New Moon on Monday

Posted on 24 May 2026 @ 10:29pm by Lieutenant Commander Claire Dunross MD

1,813 words; about a 9 minute read

Mission: Time After Time
Location: USS Arawyn

// Auxiliary Sickbay, Deck 16 //

Auxiliary Sickbay was built for steadiness.

It was smaller than Main Sickbay, more practical than elegant, designed for routine examinations, minor injuries, and the sort of daily clinical work that kept a starship’s medical department from becoming a perpetual crisis center. The lighting was even. The equipment was cleanly arranged. The diagnostic stations responded with quiet precision.

Claire Dunross appreciated spaces that knew what they were for.

She stood beside one of the biobeds, reviewing the last of a routine respiratory follow-up for a crewman from Operations, when the deck seemed to hesitate beneath her feet.

Not a lurch.

Not impact.

A flicker of uncertainty, transmitted through the ship’s bones.

The overhead lights dimmed by a fraction and returned almost at once. The biobed display stuttered, corrected, and then populated with amber system advisories faster than the patient could sit up properly.

Claire’s hand moved to the console before he could speak.

“Stay where you are,” she said calmly.

The crewman froze halfway through rising.

“Doctor?”

“Power fluctuation,” Claire replied, eyes moving across the readouts. “Your heart did not cause it, which I imagine will come as a relief.”

That earned a nervous breath that nearly became a laugh.

The auxiliary station began cycling its own equipment checks. Emergency backups confirmed. Local diagnostic integrity confirmed. Biobed support stable. The clinic’s halo projection threw a soft amber wash across the wall, waiting for higher priority data from Main Sickbay.

Claire looked to Lieutenant Jorik, who had been reviewing a secondary monitor at the far station.

“Local systems?”

“Backup medical power is stable,” Jorik replied. “No evidence of equipment failure. The fluctuation appears ship-wide.”

“Aye,” Claire murmured, already moving.

Her fingers crossed the console, locking the active patient file and transferring it to the main medical database. She completed the discharge note with clipped efficiency, then turned back to the crewman.

“You’re cleared from my end,” she said. “Return to your section unless your department has other instructions for you.”

The crewman glanced toward the display, where the amber advisories continued to populate and resolve.

“Is that normal?”

Claire followed his gaze for half a second.

“Normal is a generous word aboard a starship,” she said, calm enough to keep the answer from sounding evasive. “But your readings are stable, and this does not appear to be coming from you.”

That earned a faint, uncertain breath of amusement.

“If your symptoms change, you come back,” she continued. “Otherwise, you’re fit to leave.”

He nodded, steadier now.

“Yes, Doctor.”

“Good. Off you go.”

He slid from the biobed and left with one last look at the display, reassured more by her composure than by the situation itself.

The yellow alert tone sounded before the doors had fully closed.

Claire stilled for one measured beat.

There were alerts that produced immediate motion. Red alerts, decompressions, trauma calls, combat strikes. Yellow alert was different. It asked for readiness without release. It drew a line through routine and left everyone standing on the near side of something not yet named.

She disliked unnamed things.

Her gaze moved once more across the clinic. Supplies secured. Local triage capacity functional. Two minor appointment files pending. Nothing unstable. Nothing that required her physical presence.

Then the intra-departmental comm opened.

“Main Sickbay to Auxiliary. Dr. Dunross, Lieutenant Jorik, report to Main Sickbay conference room. Departmental meeting in four minutes.”

Claire tapped her combadge. “Dunross here. On my way.”

She closed the active file, then turned to the duty nurse at the nearest station. “Hold routine intake unless it cannot safely wait. Anything urgent gets triaged by severity and flagged to Main Sickbay.”

“Aye, Doctor.”

Claire collected her PADD and looked to Jorik. “Best not keep them waiting.”

They left Auxiliary Sickbay together, the clinic settling behind them into a leaner, quieter readiness.

The ship had changed.

Not visibly. The bulkheads were intact. The floor remained steady. Crew still moved with purpose rather than panic. But yellow alert altered the air aboard a starship. Conversations shortened. Footsteps quickened. People looked at displays a half-second longer than they had before.

Claire felt the familiar internal shift settle into place.

Observe. Sort. Prioritize.

Fear was rarely useful in its raw form. But information was. Pattern was. Preparation was.

// Main Sickbay //

Main Sickbay carried more activity than noise when Claire entered.

That was one of the things she had come to respect about Amberlyn’s department. It did not thrash when urgency arrived. Nurses moved with speed, but not panic. Technicians checked reserves. Consoles populated with medical reference trees and emergency templates. Lucy Engerman was already coordinating staff with the calm authority of someone who understood the value of being obeyed the first time.

Claire crossed through the reception area with Jorik beside her, neither of them interrupting the flow as they entered the conference room.

Most of the necessary faces were already there.

Dr. Kim had a medical database open before him, late twentieth-century human physiology populating across one display. Dr. McDavid looked recently awakened but fully engaged, posture straight, eyes alert. Emerson and Miller had taken positions near the far side of the table, both already scanning preliminary sociocultural and psychological search results. Riah stood at the head of the room with the look of someone who had received too little information and intended to make use of every fragment anyway.

Claire took the open seat nearest the door and set her PADD down.

“What do we know?” she asked.

Riah gave them the summary.

Temporal anomaly. Inhabited planet. Earth, apparently, but wrong by every meaningful measure. Late twentieth century. Nineteen eighty-four. A contained region associated with Southern California. Arawyn holding position, avoiding detection, maintaining silence. Unknown transition effects. Unknown field stability. Unknown injuries.

Claire listened without interrupting.

At first, the medical problem tried to present itself as simple.

Human baseline physiology. Twentieth-century standards. Period pathology. Trauma response.

Then the complications multiplied.

Nineteen eighty-four meant incomplete vaccine histories by modern standards. Different antibiotic usage patterns. Different environmental exposures. Different expectations of care. No familiarity with transporter medicine. No understanding of dermal regeneration, neurocortical stabilization, cellular imaging, or half the interventions Sickbay considered routine.

Not impossible.

Just delicate.

Claire’s fingers rested lightly against the edge of her PADD. Her thumb brushed once over the smooth side casing, a small grounding motion she noticed only because she stopped herself from reaching for the stone in her pocket.

When Riah called for reports, Claire let Kim speak first.

The physiology database was ready. Pathology profiles were populating. McDavid had already begun searching prior temporal displacement cases and known medical effects. Emerson and Miller were dividing the psychological and sociocultural pieces between them.

Claire’s attention sharpened at that.

“I’d suggest including acute displacement psychology,” she said, voice even. “Not only twentieth-century baseline behavior. If these people have been removed from their native environment without explanation, their reactions may not be predictable from period culture alone.”

She glanced briefly toward Miller, then Emerson.

“Panic, denial, distrust of authority. They may try to explain this through whatever framework makes sense to them first.”

Her gaze shifted back to Riah.

“Medically, I would start conservatively. Period-appropriate human injury profiles, common chronic conditions, pediatric dosing, pregnancy, cardiac disease, asthma, diabetes, seizure disorders. Anything that would become critical quickly if civilian infrastructure is disrupted.”

She paused, considering the rest before saying too much.

“And we should review containment procedures. Not in detail yet, but enough to know what we can safely manage if casualties come aboard.”

That was the edge of it.

She could feel the larger implications pressing at the perimeter of the conversation, but this was not the room for every concern. Not yet. Not without Command, Science, Engineering, and Tactical all weighing in on what the ship was actually facing.

Claire looked down at her PADD and added a brief note.

Temporal displacement. Medical support. Avoid assumptions.

The last one mattered most.

These people were not less real because they were from the past. Their medicine was less advanced. Their context was narrower. Their fear, if it came, would be entirely rational.

A child from 1984 would not know what a biobed was.

A mother would not understand why a stranger in a Starfleet uniform could seal skin without stitches.

A police officer or paramedic might see a tricorder and think weapon before instrument.

Claire had treated enough frightened people to know that knowledge did not prevent terror. Sometimes it sharpened it.
She drew in a measured breath and set the thought aside.

Later.

Riah checked the chronometer beside the door controls. “Ok, the days of easy-peasy are over. Let’s pick up the pace around here. Dr Dunross, I’d like you to come to the Sr Staff Meeting with me.”

Claire looked up.

For a moment, she simply held Riah’s gaze. Not surprised, exactly. She had been CMO before, on a smaller ship with fewer resources and less room for distributed authority. She understood why Riah wanted a second physician in the briefing. This was not a standard medical event. It crossed too many boundaries to leave Medical represented by one voice alone.

Still, the invitation carried weight.

Senior staff briefings were not where Claire sought visibility. She preferred conclusions to attention. Work to performance.

Data to speculation.

But this was no time to indulge preference.

“Aye,” Claire said.

She stood and collected her PADD.

“I’ll keep it focused,” she said. “Medical readiness, likely casualty profiles, and the questions we need answered before we commit to any direct contact.”

She glanced once toward the others at the table.

“Dr. Kim, keep building the period physiology profile. Dr. McDavid, continue the temporal case review and flag anything with delayed medical presentation. Emerson, Miller, anything you can give us on panic response or civilian cooperation will help.”

Her gaze returned to Riah.

“Ready when you are.”

The two physicians stepped out of the conference room together, Main Sickbay moving around them with growing purpose. Behind them, the department bent itself toward the impossible. Databases opened. Protocols formed. Staff shifted from routine care into readiness.

Ahead, the senior staff would be doing the same in their own languages. Engineering stability. Science modeling. Command ethics. Tactical risk.

Claire adjusted her grip on the PADD.

Somewhere below them, if the reports were accurate, there were children riding bicycles beneath a California sky that no longer belonged to the world they knew. Parents calling from doorways. Radios crackling through emergency updates. People explaining away the impossible with the nearest familiar answer.

Earthquake. Power outage. Telephone failure.

Anything but the truth.

Claire’s expression settled into composed focus as she followed Riah toward the briefing.

History had patients now.

And whether or not they ever knew her name, Claire had no intention of forgetting them.

LtCmdr Claire Dunross, MD
Asst Chief Medical Officer

 

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