Chapter Text
The tapping of her finger on the glass table matches the buzzing rhythm of the office’s pressurized air. General Ruk’s office. Cold and spotless.
Every summons to this office is another weight added to her boots. Motivational chats. Or, as Mey calls them, monthly vivisections meant to assess the progress of new recruits and younger squad members.
“Hermeyp te Mui’kunta Moa’ite”—reads the General from the text projected onto the glass, her tone overly rehearsed.. “It’s your birthday today, Hermeyp. What a coincidence, congratulations.”
That comment elicits nothing more from Mey than a slight shrug of her shoulders and a forced smile followed by, “Thank you, General.” Right now, she just wants to be in the solitude of her ship, patrolling the station's perimeters without any major complications. Without eyes scrutinizing her potential.
“Well, Hermeyp, you know what this is about. You’ve been a Provisional Agent for several months now, and I must emphasize once again the importance of taking action in the crucial moments of this career.”
Always the same story. Bravery, honor, righteousness. The undeniable duty to honor ancestors who, hundreds of years ago, had the courage to leave their planet in search of who knows what. Riches? Power? Knowledge?
After so many years floating in space, the objectives have blurred.
“You are disciplined and responsible, there is no record of any peace disturbance in your file. I dare say ‘almost perfect,’”—but… there's always a but, thinks Mey, bracing herself for the surprise shot with such good will from the lady. “—but your lack of ambition makes your work seem… unserious.”
The Commander leans forward, resting her forearms on the desk, and her voice takes on a weight that Mey didn't need added at this moment.
“Look, Mey, you are the daughter of one of our finest commanders. We cannot miss the opportunity to have a great successor like you. Think carefully about what you are doing with your life.”
What am I doing with my life?
What am I doing with my life?
What am I doing with my life?
It’s all Mey can think about after having woken up early just for this talk. Only the electric treadmill can distract her from words that still gnaw at her mind.
After a childhood dedicated to hand-to-hand combat training and maintaining the technology that keeps them alive in outer space, it's not as if Mey has many opportunities to explore her ambitions.
Stupid Ruk—thinks Mey, running with all her might on the treadmill and cranking the hard techno from the amplifiers to the max. To be perfectly frank, she had a great time months ago chasing and executing criminals in the underworld of allied planets, but of course, that’s no life for a Mui’kunta aspiring to a high rank. The priority is to uphold the spirit of the long lineage of Commanders in the family; otherwise, it would mean wasting all her clan's sacrifice.
On the screen projected in front of her face, an alarming message window pops up, but Mey just rolls her eyes and swipes her finger across each notification.
“Ugh. Skxawng, skxawng. Another skxawng. Pak, what a lying hypocrite is this one?” she comments acidly while skimming the messages. “Brother is the only yaymak I can stand.”
Mey spams heart emojis in her brother’s chat and keeps running.
The notification sound goes off once more.
“Tsahey, no! I don't want to hear them right now,” Mey mutters under her breath as she gathers strength to answer her parents' video call.
“Hey…” she tries to say cheerfully while taking a sip of water, dodging the first wave of information from her mother.
Cousins having children, major breakthroughs in reconciling agreements with some government, an office romance. Everything is relevant in the life of a gossipy diplomat like her mother.
“Oh, by the way. Happy birthday, ‘ite. I know we haven't been keeping track very well with so much work, but I hope this is your year. You’re becoming quite the woman… although I don’t want to distract you from the primacy of your career, a mate wouldn’t be a bad thing,” says her mother, laughing.
“Your brother is handling his new post as Major surprisingly well, Hermeyp. What about you? No new advances, Agent?” comments her father, taking a seat and appearing on the right side of the screen with his characteristic humorous tone that drips with accusations.
Mey tries with all her might not to roll her eyes, helping herself with another sip of cold water before answering. “Not much, sempul. This morning I spoke with my General in charge and we’re still working… diligently.” Sometimes Mey feels like she’s in a business pitch, searching for the most attractive adjectives to keep the audience happy.
“Hmm… that General Ruk,” murmurs her father, thoughtfully scratching his chin, and his brow grows threatening. “I think I should have a serious talk with her.”
“—No, sempul. Let me handle this. It’s not what you—” a different alarm activates on the ship and her pointed ears perk up at the tone. “Sa'sem, I’ll see you later. There’s work to do.”
No matter how risky the mission ahead, Mey sighs with great relief at being able to leave that cumbersome video call. The weight of their expectations gets one drop closer to drowning her every day. No matter how far away she is or how peaceful the solitude of her personal ship, Mey will never be able to escape her responsibilities.
She quickly fastens her suit and puts on her pilot’s helmet. Settled in her seat, she locates the threat. It’s not far from her quadrant, and the distress signal is open on the screen.
Accept.
Mey is automatically connected to the general line where all available peace agents are briefed on the emergency.
“A large space worm is about to cross the station's course. We must divert it from its path immediately,” instructs General Ruk over the transmitter.
Each of the agents lines up following instructions; the animal may be terrifying, but it is peaceful if not disturbed. The electric rays projected from the arms of the agents’ ships should be enough to scare it off without direct contact.
“Should…” murmurs Mey, reading in advance the intentions of one of the agents who breaks formation and advances toward the target. The typical guy in a hurry to show off fires one of the rays at the worm, causing an uproar impossible to control.
Couldn't have a better day.
Ships are sent flying in all directions by the unpredictable impact of the worm’s tail. And with no better ideas, the other agents opt to hurt the animal with their rays.
The poor creature becomes even more irrational and furious from the pain, but Mey just grips her steering wheel, finding no other way out. She needs to think of something fast; her parents expect her to save the day, her commander expects a successful mission.
If I do this perfectly, maybe I’ll finally feel something. Maybe they’ll stop asking what I’m missing—she thinks hopefully.
The sound of a couple of clicks is followed by the burst of thrusters.
“What is Agent B3 doing?” they ask over the transmitter, to which she replies in a technical and decisive tone—“Observe the spots on its back; they light up fluorescently because it’s about to open a wormhole. I’m going ahead to distract it onto a course away from the station.”
“Wait, that’s risky, Agent.” But Mey barely hears the warning as she suddenly kicks off, surpassing the threat.
The moment her ship is spotted by the worm, it chases her with fury. The electric rays are left behind, along with the safety of the space station.
“Good,” she mutters, but the task is not done; the gigantic worm is already over her.
Mey was one second away from veering off when all the alarms go off from an energy overload caused by the wormhole opening right in front of her. To her surprise, her ship doesn’t receive a single scratch as it is swallowed by the fearsome creature, which continues on its course without hesitation.
“My best birthday,” she whispers with irony in the darkness of her ship.
The minute of silence feels eternal; Mey already imagines all the possible scenarios of dying slowly and painfully in a worm’s stomach. Not very glamorous for a Mui’kunta, by the way.
But the sound of gastric juices snaps her out of her train of thought. Suddenly, the ship moves along with a jumble of space debris and is expelled back into the infinity.
“Yes, yes. Oh, ancestors… I knew you wouldn’t abandon me!” Mey shouts in premature victory, pressing her face against the pilot’s window to see for herself as the worm leaves her behind and sighing, “*wiya…*”
Calmly, Mey turns on the systems; they take a few seconds to respond. Enough time for the gravity of the nearest moon to pull her in.
“Seriously? Seriously!?” is all Mey can say, with all her attention focused on starting the engines that are still not ready to respond. The map indicates she’s in a quadrant nearly impossible to register, far beyond the station’s mapped reach but Mey can only curse her terrible luck—this is not the time to look at that.
The kilometer countdown to the ground descends extremely fast, and Mey no longer knows what else to do besides staying in a perpendicular line and praying to land in the large body of water.
In the last seconds, the engines react with a deafening sputter of energy, a sign that the system is still disrupted from the black hole’s energy overload. But these flickers of control are enough to establish a somewhat stable course and skid over the ocean waves.
The roughness of the impact on the rocks emerging from the surface is not the most elegant, but it’s useful enough to survive.
Her hands tremble, and Mey can no longer hold her breath. With her helmet still in place, she cries, ungracefully and overwhelmingly, because she managed to do it without anyone’s help. She is alive.
A young woman who has been told, very calmly, very politely, that who she is will never be enough unless she becomes someone else.
The spoiled girl, many will say, had finally done something right.
Alright, action time.
The ship isn’t responding. Either its systems are fried, or they just need a moment to recover after that overload and subsequent overheating. Well, maybe Mey pushed it a little harder than usual.
The astronaut gloves are tossed onto the pilot's seat; Mey needs all four fingers free to click every button on the control panel in search of a solution.
She can’t stop torturing herself, wondering how she could forget where the ignition lever is after piloting this metal junk heap for so long. Of course, she's never had to restart the systems before.
"Tsahey, I need to control myself. I'm still a peace agent," she talks to herself, seeking comfort.
Her left hand finds a lever beneath the control desk, and she would swear it belongs on the right side. Well, muscle memory fails when Mey is a bundle of nerves.
Mey pulls the lever, but nothing happens. Grunting with rage, she yanks on it again and again, not even a single cabin light flickering in response.
"Pak—" but Mey doesn’t get to finish her curse before her seat mechanically slides her backward, straight into the escape pod.
"No, no, no! I knew it was on the right side, tsahey!" Mey shouts, pounding on the pod's walls, but it's already too late; it's automatically launched into the air.
Mey finds herself uncontrollably soaring through the planet’s blue sky.
Again.
The capsule crashes on water and is immediately pulled up by its own buoyancy.
Stretching her neck with all her might, Mey manages to spot a huge metallic platform in front of her. Small boats armed with harpoons move up and down from it, probably part of some industrial operation. They extract something from this ecosystem and are very noisy in the process. Her tail flicks warily at the intentions of these creatures.
"Humans…" she murmurs, thinking how far she must be from her quadrant to run into such an ignorant, disorganized civilization. Unlike humans, her clan keeps records of every system in the galaxy without the need to interfere or invade.
"Great," she adds sarcastically, because of all the species she knows, these are her least favorite, and it seems they've spotted her pod just in time. "A simple 'hi', and I'm out."
Curious about their discovery, the humans extend a large metallic arm to hoist her onto their platform.
—"Must be Na'vi trash."
—"So advanced?"
—"It's just a big pupa. Don't think it's a big deal."
Refocusing her ears, Mey manages to hear several comments from outside, silenced by a sharp order: "Extraction, disposal, and back to your posts, gentlemen. I don't want any more distractions with so many Tulkun in sight."
Mey draws the sharp knives resting on her back and prepares in a defensive stance, holding them against her chest.
"No 'hi' then.”
Taking a break from The Way of Water lessons, Neteyam and Lo'ak mount their ikrans and decide to take a spin through the air.
The older brother naturally takes the lead; he is in his element. Here he feels free, free from the obligations and responsibilities expected of a future leader. Free, for once, from his own insecurities.
In the air, competing with his brother is just for laughs. They can be kids again.
"What is that? A human ship?" comments Lo'ak, descending slightly to make out the holographic object that makes his eyes gleam.
"It doesn't look human…" murmurs Neteyam, following his path. Something is wrong. The ship has a design he's never seen before and is clearly crashed on the rocks emerging from the sea. Seeking his brother's eyes, he says with concern, "Tell Dad, now."
It takes Jake no more than a second to sling a weapon over his shoulder, mount his ikran, and gain altitude. "Keep your distance; there's a hunting platform tracking Tulkun not far from your location," is his classic militarized warning. He feels sure for having given it, even as something strange unfolds on the surface of the human vehicle.
Using the scope of his long-range weapon, Jake becomes a spectator of the scene.
He sees it first. The capsule in the middle of the platform, surrounded by soldiers pointing their guns. The capsule slowly opens its front…
A slender creature Na'vi-like, wears a form-fitting dark violet suit, soldier boots that are a bit flashy for his taste, and two gleaming knives. It has a tail similar to his, but its face is covered by a helmet that reflects iridescently, making it look even more alien compared to humans.
"What is that, Dad? Who is it? Is it human?" his sons bombard him with questions over the comms, but he quiets them to be able to pay attention.
As hypnotic as the creature is, Jake's conclusion comes quickly: it's a killer machine.
It is fast and lethal, with predatory reflexes that predict its attackers' movements. The technology of its boots allows it to make great leaps in the air over the humans and cut their heads off in the process. One by one, it eliminates them without great difficulty, almost a work of engineering.
She's a threat.
—"This is serious," mutters Lo'ak.
—"Humans can handle it. Retreat."
—"No, Dad. Humans cannot, they are—"
—"Lo'ak, stop!"
A second later, Neteyam finds himself chasing his brother to protect him from the danger he's heading toward. This is becoming a recurring game.
Their ikrans circle the marine platform at low altitude, getting a complete view just at a moment of pause in the battle.
Neteyam laughs softly, because if you squint just a little, ignoring the bodies scattered in puddles of blood, you see something contradictory. Almost childish. The creature, caught in something akin to a tantrum, is smashing a human weapon against the ground.
The young ones can't believe it, looking at each other strangely but with a smile. Lo'ak isn't exactly discreet and makes a vocalization, a faint echo with his mouth.
The creature immediately hears it and turns its head towards the brothers, who choke on the terror of becoming its new prey.
Folding her knives to her back, Mey takes a look around.
Perimeter clear. The humans must be looking for more weaponry; it's time for an escape plan.
"What is this?" Mey picks up a weapon from the ground and gives it a look. The rechargeable trigger is archaic and impractical, she thinks as she tries to pull it, but it seems to be jammed by her standards, or probably out of charge. Impulsivity and her inclination for investigation push her to try and unjam it instead of checking it more carefully. Without thinking further and wanting to channel her frustration, Mey opts to smash the weapon against the ground a couple of times, muttering irritably, "Cheap garbage… work already!"
This, apparently, is the perfect moment for the humans to send a missile her way, while hiding in the control room. Na'vi people are annoying, but this new one is particularly a menace to erase immediately.
Miraculously, it hits the mechanical equipment beside her and not her directly. But the explosion sends her flying through the air once again.
Mey wishes it wouldn't become a habit, but three times in one day doesn't seem like a coincidence.
The sea is your home, before your birth and after your death—Mey remembers her mother’s voice, reading her a tale about their ancestors navigating Pandora’s oceans. The beautiful paintings of rustic ships with big sails cleaving the waves with grace. So distant from her body rolling and tumbling through the violence of these waters—The sea gives and the sea takes.
"Threat eliminated, go home immediately. You heard me," snaps Jake over the comms, his patience exhausted after his younger son's boldness.
Of course, his sons head in the direction of the Metkayina clan, but that doesn't stop them from combing the area along the way.
Waves and more waves. The sea reflects the gray of the sky, and the landscape becomes a bit monotonous with so much silence.
Skirting the coastline after a while, they see movement on some rocks. Lo'ak was about to give up when he spotted the violet blotch, but Neteyam takes the lead and shoots like a bolt in that direction.
Regurgitated by the ocean, the creature crawls onto the rock with its last strength. Its right leg is broken, and it struggles to remove its helmet for a breath of air. Covered in bruises, lying on its back, whining and gasping, defeated.
It's a girl.
"Wait, brother, she's Na'vi." Neteyam's heart is too kind for his own good; that's what drives him to climb down from his ikran and stop his brother with that sentence.
With no survival instincts, he bends down to her, ready to help. She stretches a weary hand, slightly brushing her four slender fingers on his face as if trying to see if he is real. "Na'vi…" She murmurs it like a statement of identity before passing out.