Star Trek Anthology: The Tall Ferengi

On star base DS9 after a long shift Chief O’Brian was sitting on the last of the bar stools at Quark’s bars as he dedicated to get something to eat before heading home he saw that Worf ad Dax was sitting at a table not too far away and a few patrons were at the dabo tables. Then a crowd started to gather as he saw a crowd of about five Ferengi surrounding a human as they walked. Then human only stood out because he was taller everything else was average. He was only about 1.7 meters (average for a human but still towing over Ferengi he had sandy brown hair and blue eyes with an average build and was in his mid to late twenties. O’Brian asked “who’s that?” to Quark who was at the bar. Quark said “you wouldn’t know it by looking at his lobes but, that is one of the only humons I know who can match business accolades with Ferengi, without resorting to you know” as he made a rubbing gesture next to his ear “His name is Nathan Issacs, but he is known as “the tall Ferengi”” As he got closer O’Brian noticed he was wearing the typical Ferengi suit ( but scaled up to fit him) but also that he was also wearing a necktie, an item worn by businessmen in the 20th and 21st Century. He entered Quarks bar and sat down at a table and Quark came over himself. “I hear this is Quarks, the best bar in the station drinks for everybody” as he handed a sizable a portion of GP Latinum. “we will get on it” as Quark motioned two of his employees to get on to it. “as for myself I would like Klingon Blood wine” Quark quickly went got it and returned”. The next table over Worf was interested in his choice of drink and said “Interesting choice not many non-Klingons have had taste for Blood wine” “I first got the taste for it during talks with a Klingon captain and I must say I hold it down pretty well”. Dax then said “could you join us you must have had an interesting life” “why not I enjoy talking to something that’s not about profits and losses sometimes” as he pulled up a chair to their table. Dax said to O’Brian “hey chief want to sit with us” O’Brian thought why not as he walked to the table and sat. They then introduced each other then Odo came in the bar and walked up to Nathan and said “I heard you were on this station, you better not be up to some scheme Issacs you’re no better than a Ferengi as head of security I will be watching you very much” he then left the bar.  Dax said “that’s Odo he means well but he came be over protective of the station, anyway tell us how you got equated with the Ferengi. “well I was seventeen a few years before official first contact with the federation, I was raised by my grandfather who told me stories about men in history who acquired great wealth and fame, I was intrigued by this something that was contradictory to everything  federation dogma teaches in its schools. I never did extremely great in school not because I wasn’t smart but because I had no motivation to do well. To me, the excuse of “to serve the greater good” never worked because I knew when a government said this in earth history it was usually followed up by forced indoctrination and genocide, From Hitler to Mao. Not long after I turned 17 my grandfather died so I decided to drop out of school and stowed away on a ship to the alpha quadrant in search of where I belonged. Once we got into the alpha quadrant we were hit by a devastating solar storm and I was the only survivor of the small crew because I was in the cargo hold of the ship. About day passed with me trapped in  the drifting ship and a Ferengi salvage ship came and raided the cargo hold of course no one knew what they looked like but I knew them from reputation of what little the federation did know. So I asked them if I could join their crew they then took me to their leader and he said: “I don’t know humon, your lobes are smaller than a female’s but, we could always use more help in the cargo bay”.  So I began working in the cargo bay for a meager wage of Latinum and it was hard work, but I felt apricated because I had never earned anything for work in my life expect for the hollow assurance of “the greater good”. While working there I met a Ferengi boy named Straf about my age who had extremely small ears for a Ferengi male. He looked very sad and I asked what’s wrong and he said “father thinks I don’t have the lobes or business sense so he sent me to do this crummy job, not that I would expect a Humon know anything about monetary based economics” “ You wouldn’t now it but humans have a long history of acquiring wealth , in the late 19th century earth business men called the captain of industry made a fortune of that would equal billions and billions of Us dollars today and most of them started out poor’’ Straf then asked “ how much is a billion dollars?” and I said “I don’t know but it’s a lot”. This made him feel better and he said “maybe the humons have some hope after all, by the way, my name is Straf” I said, “my name is Nathan”. After that, we quickly became friends and worked hard for some time till we realized that by arranging the cargo bay a different way we could increase storage compactly, therefore, increasing potential profits. We showed this plan to the leader and he said “this looks good maybe you two small lobes can make something out of yourselves after all” The months went by as Straf educated me on the rules of Acquisition and Ferengi economic and told him what I knew about earth free market capitalism in human history and we became partners known around the ship as the “small lobes”. Through hard work, we rose through the ranks and we acquired more Latinum by investing what we had in business deals through the ship, then one day they said that the ship would return to Ferenginar which few outsiders have seen. It was rough start when we got to Ferenginar as most had never seen a human before. We then had a plan to apply as apprentice’s witch was a little weird at first but there was no law against non-Ferengis. The apprenticeship was hard but I and Straf got through it, there was occasional bullying but I used by my “sizable advantage” to ward them off. After a few years, we graduated and entered the world Ferengi economics. I course was granted Ferengi citizenship pledged allegiance to Grand Nagus and the Rules of acquisition and I officially voluntarily revoked my federation citizenship as a show of loyalty. We soon bought a salvage ship with the money we had acquired and hired the down and out of the Ferengi world because nobody else would serve under a human and a small lobed co-captains. We eventually went over the quadrant with many success and failures until we got lucky. We stumbled upon a planet that just had gotten warp ability and was a natural hot spot for dilithium crystals so me and Straf took it upon ourselves to make first contact with these people on behalf of The Ferengi   Alliance and hammered out  a settlement between the two governments and became overnight sensations scooping up a new ally before the federation could swoop in and since then Straf and I made trade deals with many worlds and have become rich in the prosses and I have found a new brother and the place I belong and that is the story of the “tall Ferengi”” Dax said “wow seems like you have had a good life” “yes better than anything the federation could have given me”. “I personly have found only one star fleet captain that was not preachy and that was Captain Karl Blum.  I met him a few months ago nice guy we traded and left I’m just glad he didn’t on a long speech about the morals of the federation and the evils of money like captain Picard did when he first met my countrymen” Then a Ferengi walked up to him that must have been Starf and said they have to go  and they left the bar. O’Brian said “Well he is Ferengi all right, I guess everybody needs to find where they belong”