Disclaimer: Don't own the Power Rangers. Anybody you never heard of before is probably mine, but it doesn't matter because there's no money involved anyway.

Note: this is completely AU. Zordon never died. The originals are all in their early to mid-twenties. You'll recognize the other stuff I changed. Lots of POV's here, but I wanted to get inside everyone's head. You might need a scorecard.



Legacy, part 11



As they always do, goodbyes took longer than anticipated, but at last the ship was ready and the passengers were on board, strapped into large, well- padded seats for the first leg of the journey. The five Rangers raised their hands in farewell as the teleportation grid powered up. Tommy pressed his palm flat against the thick porthole window as though to touch them all one last time. Jason looked at each friend's face in turn, trying to memorize them through sober onyx eyes. Billy grasped Taia's hand tightly, and Peter's face was turned toward the sky and the home he'd left behind.

"May the power protect you all," whispered Zordon as Alpha waved both arm extensions frantically, howling 'ai-yi-yi' over and over. The grid glowed; the ship grew translucent, wavery, the image thinning out more and more until it faded completely from view.

Inside the ship the three younger men felt the first twinges of the familiar nausea brought on by Eltaran teleportation. Peter's face turned an unhealthy green, while Taia tilted her head back against the seat cushion and closed her eyes, breathing carefully through her nose. Shortly they materialized at the outermost rim of the grid's reach, whereupon Peter drew a long, relieved breath.

"I'd forgotten how disorienting teleportation can be. Everyone all right?" There was a quiet chorus of assent. "I'll be up in the cabin, then, if you need me. You kids do whatever you like for a while. I'll call you when we jump to subspace."

Billy and Taia wandered off to explore the ship more carefully, leaving Jason and Tommy facing each other in silence. Jason eyed his friend narrowly; after a while Tommy couldn't stand it any more.

"Because it was the right thing to do," he burst out. "Because I nearly lost you once, Jase, and I didn't even know it. Because this is where I belong, with you and Bill."

Jason quirked a small grin. "And you're not even a telepath." His expression sobered. "It means a lot to me that you're here, Tom. Even though it's not your fight."

Tommy snorted. "I don't know what you mean. It's your fight, it's Billy's fight… so it's my fight too. Now knock it off and show me around this tub."

**************

"And you and I can bunk in here, next to Mr. C., unless you want quarters to yourself, in which case you can go in next to the Love Shack. I wouldn't advise it, though," chuckled Jason. "Bill and Tai can get pretty rambunctious."

Tommy's eyes widened. "Our Bill?" He shook his head. "Geez, if the girls at Angel Grove High had only known… thanks, I'll go in here with you if you don't mind."

"One snore and you're out on your ass, Oliver."

"Like you'll hear it over the brass band you produce. Come on, I'm hungry."

***************

It was funny, Billy mused a day or so later, staring out a porthole, but he'd never realized that there were no stars in subspace before. Just empty blackness, as far as the imagination can go. Of course his experience with subspace was somewhat limited to theory, until now, and it wasn't something he'd given any thought to, whether one would see stars… but he missed them. They didn't need them for navigation, but the loneliness of empty space was pervasive, and boring, and depressing...

With a sigh he got up from his seat and walked away from the porthole. He was giving himself the jimjams, and that was inadvisable at the least. Billy twisted his head this way and that, trying to ease the tension that had settled there.

It wasn't the lack of stars that had him all creeped out anyway, he admitted silently. It was the lack of concrete information. Unknown situation, unknown adversaries, unknown abilities… Not knowing had always driven him crazy, hence his accelerated educational track.

He grimaced as he realized he was thinking in what his friends used to call 'Billyspeak'. He always got wordy when he was nervous. It was why few people had understood anything he'd said in high school. He'd been pretty much perpetually nervous then, always on edge for fear someone wouldn't speak to him, or worse, that they would. But that edge, however keen, was like a four-lane highway compared to the edge he teetered on now.

*****************

Meditation was not helping. Taia switched positions, hoping to find better focus, but that too was unsuccessful. She sighed irritatedly and got up from her place on the floor, stretching her arms over her head.

In a day or so they would be able to try and contact Xerya, to discover what had happened since she had been taken. She didn't quite know how to feel about that. Odds were not in favor of the rebellion prospering in her absence. More than that, Taia wondered about this traitor her father had mentioned. She'd known shortly after her capture that Paladin had been the target, not she. It seemed whoever had betrayed them was squeamish about the torture of a young woman, though that consideration had not weighed with So'Vran.

Her hands shook with remembered pain; resolutely she put it out of her mind. It was over.

Wasn't it?

*****************

Tommy threw all his weight into the kick he landed on Jason's midsection, but his friend merely huffed out a breath. It hadn't really hurt him; not that Tommy'd wanted to. But it was everything he had. Tommy rubbed his nose and tried again, to much the same response. Jason was about as affected as a punching bag full of sand would have been. The main difference was that Jason could hit back if he chose to.

What if they were all like this on Xerya? He'd wanted to help, but… Tommy didn't have any powers, not any more. He was just a guy who could kick pretty well. And who was in way over his head.

What the hell was he doing out here?

*******************

Jason could see his friend was nervous, and getting worse by the second. And he didn't blame Tommy. Jason was equally scared.

What was waiting for them?

And would they all survive?