Sorting samples.

Posted on Fri 7th Jan, 2022 @ 11:47am by Lieutenant Claire Minelan

709 words; about a 4 minute read

Mission: A Good Day to Hunt
Location: Hydroponics Bay 3
Timeline: MD 4 0800

Vials and vials of water sat arrayed in neatly labeled trays on a small desk in the main laboratory. Rattling as the desk was bumped in a musical cacophony of clinks and chinks. The sound of water dripping and the scrape of glass on glass was no longer something she heard consciously, but a background softness that made her sleepy. Occasionally the sound of the tink of glass on itself would make her tingle from head to foot.

The process was simple enough. Take a sample from the labelled container- take a drop and place it in the center of a slide. Swipe another slide overtop and spray with fixative. Wait 15 seconds and then label, placing under the microscope. Repeat ad infinitum. Personally Claire hated the mundane bits of being a scientist, especially when she was doing something outside of her set of skills. The subtle ASMR of the act was the only worthwhile thing about the act other than the result she didn't yet have. She was a botanist first and foremost, but aquaponics sort of fell within her purview. It was a stretch, as many things were about this assignment. She'd done her thesis on feeding planets using ancient techniques...and here she was testing water samples.

Then came the biological count, where the computer analyzed samples of the water to give them a numeric value for each and every section where the water could be tested. Vat. Intake Pipe. Outlet pipe. Recycling collector. Pre-filter reservoir. Filter reservoir. Additives reservoir. Oxygenation tank. Each one in order, each slide in its proper place and settled in the order that she'd set up.

She ordered the testing in the path that the water flowed through the enormous system, tracking the possible locations of contaminants and entry locations for the bacteria themselves. It could be that the whole filter system is bad. We could just start from scratch. That would be expensive and time consuming. They'd probably assign me to the damn install too.

"Computer, display bacterial count."

A diagram appeared in three dimensions before her, being transmitted by the PADD. What was it about the filtration mechanism that was getting an increase in bacterial load, rather than a decrease? The sharp bar after the filter indicated the huge load of bacteria. This sort of filter was supposed to eradicate bacteria, and it held a UV buffer so it could do just that. It didn't make any sense that it was increasing the bacteria. The UV system. She hadn't actually run a diagnostic on the UV system.

"Computer are all components of the UV bacterial removal system active and working properly?"

"Affirmative" the computer intoned after a moment.

In a fit of pure pique she kicked the side of the massive filter system, and from the very base where the biological components were added to the water, so they could be mixed before being spread into the main vat, there was a soft crunchy sound. Claire almost didn't register it, in the face of her own anger and frustration, but when it finally trickled into her consciousness that she HAD heard it, the flame haired scientist stopped dead in her tracks.

"No." she muttered to herself "Not possible."

She kicked it again, purposely this time and there was another crunching sound and the clink of something hard on the floor of the dry vat.

Shuddering, Claire climbed down into the dry vat and picked up the dried carapace of a shrimp. Its tail was intact, and so was it's vein, which held the waste product.

"Of all the stupid, irresponsible, reckless..." she growled as she scanned the desiccated shrimp and found it to be the source of the bacteria that had started this whole problem to begin with. After so much time in the water, the DNA from the person who'd been eating it would be broken down to the point where it was useless to look. That didn't mean that she wasn't going to TRY "To shut down a whole bay and waste days of my time, just because someone can't wait to eat their damn lunch?! Computer, display all personnel that have logged in to this bay prior to my assignment here. "

 

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