Kim awoke with a splitting headache and the world around her spinning.
As the room slowly stopped rotating, she could make out the doctor's face
above her. "I see you finally decided to wake up," he smiled.
She shook her head, and immediately regretted it as it threatened to explode. "I'm still not sure it was a good idea," she said. Looking around at the bare room, she asked, "Where are we?"
Ben shrugged, "I'm not sure, but I think we're aboard the alien space ship." He smiled at her, "I wouldn't exactly say we're safe."
She chuckled, "Good, Ford Prefect you're not." Sitting up she looked around her. The room was sparsely furnished with only two small benches along the wall and what looked like some kind of alien toilet contraption in the middle. She realized that evidently their captors were much larger than humans as all the furnishing were about twice as large as she was accustomed. "How do we get out of here?"
Ben smiled at her, "There's a door on the far end of the wall, but I wasn't sure if I should try and break through it just yet. From what I can hear of the klaxons, I would guess that this ship has taken some pretty serious damage. So far, nobody has come to check on us."
She smiled back at him and nodded, "That would be Billy's doing I guess. I thought I overheard Jason tell him to disable the ship."
"Well, he seems to have done a pretty good job," Ben said as she got up and walked to the door. It was only a vague outline in the wall, its seam barely visible. She pushed against it hard and realized that even the strength the phyre treatments had given her wasn't going to be enough to open it.
"We need to get out of here," she said. Pounding her fist against the wall in frustration, she noticed the communicator still there. Looking over at the doctor she said, "I wonder why they didn't take these from us?"
"Probably because they're blocking communications," Ben suggested.
Kim tried the device to no avail and gave up in disgust. "I wonder?" the doctor began.
"Wonder what?" Kim asked.
"Adam was talking to Teelo with phyrespeak. I wonder if you could talk to Jason or Billy that way," he shrugged. "It was just a thought."
She laughed, and said, "Good idea." Then pulling her will to her, she concentrated on her friends, //Jason, Billy, can you hear me?//
//Kim? Is that you?// she heard Adam's voice. //Are you all right? Is the doctor with you? Is he all right?//
//Yeah, it's me, and we both are all right. A little shook up, but all right, I guess. We seem to be in some sort of jail cell.//
//Can you get out?// Adam asked her, then said, //Wait a minute.// She could literally feel her husband talking to someone else. Finally he sent to her, //McKenzie says to tell Ben that it's imperative that you two get out of there. Billy says that the ship's about to…// whatever else he was about to say was lost as a shudder went through the ship shaking both Kim and the doctor off their feet. //It looks like they're losing altitude fast.// Adam's mind voice was almost frantic. //Get out of there now!//
Kim tore herself from the mental link and looked over to where Ben seemed to be considering something. He said, "I get the feeling that this ship is currently engaged in some kind of catastrophic emergency procedures."
Kim nodded at him, "Adam says the ship's losing altitude."
Ben just nodded at her and looked at the ceiling. "Then our acceleration will increase until we either burn up in the atmosphere or hit the ground at terminal velocity," he said with a note of resignation. She could see him come to some kind of conclusion. Finally he gave her a steely look and almost growled at her, "You tell anybody about this and I'll make sure I lose your shot records." Kim realized that the man was actually blushing. He said to nobody in particular, "I can't believe I'm actually doing this."
Kim asked, "What are you talking about?"
He shook his head, "I'm getting us out of this mess." He smiled, "Just don't laugh, and stand back."
"Look Doc, no offense but I couldn't break that door down, I doubt you can by running into it."
He shook his head at her, "I'm not going to run at it." He stood with his feet apart, arms out to his side. Then twisted back to face the side wall, "I'm going to use something else. Just don't laugh."
"I wouldn't do that," she started as he suddenly twisted back in the opposite direction and began to spin. For a split second she thought he was out of his mind but then that thought was interrupted by a brilliant flash of light that completely obscured him from sight.
When the light faded, Doctor Storm was gone. In his place stood a tall buxom red-head in a spandex one-piece bathing suit, blue cape, white boots, a tiara and some sort of large bracers. She was blushing deep red as she growled in a rich melodious voice, "Let's just say that I'm God's proof to the universe that he has a sense of humor." Striding over to the door, she looked at Kim and winked, "Just be careful what you wish for, you might get it." Leaning back she kicked the door once. With a scream of tearing metal it suddenly buckled under her boot and slammed through the far wall. Turning to Kim, the woman said, "Let's go find your husband and my sister and get off this bucket of bolts."
~*~
Aboard the Aquitian dreadnaught, Delphine heard Cestro report, "There's been an energy spike on the Haffar ship. It looks like someone just downloaded half the Morphin' Grid into their brig."
"What?" Delphine asked. "What kind of energy spike?"
The disgraced ranger replied, "I don't know. I've never seen anything like it. Its power signature is off the scale. I would say it was some kind of mega-zord."
"In the brig of a starship?" Delphine asked in disbelief.
"I'm only reporting what the sensors show, Delphine," Cestro said defensively. Once again, Delphine wondered if maybe she'd gone too far in reprimanding him. He was after all simply warning another Ranger of danger- even if the danger came from the Galactic Council.
"I'm not questioning your readings Cestro, just the incredulity of the situation," she told him. "Can you get a reading on the Ranger and her passenger?"
"I've got Kimberly, but I can't find any purely human readings anywhere on the ship. Just Kimberly and this new energy source."
"Can you break through the Haffar screens to teleport them over here?" Delphine asked.
She watched as Cestro worked frantically at the console to carry out her orders. Finally, he gave her a frustrated look. "I can get Kimberly, but NOT her passenger. The lock just keeps slipping off him/her/it as if I were trying teleport a piece of a neutronium."
Delphine nodded, "THAT is one thing we don't need on the ship." She gave Cestro an encouraging look, "Keep trying."
"Yes, Delphine."
~*~
Teelo had sensed the attack on his friends before it actually happened. He banked hard and dove to intercept the falling vehicle, but then felt space fold around the two Rangers to take them to one of the strange masses in orbit. Without thinking, he folded space to follow them, appearing just a few wingspans from the strange craft.
He noticed that not more than a few heartbeats later the black dragonzord appeared with the craft between them. He raked his phyresight over the craft, finding only the one pink female's signature along with the strange phyre of the one they called doctor. He could feel the phyrebond between the two beings who piloted the black and pink dragonzords. He didn't exactly know what to call these beings, they called themselves human and they weren't dragons, but they were in someway related- they were dragonkin . Still, the bond between the ones called Kimberly and Adam was strong, and the least he could do was help Adam retrieve his mate. Suddenly his phyresight detected a flare up of power from the craft below him.
He watched as the black dragonzord eased itself forward toward the plummeting vessel, and matched its course. //Teelo, I'm going to get as close to that ship as I can and try to keep it from crashing. // Adam's phyrevoice told him.
//I'll see what I can do to help,// Teelo sent back. //I can see your phyre-mate deep in the bowels of that thing. Do you want me to fold space and bring them out of there?//
//You can do that?// Adam asked.
//Void is not one of my elements, but all dragons have enough mastery over it to at least fold space. I could bring them to me. Is there anything I should know before I do it?// he asked.
//Can you put them in my 'zord?// Adam asked.
Teelo thought about it. He'd never tried to open a space fold between two places when he wasn't located in at least one of them. He wasn't sure he if he could or not. Finally, he said, //To be sure, I'd have to go there first myself. Then I could bring us all to your 'zord.//
He could almost sense Adam nodding his head, //Mic says she'll meet you there.//
Teelo watched as the black dragonzord banked- he wondered why it did that in space where there was no air to use to turn- and then closed once again with the giant vessel, this time on its ventral surface. Before he folded out, he watched as the being named Adam put his craft between the mass and the planet below, and slowly tried to brake its descent.
~*~
Mic reached across the depths of distance between herself and where she sensed her brother, and willed herself there. In a familiar blur of motion the 'zord disappeared from around her and then reformed into a juncture in the corridors of the space ship. She realized that the same field that was preventing Bill from locking onto Kim and Ben had distorted her teleport. She was lucky she wasn't stuck in a bulkhead somewhere or trying to breathe hard vacuum. Best guess they were two or three decks below her.
A noise to her left was the only warning she got before a bolt of energy screamed down the corridor toward her. Diving forward and rolling she dodged several more shots before coming to a stop. Shaking her head, she wondered aloud, "Did these guys graduate from the Storm Trooper School of Marksmanship or something? If their gunner is as good as they are, they probably hit Kim's 'Zord by accident."
She pulled the ion blaster she'd taken from the 'zord's armory just before teleporting and threw off the safety. Looking around the corner, she saw several large forms come rumbling down the halls toward her. They looked like bipedal lizards on steroids. They were a good eight feet tall, and six feet wide. Each of them was carrying a wicked looking gun that looked like it doubled as a club.
She squeezed off three quick shots- each one hitting a different assailant with no effect- before ducking behind the cover of the corridor again. "Damn, just what I need- overgrown sleestacks with Kill-O-Zap guns."
Again there was the sound of their weapons discharging and she watched in horror as a whole corner of the corridor above her was blasted away by another barrage of shots. "This is not good," she told herself as the ship shuddered under her. When she felt the acceleration below her feet suddenly decrease, she realized what Adam was trying to do. "Damn it boy, that's a fighter craft, not a tugboat! It can't take that kind of strain for long."
Borrowing an idea from an old science fiction show she'd once seen, she closed the main aperture of her blaster, set the discharge for continuous beam, and jammed the trigger closed. She could feel the heat in the weapon begin to build as she slowly counted to four and then tossed the weapon around the corner. Diving for cover she was rewarded with searing blast of heat and force that rocked the whole corridor.
She looked around the corner to see the forms of dead Haffar splattered all over the bulkheads, and a four feet in diameter hole in the deck below where they once stood. Creeping forward, she looked down the hole to see the forms of Genesis, and Kimberly in hand to hand combat with those creeps.
~*~
Kimberly didn't have too much time to digest what she'd seen the doctor do. As soon as they'd cleared the corridor, they'd been surrounded by several of the biggest damn lizards she'd ever seen. It was worse than fighting cogs, or tengas, or putties. These guys didn't disappear in a convulsive jumble when you hit them. They hit back- hard.
Over the next five minutes the two women(?) had fought their way slowly out of what she assumed was the brig of the alien vessel. It was one of the nastiest fights she'd ever been in. No quarter was asked and none was given. She was bruised and sore, and was favoring her right knee where one of the Haffar had kicked her.
Suddenly, the ceiling above the group in front of them exploded downward hurling shrapnel throughout the room. Kimberly was surprised when the woman at her side lashed out faster than her eye could follow and deflected the pieces flying toward her on the large bracers she was wearing. As she recovered her shock a small red-head appeared in the hole above them. "Hey Bro, quit playing and let's go. Adam's 'zord can't handle trying to brake this thing too much longer?"
The woman at her side and looked at her and then at Mic before saying, "Take Kim and get out of here. You know you can't teleport me when I'm like this."
"All right let's go Princess, I'm here to rescue you," the woman dropped her hand for Kim to take. "And no storm trooper jokes."
Kim looked back as the woman who used to be Doctor Storm turned toward a sound from down the hall. "We can't just leave him- her?- whatever."
"Come on Princess, I'll come back and get Genesis just as soon as you're safely with your husband. She can hold on a little longer." Kim didn't like the idea of leaving a civilian behind, no matter how well she seemed to be able to handle herself. "I don't have time for this," Mic said as she suddenly reached through the bulkhead, grabbed Kim by the hair and then the world dissolved around them in a blur.
The next thing Kim knew, she was standing behind Adam in the black dragonzord. It sounded like it was coming apart at the seams. "What," Kim asked in surprise, "how did we get here?"
"Handy-dandy, all purpose teleportation," Mic smiled at her. Then the woman looked around and said, "Where's Teelo?"
Adam pushed the yoke forward, and Kim felt the 'zord tear free from under the alien vessel as he banked right. Pulling up hard, he brought the 'zord over so he was pacing the falling craft. "He's gone to get Ben."
"He doesn't know what to look for," Kim protested.
"The Doc can't have changed that much since the last time I saw him," Adam protested.
"Oh yes he has," Kim said.
"Trust me, he has," Mic repeated and then added, "But Teelo knows what to look for. He may be a dragon, but he ain't stupid."
"Well, he'd better hurry, because that ship isn't going to last much long…" before Adam could finish his sentence, a brilliant blue dragon suddenly came bursting from the interior of the ship, clutching between its claws a sphere of self-contained air, with a human female within it.
"Let's get out of here," Kim said as the alien ship began to break up around then.
She shook her head, and immediately regretted it as it threatened to explode. "I'm still not sure it was a good idea," she said. Looking around at the bare room, she asked, "Where are we?"
Ben shrugged, "I'm not sure, but I think we're aboard the alien space ship." He smiled at her, "I wouldn't exactly say we're safe."
She chuckled, "Good, Ford Prefect you're not." Sitting up she looked around her. The room was sparsely furnished with only two small benches along the wall and what looked like some kind of alien toilet contraption in the middle. She realized that evidently their captors were much larger than humans as all the furnishing were about twice as large as she was accustomed. "How do we get out of here?"
Ben smiled at her, "There's a door on the far end of the wall, but I wasn't sure if I should try and break through it just yet. From what I can hear of the klaxons, I would guess that this ship has taken some pretty serious damage. So far, nobody has come to check on us."
She smiled back at him and nodded, "That would be Billy's doing I guess. I thought I overheard Jason tell him to disable the ship."
"Well, he seems to have done a pretty good job," Ben said as she got up and walked to the door. It was only a vague outline in the wall, its seam barely visible. She pushed against it hard and realized that even the strength the phyre treatments had given her wasn't going to be enough to open it.
"We need to get out of here," she said. Pounding her fist against the wall in frustration, she noticed the communicator still there. Looking over at the doctor she said, "I wonder why they didn't take these from us?"
"Probably because they're blocking communications," Ben suggested.
Kim tried the device to no avail and gave up in disgust. "I wonder?" the doctor began.
"Wonder what?" Kim asked.
"Adam was talking to Teelo with phyrespeak. I wonder if you could talk to Jason or Billy that way," he shrugged. "It was just a thought."
She laughed, and said, "Good idea." Then pulling her will to her, she concentrated on her friends, //Jason, Billy, can you hear me?//
//Kim? Is that you?// she heard Adam's voice. //Are you all right? Is the doctor with you? Is he all right?//
//Yeah, it's me, and we both are all right. A little shook up, but all right, I guess. We seem to be in some sort of jail cell.//
//Can you get out?// Adam asked her, then said, //Wait a minute.// She could literally feel her husband talking to someone else. Finally he sent to her, //McKenzie says to tell Ben that it's imperative that you two get out of there. Billy says that the ship's about to…// whatever else he was about to say was lost as a shudder went through the ship shaking both Kim and the doctor off their feet. //It looks like they're losing altitude fast.// Adam's mind voice was almost frantic. //Get out of there now!//
Kim tore herself from the mental link and looked over to where Ben seemed to be considering something. He said, "I get the feeling that this ship is currently engaged in some kind of catastrophic emergency procedures."
Kim nodded at him, "Adam says the ship's losing altitude."
Ben just nodded at her and looked at the ceiling. "Then our acceleration will increase until we either burn up in the atmosphere or hit the ground at terminal velocity," he said with a note of resignation. She could see him come to some kind of conclusion. Finally he gave her a steely look and almost growled at her, "You tell anybody about this and I'll make sure I lose your shot records." Kim realized that the man was actually blushing. He said to nobody in particular, "I can't believe I'm actually doing this."
Kim asked, "What are you talking about?"
He shook his head, "I'm getting us out of this mess." He smiled, "Just don't laugh, and stand back."
"Look Doc, no offense but I couldn't break that door down, I doubt you can by running into it."
He shook his head at her, "I'm not going to run at it." He stood with his feet apart, arms out to his side. Then twisted back to face the side wall, "I'm going to use something else. Just don't laugh."
"I wouldn't do that," she started as he suddenly twisted back in the opposite direction and began to spin. For a split second she thought he was out of his mind but then that thought was interrupted by a brilliant flash of light that completely obscured him from sight.
When the light faded, Doctor Storm was gone. In his place stood a tall buxom red-head in a spandex one-piece bathing suit, blue cape, white boots, a tiara and some sort of large bracers. She was blushing deep red as she growled in a rich melodious voice, "Let's just say that I'm God's proof to the universe that he has a sense of humor." Striding over to the door, she looked at Kim and winked, "Just be careful what you wish for, you might get it." Leaning back she kicked the door once. With a scream of tearing metal it suddenly buckled under her boot and slammed through the far wall. Turning to Kim, the woman said, "Let's go find your husband and my sister and get off this bucket of bolts."
~*~
Aboard the Aquitian dreadnaught, Delphine heard Cestro report, "There's been an energy spike on the Haffar ship. It looks like someone just downloaded half the Morphin' Grid into their brig."
"What?" Delphine asked. "What kind of energy spike?"
The disgraced ranger replied, "I don't know. I've never seen anything like it. Its power signature is off the scale. I would say it was some kind of mega-zord."
"In the brig of a starship?" Delphine asked in disbelief.
"I'm only reporting what the sensors show, Delphine," Cestro said defensively. Once again, Delphine wondered if maybe she'd gone too far in reprimanding him. He was after all simply warning another Ranger of danger- even if the danger came from the Galactic Council.
"I'm not questioning your readings Cestro, just the incredulity of the situation," she told him. "Can you get a reading on the Ranger and her passenger?"
"I've got Kimberly, but I can't find any purely human readings anywhere on the ship. Just Kimberly and this new energy source."
"Can you break through the Haffar screens to teleport them over here?" Delphine asked.
She watched as Cestro worked frantically at the console to carry out her orders. Finally, he gave her a frustrated look. "I can get Kimberly, but NOT her passenger. The lock just keeps slipping off him/her/it as if I were trying teleport a piece of a neutronium."
Delphine nodded, "THAT is one thing we don't need on the ship." She gave Cestro an encouraging look, "Keep trying."
"Yes, Delphine."
~*~
Teelo had sensed the attack on his friends before it actually happened. He banked hard and dove to intercept the falling vehicle, but then felt space fold around the two Rangers to take them to one of the strange masses in orbit. Without thinking, he folded space to follow them, appearing just a few wingspans from the strange craft.
He noticed that not more than a few heartbeats later the black dragonzord appeared with the craft between them. He raked his phyresight over the craft, finding only the one pink female's signature along with the strange phyre of the one they called doctor. He could feel the phyrebond between the two beings who piloted the black and pink dragonzords. He didn't exactly know what to call these beings, they called themselves human and they weren't dragons, but they were in someway related- they were dragonkin . Still, the bond between the ones called Kimberly and Adam was strong, and the least he could do was help Adam retrieve his mate. Suddenly his phyresight detected a flare up of power from the craft below him.
He watched as the black dragonzord eased itself forward toward the plummeting vessel, and matched its course. //Teelo, I'm going to get as close to that ship as I can and try to keep it from crashing. // Adam's phyrevoice told him.
//I'll see what I can do to help,// Teelo sent back. //I can see your phyre-mate deep in the bowels of that thing. Do you want me to fold space and bring them out of there?//
//You can do that?// Adam asked.
//Void is not one of my elements, but all dragons have enough mastery over it to at least fold space. I could bring them to me. Is there anything I should know before I do it?// he asked.
//Can you put them in my 'zord?// Adam asked.
Teelo thought about it. He'd never tried to open a space fold between two places when he wasn't located in at least one of them. He wasn't sure he if he could or not. Finally, he said, //To be sure, I'd have to go there first myself. Then I could bring us all to your 'zord.//
He could almost sense Adam nodding his head, //Mic says she'll meet you there.//
Teelo watched as the black dragonzord banked- he wondered why it did that in space where there was no air to use to turn- and then closed once again with the giant vessel, this time on its ventral surface. Before he folded out, he watched as the being named Adam put his craft between the mass and the planet below, and slowly tried to brake its descent.
~*~
Mic reached across the depths of distance between herself and where she sensed her brother, and willed herself there. In a familiar blur of motion the 'zord disappeared from around her and then reformed into a juncture in the corridors of the space ship. She realized that the same field that was preventing Bill from locking onto Kim and Ben had distorted her teleport. She was lucky she wasn't stuck in a bulkhead somewhere or trying to breathe hard vacuum. Best guess they were two or three decks below her.
A noise to her left was the only warning she got before a bolt of energy screamed down the corridor toward her. Diving forward and rolling she dodged several more shots before coming to a stop. Shaking her head, she wondered aloud, "Did these guys graduate from the Storm Trooper School of Marksmanship or something? If their gunner is as good as they are, they probably hit Kim's 'Zord by accident."
She pulled the ion blaster she'd taken from the 'zord's armory just before teleporting and threw off the safety. Looking around the corner, she saw several large forms come rumbling down the halls toward her. They looked like bipedal lizards on steroids. They were a good eight feet tall, and six feet wide. Each of them was carrying a wicked looking gun that looked like it doubled as a club.
She squeezed off three quick shots- each one hitting a different assailant with no effect- before ducking behind the cover of the corridor again. "Damn, just what I need- overgrown sleestacks with Kill-O-Zap guns."
Again there was the sound of their weapons discharging and she watched in horror as a whole corner of the corridor above her was blasted away by another barrage of shots. "This is not good," she told herself as the ship shuddered under her. When she felt the acceleration below her feet suddenly decrease, she realized what Adam was trying to do. "Damn it boy, that's a fighter craft, not a tugboat! It can't take that kind of strain for long."
Borrowing an idea from an old science fiction show she'd once seen, she closed the main aperture of her blaster, set the discharge for continuous beam, and jammed the trigger closed. She could feel the heat in the weapon begin to build as she slowly counted to four and then tossed the weapon around the corner. Diving for cover she was rewarded with searing blast of heat and force that rocked the whole corridor.
She looked around the corner to see the forms of dead Haffar splattered all over the bulkheads, and a four feet in diameter hole in the deck below where they once stood. Creeping forward, she looked down the hole to see the forms of Genesis, and Kimberly in hand to hand combat with those creeps.
~*~
Kimberly didn't have too much time to digest what she'd seen the doctor do. As soon as they'd cleared the corridor, they'd been surrounded by several of the biggest damn lizards she'd ever seen. It was worse than fighting cogs, or tengas, or putties. These guys didn't disappear in a convulsive jumble when you hit them. They hit back- hard.
Over the next five minutes the two women(?) had fought their way slowly out of what she assumed was the brig of the alien vessel. It was one of the nastiest fights she'd ever been in. No quarter was asked and none was given. She was bruised and sore, and was favoring her right knee where one of the Haffar had kicked her.
Suddenly, the ceiling above the group in front of them exploded downward hurling shrapnel throughout the room. Kimberly was surprised when the woman at her side lashed out faster than her eye could follow and deflected the pieces flying toward her on the large bracers she was wearing. As she recovered her shock a small red-head appeared in the hole above them. "Hey Bro, quit playing and let's go. Adam's 'zord can't handle trying to brake this thing too much longer?"
The woman at her side and looked at her and then at Mic before saying, "Take Kim and get out of here. You know you can't teleport me when I'm like this."
"All right let's go Princess, I'm here to rescue you," the woman dropped her hand for Kim to take. "And no storm trooper jokes."
Kim looked back as the woman who used to be Doctor Storm turned toward a sound from down the hall. "We can't just leave him- her?- whatever."
"Come on Princess, I'll come back and get Genesis just as soon as you're safely with your husband. She can hold on a little longer." Kim didn't like the idea of leaving a civilian behind, no matter how well she seemed to be able to handle herself. "I don't have time for this," Mic said as she suddenly reached through the bulkhead, grabbed Kim by the hair and then the world dissolved around them in a blur.
The next thing Kim knew, she was standing behind Adam in the black dragonzord. It sounded like it was coming apart at the seams. "What," Kim asked in surprise, "how did we get here?"
"Handy-dandy, all purpose teleportation," Mic smiled at her. Then the woman looked around and said, "Where's Teelo?"
Adam pushed the yoke forward, and Kim felt the 'zord tear free from under the alien vessel as he banked right. Pulling up hard, he brought the 'zord over so he was pacing the falling craft. "He's gone to get Ben."
"He doesn't know what to look for," Kim protested.
"The Doc can't have changed that much since the last time I saw him," Adam protested.
"Oh yes he has," Kim said.
"Trust me, he has," Mic repeated and then added, "But Teelo knows what to look for. He may be a dragon, but he ain't stupid."
"Well, he'd better hurry, because that ship isn't going to last much long…" before Adam could finish his sentence, a brilliant blue dragon suddenly came bursting from the interior of the ship, clutching between its claws a sphere of self-contained air, with a human female within it.
"Let's get out of here," Kim said as the alien ship began to break up around then.
