—- USS Luna, Medical Bay —-

”So Doctor Va’Tok, any idea what’s up?” asked Lieutenant Kolem the current Captain of the USS Luna, at least as long as its senior officers were indisposed because of some kind of reaction to a solar flare. She was anxious to solve the problem, get her crew members and her Captain back and return to life as a counsellor.

The Vulcan looked impassive as usual, betraying nothing with his face. He nodded in the direction of Lieutenant Commander Gabriella Miller the Chief Science Officer who went to a nearby screen on the wall and brought up a schematic of the USS Luna.  She gestured to it, “We detected a power surge right at the moment of the crew’s being rendered unconscious. It could be unrelated however…”

She glanced at the doctor and he nodded, “However the electricity in the victim’s brains has dropped to zero.”

”The electrical surge was effectively the same frequency as the ship’s power systems, I’ve confirmed this with Young down in Engineering,” Miller said, “Thus the working theory is that the surge essentially pushed the electricity out of the affected crew members and into the ship. Like an ocean wave pushing sand.”

Kolem wrinkled her nose as she tried to imagine such a thing. She had seen waves and beaches before, but the idea that the crew, or at least a portion of it, had been taken out by a solar wave was mind bending.  She was a therapist at heart, not a scientist, and she was also not a Captain despite her position as the ship’s Second Officer a title she’d held mostly as a favor to Captain Cruz who had wanted her to take it on.

”Okay so why them, and more importantly how do we get them out of the ship and back into their own bodies?” Kolem asked.

”Waves lap, go out and come in. Solar flares don’t, but another solar flare might fix it,” Miller said, “Though none of this is scientific it’s all just us guessing.”

Va’Tok nodded silently in agreement with that. So that gave them a guess as to what might work, but it seemed like a long shot and could make things worse if more crew ended up comatose because of the energy of the solar event.

”Work up a plan. I’m not taking a segment of my crew, including a Romulan and Klingon officer back home without brain wave patterns,” Kolem said.

—- Tombstone, Arizona 1884 —-

It had taken Tashai a few hours to realize that she was a glorified equivalent of a holodeck program. How she had gotten there, to what she assumed was North America sometime in the 1800s she did not know. The last thing she remembered was being on the Luna’s bridge filling out reports on cargo storage and then she had awoken in this hotel that seemed to think she was a dancer.

A familiar face entered the hotel which also was a casino of sorts as well as a bar. With a group of men Assistant Chief Counsellor Torma entered in a large hat, and spurs. She sat at the bar looking miserable.

”Can I help you gents?” Tashai asked, she had not been on Earth in the 1800s but had heard enough of the vernacular to fake it. She had also realized that Torma was dressed as a man so she had clearly been assigned a male role by the computer.

The Counsellor looked relieved to see a familiar face. Before she could responds however one of the men spoke up, “I’m Wyatt Earp and this here is Doc Holiday. We’re on the hunt for the McLaury brothers.”

Tashai smiled, “I need to speak with the Doc here.”

”Have fun Doc, she’s a real looker,” Earp said with a grin.

Away from the group Tashai whispered, “What is going on? I woke up a dancer in this saloon, you’re some cowboy from the American west?”

Torma shrugged beneath the heavy coat she was wearing, “I suppose it’s a holodeck program but I can’t pause it or call for a door. Maybe it’s meant to be a two person program with a cowboy and a dancer who meet up and…”

Despite being a medical professional, Torma did not feel comfortable describing the act in front of a superior officer and especially not one who had the life experience of the El-Aurian woman so she let her voice trail off and that part unsaid.

“I’m not familiar with Earth in this time period but I don’t think being a law officer is safe work,” Tashai pointed out.

”How do you know I’m a law officer?” Torma asked and Tashai pointed to the metal star on her chest. 

”Oh,” Torma said.

—- Vancouver, 2024 —-

The city was not Seattle, that much was clear. Captain Cruz had been to Seattle and seen the Space Needle and this was not it. It was however rainy, so the three stranded officers from three different cultures his in a restaurant called McDonald’s located across the street from a building snapped like a giant ball. It was called Science World, the building not the McDonald’s, and yet there was nothing in it that could help them get home. 

Eating something called a Big Mac, Klar grumbled, “This primitive human food is terrible.”

Cruz did not point out that it was from the same replicators all of his meals aboard the Luna had been from. She ate a chicken sandwich while their Romulan associate picked at a salad. There seemed to be nothing in simulation that they could do to escape their situation, though at least they had money. In fact any time any of them stuck their hands in their pockets exactly the right amount of money for any situation came out.

”I think this is Lieutenant Hume’s simulation,” Cruz said, “He’s from a city called Vancouver in what used to be a country named Canada. He enjoys a sport called hockey, maybe if we attend a match that would be freeing.”

”Does the Federation have a lot of issues with their holodecks?” asked Klar.

Cruz debated exactly how to answer that, “There are challenges with mirroring life as closely as we can. Then meeting strange and powerful races. Well, one trapped me inside a holodeck program until I completed it. Then there are social and societal ways and reasons that holodeck technology can be abused. But it’s likely an overall benefit, as with everything else if used in moderation.”

The Klingon grunted but fell silent.

”So this is earth in the twenty-first century?” Navan asked.

Cruz shook her head, “Perhaps an idealized version. I don’t see any unhoused people, and yet we’re in a downtown major metropolitan center. Everything is too new and clean and nothing seems run down, it’s how someone who has only heard of the past through stories might see it.”

”And you are not?” Navan asked.

”I took Earth history at Starfleet Academy, prior to the Eugenics Wars homelessness, drug usage and crime rose as did the discrepancy between those with power and money and those without,” Cruz said, “Even for Canada this is too clean for the time period.”

”Perhaps there is a hint to escape in that,” Klar said.

”Maybe or maybe it’s just an overly nostalgic Lieutenant Junior Grade. Certainly everything Klingons popularly remember about their past is not without some rose colored glasses,” Cruz pointed out.

”I do not wear glasses of any color,” Klar pointed out.