Cake didn’t respond right away and Elm noticed that the star on her tablet turned grey and minimized into a corner. She figured that the A.I. is busy elsewhere, probably assisting the crew with the ongoing mission, and since Elm’s request was hardly a priority, she just left a message in the system. Elm also sent a note to her two assistants about what happened and why the greenhouse is on lockdown. Greenhouse 7 was sealed shut and locked with her personal code, no one else should be able to access it until the matter with the murderous plant is resolved. She did this just in case her assistants wanted to play heroes. Nothing against being initiative, but the ship is going to an unexplored part of the galaxy, it is probably going to be hard to find replacement postgrad botany students there.

Originally she wanted to go straight into the lab and start working on the chemical to pacify Escallonia - even without the samples, she could prepare a general carrier substance and be ready to add specific substances later. But she realized she should probably go change as her uniform was torn in shreds, giving her rather ‘interesting’ appearance. She used a piece of cloth to wrap the wounds on her wrists and headed to her quarters.

As soon as she left the part of the ship where various laboratories were located, she noticed crewmembers running around, escorting several confused-looking people from the hangar towards the medical bay. Elm realized that these must be the hostages from the pirate ship and was pleased that no one seemed to be seriously hurt. 

[color=82ca9d]“That was a fast mission,”[/color] she mumbled as she got out of the way of a soldier carrying a young boy in his arms. She shook her head. [color=82ca9d]“These pirates stop at nothing.”[/color] Selling a child to a slave market, what kind of a creature does that?

Even though Elm wanted to go right back to work, healing the injuries had taken a toll on her body and she felt exhausted. So she turned the UV lights on instead and took a long, refreshing nap.

[center]-----[/center]

When the Prize reached Deep Solar 3, Elm was just finishing checking the lab supplies one more time. Since they had an unexpected chance to resupply before finally going through the wormhole, she thought it would be wise to take a moment to go over it again, even though they have just recently started the mission. She added one or two items to the ship’s ‘shoplist’, absentmindedly scratching her wrist. The wound didn’t heal as fast as she had expected and it started to itch. Still, it wasn’t that serious to bother the medical crew with it.

Elm decided it would be better to distract herself and go check out the starbase. Heading through the airlock, she had met many crewmembers going the same direction, talking about visiting a bar or going shopping. Only part of the engineering crew remained on the ship to oversee the repairs the Prize had sustained while fighting the pirate vessel.

The base was quite busy, one could see many different species and hear lots of different languages. Elm headed to a wing where lots of small shops were located, selling everything imaginable - weird-looking food, electronic parts and techno-gadgets Elm wouldn’t understand in a million years, fancy clothes in all shapes and sizes and many other things. Nibbling on a piece of fried Tiger Tomatillo, a spicy descendant of an old terran tomato, she stopped at a shop selling various seeds and quietly browsed through the goods, lost in her thoughts.