Chapters:

1. First Blood

Scared blue eyes stared out at her from behind a ruined wall. Covered in ash grey and char streaks and huddled behind a bulkhead that no longer offered much protection, it was the eyes that caught her attention. The only bright thing about him. A flicker of light in a hallway choked with dust and smoke, the smallest hint of motion that somehow interrupted her concentration, and--as was becoming all too common these days--she hesitated.

He wasn't supposed to be here. She had ordered Ecliptor to locate a ship without prisoners, preferably one without even a slave crew, one that was on its way to the surface instead of heading out with live cargo. She didn't need more deaths on her conscience for a cause that wasn't even the monarchy's own--for what amounted to little more than a whim. She had done this herself, sent this ship spiraling to its doom for no one's purpose but her own.

There was no turning back, and she hadn't become who she was by questioning her actions. She needed to find a working monitor. But she couldn't turn away from those blue eyes. What would Ashley say, if she found out that she had sacrificed a child for the good of the galaxies?

"Come here," she said imperiously.

Wide eyes stared back at her from the dubious safety of his hiding place. A crash from somewhere up ahead, a fresh inhalation of smoke so strong that she tried not to breathe. It was entirely possible that this ship would disintegrate before it ever hit the ground. They could already be in the atmosphere and she wouldn't know it. She hadn't planned to die on this excursion.

"It's not safe here," she told the child, trying to moderate her tone a little. Any idiot could see that. But sometimes children responded better to cajoling than threats... so she'd heard from the slavers' reports.

"You have to come with me," she added, "so we can get away from this ship."

The eyes just looked at her, and she wondered if there might be something wrong with him. She didn't have time for this. "Don't move," she told him, striding forward to lift him out of his hiding place.

He didn't have anything she could identify as a weapon and he seemed intact, so she clutched him to her chest and headed determinedly toward auxiliary tactical. Thin, strong arms gripped her neck. She almost dropped him right then, but his threat assessment was minimal and really, what could hurt her?

The destruction of this ship could hurt her. The first tactical monitor was operational, though it responded negatively to her command, "Show me the ground." She grimaced, then enunciated clearly, "VEM scanners display terrain surrounding projected crash site."

A stable image of the landscape appeared instantly, and she ignored the monitor's prompt for further information. "We're going," she told the child in her arms. "I hope you're not allergic to magic."

Violet light swirled around them, making the thick air glow even as a blanket of welcome silence settled over the screech of overstressed bulkheads and the inescapable alarms. She was moving even before the curtain parted, walking out of the magical haze into the untainted air of a terrestrial environment. The thundering boom that followed on her heels told her she hadn't left any time to spare. The ground shuddered beneath her feet a moment later.

She kept walking, the slave boy held firmly to her even as he lifted his head. He seemed no less intrigued by their new surroundings than she was, but they didn't have time to stop and survey them. The crash of their ship could not have gone unnoticed. Air patrols should already be swarming into the area, and she needed to get close enough to see her destination before they could teleport the rest of the way.

It was pretty, though. She tried not to look, but she couldn't help seeing what was right in front of her. The hills rolled away in every direction, and the nearest town was a tranquil picture in the midst of this unmarred landscape. What could only be civilian air traffic flickered overhead. There was no steady drone of velocifighters, no echoing clang of mining equipment, no smog above or even on the horizon.

It was disturbingly idyllic. Almost as though she had walked into a fantasy. It made her skin prickle with anticipation, waiting for reality to intrude, waiting for the harsh realization that she had been discovered and placed into some kind of mindwarp or worse. It was always a possibility. It wasn't something she could allow to paralyze her.

The hum of fighter engines in tight formation coincided with her first glimpse of their target. She didn't want to teleport from here. She'd prefer to be a lot closer, get not only a better look but some sense of the security. She didn't want to end up in the middle of an intruder defense that shot first and asked questions later.

Unfortunately, what she wanted was not her first priority. She would not allow herself to be taken by local law enforcement, no matter how ineffective it could prove to be against her. She would not leave without at least attempting to carry out a plan that seemed less and less sane the further it progressed. Therefore she would teleport, at a distance and into a highly uncertain reception, before the fighters could catch up with her location.

She tightened her grip around the slave boy and let the magic swirl around them again. The silver sparkle just visible through the hills became a looming edifice at close range. As the violet light dimmed and vanished, she found herself doing it again.

Hesitating. Should she walk right up? Were there, even now, weapons trained on her that would fire at the slightest motion? Would there be live response to her presence at all? There were roles played by good and evil all over the universe: evil attacked, good defended. How much of that generalization could she apply to specific circumstances and still expect to walk away alive?

A violet sphere appeared in front of her, danced forward, paused. Continued unmolested. She followed, every sense as alert as it could be considering the situation.

She made it three steps. Four, if she counted the half step that halted the moment she saw the light. Multiple lights. Three glowing balls careened across the grassy expanse, encircled her, hovered a moment. Then each discharged a shower of sparks that faded into a uniformed enemy she would recognize anywhere.

Yellow, black, and... purple? She had seen a lot of Rangers. Pink, turqoise, even orange. But never a purple one. Purple wasn't even a color--humans were the only ones who could see it. She allowed a single moment of derision while her mind automatically processed weapons, formation, likely weaknesses.

Hidden strengths. The teammates she couldn't see. The intruder defense systems that had yet to manifest. Air support. She had to assume these Rangers were in immediate contact with the fighters she had temporarily evaded. And of course, whatever was inside that structure behind them.

"What are you doing here?" The Yellow Ranger asked the question, and she recognized the voice immediately. No "who are you" from her. She reminded herself sternly that this Ashley was not the same person who had traded captivity for propaganda... and that could work either for or against her.

The boy shifted in her arms, but she didn't dare set him down yet. It was entirely possible that he had tipped the balance in her favor, at least for the moment. Rangers didn't shoot children. But what could she tell them that would keep that favor on her side?

"I need your help," she said, trying to gauge their reactions. Rangers gave away a surprising amount for armored soldiers with visored helmets. The Yellow and Purple Rangers looked at each other, while the Black Ranger folded his arms. He, at least, was unimpressed.

"You'll forgive us if we don't take your word for it," the Black Ranger said dryly. "You from the dimension that's been flooding our system with velocifighters?"

"Yes." And if anything happened to Ecliptor in her absence, she might never make it back. He was the only one she trusted to monitor the ID generator for incoming as well as outgoing codes. "I used the velocifighter portal to come here. You're the only way I can get a message to Ashley without it being hacked a hundred times over."

"Ashley?" the Yellow Ranger repeated. She and the Purple Ranger exchanged glances again. "What do you want with Ashley?"

If this was a mindwarp, she would lose everything right now. Her consciousness noted this idly while the unthinking part of her brain followed through with the original plan. "I want to know how far the Free Systems could get if they went on the offensive right now. If they pushed toward the Border, and the Border pushed back."

"Nowhere." It was her own voice, and her eyes widened as her attention shifted to... the Purple Ranger?

"They'd get nowhere," her voice repeated. "The Border is already pushing in your dimension. It's crushing everything in its path, and the Free Systems are holding as best they can. You must know they can't go anywhere."

"Not the monarchy," she corrected... herself. "I mean the Border. Friendly forces on the Border. What if allies of the Free Systems cleared the Border and re-aligned themselves with Eltare?"

Her voice was flat when the Purple Ranger replied. "There are no friendly forces on the Border."

"There could be." She was talking to herself. There was no question about it, and she didn't know what to think. Would she be easier or harder to convince than the average Ranger? "If I make it back there."

There was silence for a moment, the surrounding chitter of wildlife drowned out by the approaching whine of fighters. A pair zipped by overhead, yawed sharp to port, and aborted their flyby as one--both coming around for another pass. They had seen her.

The Yellow Ranger put a hand to her ear, and a moment later she spoke so they could all hear. "Gold One, this is Gold Leader. Two survivors. Others possible?"

She didn't answer, uncertain whether the question had been directed at her and equally uncertain of the answer. Her expectation was no. But then, she hadn't expected to find the boy either.

"Negative, Gold One. Identities unconfirmed. They're in our custody for now."

Another pause, and she wondered what the word "custody" implied on a world so lightly touched by war. The Yellow Ranger continued, "Will advise. Thanks, Cara."

The fighters shot by overhead, turning in a more leisurely arc this time as they appeared to angle back the way they'd come. There was a wordless moment. Then, at no signal she could discern, the three Rangers crossed their wrists in front of them and flung their arms out to the side.

"Power down," they declared in unison.

She stared. It was something she had only heard of, a fact of Ranger life she knew had to exist but had never been witness to. Voluntary demorphing. Their uniforms sparkled to nothingness as quickly as they could appear, and three ordinary adults stood in their place. Three... almost ordinary adults.

She knew them. At least, she knew another Yellow Ranger who called herself "Ashley." And she had met the others, met herself, once before. It was still a shock to see her own face... to see her own face, period, but even more so when it was accompanied by what she now realized was a Ranger uniform. So they had come from Eltare's experimental transit after all. There was the possibility that this plan could actually work.

"How about this," Ashley was saying, watching her watch her double with an open if not friendly expression. "If you promise not to shoot us, we'll promise not to shoot you. Your friend either," she added, with a careful glance at the boy in her arms.

It was with some relief that she let him slide to the ground. He didn't show any inclination to sidle away from her, which was contrary to what little she had heard of children, but it was a good thing in light of the fact that she had no idea what he would do if he could. She put her hands on his shoulders, just in case he changed his mind, and she told Ashley firmly, "It's a deal."

Ashley glanced over at the man who had appeared in place of the Black Ranger. He had his hands behind his back, and there was a weapon in them--she didn't have to see it to know. It was in the way he was standing. He met Ashley's stare, saying nothing, clearly reserving the right to break the promise she had made for him.

Ashley looked away first. "What do you want from us?" she asked bluntly. Her eyes flickered to the slave boy before she glanced up again, a small frown on her face. "And why do you want to contact my counterpart?"

"I want to record a message here, with you watching, that you'll send through whatever channels you have available, to Ranger Ashley of the Free Systems in my own dimension." What was the easy part. How was more problematic. "I also want a ship that can return me to where I came from. And I want a future for this boy that doesn't involve slavery."

She hadn't planned to say that. Her intentions were very clear in her mind, having been repeated, rehearsed, re-examined from every angle she could think of. But the boy was a variable, an unexpected event that was rewriting her script. He was, as far as she was concerned, a weakness that would have been better ignored--but something in her couldn't do it.

It was clear that the Rangers had similar sentiments. "Slavery?" her own voice repeated in a dangerous tone that was all too familiar. "Where did he come from?"

"Where are his parents?" Ashley asked, failing to hide the solicitous glances she directed at the boy when she thought no one was looking. Ashley, it seemed, changed very little from one dimension to another.

"What kind of message?" Their male teammate was the only one focusing on the important part of her mission, so she directed her answer to him.

"The kind of message that would get me a knife in the back if I recorded it on the Dark Fortress," she informed him. "If I was lucky. Treason is a way of life in the monarchy, and our punishments have become very creative."

"So why are you here?" the woman-who-was-not-her wanted to know. "Why risk everything you've built for the chance that your enemy won't kill you as creatively as your allies?"

Ashley gave her teammate a quick look, but she didn't say anything.

She was pretty sure her double already knew the answer, and that the question itself was a kind of test. It wasn't one she appreciated. But she didn't doubt it was one she had to pass, so she forced down her pride and looked herself in the eye. "Because I'm tired of fighting for people who don't care," she said simply. She did her best not to waver when she added, "Ashley cared."

The woman who looked like her nodded once, as though she hadn't found the fastest way to get herself replaced, reprogrammed, or killed, and stated it aloud for anyone to hear. "We'll help you get a message to her," she said matter-of-factly.

"Andros is going to love this," the man muttered under his breath.

Andros?

The women ignored him. "Why don't you both come inside," Ashley suggested, her manner thawing by the second. She hadn't been that cold to start with.

And so it was that she found herself inside the massive structure she had given only passing consideration to from the outside: threat assessment, high; offensive capability, unknown. There was nothing about the interior that matched her expectations--nothing at all, other than its size. Far from the bastion of security and defense that logic told her it had to be, the building appeared to serve as little more than living space and possibly training center for a very small number of residents.

She tried not to be too interested. There were a lot of things she didn't need to know. She had already composed her message, and she recorded it under Ashley's supervision--and yes, she knew she was being supervised. She was surprised and maybe a little alarmed that she wasn't being guarded. What did they know that their Black Ranger bodyguard had felt comfortable putting his weapon away?

She had tried to leave immediately. They couldn't contact JT, not now, although someone just like him had answered their hail to Eltare. She had watched in fascination but stayed out of sight, certain her presence would only compromise an already improbable plan. Afterward, though, she had realized what was happening: she was starting to wonder. Wondering led to curiosity, and curiosity would mean that she cared. Crazy unlikely attempted plan or not, she needed to go back where she had come from.

She didn't leave. She hadn't been able to admit to herself how much she missed Ashley until she was confronted by her counterpart, and some wistful part of her pointed out that she might never experience this odd unconditional acceptance again. And so, against her better judgement, she allowed her departure to be delayed for a few minutes while the Rangers had some sort of refreshment.

It was a surreal feeling, to be seated in an overstuffed chair with a little boy huddled next to her, surrounded by Rangers and doing nothing more aggressive than sipping tea. Tea. When was the last time she'd had tea? The boy clutched an empty cup to his chest, having slurped the contents in seconds and now refusing to give up the vessel that had held the juice.

What was she going to do with him? Of course it hadn't occurred to her at the time, but now... she couldn't take him back with her. He would never survive. She could protect him for a little while, but not from everything and not for long. Sooner or later he would wind up dead. Or worse--back where he had started.

"Where did he come from?" Ashley asked gently. She looked up in surprise, half of her alarmed at having been so transparent and the other half suspicious of what her own Ashley had told her. "I don't know you, myself..." Then how could she read her so well?

They had obviously known each other for some time, in this dimension, if her counterpart had been willing to risk herself to save an Ashley she'd never met. And the Black Ranger, Ty... he had been there too. Her counterpart had lied when she said he wasn't a Ranger. She hadn't done a poor job of concealing her own identity, either.

Had that been choice, or necessity? She couldn't help wondering whether the Astronema of this dimension knew more of her past than she did. More than just what Ashley had told her... more than what she remembered, which was nothing. How could they trust her if she didn't? All she knew was what she had lived on the Dark Fortress.

Almost all she knew, she thought with an odd twinge as she looked down at the boy again. "He was on the ship." Where he shouldn't have been, a part of her mind added. Another part countered, Where he should still be.

"The ship that crashed?" Ashley prompted. "The one you were on?"

She didn't like being questioned. "It wasn't supposed to be a slave ship," she snapped. "He must have been left behind."

"It was good of you to rescue him," her counterpart said neutrally. She had introduced herself as "Kerone," but it was almost impossible to think of her that way.

She met her own gaze, certain she could see doubt lurking there. She wouldn't be fooled by a seemingly altruistic gesture. Her counterpart might wear a different uniform, but she had already proven that she knew Astronema all too well. "I shouldn't have done it," she told herself. "He won't have a chance in the monarchy. He would have been better off in the crash."

"No, he wouldn't." Ashley's reaction was immediate, predictable, and obviously restrained. The Yellow Ranger would rather jump to her feet in protest, exclaiming about life and justice and hope. It almost made her smile, seeing the reaction written so clearly in Ashley's expression. She restrained herself only for the sake of their company, the uncertainty that they all felt about who they were dealing with and what kind of response they might accidentally provoke.

"He's alive," Ashley added firmly. "He has the same chance as any of us, now."

"You're deluded if you think he has the same chance as a free person," she said flatly. "This isn't the Free Systems, Ashley. KO-35 is deep in the heart of the monarchy, with a thriving slave trade and a loss rate of sixty-five percent.

"He'd be worse off on the Dark Fortress," she continued, when Ashley seemed about to interrupt. "He's a child, and being associated with me will only make him more vulnerable. I control the Dark Fortress crew, but I don't control its traffic. And there are very few beings who wouldn't steal him in a second for having any connection to me."

No one said anything for a moment, and she felt a flash of disgust that they were so easy to intimidate. Did they know nothing of evil here, on this idyllic planet in the middle of unoccupied territory? Her eyes locked with an identical pair, a hazel stare that was full of anger and reproach. Her counterpart knew. Why the Purple Ranger couldn't be bothered to educate her teammates was beyond her.

Her tone echoing that same anger, fueled by a fierce envy to which she would never have admitted, she declared, "At least if he had crashed, he would have crashed here. He would have been allowed to simply die."

"We wouldn't have let him die!" Ashley exclaimed. Her restraint couldn't hold up in the face of what she must consider blatant "injustice." She was upset and no longer making any effort to hide it. "Why can't you just leave him here! Why does he have to go back at all?"

She stared at Ashley, assessing the others' reactions without moving. They were focused completely on her--not on Ashley's preposterous suggestion. Was she, then, supposed to treat it seriously?

"You would take him?" she asked carefully. Her fingers clenched, prepared to strike back at the first sign of derision.

"Of course we would!" Ashley didn't even consult her teammates. "Kerone, you must know what this planet is like--can you imagine anyone on KO-35 ever turning an orphaned child away? Let us place him with someone that will take care of him!"

The raw emotion was wearing her down. Not just from Ashley, but from all of them. The way they didn't control their expressions, the way they went from hostile to amused to trusting and back again without a single display of power to reinforce their distance. It grated on her nerves, making her feel wrung out from looking over her shoulder. This was not the sort of interaction she was used to.

"I wish you could place me," she blurted out. She was appalled by the words before she even finished speaking.

Again, Ashley went from vehement to welcoming in the blink of an eye. She didn't so much as hesitate. "You could stay here too, you know."

She saw her own counterpart exchange glances with the other Ranger. They, at least, knew how unlikely that was, and their wariness was more familiar than anything else. It helped her find her footing again. "I came here for a reason," she told Ashley sternly. "I can't stay."

Ashley just nodded, but something in her expression was... wistful?

She was imagining things, of course, oversensitive to concern now that she'd been exposed to it so abruptly. But she couldn't help adding, "Thank you." It was something they said in the Free Systems, she knew. "For him--" She glanced at the boy. "And for myself," she said more softly.

"Will you leave him with us?" Ashley repeated, her tone just as gentle as before.

She didn't know why she even paused. Taking him with her was no good option. "I will," she said aloud. "He will be better off."

She didn't realize that her counterpart was staring at her until she spoke. "You're not evil anymore, are you." The woman was matter-of-fact, as though she had already known and hadn't really needed it confirmed.

"No," she admitted, very quietly. It was a personal failing in many ways. "Not evil enough."

"But good enough," Ashley said with certainty. "You were always good, Kerone. That's not a bad thing."

Not for her, perhaps.

"Whether it is or not," she said with a sigh, "it is unquestionably a dangerous thing. I've risked more than my own life by coming here today. And if the Rangers of the Free Systems even consider my proposal, many more lives will be at stake."

She frowned then, looking from one to the other with something akin to suspicion. "It's a difficult thing, this caring."

Ashley smiled at that, apparently failing to take her seriously. "Yes it is," she agreed, too easily. "But that's what makes all this worth it."

Worth it. What was "worth it," exactly? Hours later, Kerone found herself still pondering those words. It was something she had said to TJ, once, that the meaning in life could be found in the caring. But the caring for what? What made the things that she cared about any more important than the things other people cared about?

She could hear someone coming even before Zhane's shadow flickered across the doorway. He tapped on the frame lightly, probably just to catch her attention but the boy in her arms jerked at the sound, hands clenching on her shirt as his eyes flew open. She remembered that paranoia all too well--she still felt it herself, sometimes. She hoped his fear would ease faster than hers had, overwhelmed by the hazy memory of youth.

"Sorry," Zhane offered, belated comprehension filling his voice as she did her best to calm the frightened child. "DECA told me where you were."

She glanced around the storage closet automatically. "He's scared of big spaces," she said, by way of explanation. She stroked his dirty hair carefully, watching him stare wide-eyed up at Zhane. "I think he feels more comfortable in here."

"Well," Zhane remarked, apparently addressing the boy. "You and I won't get along well at all."

She smiled a little. "When did you get back?"

"Just now." He was leaning on the doorframe, watching the child who clung to her. The boy was still staring back at him, and she wondered that he hadn't had the tendency to meet someone's gaze beaten out of him yet. How young did they start with slave children?

"DECA told us who was here earlier," Zhane was saying. He was looking at her now, she realized. "How are you doing?"

She glanced down at they boy again. "Distracted," she said truthfully. She didn't mean to shrug off his concern. She had spent more time thinking about the child that her double had brought with her than she had about Astronema herself.

"Yeah?" Zhane let the answer stand, which seemed to be his habit lately. At least with members of the team. Shifting his weight against the doorframe, he asked, "How did you end up on baby-sitting duty?"

"I volunteered." It was true, but the moment the words were out she reconsidered. "And I was the only one free. You and Andros were gone, Ashley's at the Center, and Ty's doing his flyby.

"It's good, though," she added as an afterthought. "Since I'm the only one he couldn't infect."

Zhane gave her a sharp look. "Infect? Infect with what?"

"DECA didn't tell you?" She didn't know why she asked; it was obvious that the AI hadn't. "He was carrying some kind of tactilely transmitted virus. He was immune to it, but DECA thought he'd be contagious until whatever she dosed his juice with worked its way through his system."

"How contagious?" Zhane hadn't moved, and his tone was more curious than anything else. Funny that he didn't seem to fear disease any more than she did.

"No physical contact for the first three hours," she said, staring down at the boy. "We figure he was probably in quarantine when Astronema found him. He should be safe enough to touch now, but whatever he was carrying was lethal to Eltarans and most of their subgroups. Including humans."

Zhane didn't answer for a moment, and finally she raised her eyes to meet his. He was frowning. "You don't think maybe that's why she brought him," he said at last, returning her gaze with a searching look of his own.

She shook her head. "We thought of that," she said quietly. "There's no way to know for sure, but nothing about the way she acted with him was consistent with his use as a weapon. She didn't encourage him to come to us. She didn't seem to want to leave him with us." Emotional reaction, she knew. That sort of thing could be feigned easily enough.

More practically, she added, "Besides, if she was going to deliberately infect a population, why start in such a remote location? Her cover story was dangerous in and of itself. She would have been better off dropping him in some city on Eltare and running."

"Not if the antidote was as easy as DECA drugging his juice," Zhane pointed out. "She might have known she couldn't start a plague, so she settled for attacking the Rangers of the most distant Border world in the hopes that it would start a chain reaction: the Rangers, the planet, the system, the Border."

"Her cover story being a bonus?" she suggested. "Assuming it actually gets back to JT, and he decides to do something about it? Any offensive launched by the Free Systems drains their resources until it's crushed by someone they were counting on as an ally?" She had been through it all in her mind before, and it was an ugly scenario. "It's possible."

Zhane was studying her. "But you don't think it's likely."

"No." And what did she base that on? Astronema's emotional reaction? Her sympathy for a person she could have been, had the circumstances been different? Ashley, at least, was perfectly willing to take Astronema's apparent defection at face value, but Kerone ought to know better. She knew the forces of evil and the way they worked in a way that Ashley did not.

"For one thing," she said slowly, "Astronema wouldn't bother attacking our dimension on her own. That kind of order would have to come from Dark Spectre. Dark Spectre wants me if he wants any of us, and she really seemed surprised to see me here."

Emotional reaction again. She had been spending too much time around Saryn if she was starting to trust her feelings about people after such a brief exposure. On the other hand, Astronema could simply have attacked her, kidnapped her by threatening the others, or tried any number of devious plans to neutralize Dark Spectre's former, alternate princess of evil. And she hadn't.

"If she's trying to get to the Free Systems and JT through us," she continued, "meaning that the virus was the bonus instead of the other way around? There's every reason for her to try to gain our trust, not to abuse it at the first opportunity. She wouldn't dare compromise the message she's trying to send."

Zhane gave her a half-smile that, for just a moment, looked exactly like Andros'. "Should have known you'd put more thought into it than I had. I can't say I'm not relieved."

She wasn't sure whether she should be grateful or disappointed that he found no fault with her reasoning. Grateful, because she had learned to depend on him to back her up when her thoughts went too fast for the others to follow. And disappointed at the same time, because it meant that if there was a problem after all, something she had overlooked, then it was still up to her to find it.

"So is he all right?" Zhane asked, nodding at the boy. "Some of those host-borne things aren't exactly benign."

"No," she agreed quietly, turning her attention back to the child in question. However he had arrived here, he was an innocent player in what was by any view a cruel game. "But this time it wasn't the virus' fault."

She knew Zhane didn't understand, but she was sorry to be the one to tell him. Easing her hand under the boy's elbow, she turned his arm a little to one side. Just enough that Zhane could see the harsh red needle pricks running up and down the vein underneath.

His jaw dropped. "What--" He didn't finish, just gave her an outraged look that conveyed the question better than words.

"DECA says he has a natural immunity," she said softly. "I think they must have been using him to make a vaccine."

"For the entire crew?" Zhane demanded. "Is that why he was quarantined? They didn't bother to cure him because they needed his antibodies to vaccinate themselves?"

"I doubt they were vaccinating the crew," she said with a sigh. "They could sell it anywhere they went, as long as there was an outbreak, and make some money on the side."

She didn't say it, but Zhane heard the words anyway. "And they could use him to make sure there was an outbreak," he said grimly. "What kind of people would do something like that?"

"The kind of people who transport slaves," she reminded him. "The kind that keep a child in isolation because it would be a waste of profit to vaccinate their own crew. I'm sure his wasn't the first blood to be sacrificed on that ship."

Like the words she hadn't said, he heard the bitterness she tried to hide. His voice softened as he answered, "Maybe the first blood to be saved, though."

She looked up in surprise. "Did you--" DECA had told him, she remembered. He had mentioned Astronema's "cover story." Was he, then, commenting on her plan, or just being poetic? "Do you think it'll work?"

He understood without her having to explain. "Yes," he said simply.

She looked at him more closely, mindful of the boy in her arms. "What do you mean, yes? Just yes?"

He grinned at her. "You asked what I thought and I told you. Yes, I think it will work."

"Astronema's plan?" she repeated. "To rebel against Dark Spectre and support the Free Systems?"

"Do you think it will work?" he countered.

"I think it's crazy," she informed him. "She doesn't have any kind of army beyond what's on the Dark Fortress, and if she wanted to do good with it she'd take it to the Free Systems right now. What's the point in trying to stretch their resources all the way out to the Border based on the improbable hope that she can incite some kind of controlled mutiny?"

"Is that a no?" Zhane inquired, amusement on his face and in his voice.

"That's the safest thing to do!" she exclaimed. "It increases the strength of the Free Systems in direct proportion to the loss of monarchy forces! The Dark Fortress survives and the Free Systems lose nothing--what's bad about that?"

"What's good about it?" Zhane prodded. "In comparison to the liberation of millions of people, the end of the Kerovan slave trade, and the doubling of space controlled by the Free Systems?"

"The possibility of those things," she corrected. "The possibility and the reality are completely different things. The certainty of the Dark Fortress' contribution if she joins the Free Systems now has to be worth more than the tiny chance they have of forging some sort of rebel alliance with the Border."

"Hey," Zhane said gently. He smiled to show he was teasing, but she could see genuine curiosity in his eyes. "Since when do you vote for playing it safe?"

She opened her mouth, but when he put it like that she had no immediate reply. Finally she just shook her head, frowning at the shelving on the opposite wall. "Maybe I've seen Rangers make miracles happen a few too many times," she murmured. "I can't help thinking... I guess I feel like it has to end sometime."

Zhane didn't move. "Because it did for you?"

She was startled into looking at him. "What?"

"I think," he said carefully, "sometimes, I think that you believe in events, in circumstances, more than you believe in people. Not that that's a bad thing. It's just--"

He hesitated, then continued, "Remember, once, when you were talking about how unlikely it was that we met the way we did? You thought it was coincidence, random chance that things turned out like this... and maybe it was. But I like to think that we made it this way."

"We did," she allowed, frowning again. "We chose to be where we are now. But we made that choice... we made it based on things that had happened. The circumstances that we found ourselves in."

"And I think we would have made the same choices no matter what the circumstances," Zhane told her. "Maybe we would have made them differently, but we still would have made them. Look at Astronema, choosing to defect in her dimension just like you did in ours.

"Actually," he said with a rueful shrug, "look at all the Rangers in the Free Systems. Look at the way their choices mirror ours--or ours have mirrored theirs. Our circumstances are different, but we're still the same people. And in the end we make the same choices."

It didn't really matter whether she believed that or not. "That doesn't mean things turn out the same way," she pointed out. "Even if we want the same things, we don't necessarily get them. Or at least," she added when he seemed about to interrupt, "we don't get them in the same way."

"No," he said slowly. "Not the same way. But... Astrea, bad things don't happen just because good things happen. I mean, they're not caused by good things. Good things are sometimes hard and bad things can be easy, that part balances, but there's no... punishment, for being happy."

She didn't answer. Was that what she thought? That good things inevitably soured? That lucky streaks invited misfortune? "I don't know," she murmured. "Sometimes it seems like a lot of the good things that happened to me went bad, somehow."

"Or maybe a lot of the bad things turned good," Zhane insisted. "I think it's all in how you look at it. Nothing stays the same, but that doesn't mean that good things don't last. It just means they change. That's true of good and bad. Losing one thing just means that something else takes its place... I think it's just what we choose that makes the change good or bad."

Without altering his tone in the slightest, he had tipped his chin down and cast a significant glance at her armful. She followed his gaze automatically, smiling a little at the boy's closed eyes and slowly relaxing fingers. Would Astronema's effort turn out to be a good change, then? Could it? Despite what had to be the conflicting motives and desires of everyone involved?

"Whose choices are the most important?" she asked quietly. "What if one person chooses one thing and someone else chooses something different--something that conflicts with the first person's choice?" The perfect example sprang to mind, but she wouldn't say it: what about you and Ashley?

"I don't know," he said with a shrug. "All I know is that we won't get what we want until we take responsibility for our choices. I think maybe Astronema's doing that. I just hope that what she wants is what she says she wants."

She looked up in surprise. "Now you're not sure?" she prompted, searching his expression.

He smiled. "I never said I was sure. I just told you what I think."

He wasn't sure? He had almost convinced her. If that was true, then maybe she was more certain of what he thought than he was. And she didn't think she was the only one. "Andros would start a war based on what you think," she said abruptly.

He actually rolled his eyes at that. "Andros would start a war over a lot of things," he said dryly. "That doesn't mean they're worth it."

"No--Zhane, I'm serious." She contemplated the idea, intrigued by what he had called "mirroring." "What if you got Andros to help convince JT that Astronema's plan is worth considering? You could end up supporting Astronema in their dimension just the way you supported me here."

Zhane was frowning at her. "What do I have to do with any of this?" he wanted to know. "It's none of my business. I don't know what they're going through and I'm not about to tell them what to do."

Impatient, she shook her head. "No, I wasn't saying you would. I was just--thinking out loud. It's strange, isn't it? It's funny how things work out."

"I would have said, it's funny how we end up in the same places no matter how things work out," Zhane responded, his tone lighter now. "But either way, I don't have anything to do with that dimension. I believe in the good in everyone, Astrea, but I don't force anyone else to believe with me. That's their choice."

"I know," she said quickly. Maybe too quickly. Did he think she was accusing him of something? "You believed in me... I don't know if I ever thanked you for that."

"You did." He was smiling now, and she relaxed incrementally. "I thought that was nice of you."

The boy in her arms twitched when she moved, and she tried to resettle herself without disturbing him. It wasn't possible. He was sitting on the floor next to her and had started out leaning against her side, snuggled under her arm. By now he was sprawled across her lap, supported by both her arms and squirming uncomfortably when she shifted. She sighed without meaning to. They'd been in here a long time.

"You want some help getting him cleaned up?" Zhane offered, nodding at the boy. "DECA could probably make him something else to wear. Or do you want to just let him sleep?"

"He's been sleeping," she said with a sigh. "But we tried to get him to change his clothes before." She looked over at the small clothes folded on top of one of the shelves and saw Zhane follow her gaze. "He won't do it. And he won't wash up at all--he started shrieking the second he saw water."

They had all been taken aback by the boy's reaction, but Zhane didn't so much as blink. "Well," he told the child amiably, "it looks we have something in common after all. I'm not a big fan of water myself... but it does have its uses."

The boy didn't move, apparently sleeping right through their conversation. Zhane caught her eye again. "Did you try a sponge bath?"

"We didn't dare," she admitted. "Not after the way he screamed at the water in the sink. Maybe he's calm enough now, though..." She eyed him dubiously. "If he didn't have to see the water beforehand?"

Zhane shrugged. "It's worth a try. I'll go get a towel." He straightened up, but he didn't move while she tried to rouse the sleeping boy. Unspoken was the understanding that if she wanted Zhane's help it would have to be somewhere other than the cramped storage closet.

The boy didn't startle this time, just pushed against her side and struggled to sit up before he'd even opened his eyes. He braced himself against her as he looked around, gaze going to her when she asked gently, "Can you get up for a little while? You can sleep somewhere more comfortable, if you'd like."

She couldn't tell if he understood what she was saying, but he allowed her to tug him to his feet when she stood. Probably used to being dragged around, she thought sadly. She hated to be just another in a long line of people telling him what to do. On the other hand, he couldn't take care of himself, and if they couldn't communicate with him they couldn't reason with him either.

Zhane stepped aside as they made their way out into the brighter light of the hangar. The boy clutched her hand nervously, but he stuck close to her while she led him toward the living area. Zhane walked slowly along on the boy's other side--maybe reassuring, maybe intimidating. She really couldn't tell from the boy's reaction.

The kitchen alcove was too easy to observe from the living area, so they settled in the library that buffered Kristet's workspace. Their media liaison had long since commandeered the monitor underneath the stairs for her own use, and finally Ashley had taken her shopping so she could have a more practical setup. A chair, for instance, and a place to put her myriad cameras when she wasn't using them. A holographic bulletin board with all of their schedules on it. A desk. Several of Ty's plants.

Andros was leaning over her shoulder now. He interrupted her more than any of the rest of them combined, though his interference seemed to be waning lately. Kristet had actually had to call him to look at something the day before. The fact that he had left her alone long enough for her to finish something without his input was something of a first. Apparently, though, it wasn't going to be something that occurred with immediate frequency.

Zhane was returning from the kitchen by the time Andros turned around, the Red Ranger's gaze going from her to Zhane and back to her again. Or more accurately, she thought, to her and the boy with her. "How's he doing?"

"Dirty," Zhane put in, dropping several towels casually on the floor near the bookshelves. She noticed that he was careful to move into the boy's line of sight before he spoke, apparently having learned his lesson from the knock on the door.

"Scared," Kerone added. "He still hasn't said anything, but he did manage to fall asleep for a while." She paused, then amended, "Until Zhane heartlessly decided that he needed to be clean more than he needs rest."

"Hey, I was only thinking of you," Zhane informed her. His wink made her smile, and she rested her hand against the boy's head as Zhane transferred his gaze to him again. "So, what do you say? Want to let me wipe some of that dirt off?"

Zhane's voice didn't soften perceptibly when he was talking to the boy. Zhane talked to him as though he was talking to her, seemingly untroubled when he got no reply. But he reached for the boy's arm slowly, careful to touch first and hold on second. Turning one grubby arm over, he watched the boy's face as he rubbed the towel down the outside of his arm. The boy just stared back at him, not flinching even when Zhane shifted the towel and took a gentle swipe down the inside of his thoroughly bruised arm.

She didn't dare say anything, but she glanced over at Andros. He was watching just as intently as she was. Even Kristet had turned away from the monitor, anguish written across her expressive face as she caught her first glimpse of Astronema's rescued slave child. Zhane just continued wiping away layers of grime with a damp towel, careful of the boy's arms but perfectly calm.

Kerone wondered, privately, whether he would be so confident if he had seen the fit the boy had thrown the first time they tried to get him to wash. Of course, she had been the only one who could touch him then, but short of holding him down and dousing him with water, the situation had seemed impossible. Yet here was Zhane, picking up a clean towel and cheerfully telling the boy to smile.

"We'll just wash your face off a little," he was telling the boy. "And maybe get some of that stuff out of your hair, okay? You sure you don't want to try some clean clothes?"

The boy clamped his arms across his chest when Zhane gave his shirt a tug. Otherwise though, he allowed the improvised "bath," even up to the ruffling of his hair with another damp towel. When Zhane ran out of clean towels and exposed skin, he sat back on his heels and studied the boy for a minute.

"Hey," he said with a grin. "What do you know? There was a kid under there!"

"And he's not grey," Andros added. "That should make him easier to identify."

"Do you think DECA will be flattered by the idea that a little dirt could fool her scanners?" Kristet murmured, the words barely audible from where Kerone was.

"Well, she didn't find anything," Andros replied, in a normal tone of voice.

It was practically a challenge, and DECA didn't bother to ignore it. Her hologram shimmered into existence beside the stairs. "The lack of imaging and historic correlation with Kerovan records is more likely due to his extradimensional origin," she informed them all. "Not to any failing on the part of my data processing ability."

The boy's head turned quickly the moment she spoke, and Kerone rubbed his shoulder soothingly. "You mean you haven't been able to find a counterpart for him here?"

"It is not so surprising," DECA replied. "There is no reason to think that each individual has a counterpart in every accessible dimension. In fact, current studies suggest that the frequent reports of such instances are based on the attraction of the counterparts themselves, rather than the prevalence of corresponding counterparts throughout the dimensions. Since he was brought through the dimensional portal by someone else, the probability of him encountering a counterpart here is greatly reduced."

There was a pause, during which Zhane pivoted on his heel to stare at the holographic representation of the Megaship's computer system. "Was that," he inquired very politely, "supposed to be a 'no'?"

DECA's gaze appeared to consider him in return. "I have not been able to locate a counterpart, or indeed, any individuals with genetic or social connections to this boy." She paused herself, just long enough to emphasize her last word. "No."

"So he's on his own," Kerone murmured.

"He's not the only one," Andros reminded her. "There are plenty of people who'll be willing to help him."

Zhane glanced over at him, and she didn't miss the look that passed between the two of them. Both orphans, in their own way. Both with a family now that was as solid as any they might have had if they had grown up with their biological parents...

And her? She, too, had been taken in. By someone who cared for her even when he shouldn't, who made sure that she got what she needed to survive when no one else would. And somehow, that memory made her speak up now.

"Not yet," she said, lifting her head. "I think he should stay with us for a few days, first."

"Me too," Zhane agreed. His response was as immediate as it was unexpected. "We know what he's been through... or at least, we can imagine it. He jumps at everything. He screams at the sight of water. Who know what else he'll react to? I think someone needs to know what kind of shape he's in before he goes anywhere."

Andros didn't look convinced. "Zhane... none of us are child psychologists. What can we do for him that someone who deals with this kind of thing every day can't?"

"No one deals with this every day." Kristet's interjection was heartfelt and not at all hesitant. "Believe me when I say that the system is geared toward average variation, not the extremes. One person who really cares can do just as much as a whole panel of counselors."

"It's not like we're going to raise him," Zhane pointed out, though his eyes flicked to Kristet in brief acknowledgement of her point. She was the only one who had grown up in the institutions they were talking about, and Kerone knew that Andros had listened to her whether he seemed to or not. "It's only for a few days."

"Besides," Zhane added. "We never had counselors growing up. Neither did Astrea. We all turned out okay... right?"

The innocent tone of his voice didn't deter the wry look that Andros sent his way. Zhane would win, of course. But not by pointing to the three of them as an example.

2. Power Theory

"Recognition signal confirmed," a human voice said over the comm. "Welcome to the Kerova system, Mega V4."

"Thanks," Karen answered, hoping they couldn't hear her grin. Her longest solo spaceflight, and she had managed to arrive in a reasonable amount of time and still in one piece. She was doing pretty well so far.

Now if she could just find the Rangers, she'd be doing even better.

"Requesting your approach vector, Mega V4." The voice spoke after a brief hesitation, as though it had expected her to volunteer something already. The prompt was probably a good thing, since she wouldn't have given them anything if they hadn't asked, but it was also bad, because she had no idea what they wanted.

She muted the comm and gave the starboard screen a helpless glance. "KERI? What's my approach vector?"

"Incoming planetary vector is plus seven by 45," the AI replied immediately. "Keyota approach from orbit, vector to be supplied by local traffic authorities. I have relayed the information to System Control," she added.

"Thanks," Karen said gratefully. The Mega Voyager's computer had coached her through the journey from Earth to KO-35, and KERI had promised to follow her to the planet below. As far as Karen understood, the AI could--and regularly did--split her awareness between each of the Mega V zords. That was what let her be on Earth, and hours from Earth at the same time.

It didn't make any sense, but then, that was typical of anything that involved the Power.

"System Control to Mega V4," the comm announced. "You are confirmed for planetary approach to KO-35. Orbital station 33 will authorize your descent to the surface."

"Acknowledged, System Control." She pressed her lips together, trying to stifle another grin. This was easily the most fun she'd had since visiting Elisia three months ago. Going to Aquitar just wasn't the same--everyone there knew them, and Carlos took care of anything that the Rangers there didn't arrange in advance. There was nothing to do.

Now she got to talk to system authorities, computers, orbiting platforms... she wasn't totally sure what all of it meant, but that didn't take any of the fun out of it. Most of the people who hailed her seemed to know what she was doing better than she did, and she had KERI to help her out when she was completely lost. She also had a Ranger insignia painted on the side of her zord. Carlos had told her it would cut down on a lot of the typical in-system bureaucracy.

Since she had no idea what typical in-system bureaucracy was, she couldn't say whether it was helping or not. But she had to admit that piloting a zord between galaxies was ridiculously easy. Whether that was due to KERI's assistance, her own Power-enhanced control, or the deference of traffic authorities, she guessed it didn't really matter. She was here.

The orbital station must have opened a direct datafeed to KERI, because a few minutes later the AI announced, "You're cleared for a Keyota approach. The vector provided by air traffic control is available now."

That, she knew what to do with. She could program an autonav with the best of them, especially when the route, velocity, and destination coordinates had been supplied for her. Karen watched the blue-green planet below her engulf the forward screen and then begin to glow, turning brightly orange and cherry red as the flames of re-entry surrounded her zord. By the time they faded, the screen showed only clouds, misty wisps of nearby fog and towering columns of far-off weather and blue sky in between.

The stars were gone.

She couldn't help the grin that spread across her face as she watched the clouds rise to meet her and then flash past, revealing patchy cover below. She caught glimpses of the surface as her zord descended, green and brown stretches of land that glittered with the occasional reflection of sun off of a liquid surface. She could make out structures as the ground came closer and closer, everything in sight expanding as she watched.

Only after it was gone did she realize she must have been seeing a city. The buildings here must be houses, residences scattered through the foothills with their tiny vehicles nearby and what didn't look like nearly enough roads for all of them. She was so close to the ground now that she thought she would be able to see people, if there were any outside, and she gave the instruments an uneasy glance.

Still on course. No problems that she could see. She looked down at the tactical screen, where her destination was glowing brightly at the end of her projected flight path, and she was surprised to realize she was almost on top of it. Ashley had warned her that they lived in the middle of nowhere, but--

No roads. The hangar was nestled into the ground, set high enough that it overlooked the valley without changing the outline of the hills against the sky. And it was completely isolated. It grew, stretching higher until she had to lean forward to see the entire thing as her zord approached, and there was just nothing to compare it to. It was the only thing for miles around.

It wasn't the first time she'd been nervous since leaving Earth. Mostly, the nerves were overwhelmed by excitement, but it wasn't lost on her that she was traveling to a totally foreign environment with very little idea of what to expect. She shook her head as her zord set down, eyeing the imposing zord bay half-buried in the side of a mountain. Someday, she was going to walk into something too big to handle.

The arrival indicator chimed, and she suppressed another grin as the zord settled itself more solidly on the ground outside the Kerovan hangar. Someday, maybe. But not today. Today she was here by invitation. Anything could happen... and she was going to make sure it did.

She started the APD sequence and stood up, squinting at movement from the front of the hangar as she was about to turn. Someone was coming out of a tiny door down on the right side of the metal facade, and it had to be Ashley because she was wearing Karen's color. "KERI, flash the lights at her, would you?"

"Acknowledged," the AI's voice said, with a hint of amusement. She didn't protest the request, though, and Karen shrugged into her backpack. Reaching for her duffel bag, she took a last look around the cockpit.

"Thanks for the ride, V4. And thanks for the help, KERI."

The starboard screen lit up with KERI's youthful face, and the girl's image smiled back at her. "You're welcome, Karen."

"See you," Karen said cheerfully. She triggered the short-range teleport that would eject her from the zord, and she lifted her face the moment she felt sunlight on her skin. Kerovan sunlight. It was, quite literally, another world.

"Hi Karen!" Ashley called out to her from the direction of the hangar, and she lowered her head and opened her eyes. The other Yellow Ranger was running toward her, long hair flying behind her and no pretense at dignity in her welcome.

Karen laughed, dropping her duffel bag on the ground and flinging her arms wide. Ashley embraced her without hesitation, rocking them both with the force of her hug as she pressed her chin against Karen's shoulder. "Hi Ashley," Karen said, laughter still bubbling up in her voice. "How's it going?"

"Oh, it's been crazy," Ashley exclaimed, squeezing her harder before she let go. "You're walking into chaos! Are you ready? How was the trip? You didn't have any trouble getting down here, did you? KO-35's been kind of suspicious of outsystem ships lately, but we told them you were coming."

"That explains it," Karen said, rolling her eyes. "I thought they were awfully nice to me. Hey, I can take that--"

Ashley had picked up her duffel bag and swung it over her shoulders, and she waved away Karen's protest. "Don't be silly! I've got it, and wait till you see the stairs inside. It's a long way up."

"It looks huge," Karen declared. "Do you have a map of the inside so you don't get lost? Oh, and should I leave my zord where it is? I can move it if it's in the way."

"No, it's fine there." Ashley didn't even look over her shoulder. "Our zords stay outside a lot now that the weather's nicer, so yours'll have company. It could probably fit in the hangar, if it has to, but it's not in anyone's way. We have so much space we don't know what to do with it!"

"You weren't kidding when you said it was the middle of nowhere!" Karen agreed, glancing around. "There aren't even any roads! Do you teleport everywhere?"

Ashley laughed at that. "Kerone does! The rest of us only do it when we want to make a scene. Around the corner, there, we have our own parking lot..." She linked her arm through Karen's and tugged her off course enough that she could see the collection of vehicles.

"Andros and Zhane have their own hovers," Ashley explained. "Kerone shares mine when she actually drives, which isn't very often--I'll teach you if you want and you can use it too. Ty has a jetcycle. And Kristet parks her hover over there when she's here, which is most of the time."

"Okay, I met Ty, but I have no idea who Kristet is," Karen told her. They were heading for the same little door that Ashley had come out of, and as they got closer she realized that it really was a normal-sized door. It was just dwarfed by the exterior of the hangar.

"That won't last," Ashley predicted. "She's very present. Kristet's our media liaison. She sets up most of the press conferences, photo ops, text releases, all the public relations stuff. She used to do news and vid editing for us too, but she doesn't have much time for it anymore."

Karen didn't know whether to laugh or stare at her. "You have a full-time public relations agent?"

"Well, we let her go home at the end of the day." Ashley glanced sideways at her, and her deadpan expression dissolved into a giggle. "Yeah, isn't it crazy? Her whole job is to tell people what we're doing!"

Karen shook her head. "Think of all the trouble we go to on Earth to make sure people don't know what we're doing! No thanks to Carlos," she added as an afterthought.

"You're all friends of the guy who's dating an Aquitian, huh?" Ashley paused in front of the door and held up her digimorpher. "The door's locked all the time, but DECA knows you're here and your morpher should open the door just like ours. You want to try it to make sure?"

"Yeah, definitely." Karen eased forward, lifting her left arm and staring at the door. "What do I do?"

"Just hold it over here, in front of the scanner." Ashley pointed at a nondescript silver plate, and Karen waved her morpher at it obediently. The door slid open without hesitation.

"So DECA controls the hangar, too?" Karen guessed. "Not just the Megaship?"

"She controls it the same way she controls the Megaship," Ashley offered, swinging the duffel bag in front of her and leading the way inside. "She doesn't have to, she just can. There are manual controls for everything, but she does a lot of the programming and when she's here she tends to take over."

"She's not always here?" Karen asked curiously. "Does she stay on the Megaship sometimes?"

"Sometimes," Ashley agreed. "Or someone will take the Megaship and she'll go with them. Or sometimes she's just busy and we won't see her for hours. If you want to drop your stuff by the stairs, I'll show you around down here first?"

It came out as a question, and Karen nodded eagerly. The hangar was just as big as it looked from the outside, but less confusing since it was almost entirely open. She didn't know why she had expected that it wouldn't be--it was meant for the zords, after all.

Only two of the zords were there now, and they took up so much room that she wondered they could all fit in at once. A large, cat-like shape sprawled across the floor, gold accents marking it as Ashley's, and a second cat-shape lay beside it, red ears swiveling upright as the eyes opened to regard her. It was a disturbingly aware gaze. Since when did zords have eyes, anyway?

"That's Dawn and Fire," Ashley was saying. "Fire's the one looking at you now. Dawn's a little more trusting.

"Fire," she added, apparently addressing the zord. "This is Karen, from my home planet. She's going to stay here for a while."

The zord continued to regard her for a moment. Then the eyes slid shut again, but the ears remained up. Karen got the eerie impression that not only had it understood what Ashley said, but it was also continuing to monitor their conversation.

"Those are your zords?" she asked quietly, more to express her surprise then to actually get an answer. "They act... alive."

Far from laughing, Ashley only nodded. "We treat them like they are," she said seriously. "I don't know if they actually meet any scientific standard for being alive or not, but they act on their own and they respond when we talk to them, so we treat them like they can understand us."

Karen continued to watch the zords. "I'll remember that," she said slowly. Neither zord gave any indication that it had heard her.

She heard Ashley set her duffel bag down and she turned, belatedly shrugging out of her backpack and dropping it beside her bag. "That's the catwalk," Ashley was saying, pointing up the stairs toward the far wall. "There's stairs on the other side of the hangar too, but we use these more because they're closer to the door. All our rooms are up there, along with a couple of workbays and some storage."

"You sleep upstairs?" Karen stared up at the catwalk for a long moment. "No sleepwalking, huh?"

It made Ashley giggle. "I used to be scared of getting up in the middle of the night," she confessed, following Karen's gaze. "I kept a flashlight next to my bed for weeks. But you get used to it, and now it just seems normal."

"Can I borrow your flashlight?" Karen asked with a grin.

"Remind me and it's yours," Ashley promised. "We'll go shopping later, anyway, and you can get whatever you want. Zhane and I set up a room for you, but you'll want your own stuff, I'm sure."

She had started to walk around the stairs, and as Karen followed she wondered, "Is this one of those times when Rangers don't have to pay for what they need?"

"That's pretty much all the time, here," Ashley confided. "It's just like Aquitar that way. You don't have to worry. It takes some getting used to, but everyone's really nice about it.

"This is Kristet's office," she added, sweeping an arm around the space on the other side of the stairs. "Or as close as she gets to one--we offered to set her up in one of the workbays, but she says she likes being near the door. I think she just likes to keep an eye on us, to tell the truth."

"Your public relations agent?" Karen studied the bulletin board next to the comm station. "Are those your schedules? You guys are busy."

"Well, it's not all work." Ashley peered over her shoulder. "She has all our stuff on there so she can find us if she needs to. She doesn't remember things very well. Oh, I should probably warn you that she records everything."

Karen gave her an odd look. "Everything, everything?"

"Everything," Ashley emphasized. "Everything you say or do around her gets recorded. She's really good about keeping public and private stuff separate--she actually has separate cameras for reporting, and she won't use them without asking first--but it's a little strange at first.

"She doesn't remember very well," she repeated. "So she likes to make sure she doesn't miss anything. She's nice; we'll introduce you when she comes back this afternoon."

Karen couldn't think of anything polite to say to that, so she asked instead, "Where is she?"

"She's at the Council meeting with Andros. Kinwon is a little easier to deal with when there's a camera running, so she goes whenever she can."

Ashley was already moving on, waving at the nearby bookshelves idly. "We call this part the library, but it's basically just a good place to be in the middle of things without getting in the way. We eat over here--let me show you the kitchen, too, so you can find food when you want it."

It was amazing how finished the far side of the hangar was, Karen thought, looking around. It looked almost like a regular house with no walls... and a really big garage. For giant, mechanical cats. "This is nice," she said, as Ashley led her through a sitting area with a low table in the middle.

"Thanks," Ashley tossed over her shoulder. "We had to let quantrons tear it apart before Andros agreed to let us decorate, but he finally gave in and I think it came out okay. Kristet and I did some designing, and Kerone helped us move furniture until we got it right. The guys pretty much stayed out of the way."

"Don't they always," Karen said dryly. "You did a good job. This is the kitchen?"

"Mm-hmm." Ashley leaned up against the sink and pointed things out. "Stasis, stove, dishes and silverware, refrigerator equivalent, and there are more dishes in there. Mostly cooking stuff that half of us don't use."

"Count me in that half," Karen agreed, and Ashley smiled.

"Ty cooks a lot," she offered. "And he's actually been teaching Zhane, which is sort of scary but we try not to tease him too much because we could use another person who knows what they're doing in the kitchen. Andros and I just eat whatever's easy."

"Sounds like me," Karen admitted cheerfully. "Easy food was invented for a reason!"

"See, Ty says that, and then he goes and spends half an hour on breakfast!" Ashley wrinkled her nose with an expression that was more amused than anything else. "I guess everyone's definition of 'easy' is different."

"No preparation," Karen remarked, and Ashley laughed.

"That's right! We'll have to go grocery shopping together," Ashley told her. "We know what the good stuff is."

The sound of a door made her look over her shoulder, and Ashley followed her gaze. "That's another thing," Ashley said, and it took Karen a moment to realize that it was the front door she'd heard. From all the way at the back of the hangar. "You can hear everything in here. That's probably why Kristet likes the space under the stairs. There's no privacy unless you go somewhere with a door."

"Note to self," Karen remarked, catching sight of Zhane through the door and someone in black behind him. Ty, she realized a second later. "Don't say anything you don't want everyone overhearing."

"That's good advice," Ashley agreed. She raised her voice, but she didn't have to shout to get their attention. "Hi guys!"

"Hey, it's two Yellow Rangers in one place!" Zhane bounded across the hangar, Ty trailing more sedately behind him as he imitated Ashley's welcome. "Welcome to Cat Central!"

Karen found herself on the receiving end of a hug she hadn't quite expected but didn't mind at all. "Hi Zhane," she said, hugging him back. "Don't tell me you were doing actual work this morning!"

Zhane gasped, drawing back with a look of mock-horror. "Karen!" He kept his hands on her shoulders and looked her in the eye. "I'm shocked that you would think so little of me. People have been telling you stories!"

"Yeah, he let me do all the real work," Ty put in, coming up behind them with an amused look. "Hi, Karen. Good to see you again."

She smiled at him as Zhane let her go. "You too. You have the color I wanted, you know."

Ty looked down in surprise, but Zhane just laughed. "You should go on your own quest," he confided, stepping back and holding out his hand to Ashley. "You get to choose your color. Much better than getting the morpher passed on to you.

"Hey, Ash," he added, taking her hand and giving her a quick kiss. Karen blinked and looked again, wondering whether she had really just seen that. Had she been missing out on the gossip? Or was it just some kind of Kerovan custom no one had told her about?

"I hope you didn't make Karen think I work or anything," Zhane was saying. "She's going to expect me to do something around here."

"No one expects that," Ashley said with a laugh. "We just keep you around for your charm and good looks."

Zhane let out an exaggerated sigh of relief. "My reputation is safe!"

"If you can call it that," Ty said dryly.

"Hey!" Zhane looked indignant. "We can't all be scientific geniuses! I'm just working with my strengths, that's all."

"I'm not a genius," Ty protested, shooting a look in Karen's direction. "Don't listen to him," he advised. "He makes theater a daily production."

"And genetic manipulation is your hobby," Zhane interjected, not bothering to deny the theater accusation. "I think you can take credit for something more than our typical intelligence.

"Did you get a tour?" he added, the question clearly directed at her. "Did we interrupt?"

"I was just showing her around the hangar." Ashley sounded more amused than anything, her tone mirroring Ty's expression. Karen didn't know where the look came from--they lived with Zhane, so they must be used to him by now? She'd never known him to be anything other than overdramatic and endearing.

"Well, that's boring," Zhane commented. "Kitchen, workout area, you're done. Want us to take your stuff upstairs for you?"

Ashley rolled her eyes at Zhane's summary. "Thanks, Zhane, you really sped that up. If you take Karen's stuff upstairs, we'll be up in a few minutes."

"I can carry that stuff," Karen protested, but Zhane was already backing away.

"Nope, we got it," he said cheerfully. "We'll leave it outside your door. Carry on!"

Ty smiled as he turned to follow Zhane, and when Karen glanced back at Ashley she found her smiling too. But all she said was, "Might as well put them to work. It gives them something to do."

"Where were they this morning?" Karen wanted to know.

"Over on RS-42." Ashley must have seen her expression, because she added, "KO-35's sister planet. It was abandoned for years, but we have a military base and a KPD station over there now. There are civilians that want to go back too, and there are a lot of logistics to work out before anyone can live there permanently again. Zhane's been running the defense effort."

Karen didn't understand more than half of that, but she did come away with a totally contrary impression to the one Zhane had projected. "So, Zhane's not leaving all the work to Ty after all?" she guessed.

Ashley laughed. "No, Ty doesn't like that kind of tactical strategy stuff. And don't let Zhane fool you--he pretends he's all fluffy and harmless, but he works as hard as anyone else. He's taken over a lot of the press conferences lately, and even the media is starting to realize how serious he is."

"Lies!" Zhane's voice echoed down from above, and Karen looked up in surprise. The catwalk stretched several levels above, and she couldn't see anything but the supporting struts from here. But Zhane could clearly hear them. "It's all lies, Karen!"

Ashley pointed upward with a smile. "See? No privacy."

"Privacy is for cowards," Zhane called back. "We don't need privacy around here!"

Ashley just shook her head. "And over here," she said, ignoring him, "is the practice area. We like having it close to the kitchen because then we can snack while Andros lectures us."

From above, Karen heard Zhane laugh, and Ashley finally gave in and shouted up at him. "Go away, Zhane! This is a private tour!"

"Then you're in the wrong building!" was the reply.

Ashley sighed, turning a resigned look on Karen. "How would you like to see the upstairs now?"

Karen grinned at her expression. "Sounds great to me.

"Hey," she added, following Ashley around the practice mats to the stairs she said they didn't use. "Am I totally disrupting your day, here? You're not skipping anything to show me around, are you?"

"You're not disrupting anything," Ashley assured her. "I was just going to go to the Council meeting with Andros, and believe me, I'd much rather be here with you. We're all taking the afternoon off, so you'll get to see everyone at once. I thought we could go out to dinner tonight, if you feel like it."

"I'd like that," Karen agreed, delighted. Seeing the practice mats from above as they climbed the stairs, she suddenly realized why they looked so eclectic. "The mats are your Ranger colors, aren't they."

"Yes," Ashley said with a laugh. "We're obsessed. Wait till you see our rooms, they're just as bad. You'd think we'd get so tired of wearing the same color all the time that we'd decorate with different ones, but no... it doesn't work that way."

"I know!" Karen exclaimed. "It's the same with us! This is why I wanted Carlos' color, because most of my stuff was black before. Now I wear crazy amounts of yellow, and between me and Tessa, our dorm room on campus looks like a dollhouse. It's terrible."

"But you like it, right?" It wasn't really a question. "I never really liked yellow either until I became a Ranger. My favorite color was blue! But now, yellow just makes me feel better. I know it's a Ranger thing, but it still matters."

"Yeah," Karen admitted. "I know what you mean. At first I just had this yellow bracelet, so I could wear whatever clothes I wanted, but now I think half my shirts are yellow and I actually wear them more than anything else."

"I don't think I wear anything that isn't yellow," Ashley confessed. "I mean, some stuff, yes, but not whole outfits. It's funny," she added, with a small smile, "but all Kristet wears now is blue and green. And white. She's sort of picked up our color awareness in reverse."

"She would," Karen decided after a moment. "Have you ever noticed that Rangers who are dating other Rangers wear both their colors? Kristet probably doesn't want to look like she's too involved."

Ashley giggled at that. "No, especially since she's married."

Karen stepped up to the railing on the catwalk and looked back at the floor of the hangar. She decided it was a good thing she liked heights. "That's a lot of stairs. I don't know why you bother working out, you probably get enough exercise just getting up in the morning."

"It does wake you up," Ashley agreed. "It's harder at night, though."

Karen shook her head. "I can imagine!"

Zhane and Ty were leaning on the railing farther down, talking about something she didn't recognize. The nearest door was lit with a shimmering purple dragon, and she could see more sparkles further down. The dragon distracted her, though, and she reached out a hand towards it. "What is this?"

"That's Kerone," Ashley said with a smile. "She's our resident artist. She drew her cat zord on her door, and then all of us wanted a picture too. It's some kind of magical holographic thing she does--I don't know how it works, but it's pretty! She made the dragon a few days ago."

"It's beautiful." Karen glanced at her. "Can I touch it?"

"Mm-hmm. I do, anyway, and Kerone says it's fine. It sort of flickers when you touch it, but it goes right back to the way it was before afterward."

Karen reached out and pressed her fingers to the door, and the light brightened a little where it touched her skin. It was light, it had to be, because it made her fingers glow when she stuck her hand in it. She couldn't feel anything on the door, and the image was flat despite the appearance of depth. It rippled a little when she moved her fingers, almost like touching the surface of water, then stilled again when she drew her hand away.

"That's really cool," Karen declared. "So she just... drew this?"

"Yeah--come see Ty's, she did a whole tree for him. It has leaves that move when you walk by!" Ashley's excitement made Karen feel a little less silly about being awed, so she didn't bother to hide her amazement as she followed Ashley down the catwalk.

It was like a tree video built into the door. Like a photograph that moved and made sound and merged seamlessly with the metal around it, the tree was far more realistic than Kerone's stylized dragon. Its leaves did move, quieting when they stopped in front of it to admire them.

"Wow," Karen breathed, reaching out but not quite able to bring herself to touch it. 'That's crazy!"

"She spent a lot of time on it," Ashley said. "If you saw Ty's room, you'd recognize it. He has a tree just like that near the window."

"You can go in if you want," Ty called. He and Zhane had stopped talking to watch them, and he waved when they turned to looked at him. "The door's open."

"Thanks!" Ashley touched the silver square beside the door--one that looked an awful lot like the scanner outside, Karen thought--and the door slid open. Just like on the Megaship. Until she looked inside, and the similarities abruptly ended.

"You live in a greenhouse!" she called, peering around the doorframe at the cascade of green and mahogany and even pale colorless plants that covered nearly every surface. The tree on the door filtered about half the light from the windows, but there were artificial grow lights in the corner nearest to the door and a reading light by the bed. The whole room looked alive.

"Thank you," Ty's voice responded, and she stepped away from the door reluctantly.

"You can't see Zhane's room," Ashley added, letting Ty's door close behind them. "It's too messy for casual viewing. But he has a cool picture of the world on his door."

"It's not messy," Zhane corrected indignantly. He was leaning backwards on the railing now, a position that made Karen wince when she thought about the drop on the other side. "It's comfortable."

"Synonyms," Ashley informed her.

He did have a picture of the world on his door. It was almost Earth, except that none of the continents were right. "Is that KO-35?" Karen blurted out. She realized how silly the question was as soon as she asked. It was "the world," after all.

"Yup," Ashley said happily. "And that's Keyota--" She leaned on Karen's shoulder and pointed toward the southern edge of one of the biggest landmasses. The light shimmered around her finger as she touched the metal underneath. "Right there."

"Cool," Karen decided. "Is that where we are?"

"We're a little bit east of the city," Ashley answered. "But still in the Keyota district. People like to say that the Rangers live in Keyota, even if we're kind of on the outside edge."

"Good thing, too," Zhane put in. "We avoid the traffic."

"It's true," Ashley agreed solemnly, and it was hard to tell whether she was joking or not. "The hover rails jam in the late afternoon, and it's not worth going anywhere unless you do the driving yourself.

"Here's the bathroom," she continued, as though that had made perfect sense. "Definitely one of the most impressive parts of our redecorating spree. We actually have separate boys and girls showers now! Before we just had a divider, and things got kind of interesting."

"You're kidding," Karen said, looking from her to Zhane and Ty uncertainly.

"Sadly, no," Zhane told her. "I liked it better the way it was before, but no one listens to me."

"Because you're crazy," Ashley said. "Girls are on the right, boys are on the left. There's a single bathroom downstairs next to the kitchen, but we made sure there was actual usable space up here. Ty got some guys that he knew to come in and install everything."

"Yeah, there was running water but it turns out that zord bays don't actually come equipped with bathrooms," Zhane commented. "I bet more people would think of living in them if they did. Can't beat the convenience."

"We were trying to get away from the reporters," Ashley explained. "Which I guess is ironic, since now we have one working here, but... It's nice to be able to walk out the door without the entire street noticing what you're wearing, who you're with, and where you're going."

"And what time it is," Ty added.

"Whether you look upset or not," Zhane continued.

"How long it's been since you last left." Ashley rolled her eyes. "I think people I didn't even know knew more about my life than I did."

"Which is still true," Ty said ruefully, "but at least we don't notice it as much."

"Actually, can I take a break and try out the bathrooms?" Karen asked. "I'll be right back."

"Sure, go ahead," Ashley said quickly.

"We'll still be here," Zhane remarked.

"Causing trouble," Ty added.

She had to giggle. They were amazingly in sync. They reminded her of her own teammates, which she supposed shouldn't be such a surprise. She thought of her team as friends first and Rangers second, but most of the current Kerovan team had known each other longer than she had known Carlos. Just because she didn't know them that well didn't mean they were strangers to each other.

"I think Kesra should get a raise for dealing with all of us," Ashley was saying as she came out of the bathroom.

"She probably has," Ty remarked. "We already asked which nights she works. I don't think there's anyone there who doesn't know we like her."

"There's nothing wrong with the other waitresses," Zhane argued. "Kesra just happened to wait on us first."

"Right, when no one knew that we were nice," Ashley told him. "Now that they know we're easy, it's totally different. Kesra should get points for being the first."

"Who's Kesra?" Karen wanted to know, leaning on the railing beside Zhane. "You don't have personal caterers too, do you?"

"She's the waitress at this cafe in town we like," Ashley said with a laugh. "She works four nights a week, and we always try to go when she's there. We were just talking about going tonight."

"Sounds cool," Karen said, squinting out at the big cat-like shapes. She wanted to ask where the other zords were, but it didn't seem topical right now. "By the way, you're right about the bathrooms." She grinned at Ashley. "Very nice."

Ashley giggled, linking her arm through Karen's and pulling her away from the railing. "Thanks! So your room is right down here... you can decorate it yourself and stay as long as you want. Or if you find someplace else you want to stay, we can help you with that, or if you go back to Earth next week we'll just tell people it's the guest room."

"You guys are really cool to let me stay here," Karen told her, reaching for her backpack. "Have I thanked you for that recently?"

"Only twelve or thirteen times," Ashley said cheerfully. "We're glad to have you! I'm so excited to have someone else from Earth around! We're going to have a good time."

She grabbed Karen's duffel bag off the catwalk and let go of her arm to open the door. "Home sweet home," Ashley announced, waving her in. "Or it will be, once you get some stuff. We can go shopping this afternoon, if you want, or tomorrow, or whenever you feel like it."

There was a bed on one side and shelves on the other, and that was about it. Karen was drawn to the windows, though, which looked out at a hillside that sloped up and away from the hangar. One of the big cat-zords was out the ridgeline, laying on the stone in a decidedly non-zord like position. It looked almost like it was... sunning itself?

"We didn't want to get furniture that you didn't like," Ashley was saying. "So we thought we'd just wait and let you pick. I hope it's not too weird, leaving your stuff in an empty room."

"No, it's not at all," Karen hurried to assure her. As she turned away from the window she added, "Well, it's a little weird, but only in a good way. I guess I'm going to need some sheets, huh?"

"And a comforter!" Ashley explained, "I knew yellow wasn't your first favorite color, so I thought you'd want to choose your own things. We can go now if you want, or we can have something to eat first."

"Or we can leave you alone to settle in," Ty said from the door. "I don't know about you, but I overwhelm easily. You can just hang out for a while if you want."

"Actually, I'm kind of hungry," Karen admitted. "I'd like to get something to eat."

"Lunchtime," Ashley declared. "Good, I'm starving. I thought I was going to have time to eat before you got here, but I ended up chasing Kae around the hangar for most of the morning. I don't know how Kerone keeps up with him."

"Kae?" Karen repeated. "How many people live here, anyway?"

"Kae's new," Ashley said, glancing over her shoulder at Zhane and Ty. "It's kind of a long story. He's..."

"He's this kid that Astronema rescued in another dimension," Zhane interrupted. "He won't tell us his name, so I just called him 'K' for 'Kid,' but As--someone thought that was rude, so she had to spell it out. K-a-e."

"It's better than just 'K,'" Ashley informed him. "Kerone's not sure he even had a name, before. He was a slave in Dark Spectre's monarchy," she added, as though that would clear everything up. "He doesn't talk very much, and he's scared of everything, but he's a good kid."

Karen eyed them for a moment, and came to the conclusion that it was more likely they were serious than not. Nothing about the Power, she reminded herself, ever made sense on first telling. "How old is he?" she asked at last.

Ashley shrugged helplessly, but Zhane offered, "Probably three or four."

"You adopted a three-year-old from another dimension?" Karen demanded incredulously. "When? How did I miss this?"

"We haven't actually adopted him," Ashley said, just as Zhane spoke over her.

"A couple of days ago," he answered. "We're trying not to spread the word until we know more about him. He's had a pretty rough life so far, and we don't want to make it worse."

Zhane was serious, she realized all of a sudden. When had that happened? She had totally missed the transition from Zhane the Clown to Zhane the Parental Figure. The latter was kind of a spooky thought, but he had gone from gleeful flirt to responsible adult in a matter of minutes. Suddenly he seemed older than she was.

"Okay," she said slowly, glancing from Zhane to Ashley. "So... how did he get here, again? Is he staying with you, or are you just helping take care of him? Where is he now?" And would she have to babysit? She could see it happening already.

"Remember how I said it was a long story?" Ashley's smile was apologetic and amused at the same time. "It really is. Want to get some lunch while we talk about it?"

Karen was perfectly willing to be persuaded, and Zhane and Ty seemed just as willing to follow them. Was she that interesting, she wondered? Or were they just waiting on lunch too? Had they really been on another planet all morning? This was a totally different world, and not just in the literal sense.

She loved it.

"That's my room," Ashley said, pointing to it as they passed. "Andros' is at the top of the stairs. They're not soundproofed, by the way, so if you hear someone with their music all the way up, just knock and we'll turn it down."

Karen nodded absently, distracted by the holographic designs on the last two doors. Ashley's was a colored line drawing of sunrise over the hills, while Andros' showed the red cat-zord's head: ears back, teeth bared in a defiant roar. "Is that a warning?" she wondered aloud.

It was Zhane who laughed. "Friendly, isn't it?"

"Leave it to Andros," Ty added. "But is that who he is, or who he wants us to see?"

"Hmm," Zhane drawled, and he and Ty exchanged mock-thoughtful looks.

"I hope sandwiches are okay with you," Ashley said, ignoring them as she started down the stairs. "I know we have fruit and eggs, and probably some leftovers from last night, but we all tend to eat the same things over and over. We're kind of used to sandwiches for lunch, but like I said, we can go find you anything you want this afternoon."

"Sandwiches sound great," Karen promised. "They're my staple food. Well, that and ice cream. I'm going to be really disappointed if you don't have ice cream here."

"We do have ice cream," Ashley said with a laugh. "Believe me, we have plenty of ice cream! It's not exactly the same, but it's pretty close. Cassie's so jealous... I bring her some every time I visit."

"I'm set," Karen declared. "You have everything I could ever want... spaceships and ice cream. I may never leave!"

"Wait till tomorrow," Ashley said, wrinkling her nose. "When Kae wakes us up at two in the morning with a nightmare, and the zords get up and roll the doors open, and then Andros decides that really, anyone who's up should be sparring with him--"

"Get up late," Zhane advised. "Really late. In fact, just skip breakfast altogether. It's safer."

"So Kae does live here," Karen surmised, focusing on the story she still hadn't gotten. "But you haven't adopted him? Are you going to?" Are you crazy, she added in the privacy of her own mind?

"Okay," Ashley said, skipping down the last steps and turning to face her at the bottom. She started walking backwards as Karen joined her. "Remember JT's dimension? With the war and the Free Systems and the switching of us and them?"

"Where I was married to Carlos?" Karen added. "Yeah, I haven't forgotten. I don't think Aura has either."

"Aura's not really a forgetter," Zhane remarked idly. "More of a grudge-to-grave kind of person."

"Zhane," Ashley said, turning a too-sweet smile on him. "Why don't you go make us some sandwiches?"

Zhane tossed a salute in her direction, pacing easily around her as Ty accompanied him. Not that interesting after all, Karen decided. That was sort of a relief. And judging by the expression on Zhane's face, she wasn't going to count on a sandwich from him.

"Anyway, the Astronema from JT's dimension came to visit us a couple of days ago." Ashley glanced at her as though expecting her to protest. "She had a little boy with her, and she couldn't take him back."

"Okay--" Now Karen had to stop her. "Even assuming it's normal for villains from other dimensions to just drop by for tea, why couldn't she take the kid back? Why did she bring him in the first place?"

"She didn't mean to. He was on the ship that she crashed--she snuck off of the Dark Fortress in her dimension, got on a ship that brought her here, and when it was about to crash she realized she wasn't the only person on it. Kae had been abandoned by the crew, so she teleported him out with her and brought him here. He couldn't go back because she didn't think she'd be able to protect him on the Dark Fortress."

Karen considered that for a moment, watching Ashley back around one of the stools in the kitchen and turn to avoid it smoothly. "Does that make any sense?" she asked over her shoulder.

Karen shook her head, even though she knew Ashley wasn't watching. "I have this theory about the Power," she announced. "Nothing about it makes sense. So far I haven't found anything to disprove that."

"It's a good theory," Ty commented. "I'm going to start promoting it."

"I'm going to start promoting lunch," Zhane told them. "Karen, anything you won't eat?"

"You don't have to--" She hadn't expected him to even take Ashley seriously, let alone start making her something to eat.

"Enjoy it," he advised. "I usually devote most of my energy to making Astrea eat. I'm taking the day off."

"Well, as long as you're just staying in practice," Karen told him, leaning up against the counter. "No, I'll eat pretty much anything. Although I'd rather it didn't move," she added after a moment.

"No moving," Zhane agreed. "Got it."

"You're easy," Ty said, assembling sandwich ingredients at the other end of the counter. "Especially compared to Zhane. He'll eat almost anything in front of an audience, but leave him alone and he's the most picky eater you'll ever meet."

"I don't know," Karen said, glancing back at Zhane. "Even I've heard stories about Zhane's adventures in cooking."

Ty wagged a finger at her. "Audience," he reminded her.

"Pay no attention to him," Zhane told her. "I'm very adventurous when it comes to food, as to all other things."

"And you'll never prove otherwise," Ty added. "Unless you catch him down here in the middle of the night, snacking on cereal and baby food."

Zhane lifted a butter knife and pointed it in his direction. "You," he declared, "are bad for my reputation."

Without pause Ty added, "But he's very good in bed."

Ashley's muffled laughter convinced Karen that it was safe to giggle. Zhane looked somewhat mollified, but the look he threw in Ty's direction made her wonder if it wasn't just a joke. She couldn't have missed out on that much gossip... could she?

"Pass the leafy things," Ashley demanded, and Zhane smirked at her.

"How much are they worth to you?" he wanted to know.

"Not as much as you'd think!"

"Greens for you," Zhane said, handing them over, "And a sandwich for you." He presented it to Karen with a flourish, setting the plate down in front of her with the reminder, "My feelings will not be hurt if my culinary standards do not match those of your tastebuds."

"Yeah, just because Kerone eats anything he makes doesn't mean you have to," Ty agreed.

Zhane pointed the knife in his direction again. Ty assumed a mock-earnest expression as he told her gravely, "Very good in bed."

"Where is Kerone?" Karen asked, hoping to divert attention as she took her first bite. She might be able to eat anything, but after Aquitar she had learned to be careful about who was watching her while she did it.

"She took Kae outside to see Magic." Ashley leaned around her to raid Ty's sandwich assembly line, and caught her eye as she did so. "Kerone's zord. Hers is Magic, Zhane named his Zip, and Ty's is Fauna."

It took her a minute, but when she got it she smiled around her sandwich. Swallowing, she offered, "Animal life? I like it." Ty looked up long enough to grin at her.

"So?" Zhane prodded. "Edible?"

"So," she assured him. "Very good, thanks."

Zhane beamed. "You're welcome! Sandwiches: my new specialty."

"He's moving up in the culinary world," Ty remarked. "We started with vegetables and dip. Next on the list is soups."

"I'm really good at cutting vegetables," Zhane confided to her.

"And pouring the dip that Ty makes into a bowl," Ashley added.

"Hey!" Zhane exclaimed.

"No, he can make dip," Ty corrected. "It was the lemonade that he cheated on."

"I didn't cheat," Zhane said with dignity. "I took advantage of the fact that there happened to be some available."

Ashley rolled her eyes at that, but Ty reached out and picked up an empty glass. He raised it in a salute, saying, "Use the resources you have available."

"Here, here." Zhane grabbed another glass and clinked it against his.

Ashley caught Karen's eye above her sandwich. With a shrug and a smile she offered, "Welcome to life in the hangar."

(light shines through)

"Ooh... since when do you walk around with candles?"

"It's just one candle."

"Since when do you walk around with just one candle?"

"Since you started sitting out here in the dark alone."

"Not so alone now."

"Sorry... did you want to be?"

"Kind of. Not really. Not from you."

"Are you cold? I brought you a coat."

"Wow, candles and leather. I'm getting the star treatment tonight."

"I couldn't find yours. I figured mine's not too big."

"Remember when we got these, back on Earth?"

"I remember you taking me shopping about a hundred times."

"I guess that's a no?"

"Yeah, I remember."

"We must have walked all over town holding hands..."

"And getting chased by tank monsters that left burning tire tracks."

"It didn't seem strange, back then."

"Annoying. But not strange."

"Where did you get this candle?"

"I own candles."

"You stole it from Zhane, didn't you."

"He gave it to me. Said you needed someone to talk to."

"I told him I didn't."

"Maybe that's why he sent me."

"...Do you ever think, what if what I'm doing doesn't mean anything?"

"Did you go on the quest?"

"What?"

"My fear. At the ravine. We all exchanged fears?"

"You make it sound like a holiday. 'Today, we're going to give fear.'"

"I think we probably have enough already."

"What's your fear, Andros?"

"You want me to pick one?"

"I don't know. Yes."

"Losing someone I love because of something I didn't say."

"That's not what you said on the quest."

"I thought you didn't remember the quest."

"You said you were afraid of not mattering."

"It's probably a common fear."

"I'm scared of not caring."

"Not caring about what?"

"Anything. I guess I know I matter. I'm just afraid of not caring."

"That's kind of funny, for someone who cares so much about so many things."

"And the person who decides the fate of the planet is afraid of not mattering?"

"Maybe... we're all afraid of losing what we have."

"...You won't lose me."

"Ditto."

"Pass that candle over here."

"It couldn't have sat in the grass where it was?"

"It was between us. I want a hug."

"Well, you're in luck, because tonight is Free Hug Night."

"Really... has anyone told Kerone?"

"She doesn't observe Free Hug Night."

"Too bad. She could cover a lot of ground by teleporting."

"I'm not going to get my jacket back tonight, am I."

"I don't know why you bothered to ask."

3. Good Faith

"It doesn't matter whether she's Andros' sister or not. She's second in command of the greatest military power in the galaxies, and that power wants nothing more than to see the Free Systems obliterated. She'll say and do anything to accomplish that end."

Jenkarta had made the same argument over and over, rewording it every time someone spoke but refusing to let it go. Maybe he shouldn't let it go, maybe he was right, but it had to be irritating to have every idea countered by "it doesn't matter." It was a hypothetical issue anyway; he could at least embrace it as a thought question.

"She's second in command of a power she's starting to question! I was with her for three months, and I'm telling you she's not a ruthless villain! Her memory's been wiped, but that doesn't mean she doesn't feel. She's still human."

To Ashley, that apparently made all the difference. Humans were no less capable of atrocities than any other species, and just because someone could feel didn't mean that they felt guilt, remorse, or responsibility to the side of good. Although the time she had spent as Astronema's captive had provided them with extremely valuable intelligence, it had also--arguably--compromised her perspective.

"Human or not, she acts for Dark Spectre. The only mercy she has ever shown is toward you, Ashley. While this may be significant, perhaps even indicative of a turning point in her reign, it would be foolish to base an entire campaign on a single subjective event. I am willing to believe that Astronema can change. I am less willing to concede that she has."

Ko'Teth ma Ree was ever impressionable. Gentle, imaginative, and compassionate nearly to the point of weakness, she walked a fine line as leader of her own Ranger team. She relied heavily on her teammates to guide her decisions, and yet they listened when she spoke and carried out her decisions with no outward sign of dissent. He didn't understand her style of leadership... and yet hers was the only team to escape the border intact. Allowances had to be made for someone who could keep their troops alive.

"Forget the person for a minute. This plan is crazy. Why would anyone go to so much trouble to contact us, just to suggest something that any reasonable person would laugh at? It doesn't make any sense--unless she's telling the truth."

Ah, Andros. One could always count on him to produce the most convoluted logic in support of his arguments. The youngest Red Ranger in attendance at their impromptu strategy session was also the most experienced. He had been a Ranger longer even than Jenkarta, and although he was impulsive, headstrong, and occasionally irrational, he also had a way of achieving a favorable outcome from the most improbable of tactical scenarios.

It drove the Eltaran leader crazy. "You're saying the fact that none of us would ever go along with something like this is reason enough to go along with it?" Jenkarta asked wryly. "I don't know about you, but my team's going to need more than that."

Saryn wished he could close his eyes. It would be one less sense feeding him a constant stream of information, one less thing to process at the end of a day that had worn him down long before Jenkarta called this meeting. He acknowledged the importance of the information: the fact that Astronema had apparently sent an interdimensional message to one of their Rangers with the unbelievable offer of alliance was one that couldn't wait. But he did wish it had come a little earlier in the day.

"Saryn?" Jenkarta sounded impatient, and he had to bite his tongue to keep from snapping back at the elder Ranger. "Do you want to share your opinion with the rest of us?"

He almost said no. No, because it would only drag this out longer, whether formal turn-taking degenerated into shouting matches or not. No, because Jenkarta had no right to patronize his fellow Rangers just because this was his planet. His level of battle stress was arguably the lowest of any, given that he was the only one still fighting on home turf with his original team in its entirety.

"This discussion is pointless," Saryn said flatly. "The question of Astronema's intent is irrelevant. Even if the border were to offer zero resistance, which is unlikely no matter the level of mutiny the Dark Fortress believes it can muster, the Free Systems do not have the resources to carry out an offensive of this magnitude."

"I think we do." Andros sprang immediately to the defense of a plan that Saryn was beginning to think he might actually endorse. "We can't gain ground on Dark Spectre the way things are now. But if Astronema managed to start something on the border, it won't be just another unaligned territory on the fringes of monarchy space. It'll be a war zone. It'll be a new front that diverts attention, troops, and equipment away from us."

"What if--"

"It won't--"

Ashley and Ko'Teth ma Ree spoke at the same time, and Ko'Teth ma Ree predictably yielded the floor to the Yellow Ranger. No one else would have done it, except perhaps Ashley's own team leader. Ashley was only here because the message had been directed at her, and Saryn wondered tiredly whether Andros would have been easier to reason with had Ashley been absent.

He decided, very privately, that he was glad she wasn't. Maybe he was losing his objectivity. Maybe he had been doing this too long. Maybe Cassandra was influencing him in ways he hadn't realized, or maybe he was just exhausted. But more and more lately, he found himself wanting to believe in Andros.

Ever since Ashley had returned from the Dark Fortress, Andros--with his Yellow and Silver Rangers beside him--had been charging morale across the planet. He knew just what to say, who to say it to, and when. It was somewhat startling to see the change in the formerly withdrawn Red Ranger. It was as though, Saryn sometimes thought, the faith that had been restored by Ashley's return was too much for him to keep to himself. It was infectious... and Saryn couldn't object.

If there was one thing they could use more of on Eltare, aside from everything, it was faith. He would take it where he could find it, no matter how unlikely the source. He wanted to believe in something for a change.

"If we had some other kind of diversion," Ashley was saying. "Say we can't count on Astronema, say this is some kind of setup. If we make a move, they'll expect it to be in the direction of the border. What if we went the other way?"

For a moment, there was blissful silence. Unfortunately, he didn't get a chance to enjoy it, because he was too busy trying to decide whether he had completely missed her point or she had actually said something nonsensical. She was sincere, he knew that. But that was as far as his empathy got him.

"Look," Ashley said, before anyone could verbalize the expressions of non-comprehension he could see mirroring his around the table. "It's a win-win situation. Covert ops on a planet like Earth could be a precursor to military action in any direction--toward the border if Astronema comes through, or toward the Milky Way if she doesn't. We provide the distraction we were expecting from her, and it's in the opposite direction. Any ambush she might be planning ends up working against her if her forces are gathered on the other side of the local group."

"Earth isn't the planet I would have picked," Jenkarta said at last. Saryn looked at him in surprise. If he had expected anyone to take Ashley's suggestion seriously, Jenkarta would have been the last. "Earth has been hammered by assault and occupation to the point where resistance must be negligible. We've had no reports from out that way in far too long--"

"I have." Ashley's interruption was against the rules of the debate they were currently engaged in, but to her credit she stopped there and let Jenkarta decide whether to let her speak. When he just stared at her, she lifted her chin a little higher and stared back. Months in the company of Astronema had taught her a great deal.

"What do you mean, you have?" Jenkarta demanded. "The relays are overrun or missing altogether, and hyperboosted transmissions would have been traced the moment they were sent. You can't possibly have contact with anyone on Earth."

Not to mention the fact that it was highly illegal. Such transmissions were not only traceable, they were also impossible to secure. There were very few encryption codes that the monarchy hadn't broken, and the only ones available to civilians were too new to have been disseminated on Earth before it fell. In times such as these, messages that could be intercepted were tantamount to treason. If Ashley had heard from someone on her home planet without reporting it--or worse, contacted them herself--only her Ranger status would protect her from martial law.

"Gabriel Vargas is part of the resistance," Ashley told him. "He's Carlos' brother. He gave Carlos an encryption key before he left and I used it to contact him just a few days ago. They don't have tech, but they have people and they have organization. They could free that planet on their own if they had any way to defend it afterward."

She was either deluded or extremely well informed. He looked to Andros, belatedly realizing that everyone else at the table was doing the same thing. Was there any reason to believe that Earth had that kind of potential?

Andros nodded slowly. "The resistance is being run by a secret warrior society," he told them. "They have some kind of supernatural powers, and they've kept themselves hidden from the occupation for years. If what Gabe says is true, they do have a chance."

They couldn't defend Earth. It was too far from the Free Systems to be easily encompassed, and if it had no tech of its own then there was little hope that it could maintain an unaligned status. On the other hand, if it was to become a temporary source of conflict that would serve to divert Dark Spectre's forces... that was another matter entirely.

"We'll need every bit of intelligence your source has," Jenkarta was telling Ashley. "Along with some method of direct communication if what he says turns out to be true."

"I can get that together," she said steadily. "By tomorrow at the latest."

"Would you have picked a different planet, Jenkarta?" Ko'Teth ma Ree drew their attention with an almost forgotten question, and Saryn couldn't muster anything but the most dispassionate interest in the answer.

Even when it turned out to be an answer worth the interest. "Aquitar," Jenkarta said simply. "They've had time to regroup, reorganize, and rebuild," he added, when the silence lingered. "Completely isolated from Dark's Spectre's forces. They could, potentially, be our most valuable ally."

"If anyone knew how to contact them," Andros said, disbelief evident in his voice. "If the planet even exists anymore."

"It has to," Ashley murmured, and it was questionable whether he had said all he wanted to say or if hers was simply an interruption he permitted. "Carlos came back from it after it vanished. It's still there. We just can't see it."

"Which is why it's the perfect ally," Jenkarta repeated. "It's free of any monarchy influence."

"Then why," Saryn asked, fixing his stare on the tabletop, "would it want to help us?"

There was an uncomfortable quiet. Finally Andros said, "I'll ask TJ if he knows anything that could help us get in touch with Aquitar. We have to ask, if we can. Jenkarta's right--they could be a better bet than Earth."

Ashley shifted in her seat but said nothing.

"I like both possibilities better than the border," Jenkarta admitted. "But that's all they are: possibilities. We'll meet again tomorrow to hear whatever news Andros and Ashley have for us. In the meantime, get a team consensus: is there anything Astronema could reasonably be expected to do that would convince us? A gesture of faith, so to speak?"

Saryn gave in to the temptation to close his eyes. He couldn't take the sensory input any longer. He didn't like shielding: it was tiring, distracting, and led to an eerily muffled sensation that made him feel like he was trying to participate in this meeting with all the sound turned off. But he was shielding now. Anything that would block out the psychic noise. At this point, he would put his hands over his ears if he thought he could do it and escape comment from the rest of the Rangers gathered.

"Saryn?" Jenkarta's irritable tone once again pierced the conversation, and Saryn opened his eyes reluctantly. Jenkarta's look was pointed, and he clearly didn't intend to repeat the question this time.

It didn't matter. Saryn hadn't given it any thought anyway. "No," he said, closing his eyes again. What did it matter? They couldn't do it. He no longer saw any point in speculating about it.

His empathic shields were disturbingly effective, and the renewed discussion of Astronema's intentions reached him only through his ears. There was one person his shields couldn't exclude, though, and the mental silence only made her presence more difficult to ignore. He was looking at a picture on a ledge half a world away by the time Jenkarta finally called a halt to the proceedings.

He opened his eyes, and the picture vanished from his mind. Not the regret, though. The sadness lingered, and he knew where he would be drawn. Despite his fatigue, no amount of apathy would be enough to keep that cry from reaching his heart. Even on his strongest days, he couldn't ignore that kind of plea.

He left the building by teleportal and found himself on the outskirts of her territory. Still her territory, even after months of living in the medical ward. She had moved back here afterwards... to the building, if not to the room. The quiet separation between her and her fiance was finally official. He didn't know if the twins' birth had been the final blow, or if it had come much earlier than that. She didn't say, and he wouldn't ask. Not now.

He made his way to the top of the building, following an invisible pull to which he had long since become resigned. Cassandra was out on the edge of the roof, unfettered and undefended. He wished she would pick a safer place to spend her solitude.

He joined her silently by the railing. She would have known when he arrived. He would have known if she didn't want him to be here. There was no need to greet each other... indeed, there was little need to speak at all.

He wished she would.

"Jenkarta annoyed you." She didn't have to ask.

He was grateful that she made the effort to converse. Too often lately--as ever, at least in private--their shared company was silent. It was barely an improvement on the times when any remark they thought could be overheard was scathing or intolerant. Now, though there was no longer any reason to publicly disparage each other, there was every reason not to interact at all. He saw her only when she was alone, and private conversation was something they both had to work at.

"Everyone annoys me lately." It was an unfortunate truth in circumstances that made close social contact both necessary and constant.

Cassandra glanced sideways at him, and muted curiosity penetrated her cloud of regret. "Except you," he added quietly, in answer to her unasked question. Her effect on his psyche went far beyond simple annoyance.

She looked down again, fixing her gaze on the picture that he knew she held. He had never seen it. He didn't have to see it. He had memorized everything about it. It bothered him that she had never shown it to him. She hadn't hidden it, she simply... didn't offer it. Perhaps she thought he didn't care.

Cassandra held the picture out to him without a word.

She was very close tonight. She shouldn't be able to interpret every idle thought that crossed his mind, and yet somehow it seemed that she was. Of course, he shouldn't be able to see through her eyes either, and he had. An unanticipated result of his voyager inheritance, maybe. Or simply a side effect of the Power? To his knowledge, bonded empaths had never simultaneously held the Power until now.

He took the picture from her and stared down at the tiny figures curled in the middle of their pink and white blankets. He had never seen them in person. "You did the right thing," he murmured.

To his surprise, she laughed. It was a short, humorless sound, and the disgust that clouded her emotions made his heart ache. "When was that, exactly? When I was cheating on my fiance? When I lied to him, when I slept with you, when I brought babies into a world that doesn't deserve them? When I gave them up because this is no life for an adult, let alone for a child? Tell me when I've ever done the right thing!"

"When you gave me something to believe in," he replied softly. "When you told TJ the truth. When you realized you had been given children you didn't want and you bore them anyway. When you allowed civilians to care for them so that they might have the attention you can not give."

She scoffed, leaning harder against the railing as she tried to stare herself across the drop in front of them. He wanted to tell her to step back, to relinquish the edge she seemed so determined to haunt. But he had his own edges, and until he found his way back from them he had no business trying to call her to his side. He wouldn't ask her to trade one cliff for another.

"I hate myself sometimes," she told the edge of the building.

"I love you," he said simply.

At first, he thought she wouldn't answer. Then, finally, he heard her tell the railing, "I miss the way you used to hold me."

It had been a long time since he had touched her. He wasn't sure that risking it now was the most prudent course of action. It was too easy to lose himself when her emotions flooded into his, too easy to forget the boundaries they had set for themselves, too hard to stop touching later. But prudent or not, he couldn't ignore the wistful tone of her voice.

He put a hand on her shoulder, and she turned with downcast eyes to step into his embrace. It was easy, natural, nowhere near as awkward as it should have been, and he closed his eyes with a sigh. This was a moment he would like to hold onto for as long as he had the strength to remember such things.

He let the picture rest against her back as he hugged her closer. No one had been more shocked than Cassandra when a physical exam following the disappearance of her dimensional counterpart revealed the same pregnancy a month delayed. An Earth month: roughly the same amount of time between the conception of her counterpart's twins and her first dimensional transit.

Whether the timeframe was significant or not was moot. The twins were hers and his, and they couldn't disprove the possibility that dimensional shifting had nothing to do with their existence. They would probably never know--and that uncertainty brought the truth to light. Their illicit relationship was undeniable.

Relations between their teams went from companionable to effectively nonexistent overnight. Or rather, the Earth Rangers stopped speaking to either him or Jenna, and they found it simplest to return the favor. Andros and Zhane refused to have any part in the events. The two Kerovan Rangers became the Astro team's representatives in any and all issues that involved the Elisians.

He sighed again, choosing not to think about those first few weeks when he had something so much better to enjoy right now. Cassandra's mood was lightening, reluctantly but noticeably, and he wondered that it had been so dark even he was as positive contrast. Amusement filtered through at that, and he resigned himself to her unstoppable knowledge of his thoughts for at least the near future.

"Are you worried that I'm going to steal your Resident Self-Loather title?" she whispered. No matter how teasingly she meant it, the words made him frown.

"It bothers me to hear you say that," he whispered back. "I can't stand to think that you truly hate yourself."

Her reply was disturbingly enigmatic. "Now you know how I feel."

He considered that, running the words through his mind over and over, until she took pity on him and explained. "You punish yourself for things that aren't your fault more than anyone I know. I hate that there's nothing I can do about it."

"But there is something you can do." He let the words stay so soft he wasn't sure she could hear them, wasn't sure he even wanted to say them out loud, but it seemed as though she would know what he thought whether he gave voice to it or not. "You're doing it right now."

He felt her arms tighten around him. "Do you know what I dream, sometimes?" she whispered.

He probably knew better than she did, but he didn't say so.

"Sometimes... I think about what this planet would be like if we ever won. If we beat Dark Spectre and we didn't have to patrol every day." She stopped for a moment, and her voice was so faint that he held his breath to hear her words. "I think about getting my babies back, and I think about raising them."

She hesitated just long enough that he thought that was all she would say. Then she added, almost inaudibly, "With their father."

If she expected him to protest a vision of the future so idyllic he had never dared imagine it, she would wait an eternity for a challenge that never came. "Would that dreams were contagious," he murmured. "So that I might catch yours and dream it every night."

Her grip loosened, and he allowed her to take a single step back. Strange... he had thought it would be harder to let her go. It must be the euphoric delight that her vision evoked, the thought that she might share a wish so long denied.

"Would you really want a family?" she asked softly, searching his expression. "It wasn't... it was never something we thought could happen."

"It's the thing I want most," he confessed. She couldn't know that the image of him with her and the twins was the thing that made this day beautiful again. He held out the picture she had given him without taking his eyes off of her. "Second only to you."

"Keep it." She didn't even look down, but she lifted one hand from his waist to curl his fingers around the edge of the picture. "I have another one."

He made no effort to object. "Just when I think," he told her quietly, "that I can not endure another day. When I think that tomorrow I may wake up and all my caring will be gone... I see you. In my mind, in person if I am fortunate... and my faith is restored."

She smiled. It was the first time her expression had lit up like that since he found her out here, and it was one more in a string of sparkling moments that he wished he could replay at will. "I can't tell," she remarked, "whether we're getting better at small talk or if you're just using your diplomat-speak to win me over."

He gave that the consideration it was due. "That depends," he said at last, very seriously. "Is it working?"

She looked like she came very close to a giggle, and he lifted one hand from shoulder to cheek. Stroking her skin, he added gently, "I am sorry you have come to know me first as an instrument of deceit, and only incidentally as a person of sincerity. In this, at least, I am grateful for the connection between us, for it must reassure you to some degree."

She gave him a skeptical look, but he could feel more amusement than doubt behind the expression. "There's nothing about you that reassures me," she said with a sigh. "Except the fact that you're here."

"I would stay if you wanted me to," he said softly. He knew it wasn't what she meant and he couldn't help from offering anyway.

"No, you wouldn't," she countered. "Because I do want you to, and you won't. It wouldn't be fair to the others."

"There will come a day," he warned, "when 'fair to us' will seem more important than 'fair to others' in my mind."

Her mouth curved slightly, but this time it was a sad smile and one he took little pleasure in. "But not today."

"No," he agreed reluctantly. He still felt the weight of duty and moral obligation to his teammate--and to hers. He was sure their penance made little difference in the grand scheme of things, but it was a punishment they both felt they deserved. "Not today."

She took another step back, letting her hands fall, and he let go of her completely. It was a lonely feeling, even with her still there in front of him. "Thanks for coming," she murmured.

It could have been anything: a dismissal, an invitation, a simple acknowledgement of his presence. There was only one way he could answer. "Thank you for being here."

She hesitated a moment longer, then turned back to the railing. She could have walked away, but she didn't. It had been an unnaturally long day--he could have walked away just as easily. But he wouldn't leave her out here alone. Not when this was one of a very few times when he didn't have to.

He leaned on the railing beside her, saying nothing, and they contemplated the edge together. Somehow, though, with her at his side and the picture she had given him tucked into his uniform, it seemed a little farther away than it had before. He hoped there was anything about his presence that made the precipice less appealing to her as well.

"We saved you some dinner if you're hungry." Zhane knew he might not be, or at least might not realize he was. For Andros food was usually an incidental concern, something to be consumed when he had the time or when he could no longer function without it, whichever came first.

"Thanks." Andros flashed him a preoccupied smile, but he did look around as though he might notice if food suddenly appeared in front of him. That was enough of an invitation to make Zhane break out the leftovers.

"I'll go get it for you," he said, to keep their host from getting up. He headed for the kitchen, where Amanda was still cleaning up. He had offered to help, as always, and as always she had turned him down. When Bgoua cooked--which was most of the time--she cleaned, and she wouldn't let anyone talk her out of it.

Of course, he and Andros wouldn't let the neighbors help out in their apartment either. Guests were guests, and if there was one thing they could still do for each other in times like these, it was to extend the most basic form of hospitality. Cooking, visiting, pet-sitting... it was nice to have normal, competent, and above all tolerant neighbors.

"Still on the stove," Amanda said, anticipating him as he entered. "There's clean dishes over here if you want."

"Thanks." He transferred the remaining food onto a plate and added the appropriate silverware. By the time he'd turned around, Amanda had put down her sponge and poured another drink. "You coming?"

"That's as clean as it gets at the end of the day," she said with a smile. "Can I get you anything else?"

"If he even eats this much I'll be shocked," Zhane confided. "Thanks, though."

They made their way back into the main room, where the entertainment consisted mostly of lavishing attention on the dogs. Everyone was pretty low-key tonight, and Andros' arrival had only added to the sense that they should enjoy this quiet while they could. The Red Ranger rarely missed dinner without bringing significant news back with him afterward.

Andros accepted his plate with a gratitude that made Zhane wonder if he was more hungry than usual. He couldn't have skipped lunch, could he? Zhane tried to remember, but ultimately it was a futile effort. They had been on patrol early and had separated immediately afterward; he hadn't seen his partner again until now.

Amanda set the glass down beside him with a murmur of welcome, and Andros smiled at her in thanks. He was immediately the center of the dogs' attention, Zhane noted with some amusement. They wandered over with casual wags and pressed close against the couch, gazing up at him with adoring eyes. Food was the great leveler.

"Did you contact the others?" Ashley asked at last, her gaze alternating between Andros and the dogs. "I told Zhane about the meeting, but we waited until you got back to talk about it."

"Everyone's going to be in the pilots' lounge by 25.00 RST," Andros mumbled. He didn't look up until he had finished chewing and swallowed. "We'll get a team consensus then."

"Ranger business?" Bgoua guessed, and Andros glanced at Ashley.

"I didn't tell Bgoua and Amanda what it was about," she admitted. "Just that the Red Rangers had met and you were going to be late."

"We met about a message Ashley received," Andros said, for the benefit of their neighbors. He paused to take another bite. "It was supposedly from Astronema."

"Angelo, leave him alone," Amanda chided, snapping her fingers for the dog. "Come on, boy. You've already had your dinner."

"It's fine." And it probably was. Andros was used to Ranger begging by now. Zhane had only caught him at it a handful of times, but he was pretty sure that their Red Ranger was the biggest culprit when it came to sneaking the dog food under the table.

"Astronema, eh?" Bgoua repeated. "Is she in the habit of sending Rangers personal messages?"

There was no change in Andros' expression as he set his fork down and reached for his glass. "Just the ones she's held captive, apparently."

"So you think it really was Astronema?" Amanda frowned. "What was it, some kind of ultimatum?"

"You can't repeat this," Andros said with a sigh. "But yes, we think it was really Astronema, and no, she didn't deliver an ultimatum. She offered a kind of... truce. Alliance. Whatever you want to call it, she's saying she wants to fight for us."

Predictably, this news was met with silence. Zhane exchanged glances with Ashley while Andros apparently ignore the group reaction and concentrated on his dinner. Finally Amanda said carefully, "That seems... unlikely."

"Yeah." Andros looked up just long enough to catch her eye, and his wry amusement was obvious. "That's one word for it."

"Big huge trap is another," Zhane put in.

Ashley nudged him, making a show of trying to be inconspicuous. "That's three words."

"And they're all true," Bgoua said with a frown. "It seems so obvious that it's a trap that there must be something else behind her message."

Andros didn't answer, and Zhane glanced at him sharply. His lack of response was as telling as anything he could have said. Andros didn't think it was a trap. If he did he would have agreed with Bgoua automatically. Ashley had mentioned that he was considering the possibility, but Zhane had thought she must have misunderstood.

"Will you answer her?" Amanda was asking. "Can you even answer her?"

"I don't know." Andros had paused in his eating to stare at Ranger, who rearranged himself on the floor and lowered his head eagerly. "To both questions, I don't know. We can't go along with what she suggests, obviously, but any information about the enemy is good information. Even lies tell us something."

"And you expect to convene with your team tonight?" Bgoua asked after a moment. "What time is it now?"

"It's 24:41," Amanda answered for him. "We don't want to keep you..."

"We don't want to go," Ashley sighed, scrunching herself farther down in the cushions of her chair. She had to be tired if she was pouting, Zhane though, amused. She didn't usually let her cheerful facade down until she was back at their apartment, or occasionally when she was with her teammates.

"But we have to," Andros finished, scraping the rest of the food from his plate and looking around for his glass. Amanda was already getting up when he started to stand, and she held out her hands for his dishes. "You don't need to--"

"I want to," she said gently, smiling when he paused to drain his drink. "I'm glad you all could stop by. It's good to see you, even when there isn't much time to talk."

"It's always good to see you," Ashley responded, not moving from her chair. Zhane rose from the couch when Andros did, and she added, "I'm just going to stay here, okay? Tell the others I agree with whatever they decide."

While Amanda carried Andros' dishes into the kitchen, Zhane held out his hand to Ashley. "Nice try," he told her. "No rest for the Rangers."

She let him pull her out of the chair, and Bgoua got up to see them off. By the time they were out in the hallway it was, through no one's fault, really too late to make it to the zord bay on time even if they went directly there. And they couldn't, not unless they took Ranger with them.

So they stopped at home first, dropped Ranger off, got Ashley a sweatshirt, and made their way down to the ground floor and the nearest teleportal. There was a line tonight, and Zhane wondered what the occasion was. Surely he hadn't forgotten about some important holiday? He wasn't as good with Eltaran customs as Andros was.

The line let them through, and Andros keyed their destination into the portal device. The Co-Op teleportal required authorization, like all military destinations, and Ashley held her astromorpher up to the scanner when Andros waved for her to go first. Zhane followed, flashing his morpher in the direction of the scanner, and Andros stepped out of the portal behind him a moment later. The teleportal closed immediately on the other side.

Co-Op was relatively calm right now, and Zhane didn't give it more than a passing glance as they headed for the lifts. They were at the low point of the patrol rotation, a typical dead zone that the teams cycled through on a monthly basis. One team per quiet period per month, and then everyone got bumped one patrol cycle back. Right now this period belonged to Rangers from Calijyt.

In contrast to Co-Op, the Mega V hangar was an active and noisy place. Tech was swarming over the zords, looking for and maintaining anything the self-repair systems couldn't get to, and there were bots everywhere. Zhane wasn't particularly fond of the little metal creatures, but Ashley liked to watch them work. She stared out at the bay while they crossed to the lounge, hesitating after he and Andros entered so that she could survey their work just a little longer.

As expected, they were the last ones there. Carlos and Karen had gotten the couch nearest the door, and Cassandra was curled up in the armchair against the wall opposite them. TJ was sitting at the table in the back of the room, cutting up something that looked brightly colored and definitely edible.

"Hey guys," the Blue Ranger greeted them. "I'd wish you a happy holiday, but I can't pronounce it so you'll have to settle for cake. Courtesy of our floormates."

"What is it?" Zhane wanted to know, deciding that his best bet was to be near the table immediately. The door closed behind Ashley, shutting out the noise from the hangar, and he felt her curious presence just behind his shoulder. "Is it good?"

"Haven't tried it yet," TJ answered. "Want to help me with a taste test?"

"I'll get the plates," Zhane said cheerfully. "Dinner from our neighbors and dessert from yours. I like how this is working out!"

"Maybe you should wait till you try it to get excited," Ashley told him, clearly amused by his enthusiasm. "Some of the stuff they eat here is really... strange. And the stuff they drink is stranger."

"This doesn't look drinkable," Zhane pointed out, passing TJ a plate. "Andros has made you paranoid about the food on this planet. Most of it's perfectly normal."

"Let me know," Ashley said dubiously.

To his own surprise, "dessert" really was. It was sweet and fluffy and surprisingly palatable for a society that considered its juice the perfect appetizer: you had to eat something just to get the taste out of your mouth. "It's good," Zhane said, separating another piece and holding the fork out to her. "Here."

She let him feed it to her without a hint of skepticism, and he grinned as she drew back in surprise. "It is good," she remarked, eyeing the cake speculatively. "Can I have a piece too, Teej?"

"Sure thing." He posed dramatically above the cake with knife and impromptu spatula in hand. "Anyone else?"

"Me please," Karen said, not bothering to lift her head from Carlos' shoulder. "I promise to care more about this meeting if I get sugar first."

"I'll have some too," Carlos agreed. "I don't promise to care, but I'll at least try to stay awake."

Andros folded his arms, considering them all from where he stood by the side of the second couch. "There's talk of retaking Earth."

After a moment of complete silence, Karen pushed herself away from Carlos and sat up. "Okay," she said into the quiet. "Interest level suddenly high."

"That's crazy," TJ said flatly. "We've been over it a hundred times. There's no way to do it and make it stick. We don't have those kinds of resources."

"Aquitar might."

Even Zhane paused in his happy consumption of sugary delight to stare at him for that. Aquitar? Help them defend Earth? How? What for? He had been listening when Ashley told him about that meeting, he was sure of it. He was equally sure that there had been no more than a passing mention of Aquitar, and it hadn't had any connection to Earth.

"Excuse me," Carlos said at last. "Maybe I'm a little slow tonight. Did you just suggest contacting a planet that doesn't exist to defend a planet that isn't free?"

Andros didn't hesitate. "I think that pretty much describes the plan, yes."

"Which plan?" Zhane asked suspiciously. "Theirs, or yours?"

"'They' don't have a plan yet," Andros pointed out. "Why?" he added, with enough innocence to match Zhane's suspicion. "Don't you like my plan?"

"You're crazy," Zhane told him. "Even if we could contact Aquitar somehow, why would they want to help us? You heard what Cetaci told Eltare. She thinks they're luring Rangers here, convincing them it's hopeless so they'll fall back... defend the League center at all costs. She won't have anything to do with us."

"She won't have anything to do with Eltare," Andros corrected. "I bet she'll talk to Rangers from Earth."

TJ was passing out plates of cake to Karen and Carlos, and the Black Ranger was forced to lean around him to make his point. "Hello, does anyone remember Aquitar's new defining characteristic? It's not there! It's gone! How are we supposed to talk to empty space?"

"I was hoping you knew something about that," Andros admitted. "They were your closest neighbors. They didn't tell you about a trick that makes their planet disappear from interstellar scans?"

"We weren't exactly brothers in arms," Carlos said, picking his fork up and holding it out to the side in an approximation of a shrug. "More like distant cousins. They defended their planet, we defended ours. We just happened to be in the same part of space. I can count the number of times I talked to anyone from that team on one hand."

TJ was regarding Carlos thoughtfully. "You know who would know," he said. "Aquitar."

"Thanks for that catch-22," Carlos put in, stabbing his fork into his cake.

"No," TJ said slowly. "No, I mean Aquitar in the other dimension. In Justin's dimension. Remember, their Carlos was on pretty good terms with Aquitar. What if we could get someone over there to ask their Aquitar how to contact them?"

Zhane scraped some frosting off of the side of his plate while he considered that possibility. "That's actually kind of clever," he said aloud. "Is there some obvious reason that wouldn't work?"

"Other than the fact that they might not have any idea what we're talking about?" Carlos seemed determined to grouse about anything involving Aquitar, and considering his counterpart's involvement with the planet maybe that wasn't so strange. At the same time, it seemed counterproductive.

"That's no reason not to try!" Ashley, ever the voice of optimism, managed to sweep Carlos' protests aside without making it look like she was ignoring him. The sugar must be perking her up, Zhane decided. "Let's leave a message for JT tonight. He can transmit it to Justin whenever he comes back on duty."

"Okay," Cassandra said, getting everyone's attention from her solitary spot by the door. "Assuming we can contact Aquitar, what exactly are we going to ask them to do? A mutual defense pact is a little bit different than overthrowing an occupation."

"I told Jenkarta about Gabe and the ninja academies," Ashley put in. "I told him I was the one who had talked to him," she added, glancing in Carlos' direction. "I'm sorry, but I thought he should know that Earth has an active resistance."

Carlos was frowning, but Zhane had never seen the volatile Earth Ranger lose his temper with Ashley over anything. She was probably the only one who could have said what she did and get away unscathed. Zhane thought she knew it, too... she might have done it for just that reason.

"How much does Jenkarta know?" Carlos asked at last.

"I told him Gabe gave you that encryption key," Ashley said immediately. "I told him that I used it to contact Gabe a few days ago, and I told him that Gabe had organized people to back him up. That's all.

"Andros said they could probably retake the earth themselves," she added. "But they wouldn't be able to hold it. Jenkarta seemed a little surprised, but not like he was going to throw me in jail or anything. He wants to know everything Gabe's told you about the resistance. He also asked if Eltare could get in touch with him directly."

"No." Carlos' response was as fast as hers. "They're not stupid; they won't talk to anyone they don't know."

"How do you feel about giving him information on the resistance?" Ashley wanted to know. "No contact info, no names or places or strategies--nothing specific, just the kind of force they have and whether you think it could work with one from offworld?"

This time, Carlos hesitated. "I could give him general stuff," he agreed grudgingly. "But he'd have to take my word for it. I'm not going to compromise them, and Eltare won't have any luck finding them without us. They're ninjas. They probably don't even know what that means here."

"Aquitar had ninjas," Andros said unexpectedly.

"Phaedos too," Zhane volunteered.

"I'll tell him," Ashley promised. "Or Andros will," she said, glancing in his direction. "I'm probably not invited to the meeting tomorrow, huh?"

"Oh, you'll be there." Andros' tone left no room for doubt. "I need someone on my side, and you always manage to make people feel guilty about being cynics. Besides," he said, more seriously, "you're a lot more qualified to talk about that part of space than I am."

Ashley set her plate down on the table with an uncomfortable look in TJ's direction. "Well, TJ or Carlos would be better--"

"Astronema sent that message to you," Andros said firmly. "I know TJ was the Red Ranger for your planet, and Jenkarta respects that. But I can bring you because you're already involved, and hopefully no one will say anything. It'll be harder to get anyone else in--especially since you've already told Jenkarta that Gabe is talking to you, not Carlos."

"Yeah, thanks for that," Carlos remarked, and it was impossible to tell whether he was serious or not.

Ashley apparently knew just how to interpret it. "You're welcome," she retorted, wrinkling her nose at him. "I'm always willing to take the fall for my friends."

"That's why you're so popular," Carlos agreed gravely.

"Anybody else want cake?" TJ asked, cutting another piece. "Cause the longer we're here, the more I'm going to eat."

"Carlos, give Ashley whatever information you can," Andros ordered. "TJ, can you come up with some kind of message for Justin and make sure that JT gets it?"

"Sure can," TJ said easily. He was concentrating on the cake, moving his second piece from tray to plate and lifting the knife with a flourish when he succeeded. "Last chance for some cake!"

Cassandra's voice was soft and unexpected. "I'll try some," she said, and the effort it took to be casual was evident in her expression.

"You got it." TJ's reply was prompt, but Zhane noticed that he didn't look at her as he handed the cake to Ashley. Ashley carried it over to Cassandra, taking a seat on Andros' couch afterward.

"There's just one more thing," Andros said with a sigh. "I know," he said, when Karen groaned. "It's a team consensus, so if we can't get anywhere we'll have to sleep on it."

"Or you could just decide for us." Ashley settled against the cushions on the side of the sofa closest to him. "You're good at that."

"Is there anything Astronema could do that would prove her good faith?" Andros ignored Ashley's comment entirely. "No one else believes that she's telling the truth. I'm not even sure I believe it--and even if I did," he continued, before Ashley could interrupt, "we could never act on it. There's no way to convince Eltare that its greatest enemy wants to defect, and we can't decide the course of the war without the support of this planet."

Ashley subsided. No one else said anything.

"You just answered the question for us," Zhane pointed out quietly. "There's no way to convince Eltare. So, no. There's nothing Astronema can do to prove her good faith."

"If she--" Karen stopped, then shook her head. "No, never mind."

"No," Carlos agreed.

"Even if she blasted her way out of the monarchy and volunteered her forces in service to the Free Systems," TJ said firmly, "I'd still suspect her. And so would every patrol wing and defense unit we have."

"So, that's a no?" Zhane inquired.

TJ threw him an exasperated look, and Zhane shrugged. "I was just asking."

"What if she freed a Border planet?" Cassandra said unexpectedly. "A whole system? And held it? Would that convince us?"

Everyone looked at her. Zhane got it first. "You mean, if she didn't ask anything of us. If she just struck out on her own and let us think whatever we wanted."

Cassandra nodded.

"Yes," Ashley said in a small voice. No one jumped on her. She was Astronema's most vocal--and typically only--defender. The other Rangers never derided her for it, but this time they were unusually quiet.

"Maybe," Karen agreed finally.

"She hasn't," Carlos pointed out. "And she's not going to. So what does it matter?"

"It matters because the question is whether or not there's anything she could do. If there's nothing, then her message is meaningless and nothing has changed," Andros told him.

"Not meaningless," TJ realized. "Not if there's some kind of gathering of forces to back it up--either to convince us or to ambush us, it doesn't really matter. It's a strategic shift toward the border. That's why we're talking about Earth, isn't it?"

Andros nodded.

Carlos was studying him. "Is your plan based on the assumption that she's lying, then?"

Andros gave him a slightly superior look. "My plan is based on the assumption that someone in power in the monarchy sent that message and intends to follow through with it in some way," he informed Carlos. "Whether it's true or not, whether it's even from Astronema or not doesn't really matter."

"Well, it's good to have plans that don't depend on pesky things like the truth," Karen said dryly. "Can we go to bed now?"

Andros glanced around, but no one wanted to be the one to further postpone the end of the day. "Go ahead," he agreed, when no one else jumped in. "Tell your neighbors thanks for the cake, TJ."

Amused, Zhane caught his eye through the shuffle of motion that followed his dismissal. "You didn't even try any," he reminded Andros.

Andros shrugged, wandering over to the table. "So? Is it any good?"

Zhane reached out and scooped some frosting from the top of the cake plate. Andros caught his hand licked the frosting off his finger. Tilting his head to one side, he pretended to give the flavor serious consideration. "Okay," he said at last. "Good enough for me. Is it time for bed yet?"

"You go," Zhane told him. "I'm going to stay and help TJ clean up."

"Oh, plates." Andros grimaced at the idea, but he wasn't leaving. "I'll help." He pointed behind his back at Ashley, still curled up at the end of the couch. "Don't get up. We'll do it."

"This is me," Ashley said with a yawn. "Protesting vigorously."

"This is me," Karen added from the door, "thanking people who care for washing our plates. Good night guys."

"Thanks," Carlos added, his hand in hers as they went to leave. "Night."

"Good night," TJ called over his shoulder.

There was another chorus of "good night"s for Cassandra, for whom Ashley actually made the effort of pulling herself up off the couch and following out into the hangar. Their private conversation left Andros and Zhane alone in the lounge with TJ and dishes that were coated with easily-removed sugar. They were done before Ashley returned.

"Thanks for putting together that message for Justin," Andros told TJ, as they got ready to leave.

TJ waved it away. "No problem. I'll send it to everyone on the team, too, so we all know what's going on."

"Happy whatever holiday it is," Zhane told him, and TJ just grinned.

"Good night," Andros said, his tiredness evident now as it hadn't been before.

Zhane echoed him and TJ just waved, apparently planning to stay and work on Justin's message from here. They picked up Ashley out in the hangar: Cassandra had left, but their roommate was entranced by the bots again. She fell into step beside them as soon as they emerged, and the three of them headed for the teleportal and home.

4. Fuzzy Bunnies

"How come he didn't call us?" Karen's voice from the comm was indignant at her supposed exclusion in a way only she could be. Everyone else was happier not to hear from Justin, all things considered.

"I mean, I'm over there in that other dimension too, right?" Karen continued. "Maybe I know something! I might have valuable information! Did he ever think of that?"

Carlos checked the time and ran a hand through his hair, insuring that it was no neater than usual. He found that deliberately maintaining the tousled look made it easier to get in and out of the water throughout the day without looking like he had just gotten out of the water. He rarely wore anything but native clothing when he was on Aquitar now, and the material shucked water convincingly. It was just him that got wet.

"I think we should have some kind of Ranger message board," Karen was saying. "I want a place where I can go and catch up on all the latest gossip without having to rely on you people to pass it on!"

That, Carlos took exception to. "You people?" he repeated, looking around for his phone. Kerone had waterproofed it for him months ago. "Do I look like 'you people' to you? I was the one who called you, remember!"

"I'm talking about a failure of communication that goes back long before this particular incident," Karen informed him. "Because I've definitely been kept in the dark about the Kerovan Rangers. Did you know they have a kid? Where was gossip central when that little piece of information was getting passed over?"

He frowned at his phone, trying to figure out how he could possibly have a message waiting when it hadn't been out of his hearing range all morning. "A what?" he asked, checking his "missed calls" list for any clue that it was worth it to dial his voice mail from a different galaxy.

"A kid!" Karen exclaimed. "A child! A three-year-old running around the Kerovan hangar! Why wasn't I warned about this?"

He was staring at his phone, which was singularly unhelpful when he was on Aquitar because it listed everyone from Earth--that being everyone who would actually use a phone to communicate with him--as "intergalactic." He reminded himself that it wasn't designed to function as a mobile intergalactic communication center. It shouldn't work here at all, but a side effect of Billy's phone tap for his communicator was that it could in fact connect to Earth in an emergency.

Finally Karen's complaint registered, and he looked up in surprise. "Did you just say Andros and Ashley adopted a kid?"

"No," Karen told him. "I said there was a kid running around the hangar. I've been told he wasn't formally adopted, or informally adopted, or adopted in any way. He just showed up one day and now they're taking care of him."

"Uh..." Carlos tried to think of anything remotely relevant to say in response. "Why?"

"Because Astronema told them to!" Karen said, throwing her hands up in the air. "Of course! I have no idea what's going on around here!"

Carlos couldn't help grinning at her dramatic indignation. She was in her element when she had something to make a fuss over, and when she didn't she made something up. "Kerone told Andros and Ashley to adopt a kid?"

"No, not Kerone. Astronema. Seriously, Astronema from JT's dimension showed up with this kid and was like, 'here. Good luck.' And then she disappeared again."

Before Carlos could process this she added, "And it's not so much Andros and Ashley's kid as it is... everyone's. Everyone's taking turns taking care of him, watching him, trying to get him to eat actual food instead of whatever he finds lying around."

"Wait, JT's Astronema contacted them?" Carlos demanded. "How come no one told us about this?"

Karen rolled her eyes. "That's what I want to know!"

"This morning Justin called and said JT needed some information about the Eternal Falls," Carlos said, repeating what he had already told her. "There was nothing about Astronema or kids or prior contacts."

"I think we're out of the loop," Karen remarked solemnly.

"Yeah..." Carlos was starting to agree. "There's more going on than we know about, isn't there."

"That's not even the half of it." Karen, it seemed, was just beginning. "So there's a kid, right? There's also a hangar full of intelligent zords that do everything but talk, a public relations agent who might as well live here, and I'm seriously confused about the relationships around here."

That got his attention. Ashley had stopped talking about Andros at all for several months, to the point where she would tell him to change the subject if it came up in conversation. Lately, though, she had been able to say his name without wincing. The last time they'd talked she had happily related the details of a date the two of them had gone on the week before, and Carlos assumed that meant they were on the road to recovery.

"Is this one of those things you knew about but didn't share?" Karen asked, apparently suspicious of the sharp look he had given her. "I guess I wouldn't blame you if Ashley swore you to silence, but really. Talk about surprised."

The door chimed, and Carlos opened his mouth. He really, really wanted to press the subject. But he knew who was at the door, and he wasn't sure he wanted to ask questions in front of Aura. He also didn't want her to think he was keeping secrets from her--especially with Karen. So, in the end, it was his curiosity that had to be sacrificed.

"Come in," he called, and he heard the lock click when she keyed in her code. "Aura's here," he told the screen. "We're gonna head out, see if Cestria's willing to send some stuff to Justin."

"Cool," Karen agreed. When he looked over his shoulder to smile in welcome, she added, "Hi Aura."

Aura moved into the camera's range, inclining her head slightly. "Greetings," she replied. "I am told you are on an extended visit to the Kerova system?"

"Sure am!" Karen said cheerfully. "It's even weirder than I expected! And let me tell you, I expected a lot. KERI says it's a good learning experience for a planet-bound Ranger." She rolled her eyes to show what she thought of that statement.

"This is doubtless true," Aura answered. She either hadn't noticed or was pretending not to see Karen's sarcasm. "I trust you will learn a great deal during your stay on KO-35."

"Yeah, I'm sure I will too," Karen said dryly. "I'm just not sure how much of it I'll be able to share when I leave."

"Maybe this will teach you that aliens aren't all sugar and fuzzy bunnies." He really tried to keep a straight face, but he couldn't contain his smirk when Karen gave him a withering look. He held up his hands in self-defense. "I'm just saying, join the club, all right?"

That made her laugh. "Yeah, yeah... Mr. Intergalactic Traveler, here. We'll compare notes later. Good luck at the Eternal Falls, guys."

"Thanks. Stay out of trouble," Carlos told her.

She smirked right back at him. "I won't do anything you wouldn't do."

The transmission ended and he was left staring at a Ranger-colored pawprint. The Aquitian logo replaced it a moment later. "Well, that's not exactly reassuring," he told the comm interface.

"Fuzzy bunnies?" Aura's tone was flat, and the "she's not happy" alert went off in his mind.

"Yeah, you know..." Playing dumb probably wouldn't get him anywhere, so he picked the most likely interpretation of her question and went with it. "Cute little innocent fluffy things that have no purpose in life except to make more cute fluffy things. Karen has kind of an idealized vision of aliens," he added, by way of clarification.

"I see." The words said she did, the expression said she didn't.

"Come on," he coaxed, not totally sure what she was upset about. "You have to admit, there's no way Cetaci could be considered cute and fluffy."

That drew a reluctant smile, though she pointed out, "Cetaci likes Karen. It is possible that, in the absence of the one constant to which the rest of us are accustomed, Karen has indeed been misled regarding the true nature of offworlders."

"See? That's probably it," Carlos agreed. "KO-35 will be good for her. She'll have to deal with Andros."

"They are hardly comparable," Aura murmured.

"It's true, Andros sulks quietly," he admitted. Cetaci, in contrast, lashed out at anyone who happened to be around when things didn't go the way she wanted. "But it doesn't make him any easier to get along with. Believe me, I've had to live with both of them."

Aura gave him an arch look. "If you are trying to elicit sympathy from me, I must point out that Ashley is nothing compared to Delphinius."

Carlos opened his mouth, considered that, and finally he had to grin. "Okay, you win that one. At least Ashley makes Andros easier to deal with instead of harder."

"As opposed to Delphinius, who deliberately provokes Cetaci to the point where she will quit the team altogether."

He held up a hand, pointing at her. "Technically, that was Cestria."

"Cestria only said the words," Aura corrected. "Almost all of Cetaci's actions, especially as regards the Rangers, can be directly or indirectly attributed to Delphinius."

"I'm sure she'd really appreciate hearing that," Carlos said dryly.

Without a moment's pause, Aura replied, "I am sure she would not."

He grinned at her, and the corner of her mouth lifted in a smirk. "Shall we go?" she suggested innocently.

He glanced at his phone once more before setting it down. Whoever had called him, they could at least wait until he was back on the planet. "After you," he told Aura, gesturing toward the door.

They made their way to the control room, that being the only easy way out of the Ranger living quarters, and found the very people they'd been talking about already there. They weren't working, though, and it took Carlos a moment to figure out what was going on. With the universe finally settling into the more predictable patterns of peace, the control room was empty as often as not these days... but it wasn't usually a place the Rangers came to socialize.

Delphinius didn't even look up when the door opened, but Cetaci gave them a passing glance and Carlos tried to stifle a laugh. One of the White Ranger's favorite rules was "no sitting on the consoles!" yet there she was, perched on top of a status console with her feet dangling below, ankles crossed and swinging slightly as though she didn't have a care in the world. Out of uniform, not even wearing her color, she looked less like the leader of the Rangers and more like a teenage girl playing hooky with her boyfriend.

"What are you doing?" Aura asked curiously.

"Thank you," Carlos said aloud, eyeing Delphinius' intense concentration with no small amount of suspicion. The only reason the two Rangers hadn't managed to take over the world yet was because they spent more time arguing with each other than anything else. He was a little worried about what they might be able to do if they ever coexisted peacefully for more than a few minutes at a time. "I was wondering whether I should ask that."

The Black Ranger didn't answer, which only made Carlos more nervous about what he was doing. Sure, it looked harmless enough. It looked like he was drawing a tattoo around Cetaci's wrist with a pen. But Carlos had found that the more innocent these particular Rangers looked, the greater the chances were that they were up to something sinister.

"Delphinius is practicing his artwork," Cetaci answered for them both. "The two of you are leaving early," she added, before either of them could reply. "Are you on your way to the Eternal Falls already?"

He and Aura exchanged glances. "Well, Aura's driving," Carlos said at last. "So we have to leave time for at least two flit violations on the way."

That drew a response from Delphinius, though he still didn't look up. "They won't stop a Ranger," he muttered, his concentration apparently not enough to keep him from defending pilot "creativity."

"Yeah, and you're as bad as she is," Carlos informed him. Delphinius wasn't big on flits, but his fighter menaced the spacelanes on a regular basis.

Delphinius lifted his pen and drew back for a moment, studying the design he was creating. "There was a time," he mused, "when I would not have considered that the compliment that I do now." He turned to catch Aura's eye, and there was a smile on his face when he inclined his head in her direction.

Cetaci lifted her hand when he looked away, inspecting the design for herself. Carlos recognized Aquitian lettering when she turned her wrist, and he tried to get a better look at it without being too obvious. It was hard enough to read their alphabet when it was printed on a screen in front of him.

"I will endeavor to live up to your expectations," Aura was telling him gravely, and Carlos snorted.

"Live down to them, you mean. Your piloting has taken years off my life," he accused. "I have to be a Ranger, because it's the only thing more exciting than going places with you. I've been desensitized to adrenaline."

"As I have been desensitized to the human tendency to complain about things they clearly enjoy," Aura replied. "It's an annoying but inevitable consequence of close association."

"Careful," Carlos warned. "Billy's at the Eternal Falls too. Our numbers will be even. You won't be able to get away with comments like that."

Aura gave him an amused look. "You say that as though you allow me to get away with them in any circumstance."

"Back home, we call that 'asking for it'," Carlos remarked. "I guess that's an Aquitian tendency."

"I suspect it's a Ranger tendency," Delphinius interjected dryly.

Cetaci made a sound of disbelief. "Considering the disposition you started with, there's nothing you can do to convince me that becoming a Ranger made you more reckless."

"Given that my alleged recklessness is second only to yours, I have no doubt that's true," Delphinius agreed.

"I think we'll go now," Carlos said. He was sure the conversation could only go downhill from here. Past experience told him that this was as close to coming out on top as he could hope for, and he'd be better off to cut his losses and get out while he still could.

"Agreed," Aura said quickly. And she had been doing better than he had.

They managed to make it out of the control room without the sounds of an argument following them, which was more than Carlos had expected. Cetaci must be in an unusually good mood today. Or maybe Delphinius had some ulterior motive for not provoking her. With them it was almost impossible to tell who started it, but the rest of them tried to enjoy the rare moments of peace.

He asked Aura about the letters on Cetaci's wrist while they traveled to the launch bay, but she hadn't been able to read them either. She did identify the wrist design itself as a school tradition--something like exchanging class rings, if he understood what she meant. Not something adults typically did, but then, Cetaci and Delphinius were nothing if not atypical.

They made it to the Rey field at the base of the Eternal Falls without a single violation, which Aura didn't forget to point out to him. He teased her about getting soft, getting tired of adrenaline, going too easy on the traffic grid. He got it right back about passenger seat driving, contradictory complaints, and a reminder that it had taken him three times as long to get his diver license as it had her. He still wasn't authorized to pilot a flit.

They would have to walk, no matter where they left the flit, but Aura's Ranger clearance got them closer than they would have been otherwise. Cestria met them at the bottom of the path, as though she had known which one they would take--and she must have, but Carlos had never been able to figure out how she did it. No matter which direction he came from, she was always waiting when he arrived. He had asked her about it once, and the only explanation he had gotten was, "I'm the keeper."

He didn't push it. There was a time when he would have looked for cameras, motion detectors, anything that would justify her benignly impressive ability. Now he just accepted her answer at face value. It was nice to think there might still be magic in the world, and he wasn't sure he wanted to find out otherwise.

Cestria led them through the tropical environment that existed behind the falls, past visitors, around plants and pools, and into the maze of caves that wound through solid stone. The rumble of the water was muted here, growing quieter the deeper they went, until finally it was a nothing but a low growl at the edge of his hearing. Still no one said anything until they stepped into one of the data archives that Cestria maintained--the atmosphere of the falls was pervasive, and it wasn't a place people came to talk.

"Welcome," she repeated quietly, turning to face them with a smile. She gestured to the cushions piled up against an otherwise unoccupied wall. "Will you sit?"

Carlos grabbed one for Aura and two for himself, and Cestria waited for them to settle themselves before she sat gracefully on the bare stone. "Billy was called away on a matter of personal importance," she offered, by way of explanation. "He may join us later."

"A matter of technical importance?" Aura suggested.

Cestria smiled again, lowering her head in acknowledgement. "Indeed. I'm afraid he still finds the atmosphere here... a little too mystical, as he puts it. As I am learning to be a technician, so too is he learning to be a spiritualist."

"It's a combination that has served Aquitar well in the past," Aura said quietly. "I have no doubt that it will continue to do so."

"We are not the only native-alien couple to benefit the planet," Cestria pointed out, looking from Aura to Carlos and back again. "Cetaci tells me you are on yet another quest for life-saving information?"

"Incurable do-gooders," Carlos put in. "That's us."

"You remember the dimension from which Carlos' counterpart came, earlier this year?" Aura asked. "He came from a universe at war, in which the border has been overrun and many Rangers have retreated to the center of League space to make their stand."

"I remember," Cestria agreed calmly. "If I understood the situation correctly, Aquitar had been cut off from the rest of the League in this dimension."

"This system and all surrounding systems--including the Sol system," she said, glancing at Carlos, "were occupied by the forces of evil. Aquitar invoked an ancient protection of the falls and... disappeared. The soldiers occupying it were lost, by all reports, and no contact has been established with the planet or anyone on it since."

Cestria nodded slowly. "I am familiar with the concept of such a protection," she admitted. "Such a thing has not been reliably documented since the time of Ninjor, and certainly there has been no mention of it in living memory."

"But you've heard of it." Carlos had had the concept explained to him, albeit reluctantly and piecemeal, by the Aquitian Rangers from the other dimension. After the way Aura had complained about it after he returned, he had thought she might have mentioned it to her teammate.

"I have," Cestria agreed. "When Aura told me that you had 'stolen' our planet, I did some research into possible explanations."

Of course she had mentioned it. In the least flattering light possible, too, what else could he expect? "Thanks for passing that along," he told her, narrowing his eyes at her in a mock threat.

Aura radiated innocence. "It was my pleasure."

He was sure it had been. "So is there any way to contact them?" Carlos asked. "In the other dimension, I mean. Is there any way for Rangers from the League to contact your Rangers here--on Aquitar in the other dimension?"

"There is." Cestria didn't elaborate, studying him curiously instead. "To what end?"

Carlos winced. "I knew you were going to ask that," he said with a sigh.

"Andros has a strategy," Aura offered. She hesitated, then added, "A strategy which is either tactically brilliant or utterly catastrophic, depending on whether or not the universe favors him."

That made Cestria smile. "As so many of Andros' strategies are, then. Historically speaking, the universe does appear to be biased in his favor."

"Andros' plan is basically to cause an uprising on Earth, retake the planet, and establish a new alliance with Aquitar to hold it," Carlos told her. "The theory is that Aquitar has had time to rebuild and is perfectly capable of defending two systems if it has to."

"It doesn't have to," Aura pointed out for what was probably the fifteenth time. He gave her an annoyed look and she added mildly, "but of course it would, if Earth asked."

"Do you think so?" Cestria seemed thoughtful. "The situation must have been drastic for our counterparts to consider such an option. They have, in effect, abandoned the rest of the universe to its fate. I wonder if their decision can be so easily reversed."

There was a moment of silence, and Carlos shifted uncomfortably. "Not to sound like I don't care, but that's not really our problem," he reminded them. "The Earth Rangers--the Astro Rangers," he corrected himself, "in the other dimension are responsible for making the case to Aquitar. We're just trying to find a way for them to talk."

Cestria inclined her head. "I can help you with that. Though I have no personal experience with the phenomenon you describe, I have records that should provide the appropriate answers."

"Can we be sure of who we're sending them to?" Aura wanted to know. "I would rather not deliver vital information on our counterparts' activities into the hands of their enemies."

They were both looking at him now.

"The information I got was a message recorded by TJ's counterpart and transmitted to Justin by JT," he told them. "I trust Justin when he says he knows where it came from, and I trust him when he says he can get it back to the same person."

This time it was Aura and Cestria who exchanged glances. "Your word is all the proof I require," Aura said at last.

"For me also," Cestria agreed, rising to her feet. "I will copy the relevant records."

TJ clipped his helmet and hung it over the handlebars, waiting while Tessa locked her bicycle into the bike rack. Her hair was braided into pigtails, so for once it stayed where it was when she took her helmet off. He smiled as she shook her head automatically, making the braids bounce against her shoulders.

"Are you sure we shouldn't wait for Carlos?" she asked, catching his eye as she dropped her helmet onto her bike. "I know Gabe's part of the team and everything, but I don't know him that well. Maybe he'd rather talk to his brother."

"He'd have told us," TJ said confidently. "I've known Gabe almost as long as I've known Carlos, and he doesn't mess around. If he says he can show us where it's at in the other dimension? He'll show us."

"Fair enough," she said with a shrug. "At least I got a bike ride out of it."

TJ laughed, slinging an arm around her shoulders as they headed for the dojo's front door. "I know how to get you to go along with these crazy plans. I just appeal to the athlete within."

Tessa only smiled, holding out a hand to push the dojo door open when they approached. Saturday night was "open dojo" at Quest Karate, so there were a fair number of people inside despite the lack of formal classes going on. TJ glanced around for Gabe, or failing that, for Rocky, but neither of them were immediately visible.

He took idle note of the other people, either practicing or working out, automatically noting the higher belt ranks and separating those he recognized from those he didn't in his mind. He hadn't been around as much lately, and there were a surprising number of new faces. Strange to see so late on a Saturday, when it was mostly the regulars who came by.

His eye settled on a woman, probably student age, performing a kata with sais in front of the mirror. A black belt, possibly an advanced one. He had never seen her before.

"Hey, guys." Gabe had appeared beside them while he was scanning the floor, his bare feet silent on the tile. "Everything good?"

"Hey man!" TJ clasped his hand. "Good to see you staying off the streets."

"Yeah, well, someone handed me this research project," Gabe drawled, grinning back at him. "Rocky says we can use the office, if you want to come on back."

"Great," TJ agreed. He cast his gaze over the room once more as they followed Gabe, and he saw the black belt with the sais finish her kata, bow to an imaginary opponent, and lift her head so that she was looking straight at him. Her gaze slid away again almost at once, but he was frowning thoughtfully when he stepped into Rocky's office.

"You mind closing the door?" Gabe asked, and Tessa pulled it shut behind her obediently. "Thanks," he said with an easy smile. "This place is as much a ninja stronghold as it is a Ranger one, but we have plenty of regular people training here too."

"How many ninjas are there?" Tessa wanted to know. "In Angel Grove, I mean. You said you ended up at the academy because Rocky recommended you, but I didn't realize it was more than just him and you."

Probably because it had been enough of a surprise to find out that the Ninja Ranger team, of which three of the former Turbos had been a part, had been connected to an underground, interplanetary system of schools called the ninja academies. Gabe had taken up the Blue astromorpher less than a week ago, to fill the gap left by Karen's absence, and he had explained his association with the academies before he did so. To prevent conflicting loyalties, he said.

On Rocky's recommendation, Gabe had been accepted to a ninja academy while he was still in junior high. He had spent five years training with them, and apparently the certified first degree black belt he had earned through Quest was only one of several similar achievements within the academy system. He was, TJ suspected, one of the most experienced fighters to ever join an Earth Ranger team.

"There's a significant number of ninjas in Angel Grove, actually." Gabe made it sound like he wasn't really correcting her, just passing on an interesting piece of trivia. "Partly because there are two academies nearby, and partly because so much weird stuff happens here that it ends up drawing as many protectors as bad guys."

"How many is significant?" TJ asked, curious that he had avoided the question.

Gabe raised his eyebrows. "Did you look around when you came in?" When they nodded, he continued, "Almost half the people on the floor are ninjas or former Rangers. Some of them are both."

"I saw Adam out there," TJ remarked, trying to remember if there had been any other faces he associated with the Power.

"Yeah, he's waiting for Rocky to show." Gabe glanced at the clock, then added, "Kim's here too. She was the Pink Ranger before Kat?"

"Heard of her, never met her," TJ said, a little taken aback that Gabe was already more versed in Ranger history than he was. "You'll have to introduce us to all your Ranger contacts sometime."

"I think they're pretty much the same as yours." Gabe's grin made him look like his brother. "Kim just moved back here recently; you would have run into her eventually. The ninjas, on the other hand..."

He nodded toward the door, and TJ turned in time to see the woman who had been practicing with the sais push the door open and step inside. "This is Leanne Omino," Gabe's voice said from behind them. "Leanne, these are my friends, TJ Carter and Tessa McFarlan."

"Friends and teammates, I assume." Leanne flashed them a polite smile as she closed the door. "I'm pleased to meet you."

"Pleased to meet you too," TJ said, offering her his hand. Tessa murmured her own greeting, and Leanne shook hands with both of them.

"Everyone, have a seat," Gabe invited. He pulled Rocky's chair out from behind the desk and offered it to Tessa. TJ moved another chair away from the wall, and Leanne sat down at the other end of the desk in the chair typically used for student conferences.

"Leanne's a recent graduate of the Thunder Academy," Gabe told them, leaning against the edge of Rocky's desk. "She's teaching there this summer. She can tell you anything you need to know about academy defenses.

Glancing at Leanne, he added, "TJ and Tessa are the Red and Pink Earth Rangers. TJ was also an Astro Ranger and a Turbo Ranger, and he leads the Ranger team that I joined last week. They're looking for information to help their counterparts in a different dimension."

"So you said," Leanne replied. She studied both of them with frank curiosity and maybe the slightest bit of amusement. "Could you tell me a little more about this dimension? How do you know about it, what do you need to know... and why, exactly?"

"It's kind of a long story," TJ said with a rueful grin. "Basically, we have a friend on Eltare--how much do you know about the League?"

"That it exists," she said cryptically. "That the ninja academies are not unique to Earth, and that ninja teachers who want it can receive training in space travel and culture. It isn't something I've had a chance to take advantage of yet."

So, more informed than the average citizen. She didn't seem like someone who would appreciate having her knowledge underestimated, so he decided not to bother with the details. "One of the Turbo Rangers is running some experiments on Eltare," TJ told her. "He's found a way to communicate with and travel between different dimensions. One of those dimensions is a universe a lot like ours--except that evil's winning."

"Evil," Leanne repeated, frowning. "Astronema? Divatox? Dark ninjas? What do you mean when you say evil?"

"I mean Astronema, Divatox, the guy they're working for and the entire evil alliance they're a part of," TJ said firmly. "I don't know if there are any dark ninjas in it, but I wouldn't be surprised. They've taken over half the known worlds, including Earth and most of our neighbors."

Leanne was nodding slowly. Gabe must have told her some of this beforehand. "I assume the Power Rangers are gone?" she asked.

"Divatox beat the Turbo Rangers in that dimension. They barely managed to escape when they lost their powers, and Earth was taking while they were trying to find new ones. They're on Eltare now, with the Astro Power, and they're trying to find a way to free Earth."

"And you think the ninja academies can help," Leanne guessed, studying him.

"Actually, it was their idea," TJ said, with what he hoped was a disarming grin. "The Gabe in their dimension stayed behind on Earth, and he's in contact with the Astro Rangers on Eltare. They're hoping the ninjas can overthrow the occupation."

Leanne seemed to consider that. "Without knowing anything about the specifics," she said at last, "I'd say it's possible. The ninja academies have always been isolated, and if Earth were attacked the academies would probably be the last to fall. We have the skills, and depending on the size of the occupation, it's possible that we have the numbers."

"Gabe and Carlos think you can do it," TJ agreed. "In the other dimension. The bigger problem is keeping the occupation out once it's gone. Gabe says you're set up for ground fighting and guerrilla warfare. That leaves no defense against air strikes, atmospheric missiles, or orbital lasers."

Leanne shook her head, cutting him off before he could continue. "That's not true."

He frowned. "What?"

"We have air defense," Leanne answered. "We have things that can clear the atmosphere and we have vehicles that are equipped for a space battle. Whether we have pilots?" she added with a grimace. "Well, that's another matter."

TJ just stared at her. "You're kidding."

"You'd be surprised how hard it is to get international approval for training maneuvers in the upper atmosphere," Leanne said mildly. "When you're not the Power Rangers, that is."

"No, I mean about the ships." TJ flashed her a brief grin for the rebuke anyway. It was worth remembering. "My counterpart sent a message saying you had no airborne tech at all, let alone spaceships."

"We may not," Leanne admitted. He thought she relaxed incrementally, leaning back in her chair for the first time. "I don't know anything about this other dimension. All I know is what we have here."

TJ gave Gabe a questioning look. Carlos' younger brother had his arms folded across his chest, and he just shrugged when TJ looked at him. "Don't know anything about it," he answered.

"Most of the teachers don't," Leanne put in. "Only the ones that choose space training. All the senior teachers know, though, and the masters."

"And the masters' children?" Gabe suggested, his eyebrows raised.

Leanne just smiled.

"The ninja master who runs the Thunder Academy is Leanne's father," Gabe explained. "Sometimes she knows things she's not supposed to."

"Not like anyone else I could mention," Leanne countered. "Like people who train with Power Rangers?"

It was Gabe's turn to smile. "I guess we all have our sources," he said noncommittally.

"Is there any way we could see these vehicles?" TJ asked. "I don't want to violate any ninja codes, but it would help a lot if we knew what kind of force we're dealing with."

Leanne hesitated, her gaze going from him to Tessa and back. "Traditionally, we don't allow anyone but ninjas on academy grounds..." She shrugged suddenly. "We could probably make an exception for Power Rangers, though."

"We'll take any vow of secrecy you want," TJ offered.

This time Leanne shook her head. "No, it's all right. You're Gabe's teammates; that should be enough for my father. When would you like to see them?"

TJ exchanged looks with Tessa. "If we can't see them tonight," he said apologetically, "we're going to need as much information as you can give us in the meantime. I think they're under some pressure in the other dimension."

Leanne didn't even look surprised. "Tonight's fine," she agreed, sitting forward in her chair again. "If we're going to drive, we'd better start now. I'll answer whatever questions I can on the way."

"It might be better if we teleported," Gabe interjected. "If time's important, that'll be a lot faster. KERI can get coordinates for the town from a map, right?"

"Sure, but she won't be able to narrow down our landing site without a signal from one of us. She can scan for someplace without a lot of people, but there's no guarantee you'll recognize it when we get there."

"Gabe could do a visual search," Tessa offered, speaking for the first time since they'd all been introduced. "If we go up there, KERI can bring up locations for him until he finds one that's familiar."

"Would a beach name help?" Leanne asked. "Cassini Cove is usually pretty deserted. Maybe you could scan it or whatever you do to make sure?"

For answer, TJ tapped his communicator and lifted his wrist to speak into it. "KERI, would you look up a location for us and see if you can get coordinates?"

"What location do you need?" the Mega V computer replied immediately.

"It's a beach called Cassini Cove," TJ answered. He relayed the name of the town, and Leanne started to give directions. KERI's voice came back before she could finish.

"I have coordinates for Cassini Cove in Fairhaven," KERI told them. "I've pinpointed an unpopulated stretch, if you're looking for a place to teleport."

TJ saw Leanne and Gabe look at each other, and he grinned. "You're very good," he told his communicator. "Thanks, KERI. Are we ready to go?" he asked, lowering his wrist as he got to his feet and looked around.

Leanne and Tessa stood up too, and Leanne nodded. He caught Tessa's eye, then looked at Gabe. Carlos' brother straightened. "Let me just let Adam know I'm leaving. He can watch the dojo until Rocky gets here."

"Do you teleport often?" Leanne asked, while Gabe stepped out onto the floor. "I didn't even think of that."

"We don't usually use it unless there's an emergency," TJ answered. "We used to teleport more, when we had to get to fights every other day, or when we had to go back and forth from the Power Chamber."

"And the Megaship," Tessa added. "We use it to reach the zords."

Leanne nodded thoughtfully. "I wonder if you could teleport onto academy grounds," she mused.

"We're not going to?" TJ asked, surprised.

"Cassini Cove is a little more than a mile from the Thunder Academy. A lot of the Thunder ninjas park there so we don't end up with a bunch of vehicles sitting in the middle of nowhere--that's what the academy looks like from the outside. It's cloaked," Leanne added, in case they hadn't guessed.

"And shielded?" TJ surmised. "If you think we wouldn't be able to teleport in?"

"It's..." Leanne hesitated. "It is shielded, to some extent. I don't know enough about it to know whether it would keep out Ranger teleportation or not."

The door opened again, and Gabe slipped in. "I'm ready," he said, nodding to TJ.

"KERI," TJ told his communicator. "We have four to teleport."

"I'm sending you now," the AI replied, and the world burned away in swirling red fire.

The first thing he noticed when the reappeared was the air, cooler than the inside of the dojo against his skin. The second thing he noticed was the twilight, the shadows making the roar of the ocean sound more mysterious than it did during the day. Tessa stretched beside him, taking a deep breath, and he saw Leanne move out of the corner of his eye.

"Wow," the ninja remarked, sounding as impressed as she had since they'd met. "That was quite a rush."

"Still not used to it," Gabe admitted, shaking his hands out in front of him as though to reassure himself that they were still there. "It's not like streaking."

There was a startled silence, and TJ raised an eyebrow at him. "Like what?"

"Ninja streaking," Leanne said, a smile evident in her voice. "I know, it's an unfortunate name."

Gabe groaned. "I've gotten so used to it I don't even think about it anymore."

"It's the way we travel," Leanne explained, when Gabe didn't continue. "It's faster than driving... but not as fast as teleporting. It's called streaking because you can see a ninja who's doing it if you know what to look for. They look like a black streak as they go by."

"A really fast black streak," Gabe added. "I can't see people doing it unless I watch them from where they start."

"There are some advantages to growing up around ninjas," Leanne commented.

"Yeah, mostly involving repeated opportunities to show off," Gabe said blandly. "You want to tell us more about these spaceships while we walk?"

"They're not all spaceships," she cautioned. Leading them down the beach, Leanne explained that nine of the eighteen academies in existence on Earth had their own fleet of robotic assault vehicles--and a fleet apparently consisted of three. Traditionally, each was equipped to maneuver through one of the ninja elements, which meant that there was one flight vehicle per "fleet."

Nine spaceworthy fighting machines, TJ mused. Tessa had taken off her sneakers and was walking beside him, fingers curling through his when he clasped her hand absently. Nine wasn't such a bad number. They had defended Earth with less--still did, in fact. Without Zhane the sixth Mega V was in permanent drydock, leaving them with five zords to cover the entire planet.

It had been enough in the past.

Of course, the past had never involved a full-scale occupying force that had settled in for the duration and had reinforcements on call every hour of the day. It was a sobering thought and one worth keeping in mind. They weren't just trying to defend a planet. They were trying to free it, hold it, and repel ongoing invasion attempts.

By the time they reached the Thunder Academy, TJ felt like he had a sense of numbers if not a concrete concept of actual strength. The lack of pilot training bothered him, but he reminded himself that they couldn't assume the other dimension was anything like this one. The ninjas there probably had more piloting experience than they wanted.

Which led to another question: were these supposed "fleets" even in existence in the other dimension? If they did exist, how were they holding up? Had they been used during the invasion? Had they been destroyed? If Gabe was their ninja contact in the other dimension and he didn't know any more about the assault vehicles there than he did here, then of course he wouldn't have mentioned them. But why wouldn't he know? If the vehicles existed, why weren't they in use?

"The holographic entrance looks more intimidating than it is," Gabe was telling them. TJ looked around, but Gabe was standing on the edge of a cliff with no apparent "entrance" in sight. "Want to demonstrate?"

This last seemed to have been directed at Leanne, who walked out into thin air without a moment's hesitation. She turned to look back at them, held her arms out to the sides like a model, and then proceeded across the chasm to the cliff face on the other side. She didn't even slow down. She walked straight into the cliff and vanished in a flash of light.

TJ raised an eyebrow.

"Sensei Gabe."

He felt Tessa start at the disembodied voice, but after a quick study of their surroundings he nudged her and indicated the shadow ahead and to their right. As soon as he nodded toward it, it detached itself from the stone and turned into a black-clad human being. "Your visitors are expected, I assume?"

Gabe bowed respectfully. "I'm taking them to see Sensei Omino now, Sensei Cairn."

"As you say," the ninja guard replied, returning Gabe's bow. TJ didn't think he looked away, but suddenly the man was gone and he definitely hadn't seem him go. This time, no matter how closely he inspected the stone he couldn't identify a suspicious shadow.

"Time to go," Gabe said lightly. He stepped out into the air.

"Anything we should know about this?" TJ asked, staring at the drop skeptically.

"Just follow me," Gabe told them. "The drop is an illusion; there's solid stone from here to the ground. It keeps out casual trespassers."

"And not so casual ones, I bet," Tessa murmured. She followed him without further protest, and TJ held onto her hand as they walked tentatively across what looked like... nothing. Finally he lifted his gaze to the far side, finding it easier to accept if he didn't have to see it, and the next obstacle was stepping through solid stone.

He decided that after walking on air, walking through stone wasn't that big a deal.

The cliff vanished as soon as he stepped through it, revealing a hardy, windswept environment that smelled of ocean waves and salt spray. Leanne was waiting for them. "Nice place you have here," he told her, and she smiled.

"Thank you," she said seriously. "It's been my home as long as I can remember."

TJ decided to refrain from any more comments about the academy grounds.

The robotic assault vehicles were another matter entirely. Although Gabe had promised that they were on their way to see Sensei Omino, Leanne must have taken their warning about time to heart. She led them directly to a high tech underground bunker, pulled up specs on the fleet--which TJ had to admit meant little to him--and finally led them to see the vehicles in person.

They were battle-ready, there was no question about that. The specs had made enough of an impression that actually seeing the vehicles was more than convincing. "You have zord-quality machinery here," he remarked aloud.

"I'm pretty sure they were designed to work with morphers," Leanne agreed, leaning on the railing high above one of the assault vehicle bays. "I've never seen them in action, but I know what they can do."

For what had to be several minutes, they all contemplated the awesome display of power laid out below them. TJ was trying to decide what questions his counterpart was most likely to ask when Tessa inquired, "How do you hide something like this?"

"Holographic technology," Leanne answered. "Like the entryway." She paused, then shrugged a little. "Or so they tell me. It's not really my field of study."

"What about when they leave?" Tessa pressed. "You mentioned piloting... you must have some kind of cover for your practice runs?"

"You'd think," Leanne said dryly. "If we do, I don't know what it is. Like I said, only teachers in space training are even supposed to know about these, let alone have access to them. I don't how often they roll out of here, or even if they do at all."

"Who maintains them?" TJ wanted to know.

Leanne shrugged again. "Sorry. I'll introduce you to my father, if you like. He should be able to answer your questions."

TJ nodded, pushing away from the railing reluctantly. "We'd better talk to him. Thanks for giving us a tour."

"Yeah, thanks," Gabe put in. "I had no idea what I was missing."

"My pleasure," Leanne said with a smile. "Any excuse to bend the rules."

TJ exchanged glances with Tessa, and he saw her stifle a giggle. "Now why does that sound so familiar?" he wondered aloud.

Gabe snorted. "Look in a mirror before you look at me, bro."

"Has anyone ever told you that you're a lot like Carlos?" TJ wanted to know.

"You're only the million and first."

Tessa raised her hand. "Million and second," she commented.

Gabe appealed to Leanne. "Can we go now?"

She chuckled, tossing her hair over one shoulder. "Next stop," she declared. "Ninja Master Omino."

5. Deeper Worth

"So, let me get this straight," Karen said, eyeing Kristet skeptically. "You don't remember, like... anything I told you yesterday?"

"I remember what you told me," Kristet told the mirror, holding up a long-sleeved blouse in front of her and eyeing the effect critically. "I don't remember when you told me, no."

"The longer you know her, the less she knows about you," Ashley called from behind the curtain. "That's what I find, anyway."

They were on a shopping trip in the middle of some city Karen had never heard of, which included every city on KO-35 except Keyota, and they were supposed to be finding clothes for tonight's party. Or at least, that was the excuse that Ashley had given for the excursion. Between her and Kristet, they'd dragged her into almost every building lining the street where they'd parked, and not all of them had sold clothing.

"I know plenty about you," Kristet was saying. "You're lucky I have journalistic scruples."

"Yeah, right!" Ashley's voice exclaimed. "You're the least scrupulous reporter I know! That's why we hired you, remember?"

"No," Kristet replied, still studying her reflection in the mirror. "If it didn't happen today, you'll have to tell me again."

The curtain slid out of the way and Ashley stepped out, striking a pose that was apparently meant to be dramatic. "What do you think?" she asked with a giggle. The disturbing part was that the drama was absolutely perfect on her, like she couldn't look ridiculous even when she tried.

Kristet had turned around to inspect the dress. "I think you have enough people falling over themselves with jealousy when you wear your uniform," she announced. "That dress is only going to make it worse."

"Really?" Ashley brightened. "So I should get it, right?"

Kristet smiled, shaking her head. "You should definitely get it," she agreed, turning back to the mirror with a different blouse.

"Deeper colors," Ashley called over her shoulder, turning in a circle to admire her new dress from all directions. "What have I told you about deeper colors?"

"I have no idea," Kristet answered wryly. "What have you told me about deeper colors?"

"Sometimes she really can't remember," Ashley told Karen. "Other times she just pretends she can't because she knows we can't tell the difference."

"Do you know how much I know about fashion?" Kristet asked, as though Ashley hadn't said anything. "I know what other people are wearing. That's it. And that's usually enough. You don't have to look spectacular to be a reporter. You just have to look as good as the best-dressed person you're interviewing."

"Which means you have to look as good as me, right?" Ashley gave her a disarming smile, and Karen couldn't help but laugh. "What? You're the only one who could outdo me, and we have totally different styles."

This last was clearly directed at Karen, who held up her hands in surrender. "I was just laughing to see your designer sense come out again. I think you have to worry more about Kerone than me."

"I don't think Kerone's going tonight." Ashley's cheerful expression dimmed a little, a thoughtful look settling over her face. "Ty offered to watch Kae, but I don't think she's going to take him up on it."

"It's better to have Ty in the spotlight than Kerone," Kristet remarked, eyeing the dress Ashley held out to her with skepticism. "I don't think a dress is the most practical choice."

"If you find one you like, you won't care," Ashley replied.

"After months with the Power Rangers, haven't you learned to fight in whatever you're wearing?" Karen wanted to know. "Seriously, they could have Ranger competitions for who can look the best after hand-to-hand combat."

"With different categories for starting appearance and number of opponents," Ashley agreed immediately. She paused. "Hey, maybe we should have special sparring sessions where we work out in nice clothes! It'd be more realistic, right?"

Kristet was looking from one to the other oddly. "You're not expecting an attack tonight, are you? Something else I've forgotten?"

"No," Ashley assured her with a laugh. "Just trying to come up with new ways to drive Andros crazy, that's all."

"You're the one who said a dress wasn't practical," Karen reminded her. "What are you expecting?"

"I'm expecting a KPD social," Kristet said with a sigh, "which will involve intense memorization on my part just before it starts while I try to catch up with everyone's changing titles and latest projects and accomplishments."

"Try the dress on," Ashley prompted. "The more stunning you look the less people will notice if you forget something, and I say use any advantage you have."

"So, wait." Karen frowned at Kristet. "You can memorize all that stuff, but you can't remember... what can't you remember? I don't get it."

Kristet and Ashley exchanged glances. "It's not that I don't remember," Kristet said at last. "It's just that I don't remember in the right order. I remember people's names and titles... but I don't have any way of knowing which of those names and titles are the most recent."

"So the more she knows about you the less she can remember," Ashley repeated. "Like, she knows that three people have taught me telekinesis, but I bet she doesn't remember which of them is doing it now."

Karen glanced at Kristet, who shrugged. "I could find out," she said, taking her dress and retreating behind the curtain.

"Sure, and she's way more organized than any of us," Ashley said with a laugh. "She doesn't tell many people 'cause she doesn't have to. Her filing system is, like, an extension of her brain."

Karen caught the unspoken warning nonetheless. "Well, I sure wouldn't have known," she said, abandoning the topic. "Anything else I should know not to mention tonight?"

"Kae." Ashley was playing with her hair in front of the mirror, lifting it off her shoulders and pulling it away from her face. "And basically the less any of us say about Ranger policy, the better. You're lucky that way, you can just say you don't know and everyone will believe you."

"Because it's true," Karen said, rolling her eyes. "I have no idea what you guys are up to around here."

Ashley grinned impishly at her. "See? You really are lucky."

"Yeah," Kristet's voice called from behind the curtain. "They don't know either, but at least you're saved the stress of having to make something up as you go."

"I thought that's why we had you," Ashley called back. "To cover for us!"

"Was that in my contract?" Kristet's voice asked.

Ashley winked at Karen. "Yes," she answered, and the innocence in her tone was clearly feigned.

"I'm sure there was some sort of loophole that allowed for access by other Rangers," Kristet remarked. "Not to mention residential guests. As I recall, Ty's sister was a lot more informed than I would have liked."

Ashley sighed, a look of amused resignation on her face. "The other problem with her memory is that she doesn't remember which things she agreed to let go." This last was directed over her shoulder at the curtain behind which Kristet was changing.

"For all I know, that could have happened yesterday," Kristet retorted. "And it was a serious thing. People care who your friends and family are, Ashley. Just because they're not allowed to interview you in your time off..."

"Yeah, I know." Ashley made a face. "I promise, you gave us this lecture before. Several times."

The curtain slid back and Kristet wanted to know, "Did you listen?"

"Ooh..." Ashley studied her outfit as though she hadn't even asked a question. "That's really nice. You could even go a little smaller, if you wanted to."

Kristet gave her an incredulous look, although whether for her evasion of the question or the statement it was hard to tell. "This is fine. I'll hear it from my husband for making him look bad as it is."

"I don't think that'll be his first reaction," Ashley said cheerfully. "So we're all set, right? Karen, do you want to keep shopping? You could use way more clothes than either of us."

Karen gave her head a decisive shake. "I'm pretty much over clothes shopping, thanks. I could go for some food, though, if there's anywhere around here to eat."

"Sure!" Ashley was already reaching for the back of her dress as she headed for the privacy curtain. "Kristet, you look great," she added. "Take the dress."

Kristet looked torn. "Do you know how expensive this is?"

"I told you this trip was on me," Ashley reminded her. She disappeared behind the curtain, but she didn't stop talking. "By the middle of the afternoon, everyone in the city will know we were here, and by tonight, they'll know exactly who designed that dress and where to get one of their own. Trust me when I say you're doing the woman a favor by letting me get it for you."

"She's not even here," Kristet protested, glancing toward the screens that gave their fitting area a measure of privacy. "What if she didn't want to sell this one?"

"Then she wouldn't have left it for us," Ashley called. "The only reason Laura's not here is because I didn't know we were coming until this morning. She's an awesome designer, she knows what I like, and you can have the dress. Okay?"

Kristet still hesitated. "If she left it for you, are you sure she'd want--"

"Yes," Ashley interrupted, loudly enough that she drowned out the rest of Kristet's question. "You don't see Karen having a crisis about her clothes, do you?"

"She's a Ranger," Kristet pointed out, glancing at her.

Ashley peeked out from behind the curtain, rolling her eyes at Karen. "You'd think we'd never gone shopping together before," she complained.

"Nowhere this..." Kristet trailed off, still looking around.

"Private?" Ashley suggested helpfully, disappearing again. "Fancy? Exclusive?"

"Exclusive," Kristet repeated. "I don't have personal designers, Ashley."

From behind the curtain, Ashley laughed. "She's a personal designer, not my personal designer. I'm going to ask her to send things to your house if you don't stop arguing."

No one could stand against an irresistible force like Ashley for long. "Fine," Kristet said with a sigh. "Thank you."

"You're welcome," Ashley answered immediately, as though the thanks had been anything other than grudging. But Karen saw the way Kristet looked at the mirror, and the small smile on her face as she turned away, and she guessed that Ashley knew what she was doing.

"No Girls' Day Out for you?"

She'd been expecting the voice that filtered down from the open hatch at the top of her zord cockpit. She and Kae had watched Zhane approach on the forward screen, and the boy had even played with the magnification controls to improve their view. He was startlingly quick--but no matter how expected Zhane was, he still twitched at the Silver Ranger's sudden presence.

"I don't need any more clothes," Kerone answered, keeping her voice quiet and soothing as she stepped back toward the hatch. Lifting her face to stare straight up, she smiled at Zhane's expression. "I'm surprised you didn't go with them. You like the acquisition process."

"Yeah, for other people," he said lightly. "Besides, someone has to run the world while they're out buying it up."

"Oh, is Andros handling that, then?" She blinked up at him with pretended earnestness, and he grinned back.

"Five," a childish voice interrupted.

Zhane looked surprised but Kerone turned back to Kae quickly, having learned what that particular word preceded. "Okay," she said lightly, putting her hands on her shoulders to warn him. "Time for a change of scenery."

"Five," he insisted, in a louder tone. "Five!"

"Magic, we're going outside," she told her zord. "Zhane, we'll meet you on the hillside."

"But isn't he--"

The rest of Zhane's reaction was drowned on by Kae's shriek. "Five!" he screamed. "Five! Five! Fi--"

The violet glow of teleportation surrounded them, and the cockpit disappeared. The hillside reformed around them a moment later. Kae cowered against her, his hysteria gone in split-second as he mumbled, "Five," before hiding his face.

Zhane swung down from behind Magic's ear a moment later, pretending to stumble over the cat's paw as he joined the two of them in front of her zord. "Sorry 'bout that," he apologized, somewhat comically, giving the cat a rakish grin.

Kerone smiled indulgently. She patted Kae's hair soothingly, absently, watching Zhane's show of embarrassment and wondering what she had done to merit his performance today. She didn't mind; he was funny when he was "on." But it was a deliberately assumed facade, from his supposed clumsiness to his pretended rue when addressing the zord. Maybe it was just the mood he was in.

"So," Zhane said cheerfully, turning to her and Kae. "Math's not going to be your favorite subject, huh?"

Kae didn't budge, face still hidden, giving no indication that he'd heard.

"It's not the actual number," Kerone offered, looking down at the boy who clung to her. "Or if it is, I can't figure out where he's getting it from. That's the third time today, and I don't know why it's happening."

Zhane frowned, following her gaze. "The third time he's said 'five', you mean? Has he said anything else? That's the first time I've heard him say anything that sounds like a real word. In our language, anyway."

"He starts by just saying it, but he ends up screaming and banging on things," Kerone said with a sigh. "I hate to scare him, but this is the only way I've been able to calm him down."

"Bringing him outside?" Zhane asked, lifting his eyes to hers. She felt guilty just looking at him, knowing how much he would hate the equivalent shock treatment for himself.

She nodded slowly. "Is it..." She hesitated, but he didn't finish her sentence for her. "Cruel?" she asked at last.

She dreaded his answer, but he just lifted his chin to indicate Kae and said reasonably, "He's not exactly comatose with fear, is he. Would you slap a hysterical person?"

Kerone's eyes widened. "No!"

To her surprise, Zhane chuckled. "Well, I would. Have, when it was Andros."

She tried to picture Andros hysterical and found she couldn't do it.

"I think you know him better than any of us," Zhane continued, and she understood him to mean Kae this time. "If this calms him down, I say go for it." He smiled a little, but she thought she saw a hint of melancholy behind it. "Maybe he'll even get over his fear of open space."

The opposite fear was something Zhane had never conquered, and she knew it bothered him. She patted Kae's hair again, wondering what to say. It was true... he didn't react as strongly as Zhane did, and she wondered if maybe he was just afraid instead of phobic. But afraid of what, exactly? And why? How were they supposed to help him when they didn't know anything about him?

"Kae," she said quietly. "Do you want to go back to Magic?"

Apparently that was the question he was waiting for because he twisted around her and pulled them both back toward the zord. He slipped between Magic's paws, keeping his hand firmly in hers as he pressed his back up against the cat's chest. She tried to squeeze in beside him, and Magic obediently shifted one paw to make room.

Zhane tapped the other paw, glancing up at the giant cat head that rested on it. "Do you mind?" he inquired.

"Now you ask," Kerone teased, leaning back against the paw that had moved. Kae was staring straight out between them, with a better view of the valley than she would have wanted if she was terrified of large places. "I bet you weren't invited when you were sitting on Magic's head, before."

"I was," Zhane said defensively. "I know how to ask permission!"

"I though you just knew how to apologize," Kerone murmured.

Zhane's indignant expression melted into a charming smile. "Yeah, well. It's almost the same thing." He climbed up on top of Magic's paw and patted the zord's side affectionately. "Thanks, Magic."

She watched Zhane settle himself, leaning back against Magic's chin and staring out over Keyota. He was mimicking Kae's gaze, she thought, glancing down at the child beside her. She didn't know if that was on purpose or if the view was just a natural focus for attention.

"Are you going to adopt him?" Zhane asked suddenly.

Kerone looked up in surprise, but he was still gazing down into the valley.

Zhane turned his head when she didn't answer right away. He gave Kae a significant look, and there was no pretending she didn't know what he meant. "Who else does he have?" she asked softly.

She searched Zhane's expression for some kind of answer, some clue as to how he felt about Kae and his uncertain future. She did feel responsible for the boy her double had saved from the perils of another dimension. But she felt far less certain of her own ability to do anything good for him. If Zhane didn't think Kae should stay... well, she would have a hard time arguing with him.

Zhane smiled, looking away again. "I'll work on Andros," was all he said.

There was another moment of quiet. Kae started banging on Magic's paw. It wasn't the irrational flailing of a hysterical child... for once. It was just an idle gesture, maybe a curious one. What happens if I do this?

She said nothing as he clambered to his feet and started banging higher up. Magic's eyes opened, or at least the one nearest them did and since that was the only one they could see Kerone assumed they had both done so. Her eye glowed briefly as she assessed the situation, then faded but remained open, apparently deciding that whatever Kae was doing was all right with her.

Kae kept banging, shooting hesitant glances at Kerone as he took a single step forward. She stayed where she was, smiling reassuringly at him when their eyes met. He flinched. She kept her smile in place, sighing inwardly. What had they done to this child?

Kae took another tiny step toward the front of Magic's paws, freezing in place when Zhane remarked, "We should see what Kristet knows about adopting someone who doesn't legally exist."

Kerone kept her voice quiet and calm when she replied, and Kae seemed to relax a little. He took another step forward as she said, "She probably has all sorts of ideas to make it seem normal for him to be here, too."

"She's good," Zhane agreed, and there was admiration in his tone but it was the admiration of equals. Or at least, that was what Kerone heard. Zhane was just as good at making people see what he saw with his words alone.

Watching Kae edge his way between Magic's paws, she wondered, "Do you think we'll be Rangers forever?"

Zhane shifted, and she thought he was about to answer. But he said nothing. She glanced over at him and found him frowning at her thoughtfully. "What a strange question," he said at last.

She should be offended, but with Zhane she just couldn't be. Something about the way he said it made her smile. "Is it?" she asked noncommittally.

"Yeah..." The word was drawn out, and his frown deepened for a moment. "Only I can't figure out why. Because--it's obvious that we won't be, or because it's obvious that we will be?"

Kerone nodded slowly. "That's just what I was thinking."

"Because of Andros, right?" Zhane's frown vanished and he seemed to shrug without moving. "He won't always be a Ranger. And I guess if he won't, then we won't either."

She studied him curiously. "What makes you so sure?"

He didn't have to ask which statement she was questioning. "Because he gave it up once. Twice, really. He's not... sometimes I think he's not really as attached to it as we think he is. It's just who he is, that he throws himself into everything he does--and this is what he does now. Someday... I think it probably won't be."

She nodded again, accepting his intuitive knowledge of her brother. If Andros wasn't going to spend his entire life as a Ranger, then neither would they. It was a strangely reassuring thought.

"Why'd you ask?" Zhane wanted to know, echoing her thoughts without realizing. "Got other plans?"

Kerone looked around as Kae moved out of her direct line-of-sight for the first time. He was creeping around Magic's left paw, keeping his back to the zord, moving cautiously but moving, and it made her smile to see him exploring, no matter how tentatively. There was a long moment while she just watched, before she realized that Zhane was watching her in turn.

She caught his eye with a small smile, aware that he probably knew more about the answer to that question than she did. "Maybe," she admitted. If someone needed her? Kae banged on Magic's paw again, and she looked over her shoulder automatically. "Maybe I do have plans."

"Fancy parties."

Andros didn't move, but the corner of his mouth quirked at the derision in those words. The Red Kerovan Ranger was leaning on a balcony railing, watching pilots, commanders, and some of the higher up militia types mingle on the floor below. His own team was out there too... some of them, and some more conspicuous than others. He himself saw no reason to socialize at an event that had little purpose beyond genuine relaxation.

"Not enough hay bales for you?" he asked over his shoulder, certain that Ty still lingered there. The Black Ranger had agreed to come on the assumption that Zhane would be here, Andros was sure. Zhane had changed his mind at the last minute, choosing instead to stay at the hangar with Kerone and Kae.

"I'm just saying," Ty remarked, joining him at the railing. "It's not really a party until you have a bonfire. At least one... the best parties have more."

Andros tried to picture burning anything inside a facility like this. They were on the Quon base, one of the biggest KPD installations on the continent, and consequently in what could be the best military function hall available. And Ty wanted to burn things.

"It would liven things up," Andros mused, careful to keep his words quiet.

He felt Ty's surprised gaze on him. "And here I thought you'd disapprove," the other Ranger said after a moment.

"I don't think this is the best place for it," Andros admitted. He continued to stare out at the crowds of chatting, sometimes dancing, people. "But Zhane would probably tell you that this isn't the best place for me, either."

There was another quiet moment. When Ty spoke, it was his turn to surprise Andros. "You should come to Chessa Brook sometime," he said casually. "Good bonfires. Plenty of hay bales, too," he added, in what had to be a deliberate afterthought.

Andros gave him an amused look, and was surprised when Ty turned at the same time and caught his eye. The gold eyes, Andros thought inconsequentially. They really were startling sometimes. "Sounds more exciting than this," Andros muttered, bracing one foot against the bottom of the railing as he looked away again.

"It is." Ty's cheer didn't sound forced. "But then, a lot of things are."

Andros felt his a smile tug at his expression again, and he tried to suppress it. That was usually Zhane's role: disparaging comments designed to make him feel better about not enjoying whatever activity they were currently engaged in. It was disconcerting to hear it from Ty, and it was disturbing to think that Ty might not be as subtle about it as Zhane could be. They really didn't want to offend anyone here.

*I see you've found a kindred spirit.*

It was Ashley's voice in his mind, and he scanned the floor in an effort to locate her. It wasn't hard, no matter how crowded the room or brightly dressed the people. Ashley exuded energy--it drew people and attention in equal measures, and he found her with his eyes in a matter of seconds. She looked up just as his gaze settled on her and she smiled.

He had to smile back, even as someone else drew her attention away from him again. Ashley thrived in a place like this, where she could be the center of attention all night long and never tire of the idle gossip being exchanged all around. He found it overwhelming, annoying, and ultimately unnecessary. Yet here he was.

"Would you tell me to mind my own business if I asked you how many people you can talk to like that?" Ty's voice reminded him that he wasn't the only one who was happier around a few people he knew rather than a hundred he didn't.

Andros gave him a sideways look, frowning a little. "You're very good at that."

Ty didn't pretend to misunderstand. "You don't have to make it sound like an accusation," he said evenly.

Andros wasn't sure he hadn't meant it as one. "Should it be?" he asked bluntly. "How do you do it?"

Ty shrugged. "Maybe I'm just more observant than most people; I don't know. I didn't realize it was so uncommon."

Andros considered that. How many people did he know who would actually call him on telepathic conversations if they noticed them? How many people did he know who had telepathic conversations, giving him an opportunity to notice or not himself? "Maybe it isn't," he muttered at last. "I've just never had anyone point it out to me as much as you do."

There was a moment of silence. "I don't," Ty said. He sounded somewhat bemused.

"You don't what?" Andros asked automatically.

"Point it out," Ty answered. "To you, anyway."

With those words, Andros realized what he was doing. "You point it out to Zhane," he said aloud. "That's what I meant."

"Yeah," Ty said after a moment. He sounded wary. "I guess I do. Didn't realize you'd noticed."

He didn't have to explain. He did anyway. "Whenever it's me, talking to him, I know when you distract him. That's all."

"You can tell who he's with?" Ty sounded skeptical. "That's kind of... detailed."

He was already regretting the explanation. "You have that kind of selective telepathy too, then," he guessed, trying to redirect the conversation.

"With my twin." Ty's response was so quick that Andros didn't question it right away. "You?"

Andros shrugged uncomfortably. "Zhane."

"And Ashley," Ty prompted. "Right? What about Astrea?"

Andros frowned down at the floor, straightening up from where he stood at the railing before he turned to face Ty. "Kerone," he said deliberately, and immediately wished he hadn't. He really wasn't trying to pick a fight here. "Is a telepath. A real telepath. She can talk to anyone that way."

Ty didn't look intimidated. "Is it genetic?" he wanted to know.

Andros opened his mouth to snap at him, caught himself in time, and in the space of a second changed what he was about to say. "You tell me," he said, watching Ty's expression.

Ty blinked. "Yes," he said after a moment. "Yes, it is."

Andros felt the corner of his mouth twitch, and he turned away with a shrug. Leaning on the railing again, his eye sought Ashley. He found Karen instead, and he wondered what she thought of this sort of formal socializing. If he'd had to guess, he wouldn't have said it was her style, but she had been enthusiastic about coming here tonight.

"You're a telepath," Ty repeated. He had hitched one hip up against the railing so that he was still facing Andros, even though Andros wasn't looking at him. Zhane wouldn't have done it. He would have either followed Andros' example or turned in the opposite direction. The distinction was somehow comforting.

"Not really." He realized belatedly that Ty was actually waiting for an answer, and it almost surprised Andros into looking at him. "Don't spread it around, because if anyone asks I'll tell them no."

"Okay." Again, Ty surprised him by agreeing immediately. Then, more predictably, he asked, "Why?"

Andros just shrugged. He was allowed to be mysterious, right? They all got on him for not talking enough. Might as well use it to his advantage when he could.

The truth was that he had no use for telepathy. He had never been very good at it, and that was fine with him. He had enough trouble understanding people who were speaking to him. He didn't want any of them in his head. With the notable exception of--

Andros frowned. Had Ty said he could only talk to his twin? "What about your husband?" Andros asked abruptly, shooting a sideways glance at the other Ranger.

Ty went very still, but there was no change in his tone when he answered. "You don't have to understand someone to love them."

"No," Andros agreed after a moment. He knew what Ty was saying, all too well.

He thought that would be the end of the conversation. Ty had made him uncomfortable, he had made Ty uncomfortable. They were even. They had a silent understanding, lately, that neither would push the other too far. It kept the peace, and it kept them talking. It was more than they'd been able to do last year.

"How do you know?" Ty asked suddenly. "I mean... is it different?"

Andros waited.

"You could talk to me, right?" Ty had turned, finally, to lean on the railing again. His position made it less obvious, from the perspective of anyone on the floor, that they were talking about anything serious. "Telepathically? But it's different from what it would be like with Zhane."

Ty hesitated, then added, "For you, I mean. It would seem different for you, to talk to me instead of Zhane."

He had started out with a question. He seemed to think he had answered it for himself, yet he was still waiting for Andros' confirmation. And it would have been easy enough to say yes--it was technically the truth. Everyone's thoughts were different.

That wasn't what Ty was really asking, though. Andros' ability to share Zhane's thoughts was independent of his genetics... right?

Slowly, Andros shook his head.

"No?" Ty echoed. "It would seem the same?"

This time Andros didn't answer. He wasn't sure why he was admitting this to Ty, of all people. Kerone must know, or at least guess, but if she did she had never brought it up. Outside of his sister, no one had reason to think he had anything other than the deepest understanding of the two people he loved most.

"So how can you tell?" Ty persisted. "How can you tell that you share their thoughts because of who they are, not because of who you are?"

When Andros still didn't say anything, Ty asked quietly, "Can you tell?"

"No," Andros muttered, straightening. He folded his arms across his chest, keeping his eyes on the people talking and dancing below. "I can't."

Ty didn't move, and out of the corner of his eye Andros could see him idly contemplating the floor as well. His silence was somehow more accepting than anything he could have said. Andros found himself relaxing a little.

"When we were younger," he said softly, "everyone thought we were so special. That Zhane and I could talk to each other in our heads--it surprised everyone. We would be the best of friends, they said. We had to be. They thought we must be so much alike..."

When he trailed off Ty pointed out, "You are best friends, aren't you? Does it matter why?"

Andros' fingers clenched on his arms. "You know why I won't tell anyone, Ty? Because that's all telepathy is to me. It's just another way to lie."

Ty stood up, turning around restlessly and leaning back against the railing. "Ryse wasn't from the colony," he remarked, seemingly at random. "He was from Calijyt. I don't know if you knew that."

Andros nodded wordlessly.

Ty must have seen it, because he continued, "I always told myself that was why we didn't have that kind of connection. The kind I have with my sister."

"You know it's not that common," Andros muttered.

Ty shrugged. "I guess we want the uncommon things more than the common ones," he said quietly.

After a moment, Ty pushed away from the railing entirely and took a step toward the stairs. "I'm going to get a drink," he tossed over his shoulder. "You want anything?"

Andros shook his head without thinking about it. "No. Thanks."

"Sure." Ty kept going.

"Ty." Andros stopped him at the top of the stairs, and Ty looked back inquiringly. "I'd have some water. If you're going down anyway."

Ty nodded once, his expression lightening a little. "You got it."

In retrospect, setting up the paint in Zhane's room had probably been a good idea. It had seemed natural at the time, since he was the one who had the paint, and Kae still didn't like spending long periods of time in the cavernous open space of the hangar proper. The fact of where the paint might end up had been less of a concern, but as Zhane surveyed the handprints covering the floor he decided that seeing them all over the downstairs might not have endeared them to their teammates.

"I think it adds charm," Astrea remarked, as she walked into his room and joined him by the windows. She sat down on the sill, considering the smudged and still sticky prints that hadn't been remotely contained by the huge sheets of paper they had put down on the floor.

"Like I need any more of that," Zhane countered absently. "There'll be so much charm in this room that there won't be any space for me."

He could almost hear her smile. "Interesting prediction. Anything you want psychoanalyzed?"

Zhane sighed, leaning back against the sill with her. "Not really. I didn't mean anything by it."

"I know." She touched his arm gently, and he glanced sideways at her. "Thanks for... hanging out, tonight. It was nice not to be alone."

He smiled, reaching out to put his arm around her shoulders. "It was nice not to be in a crowd."

He felt her tilt her head at that, knew she was looking at him. "Tired?"

He knew what she meant. "Kind of. Just... having a down day."

"You're entitled," Astrea said softly. "It happens to the best of us."

"I wish..." He couldn't think of any way to continue that sounded good.

"You wish what?"

She wouldn't mind, he thought. "I wish people didn't think I was so great."

Astrea leaned her head against his shoulder as she thought about that. "I've never gotten that impression from you before."

He smiled ruefully. "No... you're right. I like having people notice me, think I'm great, all that. I like to be the center of attention."

"It shows," she agreed. There was no judgement in her voice.

"Sometimes I just think they're wrong," he admitted. "And I wish I didn't think they were going to find out."

"It doesn't matter," Astrea said with quiet assurance. "It doesn't matter what people find out or don't find out. Because the only one in your head is you, and other people's opinions can't change what you really think of yourself."

"Yeah, and you know--" He let out an half-irritated, half-amused sigh. "Some days I think that's good, and other days I think it's just damned annoying."

Her arm wormed its way around his waist, and having the hug returned made him feel a little better. "Me too," was all she said.

Finally he shifted, giving the floor a half-hearted glare. "I don't suppose you could do something about the floor," he said, wishing he didn't sound quite so whiny.

For answer, Astrea lifted her free hand and waved it in the air idly. The resulting lightshow was slow and swirling, but no less dramatic for its unusual lack of zip. The painted handprints melted away as though they had never been. "That one too?" she asked, pausing to point at the doorframe.

He opened his mouth to say yes, then changed his mind. "Nah. That one's kind of cute." Kae had gotten away from them several times, but only once had he failed to keep his hands to himself--or the floor. Green fingertips distorted an otherwise blue print, surprisingly clear considering the speed at which their owner had been traveling at the time.

Astrea just nodded and let her hand fall, as though she had expected him to say that.

He really didn't want to interrupt this moment. Unfortunately, the windowsill wasn't the most comfortable choice of seating, and awkwardness was winning out over ease of conversation. "You want to move?" he suggested. "Sit somewhere more designed for sitting?"

As he expected, she turned this into an activity ender. "I should go check on the zords," she said, giving him another half-hug before letting go. She stood up before he could stop her.

"Stay and talk to me," Zhane said. "Or let me come with you. Either one."

She took his hand and pulled him toward her, away from the window. Wrapping her arms around him wordlessly, she let him know that she understood. And that was enough. He hugged her fiercely in return, moving back to kiss her when their embrace loosened.

They kissed gently, easily, and there was nothing but companionship behind it. Zhane sometimes wondered what that meant, whether she had kissed anyone else differently or if this was just what she always expected, and why it didn't bother him the way it used to. Right now, though, he just appreciated it for its simplicity.

"I'll stay," Astrea murmured eventually, "if you'll let me talk about something strange."

"Name your topic," Zhane promised, smiling at her.

She bit her lip, not smiling in return. "Death."

"Okay. Seating preference?"

Now she did smile. "I love you."

"It's mutual," he told her, brushing her hair back behind her ear.

She picked his hammock, which told him two things. One, it was going to be a long conversation. And two, she'd been thinking about it for a while, because she was comfortable enough with the topic that she had bothered to pick a location to discuss it in the first place. If it was recently on her mind and still in the early stages of uncertainty, she would have been too distracted to choose.

They arranged themselves on the hammock with a lot of difficulty and giggles, which as far as he was concerned was all part of the fun of having a hammock. When everyone had redecorated, Andros had insisted that he could do better than sleeping bags on a mattress, no matter how comfortable it was. And how used to it Zhane was. Zhane tried to get him to admit that Andros wanted an upgrade for himself, not for Zhane at all, but he wouldn't and so Zhane got a hammock. If Andros wasn't going to weigh in, then Zhane wasn't about to accommodate him just out of the goodness of his heart.

Besides, he found he liked having a hammock, even sleeping in it from time to time. Andros had just rolled his eyes in annoyance and declared a moratorium on sleeping in Zhane's room. That had lasted a total of three days--but who was counting?

"Remember last year?" Astrea asked when they were finally settled. She was half-lying, half-sitting next to him, hips pressed against each other as she lay partly on him and partly on the hammock, his arm wrapped loosely around her. "When you said you'd wait for me for a long time?"

"Yup," he said cheerfully, amused by her willingness to jump into the middle of a conversation. "Still true."

"Was that a long time ago?" she wanted to know.

Zhane thought about that, sure there was more to the question than she had asked. She was awfully cute in a hammock, he thought with a grin... it wasn't something he was noticing for the first time. But that wasn't what she wanted to know, was it.

"No," he said at last. "Not in the way that I meant I would wait this long and no longer. Yeah, I guess a lot of things have happened since then, but no--I'm still waiting."

"Waiting for what?" she asked, point-blank.

He hesitated. "Well, at the time you said you were trying to figure out what love was. You seem to have figured it out since then, right?"

That made her smile. "Yeah," she admitted softly. "Maybe I have. Started to, anyway."

"Then all I'm waiting for is for you to tell me what you want from me," Zhane told her. As was so often the case, her honesty inspired his own. He didn't worry as much about hurting her when she was talking to him like this, because he knew she was out of that political safe-talk mode that confused everything a person did or didn't say. Like this, she was just after the truth, plain and simple. And he identified with that.

"Tell me to run away, build a house, stay here, whatever," Zhane continued. "Whenever you figure out something about yourself and what we, the two of us, mean to you, you just let me know."

There was a quiet moment. "When will I figure that out?" she murmured at last.

"Probably never," Zhane said, with an attempt at levity. "Any time you look for meaning you're just asking for trouble, anyway."

Astrea poked him in the side for his teasing. "You've changed a lot in the last year."

"Nah," he countered. "You just remember me being funnier than I was."

She let out a soft huff of a amusement for that idea. "I haven't changed so much," she remarked, refusing to be sidetracked so early.

The only problem with starting in the middle of a conversation was that he didn't always know what it was about. "I think you have," he said belatedly. "A lot."

"No... look at me, Zhane. Really look." She waited, but he was already looking. "Do I look any different than I did this time last year?"

"Yes," he said slowly. "Your hair, your clothes, your expression. All different. Why are you asking?"

"Because I'm not breathing!" She took his hand and put it over her heart. "Because I don't always have a pulse, Zhane." She did now, he could feel her heart beating, circulating blood and air and--air? How could she not be breathing if her heart was beating?

"I'm not exactly alive anymore," she reminded him, no less vehemently. "Will I get any older? Will I age or will I look like this forever? Will I ever die?"

More quietly she added, "Am I asking you to wait my whole life when I don't even know how long that is?"

Okay, he was in the dark on the first few questions, but the last one he could answer. "No," Zhane said firmly. "You're not asking me to do anything. I'm waiting. I'm deciding that for myself, I decide it every day and you don't owe me anything for it. It's just what I want to do."

She twined her fingers through his and let their hands fall. "I'm not sure I believe that," she said softly.

He squeezed her hand. "I can't change that," he reminded her, just as softly.

This drew a puff of amusement from her lips, but she didn't explain. Instead she just said, "You didn't want people to think you're great and then find out they're wrong. I don't want that either--especially not from you."

"I'm not wrong," he said, kissing her ear with a smile.

She tilted her head slightly but didn't answer, and his smile faded. "Astrea," he whispered. "No one knows the future. Not you, not me. Maybe you'll live forever, or just a little longer than all of us. Maybe you'll see Kae grow up and maybe you won't. Maybe something will go wrong and you'll die tomorrow. Maybe any of us will.

"You've been making decisions all day: what to talk about, who to talk with, what to do. I've made the same kind of decisions. Neither of us can afford to assume that the decisions we're making now won't be our last ones. But if they are, I'm happy with mine. Are you?"

Her fingers tightened in his. Into the sudden silence she murmured, "I don't know."

Resting his chin against her temple he asked, "Want to talk about it?"

After a moment, she shook her head. "I'd rather just lie here with you," she confessed in a quiet voice.

He smiled to himself, closing his eyes. "That sounds nice," he agreed.

And it turned out that it was.

6. Nothing at All

Zhane of the Free Systems squeezed his eyes shut and tried to remember a time when he hadn't been "Zhane of the Free Systems." A time when he hadn't even been "Zhane of KO-35." A time when all he cared about was the wind off the water and the likelihood of picking up paying work on any given day.

It was like being reincarnated, he decided, lying there on his back in the middle of a huge bed in a darkened room. He had never expected to leave KO-35, had never given much thought to anything past the next job or the most recent party. Until he'd met the Red Astro Ranger, lost his entire world to advancing armies of evil, and retreated to the League capitol to make their last stand in a war-torn universe.

Who had he been back then? A surfer kid, a beach bum; someone who lived for today, tried not to think too much about tomorrow, and didn't remember as much as he should about yesterday. Now he was a super-powered soldier on the front lines of a war that hadn't even existed when he met Andros. He was years and several galaxies away from his old life now.

The door whispered open, and he turned toward it without opening his eyes. Andros. Damn, that telepathy thing was weird. He opened his eyes and regarded the silhouette in the doorway, clearly hesitating over the lights. "I'm awake," Zhane said quietly. "Just thinking."

The lights came up partway, and Andros allowed the door to close behind him as he stepped into the room. "What about?" he asked, his voice no louder than Zhane's.

Zhane offered a half-smile. "How we got here, what we're doing, that kind of thing. Just waiting for you, really. Is Ash okay with all of this?"

Andros sighed. "Seems like it," he muttered, frowning down at the floor. "She says, after spending all that time with Astronema, she can go anywhere."

"Even an occupied planet on the edge of nowhere?" He didn't really have to ask, but he knew Andros was thinking it.

The Red Ranger just nodded wordlessly. Ashley was the logical contact person for the Earth resistance, and on top of that she had volunteered. As far as anyone could tell, she wanted to go. It was just that none of them particularly wanted to let her.

"Carlos is going as far," Andros said suddenly, as though he knew what Zhane was thinking.

"Yeah," Zhane agreed. They would have to replace both Rangers immediately, and it was going to make the Earth Rangers' patrol hell. "And he'll be farther from the fighting than any of us. Why waste worry on him?"

The hint of a smile touched Andros' face, acknowledging Zhane's flippant remark for what it was: an effort to comfort. He wandered over to the bed and dropped heavily down on the nearest side, sitting with his back to Zhane for a long moment. "It's going to be all right," he said at last. "This is the right thing to do."

Zhane pushed himself up on his elbows, regarding Andros with concern. Just like the rest of them, he had a public face and a private one. But Andros had been so much more peaceful lately, more at ease with what events had made of him. Zhane hated to see him lose that.

"I'm convinced," he offered softly.

Andros sighed, turning to look at Zhane over his shoulder. "Thank you," he said simply.

Zhane smiled. The Red Ranger's uncanny understanding of battles and their outcomes, far in advance of their actual conclusion, was something he had long ago accepted about his friend. Andros knew things. His ability to predict military engagements was uncontested, and as far as Zhane was concerned, this latest strategic vision was different only in scale.

"No reason to start doubting now," Zhane said quietly.

It was Andros' turn to smile, and he turned to pull his legs up onto the bed. "You're the only reason I still believe," he confessed, his eyes burning into Zhane's.

Zhane didn't flinch. "You're the only reason I ever believed," he replied.

His lover reached for him, and they reaffirmed the only belief that mattered.

It couldn't get any worse.

That was what she told herself, the mantra she had repeated over and over until she found herself outside a door she had never allowed herself to visit before. Stupid. They were so stupid, letting this hang over them. She could make that decision for herself--but not for anyone else.

Cassandra pressed the chime set into the wall outside the Elisian Rangers' apartment. Relations between their teams couldn't get any worse. She couldn't get any lonelier. And she couldn't have any less of him than she had right now. There was no reason to try to hold onto a situation that was deteriorating almost daily.

She could do nothing and watch it continue to fall apart, or she could do something and take the chance of blowing it up... or maybe, just maybe, fixing some of what had gone wrong. She was so tired of being powerless. She was tired of letting guilt dictate her actions.

Most of all, she was tired of being alone.

Cassandra knew the door would open before it did, she sensed the approach of the person who lived in her mind from inside the apartment. It was late by both their schedules. She wouldn't have blamed him for not coming to the door at all. Even--maybe especially--when he knew who was on the other side as well as she did.

The door opened. Saryn stood there, dressed in comfortable, wrinkled clothes that had clearly been slept in but nonetheless bore the Elisian Ranger logo on the sleeve. It was as close as any of them came to pajamas, she guessed. The shirt she wore to bed had her Ranger insignia on it too. All of them had to recognizable at a moment's notice.

"Saryn." She didn't even mean to say it, but at the sight of him the words tumbled out and she couldn't stop them. "What the fuck are we doing?" she whispered. Staying away from each other. Pretending there was nothing there, pretending that they deserved this. That anyone deserved this.

He just stared back at her, his eyes an impenetrable echo.

Cassandra swallowed. She had no right to expect anything from him. "Is Jenna here?" she asked, trying to raise her voice to a more normal level and failing miserably.

Almost imperceptibly, he nodded.

She took a deep breath, trying to keep the desperation out of her voice. "I want to talk to her."

That startled him. Though he gave no indication, she could feel surprise and fear as though they were her own. He didn't say anything, and the moment stretched out. He wouldn't keep her away, would he? She had thought she and Jenna could be friends, back before all of this started. Before they realized that it had started the first time they saw each other.

Without a word, Saryn stepped out of the doorway, inviting her inside. There was only one light on in the room behind him, a small mood light that he must have touched on his way to the door. She walked into the dimness hesitantly. She had never seen this place before, this apartment that he shared with his... lover? Ex-lover? They still lived together. But he hadn't asked about TJ, and she hadn't asked about Jenna.

Jenna. The Pink Elisian Ranger stood on the other side of the room, hands arranged carefully on the chair in front of her, her face shrouded in the shadows cast by the lamp. She was out of direct line of sight from the front door, invisible until one actually entered the apartment. Cassandra had to assume that was intentional, that Saryn had told her who was at the door and she had come to see for herself.

"Hi, Jenna," she said, wary of the other woman and not at all sure that determination would be enough. She had no idea what kind of reception to expect. "Can I... talk to you for a minute?"

She saw Saryn's gaze go to Jenna. She wondered what he could sense from her. That was what it meant to be an empath, right? He knew what they were feeling? This would be a lot easier if he wasn't here, she thought with a sigh. She barely knew what to say as it was, and having his reactions on top of her own wouldn't help.

"Saryn," Jenna said carefully. Her voice was neutral, as impassive as her face. "Would you give us some time?"

Cassandra stared at her, trying frantically to remember what they had told her about empaths. It was common on Elisia? Could Jenna tell what she was feeling too? Was that good or bad? The other Ranger would know she was telling the truth, right? But was the truth good enough anymore?

She knew the answer to that. She had the truth, after all. And it wasn't good enough.

She could see Saryn looking from one of them to the other. He was obviously torn, and Jenna could see it as well as she could. Where did his loyalties lie? If they both wanted this conversation, who was he trying to protect? Would he argue with either of them?

Cassandra didn't want to see him decide, but she couldn't beg him to just go, either. Jenna had asked. He could go or stay with minimal damage either way. But if Cassandra asked, just the asking would imply something. And if he went then, and not before...

Saryn nodded once. It was an abrupt movement, and a silent one. He had yet to say anything, and it didn't look like that was about to change. He turned and crossed the room without a word. He disappeared into a darkened room, and the door closed behind him a moment later.

They both watched him go. Then Jenna turned to her and asked politely, "Can I get you anything? Something to drink?"

Cassandra's gaze snapped back to hers, and she opened her mouth. She couldn't think of anything to say. "No," she said at last. "Thanks." She was off-balance already, caught completely by surprise by Jenna's token courtesy.

"Sit down," Jenna offered, moving around the chair she stood behind to wait beside it. She didn't take her eyes off of Cassandra.

Cassandra bit her lip. She was desperately afraid that this polite veneer was just for show, to prove that the other Ranger could be more civil than she was no matter what the circumstances. But if that was Jenna's revenge, then surely she deserved it?

Reluctantly, Cassandra took a seat across from Jenna.

"Lights," Jenna called, sitting down in the chair she had already claimed. The computer must have been set to a day-night schedule that corresponded to their shift rotation, because soft lights came up around the room. It wasn't the bright light of day, just the gentle illumination of evening--mood lighting, like the lamp, not work lighting.

"I came to apologize," Cassandra said, cringing inwardly. It sounded insincere and inadequate to her ears, but she didn't know where else to start. "I didn't--I never meant for any of this to happen."

Jenna stared at her, and Cassandra tried to steel herself for another conversation like the one with TJ. The censure of her teammates had been hard, but his disappointment had been worse than any anger. She would never be the angel in his eyes again. She hadn't thought Jenna's bitterness could even come close to that realization, but now every look Jenna gave her just brought it all back.

"I know," Jenna said at last.

Cassandra opened her mouth, ready to explain as best she could, to do it better than she had done it with her team, to try and make herself understand at least...

She hesitated. When she spoke all that came out was, "What?"

Jenna's expression didn't change. "I don't think you meant for this to happen," she said simply.

"I didn't, I really didn't--" Cassandra bit her lip, trying to keep from babbling. "Jenna, I swear, when I came here I was engaged to one of my teammates. Where we come from, that's like we've sworn to love each other and no one else for the rest of our lives. No one else, just us, it's exclusive and we were both committed to it and I couldn't imagine ever needing anyone else."

"Well." Jenna looked like she tried to smile, but it just melted away into the expressionless stare that didn't lighten. "Your imagination is better now, I guess."

"I didn't want this," Cassandra cried. "I just saw him and it was like... I don't know, I can't--I can't make it sound like I felt. It was like I knew what he was thinking the first time I saw him. I didn't want it," she repeated desperately. "But I couldn't stop it."

Jenna's eyes bored into her. "Do you want it now?"

She wanted to say no. She wanted to assure this woman, this Ranger for whom she should have been willing to die, that she regretted the feeling that was even now taking Jenna's partner from her. But she had come here to tell the truth.

"Yes," Cassandra whispered. "I hate how it happened. I hate what it's done to all of us. But... I love him." I love him. She had never said those words aloud. "I can't hate that," she finished softly, almost inaudibly.

Jenna's gaze fell finally, looking away for the first time. "I--I'm glad to hear that," she told the floor. Her voice gave the lie to her words. Everything that wasn't on her face was in her tone.

"I'm sorry," Cassandra whispered. "I really am."

Jenna lifted her head, a smile trying once more to make itself seen on her face. But there were tears in her eyes now, and she brushed at them impatiently before they could spill onto her cheeks. "I know," she repeated, voice trembling. "I know you are."

Cassandra waited. There was nothing else she could say. She ached to comfort, to do anything that could make up for the terrible pain that had torn two couples apart. But if "anything" existed, she didn't know what it was, and she didn't dare ask the only question that was on her mind: how?

Jenna's breath caught and she swallowed hard, making no apology for her tears as she tried again. Taking a deep breath, she murmured, "I knew what happened, you know. I knew he'd fallen for you."

Jenna looked up, toward the ceiling, for a brief moment. "I should have said something then," she said softly. Then she looked back at Cassandra. "It happened, sometimes, on Elisia. He told you?"

Not understanding, Cassandra just shook her head.

"He must have known." Jenna closed her eyes, wiping away another tear when the gesture pushed it free. "He must have. It's happened to him before."

Cassandra's heart froze. She didn't know what Jenna was talking about, but she didn't like the implication.

Jenna opened her eyes, starting to look marginally more composed. "Sometimes empaths spontaneously bond with each other," she muttered, blinking hard. "No one knows why it happens. Everyone has their pet theories, from science to spirituality."

"Oh," Cassandra breathed. The memory came back: she and Saryn, late one night in Linnse's office. They had run into each other by sheer coincidence, and Linnse had taken them aside when it became obvious that neither one of them was going to be the first to leave.

"He did tell you?" Jenna's focus was shifting now, from inward back to her.

"Something... like that, maybe." He had said it meant they were meant to be. It was the first and only time he had told her that he loved her. "Something about--other lives, or something," she muttered, embarrassed to even mention it to Jenna.

To her surprise, a choked laugh escaped from the other Ranger. It wasn't malicious, or even really humorous. Instead it made her seem even sadder than she already was. Especially when she put her hand over her mouth and closed her eyes again.

"Lyris told him that," Jenna whispered at last. "He was the first. He and Saryn knew each other as soon as they met--they barely even said hello and they were the best friends you've ever seen."

Cassandra felt cold all over. "But they weren't... they didn't--"

"They weren't lovers," Jenna said, somehow understanding what she meant. She opened her eyes and glanced at Cassandra before looking away. "They knew each other in a way Saryn and I never did. Maybe... maybe that's why Saryn fought this so hard, I don't know."

Jenna's voice dropped and she added, "I shouldn't have let him. I knew it was tearing him up inside. But I needed him too, Cassandra." Her voice broke, and she whispered, "I needed him too."

With dawning horror, Cassandra repeated, "They weren't lovers?"

Jenna just shook her head.

"Oh my god," Cassandra whispered. "This is our fault, isn't it. We really did this." It wasn't whatever magical powers an empath had after all... not if Saryn had felt this before with such incredibly different results.

"Yes," Jenna said in a small voice. "And no." She caught Cassandra's eye again, straightening resolutely. "They weren't attracted to each other. You are. I know..." She took a deep breath, but she didn't look away. "I know that if this hadn't happened, you never would have acted on it. You told me so yourself: you were committed to someone else.

"So was Saryn," Jenna said, with a quirk of her lips that wasn't a smile. "I know there was no fighting this, and call me a sadist but it was sweet--it was so good of you to try. It really was. Please believe that, Cassandra. I believe you."

She opened her mouth, but no words came out. Torn between the desire to apologize again and the need to reassure Jenna, she could only manage, "I don't know what to say."

"Say that you want forgiveness." Jenna was unnaturally calm.

"I--" Cassandra started to shake her head, knowing she didn't deserve it, unable to ask for something she couldn't give herself.

"Because you have it," Jenna said, before she could find the words. "I just..." Her voice trailed off, and when it came back it sounded forlorn. "I have a favor to ask."

Anything. Cassandra just looked at her, waiting.

"He won't leave me until I tell him to," Jenna told her hands. Then she added softly, "Or until you ask him to. He's still here, so I know you haven't asked." She lifted her gaze to Cassandra's and said, "I want you to be together."

Jenna pressed her lips together, but her voice was steady when she said, "I want him to be happy. And I know he'll do anything for you. So please... all I ask is that you don't keep him away from me. He's all I have left of my home, my world... my team." She hesitated there, the catch in her throat resolving itself. "He needs you--but I still need him."

"He needs you too," Cassandra said quietly. For the first time she knew exactly what to say. "I know that, Jenna. He loves you just as much as he did before."

"He just loves you more," Jenna murmured.

Cassandra swallowed. "Maybe," she admitted. "But... back before I knew what was happening, when we first met--our two teams, I mean?" She didn't wait for Jenna to acknowledge what she was saying. "I thought maybe you and I could be friends. I... I still wish that could have happened."

Jenna finally smiled again, and this time it didn't look polite or reassuring or anything but an honest expression of her feelings. It wavered, not strong or confident either, but there. "I wish it still could," she offered tentatively.

Not quite able to believe the offer that had been made, Cassandra murmured, "I'll try if you will?"

After the briefest pause, Jenna just nodded. "I'll try," she agreed softly.

They sat there in awkward silence for a moment longer. Finally, Jenna pushed herself up off the chair and tried for another smile. This one wasn't quite as sincere. "I'll send Saryn out," she said.

Cassandra wished she could say, No, don't. She wished she could just leave, the wound between them salved if not healed, and save any further pain for another day. But she was here, she had seen Saryn, and she could still feel him in the darkness. She wasn't strong enough to say no.

Jenna turned away and crossed the apartment without another word.

He hadn't even pretended to sleep. The light was on when Jenna returned, illuminating the screen in front of him while he tried to catch up on casualty reports from across the Free Systems. Every Ranger sent out on patrol today had returned, and in that sense the day had been a success. Tomorrow would find two new Rangers in the sky above Eltare, however, and there was plenty of reason for concern.

Saryn lifted his unseeing gaze from the reports and took in Jenna's tear-stained face. That hurt more than any numbers he could read. He pushed the screen away immediately but he didn't stand, not sure what she would take from him right now.

"She's waiting," Jenna said quietly.

Somehow, the words didn't surprise him. Not just because he knew they were true, because he could feel Cassandra's presence even through the walls, but because there was nothing else she would have said. He knew too, instinctively, that no apology would be enough. "Thank you," he whispered instead.

Jenna looked away. There was a long moment where neither of them moved. Finally he heard her speak, so softly that he held his breath to hear her words. "If you don't come back," she murmured. "I'll understand."

That brought him to his feet. Three strides took him to her side, and he waited until her eyes met his again. Unflinching. "Do you want me to come back?" he asked quietly.

A pause, and then a single nod.

He lifted his fingers to her face, the lightest caress on her cheek. "Then I shall."

Saryn slipped out of the room before she could answer. The lights out here were adequate, even after the bright reading light he had subjected his eyes to just recently. He could see Cassandra's dark head, bowed over her lap as she braced her elbows on her knees and rested her chin on her hands. Her back to him, he saw her turn her head a little as he paused.

She didn't say anything.

He hated that he didn't even know her. Was it normal for her to be so quiet? They had so rarely had occasion to converse in the past, but from what he had observed of her with her teammates, he thought her silence was unusual. Was it because of him, then? Something Jenna had said? The hopelessness he could feel between them?

"You frustrate me, too." Cassandra's voice drifted to him, the words alarmingly real in the quiet of this interrupted night. "I didn't want this, you know."

"So you said," he agreed softly, not taking his eyes off of her.

"So you said," she retorted. Her irritation flared in the half-light, and his jaw clenched.

I am done fighting with her over this, he reminded himself. They had hurt each other enough. Yet the words came unbidden--it was a habit by now. "Whatever you blame me for in this, know that I did not act alone," he said stiffly.

Her head tilted a little, and he realized she had moved her hands from her chin to her face. It was less a pensive posture than it was a despairing one. He stepped forward without thinking, drawn to her no matter the circumstances. The name that fell from her lips stopped him where he stood.

"Lyris," she whispered, not lifting her head.

Raw anger at the mention of his name. He didn't bother trying to hide his reaction, knowing that she would see through it and not caring. "Do not speak of him lightly," he warned, ignoring her dismay.

"Why not?" she asked the floor. The tumult of emotion caught at him, dragged him into her hurt more effectively than any words and it infuriated him that she would make this about her. All she said aloud was, "Because my children have nothing to do with empathy after all?"

He was so caught up in what she felt that he barely heard what she said. "You will not disrespect my friend in this fashion," he hissed. "You have no idea what I felt for him."

"Yeah, well." Her voice sounded hollow. "I don't have any idea what you feel for me, either."

"Nor I you," he snapped.

There was no change in her posture or tone. "I love you."

Saryn stared at her. She believed that, he realized belatedly, but the shock of the words held him frozen in place. He was not caught off-guard so often. The feeling of utter speechlessness was uncomfortable.

"I came here," she continued softly, "because I'm tired of this. We can't change what we did, Saryn. No matter what we do, we'll never make it fair to the others. The most we can do is try to make it fair to ourselves."

"Do we deserve that?" he muttered, unable to keep the doubt inside.

Cassandra was very still. "Maybe I don't," she whispered at last. The words hurt, and he opened his mouth to contradict her. Then she added, "But I think you do."

That made him hesitate. "Odd," he mused. But perhaps, when he thought about it, predictable. "I would have said the opposite."

She finally lifted her head. She sat up straight for a moment before shifting sideways to face him. "If we can't do it for ourselves," she said softly. "Can we do it for each other?"

He would do anything for her. Did she know that, he wondered?

"Yes," Cassandra breathed.

The protest was futile, but he made it anyway. "You shouldn't be able to do that."

"No secrets," she whispered, obviously sensing his wariness. "I'm not hiding anything from you, Saryn. I just know what you don't say. It probably makes less sense to me than it does to you."

"I find that hard to believe," he said under his breath.

She was standing now, facing him across the room. She was waiting, he realized with a sigh. Waiting for him to decide--as she already had--whether it would be yes or no. Now or later. Or maybe not later. There were no guarantees, not on this planet, not in this war. If it wasn't now, it could quite conceivably be never.

He might be able to live with the fact that he had lost her through his own actions, that the fault for their situation was his, that he had said no at all the wrong times. He might be able to live with that. He didn't know. But he was certain that he couldn't die with it.

"Yes," Saryn said quietly. "For each other... we can do this."

Carlos had emptied his locker, turned over his morpher, and said goodbye to his teammates. He had said a longer goodbye to his wife. He had given Ashley a message for his brother, and he had read everything he could about a situation he still didn't understand. There was nothing left to do but report to Co-Op and let JT send him off.

"Hey, Carlos!"

The more he tried not to resent the circumstances, the harder it was to stop thinking about them. He was awfully glad to see Ash racing for the lift when he turned to hold the doors. "Running late for UC again?" he teased, grinning at her indignation.

"I think you have to have a cover to be undercover," she said breathlessly, sliding into the lift with him as he let the doors go. "And I'm only as late as you are!"

"You really are screwed," he declared.

Ashley rolled her eyes as the lift started upwards, leaning back against the railing with a nonchalance that made her breathless mien less conspicuous. "What are they going to do?" she asked lightly. "Fire us? Come on, we're the only people crazy enough to volunteer!"

"Crazy's a good word for it," he agreed with a smirk. "Whose idea was this, anyway? Some alien almost shoots me for looking at her sideways and suddenly I'm the sucker who has to go and try to make peace with her planet?"

"Too bad your counterpart made such an impression," Ashley said with a laugh. "You're the only one they'll listen to and you know it. That'll teach you to save an entire planet," she added.

"Make it disappear just to try to bring it back later?" Carlos made a face. "Yeah, that was just brilliant of me. In fact, next time I see me, remind me to thank myself for that. In detail."

"I'll do it myself," Ashley promised. "As soon as you take over the Earth op that should have been yours in the first place. I mean, honestly, he's your brother!"

It was Carlos' turn to be smug. "That'll teach you to claim someone else's spy contacts!"

"Oh, whatever!" Ashley held up one hand in pretended affront. "See if I ever cover for you again!"

"Like anyone asked you to!" he retorted.

When the lift doors opened on Co-Op, Carlos was no less wound up than he'd been before but at least he was feeling better about it. He had a really horrible long-distance teleport in front of him, not to mention the reception he could expect on the other end of it. But he wasn't the only one setting off to do the impossible... and if nothing else, it would be something different. The routine around here, both figuratively and quite literally, was deadly.

Ashley teleported out first. He tried to ignore the lonely pang that accompanied her departure, knowing that emotional displays were part of the reason the others hadn't been allowed in to see them off. Well, that and time constraints. They were on a schedule around here, and it drove him crazy, but it couldn't be altered for anything short of incapacitation.

JT was muttering about teleporting to an invisible planet, but he kept his concerns quiet enough that Carlos only got the gist. JT was probably just trying to rile him. Probably. After all, they could predict where the planet should be... couldn't they?

"Carlos." JT's voice snapped him out of the worry he was trying to pretend he didn't feel. "Watch your back out there."

"Yeah." Carlos braced himself. "You got it. Keep it together, okay?"

JT nodded once. The room disappeared. The discomfort of an extended teleport settled in too fast, making his mind claw at remembered sensation to compensate for the disembodied nature of the transportation. Even alien surroundings were welcome when they finally coalesced, with agonizing slowness, into the very darkness around him.

What, didn't they believe in lights on Aquitar? Carlos dragged air into his lungs, grateful for every twinge that reminded him he was still alive. It was the dimness that weirded him out now, that and the fact that he wasn't quite blind. He could see enough to make him worry, enough to say that the shapes around him weren't just alien technology--that they might instead be ruins.

It was a contingency they had considered likely, in fact. Even if the Rangers were still operating on Aquitar, it was a good bet that their command center wasn't. But these were the best coordinates JT had, and it was up to Carlos from here on out.

He gave his eyes a few more minutes, using the time they needed to adjust to listen. There was no sound around him. That made him nervous, because by all accounts he should be underwater. There should be some sort of air cyclers at work, at least, but he heard nothing.

Great. No light, stale air, and absolutely zero direction. He tried to tell himself that he had it better than Ashley. He hadn't teleported into hostile territory. Just the destroyed shell of a place that might or might not be humanly habitable. Surrounded by what felt suspiciously like ghosts, and no way to find their keepers.

Oh yeah. A lot better than Ashley.

Ashley was greeted by blaster fire the moment she was released from the teleportation stream. She threw herself out of the way almost before she had identified the sounds of the firefight, reacting on instinct to the danger in the air. But even as she hit the ground, her mind registered the bizarreness of the situation--no one could predict a teleport that accurately, not unless they already knew where it was supposed to end.

The welcoming committee wasn't for her. It was the most logical explanation. Unfortunately, whether by accident or design, she was in the middle of it, and she had her own weapon in her hand as she rolled. She hadn't come all this way, she hadn't come home, just to get killed.

She also hadn't come to blast anyone she wasn't absolutely certain was the enemy. Which meant that cover was her best option. Fast, unpredictable movement, and cover.

"Ashley!"

Cavalry would work too.

Gabe was lucky she recognized his voice, because he appeared at her side with absolutely zero warning. No sound other than her name, no movement, not even in her peripheral vision. She guessed that was what it meant to be a ninja.

"That's a good way to get yourself shot," Ashley told him, as he hunkered down beside her in the shelter of the Power Chamber debris. Maybe they should have expected that this place would be watched.

"Good to see you too," Carlos' brother answered. "You okay?"

"Fine." She risked a peek around their concrete barricade, catching sight of another black streak before a warning shot sent her scrambling back. "You alone?"

"Nah, company. We came out to meet you; figured it might take more than one of us to get you out of here safe." Gabe was doing something to his wrist device, she noted absently. "Good thing we did."

"Did you expect an ambush?" Ashley wanted to know. It wouldn't be so strange, really. There was no way he could have gotten a message back to Eltare quickly enough to matter.

"Always do." Gabe passed her the wrist device abruptly. "Here. Put this on and we're out of here."

Ashley did as she was told, wincing as a shout penetrated the firefight taking place on the other side of the concrete. Gabe tensed, too, but the sound of blasters trading insults didn't let up and that had to be a good thing. "Ready," she told him. She didn't bother to ask what it was.

He whipped a blaster from nowhere, pointed it into the sky. Not a blaster, she realized as she flinched back from the flame. The flare exploded straight up, an eerie extra star in the daytime sky as it burned itself out. She didn't see it go out, didn't see anything at all after the world accelerated into an undifferentiated blur around her.

She found herself dizzy and gasping for breath by the time her eyes started to make sense of things again. She staggered and Gabe caught her, steadying her, a token apology in his voice. "Sorry; weird huh? We have to go again. You okay?"

Ashley nodded, managing to gasp out, "Yeah, go."

This time she shut her eyes, and somehow that made it better. Strange that the feeling of gravity doing cartwheels was mostly a visual perception, rather than an actual question of balance. What kind of transportation were they using around here, anyway?

When she felt solid ground under her feet again, she took a deep breath and opened her eyes. They were inside. For some reason that caught her off guard, although maybe it shouldn't have. Whatever kind of teleportation they were using--and she assumed it was teleportation--it wouldn't be much good if it couldn't go through walls.

The warehouse they were standing in was deserted, if her vision was anything to go by. There were flashes of darkness around her, but only one other person materialized. Was that what they had looked like from the outside, Ashley wondered? Just a flicker of shadow too fast to properly distinguish?

"We're going out the back," Gabe was saying. He had gripped both her shoulders to steady her, and now he was staring into her face, trying to gauge her expression. "There's a place across the street where we can change, get you into something that won't draw so much attention."

She didn't protest. Her field gear was just that--gear--and if he didn't look very inconspicuous himself, well, he knew what they were doing better than she did. Her eyes flicked to the silent figure beside him, the one keeping a wary eye on the motionless room while they talked.

"Blake," Gabe said, seeing her gaze go to him. Then he nodded at her and added, "Ashley. Better introductions later."

She smiled at Blake, who paused his scan of the room to nod in return. "Let's go," Ashley agreed.

She was hustled out of the warehouse and into a building that looked, from the inside, a lot like a bar. She hadn't seen a sign outside, so all she had to go on was the crowd and the drinks. They didn't slip through unnoticed, but Gabe kept a hand on her arm and steered her down a hallway, through a door, and then through a second.

Ashley almost stopped when she caught sight of the person waiting for them inside the tiny room. Blue eyes grabbed her attention and held it as a dangerous gaze considered her for several seconds. She had seen people like this on Astronema's ship, and she didn't ignore them lightly. But Gabe was still tugging on her arm, pulling her behind a cloth-draped rack taller than she was and handing her clothes with an apologetic look.

"Sorry so rude," he told her. "We're expecting a raid this afternoon and we've all got to disappear as fast as possible. Change your clothes, hide your hair, and we're out of here. I'll catch you up later."

"Some kind of cover you are," she heard someone say. She didn't know whether it was Blake or the guy with the gun who'd been waiting for them. "Can't even keep your targets in sight."

"I understand," Ashley told Carlos' brother. "I'll be ready in a minute."

He nodded quickly, disappearing around the other side of the makeshift screen.

"Not much I can do in room full of people 'cept shoot it up," a second voice was saying. "A little gratitude for the guy who got the one that shot you, all right?"

"You get hurt?" she heard Gabe ask.

"Nah," the first voice answered. "Bit of a burn, that's all. Singed my jacket good."

Ashley stepped into the baggy green pants Gabe had left for her, tugging them into place around her waist. She kept the shirt she'd been wearing under her field gear, settling the loose, dark, button-down shirt into place over it. She bundled the gear into as carry-able a form as she could manage and stepped out from behind the rack.

She stared. The three boys, formerly dressed in black and muted color uniforms, had transformed--all three of them--in the time it had taken her to change. The dangerous looking guy with the gun was in exactly the same position she'd left him in, lounging back in a chair, now with a shredded t-shirt hanging over his shoulders that barely reached the waistband of jeans that had seen better days.

Ashley blinked, tearing her eyes away to assess the others. Neither of the others made the generically dark and often torn clothes look quite so glamorous... daring, almost risque. In fact, Blake was bundled into so many layers that it might as well have been winter in Canada here. Gabe was wearing a coat that looked so heavy it had to slow him down, but he didn't look bothered by it.

In fact, he was giving her the same critical look she was giving him.

"Better put your field jacket back on," Gabe said with a sigh, shaking his head. "Under the long sleeves. No offense, Ash," and this time his lips quirked in a reassuringly Carlos-like way, "but you're such a girl."

"Is that a problem around here?" she wondered, as she followed his instructions quickly.

"Yeah," Blake said, and now, hearing him speak where she could see him, she knew that he was the one who had teased the guy with the gun about being cover. "For us. Hunter's our designated pretty boy. Can't have any competition, you get what I'm saying?"

He jerked his chin at the gun-toting guy in shredded clothes, leaving no doubt about who "Hunter" was. "I get it," she said, even though she didn't.

"Wait." Blake stopped her before she could button her shirt up again. "Trade ya."

He stripped off his hooded sweatshirt and held it out, and she offered him the button-down wordlessly. "It's the hair," he said with a shrug, seeing her confused expression.

The sound of running footsteps in the hallway prevented her from replying, even if she'd had any idea what to ask. They were obviously still in danger, and she wasn't going to get any answers until they got wherever they were going. Hunter was already on his feet, standing by the door before she knew he'd moved. He was tense, waiting, even if he still gave off that surface attitude of utter relaxation.

There was a banging on the door. Hunter tossed a look over his shoulder, raked them all with those piercing eyes, then flung the door wide. Two more people pounded by as she watched, but there was no sign of the person who had knocked.

Then Hunter was gone and Gabe had grabbed her elbow again, hurrying her toward the door with Blake. "Stay with us," he said loudly, right next to her ear. It was the only way she could hear him, and she did her best to catch every word. "We're gonna have to run for a while. Run, hide, run, hide--you got it?"

She did, but he hadn't waited to find out. The next few minutes were a rush of hallways and slamming doors, sometimes people around her and sometimes not. When they burst out into an alleyway, she saw Hunter running ahead of them again, gun flung over his shoulder like a decoration, banging against his back as he loped along. Blake was nowhere to be seen.

Ashley heard the whine of fighter engines over her head, but she didn't have time to look up. They came under fire the moment they raced into the street. Everyone was running, people were screaming, and Gabe shoved her so hard that she almost fell.

"Get down!" he shouted at her, and she realized he'd meant her to. "Face down and don't move!"

She hit the ground without another second's hesitation, vaguely aware of him crashing down beside her. She could hear laser fire hitting the street a little ways to the left, hitting, melting, moving on. Moving up the street. She stayed where she was, as motionless as she could make herself when her breath was coming in pants. With the hood over her head and her hair shielding her face she couldn't see a thing besides the pavement pressed up against her cheek.

Then Gabe was shaking her shoulder, and she threw off the hood and rolled to her feet. "All right, let's go!" he was yelling. "Hunter, go on ahead; Ash, get your hood up!"

What difference the hood was going to make she had no idea, but she obeyed anyway and took off after him when he started to run. They must have gone through half the town that way. She hid when he did, followed when he didn't, and completely failed to keep track of either Hunter or Blake. They were eerily invisible when she wasn't looking directly at them.

She finally dove through a rickety door into a room lit only by the late afternoon sunlight through the windows and every fighting sense she had went on high alert. It was the difference between the pure adrenaline of dodging danger in the streets and the steely terror of multiple target locks suddenly focusing on her and her alone. Ashley froze.

"It's okay, she's the one," Gabe said into the sudden quiet. "I saw her teleport in myself, haven't taken my eyes off her since." He reached out and yanked her hood back, not gently, but carefully enough that he didn't pull her hair.

She looked around, holding her hands out to the sides warily. She couldn't see anyone, not even Hunter or Blake. But she knew someone was there nonetheless. Several someones, or her instincts were no good at all.

"Blake?" a voice asked. As soon as he spoke, Ashley could see him: a man in a dark uniform almost identical to the one Gabe and the others had been wearing earlier. He was leaning up against the wall beside the door, surveying the room casually.

"Yeah," Blake agreed, appearing at the back of the room. He had arrived by more conventional means, stepping through a door she hadn't noticed until he used it. "Saw her arrive too."

"So did I," Hunter's voice agreed grudgingly. She looked up in surprise, catching sight of the gunner perched on a narrow ledge above one of the near windows. With most of the light below him, he was more in shadow than any of them. "Don't know what she's supposed to look like, but that was a Ranger teleportation stream she came in on."

It was the most he'd spoken in her presence since she'd met him. She tried not to stare at him, but his clothes--or more accurately the lack thereof--made it harder than it should have been. It was Gabe's voice that finally drew her attention away.

"This is Ashley," he said firmly. "We can trust her."

Ashley wasn't convinced these dark warriors trusted anyone, and she supposed she couldn't blame them. The forces of evil had been on Earth for more than two years now. Gabe and his friends were all that was left of justice on these streets.

But the man beside the door nodded once. Whatever he thought, he was apparently going to take Gabe's word for it. Hunter landed, startlingly quiet, on the floor in front of the window and padded over toward the doorway Blake had emerged from only moments before. He disappeared through it, and with a single backwards glance, Blake followed. Gabe indicated the door with one hand, offering her a smile. "Down the rabbit hole," he suggested lightly.

She just shook her head, a small smile curling her lips in return. "You're going to tell me what this is all about, right?" she asked, allowing herself to be guided toward the door at the back of the room.

"Sure," Gabe agreed easily. "Soon as I figure it out myself."

Ashley put out her hands uncertainly as the stairwell turned a corner and the light from the door above was cut off. Someone grabbed her outstretched hands and she started, but followed the tug obediently. Only when the person in front of her spoke did she recognize him as Hunter.

"Just 'cross the floor, here." The words drifted to her in the darkness, even the light behind her gone now that Gabe had closed the door behind them. "Then we'll be able to see again."

He didn't seem to be having any trouble, but Ashley chose not to mention that. There was some creaking, a sound that could have been another door, and then Hunter's voice warned, "Lights now."

Two flashlights sprang to life at the same time, and she flinched involuntarily. In the sudden brightness she saw Gabe removing two more flashlights from behind an old stack of boxes and passing one to her. Hunter and Blake shone theirs around the enclosed space in which they found themselves, and she realized that there was a door behind her after all.

There was also a heavy metal shelving unit in front of her, which Hunter and Blake seemed to be doing their best to push out of the way. They made a strange pair, almost surreal in the shifting light: one tall and blonde and flashing skin with every movement, the other shorter and dark and wrapped in more clothes than she was. Yet they seemed to recognize each other's movements, working together without a word, almost as though they could read each other's thoughts.

The flashlights revealed a narrow passage when the shelving was cleared. A tunnel of darkness, maybe just a hole in the wall or maybe something much deeper, more extensive. She glanced at Gabe uncertainly, and he grinned. It was the first grin she'd seen on his face, but somehow it didn't reassure her.

"Pretty high-tech, huh?" He gestured at the darkness, apparently indicating that she should precede him into the shadows. "Welcome to the ninja resistance."

7. Face the Storm

"Where are we going?" Ashley asked, sighing inwardly. They'd been walking for longer than she could guess, and she'd tried very hard not to ask that question. This wasn't her territory, it didn't follow her rules, and if she didn't trust the people she was with then she might as well not have come.

But she was bored. Andros would just love that as an excuse, she thought wryly. A blown cover, a failed op, and another dead Ranger, all because she was bored. She knew as well as he would, though, that just because she played by the rules didn't mean any or all of those things wouldn't happen. So she might as well invent her own rules for a while and see if she could get some answers.

"Safehouse on the edge of town," Gabe answered, surprising her with his straightforward reply. "We're almost there."

"We've got a guy out there." Blake must have been just as bored, because he hadn't volunteered a single word since they'd gone underground. "He knows we're coming."

He glanced over his shoulder, and Ashley followed his gaze instinctively. The only thing behind them was Hunter, blast rifle still slung casually over his shoulder as he strolled along. The beam from his flashlight flickered toward them and away as Blake asked, "You want my jacket, bro?"

The only response was a snort that made Blake grin.

"Your funeral," the shorter boy said lightly.

Ashley shot a covert look back at Hunter. She had no idea what had prompted Blake to ask that: she was overheating in her own clothes, and Hunter certainly didn't look cold. She smiled to herself as she dragged her eyes back where they belonged. Quite the opposite, in fact.

She didn't even notice the ladder until Gabe had stopped beside it, flicking his flashlight off and stuffing it into a coat pocket. Blake shone his light into Gabe's path to compensate, and it didn't surprise Ashley that Gabe kept his blaster in his hand as he climbed. Light, no. Weapon, yes. They had their priorities.

He paused at the top, doing something she couldn't discern to the trapdoor above before heaving it open. Light flooded down into the darkness as Gabe slithered through the opening and his shadow disappeared. Blake was next, and Ashley finally remembered to turn off her flashlight when it was her turn to ascend. Blake took the light from her when she pulled herself out--

Into the middle of a perfectly normal looking hallway. It was a far cry from the secrecy and subterfuge surrounding the entrance at the other end, she thought. Then she heard Hunter closing the trapdoor behind him, offering a terse, "Gonna do a perimeter check," before he slunk off down the hall and disappeared.

"You can run," Blake muttered under his breath.

Ashley gave him an odd look when he didn't continue that sentence, but he just returned it with a disarming grin. "Hungry?" he asked innocently.

She was, but Gabe interrupted. "We need to check in with Cam first. He was still working on the portals when I left, but you know he'll want to hear what Ash has to say along with the rest of us."

"Can I at least ditch the sweatshirt now?" Ashley asked, only half-joking.

"Sure, yeah," Gabe said absently, leading the way down the hall in the opposite direction Hunter had gone. "We should be okay here. If Cam can't keep a little place like this secure, we're more screwed than we know."

She was happy to be free of the bulky hoodie. In concession to the temperature she pulled off her field jacket too, draping them both over one arm while she followed Gabe through an open doorway. "Who's Cam?" she wanted to know.

The room they had just entered wasn't empty, and the moment she realized that was the moment she guessed the answer to her own question. The person turning away from the clearly jerry-rigged computer was Cam. He must be a contact person of some kind, maybe even one of their own if they trusted him to hold this place.

"This is Cam," Gabe said easily, confirming her suspicion. "He's in charge of the tech. Cam, Ashley. The Yellow Ranger."

"Former," Ashley corrected. Her bare wrist was obvious now, and she didn't want any of them getting the wrong impression. She represented the Rangers. She wasn't one of them, not anymore. Not when her morpher could do more good defending the Free Systems than it could out here on some crazy mission behind enemy lines.

Another crazy mission behind enemy lines. She had to stop making such a habit of this.

"Nice to meet you, Ashley." Cam rose from his chair to give her hand a perfunctory shake.

"You too," she said with a warm smile. "Does 'tech' mean what I think it means?"

"Probably." His answering smile was more reserved--just being polite, she thought. She got the feeling that she didn't really matter to him. Or maybe she mattered for what she represented, just not for who she was. She could have been anyone with the right qualifications and he would have reacted exactly the same way. The detachment was disconcerting after the close personal relations of the Free Systems' teams.

"Aren't you missing someone?" Cam was asking, gaze flicking across each of them in turn.

"Outside," Blake said briefly.

"Cam, we're gonna need to get Ashley a visual of the tech situation." Gabe swung a second chair around backwards and dropped into it, giving Cam a steady look. "She's here to help."

Cam returned the look for a long moment, then turned his appraising gaze back on her. "There's no problem with the tech," he said evenly. "The problem is launching it without it being traced, which is imperative if there's going to be more than a single strike."

"Which there has to be," Ashley agreed. "Your strength here is the territory and your ability to vanish into it quickly, right?"

Cam's expression didn't flicker, which she suspected was a good sign. He nodded once, and that encouraged her to continue. She'd read more into less, after all.

"So the best way to capitalize on that must be to increase the consequences of the battles you're already fighting." She glanced over at Gabe, quickly, but he was just watching their interaction. No matter what system they were using, Cam clearly outranked Gabe.

"You'll get the attention of the occupation pretty quick," Ashley continued. "You'll have to be able to move fast when they clamp down, and the only way that's going to happen is if every piece of tech you started with is still mobile. How are you hiding it now?"

Cam folded his arms across his chest, but he answered easily enough. "There are holographic portals on-site at about half the old academies. They're invisible before and after launch, but when they're in use there's no way to hide them or the energy they draw."

"Two options, then. Distract prying eyes or disguise whatever they're looking for," Ashley said slowly. It was abstract enough to be obvious, but she saw Cam nod again anyway. "Is there anything else that kind of energy surge could be?"

She thought she heard a grudging respect in his tone when he spoke again. "I've been working on that, actually. It's a short-term coverup... eventually someone will make the connection, no matter how innocuous the explanation."

"Eventually," Ashley repeated, eyeing him. "We both know there won't be any 'eventually' in this kind of rebellion."

"I like to cover every contingency." Cam's gaze flicked past her for a moment and his eyebrows lifted slightly. She turned her eyes toward the door and blinked, surprised to see Hunter leaning casually against the frame.

His gaze was as intent as Cam's, if focused in the opposite direction. Something wordless passed between them. She glanced around covertly, but all she saw was Blake smirking and Gabe ignoring them in favor of something on the computer.

"Fuck, Hunter," Cam said at last, breaking the momentary silence. The words startled her, but his tone was just as calm as it had been before. "Why do you bother putting on the shirt at all?"

A slow grin spread across Hunter's face. "'Cause I know you like the color," he drawled. He didn't move from what she now thought might be a deliberately provocative pose in the doorway. The stance was doubly effective in clothes that were meant to reveal more than they hid--and it was clearly for the benefit of one person in particular.

Whatever else he might be, Ashley realized, Hunter was definitely off the market.

"Time for a field trip," Gabe announced suddenly. When she glanced over at him, though, she realized he was studying the specs she wanted on Cam's monitor. She drifted closer to look over his shoulder.

"Can we actually see them?" Ashley asked, although that did seem to be what he was implying. Somehow the physical presence of the giant robotic assault vehicles was very important--to her, and to all of them too, she had no doubt.

Cam had conditions anyway. She had expected that, but she hadn't expected them to be so flippant. "Only if Hunter wears a jacket," he remarked, turning in his chair to look at the displays Gabe was scrolling through. He was so nonchalant that he might have been commenting on something else entirely.

"Why?" Hunter's voice, on the other hand, was not the slightest bit casual. "Afraid you might be distracted?"

"Afraid I might accidentally kill anyone who tried to take you up on your cover," Cam told the computer. His composure was as calm and offhanded as before, but Ashley didn't hear good-natured ribbing in his words. There was an understated seriousness there that made her glad she hadn't flirted with Hunter in Cam's presence.

"Now you know why Cam doesn't come with us on raids," Blake offered, and his tone at least was teasing. "Can keep his hands to himself--as long as everyone else does, too."

"Can we get going?" Gabe demanded. "There's a little more at stake here than whether or not Hunter gets lucky tonight."

"Tonight?" Hunter smirked at him. "Who said anything about waiting till tonight?"

Blake took one look at Gabe's irritated expression and grabbed Hunter's arm. "Time for a tactical retreat, bro," he advised. "Let's go let 'em know we're coming."

In a voice just loud enough to be heard on the other side of the room, Cam muttered, "Change your clothes before I do it for you."

Irrepressible, Hunter called back, "Promises, promises!"

"Dammit, Andros!" Zhane glared at him over the insulated mug he had just slammed down onto the table. If it hadn't had a cover, the liquid inside would be everywhere by now. "This is the worst time to consider changing the patrol rotation!"

"It's the best time," Andros countered, reaching for the mug automatically. "We have two people who need to learn to fight, and two teammates who need someone to watch their backs while they do it!"

"Teammates who aren't used to fighting with a full team anymore and don't need their experience compromised now, of all times, just so you can babysit them!" Zhane shot back.

"Backup and babysitting are not the same thing," Andros informed him.

"Yeah?" Zhane challenged. "What does TJ think about it?"

Andros opened his mouth, but before he could speak Zhane yelled over to the former Red Turbo Ranger. "TJ!" He leaned back in his chair and waved to direct attention to himself across the intervening tables. When it became clear he had interrupted a conversation, Zhane pushed himself out of his chair and started in their direction.

With a sigh, Andros shook his head and returned to his breakfast. He probably should have asked TJ himself. He wasn't used to this kind of Ranger politicking. Where he came from, the Red Ranger decided and that was the end of it. Around here, every fifth person he met was or had been a Red Ranger themselves, and he couldn't discount that kind of informed experience.

By the time Zhane came back, Andros had all but decided to abide by Zhane's wishes. If TJ didn't want their established patrol rotation disrupted, then it wouldn't be. TJ and Cassandra could handle the training of their two newest teammates, and he and Zhane would continue pulling the split shift alone.

"He agrees with you," Zhane announced, dropping into the chair he had vacated before. "Thinks it's for the best if all six of us fly out together."

Andros blinked. Glancing over in the direction Zhane had come from, he caught TJ's eye and received a thumbs up from the leader of the Earth Rangers. His mouth quirked in an ironic smile, and he got a quick nod in return. He and TJ didn't think so differently after all.

"Thanks for checking with him," Andros said, turning back to Zhane before the smile faded. "I should have thought of that."

Zhane just shrugged, the same smile flickering across his face. "That's what I'm here for."

Andros saw Zhane wince at the sound of TJ's locker slamming in the quiet prep room. Andros just continued stowing his gear, accepting that this was TJ's role when it came to the pilots for whom he was responsible. He and TJ had been supervising their own shifts for months now, and that wasn't going to change just because they were flying the same patrol again.

"There's a difference between an attack formation and convoy defense," TJ declared, his gaze locked with that of the new Black Ranger. "You were trained for both and you shouldn't have any trouble distinguishing between the two."

"Look, no offense," the man replied, in a tone that implied exactly the opposite, "but it's not the procedure I'm having trouble with. It's why you'd want to use it in the first place."

"Hey," Cassandra snapped. "Maybe you should settle in for a few days before you start rewriting the rules, okay?"

"We do what we do because it works," TJ added. "And you don't know what works until you've been out there and come back. We have, and I'd appreciate it if you'd try it our way first."

The man held up his hands in surrender--or a warding gesture, it was hard to tell. "Fine, hey, I'm not trying to start trouble. You say you know what you're doing, I believe you. I'm just telling you I'll react quicker if I anticipate you, and I can't do that until I know why you're doing what you do."

Andros saw TJ's shoulder relax a little. "Yeah," the Blue Ranger said easily. "Tell you what, join us for lunch. I'll try and go over some of the weirder stuff with you then."

"That'd be great." The man turned away, closing his own locker with some difficulty, and Andros caught Zhane's eye.

"Ready?" Andros asked. When Zhane nodded, he raised his voice to address the rest of the team. "Good job, guys. That was a tough first patrol."

"It only gets harder from here," Zhane quipped, and Andros rolled his eyes.

Zhane slapped the comm with a quick, fluid motion that belied the feel of utter relaxation beneath Andros' hands. His shoulder muscles worked quickly, guiding his arm, his hand, his fingers to the source of that annoying sound and forcing it to cease. Then his arm fell back to his side and he was all boneless calm again.

Andros had to chuckle, kneading his own fingers into either side of Zhane's spine. "JT's going to pull a visual override if you keep hanging up on him like that," he said quietly. He didn't want the interruption any more than Zhane did, but their younger friend's persistence wasn't something to be underestimated.

"JT can go to--" Zhane's mumble was cut off by a sharply indrawn breath as Andros hit a tight spot in his back. The Silver Ranger was so frustratingly graceful that the tension he carried always came as a surprise.

"Sorry," Andros murmured, gentling his touch. "You all right?"

"Mmm hmm." Zhane didn't even bother to nod. "Can't think of a better way to spend my lunch break."

"I can think of a few," Andros remarked, careful to keep a straight face.

He heard Zhane's half-hearted snicker anyway, and he knew that right now at least, Zhane hadn't said what he did lightly. He really did prefer this warm comfort to anything else, and Andros didn't blame him. Sex was easier to come by than comfort these days. He pressed his hands harder against Zhane's back, the warmth of those pliant muscles seeping into his fingers.

Andros' morpher chimed.

Andros sighed, but he gave Zhane a reproving tap on the back of the head. "See what you've done?" he chided. "Now JT's going to be mad at me."

A soft breath of laughter escaped from Zhane, who hadn't even lifted his head at the interruption of the rebuke. "It's hard to be you," he muttered mockingly.

Andros touched his morpher and lifted his left wrist. "This is Andros."

"JT," the voice replied. "Quarantine. Ranger briefing as soon as you can get here."

He was so matter-of-fact that it took a moment for the words to register. He knew he wouldn't get anything more out of the former Turbo Ranger, though, so he just asked, "Where's here?"

"Co-Op," JT answered. "War room, second level briefing. Bring Zhane."

The reader clattered to the table just before Andros' palm struck the surface beside it. "This has to be weeks old. What good does it do us to quarantine anyone now?"

"You'd rather not?" Zhane asked quietly. Pointedly.

"Where does this come from?" Jenkarta wanted to know. "How do we know that what they've heard is even close to--"

"She knows the symptoms," Saryn interrupted. Then, seeming to realize that he had violated the first principle of the UC operatives, he amended, "The person who sent this. They know what to look for."

"How many people do we have coming and going?" Zhane asked. "The border's a war zone; it's not like there are civilian transports going back and forth."

"Enough." How Saryn had time to keep up with every report that went through Co-Op Andros would never know. "The quarantine will not be sufficient to stop the spread of this epidemic."

"It'll slow it down," JT said firmly. "And maybe it will contain it some, however far it's gotten."

Saryn didn't answer, and Andros exchanged glances with Zhane. They knew they were lucky that Ashley and Carlos had gotten out the day before... they'd just better hope the two Earth Rangers didn't run into any trouble. With Eltare under lockdown, no one would be coming back to this planet for any reason.

"They haven't been able to track patient zero," JT was saying, although Andros had missed the question that prompted his response. "We may never know where it started, with the way it is out on the border right now."

"Slave traders." Saryn made the words sound like the epithet they should be. "They are notorious for allowing contagion to spread unchecked."

"It doesn't do us any good to worry about how it started," Jenkarta said with a sigh. "We're going to have to take care of our UCs." He glanced over at Andros then, adding, "Yours included. They can't come back here."

Andros just nodded. "How widespread is the quarantine? People inbound from the border must be holing up somewhere."

"Yeah, sure," JT said with a twist of his lips. "The ones who register are being diverted."

"And the ones who do not," Saryn said grimly, "are the ones who make quarantine a futile exercise."

"You're as bad as Andros," Zhane muttered. "Get over it, guys."

Saryn gave him a sharp look, but for once Zhane's criticism provoked no reply.

Andros looked up in surprise as Zhane kicked the wall behind the head of the bed. He was lying where he had fallen, stretched out on his back with his arms over his head and his feet hitting the wall when he swung them up off the floor. It was an overly dramatic sprawl, but Andros couldn't tell if he kicked the wall deliberately or by accident.

"You okay?" he asked carefully. Normally the one of the calmest people he knew, Zhane did have a destructive tendency when pushed past his limits. Being Zhane, it was usually self-destructive, and it wouldn't be the first time he'd literally beaten himself up over something.

"Hell of a day," Zhane said with a sigh.

"Yeah," Andros agreed, coming over to stand by the bed so he could stare down into his lover's eyes. "You okay?" he repeated.

At that, Zhane's lips twitched and his blue eyes met Andros' steadily. "Yeah," he echoed. "Just... a hell of a day."

"Aren't they all," Andros said, dropping down onto the bed beside him. In some ways, he almost envied Ashley and Carlos their impossible missions to a distant galaxy--at least it was some kind of break in the relentless routine. "It's not an easy life."

Zhane sighed again. "It used to be."

Andros glanced at him, reaching out instinctively to touch, to reassure himself that Zhane wasn't going anywhere. He stroked his fingers through the unkempt blonde hair, shorter now than it used to be with Ashley to cut it for him, and he wondered, not for the first time, whether Zhane regretted any of the decisions between then and now. "Do you miss it?" he asked softly.

Zhane lifted his gaze without moving his head. "Every day," he admitted. "Damn, Andros, we didn't know how good we had it back then."

"We?" Andros repeated, relieved that Zhane hadn't gone quite as far back as he'd thought.

Zhane seemed to know what he was thinking. "Don't miss the days before you," he said. "The days before the war, sure. The beach, the freedom... you in something other than a uniform," he added, lifting one hand to pick affectionately at Andros' sleeve. "Nothing else."

"We'll have that again," Andros said softly. They both knew it was a dream, that those days were gone forever--but it was an awfully good dream for all that.

"Yeah." Zhane was smiling up at him, no regret or disbelief in his expression. "That's what I'm fighting for."

Blinding light made him throw up one arm in defense, but the blaster in his other hand remained steady as it targeted the light instinctively. Anything could be behind that brilliant glow. There were no guarantees that shooting at it would help, but he was ready to take that chance.

The sound of a voice might have been more soothing if he'd recognized the language it was speaking. Carlos was pretty sure it wasn't any of the standard UAE dialects, but the voice didn't continue long enough for him to narrow it down further. "Who's there?" he called, still squinting into the harsh light.

There was a brief pause. Then an oddly accented voice spoke in his own language--a woman's voice, he thought. "Identify yourself."

"You first," Carlos retorted, squinting hard as he let his hand fall. It wasn't doing any good anyway. His blaster remained locked on to the source of the light.

"We are the Rangers of Aquitar," the voice replied. Definitely a woman's voice.

We? He wondered what exactly that meant. More than one? Less than all of them? With a sigh, he realized that it didn't really matter. They had found him, and he probably ought to thank them for it, since wandering around the totaled command center wasn't getting him anywhere.

"Well," Carlos said, pointing his blaster toward the ceiling as he thumbed the safety back on, "I guess you're who I'm looking for, then." He made himself lower his own weapon, no matter that it made his skin crawl to do so when he still couldn't see the person or people he was speaking to.

"And you are?" a new voice demanded. This one was female too... and this one he knew. He grimaced, well aware that his reaction was probably obvious to whoever was standing on the other side of that damn light.

"Carlos," he informed her. As she knew very well. "Carlos Vargas, of Earth, formerly the Black Astro Ranger for the Free Systems."

"You do not wear a morpher," she remarked. The deliberate skepticism rankled.

"What part of 'former' did you not get?" he snapped.

"Enough." The first voice spoke before she could reply, and suddenly the light was shifting. The overwhelming brilliance pooled on the ground at his feet and he could see. Really see, and it took him a moment to realize that there was light on the ceiling too. Even the walls... the walls were glowing. It was like the light had soaked into them, charging them like some kind of freaky glow-in-the-dark room while it was blinding him.

"Carlos Vargas." There were five people in front of him, and it was the woman in the middle who spoke. "You are welcome here. I am Cetaci, White Ranger of Aquitar. These are my teammates: Aura, Cestria, Delphinius, and Billy."

She indicated each with her eyes as she introduced them. He tried very hard to match name to color, since they all looked pretty much the same to him. Except for... "Billy?" Carlos repeated.

Their leader glanced sideways at the Ranger he had named, and he gave a small smile. "Billy Cranston," he said. He stepped forward to offer his hand in greeting, and Carlos shook it automatically. None of the others made any movement.

"What are you doing--" Carlos suddenly thought better of his assumption. "Are you from Earth?" he asked carefully.

"I used to be." Billy didn't look annoyed by his interest. "I came out here five and a half years ago. This has been my home ever since."

Great, Carlos thought with an inward sigh. First his double from the other dimension, and now this dimension's Billy Cranston. What was it about this planet, anyway?

"What are you doing here?" the Red Ranger demanded. She had obviously understood the question he had decided not to ask Billy, and she threw it back at him with no small amount of hostility.

"I told you," he retorted, narrowing his eyes at her. "Looking for you." His gaze flicked to the leader, and he added, "I'd like to talk to you about the war."

The White Ranger... Cetaci? Normally the Power made memorizing names a simple task, but he was feeling its lack today. Cetaci, he was pretty sure, held up her hand when her teammate tried to respond. "Aura," she snapped, when the gesture wasn't enough.

Aura subsided, but not without fixing a dark look on him that he would have loved to return. The feeling's mutual, lady, he thought. You just stay on your side of the room and I'll stay on mine, and we'll all be happier.

"We're aware that you've come to ask something of us in this war," Cetaci was saying. "Our participation, most likely, and I will tell you one thing right now. The chances that the people of this planet will choose to return to war are remote."

She studied him for a moment, and no matter how much he wanted to argue he had a feeling she wasn't finished. So he just watched her, the way she was watching him, and finally she nodded almost imperceptibly. "However, the Rangers--" and he didn't miss the slight emphasis she put on the word, "will listen to what you have to say."

Had she just made a distinction between the Rangers and the rest of the people of Aquitar, Carlos wondered? And if she had, what did that mean? He raked his gaze over the rest of her team briefly, but there was no help there. Only Aura's expression was even readable, and what he read there certainly wasn't helpful.

"Let us proceed to the surface," Cetaci suggested. "You will be more comfortable there, I think."

He raised an eyebrow, but decided it would be impolite to refuse the courtesy. And if it meant getting out of this spooky command center, he was all for it. If nothing else, though, he was curious about their apparent nonchalance at his presence. Weren't they the least bit worried that a total stranger had teleported onto their supposedly hidden planet?

"So," Carlos began, following behind Cetaci and her Black Ranger while he took note of the other three falling into position behind him. "You don't seem very surprised to see me."

"We expected that someone from Eltare would come." Cetaci's voice drifted back to him, echoing oddly in the empty corridors. With only one light in front of him and another having appeared behind, he was glad the halls seemed to glow so easily. "We did not know that it would be you, but it was not... improbable."

"What do you mean by that?" he asked suspiciously.

"The Ranger who visited us before," Cetaci replied. "Your counterpart from another dimension, or so he told us." Before Carlos could agree, she continued, "He did us a great service--and created a debt that has yet to be paid. In your place, I would seek restitution for such a debt."

Carlos frowned at her back, uncomfortable with her emotionless recital of the facts. Uncomfortable, maybe, that she had seen through him so easily. "I was talking about how I got here," he muttered. "Not why."

"You enlisted the assistance of our counterparts in the other dimension, did you not?" Again, Cetaci didn't really seem to expect a reply. "It is what I would have done, faced with a similar scenario."

Charming. So she was a mindreader now, too? Partly to contradict her, and partly for the benefit of the Red Ranger behind him, Carlos declared, "If it was up to me, I wouldn't be here at all."

"No," Cetaci agreed, surprising him with the subtle amusement he heard in her voice. "That would have been your team leader's decision. Does Andros of KO-35 still lead the Astro Rangers?"

He gaped at her. She just continued walking, and he almost forgot to follow as she turned the corner ahead of him. "How do you know that?" Carlos demanded. His stride faltered again as he came around the corner, and finally he gave in to the temptation to just stop and stare.

They were inside an underwater dome. He hadn't been completely convinced until this moment, when he was confronted by the edge of that dome and everything that lay beyond it. Clusters of other domes, some of them lit, most of them not, rose out of the shadowed depths around them in every direction. He had no way of knowing whether what he was seeing was normal or not, but Cetaci's expression when he glanced over at her wasn't proud.

She, too, was gazing through the transparent wall at the city beyond. "What I don't know almost enslaved this planet," Cetaci said quietly. "I will not make that mistake again."

He saw one of the other Rangers shift, frowning in her direction. The Black Ranger. Maybe it was his silent reaction, maybe something else, but something prompted Carlos to reply. "You did a better job than we did," he muttered. It sounded more bitter than he had meant it to.

There was silence for a moment.

"We would not have succeeded," Cetaci said at last. "We made our stand where you did not and it was not enough." He could feel her watching him. "In the end, we ran too."

That was a disturbing thought, and not just because he didn't like to think of it as "running." Instead of protesting, though, he pointed out the only difference that mattered. "You took your people with you when you did it."

"Yes," Cetaci agreed calmly. "We took them with us. Because you made it possible."

Carlos gave her a startled look before he realized that she must be talking about his counterpart from the other dimension. "You mean the other me," he blurted. "From Justin's dimension."

He saw the Red Ranger walk away, stepping up to the side of the dome and putting an appreciable distance between herself and her teammates. Between herself and him. He ignored her as much as he could.

"We are the same people in different circumstances," Cetaci said calmly. "You are correct, however. I refer to a Ranger Carlos who visited us from a dimension already on the victorious side of this war."

"He helped make your planet invisible to the rest of the universe," Carlos guessed, studying her intently. They hadn't been able to draw a lot of conclusions about what had happened to Aquitar, but most of the ones they had reached involved his counterpart in some way.

Cetaci returned his stare with one of her own, but it was an even gaze that didn't flinch from his curiosity or his confusion. "He saved my life."

Carlos blinked. "I... didn't know that."

"Aquitar isn't invisible," Cetaci said abruptly. "It is simply shifted in a way that makes it more difficult to detect with traditional scanners. Cestria made this possible." She glanced at one of her teammates, and there must have been something in that silent communication that asked the Yellow Ranger to continue.

"As Keeper of the Falls, I thought I could protect the planet in this way by myself." The Ranger who spoke had a quiet voice, young and almost delicate. Strange choice for a fighter, Carlos thought.

"I did not have all the information," the girl added. "Cetaci retrieved the records we needed and was almost captured for her effort."

"They weren't trying to capture me," Cetaci interrupted. "I would have been dead had the other Carlos not arrived when he did. He saved my life," she repeated, "and with it, the information I carried. This is what allowed our planet to remove itself from occupied territory."

Carlos waited to see if there was more, but neither of them seemed inclined to keep speaking. "Sounds like he did you a pretty big favor," he offered cautiously.

Cetaci's expression didn't change. She nodded once, and her gaze shifted to the edge of the transparent dome in front of them. "Our entire world owes a Ranger of Earth," she agreed. "There may be nothing we can do for him. But..." She looked at him again. "If there is something we can do for his planet, the Rangers of Aquitar will not dismiss our debt so lightly."

"You see the problem."

Cam's face filled the screen to her left, although he wasn't looking at her. He seemed to have an aversion to actually meeting anyone's gaze for more than a few seconds at a time--except when it came to Hunter. She glanced at the gunner behind her, lounging casually against the bulkhead at the back of the cockpit. He looked unconcerned to the point of boredom, but she was perfectly aware of what was happening.

She was in one of the robotic assault vehicles, and Cam was in another. They were talking via comm, no doubt because Cam was too important a person to be left alone with a relative stranger. Instead, Hunter was the one squeezed into the tiny space with her. Not because he had any knowledge of the systems or their deployment, but because he had a weapon that he hadn't put down since she'd met him.

Ashley was under guard and she knew it. She didn't hold it against them, either. She didn't have a morpher, after all, and it was only her word and Gabe's memory that she was who she said she was. And the more she realized the extent of Cam's familiarity with these systems, the more she understood their desire to protect him. His relationship with Hunter wasn't the only reason he didn't go on raids.

"Yeah," she said aloud, responding to the statement that had taken her comprehension for granted. "I see it." Gabe might have called them "robotic assault vehicles," but these were more than just enhanced military weaponry. These were zords.

"These were designed to work with morphers," Ashley said aloud, just for the sake of confirming her suspicion.

"Not just morphers," Cam's voice replied. "Ninja morphers. The pilots are going to have to have some sort of elemental affinity, or these systems will fight every command they give."

That was a bigger problem than she'd expected. "Where are those morphers?" Ashley asked carefully.

"Some of them were never constructed," Cam answered, still not looking up. She couldn't imagine what he was doing to the controls that could take that much of his attention. "Some of them were lost in the invasion."

Cam's hands stilled on the console in front of him and he lifted his gaze to the screen at last. "I have three of them," he told her, after a long moment. "Leanne has three more. That's all that's left."

Ashley heard Hunter shift behind her. Somehow she knew Cam wasn't supposed to tell her that... or at least that Hunter hadn't expected him to. Interesting. Maybe he trusted her more than she'd thought. Or maybe he was that confident in their ability to stop her from leaking information they wanted to keep to themselves.

"You're not here to free Earth, are you," Cam remarked, so conversationally that she almost missed the significance of his words. As it was, she could only stare at him in surprise.

"There's no reason for you to come now," he continued. "No reason that I can see, at least, and since you're not talking about bringing in a fleet of reinforcements I assume you're counting on us to do most of the liberating ourselves. So why try to rally us now? Why bother trying to rush what would have happened eventually, with or without you?"

"There's no eventually in this war," Ashley reminded him, stung by his lack of faith in a team of Rangers that hadn't wanted to turn tail and run. They had always meant to come back. "There's more going on in the universe than you know, and believe me, you have a better chance with us than without us."

"I know we do." He looked disturbingly bitter about it. "I know we have no real choice but to accept your help and probably your leadership. But I also know we're not your real goal here, and if I'm going to be used as a pawn in someone else's game then I'd at least like to know what game it is."

Ashley didn't have to look over her shoulder to know that Hunter was staring at her just as hard as Cam was. "That's fair," she said evenly, well aware that any other answer would get her nowhere. And it was fair, after all. If they were going to fight on her say-so, they deserved to know why.

How best to summarize the situation? "The Free Systems are trying to form an alliance with a mutinous faction within Dark Spectre's army," she said at last. "To make ourselves less vulnerable, we need a distraction. Earth is it."

Cam leaned back in his chair and folded his arms, still staring at the screen. Why had she ever thought he didn't like to look people in the eye? "Does it matter to you whether we succeed?" he asked bluntly.

"Of course it matters," Ashley snapped. "This is our home too!"

"This is your home," Cam corrected. "I have no way of knowing who's calling the shots back in the Free Systems, or wherever you came from."

She opened her mouth, then stopped. He hadn't thrown their leaving in her face again, and that was something. And if it came down to technicalities, he was right. This was her idea, but it had been Andros' support that got it an audience. Her team leader wasn't even from this galaxy, and she probably would have questioned Andros' motivation too if her place and Cam's had been reversed.

"Yes," she said after a moment. She owed them the most impartial answer she could give. "It matters to the Free Systems. The more successful the rebellion, the worse off Dark Spectre is and the better our position becomes. A short, brutal struggle won't have much of an effect. It's in the Free Systems' best interests to make the resistance as effective as possible when it takes on the bad guys."

"You say that," Cam observed, "as though it's just a matter of how long. Like you take the outcome for granted."

Ashley almost smiled. She did take the outcome for granted--but it probably wasn't the outcome he was thinking of. Andros was contagious. "I didn't come here to fight," Ashley said fiercely. "I came here to win."

Cam's stare didn't abate, and from over her shoulder she heard Hunter drawl, "You gonna be piloting one of these zords, then?"

She kept her gaze on the screen displaying Cam's cockpit. "If you'll let me," she agreed.

Cam nodded once. Apparently she had passed some sort of test, because his next question was marginally friendlier. "Anything else you want to see from the inside?" he asked, sitting forward in his chair.

Ashley glanced around the cockpit, recognizing a dismissal when she heard one. "I'd really like to see them in action," she admitted. "They must be amazing. But I guess that'll have to wait."

She heard Hunter snort at her observation of the obvious, but Cam actually looked sort of... proud? Of course, she realized belatedly. He was in charge of these vehicles. Any compliments to them were, indirectly, compliments to him. She'd better remember that it probably worked the other way, too.

"You'll see them," Cam promised. "I think you'll find the ninja resistance can be a pretty impressive distraction."

"No doubt," Ashley said with a small smile.

Cam was getting up, doing things around the interior of the cockpit that temporarily blocked the screen she was watching. Shutdown procedures, she guessed, when the light behind him dimmed slightly. "I'll meet you outside," he told the screen. It went dark a moment later.

He wasn't one for long explanations, she noted with amusement. And he certainly didn't go in for much in the way of social courtesy. He asked what he wanted to know without reservation, and he told her what he thought of her answers. He reminded her a little bit of Jenkarta.

Future Red Ranger, she thought, smirking to herself.

"You ready?" Hunter asked gruffly.

"Yeah." Cam had shut down her zord the same way he had powered it up--remotely--so Ashley pushed herself up out of her chair and turned to follow Hunter up and out of the cockpit. How he climbed without that rifle getting in the way was a mystery to her, but she suspected he wouldn't appreciate her asking.

Cam was waiting for them on the floor outside. Instead of ushering her back the way they'd come, he gave her a considering look. "Are you hungry?"

"Yes," she said immediately, and his eyes flicked to her wrist. The device Gabe had given her was still there. She assumed it allowed her to teleport with them, and its presence seemed to satisfy Cam.

"We'll head back to town," he said, his gaze sliding over her to Hunter. "Is Leanne going to be at the club tonight?"

"Blake's contacted her by now," Hunter answered. "She'll be there."

"Then so will we." Cam's gaze lingered on him for a moment, and finally he said, "You can't go in there looking like that."

She glanced back at Hunter automatically, but he was smirking at Cam. "You're awfully determined to get me out of these clothes. You think anything I'm gonna wear to the club will be better?"

Cam didn't deign to answer. Instead he just gestured to Ashley, almost politely she thought, to precede them toward the same door they'd entered through. He fell into step beside her, Hunter shadowing them out into the labyrinthine tunnels. They reached the surface with a minimum of conversation, and the teleport was a little bit less disconcerting this time.

Hunter wasn't with them when they arrived at the safehouse. Ashley looked around, a little surprised, as Cam bent over the nearest keyboard. "What did I do to convince you I'm trustworthy enough to lose the guard?" she wanted to know.

Cam didn't so much as glance in her direction, giving his full attention to the monitor in front of him. "You told me the truth."

Well, that was fair. She waited while he did whatever he did, acutely aware that she was dependent on him and the rest of the resistance for... well, everything. This might be her planet, but it wasn't the same world she'd left behind three years ago. On her own, she'd get nowhere--if she was lucky. More likely she'd get herself captured, enslaved, or killed faster than she could figure out what was happening.

She realized suddenly that Cam was watching her. He must have seen some of what she was thinking in her face. "Come on," he said, gesturing for her to follow him out of the room. "We have stuff you can wear, and as soon as you change we'll get something to eat. Hunter'll make sure Gabe knows where we're going."

If he didn't sound exactly sympathetic, at least he sounded less curt. She didn't question the clothes, their destination, or the wrist device that he told her to lose if she got separated from the rest of them. "I'll get you something more subtle tonight," he told her. "In the meantime, there's a symbol on the back of that that'll get you into trouble if the wrong people see it."

By the time they arrived at "the club," Ashley was more than ready to see a familiar face. She almost didn't recognize Gabe, buried in the shadows at the back of the same bar they'd taken refuge in earlier that day. He and Blake were huddled together over a table big enough for more, but she didn't imagine they were having any trouble keeping it. Even dressed in more respectable clothes and without a weapon in sight, the two of them made a dangerous looking combination.

Cam slid into the booth next to Blake without waiting for either of them to acknowledge him. Ashley followed his example, taking the spot next to Gabe. "Hey," he greeted her, and she saw Blake nod across the table.

"Nice place," she said noncommittally.

"One of the safest public places there is," Blake answered, keeping his voice low but offering her a smile. "Sorry we didn't get a chance to be properly introduced before. I'm Blake Bradley." He held his hand out over the table, and she took it with something like relief. It wasn't the Dark Fortress all over again; these were real people, here. Her people.

"Ashley Hammond," she replied, smiling back at him. "It's been a while since I was here. I wish it hadn't changed so much."

"I hear that," Blake agreed. "No worries, though. You wouldn't be here if you thought it was hopeless; am I right?"

He had an unforced charm that put her as much at ease as she could be in a foreign environment surrounded by near-strangers. "You're right," she confirmed, keeping an eye on the rest of the table for signs of doubt.

"This is Cam," Gabe put in, nudging her shoulder and pointing at the guy across from her. "He's only quiet because he doesn't have Hunter here to egg him on."

Cam gave Carlos' brother a dirty look for that, but he extended his hand to her as Blake had done an introduced himself. "Cameron Watanabe," he elaborated. "Contrary to what they would have you believe, I do care about things other than Hunter Bradley."

"Sure you do." Hunter's voice penetrated the surrounding noise, and he seemed to appear out of thin air beside their table. "Just not as much. Beer?"

Ashley's eyes widened as she took in Hunter's appearance. He had made good on his threat to find clothes that concealed no more than his shredded outfit had, albeit without the holes, and she might easily have taken him for part of the entertainment if she didn't know better. Cam took the bottle Hunter offered without batting an eye, sliding over to make room as the blonde squeezed into the booth beside him.

"Nice to meet you," Ashley told Cam, her gaze darting back to Hunter as he deposited the rest of the bottles in the middle of the table and started pushing them around. One for each of them, plus an extra that she could only assume was for the as yet unseen Leanne. "Underage drinking is a thing of the past, huh?"

"Yeah," Hunter replied, "in the sense that no one is underage anymore. You're old enough to work, you're old enough to drink. I'm Hunter Bradley, by the way. If you didn't get that from Cam's introduction."

This time, the last name clicked, and she shot Blake a sideways look.

"Yeah, we're brothers," Blake said, wrapping his fingers around the bottle in front of him but making no move to drink. More for appearances than for consumption, she wondered?

"Lots of us have relatives in the resistance," Gabe put in. "Being a ninja tends to run in the family."

"Speaking of," Hunter added, tipping the top of his bottle slightly to point. He wasn't drinking either, Ashley noticed.

A woman with shockingly red hair and clothes as dangerous as Hunter's appeared out of the crowd, though Ashley wasn't sure she was aiming for them until the moment she slid into the booth with them. Tilting her head so that her hair curtained her face to the outside world, the woman smiled around the table at each of them, her eyes resting on Ashley a fraction longer than the rest of them. Ashley couldn't imagine that a woman like this could ever avoid drawing attention to herself.

"Good evening," the woman said calmly, reaching for a beer before tossing her hair back over her shoulder and scanning the club as thoroughly as she had assessed them. "Have you ordered yet?"

"We were waiting for you," Blake informed her. "And it's good to see you too, sis."

She heard the emphasis just as Ashley did, turning back to give him an odd look before shifting her gaze to Ashley. "They've been telling you stories, haven't they," she said, another smile softening her stare. A slight accent made her words sound all the more polished. "Never judge a person by the words of their younger brothers."

"They haven't told me a thing," Ashley promised, amused by the suspicious look the other woman gave first to Blake and then to Hunter. "Just that you were coming--you're Leanne, right? I'm Ashley."

"Leanne Omino," the woman confirmed, taking the hand Ashley offered in greeting. "Nice to meet you, Ashley. I won't lie and say it's not reassuring to have someone from the old guard back in town."

"I'd be lying if I said I wasn't relieved to find a new guard," Ashley answered, trusting her to understand. "I hope we'll be able to work together."

Leanne just nodded in reply. Everything they didn't know about each other was in her wariness. And every hope they had was in her smile--still ready, even for a stranger, after all this time.

8. Quarantine

"We have a problem." Kristet dropped a reader onto the kitchen counter and pulled up a stool on the other side. Zhane lifted his head just long enough to assess her expression before turning his attention back to the boy banging on the countertop beside him.

"Kae, don't take any lessons from this woman about how to greet a person first thing in the morning," Zhane told him. His tone was light, and he saw the amusedly exasperated look she gave him out of the corner of his eye. "We have enough people who don't know how to say 'good morning' around here," he added with mock-regret.

Kae was swinging his arms unconcernedly and Zhane rescued a plastic juice cup before it could tumble to the floor along with the various other utensils Kae had already put there. Nothing particularly dangerous about the occasional misplaced spoon, but he didn't feel like cleaning up spilled juice right now. Especially when the kid needed all the vitamins he could get.

"Zhane!" Andros' voice came from the exercise mats, and he sounded winded enough to make Zhane smirk. The rest of them knew better than to challenge Astrea for the sheer joy of it. Andros couldn't seem to resist. "I could use a little help here!"

"See what I mean?" Zhane asked Kae rhetorically. "There's no courtesy around here. A little politeness would go a long way."

He glanced over at the mats again, just in time to watch Andros go down hard in the face of Astrea's relentless attack. Astrea wasn't big on sparring, but she knew how to fight and she wasn't above practicing some of her more lethal skills on her teammates. She usually had the grace to wait until they were morphed, of course. But Zhane knew as well as anyone that Andros could provoke a person beyond all reason.

"I have that on camera," Kristet called in the general direction of the workout area.

"Yeah?" Andros rolled to his feet, holding his hands out in a gesture clearly meant to indicate his surrender. Astrea's staff vanished into violet sparkles as she folded her arms. It was hard to tell whether she was appeased or not, and Andros was equally inscrutable right now. Zhane deliberately ignored him as he left the mats and headed in the direction of the kitchen, hoping that fewer eyes might keep him from responding too sharply to Kristet.

Andros leaned on the counter beside their public relations agent. He leaned over to grab some of the fruit Zhane had been cutting up for Kae and remarked, "Well, I have you on payroll." He grinned at Kristet and popped the fruit into his mouth before he straightened up. "Thanks for the help, Zhane," he added, apparently as an afterthought.

"You know how much I like throwing myself into fights I didn't start," Zhane drawled, surprised and more than a little amused by Andros' relaxed swagger. He was in a good mood this morning.

"Speaking of which," Kristet said firmly. "I mentioned that there's a problem. Abersiia."

The word meant nothing to Zhane, but he saw Andros frown. "Where?"

"Keyota." Kristet gave the Red Ranger a meaningful glance that puzzled Zhane. "Outbreaks are centered in the southeastern part of the district. There have been cases reported in Chessa Brook, too. And among the military personnel on RS-42."

All places the Rangers went regularly, Zhane noted. But outbreaks? Outbreaks of what? He looked over at Astrea as she joined them, tugging her hair out of its ponytail as she commandeered the last stool on the outside of the counter. "What's going on?" she wanted to know.

"What's abersiia?" Zhane asked, looking from her to Andros and back again with a small shrug to indicate that he had no more idea than she did.

Astrea lifted one shoulder in return, starting to shake her head--and then she stopped. With a sharp look in Andros' direction, she interrupted him just as he started to answer. "The virus Kae came here with?"

Zhane frowned, looking to Andros for confirmation. Kae had been infected with something, Astrea had told him that when she first introduced them to each other. But DECA had treated him immediately and as far as Zhane knew he had been cured within hours. He had never even learned the name of whatever contagion the boy carried.

"Yeah." With one word, Andros' expression went from pensive to grim. "We did this."

"Now, wait a minute." Zhane moved Kae's juice out of the way of the plate he'd finally finished, pushing it within easy reach of the boy's impatient fingers. He didn't eat nearly enough, but what he did eat he ate fast and messily. "That's ridiculous. Kae hasn't left the hangar, and DECA vaccinated each of us as we came back."

"It's true," Kristet agreed. "I don't know how it's possible. No one here is sick--even I got the vaccine, and Kae hadn't been contagious for hours by the time I got here. But the timing seems too suspicious to be coincidence."

"The last time I remember hearing anything about abersiia, I was in school." Ty had raised his voice enough that it carried easily from the table where he had been keeping one eye on the morning news and apparently one ear on their conversation. "Primary school."

Kristet was nodding. "I did some research. There hasn't been an outbreak since before the invasion. They vaccinated most of the school-age children back then, but the virus is so easy to eliminate that the effort was a one-time deal."

"If it's so easy to treat, what's the problem?" Zhane wanted to know. "Send everyone to the nearest health center and cure them. Problem solved."

"Two problems," Kristet countered. "One, some people wouldn't admit they're sick if their lives depended on it--and they might. The early symptoms are pretty innocuous. They won't send anyone but the hypochondriacs scrambling for a cure, and by the time people realize they need help they may not be able to get it on their own."

"That's why it was so perfect," Astrea said softly. She might have been talking to herself, but she looked up at the silence that followed her words. "The slave traders," she clarified. "We thought maybe they were using Kae's blood to make a vaccine they could sell to infected areas."

Zhane got it before she could finish. "The symptoms are so vague that they could be anything," he guessed.

Astrea nodded, but her gaze flicked to Kristet as though seeking confirmation. "Tell someone their neighbor is sick and they don't need much proof before they're willing to pay for a vaccine," she said.

"What's the second problem?" Andros asked, his eyes on Kristet as well. "You said there were two."

Kristet gave him an apologetic look. "It didn't take me long to notice where the outbreaks are occurring," she pointed out. "The public's going to connect it to the Rangers soon, if they're not doing it already."

"But it wasn't us," Zhane protested. Kae was squirming, obviously bored with being on the counter. Since he'd finished off most of what was on his plate, Zhane gave his fingers a token swipe with the dish towel before swinging him down to the floor. "Stay out of trouble," he told the boy.

"I'm not convinced," Kristet was saying. "Kae brings a virus that hasn't shown up on KO-35 in almost a decade and suddenly we have the beginnings of an epidemic? It just doesn't make sense that the two events are unrelated."

"Sometimes the universe doesn't make sense," Zhane replied. "That's just the way it goes."

Andros shook his head. "We must have missed something," he muttered. He was clearly in agreement with Kristet. "Kae hasn't left. We're all protected. We haven't had anyone else in the hangar recently..."

Footsteps on the stairs interrupted his musings, and Zhane looked away from Kae to see Ashley descending from the catwalk. She didn't get to sleep in very often, and even if it wasn't that late he thought she had probably enjoyed the extra minutes. She certainly seemed to be in good spirits, laughing as she chatted back and forth with--

Karen.

Zhane caught Andros' eye and saw the same realization there. Karen was the only person who had come and gone from the hangar since Kae had arrived, and she had done it with the same freedom they enjoyed. She had been everywhere they had been. And she had never gotten the vaccine.

"Karen," Astrea said aloud, echoing his own thoughts. "But she's not sick."

"She was born six galaxies away," Ty reminded them. He made no move to get up from the table, but he too was watching as Ashley and Karen came down the stairs. "Of course she's not sick. The virus probably doesn't recognize her DNA."

"She's as human as we are," Andros argued. "Her DNA's the same as yours and mine."

"Andros, even you and Astrea don't have the same DNA." Ty sounded surprised that Andros would pretend not to know it. And Zhane had no doubt that that was what Ty thought Andros was doing: pretending. The former agrec geneticist just assumed that everyone around him was as smart as he was.

"Someone who can trace their ancestry to the other side of the local group isn't going to react to disease in anything like the same way you do," Ty continued. "I'm surprised she's even a carrier... but it sounds like she must be."

"But Kae had been here for days when she arrived." Zhane voiced what seemed like the most logical objection. "How could he have infected her then?"

"Blankets," Astrea said suddenly. "The first night Karen was here we took blankets outside to look at the stars. Blankets from the downstairs closet."

"That was fun!" Karen's voice was cheerful, but there was no mistaking her curiosity as she and Ashley came close enough to hear and join them in the kitchen. "Morning, everyone," she added, and Zhane lifted both hands in appreciation.

"Thank you," he said emphatically, only too happy to interject some levity into the solemn atmosphere that had settled around them. "Now here is a woman who knows how to say good morning."

"Taught by the best!" Karen winked at him before glancing around at the others. "So what's going on?"

"Hey, Kristet," Ashley added. "You're here early. Have you had breakfast yet?"

"Kae's virus has gotten into the city," Andros informed them. He did know how to break news gently; Zhane had seen him do it. But it wasn't a skill that he bothered to practice much.

"What?" Ashley didn't need to have it spelled out. "But how? He hasn't even been to the city!"

"No," Andros agreed grimly. "And we were all vaccinated." He was staring down at the counter as though it was somehow to blame. "All of us except for Karen."

"Who was wrapped in blankets from the closet where Kae slept the first night she got here," Astrea finished. "Can the virus live that long without a human host, Ty?"

"What do I know?" Ty said with a shrug. "Haven't thought of abersiia in years, let alone studied it. Some viruses can, sure, but I don't know about this one specifically."

"Wait, what?" Karen was looking at them with obvious confusion. "What am I spreading around? And since when?"

Andros apparently didn't consider it his duty to enlighten guests. He was already reaching for his digimorpher, snapping it into his hand like it had appeared out of the air. "DECA," he said, lifting his gaze from the counter to return Zhane's stare. "We're going to need some help."

Zhane had wanted to tell the truth. In fact, if Ty didn't know better, he would have said that Zhane would be uncomfortable with lying. He did know better, but he also knew Zhane, and until this very moment he would have said that he could tell. Of course he could tell. He knew when Zhane was lying and when he wasn't.

He was starting to think that maybe he only knew when Zhane wanted him to know.

Kristet had vetoed the idea of telling the truth immediately, involving as it did several major lapses of responsibility on the Rangers' part. The first was Kae: no matter what they did or didn't know about him, his presence should have been reported as soon as he arrived. It had seemed an acceptable cover up at the time, temporary and harmless, but in retrospect it was unquestionably illegal.

The second lapse was Karen. Ranger or not, she had no interstellar ID and as such had never been checked medically against any of the environments she had visited. It was only luck and her enhanced Ranger immune system that had kept her from catching or carrying something infectious before now.

So telling the truth was out, according to Kristet. Something about shining the light of public attention in the wrong place. And Andros backed her up. This was what they had hired her for, he said, and if she told them to lie then that's what they were going to do.

He hadn't expected Andros to agree to this deception either. But the moment Ty realized that Andros would lie was the moment he should have stopped being surprised that Zhane was so good at it. The two of them were like the decision and the execution, one right behind the other, always.

"Look, Marsie, I'm sorry," Zhane was saying, and only he and Ashley would dare to call the commander of the KPD by her given name at a time like this. Actually, Andros would probably dare, it just wouldn't occur to him. He would call her by her title because this was a professional discussion, not a personal one.

"If I knew more, I'd tell you." Zhane's tone was the perfect combination of sympathy and regret. "Obviously I picked up the virus somewhere in the system, since my scan was clean when I came back from Eltare. There's no reason to think I got it here. But you've all been exposed by now, and we're going to have to quarantine the base until everyone's been treated."

"Quarantine is an inconvenience," Commander Marsie informed him. "We're already locked down and we should be able to complete treatment in a matter of hours. We'll be behind schedule and we'll have to send the incoming Defense patrol home without a layover, but otherwise I'm not concerned about the implications.

"What I am concerned about is my pilots," she continued darkly. "The fact that it was you first and not your teammates, the fact that you've been here almost every day for the past two weeks, both point to a contagion that originated with the Planetary Defense."

"If anyone's sick, they're getting treated now," Zhane assured her.

She gave him a smile that Ty couldn't interpret. "If anyone's sick," she said, very clearly, "every outsystem hour they've logged is going to be checked against their med scans. Pilots get lazy sometimes. Nothing is going to be traced back to us unless it can be traced all the way."

"Marsie," Zhane said, and his tone was nothing but sincere, "We'll back the KPD whether someone was careless or not. And if no one was, I'll clear you to the cameras myself."

She gave a sharp nod, then turned away without the formality of dismissal.

"Let's go," Zhane told Ty.

Ty raised an eyebrow, but he didn't ask until they were out in the hallway. Even then, he was careful to keep his voice low as he asked, "Where are we going?"

"Conference room," Zhane said shortly.

That told Ty precisely nothing. He followed anyway, assuming Zhane would explain his goal at some point. There wasn't a lot they could do here with the entire base under lockdown. Anybody who had been cleared already was too busy clearing other people to get much done. Ty thought Marsie had been understating the situation slightly to call it an "inconvenience."

"Okay," Zhane said, heading straight for the system interface as they took over an empty conference room. "We need to beat that check."

Ty watched Zhane log in to the system and flip open his digimorpher simultaneously. "Excuse me?"

"DECA," Zhane said. He glanced over his shoulder at Ty, indicating that he had heard the question and expected this to be all the explanation Ty needed. "Would you sort through the KPD files and check for discrepancies between med scans and outsystem hours logged?"

"Please specify a timeframe," DECA's calm voice replied.

"From a year ago until today," Zhane said, after a brief hesitation. "Start with the most recent and work your way back, and show me any problems as you go."

"Certainly," DECA agreed. The terminal in front of Zhane shifted as the AI coasted into the system on Zhane's password. Not that she needed it, Ty was sure. But it must be quicker this way. Within seconds, the screens of data were flashing by too fast for him to follow.

"You want to know before Marsie does," Ty surmised. "Why? It's not like we're going to find the virus anywhere."

"Exactly." Zhane was frowning at the terminal as though he could actually read something intelligible in the flickering text. "I don't want anyone else getting in trouble for something we caused."

"But they'll come up clean," Ty pointed out. "Even if their records are out of date, or missed something, the odds that they'll actually test positive..." He trailed off as he tried to estimate some odds. The attempt only made him realize that actually, the odds could be against them. Karen had been introduced to a lot of people, and that had been days ago. The virus had had plenty of time to circulate.

"Doesn't matter," Zhane muttered, still watching the screen. "They wouldn't be under this kind of scrutiny if it wasn't for us, and if we're going to cover up our own mistakes then the least we can do is cover theirs too."

Something on the screen flashed, and a window appeared over top of the high-speed search taking place in the background. Zhane grimaced, but he didn't seem particularly surprised. His expression focused on the screen and then went curiously blank. Ty knew what he was doing.

After a moment, Zhane gave a miniscule nod. When DECA announced the results of her search, he logged into the Kerovan Security Network with two different passwords and set about changing the records she had flagged. Ty just watched, saying nothing.

It didn't take very long. Zhane was good at this kind of thing, and on some level Ty found that disturbing. Andros and Zhane... the decision and the execution. How many times had Andros asked his best friend to do something dishonest?

Was the computer hack really dishonest, Ty wondered? Zhane was only trying to help. He was breaking into the system to protect the very people his lie had compromised. Maybe, Ty mused, two wrongs did make a right. Or maybe they just made it more wrong. He wasn't an ethicist. Wasn't the point of laws to keep people from having to figure it out themselves?

"We're all done here," Zhane said quietly. The screen had reverted to its normal display, and Zhane's digimorpher was nowhere to be seen. "The PD's going to be busy here for another few hours. Want to do some another survey?"

Ty had to grin at the thought. "Try and stop me," he agreed. Taking their Gliders out over the mostly unclaimed land of RS-42, ostensibly to "survey" the area for hidden dangers, was his favorite part of work on KO-35's sister planet.

"Race you," Zhane offered, his eyes bright with a devilish glint.

As quickly as that, he was just Zhane again. Happy, sincere, mischievous; he laughed aloud when they played at shoving each other out of the way to reach the door. Whatever talents Zhane had, they didn't make him good or bad, honest or dishonest. Only the way he used them that could do that--and when had Zhane ever done anything but help the people around him?

Nothing about today had gone the way she expected it to. Ashley had woken up to the promise of a day off, a day she had planned to spend sleeping late, eating a very relaxed breakfast, and then maybe showing Karen around the Center some more, or going alone if she didn't feel like it. She had thought that the morning, at least, would be hers to do whatever she wanted with, even if some crisis came up by lunchtime that turned out to be her responsibility.

The crisis, unfortunately, was here ahead of schedule. It had interrupted her breakfast, and now it found her at Telekinetic Travels with a decidedly different goal than the one she had hoped to have. She hadn't even gotten to sleep late--Karen had knocked on her door with questions before the hangar had even cleared out.

Not that it would have cleared out, she knew now. Karen or not, someone would have gotten her up over the virus situation. Now Karen was grounded for the morning and she was at the Center with Kerone instead, spreading the word about treatment and vaccination.

Or she had been, up until a few seconds ago.

She wasn't sure who was more surprised to see Astronema: her, or the kids. And if she threw Astronema herself into the equation they would all lose, because Astronema looked terrified. Shocked, and wary, and angry of course, always angry, but it was all just a cover for the terror that Ashley recognized instantly.

It was a terror that could get them all killed, if she didn't fix this. Fast.

"Kerone!" she exclaimed, forcing her voice to a warmth she didn't feel. She swung around in front of Astronema and held her arms out to the sides as if for a hug. Astronema looked at her like she was the lowest form of life there was, but the position put her between that staff and the kids. "You did it! That's perfect!"

"Did what?" a voice piped up from behind Ashley. "What did she do, Ranger Ashley?"

The older kids were hanging back, but little Teisha was pressed up against her side and regarding Astronema with wide eyes. Ashley put one of her arms around Teisha's shoulders, patting her reassuringly without taking her eyes off of Astronema. Not a threat, she thought desperately, willing Astronema to understand. We're not a threat to you.

"She made a Halloween costume," Ashley said, with as much cheer and conviction as she could manage. "Doesn't it look like Astronema?"

Looking back on it, she wouldn't be able to say how she had known it was Astronema to begin with, let alone come up with such a ridiculously distracting explanation. It should have been Kerone, after all. There was no reason to think it was Astronema instead of Kerone-pretending-to-be-Astronema, but she did--and all the kids seemed to agree with her.

"What's a halieen costume?" Teisha wanted to know. She was staring up at Ashley now, craning her neck to see her face, and Ashley didn't know if that was because she trusted that everything was all right or if it was just because she was too nervous to look at Astronema anymore.

Either way, Kerone was going to have some explaining to do later.

"Well, Halloween is a special holiday on Earth..." She dared to look away from Astronema for just a moment, smiling down at Teisha. "It's the night when all the ghosts come out, all the spirits and magic and things that we don't usually see."

"Kerone is magic," one of the other kids offered hesitantly.

"That's right," Ashley agreed, her eyes back on Astronema. The princess of evil--from another dimension, unless she was totally wrong--was looking from one kid to the next as though she was trying to anticipate where the attack would come from. But...

She wasn't saying anything. And she hadn't lifted her staff since that abortive attempt when Kerone was first replaced by her alter ego. That had to be a good thing.

"That's why I thought she should try to dress up," Ashley continued, still talking to Astronema. "Cause Kerone is magic, so she'd fit right in on Halloween."

"Why does she have to dress up?" Teisha wanted to know. "She's magic just like she is."

Astronema was staring at Ashley now. She still looked tense and ready to bolt at a moment's notice, but she had stopped preparing for it. That much was obvious: she was waiting now, not getting ready. Maybe, just maybe, she would let Ashley cover and get her out of her without putting the fear of Kerone into the Center for years to come.

"Everyone dresses up on Halloween," Ashley told the kids without turning around. "You have to wear a costume to celebrate."

"But why?" Teisha asked, before she had even finished.

That was a good question. She had no idea. "Because... well, with all those spirits and ghosts and things running around, it's hard to tell which ones are good and which ones are bad, right? And you only have one night to figure it out. So people put on costumes so that the bad spirits won't know who they are."

"Ohhhh." The girl next to her made a long sound of comprehension, like that made more sense than anything else Ashley had said. "I want a costume too," she decided.

"Me too," said one of the other kids. "Can I have a costume?"

"You sure can," Ashley agreed, lifting her arm off of Teisha's shoulders and holding both hands out to her sides. "I'm just going to call one of the other teachers to help us with the costumes, okay? Just one person, to come over here and help you guys." She hoped Astronema understood that she was talking to her.

Astronema nodded, just once and very slightly. But she still tensed when Ashley moved, heading for the nearest wall comm, and Ashley slowed her pace immediately. "Teacher con," she told the unit. It lit up in acknowledgement, and a moment later she was looking at one of the on-duty staff.

"Hi Mehron," she said with what she hoped was a suitably embarrassed smile. "I'm awfully sorry, but we just got called in the middle of our walk. Would you mind sending someone out to take over for us?"

"Sure, Ashley." The teacher coordinator didn't look surprised. "There's a play group in Red Room, if you want to drop your kids there while I get someone out to them."

"That'd be great," she said, relieved. "They'll be there, all right? Thanks, Mehron."

"My pleasure," the coordinator answered.

The kids were understandably disappointed as she shuffled them across the courtyard to Red Room. "But why do you have to leave?" one of the boys complained, echoed immediately by another kid. "You just got here!"

"I know, and I'm sorry," Ashley soothed, looking over her shoulder at Astronema. She did feel guilty about that, but she was a lot more worried about what Astronema might do than she was about the kids right now. "I'll be back next week, okay? We'll go for a real field trip, then."

"Ooh, a Field. Trip!" Teisha chortled. No one here used the phrase "field trip" except for Ashley, but most of the kids knew what it meant by now. "Where are we going, where are we going?"

"It's a secret," Ashley told her, reaching for the chime outside of Red Room in case there was a game going on inside. "You all just make sure you come next week, and you'll see where we're going."

"Okay!" Teisha bounded into Red Room as soon as the door opened. Some of the older kids still looked disappointed, but the younger ones were easily placated by the promise.

"Teacher?" Ashley called, leaning into the room.

"Over here!" The voice came from the near side of the room, partially hidden by kids who were mostly older than hers. That was good, then, hers wouldn't feel like they were being shoved in with the children, she thought with a smile.

"It's Ranger Ashley," she called back. "I have to leave. Would you mind keeping an eye on my friends here until Mehron sends someone for them?"

Green-streaked blue hair burst out over top of the puppy pile on the near side of the room, and Carleis was instantly recognizable. "You got it, Ash!" he declared exuberantly. "We need some little ones to practice levitating on!"

"You keep their feet on the ground!" she shouted back, for a moment forgetting why she was there. "I want them all back in one piece next week!"

He unfolded himself from the ground, easily extricable now that most of his kids had pulled themselves free to see who the newcomers were. "You're no fun," Carleis told her, offering a hand to one of his kids.

"I hear that all the time," she retorted, already withdrawing from the door. "Feet on the floor, Carleis! See you next week," she added, smiling at her kids as they milled past her into the room. She winced as one of them brushed Astronema's hand, still confident in the belief that she was Kerone, who adored children.

Astronema looked like she had been poked with a sharp pair of scissors, but she didn't say anything.

Still, Ashley didn't chance walking back through the Center with her. "I'm going to ask DECA to teleport us," she said quietly. "Is that okay with you?"

Astronema just narrowed her eyes, assessing her without a word.

Ashley took that for assent. She flipped her digimorpher open and called the teammate who could respond the fastest. "DECA," she told her morpher. "We need an emergency teleport. Bring us back to the hangar."

DECA didn't bother to confirm, as was standard in emergencies. The air just shimmered into color around her, and the next thing she knew, she was standing outside the hangar with Astronema at her side. The doors were rolling open to discharge the zords before she could explain what was happening.

"No, don't shoot!" She knocked Astronema's staff aside without thinking. Electricity wouldn't hurt the zords, but it could sure hurt her and she should have been more careful about startling someone with reflexes like that.

"It's okay," she gasped, holding her hands up in surrender. She knew the zords would be able to hear her, no matter how quietly she spoke. "She's a friend! It's Kerone!"

A roar crashed to the ground around her ears, and she winced at Magic's rumble of disagreement. "It's not our Kerone," she shouted. It was a futile effort to be heard over the sound of the violet zord's displeasure. Why hadn't she thought of the zords? "It's JT's Kerone! She's from another dimension!"

She hadn't had time to think about it, but her subconscious must have been processing things as they happened. This didn't have to be JT's Astronema, after all. It could be anyone's Astronema. It could be their own, it could be a clone, it could be an imposter... it could be Kerone, having some sort of bizarre magic attack. There was any number of explanations, none of which she'd had time to sort through.

But her intuition told her this was Kae's rescuer. This was the woman who had come to them, to form a clandestine alliance with the Free Systems, to hand over a slave simply because she hadn't been able to let him die. This was the woman who had been about to threaten a group of children, and had stopped because Ashley got in the way. This was an Astronema who knew her.

"Let me up," she told Astronema, loud enough to be heard over Magic at this close range. "They're not going to hurt you, but they won't let you hurt me either."

Astronema looked tempted to try, but she withdrew her staff a few seconds later. She kept it at the ready. "Where am I?" she spat.

The first words she had spoken since she got here, and they made Ashley narrow her eyes in consideration. Surely she recognized the hangar. If she was who Ashley thought she was, then she had been here before. "You're at the Ranger base on KO-35," she said warily.

Another loud howl from behind them made her grit her teeth in frustration. "Magic, cut it out! We're trying to have a conversation here!"

The ground didn't even rumble as the zord ghosted up behind them, but she could see Astronema stiffen at its looming presence. A moment later, a head bigger than either of them was tall slid down across the ground to inspect the situation. Like Magic couldn't see at all if she didn't have her face in the middle of things, Ashley thought with a sigh. It was just posturing, a reminder that she was there: she must have learned that from her Ranger.

"Where's Kerone?" she asked Astronema, knowing that was the information Magic wanted most. "What happened to her? What are you doing here?"

Astronema's gaze darted from her to Magic, but she looked more haughty than intimidated. "I don't have the faintest idea what I'm doing here." She bit off each word like there was blame to be assigned and it lay with anyone but her.

"Unless this is another one of Dark Spectre's tricks," Astronema added with venom, and the sharp edge to her glare actually made Ashley flinch. "A worthless loyalty test that I do not have time for! When do you expect me to run your army if you keep snatching me out of whatever I'm doing to probe my head!"

Magic growled, a low rumbling sound that was deafening so close to her sound box. Her upper lip curled, and suddenly they were standing face to tooth with some very sharp incisors.

"She's not lying," Ashley told the zord with a sigh. "Dark Spectre used to do it to Kerone, too."

The growl resurfaced, more of a mutter this time, quieter but no less bitter.

"I don't know where Kerone is." Ashley studied Astronema, knowing they wouldn't get anything from her as long as she thought she was talking to Dark Spectre or his minions. On the other hand, the fact that she thought she might be meant that she didn't have any better idea what she was doing here than they did. And that wasn't going to help them find Kerone.

Ashley shook her head once before lifting her digimorpher again. "We'd better get the others."

"What do you think?" Andros asked, keeping his voice low as they rounded yet another corner in the old government building.

"I think that someday one of Kinwon's less flattering soundbites is going to show up on the afternoon news," Kristet murmured. "And I'd just like to deny all responsibility for or knowledge of such an event in advance."

Andros' mouth quirked upward at the corner. "Got it. You know and see nothing. Which a lot of people will believe, considering you have... what, four cameras running right now?"

"Three," Kristet corrected idly. "I could turn the other two on, though, if it would make you feel more comfortable."

Andros snorted, but otherwise he didn't bother to answer. He didn't trust Kristet to obey the rules, but he did trust her intent. She didn't always do what she was told. She did do what she thought was best--and she only did her own thing when she had reason to think that her idea of "best" was clearer than that of anyone else around her.

He heard comm beep, and saw her gave it a dismissive glance out of the corner of his eye. When she stopped, though, he paused too and gave her a questioning look. "Problem?"

"Maybe." She waved him on, already focused solely on her comm. "Go ahead, I'll catch up with you in a moment."

He nodded, heading on down the hall. They were done with the Council, somewhat to his surprise. Things really did go faster with Kristet and her cameras there. He still needed to check in with DECA, though, and that would be easier to do if he wasn't talking over whatever their media liaison was trying to listen to.

Andros stepped out of the building and kept on walking, knowing that everything in the immediate vicinity of the structure would be monitored. He stopped halfway between the building itself and the gate that surrounded it. That was about as secure as any place around here got, and he wasn't going to say anything that required absolute privacy anyway.

His digimorpher chimed before he could flip it open. He acknowledged the signal--Ashley--and smiled to himself. He and Ashley used to joke that the rest of the team had preternatural timing... and it was true. It was as true of the two of them as it was of any of the rest. They knew when to call each other with an accuracy that had nothing to do with telepathy.

"We need you back at the hangar," Ashley's voice told him. "Are you busy?"

"No," he said, frowning. "We're mostly done here. Are you all right?"

"I'm fine." He didn't miss her subtle emphasis on the first word. "Come as soon as you can get away."

That didn't sound good. But it wasn't an all-out emergency call, either, so he tried not to worry. "What about the others?"

"Zhane and Ty, if they're free. Otherwise don't worry about it."

"I'll be there soon," he promised. She was calling in all the Rangers, but she hadn't had DECA alert them? What could possibly be going on?

Unfortunately, he could come up with a lot of answers to that question. And most of them were very, very bad.

He turned at the sound of someone coming out of the building behind him. Kristet didn't look any happier than he felt, and his frown deepened. "Problem?" he repeated as she joined him.

"Abersiia," she said succinctly. "It's showed up in Sai Kung, and it has new symptoms."

"Sai Kung?" He didn't even have to think about it. "None of us have been there recently." Karen hadn't been there at all, but there was no reason to say so where anyone could overhear. Zhane was their cover story, and Zhane it would stay.

"No," Kristet agreed. "Which means that either the virus is circulating that quickly, without any of the transit authorities noticing it, or that we aren't the original carriers of the Sai Kung strain."

That didn't make any sense, and they shared a long look that didn't tell Andros anything. Kae was patient zero. He had to be. It was beyond coincidence that the virus could have shown up in two different places at the same time after more than a decade of dormancy.

"What new symptoms?" he asked abruptly.

Kristet tilted her head the slightest bit, managing to express her bafflement without a word. "People are... seeing things," she said at last. "Hallucinations, maybe. Maybe something else, it's hard to say. But three different people, all of them infected with the abersiia virus, have reported seeing things that they say can't have been real."

Hallucinations weren't the most common pseudo symptom, nor were they something that people tended to imagine. And Kristet was right--they had all been briefed on causes, symptoms, and treatment of abersiia. Hallucinations didn't come into it.

Andros lifted his digimorpher again. "Ashley."

"Go ahead," her voice replied a moment later.

"How many people are with you at the hangar?" he wanted to know.

There was a pause. "Three," she answered. "Karen, Kae, and... Kerone."

"Have DECA scan you," he told her. "I want a full medical check any time someone comes or goes from the hangar. I'm going to have DECA check me and Kristet, and tell Zhane and Ty that they have to do the same if they try to come back before we get there."

"Okay--" He could almost hear her frown. "What are we looking for?"

"Abersiia. The virus may have changed since it got here and that vaccine won't mean anything if it's mutating already.

"DECA," Andros added, knowing she monitored every morpher. "Kristet and I are together. Scan us both and if we're clean, teleport us back to the hangar."

"Acknowledged," DECA's voice answered calmly. "Scanning now."

He exchanged glances with Kristet, and there was a tense moment of waiting. Then DECA's voice informed them, "I am not detecting any sign of the abersiia virus. Teleporting."

The hangar doors were open when they materialized outside of it, but that wasn't unusual. What was unusual was that Kerone had chosen to look like Astronema today, and that the rest of the Rangers seemed to be holding an outdoor conference of some kind. Andros glanced around for Zhane automatically, but he came up empty.

He didn't bother to keep his digimorpher open. *Zhane,* he called silently.

*Yeah,* the familiar voice came back.

*Ash wants us all back at the hangar,* Andros told him. *As soon as you can. Have DECA do a medical scan first.*

Zhane didn't ask questions. *You got it,* he said easily.

"This is Kristet," Ashley was saying. "She's a friend of ours. And Andros, the Red Ranger... I think you know him?"

The way she asked the question set off warning bells in Andros' mind. He opened his mouth, looking from her to Kerone--and he stiffened. This wasn't Kerone. Not at all. He knew his sister; he knew her as Kerone and as Astronema, and this wasn't any Astronema he'd ever known. "Who are you?" he demanded.

"Who are you?" the fake Astronema retorted. "You don't look like any Red Ranger I've ever seen."

"Ashley?" he said dangerously. "What's going on?"

Ashley only sighed, and that didn't make him feel any better. "I wish I knew," she told him. "Kerone and I were at the Center when suddenly she was gone and Astronema was here. She has to be from JT's dimension, but she says she doesn't have any more idea how she got here than we do."

"JT," Andros muttered. "How did you ever survive having him on your team for an entire year?"

"I don't think it was his fault," Ashley said, not as though she was convinced. "All his interdimensional experiments were with morphers, Power sources... Rangers, not--" She gestured in a sort of all-encompassing way.

"Kerone's a Ranger." Andros was thinking out loud, not actually objecting, and Ashley seemed to know it.

She replied as though they were following the same train of thought. "And Astronema's not. But she's jumped between dimensions before. She brought us Kae."

"They tell me you're my brother," Astronema challenged. She was looking him over, somewhat scathingly, he thought.

Andros felt his lips quirk, and he gave her an equally contemptuous look in return. He knew this game. He'd played it with his own Astronema time and again. "Can't choose your relatives," he taunted, and her eyes widened a little.

"Andros--" Ashley looked worried. "Kerone's gone. At best she's lost. At worst..."

She didn't have to spell it out for him. "She and Astronema have switched places," Andros said grimly. "I know."

The incoming whine of supernaturally fast machinery heralded the arrival of the Black and Silver Galaxy Gliders. Astronema looked defensive, Kristet surprised, and Ashley relieved. Andros just threw them a wave as he lifted his digimorpher again--they would have to get DECA some outdoor projection equipment.

"DECA," he told his communicator. "I need you to scan for Kerone's magic, anywhere on KO-35 or RS-42, and then anywhere in the system after that. If she's here somewhere, I want to find her. I also want you to contact Justin for me, see if he can get JT to confirm that he doesn't have anything to do with this. Then we're going to have to start looking for dimensional distortion: at the Center, on the planet, out in space. Got it?"

"I have already initiated scans," DECA responded smoothly. "I will communicate with Eltare momentarily, and switch magical scans to dimensional ones if I am unable to locate Kerone."

"Good." He lowered his morpher in time to meet Zhane's questioning gaze as the Silver Ranger demorphed. "We have a problem."

Zhane and Ty arrived in typically dramatic fashion, and Karen didn't have too much trouble coaxing Kae away from his hiding place to join them. She had been left in charge of Kerone's kid that morning, and when the zords bounded out of the hangar to greet Ashley she had hauled him along out of curiosity. Now he was getting twitchy with the open space and she was stuck following him as he wandered farther and farther away.

Just as she'd suspected, Karen thought with a sigh. Free baby-sitting.

Although to be fair, he was Kerone's responsibility. Usually. It was just that today, with her being stuck at the hangar anyway...

Yeah, Karen scoffed. That was how it started. She hated baby-sitting. She really didn't like kids, and she had thought she was beyond the stage of her life where she had to pretend that she did. Apparently not. Especially if Kerone was going to disappear without warning and send her evil duplicate back in her place.

"When did that become a greeting?" Zhane was complaining, if somewhat warily, when she came within hearing range of the other Rangers. "'We have a problem.' It's not 'hello, how are you,' that's all I'm saying."

He was eyeing Astronema while he said it, though. If Karen had to guess? She'd say Zhane already had a pretty good idea of what the problem was.

That was when Astronema startled them all. The name was quieter than any normal conversational tone, but perfectly audible in the lull between comments. "Zhane?"

Zhane gave her a sharp look. "Astronema?" he returned, with an almost obnoxious politeness.

It made Astronema stiffen, and she asked the same thing she had asked Andros when he first appeared, just as Kae was first wandering off. "Who are you?"

For some reason, that brought a smile to Zhane's face. "Well, that's a complicated question," he drawled, looking as relaxed as any of them in the face of their former enemy. "I'd ask for your identity in return, but I think I've already got a pretty good idea. So let's try this: where's your counterpart?"

"My... what?" Astronema was frowning at him, Karen realized. Kae trembled beneath her hands, and she pulled him a little closer instinctively. She'd be scared of Astronema too, if she was him.

"You," Zhane said impatiently. "Our you. The person you kidnapped to be here."

"I didn't kidnap anyone," she snapped.

She was so vehement that she almost drowned out the voice coming from just in front of Karen. A small voice, one that Karen had never heard before, and it actually took her a second to figure out who it belonged to.

"Kerone?" Kae said, very softly. As quiet as it was, the word was perfectly distinct, and they all turned to stare at him in surprise.

Zhane found his voice first. "That's not Kerone, Kae. That's someone who looks like her, okay? She's gone for a little while, but she'll be back soon."

For a moment, no one said anything. Then Kae opened up his mouth, and Karen could feel him drawing breath. Zhane must have seen it too, because he had already started toward the boy when Kae started to scream. And he just kept screaming, shrilly, incessantly, hitting Zhane when the Silver Ranger tried to pull him away from Karen. Zhane took him anyway, picking him up and holding on while Kae kicked and pounded and screamed at him.

It was a short temper tantrum, at least by Karen's standards, even if it seemed to go on forever when they couldn't talk over him. It was a sad testament to how little strength Kae really had, that he couldn't scream for more than a few minutes at a time. In her experience, screaming fits like that were really only getting started by the time Kae collapsed into tears.

Zhane just hitched him up a little higher in his arms and rested his head against Kae's briefly. In the growing quiet, an electronic sound made Kristet take a step back and activate some kind of communicator. Astronema looked like she couldn't decide which was the bigger threat, that noise or the sobbing child in Zhane's arms.

In the end, they all just stood there awkwardly, waiting for Kristet to finish whatever she was doing.

She looked around at them when she put her communicator away. At Andros' nod, she offered, "Twelve abersiia patients have reported hallucinations. Ten of them are in Sai Kung... two of them are here, in Keyota."

"Do we know anything about the virus itself?" Andros asked, frowning. The news must have meant something to him. "Is it mutating? Where are these new symptoms coming from? Is the treatment still effective on these new cases?"

"So far, the treatment is effective, but no one who's reported hallucinations has been under medical care long enough to recover all the way." Kristet looked apologetic. "We won't know for another day, at least. I don't have any word about the virus, whether it's mutating or not."

"Okay, stop," Zhane interrupted. His voice immediately silenced Kae, and he patted the back of the boy's head gently. "This," he said, nodding toward Astronema, "is a big problem." He turned to indicate Kristet and declared, "That is not our fault. So could we focus, here?"

Karen closed her mouth, not about to risk Zhane's wrath. Especially when she didn't know anything. She had never heard him so short with anyone, let alone his friends.

"What do you want us to do?" Andros asked quietly. She thought it was supposed to be a rhetorical question, but Zhane answered anyway.

"I want you to use your super-telepathy to try to reach Astrea," he informed Andros. Catching Ashley's eye, he added, "I want you to get DECA scanning the place where you were when this happened--" Here he jerked his head at Astronema before continuing, "And I want you to tell me how you know my name."

Then he seemed to reconsider. "And," he declared, before anyone else could jump in. He shot a stare in Kristet's direction, a look that she would have called a glare on anyone but Zhane. "I want you to go do whatever it is you do to prove this new virus thing has nothing to do with us, so we can worry about more important stuff. Okay?"

"Zhane." Andros didn't look at all disturbed by Zhane's string of orders. "We're going to get her back."

"Yeah, no kidding we will," Zhane snapped. "Any time now. How about now? Or now? Is now good for you? Because now is good for me!"

"Yeah." Andros didn't flinch, perfectly calm in the face of Zhane's uncharacteristic frustration. "Now is good," he agreed quietly.

Zhane held his gaze for a long moment. Finally his eyes closed, and he might have taken a deep breath. But all he did was nod, press Kae a little closer to him, and turn away from them all for a long moment.

9. Insurgents

It was home. Funny that the place would still seem so familiar, so... safe. The one thing it had never been was still her first impression upon returning. Not that she trusted it, not a single thing about it, and the first thing she did was to look for her captor--

But the second thing she did was smile. The Dark Fortress had been her ship for a long time, and there was nothing about it that she didn't know. Without a single discernible awareness in the vicinity, organic or mechanical, she shifted into a less recognizable form and started to inspect her surroundings.

She was careful not to move, in case whatever had brought her here was about to send her back with just as little warning. But she identified the junction at which she was standing, the nearest surveillance devices, and the sound of approaching footsteps. That made her turn, pivoting in place to face the wall as though working. No one would question a quantron at work.

Ecliptor. She recognized his voice immediately, growling at someone who was wisely keeping silent. "When you find her report back to me," Ecliptor said harshly. "Say nothing to Astronema."

The twin sounds of quantron acknowledgement were his only response, and she raised an eyebrow as he stomped past her in the narrow hallway. His mechanical escort evaporated and she heard him mutter to himself, "These games weren't cute when you were ten, Princess."

He was looking for... her? She frowned, turning her head just enough that she could watch him go. Had he dispatched those quantrons to find her? He used to do that, sometimes, when she didn't answer the intercom. It was an insult that someone would expect her to listen when they wouldn't go to the trouble of coming to her in person, so she made them look.

She had known that infuriated Ecliptor. Her lips twitched, and she told herself firmly that the time for childish glee was long past. Like any good soldier in a dictatorship, he never reproached her for the problems she caused him. And like any good dictator, she had taken his silence as acceptance.

She returned to her study of the wall, frowning again. Those days were over. He couldn't be looking for her, not unless he had been responsible for her sudden presence on the ship. She had given the Dark Fortress to Ecliptor with the unspoken understanding that she would never set foot on it again. Yet here she was, and someone had to have brought her here.

*Andros,* she thought intently. Her brother had probably already gotten a frantic call from Ashley by now. *I'm on the Dark Fortress.*

The answer was longer in coming than it should have been. *Kerone?*

*No, the spy goddess,* she retorted. *Who do you think? Where's Ashley?*

She should have tried Ashley first, she thought with a sigh. Andros could be shockingly slow on the uptake sometimes. If there weren't weapons being fired all around him, or things exploding in front of his face, he could be daydreaming a galaxy away for all anyone knew.

*Ashley?* she thought. *Are you still at the Center?*

*Kerone... what are you doing on the Dark Fortress?* Andros sounded odd, but she figured that was a fair question. Too bad she didn't have an answer.

*I wish I knew,* she replied. *One minute I was at the Center with Ashley, and the next thing I know, I'm surrounded by Ecliptor's quantron army.*

Ashley wasn't answering, which worried her. *Ashley?* she tried again.

When this produced no response, she told Andros, *Ashley's not answering. Get DECA to look for her. I'm worried that whatever sent me to the Dark Fortress sent her somewhere to. Obviously not here--probably not here,* she amended, looking around. *I'll start looking, just in case.*

*Kerone.* Andros' thoughts sounded disturbingly disorganized. *You can't be with Ashley. Ashley's on Earth. And you're... we lost you on KO-35."

Those words made her spine tingle, but she was controlled enough not to shiver. *When?* she demanded. Could she have lost time somehow? Was this a future far removed from the day she had woken up to this morning?

*Four years ago,* he told her. *When KO-35 was invaded. Zhane and I were the only--this is crazy. I'm crazy; why am I imagining this? Why do I do this to myself?*

*You're not imagining anything,* she snapped. *I'm here and I'm real and I want some answers. KO-35 was invaded again? By whom? What happened to Ashley and Ty? Where are you?*

There was no answer, and now she was starting to worry. The Dark Fortress was still there, she reminded herself. Ecliptor was here. She wasn't totally alone, and she wasn't exactly in unfamiliar territory. She had a place to start from and she would be able to make her own way if she needed to. And it was starting to look like she might need to, at least for a while.

*Andros,* she demanded. *Talk to me.*

It seemed to jolt him out of what was probably a haze of self-recrimination. *We met Ash two years ago,* he thought slowly. *I don't know who 'Ty' is.*

She didn't like the rapid escalation of the weird, and she thought he could probably hear it in her tone. *Your teammate, Ty. Tixe. The Black Ranger.*

Andros' mental voice was as short as hers. *Kaeth was the Black Ranger.*

Kaeth. The name sounded vaguely familiar, but she couldn't place it. *I don't know any Kaeth,* she told Andros. *But if I've somehow lost four years then I...* Something useful finally occurred to her. *How old are you?*

*Twenty. How old are you?* He sounded defensive, but the answer actually made her relax a little. She wasn't in the future. She was in some bizarre dream, or loyalty test, or weird alternate dimension--

She was in an alternate dimension. That was it. Was that even possible? Last year the former Astro Rangers had all started seeing things from JT's dimension. What if it was happening to her now?

*Do you know JT?* she asked abruptly.

*Of course I know JT. I guess that proves you're a figment of my imagination,* he added, *since there's no way my sister would know him.*

Common ground. It might not make any sense, but she was starting to get a vague idea of what might have happened. *You're right about one thing,* Kerone remarked, rapidly trying to rearrange her worldview. *I don't know JT. But I do know Justin, and I'm pretty sure I'm in the wrong dimension right now.*

But if she was here, and Ecliptor was looking for Astronema, then...

This could potentially be very bad. *I think Astronema's on KO-35,* she thought. *With Ashley. And the children...* Oh, she really hoped that Ashley had been able to keep her double from doing anything too destructive. Especially with children around.

*Kerone,* Andros repeated, for the third time. *You're... Kerone. From Justin's dimension.*

"You there." An unexpectedly human sounding voice made her freeze, but she didn't turn around. Quantrons never assumed they were the ones being addressed, even when they were. "I have a task for you."

The proximity of the voice made her tilt her head, and it confirmed, "Yes, you. Astronema wants copies of her upper level surveillance loaded onto this device. Leave it in the command center by the tactical grid when you're done."

She turned mechanically, wondering who this person thought he was. Human, at least as far as she could tell, short dark hair and a mustache. She'd never seen him before. And what he was asking her to do was absolutely prohibited. She didn't care how different this Dark Fortress was or wasn't, there was no way she would have trusted anyone with the upper level surveillance.

*Kerone,* Andros' voice intruded. *You have to get out of there.*

*Shut up,* she snapped reflexively. *I'm busy.*

"Who do I report to?" she asked the dark man. She took the device he thrust at her, repeating her question when he didn't seem inclined to reply.

"What?" Maybe he didn't understand quantron speech. He wouldn't get far on the Dark Fortress if he didn't, though. "Oh, never mind, just get going. Go, shoo!"

He would pay for that, she thought. Behind the metallic mask her eyes narrowed as she watched him hurry off down the corridor. That was the stride of someone who didn't want to get caught, and suddenly she was quite sure that he knew what he was doing was forbidden.

He would never expect a quantron to follow him, so she didn't even wait until he had rounded the corner to start after him. She did make the device disappear, though. If he turned around, he would see just another anonymous soldier. Could be any quantron walking along the hall behind him--any quantron except the one he had just been talking to, since this one didn't have anything in its hands.

She rounded the corner and stopped in her tracks. The dark little man was gone, and in his place was a figure straight out of her nightmares. She should pivot and go the other way, she should do it now, but she was frozen in place as she stared after the retreating form of Darkonda.

*Andros.* She needed any reassurance she could get right now, and she reached out for him instinctively. *Darkonda's here. On the Dark Fortress.*

*Who?* The question reminded her that this wasn't the brother she'd grown up with and lost, the one she had rediscovered so recently. *Who's Darkonda?*

*He kidnapped me,* she said matter-of-factly. She forced herself to turn around and start back down the corridor toward her original position. *When I was little, he took me away from KO-35 and told me my entire family had been killed by the Power Rangers. He sold me to Ecliptor.*

*What?* Even Andros' thoughts sounded horrified. *Kerone, you were never kidnapped. You were a Ranger for KO-35 until the planet was invaded four years ago and...*

*And I died,* she finished for him. *With the rest of the team, right? Except for you and Zhane. You two escaped to Eltare. Right?*

There was a long silence. *Zhane wasn't a Ranger,* he thought at last, but she got the feeling it wasn't what he meant to say.

*And I didn't die,* she told him. *So we were both wrong. Your dimension has an Astronema, and it's me. Believe me, I've met her. Your Kerone is alive, and she's not as evil as you think.*

He didn't answer, and she considered her options. She had anonymity as a quantron and under normal circumstances could probably roam the ship at will indefinitely. But Ecliptor was already looking for Astronema, which meant that he was going to figure out she was missing sooner rather than later. What would he do when that happened? As well as she knew Ecliptor, she didn't think she could predict his reaction to that discovery.

There were several plausible possibilities, of course. One, he would cover up her disappearance until she returned or he determined her location. Two, he would declare an intruder alert as an excuse to lock the ship down and search every section there was. Three, he would assume control of the Dark Fortress himself and prepare a very nasty welcome for her upon her return.

She was going to have to make sure he found Astronema--and soon. That was all there was to it, and she was fairly sure she could pull it off. But she would need a lot more information than she had right now.

The best thing she had going for her right now was the fact that Darkonda apparently believed a quantron could walk into Astronema's inner sanctum without being questioned. Only fair, she thought, that his treachery would provide her with such a valuable piece of information. She would have to thank him for that later.

Assuming he wasn't completely delusional, of course.

*Kerone.* Andros sounded upset but steady. *You need to get out of there. Now. You did it before, when you brought Ashley back to us. Do it again. Come here. We can keep you safe until we figure out what happened.*

She smiled to herself as she abandoned her "work" station and headed for the upper levels. It was nice of him to suggest such a thing, even if it was impossible. *I can't do that,* she told him. *Astronema's gone, and if she stays gone, any hope you had of an alliance with her is gone too. I have to stay here.*

She didn't have to spell it out for him. *You're going to impersonate Astronema? You'll get yourself killed!*

*Maybe,* she agreed, hooking clumsy metal fingers over the ladder rungs and starting to climb. *And if I don't, maybe I'll get you killed. There's more of you than there are of me, Andros.*

*You can't count numbers when you're talking about people's lives!* His fury filled her head, and she noted that she'd hit a sore spot. She supposed she shouldn't be surprised. He lived in a war zone, after all.

*No,* she agreed soothingly. *But you can count choices. I choose to stay.*

It had been Zhane who hauled him out of the war room. It had been Zhane who locked the door behind them, keeping everyone else on the other side. It was Zhane who stood behind him now, hands on his shoulders, while he slumped over the conference table and tried to convince himself that he hadn't gone crazy.

And it was Zhane who sat down next to him when he lifted his head, watching him without question or suspicion or curiosity. Zhane had never asked anything of him, and it looked like he wasn't going to start now. Kerone had always said he was too good for Andros... too good for any of them.

*Please be careful,* he begged someone who might or might not still be listening.

He couldn't help waiting, holding his breath in the hope of a reply. It came, and it crushed him with its casual assurance. *Same to you,* his sister answered.

Unable to face Zhane, he turned his head back to the table and whispered, "I'm sorry." To whom and for what, he couldn't be sure anymore. But he was sorry.

"Sorry doesn't get us anywhere," Zhane said gently. "It's not about the past, it's about the future. That's what we're fighting for."

Andros stared at the table for a long moment, wondering how Zhane always knew what to say. "What if we're fighting for the wrong thing?" he asked rhetorically.

"We're not," Zhane replied. That was all, just we're not. Decision made, agonizing over, time to take action. Just like Kerone.

"It's true," Andros blurted out. "Astronema really is Kerone."

There was a moment of silence, and he looked up at Zhane's totally neutral expression. There was nothing revealed on that face, never had been, and Andros sometimes wondered if that was just the way he was or if that was what his life had made him. Mask or manner or both?

"She's alive," Zhane said at last. "That's great news."

"She's Astronema!" Andros shouted. "She's--"

He closed his mouth with an effort, clenching his fists. He'd thought he had come to terms with the possibility. He'd even tried to put it aside, knowing that it didn't help him make any of the decisions that had to be made. But to hear her voice inside his head, to know beyond the shadow of a doubt that this was no trick, no illusion meant to break him, just the true and honest confusion of a girl who never should have ended up where she was...

He could feel tears sting his eyes. The anger and the despair surged just as fast and hard as the hope that lately seemed to spring from the strangest places, and then he was being held and he'd never done anything to deserve the faith that Zhane had in him. But he took it, and he drew strength from it. He let the Silver Ranger comfort him during the times that no one else should see.

"Don't you know," Zhane whispered. "This is why people follow you."

It was so strange, so unexpected. He wouldn't let go of Zhane and he wanted to hear his voice but the words didn't mean anything to him. His entire team, lost... except for the one who became Astronema. How could it have even happened?

"Because you still feel things," Zhane continued softly, not seeming to expect a reply. "So many people here are hardened to the reality of a life at war. You've never stopped mourning the people who are lost, or celebrating the ones who survive."

Their morphers had come back to him after the fall of Sai Kung. Morphers didn't leave their Rangers, not ever, not while they were alive and fighting... not while they were alive and fighting for good. But she couldn't have been evil then, she couldn't, it wasn't possible.

She couldn't have been evil. She couldn't have died if she was still alive. And her morpher had appeared in his keeping before he left the planet.

One of those three things had to be untrue.

"Don't blame yourself, Andros." Zhane's voice was like warmth inside his soul. "And don't ever give up, because you're everything we need."

And this was everything he needed. Zhane kept him together. "You're what I need," he mumbled, squeezing his eyes shut to he let their embrace keep everything else at bay, just for a little while.

He wasn't sure how long they stayed like that. Probably not as long as he thought, but after the first minutes had passed it could have been an hour and he wouldn't have known. Zhane just sat there and held him, shifting occasionally to get closer or more comfortable, and Andros tried not to think.

It didn't work, of course, but he held out against thoughts of what had to be done for a long time. Better to hang onto Zhane for as long as he could, because who knew when this could be taken from them. He couldn't imagine life without Zhane, and so he didn't. But he didn't take it for granted, either. Zhane was life.

"We need to tell the others," he said at last, not moving.

"Are you sure?" Zhane didn't sound skeptical, just... steady. "Would it change anything for them to know that Astronema is Kerone?"

"It's not just that." Finally he pulled back, keeping his hands on Zhane's arms. Then he thought better of it and lifted one hand to his face, then the other, trying to dry his eyes and push his hair back at the same time.

The gesture made Zhane smile, though what was funny about him falling apart he had no idea. Zhane just reached out, touching his face to reassure him before standing up and moving around behind him. He felt Zhane's fingers in his hair a moment later. "Let me get this out of your way," Zhane offered.

Andros didn't answer, which Zhane correctly read as assent. "She contacted me telepathically," he said instead. "She's switched places with the Kerone from Justin's dimension, and that Kerone came looking for me in my head."

Zhane's fingers kept stroking through his hair, apparently unsurprised by this revelation. "I thought JT stopped with the ID experiments so no one would switch anymore."

The idea that JT would actually give up one of his favorite research projects struck Andros as wildly unlikely, but he knew what Zhane meant. JT would have at least been more discreet about it, and that meant changing whatever he and Justin were doing so that it didn't get the attention of every Ranger on the planet. "I don't think JT did this," Andros muttered, staring down at the floor.

It didn't make sense on too many different levels. Not just the fact that JT had said he would stop, or the fact that JT ought to be too busy to come up with something so crazy in the first place. But the fact that Kerone didn't have a morpher anymore. The fact that she switched when no one else did. The fact that she hadn't expected it, hadn't even thought of it as a possibility when she first switched... that didn't sound like JT's doing.

"Is that why you wanted to tell them?" Zhane guessed. Andros could feel his hair being manipulated gently, pulled away from his face and twisted into what was probably a braid. "So you could ask him about it?"

"Yeah." They were going to have to help her out, if she was determined to take Astronema's place for the duration. And what was the duration? What if Astronema had already returned? Or worse, what if she returned tomorrow or the next day, after Kerone had already had time to have an effect on the Dark Fortress? Wouldn't that put Astronema in just as much danger as Kerone if she didn't know?

*Kerone?* He wasn't sure what he expected, but her immediate response wasn't it. No response, maybe. How had she even managed to communicate with him over such a distance? He knew real telepaths weren't supposed to be limited that way, but the two of them had never put it to the test.

Her voice was achingly familiar. *Yes?*

He swallowed. *Nothing. I'm sorry.*

*Andros.* She sounded concerned, and he wondered what she was doing that she could afford to be distracted like this. *Are you all right?*

I thought you were dead! He wanted to shout at her but he didn't have the energy or the emotion left over. I thought Astronema was trying to trick me! To lose her, only to get her back in so twisted a way... would it have been better if she had died?

Ashley wouldn't think so. Ashley would tell him that Astronema really was good, deep down inside. Ashley would say that Astronema was just confused, that she didn't remember who she was, that something had been done to her and it wasn't her fault. Even Kerone herself had admitted that she used to be Astronema--the Kerone from Justin's dimension, anyway--and that she had found her way home in spite of it.

How, he wondered suddenly? How had this other Kerone remembered who she was? How had she come back to him when Astronema seemed incapable of anything but lies and devastation? What was it about her that made Ashley trust her?

*I just wanted to hear your voice,* Andros thought sadly. It was hard to lie to a telepath. *I've missed you. I miss you so much.*

*We'll talk,* Kerone promised without hesitation. *Later. It's not too late for us, or for her. Okay, Andros?*

Somehow, she made him believe. Maybe he had to. Maybe if he didn't he was no different than the rest of the League Rangers, fighting a war without hope. *We'll help you,* he told her. *We can tell you everything Astronema told us. It's not much, but you'll know where the underground stands--on this end, at least.*

*Good.* There was a pause. *I'm going to need that, but not right now. I have to deal with some other things first.*

*Go,* he agreed. *Deal. I'll be here.*

He thought he could hear a smile in her voice when she replied, *I know.*

He couldn't make himself answer, and he knew he shouldn't when she was busy. He was grateful when Zhane's hands settled on his shoulders again, apparently finished with his hair. "Want to go now?" the Silver Ranger inquired. "Or should we wait out the strategy session?"

They had waited long enough already. "Let's go now," Andros said, feeling Zhane's hands slide off his shoulders as he stood. He caught one hand before Zhane could turn away, pulling him into another hug. "Thank you," he whispered.

Zhane turned his head and pressed a kiss to his neck. His arms tightened in wordless support, and another long moment passed. Finally Andros straightened, their gazes meeting before they headed for the door.

JT was missing when they re-entered the war room. Every eye in the room turned toward them, and Andros might have felt embarrassed if not for Zhane's unwavering presence at his side. "Where's JT?" he demanded.

It was Saryn who answered. "He left to take an emergency call from an undisclosed source."

Andros exchanged glances with Zhane. "Where?"

"He was summoned to Co-Op," Saryn replied. His intent gaze said that he suspected something already, but Andros didn't feel like explaining twice. Or three times.

"I need to talk to him," Andros said simply. "We'll be back before you're done."

JT wasn't in Co-Op, but that wasn't much of a surprise. When Saryn said "Co-Op" Andros had immediately filled in "JT's office." The room had once been a secondary strategy council, but JT had taken it over as he started to spend more and more time in Co-Op. He actually cleared people to enter now, and Andros and Zhane had to wait until he admitted them.

JT was talking to himself again. Or rather, he was talking to his counterpart on the monitor, but he waved them in without interrupting Justin. Justin stopped when he saw them anyway, and JT filled them in curtly. "Kerone's disappeared."

"She's here," Andros replied. "On the Dark Fortress. Is Astronema with them?"

JT just stared at him, but on the screen, Justin nodded. "Yeah, Astronema's on KO-35. She doesn't have any idea what happened."

"Neither does Kerone," Andros told him. "She thought she was in the future at first. Did you do this?" he asked JT.

JT held up his hands in a warding gesture. "This is the first I've heard of it. How do you know what's going on?"

"Kerone contacted me." It was almost worth it to see the startled look on JT's face. "Telepathically. I told her to come here, but she won't. She's going to stay on the Dark Fortress and try to be Astronema so our whole rebel alliance doesn't disintegrate."

JT caught up fast, he'd give him that. "If she can pull it off," he said thoughtfully, "this could actually work to our advantage. Assuming she's any more trustworthy than our Astronema... we'd have a direct line to the Dark Fortress. Through you."

Andros could only stare at him. He felt Zhane's hand settle against the small of his back, a subtle gesture meant to calm. It was the only thing that kept him from snarling at a boy who was too cold and calculating for the youthful face he wore. A boy that maybe reminded him a little too much of himself.

"You can trust her," Justin was saying. "She's a Power Ranger."

Zhane spoke before JT could reply. "If she's willing to risk her life to help us, we've got to help her in return," he told the screen. "Astronema knows what information she needs, right? Can you get her to tell us so we can feed it to Kerone?"

"I'm not in contact with her right now," Justin answered. "I'll pass your message on to Andros and have him see what he can do."

"Good." Andros tried to ignore the fact that he was sending a message to himself. "Ask him if Ashley's all right, while you're at it. Kerone was worried."

He got odd looks from all three of them, but Justin nodded. "Can do."

She hadn't expected to sleep well. She knew she needed it, needed any sleep she could get at this point, and she knew that this was her best chance to get it. She had been assured that this structure was secure, and thanks to the curfew it was also dark and quiet until six in the morning. Ironic that she had been promised better sleeping conditions undercover than she had had for years on Eltare.

It couldn't quiet her mind. It couldn't turn off the underlying tension, the certainty that she could be called to action at any hour. But somehow, without her conscious acceptance, it did soothe her into a superficial sleep. She didn't notice until she woke up the first time, but sleep did come, and after the first doze it stayed with her for hours.

The second time, she woke up to the sound of a woman's voice. Someone calling her name, someone she didn't immediately recognize... she sat up, instantly alert in the darkness. "Who's there?"

*Ashley?*

The sound came again, distinct but directionless, and she grabbed her field jacket as she rolled out of bed. "Who's there?" she asked again.

This time there was no reply. She fumbled her way to the door, cursing the curfew that kept her from turning on the lights. She reached for her weapon, checked the resistance teleporter in her pocket, and listened for a moment before cracking the door. There was no sound from the hallway.

Something was wrong. She didn't know what, but her skin was crawling and that voice had to have come from somewhere. Maybe the first time she had been dreaming, but not the second. She had been fully awake the second time.

The room across the hall was Cam's, and it was empty. That made her nervous. Under normal circumstances, she would have pegged him as the type to stay up till all hours working on some pet project that no one else would even understand. But this was war, this was occupation, and the curfew was no joke. A single light would bring soldiers to their door, and she was sure Cam was too careful for that.

She put her hand on the wall and started to feel her way toward the front of the house. She paused every couple of steps to listen, but she still heard nothing. The work room was empty. The living room was empty. The kitchen was empty too, and that meant she was the only person in this house right now.

She shouldn't leave. She knew that, she knew she didn't have a chance on her own in a world she no longer understood. But if she was on her own anyway, she liked her odds a lot better if she was mobile. No one wanted to be a sitting duck.

She didn't bother with supplies. She had her field jacket. She wasn't wasting any time if her nearest ally was suddenly missing. Anything that could take an experienced ninja out of the house without her knowing it could catch her in less than the time it took to find a flashlight.

She heard movement when she pushed the back door loose. Movement from outside. It made her hesitate, ears straining, trying to decide whether to run for the front door or hold position. Had whatever it was noticed the door move?

A weapon armed, the soft hiss penetrating the silence. She tensed to leap back when a whisper held her in place. "Ash?"

She couldn't tell if the voice had actually called her "Ash" or if it just spoke to softly for her to hear the rest of her name. "Yeah," she breathed, figuring the enemy didn't make a habit of whispering people's names when they were caught sneaking out of their house at night.

"Cam," the voice whispered. Whether that was an identification, a request, or a protest, she couldn't tell, but she held her ground and a moment later a shadow ghosted up to the door. She stepped back to let it enter, not totally surprised when it was followed by a second.

The taller shadow closed the door behind them. "Away from the door," it muttered.

She tried not to jump when she felt a hand on her arm. Cam, she thought, catching a sparkle from the necklace he wore as he guided her down the hall. There was no sound from behind her, but she didn't doubt that the second shadow was following.

He steered her into the work room, stopping just inside the door. "Sorry to wake you," he whispered. "You have good hearing."

"We're at war too," Ashley whispered back.

He didn't acknowledge that. "Hunter says they've stepped up the raids. Maybe random, maybe not. We made some noise bringing you in yesterday."

"Raids, where?" she whispered, alarmed. "After curfew, even?"

"They're going house to house in town." The taller shadow must be Hunter. It was a little disconcerting to be talking to people she barely knew when she couldn't even see them, but it blunted the news a little too. Somehow things seemed a little less immediate in the darkness.

"Will they come out this way?" she wondered.

"Doubt it." And that was all he said.

"If they do," Cam whispered. "I'll know before they get here and you can hide in the basement. If for whatever reason they make it to the door before you know they're here, do not hide."

He paused, and she repeated it back to him. "Don't hide if I'm not already gone by the time they knock. Got it."

"You're from Angel Grove," Cam continued softly. "You work at DP 257. It's a desalination plant in Angel Grove and anyone who asks will know what it means. Your ride ditched you and you couldn't make it back before curfew."

"And I was visiting you why?" Ashley whispered.

"You're my girlfriend," he said dryly. "Why else?"

This prompted a snort from Hunter, and she smiled to herself. "Right," she agreed. "DP 257, came to see my boyfriend, couldn't make it back before curfew."

"They won't come out here," Hunter told her. "Cam's got some weird ninja mojo going on this place; most people don't even remember it's here."

"You seem to find it with surprising frequency," Cam muttered.

"I'm motivated," Hunter informed him.

And he probably hadn't come all this way just to tell Cam that the raids were increasing, either. If he was so confident that they wouldn't come here, the news could easily have waited until morning. "I'll just... go back to bed then," Ashley whispered, glad that the enforced quiet disguised some of the awkwardness.

"Wait." Cam stopped her before she could take more than a step back. "What do you know about controlling a zord without a morpher?"

"I've done it before," she answered honestly. "It wasn't fun, but it's not impossible either."

"We're gonna have to do it," Hunter said softly. "We've got twenty-seven zords and six morphers."

Twenty-seven. It was a staggering number, especially when she considered none of them had fought during the initial invasion. There was no point in questioning past battle decisions, especially when the force in question hadn't actually been a battle force at the time. She couldn't help wondering, though...

Nineteen zords defended Eltare now. But if it ever fell she doubted they could retake it with less than twice that number. It was always easier to defend then attack.

"Least experienced pilots get the morphers," she said with a sigh. "You know that's the only way to do it."

"It's not that easy," Cam muttered. "Ninjas have elemental affinities. So do the morphers. Three elements, three morphers. You can't mix and match."

"Let me get this straight," Ashley whispered. "Not only do the morphers have to go to ninjas, but they have to go to ninjas with a particular... elemental affinity?"

"That's the way it works," Hunter told her. "Zords too. Gotta have the right element. Otherwise, kaboom."

"There's no 'kaboom'." Cam sounded vaguely exasperated. "The zord simply resists an unmatched pilot to the point of malfunction."

"Like I said," Hunter agreed. "Kaboom."

"I knew about the zords." Ashley frowned to herself, wondering what exactly counted as an "affinity." "I didn't realize the morphers were the same way."

There was a subtle vibration against her skin, and those things had been designed and tested for subtlety but in the silent darkness she wasn't the only one who heard it. She didn't even hear it; she felt it, as she was supposed to. But Cam and Hunter were either psychic or supernatural, because they heard something.

She didn't need the tingling feeling at the back of her neck to know that both their weapons were now pointed at her.

Ashley's answer was a long time coming, and finally he gave Billy a worried look. "You're sure the transmission can't be traced."

"There's nothing to trace," Billy told him. "I've run numerous tests, and in every instance the signal appears to originate from the device in which it's received."

Carlos didn't dare signal her again. They waited.

Finally, a quiet voice whispered into the room over the open comm link. "Carlos? It's Ashley."

"Can you talk?" he asked, instinctively lowering his voice to match hers.

"No." That wasn't Ashley, and he stiffened at the unmistakable hostility in the man's voice. "This planet is under a communications blackout and this continent is under curfew. Any signal at all will bring raiders down on us in a matter of minutes."

That explained the long silence, then. "Then I assume the fact that you're talking to me at all means you've already figured out this signal doesn't exist. The raiders have had plenty of time, right? And they're not there."

"Carlos knows what's at stake," Ashley's voice hissed. "He would never contact me if it could compromise us in any way."

"He can't make that call," the other voice replied. "He doesn't know the situation."

Their whispers were suddenly easier to hear, and Carlos looked up. Billy gave him a thumbs-up, mouthing something to him that probably had to do with boosting the gain. Carlos nodded, returning the thumbs-up in thanks.

"This is Billy," the Blue Aquitian Ranger announced, and he didn't speak loudly but he didn't bother to whisper either. "I'm a Ranger for Aquitar, and I assure you no one can identify this signal, let alone trace it. I assume you've already tried."

Carlos gave a half-smile. Yeah, he was sure they'd tried to. Like he hadn't tried everything he could think of to prove to himself the signal was secure before he'd even considered contacting Ashley. Thanks for the faith, guys.

"They tried." It was Ashley again. "Took it away from me and held a gun to my head while they did it, too."

She must have handed over her transmitter voluntarily. There was no way they would have been able to detect it, otherwise. Even the guys who had designed them couldn't tell when they were in use.

"Great," Carlos told her. "So you all trust each other."

There was a brief hesitation, but Ashley correctly interpreted his comment. "Yeah," she answered. "What's going on?"

"We're ready," he answered simply.

There was a longer pause this time.

"Excuse me?" the male voice on Ashley's transmitter asked at last.

"The Aquitian Rangers have agreed to stage an assault on the Earth occupation," Carlos told the still-anonymous voice. First rule of resistance: don't ask anyone to identify themselves if they don't volunteer on their own. "They can be there in a couple of days."

"A couple of days?" It was the unidentified voice again. Ashley didn't answer at all, which Carlos guessed meant she was with someone who actually had some authority in the ninja resistance.

"Days," Carlos repeated. "Two at least, four at most. You can basically pick the time of arrival, but don't change your mind once you do. Everyone's going to see them coming. They're counting on a ground force to back them up."

He knew surprise when he heard it, even if no one was talking. Carlos tried not to smirk, knowing they'd be able to hear it in his voice if he did. He'd been pretty startled himself. He got the impression that no one questioned the White Ranger, though. If she said they could do it, they could do it. And they would.

"We have a ground force," someone said, and Carlos frowned. Was it his imagination, or were there two different people there with Ashley? "We're kinda short on pilots, though."

"How short?" Carlos demanded.

"Three," the voice answered, and yeah, that definitely wasn't the same person who had been talking before. "Twenty-seven vehicles, twenty-four pilots. Counting you."

That last almost sounded like a question. Carlos didn't wonder for long, though, because Ashley confirmed, "Yeah, count me."

"So, twenty-four," the voice repeated. "We need three more."

"Find them," Carlos advised. "Find them and get them ready, because we're on our way."

"We can't train anyone in two days." That sounded more like the first voice, and Carlos really wondered who he was talking to. "Even with morphers, they wouldn't be ready."

"Every day that goes by is another day that the resistance could be discovered," Carlos reminded him. "'Ready' won't do them any good if they're dead."

"Don't lecture us," the second voice snapped.

"It's okay." The first voice was quiet, like it wasn't really talking to the rest of them at all. "He's right. We'll find three more pilots by tomorrow night. Can you contact us again then?"

"I can contact Ashley any time," Carlos said pointedly. "Tell me when, then go away so I can talk to her alone."

Strangely, the voices on the other end seemed to respect that. They picked a time to re-establish contact, and then, as far as he knew, they left. Ashley started talking again, anyway, so that was a good sign. He got as much information as he could from her, including assurances that she really was okay, and gave as much in return as he figured she wanted. There was such a thing as too much information, especially when it came to uncertain tactical scenarios.

When they'd finally caught each other up--and he saw Billy taking notes the whole time--he braced himself to repeat the entire thing with Eltare. Or at least, most of it, minus the part where he explained the transmission and hopefully the gun-waving. He'd already surprised Eltare with Aquitar's "nonexistent" transmission once, so they should be expecting him this time.

Andros answered. Not, Andros was there, or even, someone called Andros and he showed up quickly. No, Andros actually answered the incoming transmission, and that made Carlos nervous. There were only two possibilities: either Andros had been waiting for him, or Andros had been in Co-Op and was wound so tightly that he was doing other people's jobs. Both seemed equally bad.

"What's wrong?" Carlos asked. He didn't bother to say hello, or even to explain his question. Andros would know what he was asking.

Andros knew. "Astronema's not in charge of the Dark Fortress anymore," he said. He didn't look nearly grim enough about it, and Carlos frowned warily. Andros continued before he could ask. "Kerone is."

That explained exactly nothing, and Carlos' frown deepened. "What does that mean?"

"It means that we have reliable communication with someone we can trust on the Dark Fortress," Andros told him. "We don't know how long it will last, but we have to take advantage of it while we can. Did you reach Ash?"

"Yeah." If Andros had had time to explain, he would have done it, so Carlos resigned himself to not understanding. "She'll have twenty-seven zords ready to fly in a day, and the Aquitians can be there in two."

"Will it work?" Andros asked bluntly.

"I think we can retake the planet," Carlos answered. "I don't know whether we can hold it."

He could hear the ironic humor in Andros' voice when he replied. "As strange as it sounds, we may end up being your diversion, instead of the other way around. From what Kerone can see, Astronema's been telling the truth about a Border mutiny. It's going to happen fast, it's going to be big, and it may just keep reinforcements off your back."

Carlos exchanged glances with Billy. "Man, Andros," he said after a moment, "you sure know how to throw a party."

"It's a team effort," Andros countered, without so much as a pause. "Anything else?"

"Yeah, if you have a second." He didn't wait for Andros to answer, since they both knew he was going to ask anyway. "How's Karen?"

"Karen's doing great. She's flying well and she knows how to keep her head down when she needs to. She makes a good Ranger."

Carlos snorted. "Yeah, cause keeping their heads down is really something Rangers are known for."

"I'll tell her you said so." Andros sounded amused.

"Please don't," Carlos said with a sigh. "Just keep an eye on her for me, okay?"

"I will," Andros said simply. No reminder that he kept an eye on everyone, that they were all important or that he was phenomenally busy. Just, I will. That was why he was the Red Ranger.

"If you stick to the call schedule," Andros added, "I'll have her up here next time so you can talk to her yourself."

Carlos swallowed. He had secretly hoped she might be around this time, but he hadn't really expected it. "Thanks, man. That'd be great."

"Sure. Stay safe, Carlos."

"Yeah, you too."

He ended the transmission, closing his eyes briefly and sending a silent appeal for the welfare of his wife. He had no doubt that Karen did make a good Ranger, but he was equally sure that his characterization of Rangers was more accurate than Andros'. Keeping her head down was something she'd never been very good at.

When he looked up again, Billy was waiting for his attention. "Every part of our strike force is going to count," he said, as though their previous conversation hadn't been on hold for the last two transmissions. "You think you can fly one of our fighters?"

Carlos smiled grimly. It wasn't really even a question, and Billy knew it. "Does it have weapons?"

10. Caretakers

"Ashley told me."

"She bring the team photo album with her?"

Astronema glared at him. "She said Zhane was the Silver Ranger. You're a Ranger, you're wearing silver, do the math."

"So you don't remember anything about KO-35?" Zhane pressed. He tried to ignore Kae's insistent tugs on the sleeve of his shirt. "Kae, not right now, okay?"

"I didn't know anything about this miserable planet until Dark Spectre ordered me here," she informed him. "Ashley told me I used to be a Ranger here. If it's true, I'm glad I don't remember it. It obviously wasn't one of the great success stories of our time."

"No thanks to you and your minions," Zhane retorted.

"Oh, stop that," she said crossly. "I was either good or I wasn't; you can't have it both ways."

"Kae." Zhane looked down at the boy and tried to soften his tone. It wasn't his fault there was no one else left to watch him. "You want to go make some noise in the kitchen?"

Kae just stared at him, but it was easier than looking at Astronema so Zhane stared right back. "What do you say? Want to go bang on all the stuff Ty takes away from you?"

"You're encouraging him to be loud and disruptive?" Astronema sounded incredulous.

"I'm encouraging him to entertain himself," Zhane said impatiently. "What's so bad about that?"

His digimorpher beeped. He flipped it open with a suppressed sigh, acknowledging a call from Kristet. "Need something?"

"Yes." She paused just long enough for him to open his mouth before continuing, "Public health access. Can you get me into the health center network?"

"Yeah, sure. Hang on." Zhane didn't even bother to close his digimorpher. "DECA?"

Her hologram appeared beside him, and he got a kind of mean satisfaction from seeing Astronema jump. "Yes, Zhane?"

"Authorize Kristet's comm to access the health center network, would you? She's trying to take over the world and I don't want to get in her way."

DECA gave him a curious look that said she didn't appreciate his humor. "Isn't facilitating a takeover of your homeworld exactly the opposite of what a Ranger is traditionally expected to do?"

This time he didn't bother to hide his sigh. "Yes, DECA, thank you for defining sarcasm."

"While not my primary goal," she replied primly, "I am pleased to serve in any capacity you choose."

"Funny," Zhane muttered, but she ignored him.

"Kristet Sinai is authorized to access the health center network," DECA added, almost as an afterthought.

"You're all set," Zhane told his digimorpher.

"Thanks," Kristet's voice answered. "I promise not to advertise everything I find."

Zhane was sorely tempted to tell her to do whatever she wanted as long as it couldn't be traced to him. He managed to restrain himself, though, and even got out a civil sort of, "You're welcome." Kae yanked on his arm again, and he was up and heading for the kitchen before he'd even put his digimorpher away. Better to hit pots and pans than the kid.

Kae was as enthusiastic as ever about yanking things out of their accustomed places, which was loud and obnoxious when those "things" included cookware, but Zhane didn't really care at this point. It was a big hangar. They were used to noise. And he had about a dozen too many demands on his attention right now.

"This is recreational?" Astronema demanded loudly. He turned around to find her watching from the far side of the counter with a skeptical expression on her face.

"This is a distraction," he answered, but the words were drowned out as Kae dropped a particularly large cooking sheet on the floor.

"This is a distraction," he repeated, in the pause between the cooking sheet and the emergence of a large ladle. "You know, like when you send velocifighters in one direction and the really scary ships in another. Anything the velocifighters destroy is just a bonus."

Astronema narrowed her eyes at him. "You don't like me," she remarked, as though it was a source of surprise for her.

"A Ranger, not liking the princess of evil?" He stared at her, unable to muster the energy to feign shock. "Maybe they'll take away my morpher."

"Ashley liked me," she informed him. "She said we used to be teammates. Why don't you like me?"

He hadn't missed the petulant child tone that Astrea used to be so good at. "Because my teammate is in the middle of your war zone," he said bluntly. "Because you're withholding information that could help her. And because I've had a lousy day and you're just a really good target."

Astronema seemed to consider that for a moment. He had no doubt that under normal circumstances, anyone who considered her a target of any kind usually ended up being one himself. But instead of threatening to blow his head off she just said, "You're more polite about your target practice than I am."

His lips quirked. "And you're more tolerant than I thought you'd be," he admitted, studying her. The banging from behind him stopped, and he glanced over his shoulder to see Kae attempting to balance one pan on top of another. It wasn't as interesting as trying to figure out Astronema.

"So why do you care whether I like you or not?" he wanted to know, turning around again. "You don't even remember me."

She frowned at that. "I don't care. I was just curious."

"Uh-huh." He considered her for a moment, then offered, "Let me tell you what I remember. I remember an Astronema who was so confident in her power that she didn't dare have any friends, so she disguised herself as Kerone and started wandering around the planet she was supposed to be invading. I remember a normal teenage girl, who liked clouds and swings and the stars at night, and turned out to be the princess of evil on a ship that could have torn that planet apart."

Her frown deepened, and she was giving him a disdainful look. He kept his expression neutral as he continued, "But it didn't. And you know what I remember her telling me later?"

She wasn't going to ask, but he hadn't really expected her to. "That it was the fact they cared that made the people on that planet different from the people she knew on her ship," Zhane told her. "It wasn't whether they were good or evil themselves--it was the fact that they cared which was which."

"So I suppose you think that's what makes me evil," she said, a sneer making itself at home on her face. "The fact that I said I don't care."

"No." Zhane met her gaze without flinching. "It's just what makes you the same as everyone else on the Dark Fortress."

He hadn't noticed the quiet from behind him until a loud crash made him look back. Kae was unperturbed by the noise, and seemed to be gathering up the scattered items with a mission in mind. The foundation of whatever he had built still stood, and as Zhane watched, he began to patiently add things to the structure again.

Zhane watched in bemusement for a few moments, ultimately concluding that they needed to get that child some blocks. He had figured the chance to make noise and disorganize everything in sight would keep Kae busy, but apparently it took less than that. The kid needed some toys.

When he turned around he found himself face to face with one of Astronema's glowing palm grenades. He recognized it immediately, and maybe it should have scared him but he couldn't work up a proper respect. "Gonna blow me up to prove me right?"

Ironically, she actually looked less threatening than before, but somehow he didn't think that was what she was going for. "You're playing a dangerous game," she said quietly. He could hear her over the clatter in the background, but the effect was present nonetheless.

"Well," he remarked, "my life's been fairly boring lately. Maybe I'm looking for a little risk."

For the first time, she smiled. It wasn't a friendly look, but it wasn't a deadly one either. The palm grenade vanished like it had never existed. She lowered her hand and placed it on the counter, not taking her eyes off of him. "There are other ways to find excitement."

"If you have a suggestion," Zhane countered, "I'm listening."

His digimorpher beeped and DECA's hologram reappeared simultaneously. "My scanners are no longer detecting Andros' and Ashley's Power signatures," she told him. "Three velocifighter wings have appeared over Sai Kung."

"Is this you?" Zhane asked, holding up his digimorpher. When she nodded, he ignored it. "You're not detecting their Power signatures where? Did they leave Sai Kung?" The two of them had gone to investigate the new strain of abersiia less than an hour ago.

"I'm not detecting them anywhere on the planet," DECA clarified. "Or anywhere within immediate detection range of my scanners. If they left of their own accord, they did not notify me of their plans in advance."

His digimorpher beeped again, and DECA nodded to it. "That's Ty."

"Yeah," he said, flipping his digimorpher open. "You in the air?"

"I'm on my way," Ty answered. "DECA says she can't reach Andros or Ashley."

"Yeah, I know. Tell Marsie to fly her wings independently, standard planetary defense, tell her not to engage the velocifighters until they threaten the atmosphere. Do not go out to meet them, got it?"

"Got it," Ty's voice replied. "What about the zords?"

"You're the front line," Zhane told him. "Hold it."

He changed call codes without waiting for an answer. "Karen," he said, looking up to catch DECA's nod. "I need you in the air, DECA can give you coordinates. There are velocifighters in the system and we're missing three Rangers."

"You got it," she answered without hesitation.

He snapped his digimorpher shut and turned to Astronema. "Can you fly?"

She stared at him in total non-comprehension.

"A zord," he said impatiently. "Can you fly a zord?" He didn't see how she could; it had taken Kerone days to learn. But it couldn't hurt to ask.

She looked at him like he was crazy. "Maybe with a morpher," she said, as though he was joking. "That's how Rangers learn, right? There's no pilot school for zords."

"Kerone can't use a morpher." He stopped, catching hold of the idea just before his brain would have dismissed it. "Can you? Are you human?"

She gave him a disgusted look, but her words were magic. "Of course I'm human. Do I look like a quantron to you?"

"Zip," he said, opening his morpher again. "Want to take Astronema into space for me? She promises to treat you just like Kerone would."

An odd mechanical whine was his only answer, and he realized his mistake. "Just like Astrea would," he amended. "Okay? She's from another dimension, but she doesn't like velocifighters either and she wants to help us get rid of them. I'm gonna go with Magic, but Astronema needs a morpher to understand you."

This time there was silence, and he took that for assent. "Be nice to him," he said, handing his morpher to Astronema. "DECA--"

A crash from behind him made him wince. "Can you keep an eye on Kae?"

"I can not control his physical environment here on KO-35," the hologram reminded him. "If he touches something not connected to the main system I will--"

"Yeah, okay, take him to the Megaship," Zhane interrupted, talking over her. "Thanks. And send us to the zords."

"Did you just send a child to a battleship in the middle of a battle?"

Astronema's voice sounded strange over the Megaship's comm system. It was partly the distortion that apparently only DECA could detect, since the Rangers all praised the zord network for its clarity, and partly the fact that she sounded just enough like Kerone to make the differences glaringly obvious. Partly, too, it might have had something to do with her emotive quality, which was somewhere between confused and respectful--an unusual combination.

"Try to think of it like this," Zhane's voice answered. He, at least, sounded exactly the same as always. "I sent a child away from a planet under attack. Nowhere is safe, Astronema."

While that was arguably true, DECA would have preferred an actual pilot to the small child for whom she now found herself responsible. She had plenty of information on child care, development, and raising at her disposal, but she had very little firsthand experience. She was designed to fight, not to babysit.

Her service was to the Rangers, though, in whatever capacity they chose. They had Power-enhanced flight and artillery without her, and they had chosen to use it in her place. Her service was now secondarily to Kae until such time as one of the Rangers released her from that duty.

She manifested the same hologram she had used to communicate with Andros and Zhane when they were younger--and used again now, at Kerone's request. Kae didn't look surprised to see her, but then, he had seen her avatar many times in the hangar. He just stared silently up at the hologram's face.

"Hello, Kae," she said. Previous experience indicated that he was unlikely to reply. "Welcome aboard the Astro Megaship."

He continued to look at her. Wide blue eyes in a too-young face... she estimated his age slightly higher than the Rangers did, based on his decision-making ability rather than his appearance. She thought he was more aware of what went on around him than was immediately evident.

"Do you understand what's happening?" she asked him. Child psychology suggested that children were more amenable when an effort was made to explain the situation in terms to which they could relate.

Kae blinked at her. "Yes," he said quietly.

She had heard him vocalize only three words prior to this, and "yes" hadn't been one of them. The fact that the word was an appropriate response to her question only made it more noteworthy. "Then you know you're safe here," she told him. "Zhane will return soon, and when he does you may go back to the hangar."

He stared at her, his face blank. He could be thinking about what she had said, or he could be so far from truly understanding that her reassurance meant nothing to him. After a moment, though, he opened his mouth again. His voice was just as soft as before. "Where's Kerone?"

A fifth word she had never before heard from him--and the first full sentence. "There are two Kerones," she told him. "Do you recognize the difference?"

She expected no response. The concept of alternate dimensions and doppelgangers was not one easily grasped by a child whose life to this point had probably involved very little education. At the most, she thought he might reply "yes" or "no."

"One saved me," he said, very quietly. "Before. She's..." He hesitated before concluding, "She's back."

"That's right," DECA agreed. That was not only a relatively sophisticated concept, but also a distinction she hadn't expected him to make. "The first Kerone was from another dimension. She saved you and brought you here, to the hangar, in this dimension. The second Kerone has been taking care of you here, while the first one went back where you came from."

She paused, attempting to assess his comprehension level. Kae spoke without prompting this time. "She's back," he repeated.

"Yes. She's back," DECA confirmed. "She's helping the Rangers defend this planet from velocifighters. Would you like to watch?"

Kae still didn't move, and she wondered if he knew how to nod or shake his head. "Yes," he said, in his unusually soft voice.

She put the tactical display up on the main screen. Her hologram turned to look at it when Kae just continued to stare at her, and he followed her gaze. He considered the color-coded images for a long moment before whispering something that a human might not have overheard. "It's flat."

Flat. Two-dimensional? All the screens were two-dimensional. But the weapons station had an interactive three-dimensional program that could be projected anywhere on the Bridge. It was possible that he processed visual data better in 3D, though that particular characteristic would make him unique among the Rangers.

"Would you prefer a hologram?" she inquired. She projected the tactical grid into the empty space beside him, not expecting him to know what she meant without seeing an example of it for himself.

He reacted immediately. Lashing out at the insubstantial image, he swung his arms in a violent choppy motion that made her reassess his potential to injure himself. She monitored his movements as a matter of course. He was responding only to the holographic visual in front of him and his reaction was confined to that area.

His reaction wasn't uncontrolled. It was confined to a specific area, and it wasn't aimless flailing... he was pointing. Kae was pointing at velocifighters, sometimes as little as a fraction of a second before they were destroyed. They were all destroyed, though, every one that he pointed at--except for one that slid through the PD wing to score a damaging hit on one of the fighters.

She registered Kae pointing at the velocifighter three separate times before it was finally obliterated. It was the first time since he had arrived on the Megaship that she had seen an expression on his face: frustration. Though she could come up with no justification for the phenomenon, he seemed to expect that the ships he pointed at would vanish from the tactical grid.

"Kae," she asked at last. "What is the purpose of your action?"

His concentration didn't waver, but his quiet voice replied fiercely, "Red is bad."

Enemy fighters were typically represented by orange. As they were the closest thing to red on the tactical screen, however, and also happened to be the symbols drawing all of his attention, she concluded that they were the subject of his statement. "Did someone teach you to use a tactical readout to manipulate weapons?"

He didn't answer. It was possible he was distracted. It was also possible that he just didn't understand.

She tried again. "Kae, who taught you to do what you're doing now?" He was shooting down enemy fighters; there was no doubt that his actions corresponded with that outcome. Or at least, that they would, if he actually had any control over the tactical simulation.

"Ship," he said. That was all. She monitored his verbal output as thoroughly as she observed his physiological cues, and he had only verbalized the one word. It seemed to be an involuntary exclamation, possibly related to his actions, except that he hadn't made any others. She had to consider that it might in fact be a reply to what she had asked.

Could the ship he was on have had an AI? Would he understand the question if she asked? The wreckage of the ship that had carried him and Astronema to this dimension had been salvaged, and there had been no mention of an AI. Perhaps that was not the "ship" to which he referred. He could have been transferred multiple times, or trained in some entirely alternate fashion.

Watching him, though, there was no doubt that he had been trained. And he seemed more responsive to her than he had to any of the Rangers. He might be able to clarify the mystery upon further questioning. Mysteries were no substitute for battle, but the boy had been entrusted to her care and she would fulfill her responsibility.

Kae poked another velocifighter for the second time when the PD failed to respond as quickly as he had. She wondered at his expression. Maybe she wasn't the only one feeling helpless after all.

One second they were inside the health center, and the next second they were surrounded by rubble. The transition was jarring but immediate, no actual noise, force, or destruction to cause the change from one environment to the other. They might as well have teleported without warning--and Ashley remembered this sensation.

Then Andros was pulling her down, and she ducked into hiding beside him just as the metallic whine of quantron speech registered. "JT's dimension?" she whispered. She stared around at as much as she could see of the rubble that shielded them, trying to get an idea of where the next threat might come from.

"Felt like it," Andros whispered back. He, too, was scanning the ruins. "Looks like it, too."

Looks like I imagine it, he meant. Neither of them had seen JT's KO-35, and from what Ashley knew of it, they should be glad. It was a slave planet in his dimension, being ground through the machinery of Dark Spectre's invasion. The Free Systems' territory didn't reach anywhere near the League's former border.

"Can you talk to Kerone?" Ashley murmured, checking for her morpher. She had it, but she wasn't sure how well it would work here. Every other time they'd come, their Power had been switched with that of their counterparts in this dimension.

She saw Andros reach for his morpher too before he caught her eye. "If we're wrong, she might be Astronema," he pointed out. "I'm not sure we should take that chance."

"Zhane?" she suggested instead. Holding up her morpher, she added, "DECA? No," she corrected, before he could say it. "Even a morpher signal might be traced."

He nodded. "I'll try to reach Zhane."

She could hear him, which he must have intended. They'd all gotten better at telepathic direction since they realized Kerone could hear everything they thought. Zhane didn't reply right away, though, and they exchanged glances. The thought flickered through Ashley's mind that if Zhane didn't answer, they were more alone than she'd been in a long time.

Voices made her turn just as the Silver Ranger's familiar greeting echoed in Andros' mind, and she heard it only because she was so close. She held her breath as passersby came within frightening range of their hiding place. The Power hummed through her instinctively, and she didn't question the slingshot that appeared in her hand. Not her current weapon. But not unknown, either.

She didn't listen to Andros and Zhane, finding it disturbingly easy to block their presence out of her mind entirely. Instead she concentrated on the troops parading by with what looked like a group of prisoners. Future slaves, she wondered? Current slaves, maybe? Slave transfers?

A weapons' discharge made her flinch, close to ducking down but not quite willing to give up her view. Her fingers tightened on her slingshot as she watched the prisoner line dissolve into chaos. More weapons opened fire, from the other side of the street and at least one from behind the column of soldiers.

If she had been alone, she wouldn't have hesitated. She knew she shouldn't jump into a fight she didn't understand, and she knew perfectly well that it could be suicidal to choose sides in a conflict she knew nothing about. But she knew what it looked like, she knew what the Power wanted her to do, and if Andros hadn't been with her she would have turned her slingshot on those troops without a second thought.

But Andros was with her, and he was distracted and defenseless for as long as his thoughts were somewhere else. So she held her fire until she saw one of the prisoners take a blow to the head as an energy weapon swung around to target another. That was too much for the Power to take, too much for her to sit by and passively watch. She went up on her knees, braced her elbows on the concrete barricade in front of her, and knocked the soldier away in a shower of sparks from her Star Slinger.

After that the safest thing to do was to keep shooting, because she wasn't going to give the troops any more time than they could carve for themselves to pinpoint her location. She was more careful than usual with her aim. It wasn't just the prisoners she had to avoid, after all, it was whoever was hidden on the other side of the street.

Andros' sabre joined hers a moment later. Not a distance weapon under normal circumstances, but he had always been able to manipulate the Power into doing things no one else would believe. She didn't dare look over at him. Between them, they managed to keep up a calculated barrage that created an effective crossfire.

The ambush did its job. In the moments between the fall of the final soldier and the reaction of the prisoners' saviors, Andros reached out and nudged her with his elbow. "Guardian angel syndrome?" he muttered, his voice low in contrast to the high pitched whine of weapons that was still ringing in her ears.

"Like you've never done it," she murmured in return. "Zhane?"

"Surprised," he said succinctly. "We are in JT's dimension, but so are his Andros and Ashley. They didn't switch. Kerone's here; she says we're right on the edge of an incipient Border mutiny."

"Nice timing." She half meant it.

Andros snorted. "Yeah," he said, and she knew he didn't mean it at all. "Just our luck."

The prisoners were staggering free now, those of them that could move, or coordinate enough with each other to free themselves. Reluctantly, warily, several ragtag rescuers were appearing from across the street. They were eyeing their surroundings nervously. They must know as well as Ashley did that there shouldn't have been anyone on the other side of the street, let alone someone with weapons who would help them.

"Do we show ourselves?" Ashley asked quietly.

Andros gave her the Look. "Just because they shot at slavers doesn't mean they won't shoot us too."

A faint crunch was the only warning they had, and not nearly enough. "Hands in the air," a harsh voice instructed. The order reached them mid-turn and neither of them stopped.

Two Power-enhanced weapons squared off against three ordinary blasters. Before either of them could say anything, though, the man in front lifted his weapon in surrender. Her first fleeting thought was that he recognized their uniforms, but of course he wouldn't. Only the Astro Rangers had defended KO-35 in this dimension.

He did recognize something else, though.

"Andros!"

It came out somewhere between an exclamation and a prayer, and it prompted the other two people with him to point their weapons skyward as well. "Ranger Andros," the man repeated, more respectfully.

"That's right." Andros caught her eye and nodded, and they lowered their weapons at the same time. "This is Ranger Ashley."

"Hi," Ashley offered, careful to keep her smile brief and restrained. These weren't conditions to smile about.

"This is more than we could have expected." One of the people behind the man who had recognized Andros spoke for the first time. "For the Rangers to have returned... now we know our cause will be successful."

Ashley glanced around, a little unnerved by the attention they were starting to draw. She didn't expect to see open agreement on the others' faces. When she looked at Andros, though, he showed no expression. He spoke again as though he hadn't even heard the words.

"We're on our way to rendezvous with Kerone," he told them. "Is everyone here safe?"

It might not have been the best thing to say, since she was pretty sure Kerone had been the Yellow Ranger and here Ashley was, clearly representing Yellow. From somewhere, she heard a shocked murmur. "Kerone survived?"

Andros didn't deign to answer. He kept his eyes on the man who had spoken to them first, waiting. The man finally seemed to realize it.

"We're safer than we were ten minutes ago. Everyone who can carry a weapon is to converge at the skyport--we'll seize it or die trying. Word of your return will bring new life to our people."

Spreading the word seemed like a phenomenally bad idea to Ashley, but Andros only nodded. "You'll have help at the skyport if we can spare it," he told them. "Go. And may the Power protect you."

The first hint of a smile cracked the man's careworn expression. "It already has, Ranger Andros. It already has."

"How am I supposed to tell the difference between rebels and non?" Kerone demanded, torn between amusement at her brother's audacity and irritation with his expectation of--well, if not the impossible, then at least the highly improbable. "Quantrons don't have that kind of adaptability! Most of the time I'm lucky if they remember how to fly and shoot at the same time, let alone asking them to choose their own targets!"

Andros didn't seem worried. "Your magic quantrons can tell the difference between people who are loyal to you and people who aren't. That's pretty subtle."

"Yes, they can tell the difference," she agreed, exasperated. "Because I tell them the difference. They don't decide for themselves. The magic override countermands any orders but mine."

"So tell them to shoot at ground-based quantrons," Andros said with a shrug. "What's so hard about that?"

"The hard part is that the two skyports nearest Sai Kung are already under my control," Kerone snapped. "I'm not going to open fire on my own soldiers, and if you don't know which one your rebels are going to then I'm not going to risk letting unknown insurgents in!"

That finally shut Andros up. She looked over at Ashley in the pause. She had teleported them both off of KO-35 as soon as Andros gave the word, but keeping them out of the way here on the Dark Fortress might prove to be the bigger problem. Ashley, at least, could come and go as she pleased. Her counterpart had relative freedom as a known spy for Astronema.

Andros, on the other hand, couldn't be passed off as anything but a Red Ranger serving at least two distinct enemy forces. She'd really like to send him back to KO-35, where maybe he could do some good... but at the same time, she wanted him here where she could keep any eye on him. That was the difference between being a tactical leader and a sister, she thought with a sigh. Sometimes she wondered how Andros did it.

"The Ranger logo," Andros said suddenly. "The Astro Rangers' symbol; everyone will recognize that. Fly it over your skyports."

She stared at him, but he didn't look like he was waiting to deliver a punchline. "Are you out of your mind?"

Andros' mouth quirked upward at the corners. "That's not really relevant, is it?"

"You want to flaunt the Ranger logo in the middle of occupied space?" Kerone demanded incredulously. "This is a mutiny, Andros, not a declaration of independence! We're not trying to create targets here!"

"You said you could take KO-35 back," Andros pointed out. "Can you or can't you?"

"I can," Kerone snapped. "But I'm not going to advertise it before the fact!"

"Why not?" Andros retorted, equally intent. "You're not working alone here, Kerone. There's an entire population down there that's just been waiting for their chance to throw this occupation back in Dark Spectre's face. You don't have to fight them, too... you can use them. Declare yourself. Let them help. Because they will."

"I think you have too much faith in people that have been enslaved," Kerone informed him. "They're not going to trust anything Astronema tells them."

"They don't have to trust Astronema," Andros shot back. "They trust the Rangers. They've seen their Rangers down there on the surface--they'll trust the stories, and the Power, and any flag that flies with the Ranger logo on it."

"Yeah, about that," Ashley interrupted, turning away from the window in Astronema's private quarters. "Why did you let them think the Rangers are back?"

Andros gave her a bemused look, like the answer was so obvious that she must be asking something else. It might have made Kerone smile if she wasn't so distracted by the idea of pretending a Ranger presence on a world that hadn't seen Power Rangers in more than two years. The idea would never have occurred to her. Not for the first time, she wondered how Andros hid that kind of deviousness from the rest of the world.

"They're not back," Ashley told him, before Andros could contradict her. "We are, and we don't even know how we got here or how long it's going to last."

"The ID portal," Andros said, flicking his gaze in her direction. "It wasn't JT; it must have been some kind of portal malfunction."

"I don't think it malfunctions quite like that." Kerone frowned, but she didn't knew less than her counterpart about how the velocifighter ID portal worked. "It requires a code to operate, no matter which side you're coming from. It doesn't make sense that it would just randomly snatch people up."

"No," Ashley said with a rueful smile, "but if it was going to pick people at random, you have to admit the odds are good that it would be us."

"From a distance?" Kerone said skeptically, sparing only a brief smile for Ashley's remark. "The velocifighters have to physically pass through the portal, and it's in space. There's no way you could have triggered it from the ground."

"But if we did," Andros insisted. "That would explain the hallucinations people have been seeing. It's not the abersiia virus at all; they're seeing flashes of this other dimension."

"Which would explain why they all say they saw basically the same thing," Ashley said with a sigh. She didn't sound surprised by the idea, which meant they had probably talked about it before. "But that's the only thing it explains. If they saw flashes, why are we... well, stuck here? If we are stuck here?"

An angry buzz came from the vicinity of the door, and Kerone caught Andros' eye. "Don't move," she warned him. With a wave of her hand, he vanished from their sight. She glanced at Ashley, then shook her head. "Trust me."

Violet sparkles swirled around Ashley, leaving her in a close-fitting black uniform that would probably get Andros' attention better than the invisibility. It was the same thing her counterpart had worn, when she came from the Free Systems to deliver Andros' locket to Astronema. Or at least, it was what she had been wearing when Kerone and Ty came to rescue her.

"Come in," Kerone called, affecting the most bored tone she could manage.

The door slid open, and Ecliptor took a single step inside. He bowed first, gave Ashley an obviously suspicious look, and then directed his attention to her again. "My princess."

"Ecliptor," she replied, swinging her hair over her shoulder as she got to her feet. "What news do you have from KO-35?"

"Most of the orbital stations have been secured," he ground out. "Two were destroyed in the fighting, and one was damaged so severely that vital areas are open to the vacuum of space. All operational stations are under our control."

"And the skyports?" she demanded impatiently. Taking the stations had been far more important, but it was never wise to let lackeys get complacent.

"Ninety-two of the hundred and sixty-three working skyports are secure," Ecliptor reported. "Unfortunately, we are encountering resistance from more than foreign monarchy forces. Some of the workers have seized the opportunity to rebel, and they present a significant obstacle in some ports."

"Yes," Kerone agreed. With a haughty shrug, she declared, "I have thought of a solution to that problem. We will raise the flag of this planet's own defense force above the secure skyports.

"The... Power Rangers," she clarified, with feigned distaste. "Whatever name they go by here. Make their symbol visible, and the remaining population will fall into line."

Ecliptor's hesitation was barely noticeable. "Yes, my princess. It will be done."

"In fact--" She continued as though he hadn't spoken. "I will send Aisling down to the surface herself. Disguised as one of their precious Power Rangers. Perhaps even a Red Ranger," she said gleefully. "Yes! I'll transform your costume myself!"

She threw a glance in Ecliptor's direction, offhandedly, as though she had just remembered he was there. "You may go, Ecliptor. I want to know when all the skyports are under our control."

He bowed immediately. "Yes, my princess," he agreed, turning his back on her long enough to open the door. She approved of her people turning their backs when necessary. It made them vulnerable--and she made sure they knew there was nothing they could do to change that.

When the door closed, she waved in Andros' direction idly. He reappeared, looking more relaxed than she had expected after that little show. He was even smiling slightly. When Ashley gave him a questioning look, presumably for his expression, he shrugged.

"You can take the girl out of the Dark Fortress," Andros quipped, shooting her an amused glance as he leaned forward to brace his elbows on his knees. "You just can't take the Dark Fortress out of the girl."

She sat down again on the stool next to her private comm terminal, shaking her head playfully. There were bells in her violet curls today, and they chimed softly when she agitated them. "For which you can thank me later," she informed Andros. "In the meantime, I think you'd both be more useful on KO-35 than here. Unless you want me to just send you home."

"Home?" Ashley repeated, but then she got it. "The ID portal."

Kerone shrugged. "I can put you on a ship and send you through, and you'd end up practically in orbit around KO-35. Our KO-35."

Andros and Ashley exchanged glances. They both looked a little startled, which she found funny until Andros demanded, "If it's that easy, why don't you and Astronema just switch places?"

She gave him her best imitation of his Look. "Because it's only that easy if one of us is on the Dark Fortress to order it. Someone has to open the portal, and I don't trust anyone here to do it in my place."

"Except Ecliptor," Ashley suggested. "Astronema trusted him to open it for her after she brought us Kae."

"She trusted him once," Kerone said bluntly. "I don't know why, and I'm not going to push her luck by doing it again. I'm staying here until I find someone I do trust or get sent back by whatever brought me, whichever comes first."

Andros was frowning. "Look, we're not going to leave you here without backup. If you're staying, we're staying too."

"And if I disappear back to our own dimension as suddenly as I appeared here, you'll be in a lot more trouble than I'd be in without you," Kerone reminded him. "I can protect you. Astronema won't even know you're here."

"Oh, I think she will," Andros said wryly. "If you send us down to the surface to rally the troops, everyone's going to know we're here. We'll get some protection just from being visible. And if you disappear, I can still contact JT through Zhane. We'll be able to get a message to you guys.

"We'll probably be able to talk to Astronema, even," he added as an afterthought. "If you can talk to the Andros in this dimension, there's no reason I can't do the same with this dimension's Astronema."

"You can," Kerone pointed out. "Ashley can't."

Andros drew in a breath and stopped. He just stared at her for a long moment. When he turned to look at Ashley, she shook her head. "No. Don't even think about it. I'm not going anywhere you aren't."

"Ash," he began.

"Don't pretend this if for my own good," she snapped. "Sending me back will make you two feel better, but it won't do anyone else any good--including me. My counterpart is Astronema's spy, remember? Nobody's going to touch me.

"And," she added, emphasizing the word irritably when Kerone and Andros exchanged glances. "I may not be able to think to her, but she can think to me. Tell JT to send her a message. Tell her I'm here in case she gets switched. She'll watch out for me if she has to."

"You don't know that," Kerone said quietly.

"I believe it." Ashley's voice was firm. "She's a good person. We're friends, even here, and she will protect me."

This time when Kerone looked to Andros he held up his hands in surrender. "Okay. Fine. It's your decision."

That marked the first time Kerone had ever heard her brother say those words in that order. She kept the observation to herself. She only hoped, when she magicked both their uniforms and sent them back to KO-35, that he wouldn't have reason to regret it.

What was it that made Andros magic?

It was a fanciful question, perhaps, but Saryn thought the sentiment deserved serious consideration. Why did people follow him? How did he gamble anything at hand on a nebulous future that had no reason to bow to his will--and win? And maybe most importantly, what was it that drew people and circumstances into their most desirable configuration in his presence?

One of his Rangers had flown into Astronema's stronghold and survived. Not only survived, but returned, with invaluable intelligence. Half of his team had maintained contact with a planet so overrun by evil that no news of it came through official channels. That planet was currently conspiring with another planet, also unreachable by anyone but the Astro Rangers, to establish a Free Systems foothold deep in monarchy territory.

Andros himself was in contact with yet another traitorous faction of Dark Spectre's forces, a faction that might yet prove to be led by a one of Andros' former teammates. A former teammate who had offered to deliver the entire Border to the Free Systems, for a price as yet unstated. And as unlikely as it seemed, here was Andros, reporting that the mutiny promised by Astronema was now in progress... and incredibly, gaining ground.

Saryn was standing on a promenade overlooking one of the Great Halls, watching Andros' announcement broadcast through the public concourse. It was a spontaneous, overwhelmingly dizzy feeling to be in the middle of such a crowd at a moment like this... and he had done it deliberately. There were times when he couldn't remember what it was like to feel this way, to feel anything at all other than dogged determination.

He couldn't even feel Cassandra coming through the spinning sensation of delight and astonishment and hope. He recognized her as soon as she pressed her hand against his arm, though, and his senses focused on her instantly. Her voice was muffled when she said his name, as if he was hearing it from a distance.

He tried to turn and look at her, but the movement threw off his precarious equilibrium and he gripped the railing harder. He felt her fingers tighten, knew she had seen his balance waver, and he couldn't find the words to cut through the secondhand exhilaration in his mind. He wanted to laugh, to shout out to everyone around him, to give voice to the feelings that surged within him.

He would keep it in. He had to, he was still Saryn in the face of the elated rush that buoyed his spirit like nothing else. He could soar on the tide of other people's joy, but he could never let them know it.

Cassandra's concern was starting to penetrate the light. Don't you feel it? he wanted to ask. Don't you see how this has carried us away from where we are? All the way to the place where hope exists?

"I feel it." Cassandra's voice whispered at the edge of his awareness, though he thought that perhaps she was speaking more loudly than usual. "I feel you. I worry when you won't talk to me."

"Don't worry," he mumbled. He was surprised to hear his voice, and it brought him back to himself abruptly. He kept his hands on the railing as he turned his head toward her. "Cassandra?"

Her eyes searched his face, looking for... something. "Are you all right?"

"I am well," he assured her, and he felt a smile threaten. She must have seen it too, because her face lightened noticeably and she smiled back. "It's--" He gestured all around them. "This is amazing news."

Her smiled remained, but she was studying him closely. "I don't think I've ever heard you use the word 'amazing'," she mused. "And of course it is, but... you already knew, all this. You know more about what's going on than anyone here."

"I don't feel it the way they do," he said softly.

Her scrutiny didn't abate, nor did it make him uncomfortable. It was almost a relief to hear her ponder his true meaning aloud. "But you do," she decided at last. "That's why you didn't answer, isn't it? Are you here on purpose?"

He couldn't keep from smiling at her. He lifted one hand to her face, stroking her cheek with his fingers. "Sometimes I think it is wrong," he murmured. "No one gave me permission to enjoy their happiness."

For some reason, that made her laugh, a quiet breathy sound that made his smile widen. She was never more beautiful than when she was happy. "We're all celebrating," she reminded him. "You don't need permission to enjoy that.

"A smile isn't just for the person who's smiling," Cassandra added, lifting her hand to cover his fingers with hers. "It's for all the people who see the smile too. We all see people's sadness and their happiness on their faces, with our eyes. You feel it. There's nothing wrong with that."

Not when I'm with you, he thought, running his thumb across her cheekbone. Her concern was fading, and her secret hope was sweeter than anything he had felt from the anonymous faces around him. It was a rare moment when his empathy turned out to be a pleasure rather than a distraction. This was such a moment.

"Do you want to stay here longer?" she whispered, holding his hand in place and turning her head slightly to kiss his fingers. "I don't want to take you away from your happiness."

But she had been looking for him. He could hear it in what she didn't say, and now that he was paying attention he could sense the bittersweet delight lurking behind the smile she shared with him. "I would always choose your happiness above theirs," he murmured.

She kissed his fingers again and then let go of his hand, and her smile as she looked up at him was dazzling. "I have baby pictures," she said, in a voice that was very close to singsong. "Want to see?"

Her secretly pleased expression made him chuckle. "Need you ask?"

Cassandra took his hand again as they made their way across the promenade, anchoring him in the swirling emotion. He gave silent thanks for whatever whim of fate had brought them to this day of light in the midst of so much darkness. Nothing was perfect... but maybe, just maybe, more things were possible than he had dared to dream.

11. Voice of Dissent

"Shane Clarke." He didn't even try to shake her hand, just nodded once and in a surprisingly authoritative way. He didn't look timid or worried--maybe a little wary, but mostly just like he was biding his time. Like this was his planet, and he knew it. And he hadn't given up on it.

"Tori Hanson." The girl standing next to him just lifted her chin a little, a defiant gesture that could get someone as pretty as her into trouble faster than anything she could say. She didn't even seem aware that she was doing it.

There was a brief pause, and then the third kid seemed to realize that he was the only one left. "Oh, uh, Dustin Brooks." He glanced at his friends, then broke into a wide grin as he caught her eye again. "This is like, totally amazing! I can't believe I'm actually meeting a Power Ranger!"

Ashley flashed a smile in his direction, then gave Gabe a bemused look. "Who are they?" she repeated, feeling no more enlightened than she had been before they introduced themselves.

"Blake picked them up downtown," he said, sounding a little apologetic. "He thinks they have ninja potential. Hunter's going to check them out, make sure, but he's not back yet..." He trailed off with a shrug.

"And I'm here," Ashley finished for him. She gave the computer terminal currently displaying zord specs a last look, hoping she had committed enough of them to memory that she would be able to fly. "Okay. That's fair. What do you need me to do, exactly?"

"Fill them in," Gabe told her. "Blake told them there's a resistance and they're being recruited." He stopped there, and after a moment she stopped staring at him expectantly and switched to outright astonishment.

"That's it?" Ashley gave the kids an incredulous look. "And you believed him?"

"Well, Tori did." The one who was excited about meeting a Power Ranger didn't seem to be their spokesperson so much as he was just the one who couldn't keep his mouth shut. "We just came along 'cause she wouldn't listen to us and we did kind of promise to keep her safe."

"Dustin," the girl hissed.

"C'mon, Tor," the other boy said under his breath. He had folded his arms, but he turned toward her just enough to nudge her with his shoulder, all while staring straight ahead. "You got suckered by a pretty face. Admit it."

"I did not," she snapped. "I happen to believe in this, and last I knew, you guys did too."

"How much do I tell them?" Ashley wanted to know. "What if Hunter takes one look at them and says his brother's wrong? What then?" And how did Hunter know, anyway? She added that to the long list of private questions to which she didn't consider getting answers likely.

"He won't," Gabe answered. "Blake's never been wrong before. None of us asked for a second opinion. He wanted one, though, since if he's wrong, we're all screwed."

"Excuse me?" The girl definitely had attitude. "Wrong about what, exactly?"

"You want me to explain what ninjas are?" Ashley asked Gabe, with what she felt was a totally justifiable amount of skepticism.

He only grinned at her. "Do your best," he advised, clapping her on the shoulder before turning to walk away. He didn't give the kids a second glance.

She stared after him for a second before turning to look at the kids again. "How old are you?" she asked at last.

"Fifteen," the girl said, folding her arms.

"Sixteen," said the boy next to her.

Shane just stared back at Ashley. "What does it matter?"

She felt a smile threaten in spite of herself. The same age she had been when she first picked up a morpher. "It doesn't," she admitted. "Let me show you what you're going to be working with, at least."

Taking them on a tour was the fastest way to explain everything she didn't understand herself. Or, if not to explain it, then to give them an impression better than what she could convey in words. Ashley told them what she knew, and she was honest about what she didn't. This wasn't her operation, she told them. She was just here to share information and reinforce the existing resistance.

They were up on one of the catwalks when Hunter arrived. His sudden presence was made more obvious by the fact that no one teleported into this facility. They could, as Ashley understood it. But they didn't. Because in order to do it the ninja in question would have to bypass almost every security measure they had, and that set off too many alarms to count.

Hunter set off too many alarms to count. He appeared in the middle of the floor below, the streak of black that trailed behind vanishing as he collapsed. The shouting was directionless, but people began to rush toward him immediately. Ashley's brain noted that the ninjas must consider the situation safe even as her feet carried her toward the nearest stairs.

He was surrounded by the time she got there, but he was awake and snarling--holding people back with the sheer force of his irritation, Ashley thought. Bleeding, yes, but breathing too, not unconscious, not fatally injured, and those were all good signs. Only as she slowed down did she realize the kids had followed her.

"What's going on?" Cam's voice demanded, wiping the thought from her mind. He was easy to hear, even over the sound of the alarms. "Either tell me what happened or get out of the way!"

"Sorry." Hunter sounded genuinely chagrinned, the irritation melting away as the people separating him from Cam fell back. "I wasn't thinking about the alert system."

Cam didn't even flinch as he caught sight of Hunter. It was like he'd expected it somehow, like he'd known who it would be at the center of the crowd before he even got there. "Are you all right?" he demanded. "What happened? Can you walk? I'm two seconds from calling for a stretcher, just so you know."

"I can walk," Hunter muttered, staring up at him. He was pale, too pale, even for his complexion, and Ashley didn't like the way he was breathing all of a sudden. "Turn off the alarms. I'm fine. I screwed up, is all."

Cam glanced around at the people gathered there, and his eyes lit on someone Ashley didn't recognize. "Get those alarms off," he said. His gaze flicked to the next person in line, and he added, "Get a stretcher."

"I'm fine," Hunter repeated. He lifted a hand, and Cam reached down to clasp it automatically. Hunter stumbled as he was pulled to his feet. Ashley knew what was going to happen before he lost his balance completely and she and Cam ended up supporting his unconscious frame between them.

Go or stay, she asked Cam silently? They wouldn't be able to carry him easily; he was taller than either of them and he was a lot heavier than his "pretty boy" clothes made him look. But she knew how hard it was to let go of an injured teammate, logic or not.

"Stretcher," Cam said curtly. As they lowered Hunter to the ground, she heard him say to someone else, "Tell Blake."

Hunter was conscious again before the stretcher got to the room they were using as a makeshift infirmary. He grumbled the whole way. Cam stopped everyone at the door and told them to go away. Hunter overruled him, though, and she saw Cam's jaw clench.

"Those're the ninja kids Blake found, right?" How he could tell, Ashley had no idea. "Let 'em come in. They need those morphers like, yesterday."

She blinked at the sudden slang, but it made Cam step away from the door reluctantly. The kids filed in, and Hunter waved the stretcher carriers away like he was shooing flies. "Come on, come on, let me do my job already."

"Staying alive is the sum total of your job at this point," Cam snapped, which earned him an annoyed look from Hunter.

"And you," he said, pushing himself up on his elbows for the sole purpose of glaring at Cam. "The stretcher was total overkill. Geez, one little blackout and suddenly I'm helpless!"

"Yes, that's the traditional definition of 'blackout'." Cam was glaring back at him. "Why are you sitting up?"

Because he was, Ashley noted with covert amusement. Hunter had pushed himself into a sitting position while the kids glanced back and forth among themselves. He was watching them, though, not Cam. He was even squinting a little, like he was looking at something just a little too far away or out of focus.

"Water," he said. He obviously wasn't responding to anything any of them had said, and Cam was no longer trying to get his attention. He glanced at the taller boy, his expression not changing.

"Air," Hunter said, after the briefest hesitation. "Weird amount of fire potential, though."

The two of them looked at each other while Hunter transferred his attention to the other boy. Dustin, Ashley remembered. Maybe a little less hardened than the other two, enthusiastic despite everything happening around him, and oddly charming in his ignorance. Hunter looked at him for a long moment.

"Say something," Hunter said at last.

Dustin didn't hesitate. "Dude, are you feeling all right?"

The question provoked a soft snort of amusement from Hunter, and the smile that flickered on his face made his expression soften unexpectedly. "Earth ninja," he muttered, lowering his head and pressing a hand to his forehead. "Definitely an earth ninja."

"Good, fine, you're done," Cam interrupted. "Blake agrees. Can I kick them out now?"

Hunter didn't look up. "They need morphers."

"Bro?" Blake hung on the doorframe for a second, then shouldered his way into the room when he caught sight of Hunter. "You all right?"

Hunter glanced at Blake long enough to nod, then caught Cam's eye. He didn't say anything. Cam looked away first, turning his glare on the kids Hunter had just identified. "Come with me," he said shortly.

"What happened?" Blake looked from Hunter to Ashley, as though she might know something he didn't.

"I took a beating," Hunter muttered. His voice might have been embarrassed or deliberately quiet, to keep it from carrying after the departing ninjas in the hallway. "Nothing serious, just, you know. Fists and... sticks."

That was when she realized he'd meant the "beating" part literally. She studied him more closely, try to assess the damage. Funny they'd so completely missed his head... or was it?

No, she realized, with a sinking sensation in her stomach. It wasn't strange at all. Without having to ask, she suddenly understood that he hadn't been beaten for associating with the resistance. He meant, he'd taken a beating for flaunting his body on the streets. And they hadn't avoided his head--they'd avoided his face. Hard times or not, Hunter was selling sex, and few people were immune to that.

"Take off your shirt," Blake was telling his brother. "I'll help you clean up. You got any serious injuries we should know about?"

"Nah." Despite his words, his usual killer grace was reduced to a painful flinch as he went to raise his arms. "I don't think they broke anything important. Wasn't sure I'd make it in without passing out, though."

"Yeah, they told me the alarms were you," Blake said with a grin that seemed out of place. "Cam's gonna be pissed at you for days."

"When isn't he?" Hunter muttered, finally managing to peel the rest of his shirt away. "I swear he makes up for being good in bed by being an asshole the rest of the time."

"Way too much information," Blake informed him, and Ashley realized suddenly that she was just staring.

"I'm going to, um--" She stopped when Hunter looked over at her, a small smirk on his face that she couldn't interpret. Blake didn't even stop what he was doing. "I'm going to get back to work... unless there's anything I can do?"

Hunter shook his head once, but it was Blake who spoke. "Nah, we're good. Thanks for looking out for my bro," he added, throwing her a smile over his shoulder. The look gave her a glimpse of the charmer he really was when not bowed by the pressure of war.

She couldn't resist smiling back, but Blake's focus was already back on his brother.

So she got almost an hour of uninterrupted study time, and when the zord specs started to get boring she decided to see how far her former Ranger status could get her. She tried to go check out one of the zords. Somewhat to her surprise, they let her, and that was where Leanne found her some time later.

"Ashley?" The red-haired woman appeared on one of her comm screens without warning, and she tried not to start. "Nice ride."

Ashley blinked, then felt a smile spread across her face. "Isn't it, though? Thanks for letting me check it out."

"Not a problem," Leanne said easily. "You want to meet me up on the catwalk for a few minutes?"

She assumed it wasn't so much an invitation as it was an order. "I'm on my way," Ashley told the screen.

The only people on the catwalk above the zord she'd been inside were Cam and Hunter, but Hunter nodded in her direction as soon as she looked up at them. "Leanne's on her way," he called down.

Interesting, she thought, climbing up to join them. Not a personal chat after all, but some kind of informal meeting? Why here? And why her, she wondered?

"You agreed," she heard Hunter saying, as she got close enough to catch their voices over the sound of her footsteps on the metal rigging. "We all agreed; there's no other way to do it."

"I changed my mind," Cam answered, and it was hard to say how much of the annoyance in his tone was directed at Hunter's attitude and how much was directed at Hunter's condition.

The blonde ninja was wearing long sleeves and baggy pants without holes--they were the most concealing clothes she'd ever seen him in, and she didn't like what that said about the state of his body underneath. He was standing awkwardly, almost braced against the catwalk railing but not quite. As though he wanted to look casual, but his limbs weren't completely cooperating.

"Look, you saw those kids," he was telling Cam. "They couldn't shoot a rifle without an instruction manual. They need those morphers or they're dead. And the zords'll be destroyed with them."

Cam's gaze flicked to her as she joined them, and he tipped his head just the slightest bit. From Cam, she decided, it was quite an acknowledgement. He didn't say anything to her, but she didn't expect him to.

"They need the morphers," Cam said. "But they're not Rangers."

A vibration in the catwalk alerted her. Otherwise quiet and almost camouflaged, Leanne didn't step quite lightly enough to go undetected. Neither of her fellow ninjas looked up, though, even when she got close enough to participate in the conversation, which made Ashley wonder how much sooner they had noticed her.

"They don't have to be Rangers," Hunter told Cam, which didn't make any sense to Ashley. "They just have to fight."

"Am I missing something?" she asked, when Cam grimaced. "If they have morphers, then they're Rangers. Of course they'll fight."

"Technology doesn't make someone a hero," Cam said impatiently. "Any more than ninja potential makes someone a ninja. Yes, they'll be able to fight, but they're not exactly the rallying figures we need on the front lines."

"Technology has never made a Ranger," Ashley pointed out, surprised. "The Power does that. If the Power chose them, they'll be whatever you need."

"The Power didn't choose them," Hunter interjected. "We did."

"What made you choose them in particular?" Ashley countered. "Did you just pick them off the street? Doesn't it seem like kind of a coincidence that they just happened to be exactly what you needed, when you needed it?

"The Power does that," she said, when the two of them exchanged unreadable looks. "It finds the people you need, the people who will do the most good in any given situation. Sometimes it's Rangers. Sometimes it's other people, people that help the Rangers somehow--whether they know it or not."

"I don't believe in fate," Hunter informed her.

"You don't have to believe in fate," Ashley replied. "You just have to trust the Power."

"Fine." Cam's tone was curt. "Trust the Power. Take a morpher."

She didn't grasp what he meant at first. But he was looking straight at her, and Hunter and Leanne were following his example. "What?" she said at last. "Me?"

A movement from Leanne drew her attention. The red-haired woman was holding up a single morpher, silver wings emblazoned in a red circle, and for one crazy moment she thought of Zhane and Andros. Then she shook her head.

"I don't need a morpher," Ashley reminded them. "I have more experience controlling a zord without one than anyone else here."

"That's why you should have one," Cam said, as though that made sense. "Those three kids Blake picked up today have morphers because they need them. You have a morpher because we need someone we can rally behind--and you're it."

"What about my kids?" Blake's voice asked.

Ashley sighed silently. She really needed to figure out how they did that. She wondered if she could get someone to teach her to move that quietly... and that fast.

"Cam doesn't find them inspiring," Hunter told his brother idly.

Blake shrugged, leaning against the railing with all the boneless ease the other Bradley brother was trying for and failing at miserably. "No one told me to look for inspiration. 'Find some ninja affinities, Blake.' That's what they told me, and that's what I did."

"They don't have to be inspiring," Cam snapped. "But someone does. No one wins a fight without a leader."

"You have leaders," Ashley pointed out. "There are leaders here, at every hangar, and field leaders in every fleet. You don't need me for any of this."

"In principle, yes, every fleet will have a field leader," Cam corrected impatiently. "We don't even have fleet rosters yet. We do need you, and I told you the first day you arrived that we might need your leadership. You came here to rally us and you expect to do it from behind?"

"I came here to bring you information," she told him. "And to put you in contact with your allies. I'm pretty sure you weren't too excited about that leadership idea when you first brought it up."

"It's a good idea, though," Hunter put in. "I know a lot of people who'd be more comfortable with a real Ranger fighting alongside them."

She knew what the Ranger name meant to people, and how much trust they had in the Power even when--like Cam and Hunter--they said they didn't. But she didn't like giving people false confidence. And she definitely didn't like taking on the protection of a morpher when it could be saving someone else's life.

"We'll have Rangers," Ashley said. "We already do. Their names are Shane, Tori, and Dustin. And that morpher you want to give me could make a fourth."

"We already have a fourth," Leanne remarked, and Ashley understood that she was with Cam on this.

"Look, I'm not going to sit on the sidelines no matter what happens." She didn't know how to make it any clearer to them. "I'm going to be out there, fighting, whether I have a morpher or not. And I already have a better chance of keeping myself and my zord intact than anyone else does. So give that to someone who needs it and I promise you, I'll lead anything you want me to lead."

"Good," Leanne said, as though it was all decided. "You're in charge of the Thunder fleet."

Ashley felt the grip on her arm before she even saw Leanne move, and only residual reflexes let her grab the hand before it could slap the morpher on her wrist. "Don't fuck with me," she said evenly. She even mustered a smile for Leanne's startled expression. She was channeling Cassandra today, no doubt about it.

"I told you," she added, not releasing Leanne's hand. "I don't need that morpher. Save someone else's life."

"Hey, Ashley." Blake sounded unexpectedly disarming. "You said yourself, it's not us that chooses. It's the Power. It's already chosen you once, so... maybe you should let it choose you again."

That was a fatalistic argument. She could just as well say that the Power wanted her to resist this assignment specifically so that it could choose someone else. There was no predicting and no second-guessing a force like that.

"It's not easy to be a figurehead," Cam told her bluntly. "But that's what we're asking. You don't need a morpher. We need a supersoldier. And you're it."

Andros had let them do it to him, she thought with a sigh. He'd let them make him into some kind of icon, and she'd seen for herself the good it was doing. The difference was that Andros was that good--she wasn't. But she would never convince them of that, and what would it do to the other pilots to see a former Ranger turn down a position of leadership in the resistance?

With a flash of insight, she wondered if that was why they were having this conversation on a catwalk in the zord bay.

Reluctantly, Ashley let go of Leanne's hand.

The Red Thunder morpher latched onto her wrist like it was her own. In that first quiet surge of Power, three things came to her simultaneously. One, she was going to have to start wearing something that wasn't yellow. Two, morphing was going to fill her brain to capacity with really bizarre information. And three... she knew who the other Thunder morphers were for.

She lifted her gaze to Leanne's, and their eyes met. Leanne knew that she knew. But neither of them looked away from the other for a long moment, and finally Ashley said, "Just for the record? The Yellow Power has chosen me twice now. I don't think a Red morpher is a good idea."

Leanne's lips curved into a smile, but it was Cam who answered. "Sorry," he said, not sounding at all sorry. "You're not an earth affinity."

Then Leanne turned and calmly placed a second morpher on Hunter's wrist. While he was gaping at her, the third one claimed Blake, and they all just stood there staring at each other. Ashley resisted the urge to laugh, because no, they hadn't seen that coming at all. Leanne and Cam must have made this decision on their own.

"Okay, for the record?" Hunter was the first to find his voice. "I'm not an earth affinity either!"

Cam had a distinctly odd expression on his face, and it didn't seem to have anything to do with his answer. "It's not like you don't look good in every color ever invented," he informed the other ninja. "Deal with it."

"Hey--" Blake started to speak and cut off abruptly. "Wow," he continued after a second, holding up his arm to stare at the morpher on his wrist. "Does it always feel like that?"

"No," Ashley said with a smile. "It gets worse after you morph. The good news is that you get used to it."

"If you think this is gonna make me wear yellow..." Hunter trailed off in what was probably supposed to be a threatening way, but the evil eye he was giving Cam wasn't terribly convincing. She wondered if he could already feel the Power probing his injuries.

"Why does it work if you don't have the right--" Ashley scrambled for the words, and to her surprise, the Power provided them immediately. "Elemental affinity?"

"He doesn't have any affinity," Leanne answered. "He's a ninja elemental."

"Sounds cool, doesn't it?" Hunter said dryly. "Really it just means I have three times as much work." This last seemed to be directed at his sister.

"It's not so much no affinity as it is all of them," Cam offered. "Equally. Or almost equally."

"I prefer air," Hunter grumbled. He threw a look at Ashley. "No offense."

She couldn't help but smile. "I'd trade if I could," she promised.

"Does it help to morph?" Leanne wanted to know. "You said whatever feeling Blake has gets worse after you morph--should you do that now so that you have as much time as possible to get used to it?"

Ashley nodded. "Us, and the other Rangers too. Where are they?"

"I sent them down to one of the other bays," Cam said. He still seemed oddly preoccupied.

"The lion zord," Ashley guessed, watching his reaction.

He looked up in surprise. "How did you know?"

It was nice to have the Power back, she thought, then felt guilty for enjoying it. "Lucky guess," she told him. "We'd better go find them."

"I want to introduce you to the other pilots afterward," Leanne added. "We have forty-two hours until the Aquitians arrive, and we need those fleet rosters."

"Not to mention a chain of command and an attack plan," Cam muttered.

"One thing at a time," Leanne countered mildly.

She was startlingly calm under pressure, Ashley thought. Like the rest of them. Her own team excluded, she didn't think she could ask for a better force at her back than the ninjas. She could only hope that she was what they needed up front.

The problem with being the one up front was that everyone could see you if you faltered. Zhane was pretty sure that Andros wouldn't make that mistake. But he could see the preoccupation in his friend's demeanor, and even if he was the only one, it still worried him. Just a little.

Just enough to call in reinforcements, actually. He knew enough to get Cassandra before TJ, because TJ would come no matter what if he thought there was a problem. Zhane might have to sweet-talk Cassandra into meeting if she knew in advance that TJ was going to be there.

"Hey." He greeted her at her door with a smile. "Want to come to an intervention?"

Cassandra smiled back. She might not have any idea what he was talking about, but she liked him, and that had always worked in his favor. Most people liked him, actually. He tended to take it for gr