Grace II

Grace, driving her avatar, had packed all of her supplies and had her backpack on her back, where she carried her consoles and tablets, which, while not fully functional because Pandora's electromagnetic field prevented it, would still help her to know where she would be, as well as provide her with knowledge and serve as a notepad to document everything she might encounter on her expedition.

Regardless of what Quaritch had said six days ago in the command room, Grace was determined to enter Subaiya terrain, no matter if the integrity of her avatar was at risk, for her, it was a new expedition, like the many others she had been on in the past.

So without asking permission, she ordered Trudy to have the ship ready for her to take her, she had decided not to take Norm with her, as she was not sure about keeping her avatar safe, she would have enough to do with keeping her avatar safe without having to worry about another body worth over a hundred million dollars.

Arriving at the hangar, Grace saw Trudy, a beautiful woman, with black hair and dark skin, a slender and strong build, with a friendly but determined face, Trudy had already removed the mats protecting the respirators from the ship's engine, and was currently at the controls.

"Trudy, ready for another expedition?" Grace, with a smile on her face, greeted the woman, who had returned the greeting with a smile all her own and characteristic of her.

"I'm always ready doc, though I'm still surprised you're going alone this time, Pandora isn't a pretty place to get lost alone, if you've forgotten, you can ask her how Quaritch got his scar" Trudy, in her odd humor, replied to Grace, causing Grace to shake her head at her off-handed comment.

"Norm's not ready for this trip, and as for Quaritch, the idiot still thought he was in Kansas."

Trudy could only chuckle, remembering the Colonel's famous phrase he used to say to all the newcomers to Hell's Gate, apparently the phrase he had learned from Grace.

Grace after the small talk proceeded to take off her backpack, and then put it on the plane, while she then settled into the back seat and fastened her seatbelt.

After putting on the ship's communication helmets, Trudy's voice came through them, asking about their destination.

"We're going to northwest sector 2-75A" Grace answered her, to which Trudy just turned her head, a strange look on her face, as she faced Grace.

"Are you sure? Last time, Corporal Lyle was killed by Na'Vi of the Subaiya tribe, that area is not safe."

"Yeah, I remember that all too well, you forget I was the one who saw him get torn to pieces by a Thanator, even though the idiot brought it on himself, the damn theoretical training on Pandora tells them how to take care of themselves in the jungle, but no... the very man decided to throw that away and shoot the apex predator on Pandora.

If that's not being an idiot, I don't know what is, but well, you'll leave me a hundred meters from where you landed that time, after that you're free to go back to base" Grace, not wanting to continue the conversation, set about taking notes and making documentation on her devices, while Trudy had the ship hoisted up.

After two hours, Grace took her eyes off her tablet, to see the landscape of Pandora, she had been on the moon for years, and yet she had not ceased to be surprised every day, she discovered new flora, every morning the cameras installed in the jungle showed her the harmonious behavior that provoked the fauna of the jungle.

Even the friendly Prolemuris, a creature similar to the extinct monkeys of the earth, contribute their grain of sand to the balance, since with the simple fact of swinging on the branches of the trees, they removed the dead branches and cleaned the bark of the trees, causing new tubers to fall to the ground and new fauna to sprout from them.

Pandora was simply a big clock, where everything was connected, and each part did something unique and different, which made Pandora work at its best, it was a level of unity and connection that had not been cataloged in any other place discovered by humans in all the places outside the planet that humanity knew so far.

Outside the ship, several Banshees could be seen walking around, that was something new I had managed to see, an occurrence that had been going on for only five or nine months.

While Banshees were herd animals, they ceased to be herd animals when they left the Hallelujah Mountains in search of prey, as the competition became stiff, but only nine months ago, many Banshees had been documented, groups numbering over twenty or thirty.

The ferocious beast was making use of numbers to hunt, thus managing to hunt large Hexapedes, even managing to hunt several Sturmbees, animals that so far only large flying beasts like the Great Leonopteryx can do. 

Showing that their strategy had served them well, as even these wanderings had managed to protect them from the attacks of the Leonopteryx. 

Not only that, but Grace had discovered that animal activity in the 2-75A zone had increased by 34% resulting in human explorations of the 2,000 square kilometer Subaiya clan's surrounding territory becoming a war zone, as the presence of one Thanator for every ten square kilometers made the mission impossible to accomplish. 

Now add in the wanderings of Banshees, the Slinth, territorial hammerheads, and other killer species. That, and the images from that drone, had dented Grace's love for Pandora, and now she was about to go to what the RDA considered the most dangerous area of Pandora itself for humans. All because of her love for Pandora.... and the research, of course.