DR. RUTH CARSON grew up hearing about Pandora as a kid, hearing of the alien moon that promised beauty and awe.
Coming from the lower class in the States, she fought tooth and nail to provide any opportunity to distance herself from the hard life s...
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RAGE was her armor when the link unit opened. It didn't matter who was standing there to detain her, her fists were flying for anyone she could land them on. Her mind was still foggy from the sudden disruption of the neural connection as she shoved away the internal framing of the chamber and swung, but she still landed true on at least one cheek before she was descended upon by multiple strong arms.
She blinked away the sensation in her eyes as she was rassled into control, her teeth bared in a snarl and her ash blonde hair was in a wild frenzy around her face. The first person her green eyes landed on was the Colonel.
"YOU FUCKING MURDERER!" She snarled, lurching forward before the marines holding her yank her back into their iron grip. She barely noticed it was Corporal Wainfleet and Zdinarsik, two people she'd once been corgial with. Not anymore. She spat at the Colonel where he stood, arms crossed with a disinterested, smug look. "Where is Jake?!"
"Sweetheart, your time here is done." He stated as Wainfleet slapped cuffs on her wrists behind her, ignoring her demand to know where Jake was. "You're goin' home. First flight out in the morning. Ain't no place for savage lovin' defectors here."
Parker Selfridge joined them, a coffee cup in his grasp. He took a casual sip before saying, "Really, Carson, you fucked up. The corporate legal team is already putting a case together to have you in federal prison for the rest of your life." He set the coffee cup on the lab station behind him before focusing his attention back on her. "How was it so hard to just do your damn job? Be a scientist? Why'd you have to get caught up with the Blues like some rendition of Pocahontas?"
Ruth glared daggers at the short man in his tie, nose crinkled in a sneer. The iron grip on her arms by the men flanking her was too much for her to launch forward and slam her fist in his nose. "Go fuck yourself, Parker."
The corporate tycoon simply laughed at her. "Your little program was meant to pacify the natives. To get a good enough foothold in that we could do what we came to this damn moon for without constant backlash from the savages. Do you have any fucking idea how much money is invested in this shit? And your avatar, missing in action. Five billion dollars wasted."
"Don't matter anymore," Quaritch shrugged at his side. "She got too caught up like Sully to bother worryin' whether we had an eye on 'er."
He turned, swiveling one of the translucent monitors behind him into view. With a few clicks, a video was brought up. Of a place that looked eerily familiar. Then she heard her own voice. And Tsu'tey's.
It was footage of the night they'd been on the riverbank. The intimate time they'd spent, talking and holding each other. Encroached on by her enemies.
"How in the fuck--?" She began to say but was shortly cut off.
"You think we didn't run surveillance on you, Carson?" Quaritch chastised, an evil grin on his face. "A simple clip from a UAV was more than enough to tell us where your loyalties lay, just like Sully's fiasco with the dozer. That you'd hunkered up nice and close to one of them savages just like our boy Jake did." He gestured to the screen. "I'd say that's more than enough to prove you're interests lie elsewhere."
