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Exocomps S2E13 (Bonus) – “Q Chaotic Game”
The USS RMG Nexus was on a routine patrol of a quiet sector, its mission to chart a newly discovered subspace wrinkle. On the bridge, Captain Eva Rostova watched the data stream with the calm focus of a seasoned officer. In her experience, quiet sectors and routine missions were often the preludes to chaos. She was right to be cautious.
Without a moment’s warning, the bridge was engulfed in a flash of brilliant white light. A figure materialized in her command chair, lounging as if he owned the quadrant. He wore a crisp Starfleet uniform, complete with an Admiral’s pips, but his posture and his smug smile were unmistakably his own.
“Ah, Captain Rostova,” Q purred, crossing one leg over the other. “Still chasing shadows and anomalies, are we? How terribly… predictable.”
Captain Rostova’s face went from an initial mask of calm to a look of weary resignation. “Q. I should have known.”
“Oh, and here I thought I’d be a pleasant surprise!” he said with a dramatic sigh, snapping his fingers. Suddenly, the bridge crew’s uniforms all turned a brilliant magenta, and the tactical console began playing a jaunty showtune. “You’ve grown so terribly dull since last we met. There’s no fun in testing a species that just follows the rules. I thought I might amuse myself with an underdog captain and her… quaint little ship.”
Q’s manipulations were constant and petty. He altered the training simulations to be impossible. A simple shuttle repair became a multi-dimensional geometry problem. The comms officer’s hair spontaneously turned green. Each time, the crew would respond with logic and protocol, and each time, Q would mock them.
“Oh please, Starfleet. You’re so predictable.”
He wasn’t here to destroy them, but to exasperate them, to poke and prod at the very core of their Starfleet training.
After several hours of chaos, Q grew bored of the small-scale mischief. He stood from the captain’s chair with a flourish.
“Right then. Time for a real test. Let’s see that famous Federation compassion in action!”
A piercing, garbled distress call blared from the comms, originating from a nearby gaseous anomaly. The signal was a mix of desperate pleas and unintelligible alien language. Rostova, ignoring Q, ordered an away team to the coordinates.
“Oh, how utterly charming,” Q scoffed as the away team, including Chief Rax and Lieutenant Jien’a, prepared to beam over. “Always running to help. So noble. So… predictable.”
The team materialized on a deserted, alien vessel, only to find a silent, swirling vortex of light in the center of the bridge. The distress call was a fake, a trap. The vortex began to shimmer, projecting their deepest fears and self-doubts—Rax saw the faces of every system failure he’d ever overseen, Jien’a saw the ghost of her family who died in the Dominion War.
On the Nexus bridge, Q stood beside Rostova, a look of pure glee on his face. “See? Humanity’s inner demons. They’re so much more entertaining than your grand pronouncements.”
He looked at the captain, a mischievous glint in his eye.
“Aren’t you curious what your machines would do in this situation?”
Rostova’s jaw tightened. She knew he was talking about the Exocomps, but she refused to engage. She simply ordered Rax and the away team to get out.
Hours later, the ship was a mess. Rax and Jien’a were recovering, and the crew was scrambling to clean up the various messes Q had made. Q, however, was restless. He strolled the lower decks, making tools float in zero-g and causing lights to flicker in a rhythmic, annoying pattern. In the midst of this playful chaos, he bumped into a small, elegant device that was methodically repairing a cracked power conduit with a mesmerizing precision.
He paused. Tilted his head.
The Exocomp didn’t even react to him. Its optical sensors focused solely on the task at hand. It was X-239, working with a silent efficiency that was the very antithesis of Q’s chaotic energy.
“What an interesting little thing you are…” he said, a mischievous smile spreading across his face.
Snap.
A flash of white light.
The Exocomp, X-239, was gone.
A faint alert pinged on the main console in Engineering: “Unit X-239: Connection Lost.” The crewmembers present froze, staring at the empty space where the Exocomp had been. A frantic voice came over the comms. “All Exocomps, Captain! Aethel, X-710, X-317… their energy signatures have vanished. Their core connections are gone. They’re all gone.”
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New to Project EXO or returning for your next quest? Below, you’ll find every episode from Exocomps Season 2, ready for your next reading journey.
- Exocomps S2E13 (Bonus) – “Q Chaotic Game”
- S2E12 – “The Fracture Point”
- S2E11 – Code of Two
- S2E10 – The Memory Loop
- S2E9 – First Directive
- S2E8 – Beyond Designation
- S2E7 – The Silent Swarm
- S2E6 – The Smiling Hero
- S2E5 – The Library and the Classroom
- S2E4 – Logic Without a Soul
- S2E3 – The Symbol of Unison
- S2E2 – Starbase 23
- S2E1 – Project EXO