Some time earlier, before the speed of the storm was increased.

Mizu stepped out of the passenger seat of the vehicle, where she then began to approach the massive pillar on foot. When they had approached it via the ATV, she began to describe it to be more of an obelisk than anything else. And what was strange, was that there were many of them that surrounded the city, with walls that connected from one obelisk to another. That is, except for the obvious entrances to the cardinal directions. Simply put, the north, south, east and west of the city’s edge did not have walls, so the inhabitants could leave or enter the city from either direction.

The obelisks were clearly an important structure to the perimeter wall of the city. But why? Mizu pulled her tricorder out and began to run her scans over the structure, just as K’Roll did when he stood by her side. Mizu cycled through various scanners to get a more detailed scan of the structure. That is, until one of them began to pick up something completely unexpected. A frequency.

Mizu was uncertain about it, so she cataloged the frequency and then she hurried over to the obelisk on the opposite side. Every threshold in and out of the city had obelisks by their sides. Like a door frame, without the top that connected the two. She ran the same scanner over this one and found the same frequency.

“K’Roll.” Mizu called out as she made her way back to him. “What do you make of this?” She then held out her tricorder to him to show him the frequency that it picked up. “Both obelisks have the exact same frequency.”

K’Roll looked at it more closely, as he examined the data. “It appears as though the obelisks are emitting the frequency. But how?” He switched scanners to try and get a more in-depth scan of the obelisk, to see if there was anything mechanical inside.

Mizu did the same, but she used a different scanner to see if perhaps the obelisks were built differently. She was looking for gaps, shapes, anything that would indicate that perhaps the obelisks were hollow inside and the wind helped produce the frequency. But she found nothing.

“Mizu.” She heard K’Roll, and quickly went to his side when she believed he had found something. And he did. His tricorder showed that the obelisk went further down into the sand, much further. “It is as if it was built from below, to the surface.”

Mizu shook her head. “How does a primitive civilization such as this know how to build something like…well this?” She asked out loud as she stared at the obelisk before them. “There has to be an explanation of how it produces the frequency.” With a few more adjustments to the scanner, she found that the obelisk was indeed built with different materials and she nearly leapt out of her skin. “There it is! It’s a resonance frequency!”

She felt K’Roll had begun to look over her shoulder to examine the data. She pointed it out. “While the outer layer of the obelisk are clearly sandstone, the inner core is made out of some kind of crystal like material. But look here!” She noticed something else, there was a hollow tube in the center, right at the base that touched the ground before it went further beneath them, that reached all the way to just beneath the tip. Then she pointed to small holes that were barely visible to the naked eye around the obelisk center and tip, that reached the hollow center.

“It is so much more than just a resonance frequency. It has its own transducer and a vibration trigger.” Said K’Roll. “Look,” He held out his tricorder, where Mizu could see that he had went back to examine the frequency even further. “It’s like an infrasound frequency. But why would a civilization such as this need such a thing?”

Mizu cataloged all the data and closed her tricorder, where she suggested K’Roll to do the same before she resumed their conversation. “This is something that the experts on board the ship will have to burn the midnight oil over. Right now, we got that one sight outside of the city to collect data on. Come on, let’s get back to the ATV.”

They would return to the vehicle, where K’Roll drove a few more miles outside of the city to reach the point of interest that the probe had detected before the Sovereign had arrived. It literally was only three miles outside the city, so what possibly could go wrong? A thought that came across Mizu’s mind when she stepped out of the vehicle once they had made a complete stop, right before what they could clearly see to be the remains of something.

“It looks like bones.” Said K’Roll.

Mizu dropped to her knees right before the very large section of ‘bone’ and set her tricorder to run a multi-scan over it. It was hard to tell but she had a feeling that there was more to it. Mizu twisted a little at her waist to look over at K’Roll. “Can you grab that kit from the back? It should have those small probes inside.”

It took only a moment but once K’Roll set the case down by Mizu’s side, she quickly opened it up and pulled out one of the small hand sized probes. She activated it and took some attachments to apply to the probe. “I don’t think this is bone. Or at least, not the way we think.” She then set the probe down into the sand and watched it disappear into the sand.

Mizu watched from the tricorder as the probe made its way further down into the sand, while it had also made a few sweeps around the area. As it did, it would send back data to her tricorder, where it essentially began to map the remians beneath them. When the probe had not stopped, Mizu began to wonder how big this thing was, but what was clear was that the piece of ‘bone’ before them that stuck out of the sand was definitely something else.

“It’s an exoskeleton.” Mizu said out loud, while she continued to observe her tricorder, to see if the probe would stop soon but it does not.

“Exoskeleton?” K’Roll asked.

Mizu then looked up at him before she returned her gaze back to her tricorder. “Yeah. I’ll know more once this probe finishes its scan. Good lord, how big is this thing?!”