Root of the Problem

[Archie Phoenix 0]

Archie sighed at the pockmarked chewana stem sitting on the center table of the Cargo Bay 2 monitoring station. He’d been told by no less than the Captain of the ship to remain here and analyze incoming samples of the chewana plant to determine its suitability for transfer to Axrekrav. At the moment, he wasn’t sure how reliable he’d be at this task …

 

His conversation with the science officer aboard the Hadrian’s Wall was perplexing him. He’d compiled information given to him by the science department into specifications for an on-board marine habitat, but this science officer was now telling him that providing the root with its own native habitat was not necessary. Archie had the feeling that a critical piece of information had been lost somewhere along the chain of command. Did science really have a compound to repair the root after its exposure to inadequate temperature and pressure levels? Did they have a way to nutrify it without the eels? Why was none of this in the report they’d sent to engineering?

 

Archie was certainly no scientist, but the shuttle officer’s answers to these problems seemed … too easy. How often were Starfleet problems so easy to address? He recalled that she’d referred to herself as the chief botanist aboard the ship. She would know best, Archie told himself. But he wouldn’t like to think that he and Lieutenant Sema’J went to the trouble of modifying the cargo bays to house the roots if there were far easier ways of preserving them.

 

There hadn’t been much time between their arrival at the planet and the assembly of the shuttle team. Perhaps this science officer simply didn’t have enough time to analyze the scans of the chewana plant and the requirements for its survival. Perhaps the compound she was referring to was a generalized botanical solution that would not be enough for such a unique plant. If it was not enough to repair the ruptured chewana, they would need to utilize the cargo bay habitat and engineering’s preparedness will have paid off.

 

Or perhaps Archie had been overly cautious in writing the cargo bay specs. Perhaps the speed with which the chief botanist was assigned to the shuttle prevented the rest of the science staff from receiving her consultation when they sent their report to engineering. Perhaps engineering was wrong and had unnecessarily diverted energy to the cargo bays for a problem that less costly resources could have addressed.

 

Time would tell. Archie tapped his commbadge and requested that science send the botanist’s compound to the monitoring station. Though this compound, if it worked, would make things a lot easier … deep down, Archie was hoping that the engineers were right …