The heavy side doors of the Samson were locked open, letting in the humid, oxygen-deprived air of the Pandoran evening. Inside the cargo bay, the ten-foot Avatar body lay strapped to a reinforced carbon-fiber pallet like a piece of oversized freight. It was cold, its blue skin dull under the flickering orange utility lights of the helicopter.
The two-man disposal crew, Miller and Hicks, sat on the jump seats opposite the "corpse," their masks hissed with every breath. They weren't scientists or pilots; they were the guys who hauled the trash and scrubbed the grease traps. To them, this wasn't a biological miracle or a lost friend—it was an inconveniently heavy slab of meat.
The Last Flight:
"Can you believe Augustine wanted a full funeral for this thing?" Miller laughed, his voice tinny through the comms as he leaned back, propping his boots up on the edge of the pallet. "A burial for a science project. Like we don't have enough to do."
Hicks chuckled, pulling a dented flask from his vest. "She's gone soft. The forest gets in their heads, Miller. They start thinking these things are people. It's just a high-priced remote-controlled car that someone left the batteries in too long."
"Well, it's a hell of a waste of money," Miller said, reaching out to poke the Avatar's shoulder with the toe of his boot. "How many millions do you think is sitting on this pallet? I could retire on one of those ears back on Earth."
The Samson hit a pocket of rough air, the twin rotors screaming as Trudy's replacement pilot fought the thermals rising from the Shadow Basin below. The pallet shifted an inch, the heavy nylon straps groaning under the tension.
"Whoa," Miller muttered, squinting at the Avatar's hand. "Did you see that?"
"The hand. The long finger... I swear it just curled."
Hicks looked over, his eyes scanning the limp, blue hand resting against the metal floor. "It's the turbulence, you moron. The whole bird is shaking like a leaf. Muscle spasms, maybe. Post-mortem gas discharge. Pick one."
"I'm telling you, it moved," Miller insisted, leaning in closer. "Like it was trying to grab the strap."
"If that thing wakes up, I'm jumping out the door," Hicks joked, taking a long pull from his flask. "But it won't. It's a brick. A dead, expensive, blue brick."
Shadows in the Mist:
Up in the cockpit, the pilot's voice crackled over the intercom, and the joking stopped instantly. "We've got company. Multiple signatures, ten o'clock high."
Miller and Hicks scrambled to the open doors, looking up into the darkening sky. Coming out of the clouds above the floating Hallelujah Mountains was a swarm of jagged silhouettes.
"Wild Ikran," Hicks hissed, his hand dropping to the grip of his sidearm. "A whole pack of 'em. Banshees."
The creatures let out high-pitched, piercing shrieks that cut through the roar of the engines. They weren't just circling; they were diving, their four-winged bodies banking with terrifying speed as they closed the gap on the Samson. To the Ikran, the helicopter was an intruder, and the smell of the "dead" Avatar in the bay was a dinner bell.
"They're coming in for a strike!" the pilot yelled. "I can't outrun them with this weight! We're dragging! Miller, dump the load! Now!"
"We're three miles from the drop zone!" Miller shouted back, looking down at the impenetrable green canopy thousands of feet below.
"I don't care! The vibrations are pulling the tail rotor! If we don't ditch the pallet, we're going down! Dump it!"
The Drop:
Miller and Hicks didn't need to be told twice. They lunged for the manual release levers on the pallet.
"On three!" Hicks yelled. "One... two... THREE!"
They slammed the levers down. The magnetic locks holding the pallet to the floor disengaged with a sharp clack. The Samson tilted sharply to the left, and gravity did the rest.
The carbon-fiber pallet slid out into the open air. For a split second, Miller caught a glimpse of the Avatar's face as it fell away. The blue eyelids had snapped open. They weren't yellow. They were glowing with a fierce, blinding cyan light.
"Did you see—" Miller started, but he was cut off as the pilot slammed the throttles forward.
The Descent:
Mark didn't feel the wind at first. He was trapped in a crushing tunnel of light as the System reached the final, violent stage of the merge.
[SYNC STATUS: 98%... 99%...]
[ALTITUDE LOSS DETECTED: CRITICAL]
[INITIATING EMERGENCY AWAKENING]
The world hit him like a physical blow. The screaming of the wind, the shrieks of the Ikran circling his falling form, and the sudden, overwhelming sensation of ten-foot-long limbs. Gravity was a cruel master.
The pallet slammed into the thick, springy canopy of a giant fern-palm. The impact was cataclysmic; the reinforced carbon-fiber pallet shattered against a massive, obsidian-hard branch, the nylon restraints snapping like sewing thread.
Mark was thrown free, but the momentum was still deadly. He felt the air leave his lungs in a painful wheeze as his new body careened through the layers of the jungle. He struck a secondary branch with his ribs—crack—and then another against his shoulder. The pain was a blinding white strobe in his mind, but the System was already flooding his new nervous system with dampening agents.
He tumbled through a final veil of bioluminescent vines and hit the mossy ground flat on his back. The impact shivered through his spine, sending a jolt of static through his vision.
[SYNC STATUS: 100%]
[DAMAGE REPORT: MODERATE BLUNT FORCE TRAUMA]
[SYSTEM STABILIZING...]
The forest went silent. The Ikran, seeing their "prey" had hit the floor of the basin, shrieked one last time and retreated into the mists. Mark lay there, gasping, his four-fingered hands clawing weakly at the rich, damp soil. He tried to move, but his muscles felt like lead.
Through the haze of pain and the flickering cyan HUD in his eyes, he saw a movement in the shadows.
A figure detached itself from the bioluminescent ferns. It was tall, lithe, and moved with a deadly, feline grace that no human-driven Avatar could ever hope to replicate. A Na'vi. The creature held a long, curved bow, its yellow eyes wide with a mixture of caution and curiosity as it stared at the "Dreamwalker" who had fallen from the sky.
Mark's vision began to dim, the edges of his sight curling into blackness as his brain struggled to process the trauma of the fall and the finality of the merge. He reached out a trembling blue hand, his fingers twitching toward the stranger.
"Help... me..." he rasped, the words sounding strange and heavy coming from his new throat.
The Na'vi took a step forward, the glow of the forest reflecting in its golden eyes. But before Mark could see if the creature would reach back, the world finally gave way. The cyan bar vanished, and everything faded to black.