Rainbow Over Sunnydale Chapter 27
By Joseph Black
Disclaimer: Red Storm and Tom Clancy own Rainbow and Characters. Joss Whedon
owns Buffy and Characters. Anyone else belongs to me. I make no profit of the
following except to have a little fun.
Spoilers: Buffy to present. Rainbow to Bear and the Dragon.
Authors note 1: I am adjusting the Buffy time line slightly; this fic starts
right after 'Never Leave Me'.
Authors Note 2: If you see * then the speaker is speaking a foreign language. If you see {*} then it is the persons thoughts. Authors Note 3: I didn't check when I originally wrote up Sgt-Mjr Benton, it seems that the British have done away with that rank and now use Warrant Officer 1 and 2 for it. Hence WO2 Benton's rank change.
Notes to Reviewers:
JA Baker: I can neither confirm or deny that Sue Conner is an agent of the enemy.
Martin Woodhead: Thank you. I'll do my best.
LmiC2001: Thanks for the congrats and the wish for luck. I have plans for Trifurcates, he'll keep our hero's on their toes.
Harry: I'll do my best to keep up the work, and I'm work on all the stuff you suggested just as soon as I am able.
Bolo: I'm sorry, I didn't think that anyone would be interested in a real estate deal. Riley and Xander will be showing up momentarily.
Dorothy: Thank you for the congrats, I don't think I need mental help for going back, I think. So far it hasn't been too bad, except one of the courses is Intro to Computers, considering I graduated Cuma Sum Laud from our LanTech course I think I may know more than the teacher.
As I have said before the professionals in Sunnydale have to know more than they let on. I'm just playing on that. For a good look at what might be going on behind the scenes read Aesop's 'Predator and Prey'.
Warren: Thanks for the review. The problems with what you ask would be getting close enough to do it, vamps are fast.
Catlimere: Thanks for your reviews, I love, love, love, getting reviews like that. I actually feel bad for Kennedy sometimes. As a replacement for Tara she was set up to be hated. I wish that Buffy had one more season so we could see how Kennedy would be with having Slayer powers. She was kind of submissive with Willow having the power, I wonder if her acquiring Slayerness if that would have changed that.
Thanks to all that reviewed.
Constructive criticisms always welcomed. Flames cheerfully
ignored.
FBI Office
524 Front St.
Sunnydale CA
26Oct2002
1522 hrs
SAC Frayne Murphy called, "I got it!" When the front door bell rang again. Going down he found 13 very fit men waiting outside on the sidewalk.
"Can I help you?" He asked the one that seem to be in charge.
"I'm Major Peter Covington," the man said. "I'm supposed to meet General John Clark here."
Stepping out of the way he let the men file past him. "Follow me," he said as the last one entered and he closed and relocked the door.
The crowd followed him upstairs to where Clark was going over the route between the high school and the tree lot, plotting out places that might be good for ambushes. Covington went up to Clark and looked at what he was working on.
"Hi Pete!" Clark said cheerfully, "Welcome to Sunnydale."
"Thanks. Are you going to tell me what this all about now?" Peter replied. Motioning to the map, "What's this?"
"It might be tonight's mission," Clark explained.
Major Covington looked at the map with interest, "Good lord, I don't think that the catacombs beneath Rome are that extensive."
Clark nodded, "Fortunately if we go it's relatively a straight shot."
"Do we get briefed in on the mission?" Covington asked again.
"Get your men together, Ding is probably briefing Alistair right now. I get to tell the group."
"Tell us what?" Covington asked as he got WO1 Benton's attention and motioned for him to get the men together. Frayne Murphy lead everyone to a downstairs conference room then left, returning a couple of minutes later pushing a cart with a TV with a VCR/DVD player attached on it.
Clark came in and stood at the front of the room and looked the men over. Most were from NATO countries; the exceptions were David Peled, Rainbow's electronic expert who was Israeli, and Lt. Kenshin Hiedoki, on loan from the Japanese Self Defense Force. The rest of the team was made up of Paul Bellows, who was the Rainbow's psychologist, and the shooters. There were Three Americans, Three Brits, a Russian, a German, and a Canadian.
The first American was Staff Sergeant Ciquala Thompson, a Lakota Sioux. His name meant 'little', obviously a joke on someone's part, as he was over six and a half feet tall. He was a marine scout/sniper. Team Two's Dieter Weber was still the champ long-range marksman; but under 400 yards Ciquala ruled. The next American was Sgt. Frank Miller, from Minneapolis; He was the team machine gunner. The last of the Americans on the team was Sgt. Cory Unger, originally from Charlestown, West Virginia; he was a member of the assault team.
The British troopers were all seconded from the SAS; WO1 Benton had brought them with him when he joined up. All of them where members of the assault team; those who actually went into the building after the terrorists, besides WO1 Benton there was Keefe Johnson, and Buford Summers both were staff sergeants with more than three years in the SAS.
The Canadian was Sgt. Ardal Sherwood, he was Peter Covington's other long-riflemen. The German and Russian were the final members of Team One's Assault team. They were Feldwebel Trauguti Blatter, and Senior Sergeant Evgeny Anisimich Lushilov.
The men had arranged themselves around the table with the two first seats on either side of the table being left for Major Covington and WO1 Benton. The rest of the team sat themselves around the table with Clark noticing that Cory Unger and Frank Miller settling themselves as far from the front as they could. Probably did the same thing in school. He mused.
"Okay Men listen up, this is going to be a weird one. About forty-eight hours ago a US General went AWOL with his Black-Ops unit. It was called the Initiative and they were tasked with some really bizarre stuff. We believe that he is coming here to Sunnydale to take control of a local asset that he will then use to try to end the world." Clark noticed that everyone's eyes suddenly got a lot more interested.
"Do the Americans have a missile silo tucked away around here?" Covington asked.
"If only it was that easy Major," Clark told him. "What I am about to say is going to sound crazy," He said while holding up his hand so they could all see the bandage, "I got this last night when I punched a vampire in the mouth."
They all stared at him. Finally Paul Bellows asked, "Excuse me General, did you say vampire?"
"Yes, I was right on top of its' grave when it dug itself out. I tried to get a cross I had been given between it and me but it was too quick so I ended up punching it, Ding dispatched it. I know this is a little hard to except so I've got a video that I want you to watch; it's of some of the local night life."
Clark took a disk out of his pocket and put it into the DVD player and started it. Clark had wished that Riley had showed this tape to Ding and him before they had met with Ms. Summers but Riley had wanted their initial meeting to be untainted. The video started, it was obviously taken with a helmet-cam as the first view was of the back of two helmets in front of who ever had the camera on. The time stamp was running up and stated that 40:23 had gone by since the timer had been started. The lead member of the team suddenly stopped and held up his hand. He pointed to a large patch of bushes at the teams twelve o'clock position, he motioned to his right and the helmet turned to look in that direction and took in a second team with four men in it. Turning back to the first team leader who was motioning for the other team to go around the right of the bush, while this team would go around the left he then indicated for them to go. All eight men went around the bush almost simultaneously, it was actually a very good example of team work and coordination, it did them zero good however; as the second the team disappeared around the bush the first person was already flying. There were gasps of shock at the elevation the person achieved before he slammed back into the ground and laid there. The fight suddenly explode out from behind the bush and everyone stared in shock as the little female figure beat the crap out of soldiers that in many cases had over a foot of height on her. Everyone but one, Kenshin Hiedoki said to himself, "Slayer," in Japanese.
The counter read 42:30 when the lights came on and showed that this was just a training exercise. "I want to apologize, that was a test that the Initiative ran when it deployed to this area in 2001. The subject you will be meeting when she gets back from a recon she is doing of a local spot that we might be hitting tonight. Her name is Buffy Summers and I need you to understand that there was nothing staged about what you just saw, Buffy was given a 5 minute head start then two of the Initiative's best capture teams were sent after her, they took 42 minutes to run her down, she took 28 seconds to take out eight special forces operatives that had been hopped on drugs and hormones."
"How was she able to do that?" Benton asked. Interestingly he seemed not all that shocked about what he had just witnessed, he seemed to have sympathy for the troopers.
"Ms. Summers is what is called a Vampire Slayer." Clark explained. "From what I have been told there is supposed to be one of these in all the world, right now there are two, but one is out of commission, so Ms. Summers is it. I have negotiated with her to give us some tips on fighting what lives in this area, and to give you some experience in fighting things that are stronger and faster than you are. One thing I need to warn you about, don't think because we have state of the art weapons that we have nothing to be concerned about. When the Initiative deployed here in 2000-2001 they had that attitude and they ended up taking 60 percent fatalities, if it weren't for Ms. Summers and her friends it would have been one hundred percent. Lets hold questions till Ms. Summers gets back and she can take them directly. We will be setting up in the FBI offices as a home base tonight but we are working on getting us some permanent lodging. Later in the week we are expecting to get some reinforcements from an Initiative team that didn't desert, they're team leader is out right now securing us a base. Lets get our gear in and then start getting set up for a mission."
Peter Covington's mind was in turmoil. This was a lot to have dropped on you. So he went back to old training and checked out the FBI office. What he found didn't thrill him. Ducking outside he discovered that the FBI office was not a single building. It had a hard wall on one side, but the other was just drywall were it had been built out of a larger building. He hunted up Frayne and asked if they had modified the wall between their office and the mailing center next door. Frayne responded that they had simply built the secure storage against the block wall and then had reinforced that. Defending the office from a serious attack had never really been considered when they had built the place. Covington went looking for General Clark to find out if there was somewhere else they could set up. He found him talking to someone on his cell phone. "That's great Riley, have Xander get his crew in there as soon as he can to repair what needs to be repaired."
"Excuse me General?" Covington asked politely.
"Yeah Pete?" Clark responded.
"Sir, I don't think that this is a good place to set up camp in. We don't get a good view of the surrounding area from the front, and it would be possible for someone to come at us through the sidewalls. If there is anywhere else that we base out of, I think it would be preferable."
"Pete, I just got off the phone with Riley Finn, he's the OIC of the Initiative team that is going to be back stopping us. He and a local just secured our base for us, so get a hold of Alistair, and tell him to meet us there, it's address is 814 Front Street, then get the crew together, as soon as Buffy gets back we'll head over there."
"Very good sir," Covington confirmed.
814 Front Street
Sunnydale CA
26Oct2002
1536 hrs
Alistair Stanley looked over the first floor of the warehouse that he was going to have to turn into a base. At first glance it looked pretty good. The lower walls appeared to be reinforced concrete though it turned into corrugated metal about eight feet off the floor. What bothered him though were two craters in the walls, and a crack in the floor that lead directly to one of the main support beams. "What did they do, have demolition derbies with the fork lifts?" He asked pointing at the craters.
Riley and Ding shook their heads that they didn't know but Willow answered, "Buffy did them, this is where she first fought Glory."
Alistair was nonplussed, "Are you saying that she threw someone against a concrete wall hard enough to do that?" He moved to the closest crater and examined it. He found that it was as it looked from a distance to be, a ten-centimeter deep depression in the concrete.
"No, Buffy was the throwee, not the thrower," Willow told the Colonel who turned and stared at her in shock.
"She walked away from this?" He asked quietly.
"No… she ran. Glory was a god, though we didn't know it at the time," Willow told him, her face showing a little sympathy for the Colonel as he tried to digest this.
FBI Office
524 Front Street
26Oct2002
1541 hrs
The Rainbow Troopers were upstairs relaxing and discussing what they had learned a few minutes ago. Benton sat and listened with half an ear to see if anyone was freaking out, but everyone seemed to be taking it in stride.
Covington, Frayne Murphy and Clark where standing around the table were they had laid out the map that had been pieced together studying it to learn the area they would be operating in. The doorbell rang and Frayne just headed down to answer it. Clark turned to Covington and said; "I don't think we should use the tricorders tonight." Giving the name for a piece of equipment that allowed the Rainbow Troopers to pick up the heartbeats of terrorists, even through walls.
"Why?" Covington asked. He didn't want to lose what was one of his most useful tools.
"We don't know if it would pick up Bringers, I know that it will not pick up vampires. Paying attention to it might get someone killed when they get jumped out of 'nowhere' because they believed the thing."
Covington nodded, not happy but agreeing with the point. He and the other troopers were going to have to unlearn a bunch of stuff when dealing with the situation they found themselves in. Pete was actually kind of looking forward to when Billingsly and his merry band showed up, at least then they would be fighting people.
Frayne came hurrying back up, concerned look on his face, "Who's your medical person?"
"Paul Bellows is probably the closest we come. Why?" Clark responded.
"Something beat the crap out of Buffy, and I think she should be looked at by someone." Frayne went around his desk and opened a drawer and pulled out a professional looking first aid kit as he headed back downstairs. Clark was a step in front of him calling for Paul Bellows.
Down stairs Buffy was fuming in the chair that Frayne had plopped her in after he had gotten a look at her bruised and cut continence. She looked up at Giles who was sitting on Carol Pickets desk and watching his Slayer, a slight smile on his face.
"It's not funny," Buffy fumed. "You know I hate it when people fuss over me."
"You hate medical exams," Giles corrected. "In this case I would just set back and allow them to examine you. It will satisfy their fears that you are fragile, and make them less cautious with you in the future."
"Yeah, I bet. You watch General Clark will give me the 'You must be more careful speech', number 45.
"I was not that predictable when I cautioned you," Giles protested.
"Yes you were." Buffy corrected.
Frayne came down the stairs carrying the first aid case. Behind him came Clark with a concerned look on his face with an unknown blond haired man following him.
"Are you all right?" Clark asked Buffy.
"A little worse for wear but I'll be fine." Buffy assured him as he reached her.
"General, I'm don't know much above first aid, from the look of some of those injuries she should probably go to the hospital to get some x-rays." The Blond said.
"Buffy, this is Paul Bellows, he is Rainbow's Profiler. He has some medical training and I would like him to take a look at you," Clark introduced the blond.
Buffy sighed, "Okay, but I'm fine. Look," She said as she stood up and lifted her shirt enough for them to see her abdomen and an ugly, puckered scar on it. "I got this when a vamp managed to get my stake away from me, I didn't go to the hospital for this and it healed fine."
The men looked at the scar and winced. "How deep did that go?" Clark finally asked.
Buffy shrugged, "About three inches."
Paul looked at the placement, "That should have hit the large intestine, how did you avoid infection?"
Buffy shrugged again, "I don't get infections like that, it comes with being The Slayer."
Paul turned to Frayne, "Do you have a flashlight? I want to make sure she doesn't have a concussion, if not then if she feels fine I'd say she knows what she's talking about." Frayne handed him a flashlight and he shined it into her eyes, "Okay her pupils are equal and responsive so I think she's okay, but I am not a doctor."
Buffy smiled that she had got through the poke and prod as easily as she had and head back up stairs. Everyone followed her.
When they got up to the second floor Giles looked around and asked concerned, "Where are the potentials?
"They went shopping," Clark replied.
Giles turned to Clark, anger showing on his face, "You let them go shopping? In the future I would thank you not to usurp my authority!"
Clark replied coldly, "I didn't usurp anything, you gave them permission to go yourself, I just made sure that they had a bodyguard when they did."
Giles opened his mouth to deny that he had done any such thing when Clark anticipated him, "When you were telling me that concrete would not make an effect counter to the Hellmouth Kennedy asked if they could get some hygiene supplies?"
Giles closed his mouth, now that Clark mentioned it he remembered the incident, he had meant that they would go to the store tomorrow to get their stuff but he hadn't been specific at the time. He should have known better, he could still remember some of the thing that went on with Buffy. "Who did you provide for body guarding them?" He finally asked.
"Agent Conners volunteered. She knew of a nearby drug store and second hand store so they could pick up a change of clothes too."
"Thank you," Giles said, somewhat embarrassed by his earlier outburst.
Frayne watching the byplay between the two men offered, "I could contact Sue and make sure that everything is okay."
Giles smiled, "I would appreciate it."
Clark seeing that the confrontation was over went over to the table with the map that Buffy was studying and began pointing some of the stuff that had been discovered since she left.
Frayne pulled out his cell phone and activating the walkie-talkie function dialed Sue.
"Yeah," she responded.
"How's it going?" he asked.
"Not bad, Kennedy is turning an interesting shade of purple as she is looking for something to wear though."
"See anything suspicious?"
"Been quiet, want to talk to one?" Sue asked.
Giles was impressed; she had realized what the call was about. He nodded.
"Please," Frayne passed on the request.
A few seconds later Kennedy came on the line, "What?"
"Just checking making sure everything is all right," Frayne told her.
"Oh yeah it's great," Kennedy snarled, "I've never seen a selection this good."
Sue came on a couple of seconds later and said, "I told you she was in a good mood. By the way, if I have to do this again with her, my bodyguard pay has gone up. Out."
Giles smiled at the FBI agent and said, "Thank you."
Covington came in and said, "If you and Ms. Summers are ready then we can head over to warehouse."
Frayne got on the phone again and called, "Sue?"
"Yeah?"
"How long are you going to be?" He asked.
"The way things are going? At least another forty-five minutes," was the reply.
Frayne looked up at the others and said, "We can always have her meet us over at warehouse; it's just three blocks from here."
Giles thought about it for a second and nodded.
"Sue, we are moving to 814 front street, meet us there when you are done," he ordered.
"Okay. Anything else?" She queried.
"No, that's it," Frayne replied and disconnected.
Pat came went up to Clark and said, "Thanks for the back up, but I think that I will be heading out with Tucker now."
"Pat why don't you hold off on leaving for a couple of hours," Clark requested.
"Why?"
"This First thing might still be interested in him, why don't you head out of town when we go down into the tunnels, it might be distracted and make your trip a little easier." Clark explained.
"I want to call San Fran to make sure that they don't need me back sooner than that but otherwise okay." Pat went off to make the call.
Clark turned to Covington, "Okay Pete, get them moving."
Covington nodded and went and started to get his people loading up and moving out. It took them about twenty minutes to get moved to the warehouse. Covington was much happier with the lay out of this building. It was bigger than the FBI office, but it was of much sturdier construction and had wide-open spaces on all four sides of it. It was much more defensible. Covington had his men start unpacking the cars and had Benton find a securable room that they could turn into a temporary armory. He noticed that Kenshin was bringing in a compound bow and his Katana. "Coming prepared Kenshin?" He nodded at the archaic weapons.
"Not really Major Covington, I have no wooden arrows for the bow, I was hoping to borrow some." He said in precise English.
"I'll see what we can get you," Pete replied. He looked around and spotted Ding, Clark, Buffy, Giles, and the dark haired youth with and odd name talking while looking at the maps that where spread out over a table they had brought from the FBI office.
Walking over to them he got there just in time to hear Clark say, "Buffy, we need you to go with the school group, you are the only one that can get us into the school if we get caught in there without permission. It would just be an inconvenience, but it could alert the bad guys that we are in the area, something I would like to put off as long as possible."
Xander looked up at the others, "It might be easier for me to take you through. My company is still doing some finishing work so I can just say who ever is with me is just part of my crew."
Ding looked Xander over. He knew that the youth had been helping Buffy for years, but he wasn't sure about integrating him into one of his teams. "Do you have any military experience?" He asked.
"Kind of," Xander replied vaguely.
Ding frowned, "I'm not talking about what you have been doing with Buffy, I'm talking about real military training."
"So am I," Xander replied. "Look five years ago this wizard came and opened a costume shop for Halloween, people became their costumes and I was a soldier that year. A lot of it stuck when the spell was broken."
"Do you have any idea of what your level of expertise is?" Covington asked.
Turning to the other major Xander said, "Not really, never really talked about it with anyone."
"Well we can find out," Covington said looking around the warehouse till he spotted Benton helping to secure the last of their equipment in a lockable room. "Warrant Officer Benton!" he called.
Benton turned and answered, "Sir?"
Covington waved him over, and he came at a trot. When he got there Major Covington said, "Benton, this is Xander Harris, he had an experience a couple of years ago were he picked up some military training, I would like an idea as to how extensive it was."
"Very good sir," Benton replied briskly, "This way Mr. Harris?" he requested, waving at the doors to the gym.
"So you're in the British Army?"
"Yes sir," Benton replied as they reached the door.
"Which branch?" Xander asked as they got to the second set.
"SAS, before I transferred to Rainbow," was the reply.
"What did you do?" Xander questioned.
"I was their chief instructor for three years," Benton replied looking the young man over critically.
The part of his mind that Xander Harris had come to associate with 'The Soldier' was suddenly screaming at him to run, very far, very fast.
Colonel Alistair Stanley was going over their new base carefully. Noting dead spots, checking fields of fire, and marking what needed to be repaired. He was passing the front of the building when Clark called to him, "Alistair, Sue Conners just pulled up with the Potentials, you want to let her in?" Alistair nodded that he understood and went and opened the front door.
Outside the four people were walking toward him, three carrying bags. The lead person was a dark-haired teenager that didn't look happy, behind her came two more teenagers happily talking to each other, finally came an older blond carefully scanning the area.
One of the two that were talking caught Alistair's attention; she was the spitting image of a sister at that age. A sister who had died in a traffic accident with her three-year old daughter in the car, a daughter whose body had never been found, a daughter who would be just about that age, a daughter whose name was… "Excuse me miss," he asked the black-haired member of the duo.
"Yes?" she answered with a British accent.
"What's your name?" He requested quietly.
"Molly…" She replied, looking at him for the first time, he was familiar in a distant sort of way. She suddenly noticed he had gone very pale, his eyes hard, it was the hardness that clicked something in her mind, "Unca?"
Alistair whirled around, his eyes scanning. He spotted his target and started toward him deliberately, he didn't want any sudden movements to warn that he was coming. Reaching him he pushed past Ding and grabbing Giles he pushed him up against the wall behind him. Grabbing his shirtfront with both hands he asked in a fury filled voice, "I'm curious, did your people actually push Linda's car into that river, or did you just stand there and let her drown?"