Shadows Cast
"SPD!—Shadow Ranger!"
Kat frowned to herself as she watched Sky transform to help B–Squad. She was quite proud of his accomplishments, of course; Sky Tate had become SPD Commander for the Earth branches, the rank formerly held by Doggie Cruger.
Kat massaged her temples, feeling a migraine coming on. They had started shortly after her old friend became the Supreme Commander of Space Patrol Delta. He seemed very happy to be up there, and she was happy to give him her support. There was even a grand sending off for him, which he had hated. He deserved it, though. She missed him.
"Kat, send the zords!"
Kat didn't verbalize a reply before sending them the Delta Runners. She stayed to make sure they were okay, but her head throbbed. If she were to be completely honest, she had become a bit miserable without her old friend. She still had her B–Squad, her kids, but there was something...empty about the command center to her now. Maybe she was just allowing herself to stew in her own misery too much.
Doggie had actually attempted to bring Kat with him to Supreme Command, as a head operating technician for Supreme Command. However, a change in position was not in her immediate contract. He had attempted to refuse the promotion but she hadn't let him. She agreed to remain on Earth base as long as she was needed, and they'd figure out the rest later. There was no other choice, and for Doggie to turn down Supreme Commander positioning would be foolish.
"Guilty!"
Kat looked back to the monitors to see her team wrapping things up. Sky's face appeared, in the Shadow Ranger helmet, making Kat's head pound all the more. When Doggie first handed it in it had needed adjustments to accommodate Sky.
Part of her frustration was due to the fact that Doggie had handed down the morpher she made custom for him. It was a bit petty, she knew, but she couldn't help but feel a little abandoned along with it. Every time Sky morphed it was a reminder to her that she was just as easily shifted around as the morpher.
Heading to the senior officers' lounge, she laid herself down on the couch and made sure the room was pitched black. Migraines had never been a problem for her before, but when they hit her it was bad. Her particular physiology didn't have a migraine point, either, so there was no reflexology in the world to help her.
"Kat," Sky's voice came.
"Sorry, sir," Kat muttered. Try as she had she couldn't get used to addressing Sky as "sir", or seeing him in the senior lounge. "I'll be up in a moment."
"Kat, I want to know what's bothering you. You never used to get these when I was on B–Squad," Sky frowned, pulling up a seat in the dark. He had become good friends with Kat when Cruger handed down his rank. At the same time, Kat had become more distant in a general sense. She wasn't the same woman who had watched over them with...Cruger... "Is this about the Supreme Commander?"
"What about him?" Kat shifted, glad Sky couldn't see the blush on her face. No one had to know that her heart ached for him, crying at her every minute of the day to just call him.
"I know you miss him, Kat, and you shouldn't be suffering in silence here," Sky listened to what he assumed was Kat sitting up. Reaching over, she flicked on the lamp. Seeing her face, he could see it pinched with anxiety, typical of Kat in the recent months. This only increased his worry. "Kat...I know you're not happy here without him."
"Of course I am, I have you guys," she sighed, rubbing at her eyes and then behind her ears. When she looked at Sky, who had become more of a friend than a kid to her, she saw his worry. He reminded her of Doggie, with his deep soul and genuine care for others. "Okay, I miss him, but Doggie deserves to be Supreme Commander. He seems happy up there so who would I be to disrupt that? We agreed, he would go, we'd try to stay in touch."
"When was the last time you heard from him?" Sky asked gently.
"Month and a half ago, I don't know," Kat frowned, still massaging her forehead in tension. "It doesn't matter, he's busy, I'm busy. You're busy being Commander and the Shadow Ranger... "
Sky's eyebrows shot up at the tone she took as she mentioned his new Ranger role. He had gotten to know her small mannerisms pretty well, plus Cruger had educated him well on reading "Kat language". He had all but left a diagram of facial expressions with a matching key of certain tones. "Is Shadow Ranger bothering you?"
"Of course not, Sky, I think it's great that you're..." Kat didn't even finish the sentence, lying back down to nurse her head. "Besides, you need it more than him."
"You didn't make it for me, though," Sky took the morpher off his belt, "you made it for him."
He set it on the coffee table, feeling the weight of it in his hand. The first time he held it, it was different from his morpher, and felt foreign. Shadow morpher was designed for Cruger, and had technology built in it that was completely different from their squad morphers. Kat had spent a good deal of time adjusting the system for Sky.
"So?" Kat groaned, knowing where Sky was going with this. It was like Doggie had given him lessons on how to get under her fur about things. "I know what you're thinking, Sky."
"Am I right, then, about you resenting me being Shadow Ranger because Doggie passed it onto me after you designed it especially for him?" Sky asked in a more taunting tone.
"Drop it, Sky," Kat grumbled in misery.
"Ah, I am right," he smirked.
"You might be my boss, but I am still your elder by more than a century," she glared at him with a slight pout.
"I'm still right, Miss Manx," Sky bowed to the woman who had been like family to him for almost all his life. "If it's any consolation, I have never been your boss. I might have Doggie's rank but it doesn't mean I'm your boss, no less the boss of you. He always made it clear to us cadets that you were a senior officer and just as good as any Lieutenant Commander he could have. He valued you like his right hand, because, really, you were. I know he wouldn't have taken that job up there if you hadn't made him."
Kat smiled a little as Sky sat next to her gently, weighed down by his Commander's coat. Sky's wasn't as heavy as Doggie's, but it had the same effect. "Sure thing, Commander Tate."
"Kat, that just sounds weird. Call me Sky," he smiled at her genuinely with warmth. "I didn't feel right about taking the Shadow morpher—"
"Sky, don't worry about it," Kat tried to wave off but he held out a hand to stop her.
"Doggie insisted I take it, but there was something he said before he gave it to me," Sky smiled, remembering the old dog's words. He turned to Kat, seeing her anticipatory face. "He said...to take care of it, because it was a gift from an old friend. He told me that I would need it more, especially if B–Squad ever needed any help. Another reason he said I should keep it was that Shadow Ranger would have to be our auxiliary ranger, so you wouldn't have to be."
Kat, still reeling from what Sky told her about Doggie calling the morpher a gift, shook her head. "W–what?—I was the Cat Ranger once, and the morpher doesn't even last more than an hour."
"Still, he wanted to be sure that you wouldn't have to go into the field. Not that he doubted you, he made that equally clear, but he wanted you far from danger. He told me that after the fall of Omni, knowing how you were stuck here with the cadets, he worried. There were times he worried about you because he couldn't ensure your safety. Leaving me the Shadow morpher, it was like I could ensure your safety for him. I could help B–Squad if needed, but, for the rest of the time, I would be here. If anything penetrated the command center again, I would be here to help you—to protect you."
Kat smiled, feeling the pounding in her head recede. She sighed and looked at the young man who had taken on such a heavy roll with readiness. He had stepped up the moment Doggie needed him and hadn't fallen short of any expectations. "Doggie made a good choice, making you Commander, Sky."
"Thanks," he laughed a bit, showing slight sheepishness. "Sometimes I wonder why he left me the whole base. It seems so...grown up, I guess might be the word for it. I have no business commanding all these cadets here, I'm barely out of the academy myself. Doggie was a war hero, and a fighter. I've barely begun my journey, he said."
"True, but you're off to a pretty great start, kid," Kat laughed lightly as well, leaning against him. He was warm. "I appreciate this, Sky. You've been a good Commander and a very good friend, Skyler, thank you."
Sky blushed a bit at the use of his full name, only available on his birth certificate. "Thanks...Aunt Kat."
Kat beamed at the old reference. He hadn't called her that in a good sixteen years or more. When he came around as a child, visiting his father on base, he became quite attached to Kat. She also became fond of the "little forcefield one". Sky's father, John, had Sky in often and the little boy eventually took to calling her Aunt Kat. Well, when he was really little it was "Aunty Kat", or "Aunt Kitty". When he returned to begin the academy he either didn't remember calling her his aunt or felt silly doing so. He was a cadet, anyway, and seldom saw her in person. "You remember that?"
"The other day I was going through my father's albums and I found one of you and I when I was, like, two, labeled "Sky and Aunt Kat". When I started the academy I always felt I knew you but couldn't remember exactly how." Sky felt Kat lean into him a little more, reveling in the comfortable heat. "I finally remembered how I would run all over your lab."
"Usually breaking things," Kat finished for him.
"You were the reason I learned how to use my forcefields, though, and it helped me get out from my father's shadow." When Kat seemed confused Sky elaborated. "You were designing something, probably the morphers, in retrospect. There was a forcefield and I saw you, with a glove, shape it into a sphere shape. That's how I learned to move my arm to make them. I never knew, before, why just waving my hand wouldn't be enough; because of you, I figured out that my movement would shape the forcefields I made."
"Well, I'm glad I could help," she noted lightly. "I know you're stepping out of one shadow and into another one, literally in this case, but I have every confidence in you."
"Thank you, Kat," Sky looked to the woman leaning on his shoulder and smiled. "I guess I did step into a shadow, hm? You know, I asked Doggie why he hadn't left you the base."
"Why?" Kat frowned at him.
"He said he would have no problem doing so, and before I graduated to red ranger, that was his intention. It wouldn't be good for you, though, he said; it would be wrong to take you from the lab as your true calling," Sky quoted, mimicking Cruger's voice for the last part.
"Stubborn, old, dog," Kat shook her head with a smile. "He's lucky I love him."
"Yes, he is," Sky nodded, trying not to smile too smugly at the inadvertent admission. In a moment, he turned to see Kat's face go pink and laughed. "Relax, Kat, it's nothing we don't already know."
"Unbelievable," Kat groaned into Sky's – her nephew's – shoulder. Her cheeks burned although the pounding in her head still hadn't returned. "Wait, what do you mean we?"
"Everyone knows you two are totally in love with each other," Sky shook his head and waved a hand with a smile. "I'm sure he's just as miserable up there without you...you could go, you know."
"What?"
"When a position opens up, I want you to go. I want you to take it, because you deserve it, Kat, as much as he does." Sky turned to Kat seriously, though her head remained leaned against his broad shoulder. "We'll be okay here. We have each other, and everything you and Doggie taught us. We'll be fine."
"Sir, Supreme Commander Cruger is on communication line alpha, sir," Syd reported with a secretive smile on her face.
"Thank you, Miss Drew," Sky nodded with a smile of his own. "Kat, come on."
Kat followed Sky to his office and stood by his side as her friend's face came onto the server. She couldn't help but smile at the sight. "Hello, Supreme Commander."
"Come on, Kat, I'm the same old dog," he addressed in the lightest voice she had heard from him in decades; "and I have wonderful news!"
"What is it, Doggie?" Sky asked with a smile also. It was still a little weird to be calling him Doggie when, in Sky's mind, he would always be "the Commander".
"I have just finished a meeting for the Board of Supreme Command. After several system failures we have agreed that we are in need of a specialist, at the top of their field. They would be working here, hands on, with our top systems and technologies, as well as liaising with Earth bases. This individual would have to be an expert in technical and engineering, as well as be familiar with Earth base protocol. A primary Earth base would be selected as a main station for their communication, of course, I imagine your base would be suitable, Commander Tate."
"Yes, sir, it would be," Sky smirked, knowingly.
"Now, the selection of this individual was considered by the entirety of the Board and we were unanimous in decision upon a particular expert with considerable prowess in every scientific field covered." Cruger made a point of turning his gaze from Sky to Kat. "Doctor Manx, we would be honored if you would take on the position of Technologies and Engineering Commanding Officer."
"TEC Officer, sir?" Kat smiled at her old friend. She was sure that if the letters coincided right, he would have named it KAT Officer if he could.
"Well, I attempted to name the position Chief Advanced Technologies Officer, but it was turned down for irony," Cruger laughed.
"I can not believe I just heard you make a joke," Kat shook her head and laughed as well. Ease immediately took over her as she relaxed. "Still, did you just make up a rank for me?"
"Well, no one objected, so, yes," Doggie nodded shamelessly. "What do you say, Kat? It has been cleared and you could come up as soon as your affairs are in order. Plus, you'd still get to come back and visit our B–Squad—"
"You don't have to sell me on it, Doggie," Kat stopped him, "this is wonderful, thank you. I would be honored to take up the position of Technologies and Engineering Commanding Officer, sir."
"Very well, Doctor Manx, I'll be in touch with Commander Tate for details on your launch." Cruger nodded. With an uncharacteristic glance over his shoulder he leaned in closer. "I look forward to your arrival, Kat. It's quite boring up here, and...I miss you."
Kat felt a blush creep into her cheeks again, highlighting the spots on her cheeks. "I–I've missed you too, Doggie. How have you been?"
"I'm sorry it's been so long, Kat. I wish I could have called you more but these overstuffed animal have me filing paperwork day in and day out. I need you to keep me on track," Doggie shook his head, though he was smiling. He had felt better than he had in years, with his promotion, feeling as if he were making a real impact, with one exception: he missed Kat. She was the only drawback from his new job.
"Doggie, you and I both know that you've shredded half of it and said it never made it to your office," Kat laughed. He laughed as well, and she felt her heart pick up. "I'll have a talk with Boom and I can be up there as soon as noon tomorrow, if that's not too soon."
"To see you, Kat, nothing is too soon," Doggie smiled in pure sincerity.
Kat felt herself blush deeper and ducked her head on her way out.
"She has really missed you, sir," Sky addressed Cruger himself. "She won't admit it, but I think she's been quite miserable here without you."
"I must admit, I've been quite miserable here without her," Cruger sighed.
"We'll make do here. You two...just belong together," Sky smiled, setting his shoulders square. "So, how have you been, y'old dog?"
"You've been talking with Kat too much," Cruger tried to frown, but it wouldn't take. "I've been fine, I suppose. Things are very different up here, but it's enlightening to see things from the top of the summit, if you will. How have you been there?"
"Things have been going well, sir. Bridge has settled into being Red Ranger very well and we even found new Blue and Yellow Rangers. Z stepped up to Green readily though Syd refused to give up her position as Pink Ranger." Sky smiled fondly.
"That is not surprising," Cruger nodded. "How is it being the Shadow Ranger?"
"It's still weird, and I think it was a little upsetting for Kat to see anyone but you in the role. Don't worry, though, she knows you treasure it as her gift to you, it was just given to me for everyone's best interest," Sky assured Doggie as he seemed ready to argue. "So, you finally got her a position up there?"
"Yes, the head of the engineering department here finally screwed up enough times for me to convince them to bring up Kat," Doggie turned to Sky. "Are you sure you'll be all right there?"
"We'll make it; you need her more," Sky smiled and nodded once firmly.
"That I do," Cruger smiled at his once cadet, now protégé. "We'll talk when she arrives."
"Commander Tate, out," Sky declared before smiling again, "talk later, old friend."
"Supreme Commander Cruger, out," Doggie smiled back.