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, Leo Claw and the "Omega Project" are property of yours truly.
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Dr. Hamilton and Adam materialized in the de-briefing room, where Admiral Peterson was in the middle of a meeting.
"We'll continue this meeting later, everyone dismissed," he told the group. One by one, everyone stood up, making their way out the room. Once they were all gone, he closed and locked the doors behind them, then turned to Adam. "What the hell is going on?"
"It was that pregnant bitch Jen, she set us up," he snapped.
"How is that possible? We've been organizing this plan for over a year, going over every detail to the letter. We'd prepared for everything, everything, and you two find a way to screw things up!" he complained.
"He's right sir, she had a group of cadets with her, we had no way of knowing that…" Dr. Hamilton was cut short.
"A group of cadets? The two of you were beating by a group of rookies? With the rangers in containment here, there shouldn't have been a problem taking over Time Force," he snapped. "Now I have to explain all this to Univex,"
"With all due respect sir, now that the rangers are out the way, do we really need Univex? We can lead another wave of attacks at Time Force, and they won't be able to handle it, we could…"
"That's your problem Hamilton, you don't think ahead. Time Force will be expecting another attack, and since you were clever enough to tell them to leave their morphers behind, Time Force will simply recruit new rangers. Now that the two of you are discovered and your cover is blown, neither of you can return, but I have already arranged for another operative to be sent to Time Force. I knew the two of you would find a way to screw this up, so I was prepared," he explained.
"But sir, I…" Adam was cut short.
"I don't want to hear it clone. Get out of my sight, now!" the admiral snapped.
~~
The two of them walked out into the hallway, heading towards the infirmary.
"I'm just glad all this non sense is over. I can get back to my job instead of being cooped up in Time Force," the doctor said as they walked, but it appeared as though Adam wasn't paying much attention to him.
"I can't believe he set us up to fail," he mumbled to himself.
"That isn't true,"
"He sent us in there knowing we would fail, only to set up for a third operative to join Time Force. If we couldn't do it, what makes him think a third operative will be able to do it alone?" he groaned.
"What the hell are you babbling about?"
"Did you hear what he called me? He called me clone, like that's all I am," he snapped.
"You are a clone," Dr. Hamilton pointed out.
"I was born a clone, but I have memories. I have thoughts, ideas," he pointed out.
"But most of those thoughts and memories aren't yours, they belong to Adam. You're just a replica, modeled to look like him, to sound like him, but it isn't you. Hell, there are about four clones still in my lab that look exactly like you, waiting to be activated if your part of the mission failed," he explained.
"So I'm replaceable now, is that it? Just another clone on the assembly line? We'll see about that," he said, storming away.
*
'Alright, its now or never,' he sighed inwardly.
As soon as the footsteps stopped, Alex kicked forward, connecting with the guard. He listened as the guard fell to the ground, but quickly got back to his feet. "You'll pay for that human," the guard told him.
Alex listened, waiting for the guard to reach for his weapon. As soon as the guard pulled his disrupted out it's holster and aimed at him, Alex kicked his hand. The disrupter beam hit the restraints, allowing Alex to fall the floor. He quickly removed the blindfold, but his vision was still blurry.
Two more guards rushed in, grabbing Alex by the arms and holding him against the wall. "Reactive the restraints," one of them ordered.
Alex snatched away, giving one of them a sweep and knocking him off his feet. The second guard aimed his disrupter at him and fired, but Alex pulled the first guard in the way. The disrupter beam hit him at point blank range, and as he fell to the ground, Alex connected with a sabat kick to the other guard, taking him down. The last guard charged at him, but Alex sidestepped him, and the guard went head first into the hall, knocking himself out.
With the guards taken care of, Alex glanced around the room. The young woman he'd been talking to was still restrained on the opposite wall. He hurried over to her, removing her blindfold and getting a good look at her.
"Sierra?" he mumbled in disbelief.
"Xander?" she replied, almost equally confused. "Oh my God," she sighed.
"We'll deal with this later," he leaned down, picking up one of the phaser riffles, aimed and shot the restraints, freeing her. "Right now, we have to get out of here," he told her.
"But how? This floor is probably swarming with armed guards and will kill us on sight," she said.
He stared at her, then over at the guards on the floor. "You're still about a size 5 or 6, right?" Alex asked.
~~
The two of them drug the unconscious, and now naked guards into the far corner of the room, then picked up their phaser riffles. 'Everything is happening so fast, but I don't have to deal with this right now,' he told himself.
"All we have to do is walk out of here calmly. As long as we have on these uniforms and we keep our faces away from the cameras, this shouldn't be a problem," he said.
"I trust you," she sighed.
"Okay, lets go,"
The two of them walked out into the hall, then down the hall. Alex tried to remember the schematics KJ had shown him earlier, but this was a wing of the building that wasn't in her schematics. They turned right, heading to the end of the hall and made a left, occasionally passing other guards in the hall, who simply nodded and continued on their way. They came to a room at the end of the hall and opened the door, where he was them.
"Oh God," he sighed, standing over the containment modules. "Its them, it's the rangers," he sighed.
"You know them?"
"Yes, but there's nothing I can do for them now," he paused. "We'll have to come back,"
"Where are we going?"
They continued to walk. "I'm trying to find an area that has the least amount of radiation so I can use my site to site transportation system," he told her.
"You have a transporter system and you didn't just transport out of the holding cell?"
"I couldn't. There was a force field in place, and there were high levels of radiation," they ducked into a cargo hold of some kind. "This place is less likely to have much radiation, this should be fine," he said, pulling a small device out his pocket.
"Will that have enough power to get us both out of here?" she asked.
"Do you remember my authorization code?" he inquired, ignoring her question.
"Of course, its my birthday, why?"
"This thing is set on a six second delay. When you get there, find Camille Summers, give her my authorization code and tell her I'll contact her when I'm ready to initiate plan b," he told her, tossing the teleportation unit to her.
On instinct, she caught it, but before she could complain about his decision, she disappeared into a stream of light.
* Time Force *
"Computer, run one final diagnostic on the morpher. Check for any instabilities in the Quantum morphing pods and the re-initialization sub processors," Camille instructed.
'Working,' the computer answered.
"We're not going to let you go on this mission alone Camille, its too dangerous," Jen said as she and Amanda walked into the lab.
Camille didn't even bother turning around in her chair, she simply kept her eyes on her work. "I'm not going to sit here and wait for something to happen either. Once I run the final test on the morpher, I plan to go over there and see if there are any survivors," she told them.
"That's suicide!" Amanda said.
"I know, but I owe it to Trip to try. I can't believe I let him go over there without telling him how sorry I was, or how I really felt about him," she sighed.
'Diagnostic complete,' the computer told her.
"Damn it!" Camille snapped, slamming her fist down on the control panel.
"What is it?" Jen asked.
"The morpher is at 100% operation, but I can't use it. The blue chrono morpher left a radiation signature in my body, and it's reacting to the radiation coming from the new morpher. If I try to use it, it'll kill me," she said.
"Are DNA protocols in place?"
"No, I didn't want to install them until I knew it worked," she said.
Jen turned to her sister. "Are you up for it?" she asked.
"What? You want me to be a ranger?"
"It would only be temporary, and it's only an observation mission. Switch on the cloak, go over there and find out what's going on, then report back. No hero stuff!" she told her.
"I can do it," Amanda said proudly, and with a newfound seriousness in her voice.
Just then, she materialized in front of them. Jen quickly got a glance at the uniform she was wearing, and all of them took a step back. "Chyro Tech," she reached for a phaser riffle, aiming at the intruder. "Stay where you are!" she snapped.
"Wait," she held her hands up. "Xander sent me," she told them.
"Xander? You mean Counsel Member Alexander Collins? Why would he sent you here?" she snapped.
"I'm suppose to find someone named Camille Summers and tell her something," she said, still refusing to move.
Camille stood up, walking over to Jen, putting her hand on the phaser riffle, then turned to the intruder. "What is the authorization code?" she asked.
"Collins gamma 1025," she told her.
"Its okay Jen, she's telling the truth," Jen put the riffle down. "Before Alex left, we went over a backup plan just in case something went wrong. He told me only to accept orders or instructions from someone who knew the authorization code, even if it was him," she said.
"So Alex really did send you?" Jen asked.
"Yes, my name is Sierra Crane. I've been held prisoner in Chyro Tech for…" she paused. "What year is this?"
"Its 3002," she said.
"Oh God, its been over four years," she sighed.
"Why would he trust you to come here and give us instructions? Why not come himself?" Amanda asked.
"I don't know. He told me to find Camille Summers, then threw this at me," she said, holding up a small device.
"I gave this to Alex before he left. It's a site to site teleportation unit," Camille said. "I'm Camille, what else did Alex tell you?"
"He said he's ready to initiate plan b," she told her.
"Are the other rangers alive?" Jen asked.
"When I was being held prisoner, I heard one of the guards talking about the rangers being in containment. That's all I know," she sighed.
"We have to assume that Alex stayed behind to try to find the rangers, but I'm going to begin plan b now," Camille said, walking over to the controls.
"What is plan b?" Jen asked.
"In the event the isotropic bombs were destroyed or damaged, there were all installed with a homing beacon of sorts. Each of them emitted a locator code, but when they're destroyed, the code stops transmitting. All I have to do is determine where each of them were before they stopped transmitting their locator codes, then teleport duplicate bombs in their place," she said.
"But the radiation levels in there are high. Xander seemed concerned about it," she brought up.
'Xander, pfft,' Jen scoffed inwardly.
"I have a delayed system. Its on a six second delay, but I'll be able to cut through the radiation and get the bombs in there," she assured her.
"So are we going to storm Chyro Tech again?" Amanda asked.
"We'll use that only as a last resort. Right now, plan b seems to be our best bet," Jen said.
"Jen, I need you to go down to the M.A.V. II and get the files that Trip and James downloaded to Katie," Camille said.
"If it was a set up, wouldn't Chyro Tech have set up fake files for them?" she asked.
"Yes, and the access codes that KJ gave us were fake ones, designed to allow us to download those fake files. We were able to get our hands on the actual codes," she said.
"How?"
"Time Force has an operative in Chyro Tech!" Amanda squealed, quickly putting her hand over her mouth when she realized how loud she was.
"That's impossible, I would have known about it," Jen protested.
"No one knew, only the counsel. When Alex took over the counsel, the information was passed down to him. That information is everything Chyro Tech has on slipstream technology, their primary and secondary systems, everything that makes Chyro Tech tick," she explained.
"So who it is? Who is the operative?"
"I don't know,"
"It would have to be someone that Alex trusted, someone from Time Force that he had extreme confidence in," Jen brought up.
"We can think about who it is later, right now I need you to get down here and bring me the files so I can unload them into our systems," she explained.
"I'm on it," Jen said, rushing out the room.
"Listen Sierra, its not that I don't trust you, but I'd like for you to go see Dr. Young down in the infirmary so we can verify your identity," Camille said.
"Dr. Young still works here? Wow,"
"What do you mean still? Were you here before?"
"Yes, I graduated from the academy in 2998. I was assigned to the special projects division," she told her.
"Amanda, take Ms. Crane to Dr. Young and have him perform a DNA test on her, then compare it to her old Time Force files to confirm that she is who she says she is," she said.
"If you'll come with me," Amanda said, motioning for Sierra to follow her.
"I hope you know what you're doing over there Alex," Camille sighed.
~~
Preview: Final hope pt. IIINext time on Parallels II: ????
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