A sweet, pungent fruity scent wafted around a small flower garden of the hydroponics lab onboard the USS Xenius. Ensign Reyla smiled thoughtfully as she gently clipped a few dead leaves off her most prized blue Orion lily. Her green hands gathered up the last of the dead leaves and she placed them into a small container on the side wall of the hydroponics. Several strands of her ebony hair got loose and danced in her face. She pulled her loose hair back and tucked them into her ponytail again as she walked back to her flower . 

“I can’t wait to show you off during the next season’s flower competition.”Just then her communicator began chirping wildly. She touched the answer button and straightened her blue scientist starfleet uniform. 

“Ensign Reyla here.” 

“You are needed in the lab, Ensign. Dr. Harvac needs you.”

“Understood, I will be there shortly.” She turned off her communicator and let out a soft sigh as she turned towards the doors. 

“I guess I will water you a bit later then.” 

She slipped through the open doors of the hydroponics room and sauntered a bit down the corridors til she came to the turbo lift. She waited patiently for the doors to open before stepping inside the lift.  

“Science Lab, deck 4.”  

The inside computer chirped as she felt the lift descend to the lower deck and she couldn’t help, but wonder what Dr. Harvac wanted this time. She checked to make sure her uniform did not have any unnecessary wrinkles as she stepped out and walked into the science lab. Dr. Harvac seemed to be working with several test tubes of various colored liquids as she entered. He was a blond haired, mid-aged human that wore a white lab coat over his uniform.  

“Ensign Reyla reporting sir, what did you need assistance with?”  

“Ah, Reyla, just who I needed to help me test out a new serum.” 

‘What is this serum supposed to do?” She asked, still a bit skeptical as to its true purpose.  

“Well if it works out, then it should offer some slight resistance to harsher temperatures.” As she watched Dr. Harvac, he combined a blue and red liquid together creating a purple liquid. He then placed the liquid into a hypospray. “That should do it.”

“Dr. Harvac, just how are we going to test this? Using it on a sentient being without a proper round of tests is highly unethical.” 

“Oh pish-posh, I wasn’t going to test it on a person yet. That is against proper procedures. For this test we are going to try it out on a plant.”

“And just what plant are we first testing this serum on?”

The man smiled. “Well I thought I would let you choose from those three over there. They are all the same so we have some variables.” He pointed to three small leafy plants on one of the tables. We will have a control group and our test group. So if you would be so kind and bring two of those plants here we will begin!” 

Reyla shrugged her shoulders and walked over to the plant table. Looking at them, she noticed that they were at least really healthy and would serve as a good experiment for the doctor’s new serum. Taking two of the plants in her hands, she transferred them over to the experiment table on the right side of the room and placed them down gently. 

“All ready for you, Dr. Harvac.”