The Empty Spaces on the Map

[Guest STSF Neptune]

The USS Cape Horn had barely docked and already Commander Arturias Rex was well on his way to the airlock that connected the Steamrunner-class starship to Camelot Station. Flanked on his right side by an aide, he strode confidently down the hallways from a turbolift and towards the rapidly pressurizing connection between the two hunks of metal that orbited Avalon.

 

“Commander,” his yeoman said as she handed him a PADD. “We’re not due in the meeting for another thirty minutes, don’t you think we should… take our time…”

 

He grinned slightly and pressed his thumb print and handed it back to her. “I am not in hurry to get to the meeting.”

 

Exasperated, she stopped mid-stride. “Then what the hell are we walking so fast for?”

 

Unphased by the inquiry and the tone it was delivered, he kept walking. “I want to see the sunrise from the observation lounge… they say it’s quite spectacular.”

 

Huffing, the short-statured blonde-haired woman muttered something incoherent before catching back up to the thirty-something human commander with long dark hair. “Like you’ve never seen the sunrise of a double star before… I swear…”

 

“Yes,” he admitted, “but I’ve never seen this double star’s sunrise before.”

 

The yeoman glared at him again. “You’re going to be seeing it plenty,” she said with a level tone. “The Cape is assigned to this system for the next four weeks.”

 

“Possibly longer,” he said with revealing smirk. “In fact, we might be here for a very long time…”

 

“At this rate,” she replied curtly, “you might be here even longer, joining the stars in orbit…”

 

“Oh?”

 

“If you don’t slow down, I am going to toss you out the nearest airlock.”

 

With a wide, cheesy grin, he slowed his gait enough to please the yeoman. She was a fine enough worker, but it was her ability to get so easily frustrated over the simplest of matters that truly made her a special yeoman.

 

As they made their way onto the commercial deck, he paused for a moment, almost causing his companion to trip, but she caught herself before she could fall head over heels. When he’d heard they had a flourishing civilian populace on the station, he’d wondered just what that meant. I mean, out here in the middle of nowhere in hostile territory he’d not expected to see someplace as busy as the promenade of Deep Space Nine, but that was exactly what he saw. Bless his stars and garters, it was downright bustling.

 

“Sir,” the yeoman said gently, “if you stay here and gawk you’re going to miss that sunrise of yours…”

 

“Quite right,” he said with a smile as he resumed walking.

 

There was an air of exhilaration in his step now. Until now, his career had been spent almost solely on the explored borders of the Federation, but now he would join those men who’d come before him in his own family on the edges of the frontier. The Gamma Quadrant was literally a vast trove of unexplored spaces on a map and he now intended to do fill in some of those corners.

 

That's what his meeting was about; originally they’d only been cleared for a four-week mapping mission, but he was hoping Admiral Day would let them extend that to at least three months, maybe longer. Signs pointed to yes, but one never knew.

 

“Come on Commander,” the yeoman prodded him.

 

“I thought I was the one in a hurry…”

 

“You’re impossible…”