Lit Challenge 02: Q-stionable Attitudes

[As you walk into your ready room, you jump back as you're shocked to see Q sitting on your couch. What does she want this time? Let us know what happens.]

Personal log: Tylha Shohl, officer commanding, USS Sita NCC-92871.

"Q."

I've been lucky - I've only met Q once before. Once is enough. The Q behind my desk appears to be a human female, with a smug, toothy smile. "Well, hello there," she says, amiably enough.

All captains who've met the Q have their own methods for dealing with them. Mostly, they don't work. Mine is military directness. "State your requirements."

Her smile grows broader. "Tell me," she says, "isn't it dark and hot and uncomfortable in there?"

I frown. "What?"

"I wasn't talking to you, Shohl. I was talking to the stick up your butt."

I'm not going to be baited. "State your requirements," I repeat.

Q snorts. "Too formal," she says. "Can't I simply be dropping in, as an old friend?"

"We aren't friends," I say. "If you intend to do something useful, we can talk. Tell me you're going to make the Borg go away, or turn Chancellor J'mpok into a toad, and I'll listen. Otherwise -" I hold up the PADD in my right hand. "These after-action reports won't write themselves."

Q tuts. The PADD chirps in response, and I look down. The after-action reports are, indeed, writing themselves. Q has done something useful! I suppose it's a victory.

"Now, we can talk," Q purrs. "Let's talk about you, Vice Admiral, and your attitudes."

"My attitudes?"

"Let me quote you something, from your own personal journal. 'Humans would complain. Damn whiny pinkskins.' That was you, wasn't it?"

There seems little point denying it. "And? You can't claim to be personally offended. Despite appearances, you are not even slightly human."

"I am offended." Q rises from her seat to declaim. "I am grievously offended, on behalf of all sentient life forms, of whatever race, colour, creed or political affiliation. You have erred, Shohl. You have fallen far below the standards expected of a Starfleet officer. You have let everyone down, Shohl, yourself included. Are you not ashamed of your actions? Do you not see the ghosts of a hundred generations of Starfleet officers standing over you, judging you and finding you wanting?"

"A hundred generations?"

"Well, however many. You can't expect me to keep track of petty details."

"You can find time, it seems, to read an unguarded comment in a private journal."

"Now, don't try to turn this around, Shohl." Q's eyes narrow. "I think, Miss Holier-than-thou Andorian, you need a little change of perspective."

There is a flash of light and a hissing sound... and Q is gone, but everything else seems dreadfully, suddenly wrong. My head spins, and I stumble and fall. I manage to reach my combadge.

"Medical emergency. Ready room," I say, and, "Q was here." And then I pass out.

---

I wake up, and things are still wrong. I'm in sickbay, I can see that; Dr. Beresford is bending over me with a worried look on her face. But everything is still wrong. Colours seem different somehow.... the comfortable air aboard the Sita seems chilly... sounds are sharper, yet hollow... and, worst of all, I can't feel air currents or electrical activity; it's as if my antennae have been stuffed into a sack. I am half-blind. And there is something weird at the sides of my field of vision; something pinkish-brown and lumpy, where normally my nose should be.

"What happened?" I say, and my voice sounds wrong; too loud, too low. I raise my hand to my head, or start to.

My hand is a pinkish-brown colour, too.

"Admiral!" A voice, Anthi Vihl's voice; my exec since my first ship. She sounds so strange now. I turn my head to look at her, and it feels weird; joints moving in ways they never have before. Anthi is standing by my bedside, and her blue skin is pale with shock.

"It was Q," I say.

"I suppose that's the only explanation we're going to get," says Samantha Beresford dryly. "How are you feeling?"

I turn back to look at her. "Strange," I say, "very strange."

She nods, briskly. Information is scrolling rapidly up her ever-present data monocle. I put my hand to my forehead, feeling smooth skin over smooth bone. My antennae are gone. I feel... violated.

"Medically," Dr. Beresford says, "there doesn't seem to be a problem. Your heart rate, blood pressure and brain activity are somewhat elevated, but that's probably just a result of - well, of shock. In all other respects... well, Admiral, you appear to be an entirely normal, healthy -"

"Human," I finish for her. There is a terrible lump in my throat. Should that be there? I don't know.

"We have to do something." Anthi's voice sounds strained. And odd, too; high, soft, sibilant. Do Andorians sound like that to humans? Have I ever really thought about that?

Dr. Beresford shakes her head. "I... can't even begin to think what we could do. It's something -" she shakes her head again. "Only a Q could do this. Maybe Q can put it right?"

There is an awkward silence. "So," I say, eventually, "I'm... stuck with this, until Q decides she's had enough of whatever games she's playing." Dr. Beresford nods. "Well, let's at least see what I'm stuck with. Do you have a mirror, Doctor?"

"A mirror...." Dr. Beresford turns away. I look back towards Anthi; strange eyes swivelling in unfamiliar sockets. "You'd better take command," I tell her.

She looks even more troubled. "Sir, you might be needed on the bridge. We had a report of a Nausicaan destroyer -"

"You can handle Nausicaans," I tell her firmly. "And I don't know... how long it will take me to adjust to this. Anthi, I'm not even used to thinking with this brain. We have to assume I'm medically incapacitated, for the present at least. Inform Starfleet Command of my... situation."

Anthi looks sullen, but she answers, "Aye, aye, sir." She is everything I'm not - a daughter of a military family, a descendent of the Imperial Guard even before there was a Starfleet, an heir to Andorian tradition. At least I can leave the ship in safe hands. "Carry on," I say, and Anthi salutes and turns to go.

Dr. Beresford is back with the mirror. Silently, she holds it up.

An alien face looks back out of it at me. My skin tone is a light neutral beige colour, not unlike Dr. Beresford's; my hair has turned from white to glossy black; my new eyes are a deep brown colour. They turn to that blank, maimed forehead in despair, and look away again. Apart from that - apart from losing my sense organs, and looking like a photographic negative of myself - apart from that, it is still my own face. I reach with that alien hand and touch the whorled scar tissue on the stiff right side.

"Now there's a thought," I say. "What about my prosthetics?"

"I thought of that," Dr. Beresford says. "Your zygomatic implant is still there - we checked its serial number, in fact, to make sure you were still you. It's not been modified - there are corresponding changes in your human skull. It's as exact a fit as it ever was -"

My fingertips linger on the scars. The long-term nerve damage, then, is still there, the legacy of the agonizing series of operations when my cheekbone was replaced and the rest of my face rebuilt around it. Q might have fixed that, I think resentfully.

"I suppose it could be worse," says Dr. Beresford. "Q could have turned you into a Tellarite, say, or a Pakled. Or she could have changed your sex as well as your species -"

"She did," I snap. Simple binary-sex species just don't understand about Andorians. And now I'm a simple binary-sex being myself - and I don't know how any of that works, either. Alien muscles pull on alien joints; I sit up on the medical bed. The room seems wobbly, somehow. Humans have balance organs inside their ears, I think; are mine working properly? I swing my legs off the bed, and, very carefully, stand up.

"All seems fine," Dr. Beresford comments.

I take a deep breath, and that feels weird, too; my chest moves in unfamiliar ways. "Computer," I say, "universal translators off." And then I give full vent to my feelings, in the ripest and richest Andorian terms I can think of, damning Q and all her self-righteous Continuum in as fluently obscene a manner as I can manage. The words scrape my throat; my human vocal tract doesn't quite fit, the fricatives slurring and the vowels wavering. In the end, I finish in a coughing fit.

"Universal translators on," I say, eventually. I look at Dr. Beresford, who is standing there with a wry smile on her face. "I'm going to my quarters," I tell her.

She nods. "I think that's wise, Admiral. But I'll be on call if you need me - if you run into any problems at all, I will have my department on standby."

I take a hesitant step forward. I can still walk - things are strange, but not that strange; humans don't move so differently from Andorians, after all. How long, though, before I truly feel at home in this skin? I tread slowly and carefully towards the door.

"Oh, and Admiral?" I turn back towards Dr. Beresford. "I interned for a year on an Andorian station," she says. "And, well, I picked up a few phrases. Some of those things you said? I think even a Q would find them anatomically impossible."

---

Outside, in the corridor, people are moving purposefully. I stop to get my bearings. I should know every last millimeter of the Sita, but this constant human half-blindness makes me hesitant, lost. Alert lights are flashing. Anthi said something about Nausicaans -

I resist the impulse to head for the bridge.

There is a strange skittering sound on the deck behind me. I turn. One of the Tholian exchange officers is passing by. With a shock, I realize I don't know which one it is. Tholians all look so alike to us, but I learned to pick up on the slight differences, the different sheens on their crystal carapaces... but that was with my old eyes, and all the colours are subtly wrong with these brown human ones, and I don't know who this Tholian is. It turns to look at me with glowing eyes, and its voice synthesizer chirrups.

<You are not on your way to the bridge, Vice Admiral?>

"No," I say. "I am... unfit. Unwell."

<Oh. I am sorry. I trust you will recover soon, sir.> The Tholian turns to go on its way, then turns back. <I assume that is the reason for the cosmetic change in your surface integument? If I may say so, Vice Admiral, it does not become you.> And with that, it scuttles off.

There are a few more curious glances as I make my way to my quarters, but for the most part, the crew seems preoccupied. Perhaps Anthi has ordered the alert to keep them busy.... I clamp down hard on that line of thought. I am not in command; I am not going to second-guess my exec while she's doing the job. She can handle it.

I make it to my quarters, sit down on the edge of my bed, and try to think. Q doesn't do things without a reason... but it might not be much of a reason, from our point of view. The Q are powerful, capricious, and amoral... well, not entirely amoral... but their morality only tangentially relates to ours. Would a Q really seek me out, just for one intolerant remark in a private record? I even like humans, mostly. My ships have been named after the works of a human musician I learned to admire....

I raise my head at that thought, and a smile tugs at the mobile side of my mouth. That's an opportunity, maybe; listen to Gustav Holst with human ears. Perhaps I will hear something I missed -

And then I hear something I can't miss; the sound of Sita's phased-tetryon banks going into rapid fire. Little shudders are running through the ship's seven hundred metre length; impacts not quite wiped out by the inertial compensators. There is a distant, unmistakeable rumble of the tricobalt mines being deployed....

I sit perfectly still. I am not going to bother Anthi Vihl on the bridge. She can kill a Nausicaan destroyer just as effectively as I can. There is a funny feeling in my human throat, though, and there seems something odd about the circulatory system.... How does this body handle stress? Do humans have glands? I sit there and realize that I don't know whether I'm angry, or scared, or both. Damn Q. Why couldn't she have turned me into a Vulcan? Emotions wouldn't matter then, I'd have to suppress them whatever they were.

Outside, the stars are wheeling, and lines of brilliant light are flashing between them. I frown, wrinkling that too-smooth brow. Anthi is making very heavy weather of that Nausicaan. There is an auroral haze across the sky; shields are wavering under enemy fire. Sita shudders -

- and suddenly there is the whine of a transporter, and red light in the room with me, and the battle is very close indeed.

---

A heavy hand grips my shoulder, and a voice cries, "I have her!"

Nausicaans. They don't smell any better to a human nose, I notice. The one who has hold of me is a small one, low down the pecking order; the one who lumbers over to look at me, though, is huge, dressed in spiky leather and furs, a raid leader at the least. He snarls at the other, "This is not her!"

The first Nausicaan grabs a handful of my collar and twists it. "Is her! Her quarters! Vice Admiral insignia!"

"Fool!" The raid leader cuffs his underling. "Is not Shohl! This is human! Shohl Andorian! Even fool like you should know difference!"

"Is Starfleet Admiral!" The underling stands his ground. The two of them snarl at each other, momentarily forgetting to watch me. There are two others... a standard raiding party would have more; I wonder for an instant what happened to the rest. But only for an instant.

The raid leader is facing down his underling; the attention of all the others is on the raid leader. The underling, holding me, has left his disruptor in its holster. If they were paying attention, they'd see me snatch it. But for one crucial second, they're not paying attention.

I jam the barrel of the disruptor into its owner's side, and hit the firing stud. He screams and falls. I roll with his death spasm as he pushes me away, bringing the captured weapon to bear on another underling. Sick green light burns into him, and he topples. Disruptor beams, I notice, look just as unnatural to human eyes as Andorian ones.

Whatever glands and hormones this human body has, they're working for me now. I spin-kick the remaining underling, hacking one leg from under him; a shot from his disruptor sears well over my head, and then his head hits the corner of my bed, and he goes down. Stunned, or dead; out of the fight in any case. That leaves me and a fully armed raid leader. Not the best odds. I slam a disruptor bolt into him, but his shields hold.

He doesn't even bother to shoot; he comes at me with his sword drawn. The first slash comes close to taking my head off; I block with the disruptor, and there is a nasty breaking sound from somewhere inside it. Fully armed raid leader against me and a broken gun. I duck his next swing, step in close, and let him have the butt of the gun hard on his warty forehead. He staggers, but his free hand claws at me, holds me. He drags me to him with immense strength. His hot eyes look into mine, and there is murder in them.

I bare my teeth in a grin. "You know something?" I say. "Human or Andorian - there's no difference." And I draw back my head, and I butt him between the eyes, hard as I can, with that too-smooth human forehead.

He falls back, his grip weakens, I break free. I dive for one of his fallen companions, trying for a working weapon. He stamps and roars, but it's just a distraction; a distraction from him drawing his own disruptor. I can't find another gun. I'm going to die -

Then the raid leader flares with orange light and disappears. In the open doorway behind him, I can see Security Commander Yulan and one of her tac teams, phasers raised. I get to my feet.

"Nice timing, Commander," I say with feeling.

---

"Two Scourge destroyers, one Guramba siege destroyer, and a Talon battleship." Anthi Vihl reports crisply. "The Talon launched raiding shuttles - Orion sourced tech, we think. They transported boarding parties when our shields were temporarily down."

I nod gravely. Anthi carries on with her report. She looks as if she was born to sit in that command chair. I should do something for her, really; she should have a ship command of her own by now. But it would be like cutting off my right arm -

Then again, if I remain unfit for duty, maybe she can just take the Sita.

"I didn't think the Nausicaans were that good with transporter work," I say.

"They could have done better." A bleak expression comes over her face. "Something like a third of their teams... died from reintegration failures."

My expression mirrors hers. A transporter scramble case is an ugly sight.

"Still," Anthi says, "we need to warn Starfleet Command about this - it's a new tactic for the Nausicaans. And I'm concerned, sir, about the way they were targeting you, specifically -"

"They probably have every flag officer in Starfleet on a hit list," I say. "Most likely, it was just my turn, today. Lucky me."

"I'm still going to report the matter to Starfleet Intelligence," Anthi says firmly. "Perhaps they will have some ideas... if someone's gunning for you, sir, we need to know about it."

I nod. My head still seems to move funny. "Have it your way, Anthi," I say, and then, more formally, "Carry on, Commander Vihl. I'll be resting in my quarters -" I stop, and put a hand to my brow. It hurts. "No, scratch that - not until they've been cleaned up. I'll be in sickbay." I salute, formally. Are human elbows meant to move that way? Mine hurts... I turn, leave the bridge, step into the turbolift.

The doors hiss shut behind me, then hiss open again as someone else gets in. I know who it is before I turn around.

"I hope you've learned your lesson." Q's smile is as broad as the sky. My fists ball at my sides.

"About interfering superbeings? Oh, yes, I've learned that you'll have your fun. It seems to be the only lesson your damned Continuum teaches us."

Q pouts. "Now is that gratitude? Consider, Shohl, just what would have happened if those Nausicaans had found the Andorian they'd been looking for...."

I look at her, and I make the mobile side of my mouth curl into a sneer. "All this for my personal benefit? If I'd been on the bridge, they'd have found my quarters empty."

"And wouldn't you have had a nasty surprise, come bedtime, then?"

"Security would have located them," I point out. "If they even managed to get aboard in the first place - I'd have fought the ship differently from Anthi, they might not even have been able to lock on transporters."

"Oh, but they might," says Q. "And they might have gear that would spoof your internal sensors, too - or did you not notice that security only showed up after the disruptors started blazing?" Her smile seems to be getting wider and wider. "But have it your own way," she says. "After all, I'm only an omnipotent superbeing, and you're a mortal. You mortals always know best." She cocks her head to one side. "Honestly, if you weren't so funny, I don't know why I'd bother."

I grit my teeth; I seem to have the wrong number of teeth. "Consider me... appropriately grateful, then."

"That was grudging. You're terribly grudging, Shohl. Just for that, I think... I will leave a little memento."

And the air fills with light; Q is gone, and I -

I have the right number of teeth. I hold up my hands, and they are blue; I put them to my forehead, but I know, already, my antennae are there. My senses are opening up, and everything looks right, the colours are right, the sounds of the ship are right, my body is right - tired, perhaps, and bruised, but all familiar, all normal.

I am myself again.

The turbolift doors hiss open. Dr. Beresford is standing just outside; I smile at her as her jaw drops. "No need for your services just now, Doctor," I say cheerfully.

Dr. Beresford finds her voice. "I think - I think we'd better run some checks, just in case," she says. "And, umm, Admiral? Your - your hair -"

I wear my hair long, tied back neatly in a ponytail; I reach behind my neck, drag it round for inspection. Black. Still black. Dark, glossy, and lustrous... but black.

Q said she'd leave a memento, damn her.

"Never mind," I say. "Maybe it'll grow out."