by Purple Hazel
Others however found it to be a distraction, and detrimental to their concentration, only to abandon its usage or refuse it altogether. But Tommy Berwick had remained accepting of it, as always. Patient and accommodating right from the moment they touched down on the surface, Tommy felt that if it was not an open, direct threat to morale, he’d just let it go—despite Commander Cadorna’s regular requests that he institute dire punishments for those caught “under the influence” while at their posts.
Yes, Luigi was dead-set against marijuana being grown in the hydroponic garden center onboard Santa Maria. He felt that consuming substances to alter one’s mind was disgraceful—and tantamount to dereliction of duty. It was one of his common complaints too, since Captain Berwick was permitting its consumption back at the mess hall on Santa Maria and folks could choose to go eat there if they preferred to instead of B-lander. No, Luigi wouldn’t allow it on or around B-lander and sought to stamp out its usage among his remaining colonists, too; once Santa Maria departed.
Marijuana consumption was something Cadorna used to throw fits about on numerous occasions. “No svarioni on my work sites!” he’d scream from time to time. It was about the only thing he and Lieutenant Kelvin ever seemed to agree on by the way. B.J. also never went back to using it or consuming it regularly. Captain Stehter thought the idea to be absurd and wouldn’t even consider it. He was not surprisingly delighted to find B.J. had no interest in including THC edibles in her diet, either.
Ozzie Guerrero and the other twins refused to do it, too. First off, Ozzie felt it was ultimately unhealthy for the mind and spirit. So did Shamiso. They had such an adorable relationship really, no one could have blamed them for being so opposed to it. No one ever dared encourage them to try it, either. What’s more, Young-Min Jo would never get high—even though he was the one who ingeniously found a way to override the food distribution system to include cannabis-laced produce in its processors.
“It makes you stupid,” he’d explain to his colleagues partaking of it; and they’d respect his opinions even if they didn’t agree. Nobody pressured him, even among his nearly permanently-stoned teammates in the hydroponic garden center. Therefore, none of the three twins would ever get high on marijuana and crewmembers grew to accept this.
Frankly, what else could anyone expect from them? Ozzie and Shamiso and Young-Min had grown up together basically—endured puberty together, experienced their first sexual encounters at roughly the same time—though Young-Min had only experimented with heavy petting once and never went any further with the relationship.
They’d been a part of the community and saw everything that was going on around them. The difference was they were so much younger than everyone else and made wiser decisions. Maybe they could see things their older crewmates refused to grasp. Sexual promiscuity for one thing, was a dead end to seeking satisfaction and emotional fulfillment, and they all three seemed to sense how it could eventually erode their sanity.
But as far as consuming marijuana to cope with the stress of life on board? Well, Shamiso, Ozzie, and Young-Min had never really known life—adult life that is—outside of their time in space or while on Kapteyn B. They were living in a social vacuum and could see the pitfalls of relying on substances to deaden the pain of daily existence. Their human interactions as young teenagers and then young adults had happened right here—on the Santa Maria or out on the surface of Planet B. This was the only reality they’d known since living in squalid circumstances inside of an orphanage.
Life on Santa Maria for that reason—even their struggles to survive with their sanity intact back on Kapteyn B—had essentially been a vast improvement for the three space twins. To put it bluntly, they couldn’t figure out what everyone was bitching about.
Sure, the oppressive gravity on “B” was daunting. The overbearing commander they’d hear about blowing up at subordinates (until B.J. got ahold of him and straightened him out, that is), that was certainly a challenge. The constant cold outside—which they could regulate with their internal heating system within their pressure suits, but was ever-present nevertheless, was obviously an impairment to their personal comfort. The redundant food choices like soy hamburgers served with dehydrated French fries or frozen chicken patties accompanied by peas and carrots day after day...did in all honesty get a bit tiresome and that was certainly something they could have taken issue with as well.
But...this life up in space was better. Better than those terrible orphanages and bowls of bland oatmeal for breakfast only to be followed up with peanut butter sandwiches for lunch, and spaghetti pasta with runny marinara sauce for dinner. That’s really all they could remember getting to eat when they were little children.
No, this was better than a million days back on Earth working on some sad cleaning crew, like Shamiso had to endure. More adventurous than a hundred Megaball games as far as Ozzie was concerned. And as far as Young-Min Jo saw things, well, how could he ask for more? He was physically only age twenty and already an officer in Space Programme!
College? Secondary School? He’d skipped right past that. Strained his vast intelligence to the limits of his young mind repeatedly, just to keep up with his brilliant colleagues. Yet he’d surpassed many of them via diligence and dedication to his role on the ship while others around him got high every day. Became Lieutenant Junior Grade while still—physically speaking that is—just a teenager. For Young-Min Jo, the memories of his childhood prior to B.J. and Kelvin walking into his life and delivering him from that horrid existence were but a passing thought. This life he had here? It was simply all he could ever ask for.
And that’s eventually why he sought a transfer out of the Hydroponic Garden Center. Even though he’d accomplished so much there, by the third year he’d finally had enough.
Chapter 20
Garden Geeks
It was Young-Min Jo who brought the matter to Steinhart’s attention—though not directly. And when he did so, only then did the captain come to understand the full gravity of the situation on board with marijuana abuse. Reality was that it was far more widespread than even he or B.J. realized and it floored Captain Stehter just how bad things had gotten.
Young-Min had become fed up with the whole thing really. The new staff who came to work with him in the Garden Center during the return voyage simply stayed high practically all the time. Got up. Came to work. Got wasted. Sat around and did little if anything while Young-Min did most of the work. They’d disappear for long periods of time too, always claiming they were off gathering fresh biosoil (human waste treated and processed into plant fertilizer). It became like a regular joke to all of them—sauntering off to use the lavatories on board, then gathering up daily output of the crew’s feces to bring back for making fresh compost.
This however served as an excuse for being gone so long from their posts; and as Young-Min grew into his late teens it aggravated him whenever they’d “pull that crap” on him. Sure, that was one of their regular tasks to perform and he was usually happy to delegate it to his staff. But the truth was they weren’t just going out to gather up canisters of poop for the compost processor. They were making deliveries too; and Young-Min quickly discovered how inventories of cannabis-laced produce would vanish from time to time.
Fresh tomatoes, ready to be freeze-dried and added to the food distribution system, other fruits and vegetables as well, would disappear from storage bins awaiting processing. Not long after that, he’d see one of his subordinates bringing in yet another “shit can” as they called them and when he’d challenge them on it, they’d merely chuckle.
“Hey, I’m just doing my job, dude,” they’d scoff, and the other stoners working with him would have a big laugh. That was only a half-truth, and everyone including the young Lieutenant knew it.
What Lieutenant Jo gradually figured out—by secretly following them or simply retracing their steps—was that his junior officers were rapidly turning into pot dealers. No one had any way of igniting the marijua
na they were growing of course. All they had to consume was garden variety produce whose roots had been spliced with cannabis indica to eventually grow “medicated” fruits and vegetables. But his colleagues simply learned to smuggle more potent strains of them out of the Garden Center and deliver the goods to folks onboard who simply traded services—or on occasion—intimate favors for them.
The other crewmembers started referring to the Hydroponic team as the “Garden Geeks” and to be fair they weren’t the most attractive and desirable male members of the crew. Far from it in fact. Yet they became quite popular anyway, meeting women and men privately at the VRC, or even while they were on duty, to bring them their “weed”.
A blowjob here. A hand-job there. Sometimes more. Services rendered in exchange for their daily deliveries were plenty enough to keep the supply coming and the Garden Geeks showing up soon with more. For the “Geeks” working for Young-Min it was just an easy way to get laid. Their function on board as vegetable and fruit farmers was nothing but a lark for them—certainly by the end of the second year in the return mission at least.
They got invited to sessions in the Virch; and with some of the most attractive females on the ship. Yet the potential consequences were dire, and Young-Min knew he had to do something. There was a whole secret community of avid marijuana users whom the captain and even B.J. knew little about or what they were up to. One or two were even working in the Matter Pod Monitoring section. What’s more there were quite a few working at other vital functions within the ship such as the Cryogenic Lab and even the command bridge. This was dangerous to the ship and to the rest of the crew in general—and could doom the whole mission if something wasn’t done.
That’s what frustrated Young-Min. Years before, he’d adapted the food distribution system, overriding the computers to allow THC to be included in the food everyone was eating. This could be regulated and controlled to give crewmembers interested in the benefits of the drug something to ease their stress and strain, temper their boredom, or relieve aches and pains from their heavy-gravity workouts in the Athletic Center. Crewmembers worked out to get their bodies ready for Kapteyn B and the previous captain Tommy Berwick was happy to let them enjoy the pleasant effects of a marijuana-induced euphoria to take the edge off.
Crewmembers could choose including cannabis edibles in their diet; but the key to controlling this was that Captain Berwick could order their rations to be supervised. No alcohol was ever permitted on board of course—Space Programme would never permit such a potential breach of protocol on an active vessel—but Tommy, being the old-fashioned type who remembered reading of sailors receiving a daily rum ration in the glory days of the British Navy, felt this was a reasonable compromise. As long as it was regulated and overseen by responsible administrators over in the Garden Center, he was all for it.
Naturally some abused it even during the Away Team’s mission, and Tommy Berwick was vaguely aware of it. But he left it to his officers to manage the problem and “bust” their own subordinates if they were caught on duty under the influence of marijuana. This worked out rather well, because officers like Lieutenant Kelvin had a “nose” for it and could detect violators with ease. He’d dress them down and threaten them with demotion the moment he suspected it. One time he did just that, and replaced one of his ensigns with Ozzie Guerrero, who turned into one of his most trusted team members.
It was different now though. Some among the crew were high nearly all the time. Young-Min could only guess if the number might be even greater than he’d assumed. True, probably a third were consuming it responsibly in their diet and complying with proper procedure—and doses—but they were the exception not the rule. It became quite easy to slip off the straight and narrow, and thus many bored crewmembers sometimes did. Unfortunately, many went off the deep-end with it and remained stoned every waking hour—even when on duty. Especially when on duty in some cases!
Young-Min initially sought out Shamiso’s advice and subsequently she brought in B.J. as well to have a little pow-pow in the mostly empty cargo bay and discuss what might be done one day. She was the Communications Officer and had the ear of the captain, after all. What’s more, she was completely trustworthy and had been his friend since he was ten years old.
Lt. Jo feared becoming a whistle blower—knew the consequences of doing so and had absolutely no desire to turn into one. If he called out or exposed his teammates working in the Hydroponic Garden Center he fully realized what it would do to his reputation—and with, at the very least, another two years on board if not several, facing former colleagues he’d ratted out would be an unmitigated disaster. Socially he could already imagine what it would cause; and he certainly hated the idea of being viewed as a snitch. B.J., as always, was quite helpful in that regard.
“No, you’re not gonna be a snitch—not as far as Steinhart’s concerned,” she patiently assured him. “He’ll think you're just being a good crewman expressing a concern, that’s all. Doing your duty. But I sure as hell know what you’re worrying about with your friends over there in the ‘Get High Garden’. Been hearing about it here and there for years and I gotta say I didn’t really know it was so fucked up. What we need to do is get your butt out of that shithole entirely...’fore it blows up on us.”
The plan she eventually proposed was quite difficult, but much safer than making an official protest to the captain and inviting an inquiry. No one would want that, least of all Steinhart. What’s more, if Young Min did take that approach—going to him on an official basis to notify the captain that the situation was deteriorating fast—then Steinhart would be compelled by military procedure to investigate the matter. It would go in his ship’s log, and be a part of Lieutenant Jo’s permanent record, right along with the inquiry it would lead to. That’s precisely what they didn’t need.
Better idea would be to simply move “Bones” out of the place and get him a different job on board the ship. For the circumstances had indeed become impossible to control anymore. B.J. now knew crewmembers were regularly seeking “additional medication” from the staff over there and using the garden to supplement their diets with higher and higher amounts of cannabis. Knowing she wasn’t a user, the folks secretly supplementing their cannabis ration had obviously kept it “underground” she could only assume. Now at least she knew what to look for. Oh, she’d been suspecting it from time to time; sure. She just didn’t realize how far things had degenerated.
But she did count on one thing. Ozzie was likely aware of who among his special team of scientists and engineers working in the Pod Monitoring section was a regular abuser. That might make for a very easy transition. What’s more she figured she could recognize who else might be a frequent “customer” in other important functions onboard; now that she too knew what to watch out for. That’s what gave her the idea.
Steinhart could switch “Bones” with one of those “burnouts”, as she called them, working in Ozzie’s section. They’d in turn make for a great fit over in the Hydroponic Garden—and if Steinhart played his cards right, he’d be able to isolate the problem for the remainder of the voyage. That’s how she’d explain it to him.
“I see what you mean, B.J., yes, I like that much better. Thanks,” said Young-Min with a relieved sigh, “I think you’ve got the right idea.” Shamiso agreed as well. This would be so much easier.
“No one’ll want a full inquiry into what they’re doing, and I don’t either,” added Young-Min Jo, and B.J. nodded with a knowing grin. If it all played out correctly, those among the crew who were known heavy users of marijuana edibles could simply be reassigned to less vital functions and perhaps, if Steinhart was careful going about it, maybe some of them would be pleased to have a new job on the ship that might stimulate their minds once again—while insuring the ongoing safety of the mission.
“Yeah,” added B.J. “Let’s try it like that...’n hey, even if they piece it together later that they’ve been busted...fuck ’em. They can go get high together
and spin conspiracy theories about it all they want ’til we get back home.”
The question remaining therefore was just who else should be reassigned and where they should go—just to make it all look aboveboard. That is, who they could be switched with in other sections; and in what way so as not to cause any lingering resentments. A few “field promotions” and increases in pay grades might be just what they needed to ease it through, she speculated.
“Take some time,” as she put it, “Really think it over. Plan it out. Raise a few pay-grades. Implement it gently.” Sell it to the crew in just the right way to reduce suspicions of what the true motives were in other words.
“So...who’s gonna do the selling then? You, I would imagine,” remarked Shamiso. There was certainly little doubt of that. B.J. would have to have a little chat with Steinhart during their next pillow talk. Meanwhile Young Min Jo would have to be kept out of it completely—until his transfer—and the “switcheroo” as B.J. nicknamed it cleverly—could be pushed through. After that, well, people could run their mouths all they wanted to.
“Oh yes, they’ll be flappin’ their gums, I’m sure of that,” B.J. added prophetically. “But in the long run, just who the fuck is gonna bitch about it when all those burnouts are sittin’ around with their thumbs up their asses...while the rest of us are tryin’ to get this mother fucker back home in one piece?”
Young Min and Shamiso giggled nervously, nodding their heads with knowing smirks on their faces. They appreciated her bluntness. “Thank God for B.J.,” laughed Shamiso looking toward Young-Min when she said it. He nodded and smiled—still tense and worried but figuring his fate was in good hands.