Ready. Set. Aaargghhhhh, here goes Chapter 2, catch it while it's hot!!

The Meeting of Q

'It's not every day,' Miral thought, 'that you can burst two gel packs over yourself and keep on trying.' She lifted the third, and soon to be more successful, pack into place and secured it with the phase torch she held in her other hand. Itching the rash that had started on the majority of her skin, she crawled out of the tube behind Lieutenant Vas, who was working at the Ops station. He laughed as he moved out of the way for her to crawl out. She was known as something of a clown to the more senior officers.

She stood up and dusted herself off before focusing on her mother. Most of the officers had turned their heads when they heard the commotion behind the console and her mother was one of them. B'Elanna had an amused smirk across her face as she crossed her arms to look at her slightly dirty daughter. Miral ran to her mother and gave her a great big bear hug. Her mother, although not nearly as affectionate as Miral, returned the hug before turning back into a Captain.

"Miral," she said, "Not while we're on duty."

"What Mum?" she joked, "Are you afraid they'll find out we're related."

Her mother smiled one of her patient, laughing smiles.

"Anyhow, I just thought I would stop by - I was in the area, you know. I'm going now." Miral turned for the turbo lift behind her, but she would not get there.

A large tremor went through the ship sending officers everywhere off their feet. On the lower decks, everyone was asking the question: 'what just happened?' but on the Bridge, they had a perfectly good view. A lime green explosion had appeared directly before them without warning.

"All stop, Ensign." B'Elanna called to the helmsman. Another explosion, red this time, appeared half a kilometer away. "Miral," she called over the sound of the red alert bells, "What is it?"

Miral didn't answer. Her eyes were fastened on a spot in space and she was staring, dumbstruck. Half a moment later, a purple shower of light appeared at the spot where she was looking. She clutched her eyes, she had been looking straight at it when the brilliant flash of energy shined red hot in her mind. Three or four officers around her stooped to help her up, but when she didn't answer their questions, they beamed her directly to sick bay.

She woke up on a sterile bed in sick bay a few minutes later. The Doctor was on the opposite side of the room. His energy signature was much lower than that of any other person on board simply because he was made up of only light energy. Miral was glad they had transferred his program to the Euphedes when they retired Voyager. He walked over to her quickly, anxious not to miss a minute of her recovery. He opened his mouth to speak but said nothing in the time before his program went off line. Feeling fine, Miral left sick bay to help the repair crews to get her friend back.

She turned toward Engineering but thought better of it. She turned the opposite way and took a turbo lift in the direction of the Mess Hall. When she entered the room, all was in a panic. She had trouble seeing, the energy in the room was changing rapidly until she couldn't take it anymore and felt her way, hand over hand, along the counter.

When she looked up again, she saw something she could only describe as god-like. A figure, no bigger than a man, was standing in the middle of the room. What he looked like, she had never seen before. The colours she saw when she looked at him were ones she had never seen before. She could tell there was a lot of energy there, but it did not burn her mind, instead it soothed it. She was staring humbly at the figure as it slowly turned to face her.

"Stand down." called the voice of the security detail that had burst through the door.

The figure in front of Miral, snapped once with his fingers and was gone in a flash of light and energy.

Yes? No? NO! How dare you say NO?

Ok. I know, I know: No. I'm comfortable with it. I kind of liked the chapter. Sorry about the fireworks in front of the ship, I didn't know what else to do. And in case you didn't figure it out, the snapping figure of comforting hues was Q (it's actually young Q or Q2 but we'll find that out next chapter).

Questions, comments, queries, reviews, anecdotes, bizarre indian rituals - you know what to do with them. Later.