Page 17 of A Redemption for Ulrek

Delaney wiped the sweat off her brow as she gaped at the plant. It was unfamiliar to her and, frankly, ugly. Whatever it was, it didn’t belong in a greenroom—but considering where it was growing, it couldn’t be a weed either. Someone had transplanted it there on purpose.

The poor thing might have been more attractive if it wasn’t struggling. Clearly, it hadn’t been bred to survive in a greenroom, spending most of its life in space. The plants used in these systems were all either specially engineered to handle the stress of interplanetary travel or had evolved naturally to do so.

Some had thick, strong, leathery leaves that made the most of the artificial grow lights but still tolerated the stronger light from passing stars when the sensors of the ship deemed it advisable to open the shade screens and let the natural beams in. None of them required a winter freeze or other seasonal events like monsoons. None went into dormancy for months at a time, not doing their job in the greenroom. Most importantly, no greenroom flora was allelopathic, preventing other plants from growing in its vicinity.

Every bush, vine, and shrub had a reason to be there. Some excelled at filtering out certain chemicals and toxins from the air, while others converted carbon dioxide to oxygen extremely efficiently.

There were many different kinds of greenrooms, depending on the region where they were set up. The most common type used plants from the Dominion’s inner planets, both because there were more ships there than anywhere else in the galaxy and also because it was the original design. The one on theNew Horizonused plants from Vosthea. It was a newer style, but the one Delaney was most comfortable working with. She did train in the outer planets, after all.

But this plant? Well, Delaney had no fricking clue what it was. She wasn’t even sure it was from Vosthea, like everything else around it.

All the plants in its vicinity seemed to be struggling too, even worse than the rest of the greenroom, which was already in bad enough shape.

Delaney had diagnosed the problem quickly. All the settings were wrong. Terribly, terribly wrong. This wasn’t set up as a carefully controlled air filter for a space-faring vessel; it wasthisclose to being a perpetual rain chamber. No wonder everything was dying.

At first, Delaney had thought that maybe Ulrek’s last technician had left on bad terms, but now she wasn’t so sure. She’d need to see the greenroom records to figure out what really happened, but she didn’t have the authority to access them.

It really was a mess. Most of the plants here were beyond saving, and even those that could be rescued weren’t worth the effort. It would be best to gut the place and start from scratch, especially with the mold that was starting to take over part of the substrate. It would be a huge job.

She dug her comm out of her pocket and took a picture of the unfamiliar plant. It was in such a bedraggled state that she doubted the program on her comm would be able to recognize it. She tried anyway. Yep, she was given an error.

If she were back on Earth, she would most definitely classify this as some sort of succulent. Despite half of it being rotted away, there was still the recognizable shape of a rosette at the center of the plant. Unlike any other succulent she’d ever seen, however, a stem came out from the center of the rosette to form more rosettes with more stems of their own. Surely it must have once stood on its own, but now it lay limp on the ground.

She made a note to look up the plant when she got home. She’d ask Chara, too. It was a long shot, because there were dozens and dozens of planets and moons in the galaxy, and it was impossible to know every plant out there, but perhaps her old boss would recognize it.

The sound of someone clearing their throat had her looking toward the door. Ulrek was back. She stepped out into the hallway, wiping the sweat from her brow with the back of her hand. Even with most of the humid air vented, it was still hot and stuffy as fuck in there, and she probably looked a mess.

Ulrek, on the other hand, was as cool as a cucumber, looking just as annoyingly composed as ever. He’d gotten rid of the disguise, and Delaney found him even more attractive. God, she hated him.

“I think I know what’s wrong with the greenroom.” The faster she gave the diagnosis, the faster she could get out of there. “But I have a few questions, and I’d like to check the ship’s record for it, starting a cycle or so before your last technician left. I don’t have access to it, though.”

“I’m not sure how much I can answer, but I’ll try.” Ulrek eyed the still much-too-humid room. “We can do it in my office. Follow me.”

Ulrek

Ulrek pulled up a second seat and gestured for Delaney to sit. She eyed it warily.

“You can always sit on my lap if you prefer.”

She narrowed her eyes at him. “Just so you know, I still hate you. And whatever happened yesterday won’t happen again. I was pissed off and drunk, remember?”

Ah, of course. How could he forget?

She moved the chair a little further away from his and sat down as if that tiny bit of extra space would protect her from him. He thought it was super cute.

Resisting the urge to antagonize her even more just to see her delicious reaction, he pulled up the ship’s records of the greenroom. The charts of numbers didn’t mean much to him, but they clearly did to Delaney. She leaned in, nodding and humming.

“When did your tech leave?”

Ulrek pointed to the date.

“The numbers look great back then. The watering schedule and misting schedule were exactly how they should be. And so are the nutritional values and the light cycles. But look.” She pointed to a date one galactic cycle later. “About a month later, the watering frequency doubled. Then, a few days later, the misting as well.”

Ulrek frowned. Who would be messing with his greenroom?

Delaney scrolled down a little more. “And here. It was increased again.”

That one Ulrek recognized. It was him. Oops.

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