The Human Adventure continues with DC Comics’ Star Trek run. There’s a new writer behind Rest and Recreation, Peter Kupperberg, but Tom Sutton remains on pencils, and Ricardo Villagran endures on inks. This one was on spinners for September of 1985.

This time out, we get to see what Scotty gets up to during some downtime.

Stardate: 8293.6

The splash page sees Scotty giving a presentation to some young engineering cadets while on R&R at Starbase VII, which is under the command of his old friend Joshua Helmes. He demonstrates pretty quickly that he will chat engineering all day, but he won’t tell tales about his friends and crewmates.

Joshua seems bitter about the command he has because of a mistake he made with his first starship command. He feels Starfleet is giving him do-nothing assignments as a result. And while Scotty enjoys a wee dram and teaches a young cadet, Gulder, about dilithium crystals and drinking, we see that there is something darker going on in other parts of the station.

There’s murder, theft, and another friend of Scotty’s Bill Nygulla is hurt. When Scotty comes across the scene, Helmes, Security, and the doctor are there looking after Bill.

The thieves are up to something with items they stole (inventory says hand towels) and the station’s garbage incinerator.

Scotty and Gulder dig into the Sarbase’s files. Scotty is trying to put the picture together about what was stolen and why. As Scott starts to get closer, one of the men behind the heist, Chandler, overhears and warns his compatriots.

Chandler meets with an unidentified man (how much do you want to bet that the reveal will be that it’s Helmes?) and he orders the Engineer taken care of. But to make it look good so that Starfleet won’t investigate.

Thanks to Gulder, Scotty survives an attempt on his life by Chandler, and the chase is on. Scotty proves he can still brawl with the best of them and works to get some info to help his investigation. Unfortunately, phaser fire keeps Scotty and Gulder down so Chandler can escape, but he planted a seed for further investigation.

Knowing where the containers came from, they investigate their origins and discover a drug smuggling ring (remember this was the 80s and the height of the Just Say No campaigns)! The ring has been using the ion flow of the incinerator to cook the crystals for consumption, but they’ve rigged it wrong, and it may blow if Scotty doesn’t fix it. Unfortunately, Chandler and some of his pals show up and phaser fire ensues again!

Gulder is able to distract one of the attackers, but Chandler gets the drop on Scotty until someone else phasers him. Scotty is initially delighted that his friend Joshua Helmes was here in time. But how did he know to show up there, with a phaser?

Surprise (or not)! He was in on it the whole time, masterminding it all.

A fairly basic and run-of-the-mill story that has me hoping that Mike Barr comes back soon. The art remains solid, and I like that in the past two issues we’ve gotten to spend time with characters besides the Big Three.

I didn’t hate it. But I didn’t love it. Let’s see what happens next time as we Boldy Go and explore Chekov’s Choice written by Walter Koenig himself!