Tivoli Gardens

Posted on Wed 20th Feb, 2013 @ 11:12pm by Colonel Horatio Drake & Captain Eee-eee-rie--eeee-eek Nightingale D.Sc & Lieutenant JG Xavier Lee

3,470 words; about a 17 minute read

Mission: http://sb109.sim-station.net/index.php/sim/missions/id/3
Location: Captain's Ready Room
Timeline: Current, Mid-Morning

One might think that after a lifespan of over 150 years, and experiences spanning the Alpha quadrant, Jade Lantz would not be nervous about speaking to a few Starfleet officers. One would be wrong. An entire colony of butterflies had taken up residence in her stomach. This idea, the presentation, wasn't just another catering job or committee report. The Colonel had given her time in front of a few of his senior officers to pitch an idea which was really important to her, an idea she'd researched carefully, and something she really wanted to create.

Lantz straightened the emerald green business suit one more time, smoothing down the knee-length skirt. She'd considered everything from somber robes to her own version of a Starfleet-type jumpsuit, but the suit ... suited her. She felt comfortable in the two-piece garment, and thought she looked like the serious businesswoman she was, not that today was about business.

At length, Jade picked up the PADD with her outline for the presentation, and the detailed report she could flip to anyone else's PADD, should they want it. She drew in a deep breath and let it out, ordering her nerves to be steady and her face serene. She left her quarters and, a few minutes later, presented herself at the Colonel's Ready Room. The door was open, so she walked in to find him sitting behind his desk, leaning back with a thoughtful frown.

"Good morning, Colonel Ashton. Am I disturbing you?" Jade asked.

"Jade! Of course not." he exclaimed, as he spun his chair round and stood up. Despite not knowing the El-Aurian as well as he wanted to, her mere presence produced waves of sereneness and calmness. No matter what he was doing or thinking, this had helped him focus on whatever task was at hand, on this rare occasions he had been in contact with her.

Despite doing so much for the starbase and the civilian community on board, Jade had never asked for anything in return... no favours, no gestures of goodwill. For the first time since arriving at the base, she had now given Ashton an opportunity to repay a tiny amount of the kindness that she gives others everyday.

"How are you?" He moved from behind the desk

Jade liked the man's angular, honest face and the welcome she always sensed from him. She'd been on Starfleet bases and ships for more than a dozen years, and he was the easiest commander with whom she'd dealt. She couldn't imagine an easier one!

"I'm fine, Colonel," she reached to shake his hand. "I hear rumors of a promotion for you. Congratulations. It's well deserved." She took a seat in front of his desk and asked, "Are your Science and Operations Chiefs joining us? I'm very excited about this idea, and I think we can tie it into several base systems, using it to our advantage, but I really want to hear what they think before I get too excited about it." She broke into a smile, and added, "Who am I kidding? It's already too late not to be too excited!"

Ashton smiled, deeply, as he moved to the replicator. "May I get you a drink?"

"No, thank you. Well, maybe. I have an herbal mix in there, Jade #47. It would be great to have a cup of that, not hot, just warm. Thank you," she replied.

He moved back to his desk with the drinks and retook his position, sitting upright in his chair. "It's true, for some strange reason Starfleet have decided to promote me." For a split second, memories came streaming back of his last promotion... Patrick had been there. He had organised a surprise party as the very starbase the Ronnau had been docked at, with so many of their friends.

He cleared his throat and took a sip of his coffee, despite it still being far too hot. "Indeed, Doctor Nightingale and Lieutenant Lee should be with us shortly. I must admit it's such an interesting premise, it's hard not to be excited!"

Jade nodded, setting her cup on the corner of his desk. "I think it is something positive that could help those living here survive other news that might come along." She didn't refer directly to the events surrounding Alpha 49, because it didn't seem appropriate. News was already leaking out, as if the starbase had eyes and ears in the bulkheads. The garden project could distract some and encourage others. It could even become a memorial garden, or perhaps there could be an actual memorial to those whose names might never be known but who had died on the base.

Xavier stepped into the office not really knowing what to expect. He had only been here once before and the mood felt very different this time, a welcomed change. The station felt all doom and gloom as of late, people were starting to hear of what happened down on 1030 and it felt as though Xavier couldn't escape his nightmares, asleep or not they haunted him. So it was nice to step into the Colonel's office and see smiles instead of frowns and smell tea instead of 'gotta-stay-awake-coffee'.

"You wished to see me?" The young Betazoid asked a little perplexed.

"Ah, Mr. Lee! Please, help yourself to a drink and then take a seat" Ashton had setup three chairs on the other side of his desk, but was now wondering whether the sofas might have been a better option.

"Thank you Sir," Xavier said as he made his way over to the replicator. He ordered a Raktajino and moved over to the desk. He smiled at the woman whom he vaguely recognised. "It's Jade isn't it?" He asked after skimming Drake's surface thoughts for the correct name; being a telepath had its advantages.

"Yes, Jade Lantz," she smiled at him, but had no time to say more.

Nightingale walked in. Her water appeared greener than normal. "Really, people. Morning shouldn't be a real time of the day." She said, groggily. "I haven't even had my daily de-algafying shower yet. She looked at Xavier, who appeared to be drinking something caffeinated. She approached the replicator. "Triple shot of Caffeine Supplement Four One Seven." She noted. "And anti-algae additive seven one six."

The replicator produced four glasses of odd looking substances. She took the Blue one first, and simply withdrew it into the water field. It quickly began interacting with the green stuff in her field, and slowly, her water turned to a normal color. Once that was done, she grabbed the other three, and a brownish substance began entering the water. She inhaled deeply. "Ahhh... Caffeine. Nothing like caffeine." She said, still groggy. "I presume there's a reason for waking someone up before noon." She added, still not quite off third shift yet.

Jade waited for the Colonel to address that issue, taking the time to examine the Velorian discreetly. She'd rarely interacted with the species, and this one hadn't entered Orchids & Jazz yet. She was a very attractive shade of blue, and Jade made a mental note that it would look good with orchids. She hoped the woman would volunteer for the Tivoli project. Not only would her expertise be helpful, but she looked interesting and unique, a combination the El Aurian could never resist. And addicted to coffee, she thought, taking note of the combination ordered.

It was becoming increasingly obvious that Doctor Nightingale was not one for calling her superiors 'sir'. Whilst this was common among many species, Starfleet still required it. Back in his 'hay day', Ashton would have stamped it out in no time. But these days, he really didn't care.

"If you'd take a seat, Doctor, you'll be enlightened presently" He smiled.

Jade took a deep breath and let it out before beginning. "I have a proposal to make, and since it concerns both your departments, or at least requires the help of both of them, he suggested I make it to you together. Essentially, I would like the Merchant Association to work with Starfleet to build a garden on the base."

She laid out a large drawing she'd had done showing three elevations of the garden. "I've called it Tivoli Gardens, after an ancient garden on Earth. You can see the stream and waterfall, with a water park for recreation. Here on the beach, I've added sand volleyball courts for more recreation and exercise.

"There could be fishing along the stream, either to throw back, or perhaps take to a booth and have cooked for a picnic dinner. The entire water system could become part of the water reclamation process, as well." She tried to gauge the reaction of the two department heads, but it was hard to tell. She was getting more of a positive feeling than a negative one though.

Pointing to two areas on the drawing, she continued. "Many varieties of trees, grass, and flowers would provide picnic and recreation areas. Planting some of the trees as woods would provide walking paths, too, for enjoyment and exercise. They're all very attractive, but many would be a lot of edible, planted in raised platforms. In addition, the trees would provide fresher air recycling, oxygen rich. Children who've grown up on ships and bases could experience natural phenomenon like sunsets, aurora borealis effects, rain, thunderstorms and lightning - all weather controlled, of course. I'm sure the rest of us would enjoy that, too." She smiled at the three listening.

"I'm hoping the entire starbase community would come help build it, make an investment in it, providing increased good community relationships. That's the bare bones of my proposal. What do you think. Is it feasible?" Lantz tried not to appear anxious. She had invested a lot of thought and energy into this, and she knew it was a good idea. What she didn't know was if she could interest the others in making it happen.

"It's not only feasible, Ms. Lantz, there is a certain elegance, and a high degree of brilliance to the concept." Nightingale said, nodding. "There is a piece of technology I've been working on, that will help with fish stocks. It should probably be properly prefaced, first. The Velurian people have a crisis looming, though they are too stubborn to notice it. Evolution has left us with, at best a couple thousand males, for the entire planet, and they are barely capable of feeding themselves. My extrapolations made 150 years ago suggest that within two or three centuries, a plague, or predator, for which we have a few, even in our own waters, will adapt to this, and begin targeting these poor folk, at which point my people will stagnate, and die."

She pulled out a PADD, and linked it to the display in the Captain's Ready room. "This is the prototype plans for a parthenogensis device, which analyzes a race's genetic structure, using a satellite, or internal sensor network, and extrapolates it's gene pool. Thus, when a member of it's species deposits a genetic sample, be it a skin graft, or, ideally, even a collection of hair, the device will be able to use a quantum-improbability based theorem to restructure the genetic structure, to give them an off-spring. Such a device would permit a very vast, and automatically maintained, fish stock, for your stream. I'm also fairly certain that I know at least one botanist who would, quite literally, swoon, at the possibility of helping you rig this up. The plants will benefit most from a combination of time-stamp controlled rainfall and U.V. lighting, though we can mask these things with a hologram." She paused her singing for several moments, while the translator caught up. "Sorry." She said in English, somewhere around the area of quantum-improbability, rather quietly.

Once the translator stopped, she shook her head, and nodded to the Colonel. "One day, sir. One day. I'll get the idea of technobabble in English." She said, with a chuckle.

Drake smiled at the Chief Science Officer, the level of enthusiasm and support was so gratifying. Simply put, if Jade wanted this to happen then it was going to happen. If the relevant HoD's weren't interested in helping, then he would have found someone who was. As it happened, the best people for the job were both ready and willing.

"This is fantastic news! So, when can we begin?" He opened the question up to all three of them.

"Twenty Seven Point Four seconds after we finish with this meeting. I'm already correlating the required personnel with Ops, and alerting members of my staff." Nightingale said, making rapid moves with her fingers, across the Velurian-variant interface of her PADD.

"Well, excellent" Drake gave a sideways glance to Jade at the unusual attributes of their new addition.

Jade hadn't known what to expect, but she was both pleased and surprised by the Velurian's enthusiasm. She hoped the engineer wasn't finding flaws in her summarized plan.

"Lieutenant Lee, you've been unusually quiet?" Drake frowned and smiled at the young officer, knowing full well what the issue was. It was nothing to do with the proposal.

"Sorry Sir," Xavier said with a start. He turned to Jade with a huge grin on his face. "My apologies Jade, your idea is wonderful, too wonderful in fact. It reminds me of G'tari Lands, the area of Betazed where I grew up," he quickly added for context. "You've obviously put a lot of work into this and it will greatly benefit the station and her inhabitants." Xavier couldn't help think of just how much the station needed something like this right now. "I would love to be a part of this project but I do have a few questions, if we have time? You spoke of fish in the stream but would you be introducing other creatures to the garden? Birds? Small mammals?" The fact this was Lee's first question, as opposed to a technical one, showed his level of enthusiasm for the project.

"I think we'll take that as we go. While there are some songbirds it would be nice to have, we also have to consider other implications, such as health, culture and cleanup," she grinned. "Birds can be messy. Other animals, I don't think so at this time. I've thought that further along the road, if it seems a good idea, it would be nice to have a petting zoo. Some traumatized children, and adults, too, respond very well to animals. It could be an educational opportunity for young children, but we have to be careful about numbers, and what we do with animals as they grow. We'll need to have input from others on that."

She thought a moment. "There's also an issue of just what animals from what planet might be suitable for such a place. So, as I said, it's a side issue until we see how the rest of the Gardens come together."

Xavier listened to Jade's response and smiled politely. "Now the technical questions," he said with a smile. "How long do to expect the build to take? Do you have an idea of where you want to do it? And how many of my people do you need?"

"I have given this some thought. We need at least two decks to include the waterfall in the recycling system. It will aerate the water. While we don't have some of the planetary considerations, such as over-fishing or sewage disposal, that might make that desirable, it does oxygenate the water for the species which live in it, making it healthier. It needs to be accessible, but still somewhere we can create the impression of wilderness through part of the park. I'm not sure how much area is available, unused, at the moment," she glanced at Drake, "but you know we can expand to fill any space. I think the minimum would be two decks tall, and half of each deck."

Jade thought for a moment about his other questions. "If we have plenty of volunteers, and most of the equipment and landscape foundations are already fabricated by your department, I think it could be done in as little as two weeks. That's finished to the point of first use. There is going to be ongoing planting, as well as other tweaking of the whole idea that will take far longer. I don't know how many people you can spare for the fabrication phase. Perhaps I'm being optimistic in my estimate for the putting-it-together phase?" She looked at the others uncertainly.

"We'll have a fair amount of volunteers from Science." Nightingale said. "And by volunteers, I mean 'assigned, whether they wish to volunteer, or not'. Forensics is the only team that has any kind of major project in the works, save for the quantum physicists, and they'd be useless on this project, anyways. I would like to take a moment to argue that if you are going to have fish, you'll likely need bugs, and birds, at the very least, as well, so as to keep the ecological maintenance to a minimum. Crows, especially, come recommended, despite a great many people's dislike for the birds. They are particularly good at maintaining the cleanliness of an ecosphere. Aesthetically speaking, bees are required, strictly to pollinate the plants. We can use sonic repulsion fields to keep the birds, and bees, within the ecosphere, and code a comm protocol that will tell comm badges to use a sonic sound that most species won't hear, myself excluded, to keep those bugs, especially, from stinging, or biting anyone."

"Crows?" Xavier said to Nightingale. Though he didn't doubt her logic, he did think there had to be a better type of bird to introduce into the garden. "No offence, but when I think of all the wildlife opportunities that comes with this project, crows are the last thing on my mind," he said with half a smile.

"And, I'm sure, you are quite correct." Nightingale stated. "I will clarify that I said at the very least. There are certainly other good candidates, I'm certain. And an ecosphere is not complete with only one form of avian life."

"I'm sure these are the kinds of details a committee can work out," Jade interposed. "If we want the base community involved, they need input in the plans. Of course, Science will have the final word on species and botany and the engineers will have the final word on how things need to be put together to work. Colonel, do we have an appropriate empty space?" she asked, turning to the base commander.

"Well, there's still over a third of the base that is still inactive and shut down. I'm certain that we can set this up in one of those sections in the mid to lower parts of the base. Lieutenant?" Once again, Drake looked to Lee for confirmation.

Xavier grinned at Drake, he was too distracted before to offer a solution. "Aye Sir. In fact some of the lower decks have already been converted for bio-matter storage. They're offline at the moment, and will need a bit of tweaking but I reckon they would be perfect."

"Well, it's agreed then" Drake smiled at all three then turned his attention to Jade. "Apart from these two, who else would you like on the committee?"

"I think the Head Gardener should be involved, of course. He has a lot of experience here. Perhaps we should invite some of the other species on board?" Jade said doubtfully. "I don't know who would really want to be involved, and I hesitate to ask for volunteers, because you never know who will show up. Still, it seems only fair they help in the planning. Especially if we want their help with the physical labor later," she laughed.

"Indeed.... well, remember this is your project and you decide who's on your team. In fact, I want you to chair the committee... you've got carte blanche over resources, materials and personnel." He hadn't known Jade for long, but his confidence in her was absolute - she was one of these rare individuals that you'd quite happily entrust your life to, only after shortly meeting them.

Jade was surprised at the Colonel's instructions, but she'd never abuse his trust. "Thank you, Sir. We'll build something that you can show off to visiting dignitaries, a little jewel way out here on the edge of nowhere," she smiled at him. "We'll get started right away, as soon as I've spoken to representatives of some other species." She began to gather her things.

Glancing at the other two officers in the room, she added, "Give me a few days, and maybe we can get together and knock around a few ideas, if you want to design some rough drafts?"

 

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