Could Have Been Ditch Digging

The very indignity of it all!  Wolfgang Quarton, former member of the Q Continuum, forced against his will to learn waste recovery systems?  And what was with Dracula?  Shaking his head as his security escort pushed him along, he muttered to himself, "They'll let anyone on these vessels."

Entering Engineering, he began thinking about a lot of things.  Namely, because anything he could think of was better than what he was going to have to do.

As Lieutenant Walker launched into his spiel on WRS, Wolfgang began to think on other things.  Like the comments made by both Commander Wayne and Dr. Starr.  Who did they think they were, talking to a former member of the Continuum such as they did???  Why... if he was still a Q...

And that stopped his mind dead in its tracks.  That ever-sobering thought.  He wasn't a Q anymore.  And he wouldn't be again... for a long time.

That was a thought that kept him awake at nights.  He had read in a Starfleet medical journal that the average human lived to the age of 103.  The record for the longest living human... 138 years.  And the writer of the article stated that he figured in twenty years, they could add another ten years to the average.  The very thought sent a shudder through Quarton's body.  Spending a hundred years in this form?

His train of thought was rudely interrupted by Lt. Walker.  "You haven't heard a word I've said, have you?"

Wolfgang choked back about two dozen fairly stinging remarks.  Deciding he was in enough trouble as it was, and not exactly wanting to see what else Commander Wayne could come up with as further punishment, he merely shook his head no.