Chapter 24

Astrae smiled contently as Orion shuddered his release and collapsed on top of her. Ecliptor had been less than pleased to see her on the fortress after months of being off the grid. Orion had welcomed her much more warmly. They'd spend several hours over the past few days satisfying need that had only been half met during their time apart.

Orion rolled off her and lay staring at the ceiling. 'Bored with me already or are you getting tired?' Astrae teased, rolling onto her side and propping herself up on one arm to look at him.

'Not in the least, but we really should discuss the issue of the yellow ranger,' Orion replied. 'We're arriving at Earth soon and Ecliptor keeps complaining we didn't head the rangers off and shot them from the sky.'

'Because shooting down a crippled enemy presents such a satisfying challenge,' Astrae rolled her eyes.

'You're avoiding the yellow ranger issue,' Orion grinned.

'Because I don't know what to do about her,' Astrae sighed.

'Yes, you do. You just don't like admitting it.'

'Are you okay with it?'

'It keeps life interesting,' Orion shrugged.

'Well, we're not arriving at Earth quite yet,' Astrae smirked and moved to straddle his hips. Orion smirked back, stirring at the sight and sensation of having her on top of him. He groaned as she slid down over him, thoughts of the yellow ranger forgotten for now.

Zhane lay on his back staring at the bunk above him. Karone lay curled up to his side. Her soft, slow breaths told him she'd found sleep a while ago, but his thoughts were keeping him awake. He hoped their three new teammates had a better time finding sleep too. He couldn't blame them if they didn't. They were obviously worried about their teammate.

When Orion had captured Ashley and retreated, the only logical and honourable thing to do was offer them the unused Astro morphers. TJ, Cassie and Carlos deserved a fighting chance to free their friend. Carlos had been slightly unhappy to lose his green, but was understanding and readily accepted the black morpher. TJ, on the other hand, seemed only too happy to switch from red to blue and let someone else make the decisions for a while. They never asked about the red morpher and he and Karone were perfectly content to not mention it either. It was too hard to explain why they were honouring a fallen ranger who never got to wear the morpher in the first place.

Their first battle was going to be interesting though. When it was just him and Karone, neither assumed to lead, they just worked together flawlessly. That strategy was not going to work so well with three more rangers. Training sessions on the simudeck to get accustomed to each other were a complete mess. They'd get there… eventually… It was just going to take some time.

But time was the one thing they were running out on. The Megaship was too damaged and supplies were running too low to fix it properly. It had been fixed enough to fly, but anything over hyperrush two would overtax the engines. So they made the only choice available to them; make the slow crawl through space to Earth and get supplies they needed to fix the ship properly.

Okay, so it wasn't exactly a slow crawl. But after getting used to flying at hyperrush seven and getting there in a matter of hours, the three days it took at huperrush two felt like an eternity. And the chances of Orion figuring out their destination and rushing ahead of them were colossal. Especially if he was interrogating Ashley and she talked. And if she was a smart girl, which she was from what little he knew of her, she was talking just enough to stay alive, relatively unharmed and still interesting enough to keep around. Zhane just hoped they'd be able to save her in time or that she'd manage to escape on her own.

A soft kiss pressed to his lips startled him out of his thoughts. 'You're thinking too loud,' Karone muttered.

'I thought you were asleep,' Zhane replied.

'I was,' Karone agreed. 'You're thinking too loud.'

'I'm sorry. I just can't help but worry about Ashley,' Zhane admitted distractedly as Karone's hand started trailing a design on his chest.

'We're all worried about her, but there's nothing we can do right at this particular moment. So, how about I take your mind off of it for a while?'

'And how were you planning on doing that?'

Zhane groaned when her hand slid slowly down his chest. She wrapped it firmly around him and gave a few strokes. With a growl he rolled over on top of her and settled between her legs. All thoughts of Ashley, Orion, their misfit team and the daunting task of rescuing Zordon were pushed to a dusty, dark corner of his mind until morning.

Red lights were flashing on the panel in front of her and an alarm was blaring, all indicating systems failure. The small fighter shook after taking another hit. She hoped it would hold together to get her safely to the planet's surface. It was so close and yet felt so far away still.

The fighter took another hit and smoke started pouring out of the engine. But she'd broken through the atmosphere and the ground was fast approaching. She started pressing random buttons in hopes of slowing down her descent and maybe survive the impending crash.

Another hit took out what little flight controls she had. The uncontrollable little fighter rushed down to the planet's surface. Her eyes grew wide when she spotted it was heading straight to a giant monster fighting a Megazord, in particular, the fighter was heading straight for the zord. They were too caught up in the fight to notice the approaching fighter. At the last moment before impact, the battle turned and the fighter crashed into the monster. Then her world turned black.

When she opened her eyes again, she didn't recognize the surroundings. Not that she had a lot of time to study them. There was a shriek of joy and a black haired blur dressed in grey and pink threw herself at her.

'Missed you too, Cassie,' Ashley muttered, patting her friend on the back as the other girl seemed intent on hugging her into an early grave.

'We were figuring out a rescue mission, but we had to get the ship fixed fist. Still have to, actually,' Cassie babbled. 'But obviously you got yourself out first.'

'You know me, I don't wanna be like Cinderella,' Ashley joked, slowly pushing herself up when Cassie finally released her. She noticed her friends were keeping their distance, dressed in the same kind of uniform as Cassie and the two strangers in the room.

The blonde girl in purple shirt took a small step forward. 'Hey, I'm Karone and that's Zhane,' she introduced herself and the blonde guy in black uniform. 'We've briefly met before while we were morphed.'

'Nice to meet you. I'm Ashley.'

Karone pulled her hand from behind her back holding out a box with a wristband. 'We… we have a spare yellow morpher… if you're interested.'

'How could I say no?' Ashley grinned. 'But are you sure you want me on your team?'

'Positive, anyone able to steal a velocifighter and break out of the Dark Fortress is an asset to any ranger team,' Karone answered and handed over the morpher with a small smile. 'Welcome to the team.'