Chapter 11 - The Origin

James T. Kirk stared hard at the entity known as Q. The cosmic trickster loved to play word games, or hide clues in simple statements. He hoped that was the case with what Q had just said. Because, if it wasn't, then the Q continuum was responsible for the potential destruction of the entire universe. That would exceed even the very low opinion Kirk had of Q.

"Would you mind repeating what you just said, Q?"

Q simply shrugged.

"It's no game, or test, this time, Jimmy. I meant exactly what I said. In a time beyond knowing, the ancestors of the Q continuum so hated another race, they designed the ultimate weapon to wipe away that other race. No big news, there. I mean, everybody who's ANYBODY has built an ultimate weapon. But theirs was special - unique. Designed with nothing but total annihilation as its only long-term goal. No real intelligence, but an instinct that would cause it to do whatever it had to, while keeping itself alive. They gave their hyper-super-duper weapon a name."

Twenty-Four hours before, Q had teleported in, claiming special knowledge of the current disaster. After a long Sinatra impression, mercifully broken up by Jim's son Peter, Q got down to it, and related the culpability of his own ancestors in all that had happened. Kirk said their weapon's name.

"Ghidorah."

"Yes, Mon Capitain. My people created Ghidorah. Want to hear it all?"

Kirk noticed none of the entity's usual arrogance. Q actually seemed contrite. So he went ahead, and they both sat down. Q almost looked as though he needed to. Jim asked him a question.

"First thing. Is there anyone or anything that can kill the monster?"

"That's all part of the story, to be sure. But it's monsters *plural* - as you'll soon find out. Also, killing Ghidorah isn't enough. Above all else, he must be destroyed. That said, killing him is damned near impossible to begin with. Lastly, before I begin, hear this, human, if you hear nothing else. Keep that daughter-in-law of yours and her unborn child safe. Because if anything happens to them, your son will be not be able to do what he must. He's perilously close to breaking as it is."

"Forgive me, Q, but I have to hear it said. What must Peter do?"

"Very well, if only to not have my narrative interrupted any further. Peter Claudius Kirk, son of James T. Kirk, must break Ghidorah's power. Then, after the beast is killed, Peter must answer the Great Question, then seek and destroy Ghidorah, once and for all. Because that is why he was born, Jim. It may even be why this universe spawned 'humanoids'."

Kirk's mind reeled, as well it might, but he bade Q begin his story.

"I called Ghidorah's creators my ancestors. That is true in some respects, not so much in others, but it serves for what I have to say here and now. There were two races, then. One energy, my ancestors' - one matter, my ancestor's enemies."

"Why were they enemies?"

"Jim, I just told you why. They despised each other's mere presence. That the other existed seemed a violation of their own view of the cosmos, and their place in it. I said they were my ancestors. I didn't say I was proud of them. One day, the two races were up against it. The matter beings could never destroy enough energy, and the energy beings always dissipated too much of their substance going after matter. A stalemate."

But Kirk shook his head.

"Q, the laws of physics state that matter and energy are one, and as such can neither be created nor destroyed, only changed. That's as basic as it gets."

"Those are the laws... here. May I continue?"

"Yes, of course.

"As the war dragged on, neither side was winning. So these pre-Q, if you will, decided to use a matter weapon fueled by energy. They viewed the matter-beings as abominations, so they built a worse one. Genetics, cybernetics, necromancy of the dead matter beings, you name it. If it could be done, they put it in. So long as it furthered their hate, there wasn't a cell they didn't re-splice, a line of code they didn't bother to add, a loved one they weren't willing to sacrifice. Why wings? Why three heads? Easy. They hated matter so much, they wanted their own part matter-weapon to reflect their repulsive view of matter-based life."

"And each head has a function?"

"Highly specialized. Legends to the contrary, all 3 heads went exactly as planned. The Gold head on the right fires gravity beams. Not capture beams, tractor beams, or singularity event horizon attraction. No, these are star-crackers. The Middle Head is cybernetic. That's likely where they intended to pilot it from. Machinery tends not to function right around it, if it all. The left head is cold, gray Death. Stay away from it, for its crafting involved the most necromancy. And when I say 'necromancy', I don't mean science that looks like black magic. I mean nasty, evil, 'shamrocks stuffed in both pockets as a precaution' sorcery, all of it drawing on the hate of the two races. The damned thing has an immense physical presence. It only uses its vast power when something might escape its wings, necks, or tails. Lastly, it is infinitely adaptive. Not only will it absorb almost all energy that strikes it, but it has as part of its programming the instinct to turn a foe's weapons against them. Don't ask me how they pulled any of this off, though."

"No, Q. I am asking you. If we have even an inkling of how Ghidorah was created...."

"If you'll hear me out - again - you'll know why it can't help you. Now, what the energy beings had done was create a deadly sword, a giant scalpel to deal with the cancer they saw. The matter-beings were simpler. They crafted a bludgeon, one that used matter to fuel an energy weapon. You personally have seen this weapon, Jim. You stared right down its maw, and thought you had killed it when you blew up a starship inside it."

"Q... The Doomsday Machine is dead. It's been scanned for years for any signs of activity. There's been absolutely none."

Q hung his head, feeling as though his was a lost cause. With a gesture, he silenced Kirk, then spoke on the intercom, using the Captain's voice.

"Kirk to Bridge."

"Decker here, Captain. There's been no new footage from Qo'noS."

"Very good, Number One. Check on the status of Starbase Omega, if you would."

"Sir, with all respect, you know my feelings about Starbase Omega and its contents."

"I know, Will. But something has come up. Something deadly serious."

"Aye, Captain. Decker out."

An angry Jim Kirk punched Q in the jaw.

"Don't *ever* do that again! Will Decker lost his father to the Doomsday Machine. There were other people I could have had check - check? Since when does a Q need to..."

Jim saw that Q's mouth was bleeding. More, the blood did not stop flowing.

"You're human. Did the continuum banish you again? But - you still had powers just a short time ago."

Q wiped his face, and continued.

"The two weapons were sent out to fight one another. But while Ghidorah's instinct for killing was great, they had also given it a self-preservation instinct. It avoided the Maw Of Hell, or Doomsday device, which, with its anti-proton bludgeon, proceeded to wipe away the energy beings, who were mostly protonic in nature. The matter beings were gone very quickly, except for a group from a more advanced world where the two races had lived in relative harmony. Their work done, they faced each other. The energies they unleashed finally killed them."

"But it didn't destroy them."

"No. Their revival programs are so deeply encoded, they'd have to be on top of each other to actually finish the job. But Ghidorah's survival instinct keeps that from ever happening. While they were reviving, the universe about them suffered heat death as a result of the long wars."

"Q, are you saying these things are from an alternate reality?"

"Kirk, you are soooo limited. They are not the enemy from across the border. They are this house's previous residents. They used to live here, and you all are trespassing."

Again, Jim was floored by a mere concept. But what a concept it was.

"They are from the universe that existed prior to this one! It explains quite a bit."

"Actually, Jim, it explains everything. They were crafted to survive in pure entropic void, if need be. As the universe we know was formed, they were apart from it. As it expanded, it did so around their lifeless bodies. As each awoke, hundreds of trillions of kilometers apart, they resumed their grim tasks. But now they had an edge. It seems like a simple difference in vibratory field. But that field is their intrinsic vibratory field. That's the stuff of creation itself. You, and I, and the garden slugs of Venil 12, and the stars over our heads, one and all share the same intrinsic vibratory field. As does almost everything in this universe."

"Everything except the two monsters. Q, is that why they can seemingly flout physical laws as we know them?"

"Very good, Captain. I can see our sparring sessions kicked loose some brain cells. But there's no seeming about it. Except for distance, and perhaps time, they are subject to almost none of our laws. As a Q, I once could negate gravity, or time, or go around distance. But those things were merely manipulations of existing rules. You can raise one variable or lower another. But they alone are able to ignore most of those variables. Thank Creation they're not truly intelligent."

"So they began again, in this universe. Could anyone have stopped them?"

"Perhaps Sargon's crew. But Henoch founded the Order, and Sargon trusted his brother until it was too late. The universe once spawned a life form for that purpose on your planet. I mean that literally. Creation itself conspired against the monsters, and eventually, in a small valley during the Cretaceous Age, it emerged."

"'It' being?"

"A beautiful thing. In that isolated valley were a group of bestial stegosaurs and an herbivoriusly adapted form of allosaurus. Somehow, they mated - yes, I know - but they produced the species that was to kill Ghidorah. In time, its evolution would have made this creature able to survive even a hydrogen bomb. The resulting mutation would have attracted Ghidorah, and in 1999, as you people count time, this new creature would have killed that King. But somehow, advocates of the Order in other galaxies picked up on all this. Paranoid trash. Ghidorah attacked your galaxy for the first time, spawning all kinds of legends, causing all kinds of death. Your quadrant he came to last, just as now. He came to Earth, slaughtered its Guardians, Mosura, Gamara, and Battara, and ate every last one of that new species. Until your son was born, that was it. The life of the universe depends on a contingency plan."

Still trying to take all this in, Kirk questioned Q still further.

"Again, why Peter? And don't you mean the life of this galaxy, not the whole universe, except eventually?"

"Kirk, this IS 'eventually'. All the life that's left in the Bloody Cosmos is here in what you call the Alpha Quadrant. Why do you think he came here last? As to Peter, it could have been anyone. But all the right people lined up, had all the right children, even down to your own brother, who wasn't able to have children, and so tricked you into skinny-dipping with his wife. You thought he'd be furious with you. But he loved pulling practical jokes on his little brother. This one just has a better punch-line."

Jim looked at a tired, but smirking Q.

"What are you, a Cosmic Voyeur?"

"Yes. Yes, I am! Or - was."

"Q, if we're all there is, then the universe is done anyway. One quadrant of one galaxy can't repopulate a universe, especially one that is mostly void."

"Relax, Jim! If you and your boy can pull this off - like your sister-in-law did her bathing suit, oh that was classic, you were an unwitting beet-red father-to-be! Sorry. If you can beat Ghidorah, then the universe's own potential for life will do the rest. It won't be a quick restoration, mind you. But things will have a fighting chance to slip back into place. Peter will be involved in that, too. Feel free to be proud of him, Kirk. He's handling more of a burden than anyone realizes."

"I... thank you, Q. But you called those energy-beings your ancestors?"

"Well, their patterns survived the transition. When the Q ascended, we used those patterns as our templates, and learned much we wanted to - and much that we did not. I've called your race a bunch of savages. But Attila had nothing on these hostile unhappy fun balls made out of proton juice. They gave the gift that keeps on giving... They... AAArrrGHHH!!!!"

Q was in real agony, and collapsed to the floor. Jim knelt over him.

"Q? What's wrong?"

"Nothing, Kirk. Don't go all maudlin on me, now. I did what I had to. Time to join my people. Hope - the information helps."

"Where is this new dimension, Q? The one where your people have gone."

"Oh, it has lots of names. Valhalla, Nirvana, Heaven, Hell, Limbo, Sheol, you name it, it's been named it."

"Those are places of the dead, Q. Are you telling me that your people are gone?"

"Yeah, Jimmy, that I am. You know how the Romulans found Ghidorah dormant - those morons? Well, he wasn't sleeping just to rest; he was sleeping off a meal."

"The Continuum?"

"Give that man a cigar. Stupid really. In your terms, someone left the back door open, and the wolf got in. I barely managed to get here. I was a little bit crazy when I did, as you saw. Take care of the old dive for me, Kirk."

"Q, please just hold on! We can find a way-some way of keeping you alive."

"Don't be like that, Jim. Dying is easy, you know. But comedy - *that's* hard. We did have some laughs, didn't we?"

"Some. Even when you're playing with me, Q, you're a hard entity not to be amused by. So stick around, please."

But Q was fading fast.

"See? It wasn't all bad. It... was fun. Kind of... like... this!!!"

Using the very last energy of his existence, Q threw a pie in the face of Captain James T. Kirk. Through the whipped cream, he saw Q fade away, this time never to return. Wiping the pie off, Jim cleaned off the plate it was in, and put it with other treasured items.

"I promise, Q. Not only to fight and win this battle, but to use that plate to loosen up a certain Vulcan, next time I see him. You were a cosmic bastard, at times. But you were not the Enemy."

But the day was not yet done in body-blows to James T. Kirk.

"McCoy to Kirk!"

"Yes, Bones!"

"Jim - I think you better get down here."

The Captain made Sickbay in record time. What he saw did not please him. Saavik was attempting a mind-meld with her unconscious husband, who also happened to be the Captain's son, Peter.

"Come back this way, Jim."

"Bones, what's wrong with Peter? Why does Saavik have to meld with him? They're bonded!"

"Jim, he's suffered a complete nervous collapse. Peter's pulled so far into himself, Saavik almost can't feel him. Somehow, the news footage from Qo'noS triggered what we're seeing now. Worse still, if he doesn't come out soon, it could threaten Saavik and the baby."

"That won't happen. If Saavik can get me in there, I'll drag him out if I have to."

"I don't think I care for that idea, Captain. What that boy has been through is finally catching up with him. We may be lucky if we ever get him back completely."

"Bones, that boy is a man. He has a wife, and soon a child. I know he's hurting, and I don't want to rush him. I want to protect my son. But he has greater responsibilities out here."

"Name one that's worth risking his long-term health, if you would be so kind."

Kirk stopped, and caught his breath.

"Bones, it's Ghidorah. Peter's the only one who has even a chance of stopping him."

"I understand, Jim. But back during that month after Sam and Aurelan died, we called him 'Peter with the haunted eyes'. Now we know what was haunting him, and as his doctor, and friend of his father, you'll forgive me if I'm less than enthused about all this."

"Doctor? Pop?"

McCoy smiled.

"Saavik calls you Pop? Jim, that's precious!"

Slightly flushed, Jim walked over to his new daughter-in-law. She was still trying the meld.

"Have you got him, Saavik?"

"No, sir. But I have contacted someone else."

"Someone - in Peter's mind? Is it Ghidorah?"

"Thankfully not, sir. But it is someone you are familiar with. He shall speak through me."

While Saavik released the meld, and allowed the individual to take over, McCoy shook his head.

"Dragons, and now séances! Don't you just love modern medicine?"

Saavik's eyes opened, but the voice she spoke with was not her normal one.

"Oh, Len! Can't you ever just try anything new without complaining? You didn't even like Saurian Brandy til Rely gave you a bottle on your birthday."

The possessed Saavik turned to Kirk.

"Hey, Jim! Long time no see, little brother. Look, just for the record, I don't care whether he calls you Dad or not. My feeling is, together, we made a great kid. Hell, we made a dragonslayer!"

She/he looked at Saavik's body.

"He's done all right for himself, too. Married a half-Romulan, to boot! Just like his dear old dad - or dads, depending on your point of view. Boy, is this girl a looker, or what? Sorry to babble, but it's been 20 years since I had a mouth. Hello? Jim! Do you still have a mouth?"

Kirk stared at Saavik, then closed his eyes, and took in the voice and mannerisms. Those things confirmed who he was talking to, despite all common sense. He said one word.

"Sam!!??"

Next- Chapter 12 - Mighty Qo'noS.....