Chapter Text
There is a certain energy buzzing among the recoms when they return to Bridgehead. They’d normally joke around or chat during the flights to and from base, but this return trip was silent.
Spider had to squeeze his fists to keep his hands from shaking as the gravity of the situation weighed down on him. Quaritch would only stop when he or Jake were dead, but then again Quaritch could just come back if he failed. He barely even noticed the blood pooling in his fists where his nails dug into his palms.
Quaritch and Lyle veered away from the group as they flew into the city, beelining for the command center. At first Spence thought it best to avoid the General and her judgement, especially at a time like this, but Quaritch called after her on comms as soon as he realized she was no longer behind him. Good, he still trusts me , she thought. Pushing Cupid to catch up, they alight just behind Cupcake and Buttercup in front of the common center’s main building. The three of them, hating the noise of the city’s interior construction, fly off to perch atop a nearby crane; close enough to hear when their riders call, but far enough to spare their ears of the incessant drilling sounds.
The control room seemed no more frantic than usual. Ardmore wasn’t even there; Stringer had to send someone to fetch her. The three of them wait for her restlessly, pacing or tapping a foot against the ground. Their anxieties seemed to bleed into the room around them as the staffers purposefully made wide arcs to avoid walking near them, and even Stringer seemed to grow increasingly uneasy with them there.
Ardmore looks annoyed when she arrives. “Colonel,” her voice is just as flat and cruel as usual, but this time with a noticeable tinge of vexation; that tone was usually reserved for Spence, who she very clearly disliked. “You should still be in the field. What brings you back?” She didn’t say it, but what she meant was ‘Why the fuck are you here?’
He uncrosses his arms and throws them up in exasperation. “Ma’am, are you not concerned about that signal?” He smacks some buttons the holograms controls with much more force than needed until a projection of the Eastern Sea appears, cutting across Lyle, Spence, and Ardmore’s bodies. “A gunship, not one of ours, was picked up goin’ out there. We’d be stupid not to chase it.”
“Watch your tone,” she snaps. “Do you even have a plan?”
“Yep,” his tail thrashes behind him as he walks into the hologram. Lyle and Spence scramble to get out of the way as he begins to make arcs with his hands to make new graphics appear over the map. “The signal was intermittent, and they lost it over open water, but if you project the track,” he sweeps his arm over an archipelago and an orange arrow extends across it, “it hits this island group.” The arrow widens as he circles with his hand.
Ardmore crosses her arms, already disapproving. “That’s hundreds of islands.” She shakes her head, “That’s a big search box, lots of villages.”
“This is our guy,” new determination washed over Quaritch’s face, darkening his features. “You give me ships and aircraft, I’ll bring ya back his scalp.”
Lyle began to pace behind Spence while she went rigid. She was at the precipice far sooner than she had hoped for, and very soon she’d have to choose. But there wasn’t much choice, was there? Sixteen years, an entire lifetime, had passed— if she was going to choose to run at any point, it should have been back then. Now, she was just a ghost. She pushed the thought down for now. Dwelling on it didn’t matter when in the end, the result would be the same: it’s either Jake or the recoms, and she didn’t like either option.
“Let it go, Colonel,” Ardmore was truly annoyed now, “he’s gone. Dead, for all we know.” She shifted to step away, ready to end the conversation.
“Nope.” Quaritch utterly refused to accept it, whether because he couldn’t get over the fact that he wasn’t in charge anymore, or because he was too obsessed with killing Jake, neither Lyle nor Spence could tell. “He’s out there,” he pointed at a separate screen displaying a few islands and walked toward it, tail thrashing behind him as he went “maybe raisin’ an army among the sea clans.” He turns back to Ardmore and Dorman and throws his hands out, “This is a coastal installation, you really want twenty thousand screamin’ Na’vi hittin’ from your seaward flank?”
Ardmore purses her lips. She won’t admit he’s right.
“General, trust me, you need to know Sully is dead.”
She stays silent for a moment, casting her eyes downward at their bare feet. They were still dirty from their trek in the woods that morning. She makes a face of disgust before looking back up at Quaritch and sighing. Her aversion and reluctance betray her thoughts even if she doesn’t speak them aloud, though Quaritch chooses to ignore it: ‘They’re too goddamn native .’ “One SeaDragon, one week.” She says nothing else, walking past Quaritch and out of the command center with her assistant in tow.
Quaritch nods, “Ma’am.”
SeaDragons are ugly things, made even uglier by what they were designed to do. Whales were first driven to endangerment on Earth by hunting them for their oil, and then totally wiped out when restrictions were lifted once more in the late 21st century; of course it would happen again on Pandora. CetOps was supposed to be a smaller operation, using funding that used to be allocated to the Avatar program, but its investments ballooned after the discovery of amrita – Dr. Garvin discovered it accidentally – and the RDA poured millions more into it to expand the fleet and its hunting efficiency. Spider’s stomach churned just thinking about it.
The ship’s roof thudded as the ikrans landed, forcing them to spread out as it groaned slightly beneath their weight. The bridge was positioned at the top of the ship exactly so it wouldn’t have to support so much.
Spider immediately hopped down to the balcony where a disheveled man in cargo shorts and a Hawaiian shirt stood waiting for them. He looked nothing like a captain, but that’s exactly what Dorman had told them to expect. Next to him stood an equally scruffy man, but this one wore a vest and bag remarkably similar to the one Norm had in Spence’s memories. Spider offers them both a quiet greeting.
“You Scoresby?” Quaritch asks as he hops down to the balcony. His hand rests on the pistol strapped to his thigh.
Lyle follows him down, but Spence and Z-dog stand just above them at the edge of the roof. The other four are spread out between the ship’s two wings.
“Uh huh,” he has an Australian accent, and sounds pretty pissed off, “are you the asshole that’s commandeerin’ my ship?”
“That would be me.”
As the ship begins moving again, Scoresby sends someone to meet the rest of the squad on the main deck while Quaritch, Lyle, Spence, and Spider follow him and the other man into the bridge. It would be cramped enough with one recom, let alone three. Spence keeps her distance from the holotable while Quaritch explains the plan to save herself the neck pain and tunes out as he rehashes the plan to Scoresby.
Him interrupting the guy dressed like Norm mid-sentence brings her back into the conversation. “Uh, you are… who?”
“I-I’m Ian Garvin.” He didn’t look any older than Scoresby, but his hair was notably grayer. He holds his hand out to Quaritch, “Er- marine biologist.”
Quaritch completely ignores him and goes back to discussing the plan with Scoresby. He’s gone full tunnel vision on this.
“I hunt tulkun ,” Scoresby stops him when he suggests they search every village in the archipelago. “That’s what I’m rigged for, that’s all my guys do. I got quotas to meet.”
“I’ll be nice, once.” Quaritch smiles in a way that looks more like a predator baring its fangs, his ears pushed back against his head, “Then I won’t.”
Everyone can see the threat for what it is; Scoresby, Lyle, Spider, Garvin, Spence. The crew members in the room turn away, pretend they weren’t listening, for fear that when Quaritch is done with their boss they’ll be next.
“Well, if you can’t get out of it…” Scoresby’s face hardens before he flicks his head to the side, his unserious demeanor returning, “get into it!” He walks off immediately, shouting for all crews to report to their stations.
That can only mean one thing. Icy dread creeps up the back of Spider’s neck, and Garvin looks like he’s about to be sick.
“Watch the kid,” Lyle mutters to Spence as he follows Quaritch outside. “I don’t trust that Ian guy.”
Her ears flick backward. Those two made her the go-to babysitter every chance they got. “Sure.” He was her CO now, so even if he might not give a shit, she technically couldn’t say no to him. She takes a breath of CO2 and follows Spider and Garvin downstairs.
The bridge was connected to the bowels of the ship by a series of small staircases that Spence nearly had to crouch to get through. It reduced the number of airlocks the ship needed and made access to multiple areas of the ship – sleeping quarters, vehicle bay, etc – easier, but clearly that only applied if you were far less than nine feet tall. And Spence was less than nine feet tall, to be clear, but she certainly wasn’t human sized, either.
The corridors down here weren’t much bigger, so she had to hunch over, and the bulkhead doors practically had to be crawled through. She stayed a generous distance behind Spider and Dr. Garvin to give them a bit of privacy if they wanted to talk, but they didn’t. The awkward silence between them permeated all the way back to her.
“I’ve heard a lot about you, by the way,” Garvin finally says as they turn into a small, somewhat rudimentary looking lab. There’s hardly anything pertaining to the tulkun or amrita— the walls are covered in sketches of Na’vi and villages and sea creatures, while the tables and workstations are covered in jars of things preserved in formaldehyde and half-constructed metal cylinders meant for… something.
Spider and Spence share a glance behind his back. “Uh, which one of us?”
“Oh- both of you! Dr. Castello and I have been corresponding since he arrived on Pandora. We’re trying to arrange a sortie for him to accompany me in my mobile lab, but the General… she cares too much about amrita extraction to approve it.” There was a distinct nervousness about Garvin that just melted away as soon as he entered his lab.
Spence sat down on the floor near the door to avoid hunching over under the low ceilings. She stared at Garvin in confusion, “Castello… talks about me?”
“You’re the only one he doesn’t hate. Except Ja, of course.” He scratches his head and shoves some things on a counter aside to reveal a busted up coffee maker. “Though he speaks quite fondly of Ja… I almost–” he cuts himself off, “no, no, I shouldn’t gossip.” He empties out a few mugs that were holding random things and holds them up, “Coffee?”
“Um, thanks. And trust me, I’ve noticed.” She takes the very small mug he hands her and takes a small sip. “He’s actually my boyfriend, so…”
Spider snorts, “About time. Even I could tell how much you two beat around the bush.”
She laughed into the coffee, nearly spilling it over herself. “You little shit-”
Alarms. The lights throughout the interior of the ship switch to emergency red
“Phoebe!” Prager’s voice drifted into her earpiece. She was a little surprised it could reach her so far from Bridgehead’s signal boosters and through all the layers of metal. “The first island’s on the horizon. The Colonel wants us to fly over there and let the smaller boats catch up, element of surprise.”
“Fuck, already?” She scrambled to her feet, “Doc, where’s the nearest airlock?”
He pointed a shaky hand, “Back the way we came, up the first flight of stairs. It’ll put you on the lower deck by the moonpool.”
She grabbed Spider’s wrist, careful to keep her grip loose enough it wouldn’t hurt him, but tight enough he couldn’t get away. She moved as fast as she could down the corridor without pulling his arm out of its socket.
“Let go! Why do I need to come!?” He tried to yank away from her, but she held fast.
She pushed him into the airlock and grabbed one of the waterproof masks nearby and shoved it into his hands, “Because I think you’d prefer it if Miles wasn’t pissed at you. I know I do.” As soon as the airlock doors began to part, she ushers him out onto the lower deck where other humans frenzy to and fro to gear up into Skel Suits and Picador boats.
He reluctantly follows her up the ladder-like metal stairs to the upper deck where the ikrans are waiting restlessly. They didn’t like the movements of the ship.
Quaritch mounts his as soon as he sees them appear at the other side of the deck, “Hurry it up, Spence!”
He lifts off and the others follow, leaving Spider with no choice but to ride with Spence. Cupid is about to complain about the extra weight, but the bond fills his mind with an urgency that pushes him to shut it and catch up with the others. It’s not determination he feels from his rider; it’s dread.
Spence has never seen a Na’vi village in person. She’d seen plenty of photos of forest na’vi villages, accompanied by excited explanations that she barely remembered the details of from her SciOps friends, but this one looked nothing like those. It was tucked into a small cove, and the village itself was even smaller. From up here, it just looked like a campsite. Spider grimaced as she pulled him into her chest to prepare for the dive. Things come into focus as the squad gets lower and lower; most of the small houses sat on the ground, but some were built into the massive palm trees dotted across the beach, and the village’s shape was somewhat circular, surrounding a central firepit.
They weren’t hostile, at first. These Na’vi had likely never encountered the RDA in person, let alone a “dreamwalker,” so they had no reason to be afraid. They were curious. Why would anyone who looked like a forest Na’vi be all the way out here, where the people have teal skin and wider limbs for swimming?
But curiosity killed the cat, after all. They knew what was happening the moment the SeaDragon rounded the bend of the cove, followed by the Picadors speeding toward them. With a command from Quaritch in a language the Na’vi couldn’t understand, their strange visitors drew their metal weapons and forced them all into the middle of the village, restraining their hands behind their backs. The Sky People ransacked their homes, breaking their belongings, shocking them with metal sticks. The one who commanded the other vrrtep shouted at them with crude words, he could barely grasp the language he spoke, but the painted tawtute beside him spoke their language as if he was one of them.
Spence always hated this part. She was a good soldier, always had been, but threatening and assaulting civilians had always, always , rubbed her the wrong way. Anyone who knew anything of consequence anyway would be fighting back, not cowering in fear.
They needed to hit around seven villages per day if they wanted to get through the fifty in the archipelago that Dr. Garvin had estimated. Fifty rounds of terrorizing people, beating them, burning their homes. Spider blinked back the hot tears that threatened to fall. He knew if he started to cry, he wouldn’t be able to stop. He was forced to be an accessory to this.
With demands from Lyle, who surprisingly took the initiative to ask for information about the Na’vi, Garvin took time between each village raid that day to tell the recoms about the clans in the area. Most of the villages this far south belonged to the Ta’unui clan, who had a close relationship and cultural similarities with the larger Metkayina clan. If Jake Sully was hiding with either clan, the other would cover for him.
A storm was on the horizon, darkening the sky and whipping the winds through Spence’s hair as the squad flew to the seventh village of the day. It was exhausting. The Na’vi saw the SeaDragon before the recoms even arrived, but none brandished weapons when they arrived. The soldiers had only grown more enthusiastic as the day dragged on, many of the recoms included, and most used more force than was necessary to gather and subdue the Na’vi. Quaritch stood in the middle of it all, casually pulling up the entries for Jake and Neytiri on his datapad.
“Secure, Colonel,” Lyle said as he took a final look around and shoved the barrel of his rifle into the tsahìk’s neck.
“ This man, ” Quaritch ignored their begging and shoved the tablet in the olo’eyktan’s face, displaying an outdated photo of Jake. “ We know he is in these islands. Here? This village? ” His grammar was all over the place.
The olo’eyktan spoke quickly, in a dialect they could barely understand, but he was clearly denying that Jake was there. When pushed to translate, Spider relayed the same thing everyone else had said: “Forest people don’t come here.”
Quaritch continued to push it, waving the tablet in their faces. Spider gave him another translation he didn’t like. He pointed at something in the water, “Shoot that animal!”
Lyle didn’t give even a moment of hesitation. One, two, three, four – the corner of his lips pulling back in a sick smirk with each round fired – five, six, seven ; it was dead after the second shot. Spence recalled the icy terror Ronan had felt, and now she’d seen it for herself.
“You see what these can do?” Quaritch grabbed the olo’eyktan’s hair and pulled his head back, forcing him to look at his gun. He repeated himself, raising the tablet for the whole village to see and speaking slowly as if that would make them understand any better. “Put her down,” he barked, finally tired of these games.
Lyle shoved the tsahìk down, and she yelped as her head hit the sand with a dull thud. Prager took her partner’s queue from Quaritch to prevent him from retaliating as a soldier in a Skel Suit electrocuted him with the cattle prod.
Look away. Spence’s stomach twists, and it’s all she could do to not cover her ears to block out the cries of the Na’vi. Block it out. Pretend it’s all a game. That was the only way she could rationalize many of the things she did on Earth. The Resource Wars turned millions of soldiers into monsters, there was no escaping that fact, but it wouldn’t stop her from running from it. It was easier at Hell’s Gate, she was fighting another species. But now she was one of them, like it or not. Swallowing the bile in her throat, she averted her eyes from where Lyle crouched beside the tsahìk with his knee pressing down on her queue.
She looked up just as Prager slammed the butt end of his rifle into the olo’eyktan’s jaw. The Na’vi grow more restless, screaming at the recoms and humans to stop, let them go, show mercy, anything , but none listen. Some stood to fight, but were immediately beaten down again. The tsahìk mumbled a prayer into the sand while Z-dog chewed her gum absent-mindedly. She blows a bubble like it’s just another Tuesday.
“We really gonna waste her?” Lyle looks up at Quaritch.
Spence can’t tell if he’s actually concerned about taking the life of an innocent, or if he’s just wondering why he hasn’t been given the kill order yet.
The Colonel puts a hand on his hip. He takes a quick look over the captives before glancing between Spider and the woman under Lyle’s knee, both of whom are begging, pleading, for this to stop.
He growls, and then looks at Spider one final time. Maybe the kid got through to him, or maybe he’s just bored. “Burn the hooches.”
“Hey, light ‘em up! All of ‘em!” Lyle shouts the orders for everyone to hear.
Prager is the only recom equipped with a flamethrower, and the first one to ignite the Na’vi’s homes. He wasn’t crazy about fire the way Amari was for explosives, but he’d always had an affinity for it; its warmth, its light. He delighted in the way the flames licked upward. Most saw it as chaotic, but he knew it could be controlled. That’s why he liked it. Destruction that could be kept on a leash, if you knew what you were doing.
His ears barely registered the wails behind him. His tail wagged in arcs behind him, and the corners of his lips lifted ever so slightly. This was the most like himself he’d felt in months— since they’d woken up, in fact. As he moved to light the next pod, Spence’s words from days ago weighed down his mind; she was right. He was different now, he felt nothing like the man whose memories he held. But watching the flames dance and cinders float through the village, he actually felt a bit better about that. There were less destructive ways to achieve it, for sure, but there was a path back to normalcy. He could feel it.
Quaritch grabbed Spider and motions for everyone to rally. Spence nearly sighed in relief, thankful to finally get away from the destruction; if she’s lucky, this would be the last raid of the day. The kid fights the Colonel, of course he does; it takes a grip firm enough to elicit a wince to finally make him follow.
Flying back to the ship, Spence twists around to take a final look at the village. A huge plume of smoke rises from it, already mingling with the gray storm clouds above. With any luck, the rains would put out the fires in time to salvage something.
She turned to face forward. Luck like that was impossible.
Sleep did not come easy. Recoms couldn’t stay in the oxygenated quarters with the crew because the Atmos CO2 masks weren’t equipped for more than a few hours of use, so they stayed in tents on the deck near the moon pool. Between the hard ground, the storm, and the sound of Lyle’s snoring permeating the thin polyester walls of the tents, Spence slept like shit. All that would have made it hard enough, but for good measure, her insides also twisted themselves into knots of guilt and dread.
No one had been killed. Yet . That three letter word lingered in the back of her mind like music with a heavy bass vibrating through the floor. Even if she didn’t dwell on it, she could still feel it coming.
“This shit ain’t workin,’” Quaritch threw down the man he held and walked over to Lyle and Spence after yet another village raid yielded zero results. It was the fourth one that day.
Lyle took a few steps to the edge of the woven home they stood in, out of earshot of Spider. “Nah, they’re stonewallin’ us.”
“If we turn up the heat, he’s just gonna keep running.” He glanced at the burning village behind them, and then to Spence, “We gotta draw him out.”
Spence blows some ash out of her face, “How do we do that?”
“Well, you knew him best, Phoebe. What makes him tick?”
She flinched. He so rarely addressed the fact that she was close with Jake that, even back when they were alive, she thought he forgot. He seemed now to remember it very clearly; his eyes glinted in a way that she didn’t like. “I-I don’t. Not anymore.”
He arches a brow but doesn’t voice whatever he’s thinking. “Well,” he jerks his head toward the ship. “I got another idea.”
They mount up and land on the SeaDragon’s roof once again. Garvin and Scoresby are there waiting for them.
“I’m over it, I’ve got quotas to meet!” The latter called up to them as they landed.
Lyle leans against the railing and crosses his arm, clearly done with Scoresby’s shit. Spence sits on the railing between him and Spider. She doesn’t like Scoresby either, to be honest.
“You wanna hunt?” Quaritch’s ears pull back, “Let’s hunt.”
Spider turns away from where he was watching the burning village. His face says everything.
“What, here? There’s too many villages.”
“No. No, no, no!” Garvin interjects, pushing in front of Scoresby and confronting Quaritch himself. “Respectfully, sir, you do not understand the kinship bonds between the tulkun and the ocean Na’vi. It would be like murdering a member of their family .”
“If we start hunting here, the hostiles will come after us.”
“Exactly,” Quaritch says, ignoring Garvin’s protests. “One hostile in particular…”
Spence did not follow them into the bridge, not wanting to deal with a hunt. Lyle didn’t either, but he was more concerned with getting a break to slack off than any moral dilemma. She stood at the edge of the upper deck, hair whipping around her face as the Seawasp behind her took off for the hunt. Lyle goes down to their makeshift camp, and since the entire crew is occupied with the hunt, she's alone up here with nothing but alien seabirds to keep her company. And… What is that?
Most of the birds around here are light green, and built somewhat like a smaller, sleeker version of an ikran. But even from this distance it’s clear that this thing is not only purple but larger. She swings her rifle around her shoulder to peer through the scope. It’s a stingbat, as clear as day.
She finds it a little odd that there’s one all the way out here, but then again she knew next to nothing about speciation on Pandora, or whatever it was called. But then she notices the collar. It’s woven, not like the thick nylon one Ronan was given. She only knew one person to ever collar a stingbat.
“Holy shit… Kev?” Spence said under her breath. Noah’s stingbat. They’d tamed him as part of the research that Castello had given her to help with Ronan, and he was somehow still alive. How long do stingbats live anyway? Wait- why the fuck would be Kev out here ??
She struggled to remember the melodic whistle Noah always used to call him. Putting her fingers in her mouth, she whistled as loud as she could, recreating the song as closely as she recalled— He didn’t respond.
Spence dropped her rifle, letting it swing from the strap around her shoulder. “Is it not him..?” She’s about to give up when she has an idea. Running to the opposite side of the deck, she leaned so far over the rail that she nearly tumbled over it, looking down at the deck below her. “Z!”
Z-dog stood by the moon pool, shaking water out of her boots from the storm the night before. Her ears perked up when she heard her name, “What? You’re gonna fall like that, y’know.”
“Get up here, you need to see this!”
She cocked her head as Spence disappeared back above the deck, but ultimately followed her up. Climbing up the ladder to the upper deck, Z-dog could see the tulkun hunt in the distance. She could hear the tulkun, too, their cries piercing above the sounds of the waves and the ship, but she ignored them.
The moment she reached the top of the ladder, Spence grabbed her hand and ran across the deck to where she saw Kev. She watched the shorter woman scan every inch of the skies, and then her face fell.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” Spence muttered. “Where did he go?”
“Hey,” Z-dog put her hand on Spence’s shoulder, “calm down. Where did who go?”
“Kev! Noah’s stingbat, he was here!” She ran her hands through her hair. Only now did she realize how much it had grown since waking up; it was nearly down to her shoulders. Once her hair was out of her face, she tried the whistle again, but he didn’t come.
Z-dog turned to Spence to face her, “Are you sure you saw him?”
Spence huffed out a breath, “Yeah, I-” She looked to the side and gazed out at the sea where the boats had finally caught up to the tulkun. “I saw it. Maybe it wasn’t him, I don’t know, but I saw a stingbat.”
“What would Noah be doing out here..?” Z-dog said the question out-loud, but it was mostly to herself.
The ugly sounds of scraping metal reverberated below them as the boats and crab tanks docked on the ship. The cranes whirred, hauling in the tulkun’s corpse, before its massive weight finally slammed down on the deck. Only its head fit on the ship, mouth gaping wide.
“Nasty,” Z-dog says and walks away so she doesn’t have to look at it.
Spence looks out at the horizon one more time. There was nothing out there except Cupid, stretching his wings by circling the ship. She took a breath to collect herself, then went downstairs. If Noah was somewhere in these islands, she prayed to whatever god that would listen that they didn't meet.
There was no reason to stay up here, staring down at the tulkun while Scoresby took Quaritch inside its mouth to show him what they take from it, so Spence followed Z-Dog down to the lower deck. Thank god that thing hasn’t started rotting yet , she thought.
The voices inside the tulkun’s mouth drift out and grow clearer as she gets closer.
“...You just waste the rest?” Spider looked around inside and then at Scoresby. He was pissed, to say the least.
Scoresby stared back at him. Only two days, and he already hated the kid. “Drop the bags,” he called to the crew member behind him before walking away. “Let’s sink her!”
“No. Leave the bags,” Quaritch butted in, stopping Scoresby in his tracks. “I want ‘em to know it was us.”
“I charge extra for bein’ used as bait.”
They stared each other down, but ultimately it wasn't much of a choice. You try going against a nine foot tall Colonel and see how he takes being defied.
Three days now, it had been. The smell of burning wood and leaves had begun to stick to Prager’s clothes and hair, and it wouldn't come out no matter how hard he tried. But they’d made their way through nearly half of the islands. Night had long since settled over the ship, heavy and humid, the kind that felt like a thick, dark blanket. Since an incident the night before with a rogue skimwing, recoms were taking turns on the night watch, working in pairs. They were exhausted enough as is, and throwing patrols into the mix certainly wasn’t helping.
They were supposed to be keeping watch on opposite sides of the ship. That’s what Prager was doing for the first hour, at least. Slowly but surely, however, he and Spence gradually moved across the deck, closing the distance. He could see her now, just below where he stood on the upper deck. She sat on the edge with her legs dangling over the water and leaning against the rail, gun discarded beside her. She looked beautiful – serene, even – with the moonlight silhouetting her. He couldn’t see her face.
After a minute she turned to look up at him. “Are you just gonna stare, or are you gonna come sit with me?” She called out just loud enough to be heard over the waves, but quiet enough that the rest of their sleeping squad wouldn’t hear.
There was hardly any hesitation to abandon his post to climb down and sit with her. They sat thigh to thigh, soaking in the cool breeze together under the warm night. Next to her now, Prager could see the anxious tension in Spence’s face; she gripped the railing tightly. He thought she must just be nervous about the coming battle.
“Are you okay?”
“Uh huh.” Her ears gave her away, flinching back against her head in response to his voice. He may not have noticed it in the dark if not for her earrings glinting in the moonlight.
He rested a hand over hers on the railing, “You can talk about it, whatever it is.”
She shakes her head weakly. He got the message. Prager had never experienced Earth military, so he didn’t know what it was like to subjugate other humans when at war, he’d only fought the Na’vi; though looking like them did make it somewhat harder to make that mental disconnect needed for killing. Spence had years of practice with that, but it felt like that had all washed away. She felt like that scared little eighteen-year-old private again.
Prager couldn’t come up with anything else to say, and Spence didn’t have anything to say either. So they sit quietly, staring out at the inky black water. It was so dark that it looked like if they fell in now, they could sink forever without ever reaching the bottom, cold black water filling their lungs and pushing them further down. He squeezed her hand a little tighter.
As the quiet stretched out, she shifted so that she was turned away from him. The breeze had stopped, so the smell of smoke sticking to his hair and clothes sat thickly around them. He could still see the little orange dot of the fire he’d set hours earlier on the horizon; it almost looked like a star.
“Phoebe… can I ask you something?” He finally broke the silence.
She could feel his eyes drilling holes into the back of her skull, but she didn’t want to look at him, not right now. “What is it?”
Something was off, he could feel it. He didn’t know if she was mad at him or if something had happened, but he could tell by the tone of her voice she wouldn’t have anything good to say. “The other day, at the beach. What did you mean about the soul drive, and me being different?”
Spence turned to face him now, twisting so fast that her queue whipped around to smack the railing behind her, making her wince in response. Her eyes were wide, honeyed pool staring at him in shock, “I’d never seen you cry before.”
“What?”
“It’s been, what, six months? We’ve been back for just a few months, and I’ve seen you cry multiple times since then,” she hisses, tension pulling at her features. “When we were alive, I never once saw you cry, or even look weak. You could be vulnerable, but the James Prager in my memories was never once weak.”
His mouth flattened into a line, eyebrows furrowing. “What is that supposed to mean?”
She pulls one leg up under her to better match his height where she sat. “You’re like a different person, James. Something’s been off this entire time, and now this week! These bodies aren’t so foreign anymore that I don’t know your body language. I saw your tail wagging, Jamie, you enjoy hurting these innocent Na’vi.” She paused, voice shrinking, “That’s worse, that’s so much worse.”
“No, we- we haven’t even killed anyone. All I’m doing is setting stuff on fire, that’s not hurting anyone!”
“Oh, my god,” she lets out a choked laugh, “I forgot you were never a real soldier. You’ve never had to look a little girl in the eye after she just watched her home burn to ash because your unit failed to save her in time. You’ve never seen what war does to your own people.”
He smacks his hand against the deck, “Of course I have! I was on Pandora before you, I’ve seen plenty . And those aren’t our people, Phoebe, our people are on this ship . Those are blues .”
“ We’re blues!” She realized she said it too loud, her eyes darting to the tents in the moon pool. She took a breath to calm herself before speaking, “We’re not human anymore, we don’t get to claim that.”
His head bobbed with anger, “My humanity is all I have, actually, so if we don’t get to claim that anymore, what’s even the point? Why have these memories at all?.”
Her face fell, “Wait, but you have me— and-and Alex, too.”
“You?” Prager raked his hands down his face, “If you want to talk about being different , you should look in the mirror. You’ve been keeping things from me, Phoebe. You told me you thought you were pregnant and then never brought it up again.” His voice falters, then gets quiet, “It makes me think you don’t even trust me enough to tell me.”
“I can’t get pregnant, that’s the point! They sterilized us before we ever got a say in it. And of course I don’t want a baby, look around! Five of us have died already, and I doubt we’ll even make it out of this wild goose chase without losing more!”
“I would have supported any decision you made regardless if you had just told me ,” He leaned toward her, exasperated breath fanning across her face. “It’s the fact that you hid it.”
She flinched back involuntarily, “I was scared, okay? What if you left me? What if you got mean? It’s the same way I felt when I watched you burn down those villages. I don’t like this version of you, it’s too much like how you were before-” She realized what she was saying a moment too late, eyes widening and hand smacking over her mouth just as it finished shaping the words.
“Say it,” his voice was nearly a growl.
“Y-you had a temper,” Spence scooted back, suddenly aware of how close he was. She suddenly felt so small. “It wasn’t out often, but it was there, and that's why I never asked you out. I-I only said yes when you asked because I needed a rebound.”
Prager clicked his tongue, nodding. Then he pinched the bridge of his nose. “Just when I finally feel normal again, like myself , I found out you only loved an idealized version of me.”
“That’s not-”
Acid coated his words, “It is, though, isn’t it?” He stood up, towering over where she still sat. “Our patrol’s almost over anyway, you can go back to the tent. And you don’t need to worry about me coming back and starting another fight. I’ll sleep somewhere else.” He didn’t wait for her to respond, instead walking past her to return to his post.
“Fuck…” she slumped forward against the railing once more. “Why did I say all that? Fuck!” She smacked a fist against her head, cursing herself out loud. As the weight of the breakup settled on her shoulders, she looked out at the dark moons silhouetted against Polyphemus in the night sky and realized the way this night echoed their first argument. Like then, she didn’t notice she had started crying until she choked out a sob; for the first time in this lifetime she cried until she couldn’t breathe, every grief from the past few months rushing forth and pouring out of her.
Her shift was over. Quaritch stood in the shadows under the upper deck, quietly waiting for her to finish. He rolled the potential of this being a liability back and forth in his mind, and by the time he had even thought to comfort her, she’d already gone quiet and left.
Prager was true to his word. As she returned to the tent, the thought crossed her mind for a moment to go after him, but it slipped away when she considered the possibility of them going for round two. He hadn’t even come back for his bedroll. It sat empty, still neatly pressed flat, next to hers.
Ja lay fast asleep on top of his own due to the heat. He’d spread out in the small pop-up tent in their absence, so Spence set her gear in the vacancy left by Prager and tucked herself into the remaining space by Ja’s side. She pressed her forehead against the bare skin between his shoulder blades, but sleep did not come. Instead, she counted the small iridescent spots that dappled constellations across his back.
She went rigid when he stirred, a groan rumbling within his chest and echoing through her bones. “Did I wake you?”
He shifted away from her before rolling over, “You were laying on my tail.” He sleepily draped an arm over her and pulled himself closer. “When did you guys come back?”
“It’s, um…” She squeezed her eyes, shut, not wanting to see his reaction when she told him. “It’s just me. James isn’t coming back tonight.”
“What?” Ja smacked his tail around on the bedroll behind him to feel for Prager, but was met only with the clunk of her vest and gun. “What happened, where is he?”
Spence’s tears threatened to fall again, “W-we had a fight, and I said so much awful shit. I don’t think I can take that stuff back.”
He suddenly propped himself up with his elbow, looking down at her, “We should go talk to him! We can’t just leave him out there overnight, Phoebe.”
“Please,” she grabs his hand and holds it against her forehead, closing her eyes. “Don’t. I don’t want to fight again, and we both need to cool off.”
He looks down at her curled up form, taking in the strain in her face and the exhaustion in her voice. She must be mentally hanging on by a thread, he guessed. “Okay,” he lay back down, “but promise you’ll talk to him soon. Please?”
She nods, pulling him closer. He falls asleep again easily after a little bit, but she isn’t so lucky. Hours might have passed, she doesn’t even know, before the fatigue weighs heavy enough on her to pull down on her eyelids.
“Hey, Z, pass me your pen.”
Lopez and Z-dog took the last patrol shift of the night, so they’d been awake for a few hours already by the time anyone else on the ship began to stir. It was only on their way back to pack up their makeshift campsite for the day did they notice Prager sleeping with the ikrans. His hand was draped over his eyes to block out the morning light, and Atlas’ big ugly head lay on his stomach.
“What are you, twelve? This isn’t a sleepover,” Z-dog replied.
“I don’t know,” Lopez pointed to Atlas, who was sprawled across the deck with his wings spread out, “looks like a sleepover to me.”
“How do you even know I carry a pen on me?”
“You like to label your favorite MRE flavors, even though it doesn’t stop anyone from taking the good stuff outta them.”
“How do you-” she scowled, “You ratfucking bastard.” She pulled the pen from her vest and threw it at his head, “Here. I hope he wakes up and kicks your ass.”
Lopez snickered and knelt down over Prager’s head. He uncapped the pen with his teeth, making Z-dog’s frown deepen. He got about halfway through drawing a sharpie mustache onto his face before a foot connected with his gut. The blow sent him hurtling backward where he landed on his own ikran, Tajín, making him screech and thrash around in response; the talons at the tips of his wings early took out Z-dog’s queue.
She jumped back and held her queue close to herself, “Jesus Christ!”
“Güey! What the hell?” Lopez rolled out from under Tajín, who had pinned him down in his freak out, and pulled himself up. “Can’t you take a joke?”
Prager had sat up during the struggle, waking Atlas, and was scrubbing at his face trying to get the marker off. The ikran glared daggers at Lopez. “Your shit hasn’t been funny in days, Lopez.”
Lopez scoffed, “Excuse me for trying to lighten the mood while we march to our probable deaths, mi llave.” He puts out a hand to help him up.
Just then, yelling erupts from the lower deck. It’s not very intelligible due to the sounds of wind and waves, but it was very clearly Quaritch’s voice.
“Shit, we should go check that out,” Z-dog jogs over to the stairs.
Prager ignores Lopez’s outstretched hand and stands on his own. He’d given up on wiping the marker away, leaving a streak of black ink stretching from his upper lip to his cheekbone.
“Fucking let go!” Spider’s voice bounced across the deck as they made their way down the salted metal steps. Three rocks reach up from the horizon behind him like fingers.
Rounding the bend, they saw what all the fuss was about. Spider was hopelessly trying to pull himself from Quaritch’s grip, but the Colonel held fast. The only reason he hadn’t just lifted the kid up by the arm was the risk of dislocating it.
The nearest airlock hissed open and Spence, Lyle, and Mansk emerged. The former didn’t even hesitate to run in as soon as she saw the situation.
“Miles!” Spence grabbed Quaritch’s wrist, prying his fingers away from Spider’s arm. “What the hell is wrong with you?”
There were deep red marks across Spider’s forearm. Those were definitely going to bruise. He doesn’t hesitate to run off, extracting himself from Quaritch’s vicinity. Ja tries to intercept him to take a look at the bruises, but he bobs and weaves under his legs and runs inside.
Quaritch shook her off, “He needs to suck it up. We aren’t here to play house with those savages.” His voice had lowered to just below a shout. Anyone on the deck whose skin wasn’t blue made themself scarce as quickly as possible.
“You need to get a grip.” She lowered her voice, “We lose good people every time you go berserk. Leave Spider out of it.”
He leered down at her, leaning down to meet her eyes, “You need to fall in line, Spence.” He was close enough that the angry breaths he huffed fanned across her face. “You can have a longer leash when lives aren’t on the line. Either you get your shit together, Corporal ,” his gaze flicked to Prager behind her before coming back, “or all our shit hits the fan. And that’ll be on you.”
He never called her by rank. How he referred to someone was the clearest indicator of how Quaritch viewed someone, and pulling rank with one of his own squad members was how you knew he was well and truly pissed off. Most of the recoms by now had gone back to the tents to pack up and were trying not to listen, but the few who kept eavesdropping felt a chill run down their spines.
Spence wasn’t one to back down, but she also knew not to poke the bear. Especially this one. He looked like he was about to blow if she said the wrong thing, but that didn’t mean she would just roll over, either. “Yes, sir ,” she said it with as much sarcasm and derision as possible.
Quaritch snarled in response and stormed off, presumably to the bridge.
Later that day, as the SeaDragon tracked another tulkun, the ship lurched to a stop near the three rocky islands reaching up from the sea. The water here was shallow, with reefs coming high enough in some places to pose a danger to the ship, but the crew navigated effortlessly over them in flight speed before abruptly braking and dropping into the water.
Spider eyed the bridge’s 3D projection of the tulkun warily. Along with other pieces of data he didn’t understand, it also displayed that the RDA had dubbed this place “Three Brothers Rock.” Cheesy as hell , he thought.
“All crews to stations,” Scoresby said to his first mate and pushed away from the table. “All right people. Come on, let’s make some money!”
Garvin begrudgingly followed him to the airlock. Spider shared the sentiment. He followed them as well before Quaritch had the chance to grab him or bark an order.
Something in the corner of his eye caught the Colonel’s attention. At first it just looked like some sea birds perched on a rock, but if he squinted… He needed a closer look. There were binoculars mounted on the railing outside.
“I’ll be damned,” he muttered as he peered through the lens and zoomed in on a handful of Na’vi trying to pry the tracker out of a tulkun. One boy in particular, who didn’t have the trademark teal skin of the reef people, looked very familiar. He looked up at Lyle from where he knelt, “Sully’s kids.”
Spider blanched.
“Let’s roll- Not you.” Quaritch put his hand out to stop Spider from climbing up to the roof with them.
Spence, on the lower deck, flinched when she heard Lyle whistle for them to saddle up. She ran for her ikran with a hand on her throat comm, “Talk to me, what’s happening?” She didn’t know why she asked the question, she knew the answer. It’s why they were out here.
“Sully’s kid’s are here, which means the man himself must be on his way,” Lyle chuckled dryly, “He’s gonna get a world of payback.”
“Half of you stay with the ship, the other half grab those kids the moment they come up for air,” Quaritch commanded. His voice still sounded on edge like this morning. “I’m switchin’ to Scoresby’s channel.”
Spence, Lyle, and Mansk were already in the air, so they spread out and kept low to the water. Spence could feel her hands shaking around her gun. This is it. The breaking point . Her eyes flicked anxiously between the waves below her and the horizon, half expecting a horde of Na’vi to appear at any moment, spearheaded by Jake. The lights of the subs below danced, flashing in and out as they passed behind the giant kelp that brushed the surface of the water.
Above her, Quaritch was circling like a bird of prey. After a few more minutes, his voice came back into her earpiece, “They caught a few in the nets. Lyle, with me, rest of you get back to the ship. Be ready to subdue them, don’t underestimate ‘em.” Cupcake tucked in his wings and dove, cutting into water like a knife— Buttercup followed just after. They came back up with a net clutched between their talons, with two Na’vi inside and a third hanging onto the outside. The third, who they all recognized as the mouthy one from the ambush, brandished his knife as soon as he landed on the deck; every soldier on the ship pointed their rifles at him in kind.
“Drop the weapon,” Prager said, lowering his gun, “put it down.”
The kid didn’t comply, obviously, instead baring his fangs and slashed at him. Prager caught his wrist and brought him down in one swift motion, and a nearby soldier in a Skel Suit pinned him down under their iron foot. As the other two emerged from the net, they too drew their knives and tried to defend themselves, but Z-dog and Mansk quickly brought them to heal. One of them was the little girl that had bitten Z; she still had the marks on her hand from that.
“Hey! Hey, what are you doing, stop!” Spider jumped down a flight of stairs and ran toward the three just as Quaritch and Lyle landed. “Stop, don’t hurt them!”
Spence caught him in her arms, holding him in place so he couldn’t interfere.
“Stop- don’t hurt them!”
“I’m sorry,” Spence hissed through her teeth.
The boy underneath Prager continued to struggle, “Spider!”
Spider stopped fighting, realizing there was no way he could get out of her hold without causing more problems. “Bro, you okay?”
“Yeah. Great, cuz,” He answered in English.
Quaritch hopped down from his mount, his presence commanding silence from everyone, even the captives. He adjusted the gun hanging from his shoulder and looked Spider over, “Get back to the bridge.”
Spence handed him off to the soldiers that had chased him outside. He smacked their hands away and reluctantly did as he was told.
“Keep him there!” Quaritch’s gaze fell on the Na’vi boy next. “Yeah,” he snarled, “I remember you. Cuff him to the rail, all of ‘em.”
“Watch ‘em, they bite,” Z snarked as she dragged the smallest one to the rail.
The kids struggled, but ultimately were cuffed anyway. The boy said something to his sister in Na’vi; to comfort her, maybe. She’s too young to be involved in this, Spence had to look away to keep herself from thinking about it.
Everyone turned when they saw movement in their peripherals– a flock of… some kind of animals they hadn’t seen before had just rounded the bend of the islands. “Na’vi inbound!” Lyle shouted, “Spread out, weapons up!”
“Push left, spread out,” Spence called out to the group of soldiers closest to her. Other than the humans, that just included Ja and Prager. Ja went the furthest down the ship, with Prager closest to Quaritch, and her in the middle. Z-dog, Lopez, and Mansk were on his other side, near the kids.
She peered down her scope as the Na’vi slowed in the water, stopping a good distance out. “Three hundred yards,” Lyle's voice was gruff in her earpiece. Jake was doing the same, looking through his scope to get a look.
Quaritch’s demeanor, which had been increasingly erratic throughout this hunt, became incredibly calm. Eerily so. He ripped the comms from the Na’vi boy with the assumption it was tuned to the same channel as Jake’s. “Tell your friends to stand down,” his voice was like stone, cold and hard. “You want your kids back… you come out alone.”
The hairs on the back of Spence’s neck stood up.
He drew his pistol, holding it up for Jake to see, “You know better than to test my resolve,” he pushed the barrel against the back of his head. There was something else in his voice, and Spence wasn’t the only one who noticed it; he couldn’t wait to pull that trigger, to blow his brains all over the rail and watch them float away like seafoam. It’s not a bluff. “I will not hesitate to execute your kid.”