AMICITAS FLIGHT THREE – MISSION DAY 345
ARES III SOL 340
“Mark, tell me: do you think we’ll have any cherries for the trip?”
Cherry Berry knew the answer, but she had to ask anyway. She’d coddled and cared for the saplings, urging them to grow taller faster than anything on Equestria. But, despite it all, they were still only months old, not the two or three years it took an Equestrian cherry tree to begin bearing fruit. And that was in Equestria, a land lousy with magic, and not a cave on an otherwise totally unmagical barren wasteland of a planet.
But age was only one of the problems, as Mark pointed out. “Not unless Starlight gets her transmutation spell going without punching a hole in the rover,” he said. “I know you’ve put your heart into them, Cherry, but facts are facts. The plants are too young. If they’re all the same kind of cherry, the odds are good they won’t be fertile with one another. We haven’t got any bees, so we’d have to hand-pollinate every last flower. And it would have to happen in the next fifty sols.”
“Fifty sols?” Cherry asked. “We have a hundred and ten before we leave, right?”
“We need time to test the finished rover and fix any problems that pop up,” Mark said. “In order to test the rover-trailer combo, we need to pull the life support out of the cave, at least for a sol or two at a time. Once we start doing that, the cave will cool down in a hurry. That will hurt the plants. So whatever we’re going to grow, we have to be done before we get serious about testing the rover. The next harvest will be the last one.”
Cherry looked through the airlock window into the cave interior. The cherry trees now brushed the ceiling, limbs mostly running up the ceiling towards the solar relay crystals. In the long term- if there was going to be a long term- that would mean trouble for the sun-loving alfalfa. Once a week Cherry carefully plucked enough fresh, healthy leaves from the trees for a couple pots of cherry leaf tea, which she prepared with all due care and caution to give everyone a change from drinking plain water. She’d have to figure out a way to dry the leaves properly for long-term storage for the trip…
She absent-mindedly wiped away tears with a hoof. “Could we move your machines from the Hab here to the cave?” she asked. “Just leave it running?”
Mark shook his head. “Part of the atmospheric regulator has to be outside for it to work properly,” he said. “And it and the oxygenator both work to remove carbon dioxide from the air. The plants need CO2 added every so often. The water reclaimer won’t automatically water the plants, even if we figure out some way to pump water from downstream to replace what it puts out. And I don’t think all the heaters in the Hab put together would be enough to keep the cave warm enough for plants to grow.”
Cherry blinked. “You didn’t even have to think about that.”
“Because I’ve been thinking about it for months,” Mark replied. “I’d love to have this farm go on forever as a lasting fuck-you to this goddamn planet. But I don’t see any way of doing it that doesn’t risk our own chances of getting out alive.”
“I understand,” Cherry said. And she did. She just didn’t like it. “Could you ask Dragonfly and Spitfire to step in here, please?”
As Mark opened the inner airlock door and left, Cherry looked through the open doorway at Starlight Glimmer, who stood by the life support box holding a broken piece of antenna in her magic and writing things in the dirt as she watched the indicator lights flash. It looked like a second all-day session on the water telegraph getting the details straight for the new Sparkle Drive main crystal, which Starlight had decided to enchant two days from now rather than make more batteries that they probably wouldn’t be able to haul with them.
Cherry hated to interrupt her now, but between the Sparkle Drive and the new booster system, Starlight would probably be tied up with that for days. Anyway, Cherry had another bit of business to take care of.
When Spitfire and Dragonfly walked up, Cherry motioned them to shut the airlock door behind them. “What’s up, boss mare?” Dragonfly asked. “I hope this isn’t an order to walk the plank or something.”
“Dragonfly,” Cherry began, “I don’t think you’ve ever asked me to get Spitfire to stop hitting you on the head.”
The changeling froze, which Cherry had half-expected. So did Spitfire, and Cherry hadn’t expected that. “Er… I figured you’d stop it yourself,” she said, almost convincingly.
Cherry looked at Spitfire. “And I’m pretty sure I’ve told you to cut it out once or twice.”
Spitfire lapsed into Equestrian. “Just look at her! Isn’t that just the most hittable face?”
Dragonfly grinned. “It’s true. Five hundred royal guards can’t be wrong!”
Cherry cleared her throat. “I’m not laughing, you two,” she said in English. She looked at Spitfire. “This is an order: no more hitting Dragonfly.” She looked at Dragonfly even harder. “This is an order: quit goading Spitfire into hitting you.”
Dragonfly cocked her head, doing a very good job of pretending to be confused. “You think I want to be hit in the head?” she asked.
“I think you’re deliberately being annoying,” Cherry said. Looking Spitfire right in the eyes, she continued, “And I think you’re playing along.”
Spitfire shrugged. “Makes me feel better.”
Dragonfly nodded. “It makes everybody feel better, too.”
“Not me,” Cherry said. “I mean it: cut it out. If you two want a running joke, come up with something else.”
Dragonfly slumped. “The queen would let me get hit over the head.”
“Only if she held the stick,” Cherry said. “Anyway, she’s not here, thank Faust. Now let’s go make the plants happy…” She couldn’t suppress a sad sigh at the thought. “… for a little longer.”