HubNuggets Down Under: The Return of HubNugget Hank

When you last visited your beloved HubNugget team, we were procuring Wannabes from the furthest reaches of the Nebula System in the HP galaxy. We were tired, we were hungry, and some of us were more than a little cranky (I never did get my fries and gravy. More on that in a minute.).

As you know, we successfully completed our mission, and Captain Shirley delivered a stellar hub for your reading and voting pleasure. All in all, it was a great day in space. If only that were the end of the story.

We were all up on the bridge, celebrating a job well done. We weren’t too far from a Hubby’s drive-thru, and Captain Shirley had decided that my fries and gravy request was sounding pretty good. I was already salivating in anticipation as she gave the order to change course and go to warp factor 9, but before she could finish her sentence…

*Radio crackle and white noise from the ship’s communicator*

“Commander Maddie Ruud to Starship Hubbertise…come in Hubbertise! Urgent!”

These urgent communiqués usually came at the beginning of a mission, so we were all a little surprised to be hearing from Hubfleet Command at this point.

*More crackling*

“I repeat…I have an urgent dispatch for the Hubbertise. Come in Captain Shirley!”

“Captain Shirley, here. Go ahead commander.”

“Shirley, you and your team have done a fantastic job with this mission, and we know you’re all exhausted, but there’s been a break-in at Hubfleet Command. The Potential HubNugget report has been stolen, and the perpetrator was seen boarding a Qantas jet. Oh…and did I mention he looks an awful lot like a platypus?”

“HubNugget Hank” captain Shirley cursed under her breath.

Hank had faded into relative obscurity within hours of his debut. He obviously wanted to grab some attention now, and what better way to grab headlines than to grab the HubNugget report?

“Mr. Evilpants!” the captain barked. “Set a course for Earth and hightail it down to the transporter room pronto! We’re beaming down to Australia and we will catch your little web-footed friend!”

This mission is so critical that Maddie and Jason joined the team in Australia to coordinate operations. For security reasons, Hubfleet Command officials always travel in pairs, so the Kangaroo disguise was obviously the right choice.

Captain Shirley acted quickly. Cleverly disguising herself as a Kukaburra, she took up a bird's-eye view from a nearby old gum tree. If that platypus was in the vicinity, he would certainly not escape the captain's steely gaze.

Not to be outdone, RedElf donned her Koala disguise. She had been saving it for just such an occasion, and was eager to get to her eucalyptus tree. Don't let those sleepy eyes fool you. If Hank comes this way, he's toast!

Patty Inglish, promoted to science officer for this mission, hit the ground running flat out like a lizard drinkin'. Literally. She has an uncanny knack for finding just the right disguise, and her goanna persona offered the right combination of camouflage and agility to get the job done. She would be equally at home in the trees, on the ground or in the billabongs where Hank is known to hang out.

Zsuzsy Bee's echidna disguise affords safety in the event of an aerial attack from an unscrupulous platypus, while that sensitive snout helps to sniff out the purloined potential Nuggets. Brilliant, Zsuzsy!

Wombats are a pretty common sight along the roads here, so Ripplemaker's disguise fits right in. She can watch the roads for platypus activity without calling attention to herself.

I have taken the hardest, most mentally demanding job of all. HubNugget Hank is a known lover of adult beverages and has been recently spotted at numerous drinking establishments throughout the area.

While disguised as a run of the mill kangaroo, I have the unenviable task of hopping from pub to pub and posing as a patron. I think the pub crawl technique is our best chance of capturing this villain. It's a dangerous game, but I think I'm up to the job.

I put in a lot of hours, every one of them fraught with danger, going from one pub to the next; drinking beer after beer. But in the end, it was the keen nose of our security chief that led to Hank's lair. Way to go, Zsuzsy! She tracked him to his sub-aquatic casino and we sprang into action.

*Classic Star Trek dramatic fight scene music*

Science officer Patty's training paid off. Even in her goanna disguise she was able to catch Hank off guard with a flip kick. Zsuzsy and RedElf held him down while Commander Shirley grabbed the dossier.

I acted with lightning reflexes, sprinting for the buffet. If Hank had buried the remaining Nugget categories there, I would find them; even if I had to eat every last shrimp on the buffet. It turned out they weren't buried in the shrimp, so I moved on to the lobster tails. In the end, I recovered the the other 18 categories from under a large pile of Marmite. I should have known. Nobody ever touches the Marmite!

With the potential HubNugget report safely aboard the Hubbertise, I was charged with delivering the polls to the hubbing public. Now it's in your hands. We've done the hard part, now all you have to do is read and vote.

If you're a Wannabe, don't let that hub stay behind a Klingon cloaking device! Get out there and promote! Flip open that communicator and get the word out!