Another rayrider takes to the sheltering forest, zipping between the treetrunks as a pursuing Scorpion rockets the jungle from above. The ray is hit by flying chunks of wood from an exploding tree, and the rider cartwheels off.

The Scorpion, having scored a hit, pulls around looking for another mark. K-WHAM!! A huge red shape slams down on it, knocking it tumbling. The Great Leonopteryx coils around it, slashing furiously, as the ship tries to right itself. Josh can barely hang on, all his avatar muscles strained to the limit gripping the gyrating creature.

The pilot of the Scorpion sees nothing but the jaws of the king predator of the air slamming into his lexan canopy. Josh releases the gunship moments before they careen into a cliff. The pilot can't recover. His ship hits the face of the floating mountain and skids along it, crippling the lifting turbines. The craft plummets toward the rainforest below, and there is a satisfying fireball.

The cliff face near Josh explodes with cannon rounds and he tucks and dives. Screaming down on him is another Scorpion. They spiral downward, and Josh can feel the rounds splitting the air around him. He rolls inverted and dives under the edge of Mons Veritatis, then rolls out and zig zags through the dangling vines.

The gunship stays on him. It rips through the vines, and tracers light the darkness under the floating mountain. Josh jinks the leonopteryx around a thundering waterfall. The gunship explodes right through the curtain of water. It launches an air-to-air missile. Josh jinks hard, diving. The missile hits a rock outcropping. The gunship follows Josh through a narrow slit between Mons Veritatis and a smaller floating island. They run this slot rolled up on their sides to make the clearance. The gunship comes around a tight corner and breaks into the clear. The pilot has lost sight of the giant ray. A shadow crosses his canopy. Out of the sun comes a crimson demon, shrieking over the roar of his own turbines. K-WHAMMM!! The Leo slams the canopy of the ship. The Scorpion is driven downward in a dive. The leonopteryx lashes at it, keeping a grip with claws and teeth. They spiral out of control. The powerful jaws rip open the canopy, breaking the latching mechanism. The pilot gags on Pandoran air. Josh kicks the gunship loose and it falls like a brick, breaking its back on a rocky promontory and exploding.

Two bansheeray riders fall in beside Josh. He signals, pointing to a target, and they bank together out of shot.

Trudy Chacon flies the stolen Samson over the battle zone while Marcia De Los Santos videos the action with her stereocam. She is sending a live feed to the human base... pirate video journalism.

In the lab complex, the controllers watch the battle on a large screen, complete with Marcia's breathless narration. Freemedia forever!

Back in the battle the gunships and the rays are still corkscrewing all over the sky.

A volunteer gunner fires his doorgun out the side of a Samson. There is a CRASH and the ship is driven downward. The head of a bansheeray lunges into the open door from above, grabbing the gunner in its fanged mouth and jerking him out.

Another Samson dives after a ray. The pilot is a hotdog, following the ray down into the trees, under the canopy. They slalom through the treetrunks at high speed. The gunners hang half out the doors, firing their machine guns. Bark and leaves explode around the ray as it jinks through the jungle. The ray dives under a huge tree limb, and the pilot follows. He looks up at the last second, catching a glimpse of blue-skinned figures. The Na'vi hunters on the bough drop a net of woven vines after the rayrider has gone through.

The Samson hits it. The net fouls the ship, causing it to flip over backwards. It crashes upside down to the forest floor. KABOOM!! The Na'vi cheer. A moment later they scatter as cannon fire rips into the tree around them.

Powersuit troopers advance across the forest floor, firing their cannons and flamethrowers. The GAU 90s rip the forest to shreds. Hydraulic feet pass the bodies of direhorses and Na'vi hunters. The troopers easily track the Na'vi through the brush on infrared. Running Pandorans are cut down, disappearing in gouts of earth and splintering wood.

The trooper on the far right of the firing line yells something. Out of the woods next to him a monstrous shape explodes in a shower of broken branches.

As the troopers pivot, a WALL OF CHARGING HAMMERHEAD TITANOTHERES crashes out of the foliage beside them. Charging in from the flank, the titanotheres scatter the troopers like bowling pins. Only a couple even have time to fire.

Several are pounded under the stampeding giants. The treetrunk-like feet shatter the powersuit cockpits, and the troopers are crushed or asphyxiated. The stampede thunders past, leaving the powersuits scattered and disorganized. They are left in a murky cloud of dust and floating leaf confetti.

Lyle is yelling orders, trying to get some control back. He tells them to spread out.

Two powersuits are charging together through the dusty, sun-dappled gloom, pursuing some running Na'vi hunters.

Something slams into one of the suits, tackling it out of frame. The other trooper whirls and sees--

The most awesome land predator the universe has ever conceived. The MANTICORE crouches over the fallen powersuit, growling like a panther the size of a switch engine. Its mantis-like front limbs grip the struggling powersuit trooper like a vice.

The standing trooper can't fire with out hitting his buddy. He can only stare. And so he has time to see the figure on the back of the beast. A blueskinned woman. The manticore rips the powersuit's gun arm off with its massive distensible jaws. Then the scorpion tail arcs through the air, driving the stinger down like a piledriver. It punches through the canopy. The struggling suit goes still.

The standing trooper raises his cannon but-- The manticore leaps, blindingly fast... impossibly fast for something that size and-- WHAM!! It has him in its mantis grip. He is face to face with its nightmare jaws, right outside his canopy-- The tail rises, poising to strike-- K-CRACK!!

Zuleika drops the powersuit like a pile of junk and turns her demon mount. The manticore bounds into the foliage to stalk the other powersuits.

Nearby the armored footsoldiers see living shadows flow out of the gloom around them. The VIPERWOLVES race among them with flashing jaws. The troopers fire wildly as they go down, hitting each other. The survivors break and run as more viperwolves come out of the shadows after them.

THE AIR BATTLE RAGES. Quaritch, directing operations from the Dragon, has lost track of a lot of his ships among the floating mountains. The Na'vi are fighting a dirty guerrilla war, luring his ships into single combat and ambushing them.

He snaps the targeting system down over his eyes and takes over the gun system of the Dragon. He tracks a banking rayrider and blows him out of the sky. Targets another. P-POOM!

Josh, flying his demon mount, looks around to see--

A FLOTILLA OF MEDUSAE emerging around the flank of Mons Prometheus. The enormous gas-jellyfish glitter in the sun, big as ships.

CLOSER ON THE MEDUSAE. A second leonopteryx sweeps into view, ridden by Tsu Te. He signals to a Na'vi hunter who rides the top of the lead medusa. The female hunter has her queue plugged into a nervecenter at top dead center of the thing's huge bell. She directs it to turn, and it pulses, coming slowly around. The other medusae are not ridden, but they follow mindlessly.

A Scorpion, banking around the flank of the Big Rock-Candy Mountain, finds itself tangled in a curtain of rubbery tentacles a hundred meters long. The pilot tries to pull free as he looks up-- In time to see more of the gas-bags converging, their bells pulsing vigorously. More stringy tentacles wind over the Scorpion. It twists and turns, trying to get free.