Exotic Spores, Molds and Fungus part 2

Posted on Fri Nov 27th, 2015 @ 7:38am by Captain Charybdis MacGregor & Lieutenant Commander Siivas McKenzie

0 words; about a 1 minute read

Mission: Taking Chances
Location: Zaryx 4 agricultural colony
Timeline: 2265
Tags: Zaryx

Making their way back from the rocky overlook, Charybdis stopped long enough to take a number of readings from various samples in the rice paddies. The Captain expressed a rather urgent desire to get back to the settlement, but she logically pointed out that there was no point in coming all the way out here if she didn't get data to finish her analysis, and he relented.

"Am I going to be losing a lot of arguments to you?" he asked good-naturedly, crossing his arms as he waited.

"Only the ones that count, sir," she replied over her shoulder with a grin. "On the bright side, I do obey direct orders..."

She took her soil samples, took readings on a variety of spectrums and wavelengths, and observed a different variety of myconoids protruding up from the marshy soil in the rice paddies. She was careful not to disturb them, but instead she studied them intently, noting again their lack of spores, and the effect that they were having on the stalks of rice that were growing amongst them.

The rice was obviously suffering from malnutrition; the buds which actually produced grains of rice were stunted and sparse, and overall the plants looked far less healthy than they should have been. They were similar symptoms to the malady befalling the orange trees in the grove earlier, but in a smaller and less hearty plant system, and she wondered if the phenomenon was limited to just these crops or if the colonist simply had not noticed them elsewhere. She made a mental note to double check her overlay scans with the grazing ground for the settlement's livestock.

Calculating and organizing data while they were moving, she ran some rather lengthy calculations in her head as they hiked along. Depending on what the data from the Bonne Chance provided, she believed that she was most definitely on to something, but she still wanted to correlate with the Doctor. After all, if she was correct, then he too would have a few pieces of this particular puzzle, and perhaps more than she expected- after all, his own sensory range was one to which her tricorder and she herself had no access.

She wondered idly what Lieutenant Celes was finding out there, and if her particular mystery tied into the one that she was working on. Somehow she suspected not... but then, if something out there was hostile, it was liable to be in bigger trouble from Celes than she was from it.

By the time they had returned to the colony, there was still some daylight left, and she looked forward to corroborating her findings with the Doctor. Thus it was of some mild surprise to her when he came marching out of one of the older prefab buildings, his face somewhat set and his air quite unlike what she had come to expect from him.

"We need to have a talk, Miss Scientist- right the f#@k now!" he said as he grasped her by the arm and frog-marched her out towards the fields.

 

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