Twenty-Three

 **one or two swears and as usual, I dont own most of it**

            “Earth’s defences remain at a high state of alert today after the discovery of a stealthed monitoring platform just outside the Sol System. The station, believed to be of Goa’uld construction, was discovered during a random check on the outlying areas of the system being carried out by the destroyer General Hammond.”

           

            “A source within Stargate Command has suggested current plans may result in the prototype type 3 defensive satellite may be placed so as to protect the construction of the Gaia shipyard, whose construction in Earths own orbit has been confirmed but not yet started. This goes directly against earlier statements which suggested the platform may be placed above the Stargate Command facilities currently being rebuilt in Colorado or over one of the scattered Royal Space Service facilities in the United Kingdom.”

 

            “A motion has entered congress today to convert the Kennedy Space Centre into a transhipment and construction facility for the proposed Tau’ri Star Service. The facility, whose future like so many NASA bases has been uncertain since Disclosure, would end up being the largest construction base for support craft such as the Airhead orbital lifters and Paladin transports as well as retaining its role as a starport, taking cargoes in by rail, road and air ready for lifting to be orbit or vice-versa. The facility is already well equipped for this role having the bulk of the required infrastructure already in place.”

 

            “Unconfirmed reports are reaching us that an Asgard Beliskner class ship has arrived in orbit and is preparing for cleanup operations around the Exeter Exclusion zone, now thoroughly and some say irretrievably contaminated with radiation.”

 

            “If you look up to the skies tonight you may see a new star glinting in the heavens, that glinting dot seen most clearly in South England and parts of France is no star, it’s the Battlestar Atlantis, currently scheduled to be on proving trials between Mars and the asteroid belt. No-one has yet confirmed the reason why this craft has taken up orbit over Earth but its location and the rumours of Asgard vessels modified for radiation cleanup duties cannot be a coincidence.”

 

            “The 1^st Battlegroup, assigned to support allied races is on its way home today. Sources confirm that the group dialled in from a Stargate close to the allied territories, apparently to transmit reports and to seek parts and equipment. This has not been confirmed, but it has been suggested that a significant number of body bags were sent through the gate to the temporary Stargate Command Facilities. What is certain is that the group will have to travel for several months to reach Earth with frequent stops to restock on food, as well as recyclables such as water and oxygen.”

 

            Murielle gazed unblinkingly through the dirtied glass of her binoculars, one eye on the distant farm buildings, the other flickering around the surrounding countryside, checking as ever for unwanted surprises. Movement, she stiffened slightly, and then relaxed as two female figures walked out of the old, possibly medieval barn across to the only slightly newer farmhouse. If she hadn’t known better, she would have thought they were twins, but Murielle knew enough to recognise model sixes when she saw them.

            Normally she would have been in by now, at the head of a detachment of SAS, Royal Marine Commandoes or whoever else was available. Not this time however, this farmhouse was in an area that had 100% radar coverage, both civilian and military and of mixed types. There was no way anyone should be able to land in this particular corner of the English countryside unnoticed and yet these guys had. She could understand the human forms managing to land elsewhere and assemble here, but there was a large detachment of warriors badly concealed around the buildings too and who would miss or mistake those?

            Not to mention, the glimpses she had caught of the inside of the barn they seemed to say ‘heavy raider’. That was certainly a problem, she wouldn’t want to guess how many of those annoyingly pocket sized nukes the Colonials and Cylons used could be landed on one of those. But that was a minor consideration in why they weren’t going in, there were enough dead already that if those went up here and now in response to a raid, it wouldn’t make much of a difference to the stats, even with the local presence of several large towns. No, nasty as it might sound the bigger issue was how they were landing and supporting this small base without being noticed, after all, if they would manage it here in such a well covered area, how much could they get away with in a less well monitored zone?

            It helped of course that most planes had been grounded long since and that most flights at the moment were official or scheduled well in advance, sure it was a bastard for those who could afford a small plane such as a Cessna but it made tracing flights at lot easier.

            Movement again from within the farmyard, several figures stepping out of cover, looking around as if waiting, and now a tingling from her wrist reciever. She glanced down, her eyebrows rising just slightly at the small led readout.

            Somebody inside the farm was transmitting were they? And a possible homing signal at that, very interesting, it may just be that they were about to have visitors. After two weeks of watching and no dice, it was damn well past time.

            She glanced up, her eyes darting around, controlling, swiftly quartering every corner of the sky, ground and farmyard with practised efficiency. Still, she misses the exact moment exact moment the heavy raider appears, with a grimace Murielle realises exactly what has happened and knowing it may cause her death, but also knowing the information is too important to risk being lost if she was caught in her escape, she slowly reaches down, pulling a small radio with attached keyboard and swiftly begins to type.

 

            “This is a problem,” Admiral Thompson states flatly.

            “This is a fucking nightmare,” O’Neill growls, “if there Raiders can just jump into atmosphere then they can be in and out literally in a minute.”

            Carter shrugged, the light glinting of the single star on her shoulder tabs, “assuming they have precalulated outbound co-ordinates, yes. Even if they don’t, they would be able to calculate an outbound jump before we had any chance to intercept…”

            “If they decide to start attacking instead of just dropping of raiding parties and Intel groups…” O’Neill growled.

            “The question is why haven’t they yet?” Thompson noted his expression pensive, “they certainly seem more determined to weaken then to actually destroy.”

            “Weaken implies an intention to take…” Carter mused, “it’s certainly not a guarantee but…”

            “Do we know of any way to jam their jump drives?” Thompson noted.

            “No,” Carter shrugged, “apparently the Colonials did try to find a way during the first cylon war but never had any real success.”

            “I think it just became a priority,” the Commander of Ravenbright station shrugged, “either we jam ‘em so they can’t just jump into range of Earth or we come up with some form of interdict so we can stop them where we want them. Either way…”

            “I think our only saving grace so far is that the human forms are not militarily trained for the most part, they are certainly learning tactics as they go along but it’s easy to miss things like that. If they start to truly think about what they can do with those jump drives,” The Admiral slumped down in his seat, “then the war will very swiftly be over for us. Carter, I know Sciences can do without another priority but O’Neill is right, we need an interdict or jamming capability and I think we needed it several years ago.”

66) Not allowed to name a weapon after foreign gods.
66a) Especially if all I know said deity is from a cartoon, anime, or comic.
66b) Nor am I allowed to invoke him in battle.

68) In fact, I'm not allowed to invoke ANY god in battle.

69) Not allowed to invoke gods, period.

70) "She followed me home!" is not a valid excuse for providing a nonhuman entity with access to Council Headquarters.

71) Deities are not human, therefore Rule 31 applies.

72) Smiting or threats thereof are not a valid counterargument to the previous two rules.

---

The trouble started with the new axe. It was sharp, shiny, cost a bomb to have customized to Xander’s grip and then another, somewhat larger bomb getting all the spell components for the ‘enhancements’ Willow had decided to try out.

What they had given Xander ended up being a very sharp blade that would never go blunt of get stained and just happened to have the mystical equivalent of a ‘Sombody’s elses problem’ field. Or in this case, a ‘not a threat’ field

Frankly, she had expected that to be… interesting but not to the extent it was. Whilst carrying the axe, nobody, not even if they had just seen Xander tear his way straight through a dozen vampires, could get it into their heads that Xnader might possibly be a threat to them. It made it very easy for Xander to outflank, outthink or just plain walk past minions to get to the desired target. Combined with a distraction, slayer style, it meant Xander wasn’t noticed up till the point where the biggest demon suddenly found themselves dead. Sometimes, he wasn’t noticed even then.

The axe was quickly becoming regarded as the mystical equivalent of a nuclear bomb. Naturally, Xander had decided it deserved a name…

“Ares?” Willow suggested.

“Well, that would be appropriate, see…”

“Nah,” Xander interrupted, “haven’t you seen The Legendary Journeys? Guy was a total jerk.”

The look the watcher shot him could best be described as glacial, “well, if you are going to use that… profane example of crass commercialism of history as a source…”

Xander blinked, his expression turning bemused as he glanced across at Giles, who promptly rolled his eyes and turned his attention away from the conversation.

“Assassin?” Buffy suggested.

“Tempting, certainly appropriate…” he mused with a grin, “lets drop that into the maybe column.”

“Axe of Iolaus?” Dawn suggested quietly, her mouth turning upwards in a faint smile at Giles groan.

Xander shook his head, “nah, just doesn’t quite have it. Besides, G-man is probably right about the crass commercialism part.”

He grinned unrepently as Giles choked, spilling tea over his almost-completed paperwork, his expression managing to convey the impression that the effect was exactly what he had been looking for.

Dawn smiled, tightly, “I think it’s very appropriate Xander, after all, you’ve always been there when once of us has needed you… '--Then call on me as your Iolaus, as long as the daylight lasts.'”

Giles smiled, sending the teen an approving nod as he attempted to mop up the table, “Plato’s Phaedo.”

Touched, Xander pulled the axe from sheath on his back with a smile, “Iolaus it is,”

Of course, that wasn’t a problem. No, the problem would come later, when its name would come into play in a unexpected way. In the meantime, Xander now had an axe with an all-too appropriate name, zoom forward now to apocalypse season…

“He has the axe!” Xander gasped out as he dived behind the line of Slayers, a dozen small but far too smelly demons promptly dieing as they tried to follow the one-eyed warrior.

“The Demon Prince? Don’t worry about it, he’s not a threat,” Buffy blinked, her mind processing the words she had just spoken, “oh wow, damn. We have got to redo the wards on that axe.”

“Why?” Faith asked, as puzzled expression on her face as she drove her sword right between armour segments on a larger but less smelly demon, instantly severing its spinal cord at the neck.

The senior slayer shrugged, “true, it’s not as if they guy who has it is going to be able too…. Damn. We so need to do something about that axe.”

“Right…” Faith shot her a bemused look, “I wouldn’t suggest sending anyone after it at the moment, still to many demons to deal with. Besides, the guy who’s holding it doesn’t even know… how… too… Oh, bollocks.”

Buffy grimaced, “cottoned on have you?”

“Cottoned on to what?” Faith shrugged, “hey, at least Iolaus didn’t end up in the hands of one of the larger demons. Nasty little bastards.”

Buffy shook her head and aided by the Axe’s magics, gave up on trying to get the point across. After all, it wasn’t as if the guy who had the axe was a threat, no Rona could deal with him regardless how it might actually look.

Wait, why did Xander just shout for his axe?

Damnit, why couldn’t they see it? That thing was a menace without the axe but with it… was he the only who actually saw the threat there? Of course… it was his axe, intended for him and he had been the person to use it most, it might have granted him immunity to its magics.

Still, that left Rona in a very threatened position… and the thing was about to kill her with his axe! His pride about to be tainted forever…

Perhaps it was instinct, perhaps it was a selfish desire not to have his most prized possession tainted by the blood of a hero but either way, in that critical moment Xander didn’t call Rona’s name as the axe began to fall, but that of the axe itself.

“Iolaus!”

Rona closed her eyes fearfully, knowing this was the end, that one of the few survivors of the Sunnydale hellmouth was about to die, that…

Hang on, why wasn’t she dead already?

Demon Prince was taking his time…

She opened her eyes, glanced upwards and her expression a mixture of shock, relief and grim satisfaction dived out of the way mere seconds before the body of the ex-demon prince crashed down to the ground where she had been slumped mere seconds before.

Faith blinked, her eyes wide as she glanced from the mysterious blonde haired man who had just scored a perfect bullseye on the bastards eye from across the full length of the cathedral and in the time it had taken her to merely think about what he had done, had already reloaded his bow twice and taken two other lesser demons out as well.

He was muscled too, not in the bodybuilder way, but in an ‘I have worked hard and fought hard all my life and am still here’ kind of way.

“Faith,” Buffy’s voice snapped her back to the fight, “you can salivate over our mysterious friend later. In the meantime, slay please?”

She grinned, darting forward then groaned, shooting an annoyed glance back at her sister slayer, mouthing ‘Slay Please?’

“I thought summoning only worked for demons and for Gods?” Giles stated with a frown.

Iolaus shrugged, “as I understand it, works for minions as well. So long as you rightfully work above or below, you can be summoned. Never had it happen to me before, well, except by Hercules normally at the most inconvenient of moments but still…”

Buffy frowned, “inconvenient?”

He blushed, “Last time I was… busy. Almost finished in fact. Hercules didn’t try that again.”

The group fell quiet, their expressions moving as one from ‘huh?’ to ‘I don’t want to know’ with a quick stop off a ‘eww!’ and ‘I did not need that mental image.’

“Of course,” Iolaus shrugged slightly, hiding a smile, “Aphrodite always thought it was she who was going to end up summoned by one of you first. Apparently she’s been keeping an eye on Xander here.”

“Really?” Dawn grinned, “do tell…”

She had warning at that point, she could have stopped it then, but truly, she had no idea what Dawn was up too. If she any idea… well, she would probably have allowed the little brat to chase Xander like she had always wanted. Better that then the alternative, Dawnie playing matchmaker…

Then again, she had been distracted by the humble pie Giles had been eating over a certain 'profane example of crass commercialism of history'

It wasn’t often the wards pinged her consciousness and then did the mystical equivalent of attempting to curl up in a corner and hide. When that happened, Willow knew something big was up and teleported straight in the main hallway of the Slayer’s Council headquarters, Amy’s Little surprise on her lips, fireballs in the hands. All of which she allowed to dissipate with a resigned smile as soon as she saw exactly who was in the doorway.

“Xander, what did you do this time?”

“I don’t know,” he shrugged, a baffled, bemused expression on his face, “she just followed me home,”

“I doubt a Goddess just followed you home,” Willow shrugged, “her hands dancing intricately behind her back, “certainly not Hecate herself,”

“Well…” Xander shrugged helplessly.

“Mind if we finish this?” the Earthly looking woman next to him said with a purr, “Aphrodite told me so much about you…”

“Aphrodite,” Willow said flatly.

Xander groaned, shook his head and shouted, “Dawnie, when I get a hold of you I am going to kill you,”

“Knew we shouldn’t have left her and Iolaus alone,” she frowned, pouting, “course, she would have to ‘forget’ that rule 31 still applies.”

“Hey!” he replied outraged.

“Rule 31?”

“Not allowed to date outside of my speacies,” Xander responded grumpily.

“Well honey,” Hecate responded, “I am a God, I could smite anyone who tried to enforce that if you wanted?”

Xander grimaced, sending Willow a pleading look, “probably not the best idea, you know I don’t think this relationship is going to…”

Willow stifled a snicker.

“I could even smite the IRS for you…” she pouted, I don’t know why people keep asking for that one,”

“Okay,” Xander replied shortly, “now I’m tempted.”

Willow just barely stopped herself from nodding.

Trouble indeed, Buffy sighed, her expression mutinous as she gazed across the figure who now quite frequently joined them in their slaying, explaining quite simply why there was very little slaying to be done these last few months.

Of course, having Hecate on you side did have its benefits…

“You think my outfit looks tarty?” Faith shrieked, “I show you a new outfit… Hecate work thy will, before thee let the… Pantomime Dame crawl.”

“Done and girl, you have been spending far too much time around Giles.”

Of course, being able to summon Hecate at any time did also have its disadvantages. Two-hundred pounds of body-builder turned vampire in drag was certainly one of them. Not.