Making the best of a rough situation, the five Rangers sat down the evening after the explosion to a candlelight dinner. The Jump Bay where they normally ate was without accessory power, and so they had to make their own light. Cassie's scented candle collection burned fragrantly all around the room, giving everything a warm flickering glow. Spread out on the table was a variety of fresh alien fruits, vegetables and other things that could be eaten uncooked.

"Good haul, you two." said Cassie, winking at Ashley and TJ who had collected their meal that afternoon. They had found a particularly lush planet with all manner of edible delights for the Rangers to feast on.

But the humor and relaxed attitudes were a facade; they were all deeply concerned about Andros' suspicions of an intruder. They would have found an electronically lit room to eat in, except the Jump Bay was the most secure against listening devices. Once they were reasonably sure they weren't being watched, they would get down to the business of discussing the matter.

After ten minutes or so of eating, talking and acting casual, Andros stopped to listen to the sounds of the room. The others followed suit. All was silent save for the purring of the candles and the sound of each other's breathing. There was not even the omnipresent thrumming of the engines that could normally be heard. It was unsettling to sit in the midst of so much quiet.

"I think we're clear." he said, his own voice nearly deafening him. The others nervously settled back to their meal.

"We need to play 'What If'." said Ashley. "We have to start considering possibilities."

TJ went first. "What if this is just a string of really weird coincidences?"

The others thought about this for a moment. Finally, Cassie said, "I don't think I can accept that. It's just too unlikely. Unless we've fallen under some kind of rotten-luck-spell, I'm still inclined to agree with Andros about an intruder."

Ashley went next. "So far, every incident has involved equipment being burned. What if we've entered some kind of charged energy field that's causing power surges and damaging things that way?"

Andros fielded this one. "Only the most subtle of energy fields could have gotten past DECA's sensor grid. If we had passed into something strong enough to do damage one week ago, she would have informed us."

No matter how hard they tried, nothing they could come up with seemed to work except Andros' saboteur theory. After a while they gave up on playing What If and started playing super sleuth.

"What do the incidents all have in common?" asked Cassie. "We know they all involved burnt electronics, but what else?"

Ashley shrugged. "Life threatening situations?"

"Besides that."

"Indirect causes." suggested TJ. "All of the malfunctions took place because of something screwy in another ship system." Everyone agreed with that one.

"At the same time though," Ashley continued. "Even indirect malfunctions could have been meant as deliberate attempts to hurt us."

"The saboteur would have to know ships like the back of their hand." argued Andros. "But it's possible."

"And we've all been affected somehow." finished Cassie. "Except..."

All eyes turned to Carlos, who had been silent up until then, sullenly pushing food around on his plate and not eating a bite. Staring back at them, he couldn't immediately believe that they suspected him as the culprit; but their glances were just doubtful enough...

"This is ridiculous." Ashley exclaimed, shaking herself. "Carlos, ignore us ok? We know you're not responsible."

"Yeah." said TJ. "Sorry Carlos, we shouldn't have let ourselves get paranoid."

"Forget it guys..." Carlos sighed tiredly. "..we're all spooked. I just wish we had more to go on with this. We're taking shots in the dark."

"We just have to think!" Cassie cried. "Come on, everybody. Be Sherlock Holmes. Be Nancy Drew. We have to be detectives here."

"Well what's another detective question?"

TJ blurted, "What about 'When did it all begin?'."

Everyone stopped. They knew when it had all begun-- when they brought the body of Princess Vatoya on board.

"Could it really be her?" Ashley whispered, suddenly nervous again.

"Impossible." said Andros, glancing at Cassie and TJ. "We locked her in the freeze chamber ourselves."

"Besides, she was dead as a toad on the Autobahn." TJ added.

Carlos frowned. "But aren't there species out there who are good at playing possum?"

"Playing what?" Andros asked.

"Dead." replied Ashley. "Maybe the Saskats are able to fake their own deaths really well."

Andros looked uncomfortable. "If that's the case, she might be able to dislocate her joints at will, too-- like a snake's jaws." Everyone squirmed a bit at that prospect, but they were starting to put the puzzle together. Ashley had one more question.

"Why would a Princess fleeing her war-ravaged homeworld start sabotaging the ship that saved her?"

It took them a minute to figure that one out.

"Because when she woke up, she was trapped in a chamber being frozen to death." said Carlos soberly. "She escaped the freeze tube and hid, thinking that if she could kill us, her captors, she could steal the Megaship and get back home to her family."

"My God," Cassie breathed. "I think he's right."

Andros stood. "Well we have to make sure. If Vatoya Tamlyn is awake and hiding somewhere in the ship, we'll find the cryogenics chamber open and her tube empty. Let's go check it out."

A short time later they all stood around the broken chamber door and peered in at the empty tube.

"Carlos, you amaze me." Cassie said. "You should write mysteries when you grow up."

The night was a tense one. For safety's sake, they all camped out in the Jump Bay in sleeping bags so that they could keep an eye on each other. They worked and rested in shifts: two Rangers guarding the room, two patrolling the ship and one sleeping at all times. Well into the night, they had still come up with nothing.

At 04:00, Cassie and TJ returned to the Jump Bay, where Ashley and Carlos were guarding a sleeping Andros.

Everyone was yawning at intervals. The four-hour shifts were tough to get used to, and Andros was uncharacteristically groggy when Ashley shook him awake.

"Who's up and who's down?" he asked once he was on his feet.

"You and I are patrolling." she replied. "Cassie and Teej are guarding, Carlos is down for a rest."

"It's about time." Carlos remarked, an enormous yawn almost splitting his head in two.

"Alright, let's get to it. Anything suspicious we need to follow up on guys?"

TJ shook his head. "The decks are clear. No sign of her Highness anywhere. Wherever she's hiding, she's tucked away somewhere we would never think to look."

Andros shrugged. "She's probably managed to work her way inside the bulkheads of the ship. I think there are access tubes there, left over from when the Megaship was built. She could be sabotaging everything from that level."

With a sigh, they all bid each other good luck, and Carlos a good sleep, and then began the next shift.

Carlos hunkered down on the stack of sleeping bags that lay on the Jump Tube platform. They were remarkably comfortable when one was this tired, and Cassie and TJ's idle chatter was a soothing background sound. Stretching out on his stomach, he closed his eyes and waited for sleep to overtake him.

He hadn't slept properly in six days-- at night when he closed his eyes, all he could see was the face of Vatoya Tamlyn, lying in the torpedo tube when they first came across her. Thinking he had been responsible for her death, Carlos had nearly broken down with grief right there in the cargo bay. Ashley had quickly come to his aid and reminded him what his intentions had been, but he had still felt terribly guilty. Upon realizing that evening that she was still alive, and probably trying to kill them herself, his guilt had begun to change. Now he felt a more immediate concern that he was responsible for the accidents his friends were having. On top of that, he found himself resenting the Princess' actions deeply. How could she do this after he had tried to help her?

His coherence fading, Carlos began to doze. TJ and Cassie's voices blurred into gibberish and within a few minutes, he was fast asleep.

He slept a long time before he began to dream. Visions of the lake in Angel Grove danced in his head, and each of his friends were there, including Justin and Andros. While everyone frolicked in the water or played games on the sand, he began to detect the odor of suntan lotion--sweet and thick in his nostrils. It got stronger as time went on, and soon everyone on the beach was coughing and gasping for air. Carlos was suffocating as well, his breath coming in labored wheezes.

Suddenly, his windpipe closed and he was forced to cough for real. He woke himself up, sputtering and gasping and struggling to his knees. The Jump Bay was filled with a gaseous white substance that he could not identify, but every time he tried to inhale, he choked on the sick-smelling fumes. Thinking quickly, he rolled under the Jump platform railing and dropped to the floor where the gas was at its weakest.

Teej and Cassie!

Carlos quickly searched the room in the haze. If they had been overcome by the fumes, they would be lying on the floor as well; but they were nowhere to be seen. Carlos crawled quickly towards the door.

The gas was in the hall too, but not as concentrated. He could stand up and walk without feeling dizzy and breathless. Moving quickly down the hallway, he knew he had to get to the bridge and stop the gas before the oxygen was tainted further. Aside from that, the bridge was the designated location for them to meet should there ever be an emergency. With luck, he'd find the others there when he arrived.

Unfortunately, luck was not with him that day. The bridge was empty, save for a particularly thick cloud of gas.

Still, there was a job to do. Carlos hit the floor again and crawled to Andros' station at the center of the bridge. From there he could access the environment controls and stop the gas attack. After a minute or two, he managed to stop its flow into the air supply. He also found out what it was; a coolant substance that could be fatal if inhaled for long periods of time. Unfortunately, he couldn't seem to get the filtration systems working. He had stopped more gas from coming, but he couldn't get rid of what was already there.

"DECA!" he coughed. "What's wrong with the air filtration systems?"

The computer replied, "That information is unavailable."

"Well can you fix the problem?"

In the same toneless voice, DECA repeated, "That information is unavailable."

Carlos hesitated. "DECA, what's my last name?"

"That information is unavailable."

"What are you?"

There was a long pause this time. Finally, DECA responded, "Classified."

So DECA was useless, the air was slowly killing him, and he didn't know where any of his teammates were, let alone if they were alive or not. Carlos' confidence had definitely seen better days.

There was no other choice then but to start searching the ship. The sabotaged ventilation systems had to be more of Vatoya Tamlyn's work, and Carlos had to assume he was the only one capable at the moment of setting things right. At the top of the list was finding the other Rangers and getting them somewhere relatively safe. As he crawled towards the door, Carlos pondered what the cleanest room might be. He considered the quarantine forecefield in the infirmary-- it had a powerful air filtration system that was separate from the main one. Perhaps it was still working.

But just as he reached up to trigger the turbolift door, he heard the car arrive at the top of the shaft on the other side. Someone was about to enter the bridge. Unwilling to take chances, Carlos rolled out of the way and concealed himself in the shadows, just as a pair of legs came out of the lift car backwards. The legs were female, but didn't belong to Cassie or Ashley. Whoever they did belong to was dragging something heavy. That something turned out to be Andros.

As Carlos watched, the woman-- whom he decided had to be Tamlyn-- dragged Andros' unconscious body out of the Turbolift and dropped him on the floor. He flopped where she put him, completely comatose from the gasses in the air. Turning to the aft control bank where Carlos and TJ's posts were, Tamlyn began to work.

She was making no attempt to stay lower than the gas, so Carlos assumed she wore a mask or was immune to its effects. As it was, he couldn't see her from the waist up. He had stopped the flow of gas earlier, but she would no doubt discover this soon, and he realized he had no time to make an escape with Andros in tow. He had to try and subdue the Princess right there, and get her to fix the damage she had done and save all their lives. The others were running out of time.

Getting to his feet, Carlos crept towards the Princess, staying as low as he could. He couldn't see her, and so she hopefully couldn't see him either. If only he could reach her before she heard his approach.

He almost made it, but just as he was stepping over Andros' body, the Red Ranger stirred and coughed. Carlos froze. The Princess whirled to see the Black Ranger's dark shape ready to pounce on her, and before he could react, she delivered a swift kick to his jaw, knocking him backwards into the lift door. He lay stunned and reeling for a moment while she waited for him to counterattack, but his entire head ached from the blow. Seeing that he was no longer a threat, she hit a few buttons on the panel and then leaped over him, vanishing into the turbolift again. Carlos was left to recover his senses on his own.