Chapter 17: Hide and Q — Part 1
[USS Enterprise-D — Bridge Auxiliary Station — 2364, Day 58]
Cole was running a bridge diagnostic when reality ended.
Not gradually—not the slow dissolution of the Traveler's weakening, the reality distortions that had crept through the Enterprise like fog. This was instantaneous. One heartbeat he was at the bridge auxiliary engineering station, cross-referencing EPS efficiency reports with La Forge's latest optimization proposal. The next, the bridge was gone. The ship was gone. Everything was gone—replaced by a flat, featureless plain under a burnt-orange sky that stretched in every direction without variation or landmark.
The senior staff stood around him. Picard, rigid with controlled fury. Riker, hand on his phaser. Worf, already scanning for threats. Tasha, crouched in a combat stance, weapon drawn. La Forge, Data, Troi—all present, all bewildered.
And Cole, who shouldn't have been there. The bridge auxiliary station was Engineering's remote monitoring point, used during standard operations when the chief engineer wanted real-time data without sending someone to the bridge. Cole's shift rotation had placed him there for a four-hour block. Wrong place. Wrong time.
Right entity.
Q materialized in the center of the group wearing the uniform of a Napoleonic marshal—blue coat with gold braid, bicorne hat, riding boots polished to mirror finish. The outfit was absurd. The being wearing it was not.
"Ladies and gentlemen!" Q spread his arms with theatrical grandeur. "Welcome to the newest test of humanity's questionable worth. Today's examination: temptation. Today's proctor: moi."
"Q." Picard's voice could have cut glass. "Return us to the Enterprise immediately."
"In due time, Jean-Luc. In due time." Q's gaze swept the group—dismissive, amused, the eye of a collector scanning items of marginal interest.
Then he found Cole.
The recognition was instant. Not the slow assessment of a being evaluating a stranger—the sharp, delighted focus of someone spotting an old acquaintance in an unexpected place. Q's smile widened by exactly the margin that separated theatrical from predatory.
"Ah. Our little anomaly. Still here. Still pretending." Q's voice carried to the group, but the words were aimed like weapons. "I had hoped you'd be more... developed by now. But then, crawling does come before walking, doesn't it?"
"Q." Picard stepped forward. "Whatever game you're—"
"Not now, Jean-Luc. The adults are talking." Q waved his hand. Picard's mouth continued moving but no sound emerged. The captain's expression shifted from anger to outrage.
Q appeared beside Cole—not walked, not moved, simply was beside him, close enough that Cole could smell ozone and something else, something that existed beyond the chemical spectrum. "You refused my help last time. The silent treatment. Rather rude."
"You probed my mind without permission. Rather rude yourself."
Q laughed. Genuine, delighted, the sound of a being who found resistance charming in the way a cat found mice charming. "Fair point. But tell me—" he leaned close "—haven't you wondered? What you could be, if someone just flipped the switch? All those abilities, straining against their limits like a butterfly in a cocoon. I could tear the cocoon open. Right now."
Cole's energy perception was screaming. Q's proximity was overwhelming—the same crushing weight he'd experienced at Farpoint, the sense of standing next to a bonfire while holding a match. But this time, with weeks of training and the Traveler's teaching integrated, he could hold his ground. His perception didn't white out. His knees didn't buckle.
He ached. Every nerve, every synapse, every quantum of his developing abilities strained under Q's attention like a structure bearing more weight than it was designed for. But he held.
"No deals." Cole's voice was steady. Barely. "I'll get there on my own."
"Will you, though? At your current rate, you'll be barely competent by the time the—" Q stopped. Smiled. "Well. Spoilers."
He snapped his fingers and vanished. Picard's voice returned mid-sentence. The plain remained.
By the time the what? What was he going to say?
No time to process. The ground was shaking. Shapes materialized on the horizon—hunched, fast, wrong. Animal-things with too many limbs, running in formation like soldiers executing a flanking maneuver. Dozens of them, converging on the group from three directions.
"Defensive positions!" Tasha barked, dropping to one knee, phaser braced on her forearm. The Security Chief's training overrode confusion—she didn't need to understand the situation to respond to a threat.
Worf drew his phaser and roared something in Klingon. Riker positioned himself beside Picard. Data began calculating trajectories.
Cole moved before thinking. His enhanced reflexes put him at the perimeter's weakest point—the gap between Tasha's firing lane and Worf's position—before his conscious mind registered the decision. His hand found his phaser.
The first wave hit.
The creatures were fast and coordinated. They charged in pairs—one drawing fire, one flanking. Tasha dropped the first with a precision shot that left a smoking crater where its center mass had been. Worf took two more with sweeping arcs that carved through the orange air. Data fired with mechanical precision.
Cole's phaser found targets his body chose before his mind confirmed. Enhanced reflexes and perception turned the chaotic melee into something almost manageable—he could track individual creatures, predict their approach vectors, fire at points where they would be rather than where they were. Two dropped. Three. His shots weren't as precise as Tasha's or as efficient as Data's, but they were faster than either.
A creature broke through the line between Worf's position and Riker's. It lunged at Tasha from behind—her blind spot, obscured by the smoke of her own phaser fire. Cole saw it. Moved. Put himself between the creature and Tasha's back, firing at point-blank range.
The phaser discharge caught the thing in the throat. It collapsed in a heap of limbs and bristle. Its momentum carried it into Cole's legs, knocking him sideways. He rolled, came up, fired again at a second creature that was already dead—Worf's shot had caught it mid-leap.
Silence. The plain was empty. The creatures were gone—dissolved, vanished, as if they'd never existed. Q's game, concluded for the moment.
Tasha turned. Her phaser was still raised, her breathing controlled, her eyes tracking the empty horizon for threats that weren't coming. She looked at Cole—sprawled on the ground, uniform dusty, phaser in a white-knuckled grip.
"You're faster than you should be." Not a question. An observation, delivered with the clinical precision of a woman who'd spent her life evaluating combatants.
"Adrenaline." Cole got to his feet. Brushed the dust off his uniform. His left knee ached where the creature's body had struck it—bruise, not injury, the enhanced healing already managing the inflammation.
Tasha's gaze lingered. She'd seen him move—seen the speed, the reflexes, the combat instincts that exceeded anything his service record could explain. The Security Chief filed the observation behind eyes that gave away nothing.
The plain shifted. Q reappeared, this time wearing the robes of a Renaissance prince. His attention was on Riker now—the real test, the temptation that the outline required. Q offered Riker powers. Riker declined. Q insisted. The philosophical battle between the omnipotent and the principled played out while Cole stood at the perimeter and breathed through the ache of standing too close to a god.
Q's voice cut through the debate. "Consider it a gift, Riker. The power of the Q—a taste, nothing more. What harm could it do?"
Riker's jaw set. Picard's expression was a masterclass in diplomatic fury.
And Q—between one sentence and the next, invisible to everyone else—appeared at Cole's shoulder. A whisper meant for one ear only: "See you soon, Lieutenant Nobody."
Then they were back on the Enterprise. Bridge stations intact. Diagnostics running. As if nothing had happened.
Cole stood at the auxiliary station and stared at his console. His hands trembled. The phaser at his hip was warm from recent discharge—a physical reminder that whatever Q had created, the threat had been real enough to fight.
Lieutenant Nobody. He knows my rank. He knows I'm nobody—a junior officer with no reputation, no standing, no importance to anyone who matters. And he's tracking me anyway.
The bridge resumed normal operations. Picard ordered a senior staff briefing. Cole returned to Engineering, where Argyle was waiting with questions about the power fluctuations the bridge had experienced during Q's visit.
Cole answered them on autopilot. His mind was three levels deeper, turning over Q's words like stones:
By the time the—
By the time the what?
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