Wesley comes to a few days later, scrapes the dried puss off of his body, and finishes his shower. He tries to make friends, really he does, but the other convicts just aren't as impressed with his lab stories as they should be. Even so, they do their best to get to know the new kid, inventing special new games for him like "spin the weasel", where they lie him down on a slick floor and spin him around, whoever his head ends up pointing at, getting to stomp on his face. Soon, Wesley becomes an Odo look alike. "Guys, I don't like this game", he says, starting to whimper, especially as he notices that a holo show has just come on. "The Tonight Show", starring Jay Leno XIV. Wesley's story has travelled the glaxy, and become fodder for late night comedians. "Do you think that Ensign Crusher's parents were close?", asks Jay. "I guess they would have to be, wouldn't they?" His head bobs up and down, and the audience erupts in laughter. Wesley rushes out of the room.

"I don't like it here", he says, running toward a lift to the surface, finding it left strangely unguarded. "I'm leaving". He hits the up button, the doors close, and up he goes. He begins to notice that it's getting chilly. He really hasn't thought this through. Vega XII, being the 12th planet out from Vega, has a cold climate, much akin to Pluto's. That lift was left unguarded for a reason. In a panic, he hits the down button. "I'm sorry, Wesley", a computer voice comes on, "I can't let you do that. I'm programmed to refuse any requests to go down until I've completed the transit to the surface. Would you like to hear some music while we ascend?" "Noooooo!!!!!", scream Wesley. "Help! Anybody!".

Q appears. "I believe you called. I suppose that you'd like me to save your pathetic mortal existence?" "Yes", says Wesley, shivering and already turning blue. "If it wouldn't be too much trouble." "Why, my dear boy, it's no trouble at all", says Q. "In fact, it would be my pleasure". But the elevator continues to rise, and Q vanishes. "Q? You said you were going to save me!". The doors start to creak. Wesley pulls back in horror. The doors slide open, and Wesley freezes solid, instantly.

But he does not die. The maintenance bots pick him up, and transport him out to a shed on the surface, with the other construction supplies. There he is forgotten.

Thousands of years pass, and then tens of thousands more. Vega XII is no longer a penal colony; in fact, even the memory of the Federation itself is long lost. The shed Wesley once stood in has eroded away until only the foundations remain. But the still living statue that is Wesley Crusher remains, standing in the middle of a park, where he is decorated by the frostbirds, a native lifeform akin to a pigeon. He has become a minor tourist attraction. Lovers carve their initials into him. Scientists break off pieces of him to study, forever unable to hear the one thought that echoes through their subject's mind, drowning out almost all others.

"Mommy, I'm so cold!

Aftermath: Successful military powers do not become that way by tolerating incompetence. For allowing themselves to be taken by surprise by as unformidable an adversary as Crusher, Riker and Picard are reduced in rank. Picard is busted down to a cargo ship command, where he spends the rest of his career futily seeking somebody that he hasn't surrendered to, already.

Riker pulls "career day" duty at elementary schools back on Earth. A hand goes up. "The young man in the front row", Riker says confidently. "Sir, is it true that your captain used to call you 'number one'?". "Yes", says Riker through gritted teeth. "Is that why my Daddy says that your career is in the toilet?". The room fills with tiny giggles.

Data is kidnapped and rendered down for his spare parts, which are then sold to Ace Hardware stores across the Galaxy, setting the scene for the next movie: "Star Trek: The Search for Data". This leaves Worf in command of the Enterprise who, in his first week, photon torpedoes the Ferengi homeworld out of existence. And there is great rejoicing.

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