Disclaimer: I don't own the Power Rangers.

Notes: Dari is pronounced "dah-ree" not "dairy".

Beyond a Glimmer of Hope
Chapter I: The Before

"It is time to wake up, Andros."

"I know, DECA." He squinted when she turned the lights up, causing the bunk above him to swim in and out of focus. "I'm already awake."

For once, she deemed that an acceptable response. That, or she just didn't deign to answer, because he couldn't remember the last time a morning had gone by without an argument or four over his state of consciousness. At least, he thought so until he made it halfway to the bathroom without being told to make his bed.

Andros paused, the floor cool against his bare feet as he hesitated. "DECA?"

"Yes, Andros?"

His frowned deepened when she blinked at him. "Nothing."

Phantom was already on the Bridge when he arrived. Despite the still-early hour, Andros wasn't surprised. He rose early most days to run through a few sims before breakfast, but he had more than once spotted Phantom roaming the halls. Whether Phantom was an early riser or just needed no sleep, Andros didn't know. He had never asked, and Phantom had never volunteered that information.

"Good morning, Andros," Phantom greeted him calmly.

Stifling a yawn, Andros nodded to acknowledge Phantom as he shrugged his jacket into place. "Is this where we are?" he asked, narrowing his eyes at the map Phantom had pulled up onto the viewing screen. The pattern of stars was familiar to him, but it wasn't where he expected to find himself today. "Approaching Eltar?"

"Yes."

When no explanation was forthcoming, Andros raised an eyebrow. "Why?"

If he didn't know better, he thought he might have actually startled Phantom—the helmeted head turned towards him and it was a long moment before he was informed, "Our presence was requested. There was an urgent transmission from Sera early this morning. I assumed DECA would have—"

"She didn't." Andros resisted the urge to rub his forehead. "DECA?"

"I'm sorry, Andros." DECA's eye blinked on and off several times before she added, "You were asleep."

She had never hesitated to interrupt his sleep before. He tried not to sigh. That wasn't important now. "What did Sera want?"

Phantom's answer wasn't what Andros had expected—cryptic was what the Eltaran Rangers did better than anyone, and their leader most of all, but Phantom said only, "She requested that we join her team on Eltar before their midday. What's left of the Inquirian team will be there, as well."

A deep uneasiness began to well up within him and Andros closed his eyes, sighing deeply. "Aquitar surrendered."

"That was my conclusion." Phantom paused. "DECA agreed that it was likely."

Andros couldn't say that he was surprised. Aquitar had been a battleground for nearly five years now, evacuations had begun three years ago, and those that remained had been under constant siege for the last month.

"They've fought well," he said at last.

Five years.

He had only lasted two.

"Yes," Phantom said quietly. "They have."

They stood there in silence a moment longer, staring at the viewscreen. By the map, they were at least another half hour from their destination, and he didn't want to spend it in here. Andros turned to go. Phantom hardly acknowledged him this time as he strode to the Megalift, and Andros didn't look back as the doors slid shut around him.

Aquitar hadn't surrendered, it turned out—at least, not yet.

"Two weeks," Sera said flatly. "Delphine estimates that her team will hold that much longer—which gives us enough time to do what we must."

"And what," Dari demanded, "must we do?"

Andros glanced at the Inquirian Ranger. She had been silent until now, staring down at the table and toying with the too-long sleeves of her white tunic.

"Zordon," Sera informed them. "Dark Spectre must not capture him. It would be devastating to us."

Andros tried not to sigh as his gaze drifted back to Sera. She sat weary-eyed at the head of the long table, the sleeves of her white jacket rolled up to her elbows, and the silver sash that marked her leader of her team still across her chest. To her right were Wren and Valeria in blue and red; to her left, Kaede, Kenta, and Loris. Violet, Black, and Yellow, the rest of her team.

Dari was beside Valeria, directly across from him, with Phantom beside her.

The table stretched on past the nine of them, empty seats lining the meeting hall. This room had been built to hold five full teams comfortably. Andros estimated that seven could probably have crowded themselves in, but he couldn't think of seven worlds that had a full team of Rangers anymore.

Even when his mother had been a Ranger, this hall would have been filled with fragments.

His eyes fell to his morpher as his fists clenched. The day his parents had been killed had been the day he'd met Zordon of Eltar.

Zordon had been the one to unlock his powers, and later, Zhane's.

Andros wasn't sure if he'd ever forgive Zordon for that.

"Has Dark Spectre not surrounded the planet Aquitar?" Dari was questioning Sera, and Andros forced his attention back to the conversation at hand.

Zordon was the reason Dark Spectre was so insistent on conquering Aquitar. For three thousand years he had been there, mentoring the Rangers who kept him safe. But Dark Spectre wanted Zordon and his powers, and Aquitar was crumbling slowly.

"It's true that the space near Aquitar is mostly overrun by velocifighters and UAE forces," Wren said, leaning forward to look past Valeria. "But we don't need to defeat Dark Spectre right now, which is good, because I doubt that we good manage it with just the nine of us and the Aquitian team. We just need to get Zordon and anyone else out of there, and that I think we can do."

Dari lifted an eyebrow. "Are we to assume, then, that Dark Spectre will allow us to enter Aquitian space, land on the planet, pack up Zordon and his tube, and sail off with him?"

"You're skeptical." Wren sounded amused as she smiled. "That's fair. It won't be easy to do. Zordon is the easiest part, believe it or not. His glass tube can travel physically—I think that's how he got to Aquitar in the first place, all those years ago, but then he can also... I guess you'd say it was teleportation. He can do that, if there's enough energy to start up the process and another tube for him to go to. There is one of those here. So all we have to do to get him out of there is give him a boost and he'll teleport right on over here."

"And as for the rest of us—" Sera's expression had softened as she listened to Wren babble, but the lines on her face tightened as she started to speak again. "We'll be in disguise. Valeria and Loris have spent the past several months building the vehicles that we'll need. They will be enough to get us to the ground."

"And after?" Phantom inquired.

"Once we've seen Zordon to safety, we will remain on Aquitar just long enough to help those who will leave to safety," Sera said quietly. "Rasilia is where many of the Aquitian refugees have gone. Delphine and her team are likely to join them there."

She paused just for a heartbeat before clearing her throat. "Our scanning equipment shows an anomalous reading. We believe that it's possible a portal has opened, and it is oriented in such a way that it's likely it will take us to Aquitar, or near enough."

Dari lifted an eyebrow. "It's possible?"

"Yes, well," Wren broke in, "we'll test it first, obviously, but our other equipment wasn't capable of providing detailed enough information and I've only just finished the scanner that we'll need to use. I was hoping that we'd have been done with it before you'd arrived, but I was still running some tests on it."

"Phantom," Sera said, "if you would be willing—"

"You wish for me to investigate this anomaly for you," Phantom said. "I am willing."

"Thank you." The smallest hint of a smile passed over her face. "Andros will accompany you. Wren, will you fetch the scanner?"

Andros was too glad at the prospect of leaving the room to protest the order. Better to spend several hours in the company of Phantom, who he was used to, than with the Dari and the entire Eltaran team.

"Well, then," Sera said, rising to her feet, "we'll return here once Andros and Phantom Ranger have collected the information we need. That is all."

"She's been to Inquiris recently," Phantom said quietly, facing the corner where Sera and Dari conversed in low tones. "And she remained there long enough to show the effect of the planet."

"Yes." He'd noticed it, too, when Dari had been silent but for her questions—the compulsion to speak in questions affected all those who visited Inquiris, but it progressed more slowly in those who were not of Inquirian heritage and it would leave them more quickly. Dari was a native-born child of Inquirian parents. It would be some time yet before the effects faded.

And though that meant perhaps she had only spent a day or two on her homeworld, he couldn't imagine it. He hadn't returned to KO-35 since he'd left it, and he had no intentions of doing so until he could return his people to their home.

I'm sorry.

"Andros."

He tensed and recoiled, startled more obviously than he would have liked by Phantom's hand on his arm. "Yes?"

Wren was at Phantom's side, her hands full. "I have what you'll need," she said brightly. "It's our newest design, so you shouldn't have any trouble using it—it's much simpler than the last version, the one where you had to plug the scanning equipment into your nav systems console to keep it from giving you the readings backwards if you so much as looked at it wrong. Do you remember that one?" She paused just long to glance at his face. "I guess you never used that one, then. Anyway, all you have to do with this one is turn it on. It'll send all the results to us as you take them, and we'll have them analyzed by the time you get back."

"We'll be back in a few hours," he said, accepting the scanner she handed him with a nod. It was heavier than he'd expected.

"We're having soup for lunch. Loris cooked it himself." She smiled, laying a hand on his arm as he turned to go. "Have a safe journey."

"Thank you," Phantom said quietly.

Andros nodded once more before he turned and left the hall. The corridor was quiet and blessedly empty, and he allowed himself a breath of relief. He had not been in the company of so many people for months now, nearly a year, not since the last time Sera had summoned him to Eltar. It was only in the presence of others that he realized how used to the silence he had grown.

But he had never been the most conversant of people, and Phantom, too, said little. They returned to the Megaship in silence, and as they headed out to the coordinates Sera had specified, they said nothing that wasn't in relation to their mission.

Just for a second, he thought of Zhane. If Zhane were here with him now, Andros knew, he wouldn't be allowed to sit quietly and concentrate on his work. If Zhane were here, he would have been dragged off to the Observatory deck with snacks, or off onto the Simudeck, or off to eat lunch, or... anywhere but here.

If Zhane were here, he would be wishing for this silence.

Andros cleared his throat. "We'll take your ship the rest of the way."

"It does seem the wisest choice," Phantom agreed.

The Megaship was too large of a target, and Phantom's ship had more effective cloaking. So, yes, it was the wisest choice, but that didn't stop Andros from wishing otherwise as he followed Phantom onto the smaller ship. It was hard not to feel crowded when he compared this cockpit to the Megaship's Bridge, and he settled himself awkwardly in the seat off to the side. It was strange, too, not to be in the pilot's seat.

Andros raised his morpher closer to his mouth. "Two hours, DECA."

"Good luck, Andros." Her calm reply made him smile faintly as he lowered his arm.

Silence again. It was both a welcome relief and oddly disconcerting, and he tried not to think on it too much. He fiddled instead with Wren's scanner, drumming his fingers against the sides.

He wondered idly if the sound bothered Phantom, but he neither asked nor ceased doing it, and Phantom said nothing.

Andros stared blankly at the scanner without seeing what the screen displayed, but when it started beeping wildly he knew that there had been nothing there the moment before.

"What is it?" Phantom asked, and Andros frowned down at the screen.

"I... don't know," he said slowly. "It looks like it might—"

He stopped when the ship trembled, nearly dropping the scanner in order to steady himself. "What was that?" he demanded, clutching the arm of his seat.

"I cannot say." Phantom was as calm as ever, but Andros thought he detected a hint of worry. "But perhaps we should—"

Phantom's voice faded suddenly, and the scanner tumbled from his hand as Andros fell. The seat his fingers were digging into dissolved as he was pitched forward into a dizzy nothingness. He was falling, falling up, and all around him was warmth and quiet, and—a face that he had not seen in far too long, peaceful in sleep.

Andros blinked, once, then twice, then harder as his vision blurred and his breath hitched. "Zhane," he whispered. "Zhane."