Another time.  2381.

The turbolift ride to the science deck was jarring.  The transgression to her senses had nothing to do with the relative speed or gravity, nor the gentle whisper of the turbolift car gliding along its track.  In fact, Ensign Taes could identify no intelligible incongruities in her experience.  Everything about starship travel was pure novelty to her; this was, perhaps, only the fifth starship she had ever flown aboard.  Now that the USS Mnemosyne was meant to be her home –her first Starfleet posting, at least– a flutter of distress tightened her chest at the thought that being here might ever feel wrong to her.  Down to her spine, Taes felt the maw of the uncanny valley from her surroundings, as if she were in a holographic simulation that was poorly designed by a first-year cadet.  The feeling had gnawed at her since stepping off the transporter platform and her mind began to disassociate from her body to escape the repulsive feeling in her flesh.

As soon as the double doors opened, the three other teal-shirted science officers marched out of the turbolift at a quick-step.  Taes hesitated long enough that the doors began to close in her face.  She pounced between the closing doors and chased after her new colleagues.  Despite her desperation, her footfalls remained silent and she maintained a steady breath.  She was practiced at that.  Taes was overcome by a sense memory of trekking through the woods, as a child, at the start of a self-reflection retreat.  The adults’ legs were much longer than her own and keeping pace with them required all of young Taes’ physical and spiritual effort.  She recalled panicking that she wouldn’t remember the path home if they didn’t slow down.  She also recalled the elders chiding her to shift her perspective on the journey.  There is no starting point or ending point, they had told her, when drawing a circle.

As with the journey to the retreat, Ensign Taes stopped grasping for landmarks or measurements.  She surrendered to the movement of the community, following them into the science laboratory with no real awareness of which corners they had crossed or which section of the saucer section they had entered.  Given it was her first hour in her new workspace, Taes expected to find an orientation curriculum, on a PADD, waiting for her in the lab.

Instead, Lieutenant Smárason handed an ostracon to Taes.  The piece of broken earthenware was slightly larger than the size of Taes’ palm.  Perhaps it had once been whole as pottery, but now it was a misshapen shard of green-beige refuse with an etching on its surface that Taes didn’t recognize.

“Thank you, ma’am,” Taes whispered, largely on auto-pilot.  She narrowed her eyes on the etching, searching for some clue to her orientation schedule or the location of her bunk.

After distributing the ostraca to the three other junior science officers who had beamed aboard alongside Taes, Smárason stood waiting in front of them, until she had captured all of their gazes.

Nodding at the ostraca in their hands, Smárason asked, “What do you see?”

To Taes’ left, the Andorian ensign, whose name Taes had never learned, spoke about the levels of technology required by a culture to produce the firing temperatures necessary to produce earthenware.  The exact words she spoke were lost on Taes, because the illumination levels aboard the Mnemosyne were so brilliant, it was starting to give Taes a headache.  The lighting at the Delta IV campus of Starfleet Academy had been far more respectable than this overlit Cardassian torture chamber of a science lab.  

The Vulcan ensign to Taes’ right recited a linguistic analysis of the writing on all four ostraca combined, but the exact rhetoric also escaped Taes’ conscious mind.  The sound of the life support systems was roaring in Taes’ ears.  Her breath caught in her throat at the paradoxical desire she felt for the environmental systems to quiet down and yet sheer terror if she might ever  actually hear the system silence and what that would mean for the available oxygen in the room.

Taes was staring into the middle distance when Smárason asked of her, “And you, ensign?”

At first, Taes could only blink at her, impassively.  She dragged the pad of her thumb over the ostracon in her palm.  She felt it and she didn’t need to look at it.  She had seen all she needed to see.

Adopting a strident tone, Taes replied, “I never thought I’d live to see Starfleet take such a processual approach to archaeology, lieutenant.  So provincial.  If Starfleet Academy taught me anything, it’s that I’m more of an epistemological idealist, ma’am.  That’s what I see.”

Smárason frowned at Taes.  Despite that, her eyes were still smiling.  “No, ensign.  Tell me.  What do you see?”  Taes couldn’t recall a more patronising sound in her entire life than the cadence of Smárason’s question.

“I’m sorry I don’t know,” Taes said, plainly defensively.  She shrugged helplessly.  “I need more context, lieutenant.  Show me where you found this and then I can tell you what I see.”

Shaking her head at Taes, Smárason plucked the ostracon from her hand.

“The Mnemosyne left behind the Dyson Sphere months ago, ensign,” Smárason said.  “I doubt we’ll circle back any time before you make captain.” 

Captains Log, Stardate 77701.1,

 

Sarek Squadron has encountered the Dyson Sphere.

 

The USS Sarek was launched as one of Starfleet’s great experiments to find a pathway to peace with the Romulan Free State.  Our goal is to learn how to work together, in little ways and big ways, by committing to a joint mission of scientific research.  When I took command of the USS Sarek, I was also assigned command of a formation called Sarek Squadron.  The USS Olympic has been repurposed as a dedicated science ship in Sarek Squadron, serving as a mobile academic conference space to be shared by Starfleet and the civilian scientists from the RFS.  Doctor Flavia and I share mission oversight of the USS Olympic.  Given the limited defences aboard an Olympic-class starship, we have agreed the Olympic will largely remain within Federation space between our borders with the Romulan Free State and the Typhon Expanse.

 

Except for today.

 

To test the boundaries of these new partnerships –between starships and between galactic powers– Sarek Squadron has been assigned to explore the interior of the Dyson Sphere discovered by the USS Enterprise-D in 2369.  While other starship crews have explored the Dyson Sphere before us, and others will likely explore it after us, the sphere has been measured at a diameter of two hundred million kilometres.  That means the internal surface area of the sphere has been estimated to be the equivalent of 250 million M-class planets.  On this mission, we may only survey the equivalent of half of one planet.

 

Earlier starships have solved the technical difficulties involved in accessing the sphere’s portal that so plagued the initial discovery of the Dyson Sphere.  The resonance frequency of the sphere’s tractor beam will have no effect on our modern power systems.  Given the relative safety of this mission, I have encouraged Doctor Flavia to set the mission parameters for the USS Olympic.  We’ll never make progress in our diplomatic mission if I don’t offer her trust.

 

I expect this will be a time both for imagining our future with the Romulan Free State and for reflecting on how we all got here.

Despite all of the life support systems at work, Captain Taes felt like her own body heat was radiating away, drawn into the transparent window pane.  

Beyond the tall viewport, the vast emptiness of space felt hungry for her.  It wasn’t often Taes stepped into a cold spot aboard a starship.  The technical marvel of the Sutherland-class possessed, on average, two redundant atmospheric processing units for every fifty cubic metres of livable space.  That capability always proved more than enough to manage the temperature and humidity for the crew, even when standing so close to the skin of the ship.  Peering out this viewport, located at the aft of deck one’s observation lounge, was about as close as one could stand on the edge.  Taes moved even closer to the viewport until all she could see was void and stars.

The chill that permeated Taes’ uniform was existential in nature.

At the impulse speeds the USS Sarek was travelling, the relative movement of the stars was a gentle crawl.  The patch of space they were moving through was thick with the stench of corruption.  

The stars looked too far apart.

Taes’ combadge chirped and Kellin asked her to join the senior staff on the bridge.  The sense of awe in his voice was palpable, even through the tinny communication device on her chest.  They had come within visual range, Kellin had reported, of the Dyson Sphere.  He could see it through the viewscreen.  That tenor in his voice was familiar to Taes.  She had heard it from all of her crew during the briefing.  Yuulik was hopeful for a new discovery: something impossibly old she could conquer and claim for herself as a brilliant new finding.  Elbon had shared his curiosity about what purpose the Dyson Sphere had been intended by his Prophets.  Nune was surprised by his own welling up in tears at what he described as the sheer perfection of the sphere’s design.

The bridge crew clearly wanted Taes to join them as the Sarek and the Olympic approached the entry portal, and yet all Taes wanted was to look back at the path they’d travelled to reach the sphere.  She raised her index finger to the level of her eyes and she began to count the stars, pointing at each of them in turn.  Starfleet’s records had told her that the internal surface area of the Dyson Sphere had been constructed at a size that could essentially contain hundreds of millions of M-class planets.  Taes continued to count the brightest stars, the ones she knew to be nearest.

How much ore and minerals had it taken, Taes pondered, to build the Dyson Sphere?  How many worlds had to be dismantled to build the technological wonder of the sphere?  A lot?  Only few?  How many worlds were too many?

Space looked too empty.

Taes decided she wouldn’t let it steal her warmth.  She stepped back from the viewport.

Taes touched her combadge and said, “On my way.” 

The beaches on this inner curve of the Dyson Sphere rivalled the tranquillity of the golden Murona beaches on Trill and the natural wonders of the Piri Island coasts on Betazed.  The humidity was low and the climate meandered towards temperately warm.  The sand felt firm but forgiving underfoot throughout their jog.  The water appeared invitingly cerulean and calm, but a swim would be their reward at the end of the day.  Most importantly, the isolation was idyllic.  There were starships located somewhere overhead, but there were no visible signs of intelligent life but their own.

They made themselves known.  Kellin and Nune were both gasping for air –long ago having sweat through their indigo SAREK tank tops and running shorts– but neither of them showed signs of yielding.

“Do you think you can make it to that next outcropping?” Kellin asked, waggling a finger ahead.

Continuing to put one foot in front of the other, Kellin pumped his arms and he loosed his mind.  His presence sank through his body.  Running was a time for him to take inventory of how his body was feeling.  A time to be present in every molecule of his being; everywhere except his mind. He could assess if there was any tightness in his neck, immobility in his shoulders, pain in his back, or tightness in his hips.  Softening his consciousness, his body knew how to run.  The notion of muscle memory allowed him to run without a thought.  If he were strength training, Kellin would need to consider his form. If he were sporting, there would be a strategy to consider.  To run, he only needed to feel it.  And on a Dyson Sphere, he could run forever on a literally infinite loop.

Sometime later, Nune asked, “On the other side of the outcropping or the other side of your divorce?”

Kellin couldn’t answer for a face full of sand.  He rolled his ankle and swiftly tumbled face-first.

By the time Kellin had righted himself and sat, clutching his ankle close to his body, Nune had retrieved a water bottle from his backpack.  He took a long sip from the bottle and he handed it to Kellin.  When Kellin took a pull, Nune found a tricorder in his backpack next.  He cleared the default engineering settings and loaded the emergency medical scanners.  Nune kneeled beside Kellin and put a hand on Kellin’s knee to steady him.  He scanned Kellin’s ankle with the tricorder.

While Nune’s gaze was on the tricorder’s display, Kellin asked, “What if I do want to see what’s on the other side?”

“It confuses me,” Nune said without looking up from the tricorder.  “I can feel the way you feel about Elbon.  I feel it.”  Nune’s hand on Kellin’s knee pressed harder, the pads of his fingers stroking Kellin’s inner thigh.  “But I’ve never seen you spend time with him since you both reported aboard Sarek.  I worry those feelings are attached to a fantasy.”

Kellin said, “I’ve been seeing him more since we got divorced, strangely,” and he was able to look at Nune now.  “You haven’t seen him, because you haven’t been lurking outside my quarters at oh-two-hundred hours.”

Nune has no way to know that, only a month ago, Elbon was throwing himself off a cliff to escape a petty argument with Kellin.

Kellin has no way to know that, only two months later, he would be celebrating his promotion party by drunkenly making out with Nune.

Neither of them could guess that in too short a four months later, Nune would be surrendering himself to a Starfleet psychiatric facility, his every thought drowned out by the screams of genocidal ghosts.

Like with running, Kellin only had one thought.  One feeling.  He had no way to know what he would find on the other side with Elbon, but he knew what Nune’s hand felt like on his inner thigh.  Nune’s Betazoid empathy told him one thing too.  He knew exactly what Kellin felt when Nune’s hand wandered on Kellin’s inner thigh.

“Maybe I should have been,” Nune said impishly, but then he tapped his combadge and requested a beam-up to sickbay.