Delightful Darkness
A little sci-fi flash fiction / Star Trek fanfic
This is a flash fiction / Star Trek fanfic inspired by the prompt “delightful darkness” from
’s Flash Fiction Friday. The prompts this week were:Write about a favorite food
delightful darkness
“Explain it to me again”
A character who isn’t human
Flash fiction means I wrote it quickly with almost zero editing. And I thought this time it would be fun to try my hand at fan fiction! Let me know what you think in the comments!
“Delightful Darkness please, Guinan.”
The Enterprise’s long-suffering bartender raised an eyebrow as Will Riker slumped onto a bar stool. Even someone less observant than she was would have noticed the odd pallor of his skin, and the circle of reddish marks on his left cheek.
“Are you sure about that, Commander?”
“Of course I’m sure.” Riker’s tone was uncharacteristically sharp.
“Very well.” Guinan shrugged, as if to say on your own head be it. “You know this Cardassian whisky is strong stuff, Will. Be careful.”
“I need it.”
She slid the glass across the bar to him. Riker stared through the mists wreathing off the cocktail and into the black depths of the drink.
“What happened to you, Will?” Guinan leaned across the bar, her voice low. Ten Forward was quiet, but she knew how to keep her voice from carrying.
“Hell if I know, Guinan. But I need to forget… something. Something’s just giving me the creeps. Like I just woke up from a bad dream, but I can’t remember what it was.”
Riker picked up the glass and downed it in one go. Guinan watched the effects kick in: first the sag against the bar, then the fluttering of eyelids as the amnesioids kicked in, then the flush of blood to the face, then the blinking back to consciousness.
“Hi, Guinan!” Riker stretched and rubbed his face, then looked round Ten Forward. “How long have I been here?” He picked up the glass and sniffed it, then wrinkled his nose. “Have I been drinking Delightful Darkness?”
“So it would seem,” Guinan agreed. “Commander, what were you doing before you came here? What do you remember?”
A puzzled look crossed Riker’s face, then he bolted to his feet.
“Minuet! I should be in the holodeck!”
Riker darted out of the bar. As soon as the door had slicked shut behind him, Guinan glanced round, brushed a speck of dust from her robe, and followed him.
Riker straightened his uniform outside the entrance to the holodeck, surprised that the program was already running. The croon of a saxophone greeted him as he stepped inside, and in a corner booth of the jazz bar he saw Minuet nursing a drink, waiting. A grin spread across his face.
“Mind if I join you?” He slid into the booth beside her. He signalled to the waiter. “Bourbon, on the rocks.”
Minuet ran a hand down his thigh and leaned in to kiss him. But as Riker leaned forward to respond, her face morphed and twisted like wax melting by a fire, into a hundred rubbery eyes and a mouth with rows of tiny teeth like a shark. Before he could dodge, the mouth leapt and latched onto his forehead. The teeth gripped, gentle but immovable, and what felt like red-hot needles pierced the skin, burrowing into his brain. He cried out, but could make no sound. Images blurred like galaxies, sound tangled and twisted into an avalanche, and he knew no more.
“Number One! Glad to see you back with us!”
Riker pushed himself up on an elbow and tried to make his eyes focus. Slowly, the familiar shapes and colors of Sick Bay resolved themselves around him.
“What happened?” His voice was hoarse, and his head was pounding. He tried to sit up. “I was in the holodeck and —“ The colour drained from his face as he remembered. He lunged from the bed. “No! No, no, no. I need to forget. Need to forget. I need to get to Ten Forward.”
Captain Picard pushed him back into a sitting position.
“Number One, you’ve just survived an encounter with a most unusual alien species.”
“I need to forget!”
“You may or may not recall that before your… incident… in the holodeck, we were in orbit around Teuthis III, which we believed to be uninhabited M-class. However, it now appears that it is inhabited, by some species of intelligent entity which is formed purely of data structures. The Away Team we sent down may have inadvertently carried one of the entities back, or it may have travelled independently, but it was able to penetrate the ship’s systems and attack through the holodeck program.”
“Why?” Riker tried to stand again. “Captain, permission to leave Sick Bay. I need to forget.. something bad. A nightmare.”
“You’ll leave Sick Bay when I say and not before,” interjected Dr Crusher.
“It appears that the entity sought to extract all the data it could, directly from your brain. It then triggers an intense impulse to forget the encounter, thereby allowing it to stay hidden.”
“Let me out of here! Beverly, give me something! You gotta have something to make me forget!”
Riker pushed Picard aside. Two medical aides rushed forward and grabbed his arms, trying to pin him down while Dr Crusher prepared a sedative.
The entrance swished open, and Guinan walked in. She was holding a tray with a glass of dark liquid, steaming with vapour.”
“I have a little something for the patient,” she said. “Delightful Darkness. With your permission, doctor?”
Riker broke free from his captors, grabbed the drink and downed it, then collapsed onto the floor.
“Thank you, Guinan,” said Picard, as they watched the drink take effect. “If it weren’t for your quick thinking back there…” He shook his head. “I’d rather this concoction weren’t regularly available on the Enterprise, though.”
“Don’t worry, Captain. That was the last of the Cardassian whisky. No more Delightful Darkness for a while.”
Guinan smiled quietly, picked up the glass from where Riker had left it, and headed back to Ten Forward. There were others to serve.
Check out ’s post below for more about Flash Fiction Fridays, and check out other stories inspired by the prompts!
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I can't tell you how comforting it is to read some Star Trek