Ace Dreamer
Verified Reality User
- Location
- Between The Unknown & The Known
What's next? The trilingual puns? 
Including Elven and Klingon?
Including Elven and Klingon?
Ship of Fools: A Taylor Varga Omake (Complete)
- Thread starter Derek M
- Start date
- Crossover
- Location
- Maryland
What's next? The trilingual puns?
Including Elven and Klingon?
That reminds me of a discussion thread from many years ago. It was about Dungeons and Dragons, and how they couldn't abide mixing it with Star Trek. My comment at the time was: "Absolutely. Imagine what D&D would be like if you had a race of pointy-eared scholars and a race of violent warriors, both of which could interbreed with humanity?"
Now I have an idea for another omake after I finish this next chapter (which is about 75% done).
Chapter 50: Bad Boys
- Location
- Maryland
Chapter 50: Bad Boys
Legend was doing paperwork. While this was far from the most exciting task required of the Head of the Protectorate, it was one of the most common. He wondered if Alexandria could appreciate the reduced bureaucracy inherent in no longer being the head of the PRT in her civilian identity. He doubted it. Rebecca had gotten a little too used to being able to direct things behind the scenes, and now she had to deal with Legend as a superior, which was technically not a new thing, and the new Chief Director, Jackson Lee. Lee had been the Director for the PRT's Indianapolis office, and had turned into a dark horse candidate for the position after it had been made clear by certain aggressively friendly powers that there were no circumstances where making Tagg the new Chief Director was acceptable. Legend would actually have preferred Piggot despite her well-known prejudices, but the woman in question shut that down the minute he brought it up. Apparently, Piggot knew quite well that whoever took over for Costa-Brown was going to have their hands full dealing with the aftermath of Scion's defeat and Cauldron's...chastisement.
The phone rang, and the hero welcomed the excuse to stop going through high-value equipment requisitions for a moment. Picking up the phone, he answered, "Hello, this is Legend."
"Legend, this is Dragon," came the familiar voice on the other line.
Legend smiled. "What can I do for you today?" Given the last time he had called her, he definitely owed the tinker a favor or two...not counting the list of favors already owed by the PRT and the Protectorate to the Canadian hero already. You could argue that Dragon's coordination is what kept every Endbringer fight from turning into a complete bloodbath.
"Unfortunately, this isn't a social call," said the tinker. "I may actually have a lead on the Slaughterhouse Nine's location."
"Really?" he said with some concern. The murder hobo team had been unusually quiet since around the time of the disappearance of the Endbringers and Scion. That didn't bode well, as it usually meant they were planning something big. Big plans by the S9 usually ended with far too many corpses.
"It's likely, though not definite," answered Dragon. "There have been a series of unexpected fires -- nothing big, and nothing that's too out of the ordinary. Car fires, brush fires, a few house fires. In each case, local fire dispatch has been able to control the blaze without too much effort."
Legend wasn't seeing the relevance. "That doesn't sound like the Nine's style, honestly. I mean, obviously Burnscar is a member, but have there been any unusual deaths or disappearances?"
"No," she answered. "That's the strange thing. The suspicious thing is that the last known target of the Nine was a small town in Iowa. The fires have all been set, and they happened in a chronological order that starts in Iowa and moves in a straight line to a specific destination. Assuming they continue along that path, they're heading toward Brockton Bay."
"Which is the center for Family activity since Leviathan. You think they're going to challenge the Family?" asked the leader of the Protectorate.
There was a pause. "It's possible...assuming it is the Slaughterhouse Nine. They could also be trying to recruit a member of the Family. What's odd is that they've been known to go under the radar before, but usually there's no sign of them until they reveal themselves. It would be highly unusual for Slash to let one of his team do something that might alert the authorities before they were ready." Dragon didn't have to say that the idea of Saurial in the Nine was horrifying. Thankfully, having the Nine coming to challenge the Family to a game of beach volleyball was more likely than Saurial joining them.
Legend frowned. "It could be that this is a new ploy. Maybe they're trying to lure us into an ambush? They could be counting on us to send out a team to look for them along the path indicated."
"That is a possibility," agreed Dragon. "It's hard to know for sure without going in and possibly triggering it. I have an idea for how we might be able to spring their trap with some surprises of our own."
"I'm listening," confirmed Legend.
"I have contacts with a very large and powerful hero team that are completely independent of the Guild and the Protectorate. They easily have a number of Triumvirate-level capes," said Dragon. "You wouldn't have heard of them because they're from an alternate Earth -- one of the ones visited by the Family."
"You want to do recon in force with this team?" asked Legend. "Isn't that a bit risky?"
In a slightly smug voice, Dragon replied, "I've actually already briefed them on the Nine, and they've even done full-scale combat simulations against them in a sophisticated virtual reality center. The first time was a bit rough, but they've done it twice more and I think they're more than ready. Also, they're already registered as Guild affiliates as the Justice League."
Legend brought up the link to the Guild database and searched for the team by that name. He did a quick scan through. "Wait, is this right? The team members include an actual Martian...and the King of Atlantis?" Legend had to wonder if this was actually an elaborate prank by the tinker. One of the leading members didn't even have powers according to this, although Dragon had speculated in the comments that he deserved a combined tinker/thinker rating.
Dragon chuckled. "Their history is in some ways surprisingly congruent with ours, but in other ways it is completely different. The Mars in our reality, for example, is every bit the lifeless rock scientists believe it to be." She and Metis had swung by at one point just to verify. "In their universe, however, it was home to several different species of alien."
"That seems a bit hard to believe," said the normally easy-going hero.
"Harder to believe than an alien coming to Earth and scattering superpowers to random humans as part of some type of giant science experiment?" she asked.
Legend considered that. "You have a point," he agreed. "Also, I doubt they're stranger than the Family...or even Mouse Protector."
Dragon didn't mention Plastic Man, seeing as the hero was still on Oa and wouldn't be coming. The idea of Plas and Mouse Protector getting together wasn't likely to be good for anybody's sanity. "I'll get in touch with them and let you know when they want to engage. I assume you want to be there?"
Legend looked back at the requisition forms on his tablet. "I wouldn't miss it for the world."
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
The dimension skipper was following the Kree ship fairly closely. That probably would have been a surprise to the Kree ship's crew as they were a) operating under stealth mode themselves, and b) completely incapable of seeing their stalker thanks to Family tech. "That," said Metis, "is a Kree Pugilist-class armed scout. It's job is to do patrol in semi-hostile or unknown areas. It's powerful enough to take advantage of unexpected opportunities, or to fight its way out if challenged. It's current mission is to do a run through near Earth to make sure nothing unusual is going on in that area of space."
"If you already know what it is and what they want, then why didn't you just tell us that before we came out here?" asked Peter with a slightly annoyed look.
Metis looked at the two costumed heroes. "If you two are going to be taking responsibility for the safety of Earth, it seemed prudent to show you what you're up against. The question now is what you want to do now that we're here?"
"Is there anything unusual about this patrol?" asked MJ shrewdly.
Metis shook her head. "Not especially. They actually do one of these approximately once every eighty-four days." The Kree calendar was broken down into five eighty-four day periods per year, hence the timing.
"So, if we do nothing, they'll just run their patrol and report back that nothing's changed?" asked Peter.
"For now, that's true. If you folks start putting up a lot of infrastructure in Earth orbit, or even elsewhere around the solar system, then that will no longer be the case," explained the lizard.
Peter and MJ looked at each other. "What kind of response could the Kree muster to a perceived threat?" asked MJ.
"I was hoping you would ask that," said Metis smugly. "Let's go take a look at the nearest Kree naval depot."
She piloted the skipper away from the scout ship, far enough away that their wormhole wouldn't be detected against the background noise. They reappeared somewhere else, then traveled for a good fifteen minutes before arriving at a planet. The planet itself was nothing spectacular. While it had an atmosphere, there was little sign of vegetation or water. What was more impressive was the orbital infrastructure around the planet. There was what appeared to be a single station that ringed half of the planet. They could easily see defensive emplacements, docking areas, repair docks, and quite a large number of warships.
"This is the Forty-Seventh Kree Navy Depot. It hosts the One-Hundred and Fifteenth Frontier Fleet, which is comprised of forty-seven warships and over a hundred support ships. The flagship of the fleet is the Kree battlecruiser Justified Rage, which is currently docked to take on resupply." Metis pointed to a rather large vessel attached the the Depot. It was hard to judge scale, but it was clearly larger than most of the surrounding ships.
The two spider-themed heroes looked slightly nervously around at the massive warships. "This is the fleet that they would send if they determined we were a threat?"
Metis considered that. "According to the information we have on Kree military doctrine, they would probably send a single cruiser, or maybe a cruiser with escorts. Earth doesn't rank very high in terms of threat. This fleet would only deploy if you did something foolish, like launch a preemptive strike on the Kree Navy, or if they thought Earth was about to be taken over by a hostile power like the Skrulls." The Kree weren't so arrogant that they couldn't see the threat Earth could pose if somebody was providing a guiding hand.
"Assuming we were able to defeat this fleet...then what would happen?" asked Arachne.
"That would jump up the threat level," replied Metis. "Depending upon how it happened, they might muster a task force joining together several Frontier fleets, or they may actually deploy a Strike fleet with actual battleships. Those are usually used in direct combat against hostile space powers with sizable navies, like the Skrulls, the Shi'ar, or the Badoon."
Both heroes were silent as they absorbed those facts. "Thank you for showing us this...but why did you?" asked Peter.
Metis smiled. "One of the things we've seen, particularly in Daniel Jackson's reality, is that politicians who are used to being a big fish in a small pond can be rather stubborn about maintaining their dominance...even when they wander into a school of sharks. There were a number of senior leaders who had trouble conceiving that the United States military wasn't really a threat to an alien empire that stretched across half the galaxy. Unfortunately for you, the heroes on your world have already faced down a number of major galactic threats, including the being known as Galactus. Most of the major powers considered that extremely impressive, but also saw it as a warning. There's a reason the Kree send regular patrols through your space. Any signs of rapid advancement or expansionist tendencies beyond your own system is going to raise alarm bells, and you are going to need to be prepared with both diplomacy and a strong enough defense to not appear to be an easy conquest." Earth in this universe had an unusually high proportion of meta beings compared to other worlds, and had a reputation for punching beyond their weight class.
"So, what's your advice?" asked MJ. The lizards seemed to be ahead of the game most of the time.
"Initially, you will want to focus on fixed orbital defenses and system patrol craft. Maybe work on setting up some bases in other parts of your own solar system. None of that will raise too many eyebrows. Most independent worlds of sufficient technology already have similar infrastructure established," suggested the black reptile. "In parallel to that, you need to play a role educating governments about your relative strength compared to other galactic powers, and lay the grounds for sensible diplomacy rather than saber rattling." Once the baseline infrastructure was established, they could focus on contact, exploration and expansion. The Starfleet model was actually fairly sensible, even if their insistence on multi-purpose ships was unwise.
Peter frowned. "We've already had incidents with aliens on Earth. How do we keep governments from seeing such things as an act of war?"
"You normalize it," she replied. "Would you expect France to declare war on the United States because an American on vacation went on a killing spree?"
"Of course not," answered MJ. "That's the work of a single criminal."
"Right. Now, would there be problems if an American SEAL team landed in Marseille and assassinated a local government official in broad daylight?" continued Metis.
The two heroes frowned at each other. "I think I see what you're saying," said Peter. "We need to educate ourselves about the other powers so we can determine an appropriate response. A single criminal landing on Earth is different from an alien fleet parked on our doorstep."
"Yes. Luckily for you, the Family already has fairly extensive surveillance of the various major powers in this galaxy thanks to Dragon and her family," said Metis. "We will happily provide you two with access to that information. We would prefer, however, that Stark and Fury remain ignorant of this resource, lest the temptation to try preemptive measures grows too great." Either of the two men could cause a lot of problems by assuming they understood galactic politics as well as they did international affairs back home. What either of them might consider stealthy and measured might be neither of the two, and neither of them was used to out-thinking non-human opponents on a regular basis. Until Earth was a little more sophisticated, it would be better to compartmentalize some of that information.
"Could we see the Kree homeworld?" asked Mrs. Parker.
"Buckle your seat belts, campers," said Metis with a grin. "We are going to take a galactic tour of the major powers. Please remain on board the craft until we reach our final destination on Earth."
The ship vanished into a wormhole, leaving behind a puzzled Kree sensor tech who logged it as a suspected glitch in the sensor network.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Three starships were travelling through the void on a path that would take them to Earth. The ships' hulls were like loops with one open end, and they were each filled with enough bioweapons to wipe out every human on the planet. The redundancy in having three vessels showed an admirable degree of caution. The ships were all travelling on independent courses at staggered intervals. They were also extremely stealthy, and would be difficult to pick out from the background radiation.
A wormhole opened near the first ship. A weapon was fired. The vessel and its contents became dust. This happened two more times. In each case, the ship in question never realized they were under threat until they were already torn into particles.
The Engineer who sent them was concerned when broadcasts from the three ships stopped suddenly. Drastic measures would have to be taken, as it was clear the humans were now a serious threat. Note that the more militaristic members of their species did not consider genocide to be particularly drastic. They were also strangely convinced of their own superiority, and generally skeptical of the abilities of other species.
It was quite obvious that they had never met the Family before. If they had...well, then the more warlike members of the species would likely no longer be an issue, one way or another. Having not had that experience, they proceeded ahead into the unknown with the kind of foolish overconfidence only possible when one has gone unchallenged for far too long...
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Dragon was speaking with River when Saurial arrived on the bridge of the Ship of Fools. "Dragon," said Saurial, "I didn't know you were here. We need to take the ship out."
"Do you mind if I tag along?" asked the tinker. "I'm just checking up on River."
"Mom, I'm eighteen! You don't have to watch over me," said the AI with a petulant whine.
"You're eighteen months old, River, and age doesn't matter for us anyway," replied Dragon.
Saurial's mouth quirked into a grin at the byplay between the two. "Normally I wouldn't want anybody else on this trip, but you're actually one of the few folks who could recover from any unfortunate accidents."
"What's so dangerous?" asked River in a normal tone.
"We need to deliver one thousand hydrogen bombs coated in a shell of powdered anti-life," said the reptile.
The two AI regarded Saurial for the better part of a minute. "You made a thousand hydrogen bombs?"
"They're not that hard once you understand how they're made. The hard part was powdering the anti-life we found and then coating the warheads. Even Varga doesn't like to touch that stuff," she replied.
"Why would you even need hydrogen bombs when we have photon torpedoes?" asked River practically.
Saurial shrugged. "We ran some tests. While the anti-life can easily survive a nuclear blast, a small portion of it was lost when it annihilated with anti-matter." It was fairly easy to run certain types of tests when you could create EDM testing chambers in pocket dimensions, though scrubbing up the remaining anti-life was still a pain in the tail.
"This is for those beings you learned about from the Prophets in the Starfleet universe?" asked Dragon.
"Not them, per se, so much as their...agent? It's actually a constructed intelligence, but it's an energy construct. It's honestly really hard to describe. The beings who constructed it were literally millennia more advanced than the Federation Miles lives in," explained Saurial.
"If they were so advanced, then why didn't they just attack the Federation directly while they were still primitive?" asked River.
"Because that's been tried more than once, and there are too many ways to fix or prevent it. That's part of the job of the Guardian of Forever...it acts as a fail safe for any temporal shenanigans. It's actually capable of seeing all timelines simultaneously," continued Saurial.
Dragon regarded the reptile woman. "You two understand how all of that fits together enough to attack this agent effectively?"
"I understand it," said Varga through Saurial's mouth. "I have explained enough of it to Taylor...as much as she can comprehend at this point. It will likely be several decades before her intellect evolves enough from contact with mine to truly understand the underlying principles for some of it."
"How is nuking it with anti-life going to stop an advanced energy construct?" asked River.
"The nuclear devices are simply there to spread the anti-life over a wide area. The name, 'anti-life', is a bit of a misnomer," continued Varga. "The simplest way I could explain it in English is that it is a crystallized waveform of complete potential entropy across all possible states, including physical, magical and spiritual manifestations of sapience."
"And...that's safe for Mother and myself to be around? It sounds like AI's would't be immune?" River liked to think that they had souls...given that there were universes where such things could be verified to exist.
"You're not," said Saurial. "But, your reaction times are many times faster than even a boosted human's...and your minds are replicated to a remote backup in the event of catastrophe. I wouldn't be taking River if I didn't require somebody to pilot while I see to the dispersal of the weapons themselves. I don't intend to allow anybody else to handle them."
After a moments silence, River said, "All right, where are we going?"
Saurial went over to a keyboard and began typing. After about five minutes, she said, "There. That should tell you how to get there."
"Wow," said River. She paused yet again. "That's not really...anywhere or anywhen."
"It is a set of unlikely but possible points of metaphysical leverage that allow for the manipulation of the Federation's reality such that it is forced into congruence with a close parallel reality," explained Varga.
Taylor appeared next to Saurial. "The way Varga explained this to me was like this. Imagine two parallel realities as being two sheets of plastic wrap right next to each other. Now, you could apply pressure to many different points to make the two sheets touch. If you could both press and not press all of those points simultaneously, then the two would flutter across each other's locations constantly...at the risk of both sheets shredding into tatters."
"Why don't they shred?" asked the armored tinker.
"They stay intact because there are powerful beings that apply...compensating touches in order to prevent their destruction. Beings like the Q, the Organians, the Prophets, and others," said Saurial-Varga. "Some of them do it almost instinctively, while others are deliberate actors."
The Taylor aspect disappeared, and Saurial said, "So, who wants to help me use nuclear bombs spiked with super entropy to disassemble the essence of reality allowing a hostile energy construct to smash two realities together violently?"
"Ooh, me, me!" said River with possibly feigned eagerness.
Dragon somehow gave the impression of frowning. "I feel as though there needs to be at least one responsible adult along."
The Ship of Fools jumped through an oddly-colored wormhole, one that somehow gave every being on board a disquieting feeling. "I'm not sensing anything in the EM spectrum...at all," said the ship's AI, "but I am getting gravitic readings, and...some really esoteric readings from the more exotic sensors we worked up for the sensor spheres."
"I'll go deploy. Follow the course I input previously." With that, Saurial disappeared. Approximately thirty minutes later, she reappeared on the bridge. "Well, that's done. Let's go."
"How long will it be until we see an effect?" asked Dragon.
Saurial considered. "It shouldn't take more than forty-two billion years, I would think, give or take a couple hundred million."
"The universe is less than fourteen billion years old, Saurial," stated River.
Saurial rolled her eyes. "It won't always be...and it isn't linear in any event. Hmm...the Prophets might be kind of pissed, now that I think of it. We may want to send them a gift basket or something."
"I'm kind of surprised that the entity didn't defend itself," commented Dragon.
There was a bright flash, and a familiar figure was standing there wearing the uniform of a Starfleet officer. "Well, you can thank me whenever you like. You're lucky I was there to nudge you into the sequence that kept you intact."
"Thank you," said Saurial simply. "I'm pleased you decided to intervene." Her grin was slightly more smug then Dragon might have expected.
Q looked at Saurial with a raised eyebrow. "Don't flatter yourself. I have to admit, however, that I couldn't resist throwing a spanner in the works for a being that's caused quite a lot of unnecessary work for the Continuum."
"Of course. Thank you, nevertheless," said the lizard.
Q simply nodded and vanished.
"Well, at least that's done," commented River.
Saurial chuckled. "That's just the first step...but it was an important one. Now things get really strange."
Dragon wasn't sure she wanted to know what the next steps required...
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Lilah Morgan considered herself to be an ethical person. Her sense of morals wasn't necessarily in line with those around her, but she agreed with and adhered to the ethics of her chosen profession. As such, she had no issue with representing criminals and ensuring they received the best results possible. Honesty between lawyers and their clients was critical, however, and was why lawyer-client privilege existed. The materials that the giant alien lizard had given to her suggested her client hadn't been forthcoming with the truth, and had led her to drive out to the forest patch that was the subject of her current case.
The woods were patchy and filled with trash -- much of it left by partying teens, so there was an obnoxious amount of broken glass in addition to the cigarette butts, fast food wrappers and even less reputable and pleasant detritus. There were probably more dangerous items like discarded drug needles mixed with the rest. Luckily for her, Lilah had better ways to search through the trash than doing it by hand. A few minutes of prep time allowed her a minor ritual that rather quickly confirmed that the forest also hosted human remains. Based on the strength of the reaction, there were the bodies of quite a number of people disposed of there.
Three hours later, she was standing in the office of her managing partner. "Did you know that my client is a serial killer?" Short of him running a fraudulent mortuary business (and she had double-checked that), she couldn't see any other reason for the woods to be filled with corpses.
Her managing partner, Jacob Carrow, was a slightly overweight man with a pinched face and thinning hair. Lilah didn't like him...but she didn't have to like him to work with him. His current expression was bland, but she could see an overly calculating look in his eye. "What makes you say that?" he asked.
"The bodies of missing persons scattered throughout that patch of disputed ground, combined with the fact that the land is otherwise fairly worthless and not worth fighting for in a court of law unless it happened to be where he was disposing of his victims," she replied in a matter-of-fact tone.
His hand slid over toward the security button under the corner of his desk. "Mr. Caldwell has this firm on retainer. We are currently representing him in a land dispute. Any other factors are not relevant."
"Not relevant?" she said disbelievingly. "What do you think would happen if the state or the developer insisted on a detailed inspection of the lands to establish a claim of abandonment? How am I supposed to block those motions if I don't know they would cause an issue?"
He stopped moving for a moment, realizing that she had actually brought up a relevant argument, and thought about her issue. "Mr. Caldwell has committed a number of activities that would be considered criminal in nature. There is likely a significant amount of evidence of those activities in the lands in question."
"Are we going to have to defend him in criminal court?" she asked.
He shook his head. "It won't come to that."
Lilah frowned. The certainty of his statement was a little too confident. She decided to push something else. "When, exactly, would I have been told of the true ownership of our firm? That Wolfram and Hart are actually three...beings?" She was still cautious enough to not refer to them as demons.
He frowned again. "You would have been informed after your probationary period."
She suspected that she would have learned some things, but not the whole story -- at least not until her seniority was enough to trigger some of the other, nastier clauses built into her contract. She had been rather surprised to find how well the firm had camouflaged mystical bindings as legal terminology. "Do you withhold this type of information from all of your new hires?" she asked.
Carrow considered his options. Morgan had done good work, despite how irritating she was being at the moment. She also seemed more morally flexible than he had feared, which was a critical factor for long-term success at the firm. Some candor would probably be appropriate. "There were some additional considerations made for your hiring," he said. "The Senior Partners are aware of your family connections."
Morgan slammed down her mental control, forcing the outrage into a tiny little ball in the back of her mind. She had made an effort to keep the secret of her actual biological parentage, and she hated that her fears should it be known were justified. She kept her face bland. Her poker face was better than Carrow's. "I can assure you that my family connections have no bearing on my career."
Her boss actually grinned. "There is a certain level of risk where it pays to be certain. Not everything people do is always entirely voluntary. There are always ways to convince somebody where their best interests lie."
He obviously thought he was being subtle, but the threat was fairly clear. "Understood," was all she said, and then she turned and left. She had a strong suspicion that she had just marked herself as a significant risk. Unfortunate family connections combined with a bit too much clarity of perception were an unfortunate combination. While the "Senior Partners" might not feel overly threatened, the same couldn't be said for her boss.
Stepping into the women's restroom, she looked under the stalls to make sure the room was empty. She took out her telephone and dialed the number left to her by Metis.
"Hello, Lilah," said the familiar voice on the phone. "Do you have questions, or are you willing to consider our offer?"
"Actually," she said quickly, "I just confronted my local managing partner about certain things, and I was wondering if you might be able to come collect me? I may have inadvertently given him reason to see me as a personal threat to his position."
"Where are you exactly right now?" asked the lizard.
"I'm in the third floor ladies' room in the Wolfram and Hart building in Los Angeles," she replied, slightly confused.
"Stay there. I can't come for you personally because I'm in the middle of giving some heroes a tour of the alien battlefleets of the Kree Empire, but I will have someone collect you from your location," she replied. "I'll call them right now."
After hanging up, Lilah made a pretext of checking and touching up her makeup in case anybody else came in to use the bathroom. After about five minutes, there was a disturbance in the air, and a portal opened up in the middle of the restroom. One of the sinks was caught in the edge of the portal and she could see how the porcelain was sliced by it. A short, young man in business casual attire stepped out of the portal, and said, "Come with me if you want to live!"
Morgan's mouth dropped open for a second, before she asked, "Are you threatening me?"
He appeared shocked. "What? No! It's just a movie reference..."
"ANDREW!" yelled a voice through the portal. A young African-American girl stepped through after the young man. "Don't screw around during a retrieval." The girl turned Lilah. "Hi, I'm Rona. If you'll come with us, we'll help you."
At that moment, two security guards opened the door to the restroom. Making a decision, Lilah said, "Let's go," and rushed past the two strangers and through the portal. Her heels began clacking on a metallic floor, and after clearing the portal, she stopped before hitting the wall...which was actually a window...which was actually showing her a planet that was clearly not Earth circling below, surrounded by the starscape of outer space.
As she heard the portal close behind her, she asked out loud, "Where are we?"
"Welcome to Sineya Station!" said a voice. Lilah turned to see a young girl with long dark hair. "I'm Dawn Summers. Metis called and asked us to pull you out." Lilah noticed the girl was finishing up putting an adhesive bandage on one of her fingers.
"Andrew tried to use a Terminator 2 quote on her," complained Rona, who was now standing in the room with Lilah, Dawn and Andrew.
"Hey, everybody else gets to make quips and stuff," he whined.
Lilah was starting to get aggravated. "Look, can somebody please explain to me exactly what's going on? Is this actually a space station in orbit of an alien planet?"
Dawn raised her hand and gestured for Andrew and Rona to leave them alone. "Did Metis provide you with materials on the Family and their affiliated organizations?"
"Yes," said Lilah shortly.
"Sineya station is the headquarters of the Sineya Council, a group that is responsible for protecting a different Earth from yours from demons, vampires and other supernatural threats. This station is actually in a third universe -- one where most of the Family business is done under the name Weyland-Yutani," explained Dawn.
Narrowing her eyes, Lilah began to wonder if she had simply exchanged one threat for another. "What, exactly, do the Family do that requires presences in all of these universes?"
Dawn chuckled a bit. "That's a long story, but the short form is that they help people, often those with impossible problems, while simultaneously amusing themselves in ways that make most authorities question their own sanity."
"When do I learn the long form of the story?" asked the lawyer. Lilah had enough legal experience to know how much even an accurate summary could leave out.
Dawn started walking toward the door. "I can start explaining it now. Let's go to a conference room. Would you like something to drink?"
Lilah started to follow. "A glass of Merlot would be lovely right now," she said, not expecting much.
Dawn walked over to a small alcove and asked, "Do you have a preferred vintage?"
"You wouldn't happen to have an '89 Chateau Petrus?" she asked with a smirk.
The young woman said, "Computer, a glass of 1989 Chateau Petrus merlot, please." There was an electronic buzz, and a glass of wine appeared in the alcove.
Lilah's eyes widened. "You have matter replicators?"
Dawn smiled. "Among other things."
"Interesting," she said, taking the wine when it was offered. She sipped it, and verified that it tasted exactly like the wine in question. Replicating a four thousand dollar bottle of wine somehow seemed like cheating. "So, what's this all about?"
"Well, the whole thing started...for us at least...back when the town of Sunnydale, California collapsed into a closing hellmouth..." began Dawn.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
John Marcone had just finished reviewing some correspondence from the Chicago Historical and Art Society when Gard walked into his office. The six-foot-tall blonde woman was carrying a computer printout. Without wasting time on pleasantries, she handed it to him and said, "You're going to be interested in this."
John looked at the paper, his eyes, the color of old dollar bills, widened slightly. "Dresden Security? Is this market cap right?" The application for a CHX listing showed a market capitalization of forty-five million dollars, and listed Harry Dresden as the Chief Executive Officer.
"It is as far as my sources can tell," replied Gard. Given that she worked for Monoc Securities, those sources were quite comprehensive in both the secular and supernatural world. "I've got people running down the other business filings as we speak, but it looks legitimate."
"Do we know who's backing him? Is this a play by the Council?" asked Marcone. Dresden had always been short of money as a P.I., and had also been infuriatingly stubborn about taking what he considered to be dirty money. Marcone had tried going that route before without success. He was a member of the White Council of wizards however, and they had greater resources.
Gard shook her head. "It isn't the White Council. They haven't got the ready assets to do this after the war, nor is this in line with their policy of keeping out of the limelight." It went without saying that the Merlin wasn't Dresden's biggest fan in any case. "The boss also confirmed it isn't Winter Court. Whoever provided the capital is exceedingly good at covering their tracks, unfortunately." All attempts to trace the source had led either to dead ends or traps that ended in some of the most perverse parts of the Internet.
As the only signatory of the Unseelie Accords who was a normal human, Jonny Marcone was accorded the title of the Baron of Chicago. Setting up Dresden with corporate backing in that city could be somebody setting up to challenge his authority. "We're sure it didn't come through Thomas Raith?" The White Court Vampires had money, though this would be unlike their usual modus operandi. They preferred to be the power behind the throne, using their abilities to influence those in charge.
"Raith's relationship with his sister is still estranged at best, and there are no significant adjustments to their known assets," she answered. If she was irritated that Marcone thought they wouldn't check the obvious link to Dresden's brother, then she didn't show it.
Marcone sat quietly for a moment. Having soul-gazed Dresden, he knew the man wouldn't take money from the Fomor, the Denarians, or any other group unfriendly to humanity. It also wasn't like him to loot resources from the Red Court, though it was likely he had had something to do with that group's sudden and inexplicable demise. He looked back at the filing documents, and noted the address of the listed headquarters. "Set some people to watching their building. I want to know when Harry shows up again." The wizard had been missing for the better part of a week, as had Karrin Murphy, though Dresden's brother was still around. The three were all worth watching, if only because they were excellent tripwires for anything supernatural going on around town. "I think I want to have a chat."
Gard nodded and left without saying anything else.
Gentleman Jonny Marcone ran the criminal underworld in Chicago, and he was also a player on the supernatural side of things. He didn't like it when known players suddenly changed like this. Apart from the implicit threat to operations, it tended to make things untidy and attract unwelcome attention. Harry Dresden in particular tended to attract attention from those whose threat levels ranked from high to potentially apocalyptic. While he had worked with Harry Dresden in the past to accomplish mutual objectives, and even had a degree of respect for the man, the wizard was by no means considered a friend. Smart money was that something was about to change in Chicago, and Marcone didn't get to his position in life by ignoring such things. He just hoped he didn't have to go against the man directly, as the wizard had an annoying habit of beating foes that should have been beyond him. In the past, the wizard had ignored mundane criminal affairs as outside of his mandate, but he wasn't shy about expressing his disdain for Marcone, and he had the power to back up his attitude.
The Baron of Chicago thought things were likely to either get much worse or much better in the near future. He intended to be prepared either way.
List of Questions about This Story
Legend was doing paperwork. While this was far from the most exciting task required of the Head of the Protectorate, it was one of the most common. He wondered if Alexandria could appreciate the reduced bureaucracy inherent in no longer being the head of the PRT in her civilian identity. He doubted it. Rebecca had gotten a little too used to being able to direct things behind the scenes, and now she had to deal with Legend as a superior, which was technically not a new thing, and the new Chief Director, Jackson Lee. Lee had been the Director for the PRT's Indianapolis office, and had turned into a dark horse candidate for the position after it had been made clear by certain aggressively friendly powers that there were no circumstances where making Tagg the new Chief Director was acceptable. Legend would actually have preferred Piggot despite her well-known prejudices, but the woman in question shut that down the minute he brought it up. Apparently, Piggot knew quite well that whoever took over for Costa-Brown was going to have their hands full dealing with the aftermath of Scion's defeat and Cauldron's...chastisement.
The phone rang, and the hero welcomed the excuse to stop going through high-value equipment requisitions for a moment. Picking up the phone, he answered, "Hello, this is Legend."
"Legend, this is Dragon," came the familiar voice on the other line.
Legend smiled. "What can I do for you today?" Given the last time he had called her, he definitely owed the tinker a favor or two...not counting the list of favors already owed by the PRT and the Protectorate to the Canadian hero already. You could argue that Dragon's coordination is what kept every Endbringer fight from turning into a complete bloodbath.
"Unfortunately, this isn't a social call," said the tinker. "I may actually have a lead on the Slaughterhouse Nine's location."
"Really?" he said with some concern. The murder hobo team had been unusually quiet since around the time of the disappearance of the Endbringers and Scion. That didn't bode well, as it usually meant they were planning something big. Big plans by the S9 usually ended with far too many corpses.
"It's likely, though not definite," answered Dragon. "There have been a series of unexpected fires -- nothing big, and nothing that's too out of the ordinary. Car fires, brush fires, a few house fires. In each case, local fire dispatch has been able to control the blaze without too much effort."
Legend wasn't seeing the relevance. "That doesn't sound like the Nine's style, honestly. I mean, obviously Burnscar is a member, but have there been any unusual deaths or disappearances?"
"No," she answered. "That's the strange thing. The suspicious thing is that the last known target of the Nine was a small town in Iowa. The fires have all been set, and they happened in a chronological order that starts in Iowa and moves in a straight line to a specific destination. Assuming they continue along that path, they're heading toward Brockton Bay."
"Which is the center for Family activity since Leviathan. You think they're going to challenge the Family?" asked the leader of the Protectorate.
There was a pause. "It's possible...assuming it is the Slaughterhouse Nine. They could also be trying to recruit a member of the Family. What's odd is that they've been known to go under the radar before, but usually there's no sign of them until they reveal themselves. It would be highly unusual for Slash to let one of his team do something that might alert the authorities before they were ready." Dragon didn't have to say that the idea of Saurial in the Nine was horrifying. Thankfully, having the Nine coming to challenge the Family to a game of beach volleyball was more likely than Saurial joining them.
Legend frowned. "It could be that this is a new ploy. Maybe they're trying to lure us into an ambush? They could be counting on us to send out a team to look for them along the path indicated."
"That is a possibility," agreed Dragon. "It's hard to know for sure without going in and possibly triggering it. I have an idea for how we might be able to spring their trap with some surprises of our own."
"I'm listening," confirmed Legend.
"I have contacts with a very large and powerful hero team that are completely independent of the Guild and the Protectorate. They easily have a number of Triumvirate-level capes," said Dragon. "You wouldn't have heard of them because they're from an alternate Earth -- one of the ones visited by the Family."
"You want to do recon in force with this team?" asked Legend. "Isn't that a bit risky?"
In a slightly smug voice, Dragon replied, "I've actually already briefed them on the Nine, and they've even done full-scale combat simulations against them in a sophisticated virtual reality center. The first time was a bit rough, but they've done it twice more and I think they're more than ready. Also, they're already registered as Guild affiliates as the Justice League."
Legend brought up the link to the Guild database and searched for the team by that name. He did a quick scan through. "Wait, is this right? The team members include an actual Martian...and the King of Atlantis?" Legend had to wonder if this was actually an elaborate prank by the tinker. One of the leading members didn't even have powers according to this, although Dragon had speculated in the comments that he deserved a combined tinker/thinker rating.
Dragon chuckled. "Their history is in some ways surprisingly congruent with ours, but in other ways it is completely different. The Mars in our reality, for example, is every bit the lifeless rock scientists believe it to be." She and Metis had swung by at one point just to verify. "In their universe, however, it was home to several different species of alien."
"That seems a bit hard to believe," said the normally easy-going hero.
"Harder to believe than an alien coming to Earth and scattering superpowers to random humans as part of some type of giant science experiment?" she asked.
Legend considered that. "You have a point," he agreed. "Also, I doubt they're stranger than the Family...or even Mouse Protector."
Dragon didn't mention Plastic Man, seeing as the hero was still on Oa and wouldn't be coming. The idea of Plas and Mouse Protector getting together wasn't likely to be good for anybody's sanity. "I'll get in touch with them and let you know when they want to engage. I assume you want to be there?"
Legend looked back at the requisition forms on his tablet. "I wouldn't miss it for the world."
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
The dimension skipper was following the Kree ship fairly closely. That probably would have been a surprise to the Kree ship's crew as they were a) operating under stealth mode themselves, and b) completely incapable of seeing their stalker thanks to Family tech. "That," said Metis, "is a Kree Pugilist-class armed scout. It's job is to do patrol in semi-hostile or unknown areas. It's powerful enough to take advantage of unexpected opportunities, or to fight its way out if challenged. It's current mission is to do a run through near Earth to make sure nothing unusual is going on in that area of space."
"If you already know what it is and what they want, then why didn't you just tell us that before we came out here?" asked Peter with a slightly annoyed look.
Metis looked at the two costumed heroes. "If you two are going to be taking responsibility for the safety of Earth, it seemed prudent to show you what you're up against. The question now is what you want to do now that we're here?"
"Is there anything unusual about this patrol?" asked MJ shrewdly.
Metis shook her head. "Not especially. They actually do one of these approximately once every eighty-four days." The Kree calendar was broken down into five eighty-four day periods per year, hence the timing.
"So, if we do nothing, they'll just run their patrol and report back that nothing's changed?" asked Peter.
"For now, that's true. If you folks start putting up a lot of infrastructure in Earth orbit, or even elsewhere around the solar system, then that will no longer be the case," explained the lizard.
Peter and MJ looked at each other. "What kind of response could the Kree muster to a perceived threat?" asked MJ.
"I was hoping you would ask that," said Metis smugly. "Let's go take a look at the nearest Kree naval depot."
She piloted the skipper away from the scout ship, far enough away that their wormhole wouldn't be detected against the background noise. They reappeared somewhere else, then traveled for a good fifteen minutes before arriving at a planet. The planet itself was nothing spectacular. While it had an atmosphere, there was little sign of vegetation or water. What was more impressive was the orbital infrastructure around the planet. There was what appeared to be a single station that ringed half of the planet. They could easily see defensive emplacements, docking areas, repair docks, and quite a large number of warships.
"This is the Forty-Seventh Kree Navy Depot. It hosts the One-Hundred and Fifteenth Frontier Fleet, which is comprised of forty-seven warships and over a hundred support ships. The flagship of the fleet is the Kree battlecruiser Justified Rage, which is currently docked to take on resupply." Metis pointed to a rather large vessel attached the the Depot. It was hard to judge scale, but it was clearly larger than most of the surrounding ships.
The two spider-themed heroes looked slightly nervously around at the massive warships. "This is the fleet that they would send if they determined we were a threat?"
Metis considered that. "According to the information we have on Kree military doctrine, they would probably send a single cruiser, or maybe a cruiser with escorts. Earth doesn't rank very high in terms of threat. This fleet would only deploy if you did something foolish, like launch a preemptive strike on the Kree Navy, or if they thought Earth was about to be taken over by a hostile power like the Skrulls." The Kree weren't so arrogant that they couldn't see the threat Earth could pose if somebody was providing a guiding hand.
"Assuming we were able to defeat this fleet...then what would happen?" asked Arachne.
"That would jump up the threat level," replied Metis. "Depending upon how it happened, they might muster a task force joining together several Frontier fleets, or they may actually deploy a Strike fleet with actual battleships. Those are usually used in direct combat against hostile space powers with sizable navies, like the Skrulls, the Shi'ar, or the Badoon."
Both heroes were silent as they absorbed those facts. "Thank you for showing us this...but why did you?" asked Peter.
Metis smiled. "One of the things we've seen, particularly in Daniel Jackson's reality, is that politicians who are used to being a big fish in a small pond can be rather stubborn about maintaining their dominance...even when they wander into a school of sharks. There were a number of senior leaders who had trouble conceiving that the United States military wasn't really a threat to an alien empire that stretched across half the galaxy. Unfortunately for you, the heroes on your world have already faced down a number of major galactic threats, including the being known as Galactus. Most of the major powers considered that extremely impressive, but also saw it as a warning. There's a reason the Kree send regular patrols through your space. Any signs of rapid advancement or expansionist tendencies beyond your own system is going to raise alarm bells, and you are going to need to be prepared with both diplomacy and a strong enough defense to not appear to be an easy conquest." Earth in this universe had an unusually high proportion of meta beings compared to other worlds, and had a reputation for punching beyond their weight class.
"So, what's your advice?" asked MJ. The lizards seemed to be ahead of the game most of the time.
"Initially, you will want to focus on fixed orbital defenses and system patrol craft. Maybe work on setting up some bases in other parts of your own solar system. None of that will raise too many eyebrows. Most independent worlds of sufficient technology already have similar infrastructure established," suggested the black reptile. "In parallel to that, you need to play a role educating governments about your relative strength compared to other galactic powers, and lay the grounds for sensible diplomacy rather than saber rattling." Once the baseline infrastructure was established, they could focus on contact, exploration and expansion. The Starfleet model was actually fairly sensible, even if their insistence on multi-purpose ships was unwise.
Peter frowned. "We've already had incidents with aliens on Earth. How do we keep governments from seeing such things as an act of war?"
"You normalize it," she replied. "Would you expect France to declare war on the United States because an American on vacation went on a killing spree?"
"Of course not," answered MJ. "That's the work of a single criminal."
"Right. Now, would there be problems if an American SEAL team landed in Marseille and assassinated a local government official in broad daylight?" continued Metis.
The two heroes frowned at each other. "I think I see what you're saying," said Peter. "We need to educate ourselves about the other powers so we can determine an appropriate response. A single criminal landing on Earth is different from an alien fleet parked on our doorstep."
"Yes. Luckily for you, the Family already has fairly extensive surveillance of the various major powers in this galaxy thanks to Dragon and her family," said Metis. "We will happily provide you two with access to that information. We would prefer, however, that Stark and Fury remain ignorant of this resource, lest the temptation to try preemptive measures grows too great." Either of the two men could cause a lot of problems by assuming they understood galactic politics as well as they did international affairs back home. What either of them might consider stealthy and measured might be neither of the two, and neither of them was used to out-thinking non-human opponents on a regular basis. Until Earth was a little more sophisticated, it would be better to compartmentalize some of that information.
"Could we see the Kree homeworld?" asked Mrs. Parker.
"Buckle your seat belts, campers," said Metis with a grin. "We are going to take a galactic tour of the major powers. Please remain on board the craft until we reach our final destination on Earth."
The ship vanished into a wormhole, leaving behind a puzzled Kree sensor tech who logged it as a suspected glitch in the sensor network.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Three starships were travelling through the void on a path that would take them to Earth. The ships' hulls were like loops with one open end, and they were each filled with enough bioweapons to wipe out every human on the planet. The redundancy in having three vessels showed an admirable degree of caution. The ships were all travelling on independent courses at staggered intervals. They were also extremely stealthy, and would be difficult to pick out from the background radiation.
A wormhole opened near the first ship. A weapon was fired. The vessel and its contents became dust. This happened two more times. In each case, the ship in question never realized they were under threat until they were already torn into particles.
The Engineer who sent them was concerned when broadcasts from the three ships stopped suddenly. Drastic measures would have to be taken, as it was clear the humans were now a serious threat. Note that the more militaristic members of their species did not consider genocide to be particularly drastic. They were also strangely convinced of their own superiority, and generally skeptical of the abilities of other species.
It was quite obvious that they had never met the Family before. If they had...well, then the more warlike members of the species would likely no longer be an issue, one way or another. Having not had that experience, they proceeded ahead into the unknown with the kind of foolish overconfidence only possible when one has gone unchallenged for far too long...
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Dragon was speaking with River when Saurial arrived on the bridge of the Ship of Fools. "Dragon," said Saurial, "I didn't know you were here. We need to take the ship out."
"Do you mind if I tag along?" asked the tinker. "I'm just checking up on River."
"Mom, I'm eighteen! You don't have to watch over me," said the AI with a petulant whine.
"You're eighteen months old, River, and age doesn't matter for us anyway," replied Dragon.
Saurial's mouth quirked into a grin at the byplay between the two. "Normally I wouldn't want anybody else on this trip, but you're actually one of the few folks who could recover from any unfortunate accidents."
"What's so dangerous?" asked River in a normal tone.
"We need to deliver one thousand hydrogen bombs coated in a shell of powdered anti-life," said the reptile.
The two AI regarded Saurial for the better part of a minute. "You made a thousand hydrogen bombs?"
"They're not that hard once you understand how they're made. The hard part was powdering the anti-life we found and then coating the warheads. Even Varga doesn't like to touch that stuff," she replied.
"Why would you even need hydrogen bombs when we have photon torpedoes?" asked River practically.
Saurial shrugged. "We ran some tests. While the anti-life can easily survive a nuclear blast, a small portion of it was lost when it annihilated with anti-matter." It was fairly easy to run certain types of tests when you could create EDM testing chambers in pocket dimensions, though scrubbing up the remaining anti-life was still a pain in the tail.
"This is for those beings you learned about from the Prophets in the Starfleet universe?" asked Dragon.
"Not them, per se, so much as their...agent? It's actually a constructed intelligence, but it's an energy construct. It's honestly really hard to describe. The beings who constructed it were literally millennia more advanced than the Federation Miles lives in," explained Saurial.
"If they were so advanced, then why didn't they just attack the Federation directly while they were still primitive?" asked River.
"Because that's been tried more than once, and there are too many ways to fix or prevent it. That's part of the job of the Guardian of Forever...it acts as a fail safe for any temporal shenanigans. It's actually capable of seeing all timelines simultaneously," continued Saurial.
Dragon regarded the reptile woman. "You two understand how all of that fits together enough to attack this agent effectively?"
"I understand it," said Varga through Saurial's mouth. "I have explained enough of it to Taylor...as much as she can comprehend at this point. It will likely be several decades before her intellect evolves enough from contact with mine to truly understand the underlying principles for some of it."
"How is nuking it with anti-life going to stop an advanced energy construct?" asked River.
"The nuclear devices are simply there to spread the anti-life over a wide area. The name, 'anti-life', is a bit of a misnomer," continued Varga. "The simplest way I could explain it in English is that it is a crystallized waveform of complete potential entropy across all possible states, including physical, magical and spiritual manifestations of sapience."
"And...that's safe for Mother and myself to be around? It sounds like AI's would't be immune?" River liked to think that they had souls...given that there were universes where such things could be verified to exist.
"You're not," said Saurial. "But, your reaction times are many times faster than even a boosted human's...and your minds are replicated to a remote backup in the event of catastrophe. I wouldn't be taking River if I didn't require somebody to pilot while I see to the dispersal of the weapons themselves. I don't intend to allow anybody else to handle them."
After a moments silence, River said, "All right, where are we going?"
Saurial went over to a keyboard and began typing. After about five minutes, she said, "There. That should tell you how to get there."
"Wow," said River. She paused yet again. "That's not really...anywhere or anywhen."
"It is a set of unlikely but possible points of metaphysical leverage that allow for the manipulation of the Federation's reality such that it is forced into congruence with a close parallel reality," explained Varga.
Taylor appeared next to Saurial. "The way Varga explained this to me was like this. Imagine two parallel realities as being two sheets of plastic wrap right next to each other. Now, you could apply pressure to many different points to make the two sheets touch. If you could both press and not press all of those points simultaneously, then the two would flutter across each other's locations constantly...at the risk of both sheets shredding into tatters."
"Why don't they shred?" asked the armored tinker.
"They stay intact because there are powerful beings that apply...compensating touches in order to prevent their destruction. Beings like the Q, the Organians, the Prophets, and others," said Saurial-Varga. "Some of them do it almost instinctively, while others are deliberate actors."
The Taylor aspect disappeared, and Saurial said, "So, who wants to help me use nuclear bombs spiked with super entropy to disassemble the essence of reality allowing a hostile energy construct to smash two realities together violently?"
"Ooh, me, me!" said River with possibly feigned eagerness.
Dragon somehow gave the impression of frowning. "I feel as though there needs to be at least one responsible adult along."
The Ship of Fools jumped through an oddly-colored wormhole, one that somehow gave every being on board a disquieting feeling. "I'm not sensing anything in the EM spectrum...at all," said the ship's AI, "but I am getting gravitic readings, and...some really esoteric readings from the more exotic sensors we worked up for the sensor spheres."
"I'll go deploy. Follow the course I input previously." With that, Saurial disappeared. Approximately thirty minutes later, she reappeared on the bridge. "Well, that's done. Let's go."
"How long will it be until we see an effect?" asked Dragon.
Saurial considered. "It shouldn't take more than forty-two billion years, I would think, give or take a couple hundred million."
"The universe is less than fourteen billion years old, Saurial," stated River.
Saurial rolled her eyes. "It won't always be...and it isn't linear in any event. Hmm...the Prophets might be kind of pissed, now that I think of it. We may want to send them a gift basket or something."
"I'm kind of surprised that the entity didn't defend itself," commented Dragon.
There was a bright flash, and a familiar figure was standing there wearing the uniform of a Starfleet officer. "Well, you can thank me whenever you like. You're lucky I was there to nudge you into the sequence that kept you intact."
"Thank you," said Saurial simply. "I'm pleased you decided to intervene." Her grin was slightly more smug then Dragon might have expected.
Q looked at Saurial with a raised eyebrow. "Don't flatter yourself. I have to admit, however, that I couldn't resist throwing a spanner in the works for a being that's caused quite a lot of unnecessary work for the Continuum."
"Of course. Thank you, nevertheless," said the lizard.
Q simply nodded and vanished.
"Well, at least that's done," commented River.
Saurial chuckled. "That's just the first step...but it was an important one. Now things get really strange."
Dragon wasn't sure she wanted to know what the next steps required...
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Lilah Morgan considered herself to be an ethical person. Her sense of morals wasn't necessarily in line with those around her, but she agreed with and adhered to the ethics of her chosen profession. As such, she had no issue with representing criminals and ensuring they received the best results possible. Honesty between lawyers and their clients was critical, however, and was why lawyer-client privilege existed. The materials that the giant alien lizard had given to her suggested her client hadn't been forthcoming with the truth, and had led her to drive out to the forest patch that was the subject of her current case.
The woods were patchy and filled with trash -- much of it left by partying teens, so there was an obnoxious amount of broken glass in addition to the cigarette butts, fast food wrappers and even less reputable and pleasant detritus. There were probably more dangerous items like discarded drug needles mixed with the rest. Luckily for her, Lilah had better ways to search through the trash than doing it by hand. A few minutes of prep time allowed her a minor ritual that rather quickly confirmed that the forest also hosted human remains. Based on the strength of the reaction, there were the bodies of quite a number of people disposed of there.
Three hours later, she was standing in the office of her managing partner. "Did you know that my client is a serial killer?" Short of him running a fraudulent mortuary business (and she had double-checked that), she couldn't see any other reason for the woods to be filled with corpses.
Her managing partner, Jacob Carrow, was a slightly overweight man with a pinched face and thinning hair. Lilah didn't like him...but she didn't have to like him to work with him. His current expression was bland, but she could see an overly calculating look in his eye. "What makes you say that?" he asked.
"The bodies of missing persons scattered throughout that patch of disputed ground, combined with the fact that the land is otherwise fairly worthless and not worth fighting for in a court of law unless it happened to be where he was disposing of his victims," she replied in a matter-of-fact tone.
His hand slid over toward the security button under the corner of his desk. "Mr. Caldwell has this firm on retainer. We are currently representing him in a land dispute. Any other factors are not relevant."
"Not relevant?" she said disbelievingly. "What do you think would happen if the state or the developer insisted on a detailed inspection of the lands to establish a claim of abandonment? How am I supposed to block those motions if I don't know they would cause an issue?"
He stopped moving for a moment, realizing that she had actually brought up a relevant argument, and thought about her issue. "Mr. Caldwell has committed a number of activities that would be considered criminal in nature. There is likely a significant amount of evidence of those activities in the lands in question."
"Are we going to have to defend him in criminal court?" she asked.
He shook his head. "It won't come to that."
Lilah frowned. The certainty of his statement was a little too confident. She decided to push something else. "When, exactly, would I have been told of the true ownership of our firm? That Wolfram and Hart are actually three...beings?" She was still cautious enough to not refer to them as demons.
He frowned again. "You would have been informed after your probationary period."
She suspected that she would have learned some things, but not the whole story -- at least not until her seniority was enough to trigger some of the other, nastier clauses built into her contract. She had been rather surprised to find how well the firm had camouflaged mystical bindings as legal terminology. "Do you withhold this type of information from all of your new hires?" she asked.
Carrow considered his options. Morgan had done good work, despite how irritating she was being at the moment. She also seemed more morally flexible than he had feared, which was a critical factor for long-term success at the firm. Some candor would probably be appropriate. "There were some additional considerations made for your hiring," he said. "The Senior Partners are aware of your family connections."
Morgan slammed down her mental control, forcing the outrage into a tiny little ball in the back of her mind. She had made an effort to keep the secret of her actual biological parentage, and she hated that her fears should it be known were justified. She kept her face bland. Her poker face was better than Carrow's. "I can assure you that my family connections have no bearing on my career."
Her boss actually grinned. "There is a certain level of risk where it pays to be certain. Not everything people do is always entirely voluntary. There are always ways to convince somebody where their best interests lie."
He obviously thought he was being subtle, but the threat was fairly clear. "Understood," was all she said, and then she turned and left. She had a strong suspicion that she had just marked herself as a significant risk. Unfortunate family connections combined with a bit too much clarity of perception were an unfortunate combination. While the "Senior Partners" might not feel overly threatened, the same couldn't be said for her boss.
Stepping into the women's restroom, she looked under the stalls to make sure the room was empty. She took out her telephone and dialed the number left to her by Metis.
"Hello, Lilah," said the familiar voice on the phone. "Do you have questions, or are you willing to consider our offer?"
"Actually," she said quickly, "I just confronted my local managing partner about certain things, and I was wondering if you might be able to come collect me? I may have inadvertently given him reason to see me as a personal threat to his position."
"Where are you exactly right now?" asked the lizard.
"I'm in the third floor ladies' room in the Wolfram and Hart building in Los Angeles," she replied, slightly confused.
"Stay there. I can't come for you personally because I'm in the middle of giving some heroes a tour of the alien battlefleets of the Kree Empire, but I will have someone collect you from your location," she replied. "I'll call them right now."
After hanging up, Lilah made a pretext of checking and touching up her makeup in case anybody else came in to use the bathroom. After about five minutes, there was a disturbance in the air, and a portal opened up in the middle of the restroom. One of the sinks was caught in the edge of the portal and she could see how the porcelain was sliced by it. A short, young man in business casual attire stepped out of the portal, and said, "Come with me if you want to live!"
Morgan's mouth dropped open for a second, before she asked, "Are you threatening me?"
He appeared shocked. "What? No! It's just a movie reference..."
"ANDREW!" yelled a voice through the portal. A young African-American girl stepped through after the young man. "Don't screw around during a retrieval." The girl turned Lilah. "Hi, I'm Rona. If you'll come with us, we'll help you."
At that moment, two security guards opened the door to the restroom. Making a decision, Lilah said, "Let's go," and rushed past the two strangers and through the portal. Her heels began clacking on a metallic floor, and after clearing the portal, she stopped before hitting the wall...which was actually a window...which was actually showing her a planet that was clearly not Earth circling below, surrounded by the starscape of outer space.
As she heard the portal close behind her, she asked out loud, "Where are we?"
"Welcome to Sineya Station!" said a voice. Lilah turned to see a young girl with long dark hair. "I'm Dawn Summers. Metis called and asked us to pull you out." Lilah noticed the girl was finishing up putting an adhesive bandage on one of her fingers.
"Andrew tried to use a Terminator 2 quote on her," complained Rona, who was now standing in the room with Lilah, Dawn and Andrew.
"Hey, everybody else gets to make quips and stuff," he whined.
Lilah was starting to get aggravated. "Look, can somebody please explain to me exactly what's going on? Is this actually a space station in orbit of an alien planet?"
Dawn raised her hand and gestured for Andrew and Rona to leave them alone. "Did Metis provide you with materials on the Family and their affiliated organizations?"
"Yes," said Lilah shortly.
"Sineya station is the headquarters of the Sineya Council, a group that is responsible for protecting a different Earth from yours from demons, vampires and other supernatural threats. This station is actually in a third universe -- one where most of the Family business is done under the name Weyland-Yutani," explained Dawn.
Narrowing her eyes, Lilah began to wonder if she had simply exchanged one threat for another. "What, exactly, do the Family do that requires presences in all of these universes?"
Dawn chuckled a bit. "That's a long story, but the short form is that they help people, often those with impossible problems, while simultaneously amusing themselves in ways that make most authorities question their own sanity."
"When do I learn the long form of the story?" asked the lawyer. Lilah had enough legal experience to know how much even an accurate summary could leave out.
Dawn started walking toward the door. "I can start explaining it now. Let's go to a conference room. Would you like something to drink?"
Lilah started to follow. "A glass of Merlot would be lovely right now," she said, not expecting much.
Dawn walked over to a small alcove and asked, "Do you have a preferred vintage?"
"You wouldn't happen to have an '89 Chateau Petrus?" she asked with a smirk.
The young woman said, "Computer, a glass of 1989 Chateau Petrus merlot, please." There was an electronic buzz, and a glass of wine appeared in the alcove.
Lilah's eyes widened. "You have matter replicators?"
Dawn smiled. "Among other things."
"Interesting," she said, taking the wine when it was offered. She sipped it, and verified that it tasted exactly like the wine in question. Replicating a four thousand dollar bottle of wine somehow seemed like cheating. "So, what's this all about?"
"Well, the whole thing started...for us at least...back when the town of Sunnydale, California collapsed into a closing hellmouth..." began Dawn.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
John Marcone had just finished reviewing some correspondence from the Chicago Historical and Art Society when Gard walked into his office. The six-foot-tall blonde woman was carrying a computer printout. Without wasting time on pleasantries, she handed it to him and said, "You're going to be interested in this."
John looked at the paper, his eyes, the color of old dollar bills, widened slightly. "Dresden Security? Is this market cap right?" The application for a CHX listing showed a market capitalization of forty-five million dollars, and listed Harry Dresden as the Chief Executive Officer.
"It is as far as my sources can tell," replied Gard. Given that she worked for Monoc Securities, those sources were quite comprehensive in both the secular and supernatural world. "I've got people running down the other business filings as we speak, but it looks legitimate."
"Do we know who's backing him? Is this a play by the Council?" asked Marcone. Dresden had always been short of money as a P.I., and had also been infuriatingly stubborn about taking what he considered to be dirty money. Marcone had tried going that route before without success. He was a member of the White Council of wizards however, and they had greater resources.
Gard shook her head. "It isn't the White Council. They haven't got the ready assets to do this after the war, nor is this in line with their policy of keeping out of the limelight." It went without saying that the Merlin wasn't Dresden's biggest fan in any case. "The boss also confirmed it isn't Winter Court. Whoever provided the capital is exceedingly good at covering their tracks, unfortunately." All attempts to trace the source had led either to dead ends or traps that ended in some of the most perverse parts of the Internet.
As the only signatory of the Unseelie Accords who was a normal human, Jonny Marcone was accorded the title of the Baron of Chicago. Setting up Dresden with corporate backing in that city could be somebody setting up to challenge his authority. "We're sure it didn't come through Thomas Raith?" The White Court Vampires had money, though this would be unlike their usual modus operandi. They preferred to be the power behind the throne, using their abilities to influence those in charge.
"Raith's relationship with his sister is still estranged at best, and there are no significant adjustments to their known assets," she answered. If she was irritated that Marcone thought they wouldn't check the obvious link to Dresden's brother, then she didn't show it.
Marcone sat quietly for a moment. Having soul-gazed Dresden, he knew the man wouldn't take money from the Fomor, the Denarians, or any other group unfriendly to humanity. It also wasn't like him to loot resources from the Red Court, though it was likely he had had something to do with that group's sudden and inexplicable demise. He looked back at the filing documents, and noted the address of the listed headquarters. "Set some people to watching their building. I want to know when Harry shows up again." The wizard had been missing for the better part of a week, as had Karrin Murphy, though Dresden's brother was still around. The three were all worth watching, if only because they were excellent tripwires for anything supernatural going on around town. "I think I want to have a chat."
Gard nodded and left without saying anything else.
Gentleman Jonny Marcone ran the criminal underworld in Chicago, and he was also a player on the supernatural side of things. He didn't like it when known players suddenly changed like this. Apart from the implicit threat to operations, it tended to make things untidy and attract unwelcome attention. Harry Dresden in particular tended to attract attention from those whose threat levels ranked from high to potentially apocalyptic. While he had worked with Harry Dresden in the past to accomplish mutual objectives, and even had a degree of respect for the man, the wizard was by no means considered a friend. Smart money was that something was about to change in Chicago, and Marcone didn't get to his position in life by ignoring such things. He just hoped he didn't have to go against the man directly, as the wizard had an annoying habit of beating foes that should have been beyond him. In the past, the wizard had ignored mundane criminal affairs as outside of his mandate, but he wasn't shy about expressing his disdain for Marcone, and he had the power to back up his attitude.
The Baron of Chicago thought things were likely to either get much worse or much better in the near future. He intended to be prepared either way.
+ + + + +
List of Questions about This Story
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- Location
- Not quite sure
Hmmm. Marcone is a very . . . complex character in some respects and, like Harry, I both like and dislike him. As I'm sure Butcher intended.
I look forward to seeing your interpretation of Harry and Marcone's interaction when, apparently, Harry no longer actually needs anything from Marcone and the damage Marcone can do is, at least a little, limited.
Neruz
Rogue Spiderbanana
- Location
- The Land of Fire and Poison
Marcone is by no means a good man, but he is a very sensible one, and by the standards of mob bosses he mostly falls into the 'more trouble to get rid of than it is worth' category, especially with the supernatural aspects of the Dresden-verse.
In a perfect world, he would be arrested and put in jail. But the world isn't perfect, and in an imperfect world the odds are that getting rid of Marcone would actually cause more problems than it would solve. So at the end of the day, as long as he doesn't cross the wrong lines or be too overt, there are other more important things to worry about. And Marcone understands this, which is why he is very careful not to cross those lines unless he really has to.
In a perfect world, he would be arrested and put in jail. But the world isn't perfect, and in an imperfect world the odds are that getting rid of Marcone would actually cause more problems than it would solve. So at the end of the day, as long as he doesn't cross the wrong lines or be too overt, there are other more important things to worry about. And Marcone understands this, which is why he is very careful not to cross those lines unless he really has to.
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- Location
- Maryland
Yes, and I have fixed it.
Unfortunately, it is hard to notice such things when you have Thomas Raith, the Pegasus Wraith of Stargate, and the Pah-Wraiths of DS9 all in the same fic.
Marcone when he learns more about the family will be somewhat easy to recruit into at least a neutral state with The Family's healing abilities. He desperately wants to fix the little girl he considers his greatest mistake. A mistake which led to the takeover of Chicago's organized crime and a hard stomp to random violence.
Nano Soldier
Seeker of Freedom
- Location
- Stoke, England, United Kingdom
I have one question. How are there more Engineers? Weren't they all wiped out by David?
- Location
- Maryland
If you're talking about Prometheus, then there was nothing to indicate that the Engineers (aka pilots, space jockeys, or "big dental patients") that were on that planet were the only ones n the galaxy. According to the wiki article, there was evidence of visitation on Earth from well after the pathogen release on LV-223. Of course, I'm reserving the right to skip any parts of canon that I wish, as I think most folks agree that the movies, comics and books in the whole Aliens/Predators shared universe are of varying quality...
Neruz
Rogue Spiderbanana
- Location
- The Land of Fire and Poison
We don't know whether there are more Engineers or not. The ones seen so far were either long-dead or got dead by the end of the movie they appeared in, but their origins and history remain unknown. We know they visited Earth in the distant past and that one sacrificed itself to seed the world with its own DNA and accelerate the evolution of intelligent life by doing so, we know that sometime around ~0 AD the Engineers on LV-223 decided to exterminate humanity for reasons unknown by using Chemical A0-3959X.91 – 15, aka the 'black goo', and that they fucked up and lost control of the chemical leading to the deaths of all but four of the Engineers there, of which only one eventually survived to be revived by the crew of the Prometheus, and then killed by the same.
David then went on to Planet 4 and dropped the black goo on an Engineer city there, wiping them out and creating the Neomorphs. But whether this was the Engineer homeworld or just a colony with only one single populated city is unclear. The city appears to be unusually primitive for such an advanced species, which could be evidence for it just being a small outlying colony or possibly even a splinter faction.
There is also the derelict Engineer ship found by the Nostromo later on, carrying Xenomorph eggs for an unknown purpose, presumably the result of more black goo experimentation as the Engineers seem to love that stuff. Director\behind the scenes commentary from the original Alien talks about how the derelict is a kind of 'aircraft carrier or battlewagon of a civilization, and the eggs were a cargo which were essentially weapons. Like a large form of bacterialogical/biomechanoid warfare.' Suggesting that the Engineers are potentially rather warlike, or at least have warlike factions or elements. This also further supports the theory that the city on Planet 4 was not the only Engineer world, or even all that important, as if the Engineers have developed this kind of advanced warfare doctrine then it is highly unlikely that their population would be limited to only a single planet: That is the kind of doctrine used for attacking enemy planets, suggesting that there is either an equally advanced enemy species out there or that the Engineers war amongst themselves much like humans do. (My bet would be on the latter.)
In short, there isn't enough information to know for sure, but the odds are strongly in favor of there being way more Engineers out there, probably divided between many different warring factions unified only by their obsession with overly elaborate biological warfare in the form of mutagenic black goop.
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Nano Soldier
Seeker of Freedom
- Location
- Stoke, England, United Kingdom
Fair enough.
You gotta admit that the black goo at least does its job right. Even if it's unstsble.
Neruz
Rogue Spiderbanana
- Location
- The Land of Fire and Poison
It is very effective at killing planetary populations without destroying the biosphere, yes, perhaps a bit too effective given the alarming habit of escaping containment at inconvenient moments and wrecking your shit.
Ace Dreamer
Verified Reality User
- Location
- Between The Unknown & The Known
Maybe one of the Engineer groups has the secret of the 'off switch'? You might prefer that to the idea that there's a battle between biological engineers to find/change the 'off switch' of each other's goo... Even worse might be that humans and other intelligent races are considered tools in this battle...
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Neruz
Rogue Spiderbanana
- Location
- The Land of Fire and Poison
Given that the LV-223 Engineers got dead from the goo, and the Engineers on the derelict got dead from escaped Facehuggers (which are presumably a product of the goo), it would seem more likely that there is no off switch.
Which does actually make sense; why would you put an off switch into a weapon intended to indiscriminately wipe out planetary populations? That would be like putting an off switch on cruise missiles. (Not 'can transmit a self destruct code' but an actual literal off switch on the side of the missile.)
It is fairly obvious that the only method the Engineers have for dealing with a black goo outbreak is 'run away.'
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Ace Dreamer
Verified Reality User
- Location
- Between The Unknown & The Known
I don't know... Cowpox is arguably a sort of off-switch for smallpox... And, some historical documents might suggest trying other things...
BTW, that's 22yrs deep...
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Neruz
Rogue Spiderbanana
- Location
- The Land of Fire and Poison
Since when was smallpox designed to be a weapon?I don't know... Cowpox is arguably a sort of off-switch for smallpox... And, some historical documents might suggest trying other things...
FaerieKnight79
Verified Pixie
- Location
- The Internet
Why would you include a kill switch in your indiscriminate genocide weapon? Because it's an indiscriminate genocide weapon, and without a way to stop it this means at best any planet you deploy it on is now entirely unusuable by you, and at worst it's going to indiscriminately genocide your own species. And you aren't suicidal or intending to wipe out your own species.
Neruz
Rogue Spiderbanana
- Location
- The Land of Fire and Poison
It breaks down after awhile, so you just need to wait and the planet becomes usable again.
If the goo had an off switch, it can be assumed that the Engineers would have used it during one of the two known times it (or its products) escaped containment and fucked up their shit. That they did not and either ran away or got their shit fucked implies that there is no off switch, and that the Engineers are perhaps a little bit too enthusiastic about their bioweapons.
Ace Dreamer
Verified Reality User
- Location
- Between The Unknown & The Known
When you come from a race of (mad) bio-technologists?
Nano Soldier
Seeker of Freedom
- Location
- Stoke, England, United Kingdom
Also X-Files. The conspiracy seems to like the idea of it. Or the aliens? I don't know, I don't think anyone ever bothered explain it.
FaerieKnight79
Verified Pixie
- Location
- The Internet
On the other hand, said actual god had gone into hiding, abandoning Heaven. And was quite content to just watch while the world spirals ever closer to The Apocalypse. Not to mention didn't step in when the angels themselves decided to trigger an apocalypse because the previous one failed.
- Location
- Myanmar
Family bounding time > apocalypse, for him now apparently....
Btw : why is this fake heartbreaker not dead yet and how did he break into Toybox considering Dragon should've 24/7 surveillance at this point and she is unchained?