Gaia

When their blinded eyes recovered from the near miss of the lightning bolt, Matthew Cross, Lee Carter and Jo Schmidt beheld a horrifying sight. A blackened, smoking pit was newly blasted in the earth ten feet in front of them, but as the smoke cleared, they saw to their relief that Alex Dalton and Dexter Gray were still standing on the other side of the crater. Their eyes were closed and their entire bodies were suffused in an electric glow.

For long seconds no one spoke or moved, so incapacitating had been the shock of the lightning strike and so unearthly the appearance of the two young people, but finally, Alex and Dexter opened their eyes. In that instant, the others knew for a certainty that they were no longer dealing with the normal.

Their eyes were lit from within by the same electric glow that surrounded their bodies and shone like twin lanterns. Their transformed appearance was frightening, but the immense power they suddenly exuded was more so; it seemed to burst from the very pores of their skin. It made Carter's own skin crawl just watching.

In perfect unison, Dexter and Alex intoned, "YOU MUST LEAVE THIS PLACE!" in booming voices that were simultaneously both male and female, yet at the same time somehow neither. Overhead, lightning flashes punctuated the commandment.

Carter gathered her courage and took one step forward out from underneath the shelter of the *Crockett's* hull. "I'm not leaving without my officers," she replied in as steadfast a voice as she could muster. "Who are you, and what have you done to them?"

"THIS ONE IS THAT WHICH GIVES LIFE!" boomed the multi-gender voice from both Dexter and Alex's throats. "THIS ONE HAS BEEN GIVEN USE OF THE BODIES OF THE TWO PROTEIN-BASED ENTITIES YOU KNOW AS ALEXANDRA DALTON AND DEXTER GRAY! THEY HAVE TAUGHT THIS ONE YOUR LANGUAGE! YOU MUST LEAVE THIS PLACE!"

"*'Given* use'?" demanded Carter.

Suddenly, Alex took another step forward, closed her eyes and lowered her head, and when she looked up again a second later her eyes were completely normal; the alien, electric fire had left them. Behind her, Dexter underwent the same transformation, and the young man stepped forward to join his girl. The roiling clouds overhead calmed their frenetic churning, and the near-constant lightning flashes subsided.

"Alex? Dexter?" was Carter's tentative query.

"Yes, Lee. It's me," replied Alex.

Carter noted the use of her first name with a mixture of mild displeasure and concern. Ensign Dalton would never have used her first name under normal circumstances; to the youngest Banshee officer, Carter had always been either 'Commander' or 'Boss'. She decided not to voice any objection however. They had bigger problems right now than Starfleet protocol.

"What's going on, Alex?" she asked instead.

"You need to leave this planet."

Carter scowled. "Yeah, I kinda got that part, big scary lightning bolts and all. Mind explaining what this is all about, Ensign?" By her tone it was clear that had not been a mere request.

"This planet chose us to come here," explained Alex, meaning herself and Dexter. "That's why we were pulled off course and forced down here."

From her place beside Captain Cross, Jo exclaimed happily, "I was right! This *is* a living planet!"

But Carter wasn't buying it so easily. "Come off it. There's no such thing and you know it. Planets cannot be living, sentient entities. I can barely wrap my brain around androids and holograms being living entities -- how can I accept a 8000-mile-diameter ball of rock as a living thing?!?"

"There's more to planets like this one than just rock, Lee," said Alex. "They have complex magnetic fields within which memes can propagate and evolve, they have subspace geodesics and extended geometries that allow them to influence their surroundings, they have internal geological mechanisms to circulate raw materials just like we have circulatory systems."

Dexter picked up the thread. "Like any other life form, the planet takes in food and gives off waste in the forms of light and heat. The atmosphere and hydrosphere pump and distribute and regulate and recycle, and are in turn regulated by the biosphere."

"That's where we come in," said Alex.

Dexter continued. "The planet needs greater biodiversity to maintain these ideal environmental conditions. The plants and primitive animals that live here aren't evolving quickly enough and things are starting go fall out of equilibrium."

"In other words, it's sick," said Alex.

"The oxygen and carbon-dioxide cycles, just to name a few, are out of control. The abundant plants make too much oxygen for the relatively few animals. Soon the animals will begin dying of oxygen poisoning. Once they're all dead, carbon-dioxide production will drop and then the plants will start dying. In a few thousand years nothing will be left but a barren class-K rock or a toxic class-N hell smothered by its own greenhouse gasses. This paradise will be lost forever."

"The cargo drones…," muttered Captain Cross.

Carter and Jo turned to look at him. Alex and Dexter smiled knowingly.

"Of course!" exclaimed Jo, catching on. "The cargo ships are filled with enough suspended biomaterial to populate an entire planet with al the plant and animal species you need for a self-sustaining, thriving ecosystem. We were taking them to Polon II because that colony has the same problem as this planet apparently -- not enough diversity to keep things from spiralling out of control one way or another over the very long term."

"Exactly, Lieutenant," said Dexter. "The drones are better than Noah's Ark. They've got enough genetic material and suspended embryos for thousands and thousands of species. They are the perfect solution to this planet's problems. A couple of humans are needed to run the machinery, so you can understand why we were brought here."

"No, I don't understand!" burst Carter. "You can't seriously expect us to just leave here without the cargo ships, do you?!? Or without you!"

"You have to," pleaded Alex. "Besides… we *want* to stay here." She glanced at Dexter and smiled sweetly, knowing they shared a common conviction. "We're not needed in Banshee Squad anymore. The wars are over. We've been talking a lot lately about what we should do with our lives now, and this is the perfect solution! This is what we want to do."

"But--"

Alex's face took on an almost apologetic cast, and when she spoke next, some of the booming thunder had returned to her voice. "The planet… Gaia… can enforce its wishes, Lee. Please…! Leave while things are still amicable."

"I'm sorry… I can't--" began Carter, but she was cut off.

The entity that had borrowed Alex and Dexter's bodies had apparently had enough talk and had decided that it was time for action. Alex blinked her eyes, and Carter saw that they were once again infused with the brilliant, inner electric fire that meant she was under the control of the entity claiming to be the very planet they stood on -- Gaia. Overhead, the menacing clouds began churning again, eerily lit from the inside by renewed electrical activity.

Again, the booming, neither-male-nor-female voice issued from Alex's mouth, though this time Carter thought she detected a hint of compassion in the tone. "YOU MUST LEAVE THIS PLACE! YOUR COMPANIONS WILL BE CARED FOR AND LOVED BY THIS ONE!"

With upturned face and heedless of the fat raindrops that were beginning to fall again, Carter shouted at the angry storm above. "What gives you the right to bring us here against our will?" She suddenly felt Captain Cross arrive at her side and drew strength and courage from his presence. He seemed content to let her do the talking, and that was just fine with her. She summoned all her righteous indignation and continued. "We came in peace! What gives you the right to claim our cargo ships as your own? Or the right to usurp control of the bodies of my two officers?"

"THE SAME RIGHT ANY PARENT HAS TO PROTECT HER CHILDREN!" was the immediate response from Alex/Gaia, and was the one thing Carter hadn't been prepared for. She felt some of the fervour drain from her conviction.

"THIS ONE THANKS YOU FOR THE GIFT OF LIFE YOU HAVE BROUGHT IN YOUR SPACE VESSELS, BUT NOW THIS ONE MUST HEAL! GO NOW! PERHAPS IN ONE OR TWO HUNDRED YEARS YOUR KIND MAY RETURN HERE!"

Carter was about to launch another volley of objections, but Captain Cross took firm hold of her elbow and tugged her after him in the direction of their ships. "Come on, Commander," he growled. "Time to go."

"We can't just leave Alex and Dexter here!" snapped Carter, outraged that Cross would abandon his people so easily. She yanked her arm from Cross' grasp and drew her phaser, determined to blast this damned planet apart one rock at a time if that's what it took to rescue her people. She took a threatening step towards Alex/Gaia, and in response, the storm clouds overhead flashed menacingly.

"Commander!" barked the Captain. "Stand down and put that weapon away!"

Carter stopped in her tracks and looked at the Captain incredulously, and seemed on the brink of disobeying his orders. Slowly though, and with clenched teeth, she placed the phaser back in its place on her hip. The expression on Cross' face was as cold and stony as she had ever seen it, but something in the man's eyes told her it was all a front, and she saw also that he knew she knew.

After a last meaningful look at Carter to make sure they understood one another, Cross addressed the being that had taken up temporary residence in Alex and Dexter's bodies. "Gaia, it is the custom of my people to make every effort to achieve a peaceful first contact with any new life forms we encounter. So, in the interest of peace and hopefully a mutually beneficial relationship between yourself and the Federation in the future, we will leave. We will leave our cargo ships behind, and the two people who have volunteered to stay with you may do so. However, if anything happens to them, I will hold you personally responsible. Is that understood?"

Alex/Gaia dipped her head in regal acceptance of Captain Cross' terms.

Satisfied, Cross turned his attention to Ensign Gray. "Dexter, I'm going to hold *you* personally responsible if anything happens to Ensign Dalton."

Dexter smiled and nodded.

"And the same goes for you, Alex," said Carter. "It'll be up to you now to keep Dex out of trouble."

“Remember that little talk we had about the birds and the bees," added Jo, not knowing what else to say. She and Alex had been good friends, and to lose her like this so suddenly and unexpectedly was a shock. She hurriedly wiped a telltale tear from her cheek before anyone saw it.

Alex smiled. Dexter walked over and they took up each other's hands. The electrical fire faded from their eyes returning them to normal, and the black clouds overhead broke apart and fled on the wind like so much tissue paper, letting the midnight starlight shine down on the land once again.

"Goodbye!" they called and waved as their three *former* team members made their way back to their respective ships. Minutes later, the blades of grass around their feet were bent and their hair and clothing fluttered in the wind kicked up by the thrusters as the ships of Banshee Squadron lifted off and soared away into the night.

As her star fighter rose above the atmosphere, Commander Lee Carter sighed thoughtfully. She barely heard saw the controls in front of her as her fingers automatically went through the motions of making sure Alex's pilot-less Banshee was properly slaved to her flight computer. She barely heard Captain Cross' orders to set a course for the New Canada system and engage at warp five.

She switched one of the display screens in her cockpit to show a rear view. The planet Gaia flickered into view, blue and green and white, safely tucked away into this forgotten corner of the Briar Patch. It would be a long time before anyone visited here again.

Her finger was poised over the warp initiator switch, but she hesitated for one last moment. "Have a nice life, you two," she said, then let her finger make contact.

Three Banshees and one Cat's Eye ship stretched away and disappeared in a flash of warp particles, bound for home.