Chapter Three
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Sunnydale, California, Sol III
"What are we gonna do now?" asked Dawn.
Buffy smiled as she looked at the Sunnydale abyss and pondered the question. She'd never really thought about her future. She'd always assumed she'd die-again. Now her whole life was open to her and........
Damm those aliens. She would have to deal with them one way or another. She could try to avoid them or she could fight them. She had never been much for ultimately ducking a fight.
"Alright people," she said to the group standing by the school bus. "Let's get ready to saddle up. I know you want to gawk some more at the ruins of our fair Hellmouth, but we've got wounded to deal with. And its probably best if we don't stick around. Too many questions."
She got on the bus and saw that Robin Wood was bleeding from a stomach wound. "Move him to a seat. Be gentle. Casca, can you drive?"
"Fraid not, my wounds might make me black out."
"Let me help you on the bus," Anya said as she grabbed the immortal's arm. "I should take care of the man who saved me from the Turok-Han, even if he is the Christ killer."
"I'll drive," said Giles.
"No you won't," interjected Dawn. "Remember you don't have a valid license."
"Oh dear, you're right," Giles said as he wiped his glasses.
"Ok, I'll drive. Sheesh, I gotta do everything around here," Buffy said in a mock serious tone. She thought about Spike driving the motor home into the deseret and almost lost it. "I will mourn him later," she thought. "I've got other things to do now."
"I don't know if that's such a good idea, sis," said Dawn. "You drive like it was a contact sport."
"I'll be careful. My finely honed slayer reflexes and coordination are under control."
"Ok, but if we crash and die, I'm telling."
Halfway to Santa Barbara, Buffy said, "Faith could you come up here for a minute?"
Faith finished wiping vampire blood from the troll god hammer and said, "I don't know B. Crossing that white line at the front of the bus while its in motion is a big step for me."
Buffy rolled her eyes. Faith crouched down next to the driver's seat. "Its too bad you're dead," said Buffy.
"Huh?"
"Too bad you died back in Sunnydale," Buffy continued. "Those gas leaks or whatever are tricky things. I know the police will be so disappointed and the prison guards will probably shed tears."
"Ok B. Not a bad plan. I like it when you think devious."
"Well I learned a lot from you," Buffy said. "I'll drop you and Anya off at a car rental place on the way to the hospital. She can rent a car and you two can drive to LA and visit Angel."
"What for?"
"We're gonna need a place to stay and he has a empty hotel, correct? I'll call him from the hospital before you get there. I'm sure he'll be glad to help out. I'll bring the rest of the gang there in a couple of days. Don't worry, we'll take good care of Robin and get him back to you."
"Sounds like a plan," Faith said. "But am I supposed to hide for the rest of my life?"
"Well Angel just took over an law firm. An evil but powerful law firm. He should be able to get a new identity created for you. I think you've earned that and he probably will too."
"Thanks Buffy," Faith said without a trace of attitude as she went back to her seat and sat next to Robin.
"Do you really think that's wise?" Giles said in hushed tones as he got up and learned forward towards the driver's seat.
"I've become a big believer in second chances. I think she'll make us proud. And we need to do something about Andrew's record too."
"Oh dear, we're becoming a recovery group for reformed criminals."
"Don't complain about this and I won't complain about you telling Robin to drive the bus away before I got on it, ok?"
"Yes, of course," Giles said.
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Ttckpt Province, Barwhon V
Sgt. Jack O'Neill of the Army 7th Special Forces Group silently swatted at one of the myriad creeping, crawling, or flying things that inhabited the swamps of Barwhon as he looked through his binoculars. His team was watching a Posleen encampment. Seven pyramids that looked uncannily like those found in Mayan ruins on Earth were being constructed. Occasionally a God-King could be seen entering or leaving one of the huts found at the base of the pyramids. There were two large pens in the compound. One pen held a couple of hundred of the crab-like Tchpth. Many times now, he had seen Posleen cull individuals from the herd and slice them up on the spot with their mono-molecular boma blades. Some parts of the bodies would be eaten on the spot and other parts would be put in pouches on the Posleen's body harness for later consumption or storage in a larder.
There was also a pen that held hundreds of young Posleen nestlings. They were fed a meager amount of food and it seemed like the weaker nestlings were killed and eaten by the larger ones. Also an occasional Posleen normal would come by the pen, scoop up one of the nestlings, and eat it. His team had been puzzled by this at first, but Sgt. Tung had suggested that the Posleen eat the nestlings because it was the only food that reminded them of home. Where ever that might be.
Jack remembered the first time he had seen an alien. Less than two weeks after first contact with the Galactics, he had been sitting in a briefing room getting to know the other members of his new team. The leader, Sgt. Jake Mosovich, had been preparing to start the briefing when Sgt. Sandra Ellsworthy, the lone woman on the squad, had announced that she saw some creature vaguely outlined against the far wall. Jack and the others honed in on the spot where she pointed and sure enough there was something there, but he couldn't tell what.
"Himmit Rigas," Mosovich said. "We weren't ready for you yet." Then a frog-like Himmit unconcealed itself and offered greetings. It disappeared a short time later. None of them could spot it again. Mosovich had continued on with the briefing, quickly outlining the military and political situation and stating that the President and the country needed independent verification that the claims and information the Darhel had provided were true. The team, to be called Eyeball 1, would go to Barwhon and do an extensive recon. They would go in a Himmit stealth ship, but they couldn't expect much help from the frogs. The Himmit had been all over numerous Posleen inhabited worlds, but they had an unreasonable fear of predators and ran at the first hint of danger. Mosovich told them Rigas was very unusual and brave for a Himmit. The Darhel were the other allied race that could fight. But they could only fire one shot and then they would kind of go brain dead. The Indowny and the Tchpth couldn't even do that, although they could indirectly support the war effort. It went a long way towards explaining why the friendly E.Ts were getting skunked in the war.
Jack had spent many nights staring up at the stars through his telescope, but he never had expected to travel among them, much less to ever make a planetary descent disguised as a comet with an eccentric orbit. The Himmit ship had pulled 200 gravities, a few of which were actually felt by the humans despite the inertial dampers. The team had jumped and floated down to the surface of Barwhon using anti-gravity devices and began their months long trek through the swamps.
Jack reflected that he wasn't supposed to be on the team. Sgt. Mueller had originally been picked for the demo spot, but he had broken his leg during a parachute drill before he'd been notified of the assignment and O'Neill had been slotted into his place rather than delay training for the team.
Another Tchpth was culled and slaughtered. They weren't human, but Jack still felt outrage at the casual butchery of a sentient being. Right now the team was tasked with recon only, but he hoped they would get a chance to kill some of the horses. He knew it was likely he wouldn't survive that, but he didn't care. He hadn't cared much about death since his son Charlie had accidentally killed himself with Jack's handgun. Out of the Air Force and divorced, Jack had been at loose ends and fairly suicidal. But he had still felt the call of duty and of the warrior. If he went back to the Air Force, he would be an officer and likely never be able to fire a shot in anger again. So he joined the Army as an enlisted man and built his reputation in the special forces community of that branch of the service. He had seen some pretty intense action in Afghanistan and was gearing up for an invasion of Iraq when suddenly the Posleen became the main threat.
His present team was made up of legends in the American special forces community. Mosovich, Ersin, Richards, and Trapp were Army, Ellsworthy was their Marine sniper, and Tung was from Seal Team 6. They didn't have any Air Force Para Jumpers, although Jack had been one earlier in his career. In his secret heart of hearts, Jack had always dreamed of fighting an unstoppable enemy against incredible odds. It looked like he has going to get his wish.
Author's Note: This is the same Jack O'Neill from Stargate, but in this universe the gate, the goa'uld and all their alien stuff doesn't exist. Also Faith in my universe Faith used the troll god hammer in the "Chosen" battle and Angel defiantly told Buffy about taking over Wolfram and Hart.
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Santa Barbara, California, Sol III
Kennedy looked at Willow sleeping in the hotel room bed and smiled. She smiled because she was in love with a goddess. She smiled because she was a Slayer. She smiled because she was doing something important with her life. She had never been impressed with what her parents and their friends did with their lives. Even at the age of eight, she hadn't cared much about the trappings of wealth her family provided her with. At first she had thought her new British tutor was just another one of those trappings.
But her tutor turned out to be her Watcher and she found out she was a Potential. Her parents always had other things to occupy them and Kennedy always made good grades in her exclusive girls schools and seemed like a normal enough child, so they were happy to leave her in the care of her tutor most of the time. Little did they know that their daughter was living a secret life that a Shaolin Monk might find tough.
There was endless physical, mental, and weapons training as well as schooling in the arcana of the Watchers. Kennedy blossomed under this training. To satisfy her parents, at first, she attended dances and social functions with the sons of other wealthy people and even became girlfriends with a couple of them. Later on, she began to enjoy the functions for the chance it gave her to strut her stuff in public. But she had always felt closer to girls and had several innocent and not so innocent relationships with her female mates. She had wanted to be sure, so she had pursued a relationship with the most appealing boy she could find, but it just hadn't felt right. So at the next spring formal, she had announced to her parents that she would be attending with her girlfriend, Celeste. Her parents had freaked-not so much from a dislike of homosexuals, but from fear that their daughter's outing would cause them social embarrassment.
They had ordered her to keep her sexuality secret. Kennedy was very good at keeping secrets, but she didn't feel like her sexual preference should be one of them. She hadn't given in and her parents had tried some heavy-handed coercion tactics, so she had legally divorced them. She was sixteen.
She had moved into the basement apartment of her Watcher, a taciturn man named Smithe. She had been attending her first year of college when she had gotten a cell phone call from him.
"I'm dying. Men wearing black robes did it. Hide and make contact with the person we discussed," he had said.
"What's your location? I'll come get you," she had said.
"Don't be foolish. Live and avenge my death. Goodbye my....." Sounds of a struggle cut off his last words. Then the connection had gone dead.
She had contacted Giles, become a part of the Potential Army, started a relationship with Willow, and become a Slayer who helped frustrate the plans of the First Evil. Now she watched her girlfriend rest. Willow had almost totally drained her self completing the spell that empowered all the Potentials to become Slayers. Still, on the bus ride to Santa Barbara, the witch had insisted on doing a spell to help preserve the life of Robin Wood. Kennedy had to carry her girlfriend off the bus and to the hotel room.
She had stayed with Willow in the two days since then, but had heard from Slayers in adjoining rooms that Robin would pull through and that the other injured Slayers were doing well. She also heard that a reporter had started asking questions at the hospital and that the police had become involved. Giles had done most of the talking and convinced everyone that their group had been mentally affected by the leaking gases in Sunnydale and gone to the high school to practice pep squad routines when Faith had appeared and tried to kill her old enemy, Buffy. The girls had fought Faith off and the fugitive had escaped into the bowls of the school just as the explosions had begun. Sadly several members of the pep squad had been killed by a collapsed wall. It was amazing the outlandish crap you could get away with speaking in a British accent and casting a persuasion spell.
Kennedy bided her time until Willow regained her strength. She had a lot of nervous tension to work off. The group would be traveling to Los Angeles the day after next. She couldn't wait. The Hellmouth had been intense enough, but LA was the big time.