Pointing down a slope of smoking ash and pulverized rock into a smoke-shrouded valley, Spock said, “The outpost was down there, Captain.”

Acting on a single nod from Kirk, Danes and Patterson moved quickly down the slope, ahead of the rest of the landing party. Patterson tested the ground as they went, checking for bad footing or other hazards. Danes observed the surrounding desolation for any sign of company and occasionally looked back to make certain the rest of the group was all right. When they were about halfway down the slope, Kirk followed in their steps, and the rest of the team took his cue and followed him.

Tromping down the slope, Xiong struggled to pierce the dusty gloom below and locate the concealed entrance to the underground excavation. Descending into the smothering blanket of smoke, visibility decreased rapidly, until Kirk, just a few meters in front of Xiong, was only a hazy silhouette against the gray twilight. The rest of the landing party was little more than dim shadows, their labored breathing a low rasp over the suit comms. Jagged chunks of red-hot rock littered their path.

“We should reach the remains of the outpost any minute,” Xiong said, more to reassure himself than to edify the others.

“There are no remains to find, Lieutenant,” Spock said.

“We don’t know that, sir. There might be—”

“We are now more than fifty meters below the recorded ground level of the outpost,” Spock said. “Logic suggests that the attack which destroyed the base was sufficiently powerful to expose the excavation below.”

Adding insult to injury, D’Amato quipped, “So much for Xiong’s artifacts.”

“That’s enough, Lieutenant,” Kirk said. “Mr. Xiong, you know what we’re looking for better than my security guards do. Take point and lead us in.”

“Aye, sir.” Xiong quickened his pace down the slope and soon edged in front of Danes and Patterson. Staring down at the tiny fragments of charred rock and powdery dust under his boots, he tried to discern any sign of the cata-combs he and the others had navigated when they first discovered this place. Every new step hammered home the grim realization that there was probably nothing left of the greatest archaeological discovery of the century except for memories and ashes.

Then it took shape in the dreary dimness—the outline of an enormous but disjointed mass of rubble. Xiong remembered first seeing it whole; it had been a truly unsettling experience. Now, beholding it shattered and collapsed, his initial fear of the artifact was transformed into anger at its loss. Its four evenly spaced external supports, which rose up and curved inward, towered nearly thirty meters overhead. The circular platform at which they had intersected had been obliterated, and the clawlike hemisphere it had supported had fallen onto its mirror-image counterpart below, yielding a disturbing, saw-tooth arrangement of shattered black volcanic glass. The lower hemisphere sat at the top of a gradual incline whose surface was rife with grotesque, semi-organic, semi-mechanical shapes and protrusions. Even in its current debased condition, the artifact continued to evoke in Xiong a sense of palpable menace.

The landing party regrouped around Xiong and stared at the ruins of the artifact. Danes and Patterson gazed upward in amazement. D’Amato scanned it with his tricorder. Arching his right eyebrow, Spock said, “Fascinating.”

“Xiong,” Kirk said, never taking his eyes off the alien structure. “What is it?”

“We don’t know, sir.” Noting the irritated look on Kirk’s face, he added quickly, “We were just starting our research when someone knocked out our sensor screen.”

Kirk took a few steps up the low incline, then stopped. “What kind of research?”

“Everything,” Xiong said. “Materials analysis, reverse engineering, cultural profiling. The S.C.E. had more than a dozen people down here.”

D’Amato looked up from his scanning, alarmed. “Captain, I’ve got readings below the ruins—complex structures, definitely artificial.”

Kirk looked at his first officer. “Spock?”

Activating his tricorder, Spock quickly performed his own scan. “A power-distribution system, Captain,” he said. “A primary tap appears to have been physically severed seventy-one-point-two meters away, bearing three-one-five.” He turned off the tricorder and slung it back at his side as he finished. “The artifact appears to have been powered by a remote source. Readings indicate that it was capable of harnessing a vast amount of energy.”

Kirk once again focused on Xiong. “What was the S.C.E. doing before the outpost was attacked?”

“The next item on the agenda when I left was to try and restore power to a few isolated components. That’s why they had the sensor screen—to prevent their work from drawing attention.”

Kneeling down amid the twisting biomechanoid tendrils that covered the slope, D’Amato pressed his gloved hand against it. He seemed entranced by its dark coils and dust-shrouded patches of perfectly smooth, opaque black glass. “Xiong, how many of these structures have been found?”

“This is the only one,” Xiong said, then added, “That I know of.”

Kirk glanced at Spock then asked Xiong suspiciously, “When did you find it?” Xiong noticed that Spock and Kirk both were listening attentively for his answer.

“A few months ago, shortly before Vanguard was declared fully operational. Why?”

Spock said to Kirk, “Then this find could not have been the impetus for Starfleet’s push into the Taurus Reach. Construction of the station began nearly two years prior to this excavation.”

Nodding, Kirk took another look around the dustblown jumble of ancient debris. “What brought you out here in the first place, Lieutenant? Without a working starbase for support, this is a long way to go on a hunch.”

“I’m sorry, sir, but—”

“—but that’s classified,” Kirk interrupted. “Of course it is.” He turned his back on Xiong. “D’Amato, finish your scans of the structure and verify your readings with Mr. Spock. Patterson, Danes, help Mr. D’Amato collect any samples he might need for analysis.”

Everyone snapped into action and conversation ceased.

Regret nagged at Xiong as he wandered around the base of the ruins. He hated keeping information from fellow Starfleet officers, regardless of the orders he had been given. A truly staggering discovery had inspired the Federation’s exploration and colonization of the Taurus Reach, but in Xiong’s opinion whoever was making the “big picture” decisions about this mission was going about it all wrong. All they care about is gaining an advantage, getting one up on the Klingons or the Tholians. Why is it always about keeping secrets? If only they’d let the scientists handle diplomacy instead of the politicians, maybe we could stop trying to make weapons out of everything.

When he had expressed such sentiments to his father years ago, the “old man” had laughed at him and labeled him a “deluded peacenik.” On the day that a shuttle came to take Xiong from his home in Kunming, China, to Starfleet Academy in San Francisco, his father stopped laughing at him…or speaking to him. “How ashamed you must be,” Xiong had shouted as the old man walked away from him. “You wanted an architect and you got me.” Now, more than twelve years later, Xiong was hundreds of light-years away, marveling at an ancient majesty that was abandoned before modern humans even existed…and still his rage refused to die.

An earsplitting whine cut the air.

Kirk bellowed, “Fall back! Everybody out!”

The first explosion tore Danes in half.

Xiong sprinted back toward the rest of the landing party.

Billows of red-orange fire jetted out of cracks in the artifact. Detonations erupted inside its interlocked hemispheres. Shrapnel rocketed in all directions. A blazing-hot fragment struck Xiong behind his right knee, buckling his leg. He fell face-first at the bottom of the slope and howled in agony. Unable to roll over, he twisted his torso and reached instinctively for the bloody tatters of his knee.