Berries and Apples and Oranges, Oh My

Posted on Sun 6th Nov, 2016 @ 12:50am by

467 words; about a 2 minute read

Mission: Cloak & Dagger
Location: Hydroponics, Deck 2001
Timeline: MD 3, 1045

Hieronymus Block was bored. When Starfleet had returned to Protector, there'd been a lot to do. The farms had cut back under the control of the Federation Civilian Defense Authority. The FCDA hadn't kept as many personnel on base, and the base had been much quieter under their hand. With Starfleet back at the helm, things had picked up quite a bit. The Promenade was filling up again.

But still, Hieronymus Block was bored. He knew his job. He'd done it for half a century, hadn't he, one base or another? There was nothing new. Trim the pea plants. Make sure the strawberries had adequate nutrients. See that the broccoli had plenty of sunlight. Besides, most of his job was strictly sensor monitoring these days. Hydroponics wasn't what it used to be. He sighed.

He'd brought all the bays back into production now. He needed something else to interest him, a new project, something to plan. He began imagining what else he could grow in the bays allotted to him. Of course, things weren't so busy he couldn't get more space, if he wanted it. What would he grow if he added to the food production cycle? Not more of anything. They grew plenty of potatoes, no matter they were the most popular Earth food the stars had adopted.

Oranges. That's what he'd like. It was all very well to have strawberries and blackberries, but a good orange. Now THAT would be something. He'd tried. Any number of times, he'd thought he was close to a variety that would grow in water and nutrients over the long term, but they always withered away before producing more than a dozen fruits. Apples he'd been able to get as many as five seasons out of, but oranges liked their dirt. Yep, he'd plant an orange grove if he had enough space and enough dirt.

He leaned back in his chair, after checking all the sensors, and dreamed about an orange grove, stretching into the far distance. He wondered if the base commander ... what was his name? Arnold? No, no. She was gone, part of the FCDA. Drake. That was it, Drake. He wondered if Drake would give him a whole deck. There were a lot of empty ones down at the bottom of the starbase. Well, empty except for a little equipment. He could grow trees around the equipment.

Maybe he'd have a talk with this Drake fella. See if he couldn't get a deck out of him. With fast growth procedures, he could have some trees up in a year, producing oranges in two. Maybe he could present it as an item for export. Nah, they couldn't grow that many, not on a whole deck, but still ... 100,000 people on the base, they could use some oranges. Yep. Oranges.

 

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