STAR TREK: A Long Road (Voyager Fix It Quest)

"Figure this out," Janeway said, flatly. "Something almost killed hundreds of people, and I want to know what did it before we do anything more. Seska, you will provide your hands on technical expertise to guide the scanners."

"I...fine," Seska said.

She and Tuvok stood and left.

Torres sighed, slowly. "I'm going to go and check the ship for microfissures or any major damage left by the phasing." She stood and started off, and Janeway frowned, lacing her fingers through one another as she rested her chin on her knuckles and frowned at the desk.

"I don't like this," she said. "...it...feels like we're chasing our damn tails..." She frowned harder, then stood up and went to get another cup of coffee.

"We need to determine when the faults happened," Seska said as she prowled back and forth inside of astrometrics, while Tuvok tapped in commands to the sensor array. "But that's impossible. They happened in the past, we can't date the exact time, there was no sensors directly trained on them."

"That is where you are not entirely correct, Gral Seska," Tuvok said. "The light that bounced off those EPS conduits was emitted approximately five light hours from our current position. By calibrating our tachyonic sensors and accounting for the interphasing between subspace and realspace, we may be able to create a sounding pattern of the internals of your ship. Assuming, of course, we moved to approximately thirty light minutes from the point of origin - to reduce the amount of diffusion that will take place as light moves away from the center of the event."

Seska scowled. "That wouldn't work," she said. "There's no way you could make that image cohere."

"Not with Cardassians sensors, no," Tuvok said, before tapping his com-badge. "However, Voyager is equipped with sensors of considerably more power. Mr. Paris."

"Guhh?" Tom Paris' voice came from the com-badge.

"Mr. Paris, why are you not at your post?" Tuvok asked.

"I...I thought...I'm off shift, we're not traveling anywhere," Tom said.

"Mr. Paris, your shift ends five minuets from now. Your lassitude has been noted," Tuvok said, then tapped his com-badge again.

"Yes, Mr. Tuvok?" A cheerful, female voice came over the line.

"Ensign Weatherby, please maneuver us to these coordinates," Tuvok said.

"Uh, got it, Mr. Tuvok!"

The ship juddered. The warp bubble had taken them incredible distances in a fraction of a second - without most people even noticing. Tuvok adjusted the controls while Seska leaned over his shoulder and watched as a grainy, barely coherent image of her ship appeared. However, she had been trained to do damage control even when half concussed and being shot at with phasers. She pointed. "Dial it forward...yeah, right there! Break, break break, break, all within a nanosecond of one another, microfissues."

"Are you sure those are microfissures, Gral Seska?" Tuvok asked. "The level of clarity in these images is less than I would prefer."

"Positive," she said. "...but where did they come from? They show up before the power emissions."

Tuvok frowned. "Computer, are these micro fissures consistent with the application of external force or are they a result of normal wear and tear?"

"It's not-" Seska started, but the computer's matronly voice talked over her.

"The microfissues are consistent with external impacts."

Tuvok rubbed his chin. "Fascinating. Computer, is there a known form of technology that would be capable of damaging these components without causing appreciable surrounding damage in the rest of the cloaking device?"

"There exists no known form of technology that would impart this level of damage," the computer said.

Seska frowned. "...Okampan telekinesis?"

"No," Tuvok said, pursing his lips. "This is something requiring a delicacy and touch that untrained telekinetics would be incapable of." He tapped his badge. "Captain."

"Just a moment Tuvok," Captain Janeway's voice was tight. "I will call you back."

"She sounded mad," Seska said, quietly.

"Indeed," Tuvok said.

"...she doesn't suspect me, does she?" Seska asked.

"If the captain suspected you, she would say it," Tuvok said, turning to face her.

Seska frowned.

That didn't exactly comfort her.

Captain Janeway sighed as she downed her cup of coffee, enjoying the rich black flavor. Which was when she noticed the severe looking, rather pretty woman in the gray tunic and leggings, with the folder of papers tucked under her arm, standing in her ready room. Janeway opened her mouth, but the woman set the papers down.

"Katheryn Janeway and Phoebe Janeway, you are being served," she said. "Sign there."

"Excuse me?" Janeway asked, slowly, as she looked down at the manilla envelope, feeling so completely shocked that she almost laughed. She opened it and saw that there were papers within. The text writhed, shimmered, then collapsed into a form that looked something like this.


Janeway looked up from the paper at the woman.
"You have to-" she started, before her com badge chirruped.

"Captain," Tuvok's voice came through.

"Just a moment, Tuvok, I will call you back," Janeway said, then tapped her badge off. "What is the meaning of this Q?"

The woman frowned. "I'm not Q," she said, huffing. "That rapscallion and troublemaker. No, I'm Q. Don't be preposterous."

"You're...Q," Janeway said, slowly.

"No, I just said, I'm Q."

Janeway frowned, then tried again - this time, she put all thought of the entity that she had had a whole course on during her last officer training period out of her head. She thought only of the woman before her and said: "Q."

"There we go," the woman said, primly. "Was that so hard?"

"Right," Janeway said. "What's this all about?"

"The summons should have translated, the complaint is in there," the woman said, looking irritated. Janeway sat down and flipped through it, reading, frowning.

"Infringe on the Prophet/Organian Treaty of Untime Sevenwise," Janeway said. "Since when have the Organians and...who even are the Prophets?"

"Ah, the atemporal aliens that live in the Gamma Quadrant Wormhole," Q said.

"Them?" Janeway asked. "But they weren't contacted...atemporal." She pucked her lips. "And why is the Continuum involved?"

"Of course we're involved, don't be silly," the woman said. "Just like the Temporal Cold War all over again."

"The what?" Janeway asked, her eyes widening.

"Now, if I did try and do this leniently, but since you've clearly decided to be bull headed about this, I've served the legal papers. Should have known it, I have the court date last week," Q said, shaking her head. "Sign the papers when you're ready. You should bring some witnesses...uh, whoever you will have picked are going to have done a good job, don't worry about it, leave it to consensus. Oh, and don't worry about council, you'll have someone representing you."

"Who's consensus?" Janeway asked.

Q shrugged. "I don't know, Gazzer does a good job usually."

She vanished with a flash.

Janeway slumped back into her seat, then looked back at the papers.

---
This is the second weirdest thing to have happened to Janeway.
[ ] Well. We're being summoned to court. The last court run by the Q was...okay, it was a mess, but at least Q isn't involved.
[ ] This is preposterous. The Q are tricksters, not legal experts, and there's no proof of anything she's said. We'll see if we can maybe...devise some kind of jamming technology that could at least stop Q interference? Or maybe slow it down?
[ ] Write In