Chapter I

Captain Picard looked out the window of the room. He watched the stars slowly streak past. He knew that in reality he was moving several hundred times the speed of light, but it didn't feel like it.

"Captain to the Bridge," Commander Riker said over the intercom.

"On my way," Picard walked through a set of doors as they opened. He was now in a large room, with three chairs in the center surrounded by an arch. Two chairs with consoles in front of them were manned by Lieutenant Commander Data and Ensign Gates. Several consoles in the back were on, but not all were occupied.

"What is it, number one?" Picard asked.

"We've picked up a strange energy reading off to starboard. It seems to be some kind of temporal anomaly, but we're not too sure," Riker said

"launch a class one probe. We don't have enough time to investigate it further. Our mission is to important."

Suddenly a flash of light appeared next to Picard, and he heard a voice he knew only too well. "Are you sure, Jean-Luc? You may find that anomaly quite interesting, in many respects, in fact, it may just provide a solution to the Federation's "little" dilemma."

"Q! What are you doing here?!"

"Just providing a helping hand. After all, if the Borg get you, who am I going to talk to?" Q said, "I would suggest that you remain here and run all your scans on this anomaly. A probe won't be able to detect it, but the Enterprise should." And with that, Q disappeared into a flash of light, leaving the crew of the Enterprise to ponder on his words.

"We may as well stay here for a few hours. If we got to warp 9 after we conduct our scans, we'll still complete our mission in time," Riker said.

"Agreed. Q may be playing some kind of game with us, but we can't completely disregard this. Start your scans, Data."