Sonya Gomez was not the least bit surprised to see that everyone arrived at the morning briefing on time. It was a measure of the job that lay before them that this team of scientists and engineers, men and women, humanoid and otherwise, who had traveled the universe witnessing and accomplishing some pretty amazing things, were as excited as they were to get started. Who could blame them, considering what lay spread before the da Vinci across half a light-year of space?

Even as everyone settled in seats around the conference table, all eyes were glued to the monitor on the wall, glowing with the same image that had captivated the crew members on the bridge. Gomez could certainly understand their fascination and, in fact, shared their excitement. It was impossible not to as she looked upon the breathtaking expanse of hardware that blocked the da Vinci’s way through space.

For as far as the eye could see and their sensors could scan, there was nothing but ships, hovering motionlessly in an endless band that looked as though it stretched to eternity. Starships. Interplanetary craft. Shuttles. Ships of comprehensible design and purpose. Ships whose purpose would likely take years to determine. Ships of every size and shape imaginable, of materials known and mysterious. Ships powered by solid fuels and solar sails and nuclear engines and warp drives and black hole technology and ships beyond the imaginings of any of the da Vinci’s knowledgeable crew of engineers and scientists. Ancient ships carrying markings that identified them as belonging to races known to have disappeared tens or hundreds of thousands of years before humanity took to the stars. Others branded in languages lost to time and distance. Ships, some of which, preliminary scans showed, were millions—if not more—years old.

Literally millions of ships…and not clue one as to how they might have gotten here or why this little sector of space had become the repository for millions of years worth of derelicts and wrecks. A cosmic junk-yard whose very existence made the engineer in Sonya Gomez shiver with delighted anticipation of the secrets examination of them would yield.

Gomez reluctantly tore her eyes from the nearest screen at the sound of Captain Gold clearing his throat. The rest of the crew did the same, but she noticed it was only seconds before they began to cast surreptitious glances back at the silent vista.

Gold, she thought with a private smile, had also taken note of the crew’s less than undivided attention. “I think it’s safe to assume,” the captain said from his seat at the head of the table, “that all hands are aware that the da Vinci has reached its destination.” He gestured in the direction of the screen, tacit approval for his mesmerized crew to resume looking for themselves. “As you also know, this sector has only recently been opened to travel by Federation vessels. Short of the mapping expedition that first discovered this Sargasso Sea of space, the da Vinci is the first ship through.”

“The realm was previously in the Breen’s purview,” Lieutenant Commander Mor glasch Tev added. “Once they scurried out of sight when the war ended, many of their claims, including this region, suddenly disappeared.”

P8 Blue, the ship’s Nasat structural systems specialist, made a clicking sound that Gomez had long ago learned indicated curiosity. “I beg your pardon, Captain,” she said. “That term you used, Sargasso Sea? I’m not familiar with it.”

Gomez saw Carol Abramowitz, the ship’s cultural specialist, open her mouth to offer an explanation, but Tev spoke up first. As usual, she noted wryly to herself. But she had long since reconciled herself to the Tellarite’s propensity for arrogance that went beyond even the societal norms of his rather blunt-minded species. His was a people who spoke the truth as it was on their minds, to whom such human social niceties as tact and courtesy were just fancy ways of lying, and Tev was way up on the obnoxious scale even by Tellarites’ high standards.

“It is a Terran term,” Tev said. “A reference to an area of Earth’s North Atlantic Ocean, also known as the ‘Bermuda Triangle,’ a fabled sea of lost ships. Legends,” and here he bit down on the word as if to let one and all know what he thought of unsubstantiated tales of undocumented phenomena, “abound of ships entering this area and disappearing, some to reappear months or even years later, derelict, their crews gone, often with half-eaten meals still on their mess tables. Aircraft are also said to go missing in the so-called ‘triangle.’ It’s interesting that you mention it, Captain, considering our current location.”

“Yes indeed, Tev,” said Gold. “I considered its relevancy when I chose it as a metaphor.”

“Yes, sir, but I understood you to utilize the term in reference to the aggregation of derelict vessels, which is one myth about the Sargasso Sea,” Tev said. “Whereas I refer to a scientific explanation for both the sea and the phenomenon we now face.”

Gomez fought back the instinct to jump in and reprimand her subordinate for the tone he was taking with their superior officer. She knew Gold wasn’t offended by Tev’s arrogance. All the captain saw was a good officer who was damn good at his job, if a bit unorthodox in his approach to military courtesy.

“The Sargasso is a sea within a sea, if you will. It’s a two-million-square-mile ellipse of becalmed sea, named after the sargassum, a species of seaweed that covers and is native to the area, several hundred miles off the east coast of the North American continent. The area is surrounded by the Florida, Gulf Stream, Canary, North Equatorial, Antilles, and Caribbean currents, some of the strongest ocean currents on Earth. They all meet and enclose this sea, separating it from the rest of the Atlantic Ocean and creating a stagnant sea. The Sargasso rotates slightly, changing position with the surrounding currents as a result of seasonal changes, but it is otherwise a calm area.

“Therefore, anything drifting into the surrounding currents will make its way, eventually, to the Sargasso Sea. Once caught there in the essentially still water, it is unlikely to ever drift out. Hence, one assumes, its reputation as an area from which sea craft might disappear, although I fail to understand how the sea currents would account for the disappearance of aircraft as—”

“Yes, Tev. That’s all very fascinating,” Gold said in an attempt to get his officer back on track.

“Of course, sir,” Tev said smoothly. “My point is, our own Sargasso Sector came into being in essentially the same fashion as the one on Earth. That is, by surrounding ‘currents’—in this case, of course, celestial forces—which have isolated this area and created a becalmed ‘sea’ out of which these trapped or abandoned ships cannot drift.”

Tactical Systems Specialist Fabian Stevens whistled between his teeth. “This band of junk extends about half a light-year on the east-west axis and almost twelve AUs on the north-south. I won’t even try to calculate how much area that covers. What kind of celestial forces are we talking about here?”

Tev shrugged. “It’s a fairly unusual confluence of events,” he said. “Ringing the Sargasso Sector are, in no particular order, one perfect binary black hole system, one system of unusually high magnetic activity, and no less than two quasars captured in some sort of complex mutual orbit, the result of which is a stasis zone, enclosed by the pull of the different gravitational and magnetic fields. This is a particularly ancient system, so such anomalies are to be expected.”

“To have four such anomalies arranged close enough to create this dead space,” said Gomez, “but in such perfect balance so they don’t interfere with one another….” She looked over at Soloman, the Bynar computer specialist. Able to interface directly with computers, she knew she could always trust him with rapid calculations. “What are the odds, Soloman?”

Soloman smiled. “Depending on how you choose to view it, either some several trillion to one against…or fifty-fifty.”

Tev shook the precisely groomed dark brown fringe around his neck. “That’s preposterous,” he snapped.

“Odds,” said Soloman, “really, are nothing more than a numeric representation of the probability of a certain event either happening or not happening. In a game of poker, you might need one specific card to fill your hand, say the ace of diamonds. You draw one card. The event you are calculating is whether or not the card you draw will be the ace of diamonds. Therefore, you either draw the ace of diamonds or you don’t draw the ace of diamonds. Fifty-fifty.”

Tev was scowling. “You’re playing with semantics. What if you need two cards, or three? Or if the variables are far more complex, on the cosmic scale of four balanced anomalous systems?”

“Depending, of course, on how complex a model you wish to construct, you can always introduce a wider set of variables, treating each bit of the equation as a separate piece and come up with a more comprehensive number. But at the lowest common denominator,” the Bynar said, “the equation will always reduce down to yes or no. Opened or closed. Binary. Can this happen? Yes, it can. No, it can’t. Fifty-fifty.”

Gomez tried to cover a smirk as Tev crunched Soloman’s numbers for himself. Everyone but the literal-minded Tellarite realized the Bynar was having a little fun at his expense. Still, while the captain might tolerate the tangents their discussions often wandered off on, it was time to get back to the business at hand.

“We’ll have plenty of time to study that,” Gomez said, taking back, at a nod from Gold, control of the discussion. “In fact, Tev, you’ll take the point on that. Pattie,” she said to P8 Blue, “you’ll lead up charting, cataloguing, and structural survey of the derelict ships. Bart and Carol, you two will catalogue what you can of language and culture as we go along. Likewise, Soloman, you’ll recover as much of their computer systems as time allows for later analysis. Dr. Lense will handle the examination of any biological remains we may find.”

Gomez nodded at Chief Engineer Nancy Conlon. “Your crew standing by for some heavy-duty demolition, consultation, and reverse engineering duties, Lieutenant?”

“We’re ready,” Conlon said, rubbing her hands together in anticipation. “I hear there are some pretty amazing propulsion systems waiting for us to get our spanners on.”

“Then,” said Gold, “it sounds like we all know what we need to do.” He tapped a tabletop switch and called to the bridge. “Wong, proceed to point alpha at half impulse. Shabalala,” the captain added, “warm up the proton-torpedo tubes. Demolition begins in precisely twelve hours. Let’s get to work, people.”