The Cholmondely-Smythe Year

Counsellor Hill hurried down the corridor on board the Psycho just in time to see a group of people heading towards the same door she was aiming for coming from the other direction. Commander Hill was at their head, leading a gurney upon which a body was lying.

“What happened?” she demanded.

“I don’t know!” Lieutenant-Commander Damerell wailed from behind as they followed the gurney into sickbay. Counsellor Hill dismissed him with a wave of her hand as she watched the nursing staff hover nervously around Jackson while he examined the patient on the bed.

“Looks like a pretty nasty disruptor burn to the side,” Jackson commented. “I’ll have to amputate!”

The Counsellor rolled her eyes. She had quickly learned that this was Jackson’s solution to pretty much every medical crisis that occurred on board. She had a feeling that his current patient, a very pale-looking Captain Cholmondely-Smythe, would not appreciate having his side amputated.

“I’d prefer it if you didn’t,” she said and, grumbling, Jackson settled instead for cutting the body on the gurney open with a laser scalpel, as a nurse hurriedly applied an anaesthetic.

“Hey!” he said in surprise, “there’s something artificial in here! Anyone know what this is!”

He was pointing to an oddly shaped lump of metal which had wires running from it into the captain’s body, and also appeared to have a tube of blood going into it, which presumably reappeared out of the other side as well. Jackson poked it experimentally with a finger. When nothing catastrophic happened he reached a hand under the device and felt around.

“Ooo-er,” he said, biting his bottom lip.

“What is it?” Counsellor Hill demanded, suddenly realising she was the only other senior officer left in the room, the others having hurried away at the sight of their captain’s blood and guts.

“I was wondering where all the blood was coming from,” Jackson muttered, his bloody hand coming out holding the end of a tube similar to the one going in the top of the device. The end of this tube, however, was burnt and broken, obviously by the disruptor fire that had injured Cholmondely-Smythe in the first place.

“Doctor!” Nurse Baldwin hurried up holding a padd, “I think it’s an artificial spleen! Without it the captain wouldn’t be able to filter out foreign organisms in his bloodstream!”

“And that’s bad is it?” Jackson asked curiously.

“Well… It could be! He might get infected and die!” the nurse told him.

“There’s the other minor matter of the fact he’s BLEEDING OUT ON THE OPERATING TABLE!” Counsellor Hill shouted at them, gripping the edge of the biobed as they looked at her in surprise. A vague look came over Jackson’s face.

“Oh yeah.”

He held up the burnt end of the tube and chewed his bottom lip, deep in thought.

“Doctor, we can just replace the tube,” the nurse told him, and he beamed at her.

“Wonderful idea! Have the replicator make-”

He was interrupted by the frenzied squealing of the monitor’s above Cholmondely-Smythe’s bed as his vital signs dropped off to practically zero.

“Oh bugger,” Jackson said, leaping for the crash cart as it was wheeled in by orderlies. Setting the device over the bed he dialled up the power and glanced around.

“Clear!”

Cholmondely-Smythe’s body jumped with the shock, but his vital signs remained non-existent. Jackson’s face was grim.

“Again!”

Unable to do anything to help, Counsellor Hill stood to one side and watched helplessly as the captain slipped away.

 

“Hello? Anyone jolly well out there?”

Cholmondely-Smythe stared out into the seemingly infinite white expanse in front of him. There was no distinction between ground and sky, earth and air. He was standing on the nothingness just as much as he was floating in it, making him terribly disoriented.

“This is dashed uncivilised!” he shouted. “I insist I be provided with a sensible visual reality instead of this preposterous vista which, quite frankly, is rather lacking in imagination and creativity!”

Without warning he was seated in his chair in his ready room aboard the Psycho, screen open in front of him. A quick glance revealed that it was displaying archive data relating to some of the various forms of afterlife some of the species in the Federation believed in. Across the room, bent over to examine the empty fish tank (he had never replaced the last lot after they had been wiped out in a freak radiation storm that was only harmful to aquatic life), was a man.

Cholmondely-Smythe got to his feet, straightened his tunic and coughed politely. When the man showed no sign of having heard him he cleared his throat somewhat louder and, when that failed, frowned and said loudly, “I say, my good man, I insist you tell me what’s going on immediately!”

At that the figure straightened and turned, giving Cholmondely-Smythe a cheerful grin. “Welcome to the afterlife, Hubert!”

The silence that greeted this little pronouncement stretched out for so long that the man started to look a little concerned. The small frown gracing Cholmondely-Smythe features had not changed the whole time, and his eyes did not even move as the man crossed the room to stand in front of him. After a moment he waved his hand in front of Cholmondely-Smythe’s eyes, which finally broke the spell.

“Don’t be preposterous,” he said shortly, folding his arms across his chest. “You’re obviously some sort of alien who’s kidnapped me, I demand you return me to my ship this instant!”

The man looked somewhat taken aback. “Hubert, think back. You remember being shot?”

Cholmondely-Smythe pursed his lips thoughtfully. “Indeed.”

“Well, you were rushed to Dr. Jackson’s sickbay, where, I am dreadfully sorry to say, you died.”

Opening his mouth to dismiss the idea as ridiculous, Cholmondely-Smythe suddenly found himself wondering whether what the being was saying was true. If it was-

“Do you mean to tell me, old bean, that- you’re God?”

The man smiled a lightly self deprecating smile that did nothing to hide his underlying arrogance. “I a manner of speaking. My name, description, conceptual existence, whatever you wish to call it, is Q.”

Cholmondely-Smythe gave him a sharp look. “The same Q Captain Picard has written numerous memoranda to Starfleet about?”

“The very same,” Q grinned, obviously pleased at having been recognised.

“May I ask why you’ve chosen to pick on me today?” Cholmondely-Smythe asked mildly, raising his eyebrows.

“Hubert, my dear man, I’m giving you a chance to change your life! As you may be aware, we of the Q are not limited to a linear temporal existence as you humans are. In your timeline the crew of the Psycho have not yet encountered me, though I plan to make myself known to them very soon.” He shifted a little uncomfortably at this, as if in reaction to a bad memory. Giving himself a little shake he focussed a generous smile on Cholmondely-Smythe and continued speaking. “I’m offering you a chance to have never met this crew, to live your life again without making some of the rash decisions you made in your youth. To change what is going to happen in the future,” he added in a mutter, as if to himself.

Cholmondely-Smythe gave him a withering look. “I can assure you, my dear boy, I never made a rash decision in my life. The nerve-”

“I’m sorry Hubert, but I really do beg to differ…”

Q waved his arm and the reality around them changed. The ready room was replaced with a place Cholmondely-Smythe immediately remembered. Taking up the lower floor of a building not far from the Starfleet Academy campus in San Francisco, an entrepreneurial Englishman by the name of Witherspon had recreated with painstaking detail a typical English pub, down to the battered, appallingly patterned seating and the crackling, oversized and frankly downright dangerous log fire in one wall. The place, “Witherspon’s”, was dark and dingy, served room temperature English bitters and ales and was shunned by the majority of the inhabitants of the city.

It had become something of a haven for the young Cholmondely-Smythe and his fellow English classmates during their years at the Academy, who felt unashamedly at home under the low, dark-beamed ceilings, decorated with an enormous variety of actual, antique beermats.

Finding himself standing in the doorway alongside Q, Cholmondely-Smythe felt his gaze being instinctively drawn to the table where he and his friends would regularly sit themselves of an evening. Sure enough, there they were, on their feet arguing with a group of large aliens, and one very short one. Cholmondely-Smythe noted that his blond hair had receded considerably more than he had previously allowed himself to believe. Apart from that he looked very much the same then as he did now, though in somewhat better shape. Beside him, Mitch was squaring up to the aliens. He recalled that his friend had been in the back row on the Academy rugby team and, as such, was built like a cement-block outhouse with floppy hair. Behind the two boys, Linny was getting to her feet with the grace and poise only a shapely Academy graduate with a black belt in jujitsu could muster.

“The midget Nausicaan,” Cholmondely-Smythe muttered, memories flooding back to him. “We’ve just graduated from the Academy. This is the day…” his voice trailed off as his hand came up to rub his side, where his artificial spleen was humming happily to itself. As he watched, a fight broke out. The Nausicaans attacked Mitch, and Cholmondely-Smythe watched with no little satisfaction as he stepped in and, between the three of them, they handed the Nausicaans their backsides on a plate – until the little one stepped in under the young Cholmondely-Smythe’s guard and stabbed him in the side with a knife he had somehow smuggled into the building. The scene faded and Cholmondely-Smythe spun to face Q, who was smiling smugly at him.

“I’d jolly well have died that day if that dastardly midget Nausicaan had known human anatomy better – the blighter thought he was stabbing me in the heart!” he told the other being, who nodded agreement. “As it was he ruptured my spleen and I got this silly replacement.” He paused, considering. “Very well, I admit that in my youth I did occasionally have a tendency to be somewhat rash. And that my life may have been very different had I attempted to behave then in a manner more fitting to that of a young Starfleet officer.”

“If you had it all over to do again?” Q asked slyly.

“Things would jolly well be different!” Cholmondely-Smythe affirmed, and immediately found himself on the receiving end of a hard right-hook, courtesy of the girl seated opposite him in the same booth he had just watched himself being stabbed in front of. The change in light levels, however, indicated that it was considerably earlier in the day, probably just after lunch time. As he nursed his injured jaw she got up and left without a word, allowing his two best friends from the Academy, Mitchell Barrington-Turner and Evangeline Featherstone-Haugh, to slide into the booth on either side of him.

“Looks like that went well, old chap,” Mitchell leered, raising his pint in a mocking toast before downing half of it in one go. Evangeline smiled gently at Cholmondely-Smythe, laying a hand on his.

“Poor Bertie,” she said lightly, “but you aren’t going to let her get you down are you? I mean, you never have before!”

“Er… no,” Cholmondely-Smythe muttered in an uncharacteristically gruff tone. He had forgotten just how much of a rake he had been at the Academy. The memory of it was starting to make him blush, compounding his underlying confusion.

“We’re just off for a quick round of darts. Care to join?” Mitchell asked, having emptied the other half of his glass. He and Evangeline exited the booth and waited as Cholmondely-Smythe shook his head.

“No, thanks awfully. I- there’s someone I need to talk to.”

“Ah, I get it,” Mitch winked at him. “Got another date lined up, old chap? Expecting to get the old heave-ho so sorted out a backup plan? That’s the Bertie we know and love!”

Laughing, he put his arm around Linny’s shoulders and led her away, leaving Cholmondely-Smythe alone in the booth, hands wrapped around what appeared to be his drink. Almost immediately another figure approached and he looked up to find Q standing over him, in a captain’s uniform.

“What the devil do you think you’re doing? Take that off at once!” Cholmondely-Smythe said angrily, gesturing at the uniform as Q seated himself in the spot Mitch had just vacated.

“Why Hubert,” he said with a raised eyebrow and a little quirk of his lips, “this is all so sudden!”

Cholmondely-Smythe sputtered for a few moments, going bright red before he hid his embarrassment by taking a drink.

“What’s this about, Q?” he asked, once he had calmed down.

“Hubert, my boy, I’m giving you your second chance!” Q exclaimed, gesturing expansively with his hands. “If you can go back and change this one incident, I can then bring you back into the present – the present you would have if you had lived your life as you said.”

The captain frowned, then eyed Q warily. “So I won’t die?”

“Not on Doctor Jackson’s operating table, no. But, being human, you’ll pop your clogs eventually, I’m afraid.”

Cholmondely-Smythe thought about this, thinking about all the things he could do achieve with his knowledge of the past. Q interrupted his thoughts as if he could read them.

“Of course, what you do here will only affect you. No earth-shattering changes to the Federation or anything. You’ll only have time to not get stabbed before I whisk you off back to your new life, anyway. Frankly, you’re not important enough to make that much of an impact if your life changes. Your shoes are easily filled, you might say.”

While he bristled at this, Cholmondely-Smythe had to admit that it was true. He had been shunted from ship to ship his entire career until a freak accident had resulted in his promotion to captain of the Disposable, where he had been assigned simple, boring missions. He had been yanked away from that soon after the Psycho had appeared out of the time rift, at which point Starfleet had decided his ‘talents’ were of better use there.

“Very well,” he said, “what are your conditions?”

“No catches,” Q assured him hurriedly. “You’ve got until this evening before the fight that de-spleens you. If you can’t manage to avoid it, the two of us get to spend eternity together so I’d advise you to persevere.”

Cholmondely-Smythe nodded in firm agreement. Q stood, looking out over the bar.

“Ah, it would appear your second date has arrived. I’ll leave you two alone, shall I? By the way, her name’s Susan.”

Cholmondely-Smythe looked up with some surprise as a petite black haired cadet approached his table. He stood and greeted her with a small smile, offering to go to the bar and get her a drink to buy himself some time. She smiled sweetly at him and asked for a vodka and orange.

Hurrying away he spent the next few minutes tactically using his elbows and shoulders in an attempt to get to the bar in order to get served, before performing the dance that can be seen so often in busy English pubs – a man clutching drinks and weaving in and out of the crowd with his elbows out, trying his best to impersonate a gyroscope in keeping the glasses upright whilst avoiding the drunken staggering of the other patrons. Finally making it back to the booth he set the drinks down and slumped into the seat, mind boggling at the way he had somehow used to managed to do that several time a night, every night, for four years.

“So, Bertie,” Susan said in a low tone, glancing at him through lowered eyelashes and sidling closer to him on the seat. “I can call you Bertie, can’t I?” she asked ingenuously, laying a hand on his thigh. He sat bolt upright and stared at her as if she had grown a third head.

“My good woman, I insist you take your hand off my person this instant!”

Her eyes narrowed dangerously, and her long fingernails suddenly sank through his trousers into his leg. His eyes watered and an involuntary whimper escaped him.

“Are we going to shag or what?” she hissed and, when he shook his head, picked up his full pint and poured it with great relish over his head, slamming the glass down on his hand where it was resting on the table. She stood, sniffed, gave him a withering look, said, “Men!” in a disgusted tone and stalked out of the bar. Unbidden, his vague memories of the day before the fight surfaced, Susan among them. He shuddered, certain that he had just saved himself weeks of ridicule from Mitch once his friend had seen the long scratches down his back after one night with that girl.

Speaking of Mitch, he heard the rugby player’s loud voice booming, “One hundred and eighty!” over the noise of the bar. Using a few of the napkins on the table to make an attempt at drying his hair and clothes, Cholmondely-Smythe stood up and headed over to the dartboard that lurked in a corner of the establishment. He arrived just in time to see Mitch drop his last dart into a double eleven on the second attempt, winning the game by a good hundred points. Grinning he held out his hand as his opponent paid up a considerable sum of money, and Cholmondely-Smythe rolled his eyes. No doubt Mitchell had fleeced them handsomely, lulling them into a false sense of security before milking them for everything they had. The big man turned to face Cholmondely-Smythe just as he walked up behind Linny, who glanced over her shoulder and smiled at him. Mitch had a huge grin on his face as he pocketed the slips of gold-pressed latinum, strolling over and announcing, “Drinks are on me!”

They were about to head to the bar when a voice from somewhere around their navels drifted up to them.

“I’d like to challenge you to a match!”

They all stopped and looked down, to find what had to be the world’s shortest Nausicaan glaring up at them. Oddly, apart from the English, Irish, Scottish and Welsh, the race that Witherspon’s appealed to most was Nausicaans, though no-one had ever had the courage to ask one of them why. He was holding a set of personalised darts branded with the symbol of the Nausicaan military, his voice deep and rasping despite his size. Behind him, several normal sized members of his species, a good head taller than Mitch, moved into flanking positions.

“Mitch, old chap,” Cholmondely-Smythe said quickly, “I really don’t think it’s a jolly good idea…”

“Nonsense,” Mitch dismissed his concerns with a wave of his hand. “You’re just being a big girl’s blouse. I accept your challenge,” he said to the Nausicaan, who grinned a grin with far too many teeth as they moved back to the dartboard.

As a crowd gathered around the oche, Q appeared beside Cholmondely-Smythe.

“Problem?” Q asked sweetly, curiously eyeing the players as the Nausicaan lined himself up. His first dart, following an odd arc up from his head height, dropped neatly into the treble-twenty, followed in quick succession by the second and third.

“This is what happened the last time,” Cholmondely-Smythe replied as the crowd cried ‘One hundred and eighty!’ with glee. “The little old Nausicaan’s going to kick Mitch’s jolly old behind into next Tuesday. Eventually Mitch will work out that the little blighter cheated, will want revenge, will rope innocent me into helping him rig the board, the Nausicaans will find out and hey presto! My spleen waves goodbye to the land of the living.” As he was speaking Mitch stepped up and scored a respectable on hundred.

“Bummer,” Q commented, as the Nausicaan sank yet another dart into the treble-twenty. They watched the rest of the embarrassingly short match in silence, the crowd roaring with every dart the Nausicaan landed with pinpoint accuracy. He finished in just nine darts, while Mitch was still on seventy-eight points. He handed over his money, making a valiant attempt to take the gloating of the Nausicaan and his companions with good grace, and walked over to where Cholmondely-Smythe and Linny were standing, Q having melted back into the crowd at some point.

“Come on old chap,” Cholmondely-Smythe said, throwing an arm over his friend’s broad shoulders, “let’s go have a drink.”

 

“‘M tellin’ ya,” Mitchell slurred as he banged yet another empty pint glass down on the table, “th’ little bugger cheated!”

Cholmondely-Smythe, who had watched his friend getting drunker and drunker as the afternoon had worn on, shrugged noncommittally.

“I reckon,” Mitchell added, leaning forward and tapping his nose conspiratorially, “‘e used some magernetic doofah to guide ‘is darts.” Further attempts to continue his nose tapping failed, causing his elbow to slide off the edge of the table. The loss of support led him to fall to the floor, hitting his head on the table as he went down. Cholmondely-Smythe watched with horrified amusement as his friend picked himself back up, musing that in his own memory of the conversation as happened originally Mitch had been considerably more eloquent. It may have had something to do with his own state of intoxication which, if he remembered correctly, was similar to his companion’s.

Mitch had made his way back into his chair just in time to grasp the new pint set in front of him by Linny, who had just returned from the bar.

“Y’re a star, Lins,” Mitch slurred, tipping the glass up and spilling about as much as he swallowed. “Righ’!” he said loudly, drawing glances from those around them, “I’m gonna show ‘im,” he continued. “I’ll rig ‘is little device to backfire, that’ll show ‘im! Y’ll ‘elp me, right Bert?” He threw his arm around Cholmondely-Smythe and grinned drunkenly at him. Stifling his immediate reaction to shove the foul-smelling man away, Cholmondely-Smythe frowned slightly.

“Mitch, old bean, I’m not convinced that’s entirely an appropriate course of action,” he said pointedly. He sighed as his friend blinked blearily at him. “It won’t help, you stupid sod,” he translated exasperatedly. “You’ll probably just make things worse!”

Mitchell blinked again in disbelief. “Bertie-” he managed, before hesitating, “when did y’ever bypass an ‘pprtunity to give a liar an’ a cheat what-for?”

Cholmondely-Smythe shrugged, wondering exactly what he was going to say, when Linny spoke up.

“I think Bertie’s right, Mitch,” she said, watching Cholmondely-Smythe closely. Seeing Mitch recoil in disbelief out of the corner of his eyes Cholmondely-Smythe fidgeted under Linny’s intense stare. Eventually he raised his gaze to meet hers and was about to say something when Mitch staggered to his feet.

“Y’can both just bugger off,” he said, not noticing the look passing between them. He stormed away without another word.

“This is a new side to you, Bertie,” Linny said warmly. “What happened to the gigolo party-boy I’ve known for the last four years?”

Cholmondely-Smythe laughed softly, blushing at the memories her words stirred. “Everyone has to grow up sometime, Lins,” he shrugged. “Perhaps it’s about time I did, what?”

“I think it might have something to do with the new Ensign’s bars we’re all wearing.”

Cholmondely-Smythe frowned a little. “That rank’s going to take a little bit of getting used to.”

Linny dropped her eyes before glancing back up through her lashes at Cholmondely-Smythe, who was suddenly very aware of their proximity. “It’s a shame we can’t get used to it together…” she breathed, before glancing away again and adding, “the three of us, I mean, the Academy Brat-Pack.”

Cholmondely-Smythe nodded wordlessly, staring at her a little breathlessly. His long string of girlfriends at the Academy had always kept him and Evangeline Featherstone-Haugh apart. They had never in his memory had a conversation like this, instead going their own ways after graduation, only exchanging the occasional communication over subspace and meeting up once or twice in the intervening years. He opened his mouth to speak when the door burst open and someone entered clutching a bouquet of flowers so large they were dwarfed by it.

“Flowers for – what kind of a name is that? – a Hubbert Choll-monderly-Smithee?”

Cholmondely-Smythe groaned as he recognised the voice behind the flowers. Q.

“Token from an admirer?” Linny asked lightly, standing with him as he got Q’s attention. “I’ll leave you to it,” she added, sliding out of the booth and disappearing into the crowd. Cholmondely-Smythe watched her go as Q sat down beside him.

“Old flame?” the all-powerful being asked.

“Not- originally,” Cholmondely-Smythe replied, thoughtfully.

“Could be different this time, huh?” Q raised an eyebrow. “Fulfil a lifelong ambition, sort of thing?”

Cholmondely-Smythe bristled a little at that. “Look here, my good man, Evangeline Featherstone-Haugh is no-one’s ‘ambition’!”

“Whatever. Look, Bert, I’d love to sit and chat but as we speak your friend Mitchell is tampering with the dartboard,” Q informed him, picking up Cholmondely-Smythe’s drink and taking a sip.

Shooting out of his chair the captain headed over to the back of the bar, finding Mitchell sat on the floor, dartboard on the ground in front of him. He was holding a linear inducer, carefully adjusting the magnetic field being generated by the device attached to the board.

“Mitch,” Cholmondely-Smythe began, stopping when his friend looked up with a smile on his face.

“Bertie!” Mitch exclaimed, jumping to his feet and picking up the dartboard, displaying his usual irritating ability to recover from a level of alcohol poisoning that could fell a giraffe. He was still swaying a little, but not slurring anywhere near as much as he had been a few minutes ago.

“You’re here to help me show those buggers what-for?”

“No, Mitch, old bean, I’m not.” He felt his stomach sink at the look of disappointment and disgust that came over his friend’s face. “I’m here to try to talk you out of this.”

“What’re you going to do, Hubert?” Mitchell sneered, hanging the board back up and turning to face Cholmondely-Smythe with his big arms folded and jaw jutting out pugnaciously. “Fight me?”

“Don’t be so bloody stupid,” Cholmondely-Smythe snapped. “I will, however, tell the jolly old landlord about the board.”

Snorting, Mitchell strode forward, deliberately knocking Cholmondely-Smythe’s shoulder with his own as he passed, sending the smaller man staggering back a few paces. “Goodbye, then, Ensign Cholmondely-Smythe,” Mitchell said, stressing the new rank. He headed into the crowd, leaving Cholmondely-Smythe standing alone, watching him leave.

 

“I’m telling you, Linny, I think he might really hate me!” Cholmondely-Smythe told his friend early in the evening of the same day, having gone searching for her after Mitchell had left the pub, eventually finding her back in her Academy dorm. They were now sat side by side on her bed, which was covered with a centuries-old hand-made quilt that had been in her family for generations, a patchwork of carefully stitched panels depicting various members of the Featherstone-Haugh family achieving various feats and victories.

“Nonsense Bertie,” she reassured him soothingly, putting a hand over his and patting it. “He’s just drunk and upset. He’s just trying to get used to this new, responsible Bertie. We both are, to be honest. He’s come as somewhat of a surprise,” she added, wrapping her fingers around his hand and squeezing gently. The action drew him out of his rant and he found himself staring deeply into her startling blue eyes.

“Linny,” he started to speak, blushing when his voice caught in his throat and the word cracked a little.

“I find this new Ensign Cholmondely-Smythe rather – attractive – actually,” she admitted in a low voice, shifting a little so she was facing him, pausing as he mirrored the movement. He reached up and laid his hand softly on her cheek.

“You can’t possibly know how often I’ve thought of the two of us courting, Evangeline,” he whispered, leaning in. If Q was giving him the chance to change the mistakes he had made in the past, letting Linny get away was one he definitely intended to rectify.

“Hubert, you silly boy, why didn’t you say something before?” she asked as they got closer.

“Honestly, my dear, at this moment I have no earthly clue,” their lips met and they fell back onto the bed together.

There, on top of the exploits of her ancestors, Evangeline Featherstone-Haugh made another conquest.

 

Later that evening, back in the restaurant section of Witherspon’s, the three of them met up for their final meal together as the Academy Brat Pack. They had been sat around the table in silence for almost an hour, the meal over and only the after dinner drinks to go. Cholmondely-Smythe, determined to remain sober, ordered a pot of tea from the Bolian waiter.

“Pot of English breakfast tea, if you would be so kind,” he told the slightly bored looking Bolian, “brown and wet, chop chop.” The waiter left, looking a little confused, leaving the three of them alone.

Mitchell was well into his fourth pint, occasionally glaring at Cholmondely-Smythe with increasingly unfocused eyes. Linny had avoided his looks all evening, seemingly content to watch the rest of the pub and most definitely not talk about what had happened between them earlier. Cholmondely-Smythe sighed heavily, not knowing what to say to either of them. Several times he started to speak but gave up, instead choosing to stare moodily at the table. He was barely aware when the waiter brought his order over, only looking up when the Bolian left to find in front of him the requested pot of tea, plus a bottle of brown sauce, a cup of water and two lamb chops.

He was still staring blankly at the items, utterly confused, when the door burst open and he tensed as soon as he saw the Nausicaans enter, being led by the little one.

“Want a rematch, Starfleet?” the midget alien sneered at Mitch, who tensed, shaking off Cholmondely-Smythe’s warning hand on his shoulder. The Nausicaans laughed. “What’s the matter Starfleet, cowards?”

“We don’t wish to play, and would appreciate it if you would leave us alone,” Cholmondely-Smythe said haughtily, earning an evil look from Mitch.

The Nausiccan’s gaze turned to Evangeline, who was watching them warily. “How much are you paying her?” he asked, gesturing rudely.

Mitch surged to his feet but Cholmondely-Smythe was right beside him, grabbing his arm and holding him back. When the Nausicaans laughed and Mitchell struggled against him, Cholmondely-Smythe pushed him back into his seat, using his own inebriation against him.

Still laughing, the Nausicaans left the pub as loudly as they had arrived. Mitchell was back on his feet, glaring at Cholmondely-Smythe.

“Asshole,” he growled eloquently, pushing past his former friend and heading out of the door.

After a second, Linny stood and smiled apologetically.

“What happened earlier, it was a mistake. I… See you later, Bertie,” she said softly, before following Mitchell out of the door, leaving Cholmondely-Smythe alone again, until, unsurprisingly, Q appeared at his elbow.

“Congratulations my dear Captain, you succeeded in not getting stabbed!”

“Marvellous,” Cholmondely-Smythe muttered, still watching the door.

“Hm,” Q said, a little disgruntled at being ignored. “Well, let’s see what the future holds for the new you, shall we?” he added, snapping his fingers. Cholmondely-Smythe opened his mouth to speak but found himself abruptly seated behind a massive desk in front of a huge plexiglass window which showed the impressive vista of a planet below him, wherever he was.

“Wait!” he said, completing the thought he had begun before Q snapped his fingers. At the door, a man in his early forties wearing Commander’s pips paused in the act of leaving.

“Was there something else, Admiral?” he asked.

Cholmondely-Smythe jaw dropped slightly before he reached up to feel the pips at his collar and, to his pleasant surprise, found them to be those of an admiral.

“Er… no, actually, I don’t think so. That will be all,” he said, waving a hand in dismissal.

“Very good, sir,” the commander backed out, closing the door behind him.

Cholmondely-Smythe wandered over to the huge window, watching the planet as it rotated below him. His gaze transferred itself to his reflection in the window, noting the different uniform and the new rank pips with relish. Turning he seated himself at his desk and picked up one of the padds lying there, thumbing it into activity.

“Quarterly Report for the Office of the Head of the Committee of Administrative Affairs,” he read, noting his own name on the report. Closer inspection revealed that he was, in fact said committee head. His title, it appeared, was ‘Admiral for Administrative Affairs (Internal)’.

Whatever that meant.

Well, there was no time like the present to familiarise himself with his staff and their day-to-day business. He quickly accessed his local files on his terminal, navigating the LCARS setup into the Starfleet databases and pulling up all personnel records relating to the office he apparently filled. Immediately he recognised the commander who had been leaving as he arrived, as it were. Commander Bernard Woolley, Personal Assistant to the Admiral for Administrative Affairs (Internal). He quickly scanned the other files, unsurprised to find he did not really recognise any of the names there. A second quick check of the databanks revealed that he was stationed in the orbital facility over Centaurus.

He settled back into his chair, feeling inordinately pleased with the way things had turned out. Something in the window caught his eye, and he stood again to cross the room and get a better look. There was a small docking facility there and, to his surprise, settled snugly against one of the docking arms was the USS Psycho. At that moment the door opened and Commander Woolley appeared.

“Ah, Admiral?” the commander said, but Cholmondely-Smythe interrupted him before he could continue.

“Bernard, what’s that ship out there doing here?”

Woolley stepped over to peer out of the window. “I don’t really know, sir,” he replied. “I don’t have anything to do with the day-to-day running of things. It’s put in for repairs, I should imagine,” he added, raising a disdainful eyebrow at the condition of the vessel, which was scarred and dented in places. “If you don’t mind me asking, why the sudden interest in Starfleet vessels?”

“Haven’t I always been interested?” Cholmondely-Smythe asked. It had always been his ambition to become a starship commander, but apparently in this new present things had changed.

“Not really,” Woolley told him, giving him a confused look. “You’ve always said, and I quote, ‘Starship service is a jolly frightful game for mugs and fools who have no sense of self-preservation,’.”

Cholmondely-Smythe stared at him. It sounded like the way he might phrase a sentence, but the sentiment was… disturbing.

“I said that?” Cholmondely-Smythe asked, half to himself.

“Yes Admiral,” Woolley said, giving him one last look before turning to the padd in his hand. “I have a note here from the last committee meeting, you asked for an update on the prospective new ordering system for datapadds and microstorage devices.”

“I did?” Cholmondely-Smythe took the padd and nodded absently. “Very well, thank you Bernard.”

“My pleasure, Admiral,” Woolley told him, leaving the room.

Cholmondely-Smythe returned to his desk to make an attempt at reading some of the padds cluttered there, trying to adjust himself to the new direction his life had taken. He only managed to read a page or two, however, when his curiosity got the better of him and he shoved them to one side, thumbing on his communications panel and requesting a connection to the Psycho. In a few seconds an image of the bridge he knew so well appeared on the screen, his old crew sat around in their positions. In the centre seat was Hill, who stood as the connection was made.

“Admiral, what can I do for you?” Hill asked, taking a few steps forward. The movement was enough to allow Cholmondely-Smythe to see that his former first officer now had four rank pips adorning his collar.

“Ah, er, Captain Hill, yes.” He suddenly realised he had no good reason for calling. “I’m, er, afraid there have been one or two discrepancies in the last requisition forms you filled out, and they’ve come to the attention of my office,” he quickly extemporised.

“Oh?” a vaguely panicked look appeared on Hill’s face, but it was quickly covered up. “What sort of discrepancies?”

“Ah,” he quickly thought back to the time he had been captain of the Psycho. “For one thing, multiple requests for equipment to repair your jolly old docking bay, and your shuttles. I’m afraid the frequency of requests has been flagged as suspicious, old bean. And-”

Cholmondely-Smythe suddenly recalled something that had happened to him after a request Hill had made, and gambled that the same request had been made in this alternate version of his life. “A request has been submitted for item designation VX-11876?”

“That’s correct,” Hill frowned. “What appears to be the problem?”

“You are aware of what that designation refers to, Captain?”

“Sure, it’s a multiphasic core reintegration spectrometer.”

“Ah, I’m afraid not, Com- Captain. Perhaps you are unaware that Starfleet reorganised certain aspects of its inventory scheme. Specifically, those referring to multiphasic repair equipment and weapons of mass destruction.”

Hill went pale. “What did I order?” he whimpered.

“A MegaDeath device.”

“Ohshit.”

“Indeed. Now, it may have been an honest mistake, but someone from Administrative Affairs will have to interview you, make sure you’re not a mass-murdering psychopath. Have a nice day!” Cholmondely-Smythe signed off, relishing the anguished look on Hill’s face. Let him go through all the torturous personality testing and interrogation Cholmondely-Smythe had had to face when Hill had made that mistake the first time around.

Sitting back in his chair, Cholmondely-Smythe smiled. He could get used to this.

 

Later that afternoon, Admiral Cholmondely-Smythe was feeling considerably less enthusiastic about his new job. He had sat through three interminable meetings, of which he had understood precisely nothing, and had two more scheduled for that evening. Currently he was supposed to be reading through the Quarterly Report in an attempt to familiarise himself with his own job, but the language kept making him doze off. He was just about ready to throw a padd across a room when the door opened and Commander Woolley stuck his head around the door.

“Admiral, Mister Appleby is here.”

“Appleby?” Cholmondely-Smythe frowned, not remembering the name from the personnel files he had glanced at earlier.

“Yes, you remember him, the Head of Federation Oversight for the Committee of Administrative Affairs. You do meet with him most days, after all. Shall I send him in?”

“Oh, of course!” Cholmondely-Smythe bluffed rapidly, moving to sit behind his desk. “If you would be so good, there’s a splendid chap!”

As Woolley left the room Cholmondely-Smythe called up the information on the Oversight Head. Oversight was a civilian arm of the Federation whose job it was to keep an eye on the Starfleet committees and make an attempt to keep them operating strictly within the bounds of Federation law.

Cholmondely-Smythe’s counterpart was one Humphrey Appleby, a man with a number of years experience as Oversight for various Starfleet committees who, judging by the track record the computer displayed, was very good at playing the game. Cholmondely-Smythe could feel his palms begin to sweat. He hated bureaucracy, and the endless forms he had to fill out before and after every mission to explain any deviation from the mission statement. What on earth was he doing in a job that was nothing but forms and pointless arguments about – he glanced again at the padd containing the Quarterly Report – the correct ways to fill them in?

He looked up with a bright smile on his face as the door opened and Appleby entered, remembering his own contact with Administrative Affairs some years ago. One misfiled form had led to him being temporarily removed from command, strip-searched, his belongings incinerated and several days in a zero-gravity environment.

“Humphrey,” he said as a serious looking man in his late forties entered, gambling that in his position he would address this person by his first name.

“Admiral,” Appleby nodded to him, setting the small collection of padds he was carrying down on Cholmondely-Smythe’s desk. “I’m afraid I have one or two concerns regarding the preliminary report your office submitted two days ago, on subsistence allowances and time-travel subsidies.”

“Oh?” Cholmondely-Smythe gestured for him to sit. “Can you tell me exactly what your concerns are?”

“Surely that would be obvious?” Appleby countered.

“One might think so,” Cholmondely-Smythe agreed, “but I feel it would be better if you went through them one at a time.”

“Very well,” Appleby agreed, looking a little put out. “Well, obviously the first section we have no problem with at all, generally.”

“Obviously,” Cholmondely-Smythe nodded.

“Although the wording in the fifth paragraph needs to be looked at. After all,” Appleby gave a small laugh, “The current wording is somewhat… open to interpretation.”

Cholmondely-Smythe hesitated, caught by his own apparent knowledge of the document in question. “How so?” he eventually asked.

Giving him a glare, Appleby glanced at the top padd of the pile and began to read. “Insofar as allowances made as according to appendix 1a, subsection theta, the Starfleet operative or operatives suffering from permanent or temporary temporal displacement phenomena, on finding themselves within the bounds of the terms specified in paragraph 17 regarding appropriate practices during said phenomena, should be provided with such aid as is applicable within the confines of the Starfleet Practicable Guidelines document, section 356c, subsection kappa, paragraph 4, with special reference made to the corresponding chart contained in appendix LXIV. Once this has been addressed, the operative or operatives will then be subject to the terms and conditions of the current Federation Articles 554c through 9378x… well, I’m sure you can see why we feel we have to question that!”

Cholmondely-Smythe had felt his eyes start to glaze over as Appleby had been talking. “Well, the Starfleet Practicable Guidelines document…” he began, scrabbling for the one phrase he had recognised, but Appleby interrupted him.

“I’m well aware of what the Guidelines say, Admiral,” the Oversight Head said mildly. “We’ll come to that in a moment. No, our concern is more for the second part of the section.”

“I’m terribly sorry, dear boy, but I fail to see what the problem is!” Cholmondely-Smythe said expansively, leaning back in his chair and surreptitiously wiping his palms on his trousers. He had absolutely no clue what this strange person was talking about, and quite frankly he would find it difficult to even care if he did.

“Admiral,” Appleby said, appearing to lose his control somewhat, “the simple fact of the matter is that the report states that the person involved in the temporal displacement is not necessarily subject to Federation law until the details of the previous statement have been fulfilled! But that statement, the one which comes before the statement about which I felt the need to come and see you, which itself comes after the one which could be said to be causing the problem, if looked at from a certain perspective, can often take a good deal of time to complete!”

Cholmondely-Smythe’s mouth worked for a moment, as his brain looked for something to say that might sound intelligent. “But… doesn’t this only apply to Starfleet officers?”

“Hardly the point, I think you’ll agree,” Appleby said smoothly. “Admiral, all we’re asking is that your people examine the wording a little more thoroughly.”

“Wait a mo,” Cholmondely-Smythe pursed his lips. “What if the Federation has been taken over by some foreign scallywags sometime in the future and they’ve amended the law to say time travellers are breaking the law and should be executed on sight?”

“Then, quite frankly Admiral, these regulations will most likely be null and void.” Appleby sat back in his chair with the look of a sparrowhawk about to strike down on its prey. “That being the case, what’s the harm in rewording them a little?”

“Oh, very well,” Cholmondely-Smythe snapped, no longer sure which side of the argument he was meant to be on, or why they were arguing in the first place. “Was there anything else?”

“No, Admiral, the other issues can wait for now. I’m sure my people will be very happy to hear you’ve backed do- I mean to say, have been willing to discuss changes with us.”

Cholmondely-Smythe stood and walked him to the door.

“I’ve left a padd on your desk with some possibilities my people have come up with for document revisions,” Appleby said as the door opened.

“I’ll have a look over them and get back to you as soon as I can, old bean. Do come again soon.”

“Yes Admiral,” Appleby said with a small smile as the door closed on him.

Cholmondely-Smythe slumped with relief, unable to shake the overwhelming feeling that whatever he had just agreed to, it was going to come back to haunt him. He hurried back to his desk and pulled up his own personnel file. Scanning down his career a horror began to creep over him as he realised that he had barely left the confines of Centaurus, or the base, since being posted there as an ensign. He could just about remember his own first posing from his original life, it had been to an incredibly dull admin facility, where he had served under the most boring admiral he had ever met.

His head shot up and he took a deep breath, shouting loudly.

“Q!”

With a flash the being appeared, sitting in Cholmondely-Smythe’s chair. “Can I help, old boy?”

“This,” Cholmondely-Smythe gestured around, “is, is – intolerable! I’m a desk jockey, dash-it-all, and not a very good one!”

“But this is the life you wanted to lead,” Q told him. “The life of safety and responsibility. What are you saying?”

“I… feel I may have been somewhat hasty in my original decision,” Cholmondely-Smythe muttered.

Q fixed him with a stare. “Are you asking me for something, Hubert?”

Nodding, Cholmondely-Smythe raised his head. “Let me put things back the way they were,” he asked, practically begging. His experience with the Oversight Head had shaken him up more than he cared to admit.

“But Hubert, last time you died on Doctor Jackson’s operating table,” Q pointed out.

“Hmm. Good point, well made that man,” Cholmondely-Smythe frowned, then gave himself a shake. “Better that than to live as this buffoon,” he said firmly, as Q hastily stifled a snigger.

“Oh, very well,” Q finally said. “It didn’t work anyway. I’m still fated to meet that damned crew, whether you captain the ship or not. This whole thing’s been a colossal waste of time. Fun, though,” he added before clicking his fingers.

“Wait, what do you mean?” Cholmondely-Smythe asked as the world around him went white, and he abruptly found himself back in the pub with the Nausicaans taunting them.

“Bugger this,” he muttered to himself, surging to his feet as the little one uttered a particularly nasty insult directed at Linny. With a cry of “Tally-ho!” he launched himself forwards, taking the big one on the left down in a flurry of well-aimed punches and kicks. As if his movement broke some sort of spell, Mitchell and Linny also jumped up, each tackling a Nausicaan. There was a brief fight, as before, which culminated in the midget Nausicaan slipping under Mitch’s guard and lunging for Cholmondely-Smythe, who was busily kicking one of the others between the legs.

He stiffened as the knife plunged into his side, looked down at it and started laughing, the odd chortling snort for which he had become so well known at the Academy. Unable to help himself he turned, still laughing, to the little alien, who was staring at him in shock, and kept staring at him even when the Starfleet officer planted a hand firmly on his forehead and shoved him to the floor. A sharp pain in his side indicated that his spleen had burst, which only set him laughing harder…

 

…and he woke up on the operating table, still chortling to himself. Beside his bed, both Hills were looking down at him worriedly, with Doctor Jackson standing on the other side, frowning.

“No-one’s ever done that before,” the doctor said, which only made the captain laugh even harder.

 

“So you’re trying to tell me some random alien-god-type-being came to you and let you see what your life would have been like if you’d never got that artificial spleen?” Commander Hill said sceptically as the two of them sat at a table in Fred’s Bar.

“Indeed, Commander, that is exactly what I’m saying.”

“All respect and everything, sir, but are you sure you’re not just a bit loopy?”

“Anything is possible, I suppose, Mister Hill,” Cholmondely-Smythe allowed, “but don’t ever say that to me when on duty, understand?”

“Loud and clear,” Hill agreed, sipping his drink.

“I suppose I should be grateful to the blighter,” Cholmondely-Smythe mused out loud.

“How so?”

“He showed me what my life would have been like had I not allowed the more – unorthodox – side of my personality to occasionally come to the fore, I should not have become the man I am today, or be where I am.”

Hill stared at him for several seconds, processing that little piece of information.

“Commander? Are you alright old bean?”

Hill stood suddenly, knocking his chair over. “If you’ll excuse me, sir,” he said, starting over to the bar where Fred was polishing glasses, “I’m going to get very drunk.”

“Splendid. That’s the spirit!”