Chapter Six: Enemies
Unfortunately none of the captured men had known anything about the disappearance of Buffy and Faith. They had just been ordered by their commander to go to Sunnydale. They had a list of 'witches' they had been ordered to bring back, kidnap if necessary: Amy, Anya, Willow and Buffy and details of where they might be found.
The men knew nothing about Tara or Faith or indeed anybody else in Sunnydale and had no idea that Buffy wasn't in fact a witch but was something else entirely. The captured men had only been told what they needed to know. They didn't know why their boss wanted them to kidnap witches.
Whoever had issued those orders to the commander of the captives had expected Buffy to be in Sunnydale. This raised the possibility that the disappearance of Buffy and Faith might not be connected to the 'Homeland Security' people who had come to Sunnydale.
Whilst Willow realised that the people who had been captured might not be working for the same people who were responsible for the disappearance of the slayers she was sure there was some connection. It was hardly likely that two independent groups had set out to kidnap Buffy at the same time without there being some connection between the two groups, even if they were working for different commanders. It was probably some high up covering all his bases.
They had learnt about the Goa'uld from the two Jaffa, the two men who had woken up suddenly. The master of these particular Jaffa was a Goa'uld named Marduk. For some reason Marduk, who according to the Jaffa ruled many worlds, had decided he wanted to add the Earth to his domain.
According to the Jaffa the Goa'uld had ruled Earth in ancient times many centuries ago. When they had been forced to leave, a number of deactivated, hidden Stargates had been left behind. Stargates it turned out were short cut portals between worlds and could be used to connect to any other world that had its own active Stargate. Marduk had recently sent agents to Earth by spaceship and they had been able to reactive one of the Stargates.
"What I don't understand," said Tara. "Is what he's waiting for. If he rules all these worlds he must have a pretty big army. Why doesn't he just send it through this Stargate now and conquer the world if that's what he wants?"
"Maybe his pretty big army is busy fighting somebody else's pretty big army," suggested Xander. "From what those Jaffa said these Goa'uld are a pretty quarrelsome bunch. They all seem to think they're god almighty. I doubt this Marduk had a load of spare soldiers just sitting around on the off chance this Stargate would be discovered."
"There's also logistics," said Kennedy.
"Logical what?" asked Amy.
"Not logical, logistics," said Kennedy. "You don't just need soldiers you need food, ammunition, medical supplies, reinforcements and lots more things if you're going to fight a war and you've got to get them to the right place. And don't forget he can't bring any really big equipment like aircraft through the Stargate except in pieces for reassembly."
"Maybe that's the sort of thing he wants witches for," suggested Dawn. "Perhaps he wants witches to shrink all his airplanes and stuff with magic and then enlarge them again on this side."
"Honey I shrunk the Air Force," suggested Xander.
"We really need to close this Stargate permanently," said Amy. "Why don't we just blow it up?"
"Not before we rescue Buffy and Faith," said Willow. "This Stargate might be the only way we have of getting them back. We don't just need to control it we need more prisoners, people who can show us how it works."
"Anyway I don't think this invasion will come via the Stargate," continued Willow. "At least not most of it. Don't forget these Jaffa got here by spaceship. They didn't use just one beach on D-Day, too risky. I expect most of his forces will come via spaceships. From what these Jaffa say he's got a of them,"
"And they might be on the way right now," said Xander. "So it might not do any good if we did blow up the Stargate."
"Xander Harris, the little ray of gloom in our sunshine," grumbled Anya.
The HQ of the Jaffa and their associates, the bogus Homeland Security agents, and the location of this Stargate, was an office building in downtown Seattle. It was agreed that their next step would be to launch an attack on this building as quickly as possible. Once they had the Stargate they would see what they could do about finding Buffy and Faith and stopping the Goa'uld invasion.
As the meeting broke up for everybody to make their own preparations Willow took Tara by the hand and pulled her aside. However to Tara's disappointment Willow did not this time have her usual amorous intentions beyond a quick affectionate kiss.
"I would imagine that Whitelighters have been about for quite a long time?" Willow suggested cautiously.
"Yes, that is I think so," replied Tara.
"Don't you think your bosses would know all about these Goa'uld," continued Willow. "That is if they really did rule the world centuries ago."
"I suppose they might," agreed Tara. "But that comes under their non-interference rules."
"You mean they won't help us," asked Willow, rather annoyed.
"I'm still learning all this myself," said Tara. "But as I understand it the only information allowed in situations like this are what comes in the form of visions and dreams to those with the gift, like Cordy and Phoebe, or the slayers. I can't just pop upstairs and get all the answers."
"But why?" asked Willow. "That makes no sort of sense."
"I'm afraid it does," disagreed Tara. "Knowledge is power. Once they start taking the lead in things like this then soon they'll be issuing the orders. We have free will and that includes the freedom to fail. The Elders can't step in every time because they know more than we do. In the long run nobody would like that. I'm told some elders have tried it a few times in the past and it never ended well."
"So we'd better contact Cordy then," said Willow still somewhat disappointed, "and find out what snippets of information they deign to let us have," she added sarcastically.
"I'll ask Kennedy to jot down any interesting dreams," said Tara smiling.
"If you or me are in them I don't want to know," said Willow smiling back.
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Cordelia was still sleeping when Buffy woke up. Buffy decided not to disturb her as she still hadn't fully recovered from the teleportation spell. As she stood up she noticed that Faith had joined them some time during the night and was sleeping on the couch on the other side of the room with the pole weapon on the floor beside her.
Buffy and Cordelia had each ridden behind one of the soldiers for some three hours to a rail terminal. They had then travelled by train to the army base which was near the capital city Demantine. The riding had been harder on Buffy than Cordelia since Cordelia was an experienced rider whereas Buffy had never ridden a horse before in her life.
Since the Captain had made no mention of noticing Faith, Buffy and Cordelia had said nothing about her. Faith had in fact followed the riders and then jumped the train. She had made her way into the army base and then found her way unobserved to the room which Buffy and Cordelia had been given to sleep, where she'd fallen asleep herself.
Buffy's movements awoke Faith and they chatted quietly about what had happened so as not to disturb Cordelia.
"So what do you think?" asked Faith. "Are these the good guys because the others, with everything they did to us are certainly the bad guys?"
"It's probably not that simple," said Buffy. "They've done nothing against us so far but I don't want to get involved in somebody else's war."
"But it's not somebody else's war is it?" said Cordelia who revealed that she too was awake and following the conversation although she remained lying on her bed.
"Those other people have been kidnapping people from our world," continued Cordelia. "We've got to stop them and release the captured people."
Faith gave Cordelia a curious look and then looked at Buffy. Buffy said nothing but knew what Faith was thinking. Is this the same person as the Queen C of Sunnydale High?
Buffy, Faith and Cordelia had agreed that they would stay together rather than risk losing contact with Faith so when Captain Brissim called at their room to take them to a meeting he was surprised to find that he had three guests not two. Although surprised he took it in his stride. He was used to dealing with witches after all.
The meeting was with a Kallistien General, General Selous and two senior witches, Maralli and Lagathe. Captain Brissim also remained in the room.
The meeting began with introductions. Buffy explained that the three companions and others had been kidnapped from Earth by unknown people. When a battle had broken out they had taken the opportunity to escape into the woods where Captain Brissim and his patrol had found them.
"We know you used a teleportation spell to jump into the woods," said Lagathe, a plump middle aged matronly woman. "It was so strong some of our witches detected it from several miles away."
"You must be very good at combining your witch powers," said Maralli the younger and rather Nubian looking witch.
"Why does everybody think I'm a witch?" asked Faith. "I'm not a witch, never been a witch, never want to be a witch. Is that clear enough?"
"You mean only you two are witches?" asked Lagathe.
Buffy briefly considered pretending but saw no point in doing so, especially as she was dealing with real witches. "Uh no, Cordy's the witch," she said. "Faith and I are not."
"You did the spell on your own?" said Maralli to Cordelia. Maralli was clearly astonished. "You must be very strong."
Being a witch, particularly a strong witch, seemed to be very much a status thing for the Kallistians as all their remarks were thereafter directed to Cordelia as they ignored Buffy and Faith as much as possible.
According to the witches the Kallistians were engaged in a war with invaders called the Goa'uld led by somebody called Marduk. They explained about the Goa'uld and the Jaffa who did most of the fighting for them.
The Goa'uld had controlled Kallistien centuries before until they had been defeated by an uprising led by witches. The Goa'uld Marduk had recently arrived on Kallistien and had been trying to take over control of the planet.
Although the technology used by the Goa'uld was far in advance of that of the Kallistians Marduk had not been able to take over the whole of the planet because of the opposition of the Kallistien witches. So far Marduk controlled only the southern part of the northern continent.
Recently Marduk had used witches of his own in the fighting, witches that seemed to have come from another world. As well as having space travel the Goa'uld were also able to travel to other worlds by use of Stargates. Using Stargates the Goa'uld had taken witches from elsewhere to work for him, including Earth it seemed.
In reply to questions from Buffy and Cordelia, General Selous described the Stargates and the way they were used.
"But we weren't brought here through a Stargate," explained Cordelia. "We were all snatched by some sort of a magic portal."
"That's because you weren't captured by Marduk," explained Lagathe. "Things are a lot more complicated now. We've recently discovered that a second Goa'uld called Apophis has also got forces operating on Kallistien. We thought at first he was working with Marduk. We now know that's not true. That battle you left. That was when Marduk's people attacked one of Apophis's secret bases."
"Who won?" asked Faith.
"Apophis brought in more people from off world and Marduk retreated," said the grey haired General Selous. "But that whole thing was probably only a skirmish in a much larger war between the two of them."
"So you're saying there are two different Goa'uld kidnapping people, witches, from Earth," said Buffy. "Marduk does it using his Stargates and the other guy Apophis does it with these magic yellow portals."
"Yes," said Lagathe. "Although now he has some witches of his own we suspect that Marduk might be using portals as well. Both Goa'uld are trying to increase the number of witches working for them. Since witchcraft is the only thing we have that's stopping them we've got to stop what they're doing."
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Harry Maybourne was mad, not insane but furious. Nevertheless he kept to a sensible speed as he drove up to the rendezvous point. Every time I have anything to do with the SGC everything falls apart he thought.
Following the crisis associated with the sounding of the alarm klaxons at the SGC Colonel Maybourne and Major Grant had been escorted off the base without even being told what the crisis was about and how it had been handled. The two NID people had been told in no uncertain terms by General Hammond that if any action was taken against the witches or their friends and relatives the NID would get the blame and would be held accountable. The general had kept Maybourne's notes to use as evidence if any such thing occurred in future.
As Maybourne drove he wondered if he should give up on the SGC, or even the NID. Maybe he should transfer out to some other outfit. Up until now he had had a brilliant career but his runs-ins with the SGC were putting blots on a fine record of achievement. He knew the way the NID worked. If this continued much longer he'd be passed over and put out to pasture or worse.
Maybourne arrived at the meeting point which was the second floor of a car park. Since it was late at night it was no surprise that there seemed to be nobody about. He parked his car and got out. As he turned away from his car he could now see a figure standing in the shadows about fifty yards away. He walked over in that direction.
"Well nice seeing you again," said Lilah Morgan.
Maybourne shrugged, pretending unconcern. "So what do you want?" he demanded.
"Well I thought I'd start with a chorus of 'I told you so' and then tell you how I can help," replied Lilah.
"How do you know what happened?" asked Maybourne. "I've not told you anything classified and I'm not going to."
Lilah smiled, as usual trying and succeeding in giving the impression that she knew a lot more than she was saying. "Would you be here if you'd gotten what you wanted?" she said. "You've been cut out of the loop again haven't you?"
Maybourne said nothing to this.
"This means you've still got no off world access," continued Lilah. "I can do something about that. I know where there's another active Stargate."
"Why should I trust you?" asked Maybourne.
To Maybourne, Lilah Morgan was a mystery, her motives unknown although she claimed simply to be a well informed patriot who heard things. He had first been contacted by her a few weeks before since when he had had her and her firm checked out. She was a lawyer, chief executive of the LA branch of an international firm called Wolfram and Hart. All further checks came up blank which either indicated that Lilah and Wolfram and Hart were clean or they were experts at covering themselves. Maybourne suspected the latter.
"Those names I gave you, they were real witches weren't they?" asked Lilah.
"So?" responded Maybourne.
"So you should have kept control of them," said Lilah. "Like I told you."
"If you've got nothing new to say..." began Maybourne turning away.
"You want to know what happened to your agents in LA airport?" asked Lilah. Maybourne turned back.
"That was you..." began Maybourne menacingly.
"No, that was the opposition," said Lilah calmly. "You have no idea what you're up against!"
"And you do?" said Maybourne.
"My enemy's enemy is my friend," said Lilah. "Guess that makes us friends."
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"Going through the Stargate, I think we've all learned to keep an open mind," said Sam. "But I'm still having a hard time believing in witches and vampires. It's somehow easier to believe that witches, vampires and all that, exist on other planets but not on Earth."
"Witches, vampires and all what?" asked Doctor Janet Fraiser, Sam's companion over a cup of coffee. "Do you think there may be more? Goblins, trolls, demons and so on?" Janet was smiling showing that she didn't take any of this too seriously.
"No, not really," replied Sam. "It's just that I'd like to work out how they do what they do. I want to make sense of it all."
"What exactly have they done?" asked Janet. "Did it really amount to all that much?"
"Oh no, nothing at all really," said Sam sarcastically. "Let's see we had teleportation, telekinesis, precognition, some sort of freeze effect, some way of exploding Replicators into dust oh and the thing that really bugs me, they somehow disconnected the Stargate from the Replicator base planet by reciting poetry. I can think of ways most of this could be done, but not without visible weapons and technology and not without a massive amount of power."
"Good job they're on our side then," said Janet. "But what about the witchcraft?"
"What do you mean?" asked Sam.
"Well everything you describe is usually thought of as psychic ability stuff," Janet explained. "You know, mind over matter and all that. If you think witches you think magic spells, love potions, witches' curses and so on."
"Love potions..." murmured Sam to herself before looking back at Janet. Janet resisted the impulse to smile.
"I see what you mean," said Sam. "You think we have a bunch of people who are psychically gifted but who call themselves witches. I can buy that."
"Apart from the vampire," said Janet.
"I'm still not buying that," said Sam.
"Here they are," said Jack walking up to the two women and sitting at their table, "You tell Sam and see what she thinks."
Jack was followed by Daniel and Teal'c who also sat at the table.
"Think about what?" asked Sam.
"Daniel has been researching into vampires," said Teal'c.
"Do we have time for that stuff now?" asked Sam.
"I'm all ready to go," said Daniel. "Just waiting for the witches, so I decided to do some reading. I picked this book up years ago because it's got some interesting bits about Egyptian religion."
"And it's even older and even more boring that his usual Egypt stuff," said Jack.
Daniel ignored Jack and opened the book he was carrying. "OK, see what you think of this," he began. "The vampire slayer is the Chosen One. The one who alone protects mankind by killing the demons and the vampires."
"How can one person alone protect all mankind?" asked Teal'c.
"It's like the person who kills the purple elephants," said Jack.
"But there are no purple elephants," chorused Sam, Daniel and Janet.
"Must be doing a terrific job," said Jack.
"Except there is at least one vampire," said Teal'c.
"You're meant to laugh," said Jack to Teal'c.