"Sam, what is this I hear of you being out of food?"
Sam took a deep breath, "we didn't have enough set aside when the Sunshields attacked. All our resources are going into fixing the shelter. We have enough food pills for now."
"Food pills? Do you really think food pills are good enough?"
Sam rolled his eyes, "it will work for now. We are stretched thin on our resources."
"And what am I, Sam?"
Sam looked up as if to say I really don't want to have this conversation.
Quinn heard the elevated voice from wherever he was and joined them.
"Lana," Paul said, "we don't pull favorites around here."
"Good. Everyone should be eating."
"What do you propose?" Quinn asked.
"What's wrong with the ship's hydroponic systems?"
Paul was first to respond, "none knows how to use them."
Lana raised an eyebrow, "that's your excuse?"
Paul was exasperated. Kaz didn't understand this girl's infatuation with food.
"Get me a team of six people. See if you can find me a few that wouldn't mind learning my ability. I need to get training people so we can get this mission underway. Once you have them, let me know and I'll teach them how to farm. Are you opposed to creating a crop on the surface for export purposes?"
"Export purposes?" Quinn asked.
"I was thinking, even though you plan to take over other planets, you should have a varied economy. I think you can export food if you can find someone to handle the farming on the surface. I'll need to speak to that team as well."
"The last thing I need… How should I go about hiring people to be part of the recon teams? I plan…"
Quinn chimed in already knowing her plan, "Let us get these other planets on that one. Once we have a bigger body pool and are able to find trustworthy people for you, we can look at who to hire."
Lana nodded and sighed. "Okay so for right now, get your food up and going and find a few more to train."
Lana turned in her chair, "Mandy, do you think the farmers could handle increased production temporarily to help the Cursed out until we can get their systems up?"
"Only if we are advancing the growth, My Lady." Mandy was very uncomfortable in this setting and wasn't sure how to address the boss in front of the other leaders.
"That disrupts our training schedule."
"Yes, Ma'am."
Lana sighed then nodded. "So be it. We grow food and send it through the teleporter to your canteen. The sooner you get me people, the better."
With that, Lana stood. Noone at the table refuted her request. Heading back toward her room where she left her sword, she ran into Sil.
"There you are!" Sil smiled broadly.
"Hello My Love! I need to head home and start growing some food with Mandy. Sam needs to find people so I can teach them how to get the systems going."
Sil reached down and kissed his wife's forehead as well as those of his children. "I'll check with Quinn and see if I can help bring the food through so you can focus on growing it."
Lana nodded. "I asked Alex to make me a sheath for my sword. I need to go get my sword from our room before heading through."
"I'll meet you at the teleporter."
Lana nodded. Sil beat her to the teleporter room. For the rest of the day, Lana and Mandy grew then harvested food for the Cursed Faction. MC was able to recharge during harvesting breaks and breaks to tend the needs of the children. When members of the Cursed saw food coming through, they established a chain at the teleporter to expedite the food getting to the destination. The same was able to be done on the other side thanks to the extra manpower.
They were amazed at the quality of the food as well. Four days later, Lana was notified there were several people interested in growing the food and two interested in working with her ability potentially. They were going to be having a command meeting and she was to attend to meet them and be cut loose to do her thing.
At the meeting, it was announced first thing that the Cursed was no longer F-ranked. After Quinn's hunt, they were now Rank B, Quinn was an A now. Sil's crystals were logged in under Plantwell. She didn't think to have him log them under Quinn or the rank may have been higher. Sam also took the time to publicly thank Lana for the galathrium and food.
"Did you want to start attending our meetings?" Sam asked her.
"Not unless you have a question related to me such as food or a mission you need my help on or to address existing missions."
Sam nodded. "These six ladies are the volunteers for growing food for the Cursed Faction. Two are interested in your ability and have questions."
Lana nodded.
In the hydroponics room, Lana began showing the ladies how to turn on all the machines. These were the same machines she was taught in school. This meant they are all self-contained, no human needs to enter these machines. They even self-harvest seeds from the plants. The only thing the human needed to do was remove the produce once harvested and put in liquid fertilizer when the machine provided the prompt. What she was curious about was, could she rush the process?
All 50 machines were turned on when she asked them if they fully understood why they were there.
A young girl about her age raised her hand, "to grow food?"
Lana nodded, "Just making sure you knew why. These machines are self-sustaining and very easy to use." They then proceeded to train the ladies in their functions, when to add more fertilizer, where the food comes out when harvest, all the things they need to be able to run this room without her assistance.
"Now ladies, if you look inside these glass windows, you can observe the process. I don't know if my ability will work on these or not but we are getting ready to find out. You will need to monitor the ship's supply of liquid fertilizer. Make sure you don't run out."
She put her hand on the glass of the one closest to the door and tried to advance the growing process as if she had grown it herself. It succeeded. She did this on the next nine pods making all 10 ready to harvest but leaving some to go to seed so the machine worked the way it's supposed to. To get the growing on a schedule, she then went to the next 10 and set them at 75% grown, the next 10 and 50%, and the next 10 at 25%. This made it so the ship would be able to feed 2,000 people on the schedule it was designed to handle.
"Once that food is harvested, take it up to the canteen. Let the people on the planet know there is food up here. Is there room in the rebuilt shelter to put in fruit trees?" Several of the girls nodded. "Okay, I need one of you in charge of this room. Get that figured out. I need a subordinate to go down to the planet with me. I'll give you a few minutes to figure that out. And, do any of you not have an ability? Would you like to be trained in my ability?"
The girl that looked about her age raised her hand. "I don't have an ability. My family has always lived on the planet and my father died in the battle with the Sunshields."
Lana looked at her, "How old are you?"
"I'm, 15 ma'am. My name is Fiza. This is my mother Safi," as she gestures to the older of the women.
"Safi, do you mind if I take her under my wing?"
Safi shook her head, tears in her eyes. "It's been quite difficult for so many of us since that dreadful day. Thank you for this opportunity."
Lana nodded with a smile, "Your responsibility will probably include the canteen since this food will go there to serve the people. Talk to Sam about your role. I'll let him know I have delegated this room to you."
Another girl raised her hand. "I'm Dawn. I'm 22 and also interested. Don't you need 6 people in here, though?"
Lana shook her head, "the heavy manpower is to handle harvesting. I think we could get volunteers for that was well."
Just then she heard the sound from the machines kicking out crates of food that needed to be moved to the canteen. "Those crates have wheels on them and brakes," Lana demonstrated their operation as well as how to reload the empty crates back into the machine so they would be ready for the next harvest. "Pretty easy?" The girls all nodded, looking relieved.
"Safi, who do you want to come to the planet with us so we can discuss where to put some food down there?"
Safi asked for a volunteer and one stepped forward. Her name was Tamina.
"Fiza, Dawn and Tamina, if you'll follow me. We need to get some fruit trees growing on the planet and I need to update Sam. You'll need to collect your things. I don't live on this ship or this planet so you will be away for a while. Safi, I'll bring Fiza back to say goodbye once we are ready."
The girls all got busy moving food out. Lana and entourage which now included Fiza, Tamina and Dawn, went looking for Sam. They had been in hydroponics for many hours. He wasn't in any of the usual spots. She found him and a few others outside a training room. He looked like he was having a major crisis. She went to explain what the girls were doing when he pulled her aside.
Sam explained those who participated in the duel were all poisoned and they were violent.
"You need to keep those kids away from here for now. Update me later."
Lana nodded, "We are going down to the planet."
Sam nodded and was getting ready to get back to the others…
"Wait…Sil. Where's Sil??"
"With Quinn."
She didn't know what to think. "let's get down to the planet."
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