[AU] We Have A Garden?

Posted on Mon Jun 22nd, 2020 @ 6:25am by Captain Nycolas Temple & Lieutenant Kalin Brennan-Griffin PhD
Edited on on Fri Jul 10th, 2020 @ 5:00pm

Mission: Divided We Fall
Location: Deck 2

A Mission Post by Captain Nycolas Temple & Lieutenant Kalin 'Shae' Brennan-Griffin PhD
Mission: Divided We Fall
Location: Deck 2
Timeline:
Wed Jul 25th, 2018 @ 3:57pm


It was almost time! Shae had been hiding a big secret and it was almost time to reveal the fruits of her labors: fruit! Literal fruit! And vegetables and tubers and legumes and so much more! She wanted to shout she was so giddy, but she didn't want to draw attention to this little garden; she was, after all, under orders to keep this a secret!

It had been during her first hormonal cycle in the Bubble that she had discovered that with a little tweaking (okay, a lot of tweaking, she had been bored out of her mind being isolated for days) that the replicators could still work. The problem with actually using them was that without the computer, there was no index of the replicator patterns being stored in that particular replicator, so there was no way to know what exactly was being made when the replicator was activated, and an even bigger problem was that complex items would consume vast amounts of power to create, not to mention there wasn't much replicator matter stored in the individual units. But that was when Shae discovered something wonderful! Seeds for planting were hard-coded into the replicators for emergencies such as these!

So Shae managed to isolate these hard-coded patterns and began replicating! She had some lavender and lemongrass growing in the window behind her couch (before they had lost deck 3) and she ripped it all out the pots to plant these new seeds! When her hormone cycle had finally ended, a near delirious Shae showed up to reclaim her husband from his 'sleepover' with Nyx while proudly showing off the sprouting seedlings! It was then that Nyx had sworn her to secrecy; he wanted to make sure they could make this garden work before the crew could get their hopes up.

After a few more days, Shae's head cleared enough to think about how to make this garden work. Finally, she decided to take advantage of the temporal distortion on the ship, isolating a couple of rooms and an escape pod in one of the stronger time dilations. The pod had to be isolated from the rest of the network of pods powering the shields, they needed the power for the lights to help the garden grow, and she modified the waste management system to act as a composter to help provide a growth medium, and within the distorted temporal ripple to speed things along, the garden grew like wild! With each plant that successfully grew to bear fruit, Shae would use the harvest to plant more and more crops, and the garden had finally reached a point where it could support the crew! She had maintained her control to not sample the produce, that wouldn't be fair to the others, but the berries she was currently tending to looked so juicy and smelled so sweet! She wanted to taste one, but she decided it would be better to enjoy that first taste with the rest of the crew so they could all enjoy it together!

Stealing himself away from his usual patrol duties - which, in reality, no one was really maintaining except for Griffin - Nyx looked around the corridor for any unwanted spectators before slipping into the unused office that housed their secret garden. He closed the door quickly behind him before turning around to see the luscious nursery that Shae had created.

"This is amazing!" He exclaimed, before realising he was talking to loud. "I swear these plants look weeks older than when I last saw them."

"I think they might be," Shae remarked with a grin as she finished patting down some fresh compost around a patch of strawberries, then she dusted off her hands and rose to her paws. "A lot of it's ready for harvesting. How do we want to break it to the crew?" she asked Nyx. "My thoughts are that any hard feelings would be easy to dismiss with a full belly, so I vote we make a nice dinner to break the news."

Nyx frowned as he looked around. “Yes, we should do something special. But my cooking skills are particularly lacking; Ems was always better around the kitchen.” He paused for a moment then shrugged. “Anyway, I’m happy to help prepare and assist if you know a good recipe?”

"I can get by, but my real strength is baking, which we can't do because wheat requires far too much space to have enough to make anything, plus we lack the butter and eggs to make baking feasible..." Shae sighed. "To start with, I was thinking a nice mixed bean soup and maybe some herb roasted vegetables; it's simple and would be easy enough to do with just the two of us. Once we get everything picked and cleaned, then we can get Cailus to help us smuggle the goods to the Observation Lounge." Already she was starting to work out in her head the logistics of how they were going to get everything up one deck.

"That would work. Something hearty and flavourful." Nyx replied, managing a smile for the first time in weeks. "What if I called a meeting on the Bridge to keep everyone distracted?"

"Oh, that could work!" Shae replied with some excitement. "So, ready to get your hands dirty, Captain?" she asked playfully as walked him around to some potatoes and carrots that needed pulling. "Or perhaps you would rather pick and shell the beans? Ooh, you could get started on the soybeans so we can have some soy milk ready for little Aurora!"

Rumor was that Krysia had been supplementing Aurora's feedings with powdered milk and that they were almost out of it; this would surely put the worried mother's mind at ease, not to mention the soy milk would likely be easier on the baby's stomach than the rough powdered milk!

"Okay, a bucket, and here's the soybeans," Shae said as she picked up a shallow bucket and showed him to the right plants. Not knowing if he'd ever picked beans before, she picked a pod off the plant and showed him how to pop it open, letting the beans fall into the bucket. "Just like that and leave the empty pods on the ground, I'll see to it they make it into the compost later," she said, then wandered off to get down into the dirt and start pulling up potatoes, humming cheerfully as she worked elbow deep in dirt.

Nyx had started following along quietly. It had been so long since he had done something normal and domestic like this. He'd spent the last several months feeling like a deposed King awaiting execution, he'd forgotten the simple pleasure of gardening and cooking. And he was beginning to wonder if there wasn't some merit in trying to find more comfort and homeliness in this relentless situation; trying to make a life for themselves instead of only just trying to escape.

"You know." He said slowly, after getting into the rhythm of popping beans. "We haven't spoken much about Krysia and that day. Have you talked to her at all?"

Shae paused in her work and the humming immediately ceased. "No, I haven't," Shae replied after a moment as she continued to pull up potatoes. "I'm so ashamed of my actions that day that I've a hard time looking her in the eyes when we cross paths. And yet each time I think about her, I keep feeling that anger, like now that the genie is out of the bottle I can't put the lid back on it. I know it's not right and the part of me that's rational and reasonable knows this, she could have been pregnant before we got here, there's no way she could have know, I shouldn't be angry at her for that! But then if she did get pregnant in the Bubble, how could she be so careless?" Shae paused once again, heaving a heavy sigh.

"I've been wanting to apologize to her ever since our confrontation, but I can't bring myself to feel sorry for what I said. Don't get me wrong, I never would have said something like that under normal circumstances, I know how to compartmentalize what I feel apart from what I should say, and I never thought that those feelings ran deep enough to provoke that reaction during my... you know... but I meant every word I said. I feel awful about how I said it, about making her feel like I would have harmed her, or even Aurora for that matter, and looking back on it, the whole display was so utterly humiliating and I do regret saying those things to her when I should have kept them to myself, but I don't feel sorry for the words. The truth is, I'm jealous; she has her family, her beautiful child, and she can so easily dismiss rules and regulations like it doesn't matter to her, but it should matter! But I guess I did a good job of pushing it all down because I didn't realize until that day just how angry that made me," Shae confessed.

Nyx gave a frown, though his head was nodding along silently. This had been his own experience with the situation, too. There was no training in Starfleet Academy that prepared one for the difficult minefield of bubble universes, unexpected pregnancies, and the emotional fallout of extremely different points of view. To Kaleri and Smith, they had done nothing wrong. They were overjoyed with their baby, as any parent would be, and the consequences to everyone else were secondary. In most cases this would have been a joyous occasion and Nyx had no doubt that Shae would have been at least pleased for them in other circumstances. But the reality of their situation had been brought to bear against the couple when he demoted them for their recklessness. In the same vein, Shae saw nothing wrong with expressing her feelings over the matter, despite the concern and fear it had caused Kaleri. Again, in most cases this would have been an open and shut disciplinary matter, but there was Shae's biological cycles and the circumstances of the bubble universe complicated matters. And so Nyx had to step into the minefield once again.

"I agree that it is utterly unfair." Nyx said. "Our children are back home, our lives have been disrupted, and there's not been a moment this entire time we've been stuck here that I haven't felt this chasm of sadness because of that. I miss my darling girl and my wife so much, it breaks my heart to think about them. When I heard the news about Kaleri and Smith, I'm sure I felt the same bout of jealousy you did and it may have even influenced my decision as a Captain. But..." He took a breath, finally looking over to Shae. "I had delivered a punishment for their actions already. Several months ago. I know you're upset by their happiness, but it wasn't your place to confront her when I had already made my decision."

Shae relaxed back into a squat and used the back of her hand to rub at an itch on her forehead, the she draped her arms over her knees. "Please don't misunderstand, Captain, I know that what I did was wrong and I fully expect and accept disciplinary action," she said as diplomatically as she could, then resumed her collection of potatoes. "I feel what I feel and I have no remorse for that, but I know that sometimes there's a line that shouldn't be crossed between feeling something and saying it aloud; I know it was inappropriate, I know my conduct was unbecoming of an Officer, and I know I deserve a court marshal if for no other reason because I dared to lay a hand on my Commanding Officer. I'm appalled by what I did, and I tried to stop myself but I couldn't; I shouldn't have lost control like that, and I don't say this to try to excuse my actions because what I did was inexcusable, I just want you to understand that..."Another sigh followed as she struggled to explain herself. "I want you to understand that I'm not human. I know I was raised by humans, I assimilated the culture, but there is an element within me that is not congruent with typical human behavior, and I do my best to moderate that element within me so that I fit in properly, but circumstances propelled the situation out of my ability to control this part of myself, and I am so sorry for that."

“Our crew is full of people who are not human, or haven’t been raised in typical circumstances.” Nyx rejoined gently, his tone still soft and calm. “Regardless of your origins and history, you are Starfleet now. I don’t expect you to perfectly assimilate to human culture, but I do expect an adherence to Starfleet protocols.” He paused, popping a particularly stubborn pea with great satisfaction. “That will include excluding yourself from the crew during your cycles and undertaking mandatory training to limit the extreme impact they have on your personality. I can’t have one of my finest officers, and one of the greatest scientists I’ve ever met, being derailed like this. Especially not in this damn Bubble.”

"The bubble is half the problem..." Shae grumbled. "This kind of isolation is dangerous for a crew, which is was Starfleet goes to such lengths to find ways to mitigate it. But here, we have no choice but to pace in this ever-shrinking cage, and being cooped up in those pods, it's like- like being in the tiny cell Section 31 used to keep me in when they were testing on me. And I know everyone is having a hard time here, I'm not trying to belittle that, I just don't know how to explain what is going on in my head! I had to show Cailus to help him understand..." Shae gathered the potatoes into a bin and moved them over to a tub of water she had already prepared for this and began scrubbing the dirt from the potatoes with a brush and depositing them into another bin. "I am trying my hardest to keep it together, Nyx, but this Bubble is making me go mad, and I fear that I may be fighting a losing battle..." she added, indicating that she was struggling with issues much deeper than the 'mere' loss of control over her instincts.

While Shae's back was turned, Nyx cheekily popped one of the peas directly into his mouth. "We have to make the most of the little victories." He said between chews. "Like this garden you've created. It's scientific genius and incredibly thoughtful at the same time. You've solved a serious problem that the crew have been facing in terms of our nutritional needs, and you've shown selfless generosity in offering the produce to everyone. I know you're struggling, but you have to trust that your ability as a Starfleet officer can pull you through." He looked to her with an intense stare. "We're in the bunker, enemy's advancing, but we've got each other. As long as we have that, we'll be fine."

"I'm doing my best, Nyx, and I promise you I'm not giving up," Shae replied, offering him a small smile. "As for this garden, I can't wait for the big reveal! I'm hoping this will help bring everyone together, create some common ground and lift our moods. I know a nice filling meal would certainly lift my spirits!" she remarked. "You doing okay with those beans over there?"

"They're tasty." Nyx replied with a grin. "I had to taste-test, of course, to ensure it was edible. But I think this will be a great lift for everybody." He looked down to his pile of peas with a satisfied nod. "What's next?"

"Cheater, but the Captain does have the prerogative..." Shae said with soft laugh, surprised she could laugh after all that had happened recently. "Anyway, those were just the soybeans for Aurora, now we have the beans for the soup. Although if you're bored with beans, you can do the onions, garlic, and carrots? Those are pretty easy, just grab and pull, I'll clean them off."

Nyx saw a large bladed chef's knife on the counter, the handle just hanging off the edge slightly. He gave it a firm tap and as the knife flipped in the air, he grabbed it with his other hand, his fingers wrapping around the black handle in just the right position. "How about some chopping? I need to work out some frustrations." He laughed.

"Nice blade work," Shae said, bringing the potatoes she had washed over to Nyx. "When you're done with this, I should have the carrots and onions ready for you, then we can start the first soup." Things were looking up with this garden, and Shae hopped it would be enough to help carry the crew forward.

"Ah-maze-ing." Nyx happily bopped along, allowing his excitement to be evident. This reminded him of times in the kitchen with Emilie, cooking together in their first apartment, some cheery pop song playing in the background. "I've never been so eager to have soup." He laughed.

"Me either," Shae said with an agreeing nod. "But it's going to be so good to eat real food, and once we get everyone involved, we'll be able to work out a varied menu, and with the extra hands we might actually be able to expand, we could be comfortably full everyday!" A moment passed and Shae looked up from the carrots she was pulling, contemplating something, but in the end she chose to remain silent and went back to pulling carrots.

OFF