Snippet 4b

---*----

It had to be some kind of dream. Or something.

It was almost like he'd woken up into the middle of a movie, with no idea what the setting was or who any of the characters were.

But that couldn't be right. Because he wasn't dreaming...and this was most certainly not a movie.

Sitting up slowly, Kirk took a long look around the room, completely at a loss to what he was seeing. The place was obviously on board some sort of ship...on the Bridge, in fact. And the people scattered around the room...most of them seeming to be waking up just like he was...were all in uniforms of some kind. They must be the crew - and it looked like they'd just gotten up after being simultaneously knocked out by...something.

Something?

Blinking through the haze of blankness that seemed to have enveloped his mind, Kirk finally decided to speak - deciding that was undoubtedly one of the best ways to figure out if this situation was all in his head or not. "...uh...hello? ...crew?" That sounded lame. But what else was he supposed to call these people? "What happened?"

"Vhere am I?" A thickly-accented, Russian voice piped up almost on top of Kirk's words, and a curly head suddenly appeared over one of the consoles by the big screen up front. "Vhat is zees place?"

A dark head rose from beside him, and a wary Asian-looking face turned to look at the curly-headed man. "What happened?"

"It appears we have been subject to a memory wipe." A smooth and pleasant-sounding voice said from behind the chair Kirk was seated at, and a man with pointed ears came around to help up another man with brown hair who was muttering something furiously under his breath.

"Obviously," a dark-skinned woman appeared from somewhere beside Kirk, standing up from the floor and straightening the red dress she wore. "Because I don't know if it's just me, but - "

"I don't know who any off you are!" The curly-haired Russian yelped out the finish to her sentence very easily. "I cannot remember anyzing!"

"Let's stay calm, everyone," Kirk said, instinctively feeling around for some control of the situation. "Let's just - "

He paused in attempting to stand up, suddenly aware of an uncomfortable weight around his midsection. Alarmed, he glanced down - and for the first time noticed that he seemed to be about...thirty pounds overweight. At least. Not necessarily wide, but his stomach was rather shockingly distended from his torso.

Oh, God. He was fat. He really had forgotten everything...his own body was coming as a surprise to him!! Apparently, wherever his memory was hiding, it was currently concealing the fact that he had been somewhat of a glutton in his former days.

Shit.

It made him feel somewhat better, however, to notice that the elegant man with the pointy-ears who had just helped up the - very viciously swearing - dark-haired man from the floor seemed to share a similar issue. At least he wasn't alone.

Just then, another rather pleasant-sounding and soothing voice spoke, and Kirk watched in faint surprise as another pointy-eared man in a blue uniform shirt stood up, glancing around the Bridge. "Is everyone all right?"

"Besides not knowing our own names? Dandy." The dark-skinned woman beside Kirk said shortly. "What did we do? Get knocked out all at the exact same time?"

"S-something must have beamed all our memories away," The Asian man said, looking around at all of them. "There's no way all of us could have lost our memories at the same time."

"The Asian's right," The grumpy man said, a hand on his back. "It doesn't add up."

"It is only logical then that we attempt to find out what we do know." The pointy-eared being beside him said. "It is apparent that we are on a a space vessel and are each responsible for duties."

The Asian nodded, looking at his uniform. "Well if color denotes rank...then me, the Russian and him," he pointed to Kirk. "Would be the same rank."

"Right," Kirk agreed, nodding slowly. "That makes sense. I mean, color-coded stuff is the best way to go."

"But someone's got to be the captain," Uhura said, frowning and looking around the group again. "...and unless the captain isn't here, the captain doesn't seem to have a specific color."

"Vhy do ve not ask ze computer?" Chekov said, before clearing his throat and glancing up at the ceiling. "Computer! Vhat are ze...names and ranks of zis crew?"

Beep, beep. "Unable to provide that information at this time."

"You've got to be kidding me," Kirk stared up at the ceiling, dumbfounded. "The freaking COMPUTER lost its memory?!"

"Or it was erased." The pointy-eared one next to grumpy offered.

The Asian was comparing his shirt to the Russian's. "There's nothing different on our shirts..." he said, shaking his head before frowning over at the two pointy-eared people. "And you two are obviously not humans."

"Apparently not," the other pointy-eared man agreed. He glanced over at Spock. "But from initial appearance, I would guess us to be Vulcan."

"Or you could be Romulans," the dark-skinned woman offered.

The other of the two shook his head. "Impossible. We are not tattooed."

"Oh shut up already," The grumpy one said, giving the two a dirty look. "We've got more important things to think about at the moment."

"We have to elect a leader," The Asian said firmly, looking at the rest of them.

"Right," the dark-skinned woman agreed. "But what do we do? Take a vote?"

"You seem grumpy and organized," Kirk pointed out, tapping a finger toward the grumpy man. "How 'bout you? Leadership seems to come naturally to you."

"I agree," the Russian piped in quickly. "You!"

The Asian nodded. "I agree."

"I believe we are at a consensus then," One of the pointy-eared ones said.

The grumpy one didn't look thrilled, but he didn't fight them. "All right then. If that's how it's gonna be then we're going to start with the basics. First of all, we need names so we don't keep calling each other by random physical observation or personality traits." He glared at the Asian as he almost snickered. "Next, we need to find someone who has a chance of finding out what our real names our from the computer. Third, we need a team to go out and check on the rest of the crew to make sure no one is injured."

"A logical approach..." One of the Vulcans agreed.

"Agreed." The other Vulcan added.

At that very moment, a set of doors to the side opened up - and out of what seemed to be a turbolift stepped a man in a red-shirt, looking very dazed and very confused.

"Ah...hello," he said in a rich, thick Scottish accent. "...ah...this is tha Bridge, right?"

"It is," the dark-skinned woman said slowly. "Who are you?"

"I haven' the slightest idea," the Scottish man said fretfully. "An' neither does anyone else down by the engines of thess ship! Beautiful engines, they are...but I don' know anythin'! So..." he looked carefully around the room. "...I was hopin' maybe I could come up here an' tap inta' the personnel files and see if I could dig up some names or somethin'...?"

"The computer won't talk," Their new leader replied. "If I had a guess though I'd say that you work in engineering and had a name like Patrick, Brian, Donovan, Scott or Ned. Pick one for now until we find you something else so we can contact you if we find anything."

The Scottish man blinked. "Uh...a'right...I pick...Scott," he said, though he sounded very unsure. "Yeh're...sure don' want me to try fiddlin' with the computers up here? I could...prob'ly find at least a little somethin'...?"

"You are more than welcome to attempt to do so," One of the Vulcans said, motioning to the Bridge from where he was currently tampering with one of the consoles."

"Come on over Scott," The Asian said, motioning to him. He looked over at Chekov with a suddenly thoughtful look. "What about the name Anton?"

"'Zat is a wery Russian name," the Russian said, sounding approving of the sound of it. "And - and vhat about Chan? Or Hau? Or Shang? Or - or Lee, for you? 'Zose are sort of...Asian names..."

"There should be a file buried in here somewhere...easy to access..." The Scottish man - Scott - muttered as he sidled up to the first Vulcan, starting to survey some of the chips that were locked into the side of the main computer's console. "...should have a list a' names. Prob'ly not ranks, but names a' the main crew members. That'd help at least a little..."

The Asian was considering the names. "Hmmm...Chan sounds alright. Do you like Chan or Lee better?"

"Lee. I like Lee," the Russian said cheerfully. "You look like a Lee!"

"Aha!" The Scottish man straightened up, a newly-freed chip now in his hands. He showed it to the Vulcan beside him. "There? See that? I betcha' I can get somethin' outta that! No matter how the computer's been tampered with, there's some stuff that just canna' be erased!"

The Vulcan raised an eyebrow. "It is remarkable that you remembered where it was, Mr. Scott." he said. "Do you remember how to have the computer read it?"

"I...I think I do," the Scottish man said, blinking in slight surprise to himself. "...iss' like it jus' comes naturally to me. Must be some instinct leftover from the memory-wipe. I'll betcha' it'll come in handy!" He walked quickly over to the lefthand part of the Vulcan's console and began fiddling with more of the buttons. "...now, le' me see..."

*

An hour later, everyone was seated around the long table in a room that they had deemed to be the conference room. They made sure to allow the grumpy man in the blue shirt to sit at the head, while the rest of them took seats around the rest of the table.

"A'right," the Scottish man spoke up as soon as they were all seated. "Ah...looks like I got some names, here. We'll jus' have ta try figurin' out who everybody is from what we've got on this list."

"Get on with it, Mr. Scott," The grumpy one said, rocking in his chair as he eyed the man.

"Okay, well," The Scottish man cleared his throat, before bringing up the list on his data PADD. "...the names we have here are as follows. James Kirk, Leonard McCoy, Hikaru Sulu, Nyota Uhura, Spock, Pavel Chekov, Lesh'ar, Rorek Masen, and Montgomery Scott."

"Ha!" The Asian man laughed, pointing at Scottie. "Montgomery Scott is totally you!"

"As Hikaru Sulu is quite obviously your name," One of the Vulcans stated before turning to the Russian. "And Pavel Chekov is yours."

"Chekov?" The Russian made a face. "...oh."

"And you two must have the weird names - Spock and Lesh'ar," the one who'd woken first - (Kirk, as we know him) - pointed to the two Vulcans. "But which one's which?"

The Asian, now known as Sulu, frowned as he looked at them. "I'm going to say the quiet one is Lesh'ar. Spock seems like a more active name."

"I agree," The Scottish man - Mr. Scott - said quickly.

"Then it's just down to us," the first man said, pointing to the grumpy man at the head of the table. "Because we already know who Nyota Uhura is."

"Thanks," Nyota Uhura said blandly.