Hammond
"...So the village elders have provisionally agreed to wait and see if Jack is dangerous or not," Daniel Jackson reported over the radio. "But they're pretty determined that he's not human."
I scowled at the blue shimmer of the event horizon, briefly considering the thin link of radio waves and MALP radio relay that bound us to the Cerberus encampment light-years and miles away. "How determined, Dr. Jackson?"
"They won't let the kids near me, all the single girls and a couple of the guys find an elsewhere to be, and I keep getting spears accidentally poked my way," the colonel himself reported, aggrieved. "Not that I mind the guys taking off, but it's kind of hard on the nerves being eyed like a loose saber-tooth tiger."
I suppressed a sudden, petty desire to pound my head against a control console. It'd feel so good when I stopped. SG-1's first contact position had brought us all kinds of problems; Teal'c as former Jaffa, Carter as a woman, even Daniel as a non-warrior type of problems. But I believe this was the first time we'd had to deal with off-worlders assuming the 2IC of Stargate Command was an alien out of their community's worst nightmares. "And have you determined why they believe you're an Ancient, Colonel?"
"He gives them a creepy feeling, General," Dr. Enomouto spoke up.
"Give you a creepy feeling in a minute, Doc," Jack grumbled.
"Too late," Enomouto quipped.
"It could be literally true, Sir," Major Carter put in. "My magnetic detection equipment isn't nearly as sensitive as I would like, so I can't prove it here - but if they're using the same means of perception we've seen in some other individuals, Colonel O'Neill might simply show up as abnormal in comparison."
Some other individuals. I hid a grimace, all too aware of the possible NID ears that comment was meant to elude.
"Perhaps."
I lifted a brow, envisioning the subtle disapproval that would be on a Jaffa's stoic face. "Teal'c?"
"Anise was able to detect an ib-seshatai after over two thousand years of believing them extinct," Teal'c observed. "We should not assume the people of Cerberus have lesser abilities."
"But the Colonel's not an Ancient!" Carter protested.
"Do we know that for sure?" Daniel put in.
"Daniel..." O'Neill groaned.
"Jack, just - listen, all right? We don't know what the Ancients are. Or were. And I'm not saying you are an Ancient, exactly."
"Sure sounded like," my 2IC grumbled.
"I think he means look at the situation, Sir," Major Carter put in. "Everything we've seen here suggests the Ancients were involved in large-scale genetic manipulation. We do it today, to get human insulin and growth hormones and other medical products. What if they didn't just create changelings from human and animal DNA? What if, thousands of years ago, they spliced some of their own DNA into certain human experimental subjects?"
"I do not like the sound of that, Carter."
"Dislike it on your own time, Colonel," I said briskly. Not that I liked it any better than he did, but at least he didn't have an idiosyncratic reaction to magnetic fields the NID could jump on as a reason to drag him off to Area 51. "What evidence do you have?"
"We won't be able to take tissue samples until they trust us a lot more, Sir," the major reported. "But simply from observing the variety of phenotypes in the population, and putting that together with the origin story Daniel translated, plus some of the comments Glimmer made-"
"Glimmer?" I inquired.
"Part of our welcome wagon," Jack said lightly. "Think she's got a crush on Benkai, here."
"Oh kami, I hope not," Enomouto breathed.
"Oh come on, Benkai. She's cute. I grant you the claws are a bit much-"
"Claws, hair, build - Colonel, she's probably one of their full-blood changelings," Enomouto broke in. "If Earth-born legends are even half right, she could break us all up like kindling and still have the get up and go to shatter half a mountain, before breakfast. So forgive me if I'm not exactly interested in casual flirting."
This was going nowhere fast. "Full-blood?" I asked deliberately.
"From what we've heard, it sounds as though our legend of Echidna may have combined several different Ancient labs," Dr. Jackson reported. "The people of Fang Mountain believe there were many 'spawning grounds'; one here, at least one on 'another star', and a bunch back on 'the soil of Gaia'."
"Several labs," I echoed hollowly.
"It'd make sense, Sir," Major Carter agreed. "If they were following good scientific technique, different labs might well be working on different... avenues of experimental research." I could hear her swallow. "Which might explain why there are a lot of different monster legends on Earth. It'd definitely explain why they kept a control group of regular humans here on Cerberus along with their research subjects."
"Which screwed them big-time," Jack smirked.
"If River's legends are right, their captors used forcefields and physical barriers to keep the groups of experimental subjects separated, but they forgot to keep them isolated," Daniel took up the story grimly. "They call her Spirit, not Psyche - but she really did throw Cerberus part of her rations, after he was injured by some of the less... intelligent results caged with him."
"Beauty and the Beast with furry scales," Jack said wryly. "Who'd have thought?"
"It sounds like she maybe spent years trying to get through whatever they did to him," Dr. Enomouto put in. "How to walk again, how to talk again - even the idea that words meant something besides hissing at a bad thing to make it go away."
"Long story very short, General, it sounds like they figured out the enclosures were customized," Daniel went on. "Changeling psychic abilities wouldn't work on their locks. Barely reached outside their own cells; the Ancients figured out that magnetic vulnerability, too. And the ordinary humans - those 'of Gaia' - physically couldn't get to the locks on their enclosures."
"But if they switched..." I murmured.
"It almost killed Cerberus, but he got Spirit's cell open," Dr. Jackson said soberly. "She and her people carried him out."
"And unlatched just about every other cage they could along the way, sounds like," Colonel O'Neill said with dry satisfaction. "Mass chaos."
"Unfortunately, they needed it," Major Carter stated. "Even allowing for a few thousand years of exaggeration, Sir, it doesn't sound like the researchers took the escape well."
"Hence our destroyed UAV," I filled in.
"Actually, that... um... appears to have been a teenage dare. Sir."
"Or whatever the dragon equivalent is," Jack quipped.
I would not allow my jaw to drop to the control room floor. "That was a teenager?"
"Honored Grandmother River identified him as Flies-With-Hail," Teal'c stated. "This does not appear to be a meritorious name."
"It means he's an idiot, Teal'c," Jack filled in.
"Indeed."
"We'll mark it down as loss due to initial cultural misunderstanding," I sighed. "Speaking of which, Dr. Jackson..."
"They seem to believe we didn't scare them on purpose, but they're still pretty spooked," Daniel reported. "They weren't sure if the UAV was Ancient tech or some new kind of Goa'uld device. They're still not talking much, but some of the metal pieces they've recycled around here, it looks like one or two System Lords have sent exploratory probes, like the one Apophis dropped on the SGC, sometime in the past centuries. And... maybe a few Jaffa, too."
"Disassembled headpiece armor on the walls as decoration is a pretty good clue," Dr. Enomouto agreed.
"That was armor?" Jack said skeptically. "Enomouto. It was bits of metal. Nice abstract, but-"
There was a silence.
"Come on, Doc. The only way that could've been armor was if somebody shredded it like Swiss cheese!"
More silence.
"Okay, okay, I get it... though if these dragons can do that, I'm kind of wondering why they keep humans around at all. Spirit left a good impression on Cerberus' offspring, maybe - but in my experience? Gratitude like that tends to wear pretty thin after a generation or two."
I could've sworn I heard a muffled groan from Dr. Enomouto. Not to mention what sounded like a certain archaeologist counting to ten in Ancient Egyptian.
"Sir," Major Carter sighed. "I think Daniel and Ben are trying to say that the dragons are the people."
"Twenty-foot dragon. Six-foot person. Do I have to get into conservation of mass and energy with an astrophysicist?"
"No, sir, but-"
"Ah! Genetic engineering, Carter. Whoever did this was fiddling with people and animals. So we've got some weird people, and some weird animals. And maybe this Spirit made friends with one of the brighter weird animals, maybe even human-intelligent, and tamed it. And maybe the descendants on both sides decided to keep up the truce. But talking to animals, and people turning into animals - not to mention animals turning into people, much less a pretty lady deciding to pair off with something that's not always walking on two legs - it's a nice bedtime story, Major, but we know it doesn't happen." A pause. "Daniel?"
"'Wait by the river long enough, and the bodies of your enemies will float by.'"
"And you're quoting dead Chinese guys at me why?"
"You ask, we tell you, you don't believe us - fine," Dr. Enomouto shrugged. "Dr. Jackson? Do you think you could help me talk some more to that smith, Charcoal? I'd heard bronze edges could beat steel six ways from Sunday, but this is the first time I've really gotten a good living example-"
"Dr. Enomouto," Colonel O'Neill cut in coldly. "You're here on a provisional basis."
"Yes, I am."
Back in the control room, I sat up straight. I'd heard that quiet calm before. Though not from a linguist.
"Good. Now that we've got that straight... These people might be our allies, they might know where we can find this lab, and we are definitely not going to insult them by even implying some of their ancestors might have had inappropriate relations with experimental animals. Are we clear?"
"Crystal."
I heard the smoldering fury in that taut calm, and bit back the impulse to order them all back through the 'Gate, now. Colonel O'Neill was the commander on the ground. If he thought he had the situation under control, I had to trust his judgement.
"Do you have a problem, Enomouto?"
"Jack." Daniel's voice was quiet. Warning.
"You don't get involved in command, Danny."
"This isn't command. This is a difference in cultural definitions." Daniel drew a deep breath. "Look, Ben and I are here partly because we're experts in mythology. In fairy tales. And the funny thing about a lot of ancient fairy tales? There isn't a really clear distinction between what's a human, and what's an animal. If Dr. Enomouto is making an appropriate reference to these people's origin story, to the fact that they believe they're descended from Spirit and Cerberus, then he's not being insulting. We'd be more insulting if we told them they weren't dragons."
"You've got to be kidding me."
"You got Irish in your family?" Benkai put in. "Back at U of T, I knew a guy who swore his family was descended from selkies. Webbed fingers proved it, you see."
"Where I come from, Dr. Enomouto, we call people like that nuts."
"Right," Benkai said dryly. "Like alien abductees."
"The Goa'uld haven't snatched anybody off this planet in centuries, Enomouto."
"Who said Goa'uld?" our new linguist countered. "Every description I've read is a pretty close match for an Asgaard."
"That's enough." A shift in voice, but not an ounce of compromise. "General, we're going to talk to these people some more, see if they're willing to invite SG-9 to come back for more diplomatic work. If they're hiding what we think they're hiding here, I want the SGC to have the best chance of getting our hands on it. Legitimately. Which means we go slow."
"Agreed," I said neutrally. "We'll contact you on schedule." The radio clicked off, and the event horizon vanished into empty air. Only then did I sigh, and rub at the headache with my knuckles.
The technicians were mercifully silent.
Which only added to my unease. If they could see we had a problem...
I headed for my office, trying to figure out exactly what the problem was. There had to be some common element. Something that tied together the Tok'ra, and ib-seshatai, and this apparent experiment by the Ancients, into one massive knot that seemed to cut off a very good colonel's ability to think.
But what?
---------------
Dr. John Baird
"They're not human."
"Dr. Baird." Seated behind his office desk, General Hammond raised an eyebrow at me.
"They look human, but in the cultural or genetic box, they check 'Other'."
The other brow went up.
"It's just a guess," I admitted, flipping through the paperwork I'd brought along in a hurry when the general called. So much for my latest treatment session; I just hoped rescheduling my follow-up on one of the 'Gate guard team wouldn't go over too badly. "You asked me to look over SG-1's prior mission reports to figure out why you were losing unit cohesion, right? That's one thing that comes up, over and over, right from the start. Altair, synthetic bodies, memory replication - even though the 'other O'Neill' was basically himself, the colonel still wanted him removed, as in dead, rather than leave him as a security risk. The way Major Carter was treated after Jolinar jumped her, when you'd already met that Cimmerian healer Kendra and knew the host was still in there. His flat-out no to the Tok'ra, starting out, when they asked for a host. Kidnapping Merrin when he knew she was going to go through the Orbanians' Averium ceremony to, and I quote, 'get her brain sucked out'. Should I go on?"
"I think those are sufficient examples, Dr. Baird." The general scowled at me. "May I remind you that ultimately, in all those cases, the colonel followed proper procedure."
Key word there being ultimately, I thought with a sigh. Colonel O'Neill might have brought Merrin back, but the protests he'd lodged were loud, visible, and formally recorded. Whereas Dr. Jackson's quietly submitted request that more thorough cultural evaluations be done before any exchange of technology took place - well, that apparently rated a footnote. "Sir, with all due respect, if this were about procedure, SG-1 wouldn't-" be falling apart now "-have been constructed the way it was in the first place."
That got a nod. "Go on."
Not a rip-roaring commendation, but it'd have to do. "There's a couple of key factors I think are playing into this mess. First - and this one hits everybody - between the NID and the alien invasions, the whole SGC is psychologically under siege."
"I have noticed that, Doctor," Hammond said dryly. "My people are military officers. They'll do what needs to be done."
Stay calm, I told myself. There's enough free-floating anger around here already. Let that comment sit a while; he might just think about it. "Second, when it comes to SG-1 in specific, Colonel O'Neill came here out of Special Forces. Now, I'm not an expert on Special Forces psychology; not yet. But I've been consulting with people who are, over at Fort Stewart and other places." I held up a finger. "SF guys live for adrenaline."
Hammond smiled. "God knows, SG-1 needs someone like that."
"As a first contact team? Definitely," I agreed. "SF trains bright people. People who improvise. People who can jump out of a crashing plane into a forest fire, naked, and take the time to finish their poker hand first. When it absolutely, positively, has to be destroyed overnight, and all that." I paused. "Key word there being overnight. Long-term, stable operations, like you're trying to make the SGC - well, they can end up being... boring." My turn to raise an eyebrow. "I, um, heard a few psychiatrist horror stories about bored SF types. Borrowed cadavers, high explosives, cars and planes relocated into ought-to-be-inaccessible areas... I got the impression COs might have heard a lot more."
From the way the color drained out of the general's face, he had.
I held up a second finger. "Survival depends on doing everything perfectly, every time. They have to control. Everything. Everyone. No room for slip-ups. No room to experiment. Definitely no room to try things that might not work." Third finger. "They are trained for short-term diplomacy with 'native forces', up to and including giving people guns and getting them back. But they're not trained for long-term; that's boring. And they're definitely not trained to handle people who are at a technological advantage; that's a situation they can't control." I let my hand fall. "And as a psychiatrist, I can tell you, as an expert, that when anybody's normal coping mechanisms are insufficient to handle the situation they find themselves in, they overcompensate with those same mechanisms on the parts of their life they think they can still handle." I waited.
"SG-1." It wasn't quite a groan.
"And since he is your 2IC, how he treats SG-1, especially Dr. Jackson, spills over into how your entire military command treats the rest of us," I said quietly.
The general gave me a level look. "Dr. Baird, may I remind you that this planet is at war? We don't have to like each other. We only have to get the job done."
"If this keeps up, we won't even get that," I said bluntly. "Sir, war or not, military or not, nobody can stand this kind of strain indefinitely. It's not fair - and civilian or military, most of your people are Americans, with a high degree of attachment to 'fair'. Which is starting to boil over into pure resentment on both sides of this command, especially when you say my people and only mean military."
"Dr. Baird-" Red-faced, the general stopped himself, and thought. "Explain."
Hammer time. "Your people," I said levelly, "aren't all military officers. You've got a pile of civilian experts here, yours truly included. They're not here because they can shoot. They're here because they've put as much time and effort and frustration into learning their specialties as your Special Forces types do for things that go boom. And they look at people like Major Fraiser, who admits herself she's not one of your better shots, and they think, She gets respect and she's a scientist. How come I don't?"
"Dr. Fraiser is-" Still redder, he bit off the next word. "Continue."
Yeah, right. Shortest time for a shrink on payroll in military command... keep going. "And on the other side, this is a military command, in a military installation, who have been told over and over again by you and your 2IC that they have to be responsible for the civilians." Folder tucked into my arm, I flattened my hands on the desk. "General. I don't think anybody intended this to happen. But from what I've heard in sessions and around the water coolers, the military side of this installation has somehow gotten the idea that they're the dependable older siblings unfairly saddled by Mom and Dad with looking after the helpless Ph.D. brats. While the civilian side works its tail off for you, putting up with being treated like incompetent imbeciles, all the time being degraded by their peers outside this facility in the scientific equivalent of a medieval pillory. They're disgusted, and they have every right to be."
"What?"
I blink. Could it possibly be that he doesn't-?
Oh hell. He probably doesn't.
"General," I said very carefully, "Ph.D.s come out of academia. Academics respect each other by the papers they publish, the research they're doing, and the number of graduate students they teach to be respectable scientists in turn. Your scientists here can't take on grad students. They can't talk about their research. Heck, the SGC is so tightly classified they can't even publish papers in the classified journals!"
"Anyone who signs a contract here knows that coming in," Hammond argued.
"No, General, we don't," I said evenly. "We're told we're doing classified work. Other places they classify scientific work - CIA, NSA, CDC, heck, even NORAD right on top of us - there are places people can publish papers. Here, there's nothing. It's like-" God, how can I put this? "-Like taking a position in Antarctica, where you know the working conditions are going to be hell, and the rooms are always cold, and you're going to be frozen in for six months with people whose guts you actively hate. But you go, because the research is supposed to be important, and the pay is good. Only when you get there, the people in charge cut off every connection to your family, and have you making cinderblocks instead. And they treat you like you're not good enough, not smart enough, for anything better."
"Dr. Jackson has never complained," the general objected.
"Dr. Jackson pretty much committed academic suicide with his crackpot theories on the pyramids being built thousands of years before the academic consensus says they were," I fired back. "Did you read that write-up you handed me on the Osiris mess? His fellow archaeologists, the people he's as accountable to as you are to your fellow generals, thought he was dead. Because he hadn't published." I paused. "And if they knew you had him fake scientific evidence, he really would be dead. They'd crucify him."
"It was necessary to the security of this program."
"Maybe it was. But it's scientific betrayal." I sighed. "General. You can't hire ER doctors, hand them a needle full of poison, and tell them to assassinate their own children, just because they're your enemies. You're breaking these people."
"You can't equate scientific papers with human lives!"
"For some of these people, those are the only children they'll ever have," I said flatly. Let it get through, please let it...
The general's eyes didn't change. Damn it.
I let the silence drag out, then sighed. "Long story short, General - things that look human, but don't fit the colonel's definition of human, overload his weirdness tolerance. It's a natural human response. And it's natural to avoid that overload any way possible. Which is part of why he keeps sniping at the Tok'ra; annoy something enough, maybe it'll go away." I paused. "So, just what kind of experiment happened on this planet they're on right now?"
"You'll receive the pertinent details when SG-1 makes their report, Doctor." Hammond glanced toward one of the guards, who nodded and prepared to unlock the office door.
Right, I thought bleakly. After it blows up in everybody's face.
---------------
Hannibal
"Anemic?"
Standing straight as I leaned on her paper-covered table, Megumi gave me a look. "You heard me."
Yeah. I was just hoping I hadn't. "But - I - you-"
"Based on your test results and symptoms… Hannibal, you may not have been born a dhampire, but everything you've been through has made you so close to one that scientifically and mystically, I can't tell the difference. You need higher iron than normal, higher protein than normal - heme does help with that - and a supplemental amount of life-energies from an outside source to both support your supernatural abilities and heal the damage caused by overexposure to sunlight," the doc ticked off. "In short, you can be an idiot, act like a human, and make yourself sick enough to either die or start attacking people-"
"I won't do that!"
"-Or, you can come to terms with your condition, try to avoid sunburns, and take up supplemental blood-drinking again," Megumi went on, undaunted. "It doesn't have to be human, though I would advise that you take some once in a while to curb the worst of the hunger."
I shook my head. "You don't know-"
An elegant black brow went up. "I'm kitsune, Hannibal. I think I do know."
Right. Energy vampires. "I can quit using…."
"This isn't an addiction, Hannibal. Twelve-step programs won't help." She sighed, and deliberately smoothed the irritation out of her voice. "Can you try not to hear? Not to see? Not to run, full out, when all the world is closing in on you and you have to move, before you throw a punch through someone's face?"
My fingers were biting into paper. I wasn't going to shred it. Wasn't.
Even if I could feel the claws itching close to the surface, begging to be let out.
No. Damn it, no! I don't care what Frost did to me; I'm a human being, not a-
Something quivered in the air, and Megumi sucked in a hurt breath. "Oh, no!"
"What is it?" Like I have to ask, I thought wryly. I know 'impending doom' like the back of my hand by this time.
The doc gave me a look. "Not that someone just passing through needs to know-"
Cheap shot. I let it slide; aching heart or not, I might not be passing through as quick as I'd thought. After all, I still hadn't dragged any details out of Saitou about that undead he said he'd scented following him. And I really don't like the thought of clearing out of someplace where undead things are following people. Even if I did think Saitou could probably hack, slash, and pick his teeth with what was left of it.
"-We've set up warning wards around… various places in the vicinity."
Aha! "Like Carter's?" I asked dryly, catching a wince from her that told me I was right. So that's how O'Connell snuck up on me!
"Whatever it is, it's a lot bigger than you are…." Megumi's head turned like a seeking missile, staring unfocused through walls toward one particular compass heading. "And it's at the Mountain."
---------------
Daniel
"-Aaaaughhh!"
Staring way, way up at torn metal, a few sparking cables, and an improbably blue patch of sky, I absently wiggled a finger in one ear, trying to clear out the nagging alarms and the echoes of Benkai's plea to "Put me the hell down, Glimmer, dammit!"
Wow. I was standing in sunlight. There probably hadn't been sunlight in the 'Gateroom since… oh, the last time we had to move a 'Gate in here. Which I'd kind of missed, being out cold under Janet's annoyed needle for not taking proper post-appendectomy care of myself. This was cool….
Oh. Guns pointed at the rest of our Cerebus visitors, who'd come to get a feel for the people asking after their old stories, held by very white-faced guards. Not good. And Jack was yelling. Probably had been for some time.
"-You tell me where the hell you zapped that thing out of, lady, or I swear I'll-"
River, Honored Grandmother of Fang Mountain, was giving Jack a look that said she was about one more insult away from making him eat his P-90.
And for all I knew, she could do it, too.
"Jack." I cleared my throat. "You gave Glimmer permission to do it."
One pissed-off ex-Black Ops Colonel - who looked very much like he was about to take off the ex in new and gruesome ways - gave me a look that could have peeled paint. "Say what?"
"She said," I repeated, very patiently, "she'd like to ride the wind to meet the elders of Benkai's clan, to ask if she could solicit permission to court him." I paused. "And you said, 'Gee, that's sweet. Sure, go ahead. But there's a heck of a lot of steel between us and that wind, and it'll take us a while to crank it all back, so I guess it'll just have to wait.'"
"I was being sarcastic!" He waved a hand, flinging the words off. "And I told you not to translate that."
"I didn't," I said dryly. "I could have sworn I mentioned that according to legends, dragons are supposed to be able to understand any human language?"
"Yeah, fine, whatever - why'd it snatch Enomouto, and where the hell did it come from?" Jack glanced over our visitors, less one. "And where'd Glimmer get to?"
Isis, give me strength.
Round-eyed, Sam cleared her throat. "Sir… I don't know how to explain it… dark matter, maybe, or extra mass moved 'sideways' from the supplementary dimensions string theory predicts, or-" She gulped. "Sir - that was Glimmer."
Teal'c inclined his head.
Jack stared at them. Then at me. Then at the hole.
And that's when the swearing really started.
---------------
Benkai
Oh kami I'm gonna die I'm gonna die-
"Ah, the power of mountains… though the air is different here. So many scents of humans, of rock oil. Very odd."
Not English. Not Japanese. Though it kind of mixed up in my head as both, with a wash of scents and vibrations and postures I'd never really realized was almost as important to my clan as the words themselves. All vibrating through my bones with Glimmer's rumble, channeled down the claws tucking me up next to white and silver scales.
Okay, my brain piped up in sheer terror, I think we can chalk up "even offworld youkai understand all human languages" as fact. Which we kind of expected, right? Ki-reading, matching posture and emotional intent - if we can understand people speaking completely foreign languages well enough to know when and when not to start fights, and most of us aren't even half-youkai, stands to reason a full-blooded one could do more. Right? I took a look down - way, way down - and gulped, jamming my eyes closed. Trees, rocks, little figures down by the big tunnel leading into the Mountain that were probably panicked guards running out of NORAD who at any moment might start shooting… nope, looking was not helping. "Um… down would be nice. Really."
"So you say, my handsome one," Glimmer mused, banking into the wind. "But you fear their weapons. Are they not your allies?"
"Yeah… kind of…." Oh, I didn't even want to think about what NORAD was probably screaming at General Hammond right now. I'm no military expert, but I did look up this place before I signed on. And from what I knew, the whole point of having Canadian-U.S. aerospace defenses coordinated from under Cheyenne Mountain was to cut out a lot of the need for heavy weapons to guard the base. It was under kami knew how many tons of rock, after all; short of a dead-on nuclear strike or a Goa'uld pyramid ship, what in the world could get at the place?
All of which boiled down to, NORAD was satellites and armed guards and not a whole lot else, weapons-wise. And they'd just had Godzilla's smaller cousin tear out through their facility.
Right about now, foaming at the mouth was probably the calmest thing they were doing.
Hmm. Put that way, dangling from dragon claws a few thousand feet up didn't look so bad-
Zapthunk!
…Ow?
"Who dares?"
Zap! Zapzap! Zappow!
Teeth bared, Glimmer coiled along the edge of a translucent red-gold shimmer in the air. A dome of ki and youki that went around and up and down and - I made a bet with myself, squirmed a little to crane my head back toward the Mountain, and won - appeared to circle the whole damn base.
…I don't even want to think how much energy Kenshin and the others poured into setting this up.
Kaoru said Kenshin was hunting again. And not just for food. Not that he was killing the bad guys around here; he wouldn't stab Ryan with that dilemma, not unless there just flat-out wasn't any other choice. But he was making sure they hurt. You can drain energy that way, too, if you know what you're doing. Not as much as a kill… but it's a hell of a lot easier on your soul.
"The ward recognizes you, but it will not let you pass." Hawk-gold eyed me, eeling through air just inside the ward's limits. "Why?"
"Because we're not as lucky as you," I dared.
Ow. Ow. Claws, this lady doesn't know her own strength-
But at least I got her attention.
She slacked her grip a little at my choked gasp; I grabbed another lung-full of air, and sped on. "Our enemies know who we are, and where we are," I went on. Nonspecific enough? I hope it's nonspecific enough; she'll hear if I'm lying. "And they have stratagems that can make it past even the protections your people placed around your 'Gate. Right now I'm not with you of my own free will. The ward has to assume you might be an enemy."
All true. And all carefully avoiding what the Cerberans probably shouldn't know yet; that while youkai and hanyou might be their people or their next-door neighbors, here on Earth we were so underground some of us went our whole lives without knowing what we were. Or what we could do.
Drink a life. Change a life, like Kenshin did to me, and never realize what we're doing until it's too late….
"You… are promised to another?" Massive lids closed in a hurt blink. "We saw no sign of it in your aura, not as we did in your younger kin's."
Say what? I thought Dr. Jackson was a widower. Man, I had to sit down with Kaoru. She'd give me the straight skinny on this crazy place if anyone would. "No, not really - look, can we just go down, away from the guns, and talk?"
Her mane ruffled out, happy again. "To your elders?"
"I - um - don't have any way to get Kenshin out here…." Not like I carry a cell-phone offworld. Though if the wards were going off, Kenshin ought to know something was freaky out here. Hopefully, before any news choppers showed up.
"Reach and call him."
Eep. "I don't have that kind of power-"
Chuckling, she licked me.
I think my last coherent thought was sock-dryer static from hell-
Lights out.
---------------
Kenshin
"Ki-ya!"
Listening to Kaoru snicker under her breath as we careened off pavement onto a dirt road that would head near our goal, I covered my eyes with my hands, and sent up yet another fervent prayer: Kami-sama, just let us get there in one, preferably unbloodied, piece.
Swords and ninjas and spell-casting gargoyles, I can well handle. Horse-less carriages? Whose insane idea was that?
Kaoru approaches driving as she does anything else, though; with humor and vigor and pure confidence that any skill can be mastered through sheer persistence. And her driving is far, far better than her cooking.
Which would have worried me far more, were it not for the pure panic gripping my soul.
One of mine is injured. One of mine is in peril.
I could sense it; all but taste it. For one brief moment the sense of ki that was Benkai had burned bright as a lighthouse - then vanished, as if clouds had shrouded it in instant night.
The wards were still holding; I could sense that much. As I could feel that whatever lurked within had stopped testing them, waiting with curiosity and… fear?
Why would something that powerful be afraid?
Pulling up in a cloud of dust, Kaoru put the car in park, and turned off the ignition. "You can look now." Her face turned more serious. "Kenshin? What is it?"
"Big," I said honestly. "And… familiar. In a way." I reached toward that sense of presence, shook my head. "I don't know, beloved. It does not taste of enemy… I hope."
We abandoned gasoline-fed steel for solid ground, glancing through the rocks and shrubs for soldiers that might have wandered off military territory in hot pursuit. At the moment, none. Whatever it was, it had the good sense or pure luck to find an out-of-the way corner outside the base itself. We'd designed the wards that way, incorporating as many hidden nooks as we could, in hopes that any enemy that might come from the Mountain would seek seclusion, and so give us the chance to freely muster forces against it if need be.
I sincerely hoped there would be no need. Beyond the sheer strength of that presence, there was something almost comforting about it….
Chirp. Chirp. Chirp?
Kaoru froze half a heartbeat after I did. It was - deeper. Larger. A little more drawn out than we were accustomed to hearing.
But it was familiar.
Not Kenji, no; but Mizuki, and Kanaye, all of our children after I reclaimed my blades….
:Hatchling-here. Hatchling-afraid….:
White-faced, Kaoru bit down on a knuckle. I touched her shoulder, and drew a breath.
:Adult-here. Hatchling-protected.:
Kaoru leaned into my rumble, relaxing in the vibration that went straight to bone. The first time I'd rumbled to Mizuki had startled us all; Sano had actually fallen back through a wall panel, yelling about crazy teenage stunts and Chinese alligators. At which point he'd had to explain to us just what an alligator was.
The closest mortal creature to a dragon in the world, apparently. And for all its deadly teeth and monstrous appearance, one of the most caring parents hatched outside humankind.
Which meant our unexpected visitor was… oh, kami.
The chirps quickened, still worried, but eager. :Hatchling, hatchling!:
:Adult-here. Adult-coming.: I let out a breath, and looked at my wife. "Well-"
"I'll be careful. I'm not staying behind."
I inclined my head, and set off up into the scrub, Kaoru a few steps behind to guard our retreat. Just because this visitor might not be a danger, didn't mean there wasn't something else that was.
We wove around a corner of rocks, and silver-white painted the shadows, curled protectively around a limp figure in green and black.
"Oh, poor Benkai!" Kaoru breathed.
"He's alive," I murmured, more focused on the chirping creature coiled around him, licking his cheek and hair as if she couldn't quite figure out why he wouldn't wake up. Fifteen feet from head to fur-tipped tail, silver-white fur and scales touched with hints of green, hawk-gold eyes, almost hand-like paws, a muzzle not quite lion, dog, or alligator. A dragon. Benkai, where on earth did you find- Never mind. "Move slowly. Let's not startle her."
"Her?" Kaoru stared at me.
"Her," I agreed, gliding forward like a shadow. :Adult-here….:
Gold blinked at me, as if she couldn't quite believe what she was seeing. Sniffed. Blinked again, squinting.
I sighed, stifling an urge to bury my head in my hand. "Yes, young one. I am this short."
The silvery mane flattened, and light shimmered from every scale-
A tall young woman in woodland plaids crouched by Benkai, gold eyes wide, white hair wafting in unfelt wind to almost brush the bronze tip of her spear.
Not a mortal woman, I knew, taking in the claws, the delicate points of ears amid flying hair, the sheer, raw sense of power in her ki. Not even hanyou.
Youkai.
But a young one, if that near-panicked expression was to be trusted. Old enough to be past the worst of the blood-rage; barely of an age to feel the first stirrings of interest in possible mates-
Oh no.
"I didn't mean to hurt him, Elder!"
Not English, not any tongue I knew - but the meaning was clear enough. As was the shy glance toward our unconscious kitling, the gentle way her hand cupped his face. Oh, no….
"I just - he said he didn't have the power to reach you, I was only trying to help…."
Kaoru was looking from Benkai to her to me, with an expression that slid from shock to now what?
How in the worlds should I know? But I kept the words unspoken, and moved forward carefully. "Let me see him, young warrior."
She leaned back, and I tried not to stare in shock. A youkai, yielding to one only hanyou?
Later. See to Benkai. I touched the pulse at his neck, confirming what ki-sense already told me. "I think you helped a little too much, young one." I gave her a wry smile. "What Benkai meant was, he does not carry that much power even at his strongest. We are not the heroes of legend, who shot suns from the sky. We are only those who have survived, in a world where mortal humans rule, and magic is thought a cruel delusion."
She blanched. Kaoru moved in with soothing words, as she would for any young cub. I turned back to Benkai, fighting not to let my own face go pale. So much youki. Benkai can't absorb it. I'm not certain I could-
Wait.
On hand cupping his face, the other touching the vest over his heart, I closed my eyes and reached inward. There was my ki, and there Benkai's frazzled energies, and there the smothering veil of fire that had meant only to sink in and soothe. A veil that still could, if there were only wells deep enough to drink its flames.
He is blood of my blood, by chance and choice. If I can only move his ki to be - a little more-
Like scraping channels in rock with my fingernails. But it could be done, I knew it.
And it had to be. The energy had been given, freely and without malice. It would not easily be persuaded to return to its true owner. Assuming she had even the skill to take it back. Given her youth, I doubted it. No; better to open the finest of channels this way, so that Benkai might at least gift the youki back to the earth that nurtured us all-
Something crumbled.
This… may not have been the wisest of ideas….
---------------
Hannibal
Just on general principles, panicked yelps are never good.
This goes whether you're talking puppies, startled lawyers, or damn-fool idiot kids who have no idea that jumping headfirst off a bridge can get them killed. It really goes when you're talking sun-struck vampires, moonstruck were-things, and sorcerers who've just accidentally opened the Siege Perilous.
And when you're talking a scary little redhead that could fillet the best undead sushi chef ever brought over to the other side, well… you get the picture.
I beat feet past the car, up through the rocky scrub, and skidded down into a little bowl where a dark-haired lady in kendo gear had a panicked grip on a white-haired spear-woman and Kenshin was kneeling by an out-cold guy in military getup, twitching like he'd been stuck into a light socket.
Did I mention the little guy was glowing?
If I stopped to think about it, I'd never do it. So I didn't. Just let momentum carry me down, smack into the guy, breaking whatever mystical circuit he'd set up between him and Unconscious Guy.
Ow.
Smoke rising from just about every hair on my body, I fought to open my eyes; gave it up as a lost cause. "Anybody get the number on that lightning bolt?"
"Oro…."
"Detective King?"
Ooo. Nice voice. If a little shocked. And probably spoken for. "Doc Takani… said you guys could maybe use a little backup." I waved a limp hand. "You Kaoru Kamiya?"
"Yes- Kenshin!"
My Japanese may be a little rusty - okay, a lot rusty - but that whispered snarl sounded pretty much on the side of unprintable. Still aching, I cracked an eye open.
And when brain and panic-fried reflexes decided to start talking to each other again, I was on one side of the clearing while amber-eyed, cursing redhead was on the other.
Did I mention he was still glowing?
Not the bright kind of glow that was Captain Marvel going heavy on the UV for unwelcome guests of the vampiric kind. More a kind of… dark red heat-shimmer, like you'd see over fireplace coals, right on the edge between light and heat.
"Um." I cleared my throat. "Himura? You in there?"
"I… believe so, hai…" Amber eyes closed; his breathing slowed, patterned and deliberate. Weirdly familiar.
And as his breathing came easier, and that shimmer started to fade, the singed hairs on the back of my neck stood straight up. Oh yeah, familiar. Familiar as in looking in the mirror familiar, as in the vampire wants out but I have to stay human, damn it.
Didn't help that Kaoru was shivering.
But with one last sigh, Kenshin opened his eyes again; faded blue, with just sparks of amber. "That was… more than was expected, that it was."
And just what were you expecting? I wanted to ask.
Later. For now- "Takani thought something might be breaking out…."
Under elegant white brows, hawk-gold narrowed in a frown. "The one who commanded said I could seek the sky."
Whoa. Not English. But it kind of skipped my ears and went straight to my brain anyway. Houston, we have serious supernatural here. I shook off the nerve-prickles and sat up. That scent around her… oh, this was not shaping up to be a good day. "Don't believe I caught your name, Miss-?"
She sniffed, thumping her spear straight upright as she gave me the eye. "You may call me Glimmer."
Apologetic to pissed-off in under sixty seconds, I thought wryly. Supernatural teenager. Terrific. "Well, you may call me Hannibal," I shot back, deliberately looking away from her to the groaning guy in some kind of paramilitary gear on the ground. At least he was alive enough to groan. "Who'd you zap?"
"Enomouto?" A radio dangling off Groaning Guy's vest crackled. "Situation report, dammit! Now!"
Yowza. Cranky military type. Could the day get any worse?
Reality check, Hannibal. You don't want to know the answer to that.
Eyes still closed, Enomouto's hand fumbled with the gear, finally clicking the right button. "Go 'way. Got a headache…."
"Stay conscious and report!"
"Report?" He blinked, dark eyes unfocused in a way that told me the guy had lost glasses around here somewhere. "Umm…." Enomouto looked at me, Glimmer - then saw Kenshin and Kaoru, and let out a relieved breath. "The - ah - situation's contained. Kind of."
"Define contained," Cranky snapped.
"We're not moving?"
"God save me from archaeologists and domesticated hazards - stay put. And tell that dragon-lady that when I get there, she is in a world of hurt."
"You dare threaten me, inhuman creature-" Glimmer snarled.
Enomouto clicked the radio off. "We'll talk it out," he told the lady. "Nobody really wants to hurt anybody, okay? He was just surprised - really, really surprised-"
"When she turned into a dragon and busted out of whatever you've got going on down there?" I summed up. Dragon? Oh, hell. And what did she mean, calling Cranky Military inhuman? "No offense, but if that's the Air Force heading our way, shouldn't we be finding this nice young lady a good rock to hide under?"
"That, you might consider for yourself, Hannibal-san," Kenshin said frankly. "It is complicated, but they most likely will not harm her. And if she were to vanish, they might uproot more lives than we can mend."
"You're staying put," I pointed out.
Kaoru swallowed dryly. "They already know about us." Her shoulders stiffened, determined. "But if we pull this off right, they won't-"
"Glimmer said she was looking for my clan elders," Enomouto said in a rush.
"Meaning once they put together Kenshin and clan elder, your cover's blown big-time," I observed, finally identifying that trace of fur-scale scent around Enomouto. Not as strong as Kenshin's, but easier to pick out. Like it didn't have the power to make itself subtle. "Ouch."
Kaoru clenched a fist. "Then we're clan elders of your family, Benkai! Or - something…."
"No, no - that'll work," Enomouto nodded, eyes lighting up as he gingerly swayed to his knees. "Korea, you grabbed Great-Grandpa out of that alley, ended up adopting him - I've known about you since I was a kid…."
They started tossing cover story back and forth at lightning speed; Kenshin listened with one ear, gave me a sober look. "We are grateful for your aid, Hannibal-san, but you should move to preserve your own privacy."
"Appreciate the thought. Not much point in my taking off, though. This is NORAD." I jerked a thumb straight up. "You think they won't be able to get satellite footage of who was out here?"
Amber sparked in blue. "Kuso."
"Yep." I tilted my head up, listening to the merry sound of soldiers hitting a chain-link fence somewhere out of sight a hill or so over. "Besides, we're not actually on the base, so I'm betting there's limits to what they can do to your average civilian bystander…." I stopped. "Which is exactly how you planned it, isn't it?"
Kenshin's grin would have made a demon keel over in fright.
"I'm never playing poker with you," I said dryly.
Steel-blue blinked, all clueless innocence. "Oro?"
Right. I shook my head, patting myself down to make sure all the smoke was out. Lot easier to pass as a hapless innocent bystander when you're not on fire.…
And I heard some of the voices climbing over that fence, and froze. No. Oh, no.
Kenshin glanced that direction as well, and gave me a sober look. "You might still have time to flee."
Yeah. Only then I'd really look guilty. "She said she was an astrophysicist!"
"She is," Kenshin said dryly, lowering his voice as our welcoming committee got into regular earshot. "Just as you are a detective, ne?"
Alien abductee, she'd said. And somebody'd thought enough of it was true to try and take her to pieces.
"Hannibal?"
Oh yeah. The day can always get worse.
---------------
Translations and info:
2IC - Second in command.
MALP - a large probe on treads.
UAV - flying recon probe.