Hell's Gate, Pandora
Alarm klaxons blared as the crater smoked; Dr. Childs raced to the overlook where he could get a good view of the ruin that Damien Cole's rampage had caused.
"God damn them!" he shouted. "What the hell is this, a prelude to a larger attack? Colonel Quaritch!" he shouted in his radio.
"I'm on it," Quaritch replied curtly, and cut off. Childs frowned, but let the Colonel do his job. Security men and women raced to anf fro, checking vital areas, taking up defensive positions in case this was the opening move of a larger strike, and waited tensely for the other shoe to drop.
"Lone attack," Quaritch called back later. "No evidence of any supporting or follow-on elements. Zero," he added for emphasis.
"Then what was it about?" Childs asked. Behind him, the door opened and he turned to see his niece coming in, her face set in grim concern. She saw he was talking on the radio, so assumed a waiting posture.
"Can't tell," Quaritch said, "But it looks like a kamikaze attack by the AMP suit driver that defected to the other side. Cole."
"Cole," Childs repeated numbly, but the name was meaningless to him. "What was his beef?"
"I say we ask our guest," Quaritch replied, "I'm on my way back up. Be with you in a moment."
Childs acknowledged, and noted that the damage control and repair teams were already coming to deal with the incident. He turned to face his neice, Julia. "What's up, honey?" he asked.
"My Avatar," she said, "It's largely healed, and Dr. Patel wants me to start some physical therapy routines."
"Uhm, mmm-kay... what's that to me?"
"I need access to the drivepod room," she said. "You have it locked."
"Ah, yes," Childs said. He sighed, and looked outside. "Is this... really important?" he asked impatiently.
"It is to me," Julia said. "There's still work to be done."
"Not while those rebel nuts are out there," Dr. Childs said.
"But aren't they contained in the vortex area?" Julia asked. "Part of resuming normal operations means continuing the Avatar program. If the program is disrupted when the Venture Star arrives, then it'll be something for the people back home to question."
Warren Childs looked at his niece, weighing the logic of her words with the potential that she was, somehow --for some reason-- being subversive. Why the hell should she care about the damn Avatars? he wondered.
"Okay, fine," he said. Then an idea struck him. "You went through the training, learned the language, all that?" he asked.
"Yeah," she replied, warily.
"Seems we have a position open," he said, warming to the idea. "Grace Augustine is out of the picture now, and we'll need someone to head up the Avatar program. I think you'll do. In fact, I know you'll do, because you're th eonly Avatar left, right?" he asked with a grin.
"Uh--" Julia hesitated.
"What is it?" Childs asked, his grin fading. "You are the only one left, right? Are there any left?"
"Um, yeah," Julia said, recovering. "There were a couple left down in the barracks, but they were in the last stages of starvation and dehydration."
Dr. Childs looked at her. "Well... are they dead yet?" he asked impatiently.
"I don't know," Julia replied, "They were in bad shape when I got shot, but obviously I haven't been able to go check lately. I assumed they expired while I was out of action."
"Hmmm," Childs said. He'd been under the impression that all other Avatars had either escaped or been killed. "Well, then, that's you're first mission, sweetie," he said. "Go get your Avatar, and as soon as you have the opportunity I want you to draw a pistol from the armory. The Colonel will give you one on my order. And I want you to finish off those Avatars in there if they are not already dead."
"Yes, sir," she said, fighting down the nausea and tightness she felt.
"You take care of this, honey, and you'll be in charge of the Avatar program. You'll take Grace Augustine's place. Who knows, we may re-initiate the Animal Planet and Pandora Channel specials with your fresh young face instead of Augustine's. Tell the story of what's going on here from a more... realistic perspective. Hell, honey, you'll be famous. A TV star."
"I'd like that, uncle Warren," she said, smiling.
"get going, then, hon. I need to talk to the Colonel," Childs said. Julia left, brushing past the Colonel as she did, who grunted a greeting at her.
"Director," Quaritch said, "I just spoke with Alex. He said that Cole was disgruntled about your takeover here."
"Disgruntled?" Childs asked, "About what?"
"He felt that you would not allow him to return home at his regularly scheduled rotation," Quaritch revealed. "Apparently, there's a lot of people worried about that. There's an undercurrent of talk going about that you don't want any negative publicity related to your... assumption of leadership here," Quaritch said. "So, a lot of people are convinced that you're going to keep them here by force when their term is up."
Childs frowned, and leaned against the wall, his arms crossed. "I'd laugh, it's a ridiculous notion..." he said, scratching ta his beard. "But, yeah, I suppose some might see that as a danger. In truth, the thought had crossed my mind," he admitted.
Quaritch kept a straight poker face. "Well, that might have some repercussions with morale," he said, trying to say something that would be neutral and obvious, while also seeing where 'Director' Childs was going with his chain of thought.
"I wanted to see how things settled before the Venture Star arrives," he said. "If things get back to normal, and everyone falls into their roles like they're supposed to, then I can allow rotations to proceed as scheduled. But if people are still bucking my authority when the new arrivals show up, well... obvously I can't let people go home with attitudes like that to tell the press."
"It'll be old news by the time they get back," Quaritch said, "Six years old, at least. By that time you'll be firmly set here as the honcho. Maybe your buddies on the Board can even buy them off."
"Hmmm, yes," Childs said, but he was thinking. Or, I can pay off the crew of the ship to 'accidentally' lose power to a handful of sleeper pods on the way back... blame a solar flare or something... "Colonel, the real answer here is to get things back to normal. And that can't happen with these wild rumors floating about, egging people to take fanatical action," he said with a wave out the windows towards the smoking crater of Damien Cole's AMP suit.
"What should I tell them, sir?" Quaritch asked.
"Tell them that rotations will go as scheduled," Childs replied. "No one is being held here against their will. If there are still people agitating by the time th eVenture Star shows up, we'll deal with those troublemakers at that time, Okay?"
"You got it, sir."
"Oh, and Colonel," Childs said, looking back out the windows, "Those Samsons that got damaged in the attack... salvage their engines and weapons systems. I want to put them on my new invention."
"Yes, sir."
Results:
Childs and Quaritch discuss the AMP suit attack and what it means.
Attack is being seen as a separate attack, unrelated to the Avatar rebels.
For morale reasons, announcement is made that rotations home will go as scheduled.
Childs ready to take other alternative actions (from bribery to murder) to deal with remaining malcontents.
Childs's niece given command of Avatar program, instructed to kill Blake's and Liz's surviving Avatars.
*** *** *** *** *** ***
Kelutral, Dusk
The howl and whoosh of the engines was enough to scare away any remaining Ikrans or Toruks, and almost scared away several Na'vi as well. The children gathered to watch in wide-eyed, slack-jawed amazement as the Dragon, or "Iron Cloud" as they called it, dropped to the ground in the clearing near Kelutral. Many adults watched as well, their eyes glowering with anger and resentment at the power the massive assault ship represented-- even if in the hands of Sawtute nominally regarded as friendly and sympathetic to them.
Chris, Arik, Jax and the others saw them off-- Ariel Dauphanes, who made a show of blowing kisses to Sek'Mut, who pretended not to notice-- and Oscar.
"No one knows where Damien is?" Arik asked over the rush of engines. He and Jax held flashlights that had been used to mark the landing zone, but had also swept the treeline and crowd to find the human AMP driver.
"He took off," Chris said, "Didn't tell anyone where he was buggerin' off to," he added, some annoyance evident in his voice.
"We can't be flying the Dragon in casually," Jax said, "If he shows up, he'll just have to stay here and hide among the Omatikaya. It won't be safe to pull a stunt like this again."
"You're damn right about that," Trudy Chacon said through her throat microphone. She was in the cockpit, ready to take off at a moment's notice if things went wrong. "I saw some of the other Remote Sites, the ones on the forest floor nearby. They've been moved."
"Moved? Where?" Arik asked.
"Closer to the area around the Hallelujah Mountains," she said, "They're encircling the vortex area with them. They're trying to box us in. If they can't get in, they don't want us getting out unseen, either. In about two days they'll have the area between Hometree and our site under constant surveillance."
"You can be your spotty blue tail that they'll have teams in each one of those, too," Jax said grimly.
"I would," Arik agreed. "All aboard?" he called out.
From the ramp, Ariel gave the thumbs-up; Oscar grinned and nodded his head towards her as if to say what she said. Arik smiled at them and turned to his sister, Na'ama.
"Last chance," he said, "All ashore at's going ashore."
"I'm staying," Na'ama said simply.
Arik nodded, and gave the thumbs up to Trudy in the cockpit. The ramp closed, and in a moment, the pitch of the engines increased to a ferocious howl, and the massive aircraft lifted off and began a gradual rotation back towards the Hallelujahs Mountains.
"Well, we better get back to the tree," Chris said, "Put these bodies to sleep an' wake up at th' site so we can help 'em sling-load those crates."
"Yeah," Arik said lazily, looking at the disappearing running lights of the Dragon as Trudy winked them out. The assault transport was soon just a dark spot on the horizon, and then disappeared into the mist. "We got time, though, for them to fly back."
"You should rack out," Jax said, "you'll need to feed your human bodies, too. Wake up, eat, use the crapper and then be ready to go when the bird shows up."
Arik stretched, scratching his ribs. "Good idea. We need to get a lot done and still be rested for tomorrow." The group broke up and made their way back to their sleeping areas. Arik met with Aniuket, who guided him to the family sleeping area. Sek'Mut glared, as did her parents, but no one said anything. Nef'Tys had invited Tseylian to sleep over as well, so they could all get up early and get started together; because of Tseylian, no one in Aniuket's extended family wanted to get into an exchange with Arik.
They ate together, a delicious but tense meal in which Arik felt all-too-self-aware. With little said between them, Aniuket led Arik up to a branch where the k'sey na'vi was strung for him.
"Jungle hammocks, eh?" he asked rhetorically. "Semi-transparent hammocks slung up in full public view. How exactly are little Na'vi made?" he said with a smile. Aniuket stifled a smirk and made as if to scold him with disapproval for his remark, but in truth she enjoyed the display of rebellion involved with having Arik over.
"Spending the night at the girlfriend's house," Arik said, "Awk-waaard. G'night," he said with a smile.
"Good night," Aniuket said back quietly.
"Goodnight Ah-rik!" Nef'Tys hollered from across the span of the nearby branches.
"Good night Nef'Tys," Arik answered back in casual tones. "'night John Boy, 'night Mary Ellen, 'night Grampa."
*** *** ***
"Get up, sleepyhead," a voice said as the face the voice belonged to floated in his blurry vision. Acrid smells tickled his nose and he sneezed.
"Crap!" the voice said. "Gesundheit. Thanks."
He blinked his eyes. Grace Augustine was wiping her face with a towel, her cigarette held between two fingers. Oh, that was what I smelled, he realized.
"Sorry, boss," he said.
"No problem," Grace said. "I was going to shower later anyway. How are things back there?"
"Damien Cole ran off," Arik said, "No one knows where he went."
"Well, I hope he has a plan," Blake said, coming by with trays of food for the now-wakened Avatar drivers. "The chopper got here a few minutes ago. Trudy and Esme and the others are eating, too, but we need to be ready to load this up and go."
"We'll strap down everything that might move around," Grace said, "And we'll have to make sure the Avatars aren't needed and are secure. I don't know if we can have active Avatars while the drivepods are being moved, and I don't want to risk it."
"Good idea," Chris said, scarfing down a sandwich.
"How's your Avatar?" Arik asked.
"Getting better," Grace said, "I'll try to link in with her in another day or so, but I want to know what the plan is tonight."
"Move these containers," Arik said, waving his hand around to imply the crates they sat in. "Then go find a couple others to attach to them, give us more drivepods and rooms."
"There are at least two other sites in the Hallelujah Mountains we can add to these," Blake said.
"Then let's finish chow and get going," Arik said. "Sooner the better. We'll try to move a couple other sites tonight but we can put that off. Moving this site is the priority."
"Ready when you are, mate," Chris said.
Grace looked around-- the Avatar drivers were finishing their food and cycling through the bathroom. "Then let's go," she said, and they donned breather masks. Ariel and Na'ama stayed in their drivepods and used their Avatars outside, since they could move freely in the Pandoran atmosphere.
Soon, Chris, Arik, Blake, and Grace were outside in breather masks, and Ariel And Na'ama's Avatars joined them. Inside the Dragon, Trudy and Esme warmed up the engines to begin the sling load operations.
Results:
Avatars asleep safely at Kelutral.
Avatar drivers begin work moving the site to a safer locale.
***
