Ad Astra :: Star Trek Fanfiction Archive ^{Beam me up, Scotty.}

Chapter Text

The Star Beagle Adventures                                                
Episode 4: Starship Trooper
Scene 2: That Smell

4.2
That Smell

“Your nose will make the difference between you being a live marine and a dead marine.”

Lance Corporal Petra Spitze was a survivor. She had refused promotion because she did not want to be a leader. But she didn’t want to be a buck private either. She had been everywhere during two wars, fighting first against the klingons, then alongside klingons against the Dominion. She wore bright red lipstick, British Racing Green eyeshadow, and while most of her hair was in a jarhead cut, there were a few tufts that stood up in front that were dyed bright red, pink and green, giving her a little the look of an exotic bird. She insisted on being called “Spike.” Her three young companions had no idea why.

The Bluebird was on autopilot. The three young privates were up front in the flight cabin with Spike, hanging on her every word. Spike had survived and survived, often the only marine to come back from desperate fights and she had a lot of stories to tell. Moscow, Songbird, and Boyfriend (as she called them) saw her as amazing, and ancient, and wise. She was 25.

“You get about 2 seconds at the most, then you go nose-blind. You have to own your sense of smell. Your human brain is designed to notice smell first. It’s your warning sign. Always pay attention to it.” Spike tapped her nose. Marines rarely wore fingernail polish, but it was allowed for any rank above private. Spike’s nails were a glossy black. Her eyes appeared blue sometimes - hazel at others.

“Close your eyes. I’m going to expose you to some different smells. When you notice the smell, tell me what it is you think you smell.”

Spike entered commands into a small tri-corder.

PFC Sasha Soko said, “Rancid pizza.”

PFC Guz Maxwell added, “Kind of like a rotten hotdog?”

PFC Raanda Habib’s voice was definite: “Cardassian.”

“Boyfriend got it right. But if rancid pizza or a rotten hotdog works for you, just remember to associate that smell with the smell of a cardassian, specifically a male cardassian. It’s not actually their body odor. Cardassians don’t shower. Their skin doesn’t react well to water. They clean themselves with scented oils and this scent is the most popular with males. Females use a stronger scent that adds kind of a bad cherry smell to it. Like children’s medicine. It really helps to be able to associate familiar smells and tag them to important smells. Okay - eyes closed again…”

“Wet dog?” asked PFC Maxwell at almost the same moment the other two said, with complete conviction, “Klingon!”

“Looks like Songbird has never met a klingon,” Spike said. “You don’t forget that smell. And when they’re hunting you, they can be very quiet and stealthy. That smell was the only thing that saved my life. Just two klingons killed my entire platoon within seconds. They normally don’t hunt at night because their night vision is nowhere near as good as ours. I survived because I hid in a hole and pulled a box over me. And I stayed there and stayed quiet for hours.” 

Spike took a drink. “They didn’t leave until sunrise. They didn’t make a noise -  not a single sound. They were just sitting there, waiting for more of us to come by. The only way I knew they were still there was I could smell them. It was so itchy - I was getting bitten by greeworms. I was terribly sick for a week - it took forever for the doc to get the greeworm eggs out of me. But if I had made any noise - even just to scratch, they would have heard me and they would have killed me.”

“Okay - one more smell - eyes closed again…”

The three young privates closed their eyes.

“Burnt plastic?” asked PFC Raanda Habib.

“Yeah,” added PFC Sasha Soko. “But a little medicine kind of smell too…” Soko wore his blonde hair in a jar-head cut, but also had a thick worm of a blonde mustache, regulation cut at the corner of his lips. At 6'4" and 240 lean, muscular pounds, he had the look of a U.S. Marine.

Like his comrades, he was wearing the gray and brown fractal camouflage uniform with three subdued flags on the left shoulder and a subdued beagle-patch (used only by the Space Hounds) on his right. His uniform hat, a quarter-bill cap made of the same material, was hanging on a set of hooks that had been added to the back of the flight cabin.

“Good Moscow… How about you, Songbird?”

PFC Guz Maxwell ran his fingers through his short brush of coal black hair. “Kind of like a guitar pick when I’m chewing on it.”

“Good - remember that smell. That’s the smell that will save your life. Saved my life twice. My sergeant taught me that smell…”

The three PFC’s opened their eyes, looking at Spike expectantly.

“That is the smell of metabolized ketracel white. The jem’hadar metabolize a lot of it just before they de-cloak to attack…”

4.2