Elm leaned against the door to greenhouse 7 (after carefully checking that they are shut and locked) and closed her eyes, attempting to gather her thoughts and plan what to do next. She needed to update the greenhouse manifest with the new information about the murdering plant and add some extra warnings to the system. She had to check whatever wounds the creepers left on her skin. And most importantly, she needed to figure out a plan to get things in the greenhouse 7 in order, preferably without anyone getting hurt or eaten.

Simplest things first, she looked down on her wrist. Her bark-like skin was thicker than normal human skin and normally protected her from all scratches, bruises and lighter flesh wounds, but Escallonia’s sprouts were apparently designed to latch themselves onto trees and pierce through bark to get access to the sap. By ripping them off Elm had freed herself, but also tore the top layer of her skin off, revealing the soft tissue under it. Drops of viscous brown liquid formed at the edges of the injury, some dropping to the floor with a loud splatting noise. Elm stared at it for a few seconds, fascinated. It had been ages since she had seen her own blood. Her legs were in much better shape, as they were partially protected by the uniform which was now torn in several places.

She considered options for restoring order in the greenhouse. The simplest, but the most brutal one, was running the cleanup protocol designed to safely destroy everything inside and was supposed to be used when there was a danger that could spread to the entire ship. Elm had only seen one situation when this protocol was used in her lab at university, when one of the plant samples brought from a newly discovered planet started releasing highly toxic spores that quickly started to spread through the ventilation system. This situation was certainly not that dangerous and Elm wasn’t going to destroy everything in the greenhouse 7 just to get rid of one slightly aggressive plant.

If she had a sample she could create some chemical agent targeted specifically at Escallonia’s DNA. Ideally something that wouldn’t kill it, just put it to sleep or at least render it immobile for a period of time necessary to move it into ‘solitary’ -  one of the isolated boxes located at the side of the greenhouse. Even though the plant tried to kill Elm, she didn’t hold a grudge against it, knowing it only followed its natural instincts. But the problem still remained - how to obtain the sample?

She nearly jumped up when her tablet suddenly started talking, roughly interrupting her thoughts. Several things ran through her mind, the first one was that she is either hallucinating from a shock she suffered, or that the plant had released some poison into her body and now she is starting to feel the effects. Fortunately she quickly realized that she wasn’t going crazy and it was just the ship’s AI talking to her. 

Elm found it rather interesting for a computer of this importance to be allowed to have such ‘quirky’ personality but if the captain was OK with it, it wasn’t her place to criticize. [color=82ca9d]“Thank you for your concern Cake. You know that I am always up for some adventures,” [/color]she joked, [color=82ca9d]"but I am afraid that my presence on the mission would be more of a liability than an asset. And as for the medical staff, no need to bother them, my wounds should heal on their own. If they don’t, I will stop by when doctor Daniels returns.”[/color] Elm glanced at her wrist. The thick blood had already sealed the deepest part of the wound and would eventually grow into a new layer of skin if there is no infection or other complications.

[color=82ca9d]“But,”[/color] Elm looked blue star twinkling on her tablet, which seemed closest to talking to Cake’s face, [color=82ca9d]“there is something you could do for me. Would it be possible to reprogram one or more of the pollination drones to collect a sample of one of the plants? A part of the stem ideally, and two or three leaves for testing the agent distribution. Make sure the drones are careful though, I am not sure whether the plant reacts to heat signatures or just vibrations from nearby movement.”[/color]

[@datadogie]