Chapter 26: Determination

I hope Max and the Avatar drivers are doing better than we are.

With a sigh, Jake surveyed what was left of the Omaticaya clan. The last head count had put the survivors at somewhere around seven hundred fifty – out of a clan of nearly a thousand men, women and children. While there were probably still a few stragglers making their way to the gathering place, Jake couldn't bring himself to hope for many more. Skynet had struck without warning or mercy; roughly one out of every ten adult clan members had been killed in the raid, or hunted down after fleeing the tunnels. The clan had literally been decimated in the attack.

So far, the Machines hadn't managed to locate their position. Like many of Pandora's rivers, the Ogawa was fed by underground hot springs. The heat energy, upwelling minerals, and airborne moisture made the hot spring a particularly fertile region, supporting a wide variety of plant and animal life – including a Tree of Voices, its sturdy trunk only a few feet from the main pool. Between the springs' natural heat, the bewildering glow of Pandoran plant life, and the powerful energy field generated by the Tree of Voices, Jake had hoped the place might offer concealment from aerial scouting. So far, it seemed to be working – at least as long as the plants kept glowing and throwing off metabolic energy.

In the morning, though, Jake knew they would have to leave. But for where? he wondered. The logical answer would be to take the clan further north, away from Hell's Gate, putting as much distance as possible between them and Skynet. Unfortunately, Skynet had no doubt reached the same conclusion by now, and would send out dozens of Hunter-Killers to scour the jungle. The minute they left the concealment of the hot springs, the Machines would be hot on their heels.

With a heavy sigh, Jake trudged back through the camp, passing huddled families and shell-shocked clan members. Because Skynet now controlled the leftover RDA satellites, with their thermal imaging technology, Jake had forbidden open fires. There were no cooking pits here, so people ate whatever rations they had brought in their satchels. This was a refugee camp, plain and simple; nobody had even bothered to erect a shelter, knowing that they would have to pack up and flee before dawn.

The area around the Tree of Voices had been set aside as the camp's makeshift infirmary. Those who had sustained wounds during the Terminator attack, yet still managed to regroup with the rest of the clan, were tended beneath the luminous fronds of the Tree. Mo'at had suggested that the wounded might draw strength and comfort from their ancestors. Meanwhile, the surviving healers tried to patch up the wounded enough to stand up and walk. In a way, the Machines' use of energy weapons was almost a blessing; most wounds were cauterized by the intense heat of plasma bolts, and most nerves near the affected areas were fried by electrical discharge, leaving the victims with a kind of dead numbness wherever they had been hit. In fact, many of the wounded had managed the hike to the Ogawa only because they could not feel the full extent of their injuries. Now, lying under the Tree of Voices, more than a few had passed out from shock.

One of their patients had already died, her body simply shutting down once she stopped trying to force it onward. Jake had had to face her two children – one young boy, and a baby daughter that she had carried in her one remaining arm – and explain that their mother had led them to safety through the jungle, only to die upon reaching camp. The boy had tried hard not to cry, but Jake had seen his free hand balled into a fist, knuckles white, his other arm squeezed protectively around his sister. It had taken a few minutes to track down their extended family, but eventually, Jake had made sure the kids met up with their uncle and his wife, who agreed to raise them along with their own children.

Now, Jake made his way among the scarred and battered survivors, and the healers who were desperately trying to get them back on their feet. As he spotted Mo'at, kneeling beside her daughter by the Tree of Voices, he took a deep breath. The older woman did not look up, intent on tending Neytiri's wounds, so Jake quietly dropped to his knees, sitting beside his mate.

Neytiri lay unconscious, partly due to the grenade blast in the armory cave, and partly because the healers had decided to keep her under with some potent painkillers. Her left thigh was a mass of bandages, wrapped in medicated cotton-gauze and covered by a protective layer of waxy leaves. Just looking at it, Jake remembered how the healers had hat to cut away some of the burned flesh to prevent it from getting infected. Jake had seen nasty wounds before, but to see bits of his mate's leg getting cut off with a sharpened bone scalpel….

Jake had clung tightly to her hand, staying beside her all through the agonizing procedure. He did this mostly to try and reassure his whimpering mate, but also partly to keep himself from throwing up. Horror, anger and shame twisted like snakes in his gut.

She did it for me. She could have gotten herself killed. It'll be a miracle if she isn't crippled. All to save my sorry, useless ass.

As if sensing his thoughts, Mo'at finally looked over at him. "You need not blame yourself, Jake," she said quietly. "My daughter has always been a warrior. She saw an enemy trying to harm the people, and she did what she had to to protect those around her."

"She shouldn't have had to," Jake murmured bitterly, too drained to translate his thoughts into Na'vi. "I shouldn't have made it so goddamn easy for that thing to walk in and lead its buddies into the shelter. I shouldn't have been giving a goddamn speech while they were getting ready to slaughter us all!"

"You posted guards. You gave them guns and radios. You warned them that the Machines might come wearing skin over their metal, as Marcus Wright did." Mo'at sighed. "You did everything you could. Everything an Olo'eyktan should. You tried to prepare us, to rekindle our spirits."

"Yeah, well, it wasn't enough."

Suddenly, Mo'at stood up, glaring down at Jake. "You will STOP that babyish whining, right now!" she commanded. "My only living daughter lies burned and drugged at my feet. Her sister was taken from me – murdered – in the prime of her life, and I have been a widow for the past year. Do you have ANY idea how hurt I am right now? How angry? How very, very easy it would be for me to give in to self-pity? DO YOU?!"

Jake rocked back on his knees, stunned by the sheer emotional force of her outburst.

Mo'at glared down at the Avatar, her eyes blazing like molten gold. "Jake Sully, one year ago, you proved you were a grown man and a worthy mate for my daughter. Now, stop whining, grow up, and act like it! If I have to swallow my pain and keep going, Toruk Macto can damn well do the same!"

For a long moment, Jake just sat there, openmouthed. Then he rose to his feet, nodding respectfully to his mother-in-law. "You're right. I'm sorry," he said in English, then cleared his throat. "Thank you for helping me to … wake up from my self-pity. Next to you, I've got no right to complain."

Mo'at nodded. "Better. Now, I assume you have some kind of plan for when the trees and mists can no longer hide us?"

Jake shrugged. "We run. That's all we can do, really. Maybe try to head north into Nayaba territory, see if they'll let us stay with them while we tend the wounded and regroup. Meet up with the other clans there."

Mo'at shook her head. "It will not work," she said matter-of-factly. "The flying Machines move faster than an ikran at top speed. Even with a night's head start, with all our wounded and young children, I doubt we could outrun them that far. We would be found, cut off and butchered by midday tomorrow."

Jake winced. He had hoped that they might be able to keep going until sundown, when the local plant life would light up and hide them again, but Mo'at was probably right. With so many injured clan members and youngsters, they wouldn't be fast enough to outrun the Machine patrols that long. "Do you have a better idea?" he asked.

Mo'at crossed her arms, thinking hard. "We cannot flee our enemies. And we have no place to make a stand against them. Even in our tunnels, they overwhelmed our defenses. The only option I can see is that we go on the offensive: strike at them like we did at Old Hometree, before they can strike at us. So far, that has been our only victory."

Jake felt like his eyes were about ready to pop out of his head. "Attack them? How? We've lost too many people, and most of them were warriors who stayed back to keep the Machines away from kids and civilians."

Mo'at gestured with her arm, indicating the camp. "We have lost two in ten, Jake Sully. Possibly three in ten, with so many wounded. But the other eight are still on their feet … and they are angry. Even a weaver knows how to use a bow and knife." She glanced toward the Tree of Voices. "And in your vision, you saw the other clans coming to help us. You said we would wait for them to gather to the tunnels, then march together on Hell's Gate." Her eyes met Jake's. "What if we don't wait? What if we tell the clans to meet us at Hell's Gate instead?"

"It would be a nightmare. Clans from different places, traveling different distances, straggling in at different times … there'd be no way to coordinate it." Even as he spoke, though, he remembered the image of the caravan: at least two or three of the Pa'li Clans, heading for the rainforest basin. If even that one group arrives by morning… and maybe some of the Ikran Clans….

"But they are coming. If we can find a way to draw out the Machines … keep them off-balance and distracted until the others arrive … could we not weaken them enough to be finished off later?"

It was bold, risky, and utterly insane. Then again, the second-best option depended on outrunning two-dozen heavily armed jet aircraft on foot.

As Jake stood thinking, he spotted three figures pushing toward him: two Na'vi, and a smaller shape that could only be Marcus. "Jake!" Norm's voice exclaimed, "We got a call in from Max!"

"Yeah? What's the word?"

"Well, the good news is that they haven't been caught. All the radio-detonated charges are in place, and they've got another ten for when the fighting starts. I mean, if you're still planning on hitting Hell's Gate anytime soon…."

Norm trailed off, glancing around at the wounded and crippled. "I guess that's a no-go, huh?"

Lehrrap growled, ears laid back in frustration. "We must make the Machines pay for what they have done. But after losing so many, only hours ago…."

Jake sighed. "What's the bad news?"

"Well, the bad news is that Skynet is building more than a time machine at Hell's Gate. Max says it's building this whole array of launch tubes. There could be as many as three hundred missiles ready by tomorrow night."

"That's a hell of a lot more than they'd need for shooting down our ikran riders," Jake said. After the attack on the shelters, it was looking like the Omaticaya were down to about seventy or eighty able-bodied ikran macto. Normally, the clan boasted over a hundred.

Marcus shook his head. "They're long-range, Jake. My guess is Skynet's looking to hit every tree-city on the planet. They could be some kind of cruise missiles. Or…."

Jake felt a cold lump in the pit of his stomach. "Or nukes…?"

"Well, we already know Skynet had enough radioactive crap to build one of them. If it can build enough, set them off all over Pandora…."

"Oh my God," Norm murmured, his golden eyes wide with horror. "Three hundred nuclear weapons? It would be … I mean …"

"It would be Judgment Day," Marcus said grimly. "And if those missiles are pure Skynet tech, I'm betting they're even nastier than the hijacked ICBM's it used on Earth."

Jake took a deep breath, trying to stop his head from spinning. Only hours ago, he and the rest of the clan had been running for their lives. They were weakened, exhausted. And now this…?

"Jake," Mo'at said softly, "if these new weapons are so terrible, and can attack so many places in the world at once … Eywa herself might be harmed, even more than when the Well of Souls was destroyed."

"Radiation," Norm whispered. "Enough to cloud the sky, leach into the soil, and kill every living thing on Pandora."

"Impossible!" Lehrapp exclaimed. "You, who have seen Eywa's might unleashed against the Sky People, are suggesting that she would allow such a thing?"

"He is right, Lehrrap," Mo'at said quietly. "If the Machines indeed have the power to poison every living thing in our world, Eywa herself might cease to be. She is as much a part of us as we are of her. No trees, no animals, no People … no Eywa."

"And no competition for Skynet," Jake added. "I'll say this for the Machines: when they decide to wipe you out, they're pretty goddamned thorough about it."

Norm sat down, hanging his head. "So that's it," he murmured. "Game over. There's nothing we can do."

Jake took a deep breath, summoning what remained of his resolve. "Maybe, maybe not." He glanced at his mother-in-law. "Before you came over, Mo'at and I were talking about hitting Hell's Gate tomorrow morning."

"What?!" The words exploded from three different mouths at once.

"Jake, there's no way!" Norm exclaimed. "We'd need all the clans' help just to take out those Hunter-Killers! And you said they won't even be here until tomorrow, let alone organized and ready to fight!"

"I am willing to die to avenge our brothers," Lehrrap said doubtfully, "but only if there is some chance of actually defeating our enemies! You speak of sacrificing the entire clan, in a battle we cannot win!"

"Hey!" Marcus shouted, silencing both of them. "Look, if there's one thing Connor taught us in the Resistance, it's that our only chance is to be unpredictable. Take the risks. Trust your gut. Do the craziest, most illogical, most balls-out insane thing you can think of, because that's the one thing Skynet can never develop a contingency plan for. And I can guarantee you, it won't expect a full-on offensive against Hell's Gate right now."

"Right," Norm quipped, "because we can't attack it now. For God's sake, we all just barely escaped with our lives! The clan needs time to recover."

Jake shook his head. "We wouldn't get it anyway. It's either pack up and run for our lives, or pack up and take the fight back to the Machines. And frankly, we're all just as likely to get killed either way."

"I know which one I would prefer," growled Lehrrap. "Still, how can we take Hell's Gate without the support of the other clans?"

"We can't," Jake agreed, "but hopefully we won't have to." He turned to face the Tree of Voices. "I'm going to try and send the other clans a message: We gather in the forest north of Hell's Gate tomorrow morning. If we can draw the Machines outside their defenses, enough of the other clans may arrive in time to finish them off."

"And," Mo'at added, "if the Sky Net is facing an attack on its own ground, it will have fewer flying Machines available to search the forest." She turned to Jake. "If you lead our warriors into battle against Hell's Gate, I can lead the wounded and children to safety further north. You will be able to fight without restraint."

"This is crazy!" Norm cried, throwing up his hands. "You're talking about taking on an army of hundreds of Terminators, two dozen Hunter-Killers, and God knows what else Skynet has been building for the past three days! It's a suicide mission! Not to mention that the minute it spots us gathering, Skynet could launch a nuclear warhead and blow us to kingdom come!"

"Not if they're grounded," Marcus said thoughtfully. "I'll give Max a call, have him see if he can sabotage the missiles without dousing us all with fallout. If they're all just sitting in one place…."

"Do it," Jake agreed. "And tell him to be ready before sunrise. We'll make our way there while the jungle's still scrambling their sensors, then hit them before the jamming wears off."

"All right. But what are we doing about their air support? We've got, what? Eighty dragon riders? And only forty plasma guns for everyone, including our infantry? Those are crappy odds against thirty armed and armored H-K's. And you've seen how they mow down ground troops."

Jake scratched his chin. "I don't know," he admitted. "A year ago, we took down at least that many gunships, even before Eywa came in to finish them off. But that was up in the mountains, where the flux vortex screws up their sensors…."

"Leave that to me," a new voice called out. Startled, Jake turned around … and beheld Neytiri, standing on her own two feet, eyes bright and alert. In the light of the Tree of Voices, her cyan skin took on a luminous, almost spectral appearance.

"Neytiri!" he cried, rushing toward her. Neytiri took another step closer, but winced as her full weight fell on her injured leg. Jake watched her grit her teeth, then force herself onward, moving by sheer force of will. "Neytiri, you shouldn't be up like this. You can barely stand, let alone walk."

"And well I know it," she replied, letting her mate come up and take hold of her waist, using his strength to take some of the strain off her bad leg. "But I cannot lie down and nap while my people are suffering, either." Before Jake could force her to lie back down, Neytiri let out a loud, high-pitched call. There was a stir in the branches overhead, and within moments, Neytiri's ikran descended to the forest floor, wrapping one wing protectively about her rider.

Neytiri offered a tired smile. "Fortunately, when my legs are tired, I can borrow wings."

As always, reviews are greatly appreciated.