Ship of the Valkryies (Part Fourteen)
A Star Trek crossover fanfic by Lt Taya 17 Janeway (TaTTooGaL™)
They were all seated in the Mess Hall and relaxing when Q arrived. He scowled at them. "Where's Cass? Shouldn't you be on your next Quest by now? Unless, of course, you girls have decided that life without men is better…" He glanced over at Janeway and grinned. "Well, Madame Captain, it seems like you've found a way back to your body. Aren't you just positively thankful for my insightful genius?"
Janeway was clearly not amused. "Yes," she drawled, "I'm positively thankful for all the grief you've caused me. As a matter of fact, I want to show you some of my gratitude." Rising from her seat, she sauntered slowly over to Q, who was eyeing every inch of her hungrily. She circled him slowly, scepter in one hand, tracing a line along the base of her neck with the other. She stopped in front of him, then tapped his shoulder with the scepter while whispering into his ear. "Congratulations. You're not It anymore."
While Jadzia groaned inwardly at Janeway's dumb physics pun, Q's eyes widened as the large central ruby glowed red, then yellow as it shone with an odd internal light. "What have you done now?"
Janeway's entire demeanor changed as she quickly stepped out of reach, clutching the scepter tightly, smirking. "Just a few minor adjustments, that's all."
"You've taken away my powers!"
"I think it's an improvement," said Guinan, lounging on the gray couch in the corner.
The women in the hall laughed. Ro flashed Kira a gallingly perfect smile as the two sat together beside Jadzia and Crusher.
"Very funny. Now, Madame Captain, be a good girl and hand them back to me." He tried to make a grab for the scepter.
"Ah-ah. Not so fast." Janeway held the scepter out of Q's reach. "First there are some things you must do." She nearly laughed at the exasperated expression on Q's face. "Other than just restoring us back to our usual lives, I want you to apologize to us- all of us- for all the inconveniences you've caused."
Q stared at her. "Apologize to these… mortals? Woman, are you brain-dead?"
"No, just holding on to your Q powers." Janeway smiled fiercely at Q as she said it, twirling her scepter in her hand and infuriatingly holding it just out of Q's reach. She clutched the scepter close to herself, smirking.
Q refused to yield. "I will not be cozened into this!" he exclaimed. "I'm Q! It's beneath my dignity!"
Janeway's temper flared slightly at that. "So it's alright for you to force us into doing all sorts of silly whims as how you like it, but not alright for us to ask for even an apology?" She emphasized her words with violent gestures of her scepter, pressing forward onto Q and causing him to retreat step by step until she had him fetched up against a wall. She dropped her voice to a dangerous whisper. "And I think you owe me and my crew a big one."
Q realized he was trapped. With a barely made gesture of his hand, he called out for reinforcements.
With a flash of light Q's wife appeared, looking irate. "What now? First you go gallivanting all over the galaxy without telling me where you're going, then you never turn up for dinner, and there-" She stopped and stared at Janeway. "What do you think you're doing?" she asked, narrowing her eyes.
"Taking unfair advantage of me, that's what!" spluttered Q indignantly as he tried to straighten up.
"Unfair advantage!" Janeway whirled back to face Q, pointed her scepter at him and zapped his derriere with an unforgiving blast of energy. "You still have the cheek to say that after all you've done to us!"
Q yelped and rubbed his behind. Q glowered at Janeway for gratuitous abuse of her husband. Kira clapped her hands and gave Janeway a thumbs-up sign in the time-honored tradition of saying, "You go, girl!"
Q folded her arms across her chest. "Looks like somebody's experiments have gotten out of hand… again." She turned her glare to focus on her husband. "And of course, it falls to the dutiful wife to get you out of your self-inflicted rut."
The piteous look on Q's face at that moment alone made slogging through six Quests seem almost worthwhile. Jadzia and Keiko exchanged a knowing grin, being the only two currently married crewmembers on board the ship. "But it wasn't my idea to give her powers!"
"Right. Just the mere idea of giving them to that atavism Riker was bad enough… and now you have to bestow them on this scrawny specimen?" She circled Janeway, looking down disdainfully at her.
Torres bristled at the insult to her captain. "Who, as you recall, helped you end your civil war, is your son's appointed godmother, and not to mention is holding on to your husband's powers," she said acidly.
Q scowled at the half-Klingon engineer's impertinence. "See, dear," said Q in placating tone, "if we don't do something about it now, they will never learn their rightful place!"
Q nodded in agreement, casting the motley assortment of women gathered around her a haughty glance. "Relent," she told Janeway.
"Not until he apologizes," insisted Janeway staunchly.
"Stubborn, aren't you? All right then. Which one first? The mates of this scrawny specimen, or the primitive half-breed?" Q's expression took on a crafty smile as she considered her husband. "Or both?"
"Well…" Q scratched his chin. "Technically neither of them are considered mates yet… but we all know the truth, don't we?"
The smoldering look Janeway cast the two Q at that moment would have melted braver people where they stood.
Q snapped her fingers. Paris and Chakotay appeared in the middle of the Mess Hall. With an outcry of surprise at being returned to the presence of all they knew and loved, the two men started forward-
-and ran hard into a blue forcefield in front of them, rebounded and landed on their rear ends simultaneously with similar yelps of mortification.
It was so comical the girls would have laughed had the situation not been so dire.
Q pointed her finger at them. "Since you refuse to cooperate, you can choose which one you want to die first. Helm Boy or Chuckles?"
The two men cast an anxious glance at each other, not knowing what to make of this situation.
Janeway's lips tightened, but she remained steadfast.
The atmosphere in the room tensed. Seated on the other end of the couch from Guinan, Torres gripped the armrest, hard, and Troi winced at the overwhelming bombardment of concern from her.
Q arched one eyebrow, simultaneously impressed and galled by the woman's audacity. "No?" She singled Chakotay out with a blue beam of energy. "Last chance…. Ten… nine… eight…"
"Captain…. whatever they want you to do, don't do it," said Chakotay bravely, trying to ignore the fact that he was seven seconds away from guaranteed oblivion.
Torres had a different suggestion. "Captain, Q isn't worth risking both their lives over. Let's just play along with them, return his powers and be done with it." She glanced over at Paris, then looked back at Janeway. "Please."
"Five… four…"
"I've had enough of playing along with Q," said Janeway in a low, angry voice, but it seemed to be trembling on the edge of breaking. She gazed at Chakotay as Q continued her inexorable countdown. His eyes locked with hers. I'm sorry.
"Two… one… zero."
Chakotay -and Paris- involuntarily shut their eyes.
Nothing happened.
Paris opened one eye to assess the situation, decided it was safe, and opened the other.
"Hey," Q protested to his wife, "why haven't you done anything?"
"Because I stopped her," said a voice from behind him, soft and mellifluous, but yet carrying an undercurrent of steel. Everyone whirled to see Cass standing in the doorway of the Mess Hall, her wavy golden hair cascading over her shoulders. "You promised someone that nobody would get hurt in this game." And behind her, Quinlan and another boy, a sandy-haired child with a bright expression, presumably q, stood.
Much of the tension in the room dispersed; Ro actually laughed out loud, while Jadzia and Crusher smiled at each other, all teeth and radiance, much to the growing annoyance of Kira. Torres unclenched her fingers from where they'd torn into the upholstery of the couch. Janeway let out the breath she'd been holding, visibly sagging in relief.
Q scowled at his handpicked Diocese. "So you're the one who's been planning all this! Cass! I'm disappointed! And to think I put so much faith in you…"
Paris noticed that Chakotay's eyes were still squeezed shut, and he poked him cautiously. "You're alive."
"Shut up. You're not entitled to speak," snapped Q as she pointed to the two imprisoned males. "Back to where you came from." With another snap of her fingers the two men disappeared as quickly as they had appeared.
Q folded his arms and glared at Cass. "Why are you helping them? Aren't you supposed to be on our side?"
Cass tapped her foot patiently on the floor. "You're forgetting, Q. There is no our side or their side in this game. I helped you petition to bring this event through with the Q council, remember? And do you remember the objectives we set for this game?"
" 'To teach the next generation of Q the value of teamwork in surmounting seemingly impassable odds,'" recited Q, waving a hand as if bored.
"Which is precisely what we have done. Despite differences in ideologies, backgrounds and even alliances, we all worked together to achieve a common goal, no?"
"What do you mean, we? So you consider yourself one of them now?" Q gestured, exasperated. "I thought we were long past that!"
"Once a mortal, always a mortal at heart," Cass replied. "You learn to care for the welfare of others, full well knowing how fragile and precious life is." She smiled back at the assembled women. "Isn't that right?"
Nods and murmurs of agreement. The women obviously enjoyed seeing Q being dressed down in front of his wife. Q, to her credit, made no angry outbursts or protests, merely folding her arms across her chest and watching the show with carefully-guarded interest.
"And I'm sure one of the objectives we included in our project proposal included emphasis on playing fair. Well, all your cheats- unapproved by me, of course, and this little interesting twist of plot don't fit in the picture then." Q rebutted.
Cass snapped her fingers and a slim paper file appeared in her hand. She flipped through it with clinical accuracy. "As a matter of fact, that objective was not mentioned in our approved proposal." Flip flip flip. "Although it did mention the teaching of creativity and flexible thinking in times of adversity." She snapped the file shut and smiled sweetly to the children, inciting another round of smile envy from Kira. "Did you learn all that?"
The two children nodded.
"And what is the point of this exercise, then?"
"A lesson in humility. You needed one."
Janeway hid a smile. She couldn't have agreed more with this young woman.
Then Quinlan said, "You always tell me to say sorry to q every time we fight." She pointed to Janeway. "So how come you can't say sorry to Kathy?"
Q was silent. Then he scowled. "I hate it when you women gang up on me… it's annoying."
"You deserve it, I'd say," rebutted Kira, "and I don't hear an apology coming."
"Alright, alright! I give in! I'm sorry! There, happy now?" exploded Q in annoyance. "Or won't you be satisfied until I'm crawling in front of you?" He folded his arms across his chest. Q rolled her eyes and shook her head, more or less fairly amused by the husband's being cornered by a group of lesser beings.
"Happy and satisfied? Not until we get our men back," said Jadzia with sweet venom.
Q groaned.
