Definitely Not Kansas

It was sheer luck, or coincidence, that April saw it when he did.

He was on the bridge as officers and technicians milled about, testing the new holoprojectors, checking their interconnection with the sensor arrays.  It was a boring time for a captain, to be stuck in the center seat, overseeing maintenance and repairs, while his ship sat in dock, going nowhere.  Around him, panels sat open on multiple consoles, including the arms of his chair.  After the recent 'crisis', nothing could be left to chance.  They had to check every system on the ship, while still docked, or risk this happening out there, in the void.

He didn't sit on his hands.  April was a doer.  He had grabbed a PADD and a diagnostic tricorder and joined in.  At least the distraction kept his mind off of... other things.

He turned, and saw it: A solar sail appeared, like a tiny scale model, floating in the center of the bridge.  The wide, fan-shaped wings reminded him of craft the Son'a and the Bajorans used – but the design was Terran.  21st-century Terran.  It was a three-dimensional holoprojection, an indicator of what sensors were picking up, that very moment, off the starbase.  Its wings were battered, crumpled, like an injured butterfly.  The entire craft was badly damaged.  The holoview lacked the lines of corollary data which usually accompanied such projections, since they were still running diagnostics, but it was moving, going somewhere – and sensors wouldn't have alerted them, unless it was on an intercept course.

"Wait!" he told the techs.  Crouched on the floor near the hand-rail, they turned and saw it.  "Hold that image," April said, and whirled towards the science station.

Libra, as intuitive as ever, told April the first thing he would want to know:

"Detecting chroniton wavelengths in the forty-second range," the science officer reported, scanning his board.  "It just emerged from a temporal rift."

April turned back to the holo-image.  That explained why there had been no sensor-warning of its approach.

"Acknowledged, Counselor," April said.  "We see it."

By now everyone on the bridge saw.  They stopped what they were doing, and watched.  The starbase's sensors picked it up, he was sure, as well as every ship in dock.  This was going to make a few headlines.  The news media loved it when someone came from another time.  Reporters sucked it up.  April's concern, at that moment – as would be Starfleet's – was what time they came from, and keeping them from learning too much of this time, in case they could be sent back – assuming anyone was alive on the ship, or on the ship at all.  Perhaps they had abandoned it.

Mala Hendriksson rushed in from the lift, followed moments later by some dark-haired young man April never met.

Vallien, the blond Vulcan at tactical, announced, "The craft is breaking up."  His eyes met April's in a questioning glance.

April understood the look.  He had seen it many times.  Vallien had served aboard this ship since it first launched, and worked with April almost as long.  April looked back, and nodded.  Vallien knew what to do.  "Beaming aboard one Terran and two canines," the Vulcan said.  So: There were lifeforms.  Completing the transport, Vallien continued to work.  "Securing the craft in the main shuttlebay."

"Good work," April said.  "Let's go meet our guests."  He started towards the door to the transporter room behind the bridge – then stopped.  "Who's on duty back there?"

Eresh'ta, the Andorian duty officer, turned from one of the rear consoles nearby.  "Mister Ch'ring."

April rolled his eyes.  "Great."  The first sight this person – whoever it was – from another time, would see... was a green-skinned Orion, at the transporter controls.  If they were conscious.  He hoped like hell they weren't.  That would enable him to contain the damage, and keep them from violating over a dozen regulations in the Temporal Prime Directive.  The Department of Temporal Investigations would be calling soon.  They never missed anything like this.  Somehow, they always knew.

As April started forward again, expecting Haskins to fall in, he stopped again, realizing the first officer wasn't behind him.  He turned and gaped.

It looked like Haskins decided to pick that moment... to start floating.  For some reason he was having a hard time verbalizing his reaction.  He flailed helplessly in midair, garbling words out of the corner of his mouth.

April's lips screwed up into a pucker as he contemplated what he was seeing – trying not to laugh.  It wasn't funny... but Haskins could never live this down.

"Is the artificial gravity malfunctioning?"  April looked around.  Nothing and no one else was floating.  "I think we have a poltergeist."

"Perhaps it never left," Eresh'ta suggested.

April didn't disagree.  Nor did he ask how Eresh'ta knew what a poltergeist was – Andorians had similar concepts.  He glanced at Mala as he moved towards Haskins.  At least he knew Ch'ring wouldn't let the 'visitors' out of the transporter room, until they had clearance.  "Learn anything on the holodeck?"

Mala opened her mouth to respond, but just shook her head sadly, and went back to watching Haskins imitate a dust bunny.

Haskins continued to float helplessly in midair, garbling something about 'getting some help here'.  April hesitantly stuck his left hand in, moved it under Haskins, over Haskins, as the first officer listed to his side, like turning on a spit.  He was getting roasted, all right.  "I can't feel anything.  Hmm."  April tried to lay his hands on the XO, but couldn't touch.  Something invisible pushed back.  He resembled a magician, waving his hands around, performing his latest trick, as if causing him to levitate.

April withdrew his hands.  "I have an idea."  He turned, pulled a PADD from a slot on the side of his chair, eyed the XO, looked right, looked left, and started tapping on the touch-sensors, inputting instructions, glancing back and forth.

"Captain?" Mala asked, inquiring what he was up to.

"Entering coordinates."  He stopped and looked to Vallien at tactical.  "Manually disengage forcefield emitters on this deck, except the ones I've highlighted."

The blond Vulcan absorbed the readout on his board with a practiced eye, and worked his console.  "Disengaging... now."

Haskins slowly lowered to the floor, on an unseen cushion.  "Congratulations, Haskins," April said.  "You've been the victim of a hit and run malfunction."  He put the PADD away and headed for the aft transporter room.  "Someone make sure that doesn't happen again."  It looked like the problems weren't over.

The bridge medical person on duty, Ensign Gabria'zan, had already left his station and ventured into the transporter room.  There, April found him keeping a distance from two barking dogs, trying to run a scan on the trio with his medical tricorder.  Ch'ring stood behind his console, scowling at the dogs for disrupting the serenity of his transporter room.  A human male stood uncertainly on the transporter pad, as if afraid to move.  Probably trying to decide which of them looked stranger – a green man with purple eyes and a beard, or Gabria'zan, who looked, for the most part, human, but with hair sticking out at oblique angles, like he had ice cream cones stuck to his head.  The dogs stayed by his side, as if protecting him.

All awake, and conscious.  Well, that was that – the temporal damage had been done.

"Captain," Ch'ring said.  "Permission to beam those two... things..."  His green face twisted in a sneer at the dogs.  "...somewhere else."

"Permission denied."  April studied the arrival in a glance, noting his attire, his ethnicity, and other factors.  He was caucasian – brown hair, blue eyes, husky build... a not unhandsome man.  "ID scan?"

Ch'ring touched a button, and read off the text display on his screen: "Wolf, Michael, Major, United States Air Force.  Born Twelve October, 2054..."  He paused and looked up, realizing this person was from another time.  "...Vandenberg Air Force Base, Earth... Reported MIA, November 2081."