Don Sample
2007-01-27 05:11:48 UTC
(Back with a new installment after much too long. Previous parts can be
found at: <http://homepage.mac.com/dsample/Fics/AreYouReady/>)
Part XX
Cassie started her mornings at WCI with a run. One lap around the
grounds was about a mile. She wasn't alone: some of the other Slayers
liked to start their days that way too, but she was more likely to see
some of the Watchers out running. Slayers didn't really need to exercise
to stay in shape, but Watchers did. When most of the Slayers went for a
run, it was to burn off some excess energy; for Cassie it was almost a
form of meditation. Running gave her a chance to think about what was
going on in her life. To remember her mother, and her friends in
Colorado. To think about what she was going to do next, or to just
submerge herself in the run, and not think about anything.
She was on her second lap when she caught up with Jack and Andrew. Jack
had made whipping Andrew into shape one of his personal missions. She
slowed down to run with them for a bit. "Good morning, guys!"
Jack was looking relaxed, running at a slower pace than she knew he
preferred, out of deference to Andrew. "'Morning, Cassie. Lovely day,
isn't it?"
It was actually starting to heat up into what the weatherman was
predicting to a scorcher of a day. Andrew was already struggling:
sweating, and gasping for breath. "Why do I have to do this?" he whined.
"I'm never going to be able to outrun a Slayer, or a vampire. Why should
I even bother trying?"
"You don't have to outrun a vampire," said Cassie. "You just have to be
able to outrun the *other* people who are trying to outrun a vampire."
"And you're always going to be slower than the Slayers," added Jack,
"but that's no excuse to slow them down any more than you have to. Come
on, pick it up! Finish this lap, and then we'll see how you do on the
obstacle course."
"I'll see you guys later," said Cassie, and she accelerated into a
sprint, leaving Jack and the gasping Andrew in her dust.
About half of the WCI campus was wooded, and hidden away among the
trees, far from the prying eyes of outsiders, was their obstacle course.
Even the Slayers who didn't like to run liked to come out here for
exercise, or just to play. It was like a giant jungle-gym, laid out for
people with super strength and speed, full of climbing walls, monkey
bars, rope bridges, balance beams, and other things to challenge a
Slayer's abilities. They'd race each other through it, trying to find
more inventive ways to navigate the obstacles.
Some of the obstacles required crawling through dirt and sand. After
Cassie had run through it a couple of times, her sweating skin, and her
running clothes were covered with grime, so her next stop in her morning
routine was the showers by the pool. A quick turn under a shower while
still wearing her running outfit washed the worst of the dirt away from
her and her clothes; then a quick change into her bathing suit, for a
dip in the pool. She dove in, and swam two lengths under water, before
surfacing to take a breath of air. She swam a couple more lengths more
leisurely on the surface to finish cooling down, letting her heartbeat
slow, and her breathing return to normal. After her swim, she returned
to the showers to rinse away the salty water, and wash her hair. She
left the locker room ready for the day's classes in magic, demonology,
or ancient languages: whatever was on the schedule for today.
---
Sparring with other Slayers was nothing like sparring with Jack, or Sam.
Cassie had always had to be careful when working out with them, adapting
herself to work against people with merely human reflexes. She could let
herself go when working with other Slayers, hardly holding back at all.
She still had to hold herself back a bit, since even other Slayers were
mortal, but she was still freer to let her full abilities show through.
She was still surprised by how much of an advantage the training she'd
gotten from Sam and Jack gave her over the other Slayers. All Slayers
had a gift for fighting, and the sparring helped to train it, but the
formal lessons helped even more. Learning the proper forms, and
techniques made them even more effective in combat. Cassie found that
she was among the best in her classes, on a par with Vi and Rona, and
the other Sunnydale survivors, though Faith could still whip her ass
most of the time, when she was in town.
The one discipline in which she rose head and shoulders above the others
was the quarterstaff. Teal'c's training had made her a master at
fighting with it. According to Teal'c, her technique was now on a par
with Master Bra'tac's, and she excelled him in both strength and speed,
though he had also warned her that sometimes experience counted even
more than strength and skill. If she ever had the opportunity to
actually test herself against Bra'tac, the wily old man might surprise
her. He had forgotten more tricks than most other Jaffa had ever learned.
---
Cassie sat in the dark, and looked at the Powerpoint slide projected on
the screen at the front of the room. It showed a picture of a
spider-like creature beside person, to give a sense of scale. The
spider's body was about two feet across. Its clawed legs had a span of
over six feet.
"This is a Grimslaw demon," said Andrew. "They are not native to this
dimension. If you encounter one of these, it usually means that someone
has summoned it." He clicked the button on his remote, and the picture
changed, showing the demon attacking the person. A jaw full of teeth
extended from the centre of the demon's body toward the human's chest.
Andrew waved the beam from a laser pointer over it. "It has an
extendable jaw, just like an Alien's, and its favourite food is human
hearts. It just plunges that jaw into your chest, and rips your heart
out, if you let it."
Andrew clicked to the next slide. "The other main weapon in its arsenal
is its webbing. It can shoot strands of sticky, black, web several
yards, just like Spiderman, but it doesn't have anything like his
ability to make things with it. It mostly uses its webbing to tangle up
its prey."
Andrew's demon lectures were always like this: full of references to SF
movies, and comic books. It seemed that there wasn't a demon in
existence that Andrew couldn't find some sort of parallel to in fantasy
fiction, though for some his descriptions he told how the real creatures
differed from their fictional counterparts. He's spent over an hour in
one lecture explaining how real vampires were nothing like the creatures
described by Anne Rice, Laurell K. Hamilton, or even Bram Stoker, even
though Stoker's /Dracula/ was based on a real vampire.
"Luckily, the Grimslaw is easily killed," Andrew continued. "There is no
need for any special weaponry." He clicked ahead to the next slide,
showing a long list of weapons beside the demon. "Knives, swords, axes
and stakes all work well, though you will probably want to use something
that lets you kill it without coming within reach of its claws. They can
give you a very nasty gash if you let it get that close to you." He
clicked to the next slide. "This slide shows where the Grimslaw demon is
vulnerable. The areas highlighted in red are the preferred targets,
where it is most vulnerable. Its back is covered in a hard carapace,
that can deflect most weapons, so it is easier to stab through its
softer underbelly. Of course, going for the belly exposes you to attack
from its mouth and claws. If you have a choice, and a good, strong,
sharp, weapon, it is preferable to stab it in the back. If all you've
got is a stake, you will have to go for the belly."
Andrew clicked on to the next slide. "This is a Zirkilack demon. It has
extendable claws, rather like Wolverine's, but its are bone, not
adamantium..."
---
Cassie's roommate was named Donna, and she was from Drumheller, Alberta.
Someone had thought that it was a good idea to put the two 'Canadians'
together. Cassie had managed to bluff her way through using a mixture
of the truth (She had been living in Colorado since she was twelve)
combined with her faked Torontonian background. The only bit of Toronto
that Donna had seen was its airport, where she had switched planes when
she had flown down here.
On the morning of July 1st, Donna had declared that they needed to
celebrate Canada Day with a road trip.
"Where to?" asked Cassie. "Windsor, or Niagara?" Windsor was closer, but
Cassie figured that Niagara Falls was a nicer destination. Both were
within range for a day trip by car, going in opposite directions around
Lake Erie.
"I was thinking more along the lines of Columbus," said Donna.
"Columbus?" asked Cassie. "As in Columbus, Ohio?"
"Any other Columbuses around here?"
"Why go to Columbus for Canada Day?"
"Because there are Tims in Columbus!"
"Tim who?" asked Cassie.
Donna looked at her in disbelief. "Tim Horton's!"
"Who?" asked Cassie, though she had some dim recollection of having
heard the name before.
"And you call yourself a Canadian!" said Donna. "Tim Horton's! The
world's finest coffee and doughnuts!"
"Oh!" said Cassie. Now she remembered. She and her mother had eaten at a
Tim Horton's a few times, during some of her Toronto visits. She
remembered them being okay, especially when compared to other fast food
type places, but really not deserving of the sort of adulation that
Donna seemed to be showing.
"Of course, it's an American franchise in Columbus, so they might not be
holding up the proper standard," said Donna. "But I figure we'll give
them a shot. If it doesn't work out, we'll just have to get Jack to fly
us across the lake."
Jack had joined a local flying club, and he had become quite popular
with the Slayers. He rarely went flying alone, there was always someone
who wanted to go with him, and he was always happy to give some
unofficial flying lessons. Some of the Slayers had even signed up for
lessons with the club's official instructors.
"Have you signed out a car for us?" asked Cassie. The Council kept a
pool of vehicles available for the Slayers' use.
"They're all crap," said Donna. Cassie had to agree with her. The
Council's cars tended to 'practical' end of the spectrum. "Why don't you
ask Jack if you can borrow his ¹vette?" Jack had had his Corvette
shipped to Akron, and everyone knew that Cassie was the only Slayer he'd
let drive it.
---
They made it to Columbus in an hour and a half, blowing down Interstate
71 at nearly 90 miles an hour. Between the radar detector in Jack's car,
and Cassie's Slayer senses, she'd spotted any cops on the road, and
gotten slowed down to a legal speed, before they'd spotted her.
The Canadian flag that Donna had attached to the car was looking a
little ragged when they pulled into the parking lot of a Columbus Tim
Horton's for lunch. Cassie had to wonder what people thought of the
flag, on a car that still had its Colorado license plates.
Cassie enjoyed her lunch, though she really didn't think that it was all
that special. Donna pronounced that her meal was 'acceptable' though not
really up to the standard she expected. "Next time, I *will* get Jack to
fly us across the lake," she announced as they started the drive back to
Akron.
---
One day, in the middle of August, Andrew came into the common room with
a small box clutched in his hands, and a look of ecstasy on his face.
Cassie looked across the room at Jack, and raised an enquiring eyebrow
at him. Jack just shrugged in response.
"What have you got there, Andrew?" asked Donna.
Andrew was making a beeline for the rack of AV equipment. "A new DVD
release. Just came out."
"What is it?"
"A really cool TV show, from a couple of years ago. Only a few episodes
were ever shown before the idiot network cancelled it, but they've
released the whole season on DVD." Andrew opened his box, and popped a
disk out of its holder. He slid it into the DVD player, picked up the
remote for the fifty inch plasma screen, and turned it on. The FBI
warning showed up on the screen.
"They released /Firefly/ ages ago," said Donna.
"No, this is something else. Even better!" said Andrew, as he punched
buttons on the DVD remote, trying to rush it past more warning screens.
"Good," said Vi. "The captain in that series always gives me the creeps.
He reminds me too much of Caleb."
"This is going to be great!" said Andrew, as the /Wormhole X-Treme/ logo
splashed across the screen.
Cassie heard a groan, and a thumping noise. She looked around, and saw
Jack, banging his head against the table in front of him.
---
They hit the condemned office building with two squads at dawn. One
squad had gone down into the sewers to cut off the vampires' underground
escape routes. Vi had won the coin toss, so her squad went in at ground
level, hoping to catch the vamps that nested here unaware, just after
they had settled down to sleep the day away.
A crossbow bolt from Jack's crossbow had taken out the sentry that the
vamps had positioned in a deeply shadowed alcove outside the building,
before it could raise any alarm. Then the Slayers moved in. Vi and
Maureen took one door, while Cassie and Donna took another. Jack and
Tim hung back with their crossbows, to pick off any vamps that tried to
use the morning shadows to escape.
The southern and eastern sides of the building were bathed in sunlight,
so they came in from the north and west. Cassie tried her door and found
that its lock had been broken long ago. That was good, the less noise
they made going in, the better. They didn't want the vamps to learn that
they were there, any sooner than necessary. "We're ready," she whispered
into the microphone of her headset.
"Go!" came Vi's answer back.
The door hinges squeaked as Cassie pushed it open. Donna went through
first, with her crossbow ready. She moved quickly away from the door,
making room for Cassie to follow her.
They were at the end of a long hallway, lined with doors. Cassie went
the to first one, and pushed it open, quickly scanning the empty office,
before announcing it was clear. Donna went to the next office, while
Cassie kept watch on the hallway. They moved swiftly, taking turns
checking rooms. They only encountered a couple of locked doors, that
they broke open as quietly as possible. Vampires and homeless people had
already been through this place, searching for anything that was worth
stealing.
The building's hallways were laid out in an 'H' pattern, and Vi and
Maureen had been checking out the other leg. They met in the cross
corridor, at the centre of the building. "Find anything?" Vi asked.
"Nothing," said Donna. "This floor is clear."
"Anyone feel anything?"
"Down," said Cassie, and she saw Maureen and Donna nodding.
"So, we're going down," said Vi.
---
Jack hated waiting outside. He wanted to be in the thick of it, leading
his team against the enemy, but it wasn't his team. Now he understood
how General Hammond must feel, staying behind in Stargate Command,
watching teams go out through the gate.
He'd done what he could. He had helped to refine the Slayers' small
squad tactics, teaching them how to work together as a team. There
really hadn't been all that much to teach them, though. They had already
had a pretty good grounding in the basics. There were gaps in their
knowledge though: it was like whoever had set up their training had
learned how to do it from a book. Jack had been able add some practical
refinements, that only came from experience in the field, and to help
adapt their tactics to the weapons that Slayers used.
Jack knew that his knowledge of things military was a continuing source
of speculation among the upper echelons of the Council, but so far they
had seemed to accept his explanations for where it came from, without
asking too many questions about it. They seemed to be used to the idea
of kids having abilities beyond what most people would expect. At first
they had listened to his suggestions for how squads of Slayers could
work together with a healthy level of caution, but they had listened,
and tried out his ideas in training exercises, and when they worked
there they had adopted them into their standard procedures.
Now they sought out his advice for how to handle any new situations that
cropped up. It was very gratifying to know that they trusted both him
and his judgement that way, but it was still frustrating that when it
came to the actual fighting, he was strictly second string: left waiting
on the sidelines until the main action was over. When he heard Vi give
the order to hit the vamps in the basement, he wanted to be in there
leading the charge, not left outside watching for any vamps that might
try to escape.
---
Cassie and Donna moved silently down the west stairwell into the
basement. They paused at the fire door at the bottom, to wait for Vi's
signal from the other stairwell to continue. When it came, Donna eased
the door open as quietly as she could. That was one of the things that
Jack had taught them. Before he'd come along, they would have smashed
through the door, and come in yelling. Jack had pointed out that it
might not seem very sporting, but it was usually best to kill as many of
their adversaries as possible, before they even knew you were there.
Come in quietly; take out any sentries before they could detect you; if
possible, kill them in their beds, while they were still sleeping. Never
give the opposition a break.
The basement was dark, but there was enough light for the Slayers to
see. They moved quickly from room to room, searching for the vampires
that they could feel were there.
Cassie could feel that they were getting closer. She opened another
door, and was assaulted by the sewer smell. She thought at first that
they'd found another access to the sewers, that hadn't been shown on the
building plans that Andrew had obtained for them, but then she saw the
people chained up along the wall.
Cassie's crossbow came up, and she fired, almost before she was even
consciously aware of the vampire that was coming toward her. She was
aware of the second vampire that was dusted by a bolt from Donna's bow.
There were more vamps in the room, but they were dusted within seconds.
"Six vamps down," Donna reported over her radio. "We've found their
larder. Some of their victims are still alive, we're going to need
transport for them."
Cassie moved to the people chained to the wall. Some of them were
slumped lifelessly on the floor, but others were still alive, and
looking at her with a combination of hope and fear in their eyes. "It's
going to be okay," she told them quietly. "We're going to get you out of
here." She put her hand to the neck of one of the unmoving bodies, lying
in its own filth, to check for a pulse. She couldn't feel any, and the
body felt cold to her touch. She shook her head at Donna, and moved to
the next one, while listening to Vi and Maureen's voices on the radio
reporting the dusting of more vampires. Rona's squad had come up from
the sewers and joined in the cleanup.
It turned out that a couple of the unconscious people were still alive.
They got priority transport to the nearest hospital, after they had been
broken free from the chains binding them.
---
Jack got the /Air Force Times/ newspaper delivered to him weekly. He
liked to keep up to date on what was happening in his old service. He
was pleased when he read that General Hammond had received his third
star, but he wasn't so sure about him being transferred to the Pentagon.
He could only hope that what the paper said about his new duties,
heading a new department which was responsible for international
cooperation, was some sort of cover story for what he was *really*
doing. He wondered who would be running the SGC with George gone. Cassie
got some letters from Sam that mentioned that the project had been taken
over by a civilian, named Elizabeth Weir, but Sam couldn't go into any
details. She did seem to be cautiously approving of her.
A couple of weeks later Jack was sitting in the lounge, reading his
paper. Cassie was there, poring over some demonology books with Andrew.
A couple of other Slayers were watching TV. Jack flipped through the
paper to the section that listed promotions, to see if anyone he knew
was there. He was pleased by one name that he saw. "Hey Cassie! Did
Carter tell you she was getting promoted?"
Cassie looked up from her demonology books. "No. She did? Really?"
"Yep," said Jack. "She really did. She's now Lieutenant Colonel
Samantha Carter." Cassie came over to have a look over his shoulder at
the paper. Jack kept reading down the list. He froze at the next name
that he recognized. "No! They wouldn't! Someone's gone *insane!*"
"What is it?" asked Cassie.
Jack pointed to the name: "Brigadier General Jonathan O'Neill."
found at: <http://homepage.mac.com/dsample/Fics/AreYouReady/>)
Part XX
Cassie started her mornings at WCI with a run. One lap around the
grounds was about a mile. She wasn't alone: some of the other Slayers
liked to start their days that way too, but she was more likely to see
some of the Watchers out running. Slayers didn't really need to exercise
to stay in shape, but Watchers did. When most of the Slayers went for a
run, it was to burn off some excess energy; for Cassie it was almost a
form of meditation. Running gave her a chance to think about what was
going on in her life. To remember her mother, and her friends in
Colorado. To think about what she was going to do next, or to just
submerge herself in the run, and not think about anything.
She was on her second lap when she caught up with Jack and Andrew. Jack
had made whipping Andrew into shape one of his personal missions. She
slowed down to run with them for a bit. "Good morning, guys!"
Jack was looking relaxed, running at a slower pace than she knew he
preferred, out of deference to Andrew. "'Morning, Cassie. Lovely day,
isn't it?"
It was actually starting to heat up into what the weatherman was
predicting to a scorcher of a day. Andrew was already struggling:
sweating, and gasping for breath. "Why do I have to do this?" he whined.
"I'm never going to be able to outrun a Slayer, or a vampire. Why should
I even bother trying?"
"You don't have to outrun a vampire," said Cassie. "You just have to be
able to outrun the *other* people who are trying to outrun a vampire."
"And you're always going to be slower than the Slayers," added Jack,
"but that's no excuse to slow them down any more than you have to. Come
on, pick it up! Finish this lap, and then we'll see how you do on the
obstacle course."
"I'll see you guys later," said Cassie, and she accelerated into a
sprint, leaving Jack and the gasping Andrew in her dust.
About half of the WCI campus was wooded, and hidden away among the
trees, far from the prying eyes of outsiders, was their obstacle course.
Even the Slayers who didn't like to run liked to come out here for
exercise, or just to play. It was like a giant jungle-gym, laid out for
people with super strength and speed, full of climbing walls, monkey
bars, rope bridges, balance beams, and other things to challenge a
Slayer's abilities. They'd race each other through it, trying to find
more inventive ways to navigate the obstacles.
Some of the obstacles required crawling through dirt and sand. After
Cassie had run through it a couple of times, her sweating skin, and her
running clothes were covered with grime, so her next stop in her morning
routine was the showers by the pool. A quick turn under a shower while
still wearing her running outfit washed the worst of the dirt away from
her and her clothes; then a quick change into her bathing suit, for a
dip in the pool. She dove in, and swam two lengths under water, before
surfacing to take a breath of air. She swam a couple more lengths more
leisurely on the surface to finish cooling down, letting her heartbeat
slow, and her breathing return to normal. After her swim, she returned
to the showers to rinse away the salty water, and wash her hair. She
left the locker room ready for the day's classes in magic, demonology,
or ancient languages: whatever was on the schedule for today.
---
Sparring with other Slayers was nothing like sparring with Jack, or Sam.
Cassie had always had to be careful when working out with them, adapting
herself to work against people with merely human reflexes. She could let
herself go when working with other Slayers, hardly holding back at all.
She still had to hold herself back a bit, since even other Slayers were
mortal, but she was still freer to let her full abilities show through.
She was still surprised by how much of an advantage the training she'd
gotten from Sam and Jack gave her over the other Slayers. All Slayers
had a gift for fighting, and the sparring helped to train it, but the
formal lessons helped even more. Learning the proper forms, and
techniques made them even more effective in combat. Cassie found that
she was among the best in her classes, on a par with Vi and Rona, and
the other Sunnydale survivors, though Faith could still whip her ass
most of the time, when she was in town.
The one discipline in which she rose head and shoulders above the others
was the quarterstaff. Teal'c's training had made her a master at
fighting with it. According to Teal'c, her technique was now on a par
with Master Bra'tac's, and she excelled him in both strength and speed,
though he had also warned her that sometimes experience counted even
more than strength and skill. If she ever had the opportunity to
actually test herself against Bra'tac, the wily old man might surprise
her. He had forgotten more tricks than most other Jaffa had ever learned.
---
Cassie sat in the dark, and looked at the Powerpoint slide projected on
the screen at the front of the room. It showed a picture of a
spider-like creature beside person, to give a sense of scale. The
spider's body was about two feet across. Its clawed legs had a span of
over six feet.
"This is a Grimslaw demon," said Andrew. "They are not native to this
dimension. If you encounter one of these, it usually means that someone
has summoned it." He clicked the button on his remote, and the picture
changed, showing the demon attacking the person. A jaw full of teeth
extended from the centre of the demon's body toward the human's chest.
Andrew waved the beam from a laser pointer over it. "It has an
extendable jaw, just like an Alien's, and its favourite food is human
hearts. It just plunges that jaw into your chest, and rips your heart
out, if you let it."
Andrew clicked to the next slide. "The other main weapon in its arsenal
is its webbing. It can shoot strands of sticky, black, web several
yards, just like Spiderman, but it doesn't have anything like his
ability to make things with it. It mostly uses its webbing to tangle up
its prey."
Andrew's demon lectures were always like this: full of references to SF
movies, and comic books. It seemed that there wasn't a demon in
existence that Andrew couldn't find some sort of parallel to in fantasy
fiction, though for some his descriptions he told how the real creatures
differed from their fictional counterparts. He's spent over an hour in
one lecture explaining how real vampires were nothing like the creatures
described by Anne Rice, Laurell K. Hamilton, or even Bram Stoker, even
though Stoker's /Dracula/ was based on a real vampire.
"Luckily, the Grimslaw is easily killed," Andrew continued. "There is no
need for any special weaponry." He clicked ahead to the next slide,
showing a long list of weapons beside the demon. "Knives, swords, axes
and stakes all work well, though you will probably want to use something
that lets you kill it without coming within reach of its claws. They can
give you a very nasty gash if you let it get that close to you." He
clicked to the next slide. "This slide shows where the Grimslaw demon is
vulnerable. The areas highlighted in red are the preferred targets,
where it is most vulnerable. Its back is covered in a hard carapace,
that can deflect most weapons, so it is easier to stab through its
softer underbelly. Of course, going for the belly exposes you to attack
from its mouth and claws. If you have a choice, and a good, strong,
sharp, weapon, it is preferable to stab it in the back. If all you've
got is a stake, you will have to go for the belly."
Andrew clicked on to the next slide. "This is a Zirkilack demon. It has
extendable claws, rather like Wolverine's, but its are bone, not
adamantium..."
---
Cassie's roommate was named Donna, and she was from Drumheller, Alberta.
Someone had thought that it was a good idea to put the two 'Canadians'
together. Cassie had managed to bluff her way through using a mixture
of the truth (She had been living in Colorado since she was twelve)
combined with her faked Torontonian background. The only bit of Toronto
that Donna had seen was its airport, where she had switched planes when
she had flown down here.
On the morning of July 1st, Donna had declared that they needed to
celebrate Canada Day with a road trip.
"Where to?" asked Cassie. "Windsor, or Niagara?" Windsor was closer, but
Cassie figured that Niagara Falls was a nicer destination. Both were
within range for a day trip by car, going in opposite directions around
Lake Erie.
"I was thinking more along the lines of Columbus," said Donna.
"Columbus?" asked Cassie. "As in Columbus, Ohio?"
"Any other Columbuses around here?"
"Why go to Columbus for Canada Day?"
"Because there are Tims in Columbus!"
"Tim who?" asked Cassie.
Donna looked at her in disbelief. "Tim Horton's!"
"Who?" asked Cassie, though she had some dim recollection of having
heard the name before.
"And you call yourself a Canadian!" said Donna. "Tim Horton's! The
world's finest coffee and doughnuts!"
"Oh!" said Cassie. Now she remembered. She and her mother had eaten at a
Tim Horton's a few times, during some of her Toronto visits. She
remembered them being okay, especially when compared to other fast food
type places, but really not deserving of the sort of adulation that
Donna seemed to be showing.
"Of course, it's an American franchise in Columbus, so they might not be
holding up the proper standard," said Donna. "But I figure we'll give
them a shot. If it doesn't work out, we'll just have to get Jack to fly
us across the lake."
Jack had joined a local flying club, and he had become quite popular
with the Slayers. He rarely went flying alone, there was always someone
who wanted to go with him, and he was always happy to give some
unofficial flying lessons. Some of the Slayers had even signed up for
lessons with the club's official instructors.
"Have you signed out a car for us?" asked Cassie. The Council kept a
pool of vehicles available for the Slayers' use.
"They're all crap," said Donna. Cassie had to agree with her. The
Council's cars tended to 'practical' end of the spectrum. "Why don't you
ask Jack if you can borrow his ¹vette?" Jack had had his Corvette
shipped to Akron, and everyone knew that Cassie was the only Slayer he'd
let drive it.
---
They made it to Columbus in an hour and a half, blowing down Interstate
71 at nearly 90 miles an hour. Between the radar detector in Jack's car,
and Cassie's Slayer senses, she'd spotted any cops on the road, and
gotten slowed down to a legal speed, before they'd spotted her.
The Canadian flag that Donna had attached to the car was looking a
little ragged when they pulled into the parking lot of a Columbus Tim
Horton's for lunch. Cassie had to wonder what people thought of the
flag, on a car that still had its Colorado license plates.
Cassie enjoyed her lunch, though she really didn't think that it was all
that special. Donna pronounced that her meal was 'acceptable' though not
really up to the standard she expected. "Next time, I *will* get Jack to
fly us across the lake," she announced as they started the drive back to
Akron.
---
One day, in the middle of August, Andrew came into the common room with
a small box clutched in his hands, and a look of ecstasy on his face.
Cassie looked across the room at Jack, and raised an enquiring eyebrow
at him. Jack just shrugged in response.
"What have you got there, Andrew?" asked Donna.
Andrew was making a beeline for the rack of AV equipment. "A new DVD
release. Just came out."
"What is it?"
"A really cool TV show, from a couple of years ago. Only a few episodes
were ever shown before the idiot network cancelled it, but they've
released the whole season on DVD." Andrew opened his box, and popped a
disk out of its holder. He slid it into the DVD player, picked up the
remote for the fifty inch plasma screen, and turned it on. The FBI
warning showed up on the screen.
"They released /Firefly/ ages ago," said Donna.
"No, this is something else. Even better!" said Andrew, as he punched
buttons on the DVD remote, trying to rush it past more warning screens.
"Good," said Vi. "The captain in that series always gives me the creeps.
He reminds me too much of Caleb."
"This is going to be great!" said Andrew, as the /Wormhole X-Treme/ logo
splashed across the screen.
Cassie heard a groan, and a thumping noise. She looked around, and saw
Jack, banging his head against the table in front of him.
---
They hit the condemned office building with two squads at dawn. One
squad had gone down into the sewers to cut off the vampires' underground
escape routes. Vi had won the coin toss, so her squad went in at ground
level, hoping to catch the vamps that nested here unaware, just after
they had settled down to sleep the day away.
A crossbow bolt from Jack's crossbow had taken out the sentry that the
vamps had positioned in a deeply shadowed alcove outside the building,
before it could raise any alarm. Then the Slayers moved in. Vi and
Maureen took one door, while Cassie and Donna took another. Jack and
Tim hung back with their crossbows, to pick off any vamps that tried to
use the morning shadows to escape.
The southern and eastern sides of the building were bathed in sunlight,
so they came in from the north and west. Cassie tried her door and found
that its lock had been broken long ago. That was good, the less noise
they made going in, the better. They didn't want the vamps to learn that
they were there, any sooner than necessary. "We're ready," she whispered
into the microphone of her headset.
"Go!" came Vi's answer back.
The door hinges squeaked as Cassie pushed it open. Donna went through
first, with her crossbow ready. She moved quickly away from the door,
making room for Cassie to follow her.
They were at the end of a long hallway, lined with doors. Cassie went
the to first one, and pushed it open, quickly scanning the empty office,
before announcing it was clear. Donna went to the next office, while
Cassie kept watch on the hallway. They moved swiftly, taking turns
checking rooms. They only encountered a couple of locked doors, that
they broke open as quietly as possible. Vampires and homeless people had
already been through this place, searching for anything that was worth
stealing.
The building's hallways were laid out in an 'H' pattern, and Vi and
Maureen had been checking out the other leg. They met in the cross
corridor, at the centre of the building. "Find anything?" Vi asked.
"Nothing," said Donna. "This floor is clear."
"Anyone feel anything?"
"Down," said Cassie, and she saw Maureen and Donna nodding.
"So, we're going down," said Vi.
---
Jack hated waiting outside. He wanted to be in the thick of it, leading
his team against the enemy, but it wasn't his team. Now he understood
how General Hammond must feel, staying behind in Stargate Command,
watching teams go out through the gate.
He'd done what he could. He had helped to refine the Slayers' small
squad tactics, teaching them how to work together as a team. There
really hadn't been all that much to teach them, though. They had already
had a pretty good grounding in the basics. There were gaps in their
knowledge though: it was like whoever had set up their training had
learned how to do it from a book. Jack had been able add some practical
refinements, that only came from experience in the field, and to help
adapt their tactics to the weapons that Slayers used.
Jack knew that his knowledge of things military was a continuing source
of speculation among the upper echelons of the Council, but so far they
had seemed to accept his explanations for where it came from, without
asking too many questions about it. They seemed to be used to the idea
of kids having abilities beyond what most people would expect. At first
they had listened to his suggestions for how squads of Slayers could
work together with a healthy level of caution, but they had listened,
and tried out his ideas in training exercises, and when they worked
there they had adopted them into their standard procedures.
Now they sought out his advice for how to handle any new situations that
cropped up. It was very gratifying to know that they trusted both him
and his judgement that way, but it was still frustrating that when it
came to the actual fighting, he was strictly second string: left waiting
on the sidelines until the main action was over. When he heard Vi give
the order to hit the vamps in the basement, he wanted to be in there
leading the charge, not left outside watching for any vamps that might
try to escape.
---
Cassie and Donna moved silently down the west stairwell into the
basement. They paused at the fire door at the bottom, to wait for Vi's
signal from the other stairwell to continue. When it came, Donna eased
the door open as quietly as she could. That was one of the things that
Jack had taught them. Before he'd come along, they would have smashed
through the door, and come in yelling. Jack had pointed out that it
might not seem very sporting, but it was usually best to kill as many of
their adversaries as possible, before they even knew you were there.
Come in quietly; take out any sentries before they could detect you; if
possible, kill them in their beds, while they were still sleeping. Never
give the opposition a break.
The basement was dark, but there was enough light for the Slayers to
see. They moved quickly from room to room, searching for the vampires
that they could feel were there.
Cassie could feel that they were getting closer. She opened another
door, and was assaulted by the sewer smell. She thought at first that
they'd found another access to the sewers, that hadn't been shown on the
building plans that Andrew had obtained for them, but then she saw the
people chained up along the wall.
Cassie's crossbow came up, and she fired, almost before she was even
consciously aware of the vampire that was coming toward her. She was
aware of the second vampire that was dusted by a bolt from Donna's bow.
There were more vamps in the room, but they were dusted within seconds.
"Six vamps down," Donna reported over her radio. "We've found their
larder. Some of their victims are still alive, we're going to need
transport for them."
Cassie moved to the people chained to the wall. Some of them were
slumped lifelessly on the floor, but others were still alive, and
looking at her with a combination of hope and fear in their eyes. "It's
going to be okay," she told them quietly. "We're going to get you out of
here." She put her hand to the neck of one of the unmoving bodies, lying
in its own filth, to check for a pulse. She couldn't feel any, and the
body felt cold to her touch. She shook her head at Donna, and moved to
the next one, while listening to Vi and Maureen's voices on the radio
reporting the dusting of more vampires. Rona's squad had come up from
the sewers and joined in the cleanup.
It turned out that a couple of the unconscious people were still alive.
They got priority transport to the nearest hospital, after they had been
broken free from the chains binding them.
---
Jack got the /Air Force Times/ newspaper delivered to him weekly. He
liked to keep up to date on what was happening in his old service. He
was pleased when he read that General Hammond had received his third
star, but he wasn't so sure about him being transferred to the Pentagon.
He could only hope that what the paper said about his new duties,
heading a new department which was responsible for international
cooperation, was some sort of cover story for what he was *really*
doing. He wondered who would be running the SGC with George gone. Cassie
got some letters from Sam that mentioned that the project had been taken
over by a civilian, named Elizabeth Weir, but Sam couldn't go into any
details. She did seem to be cautiously approving of her.
A couple of weeks later Jack was sitting in the lounge, reading his
paper. Cassie was there, poring over some demonology books with Andrew.
A couple of other Slayers were watching TV. Jack flipped through the
paper to the section that listed promotions, to see if anyone he knew
was there. He was pleased by one name that he saw. "Hey Cassie! Did
Carter tell you she was getting promoted?"
Cassie looked up from her demonology books. "No. She did? Really?"
"Yep," said Jack. "She really did. She's now Lieutenant Colonel
Samantha Carter." Cassie came over to have a look over his shoulder at
the paper. Jack kept reading down the list. He froze at the next name
that he recognized. "No! They wouldn't! Someone's gone *insane!*"
"What is it?" asked Cassie.
Jack pointed to the name: "Brigadier General Jonathan O'Neill."
--
Quando omni flunkus moritati
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Visit the Buffy Body Count at <http://homepage.mac.com/dsample/>