"Trial by Fire and Mis-Q's" Fiction Excerpt

The opening 400 some words of another SNW 10 sub of mine.

Storyline: Captain Picard is hurled onto a Napoleonic French warship by Q, a cosmic being of unlimited power...minutes before the ship comes under British attack.
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Trial by Fire and Mis-Qs
by Boris Layupan


Captain Jean-Luc Picard struggled to gain his bearings.

A yellow tropical sun--Earth’s he realized--blazed high in a clear sky. The main deck of a large sailing frigate swayed beneath him. Heat shimmered from the white wooden planking, and a ball of perspiration rolled down into the small of his back. Blue water turned to a sparkling white as the warship broke through it; and in the waves thrown off her pointed bow, dolphins tumbled and somersaulted.

At the ship’s peak, a French tricolor flag fluttered above a man-of-war pennant. Sailors in faded shirts and linen trousers, many wearing caps, bustled around him and aloft in the rigging. Orders, conversations, and curses in French rang in the air, most with his native lyrical southern accent, but some with harsher northern tones also.

“How did I get here?” he murmured in English.

Moments before Picard had been in his ready room on the Enterprise, recording a log entry on his encounter with the cosmic being, Q, at Farpoint Station--

This was Q’s doing!

Picard thumped a brass-plated telescope he held in his right hand against his left palm. He realized that instead of his one-piece red and black Starfleet uniform he now wore a dark blue coat with gold lace, white pantaloons, and half boots. He brushed his hand against two cool and heavy flintlock pistols strapped to his waist and a gilded saber at his left side. Picard reached up to rub his head. He brushed back a luxuriant forelock of dark hair protruding beneath the brim of a black bicorn hat. The outlandish headwear offered him no real protection from the sun.

A sudden thrill of wonder over his new head of hair electrified him. He recognized his outfit as that of a senior French naval lieutenant’s circa 1800 or so.

“Mon Dieu!” whispered Picard, his mind reeling.

His father, Maurice, had spoken of the Picard family history continually when he was a boy. One ancestor of note was the Picard who fought at Trafalgar. Had Q placed him in the life of his ancestor, or was this an elaborate fantasy? What did the cosmic being hope to gain from it?

“Computer,” said Picard. “End holodeck simulation.”

The sailing vessel remained in place around him.

“Recognize Captain Jean-Luc Picard,” he said. “Terminate simulation. Override code zed--”

The look-out at the fore masthead hailed the deck.

“Sail ho to windward!”

Picard stood riveted.
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