The USS Andalucía is exploring a new quadrant, a relatively unexplored region, but with many sites yet to be explored. As we circle a large nebula taking measurements, the sensors detect something in the distance: a drifting spacecraft.

The ship isn’t emitting any signals, no activity is detected, it’s simply floating freely in space. Captain decides to investigate, and we scan it closely.

As we approach, we realize the ship is immense. Chief Engineer isn’t sure, but estimates it’s more than 50 times the size of our ship, maybe even larger. We circle it slowly; there’s no sign of life, only a minimal power source. The ship appears to be dormant. The engines are inactive.

There are no distress or help signals. The first officer suggests to the commander that a reconnaissance party be sent to the ship.

With some concern, we discovered that the material from which the ship’s hull is constructed prevents transportation inside; boarding will have to be done the old-fashioned way.

The head of security and the head of science invite me to join the small exploration group, which is completed by the head of operations and four other crew members. I’m not sure if the chief medical officer can contribute anything to a ship that seems dead, but curiosity drives me, and I join the team.

We reach the ship’s surface by shuttle. It’s a surface that appears to be a mixture of mineral or metal, with strange sheen’s that run across it, depending on the light. The tricorders can’t identify the material, but walking on the surface feels like walking on an asteroid. We arrive at a large hatch, where pictograms clearly show the operation of the only two buttons we find: open and close.

The operations chief presses the open button, and then the hatch begins to open, lighting up the intermediate airlock. As we enter, the hatch closes, and after sealing, a hatch opens before us. What we see astonishes us: a large console with large screens displaying text messages in languages ​​we are unable to understand. We use the tricorder and connect it to the USS Andalucía’s computer, using the universal translator to try to understand what we see.

After a few minutes, the tricorder translates the screens, and at that same moment, the screens switch to displaying messages in languages ​​we understand. We look at each other, worried, without saying a word. I think we’ve all thought the same thing: how did it learn our language? The chief scientist analyzes the data and announces that she believes the ship we’re on has gained access to our systems. When she informs the captain, he replies that they don’t know how, but they’ve detected external access to the Federation database, and that they’ve copied it completely before the access was even detected.

We don’t understand how they were able to bypass security protocols and copy such a large amount of data in an instant.

Then the interior of the ship lights up completely, and we see that we’re in a vast space library. We see books, consoles of various shapes and configurations, no doubt from different civilizations. As far as the eye can see, there are all kinds of data media, from books, carved stones, digital discs, and hundreds of other shapes we can’t identify, but which must be some kind of data media. And that, between what we can see, makes the ship seem infinite.

Just behind the console, a section empties, as if transported to another location; and before our eyes, a console like the one we have on the ship materializes. The data they copied from us must be there.

Everything happens at an incredible speed, then on the screens we can read a message: “Thank you for sharing your data with us. This is the Cuntlu ship, which has been traveling the universe for 2,543,6789 years on a mission to copy all the data from all the civilizations it encounters. Your data will be added to our library.”

And before we can say anything, the ship teleports us to our shuttle, which is immediately teleported to the dock of the USS Andalucia.

After that, the ship’s engines revive and it disappears as if absorbed by a cloud of gas that has formed around it.

We run to the bridge to see the ship vanish from the screen. It disappears in an instant, and the sensors stop detecting anything.

The silence on the bridge is total; no one has yet come to terms with what has happened. The captain is about to send a report to the Fleet. We search the logs and find vague references in various ancient civilizations to encounters with a large ship that disappeared immediately after a message similar to the one we read. Could this be the same ship we encountered?

The universe is an inexhaustible source of surprises.