II

New orders
Mipa kxìm
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"You're not in Kansas anymore." Quaritch mulled.

Ghost practically rolled his eyes. Are we really starting with that old movie quote?

"We are going to Pandora."

Okay Colonel obvious.

"Now, I know you're all asking yourselves the same question... why so blue?" He asked rhetorically.

Ghost was about to shoot himself in the head if he heard one more shitty joke out of him. He can take it from Price or Soap, but this is just... disgusting. The others, however, chuckled.

"For our sins of our past life, we have been brought back in the form of our enemy. That gives us their size, their strength, their speed. And with our training, that's a pretty potent mix." He finally got to the fucking point, but the na'vi aren't his enemy. He's been on earth up until now. An old lieutenant fighting the good fight.

"We have a mission yet?" Wainfleet asked. Teachers pet.

"Indeed we do. Our mission is to hunt down and kill the leader of the Na'vi insurgency." Quaritch said with an ounce of venom.

Now, this was already bad. Simon did background studies on the na'vi. When he was human, he needed to know why they would want to go to Pandora. They weren't inherently violent. It was human intervention that made them angry. Understandably so.

"The one they call 'Toruk Makto'."

Well shit. Lets just go ahead and kill anyone's cultural legend, why don't we?

"Jake Sully." Quaritch frowned deeply.

Alright. A former avatar, he could do that. He was given a bit of information on him through a file on a data pad. Former marine. Easy kill based on just that. Betrayed because of "local tail". Probably means a person or the people. And it's been 15 years since he was last seen by any of these marines. His file shows an image of his avatar. He supposed it was enough to go on.

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They were outfitted with their gear and masks. Simon of course chose whatever sniper equivalent they could give him. A side arm, a knife, a project phoenix vest over his hoodie, his mask obviously, and an electro prod. Something he was certain he would not use.

Bridgehead city was a fortified base with atleast two miles of scorched land. Inside was the bone-work for a thriving, human city.

He followed the Colonel out and they began to chat.

"I wasn't aware the UN had a hand in this." The Colonel stated.

"Me neither, sir." He replied shortly, respectfully.

The walk was long. It was a large base. It was time to report to General Ardmore.

She was boxing, using the new limber suits. The Colonel interrupted her with a salute and her name.

"Nice to meet you colonel." She offered her hand for a shake, "I heard good things." She stated. She was genuinely nice. But nice doesn't mean kind.

"A lot has changed since your last tour here. Walk with me." She turned and the new recoms followed behind. The building gave was to open walkways, buildings swarming with electronic ants.

"The new command center, it's over here, that just came online. These swarm assemblers can put up a building in six days. We have done more here in a year then in the previous thirty years." She stated.

Probably thanks to the cutthroat tactics. They scorched the planet, killed what was in their way and installed guns outside their city. The dogs were off their leash.

"We're not here to run a mine, colonel. As on world commander I have been charged with a greater mission."

Fascists have once claimed the same thing.

"Earth is dying." She stated, "our task here 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." She stated a little too casually. Pacify can mean anything. Make peace with, quell their anger. So long as Skypeople are here, it may not be possible.

"Sully's raids are becoming bolder and more frequent."

The footage was carnage. Absolute destruction of machines, stealing equipment, gathering information. It's smart.

"His strikes are well executed. Got tight coordination between his ground and air assets. His forces are hitting our outlining sites." She said pointing to the chart.

"Mines, pipeline, cutting off our supply chain."

"Any intel on Sully's base of operations?" Quaritch asked.

"Yeah. Bring up the mountain." She ordered a staff member, "it's a cave system in the hallelujah mountains somewhere. But everytime we send our forces up there, we take losses. Our hardware really stirs up the hornets nest. We only get ten minutes of enemy airspace before they're all over us." She stated.

The footage was a gunship being torn apart by pilotless banshees.

"Colonel; we believe your blue team will be perceived as indigenous and will not trigger the immune response." She stated, looking directly at him now.

"And how might we test that hypothesis, General?" He asked.

"The hard way." She stated with a nod.

"Outstanding." Quaritch said with a grin.

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