Chapter Sixteen: Dissention
Angel stood up and looked around. He, Willow and Tara were in a corridor. There were doors on either side and some sort of emergency alarm was sounding. Willow remained lying on the floor with Tara knelt next to her. Tara was concentrating on using her healing power on Willow.
Angel's vampire hearing told him that there were people coming closer. He tried the nearest door, which wasn't locked and opened into a darkened room.
"Quick, in here!" he whispered to Tara, at the same time bending down and picking up Willow. Tara had completed her healing and Willow had just woken up. Angel took her into the room and Tara followed, closing the door behind her.
The room was unoccupied and in darkness but nobody made a move to find a light switch. Angel put Willow down on a table in the middle of the room and went back to the door. He heard the rush of people passing down the corridor and then silence.
After a while Angel found a light switch and turned it on. He then turned around to see Willow carefully getting to her feet. Tara had her arm around her helping her.
"Are you alright?" asked Angel quietly.
"Thanks to Tara," replied Willow smiling at her partner. At the same time she took Tara's hand and gave it a little squeeze.
Tara leant forward and gave Willow a quick kiss. "But you'd better not do any magic for a few hours, unless you really have to."
"Where are we?" asked Willow looking around.
"We're still on the spaceship, the Goa'uld spaceship. The background noise of the engines or whatever is exactly the same," explained Angel. "Tara orbed us away from that deck where the air was being sucked out."
"But I thought you couldn't orb this side of the Stargate," Willow asked in a question to Tara.
"I can orb," explained Tara. "But only to places I've already seen. That corridor is what we saw through the portal we made before we came here. Guess it was quite close to the Stargate."
"Probably because we used the Stargate address in the spell," said Willow.
"So you can't orb anywhere else except back to where the Stargate is?" asked Angel. Tara nodded.
"And that is airless, or crawling with the bad guys at the moment," said Willow.
"I need to get out of this room and explore," said Tara. "The more places I go to the more options I'll have when it comes to orbing."
"And we might be able to find another one of those teleportation control points and join up with Buffy," said Willow. "First we find Buffy, then we lose her again, only this time we've lost Xander and the others as well."
"They'll be fine," said Tara tightening her hold around Willow's shoulders. "Buffy won't let anything happen to Xander and the others and at least we know they're together."
Angel had been thinking. "Seems to me these Jaffa might not know anything about vampires," he said. "How about we give them a few nightmares before we leave?"
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After Cordelia and Faith had gone off to meet the Tau'ri Giles had managed to get an invite to visit the Central Coven, the main HQ of all the Kallistien witches and the nearest thing the Kallistians had to a general HQ for fighting the war. It was on his way to the Coven with the witch Lagathe that he discovered that Cordelia and Faith had been taken to see the original Tau'ri visitors and not the Tau'ri witches. The Tau'ri witches were in fact at the Central Coven working with the Kallistien witches.
The Charmed sisters had now spent some time with the Kallistien witches and they did not see eye to eye. The Kallistians had big plans about what they wanted to do to deal with the Goa'uld and what they wanted the Tau'ri witches to do to help them but this was not at all to the liking of the sisters.
It was while Prue was having her third argument with the Kallistians in the past three hours that she spotted Rupert Giles. She broke off what she was saying and insisted on a timeout in order to get up to date with Giles. Thus it was that a short time later the four sisters sat down to lunch with Giles to find out what had happened to him and to explain how they came to be on Kallistien. They then moved on to discuss the problems they were having with the Kallistians.
"They want us to do all sorts of spells to blow things up and kill people," said Prue, "and you know we can't to that."
"We went as far as we could in helping with the defences that destroyed the attackers with their own weapons when they tried to kill others," said Phoebe. "But we can't act in an offensive way to kill people, even if they are working for the Goa'uld."
"Yes, I totally agree," said Giles. "That's a line we must not cross. This is not like fighting hell monsters and demons."
"The trouble is we can't simply go home and leave them to it," said Piper. "We can't afford to let either of the Goa'uld beat the Kallistians because then they'll be in an even stronger position to attack the Earth."
"And we need to rescue all the people who have been kidnapped," said Paige.
"For the moment we're just offering our help in a defensive capacity," said Prue. "Do you have any ideas about how we can resolve this, about how the Kallistians can win their war without using magic to kill?
"I understand that the witches defeated the Goa'uld once before, a long time ago," said Giles. "Do you know how they did it?"
"No idea," said Phoebe and her sisters also shook their heads.
"They don't know either," said Paige, "because I heard them talking about it."
"I've been doing some reading of Kallistien books," said Giles. "I've picked up what I think are a few clues about what went on but I need to do more research."
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As the camp came to life Buffy considered looking for an unoccupied hut and remaining hidden until the hubbub had died down. She quickly rejected this option. The camp would probably stay roused until dawn and then through the day following. A hiding place might not remain hidden for long. Before Buffy made a decision, or had any suggestions from the others the group were rejoined by Drusilla.
"What's going on?" asked Buffy. "Is it some sort of attack?"
"Oh yes," replied Drusilla. "Somebody's using guns and shooting fire arrows into the other side of the camp."
As she said this there were signs of fire breaking out on the roofs of the wooden huts on the other side of the camp. This definitely ruled out any idea of hiding in one of the huts.
At that moment a loud siren like noise broke out, obviously raising the alarm and rousing anybody who had so far remained asleep. Two figures dashed past the alleyway on their way to the other side of the camp soon followed by others.
"OK," said Buffy. "We're getting out of here now. Follow me and stay alert." With that Buffy set off in the opposite direction to where the fires were breaking out and where the sirens were sounding. The others followed closely behind.
Going in the opposite direction brought the group to the edge of what looked to be a landing field. "Anybody know how to fly a plane?" asked Buffy. Everybody shook their heads.
At the moment there was no activity on the landing field except for lights at the top of what might be a control tower about one hundred yards to the left. The landing field was as at the edge of the camp and there were trees on the other side. Buffy made to dash across the field when Xander grabbed her arm.
"We're better off going around the perimeter," he said. "Look!" he added pointing to a nearby floodlight tower. "They might turn those lights on at any moment."
Buffy nodded, turned right and raced away, skirting the edge of the field. She knew that Kennedy and maybe Drusilla could keep up but she kept to a steady pace so as not to lose Xander and Gwen.
"Why no sentries?" asked Kennedy who came up beside her. "What sort of a military base is this?"
Buffy stopped dead as she was struck with a sudden foreboding. "Down!" she hissed pulling Kennedy down with her. Drusilla, Xander and Gwen who were now a little strung out behind followed suit. "Everybody stay down and don't move!" ordered Buffy quietly. "No sound!" she added.
Buffy lay motionless but tensed and ready to move at an instant's notice. As she did so she saw a group of black-clad figures scurrying across the landing field. As she looked she saw a second group beyond them and then another. Looking back she saw other groups of people crossing the darkened landing field.
"What's up?" whispered Xander as he reached her side by crawling the last few yards on hands and knees.
Buffy realised that Xander, Gwen also probably, didn't have the night vision of a slayer or a vampire so she quickly and quietly explained what she could see.
"Looks like the fire arrows were a diversion," whispered Xander. "This seems to be the real attack."
"They probably sent scouts ahead to take out the sentries," whispered Kennedy. "That's why we haven't seen any."
As Buffy watched, other groups came into sight until the landing field appeared alive with moving figures.
"Turn around," hissed Buffy. "We'll go in the same direction as this lot for the moment. If we go the other way we'll stand out."
A couple of minutes later the group found themselves back amongst the wooden huts remaining concealed in the shadows as far as possible. Now they could hear fighting coming from the other side of the camp. Jaffa energy weapons combined with Kallistien gunfire.
"OK," said Gwen, "What now?"
"We could wait for these people to pass by," said Kennedy. "They haven't bothered us yet."
"Or we could join in and help them," said Drusilla. "If these people are fighting the Jaffa, we're on the same side."
"Or we could just ask Wesley what's going on," said Xander looking over Buffy's shoulder. Buffy turned around immediately.
To the surprise of everybody Wesley, with one of the groups of Kallistien fighters, had just come round the corner and now stood looking at them, just as astonished as they were.
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For Antac, the Jaffa commander of Marduk's flagship 'Kish' things were getting serious. It had all begun when contact had been lost with Marduk's Stargate on Earth. When he had received a brief report that contact had been re-established he had assumed that it had been a short lived technical glitch. It soon became clear that the problem was something else entirely.
Dealing with the attackers who came through the Stargate had been successfully carried out, albeit with a great many casualties and loss of equipment and interceptor planes. After resisting the attacks of the Jaffa the invaders had successfully been swept out into space. Once again Antac had assumed that all would now return to normal. He had made the mistake of reporting this to Marduk himself. It soon became clear that things weren't back to normal.
The Stargate itself was too well secured to be swept into space but the problem was it no longer worked. All the technicians said that they could find nothing wrong with it but nevertheless it simply didn't work. All efforts to power it up were unsuccessful and it remained inert and useless.
All contact with Earth had now been lost since the problem with the Stargate had coincided with the death of Lord Shumi who was the only person working for Marduk who had the knowledge and the power to create magic portals. Marduk was not pleased and Antac had got the message that if he did not improve matters pretty quickly there would soon be a new commander of the flagship.
Currently Antac had the witch coven that was under his command on the 'Kish' busy working on the Stargate. They had pronounced that the Stargate had been blocked by a magic spell, a particularly powerful magic spell. By working together they should eventually be able to clear the spell and return the Gate to use but that was several hours away.
Antac had carefully explained to the witches that their future was closely linked to his. If they did not break the spell, and soon, then they, like him, wouldn't need to worry about any further problems.
For the moment however new problems were coming thick and fast. Reports had come in over the past few hours about the ship being infested with ghosts and monsters. Whilst sceptical about the reports, Antac couldn't deny that something was going on because several crew members and a number of Jaffa seemed to have simply disappeared. An extensive search had found three of the missing men in a storage vault but they seemed to be in a coma. A coma which no drugs or other methods had yet succeeded in breaking. Once again a magic spell was suspected.
Antac was no fool. He didn't get to be the commander of the flagship without being able to think. He realised that at least one of the enemy witches had survived the fight and was now on board and causing trouble. He had therefore formulated a plan to deal with the witch. As soon as the shuttle pod landed on the 'Kish' he would put it into effect.
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It'll be nice to see Fred again thought Dawn as she walked home from school. Following the departure of Willow, Angel and the others Dawn had telephoned Fred to let her know everything that had happened. Fred had decided to come to Sunnydale to look at the Stargate. Connor would be coming with her.
"Excuse me, I believe you're Dawn Summers," said a woman who had walked up to Dawn from the other direction.
"Who are you?" asked Dawn on alert for further trouble. As she spoke she looked around and found that two men were crossing the street and coming up behind her. Since it was still daylight she knew they were not vampires but that still left the possibility of more Jaffa or bogus agents.
"I'm Major Grant," said the woman holding out her ID. "I work for the NID, which I think you know is a government security agency. We need to talk to you."
The ID looked to be similar to the ones that Willow thought to be genuine so Dawn decided not to resist or try to run away.
"I'm nearly home," she replied. "Would you like to come in and have a coffee?" Once inside Slayer HQ Dawn knew that there were things she might be able to do to these NID people if necessary. Anyway Anya or Amy might be there, unless they were both at the shop. Gunn would certainly be there keeping an eye on things.
"My boss is in that car," said Major Grant indicating a large car parked over the road. "This won't take long," she added taking Dawn's arm and walking her across the road.
As they reached the car the man in the front got out and opened the back door. Major Grant gently pushed Dawn inside where she found herself sat next to a man in uniform, a military officer's uniform. Major Grant got into the front of the car and the other man walked away presumably to join his colleagues keeping watch.
"I'm Colonel Maybourne," said the uniformed officer holding out his hand. Dawn ignored the hand and the man put it down again.
"I have reason to believe that you and your friends have some top secret equipment in your home," said Maybourne. "Equipment that should be in our custody as a matter of national security."
After the departure of Angel, Willow and the others with the Stargate Maybourne had decided to try to trace them with a view to getting possession of it. Lilah Morgan knew all about Angel, Willow and their friends but had refused to co-operate.
"You really don't want to mess with Willow," she had said. "I don't." With that she had left.
Lilah Morgan wasn't the only source of information available to the NID however. A Willow Rosenberg was already on the list of possible witches to recruit so Maybourne was quickly able to find her address in Sunnydale. After that a few further enquiries gave details of the other residents at the same address.
Dawn recognised the name Maybourne from what she had been told of the events in Seattle. She decided to say nothing in reply to Maybourne's remarks.
"You do realise you could be in serious trouble?" said Maybourne. "We just want the equipment, then you'll be free to go. I should like you to talk to your friends Willow and Angel and anybody else involved. We don't want any trouble but we are prepared for it."
"I've already invited Major Grant in for coffee," said Dawn. "You're welcome to come too. If you've got the right legal documents you can search the place, top to bottom. But you won't find any equipment. I can guarantee that."
Dawn's response was a combination of bluff and confidence in magic. If Amy was about she would make sure that nothing could be found by any searchers even if it was right in front of them.
"Let me put this another way," said Maybourne. "We require you and your friends to tell us where the equipment is and to surrender it to us. No messing about. Otherwise you'll come with us and talk to some people you'd really rather not talk to."
Maybourne always used vague menaces whenever possible. It was so much more effective to allow the person being interrogated to fill in the rest from their own imagination. But Dawn wasn't a random school teenager as he now found out because she actually laughed in response.
"If you'd seen what I've seen in the last few years you'd understand why I'm laughing," Dawn replied. "I've faced demons, monsters, vampires and worse. I've seen things that would have you crying for your mommy. Don't bother with threats. With me they don't work."
"We're not talking about the movies young lady," interjected Major Grant. "You're in serious trouble and it's about time you realised it."
"You do realise you're being watched don't you?" said Dawn.
This created the sort of reaction Dawn was looking for as both officers looked around. Maybourne inclined his head indicating that Grant should get out of the car and check.
"There's no point in checking," said Dawn. "Not unless you've suddenly developed magic powers. I'm being watched by two very powerful witches and if you do anything to threaten me...Well lets just say it wouldn't be a good idea. I'm sure Lilah Morgan could tell you why."
Yes thought Dawn, vague threats are always best. She could see that she had hit home. Both the officers had now seen a little magic. They were in the awkward position of knowing it worked but not knowing what, if any limitations there were on it. In other words they were perfect for the sort of bluff that Dawn was attempting.
"You'd better get home," said Maybourne suddenly. "And tell your friends what we said."
"I will," said Dawn. "Look, I know you're the good guys, only doing what you think best. But we're good guys too. We know what we're doing. You're way out of your depth here."
As Dawn walked away Maybourne began to wonder if she was right.