A New Mission: Ash to Fire

The Truth

The way back to Bridgehead City was a long one. In departing after the eclipse they would be flying through the night and arriving in the still dark early morning, and they were explicitly taking a more ocean-going route back instead of over the mainland for safety. Lieutenant Korman explained that this was done on purpose because lone gunships have been attacked over land around Bridgehead in broad daylight, the day facilitating clear attacks on the aircraft. Night proved to be surprisingly safer for some reason, the natural limitations of darkness, perhaps with the way the light reflected off of Polyphemus making attacks on the dark-colored ships more difficult to carry out. The gunships themselves were also equipped with advanced FLIR and target locking, which gave them the advantage in the dark.

Zu had been watching the ocean below her. She had never seen its vastness before, only ever flying around her archipelago, an island or two always in sight. As the daylight gave way to dark though she found herself increasingly tired, the emotions of everything she had recently experienced, and was soon going to experience, overtaking her. She had a life mate now and was leaving her people and home for an unknown amount of time. These developments all occurred in less than a day. A few hours into the darkness she grew sleepy and anxious, but relaxed by the beautiful blue sheen upon the ocean from Polyphemus' reflected light. She eventually leaned her head into Miles to rest.

Miles softly smiled at Zu sleeping on him. He was trying to be stoic and professional, though he wasn't an idiot as to what was already revealed between him and Zu; the SecOps personnel, even Mike, were making curious glances at the two clearly very close tall blue and blue-gray aliens. With Zu resting on his left shoulder he looked out to the ocean, then to Polyphemus, the vast blue beauty of Pandora's guardian gas giant never ceasing to impress him.

Things were about to become very interesting for him as soon as he stepped off this Kestrel and into Bridgehead City with Zu in tow. He didn't want to think about the infinite ways the discussions were going to go. But what he did know is that regardless of what would occur... he wouldn't have it any other way. He turned his senses to her lying against him and let the contentment of this flow over his body.

Lyle and Mansk were quietly leaning out of the right side of the ship, the cool nighttime air in their faces, occasionally looking back to see that their Ikrans were still following. Both of them were thinking about their own futures on this moon. Though each tried to not let such a thought cross their mind, they very lightly wondered if they too could make a life for themselves on Pandora. How many more missions would the RDA need them for? Their fellow recoms and friends were dead, any potential other recoms the RDA could plan for would take years to develop and mature—and they figured that the RDA wasn't going to be making any more recoms any time soon. They already lost billions in their first conflicts with Sully—twelve recoms reduced to three and zero mission success, at least on that one.

They were the only ones left of their kind as far as they were concerned. As far as belonging, where did they belong? In Bridgehead City as it's slowly colonized over time as the only three tall, blue stand-outs? Or with Na'vi, who it turns out weren't quite so bad to live amongst. They soon grew tired of these existential thoughts though. They just wanted to get back to Bridgehead and fill their minds with whatever the hell their next mission was going to be.

After a long night of flying, the Kestrel was approaching Bridgehead and Zu was awoken by two Seawasps coming out to escort them back safely. Even Lieutenant Korman shut his eyes to get a bit of sleep and was awoken by radio chatter from Bridgehead Command signaling the accompanying aircraft. Such escorts were normal now for inbound Kestrels given the attacks. Zu was suddenly excited about the prospect of seeing the Sky People village for the first time. She leaned out of the gunship, and what she saw, even under the night sky, astounded her.