Chapter Text
August 23, 2154 [0944]
Paz banked, trying to keep the banshee in her line of sight. The creatures swarmed the floating mountains, clinging to sheer cliffs and dropping out of the sky like acorns. As Paz watched, four of them alighted upon a Samson flying a little ahead of her. Two of the beasts went for the gunmen, snapping them up in their jaws and flinging them like dolls into open air. The other two banshees landed on the tail and nose. The craft careened, and the dragons leapt into the air before it spiraled downward. Paz caught a glimpse of the pilot’s wide eyes through the cockpit.
People were dying all around her, whether by poisoned arrows or alien beasts or the human traitors’ weaponry. Down below, a large fire burned where the Valkyrie shuttle-bomber had fallen. Paz’s heart pounded in her chest. She knew any breath might be her last.
At first, the banshees had all carried riders. These were expected, manageable—Paz could shoot them dead, send them careening to the forest floor below with her far more advanced weaponry. No problem. But suddenly, the oversized lizards began to attack them of their own accord. Thousands of them, all unmanned, swarmed their aircraft and sent their pilots hurtling into the treetops.
With a final burst of gunfire, the banshee hounding Paz relented, disappearing behind a chunk of floating rock. She spun to focus on the next threat—already, two more beasts were diving for her.
A burst of static on her radio, followed by a command—almost too quiet to hear over the fluxed comms: “Retreat.”
Paz’s brow furrowed in confusion. She banked again, narrowly missing the banshees. She reached down for her communications system, but another buzz interrupted her.
“This is Lieutenant Colonel Clancy. I repeat, all units retreat. The Valkyrie and Dragon are down. Your mission now is to defend Extra-Solar Colony Zero-One.”
The world seemed to slow down. Miles would never allow Clancy to call a retreat—the only reason that would pass was if…
Searching the trees below, Paz found another smoking hole in the trees. The Dragon Ship lay on the ground, flame licking up its metal flanks.
Something landed on top of her Scorpion, and the world tilted. Shocked out of her stupor, Paz pushed on the throttles. For a few terrifying moments, she thought the banshee would flip her, and she’d leave her son to grow up on this alien moon alone with neither parent to look out for him.
But, by some miracle, she shook the banshee. Going full speed, Paz flew for the other craft, which were retaking formation as they flew for Hell’s Gate.
Much smaller in number than they were at the start of the battle, the fleet would be humanity’s last defense on Pandora. They’d lost the assault and were now in danger of losing the only place Paz’s son would have to call home.
Determination flared up in Paz like a blazing fire. Her son would grow up without a father. He would not lose this, too.
.
January 3, 2170 [1100]
A thick blanket of fog shrouded the landing strip that morning. Gray smoke from the industrial zone’s smokestacks poured into the gray sky above. Grunts jogged from station to station, escorting cargo or stray personnel. Spider stepped out of the path of a Hell Truck that loomed out of the fog, its large metal walls towering over him as it rolled past.
He crossed his arms. The murky shape of a Valkyrie shuttle approached on the horizon, fuzzy Seawasp escorts buzzing around it.
By the time Spider could make out the point of the aircraft’s nose, it was upon him, the roar and downwash of its rotors buffeting him. The glass visor of his mask shielded his face, but the whipping wind still tugged at his tank top and hair and pelted his shins with pebbles. The ramp dropped open like a gaping mouth. Its occupants came spilling out onto the tarmac.
At first, it was nothing but a bunch of new recruits. They hurried past him, toting their lumpy, gray packs, the guy in charge shouting after them to “Go, go! Get moving, do not stop!” One recruit slowed slightly as they were coming out to stare at Spider. Spider returned their gaze, slightly surprised to find masculine features framed by what he’d thought was a girl’s long, black hair. Wide brown eyes held Spider’s gaze until the head officer paused in his steady stream of instruction to berate the recruit, who sped back up to rejoin his group.
Spider scowled at him as he passed. Fresh meat.
The officer ignored Spider, as most people on base were used to doing. He wasn’t in the way, and that was what mattered.
He looked back into the cargo hold and found what he’d been waiting for. Behind the last of the recruits, something large and blue lurked. Spider locked eyes with the creature and held its gaze as it approached. Heavy steps boomed on the metal ramp before becoming inaudible over the roaring of engines on the tarmac.
Spider had seen Na’vi in pictures and videos. He’d studied their anatomy, their primitive lifestyle. It was something different to have large, yellow eyes peering down at him, all nine feet of carbon-fiber bones and superior muscle and blue skin towering over him.
He didn’t back down. The Recombinant—identical to a Na’vi except for dark eyebrows, close-cropped hair, and five-fingered hands—pulled the breathing mask from his face to reveal sharp teeth bared in a grin. Muscle rippled beneath a tight green tank top. His camo-patterned pants must have been custom-made to account for the tail swaying behind him. A long section of hair had been left uncut where it hung in a thick braid from the base of his skull, wrapped protectively around the extension of his nervous system—a queue.
“Miles?” the alien spoke.
Spider uncrossed his arms to let them hang at his sides. “Colonel Quaritch, I presume?” He kept any emotion out of his voice. Mockery was dangerous, and he wasn’t interested in faking any sentiment.
The man seemed to pick up on the false courtesy anyway. His smile tightened.
“Well, aren’t you a chip off the old block?”
Spider’s stomach twisted. He spun on his heel, turning away to escape the Recom’s unnerving yellow gaze, and started walking toward one of the transport carts peppering the strip.
“Come on,” he called over his shoulder. “I’ll take you to meet the general.”
.
[1138]
Ardmore waited in the Grinder—which some called the 3D printing facility or the Stereolithography Plant, depending on how far up their ass the stick was—to which Spider’s keycard had been granted special access for that day. He felt a thrill go down his spine when the lock indicator for the airlock flashed green. He’d been there before, as he had most places in Hell’s Gate, but it was one of the few places he only visited on occasion. He tugged his mask off to hang around his neck while the compression sequence hissed and beeped around them.
The Recoms’ steps boomed over metal walkways. Scaffolding filled every inch of the plant not already taken up by current projects, built to be taken apart in order to make room for the next big ship or dozer. The metal frames were in a completely different arrangement from the last time Spider had been there, a few weeks prior, but he easily navigated to where the general overlooked the printing of what looked to be a large Wing-in-Ground-Effect ship. He stopped a few feet away from her to stand at attention.
“General, this is Colonel Miles Quaritch and Lieutenant Lyle Wainfleet.” Spider had learned Wainfleet’s name, somewhat against his will, on the ride over. The man had only paused for breath once they’d dropped the other Recoms off in SecOps housing, then went for the galactic record on yammering the whole ride to the industrial zone.
“You’re a lot bigger than you were the last time I saw you,” the lieutenant had told him, his smile so wide it pushed his ears up on his bald head.
“So are you.” Spider had shot back, which only prompted the man’s uproarious laughter in response.
“D’you remember me?”
Obviously not. Spider must have been an infant. “I can only dream of forgetting a mug as ugly as yours.” More knee-slapping. Quaritch had smirked.
Ardmore turned, taking a sip from the coffee mug clasped delicately in the mechanical hand of her Skel Suit.
She nodded down at him. “Dismissed, Recruit.”
With a salute, Spider spun on his heel and started back toward the door he’d buzzed in from. He didn’t turn back to look at the alien Recoms, but let his gaze linger on the large, mechanical arms of the printers. They glided over the machinery, leaving fresh, red-hot metal in their wake where they built up frames and hulls and proprotors.
Something glowed deep in Spider’s chest as he pressed his keycard to the reader. Stepping into the airlock, he let his lips quirk in a grin.
Recruit, Ardmore had called him. Because that was what he was, now that sixteen years had passed since the RDA began growing Quaritch a brand new body—a process that happened to begin around the same time that Spider was born.
As a recruit, it wasn’t long before he’d start basic training. Not long after that, he’d be brought out on his first SecOps mission.
For the first time in his life, Spider would see—really see—the forest.
.
[1815]
Mom was out when he got back to their apartment, so he settled sideways on their lumpy couch and contemplated the possibility of doing his homework.
Professor Willow, the unfortunate man who’d been roped into tutoring Spider for the last eleven years, had assigned him an essay on the photosynthesis of Pandora’s bioluminescent flora two weeks ago. Currently, Spider’s progress on the assignment consisted of a doc on his datapad that he’d titled “Chlorophyll and Luciferin: How Plants Recycle Light” and was otherwise blank.
Spider thought it unfair that he was expected to write essays on plants he’d only seen in greenhouses and as vague, greenish shapes on the other side of the barren, two-mile-wide Kill Zone. Unfortunately, Terran laws still applied on Pandora—at least in the parts under the jurisdiction of the RDA—so Spider was required to receive a minimum high school degree. Even disregarding compulsory education, Spider was nothing if not obedient under the threat of his mother’s disappointment.
He started writing the essay.
He’d gotten through three paragraphs by the time the magnetic lock on the door buzzed, indicating Mom’s arrival. He didn’t switch off the datapad. It was better to look busy for the coming conversation.
Mom hummed as she flicked on the lights. Small and windowless, their apartment was illuminated by a single LED flush with the ceiling. Their furnishings consisted of a pullout couch, a table, two chairs, and a cramped kitchenette. An array of colorful magnets on their fridge memorialized the dozens of national and state parks Mom had visited as a kid. Their guitar rested lovingly in the space between the couch and kitchen. Spider’s exopack hung in the charging station installed by the door, its indicator light blinking green. A door across from the charging station opened to a bathroom with a toilet, standing shower, and sink.
Mom’s mask detached from her face with a hiss. She made short work of separating spent battery from exopack, which had been clipped to her belt, and putting them up to charge and hang, respectively. She rubbed at her temples, where the seam of the mask always dug into her skin, before reaching up to her ponytail. A cascade of glossy brown hair spilled down over her shoulders. “Sitting in the dark?” she asked him, like she always did.
“I hate the lights. They’re too bright.”
Mom hummed again. She slumped into the space Spider had left for her at his feet, sinking into the limp cushion. Her eyes wandered across the dull, gray walls, which she’d filled with old-fashioned printed-out photographs. Most of the pictures were of Spider, as a smiling baby or grumpy elementary-schooler or self-entitled thirteen-year-old. One of them showed him squinting through the sight of a rifle at eleven years old—his first time shooting at the gun range.
Mom glanced at the pad, where she could see the display through the transparent screen. “Is that homework?” she asked him.
“No, I’ve picked up creative writing in my spare time,” Spider said dryly. “Yes, it’s an essay.”
“When’s it due?”
“Tomorrow.”
“Hm.” She twisted to face him, bringing her legs up to mimic his curled position. The white LED fixed into their bare ceiling turned her skin sallow and threw the shadows under her eyes into stark contrast. “How did today go?”
Spider tapped his fingers along the edge of the pad. He wished he’d picked an assignment that required less focus—it was difficult to appear busy when he couldn’t write and maintain this conversation simultaneously. “It went fine.”
Mom watched him for a moment longer. When he didn’t elaborate, she reached over to squeeze one of his bare ankles. “Miles.”
She was the only person Spider liked hearing that name from. Most of the commanding officers around base used it, too, when addressing him by his full name, but Spider had always hated it from their mouths. It meant something different from Mom.
Soldier, she’d once told him. Your name means soldier.
“It really wasn’t anything,” he muttered, shrugging. “I saw him and brought him to the general. We didn’t talk. We didn’t have some weird, instinctive connection just because he’s the clone of my dad or something, you know.”
Mom sighed slightly, leaning back and releasing his ankle. “You’ll warm up to him. You might be spending a bunch of time together, anyway, since you’re starting ground missions soon .” She stood and padded over to their cramped kitchen, where she pretended to busy herself looking through the fridge.
Spider rolled his eyes at her back.
“I’m sixteen now. I’m allowed,” he reminded her pointedly.
“I know,” Mom sighed. “I just don’t see why it has to be Ground Ops. You love flying—you’d make a great pilot.”
“I’m not you.”
“I know,” she repeated. “I get it, really. Ground Ops will get you out of the Mods, up to those fancy, new apartments they’re building near the walls. There’s nothing wrong with wanting more. I just wish it didn’t come at the expense of your safety.”
“That’s not it.” Spider couldn’t help the frustration that leaked into his voice. “Yes, I want to get out of the Mod Cluster, but not so I can trade one prison for another. I want to be out there. I’ve seen the forest from a cockpit a hundred times, but that’s nothing compared to being in it. It can’t be!”
Mom sighed again. “Well, I wouldn’t know anything about it, apart from the fact that it’s what killed your father.” The fridge started to beep. She took out a tub of leftovers and pried off its lid before putting it in the microwave.
Agitatedly, Spider typed out a nonsense sentence and deleted it. Mom downed a glass of water while the microwave emitted its low, torturous hum. “Have you had dinner yet?” she asked.
“Yeah,” Spider replied shortly. “I stopped by Hell’s Kitchen on the way back here.”
The microwave gave a screeching alarm. Mom refilled her glass at the sink before taking the food out. She sat back down on the couch with the leftovers, setting the glass on the floor. Stabbing a piece of what looked to be mess hall tapirus, she shoved the meat into her mouth before promptly spitting it back out.
“Ow, shi– crap, that’s way too hot. I left it in too long.”
“If you’re so interested in Dad, why don’t you go see him yourself?”
Mom turned to stare accusatorily at him with her fork poised in front of her mouth, lips pursed as she blew on the meat to cool it. “You know our relationship isn’t like that,” she said. “And technically, the new guy isn’t really your dad. I don’t have any good reason to go see him.” She put the fork back into her mouth and grimaced. “Still too hot.”
“You had a child with him,” Spider deadpanned.
Mom pointed a finger at him and raised her narrow eyebrows in warning, though her open-mouthed chewing somewhat ruined the effect as she attempted to air out the still-steaming tapirus. “Don’t you start with that. We were work acquaintances, things just got a little… frisky.”
“Gross,” Spider wrinkled his nose at her.
“Hey, you started this conversation. Anyway, it’s weird. I’m not gonna go see him.”
“Whatever.” Spider fiddled with the datapad.
“You’d better be finishing that essay.”
Spider groaned, but closed out of the game he’d been booting up and went back to bullshitting his way through the intricacies of plant cells’ capacities for chemical reactions.
.
January 4, 2170 [1356]
“Don’t forget those calculus modules tonight!” Professor Willow called after Spider, but he was already gone.
He swung around a corner and nearly crashed into Max, who pushed a clattering cart of sample trays. The man shouted in surprise when Spider lurched to a stop in front of him before hurrying around him, throwing an apology over his shoulder as he sprinted down the long, metal-paneled corridor.
“No running in Scimod!” Max scolded.
Spider glanced down at the digital watch strapped to his wrist. Lessons had gone longer than they usually did, but if he ran, he could make it to Habmod 2 on time for his first training. He buzzed through door after door, taking the modlink path so he didn’t have to go through any airlocks. The number on his watch flashed to 1400 just as Spider made it through the doors to the training center.
“...Basic training,” Lieutenant Lermon was saying. “I’ll be training you mentally and physically to shape up into something resembling a team of actually competent individuals.”
Spider sidled into the lineup of recruits as silently as he possibly could, still panting slightly. Lermon paced slowly before them, the heels of his boots clicking on the linoleum floor.
“We are on an alien moon. The gravity here is twenty percent lower than that on Earth, and the air is twenty percent denser. Twenty seconds breathing the atmosphere and you’re unconscious. Four minutes and you’re dead.
“Do not take Pandora lightly.” Lermon paused directly in front of Spider. The man leaned forward so Spider could feel his breath on his unmasked face and smell the sharp, musky scent of his aftershave. “No matter how long you’ve lived here, you will always be alien. You are not welcome. Given the chance, this place will snap you up and swallow you whole.”
Spider stared straight ahead, his hands clasped behind his back. He refused to be intimidated. The recruits beside him didn’t drop the “at attention” position to look, but Spider felt them watching him with everything but their eyes.
When Spider gave him nothing, Lermon leaned away from him and continued his pacing along the line.
“All thirty-six of you make up Platoon 1010. Endurance, combat, shooting—I am going to teach you to move the way you need to move, to fight the way you need to fight. You will learn, or you will die.”
Lermon stopped at the end of the line, and his voice rose sharply to a yell. “Am I understood?”
“Yes, Sir!” they shouted.
And so it began.
.
[1425]
It was during their second lap around the Mod Cluster, sweat pouring down the sides of Spider’s face and pooling under the seam of his mask, that one of the other recruits attempted conversation.
“You got beef with Lermon or somethin’?”
“What?” Spider forced out between pants.
“I mean, why’d he dig into you back there? ‘Snap you up and swallow you whole,’ and all that.”
Spider glanced at the other boy, who’d increased his pace slightly to jog beside him. He looked about the age of the youngest recruits, which made him two or three years older than Spider. The slight drawl to his voice was what Spider had learned to be indicative of roots in the Southern United States, though the boy warped it into a poor imitation of Lermon’s West Coast accent to mock the man.
Looking more closely, Spider recognized him as the recruit from Quaritch’s shuttle who’d nearly stopped in his tracks to stare at Spider. It was difficult to mistake him for anyone else—the long, curly cut of his hair, currently tucked back in a braid, was considered impractical by most men in SecOps, making it a rare sight around base.
Annoyance flickered in Spider’s chest. He was the youngest on base, and had looked it for most of his life—he was used to stares. But now that he was old enough for recruitment, it was just unfair.
“That’s just how the instructors are,” Spider muttered. “He was only being pissy because I was last to show up. There’s no ‘beef.’”
The boy fell silent. Their feet pounded the packed dirt that ringed the Mod Cluster. The old chain-link fence marking the original borders of Hell’s Gate had long been torn down and replaced by the much bigger and sturdier Perimeter Wall. Living quarters had been erected in the fence’s place, and they towered above the recruits as they jogged, looming structures of concrete that grew taller with every shipment of personnel to the base.
“Liar.”
Spider looked at him again, a little too quickly. He must’ve made a face, because the other let out a short burst of laughter. It was slightly breathless, muffled and hissing behind his mask, but the sudden sound was loud enough to make Spider cringe.
“I’m Fernando Flores, but everyone calls me Fern. I guess we’ll be stuck together for a while, yeah?”
Spider stared at him a moment longer. “I guess so.” He looked back to the long, concrete track stretching out before them. “It’s Miles. But everyone calls me Spider.”
Spider didn’t look, but he could feel Fern’s eyes on him for the rest of the run.