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“Hey, Kes,” asked Naomi, “do you want to do a holodeck program sometime this week?”
“Sure. What were you thinking of doing, and when?”
“Uh, a new module on my old dinosaur program, about 1800?” Kes raised an eyebrow, and Naomi added before Kes could ask the inevitable question of whether Kes would be able to handle it in her old age, “It’s not that physically strenuous in the first place, and if you need it to be even less active I can easily make some adjustments.”
Kes nodded slowly. It had been one of the first holodeck programs that they’d done together, back when Naomi had just aged out of toddlerhood and Kes was much younger and fitter. They had enjoyed it immensely when they’d first played it, and over the years it had become one of their favorites to do together. “I think I’d be able to do that,” she said grinning. “It’s been ages since we’ve played it, hasn’t it?”
“Couple months at least.” Naomi jerked her head in agreement. “So, does 1800 at Holodeck Three today work for you?”
“It does.” The conversation then changed to other matters, but all throughout it Kes was eagerly looking forward to their time together that evening.
At 1800, Kes walked up to Holodeck Three and saw that Naomi was already there and waiting for her. They greeted each other, and then Naomi said, “I’ve already loaded up the program. Do you want to go in right away?”
Kes agreed, and so Naomi led her into a great lush forest, filled with many plants(mostly grasses and ferns with a few trees and flowers), and a variety of animals (mostly dinosaurs). Some of them Kes recognized from trips to the dinosaur program over the years, but many were new to her. A sun hovered in the middle of the sky.
“This is the new module that Tom and Jerri made, ‘Plants of the Cretaceous’. I’m supposed to collect various plants and figure out which ones each dinosaur species eats by presenting the plants to them.”
“That sounds fun. I assume that you want my help in collecting the plants?”
“…Yeah, I suppose so. See, I was planning on letting you scan the plants with a tricorder, and then you’d get not only its name but its composition, what toxins to which species it contains—pretty much all the stuff you’d find if you’d used a tricorder on an unfamiliar plant that you encountered in the wild.”
Kes broke into a grin. “This program is able to do all that!?”
“Yep. Tom suggested it, actually, when I mentioned that I wanted to play this program with you.”
Kes smiled at Naomni. “Remind me to thank them sometime.”
“I will, but for now let’s get started with this program,” Naomi replied.
Kes got to work scanning a plant that somewhat resembled an Earth ginkgo tree, except that the leaves were much thinner, smaller, and more numerous.
“This is a Yimaia plant,” she told Naomi, reading off the tricorder. Naomi wrote the name down on her PADD. Next, they worked together to clip off some branches of the plant. Finally, Naomi brought them over to a group of Tenontosauruses—scaly dinosaurs with a small head, tall body, and long tail—and set the Yimaia front of them.
The Tenontosaurses sniffed the plant, then they all paced back, huffing.
“I guess that means you don’t like these, huh?” Naomi muttered, half to herself, half to the dinos. “Seems like I’ll just have to try a different species.” She took out her PADD and made a note of the Tenontosaurus’ food preferences. She then brought the remaining Yimaia leaves over to an Eucamerotus, a dinosaur with black scales and a long neck. She gave the leaves to it, and it began eating them slowly but without any apparent reluctance.
“Eucamerotus likes Yimaia,” she wrote down on her PADD. “Its long neck means that it probably was able to get to the leaves in natural conditions.”
Some more testing revealed that Yimaia was also enjoyed by another long - necked dinosaur called Fusuisaurus. Once she was done with the Yimaia, she went to Kes to see what other plants Kes had found - hopefully including a plant that the Tenontosauruses would enjoy. Among the plants she’d found was an Alloiopteris fern, so they once again worked together to get some cuttings of the plant. Naomi then brought the cuttings over to the Tenontosauruses, who eagerly ate them up. She noted this on her PADD as “Tenontosaurs enjoy Alloiopteris - do they enjoy other ferns?”
More testing showed that Tenontosauruses did enjoy other types of fern, and that Equisetaceae in particular was eagerly eaten up by then. Kes and Naomi continued working together very smoothly, with Kes taking several leaves of each plant that she scanned so that they could try them with multiple species without having to double back and pick more.
After an hour and a half, Kes was starting to feel tired so Naomi finished jotting down her observations and saved and exited the program. By then the fake sun was starting to set, turning the clouds a pinkish-orange.
“Did you enjoy it, still?” asked Naomi
“I did,” replied Kes evenly. “I’d forgotten how fun it was to meet all those fascinating creatures. I’d say that we should play it more often, but given my health issues and your school schedule I’m not sure if we can. Not without neglecting other programs that we enjoy, at any rate.”
“You’re right,” Naomi admitted. “Still, it was fun and we hadn’t played it together in a while. We should at least try and put it back in the regular rotation of stuff we do.”
Kes gave a hum. “I think we can agree on that.” They reached the split in the corridor where they usually parted ways after their time on the holodeck. “Goodbye for now,” Kes said.
Naomi nodded in response. “Until next time”. She walked away from Kes, who watched her until she rounded a corner and disappeared from Kes’s view. Then Kes herself made her way to her quarters, looking forward to the next time that she and Naomi would be able to spend time together.