"...Just want to forget it ever happened. The whole thing. I think in time I will forget. For good or bad, it'll be completely wiped out. And won't that be nice? Then I can just be normal again. I will, too. Don't laugh. I can worry about petty things, and it won't matter. That'll be all there is. Do you want to help me forget? Do you? I'll dance at your wedding."
My eyes jolted open and I sprung forward in my seat. The word "wedding" was echoing in my head, each time it repeated the quality degraded a little bit; almost like a transmission from badly out of range, a damaged vessel and her emotionally wrecked commander crying (begging?) for assistance, despite the fact that their pleas were muffled and distorted by distance and damage.
"For the love of god, don't leave me here like this! Have you no human decency? My crew's dead. I need to forget.. need to forget it all. I'm scared of death, but don't tell NASADA. They'd ask where my spunk went. Where all my spunk went. Please, just.."
"How DARE you ignore me!!!"
I forced myself into full awakeness, shaking a bit. Looking around me with confusion, I saw no one else on the bridge. The words I'd heard, mixed with incomprehensible noises and almost believed to be spoken by someone right next to me, had all been a dream. Or what would have to pass for one, for lack of a better word.
When had I dozed off, though? And what time was it? Of course, the viewscreen gave no indication whatsoever; it would forever display a deep, cold, star-filled abyss. Similar to Earth's nighttime in that respect.. except it never changed out here. Be it 3 am or 3 pm, the harsh darkness would never give way to even a hint of the sun. And why would it, the "sun" out here was nothing more than one tiny dot, one miniscule point of light amongst thousands.
It had felt good, it really had. At first. To be back in space.
The takeoff had been a bit shaky, enough to rattle my too-full stomach nearly to the breaking point. I felt the foul taste in my mouth rising upward, and I prayed a silent prayer that I wouldn't lose my breakfast all over the floor of the bridge of the finest vessel in the galaxy, oh lord no. How embarrassing.
I'd seen the city ahead of me pivot, rising up and down and up and down in time with the Megaship. One moment, it was in full view and the next it gave way to the crystal blue sky, over and over and over again.
At the ship's helm, Andros cursed with annoyance, as the other rangers spurted out status reports and nonsensical estimates in the form of "degrees".
A moment later, success finally arrived. I felt the entire ship raising itself off the ground, and I'd begun to sigh with relief...
Only to find the relief dissolving into a pit of despair as I felt a massive shudder and the viewscreen's brief delay replayed the view of the city crashing back into sight and confirming our worries that yes, that was earth's ground beneath us once again.
I felt my heart in the back of my throat as the rangers' voices hummed rhythmically with their individual attempts to mechanically rationalize what had to me been nothing more than a great big scary boom. Andros turned in my direction but never met eyes with me. I recall thinking that he had no reason to be ashamed; so what if his ship didn't work. If worst came to worst, we could always take the--
And what a maddening thought that was. Imagine. All of the gallant rangers and the sweet little girl, hovering over the planet KO35 in the Dark Fortress. Send the fair people of KO35 off the edge, that would. And when they landed, who should they expect to emerge? Surely they'd anticipate my entrance to be first, followed by an army of Quantrons and all the Rangers in chains. Or dead, bloodied and eternally stoic; thrown into the shocked crowd.
With such a reputation preceeding me.. us.. what a shame it'd be to disappoint.
WHERE DO THOUGHTS LIKE THAT COME FROM?! My mind screamed back at me, and I winced as I imagined an angry version of myself... Karone, whacking the hell out of Astronema. Astronema with blue hair.
Not red.
Although it could easily become red, with enough whacking.
Andros had been silent a long time, and then he suddenly snapped to attention.
"I know, it was a stupid thing to say, I'm sorry." I whispered. No one seemed to hear me, and the moment I'd finished, Andros began to speak.
"Carlos, shift A/E coordinates to 3076.89, and ready backup power at my command. We're gonna want to get a good deal of momentum behind us."
Such ridiculous words. But what they translated to was a successful launch.
This time, we made it into the air, and we stayed there. Rising, rising, rising.
Surely we must be in Heaven by now.
The brilliant blue that had been so seemingly permanent a moment ago was slowly fading into white, and gradually darkening as we rose higher into the earth's atmosphere.
Jump out now, and you'll suffocate. You might even burn yourself up, I warned myself stupidly.
A moment later, my full attention was on the viewscreen, as a spectacular array of blues exploded into reality before me. I knew that shortly the blue would become black and the shrapnelesque stars would litter the pensive darkness, strewn about haphazardly into patterns that only God or the clinically insane could comprehend.
But for now, I thought about Cassie's words about eternalizing something like that.. and I wondered if I could. Without even blinking.. just staring lifelessly at the viewscreen.. maybe it would last forever.
I'd spoken too soon, and in a split second it ended. Beneath us all the earth slowly backed itself away from us, as if it had established that we weren't to be trusted, and its attempts to keep us in its clutches had been all in vain.
"Fine, see if I care. Go on, git. It's your funeral, after all," Earth seemed to be saying. "I tried to reason with you, but you just wouldn't listen. Just don't come crying to me when you see it."
"Engaging Hyperrush engines.. now don't go sour on me, sweetheart." Someone said. Cassie. It could only be her.. her and her cabin fever, they'd called it.
"Let's hope they make it; I really don't like the idea of getting there on impulse alone." TJ said soberly.
I bit my lip, folding my hands in my lap.
And now that I really thought about it, that was the last clear memory I'd had. I'd barely seen the stars for 2 minutes, and already they were so haunting and tiresome.
So, why had everyone gone off and left me alone?
Maybe it's more comfortable for them. Who knew.. they'd maybe all gotten together after I'd zoned out, all whispering conspiratorially and probably looking real guilty, all of them saying things like "maybe this wasn't such a good idea after all.." and "did you SEE her?!", and they'd all slunk off to brood and consider my welfare, while keeping the real truth concealed.
Which truth, I wondered. The Truth, or the fact? that I was totally losing my mind.
"Space madness." I murmured, jumping a bit at the broken silence.
"Aiyiyi!! Karone, you're awake?" A pleasant and squeaky voice inquired. I whirled around and saw nothing but.. oh, of course. The robot. I'd nearly forgotten about the presence of the robot, it had grown oddly distant the last few weeks, despite the Rangers' tight camaraderie with one another as well as their two artificial intelligences.
Robot simply wouldn't do. I recalled suddenly a nearly lost memory. A charade. The last great stand against "evil". Clad in my trademark armor and that (blue) wig, I had referred to the robot as... well, "Robot".
It had replied back that it would prefer to be addressed as... something else. It slipped my mind.
"What time is it...?" I asked, trailing off. I'd made it clear that I'd forgotten the name.
"By Earth's Pacific Standard time, it is 11:34 hours." A pleasant female voice replied. Not that of the robot's.
"What she said." The robot replied, pointing to the ship's computer. "You fell asleep, and the rangers left just a minute ago to go fix some lunch. They figured they could trust you with the bridge."
Was that true?
I frowned. "I don't know why I fell asleep. Guess I was a little exhausted from that launch."
"That's understandable. Can I get you anything? How about a glass of milk?"
For some reason, the robot's unfaltering pleasant demeanor made me grin. "No.. thank you. Except.. I'm really sorry, but I think I forgot your name."
"It's Alpha. I'm glad you asked."
"Oh... Alpha. Right. Thank you."
"Everyone has memory lapses now and then." Alpha replied cheerfully.
"You have no idea." I said wryly.
"So, how does it feel to finally be going back home?" He asked, never missing a beat.
"It's really exciting." I said almost carelessly. All at once, I didn't want to be talking to this robot. Alpha. Whatever. Although I was very careful now with how I said things to everyone else, surely this robot could be swiftly dismissed with just a cavalierly-uttered turn of phrase; a blatant indication that I had much better things to do than shoot the bull with a mere inorganic AI Jeeves.
"I can imagine it is. It reminds me of the first time I saw Edenoi; that was the planet where the first Alpha models were designed and built. Even though I wasn't built there, it still felt just like home."
"Oh." I replied.
"In fact, that was the first time I ever heard the name 'Zordon'."
I frowned. "Zordon..."
"Yes..." And the robot heaved a mechanical sounding sigh.
What was the sigh for?!
"Wait a minute.. please forgive me but... do you mean to tell me that you still haven't found Zordon?" I asked incredulously.
It truly was a staggering thought. Admittedly, the last time I'd even heard the name was on that godforsaken planet, where the decoy Zordon had turned out (to both my and Andros' shock) to be Dark Specter in disguise. But that was a full month ago.. even more, in fact. And since so much had changed.. how could they have not found him yet?
Alpha didn't reply for the longest time; he just stood there, its saucer-shaped head pointed in my direction. Scrutinizing me? Hoping I'd be able to assist in the quest to find Zordon?
Finally, he spoke. His voice was a bit wavery, but it quickly steadied itself.
"Karone.. Zordon was on your ship. Don't you remember that?"
I stared at him in disbelief.
"My ship?"
"Andros had..." The squeaky voice trailed off, as if someone had just flashed a glare at him to shut him up.
This couldn't be... Zordon was NEVER on the Dark Fortress. That would have been too much of a damn giveaway. We'd be open to enemy fire with the power we'd have to reroute to powering that damned tube. Our shields would be down, anyone could take full advantage of us. How ridiculously stupid would we have to be to...
"Andros had what?", I blurted out all of a sudden.
"I'm sorry." Alpha said, the unconditional glee erased from his mechanical voice. "I can't disclose any further details."
My eyes widened painfully, and I felt dizziness whirling behind them. My entire body felt as if it would collapse into unconsciousness if I spoke.
It seemed almost unnecessary to speak. The few foolish words the robot had spoken had as much as opened a private channel between my mind and the databanks inside the robot's memory.
Oh, you foolish robot you. Andros would sure be angry at you if he knew what you almost did.
The closely guarded Truth had nearly come out, spurting from a friendly conversation like disgusting orange rust in a seldom-used faucet. Plunk, plunk, before you know it, Andros' little secret is out in the open, easily scrutinizable and embraceable by anyone. Anyone. Even sweet lil' Karone.
So Zordon was part of it. Zordon.. on the dark fortress.
It made no sense, but I held onto that little tidbit like a crazed, greedy child held holding onto a stolen lollipop. It's mine, fair and square. Mine to turn over in my head over and over again, to draw conclusions from, to build on until it all came flooding out.
"Andros had..." was mine as well. As worthless as those two words seemed, it was still progress. I'd suddenly began feeling so positively glowing with evil, evil that threatened to throw me completely off the brink, never to return.
But instead, I shook it off, and I flashed Alpha a blinding smile.
"That's okay, Alpha. I'm just a little disoriented."
The robot showed no signs of acknowledgement, much less relief or distrust. He just nodded, and said something again about lunch being ready soon.
Within a matter of seconds after the last word he'd spoken, the lift whirred open, and who should enter the bridge but Andros.
"Oh, you're up. How are things?" He said pleasantly.
"Just fine." I grinned. "When do you think we'll get there?"
"Uh.. well, if we stay on our current course and don't run into any disturbance, we should get there before midnight."
MIDNIGHT.
My eyes jolted open and I sprung forward in my seat. The word "wedding" was echoing in my head, each time it repeated the quality degraded a little bit; almost like a transmission from badly out of range, a damaged vessel and her emotionally wrecked commander crying (begging?) for assistance, despite the fact that their pleas were muffled and distorted by distance and damage.
"For the love of god, don't leave me here like this! Have you no human decency? My crew's dead. I need to forget.. need to forget it all. I'm scared of death, but don't tell NASADA. They'd ask where my spunk went. Where all my spunk went. Please, just.."
"How DARE you ignore me!!!"
I forced myself into full awakeness, shaking a bit. Looking around me with confusion, I saw no one else on the bridge. The words I'd heard, mixed with incomprehensible noises and almost believed to be spoken by someone right next to me, had all been a dream. Or what would have to pass for one, for lack of a better word.
When had I dozed off, though? And what time was it? Of course, the viewscreen gave no indication whatsoever; it would forever display a deep, cold, star-filled abyss. Similar to Earth's nighttime in that respect.. except it never changed out here. Be it 3 am or 3 pm, the harsh darkness would never give way to even a hint of the sun. And why would it, the "sun" out here was nothing more than one tiny dot, one miniscule point of light amongst thousands.
It had felt good, it really had. At first. To be back in space.
The takeoff had been a bit shaky, enough to rattle my too-full stomach nearly to the breaking point. I felt the foul taste in my mouth rising upward, and I prayed a silent prayer that I wouldn't lose my breakfast all over the floor of the bridge of the finest vessel in the galaxy, oh lord no. How embarrassing.
I'd seen the city ahead of me pivot, rising up and down and up and down in time with the Megaship. One moment, it was in full view and the next it gave way to the crystal blue sky, over and over and over again.
At the ship's helm, Andros cursed with annoyance, as the other rangers spurted out status reports and nonsensical estimates in the form of "degrees".
A moment later, success finally arrived. I felt the entire ship raising itself off the ground, and I'd begun to sigh with relief...
Only to find the relief dissolving into a pit of despair as I felt a massive shudder and the viewscreen's brief delay replayed the view of the city crashing back into sight and confirming our worries that yes, that was earth's ground beneath us once again.
I felt my heart in the back of my throat as the rangers' voices hummed rhythmically with their individual attempts to mechanically rationalize what had to me been nothing more than a great big scary boom. Andros turned in my direction but never met eyes with me. I recall thinking that he had no reason to be ashamed; so what if his ship didn't work. If worst came to worst, we could always take the--
And what a maddening thought that was. Imagine. All of the gallant rangers and the sweet little girl, hovering over the planet KO35 in the Dark Fortress. Send the fair people of KO35 off the edge, that would. And when they landed, who should they expect to emerge? Surely they'd anticipate my entrance to be first, followed by an army of Quantrons and all the Rangers in chains. Or dead, bloodied and eternally stoic; thrown into the shocked crowd.
With such a reputation preceeding me.. us.. what a shame it'd be to disappoint.
WHERE DO THOUGHTS LIKE THAT COME FROM?! My mind screamed back at me, and I winced as I imagined an angry version of myself... Karone, whacking the hell out of Astronema. Astronema with blue hair.
Not red.
Although it could easily become red, with enough whacking.
Andros had been silent a long time, and then he suddenly snapped to attention.
"I know, it was a stupid thing to say, I'm sorry." I whispered. No one seemed to hear me, and the moment I'd finished, Andros began to speak.
"Carlos, shift A/E coordinates to 3076.89, and ready backup power at my command. We're gonna want to get a good deal of momentum behind us."
Such ridiculous words. But what they translated to was a successful launch.
This time, we made it into the air, and we stayed there. Rising, rising, rising.
Surely we must be in Heaven by now.
The brilliant blue that had been so seemingly permanent a moment ago was slowly fading into white, and gradually darkening as we rose higher into the earth's atmosphere.
Jump out now, and you'll suffocate. You might even burn yourself up, I warned myself stupidly.
A moment later, my full attention was on the viewscreen, as a spectacular array of blues exploded into reality before me. I knew that shortly the blue would become black and the shrapnelesque stars would litter the pensive darkness, strewn about haphazardly into patterns that only God or the clinically insane could comprehend.
But for now, I thought about Cassie's words about eternalizing something like that.. and I wondered if I could. Without even blinking.. just staring lifelessly at the viewscreen.. maybe it would last forever.
I'd spoken too soon, and in a split second it ended. Beneath us all the earth slowly backed itself away from us, as if it had established that we weren't to be trusted, and its attempts to keep us in its clutches had been all in vain.
"Fine, see if I care. Go on, git. It's your funeral, after all," Earth seemed to be saying. "I tried to reason with you, but you just wouldn't listen. Just don't come crying to me when you see it."
"Engaging Hyperrush engines.. now don't go sour on me, sweetheart." Someone said. Cassie. It could only be her.. her and her cabin fever, they'd called it.
"Let's hope they make it; I really don't like the idea of getting there on impulse alone." TJ said soberly.
I bit my lip, folding my hands in my lap.
And now that I really thought about it, that was the last clear memory I'd had. I'd barely seen the stars for 2 minutes, and already they were so haunting and tiresome.
So, why had everyone gone off and left me alone?
Maybe it's more comfortable for them. Who knew.. they'd maybe all gotten together after I'd zoned out, all whispering conspiratorially and probably looking real guilty, all of them saying things like "maybe this wasn't such a good idea after all.." and "did you SEE her?!", and they'd all slunk off to brood and consider my welfare, while keeping the real truth concealed.
Which truth, I wondered. The Truth, or the fact? that I was totally losing my mind.
"Space madness." I murmured, jumping a bit at the broken silence.
"Aiyiyi!! Karone, you're awake?" A pleasant and squeaky voice inquired. I whirled around and saw nothing but.. oh, of course. The robot. I'd nearly forgotten about the presence of the robot, it had grown oddly distant the last few weeks, despite the Rangers' tight camaraderie with one another as well as their two artificial intelligences.
Robot simply wouldn't do. I recalled suddenly a nearly lost memory. A charade. The last great stand against "evil". Clad in my trademark armor and that (blue) wig, I had referred to the robot as... well, "Robot".
It had replied back that it would prefer to be addressed as... something else. It slipped my mind.
"What time is it...?" I asked, trailing off. I'd made it clear that I'd forgotten the name.
"By Earth's Pacific Standard time, it is 11:34 hours." A pleasant female voice replied. Not that of the robot's.
"What she said." The robot replied, pointing to the ship's computer. "You fell asleep, and the rangers left just a minute ago to go fix some lunch. They figured they could trust you with the bridge."
Was that true?
I frowned. "I don't know why I fell asleep. Guess I was a little exhausted from that launch."
"That's understandable. Can I get you anything? How about a glass of milk?"
For some reason, the robot's unfaltering pleasant demeanor made me grin. "No.. thank you. Except.. I'm really sorry, but I think I forgot your name."
"It's Alpha. I'm glad you asked."
"Oh... Alpha. Right. Thank you."
"Everyone has memory lapses now and then." Alpha replied cheerfully.
"You have no idea." I said wryly.
"So, how does it feel to finally be going back home?" He asked, never missing a beat.
"It's really exciting." I said almost carelessly. All at once, I didn't want to be talking to this robot. Alpha. Whatever. Although I was very careful now with how I said things to everyone else, surely this robot could be swiftly dismissed with just a cavalierly-uttered turn of phrase; a blatant indication that I had much better things to do than shoot the bull with a mere inorganic AI Jeeves.
"I can imagine it is. It reminds me of the first time I saw Edenoi; that was the planet where the first Alpha models were designed and built. Even though I wasn't built there, it still felt just like home."
"Oh." I replied.
"In fact, that was the first time I ever heard the name 'Zordon'."
I frowned. "Zordon..."
"Yes..." And the robot heaved a mechanical sounding sigh.
What was the sigh for?!
"Wait a minute.. please forgive me but... do you mean to tell me that you still haven't found Zordon?" I asked incredulously.
It truly was a staggering thought. Admittedly, the last time I'd even heard the name was on that godforsaken planet, where the decoy Zordon had turned out (to both my and Andros' shock) to be Dark Specter in disguise. But that was a full month ago.. even more, in fact. And since so much had changed.. how could they have not found him yet?
Alpha didn't reply for the longest time; he just stood there, its saucer-shaped head pointed in my direction. Scrutinizing me? Hoping I'd be able to assist in the quest to find Zordon?
Finally, he spoke. His voice was a bit wavery, but it quickly steadied itself.
"Karone.. Zordon was on your ship. Don't you remember that?"
I stared at him in disbelief.
"My ship?"
"Andros had..." The squeaky voice trailed off, as if someone had just flashed a glare at him to shut him up.
This couldn't be... Zordon was NEVER on the Dark Fortress. That would have been too much of a damn giveaway. We'd be open to enemy fire with the power we'd have to reroute to powering that damned tube. Our shields would be down, anyone could take full advantage of us. How ridiculously stupid would we have to be to...
"Andros had what?", I blurted out all of a sudden.
"I'm sorry." Alpha said, the unconditional glee erased from his mechanical voice. "I can't disclose any further details."
My eyes widened painfully, and I felt dizziness whirling behind them. My entire body felt as if it would collapse into unconsciousness if I spoke.
It seemed almost unnecessary to speak. The few foolish words the robot had spoken had as much as opened a private channel between my mind and the databanks inside the robot's memory.
Oh, you foolish robot you. Andros would sure be angry at you if he knew what you almost did.
The closely guarded Truth had nearly come out, spurting from a friendly conversation like disgusting orange rust in a seldom-used faucet. Plunk, plunk, before you know it, Andros' little secret is out in the open, easily scrutinizable and embraceable by anyone. Anyone. Even sweet lil' Karone.
So Zordon was part of it. Zordon.. on the dark fortress.
It made no sense, but I held onto that little tidbit like a crazed, greedy child held holding onto a stolen lollipop. It's mine, fair and square. Mine to turn over in my head over and over again, to draw conclusions from, to build on until it all came flooding out.
"Andros had..." was mine as well. As worthless as those two words seemed, it was still progress. I'd suddenly began feeling so positively glowing with evil, evil that threatened to throw me completely off the brink, never to return.
But instead, I shook it off, and I flashed Alpha a blinding smile.
"That's okay, Alpha. I'm just a little disoriented."
The robot showed no signs of acknowledgement, much less relief or distrust. He just nodded, and said something again about lunch being ready soon.
Within a matter of seconds after the last word he'd spoken, the lift whirred open, and who should enter the bridge but Andros.
"Oh, you're up. How are things?" He said pleasantly.
"Just fine." I grinned. "When do you think we'll get there?"
"Uh.. well, if we stay on our current course and don't run into any disturbance, we should get there before midnight."
MIDNIGHT.