Disclaimer: not mine, wish they were. Anyways, sorry this is late - Dany updates A03 and I do , and because of time differences I can't quite get the timing right so that we both upload at the same time. So, here's the next chapter. Please, enjoy. Once again, it's spell checked and also, Dany uses US English and Mouse uses Australian English.


Shattered Souls - Chapter Four

by MzDany and AngelMouse5

As soon as Tarns walked into Dr Manx's lab the next day, she knew things were about to get difficult and dangerous. She looked up and gave him a textbook salute as he walked up to her.

"Everyone out!" The staff quickly left and as soon as they were gone, he thrust a computer pad into her hands.

"Here are the upgrades I want you to begin to make to the Delta Squad Megazord. I also want you to begin to reprogram the A-Squad morphers so that my squad can use them immediately." Kat took the pad and began to look at the details on it, after unlocking it with her security clearance, and frowned slightly. "Also, where is the Shadow morpher?"

"As I told Lt Venda yesterday sir, it was destroyed when Commander Tate died in the shuttle explosion, didn't he tell you?" Tarns growled and suddenly realised that Venda had, he just hadn't taken it in.

"He did. But I wanted to hear it from you, wanted to make sure. So how is the Delta Command Megazord running now?"

"It's not, sir," Kat said. "Frankly, ever since Gruumm's defeat, alien monster attacks have all but diminished, and there have been no incidents that the Rangers couldn't handle with just the Delta Squad Megazord. So figuring out how to run the Delta Command Megazord isn't on my priority list right now."

Tarns glowered at her. "Well, consider it top of your priority list now. Not having both Megazords in perfect running shape is a serious breach of Earth security, Dr. Manx, and it needs to be rectified immediately." He continued to stare her down until she acquiesced with a nod.

"Now, the morphers, how long?"

"Sir, the A-Squad morphers will take time to reprogram, since they were synced with the A-Squad Megazord, which was destroyed. They were never calibrated for the Delta Squad Megazord. This Zord also needs expert handling. Are your compatriots all Ranger trained?" Tarns actually growled at her.

"Yes, they are," he lied. "And I don't care, you have your orders. I want this work done by the end of the week, is that understood Dr Manx?" Kat looked at the schematics on the pad and frowned even harder.

"Sir, that is going to require a lot of work, overtime and a lot of specialised equipment and technicians, do I have your approval to access the extra resources I will need to get this done in your time frame, sir?" Tarns just frowned hard at her.

"How much overtime and resources?" Kat did some quick calculations. She needed to make a play for as much time as possible.

"At least five days of running double shifts for the Megazords with at least a dozen technicians per vehicle. As for the morphers, if I work on them exclusively, as they are very delicate and time consuming, I should have them done by the end of the week as well. But it will be a tight time frame, sir." Tarns frowned and shook his head.

"Single shifts only, double rota of technicians only on the Zords, you must oversee every bit of it yourself. As for the morphers, only you and no one else are to touch them, and you can work on them at the same time. Is that clear?" Kat shook her head.

"Sir, that's almost an impossible deadline to make. I can't be in two places at the same time." Tarns leaned towards her so that he was practically breathing on her face. Kat worked hard not to take a step back involuntarily.

"You'll make it work, otherwise you'll find yourself looking for work somewhere else, and I will make sure you never work again, is that understood?" Kat blinked hard at him. Kat finally slowly nodded.

"I will make it work somehow, sir."

"See that you do, Manx." With that he whirled and left the room. Kat's staff filed back in and they threw her concerned looks but she waved off their concerns. Tarns was certainly more dangerous than they had originally thought. Taking a deep breath, she looked up with a small smile as one of her techs brought her a cup of her favourite tea. She had work to do and it wasn't going to be easy.

Later that morning

Z and Sydney walked into the command centre, Grace and Airian behind them, wanting to get their orders for the day. Tarns was waiting for them, frowning hard at whatever report he was looking at right then. He barely glanced up as they walked in.

"Draw, Gelato! You're late!" Syd and Z glanced at each other. Z stepped forward slightly, as second in command, it was her duty to act as a buffer between the others and Tarns.

"Sir, sorry sir. We had to stop to break up an altercation between a couple of cadets that were on the verge of physical violence. I'm sorry we're late, it won't happen again."

"Did you punish those cadets?" Tarns seemed almost eager to hear that they were punished.

"Yes sir, we did. Extra work duties and cleaning tasks." Z answered quickly, wanting to get this briefing over and done with quickly.

"Not harsh enough, but done now. Stop being so gentle on the cadets, they need toughening up. So, to teach you two a lesson, you're both going to join those cadets in their extra work duties and cleaning tasks. Plus you're also going to be on night shift for the next week thanks to that idiot Red Ranger of yours, is that understood?"

Syd and Z exchanged glances and then saluted, now Bridge's message made sense, so Tarns was punishing them as well. No way were they going to object to that, not with the mood Tarns seemed to be in.

"Yes sir." Grace and Airian wisely stayed silent.

"Yellow, Green Rangers - you two are on street duty. Dismissed. I don't want to see any of you until tomorrow, is that understood!" All four of them chorused.

"Yes sir." They saluted and turned quickly, leaving the command centre. Once they left, they split up and Syd and Z headed off. They said nothing, knowing that whilst they were on the base, they had to watch themselves. Tarns was making everyone feel nervous and extra careful of what they said around him.

Kat Manx leaned back in her chair, let out a long breath and rubbed her tired eyes. On the desk in front of her lay the five A-Squad morphers she had just finished reprogramming. An hour ago, Tarns had contacted her for the dozenth time requesting an update on the state of the calibrations. He was more than eager to have his gang take over the Delta Squad Megazord. Kat's stomach turned queasy every time she thought about those alien thugs behind the controls of her beloved Zord. So much power in the hands of these traitors…she hoped fervently that Sky would be able to wrap this investigation up as soon as possible. And until then she and Sky needed to use the few tricks she had up her sleeve to stall the Megazord piloting practice for as long as they could.

She took a long drink from her tea mug while she contemplated her next step. With the morphers ready for action it was high time to reactivate one of her little electronic toys. It took her a few moments to find what she was looking for in the back of her lab vault, but in the end she pulled out an unobtrusive-looking flash drive.

It had been a few years, but she remembered fondly how well this computer virus worked during battle simulations for the Delta Squad Megazord. It contained half a dozen different disruptive actions and it had frustrated the B-Squad Rangers to no end. Once activated, it would launch one destructive action at a time, from mechanical failure, electrical malfunctions to a complete systems collapse and more.

Kat smiled; the Rangers fought their battles from the Megazord; she, however, fought her battles for the Megazord.

She sent a formal message to Lieutenant Venda on an official channel, informing him that the morphers were ready for pick-up. She hoped that Sky would collect them personally.

He did. It was by sheer luck that she was alone in her lab when he walked through the door, so they wasted no time putting their heads together. Kat pulled the flash drive from her pocket.

"I reactivated the old Megazord training session virus from a few years ago. You remember?"

Sky grinned. "Oh yeah, I hated those sessions! That should hold Tarns' thugs back for a while. And I'll do my best to have Venda be the worst Zord pilot in history."

Kat nodded but didn't share his grin. "The problem is that I can't transfer this virus remotely. It needs to be physically inserted into the computer console of the Red Delta Runner and I suspect that Tarns is having my movements monitored every time I leave the lab. That counts me out."

"Well, I'm the obvious choice to do that, then," Sky said. "I know the ins and outs of the Red Ranger cockpit and…"

But Kat was already shaking her head. "Too risky. Tarns has doubled the security in the Zord Bay and I can't risk you getting caught. You are the most important operative of our mission. Besides, you are on Tarns's constant beck and call, what if he tries to get in contact with you for something while you are sneaking around the Zord Bay?"

Sky frowned. Kat had a point. Tarns did expect 'Lieutenant Venda' to be at his disposal virtually around the clock. "Who else, then?" he wondered aloud. "Who can we trust with this? We can't get the other Rangers involved, and Boom is no longer here."

Kat nodded. "We would need someone stealthy who can get in and out of places virtually unseen."

Sky rubbed his chin in contemplation. "Like a ninja," he said.

They looked at each other and Kat's face suddenly split into a sly smile when she realized that they were both thinking the same thing. "Or Jack."

"If this wasn't such a grave situation, I'd actually be excited about this," Jack Landors thought from the shadows of the alley he was loitering in. He pulled the hood of his black sweatshirt over his head and took a peek around the corner of the building. Kat had said her associate would be meeting Jack here at ten p.m. and according to Jack's watch that was one minute ago. A quick look left and right confirmed that he was still the only person in this area – the area being the alley between two SPD storage warehouses. Jack had chosen this location as the meeting point, because from here it was just a short dash across a narrow courtyard to get to the back wall of the Delta Base's Zord Bay.

When Kat Manx called him this morning asking for a favor, Jack was curious. After she explained the details of the favor to him, he was wary, but it never occurred to him to decline her request.

After all, he had been in near daily contact with Z ever since the new commander took over, and her depictions of Laver Tarns' behavior and actions had him from worried to furious. There was a difference between being an asshole and being downright dangerous, and Tarns' latest decision of handing the A-Squad morphers over to his five cronies and transferring Megazord access to them fell squarely into the 'dangerous' category in Jack's book. So yeah, Jack was more than happy to do his part in Kat's sabotage scheme. He wished he could do more than just plant an electronic virus, but if that's all she needed him to do at this time, then that was ok.

If the mysterious associate with the virus would just show up!

Jack went motionless at the sound of an approaching noise. Something was familiar about those rhythmic hydraulic sounds…a smile spread across Jack's face and he crouched down in anticipation of Kat's associate. A moment later RIC's head appeared around the corner, and the robotic dog let out a high-pitched whine when he spotted Jack.

"Hey, boy, good to see you," Jack said, scratching RIC behind his metallic ears. RIC purred for a moment, but then butted Jack's arm with his snout and dropped a small device from his mouth into Jack's outstretched hand. He let out a single bark, then turned and padded back out of the alley.

"Yeah, I miss you too, buddy," Jack murmured, pocketed the USB stick and darted across the courtyard towards the Zord Bay. Once he connected with the back wall he wasted no time phasing right through the concrete and into the hangar.

Once inside, he tried his best to stay out of the view of the security cameras as he made his way to the Red Delta Runner. He phased once more, this time through the vehicle's body to re-materialize inside the cockpit. He had a brief moment of deja-vu as he assumed his old seat behind the wheel, but he shook it off and focused on the task at hand.

A morpher was needed to pilot the runner, but for simply turning on the cockpit instruments there was a Start button embedded in the pilot console. As soon as the cockpit lit up he inserted the stick into the data port on the dashboard. The virus only took a few seconds to transmit itself into the Delta Runner. Jack grinned. Maybe he would ask Kat to record the fake Rangers' attempt to form the Megazord. He could use a good laugh after Z's ominous reports these past few weeks.

Jack was back across the huge hall and through the back wall a minute later, still smiling as he sauntered down the street and was swallowed up by the night.

Sky looked at the red A-Squad morpher in his hand as he stood shoulder to shoulder with Laver Tarns' other four cronies. It seemed like half a lifetime ago that he watched in awe, admiration and some envy as the morphed and fully armed A-Squad trotted by him on their way to their top-secret mission. That was before Charlie and her crew had shown their true colors and betrayed SPD.

Now a betrayal of a different and yet similar type was going to take place, and Sky suddenly felt a pang of nostalgia for his old B-Squad Blue Ranger position. At least back then he always knew who he was and what he was fighting for, whereas right now he had to do all he could to make sure that this fake Ranger squad never got control of the Delta Squad Megazord. Easier said than done.

"Men, listen up!" Laver Tarns barked as he strode back and forth before them in the command center. He looked animated and self-important. "Today is the day we initiate the next phase of our plan. From now on your number one priority is to familiarize yourselves with every aspect of being an SPD Earth Ranger. Your suits, your arsenal, the Delta Runners and, of course, the Delta Squad Megazord. Your training begins right now. Transform!"

"Yes, sir!"

There was no roll call, no uniformity, no team transformation. Everyone just held out their morphers, pressed the button and unceremoniously transformed into the Power Ranger of their respective colour. It felt weird, almost surreal, for Sky to be inside the A-Squad Red Ranger's suit. There was none of the pride or energy rush that usually accompanied his morphs. Instead he simply felt - sad.

Tarns, however, was excited enough for all of them. "Excellent!" he exclaimed as he looked each of the squad members up and down. He rubbed his big hands almost gleefully. "My very own Power Ranger squad. I have been looking forward to this since we arrived on this ugly rock. Now get to your Delta Runners and begin your training exercises. I'll be monitoring your progress from here. Dismissed!"

Sky was glad for the helmet's darkened visor while he went through the motions of slapping backs and clapping shoulders in feinted excitement as the new A-Squad made their way to the tubes that led to their respective Delta Runners in the Zord bay.

Since they couldn't run battle simulations anywhere in NewTech City, Sky took the crew to the old abandoned rock quarry on the outskirts of town. They had barely arrived there when the newly minted A-Squad Rangers suddenly went off on a puerile spree of epic proportions like children with their new toys at Christmastime.

Green and Yellow were shooting their lasers at each other, Pink was doing donuts and Blue was flying at Sky's Runner with his rescue cable extended, clearly intent on hooking onto the Red Delta Runner to try and drag it across the quarry. The inside of Sky's helmet reverberated with their laughter and hooting, and Sky's exasperated retorts were drowned out as he dodged the Blue GyroCopter and its cable for the third time in as many minutes.

The aliens were having the time of their lives, and the childish shenanigans only came to a halt as the booming voice of their commander reverberated through the intercom.

"What are you doing, you idiots? You are supposed to be training, not trashing the Runners! You're all on Zord cleaning duty when you get back. With toothbrushes!" Tarns sounded spitting mad and it effectively subdued his lackeys' enthusiasm. They fell quiet immediately and obediently lined up their vehicles in a row.

"Venda, combine the Delta Runners into the Megazord. Now!" Tarns yelled.

"Yes, sir." Time to play dumb.

The Red Delta Runner was the central part of the Megazord, the vehicle that all the other vehicles docked on to. Therefore the Red Ranger was essential in linking up the Runners, but the other four pilots had to line them up correctly. Sky now had the delicate job of botching up the interlinkage as many times as possible without being obvious.

"Initiating transformation sequence."

It took forever and thankfully Nian, Kinkle, Albar and Tetcho all did more than their fair share of messing up the combination maneuvers during the first few attempts. It was only when Sky noticed that they were slowly getting the hang of it that he stepped in.

The perfectionist in Sky cringed as he once again misaligned the connections between the Red and the Pink Runner and Pink's vehicle crashed to the ground.

"Damnit, Venda, get your act together!" Albar's guttural voice swore over the video screen and Sky chuckled soundlessly. The Praxian was the biggest and roughest-looking of Tarns' entourage, yet somehow he had ended up in the Pink Ranger suit and Sky could just imagine how irritating that must be for the alien thug. He mumbled an insincere apology and proceeded to line Pink up once again, this time hooking up that connection correctly and miscalculating Green's docking procedure instead.

In the end it took way too long until Tarns' crew finally managed to combine their five Delta Runners with the required accuracy to transform into the Delta Squad Megazord. Sky smiled grimly on his way back to base; at this rate, they would need several more days of training until they could handle their machines effectively enough for Tarns' liking.

The next day, however, much to Sky's chagrin and Tarns' delight, the transformation maneuver went much smoother. The Debonians and Praxians seemed to have learned from yesterday's mistakes, and Sky couldn't repeat the same slip-ups without looking obvious. Consequently, the formation was completed in a fraction of the time it took the previous day and Sky had to grind out the command "Activating Megazord mode," much sooner than he would have liked.

Thankfully, that wasn't the only thing that activated. Kat's virus was programmed to be dormant inside the Red Delta Runner's system until the Megazord was formed. Now that the transformation was complete and all the systems were linked up, the virus would automatically spread throughout the Zord's entire system, activating disruptive actions at random.

"Let's start with something simple," he said. "Like walking in a straight line." He tapped a few commands to make the Megazord move forward. A shudder went through the huge battle machine, but otherwise it stayed motionless.

System Malfunction blinked in big red letters across the console display. Thank you, Kat.

"Hey, what's going on?"

"Now what is the problem?"

"I don't get it," Nian the Debonian cried, "I've seen the archival footage, the B-Squad can do flips and somersaults in this thing, and we can't even get it to move!"

"Stupid piece of trashmetal…" A loud thunk resounded through the intercom as Kinkle hit his fist against his dashboard.

Sky looked out of the Plexiglas pane of his cockpit, grinning at the litany of complaints from his teammates. He chimed in with some colorful curse words every now and then, but for the most part he let the aliens work themselves into a lather over all the malfunctions, systems failures and error messages they encountered over the next few hours.

In the end it took them most of the day to finally figure out how to make the Megazord walk halfway across the rock quarry. They didn't even attempt to make it turn around or run.

The next few days were pretty much a repetition of the first. No matter what the alien Ranger squad tried, they simply couldn't get the Delta Squad Megazord to work properly. It almost seemed like the Zord was fighting them; for every step they took forward, they ended up two steps back not long after that.

They managed to make the Zord draw its pistol, but then they couldn't get it to fire. When they finally worked out how to fire it, it wouldn't aim correctly. By the end of the day, the walls of the rock quarry all around them showed dozens of scorched holes from the laser shots that went awry. To top it all off, when the Rangers tried to have the Zord holster its gun, the battle machine dropped it instead and the next few hours were spent in ever-mounting frustration as the Rangers tried a myriad of button and lever combinations to try to pick it back up. The sun was setting over the quarry when Sky finally decided to put them out of their misery and 'accidentally' pressed the right button sequence for the Zord to grasp the weapon and slot it back into its holster.

A relieved sigh went up from the Praxians and the Debonians, and his alien crew members quickly disengaged their vehicles from Zord mode to Runner's mode to head back to base.

Sky smirked; he knew they were all hungry, tired, fed up and frustrated with training. He was as hungry and tired as the rest of them, but he would gladly come back to this rock quarry for as long as he could drag this out.

"This is absolutely unacceptable!" Laver Tarns roared at Kat Manx, pointing to the video screen where a recording of the latest Megazord training chaos was playing back. "No one is that inept, especially not my officers! So the fault is clearly with the Megazord and therefore with you, Doctor!"

A few feet away, Sky, who was standing at attention with the rest of Tarns' entourage, was gritting his teeth. A little while ago, they had been subjected to a long and harsh tongue-lashing from their commander, laced with expletives, reproaches and threats, but the way Tarns spoke to Kat right now was what really made Sky's hackles rise.

"It could be a flaw in the synchronisation between the morphers and the Megazord, sir," the feline scientist said, and her face was a mask of sincerity. "But it's more likely that there is a mechanical problem somewhere within the Megazord, probably deterioration of some of the non-metallic components of the inter-connective system. These parts wear down with disuse, and ever since Gruumm's defeat, there has been no need to assemble the Megazord." She inclined her head and shrugged her shoulders nonchalantly. "For all I know, the problem could be that mice have chewed through some cables."

Tarns narrowed his eyes at her. "So let me get this straight: My Megazord is not working and your solution would be to fumigate the Zord Bay?"

The side of Kat Manx' mouth twitched upwards, but only for a second. "I will run a hardware system's diagnostic, but that is a lengthy and very involved process and there is no way that I can…"

Tarns spun around and, without warning, slammed his huge fist down onto the computer desk with such force that the crack could surely be heard through the closed doors and out in the hallway. "Stop telling me what can't be done, Manx! I am commander of this base and your job is it to facilitate my job! I want this Megazord fully operational and I don't care how you do it, I just care that you do it!"

The Tangarian was closing in on Kat and his voice now fell from a shout to a near whisper, and somehow that made him sound even more dangerous. "If this Megazord isn't up and running exactly the way it should be by tomorrow, I am going to bring in a team of Zord experts from Galactic Headquarters to look over every inch of it. And if they find anything out of place, anything that shouldn't be there, there'll be hell to pay. Is that understood?"

Tarns' alien eyes were boring into Kat Manx, hard and cold, and she couldn't tell whether he was bluffing or he actually knew. The scientist took two involuntary steps back and clutched her tablet to her chest like a shield.

Sky felt his hands curling into fists; Dr. Manx was not easily intimidated, but Laver Tarns was overstepping his boundaries as commander so blatantly and there was nothing anyone could do about it. It was an intolerable situation.

On the other side of the command centre, Kat mumbled something unintelligible and rounded the command console to gather up the five A-Squad morphers. She cast a glance at Sky that clearly told him 'the jig is up', and Sky knew that she had no choice but to 'fix' the Megazord. That meant that they were out of stalling options. Sky squared his jaw in determination. One way or the other, he had to bring this case to a close as soon as possible.

tbc