Title: Dauntless: Forgotten Heroes (4-6/?)
Author: Shadowlander
Email: Shadowlander1@gmx.net
Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters commonly associated with Buffy: The Vampire Slayer; X-Men or any of their sister teams; or Star Trek: The Next Generation, they belong to others and are used without permission. No copyright infringement is intended.
Rating: PG
Pairing: suggestions on which you would like to see pair up are welcome. :)
Archive: The usual places all others please ask first.
Summary: They just found out that their entire lives are lies, now what?

DAUNTLESS: FORGOTTEN HEROES (4-6/?)

Senior Command Staff Lounge -

Natasha Yar prowled when she was nervous or irritated, that was one of the things William Blood first noted about the executive officer shortly after meeting her... well that and she was one of the craziest humans he had ever met. Only a nut would be willing to cross a Carnellian minefield to grab a wounded colonist, especially when the very same Carnellians, who installed the damn thing in the first place, are shelling the hell out of the colony in question at the time. Not that he would have left the luckless git, who got himself caught out there, to die but he seriously doubted he would have deliberately set off the minefield either. Although the vampire did have to admit it was a rather interesting way to destroy the advancing Carnellian artillery, not to mention get yourself singed in the process.

The vampire security chief was brought out of his silent musings on the first officer's apparent lack of sanity, by the arrival of the little redhead that served as acting chief engineer of the ship. "Apologizes Captain... I was unavoidably detained by a possessed plasma injector," Acting-Lieutenant Willow Rosenberg said taking her seat next to the bleached blonde vampire, absently brushing a lock of hair behind her ear.

"Oh come on... I thought we got rid of that little imp," Doug Ramsey groaned banging his head on the tabletop, knowing that whenever the redhead used words like "possessed" or "demonic" chances are she meant exactly what she said.

"Oh we did... he just left us a little surprise in the warp injector is all," she assured the young man, a mischievous glint in her eyes as she thought of the look on the imp's face the next time he tried to cast any magic. 'Teach that little bastard to mess with my engines,' she thought snuggly, taking a moment to enjoy her little revenge on the pintsize trouble maker that caused so much mischief a few weeks ago. The engineering staff was still resetting the environmental controls in some of the unoccupied compartments of the massive ship.

"Willow... we aren't going to be getting any complaints from the Avalon Consul are we?" Captain Lensherr asked, with an arched eyebrow, he knew the devious mind that lurked behind the innocent smile of his Chief Engineer.

"No... at least I don't think so. I doubt they could trace it back to the ship," Willow replied honestly, still miffed over the imp's partial immunity from prosecution as the son of Avalon's Ambassador to the Federation. All the trouble the spoiled little imp caused and there wasn't a thing they could do about it because 'daddy' was an Ambassador.

"Red... what did you do?" the vampire asked, not liking that smug little look in her eyes one bit.

"Nothing... I just made sure that the next time he used any of his magic his father the ambassador would know it."

"Exactly how?" the captain found himself asking, realizing once again that the young officer had all the making of a very competent officer or one really good thief, either way he was glad she was on his staff., where he could keep an eye on her.

"By turning him neon green," the redhead replied with a straight face.

"I'll make the arrangements for acting-Lieutenant Rosenberg's alibi Captain," Commander Yar commented dryly with a slight smirk, silently wishing to be there when the annoying little snot turned his father neon green. "She's been recovering from a mild bout of the Batezed influenzas and hasn't had the energy to cast any spells lately." She said after a moment, her mind going over everything she had learned from her mentor in the occult Rupert Giles. The British Historian being the person who had taught her how to read when she was a terrified, 'tough-as-nails' fifteen year old that escaped the horrors of her home world. There were times he had to run her out of the ship's library as she poured over every book she could get her hands on.

"I'll make the proper notations in her medical record," Doctor Crusher agreed, rubbing her temples tiredly, she could see the Avalon Ambassador now turning bright neon green in the middle of the Federation Council Hall. While the image wasn't all that distasteful to her, she felt the Ambassador to be a bigger pain-in-the ass then his son, she couldn't get the added image of him inexplicably wearing traditional Klingon battle-dress at the time with a feathered boa around his neck.

"Very well," Lensherr agreed, with a strangely similar image running through his mind. "Now if we can get down to business... I trust you all have read the preliminary report about our recent visitor." He began taking the time to acknowledge his assembled command staff. Yar posting herself against the bulkhead to his left, the young woman's nervous energy making it almost impossible for her to sit still for too long. His security chief and chief engineer seated to his left, while the chief medical officer and Doug Ramsey set on his right. At the end of the table was Cordelia, still looking a bit flushed, and medic Sinclair who was keeping a watchful eye on her. After getting a nod from each of them he continued, "impressions... anyone?" he asked, wanting to get his, admittedly strange, command staff's reactions and opinions on the rather bizarre situation they have somehow found themselves in.

"Its rubbish, Erik that demon git was trying to pull a fast one on us," the vampire replied, "he's up to something and trying to get us to do his dirty work."

"Agreed Captain... there is no proof that our entire lives are lies," Yar cut in, saying the last word with a sneer. "What exactly do we know of this Whistler character anyway?"

"Well he certainly isn't a snappy dresser," Ramsey said in a stage whisper certain he was going to have nightmares about the badly dressed creature for at least a week.

"But he is a demon," Rahne replied with a shy smile having heard Ramsey's soft-spoken comment.

"Demon? Any idea what kind?" the silver-haired captain asked.

"Not sure... even came across one with his scent before, but he did reek of magic. Tis a cross between good and evil... never encountered anything like it before," Rahne reported, gathering her thoughts before adding, "and another thing... he knows Q... or at least the git is helping him, smelled the stench of the Continuum after he disappeared."

"Oh bloody wonderful.... just what we needed another visit by Q the All Annoying," the vampire growled, remembering the last visit the self-proclaimed omnipotent being made to the ship one the crew was still recovering from in a lot of ways.

"That doesn't sound like Q at all," Beverly Crusher disagreed, reviewing the facts. "Its not like Q to let another do his dirty work for him, if he was behind this he would have already shown himself."

"Agreed," Lensherr acknowledged with an absent nod.

"Doesn't sound like him? The worthless pounce damn near gets three members of the command staff killed and you're arguing his MO.?" The security chief growled back, his hatred of the so-called god-like being clear in his eyes.

"William no one is arguing that Q is not to be trusted," Erik cut in, calming the vampire with a hand gesture, knowing full well the intense hatred several members of the crew has toward the being that had invaded the ship and their lives repeated over the years disrupting all of their lives with his petty games.

"Beverly is right... this is not Q's style not enough flash for him," Tasha finally spoke, her eyes cold and hard as she forcibly pushed aside memories of Q's last visit. The memories and wounds too fresh as she recalled being forced to relive being ganged raped in his failed attempt to prove humanity's barbarian-like ways once and for all.

"So where does that leave us? This Whistler creature being right and our lives are one big cosmic joke?" Ramsey asked, hating the situation the more he thought about it.

"That's not good enough... I refuse to believe any of what this Whistler being has to say," Lensherr replied coming to a decision. "We will investigate the situation and if it IS all an elaborate prank orchestrated by our mysterious demon or Q... we will deal with them when the time comes. Cordelia... Whistler apparently made you a seer once more... did you see anything?"

"I... I'm not sure, it was all disjointed," Cadet chase began after a moment, "I saw Commander Yar moving around some ruins and this really big and ugly thing that was trying to tear her apart... and oh yeah there was this sign that I think read... 'Welcome to Turkana IV: City of Peace' or something like that," she finished unsure if she was remembering that last part right. "Only it didn't look very peaceful or intact for that matter."

"Damn," the low voice growled brought everyone's attention to the executive officer that had suddenly turned white as a ghost at the Cadet's word. "I was born on Turkana IV, Captain," she reported after a moment, her eyes unseeing as they tried to bore a hole in the bulkhead opposite her, "it would make the perfect home for a demon."

************************************

Starbase 344
Two weeks later -

"Do you believe this Whistler creature?" Captain Jean-Luc Picard asked his long time friend, as the two Senior Officers set down at a table in the station's nearly deserted main lounge.

"Honestly... I don't know what to believe," Erik Lensherr replied honestly, with a tired sign, "I do know that my Operations Officer has been in Sickbay twelve times in the last week alone bring treated for headaches."

"Headaches?" Picard questioned, with a raised eyebrow.

"A side-effect of her visions apparently," the mutant replied, "if that wasn't bad enough... she nearly broke her neck falling off a ladder in Engineering when a vision strike her."

"Was she hurt badly?" Picard found himself asking, recalling the few psychics he had known in his long distinguished career, many of which suffered from painful headaches as a direct result of their visions.

"Minor bumps and bruisers mostly... she landed on the Assistant Chief Engineer," Lensherr replied with a small grin, "he got a sprained wrist out of it. However, some good came out if it... we were able to warn you about the fault in your plasma injector." He added, referring to the emergency message to the Enterprise, the flagship of the fleet, to power down immediately because their warp core was about to explode and take all sixteen hundred souls with it. Good thing his old friend had trusted him enough to power down the main engine, Lensherr didn't want to mourn the loss of any more friends.

"True," Picard acknowledged with a nod, not wanting to think of the consequences if he had not listened to his friend. Dying in a huge fiery ball was not the way Jean-Luc Picard wanted to die. As it was he had trusted his friend and ordered emergency power brought on line while engineering began the long repair process to the faulty plasma injector. "So what are your plans?" he asked, trying to change the subject, as he cast a quick look at his ship sitting serenely alongside Lensherr's own ship the Dauntless.

"Starfleet Command agrees that the situation should be looked into, as of now the Dauntless will be on detached duty... we are to investigate Whistler's claim and determine if it is another one of Q's games or not." Lensherr replied, taking a drink. "In preparation, we are refitting and restocking our supplies," he finished somewhat dryly still not seeing the need to have called the Dauntless to Starbase 344 when there were about fourteen closer bases they could have stopped off at on their journey to the Turkana System, sometimes Starfleet Command made very little sense to him.

"Refit?" Picard asked in disbelief, the Dauntless wasn't all that old a vessel barely four years in commission, the ship shouldn't being getting refit for another sixteen years at the least, unless it suffered major hull damage. And as far as Picard knew there were no reports of any Federation ships getting hit by small stray planets to warrant such an order.

"Starfleet Command decided I needed a new bridge module," Lensherr commented, his expression conveying his dislike of that particular modification on his ship. "It seems, and I quote 'my bridge was geared toward exploration alone and not toward independent multi-task functions a vessel operating without support for long periods of time will be forced to endure on a mission such as this' end quote."

************************
USS Dauntless
Deck 2 -

"Commander... main power and pressurization has been restored to the bridge module, routing turbo lift traffic to include that sector now." Acting-Lieutenant Willow Rosenberg reported, as she stepped into the small auxiliary control room that was located under the main bridge that acted as a fail safe in case they ever lost both the bridge and battle bridge in some freak accident. Although why Auxiliary Control was placed directly under the bridge module was a complete mystery to her, if something took out deck 1, chances were deck 2 was going to be damaged too, even if it had been specially reinforced to handle the docking of the module in the first place.

"Thanks Willow," Commander Yar replied, raising her head briefly to acknowledge the young Lieutenant before returning her attention to the readout in front of her. "Doug... have those medical supplies arrived yet?" she asked the young blonde cadet working nearby.

"Almost Commander... waiting for two hundred advanced trauma kits," Doug Ramsey replied, "Why do we need two hundred trauma kits?"

"Because there is a bloody lunatic in change of Logistics," the Security Chief growled, as he pulled himself out of the access panel he had been working in. "All right Yar, it should work now... and if it doesn't I suggest we rip it out and send it back to the pillock at Utopia Planitia." He said giving the little power relay he had been fighting with for the last six hours a dirty look. He just knew that Brahm woman at the Fleet Yards put it in the access panel to annoy him.

"Something isn't right about this," Ramsey said, his attention still focused on the supply manifest in front of him, "half this stuff is useless to us... what are we going to do with a pulse cannon?'

"Pulse cannon?" three voices questioned in disbelief exchanging confused looks.

"Yeah... four of them in fact, two thousand phaser chargers, - both handheld and rifle - heavy body armour, additional torpedoes, probes and deacons - that nearly triple our current stock. Enough spare parts to rebuild our entire shuttle fleet.... twice and eighty-four water purifiers to name just a few things that are on this list." Doug said, reading off some of the more interesting items.

"Okay... we're either going to be taking over a small planet or Starfleet Command knows something we don't," Willow said after a moment, before being interrupted by the main computer informing her that turbo lift access to the bridge had been restored. "Well lets go see what our new bridge looks like," she said with a grin.

************************
Deck 1: Main Bridge -

Stepping off the small maintenance lift from deck 2, Doug Ramsey was the first to see the new bridge. "All right.... they gave us the cool bridge!" he crowed merrily his eyes almost dancing as he took in his new surroundings.

"What do you mean it's the 'cool bridge' it looks the same as the old one," Willow demanded, popping him on the back of the head with her hand. "Well almost," she amended.

"Well yeah... but look, new raised platform for the Captain's chair. No more horseshoe tactical thingie to get in your way while you're jumping to the lower level. Built in Science and Mission Operations Stations," he indicated, pointing to the two stations across from one another flanking the Captain's chair on opposite walls. "And oh look... helm and operations.... nice comfy looking chairs to sit in."

"Doug... you're drooling."

*************************************

Commander William Blood, also called Spike by his enemies and closest friends, was hunched over his new tactical station, a goofy looking grin on his face as he studied the board, his tongue sticking out of his month somewhat comically.

"You can almost see the mayhem he's just itching to unleash," Kitty Pride commented dryly, pausing in her programming of the science station to regard the Security Chief.

"Fifty credits says at the first red alert he goes into game face," Cordelia Chase replied, referring to the vampire's 'demon' face that emerged every time he was feeding or angry.

"I heard that!" the vampire in questioned growled looking up from his beloved tactical board and scowling at the two cadets, momentarily forgetting his tongue was still sticking out.

Assistant Chief of Security Graham Miller stepped onto the bridge in search of his commanding office, a data pad held in one hand, as he scanned the new bridge. 'Not bad,' the chief of away team operations thought, knowing that this was probably the one change he would ever get to see the bridge. His duties involved maintaining the away teams that were sent to explore new worlds or as part of military operations, as a result he never got to see the bridge except on rare occasions he had business there. Spotting the scowling vampire, Miller briefly wondered if his superior had seen the new arrival list after all, 'Nah couldn't have,' he thought with a slight shake of his head, 'everyone in engineering would have heard if he had.' He amended, silently wondering if he should have stopped by his office and grabbed his earplugs, because Commander Blood was so not going to like one of the names on the list.

"Uh oh... Graham is squaring his shoulders... that is never a good thing," Kitty Pride said softly to Cordelia, the two exchanging worried looks. Recalling the last time the Lieutenant had squared his shoulders like that was when he was delivering the after action report on the war games held near the Klingon border, the same games that decimated the entire security staff and got the ships doctor killed... twice.

Spike watched his second approach, noting the way the human held himself, 'Great... bloody great... what else has Starfleet dropped into our laps?' he wondered.

"New crew and civilian transfers Commander," Graham reported formerly taking a step back instinctively, he didn't want to be too close to his superior when the vampire read that hated name on the list.

Giving the tall, stocky built human with a buzz-cut hair style, one last look the vampire begins to read the list, stopping when he got to the "F" column. "NO bloody way!" he growled his demon pushing forward, "that can't stick us with that idiotic 'git' AGAIN! We did our time with the boy blunder... give him to the Enterprise or something."

"Is there a problem, Commander?" Erik Lensherr calmly asked, having heard his security chief growling and cursing from his new ready room.

"I'll say there is.... Starfleet Command bloody well hates us!" the outraged officer growled, even managing to look offended in game face, "they stuck is us with James-freakin-Kirk junior AGAIN! Didn't we suffer enough the last time we had him?"

"Oh no not again," Cordelia groaned, realizing just what had gotten the security chief so outraged. "Captain... he hates mutants and vampires... and do you really want Rahne to carry out her promise if she ever saw him again?" She pleaded. "Blood is not going to come out of the deck plates easy."

Feeling a pounding begin in his head, "I take it that one Mister Finn has been transferred back to us?" Lensherr questioned, wondering if Spike was right and Starfleet Command did indeed hate them.

"Oh bloody hell," Spike's low curse brought up the Captain's head, "how the hell can they assign HER here?" He wondered aloud as he handed the data pad back to Miller.

"Spike?" Lensherr questioned.

"They gave us the Slayer... they bloody well assigned us the Slayer," the vampire said in disbelief.

"Slayer?" the captain questioned slowly, trying to figure out what was bothering his security chief now.

"The vampire Slayer," Cordelia reported almost absently, "in each generation there is a Chosen One. She alone will stand against the vampires, the demons and the forces of darkness. She is the Slayer.... And how the hell do I know that?"

"This Slayer... kills vampires and demons?" the captain said, making sure he understood what he just heard.

"She's a bloody stake happy lunatic is what she is!" Spike replied with another outraged growl. "Has no respect for authority and just loves to stake innocent vampires minding their own business."

'Innocent vampires?' Kitty and Cordelia mouthed at the same time, trying to picture an innocent vampire and not quite getting the mental image.

"You know what this Slayer looks like?"

"Not personally... but I do know her name, everyone in the demon underworld knows the name of the Slayer." Spike replied with a shake of his head, trying to keep his demon under control. While he wasn't a cursed poof like that damnable grandsire of his, he didn't have a stake-wish either. He liked his un-life just fine the way it was, granted it wasn't as blood filled as it used to be but he liked to think he had grown beyond that sort of mindless blood letting.

"Well it would appear that a few introductions are in order," Lensherr said after a moment. 'First a new bridge module, then we get more supplies then we'll ever know what to do with... now this! What the hell is going on here?'
"Where can we find this Slayer?"

"Deck eleven - in the quarters assigned to Professor Joyce Summers... the Slayer is her daughter." Spike replied, returning to his human face.

************************
Sickbay -

"That had better not be more medical supplies!" Doctor Beverly Crusher growled, already surrounded by creates and boxes of various medical instruments and equipment, as two crewmen guided in yet another hover lift full of the annoying boxes marked with the medical insignia.

"Sorry doctor, this is the last of it though," one of the crewmen, promised, waving around a data pad. "We tripled checked it, this is the last for you... the other two hundred crates are going to the science department."

"Only two hundred?" Beverly grunted, trying to work her way through the mess that had become her sickbay, "wonder whom Harper-Coe paid off to get just that many crates," she grumbled. "Some Science Officers have all the luck."

End Parts Four thru Six.

Note: According to the Star Trek Technical Guide the bridge is really supposed to be one big module you just plug into the ship, depending on its mission purpose --- that explains why no two bridges ever looked alike. So I figured what the hell... I'll change the bridge module. ::shrugs: I know I know, no writing when I'm bored and sleepy. :)