Fic: "A Slight Detour", Part Three

[jeriendhal]

The Treona was a starship, not a shuttle craft or a fighter, and was just on the near side of being capable of interfacing with a planet's atmosphere. Something which it hadn't been asked to do, Leeza realized when she checked the ship's log, since it had completed its construction trials. But she felt safe enough with the ship in Rufus' capable hands, and there were no surprises as they went from graceful spaceship to slightly ungainly atmospheric craft.

They set down in a flat, grassy clearing in the middle of what looked like a pine forest. The spot was just wide enough to allow the Treona to land, and the trees tall enough to allow the spoofer tenting to be strung from their branches, something that Terinu agreed to do with his typical flinty reluctance.

"Why not get Lance to do it? He's the one that broke the ship," the boy had asked when Leeza had requested his help.

"Because Lance would need a grav-platform, which I might add he is going to be using as soon as he finishes with the post-landing checks," she said patiently. "You, on the other hand, can leap up into the trees just fine without one."

"And if I don't?"

Leeza took a deep, calming breath. "Then you leave us open to being detected by the Varn or their lizard warriors, and I'm sure you don't want that."

Terinu snorted, and turned away to grab a bundle of tenting and some plastic ropes to secure them. Leeza let out her breath and thanked all that was holy that she hadn't found a life partner yet. Because eventually that might translate into children, and from the looks of things teenagers were more trouble than they were worth.

He wasn't halfway finished with his task when he leaped down out of the trees and bounded over to where Leeza was scanning the hull exterior for micro-cracks caused by Lance's little experiment.

"Found something," Terinu said.

"What?" Lance asked from where he was setting up perimeter sensors, just in case there was any hostile native life around.

Terinu ignored him and kept his eyes on Leeza. "Some sort of weird temple thing, about a kilometer from here, in a little valley. I wouldn’t have seen it if I hadn't been up in the treetops."

"Nova!" Lance exclaimed, jogging up to where they stood. "Some sort of local aborigines?"

"Smarter than that," Terinu said. "There are a bunch of stone columns set up all around, but in the center is a weird sort of upright ring, made of a dark stone from what I could see, with a little altar near it. I'm gonna check it out."

"Terinu, wait!" But he was already bounding up and into the trees, heading in a generally southwestern direction.

"Idiot kid," Lance said, and Leeza was forced to agree.