Miles Quartich sat up slowly; he felt a little bit woozy and a lot weak. It was the year 2132 and he was 31 years old. He had left earth 6 years earlier and was finally there, he was finally on Pandora. Miles was very excited to be on Pandora but was also a bit more nervous than he wanted to admit. Tomorrow was his first assignment out in the lush and wondrous land of Pandora as an armed security detail; his job was to protect the 'science-odes' from the dangerous creatures that roam the jungles of Pandora.
Though Pandora is a lush and beautiful environment it is still one of the most dangerous places in existence. His mind was still whirling and he was not paying attention to where he was going, and he walked straight into a young woman with red curly hair brown eyes and a cigarette in her mouth. They both fell to the ground with an "oomph".
"My apologizes miss are you alright?" Miles asked getting to his feet before pulling the red-haired beauty to her feet.
"I'm fine but you need to watch where you're going, that could have got you killed; I'm Dr. Grace Augustine by the way." Grace said extending her hand to him.
"Colonel Miles Quartich." He replied shaking her hand.
"Oh you're the new gun, right?"
"That's right Doc."
"Please just Grace"
"Miles"
She smiled "nice to meet you."
"Pleasure, if memory serves I will be riding with you in your Avatar form, Grace." He said
"That's correct Miles" she said smiling though she couldn't decide if it was at the way his name rolled off her tongue or at something else.
"Well um… it is getting close to dinner time would you care to join me?" Grace asked Miles shyly, blushing slightly.
"Yeah, yeah that would be nice." Miles said
"Great, I'll see you then." Grace blushed
Grace and Miles both could not help but smile when they spotted each other; they were both wearing dark blue button up shirts and khaki pant, and they arrived at the dining room door at the exact same time. They smiled as they ate quietly talking about themselves and their lives back on earth.
Miles was from a small town where all the guys either became army men of farm boys, and the girls all farmers or bar tenders. He didn't want to be a leatherneck but his father had been and it had always been his dream to have his son fallow in his footsteps. He had died a year before Miles had graduated high school and became an army man.
Grace, he learned was from a town where all the women were expected to be whores and strippers and the men pimps. She had been dying to get out of there since she was young. Her mother had not had a full high school degree having had to drop out to take care of her father when he got terminal cancer and her mother had died when she was very young and had to dance for money to feed herself and more importantly, Grace. Grace's mother had always told her she could do anything with a college degree and that she hoped Grace would have a better life then she had had. All Grace had ever wanted was to make her mother proud; she had gotten into physical and molecular biology and fallen in love with it.
Grace and Miles talked and laughed for what seemed like an eternity before dinner was over and they had to go back to their quarters; Miles, to the great excitement of grace, had offered to escort her back. Once they got back to her quarters Grace invited Miles in for a drink, but he graciously declined, saying that he didn't need to drink right before his first day of touring Pandora. He did however kiss her hand and say that he hoped they could do this again sometime, that he had greatly enjoyed himself before leaving to head to his rooms.
She smiled softly as she watched his retreating form until he turned a corner; she already had it figured out