Star Traks: Banshee

"What a Q-Tee"

By Brad Dusen


	"Die you FREAK!"  Vince lunged forward, thrusting a saber towards
a hideously malformed creature.  The blubbery animal darted out of the
way and landed on a rock edifice nearby.
	Vince panted, drawing up his strength, he hurled himself forward
as the purple and green animal began its horrid battle cry.
	"I love you, you love me, we're a happy family."
	"Eat steel!"  Vince screamed, and with one quick twist of the
blade, sliced the head of Barney off.  It landed on the rocks
nearby.
	"Computer, remove the corpse."  Vince gasped, his body aching
with exhaustion but his mind aching with a sick sort of pleasure
as he watched the holographic children's character vanish.
	"Send in Baby Bop."  Vince said, raising the saber.
	A large, green animal danced in as Vince came charging at her.
"AAAIIIIIYYYY!!!"  She screamed.
	The holographic rock fell out from underneath Vince's feet,
sending him crashing to the actual holodeck floor.
	Vince stood up.  "Computer, freeze program."
	Everything went still.  "Is there anything wrong with the holo-
emitters?"
	"Negative."  The computer said.
	Vince looked around.  He'd satisfied himself for now.  He'd
come back tomorrow to take on the Teletubbies.
	"Computer, end simulation."  Vince set the holographic saber
down.  It, and the rest of the room, faded into a brightly lit room
with a series of vertical poles housing holoemitters on each wall.
Vince walked out.

	"Captain's log, stardate 52331.6:  The Banshee is charting the
area of space around the Pac-Man Nebula, a particularly boring task
that our superiors say is perfect for the Banshee, given that we've
had a bad streak with people around us dying lately.  The only 
interesting thing is that the nebula is extremely hazardous to any
vessels; it can dissolve our hull if we entered.  Either way,
the crew remains on alert, seeing as though we have this thing where
no seemingly normal mission can possibly be relaxing.  I am beginning
to wonder just what could happen, since we've already encountered
ghosts, Dominion armadas and love-sick Vorans.  Perhaps I shouldn't
ask and tempt fate.  For all we know, the Pac-Man Nebula might try
to eat us.  That would certainly make the mission seem more 
interesting!"

	Captain Vorezze ended his log entry and leaned back in his
ready room chair.  He closed his eyes and sighed.
	SNAP!
	Vorezze hurtled backwards as the chair supports snapped, sending
him crashing into the padded wall of his ready room.  He missed the
support strut by a centimeter.
	He stood up and shook off.  "Commander Riley, report to my
ready room."
	"On my way, Captain."

	A few minutes later, Dave walked into the ready room and looked
down at the broken chair.  "What happened?"  He asked.
	"I was hoping you could tell me."  Jad said.
	"I'm an engineer, not a furniture, er, uh, person!"  Dave shouted.
"It was probably just your weight."
	"Commander, these chairs are designed to seat a person up to seven
hundred kilograms, I don't think it was me."
	Dave shrugged.  "Maybe we have another ghost."
	"Goody."  Jad moaned.
	There was a child's giggling voice as the painting of the Banshee
flying through the starfleet logo fell off the wall.
	"What the..?"
	More laughter as Vorezze's goldfish, Harrison- it lookes vaguely
like Harrison Ford- came flying through the glass of his tank and into
Dave's forehead.
	"Oh are you all right?"  Jad bent down, "You poor thing!"  He
picked up Harrison and set him back in the tank.  It was then that
he noticed that there was no hole in the glass.
	"Come back here!"  A voice said.  Vorezze knew this voice; he
was trained to recognize it in a special course all captains had to
take.
	"Q!"  Vorezze said.
	A figure flashed into the room, wearing a regular gray shouldered,
red turtle-necked Starfleet uniform.
	"Oh how sad, I saw it was a Sovereign-Class and hoped for Picard."
Q smiled, looking around.  "But this ship will do nonetheless."  He
glanced at Vorezze.  "Oh, it would appear that I'm out of dress."
He snapped his fingers and appeared again in a black leather shouldered
black turtle-necked Section Thirty-One uniform.
	"What do you want?"  Vorezze asked.
	"Well I was lonely, you see."  Q said.  "Picard refuses to talk to
me, Sisko I won't go near after that bar fight and Janeway, that fox,
is too busy 'getting her crew home' to talk to me."  Q pouted.
	"And you just had to torment us?"
	"Well I decided that I would play with my son, but now he's seemed
to have gotten loose and is terrorizing the galaxy as we speak.  He's
in the terrible twos, you know."
	"I'd love to help you with finding your son, but I've got to 
continue charting the Pac-Man nebula."  Vorezze started to walk out.
	"Oh, so you're going leave me too, still on your quest to be just
like Jean-Luc."  Q smiled.  Vorezze's head flashed.  The captain turned,
bald and having a big nose.  "Look, Q, we have to complete this mapping
jop on shh-edule."  He paused.  He just said schedule like Picard.
Jad turned to a mirror, squinting as the light reflected off his head.
"This isn't funny, Q!"  Vorezze turned.
	"I thought so."  Q smiled.  "But of course you don't make a very
good Picard."  He paused then smiled.  Snapping his fingers again, Vorezze
suddenly sprouted breasts, go a pretty good figure and had long hair tied
in a bun on top of his head.
	"No you've gone too far!"  Vorezze said, his voice five tones higher
than it should be.
	"Yeah, you're right."  Q responded.  "You'd make a better Captain
Hickson, the drag queen, than Janeway."  Q snapped and Vorezze was back
to normal.
	"What would it take for you to leave us alone?"  Vorezze asked.
	"Don't you like me, Captain?"
	"Not really."
	"I'll just have to find someone else to play with then."  Q looked
over to Dave, who had been sitting quietly all this time.  With a
simple nod, Dave was reduced to a Chihuahua who proceeded to start yipping
incessantly.
	"I think that was an improvement, don't you?"  Q asked.
	Vorezze turned to Q in rage.
	"Perhaps not."  Q flashed away, leaving Dave as a Chihuahua.
	The captain turned back to his yelping chief engineer.  "Don't
do that on the carpet!"  He screamed, then groaned.  "Cleanup crew to
the captain's ready room.  Bring the wet-dry vac."

	"Captain's log, supplemental:  The moment most captains fear has
arrived for me.  No, not an attack by the Borg, but a visit by Q.
Q has also informed us that he is not alone on the Banshee, but his son
is somewhere nearby as well."

	"This could be the worst threat to hit the Banshee since the
Voran crisis."  Vorezze said as he sat down in the observation
lounge.
	"It's the ONLY threat to hit the Banshee since the Voran crisis."
Charlotte said.
	"True."  Vorezze nodded.
	"Yip yip yip yip yip!"  Dave jumped up on the table.
	"Down boy."  Liz set Dave back down in his chair.
	Dave jumped up and started licking Liz's face.
	"Hey!"  Liz tossed Dave back down.  "That wasn't funny, I know
why you did that."
	Dave looked like he was laughing, as much as he could laugh.
	"Q, come back here."  Vorezze called out.
	There was a flash and Q appeared in the end chair of the 
observation lounge.
	"Oooh, this is much nicer than the Enterprise-D's."  Q looked 
around.  He began feeling the chair.  "Is this leather?"
	Vorezze groaned.  "Yes, genuine Bolian leather.  Now, will you
turn Commander Riley back?"
	"I guess."  Q said grudgingly.
	Dave was engulfed in a flash and reappeared in his normal size,
minus the uniform, he only had a dog collar on.
	"Ewww!"  Liz backed away from the naked Commander.
	"Vince, stop drooling!"  Ben called out.
	"Hey!"  Vince turned as Ben started laughing.
	"With clothing."  Vorezze looked at Q.
	Q snapped again and Dave's uniform appeared.
	"Thank you."  Dave said.  "You have no idea just how drafty this
room is."
	"Well I'll be seeing that image in my dreams from now on."  Vince
shuddered.
	"I'll bet."  Ben glared at Vince.
	"Q, what is it that you want?"  The captain asked.
	"I need to find my son."  Q explained.  "He knows how to make
stars go nova, he just doesn't know enough not to do it and I hate
to have to rebuild an entire civilization.  It's so painstaking."
	"Poor you."  Emily moaned.
	There was a giggling echoing through the observation lounge.
"Son, come back here!"  Q stood up and shouted.
	Q's son started laughing as Q became engulfed in a flash of
light.  "Now son, that's not funny!"  Q shouted.  "Give daddy his
powers back!"
	Nothing.
	"Damn!"  Q pounded the conference table.  "I hate it when he
does that!"
	"You taught your son how to take away your powers?"  Brian
asked.  "How stupid is that?"
	"If I had my powers, I would turn you into the monkey you are
to show you stupid!"  Q glared.  "And when I get them back I still
might, you short, insignificant speck in the universe."
	"Uh oh."  The others said, backing away from the conference
table.
	"Short?"  Brian asked, standing up and facing Q in the belly
button.  "You think I'm short?"
	Q raised his fist.  "Gotta problem with that?"
	Brian quickly backed off.  "No..."
	Q looked around.  "We have to find him!  There's no telling
what kind of damage he could do to an alien society,"  he then
added, "not like I care about them or anything."
	"Bridge to observation lounge."  Lieutenant Rayhan said over
the comm.  "We're detecting abnormalities in the Pac-Man Nebula.
It appears to be on a course to eat us."
	"Now son, that isn't funny."  Q said.
	"On our way."  Vorezze said.  "Dan, escort the fallen god
to the bridge."

	Munch munch munch munch...  The Pac-Man Nebula drew closer
to the Banshee.
	"Helm, set a course away from the nebula, maximum warp."
Vorezze said as he sat down in his chair.
	"Course laid in, speed warp 9.98."  Ben said.
	"Engage."
	The Banshee zoomed off as the nebula was about to 'eat' it.
	"Sir, the nebula is chasing us.  Speed warp 9.995."
	Vorezze turned to Q.  "Your loving son?"
	"Son, this isn't funny!"  Q shouted.
	"Increase to warp 9.999."  Vorezze said.
	"We can only sustain that speed for about fifteen minutes."
Ben warned.
	"Vorezze to Engineering."
	"Riley here."  Dave said.
	"I need all the power you can give me to the warp engines."
	"Sir, there is a life form that has just appeared on deck 14,
section fourty-seven alpha."  Dan said.
	"If you can catch him, I can get my powers back and we can
be on our ways."  Q said.
	"What's this 'you' stuff?"  Dan asked.  "If we have to track
your little brat through the ship, you're coming with us!"  The
controls beeped.  "He's moved to deck 16, section 5 theta."
	"Vorezze to sickbay, be on the lookout for a twerp
somewhere in your area."
	"Oh, your coming to see us?"  Brian asked.
	"Just be careful."

	Brian shook his head as he deactivated his comm channel.
The dark red doors opened as a small child came running in.
	"Hello little boy."  Brian bent down a few inches, looking
at the child face-to-face.  "What are you doing here?  Sickbay
is a grown-up's only place unless you're a patient."
	"You short!"  The child smiled and laughed.
	Brian gritted his teeth.  "And you're shorter."  He paused.
"That's the first time I've ever said that."
	"Short!"  The child shouted.  He pointed to Brian and the
already tiny doctor began to shrink.
	"Hey, this isn't funny!"  His voice got higher and higher.
Brian was only two feet tall now.  "Nurse Miyamoto!  Dr. Preston!"
He sqeaked.
	"Short!"  Brian figured that it was the Q child by this point
in time.
	"I'm already short!"  Brian, now half a foot tall, pleaded,
"I don't want to be any shorter!"
	Dan rushed in.  From Brian's point of view, the 5'11" high
commander seemed like a giant.  "Dan!"  The inch tall Brian called
out.  "Down here."
	"Gotcha!"  Dan picked up the Q child.  "You're not terrorizing
us anymore."
	"No!"  Kiddie-Q shouted.  "No no no no no!"  He vanished in
a flash of light.
	"DAN!"  Brian bellowed, standing up on a fiber of carpet
fabric.  "DOWN HERE!"
	Dan looked down and saw Brian.  "Oh, hello Dr. Issac."  He
walked out.

	Vorezze and Q walked through the Banshee's hallways.  "How
are you planning on making your son give you your powers back?"
Jad asked.
	"I have my ways."  Q said.
	"Smith to Vorezze."  Dan said.
	"What is it, Commander?"  Jad asked.
	"I found the child, then lost him.  Security reports that
he's somewhere on deck 7."
	"We're on our way."  Jad and Q hopped into a turbolift.

	Emily was walking up the hallway when she saw something up
ahead.  It was a light.  Emily walked into the light.  A tall
human with white robes and a beard walked out of the light towards
Emily.
	"Jesus?"  Emily asked, looking up.
	"Yes my child."  Jesus said.  "I have a commandment for
you."
	"Anything, oh savior."
	"I want you to... PARTY!!"
	"What?"  Emily stood up.
	The light faded and Jesus flashed into the baby Q.
	"Come back here you little heathen!!"  Emily screamed
as she ran after him.

	Vorezze and Q arrive on deck 7 to hear the sound of a
child's laughter.
	"That's him."  Q said.  "Q, come back here!"  Q bellowed.
	Vorezze paused.  "How do you people signal another Q in
a crowd?"
	Q paused.  "In all eternity, that problem has never come
up."
	The two rounded a corner, only to find Emily hanging off
a cross sticking out of the floor.  "He went that way!"  Emily
snapped, motioning down the hallway.

	Vince was walking up the hallway as the baby Q came running
towards him.  Vince grabbed him.  "Hey, slow down there, small
fry!"  Vince said.
	"Homosexual!"  Kiddie-Q said, looking at Vince.
	"That's not funny you little bigot!"  Vince gritted his
teeth.
	"Homosexual!"  Kiddie-Q nodded into air.  In a flash,
a middle aged man with a handlebar mustache wearing a pair of
leather chaps appeared.
	"Hey there."  The man blew a kiss at Vince.
	"AAAHHHH!"  Vince screamed, runnin gdown the hallway.
	Vorezze and Q ran up and saw the man standing there.
	"Why hello there."  The man walked up to Q.
	"Get off me!"  Q shook him off and turned to his son.
"Come here, you!"  He restrained his son and moved his index
and middle finger to his nose, pinching them together and pulling
away with his thumb in between.
	"Got your nose!"  Q said.  "You can have it back if you
give daddy his powers back."
	"Nose!  Nose!"  Kiddie-Q reached out for his father's hands.
	"Give daddy his powers back!"  Q said.
	Baby Q snapped his fingers and Q was engulfed in a flash of
light.
	"Thank you!"  Q shouted happily.
	"Hey there..."  The leatherman began massaging Vorezze's 
shoulders.
	"Q... please?"  Vorezze asked.
	Q snapped his fingers and the leatherman vanished.
	"Bridge to Captain Vorezze, we have ninety seconds to disengage
or else we're nebula food."
	"Q?"
	"I guess."  Q snapped his fingers.
	The nebula reversed back to it's original position.
	"Thank you."  Vorezze gave a sigh of relief.  "Bridge, slow to
impulse."
	Everyone could hear a slight 'buuuueeeewwwww' sound as the
Banshee's engines powered down.
	"Not that you deserve it."  Q grabbed his son and flashed
away.

	"Captain's log, stardate 52332.6:  Q and his son have left
the Banshee and the Pac-Man nebula shows no abnormal readings.
The crew has returned to normal, though we have one thing left to
figure out: what happened to Dr. Issac?"

	"Hello?"  Dan shouted as he walked crawled through the
Jefferies Tubes.  Unlike most Jefferies Tubes, these were actually
tubes.  "Dr. Issac?"
	"Help me!"  A meek voice called.
	Dan looked down and saw a centimeter tall man waving to him.
"Ahh, it's the revenge of the little people!"  Dan screamed, backing
up.
	"Dan, help me!"

	Brian stood on the observation lounge table as the rest of
the command crew looked at him.  "So what do we do?"  Vorezze
asked.
	"I say we leave him that way."  Ben laughed.  "He could do
microsurgery."
	"What if we put him through some kind of un-shrinker?"
Liz asked.
	"Is there such a device?"
	"I saw one in an old patent catalog."
	"Was it from anytime before the 1990's?"
	"Yeah."
	"It's for impotence."
	"Well Brian might have that problem too!"  Liz shrugged.
	"Hey!"  Brian screamed.
	There was a flash of light as Q appeared.
	"I knew I forgot about something!"  Q said.  He snapped his 
fingers and Brian popped up to his normal size.  "And just to be
nice."  Brian suddenly grew a few inches, finally becoming five
feet tall.
	"I'm tall!"  Brian said happily.
	"No, you're still the shortest person on the ship."  Charlotte
said.
	"I'm tall!"  Brian ran out of the observation lounge.
	Vorezze started to laugh.  "Thank you, Q."  He said.
	"No, thank YOU!"  Q smiled.  "At least I know I have another
ship to have some fun on!"  He vanished.
	The command crew groaned.  "Goody."



NEXT:
Disgruntled aliens break loose on board the Banshee, leaving
the crew in total darkness with the monsters pretty much
breath down their necks.  Guest starring the cast of Star
Traks: The Vexed Generation!