Fic: Wanderers Far At Sea, STXI/Buffy/Angel fusion, Kirk/McCoy, R (3/5)
Title: Wanderers Far At Sea
Author: sail_aweigh
Artist: votaku
Mixer: vengefuldemon69
Betas: thistlerose, lindmere
Series: AOS
Characters/Pairings: Kirk/McCoy, Uhura/Spock, Spike/Surprise Guest, Khan, Marla McGivers, Joanna McCoy
Warnings: beheadings and gore, swearing, minor character death
Rating: R for violence and language
Word Count: ~39,000
Summary: STXI/Buffy the Vampire Slayer/Angel the Series fusion. Jim has kept one part of his life a complete secret from his best friend Bones, but now it appears the bizarre occurrences happening to Joanna McCoy may force him to reveal things to Bones that will either sunder their friendship forever or bring them closer together than either had ever expected. Can Bones trust Jim with Joanna's life, when he's been lied to by his best friend about his very nature?
"Darlin', you didn't. I don't know what it was that killed your mother, this Scourge or whateveryoucallit, but you did not kill your mother." Bones pressed his lips to the curve of Jim's jaw, just below the ear and left them there as he whispered his reassurances into Jim's ear. "No more than Jo would have killed me if I die out here in space. Children aren't responsible for their parent's choices. I'm sorry she didn't listen to you, but it was her decision, not yours." He went quiet for a minute, to give Jim time to think that over before he spoke again.
"Do you blame me for my father's death? For I surely administered the hypospray that killed him; you've known that about me since our second year at Starfleet." Jim was struck dumb for a moment before he managed to wiggle around so he could look Bones in they eyes.
"Never. What you did was the humane thing, done out of love. I could never believe ill of you." Jim pulled Bones close with both arms, his chin resting over one shoulder and his face tucked in tight to Bones' neck.
Caught in their own little world of two, both men gave a start and turned back to the viewscreen when Spike interrupted. "You lot sure go on about the most namby-pamby drivel. I had to stake my own mother, I'll have you know. Don't see me crying in my bitters."
"Oh, great. You don't just kill slayers, you killed your own mother, too?" Bones face wrinkled up in disgusst.
Spike fiddled with his pack of cigarettes, sliding one out, but not lighting it, just turning it end over end between his fingers while he stared at it. "She had consumption; was killin' her anyway. So I turned her. Turned out her demon didn't have much use for me and when she came after me with a piece of wood aimed at my heart, it was her or me. Like me mum said, even as a vampire I was too tender; although in the end, not too tender to do her demon right."
Bones looked at him consideringly, turning the revelation over in his head. He watched as Spike finally stuck the cigarette in his mouth and lit up. "Those things will kill you."
"Already dead, mate. Think I can suffer the slings and arrows." Spike smirked as he leaned back in his chair, smoke trailing lazily out of one corner of his mouth.
"Yeah, well, maybe the people around you shouldn't have to suffer them, either. Do you know what second-hand smoke can do to virgin lung tissue?" Jim could see Bones getting a head of steam built up again. This was something Bones could sink his teeth into, metaphorically speaking. Jim smothered his snicker behind the back of one hand. Bones could be one of the most compassionate men with other people's hurts, psychic or physical, but he could turn that compassion into a crusade when he felt other people were being harmed.
Spike flicked ash onto the floor in disdain. "Do you see any virgin lung tissue in this room? I don't do virgins...any more."
Jim laughed. "I told you, Bones; his bark is worse than his bite."
"Bite your tongue, O neg; I'm the Big Bad and you know it." Spike stuck his lower lip out at Jim, making the cigarette in his mouth dangle at a precarious angle.
Bones looked at Jim with raised eyebrows. "Are you sure we need his help? And, are we sure you two aren't related?"
"Unfortunately, yes on the first; impossible on the second. Spike is a wealth of demon lore and he speaks nearly as many demon languages as Uhura." Jim pulled his chair back in front of the viewscreen and took his seat again, gesturing at the other chair for Bones to do the same.
"Plus Latin and Greek. I had a proper Classical education, mind you. Never did cotton on to Sumerian, though; that was the Bit's specialty." Spike confided.
Bones looked a little lost. "The Bit?"
"My great-times-eight-grandmother, Dawn Summers." Jim clarified for him. "She had a real knack for languages, went to Oxford for a while and studied anthropology. I like to think it's where I get my facility for xenolinguistics."
Spike perked up at that. "Just means you've got a talented..."
"Tongue," finished Bones. He shook his head, a small chuckle escaping from him. "No wonder your lines never worked on Uhura; you weren't even using your own material."
Jim rubbed his hand over the back of his neck, feeling the heat and knowing it was showing in his face, too. "Yeah, well, they seem to have worked for Spike for over 300 years. And nothing would work on Uhura; Illyria would never settle for what she considers worm food." He shrugged, dropping the hand to rest on his knee. Leaning forward in his seat, he let his face take on a more sober cast.
"Okay, all kidding aside, we need to take a very close look at Jo's letters. Is there any hint of prophecy in any of them since she started talking about her dreams?" Jim and Spike started looking them over very carefully, cataloging the various scenarios with memories and bits of Slayer history they were familiar with while Bones listened carefully to the discussion, trying to learn a little bit more about his daughter's abilities. After barely five minutes of comparing notes, the two determined that every one of Jo's dreams were either set in the past or the immediate present.
Jim let out a frustrated sound. "We really need to find McGivers; I haven't been able to convince Pike to send out a Watcher to start training Jo. Maybe with some guidance, she could hone the ability."
The sound of Spike's front chair legs hitting the deck plating drew Jim and Bones' attention from their continued perusal of the letters. "That wanker. What's he waiting for? A bloody invitation from the Order of Taraka to her public execution?"
Bones sat up and leaned into the viewscreen. "What's the Order of Taraka?"
Spike waffled a hand wave at him. "Freelance mercenaries for the demon set, but ultimately irrelevant. It could be any sort of nasty out there, gunning for an unescorted Slayer, especially a baby slayer who isn't in the network yet."
"Lorne's there." Jim offered.
"Pffft. Lorne. His best parlor trick is breaking glass with his voice," Spike scoffed.
"Jim, is my baby girl in danger?" Bones demanded, his hand squeezing Jim's knee until Jim thought it would show bruises the next morning. He placed his own hand over Bones' in reassurance.
"Probably not. She's unaware of what she is. As long as she's not out actively hunting, the demon underworld won't really be aware of her. Plus, Atlanta's not near a Hellmouth, so the demon population is undoubtedly very small and itinerant. Jo's more of a danger to herself and her friends right now, which is why it's important she get some early training before she accidentally kills a human." Jim rubbed his hand up and down Bones' arm, soothing the tense muscles he could feel there.
Bones' hand finally released his grip on Jim's knee, allowing Jim to slide his hand down and clasp their two hands together.
Jim tapped the fingers of his free hand on the arm of his chair while he thought for a moment. "Listen, here's what we'll do. We'll swing by Deep Space Six, drop off Uhura so she and Spike can backtrack McGivers' warp trail. You two see if you can triangulate the location of the Botany Bay from where her path deviates between the station and the Enterprise's route to Manwah IV. In the meantime, I'm going to send a comm to Pike telling him to send Jo out to us; we can pick her up at the station. If he won't assign her a Watcher, then we'll be her Scooby gang until we can confirm McGivers' status."
"Scooby gang?" questioned Bones.
"Crack team that accompanied Buffy on most of her missions before the Great Choosing." Jim smiled at Bones. "They--"
"Were more likely all on crack than a crack team that solved anything," Spike interrupted. "They dragged Buffy down, and then out of Heaven."
Jim sighed. "Maybe, maybe not. Didn't you once say that having family anchored Buffy in the world? Made her unbeatable, because she cared so much for them?"
"Well, yeah. Doesn't mean they still weren't a bunch of boneheaded yahoos for the most part." Spike smirked at them out of the viewscreen.
Bones poked a finger at Spike accusingly. "You hung out with them, though, right? Does that make you one of the boneheaded yahoos? And Jim thinks you can help protect my daughter? I'm having second thoughts here, Jim."
Jim let go of Bones' hand to clap his own down on the console in front of him without any real force, but with finality. "Enough brangling. We've got a plan; let's get moving. Spike, we'll see you in eight hours. I'll notify Uhura and Pike about our plans once you're off the line. Bones, go to bed; we've got a lot to do tomorrow."
Spike gave a sloppy salute to his temple with his cigarette and the viewscreen went dead. Jim was surprised he didn't try to get in another snarky comment before closing the channel, but maybe he'd had as much soul-searching as he could handle for the evening, too.
"Jim, are you sure this is the right thing to do? Wouldn't Jo be safer at home with her mother, rather than traipsing around the galaxy looking for some superdemon out to destroy humanity?" Bones looked at Jim with a worried crease between his eyebrows.
Jim stood and pulled Bones up with him by one hand. "Until she has a Watcher of her own, the best place for Jo is here with us. We have two wizards, an Old One and a Vulcan to protect Jo; she'll be safe as houses. Best of all, she'll be here with us."
"But why should Pike send her all the way out here when she could have a Watcher out there? Who's to say he just doesn't decide to finally assign her one?" Bones brought one hand up to his mouth and bit down on the thumbnail. Jim pulled the hand down, clasping it in one of his.
"That would be the optimal outcome, really, and one of the reasons I'm suggesting bringing her out here. If I can force Pike's hand in the matter, all the better. But I want her here, because she seems to be the only Slayer currently reporting any dreams that might contain prophecy. If she can help us find the Botany Bay, we can do it faster with her input. McGivers is a loose canon and we need to make sure she doesn't try to resurrect an Old One out of a misguided desire to study one. Or become an acolyte or something. Once was bad enough." Jim turned toward the conversation area, leading Bones there by the hand.
Bones balked a little and Jim glanced back to see that he still had a doubtful expression on his face. "Jocelyn isn't going to want to let her come out here. What if--"
"Bones, don't worry, Pike will get her to see reason. She won't be the first parent with objections, or the last, when their daughter is Chosen. He can be very persuasive." Jim dropped the hand he was holding and threw an arm over Bones' shoulders, steering him toward the loveseat. Maybe he could get that lick, now, before Bones actually did leave to go to bed. But first he had to find out what was really bugging his friend.
"What are you really worried about? Why are you resisting bringing Jo out here?" Jim had to give a slight tug before Bones allowed himself to be guided down onto the loveseat.
"I just don't want anything to happen to Jo, Jim. At least with her on Earth, I felt she was safe as anyone could be, in familiar surroundings with her mother and other family. Now, I worry about her atoms being dissolved for transport across vast distances and running into improbable creatures that are trying to destroy the human race. I want to protect her and I don't feel like I can here." Bones looked away from Jim and then down at his hands, refusing to meet Jim's eyes.
"Is that all it really is, Bones? The transporter? You use it just fine." Jim pushed harder for Bones to give him a good explanation for his reticence.
Bones finally exploded. "It's bullshit! It's all bullshit! Demons and magic, Hell-gods and vampires. I've been scanning the ventilation system for hallucinogens for the past three days, Jim. I can't believe this is what my little girl's life is going to be. It's just not right. I won't let this be her life. If keeping her away from you means she's safe, then that's what I'll do."
Jim felt like someone had just punched him in the chest, the pain that radiated out from his center stopped his breath momentarily. Bones still didn't trust him. It didn't seem to matter that Jim had always come through for him and the crew for the past six years, no matter what it cost him physically or emotionally. He stood up abruptly, moving toward the door to his quarters. Jim should have known better than to get involved with anyone who wasn't raised around Section 31 and just stuck with the mission; it had always worked in the past.
"It's time for you to leave, Bones. I'll see you in the morning." Jim stood by the door, watching as Bones slowly rose from the loveseat. Bones stood there with his hands planted on his hips, looking at Jim with his head cocked slightly to one side.
"You want to tell me what bug just bit you in the ass? I didn't sit down with you just now expecting to be kicked out before we had a chance to make arrangements for Jo's stay onboard." Jim shook his head at Bones.
"I'll call Pike, but not to have Jo sent out; there's no point in having her come out here if you aren't in agreement with the plan." Jim stood by the door, shifting impatiently from one foot to the other for Bones to leave.
"What? I didn't say that!" Bones placed himself in front of Jim, his eyebrows drawn down in a frown.
Jim stood his ground and braced his shoulders. "No, you just basically said you don't trust me to keep Jo safe. I bow to your greater wisdom or the natural and not-so-natural world." He bent slightly at the waist and swept an arm toward the door, hitting the button that activated it with his other hand.
"Damnit, Jim; you know I didn't mean it that way. I--"
"Goodnight, Doctor McCoy." Jim stood by the door, his rigid stance implacable to Bones' words.
Bones closed his lips tightly, nodded once and strode through the door. Jim slumped against the wall when the door closed behind him, wishing that he'd never allowed any hope into his heart. Hope hurt and he thought he'd learned that lesson well before his mother ever left for Tarsus. Scrubbing his hands down his face, he straightened and walked back over to his comm console and opened up a channel to the Academy. He still needed to talk to Chris before he could allow himself to rest.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
2264.46
Dear Dad and Uncle Jim,
I guess I should be kinda grateful to the super-strength, even if I break more things than I like. Last night, I was walking home from the ice cream parlor with Tresa (she dumped Jonathan, again, YAY!) when some creep jumped out at us from behind a dumpster. Man, did he stink; I think he'd been living in the dumpster. Anyway, this guy jumps out at us and grabs Tresa by the shoulders and he goes to bite her neck! What a perv! He's been watching too many of those antique Hammer House of Horror holovids, if you ask me. So, I punched him in the side and he flew back about fifteen feet! When he got up and came at us again, I picked up a piece of wood from a broken pallet and jammed it at him. He ran right into it! How stupid can you get? But then, just like in my dream, he disappeared in a cloud of dust.
I don't know what to think. I don't believe in ghoulies and ghosties. You've always told me there's a scientific explanation for everything. Is there some alien species that happens to when they die? That wasn't a Vulcan, was it? It didn't look like a hobgoblin. I wish you'd left some of your xenobiology books at the house, I'd like to look it up.
At least Tresa is free of that creep, Jonathan. He disappeared from school a couple of weeks ago. Right after they broke up. I didn't think he'd take it that much to heart. Very puzzling, but it still makes me happy.
Love,
Jo
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"A little help over here, Uhura?" Jim was struggling with the demon that had jumped out of a storage space on the space station they'd pulled into earlier in the day. It had latched onto Bones and now Jim had one arm around the demon's neck, pulling it backward without much success.
Uhura stood off to one side, absolutely still, her head turned to one side, legs spread shoulder width apart and one arm drawn back, waiting.
Jim grunted, lunging as far back as possible, the demon's head making its inexorable way closer to Bones' jugular.
"Uhura. Illyria!" Jim shouted again, sweat trickling down his temples at the effort he was making to hold the vampire off of Bones. "Now! Please?"
Uhura's head snapped forward at the same time as her arm, now encased in the browns and blues of Illyria's native armor, glided in past Jim's cheek as her fingers stabbed deep into the neck of the demon and ripped its spine out. The vampire crumbled in a cloud of dust around them, Bones collapsing against the wall as the super-strong arms holding him in place disintegrated, drawing in deep gasping breaths and choking on the dust-laden air.
Jim raised a hand to his cheek, bringing it back to examine the blood on the tips of his fingers. "Shit, Illyria, you need to clip those talons you call fingernails. Are those even regulation?"
Illyria sniffed. "It was a necessary modification to be able to pierce deep enough to extract his C2 vertebra. A thank-you is warranted, Captain; not that I expect a human to realize that and accord me my due deference."
When he had recovered his breath, Bones pushed past Illyria, raising one hand that trembled just slightly to turn Jim's face to the side to look at the cut closer. "It's the barest scratch, Jim. I'll run a dermal regenerator over it as soon as we get back to the Enterprise. You'll be fine until then." He pulled his tricorder forward to run it over Jim's torso, stopping when Jim held up one hand.
Jim motioned for Bones to put the instrument away. He knew he'd be fine. A quick press of his palm to the bulkhead at one side and he pulled enough energy from the mass of the space station to stop the bleeding and scab it over, but not to completely heal the cut. He caught Bones' eyes as they widened a little at the sight of the wound scabbing over right in front of him.
"Dammit, just how many more surprises have you got up your sleeve? Do you even need any of the services my Sickbay can provide, Captain?" Bones groused. He pushed his tricorder to the side of one hip, crossing his arms over his chest. His lower lip came out in a pout that Jim found quite adorable, but he crushed that feeling quickly. He'd spent the past six years sublimating those feelings; the habit was easy to pick up again and he could not afford to let that kind of thing distract him from the mission.
"Why are we lollygagging in this corridor?" Illyria interrupted the mild stare-down between Jim and Bones. "It has been many cycles since I have last seen my pet; I have an unnatural desire to reassure myself that he is still corporeal." She turned abruptly and marched down the corridor away from Jim and Bones.
"Lollygagging?" Bones mouthed at Jim, receiving a head shake and a shrug of the shoulders in return.
"So that was a vampire?" Bones asked as they followed Illyria towards the section of the space station that housed the offices set aside for the Council of Watchers.
Jim nodded curtly. "I'm a little surprised to find one here. Spike's pretty vigilant about hunting out any stragglers wherever he's stationed."
"He's an evil demon, Jim. Maybe he's letting them on the station because he has his own agenda," Bones offered acerbically, stopping Jim in his place with a hand on his arm.
"Christ, Bones, give it up. Spike has been on the side of good for over 250 years. I trusted him with my mother's life, I'd trust him with mine." Jim shook off the hand and kept going.
"Even if he's not evil, who's to say he just doesn't care enough about the people around here to really do a good job? Maybe he's not checking very thoroughly?" Bones persisted.
Jim started shaking his head before Bones stopped speaking. "You're null on psonic ability, so you wouldn't understand. All demonic creatures, and some humans with talent, are tapped into the universal psionic field. Planet-side, it's often referred to as the Gaia force. Out in space, it's more nebulous, but since it can't be measured by instruments, it's hard to describe using scientific terms. Vampires, in particular, can sense every living and unliving, creature around them. That vampire had to be shielded, somehow outside of the field, for Spike not to know he was there. We need to find out how he did it." He picked up his pace, drawing closer to Ilyria where she marched in front of them.
"Illyria, were you able to sense that vampire at all?" Jim asked once he was even with her.
Illyria's pace didn't slow, but her words held a slight unease to them. "I had not noticed him until he attacked Doctor McCoy. I should have been able to sense him. Not until he discorporated did I sense even the slightest of auras. Whatever was blocking his emanations must have discorporated with him."
Bones had caught up to them in time to overhear her comments. "Do you know of a device that could do that?"
Illyria got a far away look in her eyes. "The only thing I have seen that could drain the psionic force from a demon was called a Mutari generator. It is why I am much diminished from my original form. Wesley used one to strip much of my power from me."
"Didn't you destroy it, though?" Jim asked her. "I thought the Mutari generator was destroyed in your fight with that other Old One, Baticus?"
"It's whereabouts were unable to be ascertained after the battle." Illyria reported. She stopped abruptly, both Jim and Bones skidding to a halt a couple steps beyond her. "These are the coordinates of my pet's quarters. Announce me."
Jim rolled his eyes and pressed the comm button next to the door. "Spike, her highness, Illyria the Merciless, God-King of the Primordium is here to see you."
The door swooshed open and Spike stood there in his usual all-black ensemble with a sneer on his face. "Little Shiva, you're looking mighty spry for someone of your advanced age."
Illyria swung a fist at Spike without any warning, startling Jim; her red Starfleet uniform was subsumed by the brown and blue of her native armor as she moved. Spike ducked under the clenched fist, folding down into a leg sweep that Illyria anticipated and leapt completely over. Recovering from his crouch, Spike sprang back up and threw a punch into her midsection that barely rocked her. Both of Illyria's hands came down in an overhead sweep and knocked Spike onto the deck, her foot quickly coming down on his neck. Jim didn't even have time to pull his phaser and he wasn't sure it was necessary, much less be effective, against Illyria.
Bones hovered behind Jim's shoulder. "Do they always greet each other this way? I thought they were friends?"
Jim shrugged. "I've decided it's some form of foreplay for them. They often spar together and part of it is trying to catch the other one by surprise." He turned his attention back to the combatants.
"Do you yield, my pet?" Illyria demanded.
Spike scowled at her. "Not your pet, Blue."
"Do you yield?"
"Yeah, yeah, fine. Uncle." Spike pushed her foot off his throat and stood up once more. When he reached his feet, Illyria grabbed him around the waist and Jim thought she was going to wrestle with him some more. Instead, she laid her head on Spike's shoulder and sighed lightly. Jim watched as her form fluctuated again, this time settling on a slender brunette whose hair flowed loose over her shoulders, her pale skin holding a rosy tint, wearing a frilly blouse with a peasant skirt and beaded sandals. Jim realized this was her original human host, Winifred Burkle, whom he'd only seen pictures of in the Watcher's Diaries. The two stood there for a moment, hugging, Illyria's face crumpled in a pained frown.
"I miss them, Spike; I miss my boys. You're the last one left. The longer I am confined to this form, the more human I feel." Illyria cupped his face with one hand for a few moments before she slowly stepped back from the embrace.
"I do, too, luv. But we find new friends, good people to care for, they make it worthwhile." Spike clasped her hand before she could fully withdraw it and brought it to his mouth, placing a brief kiss on the back of her hand. When he let go of her hand, she had changed back to the mocha skin, high-crowned ponytail and red knit of Uhura's Starfleet uniform.
Her face hadn't resumed the arrogant cast of Illyria, but remained immobile and emotionless. "I have chosen a Vulcan for a mate this time. He is much more logical than these humans. I find it soothing. Fewer of those turbulent human emotions to disturb me."
Spike tipped his head in consideration. "Don't sell yourself short, Blue. Human emotion can bring as much joy as it does pain. You just have to trust in it."
Jim looked away, a knot in his chest twinging at Spike's words. He wanted to shout down Spike's words, to declare that trust was the death of love because you couldn't trust anybody, at least not with your heart. He resisted looking at Bones to see if he was reacting to Spike's words in any way. Instead, he interrupted to remind the others what they had come to discover.
"If the class reunion is over, we need to get to work. Let's sit." Jim grabbed a third chair when he saw there were only two in front of Spike's desk. By the time he had done that, everyone else was seated. Jim placed his chair to one side of Uhura where she sat upright so stiffly her shoulders didn't touch the back of the chair. Spike was sprawled in his seat behind the desk that held the comm console, beeping sounds indicating that it had just come online.
"Okay, we originally came because we need to track down McGivers' location. Uhura has isolated that odd signal we came across a few days ago and with Spike's records of McGiver's movements up until that time; we may be able to locate the Botany Bay." Jim leaned forward with his elbows on his knees, looking at Spike intently. "However, something happened this morning that puzzled me and we need to figure out if it's related to our current mission or if it's something else."
"What kind of something? More strange signals? We'll just add it to our current data set." Spike shrugged negligently, seemingly unconcerned with the new information coming his way.
"Something disturbing, very disturbing; we dusted a vampire on the way from the transporter room." Jim watched Spike carefully for his reaction to those words. He didn't think Spike had grown careless with his patrolling of the space station, but he wanted to be thorough. The stakes were getting higher the deeper into this puzzle they were being drawn. He wasn't disappointed in Spike's reaction.
"That's impossible." Spike sat up, his indignation evident in his face. "I'd sense any stray coming onboard. I even caught those M'fashnik demons that infiltrated the storage compartments off the aft docking bay two weeks ago. I admit, there were more of them nested up in there than I originally accounted for, but they're demons. We're sly buggers."
If it was possible, Uhura's posture stiffened even further. "Even I had no awareness of the piece of muck with my superior senses. He was undetectable until he discorporated."
"According to Illyria, the only thing that she knows that can nullify the power of the universal psionic field is a Mutari generator." Jim watched Spike's eyes widen at his words and his hands started flying over his comm panel, pulling up screens and opening a channel. His eyes narrowed. "You know something."
"Might. Have to check with the head boy." Spike tapped his fingers on the plasteel of his desk while he waited for whoever was on the other end of the connection to pick up.
"You're saying Pike knows something about this?" Jim's voice was incredulous. "Why hasn't he said anything to me? He knows we've been searching for McGivers and the Botany Bay."
"Yeah, but he didn't know someone had something like a Mutari generator. Maybe the Mutari generator." Spike muttered unflattering words at the comm panel that kept repeating a busy signal at him.
Bones tapped Jim on the shoulder, startling him. He looked over at Bones to see him holding up a PADD, a worried frown made a deep wrinkle between the black bar of his eyebrows. "Jim, read this. It's Jo's latest letter. Can you make head or tales of it?"
Jim read it quickly, slowing only to study the arcane symbols Jo had painstakingly drawn from memory. It wasn't anything he recognized. He shook his head at Bones. "Show them to Uhura. It looks like a dialect of Sanskrit, but I can't be sure."
When Bones handed her the PADD with a brief explanation, Uhura bent silently over the device. She read quickly, her attention only briefly lingering on the transcribed symbols.
"It is Primordial Sanskrit, the language of the Old Ones. An invocation to Falgoreth. He, too, was trapped in the Deeper Well." She sniffed. "He was a weakling; I took his land and forced him into the fringes along with the other muck-dwellers. If someone is attempting his resurrection, they are desperate."
Spike started swearing at the person speaking at him from the viewscreen on his console, drawing Jim's attention back to him.
"Bloody hell, Chalmers! This is important. Do you wankers even realize that the Mutari generator has probably gone walkabout with a psycho-slayer? Let me speak with the Wizard of Oz, now!" Spike flashed fangs at the screen momentarily.
Jim heard the person at the other end of the connection sigh in exasperation. "Admiral Pike is in a meeting. I will pass on your concerns when he gets out. I'm sure that none of our Slayers would misuse something that powerful. No one knows the whereabouts of that useless artifact anyway."
"Fine. You do that, you whey-faced bint. At least your great-granny Lydia had some respect for my brilliance. I've had academic papers written about my tactical genius, which is more than anyone will ever say about you." Spike stabbed viciously at the comm panel, severing the connection.
Uhura turned to Bones, still holding the PADD in one hand. "Your daughter, she dreams of things that have happened and things to come?" Her phrasing was stilted, reminding everyone that they weren't really dealing with Uhura right now, but the Old One, Illyria.
Bones nodded. "Past things we're relatively sure of, future is a little uncertain. Why? Do you recognize something in this letter?"
"It has some familiarity, but only in the broadest sense. Despite the fact that she recounts how I engineered my ascension, this is not my sarcophagus that your daughter describes, it is Falgoreth's. If she were not dreaming true, I would expect her to have written gibberish. We must find this artifact before it happens to someone else." Jim heard the plastic of the PADD creak under Uhura's grip. He reached out, laying his hand over the one holding the protesting device.
"We'll stop it, Uhura. Promise." Jim turned to Spike. "So spill. What do you and Pike have hidden up your sleeve that you're not telling me?"
Spike gave him a sour look. "It's need to know, Sprout."
"I think my need is pretty damn obvious and, as a starship captain, I have full clearance for virtually everything, much less as a member of Section 31. We've got a slayer at risk and maybe more than that if another Old One ascends with full power." Jim stared him down.
Spike sighed, but gave in to the pressure. "Fair point, but you're not going to like what you hear. Remember the Tarsus mission?"
"Not something I'm going to forget anymore than my own birthday, Spike." Jim gestured for Spike to continue.
"It wasn't just the Scourge getting all genocidal again. There were rumors that the leader of the Scourge, Kodos, had the Mutari generator then, too. That's why your mum was sent out; not to try to take out Kodos and the Scourge, but to verify its whereabouts. Unfortunately, they discovered your mum and everything went pear-shaped before we could get reinforcements out to help her."
Jim let the words wash over him, along with the shortness of breath he was left with whenever he thought of his mother's death. "So, was it there? Did you recover the Mutari generator?" She had died needlessly, then. If they'd just sent a full complement of slayers out from the beginning, she would have been safe. Why hadn't he told her that, why hadn't he seen what needed to be done?
Spike shook his head. "Wasn't there. We tore the whole colony apart after we evacuated the survivors."
"What else? What about the ship they came in on?" Jim pushed for answers, certain that he was grasping at straws. Of course he was, it wasn't like he could retroactively save his mother by finding the answer now.
"There wasn't one." Spike gave a helpless shrug. "Whoever dropped them off, abandoned them to our mercies once we came in to clean house."
"So the Mutari generator could still be out there, with more of the Scourge?"
"Seems so, if they've figured out a way to make more generators, or something like them that can nullify their own psionic field." Spike confirmed Jim's speculation.
"Damn, this just keeps getting more and more complicated. We've got a Scourge ship, the Botany Bay and a missing Slayer, and we're not sure if they're all related or not." Jim stood up to start walking the perimeter of the room. After one quick circuit around the room, he stopped and turned towards Spike. "Do we know what the Scourge planned to do with the Mutari generator on Tarsus? Did they have an Old One's sarcophagus?"
Spike shook his head. "Goes to figure they wanted it to try and raise another Old One. But if they'd had a sarcophagus, they would have just raised it and gone about conquering."
"Right. So where's the closest source of sarcophagi?" He gave Spike a 'come on' gesture.
Spike offered the obvious answer. "The Botany Bay."
Jim resumed his peregrinations while he thought things through. "Logically, then, we have to presume that they haven't found it yet or else we'd have a fully ascended Old One running rampant through the galaxy."
Spike listened carefully to Jim's conclusion, adding the next piece of the puzzle. "And we have a psycho-Slayer looking for the Botany Bay. Dunno which is worse: the Scourge resurrecting an Old One with the siphoned off psionic field from Illyria or a resurrected Old One in the body of a Slayer."
"The Mutari generator is useless to them." Uhura finally spoke up. "The sarcophagi hold only the essence of the Old One; it would need a shell such as mine to resurrect in."
"Could an Old One resurrect in the body of one of the Scourge?" Jim asked.
Uhura shook her head. "No, a shell can only contain one demonic essence. If an Old One entered a demon, that demon would fight being ejected from his own body."
Spike snapped his fingers excitedly. "Wait. The massacre on Tarsus is starting to make much more sense now. What if they were planning on bringing the Botany Bay to Tarsus? The Scourge could have killed everyone if they wanted. They must have been culling the population for the strongest and brightest humans. What's it to say they were going to use them as shells for all the sarcophagi on the Botany Bay?"
The thought was appalling. Jim laid out the obvious conclusion. "So we have to make sure we find the Botany Bay before either the Scourge or McGivers. Uhura, I need you and Spike to trace that anomaly as best you can. Doctor McCoy and I are going to be gone for a conference with Admiral Pike. You have two hours." Jim grabbed Bones' right arm and Uhura's left arm.
"Jim, what the blazes are you talking about? Pike's in a meeting and besides, we're here on Deep Space Six and he's back at Starfleet HQ." Bones objected to Jim's grip on his arm with a shake of his wrist.
Jim ignored Bones' question, looking to Uhura instead. "Uhura, may I borrow some of your power? It's imperative."
"If you must. I will not object, unless it means I am unable to maintain the integrity of my shell." Uhura's narrow-eyed stare should have been intimidating, but Jim just nodded his thanks.
"You'll be safe, I promise. C'mon, Bones. Buckle up!" With that warning, Jim homed in on the Coven's beacon signature in Sausalito and pulled on his and Illyria's combined psionic power. A brief flash of disorientation swam over him. When he was steady he looked around him and took in the antechamber of Admiral Pike's office with Yeoman Chalmers gaping at him from behind her desk.
"We're here to see Admiral Pike, Yeoman Chalmers; please inform him it's an emergency." A retching sound to his left made him look down to where Bones was crouched on his knees, coughing up the remains of his breakfast on the carpet.
"Ah, sorry about that, Bones. Teleportation can be a little hard on the inner ear." Jim's apology was met by the middle finger of Bones' free hand. He might have felt a little bad about it, except he was still a little pissed at Bones' lack of trust in him.
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2264.48
Dear Dad and Uncle Jim,
I had a freaky dream last night. There was a stone coffin--I think the Egyptian word for them is sarcophagus?--covered in arcane symbols with jewels set into it. It was pretty dull-looking, other than the gems, but I couldn't take my eyes off it in the dream. And while I was looking at it and touching it, I could see that my arm was covered in a red Starfleet uniform. It didn't make a lot of sense to me; I'm not in Starfleet yet, ya know? I'm not sure I was even dreaming about myself. Anyway, I was dreaming that I was trying to read the symbols on the coffin when it let out a puff of gas right as I leaned down for a closer look. The gas was choking me and I thought I was going to pass out when I woke up. I found my mouth full of pillow where I must have pulled it over my face and it was my own damn fool self trying to smother me! All my dreams end in death, Daddy. I'm so tired.
Anyway, I couldn't sleep so I got up and drew a couple of the symbols that I remembered before I went back to bed. I dunno why, they just looked like they should say something; some of the symbols repeat. Maybe they're something I saw somewhere else and they showed up in my dream where it thought they would fit. So, now I've got a mystery and it makes me wonder if they really do say something? I don't think they're hieroglyphics. Maybe you could show them to Uncle Jim or Lt. Uhura, they know lots of languages. Thanks!
Love,
Jo
Part 4
Author: sail_aweigh
Artist: votaku
Mixer: vengefuldemon69
Betas: thistlerose, lindmere
Series: AOS
Characters/Pairings: Kirk/McCoy, Uhura/Spock, Spike/Surprise Guest, Khan, Marla McGivers, Joanna McCoy
Warnings: beheadings and gore, swearing, minor character death
Rating: R for violence and language
Word Count: ~39,000
Summary: STXI/Buffy the Vampire Slayer/Angel the Series fusion. Jim has kept one part of his life a complete secret from his best friend Bones, but now it appears the bizarre occurrences happening to Joanna McCoy may force him to reveal things to Bones that will either sunder their friendship forever or bring them closer together than either had ever expected. Can Bones trust Jim with Joanna's life, when he's been lied to by his best friend about his very nature?
"Darlin', you didn't. I don't know what it was that killed your mother, this Scourge or whateveryoucallit, but you did not kill your mother." Bones pressed his lips to the curve of Jim's jaw, just below the ear and left them there as he whispered his reassurances into Jim's ear. "No more than Jo would have killed me if I die out here in space. Children aren't responsible for their parent's choices. I'm sorry she didn't listen to you, but it was her decision, not yours." He went quiet for a minute, to give Jim time to think that over before he spoke again.
"Do you blame me for my father's death? For I surely administered the hypospray that killed him; you've known that about me since our second year at Starfleet." Jim was struck dumb for a moment before he managed to wiggle around so he could look Bones in they eyes.
"Never. What you did was the humane thing, done out of love. I could never believe ill of you." Jim pulled Bones close with both arms, his chin resting over one shoulder and his face tucked in tight to Bones' neck.
Caught in their own little world of two, both men gave a start and turned back to the viewscreen when Spike interrupted. "You lot sure go on about the most namby-pamby drivel. I had to stake my own mother, I'll have you know. Don't see me crying in my bitters."
"Oh, great. You don't just kill slayers, you killed your own mother, too?" Bones face wrinkled up in disgusst.
Spike fiddled with his pack of cigarettes, sliding one out, but not lighting it, just turning it end over end between his fingers while he stared at it. "She had consumption; was killin' her anyway. So I turned her. Turned out her demon didn't have much use for me and when she came after me with a piece of wood aimed at my heart, it was her or me. Like me mum said, even as a vampire I was too tender; although in the end, not too tender to do her demon right."
Bones looked at him consideringly, turning the revelation over in his head. He watched as Spike finally stuck the cigarette in his mouth and lit up. "Those things will kill you."
"Already dead, mate. Think I can suffer the slings and arrows." Spike smirked as he leaned back in his chair, smoke trailing lazily out of one corner of his mouth.
"Yeah, well, maybe the people around you shouldn't have to suffer them, either. Do you know what second-hand smoke can do to virgin lung tissue?" Jim could see Bones getting a head of steam built up again. This was something Bones could sink his teeth into, metaphorically speaking. Jim smothered his snicker behind the back of one hand. Bones could be one of the most compassionate men with other people's hurts, psychic or physical, but he could turn that compassion into a crusade when he felt other people were being harmed.
Spike flicked ash onto the floor in disdain. "Do you see any virgin lung tissue in this room? I don't do virgins...any more."
Jim laughed. "I told you, Bones; his bark is worse than his bite."
"Bite your tongue, O neg; I'm the Big Bad and you know it." Spike stuck his lower lip out at Jim, making the cigarette in his mouth dangle at a precarious angle.
Bones looked at Jim with raised eyebrows. "Are you sure we need his help? And, are we sure you two aren't related?"
"Unfortunately, yes on the first; impossible on the second. Spike is a wealth of demon lore and he speaks nearly as many demon languages as Uhura." Jim pulled his chair back in front of the viewscreen and took his seat again, gesturing at the other chair for Bones to do the same.
"Plus Latin and Greek. I had a proper Classical education, mind you. Never did cotton on to Sumerian, though; that was the Bit's specialty." Spike confided.
Bones looked a little lost. "The Bit?"
"My great-times-eight-grandmother, Dawn Summers." Jim clarified for him. "She had a real knack for languages, went to Oxford for a while and studied anthropology. I like to think it's where I get my facility for xenolinguistics."
Spike perked up at that. "Just means you've got a talented..."
"Tongue," finished Bones. He shook his head, a small chuckle escaping from him. "No wonder your lines never worked on Uhura; you weren't even using your own material."
Jim rubbed his hand over the back of his neck, feeling the heat and knowing it was showing in his face, too. "Yeah, well, they seem to have worked for Spike for over 300 years. And nothing would work on Uhura; Illyria would never settle for what she considers worm food." He shrugged, dropping the hand to rest on his knee. Leaning forward in his seat, he let his face take on a more sober cast.
"Okay, all kidding aside, we need to take a very close look at Jo's letters. Is there any hint of prophecy in any of them since she started talking about her dreams?" Jim and Spike started looking them over very carefully, cataloging the various scenarios with memories and bits of Slayer history they were familiar with while Bones listened carefully to the discussion, trying to learn a little bit more about his daughter's abilities. After barely five minutes of comparing notes, the two determined that every one of Jo's dreams were either set in the past or the immediate present.
Jim let out a frustrated sound. "We really need to find McGivers; I haven't been able to convince Pike to send out a Watcher to start training Jo. Maybe with some guidance, she could hone the ability."
The sound of Spike's front chair legs hitting the deck plating drew Jim and Bones' attention from their continued perusal of the letters. "That wanker. What's he waiting for? A bloody invitation from the Order of Taraka to her public execution?"
Bones sat up and leaned into the viewscreen. "What's the Order of Taraka?"
Spike waffled a hand wave at him. "Freelance mercenaries for the demon set, but ultimately irrelevant. It could be any sort of nasty out there, gunning for an unescorted Slayer, especially a baby slayer who isn't in the network yet."
"Lorne's there." Jim offered.
"Pffft. Lorne. His best parlor trick is breaking glass with his voice," Spike scoffed.
"Jim, is my baby girl in danger?" Bones demanded, his hand squeezing Jim's knee until Jim thought it would show bruises the next morning. He placed his own hand over Bones' in reassurance.
"Probably not. She's unaware of what she is. As long as she's not out actively hunting, the demon underworld won't really be aware of her. Plus, Atlanta's not near a Hellmouth, so the demon population is undoubtedly very small and itinerant. Jo's more of a danger to herself and her friends right now, which is why it's important she get some early training before she accidentally kills a human." Jim rubbed his hand up and down Bones' arm, soothing the tense muscles he could feel there.
Bones' hand finally released his grip on Jim's knee, allowing Jim to slide his hand down and clasp their two hands together.
Jim tapped the fingers of his free hand on the arm of his chair while he thought for a moment. "Listen, here's what we'll do. We'll swing by Deep Space Six, drop off Uhura so she and Spike can backtrack McGivers' warp trail. You two see if you can triangulate the location of the Botany Bay from where her path deviates between the station and the Enterprise's route to Manwah IV. In the meantime, I'm going to send a comm to Pike telling him to send Jo out to us; we can pick her up at the station. If he won't assign her a Watcher, then we'll be her Scooby gang until we can confirm McGivers' status."
"Scooby gang?" questioned Bones.
"Crack team that accompanied Buffy on most of her missions before the Great Choosing." Jim smiled at Bones. "They--"
"Were more likely all on crack than a crack team that solved anything," Spike interrupted. "They dragged Buffy down, and then out of Heaven."
Jim sighed. "Maybe, maybe not. Didn't you once say that having family anchored Buffy in the world? Made her unbeatable, because she cared so much for them?"
"Well, yeah. Doesn't mean they still weren't a bunch of boneheaded yahoos for the most part." Spike smirked at them out of the viewscreen.
Bones poked a finger at Spike accusingly. "You hung out with them, though, right? Does that make you one of the boneheaded yahoos? And Jim thinks you can help protect my daughter? I'm having second thoughts here, Jim."
Jim let go of Bones' hand to clap his own down on the console in front of him without any real force, but with finality. "Enough brangling. We've got a plan; let's get moving. Spike, we'll see you in eight hours. I'll notify Uhura and Pike about our plans once you're off the line. Bones, go to bed; we've got a lot to do tomorrow."
Spike gave a sloppy salute to his temple with his cigarette and the viewscreen went dead. Jim was surprised he didn't try to get in another snarky comment before closing the channel, but maybe he'd had as much soul-searching as he could handle for the evening, too.
"Jim, are you sure this is the right thing to do? Wouldn't Jo be safer at home with her mother, rather than traipsing around the galaxy looking for some superdemon out to destroy humanity?" Bones looked at Jim with a worried crease between his eyebrows.
Jim stood and pulled Bones up with him by one hand. "Until she has a Watcher of her own, the best place for Jo is here with us. We have two wizards, an Old One and a Vulcan to protect Jo; she'll be safe as houses. Best of all, she'll be here with us."
"But why should Pike send her all the way out here when she could have a Watcher out there? Who's to say he just doesn't decide to finally assign her one?" Bones brought one hand up to his mouth and bit down on the thumbnail. Jim pulled the hand down, clasping it in one of his.
"That would be the optimal outcome, really, and one of the reasons I'm suggesting bringing her out here. If I can force Pike's hand in the matter, all the better. But I want her here, because she seems to be the only Slayer currently reporting any dreams that might contain prophecy. If she can help us find the Botany Bay, we can do it faster with her input. McGivers is a loose canon and we need to make sure she doesn't try to resurrect an Old One out of a misguided desire to study one. Or become an acolyte or something. Once was bad enough." Jim turned toward the conversation area, leading Bones there by the hand.
Bones balked a little and Jim glanced back to see that he still had a doubtful expression on his face. "Jocelyn isn't going to want to let her come out here. What if--"
"Bones, don't worry, Pike will get her to see reason. She won't be the first parent with objections, or the last, when their daughter is Chosen. He can be very persuasive." Jim dropped the hand he was holding and threw an arm over Bones' shoulders, steering him toward the loveseat. Maybe he could get that lick, now, before Bones actually did leave to go to bed. But first he had to find out what was really bugging his friend.
"What are you really worried about? Why are you resisting bringing Jo out here?" Jim had to give a slight tug before Bones allowed himself to be guided down onto the loveseat.
"I just don't want anything to happen to Jo, Jim. At least with her on Earth, I felt she was safe as anyone could be, in familiar surroundings with her mother and other family. Now, I worry about her atoms being dissolved for transport across vast distances and running into improbable creatures that are trying to destroy the human race. I want to protect her and I don't feel like I can here." Bones looked away from Jim and then down at his hands, refusing to meet Jim's eyes.
"Is that all it really is, Bones? The transporter? You use it just fine." Jim pushed harder for Bones to give him a good explanation for his reticence.
Bones finally exploded. "It's bullshit! It's all bullshit! Demons and magic, Hell-gods and vampires. I've been scanning the ventilation system for hallucinogens for the past three days, Jim. I can't believe this is what my little girl's life is going to be. It's just not right. I won't let this be her life. If keeping her away from you means she's safe, then that's what I'll do."
Jim felt like someone had just punched him in the chest, the pain that radiated out from his center stopped his breath momentarily. Bones still didn't trust him. It didn't seem to matter that Jim had always come through for him and the crew for the past six years, no matter what it cost him physically or emotionally. He stood up abruptly, moving toward the door to his quarters. Jim should have known better than to get involved with anyone who wasn't raised around Section 31 and just stuck with the mission; it had always worked in the past.
"It's time for you to leave, Bones. I'll see you in the morning." Jim stood by the door, watching as Bones slowly rose from the loveseat. Bones stood there with his hands planted on his hips, looking at Jim with his head cocked slightly to one side.
"You want to tell me what bug just bit you in the ass? I didn't sit down with you just now expecting to be kicked out before we had a chance to make arrangements for Jo's stay onboard." Jim shook his head at Bones.
"I'll call Pike, but not to have Jo sent out; there's no point in having her come out here if you aren't in agreement with the plan." Jim stood by the door, shifting impatiently from one foot to the other for Bones to leave.
"What? I didn't say that!" Bones placed himself in front of Jim, his eyebrows drawn down in a frown.
Jim stood his ground and braced his shoulders. "No, you just basically said you don't trust me to keep Jo safe. I bow to your greater wisdom or the natural and not-so-natural world." He bent slightly at the waist and swept an arm toward the door, hitting the button that activated it with his other hand.
"Damnit, Jim; you know I didn't mean it that way. I--"
"Goodnight, Doctor McCoy." Jim stood by the door, his rigid stance implacable to Bones' words.
Bones closed his lips tightly, nodded once and strode through the door. Jim slumped against the wall when the door closed behind him, wishing that he'd never allowed any hope into his heart. Hope hurt and he thought he'd learned that lesson well before his mother ever left for Tarsus. Scrubbing his hands down his face, he straightened and walked back over to his comm console and opened up a channel to the Academy. He still needed to talk to Chris before he could allow himself to rest.
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2264.46
Dear Dad and Uncle Jim,
I guess I should be kinda grateful to the super-strength, even if I break more things than I like. Last night, I was walking home from the ice cream parlor with Tresa (she dumped Jonathan, again, YAY!) when some creep jumped out at us from behind a dumpster. Man, did he stink; I think he'd been living in the dumpster. Anyway, this guy jumps out at us and grabs Tresa by the shoulders and he goes to bite her neck! What a perv! He's been watching too many of those antique Hammer House of Horror holovids, if you ask me. So, I punched him in the side and he flew back about fifteen feet! When he got up and came at us again, I picked up a piece of wood from a broken pallet and jammed it at him. He ran right into it! How stupid can you get? But then, just like in my dream, he disappeared in a cloud of dust.
I don't know what to think. I don't believe in ghoulies and ghosties. You've always told me there's a scientific explanation for everything. Is there some alien species that happens to when they die? That wasn't a Vulcan, was it? It didn't look like a hobgoblin. I wish you'd left some of your xenobiology books at the house, I'd like to look it up.
At least Tresa is free of that creep, Jonathan. He disappeared from school a couple of weeks ago. Right after they broke up. I didn't think he'd take it that much to heart. Very puzzling, but it still makes me happy.
Love,
Jo
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"A little help over here, Uhura?" Jim was struggling with the demon that had jumped out of a storage space on the space station they'd pulled into earlier in the day. It had latched onto Bones and now Jim had one arm around the demon's neck, pulling it backward without much success.
Uhura stood off to one side, absolutely still, her head turned to one side, legs spread shoulder width apart and one arm drawn back, waiting.
Jim grunted, lunging as far back as possible, the demon's head making its inexorable way closer to Bones' jugular.
"Uhura. Illyria!" Jim shouted again, sweat trickling down his temples at the effort he was making to hold the vampire off of Bones. "Now! Please?"
Uhura's head snapped forward at the same time as her arm, now encased in the browns and blues of Illyria's native armor, glided in past Jim's cheek as her fingers stabbed deep into the neck of the demon and ripped its spine out. The vampire crumbled in a cloud of dust around them, Bones collapsing against the wall as the super-strong arms holding him in place disintegrated, drawing in deep gasping breaths and choking on the dust-laden air.
Jim raised a hand to his cheek, bringing it back to examine the blood on the tips of his fingers. "Shit, Illyria, you need to clip those talons you call fingernails. Are those even regulation?"
Illyria sniffed. "It was a necessary modification to be able to pierce deep enough to extract his C2 vertebra. A thank-you is warranted, Captain; not that I expect a human to realize that and accord me my due deference."
When he had recovered his breath, Bones pushed past Illyria, raising one hand that trembled just slightly to turn Jim's face to the side to look at the cut closer. "It's the barest scratch, Jim. I'll run a dermal regenerator over it as soon as we get back to the Enterprise. You'll be fine until then." He pulled his tricorder forward to run it over Jim's torso, stopping when Jim held up one hand.
Jim motioned for Bones to put the instrument away. He knew he'd be fine. A quick press of his palm to the bulkhead at one side and he pulled enough energy from the mass of the space station to stop the bleeding and scab it over, but not to completely heal the cut. He caught Bones' eyes as they widened a little at the sight of the wound scabbing over right in front of him.
"Dammit, just how many more surprises have you got up your sleeve? Do you even need any of the services my Sickbay can provide, Captain?" Bones groused. He pushed his tricorder to the side of one hip, crossing his arms over his chest. His lower lip came out in a pout that Jim found quite adorable, but he crushed that feeling quickly. He'd spent the past six years sublimating those feelings; the habit was easy to pick up again and he could not afford to let that kind of thing distract him from the mission.
"Why are we lollygagging in this corridor?" Illyria interrupted the mild stare-down between Jim and Bones. "It has been many cycles since I have last seen my pet; I have an unnatural desire to reassure myself that he is still corporeal." She turned abruptly and marched down the corridor away from Jim and Bones.
"Lollygagging?" Bones mouthed at Jim, receiving a head shake and a shrug of the shoulders in return.
"So that was a vampire?" Bones asked as they followed Illyria towards the section of the space station that housed the offices set aside for the Council of Watchers.
Jim nodded curtly. "I'm a little surprised to find one here. Spike's pretty vigilant about hunting out any stragglers wherever he's stationed."
"He's an evil demon, Jim. Maybe he's letting them on the station because he has his own agenda," Bones offered acerbically, stopping Jim in his place with a hand on his arm.
"Christ, Bones, give it up. Spike has been on the side of good for over 250 years. I trusted him with my mother's life, I'd trust him with mine." Jim shook off the hand and kept going.
"Even if he's not evil, who's to say he just doesn't care enough about the people around here to really do a good job? Maybe he's not checking very thoroughly?" Bones persisted.
Jim started shaking his head before Bones stopped speaking. "You're null on psonic ability, so you wouldn't understand. All demonic creatures, and some humans with talent, are tapped into the universal psionic field. Planet-side, it's often referred to as the Gaia force. Out in space, it's more nebulous, but since it can't be measured by instruments, it's hard to describe using scientific terms. Vampires, in particular, can sense every living and unliving, creature around them. That vampire had to be shielded, somehow outside of the field, for Spike not to know he was there. We need to find out how he did it." He picked up his pace, drawing closer to Ilyria where she marched in front of them.
"Illyria, were you able to sense that vampire at all?" Jim asked once he was even with her.
Illyria's pace didn't slow, but her words held a slight unease to them. "I had not noticed him until he attacked Doctor McCoy. I should have been able to sense him. Not until he discorporated did I sense even the slightest of auras. Whatever was blocking his emanations must have discorporated with him."
Bones had caught up to them in time to overhear her comments. "Do you know of a device that could do that?"
Illyria got a far away look in her eyes. "The only thing I have seen that could drain the psionic force from a demon was called a Mutari generator. It is why I am much diminished from my original form. Wesley used one to strip much of my power from me."
"Didn't you destroy it, though?" Jim asked her. "I thought the Mutari generator was destroyed in your fight with that other Old One, Baticus?"
"It's whereabouts were unable to be ascertained after the battle." Illyria reported. She stopped abruptly, both Jim and Bones skidding to a halt a couple steps beyond her. "These are the coordinates of my pet's quarters. Announce me."
Jim rolled his eyes and pressed the comm button next to the door. "Spike, her highness, Illyria the Merciless, God-King of the Primordium is here to see you."
The door swooshed open and Spike stood there in his usual all-black ensemble with a sneer on his face. "Little Shiva, you're looking mighty spry for someone of your advanced age."
Illyria swung a fist at Spike without any warning, startling Jim; her red Starfleet uniform was subsumed by the brown and blue of her native armor as she moved. Spike ducked under the clenched fist, folding down into a leg sweep that Illyria anticipated and leapt completely over. Recovering from his crouch, Spike sprang back up and threw a punch into her midsection that barely rocked her. Both of Illyria's hands came down in an overhead sweep and knocked Spike onto the deck, her foot quickly coming down on his neck. Jim didn't even have time to pull his phaser and he wasn't sure it was necessary, much less be effective, against Illyria.
Bones hovered behind Jim's shoulder. "Do they always greet each other this way? I thought they were friends?"
Jim shrugged. "I've decided it's some form of foreplay for them. They often spar together and part of it is trying to catch the other one by surprise." He turned his attention back to the combatants.
"Do you yield, my pet?" Illyria demanded.
Spike scowled at her. "Not your pet, Blue."
"Do you yield?"
"Yeah, yeah, fine. Uncle." Spike pushed her foot off his throat and stood up once more. When he reached his feet, Illyria grabbed him around the waist and Jim thought she was going to wrestle with him some more. Instead, she laid her head on Spike's shoulder and sighed lightly. Jim watched as her form fluctuated again, this time settling on a slender brunette whose hair flowed loose over her shoulders, her pale skin holding a rosy tint, wearing a frilly blouse with a peasant skirt and beaded sandals. Jim realized this was her original human host, Winifred Burkle, whom he'd only seen pictures of in the Watcher's Diaries. The two stood there for a moment, hugging, Illyria's face crumpled in a pained frown.
"I miss them, Spike; I miss my boys. You're the last one left. The longer I am confined to this form, the more human I feel." Illyria cupped his face with one hand for a few moments before she slowly stepped back from the embrace.
"I do, too, luv. But we find new friends, good people to care for, they make it worthwhile." Spike clasped her hand before she could fully withdraw it and brought it to his mouth, placing a brief kiss on the back of her hand. When he let go of her hand, she had changed back to the mocha skin, high-crowned ponytail and red knit of Uhura's Starfleet uniform.
Her face hadn't resumed the arrogant cast of Illyria, but remained immobile and emotionless. "I have chosen a Vulcan for a mate this time. He is much more logical than these humans. I find it soothing. Fewer of those turbulent human emotions to disturb me."
Spike tipped his head in consideration. "Don't sell yourself short, Blue. Human emotion can bring as much joy as it does pain. You just have to trust in it."
Jim looked away, a knot in his chest twinging at Spike's words. He wanted to shout down Spike's words, to declare that trust was the death of love because you couldn't trust anybody, at least not with your heart. He resisted looking at Bones to see if he was reacting to Spike's words in any way. Instead, he interrupted to remind the others what they had come to discover.
"If the class reunion is over, we need to get to work. Let's sit." Jim grabbed a third chair when he saw there were only two in front of Spike's desk. By the time he had done that, everyone else was seated. Jim placed his chair to one side of Uhura where she sat upright so stiffly her shoulders didn't touch the back of the chair. Spike was sprawled in his seat behind the desk that held the comm console, beeping sounds indicating that it had just come online.
"Okay, we originally came because we need to track down McGivers' location. Uhura has isolated that odd signal we came across a few days ago and with Spike's records of McGiver's movements up until that time; we may be able to locate the Botany Bay." Jim leaned forward with his elbows on his knees, looking at Spike intently. "However, something happened this morning that puzzled me and we need to figure out if it's related to our current mission or if it's something else."
"What kind of something? More strange signals? We'll just add it to our current data set." Spike shrugged negligently, seemingly unconcerned with the new information coming his way.
"Something disturbing, very disturbing; we dusted a vampire on the way from the transporter room." Jim watched Spike carefully for his reaction to those words. He didn't think Spike had grown careless with his patrolling of the space station, but he wanted to be thorough. The stakes were getting higher the deeper into this puzzle they were being drawn. He wasn't disappointed in Spike's reaction.
"That's impossible." Spike sat up, his indignation evident in his face. "I'd sense any stray coming onboard. I even caught those M'fashnik demons that infiltrated the storage compartments off the aft docking bay two weeks ago. I admit, there were more of them nested up in there than I originally accounted for, but they're demons. We're sly buggers."
If it was possible, Uhura's posture stiffened even further. "Even I had no awareness of the piece of muck with my superior senses. He was undetectable until he discorporated."
"According to Illyria, the only thing that she knows that can nullify the power of the universal psionic field is a Mutari generator." Jim watched Spike's eyes widen at his words and his hands started flying over his comm panel, pulling up screens and opening a channel. His eyes narrowed. "You know something."
"Might. Have to check with the head boy." Spike tapped his fingers on the plasteel of his desk while he waited for whoever was on the other end of the connection to pick up.
"You're saying Pike knows something about this?" Jim's voice was incredulous. "Why hasn't he said anything to me? He knows we've been searching for McGivers and the Botany Bay."
"Yeah, but he didn't know someone had something like a Mutari generator. Maybe the Mutari generator." Spike muttered unflattering words at the comm panel that kept repeating a busy signal at him.
Bones tapped Jim on the shoulder, startling him. He looked over at Bones to see him holding up a PADD, a worried frown made a deep wrinkle between the black bar of his eyebrows. "Jim, read this. It's Jo's latest letter. Can you make head or tales of it?"
Jim read it quickly, slowing only to study the arcane symbols Jo had painstakingly drawn from memory. It wasn't anything he recognized. He shook his head at Bones. "Show them to Uhura. It looks like a dialect of Sanskrit, but I can't be sure."
When Bones handed her the PADD with a brief explanation, Uhura bent silently over the device. She read quickly, her attention only briefly lingering on the transcribed symbols.
"It is Primordial Sanskrit, the language of the Old Ones. An invocation to Falgoreth. He, too, was trapped in the Deeper Well." She sniffed. "He was a weakling; I took his land and forced him into the fringes along with the other muck-dwellers. If someone is attempting his resurrection, they are desperate."
Spike started swearing at the person speaking at him from the viewscreen on his console, drawing Jim's attention back to him.
"Bloody hell, Chalmers! This is important. Do you wankers even realize that the Mutari generator has probably gone walkabout with a psycho-slayer? Let me speak with the Wizard of Oz, now!" Spike flashed fangs at the screen momentarily.
Jim heard the person at the other end of the connection sigh in exasperation. "Admiral Pike is in a meeting. I will pass on your concerns when he gets out. I'm sure that none of our Slayers would misuse something that powerful. No one knows the whereabouts of that useless artifact anyway."
"Fine. You do that, you whey-faced bint. At least your great-granny Lydia had some respect for my brilliance. I've had academic papers written about my tactical genius, which is more than anyone will ever say about you." Spike stabbed viciously at the comm panel, severing the connection.
Uhura turned to Bones, still holding the PADD in one hand. "Your daughter, she dreams of things that have happened and things to come?" Her phrasing was stilted, reminding everyone that they weren't really dealing with Uhura right now, but the Old One, Illyria.
Bones nodded. "Past things we're relatively sure of, future is a little uncertain. Why? Do you recognize something in this letter?"
"It has some familiarity, but only in the broadest sense. Despite the fact that she recounts how I engineered my ascension, this is not my sarcophagus that your daughter describes, it is Falgoreth's. If she were not dreaming true, I would expect her to have written gibberish. We must find this artifact before it happens to someone else." Jim heard the plastic of the PADD creak under Uhura's grip. He reached out, laying his hand over the one holding the protesting device.
"We'll stop it, Uhura. Promise." Jim turned to Spike. "So spill. What do you and Pike have hidden up your sleeve that you're not telling me?"
Spike gave him a sour look. "It's need to know, Sprout."
"I think my need is pretty damn obvious and, as a starship captain, I have full clearance for virtually everything, much less as a member of Section 31. We've got a slayer at risk and maybe more than that if another Old One ascends with full power." Jim stared him down.
Spike sighed, but gave in to the pressure. "Fair point, but you're not going to like what you hear. Remember the Tarsus mission?"
"Not something I'm going to forget anymore than my own birthday, Spike." Jim gestured for Spike to continue.
"It wasn't just the Scourge getting all genocidal again. There were rumors that the leader of the Scourge, Kodos, had the Mutari generator then, too. That's why your mum was sent out; not to try to take out Kodos and the Scourge, but to verify its whereabouts. Unfortunately, they discovered your mum and everything went pear-shaped before we could get reinforcements out to help her."
Jim let the words wash over him, along with the shortness of breath he was left with whenever he thought of his mother's death. "So, was it there? Did you recover the Mutari generator?" She had died needlessly, then. If they'd just sent a full complement of slayers out from the beginning, she would have been safe. Why hadn't he told her that, why hadn't he seen what needed to be done?
Spike shook his head. "Wasn't there. We tore the whole colony apart after we evacuated the survivors."
"What else? What about the ship they came in on?" Jim pushed for answers, certain that he was grasping at straws. Of course he was, it wasn't like he could retroactively save his mother by finding the answer now.
"There wasn't one." Spike gave a helpless shrug. "Whoever dropped them off, abandoned them to our mercies once we came in to clean house."
"So the Mutari generator could still be out there, with more of the Scourge?"
"Seems so, if they've figured out a way to make more generators, or something like them that can nullify their own psionic field." Spike confirmed Jim's speculation.
"Damn, this just keeps getting more and more complicated. We've got a Scourge ship, the Botany Bay and a missing Slayer, and we're not sure if they're all related or not." Jim stood up to start walking the perimeter of the room. After one quick circuit around the room, he stopped and turned towards Spike. "Do we know what the Scourge planned to do with the Mutari generator on Tarsus? Did they have an Old One's sarcophagus?"
Spike shook his head. "Goes to figure they wanted it to try and raise another Old One. But if they'd had a sarcophagus, they would have just raised it and gone about conquering."
"Right. So where's the closest source of sarcophagi?" He gave Spike a 'come on' gesture.
Spike offered the obvious answer. "The Botany Bay."
Jim resumed his peregrinations while he thought things through. "Logically, then, we have to presume that they haven't found it yet or else we'd have a fully ascended Old One running rampant through the galaxy."
Spike listened carefully to Jim's conclusion, adding the next piece of the puzzle. "And we have a psycho-Slayer looking for the Botany Bay. Dunno which is worse: the Scourge resurrecting an Old One with the siphoned off psionic field from Illyria or a resurrected Old One in the body of a Slayer."
"The Mutari generator is useless to them." Uhura finally spoke up. "The sarcophagi hold only the essence of the Old One; it would need a shell such as mine to resurrect in."
"Could an Old One resurrect in the body of one of the Scourge?" Jim asked.
Uhura shook her head. "No, a shell can only contain one demonic essence. If an Old One entered a demon, that demon would fight being ejected from his own body."
Spike snapped his fingers excitedly. "Wait. The massacre on Tarsus is starting to make much more sense now. What if they were planning on bringing the Botany Bay to Tarsus? The Scourge could have killed everyone if they wanted. They must have been culling the population for the strongest and brightest humans. What's it to say they were going to use them as shells for all the sarcophagi on the Botany Bay?"
The thought was appalling. Jim laid out the obvious conclusion. "So we have to make sure we find the Botany Bay before either the Scourge or McGivers. Uhura, I need you and Spike to trace that anomaly as best you can. Doctor McCoy and I are going to be gone for a conference with Admiral Pike. You have two hours." Jim grabbed Bones' right arm and Uhura's left arm.
"Jim, what the blazes are you talking about? Pike's in a meeting and besides, we're here on Deep Space Six and he's back at Starfleet HQ." Bones objected to Jim's grip on his arm with a shake of his wrist.
Jim ignored Bones' question, looking to Uhura instead. "Uhura, may I borrow some of your power? It's imperative."
"If you must. I will not object, unless it means I am unable to maintain the integrity of my shell." Uhura's narrow-eyed stare should have been intimidating, but Jim just nodded his thanks.
"You'll be safe, I promise. C'mon, Bones. Buckle up!" With that warning, Jim homed in on the Coven's beacon signature in Sausalito and pulled on his and Illyria's combined psionic power. A brief flash of disorientation swam over him. When he was steady he looked around him and took in the antechamber of Admiral Pike's office with Yeoman Chalmers gaping at him from behind her desk.
"We're here to see Admiral Pike, Yeoman Chalmers; please inform him it's an emergency." A retching sound to his left made him look down to where Bones was crouched on his knees, coughing up the remains of his breakfast on the carpet.
"Ah, sorry about that, Bones. Teleportation can be a little hard on the inner ear." Jim's apology was met by the middle finger of Bones' free hand. He might have felt a little bad about it, except he was still a little pissed at Bones' lack of trust in him.
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2264.48
Dear Dad and Uncle Jim,
I had a freaky dream last night. There was a stone coffin--I think the Egyptian word for them is sarcophagus?--covered in arcane symbols with jewels set into it. It was pretty dull-looking, other than the gems, but I couldn't take my eyes off it in the dream. And while I was looking at it and touching it, I could see that my arm was covered in a red Starfleet uniform. It didn't make a lot of sense to me; I'm not in Starfleet yet, ya know? I'm not sure I was even dreaming about myself. Anyway, I was dreaming that I was trying to read the symbols on the coffin when it let out a puff of gas right as I leaned down for a closer look. The gas was choking me and I thought I was going to pass out when I woke up. I found my mouth full of pillow where I must have pulled it over my face and it was my own damn fool self trying to smother me! All my dreams end in death, Daddy. I'm so tired.
Anyway, I couldn't sleep so I got up and drew a couple of the symbols that I remembered before I went back to bed. I dunno why, they just looked like they should say something; some of the symbols repeat. Maybe they're something I saw somewhere else and they showed up in my dream where it thought they would fit. So, now I've got a mystery and it makes me wonder if they really do say something? I don't think they're hieroglyphics. Maybe you could show them to Uncle Jim or Lt. Uhura, they know lots of languages. Thanks!
Love,
Jo
Part 4