Dinner, it turned out, had been an excellent way to break the ice and handle introductions all around. Grumpy doctors, enthusiastic scientists, sassy silicates, stoic pilots, and even sullen engineers had made, once conversation started to flow, a respectable party. Views aired, stories and jokes told and questions asked had allowed Nathan Kennedy a chance to put personalities, faces and voices to profiles he’d read and vice versa for the senior staff of the starship Atlantis.

But slowly people had peeled off. Ra and Rrr had both made excuses just after desert, the former not feeling well while the latter had to go and make themselves known on the bridge. “Junior officers develop best under pressure and heat,” Rrr had explained. “I can at least apply some pressure.”

“That’s diamonds,” Gabrielle had corrected as Rrr walked out, waving a hand in response.

Then Terax departed, T’Val finding an excuse to leave as well with the Edosian doctor. Both cited much the same thing about the hour and duty in the morning as they left.

Which left just Tikva, Lin, Gabrielle and Nathan behind with the debris of dinner, desert and drinks. The dinner table had been abandoned for a collection of couches by the expansive windows, looking out across the fore dorsal aspect of Atlantis.

“Ladies, please, don’t pretend on my part,” Nathan had directed to Tikva and Lin as they settled down on a couch at opposite ends. “Besides, Captain, you did make dinner a casual affair.”

“Finally,” Tikva said with relief as she turned to fall backward into Lin, resting her head on the taller woman’s shoulder. “So glad I don’t need to bring it up in a briefing with you. How far into my profile is a mention of us?” she asked, waving to include herself and Lin.

“Page two. Or maybe three. I’d have to check again. But you wouldn’t be the first.” Nathan sat himself down on the far end of the couch that Gabrielle had claimed, setting a gently steaming cup on the table between the two couches. “Actually, this kind of works if I can break the casual rule and bring up work.”

“You’re a senior officer in Starfleet on an active starship. Our social lives and work tend towards being one and the same,” Tikva replied.

“Tell me about it,” Gabrielle interjected.

“Perils of being a senior officer, Gabs,” Tikva shot back with a wink.

“There’s a full briefing pack that I sent through to your inboxes,” Nathan said, plowing ahead over the banter. “When I arrived at the Bismarck, they were busy studying a pyramid on AGC-543-C. Smack in the middle of nowhere under an inexplicably persistent overcast system that can generate hurricane winds with no warnings.”

“Dark grey stones, no other structures around it? Looks like it’s been there for thousands, tens of thousands of years?” Gabrielle asked, sitting up quickly.

“You’ve already read the report?” Nathan asked back.

“Not your one, no.”

“Gabs?” Tikva asked.

“The structure on the moon below, it turns out, is a pyramid,” Gabrielle replied before turning back to Nathan. “We found a structure shortly after we entered orbit to conduct our little handover with the Romulans. Most of the normal sensors can’t see past the heavy magnetic interference and we only saw it on a visual scan of the surface. Area around it is so hazardous we’d never be able to send an away team down. They’d be dead in a couple of minutes at most.”

“You told me about it this morning, but when did you figure out it was a pyramid?” Tikva had sat up straight now, eyes focused on Gabrielle, her relaxed state washed away.

“This afternoon after you went off duty. We got a better look at it with the lower pass you granted. I then tasked the astrophysics and geosciences teams to collab on modifying a telepresence probe so we could get a closer look.”

“Astrophysics and geosciences?” Nathan asked.

“Geo make good use of the probes for checking out caves and such. Astrophysics, however, get the really hardy probes for launching into crazy kill-you-dead type phenomena.” Gabrielle shrugged with a smile. “They told me they’d have something ready to deploy by morning. Maybe even two probes if we’re lucky. I think the environment down there is still going to fry a hardened telepresence probe in less than an hour.”

“Pyramids aren’t exactly unique designs,” Adelinde said.

“No, but pyramids in places that no one should be able to get to normally are,” Gabrielle said. “Clouds that manifest storms without cause. A structure on a deadly moon. Same colour building material.” She looked at Nathan, who nodded in agreement. “Could be completely coincidental, but might not be.”

“The real surprise is going to be inside,” Nathan said, smiling as all eyes returned to him. “Malakai, Captain Spencer that is, and his people, found murals inside. Ancient murals, showing the rise and fall of civilization on AG6-543-C, the construction of the pyramid, the alien visitors that helped and even showed Starfleet officers entering the pyramid. Someone at some point did paint over a few of the panels and a team is trying to get deep scans and figure out what was under them, but the real kicker was the last panel.”

“Wait, Starfleet officers were on the murals?” Gabrielle asked.

“And a shuttle and something that could pass as Bismarck, even. But that’s not the real kicker.”

“Atlantis?” Tikva asked, barely above a whisper.

“Afraid so,” Nathan answered. “Or some other Sovereign-class starship. Last panel that was showing on the murals at any rate. Showed the ship fighting off what I can only call a locust swarm.”

Silence settled over as Tikva’s eyes went to the floor while she nodded her head a few times. “Okay, before we go about doing anything silly tomorrow morning with probes, I think Gabs, we should bring the Commander up to speed on the MacIntyre Protocol.”

“MacIntyre Protocol?” Nathan asked.

“Captain MacIntyre’s idea,” Gabrielle answered with a grin. “It’s so stupid, it’s brilliant. He has a contingency plan for temporal phenomena. He thought about the ‘how do I get someone to trust me in the past’ problem, but from the other person’s perspective. So, if someone came to him claiming a temporal loop, he could give them a phrase they could repeat the second time around to cut through the whole process and get things moving again. The captain and I codified it into a protocol about a month back.”

“First I’m hearing about it,” Adelinde said, as she gave Tikva a nudge.

“Still ironing out some of the kinks,” Tikva said in defence. “Turns out Gabs and I have the same twisted sense of humour for code phrases.”

“That means,” Adelinde said, looking at Nathan, “that one of the phrases is ridiculous.”

“More like all of them.” Gabrielle smiled as she leaned back into the couch. “So, say you’ve fallen into a temporal loop, not a predestination loop, but a repeating loop…”