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. Season 1 for Stargate SG1

Rating: R

Disclaimer: I do not own Buffy, Babylon 5 or SG1. 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

Faith settled into her place crouched in the bushes that lined the main driveway of the Academy, leading up to Sheridan Hall, with her collapsed Pike in one hand and a pistol in the other. A second later Helen Beckett settled in next to Faith, followed by another six Anla'Shok and advanced Trainees. A similar force led by Kendra was settling in on the other side of the driveway.

The Colonel had been able to source a few firearms for the Anla'Shok, but it was mostly confined to a half dozen pistols and two older rifles. The six pistols were spit amongst the two forces and, apart from Kendra, the wielders were all Potential Slayers, who had been discovered by Doctor Giles' tests. Beckett had not turned out to be a Potential, neither had Lecturer Summers, Shok'na Chase or Shok'na Rosenberg.

All the Potentials had demonstrated that the more the adrenaline flowed, the better they performed at combat, including increased accuracy with firearms, though none of the other Potentials was as much of a natural at combat as Faith, who now only really lost to the two activated Slayers at anything combat related and sometimes not by much.

The two rifles were being operated by Colonel Watson and Shok'na Harris, located in nests on top of Ivanova and Delenn Halls. Standing in plain sight in front of Sheridan Hall stood Shok'na Chase and Shok'na Summers. Shock'na Rosenberg was in charge of the force that would close the trap if necessary.

The first of the convoy entered through the gateway. There were two military Humvees, followed by four full sized moving trucks, with enough space for a decent amount of equipment or a significant armed force, with another two Humvees bringing up the rear.

"Don't do anything until I order it." Faith whispered to Beckett, who nodded and then passed the order down the line in an equally quiet whisper.

Colonel Jack O'Neill and Captain Carter exited from the second Humvee and walked up to the two Shok'na in front of the building. Faith was close enough to hear.

"Chase, Summers." O'Neill greeted with a nod, earning a small glare from Carter.

"Colonel." Chase replied coolly. "To what do we owe this unexpected visit?"

"A present from the President." O'Neill replied. "While the President was all for your deal, there was a little hitch. No civilian domestic organisation can legally have the kind of firepower you have in the White Stars, even though Spaceships were, inexplicably, not specifically mentioned in the constitution, and as most of your personnel are US Citizens, we can't recognise you as a foreign embassy. So, the solution is this."

O'Neill handed over a bound leather wallet like item to Summers, who opened it with a flick of her wrist, looking it over.

"It's an ID." Summers replied nonchalantly. "What is the ASA?"

"Officially, it is a new and mysterious Government Agency, answerable only to the President and unable to be interfered with, questioned or investigated by any other branch of the US Government for ninety-nine years. Its mandate is broad and vague enough that they can claim jurisdiction on almost any situation and no one knows what ASA actually stands for." O'Neill replied. "Unofficially, the Anla'Shok Agency is whatever you want it to be. The equipment in the trucks is everything you need to access Government Databases, and for running the requisite verifications any time an agency runs an ASA ID. You have full control over the verification and issuing of ASA credentials and weapons permits. There is also a small shipment of conventional rifles, pistols and ammunition in the trucks."

Faith could tell the two Shok'na were stunned, even though their expressions were neutral and had not changed from a few moments earlier.

"We were also instructed to give you these." Carter said, handing over a few thick file folders.

"Which are?" Chase asked as she took the folders.

"One is the official documentation of the ASA, one is the details of a different new Agency created under the control of the SGC, called the SFC or Space Force Command, to build the Earth Force ships and investigate the viability of PPG's. The reverse engineering of any Goa'uld Technology will involve personnel from the ASA, the SGC and the SFC." Carter explained. "The last folder we had specific orders from the President to ensure you received it. It contains completed versions of your test from both the President's son and daughter."

Chase simply raised an eyebrow at that last comment and Carter shrugged in reply.

"Let's get this stuff unloaded then." Summers said after a second, and made a gesture.

Almost as one, the two flanking forces of Anla'Shok, Trainees and Kendra rose and made their way to the trucks. The four Potentials who had the pistols, besides Faith, led the teams as they opened the trucks, pistols ready in case there was some threat in the trucks. Faith had Beckett and two other Trainees watching over the front two Humvees while Kendra and three Trainees were watching the rear Humvees.

General Hammond took one final look over the dossiers and closed the folder. The recently promoted Major Samantha Carter stood in front of his desk alongside Shok'na Willow Rosenberg. Anla'Shok Jennifer Hailey stood off to the side. Carter was in her Dress Blue uniform and the two Anla'Shok were in their formal uniforms as well, similar in colour and composition to their normal uniforms but with a different tailoring, to give an air of authority rather than practical mobility.

"You all ready?" Hammond asked, getting nods from the three women.

It had been six months since the Anla'Shok had gotten 'official' sanction as the ASA by the president, and things had been busy for both the ASA and the SGC to get the new SFC up and running.

Standing from behind his desk, the General led them out from his office and into the main briefing room, which had the shutters to the window that overlooked the Gate Room lowered. Waiting for them in the briefing room were a dozen Officers, from the Navy, Airforce and Army Engineers, all male.

"General, is this some kind of joke?" a Navy Commander asked.

"Not at all, son." Hammond replied. "Or was the briefing package in some way unclear."

"All of this is impossible, sir." An Army Engineer Major said. "There is no way any of these can ever work."

"The math checks out, it is a matter of translation and integration, not development." Hailey replied off hand.

"Gentlemen, I would like to introduce you to your project leads. This is Major Carter, Ranger Captain Rosenberg and Ranger Hailey. Major Carter speaks with my authority while the Rangers speak with the authority of the President himself." Hammond continued.

"General, this is not funny." The Army Major interrupted. "Those little girls are not Army Rangers and my superiors will not appreciate this waste of time and resources."

Jennifer Hailey simply stepped forward, drew her Denn'bok and activated it, before dropping it on the table with a solid thunk.

"You are no longer active members of the US Navy, US Airforce or US Army Corp of Engineers." Willow said with a grin. "Welcome to Space Force Command. You will get on board or you will spend the rest of your career counting paperclips in a warehouse with no doors or windows. Despite your current ranks you are completely untrained in this endeavour, so listen to the experts, which is us. At this stage the SFC has two mandates. To prototype, work out the kinks and begin production on a range of new human developed technologies and to reverse engineer captured alien technology. Ranger Hailey is the current expert on the workings and design of the captured alien technology, I have the most complete functional knowledge of the new technologies and Major Carter is the one whose work started the development of these new technologies in the first place."

All the Officers around the table slowly started to nod during the speech and began to look at the three women with respect. They were all scientists and engineers and had always bumped heads with other Officers who kept ignoring their expert advice and then blaming them when things went wrong, and here they were doing the same thing.

Everything Willow had said was true. Jennifer had been working with the Goa'uld recovered technology since the battle, and for the last four months that had been almost her sole focus, ever since she had wound up her project. She had discovered two ways to improve the White Stars primary weapons, but the power requirements and the projected extra equipment made the 'improvements' so impractical as to be basically impossible. Willow not only knew the schematics for the Earth Force ships back to front but Laura Weston, the Shok'na personality who had inhabited her body during that fateful Halloween, had spent seven years serving in Earth Force and had served on almost every class of ship that Earth Force used.

Even the comment about Carter's work starting the development of the Earth Force technology was technically true. Two of Samantha Carter's published Papers, one an Astrophysics paper and the other the dissertation that got her Mechanical Engineering Masters, had been a significant influence to the writers of Babylon 5 when they were developing the world and Earth Force technology for the show.

"This briefing is just going to give you a general overview of what we are going to be working on." Carter began. "We will start simple. These are the SA-23E Starfury and the SA-32A Thunderbolt."

Two sets of schematics appeared on the screen on the wall behind the head of the table. The top one looked like a blocky almost rectangular shaped squat cockpit with spars in a X shape leading out to gimble mounted thrusters. The lower one still had the X shaped engine configuration but had a forward streamlined fuselage that the other schematic lacked, and fold in additional wing segments that could extend beyond the thrusters.

"The Starfury is a 'space superiority' and recon fighter." Carter continued. "Single pilot, cannot enter atmosphere but very manoeuvrable as each engine can gimble independently. Can do a full 180 pivot in under a second and fly backwards on its original course. Apart from its primary pulse cannons, it can mount multiple weapons on external hardpoints. The Thunderbolt is a capable fighter but also fills the role of a light bomber. Two crew, a pilot and a navigator/gunner. Unlike the Starfury, the Thunderbolt is capable of atmospheric flight, and while technically as manoeuvrable as the Starfury, the forward cockpit design makes the crew more susceptible to g-forces and it has slower deceleration. The SA-31A can also mount more external ordinance than the SA-23E."

All of the Officers were busy writing notes as Carter continued to talk. Seeing things were well in hand, Hammond slipped out of the room, leaving Carter and the Anla'Shok to deal with the rest of the briefing.

TBC….

A/N: the name for the Space Force Command I came up with over two years ago, so don't go saying I got it from the US Space Force Donald Trump has just announced.