Better Fertilizer

Posted on Sat Jun 15th, 2024 @ 3:17am by Gr'Thor & Lieutenant Kaelyn Carter & Lieutenant JG Tyler Rehman

1,053 words; about a 5 minute read

Mission: Mission 1 - Project Concord
Location: Hydroponics

The Science Technician in charge of Hydroponics was putting in a request, "Lt Carter, I can't grow quality plants with this synthetic soil. The Replicated Stuff isn't quality. We need to stop somewhere and get nitrogen rich soil and fertilizer. If the Captain wants good fruits and vegetables, I need better soil."

No one saw the Klingon Dog come in on all fours sniffing around. He was Vakra's pet, but also a functional member of Security.

Perched on the edge of the workstation in the corner of the main lab, Lieutenant Carter’s thoughts were a few thousand light years away from the Hydroponics bay. Instead the young scientist was absently wondering if her mother would remember to feed her goldfish and if there would ever be a day when civilisation outgrew paperwork.

Which was what had trapped her, and by extension, her assistant chief, in this room for the past hour. Studying in detail their equipment, resources and the how much of both had survived the ship’s arrival here. Fortunately they had not lost any members of the science staff but some of the equipment and storage units had taken some damage. None of which was - understandably - high on engineering’s priority list.

“We could …” she was starting to suggest repurposing on of the labs when her PaDD beeped, signalling a message. Too curious to ignore it, she accessed it and frowned. “Fancy a trip to Hydroponics to stretch our legs?”

In reality, Tyler Rehman would have liked to be anywhere but here. He had helped concerning the sensors and became the bridge liaison to the engineering when the sensors picked up elements that could not be found in any of their databases. He had checked on Stellar Cartography and everything was fine there. Now he stood with Lieutenant Carter, a PaDD in his hand, and several more sitting on the workstation. He was a brilliant mathematician, yet he was stuck looking over paperwork. It was fine, I guess, he thought to himself.

When the other lieutenant addressed him, he looked up from the PaDD and gave a nod. "I'd rather look at plants than any more of these," Tyler said, holding up the PaDD.

It was not a long trip, but it felt good to have the distraction. “Crewman Chi’ke, you wanted to talk about …. Oh, hello…” initially focused on the man on duty, the scientist noticed they had company. “And you must be Gr’Thor. Unless we have other pets on board…”

Gr'Thor sat down when he was addressed. No one had noticed he had already answered the botanists request for Carter and it was a very decent sized pile of fertilizer.

The botany tech looked over, "How did..that....get in here? What type of pet is that? Is it some sort of dog?" He was a botanist and grew plants for food purposes. Then he remembered protocol, he clicked his heels. "Lieutrnants. Thank you for addressing my issue so quickly. If I am going to grow food for the kitchen staff, I need higher quality fertilizer."

There was a 'dog' in the hydroponics bay, which Tyler found himself making a face at. It wasn't that he loved dogs, or creatures that resembled them... but in the hydroponics bay? No thank you. His gaze swept from the 'dog' to the botany tech, whose name he did not know. "We have at least thirty samples of nitrogenic types of soil that can be replicated, and not one of them works?"

The botany tech had his tricorder scanning the samples, "They are all too sterile to be of much use more than once or twice." The Tricorder went off because it was scanning and found good fertilizer. "The Tricorder has been scanning them all." He picked it up. " I should be able to mix a few of them together. Unregistered Sample? What does that mean?"

Kaelyn arched an eyebrow at the question, “well, a couple of things. One, that our new friend has left you a present and second, you need to work on your observation skills and notice things like this.”

"Not to mention the smell is hard to miss," Tyler said. He scrunched his nose.

She sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose. “Speak with his owner, crewman. As much as you may want resources, this is hardly ideal. But analysing it can’t hurt and we can review the data. I also want to understand why our other soil samples are unsuitable. Were they contaminated during transfer? If so, we need to know how that happened.”

"Biologically produced versus synthesized." The tech scanned it. "Think about this. You plant corn in a field. Next year, you plant corn again. Eventually, the soil becomes Sterile. The Synthesized stuff might last one generation." Looking at the scan, "I can mix this with those and create generations of soil and germination."

Gr'Thor looked proud of himself. He knew based on scent that pooping here would be acceptable. It was a farm.

Tyler looked down at the animal and he swore the thing looked proud of himself.

“I will leave in your capable hands,” Carter decided, “but keep me updated and inform us of any issues. Big or small. We need this to work so anything you need, let me know. In the meantime, I’ll have someone analyse the original samples we brought aboard. They should have been able to get this place up and running…. Sorry, that’s for me to worry about. Carry on. I’ll be in the labs if you need me.”

Following the other lieutenant out, Tyler looked over his shoulder to get one last glance of the animal - who he still thought looked pleased with himself - and was glad this was not his area of expertise.

The tech started scanning the dog made fertilizer. Then put in a requisition for first tier sterilized waste from the waste disposal system to be sent here to mix with the samples. Then ran the probabilities for successful harvest using that data and sent that report to the department head. Yield was increased doing it that way.

Gr'Thor trotted out. He trotted by the LT's sniffing along. Then he veered off towards a security post to go lay down.

 

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