One Man, One Bottle, Several Dark Truths

Posted on Wed Mar 13th, 2024 @ 11:53pm by Lieutenant Ami Rori & Lieutenant Commander Kurumi Ebisuzawa & Ensign Ruby Kurosawa

1,798 words; about a 9 minute read

Mission: Junichi Koyama
Location: Haruka's Ramen Bar, Gamma Zednor Colony

Previously on Star Trek Myogi:

"Inspired choice." The hostess said with a gracious and polite smile, "It will be a few minutes for the ramen, we make it fresh daily, but your sake will be out momentarily." She bustled off and was back within forty seconds, placing a small decorative cup in front of each of them, then bowed again and left for the kitchen.

Ami reached out for her cup and sipped it, the slightly warm alcohol bringing her back to some of the real restaurants back in Osaka and Tokyo, "Genuine, definitely genuine."

"Thankyou," Kurumi said as she also took the cup and took a sip. She wasn't used to the alcohol, so she took it easy. "Wow, strong..."

"And unlike drinking cold alcohol, it doesn't numb the throat on the way down so you know that it's actually there." Ami took another sip and let herself enjoy that burn, "So, yeah... This isn't like I imagined it... I wonder who the Sakuragis were?"

The loud thud of a bottle being slammed down on the counter silenced the bar. "That... is a dangerous question." A rough voice said.

And now the continuation...

Kurumi's attention was turned immediately to the voice. There was a man sat with them at the bar. His hair was scruffy and looked like it hadn't seen a hairbrush in weeks. Stubble littered the man's lower face and jaw and the top two buttons of his grey (Once white) shirt were open. He bowed his head as he held onto an green Sake bottle, the same one he had slammed down on the bar. The Ramen bowl in front of him was only three quarters full and had obviously cooled quite a while ago.

Ami looked to him as well and took him in with a glance. Not someone she would ordinarily want to have a conversation with, but right now they were on a fact-finding mission and information was still sorely lacking, "Dangerous?" She asked, "Why would asking about someone who was apparently influential be dangerous?"

"You're not around from here are you?" The man said. "You're clearly Japanese and you've never heard of the Sakuragi's..." He picked up the cup infront of him and downed the contents in one gulp before refilling it from the green bottle. "Why do you want to know?"

"The name was mentioned by one of the shopkeepers before were kicked out." Ami said softly, "We're tourists from Japan on Earth and we're on a brief tour of some of the Federation worlds. This was supposed to be a beautiful planet and it is from the outside at least."

The man began to laugh. "You should get out of here. This place is not safe for people like us anymore," he told them all as he picked up the cup again and once again downed the contents. He slowly looked over towards the three women as he refilled the cup once again. "The Sakuragi family were the only people who stood between us and them!" he said in a slightly raised voice as he pointed to the exterior door.

"Then why are you still here?" Ami had to ask in response, "Starfleet would arrange for passage away from here if it's that bad, especially if it's widespread. Hell, they'd send a security investigation team if someone can prove that it's against the law." She stopped and added, "I'm sure they would, at least."

"I've got no where to go," The man said simply his gaze returning to the smooth wood of the counter. "Plus, my family were here... are here. Even if they're all six foot under. I'm not leaving them behind." With that said he picked up the cup again and held it to his lips, but instead of drinking it he lowered it away. "They suffered the same fate as the Sakuragi's did..."

"What happened to them?" Kurumi asked.

"Do you want the 'official' or the 'truth'?" he asked in return as he returned the cup to his lips.

"The truth." Ami said instantly, "Maybe after you can go with the 'official' version so we can hear them both? I for one wouldn't mind knowing what I'm getting myself into, or if we should leave like, right now."

The man let out a few low laughs from the depths of his throat. "Well... It was about six months ago. These new laws that separate those of Japanese ethnicity from others were about to be passed out by that asshole governor. Of course the Sakuragi family spoke out against them." He began as he sipped from his cup of sake. "There was an 'accident' and their entire estate burned to the ground. No survivors..."

He looked over back at the woman. "But we all know the actual truth. They were murdered for speaking out. For protecting us against him! Then they burnt their entire estate to the ground. There's no way in hell it was an accident. No... Not the Sakuragi's. They would never let anything like this happen under their watch!". He downed the rest of the cup's contents.

"Three weeks later people started being arrested, taken to that 'detention center' for 'questioning'." He began to refill the cup, finally draining the bottle of its alcoholic contents. "I find it strange many of them never come back out. Those who do, end up broken, their lives destroyed and their entire identity changed!"

Kurumi wanted to step in and ask him more questions. But he continued to ramble on.

"Before my wife and son were caught up in that 'transport accident' I used to be a school teacher! I once taught a class of up to forty children. The majority of them were of Japanese ethnicity. I watched as those numbers dwindled, and then that transport 'crashed'." He slammed the empty bottle down on the counter. "Of course it was all covered up by the governor. But we all know it was deliberate."

He looked over at the three women once again. "I taught the daughter of the Sakuragi family. She was the sweetest most innocent little thing you'd ever seen." He picked up his cup and downed it. "She told me only two days before the 'accident' that she wanted to be an artist. She never went anywhere without her crayons!". Tears began to run down his face. "They killed her! She was innocent! Then they took my wife and son! Those bastards!"

Ami's jaw dropped as she turned back to Kurumi and Ruby, "Civilian transport shuttles are some of the safest craft in the GALAXY... Especially school shuttles, they've got emergency anti-grav engines to go along with self-activating tractor beams if both the primary engines and anti-grav fails. I know, I snuck into my school shuttle shed and watched the tech doing diagnostics one day. Helped him with them the next year, too. You have to sabotage them to get one to go down hard enough to kill everyone on board." She hissed to the two of the other Starfleet officers.

At that time, the hostess was back with three steaming bowls of ramen topped with perfectly cooked chicken that already seemed to be falling apart just under their looks, "Arigato." She said as she placed one in front of each woman, "If you need anything, just let me know."

Ami's appetite had gone away, but she still dutifully picked up the spoon and took a dip of the broth, getting precisely what she expected from the delicate taste, "They're barbarians here."

"Barbarians is putting it lightly..." The man said as he stumbled to his feet. He looked over at the Hostess and gave her a simple nod. Slowly he dragged himself past them but stopped as he came level with them. He slapped a hand down on Kurumi's shoulder, probably harder than he meant. "Heed my advice. Get the hell off this pathetic excuse of a planet while you still can. If you're only here to sightsee, then I suggest you sightsee another part of the Galaxy."

With that said he removed his hand from Kurumi's shoulder, wiped his face on his sleeve and stumbled out of the Ramen bar.

Kurumi sat there in stunned silence looking down at the bowl of fresh steaming hot ramen. Much like Ami she had lost her appetite. She could feel the emotions deep inside of her starting to surface. "Excuse me..." she said looking upto the hostess. "I don't mean to be rude. But... any chance we can have these 'to go'?"

"Of course, ma'am, I'll go get them packaged up for you." The hostess swept the three bowls off the table onto the tray again and headed back to the kitchen again.

Ami looked down at the table, knowing she couldn't make herself eat anything at the moment. "Ma'am, what are we going to do? I mean, we can't just pack up and leave right now, we need to get more information for the Captain, even if this is pretty obvious what's going on here."

"I agree," Kurumi replied. "The more information we gather here the better. If this is really whats going on, then as Starfleet officers we can't ignore it. These are Federation Citizens and we have a duty of care." she said looking in turn at Ami and Rori. "Lets keep up the tourist disguise for now. See if we can find out more about why the Sakuragi family was so important. Why the governor thought it was necessary to... you know..."

The engineer nodded slowly, then looked over to Ruby, "You've been awful quiet... Are you okay?"

Ruby nodded slowly. It was evident that a few tears had escaped the ensign's eyes from the mans story. "Yeah, sorry. I just wasn't expecting to find out something like this..." She sniffled.

Kurumi put a reassuring hand on her shoulder. "It'll be ok Ruby. We'll get to the bottom of this and fix all of this. No one should have to live like this, not in this century and not in the Federation." she said softly. She looked over to Ami a determined expression forming on her face.

Ami nodded back, already wishing they had decided to send the youngest officer back to the ship. There was this gut feeling that things were about to change in their trip, that it was about to get more dangerous, "We need to get this to the Captain."

"I agree," Kurumi said. Once their Ramen had been given to them in paper soup travel cups, she led them out of the Ramen bar. There was still a lot they needed to find out.

Posting by

Lieutenant Commander Kurumi Ebisuzawa
Chief of Security/Tactical

Lieutenant Ami Rori
Chief Engineering Officer

Ensign Ruby Kurosawa
Operations Officer

RSS Feed