Chapter 1
Author's note: I was inspired by Avatar greatly. This is my own musing on what happens when the movie ends. I have introduced new characters and situations that will round out what happened in the movie and move the story forward. I hope it meets with everyone's approval.
Disclaimer: I do not own nor pretend to own Avatar or any other intellectual property of James Cameron and Twentieth Century Fox…
I can remember hearing the chaos of humanity in the streets of Pittsburgh while my mother pulled me through the crowds towards the mass transit vehicles. I can remember the screaming babies, shrieking sirens, and general din of a city that had not seen a blue sky in over 75 years. And, I can remember the look of irritation at the congestion of the transit vehicles my mother and I were attempting to board before light filled my eyes with its white hot power and all sound disappeared from my senses. The last thing I remember before even the light faded was the feeling of my mother's hand in mine going limp.
Naomi opened her eyes in the dimly lit cryo pod to see droplets of condensation float by in the zero gravity of the Niagara Star Explorer. Her mouth felt as though she had filled it with cotton balls for the better part of six years. Once she had wiggled all her limbs and found no long lasting ill effects from her cryo stasis, she welcomed the opening of her pod into the much brighter cryo bay of the star ship that had obviously reached its destination.
The medic-tech was saying something to her on her right, probably going over post cryo guidelines and updates from what she could make out from the movement of his lips. He turned away from her and Naomi gave up trying to understand the scrubs clad man. She chose not to let the man know that she could not hear him, not wanting the inevitable look of pity and then the idiotic slow speaking people usually adopted after learning of her inability to hear.
She merely unhooked herself from the restraints that had kept her stationary for all those years and allowed herself the wonderful sensation of floating up to the locker with her name on it to retrieve her few personal belongings before exiting to the land shuttle that would transport her and the others to the surface of the moon: Pandora.
After the zero-g of the Niagara Star Explorer, the land shuttle's forced gravity was like a ton of bricks on Naomi's chest. It hurt to move, to breathe, it even hurt to think. She strapped herself in to the harness along with the others and waited for the preflight briefing. She was expecting a uniformed marine to give them a gruff explanation of the effects of Pandora's toxic air and all the other little details that new arrivals should be aware of. Instead, a plain-clothes civilian looking type stood in front of the group. This woman was never nor would ever be in any armed forces. Because she faced the group, Naomi was able to discern much of what she said.
"I am Doctor Helena George. You all may have been expecting a marine to give you this debriefing, but I am here to inform you of certain changes that have happened on Pandora while you all have been sleeping your lives away."
Naomi quickly glanced at her fellow new arrivals and saw pulses quicken, eyes widen, and nervous fidgeting increase as the Doctor continued her rather unconventional welcome.
"Six months ago, the indigenous population of Pandora, the Na'vi, decided that they had had enough of human interference in their lands and staged an uprising. The marine force for the main mining base here at Hell's Gate attacked the Na'vi in an attempt to either get them to move from their home tree or to wipe them out entirely, depending on who you ask."
A second glance around showed Naomi a range of emotions strewn on her fellows' faces. Some displayed simple shock; others found themselves nodding in agreement with either the actions of the marines or the Na'vi; and a few curled their lips in disgust, perhaps at the thought that these savage "blue monkeys" could repel an attack from humanity's best with a bunch of arrows and rocks.
"As it stands now, there is a truce between the Na'vi and our folks. The Omaticaya clan leaders are allowing supplies and only certain persons to land on Pandora. As such, most of you will have to return to the Niagara Star Explorer for her return mission to Earth, never setting foot on the surface. We have been in contact with the clan leaders and the new base commanders. All of your profiles have been reviewed by both sets of parties and here are those individuals that were agreed upon."
Anger made its way onto many faces around Naomi as the shock began to wear off. Most of these people would not be happy to have come six years through space only to have turn right around and spend another in so short a time. Naomi found herself sending silent prayers to whatever there was out there that would listen that she be one of those allowed to join the research teams already on Pandora. She leaned forward a little as she concentrated on Doctor Helena George's mouth, willing the other woman to move her lips in just the right pattern.
"Avery, Joshua. Anderson, Patricia. Heath, Samuel. Ramirez, Rosalynn. Smith, Naomi. Zanar, Keisha. Those are the individuals who will continue on this little expedition. If you did not hear your name, please remove yourself from this craft and return to the Niagara Star Explorer."
As she saw the Doctor's lips move to form her own name, Naomi relaxed in her seat and sent mental thank-yous out into the ether. She watched as more than half of the people who had intended on landing on Pandora angrily removed their harnesses and filed out of the seating area in a disgruntled mass. Naomi looked around at her fellow passengers, noting that none of the remaining people looked remotely military. She reflected on this, realizing that this was probably on purpose as the land shuttle disembarked from the Niagara Star Explorer and turned toward Pandora.
There were no windows in the land shuttle, nothing to signal where the occupants were in relation to the space around them. For most of the passengers, the change in sounds around the cabin were their only hint as to how close they were to their destination. Naomi sat in her seat, unable to hear these changes, but unlike the others, she was very aware of the other physical changes. She watched the other people for their reactions to the roar of atmosphere reentry and felt the metal wall near the bottom of her seat for the slight, but noticeable increase in warmth as the land shuttle scorched through Pandora's atmosphere. She could tell from the change in vibration of the hull when the land shuttle had made it through the outer layers and when it made its final decent towards the surface of the moon.
When all vibrations had ceased and the other occupants started looking around them expectantly, Doctor Helena George again made her way to the aisle in front of them.
"Please put your masks on, remember, you have less then four minutes of breathing the air on Pandora before your lungs seize up from the toxicity around you. We really don't need any more dead humans littering this planet, so be mindful of this, okay? You all will be briefed further inside by the base commander."
Naomi reached for the clear mask and accompanying oxygen pack that sat next to her seat. She placed the thing on her head and turned the dial at the bottom of the headset just the others around her were doing. She unhooked her rucksack from the clamps that had held it in place on the flight down. Joining the line of six people, those that were chosen and the Doctor, Naomi put her pack on her back as the bay doors opened in front of her.
The light that made its way through that first tiny crack between the doors was so bright it was almost blinding. She smiled a little as she thought how ironic, or at least fitting that this new chapter in her life was marked by blazing bright light, just as it had done before when she was a child and the explosion had taken her hearing and mother from her in one fell swoop.
This light, however, was not accompanied by searing heat and pain. Blinking their eyes in the first natural light they had seen in over six years, the new arrivals to Pandora filed out of the land shuttle and onto the surface of the lush moon, getting their first glimpse at the expensive jungles and foreign landscape they would now call home. Slowly opening her eyes after allowing them readjust themselves to this brightness, Naomi followed the others across the landing field towards the building that seemed oddly out of place in this wild world. She nodded to herself and took a deep breath of the oxygen rich air being pumped through her mask as she readied herself for the next part of this adventure and whatever surprises the future might hold.