm about ready to eat the TABLE!" said Pamela with a grin, as she walked over to the microwaves to help Sharon cook breakfast.
  "I have a question folks," asked Sharon.  "We have been studying Na'vi for two weeks now, and you guys have learned at LEAST as much as I, but I seem to be the only one of us trying to speak it outside of our classes.  If we don't start speaking it, we will get there, and WON'T be able to carry on a conversation with the Na'vi," worried Sharon aloud.
  "Perhaps if we had an hour of Na'vi nì'aw after the two-hour daily lesson..." offered Pamela.
  "That sounds fine to me, " said Steve, "if we could take a half-hour bathroom and coffee break to reset our brains..."
  Sharon looked around, saw everyone nodding agreement and said, "Tsakrr awngaru tìhawl. Then we have a plan."
  Pamela and Sharon laid out the breakfast spread, and during the meal, Steve made the comment, "I have a question for Chip, Sharon, and whoever else wants to jump in."
  Sharon motioned that he had the floor and he continued:
  "PLEASE tell me that the polluting humans in general, and the RDA in particular did not have the power to destroy the Earth the way we just witnessed."
  Sharon nodded to Chip and said, "You are the resident geologist, Chip.  You have the floor."
  Chip cleared his throat and said, "As much as certain people in the RDA  might have gotten a perverse pleasure at the notion of wielding that kind of absolute power, neither they, nor humanity in general, have the kind of power to end the Earth as we knew it, with such speed, short of all out nuclear war.  Exactly what happened, we may never know until we meet Eywa face to face. But there are a very few theories that had been postulated in the last two centuries of what might have caused it."  With that he looked at Sharon and said, "Sharon here, will tell you of a theory, that has been held by a fair number of geologists, but that can only be backed up emperically."
  Sharon smiled at them all and began; "The Earth has three main components if viewed in cross-section:  The iron-nickel core, which some say spins at a very fast speed; the very hot magma; and the crust on the surface. It is pretty well agreed that the magma acts as a liquid slip-clutch between the rapidly spinning iron-nickel core, and the slow spinning crust.  There are those that believe that there are NULL ZONES in space, where gravity waves, and magnetic fields are at much lower strengths.  If the Earth were to enter a large area of such a disturbance, it could alter this viscosity of the magma, thereby altering its coefficient of friction, causing tremendous strain on the plates, causing the weakest of them to sheer, starting a domino effect on all of them.  This could cause exactly what we saw in our rear view, climbing away from a rapidly dying flora and fauna of Earth.  In my opinion, the Earth itself is not dead, but almost everything on it or in its seas IS dead.
  "Put bluntly, Ladies and gentlemen, I FIRMLY believe two things even more so now, than I did a month ago.  The things of which I have an unshakable faith in now, are that we made it out of this hellish cauldron because Eywa saw in each of our hearts, and what she saw was their Blue Core beliefs.  I believe that we WILL be tested, but only to show us, that we HAVE been chosen to bring the message that we have with us to the rest of Eywa's far flung creation for other's to see.
  "In closing, in case anyone is interested, I know that I know, that one day, I know not when, or how, all of us will be rewarded by becoming TRULY Na'vi, spiritually, mentally, AND physically."
  Sharon looked to her right, lovingly, at Pamela and said, "Pamela, I get the sense that if you don't get to say something soon, you are going to explode.  Please Share with us."
  "Thank you Sharon," said Pamela with a troubled voice.  "It's funny that you should say that we all will be rewarded by becoming Na'vi because for the past three nights, that is what I have dreamed.  Once I dreamed that I had died, that we all had died, the other two times was unexplained. Maybe it's just wishful thinking, but maybe not.
  "The other thing that you said that startles me, is your easy admission that Eywa is directly responsible for getting us this far.  Now, I was never comfortable with the of the God that I grew up with.  I truly identify with a deity that is at least partially female. My thoughts never were appreciated at Sunday school. It is such a relief to consider that Eywa is real to you, to us, and not just a Na'vi construct that we are observing."
  While Pamela was speaking, each in their own time nodded in agreement, to what she had been shown in dreams for the last three nights.
  "Then I guess it is safe to say, that we all have had the same dreams during the last three nights, correct?" queried Sharon.
  Everyone agreed, and over the remainder of the morning meal, they engaged in joyous descriptions of their dreams of Pandora and one day, becoming true Na'vi.
Tokx alu tawtute, Tirea Le Na'vi

Niri Te

CHAPTER TWELVE
   Pamela walked into the combined mess hall that also served as the classroom, and dayroom, in a cheerful mood,  and asked, "Srak ayoeng lu nìltsan?" (Yes/No We are well?)
Sharon replied, "Prrte lu kera kelku." (Pleased to be going home.)
And Jim answered, "Oeru 'efu ohawk!" (To me is hunger!)
   "Well in two weeks we have learned to make easy statements to each other that make sense," observed John cheerfully.
  Steve added, "With the number of weeks ahead of us, if we keep it up, we should be O.K. when we arrive home."
   "Speaking of 'home'," mentioned Wendy as she walked into the room, and up to Sharon, "I understand that you have been helping your teammates come to grips with the concept that Eywa and the Judeo-Christian God may very well be One and the Same entity.  You also effectively used existing Earthly religious thought and Bible texts to lend credence to your beliefs."
   "I am not on some evangelical mission, if that is what you are concerned about." answered Sharon. "But when I made the statement that it certainly appears like Eywa pulled the plug on Humanity on Earth, amd the way that it happened planet-wide so quickly, with volcano induced fires, and instantly lethal super-heated air, that it fulfilled, if you will, the way the god of the Christians and Jews said the world would end.  It got us to talking."
   Usually the quiet one, Steve piped up with, "And it all seems to make a lot of sense, when you notice that we are the ONLY Earthlings to make it off the planet before it turned into a sudden Hell.  Furthermore, every step of the way, all of us, you three included, made it out of there to show every species who wish to know, what the price of unfettered greed is."
   Jim Hanson jumped in with, "Sharon shared with us what she felt abut the way we left the planet, and got Pamela, and then the rest of us to divulge our shared dreams. Which none of us knew the others had."
   "Sharon seems to have a sensitivity for this kind of stuff," volunteered Pamela.
   "Oh I didn't mean to be accusatory."  replied Wendy, "I think it's kind of neat that our little clan, if you will, seems to be getting its own Tsahik."
   "Wait a minute here," injected Sharon.  "I never wanted to make myself out as someone who could interpret the Will of Eywa."
   "But WHO is the ONLY one here that majored in Theology at an S.D.A. Bible college?" said Pamela with a grin, while demurely pointing at Sharon.
   "Oh we never heard about this," exclaimed Jim, "please DO tell us about it Pamela."
   Pamela grinned mischievously at Sharon.  "We two, MOE, served in the Army together.  Then we both ended up at the University of Tennessee, studying Engineering.  She in Aeronautics, and me in Avionics.  Then we split directions.  I went to the University of Miami to study Marine Biology, and she went to a Seventh Day Adventist college on Tennessee.  We met up again at the University of Hawaii.  At that point we decided to obey destiny and join the ranks at the research facility.  That is a very good thing, because I thought she was going to get all religious on me, and not move past a pen-pal relationship."
   Sharon looking somewhat relieved, said, "See?  There you have it!  I am neither a great theologian nor some wise insightful esoteric guru sitting on some mountaintop.  I could never hope to be someone who can ascertain Eywa's will.  I don't mind discussing spiritual matters.  But I think it would be presumptuous for me to claim myself as Tsahik.  I would like that no one here apply that honorable title to me, either."
   "I was just wondering about some of the things that I had heard about, Sharon. I was not trying to get you to change your life's calling," apologized Wendy.
   "No offense taken Wendy, I just needed to nip any speculation in the bud," answered Sharon.  "NOW, who wants some lunch?"
Tokx alu tawtute, Tirea Le Na'vi

Niri Te


CHAPTER THIRTEEN
   " Pehem aynga sunu nume livu set?" (What would all of you like to study now?) asked Sharon as the last of her fellow crew members walked into the mess hall.
   "I think that we are going a little too fast," offered Jim, as he sat down.
Chip seconded the sentiment, by adding, "If we rip through this in six months, but forget half of it, and then get burned out, we will be shooting ourselves in the foot."
   Sharon and Pamela glanced at each other, and Pamela said, "Then let's put the book away except for review, and just concentrate on simple Na'vi for the next month 'til it becomes second nature to us, O.K.?"
   Sharon offered, "Let's take fifteen minutes to clear our heads, and each come up with the twenty or so words that we would like to become second nature to each of us, and the combine them to form this month's list,  How does that sound?"   She got smiles all around and two thumbs up, one from Steve, and the other from Jim.
   Two hours later, the seven renegades had a list of 206 words to work on committing to memory, in the next four weeks.  Sharon and Chip found an old Earth game that had remained popular through several centuries; the game called Scrabble.
   "Why not play this, but nÌNa'vi?" said Chip.
   "I think that the game just might be a good teaching aid," replied Sharon.
   Once the others saw them playing the game, and the fun that they had, the rest of the crew took turns at playing it too.  This new learning tool turned tedious memorization into a fun game.  So much so, that Chip couldn't help saying,
"Oeru samunu nerume hu aynga." (I liked learning with All You), when he put the game up for the night.
   After the evening meal, Pamela publicly asked John to let the group know how he got into flying before he joined the RDA as an astronaut candidate.
   "Well, I had always wanted to fly, but our family was really poor.  So I never saw the possibility of ever getting the chance, so I picked up and I DON'T CARE ABOUT ANYTHING attitude.  This stinking-thinking had me skating on the edge of heading in the wrong direction with my life," John started.  Sharon brought him a steaming cup of coffee to 'wet his whistle' and he continued.
   "One day when I was Twelve, a neighborhood cop who didn't like the way that I was throwing my life in the trash, offered me a dare.  He said that while he could never make it like my father hadn't been killed in that train wreck, he dearly wanted to help me find a decent direction for my life.  He had seen some of the sketches of different aircraft that I would draw, and asked me if I had ever heard of the Civil Air Patrol.  I told him,
   "It is where rich kids went to learn to fly in exchange for giving the Air Force  six years of service in return."  He set it up for me to go, bought me my study books and uniforms, as well as made sure that I had transportation to my drills even if he was working, Well, it was as if they had let an eagle out of a cage!  I became a straight A student, and turned my life completely around.  Afterwards, when as a new Air Force officer, I graduated Flight School, he pinned my Wings on me."
Tokx alu tawtute, Tirea Le Na'vi

Niri Te


CHAPTER FOURTEEN
   "What's the matter Sharon?  Couldn't you sleep?"
   "I woke up for a Nature Call and the just lay there looking at the bulkhead for the last hour, Wendy."
   Sharon looked out the forward viewscreen, recognizing some of what she saw, and asked, "How long have you been on duty?"
   Wendy answered, "Not long before you stumbled in. Why? Is there something on your mind?"
   "Oh...I don't know. A lot of things.  I just can't seem to shut down my brain tonight," Sharon said. "It is a mix of last month's events, our flight out, the trip to Pandora, wondering if we will learn enough Na'vi in time, and then, if the Na'vi will even allow us to live on Pandora with them."
   "That's entirely too much on your 'Worry Plate' for one night Sharon," observed Wendy.  "You are welcome to sit here with me, 'til you get drowsy enough to fall asleep, if you would like."
   "That might work," responded Sharon.
   After fifteen minutes, Sharon remarked, "The cosmos appears may factors more crowded up here than even out on the Pacific Ocean in my sailboat.  I am not sure I could identify stars up here."
   "It's a lot harder," agreed Wendy, "but after a while, you learn a few tricks of what to look for."
   After half an hour, Sharon asked, "I know you have been to Pandora, but how many times?"
   "Only once." responded Wendy,  "We were the fifth ship to bring equipment, not mining gear, but housing, food, fuel, and medical supplies."
   "Did you ever meet a Na'vi?" asked Sharon.
   "Once. I met two. A mother and son.  They were both badly injured.  The mother was clawed and the boy nearly had his arm severed. The medicos patched up them both, and they were thankful, but our technology scared the hell out of them.  We knew that they were thankful, because the morning after the day they left, eight Na'vi brought a large woven basket of fruit and meat to our gate.  And each took a different piece of fruit or meat, and ate it in front of us.  They all stood in the clearing about a hundred yards from the fence, watched us eat, and then melted into the jungle never to be seen by us again."
   Sharon looked at Wendy thoughtfully and said, "So then you were the trappers before the Buffalo Hunters and Gold Diggers."
   Wendy looked at Sharon and said, "We tried to warn them of those who would come behind us, but we only spoke, perhaps, twenty words of Na'vi."  Wendy continued, "Everything that William, Jim, and I, know about the Na'vi is what we learned from Dr. Augustine's book.  If you can get him to talk about it, Dan Warren knows a LOT of information.  He was on Pandora during the Battle for the Well of Souls.  But I NEVER said ANYTHING about this to you.   If you want him to open up about it, you KNOW nothing about it.  Just give him time, and a non-threatening opportunity."
   "I'll remember that Wendy, and say nothing of this conversation to him, or my fellow scientists," said Sharon, as she got up from the co-pilot's chair and went to her quarters.
Tokx alu tawtute, Tirea Le Na'vi

Niri Te

CHAPTER FIFTEEN
     Sharon awoke and stared at the ceiling for awhile, setting the goals for her day in her mind.  Once that was done, she rolled out of bed and showered, before starting for the mess hall/class room/day room and all around 'town hall' for all on the space craft.  Halfway to her destination, she met John coming out of his quarters as she walked by his door.
   "Care for some company on your way to breakfast?"  he asked.
   "That would be nice, as a matter of fact."
   John said, "We have four more days, and we will pass the orbit of mars.  When we do that, I will feel like we left Earth's neighborhood.  What do you think?"
   "I will feel relieved that we have put this much mileage between us and the RDA encampments.  Let's see, 35 million less 200 thousand, at their closest, THAT ought to take some of the fight out of THOSE dogs," said Sharon with a smile.
   "With what the crew of this ship did to the other moth-balled vessels, we will be safe from ANY pursuit once we clear the ORT Cloud," breathed John with relief.
   "We DO have one more concentration of RDA to worry about though," said Sharon,  "And that is NOT the Lunar country club where the LESS malevolent RDA were sent.  It is the penal water mining colony on Europa where the homicidal bad asses were sent."
   "Have no fear, Oeyä Tsmuke," reassured John, "They are almost in opposition to us in Jupiter's orbit."
   As they approached the entryway into the mess hall, John and Sharon could hear a passionate debate over something going on in the mess hall, so they double-timed it to the entry.  Once through the hatch, they saw Jim and Steve in an animated debate over whose Na'vi statement was more correct,  with Chip and Pamela enjoying 'the festivities' and the Old Dog's engineer, Jim Everest, TRYING to read a book.
   "I think that because we are still running to Pandora, AWNGA HIFWO, We escape, present tense, is correct," said Jim Henson, the team's Chief Biologist.
   Steve Hobbs, the team's Chemist, responded with, "No, we need to show action because we are in the process of escaping, so AYOENG HERIFWO is more correct."
   Jim Everest put down his glasses and said, "Kehe! That would mean We ARE escaping.  But I think that we have exceeded that statement.  I would say; AYOENG HOLIFWO, we HAVE escaped."
   Pamela immediately dropped her freshly microwaved sticky-bun, frosted side down, back onto her plate.  "We have never heard you utter a single word in Na'vi for months, and now you drop THIS little gem in our laps.  You have been SANDBAGGING on us!  When did you learn to speak Na'vi?  You were on that Moon, huh!?"
   Sharon immediately saw the regretful defensive look in Jim's eyes and based on her conversation with Wendy, three weeks earlier, jumped in to rescue him, before he suffered an emotional meltdown.
   "You folks need to remember that Jim was one of the team that took 'care of' the transports that were parked, and in that position he would have access on and off the colony on the Moon, where almost everyone there had spent time on Pandora," Sharon said.  "There may have been a few people up there who did not agree with what Seffridge and Quaritch were up to, and some of those people may have learned the language, and taught it to Jim.  Remember, that I was scheduled to fly to Pandora not long after what turned out to be the Na'vi's great victory over human decadence and greed."  With that, Sharon looked at everyone in the room, one by one.  "Does that make ME a partner in their crimes?"
   The engineer of the Old Dog immediately lost his 'deer-in-the-headlights' look, and the members of the research team all apologized to Jim Everest.  Sharon sat next to the relieved engineer and said,
  "I am part of such a motley crew!  We should have painted a Jolly Roger on StarShooter's vertical stabilizer!"
   He smiled meekly and said, "Perhaps I should have offered to help teach Na'vi to you folks at the start, then it wold't have been such a shock."
   Chip Higgins, who had been silent up to now, stood up and said, "Well, we could surely use your help. if you could forgive our awkward manners today."
   Jim looked at them and said, "Sure, why not."
   Pamela looked at him and said, "This afternoon at 1500 GMT?"
   "I'll be here," Jim said.
Tokx alu tawtute, Tirea Le Na'vi

Niri Te


CHAPTER SIXTEEN
   "I think my poor brain is going to melt with all this grammar that Jim is feeding into it,"  said Steve.
   "And THIS is coming from the guy that finished in the top of his class at M.I.T.?"  asked Pamela incredulously.
   "Yeah, we thought you could learn ANYTHING!" teased John.
   "I never said that I couldn't learn it, I'm just saying that at almost forty, there is a limit as to how fast totlly new information can be shoveled into my poor brain," retorted Steve.
   Just then, Jim Everest walked into the mess hall looking for something to snack on before taking his turn at commanding "Old Dog."
   "You needn't worry yourself Steve," he said, "this week there will be a lot of grammar to ensure that you guys can string together all those Na'vi words that you learned so well in an intelligent sounding manner.  After all, everyone of us on this ship wants to put our best foot forward, and NOT up our ass, the first day there, now don't we?  This only seems tough because it was first presented to you today.  We are going to spend the next two days practicing what we learned today.  After that, I'll dump some more grammar on you, and we will spend two days practicing THAT.  Then what we will do, is spend a week practicing what we have learned before we go to the next block of instruction."
   With that, Jim pulled the reconstituted package of noodles and ground beef out of the microwave, and headed to the flight deck to relieve Wendy.
   "So there you have it Folks, Jim is NOT going to melt, or in any other way, damage our brains," counseled Sharon.
   "I think that he is going to be a great help in enabling us to speak Na'vi LIKE the Na'vi, and that should help us make our first meeting go a lot smoother," offered Chip.
   "Well", said Sharon, as she grabbed her dinner out of the microwave, "I am going up to the flight deck to offer our thanks for his help, I'll only be gone half an hour,or so, and I'll come back to do some practice with you guys."
   "Anybody home?" said Sharon as she entered the flight deck.
   "Just little old me." responded Jim.
   "Mind if I come up to thank you for helping us?" she said.
   "Not at all," answered Jim, "and by the way, thanks for calling off the others yesterday.  I never got the chance to thank you."
   "It was nothing," said Sharon, as she sat in the Number Two Seat, "You looked like a cornered animal then. I was going to make sure that you had time to breathe."
   "If you can see to be back here in eighteen hours, Wendy needs t make a slight course adjustment, and she knows that you would like to fly it," Jim offered.
   "Oh, you can BET that I will be here strapped into this seat," assured Sharon.
   They fell silent for about ten minutes, eating their meals.  Once they were both done, Sharon said, "You surely want our first impression to be perfect, and I thank you for helping us make that happen.  We were worried how we would be received.  After all, even though we have what We believe are Blue Hearts, the Na'vi might not want a horde of Earthlings to possibly screw with their gene pool."
   "Oh, they will accept you guys, just fine," said Jim.  "But they are a brave warrior culture, and if you get me away from my scientific wonder-gadgets, I could not fight my way out of a wet paper bag."
   "From what I know of the Na'vi, they are a people that also honor their tsulfätu, their expert craftsmen, and I think that you would fit well in THAT capacity," offered Sharon. "It's been almost an hour, and I need to get back to the others to practice what you taught us.  See you tomorrow," Sharon said, as she got up from her seat.
   As she walked down the companion way, Jim wondered, "Could they ever accept me?"
Tokx alu tawtute, Tirea Le Na'vi

Niri Te

 

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
   Walking back from the flight deck, Sharon was feeling good about Jim Everest just starting to open up to her about what happened on Pandora.  She felt that given his ease in teaching Na'vi grammar, he had been there, perhaps several years. What could have gone so horribly wrong?  Was he there during the Battle for the Well of Souls?  There was NO WAY he could EVER harm the Na'vi even at gun point.  Just what had happened,  and when, which caused him to feel that he would not be able to serve the Na'vi?
   Sharon was about a hundred feet from the Mess Hall entrance when she heard animated, and passionately defensive voices coming from several of the men.  As she entered the Mess Hall, Steve, John, and Jim were at the back wall chalkboard, each passionately defending what they had written as being correct.  As Sharon walked in they all turned around, and Jim asked, "We are trying to construct our own sentences, and we have a problem with this one.  Could you help?"
   "Where is our resident born-linguist, Pamela?" Sharon asked.
   "She took a nap five hours ago, and hasn't woke up yet!" said John.
   "I'm not as good at the nit-picky grammar as she is, but let me take a look,"  said Sharon as she walked up to the board.
On the board was written:
Kerpe kem si ayoenga atana win 'ärìp.
Kerpe kem si ayoenga atan awin rikx.
Kerpe sop ayoenga atanä win 'ärip.
   "Well I see the biggest problem, and it isn't with the grammar, or the vocabulary." Sharon stated flatly.  She looked at them with a smile and said, "The Na'vi are in the STONE AGE, people.  Until we showed up, they didn't know what a WHEEL was, let alone LIGHT SPEED and they were very HAPPY with that."  Sharon continued, "I will have the ASS of ANYONE who tries to play the Earthling Saviour of these 'poor backward people'  trying to teach them anything about our scientific prowess - on a barbecue spit.  Remember that it was US who had to come here because OUR planet was being murdered.  There is NO Way they have any conception of Light Speed and I don't see them needing to know for quite a few thousand years."
   Once Sharon got everyone's attention, she went to an unused section of the blackboard and wrote the following lines:
Oeyä txintin lu fwa fteria fayoangit.  My primary occupation is studying of fish.
Oeru  ftia ayu alu swayonit. To me is the study of things that fly.
Oeru ftia ayu alu aytskxeyit. To me is the study of rocks.
Oeru ftia ayu alu ayewllit. To me is the study of plants.
Ayoeng kelku sami hu meoauniaea äo txampay. We lived in harmony with nature under the ocean.
   Once Sharon had written these lines, she said, "If you want to ask a Na'vi what they do in their olo' then learn to say this.
Ngaru lu pefnetxintìn nìtrrtrr. To you is what primary occupation daily?
   Sharon pointed at the board, and soothingly said, "Guys, this is what we need to be learning to say to our most gracious hosts."
Tokx alu tawtute, Tirea Le Na'vi

Niri Te


CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
   After Sharon's Character Guidance Session all of the Marine Research Team except for Pamela and Chip sat at a large table by the blackboard making small talk.  After twenty minutes, Pamela walked in, and headed straight for the coffee pot.  As she joined the others at the table, Steve asked, "Have you seen Chip?"
   Pamela responded, "As I was going to take my nap, he and Dan Warren were on their way to the Shuttle to check some stuff."
   Pamela glanced over to the blackboard and gave out a low whistle.  "You guys are now trying to construct your own sentences from scratch."
   "Yeah," moaned Jim, "'Til Sharon came in and kicked down the sand castle, saying that we shouldn't waste time writing about twenty-second century stuff."
   "She's right, you know," responded Pamela, "Did you write this other stuff, Sharon?" she asked.
   "Yes I did," answered Sharon, "I threw it up quick.  I'm not sure it's right. You are a little better at this.  Cold you please check it?"
   "As far as I can tell, Sharon.  Your sentences are correct.  I think it would be beneficial to THINK like Stone Age People.  It might be amusing for us to say Light Speed, but it is not relevant for us to talk about light speed to the Na'vi. Sharon is right.  We need to relate to them on their terms.   And by-the-way, it is KRRpe and NOT kerpe.  If you pronounce it correctly, you will spell it correctly."
   Pamela then demonstrated the trilled R.  Mentally she was replaying the learning videos that she had been studying.
   "Thanks, Pamela." voiced Sharon.  "I think that we should work on our pronounciation as well as WHAT we learn to say."
   Pamela added. "I am learning how to pronounce the words from the memory sticks that the crew of the transport keeps in that cabinet, over THERE."
   Sharon, John, and Jim, walked over and looked at the catalogued memory chips, as well as the written catalog of their contents.
   John said, "Wow!  If the crew of this ship has been studying these as long as they have been up here, they are REALLY good."
   "Yeah," remarked Sharon, "this is the ONE THING that I don't excel at.  And it is the ONE WAY that, on the spur of the moment, the Na'vi may judge us, our sincerity, and our motives.  The things that I excel at are all VERY twenty-second century.  And since I don't wish to dazzle the Na'vi with our BULLoney, then I should devote more time to studying the language to share things that they can relate to."
   "Oh, you are not as much of a linguistic DUD as you may think, Oeyä Tsmuke!" offered Pamela, as she reached across the table for Sharon's hands.  "I will tutor you each day, and you WILL get better."
   "That would help, if you would. my friend," replied Sharon.  "Now let me make everyone a nice soup for lunch."
Tokx alu tawtute, Tirea Le Na'vi

Niri Te


CHAPTER NINETEEN
  After the mid-afternoon Na'vi workshop, Sharon made her way to the flight deck where she would spend some of her free time when she wasn't with Pamela working on her Na'vi.
   "Kaltxì, Ma Wentxi, ngaru lefpom, srak?"  She said as she walked up to the pilot's chairs.
   "Oeru lefpom, irayo oeyä 'eylan." responded Wendy as she slid out of the left hand seat, and motioned Sharon to sit in it.
   "Are you sure I should be sitting there, Wendy?" asked Sharon.
   "Both you and John went through astronaut training, and as such have handled emergency situations on this type of ship," Wendy responded.  "We are going to work the two of you into the crew rotation, lightening the work load on us all."  And then with a wry smile, Wendy added, "What? You thought you were going to get free passage on this luxury cruise to Pandora?"
  "It's been almost a decade since I have been in this seat, " Sharon said, as she slid into the Command Pilot's Chair and adjusted it for her taller frame.
   Wendy climbed into the Number Two Seat and said, "You look like you are right at home, over there.  As soon as our Ship's Engineer reports in, we will begin start up procedures for the Nuclear Drive."
   "Sound's like we are getting ready to put the Old Dog into Passing Gear!" remarked Sharon.
   "We have enough 'Z-Axis' separation between us and the distribution plane of the asteroid belt, to where we can give this ship "Her Head'," assured Wendy.
   Abut three hours later Jim Everest walked onto the flight deck and informed Wendy and Sharon that the reactor had a normal start up, and he could continue monitoring operations from the Flight Engineer's station on the flight deck.
   "In about thirty minutes, we will accelerate to Serious-Fast Outer Solar System Speeds," Jim mentioned after he scanned his panel.
   "Cool," said Sharon, "We will be ready whenever the reactor is!"
   William walked in and said, "I guess I ought to check the radar returns as we go over The Top."
   "Well it looks like the Main Players require for this maneuver are here for the party, now we need to get the spectators up here," announced Wendy pulling down her Heads-Ups display.
   "I am showing no returns in our line of flight," said William.
   "Everyone needs to get up here in the acceleration chairs," announced Sharon over the intercom.  After all the biologists were safely strapped in, Wendy remarked. "Now we are all waiting on the reactor core."
   Ten minutes later, Jim reported, "Reactor ready forfull thrust power up."  Wendy and Sharon visually checked in their over head mirrors that all the Marine Biologists gave a thumbs-up and were safely strapped-in for a steady five Gs of acceleration for the next hour.
   "Do it!"  replied Wendy, her eyes glued to the Heads-Up display in front of her.
   "Thrust at thirty percent and climbing," reported Jim Everest then stated, "Stabilized at thirty-five percent." 
   "I will start talking speed readings when our accelerometers show the G-forces down to only two Gs," reported William.
   "SPEED readings?!" questioned Steve, "How in the world can you do THAT out here?!"
   "EASY!" answered Sharon, "You do it trigonometrical y, either by radar bi-optic measurement, or both.  The optic method begins many times faster because your 'return signal' is always available.  We use the radar signal to give us our distance to the close objects, in this case, the asteroids beneath us.  The optical angular measurement, will be made on light emitting, or light reflecting objects like stars and planets or their moons.  For the Dark Asteroids, we get the angular measurements from the ship's down-looking Doppler radar."
   "Man! I feel like I'm back in high school math class with THAT explanation," said Chip.
   "GOOD!" responded William with a grin, "There will be a TEST tomorrow!"
   After an hour and eight minutes, the ship stabilized at 98,000 miles per hour, with the reactor running at thirty-five percent.
   "Remember folks, as soon as we clear the Asteroid Belt over flight, we will do this again in two stages  to takes us up to 220,000 miles per hour, which we will hold til we clear the Oort Cloud," said Wendy.
   "Well," said William with a satisfied look, "There is nothing like Nudging close to 100,000 miles an hour to stimulate your desire for a hot cup of Joe."  He looked at Sharon and Wendy flying the ship, and asked, "Can I get our two intrepid pilots something from the galley?"  Both Wendy and Sharon indicated they would like black coffee.
Tokx alu tawtute, Tirea Le Na'vi

Niri Te


CHAPTER TWENTY
   "Well, Oeyä 'Eylan, I brought you some more coffee on my way back from my recent Nature Call." said Wendy as she handed Sharon a new mug.
   "Irayo atxan, ma Tsmuke!" replied Sharon.
   "Well Ladies, in the last three days, we have closed-in on the inner boundary  of the Asteroid Belt," said Steve. "How long 'til we cross over it?"
   "About fifteen minutes," replied Sharon.  "Our Doppler shows us as being 650 miles above the top of the Belt.  Are you going to give us a quick speed check, William?"
   "We show 98,216 miles per hour on the returns from the leading edge of the Belt," announced William.
   "So are we there yet, Mesmuke?" asked Pamela as she entered the flight deck.
   "Seventeen minutes and counting," announced Sharon, "Pull up a chair, and join the festivities."
   With four minutes to go the rest of the guys walked onto the flight deck, carrying different liquid and solid refreshments.
   "I show no objects in our path," reported William, "and we are over the asteroid belt in Three, Two, One.   Ladies and Gentlemen, we have now entered the OUTER solar system."
   Various methods of celebration were simultaneously employed by everyone on the ship, with Wendy and Sharon, still strapped in their seats, sharing a quick nod and handshake.  Pamela walked up between their two seats and offered a tray of freshly microwaved pastries, from which they each took two.  The others, each in turn, congratulated them with light pats on the their shoulders before the partying non-flight-crew members moved the festivities to the mess hall.
   "Now with the noise gone," said Sharon, "we can return to flying the ship."
   "It ought to be interesting to see if they have gone to more mundane matters pertaining to interstellar space travel," mentioned Wendy.
   "Well, the momentous occasion was four hours ago, but we will have to wait another hour to find out, after we are relieved," replied Sharon.
   "Speaking of flying on an interstellar escape flight," mused Wendy, "Did you leave anyone special behind, Sharon?"
   "No Wendy, I kept pretty much to my job, and my dreams of getting to Pandora one day.  It isn't the thought of sporting a blue body.  Unlike the others, we are NOT taking seeded embrionic tanks with us.  I doubt that anyone of us will ever get them.  If the Na'vi say that we can't stay, then I guess we could just check out the other moons and planets of the system, to see if any are habitable by humans.  If so, and optimally speaking, if they were uninhabited by other humanoid life forms, the rest of you could go on and populate our new home, hopefully keeping Earth's past from becoming our New Home's future."
   "I could not help but hear you say, The Rest of You.  Does that mean that you would not help in that endeavor?" queried Wendy.
   "Kehe! Oeyä Tsmuke!  I don't date outside my gender," answered Sharon.
  "Well now that we are being brutally honest, in that situation, I might and might not help out, as I am bi-sexual," stated Wendy, matter-of-factly.
   "Well that doubles your chances of finding a mate on THIS Love Boat then."
   "Only if you and Pamela are in the mix!  Otherwise that leaves the guys to choose from. I'm assuming that you and Pamela are a couple?"
   "I think so," responded Sharon.  "It has been neither stated nor consummated between us!  But understand, if anything were to work out between us, and we had to populate our own planet;  I - don't - share!"
Tokx alu tawtute, Tirea Le Na'vi

Niri Te

#13
 
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
   John and Dan came up to relieve Sharon and Wendy, removing the chance for an immediate response to Sharon's comment.  Three hours later, in the cargo hold designated as the gym, there was no one using the equipment but Wendy and Sharon.
   Wendy brought up their earlier conversation by saying, "What you said earlier Sharon, about fidelity, deserves an honest reply.  I agree with you so there should be no worries," Wendy replied with a grin. " I'm the same way."
   Wendy momentarily thought to herself, "So these two other women MIGHT be involved, but even Sharon doesn't seem to know." Wendy bit her lip in thought. Granted some of the guys had caught Wendy's interest, but when was anything like relationships EVER easy to figure out? Sometimes she gravitated to her own gender, other times not so much. It was hard to figure out. At least she was accepted for who she was. "Well, if things don't turn out, and their relationship  is a NO..." she halted her thinking a moment, not wanting to be presumptuous. Flirting outside her gender was so much easier for her than flirting WITHIN her gender. As ironic as that seemed, it was true.
   Wendy continued with Sharon, "So... you think you've got a chance? You know... you think Pamela likes you?"
   "Oh, I KNOW that Pamela likes me.  I have been working with her on Oceanic Studies for years in VERY tight quarters, and have even been teaching her to fly.  The thing IS that the two of us have been working so hard for so long at trying to wake-up the mega corporations to exactly what they were DOING to the Earth in the name of ever MORE money and power;  that we could be madly and hopelessly in True Love and not know it yet.  I think that our relationship deserves  being able to take some time to see if that's the case, don't you?"  Wendy chuckled and smiled at Sharon. "I'd say yeah, go for it," she told her friend. "You guys definitely deserve that chance," she added, wondering if she would ever get a similar chance, no matter the gender of the person. Sometimes it was hard to be Bi.  One had to face possible rejection from two fronts.
   "Irayo nìtxan, ma oeyä tsmuke.  I am glad that you understand.  It speaks volumes about your spirit," said Sharon, as she dismounted her stair-stepper, and headed to her room for a shower and a good night's sleep.
Tokx alu tawtute, Tirea Le Na'vi

Niri Te

 CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
"KNOCK KNOCK sleepy head.  Are you awake?" said Pamela, outside Sharon's door,
"I am NOW, Pamela.  Let me get a robe on, " replied Sharon.
"I have a tray with two cups of coffee, four microwaved biscuits and an unopened can of
sardines!" announced Pamela, moments before Sharon opened the door, saying,
"Well it may not be exactly lox and bagels, but who am I to kvetch out here in space?"
"Oh, so YOU are the Jewish American Princess from Brighton Beach that I have heard so much about
on this pleasure cruise," said Pamela in mock surprise.
"Why No, m'lady. I'm just a multicultural brat brought up in Far Rockaway, and Long Island. 
Sorry to disappoint!" said Sharon, causing Pamela to almost lose all composure as she set the
tray down on the table.
"So tell me, oeyä tsmuke, do you feel any different now that you have officially spent a night in
the outer solar system?" teased Sharon.
"Oh DAMN!  And I thought that I had my kxetse hidden!" replied Pamela in mock astonishment.
"That's OK, I'm going to have to start wearing sunglasses constantly to hide the fact that my
eyes are turning golden," joked Sharon.
Several hours past with Sharon and Pamela remembering times back on Earth.  The two of them
laughed a lot and cried holding each other, a little, but the destruction that their ship was
rapidly leaving behind, was now emotionally left behind in a healthy way, as well.
Once they had enjoyed their together time, the two of them placed the remnants of the meal on the
tray.  Sharon dressed into her 'duty uniform', and the two of them walked into the mess hall in
high spirits.
Pamela was helping each of the 'undersea rebels' as the Researchers liked to be called, with
their Na'vi pronounciations, on which ever particular individual lesson they each were learning,
when Dan walked in and said, "You guys NEED to take a break. HERE are the first Earth goodies
whose parent plants were saved from destruction.
"HOLY COW!!" exclaimed William, "THOSE are STRAWBERRIES!!!!"
"Hydroponically grown strawberries, to be exact." said a justifiably proud Jim Hanson.  "Dan and
I grew them in one of the unused cargo holds,"
"What else are you guys growing down there?" queried Steve.
"Snow peas, onions, spinach, tomatoes, and just to please our two Southern Belles, O-K-R-A," said
Dan with a smile in deference to Sharon and Pamela.
"Why Brett, I didn't think you cared,"said Sharon in her best 'Scarlett O'Hara.'
Totally non-plussed, Dan bowed, taking off his imaginary hat, and asked, "May  have the honor of
this dance?"  To which an equally well poised Sharon agreed, and without music, the two of them
gave the most fluid waltz lesson the others had ever seen.
While they were dancing, Chip wondered aloud, "Those two never met before we entered the Shuttle,
and I never knew that Sharon could dance!"
"There are a lot of things about the two of us that you don't know, Boss," said Pamela.
"Do tell," Chip asked, wondering just how little he actually knew about these two women who were
stationed in Nicaragua together, came on board the research mission together, and he had spent
the last six years together with, under the Pacific Ocean.
"Well, I will tell you THIS: When we were NOT in a combat zone and/or stationed in garrison, she
has waltzed with more than a few generals at black-tie functions in Washington, D.C,." said Pamela.
Once Sharon and Dan had finished, everyone sat at one of the long tables, slowly enjoying the
first berries to be eaten on board, taking care to leave some for those on duty, and for Wendy,
whom no one had seen yet.  As if on cue, Wendy walked in and sat down, and from her movements,
was in obvious pain.
"What's the matter, Wendy?" asked Sharon.
"I must have slept wrong, because I have been in SERIOUS back and shoulder pain since I woke up,"
she said.
"Oh! You did it now!" said Sharon, as Pamela got up from her chair beside Sharon.
Pamela walked over to Wendy, allowed her to pop the first strawberry she had tasted in years,
into her mouth, and said,  "Lay the left side of your head on the table, and put your arms in the
surrender position, palms-down."
Wendy obeyed immediately and was rewarded with a back rub like no other

"Oh my Eywa... where in hell did you learn that??" Wendy sighed. It was like every bit of stress
embedded in her muscles was being washed away. "I swear, this is better than some massage places!"
she murmured with a smile, going limp.

"Oh, it wasn't Hell where I learned this, I assure you!
"I was stationed in various places in the Orient. I learned by receiving !"
Wendy let out a low whistle. "Aw, lucky. I bet that was interesting," she said, thinking of how many different cultures and sights the other woman must have seen. Different cultures always interested her. "Well I'd say you more than mastered this skill... your teachers would be proud!" she murmured, "It's already feeling worlds better!"
   "Good, it's supposed to!  Sharon!  Hand the woman a napkin!  She's drooling on the table."  The two feel silent as Pamela watched her own hands as they sought out the knotted muscles.  "It also helps that I studied anatomy as an artist for many years.  I know how the muscles are shaped, and how they over lap."  Wendy's response was muffled but sounded pleased, non-the-less.  Pamela fell silent as her fingertips gently sought out the inflamation.  Quietly, soothingly, she eased the pain along the length of each muscle and drew it to the surface.  She visualized warm clay, as she coaxed the knots out to lay smooth. "I am also aware of what feels good on my muscles, and apply what I would seem to want."
  With that, Pamela quietly stepped away from Wendy's sleeping form, and motioned for everyone to quietly go to the other side of the huge room.
Tokx alu tawtute, Tirea Le Na'vi

Niri Te

 CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
   "So how long were you passed out on the table, Wendy?" asked Sharon, as Wendy breezed into the mess hall and up to Sharon's table. light as a feather.
   "Oh, I was coming-to as the last of you left.  I really needed her skill this morning.  Does she do that for you, Sharon?"
   "Yes Wendy, she does!  And Pamela taught me to do it to her as well."
   "Well. if you learned it, then did she teach you to be an artist, too?"  Wendy wasn't done, so she continued with, "Does Pamela still do art work?"
   "Well, in between her duties and teaching me to be an artist, she did a little art every day until we had to leave a planet that was very quickly, tearing it's crust apart.  She had to leave all her oil paintings of some of the things that we saw under water and, I don't know, forty of fifty sketches.  I left ten space art paintings and twelve or thirteen sketches.  It was all so sudden, and we had no time.  The crust of the planet was coming apart, even though we had a specialized space plane waiting for us in a private hangar, we almost didn't make it off-world.  After we took-off from Dillingham and were at Flight Level Six-Zero to go to Flight Level Eight-Zero, so that we could ignite the solid fuel rocket motor, Mauna Loa did not erupt.  It Exploded!  The rising column of rapidly warming cold air from the mid and upper levels of the atmosphere over the volcano gave us a cushion of very rapidly rising air.  This cushion was not so hot as to cook the ship, but it propelled us with a two-hundred mile an hour tail wind, that with the aid of our engines, took us from 60,000 feet to 80,000 feet in little less than half the time that the climb was supposed to take.  To put it into Hawaiian terms, we surfed the face of a vertical wave, and it saved our asses."
   Wendy looked truly pained in her expression.  "Eywa truly caused that to get you out alive, but it must have been a very painful thing, to have to leave that much beauty behind."
   Sharon gently brushed Wendy's cheek with the back of her fingers and said, "But the artists are safe, and we can make more art."  Embarrassed by her spontaneous, intimate gesture, Sharon looked at her watch and said, "We have fifteen minutes to microwave something and get up on the flight deck.  Let's wait til then to continue this conversation."
   The two relief pilots walked onto the flight deck with three minutes to spare, said their greetings, got a quick briefing on the Ship's systems and the possible locations of objects that might be in their flight paths.  Everything was as smooth as silk to the point of being somewhat boring, is the way that John and Dan phrased it.
   "Great, that's the way we like it," said Wendy.
   Sharon, ever on the look-out for the possibility of problems, asked if there had been any radio traffic from the moon colony or the penal colony on Europa.
   "Absolutely nothing," was John's reply, "nothing even the breaking of squelch."
  "Well I guess that sometime in the next several days, someone will try to send a status report to Earth," mentioned Sharon.  "What I find odd, is that there was no radio traffic from the moon colony while the Earth was self-destructing, and they HAD to know SOMETHING was going on."
   "Well, they had a front row seat, and DO possess some astronomical monitoring equipment.  Perhaps they got a few radio signals from Earth as you guys were still flying out of Earth's atmosphere, radios useless, do to the highly ion charged wave you guys were surfing.  When you consider what those on the moon were watching unfold, they did not need to ask, they got a pretty complete picture of what was going on down there," said Dan.
   "I guess that you are right," concurred Sharon, "I would just like to know what is going on in the heads of the bunch on Europa. Oh well, enjoy your time-off guys."
   Once the old crew was on their way back to the middle of the Transport, Sharon and Wendy settled into their pilot's seats, munched on a little of their food, and prepared themselves for a quiet shift.
   Wendy started munching eagerly on her food and stretched, finding her neck and back still gloriously pain free.  "Looking nice and calm," she told Sharon, arching her back, "And I feel amazing!"
   "Well I am certainly glad that Pamela had the therapeutic effect on you that she did.  Perhaps if she can't make it as an artist on Pandora, she could open up a chiropractic practice.  I'll even make and paint her shingle," chuckled Sharon.
   Wendy smiled as Sharon's sense of humor,  witty without being demeaning an said, "Oh, I think that she would do just fine at either endeavor."
   Sharon replied, "I believe you are correct Wendy!"
   Twelve hours of uneventful baby sitting of the Transport later, Dan and John walked on the Flight Deck, advising the two women to; "Double-time it to the mess hall before the guys gobble up all the home-fried mushroom, potato, and onion omelets that Pamela is guarding for you two.with a 12 inch skillet in hand."
   "We are on our way," said Wendy over her shoulder as they both RAN down the companion way
Tokx alu tawtute, Tirea Le Na'vi

Niri Te

 CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
   "I hear that we have a skillet-packin' omelet chef on board," said Sharon as she and Wendy walked into the mess hall. 
   "Yeah, and she threatened to LAY OUT ANYONE who tried to get seconds before you two BOTH ate," said Chip.
   "I SWEAR that's MY KIND OF WOMAN!" exclaimed Sharon as she grabbed a plate of breakfast that Pamela handed her. 
   "You SURELY are a woman to be ADMIRED holding off all THESE pirates with Just a SKILLET!" praised Wendy, as she took her offered plate.
   "O.K. you Space Faring Vultures, single file for seconds, and I'LL dole out the servings!" admonished Pamela.
   "Now, are you SURE that you could deal with that kind of feistiness in a potential mate?" queried Sharon of Wendy as they sat down.
   "With back rubs like SHE gives, it's a cross that I think I could learn to bear!" assured Wendy.
   After breakfast, Wendy asked Sharon if she was going to work-out in the exercise room, and Sharon replied, "No, thanks.  I need to exercise the muscle between my ears, and study some Na'vi.  Pamela has offered to tutor me with some of my infixes and lenition. The different infixes are difficult enough, but I am having a tough time remembering the different lenitions for more than two hours past the end of a lesson.  She feels that if the two of us just go to a quiet place, and practice talking to each other, then I will be able to retain the grammar better."
   "She might be right," answered Wendy, "if you don't push it too far when you start nodding off, due to just coming off a twelve-hour duty shift."
   "Oh she won't let me push it too far," responded Sharon, she only wants to have me speak with her for an hour, and then it's off to bed with me.  That way I can get up in time for our mid-afternoon Na'vi practice session."
   "O.K. Have a good lesson then," wished Wendy, as she made her way to the exercise room.
   Ten minutes later, Sharon and Pamela entered Sharon's room, and began Sharon's lesson.
   "Let's go back to adjectives today.  The weird thing about adjectives is that you are supposed to add an A at either end of the word DEPENDING on which side of the it the noun is.  Let's use the word BLUE as our adjective.  Do you remember that word?"
   "Sure," said Sharon, "It's EAN, but isn't that a noun?"
   "Sometimes a noun can describe another noun.  You can use it as an adjective by adding the A."  Pamela typed the word for heart on her touch pad screen in big glowing capital letters, TXE'LAN.  She then typed the word for blue in front of it EAN.
EAN TXE'LAN.  "Blue Heart.  But in this case, the word Blue describes the noun HEART.  So we would place the A: HERE."
   Pamela touched the screen behind the word EAN and added the A.
EANA TXE'LAN
   "But in Na'vi, the adjective can go in front of the noun or behind it, like this:"  Pamela reached over to the touch screen and moved the word EANA to where it followed the word TXE'LAN, making it read TXE'LAN EANA.  "But now the A is in the Wrong Place.  How should you FIX it?"
   "Sharon reached over and pushed the A with her fingertip saying, "Eschelon Left, Execute," and placed it in front of EAN: TXE'LAN AEAN.
   "Adjectives and nouns are always paired up in this manner," said Pamela, "with the A pointing towards the noun."  She had a self-satisfied look on her face. 
   "Well what is you had TWO adjectives? Flank Left and Right?" queried Sharon.  "What is the word for beautiful?"
   At this point, they were nearly cheek to cheek looking over the screen.  Blushing at the unstated compliment, Pamela wrote the word LOR and Sharon wrote the phrase: EANA TXE'LAN ALOR and shoved the screen towards Pamela. "What if I want to list three or more qualities?" asked Sharon.
   "I'm not sure the Na'vi are INTO long accolades! Otherwise, I guess we use the word SÌ with the short ì, meaning AND.  I guess we will learn more about grammar when we get there."
   Sharon was writing with her finger on the screen:
NGA LU EANA TXE'LAN ALOR.
You are a blue heart beautiful.
Pamela choose to ignore the blatent flirtacious comment.
   "I don't know how to say, You HAVE a blue heart.  The Na'vi don't seem to have a word for HAVE," complained Sharon.
    "That's right, we have to use Possessives."  With her finger, Pamela shoved over the word NGA and erased the word LU and changed NGA to NGEYÄ.
NGEYÄ EANA TXE'LAN ALOR
YOUR BLUE HEART BEAUTIFUL
   "What if I want to say, "Your's is a blue heart.  Do you add LU?" challenged Sharon.
   "I'm not sure,Sharon.  I'll have to check.  You are pretty sharp for someone who just finished a twelve hour shift!"
   "OH!  You just HAD to remind me!" said Sharon with a huge yawn.  "I am tired...but you make learning FUN!"  She bent down to remove her boots and socks, sat up, and immediately felt dizzy.  But she could hear Pamela saying, "We can continue this tomorrow!  I promise! I'm not going Anywhere!"
   Sharon was sitting on her bunk.  Sme where in the back of her head, she feared that she might be losing a chance at something.  What a time for her brain to stop functioning clearly! 
   "I would like that Pamela.  I enjoy spending time with you, Ma Oeyä Hona Karyu Alor!" (my adorable teacher beautiful)
   "Why Miss Sharon!  I do believe that you are flirting with me!" said Pamela with her best Scarlett O'Hara southern drawl.  "What will people think?"
   Pamela helped her exhausted friend to stretch out on her narrow bunk.  Sharon had unpinned her dark hair, which was now framing her face.  She reached up and cupped Pamela's face in her hand and murmured, "Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn!"
   The ensuing kiss was not wild and passionate but sweet and intense.  Pamela had little chance to resist, nor did she truly want to resist.  But Sharon was clearly exhausted.  Pamela pulled herself from the light embrace. "We will continue this tomorrow," she stammered.
   "The lesson or THIS?!"  asked Sharon sleepily.
   "Well...BOTH I imagine. Now get some sleep!"
Tokx alu tawtute, Tirea Le Na'vi

Niri Te

 
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
   Sharon walked into the mess hall,a new woman, after six hours of sleep.  Pamela was in the thirty by sixty dining room, the corner of which had been converted to a small Na'vi classroom.  Finishing a quick class in the use of the ÌRI suffix to denote topic.
   "The usual way of thanking a person for something is put that-which-is-thanked for, in topic, followed by the rest.
AY+SRUNGTSYIP-ÌRI OE NETIRI-RU SÌ PRRTON-UR IRAYO S<EIY>I    "So to translate: AY means MANY and SRUNG means HELP, so adding TSYÌP makes it a diminutive; which would make HELP small and endearing."
   "So Little Helps might mean hints..." said Sharon from the back of the group.
   "Kxawm.  Perhaps. And with AY+ in front of it means, HINTS, plural."
   "So as a topic, AYSYRUNGTSYÌP gets -ÌRI as a suffix, so it is like saying, "As for these little helps...
   "Now notice what happens to the names of those being thanked."   Pamela wrote on the wall Neytiri -RU and  Prrton -UR and asked, "Why should one be -Ru and the other -UR?"
   "Because Neytiri is female and Prrton is male?" asked Jim.
   "No, Kehe.  That's not it."  Pamela looked at all the puzzled, staring faces, paused, and then continued.  "Kehe, it is because Neytiri ends with a vowel!"
   "And Prrton ends with a consonant?" said Steve.
   "Eyawr! Correct!"
   "So adding the suffix -RU or -UR denotes the concept of, TO that person. Tee. Oh. to, kefyak?" said Chip.
   "Srane.  We have encountered this already when using the phrase. "Ngaru tsufä!  To you the mastery."
   "Now let's practice making sentences."  Our topics can be: gift, cup, message.  Help me think of more topics."  Pamela started listing words on her touch pad, that were projected onto the blank wall.
   After twenty minutes there were twenty sentences up on the wall, and Pamela said, "Now don't just forget these, write them in your touch pads so that you have them for future study.  It's about lunch time, so let's take a break, get something to eat and chill out till Jim tries to melt our brains with this week's first lesson.
   People started ambling over to the cupboards to select and microwave their favorite lunches, while Sharon walked up to Pamela and asked, "TWO classes now?"
   "No, the guys were trying to study this subject on their own, and getting no where fast.  So I just helped out."
   "Are you hungry yet?" asked Sharon, and Pamela answered,
   "SURE AM!"
   The two of them each made their favorites and he sat down together apart from the others, which was a new habit for them.  Chip nodded in their direction and said, "Isn't love grand?"
   To which John answered, "Perhaps they have something important to talk about."
   "Yeah." said Steve, "None of us ever saw any romantic behaviors from either of them, ever since we first met them."
   Jim chimed in with, "True, butt they were joined at the hip when ever they were together, ever since they arrived in Honolulu together on the same flight."
   Steve replied, "But they were stationed in Nicaragua together, and THAT duty WOULD foster a certain platonic, almost sibling, closeness."
   "Oh, I don't care either way," stated Chip. "I think that they make a cute couple!"
Tokx alu tawtute, Tirea Le Na'vi

Niri Te

 
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
    "Didn't Doctor Augustine say that Na'vi was a SIMPLE language," moaned Steve, "I would trade fixed word order for all these infixes ANY DAY."
   "I hear you, Tsmukan," commiserated Jim, "As soon as we finally get comfortable with long past, immediate past, present, present perfect, immediate future, and far future infixes, they through MOOD at us!"
   Just in the nick of time, 'The Cavalry' cleverly disguised as Pamela and Sharon, 'Rode-In' from the microwaves, and Sharon addressed the men with her mentor, Pamela, watching.
   "These are NOT as hard as the tense infixes, because there are only TWO of them to worry about!"  Sharon's brain went into Warp Drive to think of a cute aid in remembering the mood fixes.  With a relieved smile on her face, she said,     "If you are NOT happy about something or someone, then you are probably ANGRY, so it should be easy to remember the ANG infix.  If you ARE happy, about something or someone, then you are on your own, to think up a way to remember the EI infix; and if you do, PLEASE tell me!"
   Sharon looked up at Pamela expectantly, and got a smiling Thumbs Up.
   "Well everyone," said Pamela triumphantly, "while we did not deplete the first crop, Sharon, and Our Jim, went into the Berry Room, and picked enough ripe strawberries for everyone on board to have Five strawberries.  I just finished micro-baking enough biscuits to make everyone on board a strawberry shortcake."  You could heard the cheering all the way back to the RDA Colony on the Moon.   Once the cheering subsided to a dull roar, Pamela made an announcement.
   "Once we all enjoy our shortcakes, I will show everyone WHERE to position their mood infixes."
   Several minutes later, Wendy came in an said, "From the sound of the cheering, I thought we had just taken over an RDA ISV!  What happened?"
   "Something almost as good," reported Chip, "Sharon and Pamela cooked one strawberry shortcake for each member on board."
   "I swear!" wondered Wendy aloud, "Who ever marries each of you is going to have one fantastic wife!"
   "Well, you never can tell, Wendy.  The two of us, MIGHT not be the marrying kind," responded Sharon.
   "That would be a loss, " replied Wendy, "I'm going forward to tell the Flight Crew what all the shouting was about."  And she headed off for the flight deck.
   "Boy she turned tail and left in a hurry," observed William.
   "Well I was never on the White House Short-List for an ambassadorship," chuckled Sharon.  "Boy, I sure hope that doesn't lose me this neat flying job," she continued.
   That last remark of hers, coupled with her 'delivery' had half the people in the room laughing.
   Wendy walked on to the Flight Deck and Dan, having seen her walk in, from the upper panel mirror said, "Aren't you a few hours early Wendy?"
   She replied with, "The two Wonder Women managed to whip up a treat for everyone; a strawberry shortcake for EACH of us, with some of the real berries from the cool room."
   "So THAT's what the celebrating was all about," said John. "By the way," he continued, "Was that a bit of resentment I detected in your voice?"
   "Not so much resentment as a tinge of envy," she replied.  "I wish those two weren't so GOOD at the things that they tried to do.  I know, they mean nothing but the best, and that there are more than a few on this ship now that owe their lives to Sharon's engineering and piloting skills.  But then Pamela turns out to be a natural linguist. NOW they turn into the Betty Crocker Clones!  I'm very glad that they are as talented as they are, but I just wish that some of us, could have fate allow us to shine also."
   John turned around in his seat and said, "But every single one of you has shone, and brilliantly too, I might add:  William plotted our way and burn times to get us safely off a quickly dying planet.  Dan, here, comes to the rescue to pluck us out of our initial escape craft that was a nearly invisible needle in front of a burning haystack, on the FIRST TRY.  Jim showed you Jim HOW to disable the RDA's chase vehicles so that we could NOT be pursued, and THEN he rigs the hydroponics so that we would HAVE vegetables, and those strawberries to eat.  All that, leads me to YOU. I was on the Flight Deck of the shuttle while you and Dan, here, performed that 20,000 mile an hour spinning baton pass, and you did it Flawlessly.  TRUST ME, Wendy, if I thought that I had HALF a chance, I would would court you to be my wife in a HEARTBEAT.
Tokx alu tawtute, Tirea Le Na'vi

Niri Te

 
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
   Wendy stopped short and stared at John for a moment, tongue tied, and taken aback.  She brushed a strand of her hair behind her ear, and smiled nervously.
   "Oh, well Thanks, John, but it IS a group effort.  We are all in this together, right?" she asked, giving him a coy glance.  And a soft smile.  "And half a chance, huh?  What I, uh, gave you a FULL one?"  she added, her smile turning to a full-out grin, and her eyes sparkling mischievously.
   John looked at Wendy and said, "I have had women on Earth try and date me for all the wrong reasons.  But standing here is a woman who is not one of the shallow, social climbers but someone who has already stuck her life on the line for things that have moral value and are worth dying for.  She cherishes the same eternally important things that I do.  Someone to whom money is NOT a god, but a tool, and to whom, there are things that money can NOT buy, The most important of which is her loyalty.  When I look at you I see a woman, who if she ever said that she loved me, I would believe her to my dying day.  Someone, who, if she loved me for everything that I am, and everything that I am Not, I would most certainly fall deeply, eternally in love with."
   Wendy's mouth had opened and then snapped shut, as John replied to her overtly flirtacious remark in his own way.  "Seems we are on the same page, there," she said after finally regaining the use of her tongue and wits.  There are certainly things out there more precious than unobtainium.  Things worth fighting for, worth dying for," she said, sliding her gaze to John and leaning closer. "Things like having each other's back when things Go to Hell.  Things like having someone to come home to at night, someone to hold you when things get rough.  Someone that's not afraid to give you a reality check when you need it," she added with a wink and a grin.
   John brushed the hair that had fallen in her face from behind her ear, when she had leaned towards him, and he said, "That is exactly how it SHOULD be between two people that have each pledged themselves to each other.  Someday when we can each go to four 6 hour shifts, instead of two 12 hour shifts, you and I will have time to speak and be with each other. I earnestly await that day."
   Wendy slowly slid her hand down John's right arm and slightly squeezed his right hand, saying, "Stay right here, I'm going to make a crew scheduling change."  With that she looked at Dan, and said, "Dan, do you have a problem training Sharon from now on?"
   He said, "Not at all Wendy."
   And she replied,  "Good.  I will fly Old Dog solo tonight.  And you and Sharon will start tomorrow's shift together."   With that, she headed down the mess hall.
   "WOW, did I just go steady with the Girl of My Dreams?" asked John.  "Yes you DID, my friend, and I have never seen Wendy this happy since I met her twelve years ago."
   Wendy walked, no FLOATED, into the mess hall and saw Sharon and Pamela at a table holding hands while talking.  She asked if she could sit with them, and they both said, "Nìlun."  Simultaneously as if n tsaheylu.
   "How would you two like to have a good part of the night free to spend with each other?" she asked.
   They didn't need to say a word, their faces did their talking for them.
   "I am going to fly this shift solo, as I have done many times before.  Tomorrow, you will start being trained by Dan, and John will be with me, until we go to four 6 hour solo shifts, after we clear the asteroid belt, " mentioned Wendy.
  With that, Wendy excused herself, and made her way back to the flight deck, half and hour before shift change
Tokx alu tawtute, Tirea Le Na'vi