Mind Your P's and Q's

Source Episode: VOY 2x18 Death Wish

The Q are, by nature, incredibly intentional in their timing. I don't imagine that they could be any other way, given that they have the ability to manipulate the space-time continuum. That being said, their liaison to the Federation has a tendency towards apathy and boredom. He often delights in choosing inopportune moments to show up on Starfleet ships. Naturally, Q's favorite starship to visit is Starfleet's flagship, the USS Enterprise-D. On occasion, however, he has been known to visit other places.

One such location was the USS Hepburn, where I grew up.

I was five the first time I met Q. Hepburn was playing host to the Federation ambassador to the Klingon Empire, Curzon Dax, and was escorting the Empire's flagship through a nebula that sat in between Federation and Klingon space. This nebula, called the Mutara nebula, was the only nebula of its kind in known space. This, obviously, made it an incredibly important object of scientific study.

Although the Federation had a peace treaty with the Klingon Empire, the relationship was always a tenuous one. Klingons prided themselves on a strong warrior culture, to the point that their most central mythical story depicted the first Klingons slaughtering their own gods. This stood in stark contrast to the Federation's ethos of peaceful scientific exploration. It was a special relationship that required finesse to maintain.

That was why Captain Taylor specifically chose my parents for the mission. Hepburn was the only Starfleet vessel working hand-in-hand with Klingon scientists to study the Mutara nebula, and my parents were experts at strategic diplomacy.

The Klingon flagship was lead by Dahar Master Kor, son of Rynar. He was one of the most decorated warriors in the Empire, and had an illustrious military career. He was also a close personal friend of Ambassador Dax.

By the end of the tour, Master Kor hailed Marnah as 'an honorable warrior of both Bajor and the Federation, with a Klingon heart beating inside her breast.' He was especially impressed to learn about the hard training she put my brother and me through to master the Bajoran combat technique of Talin Sera. Kor offered to teach us the Klingon art of Bat'leth the next time we met, and I was obliged to accept.

At the time, I was far too young to understand what Q had to do with any of this. His appearance on the Hepburn was a complete shock to Starfleet and Klingon alike, and his trickster persona was downright offensive to everyone.

Yet once he left, no one seemed to care much about what had happened. Even Starfleet was disinterested in the random appearance of an all-powerful alien interrupting an important diplomatic mission. Most of the fleet was left unaware of the Q's existence until he showed up on the Enterprise two decades later. It made no sense, once I thought about it.

But I suppose that was the problem— I never really thought about it. I simply accepted the easy answers, and continued on with my own little life.

When Mike Ayala disappeared with a flash in the middle of a counseling session, I immediately commed the bridge.

Ensign Megan Delaney, a stellar cartographer with no command experience, responded to my call. She informed me that they had been attempting to transport a sample from an asteroid to study, and ended up with a man who called himself Q. Soon after that, Captain Janeway vanished. A few minutes later, all of the men on the bridge vanished. This left Megan as ranking officer on the bridge.

"Hang in there, Meg," I told her. "I'm on my way up right now. I've dealt with Q before. I'll try to locate Captain Janeway, and we'll take it from there."

"That won't be necessary, Commander," came Janeway's voice through the com. "I've been returned to the bridge. However, I would like for you to report here immediately."

I stood from my chair. "Aye, C—"

In a flash of light, I was simply there. Beside me stood Janeway and a short, light-haired man I had never seen before. He smiled, took my hand, and shook it vigorously. "Hi, there! So good to meet you, Lieutenant Commander Eelo. I figured I'd save you the trouble of coming all the way here from your office. You're a counselor! How fascinating that must be. Well, good luck to you all. I really must be going now."

Janeway planted her hands on her hips. "Return my crew!"

The Q, who we would later come to know as Quinn, shrugged. "I'm not sure how." He put his hand to his chin and muttered, "Hmm, Terrans. Who would have recent experience with Terrans?"

I crossed my arms and quirked an eyebrow. "I might have an idea."

Just then, the Q liaison appeared on the bridge. "Well, I am truly touched that after all this time you still remember your dear old Q, Little Eelo."

I quirked my lips to one side. "As always, your timing is impeccable."

He smiled. "Isn't it, though?" Turning his gaze to Quinn, he narrowed his eyes. "What have you done now, Q? Terrans aren't supposed to be in this quadrant for another hundred years."

I frowned.

"I didn't bring them here," Quinn insisted, throwing up his hands. "Nothing to do with me."

Q seemed concerned about that answer, but he set the issue aside. "How did you get out?"

Janeway took a step towards him. "I'm afraid we're responsible for that."

Q eyed the captain suspiciously. "Hmm, well, I guess that's what you get for having a woman in the captain's seat."

His blow landed exactly as he had intended it to; Janeway's nostrils flared, and she jutted out her jaw defiantly. "May I assume that you're the Q I've heard so much about?"

Q grinned. "Oh, have you heard about little me? Has Jean-Luc been whispering about me behind my back? Has my favorite test-tube Bajoran been telling you stories about all the fun we used to have together?"

I snorted. "That's what you call it, Q? Fun?"

"Well, I thought it was. Didn't you?"

"You kidnapped Marnah to convince her to run away with you, and you stranded us in the Mutara nebula for two days!"

Q sighed and shook his head with disappointment. "She has no idea what a rare opportunity she turned down. Oh, the things I could have shown her." Then, he glanced around the bridge before returning his gaze to Janeway. "Say, is this the ship of the Valkyries, or have you Federation women finally done away with your men altogether?"

Quinn's face flushed slightly with embarrassment. "There was a slight accident."

Q quirked an eyebrow at him. "Let me guess. You were attempting suicide."

When Quinn merely shrugged, the liaison rolled his eyes and turned to Janeway. "Now you see why we've locked him up for the last three hundred years." With a snap of his fingers, Q returned all of the male crewmen, who glanced around with confusion.

Q eyed Chakotay. "Ooh, facial art! How very wilderness of you."

Chakotay frowned. "Captain?"

Mike commed from my office, wanting to know what happened.

"Lieutenant Commander Tuvok can brief you on what happened later," I told him. "Suffice it to say, we had an odd situation come up. I'm sorry, but I need to stay on the bridge for now."

"Understood."

"There," Q said with a smile. "You see? Everything's back to normal. Now, Q, we should be going."

Quinn shook his head. "I'm not going anywhere. Captain Janeway, I demand asylum."

Q snorted. "This is a joke."

It was definitely not a joke. For the next several minutes, Voyager was transported to some of the most obscure locations in space-time as the two Q attempted to outsmart one another. Every time Quinn would take us to a different— and often dangerous— place, Q found us immediately.

"You can't take me by force!" Quinn shouted at the liaison. "I'll stalemate you for eternity if I have to."

"The hell you will!" Janeway snapped, planting herself between the Q. "The vaunted Q Continuum—self-anointed guardians of the universe. How dare you come aboard this ship and endanger this crew with your personal tug-of-war! You want asylum? Fine. We'll have a hearing."

Q balked. "A hearing? You would have me put his future in your delicate little hands?"

She put both hands on her hips and glared at him. "When the captain of a Starfleet vessel receives an official request for asylum, there is a clear procedure to follow. I suggest, to end your deadlock and save my ship, that we follow it to the letter."

With both Q in agreement on the terms of the hearing, Captain Janeway summoned Chakotay, Tuvok, and myself to her ready room. Resting an elbow on the back of her couch and crossing one knee over the other, she debriefed us on what all had taken place. Then, she looked to me. "Miss Eelo, what can you tell us about your parents' encounters with Q on the Hepburn?"

"There's not much to tell other than that he had a strange and mildly problematic interest in my mother. He came on three separate occasions, and it was always the same thing; he'd take her to some obscure part of the universe to try and seduce her, she would turn him down flat, and then he would leave. The incident with the Klingons was his first visit, and it was the most dramatic one. The other two were rather uneventful."

"It is curious," Tuvok observed, "that these encounters were not entered into Starfleet records until several years after they occurred."

I shrugged. "Our experiences with Q were nothing like his later interactions with the Enterprise. Given the immediate importance of the work our crew was doing with the Klingons, I'd be surprised if Starfleet looked twice at the reports on his visits. Why take the time to open a new file for a single alien whose only interest is sex?"

"Surely, his actions during your first encounter would have been deeply offensive to the Klingons," Tuvok observed, "especially at such a sensitive time in the Empire's relationship with the Federation."

"Yes, Master Kor was very displeased at first. But, when Marnah returned and—"

The looks on their faces made me pause for a few seconds until I realized that they did not know who 'Marnah' was. I breathed a laugh and tried again. "When my mother returned and reported what had happened, Kor said it proved what a desirable and honorable woman she was. In the end, I think Ambassador Dax was more upset about it than Master Kor was."

"Is there anything more you can tell us?" Janeway asked. "Anything at all that might help us in this situation?"

I shook my head, but a realization struck me. "You know, now that I think about it, the encounter probably boosted the diplomatic relations between the Federation and the Klingon Empire. My mother developed a great relationship with Master Kor after it was over, and our work with the Klingon scientists to study the Mutara nebula was quite successful. Not that it has anything to do with this particular conflict, but it may speak to Q's character."

Tuvok tilted his head slightly. "Are you suggesting that it was Q's intention to assist in improving relations between the Federation and the Klingon Empire, and not simply an attempt to seduce your mother?"

"I don't know," I admitted. "To be honest, I never really thought to ask about those sorts of things. I was only five when it happened. All I wanted to know was that Q wouldn't take my mother away from me."

During the first session of the asylum hearing, Q made the argument that Quinn's suicidality made him mentally unstable. Naturally, Captain Janeway turned to me for assessing this. Although she acknowledged that his alien biology— if it can be called that— would greatly impact his psychology, the issue was more complicated than I think even she realized.

Psychology isn't merely a product of biology; it is also a product of environment. I had no knowledge of either one regarding the Q— no baseline for normal behavior within the Q Continuum, let alone for Quinn as an individual. Even in the Q's interactions with humanoid species, they took on the appearance of those with whom they visited. How could I assess a non-corporeal shapeshifter?

Yet, I had little choice. After making a formal note in the record explaining my limitations, I went about doing some research in Voyager's database. Then, I performed the assessment to the best of my abilities on both of the Q.

Quinn compared himself to a mortal afflicted with terminal illness, and I understood his point. Still, he also struck me as a bit of a revolutionary, for his greatest hope was to awaken the Q to the fact that immortality had cost them their freedom and their passion.

By the end of our meeting, I determined that he was, in my opinion, of a sound mind. He was not depressed, psychotic, or otherwise mentally ill inasmuch as my assessment could define mental illness.

Quinn was quite pleased with the outcome of his assessment, but he did not leave after I released him from session. Instead, he tilted his head and studied me very closely.

I smiled at him. "What is it?"

"You, Talia. You have so many questions— big questions, as well as the trivial ones."

I lifted my eyebrows. "I do?"

"Yes. And in return for what you have done for me, I would like to repay you with some answers."

I shook my head. "No, Q, please— you don't have to do anything—"

"But I want to. Please."

"Q, I cannot accept gifts from clients. It would be unethical."

He nodded. "Right. Well, in that case, I suppose that I will simply leave you with some advice... as a friend."

I sighed. He wasn't going to let this go, so I relented with a nod.

Quinn gazed into my eyes with earnest compassion. "There is much you have to learn on this journey about who you are, where you belong, and what your purpose will be. But I can tell you that right now, at this very moment, there is an opportunity presenting itself to you that you cannot afford to pass over."

"Oh? And what might that be?"

"Harry Kim."

My mouth fell open, and I forced it shut again. Clearing my throat, I did my best to inject some professionalism back into my affect.

"Now, I'm not saying you should ask him to dinner tonight or anything. I know you haven't made up your mind about him yet, and that's fine. Take your time. But I don't want you to be afraid of your feelings for him. You're not the destructive person you think you are."

The room fell silent for several seconds as Quinn waited for me to say something. "Honestly, Q, I don't know how to respond."

He smiled. "Don't worry about it. Just keep what I said in mind."

I nodded. "I will. Thank you."

"No," he said, "thank you." Then, in a flash, he was gone.

Counselor's Log: Stardate 49301.5

Early this morning, the Q liaison provided Quinn with a lethal dose of Nogatch hemlock, which Quinn ingested. He passed away at 0735 hours. Quinn's final words prior to his death were, "This is my final gift to my people."

I stand by my belief, and Captain Janeway's judgement, that free choice in life and death was his own right. I am glad that he has found the peace he was looking for, and that he is no longer suffering.

After Quinn's death, Q stated that Quinn had inspired him to reclaim a piece of his former free-spirited self. He then said that he would be seeing us again.

I couldn't quite decide if that's a good or bad thing.