—- USS Luna, Medical Bay —-

The assembled officers looked down at the Captain’s body, and then those assembled in the medical bay. They had been working for two days straight trying to figure out how to get the brain waves of their crew mates out from the computer back into their bodies. They had set aside the idea of just trying to replicate the situation that had rendered them unconscious, as there seemed no way to ensure that more crew members would not be affected. There was no point in doing this if another ten crew members ended up affected.

On the screen was Lieutenant Scchhttt’aaakkk from the Cetacean Ops department observing, though he was not expected to solve this issue being an expert in stellar cartography and not either solar science of brains. 

”So after we decided that there was no way to block the negative affects of the solar flares, without actively blocking out what energies we’d need to reverse this,” said Lieutenant Commander James Young the Luna’s Chief Engineering Officer, “we decided that we’d need to do something else. Which is how it came to be that we put together this funnel, essentially an energy conduit that plugs into the computer and can lead the brain wave energy of the crew out one by one. We think.”

”It had not been tested,” confirmed Doctor Va’Tok.

The maching was a gaggle of wires and tubs that fed into one of Sick Bay’s computer terminals. It was nothing if not jury rigged.

”And how do we make sure the right person gets into the right body?” asked Kolem making a face, this plan was not a good one but it was the best they had at the moment.

”We need telepaths to guide them out,“ Va’Tok said, “Like a Trill denabie on on the hills of Catmatha.”

”Or an old style Sherpa on Earth,” Young said.

”We have identified twin Betazoids on the crew who could do this,” Va’Tok said.

Kolem, who was half Betazoid herself was not convinced that it was possible, but as the if on que two slender people entered Sick Bay with dark brown eyes. She had seen them around the ship, but never really interacted with them. 

Yi Zhang, who was effectively the Chief Operations Officer while Tashai was down nodded at them, “This is Keerroxa Breasi our Transporter Chief, and her brother Petty Officer Aasus Breasi who is a warp coil specialist in Engineering.”

Kolem nodded, “It is nice to meet you formally.”

Telepathically however asked the pair, “Do you think this plan will work?”

Keerroxa Breasi inclined her head slightly and answered, also telepathically, “I have not heard of such a thing before but the principal seems to make sense.”

“Do we not have a better plan?” Kolem asked the assembled staff out loud.

Lieutenant Scchhttt’aaakkk on the screen answered in a series of clicks and high pitched yelps before the computer’s translator kicked in, “Flying around the sun real fast seemed like a bad way to time travel, but there’s humpback whales in the San Fransisco Bay now.”

Though like most people in Starfleet Kolem believed in the Kirk Exception as it was often called, that Captain Kirk and his crew could do things that should have killed them or ended their career quite regularly, she had to admit that this was true and that Lieutenant Scchhttt’aaakkk was right.

”Okay, make it happen I guess,” she said nodding finally, “good work everyone, thanks for working the problem. Let me know before we begin.”

As she briefing broke up and the assembled crew went about their duties, Chief Keerroxa Breasi and her brother Petty Officer Aasus Breasi followed her hallway.

”We have not introduced ourselves properly we are from the Fourth House of Breasi children of the Great Garbo Breasi,” said Aasus telepathically.

Though the words were Federation Standard to Kolem who had only been on Betazed sporadically, they might as well have been in ancient Andorian, “I don’t have a formal title. I’m was raised on Mars before its destruction and my father did not hold much love of titles. I don’t know what house I would have been in.”

Keerroxa smiled softly, “Your father’s writings and philosophies where well known, truthfully it was hoped that he would marry our eldest sister. Thus you would have been our cousin, but as it is he married an Earth woman.”

”Human,” Kolem said as they moved along the corridor.

”Yes, human. Romantic but then so was his poetry,” Aasus said.

That the whole thing was happening on the telepathic plane made it look like the three were walking in silence though crew members sensitive to telepathic signals may have noticed some chatter, as they passed. 

“We are the fifth and sixth children of Breasi, and thus went to Starfleet to earn our way with our hands,” Keerroxa said. Betazoid hereditary stuff was complicated, but as on Earth in the early days there seemed to be little for later children to do in a family that ran mostly on birth order and hierarchy. This helped explain why the twins had not entered counseling which was a common role for Betazoids to have on starships with Kolem being an example.

”Well I’m glad we finally met, and that you’re helping with our situation,” Kolem finally said aloud, “I should get back to the bridge but we should catch up. We’re practically cousins.”

Kerroxa smiled, “Of course, captain.”

Meanwhile in the Medical Bay Lieutenant Yi Zhang and Lieutenant Akane Sone were plugging in my wires to the console on the wall. Nobody had really known if this was an engineering problem, a science one, a medical one, or something else so much of the work had fallen on Operations and in particular Zhang. Sone who was in stellar cartography was helping, but for the most part the wires and software were his domain.

“Do you think we’d be doing this if it weren’t the captain out cold?” Sone asked feeding Zhang a tube.

”I think we’d be doing it but it’s an added incentive, also the fact that we have both an official from the Klingon and a Romulan militaries affected is added to that,” Zhang said, “We fry their brains by mistake and we could be in a war. Hot pot for dinner?”

Sone who was dating Yi Zhang’s closest friend Lieutenant Junior Grade Thomas Winfield nodded, “He tried, but I told him I’m Japanese and sushi would have been more culturally appropriate.”

Yi Zhang nodded. The two were Asians, though from different nationalities in the old Earth sense and Sone had never actually lived in her Japanese ancestral home having been born on a ship and raised on a colony. Zhang had been to China, and was always amused by how wrong people especially humans got Asian cultures. It was one thing for Vulcans to get things wrong, they had no real reference but for an Earth born human to mix up China and Japan was wild to him. Not that Winfield was from either, having grown up on space stations.

”Hot pot is good though,” he said.

”Yeah,” agreed Sone, “tonight I think we’re having tacos in the mess.”

”Explain to him that tacos aren’t Japanese,” Yi Zhang said.

”Ha ha. Why don’t you come? Lieutenant Avila will be there,” Sone said. Seemingly perpetually single, save a brief relationship with Ensign Torma who was one of the ones unconscious, Yi Zhang had expressed interest in Avila though his tastes were broad.

”I do like tacos,” he said.

Sone plugged a wire into a slot on a bio bed. For now they were done, though she knew that Engineering would still have to pour over their work to confirm that everything had gone right. Soon though they hoped to get back their crew members, from Yi Zhang’s sometimes girlfriend Torma, to Captain Cruz and the rest of them. As Yi Zhang had said, they had to do this before something worse happened and they had to explain to the Klingon and Romulan governments why two of their own had been injured or killed on a Starfleet ship.