Title: Ship of the Line: Walk in Dark Places

Author: Knife Hand

Feedback: Constructive feedback appreciated, flames unappreciated

Spoilers: General for Buffy and Babylon 5

Rating: R

Disclaimer: I do not own Buffy or Babylon 5. I would buy them but I am broke.

Summary: Answer to the Ship of the Line Challenge on TTH. The Scoobies dress as people who walk in dark places and do what must be done

"" denotes speech, '' denotes thought

Xander was wandering around Ethan's Costume Shop, trying to think of a new costume idea now that the last of the toy guns had gone. He turned a corner and ran into an irate Cordelia Chase, holding a bag with a costume in it.

"Jeez, look where you are going Harris." She said with her usual superior tone.

"Cordy. What are you doing in a place like this?" Xander replied, long since having gotten use to Queen C's attitude.

"Like I have a choice, dweebabzoid. I had an amazing costume all lined up at Party Town and then they had to go and get flooded, leaving me slumming at this place." The Cheerleader said before pushing past Xander and out of the store.

"Hey Xander. Was that…?" Buffy said from behind him.

Buffy and Willow had come up behind him, Willow giving him a small wave.

"Hey Buff, Wills. Yeah, lovely breath of vile air, she was… woah!" Xander responded.

They had just turned into another isle and Xander was awed at the costumes he saw in front of him. Willow seemed excited while Xander simply stood in shock.

"Ahh, I see you have excellent taste in Science Fiction." A man said from behind them.

"Holy Hell!" Buffy exclaimed. "Don't do that. It'll get you killed around here."

"My most sincere apologies." The man said. "My name is Ethan Rayne, The proprietor of this establishment. Let me make it up to you by selling those three costumes to you are half price, but only if you take all three."

"Done!" Willow squeaked.

Buffy was actually quite impressed with the costumes that they had gotten from the slightly creepy costume store owner. They were in shades of black, gray and dark red, were loose in the right places to allow for freedom of movement when running or fighting but were tight enough in others that they would not interfere with strikes or footwork. Plus the coat just made it look cool, again without interfering much with fighting. On the right breast was a greenish jewel that seemed surrounded by to figures that were joined at the bottom. The only part of the costume that Buffy could not figure out was the small metal cylinder that was at her waist.

Buffy had originally been drawn to a beautiful flowing gown, the kind she imagined had once been warn by the Nobility when Angel had been young, but then Willow had reminded her that most of the Noble Ladies in those days had been uneducated and forced to follow the whims of their husbands, which had immediately offended her modern independent nature. She had spent quite a while convincing Willow not to go as a ghost and in the end they had agreed that Willow would go for a less… concealing outfit if Buffy would wear a costume that both Willow and Xander approved of. She had half expected to be in skin-tight spandex or a revealing outfit that barely avoided her being arrested for indecent exposure. Compared to that this outfit and the matching ones worn by Xander and Willow were a joy.

Suddenly a wave of dizziness washed over Buffy Summers. Kathrin Templeton straitened from her stumble and looked at the carnage around her. Everyone and everything around her looked confused. It looked like there were people out of time, aliens she had never seen before and things she could not even explain running everywhere, some trying to get away and others looking for a fight. Without thought she drew her Fighting Pike and extended it from its collapsed form into a full sized Quarterstaff.

"This is Shok-na Kathrin Templeton of White Star 43, does any Anla'Shok receive." She said into her communicator.

One of the aggressive little… whatever's made a run at her and she broke its wrist and knocked its feet out from under it with her Pike, causing the others to scatter.

"This is Shok-na Laura Weston, White Star 22. I have your position, am converging." A female voice came on the radio.

"Shok-na Joseph White here. White Star 11. Got a lock on you both but can not locate any of my crew." A male voice added.

"This is Shok-na Jennifer Smyth." A very confident female voice said. "White Star 19. I have run a personal communications check and I can only locate our four communicators. ETA to Shok-na Templeton's position, two minutes."

Soon the four Anla'Shok had converged and were boldly holding a conference in the middle of the street, many of the more aggressive entities around having learnt from experience that they were not to be messed with. Laura Weston was a lean woman with dark red hair, Joseph White was a taller man with slightly messy black hair and soulful brown eyes while Jennifer Smyth was a tall, lithe woman with long dark brown hair.

"Ok, so what exactly are four White Star Captains doing in what appears to be a small town on Earth without their crews?" Joseph asked.

"I don't know, but I modified my com unit to do a forced ping. There are four White Stars in orbit but no responses from any crew." Laura said. "I did mange to get a signal through to White Star 22's computer to do a local space scan for possible threats and it came back negative."

"Negative? Around Earth? What about the planetary defence grid?" Kathrin asked, shocked.

"Nothing. No debris, no intact defence satellites. It's like they're just gone." Laura replied.

"Or were never there." Jennifer said, getting incredulous looks. "I'm no expert but the stars do not look the same as when I was a girl. And I am pretty sure that star went supernova about seventy years before I was born."

They all stared up at the sky where Jennifer was pointing.

"She is right." Joseph said.

"Time Travel?" Laura asked.

"Why not?" Kathrin replied. "If you believe the report of Entil'Zha Delenn, then Entil'Zha Sinclair went back a thousand years and became Valan."

"So what do we do?" Jennifer asked.

"We're Rangers." Joseph replied. "We do what we swore to do. We live for the One."

"We die for the One." All four chorused.

It was the morning after the chaos of Halloween and the Library of Sunnydale High found itself occupied by five figures. Unsurprisingly one was the Librarian Rupert Giles. Also unsurprisingly three of the others were Buffy, Xander and Willow, all of whom spent so much time in the library that most of the students considered it to be their second home. The surprise was Cordelia Chase, because if you asked any of the popular students she would rather die than be either spend time in the library or hang out with the others in the room, but Halloween had changed all that.

"So let me see if I have the information straight." Giles said, rubbing the bridge of his nose. "All four of you now have the memories and skills of Starship Captains from a Science Fiction television program?"

"Not just Captain. Anla'Shok Shok'na." Xander replied, leaving Giles even more confused.

"The Anla'Shok, or Rangers, are…" Buffy began. "I guess the best description is a mix between Special Forces and Undercover Police. Traditionally Rangers have been used to go into unexplored and dangerous places and find out what is there and battle anything that threatens civilisation. We walk in dark places no others will enter. We stand on the bridge, and no one may pass."

"Think of them as well trained Space versions of us." Willow said.

"And we have kickass ships. The White Stars." Cordelia added.

"You mean actual…?" Giles began.

"Of course." Cordy replied. "We wouldn't be Shok'na without our ships. The problem is there are no crew."

"Good Lord." Giles said, taking off his glasses and began to clean them.

"We have White Star 19 hidden in an abandoned Warehouse. We have the others on station on Luna's dark side, Mars orbit and Io orbit, to advanced warning of any approaching vessels." Xander explained.

"Approaching from where?" Giles asked.

"Well, in their universe, there were hundreds of different species, including the major races of the Minbari, Narn and Centauri." Willow said. "Just based solely on the number of stars in the visible universe, even if one in a million stars had a planet, one in a million of those planets were habitable and one in a million of those habitable worlds had life, then there would be dozens of other species out there."

"This is just so overwhelming." Giles said, amazed.

"Demons you take in your stride, Aliens you have a problem with?" Buffy retorted, amused.

It was a few weeks after Halloween and Xander was doing a quick patrol of one of the graveyards. Things had been fairly quiet, and they had even found an advantage over the nocturnal residents in the form of their Minbari Fighting Pikes. With the long heritage of each Pike, and the reverence they had been afforded by generations wielders, they affected Vampires and several types of demons like they were the holiest of relics, burning them with the slightest touch and killing them with ease. After confirming on White Star 19 that the uniforms and Fighting Pikes for a full crew complement of 50 were aboard the White Stars, the four Captains had decided to start training recruits to be new Rangers.

The first four recruits had been selected by Cordelia, two being from her Cheerleading squad, one from the Swimming team and one from the Football team. Naturally all were quite fit, but they were also in the top third of their class and were all dedicated to helping others, the cheerleaders and the swimmer were part of a program that helped under privileged communities in LA on the weekends while the football player was part of the Big Brother mentoring program.

The only major issues, both of them dealt with quickly, had involved people from the Gang's past, in the form of Billy Fordham, who was dying of brain cancer and thought becoming a vampire was the solution, and a literal demon from Giles' past. Both incidents ended with a fighting pike through the chest of the offending entity, Billy by Xander's and Eyghon by Buffy and Cordy's.

Now, for normal patrols at least, each of the four Shok'na was more than enough to deal with regular Sunnydale activity, thus cutting down the time it took to patrol the numerous graveyards in the town dramatically.

"You can come out now." Xander said as he stopped without warning in the middle of his patrol. "And you can explain why you have been following me for the last ten minutes."

A dark skinned girl stepped out of the bushes with her long black hair in a tight braid. She moved like a fighter and had a stake in her hand.

"I though you might be a Vampire but I am not sure. I can not feel you." she replied in a Jamaican accent.

"No. I am Anla'Shok. We fight the dark." Xander replied. "And who are you?"

"I am Kendra, the Vampire Slayer." The girl replied.

"Of course you are. Come, we will go see the local Watcher." Xander replied.

"You know a Watcher, and the last Slayer?" Kendra said, surprised.

"Yes. She is Anla'Shok too." Xander said as he turned in the direction of the Library.

Kendra looked confused. One Slayer dies, the next is Called, but this man indicated the last Slayer was still alive. Noticing that he was not stopping, Kendra hurried to catch up to this… Anla'Shok.

TBC…