A New Mission: Ash to Fire

Dinner

[Flashback to the recoms and Spider sometime after the Kestrel dropped them off in the forest]

Eat Na'vi. Ride Na'vi. Think Na'vi. These were the guiding rules by which the recoms would live until they found Jake Sully. Get into the minds of their enemies until they learn where he escaped to, and then use their new skills to complete their mission—hunting him down and killing him.

Jake Sully and his family had gone to ground and they had no inkling of where he could be. But with enough time and patience, they were confident they would find him. That he would slip up and reveal himself. It was smart to deduce that he wouldn't have gone entirely AWOL and leave all of his existing connections behind. He had traitor science puke friends from Hell's Gate and family within the Omatikaya people. Wherever he was they would find him and be more prepared than ever to end him.

Eat Na'vi was the first important thing they needed to learn while doing reconnaissance. The Marines didn't bring any major supplies aside from weapons, ammo, the clothes on their back, and some sleeping gear. They would have to live off the land. Knowing that obtaining banshee mounts was the next major thing to do after getting accustomed to being Na'vi for a few days, the Marines and Spider set out in the direction of the Hallelujah Mountains through the forest. They assumed they would be able to find food along the way.

Spider was quiet, angry. His "ride along" agreement was the lesser of two evils, but he was not happy to be here with the people who held his friends hostage and who were trying to kill the closest thing he had to a family. These violent, murderous skxawngs barely even knew how to speak Na'vi and made him, a sixteen-year-old, their interpreter. Spider was walking in the middle of the seven surviving recoms, Miles leading the troop, Wainfleet, Z-Dog, and Mansk ahead of Spider, Prager, Lopez, and Ja at the back.

Spider was mostly looking down, despondent at his situation, but occasionally glanced upward to look at this bizarre "father" adjacent figure that had suddenly, abruptly entered into his life. Spider grew up hearing stories of the monster that was Colonel Miles Quaritch, the man responsible for the destruction of the Omatikaya's Hometree and a great battle in the Hallelujah Mountains that resulted in the loss of many Na'vi and human lives, Spider's mother included.

He deeply resented him for that. Quaritch making such an arrogant decision that cost the life of the mother of his child and left Spider an orphan on an alien world. And that's the thing, wasn't it? Quaritch was arrogant. So arrogant that he had zero thought in his mind that he would lose that battle. And all of this is of course why no one wanted to call Spider, 'Miles.'

Regardless, Spider knew that this recombinant version of Miles Quaritch didn't remember how the loss occurred. Miles explained to him on their Kestrel ride out to their drop zone exactly where his memories stopped. Spider just looked at the back of this man, his "father" with a scowl. As he walked, Miles could feel the daggered eyes of his past life's son behind his back. He paid it no mind. He knew what it was like to be hated, and he knew that Spider had no reason to have any affinity for him. And for Miles, this kid was mostly going to be a tool, an asset by which they could more successfully carry out their mission to find Sully. He and Spider were nothing to each other after all.

Miles was relaxingly taking in the forest, his rifle held low, his new form eliciting significantly less fear in this jungle than in his past life. His past life who got mauled by a juvenile thanator his first day on Pandora while he was getting a field tour of the Hell's Gate mining quarry—the source of his past life's three scars. Now, Pandoran predators like viperwolves, even in a small pack were non-bothersome to him and his recoms. He walked in the forest renewed, able to take in its harsh beauty rather than its extreme danger. Miles was, for lack of a better term, allowing himself to be moderately enchanted with the forest of Pandora. He was even mildly excited at the prospect of flying on a banshee.