Avatar Ven'ettes: A series of shorts

This is a series of small short stories following the various characters between the Battle of the Halleluiah Mountains and afterwards.

If you have an idea for a segment let me know.

Hearns

1: Burned Alive

Trudy Chacon knew she was screwed as she did the dance of death with her Samson against Quaritch's Dragon. That was when she felt the missiles hit her chopper. Despite all of her years on Pandora, she wasn't here for the money; she was here for a new beginning.

When Trudy was a child, she had visited a Curandera (female shaman) that lived down the block in her hometown of Albuquerque, New Mexico. Now Curanderas weren't something one thought of existing in the world given how much a mess Earth had become. Given that Trudy was a spiritual person who could trace back her family roots back generations before Westerners came this little connection meant so much to her over the years. For Trudy's parents wanted her to enjoy her heritage, the ties to the spirits, and that being a third generation Marine, there was a code that needed to be followed in both the spiritual sense and a physical one.

The Curandera, who wore the black garments significant to the Chicano culture, took Trudy aside and spoke to her and said that she would live two lives... One that would lead to her destiny; and the other to create a new kind of life that would bond worlds together.

Now for a child this idea of having two lives was confusing as hell. Heck even superheroes had double identities, not this two life crap. After seeing the resource wars break out on Earth and becoming a Marine in order to protect the innocent she found her calling in being free by flying through the air as a helicopter pilot. But Trudy felt something missing in her life as she started to have recurring dreams at times of the intelligent life on the Alpha Centauri moon of Pandora...

This message of having two lives started to take place as after being heavily shot at during an extraction operation in the oil fields of Venezuela Trudy nearly died. Seeing that she needed to leave... She chose that the moment her tour was up, she was going to sign up and head off world. With that Trudy signed up with the RDA and began training to fly the Samson class of helicopters through Pandora's atmosphere.

During the simulation runs through the Moon's atmosphere Trudy knew that there would be no one shooting at her, other than some wildlife that was about the size of her Samson that she would be flying along side, it would be a major change for her. The real thing took her breath away. It was nothing compared to her first flight through the Hallelujah Mountains with her flight instructor. Jake and Norm had the same plastered looks on their faces she did when she flew Grace and a small team of teachers up there.

That was when she had had met Dom... A fellow Jarhead like herself who was swapping out his tour in the mountains to take a few researchers who were going to explore the coastal area to learn more about the river paths in the area. For Dom, he was more of a beach guy and seeing how the rivers worked along the coast would be a change for him. But as the research teams were swapping out for the few weeks, they were going to be working together to trade information about the terrain she would be flying for the team given her Rookie status. After some of the briefings… she and Dom found a store room and... Well to put it bluntly. Decided to start a relationship, but not on the casual sex, though that was great.

It was months later when Trudy and Dom nearly gave Grace a heart attack when she caught the Trudy and Dom fucking like Na'vi in freaking heat in the bunks. Grace after a transfer back to her human body was a cranky person as she opened the hatch to her pod was usual. Grace minus cigarette and angry not a good sign after the day she have had, well that and using her bottle of fifteen year old scotch being used by two Jarheads to lubricate the wheels of love didn't help things either. She was lucky that she and Dom weren't thrown out of the Cabin without their atmosphere masks. Later Trudy learned the reason for Grace's anger was that Mo'at of Omaticaya had banished Grace for her being connected to Quaritch by being a Sky Person. The man just made life worse for everyone because of his actions.

Grace like Mo'at had seen the uniform and just blew up at the amount of damage done by that man. Trudy had quickly grabbed a pair of panties and a shirt and rushed off to comfort the woman. After a few fist flings by the woman and a shoulder to cry on Grace was still angry, but not at her or at Dom, they were soldiers, it wasn't their fault that their commanding officer was a warmonger.

Dom... Trudy's thoughts flowed around her as her flaming gunship continued to fall... she could feel the flames working on her body and the seats of her craft as the poisonous atmosphere started to tear through the seals. Dom... I'm sorry. Trudy thought as she went through her memories of her life now turned Martyr. He had understood her, loved her, shit the guy was planning on proposing to her. Would he hate Jake, Norm, her… for their actions to protect innocents after Quartich firebombed that Na'vi Village and now in the process of destroying the Na'vi equivalent of the freaking Vatican.

Dom… I love you.

With his shaved head and mixed Mulatto heritage was a Marine who was like her: Wanted a new start away from the war, death, and stench of the decay back home. Some place different. Though the air was toxic, this place was full of life. If someone learned to do gene therapy to allow humans to breathe Pandoran Air, this place would be like the ancient Australia or Dominican Republic back on Earth. Crap... Dom had folks in the Dominican Republic. Nice place, great food... and the people... Next to Pandora...that was the place she wanted to be. But the War had changed that... Earth was reaching its limits and the Moon was becoming like the suburbs. Hell, Mars was mostly colonized by folks from the Fertile Crescent regions and Alaska. The 889 project, well hell that was several more light years away and that was a generational long term colony. Twenty-five year Cryo run one way, a little too far away for her tastes. Here at least she could learn what was going on back home.

Yeah Earth was crap, but it was where she was born...

"So what is Earth like?" Trudy remembered the words of a Na'vi youth speak with her as she unlatched the Avatar Command platform near the Tree of Souls... It had been hours after Grace's death... But the kid's words suck with her even if his English was a bit broken.

"It was once like Pandora long ago... we got stupid and destroyed it thinking it would grow back, killed innocents, did much harm to it. Before we realized what we had done, the planet lay dying so badly injured... I am not letting it happen again. Humans... Sky People have to grow up, know that we have to give back."

"Are you a student of Ewya? Because all energy we take, we have to give back." Trudy looked sad at that.

"I wished that we learned that lesson sooner." That was about the time she checked and cocked the guide on her weapons... That was when she recorded a message for delayed transmission to Dom telling him not to hate her or Jake or the others who were about to turn Hell's Gate into a war zone as Scientist versus soldier and Miner would eventually break out.

Something jarred the side of her falling Samson, the atmospheric flower tin explosion that created the fireball she was now in was shook again. Her craft had hit a vine that was hooked to the floating chunk of rock she had duels around. That was when a white jellyfish seed had hit the windshield of her Samson, then another, and another... Then it looked like she was flying through a swarm of these things, fuck it was raining them. Then the seal broke on the canopy and Pandoran air flooded in and the fire was put out by the change in pressure. That was the time she could see her burnt flesh...

It hurt too much to scream as a line of rocks seemed to float into her path with thick vines attached.

Trudy was jarred by the impact as her Samson started to get snagged into the vines... Then one of the vines broke and with a mass of floating rocks her once mighty flying machine crashed as she felt her head slam hard across the back of her seat knocking her out.

The last thing Trudy Chacon saw before was those jellyfish seeds start landing en mass on her cockpit window. One of them stuck to her body that had come through with the seal break and moved back and forth under the hiss of a broken air line.

Jake... Dom... Norm... Nerii... Somebody... Stop Quaritch...

I will child of Gaia...

Well, let me know what you all think of this story?

Hearns