Rise of the Federation

by Christopher L. Bennett

  Hoshi was grateful to Farid for making it so easy for her. The problem was that the source of her emotional distress came from herself, not from him. She still couldn’t help being attracted to him—and she couldn’t help wondering if that meant she was looking for a way out of her commitment to Takashi. If she couldn’t give him the selfless companionship he needed, maybe it would be kinder in the long run just to break it off.

  She tried to distract herself from such thoughts by focusing on the dryad research. Yesterday, Captain T’Pol and Lieutenant Cutler had come up with a clever way to evaluate dryad brain activity. Cutler and Najafi had spiked the soil by the dryad watering hole with a low-level radioisotope. Once it was absorbed by the dryads’ roots, it would be drawn up into their circulatory systems, where it could be used as a tracer for mapping their brain activity. A copse of dryads had reached the watering hole a few hours later, and now the team—with T’Pol observing—was patiently letting the vast creatures’ slow circulation do its work. The amount of tracer already absorbed by several of the dryads had given some promising results as the dendriforms exchanged pheromonal signals to coordinate their watering and patrol shifts. But it would take days of observation of their brain activity in varied circumstances to gain a good understanding of their cognitive structure—and, if possible, to lay the foundations of a translation matrix for their chemical communication.

  That linguistic challenge was just the problem Sato needed as a distraction from her personal issues, so she immersed herself gladly in the analysis of the scans. So she was not pleased when a ground skimmer approached from the direction of the Boomers’ camp, creating a competing distraction.

  The skimmer came to a halt and disgorged Captain Zang, Maya and Alec Castellano, and a pair of Verne security people. Sato noted with concern that most of them were armed.

  “Captain T’Pol!” Zang intoned, marching toward her.

  The captain stood her ground, her serenity unruffled by his belligerent approach. “What is the purpose of this show of force, Captain?”

  “Merely a reminder that you are here only at our invitation. We have a rightful claim to this planet and its resources, and you are welcome here only as long as we see fit to allow it. And I’m afraid I have to revoke that welcome and ask you to leave.”

  “What?” Najafi cried, stalking over to them with Cutler close behind. “What’s all this about, Captain?”

  “What it’s about,” the elder Castellano interposed, “is that you and your Starfleet buddies are stalling. They’ve been here a week and you’ve found nothing to support your claims.”

  “Science takes time, Maya. I don’t have to tell you that.”

  Zang turned to him. “And we shouldn’t have to tell you, Farid, that we already have several buyers lined up for dryad pharmaceuticals. They won’t wait indefinitely. I was willing to allow your experiments as due diligence, but my responsibility is to the good of the entire crew, and I can’t afford to cheat them out of the profits they’re entitled to for the sake of your hypotheticals.”

  Najafi turned to T’Pol. “Captain, you can’t let him do this!”

  “He does have the legal right to ask us to leave,” T’Pol told him.

  “In the middle of the experiment?” Cutler protested.

  “The lieutenant makes a good point, Captain Zang. The procedure that we are now conducting may be most useful in resolving the question of dryad sentience, but it will require several more days to run, due to the slow passage of the radioisotope through these dryads’ circulatory systems. If you will be patient for just that long before making your decision—”

  “You’re just making excuses,” Maya said. “You can’t stand that Boomers made a discovery Starfleet didn’t, so you’re trying to ruin it for us by ‘discovering’ something bigger!”

  Cutler’s gentle face took on an unwontedly angry mien. “I’m discovering a big something right now, but I don’t want to say what in front of the kid!”

  “Please, calm yourselves,” T’Pol advised. “Keep in mind the effect of Birnam’s atmosphere on human emotional states.”

  “I am sick of your Starfleet condescension.” Castellano stepped toward the dryad that Sato and Najafi had just been scanning. “So this is one of the dryads you’re in the middle of studying? Fine.” She brandished her plasma rifle. “Let’s just cancel that experiment.”

  Maya fired before anyone could stop her. Eyes widening, Farid cried, “The water reservoir—everyone, get down!” He grabbed Sato’s hand and pulled her into a run; trusting him, she followed, then let him push her to the ground and shelter her body with his.

  That trust may have saved her life. A moment later, the dryad literally exploded. Dazed by the deafening sound, Sato turned over to see chunks of wood and softer tissues falling to the ground about its charred and shattered stump. She belatedly realized that the plasma beam must have pierced the dryad’s trunk and flash-boiled the water in its internal reservoir, causing a steam explosion. The creature’s toroidal brain had surrounded the reservoir; what was left of it would never move again.

  T’Pol and Cutler had retreated quickly after Farid’s warning, but the concussion had knocked Maya down, and she screamed as her skin was scalded by the burst of steam. Alec cried out to his mother, but he was on the ground in the sheltering embrace of one of Zang’s guards, the other having pulled Zang himself back from the blast radius. With no one to help her or stop her, Maya’s hand convulsed on the trigger in her agony, and the rifle fired wildly, starting several small fires.

  “No! The dryads!” Najafi leaped off of Sato’s back, recklessly running toward the endangered copse, though there was little he could feasibly do to assist them. Sato chose instead to go after the source of the danger, rising into a crouch and running toward Maya.

  T’Pol beat her to it, reaching Castellano first and kicking the weapon from her twitching hand. Zang and Alec arrived right behind her and helped the biologist to her feet, with Sato arriving last. The middle-aged Boomer was dazed and moaning in pain, bleeding from several shrapnel wounds, including some with heavy splinters still embedded. “All right, Maya,” the Verne captain said. “You’ve done enough damage.”

  “You could have stopped her before she fired,” T’Pol told him coldly.

  “It seemed like a good idea at the time!” Zang snapped. “I hadn’t expected such an explosive reaction. I though the reservoirs were open at the top.”

  “There is a porous filtration layer between the funnel and the inner reservoir—an inadequate outlet for the sudden increase of pressure.”

  “Look, who cares about the damn trees?” Alec cried. “We need to get Mom back to camp and treat her wounds.”

  “Um, that could be a problem,” Cutler interposed. Looking around, Sato realized that the fires had already spread quickly in the highly oxygenated atmosphere, surrounding the cleared area occupied by the crews and the skimmer. Not only were several of the dryads on fire, but so were many of the other plant creatures in the area. Some were trying to make their way for the pond at greater or lesser speeds, but in some cases their panicked flight just accelerated the spread of the blaze. There was no safe path for the skimmer.

  Zang strode over to the ground-effect vehicle. “Extinguishers, now! We’ll clear a path.” Sato realized it made sense that the Verne crew would always have firefighting gear on hand, an important precaution in this environment. “Alec, get your mother into the skimmer. The first-aid kit is under—”

  “I know, sir.” The youth gently guided Maya toward the vehicle. Cutler helped them, looking abashed by her earlier outburst.

  “Hey!” came Najafi’s voice. “I could use some help here!”

  Sato looked about her, realizing she’d lost track of Farid in the confusion. She spotted him behind a second burning dryad, his path blocked by large, flaming chunks of the exploded dryad’s leaf structure and upper branches. “There! He’s trapped!”

  “We must get to him quickly,” T’Pol advis
ed Zang. “Another explosive rupture seems unlikely, but we cannot rule it out.” Nodding, Zang handed her an extinguisher. Together, they and the two guards advanced on the flaming debris, spraying firefighting foam to clear a path. The burning dryad posed an obstacle as it heaved itself out of the soil and attempted to move toward the pond. T’Pol pulled Sato out of the path of a flailing, fiery tentacle; then Endeavour’s captain held her ground before the dryad, dodging those same tentacles to spray foam on the vast creature, both to save it and to calm its struggles while the others circled around to reach Najafi and lead him to safety.

  Soon, the others were back at the skimmer, save for T’Pol, who was finishing up with the dryad. “You okay?” Sato said to Najafi.

  “I’m fine,” he said, coughing. “At least for now.”

  Hoshi realized what he meant. In the time the group had spent saving him, the opportunity to clear a path for the skimmer had diminished. The fire surrounding them had spread further, and they had a smaller supply of foam left to fight it with.

  “We must still do what we can,” T’Pol said.

  “Agreed,” Zang replied, gathering the guards to him. “We’ll advance against the fire. The rest of you, into the skimmer. Follow behind us.”

  The two captains moved forward side by side, dousing the flames with their extinguisher spray. Once T’Pol’s sprayer ran out, she resorted to removing her uniform tunic and using it to beat out burning brush and mobile plants and clear away their remains. Zang followed suit when his sprayer ran dry. Sato clutched the rim of the speeder’s windshield, afraid that they would run out of the means to fight the fire before they managed to clear a path.

  But soon, Najafi clutched her shoulder, calling, “Look! The dryads! They’re fighting the fire!”

  Lifting her gaze to the burning forest beyond, Sato saw that he was right. Dryads from all around were shuffling at top speed toward the fire line. Many, especially the larger ones, were tipping themselves over as far as they could and emptying their rain funnels onto the burning foliage—as well as the intact foliage in the fire’s path. “They’re trying to keep it from burning,” Cutler said. “They’re anticipating!”

  Soon, the dryads’ actions had quelled enough of the fire to let the humanoids finish clearing a path and get the skimmer out of harm’s way—though it was unclear whether that had been by accident or design. As the four firefighters returned to the skimmer and the group retreated to higher ground, Sato turned to take stock of the dryads’ activity.

  Once the massive dendriforms had emptied their funnels, they rushed to join what had to be a bucket brigade—a line of dryads stretching to the nearby river, using their tentacles to fill some sort of large plant shells with water and pass them down the line. Meanwhile, others were stamping down and tearing out the undergrowth ahead of the fire—undoubtedly creating a firebreak to keep it from spreading further.

  “I don’t understand,” Zang said. “We’ve monitored several forest fires from orbit since we arrived here. The dryads have always let them burn.”

  “Fire’s part of the cycle of the forest,” Najafi said. “But maybe they know this fire is unnatural.”

  “Or maybe there is something special they wish to protect,” T’Pol added.

  Cutler nodded, realizing what she meant. “The elders’ grove is nearby.”

  “But we’ve observed their behavior around groves. Farid, your own report said they let their elders die without interference,” Zang countered.

  “When they die of disease, or when they’re struck by lightning or drought,” Najafi replied. “But we’ve never seen the whole grove threatened.”

  Sato looked at him in realization. “Sacred ground?”

  “Who knows? It’s possible.”

  “Whatever their reasons,” T’Pol noted, “they are showing cooperation at a high level of complexity.”

  Zang pondered for a long moment. “Yes,” he finally said. “That they are.”

  Soon, with a little more help from the Boomer camp, the forest fire had burned itself out. But the blaze had taken its toll. Three dryads would never move again. The others of their kind moved toward the smoldering corpses—followed by observers from Endeavour and Verne. Both Castellanos had returned to camp in the skimmer with one of the guards, but the other scientists and the captains remained to follow the dendriforms.

  Several large dryads gathered around the splintered stumps of their late grovemates and carefully lifted them from the ground. Slowly, they began carrying them away. “I’m reading tons of pheromones being released,” Cutler reported, studying her scanner. “If that’s how they talk . . . they’re talking up a storm.”

  “Or maybe chanting?” Sato suggested.

  T’Pol turned to Najafi. “Have you observed behavior like this before?”

  He shrugged. “We haven’t been here long enough. They’d normally die as sessile elders in the grove.”

  They followed to see where the corpses would be taken. Intriguingly, the procession ended up in the elders’ grove. “More pheromones,” said Cutler. She and the others watched the readouts and the dryads for a long time.

  “I’m not sure,” Sato eventually reported, “but I think the elders are responding to the mobile ones.”

  “Why haven’t they put the bodies down yet?” Zang asked.

  “Maybe they’re asking permission,” Najafi ventured.

  “I think you’re right,” said Sato. “The communication has stopped—and look.” Indeed, the dryads were gently laying the corpses down amidst the elders. The dryads stood for a time, giving off more pheromones, and then slowly withdrew to get on with their lives.

  The watchers stood in silence for a time. “What did we just see?” Cutler finally asked.

  “A funeral,” Sato speculated.

  “But they just left them lying there, out in the open.”

  “Maybe where they’re lying is what’s important,” Najafi said. “This is the elders’ grove, where old dryads go to die. This is where they’re supposed to die—which is why the others don’t interfere. But these dryads died elsewhere, by violence . . . so they brought them here.”

  “And asked the elders to accept them in spite of the circumstances,” Sato said. “Maybe the pheromone exchange was some sort of cleansing ritual—accept these dryads’ spirits even though they didn’t die on holy ground. And the elders agreed.”

  “And now that they lie on holy ground,” Zang said in wonderment, “their spirits can rest in peace.”

  The others stared at the Boomer captain. “It sounds,” T’Pol said, “as though you are reassessing the question of their sentience.”

  “After what I’ve seen today, Captain . . . I’m rethinking many things.”

  13

  M’Tezir, Sauria

  “WE HAVE TO FIND A WAY to contact the Starfleet team,” Ruiz said as he and Tucker crept through the factory’s underground maintenance ducts toward the launch area. Tucker’s check of the factory manifest had shown that one spaceship had completed repairs and was scheduled to join the orbital patrol the following evening. The two men had agreed that stowing away on a ship already scheduled for launch would be less insane than trying to steal a whole warp-powered rocket plane and hope nobody noticed.

  “Maybe we should track down a subspace radio, contact Essex,” Ruiz went on, staying close to Tucker and speaking softly so his voice would not echo through the dark, cylindrical shaft. “Mullen said it’s out in space, monitoring in case of emergency.”

  Tucker considered the suggestion warily. “I’m not sure that’s a good idea,” he said. “If it were Endeavour or Pioneer, I’d know who to trust. But I don’t know anyone on Essex.”

  “What, you think your Section Whatever has a spy on board? Isn’t that a little paranoid, man? I thought they were satisfied to let the Orions do their dirty work.”

  “That’s what Harris said, but he always has plans within plans. If it’s that important to him, he’d have an asset on hand, to obse
rve if nothing else. And the Section has informants everywhere. People who agree with their goals, people they’ve pressured or tricked into helping . . . there’s just no way to be sure.” If anything, Tucker thought, Captain Shumar seemed like a prime recruit—the kind of captain who believed in the Federation’s righteousness with almost religious fervor and whose wartime background made him willing to employ harsh or forceful measures. Granted, he was famously on the opposite side of the noninterference debate, but that would make him an ideal Trojan horse—and the Section had ways of compelling the cooperation of the reluctant. “If we tipped the wrong people off to the antimatter,” Tucker went on, “they’d make sure nobody else got the message.”

  “Then we have to contact the resistance. Let them know without letting Starfleet know.”

  Tucker shook his head. “We couldn’t prove it. They don’t have the means to detect the gamma-ray signature of the antimatter, not with the limited resources they’ve scrounged and salvaged. Hell, we might not even be able to prove our own identities, with those Malurian impostors still there. And they’d probably just end up arguing over it until it was too late. I mean, just having these antimatter generators in populated areas is insanely dangerous. Wait too long and there could be a disaster with or without the resistance triggering it.”

  Ruiz stared. “How big a risk is that?”

  “In the short term, not huge,” Tucker admitted. “In the long term, closer to huge. It’s still best if we act fast, though. If the resistance started debating it, then both Garos and any Section assets in the Essex crew would hear about it, and that could just provoke them to trigger the disaster sooner.”

  “Okay, Mister Bond, so what’s your master plan? What the hell do we do?”

  Tucker considered the question in grim silence for a few moments. “There’s only one option. We have to get to Garos . . . and neutralize him before he can spring the trap.”

  Ruiz grabbed his arm, halting him. “ ‘Neutralize’? Come on, man, have the spine to say what you mean.”