We steadied ourselves, thinking of the world below and its valuable gateway. We knew that the gateway was our only hope to contact the enemy of the Marauders. Our hull took a shot from the cannons mounted on the Planet Killer as we barrelled towards it. Using our minds as one, we evaded shot after shot from the Planet Killer. From time to time, a bolt would land and knock us off course. At once it seemed both forever and in an instant that we were upon the maw of the ship of evil. We shared a single thought as we detonated our core in the jaws of death. There was a brief white light and then... oblivion.
As we returned to our own time and place, we silently considered our shared experience. To those who had not been on the journey with us, it seemed as though only seconds had passed. We believed that in the vision we were above Romulus 200,000 years ago at the peak of the Iconian civilisation as they fought a war against the Marauders. The Iconians seemed to believe that their gateways were they key to contacting the enemies of the Marauders. Whatever they did millennia ago, we thought that it must have been successful as there is no record that we know of of the Marauders since that time. We needed to learn more.
We carried on exploring the temple. We found further evidence that Mr Singh suggested indicated that multiple religions had used the temple over time. Mr Singh discussed his findings with Subcommander Rekar and K'Ren. They all agreed that the snake imagery was consistent with Romulan history, but the insect images were a puzzle. None of them could recollect a Romulan civilisation that venerated insects.
We find the heart of the temple. It was some kind of tomb containing a sarcophagus. Ana scanned the sarcophagus and found a metal object within. We carefully removed the lid of the sarcophagus and discovered a modern Romulan hatch within. Ana was quickly able to use her tricorder to release the hatch lock. The hatch descended down into darkness.
A short descent through some kind of Jeffries tube took us into a familiar and yet alien ancient vessel. The surfaces of the walls were just as we remembered the Iconian vessel.
The vessel had evidently landed poorly as it was at an angle making movement and action difficult. The vessel was wrecked beyond repair and without any sign of power. Despite our earlier vision, we could not begin to deduce the purpose of the eldritch controls. We split into two groups to explore the vessel. We discovered four chambers at the east of the vessel.
Within one slept a Romulan civilian. Thavliss and his team quickly silenced and bound this Romulan. They moved to the next room of the vessel where they found a Romulan scientist torturing a tentacled alien that was captured within a transparent aluminium tube. Approaching from the south, I found a similarly occupied chamber to the south.
Thavliss crept into the chamber to the north with the intention of silently disabling the Romulan. Unfortunately, this plan misfired, and although Thavliss was able to enter silently, his attack was too strong and the Romulan was killed. In the south room, I was more successful and I disabled the Romulan without problems.
We examined the tubes and the creatures within. They appeared to have the same nature as the Marauders. The Romulans were curiously torturing these creatures, apparently without purpose. A tricorder scan of the Romulans revealed the black oil within their blood streams.
We were concerned about the Romulans using suicide pills and so I removed all the teeth from the Romulan we captured. I knew Starfleet would not approve (and would probably court martial me if they got wind of it), but forgive me, I awoke the Romulan without anaesthetic. I cannot imagine the pain the poor man felt as he returned to consciousness. Whether it was this torture or the black oil, I did not know, but when the man awoke, he was clearly insane. I threatened him with my sword and with further torture, but I could not learn anything more from him other than he was a worshipper of Ram'Laza.
I think that my crew were repulsed by my actions. I even debated killing the Romulans, but my crew were not keen on murder. Ana was keen that these people should get treatment, not murdered. K'Ren and Subcommander Rekar agreed to use K'Ren's personal transporter device to get the Romulans back to the RSE Mercator.
Whilst they undertook this task, we moved to the North and closer to the heart of the mystery.
And the adventure continues...