He then glared at Q, who merely had a smug look on his face. "Did you enjoy my little game?" he asked.

Chris grabbed Q by his fake Starfleet uniform and brought him close to his face…almost touched noses! "THIS WAS JUST A GAME?!?"

Chris suddenly found himself standing in an odd place. He didn't know how he had gotten there, or even where he was. It was some sort of a court, he guessed, with horrid looking humanoids in 'risers' that made a half circle around the room.

They were shouting insults at Chris. He didn't know why, for they couldn't possibly know who he was…yet there was something oddly familiar about the place…

"Welcome, Captain," Chris suddenly heard Q say. He spun around to see a blackened corridor of some sort. Q appeared out of there, in some sort of judge-mental robes and sitting in a chair on what appeared to be a floating platform.

"Q, I don't have the time for your games!" Chris shouted. The crowd suddenly went quiet as Q waved a hand around as some sort of a silencing gesture.

Q smiled, leaning on one arm. "Oh really? Is that how you still think?"

Chris frowned, confused. "Should I think any differently?"

Q rolled his eyes, then raised the platform a bit higher. He opened his arms and looked around the room. "Don't you recognize this place?"

Chris became even more confused. "Should I?"

Q frowned, bring the platform down so that he was face to face with Chris. "You mean you really don't remember?" Chris shook his head. Q smiled and laughed. He looked at the crowd and shouted, "He doesn't remember!"

The crowd laughed and began insulting Chris again, but Q stopped them. He looked at Chris with a serious face, something Chris found hard to believe the creature could ever have.

"Then I'll show you," Q said quietly.

Chris expected to be suddenly whisked away to some other place in time and space, something Captain Picard told Chris that the omnipotent being had done on an almost regular basis.

Q smiled before saying, "But you are right about something."

Chris frowned. "Really? I thought the human species was always wrong!"

Q frowned before saying, "You will complete your current mission." He sat back in his chair. "If you do it to my liking, I will reveal this place to you. If not, then I will wait till you are ready."

Chris glared at the creature, but then was suddenly blinded by a bright light. He was blinded for a while, but suddenly heard a familiar and beautiful voice: "Chris?" Sarah asked.

Chris' eyes suddenly focused, and he was on the Dragon's bridge again, damaged consoles present. Kara was leaning over Ada and was using a Dermal Regenerator to regenerate a broken bone.

"Chris, what's going on?" Sarah asked.

Chris turned around to face Sarah, confused as she was. "I think our mission just got a bit more complicated," he said, deep in thought.



Captain's Log: Supplemental

On our journey to another planet, we had a short visit from the ever-playful omnipotent creature known as Q. This time, how ever, I'm not so sure he was playing. He seemed serious. He's hiding a secret from me, and it seems I have to earn the ability to learn this secret from him. Something I would rather not have to go through.

Despite the fact that he seemed like he would not interfere with this mission, I question that fact. I have almost no doubt he will try to interfere so as to make the mission more difficult, to suite his test.

So, while we travel on to our next destination, I'm looking through our database, recordings and logs of Captain Picard and crew. I'm wondering if the room he showed me is a room the Enterprise crew had encountered previously.



Chris sighed for probably the thirtieth time as he scoured through the database. For all ready three hours, he had been scouring the database, reading every detail about every single encounter the Federation had with the Q.

Unfortunately, the first encounter with Q was lost from the database when the computer had been damaged. For all he knew, the key lay with in that encounter. So he had instead started with the second encounter with the omnipotent creature. The encounter where he had offered Commander Riker the opportunity to join the continuum.

The log entries of that encounter were extensive, and had taken him about two and a half hours to read every log entry. Q had played with the crew's emotions, and they had a lot to say about that.

Right now, he was reading log entries from the encounter where Q had sent the Enterprise to System J-25…sending the Federation in a seemingly never-ending war with the Borg.

He began to read a log entry written by Captain Picard:

The Borg a vicious. They seem to never feel hate, anger, aggression…their efficiency is striking, and frightening. I know now why Guinan was so adamant about defending ourselves from the Borg, why she told us to leave the system immediately. And now, according to her, now that they know we exist, and have downloaded our database…they will be coming…

Chris skimmed over the log, looking for any entry on Q. In this particular entry, there seemed to not be one.

"Any progress?" A beautiful voice asked.

Chris smiled at her beautiful voice, piercing through all of Chris's concentration like a cutting phaser…

…It all ways brought a smile to his face.

He shook his head as Sarah put her hand on his shoulder. He could see her beautiful face reflecting off of the small desk-top display in Chris's ready room. He guessed that he was concentrating so much that he hadn't seen his doors open and her come in.

"Well, we're approaching the planet," she stated.

Chris nodded, and was about to stand when the alert klaxon sounded, turning a few lights red.

Chris's heart jumped in response, as did he from his seat. He ran onto the bridge, Sarah following closely.

"Report," he ordered as he instinctively looked at the view screen. Of course, he could see nothing.

"I'm reading energy discharges near the planet," Ada stated.

Chris sat down in the command chair, Sarah next to him. "So who's firing at who?"

For a moment, no reply came back. "Hard to tell from this distance," Ada stated. "Wait," she immediately corrected. She sighed out loud in annoyance before saying, "Looks like Vorkalai ships are engaged in a battle with Britar battle cruisers.

Chris smiled in reply before saying, "Then they should make short of the Vorkalai."

Sarah nodded, smiling in return as they looked at each other. "Indeed," she said sarcastically.

"As a matter of fact," Ada stated. "The Vorkalai ships have just been destroyed, and the Britar ships are sending in troop carriers to the Vorkalai base."

Chris raised an eyebrow and asked, "Scan for any more in coming ships. Let's keep our people in the skies safe."

Perkins worked her console for a moment, then turned around and replied, "I read about three hundred cloaked ships on a direct course for the planet. ETA is twenty minutes."

Chris checked those readings on his console, surprise over taking him. If the base had sent a distress signal, why hadn't the Dragon intercepted it?

Chris guessed that neither the Britar nor any Hintaru ships had been adapted to scanning for cloaked ships as well, and decided to act upon that guess. He punched in some coordinates and said, "Set course for the following coordinates at maximum warp."

"Aye, sir," James stated.

Chris stood up and looked behind the command chair at Ada and said, "You have the amount of time it takes us to get to those coordinates to get a self propelled cloaked mine with a maximum yield ready. Make sure it can detect the Vorkalai cloaked ships."

Her mouth immediately dropped as she replied, "But that's not…"

Chris held up a hand to stop her. "Just do it! Have Kalia assist you."

Ada was about to say something, then decided better of it and headed for the turbo lift. "Set it up in the aft shuttle bay," Chris called after her as she tapped her combadge, right before the turbolift doors closed.

Chris knew he was pushing it, but he had no choice. They Vorkalai could easily surprise the Britar ships, and cause a lot of damage. He could not allow that.

As he sat down, adrenaline pumping, Sarah touched his arm. He looked into her beautiful eyes as she asked, "What's wrong?"

He realized he must be flooding out emotions that even Sarah's weak telepathic powers could detect. How ever, he was human, and could not block those emotions.

She knew he was hiding something. He was hiding something that, in this situation, came out as anger and fear.

How could he tell her? He'd never told any one, not even Starfleet officials. It was a situation that he knew he couldn't avoid when confronted with it by Sarah, but he would all ways be hesitant.

And she wasn't the only one who noticed, he knew that for sure. He was sure that the bridge crew had noticed the sudden change of emotion in his voice, the urgency.

Chris sighed and shook his head. He looked into her eyes, where he found comfort, and simply said, "I'll tell you later."

He didn't wait for a reply and looked back at the view screen, watching the stars streaking by. He could feel her eyes on him, penetrating his emotions. He didn't care. He just wanted to prevent a relapse of an atrocity, despite the fact that it was on a much smaller scale.



"Try feeding it power again," Kalia said, her adrenaline pumping.

The mine began to cloak again, but then reappeared instantly.

"Damn!" Ada said, pounding the console in the shuttle bay.

Kalia shook her head. It wasn't easy working in the crowded bay, filled with the Bladerunner fighters.

Kalia guessed it was another power cell, and opened a small access door to see indeed three power cells had overloaded. They couldn't handle the power that the cloaking device needed, and constantly overloaded as they struggled to produce enough power.

"Commander Tarkent!" the familiar voice of her assistant engineer, Lieutenant Meylar Palzen, yelled across the bay. Kalia looked towards the back of the bay to see the Lieutenant running towards the two women and the mine.

Out of breath, he came to a stop close to Kalia and handed her something that looked vaguely familiar, yet different.

He bent over to let blood back into his head, breathing hard, before he finally looked back up. "When I heard what you and Lieutenant Marquet had to do, I immediately wanted to test a little design of my own." He motioned to the object in Kalia's hand. "It's about four power cells put together in a casing that also produces more power. I've enhanced…" He had to stop for a moment to try to catch his breath again, then continued, "I've enhanced the transfer units so that they can handle the extra power as well."