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“Captain,” Chekov said, breaking the droning silence on the bridge. “We are off heading by five degrees.”
“Mr Sulu?” Kirk inquired.
“Not me, Captain,” Sulu answered, shaking his head while examining the instruments before him. “We haven’t adjusted in course since the last star system.”
“A mistake in initial heading, then.” Kirk answered. “Sulu, correct for that five degrees.”
“Aye, sir.”
Spock stood frowning at his station for a few moments. “Captain,” he ventured cautiously. “I am reading something strange on the detector circuits. It indicates some sort of energy field, but there is no point of origin.”
All eyes shifted to the view screen. There was nothing out of the ordinary to see, just the black void of space and the light of distant stars.
Spock turned back to his console at the sound of a rapid beeping. “Collision alert, Captain. Twelve o’clock.”
“Full stop, Mr Sulu.” Kirk said quickly, then added. “We’ll go to yellow alert.”
As the Enterprise slowed and yellow lights flashed, there was a sudden change on the view screen. Crisscrossed over the nearly blank field of space was a shimmering grid, warped as if mapping a concave surface.
“What is it?” Uhura asked, unconsciously having risen from her chair to get a closer look.
“Whatever it is,” Kirk said, slowly standing, eyes glued to the view-screen, “it has us surrounded.”
Chekov and Sulu looked at each other with uncertainty. Spock returned to his hunched position over his instruments.
“A force-field.” Spock said, “I believe we have been captured.”
“By who?” Kirk asked, and was promptly blinded by a brilliant flash of white light from the middle of the bridge.
“By me!” A bombastic voice announced.
Eyes blinking the spots from their vision, the crew regarded the intruder. He was a human man wearing a red and black onesie that was identifiable as a bastardized Starfleet uniform only by the delta insignia pinned to it. He stood directly in the middle of the bridge, T posing. There was a sound of rustling fabric as phasers were drawn all around him.
The intruder dropped his arms to his side with a huff. “Is this how you people welcome your guests? How… tacky.” He sneered. “Although very suited to a high noon duel. This one would win, by the way.” He said gesturing to Uhura, who somehow found it in herself to glare harder than she already was. “That one wouldn’t last long in the wild west. Quite the chicken you’ve got yourself there.” He raised an eyebrow at Chekov, who had frozen in place and was the only one who didn’t draw a phaser.
“You’re trespassing on a Federation vessel,” Kirk said sternly. “Who are you and why are you here?”
“I, of course, am Q,” the man said with a flourished bow, “and I am here because I want to be here.”
“Okay, ‘Q’,” Kirk said, keeping his phaser level with Q’s head. “Who do you work for? What do you want?”
Q laughed. “Who do I work for? Now that’s a good one.” He stopped laughing when he realized that there was no spark of recognition from anyone around him. “Most curious. Nobody warned you about me?”
“Enough with this,” Kirk took a threatening step towards Q. “You’re under arrest. We’ll get answers out of you from the brig.”
Q rolled his eyes, infuriatingly unintimidated. “Oh please, this is getting old.” He whined, then raised his arm and snapped his fingers. Kirk, Uhura, Spock, and Sulu all felt briefly disoriented as their phasers vanished, so suddenly it was as if they were never there. Uhura stepped back and stumbled into her console.
From behind Q, Spock raised a questioning eyebrow at Kirk, who returned a nearly imperceptible shake of his head. He had the feeling that a nerve pinch would not resolve this encounter.
“That’s better.” Q said, grinning, “much more hospitable. Now, tell me, what year is it?”
Kirk squinted at him suspiciously before answering. “2265.”
A single syllable of laughter erupted from Q. “2265! Oh, no wonder you’re all looking at me like I’m a lunatic, I’m a hundred years early!”
Kirk caught movement out of the corner of his eye. “Chekov, stand down.” He said sharply. Chekov, who was slowly raising his phaser at Q, reversed the action.
Q looked over his shoulder at him. “Well, ‘Chekov,’ I guess you have some bravery in you after all.” He walked in a small circle, addressing them all. “Well I’d love to stay and have some fun, but the longer I’m here the more I’m going to inadvertently change the outcome of a... certain encounter of the future, and I wouldn’t want that. So I’ll just leave you with… a little parting gift.”
Q snapped his fingers.
“Your Chekov is now ‘Chickov.’ Isn’t that clever. See you in a hundred years!” There was a blinding flash of light, and Q was gone without a trace.
“Captain,” Spock said, his vision clearing first. “The barrier is gone. But Mr Chekov is…”
“Oh my god-” Sulu and Uhura said in unison.
Sitting on the navigation panel was a large brown chicken wearing a wig and a yellow Starfleet uniform, modified to fit a chicken. It looked around confused, then began to cluck frantically.
“Holy shit,” said Kirk. “Uhura, what’s he saying?”
“I don’t speak chicken, sir!” Uhura exclaimed with exasperation. “I think we need to get the Doctor up here.”
“Negative lieutenant,” Spock said. “The Doctor can’t be expected to know such a language when he is barely fluent in his native Federation Standard.”
There was a beat before they realized that Spock had told a joke. There were interjections of “good one, Spock” and “got him” and everyone chuckled like it was the end of a campy network TV episode from 1967.
The chicken formerly known as Chekov frantically ran around like, well, like a chicken with its head cut off.