Chapter Nine:

Loss

General Kenpachi rushed into the observation deck with a team of soldiers and medics. The cell beyond the viewscreen was empty, the trapdoor closed, while Doug Cummins slumped against one wall, a gaping hole in his chest.

"Tend to him," Kenpachi ordered.

"Yes, sir."

The medics rushed to Doug's side, Kenpachi joining them. He knelt beside the young lieutenant and patted him on the cheek. "Cummins," he said. "Are you still with me?"

Doug's eyes fluttered open, looking around glassy and unfocused. "General?" he said, his voice hoarse and rough. "Did we . . . beat them? Are they . . . gone?"

Kenpachi looked at him, glancing through the window at the empty cell. "Yes, Lieutenant," he said. "We took them down."

Doug smiled. "I knew it would work," he said. He undid the strap on his right wrist, handing over the yellow morpher to the general. "Dayton thought you'd be mad, but it was a good plan." He gazed off into the distance, a little dreamily. "I got to be a Power Ranger."

General Kenpachi held the morpher in his hand, clenching it a little. "Yes, you did, Doug," he said. "You made us all proud."

Doug struggled for breath for a second. "Can't wait to tell . . . Harriet about it," he said. "She'll be so excited. She—"

Doug fell silent. General Kenpachi looked up to see the young lieutenant's eyes staring blankly into space. His body heaved up for just a moment as it let out its last breath. One of the medics checked his vitals.

"He's gone, sir," the medic said.

General Kenpachi lowered his head. He got to his feet, holding the morpher tightly in his hand. "Remove his body," he said. "Make sure he's taken good care of."

"Yes, sir."

Outside the command center, Joshua and Peggy stood with Katie, Tammy, and Harriet over Sean's body as nanites worked to repair the hole in the ship nearby.

"And you're sure he'll be back to . . . himself once he wakes up?" Peggy asked.

"He should," Tammy said, removing the morpher from Sean's wrist and handing it up to Joshua. "We can verify it all worked once we get him to sick bay."

She and Katie hefted Sean up onto their shoulders just as they heard a set of footsteps coming down the hall. General Kenpachi appeared, walking slowly, his expression solemn.

"General!"

The group hurried over to him as he approached, bombarding him with questions.

"What happened?"

"Where's Kenny and Dayton?"

"Did the Pharaoh Mask escape?"

General Kenpachi looked around at them all, swallowing, his body shaking. He took a deep breath and answered. "The Black Cross Fuhrer has returned. Both he and the Pharaoh Mask have been effectively ejected from the ship. Owens and Austin are currently missing in action, but we believe them to still be alive. Search parties are looking for them now."

Harriet looked a little confused. "What about Doug?" she asked.

General Kenpachi forced himself to look at her. Her brown eyes moved back and forth, searching his face. He held out his right hand, still gripping Dayton's morpher and covered in blood. "Lieutenant Doug Cummins," he said, "has been killed in action."

A deathly silence fell over the corridor as the team took in his words. Each member looked at one another, the truth sinking down upon them. The silence was finally broken by a shaky laugh from Harriet.

"N—no he's not," she said incredulously, shaking her head. She stumbled a bit, as if someone had just taken one of her legs out from under her. "He's joking. Y—you're joking, right? General?"

General Kenpachi looked up at her. Harriet's eyes searched his face again for any sign of humor. "I'm sorry, Harriet," he said.

Harriet's brow furrowed. "No," she said. "You're lying! Why are you lying?"

General Kenpachi remained silent, his eyes wet. Harriet looked around at her teammates, but no one said anything. Tears welled up in her eyes. "Where?"

"His body has been taken to the medical bay for now." The general stepped to one side. "You're excused," he said.

All decorum left behind, Harriet took off down the corridor as fast as she could. Everyone else stood together in silence, watching her go.

"We should get him to the medical bay as well," Tammy told Katie.

"Right," Katie said.

They hefted Sean, moving on past the general to follow Harriet. Joshua and Peggy stood awkwardly. "If you'd like us to help with the search effort, sir," Joshua started.

"Actually, I'd like to speak with you both alone," General Kenpachi said. "Now."

Joshua and Peggy looked at each other. They both nodded. "Yes, sir," they said.

Several miles below, Dayton came to in a back alley between two buildings. "Doug!" he shouted.

He stopped, looking around. He didn't recognize any of his surroundings, and his arms were covered in patches of nanites at work healing him. "What happened? Where am I?"

"Norway, apparently."

Dayton turned to see Kenny sitting on a dumpster nearby, his eyes red, his hands fiddling with his morpher. Dayton looked down at his own bare wrist, remembering the plan he'd formed with Doug. "Kenny?" he said. "What happened? Did the plan work? Did we get him?"

"Sort of," Kenny said simply.

Dayton looked confused. "What does that mean?"

"The Pharaoh Mask's armor could perform two of those disablers now."

Dayton's eyes widened. "Doug?" he said. "Is he okay?"

Kenny looked up at Dayton, the red stains down his face glistening in the morning light. Dayton realized the truth without him even having to say it. He swallowed, looking down at the burns on his arms. "How?" he said.

"The Fuhrer could turn himself invisible," Kenny said. "He was hiding, in the room. Once Doug's suit was disabled, he—"

He gestured at his chest, unable to get the words out. Dayton got the picture.

"Oh," he said. The yellow ranger slumped back against the dumpster, letting his new reality sink in. Grief and shame and rage boiled up within him, burning at an intensity he hadn't felt since Huang's death. He let out a cry of anguish, getting to his feet and kicking over a pair of trash cans nearby.

"That should have been me!" he shouted, kicking and beating at the trash cans as hard as he could. "It was my suit! I should have been inside it!"

Kenny watched him in silence as Dayton turned his attention to the dumpster, pushing and shoving at it and trying to get it to budge, tears streaming down his face. Finally, he gave up and slumped against it again, breathing heavily as he tried to calm himself. He rounded on Kenny.

"So, what are we waiting for?" he asked. "We've got to get up there and help."

Kenny held out his morpher. "This thing's still buggy. I've been working at it for an hour, but I've only managed to get a few systems back online, like the birdies and the first aid. Maybe the right hand, I'm not sure yet."

Dayton looked down at himself, at the nanites healing him. He shook his head and wiped his eyes. "Let me see," he said.

Kenny handed over the morpher, and Dayton fiddled with it for a couple of seconds. "Okay, I get it," he said. "This shouldn't be too bad." He patted at his pockets. "I'm going to need some tools. I think mine are back up on the ship."

Kenny nodded to the nearby street. "I think there's a hardware store a little way down," he said. "But I can't read Norwegian."

Dayton glanced at the nearest street signs. "I can't either," he said. "But I think I can get by. Come on."

Back aboard the tempest, Sean's eyes flew open, and he sat bolt upright in bed. "Guys!" he shouted. "The portal! It's about to open! It's in—"

"Hey, hey, it's okay," Tammy said, coming over to sit beside him. "You're safe now. We've got you."

Sean's eyes focused on her. "Tammy?" he said. He looked around the room, recognizing it as a standard EAGLE medical facility. Apparently, he and Tammy had been given a private side rooms for him to recover in.

"I'm home," he said.

Tammy smiled. "You're home," she said.

He looked down at his hands, moving them around and flexing his fingers.

"I'm free." He looked up at his girlfriend. "You did it!"

He threw his arms around her and wrapped her in as tight a hug as he could give her. Tammy hugged him back, a faint sniffle escaping her nose.

Sean let go and drew back, seeing tears at the corners of her eyes. "What's wrong?" he said. "Why are you—"

A terrible possibility occurred to him. "I didn't—"

"No, no," Tammy said, putting her hand on his shoulder. "You didn't hurt anyone. Not seriously, anyway."

"Then, who?"

Tammy bit her lip. "Come with me," she said. She took him by the hand and led him out of their private room. A doctor hurried up to them, but Tammy shooed him away. She led Sean to the next room over and let him look in through the small window.

The room was dark, taken up by a single table on which lay a body covered in a sheet. Harriet Nixon sat curled up in one corner of the room, Katie Young sitting beside her. Sean gave Tammy a questioning look.

"Doug," she said.

Sean stumbled backwards away from the door. Tammy caught him and led him back into their room, sitting him back down on the bed. He stared down at his hands, trying to control their shaking.

"I did this," he said. "This was Khamun's plan. I was supposed to create a diversion, divide your forces and cripple your ship while he and the Fuhrer made their getaway. I saw it all. I did it all. I couldn't—"

"Hey!" Tammy said, grasping him by the shoulders and looking him in the eye. "You couldn't have stopped this. You were under the Pharaoh Mask's control. You couldn't have done anything."

Sean shook his head. "I knew those implants were still in there. I could feel them, dormant. If I hadn't signed up to be a ranger, I wouldn't have been there in the first place, he wouldn't have been able to take control."

"Then he would have just found another way to do everything he did," Tammy said. "You and I have both been in this long enough to know the Fuhrer and his followers have plans on top of plans. None of us could have predicted they'd be able to take control of you. What matters is they can't control you now."

Sean ran his hands through his long hair and laid back against the bed, covering his face. "You don't know what it was like," he said. "To watch yourself do things, horrible things, to be conscious the entire time, but not able to do anything to stop yourself." He clenched his fists furiously. "I would have done anything to stop myself."

"I know," Tammy said. She pulled him up and put her arms around him, holding him tight as he shook into her shoulder. "I'm sorry I didn't get to you faster."

Sean buried his face in her neck. "I love you, Tammy," he said.

Tammy pressed her face into his hair, kissing him gently. "I love you too, Sean," she said.

They sat like that for a minute or two. Then Tammy's eyes flew open. "You said you were aware the whole time." She broke away from him. "You know where the portal is?"

Sean looked at her in confusion for a second, then his eyes flew open too. "I do," he said.

Tammy jumped off the bed. "Come on. We've got to tell the others."

She grabbed his cowboy hat off his side table and held it out to him. "Ready to be a hero again?"

Sean looked at the hat for a moment. He grasped it tightly. "More than ready," he said, taking it from her and fixing it on top of his head. "Let's go."

Hand in hand, the pair raced from the room.

In a small conference room on the other side of the airship, Kenpachi paced the room, wiping Doug's blood from his hand with a wipe as Joshua and Peggy sat at the table, their heads down, both looking like children being punished.

"This argument between the two of you needs to end," he said, his voice shaking and tinged with anger. "I stayed out of it until now because," he stopped, dropping his bloody rag and pressing his hands against the table. He lowered his head and let out a long breath. "Because I didn't know the right answer either," he admitted.

He looked up at Joshua and Peggy and shook his head. "But we have more important things to deal with right now. The Fuhrer has returned and an invasion is imminent, and we still don't know where it will begin. We will never be able to stop it if my team leaders can't get along for more than five minutes."

Joshua and Peggy both looked down at the table again, feeling ashamed. Kenpachi started pacing the room again. "Did you know Doug collected trading cards of the five of you? He and Harriet would sit out there in the mess hall every day, trading them back and forth. He had a pack on him when he died. I . . . made sure Harriet received them."

He turned to face the pair. "My point is that he believed in the five of you. You were his heroes. He died believing you had come together and taken our enemies down. Now, are you going to disappoint him, or are you going to live up to those uniforms you wear?"

Peggy and Joshua didn't say anything. Peggy stared at the rag on the table, the memory of the day she lost Diego running through her mind. She closed her eyes and pushed her chair back.

Joshua looked up at her as she made her way around the table to stand before him. She swallowed for a few seconds, struggling to get the words out. "You . . . were right, Captain," she said. "Or . . . you were probably right. Opening up that wormhole again most likely would have spelled destruction for the entire world, and, for what it's worth, I probably would have wanted you to leave it closed had I been the one on the other side. It was the right decision, I just couldn't—"

She stopped as her voice caught and she struggled to find the words. Despite herself, tears started to flow. "I just didn't want to give up," she said. "Not on another friend."

She cleared her throat and held out her hand as a peace offering. "I'm sorry, sir," she said. "I have been out of line."

Joshua looked at her hand for a moment, looking down at his own hands. He lowered his head and turned away. "No," he said. "It wasn't the right decision."

"Sir?" Peggy asked.

Joshua clasped his hands and stared at them for a few seconds. "I haven't known a peaceful night since the day I made the call," he said. "For a year now, I have lain awake every night wondering, imagining the kinds of horrors Kenny might be going through, not knowing if he was alive or dead or even if he had made it through the wormhole at all. What right did I have to let him be subject to all of that?" He turned to face Peggy. "I am sorry," he said.

Peggy studied him for a minute. She crouched down to his level and looked him in the eye. "It's been kind of a mess all around, hasn't it?"

Joshua let out a faint laugh. "You could say that," he said.

"Well," Peggy said. "I'm glad I have a captain like you for messes like these, willing to make the tough calls that I never could."

"And I'm glad I have someone like you," Joshua said, getting up and accepting her hand, "to call me on those calls when I need it."

Peggy smiled, grasping his hand tighter and pulling him into a hug. They held each other for a minute before breaking apart and turning to face the general. "We are sorry, sir," Joshua said. "We have been acting unprofessionally. It will not happen again."

General Kenpachi smiled and nodded. "It's good to have you both back," he said. "Now, we have work to do—"

He was cut off as someone pounded on the door to the outside. "Enter," he said, buzzing them through.

Sean and Tammy burst into the room. "Sir," Tammy said. "Sorry for the intrusion. But Sean knows where the portal is."

Joshua and Peggy looked at each other as General Kenpachi circled the table. "Where?" he asked.

Sean adjusted his cowboy hat and looked around the room at his teammates. "It's at the north pole," he said.