"Life on Pandora" - Part Four

Part Four

            Alicia never considered herself to be a superstitious woman – at least not in this regeneration; but now would seem like a time when the question “How could it get any worse?” would be less than appropriate.

            She and Newt were brought back to Hell’s Gate, again as captives.

            The base changed radically since they left; it was now crowded with Daleks, roaming among the RDA personnel.

            They were taken to the operations center.

            There, they finally met the man responsible for all the insanity that polluted a once peaceful planet, Parker Selfridge – the head administrator of the RDA on Pandora. By appearance, he did not seem like much of a threat; even Alicia dwarfed him with her imposing height.

            Not before long was Grace brought in as well.

            “You okay?” Alicia asked her.

            “Yeah, I’m fine,” Augustine replied, visibly infuriated. “These jarheads destroyed my avatar, as soon as I was de-linked from it.” Without missing a beat, she rushed right up to Parker and slapped him across the face. “Do you know how many lives you’ve costed?!”

            “I admit what I did was wrong, but it was necessary,” Parker stated. “I helped our mission. Unobtanium is the whole reason why we’re here. That little gray rock sells for twenty million a kilo. It’s what pays for everything around here.”

            “And these ‘Dalek’ creatures you’ve let in?” Grace questioned. “You’re letting them eradicate all life on this planet, Parker!”

            Selfridge let out a defeated sigh. “I don’t agree with their approach, but they help get the job done when the RDA needs it to be.”

            “The greed of the human race,” Alicia scoffed. “It’s what destroyed your Earth in this dimension…and you’ve brought that doom here on Pandora.”

            Agitated from Alicia’s judgment, Parker asked her, “Who are you? More importantly, who do you think you are?!”

            “SHE IS THE GLADIATOR OF GALLIFREY!”

            One Dalek strode into the operations center, its shrilling voice catching the attention of everyone there.

            “SHE IS A TIME LORD! AN ENEMY OF THE DALEKS!”

            “Apparently, we’ve got yet another alien in our midst,” Quaritch gestured towards Alicia. “I suspected as much about her the moment we found her and her friends breathing out in that Pandoran atmosphere.” He pulled a long knife out from the holster hitched at his hip, aiming its razor sharp tip at Alicia’s chest. “Guess we’ll just have to cut you open to see how that’s possible.”

            “DISSECTION IS NOT REQUIRED! EXTERMINATION IS MORE ADEQUATE FOR THE GLADIATOR OF GALLIFREY!”

            “Happy to oblige,” Quaritch said.

            He was just about to cut Alicia’s throat before his attention was beckoned to one of the technicians, who alerted, “Sir! We have an alien presence on the landing pad!”

            “You’ll have to be more specific, son,” Quaritch remarked. “We got dozens of aliens on the base right now, including the one in front of me that I was just about to carve like a Thanksgiving turkey.”

            “Is it Na’vi?” Parker inquired.

            The technician hesitated to respond. “I-I’m not really sure, sir.”

            His uncertainty aggravated Quaritch to the point of abandoning the act of murder was on the verge of committing over Alicia; he headed to the technician’s station to see what had the young man so befuddled…

            Standing outside in the middle of the landing pad – with several Daleks and marines aiming their guns at it – was a hulking, broad-shouldered alien covered in natural, yellow armor plating on his back, shoulders, and the backs of his arms.

            Alicia glimpsed over Quaritch’s shoulder and smiled as she saw the strange alien.

            She recognized it as one of Ben’s Omnitrix aliens – the one he called “Cannonbolt.”

            “Quaritch,” he yelled on the monitor. “Come out and face me…that is, if you’re man enough!”

            The colonel took the bait, but not without bringing Alicia and Newt as leverage, in case Ben tried anything. He wore an exopack but neglected Alicia and Newt of having one, seeing as how they could breathe Pandora’s toxic air.

            “Is that you, Tennyson?” Quaritch asked. “That ain’t the alien I sent you out as.”

            “The deal’s off, Colonel,” Cannonbolt defied. “You lied to me! And now you’ve made the biggest mistake of your life!”

            “Care to elaborate, boy?” The colonel said.

            “You guys have made Eywa really upset.”

            The smile Alicia had on her face widened at Cannonbolt’s mentioning of Eywa, the guiding force and deity of Pandora and the Na’vi. Ben had spent enough time with them to learn of their way of life.

            Unfortunately for Quaritch, he didn’t believe a word of it:

            “Eywa’s a fairy tale, kid. I don’t buy into it.”

            Alicia smirked. “You really should,” she hissed to him.

            As if on cue with her word of caution, Pandoran wildlife broke through the barriers of Hell’s Gate and infiltrated the base, seizing both RDA and Dalek forces. After what was only the first wave attack, Na’vi clans swooped in on mountain banshees, particularly one that had mounted the toruk, much to Alicia’s surprise.

            Ben, using the abilities of his Cannonbolt alien form, dispatched multiple Daleks.

            While Quaritch was distracted from the sudden onslaught, Newt summoned a stunning spell that knocked him on his back.

            Cannonbolt rolled to a stop near Alicia and Newt. “You guys okay?”

            “Yes, thanks to you and this magnificent creature you’ve conjured,” a fascinated Newt acknowledged. “What do you call this one, if I may ask?”

            “Cannonbolt.”

            “Ah, yes. Because of the thunderous damage a cannonball makes.”

            “Uh…yeah…let’s go with that.”

            The eruption of a fiery explosion nearby was an aggressive reminder of their current surroundings. “Newt, get us back to the T.A.R.D.I.S.,” Alicia entreated.

            Newt summoned an apparition spell once all three of them touched shoulders.

            As they transported from the landing pad of Hell’s Gate to the console room of her Type-Z T.A.R.D.I.S., Alicia could have sworn she felt an extra hand touch her shoulder.

            “What in the name of…?”

            Just as she figured, a fourth party came with them: Quaritch.

            He stood there, momentarily drawn by the outlandish area he found himself in, before he held Alicia, Newt, and Cannonbolt at gunpoint.

            Cannonbolt had the chance to roll him down on the spot…

            …until the Omnitrix’s bad timing once more cursed him, returning him to the form of Ben.

            “Aw, man,” he griped.

            “You people have been a nuisance since you waltzed right into our operation,” Quaritch roared. “We almost accomplished something with those Daleks.”

            “They aren’t what you think, Colonel,” Alicia said. “They’ll kill you at the moment you’re no longer any use to them.”

            “What proof do you have of that?” Quaritch challenged.

            Alicia slowly edged towards the control console, which made the wary colonel tighten his grip on the gun. “It’s alright…I’m not gonna do anything to hurt you,” she told him. “I just want to show you something.”

            Taking her word for it, Quaritch let her pull a lever on the hexagonal console.

            He flinched when he heard a heavy humming, grinding noise all around him.

            It stopped as quickly as it started.

            Alicia pressed a button on the console that brought up the image of a war-torn landscape on the console monitor.

            “This is Skaro – the Dalek homeworld,” she identified the location. “The reason it looks so devastated like that is because of the Thousand Year War. You see, Colonel, the Daleks were once like us. They looked human. But then one man had the idea of making them something more. So he conducted experiments that mutated them…to make them more acceptable to the ravaged world they created. These are what the Daleks are, Quaritch. This is what they’re capable of.”

            Quaritch looked long and hard at the planetary devastation. “What did you say this place’s called again?”

            “Skaro.”

            The colonel snickered. “My kind of planet.”

            His words chilled Alicia. It was like he hadn’t heard a single thing she said.

            Quaritch’s human soul was beyond saving…which was why Alicia had no other choice but to do what she did next.

            As Quaritch’s focus was on the monitor, she flipped a switch that dematerialized her T.A.R.D.I.S. around him. The colonel realized it all too late and was left standing right in the middle of Skaro’s wasteland.

            “EXTERMINATE!!”

            He was caught in the sights of a lone Dalek scout, its gunstick aimed right for him.

            Quaritch took fire first with his handgun, but the bullets deflected off the Dalek’s impenetrable hull. Helpless to do anything else, he was eviscerated by the Dalek’s death ray. Nothing more was left of the colonel than a pile of ashes.

-------------

            With the Dalek presence on Pandora eliminated and the RDA sent back to Earth, Pandora was once again a flourishing, peaceful planet. To be on the safe side, Alicia used the T.A.R.D.I.S. to close the rift that permitted the Daleks to come to the planet.

            Newt finally had his chance of getting to observe the excellent wildlife, with the guidance of some of the Na’vi natives.

            “Thank you for bringing me here, Alicia,” he said.

            “Yeah,” Ben agreed. “Before we came here, I could care less about this place. Now it feels like a second home – not that I would wanna live here.”

            Alicia giggled. “I understand you perfectly, Ben.”

            “Dr. Augustine says it could take a long time for the damage the Daleks caused to be repaired,” Ben somberly noted. “You think life on Pandora will ever be the same again?”

            “That’s the thing about life, Ben,” Alicia said. “Nothing ever can stay the same.”

            “Why not?”

            “How else can we learn from all of its differences?”

THE END

"Life on Pandora" - Part Three

****************

Part Three

            Ben was left without any options.

            The Omnitrix had timed out, leaving him standing dead in the sights of the Dalek.

            He could choose to fight it on as himself; but would he even have the slightest chance of surviving? The Daleks were the toughest aliens he ever encountered, which was why it took so many heroes to defeat them in the Multiverse War.

            No. Alone and as a human kid, he didn’t stand a chance.

            “EXTERMINATE!”

            “Well, what’re ya waitin’ for? Just do it already!”

            Ben knew it was a stupid move to coerce a Dalek on the verge of wiping him out.

            What other choice did he have?

            He braced himself for the end, shutting his eyes tight and clenching his fists.

            Grandpa Max. Gwen. I’m sorry.

            “EXTERMIN—!”

            BOOM!

            The deafening sound of an explosion prompted Ben to reopen his eyes; he was stunned to see the Dalek destroyed, its upper half blown away, leaving its charred innards exposed.

            “What the heck?!” he muttered.

            “You alright, kid?”

            Ben heard the voice just as he spotted a Na’vi leaping out from the trees and landing beside the demolished Dalek. This one – the first one Ben had seen up close – looked pretty tough, especially armed with what appeared to have been both Na’vi and RDA-standard weapons.

            “You’re not hurt, are you?” He asked Ben, who detected how perfect the Na’vi warrior’s English was.

            “H-How do you know English?”

            The warrior chuckled. “Most Na’vi know the language.”

            “Yeah, but you speak it like you’re from Earth.”

            “That’s because I was…once. I used to be human. Name’s Jake Sully.”

            Learning this information, Ben became more captivated over this Na’vi warrior. “You’re an avatar?!”

            “More like a liberated one,” Jake said. “I was chosen for the Avatar Program after my brother – the original participant of it – was killed. I didn’t have much of a life before I became part of the Na’vi. I was paralyzed from the waist down. Had nothing much else to do with my sorry waste of a life, until I came here to Pandora.”

            “So…that’s why you gave up being human?”

            “That among other things. I was recruited by a man named Miles Quaritch to gather what intel I could on the Na’vi and force them to leave their Hometree – destroy it, if necessary.”

            “Yeah, I’ve met Quaritch,” Ben told him. “Doesn’t exactly seem like the trusting type to me.”

            “He’s not. I left my old life once I discovered the corruption within the RDA. And it only got worse when I found out the truth about them and these overgrown salt-and-pepper shaker things. Turns out they’re all working together to take Pandora. They formed their pact when the RDA found out about their presence here. The RDA wanted the unobtanium, and the star demons wanted a new home. Once each side saw how their goals aligned, so did they.”

            Alarmed at this, Ben came to an unnerving realization: “My friends are in danger! They don’t know what you just told me! I’ve gotta go back and warn them!”

            “If they’re with the RDA this second, it’s already too late,” Jake cautioned. “We can only save them by gathering the Na’vi clans and going into battle. I caught a little glimpse of what you can do with that crazy watch of yours – turning from Na’vi to human without so much as a module. Can you do that in our fight?”

            “I can do so much more,” Ben said with a grin.

--------------

            It amused Alicia to no end seeing Grace in her avatar form.

            Never had she seen a human-Na’vi hybrid in action before – excluding Ben Tennyson, of course, since his Na’vi form was merely a copy of another existing avatar.

            Grace’s avatar bore a few minor similarities in facial features to her human self.

            She even maintained some semblance to human fashion, donning safari-style attire for the expedition through the Pandoran jungles.

            “What’re you expecting to find out here?” She asked Alicia.

            “Answers,” Alicia determinedly replied.

            It was obvious Grace didn’t want to be out there with Alicia and Newt, and Alicia couldn’t blame her. If the stories about the tanhì vrrtep were true, and it was the thing that had been killing life on Pandora, then there was good reason to be afraid – even if Grace didn’t want to admit she was.

            The further they moved through the jungle, the more devastation they came across.

            Scorched trees, the scent of smoke plaguing the air, and dead carcasses.

            And it got worse once they came upon a region where the Hometree used to proudly stand. Scattered all over were RDA personnel and metallic creatures Alicia recognized to her immediate shock.

            “Daleks,” she exclaimed. “On Pandora!”

            Grace could barely comprehend what she was seeing. “What are these Daleks?”

            “Only the worst creatures to ever roam this universe and the next,” Alicia said.

            Newt focused closely on the activity between the two factions. “They’re not fighting one another,” he observed. “It’s as if they’re working as one to excavate this area.”

            His observation motivated Alicia to have an unsettling revelation:

            “They’ve joined forces! They’re destroying the planet together!”

            “Quaritch,” Grace angrily hissed.

            Before she could have finished her expletive, her avatar suddenly collapsed.

            Alicia and Newt looked on it in confusion. For a moment, they attempted to check on the body to see what was wrong, until they found themselves swarmed by Daleks and RDA marines.

            This included Quaritch himself, manned in an AMP suit.

            “Oh, how I wish this deal could’ve turned out differently,” the Colonel mockingly lamented. “Unfortunately, I’d already made one long before you people got here.”

"Life on Pandora" - Part Two

Part Two

            Quaritch arranged a tour of “Hell’s Gate” for Alicia, Ben, and Newt. This included an introduction to the Avatar Program, which allowed humans to control avatars – genetically engineered human-alien hybrids that looked like Pandora’s dominant natives, the Na’vi.

            “Whoa,” Ben exclaimed while gawking on one submerged, unconscious avatar within an amino tank. “They’re huge!”

            “Ten feet, to be exact.”

            An auburn-haired woman approached them with a lit cigarette in one hand.

            Alicia, Ben, and Newt were introduced to her prior to the tour; her name was Dr. Grace Augustine, a botanist and the leader of the Avatar Program.

            “Dr. Augustine,” Alicia formally held out her hand. “Pleasure to meet you.”

            Grace did not return the formality. “Let’s get one thing straight: I don’t approve of the Colonel’s decision to let some random outsiders lurk around my lab, acting as if they belong here – and none of you clearly do. My team and I have made considerable progress teaching the Na’vi our language and culture and learning ourselves about theirs. And now I hear something about some ‘magic watch’ that can let some kid turn into one of our avatars?!”

            “It’s called the Omnitrix,” Ben told her. “And it’s not magic. It’s science.”

            “And I certainly can vouch for that,” Newt added.

            Grace noticed the item of interest strapped to Ben’s wrist. It was a very big wristwatch, primarily black and grey in color, with a green hourglass shape on it. “And what do you call it again?” she asked with a questionable frown.

            “The Omnitrix,” Ben said.

            Grace puffed her cigarette in curiosity. “How does it work?”

            To help in the demonstration, Alicia aimed her sonic screwdriver towards the amino tank, scanning the avatar within it. Once she received a sample of its DNA structure, she pointed the sonic at the Omnitrix, feeding it the sample. In seconds, the silhouette of a Na’vi popped up on the face of Ben’s alien watch.

            Ben slapped the palm of his other hand down on the watch and, before Grace’s very eyes, transformed into an avatar with the Omnitrix insignia on its chest – no link unit required.

            “Congratulations, kid,” Grace shielded her awe with cynicism. “You just made decades of work obsolete.”

            “Man, I feel like Way Big as this guy,” Ben spoke in his Na’vi form, his voice maturated just like the body itself. He admired not only the superior height but his striped blue, bioluminescent-spotted skin and his long braided hair, which included many little pink, hairy, worm-like neural tendrils on the end. “What the heck are these?”

            “Your neural queue,” Grace said. “Don’t play with it. You’ll go blind.”

            After having a moment to admire his new alien form, Ben turned to Alicia and asked, “So what now?”

            “Now you integrate yourself with the Na’vi civilization,” Alicia instructed him.

            “But what about the Colonel’s deal?” Ben inquired.

            “We’ll keep our end of the bargain,” Alicia said with a wink, “but we’re not gonna let it hold us back in focusing on our own mission: finding out what happened to the wildlife on this planet.”

            Hearing this, Grace spoke up, “The same issue’s been worrying me. There’s a story that’s gotten around the Na’vi tribe about a tanhì vrrtep – which translates as ‘star demon’ – and how it’s been destroying life on Pandora.”

            “What does this star demon look like?” Alicia inquisitively asked.

            “Not many Na’vi warriors have lived to describe it,” Grace said. “Only those that have survived its wrath say that it exists.”

            Alicia’s fascination swelled. “How would you like to go and find out, doctor?”

            Grace griped. “Knew you were gonna say that.”

---------------

            While Alicia set off on her investigation with Newt and Dr. Augustine (in her own avatar body), Ben trekked through another end of the endless Pandora jungles. He tested the limits of his new alien form, running as fast as XLR8 and jumping as high as Four-Arms. He enjoyed being Na’vi more than he enjoyed being Heatblast or Upgrade.

            “All’s I need now is to come up with a name for this guy,” he reflected.

            Suddenly, he heard vicious snarling and discovered an enormous animal directly ahead that looked like a cross between lion and panther. It struck deep fear within Ben, his first instinct being to run away. His speed as a Na’vi was put to the test more than before in the creature’s pursuit of him.

            Whatever this animal was, it was as fast and agile as a cheetah.

            It would have gained on Ben’s tail had it not been for some random laser fire that was unleashed out of nowhere and killed the beast.

            The creature’s body fell dead in an instant, skidding to a halt over the dirt.

            Ben stopped once he witnessed the surprising act. Believing his life to have been spared, he told his unseen rescuer, “Hey, whoever you are, thanks for savin’ my butt! I owe ya one!”

            His relief was soon replaced with anxiety when something familiar materialized out of the foliage: a Dalek!

            “What the heck?!” Ben cried. “I thought we finished off all you tin-can dweebs!”

            “YOU REFER TO THE MULTIVERSE WAR! THE WAR BETWEEN YOUR FEEBLE RESISTANCE AND THE DALEK EMPIRE! WE PERSISTED! THE CULT OF SKARO ALWAYS PERSISTS!”

            Ben could never stand the screeching voices the Daleks were synonymous for.

            It was torture to his ear drums – even in Na’vi form.

            “WE DISCOVERED THIS PLANET AND HAVE LAID CLAIM OVER IT! THIS IS WHERE WE WILL ESTABLISH NEW SETTLEMENT FOR THE CULT OF SKARO, ONCE WE HAVE EXTERMINATED ALL LIFE!”

            “Not if I have anything to say about it,” Ben defiled.

            He used the skills inherited from his Na’vi form to best the Dalek, as it fired its gunstick repeatedly, only managing to turn a few trees into ashes.

            In Ben Tennyson fashion, the boy hero taunted his adversary.

            “Am I too fast for ya? You’re nothin’ but a lame excuse for a…!”

            And then, at the most inopportune of times, the Omnitrix timed out, leaving Ben standing defenseless in his human form…directly in the Dalek’s sights!

            “EXTERMINATE,” it shrieked, advancing on him.

            Ben gulped. “Oh, man.”