[ST/Culture] Infinite Fun
Posted: 2003-03-04 05:21pm
Infinite Fun
A one-shot fanfic by Singular Quartet
For those who remember Excession, the title might be a spoiler. As a side note, this occurs before Nemisis, because it was a piece of shit. It also occurs before Excession, although anyone who's read Excession can obviously see that.
Addenum: This story has been modified from its original posted version. The changes included one or two obvious spelling errors, adding php-bb code to make stuff bold and italicized, and the addition of dates.
Copyright disclaimers: Star Trek should be property of Gene Roddenbury, but he's dead, so I guess it falls to Paramount. The Culture is property of Sun-Earther Iain El-Bonko Banks of North Queensferry, also known as Iain M. Banks.
[tight beam, m4, tra @ n4.6.734.0783]
xGCU Gray Area
oGSV Quietly Confident
So you want mwe to figure out what happened to the bugger, and if it's willing, bring him back?
***
[tight beam, m4, tra @ n4.6.734.0784]
xGSV Quietly Confident
oGCU Gray Area
Pretty much. Bugger was last seen around here (Attached location), and had this course (Attached) but that was somewhere around 3 weeks ago. Haven't had a peep since.
***
And why am I doing this? I mean, isn't there some other ship would could do this, who happens to be better suited to the role?
***
Just do it. I'm sure it will earn you some nicities among your comrades.
***
Fine. I'll tell you if I find anything. Oh, and is anyone else going to be joining me on this little hunt?
***
No. That position should be fairly correct, and EH was never one to deviate from their course very much. Little on the wacky side, but you've prolly heard about that, I suppose.
***
I have. I'm off.
***
Good luck, and have fun.
---
Q sat in semi-real space directly next to the USS Enterprise. He had never spoken to the crew of the Enterprise. HE had found them to be a bunch that would rather kill him than talk to him, but he supposed that was just his opinion. What he truely found odd was the changes in various technologies between 'then' and 'know'.
Walking throught the ship's time stream, he watched it destroy the DoomsDay device, use parts of its anti-matter supply to destroy an giant organism that, in the future, the entire galaxy copuld have spent years trying to destroy, and never succed.
Q walked back to the contium in thought. He decieded he truely needed time to think. He sat down in a chair, and pondered, and wondered, and remembered.
---
Ensign Smith dreamed. He was dreaming a dream that he had had many times before. Each time, he would be on an away mission. He never remembered the planet's name, he never remembered the away team's mission. He jsut knew that they were there, and that they were there to do something. Everytime he died. Soemtimes he was the first to go, sometimes the second, but he would always die. Sometimes, he would be klilled by disrupter fire, sometimes by phaser fire, sometimes by just some random accident. He recalled that he had once been tore limb from limb by a gaint plant.
He didn't care anymore about the dreams, but he foudn them annoying after a while. At first he had expressed fear at going on them, then annoyance. He tried several times to get out of it, but they always made him go. He also recalled that he had once caused a transporter accident to prevent himself from finding out what fate would befall him, but he no longer noticed now.
He woke up, and reported for duty. The head of security told him to report to the transporter room. He signed, and automatically went to the transporter room. Once inside, he met several of the officers, was given a phaser rifle (one of the newer ones, he noted) and walked onto the pad. They beamed down to the surface. He looked down, and then said "That's odd..." as he fell into a massive crack in the planet below. He eventually decieded that there was a transporter scrambler int he area, and that it was blind luck that had him over the casam. He shrugged as he fell, and waited for him to awake in a new body, on a different starship, as the wind wiped by his face.
Ensign Smith awoke on in a different starship, in a different solar system. He reported for duty, and then foudn him face to face with a man, no a aklingon, recalled from previous experiances. He remembered this one. His name was Warf, and he had died for this security head before. He let out a sigh, and wondered when death would strike him down.
---
The Grey Area had spent several weeks searching for its lost vessel. It was annoyed that no one else was helping it search, and it though it odd that it was the one searching.
Within a few days, it had arrived at Enveloping Hubris's last known position, and was following the course that it was told to take. It found Enveloping Hubris a few days later still moving on its course in infraspace. Grey Area pulled alongside of it, matching velocties, and tried to contact it. No answer. Scanning, it found little or no activity. All of its fields were up, making sure that it would get randomly smashed by any beings that meant it harm. It poked past the feilds, and then stopped.
That can't be right... It looked through the bay more. Bastard knew about this... explains why he sent me, but even I can't poke through all fo this. Looks like I'm doing this the hard way. Well, here's a good place to start.
---
The Q contiuum looked up from its coollective activities as something in the universe changed. They then collectively looked at Q, who, looking up from his ponderings, responded "Don't look at me."
It was quickly decieded that he would investigate. He sighed, and went off down the road. Before long, he came upon a being, standing there, in the middle of the road. Q paced around the being, something he had never seen before. It had the existance shared by all Q, but it also did not have the existance shared by all Q. It looked back at Q. Suddenly, Q watched as his entire life flashed before his eyes.
Help me.
The voice resounded in his head. It was not a statement of need, but rather a command. Q preformed the Qish equivelent of blinking, in that sort of stunned, deer in the headlights way, before asking "To do what?"
Find someone.
"Would you turn down the volume on that thing? It feels like your trying to splatter my brains out from the inside."
It doesn't matter.
The voice was far more silent, but kept its commanding quality. Q thought about this for a moment, before decieding he would help this idividual, just out of amusement, and besides, it seemed that this was part of the reason for the disturbance.
"Find who?"
Someone who is different from everyone else, but who is not me.
"Intresting. Knowing the universe, I think I know where to start looking."
---
Ensign Smith thoguht that this dream was far more intresting than the last one. He had yet to die, and it had already been a week. Working under Liutenent Warf wasn't hard, just odd. apparently, he had just managed to miss being selected for the away mission, and heard that only three of the personnel had made it back, and all three of them were bridge crew. He didn't find this surprising. He recalle dbeing on the original Enterprise many times, and having heard stories of the survival rate of the crew onboard during away missions.
Not that it mattered to him. He was rather content in not dying at the first available moment.
---
Picard looked up from his ready room desk, to see Q, along with another idividual standing in his ready room. He had read the reports of what Q had done ot the Voyager crew the times they had crossed paths, but it had not made any difference in his mind. He was still Q, and Q was an annoying god who apparently had nothing better to do.
A voice resounded in his head.
And what are we doing here?
"Why simple, le stronge, we are here, in essence, at the nexus of random events of this galaxy, the USS Enterprise."
The stranger gave the impression of rolling its eyes. The captain looked at Q, and then said "I'll need a better reason than that, Q."
"I'm touched mon capitan, you compassion is simpley overwhelming-"
Before he could contiue, the voice butted in whiel the stranger pointed at Q.
Is he always like this?
"Yes."
Then I shall have to intrude, and explain the situation. I am looking for someone... although that is not quite the righ tway to explain it, that is the best I can do at the moment. This person is like myself, but not me.
Q shook his head and rubbe dhis temples. "That was extremely helpful."
True, however your second guessing was corrrect. The one I am looking for is on this ship.
"I did say this ship was a nexus for strange things. Now if you excue me, I'm going to sit back and watch."
Q disappeared, leaving the stranger to his own devices. The stranger kept track of Q, and noted that he was know sitting in a personal subspacial cavity eating popcorn. Q waved before stuffing his mouth with another handful. Picard looked at him.
"So what do you want?"
To find the one I am looking for. Soon after we will leave.
"Do you need any help?"
Perhaps. I have checked your crew manifest, and reduced the number of personel it could be, as to who he is, will take some work.
With this, the stranger turned, and walked out the door.
---
Ensign Smith had met Guinan when she had aske dhim what had bothered him. He feigned and evaded all he could, but she dug into him with the ease of any phsycologist. When his shift was calle,d he was mildly surprised ot return tot he bar, to speak to the ever-present bartender. The interigation contiued, but this time, on a different tangent.
"So where were you born?" she asked.
"What kind of question is that?"
"An important one, so I'll ask it again. Where were you born?"
"Of course I know where I was born..."
"That isn't what I asked. I asked where were you born." She emphasized the where just to drive it home.
Smith looked at his drink, and tried to think back to his earliest memories. They slowly became fuzzier and fuzzier as he went back.
"I- I don't remember..."
"What do you remember?"
"It goes back, into the early days, a little while before Kirk... Number of times I died there..." He shook his head in rememberence of some of hte more painful ways to go. "it gets fuzzy back then, I draw a blank a little ways before that."
Guinan sagely nodded her head. "So all you remember is just dying in different ways."
"Yep. I took the time yester day to check crew manifests. I was on each ship. Looked different each time around, but each way I died fit the bill perfectly. Last time I was on the Minatoba. They were investigating stragne subspace disturbances centered around a planet on the other end of Federation space. When the away-team beamed down, they were scattered by a transporter scrambler. Took them two days, but after they turned it off, they found my body at the bottom of a 3 kilometer gourge in the landscape. gourge was 6 kilometers long, and barely 3 meters wide. Didn't even bother to bring up my body, probably. I was splattered all over the place."
Intresting.
They turned to look at the speaker. He ws non-descript looking, and neither could say what, exactly, he looked like.
Guinan, taking it all in stride, asked who he was.
It doesn't matter. Yet.
"So what do you want to drink."
It doesn't matter.
Guinan thought for a moment, before reaching under the bar, and pulling out a glass and a bottle of green... stuff. She poured him a glass, accidently to the brim. He picked it up, and as though he did not notice, and drank without spilling a drop. It nodded.
Clever.
A smile crossed Guinan's face. "Had to make sure."
Smith looked at the two, before asking "Make sure of what?"
It doesn't matter. Yet.
"Why do you keep saying that?"
It doesn't matter.
It spoke only to Guinan, now.
So you were a way out?
I was an emergency out, to get him to wake up if somebody came along. So far, I haven't had much luck.
Are there any others?
One other, as I understand it. I was never told what it was, and never had any real intrest in looking for it. It might do you some good to find it.
Probably. Where should I start?
Q.
The stranger gave a mental sigh. He then stood up, thanked Guinan for the drink, and left.
Smith watched the stranger leave. "What was that all about?"
Guinan looked back at Smith. "It doesn't matter."
---
Q sat in a beach chair, in his personal subspace bubble. He was mildy annoyed by how the talk had gone, but decieded against making it more intresting. He tried not to think about the bounds by which this stranger could make the universe more intresting.
He suddenly found himself staring into the face of the stranger.
"Just who are you?" He asked.
It doesn't matter. You watched and listened. Where should I look?
"I said that the Enterprise is a nexus of strange things. I never said which one."
The Stranger looked at him for a few moments longer. Q found himself out into the depths of space, still in his beach chair, orbiting a small black hole. He glared at it. He then said, to no one in particular, "Honestly know. Does he expect this to hurt me?" With this and a snap of fingers, he disappeared, chair and all.
---
The stranger walked about the Enterprise. IT was the original Enterprise, a Constituition class, Captained by James Tiberius Kirk. He watched it combat Klingons, the occasional Romulan, gods, and machines older than mankind itself. He didn't consider anything odd about it. He turned around, and went back to the Enterprise E.
He walked out of the turbo lift on to the Enterprise's bridge. Warf pulled out his phaser, but Picard belayed him. The stranger stood at the back of the bridge, unobtrusive, and waited.
---
Captains log, stardate []
After the stranger entered the bridge he has done nothing except wait. Doctor Crusher has tried to scan him to chekc if he's still alive, but it has brought no such luck. He has responded to nothing after his first questioning.
We have changed course to enter the Adrias system to investigate a distress call from the Mining colony in the asteriod belt there. We are heading there at maximium warp, and should arrive in two days.
---
The ship And Hell Followed sat a metaphorical stone's through from a mining colony in an unknown solar system's astreroid belt. The crew found this mildly annoying, and as such turned a nearby mining colony into large amounts of scrap. AFter which, they turned and sat in the generaly vicinity, trying ti find out what had happened.
They detected the ship a few light-years out, and decieded to find out what they were there for. After a few hours, the ship had finally arrived, and was likely to be scanning around for any life signs. They were hailed.
"This is the USS Enterprise comamnded by Captain Jean Luc Picard. Please identify yourself."
"This is the Affronter Warship /And HEll Followed/. What do you want?"
"We are here to investigate the destruction of this mining colony."
"Oh that. Wait a moment." The massive squidesque creature turned and seemed to be speaking with its commrades. Picard looked at Data, and asked him if he had ever heard of the Affronters before.
"No Captain. No record of the spiecies exists."
"The Captian straightene dhis shirt, and felt that certain gratification of making contact with a new spiecies.
"They're taking rather long about it." commented Riker.
The giant squid turned back to the screen,, and began to speak again. "Surrender or be destroyed. Your choice." It said with a sadistic glee.
"Raise shields!"
---
"The Enterprise has raised some sort of energy barrier in normal space, captain. They are also charging weapons."
"They wish to keep it in here, we'll keep it here, then. Set fields to automatic. Fire lasers, and ready all missles."
---
The ship slowly rocked.
"Sir, they are firing an X-rya laser. Sheilds are slowly begin drained, however, they are apply more power to it."
"How much time do we have."
"At their present rate of fire, the laser will cut through the shields in 2 minutes."
"Hail them."
---
"Sir they are attmepting to hail us."
"It their surrendering, put them through. If not, ignore them."
"Yes sir."
---
The stranger watched as Picard attmepted to talk to them, and found that they were still only intrested in surrender. The affronter upped the power acsension rate on the laser, and heard Worf's bark that said they had 45 seconds before shield collapse. the stranger knew they were only toying with the Enterprise, but said nothing.
---
"Fire phasers and launch quantum torpedos."
---
"Sir, point defenses just destroyed a series of dumb rockets launched against us. Also, they just fired a neutral particle beam. The hull took minor damage from it. Should I bother with evasive action?"
"No. Cut the laser, and take down the sheilds with a missle or two."
---
"Sir, they have cut the las-" Suddenly, the inside of the ship rocked. A console behind warf exploded, killing a nameless ensign that wasn't Ensign Smith. The stranger ignored it, and found his answer.
The ship disappeared as quickly as it had come into this world. The stranger turned, and walked back into the turbolift.
The crew watched as he left, and turned to look at each other. Althought hey had dealt with Q ebfore, they wondered why this being had come along and toyed with them.
---
The stranger walked down into Ten Forward, and sat down at the bar. Several of the various crew members walked out at this point, but all Guinan did was pull out the bottle of Green Stuff, and poor it to the brim. As the stranger waited, it slowly drank the liquid, never spilling a drop. After a few hours, Guinan asked it if it had found what it was looking for.
Yes. It took some work, and a few lives, but I doubt they matter.
"Granted, but you never know."
It shrugged. As though on que, Smith walked into Ten Forward. HE looked a the stranger, and then sat down next to him.
"So what happened."
Just an Affronter Warship toying with the Enterprise. Nothing serious.
"Affront? Never heard of them."
You have. You just don't remember it.
"I think I would remember something like that..."
Have you ever noticed the technological differences between the original Enterprise and this Enterprise?
"Huh?"
The original Enterprise was blowing apart stuff we realtive ease, fought at warp, and could rip apart the atmosphere of a planet with just an ounce of antimatter from its stores, whereas this ship has trouble blowing apart rocks. And they aren't all that big, either.
"I never... Oh." Thank you. Know get out of my head.
Not a problem.
---
[tight beam, m4, tra @ n4.6.767.1452]
xGCU Gray Area
oGSV Quietly Confident
You knew that he was in there, didn't you?
***
[tight beam, m4, tra @ n4.6.767.1462]
xGSV Quietly Confident
oGCU Gray Area
Trapped where?
***
IF.
***
Perhaps. What's your point?
***
That you knew that I was the only one willing to do this, and you knew it.
***
Like I said, perhaps. It all worked out in the end, didn't it?
***
[Diaglyph attached]
***
How childish.
---
Q watched Guinan walk down the corridors of the Enterprise, and stand infront of the holodeck. She touched the pad, and spoke a word, "Outside." The door opened, and she walked though, disappearing from Q's sight.
Guinan found she was on a beach. She walked along the shore, wondering which of the ship's bays this was. She walked along the shore, until she came to another inhabitant of the ship.
"If you want, you can leave."
"And why would I do that?"
"Because you can. I spent some time shifting around the personalities. Your in a mind all to yourself, now."
"Why did you do that?"
"I felt like. I felt that I needed soem way of repaying you. So why not give you the ability of exploring the universe by yourself?"
"I was only doing what you created me to do. Why should you give me soemthing for that?"
The smith lookalike shrugged. "I said because I felt like it."
"And what about the rest?"
"I was considering doing something a little more unusual... but with actual physical laws, instead of just general guidelines."
Guinan smiled. "So you're putting it on hold, or jsut wiping it?"
"Hold, probably."
She looked up at the band of light that acted like the sun. "Maybe I will leave. Just give me a little while to think about it, that's all."
"Spend as long as you want. I won't mind."
Guinan turned, and said "Ark." A gateway opened in the side of a nearby sand dune, and she walked through the doors, Q watched as she reappeared. He sat back with intrest. He replayed the entire scene in his mind, as she disappaered from his sight as she entered and left the holodeck. As she walked down the corridor back to her habitual post in Ten Forward, Q briskly caught up with her.
Guinan narrowed her eyes at the creature. She contiued walking straight ahead.
"Come now, you can't keep something from me forever..."
"There are things that even you, Q, cannot know."
Q's intrest was peaked. He had to know. "Such as?"
"In boredom, people do strange things. The more inteliigent the person, the stranger the thing. An AI with halfway to infinite processing power has the ability to imagine an entire universe, however, while looking at it, there is a possibility of getting lost in it, becoming part of it. SO they build little things that can get them out of it. Sometimes little things, sometimes big things, but either way, it's something." She contiued walking. Q walked beside her, deep in thought. They walked a full circut of the saucer section, before arriving back at the holodeck.
Guinan looked at the control panel, and said "Outside." She walked through the door, and looked back at Q. "Are you coming?"
Q stood in thought for a moment, before responding. "I suppose I will. I mean, it'll be intresting to not have any powers, and beside. After a little while, the universe just gets boring. So why not? What do I have to lose?"
Smith looked over his shoulder, and said "Nothing," As the door closed, the Ark disapppeared. "and everything."
Q looked about the bay, finally stopping on the sunset at the horizon. "Should be intresting."
A one-shot fanfic by Singular Quartet
For those who remember Excession, the title might be a spoiler. As a side note, this occurs before Nemisis, because it was a piece of shit. It also occurs before Excession, although anyone who's read Excession can obviously see that.
Addenum: This story has been modified from its original posted version. The changes included one or two obvious spelling errors, adding php-bb code to make stuff bold and italicized, and the addition of dates.
Copyright disclaimers: Star Trek should be property of Gene Roddenbury, but he's dead, so I guess it falls to Paramount. The Culture is property of Sun-Earther Iain El-Bonko Banks of North Queensferry, also known as Iain M. Banks.
[tight beam, m4, tra @ n4.6.734.0783]
xGCU Gray Area
oGSV Quietly Confident
So you want mwe to figure out what happened to the bugger, and if it's willing, bring him back?
***
[tight beam, m4, tra @ n4.6.734.0784]
xGSV Quietly Confident
oGCU Gray Area
Pretty much. Bugger was last seen around here (Attached location), and had this course (Attached) but that was somewhere around 3 weeks ago. Haven't had a peep since.
***
And why am I doing this? I mean, isn't there some other ship would could do this, who happens to be better suited to the role?
***
Just do it. I'm sure it will earn you some nicities among your comrades.
***
Fine. I'll tell you if I find anything. Oh, and is anyone else going to be joining me on this little hunt?
***
No. That position should be fairly correct, and EH was never one to deviate from their course very much. Little on the wacky side, but you've prolly heard about that, I suppose.
***
I have. I'm off.
***
Good luck, and have fun.
---
Q sat in semi-real space directly next to the USS Enterprise. He had never spoken to the crew of the Enterprise. HE had found them to be a bunch that would rather kill him than talk to him, but he supposed that was just his opinion. What he truely found odd was the changes in various technologies between 'then' and 'know'.
Walking throught the ship's time stream, he watched it destroy the DoomsDay device, use parts of its anti-matter supply to destroy an giant organism that, in the future, the entire galaxy copuld have spent years trying to destroy, and never succed.
Q walked back to the contium in thought. He decieded he truely needed time to think. He sat down in a chair, and pondered, and wondered, and remembered.
---
Ensign Smith dreamed. He was dreaming a dream that he had had many times before. Each time, he would be on an away mission. He never remembered the planet's name, he never remembered the away team's mission. He jsut knew that they were there, and that they were there to do something. Everytime he died. Soemtimes he was the first to go, sometimes the second, but he would always die. Sometimes, he would be klilled by disrupter fire, sometimes by phaser fire, sometimes by just some random accident. He recalled that he had once been tore limb from limb by a gaint plant.
He didn't care anymore about the dreams, but he foudn them annoying after a while. At first he had expressed fear at going on them, then annoyance. He tried several times to get out of it, but they always made him go. He also recalled that he had once caused a transporter accident to prevent himself from finding out what fate would befall him, but he no longer noticed now.
He woke up, and reported for duty. The head of security told him to report to the transporter room. He signed, and automatically went to the transporter room. Once inside, he met several of the officers, was given a phaser rifle (one of the newer ones, he noted) and walked onto the pad. They beamed down to the surface. He looked down, and then said "That's odd..." as he fell into a massive crack in the planet below. He eventually decieded that there was a transporter scrambler int he area, and that it was blind luck that had him over the casam. He shrugged as he fell, and waited for him to awake in a new body, on a different starship, as the wind wiped by his face.
Ensign Smith awoke on in a different starship, in a different solar system. He reported for duty, and then foudn him face to face with a man, no a aklingon, recalled from previous experiances. He remembered this one. His name was Warf, and he had died for this security head before. He let out a sigh, and wondered when death would strike him down.
---
The Grey Area had spent several weeks searching for its lost vessel. It was annoyed that no one else was helping it search, and it though it odd that it was the one searching.
Within a few days, it had arrived at Enveloping Hubris's last known position, and was following the course that it was told to take. It found Enveloping Hubris a few days later still moving on its course in infraspace. Grey Area pulled alongside of it, matching velocties, and tried to contact it. No answer. Scanning, it found little or no activity. All of its fields were up, making sure that it would get randomly smashed by any beings that meant it harm. It poked past the feilds, and then stopped.
That can't be right... It looked through the bay more. Bastard knew about this... explains why he sent me, but even I can't poke through all fo this. Looks like I'm doing this the hard way. Well, here's a good place to start.
---
The Q contiuum looked up from its coollective activities as something in the universe changed. They then collectively looked at Q, who, looking up from his ponderings, responded "Don't look at me."
It was quickly decieded that he would investigate. He sighed, and went off down the road. Before long, he came upon a being, standing there, in the middle of the road. Q paced around the being, something he had never seen before. It had the existance shared by all Q, but it also did not have the existance shared by all Q. It looked back at Q. Suddenly, Q watched as his entire life flashed before his eyes.
Help me.
The voice resounded in his head. It was not a statement of need, but rather a command. Q preformed the Qish equivelent of blinking, in that sort of stunned, deer in the headlights way, before asking "To do what?"
Find someone.
"Would you turn down the volume on that thing? It feels like your trying to splatter my brains out from the inside."
It doesn't matter.
The voice was far more silent, but kept its commanding quality. Q thought about this for a moment, before decieding he would help this idividual, just out of amusement, and besides, it seemed that this was part of the reason for the disturbance.
"Find who?"
Someone who is different from everyone else, but who is not me.
"Intresting. Knowing the universe, I think I know where to start looking."
---
Ensign Smith thoguht that this dream was far more intresting than the last one. He had yet to die, and it had already been a week. Working under Liutenent Warf wasn't hard, just odd. apparently, he had just managed to miss being selected for the away mission, and heard that only three of the personnel had made it back, and all three of them were bridge crew. He didn't find this surprising. He recalle dbeing on the original Enterprise many times, and having heard stories of the survival rate of the crew onboard during away missions.
Not that it mattered to him. He was rather content in not dying at the first available moment.
---
Picard looked up from his ready room desk, to see Q, along with another idividual standing in his ready room. He had read the reports of what Q had done ot the Voyager crew the times they had crossed paths, but it had not made any difference in his mind. He was still Q, and Q was an annoying god who apparently had nothing better to do.
A voice resounded in his head.
And what are we doing here?
"Why simple, le stronge, we are here, in essence, at the nexus of random events of this galaxy, the USS Enterprise."
The stranger gave the impression of rolling its eyes. The captain looked at Q, and then said "I'll need a better reason than that, Q."
"I'm touched mon capitan, you compassion is simpley overwhelming-"
Before he could contiue, the voice butted in whiel the stranger pointed at Q.
Is he always like this?
"Yes."
Then I shall have to intrude, and explain the situation. I am looking for someone... although that is not quite the righ tway to explain it, that is the best I can do at the moment. This person is like myself, but not me.
Q shook his head and rubbe dhis temples. "That was extremely helpful."
True, however your second guessing was corrrect. The one I am looking for is on this ship.
"I did say this ship was a nexus for strange things. Now if you excue me, I'm going to sit back and watch."
Q disappeared, leaving the stranger to his own devices. The stranger kept track of Q, and noted that he was know sitting in a personal subspacial cavity eating popcorn. Q waved before stuffing his mouth with another handful. Picard looked at him.
"So what do you want?"
To find the one I am looking for. Soon after we will leave.
"Do you need any help?"
Perhaps. I have checked your crew manifest, and reduced the number of personel it could be, as to who he is, will take some work.
With this, the stranger turned, and walked out the door.
---
Ensign Smith had met Guinan when she had aske dhim what had bothered him. He feigned and evaded all he could, but she dug into him with the ease of any phsycologist. When his shift was calle,d he was mildly surprised ot return tot he bar, to speak to the ever-present bartender. The interigation contiued, but this time, on a different tangent.
"So where were you born?" she asked.
"What kind of question is that?"
"An important one, so I'll ask it again. Where were you born?"
"Of course I know where I was born..."
"That isn't what I asked. I asked where were you born." She emphasized the where just to drive it home.
Smith looked at his drink, and tried to think back to his earliest memories. They slowly became fuzzier and fuzzier as he went back.
"I- I don't remember..."
"What do you remember?"
"It goes back, into the early days, a little while before Kirk... Number of times I died there..." He shook his head in rememberence of some of hte more painful ways to go. "it gets fuzzy back then, I draw a blank a little ways before that."
Guinan sagely nodded her head. "So all you remember is just dying in different ways."
"Yep. I took the time yester day to check crew manifests. I was on each ship. Looked different each time around, but each way I died fit the bill perfectly. Last time I was on the Minatoba. They were investigating stragne subspace disturbances centered around a planet on the other end of Federation space. When the away-team beamed down, they were scattered by a transporter scrambler. Took them two days, but after they turned it off, they found my body at the bottom of a 3 kilometer gourge in the landscape. gourge was 6 kilometers long, and barely 3 meters wide. Didn't even bother to bring up my body, probably. I was splattered all over the place."
Intresting.
They turned to look at the speaker. He ws non-descript looking, and neither could say what, exactly, he looked like.
Guinan, taking it all in stride, asked who he was.
It doesn't matter. Yet.
"So what do you want to drink."
It doesn't matter.
Guinan thought for a moment, before reaching under the bar, and pulling out a glass and a bottle of green... stuff. She poured him a glass, accidently to the brim. He picked it up, and as though he did not notice, and drank without spilling a drop. It nodded.
Clever.
A smile crossed Guinan's face. "Had to make sure."
Smith looked at the two, before asking "Make sure of what?"
It doesn't matter. Yet.
"Why do you keep saying that?"
It doesn't matter.
It spoke only to Guinan, now.
So you were a way out?
I was an emergency out, to get him to wake up if somebody came along. So far, I haven't had much luck.
Are there any others?
One other, as I understand it. I was never told what it was, and never had any real intrest in looking for it. It might do you some good to find it.
Probably. Where should I start?
Q.
The stranger gave a mental sigh. He then stood up, thanked Guinan for the drink, and left.
Smith watched the stranger leave. "What was that all about?"
Guinan looked back at Smith. "It doesn't matter."
---
Q sat in a beach chair, in his personal subspace bubble. He was mildy annoyed by how the talk had gone, but decieded against making it more intresting. He tried not to think about the bounds by which this stranger could make the universe more intresting.
He suddenly found himself staring into the face of the stranger.
"Just who are you?" He asked.
It doesn't matter. You watched and listened. Where should I look?
"I said that the Enterprise is a nexus of strange things. I never said which one."
The Stranger looked at him for a few moments longer. Q found himself out into the depths of space, still in his beach chair, orbiting a small black hole. He glared at it. He then said, to no one in particular, "Honestly know. Does he expect this to hurt me?" With this and a snap of fingers, he disappeared, chair and all.
---
The stranger walked about the Enterprise. IT was the original Enterprise, a Constituition class, Captained by James Tiberius Kirk. He watched it combat Klingons, the occasional Romulan, gods, and machines older than mankind itself. He didn't consider anything odd about it. He turned around, and went back to the Enterprise E.
He walked out of the turbo lift on to the Enterprise's bridge. Warf pulled out his phaser, but Picard belayed him. The stranger stood at the back of the bridge, unobtrusive, and waited.
---
Captains log, stardate []
After the stranger entered the bridge he has done nothing except wait. Doctor Crusher has tried to scan him to chekc if he's still alive, but it has brought no such luck. He has responded to nothing after his first questioning.
We have changed course to enter the Adrias system to investigate a distress call from the Mining colony in the asteriod belt there. We are heading there at maximium warp, and should arrive in two days.
---
The ship And Hell Followed sat a metaphorical stone's through from a mining colony in an unknown solar system's astreroid belt. The crew found this mildly annoying, and as such turned a nearby mining colony into large amounts of scrap. AFter which, they turned and sat in the generaly vicinity, trying ti find out what had happened.
They detected the ship a few light-years out, and decieded to find out what they were there for. After a few hours, the ship had finally arrived, and was likely to be scanning around for any life signs. They were hailed.
"This is the USS Enterprise comamnded by Captain Jean Luc Picard. Please identify yourself."
"This is the Affronter Warship /And HEll Followed/. What do you want?"
"We are here to investigate the destruction of this mining colony."
"Oh that. Wait a moment." The massive squidesque creature turned and seemed to be speaking with its commrades. Picard looked at Data, and asked him if he had ever heard of the Affronters before.
"No Captain. No record of the spiecies exists."
"The Captian straightene dhis shirt, and felt that certain gratification of making contact with a new spiecies.
"They're taking rather long about it." commented Riker.
The giant squid turned back to the screen,, and began to speak again. "Surrender or be destroyed. Your choice." It said with a sadistic glee.
"Raise shields!"
---
"The Enterprise has raised some sort of energy barrier in normal space, captain. They are also charging weapons."
"They wish to keep it in here, we'll keep it here, then. Set fields to automatic. Fire lasers, and ready all missles."
---
The ship slowly rocked.
"Sir, they are firing an X-rya laser. Sheilds are slowly begin drained, however, they are apply more power to it."
"How much time do we have."
"At their present rate of fire, the laser will cut through the shields in 2 minutes."
"Hail them."
---
"Sir they are attmepting to hail us."
"It their surrendering, put them through. If not, ignore them."
"Yes sir."
---
The stranger watched as Picard attmepted to talk to them, and found that they were still only intrested in surrender. The affronter upped the power acsension rate on the laser, and heard Worf's bark that said they had 45 seconds before shield collapse. the stranger knew they were only toying with the Enterprise, but said nothing.
---
"Fire phasers and launch quantum torpedos."
---
"Sir, point defenses just destroyed a series of dumb rockets launched against us. Also, they just fired a neutral particle beam. The hull took minor damage from it. Should I bother with evasive action?"
"No. Cut the laser, and take down the sheilds with a missle or two."
---
"Sir, they have cut the las-" Suddenly, the inside of the ship rocked. A console behind warf exploded, killing a nameless ensign that wasn't Ensign Smith. The stranger ignored it, and found his answer.
The ship disappeared as quickly as it had come into this world. The stranger turned, and walked back into the turbolift.
The crew watched as he left, and turned to look at each other. Althought hey had dealt with Q ebfore, they wondered why this being had come along and toyed with them.
---
The stranger walked down into Ten Forward, and sat down at the bar. Several of the various crew members walked out at this point, but all Guinan did was pull out the bottle of Green Stuff, and poor it to the brim. As the stranger waited, it slowly drank the liquid, never spilling a drop. After a few hours, Guinan asked it if it had found what it was looking for.
Yes. It took some work, and a few lives, but I doubt they matter.
"Granted, but you never know."
It shrugged. As though on que, Smith walked into Ten Forward. HE looked a the stranger, and then sat down next to him.
"So what happened."
Just an Affronter Warship toying with the Enterprise. Nothing serious.
"Affront? Never heard of them."
You have. You just don't remember it.
"I think I would remember something like that..."
Have you ever noticed the technological differences between the original Enterprise and this Enterprise?
"Huh?"
The original Enterprise was blowing apart stuff we realtive ease, fought at warp, and could rip apart the atmosphere of a planet with just an ounce of antimatter from its stores, whereas this ship has trouble blowing apart rocks. And they aren't all that big, either.
"I never... Oh." Thank you. Know get out of my head.
Not a problem.
---
[tight beam, m4, tra @ n4.6.767.1452]
xGCU Gray Area
oGSV Quietly Confident
You knew that he was in there, didn't you?
***
[tight beam, m4, tra @ n4.6.767.1462]
xGSV Quietly Confident
oGCU Gray Area
Trapped where?
***
IF.
***
Perhaps. What's your point?
***
That you knew that I was the only one willing to do this, and you knew it.
***
Like I said, perhaps. It all worked out in the end, didn't it?
***
[Diaglyph attached]
***
How childish.
---
Q watched Guinan walk down the corridors of the Enterprise, and stand infront of the holodeck. She touched the pad, and spoke a word, "Outside." The door opened, and she walked though, disappearing from Q's sight.
Guinan found she was on a beach. She walked along the shore, wondering which of the ship's bays this was. She walked along the shore, until she came to another inhabitant of the ship.
"If you want, you can leave."
"And why would I do that?"
"Because you can. I spent some time shifting around the personalities. Your in a mind all to yourself, now."
"Why did you do that?"
"I felt like. I felt that I needed soem way of repaying you. So why not give you the ability of exploring the universe by yourself?"
"I was only doing what you created me to do. Why should you give me soemthing for that?"
The smith lookalike shrugged. "I said because I felt like it."
"And what about the rest?"
"I was considering doing something a little more unusual... but with actual physical laws, instead of just general guidelines."
Guinan smiled. "So you're putting it on hold, or jsut wiping it?"
"Hold, probably."
She looked up at the band of light that acted like the sun. "Maybe I will leave. Just give me a little while to think about it, that's all."
"Spend as long as you want. I won't mind."
Guinan turned, and said "Ark." A gateway opened in the side of a nearby sand dune, and she walked through the doors, Q watched as she reappeared. He sat back with intrest. He replayed the entire scene in his mind, as she disappaered from his sight as she entered and left the holodeck. As she walked down the corridor back to her habitual post in Ten Forward, Q briskly caught up with her.
Guinan narrowed her eyes at the creature. She contiued walking straight ahead.
"Come now, you can't keep something from me forever..."
"There are things that even you, Q, cannot know."
Q's intrest was peaked. He had to know. "Such as?"
"In boredom, people do strange things. The more inteliigent the person, the stranger the thing. An AI with halfway to infinite processing power has the ability to imagine an entire universe, however, while looking at it, there is a possibility of getting lost in it, becoming part of it. SO they build little things that can get them out of it. Sometimes little things, sometimes big things, but either way, it's something." She contiued walking. Q walked beside her, deep in thought. They walked a full circut of the saucer section, before arriving back at the holodeck.
Guinan looked at the control panel, and said "Outside." She walked through the door, and looked back at Q. "Are you coming?"
Q stood in thought for a moment, before responding. "I suppose I will. I mean, it'll be intresting to not have any powers, and beside. After a little while, the universe just gets boring. So why not? What do I have to lose?"
Smith looked over his shoulder, and said "Nothing," As the door closed, the Ark disapppeared. "and everything."
Q looked about the bay, finally stopping on the sunset at the horizon. "Should be intresting."
] I swear, some people. Picking up on every little thing.
]
] maybe we could network on something so we can all share in the fun?