On the bridge of the Hermes the central viewscreen displayed the raw-footage of the cubesat plunging directly to its fiery end. Slowly one of the dark spots was becoming visible. The Hermes having confirmed that the last set of gas giant and its two moons where virtually identical was parked in a high orbit of the sun, all scanners running on full. Joe had put the Hermes directly into the radiation shadow of the spot the cubesat was heading to.
"Anything new?" The captain asked bored.
"Not yet, it is still way too early for any conclusions. It'll will take a while for the cubesat to get into range for any new information." Smyke answered.
"We're currently trying to scan the star with every sensor we have, it is absolutely fascinating!" Dr. Schmitz added.
"Alright, carry on."
For several hours nothing happened the picture on the viewscreen showed a slowly but steadily growing dark spot on the surface of the star.
"Hm, that is odd." Smyke mumbled.
"What is it?" The captain asked.
"The spots seem to be distributed evenly on the surface of the star with one exception. There is none on the north pole." Smyke answered.
"That is odd, there is one at the south pole. We should take a closer look." Dr. Schmitz answered.
"Is there one of the cubesats we can divert?"
Smyke looked at Joe who was checking her console.
"Yes, cubesat 3 is in position, we can easily divert it." Joe answered.
"Alright, divert it. Are we in position to scan the area in more detail?" The captain asked.
"No Captain, we'll have to shift into a polar orbit for that." Joe answered.
"How long until we get some more details from the cubesats?"
"The cubesat we've already diverted will take about 2 more hours to get any more detailed information. Cubesat 3 has just been diverted, it will take at least 8 hours before we get any new information." Smyke answered.
"How long to shift orbit?"
"About 1 hour should be enough, I can already put us on the edge of the radiation shadow in preparation." Joe answered.
"No, hold this orbit for now. Let's see what we can see here first, then we check out the pole." The captain decided.
During the next 2 hours the image slowly changed into a hexagonal shape clearly marked against the muted background of the stars hellfire.
The consoles at OPS where showing a constant increase in data being sent from the small cubesat.
"Datastream is looking good." Smyke announced.
Dr. Schmitz was bent over his console excitedly examining the data mumbling quietly.
At this point the datastream spiked enormously and died several seconds later.
The crew on the bridge sat stunned for a moment before Smyke and Dr. Schmitz broke into hectic activity.
"What just happened?" The captain asked.
"Unsure, captain." Smyke answered.
"It looks like the cubesat broke through some kind of barrier that holds back the solar radiation. It was receiving all kinds of data from the platform." Schmitz answered.
"Why did it stop transmitting?" The Captain asked.
"Simple. It crashed on the surface of it." Smyke answered.
"At the speed it was moving it only had these few seconds to scan and send back data before it would crash. We actually did get a lot more data than we had hoped for, looks like it was able to transmit scans back right until it was destroyed. Remarkable." Dr. Schmitz said, bent over the data.
Analysis will take a while, there is a lot here. Fascinating…"
"Any change on the sensors?" The Captain asked.
"No change Captain." Smyke answered.
"Alright, change course for the pole of the sun, Ms. 9." The Captain ordered finally.
"Understood. Changing heading." Joe acknowledged.
"Captain?" Dr. Schmitz spoke up. "Would it be possible to alter the course of the next cubesat to one that will not collide but skim over the surface of the target? That way we should be able to get more data than this time."
The Captain nodded and Smyke went to work.
The cubesat crossed the invisible threshold and activated its sensors, pointing them at the target-region. Fine-tuning its trajectory the small satellite homed in to just bypass the mass that sat on top the pole of the sun. It transferred power to its small transmitter sending all data from the sensors back to its mothership. As it neared the object it constantly reoriented itself to keep the sensors pointed at its intended target, a massive structure that grew with the shrinking distance.
"Status?" The Cpatain asked.
"We're in a stationary orbit above the pole, ship is stable." Joe answered.
"Sensors are at full power, we're scanning the artifact now." Smyke answered.
"Telemetry from the cubesat is coming in, datastream is stable. The science module is tied in, they get all the data." Dr. Schmitz answered.
"Radiation is well within tolerances, the whole polar region seems to be." Sunblast answered from the engineering station.
"Very good, thank you. What do we have?"
"Sensors indicate are large structure in a higher orbit than the others. It appears to be much bigger and is shaped completely different." Smyke answered.
"Hm, that looks interesting, different." Dr. Schmitz mumbled lowly.
"The cubesat has passed the object and is now on a trajectory for the corona of the sun. It has stopped transmitting." Smyke reported.
"That was fast." Joe said.
"As expected as it's speed was much higher to begin with. We still got a fair amount of data. Interestingly the radiation around the object is very low. I believe it would be safe for us to match the orbit of it." Smyke answered.
"Do we know why the radiation is so low and will it stay that way?" The Captain asked.
"The radiation is exactly at the level it is supposed to be for the orbit and this type of stat." Dr. Schmitz answered. "I see no reason for that to change in the near future."
"Let's first gather all the data we can from here. Set up a briefing in two hours?" The Captain looked around, Schmitz and Smyke nooded. "Good. Cary on than."
The conference room was filled with the usual attendees. The Captain opened the briefing once everyone was seated.
"Alright, Dr.? The floor is yours. What do you have?"
"Thank you." He stood up and a presentation of the solar system appeared on the screen mounted on the bulkhead. "Our preliminary findings suggest that this whole system has been engineered. Simply by the makeup and distribution of the planetary bodies present. The probability for a natural occurrence of a system like this is so low that we decided to rule it out for now. The implications for terraforming on a scale like this are staggering to say the least."
The Screen changed to show a representation of the sun and the objects in orbit around it. "As for the sun, it is unusually active – radiation wise. We found what appears to be 26 platforms in a low orbit. They are completely uniform in size and makeup and are evenly spaced with one exception which is the northern pole of the sun. Each platform is a hexagon with a diameter of about 20.000km. They seem to completely block all the radiation coming from the sun. They appear to be about 100km thick. We managed to scan one in more detail with the cubesat that we crashed into it."
The screen showed a short, grainy sequence of a dark hexagon against a bright background growing larger before stopping.
"We managed to pull some more detail from the data."
The screen changed to show a colorful picture of the hexagon.
"As you can see there are multiple sources of infrared radiation, the platform itself is actually much colder than expected. Analysis seems to indicate an atmosphere."
"Are you implying that there could be something alive down there?" Joe asked.
"No. At this point we can't tell anything and it would be much too early to imply something like that. This could be pretty much anything from a byproduct of machinery to some sort of coolant. We simply do not know."
"The engineering to build something like that is incredible." Sunblast interjected. "Building something of that size alone, much less placing it in a low orbit of a star is way beyond us."
"That is quite correct." Dr. Schmitz answered. "Unfortunately we currently don't know more about these platforms. Which brings me to the main topic."
The screen zoomed out from the platform, rotated the schematic and zoomed in on the northern pole of the sun.
"As you can see the object is basically formed like a cone that is pointing away from the sun. It is perfectly aligned with the axis of the sun, its rotation appears to be in lockstep. At the base of the cone a ring is attached. The surface of the cone appears to be perfectly smooth, at least as far as we can tell. The ring is covered with a multitude of protrusions that we suspect to be appliances of some kind."
"Docking facilities?" The captain asked.
The screen zoomed in on the ring displaying structures that reached quite far out from the ring.
"Possible, yes. We found several of what appears to be docking bays of different sizes. The largest we have seen so far is about 200km long."
The room remained silent for a while.
"Just how big is this thing?" Joe asked.
"The ring has a diameter of just over 60.000km with a width of 40km. The cone has a height of 100.000km. Whatever this is, it is massive."
"Ok, I guess you want to have a closer look, see if it is possible to get onboard that object." The captain stated. "Do we see any kind of activity from any of these objects?"
"No, the scanners on the cubesats are too primitive to give us much data. Our sensors could give us much better resolution and a broader spectrum. But not from this distance." Pet'l answered.
"How about radiation? Would it be safe to bring the Hermes close enough for further scans?"
The screen switched to a total of the sun displaying it in false colors. What looked like darker beams radiated out of the sun at regular intervals.
"The radiation the sun is putting out is mostly blocked by the platforms, creating shadows that are mostly radiation free. The polar regions of the sun are mostly free of the radiation. We still don't understand why." Dr. Schmitz admitted.
"How about a compromise?" Sunblast spoke up.
The Captain looked at Sunblast. "The Deflector should be able to shield us from the radiation that the sun can put out. We should be perfectly safe as long as we keep it powered up and pointed at the sun. If for whatever reason the radiation spikes we should be safe long enough to get out of the radiation zone."
"Can we register an radiation spike fast enough?"
"I believe so, yes." Dr. Schmitz answered confidently.
"Alright, lets do it then. Ms. 9, plot a course. Mr. Sunblast, ready the Deflector. Sensors to full on the Artifact."
With a chorus of "Aye" Hermes changed orbit and decelerated towards the artifact.
Slowly the artifact became bigger, the image drawn by the Sensors ever cleaner and more detailed. After several hours of flight Hermes entered into orbit around the artifact.
"Holding distance of 500km." Joe reported.
"Scanning with all Sensors.." Smyke reported.
"Odd. We can't seem to penetrate the hull of it." Dr. Schmitz mumbled.
"Lets do some orbits and see what we can see." The Captain ordered Joe who acknowledged.
"Anything you can do about the Sensors?"
"Modulating frequencies." Smyke answered.
"That did it! We can now scan the artifact." Dr. Schmitz triumphed.
"Good work. How long until the scan is complete?"
"With our orbital trajectory it will take us 2 hours to complete an orbit. After that I'd like to take a closer look at the cone, if that's possible?"
The Captain nodded at Joe.
"Calculating course. Should take another 2 hours to scan the cone thoroughly." Joe answered.
"Dr.? How long until you can present your findings?" The Captain asked.
"Hard to say. We have to analyze the scans first. By the first looks it will take a while to try and make sense of the structures inside the artifact. We should have a rough idea by the end of tomorrow."
"Alright, carry on then." The Captain said and left the bridge.
Three full days later the briefing room was packed with the senior staff and a trio from the science crew. All where expectantly looking at Dr. Schmitz who was already standing next to the viewscreen.
"All set? Good. Lets start then! I would kindly ask you to hold your questions until we are at the end of the presentation." Dr. Schmidt announced.
The viewscreen came alive showing a wire diagram of the artifact.
"What we know so far: The artifact consists of two distinct components. A cone that has a height of approximately 100.000km and a diameter at its base of a little less than 60.000km. The base is connected via six pylons to a torus that has an inner diameter of 60.000km and a width of 40km. These pylons are each 100km in length and appr. 5 km wide."
The viewscreen was rotating to show the rotating torus at the base of the artifact.
"The torus seems to serve several purposes, we have found almost 100 docking facilities on its surface. The smallest one that we could identify can easily fit the Hermes at a size of 5km, the largest we have identified so far is 200km. We have also identified several kind of docking berths."
The viewscreen changed to show a representation of a large but shallow depression in the hull.
"This is one of the smaller docking berths we could find. As you can see it has several integrated hatches at its base, we speculate this to be used for maintenance and cargo transfer. Several small and larger hatches around the berth indicate the use of maintenance crafts. It is sunken 500m into the hull which we have measured to be 1km strong."
Several small objects of different dimensions where highlighted on the screen.
"There are however several larger facilities spaced out over the outer hull, I'd just like to highlight the largest one that we have identified so far."
The screen rotated the torus some degrees and highlighted a very thin and long structure sticking out of the hull. After a moment it was displaying the structure in more detail, highlighting several points of interest.
"This 200km docking berth is 5km wide and seems to provide several docking ports, most likely airlocks."
The viewscreen changed to display the point of the structure, highlighting a large hatch at its center.
"We're quite certain that this hatch is an airlock. The same configuration can be found all over the hull of the torus in different sizes. So far this is the largest with a diameter of 2km."
Stunned silence permeated the room as the dimensions sunk in.
"As you can see there are docking clamps positioned next to it, equally massive in size. We can only speculate on the size of the ships that use these for docking, they could easily exceed 100km in size."
The viewscreen changed again, displaying a section of the torus.
"Now for the torus itself. The outer hull is covered with different structures, but only on a small ring on its equator. The rest is – as far as we can tell completely blank."
"After initial trouble we where able to scan the interior. It seems that the interior varies a lot but is in general divided by decks, each several hundred meters high. There are also large open areas, we have found two where the torus seems to be largely empty, we could only identify three decks in these areas. Both these areas are 500km long. The torus seems to be segmented in 500km long segments. Giving the huge size and the sheer mass of the torus we're currently unable to identify the function of most of it."
The screen zoomed out and showed an outline of part of the torus from above highlighting several areas and objects in different colors.
"However as some things are pretty much universal we where able to identify several areas and their general function based on our understanding of general science and space stations we know."
"Our scans indicate that there's an atmosphere present on the torus. No, it is not breathable. Currently it is pure nitrogen with very low pressure. We are reading low-level power signatures all over the torus but neither life signs nor any activity. We have so far not found any evidence of damage."
The viewscreen zoomed out, showing the schematic from above, highlighting the pylons connecting the torus and the cone.
"These pylons are actually quite massive structures. The outer hull is almost 2km strong and the inside is largely empty as far as we can tell. The inner hull seems to be lined with power conduits."
The viewscreen changed again, highlighting the cone.
"The cone in the center of the structure is something very different. Using our sensors we where only able to scan a small part of it where the pylons connect to it. So far it looks to be virtually filled with massive machinery, its purpose as of now being unknown. The outer hull is at least 2km strong, that seems to be too much for our sensors. The tip seems to be solid hull material, as far as we can currently tell. The surface of the outer hull is completely smooth, we could not find any depressions or protrusions. Same goes for its underside, completely closed and smooth."
"I'd now like to hand over to my colleague to go into some more details."