Stars and Slime Forever
Joanna C


Story by Joanna C, no linking or archiving without permission and 
acknowledgement. Angel characters belong to Fox, Joss Whedon etc. Star 
Trek: Voyager characters belong to Paramount, UPN etc. Used without 
permission but for entertainment only (no profit).  Feedback adored.

This is a cross-over fic with Star Trek: Voyager. If you haven't seen 
it, all you need to know is that it takes place on a 24th century space 
ship and that Seven of Nine is a human who was rescued from a cyborg-
like species that had assimilated her. Therefore: her manner and 
bluntness reflect that fact that she is stilling learning human social 
norms, and she has cybernetic implants that are briefly commented upon. 
Captain Janeway makes a brief cameo at the end but is not significant 
to the story. We are firmly in the Joss-verse, don't worry. Anyway, on 
with the story...

***

Stars and Slime Forever 

When the planets were properly aligned, they attempted the procedure. 
The goal was simple: to extract the core from the centre of the sphere. 
They had been calculating the precise modulation of their weapons for 
days, and they knew the procedure was delicate: their target was a 
tricky little thing, with a peculiar spot in the cosmos that made it 
very sensitive. Any irregularities, including the energy discharge they 
were about to inflict on it, could have unpredictable results. They had 
checked and rechecked their calculations, but science can be a 
difficult thing. Of course, they had no way of knowing that in another 
time, in another place, on another day when the planets were aligned 
just so, someone else would try a similar conjuring act. And they had 
no way of knowing that magic can be just as tricky as science. Their 
sphere was a planet. And in that other time and place…well, it was just 
a charmed little trinket. But things are seldom as they seem, in this 
world or any other. And it is universally known that the longer one 
plans for something, the more likely it is that it will go wrong. 

***

Cordelia held the orb of Zanyxx at arm's length as Wesley sprinkled the 
purple powder over it carefully.

"Are you sure you're ready?" he asked.

She nodded. "I've been ready for days, Wesley. If I practice any more, 
my head will explode."

"But you understand how sensitive this ritual is. You'll need to hold 
the orb at precisely the right alignment for the duration of the 
ritual, or the consequences can be…"

"Unpredictable, I know. Wes, I'm good with yoga stuff. I can hold 
poses."

"This is hardly yoga!" he huffed. "And I don't think I need to tell you 
that if we fail in the ritual, if we misdirect the spirit of Zanyxx, we 
won't have another chance to conjure his energy and vanquish the Grfik 
demon. AND there would also be the unpredictable consequences to deal 
with."

She rolled her eyes.

"All right," sighed Wesley, grabbing a scroll off the table. "Let's do 
it."

He began the procedure. Somewhere else, sometime else, someone else 
began to do a procedure too. The planets were aligned just so. 

***

The chanting reached its climax, and Cordelia held the orb in delicate 
balance. His intonation was perfect. Her hand never faltered. Somewhere 
else, sometime else, someone else carefully executed the well-thought 
out calculations that guided the energy stream they were directing at 
their planet-sized orb. The target shimmered. The energy pulsed outward 
in a glowing halo of symbiosis. And sometime else, the chanting ended. 
The smaller, hand-held orb glowed too. Its energy pulsed outward in 
ever-widening circles, but she held her grip. As the orb's core glowed 
yellow with the finality of completion, the light reached a blinding 
crescendo, so powerful that at first, they didn't see the small vortex 
hovering above them, and the woman that tumbled out of it, stunned. 

***

They rubbed their eyes and rose to their feet, Wesley grabbing the orb 
anxiously.

"Did it work?" asked Cordelia.

Wesley turned it over in his hands. "I think so. It is glowing. But…I 
don't know. The energy coming from it was…Oh, what's this?"

It was hard to get a good look at her: the small, blond woman crouched 
on the floor seemed as dazed as they were. When she finally lifted a 
groggy head, they were relived to note that she seemed uninjured. 
But…why was she here? The orb was supposed to conjure the energy of 
Zanyxx, not the being itself. But if she was Zanyxx, he doubted she 
would look so bewildered, so suspicious…and in the few writings Wesley 
had seen on Zanyxx, there was no mention of the odd-
looking…jewelry…that this woman had attached to her face. 

"Are you…quite alright?" he asked tentatively.

"That depends," she said bluntly. "On who you are and what you've done 
to me. Where is my ship?"

"Your…what?"

She sighed. "This must be the unpredictable consequences they warned me 
about," she muttered. Then, to them: "I wish to see your commander at
once!"

"Umm, he's sleeping," said Cordelia. "But he'll be down soon. We have 
some work to do," she said, motioning at the orb.

"That will have to wait. There are matters we must attend to. Such as 
locating my ship. You will assist me."

"Geez, bossy much? Look, you just landed in OUR hotel. WE call the 
shots!"

The woman gave them a curious stare. "Yes, I did just land in 
your…hotel. And yet you do not seem perturbed. What are you?"

"I am Cordelia, and this is Wesley. We work here. And you are…"

"Seven of Nine."

Wesley and Cordelia exchanged a glance. "Nine what?" asked Wesley.

"Seven of Nine. That is my designation."

Cordelia nodded. "We understand that. But…nine what? And where did you 
come from?"

Her brow furrowed in thought. "Well, I was on my ship, Voyager. We were 
trying to extract deuterium from the planet."

"Deuterium?" said Cordelia.

"Planet?" said Wesley.

She sighed, growing impatient. "The fourth planet of the Zanyxx 
cluster. It was a delicate procedure. I was warned there could be 
unpredictable consequences…"

"Zanyxx…" muttered Wesley. "Our spells must have gotten crossed."

"Spells?" asked the woman suspiciously. "I don't understand. Zanyxx is 
a cluster of planets. We were trying to extract deuterium from it."

Wesley shrugged. "All right, to you it's a planet. To me, it's the name 
of a mytho-historical god. We were conjuring his energy to vanquish a 
Grfik demon."

"Wesley…" warned Cordelia.

"Oh, come on. It's no stranger than what SHE is telling us!"

"All right, where's Angel? Guest or not, we have a demon to vanquish!"

***

"So let me get this straight," said Angel. "She fell from a vortex that 
appeared during your spell?"

"Well, more like AFTER our spell."

"And she says she came from where?"

"A space ship of some kind. Voyager, she called it. Angel, I've never 
heard of anything like this before. We were summoning the energy of the 
god Zanyxx, and she was…summoning energy from the planet Zanyxx…the 
signals must have gotten crossed somehow. She said the work they were 
doing was delicate, and that the planet was temporally unstable…"

"Temporally?"

Wesley squirmed. "Yes. That was the other thing I had to tell you. 
She's…well, she's a bit ahead of us, I'm afraid. 3 centuries ahead, to 
be precise."

***

They were interrupted by a shriek from the lobby. Wesley and Angel 
hurried out to find their guest watching impassively as Cordelia 
pitched on the floor.

"I did nothing," Seven insisted.

"I see that," said Wesley sharply as he rushed to check on Cordelia. 

Then, more gently: "It's all right, this happens a lot. Just give it a 
minute…"

He held Cordelia's hand as the vision ran its course. "Cordy? What have 
we got?"

"Grfik demon," she gasped. "Alley on Wiltshire, behind a cheesy diner."

"Go," said Wesley.

"I need you to help with the vanquishing," Angel said.

"But Cordelia…and our guest…"

"Cordelia will be fine. She can stay here with…what was your name 
again?"

"Seven of Nine."

"Right. She can stay here with Seven of Nine." He hurried out the door 
with Wesley, pausing only to look back at her quizzically and ask "Nine 
what?" 

***

Seven watched them go, then offered a hand to the girl.

"Thanks," she said. She gave Seven's hand a curious glance. "That's 
quite a fashion statement." 

"They are…part of my anatomy," she explained awkwardly.

"Really? They have 3-D tattoos where you come from?"

"I am…I was…a Borg. These implants help regulate my physiological 
systems."

"Oh, so it's more like a bionic woman kind of thing. Neat."

She ran a hand through her hair, then strolled over to the desk. "You 
hungry? We have doughnuts…"

"I am fine. There is no time for eating, we have work to do."

"Work?"

"I need to contact my ship. They will be looking for me."

"Well, that's great that they're looking for you, because I certainly 
have no idea how we can find them."

"You don't? Then why did they leave YOU here?"

"Probably because the choices were either to leave the strange 
unpredictable woman here alone, get her killed by taking her demon 
hunting with them, or leave someone here to baby-sit. Angel had to go 
because he fights demons. Wesley had to go because he knows demons…"

"And you?"

"I'm vision girl. The powers tell me where to send them, and I pass the 
message along."

"That's it?"

"Well, I do other stuff too," she said defensively. "Make coffee, do 
filing, answer the phone…But don't worry, if anyone can get you 
to…wherever…it's Wesley."

"My ship will be looking for me," repeated Seven.

"Uh….sure. Ok. Do you want some coffee?"

"They have technology far more advanced than yours. They will be 
looking."

"Right," said Cordelia doubtfully. "Your spaceship is looking for you."

"Starship," corrected Seven. "And I find it strange that you just sent 
your boss and his "magic" orb to kill a demon that you saw in a vision, 
yet you have trouble believing that I live on a starship."

Cordelia shrugged. "Touché. So…you want to play cards or something?"

***

Angel and Wesley returned half an hour later.

"Well?" Cordelia jumped up eagerly. "How did it go?"

"Perfectly," said Angel. "The orb took care of him quick enough."

"And that means," said Wesley. "That our spell worked. If it had gone 
awry, we wouldn't have had the spirit of Zanyxx in the orb."

"Which means?"

"That whatever error in calculation occurred to bring Seven here 
happened at her end of whatever they were doing."

"But we can reverse it?"

"I'm afraid not. Their end messed it up. So only their end can undo 
it." 

***

"You can have my room, and I'll take the couch," said Cordelia 
graciously. They had offered Seven a choice of a room at the hotel or a 
room at Cordelia's, and she had chosen Cordelia. She had spent enough 
time with the girl to judge her harmless enough. And the Prime 
Directive was clear: she should keep a low profile, stay out of the 
way, and try not to interfere here. The less contact she had with the 
fewest people, the better.

"I should explain," continued Cordelia, "That my apartment is kinda 
haunted."

"Haunted?"

"Well, not in a bad way. He's actually a very nice ghost."

"You believe your living quarters are haunted by the spirit of a dead 
human? That is superstition!"

"No actually, it's the truth. His name is Dennis. You'll like him."

Seven sighed. Captain Janeway had told her many stories about Earth and 
its superstitions. She could accept that this girl had empathic powers; 
that was a known and perfectly quantifiable biological phenomenon, 
albeit rarely seen in humans. And that the girl thought it was 
something magical, some link to a god-like being…well, Captain Janeway 
had explained religion and although she found it odd, she could not 
begrudge a belief in those fables, especially because this primitive 
world didn't seem to offer any sounder explanations. And demons…well, 
to a girl this young and innocent, that could mean any number of 
things. But a ghost? THAT was just superstition. 

***

They passed their time surprisingly normally considering the 
circumstances. Once Seven realized that she was just going to have to 
bide her time, she resolved to wait out Voyager's rescue as comfortably 
as she could. And once Cordelia realized that even if Seven wanted to 
tell her about the future (which she quite emphatically didn't seem to) 
their visitor didn't know the right kinds of information anyway. 
Nothing about shopping of the future, clothing of the future…nothing 
about Earth even. She must lead a very dull and sheltered life, thought 
Cordelia. It must be so boring! 

She came to the office with Cordelia and spent most of her time 
exploring the computer. It was quaint, a relic, primitive: it 
fascinated her. She resolved to save her replicator credits when she 
got back and make one of her own. But when would she get back? She had 
tried explaining to the wise one with the glasses just what she had 
been doing when the accident occurred, but he converted everything into 
superstition and missed the point entirely. About the only part they 
could agree on was that the temporal instability of the moon Voyager 
was working on probably was probably what had gotten their "spells" 
mixed up. 

She had her communicator set on a repeating distress call, and two days 
after her mysterious arrival, it bleeped back at her. Within moments, 
Captain Janeway had materialized outside the door of the Hyperion and 
walked inside.

"Seven?"

"Captain!"

To Wesley and Cordelia, she explained "This is Captain Janeway. 
Captain, this is Wesley and Cordelia."

"Pleasure to meet you," said the captain. "Seven, are you alright?"

"Yes, Captain. I have much to tell you. How did you…"

"Temporal signature. Transwarp conduit with just enough juice to get us 
back. This is an unusual building," she commented, glancing around her 
with fascination.

"They are unusual people," muttered Seven.

With perfect timing, Angel strolled into the lobby just in time to 
catch Cordelia as she stumbled backward with a moan. Janeway raised a 
critical eyebrow.

"Empath," explained Seven.

Cordelia twisted in his arms. "Chaos demon," she choked. "El Segundo. 
Dumpster."

"I hate chaos demons," muttered Wesley. "All slime and sticky antlers…"

They waited a moment for the vision to pass and Cordelia to regain her 
composure. "Well, we'd better go," said Janeway.

"Back to your space ship?"

"Starship," corrected Seven.

"They know about that?" asked Janeway. She gave Angel a polite nod. 
"Captain Kathryn Janeway, pleased to meet you."

"Angel."

"Right. Well, it's been a pleasure, but we have some business to attend 
to…"

"I understand," said Angel. "We do too. We were just heading out, 
actually…"

"Well, it was nice meeting you," said Cordelia cheerfully. "Have a safe 
trip."

"Thank you," replied Seven. "And you have a safe…vanquishing."

"Space ships," muttered Cordelia as she fumbled for her keys. "And she 
thinks WE'RE weird!"

Janeway watched them depart with an indulgent smile. "Demons!" she 
shook her head. "Humans of this century are awfully imaginative, aren't 
they?" 

 ***

END