Chapter 13: Earth, San Francisco, Starfleet Academy, Introduction to the Borg Lecture, 2401

If there was one thing L'Naan Paris had learned from watching the Q, it was that their ability to show up uninvited and unannounced was a constant source of aggravation for humanoids. She had the good sense to flash herself into the corridor outside Icheb's lecture hall so that she didn't cause an incident. She could hear him inside, droning on about nanoprobes, and as she peeked through the window, she saw that only a handful of cadets were actually listening. The rest looked as though they were waiting for class to end so they could bolt. Feeling slightly sorry for the boring ex-Borg, L'Naan couldn't resist snapping her fingers in his direction. Icheb instantly became livelier, and the cadets, who were now listening with rapt attention, laughed at one joke after another that rolled off his tongue.

After she had been watching for a few minutes, she felt a hand gently touch her shoulder. "What are you doing here?" she asked, turning to Charlie.

"I was going to say the same thing to you," he said. He peeked in the window. "You found Itchy!"

L'Naan nodded, sizing him up. "He's the reason the Continuum accepted you, isn't he? You demonstrated Qness when you saved his life."

"He's the best friend I ever had."

L'Naan tried to put her hands on her hips, but the large duffel bag of belongings from her dorm room at the Daystrom Institute got her in way. With some annoyance, she made it disappear. "Charlie, he's the only friend you've ever had."

"Well, still…You came here to ask him about Qness, didn't you?"

"Yes."

"He can't help you."

"At least he can tell me more about you."

"Watch out, the class is ending." Charlie snapped just as the cadets started to approach the door. In the blink of an eye, the cadets were gone. L'Naan looked at him worriedly. "Don't worry – I just suspended us in time for a few seconds while they left. They didn't notice anything." He opened the door to the room, calling as he entered, "Itchy!"

If he didn't have an eidetic memory, Icheb might have been confused, but fortunately his recollection of the week twenty years earlier when he'd made a friend who had given him that nickname was crystal clear. He turned toward them with a smile. "Q Ball!"

"Oh my god," L'Naan muttered as she followed Charlie into the lecture hall.


USS Rhode Island, Captain's Ready Room, Near the Typhon Expanse

Captain Harry Kim's ready room was everything L'Naan expected it to be. It was tidy to a fault – Andrew definitely took after his father in that respect. There was a saxophone resting upright on a stand in the corner, and on the desk were several framed pictures – one of Harry and Libby together when they were much younger, one from Andrew and Miral's wedding, and one of Andrew, Miral, and L'Naan as children lying in a field. L'Naan picked up the last image and looked at it. She could only identify herself by the brow ridges; she must only have been about two years old. She didn't remember the picture being taken and didn't understand why it deserved a place of honor on Harry's desk.

She was still looking at the image when the ready room doors hissed open and Harry entered. He nearly jumped when he realized someone was in his ready room, and his hand flew to his com badge. He only recognized L'Naan a split-second before he called for security.

"L'Naan Paris! What are you doing here?" he demanded angrily. She was quite certain she had never heard that tone of voice coming out of him.

"Don't be mad, Harry," she said, giving him a kiss on the cheek. "I wanted to talk to you about something."

"How the hell did you get here?"

"I flashed myself here."

"Computer, seal doors to the ready room, authorization Kim beta-three-four-seven." He put his hands on his hips. "As the daughter of two Starfleet officers, you should know better than turn up unexpected on a starship!"

"I do," she insisted. "I know the Q always cause problems when they just show up places. That's why I came here instead of coming to the bridge."

"L'Naan, if anyone sees you, I'll have to make an entry into the log explaining your presence."

L'Naan dismissed him with a wave of her hand. "I'll just erase their memory of seeing me, Harry. Relax." She plopped down on his sofa. "I need some advice."

With a clenched jaw, Harry sat down on the sofa next to her. "What kind of advice?"

"I have to demonstrate Qness," she explained. "I need to do something really extraordinary, something larger than life. Any suggestions?"

"Showing up on a ship in the middle of nowhere doesn't qualify?"

"Har-ry! That's like breathing for a Q."

Harry held his hands out in front of him and took a breath. She looked and sounded like L'Naan Paris, but Harry was quite certain he'd never seen her so annoyingly self-righteous before. All of her charm seemed to have been replaced by megalomania.

"I'm not a megalomaniac, Harry," she corrected. "Megalomaniacs are pathologically inclined to believe they control the world. I don't think I can control the world."

"That's a relief," he said, more than a little unsettled that she could read his thoughts so easily.

"I can control the universe," she finished.

Her superiority complex prevented her from seeing the disgusted look on Harry's face. Fortunately for Harry, he was summoned to the bridge.

"Can I watch you in action?"

"No. You need to get off my ship."

"Please? I'll turn myself into a glob fly."

"No," he said again more forcefully. "Go home. If you want to talk to me, send me a subspace message." He strode out of the ready room.

"Nice talking to you, too, Harry," she called after him as the doors closed.

Charlie materialized next to her on the sofa. "What were you thinking?" he asked. "Did you really think he'd be able to help you?"

"Why do you keep following me everywhere?" she asked crossly.

"I've been asked to look after you," he explained. "For someone who was able to figure out the great mystery of the Q's demise, you're sure taking a long time to decide what you want to do about it."

"I want to help," L'Naan said honestly, touching his arm. "I really do. I just don't understand the Continuum. If you're dying, how can you demand that I demonstrate Qness? Shouldn't you just take me now? Let me help now?"

Charlie shook his head. "It wouldn't save us. You have to have Qness first."

L'Naan sighed. "Charlie, I'm not sure I can prove my Qness."

"You will," he said with confidence. "But not like this."


Space

Since she had acquired her Q powers, L'Naan found that space was her favorite place to go when she needed solitude or time to think. She thought with some irony that if she wasn't already destined to save a race of omnipotents, she should rethink joining Starfleet.

Contemplating Charlie's words, L'Naan flashed herself to a small asteroid in the Selebi asteroid belt. She took a seat, letting her crossed legs hang off the edge of the rock, and tried to work through the pieces of Qness the way she would a complex algorithm.

There were, as she saw it, a few options. Since "Q Ball" had demonstrated Qness by offering his life for Icheb's, she could do something similar. She didn't have any dead or dying friends; fortunately, Miral's short Starfleet career hadn't yet led to any fatalities either. She contemplated bringing back one of her deceased grandparents, but she knew it would complicate the timeline and cause her family grief. Besides, she wasn't entirely sure that raising the dead was possible.

Perhaps something larger in scale was in order. Maybe eradicating the Borg. But she knew people rescued from the Borg – like Icheb – and wouldn't want to kill any drones who might someday be turned back into productive members of society. Deassimilation seemed like a better alternative. She could restore all drones to their former individual selves. As she tried to think through the plan, however, she could hear Q Senior's voice in her head warning angrily, "Don't provoke the Borg!"

She knew from her mother and cousins that there was a small movement on Qo'noS calling for the Klingons to join the Federation. The Peace Initiative, as they called themselves, hung banners that said things like, "Today is not a good day to die" and "Better to live with honor than to die for it." Perhaps she could encourage the growth of the movement, make the Empire part of the Federation. And put Mom out of a job, petaQ. Years of growing up in a Starfleet home also told her that interference was probably not the best solution.

If it was sacrifice the Continuum wanted, she didn't understand why they didn't accept the number of sacrifices she had already made for them. She'd given up her studies. She'd alienated her friends. She'd agreed to devote her life to the Continuum. What more could she possibly sacrifice for them?

"I've demonstrated Qness, Q!" she called into the vacuum of space. "Are you listening to me? I've shown you I'm worthy over and over again!"

There was no response.


Jupiter Station, Holographic Laboratory

"We could be doing this in the comfort of my house, you know," Tom pointed out as he and Reg Barclay leaned over the control console.

"Right," the Doctor added testily, "and I suppose B'Elanna would bring us refreshments every hour and applaud our glorious efforts."

"Maybe we should take a break," Reg suggested. "Everyone's getting…cranky."

Tom let out a breath and stood up straight, massaging his lower back. "It's fine. Let's keep going. We're already behind schedule. My dad's expecting to review a first draft in six months."

"All right," Reg agreed. "We were reviewing the Janeway parameters. Now we've already covered all the scenes in which she visits Voyager in drydock. The next part is for her to recruit her helmsman."

"Great," Tom muttered.

"Tom, if you don't want your prison record to be a part of this program, it doesn't have to be," the Doctor offered.

"It's okay, Doc. I did the crime, and I served the time. It's all in the past now." He gave them a charming smile. "Besides, if a user decides to play the Paris character, they ought to see his whole growth, from start to finish." Thinking of B'Elanna, he added quickly, "Well, we can omit the parts that happen in private quarters."

Barclay nodded and punched a few commands into the console. The lab turned into the Federation Penal Settlement in New Zealand, and they watched as the Janeway character crossed the grounds to the Paris character.

"Tom Paris?" she called.

"Who wants to know?" holo-Tom asked without looking up.

"Kathryn Janeway. I knew your father."

"Her hands should be on her hips, Reg," the Doctor noted.

"We can fix that later," Reg reminded him. "In this scenario the user is playing her role."

"That was the best day of my life," Tom said a little wistfully. "I didn't know it at the time. But if she'd never made me that offer, I'd never have met B'Elanna or Harry. And I never would have gotten reinstated."

"What happened when you got arrested anyway?" Reg asked curiously. "You were a Maquis?"

Tom nodded. "I was only in Chakotay's cell for a short time. I was really a mercenary, not a Maquis. I didn't believe in the cause the way he and B'Elanna did."


Marva IV, Unnamed Bar, 2370

Chakotay walked into the dimly lit bar and glowered at the new pilot, who was sitting at a corner table covered with empty glasses. He marched over to him, ready to let him have it.

"Getting drunk by yourself is not how you should be spending your free time, Paris," he reprimanded, leaning authoritatively over the table. The pilot seemed undaunted. "What's going to happen if we have to make a quick get away and you're too drunk to fly the ship?"

"I'm never too drunk to fly," came the cocky reply. "By the way, I told the bartender you'd be paying for my drinks."

Chakotay stood up and sighed vehemently. He reached into the small pouch attached to his belt and pulled out a few slips of latinum. He thunked them down on the table angrily. "That's the last drink. Get back to your berth and sleep it off. And don't make me regret recruiting you."

"Whatever you say."


Earth, San Francisco, Torres-Paris Family Residence

It hadn't escaped L'Naan that her return from Galor IV had led to a severe increase in household tension. Trying to balance the needs of the Q with the needs of her family, L'Naan agreed to eat dinner with her parents every night. Their family meals had once been raucous and enjoyable, with her father telling jokes and her mother laughing indulgently. She and Miral would bicker, her father and Miral would laugh about something that had happened at the Academy, and she and her mother would discuss the finer points of systems recalibrations with twinkles in their eyes.

For the past three days, however, mealtime had been a semi-silent affair. L'Naan wanted to believe that her father was strained from juggling his flight instructor job and the demands of the Voyager holoprogram and that her mother was worried about the outbreak of a civil war on the homeworld, but she knew the real cause of the tension.

"You haven't touched your food," B'Elanna observed quietly.

L'Naan, hands folded in her lap, looked down at her plate. "I don't need to eat," she reminded them.

"Eat anyway," Tom ordered. "It's a social activity, intended to bring families together." His voice indicated that even he found the idea suspect.

L'Naan obediently picked up her fork and scooped some peas onto it. She raised it to her mouth but couldn't bring herself to actually ingest. Even Charlie was only eating once every few days as the Q disease progressed, and it hadn't really affected L'Naan yet. When she thought neither parent was looking, she set the fork back down.

"How's the holoprogram, Dad?" she asked in a soft voice.

Tom looked at her, and for a second she thought he would cry. Seeing that she was genuinely interested, he answered with some gratitude, "We've finished with all the mission logs. Now we're setting all the individual character parameters so users can choose which senior officer they want to be."

"You aren't going to allow them to be a junior officer?"

Tom tipped his head slightly. "We hadn't thought about it. Why?"

"It might be fun if you pick one or two junior officers and give users the opportunity to portray them. They'll only get bits and pieces of what's going on – it might be more mysterious, more interesting from the lower decks."

"That's a really good idea, squirt."

Squirt. Part of her sighed with relief upon hearing the nickname. Now if only I can get back on Mom's good side.

"If holoprogramming interests you so much," B'Elanna suggested, "why don't you study that instead of artificial intelligence?"

"B'Elanna…" Tom didn't fully support L'Naan's choice to leave the Daystrom Institute either, but he certainly didn't want to keep having the same argument every night.

"How many times do I have to tell you?" L'Naan said, willing her voice to stay even, lest she further upset her mother. "I didn't leave the Daystrom Institute because I don't want to study artificial intelligence anymore. I left because I have to join the Q Continuum."

B'Elanna nearly snorted. "And when do you think that will happen, L'Naan? Your second semester just started. I'm sure it's not too late to rejoin your classes."

L'Naan felt her Klingon temper rising. She pushed back from the table. "Mother, I don't know what else I can say to you. I'm sorry I left school. I'm sorry I'm not becoming an engineer. I didn't ask for this." She stormed out of the kitchen.

"Don't look at me that way, Tom," B'Elanna cautioned before her husband could blame her for L'Naan's outburst.

"She told us she has to demonstrate Qness before she can join the Continuum. She's trying to figure out how. What more do you from her?"

"Are you listening to yourself?" B'Elanna nearly shouted. "You sound ridiculous! She's not doing anything. She flashes herself all over the galaxy all day, and then we all sit in silence at dinner every night. She needs to go back to school."

"You're the one who told me it's not her fault Q made her the offer!"

B'Elanna threw her napkin down on the table. "I'm tired of fighting with you," she said with resignation.

"So am I," he echoed softly.

B'Elanna covered her face with her hands for a moment. Tom moved to her and gently pulled her hands from her face, holding them in his own. "We're on the same team," she reminded them both. Tom nodded. "I just wish she would tell us why this is so important. Why can't she just let this go? There's more to this than she's telling us."

"There definitely is," Tom agreed. "But she's the one who always reminds us that we taught her how important it is for family members to trust each other."

"Do you?" she asked. "Trust her?"

Tom drew in a breath and nodded slowly. He wasn't entirely certain before, but he was starting to understand that he did. L'Naan was very different from the kind of young adult he'd been. She probably understood what she was getting herself into better than he and B'Elanna did when they were her age. "Yeah, I trust her."