“Just missing some hieroglyphics,” Nathan said aloud as he and Captain Malakai Spencer continued down the square-cut corridor into the heart of the pyramid.

The slope down wasn’t great, but it hadn’t taken them more than a few seconds of walking to be below ground level and with no sign of stopping. Chains of lights had been affixed to the walls to provide illumination and a path down the centre had been cleared, if not intentionally, then just by the repeated passing of Starfleet personnel.

Grey stone walls had been chiselled flat, tooling marks difficult to see, the seams between stone blocks just as difficult. There was no sign of moss or bug life in the tunnel, which struck Nathan as a touch odd. The environment outside was grassy plains, not dry, arid desert. Or desolated moon surface. It was thriving out there, under the perpetual overcast cloud cover, but hadn’t seemed to venture inside at all.

“Oh, we got better than hieroglyphics,” Malakai said, smiling over his shoulder. “We got so, so much better.”

Eventually the corridor levelled out, opening into a long, wide space. At least wide compared to the corridor they’d just walked. Going from space for two abreast to six or seven, and thirty meters deep, with the weight of stone all around them, made this space feel large and claustrophobic all at once.

There were cut blocks down the middle, the perfect height for sitting on, with bronze braziers between each. No fires were lit here, light instead coming from a gaggle of hovering lights near the ceiling, their illuminated undersides granting a near natural sunlight aspect to the space.

Painted figures lined each wall, from floor to ceiling in neat rows. They weren’t hieroglyphics, but pictograms, detailing stories and events. Gaps broke up sections of the wall, delineating events or stories in each section, all easily viewable from the nearest bench.

This was obviously a space meant for visitors.

“Taimi, how’s it looking?” Malakai asked loudly, his voice carrying down to the three other people in this space, all of them crowded around a portion of the wall.

“Not good,” came the response without even looking up. “Is our visitor you have been avoiding telling me about here?”

Malakai stopped, blinked a few times and looked at Nathan, who shrugged at the non-verbal interrogation. “Yes?”

“Dammit.”

Malakai stopped about halfway down, pointing to a specific patch of the wall. As he looked it over, Nathan felt his own brow creasing. The figures on earlier parts of the wall had been obviously humanoid, but all of them the same. Some attempt at sexual dimorphism, or differentiating between different classes, had been present. But now figures were showing that didn’t match the ones previously depicted. Where most of the figures merely occupied one line at a time of the story, newcomers could stretch across two or three lines, interacting in multiple places.

Agriculture, construction, animal husbandry – all detailed. But the stories weren’t just one sided. There were elements where the more numerous aliens were teaching the newcomers things in return.

“Advanced interference,” Nathan muttered.

“Oh, it gets better.” Malakai led him down two more panels.

Near the ceiling of this mural, the story started with a great cataclysm of some description. The tall newcomers falling dead, the locals mimicking them. The art style was consistent with all others, and a quick check showed it matched the back half of the room. If this was contemporary reporting of events, their art was incredibly static and someone had been safe enough to do this during or even after the cataclysm.

Eventually the mural gave way to a single line showing green grasslands, a grey pyramid standing tall over them. Then gathering storms as nature closed on the pyramid over a few more lines, but never over growing it. But it was the last line of the mural that gave Nathan pause.

There, a meter off the ground, the bottom row of the story, the pyramid was once again wreathed in clouds. And while previous rows had been notable for being nearly identical, signifying the passage of time, this row had figures on it once more, walking towards the pyramid. Notably black-clad figures, save for coloured shoulders, one of red and two of blue. And behind them was an image that made for a rather crude rendition of a Starfleet Type-14 shuttle.

“Stupid question,” Nathan said. “Chroniton count?”

“Below average,” Malakai answered. “Take of that what you want. That matched the landing party we sent down, by the way. Lieutenant Ilves and Ensigns Woods and Green.” Then he led Nathan down to the team studying the last mural in the chamber.

Where Malakai Spencer had ditched his uniform for field attire, pitching in with teams clearing a space around the pyramid, the three officers here were still wearing their full uniforms. They all looked like children to Nathan, fresh-faced and youthful, but all of them had eyes he’d expected from people decades older.

Not long ago he’d have been extremely worried about them. Still was honestly. But the sight had become all too common amongst Starfleet since Frontier Day. One of them stood, assessed both Malakai and Nathan, then cleared her throat, offering a hand in welcome to Nathan. “Lieutenant Taimi Ilves,” she introduced herself as. “Bismarck’s chief science officer.”

“Commander Nathan Kennedy,” he replied. “Your captain says I’m the one that is going to have to break some bad news to you.” He tried to deliver in a light-hearted manner, but could see he’d failed. This young woman, who looked like she hadn’t slept in a few days, bags under her eyes and hair a touch frazzled, turned her gaze on her captain, eyes narrowing with the look Nathan himself had been subjected to numerous times.

That Malakai Spencer didn’t spontaneously erupt in flames, or collapse in on himself, was a fair indicator that the universe still hadn’t deemed humanity fit to evolve that particular trait.

“I’ve got orders to get Commander Kennedy here on his way, Taimi,” Malakai said with a shrug of his shoulders. “Schedules to keep and all that. All the way from the Fleet Captain.”

Taimi Ilves glared a few seconds more, looked at the mural to her right, then back to the two older men before her. “I can have a team selected in an hour. Leave us a shuttle and all the camping gear.”

“Are you sure?” Malakai asked. It was almost fatherly. Genuinely asking his science officer if she was sure of her decision. “Could be a few days, maybe a week, before we get back.”

“We’ll manage. We need to document everything here.” She nodded, drawing both men closer to look at the mural her team had been examining in detail.

One row showed the pyramid, smaller, with something that was unmistakable for a Rhode Island-class starship beside it. It showed figures that could charitably be identified as Kennedy and Spencer descending into the pyramid. It showed what looked like Bismarck ascending through the clouds into space once more.

But the next few rows all looked like someone had painted over them. Thick, black paint had been smeared over rows and rows of the mural, obscuring whatever was depicted next.

But the last row had been left untouched. It was mostly black, with a smattering of white in bands that evoked the banding of the Milky Way across the night sky of numerous worlds. But a white-grey silhouette was painted on it, with splashes of blue and red on it. Orange streaks shot out at what looked like a swarm of orange-brown locusts. And as one went along the row, the locusts became so numerous as to be drawn over and over on top of each other until the end.

“That,” Taimi said, “looks a lot like a Sovereign-class starship to me.”

For a moment nothing was said. Then Malakai’s hand clapped Nathan’s shoulder, clasping firmly as the other man smiled at Nathan. “I think, Commander Kennedy, I’ll leave reporting this particular mystery to the Fleet Captain to you. I hear she just loves temporal mysteries. Can’t go wrong as a first impression, bringing her such a find, eh?”

“Yeah,” Nathan said, knowing Malakai’s statement to be utterly false. “Who doesn’t love ancient mysteries that get DTI stumbling all over you?”