5. Silence of the Q

“Captain’s Log, Stardate 24601.5. What a bluidy cock-up. We’re meant t’be running sensor sweeps of the Kamin system, which is apparently on the verge of going nova so is of ‘interest’ to Federation scientists. Why there isn’t a bluidy science vessel in ‘ere taking the readings I don’t know, but someone back home decided we were the vessel to enter an unstable system and play chicken with an exploding star, so here we are.

Lieutenant Barfoot strolled into Engineering whistling cheerfully through his teeth, idly tossing an induction-driver into the air and catching it again. Shimmying past the diagnostics table he fumbled a catch, dropping the multipurpose tool. For some reason his right foot instinctively lashed out, possibly in some insane attempt to halt the descent of the metal object. In this the action achieved its goal with unparalleled success; not only did the tool halt its downwards progress, it altered direction completely and launched with considerable speed towards the warp core.

“Oh bugger,” was all Barfoot had time to say before it struck and a crackling array of energy surges exploded from the core, blasting a poor unsuspecting engineering crewman across the room, over the diagnostics table, past Barfoot and out of the remarkably quick off the mark opening main doors. Stark ran out of his office as all the lights flickered. They both struggled to keep their footing as the ship dropped violently out of warp.

“What the hell was that?!” Stark shouted as engineers began their usual headless chicken routines in the background.

“Um,” Barfoot thought quickly, “probably some kind of energy spike interfering with the flux chamber. You know how unstable that thing can be!” He grinned manically as if tremendously pleased about it, earning himself a suspicious look from the chief engineer.

“Hmm. Can you fix it?” Stark demanded. Barfoot shrugged.

“Probably,” he hazarded. “I haven’t looked at it yet, though.”

“Well sort it out!!” Stark shouted, drawing attention to them. “I’ve got a sponge in the oven and if the power keeps flickering like this it’s going to be ruined!”

Barfoot glanced at the core, which was still arcing energy in a variety of pretty colours and occasionally forcibly expelling a crewman from its immediate vicinity with a flash and a smell of bacon, and wondered briefly about his chief’s priorities. As Stark stormed back into his office-cum-kitchen Barfoot rubbed his hands briskly together and strode towards the core.

“Right! Let’s get this-”

He was interrupted by a crackle of pink energy that missed its apparent intended target – Crewman Harding, who was now cowering on the floor – and instead earthed itself directly into Barfoot’s chest.

“Crap!” he shouted, and reflected as he lost consciousness that he had started swearing a lot more since joining the Psycho crew. If he thought about it hard enough, there was probably a connection. Unfortunately he never got the chance as all conscious thought slipped away and he was left with his usual post-concussion dream of being chased across a field of spanners by a giant sponge cake.

“What the bluidy hell is it this time?” Olding shouted over the horrendous caterwauling of most of the alert sirens going off at once and the inertial dampeners squealing as they fought to compensate for the gut-wrenching deceleration.

“Unknown!” the Counsellor called back, making the mistake of standing up before the ship had stopped rumbling. A final muffled thump indicted that Ensign Ingram had finally managed to convince the massive vessel to stop, throwing Counsellor Hill into Damerell, who screamed like a girl and passed out. Sighing she pushing him unceremoniously out of his seat so he could assume his standard mid-emergency foetal position and took control of the Ops console herself.

“Readings indicate either an energy spike disrupting the plasma flux chamber, or someone managed to make contact between the main intermix chamber and an active energy inducer,” she said, consulting the very detailed list of error messages the crew of the Psycho had accumulated over the years. “We’re dead in space.”

“Bluidy engineers,” Olding grumbled, hitting the comm. panel on the arm of his chair. “Olding to Engineering.”

There was a longer than normal pause before a voice came on the channel.

“En- Engineering here, Ca- Captain,” the owner of the voice sounded terrified.

“Who’s this?” Olding asked sharply. “Where are Stark and Barfoot?”

“Cr- Crewman Harding, sir,” the voice replied. “Lieutenant Barfoot’s a bit unconscious at the moment, and we can’t find Commander Stark anywhere.”

“Have you got t’situation under control?” Olding asked simply.

“Uh, if you like, I suppose,” Harding replied doubtfully.

“Good enough. I want my engines back, pronto!” He angrily smacked the panel and shut off the communication. Counsellor Hill spun around in her chair to look at him. “What?” he demanded.

“The crewman said that Stark was missing,” she pointed out, and he sighed.

“I was tryin’ not to think about that.” He glanced up at the ceiling. “Computer, locate Chief Engineer Stark.”

“Chief Engineer Stark is in the port turbolift.”

Olding and Hill exchanged startled glances. In any crisis situation it was usually a given that any crewmember who disappeared was going to have left the confines of the ship. Olding stood and walked to the turbolift, closely followed by the Counsellor. As they approached the doors opened, revealing the occupants. Olding stared in resigned disbelief. Stark waved at him, embarrassed, dressed in civilian clothes. Beside him stood-

“Q?!”

The near-omnipotent being grinned at Olding.

“Hello Christopher!” he said cheerfully striding out onto the bridge, brushing past Olding as he did so. Stark hurried out, giving Olding an apologetic look before retreating to the rear of the bridge. Olding turned to glare at Q.

“I know you remember what ‘appened the last time you tried to mess around wi’ us,” he said in a low, threatening voice, and was rewarded by a slight tic under Q’s right eye.

“Yes, well,” Q bustled on, “fortunately for you, retribution for that event is not the purpose of my visit.” He tried to hide a small, malevolent smile as he said that, which Olding picked up on.

“Then why are you here?” he asked.

Q sauntered across the bridge and seated himself comfortably in the captain’s chair. The counsellor watched with interest as Olding’s face turned red and his fists clenched.

“I have a proposition for you,” Q told him, apparently oblivious to Olding’s rising ire and blood pressure.

“Ngh!” Olding managed.

“I want my son to experience what it is to be mortal, and in exchange I will allow one of your officers to experience life within the Q Continuum.” Hill glanced at the back of the Bridge, where Stark was trying to make himself inconspicuous. Apparently the decision of who would be going with Q had already been made, so-

“Wait a minute,” she blurted out, “your SON?!”

That particular revelation had defused even Olding’s anger, and the entire Bridge crew was staring at Q open-mouthed. He smirked and waved a hand at the still-open turbolift.

“Come out here.”

A figure with shoulder length hair hanging over its face and dressed in baggy, dark clothing stomped out onto the Bridge. It – he, Olding assumed – stood with his arms folded beside Q, scowling out from under the straggly curtains of hair. His stance had that odd, awkwardly gangling look only achievable by those n their mid-teens whose hormones were running rampant.

“Everyone, I would like to introduce my son-” he was interrupted by a surprisingly deep voice from the figure beside him.

“Grunge.”

Q stopped and looked at him. “Grunge?”

The boy looked to one side and rolled his eyes, making a disgusted expression. Q stared at him disbelievingly. “You really want people to call you ‘Grunge’?”

‘Grunge’ shrugged noncommittally.

“Honestly,” Q sighed, giving Olding a helpless look. “He’s at that age when everything your parents do is wrong, and you hate the name they’ve given you. Tell me, what’s wrong with ‘Q’?” He held his hands out almost beseechingly, and all Olding could do was stare and shrug.

Q sighed melodramatically. “Ah well. We must all endure these little trials, I suppose. Now, I’ll just borrow your engineer and if you could show my son what it means to be mortal-”

“Wait just one bluidy second!!” Olding boomed, “you really expect us to help you?”

“My dear Captain,” Q gave a small laugh, as if it was all beyond his control, “after what you did to me last time I visited, I’d imagine it would be the least you could do!”

“Daaad!” Grunge whined, “do I have to do this?”

Q rounded on him. “We’ve been through all this. I did it when I was your age, your mother did it, even your Uncle Q did it. It’s tradition, and it’s important. So yes, you do.”

Glaring angrily at his father Grunge reached up with his right hand and clicked his fingers, looking rather surprised when nothing happened. Q tried to hide the look of smugness on his face.

“For the duration your powers will be limited. No teleporting, and no playing with the ship. I’ll leave you to work out what you’re allowed to do on your own.” He turned to Olding with a mildly pleading look on his face. “Please, Olding, Just do this for me. Picard’s already sent me packing and Janeway won’t return my calls.”

“Oh, so we’re your third choice are we?” Olding said scornfully. Q moved closer, the pleading look intensifying.

“I’ll owe you, Christopher, think about that- you have to do this for me, if you don’t-” he lowered his voice, “my wife is going to kill me!”

Olding looked at him with a certain amount of sympathy. “Oh hell. Alright. But only for a couple of days.”

“Done!” Q exclaimed happily. “Come along Matthew!” he flashed away, taking Stark with him. Counsellor Hill stood from the Ops console, allowing a slowly recovering Damerell to retake his seat, and she and Olding approached the teenaged Q.

“Counsellor, would you please show our guest to his quarters,” Olding said briskly, ignoring the scything glare Hill directed at him. He faced Grunge. “I hope you enjoy your stay, I doubt the rest o’ us will.”

With that he returned to his chair, ostensibly assessing the reports coming in from over the ship and checking up on things in engineering. Hill turned a businesslike smile on her charge, who was openly staring at her chest.

“Follow me,” she said curtly, striding for the turbolift.

“Gladly,” Grunge replied, eyes travelling downward as he walked behind her.

A short turbolift ride and a swift crack on the back of the head later, Grunge was following her meekly through the ship’s corridors rubbing his head and staring at her reproachfully.

“You didn’t have to do that!” he whined.

She stopped and whirled around, making him skid to a stop.

“If you try to touch me again I’ll do far worse than that, understand?” He nodded forlornly, messy hair swaying, and he looked so miserable that she relented slightly. “Look, your father told us to show you what it’s like to be human, and you just can’t do that sort of thing.”

He nodded again and she started off back down the corridor. He hurried to catch up.

“What about looking?” he asked, “can I look?”

The Counsellor smiled a little. “If you’re subtle about it,” she allowed. “Blatant staring isn’t good.”

They arrived at the guest quarters, and she keyed the door open. “I’ll leave you to settle in, get used to it, that sort of thing. I’ll be back in a little while to see how you are, ok?”

He nodded and kept his eyes relatively level with hers, so she allowed him a smile before she tapped the button to close the door and walked away, sighing to herself. The kid seemed alright, if a little unschooled in social graces. How difficult could looking after him for a few days be?

“So Matthew, you have the unlimited powers of the Q at your disposal!” Q sat back in his high-backed, leather upholstered armchair. “What would you like to do?” Stark was sat in a similar chair positioned opposite Q, both of them turned slightly to face a massive fireplace. He looked around wide-eyed.

“This is the Q Continuum?” he asked, and Q smiled benignly.

“My little corner of it,” he admitted. “Do you like it?”

Stark took a good look around the room, which seemed to stretch off somewhere into the middle distance. “It’s- interesting,” he hazarded.

“Is that the best you can do?” Q huffed.

“I mean, it’s nice, just not really my style,” Stark added quickly, “I tend to like things a little more- um- culinary.” Q looked at him blankly. “You know, kitchens and things.”

“Then why don’t you rearrange things to suit yourself?” Q suggested, smirking, “After all, you’re partaking of the power of the Q now. Just picture what you want and-” he mimed clicking his fingers.

“Um-” Stark frowned in concentration, trying to picture his ideal kitchen. He kept finding that when he had certain details in his head, others tended to slip out. Q tutted.

“Don’t work so hard. All you need to do it think ‘kitchen’ and a kitchen will appear.”

Regarding him suspiciously Stark did as he suggested, and almost immediately the world around him began to reform. In just a few seconds they were seated across from each other at a large farmhouse kitchen table, surrounded by an even larger farmhouse kitchen. Stark jumped up and ran over to the cooker.

“An Aga!! An actual Aga!! I’ve never actually seen one of these!”

Q smiled benevolently. “It’s a hard life, being a Q,” he said smugly.

“Captain’s Log, Supplemental. We’ve been hampered in our data gathering efforts by a few problems: our engines are currently offline, and we’re slightly lacking in conscious engineering staff of sufficient command rank to make proper decisions. With any luck, Barfoot will be back on his feet soon.
“To make matters worse, a certain deity with a bastard poor reputation within Starfleet has foisted his teenage son off on us for an unspecified amount of time to ‘experience what it is to be mortal’ – whatever the ‘ell that means. I hope my Chief Engineer’s enjoyin’ himself!”

Having tasked the Counsellor with the job of keeping Grunge occupied for the duration of his visit, Olding turned his attention back to the more pressing matter of them being stuck adrift in a system whose sun was liable to go nova at any second. His initial instinct was to let the engineering staff get on with it. It was a policy that had served him well up until now, but the fact that both his senior engineers were currently incapacitated was giving him cause for concern. As a result, after leaving the Bridge in the incapable hands of Lieutenant-Commander Damerell, he made one of his infrequent trips down to the lower decks, just to see how things were getting on.

There was a group of engineers clustered around the centre table, all pointing firmly at different parts of the diagram loaded on the screen. As he approached, one of them looked up, eyes widening when he realised who was standing next to him.

“Hello Captain,” he squeaked. Olding recognised his voice from the intercom.

“Alright Crewman Harding,” he sighed, “let’s ‘ave it.”

“Err- what?” Harding asked, confused. The other engineers started to slowly shuffle away from their comrade.

“Report on the situation!” Olding snapped, and Harding jumped to attention.

“Yessir! The warp core is currently shutdown due to a spark of induced energy flashing through it, causing an overload of both the primary and secondary matter pods.”

Olding ignored the technobabble. “What about impulse engines? Why can’t we even get the ship moving out of the system at lower speeds?”

Harding gave a little, uncertain laugh. “Ah, yes, well, one of our attempts to fix the core burnt out the impulse coils.”

Olding closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “Right. I don’t care about any of that. If that star out there goes nova we’re all toast, so I want this solved as soon as bleedin’ possible, got it?” As Harding nodded frantically Olding glanced to one side, seeing the sprawled body of an unconscious Barfoot propped up against a bulkhead. “Shouldn’t he be in sickbay?” he asked.

A surprised expression crossed Harding’s face. “I knew we’d forgotten to do something!”

Shaking his head in despair, Olding left engineering as quickly as he could.

“This is Fred’s Bar, where the crew comes to relax,” Counsellor Hill said as she led Grunge into the western themed room and up to the bar. They had spent a little time getting Grunge settled into his quarters, at which point she had decided a tour of the ship was in order to waste some time. She gestured for him to take a seat as she sat and Fred wandered over, cleaning a glass out with a cloth.

“Howdy there, Miss,” he said politely, tipping his had towards her. “What will you and the young gentleman be having?”

Opening her mouth to order soft drinks due to Grunge’s apparent age, Hill hesitated. She glanced over at the young man, who was watching the crew move about the room with a look of disinterest on his face, then back at Fred with an evil grin on her face. “Two Deltan BrainBlasters, Fred,” she said. Fred raised his eyebrows but complied, mixing the drinks in front of them. Grunge turned to her, watching the drinks curiously.

“What’s that?” he asked. Hill turned to him with a sweet smile.

“I’m going to show you just what it’s like to be human,” she said. He turned a distrustful look on her, causing her smile to widen. “You’ll love it.”

The Psycho drifted silently through the system, passing relatively close to the seventh planet, a massive gas giant with an extensive ring system. Olding used the opportunity to take detailed readings of the planet’s structure, which was of some interest due to the unusually high levels of rho particles in the violent, stormy upper atmosphere.

Olding waited in his ready room, taking the time to catch up on the crew evaluation reports he had been supposed to be reading. Much to his intense relief, before he was forced to pick up Jackson’s and assess the casualty count, his intercom beeped.

“Olding here.”

“Err- it’s Crewman Harding here, sir. We’re ready to try a test on the impulse engines.”

“Sodding finally,” Olding muttered, switching off his terminal and heading out onto the bridge where the Counsellor was conspicuous by her absence. He briefly wondered how she was getting on before sitting in the command chair and touching the panel on his chair.

“Olding to engineering, begin test on your mark.”

There was a heavy pause on the other end before Harding’s voice replied hesitantly. “Uh, right, Bridge. Err- what?” There was the almost inaudible sound of someone muttering in the crewman’s ear. “No, the transducer, you idiot, not the inducer- Okay, test begins in three- two- one- mark!”

Ensign Ingram watched his display carefully as the power levels on the impulse engines started to rise and the indicator lights on his panel turned green one by one. “We are regaining control of our engines,” he said, just before one of the green lights abruptly went red. “Wait, uh- what the-?”

Olding stood and turned to Bleep, who responded to the unspoken demand. “Bleep… wzrtfgl… mind the gap… The starboard governor is malfunctioning. Engine coils normally regulated by that device are overheating. Attempting override.”

“Engineering!” Olding shouted, “gi’me a bluidy clue as to what’s goin’ on!”

“Err- miscalculation, sir,” Harding replied. “We put in the new coils but- well- it looks like they’re the old fifty-six standard rather than the newer seventy-eight- we calibrated the arrays wrong, so-”

“I don’t give a bugger about the details!” Olding shouted, “sort it out!”

“Aye, Capta-”

Harding’s cowed response was cut off by the ship suddenly whirling wildly out of control, sending everyone not seated crashing to the floor, Olding included.

“By ‘eck, feels just like Mister Wall’s back on board,” he muttered as he pulled himself into his chair, listening to the inertial dampeners still straining against the change in direction. “Report!”

“The starboard engine’s blown out,” Ingram reported, ignoring Damerell who was gibbering quietly to himself. “The port one is overcompensating and we’re in a spin, heading straight for the planet!”

Olding’s gaze turned to the viewscreen, which showed the planet approaching rapidly. “Can we stop?” he asked, hopefully.

Ingram tapped a few controls, then shook his head. “The portside relays have been burnt out by the rapid overcompensation.”

Olding fought off a feeling of despair. “Engineering! Fix those bloody relays!” Without waiting for a response he turned to Bleep again. “Why did they overcompensate so badly?” he asked.

“Beep… wzrtfgl… Mind the gap… Unknown,” Bleep answered him. “The suspected cause is badly-calibrated coils.”

“God help me, I never thought I’d say this but bring back Barfoot!” Olding muttered to himself. “Even Stark would have a better handle on things than this!”

All they could do was wait as the planet in the viewscreen grew larger and larger. Damerell had long since given up pretending to be in control of himself and had mercifully passed out on the floor, the relief ops officer taking his place. After a little while, the ship began to rock as it was buffeted by the gasses in the upper atmosphere of the planet.

The intercom beeped.

“We have partial power to the starboard engine,” Harding reported, “and helm should have control of both.”

Ingram’s hands flew across his controls. “Confirmed. Bringing us into a- uh- incredibly low orbit of the planet.”

Olding gave a heavy sigh of relief as the ship steadied itself and they began to rise out of the atmosphere. He was about to order Ingram to get them away from the planet when a klaxon started to sound and the lights on the bridge went dim.

“What the bluidy hell is it this time?!” he shouted into the darkness.

Down in Fred’s Bar, the Counsellor picked herself up from off the floor, where she had been thrown by the sudden movement of the ship. As she had expected, never having experienced alcohol before and with most of his powers stripped, Grunge was a complete lightweight and was still slumped on the floor where the violent pitching had thrown him.

“Come on,” she said, dragging him upright, “we’d better go and see what the fuss is about.”

His bleary gaze focussed on her. “Y’hknow whas?” he slurred, breathing alcohol fumes into her face and collapsing on unstable legs before she caught him.

“What’s that?” she asked as she slung him over her shoulder in a fireman’s lift.

“I luv you,” he said, addressing her back. “Y’re my besht friend!”

“That’s nice,” she muttered, heading for the turbolift. They rode up to the bridge in silence, except for the occasional muttered inaudible comment from Grunge, who was starting to feel a little worse for wear, especially being hung upside down. As she stepped out Olding turned from where he was leant over the Ops console, eyebrows going up as she crossed the Bridge and deposited an unconscious Grunge into the counsellor’s chair.

“What’s going on?” she asked, quickly distracting Olding from her companion, a flick of his eyebrows telling her that she would have some explaining to do later.

“When we started to pull out of the atmosphere the rho particles reacted badly with the engine output,” the Ingram told her. “We had to shut the engines down before the build-up of energy caused an explosion that would have destroyed the ship.”

Hill crossed the Bridge to stand next to Olding, watching the viewscreen.

“We were in the planet’s atmosphere?” she asked.

“Aye,” Olding said, “and now we’re stuck in a decaying orbit with no engines. Engineering are working on the problem.”

“This really hasn’t been a good day, has it?” she asked, drawing a ‘hmmm’ from Olding. They were interrupted by a small voice from behind them.

“S- ‘scuse me?”

They turned to find Grunge standing unsteadily, blinking against the dim lights in the room. His odd metabolism had apparently already brought him to the hangover stage. He was holding out a single red rose to the Counsellor.

“F- for you,” he said as she took it from his hand. He reached up to rub his temples. “Ow.”

“That’s- very sweet,” Hill told him, ignoring Olding’s glare. “Why don’t you go and sit down while we sort things out?”

He nodded miserably and collapsed back into the counsellor’s chair, holding his head in his hands. The Counsellor took one look at him and walked to the captain’s ready room, Olding following her.

“Got yourself a fan, I see,” he said sarcastically as she went to the replicator and ordered a strong, black coffee.

“He’s actually kind of- nice,” she admitted. “Not anywhere near as arrogant as Q, and he’s got this sort of- puppy-dog quality about him.” She once again carefully ignored Olding’s raised eyebrow. The captain let silence reign for a few moments before speaking.

“Where did he get t’rose from, anyway?”

Hill shrugged. “Q didn’t take all his powers away, just limited them. I don’t think he’s up to much except parlour tricks.”

“Hmm.” Olding considered that. “How about a bit of particle dissipation?” he suggested. Hill met his look, nodded and returned to the Bridge.

Kneeling beside Grunge, who was hunched over in his chair, she held out the coffee. “Here you go,” she told him, “this’ll make it all better.”

“Really?” he asked plaintively, taking hold of the hot cup.

Unable to lie, she shrugged. “It might help.”

He eyed the black liquid suspiciously before downing most of it in one long gulp. Hill waited a moment before speaking.

“Look, Grunge, we’ve got a bit of a problem and we think you might be able to help us out.”

“I want to die,” he told her.

“Well, we don’t always get what we want,” she told him sharply, then softened her tone. “All we need you to do it make the level of rho particles outside the ship go down, so we can start our engines and get out of here. Do you think you can do that?”

He shrugged. “I have no idea what rho particles are but I can try, I guess. For you.”

Trying to suppress a blush Hill watched as he closed his eyes.

“Wow, how did you end up here?” he asked. “Uh, hold on-”

His brow furrowed as he concentrated, and sweat started to bead on his forehead. He started to clench his fists, and Hill quickly removed the cup before he broke it. Feeling her hands, Grunge grabbed one of them, holding it tightly. All she could do was grip back, willing him to succeed. It was several tense minutes before Bleep spoke up.

“Beep… Wzrtfgl… Mind the gap… The level of rho particles is dissipating. Beginning impulse engine restart sequence.”

The subtle hum of the engines filled the room as Grunge opened his eyes.

“My head hurts,” he moaned. The Counsellor waited a moment until Ingram was slowly piloting the ship out of the atmosphere on minimum impulse before leaning over and kissing the teenage Q on the forehead.

“Thanks,” she said, smiling at him. He reached up to touch his forehead, eyes wide, before a huge grin spread over his face. She stood up and moved across to sit in the first officer’s chair as Olding sat down in the centre seat.

“Crisis over,” he said, looking over at Grunge, who was still staring at the Counsellor, “thanks to our young friend here. I-”

“Bleep… Wzrtfgl… Mind the gap… Captain,” Bleep interrupted him, “radiation levels from the star have started to increase exponentially, surface flare rate is also increasing. I estimate the star will go nova within ten minutes.”

Olding’s hand slammed down on his comm panel. “Olding to engineering.”

“Barfoot here.”

“Oh thank God,” Olding muttered. “We’ve got a bit o’ a problem here, Mister Barfoot. We have no warp engines and we’re less than ten minutes away from a star going nova in our immediate vicinity. Any suggestions?”

“Get out and push?” Barfoot suggested, adding hastily before Olding could shout at him, “I’ll get on it.”

“Mister Ingram, set course to leave the system and give us best speed until the warp core is repaired,” Olding ordered, and Ingram hurried to comply. Olding became uncomfortably aware of Grunge staring past him at the Counsellor. He cleared his throat and tried to think of a way to pass the time.

“So, eh, Grunge, how’s your stay been?” he asked. Grunge blinked as if coming out of a daze and glanced at the Captain.

“It’s been great,” he said enthusiastically, apparently already having forgotten the after effects of the alcohol.

“Ah, grand,” Olding said, already having run out of conversational topics with a teenager. They sat in more uncomfortable silence with Bleep calling out each minute as they passed. Just as the android was declaring one minute remaining, the intercom beeped.

“Barfoot to bridge, I’ve jerry-rigged a bypass to the damaged equipment. Put the pedal to the metal!” the engineer called up.

“Emergency warp!” Olding called out, standing up as Ingram’s hands danced over his console, sending the ship catapulting out of the system. Behind them the star began to collapse in on itself, exploding violently outwards once a certain density had been reached and sending out an energy wave that consumed everything in the system.

Olding once more seated himself in his command chair, adrenaline levels slowly returning to normal. Gently, he touched the intercom button.

“Olding to engineering, well done Mister Barfoot.”

“What the hell’s been going on down here while I’ve been gone? There’s burnt out junctions and patching like you wouldn’t believe all over the place!”

“Your crew was trying to get the warp engines working again,” Olding told him.

“All they needed to do was attach the emergency matter pod! Bunch of amateurs! I don’t know, you get knocked unconscious for five minutes and the whole place just-”

Olding cut off the intercom. He opened his mouth to speak but got no further when a brilliant white light filled the room and Q appeared, Stark beside him. The bridge went silent at the sight of them. Stark was grinning, apron covered in food, holding what had to be the biggest souffle Olding had ever seen. Q, on the other hand, was scowling, covered head-to-toe in- something.

“I should’ve learnt my lesson the first time,” Q raged, “but no, I had to give you a second chance!” He shoved Stark away and glared at Olding. “Your engineer has made a mess of the Continuum! His efforts to create the perfect souffle have caused untold damage!”

Olding shrugged, standing up. “You invited him,” he pointed out.

“I thought he was the normal one!” Q shouted before regaining his composure and brushing some goop off his shoulder to splat on the floor. “Come, Grunge, we’re leaving. I’m sure you’ve experienced enough mortality by now.” He snapped his fingers, and Grunge raised his hand to look at it, apparently feeling the return of his powers.

“But Daaaad!” he whined, “I don’t wanna go!”

“You’re coming with me, boy, now!” Q snapped his fingers, but Grunge quickly raised his hand and snapped his own fingers, smirking cheekily at Q’s angry expression as his father disappeared. Grunge turned to Counsellor Hill, taking hold of one of her hands.

“He’ll come after me, I’ve got to go,” he said, snapping his fingers and producing a massive bunch of flowers, handing them to her. “I’ll be back as soon as I can,” he told her, before disappearing. There was utter silence on the bridge as everyone stared at the Counsellor. Finally Damerell, who had only just regained his senses long enough to witness the events of the last few minutes, broke the mood.

“The Counsellor and Gru-unge, sitting in a tree,” he sang, “K-”

“Finish that sentence, Mister Damerell,” Hill said sweetly, “and you’ll be eating through a straw.”

As Damerell hastily shut up, Hill sniffed the flowers. An omnipotent admirer. She liked the sound of that.