Katie went through the files in Alex' office as quickly as she could. She knew it was only a matter of time before he would make his way back, but she was also convinced that the answers to her questions could be found in his office.
She managed to pry open a drawer that had been locked, skimming through some of the information. Most of it was personnel files, some of it was transfer orders for officers to different departments, standard information.
Realizing she wouldn't find anything on paper, she turned to his computer, switching it on. 'Welcome back Alex, please enter password,' the computer said.
She paused, typing in the first thing that came to mind.
'Incorrect code, please re-enter password,'
She tried again.
'Incorrect code, please re-enter password,'
"Shit," she grunted out loud, trying to figure out the code. She glanced around the room, hoping to find some clue as to what the code could be.
Katie stopped at a picture of Alex and Jen standing on a balcony together. Both of them were in their Time Force uniforms, and she quickly noticed that Jen was still wearing her engagement ring. It was enough to make her take a pause. 'I really thought those two were going to work out,' she sighed.
Then in occurred to her. "Jen," she said, typing it into the computer.
'Password accepted,' the computer told her.
She quickly glanced over the files in the computer, cross referencing them with anything pertaining the black ranger… but there was nothing. Katie was about to give up when she noticed a small icon in the bottom right corner of the screen.
"That looks like…" she took a closer look. "a morpher," she sighed, clicking on the icon.
As soon as she did, schematics for the black morpher appeared on the screen. Although she didn't completely understand all of it, she knew someone who would.
"Katie to Trip," she whispered.
'Trip here, what is it Katie?' a voice answered.
"I have the information you requested. Is it safe to share?" she inquired, making sure it was okay to tell him.
'Standby, I'm switching our com-signal to a secure line,' there was a slight pause, then a beeping sound. 'What do you have for me Katie?'
"I've accessed the schematics for the black morpher, a lot of high level stuff here. See if you can establish a link between the science station at Alex' computer, there's a lot of information here,"
'Anything on the identity of the black ranger?' he asked.
"Not that I see, but I do see on his planning schedule that he has an appointment with someone at 1300,"
'Establishing link,' he paused. 'The download shouldn't take more than two minutes. When it's done, you have to clear out the command pathways so he doesn't realize we accessed his files,' he said.
"Understood,"
'As soon as its done, get out of there,' he told her.
"You don't have to tell me twice," she sighed.
She watched as the information flashed across the screen during the download. Finally, the download was complete, and Katie wiped out the command pathways, then shut off the computer.
Before she could make her way to the office door, the door opened, and Alex walked into the room. Even with the cloak on, Katie was nervous as she quietly walked to the other side of the room.
Alex walked in, sitting down in his chair and began going through files. Only moments later, someone knocked on the door.
"Come in," he called out.
That's when he walked into the room. He had a light complexion with long but curly black hair that hung just over his ears. He had on civilian clothes, just a pair of black jeans and a black button up shirt.
"How are you commander?" the man asked.
"Just fine, sorry to keep you waiting like that. I had something I had to take care of. Have a seat," Alex said.
Katie watched in silence as the man sat across from Alex.
"So, how are you feeling?" he asked.
"Just fine commander,"
"I take it your new quarters were to your liking,"
"Yeah, everything is fine. Thanks again,"
"No worries," he paused. "You said there hasn't been any side effects from the radiation coming from your morphers?" he asked.
"Not at all. I feel fine, considering my age,"
"Good. I just received word from Admiral Summers that because of random shifts in the time line, we're going to have to move forward with our plans sooner than expected," he said.
"I understand."
"It will become necessary to tell the rangers who you are, but the secret about the sphere has to be remain a secret. If anyone know what it was capable of, we'd have a much bigger problem on our hands," he explained.
"I can imagine,"
"Like I said, I still want you to meet with one of our doctors so they can run a few tests on you. I just need to be sure that everything is going according to plan. I want you to transport to medical lab six. It's rarely used, so no one will see you. I'll have Dr. Mathews meet you there for an exam," he told him.
"Understood,"
"And thank you again. The universe owes you a tremendous debt," he said as he stood up, extending his hand to him.
The two of them shook. "Its an honor sir," he said as he reached for his morpher, then disappeared into a stream of light.
Alex sat back down in his chair and let out a sigh. Then it happened…
'Trip to Katie, come in,' a voice said.
Alex reached in his top drawer, pulling out a disrupter and aiming in the direction the voice came from. The beam connected with Katie, forcing her to de-cloak as she fell to the ground.
"Oh Jesus," he sighed as he realized who it was, and then reached for communicator. "Dr. Young, could you report to my office ASAP. I have an officer who needs to be escorted to deck eight," he said.
(*)
Trip and Camille looked over the schematics on the view screen, completely overcome by the level of technology.
"Look at that, it has it's own neurtotronic isolator subroutines, a modulation frequency pulse of over one hundred billion bits per second and a bio-chemical phaser emitter," he sighed eagerly.
"What the hell does any of that mean?" Jen asked him.
"It means that this morpher isn't just a piece of equipment, this thing links itself to the user. The cloaking device it uses doesn't just make you invisible, it phases the user out of our time continuum, moving them 1.5 seconds faster than the rest of us," Camille explained.
"Why is going into the future 1.5 seconds such a good thing?"
"Because it would be just enough far enough into the future where our scans wouldn't detect it, but allow them to move freely through our time without being seen," she said.
"It also gives them the ability to walk through solid matter. Its like they're there, but they're not there," Trip added.
"So where did this morpher come from?" she asked.
"We have to assume that Alex acquired it from the future along with the sphere. If admirals from the future are sending us technology to alter history, something major must be happening," Camille said.
"Did you ever get in touch with Katie?"
"No. I tried to contact her after the download, but she didn't answer," he said.
"Computer, locate Lt. Katie Taylor," Jen said.
'Lt. Taylor is on deck 8, section 1,' the computer answered.
"Memory adaptation," Trip sighed.
"Alex must have caught her and sent her to memory adaptation to wipe her mind," she turned to Trip. "Can you find anything else we need in these files?" she asked.
"Only that Alex had an appointment at 1300 hours. The files don't say who it is, which is unusual in itself," he said.
"You think he's meeting with the black ranger?"
"Has to be,"
"Computer, locate Commander Alex Collins," she said.
'Commander Collins is in medical lab six,' the computer told her.
"No one ever goes into lab six," Camille mentioned.
"Computer, access security cameras in lab six and display on view screen," she said.
The schematics blinked off the screen and were replaced by an image of Alex standing in the corner of a room. There was a doctor on hand, and a man was laying flat on his stomach on an examining table.
"Who is that?" Jen asked.
"I recognize Dr. Young," he brought up.
"Whoever that guy is, it has to be the black ranger," Camille said.
Jen paused. "Wait a second. When I was in Alex' office today, he told me that he had a meeting with someone at 1300 hours. When I peeked in, he was talking to Lucas," she said.
"Are you saying that Lucas is the black ranger?"
"It adds up: that's why we couldn't find a match in the computer files. We were looking for active officers, but Lucas has been inactive for months now. It also explains why we couldn't find a match from the former rangers in the data base," she said.
"But we did find a match, a lot of them," he mentioned.
"True, but more of them were former rangers who'd been exposed to several different morphers. If it were one of them, and if the black morpher is as powerful as you say it is, the radiation from something like that would kill them," Jen said.
"Oh my God. Lucas is the black ranger," Camille sighed.
"Why didn't he tell us?"
"He was probably under orders not to," Trip said.
"Well now that we know who the black ranger is, where he gets his powers from and what Alex was trying to hide from us, we should concentrate on whatever Admiral Summers has been preparing us for," Jen said.
"What do you think it could be?"
"I don't know, but whatever it is, it's got everyone in Time Force in serious panic mode. Logan got promoted to admiral, I got a promotion, personnel has been getting shuffled around for the last few days, ensigns have been getting promotions to full Lt. Status and Alex sent Tommy on some black opts mission that we're not suppose to know about. Not to mention the fact that he mind wipes anyone who comes too close to discovering what's going on. I'd say it's pretty big," Jen said.
Just then, Tommy walked into the room in his Time Force uniform, walking over to the rest of them. "Hey guys," he said.
"The doctors let you come back to work?" Camille asked him.
"Yep, a clean bill of health. They say I'm ready to get back to work now," he said.
"What about the headaches?" Jen asked.
"Gone,"
"Gone? How?" she asked.
"Because I remember everything now," he told them.
"You do?"
"All of it," Tommy insisted.
The three of them gathered around Tommy. "Well out with it man, tell us what happened," Camille snapped.
"It all started a few days ago when Alex called me into his office……"
TBC……
