A New Mission: Ash to Fire

Regroup

[Flashback to Miles on the RDA Venture Star orbiting Pandora]

Recombinant Miles Quaritch was still shaken at his existence. Yesterday he woke up in a body that was not his own. In his mind, he was just on Pandora as the fifty-one-year-old Head of Security at Hell's Gate, getting ready for a straightforward, bomb-run mission to handle the horde of assembling hostiles. Not only was he not in his own body, but he was in the body of the very same species of hostiles he was going to defend from and whom he had been fighting for fifteen years. Tall, gangly, tailed, blue, humanoid aliens.

Recombinant Miles was preparing in his temporary quarters on the ship for the mission briefing he was going to give to his fellow eleven recombinants prior to their Pandora insertion. He was sitting on a cot, back up against the wall, and being sure to not look out the small porthole to not get motion sick from the constant gravity-simulating spinning. He was reading his mission on a holo-tablet. While reading he couldn't help but glance at the blue skin of his hands and forearms, the darker blue striping throughout. Blue skin where his regular human skin tone should be. He tightened his lips together, trying not to think about it, and kept scrolling through and reading the mission notes.

Yesterday he watched a video from who he remembered as himself brief him on his own existence. That he was a younger, hybrid clone, built for Pandoran missions, and that he should be vengeful against Jake Sully. He fully remembered Jake Sully. That paralyzed Marine, a kid, who he took under his wing and offered to help get him walking again. All he asked for in return was to provide helpful intel against those blue savages. Seemed like an easy trade—his legs for information against some lethal aliens.

But somehow, and it shook Miles to his core, he fell in love with one of them, escaped the base, and seemingly rallied thousands of Na'vi to fight against Hell's Gate. Fight against his own species, humanity. All of this led to the last thing Miles remembered of the incident, which was him getting ready for a bomb run on their 'soul tree', or whatever the hell it was called, in the Hallelujah Mountains so that the RDA could be rid of these dangerous beings in the region for good.

As Head of Security, he sought to secure RDA operations and protect his people—all those good men and women. Now, thanks to Jake Sully, countless folks were killed, the RDA forcefully evicted from Pandora, and he himself was in an enemy body, the fate of his human counterpart unknown. He grew angry at all of these thoughts, bared his teeth with a grimace, and threw the holo-tablet aside. He then leaned over the edge of the cot, feet planted flat on the floor, elbows on his knees, and hands clasped together. He sat there looking down, breathing slowly for a moment, pondering.

Miles looked up and caught his reflection in a mirror on the right wall. Seeing his imposing Na'vi, well, recombinant form still caused an innate jolt of adrenaline to course through his body. But this being was not an enemy, it was himself. Miles stood up and slowly approached the mirror. He put his huge hand on the wall next to it, and he stared into his own eyes before examining his body in the reflection, something he did when he first violently awoke in the ship's medical bay.

He looked over his incredible height and muscle tone which by all accounts he did find quite impressive. This bulk in particular a welcome sight given the built body of his human self and his general memory of male Na'vi being quite lean and lanky as a whole. He looked at his sharply pointed ears, held high on his head. Then he moved them. Back. Forward. Back. Forward. One up, one down. One forward, one back. Twisted them out. Twisted them in. He couldn't believe he had this natural control over something his human self did not even have the capacity to do.

Someone walked by in the hallway outside of his quarters and he turned his ear to be able to hear them better. His hearing was so much more acute now. Miles then bared his teeth like he did before after he awoke, again noting his sharp canines, then he jutted out his lower jaw a bit to see his slightly smaller bottom canines.