Rise of the Federation

by Christopher L. Bennett

  Tucker shook his head. “That is exactly the excuse my employers always use.”

  “And I respect them for it,” Garos said. “Just as I respect you for your own loyalty to your people. This is nothing personal.” He shrugged. “But someone must win the game.”

  10

  March 2, 2166

  Akleyro, Sauria

  WHEN DAYLIGHT CAME and Akleyro slept, Garos’s operatives smuggled their human prisoners out of the city and into the rainforest above. Tucker and Ruiz were marched forward at gunpoint, forced to keep up a pace that was difficult for the humans to bear in the sweltering heat and humidity, especially shackled to each other wrist to wrist by a half-meter chain. The Malurians, by contrast, seemed energized by the heat.

  Nonetheless, Tucker felt obligated to consider options for escape. “We have to get back to the Starfleet team,” he whispered to Ruiz. “My plan’s blown—warning them about the attack is our only chance to stop it.”

  “You’re thinking of making a break?” the Cuban whispered back.

  “This jungle provides plenty of cover.”

  “Yeah, for a bunch of hungry serpents and pterosaurs that would have us for lunch.”

  “You’ve been here for years. You know the terrain.”

  “Not this terrain. I only know enough to know I don’t want to be here without a lot of reinforcements.”

  Tucker considered. “Okay, then,” he breathed. “They’re probably taking us to a ship—maybe we can make our move then, try to take it over.”

  Indeed, it wasn’t much longer before a heavy shuttle of Malurian design came into view, parked in a clearing barely large enough for it. “Get ready,” Tucker whispered.

  A phase pistol burst came from behind them and felled Ruiz. Tucker stumbled as the other man’s weight pulled him down. Coming to his knees, he checked to verify that his friend was merely stunned. The leader of their escorts arrived above them, smirking. “It might interest you to know that Malurian hearing is quite sensitive at high frequencies. Now, pick him up and get him into the shuttle.”

  Tucker had no choice but to comply. Still, he cursed to himself as he dragged his friend into the landing craft. This might have been their best chance to escape. Once they were in the hands of Maltuvis’s soldiers—facing guards considerably stronger and more robust than themselves, confined by restraints and cells designed for equally strong and robust prisoners—escape might be next to impossible.

  But Tucker refused to accept that. He’d escaped near-certain death repeatedly during the Romulan War, while serving Section 31 for the greater good. Now that he was fighting Section 31 for the greater good, surely he could find a way to do it again.

  He tried not to think about how many of those escapes had been due to dumb luck.

  Birnam

  Hoshi Sato had resisted the urge to ask Cutler or one of the Boomers to come along as a chaperone when Farid Najafi had invited her out to gather more data on dryad pheromonal communication. Yes, he was a very attractive man whom she would be alone with in an almost Edenic landscape . . . but she was a grown woman, she loved her fiancé, and she had the discipline of a Starfleet officer. As long as she recognized her excited state as an artifact of the high oxygen content of the atmosphere, she should have no trouble containing herself. As for Farid—well, he was a Boomer, not a barbarian. The era when a human woman had to be concerned for her safety when alone with a man was generations in the past.

  Indeed, Najafi seemed to be reserving his excitement for the dryads as he escorted Sato through the perpetually daylit, if usually overcast, woods. “Our projections show that the dryads keep growing throughout their lives, like normal trees. About four to five centimeters per standard year.”

  Sato’s eyes widened. “I’d think they’d eventually get too big to move!”

  “You’re not wrong. Here, it’s just ahead.” He took her hand and pulled her into a run toward the top of the low ridge they were climbing. She let him.

  Once they reached the crest, Sato saw that beyond the sunward side of the ridge, between it and the local river, was a grove of the largest dryads she had yet seen. They stood in an orderly array, spaced widely enough to ensure that none was in the shadow of another. Hoshi realized that this was not a watering stop like the one she had witnessed before. There were no mobile dryads patrolling the outer perimeter; they were hardly needed, because these dryads were too huge to be preyed upon. As Najafi led her down the slope to get a closer look, she realized that the ground around the giants’ roots was smooth, as if it had not been disturbed for quite some time. Indeed, many of their tentacles had grown long enough to extend into the ground, becoming roots themselves—though a few remained free and mobile. Sato saw one dryad languidly batting at a small flying plant creature seeking to land on its trunk.

  “I call it an elders’ grove,” Najafi said. “Once they reach twenty to twenty-four meters, they travel to a site like this, where they stop moving, grow out their root systems, and live out the rest of their lives like normal trees.” He grinned. “There’s a kind of symmetry to it, since it seems they also begin their lives in a sedentary phase. Apparently they reproduce with seedlike spores that grow in the ground for, oh, probably ten to twenty years before they fully develop their nerve and muscle analogs and become mobile.”

  “Do they just drop their spores anywhere?” Sato asked.

  “No, we’ve found the seedlings planted in dedicated sites—I guess you’d call them nurseries in both senses of the word.” They both laughed. “The grown dryads of their copse watch over them until they become mobile.”

  “Do the mobile dryads tend the old ones too?”

  “They seem to let nature take its course with the elders, even when the elders are attacked by predatory plants. But they often communicate with them. I get the sense the mobile dryads are, you know, seeking the wisdom of their elders. Listening to their stories while they’re still around.”

  She studied Najafi. “Are you seeking something, Farid? Is that why this is so important to you?”

  His ready smile was abashed this time. “Nothing so profound. It’s just . . . Well, you know what Boomer life was like. Growing up on starships, crawling at low warp from planet to planet.” She nodded. “I was born on the Verne, near the start of a two-year voyage to a system that was nothing but asteroids and a few tight-orbiting superterrestrial planets too hot or too high-gravity to set foot on. Then a year setting up a mining colony, and sixteen-month round trips to a Draylaxian trade outpost on a frozen-over rogue planet. I was eight before I finally got to set foot on a planet with its own life. My mom took me down to this vast, endless forest . . . I’d seen pictures for years, but I’d never believed they were actually real. It was like finding out Santa’s workshop really existed.”

  Hoshi widened her eyes in jest. “You mean it doesn’t?”

  Najafi laughed. “For me it did, at that moment. I fell in love with nature, with trees. To be in a place where everything was alive. . . . Before, the living things around me had been mostly people, thinking beings that could talk to me. That’s what living things meant to me, and it took a while to realize that trees weren’t people too. I tried talking to the trees, but they never talked back.” He gazed in awe at the sessile dryads looming above them. “These trees might have something to say.”

  “We’re a long way from proving that.”

  “That’s why we’re here.” He frowned. “Sensors say there should be a small copse headed this way—I wanted us to take scans of their pheromone exchanges with the elders. I guess they got delayed.”

  Sato chuckled. “Or we ran too fast. All this oxygen does throw people into high gear, doesn’t it?”

  “That it does. Though I would’ve been just as excited without it.”

  She blushed, noticing that his eyes were on her rather than the dryads. She turned toward the dendriforms, hoping the ruddy light had masked her response. “I was the opposite,” she said. “I grew up on Earth, surro
unded by nature, and didn’t set foot on a spaceship until my Starfleet training. I mean, it’s not like I lived in the woods—Kyoto’s a major city. But it’s surrounded on three sides by mountains covered in green, and there are plenty of parks. Nature was never very far away. I guess I took it for granted. Always had my nose in a book or a computer, studying one language after another. I often neglected to look up at the world and appreciate what was around me—and who was around me. It wasn’t until those first training flights in space that I realized how rare it was in the universe to be surrounded by living things.”

  The Boomer watched her expectantly. “And it gave you a new appreciation of nature?”

  She laughed. “I thought it did. After I decided Starfleet wasn’t for me—before Jonathan Archer talked me into coming back to serve on Enterprise—I went to teach in Brazil, partly because the Amazon rainforest was there. But when I went on a river cruise to see the wildlife . . .” She shuddered. “Let’s just say I’m glad there are no anacondas on this planet.”

  “Wait. You’re Hoshi Sato. You’ve faced down Xindi-Reptilians without blinking.”

  She tensed, lowering her head. “Oh, I blinked. And a lot worse.”

  He stroked her arm lightly. “But you still triumphed. I can’t even imagine. And after that, you’re still afraid of snakes?”

  “Not just snakes! Really big snakes!”

  They laughed together, somewhat longer and more hysterically than was called for. Finally, Najafi cleared his throat and gathered himself. “Uh, look, I’m just gonna go see what’s keeping that copse of dryads.” He frowned. “We need a better word. Like ‘copse,’ but more mobile.”

  Hoshi pondered for a moment. “Traffic copse?”

  They both broke down giggling again. “Perfect!” Farid managed to get out before he retreated upstream.

  Once he was out of sight—and she’d gotten her giggling under control—Hoshi turned slowly to take in her idyllic surroundings. It was rather extraordinary for a native of modern-day Earth to be surrounded by untouched wilds and know that virtually the entire planet around her was free of any trace of civilization. She had experienced such planets many times before, but usually in the company of Enterprise or Endeavour landing parties. Out here, kilometers from the base camp, she could imagine there was nothing human on Birnam besides herself. There was a comfort in that solitude, reminding her of the quiet isolation in which she had spent much of her childhood. She had been lonely at times, but she had valued the freedom from distractions, the space in which to contemplate her beloved languages.

  To enhance the illusion, Hoshi unfastened her science-blue uniform tunic and stripped down to her tank top, then removed her boots so she could walk barefoot. It was a relief in this hot, humid climate. She wandered through the glade, delighting in the warm breeze against her skin and the soft, dewy ground cover beneath her feet as she contemplated the question of how a pheromonal language might be organized. She tried to look at Birnam as Najafi did, as a mythic place imbued with living spirits—like the kodama she had mentioned to Takashi, or the other animistic forest denizens from the stories her grandfather had shared with her in her youth. Maybe some adorable little cartoon sprite would amble out of the woods and lead her to a spirit realm where she could speak to the dryads directly. She laughed, feeling giddy from all the oxygen, and imagined she was walking on air.

  Then she realized she was, in fact, falling through the air. Her burgeoning shriek was cut off by her impact with a damp, squishy surface. Looking up, she saw an opening three meters overhead, flanked by four organic-looking flaps carpeted with the local ground cover. Hoshi realized some sort of trapdoor plant buried in the ground had captured her for dinner.

  She struggled to her feet, stumbling as the slippery surface moved beneath her, and tried to grab one of the slowly closing flaps, to no avail. Reflexively, she reached for the sleeve pocket that held her communicator . . . but she touched only bare skin. She’d left her tunic on the ground above. Stupid!

  Hoshi screamed for help at the top of her lungs, but soon the flaps shut completely, leaving her in blackness. She screamed louder, praying her cries could penetrate the flaps, for the pit was already beginning to fill with what had to be digestive acid.

  After a panicked minute, she heard a muffled voice calling her name, followed by the whine of a phase pistol. The creature convulsed, knocking her over, and the flaps fell limp. Thank God, Hoshi thought as she saw a vine being lowered. She scrambled up its length, gladly grasped the hand extended to her. Moments later, Najafi pulled her up and out, toppling backward as he did so. She fell atop him, panting hard along with him. “Thank you. Thank you so much.”

  She couldn’t stop herself from kissing him. She didn’t want to. And once she started, she didn’t want to stop—and clearly, neither did he. Somewhere along the way, he managed to mention between kisses that her uniform trousers were covered in pitcher-plant acid, so she might want to remove them, whereupon she invited him to help her do so, then started to remove his clothes just in case any acid had splashed on him . . .

  “What am I doing?” She pulled away, finally, just before matters reached the point of no return. “No. This is wrong. I’m—I’m engaged. I have a fiancé. I have a ring, see?” She held up her ring. “I have a ring.”

  Najafi nodded understandingly, looking away, handing her back what he’d removed. “I’m sorry. I didn’t . . . I never would’ve . . .”

  “It’s the oxygen,” she gasped as she began to dress again.

  “Of course. Just the oxygen.”

  “And the intensity of the moment . . . I was grateful . . .”

  “I understand. Only natural. Don’t worry about it.”

  “No. No! Why should I? I wasn’t myself.”

  “Me neither. It’s the oxygen.”

  “Just the oxygen. Sure.”

  U.S.S. Endeavour

  “It wasn’t just the oxygen,” Hoshi moaned as Doctor Phlox examined her for injury or harmful aftereffects of her close call with the pitcher plant. “Or the danger. I’ve been attracted to Farid from the start.”

  “I can’t blame you,” Phlox said cheerily. “He’s an extremely attractive and charming young man.”

  “I have an attractive and charming man in my life. A man I’m going to marry. A man I want to marry. This isn’t supposed to happen.” She sighed. “I guess I shouldn’t expect you to understand.”

  Phlox patted her shoulder. “It’s true that your cultural preference for monogamy is somewhat odd from a Denobulan point of view. To us, romantic love is not a finite resource that must be—heh—husbanded, but something that you have more to give the more people you share it with. Even in humans, some degree of promiscuity is more the norm than the exception, judging from actual statistics and behavioral observation as opposed to cultural ideals.”

  “You must think I’m being silly, then. To feel guilty over just wanting to be with someone else.”

  “Not at all, Hoshi. Just because I don’t share this particular ideal, that doesn’t mean I can’t respect what it means to you. It’s not unlike Vulcan logic, in a way. It’s hardly the default behavior of the species, and that makes it difficult to achieve in practice—yet that very difficulty is why it is considered worth striving for. It’s seen as an attempt to rise above instinctual appetites and behave in a manner one has earned through dedication and commitment.” He met her eyes. “And that means you’re entitled to regret falling short of that ideal—but it also means that such shortfalls are a normal experience for human beings. What matters is not that you have these urges, but what you choose to do about them.”

  Sato thought it over, then nodded. “Right. You’re right. I just have to avoid being alone with Farid again. Especially out in that atmosphere.”

  Phlox gave her a stern look. “You already know it wasn’t about the atmosphere. It wasn’t even about Mister Najafi. Part of making the right choice is understanding the real source of the problem.”

>   She winced, closing her eyes. “I love Takashi. What happened to him hasn’t changed that.”

  “Of course it’s changed that.” She stared at Phlox in shock, and the doctor clarified his words. “It hasn’t ended your love for him, but your love has changed, because he has changed. The nature of the future you would have together as wife and husband has changed. Our recent return to Earth gave you a taste of what married life with Takashi would entail. It was abstract for you before, but now you’ve experienced it more directly.” He checked the readouts on his scanner. “Ah. You’ll be pleased to know there are no harmful aftereffects from the pitcher plant’s digestive juices—just a slight dermal irritation to your feet, but I have a salve that will clear that up in no time. You may get dressed now.”

  Sato leaped off the exam table and began to pace. “Oh-h, Phlox, you’re right. I hate to admit it, but you’re right. Having to help him with his limitations . . . to be patient with his struggles . . . to have to be strong for him all the time, when I was so used to knowing I could rely on his strength. Phlox, I don’t know if I have what it takes to handle that. It scares me.”

  “Hoshi, when we first met, you were afraid that you would fail as a Starfleet officer. You very nearly gave up and returned home after your first crisis on Enterprise. You’ve always doubted your ability to handle new challenges. But those doubts have always proven to be unfounded.”

  “But what if I’m the wrong person to take up this challenge?” she asked as she pulled her tunic back on. “Takashi needs someone who can be strong for him. Someone who’ll love him unconditionally. I don’t know if I’m that person. I loved him so much for his quick wit, his thoughtfulness, his gift with words, his grace and prowess . . . his fantastic body . . . and now all of that is tainted. And I’m ashamed to admit it, but I think it’s made me love him less. I play the good, supportive fiancée, I try to be selfless because it’s the right thing to do . . . but deep down, I’m having second thoughts. Maybe my love was too superficial to be what he needs. Look how easily I get tempted by another great body and easy smile.”