DISCLAIMER: Nothing belongs to me, it all belongs to the makers.

"So how do we get home?" Simple enough question, but no one seemed to have an answer for Xander, he held Anya protectively. At least they were still together!
"The vamps can answer that, there's seven left that can tell us what happened, I only have to catch one alive."
"They should all know the words of the chant so if that's all there is then it doesn't matter which one. But, if the ritual has more to it than that we are going to need the leader."
"OK, so I try to get each one individually and only stake them after we have what we need." Buffy was so casual about killing that Crichton stared at her in amazement.
"Just 'cos you don't like these guys doesn't mean you can kill them!" Now it was Chiana's turn to stare, she had never known John to have any qualms about killing anybody.
Buffy stared at the Earthman who seemed to be in charge of this group of aliens and wondered if he had been following the conversation at all. "They are vampires, that means they are already dead. Therefore killing them a little more is not a crime." Each word was enunciated slowly before she went on to the next so that she was sure he understood but at the end he was still staring incredulously at her.
Better start at the beginning she thought, "Vampires are bloodsucking creatures of myth."
"I know that!"
"They aren't mythical." Concise and to the point, Giles would be proud.
"Not mythical?" God but he was slow.
"Real, solid, IN THIS SHIP!!" It had to get through eventually, there was a brain in there somewhere, and Willow had said that he was some sort of scientist bloke.
"Oh!" His face fell as the carefully protected safe-haven of Earth, in his memories, was twisted to allow the presence of vampires.
Crichton seemed to have got the idea but his alien comrades still seemed oblivious to the dangers of having seven vampires roaming the ship. Willow decided that a better description of vampires was needed for their benefit. "Vampires were once human but they exchanged blood with another vampire when they died and rose from the dead after a while."
"Normally already buried or in the morgue." Xanders contribution was as always relevant, kind of.
Willow continued, "They feed off blood, any blood although they prefer human."
"Dead boy ate rats for almost a century!"
"Xander that is not relevant." Buffy glared at her friend and he shrugged unrepentant but keeping his mouth firmly shut.
"To kill them you need silver or wood and holy water can be used to burn."
"Though they explode quite nicely if they swallow any." Buffy, turning to glare at Xander found Anya to be the source of that comment and smiled; at least she was talking again.
Looking at the rest of the group she found that most had caught on to the idea, the one with frizzy hair can't have been paying all that much attention though as she seemed to have found time to die her hair red. Chiana seemed to be highly agitated and was bouncing on her heels whilst the big one, D'Argo stared around the room with his sword drawn. It was a beautiful sword, big and shiny but he wouldn't let her play with it. Something about people always breaking it, she hadn't really been listening.

Chiana recognised the description of vampires from Nabari folk tales her brother had told her when she was young to make her do as she was told, "Now Chi, eat your beans or the valekri will drink your blood and suck out your soul." As a child Chiana had always eaten her beans until she had grown out of childish things like valekri and discovered instead how she could manipulate other people.
But still the thought remained, what if...
"Their brows furrow when they are about to eat and the only weak spot is the heart," she muttered to herself quoting her brother Neri. "Stake it with a stake of wood but think Chiana, where will you find wood on an industrial planet?" She shook her head to shake off the memory and found the others staring at her.
"That's exactly right, how did you know that?" asked Willow
"I didn't, it's a child's tale from Nebari about creatures called the valekri that suck your blood and your soul from your body."
"Sounds like vamps to me!" exclaimed Buffy springing to her feet, "and now that we have discovered vamps to be a galactic problem can we get to the killing bit already, we don't know what they are up to as we sit an chat."

The group split into pairs to search the ship with Xander left to guard Pilot in his den from any vamps that could find their way in there. All of Buffy's gang had stakes whilst the crew of Moya sufficed with the legs of an antique throne they had found stashed on Rygels vacated quarters.
Oz and D'Argo were sent to search the lower tiers whilst Anya and Jool did the upper tiers leaving Willow and Chiana with the stern of the ship and Buffy and John with the bow.
This wasn't the best of arrangements but it meant that every pair had someone who knew the ship and someone who knew how to handle vampires.

"So," said Anya, "You're an alien, I was a demon once, is being an alien interesting?" Jool glared and her hair became red once more as her anger flared up but said nothing. "That is so cool. You know, the way you do that, is it a dye, can I sell it? I'm sure it would make a lot of money, that would make Giles very happy."
Jool sighed, nothing was going to shut up Anya's constant prattling. "No it's not a dye, it happens naturally when I'm agitated."
"Why were you agitated?"
"Because you called me an alien."
"But you are one!"
"To me its you that is the alien."
"Oh! Then we're both aliens?"
"Yes!"
"But I'm human now, I don't want to be an alien, Xander might not like me any more."
"He's an alien too."
"Ah, that's OK then."
"Good! Now lets carry on with the search"

"You're from Earth then?"
"Yeah."
"Like John?
"Yeah."
"And you're going to go back?"
"Yep."
"And you can take John?"
"Yep."
"And all we have to do is find one of these vampire things?"
"Yeah."
"That's good then!"
"Yeah."
"See anything?"
"Nope."
D'Argo was starting to wonder if his partner knew how to construct sentences, it was like talking to yourself except you got monosyllables in reply.
Suddenly he saw movement, shadows moving down on him, turning he saw Oz already diving to one side so that the creature missed him by inches. He launched into the attack. Grabbing the creature from behind before it could regain its balance D'Argo plunged his stake into its heart.
And nothing happened.
"One," said Oz getting to his feet, "Buffy said alive, and two heart here," and he pointed out the right place on his chest just to the left of the centre, "not in the stomach." He tapped his comm., "Oz to Buffy, we got one."

"On my way!" Buffy replied feeling like a Captain out of Star Trek as she ran through the ship following Crichton who had smiled at the quote as he set off.