The Wesley! The!

by Phantazm

Ten pops in for a visit to the Federation's flagship and comes across his most annoying nemesis yet. Rather a scrappy little devil, in fact...

The Wesley! The!

The Doctor was happy. The TARDIS had set him down without errors in navigation—temporal or spatial—and he had new shoes. Fuchsia. And a navy blue tie. Everything was pressed and in place.

He just wasn't entirely sure where he was yet. Oh, the TARDIS had put him down exactly where it had and not a hair one way or the other, and it was precisely now, rather than yesterday or fifty years from today, so technically, he was spot on. The exact location of that spot…now that was open for debate.

Some kind of cargo bay, evidently. The TARDIS had a thing for cargo bays; it simply wouldn't do to instantly materialize inside someone's mess hall or armory or bedroom. Especially since people liked to point guns at strangers. Not that the Doctor had a problem with guns any more than he had with any other tool that caused holes in those at whom they were pointed. It just seemed to follow that people with guns pointed them at someone and for some strange reason, the Doctor simply attracted gun-pointing.

But there was little chance of that here, he concluded. The sound and feel of the place led him to believe he was on a starship of some kind, or at least a space station, and a civilization of such an advanced stage had foregone guns. However, they'd moved on to energy weapons instead. They still lent themselves well to pointing, but they at least would have a "stun" setting rather than being set solely to "perforate."

"Oh, I apologize!" the Doctor said, smiling. "I got so busy talking to myself I forgot my manners! How do you do? I'm the Doctor."

The woman to whom he had spoken opened and closed her mouth briefly before feebly extending a hand to take the Doctor's. "Um, fine, sir. Thank you. How did you get in here?"

"Oh, that. Transdimensional diffraction and manipulation, materialization, flashy lights. Stuff like that. Where's here?"

"This is the starship Enterprise. How long have you been here? I wasn't told of any visitors."

The Doctor appraised his host. She was nearly as tall as he was, slender with dark, neatly trimmed and styled hair. However, she wasn't human, at least not entirely. Her nose had a series of ridges running from about midpoint to between her eyebrows, and her left ear sported some kind of clasp or earring. Her uniform consisted of black trousers with a jacket sporting gold-colored panels front and back as well as gold sleeves. There was a high collar of black with some kind of decoration on its right side, possibly rank. Over where her heart would be—and probably still could be, for that matter—was a gently curved arrowhead set on an oval backing.

"Surprise inspection sort of thing," the Doctor said. "You know me, but I don't know you."

"Master Chief Petty Officer Tamaran Ko. I'm sorry, sir, but I have to ask for your identification. You may be authorized to be here, but this is a sensitive area and I have to be certain of your identity."

The Doctor gallantly proffered his psychic paper. The TARDIS was still hidden behind a few storage crates or pods or whatever those were, but he already had an explanation for that. Maybe it would even work.

"Sir? You're handing me…paper?"

"Um, yes."

"Nobody uses paper, sir. Don't you have a commbadge or a PADD?"

So much for explanations. "Ah, no. Must have left it on my bureau in my quarters. Mind if I go get it?"

Tamaran stepped back a bit and tapped the gleaming badge on her chest. It was rather beautiful, and the badge was quite pretty, too. "Tamaran to Security. I have an unidentified intruder in cargo bay three. Request a detail to be sent down immediately."

"They are on their way," a deep voice replied.

"Oh, I'm sure there's no cause for that," the Doctor said.

"I'm sorry, sir, but you're on a Federation starship with no identification," Tamaran said, keeping her eyes fixed on him. "Better to be dressed down by an admiral than to be blown up by a saboteur."

"But I'm neither of those. I'm the Doctor."

Tamaran was spared the necessity of speaking when the doors slid open to admit a tall, solidly built black man with some golden apparatus over his eyes and a gangly boy in a grayish sweater with rainbow stripes along the V-collar. "There, Geordi! I knew it!"

"Knew what? That Master Chief Tamaran was talking to someone? How could you have known that?" There was a mixture of mockery and amusement in Geordi's voice.

"No!" The boy sounded as though he were about to stamp his foot. "That those subspace modulations I detected were proof of an alien incursion into the Enterprise."

Geordi pursed his lips. "I have to give you that one, Wesley. Master Chief? What gives?"

"I found him behind these cargo pods," Tamaran said, still not taking her eyes off the Doctor. "He has no ID, nothing except this piece of paper he handed me."

Geordi looked at it, or at least looked like he was looking at it. It was what it looked like to the onlookers, anyway. "There's nothing on it," Geordi said, handing it back to Tamaran. "What are you doing here, sir?"

The Doctor shrugged. "Chatting?"

"He's lying, Geordi," Wesley said, holding a madly chirping electronic instrument.

"I beg your pardon? I am so chatting!"

Wesley beetled his narrow, precisely tweezed eyebrows and glared pure prepubescent unhappiness at the Doctor. "He's some kind of spy or advance agent. He's not even human."

"Neither am I," Tamaran pointed out. "Trying to make a point or something?"

"He's got some kind of emitter on him, trying to mask his biosigns," Wesley said, gesturing with the instrument that seemed just a wee bit too grown up for his slim fingers. "Look. The tricorder says he has two hearts. His emitter's putting out the wrong signals."

"It could also be true," the Doctor pointed out helpfully.

Wesley turned himself partly at an angle to the Doctor and kept up that grumpy stare of his, this time with his mouth partly open and, for some reason, slightly heavier breathing. "I'm telling you, Geordi, he's an infiltrator. You can't trust him."

Geordi gave the impression of rolling his eyes behind his visor and tapped his own badge. "LaForge to Security. Cancel response to cargo bay three. I have this one under control."

"Aye, sir."

"Whoever has that voice must be rather on the large side," the Doctor mused.

"Oh, indeed," Tamaran mumbled.

"What?"

"Sir, what's your name, please?" Geordi interrupted.

"Oh. I'm the Doctor, and I'm pleased to meet you." He extended a hand, which a bemused Geordi shook.

"Lieutenant Commander Geordi LaForge, chief engineer. Come with me, please. I'll take you to meet Captain Picard."

Wesley traded his cranky face for his shocked face. "Geordi, you can't! You'll take him right to the bridge!"

"That's usually where the captain is, since he is, you know, the captain. Goes with the whole 'starship needing a person in charge' thing," Geordi said. "Nice work with the tricorder and picking up how the Doctor got on board, though, but Uncle Geordi has it from here."

Tamaran resumed her duties and Wesley commenced a slow boil as Geordi and the Doctor left the cargo bay. There was something odd about the Doctor, Wesley knew, and he would prove it.

-oOo-

"Sensor contact, Captain," Data reported, working his console with utmost diligence.

"What manner of thing is your contact?" Picard asked from his command chair.

"It is shaped, sir, like itself, and is as broad as it has breadth. It is as high as it is and moves with its own systems. It is powered by that which fuels it, and those byproducts once expelled, it transmigrates."

Picard sat up straighter. "What color is it of?"

"It is of its own color, too, sir."

"It is a strange contact."

"It is so, sir." Data's head cocked to the side. "Further analysis indicates…the tears of it are wet."

Riker shifted positions. "Plain English, Data?"

"That was plain English, sir."

"Plainer."

Data turned in his seat to face the Enterprise's executive officer. "It appears to be a variant of the standard unidentified life form that appears on a weekly or bi-weekly basis, sir."

"Recommended course of action?" Picard asked.

"I believe we are required to attempt communication which is obliged to fail. Counselor Troi must then offer vague hints and non sequiturs about emotional impressions and psychic emanations, then we are to receive damage to our systems revealing the creature to be highly dangerous and incredibly powerful. Immediately after suffering loss of shield power, we are to assume an attitude of sorrowful yet grimly determined resolve and phaser the entity into nonexistence.

"Following a brief period of poignant staring at the viewscreen, we are then required, as per Starfleet regulation 1654.2, subsection C, paragraphs one through three inclusive, to lament our inability to make meaningful contact with it."

"I see. Standard procedure, then?"

"Yes, sir."

"Very well. Mr. Worf, prepare the obligatory 'you are about to die' message and send it along, would you?"

"Done, sir."

"Make it go boom. There's a good fellow."

The turbolift doors opened as Worf carried out his tasks. Picard rose to greet the Doctor and LaForge. "Captain? I'd like you to meet the cause of Master Chief Tamaran's alert."

The Doctor withdrew his hand from his pocket and extended it, grinning broadly. "Hello, Captain! I'm the Doctor!"

"Hello, Doctor," Picard returned with an equally broad smile. "What brings you here?"

"A TARDIS."

"A what?"

The Doctor briefly explained, then happened to glance upward over Picard's shoulder. "A Klingon? Brilliant! I've met your people before. Wonderful chaps. Bit touchy, a little too fond of knives, but wonderful all the same."

"We do have our moments," Worf admitted. His voice was even deeper in person, the Doctor noted.

A flash of light from behind him, something on the viewscreen, made the Doctor spin. Debris and waves of radiation radiated as they are wont to do when something has been destroyed. "What was that?" the Doctor asked.

"An episodic instance of interstellar concurrence, contention, dissolution, and introspection," Data offered.

"Get a lot of those, do you?"

Data nodded. "On a cycle of seven days, nearly to the hour. I am Lieutenant Commander Data. It is a pleasure to meet you."

"Likew—…oh, even more brilliant! An android?"

"Yes."

The Doctor spun back to Picard, bathing everyone with a radiant grin worthy of the Cheshire cat. "I am going to enjoy it here!"

Picard straightened the front of his jacket. "If I may, Doctor, why are you here?"

"Well, mostly by accident. I travel in a machine that…"

Again the turbolift doors swished open, admitting the perpetually scowling Wesley and a red-haired woman in a blue smock. "There he is, Mom. Just like I said."

"Doctor Crusher? What is the meaning of this?"

"Well, Wesley says he caught an alien beaming on board…"
"No, Mom," again the near-stamp of his foot, "transporting on board. I didn't detect any of the trace elements unique to transporter signatures, so he didn't beam. He transported, somehow."

"Yes, Wesley," sighed Crusher the Female. "Apparently, this is the invader I'm supposed to scan."

The Doctor looked apprehensively at the other doctor. "For what, may I ask?"

"I have no idea," Crusher said. "Evidently your life signs indicate two hearts, and since I'm the ship's physician, I'm supposed to verify this. With your permission, of course."

The Doctor shrugged. "Scan away, but I'm ticklish."

"You won't feel a thing," Crusher said, removing her tricorder's hand scanner and waving it over the Doctor's torso.

"Pity, that."

She scanned the readings and read them aloud for the benefit of those assembled. "He definitely has two hearts, each one with slightly less mass than one of ours, but apparently capable of functioning independently in case one stops. Blood pressure is therefore slightly higher than human norm, muscle tone indicates origins on a higher-gravity world, excellent lung condition, phenomenal cerebral development…"

"Women enjoy a large hippocampus," the Doctor offered to Picard, sotto voce.

"Indeed," Worf rumbled from his post.

"What?"

"…thank you, and generally accelerated and unusual developments in the brain and various glands throughout his body," Crusher finished. "You must have remarkable healing and regenerative abilities."

"You could say that."

Wesley was having none of it, as usual. "It's his biosign emitter, Mom. He's trying to masquerade as human but his emitter's malfunctioning."

Hercules himself would have congratulated Crusher on the effort she put into controlling her voice. "Wesley, I know how to work a medical tricorder. He's got two hearts. Period. End. Of. Quote."

The Doctor stepped in as patiently and tactfully as he could. "Wesley, I know the circumstances of my arrival are suspicious, but I am not here to harm anyone. Besides, the word of your own mother should suffice to ease your concerns. She's the ship's doctor (one of them now, anyway) and she's a member of the crew, so…"
"I am a member of the crew! I'm Acting Ensign Wesley Crusher®, and I'm a valued asset on this bridge!"

"Oh. Acting Ensign Wesley Crusher®. Just like that, everything capitalized and all?"

Picard waved Wesley down. "Mister Crusher, I will take what you've said under careful consideration. However, you are not on duty yet and will not be scheduled at the helm for another twenty-four hours. I'm sure there are other tasks you can occupy yourself with in the meantime?"

"Yes, sir. One of them is finding out what you," a finger that would be more at home in a nostril pointed itself at the Doctor, "are up to!"

"Well then, off you go!" Picard said cheerfully. Crusher nodded a smiling farewell at the assemblage and followed her son off the bridge.

Once the doors shut, the bridge crew seemed to share a sigh of released tension. Data, however, continued to be his unflappable self. "I have noticed a similar reaction every time Wesley leaves not just the bridge, but whenever he leaves the presence of each of you."

"Until you develop emotions, Data, I doubt you'll understand," Riker said.

"Why do you let him on the bridge?" the Doctor asked. "He seems a bit, well, petulant. Spoiled. Irritating."

"Orders," Riker said. "Word has come down from On High that Acting Ensign Wesley Crusher® is to be essentially granted run of the ship."

The Doctor frowned. " Whose orders would those be?"

"Most High Grand Fleet Admiral Supreme Gerald Stuart. He apparently sees Acting Ensign Wesley Crusher® as everything he was or wanted to be when he was younger. Doesn't want to waste the potential or something." Riker seemed positively enchanted with the concept.

"Could we just call him 'Wesley' without the whole drawn-out title? I don't want to run the risk of copyright infringement or something," the Doctor said.

"Excellent suggestion," Picard agreed. "Number One, do you have any idea why or how Wesley detected the Doctor's arrival and we didn't?"

"I'm not sure, sir, but it has something to do with him always scanning for things," Riker replied. "He's always got a tricorder in his hand or a terminal tied up, wasting time and trouble and resources trying to locate some mysterious, esoteric something that we adults have missed. Emergency or not, important or not, something out there is always of sufficient significance to make him shout for attention, and some of it is even important enough that we have to listen." This last was directed toward the Doctor.

"Is he successful?"

"At getting attention? Always. About the other stuff, sometimes he is, but to be honest, not by much. These vital clues he uncovers are always found by other staff members. Remember, we're a starship with nearly a thousand Starfleet personnel. We're an exploration vessel with a crew that specializes in astrological, biological, linguistic, and geological sciences, with technicians who specialize further in subdivisions and fields of every discipline that Federation science has discovered or even theorized about. He just gets the news to us first."

"Now how does he manage that?"

Picard looked slightly uncomfortable. "He does have an affinity for computers, so he crafted a program that gives his communications—and his access to the turbolifts and ship's systems—priority over everyone else's."

"Isn't that a bit dangerous to allow, orders or not?"

"I thought so at first, but generally Wesley just hides somewhere and shouts at us. He doesn't operate the weapons or take charge of security or anything."

"Still, though…"

"Captain, I'm sensing a great deal of confusion in our guest."

The Doctor turned his head slightly, abashed at having overlooked someone who was standing right in front of him. "I'm sorry, but I didn't catch your name…?"

"Now he appears to be somewhat ashamed. He's a very curious specimen, Captain. He has a sense of maturity, as though he has lived a dozen lifetimes, but there is a childlike sense of curiosity and wonder, as well. I get the impression that he would be as fascinated by cleavage as by meson-gluon interactions. I'm Counselor Troi." The dark-eyed woman smiled and extended a slender hand toward the Doctor.

"Counselor? Ah! Derived from the Chotomak word meaning 'belaborer of the patently conspicuous?'"

"Certainly not the homonym thereof meaning 'intended solely for ornamental purposes,'" Troi replied, smiling easily. "So why are you here?"

Riker held up a finger. "Introductions would go much better in Ten Forward, I believe. The Captain and I are due to end our shifts in a half hour. Could we meet you there?"

"Done!" the Doctor said. "I look forward to it. In the meantime, Counselor Troi, you mentioned meson-gluon interactions and something else?"

-oOo-

In a secluded and seldom-used corridor on deck fifteen, Acting Ensign Wesley Crusher® was tapping furiously at a console. The fluctuations he'd detected when the TARDIS had materialized indicated the presence of chronometric waves. It was entirely possible, bordering on definite, that the Doctor's visit was an attempt by time travelers to change or even eliminate the Federation's timeline.

Nobody ever listened to Wesley, and that was part of their problem. They were so susceptible to routine, falling into pre-scripted plans and ways of thinking. Even his own mother wouldn't listen. How many times had he found the solution to whatever was menacing the Enterprise on any given occasion?

Far too many, that was how many! He paused in his typing and rested his chin on his knuckles, fairly certain that there was a whiskery, peach-fuzzy hair on his chin this time. Just one, but it was there. He could feel it.

"You are not authorized to access this terminal, Wesley," a deep voice rumbled behind him.

With a gasp and a guilty start, Wesley spun to find himself face-to-chest with Worf. The Klingon looked down quite a ways at the human teenager, then crossed his arms across that same massive chest into which Wesley's nose had nearly bumped itself.

"I know, but it was the first one I came across."

"That does not excuse the breach of regulations," Worf said, reaching past Wesley and deactivating the terminal. "I know you are granted nearly free reign, but try not to use computer terminals that need to be accessed by legitimate security or engineering personnel. I am certain that nothing you have planned could not have waited until your return to your quarters."

Wesley pulled out a padd and showed it to Worf. "That's where you're wrong, Worf."

"You manage to say that to me nearly every time something comes up. Is it a fetish or something?"

"No, Worf, this time you're actually wrong. That 'doctor' person gained entry to the Enterprise without anyone's knowledge. Until Chief Tamaran found him, we didn't even know he was there."

"Generally understood when you say 'without anyone's knowledge,' but continue."

"What's he up to? What is he doing here?"

"He will tell us," Worf said, "or I will find out. I have assigned security details to monitor his actions, and sensitive areas are under constant surveillance."

Wesley shook his head. No matter the species, adults were so incredibly dense. "If he can figure out a way to get on the Federation's flagship undetected, he can certainly defeat your security measures. He would have had to if he got here in the first place!" He was doing that scowly, mouth-open, panting thing again. Worf read it as either extreme stress brought on by pubescent wangst, drama queenliness, or an attempt to lend faux gravitas to his pronouncements, in descending order of likelihood. Given that he did it on a weekly basis, as though he were having some kind of episode, the whole "gravitas" thing went out an airlock.

"Mister Crusher, I assure you that we have this under control now. He gained access without our knowledge, true, but now that he is here, he can be watched. We are watching him. Currently, he and most of the bridge crew are getting acquainted in Ten Forward. Where he is being watched. By us. The trained officers and crew in the security section. Who know what we're doing," Worf added helpfully.

"You don't understand," Wesley insisted. "He's up to something. He's either gathering information or he already has it and he's working to apply it. I detected chronometric particles emanating from his capsule in the hold. He's a time traveler and he's likely working on some new phase of a temporal cold war, like Captain Archer went up against on the first Enterprise."

Worf sighed. "Ever since I met you, and not just today, you have insisted that I, a commissioned Starfleet officer, have been 'wrong,' have not 'understood' or 'gotten it,' or any one of a number of other insults, slights, or dismissals. However, I have noticed something in all these years."

"What, that I'm almost always right?"

"No."

"Then what?"

"Simply that, for a human, you have a very pretty mouth."

-oOo-

"So that's what the Klingons were upset about two months ago," Riker said, sitting back with a satisfied look on his face. "We were assuming it was the Borg, but the Klingons didn't want to talk to us about it."

"Oh, like as not they didn't want to admit that I was involved," the Doctor said, taking a sip of his tea. Picard had introduced him to the 24th Century's version of Earl Grey and although it wasn't nearly the same as the original blend, it was still quite welcome and wonderful.

"Why so?" Troi asked.

The Doctor shrugged. "They couldn't very well come to you and say they'd beaten the Borg, because then you'd have asked for details and they'd have had none to share. A bit embarrassing, I'd think, for a warrior race. Eventually it would have come out that I'd done it for them, and then what?"

"Klingon pride," Picard said. "One of their greatest assests and weaknesses at the same time. You wouldn't believe how many times we've tripped over it."

"Nearly as often as we've bumped into spaceborne monster menaces," Riker noted. "I'm half-tempted to have Data compile the ship's logs over the last few years and scan for patterns."

The Doctor was about to ask another question when Picard's commbadge chirped at him. "LaForge to Captain Picard."

"Go ahead."

"Sir, our maintenance crews have detected some fluctuations in our warp core, possibly severe enough to impact the containment fields."

"Source?"

"I can't tell yet. They seem harmless enough at this speed, but we believe that the faster we go, the worse they'll become. If we travel above warp three, it's likely the fields would fail and the core would breach."

Picard frowned. "When did you first notice this?"

"Actually, about two minutes ago during a routine scan. A check of the logs shows that the disturbances began maybe forty-five minutes ago, but were so slight the diagnostic routines discarded them as normal fluctuations."

"And they've increased to the degree you see now, but are holding?"

"Yes, sir."

Picard nodded. "Excuse the expositionary dialogue, but per Starfleet regulations, we have a guest and are obligated to explain the situation in a roundabout way with sufficient technobabble to make the discussion more intriguing."

"No need to explain, sir. I remember what happened the last time we bypassed Starfleet Regulation 10103.3, part 19(c)(f)(iii), subparagraph 18, sections 32-110, as amended."

"As do I. No more captain's masts on this ship, I should hope. Now, do you believe those fluctuations will increase any more?"

"No, sir. They seem to have stabilized, almost as if whatever was causing them had found some sort of synchronicity with our warp core."

Riker put down his synthale. "I see where this is going. We've been set up for another pseudo-menacing situation, where we have a potentially dangerous scenario that will remain lurking threateningly in the background, but so long as it remains undisturbed we have time to tiptoe around it and solve it. However, as our security protocols dictate, we have to be absolutely sure nothing-and noone-exacerbates the situation."

"Quite so," Picard agreed. "Let's get down to Engineering before Wesley finishes his nap."

-oOo-

Quite finished with his napping, Acting Ensign Wesley Crusher® was running a custom-designed diagnostic program from the terminal in his mother's quarters, where he shared a berth. The program was tailor-made to scan every square millimeter of the Enterprise for anything untoward. "Untoward" meaning, in this case, anything that was, could become, could be construed as, or could be turned into any crisis solvable solely by the sheer tenacity, determination, guile, insight, intuition, dedication, and unmitigated pluck of Wesley himself.

There was another possible chance for glory in the kitchens, but he had already solved The Great Pasta Debacle twice this year, so he discarded that. Two urinal cakes were missing from ship's stores. He wrote that down as a backup plan. The Romulans had, after all, been rumored to have been involved in the construction and dissemination of tectonic disruption generators, and potty pucks were a vital component in all their designs to date.

A gerbil belonging to one of the children on board was showing anomalous life signs. It indicated a possible pregnancy, but Wesley jotted down a few notes concerning transdimensional shapeshifters and polyphasic infiltration methods. There is no such thing as "too careful."

Finally his program alighted on the engine room and the fluctuations in the warp core. Bingo. He quickly accessed the diagnostics and found the same things Geordi had, and what do you know? The warp core fluctuations had begun nearly at the same microsecond as the Doctor's timeship had appeared. Told them. He went into his room and rummaged around under his bed for an assortment of hand tools, a tricorder, and a utility belt, making sure to latch each fastener and seat each tool in its holster with the assertive firmness all alpha males displayed when kitting up.

He strode through the door with an equally assertive firmness to his step. This time, they would see. They would all see! He would show them all! Mwahahahahahahaaaaa!

-oOo-

"And that's all I've got, Captain," LaForge said. "I'm not entirely sure what the cause is."

The Doctor paused, pursing his lips at the display. "I'm not quite up to speed on your systems yet. What does this wave signify?"

"That's the integrity of the warp field itself as it's being generated and modulated for our speed. We're at warp two now, which given the advances in warp technology isn't twice the speed of light, really. It's more like c to the power of 6."

"Ah," the Doctor said. "Then I assume this to indicate the interference."

"Exactly."

"And since it began at the same time I arrived, I'm going to hazard a guess that it has to do with my TARDIS' engines. When I use it to travel through time, I use my main engines, of course. When I'm phased-in and temporally-spatially situated, I use different generators because I don't need the full power of my time drive. I suspect..."

Whatever the Doctor suspected went unsaid when the Enterprise lurched and the lights dimmed. Emergency klaxons blared and auxiliary lights came on. Picard slapped his commbadge as he tried to regain his footing. "Bridge, report!"

Data replied, "I do not know what happened, sir. We have dropped out of warp and our power grid has been damaged. We are currently at thirty percent power, maintaining warp point-two, heading unchanged."

"Do what you can to find out what happened," Picard ordered. "Geordi, what can you tell me?"

"Whatever that was, it just made the fluctuations worse. Apparently, the warp field was just fine as it was, but the sudden transition threw everything out of synch. We have maybe twelve minutes to fix this before we breach."

"Another warp core breach threat?" Riker asked. "A trope trifecta in one day. Alien menace, anomalous situation, now the warp core. I'm headed to the bridge."

"Won't you be needed here?" the Doctor wondered.

Riker shook his head as he left. Picard took over. "Proper dramatic tension can't be maintained with the command staff focused in one area. Besides, he has to confer with the JAG officer on board to ensure proper coverage of technobabble and the appropriate levels of unresolved sexual tension between himself and Counselor Troi."

"You do have this down pat, don't you? Listen, I have an idea. All I have to..."

"Don't listen to him, Captain!" The strident screech of an agitated Wesley cut through the comm traffic. "I have this handled!"

"Wesley! What are you doing?"

"I'm fixing this! I know what he's doing with his timeship."

"TARDIS," the Doctor mumbled through gritted teeth. "Wesley, just step aside! I know what to do to solve this. You're making things worse!" Indeed, things were worsening. The ship began to buck and tremble as though it were a car transitioning a washboard road.

A glittering, sparkling column of light appeared in the middle of the room, condensing into the form of one Wesley Crusher, who barely spared anyone a glance as he ran toward the warp core.

"Wesley! Get back here, or so help me, I'll call your mother down here to deal with you!"

"That works?" the Doctor asked.

"You've heard of redheads and their fits of temper, I'm sure."

"Ah, yes. Ginger snaps."

Wesley pressed a series of buttons and the blast doors slid down to isolate him and the warp core. "Now that you can't interfere, I can get about saving the ship," he shouted. "I can fix the warp field resonances. Geordi, you should have had this figured out before it became a problem. What we do is rig a backflow regulator from the deflector array like so," he pressed a button and sparks shot from a panel above him, "and modify the warp field resonances with supplemental power from the structural integrity field that I personally routed through the phaser banks. It was the only way to modify their energy wavelength so that it negated the timeship's..."

"TARDIS!"

"...energy output. I had to drop out of warp because the subspace bleed from our engines caused too much oscillation in the different fields and I couldn't compensate, not even if I inverted the antimatter ignition sequencing according to..."

"Best call his mother. He's going into technobabble overload," the Doctor said. "Get out of there before you do any more damage! Can't you feel it? You're going to shake this ship to pieces!"

Wesley dropped the cables and tools he'd been using, staring angrily at the Doctor, doing that open-mouthed, panting stare of fiercely suppressed adolescent rage thing again. "You caused this. Don't blame me for trying to save this ship again!" He picked up a cable and pulled it toward an unused junction box.

"Wesley, that's a bad idea!"

"Trust me on this one, Captain! Thank me later!" With a shove, Wesley pushed the cable into the junction box and fastened it securely in place...

...only to vanish instantly in a PAF of blue-white light. Speechless, Picard and his crew could only stare at the empty space that had until recently contained Acting Ensign Wesley Crusher®.

"Right." The Doctor pulled out his sonic screwdriver and pressed a control. For a full two seconds, the node at its tip glowed blue, and soon the tremors began to abate. He adjusted a few dials and played the screwdriver over the consoles and the warp core, resetting everything from computer consoles to antimatter injectors. Within a minute, the ship had returned to its normal state, lighting and all having been restored.

"What was that you did?" Picard asked as his crew picked themselves up off the deck and began diagnostics.

"Deus ex machinations! I just told my TARDIS to reposition itself about thirty kilometers away and to keep pace with us. I just had to move it far enough away the energy emissions of our ships didn't make contact. It's not just timey-wimey..."

"It's spacey-wacey, too," LaForge finished. "Then all that yelling at Wesley?"

"Dramatic necessity."

Picard et al nodded with simultaneous "ahs" of understanding. This was a requirement they understood well. "Then I guess that settles that. Well, several problems solved. Come along, Doctor. We've earned a bit of a rest, so join me in Ten Forward. We'll have tea and cake!"

"The cake is a lie!"

"Thank you, Mr. Barclay." With a smile, Picard ushered the Doctor out of Engineering, leaving Geordi scowling through his VISOR at the warp chamber. It had been locked from the inside.

"Crewman, go replicate a coat hanger. I think I've got this."

-oOo-

Wesley came to on the floor of what seemed to be a terrestrial house, not the deck of the Enterprise. There was shouting and screaming outside, signs of some kind of panic. He got up and went to a window. Humans were running everywhere, some clad in pajamas, some in work clothes, some in...oh, my gosh! He averted his eyes just in time...nothing at all.

He looked about the house and deduced that he had traveled in time as well as space. It was the only way he could account for the archaic furnishings. The calendar stating 1976 could always have been a ruse, he reasoned. He found a primitive viewing screen and turned it on.

A newscaster, as panicked as anyone else, was relaying a message from some alien fleet calling themselves "Vogons" who were calmly explaining that Earth needed to be removed-read "vaporized"-for a space highway and that it should not be taken personally.

Destroy the Earth, huh? I can fix this. All I need is that microwave oven, some rubber bands, and a teaspoon of petroleum jelly. I'll show them!

*poof*