Strange Brew
Posted on Tue Apr 1st, 2025 @ 4:40pm by Lieutenant Hussa Carew & Lieutenant JG Zub Enel & Captain Malcom Llwyedd
3,178 words; about a 16 minute read
Mission:
Shore Leave 1
Location: Earth, Bavarian Region
Timeline: Octoberfest, 2396
[ON]
[Location: Earth, McKinley Space Dock]
The Teleport to Earth’s operator was a matronly civilian. She asked Zub Enel without looking up, “Where to, pet?”
Zub recognized her accent as from the British Isles. He stepped onto the platform smiling. “Munich, Germany, bitte.”
The older woman’s pale blue eyes swept up and down his 7-foot-tall frame, scaly skin, and massive head crest. “What’s that you’re wearing, luv?”
Zub puffed out his chest, which tightened the narrow leather strap between his suspenders. The suspenders lifted his leather shorts higher to expose more bare scaly leg above knobby knees. “Lederhosen!”
Her expression grew more bemused. “Ah, Oktoberfest. Blending in with the locals, eh?”
Counselor Hussa Carew, a Trill, rushed into the transporter room in the female equivalent of Enel’s costume. She held a man’s feathered hat.
The operator smiled at the auburn-haired female. “Two of you then?”
“Yes,” Hussa said. “He forgot his hat.”
The operator chuckled. “He’s lucky to have you.”
“We’re just shipmates,” Carew said emphatically.
The operator gave her a knowing look. “First Oktoberfest, then?”
Both shipmates nodded and grinned.
The operator warned, “Oktoberfest is safe, but it draws unsavory types too.”
Hussa handed Enel his hat. “He’s Security.”
The matronly lady said, “Even so, there can be anything from pickpockets to slavers.”
Enel’s grin cooled. “We’ll stay alert.”
“You’re all set. Have a wonderful time!”
[Location: Earth, Munich, Germany, Oktoberfest]
The teleporter sent them to a huge room with clear ceiling panels and dark beams festooned with leafy greens. Wide pots of greenery hung like clouds from the rafters. There was loud talking, laughter, polka music, and the clinking of glassware.
Zub and Hussa stepped off the pad into a throng of people from every race in Starfleet. The vast majority were dressed in the traditional lederhosen.
Hussa glanced down at her leather shorts and low-cut blouse. “We don’t just blend in here. We look so ordinary we’ll have trouble finding each other.”
Enel didn’t reply.
She looked around. The 7-foot-tall scaly giant had vanished.
Carew scowled. While they decided to experience the Oktoberfest together, Zub was perfectly free to wander off alone. Still, he seemed polite enough to tell her he was doing so. Instead, he ditched her.
His hat lay on the floor. He’d been excited about it because it completed his costume. She’d assumed that once he’d crammed it over his head crest, it would stay.
When she bent to fetch it, someone swatted her backside. She stood frowning. A Ferengi in a hat like Zub’s leered at her as he strode away.
Zub’s hat was torn as if ripped off his head. Her neck hairs prickled. Had something bad happened to Zub?
Hussa looked around carefully. Surely, someone as tall as Zub would stand above the crowd. No sign of him. Her hands went icy. She weighed the possibility that he’d been kidnapped. She frowned. Was that even possible? Zub Enel was an accomplished martial artist as well as a Security officer with “cop time on the street”. She’d have heard him struggling with kidnappers.
Wondering if maybe he really had taken off, she headed to the nearest exit. She worked through the crowd to the door. It opened to bright sunshine and heat. The crowds outside were huge, too. She saw a tall spinning flagon of beer. On a hunch, she headed toward it.
[Location: Somewhere dark - and smelly]
Zub Enel discovered the reason he couldn’t see was because he had a coarsely woven bag over his head. It stank of moldy beets. The rumbling through his legs, back, and hips told him he was seated in some sort of ground transport. He felt his wrists bound behind his back. He pulled at the bindings.
A gruff man barked, “Stop moving, you!”
Enel decided to ignore him. He yanked at his bindings. They felt like polymer strands. He was sure he’d be able to break them.
Something hard slammed against his cheek. Stars bloomed brightly. He smelled concrete mixed with beet mold. He heard the gruff voice again, angrier. “His hypo’s worn off already. Hit him again.”
Zub prepared for it just before a second blow landed on his cheek. Less stunned this time, Zub flexed his legs, rose up, and launched a head butt in the direction he thought the blow had come from. His crest sank into something yielding. There was a cry of pain and surprise, not his.
Mr. Gruff Voice shouted, “You idiot! I meant to hit him with a hypo! Here, gimme that!”
Zub was standing by then. His ankles were bound. He wobbled as he blindly tried to shake off the sack. Something hissed and stung him on his arm. He felt himself toppling as blackness rushed in.
[Location: Earth, Munich, Germany, Oktoberfest, Fair Security Center]
The ship's counselor hugged her chest to hide her exposed cleavage from the young duty officer, Marly Fischer, who spent far more time ogling her than consulting his console. He sat back and sighed. “I can say with certainty your boyfriend’s com badge is no longer at this fair.”
Hussa frowned. “We’re only shipmates. He’s missing under mysterious circumstances. His badge is active? Where?”
Fischer smiled hopefully. “He’s not your boyfriend?”
Hussa slapped his desk. She didn’t mean to shout. “Aren’t you listening? He’s likely in trouble!”
Officer Fischer scowled at her outburst. “Please remain calm. My console indicates he has moved beyond the boundaries of this event.”
“To where?”
He riffled his short blonde hair. “Our policy is one of maintaining the badge wearer’s privacy.” His voice took on an overly patience tone. “Once he moves beyond our event…."
Feeling he’d added insult to injury, she stood. “Who can help me find him?”
He addressed her chest. “What about the ship you were on?”
“It’s being overhauled; crew scattered everywhere. Tell me who can help track Officer Enel’s combadge?”
His eyes drifted back to her face. He smiled warmly. “As it happens, I have a fantastic communication setup at my apartment.”
She pivoted toward the exit. “No thanks. I’ll contact the local police.”
“They hate Starfleet,” he called after her.
[Location: Earth, Munich Germany, Oktoberfest, Munich Polizei Tent]
Carew stood before a small temporary desk occupied by a woman old enough to have frown lines but also many smile lines around her eyes and mouth.
Hussa asked, “Can you help me locate his combadge?”
“Inspector Mueller is en route. Only he can breach privacy.”
Hussa said, “I was told the police hated Starfleet.”
The woman spoke softly. “Herr Mueller is a bully, especially to Starfleet, especially to someone small like you. Stand your ground.”
The door slammed. A large man bellowed at Hussa from behind. “You are wasting my time!”
The warm, dreamy feeling faded as Zub found himself plodding forward in high heat and thin air while dragging a heavy plow. A strap wet with sweat circled the front of his bony head crest. Harness straps dug into his bare shoulders. Confused, he looked up at a rusted agridome with a sizable hole in it.
Ahead, a short man with a barrel chest pointed at Enel and yelled, “That big one’s awake!”
A gruff voice came from Zub’s left, “Well, dart the sucker before he tears himself loose!” Zub Enel remembered hearing these two just before the last time he passed out. He peered at the owner of the gruff voice; a Ferengi with tiny lobes and permanent scowl lines stood in a nearby plowed field with ruddy soil and bluish cobbles.
A dart stung him.
[Location: Earth, Munich Germany, Mars Xpress Shipyard]
Marly Fischer, the young blonde from Oktoberfest Fair Security, wrinkled his nose as he dug through garbage by a dilapidated building. “Disgusting.”
Hussa guessed her low-cut blouse was why the officer was still helping. She pointed excitedly. “Big lederhosen shorts! And…” She smiled. “There’s Zub’s com badge!”
Fischer cocked an eyebrow and stated in an officious tone, “That’s odd. Is he naked?”
Hussa frowned. “The surveillance you found showed him escorted off. Strange he’d go with strangers like that. So calmly.”
Marly stood. “There are party drugs known to render people obedient. Usually females.”
“Who’d drug a huge, powerful Voth?”
“Slavers? Sometimes, they need muscle.”
Hussa felt a chill. “Where’d slavers go with him?”
“There’s been some slave Burundi camps broken up on Mars recently.”
“Burundi?”
“Makes highly potent alcohol. Heavily taxed and controlled.”
She considered the possibility. “I need to get to Mars! He’s there. Some illicit burundi farm!”
“From a trash pile to Mars?”
She pointed at the Mars Xpress sign. “Coincidence? They took him there. Help get me there.”
“Wait! What if you go there, but he’s here in a brothel?”
“I’m convinced he’s been taken to Mars."
“Then you should inform Starfleet. He’s one of theirs.”
“I’ve told them. All that takes too long! What if he’s being tortured?”
The officer’s face hardened. “You are guessing. What is he to you?”
“A shipmate. He’s in trouble. I can’t just stand around.”
“You’re awfully committed to this ‘shipmate.’”
“Look, in space, all we have is each other to count on. He’s in trouble!”
“Slavers will grab you too.”
“I’ll find him and rescue him.”
“Mars is a big place too.”
She pleaded, “A freighter takes an hour or two."
“Try eight.”
She bent forward. “Please?”
[Location: Defiant-Class USS Intriguer, Ready Room]
“DON’T YELL AT ME, LIEUTENANT CAREW!” Captain Mari Horst, a stout Bajoran, leaped to her feet from behind her desk. This put her eye-to-eye with the red-faced Trill. “Silence! Unless I ask you a direct question. Is that understood, Lieutenant?”
At attention, Lieutenant Carew gave a curt nod.
Horst sat. “Again, we are moving as fast as we can. Isn’t your being intercepted on a beet freighter by a starship proof that Starfleet takes this seriously?”
Carew inhaled to reply. The captain glared. The Trill in her ridiculous costume remained silent.
“Now,” Horst said. “You’ve been searching for 16 hours.” She regarded the counselor. “You’re exhausted, I’ll wager. Let me fetch you a coffee drink.”
At her replicator above her sitting area, Horst said, “Cafe Mocha. Iced.” She brought it to Carew. “Drink that down.”
The Lieutenant grimaced as she emptied the cup. She returned to attention.
Horst sat and studied a PADD. “Fairground, then Munich Police.” She chuckled. “Inspector Mueller was helpful?”
“No, sir. Loud. Insulting. Obstructive.”
“He washed out of the Academy. Failed the psychiatric exams. He must have hated you. Still, he revealed Enel’s combadge location?”
“No, sir. His dispatcher told me. I think to spite him.”
“You’re in dogged pursuit of this crewman. Why?”
“He’s a shipmate, sir.”
“That’s it? No romance?”
“No, sir.”
Carew’s commitment to Starfleet principles seemed genuine. Mari consulted the PADD. “On the freighter, you posed as that fairground security officer’s fiancé … visiting relatives?”
“That little lie got me aboard.”
“That little lie was a felony offense, Lieutenant. Mars controls immigration. You’re under arrest.”
“But I have to get to Mars….”
“You don’t! This crewmate disappears at a local fair, but you somehow jump to the conclusion he’s been nabbed and brought to Mars, that only you could rescue him. You. Alone. In a costume.”
“The fair’s surveillance identified those who took Zub as slavers who run an illicit Burundi trade on Mars.”
Horst squinted at the earnest young woman. “Your responsibility was to wait for Starfleet.”
“Zub…”
“Belay that! He might still be on Earth!”
The Firebird counselor scowled. “Voths are rare. Surely, you’ve scanned Mars for them?”
“Yes. The moment we entered orbit. Six Voths. Five are citizens.”
Carew smiled hopefully. “And the sixth?”
“Inconclusive on our first orbital scan. Somewhere near Hellas Planitia. We’ll pass over there again in a few minutes.”
“Any signs of Burundi?”
Captain Horst stood. “I want to be absolutely clear. We will identify this sixth Voth. In the meantime, you are being placed under arrest for immigration violations.”
The Trill went pale. She held out the empty coffee cup. “In that case, may I have one more?”
“Of course. Then the brig.”Horst headed to the replicator impressed by this Trill’s unshakeable sense of duty. USS Firebird engendered a fiery, committed crew.
She heard her door open and close. Carew had vanished with the data PADD.
Horst stepped onto the bridge. “Where’d that Trill go?”
Her Lurian Sec/Tac pointed, “Turbolift.”
“Security alert. Lock down the transporter room.”
A different alert sounded. The Lurian frowned. “An escape pod launch, sir.”
Captain Horst still held Carew’s iced coffee. She glanced at the viewscreen showing the approaching crater named Hella Planitia.
“OPS, tractor beam. Pull her back.”
The Andorian at OPS said. “She’s already on the ground near Rock City.”
“Sec/Tac, is her combadge active?”
He checked. “Yes, sir.”
Horst nodded. “So, I’ll wager that means she wants to be found. Alright. Send a Security team after her.”
[Location: Mars, Hella Planitia, Z = +1 kilometer]
Hussa flexed her knees in the open door of the Martian skimmer.
“Jump!”
She flattened her hands against her thighs and dove out the door. Jacko hadn’t slowed the skimmer, so Hussa was slammed sideways by the crosswind. She tumbled, the rusty mottled craters of Mars a kilometer below spun and twisted. She had skydived before for fun, but never in a wispy Martian atmosphere. Her muscle memory brought her back to a ramrod straight, headlong dive at her target, the broken terraform dome below. Wind began to roar in her ears. Her rented a-grav boots were too heavy for her weight. They threatened to flip her over. She fought to stay in trim as she plummeted like a spear toward the large, jagged opening in the glassy dome. Captain Horst’s PADD had shown a Voth there.
She made a quick glance at the horizon. The skimmer was gone. Jacko had dumped her and fled, rightly scared of slavers. She smiled ruefully. Jacko wasn’t one to hover like the young Fair Security Officer.
The thought of Zub below, enslaved and working without food or water until he died, chilled her. She wasn’t sure how to rescue him. She was a counselor, dammit! Still, she was confident that together, they’d figure out an escape.
The agridome, big enough to cover farm fields but with a gaping hole, was one heartbeat below. She tucked herself into a forward somersault. After she spun through the hole, she straightened and pointed her boots at the ground. The a-grav units kicked in hard enough to jam her shins into her knees. She fought to keep her feet pointed down. For a flash, she felt disbelief that her shore leave on Earth would turn into this moment.
Through the distortion waves of her a-grav boots, she spied long rows of purple plants tended by emaciated people. On a platform, a stout man held a long-barreled gun. A Ferengi stood below with a coiled whip. Only these last two looked up at her, a lone woman in a baggy, rented jumpsuit and a-grav boots.
Her mind froze. Her all-consuming desire to find Zub had brought her here, but now what?
She spied him nearby, dragging a huge plow, plodding like a zombie.
As she touched down, she shouted. “Zub! It’s me!”
He ignored her.
The stout man aimed his gun, an old-fashioned thing with a hollow barrel. He shouted, “I gotta clear shot!”
“No, you fool! I don’t want a mark on her.” The Ferengi closed on her, his whip still in a tight coil. The tip had blood-smeared hooks. He shouted to the workers, “All workers surround that girl. Don’t let her leave.”
All around her the mass of thin and bony men turned, their faces blank, eyes dull. Even Zub, still harnessed, turned his plow and plodded toward her. The Ferengi stopped within the length of his whip and rubbed his ear lobe. His little eyes stripped her.
She couldn’t breathe. She could hop with her a-gravs but wherever she landed the circle would close around her again. Or she’d get shot. Or ripped to shreds. Her voice shrilled three octaves higher than usual, “Zub! Help me!” He plowed toward her with no sign of recognition.
The zombie-like workers came in close. Filthy hands reached in from every direction.
Individuals around her began to fluoresce bright blue and fall to the dirt, stunned. The man on the platform and the Ferengi both looked up toward the opening in the dome.
Men and women in Starfleet Security body armor dropped via a-grav boots through the hole. Phaser beams blazed all around. The man on the platform glowed and collapsed. The Ferengi tossed away his whip and raised both hands.
The USS Intriguer medical team’s hyposprays soon restored Zub Enel’s mental faculties. He stood smiling as he surveyed the clusters of officers, recovering workers, and the two captives. He was scaly, bare, muscular, dirty, and in only a modesty skirt made of his original lederhosen shirt.
Hussa took off her rented jumpsuit jacket and held it out to the tall Voth.
Zub scoffed, “That is too small for me.”
She kept her gaze on his face. “It’s not for your chest.”
She saw puzzlement, then realization in his golden eyes. Feathery bits peeked from under his scales. He turned bright red.
Enel took her jacket and wrapped its arms around his waist so that the back emblazoned with “Jacko’s Death Jumps” covered his hips. As he centered the knot in the small of his back, he tilted his head toward a group of Security officers facing him.
Carew followed his gaze. The men were looking at her. She said, “I’m going to be arrested. I lied, cheated, stole, and broke too much stuff trying to find you.”
Zub grinned. “Thank you sincerely for your rescue.” He raised one grimy finger. “Remember, it doesn’t count as a good shore leave unless you get arrested.”
She gave him a weary smile as the officers approached.
[OFF]
Commander Malcom Llwyedd
Commanding Officer
USS Firebird NCC-88298
Lieutenant Hussa Carew (NPC by Zub Enel)
Counselor
USS Firebird NCC-88298
Lieutenant JG Zub Enel
Security Investigations Officer
USS Firebird NCC-88298
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