They landed on the beach just as they had that morning, only now the clouds were darkening overhead. It would be dusk soon. 

Spider leapt off without waiting for Quaritch, landing agilely in the sand and standing up to a sight of complete deja vu. 

They made their way forwards, right into the heart of the village it seemed. Soldiers had already been in and corralled most of the onlooking Ta’unui. They were being held back by a cordon of armed marines carrying raised rifles and flamethrowers. The humans were having to fire regular warning shots to keep the villagers at bay, and as Spider and the recoms passed them, a couple broke free from the line, about to attack, before being jabbed by the electric rods that Spider had first seen yesterday. When the Ta’unui man was struck by the baton his whole body convulsed and spasmed as he fell to the floor, screaming. 

Spider gasped, tears welling in his eyes. Fuck. 

The Olo’eyktan and Tsahik were waiting for them near one of the shelters that rested near a mangrove. They were bound and kneeling, just as the pair from the morning had been. 

“<Take them out!>” the Olo’eyktan was crying, and to Spider’s horror, he caught sight of what the man was referring to. 

Crying at the back of the shelter were two Ta’unui children, who couldn’t be older than four or five. To Spider, they looked like twins. Their faces were certainly an exact mirror of terror and fright when the recom squad walked in. Spider’s heart plunged to the floor. 

“Shut up!” a human with a stun gun yelled fiercely at the man in response. 

“ Mawey ,” Spider called over to the kids. His voice broke. “<Be still, everything will be alright.>” He tried to sound confident, but he thought it just came out desperate. 

All eyes turned to him as he addressed the children, and their small eyes peered up at him in fear and confusion when they realised this alien could talk to them. 

Catching on, their parents capitalised on this quickly.

“<Please! Please take the children out! Don’t hurt them, we’ll do anything you ask!>” The Tsahik addressed Spider directly, and he was so shocked to be spoken to as if he was the one in charge, that he momentarily forgot how to speak. 

“<It will be okay,>” Quaritch allowed Spider to continue. “<These people just want to ask you something,>” he glanced towards Quaritch, who seemed to take that as a cue to begin the interrogation. 

“Jake Sully. Toruk Makto. <Where is he?>” Quaritch started, as Wainfleet passed him the screen showing Jake’s face. 

The leaders’ eyes widened. “<We don’t know!>” the Tsahik replied. “<Please, you have wasted your time. We have never seen him before!>”

At Quaritch’s look, Spider translated. “They haven’t seen him. We’ve come to the wrong village.”

“Nope,” Quaritch replied confidently. “I think they just don’t understand.” The man crouched down, so he was at eye level with the kneeling Olo’eyktan. “Look,” he began again. His voice seeped with feigned sympathy. “<I don’t want to hurt you. We don’t want to hurt you. But. We need the information. When you tell us, we leave.>”

Ordinarily Spider would have been impressed with the level of Na’vi that Quaritch was able to use now, but his gaze was trained on the cowering children at the back. They were a boy and a girl, clinging to each other. Two humans stood over them, electric rods raised and ready to strike if they moved. 

“Tell him as soon as they tell us, we leave.”

Spider was brought back to the clan leaders’ attention as he closed his eyes to translate the words. 

“<We do not know!>” the Olo’eyktan repeated, as the woman beside him wept. 

Spider looked at Quaritch despairingly, pleading with his eyes for them to back off now. 

“Hmm.” Quaritch was quiet. He was considering something. 

The whole assembly held their breath. 

“Bring me one of the tykes,” he told one of the soldiers guarding the kids. 

No.

“ Kehe! ” The parents wailed as the soldier standing nearest to them began to reach for the little girl. 

Lots of things happened at once. Mansk and Savine moved closer to hold the clan leaders down as they struggled to break free. Wainfleet and Fike quickly backed them up, ensuring the Olo’eyktan and Tsahik were firmly pressed against the floor. Spider lunged forward, pushing over the human who had grabbed the Na’vi girl. He hissed as he pushed the child behind him. The other human immediately moved to overpower Spider, brandishing the electric rod, sparks flying. The sound sent cackles through the air, and Spider’s eyes widened. That shit looked painful. 

“Shit!” he exclaimed, now finding himself in a stand-off between the human marines and the Na’vi children. He had no weapon, just his bare hands, which were held aloft in front of him against the soldiers. 

“Okay.” Quaritch held his hand out to calm the situation. “Let’s everybody just take it down a notch.”

“No one touches the kids,” Spider announced firmly, not taking his eyes off the soldiers in front of him. 

The rest of the recom team were too occupied keeping the Olo’eyktan and Tsahik on the floor. He had the upper hand. 

“<It will be okay,>” Spider whispered behind him. 

“Alright, I hear you Spider, okay?” Why did Quaritch sound preoccupied? Something was wrong. 

Spider had realised a second too late. Fike had left the team holding down the Tsahik, and was standing right behind the kids, out of Spider’s line of sight. The man lunged for the little girl, grabbing her in one fluid motion as Spider spun around. 

“No!” he cried, pouncing forwards to protect, but something struck him from behind. Something cold. He had no idea he had been stunned until he hit the ground. 

His whole body seized up, he couldn’t move - he couldn’t breathe. His muscles spasmed and cramped agonisingly for seconds that lasted years. “Ahh!” he screamed, as soon as his body relaxed, crawling away from the source of the attack. “Fuck!” 

“That’s enough!” Quaritch roared, grabbing hold of the marine who had shocked Spider, and picking him up in both hands, completely lifting him off the ground before slamming him down to the floor with as much force as his powerful arms were capable of. But Quaritch wasn’t done. The Colonel picked the soldier up again, and this time threw him completely clear of the shelter. The man crumpled to the ground ten feet away on the sand, unmoving. 

Spider could do nothing except try and force shuddering breaths in while his body recovered. 

“Please, not the kids…” he begged. 

Quaritch looked him over, and Spider did his utmost to sit up, still gasping slightly. He hated the way the man’s eyes were filled with concern - soft around the edges and open, searching for signs of injury. Hypocrite . 

Quaritch seemed to decide something after a moment, because he moved away, back to the little girl struggling against the marine. 

“<Hello,>” he bent down to get as close to her eye level as possible. She was clearly terrified. “<My name is Quaritch. Your mother and father have been very bad. This man - Jake Sully, Toruk Makto, Olo’eyktan of the Omatikaya. Where is he? He is in this village?>”

“<Get away from her!>” growled the Tsahik. The Olo’eyktan let out a string of curses and threats, some of which were unintelligible even to Spider. 

The girl’s eyes overflowed with tears as she shook her tiny head, braids swinging. 

“You got what you want!” Spider called. “Now let her go!” he scrambled over to the little boy, and surprisingly no one stopped him. He touched the boy’s arm, trying to comfort, not wanting to scare him further. “<It will be okay, it will be okay.>”

The boy whimpered before him. 

Quaritch growled. “Move out!” he roared, once again commanding the burning of the village. 

Spider saw the little boy and girl returned to their parents once the recoms backed off, but had to turn his back as the sobs of the reunited family triggered something deep down in his bones. 

The squad moved out, only the one other human stopping to check on his fallen comrade. Spider didn’t hang back. 

As he followed Quaritch along the beach, he did his best to just not think about it. If he ignored the last half an hour, pretended it never happened, it couldn’t affect him, right?

So Spider cleared his mind and focused instead on putting one foot after the other. The sand was soft and more difficult of a texture to walk on. It didn’t help that his calves already felt like they were on fire, and his thighs burned with the effort to keep up. 

As they returned to the ikran, the smell of burning filled Spider’s mask like a poison from the flaming village, which was illuminating the now dark sky. He coughed, trying to clear the mask of it, but it was useless. 

Hopelessness bubbled up his throat, threatening to overcome him. But Spider was strong; he pushed it down forcefully. He would not break again. 

He reached Cupcake before he realised, stopping short. Quaritch came up behind and before he could react, had lifted him up with both hands onto the animal. 

“You alright kid? You hurt?” Quaritch asked once he was also mounted. 

Spider shook his head in response. 

What a lie.

Sadly for Spider, Quaritch attempted conversation as they flew back to the waiting ship. “You know, I never wanted you to get hurt.”

Spider ignored him. He couldn’t be bothered to entertain this. He’d been pushed, grabbed, drugged and shocked, all with only a couple of hours sleep the night before. It felt like years ago that he had asked Quaritch to stay in his room with him while he struggled to recover from that nightmare. Night terror , Quaritch had called it. Spider laughed a short, sarcastic laugh. Add that to the day ones. 

Quaritch misinterpreted this. “You do know that, don’t you kid?”

Spider groaned. “Enough!” he said. “I don’t care! I don’t give a shit what you believe, if you were any type of father you’d listen when I told you I would always hate you.”

Now it was Quaritch’s turn to fall quiet. Thank Eywa. 

Night had fallen in earnest by the time they landed. Artificial lights illuminated parts of the deck, but the lack of any plant life to bioluminesce made the place feel creepy and dead.

Spider thought he had never been in a place so dark before, stranded out at sea. 

He climbed off the ikran as the rest of the squad swooped down. 

“We camp out on deck tonight boys,” Quaritch stated. The squad went off to retrieve their packs from wherever they’d stored them while the ikran screeched goodbye by flying off into the night.

Where did that leave Spider?

Quaritched seemed to have the same thought. He turned the boy. “It’s 18:34, you stick with us until later. Then you can sleep inside the ship if I think you’ll be cool.”

Spider let out a disbelieving laugh as he shook his head in annoyance. He needed to be babysat, even on a boat in the middle of the ocean. Of course.

They moved towards the starboard side of the deck, which was a large, clear area. Slumping down to sit at the railings, he swung his legs over the edge and watched the water. The ship was travelling further out to sea, but the wind wasn’t strong. The water glowed where the edge of the ship cut through the waves, but other than this and a flood light on deck, it was completely dark. Despite his repressed terror at being alone on the vast ocean, he dangled his legs down and began to look for creatures in the waves. 

He had expected to see animals resembling dolphins or whales, perhaps leaping out of the water like he’d seen in old Earth TV shows, but there was nothing.

The sea was empty and black. Spider shivered. He wondered if this was normal, or whether the sea creatures just knew to stay away from the alien ship.

The noise of chatter and laughter brought his attention back on board. He turned around to see the recoms lighting a fire in some sort of container, and setting their packs around it for the night. 

“Hey kid,” Savine called over. “You wanna try the game again?”

Spider turned and shook his head. He was so tired. 

Another wave of pent up emotion coursed through his insides, but Spider had become skilled at pushing these away. Like earlier, he pressed it down, focusing on the here and now. He realised his head was starting to get dizzy from tiredness. He couldn’t stay where he was in case he drifted off and fell overboard, so he picked himself up and moved to slump against a wall near the warmth of the fire. He just wanted to close his eyes. He knew sleep was coming, fast. He was almost embarrassed about it. 

He lay his head against the hard wall, and brought his knees up to his chest. He closed his eyes, so ready to escape this reality. 

“Nah-ah, you’re not falling asleep like that.” Quaritch had spotted him. Spider opened his eyes to see the man rummaging in his pack for his jacket, from which he also pulled out Spider’s own spare clothing and a nutrient bar. “Eat this first,” Quaritch ordered. 

“I’m not hungry,” Spider said without any emotion, but he was betrayed by the rumbling of his stomach. 

He sighed, irritated as Quaritch smirked at him. He grabbed the bar and managed to eat it by only taking his mask off twice. It was such an annoyance. 

“You happy now?” Spider growled harshly. He did nothing to soften the hatred in his voice. 

Quaritch handed him the clothes as a pillow and threw the jacket over Spider’s abused body.