IsabelGuz Excerpt

Ensign Guz was in the 602 club, enjoying a fruity beverage and talking to Ensign Reed about Titan V missiles. Guz was in uniform--her navy-blue jumpsuit with red stripes, but Reed was wearing a polo shirt and shorts. Reed spotted his crewmates from across the room and waived them over to the booth.

"Uh, Isabel, this is, *ahem*, Lieutenant Tucker and Commander Archer, from Project Enterprise."

"Please, call me Trip."

Guz's eyes went wide. "Wow! Howdy, I'm, uh, Ensign Isabel Guz, nice to meetchy'all."

Trip cocked his head to the side. "Ensign, where you from?"

"No clue sir, but I was raised in Greensboro."

"Ah, one of them reclaimation project towns?" Trip said.

Guz nodded. "There weren't much uh the city left after the 2nd civil war, but that meant it wasn't one of the targets during world war three."

Commander Archer chuckled to himself, then cleared his throat. "I think you and Trip have a lot in common. He was raised in Panama City."

"A real life Florida man...," Guz marvelled.

"In the flesh," Trip said.

"Have you ever made it out to Cape Canaveral? I know it's mostly a crater reclaimed by swamp at this point but I've heard the historical society opened the ruins of the VAB to visitors! I've always wanted to go, but I never found the time, and--"

"Calm down Ensign. I've done better than that. I've seen the preserved Saturn Five booster in Huntsville, Alabama."

"No... way..." Guz said.

"Forgive me for prying but, what's with the, uhh..." Archer said, gesturing vaguely at Guz's whole deal.

“The slime? The Vulcan scientists said I came to them as a cylinder of biomimetic compound salvaged from a Zaldan Empire ship. They didn't get any records, so I dunno what planet I'm from. Ain't like it matters; as far as I'm concerned, I'm from North Carolina."

"Zaldans?" Archer said

"They're at a similar level of development to Earth, but with much wider infrastructure. That's all the Vulcans told me about them.”

“So are you like, some kinda shapeshifter?” Trip said.

“If you want to learn all about me, feel free to read the Vulcan paper, Development and Maturation of a Biomimetic Mold Organism. If you can read Vulcan, that is. You’ll learn all about my shapeshifting abilities, or lackthereof; my fluidity, material structure, sentience profile… pain response.”

The table went silent. Guz looked down awkwardly, more upset that she’d made things awkward than about what the Vulcans did to her all those years ago.

“Hey, ma’am, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to--”

Guz feigned cheering up. “It’s ok. We all know how Vulcans can be!”

The waitress came up to the table. “The usuals, gentlemen?”

“Thanks, Ruby,” Archer said.

“How ‘bout Isabel?” Trip said.

“You’ve already guessed that one,” Ruby said.

“Damn,” Trip said, snapping his fingers.

“Wh-what was that about?” Guz said.

“Ruby said she’ll marry the first guy who guesses what she wants to name her kids.”

Guz muttered under her breath, “or maybe the first slimegirl…”

Archer furrowed his brow and pursed his lips, a little surprised.

Ruby came back with some drinks, and Archer continued in his small talk. “So, Ensign, where are you assigned?”

“I’m on Captain Jeffries’ engineering team.”

“Oh, damn, is he overworking you?” Trip said.

“I can handle the workload,” Guz said. “But I’m hoping to actually get… you know, out there some day. I’m hoping to get on one of those Freedoms, or maybe an Intrepid--”