The Key of Forever
by Antonio Cabañas
Chapter One
Disclaimer: Star Trek in all its incarnations and all related characters are property of Paramount Pictures. Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel and all related characters were created and are owned by Joss Whedon. Star Trek, and Star Trek: The Next Generation created by Gene Roddenberry. Star Wars and everything related with it is property of Lucasfilm Ltd., and was created by George Lucas. Tony Castro and the USS Corsair were created by me, other adventures of her can be found in my site, which address can be found in my profile.
E-Mail:borg31de777yahoo.es.
Spoilers: Spoilers for Buffy season 5. Spoilers for Star Trek III: The Search for Spock, Star Trek: Generations and Star Trek: First Contact and Deep Space Nine until season 4.
Author Note 1: This story is a sequel of the story "Trek to the Hellmouth". If you don't want to read it, here is a quick resume: After the events in Star Trek: First Contact, the Enterprise-E is relaunched, but remains of Borg technology aboard launch the ship back in time toward the moment when Buffy killed Adam. Adam becomes a Borg, but he quickly comes to dominate the Collective. But the time paradox in progress start to opens the Hellmouth. The Enterprise crew, guided by Tony Castro, an admiral that was invited to the launching and had contact with the Watchers and the Slayers in the past, contact the Scoobies, and the events began to take a rollercoaster ride from there: the Borg Queen reappears, from the Hellmouth emerges the Mirror counterpart of Admiral Castro, Adam devises a plan to absorb the energies of the Hellmouth, destroying Earth in the process. Finally with the sacrifice of Mirror Tony they destroy Adam and close the Hellmouth.
Author Note 2: for the nitpickers, this story takes place shortly after the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episode "The Sons of Mogh".
I wish to thank my beta-reader Carycomix, for his help and support through all this time.
Answer to Reviewers:
Amber Penglass: I hope that you are reading this also, because I'm answering your "Trek to the Hellmouth" reviews here. When I started the story, I was writing according to the formatting that I knew,the one that is standard in my country. Later I changed, but reformatting the story is going to be a long work that I don't look forward to do.
Cow as White as Milk: I hope that you didn't got disappointed.
Summary: Dawn visits Buffy's tomb and something happens. "Meanwhile", in the 24th Century, Captain Tony Castro discover a very unsettling thing, and Captain Sisko of Deep Space Nine witness a real blast from the past…
Deep Space Nine.
Captain Sisko returned from his office to OPS with a grimmer expression than before.
"I gather that the Department of Temporal Investigations had been…" commented Jadzia Dax.
"Not now, Dax. Any luck with the historical research?"
'The DTI must have been more abrasive than usual.' thought Dax. "Okay, Ben. In 2285 the second Agincourt, still fresh from drydock, was ordered to intercept the Enterprise,which had been hijacked by Admiral Kirk…"
"Yes, the Genesis incident." Then he remembered something "Hmm…, wasn't Torias assigned to Spacedock by then?"
"No, the shuttlecraft accident happened before that." said Dax.
Sisko didn't press further. After Torias' death, Dax was joined to Joran, a serial killer. After Joran was caught, the memories of the six-months joining were erased from Dax memory, and the symbiont was joined to Curzon. The
resurfacing of the memories, the year before, hadn't been a pleasant experience for Jadzia.
"Continue, old man." ordered Sisko
Jadzia nodded and continued the exposition.
"When the ship tried to go to warp, she… disappeared."
"How could a ship disappear?"
"Apparently an imbalance in the intermix chamber provoked a wormhole effect that launched the ship to a place not too far from here." explained Dax. "Several months later, the battered ship got back to Federation territory."
"Dax, wouldn't it be possible that the wormhole effect had moved the ship in time as did in space."
"It's possible, Ben. But if that is the case, how is that the records still list her reappearance?."
"Beats me. Keep scanning the anomaly, Dax. If something changes I want to know it ASAP." Then he thought of somehing. "Get a list of the crew of the USS Agincourt and have it sent to me. I have to talk with the DTI about an idea that I had just had."
"Understood, Ben." answered Dax. "By the way, what did the DTI say?"
"They are going to send somebody that is in the area, controlling an experiment with tachyons or something like that."
"The Caravel, right?."
"Yes, how do you know it?"
"I talked with Len Henderson last night, and he said something about the 'joys' of having DTI agents on board."
"I bet." answered Sisko, smiling for the first time since he had entered OPS.
USS Caravel. NX-73200. Bajor sector.
The tall, red-haired woman entered the conference room, followed by another woman, dark-haired and shorter.
"Sorry for the abrupt call, captain Henderson. But the DTI called us about a Priority One Emergency on DS9, and we are the closest DTI agents to the station. So…"
"One moment, Agent Silver. The terms of this mission specify that Dr. Richards has to approve every possible modification of our course. Terms approved by the DTI. I wonder what you people want so badly about his research to accept those terms." said captain Leonard Henderson "But that's none of my business. What it is my business is to know the nature of that emergency. Last time that my ship was involved in a Priority One Emergency called by the DTI, we run into the Borg and half of my crew was assimilated." 'Including myself.' He refrained from adding that,
but everybody could hear the words as if they had beem spoken aloud.
"Sorry but you don't have the credentials to see it."
"But I have, Agent Silver." said a female voice from the door. Upon hearing it, Silver's companion grimaced, and Silver herself gulped. Looking pretty well for a sixty-four years old woman, Admiral Mariska Szell, head of the Starfleet Bureau of Special Research, and overseer of Dr. Richards project had just entered the room.
USS Agincourt. Bridge
"Don't bother to check your friends. They are dead." said Tony.
Dawn didn't answer, still trying to figure out what had happened to them. Obviously they were in the future, and by chance, (or maybe not, with the PTB's you couldn't be sure), they had found one of the few people who they knew in the future… if it wasn't for the annoying fact that she didn't seem to recall any of them. She decided to try it anyway.
"Tony, don't you remember us?"
"How do you know my name, girl? And why I should know you?"
"May of '99, you and the Enterprise travelled back in time…" and Dawn stopped when the idea hit her. They could have travelled to a point in time before Tony knew anything about the supernatural.
"Time travel?." Said Tony, now more annoyed than angry. "Tell me, from what era was that other me?"
"They said that were from the 24th…"
"The 24th Century. Damn. It was her."
"Her? Not you?"
"My older self. The woman that I have sworn to myself not become."
Millenium Falcon. Lykandia System.
"Are you mad? I saw what happened past year when two Star Destroyers tried to jump away from the system. I don't know how your people managed to deploy mines in the hyperspace, but I'm pretty sure that I don't want to know." said
the smuggler-turned-freedom-fighter when Tony finished explaining his plans.
"Captain Solo,I designed the minefield, and I know how to evade it." assured Tony Castro to the captain "Although we'll need a few assorted knick-knacks that I have in my ship."
"What kind of knick-knacks?."
"Oh, things that every Starfleet Officer has in his private collection." said Tony with a crooked smile "Things like a portable antimatter power supply, a portable transporter pad, a cloaking device…"
"Oh, yeah, and I suppose that you don't have also the Death Star plans in that collection."
"Okay, maybe I was exaggerating a bit, but it's true that I have a cloaking device in my possession. A relic that I obtained from an old friend. And the rest is easily obtainable if you have full access to the computer of a
Federation starship"
Sunnydale. California. June 22nd of 2000
Giles let Xander and Anya enter the Magic Box without a word. There they saw Willow frantically connecting something to a computer.
"What has happened?"
"It's Dawn. She insisted, very early in the morning to go to Buffy's tomb. I prepared the Buffybot to go with her, and half an hour later, I have the Buffybot in the door, saying something about blood and an energy vortex. "
"Uh-oh"
"Exactly what I said. As I couldn't get anything clearer from it, I disconnected it and extracted the 'black box'."
"A 'Black Box'? Like the planes?"
"Yes, I had to improvise some things to connect it to my computer."
"Ok, Wills. And what has happened?"
"See for yourself."
The scene in the graveyard played out to them in the monitor.
"Damn." said Xander.
"Exactly my thoughts." Said Willow
Aegis Consultors office. New York. June 22nd of 2000
"The same signature?" asked the older woman
"Exactly the same but much weaker, Roberta. And in the same area of the original. An small California town called Sunnydale." answered the other woman.
USS Caravel. Year 2372.
Agent Silver entered her quarters in good spirits. Admiral Szell, and later Dr. Richards and his blonde bimbo of a wife, had agreed to change plans and go to DS9. Now after all these years, her Mistress could be freed with help of the Key.
TO BE CONTINUED…
