chapter=Chapter 13 By the year 2001, the homo sapiens of Earth had fully realized the potential power and psychological impact of authority. Earth did have its share of rulers stretching back to the budding days of caveman where sticks and stones meant far more than words, but soon thereafter man discovered the mystical properties of galvanizing their fellow citizens with the fear of breaking rules that had been placed down by not only them, but a fanatical hyper-intelligent seemingly non-existent god or authority figure. When a politically elected leader lacked the vocational province to complete a sentence, he or she would invariably call upon deep instinctual images of a creator that could manipulate its otherwise also undereducated followers into obeying their every fascist wish. This of course is where the United Planets took up the slack of history. Once man had stripped themselves of all things inherently good; like say, feeding the hungry, curing the ill, individual expression, and generally smiling on occasion, man wandered down the far easier path of capitalistic consumption. Authority was the basis for this new way of living high on the hog, leaving all the underprivileged to suffer while the fat cats in their spacescrapers dined in luxurious penthouse suites, toasting to the demise of ancient culture and the rise of corporate defense conglomerates. By the end of the 21st century, it was all about selling fossil fuels, weapons manufacturing, and the mighty families that had long histories of financing and in some cases starting world wars. The Commander Hunt was not a bad man, but a mere puppet in a theater of politicians who's entertainment was watching the extent of how wealthy one could get while the masses fall into further debt of their indentured parents that most of us refer to as banking institutions today. Sanjy had flipped out on the Commander who was trying to impress his authority on the group. Sanjit realized at that moment he had gone completely overboard. Why does he do that?! This poor man was just tied and quartered before all of them. Stripped void of his most coveted possession; the ability to pretend he's an important powerful person. On the inside he's an insecure boy who only organizes wars and kills people to compensate for a lack of knowledge of how to form an identity without simply copying everyone else. He answers to someone else, and that keeps him happy, simple, and without the burden of figuring out who he is in the first place. Was the Commander a mean tyrant? Was the Commander an artist? A dancer? Or perhaps a mad fashion designer struggling to break free of galactic clothing fads?!? Sanjit wasn't sure, but he knew that if they continued to follow this man, or allow him to represent them, they would surely be dead before they reached the mountain of which they sought. After a few minutes the moment dissipated and Sanjit had a chance to apologize to the Commander who was now the cowardly tiger crying on Sanjit's tiny tiny shoulder. The Commander apologized back for having been such a poor leader. Dr. Smutts on the other hand was numb. She couldn't care one lick about the problems of the now defunked U.P. crew. No one was bleeding that she knew of, so her secondary directive was not being ignored. She stood up tall, pulled her head back, and took in a long deep breath. A small drop of what appeared to be rain perched itself on her left cheek. The coolness of the water was in great contrast to the hot sticky mess that had become her overcoat for the day. She began to smile gently as more drops began to settle onto her face with the now growing wind. Blown from the leafs of nearby trees, Dr. Smutts was starting to feel as if she was standing next to a bustling waterfall, catching the mist of cascading sheets of icy water. Her mood was improving. Her mind was starting to swim with spiraling visions of her childhood. She was wearing a ballerina costume about to do a pirouette leap off the 30 foot cliff into a perfect pool of calm crystal clear spring water...when... BAAAAAHOOOOOOSHHH!!!! BLAM!!!!!! Every molecule in Dr. Smutts body was rattled with a shockwave unlike anything she had felt before. Her smooth silky body had been shaken into what felt like a carefully stacked mound of course dust. Energy and heat quaffed against her back as a towering tree trunk began to slowly lean with ever increasing speed towards her modest frame. She broke from her stunned deafness to notice a horrible looking face embedded inside the massive midsection of the one thousand foot tall beastly tree. "Watch out!!!!!!!!!!" Bellowed Hitchy as Sanjit just stood and stared like a lump of coal that had missed its heroic target of being thrown into the boiling steam engine. And at this precise moment a huffing Commander leapt into the Dr's view, gently placing his immense forearm around her midsection and whisked her off her feet. The now moaning tree fell to the edge of the cliff attempted to brace for the impact with its futile lower limbs. Its top heavy upper half whipping the now severed portion over the deep drop off which had no pure mountain stream, or anything remotely pleasant for any travelers lost in the jungle. The tree hit the ground with a cracking roar of death. Dr. Smutts who soon fell from the arm of the Commander stood in shock. She craned her head around to look at the bunch of them growing more and more irate with every passing moment. "What the hell are you doing?!" She blurted. "Nafoo Mind Trees." Hitchy mangled. "Nafoo what?!" "I read it about them in the U.P. security summary back in space on our way here. Dees here trees aren't trees at all, but organic predators that use mind control to lure victims into killing themselves. I knew he was around here somewhere, but I needed you to bait him." "You used me as bait you stupid bastard!?" "Sorry, I did find him, and you didn't end up jumping off that cliff." "Yes, but I nearly did now didn't I?" Smutts spat into Hitchy's face. "And YOU! You just stood there like a Drogonian Hogmount staring into the head beams of a local sand vessel! I mean, why didn't you save me?!" Smutts said waving her hands at Sanjy. Sanjy just stood there with his mouth hanging open. "I, I, I thought I was looking at an Arc Angel from heaven." Sanjit said in a soft amazed tone while studying Dr. Smutts face for the resemblance of his recent vision. "then all the sudden the Commander swooped out of nowhere and plucked you from the cloud." "Uhnnnnnnnnn....." A voice from just over the hill rang. The group was startled for a moment bracing themselves for another attack from an angry Nafoo Mind Tree. After a few seconds and another whale, the commander slipped out from under a pile of branches, now almost entirely void of any body paint. "What in the bloody hell happen to you?!" Sanjit pressed. The Commander pushed himself from the ground like a newly born mare standing for the first time. He struggled to get his eyes open as he blew leafs and debris from his lips. "I just had the strangest thing happen. It would appear that I had recently been thrust into a rugby match back at my old academy. I was rushing for the last 20 yards when all the sudden I was tripped up by old Mitch Raddlewalk. He was never a good sport about losing a good push-shove. Used to wet himself during a pileup just to throw you off your game." "Stop! We don't need to hear anymore..." Smutts said covering her ears. The Commander was notorious for getting stuck in run-on blatherings in moments when speaking is in utmost premium. "That was ME you grabbed there bucko...not some inflated, dead, pig-skin!" "Please calm down!" Sanjy begged. "Calm down? Calm down?! I just went from a warm functional command ship, to a festering jungle basin filled with god knows what kinds of indigenous species, many of which LOVE to climb up my pristine half shaven legs, and the Commander her thinks I'm a play-toy from the Nafoo Sports Emporium, and you want me to calm down?! Was it the soul piercing shockwave of the Hitchy's matter canon that should have let me know that my very next emotion was one of serene relaxation?" The jungle echoed Dr. Smutts shouting syllables. The group stood stunned trying to see if she was done screaming. None of the men were good with female confrontation, and she was most certainly confronting each of them simultaneously. "She certainly has a way with words doesn't she?" The Commander muttered. "Commander, shut it! Hitchy? What's our status? Are we safe to continue down this path towards the mountain?" "Oh yeah. We just have to head back down towards the valley area. These mind controlling trees only grow near the mountains due to the fact they've got this mineral thing with the ground or something like that. I don't actually remember why, but that's the deal." "Hitchy, if you knew they were here, and that we had the distinct option of walking down there, why didn't you bother telling anyone?!" "Oh, I've never seen a Mind Tree before." It was true. Hitchy had never seen a Nafoo Mind Tree before, or as they were commonly referred by the native inhabitants Ancient Dream Lords. The trees weren't actually the menacing creatures that the U.P. agriculturalists had documented. The U.P. commanders had given strict orders to categorize as many species on Nafoolina into the aggressor Phylum, Class, Order species tables. For the more aggressive Nafoolina was, the easier it would be for the U.P. to inflate their already bulging annual budgets with weapons and fleet expansion bills that keep commanders of the U.P. happy, content, and in the deep pockets of those who manufacture those very weapons. If a kick-back was a subtle bribe in reverse, the payments made to the commanders of the U.P. from the weapons and galactic defense contracts would be a punch in the pants strong enough to reverse anyone's biology sex forever. The U.P. was a filthy organization packed with complex conspiracies so deep and entangled that not even the most powerful computers of the universe could track their trails of infinite corruption. The crew of our U.P. 1-1-3-1:7-A-1 was about to get a crash course in "How the universe really works." And at least one of them won't understand a lick of it.