Pandora: The Final Solution

by Tisrusewa Karyu

When the ISV Venture Star reports that Hell's Gate has fallen to a coalition of Avatars and Na'vi, the entire RDA organization springs into action to save their cash cow. The lowest cost solution has unforeseen consequences. Irayo.

22. Chapter 22: Chairman Singh - Part 1

Pandora: The Final Solution

I gratefully acknowledge one of the foremost creative geniuses of our times, James Cameron, for conceiving the lush moon Pandora and the "noble savages," the Na'vi, that inhabit it. I have not received any money for my work based on Avatar. If I could get paid by the hour for these stories, I would retire and spend all my time dancing and writing in comfort.

This chapter contains all original characters and situations, set on Earth immediately after the end of the movie. It is the obvious approach to dealing with the Pandoran uprising, with less than obvious consequences.

EVP means Executive Vice President.

SOP means Standard Operating Procedure.

Chapter 22: Chairman Singh

JW is sitting in front of his workstation scanning through the emails from his staff, holding a fork with his free hand and absent-mindedly cleaning off his plate. Earlier, he noticed this food is much better than the usual cafeteria fare, but now he is focused on preparing for the visitors flying in from RDA headquarters in New York City. The suggestions are mostly routine, except Jerry mentions pulling the new heavy element separation plant out of the L2 facility. That could save lots of time if the board approves mining the other moons of Polyphemus, and if the plant can be strengthened and locked down for flight and mated to an ISV. He hears muffled noises through the sound-proof door into the board room. That's never happened before. He sets the fork down, and twirls his chair around. As he stands, the door bursts open. Two men jump into his office, pointing assault rifles at him. Right behind is a tall woman who bounds in closer to him and puts the muzzle of her assault rifle in his face. All three are dressed in smart business suits, and would be indistinguishable from his staff except for the weapons they are sporting and the SecOps radio bands around their necks.

The woman looks him in the eyes and shouts "What is your name?"

JW slowly replies "I'm John Winston. President of this RDA organization."

"Right answer." The woman places one hand on her radio neck band and yells "Clear." She keeps her eyes locked on his face and continues to scrutinize it. "You look pretty much like your picture. Who's the man in the boardroom? That room should have been empty."

Before he can answer, a loud and high-pitched voice with an odd lilting accent booms through the door. "Put your guns down. I have heard this man is very dangerous, but he is no threat to us. Besides, I have my kirpan. With it I have killed men much more formidable than he. Good afternoon, Doctor Mendeleev."

Dmitri, with his mouth full, croaks "Good to see you again, Chairman."

JW yells towards the door "Welcome, Chairman Singh."

"Good afternoon, JW. Come, join us."

The woman doesn't budge, still blocking his way with her weapon and body, and demands "One moment, sir. Who is beyond the other door?"

"My admin is just outside. Across the room is a food service line, and there should be some cooks and servers preparing to feed our guests from Corporate." JW raises his voice. "The head chef even found some real vegetables to make the Chairman's favorite dish."

As desired, the Chairman overhears and says "JW, your hospitality is extraordinary. Colonel, tell the chef I will be ready to eat in half an hour. Come now, don't keep me waiting."

With that the soldiers lower their weapons and stand aside, clearing the way into the boardroom.

JW looks to the woman and says "Please don't scare my admin. She has enough health problems already. Don't give her a heart attack. You will find no bad guys here."

"Just doing my job to keep the Chairman safe. I'll be the judge of who the bad guys are." She gives him a cold, unwavering stare. Clearly, she has him on the top of her list.

JW gives her an exasperated smile, and then strides into the boardroom. His eyes are immediately drawn to Chairman Singh. A mountain of a man, he is a very solid and muscular 125 kilos and is well over two meters tall, not counting the saffron orange turban bulging out around his head. He could be mistaken for a lineman from the American football team, the Cleveland Browns, wearing an oversized and oddly painted helmet. Four SecOps operatives in dark business suits surround him, all holding assault rifles pointed towards Doctor Dmitri. Their heads are all below the Chairman's shoulders, looking like children surrounding a favorite grandfather. It seems that he should be guarding them. More surprising is the ragged gray beard framing his face, a stark contrast to the impeccably tailored suit he is wearing, a classical achkan that is dark blue with white pinstripes and trimmed in gold, with matching churidars, bespoke from London's finest tailor. His only accessory is hanging at his waist, a dark burgundy leather belt holding a gold scabbard encrusted in precious jewels containing his kirpan, a short curving sword. JW has never seen this weapon before, and wonders if this is the legendary sword that Chairman Singh paid millions to track down and buy, and later used to slay the assailants trying to take it from him. The Chairman may look like a wealthy Sikh from centuries ago, too detached and too resplendent to be drawn into a fight, but there is no doubt that he is the most lethal warrior in the room, even with his ancient low-tech weapon. JW hears the door close behind him.

"JW, Doctor Dmitri, please excuse my escorts. When our Chief Security Officer saw the first emergency message from the Venture Star, he made it very plain that there is a mutiny within RDA and I might be in danger. I have not seen the second emergency message, but he says it confirms his worst fears. I am sincerely sorry if they caused you any grief."

JW answers "I'm alright. My heart rate is getting back to normal. Dmitri had a dental appointment this morning, and he can't speak very well yet. He's in here eating to counteract the effects of the anesthetic. But there is nothing to fear from us, we are not responsible for the Avatar program or its revolt. Our only contact is hauling them and their expensive toys out to Pandora."

"I said the same thing to him, but good security personnel are suspicious of everything and everybody. They live in a code yellow universe, even though that is very unhealthy. A typical but sad occupational hazard."

"That's true." JW pauses briefly. "You did catch us off-guard. I was going to greet you outside, but no one called to say you arrived."

"I am certain that is one of the security measures demanded by the commander of my protectors. You just met her, Colonel Jennifer Little. A word of warning, don't upset her. She broke the jaw of the last man who hit up on her."

"Well, I'm happily married. I never hit on women, especially one who is holding a gun in my face."

The soldiers remain stone faced, but everyone else laughs. The Chairman says "A very commendable approach. Now let's get down to business." He turns to one guard and says "Send in my traveling companions." That soldier puts one hand on his neck band and turns away.

JW looks around the room and sees more SecOps personnel in action. Two are sweeping the room for spy devices, and a third is crouching by a chair against the wall setting up a portable jammer. JW says "My security crew already swept the presidential suite this morning, like they do every morning."

The crouching soldier stays facing the equipment, but replies "And they did a good job, we haven't found anything troublesome anywhere in this building. Every country and corporation with an intelligence operation tries to listen in on the Chairman. This is SOP for situations like today."

Colonel Little walks in, holding her weapon in the low ready position with her trigger finger lying against the weapon just above the trigger guard, followed by a man and a woman close behind. Using her normal voice, she says "Chairman, the chef has been informed. Your meal will be ready in twenty-eight minutes."

"Excellent, Colonel."

She turns towards the portable jammer and using her command voice asks "Is the room clean?"

"Yes ma'am, and the package is powered up and operating nominally."

"Good work. Unit, outside, through the back door." The eight SecOps soldiers quickly exit, with the Colonel last, closing the door behind her.

The Chairman steps between the well-dressed newcomers, wrapping his huge arms behind their backs to hold their shoulders, and says "Introductions are now in order. Here are two of our outside board members, both dear friends. Mrs. Ko Jin is the chairwoman of The Korean Bank of the Cayman Islands. She helps me in my quest to recover Sikh treasures that disappeared during the Indo-Pakistani war. Mr. Bill Blakely is chairman of the JP Morgan bank. He helped me with my lunar rovers, long before RDA would talk to me. Both assist me and RDA by providing excellent financial and strategic advice and lending lots of money. In return, they make lots of money." Everybody smiles or chuckles. "Standing here is Mr. John Winston, president of the operations arm of RDA, the man behind the scenes who keeps us in business. Seated on this beautiful table made from real Pandoran wood is Doctor Dmitri Mendeleev, his right-hand man." Doctor Dmitri stands and there are handshakes all around.

Mrs. Ko leans over the center of the huge table and rubs her fingers across the smooth clear plastic covering the spiral of life pattern. "I think this table is even more beautiful than the one in the corporate boardroom in Manhattan."

JW answers "Yes, this is one of the later efforts by the marquetry artists. They improve with each new piece. I'll be happy to take you to their shop to see their works in progress, it is part of this facility. I try to drop in monthly, and I'm overdue."

"I'd like that. Thank you, Mister Winston."

"Please call me JW."

"Thank you, JW."

The Chairman pulls out two chairs, plops down in one, and props his feet up on the other. He says "I need to get my legs up after the long flight out here. We have not seen the second emergency message yet. Please play it for us. The Chief Security Officer did not want it broadcast to the plane, even over the secure link. I need to see the whole message, even though it has details about the Na'vi that maybe I should not know."

JW answers "Let me log into this new high security terminal, and I'll play it. Please take a seat, everyone."

As they find places and get comfortable, the Chairman asks "Have any more messages been received from the Venture Star?"

"Just some personnel info, the employee roster for Hell's Gate current as of the week before the battle, a list of those evacuated from Hell's Gate, and the medical records of the injured put into cryo. Also some data has come in on the structural repairs made to the ISV, as you'll hear from the Captain. Getting it home in one piece is our top priority now, and that's a major challenge. It's almost as desperate as Apollo 13, and over four light-years farther away from home. The Pandora operations team here is analyzing the messages so we know how crowded the Venture Star is, how well it is holding up, what we can do to help from this end, and how many personnel are missing and presumed lost in the battle. The FTL is slow, and the Venture Star is pushing the Centauri FTL satellite at full capacity using both their dedicated channels and the outbound channels for Hell's Gate, since nothing has been sent from Hell's Gate for many hours except their automated status messages. We've cut off all queued messages outbound to Hell's Gate except for routine personal messages that have been backed up for weeks. The critical systems at Hell's Gate are nominal, and the rest of the systems were safed before the battle and remain on standby or off-line. From here, it looks like no one is minding the store. They don't even have a traffic controller on duty as policy dictates, unless they're purposely ignoring our inquiries." The lights dim, and the unedited version of emergency priority video from Captain Gustav plays.

Once the video ends and the lights brighten up again, the Chairman stands and says "Thank you, JW. That answers some questions, but clearly we have to wait for more details."

"My team has edited the video to remove all mention of Na'vi entanglement. Only a handful of personnel here have seen the unedited version that we just watched."

"Sounds like you have it under control, JW. Good work by you and your team. Keep it up." The Chairman begins pacing, waving his arms as he speaks. " As you know, the board is meeting this week. One private bit of business, not to leave this room, is that I am retiring. That was discussed before the first emergency message arrived. I shared that short bit of bad news with the board, and they convinced me to stay on until this matter with Pandora settles out. Since it may not be resolved for a decade or more, I'm not signing on that long. I have much work to do back in my homeland, Khalistan, building my museum and university. And I must get that going before I pass on. Mrs. Ko and Mr. Blakely have volunteered to handle the Pandora incident for the board, and the board has endorsed their involvement. I am Sikh, and I am committed to protecting and assisting all people that need help, and that includes the Na'vi. I have a long history of promoting Na'vi matters with the official bodies, like the the United Nations, the ICA, and various others organizations. Some say that is why RDA offered me the chairman's office originally, never mind I am the largest individual stockholder because of my lunar deal. If RDA must go to war against the Na'vi, and it sounds like that is now a fact, I am put in a very difficult position. That means Mrs. Ko and Mr. Blakely will be working with the response teams, including your team, JW, to handle this. They will tell me what I need to know to deal effectively with the politics outside of RDA, but no one is to tell me anything that I don't want to know. Their job is the make that determination."

JW thinks this will be trickier than he imagined, but says "I and my team stand ready, and are happy to work with the board through Mrs. Ko and Mr. Blakely. Who in Corporate is involved?"

"Corporate will handle the response for Earth: stockholder relations, financial, political, media communications and publicity. You will handle the response for Pandora: procurement, logistics, interstellar communications. You will present options to Jin and Bill for board consideration, and implement the board's instructions. The board and I expect little overlap, except for security and finance, as usual. The main overlap will be with Security Operations. If the approved solution is to send SecOps out there to take back Pandora, the board will authorize what equipment they need and you will buy it and transport it and them to Pandora. We may need ISVs with expanded cryo, cargo holds, and docking masts for that scenario, and you will be in charge of any such vehicle modifications. The ISVs are scheduled for replacement in a decade or two, so this may be speeding up and adjusting the configuration for the next generation of ISV. That's more options to work up for the board. You will have to work out finances with the board and Corporate. That's same old, same old." JW and Dmitri are both nodding their heads in agreement. The Chairman walks back to his place and pushes the chairs under the table. "Now, my meal is almost ready and I have said all that I came here to say. I will get my meal now, and you can begin your discussions. JW, the Colonel told me to eat my meal in your office. Do you mind?"

"Of course not, Chairman. You're welcome to use my office. There is a round table in one corner I use for breakfast and lunch meetings. That's ideal for your meal now."

"Thank you, JW. Gracious as always." With that, the Chairman turns and disappears through the soundproof door.

Once the door closes, Mrs. Ko looks at JW and says "I must make something perfectly clear. The Chairman makes it sound like we are the best of friends, but don't let that fool you. JP Morgan and my bank are the largest institutional stockholders, and these corporations hold the proxy votes of many other fund managers. I believe this has been the case since before Mr. Blakely and I were born. Once Singh came on the scene, the board decided it was better to pull him into RDA instead of letting him continue working with the Chinese, who have never been very supportive of RDA. Now he is ready to move on to help his homeland with his considerable wealth earned through RDA, and we will continue to keep him in the RDA fold. But when we decide that that he, or you, or anyone else employed by RDA is no longer moving in the direction we think is needed to stay profitable and grow, we will force that person aside. Understood?"

JW swallows. This has gotten way too personal. "Yes, ma'am. We are here to serve the stockholders via the board. I only ask that if you have a problem with me or anyone else in my organization, you talk to me about your expectations, so that we can work out whatever problem you have with us."

"That is a reasonable request, one we are happy to honor."

"We are facing a very serious situation here, something that RDA has never dealt with before. I am sure that by working together, openly and cooperatively, we can come to a satisfactory conclusion."

"Our thoughts, exactly. Bill and I also make sure that those who do good work get rewarded. You are in a most unique situation here with the role of chairman opening up. Understand?"

JW thinks "That's more like it." but only says "Yes, ma'am." suppressing a smile while nodding humbly.

Bill asks "Do either of you have any questions?"

Dmitri replies "I'm curious about the mood in New York City. Are any solutions being discussed other than all out war?"

Ko and Blakely look at each other and smile. Blakely answers "Very perceptive. That's why we're here. SecOps is hurting badly, being routed from Pandora by stone age savages, quoting their words. They want to go out there, all guns blazing, and take it back."

JW asks "What is the board thinking?"

"Nobody in headquarters has an alternate plan, so the war option is leading in everyone's minds. We would rather find another way, if there is one. Planning for a war is the worst plan in the arena of world politics, given the situation today and the expected economic upheaval this disruption to the flow of unobtainium will have. Of course, we need more information about what really happened out there. Captain Gustav gave us a good idea, but it's not a pretty picture."

"The Chairman will have his hands full with the Na'vi oversight organizations."

"And they will have a very dim view of sending an army out there to fight another battle. That will be very expensive, too, and the stockholders won't like that."

Dmitri looks at Bill and asks "How does the board view the extermination of the Na'vi?"

Bill shifts in his seat nervously, looking around, before fixing his gaze on Dmitri and answering. "That's another perceptive question. Publicly, the board cannot support any response that eliminates the Na'vi. Privately, all options must be examined. But politically incorrect approaches, like sending SecOps in to commit genocide, must be handled very delicately."

Dmitri persists "Nothing is off the table?"

Bill nods his head and says "That's right. We'll consider anything, just don't send anything sensitive in email or over the phone where it can be subpoenaed or intercepted. One or both of us will be on the shuttle from New York regularly to work through the more sensitive options."

JW asks "Do you have the time to do that?"

"We expect one or both of you will come to New York regularly, too. We'll work out a schedule so we can discuss the sensitive issues without raising suspicions."

"Before today, the plan was for me to move to Corporate after the ISV here departs for Pandora. My wife is really looking forward to the move, she hates this desert. Seems like that is on hold now."

Bill answers "No, there's no reason to scrap your plans. That could even help cover our need for discretion. Yes, the ISV here should postpone its departure indefinitely, and we should recall the outbound ISVs and see if the inbound ISVs can return sooner. We're heading back today to return to the board meeting, and we'll get the board to set you up as the EVP for Pandoran Affairs. We'll pay your living expenses in New York and have you meet with our realtor. You can split your time here and there as needed for the transition period, however long that takes. That'll put you in the thick of things at Corporate, and let you focus on the response at both locations. We can also get together more often when you're in New York. We'll structure your new organization so that your not taking much away from any other executive, to minimize the turf wars, even though they are inevitable. Dr. Dmitri can take over day to day here, on paper at least, and work out the details that can only be done here." Bill looks to Dmitri. "You seem to have something on your mind, before we went into JW's travel plans. What is it?"

Dmitri decides to jump in without holding back. "JW and I were talking an hour ago. He brought up the old plan about mining the Halleluiah Mountains. Each mountain that floats has a core of unobtainium in it that holds it up. The old plan is to grab a mountain, somehow move it to orbit, crush it to release the ore, and drop the rest back into the oceans. JW said the rocks could be thrown down on the Na'vi instead. That got me thinking. What does RDA do best?"

Jin answers "Make money?" They all laugh.

"Yes, but how does RDA make money?"

Bill replies "Mining the moon and other heavenly objects."

"Yes! Yes! We mine everything beyond Earth's atmosphere. What is unique about Pandora?"

"The Na'vi?"

"Yes, but they are incidental. Pandora is the only place we mine that has a thick atmosphere, and flowing water, and life, not counting the thin air and ice and micro-organisms found on Mars. We are specialists in the mining of airless, lifeless rocks in space."

"So, how does that apply to Pandora?"

"We turn Pandora into a dead rock, and then we mine it the way we mine everything else." Dr. Dmitri is smiling with a self satisfied look on his face, while the other three have dumbfounded looks and sit in stunned silence. After a brief pause to let his revelation sink in, he continues "I haven't worked out the details, this thought is less than an hour old. Two hundred years ago lived an American astronomer named Carl Sagan who first realized a nuclear war could cause a winter-like environmental change."

"Don't ask us to buy nuclear bombs."

JW interjects "Thought we were mining lots of heavy metals in the asteroid belt."

"We are, but ICA is on top of every gram of anything that could be used to make a bomb. That's why they and the International Atomic Energy Agency have inspectors in the L2 facility. We make fuel rods to keep nuclear plants running, and don't have any leftovers for bombs."

Dmitri continues "Bombs are not needed. Sagan put forth this idea and that spurred many other scientists to look for climatic changes that caused mass extinction events."

"Like the dinosaurs 65 million years ago?"

"Exactly. Every mass extinction event in Earth's past is thought to be caused by impacts from space or volcanoes exploding or other climatic changes. Only now, the sixth known mass extinction event that has been happening for the last two hundred years, is caused by man and not these natural disasters. Now is the time for humans to cause another mass extinction event, this time on Pandora. Maybe we should throw rocks down onto volcanoes and see if that will have the desired effect."

"How would we sell the destruction of Pandora?"

"The Centauri system is much more dynamic than ours with a binary pair of stars at its heart, and another star lurking at the edges. Bad things can easily happen there, just like bad things have happened here. Russia was hit in the early nineteen hundreds out in Siberia, in the middle of nowhere. Years later, an expedition found thousands of trees knocked down by that blast. In the early twenty hundreds, Siberia was hit again, this time a city was damaged. Many people were hurt when they went to their windows to look at the bright lights in the sky, and then the pressure wave blew the glass out into their faces. Very tragic. And there was that comet that broke up and hit Jupiter, and left a trail of black spots on it as seen by the Hubble telescope. There are plenty of parallels with Earth's experience that could explain a disaster."

JW adds "Past disasters are a secondary consideration that went into the planned mapping of Pandora by PANSAT. There is a theory that sentient life is a consequence of a number of extinction events, and a high resolution mapping of the entire moon is needed to help identify such events. Also, the Na'vi have this mythical hero, Toruk Makto, that was mentioned by Captain Gustav. There are theories that the first five were involved in the aftermath of impact or volcanic events. The mapping might also find those events. That is one science request that dovetails nicely with our requirement to identify resources for mining. We got funding from multiple sources to look for early extinction events that brought the Na'vi into existence, and later events that brought the Toruk Makto heroes."

"Good. We can play up that angle, the search for disasters, just to plant the idea that they happen all the time up there. So what must be done to move rocks like that?"

"The Chairman's last invention on the moon, the railguns that launch metal ingots off the surface, could be adapted. They must be movable to aim the rocks, instead of the fixed rails used on Luna now. Or else there must be steering rockets that move the rocks after launch."

Bill says "This is amazing. You came up with this in an hour. I can't wait to see how you flesh out the details. OK, you two work out the plans for locating and mining unobtainium from all bodies in the Centauri system, to use as cover for killing off Pandora. For now, see what it would take to throw rocks, and if a bombardment of Pandora can work. See if the scientists wanting the mapping data will work out some details, like the smallest event that would have an effect and the largest event that would not destroy everything. We can fund that, just get a draft requirements statement into the science grant unit. Get your staff organized here to handle day to day operations, and devote all your time to this challenge. For public consumption, put together a comprehensive plan to examine everything in the Centauri system and mine whatever makes sense to return to Earth. Make it graduated so the board can fund it piecemeal, but put in what you need for clearing Pandora in the early, essential stages, and hide it in plain sight. It needs a grand name, like the century plan for the Centauri system. See what you can do to sell the plan to the world, and not just the board. We'll talk about that as the outline gets put together. Corporate communications must be involved, and the SecOps planning can continue independently. That will keep the executives in Corporate involved, but the heart of the response will remain with us."

JW nods and says "That is a good plan. We can revisit it as we go along and the details get identified and worked out."

Bill looks to Dmitri and says "We'll get JW set up in Corporate, and name you president here. Pick staffers that can handle the day-to-day operations. I'm thinking Jerry, the air-traffic operations guy, could handle running the show while you work out the details for Pandora. Think about whatever organizational changes you need, and let us know. We'll fast-track those changes if we can sell them.

Dmitri nods and smiles, and then says "The folks that were planning the new mine will have plenty of time to take on the daily operations activities. I'll talk to their leaders and get back to you."

Bill answers "Yeah, that makes sense. Maybe we can do this without adding staff, but ask if you need help. Sounds like we have a solid plan. Let's discuss the organizational changes early next week, and decide where and when we can meet again. Is that good for everyone?"

Jin, JW, and Dmitri nod their heads.

"Great! Now, let's get something to eat. I'm starved. And Jin and I have a long flight back tonight with the Chairman."

All four stand and walk through JW's office to the food service line.