Garden Song

Posted on Wed Jun 1, 2016 @ 8:49pm by Fleet Captain Rhea Kennit & Lieutenant Cassandra Kennings

2,440 words; about a 12 minute read

Mission: The Fall
Location: Hydroponics Bay
Timeline: An hour after "Arrival"

Cassandra had gotten back to the ship and immediately replicated burlap sacks to store plants in. She changed out of her usual dress into a pair of brown overalls and a simple shirt and boots and headed for her garden.

The bay had been coming along well in the time she'd been there. Coming from farm country, she had a green thumb. Her ability to encourage growth and life force didn't hurt either. It was almost impossible to tell this had once been a cargo bay, and that they hadn't just scooped up some spot of Eden from a planet. Plants and flowers covered the ground now and had completely covered the walls. There were fruits and vegetables everywhere now. She'd staggered the plantings so that there would always be a harvest available. It wouldn't feed the crew, but it could supply the Captain's dining room (and had on occasion) and allowed visiting crew members to pick and snack as they liked. So far the consumption was tolerable, although with what they were about to lose, she'd have to redouble her efforts to compensate.

She'd already decided which plants were ready to go. The colony would need plants that were nutritious, grew fast, were easy to replant and weren't too finicky. For the most part that meant berries, basic salad ingredients, some nightshades and potatoes. She was trying to be careful to take up whole plants, roots and all, and would have to advise the colony on how to maximize space.

She'd taken the "grow up" techniques, utilizing all three dimensions. Plants not only grew up the walls, but up posts and along trellises, making use of the bay's volume, rather than just surface area. It was thick to move in some places, but the oxygen content was high and the air was sweet.

She was in the middle of pulling out a set of potato plants when a voice behind her shouted, "Corporal Archibald Singer at your service, Ma'am!"

Casandra jumped and dropped the plant she'd been holding, flipping over and landing on her rump. She looked up at the crisply dressed marine and put a hand to her chest. "Corporal, you scared me half to death."

"Sorry, Ma'am," he said, offering a hand to help her up, which she gratefully accepted.

"I asked for a botanist," she said.

"Yes, Ma'am," Singer said. "However the Admiral felt that these supplies were important enough to require an escort."

Cassandra blew a lock of sky blue hair out of her face. "Oh, the Admirals here in Starfleet, they think they're really keen," she sing-songed. "You ask them for a botanist, they send you a marine."

"Oh, I don't want no more of Starfleet life," Singer sang out.

"Gee ma, I wanna go home," the finished together. Cassandra laughed and patted his shoulder. "Well at least you have a sense of humor about it."

"Yes, Ma'am," he said. "If it helps, my sister was quite the gardener."

"Can I speak with her?" Cassandra said.

"'Fraid not, Ma'am," he said. "But if you tell me what to do, I'm at your disposal."

"All right. Treat everything I hand you with some respect. These are living things and if you traumatize them, they won't survive the trip. I need everything I've bagged up carried carefully to the hydroponics labs on the station. You can start with this." She pointed to a padd and several large containers on an antigrav gurney. "This padd has instructions for how to maximize their space. They should be able to triple their current output in one cargo bay as I've done here. If they can dedicate more space, they can feed the colony with little trouble."

"Will do, Ma'am," Singer said. "What's in the containers?"

"Seeds and grafts," Cassandra said. "The live plants will give them immediate food sources but the seeds and such can be planted for later growth."

"That's a lot of seeds," Singer said.

"You've a lot of mouths to feed," Cassandra said. "And I have several cubic feet more ready for colonization so don't worry, you aren't depleting us. Now get moving we've got a lot of plants to move."

"Yes, Ma'am," Singer said. He helped her load up what plants she'd prepared along with the boxes and then grabbed the gurney and pulled it out of the gardens.

Cassandra tapped her combadge. "Sanders to the Captain. The first delivery to the colony is en route. I estimate we'll need another two hours before they are adequately supplied. Once I'm done here I'll report there to oversee their efforts."

"Is there no one else who can take over?" Kennit answered. "We have orders of our own to fulfill and the Victory will be departing as soon as we are able to complete preparations.."

That brought Cassandra up short. "I'm sorry, Captain," she said slowly, "I was under the impression we had forty-eight hours. I'll forward them instructions as best I can, and I'll meet you in your ready room in half an hour."

"It will likely take us almost the full 48-hours to get ready to depart Counselor," came the Captain's cryptic response. "I will see you shortly."

Cassandra sighed and shook her head, tapping her combadge and closing the channel. She pulled the last few plants out and stacked them on the next anti-grav for Singer, then pulled off her gloves, picked up a basket containing leaves she'd pruned for boiling, and went to go brew her next concoction.

Thirty minutes later she was changed back into her usual dress and carrying a tray with a pot, cups and saucers. She came onto the bridge and walked to the Captain's ready room, ringing the chime with her elbow.

From inside the Captain called out, "Enter."

Cassandra stepped through the opening doors, walked up to the Captain's desk and laid her tray down on an unoccupied corner. She picked up the pot and poured out into the two cups, setting one down in front of the captain. "Fresh, mint tea," she said. "I picked the leaves myself." She picked up what looked like a spoon with a solid amber coating. "Honey if you wish it," she said, stirring her own cup and sitting back in a chair.

"I did my doctoral thesis on Carl Rogers," she said without preamble. "And while his approach of Unconditional Positive Regard is still one of the pillars of my trade, there are times I find other methods are required. And to that end, I have to start by saying I'm very disappointed that you didn't speak to me about having nightmares sooner. I'm concerned you don't trust me enough to speak to me, and while you may have considered them inconsequential at the time, it is still something you could have at least brought to my attention so I could help you avoid such dreams in the future." She took a breath and looked the Captain in the eyes, her own violet ones soft and sympathetic. "That said, I'd like to know how you feel about them now, given what's happened. I'm not asking you to bare your soul, or give me your darkest secrets, I just want to have an honest discussion about how you are without bravado or show."

"Carl Rogers." the Captain echoed. "Never heard of him." Picking up her own mug, she sipped from its contents and said, "I spent 19 years of my career as an active officer in what was referred to as Sciences Division - Long-term Research Division but which was a front for another, less innocent operational objective." The Captain tapped the small, innocuous looking insignia pin she wore as she said, "All of my secrets, are very dark."

"Section 31," Cassandra supplied. "And if you were listed as 'Sci-LTR, I'm guessing you were deployed primarily for infiltration, extraction and the 'occasional' erasure, hm?" She smiled over the top of her cup. "Thankfully, Starfleet had the rare good sense to send you a counselor with appropriate clearance."

She put her cup down. "Now...honest discussion?"

The Captain's smile was that of a feline predator, toying with a mouse. "I am always honest, Counselor," was her mild toned reply.

"As am I," Cassandra said. "So, how do you feel about your recent dreams about the Borg, given we've had an attack?"

"Excited." The Captain replied. "The Borg don't frighten me."

Cassandra's eyebrows bobbed and she snapped her fingers, plucking a padd out of the air. "So, the Borg attack, kill a significant number of innocent people and force us to cut off our path back home...and you're reaction is to be excited that you dreamed about it," She made some notes. "Does this excitement extend to anticipation? Are you looking forward to engaging them?"

The captains eyes were intense, almost burning with a inner light as she answered with a shake of her head. "No. Excited because it offers a chance for information. What happened in the attack came as the result of arrogance. Arrogance to believe we were safe here...in the Borg's backyard..so to speak."

Cassandra nodded. "You still haven't told me how you feel about the fact that you were dreaming about the Borg," she pointed out. "More to the point, Captain, are your dreams just a residual, subconscious awareness of the fact that the Borg were coming, or have you had more overt senses?"

Katrijn rolled her eyes, "What a leading question.." The Captain responded. "If I was to state that the dream was no dream, but a connection to the passing Borg ships then that would hint towards concern regarding the state of my implants. And being a counselor, you will think any dream has some under lying reason....maybe it was just a dream."

"Maybe," Cassandra said. "And yes, dreams are sometimes meaningful, and sometimes it's just our subconscious 'doing the laundry' as one of my professors like to say."

She put her padd down and flicked her wrists, plucking two fist-sized cubes out of the air, placing them on the Captain's desk. One looked to be carved from obsidian, and the other from ivory. "A lot of times," she said, "we over-complicate things. A lot of things in life can be boiled down to two essentials."

She picked up the black cube. "In this case, let's assume that choice one is that your dreams were just dreams." She put it down and plucked up the white cube. "On the other hand, choice two is that it was a reaction to the proximity of the Borg."

She put the white cube back down and sat back. "Now, both of these have consequences, and both have benefits. If it was proximity to the Borg, then, yes, we should be concerned about your implants. We need to make sure you aren't being adversely affected, especially given their recent reactivation and Doctor Anderson's concerns. On the other hand, if we can account for those things, then perhaps it's a blessing in disguise; an early warning system would be extremely helpful to us."

She took a sip of her tea and looked at the Captain somberly. "And if it was just a dream, well as Freud says, 'sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.' I won't question a Captain's ability to function over one bad dream, no matter how ill-timed."

She paused, her mind going back to "simpler times," and after a moment she smiled to herself and looked back up at the Captain. "The Admiral from Intelligence who signed the forms for Penny and I....Admiral Markus. I served with him for over a year. I knew him....better than almost anyone I think." Her voice warmed, but her eyes crinkled with amusement. "You remind me of him in some ways. You both get excited when you're able to deal a blow to the Borg, and neither of you are afraid of them. You've also both been taken by them, both given the Royal Protocol, and both survived. So, if there is anyone on this ship who can understand what that means, apart from you, I can come the closest, I think."

She took the cubes and placed them on the tea tray along with her cup and saucer. "I am here to support you, Captain," she said. "All I ask in return is honesty and straightforwardness. If you tell me now that you are one-hundred percent, and that nothing is impairing your judgement, then I will say thank you for having tea with me, and let you get back to work."

"Admiral Markus," the Captain answered in a low, mocking voice. "Ah...yes. He is a child. The mere fact he survived assimilation was a fluke. The Borg Queen, is Queen for a reason. Queens are female. The neurological synapses of females are better suited for assimilation and adaptation to the Royal Protocol, as it was termed by non-Borg who could not understand it's true function. Markus is nothing but an aberration. An accident. Do not make the mistake of comparing me to him. I am nothing like him." the contempt in the Captains voice was quite tangible, that she disliked Markus was also clear.

Cassandra's grin spread slowly. She briefly regretted that the Captain didn't know the irony of those words, and momentarily toyed with the idea of letting the other woman in on the joke, but immediately thought the better of it. *Remember whose side she's on,* she told herself. Instead, she stuck with her promise of total honesty and inclined her head.

"Captain, I sit corrected; you are right on all counts," she said humbly. She picked up the black and white cubes again. "So, back to my final question: which is it? Just a dream? Or a valid concern?"

The Captain just gazed back at the Counselor, her expression bemused. "I'm not trained in these matters I'm afraid. My training dealt with...other aspects of a psychological nature. I am not qualified to respond to that question." Psychological studies had been a part of Kennit's training, however the focus had been more directed toward breaking a subjects mind. Not healing.

Cassandra's eyebrows bobbed and she shrugged, having a good idea what the Captain was referring to. She placed the cubes back on the Captain's desk. "Well, if you come to a decision on it, let me know. In the mean time, I'll finish my work with the station so we can be underway on time."

She stood up and picked up the tray, smiling. "Thank you for your time, Captain," she said.

Standing as well, the Captain said "You are always welcome Counselor."

~*~

 

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