Star Trek: The Next Generation
Q & A
by Keith R. A. de Candido



p.57-58 “Ops to Admiral Shelby.”
     She tapped her combadge. “Go ahead.”
     “Admiral, this is ensign Galeckas. Something’s happened to the Inwood.”
     Shelby blinked. The Inwood was the runabout that had just departed Bravo with crew replacements for Shelby’s former command, the Trident. “Define ‘something.’”
     “I can’t, Admiral. According to what we can see out the ports, there’s some kind of weird rift in space between us and the Inwood’s heading.”
     “Ensign, Bravo Station has state-of-the-art sensors that can detect the individual grains of sand on a planet six light-years away. Would you mind explaining why you had to look out a port?”
     “I’m sorry, Admiral, but--well, those state-of-the-art sensors aren’t picking up a damned thing. The only reason we know the rift is there is because we can see it.”
     “How can something be in the visible spectrum and not be detected by sensors?”
     “We’ve, uh, been asking ourselves that, sir.”

p.98 “Those trees, those bushes, that fly--they’re all symmetrical.”
     Again, Leybenzon said, “So? We’re symmetrical.”
     “Not completely.” She looked at the security chief. “Your left eye is slightly above your right. My left thumb’s a bit shorter than the right one, and one of my breasts is larger than the other.”
     “I don’t see how any of this matters,” Leybenzon said dismissively.
     That’s because you’re not listening.

p.110 Did they listen? Of course not. They never ever ever listened to him. It grew tiresome. Instead, they threw ridiculous tasks at him, tried to get him to be a good and proper Q. And, to an extent, he obeyed. After all, he’d been cast out once over humanity and was in no great rush to relive the experience. Being human on Jean-luc’s toy ship was quite probably the worst ordeal of his life, mostly by virtue of it being the only ordeal in his life. He was damned if he’d do that again.

p.127 Then he turned to face the biobeds. “Newbies! So nice to see some fresh faces ‘round these parts. Good riddance to Riker and Troi, of course, but Data is sorely missed. How fitting that he ended a life spent in pursuit of becoming more human in an idiotic gesture worthy of the lowliest human.”
     Seeing that Leybenzon was starting to move off his biobed, Picard started to speak, but Worf beat him to it. “Lieutenant! At ease.”
     His entire body tensed so tightly that Picard feared he would snap in two.
     Leybenzon protested, “But, sir--”
     Q leaned toward Leybenzon. “Best listen to microbrain, chuckles.” He turned toward Picard. “What is it with you and security chiefs anyhow? You go through them the way Kathy goes through hairstyles, from Tasha all the way down to this lout.”
     Every instinct in Picard screamed at him to do something, but his intellect reminded him that it was completely pointless because there was nothing he could do, except make an ass of himself.

p.149-150 Vogusta hated space travel.
     He understood the need for it, of course. After all, one could not succeed in business if one remained on the Karemma homeworld. It was a useful base of operation, naturally--what better place to find a Karemma businessperson than on Karemma? But limiting oneself to to that spot was just that: limiting. The Ferengi had a saying for it: “Home is where the heart is, but the stars are made of currency.” Vogusta had always thought the saying to be lacking in clarity--the rib cage was where the heart with, and the stars weren’t actually made of currency after all--but he appreciated the greater meaning.

p.187 “Q, what kind of game are you playing?” That was Janeway. Worf recalled that Janeway’s former command, Voyager, had encountered Q on several occasions, and that Q’s offspring considered Janeway to be his godmother. Based on the look on the admiral’s face, it was an honor she would have preferred to decline.
     “Ah, Kathy, always a pleasure to lay eyes on your lovely visage.”
     “The pleasure is all yours,” Janeway said tightly.

p.205 “Sir, the Jem’Hadar have deactivated the proximity grenades!”
     Zelik noted the panic in the young soldier’s voice, but simply nodded and said, “Okay.”
     “Okay? Sir, we were counting on those grenades to--”
     Suddenly half the trees exploded. Grinning wolfishly, as he heard the death screams of dozens of Jem’Hadar, Zelik cried, “Weapons free--fire on them, now!”
     The troops opened fire into the conflagration, resulting in still more oh-so-satisfying agonized wails of dying Jem’Hadar. Zelik lived for the sound.
     Deng looked at him in open-mouthed shock. “How--?”
     “Programmed the grenades in the trees to stay inactive and cloaked until the grenades in the ground were deactivated.”
     “At which point they activate and detonate?” Deng smiled. “You’re amazing, sir.”
     “Don’t be stupid. I’m just a soldier doing his duty--do not forget that. And keep firing.”

p.216 “It’s real, dammit, as real as--”
     Galen called down from the dig site. “You say something, Jean-luc?”
     “Just talking to myself, Professor,” he yelled back. Then, with a small smile, he added, “It’s my only guarantee of intelligent conversation.”
     “Very droll, Jean-luc. If there were two of you, you’d make one whole wit!”

 

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