2154/2591 - Pandora wilderness half a kilometre South of new Omaticaya Clan Home Tree
Life was good, what more could be said. Jake smiled as he looked up at the sky, just chilling in the shade of a tree away from the hot, mid-morning sun. Little did he know that life was about to get far more complicated.
The past seven years had been good to him; he now had a six year old daughter; Natalie and a four year old son; Raltaw. He chuckled to himself at the thought that thirteen years ago he would have scoffed at the idea of him being a farther but here he was.
He noticed the position of the sun; almost mid-day. Zacharia would be arriving soon. Zacharia Felps, or Zack was the one in charge of the remaining soldiers at Hell's Gate. Having grown up on a crop tower he understood the scientists better than the dumb grunts and became friends with some of them including his next room over neighbour. Of course this had the side effect of gaining Colonel Quaritch's mistrust so he along with a number of others Colonel Quaritch had black-marked were left in the rear guard during the great battle.
It was quite a fortunate outcome really; the girl in the room next to his, Angie went against the other scientist's decision not to include any of the soldiers and told him about their revolt. At first he was going to arrest Angie but after she showed Zack some information about how Quaritch deliberately bulldozed a sacred site to secretly provoke an attack to justify his warmongering. This was enough to persuade him, his squad, the remaining VTOL pilots, a pair of AMP suit pilots, a lot of the other staff and even the crew of the ISV (Inter Stellar Vehicle) to side with them. Not all of them stayed but enough so that Hell's Gate could still function without many problems. Though it had a slightly deserted feel now with the lack of activity.
After the sacking of Hell's Gate three additional ISV arrived with mostly peaceful interactions, the rest had apparently turned back since they had not passed the half way mark yet. Some merks on the second ISV tried to cause some trouble but were easily put down. A number of personnel were also permitted to stay after strict interviews by himself, Grace and Mo'at. They had even let a few of the merks in after Zack Grilled them on how discrimination was highly frowned upon in Human society, why and how doing so would only make them defensively weaker and only make them more hated by Earth. Mo'at was even present which got him a ballsy reputation from some of the tribe. So now Hell's Gate had a population of two hundred and fifty three including thirty seven military personnel (excluding pilots) and now eighteen children. Even got a Valkyrie and large amount of fuel for it from the last ISV.
Eventually the residence of Hell's Gate and the Omaticaya began to mingle. Grace had resurrected the school though in a different location and warriors patrolled the area whenever children where there. Eventually the number of topics that could be taught there increased and the human children even joined when they were old enough. Now they even had simulated and physical war games to keep both Hell's Gate's new security forces and the warriors from nearby clan's skills sharp, using paint munitions and slackened bows of course. One of such games was taking place this afternoon.
Unfortunately the situation wasn't all sunshine, candy-floss and rainbows. There were still those who distrusted and harboured grudges against the humans. Also Mo'at and Ney'tiri had confided in him that Eywa had some concerns over the effect the humans were having on her children, the Na'vi. It wasn't enough to start panicking over but did cause some concern. When he told Trudy about it, wanting to get a more human perspective on the subject she suggested that; "Maybe she, Eywa, is just afraid of the unknown and change. From what I've heard we're the most exciting thing to happen in two thousand years. I'd be scared shit-less if aliens landed on Earth and started mining, even in unclaimed territory and doing all the other stuff we've done. Especially in Voi, liked that little town."
Jake ended his pondering, got up, stretched a bit and began to make his way back to home tree. He had to get lunch and organise his team for this evening's event.
He was about half way back when he began to feel dizzy, he shook his head and blinked instinctively to shack it off but it continued for a few more moments. He managed to balance himself and as he did he saw a wave of blue energy coming towards him and home tree. It reached him before he could react and as it washed over him he experienced a brief but intense head ache. As he opened his eyes he noticed everything had gone dark, pitch black, not even stars. The sun was still there but it was impossibly dim.
"What the fuck is going on?"
He herd howls and cries of panic and fear so Jake began to sprint back to home tree. The trees and other plants began to light up which was good but before he could get back to home tree he began to feel dizzy again and he saw the wave of blue energy again but coming back from the direction it first went in. After it passed over the sky returned to normal and he continued to run home.
When he got there, there were a lot of people standing around looking dazed and frightened. Others were helping people who been injured or comforting scared children.
Ney'tiri emerged from beneath home tree with a frightened looking Raltaw hugging her tail. "Jhake! What happened? Everyone... started feeling strange and then... some thing happened and the sky? The sky was gone!" She exclaimed as she tried to keep her cool, though failing slightly.
"I, Idon't know. I've never heard of anything like this outside of stories. Maybe Grace will know more, but what about right now? What's the situation?" He asked franticly.
She took a breath and calmed herself. "There are some wounded and everyone is shaken but nothing serious here, I'm more worried about those out hunting. Other than that only broken pottery."
"Okay, good. Rally some people to look for those out hunting..."
"Olo'eyktan! Olo'eyktan!" Leekog shouted as he ran up to Jake. "Zack sent message over, Ray-dee-O. He says he crashed, uh, one and a half, um, clicks east of home tree. He says there are also wounded." He explained as best he could.
"Damn, I forgot about Zack." Jake muttered to himself, slipping into English. "New plan; Ney'tiri, take some riders and a few healers to get them, I will organise the search parties for the others."
With that they went there ways to complete their tasks.
2591 - Earth early warning station 7 on the edge of Sol system
Boringest job in the world. At least it paid well, but then almost everything did these days. Standards of living were at an all-time high but that didn't mean jobs like these would just disappear.
'Then again why the heck couldn't they give this job to an AI? Ohyeah! Cole protocol.' Junior Lieutenant Robert thought sarcastically to himself. 'Even after forty years of relative peace the goddamn, proxy Cole protocol is still in effect.'
The Cole protocol dictated that any ship under attack must prepare to wipe all tactical data banks, navigational data and if under threat from being captured self-destruct of the ship/station to prevent enemies of the UNSC (United Nations Space Command) from gaining tactical information. So this meant even long range detection facilities on the edge of the Sol system had to be manned. A dead end job for sure but at least it wasn't as risky as patrolling the edge of Covenant Loyalist space.
Suddenly his screen began to flash red warning lights and he jumped to alert.
'Warning. Unknown phenomena detected.'
He checked the data. "What the fuck? That can't possibly be right." He checked it again but there was no mistaking it.
"Hay Rob, what the heck's going on? I was having a real nice dream." Dave was one of two others on long range sensor station eleven.
The station its self wasn't even larger than the old international space station but was a lot more comfortable and had an accurate tracing radius of twenty five light years and a less accurate range of a further seventy five. They had eighteen in the Sol system.
Malicia was the last to arrive with a gaping yawn. "What did you do wrong this time rob?"
As he was a Junior Lieutenant and they were both Ensigns he could have done them in for insubordination as it was a general alarm and they were standing there lackadaisically instead of getting to their stations but rank didn't count for much except extra paper work out here.
"Just sit down and do a system diagnostic." He typed franticly as he rearranged the sensor array to gather as much data as possible.
Half a minute later the diagnostic finished. "All systems report clean. What's this about Rob?" Malicia asked.
"Slip-space rupture about five light years out."
Dave looked at him in annoyance. "You woke me up for that? Why didn't you just ring up the fast response team to chase them out of here and leave us in peace?"
Rob chuckled hysterically. "But that's the thing; this slip-space rupture is six thousand million kilometres in diameter."
"What?" They half gasped in unison, jaws left hanging.
"Doesn't really matter now. Never thought I'd ever get to say this but; get me a priority one connection to HIGHCOM!"
Authers notes: My first cross-over fan-fic! Please let me know what you think, criticism welcome and all reviews will be read. Unless I get a thousand at once but that's unlikely.