Unscrupulous, chapter two

The Q was bored. One day, he decided to alleviate some of his boredom by creating a black hole near the lonely outpost of Star Base Nine while visiting the twenty-third century. He knew that Kirk would soon encounter it and that he and his ship would be propelled backwards in time to the twentieth century. Kirk was always fun for the Q to mess with, and he knew that the captain would be labeled a menace by Starfleet Temporal, even though the Q was the main culprit for Kirk's many time travel mishaps. The Q also decided to have some fun with Captain Christopher, the local primitive Kirk had to beam aboard the Enterprise when the ship's tractor beam crushed his airplane. He knew how disappointed the airman had been when he found out from Kirk that he would not remember anything about being aboard the starship Enterprise. The Q rather liked Christopher's personality and he decided to pose as his long time friend, Commander Webb, after the real Webb had detected the ship as a blip on his radar when it appeared over the Omaha installation. The real Webb had moved on to bigger and better things, through the following years forgetting about the day he detected a mysterious blip on his radar scope. He had long ago dismissed it as a glitch in the machine's programming. However, Captain Christopher, who was now a Colonel and just a few weeks away from retirement from the US Air Force, never forgot about the strange UFO he saw in the sky, nor could he forget the fact that the Air Force considered it worthy of investigation. As the years progressed, the Q, posing as Webb, contacted Christopher by phone, telling him that the UFO he had seen over Omaha was really the starship Enterprise. At first, Christopher thought his old friend had lost his marbles, knowing full well like everyone else that the starship Enterprise was from a long dead science fiction TV show. However, when he started to think about it, the UFO he had seen had borne a striking resemblance to the fictional space ship. The media had gotten wind of this and had contacted him about an interview for "Unsolved Mysteries". Christopher found it a bit silly, but, in recent years, people were becoming more and more tolerant of supposed UFO sightings and it was becoming more acceptable to report any such strange occurrences. So, at last he relented, thinking it would be just something amusing for the public to enjoy. However, a few days after the first interview with the media, two men dressed in black came knocking on his door, ordering him to cease and desist talking about the event that occurred in the late nineteen sixties, telling him that there would be dire consequences if he did not comply. Christopher found them to be a bit strange and menacing, but he was not about to follow the orders of complete strangers. After all, he had the Constitutional right of free speech and was not about to be intimidated by a couple of weirdos in dark suits and sunglasses. Months after he told the story, though, he was summarily dismissed from the Air Force with no explanation and was denied his retirement pension. Despondent, he decided to kill himself. His wife tried to console him, telling him that it must be some kind of horrible bureaucratic mistake, but deep down he knew that it was he who made the mistake and should have heeded the men in black. The last thing he remembered before waking up on Kirk's ship was downing several sleeping pills.

The Q had considered that bringing Picard's ship back in time, as much as he enjoyed his great speeches, would have created too many variables in the time line. There were many more people on the Enterprise-D, and that would create an even bigger problem. The radar devices in the twentieth century would have had no problem picking up the much larger ship as it lumbered through the sky. As he thought of Picard, the Q smiled as he also thought of Burlingoff Rasmussen. The Q had been the one posing as the time craft's occupant, whom Rasmussen thought he had killed. Of course, the Q wanted him to steal the craft, just so he could have some more fun watching the dismally unsuccessful twenty-second century inventor as he masqueraded as a history professor and tried to palm some items from Picard's ship, only to be caught by Data. "That darned android!" The Q thought. "Always such a kill joy. However...he did save my life once." The Q paused for a moment, and then decided to give Rasmussen another chance.

Burlingoff Rasmussen had just been released from jail, and had been exiled on Nimbus Three, the "planet of galactic peace". As he sat in a booth inside a local eatery, something familiar caught his eye. At first, he thought he was seeing things. He shook his head, closed his eyes and took a sip of his lukewarm coffee. When he looked again, the ship he thought had vanished forever on Picard's ship was still there, resting quietly in the parking lot. Looking around furtively, hoping that nobody else was noticing, he made his way out of the restaurant and approached the time ship. Cautiously, he touched it, feeling the warmth of the outer hull. It was real all right. He walked to the entrance and touched the door panel. As he climbed in, he saw the alien he thought he had killed at the controls.

"Good evening, Rasmussen." Q said with a smile. "Don't worry. I'm not mad at you for trying to kill me. I have a proposition for you. I will return you to the twenty-second century where you belong if you do me a favor and rescue a certain twenty-first century senior citizen from a starship in the twenty-third century and bring him back to his own time. When you are there, you will have the opportunity to pilfer some items from good old NCC 1701."

Captain James T Kirk had just completed a diplomatic mission to the Gorn home world, where he had successfully presented a peace treaty with the lizard-like creatures that had attacked Cestus Three. It was early in the morning when he stepped out of his quarters on deck five and nearly tripped over the supine form of a much older version of John Christopher. The man was dressed in pajamas and appeared to be asleep and oblivious to everything. Concerned and puzzled as to how the former airman could possibly be on his ship again, he felt for a pulse. Not finding one, he immediately called McCoy on the nearest wall intercom.