Destined for Greatness

[Malcolm Adeyemi]

[Outskirts]

Reyes's appraisal of the terrain was on point. Mahak could not help but agree.

"I think the caves are it, too." He said. He hesitated before continuing. "Vulcans do not have instinct, or gut feelings, Kali. However, logic also states that a person sending a clandestine distress call who is being treated so dismally would need to hide. I do not think that we can draw anything else from this, however."

He stood and tossed the stick aside. He glanced up at the stars, and then at the brightly lit forest. Everything about it seemed...no, it was not logical, that line of thinking.

"Let us away." Mahak set the pace, not too slow that the journey would take too long but not too fast that they'd be exhausted.

The rucksack was just heavy enough to remind him a little of the marches in Basic. The path between the hills was gentle but it did slope upwards. Mahak had no problems with the incline or the weight. He looked back to Reyes to see how she was fairing.

[Kali Reyes]

[Outskirts]

"Hide, trapped, imprisoned..." There were plenty of reasons why. "It's a good thing I'm only a fourth of you, babe. The rest is all instinct." And her gut was pretty damn nauseous about the situation. Not a sickly kind, but a creepy kind of way. Like they were going to find something you'd find in a horror holovid. She took her own rucksack and followed him.

While he lead, she had her tricorder out and whirring for more information. "The trees are bio-luminescent," she told him. "I'm no earth science buff, but the root system here is crazy... all of the trees are related. Linked together as one organism. Like a giant forest of Christmas lights." It was pretty ironic since the most advanced species on this planet preferred high breeding. There was no breeding here. Just one big plant with trees like limbs.

[Malcolm Adeyemi]

[Outskirts]

"I am glad to see you are handling the march with relative ease," Mahak said. Plus, the sight of Reyes slightly bent and walking in front of him up a hill wearing skintight clothing was motivating him greatly. But he would not say that to her.

There was nothing to do but walk. One foot in front of the other, the weight of the rucksack over the thighs. The music of their footfalls. His mind did not wander, not with so much to keep him in the present. Mahak was working on the issue that had been occupying his thoughts since they set down on the planet.

"This is illogical." He told her suddenly. "This tree lighting, though organic, appears as if it were designed. We did similar decorations with plants on my home planet of Harmony. If someone was being mistreated or starved and needed to hide, why is this area brightly lit, almost festive?"

[Kali Reyes]

[Outskirts]

Kali paused and looked over her shoulder, her next words coquettish and thick. "I blame my trainer. He's been working me to exhaustion." She continued on after a beat, her tricorder lightly beeping. "I'll have to thank him later for these rock hard thighs." Maybe she was a tad amazed she wasn't out of breath by now. The bouncing around the ring certainly helped condition it that way.

His concerning question made her stop again. "Well..." Maybe it was time to tell Mr. Logical what Ms. Instinct was trying to tell her. "Ever heard of astroturfing? If you can't take the stain out of the carpet in time for guests, just throw a rug over it. It's not suspicious if it naturally looks like it belongs there."

[Malcolm Adeyemi]

[Outskirts]

"Astroturfing. I sincerely doubt that has anything to do with stellar or terrestrial phenomena." Mahak replied. What she said rang true, however. This was becoming more and more suspicious.

They finally crested the tall hill and here the vegetation thinned out just a bit. The earth was still rich, but the festive overtones were gone. Mahak's boots knocked little frown shaped dents into the dirt.

His own tricorder was clipped to his belt and had been set to continuous scan. He removed it now and reviewed the results.

"I am detecting little to no energy readings in the area ahead, Kali. It is as if they have stopped using technology to undertake whatever is going on here." It didn't sit well with him.

"Or they are, as you said, astroturfing something." That sat even less well with him.

"I am detecting a structure 1000 meters ahead. It looks to be a guard post of some sort." Mahak told her, showing her the tricorder scan.

[Kali Reyes]

[Outskirts]

"A guard post?" Kali froze in her tracks and thought about the giant monolith watchtowers that loomed miles away from New Canton, but close enough for the colonists to see - and grow intimidated with. She shook herself loose of those thoughts and fixed the hood over her beanie'd head. And here they were looking like criminals in an area that just spelled trouble. This wasn't exactly her best idea going through with this.

The little trees left dimmed with each passing step until only a smattering of few remained as if the power simply ran out the farther they went from the inner capital. As Mahak predicted, there indeed was a man-made guard post over a canopy of dead trees.

"Bad idea," she said aloud. They continued to move forward anyways until trees gave way to some shrubs and birthed from the entangled plants came a fence and it extended so far up, she couldn't see the end past the canopy. "Very bad idea." She slowly approached the fence, but she dared not touch it. Instead of a diamond-like pattern, it was circular and the wires were shimmering and translucent with what was probably electrical energy.

"Very very bad idea."

[Malcolm Adeyemi]

[Outskirts]

Her statement was simple and direct. Mahak felt himself agreeing with her wholeheartedly. They had no business being here.

But they had a duty. He remembered a woman who had contacted him, a gaunt woman with beaten and dead eyes who asked for his help.

"We'll skirt the guard post and find an ungraded section of fence." Mahak said in a hushed tone. "Then we will disable this fence and be on the other side."

If she looked unsure he could not blame her. He wasn't sure himself. Mahak was confident in her abilities and his own. The logical thing to do was to leave and notify Starfleet. But sometimes the logical thing wasn't the easy thing to do.

[Kali Reyes]

[Outskirts]

She nibbled nervously at her bottom lip. Sneaking into an unauthorized place on an alien planet? She hadn't done that since she was sixteen. Considering his tactical advice, Kali's eyes drifted past the fence and into the compound - or at least tried to. The shrubbery was carefully put in place that it was difficult to see anything.

"Okay," she breathed out and dropped her rucksack. She needed to lose the extra weight. "Let me go first. Sneaking around is kinda my thing." God knew how many times she's had to be especially quiet climbing out of the charm school window.

Without letting him get a word edgewise, she was carefully watching every fallen leaf and twig following the fence, the watchtower opposite her destination. It didn't take long for Kali to quietly tuck herself near the corner to peer around the fence.

A bunch of careful strides led her to what looked like the side gate - unattended, but not rippling with electricity. A tree had leaned too much into it until it collapsed and caused it to bend and block the electrical current to the rest of the gate.

"Lucky! We can climb the tree and get to the other side," she whispered to him. "If you have any second thoughts, now would be time to share with the class."

[Malcolm Adeyemi]

[Outskirts]

He was extremely impressed with how quickly and quietly Reyes was able to move. Mahak wanted to ask how she had learned to sneak so well, but then realized he might not want to know.

When they came to the tree Mahak thought that it was an extremely lucky find. It also bespoke of a lack of military or any other kind of discipline.

"Let us be on our way." Mahak said. He appreciated Reyes's keen tactical eye.

Up and over the tree they went. The trunk was very old, dotted with mushrooms and streaked with mud. Mahak's pants were spotted with it.

The shrubs made it difficult to see very far into the interior. The Vulcan frowned.

"This is...difficult. The shrubs offer no concealment or protection but to what lies further ahead. What do the scans say, Kali?" Mahak asked in a low voice.

[Kali Reyes]

[Outskirts]

Kali had a much better time navigating the tree. It helped that she enjoyed scrambling up one plenty of times in her youth just to ruin the expensive fashion designer dresses just to spite her father.

She tried to peer through the branches, but to no avail. The tricorder clipped to her belt had fallen silent during the climb over. She fished it out and frowned at the blank screen.

"Nothing," Kali told him before smacking it for good measure. "Something's interfering with it." She sighed and strapped it back on so she could reach for a nearby branch. "Tally-ho!"

It was pretty easy. Kali used the branch to clear the fence and drop down to the other side. That was when she realized it was a one-way trip. The tree was too high up for her to climb back up again.

Her boots silently hit dirt that dusted about her. She found herself in an abandoned courtyard with strange monoliths jutting out in weird places from the ground and little else. Further on she did see the ground slope downwards towards the middle like some kind of sinkhole, but she knew from experience what it was.

A colony-sized bonfire. She took a few steps forward to see some ashes and charred wood littering the edge, but couldn't see the deep end of it. Something about it was too unsettling for her to move forward and investigate. It made her hair stand on end.

"Mahak..." She called for him so quietly, he probably didn't hear it.

[Malcolm Adeyemi]

[Courtyard]

Mahak was surrounded by a strange mixture of sacred architecture and a woodland wonderland. It had long gone into disuse but there were signs that someone besides them had been there recently: fresh marks on the stones, someone dragging something...

A faint whiff of a smell.

It reminded Mahak of Ensign Ruiz. The science officer was a Texan, and was forever eating marinated and charred meat in the mess. He'd order or replicate slabs of ribs or steaks all slathered with a sticky, sweet, spicy sauce. But underneath whatever he put over it was nothing but dead meat.

He smelled that now. Wordlessly, he turned to Reyes.

"An animal has been burned here, and recently. Many animals." Mahak's tone was curious. "Is this some kind of...sacrificial alter?"

[Kali Reyes]

[Courtyard]

"Don't say that," she murmured, her tone flat from disbelief. "It's just... it's just a bonfire." But even she didn't sound convinced. Something about it was way off. They shouldn't be here. This shouldn't be here.

Kali folded her arms close around her middle and walked around the pit, pointedly refusing to look. Instead, her attention was taken by what looked like an abandoned mining shaft further down the courtyard. Or at least it looked abandoned.

A hot blue lantern hung on a hook outside the shaft. "That would... uh, that's where the signal would probably come from."

[Malcolm Adeyemi]

[Courtyard]

He was aware that humans set fires recreationally, and was not surprised. But another species, unrelated and having no previous contact with humans, doing so on their own planet? Mahak was dubious.

But they had more important things to investigate now. Mahak pulled a palm beacon from his ruck and tossed it over to Reyes. He got one himself.

"Then our path is downward. Let's go." The Vulcan said.

[Mine]

Right away it was evident that the mine was in operation. Tools were stacked up tidily on a rack near the entrance. But Mahak was hopeful: it was pitch black inside and the hour was late. There might be no one here

He shined his palm beacon onto the walk and, with difficulty, was able to chip away at a tiny red flake that he found there. Mahak got a sliver on his fingernail and showed it to Reyes before scanning it.

"This element is known in the Federation. Rhodochrosite. It's quite valuable." He told her, eyes on the tricorder. "Could the woman contacting us be a miner?"

[Kali Reyes]

[Mine]

Kali raised her beacon up at the walls. "Why would a miner be so desperate to contact an alien ship?" Calling for a pointy-eared citizen from Vulcan would be far from her mind if they switched places, no matter how cute he was. Or, a more morbid voice in her head said, maybe reaching out was the only way to call for help.

Her quiet panicking didn't help keep her eye on surroundings. Before she realized it, she missed a step and was too surprised to even shout before she was swallowed up by the darkness.

[Malcolm Adeyemi]

[Mine]

"She looked sick. Hurt, and starved." Mahak said. "If there is an epidemic here why wouldn't the Marquil just contact the Federation for help?"

It was yet another piece of the puzzle, another mystery.

Mahak had turned away to consider her question and to see what else the tricorder could uncover. He only heard a scraping of feet on rock. When he turned back Reyes was gone.

"Kali? Kali!" The Vulcan said. Then, louder, "Kali!"