jeriendhal | "A Slight Detour", Part Eight

"Crap, crap, crap, crap, crappity, crap, crap," O'Neill muttered under his breath as he and Lance jogged along the trail, heading roughly in the direction of the paved path that Daniel had reported.

The big Aussie was starting to puff, trying to keep up with the Colonel's pace. "You got any idea… what they might have run into?"

"Knowing Daniel, he probably poked his nose into some nifty pile of rocks and out popped a Jaffa," O'Neill replied irritably.

"Think they're still alive?"

"They damned well better be, because I'm gonna kill him for not reporting in to tell me what he was doing."

* * *

Leeza and Carter shared a worried glance after O'Neill had signed off. The major was the first to speak

"I'm sure Daniel and Rufus are all right," she said, "Daniel knows the Gou'ald inside out. He wouldn't let himself be caught in an ambush."

"And Rufus wouldn't deliberately put someone else at risk, even if he was curious about something," Leeza agreed. "Still, I wonder if we can't help in some way. Rufus' fighter is onboard the Treona. If I can get it airborne, maybe we can do a flyover of the last place Dr. Jackson and Rufus were and scan with its sensors."

"Good idea," Carter said. "I'll tell the Colonel and we can get back to your ship…" A loud beeping from Leeza's comm interrupted her.

Leeza opened it, and frowned at what she saw. "Treona's passive sensors just caught something big entering the atmosphere."

"Varn?" Carter asked.

"I don't know," Leeza said, "all I can say is that it's about the size of a cargo shuttle and mostly metallic."

There was a streak of light across the sky, tracing an arc from the west to the east, disappearing behind the mountains some twenty kilometers distant. Perhaps thirty seconds later the ground began to tremble, and a stiff breeze began to blow from the direction of the impact.

"Meteor strike," Carter said. Leeza looked towards the mountains, where there was a large mushroom cloud of dust and smoke rising above the ridgeline.

"Uh-oh," Leeza said. I cannot believe I wouldn't think of something so obvious earlier.

"'Uh-oh' what?" Carter demanded.

"Remember how we told you this planet wasn't on our survey records?" Leeza said. "What was supposed to be here was an asteroid field. Which is what we did find, along with the planet."

Carter blinked. "Which is occupying the same orbital plane as this planet is!"

"We'd better get back to the ship now."

Carter was already packing up her toolkit. "I'll call Colonel O'Neill and Teal'c as soon as we get there."

TBC