The Key of Forever

by Antonio Cabañas

Chapter Two

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 is 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".

Author Note 3: Yes, there have been a long time since the last update. I had problems with my computer and I couldn't save the data until very recently.

I wish to thank my beta-reader Carycomix, for his help and support through all this time.

Answer to Reviewers:

Please, review!

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.

USS Agincourt, NCC-1724. Denorios Belt. Bajor system.

"So, what do you know about me?"

"What you said... will say... aargh! I have always hated temporal paradoxes stories!"

"At least you haven't found another version of yourself. That's something that I don't want to repeat, thank you." said Tony, smiling.

"Why don't you tell me something about you... the current version of you, at least."

"Well, did my other self tell you about the accident that threw me into the 23rd Century?"

"Yes."

"That happened nine years ago, and after five years of adapting to the new times, I enrolled in Starfleet Academy. I did my four years there, served in a couple of training cruises, including the one that got us into this mess."

"Eh?"

"A long story. Well, I graduated a month ago and ended as a junior science officer in this ship, the USS Agincourt. It's brand new, without even a proper shakedown cruise, that was what we were going to do when new orders came, we had to intercept a hijacked ship. We departed from drydock, and just after we started the warp engines, all hells broke loose, and suddenly everything was like are you seeing now. And then you appeared."

"You have reasons to be suspicious of us."

"Who are the corpses, by the way?"

"Angel, Spike, if you are awake..."

Angel opened his eyes and rose, brushing his clothes.

"Hello, Tony, it has been a long time."

"Do I know you?" said Tony, confused.

"Not yet."

"You were dead when you arrived, how it is possible...?"

"I'm a vampire."

USS Corsair, NCC-1721-C. Lykandia System

Captain Antonia Castro hauled the last box into the cargo transporter pad. She had packed all the things that they were going to need into three standard Starfleet containers and beamed up to the Millenium Falcon. She had left this box for the end, partly because it was bigger than usual, and partly because of its content, a Klingon cloaking device, from the Bird of Prey that Jim had stolen so long ago. Scotty had managed to smuggle it into a hideout where it had been for more than 80 years, waiting for the return of the old engineer. He had given it to her last year, when they had needed it to smuggle Spock out of Romulus for the second funeral of Jim Kirk. It was almost too small for cloaking the Corsair, but it would be enough for cloaking the much smaller Millenium Falcon. She start to operate the controls, her back to the door when she heard a familiar, and very unexpected voice.

"What are you doing, Tony?" asked Commander Korg Ramírez, first officer of the USS Corsair, and the captain's lover.

USS Caravel, NX-73200. On route to DS9.

Admiral Szell let the two security officers enter her quarters. Apparently, those two men were only part of the security detail posted to protect Richards and his research. In reality, Dr. Richards and his team were perfectly able to defend themselves, and the real reason for the security detail was to bring these two men on board with faked Starfleet credentials.

Odd how things developed. At the beginning of the past year, shortly after the disastrous contact with the Dominion, Tony Castro had come to her with a bunch of extradimensional refugees, and when the full situation had been explained, she had been tempted to threw them out. Now she was trusting two of them, without counting Dr. Richards team, with her career, and maybe the life of everybody on board, including her daughter.

"I suppose that this meeting has been called for the temporal anomaly in Deep Space Nine." said the raven-haired man.

Szell never ceased to be amazed of this man's skill to discover things that were supposed to be secret. He would have been a excellent detective on his world.

"What do you know exactly of the phenomenon?"

"Only what you said to Reed, and what he had found hacking the main computer." answered the blonde one.

"In other words, everything."

"More or less."

"Well, here is something that you don't know. When the Agincourt returned to Federation space in 2286, the commanding officer, commodore Matthew Wilkins, delivered a sealed report to Starfleet Archives. A common practice after specially hazardous missions. What wasn't so common was that Commodore Wilkins had set a very specific date for unsealing it, today. The content was encrypted and adressed to the Director of the Starfleet Bureau of Special Research."

"You."

"Exactly."

"And what did the message say?"

"See for yourselves." She said, picking an isolinear chip from a nearby rack and inserting it in a portable player.

Magic box. Sunnydale. Year 2000

"And what we do now?" asked Xander.

"There is a location spell that we can use. It's usually utilized to locate demons and other..."

"The Eye of Acheron, right?"

"Yes. How do you know it?"

"A Russian witch used it to have me located, and launch curses to me for several months, after I killed his son. He was a real womanizer, and his wife desired him to be castrated, and he died by blood loss." They didn't asked what happened to the witch, mostly because they didn't want to know. "But I thought that you needed a personal object of the subject to locate."

"I sent Tara home to bring one."

As if summoned by the mention of her name, Tara came, carrying a small object in her hands.

"Here it is, a music box that Dawn bought last month."

"Why the music box? Why not some clothes or...?" asked Giles.

"Given Dawn's... special background, I don't want to take risks." answered Willow, while she drew a mystical sign in the ground with chalk.

"Willow, are you sure of this? I mean, the Eye of Acheron is almost black magic."

"But it isn't. I'd never fall into practicing black magic." Said Willow.

USS Agincourt, NCC-1724. Denorios Belt. Bajor system

"Hold it for a moment. I can accept that vampires are real, but that you are a mystical energy source?" said Tony to Dawn.

"Said by the woman that was transported almost three centuries into the future, and was changed into some kind of superwoman."

"OK, OK. You have a point. Well,maybe..." she started to say when the ship trembled.

Deep Space Nine.

"Ben!" shouted Dax from the science station.

"What's happening, old man?"

"The pulsing of the anomaly. At first I thought that was regular, but the periods are degenerating. In a few days, the anomaly would cancel itself, plunging the Agincourt completely into our time and removing her from the timeline."

"Is there any way to prevent that outcome?."

"I'd need clearer readings from the anomaly."

"I'd talk with agent Silver." Said Sisko, grimacing. Clearly, he didn't want to talk with the abrasive DTI agent so soon.

A Sunnydale graveyard

A young woman materialized in a column of blue mist in the narrow space between two mausoleums. She looked around, and produced from her handbag a device which looked like a pen. She twisted it one way and talked:

"Roberta, do you hear me?"

And a voice came from it.

"Loud and clear, Rain. The point of origin of the disturbance is thirty meters to the East and twenty to the North from your position. According to the records there is nobody buried there."

The young woman walked toward the point saying to the device:

"The records must not have been updated in a while because there is a tombstone here."

"Curious." commented Roberta from their headquarters in New York. "Well, I'll examine the area through your servo."

While Roberta analyzed the data with the help of the alien supercomputer hidden in their office, Rain looked at the tomb, wondering who would be buried there.

When she read the name, she couldn't believe her eyes. She kneeled and touched the name, as if she needed to convince herself of the reality of what was written there.

TO BE CONTINUED...