Dishonourable Discharge: Grace Augustine

53

Jake, Norm and Trudy were huddled around the table, wolfing down sandwiches.

"Do you always have to make them so big?" Jake asked, dropping his sandwich back onto his plate, trying to flatten it slightly.

"Yes. Anyway, I'm starving." Trudy finished her plateful then got up to make herself another.
"Want one?" She asked Ivory, pulling the fridge open.

"No thanks." Ivory tipped the scrambled eggs that she had been making onto a plate. "Ah, crap." She muttered as she knocked half of the kale from the plate.

"Do you actually like that crap?" Trudy bent down, scooping up a handful of the curly green leaves that had fallen on the floor.

"No. It's for Grace, she needs the iron."

"And you're going to give her that by poisoning her with kale?"

Ivory swatted at Trudy, unable to hold back a laugh. "It's either that or ripping Site Twenty Six apart and feeding her the scrap metal."

"I'll go get you a crowbar if you want." The brunette offered amiably.

"Ask that again when we start to run out of supplies, I might take you up on it." Ivory picked up the plate and the glass of water.

"Has Trudy been making sandwiches again?" Grace asked, limping into the kitchen.

"You're meant to be staying in bed." Ivory said severely.

"Since when have I ever let something like that stop me?"

"Since you took a bullet yesterday. Get back to bed."

"Ivy you know I hate being told what to do." Grace sat down at the table.

Ivory put the plate and glass down in front of Grace then pinched the bridge of her nose, sighing heavily. "Are you going to continue being this stubborn?"

"Yes." She picked up her fork. "Thank you."

"Brilliant." Ivory said sarcastically, slumping down beside the redhead. "Make sure you eat all of that."

"I will." Grace turned her head momentarily, pressing her cheek against the dark haired woman's shoulder.

"So what do we do now?" Trudy asked, peeling the bread off of her sandwich and picking the cheese out.

Jake looked up. "I... I don't know." He shifted in his chair.

"We need to get the Omaticaya out of the forest before Quaritch rips the tree of souls out of the ground. And we need to keep ourselves from dying horrifically." Grace drained her glass then moved to refill it.

"Let me." Ivory took the cup and got up, topping it up with water.

"Thanks." Grace took the glass back.

"The Na'vi need to fight back. Quaritch and the rest of the RDA aren't going to let this go. We can't stand by whilst the RDA force the clan out of their home. They think they can take whatever they want and we need to show them that they can't." Jake's blue eyes were blazing with fury.

"Jake don't let your feelings for Neytiri blind you-"

"Grace I'm not. You and I both know that there's been a war coming for a long time. There's no way we can stop it so isn't it better to help the Na'vi win?"

Norm bit his lip. "If we let Quaritch bomb the Tree Of Souls it'll destroy the Omaticaya. It's all they've got left. We can't just stand by and watch their main line to Eywa get ripped away from them."

"We've got Max on the inside." Trudy put in. "He can tell us what the RDA are planning. It'll give us one thing they don't have- the element of surprise."

"Quaritch has hundreds of troopers at his disposal." Ivory pointed out.

"Well yeah but you, Jake and I have military training. And Jake can drive his Avatar and direct the Na'vi from the ground."

There was a pensive expression in Grace's brown eyes. "This might be all we've got. We need to draw up a proper plan then get the Omaticaya on board. The worst thing we could do is go into this blind, we can't fuck things up, we'll end up getting the entire clan murdered."

"Are their numbers high enough? The RDA must have a few thousand men at least, we can't do this if it isn't going to be an even match."

"There are other clans, we just need to track them down and get them on board. Tsu'tey will help me, I know he will." Jake said with conviction.

"Tsu'tey?" Ivory looked blank.

"He's the Olo'eyktan, the clan leader." Grace explained. "The Omaticaya will listen to him."

"So we're doing this?" Jake asked, giving the rest of the group a searching look.

"Damn right we're doing this." Trudy tossed her long ponytail over her shoulder.