Q & A - Keith R. A. DeCandido [14]
La Forge mused, “He must be great fun at parties.”
SECOND INTERLUDE
The Continuum
Thirteen years before the end of the universe
Q HAD TO ADMIT TO BEING SURPRISED AT THESE humans whom Q had decided to throw in his lot with.
In all honesty, Q was worried about Q. The old boy, he had thought recently, was finally losing it. All that goofing off over the millennia had finally turned his little Q brain into toast. When he started obsessing over humans, Q was convinced it was over. After all, what was the big deal? Humans had all those extra appendages, shockingly limited vision (in every sense of the word), and less brain capacity than the average virus.
Q hadn’t learned his lesson, Q argued, and needed to be punished. Banishment alone wouldn’t do it—the first thing he did after they banished him was introduce the humans to the Borg. That proved he had gone completely bonkers and needed to be taught a lesson.
The rest of the Continuum agreed. Q had asked for leniency, which Q thought was sweet of her, but she’d always had a soft spot for Q. Q, however, was insistent that he be made mortal, forced to live out his life as one of the many creatures he had loved to torment over the centuries. Perhaps then he would learn his lesson.
Of course, the first thing Q did was show he hadn’t learned a damn thing: of all the mortals he could have requested to be made into, he chose the humans and asked to be sent to that ridiculous ship he was obsessed with.
Q, naturally, kept an eye on him. It was possible that he would eventually learn his lesson.
Instead, Q found himself learning something, which rather took him aback.
The final straw came when Q actually committed a selfless act. The Calamarain had learned of Q’s fallen state and—not surprising, given what Q did to them several moments ago—tried to kill him. The humans, despite the fact that Q had made their lives miserable for the past few moments, actually protected him.
Q, rather than let them risk their lives, decided to sacrifice himself.
Did he really learn his lesson? Q wondered as the Calamarain moved in and the humans tried to use their primitive matter-transferral technology to rescue Q. Or is he simply preserving the humans in his silly quest to be sure that they’re the ones?
It didn’t matter, though, what the reasons were. Q felt strongly enough about these humans that he was about to sacrifice himself to save them. A Q would die. Not as traumatic an occurrence if he had not already been punished, but still an event.
Q decided to stop it. Something more was at work here. And maybe there’s more to what Q’s saying than we all realized. Maybe it’s time we took his notion seriously.
As he took on human form in order to better communicate with Q—he gave himself blond hair, blue eyes, and a height commensurate with the human form that Q generally took on—he moved himself into the little ship Q had stolen and decided to have a heart-to-heart talk, one omnipotent being to another….
4
Bravo Station
Sector 221, Alpha Quadrant
One day before the end of the universe
ADMIRAL ELIZABETH PAULA SHELBY SCROLLED through the latest set of dispatches from Starfleet. The U. S. S. Sugihara had a complete report on a neutron star that it observed in Sector 109-G. Starbase 152 reported a force-six ion storm blowing through. Outpost 22 along the Romulan Neutral Zone had the latest report on a ship apparently full of Reman refugees that was proceeding at minimum warp toward it, and any number of other reports. Some of the dispatches Shelby recognized, having created them herself: reports on Sector 221-G, the area of space that Shelby and Bravo were responsible for.
However, two sets of dispatches got her attention: the ones from the Enterprise and the Titan.
The latter was one that Shelby enjoyed reading. Titan was under the command of Will Riker. Shelby had first met Riker on the EnterpriseD, when she was Starfleet’s point person in their efforts to stop the Borg. She had thought herself the logical replacement for Riker as first officer when he took command of the Melbourne.