"A Slight Detour", Part Four.

[jeriendhal]

Leeza, Lance, and Rufus all went together to follow the Ferin boy, finally catching up to him at the end of the little valley. It appeared to be pretty much as he described. Large stone pillars that reminded Leeza of the standing stones from some old Earth cultures surrounded what appeared to be a much more sophisticated looking ring, with a small tilted altar, or something, near it. The ring had a series of chevrons set at regular intervals along its edge, and a series of mysterious looking symbols on the inner part of the ring.

"Weird," was all that Lance had to say.

"You said something about not wanting to meet any natives earlier?" Rufus said.

"Maybe it's from some local civilization that died out," Leeza said uncertainly. She raised her hand scanner and aimed at the ring, then frowned at the results.

"What's the matter?" Rufus asked.

"That stone the ring is made out of. It's not really stone, or even steel. If I'm reading the scanner right it's something that's even tougher than diamondoid."

Lance crossed his arms and stared at the ring curiously. "Definitely not local then. Nobody could make that without a significant industrial base."

"Hey, I found something else!" Terinu called out. While the rest of Leeza's crew had stayed the edge of the perimeter defined by the standing stones, the young Ferin had approached closer the ring and was examining the ground in front of it.

"Teri, be careful!" Leeza called out. "What did you find?"

"Tire tracks!"

Leeza, Lance, and Rufus shared a puzzled glance, then rushed over to where Terinu was standing. There were indeed wheeled tracks on the ground, made by something perhaps half the size of a ground car. They led to the edge of the woods, where the crew got their second shock of the day.

It was a six wheeled, automated probe of some sort, with a variety of relatively primitive cameras and other sensors mounted on arms on the front of the thing.

"That's not Varn technology, or anybody else's that I'd recognize," Leeza concluded.

"Nor I," Rufus agreed.

"The tech on this thing has to be at least a couple of centuries old," Lance pointed out, peering into one of the cameras.

"So? That just means it was sent here by somebody who's cheap," Terinu said. "Tech doesn't have to be bleeding edge to work properly."

Lance looked at him grudgingly. "The kid has a point."

"That still doesn't explain how it got here," Leeza said. "Where we put the Treona down is the only place within ten kilometers to land, and there's no sign that this thing went through the woods on its own."

They doubled back to the strange ring, following the probe's tracks. They led right up to the low stone platform that served as the ring's support.

"It drove through the ring, to examine it maybe?" Leeza ventured.

"There aren't any tracks on the other side of this stupid thing," Terinu said, hopping up onto the platform. Meanwhile Rufus was poking at the little circular, slanted… sculpture? Altar? Anyway, the thing had two sets of concentric circles, marked with symbols matching those on the ring itself, with a large red circle in the center. I swear, it looks like the world's biggest panic button.

Lance was giving the ring an experimental shove. "Hey, this thing actually moves!" he called out.

"Don't touch anything!" Leeza ordered. "That goes for you too, Rufus."

"It's all right, I don't think this thing is working, whatever it is," he said, pushing at the altar experimentally. The symbol under his hand depressed slightly, but nothing else happened. "It's definitely some sort of technology though. No bunch of stone age primitives made this thing."

"Just please don't fiddle with it until we're sure what it does," she said. "We need to finish getting the Treona under cover, especially now that we know someone is interested in this planet."

Lance glanced back into the woods in the direction of their ship. "Understood. Come on, Teri, let's finish the job and let Leeza and Rufus figure this thing out."

"For the last time, it's Terinu," the boy snapped. "Finish it yourself, I got most of it done without your help. I wanna look at this thing some more." He gave the ring an idle kick.

With a sound that was something like whraara-CHUNK, the mysterious ring suddenly rotated, and one the chevrons lit up and locked into position.

"What the hell did you just do?" Lance cried out.

Whraara-CHUNK. Another chevron locked into place.

"I didn't do anything!" Terinu yelled back. Whraara-CHUNK. "I just kicked it!"

Whraara-CHUNK.

"Teri, Lance, get away from that thing!" Leeza yelled.

Whraara-CHUNK.

"You did something!"

Whraara-CHUNK.

"RIGHT NOW!"

Leeza jumped up onto the stone platform and yanked at Lance's arm, over-balancing him and causing them to both tumble to the ground. At that moment, a blue energy field suddenly filled the center of the metal ring. Terinu made a surprised vertical leap up onto the top of the ring, just as the energy field seemed to splash outward, like a spout of water from a depth charge explosion. The energy field expanded sideway about five meters away form the ring, then suddenly fell back, leaving the energy field rippling like water in the ring's center.

Lance helped Leeza to her feet, as they both brushed themselves off. His eyes were wide and starting at the ring. He and Terinu had been arguing right in front of it, and if they had tried to move a moment later, they would have been directly in the way of the energy field as it had expanded.

"I think we'd better get under some cover," Rufus said, standing up from he'd taken refuge behind the altar.

Terinu was leaning over, hands and clawed feet gripping the ring, almost upside down as he peered closely at the blue energy field. "Looks a little like my bion energy," he said.

"Don't tou—" Leeza began, as the boy gave the field an experimental poke. The field rippled, and his finger disappeared up to the second knuckle before he removed it. "—fool with it any longer," she finished.

"Yes, I think we should do as Leeza says," Rufus agreed, the swashbuckling, fox-like fighter pilot looking uncharacteristically flummoxed.

"Fine, fine," Terinu agreed reluctantly. He poised to leap to the ground, but before he could join them four figures emerged from the rippling field of energy. Flung out, rather, flying clear of the ring and landing in a rough heap six meters away.

They were all human, from what Leeza could tell, dressed in dark green and black military uniforms. Three men, one woman, and all four of them heavily armed with what looked like a combination of projectile and energy weapons.

Leeza's hand dropped to the butt of her pistol, while Rufus and Lance did the same. Terinu maintained his perch on top of the ring, which was suddenly empty as the energy field dissipated with a brief flash. One of his hands was closed in a fist, around a little bit of metal Leeza was willing to guess, suitable for an energy grenade.

The first of the newcomers to recover was a heavily built African man with a bizarre looking golden sigil literally inserted into his forehead. He also had a wicked looking heavy rifle slung under one arm, which he politely pointed towards the ground when he realized that they were surrounded.

The second of the group said, a grey-haired man with a more conventional projectile rifle, began to pull himself to his feet with a groan. "Carter, Daniel, are you all right?" he asked.

"O'Neill, we are not alone," the first man said.

O'Neill, or at least that's who Leeza assumed was being addressed, looked around to see her little crew. "Oh, for crying out loud. Carter, Daniel, wake up! We've got company!"

The third man began to push himself off the ground, and was helped to his feet by his female partner, a woman with short blond hair and an inquisitive eye. He was a relatively young, not terribly imposing looking fellow, wearing spectacles like someone in a historical drama. "Uh, hello," he said, glancing between her crew, obviously trying to figure out who was in charge.

"I'm Captain Leeza Blake, of the Treona," she greeted. "Who are you all and what is that thing?"

"Colonel Jack O'Neill," the grey-haired man replied, "United States Air Force."

"I'm Doctor Daniel Jackson," the younger man said. He gestured to the remaining two. "This is Major Samantha Carter and, um, Teal'c." Carter, the blond haired woman, straitened her cap, and Teal'c favored them all with a bow of his head.

Leeza glanced quickly to Lance, and they both said almost simultaneously, "United States Air Force?"

"Uh, yeahhh," O'Neill drawled, "you were expecting somebody else's Air Force?"

Dr. Jackson cleared his throat noisily, and said, "We're from a planet called 'Earth.'"

"We've heard of it," Lance replied, deadpan.

Jackson looked relieved. "Oh, good, that makes things a bit simpler, or at least I hope it does," he said, glancing at Leeza's sidearm.

"Not to me," Rufus interjected. "Why would humans coming from Earth be so surprising?"

"Um, well, because… …ah, where did you say you were from again?"

"Earth," Leeza replied, "Australia, a little town called Anakie."

O'Neill glanced at Rufus. "Y' get big dingoes in that town, I take it?"

Rufus grinned, and gave a little bow. "Ru-Ofanius Brushtail of Vulpine Prime."

"Uh, huh," Dr. Jackson said slowly. He looked up at Terinu, who was still perched atop the ring, "and you're from…?"

"None of your business," Teri replied.

"Greeeat. Well, I'm totally confused," O'Neill declared. "Carter? Teal'c? Care to chime in?"

"I can offer no explanation," Teal'c replied calmly.

"I'm not exactly certain, sir, but I might have an idea," Carter said. "Captain Blake, I know this is going to sound like a silly question, but what year is it, from your perspective?"

"2564," Leeza said, "What year do you think it is?"

"We entered the Stargate in the year 2004," Carter said, "But I think something went wrong."

"Ya think?" O'Neill replied.

TBC