Slipping the Mind

[Cmdr Ba'alyo 0]

They didn't know what hit them.

 

In fact, they didn't know anything had hit them at all. As most of the crew of the starship Challenger roused from unconsciousness, they found they didn't know much at all - including the fact they were the crew of the starship Challenger.

 

Disoriented, it had taken a few minutes for many of them to determine they were even on a ship. Others, awakening near a viewport or external scanner, had learned it quite abruptly, prompting surprise and confusion.

 

Seemingly gone were the Orion pirates they had been chasing into this region of space, indeed all memory of the chase itself was gone. Blissfully unaware of any external or internal danger, those aboard put themselves to more immediate tasks of figuring out who they were, why they were there, and what had happened.

 

Not recognizing their surroundings, or whether others were friend or foe, they met with varying degrees of success. A man and a woman considered the dinner spread before them in a private cabin and wondered if they were a couple, not knowing they were doctors who merely worked together professionally. An Irishman, assuming he'd awoken from a thorough bender, ran into a woman who'd gotten herself "lathered up" over the situation and questioned his sensibilities - neither of them aware of their respective roles as helmsman and chief science officer. A Vulcan and a human, abandoning cargo bays to wander among engineering decks, starting to realize they might themselves be the ship's personnel. An officer, alone on the phaser range, found she had instincts about the ship and decided to climb to the upper decks to see who was in charge. Two men, slowly learning they were in the ship's command center, were surprised to learn that the person who's skin had such an unnatural bluish tint was still breathing and had some sort of antenna protruding from his white hair. It seemed he wasn't even human.

 

Some of them had found impassive bulkheads blocking their path. Most had found other unconscious people fallen in corridors, slumped over consoles, or collapsed into chairs. There were untended displays saying curious, but dangerous-sounding things like "shield compromised," "hull breach," or "plasma field integrity low". In trying to address the computer on the bridge, an automated voice had announced "the primary computer core is offline." And the ship itself didn't seem to be moving anywhere.

 

In the short dawn since reawakening, there were more questions than answers. It remained to be seen whether one of the remaining mysteries would ultimately kill them all.