Trinity

Ain't this a Bitch?

The Recombinants loaded up on the transport ship that would take them down to the surface of Pandora. Quaritch's face maintained a determined look, but he would admit he was still adjusting to the change. As soon as he woke up to a blue face looking at him, he went swinging. It took three of them to subdue him so Wainfleet could talk some sense into him. 'Ain't this a bitch,' indeed.

The new body was nice though, he had to admit. He kept his tattoo, just as muscular as he was before, a very trim waistline, taller than the rest of his men, and... well he looked damn good. His body was only twenty years old and he could tell. Apparently he wasn't the only one who was having trouble adjusting to the 'needs' of his new body. Everytime he found himself staring at one of his men he wanted to slap himself in the face.

His men had no idea he swung both ways and he wasn't exactly just going to announce it to everyone in the hopes he might get some fucking relief. He kept catching himself staring at one of his men in particular and couldn't understand why the sight of him was like a beacon calling out in the dark. But besides looking, he did his best to ignore it.

Besides that, he felt like he was adapting fine. Physically anyways. His mind was far more chaotic. He remembered her. Even if he was technically a clone with the memories of Miles Rick Quaritch. He might as well be him, the emotions and responses to the memories were proof of that. As much as he tried to separate himself from the past, there was only so much he could do. Either way, it was time for him to forge a new path, whatever that meant.

The determined gaze fell slightly, eyes glancing down at his new Phoenix dog tags that didn't have her ring. Even though it wasn't there, it weighed down on him as if it was. They were landing, he shook the feeling off and returned his thoughts to the mission. He had a job to do, and he was going to get it done. No matter the cost... His resolve returned, no matter the cost.

They entered a large building and were led to General Francis Ardmore. The crazy bitch was in a Skel suit... boxing. He glanced over to Lyle as they each took a breath of air from the breathers. Seems he was thinking the same thing. Boxing a Na'vi isn't going to do shit, especially not when they could easily just reach in and grab the dumb bitch out of the suit.

"General Ardmore." He walked up to her and saluted.

"Good to meet you Colonel." She shook his hand with the skel suit and he hmphed, amused. "I've heard good things. But a lot's changed since your last tour here, walk with me." Quaritch and Lyle follow General Ardmore outside as she gives them the 'tour' that they definitely needed.

"The new ops center is over here, that just came online. These swarm assemblers," she pointed to the yellow spider-like robot. "Can put up a building in six days. We have done more here in a year than in the previous 30 years. We're not here to run a mine Colonel, as On World Commander I have been charged with a greater mission." They entered a massive factorial building and witnessed large structures being 3D printed in front of them.

"Earth is dying, our task is to tame this frontier. Nothing less than to make Pandora the new home for humanity, but before we can do that... we need to pacify the hostiles." Sounds like that's where the Recombinants were coming in.

Now that they were in the main command building, Ardmore showed them past footage of Sully's attacks.

"Sully's raids are becoming bolder and more frequent. Strikes are well planned. He has tight coordination between his ground and air assets. His forces are hitting our outline sites, mines, pipelines, and cutting off our supply chain." One screen changed showing footage of human soldiers being slaughtered by gunfire from the air, the ikran's shadow was the only thing seen.

"He also has one rider in particular who has been particularly fundamental to any air based attacks. They're one of his generals, but we don't have footage on them, just a clip of their banshee's wings. They are also a priority target." Ardmore didn't continue and moved away from that screen. Quartich and Lyle continued looking and saw the very minimal pixels of the wing.

"Orange and red? And it's one of Sully's generals?" Lyle spoke for the first time, it was a good question. Why would one of the forest people have an Ash clan banshee? Ardmore gave him an odd look, appraising. He motioned back towards the still. "Are the tips black? Or is that just artifacting?"

"Good catch, the tips are black." Lyle and the Colonel share a look, Tenera's banshee was never cataloged in any way, but sure as hell looked like her banshee. Quaritch decided to move on, after her avatar's death they never saw Waryn again.

"Any intel on Sully's base of operations?"

"Yeah," she tells the soldier next to her to get her visuals on the mountains. "It's a cave system in the Hallelujah mountains somewhere. But every time we send our forces up there we take losses. Our hardware really stirs up the hornet's nest. We only get 10 minutes in enemy airspace before they're all over us." Quaritch watches the screen showing a Kestrel Gunship being swarmed with banshees until the signal was ultimately lost.

"Colonel." General Ardmore turns away from the screen and faces him. "We believe your Blue Team will be perceived as indigenous and will not trigger the immune response."

"And how might we test that hypothesis, General?" She looks amused and annoyed, not at him. No, that look is from what she's about to say.

"The hard way."

"Outstanding." He says with a grin and he knows Lyle is behind him with a matching one.