'Repeat to yourself, it's just a show - I should really just relax.'

- Love Theme From Mystery Science Theatre 3000

Star Trek: The Last Generation created by Leila Fetter & Urac Daria Sigma

With apologies to the late Great Bird of the Galaxy, Gene Roddenberry

Oxygene - Jean-Michael Jarre

A hairpiece, spinning in space.

It is over one hundred years old. Many decades ago, it rested upon the head of one Captain James T Kirk of the Federation starship Enterprise. It holds power that those who have been searching for it all this time can only guess at. It has been left behind ever since that fateful day that Kirk decided he wanted to be a shade or two darker. Starfleet has had the USS Compromise searching for it for the past six months.

And it is about to be rediscovered.

A starship, doing a slalom with traffic islands.

It is less than one year old. Its crew rose to their positions by way of the unorthodox method of being left on the ship and told to work it out themselves. The great, hot-pink vessel has been to many places and seen many things over the past half-a-year. But still, they have not fulfilled their first grand mission. The one they have been on since shortly after they were commissioned.

Soon, they might just do that.

A star, collapsing.

It happens slowly. Stars don't just form and die just like that. Even the massive explosions that are supernovae take place a lot less quickly than people like to think they do. But this star, this sun at the centre of a dead system, right at the heart of the Federation, is nearing the end of its collapse. And it is getting dense. Very, very dense.

It can only get so much denser.

What a combination.

It collapses. (DEATH)

It forms slowly and there is not the heat of fire but the pain of crushing. (THE END. DEATH.)

Colleen didn't know what the words meant, but they were alive in her mind.

And in the eye that was her mind she could see one thing. It was alive on the mindscape.

It is realistic. It is good. (FROM DEATH...)

She reached for it, and very briefly felt something rough and organic against her hand, but no sooner had she touc--

Colleen was jolted into wakefulness by her console winking, flashing and grunting like some dirty old man in a park.[1]

'Tel,' she called, 'something's happening.'

'Any idea what?'

'Nah.'

Terri rose, with dignity and aplomb, from her own console, and was promptly knocked headfirst into Colleen's by Parker jumping on her back.

'EUAN!' she bellowed.

The esteemed Captain looked up from Ratbat's copy of How to Be a Superhero.[2] 'What's up?'

'Do we have to have this great mutt on the bridge? He's too big!'

'What's the point of having a dog if it can't put its paws on your shoulders?'

Terri poked her tongue out. 'OK, Colleen, what's happened?'

Colleen looked over her glasses at her console - a stupid action, for it meant she couldn't see it properly. She adjusted her eyewear and looked again. 'I'm getting a reading as if we've just found the toupée,' she announced bewilderedly, 'but...' She pressed a button and the screen lit up to show a picture of empty space. '...It's not out there.'

'That's strange,' agreed Ruth. She dropped her thumbscrews and looked at her own console. 'Hang on. I'm dropping shields. Take another look.'

'Yeah,' piped up Euan, desperate, as usual, to get an order in. 'Take another look.'

'Oh. I can see it now. Or I think I can.'

Euan, determined to give an order before he got talked over again, tapped his communicator. 'Captain to Engineering. Can we get more power on these sensors?'

The voice of Ratbat, who was checking on matters in engineering, came over the intercom system. 'Maybe,' she grunted.

Leila looked up. It was a commonly held belief that the intercom was in the ceiling, so it was more polite to look at it while you used it. 'Are you all right?' she asked her sister.

'Och, it's that time of the month.'

Euan turned to Leila. 'What does she mean by that?' he asked, anticipating the pay-week/dislike-of-numbers-in-the-low-thirties/magazine-comes-out/whatever-type joke.

'No,' came Bobbi's voice before the counsellor could reply. 'She's actually having her period. I can definitely tell you that for a fact...permission to change my footwear.'

Euan didn't get this one, but decided that knowing would probably be worse than not knowing, and didn't comment.[3]

'Yeah, it's there all right,' continued Colleen, anxious to change the subject, even if it was to work. 'But it's really tiny. I didn't think a wig could be that small.'

Graham made an obscene comment over the intercom. I think we can all guess what it was about.[4]

'Shut up, Graham,' retorted Euan. 'Everyone's does that. Number Two, can you get any more?'

'Uh-uh.' She twitched uncomfortably, as Parker had got off Terri and started to sniff her bottom. She wasn't very used to having her bottom sniffed. It was probably an acquired taste.

Euan considered. That is, he considered the sensor problem, not Colleen's bottom. Not that it was a particularly unpleasant bottom, just that he wasn't considering it at the time. Well, it could have been an unpleasant bottom for all he knew, but for the sake of politeness he'd assume it wasn't. Not that he had any particular interest in Colleen's bottom (not to say, of course, that there was anything wrong with it), it's just that it wasn't important at the moment. Or at least, he didn't see how it would be important, if it was. Not that it couldn't be under the right circumstances. He made a mental note to ask her about it later.

We seem to have just spent a whole paragraph dedicated to Colleen's bottom.

Not, of course, that there's necessarily anything wrong with dedicating a whole paragraph to Colleen's bottom. Well, there may be something wrong with it, but we don't know, we've never seen it, and never heard it talked about in great detail. People might talk about it in polite conversation, but we've never heard them. Which is probably a good thing. Well, maybe it is, maybe isn't. Anyway, it's not important.[5]

Euan, who had no real experience with bottoms other than his own, (and not superfluous experience with that, since it was always behind him) went on. 'Er, I think we'd better launch a shuttlecraft to see if the thing is out there,' he said.

For once, people seemed to agree with his idea. 'Can I go?' asked Colleen. 'I've been sitting here for about three hours, and my bum's gone numb.'[6]

Euan nodded. 'Oh, good. Finally I get to pick an away team. Hoo-bloody-ray. Um...All right. You, Ms Hick. Uh, Leila...Ratbat?' He used his comm badge again.

'Not a good idea. She's still getting the applicator and the actual Tampax mixed up, and, well...it's messy.'

'Bugger. Um, Robyn, would you like to go?'

'OK. I think Ania can handle things down here for a while.'

'Just a minute!' came Lieutenant Ritherdon's voice. 'That's my job!'

'Tough.'

Euan, trying not to remember another job Chaedy once did, turned to Ruth. 'Can we send one of your securities down there?'

'Which one?'

'Umm...the blonde one.'

'Do I have a blonde one?'

'I think so.'

Ruth shrugged. 'Crabb to the blonde one,' she said. 'Get your butt down to shuttlebay three. Now.'

'Which blonde one?' came Jaan's voice. 'Do you want me or Annabelle?'

Ruth looked at Euan. 'Which one do I want?'

Euan shrugged. 'Better be Jaan, I think, Annabelle's a bit...'

'A bit...?' asked Colleen.

'A bit pregnant.'[7]

Ruth sighed. 'All right, Jaan, you're it.'

Euan clapped his hands. 'OK. Everyone in the away team, down to shuttlebay three.'

The shuttlecraft Carlton slipped through the pressure shield, did a bunny-hop, and cruised away from the Compromise.

'Colleen, how long have you had your Ls for?' asked Leila.

Colleen scowled. 'I don't even buy Elle. What are you talking about?'

Leila said nothing, but moved to the seat nearest the escape pod. Jaan was already sitting in it, but didn't seem too upset.

Bobbi looked at the panel. 'We're nearing it,' she said. She stopped, and pointed through the windshield, which had a humorous 'driver on board' sign stuck to it. 'It should be right there.'

'It's not,' said Jaan.

Both the front-seaters pored over the display. 'Ah,' Bobbi said at last. 'That makes more sense.'

'What?' asked Leila.

'It's not the whole thing,' Colleen piped up. 'It's just one hair that's come off it.'

'Oh, bloody brilliant,' said Leila. 'We come out here with bazookoids and laser cannons all armed, and it's one smegging hair? Why don't we just start up Operation Vac-U-Suk?'

'Vac-U-Suk?' asked Bobbi.

'Didn't you see Spaceballs?'

'Oh. Well, there's no need to be rude. At least now we know that all this hideously expensive equipment actually works. Is there a transporter on this ship that can pick up one hair?'

'I don't see why not,' said Colleen. 'We're just going to need some very accurate co-ordinates.'

Five hours later, the mission was finally successful, and the away team from the Carlton had taken the hair down to Ksenia's lab.

'I don't know why you didn't just get me to help you bring it in,' observed Emma the Techie, who had stopped in on her way back to her transporter room.[8]

'We did,' replied Bobbi. 'But you told us to eat the poo.'

'Oh, sorry,' replied the Techie. 'I must have been miles away.'

'That was the point!' growled Leila.

Miles, thought Ratbat. They're like centimetres, aren't they? Or am I thinking of an Engineer on a space station somewhere? No, that's kilometres. Mind you, that's a funny name for an engineer.

Ksenia, as usual, ignored the bickering. 'If I can get a radiation signature, or a frequency, or anything from it, we might be able to use it to track the rest of the wig. Colleen, you were the first to see it on your ops console. Can you stay and help me?'

Colleen looked at the hair.[9] If she didn't know better, she'd have said it was looking back.

'Yeah,' she said strangely. 'I'll stay and help.'

Admiral Marianne Crosby looked at the screen before her.

'Fuck,' she muttered. This wasn't good. This really wasn't good.

'Brian!' she called to her aide. 'The screen in my office is busted. Get me a new one, can you, darling?'

'All right,' nodded Captain Goodwin.

'In the meantime, I'll use the one in your office.' She got up and walked into the room adjacent to her own Starfleet Command office. 'There's a report I've got to look at.'

Brian shrugged and left her to it.

She spent a few minutes looking over the report that had been gathered by the starship Satellite of Love (MST-3000), then decided she'd rather Brian's screen had been broken too.

'Fuck,' she muttered again.

The Compromise sailed onward.

In the lab, Ksenia and Colleen sat at separate workstations, trying to get a fix on the hair.

'I think...' began Ksenia.

'Yeah?' said Colleen.

'It appears to have a signature of 1953 on the Beckett scale.'

'I know,' said Colleen, looking at her own monitor.

'Right. Get up to the bridge and tell them they can use that to track it.'

Colleen nodded and left. No sooner had she gone out of the door than Louise came in through it. 'Oh,' she said. 'You still haven't had the other workstation fixed.'

'What?'

Louise tapped the top of the workstation that Colleen had so recently been working at. 'This computer,' she explained. 'It's still busted.'

'It can't be,' replied Ksenia, mincing over to the machine in question. 'Colleen was working at it just a minute ago.'

'Well, it's not working now.' Louise tapped the power on switch, and the machine burbled, 'Regular or decaf?' before falling dead again.

'But I told the quantum signature of that hair from Kirk's wig to Colleen, and she said she already knew it.'

'Maybe it was working, and then it stopped.'

'Maybe. Look, I'll get an engineering buntie up here to take a look at it later.'

Colleen returned to the bridge to find that she'd been left in charge of it. 'Oh. All right, then.' She turned to Bobbi, whom she had run across in the turbolift. 'Can you use that thing at the back there?'

'The engineering station?'

'Whatever. We've got to track something with a whatsisname...a signature of 1953 on the Beckett scale.'

'Right.' Bobbi headed for the rear of the bridge, and set to work. Colleen wandered down to the centre chair. 'What's happening up here, Tel?' she asked the charming young conn officer.

'Nothing,' replied Terri. 'Euan's told us to just sit around here until we work something out about Kirk's wig.'

'Oh.' Terri turned her attention back to the gaudy romance novel she didn't have to pretend she wasn't reading while Euan wasn't around, then looked up as she heard Colleen bleeping away on a padd behind her. She turned to face the second officer, but Ruth jumped in before she could ask a question.

'What are you planning now?' she asked.

'The wedding night,' replied Colleen.

'What can there be left to plan?' called Bobbi. 'I mean, you've done the music, the seating, the dresses, the bunting--'

'I don't mean that. I mean the wedding night.'

'What?' Leila reached over and plucked the padd from Colleen's grasp. 'Gordon Bennett...' Colleen had typed in probably a lot more detail than she needed to, and definitely more than Leila needed to read. 'You've even noted the length of his-- Eurgh!!'[10] She threw the padd away, causing it to strike the back of the head of Lieutenant Large at Ops.

'You asked,' Colleen reminded her. 'In fact, you didn't even ask, you just took.' She went over and retrieved the padd.

Leila grumbled. 'Does he even know about all these plans you keep making for him?'

Colleen shrugged. 'Dunno. Did you tell him, Tel?'

'I've never even met him!'

'Haven't you? Aren't you his sister?'

Terri screwed up her face. 'No!'

'Oh. Anyway, I forgot to mention it to him when we talked last week.'

'So you get in touch once a week, do you?' asked Ruth, wondering if Bobbi would add a new 'pepper' setting to her phaser if she asked nicely enough, or threatened to shove it up her backside on level 16, wide field.[11]

Colleen shook her head. 'Oh, no. I talked to him last week, then before that...not for four years.'

Leila rolled her eyes, looked to the ceiling, and mouthed, 'Why me?'

She didn't get any response, which is what happens when you try to do cheeky things like blame stuff on a god you don't really believe in.

Theme from 'Antarctica' (synthesiser version) - Russell B

Lieutenants Fi Brideoake, Nic Leuning and Sam Flanagan, and Ensign Rachael Vincent had commandeered one of the viewscreens in one corner of 10-Foreplay, and were using it to watch clips of 1960s Beatles concerts and work out which girls in the audience had actually achieved orgasm. Dr Graham happened past and saw what they were doing.

'What the heck did they see in them, anyway?' he asked.[12]

'Ssh,' replied Sam. Graham looked from the faces of the girls on the screen to the faces of the officers in front of him.

'God...' he muttered, then went back over to where Renée was trying to sort out a Rubik's Cube that had had all the stickers taken off it. 'How are ya, Renée?' he greeted her cheerfully. 'What'cha drinking?' he offered.

'Everything,' slurred Renée.

'Fair enough.' He turned to the host. 'Emma,' he told the Klingon, 'one of everything, thanks.'

'Not again,' was all Emma said.

'Um.' Bored, he looked around the bar. He briefly thought of using one of the security crew for an experiment on cellular division, then decided he'd much rather just use them for sex. He'd make up his mind which one later. Maybe all of them.

'Graham,' said a voice at his shoulder. He turned to see that it belonged to Ksenia (the voice, not his shoulder).

'What's up?' he asked her.

'I want you to take a look at Colleen once she comes off shift,' she told him.

'Why? What's wrong?'

'She's been acting a bit strange lately. She seems a bit out of it.'

'Ah, she's OK. It's just over-work. We've got shore-leave coming up in a few weeks. We're going to put the ship in parking orbit around Risa. And do you know what I'm gonna do then?'

Ksenia shrugged.

'I'm gonna have SEX. Do you want to have sex, Ksenia?'

'No,' Ksenia said firmly.

'Aw! Why not?'

'Because I find you extremely physically unattractive.'

'So? That's the same as I think of you! We can shut our eyes!'

Not long afterwards, Graham returned to sickbay. He looked more than slightly disoriented.

'Hi, Graham,' Nurse M^cCulloch greeted him. She looked at him for a second, then realised what was wrong. 'Where are your glasses?'

Graham spluttered a couple of times, then coughed up a folded and cracked pair of spectacles.

'Ah,' realised Fiona. 'What happened?'

Graham didn't say anything. He just held up his hand and coughed a couple more times, then crossed over to a display screen on the wall. He pressed a couple of touch-pads, bringing up a list entitled 'OFF LIMITS', then added the name, 'Ksenia'. He turned back to Fiona and said, 'Bah!' before storming off through the inner door.

Fiona watched him go. 'Oh,' she said.

'What's going on, Marianne? Why have you called this emergency meeting?' asked Fleet Admiral Page expositorially. Geoff had been halfway though revising his nine hundredth book when the terminal in his office had started flashing red lines all over the place, calling him down to the conference room.

'Because there's trouble,' replied Marianne. 'Trouble with a capital Shit.'[13]

'Would you please explain this before you start panicking? What is the problem?'

'There's a big old black hole about to form in the middle of the Federation. It's near a strange type of tetryon distortion field, which is making the collapse go really fast, and I think we'd better start evacuating people really soon!'

There was a pause while the assembled command officers digested the information.

'Shit,' said Mark after some reflection. 'I think you're right.'

'What should we do?! It's a whole smegging Federation! How do we evacuate that many people?' asked Brian.

'Well, they can move out towards the edge. It won't get that far for a while,' Marianne was reading off a padd. 'I've managed to work out how fast the hole's going to expand.'

Mark gave her a quizzical look.

'OK, my team have managed to work it out. God, you're pedantic.' Marianne tossed the padd on to the table. 'We need to have a seventy-light year radius around the star completely evacuated by the end of the week.'

'That soon?' asked Geoff incredulously.

Marianne nodded.

Mark shook his head. 'It's trouble with a capital Shit, right?'

One having gone and found the other fit for duty at last, Leila and Ratbat strolled on to the bridge, singing a favourite drinking song of theirs.

'Doe, a beer, a foreign beer...

'Ray, the guy who pulls my beer...

'Me, the girl who drinks the beer...'[14] They trailed of as they saw Colleen asleep in the Captain's chair.

'Bloody hell,' said Leila. 'I don't think this is very efficient. Is she always asleep?'

Ratbat shrugged. 'She's probably very tired, darling.'

'Tired from doing what?'

'Not being asleep.'

Leila noticed that Colleen twitched a couple of times, as her glasses started to slide down her face. 'What off Earth is she dreaming about?' she wondered aloud.

It is everywhere and nowhere. Everywhere may become nowhere.

Colleen didn't understand what it meant, but everything was clear to her. Even though she didn't have her glasses, she could see everything.

You can make everywhere somewhere. Collapse and stop, not collapse and die.

Colleen didn't know what to make of it, but she knew that the voice that was both inside and outside her head was speaking to her. For she was all there was. No glasses, no uniform, nothing but herself...no hair?

Fight it...use the realism.

The part about her hair confused her, insofar as she could be confused in this environment of dreams. She touched her scalp, and felt nothing there except...her scalp. Her hair was no longer there, but somehow she knew this was right.

It is right and real. Now do you understand? Can you see your destiny?

'Well, she can't lie there all day,' commented Ratbat. 'Glenda knows what Euan's doing, but I need to sit there if I'm going to do bridge duty. Darling, can you...move her?' Ratbat was unofficially not allowed to move people on her own. It was a cultural thing. Being of no real sexuality, she had no idea about things like erogenous zones, and didn't want to accidentally go compromising them,[15] because she knew that if you did that, then people might get offended and try to stick your comm badge in your ear and then you have to spend three hours in sickbay just because you were trying to tell the conn officer something...

While Ratbat was having a big sulk in her head, Leila tipped Colleen forward out of the chair and onto the floor. 'Ngher!' said Colleen. 'What did you do that for?'

'You were sleeping on duty, and Ratti wants to sit in the chair. So move.'

Colleen grumbled, but dragged herself to her feet and off the bridge.

'Tel,' asked Ratbat, 'are we on course to find the rest of that hairpiece?'

Colleen nodded, but it was Ruth who spoke. 'Ratbat...we're getting a message from Starfleet Command.'

'Um? Oh, on screen, then. And get Euan up here.' Ratbat sat forward in her chair as an image appeared on the screen. 'Anni!' she greeted it.

'Ra, darling...much as I'd love to talk to you again, there's a lot of stuff going on.'

'You what?'

'There's a star collapsing right at the middle of the Federation. It's going to end up being a black hole.'

'Don't those things take ages to form?' asked Leila.

'I don't care what Benson called you, just get up here!' Ruth growled at Euan over the intercom.

'Sh,' Bobbi told her.

'There's an tetryon distortion right near it,' Marianne technobabbled. 'A very strange one. Right now it's giving off all kind of weird crap, but within a week, anyone even near the middle of the Federation needs to be moved.'

Euan entered at this point, sticking his tongue out at Ruth once her back was turned. Ratbat slid over as he took the centre chair. 'So what do we do?' she continued to Marianne.

'Get to the Keiyuri system as soon as you can. Once you're there, meet up with the George and Mildred and the Robin's Nest, and work out a way to get everyone out of there.'

'Got it,' said Ratbat.

'Lieutenant O'Ferez, lay in the course,' ordered Euan. The situation was actually serious enough that Terri obliged right away. 'What's the long-term projection?' he asked.

'Not good.' Marianne shook her head. 'This is one huge fucker of a black hole, thanks to that bloody field. We've got Starfleet's Smartest working on the problem right now. In fact, I'm transmitting the same data to your own science department now so you can see what's happening. Now, I'd love to stop and chat, darlings, but I've still got half a dozen ships to talk to before tonight. Starfleet out.' The screen quickly faded to the UCF-UFP logo and the 'end transmission' banner, to which someone had added 'buttsmear' in rather juvenile lettering. Euan made a mental note to revoke Graham's access to the comm systems.

'Serious,' muttered Leila.

'Aye,' responded Ratbat.

'Hmm,' added Euan.

'Yeah,' put in Bobbi.

Euan was the first to stop making useless noises. 'Annabelle?' he asked. 'How long till we get to the Keiyuri system?'

Large stopped for a second. The pink figures (which were really yellow) weren't quite behaving themselves. 'Umm...'

'The course has changed!' Terri burst out.

'What? How?' asked Euan.

There was another pause as Terri hammered her console. 'Every time I change it, it keeps changing back!'

'Back to what?' Ruth was gripping the top of her own console rather tightly, as the ship gave a great lurch every time a new course was attempted. Eventually Terri gave up.

'The same course Bobbi gave me a while ago,' she concluded, throwing up her hands. 'We're heading back for that bloody wig...we're being controlled by someone on the battle bridge.'

The Compromise had the least accurately-named battle bridge in the whole of Starfleet. Ostensibly, the ship could split in two, leaving the saucer section (controlled from the main bridge) to retreat the greater part of the ship's population to safety, while the more heavily-armed stardrive section (controlled from the battle bridge) could go into combat. This was, on the face of it, a sound plan. Unfortunately, the crew of the Compromise being who they were, as soon as they were faced with a hostile threat, they tended to turn tail and head for the hills.

Arriving at this battle bridge, Ruth, Bobbi, Lieutenant Murto and Ensign Thomas met Colleen.

'What's going on?' demanded Ruth. She hammered the door control. 'It's locked! Computer! Security override - Crabb, Lieutenant Ruth Katherine, clearance code Doberman 2862 Walkman ceiling-fan!'

The computer buzzed. 'Access denied,' it told her.

Ruth tried it again.

'Access denied. Are you even listening?'

She turned to Anthony. 'Phasers on the door,' she told him, getting her own out.

'Are you sure that's a good idea?'

'Phasers on the door or phasers in your ear,' she told him.

Anthony unsheathed his weapon. 'Phasers on the door,' he repeated.

'Set it on unlock,' she said. They both raised their phasers at the door, and fired. There was no effect. Ruth scowled. 'Set them on forced entry,' she decided. Once more, they fired. And once more, there was no effect.

'They built these things to last,' said Bobbi, helping Laura remove an access panel.

Colleen nodded. 'Any harder and it'll take out half the room.'

'So?' asked Ruth. 'We can get a new one.'

Staring at her tricorder, Laura straightened up from the open panel. 'It's been completely secured,' she told the assembled party.

'Can you do that?' asked Anthony.

'You can if you're the command element,' replied Ruth. 'But both Euan and Ratbat have been on the bridge the whole time. What about the course?'

'It's been set on an override,' reported Bobbi. 'But again, doing that from here can only be done by the commanders. But...' She paused, tapping a few buttons. 'Yeah,' she said at last. 'Whoever did this was very clever. Even Euan and Ratbat's codes are locked out now. It's just going to keep us locked out until the new program runs its course.'

Ruth considered. 'What about the transporters?' she asked.

Bobbi checked the panel again. 'You're right. They haven't put up any kind of field to prevent it. Let's get to transporter room 7.'

As soon as she heard the door open, Emma the Techie whipped off her dark glasses and stopped pretending to play keyboard on the transporter controls.

'Hi,' she greeted the five officers.

'Emma,' said Bobbi. 'Can you transport us to the battle bridge?'

'"Hi, Emma, how are you,"' droned Emma sarcastically. '"Oh, I'm fine, despite having the shittiest job on the whole ship."'

'Sorry,' muttered Bobbi, somewhat shamefaced.

'Can you do it?' interrupted Ruth.

'Yeah...up on the pads.'

They had barely got up there when they heard the intercom boop. 'Bridge to investigation team,' said Euan's voice.

'What is it?' called Bobbi.

'I just had Terri take us up to Warp 9.9, so we'd find out just where in space we were going.'

'Did you find out?' asked Laura.

'Oh, yeah. I think that everyone who belongs on the bridge had better get up here.'

With Barry pestering them all the way as to just where it was they had arrived, Colleen, Bobbi and Ruth stepped back out of the turbolift onto the bridge. Colleen and Ruth took their respective positions.

'What is it?' asked Ruth.

'What's out there?' asked Colleen.

'Take a look,' said Euan, inviting Colleen to reactivate the viewer. There appeared on the screen an enormous grey cube. It had to be at least a kilometre or two along each side.

Borg Suite from the Star Trek: The Next Generation - The Best of Both Worlds soundtrack

'The Borg,' added Ratbat.

'Omnicidal cyborgs from who-knows-where,' continued Leila. 'They'll assimilate you as soon as a Ferengi would sell his own mother. And they've got the hairpiece.'

'Phasers!' screeched Euan in panic. 'Photon torpedoes! Anything else that starts with PH!'

'Calm down, Euan!' scolded Graham as he strode off the turbolift.[16] He looked at the viewer. 'Hey, the Borg!'

Leila stretched around to look at him. 'I don't suppose any of your old drinking buddies were Borg, were they?'

Graham shook his head. 'Shit no! I'd say we were fucked this time!'

Euan hid his head under a comic book. 'Heeelp!!'

Ratbat punched him. 'If you can't command, get off the bridge! We need to decide whether to engage them, or run away! They've got the wig, for Glenda's sake!'

Euan gibbered.

'Oh, piss off!'

'Oh, for Gods' sakes! Who thinks we should scarper?' Leila was fed up with this.

There was a general consensus of hands.

'Right. Let's bugger off as quick as possible.'

'No!' Colleen jumped up. 'We need to recover the wig!'

'Col, they're not your average wig-donating nice-guys, they're the BORG!!' Terri turned from her console.

'Tel, you don't understand! It's--'

Ruth's console gave an urgent bleep. 'Oh, shit,' she said.

'Eh?' asked Ratbat. 'Whassup?'

'There's a little problem with the running-away option.'

'?'

'We've just been caught in a tractor beam.'

'Waaah!' Euan dashed off the bridge to go and hide.

Ratbat assumed Euan's seat. 'OK, children, battle stations!'

'What's the point?' interrupted Ruth. 'We already know that we're defenceless against them!'

'Um...call down to engineering and see if they can give us more on the shields.'

'Like it's going to make a difference?'

Ratbat sat for a while trying to think of a plan. 'Hmmm...' she pondered. 'OK, guys, we need to split up if we're going to get anything done. How 'bout... uh, Ruth, can you get us a couple of your security lovelies, and we'll need Emma the Techie as well, and, ooh, a few bridge crew. Right, those of us still on the Compromise can worry about saving her duranium-alloyed hide.'

'What do you have in mind for the away team?' asked Leila.

'We'll send out two of the runabouts. We already know that the Borg have got those electromagnetic fields around their ships, but maybe if we've got two different ships trying to transport on different frequencies from different sides, someone can go in and get the toupée.'

'Runabout Mulgrew departing from shuttlebay 4...now,' reported Ensign Khanna. 'Acknowledge.'

'Runabout Stewart departing from shuttlebay 3...now,' she heard Lieutenant Larkins' voice add.

'Stewart and Mulgrew, you are cleared for departure.' Euan had been enticed back into command by the promise of being allowed to press some of the good buttons.[17] 'Good luck.'

Monika looked from the windshield,[18] where the Borg vessel was pretty much ignoring them and the Stewart to concentrate on the Compromise, to the crew that had accompanied her in the vessel. Lieutenant Crabb and Ensign Sword were seated either side of her to concentrate on defence, should they need it; Lieutenant Malarz was towards the back, working with the runabout's own transporter system, and Lieutenant Leuning was standing nearby should Ania succeed in getting around the EM field. That was one of the things that made the Borg so worrying - they didn't put real shields on their ships. They didn't have to. They could recover from a direct hit with a photon torpedo quicker than you could say, 'They're recovering from a direct hit with a photon torpedo.'

'Are they even looking at us?' Ania called to Monika.

Monika shook her head. 'Nah, mate,' she replied, deliberately nasalising her accent.

'What about the others?' asked Nic. Lieutenant Larkins, Lieutenant Hick, Ensign Vincent, Transporter Chief Techie and Ensign Murphy were staffing the Stewart in a similar pattern to their own on the far side of the giant simple geometrical figure.

Ruth replied this time. 'They're concentrating on the Compromise itself. It doesn't look like they're attacking it yet. I think they might be doing something with the shields to stop the tractor beam from taking.'

'Get...off!!' With a final almighty shove, Anthony and Graham were finally able to wrench Parker from his position of dancing on the tactical console. The dog flew from there into the wall next to the lift, off which he bounced happily and kept on smiling.

'Idiot,' Graham told him. He might have gone further were it not for the sudden shake the ship gave, casting both him and Anthony to the ground. Sitting up on Anthony, he asked, 'Was it as good for you as it was for me?'

'It was shithouse!' spat back Anthony.

'Then it was as good!' said Graham cheerfully, leaping to his feet.

Anthony brushed the shed fur from his screen and looked at it. 'Oooohhhh shit,' he said.

'I don't suppose you mean, "Oh, shit, something good's just happened," do you?' asked Euan hopefully.

'Nope.'

'What then?'

'The Borg have got a beam on us. Wig or no wig, we're history in a few minutes.'

'Fire all phasers!' shouted Euan.

There was a massive volley of light on the screen, followed first by the image of the totally undamaged Borg ship, then by the voices of Ruth and Emma screaming, 'Watch where you're firing, you arseholes!!' through the communications.

'Erk,' said Leila.

'We are Borg,' all the speakers on the bridge announced simultaneously. 'You will be assimilated.'

Euan sprang to his feet. 'I am Captain Euan Bowen of the--'

'Captain Euan Vickers Bowen, Commanding Officer of the Colleges Federation flagship United Space Ship Compromise, NC-2604-Y. You will be assimilated. Your ship will be assimilated. You all will be assimilated.'

'Why?' demanded Ratbat. Maybe she could talk them to death.

'Reason is irrelevant. You will be assimilated. Simian. Chiropteran. Klingon. Canine. All must be one with the Borg.'

'But I don't want to!' protested Graham.

'Want is irrelevant. You will be assimilated.'

'How?' demanded Euan, but the Borg had seen fit to close their channel. 'Options,' he said to his crew.

'Shit ourselves,' suggested Terri.

'Suggestion noted and ignored.'

'Too late,' said Graham.

'What the fuck?' Anthony exclaimed suddenly.

'What what fuck?' Little Miss Large asked him.

'My computer's going haywire,' he explained.

Bobbi whirled around and looked at the station beside her. 'So's mine,' she concurred. Various reports from the bridge - and soon after, the rest of the ship - were also in agreement. Every terminal on board the Compromise was displaying its data, mindlessly and continously, seeming to have the goal of exhausting itself.

Bobbi ran a quick diagnostic. 'It's the Borg,' she nodded, confirming her suspicions. 'They're copying everything in our computers. Every single piece of data, file by file. They're five per cent through,' she added.

Ratbat sighed with relief. 'Well, at least they're no killin' us.'

'I think it might be a case of one thing at a time, my long-toothed friend.'

Bobbi stared at her hyperactive station for a second. 'Actually...this could be our saving grace.'

Terri scowled. 'I didn't know people still said "saving grace".'

'Well, I do. Computer - isolate this terminal.'

Shout It Out - Slaughter

Jaan had only just fully rematerialised from a failed attempt to transport when the Stewart rocked, sending him slamming against the back wall, and Emma slamming into him.

'What?!' burst out Emma.

'The Borg have noticed us,' replied Colleen.

'I'd say the days when you could sit right next to the Borg without them noticing are long behind us,' said Rachael. 'Reinforcing shields.'

'Damien,' continued Colleen, 'execute evasive manoeuvres: pattern Delta.'

There was a pause. 'Umm...' Damien said to himself, counting on his fingers. 'Alpha...Beta...unng...Omega?'

'Number four,' said an exasperated Colleen, starting it for him.

'It's not my fault, I'm not Greek.'

'Emma and Jaan - keep at it. If we can get through that field, then we can take this thing right out of range.'

'Better idea,' suggested Rachael. 'How about we just get right out of range?'

Colleen's eyes glazed over slightly, but she was more than firm when she replied, 'Because we've got to get the wig.'

Thanks to Barry recently re-oiling his joystick, Bobbi shot back onto the bridge faster than anyone had expected. She carried with her an old-looking CD-ROM. Ratbat recognised it. 'Gordon Bennett - I've no seen that since...'

'Since you were fiddling with it in my quarters this morning, actually,' said Bobbi, going over to the terminal she'd had the computer isolate. She slipped the disc in. 'Computer - install D drive on my terminal.'

'Working.'

'Fifty-six per cent,' she muttered to herself.

'Can I ask just what you're doing?' queried Leila.[19]

'No.'

'Well, I've never heard you say "saving grace" before,' said Graham.

'I don't think she really does,' Leila told him. 'I think she just said she does so she wouldn't look dumb.'

'Shields at fifty per cent,' reported Sword.

'Look, bugger stupid Shatner and his stupid wig,' snapped Ruth. 'We can't take much more of this.'

'But I've almost got it!' protested Ania.

'If we're not careful, all of our atoms will be separated. And not necessarily using that thing.'

'But I'm almost there! Just give me a few more seconds.'

Ruth considered briefly. 'OK. But Monika - plot a course back to the Compromise. And as soon as the shields drop to twenty-five - engage.'

'The runabouts are in trouble!' squeaked Annabelle. 'Shouldn't we give them some support?'

'No.' Euan shook his head. 'Right now, they're just going at them the way you swipe at flies. If they think for a second that there's a Contraceptive-class starship shooting back, they'll...' He gave up on trying to find a witty analogy. 'Pfff!'

'What does "saving grace" even mean?' asked Anthony.

'Eighty-six per cent,' replied an anxious Bobbi. 'Ah! Good!' The program had run its course. 'Computer - put this terminal back on the network and make sure that this is the next thing the Borg go through.'

'Working...done.'

'How close are you?' Jaan asked Emma.

'Oh, it's not like I'm working under pressure or anything,' Emma growled back. To illustrate her point, the ship almost tipped itself over with the latest blast.

'It's no good,' Rachael told Colleen. 'One more blast at this range and we'll end up being a tiny new nebula.'[20]

But there wasn't one more blast.

And they didn't end up being a tiny new nebula.

'What?' Colleen peered through the windshield.

'What the hell happened?' asked Ania. She had been quite anxious as the Mulgrew's shields had dropped to twenty-six per cent, only to find that the assault had ceased.

Ruth, Cathie and Monika examined the instruments around them, checking for any possible failure. But no, everything was in order. The Borg had just...stopped.

Ruth shook her head. 'What could make them just...freeze up like that?'

'Windows 95,' explained Bobbi to the somewhat bewildered bridge crew.

Euan encapsulated the phrase, I thank you for saving all of our lives by use of such an ingenious plan, and I would absolutely love it if you could give us the details of how said plan came to be, with the simple word, 'Huh?'

'Well...the Borg are collective intelligence, right? Their ship, their weapons, themselves are all part of the one thing.'

The assembled personnel nodded.

'So I realised that that makes them just like one big computer network. So I tricked them into installing Windows 95 on their network. And who remembers what happens when you try to install Windows 95 on most networks...?'

'Freezes up totally,' grinned Ratbat. 'Nice one.'

'Why does everyone bag out Windows 95?' asked Euan.

'Because it's an imperfect program,' replied Bobbi.

'Oh,' put in Ratbat. 'I was just gonna say it was shithouse.'

The screen buzzed into life as Anthony put through a communication from Emma the Techie on the Stewart. 'I don't know what you guys did, and I don't much care, but it worked. Whatever happened to the Borg, the EM field went down as well, so the others from both ships have beamed over to look for the rest of that hair.' She turned suddenly, looking at something off-screen. 'Fuck me,' she said. 'That was quick.'

Colleen joined her on the screen. 'It helps if you know where to look.'

'How did you know where to look?'

Colleen ignored her. 'Take us back,' she told Damien, before shutting down the channel.

The four medical ensigns collectively known as Graham's Angels were knocked aside like ninepins[21] as Ksenia and Bobbi, supporting Colleen between them, barged through the door.

'What's happened?' asked Nicole.

'We don't know,' Bobbi told her, lowering Colleen onto the bio-bed labelled 'Frank'. 'We were just seeing what we could get from the wig, when she came in. At first we thought that she just wanted to watch us, but then, after she'd been staring at the wig for about a minute, she phased out totally and just...fainted.'

Nurse M^cMillan held the body of a medical tricorder while her sister ran the scanner over Colleen's prostrate form. 'How long ago'

'did it happen?'

'We ran her up here as soon as it happened,' Ksenia told them. 'I told Graham she was acting funny before! God, where is he when you need him?'

At this point the end of one of the other bio-beds flipped up and the Chief Medical Officer in question clambered out. 'Sorry,' he said. 'I was on my break. Have you done anything with that wig?'

'They've made Colleen pass out,' offered Fiona.

'Really? Let me look.' He crossed over to Colleen, only to be flipped halfway across the room for his troubles. 'Wha'fuh?' As he got back to his feet, he saw Colleen close her eyes and return to unconsciousness. 'What the hell did she do that for? That's what...I'm not going to try and pick up Colleen!'

'Because she's been your friend for so long?' asked Nicole.

'Because I've never thought of it!'

Anthea and Melanie scanned again. 'She's out,' they said.

'Computer...restraining field,' said Graham cautiously, ready to run for the shuttlebay should Colleen so much as flicker her eyes. There was a slight yellow shimmer, and the field was in place.

Graham breathed a little easier. 'OK...' he said, turning to Bobbi and Ksenia. 'I think it might be time for a staff meeting.' The other two officers nodded.

'Not exactly,' said Terri, appearing in the doorway behind them.

'Not exactly?' repeated Bobbi.

'Well, not with Euan and Ratbat around. I just tried to get us back on course to meet the George and Mildred and the Robin's Nest, and we're being over-ridden from the battle bridge again. And this time, we're heading straight for the black hole.'

'This is the captain to all decks. You may have heard of the black hole that is rapidly forming in the middle of the Federation. Due to sabotage by life-form or life-forms unknown, this ship is now irrevocably on course towards that black hole. We are going to do everything we can to try and slow the collapse of the star, but in all honesty, our chances do not look good. All department heads are advised to prepare their staff for the troublesome time ahead.'

Within less than a minute of that announcement being made, her team was ready. They hadn't been together very long, but already she knew that they were the best there was at what they did. As they were lined up and standing to attention in front of her, she paced in front of them, and gave it to them straight. They deserved that much.

'My friends - I hope I can call you my friends, and I hope you can call me yours - it's come to this. We're approaching this disaster, and - even though everyone's going to do everything they can - there's the strong chance that we will not live to see another dawn. In spite of this, I want you all to keep on as you would always - at your best. Even if it all looks hopeless, even if it looks like you might be dead the next second, I want you to do what I know you can, and serve to the last.'

'Yes, sir,' said Mark.

'Absolutely,' said Jarrah.

Emma the Klingon turned and smiled to herself. Her catering officers would do her proud.

Euan looked around the bridge, wondering where most of the senior staff had got to. 'Still no luck with the course change?' he asked Monika, who was staffing the conn in Terri's absence. He was quite anxious that he should be able to negate the announcement he had made some minutes ago.

'Nah. It's coming out of the battle bridge again.'

'And I suppose that it's sealed off again?' prompted Ratbat.

Anthony checked. 'Yep.'

'Psiakrew. Who the smeg keeps doin' this?'

The turbolift hissed open to reveal the rest of the senior staff, bar Colleen, with Ruth standing and their fore. 'Good question,' the security chief intoned.

The dagger in her statement wasn't lost on Euan. 'Uh?'

'That mucking around from the battle bridge is like those restraining fields in sickbay,' Graham joined in. 'Only the command element can do it.'

'Yeah, but we've been up here the whole time!' protested Ratbat.

'This place is swarming with computer terminals!' Bobbi retorted. 'You could have quite easily got ahold of one of these and done it from here.'

'But...but...I'm stupid!' Euan protested feebly.

'Do what?' joined in Ratbat. 'I'm dumber than you are!'

'The crap you are! I'm the densest person in the whole of history!'

'Well, I'm double that dumb!'

'Hey!!' Emma hit them both over the head to regain their attention.

'Ow...' groaned Euan.

'Anyway, how do you know it was one of us?' added Ratbat.

'Like we said,' repeated Ruth. 'You're the highest-ranked officers on this ship. Listen. Computer - list personnel of USS Compromise with command-level clearance.'

'Personnel with command level clearance are: Captain Euan Bowen...'

'Right,' said Graham.

'First Officer, CommanderUrac Sigma...'

'Right,' said Graham.

'...and Second Officer, Lieutenant Colleen M Hick.'

'Shit,' said Graham.

There was only her in her mind's eye now - well, only her and everything else.

Everything else.

Everywhere.

Now you must understand. Let us help. Let you help.

'I understand!' Colleen both whispered and shouted. It didn't matter. It was in her mind. All of it was in her mind. Not that she'd put it there. 'I can help, I can help, I want to help!'

Then let us in. Let us take you.

'But can I trust you?'

Would we lie to you?

'Who are y--' Colleen began, but by then it was too late.

Colleen's eyes snapped open without even flickering.

'She's awake,' Nicole told Melanie-or-Anthea-or-whichever-the-hell-Nurse-it-was-in-front-of-her.

'I've seen it,' replied Fiona, which just goes to show how well Nicole can see without her glasses.

Colleen tried to get up off the bio-bed, but there was something holding her down. A restraining field.

She'd have to see to that. She had a job to do.

'Why didn't someone remember that Colleen counts as command?' asked Ruth.

'Well, you should have,' snapped Ratbat, still slightly annoyed at being falsely accused of leading everyone to their doom. 'I mean, what's her job title? Second...Officer. Big hint, yes?'

'Well, sorry!!' sulked Leila.

'Um...' ventured Ruth, 'before we go much further, hadn't we better get this ship back under control, now we've established who took it out of it?'

'You're right,' said Euan. 'Computer, security override on the battle bridge seal and return control of this vessel to the main bridge - Bowen, Euan Vickers, clearance code walrus 3204 Baker Williams.'

'Access granted. Control of USS Compromise returned to main bridge.'

There was a sigh of relief from everyone on the bridge. 'Monika,' Euan said. 'Bring us to a stop.'

Monika started to work her panel, but soon stopped. 'I don't need to. We've already stopped. I'd say that this was where we were going.'

'Turn on the viewer.' Annabelle obliged.

Outside the Compromise, there was a huge patch in the middle of space where there was just nothing. No stars, no nebula, no interesting-looking chunks of rock, nothing.

'That's the black hole, isn't it?' said Leila unnecessarily.

'I used to know a girl we called the Black Hole,' started Graham. 'Do you know why she was called the Black Hole? Well, actually, she didn't know that we called her the Black Hole. In fact--' For some reason, his gaze fell on Ruth at that point and he shut up.

'I suggest we adjourn,' forwarded Euan. 'Ms Khanna - lay in a course to rendezvous with those ships in the Keiyuri system.'

'Got it.'

'Engage.'

There was a pause. Even though a Contraceptive-class starship can run almost silently, and has inertia dampers all over it, the crew of this particular vessel knew that it had not engaged. 'What's wrong?' asked Euan.

'It's not the battle bridge this time. The course is engaging - it's just not going anywhere.'

'Bridge to engineering.'

'Yeah,' came Chaedy's voice. 'We know.'

'What's wrong, Chaedy?' asked Bobbi.

'The warp drive's just packed up.'

'Why? How?'

'Consider this: Our maximum recommended speed is warp 9.6. We just did two extremely long trips, both at warp 9.9...'

'I see. I'll get down there right away. What's the estimate on the repair time?'

'Eight hours.'

'Sshhit.' She turned to Ksenia, who had moved up to the science station. 'How long can we stay here?'

'Nine hours,' she replied.

'Right. Chaedy, we'll be cutting it a bit fine, but we'll just make it. I'm on my way down. Scholes out.' She walked into the turbolift. 'Barry - engineering.'

Those remaining on the bridge looked at a lost for a few seconds. 'Well,' said Ruth. 'What do we do now?'

'Drink!' said Graham.

'I think we should find out what Hicksie's up to,' said Emma.

'Good idea,' agreed Euan in a futile attempt to make it look as though he'd had the idea himself. 'Let's get to sickbay. Number One - you have the bridge.'

'Do me a lemon.'

Call you a lemon, more like, thought Emma.

'I'm not missing this one.'

'All right - Number Two-- Oh. Um. You - who are you?'

'Gosia,' replied the randomly-chosen ensign.

'That's right. Gosia - you've got the bridge. Now, everyone else, to sickb-- Hey! Wait for me!' He ducked between the closing lift doors.

In the turbolift, halfway to sickbay, Terri had a thought.

'I've just had a thought,' she said.[22]

'Oh,' said Leila. 'Did it hurt?'

Terri ignored her. 'Graham, what did you say about the restraining fields in sickbay?'

'That I've done it up against them?'

'After that?'

'Oh. No-one can turn them off except me and the command...crew...' He trailed off as he realised.

'Oh, shit.'

Graham, Euan, Ruth, Ratbat, Leila, Ksenia and Terri - Emma having returned to her post - entered sickbay to find four unconsious nurses scattered across it.

'What happened?' asked Terri.

'I'd say that our Colleen worked the field out as well,' Leila told her, playing with her pendant.

On the floor, one of the M^cMillans started to stir. Graham stooped down to her and gave her a quick examination. In his opinion, she needed a complete gynaecological once-over that he considered he personally should see to, but for now he just announced that all she had was a small bump on the head. 'What happened?' he asked.

'Colleen woke up,' she replied, confusing everybody slightly as it was actually her sister who spoke. 'Fiona and Nicole started to examine her, and then she called out a clearance code and turned off the restraining field.'

'We tried to sedate her,' (this time it was the woman next to Graham who spoke) 'but she just went wild, and attacked us all. The last thing I remember is...'

'...being thrown against the door and blacking out.'

As Graham continued to tend to his Angels, Ruth asked, 'Computer - location of Lieutenant Hick.'

'Lieutenant Colleen M Hick is in sickbay.'

'You what?' Leila and Ratbat burst out simultaneously, once more demonstrating an annoying habit of thinking in unison.

Ksenia picked something off the floor. 'Comm badge,' she said. 'It's tracking her by her comm badge. God, when are the designers going to learn that the first thing people do when they're running away aboard starships is to take their badges off. Ooh!'

'She said something about the wig,' said both Nurses M^cMillan, causing Euan to do a rather agile circling motion as he tried to listen to them.

'The wig,' echoed Ksenia. 'That's still in my lab.'

Leaving Graham to continue to treat the others, the six of them turned and took off down the corridor. They had barely gone ten metres when the whole ship shuddered, sending those of less stable footing to the floor.

'What the hell was that?' asked Terri.

As he got to his feet, Euan tapped his badge. 'Captain to bridge?'

'Yes?' returned Gosia's voice.

'What was that?'

'That hole out there is getting really unstable. It's starting to send out shockwaves.'

'Will the shields hold?'

There was a pause while the personnel on the bridge conferred. 'Yes. It's all because of that tetryon thing.'

'Distortion field,' inserted Ksenia.

'That. I think if you've made any predictions about it, you'd better make them again. All the readings up here have changed.'

'How much have they changed?'

'Um. Do you remember Star Trek?'

'Yeah...'

'Do you remember Star Trek: Deep Space Nine?'

'Ah. That much.'

Ratbat, who still hadn't managed to restore her feet to terra firma, noticed something near her head. 'Boot,' she said, accurately if needlessly. She picked it up and sniffed it. 'It's Colleen's.'

Some way down the corridor, Terri called out, 'Here's another one!'

Ratbat reverse-somersaulted to her feet and caught up with her. 'This is getting very strange,' she said. As they continued towards the lab, they found a sock, and the outer part of a black-and-gold uniform.

'Maybe Colleen's just a bit hot,' suggested Leila.

'She is a bit...' appraised Terri, but went (thankfully) unheard as the scene in the lab revealed itself. Overall, it wasn't that different from what they had seen in sickbay, except that the degree of actual property damage was higher, and there were only two people lying stunned on the floor. Fi was already coming around as they entered.

'Was it something we said,' she garbled, 'or does Lieutenant Hick suffer from really bad PMT?'

'Colleen's...um...not quite herself at the moment,' Leila told her.

'I'll say. She came in here, only wearing her workshirt, a sock, and some really horrible boxer shorts. And...' Fi pointed to the smashed observation dome in the centre of the room. '...she took the wig.'

Ksenia told the others, 'I'll stay here to try to clean up a bit, and see if I can figure out what Gosia's saying about the black hole. You guys see if you can find our...questionable Second Officer.'

It wasn't hard to trace Colleen's journey, at least for some of the way. She had left a small trail as she disrobed on her way. 'Her glasses,' observed Terri, picking them up. 'She can't see a thing without them. You were right,' she told Leila. 'She really isn't herself.'

As they proceeded toward a turbolift, they came across another sock, her workshirt, and the boxer shorts that Fi had described as 'really horrible'. Ratbat was slightly hurt, as she recognised them as the same ones she herself had given Colleen for her thirtieth birthday.[23]

After Barry had agreed to take the lift to the same destination that Colleen had asked for, they emerged from the lift to find a tartan bra,[24] an engagement ring of an unidentifiable colour, and...

'What's that all over the carpet?' asked Ratbat. For the next section of the corridor, the floor was half-hidden by something fine and black. Terri squatted and examined it.

'It's hair,' she told them in a mystified voice. 'Colleen's shaved off all of her hair!'

They continued after the follicles for a distance until they found a phaser, and the trail ended.

'This is getting too weird for me,' admitted Terri.

'Weird is in the eye of the beholder,' Euan reminded her.

'Och, well, as the weirdest beholder here, I'd like to agree with Miss Therese on that last one, yes?'

'I suggest we get to the bridge,' put in Ruth.

'Good idea,' Euan told her. He turned and made for the turbolift, before having to turn back again to catch up with the others as they went to the one further down the corridor.

Again. Check it again. It can't be right. Ksenia's hands moved over the panel before her, but she already knew what the outcome would be.[25] She had hoped that the bridge science station would tell her something different, that the one in the lab had been damaged by Colleen's little rampage, but it was no good.

For a start, she was sure that the shockwaves shouldn't have been happening the way that they were. For seconds, that distortion field would really have helped if it was anywhere besides where it was. It was no good. The others would have to be told.

In a superb effort of timing, Ruth, Euan, Ratbat, Leila and Terri returned to the bridge at that moment, taking their positions back. As Euan took his seat back from Gosia (who looked threateningly comfortable there), Annabelle told him, 'The runabout Brooks has just launched.'

'What? On whose authori-- Don't bother. Lieutenant Hick, right?'

'Exactly.'

Euan seethed, and was interrupted right in the middle of a jolly good seethe when he heard Ksenia's voice.

'It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter what she does.'

'Eh? What? Why?'

'As soon as that thing finishes collapsing, it's going to be a lot worse than just any old black hole. It's going to turn half the galaxy inside out. Thanks to the distortions, in a few days, that's going to end up being a whole new Big Bang. And it's going to start...' She checked the display. '...in twelve minutes and eighteen seconds.'

Top Gun Anthem - Faltermeyer

The Brooks bucked and rocked, shuddered and shook as Lieutenant Colleen M Hick took it out of the Compromise and into the chaos that was the space surrounding the black hole. If anyone who knew her had been there, however, they would have noticed that her eyes - apart from functioning surprisingly well without their glasses - were filled with purpose. A purpose usually quite absent if she wasn't planning her wedding. At the moment, given that she was piloting her ship through an incredibly unstable portion of space, it looked a lot like that wedding wouldn't happen.

But she didn't care. She had a job to do.

'What's she up to?' asked Euan, following the tiny blip that was the Brooks on his monitor. 'First she goes bezerk, then she steals the very thing we've been looking for all this time, then she strips off, shaves her head and flies into a black hole! I'll never understand girls!'

'Does it really matter what Colleen is doing?' shrieked a panicked Leila. 'Ksenia - are you sure there's no point in trying to escape?'

'I'm sure. Even if the warp drive was working, we wouldn't be able to grant ourselves more than two seconds' extra time before that thing got us. Face it - we're the last thing any of us are going to see.'

'I may throw up,' commented Terri.

Bits were starting to fly off the outer structure of the Brooks, but there was more than enough left to keep it going. Inside it, Colleen grimaced. Even though she knew what she was doing was right, she couldn't kill all of the doubt in her mind.

Trust.

She was naked, but she knew that there was a purpose to this. There had to be purity when it came the time. Nothing but her. Or, nothing but her and it. There was also purpose behind her having shaved off all the hair on her head.

Reaching down beside the chair she was sitting in, she did what any other bald person might do in the circumstances - she put on a wig.

'There's nothing we can do,' said Laura as she read the data from outside off the scanner table.

'It's all over,' agreed Ensign Robinson. 'Nothing left to do except make peace with our maker.'

'God, Karen,' said Bobbi. 'Don't tell me you've decided to go all religious on us.'

'We're facing certain doom from half of the galaxy collapsing!' retorted Ensign Benson. 'If there was ever a time to go all religious, I'd say this was it!'

'Don't see why I can't look,' sulked Chaedy. 'Don't see why I've got to say back here and clean number threes[26] off the floor.'

'Well, just in case there is an afterlife,' Bobbi told her. 'We'd all hate to get there with the First Officer's discharge all over the place.'

'But I've cleaned it six times already!'

'Well...it'll help take your mind off your problems,' concluded Sam.

Half of the hull of the Brooks was now forming a pretty mosiac between the USS Compromise and the black hole that was its destination, but Colleen wasn't worried. Her eyes were filled with tears, but her heart was filled with resolve.

And her head was covered by a brown wig that had once belonged to a womanising starship captain.

Besides, she knew that the Brooks only had to get her so far. She could do the rest herself.

'The Brooks,' pointed out Ruth as the disintegrating ship flew on.

'Stuff the Brooks!' snapped Leila.

'Oh, come on,' said Ratbat, rising and walking towards the viewer. 'Look on it as a learning experience. It's not every day you get to see the beginning of a whole new universe...'

'Never mind the new universe, it's the end of the old one I'm worried about!'

'Peasant,' said Ruth.

'Final collapse in fifteen seconds,' piped up Ksenia.

With only seconds left until she got to where she was going, the last of the Brooks fell away, its momentum being enough to carry her the rest of the way through a vacuum such as this.

But the wig stayed on.

Goodbye, cruel galaxy...

'Five...four...' counted off Ksenia.

'Must you?' cried Leila.

Ksenia ignored her. '...Two...one...'

'Fflam werdd am byth!!'[27] cried out Ratbat, for no apparent reason other than that she was about to die. Then everyone instinctively (and uselessly) ducked, and the screen was filled with light.

'Choir sting' from Red Dwarf

There was a very long stretch of nothing, because no-one seriously expected to be able to do anything. They all expected to be dead.

It was a full minute before Euan summoned up the courage to ask Ksenia, 'Is it still out there?'

Ksenia tentatively called up the data, pressing the controls as if she thought they would crumble beneath her fingers. 'It's gone. I don't understand...it's just not out there anymore.'

'What about the Brooks?'

Annabelle looked for the identifying pink shape. 'Gone.' She paused. 'All gone,' she repeated. 'There's not even any debris.'

'That's odd...' said Leila, then trailed off as something happened in the middle of the room.

On any other day, the crew of the Compromise might have been surprised by a naked Colleen materialising on the bridge. Today, however, it was par for the course.

'Colleen?' asked Ratbat as the unsteady form tried to rise to her feet.

'Restored me...' she panted. '...Final act...'

'What restored you?' said a bewildered Ruth. 'Final act of what? Where's the Brooks?'

In shuttlebay 2, Lieutenant Leuning, from Security, and Ensign Risk, from Science, were examining the place where the runabout Brooks had so recently been.

'Shouldn't we be dead by now?' asked Stephanie.

'Don't know. We're not, so I guess we shouldn't.'[28] Nic folded up her tricorder. 'Have you got any idea what she was doing when sh--' She was cut off as a medium-sized spacecraft appeared in the space they were examining, and threw them both aside.

Stephanie rocked forwards once more just looked at the runabout for a second. Then she turned to Nic and said, 'Does it really matter?'

As Colleen stood in the centre of the room, mist still drifting off where she had just appeared, Euan was at last at a fine vantage point to see that Colleen's bottom was, all things considered, not bad.[29] As bottoms went, of course. As far as microwave ovens went, it was completely useless.

'You were under the wig's influence all that time?' repeated Leila.

Colleen nodded at the vague blur she thought the sound had come from. 'Admiral Page was right. It's a very powerful thing. It took hold of me to get to the hole, and there we were able to stop it up.'

'"We"?'

'For a while there, I wasn't quite sure where I ended or its power began.'

'What power?' asked Graham, who had come up from sickbay the moment he'd heard about Colleen's return, and it wasn't just so he could perv, honest.

'It had residual power from Kirk all over it,' Colleen explained. 'It could interfere with the laws of probability - remember how he used to always be able to get out of the shit, no matter how implausible it seemed? That's why it stopped the collapse and blocked the hole...because it was such a strange thing to happen.'

'Excuse me,' piped up Annabelle, holding a brown (or to her, pink) furry object up between her thumb and forefinger, 'but is this the icon of power that everyone's been talking about?' She didn't like things that looked like anorexic tribbles materialising on consoles while she was using them.

Colleen nodded. 'It's just an ordinary wig, now. With the last of its power, it restored the Brooks and sent it to the shuttlebay, and it reconstructed a body for me. And, I might add, it's got a few improvements over the old one.'

She felt, rather than saw, the numerous eyes around the room glare at her.

'Well, it's a bit taller...' she attempted.

Still the glare.

'Um, it's a bit bigger around the...'

The glare again.

'Anyway, at least it gave back your hair,' Terri told her. 'You wouldn't want to get married without the chance to do something nice to your hair.'

'No, actually, I did think about that,' returned Colleen. 'I was wondering what it would be like if all the participants, and all the guests and everybody had to be completely bald...'

As Colleen walked off toward the lift, Terri buried her head in her hands.

Fleet Admiral Sir Geoffrey Page, OBE, couldn't believe his ears. Or, rather, he could. That was the problem. It was just typical of the sort of thing the Compromise crew got up to.

'Can I just ask one thing?' he said once the crew had finished recounting the story. It was bad enough that he was hearing it in person - he didn't see why they all had to be in his office.

'Certainly,' said Euan.

Why weren't you committed ages ago? 'Why did the wig choose Lieutenant Hick? Why not someone else?'

'It needed someone at the command level,' replied Colleen. 'As well, I think it was all part of that whole purity thing.'

'This is true,' nodded Euan. 'She's one of the few people around here who's still untainted by some dark past, sexual history, total and utter freakishness...' With that last one, he cast a glance down towards Graham and Ratbat.

'Have you got the wig?' Geoff asked at last. Colleen reached into her bum-bag,[30] withdrew the sacred relic, and placed it on his desk.

'I'll take that, if that's OK,' said a voice from behind the crew.

Even Geoff appeared slightly taken aback by this new arrival. 'Mr President!' he exclaimed, standing up.

Euan spluttered. 'You're the Federation President?'

Ratbat was so surprised, she almost swore. 'Holy sh-- Holy Shatner!'

'Just "William" will do,' said the President. 'Or even "Bill", if you like.'

'Hh...' breathed Leila. Or to be more accurate, completely failed to breathe Leila.

Who is he? thought Terri.

Before the collectively stunned eyes of the bridge crew, the President picked up the hairpiece and placed it on his own head. 'So glad you got it back for me,' he told them. 'I never really liked the new one much.' He looked at his reflection in a small mirror on the wall. 'Much better,' he said to himself. 'Geoff,' he nodded to the Admiral before leaving again.

Ksenia leaned over to Emma. 'Was that who I think it was?' she hissed.

Emma looked towards her Captain. 'Maybe when Euan comes round, he can tell you.'

Where Everybody Knows Your Name

Graham, Ratbat and Bobbi found Euan in one of the many bars in Starfleet Headquarters - this particular one being called 'Cheers' because it sounded ssooooo funny at the time. The other bars in the structure called the 'Golden Girls' and 'All in the Family' revealed that whoever had come up with the name hadn't quite been able to escape that particular train of thought.

'How are you, Euan?' Graham greeted him. 'What'cha thinking?'

Actually, he'd been coveting Cheers' Piano Man for 10-Foreplay, but he said, 'We've finally finished it.'

'What?' asked Graham. Being single-minded, Euan's statement made no sense to him when he still had a half-full snake-bite in his hand.

'The search for the hairpiece,' Bobbi told him. 'The very mission we've been on ever since we were commissioned.' She paused, listened to statement again in her head, then wished she hadn't said it like that.

'So what do we do now?' Graham asked.

Ratbat caught his scent, and screwed up her nose. 'Bathe,' she told him.

'What's that?' asked Graham.

'You heard.'

'Yeah, I heard. I just...don't know what it means. Are you sure you didn't mean "lathe"?'

'We keep going,' said Euan. 'We keep exploring. We keeping boldly going where no-one will go again.'

You've got that wrong, thought Bobbi, but didn't want to spoil his moment.

'"There are worlds out there,"' quoted Euan, '"where the sky is burning and the sea's asleep and the rivers dream; people made of smoke and cities made of song.

'"Somewhere there's danger, somewhere there's injustice, somewhere else the tea's getting cold. Come on...we've got work to do."'

He was more than a little put out to find that Bobbi had fallen asleep, and Graham was busy trying to pick Ratbat's nose.

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