Viran awakened to the awkward and unnerving sound of a raven cawing in the branch of a tree about 8 metres away.

‘A tree? A bird? This is not my quarters’ he thought to himself. The middle aged Vulcan rose rapidly and looking about, his padd that he had fallen asleep holding onto, slipped out of his hand. He was in a slight depression surrounded by roughly 2 foot tall grass, on a hillside, overlooking a valley on a planet with a blue atmosphere and white clouds. He went to stand up and look around more when he realized he wasn’t alone.

“Tssst tssst! Vulcan guy, stay down. There’s dudes on horseback and primitive warriors with bladed weapons roaming around us.” Said a crouching human male, who had black hair, light skin that was wearing a set of “Badgey” pajamas with what looked like the fur of animals as a sort of vest.

“Jeez you Vulcans are heavy sleepers aren’t you?”

Viran looked to his left at the new speaker as he tried to regain his composure. It was an overweight Bolian male wearing what appeared to be a Starfleet civilian crew members jumpsuit, and he too seemed to be wearing the pelts of deceased fauna as garments, and had what appeared to be the head of a wolf on top of his head.

“Curious. Computer end program. Computer acknowledge.” Viran reached for his comm badge, which he was surprised was actually still there. He tapped it, but it made a tell tale sound that meant there were no contacts in range.

“Tried that.” Said the Bolian.

“Its like some temporal paradox boyeeeez, nice, this is so far out man, I can’t wait to tell the guys.” The young human said as he belly crawled over to the edge of the depression where he could look out over the valley.

“Intriguing. I was asleep in my quarters on the starship Malem and woke up here.”

“Same with us, I fell asleep on my couch in my quarters on the USS Puxatawney. I’m Baxx.” The Bolian replied.

“Salutations Baxx…the Puxatawney is with the 3rd Fleet correct?” Viran stayed low but looked around some more and then picked up his padd. It was still functional, but didn’t have an unlink to any computer core active, which meant it only had basic functions and access to the information that was already loaded on it.

“Yeah in the coreward spine, out beyond old Romulan space.”

“I’m Captain Viran of Starfleet, first officer of the RRW Malem.” Viran tried to synthesize the implications of them both being in the same location when they should have been a half a galaxy away from each other.

“A Vulcan, on a Romulan ship? Anyway, my names Bruce, I’m a musician, I play the Panarian Cello, and a few other stringed instruments in a rock band on Risa. We just got a residence at the the L&D Beachside Resort. Woa, whats that?” Bruce went back to peering out over the valley, thinking he heard something. Viran could hear a river flowing in background, and something else, feint.

“Good to meet you Bruce.” Viran replied using some colloquial terms he had started using with humans in the past few decades.

“Well, it looks like the horse riders are continuing down that roadway. And I can’t see that group of those foot warriors on the opposite hill over there anymore. But they looked like celts to me. Blue paint and everything.” The musician reported.

“Curious,” was all Viran could muster this time.

“So, uh, yeah…how do you big shot Starfleet and Romulan Navy peeps deal with stuff like this? You got a squad of temporal commandos that are probably on their way to rescue us? Someone just going to beam us back?” The kid scrambled back from the edge and sat on his rear looking directly at Viran.

“To my knowledge no such unit currently exists in Starfleet, or the Republic Navy. Nor do I know if transporters will play any role in our return, as I don’t know where we’ve gone.”

“Don’t look at me, I’m just the senior Barber aboard, no one tells me anything, honest.” The Bolian lied, everyone knew the Barber was the centre of the gossip pool on most Starfleet ships.

“For now we must assume that we are on our own. We must try to ascertain where and when we are, and then discover why…” Viran said as he started to hear a distant rumbling in the distance. Almost like a slow rolling thunder.

“I hope this is just some elaborate prank… I don’t think I could survive in the past, I need my holonews, my replicator and my chatboards. I’ll be real cranky if I miss this weeks McNizzy Report upload.” The Bolian muttered.

As he went to say something else Viran raised a hand to stop him, the Vulcan becoming enamored with the sound.

“You hear that too?” Bruce asked.

“I have heard it for several minuted, it is getting closer. Now I can feel it in the ground below us. Coming from that direction.” Viran pointed, and they each scrambled over to that edge of the 40 metre wide depression and over its rim.

It was a hoard of celtic warriors. Not organized in any specific ranks or column, all marching out of step, roughly 8-10 abreast, with chariots pulled by double teams of horses interspersed throughout the formation. They could only see the leading edge, but judging by the dust cloud snaking behind them further down the valley, it was a massive army.