Literary Challenge #52,
Hello again Q.
As you walk onto the
bridge, you notice The Chair is occupied... by Q. "Hello, again,
Q..."
http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?p=12925681&posted=1#post12925681
Post #6
Q – ‘wa'DIch chavmoH,’ Temporal Invader
I did not want to report for duty immediately after our
immaculate victory. I had rest after the ‘deck party’ on bridge, so much
reportage and communiques, kasqs of blood-wine had to be brought up to the
bridge repeatedly, and the immediacy of the secondary crew was noted as they
performed after the initial officer crew had won all battles, and they had been
sworn the honor of this duty shift in sobriety while the officers before them
had celebrated in their presence. In truth most of my senior officers were
commanding on other house fleet vessels.
I so longed to communicate with family members, yet allies and friends
must have had similar thoughts and we reveled as it was our honor to do so.
This shift, first shift of the following day, no after
party of course, which is humor from an earlier time in my career as a KDF
officer. First shift would notoriously occur many weeks after certain victories
as I recalled in my mind approaching the turbo-lift in my specialized
Qu’Daj’Nej’Var battleship. This would be different, although I did spend an
hour in communique with loved ones before my required rest period, an hour that was recorded and sent to family
members, I only spoke in an ad hoc fashion to verify my survival and safety
to my immediate family members and friends that I have closest ties with.
Luckily my wife was who I had the directed recording with on a secure channel.
I only could wish she was aboard, and yet, how could I, I had not slept for
more than a few hours at a time in months. No this shift would be like
yesterdays, with less fanfare, more pronounced diplomacy, more criticality, and
too many actualized situation reports.
I would be held accountable as a general for my deeds.
First with the Chancellor for a debriefing, the actual most interesting and
relieving communique, his office sent an encrypted message after our immaculate
victory, however it was merely a hastily recorded proverbial protocol-nothing
more. I was not planning to drag the Chancellor out of chambers, and as I was
inundated with fleet communication at that time, in these situations I had
found I was usually fifth or sixth to be contacted by J’mPoc at ‘First Shift.’
I imagined I would be no less than third on this occasion.
Be that as it may, many dignitaries, generals, governors,
house fleet admirals, chief trade representatives, and so on, you simply could
not imagine, would inundate my day in my private quarters on this particular
‘First Shift.’
“Qu’Qapla – ‘Quue…’” The turbolift door slammed behind
me, I don’t know how I recognized the human, every officer in the detail bridge
heard my greeting, not one officer so much as drew a blade… The Bridge of the
‘BaQ MonGDecH’ is usually quite vacuous. We Kling do our duty and have not much
noise to make upon most occasion.
“HeH Dech Mong Qu-Qapla.” How intriguing, this particular
surprise had unique metaphysical properties that I could immediately attest to.
Of course ‘Q’ is supposed to be much smarter than I. I wouldn’t choose to
challenge this concept. I had recognized his face from the Federation file,
however, we had met previously. “Oh yes, I have not yet returned to Khitomer,
you?”
“H’lija’Quuue…” I was beginning to prepare to use my
diplomatic Terran language skills, my mind began reciting my consonant retinue.
Suddenly I was on a bridge of a ship that must not have
been much larger than that of the ‘Qul’DaQ,’ this time my second wife O’Wa’TaQ
was on command duty of the House Fleet specialized Kamarag.
“It’s called a ‘Krynn.’” Q murmered slowly, drawling the
consonant thickly in Klingon. He was actually quite a handsome Klingon for a
‘Q.’ I recalled a fantastic novella series I had read as a young cadet, the
planet the heroes had saved had the same name as this model of ship.
“The Eureka moment, Quuue.” Ew isn’t much of a vowel or
syllable in Klingon, more of an expression like “Er, um,” or sometimes referent
to numbers, such as ‘an’ or one. You can use it to interject when making up unique
compound verbs, or not to and explain plainly in painstaking formal or regal
form, and sometimes slang. There was so much involved with the socio-dynamic
metaphysics of this war that had not yet been addressed. Just in terms of
revenge, the mind reeled at that in terms of Klingon philosophy, to say nothing
of political science. This had been a very bloody civil war. Again we had made
so many new advantageous advances on record making prisoner taking battles. The
first few weeks of battle were relatively bloodless, to speak least of all. It
was not the first distinction that the Occupation Fleet had made for itself in
this regard during this particular war, during the prior against the same foe,
it had.
Suddenly Q and I held blood wine and we were surrounded
by the VIP’s I was to contact, and they all held blood-wine, and still aboard
this strange Krynn vessel.
‘QAPLA!’ All aboard the Krynn vessel had shouted while
toasting before it was only an echo in an empty ship’s bridge with one Klingon
General MonG-DecH, and one very overdressed Klingon Q.
“You don’t like my ceremonial uniform? Doesn’t it strike
you as opulent and indicative of my position in the Empire?”
“HeH-Hmm-Qu-…EW….” I replied crudely, not wanting my
distaste to outdistance my sensibilities yet not wanting to show any support to
the means of this endeavor.
“Hlja’vlegh Gaardox.” He was yet patient. I decided to
sip my blood-wine in rebuttal, slowly. I was yet patient actually. “There is
little else to do I suppose. I told you on Khittomer that you needed to
consider curbing your imagination. That did not hold much bloodwine with you
apparently.”
“Dalegh.” I had finished the wine and dropped the cup. I
walked to ‘Q’ and took his cup, and drank it. He nodded. I finished and dropped
that cup and just stood in front of him, in a deaf fashion.
He was gone in an instant and I was surrounded by
Klingons. Klingons with very refined features. Klingons with more than typical
physical strength, Klingons who were apparently much more accustomed to being
at least slightly more strong than I, and were already quite well seasoned to
be as such. There were even Klingon hybrids, Vulcan/Klingon, Romulan/Klingon,
frighteningly enough, even Cardasian/Klingon, something I had only seen in
images, and of course not a more refined future species. All of this was
apparent to me, and like previously they encircled me with blood-wine in hand,
aboard this Krynn bridge and I as well. I decided to sip for the entirety, as I
could ascertain, judging by the sparse simplicity of their armor, that I was
among Klingons of the future. Perhaps they had a better immunity to the effects
of this drink.
“He will torture
us as long as there is a universe for him to do so in. We are at your service.”
I had never heard a more common form of colloquial Klingon come out of any
sentience’s vocal chords.
“Daj. HA! ‘be “DaJ’Nej-Qot’VoM.”
“Well indeed interesting, we may name the ship whatever
you like for our service to you. For reasons that may seem obvious to you we
are indeed at your service.” Again, too polite to sound like an android, yet
such perfect guttural infliction, and the inference was correct, or maybe a
guess, Gaardox seemed to, or indeed had, ‘caught Vom.’ The fact that they
seemed to maintain servitude to him must have been indicative of this yet…
Mongdech looked around at the bridge, sipping wine cautiously. He was in the
same sector space, possibly the same location, or adjacent, yet no, he more
than likely was no longer in the same century. He looked carefully at the group
and walked in a circle, they were senior officers, most were of uniform age,
near his or slightly younger, or older by no more than a few decades. It slowly
dawned on him that that must have less meaning to them as their longevity would
have more salience than his own. “We have had limited contact with Klingons
from the 25th century, Lord Mong-Dech.” Now this was disturbing.
He had been called many things, mostly Mongdech, formal,
polite or informal slang depending on your point of view. The beauty of most of
the ‘MongDecH’ affectation was that he usually made a universality obvious and
completely capable of being intelligible in doing so again, whether it was
tactics, intellectual prowess, or esoteric mannerisms that would prove somehow
relevant or viable… a crass methodological approach that was usually completely
orthodox in its adherence to chaotic experimentation, and his namesake was
completely urban in an unrespectable consideration. He was getting somewhat too
aged and villainous to make light of such reality, but what these Klingons must
know of him now, he could think of it and attempt to at least humor them all.
“Always a good ice breaker Gaardox,” ‘Q’s’ voice
omnipresent voice trailed off.
“I have never expected to command a field promotion as
LORD.” Gaardox finally said. It was sadly true. He usually had his father’s
sword at his side at all times now. He had maintained this war with co-command
in House Fleet, Occupation Fleet, and elite alliance members of the Honor Guard
who were linked politically to him via the High Council, as well as old friends
from the earlier civil wars. Gaardox Mongdech conceded to the fact that at his
age fewer had seen either so much civil war or war at all to be plainspoken.
Laughter, rebellious, unscrupulous and unbridled. It was
a trans-dimensional, trans-decadal coronation. MongDech mused with some
glorification. These officers likely had wondered why Gaardox would have
allowed himself the title, or how he had come to abide as such to such a
reality. He had found a curious way to steal it for himself.
“Don’t get ahead of yourself.” Again ‘Q.’ spoke, however,
Gaardox could conclude that only he could hear this now.
“We had followed your history, we are all professors of this
field of research, you must assume some generalizations.” An old and
particularly seasoned handsome Klingon-who-had-aged-well remarked, his uniform
markings indicated he was in command. “We cannot tell you our names. It is not
allowed.” The temporal Klingon had remarked.
“Pagh wejvam.” Now MongDech had named the commanding
officer of the ‘Daj’Nej-QoT-Vom,’ things were making a sharp turn now. “We must
inhibit Tholian surveillance of most circumstantial battles from this civil war
now that it has finally finished. Can you put a holographic astro-metric and
holographic chart tactical computer from the 24th or 25th
century here?”
All put their mugs or cups (if you will,) down in front
of them, some taking sips, and all sprang into action. Monitor stations were
Klingoned, discussion ensued on the most proper considerations on such actions.
It was quite quixotic and terrifyingly dizzy’ing, indeed MongDech was very in
glorified by all of this activity. Before he could find a state of
embellishment, the computer console emerged and he began scanning charts,
making notations and, as it so happened agreeing or disagreeing with a series
of preset notations. He had to assume that some of it was the officers at work
and others were already programmed into the computer.
“In this case how do I tell of the origin of the notation
presets…Pagh Wejvam?”
“You will not be able to.” Gaardox found a way to supersede
that theory by using assumptive reasoning and doing a comparative analysis
predicating historical analysis design philosophy using current popular
philosophical political science analogy from his time, and his analysis of that
based on his initial conclusions as a younger officer in the 23rd
century to make his conclusions. Naturally Gaardox had not known that longevity
would make such scientific conclusion in his time.
Gaardox was aboard the USS Pathfinder, somehow this was
obvious to him. A younger Captain Picard had spoken to an Admiral on the view
screen. They were somewhere in the Romulan Neutral zone, Theta Eridani, he
believed.
Before Picard had spoken he bowed at the Admiral and put
his hand on his chin before putting his hand to his side and looking up at the
view screen again.
“No, Admiral, I need to try reasoning with these factions
in my own way-“ he went on apparently reasoning his own design philosophy in
regards with a diplomacy in the Tau
Dewa between the Klingons and the Romulans, with Federation intent.
Dewa between the Klingons and the Romulans, with Federation intent.
“You see, you see what you are doing? You see what is
being done?” ‘Q’ said.
Now MongDech was again on the ‘Daj’Nej-Qot’Vom’
monitoring the console, his mind set, he formulated the telemetry also using
his design philosophy to configure interface with the ship computer. He knew he
was no longer in the presence of ‘Q,’ for now. The view screen now showed a
tactical Tholian fleet in a monitoring formation, one that would circumvent
detection as well as allow for the best sensor linkage monitoring amongst them.
“Attack now.” As his sense of glory superseded any known
expectation or familiarity he had ever known, he watched as what would be at the
beginning of an even longer war than the previous civil war that he had just endured.
He had barely been aware that the ship board computer’s link up with the older
monitor console system had actually been automatically linked up with
astro-navigational service. He had only assumed as much and then, his
conclusions still catching up to his reality, torpedoes that looked like pulsar
radio waves and what looked like a series of purple lightening emitted from the
‘Krynn’ Temporal starship and decimated the Tholians. Gaardox sipped quietly at
his blood-wine and made the next serial computations regarding the battle maps
and charts, projections, and determinations. Battle after battle had ensued.
The Tholians were shrewd to monitor the minor conflicts of this Klingon civil
war, but it would serve them no glory.
Battle after battle, each Tholian fleet seemed more and
more futile. The fifty hour mark had passed. Gaardox required rest. He was
escorted by ‘Pagh Wejvam,’ to quarters, sparse, yet comfortable. He looked out
his window and strangely as light flashed during battles, he would for some
moments at a time see in ultra violet or even the gamma ray spectrum as the
sentient physical reaction to the divinations of astral combat must somehow
correspond. He went to sleep.
Gaardox woke to the smell of fresh meat and bloodwine. He
used the shower to refresh himself. His dreams…his wives showed him much less
mercy than usual, it had been extremely gratifying, if not factual, yet…not all
would seem to be at complete odds with reality today. He would inquire of his
wives of such dream activity when the timing was right. An optimist Gaardox ate
everything on the table. He performed his morning calisthenics, and walked to
the turbo lift, or whatever movement device it was. MongDech liked the
guillaumes he had seen in his quarters, the alloy was not known to him, and the
design intricacies had varied
complexity. As he entered the turbo lift he had noticed that the noise of
combat had ceased yet the armor plating had covered his quarters now, he was
not to notice his whereabouts.
Looking in the on bridge view-screen he could only assume
that they were deep in the gamma quadrant. Then it dawned on Gaardox, telemetry
had now rationalized surveillance by the Founders…
“Section, quadrangle five six two mark nine hundred fifty
three million, six hundred thousand….” This was indeed further than the
computations of MongDech. Pagh Wejvam took off a wire frame head gear that had
little volume or density. “Psychic interlink with the ship board
computer…nothing more Lord Gaardox.” Damn, he had forgotten that he was a
‘Lord’ now. “This is the fifth interaction we have had with this faction, their
temporal ships are a bit harder to deal with, however, certain temporal holding
combat patterns of the Tholians revealed some bi-lateral connectivity with the
Borg in this sector, we ARE in the Gamma Sector, we assumed an inner-link by
the Founders. We are close to a solution.” Some kind of pulse wave hit the
strange vessel that suddenly appeared at least twenty kilometers away, and the
ship vanished. “An irregularity, the solution is match, at your station Lord
Gaardox MonG-DecH.” Gaardox preceded to do a bilateral equation using a logic
to design itself a paradox which would determine which Borg fleet members were
now too close to witnessing the said paradox, or had inadvertently done so in
relation to the Klingon civil war activity. Yet despite the fact that this was
not his quadrant, Gaardox was more at home in his own century. This time the
Captain made the command.
“De-assimilate now, WE ARE KLINGON!” What seemed like
centuries would now pass and very often Gaardox would go to his quarters, at
sixty hour intervals, and he slept until he could no longer do so. He would
often wake up to the most garish and horrific battle fields in space that he
had ever witnessed. To break up the monotony the crew would often dine
together, and speak of their glory. Gaardox was not certain how he could be
alive for so much longer, however he believed that some new technological
advancement had slowed his aging process considerably. His memory also was very
much improved. He remember everything that had happened on board the
‘Daj’Nej-QoT’VoM,’ although he often found it within himself to entirely forget
‘Q.’ Idle time was usually used creating stasis fields and secret transmissions
describing the dangers of Borg, undetectable to Borg, yet somehow universal to
all in these sectors. They often moved from one decade to another, yet this
enemy was always Borg. Their evaluations of the Tholians and Founders had to be
thwarted. Once in a great while they encountered another Temporal vessel, their
first was Federation, and they compared notes, they were both on similar
missions. Finally they were in Tal Shiar territory discretely removing Borg
notification technologies, Gaardox was very excited by this process as they had
spent centuries doing so by way of other species’s use of Borg technology.
The Krynn vessel ‘Daj’Nej-QoT’VoM’ was a mirror-universe
temporal ship. In their own universe these Klingons were minions of the Iconian
Empire, an Empire that had grown to such power in the galaxy that the Borg were
not used to defend it, or assimilate it, this is what had been the undoing of
the Iconians in Gaardox’s universe. The Borg were a technological mistake that
had gone out of control, so much so that the fading Iconians in Gaardox
Mongdech’s universe had to rapidly cover their tracks or no trace of
non-Borgified sentience would exist in the Galaxy. Upon finishing the last of
the Romulan technological modifications they were forced to submit to a council
review of the mirror universe Klingons by the mirror universe Iconians. A
humiliating experience, these Klingons were no longer warriors in the eyes of
these Iconians, and judging by appearances and behavior these Iconians were
nothing like the Iconians from his universe. Yet in a strange way, the
complexities of their reasoning indicated an unusual facilitation towards
redundancy, one that was integrated into a political rhetoric which was as
difficult to follow as it seemed to be unrewarding for the mirror-universe
temporal Klingons. This paradox was further sustained by a casual acceptance
towards what imminently seemed to be any acclamation of Gaardox’s home dimension.
While this was all fascinating, Gaardox MongDech could not configure any
meaningful resemblance to this facilitation by the mirror-universe Iconians.
Eventually it passed and they again headed into Gaardox’s ‘paradox of
simplicity,’ as one mirror-universe Iconian had mentioned.
Back in his side of things this Temporal crew forged
ahead and they finalized towards secretly tweaking shipboard computers of any
breach of dimensional astro-physics that may have inadvertently been created by
the paradox by the completion of the end of Gaardox’s recent Klingon civil-war.
This was going to only take a few decades to complete, yet Gaardox was the
least familiar with this kind of enlistment, and the temporal compliance it
required. Mongdech exercised, ate, and dreamed much more than he ever had on
this part of the temporal mission. His wives were more familiar to him than
they had ever been, and the son-of Drex more often present with this dream
family and the daughter of Mongdech, which had only happened irregularly
before. Although he knew he and his wives wished that La’Tal would take this
relationship very seriously, La’Tal seemed to understand the flimsy
circumstances of this dream relationship and had simply decided to take it one
step at a time. This new integrated consideration of the dream reality made his
temporal duties more bearable. Although he always blushed when he looked first
at his daughter’s stomach and then her eyes, this was something that he had
previously in this dream series had only held for his wives when his daughter
was present, they had not been impregnated, he shouldn’t expect his grandchild
at this time either. It was sometimes difficult to hold onto realistic
consideration during such events. Time would pass.
Now much later in the view screen was the battleship
‘BaQ-MonG-DecH,’Gaardox, sighed heavily, “Please patch me through to my command
structure.” To great surprise to the Empire he took his meeting on bridge of
the ‘Daj’Nej-QoT-VoM.’ He had to explain all circumstances, the appearance of a
weird blood-wine ritual, a strange futuristic ship, his travels, and his
mission, ‘Q,’ he had to tell of ‘Q,’ and his plans, which he had more than
enough time to make considerations on. Factually also, although he kept it
brief, he by now knew all too well the designations and designs of his command
council, no decision was reached lightly. He would spend a year on Qo’Nos with
his family and then together they would join Gaardox as he commanded the Krynn
vessel, although Gaardox would never use it in a physical temporal sense again,
and when it was time for that, as it was agreed by the council meeting, during the
‘First Shift’ a now quite paradoxical and quixotic multi-present, multi-vector
meeting, Pagh Wejvam and his crew would leave this time and space and he would
take another year with his family until it was time once again for regular
space governance, by way of a regular House Fleet deployment, a Fleet of which
he was now Lord.
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