Burning rays from the system’s star beat upon the dunes of Nareen’s surface, heating the sand to such an extent that the heat permeated the rubber soles of the boots that trudged through the mounds. If one stood around too long they were at risk of more than burnt feet, though. Dehydration was an enormous risk in even a short period of time, such was the planet’s proximity to its sun. Luckily, the sandscape had acquired a new structure, hastily constructed under the sun and by the capable engineers from Cardenas the instant they landed, allowing the gaggle of scientists assembled from across the squadron to focus on their analysis of the nearby relic that had drawn them here in the first place.

Standing in the shadow of the makeshift shelter, sleeves rolled up and hands on his hips, the pointy-eared, dark-haired scientist from Hypatia gazed at the wondrous beauty of the relic before him. He didn’t need a tricorder like Lieutenant Kessler, or a Chronometric Resonance Scanner like Ensign Donovan. He didn’t need Al-Batani’s Spectrographic Analyzer or the Molecular Stabilizer Field his companion from Wasp had brought down. All he needed to study the spire were his eyes, and even though it had succumbed to father time himself, what a sight to behold. He was so lost in his own visual scans that he’d filtered out the excited buzz around him, and entirely missed the voice that addressed him from behind the first time. The second time pulled him back to the here and now.

“What’re we thinking?” Despite the scorching heat, Hinnari Rainet was all pip and cheer, apparently unperturbed by the harsh conditions. Nothing could dull the lieutenant’s optimism and excitement now- here she was, a science officer from a Defiant-class- one of the oldest, at that- actually helping make scientific discoveries that didn’t involve phaser cannons and quantum torpedoes. This was a dream come true. “Office complex? Communications tower? Weather station? Maybe power infrastructure?”

The other two members of Wasp‘s humble three-person contribution to the away team seemed… less than thrilled. Otto Petrenko just looked miserable- forehead already sheened with either sweat or water from wiping it away, a wet towel wrapped around the handguard of his rifle to keep his hands from burning on the frame. Alondra Petrenko, on the other hand, mostly looked upset that she’d been pulled out of the cramped confines of Wasp‘s engineering spaces, like the sun was personally offending her. Engineers truly had whatever was the opposite of cabin fever.

“I’d wager its some kind of navigation structure,” the Romulan Commander mused, pursing his lips, his eyes never leaving the black structure and its ornate, golden inscriptions. “See these carvings?” he pointed to several dust-battered drawings, “I believe they resemble some kind of map…”

“A map some three thousand years old…”

With her thick, black hair scraped back into an immaculate bun, Al-Batani‘s Lieutenant Keshah Iddar was perhaps the only person on the planet that hadn’t struggled with the climate in some way since their arrival. Cardassians were used to arid conditions, after all.

“According to the rate of atomic decay, the material composition and the isotropic ratios on display, the spectrograph suggests it is almost three millennia old,” the chief science officer from the Excelsior-class cruiser advised her colleagues.

“Three millennia…” Rainet’s eyebrows raised in surprise, then furrowed in thought just as quickly. “Strange- wasn’t the Shroud just about as old, if not older? This is an expansive map to make on warp factor two. Either whoever made this spent centuries longer than the Federation’s been alive mapping this region, or they found some alternative manner of FTL travel to warp. Quantum slipstream?”

“Where’d they get the benamite?” It was almost a surprise for Alondra Petrenko to speak up at all- the usually reclusive engineer wasn’t much of a people person, much less chatty. “I dunno about you, but I think there’d be a lot more evidence of benamite mining all over the Expanse. Or even on this planet.”

“After all of the technologies and means of travel we’ve come to experience in the last few years, I would say anything is possible,” Vren shrugged, folding his arms across his chest like a defence mechanism, the same way he always did when he didn’t have all of the answers.

“Perhaps it is a signpost? Welcome to Nareen. This way to Sol, to Romulus, to Cardassia…” Iddar supposed, gently running her hand across the objects surface, feeling every divot, every crack.

“Until we know for certain, all theories are on the table,” Vren dropped his arms to his side at last and finally took his gaze from the relic. “We’re due to submit our first report to command in less than an hour. I’d like something concrete to submit. Lieutenant Rainet, why don’t you and your team try and work out where this map could point us to? Keshah, carry on with your analysis. I’ll work with my team to try and decipher the glyphs.”

“No arguments here!” Rainet waved the Petrenko siblings forward to join her at the map, paying no heed to Otto’s distressed groan. Alondra, at least, was helpful enough to bring up a map of the Expanse on her tricorder for them to study. The engineer muttered to herself under her breath as she fiddled around with it, trying to get it to line up.

Rainet brushed away some of the sand with a jacket sleeve, briefly frowning at the spots where erosion had wiped away sections of it. “I’m not sure we’ll be able to get a full picture of it, to be truthful. Significant parts of the map are missing. If we’d gotten here a few thousand years earlier-”

“-we’d have Temporal Investigations up our asses,” Otto jutted in, “and that’d be the perfect way to make this trip even less pleasant.”

“Oh, don’t be such a worrywart.” Rainet leaned over Alondra’s shoulder to peer at the tricorder. “Oh, that seems almost right. What do you think?”

“Spinward map of nearly the entire Expanse?” Alondra frowned. “… I can see it, and I don’t like it. It’s like- all those big circles are probably major population centers, maybe? All fanning out from this world. It’s like a… map of an empire, or something.”

And before that particular realization could sink in, everyone’s commbadges chirped. Not just Wasp‘s little three-person mini-team, everyone’s.