Greenhouse Nine

As the junior botanist on a starving space station, Nadia must run experiments and make bold choices to save the colony's last crops before the food runs out.

Nadia pressed her face to the cold window of Greenhouse Nine and watched the silver Earth spin far below. She was eleven years old, the youngest crew member on Orbital Station Halcyon, and the only junior botanist the colony had ever trained.

'Plants are just like people,' her grandmother used to say back home. 'They tell you what they need, if you learn to listen.' Nadia had carried that thought all the way into space, tucked behind her ribs like a seed.

Greenhouse Nine was the largest of the station's growing domes, a glowing jungle of tomato vines, wheat rows, bean stalks, and leafy greens. It fed every single person on Halcyon. Without it, three hundred colonists would go hungry within weeks.

This morning, though, something felt wrong. The air smelled sour instead of green.