54. Pyrrhic Victory

Liam stared at the body for a few more seconds, it was easy again. It was an easy death for Quaritch as well but it's better to kill him now, he wanted to make this man suffer more but knew better.

Torturing someone to simply bring a meager amount of satisfaction out of it wasn't what he wanted to do, it was pointless and a waste of time for the same end result.

"Hey! Liam, can you hear me? Do you need medical support?", the worried voice of Grace suddenly entered his ears, this let him refocus on the present.

"No, you don't need to worry and Colonel Miles Quaritch is dead, I killed him. And I have taken Max's watch back.", he answered her but his voice was also sent to Norm, Trudy, and Jake through the microphone in his helmet.

"Thank you, he wouldn't have wanted it around the wrist of one such rabid animal a second more.", after a few long seconds Grace said, her voice with righteous fury, sadness, and a hint of joy. The others on the lines stayed silent outside of Jake who audibly sighed in relief.

"We have won.", Liam added right after with no true joy in his voice, there was still immense relief as if a pressure that was almost crushing him was lifted from his shoulder however but this wasn't a pleasant victory.

And it was but the first battle won of many to come. It's a war for him, the humans having betrayed the RDA, the Na'vi, and Eywa but for this corporation, it was but a simple loss of profit they will try to rectify by all means necessary that wouldn't directly alter the source itself.

However, even with that tone of voice he could hear the cheers from everyone and that still managed to bring a smile to his face.

"Yeah we won.", he mumbled under his breath before, too low for anyone to hear, but it wasn't the end. Far from it. And the stream voices speaking of many things on the radio was proof of it, the battle was but a part of an all.

He ordered the Valkyrie main computer to start the autopilot mode that will let the spaceship fly back to Hell's Gate, the turrets had already been changed on what to and to not shoot, he didn't need to inform anyone about not shooting it as it was known already.

All of the people inside were dead, the two pilots included and he didn't know how to pilot such a machine safely on the first try. He was reckless, not stupid.

How he killed them was simple, he changed the spaceship's life support parameters and as expected it had grievous consequences on the biological beings inside, even the ones with an exopack over their faces. 

A violent and sudden increase and decrease in air pressure and with the protocol that was made to clean and filter the air out when no humans should be on board. 

And that wasn't all, he used the help of repair and cleaning bots that had their programs tweaked with several new lines of code in their system. It changed what they should work on from their usual objectives to humans.

As such none of the nine humans on board at the time were alive, adding to that the panic and confusion brought by it all. 

One of the SecOps didn't even react until the drill of a repair drone was deep in his cranium and another got his throat neck cut wide open by the high-pressure washer of a cleaning drone while staring in shock at what was happening. 

Even here, Liam wanted the death to be as quick as possible, he had programmed all of it for this purpose. He could multitask but not to the extent of controlling two bots at once with the entirety of a spaceship's complex system while at the same time fighting with all of his gear and being under a rain of bullets and anti-tank weapons.

It was asking for a mistake to happen on his end, superhuman as he may be he couldn't do everything at once and even less do it to perfection. Maybe with training and more experience but not now.

But it was nothing to be proud of, even if by all means what he did to pull that off was impressive, it was a necessity. There was nothing in what happened today to be proud of.

The ones in the Valkyrie needed to die as the possibility of one of them deciding to go kamikaze in desperation and make the multiton worth of explosive charge blow up from within was a very real possibility. That would be an end he didn't want.

It's better to nip the problem right in the bud when given the opportunity than when too late and past the point of being capable of regret.

He smelled incredibly bad, both from blood, pieces of flesh, mud, and his sweat but the last he couldn't do much for now and was overwhelmed by the first three. 

'I need to clean myself of this blood before I go to the Tree of Souls…', Liam thought, walking up to the corpse of Quaritch and taking the relatively intact dog tag around the burned-up neck. 

He moved up a tree and ran from branch to branch, the cry of the RDA employee bellow resisting from time to time as the animals continued their massacres, a massacre he was sure would last for a few more minutes.

None of them even focused on him, however, at most a glance before they continued on and as such he arrived at a small river where crystal clear water flowed. 

He rinsed his armor of most that was on it, the metallic part of it ending clean with more problems on the fabric it will need a more thorough washing later but that was good enough for now. 

Finally, after one more minute, he arrived at his destination, and the sight almost made him cringe. What he saw wasn't pleasant but it was expected, it was better than he anticipated even.

Wounded, from a simple scratch to missing limbs could be seen in the hundreds as more came from the forest. The non-fighting force and the still able-bodied were running around taking care of the wounded, not caring for whose clans was who as they worked.

And those weren't the only wounded, in the farther distance he could see many direhorses, banshees, and even the Great Laenopterix, perched on one of the stone 'ribs' none did come out unscathed. Even if the last one aside from having seemed to have been repeatedly poked by needles seemed relatively fine.

'How many will survive their injuries…', he wondered as he walked amid the improvised medical camp, his presence not going unnoticed as gazes of fear, respect, gratefulness, and reverence as if he was a demigod were directed to him.

He heard many gasps, some called him by different names under their breath but the one that stood out was Kxitx Kulat which roughly translated to the Bringer of Death or Death Bringer, which was an apt title considering how much he killed in such a short time and in such a way. 

He was the second behind Eywa with the most humans killed today after all. None other than her and he knew how much he killed exactly but that didn't change the fact that others knew he was very prolific in terms of death brought and they weren't going to not react in any way at that. 

Actions have consequences and that was something he already knew was going to happen for the worse or the best.

Be it positive or negative, but aside from fear in some members of the clans he didn't know it was very positive. If his individual number of kills was high then the number he saved from a certain death was exponentially higher.

To say he was the sole reason not everybody was dead presently wouldn't be far from the exact truth.

<Ah friend! Your feats as a warrior seem to have spread far and wide.>, he heard the exhausted voice of Akwey from behind him.

<I can hear that much, Akwey, it seems to bring both nervousness and awe but that is of little importance now... How many have died?>, Liam asked and he turned to face the Olo'eytkan of the Olangi who had bloodied bandages around his shoulder and was using a stone as a support.

<A third of the warriors that came with us have perished but none without a fight or causing death on the enemy side. I was lucky, we were lucky if you weren't here…>, Akwey said calmly with great sadness trailing off, the words of gratefulness were unsaid but understood.

<And as for the others… From what I have heard they had far greater loss than us but to what extent I do not know more than you.>, the middle-aged Na'vi finished, his face shifted slightly in pain due to his various bullet wounds in one of his shoulders.

<As predicted, I suppose… This even with preparation was going to be bloody, I'm grateful for their courage. And the recovery, it will take time for everyone.>, Liam added, he wasn't the one who paid the true heavy price here, but without their sacrifice, he would have had to pay it.

Painting his hand red was better than dying. Even if by doing that he nearly did die but that was beside the point. 

Sacrifices were made by everyone, it's just that some had it worse, way worse than others and he made it so he would have to sacrifice less. His goal was first and foremost his own survival.

Day 233, August 23 in the middle of the afternoon within RDA ESC 01 otherwise known as Hell's Gate.

It was the next day of the battle, the words of Quaritch's defeat and the death of his entire force had spread like wildfire in a forest while in the middle of a canicule and panic mixed with an unhealthy amount of terror had spread in a very similar fashion within the base.

It was because a few hours after the battle ended, Liam, Grace, Norm, and Trudy in her Samson, Jake with Neytiri on his Toruk and a large squad of Na'vi riding banshee entered the base from the sky. 

A base that was now mostly cut off from using its most powerful weapons but they were not fully unharmed either. So it shouldn't be possible.

There were ten AMP suits left of which half of them needed various degrees of repair, a Samson in the middle of being renovated, one Valkyrie, a few land vehicles a lot of which were only viable for mining, a few hundred drones, the several hundreds of turrets placed all around the base, a few firearms and barely any individual trained for warfare.

None had realized the Colonel's attack force had been defeated at this point, the one in the Conmod, the main control room, thinking by habitude that it was due to the magnetic interference in the Hallelujah mountains if they lost complete contact with the attack force.

Admittedly a logical line of thought but one that turned to confusion when a Samson that was known to be piloted by a traitor, a Great Leonopteryx, and sixty banshees with each of their riders were detected in their radar.

This confusion turned to amusement as the odd mixes flew right in the firing range of the MBS-22A Automated Sentry Gun and this confusion only increased as the turrets didn't fire, even after someone commanded them to, and also ordered the drones to fire, which they didn't do as well.

The confusion was mixed with a deep feeling of unease, something was wrong and the ones with that in mind were proved immediately to be correct to their immense horrors as every screen within the base switched from what they should be doing to light blue pentagon with at their front a lozenge made visibly of steel, a sphere of an unknown pearly white energy glowing in its middle.

The confusion started to mix with panic, and a few started feeling fear that turned to horror when they understood the base was hacked, fully compromised from the ground up. It didn't make much sense but it was one of the only options other than a complete failure of every system.

Then chaos exploded as the voice of Grace echoed in the entirety at the base and what she said with an image of the Dragon Assault Ship burning carcass was the reason.

But that was quickly calmed down by the xenobiologist who informed them none were going to be killed unless they fought back. And so a few hours later this was the present.

A long line of humans wearing exopack on their faces could be seen walking from the base's hangar, the lack of most vehicles creating a large void and a few other humans could be seen within, looking at the scene with mixed feelings. 

On each of their sides were Na'vi, some on their mount and some not but all glared at the two hundred humans whose nervousness and fear were almost palpable.

"People who have chosen to depart from Pandora or were banished may begin to board the Valkyrie, may we never see you again.", the harsh words of Grace echoed in the large area, and with the encouragement or bows being pointed at them, large aliens beast looking at them hungrily the humans did as asked.

It went smoothly the breath of potential death in their neck being a very good motivator for anyone that wasn't suicidal or moronic like the one who tried to flee by running in a straight line and gaining an arrow in her head. 

The groups of two by two moved fast and in a few minutes all were aboard but a few and within those few was Parker Selfridge whose expression was conflicted.

He was held prisoner by order of Quaritch and he now was forced to leave, he was banished, and he found that hilariously funny. He absolutely didn't care.

He had enough of this moon in either case, it was better than dying on this accursed dirt ball.

He suddenly stopped walking right in front of Jake and Neytiri and spoke matter-of-factly, staring unflinchingly into the Avatar's golden eyes. The female Na'vi was going to attack him but was stopped by Jake.

"I don't grasp how this situation is possible… But you know. This isn't over.", he warned and Jake made a hasty movement of his head indicating for Selfrgud to move if he didn't want to be gutted like a fish by Neytiri.

A few minutes later and the Valkyrie was rapidly gaining altitude, Liam looked at it from his position atop the base. 

None of the people that were sent away or decided to go knew he existed, they can extrapolate on his existence but that was inevitable.

They didn't board on the hacked Valkyrie, it might seem foolish, missing a chance to go in the RDA ISV Venture Star and cause it to malfunction but it was from it.

It was moved through space by using metric ton upon metric ton of anti-matter to go at roughly 70% of the speed of light, how Grace didn't know, but he could guess that it was using the energy generated by the contact of its normal matter to propel it. 

Anti-matter was something to manipulate with extreme care and in a perfectly controlled environment. 

If it isn't manipulated it will have catastrophic effects on everything close, the close ranging from kilometers to potential million of kilometers if not more.

He could program the spaceship to malfunction when far enough but that's not taking into consideration the spaceship not potentially possessing advanced AIs that might be able to fight back his virus or detect it and then warn the RDA.

As well as potentially causing the spaceship to self-destruct in response when still too close to Pandora, killing everything not several kilometers underground or underwater. 

The last part was a stretch, that much he knew but that didn't make it void of being a probable reality.  

And there is the fact that if it were to suddenly disappear it would cause more questions to arise. Questions that would be needed answers that would be gained by sending more ISV Venture Stars to Pandora.

He might have caused the Valkyrie to stop functioning when in the stratosphere and fall as well, killing everyone inside but that would put him at the obvious culpable, something that will force him to kill beyond reason.

And the ISV Venture Star would still be in orbit.

And… There was a fundamental difference between killing people that wanted to cause intentional harm to you and those close to you and killing random innocent individuals which was easily more than 90% of the people on board.

He had the power to do it but he didn't want to, so he didn't. At the end of the day, the RDA will come back in less than twenty years and he couldn't do anything about it.

"It's always so complicated…", he mumbled, his silver eyes finally losing track of the spaceship that was dozens of kilometers up in the stormy sky, a pang of jealousy setting in his heart at the sight.

They were going back home even if that home was horrible, unfit for human life and it would be far from easy. It was still a home, whether they have family or not, they still have something.

*

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