Chapter 620: Outpost
Roughly two kilometers east of the Hell's Gate base, a relatively flat clearing in the woods near a small, bioluminescent river was designated as the site for the expedition team's outpost.
The day after the agreement was signed, RDA engineering vehicles began operations—clearing vegetation, leveling the ground, and laying down baseline power conduits and water access interfaces. The entire process was conducted under the watchful gaze of the RDA surveillance towers.
The Trailblazer mobile base was parked in the center of the grounds, serving as the provisional command center. More equipment and supplies were secretly teleported in from the Death World base via small-scale transport shuttles—primarily building materials, prefabricated structural components, and less conspicuous research equipment.
The task of erecting the outpost was handled mainly by Maine's squad and several technical servitors. Ryo (the second avatar) spent most of his time inside the Trailblazer, monitoring progress through telemetry and real-time feeds while maintaining a mental link with his main body to relay reports.
The three EVA pilots were instructed to remain within the outpost perimeter to minimize contact with RDA personnel.
Asuka felt somewhat bored by the restrictions on her movement. Watching the busy RDA engineering machinery, she curled her lip: "Tch, acting all secretive. It's just a bunch of scrap metal, what's so great about it?"
That said, her gaze still couldn't help but dart toward Hell's Gate, betraying a degree of technical curiosity regarding the AMP suits and aircraft.
Shinji Ikari was much quieter, helping Pilar organize less vital equipment or staying inside the makeshift resting quarters, looking out at the unfamiliar world through the viewport. The partnership with the RDA left him with a lingering unease, especially when he thought of the clear-cut forests and the hostile Na'vi. Occasionally, he would see Rei Ayanami standing alone at the outpost's edge, gazing into the depths of the forest, wondering what was on her mind.
Rei's behavior certainly caught the attention of several RDA observers. She often stood motionless for extended periods, her gaze seemingly devoid of focus, completely out of place in the bustling surroundings. On a few occasions, curious lemur-like Pandora creatures even approached her, lingering near her feet for a moment before scurrying away. This peculiar behavior drew the scrutiny of Security Chief Colonel Quaritch, who ordered tightened surveillance on the red-eyed girl, suspecting she might be making clandestine contact with the Na'vi.
A few days later, several modular prefabricated alloy compartments were swiftly assembled. Linked firmly to the main body of the Trailblazer via airtight corridors, they formed a fully functional, enclosed compound equipped with baseline defensive capabilities.
The internal space was thoughtfully organized into separate residential quarters, a workshop equipped with standard interfaces and tools, and a compact yet sophisticated laboratory fitted with high-precision analytical equipment.
Around the perimeter of the compound, a low sensor fence was erected, supplemented by multiple cleverly camouflaged surveillance nodes to establish the outpost's primary warning line. Control of this security grid remained entirely in the hands of Maine's squad, physically air-gapped from the RDA surveillance network to guarantee the expedition's autonomy and privacy.
Inside the newly established workshop, David Martinez was assisting Pilar and Falco with the initial sorting and preprocessing of the first batch of mineral samples provided by the RDA. Applying the knowledge he had acquired at the base, he operated precision scanners to identify and record the baseline physical properties of the various rock specimens. Though the work was fundamental, his concentration was absolute, essential for understanding and adapting to the team's research rhythm.
Meanwhile, at the communications and surveillance node of the Trailblazer, Lucy monitored the status of the outpost's independent defense systems. Using her outstanding netrunning skills, she passively intercepted the RDA's open, unencrypted communication channels, filtering for actionable intelligence—such as logistical dispatches and unclassified patrol logs—to help the team better grasp their neighbor's operational routines.
At the same time, fulfilling their preliminary obligations under the bilateral framework, Maine initiated the technology exchange with the RDA technical division.
He provided a "simplified" blueprint for the plasma rifle.
The schematics were clear enough to allow RDA engineers to understand the weapon's foundational operating principles and architecture, enabling them to attempt direct replication. However, critical technical components—such as the core material formula for the energy focuser, the plasma stabilization containment field, and high-efficiency battery management algorithms—were either left vague or marked as "sealed modules," intentionally treated as black boxes.
This ensured the RDA could never replicate the full performance profile of the original weapon, while Maine had embedded hidden backdoors in the low-level systems.
Even so, the RDA engineers treated the schematics like sacred treasures upon receipt, immediately assembling a dedicated team to dive into research and prototype manufacturing. Although they encountered expected bottlenecks in materials processing and energy control (the very technological barriers Maine had deliberately put in place), the prototype rifle demonstrated armor penetration and destructive yields far surpassing standard kinetic firearms during initial testing. This left Security Chief Colonel Quaritch thoroughly pleased. He had already begun drafting plans to establish a "Special Tactical Squad" equipped with these new weapons to more efficiently "clean up" the increasingly frequent Na'vi harassment around the mining perimeters.
As a reciprocal exchange, the RDA delivered the first batch of "mineral samples" agreed upon in the treaty.
The delivery was a mixed bag, consisting of various common Pandora rocks and soil matrices, with only a sparse scattering of low-grade, off-cut Unobtanium ore fragments mixed in. The intention behind their testing was blatant; they had no intention of providing high-purity, truly valuable ore right from the start.
Ryo was not surprised in the slightest, having anticipated this maneuver.
He issued precise instructions to the outpost laboratory: perform a systematic, multi-dimensional analysis on all received samples. The focus was not only to verify the superconducting properties of Unobtanium under varying temperatures, pressures, and energy field environments, but also to probe for any deep, undiscovered connections between this unique material and Pandora's overarching ecosystem—specifically its ubiquitous biological neural network.
On the central workbench inside the workshop, a fist-sized chunk of Unobtanium ore—its surface shimmering with a faint metallic luster—was carefully mounted onto a non-magnetic clamp, surrounded by precision sensor probes and energy emission arrays.
Pilar and Falco were completely absorbed in conducting a series of physical property benchmarks and energy transmission trials, while David watched and learned from the side, responsible for logging supplementary experimental data throughout the process.