jeriendhal | "A Slight Detour", Part Twelve (Reply)

"Nice ship," Major Carter had said, when Leeza led her to the control room of the Treona.

"Thank you," she replied, "though I'm not sure I should be showing it to you."

Carter smiled. "I think it's all right. If your universe is so far removed from ours that the laws of FTL physics are different, then you shouldn't have to worry too much about me seeing something that might alter history. Now, do have anything like an orbital map of the major asteroids you observed when you came in?"

"Even better," Leeza replied, "most of the orbits of everything bigger than a meter across were surveyed by the scoutship that originally visited this system. It should be easy enough to transpose them with the current position of the planet to what might be a worry to us." Her hands danced over the Treona's computer interface, and the asteroid belt appeared on the main viewsceen. A moment later the planet itself appeared, and the intersecting orbiting lines of both looked a tangled web of spaghetti.

"Ugh," Leeza muttered, and instructed the computer to remove the orbit lines of everything that was more than a light-second from the planet. Most of the spaghetti disappeared, leaving only twenty or so strands.

"Well that's not so bad," Carter said. "How many of them will intersect the planet's orbit within, say, twenty-four hours?"

"Let's see," Leeza said, and entered another command. All the remaining strands but one disappeared. "There we go," she said with satisfaction, "Just one, in about seven hours, and it's only…" She read the estimation on the asteroid's size and composition, and felt her blood run cold.

"Two hundred kilometers across, and made of solid nickel-iron," Carter read.

"Well, we can always get the Terona in orbit," Leeza said. "All we have to do is find Rufus and Daniel." She swallowed and wished she'd thought to get a cup of coffee. A hundred kilometers to search at least, given the length of time they'd been missing and probable rate of travel, and most of it was thick forest.

"Yes, but," Carter leaned in and manipulated the viewscreen. The schematic of the planet enlarged, showing the individual continents, with the Treona's position marked with a red dot. Another red dot appeared, blinking angrily, some eight hundred kilometers away. "That's where the asteroid is going to come down. Even if we get everyone off the planet in time, the Stargate is going to probably disappear under all the sesmic disturbance, and SG-1 is going to be stuck in this universe for certain."

She definitely wished she'd gotten that cup of coffee. I am not a damned military commander, I'm an engineer, I shouldn't have to make life and death decisions like this.

"Captain Blake?" Carter asked gently.

"We're going to search for them," Leeza decided, after taking in a deep breath. "Lance can fly Rufus' fighter in a pinch, and I can fly the Treona. Working together, we ought be able to find these Gou'ald that probably captured them." I hope so, anyway.

"If the Gou'ald see your ship or a fighter zipping around, they'll respond," Carter disagreed, "If they've got a Ha'tak mothership nearby, we could be swarmed with enemy fighters in a matter of minutes."

"What other choice do we have? I'm not leaving Rufus or your friend behind," Leeza snapped.

"I don't know," Carter said, "Maybe if we can get the gate operational, we might be able to get some help from the SGC. Or we can try to divert the asteroid ourselves."

"With what? Rufus' fighter doesn't have the firepower to knock out something that big, and the Treona doesn't have any weapons at all."

"I don't know," Carter admitted, "but there has to be a solution. There's always a solution if you look hard enough."

"I don't see…" Leeza was interrupted by an insistent beeping on the ship's main console.

"What's that?" Carter demanded.

"Perimeter alarm," Leeza said, checking the monitors. "Something's coming from the southwest." The asteroid's collision course disappeared from the viewscreen, replaced by an image from one of the ship's external cameras.

From the treeline, Lance and Colonel O'Neill emerged, running pell-mell towards the Treona. The reason for their haste became apparent as a squad of Galapagos warriors came out, right on their tails.

"We'd better get to the airlock and give them some cover fire…" Leeza began. She stopped as two more groups emerged from the trees. The first were Terinu, and the tall Jaffa named Teal'c. The second were a strange looking group of humanoids in jet black armour, firing some form of laser weapons integrated into the arms of their suits. Terinu was the only one firing back at them, blasting the warriors with his bion energy, even as Teal'c did his best to drag the ferin boy to cover.

"Anubis' drones!" Carter exclaimed, grabbing her rifle from where she'd laid it on a console. Leeza drew her pistol out and followed the Major as she dashed for the airlock door. They arrived just as Lance and O'Neill came running up, O'Neill taking cover just inside the door as Lance ran down the corridor.

"Where's that bastard going!" O'Neill snapped, as he fired off a quick burst at the approaching drones. A burst of energy passed bare centimeters over Leeza's head, leaving a heat flash that warmed her whole scalp.

"Who are those people?" Leeza demanded.

"Anubis' drone warriors!" O'Neill shouted back, "And we don't have the damned energy rifles we need to take 'em down!"

TBC