Foreshadowing- Lilies of the Field

Posted on Tue 8th Oct, 2024 @ 4:54pm by Captain Gordon Francis & Commander Paul Graves PsyD & Khellian s'Siedhri MD & Calia Welkynd & Kya Adtanis

1,694 words; about a 8 minute read

Mission: The Phoenix Gamble
Location: Garden District, Formerly known as Brown Sector
Timeline: MD10

-Start-

{Garden District; formerly Brown Sector}

The Garland Walk was a source of pride for the residents of the Garden District. Native life abounded, pollinators were in flight, and the smell of honeysuckle hung in the moist haze over the crops as they tenderly shot from the soil. A rising sunlight warmed their faces, simulated easily by the holodeck components allowing for full day and night cycles. over their expanse of flowers and crops. Dotted like toadstools, small devices throughout the soils monitored and tended the crops, feeding nutrients to the aeroponics and hydroponics greenhouses at their center. They learned the ways of pioneering new worlds here, and also a new way of living.

A scream from one of the children sounded immediate alarm, those in range of it came running.

Everyone had gathered around Ammka, a young Acamarian lady of fourteen, whose pained face was scrunched into red splotches. She had never experienced pain like this before, falls, scapes, cuts, but this was different. She had no idea what happened, another contributor to her pain was fear. One moment, she ran in the fields of wildflowers and clover patches, knee high alfalfa and a dozen other cover crops destined to be turned under for their soil to become enriched. There was a sudden deep searing pain in her neck and pain coursed down her whole body. Instinct from long ago prompted her to swat at the point of pain, and a bulky winged thing fell to her hard strike.

Fuzz at its legs and thorax made it seem harmless, but Ammka went into a panic right away. A child of the starship life, she had never known flying insects outside of books and holoprograms where they absolutely DID NOT bite. In an only slightly embellished form of shock she fell to her knees then back solidly believing her death was upon her. The other children circled, unsure of what to do, until Jana, one of the mothers whose children ran the fields as well arrived.

"Ammka! Did this sting you?" She saw the kids pointing and it was apparent at the site of the reddening blister on the young lady's neck what had happened.

Ammka was crying and replied almost exclusively in vowels, "yea i..i...it bid meeeee hoo uhuhuh hooo my neeek."

Jana waved down the attention of another in the field, "Get the field kit, it's a bee sting!"

One by one, the eyes of the little ones turned to Jana, one of them asked, "There's different kinda stings? Like C-Stings and D-Stings?"

***

{Zodiac- Replimat}

Kya had a full hour of events lined up, a tour of the plans they had all discussed coming to fruition. She waited at the Replimat for the Captain and Dr. Graves to arrive. Her mind raced ahead, first was the cleaned up Zodiac, next was a walk along the Orchard Groves, then the Garland Zone where flowers were to be grown year round, encouraging native insect life. Then the Souk, with all of the sludge cleaned and proper lighting, ventilation, repairs to EPS grid, the sector was vibrant. It all concluded at the CRC, which had over time become a functional city hall to the twelve thousand refugees here, and grown to serve so much more. The recent epidemic had actually served to galvanize the community and prompted a civic sense of community, never before had this temporary housing felt more like her real home.

She realized too late her appointment was canceled on the online agenda. Senior Staff had been called to an emergency. As it had been a priority situation they requested a reschedule. To be given a rain check was a common occurrence, Brown Sector had only ever been a place to stick refugees while the law or other circumstances sorted it all out. She tucked the personal device away, annoyed only with herself. Kya took the dishes to the return tray, checking out of habit the scant return of credits occurred. The penny pinching mindset was drilled into her, returning the mugs offered a rebate to reduce staffing needs and she had relied on that many times. These days, she had more than enough real food in the home closets, and an energy allowance reserve in the millions thanks to the schemes they had pulled off over the years. She often fantasized taking them to the shipyard and seeing what she could get, a shuttle of her own perhaps?

Renato had long ago allocated his full balance to her accounts every day the moment it was reset, she had always made sure he didn't go hungry or sleep in the cold. Looking around as she walked, there was nothing but the hustle and bustle of life. That Brown Sector had grown from a refugee camp sprawled across a few decks, to a concentration of non-starfleet entities that made it a city-state of sorts, under the command of the larger military base. however, respect and logistics had proven that Starfleet needed to use a gentle hand, and the flexibility of the non Starfleet ground offered greater Humanitarian opportunity. Even enemies of the Federation who needed a space to live due to calamity could find a home for many months or years there. There were hundreds of Romulans, dozens every month coming to live here, because the Federation transport which rescued them wasn't going anywhere else.

Flower archways lined in perpendicular fashion to her path crossed overhead as she pondered how everything was different. Renato was light years away reclaiming a family and home that had been ripped from him, she was in charge of a resource center becoming a town hall, Starfleet had found the balance of oversight and autonomy to allow for real help to be given to people... the dark days were over. Lexy was a teenager and doing well in school. Hasskin has finally caught up to his age group thanks for advanced care from the massively upgraded schools for them. Time had brought great strife and this wondrous point of abundance. Qaraq had become an investor, saving a few places from closing and offering employment to the locals. the micro economy was even coming to her CRC as she had hired staff to attend to the halfway house for new arrivals.

The open air gardens on her level changed each day, some plants having 24 hour growth and harvest cycles, there was far more than mud and fishbone at work. Kya loved to take the stairs, a winding auxiliary staircase adjacent to turbolifts to be used as overflow offered an amazing solitary view of the expansive forty acre deck apportionment. Overhead cranes worked the heavy lifting, real insects, real worms and soil, experimental orchards, testbeds for the folks shipping out to get real experience to their new worlds right here in a Starbase. The space inside the Vanguard class Starbase was truly impressive, and seeing it form over time had been an adventure. The fact she was alone here returned to her senses and she walked on, taking the stairs down and entering the anteroom for the alleys of the Souk.

***

It had been something of an upheaval for the factions who used to lord over this area. They still did, of course but in different ways since the epidemic had wiped out one faction nearly to extinction and Calia and Auric had done some significant work to reorganize the place. The faction territories now, were still not finished, but their areas featured the things they had based their names off of. The prisma's who were nearly wiped out, had built a memorial wall, filled with pictures of those lost to build this area back to beauty.

Qaraq had to smile looking out and observing the new look of what had formally been the drab-looking slum of Brown Sector, now known as the Garden District. There was a lot to absorb. Qaraq had not been a “hands on” part of the transformation. Broots were not born with green thumbs. However, he managed to save a few businesses from collapsing during the process, and was able to create some new jobs for people.

Qaraq had never been to a world with much agriculture. Delavi had no jungles or forests, and there certainly wasn't anything to farm there. It was a business headquarters, a hub for those chased and anonymous. So he was dumbfounded as he walked through one of the garden trails, his eyes aglow with the innocent wonder of a child.

He stopped to talk to a man who was sweeping grass off the trail. The man was older, Bajoran, and garbed in grass-stained denim jeans and a white t-shirt with dirt and grass splotches all over.

“This is a beautiful place,” Qaraq said to the man.

“Certainly looks better, doesn't it?” the old man said.

“Yes!” Qaraq said. “What is the name of that bug on your shoulder?”

The man glanced. “Ah! I didn't even notice it.” He swished it away with a gentle stroke of his hand. “I believe it's called a monarch butterfly. An Earth insect. Much better than the mosquitoes. Butterflies don't bite you.”

Qaraq put his hands on his hips and looked around. “Brown Sector really has changed for the better.”

“If you say so,” said the man. “It certainly looks a lot better. Before this I made a pittance sweeping trash off the ground. Now I make a pittance sweeping grass off the same ground. But at least there are butterflies now, right?”

Qaraq nodded. “The smell is gone too. And there are plenty of jobs available, if you want to do something other than sweeping.”

“You mean like pick carrots or something?” the old man said, stopping his sweeping and leaning on his broom. “I'd make a pittance doing that too.”

“But...” Qaraq started. The man cut him off.

“You can change the look of this place all you want. You can create new jobs, new opportunities, ways to improve oneself. But no matter what, you're always going to have people just sweeping and making diddly-squat.” He resumed his sweeping and pushed past Qaraq. “But at least there are butterflies.”

END

 

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