"Katie," a voice echoed.
Katie glanced around the room, trying to determine not only where she was, but also how she got there. For as far as the eye could see, there was nothing. It was obviously a room, but she couldn't figure out where it began or ended. 'Is this the Temple of Light,' she wondered to herself, but quickly ruled it out. Wherever she was, it much darker than the temple, but light enough for her to see. There were no windows, no doors, nothing. Simply a void.
"Whos there?" she called out.
"Hello my love," she heard a voice say.
Even before she turned around, she recognized the voice, but couldn't believe it. "Ransik?" she quickly turned around, only to see Ransik standing in front of her. She rushed over to him, wrapping her arms around him. "I've missed you so much," she cried.
"And I've missed you, but you're not suppose to be here,"
She backed away, staring at him. "What do you mean? Where am I exactly?" she inquired.
"Think of it as Purgatory; the half way point between heaven and hell, the space between life and death,"
"Am I… dead?" she asked, noticing the hole in her stomach.
"You're not supposed to be here. The rangers need you, you're the key,"
"The key? The key to what?"
"The rangers survivals. You're needed Katie, you have to go," he told her.
"Why can't I just stay here with you? I've missed you," she cried.
"When the time comes, we'll be together again, but now isn't the time," he said, waving his hand over her wound.
She glanced down again, and the wound was gone. "I don't want to go back,"
"You must. Good luck my love, and may the power protect you," he sighed.
Katie opened her eyes, sitting up in a cold sweat only to find herself laying on the floor in the science lab. She touched her stomach to see if her wound was still there, and although there was a hole in her uniform, the wound was completely healed. She glanced around the room as she began to remember what happened.
'There was a fight. One of those things punched me,' she thought to herself. She stood up, walking over to the computer. "Computer, what is Captain Scott's location?" she asked.
'Unable to comply. Command functions are off line,' the computer told her.
"On whos authority?"
'Unable to comply,'
"That's just great," she paused. "If command functions are off line, what systems are available to me?" she asked.
'Environmental controls,' the computer answered.
"Can you tell me when the command functions were locked?"
'Negative,'
"You're no help, you know that?" Katie sighed.
'Please restate your request,'"Nevermind,"
Just then, something hit Katie from behind, knocking her into the control panel. She stumbled forward, and before she could get her footing, she felt the barrel of a phaser in her back. "Stop right there Harvenger, or I'll pull…"
"Nadira?" she replied, recognizing the voice.
"Oh sure, you may look like Katie, and even sound like Katie, but you're not her," she snapped.
"Of course I am. Why wouldn't I be?"
"I saw them kill you. I thought they infected you," she said.
Katie turned around. "Nadira, I'm half Ethros, I heal quickly. Remember?" she asked.
"If you're the real Katie, prove it"
"You're being an annoying brat right now Dira, and we don't have time for this," she snapped.
Nadira put her phaser down. "Alright, its you. Jen and that Claw guy managed to get out of here, but I don't know where they went. I wanna call them, but if I do, I might tip the Harvengers off to where they are," she mentioned.
"If I know Jen, she'd go somewhere that she would be able to track them undetected,"
"The shuttle bay,"
"She probably made it to a shuttle and switched on the cloak. Even with main power off line in the lab, the shuttle's sensors would be on line," Katie said.
"We should go there too,"
She shook her head. "No, we should make our way to the main generators. If the Harvengers figure out that force fields are controlled by secondary power, they'll try to shut it down so they can drop the force fields. Right now that's the only thing keeping them in the building,"
"What makes you think they wanna get out?"
"What so you mean?"
"What makes you think they're not already out there? Its not like they were created in here, they came from Chryo Tech. They've probably gotten to most of the city by now," she brought up.
"If that's the case, then the force fields are the only thing that are keeping the rest of Harvengers from getting in here. We're having enough problems dealing with the ones in here, we don't need anymore,"
"Where are the generators?" Nadira asked.
"On deck twelve, but with main power down we can't take the turbo lift. We'll have to take the service crawl ways," she said as she turned towards the entrance to the service crawl way, only for Nadira to pick up a board and hit Katie over the head, knocking her unconscious.
As Katie hit the ground, Nadira reached for a small communication device in her pocket. "You were right Admiral, the generators are on deck twelve," she said.
'Excellent work Nadira,' a voice responded."I also have reason to believe that Jen is hiding in one of the shuttle bays in a cloaked ship,"
'Are the environmental controls still on line?'
"Yes Admiral,"
'Flood all the shuttle bays with Florozene gas, that will make the shuttle vision, but only for a moment. Once the shuttle is located, use explosives to eliminate it,' he told her.
"Yes my master," she sighed.
*
"We're approximately six minutes away from Time Force headquarters, but theres a problem," Adam mentioned, never taking his eyes off the controls in the Time Shadow Megazord.
Alex walked over to him, glancing over his shoulder. "What is it?"
"The emergency force fields are in place, we won't be able to dock in the cargo bay," he said.
"Can you deactivate the force fields?"
"I recommend against it," Lt. Emery said.
"Why?"
"No doubt Jen and the others put of the force fields for a reason. Maybe they thought they were containing the Harvengers inside the building," he brought up.
"Even if we wanted to shut them down, we can't. Main power is off line and the command functions have been locked,"
"So how are we suppose to get in there to help them?" Alex asked.
"I have an idea, but I can't guarantee this will work," Adam said.
Alex paused. "Do you what you have to do, but we're running out of time,"
Adam reached in his uniform pocket, pulling out a Morpher. "Its Carmen's Morpher, I took it out the shuttle before it exploded," he said.
"Whats your plan?"
"When we were being attacked by the Omaraians, she linked the shuttle to her Morpher and initiated the cloak. It was enough to allow the Omaraians to think we were destroyed. I'm hoping I can link the Morpher to the zord and activate the phased cloak so we can…" he was cut short.
"Pass right through the force field without being detected,"
"Exactly,"
"Great, get the cloak on line," Alex said.
"Theres a downside,"
"I should have known. What is it?"
"Carmen was the one who designed this thing, not me. If I do something wrong and the cloak doesn't come on line, we'll crash into the force field, and the impact will be enough to crush the zord and kill us all," he explained.
"Well, what other choice do we have?" Lt. Emery asked.
"I'll get Carmen to do the modifications," Alex said, heading for the cargo hold.
~~
She'd been on dozens of missions that required her to travel back in time, most of them into the past to either prevent or repair temporal incursions, but this one was different to her. Part of her wanted to alter the past, to prevent what was to come, but her oath to Time Force wouldn't allow it.
She thought to her past, which, for the people around her, hadn't happened yet. She remembered being forced to watch as her parents were transformed into Harvengers, how she was powerless to stop it from happening. But now, she had a chance. Now, she could prevent it from ever happening.
"I can't," she mumbled to herself.
When she was sent back for this mission, she knew what the risks would be. Her superiors warned her not to get emotionally involved with the mission. Although she assured them she wouldn't, she knew better. 'Its my father, my mother, all of their friends,' she thought to herself. She turned to Camille, who was laying lifeless on the floor of the cargo hold. 'After mom died, Camille as always like a mother to me,' she sighed.
She took comfort in knowing that although there was nothing she could do to save her parents from their impending fates, she could save Camille, and Camille would be able to save countless billions in the future.
Carmen picked up the sphere, placing it gently in Camille's hand and closed it. Within seconds, the sphere began to glow, and light filled the entire cargo hold. Once the light dimmed, she quickly took the sphere out Camille's hand, putting it in Trip's. Again, the sphere began to glow.
Alex walked into the cargo hold and was forced to cover his eyes, and when the light faded, Carmen walked over to him.
"Everything will be okay now," she sighed.
Before he could respond, there was a wave of disorientation. Alex stumbled back, trying to shake it off, but when he regained his senses, Carmen was gone.
He rushed over to Camille, checking on her. "Lieutenant, can you hear me?" he called out, but nothing. "Camille?" He quickly turned to Trip. "Trip, can you hear me? Wake up," he sighed, but nothing.
With a sigh, Alex made his way back into the cockpit of the zord, where Adam and Lt. Emery were still at the controls. "How's is coming?" he asked.
"I think I have it, but I'd like Carmen to look over my modifications just to be sure," Adam said.
Alex paused. "Carmen who?"
"Carmen. You just went back there to…" he was cut short.
"When she brought back Camille and Trip, the time line must have shifted. She's gone," Tommy pointed out.
"And because we all have morphers, we're shielded from the shifts so we remember her being here," Lt. Emery added.
"Exactly,"
"That's great, but there's about two minutes to impact and unless we're absolutely sure about this cloak, we'll all going to be crushed," Adam brought up.
"Activate the cloak,"
"But if I do, and it doesn't work, we'll be dead anyway. I have no way to be sure if the phased cloak in aligned correctly," he said.
"Let me take a look at it," a voice said.
The three of them turned around as she stepped out of the cargo hold.
"Camille, you're…"
"Send me flowers later," she hurried over to the control panel, looking over Adam's modifications. "James, adjust the lateral sensor array to a rotating frequency of 6.651 and switch on the main deflector on my mark," she said.
"You got it," Lt. Emery said, focusing his attention to the controls.
Adam stood up, allowing Camille to sit in front of the controls. "Activate the deflector… now," she said.
"Deflector on line,"
"Activating the cloak… now. Switching the phased cloak in 3…2…1…" she paused as the lights in the zord dimmed. "That's it, the phased cloak is on line," she said.
"Glad to see that even after being dead for ten hours you'll still on top of your game," Tommy said.
Camille stood up, walking over to Tommy and wrapping her arms around him. "Boy am I glad to see you," she sighed.
"Look at that, I've been dead for God knows how long and you're already cheating on me," a voice said. "What happened to the appropriate mourning period after a loved one dies?"
Again, the group turned around and he walked into the control room.
"Trip!" Alex said eagerly.
"What can I say, I'm a sucker for a guy in uniform," Camille said.
Trip and Camille walked over to one another, wrapping their arms around each other. The rest of the group remained silent, giving them a moment to hold one another.
"I hate to break up the reunion, but there's a lot going on and we have to fill you in," Alex mentioned.
*
Katie opened her eyes slowly, only to find herself chained to a wall in one of the holding cells. She struggled to break the chains, and was amazed on how hard a time she was having.
"You won't be able to break them, they're enhanced with some type of alloy. I've been trying to get through mine for weeks now," a voice said.
Her head was pounding, and her vision was a bit blurry, so it was difficult for her to recognize the voice. "Who are you?" she called out, still unsure where the voice was coming from.
"I'm Sub-Commander KJ Sheldon," there was a pause. "I'm from Chryo Tech," she sighed.
"This is all your fault, isn't it? You're the reason those things are here,"
"I was only following orders. I had no idea what my superior officers were doing. When I found out, they turned the Harvengers on me but I managed to escape. I avoided them for days, but they caught up with me, and when your Admiral was infected with the virus, I was put into containment here in Time Force," she explained.
"What happened? How did the Harvengers get here?"
"As you know, Chryo Tech has been trying to perfect the slipstream technology, but were never able to get the proper alignment. We managed to open a stable vortex, but it was only one way. We could bring someone through, but we couldn't go through ourselves without being killed. On one of our preliminary tests, a Harvenger came through. We were able to contain it, and when my superiors found out what it was, he began to study ways to use their unique DNA to our advantage. Our belief was that if it were harnessed correctly, it would slow the aging process in humans. Essentially, we would live forever,"
"But you didn't count on the Harvenger infecting everyone," Katie sighed.
"Exactly. Within hours, our entire staff was infected. Only a few of us were able to get out alive, but even then we were tracked down and killed. The Harvengers planned to use our slipstream technology to travel to all worlds and all periods of time so they could infect every reality they traveled to, but soon realized that our vortex was only one way, so they…"
"They infected Admiral Logan here and planned to use our slipstream," she said.
"If they're allowed to get into your science lab and use the slipstream, every reality at every point in time will be infected," Sheldon said.
"You seem to be forgetting that if they travel to every point in time, they'll eventually create a time paradox that will destroy the entire space/time continuum. They'll destroy the entire universe," Katie brought up.
"So how do we stop them?"
"There's only one thing we can do: we have to destroy the slipstream. There's nothing we can do to stop the Harvengers here, but we can stop them from traveling to other worlds,"
"When they drug you in here, one of them mentioned something about trying to infect you but it didn't work. Why didn't it?" Sheldon asked.
"I'm half Ethros demon, my immune system must have filtered it out,"
"If that's true, we should be able to come up with an anti toxin for the Harvenger's infection by using your DNA,"
"Even if we did manage to escape, we'd still need a lab of some kind to work on an anti toxin. Then, assuming we did come up with the anti toxin, how would we treat all of the Harvengers at once?"
She sighed. "You're right, we're doomed, and it's all my fault,"
*
"So let me see if I have this right: Harvengers are taken over the entire building, possibly the entire city, and we're the only ones that can stop them," Camille said.
"That's right,"
"If main power is off line and we're running on secondary systems, how do we stop them exactly?" she asked.
"Carmen was convinced that you would be able to come up with a containment device for the Harvengers. You'd done it in the future," Tommy brought up.
"Without access to the science lab, I can't do anything,"
Trip walked over to them. "What about our lab?" he asked.
"You have a lab?" Alex asked.
"Yes. It runs off the secondary power systems so it goes undetected, but it isn't as sophisticated as the science lab. If we could get to our quarters we should be able to come up with something," he said.
"But there's still a problem. If there are as many Harvengers as you say there is, they'll be able to reproduce much faster than I can make containment units," Carmen said.
"Guys," Lt. Emery called out, getting their attention. "I've done an internal scan of Time Force, I found two life signs. One is human, the other is half human," he said.
"That's Katie. Where are the life signs coming from?" Tommy asked.
"One of the holding cells on deck six,"
"Are there any Harvengers in the area?" he asked.
"According to this, the closest Harvenger is two decks away,"
Tommy reached for his Morpher. "Katie, do you read me?"
For a moment, there was silence.
'Tommy, is that you?' a voice responded.
"Sure is, are you okay?"
'I'm trapped in a holding cell, but I'm fine. Did you get the sphere?' she asked.
"Yeah, and we're outside the building. We're going to teleport you out of there," he said.
'Make that two for teleportation,'"Two? Who's the other one?" he asked.
'Someone that I think can help us,' she said.
"You got it Katie. Stand by," he said.
"I've got a lock on them," Adam said, sitting at the controls.
"Do it,"
Within seconds, Katie and Sub Commander Sheldon materialized in front of them.
"I know you, you're from Chryo Tech," Alex said, reaching for his phaser and aiming it at her.
Katie grabbed the phaser, forcing him to put it down. "KJ is okay with me, and we may have a plan to stop the Harvengers," Katie told them.