All too soon they were back at Rhys' office, the drive that much shorter now that the commuters were home for the evening. Rhys parked next to the black Torchwood SUV and shut off the car. He and Gwen got out and he opened the door for Jaella. She got out and looked at Jack, who was staring at his wristband. Ianto stood next to him, a small device in his hands which he used to scan the area.
"Anything?" She asked them. Jack shook his head.
"Nothing. And if it's around here, I should be able to find it. Alien tech shouldn't be so easy to hide." She could sense the frustration coming out in his words as he tried to button it down so that Jaella wouldn't be bothered by his apparent anger.
"Jaella," he called to her. She walked over to where they stood and looked up at him, her head cocked to one side. "Where do we go from here?"
"This way, sir," she said, and pointed back to the road. The group followed her as she went around the building and back down the road towards the corner market where Rhys had met her earlier. Before they got to the corner she turned right down a lane that was hidden from view by some tall bushes. Rhys looked surprised as he passed through them onto a pathway beyond. As many times as he had walked past the bushes, he had never noticed that there was a path there.
Jack ducked down to avoid a low hanging branch and held it out of the way so that Ianto wouldn't walk into it. Once the other had passed he let it go and moved up the front of the group again, directly behind Jaella. It bothered him that he still wasn't getting anything. He heard Ianto say something softly.
"What is it?" Jack asked, trying to keep his voice down so that the translation cube wouldn't pick it up. They were making plenty of noise walking through the woods, so he didn't think that was a problem. Jaella had taken them off the path and had headed into a stand of trees. She moved surely, so she obviously knew where to go.
"I know why we're not picking up anything," Ianto said, keeping his voice down. "We're very close to Goldsland Wood. Does the name ring a bell?" He stepped over the trunk of a fallen tree and stumbled. Jack reached out to steady him and he shook his head in response to Ianto's question.
"Goldsland Wood was an area of some archeological activity several years ago when they found an ancient burial chamber," Ianto said as he held back a branch so it wouldn't hit Jack in the face. "There was some thought that the cavern might hold some information on the missing link that archeologists are always searching for. If Jaella's ship came down anywhere near one of those caves, the high mineral content in the ground would probably play havoc with our sensors. Even more so if it landed in an area that collapsed into a cave."
"Ah," Jack said, finally understanding. He began to feel a bit better about having missed this then. He clapped Ianto on the shoulder in thanks. It had been bugging him all this time, and the younger man knew him all too well. "Let's go see where they landed."
It was pretty dark by the time they emerged from the trees into an open field. Ianto pulled out a torch from the bag over his shoulder and turned it on to light their way.
"Wasn't the best idea to come out now, was it?" Jack said wryly. Gwen smiled at him. She knew he never would have been able to wait until morning.
"Got any more of those?" She asked Ianto. He nodded and handed his over to her while he pulled out another one. He handed that one to Jack before pulling a third out which he kept for himself. Together the three spotlight beams illuminated the area well enough so that no one would turn an ankle on the uneven ground.
"This way, please," Jaella said. She seemed sure of the direction and obviously could see better in the dark than they could. She warned Rhys before he stepped into a hole that was in front of him. "Please take care, there are many rocks here."
Gwen stayed close to Rhys as they walked behind Jaella, Gwen trying not to look ahead to where the ship might be. Jack and Ianto were off to one side, both men looking cautiously about as they made their way across the field. They passed a set of standing stones and Ianto showed Jack the display on his monitor – it was breaking up due to the heavy mineral and metal content in the ground. Jack nodded.
"Here," Jaella said, gesturing towards a small hillock that was off to one side. "We landed over here." She carefully stepped down the incline, the others following her. As they made their way down the hill, it was obvious that something large had scraped the land. Tufts of grass were ripped up and scattered on the hillside, a gouge in the earth leaving an obvious trail for them to follow.
At the bottom of the hill, the scar on the land trailed off to one side. Jaella picked her way over the tumble of rocks. "I think we landed inside a big cavern or something of that sort. I had to climb up out of it, and that was from the top of the shuttle." She slowed down and held out a cautioning hand. "Please be careful."
The Torchwood group made their way to the edge that she indicated and aimed their torch lights downward. The beams caught the jagged edge of something that was metal in nature. It had a green cast to it which gleamed as they played their torches over the area.
