Having an Episode: Shore Leave

You are never going to believe this one. Where do I start.

Well, first of all, everyone on the ship was on edge. After the wedding fiasco and that kerfuffle along the neutral zone everyone was just exhausted. And before that we had that mass murdering troupe of actors on board. Oh and even before that Spock's mutiny for Pike and a near ship-wide death penalty panic, preceded by "death by Balok", insane prisoners, ancient children with horrible contagious diseases, android doppelgangers, beauties hopped up on Venus drug, evil doppelgangers, highly contagious drunken space madness, god-like former collegues acting like murderous asses, god-like adolescents removing people's mouths and what not, oh and let's not forget salt vampire doppelgangers. Whew! We certainly were due for a break. Dr. McCoy even told Kirk that some of the more fatigued members of the crew were showing early warning signs of garden variety space madness. And even though that is not nearly as bad as highly contagious drunken space madness, it is still something to be avoided, and easily avoided it is. The Doctor ordered R&R for one and all.

We found the perfect planet for it, this verdant little gem with no animal life to bother (or eat) us. Well, for some reason the captain wanted to do this by the book. I think he's a little gun shy what with all the brushes with death we've had lately, so he sent down a little landing party to check out the place and make sure there were no surprises waiting for us--strictly routine. Well, we were not on the original list, but Dr. McCoy owes me some poker money so convincing him to include Janice and I was really quite simple. What better way to get a jump on the R&R?

Ah, my dear friend Janice! She is, as you know, leaving us. This will be her last week on the Enterprise and she is more than a little down. I don't think she's cut out for deep space exploration. Barrows has already taken over as the Captain's primary yeoman. That Tonia Barrows, why she is something else! She's not one of the Starfleet career girls like me or Uhura. She one of those who joined the fleet to obtain the rank of Mrs. And let me tell you, she's zipping up the ranks! She's got her eye on our good doctor right now, but before it's all over she'll be an admiral's wife as sure as a Vulcan has pointy ears. She does have beautiful hair. I styled it in a lovely flip right before the landing party beamed down.

"boy, do I need a drink!"

The landing party consisted of Bones, Sulu, Maritine, and Rodriguez. Of course you've heard me go on and on about Bones and Sulu. Martine, of course is Angela Martine, our own grieving little almost bride, robbed of the comfort of being a starfleet widow. Bless her heart. The up side is that she's Alvian, so her sorrow is numbed by the holy whiskey of Lord Alvis. Estaban Rodriguez I know little about. I've always seen him as a bore to be avoided. He's always talking about war this and war that. His knowledge of World War II weapon's and tactics is amazing and amazingly boring. Why he could put an insomniac hummingbird on stimulants to sleep with five minutes of his conversation! Oh, but that isn't very kind of me. Anyhoo, Janice and I joined the other four with no intention of doing any kind of work. I just wanted some girlfriend time before she left us. So, as soon as we hit the ground we put some distance between ourselves and the others.

We walked around a little lake and Janice started telling me something about how she always wanted to learn to tag, you know, to spray paint her signature on buildings, she always wanted to be a graffiti artist. I gave her a dumb look. "What in heavens are you going on about!"

"Well," she said, "I was just thinking about it when I noticed there was a can of red spray paint on the ground by that tree."

A Khan man with a flowered tattoo

Of course we both thought it odd, but we were just out to have a good time so I encouraged Janice to have a go at it. Well, she picked up that red can of paint and did the absolute worst job of tagging a tree that ever there was. She tried again on some banana trees but by then we were both giggling so hard she couldn't hold the can upright. "Oh well," she said, "I guess I can mark that off my list of things to do!"

We continued around the lake, and, as we often do, chatted like a couple of school girls. We talked about how this place was like an island paradise. We were half listening to each other and just gabbing about what our recent intrests. I was telling her something that I'd been reading about Khan Noonian Singh and she was telling me something she had been watching, I wasn't really listening so all I can remember is that it was something about 20th century television and tattoos. Well, we rounded a corner in the path we were on and there among the palm fronds stood two men in white suits. One was a dashing older gentleman whom I'm sure I must have met before. The other was a tiny little fellow.

They were standing a few feet away and I heard the little one say "Who's that boss?" and the bigger guy said "Oh that my friend is a middle-aged love sick hairdresser and her brokenhearted friend." As we got closer he said "Welcome, Welcome to Fantasy Island. I am your host, Mr...."

I didn't catch his name because about that time my attention was diverted by a 6 foot bunny carrying a pocket watch and wearing a waste coat followed by a little girl. They marched off to the left of us and were swallowed by a hole in the ground. Janice and I ran after them but there was no trace of even the hole where they had disappeared! When we turned back the man in white and his little friend were gone.

Janice and I gave each other a puzzled look but didn't have much time to speak as our thoughts were interrupted by four loud bangs! Being a science officer I fell flat upon the ground as I was trained. Janice, of course, having been trained as command remained bolt upright. I pulled her down next to me and told her to be quiet. After a few minutes we decided to stand up and assess the situation and as soon as we did we heard a woman's blood curdling scream. We ran for the trees. Once we got to cover I realized that I'd lost my communicator somewhere, probably while lying on the ground.

"Janice, give me your communicator." I said.

"Um, I didn't bring it." she said.

"You what?"

"Well, there aren't any pockets in this thing and you said 'There's no animal life, so what could possibly go wrong. Let's just go and lay in the grass and look at the clouds' you said. 'I'll make sure we get in the landing party.' you said."

I was about ready to throttle Janice.

"You bird brained idiot!" I yelled. "I bet you've got a whole flock of geese in that head of yours where your brain should be!" Just then a whole flock of geese flew over our heads making all kinds of noise.

We were so startled we jumped together and grabbed hold of each other. We couldn't help but laugh at how stupid we were being and how strange things were becoming all around us. We decided we better find the rest of the landing party as soon as possible by making our way back to the glade where we landed.

Well, before you could say "boo", we ran into an old nemisis of mine named Ruth. She just appeared out of nowhere! There she stood, looking as stunning as ever with that sly smile on her face. Her blonde hair piled on her head was as enticing as cinnamon buns in a basket. She wore that black and white number that she had designed herself for the cover of Earth Vogue. Her shoes were mismatched, one black one white--mismatched shoes had always been her signature. How ridiculous is that? And oh how I hated those shoes!

"You head on to the glade, Janice." I'll be right behind. Janice must have known by the set of my jaw that I wasn't to be argued with because she only hesitated a moment before continuing on.

"My dear Moxie. You haven't aged a day." Ruth paused, "Not one day; it's more like 30 years."

"Oh yeah," I said. I couldn't think of anything witty to say so I jumped her. It's like I'm always telling everyone, If you've got some ass to kick, shut the hell up and kick some ass. When your done you can get snappy with the small talk and the tag lines but don't let them get the upper hand by blathering on and on.

So, we wrestled to the ground. She had me in a head lock but I got away. I tried some of those flying kicks and shoulder rolls that Jim is always trying to show me but my hair just got in the way. Ruth grabbed me by my hair and threw me to the ground. Enough was enough, but when I got up she was gone.

Standing in front of me was Finnegan! He was one of my beau's at the academy. He looked so young and handsome. He said, "Moxie Anne, as I live and breathe!" in that Irish accent of his. "I had hoped I'd meet you here." Well, just like fighting, if you've got something to do go at it and save the words for later. Before I knew it Finnegan held me in his arms. He dipped me low and planted a passionate kiss on my lips. I closed my eyes enjoying the moment. I opened them just in time to see Ruth's balled up fist before it knocked me from Finnegan's arms to the ground.

I was awakened by 3 loud bangs! I don't know how long I was out, but when I woke up, my head was in Janice's lap and she was stroking my hair. "Oh, Moxie! Thank heaven's you're ok." Janice had only gone as far as the trees where she had watched the whole scene. Apparently, once I passed out Ruth and Finnegan had both wandered off. Janice had then swooped in to save me. I assured her I was ok. I wiped the blood from the corner of my lip on the sleeve of my uniform. That's when I noticed that my dress was ripped at the right shoulder, a particularly week area in these uniforms for some reason.

Whatever you wear, wear it well

"I do wish I had something less drafty to wear" I said.

"Like what?" Janice asked.

"Oh, I don't know!" I was just about at the end of my patience, "A gorilla suit for all I care!"

Wouldn't you know it. Just as we stood up and headed for the glade we noticed a gorilla suit hanging from a branch.

I, of course, put the suit on. After I'd just been so snippy with Janice I almost felt I had to. At least it cheered her up a little bit, and me too for that matter.

"Janice, I've got an idea about what's going on" I said. "When I say 'now' I want you to say whatever pops into your head and concentrate on imagining that thing. Ok?" She shook her head in agreement.

be careful what you wish for

"NOW!" I said.

Well Janice blurted out "homicidal robot cowboy" and I shouted "Rama IV, King Mongkut of Siam, fourth ruler of the Chakri dynasty!"

"Oh Janice!" I said, "Did it have to be something deadly!"

Nothing happened at first but then out of nowhere an amalgam of what we'd just said appeared! I told Janice to run for the bushes as I stood resolute, facing the Royal Thai cowboy as he drew his guns and pointed them directly at us. My mind raced. It looked like it was just the king and I and only one of us could survive. But before he could fire, he was shot down by a WWII flying machine.

"Thank the gods! Rodriguez must be close by." I said. "Who would have thought we'd be saved by his tedious knowledge of World War II?"

Once the flying machines had disappeared on the horizon, we continued on and almost immediately found Angela lying at the base of a tree with Rodriguez standing over her. We just about scared him to death until I took the head off that gorilla suit and convinced him it was, indeed, me. We were very concerned about Angela, but he assured us she was alright, just drunk. He said she'd been thinking of whiskey all day and she kept finding shots of it every time they turned around! We decided it best for Janice and I to wait with Angela and for Rodriguez to try and find the rest of the landing party.

I told Janice I thought it would be best if we hid in some bushes while we waited. We dragged Angela into the bushes with us. That turned out to be a really good idea. While we waited a veritable parade passed us by. First there was the giant rabbit followed by the little girl followed by the handsome man in white. The little fellow in white was running behind trying to keep up. Next came a samurai riding a tiger followed by an army of Don Juans. Waddling behind all of this was our little flock of geese. I was not amused though cute they were bringing up the rear.

Furkinis!

Once the parade was out of sight, we roused Angela. I wasn't willing to wait here any longer, what with Rand's homicidal imagination on the loose. The three of us headed to the glade. Just as we got there we saw Kirk heading off into the bushes with Ruth. Everyone was there and everyone was ok. I might add there were also two stunning showgirls in brightly colored fur bikini's and some old man in a mumu. Spock and the old man explained everything to us. Something about higher life forms and Micky Mouse. I'm not going to go into the details, you can cross reference this with the captain's log if you want to know more. All I know is that we could have our hearts desire, just for the wishing. Suffice it to say, Janice and I wished for something more suitable to wear, got changed, and headed back to where we'd met the older gentlemen and his diminutive companion in their nice white suits. We were going to wish us up a five star spa, a wave pool and a dozen or so pool boys of various colors and shades in brightly colored fur bikinis of their very own! The rest? Well, let's just say, what happens on shore leave doesn't leave the shore! *wink wink*

"Do you have this one with pointy ears who prefers straight gentlemen?"