Agent Orange

My Great-Great-Grandfather was a Battle of Britain pilot, or so my father told me when I explained to him that I wanted to join the Intergalactic Agricultural Research Establishment. "Let's hope that some of his flying skills are still present in your genes!", were my father's only remarks when I was awarded a flying scholarship. To be one of "The Chosen Few" was rare, very rare according to statistics - 30,000 applications for 10 places each year. It isn't that the job is well paid either. most Skilled space pilots earn more than the "Flying Farmers" as our nickname goes - but they don't carry the future of the world on their shoulders, do they? The IARE was founded to fuse the convergent disciplines of Agriculture and Space Travel into a force which would make the colonisation of other planets more practical and simple. If one is being absolutely truthful, it was the discovery of an Astalan alien agricultural station that made the genetic breakthrough possible despite the... Read more