Title: Ship of the Line: Walk in Dark Places
Author: Knife Hand
Feedback: Constructive feedback appreciated, flames unappreciated
Spoilers: General for Buffy and Babylon 5
Rating: R
Disclaimer: I do not own Buffy or Babylon 5. I would buy them but I am broke.
Summary: Answer to the Ship of the Line Challenge on TTH. The Scoobies dress as people who walk in dark places and do what must be done
"" denotes speech, '' denotes thought
A year had passed since she had come to the Sheridan Academy and, for the first time in her life, Faith was happy. Once she would have said she was contented, but thanks to Sister Li that word had a whole extra level now that Faith could not really apply to herself. She did not really buy into the whole spirituality and reincarnation thing that Sister Li was always talking about, but she had learnt a lot from the little Nun, in particular how to control some of her wilder impulses that had always gotten her into the really deep trouble.
That was not to say that Faith was now the picture of control and virtue. She still smoked, danced and would enjoy a tumble with anyone who was willing, if she got the chance, but she no longer went out looking for trouble or was a 'get some and get gone' kind of girl anymore. She had more productive outlets now, like Fighting Pike training with Doctor Giles or one of the Shok'na, or those wickedly hard but somehow exhilarating wilderness survival exercises with The Colonel.
"Faith." Jennifer Hailey said from the door. "Come on, the new intake has arrived."
Faith jumped off the bed in her room and, with a glance in the mirror, adjusted her uniform and the pin on her collar that indicated she was a Cadet Sergeant before she joined Jennifer and made their way down the hallway. It still amazed her that she had been given the responsibility, and was equally unsurprised that Jennifer had also been made a Cadet Sergeant. The sole reason that Faith had made it this far, and gotten the responsibility rested with a single person, Lecturer Summers. Speaking of which…
"Hello, Misses Summers." Both of the Students said together.
"Ladies." Joyce said. "Jennifer, I have been talking to Shok'na Rosenberg and Shok'na Chase. They are quite impressed with your latest paper on N Dimensional Physics."
"Thank you." Jennifer said with a blush.
"Faith, despite your little indiscretion last week, your name is being mentioned positively amongst the Shok'na." Joyce added.
Faith ducked her head in shame. She knew she had made a mistake and had owned up to it and taken her punishment, mostly because she did not want Joyce Summers, the woman who had given her this opportunity, to be disappointed in her.
Down the end of the corridor, near the stairs down to the main lobby, the four Shok'na passed, with Shok'na Harris waving for the two Cadets to join them.
"Excuse us, Misses Summers." Jennifer said.
"Of course, the new intake." Joyce said.
Joyce smiled to herself as the two dissimilar Cadets left, noting how the two young women had become friends despite their initial animosity.
"Alright everyone, this is no standard training patrol." Xander Harris said.
The group was made up of the four Shok'na, Kendra and the initial group of recruits, which had been reduced to sixteen. They were standing in the middle of a deserted street, huddled around the hood of the Academy's minibus on which a map was laid out. The one recruit that had the medical issue, that they had taken the chance on, had deteriorated and was no longer up to the physical rigors of an Anla'Shok, but he was not terminal so he was being trained to become part of the future training Cadre.
With the regular patrols, at first by the Shok'na and Kendra and later with teams of Cadets lead by the Shok'na, the nights around Sunnydale were much safer with the Vampire population having plummeted and the Demon population were either leaving the Hellmouth or keeping a low profile.
"What's the situation?" Jennifer Hailey asked.
"There is a new group of Vampires in town, based in this area." Cordy explained, indicating on the map. "These Vampires are different though. They are well trained with Swords and Daggers, and started as a Vampiric Duelling Club in the Fifteenth Century. There is some evidence that they may work for a Demon."
The recruits, like the Shok'na, were dressed in Anla'Shok uniforms and were all equipped with Minbari Fighting Pikes. Kendra was dressed in a simple pair of jeans and a dark top and was armed with a blessed sword which was once wielded by a Virtuous Knight that defeated a great Demon, and as such should be almost as deadly to Vampires as the Fighting Pikes were. All the recruits were shaping up well in their Anla'Shok training, standing with confidence, but not arrogance, and paying close attention to what they were being told.
"We are going to split up into five teams." Xander ordered. "We will search the target area from the outside in, search pattern Gamma Six. My team will start here; Summers' team will start here; Rosenberg's Team over here; Chase's Team in this area; and Kendra's team will begin there."
Xander then rattled off which Recruits would be in each team, assigning three Cadets to each team; with Faith to his own team while Jennifer was assigned to Cordy's team, with the exception of Willow's team which had four recruits.
"Don't try to take them one on one if you can avoid it. Try to team up on them, and if you get into trouble, step back and let your team leader take over." Buffy said. "And for Valen's sake, watch out for civilians. The area should be clear but don't take any chances."
The five teams split up and began their patrol sweeps. Thanks to the Vampire Cult's origin as a Duelling Cult, during the patrols the Vampires came at the groups one at a time, making it a tense patrol with an ambush always waiting just around the corner, but also allowing the Cadets to practice teamwork and rotate out of the fight so none of them became exhausted. During the search pattern, Kendra's team came across the body of a man in a nice suit who had been run through by a sword and drained, which they reported to the other groups.
In the end the patrols managed to find the lair of the Vampire Cult and their corpulent Demon boss who, believe it or not, was sitting in a Valan Damned hot tub. With each group gathered together in a defensive circle, the attacking Vampires were quickly defeated, leaving only the Demon. Jennifer Hailey came up with the idea of breaking off one of the narrow, high pressure gas pipes and lighting it with one of Faith's ubiquitous cigarette lighters used it to incinerate the Demon, before Faith sealed the end of the pipe closed with a well placed strike from her Fighting Pike.
The four Shok'na stood around a table a private section of Sheridan Hall, each looking down at the data-pad in front of them displaying data from White Stars 11 and 43. Xander's White Star 11 was located in orbit around Io, one of the moons of Jupiter, while Buffy's White Star 43 was in Mars orbit. Willow's White Star 22 was hidden from the event by the body of the Moon, while Cordy's White Star 19 was in a hanger in Sunnydale and powered down at the time.
"This is disturbing data." Willow said, pouring over reams of numbers on the data-pad. "This is clearly some form of FTL system but it does not match to any standard Jump Gate or Jump Drive signature. Not even Vorlon or Shaddow."
"At least it is not a Thirdspace signature. Thank Valen." Cordy added. "But I agree, this is worrying."
The sensors on White Star 11 had the best energy readings on the vessel that had entered the outer edge of the Sol System, somewhere out near Saturn, but White Star 43, due to its different relative position had gotten an image of the ship silhouetted against the ringed Gas Giant, a pyramidal design that was quite distinctive. The data suggested not only were whoever was operating this ship had developed a completely different method of FTL than the White Stars used, but also had a potential for powerful shields on their ship, another worrying development, though it was pointed out that the mass reading of the ship did seem to indicate that it was not as heavily armoured as would otherwise be expected, though of course that data was preliminary at best.
"So how are we going to deal with this?" Xander asked. "We are not ready if they prove hostile."
"What's the bear minimum to run a White Star in combat?" Buffy asked.
"A dozen, maybe ten in a pinch." Willow said. "We could field one White Star with the Cadets with shifts, two if we went with the minimum and no backups."
"Then we need to get the senior Cadets into advanced training." Xander said.
"That will eat into their stealth and surveillance training." Cordy observed.
"If they are hostile, then stealth and surveillance is pointless if they bomb earth." Buffy countered.
"Agreed." Cordy said with a sigh.
TBC…