The chamber had not seen a living soul set foot upon its stones in centuries until two days ago. But that portentous moment had been as musty as it was humbling, and the stench of stale air had still not left Doctor Frankle’s nostrils. Even after all their work and equipment to make the place safe for excavation, he took a deep huff from the rebreather hanging before his neck as he approached the central plinth.

‘Progress?’

Ensign Alikar was young and enthusiastic and had professed on their first meeting she’d read all of Frankle’s papers. He didn’t think that was true, but that was almost more use; her obsequiousness made her pliable. Even now she turned with tricorder brandished, eyes flashing with eagerness to have something to share. ‘Doctor! I didn’t think you’d be back down. Shifts should be…’

‘I couldn’t sleep. Not with a discovery like this beneath me.’ He’d waited until the rest of the landing party had bunked down for the night, made sure the campsite on the surface hummed with nothing more than their security gear and the gentle snoring of scientists, then returned to the entrance to these subterranean depths.

‘I know,’ Alikar breathed, handing him the tricorder without hesitation before she turned back to the dais. ‘It looks like our initial assessments were correct – the technology is significantly more advanced than our own. And yet it’s been here under the noses of the Drapians for thousands of years and they had no idea.’

‘They’re still proud of the printing press on Drapice. They’d struggle to even conceive of the technology of ancient forbears, let alone find it. Let alone harness it.’

‘Do you think the people who made this were natives? They must have been capable of interstellar travel – though I suppose without the right resources, without dilithium, maybe they never made it past their own solar system…’

‘I don’t know.’ Frankle lifted a hand and tried to sound like the ensign’s thoughts were worthy. In truth, they were nothing he hadn’t gone over in his head as he’d waited in his bunk above. ‘This was the only power signature we detected from orbit. Maybe they lived here and this is all we’ve found. Maybe they’re from somewhere else and left something here.’

The latter seemed possible. Eroded systems at the hidden entrance, itself nestled deep within a network of mountain caves, meant they’d had to attach a power source to open solid metal doors far beyond the design of the natives of Drapice, their settlements mere tens of kilometres away. Almost all they’d found deeper were a smattering of chambers full of degraded equipment and control panels, some more active than others, and all in a language he hadn’t recognised. They were still working on that translation.

But that could fall to the linguists. Greater curiosities fell to him. Like the main chamber, humming with energy even though its main control panels were inactive, and the central plinth to which they were connected. Or rather, the metal-and-stone repository that sat upon it, sealed tight. It was no more than four feet cubed, and yet everything in this place, constructed by an ancient and powerful and unknown civilisation on a world now inhabited by pre-warp primitives, centred around this box. Around whatever was inside it.

‘If they weren’t natives,’ Frankle breathed, eyes drifting from the brown-grey container and up to the chamber, ‘they still chose to make as much of this place as possible from the natural resources, carved it straight into the mountain. Was it easier for them? Or did it help keep the chamber discreet, to work it as little as possible?’

‘Ah, see, Doctor, it’s mostly but not entirely local limestone that they’ve used in this chamber.’ Alikar brightened, moving to gesture to the carved stone underfoot. ‘The walls, floors, ceilings; everything that’s not metal reinforcements – that’s all from the mountain. But there are some exceptions. Like the box.’

He glanced at her. ‘Go on.’

‘It’s not from around here. It might not be from Drapice, or if it is, it’s from far, far away on the planet.’ Alikar approached the metal-and-stone container, gesticulating with her youthful exuberance. Frankle watched and bit his tongue as he waited for her to skip to the end. ‘But it’s a metamorphic rock, with much higher levels of graphite in it. I assume to conduct the energies that are amplifying the box.’

Frankle frowned. ‘Amplifying? It’s sealing it.’

‘It is.’ She gestured enthusiastically at the tricorder in his hands. ‘But whatever’s inside it is also doing… something. I don’t think this is just a container. I think it’s a battery.’

Finally he read her scans. He had assumed she would be taking everything at the unbearable Starfleet pace, the incremental cowardice which was why he’d come down here while most of his colleagues from the ship were asleep. His eyebrows raised. ‘It looks like if we cut the power, it’ll open.’

‘I… yes. I was going to report that in the morning.’ At last Alikar hesitated. ‘We’ve not interfered with anything yet.’

‘We opened the chamber,’ Frankle pointed out, advancing on the container. ‘By being here, we’re interfering.’

‘But our mission was to find out if the Romulans had influenced the cultural development of Drapice when this was their territory…’

‘So that’s irrelevant, as we’re already off-mission, aren’t we?’

‘Only to find out the provenance of this construction, to see if it’s native to Drapice, to see what it might have done or might be doing…’ At last Alikar’s voice started to go higher pitched, her precious prime directive kicking in over any of her curiosity.

Over any of her professionalism as a scientist.

Frankle grunted with disinterest. ‘Can we cut the power?’

‘We – yes.’ Alikar winced. ‘We should discuss this in the morning, Doctor, when everyone’s down.’

‘Why?’ He tapped the tricorder, brought up the energy readings. She had a point. Not everything feeding into the container was keeping it sealed. ‘I’m the lead scientist. I don’t need the others, all of whom are far less-qualified than me, to come down here and be told the same things.’ He was a civilian consultant, but that was besides the point on an expedition like this, on as tiny a ship as theirs. They weren’t here to enforce Starfleet’s will. They were here to explore, with Starfleet resources backing them. He was tired of the distinction being ignored across his work.

‘The lieutenant won’t like it!’

Frankle rolled his eyes. ‘He’s here to keep archive managers happy. His authority is irrelevant. I see you’ve performed all necessary safety checks. If we’re to learn more, Ensign, the learning is in the doing. Or we can stand around and theorise who built this and what it’s for until the stars all die out.’

She looked hesitant, like she thought he needed her agreement, and that just made him tap the tricorder controls more firmly. They didn’t understand the systems here enough to manipulate them on a very sophisticated level, not without better comprehension of the technology or the language. But one thing they did understand was the power systems.

There had been a background hum to the chamber he hadn’t noticed until it faded. Lights overhead remained, though it felt as if they dimmed for a moment, casting jagged shadows across the gold-brown stone walls of the chamber, making the plinth and container loom larger. Then he blinked, and the effect was gone.

Approach. His excitement raged over his nerves, and Frankle stepped up to the repository. Metal was inset deep into the stone, the container doing more than just keeping shut whatever was inside. But it was light, much lighter than he expected when he laid his hands on the lid.

‘Doctor?’ Alikar’s voice was a harsh whisper of an interruption.

‘We’re here now, Ensign,’ he snapped.

‘No, sir, I -’ She sounded confused. ‘I thought you said something.’

Open, his excitement continued to rage over his nerves, and he blocked out the insipid officer. He’d worked in the field longer than she’d been alive, almost twice over, and here she was trying to tell him what to do. Frankle’s jaw set, and he shoved the stone and metal lid back.

The scraping echoed enough to make the shadows flicker, or so it felt. Alikar whimpered behind him, backing towards the walls, but he ignored her, his eyes falling on the darkness within. On the glint of bronze gleaming under the lights of the chamber and the lamps they’d brought.

‘See?’ he said, though his voice was barely above a whisper as his lips curled with satisfaction. ‘Nothing has exploded, and your precious prime directive is intact, Ensign.’

‘I don’t…’

Whatever she said was lost in the sea of his indifference, and Frankle peered down. It would have been underwhelming, were he a more dramatic and materialistic man, to open a repository of ancient technology and find so little within it. Just a metal circlet, brown-bronze in colour, gleaming in the light.

But it was perfectly smooth, had no obvious point of connection, and yet had to be what the container was also powering. But to do what?

Take, hissed his excitement, and Frankle at last glanced back at Alikar. He sighed with indifference. ‘Alright, Ensign, wake the others if you wish.’

Once she had scurried off, he reached for it.