The One
Posted on Fri Mar 28, 2025 @ 9:27pm by Fleet Captain Rhea Kennit & Lieutenant Commander Miguel Torres & Lieutenant Commander Zachary Addams & Lieutenant Penelope Naroot & Lieutenant JG Aergad Halvor & Lieutenant JG Shuuri & Lieutenant JG Ardal King & Commander Cullen Walker
4,916 words; about a 25 minute read
Mission:
A Lost Endeavour
Timeline: Q
USS Victory – Bridge
Two days had passed since the last contact with the Klingon warships. During this time, while closely monitoring the sensors for any indication that a cloaked hostile vessel was close by, the science team had been hard at work running a series of analysis scans on the wormhole breach from the alternate dimension to their own. The readings were odd, the wormhole itself did not emit any type of radiation or particles whatsoever unlike other wormholes which had been studied. The only indicator of it’s presence came as it began to open, energy readings spiking rapidly preceding the opening of the wormhole though, to the best of their ability to scan, no ships had crossed over in the most recent active phase.
The Endeavour had been repaired after the battle, as well as Victory. Both ships were currently holding position together to monitor the wormhole while awaiting a reply from Starfleet Command regarding their discovery of the dimensional wormhole and the incursion into their universe by Klingon warships.
The fact that the no response had yet been received was not quite bothering the Captain yet, after all they were just about as far from Starfleet Command as they could be and still technically be considered to be within known space. But, she was starting to feel that nagging little tingle of warning which hinted at the very real possibility that she would not like the response when it finally was received.
The sensor readings from the wormhole bothered her. She just couldn’t put her finger on exactly why the readings bothered her. They were missing something…
Her stomach grumbled then, biology indicating that one of those missing ‘somethings’ had been lunch.
The thought of a replicated anything was just not at all what Captain Kennit was in the mood for. Today was a day for the real thing. Using the console, Rhea sent a request down to the officer’s mess. She wanted a grilled ham & cheese on sourdough, with a side of lightly salted potato chips and some ranch dip for the chips. And the crispiest dill pickle they had in stores. And sweet iced tea and lemonade.
Preferably sooner rather than later. Now that she’d gotten her mind on food, she was hungry, so much so that she felt briefly light-headed though the sensation passed after just an instant.
Fortunately, a steward from the officer’s mess arrived on the bridge a short time later with the captain’s late lunch. She wasted no time settling down in the Ready Room with her lunch, eating as she reviewed the sensor data yet again, that nagging little sense of something being wrong pushing at her nerves. The sandwich was delicious, and she was feeling better in short order as she got some food into her system.
The Captain was closely watching a sensor scan comparison of the first readings taken on the wormhole opening, compared against the most recent, searching for anything that looked different when she was startled out of her internal focus by the sound of the intruder alert klaxon accompanied by an alarmed call over the comm from the Bridge just outside her Ready Room. “Captain to the Bridge!”
Rising to her feet, Kennit exited her Ready Room and burst onto the Bridge with a phaser retrieved from her Ready Room weapons safe fully expecting to see a Klingon or three standing on her Bridge.
Instead, her gaze locked on the intruder and..
::What the hell ..:: the thought came in a flash of rising anger and confusion as her gaze took in the intruder on her bridge. She nearly shot him despite the fact that the humanoid appearing male was dressed in what looked like a 200 year old variation of a Starfleet uniform, something Christopher Pike might have worn.
“Who the hell are you and how did you get on my Bridge?” Kennit demanded, her voice leaving no doubt regarding her current thoughts.
Hearing her voice, their guest turned with a broad sweeping motion as he said “Admiral Kennit! So good to hear your lovely voice.. I apologize for my unannounced arrival on the the Bridge but you were eating lunch and to be honest, the smell of pickles just makes me gag and…” he paused. “You’re a Captain.. oh FUCK ME that means it happened again!”
“You have approximately 5 seconds to answer my question and then I will shoot you..” Kennit said, her voice spine chillingly calm.
“Oh please..” with a wave of his hand their guest said “Put that thing away before you hurt yourself. Here, I’ll handle the safety issues here..” He snapped his fingers and the weapons simply vanished in a flash of light. “Isn’t it obvious?” he declared with another sweeping bow from his waist toward her. “I am here on business from the Q Continuum! Your small mortal mind cannot comprehend the true glory of my name, you may simply refer to me as Q!”
“I don’t think so. You are not the Q who is known to Starfleet, nor his wife.” She answered, idly wondering what would happen if she punched this obnoxious omnipotent pain in the ass squarely in the nose.
“He’s busy.. I’m here.” Came the answer. “Don’t you want to know why.. CAPTAIN”
Her eyes narrowed, though she waved off the security team who had just arrived with a hand signal which indicated they should stand down, but remain ready and alert. “You called me ‘Admiral Kennit’.. I take it you expected otherwise?”
“Indeed.” Q answered in a somewhat morose voice. “That means there’s been another temporal wave, another change in the timeline. Tell me Captain, did you feel disoriented in the past hour? A wave of nausea, or perhaps dizzy?”
“Why..” Kennit asked. “Why are you here?”
“Because.. the entire galaxy, this reality in fact.. is in danger.”
“I see why Admiral Picard spoke so ‘highly’ of Q..” Kennit muttered.
“I am here Captain, because you are unique. The Borg implants in your body are those of a Queen, which means you can sense temporal changes, even though you may not realize that is what you are feeling because you are not an active Queen, your implants have been modified by Starfleet meddling but you still feel it. You did feel it didn’t you.. its there on your face.” Q stated. “Tell me Captain.. are you familiar with the barrier at the center of the Galaxy?”
“Is there a point to this?” Kennit snapped.
“That wormhole over there which you and your crew are so closely watching, it isn’t a wormhole. It’s a weakness in the fabric of existence. A side effect of the temporal changes taking place in this reality, both in this present, as well as the past and the future.”
Kennit could feel the headache ramping up hard and furious behind her eyes. “What?”
“Time for a history lesson,” Q said. “In 2287, the USS Enterprise-A under the command of Captain James Kirk was hijacked by a Vulcan named Sybok (incidentally the full Vulcan brother of the half-Vulcan Spock) and taken to the Great Barrier at the center of your galaxy, where it encountered a malevolent, non-corporal being who calling himself ‘The One’. Sybok, being a lesser being, was easily fooled by The One into believing he was being contacted by God himself, and that they were traveling to the Vulcan mythological "heaven" called Sha Ka Ree. The One hoped that by luring Sybok and the Enterprise through the Great Barrier, he could at last break free of his prison. A prison, incidentally, created by the Q Continuum intended to protect this galaxy and this reality from his malevolent attacks against lesser mortal beings such as yourselves millennia ago. Ultimately realizing his mistake, Sybok sacrificed his own life by thrusting himself onto The One, distracting him so that the Enterprise and crew could escape. Kirk ordered a photon torpedo to be fired at The One, killing Sybok in the process but not the entity, who was only incapacitated for a few moments. It is almost inconceivable that Kirk and his crew managed to escape, likely only because The One has grown quite insane as a result of the millennia spent imprisoned, and still weakened by the Q's intervention.”
He paused, letting what he said sink in, then continued. “The One was exiled to the center of the galaxy for helping to instigate a civil war caused by the premature destruction of the legendary T'kon Empire two hundred-thousand years ago. He was an associate and contemporary of 0 (pronounced "Nil", as in nothing), the Beta XII-A entity, or (*) as 0 referred to it (used in type because its real name was apparently unpronounceable, or even incomprehensible, by Humans), and Gorgan in this endeavor. The One was referred to by 0 as the entity "who invented Monotheism." He was not originally of this plane and was summoned to this universe via the Guardian of Forever. After causing chaos among the Tkon Empire, he was subsequently defeated and his body destroyed by the combined efforts of Q, Q, Q, and of course, Q. In the end, only his head remained, and that was subsequently sealed away by the Q Continuum at the center of the galaxy until his repentance or the heat death of the universe – whichever came first – while 0 was sealed outside the galaxy by the galactic barrier for all eternity.”
Penny was taking all this information in from the helm and her blue eyes were wide with shock. She hadn't encountered the Q before, but she'd heard all the stories. She began another set of scans from the helm. If this was a temporal rift, it meant most of what they'd been assuming had been completely wrong.
“Somehow, The One has found a means of tampering with time while still trapped within the prison at the center of the galaxy. The One is trying to alter time, hoping to free himself from his prison and if we can’t find out when and where these temporal shifts are being generated it is possible that not only will this galaxy be destroyed, this entire reality will cease to exist!”
Kennit stared at him, looked about her crew for a moment and then said “Bullshit”.
Walker was sitting there, spinning a knife. It calmed him. "As someone that isn't a monotheist, acknowledging the possibility that my Gods were super advanced aliens, maybe even a Q, and has made a career running headlong into stupid. I want to hear you out."
The Engineer on deck, started out as a Bajoran. He shot at Q. There was another temporal wave and there stood a Lt Manaan Triton, a blue skin Atlantean, one that a different Q had brought to this time period and was supposed to be on another ship. "I thought I was done with Q's bullshit. Oooh. A Cyborg Captain. Awesome." Then another wave and a Vulcan Engineer stood there.
Walker looked back, "What the holy fuck, man?"
King was at the Science Station and had been running updates, "I would surmise that in the Presence of Q, we can see certain elements of temporal shifts as they happen."
"More like Q is tinkering with our reality." Kennit answered in a cold tone of voice. "You aren't fooling me. Even with the Borg implants in my body severed from the Collective and some removed, I would sense that. If it was truly a temporal rift causing it. The issue here seems to me, to be you." she said, eyes locked on Q's face.
"Unless we're dealing with a shrinking ruler scenario," Penny said.
"Your implants are impaired by the meddling of your Starfleet medical personnel." the Q responded. "You've been cut open, cut up, bits and pieces removed here and there. You're like a puzzle with missing pieces, most of the picture is there but a few spots are just .. incomplete." He made a show of looking her up and down, even going so far as to wave a hand over her body with a shimmering light that seemed to come from his palm, some form of scan perhaps..
"However." he said in a very smug, knowing voice. "I can fix that." he said. "With a few, slight adjustments to make certain you don't go all...'Borgy' on us."
With a dramatic flick of his wrist, Q snapped his fingers and what Rhea felt was...indescribable; it was like lightning, searing along her nerves with no pain, just a surge of energy and strength so intense it was all consuming.
She could feel it. A wrongness she could sense now, her unique El-Aurian heritage even though she was only half El-Aurian strengthened now by the additional abilities provided by the technology in her body. Rhea didn't say a word, but the look she gave to the Q spoke for her.
"What is it that you want us to do about the temporal rift?" Kennit asked. "The source is so..distant. It isn't happening even remotely close to this current time. You're supposed to be an all-mighty, omnipotent Q. You fix it."
"Captain," Penny said. "If what Q is saying is correct, then we have one of two situations: Either The One is controlling this from the center of the Galaxy, in which case, we should travel there, or he's engaged another proxy to do his dirty work. Someone who is, presumably, telepathic, and a skilled-enough scientist to develop temporal technology that can have these side effects." She looked at Q then back at the Captain. "So if he's here, talking to us....that proxy must be nearby."
A temporal wave hit and King's Ancestors changed. He suddenly had white fur. "That didn't feel pleasurable." It felt like some of his DNA burned and was forcibly replaced with another. He hit the floor with a thud.
“Or,” the Captain answered slowly, “He is here because he knows Starfleet’s Section 31 has made a regular habit of playing with temporal streams and.. editing timelines with little nudges, here and there. All while denying vehemently that they were sending their agents out with specific, very detailed orders on just what to do, and when.”
Q blinked. His expression the very definition of innocence. “I detect a hint of accusatory sarcasm in your voice Captain. Shame shame..” he said, pointedly fixing her with a very knowing stare.
She stepped toward him, “I have not worked as an active agent within Section 31, in any capacity in quite some time.”
“We’ll.. not in certain capacities at any rate.” Q retorted. “There was that unfortunate incident with that diplomat ..”
“You are worse than they are.” Rhea said in a low, seething tone of voice. “They play their games and manipulate planetary alliances and actions all to suit their own plans and do it all in the name of making a ‘better galaxy’. Why are you here? Why have done this..” she hissed, clearly meaning his actions in activating the Borg components in her body. “You show up and claim you’re here needing help. Yet you have omnipotent powers by your own descriptions and claims, you can do this to me, you can snap my ship and my crew to whenever wherever you want and yet you stand here on my bridge speaking riddles and claim we must somehow make sense of your inane statements and take action you refuse to elaborate on in order to .. and I quote.. “Save the galaxy”. Closing to within a few feet of Q, she fixed him with a hard, furious stare as she said “Here’s my answer. Since you won’t tell me the truth.. fuck you. Erase me. Threaten me. I don’t care. I am tired of being used as a puppet. And I won’t dance to your strings..”
Clearly frustrated, Q snapped back “My god you mortal creatures can not truly be this slow minded can you?” He pointed toward the view screen, where the sensor display showed the location of the dimensional rift. “That..is not a natural breech point. That.. is a deliberate rending of reality, tearing into both this universe and that other. Caused by the eternal, relentless assault by The One in his efforts to escape the prison he was sentenced to! It should not be there! The full might of the Continuum was brought together to relate his prison and he should never have been able to cause enough damage to open that tear and yet..there it is! That means he has somehow gained access outside of his prison. There are tears in this time, as well as in the past and into the future. The One is tearing at reality and he does not care what damage he causes in his desperate bid to escape!”
Waving a hand at the ship, its crew and all around them Q said “I am here to enlist your aid to find where..and when..his accomplice has hidden. If The One escapes, this entire universe will ultimately cease to exist!
LOCATION: USS Endeavour
The bridge of the Endeavour hummed with a nervous energy. Torres, temporarily in command, stood at the helm, his brow furrowed as he monitored the ship's systems. The temporal distortions caused by Q's presence on the Victory were wreaking havoc on the Endeavour, throwing sections of the ship into different time periods and even alternate realities.
"Report!" Torres barked, his voice echoing across the bridge.
"Engineering to Bridge," a panicked voice crackled over the comm. "We've got a temporal anomaly in the warp core! It's fluctuating wildly, and we can't stabilize it!"
Torres felt a surge of adrenaline. "Isolate the warp core and reroute auxiliary power. I'm on my way!"
As he raced towards Engineering, reports of other anomalies flooded the bridge.
"Sickbay to Bridge!" Ensign MacKenzie said, sounding panicked. "We've got patients materializing out of thin air! Some of them are suffering from diseases we haven't seen in centuries! And I can't find Doctor Addams!"
"Security to Bridge! We've got...we've got dinosaurs running loose on Deck 10!"
Torres gritted his teeth. This was beyond anything he had ever encountered. But he was in command, and he wouldn't let the Endeavour fall apart on his watch.
"Activate emergency force fields on all decks!" he ordered. "Seal off affected areas and contain the anomalies!"
He reached Engineering and found the warp core glowing with an eerie, pulsating light. The engineers were frantically trying to contain the anomaly, but it was spreading rapidly.
"We need to vent plasma conduits!" Torres shouted over the din. "Prepare emergency shutdown procedures!"
He worked alongside his team, his hands flying across the control panels. Sweat beaded on his forehead as he wrestled with the unstable warp core. Just as they managed to stabilize the energy fluctuations, a new anomaly erupted. A shimmering portal opened in the middle of the deck, and a creature of pure energy emerged, its form shifting and swirling.
Torres, never one to back down from a challenge, raised his phaser. "Identify yourself!"
The energy creature pulsed with light. "We mean you no harm," it said in a soothing voice. "We are travelers, lost in the currents of time."
Torres lowered his weapon, his curiosity piqued. "Lost? How did you get here?"
The creature shimmered. "The temporal distortions have opened pathways between realities. We seek a way back to our own time."
Torres, ever the engineer, saw an opportunity. "Perhaps we can help each other," he said. "We need to stabilize these temporal anomalies. Maybe you have the knowledge we need."
The energy creature pulsed with agreement. "We will share what we know."
And so, amidst the chaos and confusion, an unlikely alliance was formed. Torres, the resourceful engineer turned acting captain, found himself working alongside a creature from beyond time, all while battling the unpredictable forces unleashed by Q. The fate of the Endeavour, and perhaps even reality itself, hung in the balance.
Shuuri had just got an espresso and was about to have food when she was alerted about all hands needed in engineering , she drank her coffee and leaving the food ran for the quickest way to get to the engine room. She had mostly kept her head down ever since joining the crew, working hard and taking the more unpopular jobs in the bowels of the ship.
Ensign Sarah Mackenzie was beside herself. The two other nurses and medtechs working with her were scrambling as crewmen were zapping in and out of Sickbay. Doctor Addams had gone to answer a call to Sickbay and hadn't come back, and Sarah was getting more scared by the moment.
The doors opened and an angry, female voice was shouting above the din. "I don't care who they are or what they have wrong with them, get them on a biobed! We are not letting a plague loose on this ship! I've dealt with that shit enough already!"
Sarah looked up and frowned, seeing a brunette Lieutenant Commander marching in, giving orders to the two orderlies with her.
The woman looked at her and frowned. "Whoever the hell you are, get over here!" she shouted. "Do you know where Maggie has gone?"
"I...who?" Sarah said. "I don't know who that is?"
The woman grumbled. "Fine. We need to get anyone contagious into a quarantine zone and clear out the air in here, then we need to get prepped for surgery. Figures my head nurse disappears during this crisis. Why should it go easy?"
"I'm sorry...who are you?" Sarah said.
The woman glared at her, her eyes flashing red. "I'm your CO, now MOVE!" she barked.
Sarah jumped and rushed off.
Commander Anderson blew a lock of hair out of her face and tapped her combadge. "Anderson to Victory: Captain, we've got a situation over here. We may have to quarantine this ship if medical anomalies get any worse."
On the bridge, Captain Kennith’s expression ran through a swift range of emotions in an instant. Confusion, disbelief, surprise..
After a moment she responded, somewhat unprofessionally, “Nicole? What are you doing here?”
"A miraculous job, as always," Nicole snarked. "However, that's a bit difficult when half my staff suddenly vanishes or is replaced and we're getting people suddenly developing extinct diseases. Maggie's gone and I've no idea who half my people are. What the hell is going on?"
"Q." Kennit answered simply. "We've had a visit from the Continuum.. and it seems Q has created an even bigger mess than I thought. Is Doctor Addams there?" she asked.
"No idea who that is," Nicole said. "Doctor Meldor is here, and I see nurse Phillips, but most others are changed and--" there was a brief shout of surprise, then murmuring. "Correction....Phillips was here. Now I'm seeing Cannivali. On the bright side, no one's dying of scurvy and plague anymore, somehow. So there's that."
"Scurvy and ..?" the Captain stopped. Shaking her head she said, "I wonder if Torres is having the same issues.."
"Torres is probably in Engineering. I'm heading to the bridge. I don't need some sodding ensign flying us straight into the damn End of Times."
"I hope he isn't in Engineering," Kennit retorted. "The last time I spoke to him he was aboard the Endeavour keeping her in formation with us trying to bring her back with us. And why are you heading to the Bridge?"
"Well, if you didn't want me taking charge more often you shouldn't have promoted me," Nicole said, smirking to herself. "Anderson out." She looked back at the blonde nurse near her. "You, with me," she said, gesturing to the door as she walked out quickly, Sarah scrambling to catch up.
They walked down the corridor to a turbolift and when the doors opened, stepped inside quickly. "Bridge," Nicole said. "Remind me never to volunteer for anything ever again," she groused.
"You and me both," Sarah said, looking straight ahead, afraid to look over. "If I hadn't volunteered to put in for assignment last, I might not have wound up in this situation. She felt a hand reach out and take hers, and turned in surprise, seeing Doctor Addams smiling at her.
"Well, that may be, but then we wouldn't be here, would we?" he said. He stumbled back into the lift wall as Sarah threw her arms around him, hugging him tight. "Okay..hugging...didn't think I was that smooth with that line, but I'll take it," he said, chuckling and hugging her back.
"You...you vanished," she said, trembling. "This is really scaring me."
"It's scaring you?" he said. "I'm the one who vanished. One second I'm in Sickbay, one second I'm here with you." He shivered and hugged her tightly. "Where are we going, by the way?"
The turbolift opened to the bridge and they quickly pulled apart as the crewmen looked their way. Zach cleared his throat and smoothed his uniform, stepping onto the bridge and trying to look authoritative as he walked down to the Captain's chair. "Thank you, Lieutenant, I'll take over for now," he said.
::Bridge::
Exasperated, Q made the discussion moot. “There is no time for this!” he said in a low, urgent voice. “We have to move...now!”
Hearing him, Captain Kennit turned as she echoed “Go? Go where? You aren’t making sense!”
“Not just where my dear Captain” Q replied. “When..”
Q stood there a moment, head cocked to one side, listening to a voice only he could hear. Then, he snapped his fingers.
Aboard both the Endeavour and the Victory, it seemed as thought both ships and their crews were stretched, stretched and strained, pulled to the point of breaking..
And then the entire universe around them seemed to simply..stop.
Terrible cold, utter emptiness, no light no sound.. nothing.
And then, everything snapped back in on itself with enough force it was pain. The rush of blood through veins, hearts beating frantically, lungs pulling in air cold and aching.. the sounds of the ship around them a thundering roar of sound.
And then gone. Normalcy returned, and Q was gone.
The Captain staggered, almost falling as she turned and looked across the bridge. “Q! Q you miserable coward come back!”
Only the sound of the ships systems answered. “What just happened..” she said. “What did he do to us.. get me a sensor sweep on screen.”
The view screen appeared to show they wet still in the same location, though several anomalies were noted on screen. Positions of the stars were different, there was no sign of the wormhole. And on the comms, utter silence. No beacons detected, no other ships on sensors. Just silence.
LOCATION: USS Endeavour, engine room
The Endeavour, now a vessel adrift in a sea of temporal anomalies, was a sight to behold. Sections of the ship were frozen in time, others were bathed in an eerie, otherworldly glow. The crew, led by the resourceful Torres, navigated this bizarre landscape with a mix of caution and determination. When finally he had stabilized the warp core he quickly activated the warp core's shield in order to keep it from being damaged again. At least damaged without being in combat. He turned to thank the energy being that was helping him only to notice that the being wasn't there any longer.
That wasn't the only change, he noticed that Lieutenant j.g Shuuri. She was a female Caitian that had recently been transfered to the Victory-A. Which was the ship that she was supposed to be on right now since she wasn't part of the repair team he had brought to the Endeavour with him. "Lieutenant... why aren't you on the Victory?"
Shuri had arrived at the engine room but it smelled slightly different and it didn't sound right, her ears flicked back and forward. She gave a very caitain look of surprise and said " I can't explain this, before what ever just happened " she said " I was on the victory " she paused " Permission to come aboard sir" she said belatedly. Internally she went from oh crap I'm on the Endeavour to wanting to get her claws into Q as know she was separated from her feline companion "horatio" an elegant long haired cat of mixed breeding who found her in her last year at Academy, as a tiny kitten.
Torres looked at the master situation display on the control table in front of him. From what he was seeing the ship had been stabilized and nor longer fractured. When he switched to the outer sensors however what he saw was anything but normal. He activated the com. "Bridge, this is Torres put me through to the Victory."
The comm panel crackled to life. "Bridge here, sir. Channel now open." a crisp voice responded.
"Victory this acting Captain Torres have you been having anything strange going on over there?" he asked as an image of the Victory's bridge came to life on a nearby viewer.
Shuuri was looking at the view screens trying to see the victory, she hadn't even had a chance to know if her feline companion was ok. She would wait and when she was acknowledged she would say her bit. Mostly she had no idea how this happened and she didn't intend to be awol. Or to abandon ship.
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