Visitation
Small dots of light formed and collided with an invisible wall like bird shit hitting a windshield. The light seemed to shimmy and slide to the nearest edge of an invisible wall before shooting passed the massive object as a streak of light. The effect was multiplied thousands of times a second all across the object, giving the appearance of the object traveling quickly past all the stars in the cosmos. The effect was an illusion, but the object was moving at speeds far greater than the speed of light. The illusion was caused by a reaction between the warp field of the object and subspace around it.
The object in question was a starship. A Galaxy-class Dreadnought with its distinctive three warp nacelles and phaser lance mounted on the ventral aspect of the saucer. The massive ship seemed to bob and sway as the Nacelles attempted to balance the warp field. Occasionally the false field of stars would turn into a brilliant swirl of light and clouds as the warp field fluctuated under strain. Four ships followed behind at a distance of 100 kilometers, their engines working hard to close the distance without any sign of fatigue.
"Mister Smith, take us out of warp and change course to one-three-five mark one-five. Engage at warp factor 9." Quincy Quality Queen shouted out the command over the noise of engineers and medical personnel at work on the bridge. The ensign at the helm input commands into his console yet forgot to acknowledge the command given. Captain Queen shifted uncomfortably in her chair. She watched the aft sensors from the console on her chair's armrest.
The bridge was a mess. The viewscreen was cracked but still operational. Science station two had exploded sending bits of composite metals into the surrounding bridge officers. A plasma fire had gutted the starboard side bulkhead. It had taken three crewmen with fire extinguishers to put it out. The bulkhead was badly charred and melted. Medical teams and engineers scrambled around on the deck tripping over each other trying to do their jobs in minimal lighting.
USS Zimbabwe dropped out of warp and immediately executed a hard burn on maneuvering thrusters. The massive Galaxy-class Dreadnought looked like it had been cobbled together from junk. The ship lacked the spit and polish Starfleet gave their ships before commissioning. Sections of the hull were painted in different stages with some sections having no paint and others having just a coat of primer. The three large nacelles flickered as the ship tried to balance the flow of warp plasma. Zimbabwe shot back into warp on its new heading.
Until two days ago, Captain Quincy Quality Queen was enjoying a tranquil assignment as the Commanding Officer of the Galaxy-class Dreadnought USS Zimbabwe, under construction. The ship had been her home for the last year and a half while being built at Starbase 234. The ship's current crew was a mix of personnel assigned for construction, workers and crews from Starbase 234, and their families. The reason for the odd mix of untested crew was already back on the aft sensors, chasing them. Queen didn't know anything about this new enemy except the rumors she heard during the attack.
The idea that the enemy was the Iconians was absurd. They were a long dead and extinct race of aliens that had died out hundreds of thousands of years ago. It didn't change the fact that four alien ships had been chasing Zimbabwe since the attack on Starbase 234. Zimbabwe fled under her own power during the evacuation. The crew managed to hide for almost two days as they made their way to what they hoped was a safe harbor.
A few hours ago, the four ships seemed to just appear in front of the ship while it was in high orbit of a white dwarf. The four ships were identified by Zimbabwe's main computer as two destroyers and two heavy cruisers based on the analysis of their weapons and engine configuration. The ships attacked the moment they entered weapons range. Captain Queen ordered their immediate withdraw and they had been running ever since. Zimbabwe's engines were brand new and largely untested.
The constant course corrections, intended to lose their pursuers, were also causing damage to the engines. They couldn't stand a chance in a fight either. They didn't have a full crew and most of the people they took on during the evacuation lacked the training necessary to fill vital roles. The shuttle bay was empty except for a few worker bees and inspection pods. Many of the weapons installed onboard had yet to be fully assembled or calibrated. The torpedo tubes were ready, but no torpedoes had been brought onboard for use.
Every second ticking by was a second closer to their inevitable demise. Captain Queen was snapped out of her thoughts when she felt someone shake her shoulder, "Did you hear what I said?" Rosario Mendez asked, her hand still on Queen's shoulder. Queen looked up at her XO. The human woman was clearly worried but otherwise seemed composed.
"I'm running out of options commander," Queen said not quite out of her own thoughts. She could see her own worried expression reflected back in her commander's eyes. Her short black hair with purple highlights and the spots that ran the edge of her face felt like silly embellishments in the moment. Queen was a shapeshifter, an unusual one as she had originated on Earth. In the moment she felt like being nothing but a puddle of goo.
"Lieutenant Veirzieger told me that the engines can't keep going at their current pace," Mendez said as she took a seat next to her CO. Mendez leaned forward and swiveled the chair over to speak in a lower volume. "He said that the intermix chamber has a micro fracture that formed during the rapid course changes. If we don't find a place to power down the ship and take the core offline, we might explode." Mendez lowered her voice to the point of no sound by the time she said the last word.
"If we stop anywhere, we are going to get shot full of holes," Queen said. She wasn't happy about either option. Even if they managed to keep running the ship would eventually need to slow to impulse in order for the ship to generate enough power to use the warp drive again. Running ships at high warp was a tremendous drain on power. "I think I'm starting to get used to the idea of being stardust," Queen said with a smile.
"Sounds familiar. Who said we're all stardust? Cochrane?" Mendez asked puzzled.
"Carl Sagan, sort or. He actually said we are all star stuff but same thing," Queen said, her smile grew bigger. "You know he was quite a dreamer, nice guy really."
Mendez gave Queen a confused look. "Another tall tale captain?"
"I did meet him but that's a story for another time," Queen said with a chuckle.
"Probably a boring one," Mendez shrugged. Before Queen could answer, the older human male at tactical spoke. "Captain, the enemy is closing to attack range!"
Queen turned her attention to her armrest console. She called up the navigational charts for the region. She looked for anything that might help them lose their pursuers. The search didn't take long. There were no unusual stars, no dense asteroid fields, no nebula or anomalies of any kind.
Queen closed the console. "Helm, drop us out of warp and change course any direction at warp 8." Queen turned to her XO. "I may need you to take command. I need to take a look at astrometrics, see if I can't find somewhere we can hide," she said.
Zimbabwe dropped out of warp and spun 90 degrees to port on maneuvering thrusters. The alien vessels dropped out of warp two hundred thousand kilometers ahead of their previous course. Ensign Smith's fingers danced across his console as he cut the maneuvering thrusters and re-engaged the warp drive. Warp plasma spiraled around within the three nacelles as the ship struggled to re-engage the warp drive. The warp field formed around the ship, weak in places, nearly nonexistent in others.
The Galaxy-class dreadnought zipped through space as the image of the vessel elongated and twisted before disappearing from the naked eye in a flash of brilliant white light. No sooner did the ship enter warp that several alarms triggered throughout the habitable spaces. Safeties engaged as engineers tried to find the source of the alarms. The ship's computer didn't wait for direction, it triggered an emergency core shutdown. Zimbabwe dropped out of warp venting warp plasma from all three nacelles, doors to the ejection shaft opened as the computer detected a growing fracture in the intermix chamber.
A fault in the construction of one of the warp nacelles was poisoning the warp plasma with metals leeching from the deteriorating nacelle causing damage to the other two nacelles and making it harder to generate a warp field. The computer vented the warp plasma and started to jettison the warp core until the sensors monitoring the intermix chamber reported that the matter/antimatter feeds were shut down and the reaction in the intermix chamber had ceased. The computer's last actions were to shut down all non-critical systems, transfer primary systems to auxiliary power and then shut down its own higher processes. Zimbabwe drifted on its momentum from the last sub-light maneuver, effectively dead in the water. Lights all over the ship went dark as the ship switched to emergency lighting.
Queen had started to stand when the warp drive failed. She stood up and moved to the ops officer. "Report," she said with a calm demeanor. Everyone on a bridge station checked their consoles. The ops officer was the first to speak.
"The warp core is offline. We are running on auxiliary power. Something's wrong with the nacelles as well." The OPS officer wasn't her Operations Officer. He was down in engineering with Veirzieger, giving him an extra hand. The science officers onboard didn't have much to do with their specific departments so her Chief Science Officer, Samt Balagopalan, had taken over at OPS.
Queen had known Balagopalan for many years. He was a humorless man that had a passion for the sciences, but only in the mechanical aspects of it. Mathematics, equations, lab experiments and simulations were his forte. Despite that, he had managed to keep his cool. The only sign of discomfort coming from him was heavy sweat that was pouring from his forehead.
The human man at Tactical, Lucas Hoidal, was the next to speak. He wasn't Starfleet, he had been onboard as a technical expert on the phaser lance. He was the closest thing to a Tactical Officer she had on board given that her Saurian Tactical Officer was on leave when the starbase was attacked. "Captain, the alien ships have dropped out of warp 80 kilometers aft. They are assuming a tactical formation."
"Shields up! Red alert!" Queen said as she walked back over to her seat. She knew what was coming, it was inevitable. "Captain, we only have the phaser lance and one aft phaser bank working," Hoidal said nervously.
"I'm aware Mr. Hoidal. Just do the best you can. Helm! Get us underway, best possible speed." Queen opened her armrest console again. She pulled up the navigational sensors to look at the area. They were in open space with nothing around. Ensign Smith programmed a new course and tried several times to engage the warp engine, then the impulse engines. When nothing happened, he engaged the thrusters. Out of fear and embarrassment, he said nothing.
"They are in weapons range captain," Hoidal said. His statement was punctuated by the shuttering of the deck plates as the shields were impacted. Queen could hear the sounds coming from her tactical officer's console, sounds that indicated that Hoidal was firing at the enemy with reckless abandon with the one aft phaser bank. Zimbabwe rocked hard, the emergency lights flickering as the ship took multiple simultaneous hits from the attacking enemy ships. Queen pressed the intercom button to speak to the entire crew. "All hands, make way to escape pods. Launch when full, civilian personnel are to be launched first."
Queen could only imagine how chaotic abandoning ship would be. Zimbabwe had been under construction. No one had been assigned an escape pod and many of the civilians wouldn't even know the procedures. Queen pressed the control to close the channel. The ship rocked hard again then abruptly halted. The lights had flickered like before but seemed brighter when the flickering stopped.
Queen sat still for a moment. The viewscreen had begun tracking the alien ships but now the image seemed frozen. After a few seconds Queen felt uneasy. She stood up when she noticed that Ensign Smith's fingers were no longer moving. Queen walked up to the front stations to look at her officers. Neither one was moving. The computer displays were frozen too.
Queen turned around to face the crew at the back of the bridge. Like the officers now behind her, they were also frozen. Queen pulled the Operations console away from Balagopalan and tried typing in a few commands. The console didn't react at all. She might as well have been poking a wall.
Queen ran up the port side of the bridge and grabbed one of the medical techs that had been treating the civilian that was monitoring the damage control station. She shook the man violently. He moved like a stiff board. His joints didn't move, nothing moved on him and his expression didn't change. She let the man go only for him to start to topple over.
Queen caught the man before he fell and started to steady him in the same position she found him. As soon as she was confident he wouldn't fall over she heard a chime over the intercom. "Captain Quincy Quality Queenie, please report to your ready room baby," the ship's computer said with far more emotion and enthusiasm then should have been possible. The sultry voice even managed a playful giggle at the end. Queen couldn't help but stare up in the direction of the voice with confusion.
"Don't keep me waiting honey," the voice said with a bit of irritation. Queen turned to the port side of the bridge and started walking to the ready room one step at a time. She focused on what she wanted to look like while considering the possibilities. Her height readjusted to make her over 200 centimeters tall. Her arms, legs, muscles all over her body bulked up and doubled in complexity. Her hair turned completely purple and grew to just beyond shoulder length. Her spots disappeared but her solid black eyes remained unchanged as Quincy Quality Queen changed from a short sassy lady to a large hulking monster of a woman. Queen lumbered toward her ready room as her uniform peeled away in places that grew too big for the fabric. She was nearly naked when she walked through the parting doors of her ready room.
Zimbabwe's ready room was a recreation of the ready rooms in the original Galaxy-class starships. The ready room had a pinkish hue with plenty of lighting. Queen had decorated the ready room with pictures of famous rock formations in North America and paintings of mountain ranges. None of that greeted her when she stepped in. Instead, the room was dark. A bank of computer servers lined the walls, white walls which were only barely visible in the light given off by a large computer monitor sitting on a desk. The desk was no longer metallic, instead being made from dark polished wood.
Queen recognized the computers. They would have been home in an office from the late twentieth century on Earth. A chair behind the desk creaked as its occupant shifted their weight. The individual was facing away from the door. Queen could only see dark curly hair and chubby arms sticking out from the chairs back.
"Who are you?" Queen asked as she looked around. She turned to look outside her ready room only to realize that a single office door was now in place behind her. She spun around when she heard the chair creak loudly as the seated figure turned his chair around. The chair screeched and moaned as a large obese man scooted the chair around to face her. He playfully shuffled his feet to turn the chair as it continued to screech in protest.
Queen turned again and tried to open the wooden door. It was locked. "What is this? Where am I?" Queen asked as she launched her right foot into the door. The door should have shattered under her immense strength, but it held. Her foot stung in response to hitting something that shouldn't have been hard enough to cause injury.
"Awww. Did you stub your wittle toes!" The obese man said as he began to chuckle a hardy chuckle. His whole body shuttered with the effort. "Please, you needn't be afraid, I won't hurt you."
Queen turned to face her captor. The overweight man was wearing white slacks and a colorful tropical themed button-up shirt. His dark rimmed glasses were thick and held together with bandage tape. "Put me back on my ship!" Queen shouted. She approached the desk puffing out her chest and tensing up her arms. The fabric resting on her breasts flopped off, exposing her bare breasts to her captor.
"Eww, hehehehe, let me help you out dear," The obese man stood carefully using his chubby arms to assist his legs in standing up. He waved his fat right hand just inches from her bare chest. Queen felt the sudden feeling of cloth running over her body. She looked down to see she was wearing a dermaplastic garment, her tattered clothes were gone. "Modesty my young friend. Modesty," the portly man said with a chuckle.
Queen grabbed the man by his lapels and pulled him close. "Where the fuck am I?" The obese man smiled at her and snapped the fingers on his left hand. In an instant Queen was seated in a leather chair across the desk from her captor, now seated back in his tortured chair. "I'll answer your questions sweetie," the man said with a grin.
Queen stared at him for a second. She was waiting for something to be said but the rotund nerd was still just grinning at her. "I was hoping you'd remember but I guess that is too much to ask," the flabby man said with a snap of his fingers. The snap of his fingers hit Queen like a rock through shattering glass. She grabbed her head as pain seemed to radiate from her skull.
The pain doubled than tripled. At the height of the pain, Queen felt like her skull had opened up. Like opening an old forgotten door. She held back a scream as the memories flooded back. There were so many that her mind raced to process all of them. It couldn't, there were too many experiences, too many lives, too many faces, people, places, things, ideas, concepts, theories and realities. Her head continued to fill beyond what should have been possible.
Queen felt her head was going to explode from the knowledge and experiences that flooded her feeble brain until suddenly she realized the solution. Quincy Quality Queen snapped her fingers on her right hand, a sign to focus her knowledge and effort into a singular action. The knowledge linked and formed a bond but stopped pouring into her mind. It was a stop gap measure, nothing more. Her memory restored; she looked up at her captor.
"Q, long time no see," Queen said with a smile. The obese man chuckled and wheezed in delight. "At your service Q," he said, waving his hand at her and managing to bow slightly in his chair, despite the chair's protests. "I was wondering how long it would take you to get control," The fat Q said. He began swaying in his chair back and forth while smiling at Queen. The chair loudly creaked with his movements.
Quincy Quality Queen sat in her chair still processing the wealth of information that had threatened to end her mortal life. "I remember your appearance now," Queen said smiling at the stout man. "You were my neighbor back in…" she looked up while trying to remember- "nineteen ninety-two. You used to be on your computers all the time." Another memory surfaced, "That fucking chair! I couldn't stand that squeaking!"
Q let out a wheezing chuckle. "I was just playing around. I was never poor Dennis Bigelow, but I just wanted to make sure the conditions of your punishment were being upheld." Q shrugged, "you passed." He wheezed out a chuckle once more while wiggling his eyebrows.
The circumstances of her punishment came flooding back, along with all of the anger and rage that came with it. Long ago Queen had sided with a group of others from the continuum. They had decided to take a young universe under their wing. To pick favorite species and peoples, to pick favored champions and pit them against one another for their own amusement. The competition would last eons but others in the continuum didn't condone their actions.
Queen and her followers were eventually captured and punished for their actions. For her followers, they were exiled to parts unknown to her. Queen's punishment was intended to suit the nature of her crime. To be forced to understand the struggles of mortal creatures and then die. At the time of her sentencing Queen had been told she could pick what mortal creature to be for the rest of her life.
Trying to outsmart the others, she quickly thought of the myth of the skin walker. It allowed her to make up a few key details she wanted on the fly. With the snap of many fingers, Queen was forced into a gooey state of existence and exiled to Earth. It was the sight of her mythological form, a logical choice for her mortal existence. They immediately noticed how advantageous her new form could be.
As a further punishment they wiped her memory. Queen spent decades as a blob before figuring out how to shift into complex lifeforms. It took her another century before she could turn into a human. More centuries passed while Queen remained oblivious to her former existence as a Q, one thing was obvious now.
"You've checked up on me before," Queen said as both question and statement. She watched the man shrug and start swaying left and right in his distressed office chair. "You wiped my memory each time!" Queen said as anger swelled within her. An important memory snuck its way into her head. "You are my uncle," Queen said confused.
Q raised his eyebrows and smiled. "Bingo my young niece." He stopped swaying in his chair. "I was chosen due to our familial connection."
"We don't really have familial connections Uncle," Queen said. The Q had existed since the dawn of time, or perhaps sometime before that. It didn't change the fact that she always saw this Q as her uncle, and he had always seen her as his niece. She finally dropped her guard. Her hair turned black and withdrew into her head. The spots along her hairline returned and her body's overall mass shrank to what it was before Q arrived. She snapped her fingers to restore her Starfleet uniform.
"Do you remember the last time I visited?" Uncle asked with a warm smile.
Queen had to look for the memory. It seemed to shift around in her head as though lost. Once found she realized what it was that had happened, what was going to happen. "You're here to save me," Queen said slightly confused. "You've done it three times before!"
The other memories surfaced in a rush to join the other she had plucked from the chain in her mind. "You're my niece, I am not about to let anything bad happen to you," Uncle said as he sat up in his chair. The first time he had interfered was when Queen had joined Starfleet the first time. Back in the 2160s Queen had run afoul of an alien vessel that was set to destroy her and her crew. Each time Uncle had showed, he looked like Queen's old neighbor Dennis Bigelow.
"You stopped me from dying all those times?" Queen asked.
Uncle smiled and shrugged. "No. I simply gave you the means to save yourself."
The memories of saving herself didn't surface at first. Queen continued to search for them. Her uncle had appeared three times before. Once to stop an alien vessel, once to stop a Nausicaan from impaling her on a Dom-jot cue. The last time he showed, she was saved from a cosmic grave at the hands of the Borg in the 2370s.
"Why am I having trouble remembering?" She asked finally.
"You mean, besides having a goo brain?" Uncle cackled. "They make me wipe your memories dear niece," Uncle said flatly.
"So, the continuum knows you are helping me?" Queen asked shocked.
"They know and they support it. It was your idea to think that a skin walker never ages. They simply wanted to see how long you'd continue to choose a mortal existence. Truthfully, I think they want you to kill yourself, but I've seen your future. Without your memories, you do great work." Uncle was once again smiling. "This brings us to our current predicament."
With her memories restored, she suddenly couldn't care less about what happened to Zimbabwe. The families, friends, and co-workers no longer seemed to matter. She could still remember them, still remember caring about them. It just didn't seem to matter anymore. "So how am I being saved this time?" Queen asked with a bit of smugness creeping in.
"I'm not here to save you Niece. Just to give you the ability to save yourself. I might help a bit though, looks like fun," Uncle chuckled as he stood up from his tortured chair. The chair seemed to squeak in relief as his weight was lifted from the chair. He came around the right side of the desk and started shuffling to the door.
"I've restored your knowledge and most of your abilities. Use them to save your people and you'll be free to return to your mundane and mortal existence." Uncle seemed to shiver in place near the door. His belly grumbled and Queen caught the unmistakable odor of flatulence. Queen snapped her fingers. To her surprise, nothing happened.
Uncle wheezed suddenly and sharply. The sound poured from his clenched teeth like the shrill scream of a deadly predator. The sound changed to a throaty cackle as his belly shook. "You actually thought I'd let you escape?" He managed to ask while trying to catch himself from pitching forward in laughter.
"Well, it was worth a shot," Queen said with an unamused look.
Uncle opened the door to the office. To Queen's surprise she could see Zimbabwe's bridge. Uncle motioned with his hand for her to walk through the doorway first. She did as he had directed. The bridge was just how she left it.
Uncle followed Queen out to the center of the bridge. Queen turned to face him. "So, what can I do?" Queen asked. Uncle merely smiled. "Guess."
Queen thought for a second. "I'll wipe the four ships from existence," Queen said as she held up a hand to snap her fingers. Uncle chuckled and grabbed her hand. "Think smaller."
Queen shrugged, "I'll detonate the warp reactors on all four ships!"
Uncle suddenly shrunk to half his height yet kept his width, "smaller!"
Queen was losing patience. "How about I beam over there with a rifle," Queen said while staring daggers at Uncle. "Now you're talking sweetie," Uncle said as he regained his full size. "We'll need some help too. Oh, and the time displacement stays in effect!"
Uncle snapped his fingers. In an instant they were now in one of Zimbabwe's transporter rooms. Queen suddenly noticed she was wearing a full set of combat armor with a black trench coat. She recognized the attire; it wasn't Starfleet issue. An absurdly large plasma cannon suddenly appeared in her hands. "If the time displacement is still in effect, why do we need this?" Queen asked while jiggling the large plasma cannon.
Queen tried to suppress a laugh when she saw Uncle on the transporter pad in a full leather outfit. He had made no effort to change his physique leaving his form looking like a stuffed sausage casing about to pop. "Aww, I wanted us to shoot our way in," he pleaded. He chucked the pump action shotgun he held over his shoulder. "Oh well, let's get this rolling."
Queen dropped the cannon and stepped up on the pad. "Yo sexy! Beam us over." Uncle said to the ship. Surprisingly, the ship answered. "You got it baby!" The computer said with a sultry voice. Queen felt constrained as the ship enveloped her in a confinement beam for transport.
It took no time at all for Queen to realized they had been beamed over to main engineering on one of the alien ships. Before she had regained her memories, Queen would have been shocked by the appearance of the ship's crew. Until she had gotten her memories back, she wouldn't have known of the Iconians or their heralds and constructs which surrounded her as statues. Queen quickly moved over to a round ball of a console near the warp core. She tried to bring up the commands to cause an overload only to find the controls frozen.
Queen snapped her fingers. In the time it took to snap her fingers, she had altered the time displacement field to allow for the console to function. Queen quickly typed in the necessary commands as Uncle watched with a smile. "Nice job sweetie. The ship will blow up as soon as I remove the time displacement," Uncle chuckled. "Shall we get going?"
Queen tried to find the knowledge in her mind of the ship's layout in order to find the transporter room. Uncle snapped his fingers instead. He placed them in the next ship, at the open doorway to another main engineering. Queen noticed the crew seemed smaller in number, but they seemed just as busy as the previous ship. Queen started to head for the core.
"I got this one dear," Uncle said. He snapped the fingers on both hands with a smile. Queen didn't think anything happened until she saw Uncle move. The Obese Q ran at the full sprint of a man much smaller and more physically fit than he was. He stopped in front of a Herald of M'tara and lifted the man with little effort.
Uncle tossed him like a rag doll into the engine core. The herald seem to phase out long enough to get trapped in the core rather than hit it. Queen was confused only for a second, "that's one way to destabilize the matter/antimatter reaction." Uncle turned to her with a smile. "Ready for the next one?"
Uncle didn't wait for a reply. He snapped his fingers and placed them on the third ship. Main engineering was a larger space on this ship. Queen realized they were now on one of the cruisers. She started for a console at the core when she noticed one of the heralds turn its head toward her.
"I thought you froze time Uncle," Queen said while keeping her eyes trained on the Herald. Uncle walked over to the herald Queen was staring at. He watched the being for a few seconds yet didn't see any reaction. "I'm not sure what happened. I sensed a shift in the time displacement field, but it seems to be back up," Uncle said as he shook the herald.
"I'll work quickly," Queen said as she approached the console she needed. She repeated the process she used with the first engine core. Once she was done, she turned to her uncle. "What is it?" Queen asked. Uncle was no longer smiling. He seemed preoccupied.
"Someone gave this Herald a redesign," Uncle said in a serious tone. "We need to go." He snapped his fingers and placed them on the last ship. This time they ended up in the passageway just outside main engineering on the fourth ship. "Something is wrong," Uncle said looking worried.
Queen looked around and noticed the passageway seemed to be unaffected by the time displacement field. "What did you mean when you said the Herald had been redesigned?" Queen asked as she started to transform her body. As with her time on the bridge, her hair grew purple and long, her height increased, and her muscles tripled in size and complexity. Queen changed back into her Starfleet uniform with a snap of her fingers.
"I looked inside the Heralds head. Someone gave him a natural quantum entanglement adaptation. It allows him to communicate across vast interstellar distances at the speed of thought," Uncle said with notable concern. He snapped his fingers only for nothing to happen. His eyes went wide when he realized what was going on. Queen knew it too.
"Let's get this done, quickly," Queen said as she ran for the door to main engineering. The doors parted to reveal that all of the Heralds and constructs in engineering were moving around. They were trying to restore propulsion and fix a problem they didn't fully understand. A construct at a console near the door noticed Queen first. He, it raised its arms to hold a weapon. The weapon seem to materialize in its arms.
Queen closed the distance before the construct could fire its staff weapon. She ripped the weapon out of its grip and threw the construct against a console at the wall. Queen flipped the staff around and fired the weapon. A beam of antiprotons tore into the construct. The beam broke up the bonds of whatever energy held the construct together.
The construct fell apart and hit the deck in a pile of metallic scrap. Uncle ran into the engineering space like before. This time he kept his arms bladed behind him as though he might take flight. Uncle ran behind the core, a group of constructs and a herald followed him. Queen shot one of the constructs in the back, turning it into scrap.
Uncle wasn't constrained by a mortal form like Queen was. He punched a hole clean through the chest of the leading Herald. Two of the constructs shot him with their staffs. The beams did nothing to him. Instead he jiggled his belly fat and laughed hysterically as he jumped from construct to construct tearing them limb from limb.
Queen ran over to the console she needed. She shot another construct that thought to get the drop on her as she approached the console. The console froze as soon as she tried to change the power distribution. "Tsk, tsk, I can't have you doing that Q," said an adolescent voice, first in Queens head and then behind her. "Its not fair for you to get bailed out of every serious jam."
Queen turned to face the voice. Standing opposite of her near the starboard side bulkhead was a little human boy. The boy's fair skin tone and blonde hair contrasted with his red eyes, the only nonhuman trait on the boy. "Why are you here Q?" Queen asked nervously.
She recognized him. He was one of the Q that felt her and her followers needed a harsher punishment. He smiled at her with a creepy smile which extended far beyond what a human child could do. It was the result of an injury called a forced smile. Queen wasn't sure what possessed the Q to take such a form. It was as though someone had shoved a sword in the child's mouth cutting the cheeks to the jaw.
"I thought if you were going to be granted a reprieve from death, you might as well fight for it," The boy Q said, continuing to smile with his large creepy smile. He wore clothes more appropriate for the industrial era on Earth. The sweater vest and tie with with flat cap made the boy look out of place, like an apparition. Uncle walked over to Queen, snapping his fingers the whole time.
"You let your guard down fat ass," the boy said with a small giggle. "You're on my turf now." The boy bowed with both arms spread wide. Two massive creatures appeared on either side of the boy. Queen recognized them as defilers, heralds of the Iconians. Both where armed with massive mace like weapons. They barely looked like they could fit in engineering.
The two defilers didn't question why they were in engineering. They didn't question why a small child stood in-between them. They charged at Queen and Uncle with their weapons raised. The Defiler facing Uncle struck first. His mace caught Uncle in the chest. He went flying over a bank of consoles and crashed to the deck hard.
Uncle chuckled with an awkward wheeze as he flew over the consoles. Queen dodged the second Defiler's attack. Unlike Uncle, she was still mortal. A solid mace wouldn't be enough to kill a shapeshifter like her but the weapon also emitted energy that gave the weapon an additional effect. The Defiler pressed his attack with careful movements. It was easy for Queen to dodge the attacks, the herald was clearly trying to avoid hitting anything vital to the ship.
Queen heard more giggles from the boy Q as he watched one of the defilers crushing Uncle under its mace. Uncle wasn't mortal but with the other Q's help, it was possible for the defiler to kill him. Queen increased the density of her own body once more. The effort shortened her hair and cut her height by almost 30 centimeters. Queen waited for the Defiler to take a swing.
The Defiler held his weapon with both hands, thrusting forward to attack. The club part rippled with extra energy output. Queen side stepped the attack and lunged forward. She grabbed the weapon's handle with both hands. Queen rotated her arms over the her head as she twisted the Defiler's grip and pulled away as hard as she could.
The effort paid off as the Defiler lost his grip. Queen spun around and swung the mace like a bat, striking the Defiler in the chest. The Herald fell backward clutching its chest. Queen didn't wait, she stepped up to the Herald and slammed the mace down on its chest. The Defiler's chest flattened with a sickening crunch.
The Defiler writhed in panic and agony as it gasped. The flailing quickly turned to convulsions as the Herald died. Queen barely looked up in time to see the mace from the other Defiler collide with her. She felt an intense burning sensation as the energy around the mace started to tear her apart at the subatomic level. Her right hip and thigh disintegrated as the rest of her body flew into the bulkhead near the engine core.
Queen lay on the deck struggling to breath as she tried to reconstitute her body. Form it into something useful. Her body shrank as she took the form of a people she met a decade before. The body was ridiculously small. As small as the boy that continued to smile at her misfortune.
With a great deal of her mass missing, her right leg still lying next to the dead Defiler, she didn't have a choice but to go smaller. Queen changed to a small alien form of black hair and blue skin. The form wasn't much different from her taller form except for the bony crest which sprouted above her forehead. She snapped her fingers to correct the size of her uniform but nothing happened.
"No, I'm afraid not. If you want to fight like that then you are going to fight as naked as the day you were born," the boy Q said with a giggle. He was now standing over her. Queen quickly slithered out of her over sized uniform. She jumped to her feet and darted behind the boy Q. The second Defiler swung his mace but stopped short of hitting the boy Q.
"Smart move," the boy Q said to the Herald. Queen ran over to the core and crawled under the consoles. She snaked over to where Uncle lay on the deck. She thought he might be dead but he was simply lying on his side, picking his nose. "What the hell are you doing uncle?" Queen asked in a hushed tone.
"Shhhhh, I'm playing dead," Uncle said with a chuckle. The laughter came out stressed and wheezy as it was clear that his chest cavity had been crushed. Queen suddenly noticed the boy Q standing over uncle holding what appeared to be a flintlock pistol from Earth's 18th century. He pointed it at Uncle's head and cocked the hammer back. Queen crawled out from under the consoles and whistled over to the Defiler.
The Defiler threw his mace like a spear directly at Queen's head. Queen spun around and crouched down as the weapon flew over her head toward the boy Q. Queen watched as the Q raised the flintlock pistol and squeezed the trigger. The ball projectile exited the barrel and struck the mace dead center. The mace expanded and then exploded in an instant. The projectile continued undamaged through the weapon and connected with the Defiler's right arm.
The Defiler's arm expanded and exploded like the mace as the projectile slammed through the bulkhead behind the Herald. The shrapnel from the exploding mace shot out in all directions. The bulkheads, deck, and the overhead spaces were peppered with fragments. The mace exploded over Uncle. Several fragments were embedded into his belly fat.
"Modesty, little girl," Uncle said while pointing between Queen's legs. He snapped his fingers with a smile. Queen wasn't sure when Uncle had shifted around to face her but he was no longer injured. Queen stood up to hide her crotch when she realized she was wearing a rather garish looking white dress uniform. It was adorned with shiny medals and large gold epaulets.
Queen looked up at the boy Q. He was angry with his large mouth twisted in a snarl. Fragments of the Defiler mace peppered his face. The pieces were smoking but didn't burn his flesh. He tossed his weapon onto the deck. "I hate you! I hate you! I hate you!" The boy Q screamed as he stomped his feet in a temper tantrum.
Queen suddenly felt a presence standing next to her. The boy Q had moved to stand next to her on the right. His face was unmarked except for the forced smile scar still present. "Oh well, I'll leave you two, to it then," the boy Q said with a smile. He snapped his fingers and disappeared in a flash of light.
Uncle stood and started to say something when his eyes grew wide. Queen felt a large hand grab the back of her neck. It was the last Defiler. He moved as though nothing had reduced his right arm to a gory slab of chewed meat and material. In panic, Queen tugged at the Defiler's fingers as it tried to suffocate her.
She suddenly hit the deck on her ass with the Defiler's arm still wrapped around her neck. She pried the fingers loose and turned around to see that Uncle was standing next to the Defiler. He had ripped its left arm off. Queen watched as Uncle dug a foot behind the Defiler's knee, forcing the herald to the deck on its knees. He looked at Queen with a smile. "Check this out."
Uncle snapped his fingers, raising his height to tower over the Defiler. He raised a hand as if to throw a punch. The Defiler made no attempt to beg for its life as Uncle struck. His fingers connected with the Defiler's nostrils, pinching them together, "Honk, Honk!" Uncle looked back at Queen.
"What do you think?" He asked with a smile.
"I think that if we leave him here, the explosions will take care of him," Queen said unamused. She had always known Uncle to be weird. Uncle let the Defiler go. The herald flopped onto its back as it lost consciousness. "I'm ready to be done with this place," Queen said as she walked over to the console she needed.
Queen programmed the computer to overload the matter/antimatter reactor. She snapped her fingers when Uncle approached. He frowned when he realized what she did. He was no longer wearing his black motorcycle leathers, instead he was back to the Hawaiian shirt and tan slacks he had at the beginning of their meeting. Queen stepped away from the console after she was finished and turned to Uncle with a knowing smile.
Uncle snapped his fingers placing them back in Queen's ready room. Her actual ready room. Queen was snapped into her chair with Uncle standing in front of her desk. She was back in a Starfleet uniform, if a bit baggy. "Well niece, its done. A little different this time but the outcome was the same," Uncle said in as serious a tone as he could manage.
"Will the other Q continue to be a problem?" Queen asked with real concern. A memory of hers came to mind of being turned into a Dinasian man and stripped of her flesh by that demented Q. He had claimed it was for research. It was a memory she would have hoped to have forgotten.
"You kiddin' he was just playing around. We won, he lost. He'll get over it in a decade or so," Uncle said with a chuckle. "Look, I can't stay much longer but its been fun. You'll always be my favorite," Uncle said as his eyes started to tear up. Uncle moved to the doors of the ready room and motioned for Queen to step through.
Queen stood and moved toward the door. The doors parted with a familiar hissing sound. The bridge was as she had left it. Her own perspective had changed. Before she had her memories back, the damage to the bridge had been cause for concern, a reminder that the ship wasn't ready for service. Now that she had her memories, the damage seemed trivial.
The medical teams and injured personnel that remained on the bridge were her responsibility but with her restored memories their lives seemed trivial. "so what now?" Queen asked once she was standing at the center of the bridge. She looked back at Uncle. He had followed her out onto the bridge with a smile on his face and a bounce in his step.
"Now my dear niece, you simply sit down at your little command chair and everything will resume." Uncle continued to smile at her despite the tears that began to stream down his face.
Queen thought for a moment. A part of her didn't want to sit. To once again embrace the mundane and feeble life of a mortal creature with no memory of her greatness. "Will I remember any of this?" She asked. Queen briefly recalled the other times Uncle intervened in her life. He had cried every time.
"You won't remember a thing, that is until I'm needed again," Uncle said with a sniffle. He pushed his glasses up on his face with his fingers as he rubbed the tears out of his eyes. "Take care of yourself." Uncle snapped his fingers and disappeared in a flash of light. Queen looked around the bridge one last time. She moved over to her chair and snapped her fingers. Nothing happened.
Queen changed her appearance to match the form she had taken before she ran into her uncle. The height was a little tricky to pull off given how much mass she had lost in the battle. Her uniform stretched to match her new shape. A little tight but tolerable. Queen lowered herself carefully on her chair as though expecting to sit on nails. She wouldn't remember this encounter the second her ass hit the chair, but she had hope for the future.
"Aft phaser bank is down!" Hoidal shouted. Zimbabwe rocked hard and listed to port suddenly. The emergency lighting flickered on the bridge. "Captain, the attacking ships are gone!" Balagopalan called out from OPS. "Confirmed captain, the four ships have all exploded," Hoidal said in shock. He called up the sensor feed and displayed it on the damaged viewscreen.
Queen watched in shock as the four vessels exploded almost simultaneously. "Report!" She shouted in panic. Whatever had destroyed them could very well decide to do the same to them. "Matter/antimatter explosions ma'am. Their warp cores exploded." Balagopalan said as his hands danced across his station's controls.
"Hoidal?" Queen asked as she turned toward the tactical station. "Wasn't me ma'am. Frankly my phaser fire wasn't doing a thing to their shields." Hoidal sounded both confused and embarrassed.
"Balagopalan, assemble a working party. Have them meet in shuttle bay one. Select anyone with worker bee experience." Queen stood and walked toward the OPS station. "what are we doing?" Balagopalan asked.
"Our ship is effectively dead in the water. We need parts and equipment to fix the ship. The replicators can make most of what we need but I don't want to lose what information we may get from picking over the debris." Queen said with stern resolve. Balagopalan entered a few commands and made the appropriate call over the ship's comm.
There was nothing more that Queen could do from the bridge and she felt oddly exhausted."I'll be in my ready room," Queen said. She quickly moved toward the ready room. "Mendez, you have the bridge." She entered her ready room without stopping to hear an acknowledgment from her XO.
Three days had gone by since their encounter with the unknown aliens. Quincy Quality Queen sat in her quarters for the last hour looking over the full report on the debris from the alien ships. They didn't find anything worth salvaging but they had collected a number of detailed scans on the debris and even brought back some of the materials. The materials and scans wouldn't be of any use until they got back to Starfleet, provided Starfleet was still within reach. Queen closed the report, stood and stretched.
Her quarters were comfortable, but she had been spending most of her time there. She wasn't sure why but she felt deeply injured and had come to realize that she had lost mass. The situation was as confusing as their attackers exploding during a firefight. Queen stepped out of her quarters and started walking to the turbolift.
Her destination was Ten-Forward. The lounge their had been converted into a more family friendly place to keep the children onboard occupied. Still, it was the place on the ship to share a meal, drink, and socialize. Queen entered the turbolift. "Computer, Ten-Forward," she said quietly.
The computer acknowledged the command with a computerized chirp before the doors closed. The turbolift began to move at its usual pace. "Captain Queen, per your orders, upon hearing your first command, I am to inform you that you have a file waiting for your review in the main computer." The computer voice sounded female but was completely void of emotion. "Download it onto a PADD in the office of the bartender," Queen said.
She exited the turbolift and headed straight to the Bartender's office. Zimbabwe didn't have a Head Bartender for the lounge assigned. Queen had to use her command override code for the office door. She grabbed the PADD that was powered on and connected to a charging base that was sitting at the right corner of the desk. Queen opened the file that the computer downloaded onto the PADD and started to read while walking into Ten-Forward.
She stopped when she felt small hands press on her thighs. She moved the PADD away from her face to see three children standing in front of her. A little Ferengi girl and a human boy both giggled and ran. The boy in the lead, the one she had run into backed away and put his hands down. He looked up at her with a smile.
"Can I ask you a question Captain?" the little boy said. Queen was surprised but tried to hide it. The boy standing in front of her had a nasty old wound that left his cheeks split from one side of his jaw to the other. He was human with fair skin, blues eyes, and blonde hair. He wore a civilian tunic of purple and red and black slacks with a navy blue vest. His smile seemed unsettling given how big and warped it was.
"What's your question?" Queen asked softly. She knelt down to match the boy's height. "What kind of name is Quincy Quality Queen?" The boy asked.
"Well, I'm a shapeshifter. I grew up on Earth." Queen started to tell him. The story of her name wasn't anything impressive, but she enjoyed telling people about her stories, even if they didn't believe her. "Quincy is the name I used when I lived as a human man. Later when I signed up to join Starfleet, they said I needed a first, middle, and last name. I chose Queen because it sounded authoritative and the name Quality was simply because I couldn't think of anything. The recruiter for Starfleet said it needed to be a good quality name, so I chose Quality."
Queen managed to say the whole thing expecting the boy to just run off. Instead, he remained with his eyes trained on her faced. "Why so many Q names?" the boy asked, his eyes narrowed. Queen shrugged. "I don't know. I never really thought about it."
The boy narrowed his gaze more before relaxing his face. He placed a hand on Queen's shoulder. "I believe you captain," the boy said as he walked past Queen and existed Ten-Forward. Queen walked over to a nearby table wondering whose kid that was. She pulled out a chair and looked at the PADD. The PADD had a file that was titled "Read Me".
Queen opened the file. It had four words, "You are a Q," in big letters. Queen slapped the PADD on the table face down. She looked around wondering if the file was some sort of prank. When she was confident that no one was looking, she lifted the PADD once more.
The words hadn't changed. Queen checked the file properties. It had no created date or transfer record other than the record of transfer from the main computer to the PADD. The file author was listed as "you wrote it, dumbass". Queen looked around again before pressing the button for the document's author certificate. A small electric shock caused her to tense up and then jump up in her chair. The PADD flew over the table and onto the floor as a memory shot through Queen's mind like a bullet.
The memory was short, but pleasant. She was walking the shore of an alien world she had never seen before. Standing beside her was an overweight human man in a black swim suit. It covered his rotund body from his thighs to his shoulders. He wore black framed glasses with bandage tape holding them together at the bridge of the nose.
Queen looked up at the man as he spoke boisterously about something. He was all smiles as he walked the shoreline with her. Queen couldn't remember anything the man was talking about but remembered something the man said after telling his exciting story. "Your my niece, I'll always be there for you," the man said as he picked her up in his arms and squeezed. "And I'll always be there for you Uncle," Queen remembered saying as she embraced him back.
Queen snapped out of the memory when she heard a familiar hiss. The doors to Ten-Forward opened to reveal several officers that had just come off duty. "I'll catch you guys later," Mendez said as she spotted Queen. She walked over to the Queen's table eyeing the PADD on the deck. "You drop this?" Mendez asked.
Queen started to sweat, "yeah, can you hand it to me?" She held out her hand. Mendez handed the PADD over without looking at it. "You okay captain?" Mendez asked as she pointed at Queen's face. Queen realized at that moment that tears had started to run down her face.
"Just tired," Queen said as she managed a convincing yawn. Queen looked at the PADD long enough to delete the file downloaded on it. If what it said was true, she was a Q. Always had been. She also had family, something she never knew she had before.
"We've been monitoring comm chatter for awhile Captain. Nothing close enough for us to send a safe distress call but we'll keep at it," Mendez said as she waved down a server. The server was a civilian Vulcan woman wearing a form fitting jumpsuit with a vest. Likely a station crewman's spouse. Queen pulled up the sensor logs on her PADD.
Queen agreed with her XO. They didn't have the necessary parts to fully restore Zimbabwe to working order. The micro fracture in the intermix chamber was mended but they lacked the resources to replace the intermix chamber completely. This restricted what they could do but at least they were back to full power. The faulty warp nacelle had damaged the other two rendering all three nacelles useless.
The crew were able to make repairs but with the same faults still present, they wouldn't likely be able to run the warp drive unless it was an emergency. For the time being they were safe. "Were you able to reach anybody on subspace frequencies?" Queen asked. She set the PADD down when the server approached.
"Two hard lemonades please," Mendez asked the server. The server walked back to the bar with an unnecessary urgency. "No we haven't yet. We have sent two messages an hour for the last two days and we haven't heard back." Mendez stared at her captain nervously.
Queen knew what was on her mind. The same thing was on her mind too. They were attacked by a powerful and unknown enemy. One that seemingly could appear anywhere and wipe out the federation and its allies from behind the lines. Zimbabwe wasn't ready for war and they couldn't even tell if it was safe to return to a space port. The server returned with their drinks.
"Well, I say its time we try to figure out a new plan," Queen said. If she was indeed a Q, she wondered if she could somehow tap into her powers. Queen snapped her fingers as she imagined Zimbabwe appearing 20 kilometers away from Earth Space Dock, nothing happened. Mendez looked at her confused. "Did you just try to snap your fingers like a Q?" Mendez asked.
"Wishful thinking. I wish I were a Q, that way I could snap my fingers and we could be back at Earth Space Dock." Queen laughed as her face flushed red with embarrassment. "Well, it would explain your names," Mendez said with a playful smile. She took a sip of her drink, peeking at Queen from behind the glass.
"I already told you how I got those names. It was …" Mendez interrupted her- "… The dumbest story I ever heard, Captain. No offense," Mendez said with a raised hand. Queen picked up the PADD in one hand and brought up a navigational map while she sipped from her glass. They would spend the next hour planning a safe route home as the survivors of the attack on Starbase 234 tried to relax at the tables around them.