Over the years that followed, another four starships arrived in Pandoran orbit. They were met by the captured Valkyrie shuttles, and told to surrender, or be destroyed.

The first one had tried to run, and light up its superluminal communications back to Earth. All in vain, of course. Since the departure of the Dog Star and Venture Star, Renshaw had spent the time well, adapting the kinetic strike projectiles called Thor's Hammer as space interceptors. When one hit the antimatter containment vessel on the starship, the explosion vaporised the entire ship, creating a third sun in Pandora's sky that lasted for less than thirty seconds.

The following three ships all surrendered when shown video of the explosion. Eventually, the humans stopped sending starships. Even they figured out that losing communications with six of their starships meant that something funny was happening at Pandora. The captain of the last starship to be captured had said that the RDA was building a fleet of armed battleships to take control of Pandora.

Na'dia had not ventured into space again. She was content to stay with her mates, and watch her daughter grow into a young woman. All said that it was almost impossible to tell mother and daughter apart, unless they stood side by side. To Tat'yana's pleasure, in the last year she had grown one inch taller than her mother. At all other times, only Ninat, Txepean and her siblings Hukato and Seze'nang could reliably say who was who with a single glance – and Mo'at, of course. Even Na'dia's sisters Ney'tiri and Peyral had problems telling Na'dia from Tat'yana.

Which allowed Tat'yana endless scope for mischief, for it turned out that she was an excellent and effortless mimic. Tat'yana replicated her mother's grace, speech patterns and voice impeccably. The only sure way was to look at her hands or feet, seeking four digits instead of five, but Tat'yana was skilled in distracting attention away from these minor impediments to her illusion.

Only on the field of combat could they be told apart, for Na'dia continued to whup her daughter's ass, as Zhake'soolly so delicately put it. Although, Na'dia had noticed in the last few months that it was getting more difficult to do so. The time would soon be coming when Tat'yana would be her equal – at least in taekkyon.

Txep'ean had noticed this fact too, and gently teased her that she was slowing up in her old age. Na'dia had laughed, and then challenged him to try and catch her. What followed was a very enjoyable game, where she had toyed with her mate unmercifully, until she allowed herself to be caught. Txep'ean truly was a fine mate – the best male she could have ever hoped for.

The Omaticaya grew used to Na'dia's unsettling ways, treating her strange palulukan speech and mannerisms as just one of those things. She continued to teach the young to dance, and the ways of taekkyon to those that would be warriors. All in all she seemed happy with her life, despite the shadow in which she dwelt.

She often dreamed of Tania, walking the silent decks of the Dog Star. Sometimes she was seated at a console, checking the status of the starship, and its sister, but more often than not, Na'dia observed her childhood friend gazing back at the red-shifted glow of Alpha Centauri A. Never forward at the blue-tinged point of light that was Sol. Na'dia told no-one of her dreams, not her sensei, or even her mates.

This dream was different.

The Sun was no longer a brilliant point of light. Instead, it was now a disc. Tania was seated at the console, watching the take from the Venture Star. The humans had not picked up the approaching starships until it was too late. The flight plan had required a slightly longer journey, so that they could approach from a different vector to that taken by the other starship returning from Pandora. As a result, the great lasers had not fired to slow the starships from near-light speed until it was far too late. How could they stop it? It took months to slow down a starship, and the humans only had days.

They had tried. It did no good.

To slow the starships, the lasers had to aim at the immense light sails, which remained undeployed. They could not even damage the starship, for the preprogrammed flightpath kept the flight mirrors oriented towards the orbital lasers, protecting the vessels from harm.

When she was inside the effective range of the lasers, they had tried firing missiles to stop the ships. The flightplan had meant that enough propellant remained to jink the starships unpredictably in their course. Some of the missiles came incredibly close, within less than a kilometre, but they were travelling too fast and jinking too unpredictably to intercept.

Tania watched the Venture Star slam into the South Pole crater of the Moon in a great flash of light, the kinetic energy of the starship converted instantly into the most powerful explosion ever created by the hands of Man, obliterating the lunar colony instantly.

A great fountain of lava erupted into space from the impact, but this was not like other strikes that the Moon had received in its 4.5 billion year history. The shock of the needle-like impact drove deep into the core of the Moon, great cracks appearing across its surface, until the Moon slowly shattered into hundreds – no, thousands - of pieces, cracking like an egg. Tania checked trajectories of some of the larger debris – a significant amount of it was going to impact with the Earth over the next few days and weeks, just as predicted.

It didn't matter though.

Tania was going to get there first.

The sphere of the Earth swelled in size rapidly, as the Dog Star flew implacably towards its target.

Just before the starship touched Earth's atmosphere, Tania said one word.

"Home."

There was a flash of white light, and Na'dia woke screaming.

Ninat and Txep'ean were holding her as she shook and wept. Na'dia knew what had happened. She had run the simulations on the computers at Hell's Gate. She knew what she had done, what she had set into motion.

The Dog Star slammed into the Earth's atmosphere, turning immediately into a bolt of plasma that cut right through the crust and miles down into the mantle, stabbing into the rock like a white hot steel rod thrust into butter. The flash of the explosion vapourised every living creature within line of sight, generating a fiery supersonic shockwave that rolled out from the epicentre, setting everything on fire that it touched. She knew that the wall of fire would sweep around the world, killing everything not deep in underground shelters.

The hole punched through the crust erupted in an immense plume of lava, exploding beyond the Earth's atmosphere like an obscene fountain. Nothing had been seen on Earth like it since the eruption that created the Deccan Traps, or the Chicxulub asteroid impact, over sixty-five million years ago. Cities, towns, farms, all were wiped out by the relentless flow of lava.

The Earth rang like a bell, the vibrations causing many faults between tectonic plates to slip violently. The Big One finally wiped California from the map, but this was only one of many massive earthquakes loosed by what the literature euphemistically called an RKV, or relativistic kill vehicle. Tsunami ravaged coastlines and scoured islands clean, causing immense devastation. Hundreds of dormant volcanoes erupted in sympathy. This was what Na'dia had created in the Dog Star – an instrument to exterminate homo sapiens, and protect the Na'vi from extinction, by removing the plague of humanity from the Universe.

She was the foretold Anti-Christ. Born out of fire and pain and war, she had brought Armageddon to the Earth, and utterly destroyed Man and all his works.

"What is it, my love?" asked Ninat quietly.

"It is done," whispered Na'dia. "The tawtute are no more. Self dreamed the apocalypse."

She rose to her feet, and called for her daughter, who had only become taronyu two months ago. "Self must go to Vitraya Ramunong," she told her mates. "Now."

Na'dia climbed with Tat'yana to the heights of Hometree, to where the ikran roosted. It was fortunate that both of them were small for Na'vi, otherwise they would have been too heavy for the ikran to carry them both.

The flight did not take long.

The ikran flapped in to an awkward landing, hanging from the wall of Vitraya Ramunong. She slipped off the ikran to the ground before her daughter, who quickly joined her.

"Sa'nu," asked Tat'yana. "Will you be alright?"

Na'dia did not answer her, merely holding her daughter tight for several minutes, before releasing her and walking beneath the Tree of Souls. She stood on the platform where she had died as a human and was born anew as a Na'vi, and joined with the tree in tsahaylu.

It seemed that Eywa was lacking in imagination, or perhaps it was her. After she plunged down the tunnel of light, she found herself back in the dance studio of her youth. Eywa was there, looking out the windows at the city below.

Na'dia looked in the mirrors and saw that she was in her dream palulukan form. Somehow, it seemed right to be here in this form.

"Self answers your summons," said Na'dia.

Eywa turned around and frowned at the palulukan girl. "So you have," she replied, and then frowned at the palulukan girl. "I think it is time to make you whole again, so at least you can speak properly," said Eywa, and clicked her fingers.

A sudden sense of guilt and grief hammered into Na'dia's soul, as the full import of what she had done hit her. She had driven the humans into extinction, an entire sentient species – the species of her birth. The raw emotion almost drove her to her knees. Slowly, she straightened under her burden, to stand tall and upright, as Eywa continued, "I suppose you are wondering why you are here." She smiled at the bloody but unbowed spirit. "You are here to make a choice."

"A choice?" asked Na'dia. "What kind of choice?"

"I suppose you have figured out by now that you could not have completed your task if I had left you your soul," commented Eywa.

Na'dia nodded. She could never have driven the plan to destroy humanity if she had not been totally possessed by the palulukan. There was still a little human in her that identified with her birth species, and she was Na'vi enough to think that extinction of an entire species was an offence against life. This was why Eywa had Chosen her for this task. Only a palulukan could have done this thing, and only one in complete control of a Na'vi body.

"Good," said Eywa. "As I said, you have a choice. You can stay here, where the pain of your life can be healed, or you can return to your body as palulukan, so you may live your life without the burden that you feel, or you may return complete, as human, and Na'vi, and palulukan, just as you are now. A heavy burden indeed, but it is entirely up to you."

Na'dia walked over to one of the windows and looked out at the city of her birth, a city that only existed in her memory. She was now the only living speaker of her birth tongue. Eventually, she said, "The first time I was in this place I was offered a choice between the easy road and a hard road. In making the choice that I made at that time, I realised that I have never taken the easy road. I see no reason to change now. I choose Life, not death."

Eywa looked immensely pleased. "I am very proud of you, my child," she said. "You are one of the greatest of my children, even though you are originally from another world than mine. What you have told me is the very reason why I Chose you for this task, and I am glad you have never changed, at least not from this aspect. I look forward to many conversations with you, once you finally tire of life – and a long life it shall be."

She embraced Na'dia, enveloping the palulukan girl with love.

When the embrace finally broke, Na'dia asked, "Is there anything that I could have done differently, to save humanity from destruction?"

Eywa looked surprised. "But you saved humanity from itself," she said. "Surely you realise that?" At Na'dia's puzzled expression, Eywa explained, "Thanks to you and the Uniltìranyu, there is human DNA preserved within the Na'vi genome, and human culture will be incorporated into their ways as well – and not only the Na'vi. The palulukan have been infected by humanity as well. It is time for my children to grow up, and reach for the stars. You have set them on that path, but I think they will take a different way to that of the tawtute. It will be a very exciting time, I think, for your daughter and her descendants."

"Oh," said Na'dia. All she thought she had been doing was fighting for her life, and for the lives of her loved ones.

There was only one other thing she wanted to ask. Before she had an opportunity to do so, Eywa said, "Over there."

At the other end of the dance studio standing at the door, was a young ballerina, with a snub nose and freckles. "Tania!" she cried, and ran towards her childhood friend, grabbing her in a close hug, before springing away from her. "Are you dead?"

"Of course I'm dead," replied Tania scornfully. "That's why I'm here."

"Did it hurt?"

"One moment I was on the bridge of the Dog Star, and the next I was here," said Tania. "Pretty painless, all-in-all, though that is what being turned instantaneously into a jet of plasma does for you. I was rather surprised to still be around, I must admit, but there you go. Eywa still hasn't explained how it happened. It seems she likes to keep a secret or two."

"Tell me about it," said Na'dia, rolling her eyes, before she realised that she was in the presence of Eywa, only to find that she wasn't. Eywa had gone.

"She does that," said Tania. "Going. Just like you have to right now." Na'dia tried to protest, but was overruled. Tania kissed her on the forehead, and told her, "You'll be here soon enough. We can talk then."

Suddenly Na'dia found herself plunging through the tunnel of light to land back in her body, disengaging her queue from the Tree of Souls. Tat'yana was standing close to her, a worried expression on her face, so Na'dia reached for her hand and squeezed it gently.

"'Ite oe ma kelku," she told her proud and beautiful daughter. Where else would Na'dia want to be other than home?

THE END