Star Trek Outwardly Mobile

Jae's Next Scheme
By
Jay P Hailey


He was happy. The fresh grass and the open sky. Everything was so pretty.

Jae Ferengi sat down next to a stream and considered how it sparkled. Almost like. Latinum.

The thought of Latinum made Jae Ferengi smile. A tinge of sadness crept in. He didn't have any. Wait, he was a Ferengi he was supposed to have Latinum. Why didn't he?

The memories came back slowly, each bringing more sadness and anger. Like a cloud falling away from his mind, Jae Ferengi recalled.

"NO!!!" He shrieked. Somewhere, in the sky over Omicron Ceti III a transport orbited rotting in the otherwise deadly berthold rays of the planet's sun.

There had to be a way to escape. There *HAD* to. Jae leapt to his feet and began stomping back towards the main settlement.

A young human woman danced, almost nude in the careless garb of a sundress. She was actually 102 years old and formerly confined to a wheel chair. The spores of the strange alien plants restored her to the bloom of youth and health and turned her into a grinning zombie.

She'd paid Jae very well for the privilege. All the money was now over head in a derelict ship, with no one aboard. With rage Jae recalled vacuously happy people returning to the ship and presenting him one of the evil plants like it was the best present in the world.

Once restored and cured by the plants, subsonic sound waves could cause anger, which killed the spores and released their hold on you. Jae found wealthy old and crippled people from all over and held them up for big money to be exposed to the spores and restored.

And then they presented him the plant, it shot him and grinning like an idiot he'd abandoned his ship and all of his wealth.

Angrily Jae spat at the human as he passed her. "You ass is still huge, Jen."

She flipped him off genially, never missing a step.

Jae marched into town. He'd brought a shuttle down. He vaguely remembered it being taken apart for "Nice things" to make "Nice things" happen. An old Starfleet Engineer used the shuttle engines to power fading replicators for food. They'd be fat and happy forever.

Maybe Jae could scavenge enough to clamber back into his ship. Maybe there was enough computer and comm gear left in the shuttle to hook the ships main computer and have it beam him aboard.

How long had it been? Memories under the influence of the spores were vague. Happy, but really vague.

Jae suspected it had been longer than he wanted to admit.

Spotting his shuttle, he almost wanted to cry. Several bricks of gold pressed latinum sat baking happily in the sun, apparently used as a garden shed. Access hatches were open and expensive, vital systems were missing.

Whining to himself about the vandalism to the expensive shuttlecraft Jae stomped into the thing and yelled at the top of his lungs right into one of the alien flowers, which was placed just right to catch him in the face.

Sensing the motion and commotion the plant let Jae have a load of spores right in the face

Jae sat down. It felt soooo good! . Wasn't he was mad about something? What was it? It wasn't important. The important thing was that he felt good. Time to just go ahead and go with it. I mean, how often are you truly happy?

And who knew? Maybe he could talk Jen into some more Oomox. Humming a happy tune to himself, Jae Ferengi left the garden shed and returned to the happy, sunlit field.

-end-

Disclaimer: Paramount owns all things Trek. I claim original characters and situations in this story for me.

This story posted by permission of the author. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited.

Jay P. Hailey

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