Q-Less

*** (3 stars out of 5)

Oh, you thought when Q showed up to mentor Amanda Rogers that he had probably dropped Vash into a star somewhere? Well, what a pleasant surprise!

 He only dropped her on the bleakest space station in creation, crummy old Deep Space Nine.

Our story opens with Dr. Bashir, regaling a gullible date with a self-aggrandizing tale of his medical exams and how he came in a glorious second in his class.

Vash has spent two years gathering trinkets in the Gamma Quadrant. She stores them with the Bajoran version of the Gringott's Goblins in the Assay Office. The shady archeologist broke up with Q and is trying to stay broken up. She rubs one out on Quark's ears to get him to agree to provide an auction venue at a mere 22% of the proceeds. Also, ick.

Q fights Sisko in a boxing match. When the Commander knocks him on his butt, the entity mocks him for being so easy to provoke.

Vengeful and petty, Q gives Vash a taste of the Gamma Quadrant diseases he could have let her die of.  Based on her behavior with Quark, I'm going to assume the majority of these were sexually transmitted. Honestly! Who knows what ears she's been browsing around in?

The station is losing power and being dragged toward the wormhole. "Picard and his lackeys would have solved all this technobabble hours ago." Q taunts. He disrupts the Auction, pointing out: "It's very unlikely any of you will survive to enjoy your purchases."

Q offers a MILLION gold-pressed latinum bars for Vash's Faberge egg, which hatches into a Faberge butterfly and flies off into space without going Full Mothra on them. Q leaves Vash to work off his tab with Quark.

"Q-Less" should be a reference to the movie 'Clueless', as a fluffy comedy where vapid, materialistic characters hang out in a mall, except it came out two years too early. Figuring out what's caused the power drain in the runabout, and then on DS9 should be as simple as doing a bag check, but treating Vash like a common shoplifter doesn't cross anyone's mind.