Atonement
Summary: (Pre PRiS) When Andros lands the heavily damaged Megaship on Eltar, Zordon gives Andros an impossible choice: resign as a Ranger or accept a new leader. Can Andros prove himself worthy of keeping his morpher and the Megaship, or will he be forced to give up everything he holds dear?
Rating: PG-13 for minor swearing and gore.
Disclaimer: Power Rangers in Space was created by Saban. The series now belongs to Disney. No infringement is intended; in fact, infringement is unlikely.
Notes: First and foremost, I want to thank Phantom Rogue for graciously taking the time to beta this fic. I know I've thanked you several times already, but I'll just say it again. :3
Secondly, I'm extremely thankful to have found wonderful online resources to help me fact-check and fill the blanks in my aging memory of PRiS (Let's face it, it's been ten years since this show aired). In particular, I wish to acknowledge the Writer's Guide to the Power Rangers Universe by Joe Rovang /wg/wgindex.htm.
Seven Days to the Wolves
When the going gets tough, most people count their blessings. Andros preferred to enumerate his failures. His planet's destruction, Zhane's critical injury, his sister's disappearance – these were the worst of what he saw as an inexhaustible list of his shortcomings. He sometimes had trouble believing that Karone had now been missing for eight years, or that the first anniversary of the fall of KO-35 had already come and gone. The pain from those wounds was still as raw and vivid as if they'd happened yesterday. He had yet to make up for them.
But there was no time for reminiscing. Right now, Andros had another mistake to add to his list of screw ups.
He'd just flown into an ambush.
"Stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid!" Andros punched a sequence of commands into the scanner he'd been using, leaving a small dent in the panel. A second volley of enemy fire hit the Megaship, and it pitched to one side, causing him to lose his balance and fall. Grabbing the legs of the panel to lift himself off the floor, Andros brought himself to his feet and dashed for the ship's thruster controls at the centre of the bridge.
Eager to just get the ship under his control again, he blindly plotted an evasive maneuver before hastily inputing several more commands into the heavily modified side of the console. All of the controls to the ship's vital systems instantly transferred to the panel, though not perfectly. Some angrily rebelled, spitting back lines of incomprehensible gibberish through their hastily-constructed displays. He ignored the uncooperative ones, deciding that gravity control wasn't that important at the moment, and brought up a visual of his assailants on the main viewer.
They were three ships of a design Andros had never seen before. Their main section was a rather clunky-looking cockpit surrounded by a variety of add-ons, forming a vaguely conical fuselage that featured almost every other geometric shape at the same time. Several oversized weapons arrays were mounted on both of the awkwardly bent wings. They were flying in a simple formation, pursuing the ship while trying to get it back into their sights.
Andros laughed sardonically. "Someone was aiming for overkill," he said to no one in particular as he brought the ship about, devising a plan.
He blew back loose strands of his two-toned hair and gripped both of the thruster handles, pushing them forward to maximum power. He watched the sight of the trio of ships start to fade away with satisfaction. "There's no way they can move around quickly with those things stuck to their wings."
Another sharp blast suggested otherwise. They were back.
Andros gaped in disbelief. "That's impossible...how did they do that?" While moving the ship with one hand, he used the other to reroute the scanners to his custom panel and assess the vessels. The results answered his question and brought up another.
No wonder they're so fast! Their engines are oversized too! How can they use engines that powerful without breaking apart?
A fourth volley hit the ship, this time causing serious damage. Andros could hear the shield generators failing before he got the computer's warning. The Megaship was reeling from the hits like a car in a high speed collision. He struggled to keep his balance as he steadfastly gripped the thruster handles.
He glanced at the weapons status on his panel and reluctantly reached for it, arming the Megalasers. Andros didn't want to use the lasers; they'd grown more and more unruly over the past two months despite his repairs, oftentimes damaging both him and his opponent. But the situation was getting out of hand.
"I guess I have no choice." He tried his best to suppress the dread building in his stomach.
Using a classic offensive flight plan, he sent the Megaship charging towards the closest ship. It lunged forward, engines hissing at an odd pitch, but Andros kept pushing it on. He lined up the ship as best as possible and fired. The Megaship lurched due to an internal explosion, but the lasers fired, landing a direct hit on the other ship's engine. Andros managed to get the Megaship a reasonable distance away before it broke apart.
He took a moment to assess the Megaship's status, and didn't like what he saw. His custom panel was fried, meaning he'd have to run from the thrusters to the weapons station to fire again – and that was the least of his problems. The shields were long gone, the ship was venting atmosphere, and –
"Oh no. Please no!"
The main power grid was failing. Half of the ship was losing power.
Including Megadeck Six – the engine level.
Zhane!
He had to end this. Now.
He opened his morpher.
"Let's rocket!"
Andros let the comforting power of the morph wash over him before returning his attention to the situation. I can do this.
Safe in his Ranger suit, he cut power to life support, redirecting its power requirements to Megadeck Six. There was plenty of power left in the Megalasers, but he was pretty sure that he would only be able to get a few shots off before they broke down completely.
The two remaining ships were on an intercept course, assuming a side-by-side attack position, barreling towards him at an insane velocity as they dipped into a bell curve. Given their trajectory, they didn't expect the Megaship to survive the next round. Andros watched them fly, his mind racing for an idea, when he noticed that one ship was drifting; its outside wing was slightly out of alignment. Any further disruption would send it spinning out of control.
As the two ships reached the bottom of their arc, they powered weapons for the killing blow.
It was his best and only chance. He jumped to the weapons panel and fired at the unaligned outer wing, and then dove back to the thruster controls. He sent the Megaship diving so fast that the inertial dampeners couldn't compensate. Everything shook and flew forward, and the ship's hull groaned and cracked at the stress. Only once he was in the dive did he check to see what he'd managed to do to his opponents.
Behind him, the lasers hit their target, glancing off the wing. The attacking ship spinned out of control and slammed into its partner's cockpit, destroying them both.
Still, Andros didn't slow the Megaship down until hull breach warnings began to flash, and then only did so reluctantly. He leaned over the thruster controls, steadying himself with his hands, and took a few deep breaths. He'd survived. Everything was going to be fine. He just needed a minute.
Wait, what was he thinking? The Megaship was a wreck and he had no weapons!
"Come on, Andros, check the ship," he told himself.
Hours later, Andros, still morphed, sat slack-legged in a chair on the bridge, staring at the communications array, hesitating.
He couldn't fix the ship.
Even if he continued his practice of ignoring damage to minor parts of the ship, and even if he salvaged more parts from everything he didn't use (and there was a lot stuff he didn't use – all of the parts in the empty crew quarters, half of the refuse systems, the Simudeck), he would never be able to plug the leak that was slowly draining the ship's power supply. Within a month, the ship would stop working and drift in space. Andros' only option was to make for the closest friendly dry dock in the sector, and of course the closest and best place to go was the one place he wanted to avoid.
Eltar.
Andros was sure that the Eltarians would be more than happy to repair the Megaship; that wasn't the problem. The problem was that they probably wouldn't give it back.
After all, he'd hijacked it.
Despite the wrongness of it, he stood by his actions. The crew was long dead, killed on KO-35 during the attack. He'd taken the ship out of desperation. At the time, it had been the only place left on the entire planet that could sustain a cryogenic stasis unit. Everyone was dead or gone and there was no reason to stay. Zhane's survival had depended on the Megaship.
For the first few months, his de facto control of the ship was tolerated. But as Dark Spectre's raids mounted, the need for more ships outweighed the Eltarian's patience. One day, a transmission had arrived, demanding that he bring the ship to its home port. Andros had ignored it, and every other message from Eltar ever since.
Andros had no defense against ignoring summons from Eltar. He knew it was wrong to keep their ship. With a decent crew and upkeep, the Megaship would be practically unstoppable in a fight and could single-handedly do a lot of good. But he couldn't give the ship back. It was his means of protecting what he cared about. Without it, he'd be unable to roam the universe freely, attacking Dark Spectre's outposts or searching for Karone while keeping a quiet eye on his best friend, asleep in stasis. If he returned it, he would have to entrust Zhane to someone else for protection, and that meant trusting someone with the secret that the legendary Silver Ranger was still alive. That was unacceptable. At this point, Andros trusted no one but himself.
Besides, Power Rangers weren't thieves. Rangers didn't ignore requests from Eltar in favour of their own selfish pursuits.
Power Rangers didn't let their planets get sacked by the forces of evil.
Andros knew his conduct was not that of a Power Ranger, and the Eltarians, Keepers of the Power itself, would make him answer for it, as was their right.
If Andros went to Eltar, he wouldn't have to surrender just the Megaship. He'd also have to surrender his morpher.
Tears welled up in his eyes, much to his frustration. Andros like to didn't cry; he fixed the problem and got on with it. He was a Kerovian, and Kerovians were as tough as they came. Still, Andros felt like he was drowning in his mistakes and being stripped of the ability to fix them at the same time. He couldn't lose the ship, or his morpher. He couldn't lose his link to the Power. He needed them to make things right.
But if he didn't go to Eltar, Zhane would die. The power leak was as much of a death sentence for the ship as it was for his friend.
Andros sighed and shook his head, standing up. This wasn't a hard decision. He couldn't save Zhane, but by keeping him alive, he was giving Zhane the chance to save himself. He owed him that much, even if it cost him everything else.
Burying thoughts of what to expect when he arrived, Andros plotted a course to Eltar, set the engines to a speed he thought they could handle without burning out too quickly, and then sat down at the communications station again to send them a message. He was suddenly glad that he was still morphed; no one would be able to see his tear-streaked face in the transmission. Before pressing record, he took a calming breath. He fingered his locket through his uniform, reminded himself of all his mistakes, and his promises to fix them.
"I'm not giving up on you," he whispered.
The words were not just meant for Zhane.
It was nine days before the Megaship ended its painful limp to Eltar and landed on the grey, rocky planet. Andros eased her as gently as possible into the spaceport, cringing each time the ship creaked in new ways or abruptly tilted in the wrong direction. But the ship was tough and well-built, and he managed to land it where he'd been directed without incident, breathing a sigh of relief as the engines methodically shut down without complaint. Without their constant hum, the Megaship felt eerily silent to Andros, even dead.
This was it.
He took in the sight of the dilapidated bridge, the damaged consoles, the exposed wiring within the walls, and shook his head, performing a few final tasks before disembarking. He shut down all power but the energy feeding the computer, security system and stasis unit, and opened the ventilation system to let in air from outside. The effect was instant; Andros could taste the fresh, unrecycled air through his helmet as he powered down.
Andros only had his thoughts to fill the ship's silence as he walked to the airlock in the engine room. He was nervous. What would be waiting for him when he went outside? At best, there would be no one. At worst, he expected a stern Eltarian and an outstretched hand waiting to claim his morpher. But the sad truth was, he had no idea what to expect. The communiqués the planet had sent since his mayday were clipped and direct, giving no hint to the mood of the Keepers of the Power. That was what bothered Andros the most: the uncertainty of it all. This wasn't a battle he could win if he didn't know what he was up against. Heck, it wasn't a battle at all. It was something almost outside of his mindset. While he was a skilled fighter and strategist, Andros was still a teenager, and unskilled when it came to dealing with people outside of a battlefield. He had no experience that could help him out of this.
He stopped at the airlock, glancing back towards Zhane's alcove. He needed to assure himself that it was indeed well-concealed. A scavenged piece of wall was in place, obscuring the door and room beyond. It looked like the wall was out of place, but he was confident that any visitors to the ship would dismiss it as an emergency repair to the wall and nothing more. It would suffice until...
He didn't know how to finish that thought.
Andros sighed. There was no point delaying any further. He pulled his long hair back into a ponytail to improve his disheveled appearance, opened the airlock, and stepped out.
Five men were waiting for him at the base of the ship. All were Eltarian, at least as far as Andros could tell. They all had that same basic appearance: shaved heads, straight noses, broad shoulders, and short but powerfully built bodies clad in tunics of similar designs and neutral colours. Some carried ledgers and scanners. None looked particularly friendly.
The man at the centre of the group – a herald, Andros realized, spotting a symbolic bracelet on the man's left arm – stepped forward and saluted the teen mechanically. "Welcome, Andros of KO-35. I am honoured to welcome a Power Ranger to Eltar, and thank you for the return of our vessel." He took a step to the side, gesturing behind him. "If you would please follow me? I've been asked to escort you."
Andros didn't miss the rehearsed tone of the welcome, or the fact that the polite request to follow the herald was a thinly veiled order.
His immediate thought was to rebel, to turn around and lock himself in the ship, or to morph and stand his ground, refusing to take anyone's orders. He suppressed the urge as quickly as it surfaced. If he did that, he would just be digging himself a bigger hole to get out of. But still, he ached to know what was going to happen next. What could he glean from the emissary?
"What's going to happen to the Megaship?"
The herald raised his eyebrows. Obviously, he hadn't expected such a question. "That depends," he replied.
"On what?"
"On how damaged it is, which is what my companions are here to determine." He paused, his eyes moving from the morpher on Andros' wrist to the Red Ranger's eyes. "And other things."
Without waiting to see if Andros would prolong the conversation, the emissary set off at a brisk pace, apparently convinced that Andros would follow. The rest of the group broke up and began circling the ship, examining burn marks and taking notes. One approached the airlock, staring at Andros with no small amount of trepidation.
"I need to go inside," he said.
Anger and anxiety rose up like a lump in Andros' throat at the notion of letting someone into his inner sanctum. He glared menacingly at the mechanic.
"Don't touch anything," he replied before marching off in pursuit of the herald.
Eltar, Andros decided, was well suited to its people. It was a very austere, very grey planet. The terrain was grey, with flecks of black and white spattered here and there on the rocky granite cliffs. The plant life was few and far between, and what there was were short, stout shrubs and grasses that varied in colour from the occasional forest green to a soft lavender grey. Every building he and the escort passed as they walked through the port was much the same: tall, straight, angular, and colourless like weathered marble. The only colour Andros saw was in the wildlife: strange insects, lit up with all the colours of the rainbow, fluttered around the occasional tree, emitting a strange, wistful cry as they moved.
"Elenath," the herald commented, seeing Andros' interest. "They feed on the leaves of the trees before migrating to the north over the ocean."
"They can make it that far?" Andros recalled seeing the wide expanse of the northern ocean when he was landing the Megaship. It had to be hundreds of kilometers wide.
"A few do, but not many. Elenath are reckless creatures. They have no concept of patience or of pacing themselves as they cross the water. I'm sure you understand."
Andros stiffened. "Is that supposed to be your idea of subtle criticism?"
The herald held his hands up in surrender. "What can I say? Your reputation precedes you. Everyone has at the very least heard the rumors of the rogue Red Ranger that patrols the vast expanses of space, fighting any evil and answering to no one."
"And you don't approve."
"The Council doesn't."
Andros sighed, turning his head from the elenath to stare in at the path in front of him that led deeper into the port city. "Look, I doubt the Council of Eltar needs you to repeat what they're going to tell me when we arrive. Hearing it once will be enough. So could you, I don't know, shut up?"
He expected the herald to be offended and silenced by his rude reply. That was his intention, after all. Instead, the man looked at Andros with a mixture of both offense and bewilderment.
"But I'm not taking you to the Council, Andros of KO-35. I thought you knew that?"
"You're not?" Andros stared at the herald as they continued walking, confused.
"They agreed that they were not the best authority to...speak with you."
Now he was really confused. Where else would you send a Power Ranger that needed to be disciplined but to the rulers of the planet that discovered the Power and knew it best? Whose authority could possibly surpass theirs?
Curiosity got the better of him. "Then where are we going?"
"I'm taking you to see Zordon."
The Red Ranger stopped in his tracks, his mouth open from the reply he'd planned out in his mind. The herald didn't notice until he turned to beckon Andros into one of the buildings. "Is something wrong?" he asked.
"Zordon's on Earth."
"He was until last month. A wormhole allowed him and his assistant to return to Eltar. I'm surprised you hadn't heard."
Andros could only shrug, still in shock over the revelation. "I- I've been busy."
"I see." The herald entered the building, holding the door open for Andros. "When Zordon heard that you were coming, he intervened with the Council on your behalf. They agreed to let him judge you first with one condition."
Andros didn't hear a word that the herald said as he followed him in. He was still stuck on the previous revelation.
Zordon was going to judge him. Zordon – the immortal, death-defying warrior who'd defeated Rita Repulsa and survived being trapped in a time warp by calling on the Power in ways that were supposed to be impossible. The stories of his exploits, his courage, and his wisdom existed even today throughout the galaxy, tens of thousands of years after he'd committed his great feats.
Andros suddenly felt very lost and insignificant. Who was he compared to Zordon? An unruly Power Ranger? A nobody from the backwoods of the universe?
He was going to see Zordon. The first and most legendary Power Ranger.