The engineer in the group, Thoral, pulled out their own tricorder.  After a few moments of scanning, plus some reconfiguration of their tricorder and a pressed control, a faint thunk echoed up and down the hallway as the lock disengaged and the door opened.  Inside the door was another room, far more detailed in its fittings than the others this group had seen.  Not just artistically, either, but operationally as well; the center of the room was dominated by some sort of large orb-shaped device (or a part of an even larger one, it was hard to tell), with what may have been consoles or control interfaces around it.

They didn’t appear to be modern technological consoles but more esoteric and primitive looking. Made of stone as a base material, and with random coloured gems and semi precious metals as the controls and buttons of the consoles.

“Spooky. I’m getting the willy’s just being in her now ma’am.” Jenkins said.

“You and me both, Jenkins; you and me both,” Lotharys agreed, looking around anxiously.  “But if we’re gonna learn anything about this place, it could be here.”  She turned to face the group.  “Fan out, and let’s see what this room is.  Just be very careful, everyone; this is Vezda stuff we’re dealing with here.”

The group dispersed around the room.  Silis and Vorak did their best to keep as many people in sight at a time as they could (including each other), while Lotharys, Jenkins, and the other two science officers began to take readings.  Scanning proved more challenging in this chambers, the result of the presence of minerals that naturally reflect scans, though it was unclear if those minerals were natural or artificially included in the construction.  Conduits – both power and data, though it was impossible to say which was which, seemed to run through the walls and floors to the consoles and to the massive device in the center of the room.

“So if this is a control room, what is it controlling?” Jenkins asked.

“That’s the million-credit question, now isn’t it,” Lotharys said in reply.  “But if this is a Vezda site, remember that it has a big spire, and we’re pretty sure we know what the Vezda used those spires for.  Maybe these consoles run this spire somehow?”

“Do we know what they used them for though?” Jenkins asked. Not being totally up on all the Vezda info.

“Not definitively,” Lotharys replied.  “Some believe they’re just visual markers of Vezda dominance, but the systems and orb we’re seeing here seem to disprove that.  Others say – and this is kind of the prevailing theory – they could have contributed to the Vezda’s control over the societies they’d conquered, probably through some sort of telepathic influence.  Of course, there’s always some grand conspiracies, too, but to my knowledge there’s been no evidence to confirm any of them.”

“Well, let’s start catalogueing and not touching a fucking thing then ma’am.” Jenkins said as he switched his wrist mounted flashlight to wide angle and started reviewing the various inscriptions on the walls.

Lotharys nodded, a bit eager to get into things herself as well.  “Don’t forget, everyone, we’re due back at base camp in about an hour, so we’ll start what we can now, to make sure that we can give the next team in here a good place to work from.  Now let’s get to it!”

“Base camp better have some fried chicken ready. Smalat, start running a full structural scan lets get an idea of how this room connects to the surrounding temple. Now why in Kirk’s name didn’t we see this from orbit, or even on our initial surface scans, is what I’m wondering.” Jenkins said as he began to scan the left wall’s inscriptions.