Ficlets

Impractical Archeology

“Look at this! It’s so detailed!” Captain Cam Kelso marveled at the bas relief mural, his eyes darting around its carved surface.

Private Pete Petit snapped another photograph of the wall. “What exactly are we looking at?” He leaned in and squinted at an intricately carved section. “It looks like old blueprints.”

Kelso snapped his fingers, and Petit jumped. “Keep taking pictures! Hertzoff could be right behind us.”

“Yessir.” Petit framed the section he had been scrutinizing, and the flash struck, brightly illuminating the dusty tunnel in which they stood.

Kelso continued his frenzied survey of the wall, excitedly pointing at script and images. “Greek… Aramaic… That—why that’s paleo-Hebrew… Great Scott… What have we found here?”

Flash. Petit pointed his thumb at the middle of the mural. “What is this big diagram in the center, Cap’?”

Kelso leaned in close and followed a line of Hebraic script that led to the image of the structure centered on the wall. He squinted.

“It says—”

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