Disclaimer - As before, I own nothing. Characters and situations are the property of their respective creators under copyright. I'm just borrowing them for a bit, I promise to return them in pristine order...also, several excerpts of dialogue are taken directly from the BtVS episode "Halloween" and the Stargate SG-1 episode "The Serpent's Lair", both of which I do not own...thanks for reading.
A/N - Long chapter here, over seven thousand words in fact, just couldn't find a proper stopping place...
Cheyenne Mountain, NORAD secure facility, Stargate Command Headquarters
Hammond had a dilemma to solve. What does one do when the most fearsome weapon of mass destruction in the history of science fiction appears on your doorstep? Apart from what local scifi fans could glean from Star Wars trivia, he and his knew next to nothing about the gargantuan construct now orbiting the Earth just inside the moon's orbital radius. That had to be what now kept it from influencing the Earth's gravitational activity at this moment, which was a good thing, and everyone in Cheyenne Mountain was thoroughly grateful for it. While its volume and diameter suggested a much smaller size than the Earth's only natural satellite, the sheer mass due to its almost entirely metallic composition made it far denser, and thus it carried with it a nearly equal gravitational pull to that of the moon. The sudden appearance of the Death Star (Hammond thought it a surrealistic nightmare that the damned thing just had to appear when the Earth was faced with a possible impending Goa'uld attack) had thrown the local populace into a panic. The ones who hadn't managed to panic discounted the appearance as a hallucination; local police stations had suddenly been swamped with reports of public drug addict behavior in the streets, and police units were frustrated with the sheer number of calls they had to answer.
The only exception, oddly enough due to the astounding violent crime rate and the complete lack of competency of its law enforcement department, was Sunnydale, California. It had a murder rate at least twice that of Detroit or Houston, and yet also had the largest number of unsolved homicides of any city in North America. Hammond had to see the reports to believe them, and yet after reading one, he still ended up shaking his head in utter confusion. Gangs on PCP he could bring himself to believe, but the other reports were just implausible. How could a person fall over a barbecue fork and end up fatally impaled in the neck with it?! These Death Star hallucinations were seemingly ignored or went unreported completely, but somehow the Sunnydale population seemed to take the whole thing in stride, which went completely against logic. People there had a habit of rushing to get anywhere indoors before dusk and not going out, whether to work or elsewhere, until well after sunrise. Something in the night apparently scared them half to death. It was worth looking into, Hammond thought. He then suddenly took out a pen and a sheet of paper and made a note to send SG-2 to the town to investigate this oddity; mayhap it was nothing, but one could never tell with the Goa'uld as the SGC still knew next to nothing about them.
He was still looking at the main monitor, wondering why the Death Star was holding a geostationary orbit over Sunnydale. That was another odd circumstance; once it ceased to affect the Earth's tectonic activity upon moving away to a minimum safe distance, it should have started to orbit the Earth naturally. The fact that it didn't suggested that it was under some intelligent control.
But whose control was it supposedly under?
Sunnydale
Tarkin and Willow came across a human female that was running through an alley alone. She looked to all the galaxy like a young princess from one of the Core Worlds, perhaps Eriadu or some out of the way backwater world that constantly sequestered its nobility. Whereas Tarkin had never seen her before in his long life, Willow recognized her straightaway.
"Buffy! " To Tarkin, she called out, "Quick, over here, we found her!"
It only took a moment to catch up with the frightened noblewoman. Tarkin was nonplussed by the sight of her.
"This is the object of a Rebel pursuit? I find myself less than impressed; she looks as though she's never seen the outside of a palace," he snorted disdainfully. "Buffy…a rather odd name for a noblewoman of the Core Worlds. Perhaps you are from the Mid Rim?"
Somehow his words broke her out of her fearful state, because she turned her attention to him. "Rebels? Core Worlds? I know not of whom or which place you speak. Are you British, sir?"
"I am from the Empire, milady, and I was told that you were being pursued by agents of the Rebellion. Do you know where you are now?"
"Xander, this is Buffy, she's the Slayer; she can help us!" Willow interjected.
"A Slayer of what, per se?"
They stood there for a minute trying to establish some basis for questioning, when a ground car sped by on the adjacent street, and Buffy screamed.
"AAAAH! A DEMON! A DEMON!"
"Buffy," Willow sighed, "that's a car, not a demon…"
Buffy, for her part, had already ducked behind the Imperial Moff. She asked fearfully, "What does it want…?"
Suddenly from behind the party, a possessed trick-or-treater lunged at them, claws and fangs bared for the kill. Tarkin spun on his heel and shot the child in one of his legs, dropping him to the ground, writhing and howling in pain at the fresh blaster wound. At the same time, Buffy screamed and ran into the street.
"We need to recover her, Miss Willow, or she'll get herself killed. Then we'll take her to one of the medcenters on the station. I'm not about to leave an Imperial citizen to the mercy of these primitives…or the Rebels. Does that ease your conscience, Willow…?"
"Rosenberg. Fine, but first we need to go someplace safe. And does that pistol have a stun setting? Cause when this spell breaks that we're all under I don't wanna have to explain to Giles why some kids ended up in the hospital or the morgue with blaster wounds that can't be explained. Clear so far?"
Tarkin said at length, after giving it some thought, "Fine, we'll play it your way for now. But this goes far away from standard Imperial procedure, I hope I make myself understood here. And I think you could use a visit to the medcenter as well; standard Imperial medicine has done wonders for those with a predilection for anxiety. Perhaps we could cure that babble of yours…"
Unknown location, aboard a Goa'uld Ha'Tak…
"I can't see," said Jack upon waking up. "Ugggghh, what did they hit us with…?"
At first only silence answered. Then he heard a distinct, faint moaning similar to his own. He instinctively reached toward the sound and was rewarded for his effort by a painful compression on the meat of his hand by what were obviously teeth. The owner of those teeth grunted in effort, a female voice…
"OWW!"
Immediately the teeth released their cruel grip and the voice instantly shifted from angry grunting to plaintive supplication.
"Colonel?! I'm sorry, sir; it's just so damn dark…"
Jack was relieved to hear the voice of his XO, Samantha Carter. "Oh, crap. That's ok, Captain, I like your attitude. Teal'c? Jackson? You here?"
The renegade Jaffa's voice stated, "We are both here, O'Neill. As to your question, that was a Goa'uld shock grenade. Though painful and disorienting, its effects are temporary."
"Meaning while we soon won't be blind," piped in Daniel Jackson, "we'll still have failed."
"Been in worse spots before, Danny boy," said Jack.
Teal'c replied, "Not to my knowledge."
"Did you flunk the Jaffa training block on Positive Thinking 101?"
Jackson's voice cut in again, morosely. "They'll start by wiping out the major cities of Earth from above, in orbit where we can't reach them."
"Daniel…" warned O'Neill.
"Look, Jack! I've been through this before, I've SEEN this before!"
The colonel retorted, raising his voice in an attempt to break through to him. "Yeah! You went through it once before, Danny, and you SURVIVED! You can't give in to despair now!"
"Colonel?" Carter interrupted, "I think I'm starting to see something…"
"The captain is correct, O'Neill," Teal'c replied, "My sight returns as well."
Jack suddenly felt hopeful. "Now that's what I wanna hear…Everyone keep a sharp eye out as soon as you can. Carter, if someone tries to come in here, you, um…..bite 'em in the hand…"
Sam's snickering gave them all a little more hope.
1630 Revello Drive, The Summers home, Sunnydale
The door opened slowly, and a blaster pistol poked in, followed by Tarkin's face, then he stepped across the threshold after a quiet moment.
"We appear to be alone here. It should be safe. You're sure this is our Buffy's residence?" Tarkin queried to Willow.
"One way to find out. Hello? Ms. Summers? Dawn? It's Willow and Buffy!" When no answer came, she looked at the others and shrugged her shoulders. "She must be out, so I suppose we're okay. Let's get her sitting down, and then we'll figure out where to go from here."
"A question first, young Willow," the Moff interrupted while they led Buffy to a sofa in the sitting room. "You mentioned that we are all under some sort of spell. Might you clarify for me the specifics of this?"
After taking a moment to ensure Buffy was comfortable, Willow took a deep breath, noting to herself the irony of wanting to even as she knew it was not needed in her current state. Letting it out slowly (she didn't want to end up babbling in front of whoever was possessing Xander), she explained, "As far as I can gather, everyone in costume so far as we've seen has been enchanted and become the characters of their costumes, including ourselves. I'm a ghost, Buffy has become an eighteenth-century British noblewoman who I assume was living in Colonial America, and you, by your accent and demeanor, have become Governor Tarkin of Star Wars, though I have no idea at all how come the very same Death Star from the movie is suddenly here in the sky over this town. I haven't seen Cordelia or Dawn since we left to get our costumes, so I assume they went together to Party Town in Los Angeles. I suppose we'll run into them again before the night is out, and we'll see if they've been possessed as well. Till then—"
"Till then, we resume our search for your Rebel agents. They can't run from the Empire forever, and when we eventually catch up to them, you and I will make certain they never again trouble your community, yes?"
Willow was suddenly distressed. Just what would she accomplish while she was incorporeal? And what did Tarkin have in mind for her? Would he use that to intimidate the people of Sunnydale? Would he threaten everyone with the Death Star? A sudden chill went up her spine, and she decided she didn't want to know the answer to that, as the answers to those questions might terrify her. The Tarkin Doctrine, from what she read of Star Wars, was to rule through fear of overwhelming force. Her chill suddenly became a full-on shuddering in abject fear, the same fear that was explicit to the Tarkin Doctrine.
"We need to go find Giles…"she muttered, sotto voce.
"I beg your pardon?"
Willow was startled by his query. "Eep! I-I mean, we need to find Giles, he works at the school library; he'll have more information on the Rebel cell than I. He's one of my sources. And we should take Buffy with us, he'll know what to do with her until this blows over. I trust him."
Tarkin appeared to consider this for a moment, when all of a sudden his comlink chirped. He expected a shuttle pilot with the squad of troopers he had asked for, so he was surprised when he saw that it was not a standard Imperial military frequency, but one of the emergency channels. He keyed in, and was surprised, and more than a little distressed, at the voice emanating from the speaker.
"To any and all Imperial units within range, this is Admiral Natasi Daala. I am in a settlement on an unknown world with a contingent of Stormtroopers, and we are attempting to restore order in the middle of a civil disturbance. Request any and all available units converge on my signal and lend assistance. Does anyone copy? Repeat…"
Before he knew it, Tarkin had keyed into Daala's frequency and responded. "Natasi? This is Wilhuff Tarkin, do you hear me?"
There was enough surprise to go around, as both the speaker and Willow blurted out their responses at the same time.
"Wilhuff? Is that you?"
"DAWN?!"
Almost immediately, "Tarkin" recovered his bearing and responded, "Yes, this is Grand Moff Tarkin. Can you make your way to the local educational center here? I will be there shortly. I have also come across several Imperial citizens, one of which says she had information material to a current investigation into the whereabouts of a supposed Rebel cell operating here."
"I thought there were signs of Rebel activity here, but I must confess that I have no information as to where 'here' is. I cannot get a fix on our position relative to any known location in the galaxy."
"It would appear then, Admiral, that we are in fact outside the known galaxy. Just meet us at the local educational facility, and we can coordinate our efforts from there. Tarkin out." He turned his attention back to Willow and asked, "This Giles friend of yours, you say he works there?"
She nodded. "Yes. In fact, we might find him there right now. Let's pick up Buffy and get over to the high school."
Just then they heard another woman's scream outside.
"What was that?" The scream had woken up Buffy, and she cast her gaze about frightfully. "Who's out there?!"
Willow looked in the direction of the scream. "That sounded like Cordelia. We need to go see if we can help her. Buffy? Wanna lend a hand?"
"What? Me rescue a damsel in distress?" She snorted disdainfully, "I couldn't do that sort of thing; I was brought up a proper lady. Have you no men around here for that?!" Buffy looked then to Tarkin and asked, "Can you not send for some soldiers to save her?"
"Madam," said he, "we are only two, three if your incorporeal friend here has any way of affecting the situation, and we are outnumbered by a significant margin. Better to leave your friend to her fate and seek our advantage at this 'high school' of which Willow made mention."
"That's Cordelia out there! She's our friend, despite all we've been through together!" Willow shouted. As an afterthought, and to continue to influence Xander to help, she added, "And she's an Imperial citizen! Those might be Rebels out there! Would you abandon one of your own to them?!"
"Tarkin", for his part, did a double-take, and he keyed his comlink before he could look down. "Tarkin to Daala," he called.
"Daala here. I have my shuttle on standby, ready to liftoff on your mark."
"I'm altering the original order, Admiral. Have your shuttle home in on my signal. Your troops are to render aid to any Imperial citizens in immediate distress."
"I thought you said we weren't in our galaxy now."
"I said we weren't in any known part of the galaxy, Admiral. This world and all its subjects are henceforth considered domain of the Galactic Empire until we know more about our current situation. Now get your troops over here and make certain they are on the alert."
"Will do, sir." The comlink keyed off, and "Tarkin" looked at Willow.
"Our reinforcements should arrive in a matter of moments. Shall we make good your Cordelia's rescue?"
Willow nodded, and "Tarkin" got up and strode over to the front door. Buffy started in a fright.
"Is he abandoning us?!"
"My dear young lady," he replied to Buffy, "I intend to leave no one here to the tender mercies of the Rebellion. You and Willow will accompany me."
"I'm not going out there! I'd sooner die!"
"Then die you shall." At a glare from Willow, he added, "Or you can accompany me while the good Admiral brings her troopers' fire to bear on whoever is pursuing your friend out there."
"I'm going behind you, then."
"Fair enough. Now let's get moving."
Outside, they moved slowly, being bogged down as they were by the slow, tiny steps of the possessed Slayer. They soon made it into the business district, however, just before they were greeted with another scream. A woman who was dressed in a cat costume was running from another one of the possessed costumers, at whom Tarkin had quickly taken aim and shot with a burst of blue light from his blaster pistol. At Willow's and Buffy's confusion, he nodded and reassured them both.
"That was the stun setting you requested that I use, my ladies. Your friend's pursuer will wake up momentarily and be none the worse for wear, though perhaps he may have a mild headache. Shall we?"
Willow nodded, and Buffy was quick to second that motion. The trio crossed the distance to where the young lady in the cat costume stood incredulous as to what happened. Upon looking up, she saw them and sighed in relief.
"Oh, Xander. Thanks, I—Hey wait a minute. What's going on here, and how did you manage to drop JoJo the Dog Faced Boy with a laser gun?"
Willow did the talking at this point. "Okay, your name is Cordelia Chase, you're not a cat, you're in high school, and we're your friends, sort of…"
"Great. You went loopy when?", said Cordelia with a caustic smile on her face.
"Wait. Why haven't you turned into your costume?"
"Gee, I dunno, perhaps because I went to a real costume shop and bought something classy! Where did you go, Skanks 'R' Us?"
Willow's face then turned an angry red. "Hey, I'm not a skank, Miss…miss…oh, I'll find an insult for you later! Right now we need to take Buffy to Giles!"
It was at that moment that bright lights illuminated the ground around them. They looked up to see a large winged thing with an equally large tail slowly settle onto the pavement. Its ramp began to open almost before the Lambda-class Imperial shuttle touched down, and a woman with bright red hair and an Imperial uniform with the rank and code cylinders of an admiral stepped out, accompanied by three Stormtroopers.
"My apologies, Governor Tarkin, but these are all I could get together on such short notice. Where's the disturbance?" stated Admiral Daala.
"Oh, great. One Summers freak isn't bad enough, I have to have the whole litter?" groused Cordelia.
Willow looked at her, and an evil grin formed on her features. "You know, we could just leave you here," she said coolly, just before she walked straight through her high school nemesis. The act shocked Cordelia to her core. Appearing behind her, Willow spoke again, in her ear for good measure. "Or you could make nice with the other girls here. You know, show the dumb old men here why the fairer sex is the better sex?"
An ashen-faced Queen C replied in little more than a frightened whisper, "When did you get so scary all of a sudden, Rosenberg?"
"Get your high-class ass on that shuttle, Chase…"
The ramp closed as soon as everyone boarded. Mere seconds later, they found themselves at Sunnydale High School. Inside, Rupert Giles was busier than usual, trying to find out the source of the night's unusual activity as well as picking up the books that had fallen from the stacks when the earthquake struck. The four Scoobies and Cordelia suddenly burst in, Willow leading and Buffy in the middle between Xander and Dawn. The sudden tramping and their chaotic chattering startled the Watcher, causing him to jump up and bang his head on a library shelf, spilling yet more ancient tomes that hadn't yet fallen from the earthquake.
"Ow! Oh, bugger all!"
"Giles, is everything all right? We have a situation, everyone's under some spell and turned into their costumes except for Cordelia here, Buffy can't Slay and Xander's become Tarkin from Star Wars now and have you looked up at the sky lately?!"
"Willow! Stop and breathe for a moment. To answer your questions in turn, no, I have neither noticed such changes, nor have I had the opportunity to notice, nor to gaze at the stars as my duties here tonight have required me to devote a large measure of my time to recovering certain of these most rare and ancient volumes of arcane information, without which any means of battling and eliminating certain demonic species may be forever lost! And yes, I have had the unique privilege of learning how to decipher your babbling."
Willow nodded, "Proud of you, Giles, now can we step outside?"
As soon as they did so, Willow pointed up. The redoubtable librarian followed her gaze…
And at that point he paled visibly as he noticed the Death Star floating motionless over Sunnydale, just inside lunar orbit.
"Now look at their costumes, Giles," said Willow, indicating the other Scoobies. He looked over Buffy first, then at Xander and Dawn. The first thing he noticed was that Dawn's hair was now a bright, flaming red.
The second thing he noticed was that their costumes indeed looked far more authentic, and fit much better than before night fell…as did the props. He looked up again, at the orbiting Death Star above. And suddenly a familiar feeling of loathing came over Giles, a loathing of something familiar…or someone. He just couldn't put his finger on it.
Xander, or whoever Xander thought he was at the moment, approached him then, looking him over and scrutinizing him, perhaps evaluating him for something. He then spoke in a Scottish brogue quite like that of Peter Cushing.
"I am told you have pertinent information regarding a Rebel cell that is rumored to be operating in this settlement," Xander stated. The tone of his voice mirrored that of a certain character that wore that same costume.
"Are you supposed to be Moff Tarkin? Quite the resemblance, that," said Giles.
A glare soon appeared on the boy's features, and with a frosty tone, Xander stated, "You doubt my identity, sir?" He stepped closer to Giles then, the glare increasing in its intensity, and his brogue thickened slightly as he began a tirade. "Perhaps you also doubt the reality of that battle station above this world of yours. With but a simple command to its primary computer system, I directed the station to move to a minimum safe distance, thus putting an end to the recent tectonic disturbances. And were I on that station right now, and there was but a rumor of Rebel activity on this planet, I would fire that Death Star and annihilate this planet and all who are on it with yet another simple command, so I urge you this moment to disclose to me any information you may have concerning the Rebels in question."
In the mind of Giles, Xander appeared quite convinced he was the Grand Moff, and so he had gotten a clue as to who might have been behind the chaos of tonight's events. He looked at Cordelia and asked a direct question.
"Willow says you weren't changed by whatever caused this; is she correct?"
"Huh, Giles, I consider it a point of societal pride that I choose not to mingle with the common folk of this…town. So I'm thankful that I haven't been changed into my costume," she answered, in full-on Queen C mode.
"And where did you get your costume, if I may ask?" he returned.
"I thought you British guys were all about status and upbringing and the whole society shtick. I looked for a costume shop that actually sold quality costumes, not these rags that everyone else here seems to have cobbled together. Sadly, the only one within any close distance of here that could remotely suit my needs was Party Town, in Los Angeles. You should try it sometime, if the school ever decides to give you a raise, that is…"
"Interesting…." Giles answered, in a thoughtful tone. He then turned to Willow and asked, "And where did everyone else get their costumes?"
"Um, we all went to this new costume place in town. Some place called Ethan's, I think; where's this going?"
That was all Giles needed to hear. He pulled off his glasses, not cleaning them in nervousness for once, and the smoldering look in his eyes made Willow, Cordelia, and Buffy take a step back. He looked Xander/Tarkin squarely in the eyes.
"Does that work as well?" he asked, indicating the blaster pistol at Xander's hip. At Xander's and Willow's simultaneous nods, he replied, "I think I shall need it, then, if the one I suspect is behind this whole chaotic charade is truly here in town…"
Willow surged forward, forgetting that she was at the moment still incorporeal, and in her sudden attempt to seize him, she passed straight through Giles, causing him to stiffen in shock momentarily.
"Willow, I do believe that was the most unsettling experience of my entire life. Was that truly necessary?" a visibly shaken Giles responded to her action.
She stepped in front of him and, turning to face the librarian and Watcher, regarded him with a confident smirk. "It got your attention, didn't it? Now, before we go off half-cocked on some fool's errand to set things right, maybe we should think about ending the spell first?"
In just that one moment of speaking, Giles had regained enough of his composure to respond intelligently, though he was still visibly upset at the thought that an old acquaintance of his might be behind the night's chaos. That was the operative word, whichever way one looked at the matter. "If the proprietor of the shop is indeed the Ethan I'm thinking of, there won't be any immediate loss of life, though that might still happen in the end. But I'm fairly convinced he would be behind the spell, and so he will know how to undo it. I'll simply…'persuade' him to put things right," he said, waving the pistol to emphasize the manner in which he intended to 'persuade' the man in question. "Shall we go, then?"
"I think we can do better than that, sir," said Dawn, indicating three persons disguised as Stormtroopers who had chosen this moment to join them. She also pointed out a rather large vehicle with what appeared to be folded wings atop the fuselage. "We can bring him here to you. Would you prefer that option?"
Just then Xander turned to Dawn, nodding his assent. "We'll do this favor for him, then he shall disclose to us the location of the Rebels. You have my leave, Admiral. Bring this person here, and then we will take him aboard the station for questioning." To Giles, he asked, "And his name might be, so we have an understanding of who to look for?"
Deciding then that after seeing the Death Star in the night sky, and seeing how everyone's costumes had changed and improved dramatically, and then seeing Willow simply walk through him, that the shuttle and those Stormtroopers had to be thought of as real also, Giles gave Xander only two words.
"Ethan Rayne."
Xander turned then to Dawn/Daala and nodded his head. She turned to the three Stormtroopers in turn and ordered them onto the shuttle. He turned back to Giles and asked, "Would you care to come aboard? It's not the most accommodating transport, but it will get us to where this Ethan Rayne is, and then can take him into Imperial custody aboard the station until he tells us how to end whatever spell you say we're all supposedly under…."
Star Gate Command
"General? There's something interesting you should see…"
Hammond walked over to Master Sergeant Harriman's console once again. The Air Force noncommissioned officer was looking over a log of recorded activity going back to when the Death Star first appeared in orbit over the California coastline, and two entries were demanding the sum total of his attention. To Hammond's chagrin, Lieutenant Colonel Samuels, his Senate-appointed liaison to the Pentagon in recent days, followed him over. He was now watching as much over the General's shoulder as Hammond was watching over Harriman's.
"What do we have, son?" was his reply.
Harriman showed the general a printout copy of the activity log; almost immediately after reading the last entry, Hammond did a double-take, then he pulled out a pair of glasses and put them on. Clearly Hammond did not believe what his eyes were telling him.
He should have.
"Harriman, is this log accurate?" At the sergeant's nod, Hammond read on. "According to this, at the moment when the station pulled out of Earth orbit and resettled into its current position, a series of transmissions went out there. And it looks like those transmissions came from a town on the coast called Sunnydale."
"Yes, sir, that's what the log indicates."
"So basically," Samuels cut in, "you're telling us that that Death Star is manned, and there's someone in that town that's communicating with whoever's on board."
"And what's the Pentagon's take on the situation, Colonel?" Hammond asked derisively.
"I haven't had the opportunity yet to talk to my superiors about this, sir, but I believe they would want to establish whether or not that is the real thing up there and not some sort of mock-up. It would fly in the face of all science, but if that is the real Death Star up there, then it represents a grave threat to the safety of this planet and all who are upon it. Your Goa'ulds will have to take a back seat to this, I'm afraid, sir."
"No, Samuels," the two-star general replied with conviction, "the priority here is to locate and recover SG-1, and then we'll deal with that battle station up there. So far as we know, that thing has just sat up there doing nothing. A few transmissions went out, which we'll investigate while we see about locating our people. We'll do some leg work, maybe some paperwork, but the latest satellite pass has indicated no life signs aboard that station, so if that is the real thing up there, then it is under no intelligent control at this time, Colonel, and until we prove otherwise we will treat it as simply another object in space to be studied while we continue our efforts to accomplish the primary mission. Is that clear, son?" It was a bluff, but it was all he had, and it was better than doing nothing and allowing the Colonel and his Pentagon bosses to act rashly and endanger everyone on the planet.
"Sir," the O-7 countered, "the latest reconnaissance satellite pass also detected a strong magnetic field surrounding the object, and that could have obscured any life readings on board that Death Star. I strongly recommend, General, that we treat that battle station as a priority threat until we can prove it is not. Now, bearing that in mind, sir, I have some information that you might find useful."
"Colonel, this better be good." The look in Hammond's eyes promised retribution and the end of Samuels' military career if it was not.
"There are two missiles being fueled at Vandenberg Air Force Base right now, and they've been fitted each with a standard Mark 12A nuclear explosive device. But here's the thing, sir; these are nukes with a twist. Each has been enriched with the alien mineral, Naqadah."
"The Stargate mineral?"
"Exactly, sir," crowed Samuels. "The naqadah in the weapons will amplify their destructive potential a hundred times that of a 12A by itself. We call them our 'Goa'uld Busters'. While it won't be the same as shoving a proton torpedo up the Death Star's tailpipe, the two enhanced weapons together should make quite a bang, sir," he finished.
"And if that is the real thing up there, and those missiles fail to do their job, then this planet and every life hereupon will pay the price for it! That thing is supposed to carry a superlaser that can blast a whole planet into rubble with one shot! Are you willing to risk the utter destruction of this planet and all seven billion people on it?!" Hammond all but shouted at the Lieutenant Colonel.
"Respectfully, General Hammond," said Samuels ruefully, "the decision is neither mine nor yours. Absent the recovery of SG-1, our orders are clear. We defend this planet with everything we can bring to bear on the Goa'ulds or that battle station. Your part shall be to coordinate the evacuation of selected personnel to the Alpha Site while I direct the defense of this planet from the Goa'uld, should they come."
"Gentlemen," said Harriman suddenly, "NASA's showing two objects near the orbit of Saturn with unknown signatures. They're retasking the Hubble telescope right now to get a better picture, so it'll be another minute before we know more."
"Keep on it, son," said Hammond, "and alert me to any updates to our situation."
"Yes, sir. Speaking of which, General, Colonel Samuels," Harriman replied, "I'm getting a report from NASA; they've spotted a smaller craft leaving Earth's atmosphere, apparently from Sunnydale, and it's headed for the Death Star…"
"Track that shuttle, Sergeant," said Hammond reflexively, "and you tell me at once as soon as we can make contact with whoever's on board. I want a standard greeting and request for identification ready to transmit within the half hour, and I wanna be here myself when we send it out. Maybe we can make that Death Star work for us…" he finished sotto voce to himself.
"Affirmative, General."
*********
Aboard an Imperial shuttle en route to the Death Star
They had stormed into his shop an hour ago, with a mandate that he put an end to the spell that was afflicting everyone in the town. Under the expert occult guidance of Giles, the Stormtroopers had seized every artifact that could possibly be used to call upon the necessary deities and appeal to whichever one would be responsible for the spell's proper performance. Every candle, every scented oil, every tool of Ethan Rayne's chosen craft was confiscated, including a rather nondescript bust of a Roman god known as Janus after a round of Giles' aforementioned persuasion at the end of a very real blaster. He would have continued "persuading" Rayne to divulge his secrets in the shop, except Tarkin had persuaded in a pointedly more civil manner that there were far more effective methods of extracting information in the detention areas aboard the Death Star. Tarkin then set his blaster to stun and rendered the chaos mage unconscious for the duration of the trip to the battle station.
He had awoken to find himself in a small cell, not so large as to be roomy, but not so diminished as to make him feel either cramped or claustrophobic on the other hand, and he had also found his captors assembled around him. Apparently his rather lovely spot of chaos and unpredictability had backfired on him in a most ironic manner, for among his rather unwanted entourage was the young boy whom he had persuaded to disguise himself as the Grand Moff. He stood over Rayne now with all the air of a self-satisfied despot who had a prized prisoner in his cell.
"In case it escaped your notice, you are no longer in your own environment, Mr. Rayne. Quite actually, to use the local vernacular, the ball is now in my court."
"A pleasure to meet you at last, Governor Tarkin; I've ever been an admirer of yours –"
"Enough idle chit-chat, Ethan!" shouted Rupert Giles, who then raised a rather wicked-looking pistol and fired. The pain was worse than any bullet wound, as the blast of energy literally burned a hole in Rayne's shoulder. He screamed from the unendurable agony, just before Tarkin raised his hand and lowered Giles' blaster. In a quieter tone, but no less frightful for the words, he said, "End the spell."
Ethan Rayne smiled at Giles and "Say pretty please."
Giles' response was to place the muzzle of Tarkin's blaster in the center of Rayne's forehead and say "Pretty please, Ethan, tell us how to end the sodding spell and set everything right, or I promise you a world of pain before the end."
"Mister Giles?" The Watcher then turned to Tarkin, who had a particularly malicious smirk on his face. "I believe there is a better method of extracting the information you seek. Not particularly injurious to the subject, but certainly distressing to say the least, the latest model of interrogation droid uses a variety of methods to cause the sensation of pain without causing actual injury. We also call it a mind probe, though it does nothing like telepathy or memory reconstruction."
"It's a torture droid?!" Willow retorted, looking askance at Rayne, who regarded the whole sotto voce conversation with something approaching dread. Giles caught his gaze and smiled malevolently; this whole terrible episode stank of Ethan Rayne, he had thought, and it would give him no small measure of personal pride to see the chaos mage made to repent for his actions this night. Rayne's countenance was a mix of emotions ranging from fear of what unknown means of torment were in store for him courtesy of the Watcher and the young school brat turned Imperial Moff, to loathing and bitter anger at being humiliated and made to feel afraid, at having been shoved out of the spotlight for even a brief moment.
"Put bluntly, Mr. Giles," said the Moff. He crossed over to a comm panel embedded in the wall and pressed a contact. "Send it in…"
"At once, sir," replied a voice on the other end. The door then opened, and a large black sphere floated in.
"You can't just torture him! You've done enough already, and torture's been proven to not work, he'll tell you what you want if you just ask, we've been through this enough already Giles, don't do this, Xander don't do this you can't!" Willow cried out in a panic-induced babble. She looked at Giles and saw only grim determination in the Watcher's eyes.
As for Xander, she looked in his eyes and saw not her friend. There was none of the goofy humor or any of the wit or simple charm. In his eyes she saw only the hard heart of the Imperial Moff that had given the order to wipe out the planet Alderaan and its six billion inhabitants.
The droid had been outfitted with a wide variety of torture-inducing devices such as electrical probes, chemical syringes, and the like. This was the infamous torture droid that had "interrogated" Princess Leia in the Star Wars motion picture. Down to the last detail, it and its fictional counterpart were identical. The sonic warble that accompanied it as a white light revolved on its own personal equator even put Rayne in something of a panic; to hear it in the movie was one thing, but to see the real thing hovering before him and to hear that awful Doppler warble as it approached him nearly caused him to lose the contents of his bladder. His heart rate increased noticeably and his breathing quickened as he began to slowly back away from the mechanical monstrosity.
After suffering the terrible agony of a wound from a very real laser blaster, Rayne wondered in his horror what torments the Princess Leia had suffered while being interrogated by Darth Vader. He also knew he did not have her strength of will or character, and he decided that he would not see it continue.
For his own part, Ethan Rayne was never sure for a long time afterward what compelled him to tell them how to break the spell, but he was sure at that moment that he wanted nothing of the torment that the interrogator droid could gift him with. One thing was certain for a long time afterward; he never regretted his choice to end the masquerade that night.
"The bust! You have to smash the bust of Janus to end the spell!" he found himself blurting out.
"Is that the truth, Mr. Rayne?" asked Tarkin, not believing for a second what he had just heard. The Sunnydale High School librarian, however, for his part, inclined his head.
"I believe it is. A ritual such as the one that empowered the spell most of us are under tonight is fairly complex and such would require only a small effort to restore everyone to their true former selves. Smashing the bust of Janus, as Ethan has just indicated, should be all that is needed. Was the bust confiscated with all of Mr. Rayne's other ritual tools?"
"My stormtroopers took everything from that shop that was there, down to the smallest or least significant article, Mr. Giles," replied Admiral Daala. Giles wondered briefly how he had not noticed Buffy's sister among the rest of the Imperial troop, but decided not to concern himself terribly with that notion as the means to undo the chaos spell was so close at hand. "Shall I have it brought here?"
"Yes, please," was Giles' reply. Daala then walked over to the comm panel and sent for a detail to find the Janus statue and bring it to the cell, and about ten minutes later a droid walked into the cell with the item in question.
"Please set the bust on the floor in the center of the cell," Giles instructed the droid, musing to himself how casually he took the notion of a droid crew aboard the Death Star station. He then raised the blaster in his hand, but before he pressed the firing stud he looked at Tarkin and asked, "Will a burst from this be enough to destroy it?" When Tarkin nodded, Giles aimed down the sight and pressed the trigger.
The first shot put a sizeable crater in the male face of Janus, but did not destroy it. Giles looked at Rayne askance, then at Tarkin, who simply urged him to fire again. He took aim a second time and pressed the trigger, and was rewarded when the second laser bolt shattered the statue into a thousand red-hot fragments.
The costumed assemblage in the cell, to a man or woman, collapsed at once to the deck unconscious….