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  A Phipps production

  Based on Star Trek The Next Generation created by Gene Roddenberry
and The Legion of Net.Heroes created by a bunch of nutcases.

  Original concept suggested by Drizzt.

PROLOGUE: The Q-Continuum.

  "I do as I please and -- what I do do -- I do alone!"
  Q stands in a landscape whose features are obscured by white mist.
Light comes from all directions.  One can barely make out that there
is someone with him.
  "You know very well that that isn't true," Q is told.  "What you
do during a story is what the writer decides you should do.  Face it,
Q, there've been stories in which you've acted *way* out of character
simply because it suited the writer at the time for you to behave
that way -- and I mean *canon* stories, Q!"
  Having an IQ of 10 000, Q is able to accept the truth of this
statement without arguement.  "What do you have in mind?"
  Q's companion steps forward: he's dressed in white with a white cape.
He wears a spiked helmet that obscures the upper portion of his face.
"I enjoy seeing people suffer!"
  Q smiles.  "Go on."


  On 10-Forward, the forward-facing room on deck ten of the U.S.S.
Enterprise D, Ensign Ro sits alone inspecting her drink.  Commander
Riker approaches her from behind.
  "Ensign Ro!"
  Ensign Ro turns to face him.  "Yes, Commander?"
  "Where's your report on the away mission to planet HUyyyddeUuz?"
  "You *have* the report Commander."
  "*That* was the report from the mission specialist!  Where's *your*
report?"
  Ro takes a deep breath, closes her eyes and shakes her head in
disbelief.  "The mission was purely scientific: everything you would
want to know is in her report!"
  "*I*'ll be the judge of that!" Riker insists.
  Ro nods.  "Alright, tell me then: what do you want to say in my
report that hasn't already been said in hers."
  Riker smirks.  "That's more like it."
  "Well?"
  Riker becomes coy.  "Look: this is hardly the place for us to be
discussing this.  Let's go to my quarters and we'll --"
  "NO!" declares Ro getting out of her seat.
  "'No' what?"
  "No, *Sir*!"
  Riker sticks out his chest.  "As your superior officer --"
  Ro turns around to face him.  "As my senior officer, I am bound to
follow your orders AS A FULLY QUALIFIED STARFLEET OFFICER!"  Riker
squints at her.  "You'll have your report if I have to describe every
square inch of HUyyyddeUuz but that's *all* you're going to get!"  Ro
storms off.  It takes Riker a moment to regain his composure.
  Guinan, the ship's bartender, observed the scene from behind the bar.
She looks hesitant.  "This isn't right," she says, finally.

  The doors to the bridge turbolift whoosh open.  Riker looks
up from his seat, where he had been sitting gazing idly at what he
could see of Ensign Ro's backside and doing other first officerly
things.  The identity of the person who has just set foot on the
bridge startles him so much, though, that he sits up straight,
abandonning his usual slouch.
  "Guinan?!"
  "I'm here to see the Captain."
  Riker smirks and gestures as if to say "Our bridge is your bridge".
Indeed, Riker had long ago decided that it was none of his business
what Captain Deude might get up to with Guinan in the privacy of his
Ready Room.
  Guinan nods in response.  As she does, she notices out of the
corner of her eye the presence of Lieutenant Yar on the bridge.
She stares at her momentarily, only breaking away when Yar becomes
aware of the attemtion being paid to her.  Guinan makes her way
across the bridge and into Captain Deude's Ready Room.
  "Come!"  Captain Deude gets up when he sees who it is.  "Please,
have a seat."  Deude waits for Guinan to sit down and then does likewise,
straightening his uniform with a tug.  "What can I do for you?"
  Guinan is hesitant.  "Captain, how long have we known each other?"
  Deude reflects for a moment.  "Thirty years.  Why?"
  "You don't look a day over twenty-six."
  Deude smiles.  "Why thank you!"
  Guinan shakes her head.  "Don't you think that's a bit odd?"
  Deude frowns.  "What do you mean?"
  Guinan sighs.  "It isn't just you: *everyone* here looks as though
they should still be in Star Fleet Academy!"
  Deude smiles.  "How old are *you*, Guinan?"
  "That's not the point!"
  Deude leans forward.  "Oh but I think it is: you visited Earth back in
your youth and you now base your impressions of us based on how we were
five hundred years ago!  People are living much longer now!"
  Guinan dismisses Deude's arguement.  "It isn't just that."  Guinan
searches for the right word.  "This whole situation is ... wrong!"
  "Wrong?  How so?"
  "This is not the way things are supposed to be."
  Deude laughs.  "How *are* things supposed to be?"
  Guinan furrows her forehead.  "Well, for one thing, you're supposed
to be bald."
  "BALD?!" says Deude, horrified.  Just then, Captain Deude is paged.
He touches his communicator.  "Deude here."
  Yar's voice: <<Captain, there's a message coming in from Admiral Ninja:
priority one!>>
  "Understood: I'll take it in here."  To Guinan, he says, "I'm sorry:
we'll have to continue this ... later."
  Guinan nods.  "I understand."  He gets up to leave.
  Deude turns his console to face him and presses a button.  Admiral
Ninja's image appears on the screen.  "Admiral!  What can I do for you?"
  "This isn't a light matter, Deude: it's the Dorfs!"
  "The Dorfs!"
  "They're massing in your area.  Star Fleet Command sees this as
preparation for a full scale attack on the Loonited Federation of
Planets!  You're to be on full alert!"
  "Is that all you can tell me?"
  Admiral Ninja considers for a moment.  "Oh, right: good luck!  We'll
be in touch!"  The console goes blank.
  Deude takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly.

  Riker gets out of his seat and walks over to Councillor Troi.
"wReanna?"
  "Rob."
  Riker smiles.  "We don't see each other as often as we used to."
  Troi nods.  "We're serving on the same ship, Rob."
  Riker grimaces.  "Yes ... I know.  I just don't see why that should
make a difference."
  "You're my superior officer."
  "True ... but we used to be more than that.  I'd like it to be the
way things were."
  Troi frowns.  "No you don't."
  Riker sighs.  "How can you say that?"
  "You can't lie to an empath, Rob."
  "I'm not lying!"  Riker shakes his head.  "Look, it could be just you
and me --"
  "And Ro and Rebecca and Carina --"
  "NO!  That's *not* what I want!"
  "Then why are you getting so excited?"
  "Your empathy is telling you *that*?"
  "Well ... that and the bulge in your crotch."
  Riker is momentarily embarrassed but quickly regains his composure.
"You know, I *knew* you were looking down there!"
  Just then, Deude walks onto the bridge.  Riker quickly moves back
to his seat.  Deude grimaces but lets it pass.
  "Lieutenant," he says, referring to Security Chief Lieutenant Tori
Yar, "I want to make a ship-wide announcement!"
  Yar nods.  "Yes, Sir!"  She runs her fingers over her station.
"Ready, Sir!"
  Deude nods.  "All senior officers, report to the conference room."
Deude nods once more in Yar's direction and she closes the connection.

  In the conference room are Deude, Riker, Troi, Yar, Science Officer
Lieutenant Commander Trivia, Chief Engineer Lieutenant Commander Geordi
Stompe' and Chief Medical Officer Lieutenant Commander Rebecca Crusher.
Deude speaks.
  "I've just received a communique' from Star Fleet: the Dorfs are
massing for an attack!"
  Riker becomes grim.  "We can handle them, Sir!"
  Deude looks unconvinced.  "Geordi?"
  Geordi nods.  "Our shields are currently at 98.546% efficiency: under
these conditions, we would be able to withstand full photon torpedo
bombardment from a dozen Dorfian Birds of Prey ... for a few minutes."
  Trivia nods.  "Trivia recommends that under such a situation, we
should fire back."
  Deude nods.  "Noted.  Any other recommendations?"
  "We couldn't surrender," states Troi.
  Deude shakes his head.  "No, these are Dorfs: they're callous and cruel
... surrender would only make them respect us even less -- if that's
even possible! -- and make them press their attack with even more fervor!"
  Deude looks at his officers and stops to think for a moment about what
Guinan told him earlier about how remarkably young they all look, in
in particular Doctor Crusher!  In all the time he'd known her, she'd always
looked the same: while she was studying at Star Fleet Medical and when she
married Gary Crusher and went on to have little wResley.  _wResley!  He's
at Star Fleet Academy himself now!  How is it possible that Rebecca can
look so young after all these years?_ Deude wonders.  Finally, he
decides to bring it up.
  "One more thing: I had Guinan see me today."  He grimaces.  "It is her
opinion that this situation that we find ourselves in is somehow ...
'wrong'."
  "'Wrong', Sir?" asks Riker, puzzled.
  Deude nods.  "As if this were a dream we were all having."
  Riker frowns.  "I see."
  Deude sighs.  "Yes, Number One, I know it sounds strange but over the
years I've come to respect her opinion."  He shrugs his shoulders.  "I
just thought I'd mention it."  He nods firmly.  "Dismissed!"
  As they file out, Yar is the last to leave.  She appears distracted.

CONTINUED...

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  Things are getting rowdy in 10-Forward: crewmembers are shouting at
the person next to them as if they were on the other side of the room.
One of them gets up and staggers towards the bar to get some more beer.
_Beer!_ thought Guinan.  _We never used to serve beer!_
  Tori Yar arrives and makes her way to where Guinan is standing.
"Guinan?"
  "Yes?  What can I do for you?"
  "You told Captain Deude that the way things are isn't the way things
are supposed to be.  Is that right?"
  Guinan nods.  "Yes."
  Yar hesitates.  "Is that why you were looking at me the way you did
when you were on the bridge?  Am I one of the things here that doesn't
belong?"
  Guinan is diplomatic.  "I have no right to tell anyone whether or not
they belong here."
  "But in the real world, I don't even exist!  Is that what I'm trying
to tell me?"
  Guinan sighs.  "You can't expect me to know for everyone here who
exists or who doesn't exist in a world that, for all we know, is no more
valid than the one know now."
  Yar is unconvinced.  "Somehow you have memories of a world in which
I'm -- what? -- dead?"
  Guinan looks away.
  "And that world is more real to you then this one, isn't it?"
  Guinan sighs.  "I've known the Captain of the U.S.S. Enterprise-D from
long ago ... longer than you could even imagine ... and yet Captain
Deude is a stranger to me -- everyone on this ship is a stranger to me!"
  Yar frowns.  "You've been the bartender here for five years!"
  Guinan smiles.  "I've been a bartender on a starship for five years
... but not here."
  "And what about me?" Yar insists on asking.
  "The Lieutenant Yar I remember died before I even came on board."
  Guinan had told her what she needed to know but not what she wanted to
hear.  Unable to face a woman who sees her as little more than a ghost,
Yar rushes out of the room and heads for the nearest turbolift.
  "Bridge!"  Tears well in her eyes.  She remembers every moment of her
life -- including the last five years!  Doesn't she?  She isn't sure
anymore.  Suddenly it seems to her as though she's just a figment of
someone elses imasgination, loosely based on the original Lieutenant Yar
... or perhaps someone else entirely.
  Suddenly the turbolift shakes, the light flickering on and off.  Yar
wakes from her reverie as her training as a Star Fleet officer takes
over.
  She arrives on the bridge to find the ship in the middle of a battle.
  "RED ALERT!" shouts Captain Deude.  "Status, Trivia?"
  "We're surrounded on all sides by Dorfian ships, including above and
below."
  Deude grimaces.  "They're not following proper etiquette!  They're
supposed to approach us head on, right-side up and in the same plane!"
  "Hardly surprising, Captain," said Riker, sarcastically.
  "Ensign Ro, concentrate phaser fire directly ahead of us: I want us
to destroy whatever ships are in our path!  When we're far enough away,
we'll fire photon torpedos back the way we came, turn around and combine
phasers and photon torpedos in a wide sweep of the area!"
  "Aye aye, Captain!"
  "Excellent strategy, Captain!"
  "Video games, Number One!" said Captain Deude in reply who had no time
to assess the significance of what he'd said.

  It suffices to say that Dorfs die en masse.

  "How exciting!" exclaims Q from his vantage point in the Q-continuum.
  "If you say so," mutters his companion.
  "Come now, Psykeye, you said you wanted to see suffering!  What
greater suffering could there be but in a time of war!"
  Psykeye grimaces.  "Space battles are such a sanitised form of war:
the combatants never even see the face of their enemy!  They don't even
get to witness the deaths of their friends properly: if there's a hull
breach and their friends are sucked out into space then that's the last
they see of them -- period!  Meanwhile they've got a war to fight."
Psykeye shakes his head.  "No ... I'm sorry Q but this just won't do."
  "'Won't do'?!  After I went to all the trouble of refashioning this
reality to suit your whim?  *Now* you tell me that it 'won't do'?!"
  Psykeye nods.  "That's simple enough for you to understand, isn't it?"
He waves his hands in a sweeping gesture.  "I want you to put everything
back the way it was."
  Q snorts.  "I happen to like the way things are right now!"
  Psykeye sighs and places a hand on Q's shoulder.  Energy crackles
along the length of Psykeye's arm.
  "What are you doing?" Q asks.
  "I'm doing what Doctor Doom did in _Secret Wars_ #11: stealing your
omnipotentence for myself.  In mere moments you'll be a normal human!"
  Q drops to the ground.  "Not again!"
  Psykeye's eyes glow and crackle.

  In the midst of battle, the Enterprise is destroyed.

EPILOGUE: the Q-continuum.

  Q wakes.  "Psykeye's gone ... I think."  Q snaps his fingers,
disappears and immediately reappears standing upright.  Q smirks.  "It
seems omnipotence was too much for Psykeye to handle: he's gone and
my powers have returned to me!  Let's see how that battle turned out!"
Looking below him, Q sees that there is no battle: indeed, everything
is back to the way things would have been if Psykeye hadn't shown up.

  Make that almost everything.

  "You mean each of us was replaced by a younger counterpart?" Geordi
asks Guinan.  The two of them are sitting with Barclay at a table in
10-Forward.
  Guinan nods.  "I know it sounds crazy: one moment I'm surrounded by
people I know, then I'm surrounded by strangers fighting some war that
doesn't make sense and now things are back the way they were."  She
shakes her head.  "Truth is, I don't know what's real anymore.  Maybe
none of this is real!"
  Geordi shakes his head and waves his hands.  "Sorry, Guinan, I don't
go in for any metaphysics."  He gets up.  "Coming, Reg?"
  "In a minute," Barclay says, biting his lip.
  Guinan gets up and smiles.  "I told you it sounded crazy."
  Geordi smiles and leaves.  Guinan goes behind the bar.
  Barclay looks suspiciously up at the ceiling.  "Computer: logoff."
Nothing happens.  Barclay sighs and smiles in satisfac --

$Connection closed by foreign host

THE END (for now...)

CREDITS

Rob Riker was based on Robert ("Master Blaster") Ramirez.
Ensign Ro     ...      "Catalyst Lass".
Tori Yar      ...      Tori ("Lurking Girl") Fike.
Captain Deude   ...    Martin ("Deja Dude") Phipps.
Admiral Ninja   ...    Raymond ("wReam ... Ultimate Ninja!") Bingham.
wReanna Troi    ...    "Sister State-the-Obvious".
Geordi Stompe'   ...   "Doctor Stomper".
Trivia       ...       Brian ("Obscure Trivia Lad") Perler.
Rebecca Crusher  ...   Rebecca ("Organic Lass") Drayer.

Original Story Idea by Jeff "Drizzt" Barnes (barnejd@wkuvx1.bitnet)
Written by Martin Phipps (cxmp@musica.mcgill.ca)


ERRATA

"Counsillor" is spelt "Counsellor"

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