Chapter Thirty One: The Gathering Storm
Kennedy and Gwen arrived at the Kallistien witch HQ just as the enemy attack began. The attack combined a Jaffa assault with the use of magic. As the two women ran up the steps to the main entrance of the building a whole series of magic portals opened in the street behind them and Jaffa began to jump through and open fire with their staff weapons.
The guards on duty at the front of the building dropped to the ground and began using their guns to return fire but they were quickly outnumbered by the large number of Jaffa that continued to arrive and they started to take casualties.
"Get inside!" shouted a woman, a witch standing in the front entrance to the building. "Get inside the protections of the building!" Either the witch's own magic was protecting her or the magic spells on the building were strong enough to deal with the fire from the staff weapons because two staff weapon blasts directed straight at her had no affect.
Kennedy and Gwen were now inside the building and they were followed inside by the surviving guards from outside. By now others within the building, guards and witches alike had rushed to the front of the building to defend the doors and windows.
"This is a diversion," shouted Kennedy to the witch inside the entrance, trying to make herself heard above the noise of the fighting. "Cordy had a vision. They're gonna be opening magic portals inside the building as well."
"The whole building's protected," the witch shouted back. "They can't possibly get in here."
"Well Cordy says they can," said Kennedy. "They must have a lot more power or a lot more witches than you think they do."
"And a lot more technology," said Gwen.
Kennedy and Gwen started to rush towards the main stairs and the witch followed them. "But we just heard the attack on the spaceship was successful," she said. "Marduk's been captured."
"Maybe this attack's coming from that other Goa'uld," said Gwen. By now Kennedy had disappeared at high speed upstairs.
"He's got witches as well and according to the Stargate people a much bigger army," added Gwen. "We haven't won this war yet."
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Glory was now in a rage. "It was them, I know it was them," she shouted. "Your friends! They came here just to observe they said but now they're playing games. They're going to mess everything up. Why would they do that?"
Glory had realised that Lissie had been removed by magical means from Ninurta's custody pretty well as soon as it happened. Seeing no point in going through with the meeting and realising that the Goa'uld would blame her for Lissie's disappearance Glory had teleported away with Daniel before Ninurta and his Jaffa reached the room.
"You know why," said Daniel. "It's you who've been trying to change things. They've acted to stop you, to try to make sure things stay the same as they were."
"But they don't know the way things were. That's why they're here, why you're here, to find out," asked Glory. "They don't know I was changing things. I always intended to get hold of Lissie before the final ceremony."
"No you didn't," said Daniel. "You thought that first ceremony would be enough to charge the Key. You didn't have the Keeper then. This is something you've thought up since the first ceremony went wrong."
"Of course it is," said Glory. "But the first ceremony would have gone wrong anyway. You didn't cause that and I would have gotten hold of Lissie before doing another one. It's the logical next step."
"But you wouldn't have had me to use in your negotiations," said Daniel. "You couldn't have offered me to the Goa'uld. That's different."
"You're just convenient," said Glory. "I would have thought of something else."
"Well if my companions heard about you offering to exchange me for Lissie you can't blame them for trying to stop you. They probably expected you to go through with it," said Daniel. "Why don't you tell me the real reason why you've been trying to change things? You must know any change puts everything at risk. It puts you at risk. It's no good blaming my companions when you're doing the same thing yourself."
Glory looked at Daniel and shook her head. "You don't know what you're talking about," she said. "Anyway you wouldn't understand."
"Perhaps I would. I know a lot about ancient myths and legends. Some of the old myths where I come from are stories about various characters trying to avoid bad prophecies," said Daniel. "But everything they do to avoid what's been predicted from coming true just makes it more and more possible for it all to happen anyway. They always make things worse when they try to change them. Don't you think you might make matters worse by trying to change them? The more you try to improve things the worse they get?"
"Look, if I didn't try to...," began Glory. "Oh never mind, what difference does it make anyway?"
"Difference to what?" asked Daniel. "What're you talking about?"
"You don't know much about magic do you?" asked Glory.
"Nope. I didn't even believe in magic until recently," replied Daniel.
"But you know what a portent is, what it means to take an augury?" she asked.
"It means you're trying to get a handle on what's going to happen in the future," said Daniel.
"Something like that," replied Glory. "And what do you think the auguries showed for our plans to get rid of the Goa'uld?"
"That they would succeed?" asked Daniel.
"Huh, you really don't know magic at all," said Glory. "You never get a simple yes or no answer to something like that."
"Yes, there used to be oracles back on my home world," said Daniel. "They usually managed to word their answers in such a way that they had a get out, even when it looked like they got it wrong."
"You come from another world as well as the future?" asked Glory surprised.
"Um, please forget I said that," said Daniel. "It doesn't make any difference anyway."
Glory stared briefly at Daniel but didn't pursue the point. "Well the auguries we got said we had a chance of success for the plan if we did the ceremony as soon as possible. Well we did it and it didn't work out. Maybe we should have been quicker. After that the prediction is that anybody who uses the Key would get rid of the Goa'uld but they might not survive the experience, probably wouldn't survive the experience."
"So you think having Lissie join in the ceremony will help you survive?" asked Daniel.
"It's not that," said Glory. "The augury went on to say they might not survive because the second use of the Key could swallow up the world. With the Keeper we've got a chance to keep the Key under control. Without her none of us might survive."
"But we came from the future so you know the world survives," said Daniel.
"Not if I don't get Lissie," said Glory. "As I said, it was always my intention to get hold of Lissie before trying again. So what do you think I should do now Mister know-it-all Daniel from another world in the future? Why shouldn't I track down your friends and show them why they shouldn't mess with me?"
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"I don't know what he's got planned but he's definitely planning a double cross," said Lissie. "Whatever he said to Glory he's got no intention of betraying Mitra. It's all a set up by Mitra and Ninurta."
"And I suppose you were in a good position to know all this," asked Faith. "You being a prisoner and all?"
"I can read people pretty well," said Lissie. "It wasn't anything he or his people said. Anyway everybody in Goa'uld country knows Ninurta's going to be Mitra's viceroy on Kallistien when the war against the witches is over. He's a Goa'uld. Everybody knows they're evil. You don't mean you trust him?"
"Don't look at me," said Faith. "I don't trust anybody, including you."
Paige had orbed her sisters, together with Faith and Lissie back to what had now become their headquarters deep in the forest. They had discovered a chalet that seemed to be unoccupied. Judging by the dust around the place it had been unoccupied for quite some time.
After a little magical clean up of the building the four Earthwomen had questioned the teenager. She explained that she had been arrested by the Goa'uld because of her status as the hereditary Keeper of the Key. In recent months the Goa'uld had rounded up anybody who might be any sort of political or religious leader and killed any witch they could lay their hands on. Maybe that included the owner of the chalet.
"So how do we stop him then?" began Piper. "Because if you're right..."
Prue held up her hand for Piper to stop talking. "Could we have a word in private? We need to talk this through," she said. "Could you stay here please," she added to Lissie. "We won't be long."
We've talked about this before," said Prue when the four women had gathered in the next room. They had left the door open in order to keep an eye on Lissie while they talked. "We're not here to stop the Goa'uld ourselves, no matter how tempted we are. Lissie might be right about Ninurta but we've got to stay out of it."
"We've got to get her to talk about the Key as much as possible," said Paige. "The more we know about it the better. Especially if we have to use it in the future."
"There's no way, no way in the world Buffy will ever let you use Dawn," said Faith. "You're sisters. You should know how she feels."
"Of course," said Prue. "But knowing more about the Key can't hurt and it might just help. But we've got to be careful what we say to Lissie."
"Because she'll still be here after we return to the future?" asked Piper. "Or do you simply not trust her?"
"It's not just that," said Prue. "Although we shouldn't trust her or tell her any more than we have to. It's not impossible she's under some sort of control. She might even have one of those parasites inside her."
"We can do something about that," said Faith holding up the amulet that was on a chain around her neck. "This'll break any conditioning and I can take it back afterwards."
"Yes, do that," agreed Prue. "But there's something else. These Goa'uld, even back here in the past, have a lot of high tech. It wouldn't surprise me at all if Lissie's bugged in some way. The Goa'uld might be able to listen in to anything we say to her and they could have some sort of locator on her. We should check her out and remove any devices and then move somewhere else straight away."
"I can take care of that," said Paige who turned and led the way back into the other room. "And I'll take care of any parasite at the same time."
Once in the other room Paige used her power. "Parasites! Gadgets! Devices! Bugs! High tech-thingies!" she commanded as she concentrated on Lissie. At the same time she swept her arm to one side to dispose of any such items out of the window.
As the Earthwomen and the surprised teenager watched, three items, two no larger than a watch battery but one of them as large as a small cellphone materialised on the way out of the window. There was however no Goa'uld symbiote amongst the items magicked away from Lissie.
"Good call Prue," said Faith. "But perhaps we'd better have a look at them before we go." Faith started over towards the window but as she did there was an explosion from outside which shattered the window and caved in that wall of the building. Faith was thrown across the room like a rag doll.
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With the fighting for the spaceship over Buffy and Angel had found their usefulness at an end. They took the first opportunity they had had to do a little sightseeing around the orbiting spaceship, finally returning to the Control Center. There they sought out Jack. They had decided to return to the surface. Jack agreed that there appeared to be no reason for them to stay aboard the spaceship any longer.
After the battle in the Control Center Jack had taken command of the ship. At his suggestion Jagerat, the host now freed from control of the Goa'uld Marduk, had issued orders whilst pretending to still be Marduk. Jagerat had ordered Marduk's Jaffa to surrender and accept orders from the ship's invaders. He was now contacting Marduk's surface forces to order their surrender as well.
"We've had confirmation from all areas," said Jack. "We've got full control of the ship. Teal'c has gone to arrange for most of the Jaffa to be transported down to the surface. We're keeping some of them temporarily to help keep the ship running until we have enough of our own people in place. Teal'c will try to recruit as many of the Jaffa as possible to voluntarily join the fight against the Goa'uld."
"We'll be going then. If we can drag Xander away that is," said Buffy. Xander had spent all of the time since he had been healed by Tara in staring at the sights that could be seen from the windows of the control room. This included the planet of Kallistien, which the ship was orbiting, and its moons.
"We can also find out why Cordy needs Tara's help," said Willow from her position next to Sam at the control console from where she had been listening to the conversation.
Willow and Sam had together arranged for a gradual flip of the ship's gravity back to normal, making sure to keep everybody aboard informed of what they were doing so as to avoid further injuries. Sam had then sat in the main control chair and was familiarising herself with all of the ship's controls.
Willow had sat in the seat next to Sam and had gradually released the ship from the magical constraints that she had placed upon it. All the constraints that is except the no-weapons spell. Everybody agreed that it was still valuable to have that spell in force on the ship. Willow had been tempted to stay and spend more time learning about the ship but concern about what Tara was doing was her first priority so she intended returning to the planet with the others.
Phoebe and Giles were currently talking to the witches that had been released from Goa'uld control. They had all come from Earth. They all remembered what had happened to them but only now had they realised that they had been placed under control and had not been acting of their own free will.
"We've received acknowledgments from Marduk's other ships," said Sam from her place at the control console. "We have teams in control of them as well."
"How many ships did Marduk have then?" asked Angel.
"Five in the immediate vicinity, including this one," said Sam. "But the others are nothing like as big as this. The rest of his fleet had to leave recently to deal with other attacks from Apophis."
"Would Marduk's ships be those lights over there? They seem to be moving." asked Xander from his position at the very front of the control room where his nose had been all but glued to the window. Xander was pointing at a small cluster of lights from straight ahead. A cluster that seemed to increase in number and size as they watched.
"Over there?" asked Sam looking at the lights and then back to her control console a few times. "Can't be, there are too many of them." Sam continued to cross check. "No, it's not Marduk's other ships. It's another fleet altogether, and you know what that means?" the last comment being addressed to Jack.
"Apophis?" asked Jack although he already knew the answer. "It's always Apophis. That guy's got the most amazing timing."
"Yeah," said Sam. "It's Apophis's fleet all right. And it looks like he's got a much bigger fleet than Marduk. I don't think this is a coincidence do you?"
"You think he's got spies amongst Marduk's people?" asked Buffy.
"Of course he has," replied Jack. "I bet he's been waiting for us to attack Marduk before making his move. I bet the absence of Marduk's other ships is all part of his plan. He must have arranged some sort of diversion to draw them away."
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Wesley looked around him. The room was dark with just a little light coming in from a window on the other side of the room. He had just woken up and found himself lying fully dressed on an unfamiliar bed. He sat up and tried to gather his thoughts.
This was all very familiar. He'd done this before. He had woken up in just this bed, in just this room, not long ago. What on earth was going on? He remembered being in this very room back on Earth, back in LA.
Wesley turned the light on, made his way over to the window and pulled the curtain. He looked down on a quiet street below. It was late at night, a car passed, and then another, splashing through the driving rain. Exactly the same as before, the same cars as far as he could remember. Somebody was playing games, Wolfram and Hart were playing games. This couldn't really be LA.
The door behind him opened and he turned to see that Eve had come into the room. Exactly like the last time. Was she affected too or was she part of whatever it was Wolfram and Hart were up to?
"Are you alright?" asked Eve.
"Oh yeah," said Wesley. "Just like I was last time. Don't you ever knock? And what's going on, what are your people up to?"
"My people? Whatever you may think this is nothing to do with me. I'm just as much a victim here as you are," said Eve. "We seem to be in a loop, a time loop. I bet we're not supposed to remember each time. It might be a way Wolfram and Hart have of keeping somebody on ice until they're ready for them, although I've never heard of anything like it before."
"Or maybe it's a way of keeping somebody out of circulation permanently?" asked Wesley.
"If they wanted you out of the way permanently they'd be trying to kill you," said Eve.
"Not necessarily," disagreed Wesley. "Some people can speak to the dead. Killing somebody isn't always the best way to keep a secret, Wolfram and Hart must know that. Or it might be they just want to keep us out of circulation for a while until they're ready to make their next move."
"If it's a secret, what secret?" asked Eve. "What could possibly justify all of this?"
"If I knew that..." began Wesley.
"It wouldn't be a secret," finished Eve.
"Anyway if I knew a big important secret what makes you think I'd tell you?" asked Wesley. "You're the one who said I shouldn't tell anybody anything unless they needed to know it. Well I'm not gonna trust you any farther than I have to."
"Fine," said Eve. "Keep your secrets, if you think they're still secrets. But if we want to find a way out of this we're gonna have to work together."