Chapter Eight: Off World
The attack on Apophis's base seemed to have been a complete waste of time. Nobody was there. The whole place it seemed had been evacuated following the battle with Marduk. Buffy and Faith had insisted on going in with the first wave of attackers and they were now wandering around the building where they had met Cordelia and from where she had teleported them to safety.
"So do you trust them?" asked Faith. "The Kallistians, do you think they're telling us the truth?"
"About the big things, about Apophis and Marduk, yes I do," replied Buffy.
"But you think they could send us home if they wanted to," said Faith.
Buffy nodded. "They don't want to lose Cordy," she said. "I think this war has really stretched them, stretched their witches pretty thin so they're desperate for any help they can get."
"What about these Tau'ri people they're waiting to hear from?" asked Faith. "From what the captain said they come from another world and they know their way around. Think they could get us home?"
"Maybe," said Buffy. "I don't think the captain was meant to say anything about them for that very reason."
"Yeah," agreed Faith. "Those witches were very annoyed when they found out we knew about the Tau'ri. I think we'd..."
Faith broke off as the sounds of fighting broke out. Explosions, gunfire and the sound of power weapons coming from all directions broke the silence. It seemed there was to be a battle after all.
Buffy and Faith ran through the building towards the rear exit intent on their main mission which was to take at least one prisoner for questioning. As they exited the building they saw a group of Jaffa, armed with staff weapons, appear from nowhere inside the rings of a teleportation device so they immediately ducked back inside.
Other Jaffa groups had already appeared on the other sides of the building, and maybe inside the building because firing of Kallistien guns and Jaffa weapons seemed to be coming from all sides.
"Brissim's upstairs," said Faith. "Let's grab him and get out of here." Without waiting for a reply she darted up the rear stairs. I knew she fancied him thought Buffy as she followed closely behind.
Brissim and the soldiers under his command were in a long gallery two floors up struggling with a group of Jaffa. The Jaffa had teleported in without warning, in amongst the Kallistien soldiers taking them by surprise. The two groups had found themselves at such close quarters that the fight had developed into a series of hand to hand struggles.
Neither Buffy not Faith gave a moment's thought to drawing their swords and knives. They were being carried strictly for use against non-human enemies, not against the human Jaffa. Buffy and Faith now waded into the fight using their well honed personal combat skills.
Some of the Kallistien solders were down and two of the Jaffa had turned away to pick up their weapons. It was these two enemies who were Buffy's first targets. Moving at speed she leapt at one opponent and delivered a reverse flying kick. The Jaffa was propelled with such force that he went backwards, rolling over and over to crunch up against the back wall.
Buffy's other target was already down having been given a stiff arm by Buffy as she flew past. Neither Jaffa was now moving, and wouldn't be able to move for some time even with the assistance of their symbiotes.
Faith moved at a more measured pace, stalking through the gallery. A punch here, a duck there, a well targeted low kick when necessary. As she intervened in various individual combats in turn the Kallistien soldiers found themselves able to deal with a fallen or disabled opponent and finish him off.
Faith's ultimate objective was Brissim. The captain, no mean fighter himself, was nevertheless in trouble. He was wrestling with a ferociously strong Jaffa who was now on top of him and threatening to choke him to death. Suddenly the Jaffa was lifted off of the captain and thrown hard up against the wall, to collapse in a heap on the floor.
Brissim took the helping hand offered and got to his feet. He was surprised to find that the hand belonged to Faith. As he stood up he looked around and in particular he looked at his now unconscious opponent. Now what happened to that guy he wondered. Did one of our witches help out?
Suddenly he had his answer as he saw Faith pluck another Jaffa away from his Kallistien opponent and toss him into the centre of the room. The toss was ended by a collision with another Jaffa tossed from the other direction by Buffy. That ended the fighting for the moment since the slayers and the soldiers had run out of opponents.
Brissim looked at his sergeant, who was now at his side. The sergeant shrugged, having no more idea of what was going on than Brissim. Meanwhile the two slayers high-fived in the middle of the gallery to an audience of surprised Kallistien soldiers.
"Looks like dating one of these Earth girls could be quite exciting," said the sergeant looking pointedly at the Captain.
The slayers and the Kallistien soldiers were not the only people left standing after the fighting. A young woman, a junior witch, was completing the drawing of a large chalk circle in the middle of the gallery.
"Now!" screamed the witch. "Get inside the circle!"
The soldiers rushed to obey and gathered inside the circle. At Brissim's command they took two unconscious prisoners with them. As they entered the circle they all vanished from the sight of the watching Buffy and Faith.
The witch stepped out of the circle and reappeared. "You too!" she yelled at the two slayers. The witch grabbed their hands and pulled them with her inside the circle.
Inside the circle Buffy, Faith, the witch and the soldiers could see the room as if through a mist. They were presumably all now concealed from sight.
"What do we do now?" asked Buffy.
"Shhhh," hissed the witch. "We don't want anybody to hear us," she whispered. "I'm contacting HQ to get us all teleported out of here." The witch now closed her eyes and concentrated.
For the next few minutes the people in the circle remained silent as the sounds of battle gradually diminished and finally stopped. A few minutes after that a group of four armed Jaffa came warily into the room and looked around. The soldiers inside the circle took aim on the Jaffa and the captain raised his hand ready to give the order to fire.
"Look out!" screamed another young woman who had just come into the room with more Jaffa. This was another witch but one who was working with the Jaffa, voluntarily or not. Clearly she could see everybody in the circle.
Even so the Kallistien soldiers had the clear advantage as they were able to shoot the Jaffa who could not see them. As the firing started Buffy took advantage of the mayhem to rush out and grabbed the newly arrived witch and pull her into the circle. The firing ended quickly with all of the newly arrived Jaffa either dead or wounded.
"Everybody ready?" asked the Kallistien witch looking around her. "They're going to transport us...NOW."
Everybody in the circle saw the room fade before finding themselves at the nearby temporary Kallistien base inside another witches circle. Or rather not everybody. As Faith looked around she found that Buffy and the witch who had been working with the Jaffa were no longer with them.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Giles wasn't being kept a prisoner exactly, or so he was assured, but as he didn't know how to return to his own world the result was the same. Even so as time went by he began to consider trying to get away from the people he was with.
The people were, as far as he could tell completely human but the planet most definitely wasn't Earth. The three moons that came up at night made that perfectly clear as well as the generally alien look to all of the local vegetation.
On suddenly finding himself in a strange room, with strange people Giles had naturally acted very defensive. He had been welcomed by a tall middle aged man called Togunus who had apologised for what looked like an abduction and assured Giles that they only wanted his help.
If it looks like an abduction and feels like an abduction then it's an abduction Giles had responded. Togunus had responded with a forced laugh and insisted that all would be explained in good time. In the time since then nothing had been explained although Giles had been given a nice room, had been well fed but had been fobbed off with "soon, soon," by Togunus every time Giles tackled him.
Being largely left to his own devices Giles had started to explore the premises of what looked to be something like a large country house. The main building, with its two extensive wings and a number of substantial outhouses seemed to be nowhere near any larger settlement. On the good side, the house was not fortified and there were no guards that Giles had been able to see.
Giles had been able to confirm the isolation of the house the previous day when he had managed to find his way onto the roof and thereby gained a good view in all directions. Rolling hills, clumps of trees and growing crops made up the sum total of the local landscape. There was a road leading away from the building to the north and it was this that Giles had begun to think of exploring. However Giles's plans now underwent an abrupt change.
Giles had now reached the third floor of the east wing of the building. He opened one of a set of double doors to discover something he had always found irresistible, a library.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
The scene on the other side of the Stargate was just as recorded by the original robot probe, a landscape of open grassland with distant snow-capped mountains. There were no signs of any Replicators or of SG-12.
Jack walked around the Stargate and came back to his original position in front of the Gate where the four sisters and the rest of SG-1 were now gathered. There was no sign of any Replicators in the immediate area as far as he could see.
"OK," said Daniel. "So far so good. We might have arrived before the robot probe but how do we know for sure we've really gone back in time?"
"We won't know for sure until the probe comes through," said Sam. "Which if everything goes the way the witches say will be a few hours from now."
"There are no track marks on the ground from the probe," pointed out Teal'c. "Even though the ground is soft."
"We couldn't just dial home now and say hi to the General, what's the date?" asked Jack.
"That would corrupt the timeline," said Prue. "It might end up that we're not there when the Replicators attack and you don't want to risk that."
"Anyway the General might not open the Iris," said Sam. "Don't forget we're back on Earth at the moment, if this has worked properly. Any signal from us at this time would be suspicious."
"I was afraid you'd say that," said Jack. "What are they doing?" he continued nodding towards the three younger sisters who were kneeling down together concentrating on a paper spread on the ground.
"They're doing a scrying spell," said Prue. "They're trying to get a direction for the Replicators. Assuming they're already on this planet we want to find out where they are."
"More magic," muttered Jack shaking his head. He decided to take Sam and Teal'c on a sweep of the area while the witches were otherwise occupied. He left Daniel to keep an eye on the witches and provide armed protection if necessary.
"What's his problem?" asked Prue in an annoyed voice as she stood by Daniel watching the other three members of SG-1 walk away. "He asked for our help, witch help. That's exactly what we're giving him."
"Sorry," said Daniel. "That's just Jack. His mind knows what you can do. It's just his emotions haven't caught up yet. You must have met other people who found it hard to accept witchcraft, even after seeing you in action."
"I suppose," replied Prue thoughtfully. Really it's a good thing she tried to convince herself. If we make him this uncomfortable he'll be less likely to try to involve us in any future crises. He won't see us as his get out of jail free card all the time. Still she thought, it would be nice to be appreciated. Prue walked away over to where her sisters were working.
After repeating the scrying spell several times and getting similar results the four sisters were puzzled.
"What's the problem," asked Daniel walking up behind Paige. "Isn't it working?"
"Well it does seem to be working," replied Paige. "In a way, but it keeps pointing up into the sky and every time we repeat the spell it points to a slightly different part of the sky. Can these things fly?"
"Sounds like the Replicators are in orbit," said Daniel.
"Those little things, they have their own spaceships?" asked Paige surprised. "We didn't think of that."
"Afraid so," replied Daniel. "I'd better tell Jack."
"This is probably good news," was Sam's response to this information when the rest of SG-1 returned.
"Because?" asked Jack.
"Because it almost certainly means the Replicators haven't yet found this Stargate," explained Sam.
"Is that what they do," asked Piper. "Travel around in spaceships looking for Stargates?"
"Maybe," said Sam. "But I hope not. It may just be coincidence that a group of them turned up on a planet with a Gate."
"Perhaps they have some way of detecting Stargates?" suggested Phoebe. "Because if they're still in orbit now they were mighty quick to find this one and launch their attack."
"They would have been able...will be able, to detect the radio transmission of the robot probe when it came, when it comes through the Stargate," said Teal'c. "The Replicators search out evidence for high technology so that they can build more Replicators."
"And that's it, they simply want to build more and more Replicators?" asked Paige.
"Isn't that just what people do?" asked Piper. "Produce more and more people?"
"And rats produce more and more rats," said Jack. "And we don't like that either. Anyway these things are dangerous. We know of at least one world where they ran amok and caused the death of everybody living there."
"Well I could freeze the probe when it comes through," said Piper. "And no transmission."
"Afraid not," said Prue, "changing the timeline again."
"OK people," said Jack. "This is what we're going to do."
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
A quiet road in the forest, birds are singing, or at least bird like creatures are singing because this isn't Earth. It is late afternoon of a hot day and if there are any people about they aren't in sight. Just off to one side of the road a round yellow inter-world portal has just winked into existence.
A man jumps through the portal quickly followed by two women, one fair and one dark, both beautiful. A few seconds later the portal winks out. Now the forest is not quite so quiet, as the newcomers look around and start to chatter.
"Well it's certainly not a hell dimension," said Eve as she looked around. "It's much too pretty."
"I wouldn't go too much on first impressions if I were you," said Wesley. "However pretty it all is, there's somebody around here up to no good."
"No sign of your Mr Giles," said Eve. "Are you sure we've come to the right place?"
"It's the right world," said Jenny who was standing very still with her eyes closed. "I can vouch for that, I can feel Giles is here somewhere."
"Here nearby or here on this world?" asked Wesley.
"Can't you just orb off to wherever he is and pick him up?" Eve asked Jenny. "We can all go home then."
Jenny looked at Eve thoughtfully. "Maybe," she said and disappeared in the usual show of lights. She reappeared some fifty yards away. She orbed back to her original position. "Hm," she said. "I was afraid of that."
"Can't trace him?" asked Wesley.
"Not exactly," said Jenny. She pointed over towards where she had orbed. "I can tell he's in that direction but I can't say how far away he is. Might be just around the next tree, might be thousands of miles away."
"So what's the problem?" asked Eve.
"It's the orbing," replied Jenny. "The good news is I can orb to places I can see or remember so I can bring us back to this exact point when it's time to go home. The bad news is I can't simply orb to anywhere on this world."
"But you can orb anywhere back on Earth can't you," asked Wesley.
"Most places yes," said Jenny. "That's because Whitelighters have been travelling around the world for a long time. I can sort of tune into their collective memory and orb to pretty well anywhere. I think I'm the first Whitelighter who's ever been to this world though."
Back in England Wesley had engaged the assistance of the Devon coven of witches. They had studied the CCTV footage of Giles's disappearance and done some tests of the area in the basement where the yellow portal had appeared. They had finally been able to do a spell to open their own yellow portal to provide a gateway to wherever it was that Giles had been taken, or at least to the world where he had been taken.
The witches would be reopening their portal for short periods at 24 hour intervals for the foreseeable future to allow the group, plus hopefully Giles, to return. Although it was possible that time went either faster or slower than back on Earth it was decided that this was the best option rather than trying to keep the portal open all the time with the power that would take and the risk of having who knew what come through from the other world.
As the travellers stood talking the quiet of the forest was broken by the sound of two low flying aircraft passing overhead, one after the other.
"Get off the road!" cried Wesley rushing into the trees. He sprinted the twenty yards or so only to find he was the last to gain shelter. Jenny had grabbed Eve's hand before orbing and they had arrived ahead of him.
The group waited silently for about ten minutes but nothing more happened.
"Do we go the way the planes went or head off in the opposite direction?" asked Eve.
"Wait here," said Jenny. "I'll go ahead and check things out. I'll orb back if I see anything interesting. Otherwise I'll report back every half hour or so."
With that Jenny orbed down the road and then orbed forward in the direction taken by the aircraft. She made short orbs within her visibility, keeping to the edge of the trees. Soon she was out of sight. A few minutes later there was an enormous explosion from that direction and several columns of smoke appeared over the top of the trees.