Liam stumbled around a group of girls dressed as Klingons who looked him up and down like they wouldn’t mind hitting him with the old pain stick in a drunken rite of passage, if you caught his drift.

He smiled at one of them and then ducked to the side as she and her friends walked past. They looked like they meant business, though he’d freely admit he wasn’t above looking into the little window to her soul that seemed to be the main feature on every lady Klingon cosplayer’s outfit ever since that sort of thing was popularized by Star Trek: The Next Generation.

He could even see the spot where she’d decided she’d covered enough of her cleavage with brown body paint and her natural skin began. Not that he was complaining. It was an interesting effect, and one that could only be noticed if someone was looking close enough. Though he got the feeling there were plenty of guys, and some women, who were doing plenty of looking.

“Easy boy,” Anna said. “Your mouth hangs open much more than that and she’ll be able to send you to Sto’Vo’Kohr.”

“I don’t know,” Olivia said. “I wouldn’t mind being his cha’Dich if we invited some of those ladies along.”

“You are amazing,” Liam said.

“Sure, if you’re into that sort of thing,” Rick muttered.

“Who isn’t?” Liam asked, turning to him.

“Lots of people want their lady to be faithful,” Rick said.

Anna rolled her eyes. “We’ve explained this to you time and again. It’s faithful if both people in a relationship are on board with that sort of thing, and you’re only getting pissy about it because you’re not getting invited to do that kind of thing.”

“Whatever,” Rick muttered.

“You’d better watch out, or one of those ladies will be trying to get you to go for a threesome with Kahless,” Anna said with a wink.

Liam turned to Michael who smiled an embarrassed little smile. He shrugged.

“Does she even pay attention when the two of you are watching TNG on Netflix?”

“Um…”

Michael’s blush was enough to tell Liam that his attempts to get Anna to marathon TNG had probably resulted in a hell of a lot more chilling than Netflix going on. So she’d picked up the hint of an outline of what was going on up on the screen, while completely missing the point because Michael was giving her the point.

Oh well. At least she sort of knew what she was talking about.

“Are you sure you don’t want to go back and get her number?” Michael asked. “She looked like she wouldn’t mind testing your honor.”

“That could be fun,” Olivia said with a wink.

Michael wiggled his eyebrows, and Liam turned to look at the group of ladies with hairstyles that should’ve ceased to exist back when 1980s glam metal fell out of style. Though the way they filled out those leather pants would be enticing no matter what decade they were in. Not to mention Olivia’s flirting was sending his mind to interesting places.

“I’ll go get their number!” Rick said.

He turned and ran down the hall with all the excitement of a puppy who was totally new to the world inspecting an alligator that was wondering why the food was willingly coming towards it. Liam almost reached out to stop him. Almost, but he figured he owed Rick for the bullshit he’d said back in the hotel room.

“This isn’t going to end well,” Olivia said.

“Not at all,” Liam said.

“Something tells me those girls are going to be a lot more insistent about telling Rick to fuck off than usual,” Anna said.

“You’re not going to try and stop him?” Michael asked, arching an eyebrow and bringing to mind a very different sort of alien from Star Trek.

Liam shrugged and grinned. “He’s going to have to learn himself.”

“I’m with Liam,” Olivia said, wrapping an arm around his. “Let the jerk make his own mistakes.”

“Who am I to deny the lady?” Liam asked.

Anna rolled her eyes. Then she turned to Michael who shrugged.

“I’m with them. He can make his own mistakes,” Michael said. “If the jerk wants to hit on a couple of women dressed as Klingons then that’s his business, and anything that happens is his own fault.”

He shook his head and turned to a room where the door was open, which was the universal sign that anyone was welcome. A Jerry Goldsmith tune drifted out through that open door. Which seemed appropriate considering the women Rick was hitting on, and having about as much success as a General Chang once Kirk and company figured out how to target an exhaust pipe with a photon torpedo.

“Now this is my jam!” Michael said, bobbing his head to the beat in a way no one ever had before as he stepped through the open door.

Liam followed, Olivia at his side, with one last lingering look down the hallway. As much as he enjoyed watching Rick crashing and burning, that’s not what he was looking for now. No, he was more concerned with another kind of alien who was all too real, but he hadn’t seen any vampires so far.

It was almost enough to make him think his mind had made up everything earlier.

Only he knew what he’d seen, and Olivia had been a witness as well. He was still sort of kind of half entertaining the idea that there might be a reality show at the convention fucking with him, but everything had been far too realistic for that to be the case.

There were vampires out there somewhere, and it scared the shit out of him.

He turned to the room where Michael was still rocking out to Jerry Goldsmith. He figured a convention was the only place where someone could rock out to Jerry Goldsmith and get away with it, but that was one of the things he loved about conventions.

“Looks like we hit the Star Trek party,” Michael said as he looked around the room.

“Very impressive,” Olivia said, glancing down at her own sci-fi armor. Though it was from Sparklefang and not Star Trek, it still bore more than a passing resemblance to some of the more revealing outfits that’d made appearances on Star Trek over the years.

“You’ve got that right,” Liam said, taking in the room. Though it was more of a suite.

The place was crawling with people in various uniforms. Next Generation. Original Series, both the ‘60s version and the newer reboots including the new television series he hadn’t watched and the movies he’d quite liked despite other Trekkies looking down on them because they were actually good movies for the most part.

The less said about that ripoff of Space Seed riffing on Wrath of Khan with a little bit of 9/11 truther bullshit thrown in, the better.

From the sounds of things they’d stepped into the room just in time to catch one hell of a debate.

“…Don’t care what you say! The new stuff is shit!”

“Dear God, not another one of these debates,” Olivia said.

“Tell me about it,” Liam said.

Liam leaned in close to Michael and spoke in a stage whisper. “So do you think they’re talking about Enterprise, the new movies, or the new paywall series nobody cares about?”

He’d meant for that stage whisper to be overheard by the guys arguing, but unfortunately it came at a moment when there was a lull in the music. If he didn’t miss his guess it was the point where the Klingon warships attacking the V’ger probe were about to be introduced to a world of hurt.

He should’ve known that moment of silence was coming, dammit, but he didn’t watch The Motion Picture often enough to have the score down like he did with, say, Wrath of Khan.

Every eye in the room landed on him, and everyone looked like he’d just started the nerdy equivalent of a holy war. Like the only thing he could’ve said that would’ve set them off even more was something about how Han Solo could totally kick Captain Kirk’s ass.

Fuck.

“What the fuck are you talking about?” a guy in a TNG uniform shouted. “I’m so sick and tired of people saying the new show isn’t real Star Trek just because it has modern production design!”

That immediately got the person next to him, a pretty girl with blonde hair that came down to her shoulders and a way of looking at the room that said she was maybe a touch shy, to lose all of that shyness.

“Are you fucking crazy?” she shouted. “A fucking spore drive? Why do they have to keep going to prequels and shit anyway? Didn’t the Star Wars prequels teach us anything? Why can’t they keep telling us the story they left us with at the end of Next Generation?”

“That’s easy,” someone else said. “They blew up Romulus so they could have a bunch of pretty boys flying around in an Apple Store doing their best to save the universe with one deus ex machina after another!”

“That’s not a fair comparison to the Abrams Star Trek and you know it!” someone dressed like an Andorian chimed in. “That movie was a love letter to the franchise, and anyone who can’t see that needs to spend a couple of hours in the agony booth!”

“Is anyone forgetting they did keep the story going with that Picard show, and it sucked? Who wants the android happy hour?”

“Don’t you say a bad word about fucking Picard!”

The whole situation was rapidly devolving into a real-life reenactment of the brawl scene from The Trouble With Tribbles, so Liam turned to Olivia and Michael and leaned in close.

“I think it might be a good idea for us to get the hell out of here,” he said, having to talk pretty loud to be heard over the sound of the brewing brawl.

He hadn’t intended to start a holy war, but there were some serious simmering fandom issues in this room. He didn’t want to be around when those issues blew up. Especially since he’d been the unlucky bastard who’d started it all, even if it was unintentional.

Something told him people getting ready to come to blows over a TV show wouldn’t care if he’d done that intentionally or not.

Liam took Olivia’s hand and headed for the door when a dude in a Jedi robe popped into the room with a smile on his face. The guy had a beard that was a reasonable facsimile of Ewan McGregor by the third prequel, but he was just a little too portly to pull off the look in the way he’d clearly been hoping for.

Which didn’t stop him from getting a couple of interested looks from some of the ladies, Olivia included, and a few of the guys even. There was no denying the power of Obi-Wan in this day and age.

“Hello there!” he said, waving cheerfully at the room.

All eyes turned to him, and suddenly the brewing holy war came to an end as everyone looked at the new guy. Which was probably a good thing. He’d heard a couple of people talking about whether or not that episode of Voyager where Janeway and Tom Paris turned into lizards and fucked represented the end of good Star Trek, and he didn’t want to listen to that.

No, all the ire in the room was immediately directed at Obi-Wan, and he instinctively raised his glass lightsaber and ignited it.

Even the people at the entrance who’d been giving Obi-Wan interested looks suddenly seemed more annoyed than anything.

They stepped into the hallway just as Fauxbi-Wan Kenobi launched into an animated conversation with the party people about how the Trek prequel series wasn’t that great and totally wasn’t worth paying a subscription fee for. Though Fauxbi-Wan also had some warnings for the Trek people about being careful what you wished for when you asked for a sequel.

Liam rolled his eyes.

“Something on your mind?” Olivia asked.

“Nerds,” he said, though he said it with affection considering he was a huge nerd himself. “They spend years bitching about how they aren’t getting enough of a franchise they love, and then when that franchise finally starts releasing stuff again they spend all their time and energy bitching about how it wasn’t exactly what they’ve been wanting and writing fanfiction about all those years they weren’t getting anything, so naturally that means the new thing is terrible.”

“I mean the Star Wars sequels were pretty objectively terrible and couldn’t strike a consistent tone other than aping the original movies,” Olivia said.

“Right?” Michael said. “It’s like they wanted to have these new people and spend three movies putting them in exactly the same place the old crew were in at the end of Return of the Jedi so the new people could go on having the adventures we wanted to see the old crew having, but it was executed so poorly that we didn’t give a shit about the new people by the time they got to the point where they could continue those adventures.”

Liam shrugged. “Some people like those movies, and some of the old guard didn’t. I figure no sequel that comes out decades after people actually wanted another sequel is ever going to measure up to how people have built up the story in their minds.”

“That’s surprisingly wise,” Olivia said, grabbing his hand and giving it a squeeze. “I like it, even if I’m not going to let your pragmatism keep me from nerd raging about what they did to Luke and company.”

“I’m not trying to be wise,” Liam said. “It’s just that the movies are there to be watched, or not. Though I guess having the mouse meddling in things probably didn’t help.”

“You’ve got that right,” Michael said.

“There’s only ever going to be one sequel trilogy for me,” Anna said. “And the bad guy in that one was Grand Admiral Thrawn.”

Liam shook his head. He was about to respond when someone called for them. He wheeled around to see none other than Rick making his way down the hallway, weaving in and out of people laughing and having the kind of good time that could only be had after hours at a really good convention.

Only there was something different about Rick. Liam shook his head as he approached. Judging by the bruise around his eye it looked like he’d decided to hit on the wrong group of Klingon warriors tonight.

“Holy shit,” Olivia breathed.

“What the fuck did you do, Rick?” Liam asked as he got closer.

“Shut the fuck up,” Rick said. “Everything went fine.”

“Why the hell would you have a shiner like that if everything went fine?” Anna asked.

“I don’t know,” Michael said. “Have you seen that episode where Worf got it on with K’Ehleyr? They got up to some pretty freaky stuff in the holodeck. Like the cleanup was probably worse than when Lieutenant Barclay got busy in there. That shiner might be the crazy cosplay way of them telling him they’re interested.”

“That actually makes some sense,” Olivia said, giggling. “So did things go well with your Klingon lady friends?”

“I don’t think so,” Rick said. “I walked up and gave them the Klingon salute and one of them punched me out of nowhere!”

Anna hit him with a flat stare, and Liam decided he was going to let her take point on this one. He was used to Rick bending the truth to fit his way of viewing the world, particularly when it came to hitting on women who weren’t interested, and he didn’t want to get in the middle this time. Not when he had to keep some sort of peace because he was rooming with Rick for the weekend.

“Fine,” Rick said after withering under that stare. “So maybe I told her I wouldn’t mind her handling my bat’leth in some one-on-one combat, and maybe she didn’t take as kindly to that line as I thought she would.”

Liam shook his head. Sure that was an echo of what he’d been thinking earlier about introducing some of those Klingon hotties to the old pain stick, for all that the analogy broke down when he thought about how he didn’t really want to call his favorite piece of anatomy a pain stick considering he was hoping to use it to make them feel good, but he’d kept that thought to himself.

The idea of hitting on a woman with a cheesy reference didn’t seem like the best idea. Especially when that woman was dressed up like a Klingon and glowering at the world like she’d spent the day being hit on and was looking for an excuse to punch someone.

Rick, though. Poor Rick had no filter, and that meant he was forever getting into trouble like this. Liam clapped him on the back.

“We really need to have a conversation sometime about what’s appropriate to say when you’re hitting on women,” he said. “Because you’re hopeless.”

“More than hopeless,” Anna said. “Come on Rick. You know ladies don’t like the whole desperate and creepy routine.”

“I’m not desperate and creepy!” he said, loud enough that several people around them clearly heard him and gave him the side-eye.

Liam figured it was time to move on before he got pulled into this conversation. Again. There were bound to be more parties, only as they moved down the hallway he saw something down one of the cross halls that set his spine to tingling. He gave Olivia’s hand a squeeze, and nodded down that hallway. Her eyes went wide.

It wasn’t Katie or Tori. They’d be welcome. He could do with a friendly face that had access to the kind of weaponry that could be used to fight off vampires.

Only of course it would be the vampires walking down that cross hall.

“Danger,” Tori’s voice whispered in his head.

Liam cocked his head to the side and shook it. When he looked again those vampires were still there, but they were glowing ever so slightly. Like they were being lit up by the heads-up display in a game, which reminded him of work.

“Are you seeing this?” Liam asked.

“I am,” Olivia said.

Thankfully his friends had walked farther down the hallway, so they couldn’t overhear their conversation to think they’d lost it. Because he was still of the opinion that he might be losing it, for all that Olivia could see the same thing he was seeing.

He’d heard of shared delusions. He hadn’t believed in them until Olivia started seeing the same crazy shit he saw, but it was as likely an explanation as the idea of space vampires come down from the stars to suck human blood.

“Tori?” he asked. “Can you hear me? Are you out there?”

“I am,” she said.

He glanced at Olivia. “Can you hear her?”

“I can’t,” Olivia said. “But I can see those vampires down there glowing like we’re in a video game. Talk about a trip!”

“Yeah, it’s something,” Liam said, shaking his head. “We’re in danger.”

“You’ve got that right,” Tori said. “You’re in serious danger, and you need to find me!”

He looked up again. And realized that in the moment he’d been distracted by the vampires and Tori making an entrance in his head, his friends had kept going right to where they’d seen the vampires moseying along.

“Are you sure you want to go that way?” he asked, jogging to catch up with them and weaving in and out of the press of bodies.

“Fuck yeah we do!” Rick said, his eyes lighting up. “That was one of those hot vampire chicks from earlier! You bet your ass I want to get to know one of them better!”

“But you don’t even like Vampire Vixens,” Liam said.

“I like them when there’s a hot cosplay chick looking like that,” Rick said, as though that settled it.

“Great,” Olivia muttered.

Liam sighed. Of course Rick would see a dangerous vampire who was only on earth looking for a snack and the first thing he thought was that he had a chance with them. Because in Rick’s mind a woman dressed up in a revealing cosplay outfit meant she had to be looking for a guy.

No amount of getting turned down or being introduced to a pretty cosplayer’s boyfriend who was standing right next to her looking annoyed, or maybe even being introduced to said boyfriend’s fist, had ever convinced Rick otherwise.

Though at least, to Rick’s credit, he knew to take no for an answer. Even if it sometimes took a couple of noes and the occasional fist for him to get the point.

So they continued on towards the obviously dangerous situation, and Liam tried to ignore the bad feeling he had as they moved down the hall to see what adventures were waiting for them in the direction of those vampire vixens.