Title: Ship of The Line: Between the Steel and the Stars
Author: Knife Hand
Feedback: Constructive feedback appreciated, flames unappreciated
Spoilers: Nothing Specific.
Rating: R
Disclaimer: I do not own Buffy, Starship Troopers, Space: Above and Beyond or Babylon 5... I would buy them all but I am broke.
Summary: When Eathan's Halloween spell hit a powerful and unexpected entity, the result changes the entire world and Humanity's path to the stars. (Buffy/Starship Troopers/SAAB/Babylon 5) Ship of the Line response.
A/N: I received a request from Hikari Nova after they read my fic Ship of the Line – Effect 31 (Star Trek Costumes in Mass Effect Universe). Hikari Nova request I do a version of the challenge with Starship Troopers costumes set in the Babylon 5 Universe. I added Space: Above and Beyond as the MI from Starship Troopers are so elite they are better suited as Special Forces than standard troops in a universe like Bab5, also Space Above and Beyond gave Space Fighter capabilities. I have messed with the timeline a bit to include Tara and Faith.
One thing every good Mage, especially a Chaos Mage, understood was that Magic was simply a complex manifestation of intent and energy. In these manifestations there are multiple different ways to power and amplify a spell. There were several sources of power that a Caster could use. The Magic within their own bodies. The Favour of a Deity. The power of the Life Web of the plant through a Ley Line. Once the power was obtained there were several ways to amplify the spell. Complex rituals. Interspatial rifts. Incorporating other naturally powerful entities.
Both the power sources and amplifiers could be stacked, to progressively enhance the spell. When Ethan Raine cast his 'little bit of fun' spell on the night of Halloween, he stacked both the power sources and amplifiers. His own personal power to link the spell to the costumes, the power of the god Janus to initiate the spell and the power of the lay line that ran under Sunnydale to boost the power to cover the town rather than just a few blocks. He amplified the spell with the linking ritual to 'temporarily' overlay the memories and skills of the costume upon the wearer, and he used the inherently chaotic nature of the interspatial rift known as the Hellmouth to 'fill in the gaps', using the subconsciousness and perceptions of all of the costume wearers in the 'net' of the spell so there were no unreconcilable missing details or conflicts within the costume personalities based on his own incomplete knowledge of the multitude of Costumes he provided. If that had been the extent of the spell, as Ethan intended, then it would have been the amusing little contained chaos that he had imagined.
Unfortunately for Ethan Raine, given his own Magic powering parts of the spell, that right at the extreme edge of the spell's range, miles outside of the town of Sunnydale itself, the spell encountered a being of such power that the spell was amplified exponentially and the resultant additional drain and backlash instantly killed the Chaos Mage. The result of this was to change the entire course of human history forever. Even though no one outside of Sunnydale was directly affected as they did not have one of the Costumes, the adaptive matrix of the 'fill in the gaps' portion of the spell now incorporated the entirety of Humanity into itself and warped reality years into the past in order to accommodate what was to exist that had not before. Tens of thousands of lives were adjusted and in most cases made better. Jobs and companies that had not existed before now did with full staffs. Unemployed people now had jobs for years. Key people were now working for different companies, making all of the necessary domino changed to have filled those positions years prior.
If anyone had known of the addition of the being of power, they might have wondered which of the various deities that Humanity worship or the Demons that wanted to rule the world or destroy it had the power to do such a thing. But it was nothing divine or infernal that gave the spell the massive power boost. It was a being in an environment suit known simply as Kosh.
It was the first of November and ten people sat around the main table of the Sunnydale Highschool Library in three distinct groups.
The first group wore uniforms that were the most recognisable as they were slight variations of current US Military Uniforms. Three wore uniforms much like the US Navy, consisting of an older male Admiral, a female Ships Captain and a female Naval Lieutenant with the insignia of the Medical Corps, but instead of US Navy, their uniforms stated they were from the Earth Space Navy. The fourth member of the group was a female Marine Captain with the wings of a pilot and a patch stating Space Cavalry. As far as the world was concerned, the Admiral was in charge of the oversight and evaluation of two major projects that were being tested in Sunnydale. The Navy Captain was the commanding officer of the 'prototype' John F Kenedy Class Space Carrier, 'Penrith'. The Marine Captain was the head of the small team of six Marine Aviators who were 'testing' both a new space and atmospheric Fighter, the SA43 Hammerhead, and the ISSMCV, a long ranged, space based military cargo/troop transport shuttle. The Naval Lieutenant was there to monitor the health of the test pilots during the testing. To those in the room the Admiral was Librarian and Watcher Rupert Giles; the Navy Captain was Teacher and Techno-Pagan Jenny Calendar; the Marine Captain was Slayer Buffy Summers; and the Naval Lieutenant was Tara Maclay.
The second group were three women in a naval style uniform that was very different to the first group's uniforms, which had Terran Federation Navy on the pockets. One was a Captain, one was a Commander and the third was a Lieutenant Commander. To the world the Captain commanded the 'prototype' Combat Troop Transporter 'Monash', with the Commander being her Chief Engineer and the Lieutenant Commander was her primary Starship Pilot. The others knew the Captain a Joyce Summers, the Commander as Willow Rosenberg and the Lieutenant Commander as Cordelia Chase.
The third group of three, located on the same side of the table as the second group, were in Army style uniforms with the ranks of Lieutenant, Sergeant and Private with a Mobile Infantry patch on the upper arm of their uniforms. This group were 'testing' the equipment of a new Powered Armour combat system and the orbital insertion drop pods that would be fired from special launch tubes in the flanks of the Monash. The records show the Lieutenant commanded the test team of eight Mobile Infantry and used 'Command' Armour; the Sergeant was second in command and used the standard 'Marauder' Armour; and the Private was a trained Scout and used the fast 'Scout' Armour. In Sunnydale the Lieutenant was Xander Harris, the Sergeant was Slayer Faith Lehane and the Scout Private was Daniel 'Oz' Osborne.
"So, does everyone else have three sets of memories?" Lieutenant Xander Harris asked.
Everyone nodded. They all remembered their original lives up to Halloween, the memories of the costumes they had worn as part of the original source material they had been from and then, suddenly, during the nigh the memories had changed to the third set of memories of having been selected for the Carrier/Marine Aviator or the Combat Troop Transporter/Mobile Infantry project and months of hard learnt lessons and adjustments as they tested and refined the prototype equipment, including the memories of project members being killed in testing accidents which their original memories indicated had been killed by Vampires or Demons. While all of the testing personnel were from the US, the projects were multi-national, with some countries simply supplying funding and promising personnel once the projects were up and running, while others also provided elements of the 'new' technologies being tested.
"I have talked to my Marines, and they all have three sets as well." Capitan Buffy Summers confirmed.
"According to the third set, last night's chaos was considered to be the final testing phase of the ground combat equipment." Admiral Rupert Giles said. "I remember sending off the final report just before the spell ended. If things go the way the Project Schedules indicate, then Captains Calendar and Summers will start getting assigned crew for familiarisation to their Ships in the next week or two. Major Summers will also be getting her first Marine Aviators to start to fill out the first Squadron by the end of the week. The US Marines had their selections on standby, with the French, British, Australian and German Marine Aviators arriving in the next two months. Lieutenant Harris, it will be several weeks at least before the first MI candidates will arrive."
Giles used the naval tradition of giving a Marine Captain an 'Honorary Promotion' to Major to distinguish them from the one and only Captain of a Starship.
"Not a problem. The training facilities are up to scratch but we need to finalise some of the refinements to the training procedures. They were developed to train raw recruits." Xander replied. "Also, it will give Commander Rosenberg some time to make the necessary modifications to the first batches of Powered Armour we got from the factory before we reach the point the candidates need to be introduced to the Marauders. I know they will be Seals, SAS and such but there is a big difference between that and an MI."
"The modifications to the production process for the Powered Armour have been completed but the ones we have need the upgrades and, as they will be training units, I will need to dummy up the weapons systems so the candidates don't accidently make anything go boom." Commander Willow Rosenberg said.
Willow was not just the Chief Engineer of the Monash but also was the Armourer who had the greatest working knowledge of how to do major repairs to the Power Armour or bring it from cold to hot status.
"Marcus and Ellen got pretty good at field maintenance of the Powered Armour." Seregant Faith Lehane said. "Let me know when you need them and I will send them over to help out."
Willow nodded in thanks.
"Right, unless anyone had anything else, I think we are done." Giles said, pausing for a moment before continuing. "Dismissed."
TBC….
A/N2: In the last scene, the first time someone spoke I gave their rank and full name. This was to make clear their ranks and who was speaking in case the descriptions of who was who was unclear earlier in the scene and not something that I will habitually do in this story. I also intentionally did not put Buffy in the same group as Joyce. It is confusing enough that there are two Captain Summers, without them both being on the same Starship.