Disclaimer: Power Rangers Time Force and all related logos are property of Disney and/or Saban Entertainment. I am using them without permission. KJ Sheldon, Lt. James Emery, Trinity Oliver, Camille Summers, Amanda "Mandy" Scott, Mr. & Mrs. Mathew Scott, Leo Claw and the "Omega Project" are property of yours truly.
A/N: This chapter begins sometime during "Kane & Abel" and contains a portion of the same chapter.
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~~
It had been nearly a day since the last time she'd heard anything from Adam or Katie, and that worried her. She'd been so concerned about not waking the senior staff for a mission; it may have cost Katie and Adam their lives.
Since her last communication with them, she'd tried to contact them, but with no luck. Even Camille had done her best to open a channel to them, but without success. She volunteered to open the slipstream and go over them herself, but Commander Oliver, who told her he refused to lose another officer, flatly denied her request.
"Don't worry Dira, I'm sure we'll be able to track them down," Trip assured her as he and Camille continued to go over modifications for the communications systems.
"So why haven't they contacted us yet?"
"Based on the readings we've gathered from the world they're on, the adverse radiation on that world has somehow altered the space/time continuum. Time could be moving very slowly for them, or very fast for them," Camille pointed out.
"But you don't know for sure if it's fast or slow?"
"No. From they're point of view, it could have been weeks, even months since they arrived on that world. Then again, it could have only been a few seconds ago," she said.
"And that's why we can't talk to them?"
"Since our continuum is functioning normally, our targeting sensors can't lock onto their continuum. Every time we try to lock on, time speeds up for them, making it impossible for us to contact them," Trip said.
"So can they call us?"
"Yeah, as long as the communications systems in their morphers haven't been effected, they should be able to, but from this end it's almost impossible," she explained.
"Well, the two of you keep trying. If we haven't heard anything from them in the next six hours, I'm going in after them," Tommy said as he walked in the lab, making his way towards them.
"And I'm going with you," Nadira said.
He shook his head. "No, you should stay here. I'll take Emery with me if I have to," he said.
"Understood," she sighed reluctantly.
'Katie to Nadira, respond,' a voice said.
Nadira eagerly rushed back over to the control panel, opening a channel. "Nadira here. Go ahead Katie,"
'We found the source of your incursion. Activate the slipstream, we're coming home,' she told her.
"Right away Commander," she said proudly, reactivating the slipstream."I'm reading a huge energy build up," Camille turned around, facing the others. "Its an electro magnetic surge, and its off the charts," she said.
"Can you compensate for it?"
"I don't think so,"
Just then, Katie came through the portal along with an older man. The two of them turned around, staring back at the vortex.
"Where is Adam?" she asked.
"He didn't come through yet," Trip said.
"The surge is building up, I have to close the vortex," Camille said.
"I'm going back for him," Katie said, but it was Trip who grabbed her arm, stopping her.
"Going through with that much electromagnetic activity could kill you," he told her.
Camille deactivated the slipstream, and Katie snatched away from Trip in frustration. "Camille, get that slipstream back on line now, I'm going back for Adam," she said.
"We have to wait until the…"
"That was an order Lt. Summers, not a request," she snapped.
"Yes ma'am," she sighed, turning back towards the controls.
"Nadira, take the Admiral down to the infirmary to be checked out. Have Dr. Young report to me in one hour with the results," she ordered.
"Yes ma'am," Nadira said, motioning for Logan to follow her.
~~
"So, is it really you? Or are you from another reality? Ya know, we get a lot of that around here," Nadira said as the two of them headed down the hall towards the infirmary.
"No, its me. I've been gone a long time, a lot of things have changed," he said, glancing around.
"You don't know the half of it,"
"Where is Lt. Oliver and Commander Scotts?" he asked.
"You mean Commander Oliver and Captain Scotts," she corrected. "They're on a leave, they're planning their wedding," she said.
"I always thought the two of them would end up. What else has changed?"
"They'll be plenty of time for you to catch up. Right now, you need to be checked out," she said as they turned the corner, making their way into the infirmary.
As soon as they walked in, Dr. Young greeted them. "Commander Taylor contacted me and told me you were on the way," he glanced up at the old man. "Admiral Logan?" he inquired.
"Last time I checked it was just Captain Logan, but Admiral does have a ring to it," he said.
"Katie wants a complete check up on him within the hour," Nadira told him.
"Of course," he said, nodding slightly.
"I'll be back to check on you in a while," she said, walking out the room.
*
"Isn't this beautiful?" he asked her as they walked hand in hand along the beach.
The sun was beginning to set, and reflections of sun bounced off the river as they walked. There was a slight chill in the air, and Adam quickly removed his jacket, throwing it over her shoulders.
"This is wonderful Adam," she sighed.
"I brought you out here because there was something I wanted to tell you," he said.
They stopped, turning to one another as he looked into her eyes. There was something about the way she looked at him, something in her dark brown eyes that made him melt.
"What is it?"
Oddly enough, he was sure that when the moment came, he would be nervous. He was sure that he'd have a hard to telling her what he had to say. To the contrary, there was no hesitation, no insecurity. "Kathryn, I love you. I've loved you from the moment I came here. At first I didn't want to say anything because…" she cut him short by taking a step forward, putting her finger gently on his lips.
"Shhhhhhh. You had me at I love you," she told him as she moved her finger, and then leaned upwards, kissing him warmly on the lips. She backed away slowly with a smile on her face. "I love you too," she admitted.
He opened his eyes slowly, only to find himself asleep up against the wall of an abandoned building. The windows had long since been broken, and the cold winter air crept in. He quickly reached for the fur he'd taken from one of the mutorgs, wrapping it around himself to stay warm. The last few years had been hard on him, but he'd found a way to deal with the situation. During the day, while it was at it's warmest, he hunted the mutorgs. He'd kill them, using their skins to stay warm and cooked the meat to have something to eat. At night, he did his best to stay warm and try to modify the probes Logan left behind.
For a while, he was convinced that it would only be a matter of time before Katie and the others locked onto his signal and teleported him out, but the damage to his Morpher had been too much for him to repair, and without an energy signal to lock onto, they wouldn't be able to teleport him. Then, he took comfort in knowing that as soon as Katie realized what happened, she'd come back through the portal for him, but it took him almost two years to realize that because time moved slower on that world, Katie may not have even realized he was gone yet.
The only thing that kept him going were the dreams; the thought of being with Katie one more time made him want to hold on just one more day. He tried to repair his Morpher, but it was no use. He tried to get Logan's time hole to work for him, but there just wasn't enough power to open a stable vortex. He could have gone through, but there was no telling where or when he'd end up. His only hope was to stay where he was, hoping that sooner or later, someone would come for him.
*
"I've got some bad news for you Commander," Trip said, getting Katie's attention.
She quickly hurried over to Trip, who was standing in front of the view screen. "What is it Trip?" she asked him.
"I've been able to determine that it was the Thorolon burst that disrupted the normal flow of time on that world. According to this, for each hour here, a month passes on that world," he said.
"You mean Adam has been lost for almost six months?"
"I'm afraid its worse. If his Morpher was as damaged as you say it was, it may have been the cause of the electromagnetic surge Camille detected. If he tried to pass through the vortex with his Morpher emitted that much energy, it could have thrown him even further backwards in time," he said.
"What are you telling me Trip? It's a lost cause; we should just give up on finding him? I will not accept that, and none of us are leaving this lab until we find him. Is that clear?" she snapped.
"Permission to speak freely ma'am," he requested.
"Unless you wanna talk to me about a way to bring him back, denied. I don't care how you do it, find him," she snapped.
*
With the last of his strength, he drug himself back into the building, doing his best to hold the wound on his stomach. His last hunt hadn't been a very successful one, and the mutorgs managed to do some serious damage before he escaped.
He knew it was only a matter of time before the other mutorgs got a scent of his blood and would be on their way, so he quickly glanced around for something…anything that could stop the bleeding. He reached for a small box on the table, opening the lid and pulling out what appeared to be leaches. With a handful of leaches in hand, he used them to cover the wound, howling out in pain as they attached themselves to him. Finally, he ripped the last of his uniform, wrapping it around his stomach to stop the bleeding.
It was too much for him. He knew that being a ranger meant being able to survive, to overcome to odds, but it had been nearly 18 months… give or take a day, and he'd given up on the thought of anyone coming to rescue him months ago.
The probe he had was losing power fast. It was barely able to sustain the lights in the building. His body had taken a beating as well. The mutorgs tripled in numbers almost daily, and after a while, hunts became almost impossible. They'd been getting smarter, reacting to him faster. He knew it was only a matter of time before he wouldn't be able to hunt at all.
Once the blood stopped, he limped over to the probe one final time, pulling a small panel off the side of it. He picked up what appeared to be a fork, using the edges to pull wires out of the side of the probe. He cut them, reconnecting them to what was left of his Morpher in an attempt to get one more surge of power.
For a moment, there was a huge surge of power. The lights in the building lit up brighter than he'd ever seen them, but then, they were gone. With a disappointed sigh, he leaned back, hitting the floor as tears rolled down his face.
*
"Wait, I've got something," Camille said.
"What is it?" Katie asked, rushing over to her.
"There was a power surge. Based on the readings Nadira took from her original scan of that world, it's coming from the same place that she picked up the first temporal incursion," she said.
"What does that mean?"
"Looks like someone is trying to draw power from one of our probes with an external power source, but there was an overload," she said.
"Maybe he was trying to use his Morpher to power the probe," Trip brought up.
"What would that do?"
"Well, it could be a number of different things. Maybe was trying to open a stable vortex, or maybe he needed a source of power, maybe he was…" she was cut short.
"Logan said he was trying to use the probe's energy core to open a stable vortex, but the time distortion made it almost impossible," she said.
"Time is a tricky thing. Unless there was something to lock onto the temporal coordinates, it would be like trying to find a needle in a… universe!"
"Assuming he was trying to open a vortex, what could we do on this end to help him?" Katie asked her.
"It would be possible to link the slipstream to the energy output of the probe at the exact moment he tried to active his portal, but it would be impossible to predict when he'd try," Trip said.
"Not to mention that probe would have been running, from his standpoint, for months now. It wouldn't have nearly enough power to open a portal," she added.
"Will that electromagnetic surge still be a problem if we tried to open a portal to his temporal coordinates?" Katie asked.
"No, but teleportation to any exact point on that world would be impossible now. The Thorolon radiation in addition to his damaged Morpher and the energy output of the probe would throw the targeting sensors out of whack. I could send you to that world, but there's no way to tell if you'd get there a year before him, or a year after him,"
"We could send a probe back with instructions in it," Camille blurted out.
"What?"
"Think about it: if we were to send a probe to the exact location where we detected the energy surge, there is no way to be sure when he'd get it, but he'd get it. We could leave him instructions on how and when to activate the portal, that way we could coordinate our efforts and link the portals together," she said.
"Do it," Katie said eagerly.
"The only problem with that is a probe can be lost or damaged during transport. It wouldn't have the presence of mind to preserve power until it was found, and it could essentially do more harm than good if it's energy core was somehow breached," Trip said.
"So what we need is a smart probe, a probe that…" she was cut short.
"Computer, what is KJ's current location?" Katie asked.
'KJ is in her quarters,' the computer told her.
Katie reached for her Morpher. "Katie to KJ, come in," she said.
For a moment, there was silence.
'KJ here. How may I be of assistance?' a voice asked.
"I need you to come to the science lab, I have a mission for you," she said.
'On my way,'"Brilliant. We can send KJ. The Thorolon radiation will affect her, but not as quickly as it would for one of us. She'll be able to find Adam and coordinate with us on opening a stable vortex back home," Camille said.
"Good thinking Commander," he said.
"I try," Katie blushed.
*
There was no way to be sure exactly how much time had passed, but now he was completely convinced that no one was ever coming for him. The sun seemed to set much slower on that world, and remain hidden much longer than he was use to. Nights were colder, longer, and his food supply was all but gone. It had been weeks since he'd had a decent meal, and memories of a better life were beginning to fade away.
He wasn't even having the dreams anymore.
The probe had long since lost all power, leaving him surrounded by complete darkness as night. There were times when he thought about simply ending it all, stopping the pain once and for all, but something stopped him every time. He'd even gone so far as to tie a rope around his neck and climb the highest tree he could find. He was ready to jump, but something stopped him. It was vague, even he wasn't sure what it was, or why it was so important to him, but it was enough to make him hold on.
It happened a long time ago… he was somewhere, and there was light. Someone was there with him… but that's all he could remember. It was something in that moment, something on a subconscious level that stopped him from jumping out that tree.
But what…
Just then, in the distance, he heard a noise. It was enough to make him jump to him feet, grabbing the spear from up against the wall and heading out the door. He crept around the corner slowly, trying to catch a glimpse of whatever was approaching, but there was nothing.
Then, he heard it again…
With the spear in hand, he headed to the front of the building. It was dark, so it was hard to see anything, but from a distance, he saw a figure. It wasn't a mutorg, it appeared to be human. He rushed towards it wit his weapon, ready to kill it if necessary, but then it happened…
"Lt. Park?" a voice called out.
The figure came closer, until finally, he was able to get a good look at them in the moonlight. It was a female, and he recognized her, but he wasn't sure from where.
"Lt. Park, you must come with me at once. I am here to take you home," she said.
"Home?" he mumbled.
"Yes, home,"
*
Katie paced back and forth across the lab, waiting to hear something… anything. It had been nearly a day since KJ went through the vortex to find Adam, but there hadn't been a word from her since. She had to remind herself about the time variance. For all she knew, KJ was just arriving on that world, even though to her it seemed like an eternity.
"Commander, I've got something," Trip said.
"What?"
"It's the energy flux we've been waiting for. KJ must have found Adam and is attempting to establish a link with our slipstream," he said. "but there's something else, I'm picking up distortion in the upper EM band,"
"Will it interfere with the slipstream?"
"No, it shouldn't,"
"Activate the portal," she said. The slipstream activated, but the vortex appeared to be a green-ish color, rather than blue. "Is it supposed to be doing that?"
"Everything is fine," he assured her.
"I'm detecting two life signs on the other side of the portal. One of them is KJ, the other one is… its Adam," Camille said.
"I'll only be able to hold the portal open for another 60 seconds. After that, I don't know if we'll ever be able to open it again," he said.
~~
"Lt. Park, we must go now," KJ told him.
Adam was hesitant. He'd had dreams about someone coming for him, and every time he tried to go through the portal, he'd wake up, only to find himself back in that abandoned warehouse. "This isn't real," he groaned.
"I assure you Lt. Park, it is real. We have gone through great lengths to find you, now we must go before the vortex becomes unstable," she said.
He shook his head. "No, it isn't real," he repeated.
~~
"45 seconds," Trip warned.
Katie stood patiently near the vortex, waiting for the two of them to come through, but with no luck. "Why aren't they back yet?" she mumbled.
"I won't be able to hold it open much longer," he said.
~~
"I don't believe you, none of this is real," Adam snarled, picking up his wooden staff, preparing to defend himself.
"Lt. Park, do you not remember me? I am KJ, Model A6. The two of us went to Commander Taylor's home for Thanksgiving. The Commander is waiting for you to return, she has been quite worried about you," she told him.
"The commander?" he inquired.
"Yes, the Commander," she paused. "You once told me you thought she was pretty hot," she said, hoping he would find some of it familiar.
"Katie?" he sighed.
She nodded. "Yes. Katie is waiting for you on the other side,"
~~
"15 seconds," Trip said.
The anticipation was too much for her. She knew that unless they came through now, it would be impossible to track him down again. The thought of losing Adam was enough to make her fall to her knees. She'd lost Ransik, and there was nothing she could do to save him, now she was able to lose someone else she loved…
'Love?' she thought to herself.
Just then, KJ came through the portal along with an old man, both of them collapsing to the floor.
Camille and Trip hurried over to them, helping them up.
"Adam, is that you?" Katie cried.
His beard covered most of his face, and his hair was much longer than she remembered. His uniform was completely gone, replaced by the skin of what she assumed were mutorgs.
"Katie?" he mumbled.
"Yes baby, its me," she cried, wrapping her arms around him.
"Commander, he has serious internal injuries and extreme physiological damage. I must get him down to the infirmary at once," KJ told her.
Katie backed away from him slowly as Trip and KJ helped him out the lab. She stood up, wiping the tears away from her eyes as Camille walked over to her, putting her arm around her.
"You did it Katie," she said.
"No, we did it. Thank you for all your help," she sighed.
"Anytime," she sighed.
~~ that evening ~~
She'd been standing in the doorway to the infirmary for hours, simply watching as Dr. Young performed tests on him. It seemed strange to see him; even though only two days had passed for her, it had been considerably longer for Adam. His beard was full, his hair was longer, he was covered in scars and wearing the fur of a mutorg that barely seemed to cover him.
For her, it didn't matter how long he was gone, all that mattered to her was that he was back. Now, she wasn't going to make the mistake of not telling him exactly how she felt about him. 'I love him,' she thought to herself. It was the first time she'd actually admitted it to herself, and now, it was time to tell him.
She walked into the infirmary as Dr. Young connected a small tube to Adam, and then inserted the other end in an IV next to the bed. With a sincere, yet uncomfortable look on her face, she walked over to him, holding his hand.
"Hello handsome," she sighed.
Adam opened his eyes slowly, glancing up at her. Once he realized who it was, he snatched away from her. "Get out of her!" he snapped.
"Adam, its me. Katie," she pointed out.
"I said get out!" he yelled.
One of the monitors next to his bed began to beep, and Dr. Young hurried over to him, checking the readings. "I'm afraid I'm going to have to ask you to leave Commander," he said.
"But I just…"
"I know you mean well, but his heart rate is off the chart. If I don't get him settled down soon, his internal injuries could get worse. I promise to contact you if his condition changes," he said.
She reached out to Adam one final time, but he turned his back to her, rolling over on the examining table. With a reluctant sigh, and a tear in her eye, she walked out the room.
~~
Preview: The Enemy withinNext time on Parallels II: There is a double agent in Time Force… but who? Meanwhile, Camille is determined to keep a promise to a friend and Adam does his best to readjust to being home.
~~