A.N: So I really did intend to have this up on like Monday, but obviously that didn't happen because my thesis tried to take on it's own life. But I think I stopped the spontaneous generation so thats good. And I spent all weekend at the bookstore looking up quotes for it in this 700 page book full of baseball quotes. That was fun. But not conducive to typing. So last night instead of doing my homework I did this. Enjoy.

Last Time:

"You're going to steal them."

And Now:

I gaped at Andros. "Steal? You want me to use my power to do something that's against the laws of every civilized society? No can do. We aren't supposed to use our powers for personal gain, breaking the law seems very much like a personal gain to me."

"Two things. First off, it's not for personal gain, it's for the protection of the world. You'd be removing them from evil hands and ensuring that a viable power source is available for the next group that needs it to battle evil. Secondly, this isn't really a civilized society we're going into. We'd call Nex a crime boss but in his area of space he is the law, there is no organized policing force."

I was quiet for a long moment while I looked for holes in his argument, but eventually I gave up. "I know there are issues with that logic but I'll be damned if I know what they are. So, what's the plan?"

"I'm gonna drop you off. You'll go in, invisible and morphed. It's very important that you be morphed. That way should your invisibility fail they won't see you and also I'll be able to communicate with you by tuning into the frequency of the communicator in your helmet. You find the gems and then I'll get you out using the short range teleportation system."

"Why can't you use the teleportation system to get the gems out?"

"We can't lock onto their signal. We need a very strong signal to lock onto. That's another reason for you to be morphed. There are few energy signals in the galaxy stronger then that created by the Morphin' Grid when someone is morphed. We lock onto that signal and when we 'port you out you'll bring the gems with you."

"Uh huh." I was quiet while I thought through the plan. "What about locks, security systems etc. I'm no good at picking locks or bypassing security. And I refuse to kill anyone."

"I've got solutions for that." He pulled out what looked like a handheld scanner and something else that looked a bit like a gate card. "This," he held up the scanner, "will bypass security systems for you. I'll show you how to use it before we get there. And this," he indicated the card, "can change to be any type of key you need. It's a burglar's best friend, not that they can get a hold of them. They are military issue only on KO-35 and even then your security clearance has to be through the roof to get one. Technically I'm not giving you this. Technically you've never seen them." He handed them to me. "And you're going to guard them with your life."

I slipped both into my pocket and nodded. "Got it. What about the guards?"

"That's where the invisibility comes in."

"And when they see a locked door open by itself and come to investigate?"

"I'll give you a low range stunner that will knock them out. That way they don't bother you and they're not dead. Though it wouldn't be such a pity if they were dead really. We are talking about scum of the universe here." I glared and he sighed. "I promise it won't kill them."

"Good. Anything else I need to know?"

"Nope. I think we're good. We'll be arriving in about 6 hours. Here's the plan for getting you into the compound . . ."

That was how I found myself pushing my way through the thick folds of a massive piece of carpeting and then knocking out one end of the box it was held in. Holding my breath I carefully and silently eased the end back into place while I listened frantically to discover if anyone had heard my less then silent exit from the box. While I was still completely immersed in shadows I scanned the room and noted the location and range of the two security cameras. Timing it carefully I morphed when the flash of red would be least likely to be caught. I would have come in morphed but as I'd learned while stuck in morph it begins to drain you after a while and I wasn't sure how long I would need the protection. I touched the throat mic we'd inserted into the helmet to make sure it was secure and then whispered into it.

"Andros?"

"Go ahead. I've got you."

"I'm in the main holding area. Security is really lax here. You're sure these blueprints are right?"

"Yep. And I'm fairly certain the gems are in the safe in the master bedroom."

"Great. Here goes nothing. I'm out." Ending our conversation I sighed and then focused on going invisible. Why does it have to be me? Why do I have to be the only one with the skills to be a burglar?

3 hours later I'd located the master bedroom safe and was crouched in front of it punching keys on the scanner. Thanks to a conversation I'd overheard on my way I knew that Nex was off planet on business so I wasn't to worried about being disturbed. Nevertheless I wanted this job over and done with. With a relieved grin I opened the safe using the code flashing on the screen of the scanner but the sigh of relief caught in my throat. The safe was almost completely empty.

With a muffled curse I quickly searched what was present but none of it was jewels of any sort. There were two guns, a pile of discs and several papers. That was it. I felt the edges of the safe carefully, looking for a hidden panel but found nothing. Carefully I replaced everything to the position it had occupied and then carefully closed and locked the safe. Restraining the urge to yell in frustration I contacted Andros.

"Tell me there's somewhere else he would have put the jewels." I whispered, making sure I was far from the door but facing it so I could see if anyone tried to come in. "They weren't in the safe. There wasn't anything of any importance in that safe."

"Shit."

"What?"

"Are you sure they weren't there?"

"Yes." I hissed. "I checked the whole damn thing. There were no gems in it. Where else do I look?"

"You could try the safe in his office, though my source tells me he only puts business items there. The only other place is the Vault and I don't think you'll be able to get into that."

"Great." I muttered. "Here's to hoping they're in his office. And try finding out where he went. Maybe he took them with him for some reason."

"He's no on the premises?" Andros asked sharply.

"Nope. I overheard a few of the servants discussing their gratitude that he won't be back for a couple of days."

"Got it. I'll start looking at that, you check his office safe."

"Sure. I'll let you know what I find." I ended our quiet conversation and carefully slipped out of the room. Just my luck. Now I had to get into yet another heavily guarded room. You'd think this man was the president or something. Even though he was off planet there were security guys absolutely freakin' everywhere.

Getting into the office proved to be easier then getting into the bedroom had been. I hooked the scanner up and let it work while my gaze roved the room looking for other hidey-holes. There were a couple of glass cases on the far end of the room that looked reasonably promising but first I had a safe to get into. A few moments later I had it open. A quick visual examination of it revealed nothing more then a pile of folders and a box that contained a white powder that looked suspiciously like cocaine. I again checked for hidden compartments and felt the folders to verify that there wasn't anything hidden in them. Annoyed that this safe was as free of gems as the other I replaced everything and locked it again.

A moment after I'd finished with the safe the door opened. Glad I was hidden by the desk I was crouched behind I quickly resummoned my invisibility, which I'd dropped in interests of conserving energy since I was in an unobserved area, and then edged towards a corner. I watched as a short boxy man opened the safe and dropped the two folders he was holding carelessly onto the stack inside. I listened with some small degree of fascination as he muttered to himself while he relocked the safe. "Do this, do that, move the gems here, move them there. I've got some doxy coming in so move them again. Gah. Even when he's gone I'm overworked." Without looking around he left the room.

I remained in the corner barely daring to breathe, working hard to get myself under control. The gems were still on the premises, possibly, but it seemed equally possible that if I didn't get my hands on them soon they'd walk out on some "doxy." I pulled out a device that looked a lot like a tricorder from Star Trek, and hadn't that gotten me a weird look from Andros when I mentioned it, and entered the sequence that would search for the energy of the gems.

I hadn't tried this before because it wouldn't see through the metal of a safe and we were assuming that's were they were, but now it seemed that maybe we were wrong. With luck they'd be left somewhere in preparation of the "doxy's" visit, and preferably somewhere without live guards and I'd be able to grab them and make a break for it. Yeah, right, like my life would ever be that easy. A slight vibration of the box in my hands told me it had found something that matching the signal I was looking for. Carefully navigating the maze of guards, security devices, walls and other such things I finally found the source.

They sat arrayed in glorious splendor on a table in a room marked as Private Parlor on the blueprints Andros had gotten. Still invisible I watched from the open doorway as the secretary I'd seen before finished giving the guard his orders. I groaned internally as I did a quick visual scan of the room. Other then the live guard being placed there were also several cameras and what looked like several booby traps. That's probably half of what was taking so long to brief this guy, they had to tell him what to avoid.
I slipped inside the room and very carefully made my way to a corner. There I settled down to study and plan. I was so close to my goal but it was going to take cunning, stealth, and luck to get out of this mess alive. And preferably uninjured. The last thing I needed to add to a mulitday absence was an injury. Hayley would murder me, though she was likely to do that anyway for making her worry at all. I shook my head lightly. This was not the time to think about Hayley, or Kim, or the twins, or anyone or anything but getting those gems and getting out of here. And murdering Andros I amended as my right leg started to cramp.

Several hours later I got my opportunity to move. The guard has just left muttering something about needing to "piss like a racehorse" and I figured I had at least 2 minutes to get the gems and get out. Impossible given what I had to get around but never tell me something is impossible, that just makes me more determined to do it. Quickly I jammed the security cameras and proceeded to make my way carefully across the room. Twice I had to flip and roll past some of the traps that were apparently designed to go off if the camera feed failed but I made it to the table without a single scratch.

Allowing myself only a quick grin of triumph I quickly stuffed the gems into a leather pouch that was lying nearby. I looked around for a way out and discovered the doors had been securely closed and locked. A quick thinking security guard must have done that as soon as he realized that the feed was gone. Quickly I tapped the throat mic.

"Andros." I whispered urgently.

"Yeah?" His reply was instantaneous, apparently he'd been waiting for me to contact him.

"Get me out of here. I've got the gems but the room is locked . . ." I broke off and gasped a bit as another trap discharged and a spear cut across my thigh.

"Tommy? What happened? You still there buddy?" I could hear the panic in his voice but it took me a moment to respond.

"I'll be fine," I replied in a voice tight with pain. "Just get me the hell out of here before one of these spears hits me in a more painful or fatal fashion." Seconds after I'd finished speaking I felt myself pulling through space in a way I'd done in years. I'd always enjoyed this mode of travel, it was fast, painless, and kind of fun, but this time the pain in my leg made it impossible for me to really enjoy it. Thankfully in a very short period of time I found myself in the Cargo Bay of the Megaship.

Zhane met me and was properly appreciative of the deep gash currently bleeding all over me and the floor. He moved to help me but I shoved the bag at him instead.

"Take care of these first. I'll be fine for another few minutes. But if you don't get those taken care of and they get stolen or something I'll be pissed." Obviously my mental faculties were beginning to be impaired if I seriously thought something could get stolen off this ship but whatever. Zhane laughed a bit, apparently he thought it was as ridiculous as I'd realized it was, but he did as I said and disappeared with the bag in hand. As soon as he was gone I let my face contort in pain. I looked down, a bit bemused to see my uniform actually had a rip in it, not something you frequently see in a Ranger uniform, those things are like indestructible. Except apparently when a razor sharp spear is propelled across the room using you for target practice. I swayed a bit, the loss of blood beginning to affect me, and started to carefully make my way to the infirmary. I didn't make it very far before I had to stop and lean on the wall in a desperate attempt to stay upright. That was were Zhane found me several minutes later.

"Idiot" he said forcefully when he saw my ashen complexion. "I shouldn't have listened to you." He slipped an arm around me and supported most of my weight as we went down what seemed like endless miles of hallways. As we went through the door of the infirmary I could feel myself losing my grip on consciousness.

"Tell Kim and the girls I love them" I slurred right before blacking out.

Switch to 3rd Person Point Of View

Zhane cursed as he lowered Tommy's still form to one of the beds. He had absolutely no intention of letting Tommy die of a little thing like blood loss though it seemed that Tommy himself was fairly certain it was going to kill him. But if Tommy believed Zhane was going to just let him die without a fight he had another thing coming.

Within minutes Zhane had the wound cleaned and stitched but it was the blood loss that had him worried. They didn't have any human blood on board and neither he nor Andros could donate because their blood wasn't compatible with human blood. Because they were Kaoian, not human, they couldn't donate their blood. It would likely kill him, or at the very least make him very sick and it sure as hell wouldn't help.

Andros stepped into the room just then and paled a bit when he caught sight of Tommy's motionless form. "Is he going to be okay?"

"I hope so. He's lost a lot of blood and we have no way to replace it. I just hope it wasn't too much. And I hope he beats the odd on infection, they're currently in his favor. I just hope they stay that way."

Unfortunately for Zhane Tommy had used up most of his luck retrieving the gems. He beat off the blood loss and for the first 12 hours it seemed he was going to make a full recovery. But just as Zhane's hopes were being raised, infection set in. For two days they battled a raging fever, hallucinations, and powers gone wild.

Zhane was sure he'd never forget the time he came back from fetching a bowl of broth to find Tommy "gone." Except he wasn't really gone, he'd just made himself invisible and it took Zhane a good 20 minutes to figure it out. He didn't until Tommy reappeared, still unconscious, in the exact position he'd been in when Zhane had left to fetch the broth.

Early on the third day the fever broke though Tommy was still dead to the world. Other then that however Zhane was thrilled. The fever had broken, the wound was clean of infection and quickly knitting together, healing with legendary Ranger speed, and his scans indicated that Tommy would be coming out of the self-induced coma-like sleep at some point soon. Zhane was hoping that soon meant very soon. It was going to be another few days before Tommy could go home once he did actually wake up so the sooner he woke up the sooner he could go home and the sooner Zhane could breathe properly. As it was he kept imagining Kim getting some idea of where Tommy was and storming in and kicking his ass in a pissed Pink fit.

Andros did not share Zhane's optimism. In fact he was positive the longer Tommy was unconscious the more addled he'd be or the more likely it was he'd never wake up. Zhane tried to tell him he'd been watching too much TV but Andros wouldn't listen. By noon of the third day, about 2 hours after they achieved orbit above Earth, having taken a circuitous route to make sure they weren't followed, he'd fetched Dana up from the surface. And then he got annoyed when she seconded what Zhane had said.

Shortly after dinner that night Tommy finally opened his eyes. He was kind of dazed, rather tired, and stunned to be alive. He stayed awake long enough to have some soup, water and juice and then slipped back into sleep. Andros was rather concerned and Zhane eventually had to ban him from the infirmary after pointing out why it was that Tommy was so exhausted: he'd been tired when Andros called; had barely slept on the trip to Nex's planet; hadn't slept from the time he'd been put in the box until he'd passed out; had been in morph for over 12 hours; had been invisible for a large chunk of those 12 hours; had been running on adrenaline; had been grievously injured and was now healing at Ranger speed. The wonder was that he'd woken up as soon as he had.

Two days later Tommy had recovered enough to go home. He was still exhausted but the only thing that was going to help that was sleep. The wound on his thigh was mostly healed, the stitches had been removed and such but they, Tommy and Zhane, were pretty sure it was going to scar. That was unusual when Ranger healing was involved but not too odd considering the severity of it. Tommy met with Andros on the bridge before being teleported to the surface.

"So you're finally out of bed." Andros said, looking at Tommy with a concern that belied his words.

"Yep. Finally dragged my lazy self up here." Tommy agreed, leaning heavily on a console. "You ready to send me home? And you're gonna have Zhane drive my car to my house?"

"Yes to both. But first." He pulled a familiar pouch out of his pocket, the pouch that held the gems Tommy had retrieved. "I need you to watch these for me Tommy." Andros said, handing him the pouch.

"No way." Tommy said raising his hands before they touched it. "I came along to help you on your little retrieval mission which is gonna get me in enough trouble. I'm not going to watch these. Kim will murder me for brining Ranger stuff near the girls."

"Come on. I need you to do it, no one else can."

And of course Andros knew appealing to Tommy's pride would get him to agree. That was how he got Tommy to go on the mission in the first place after all.

"Fine." Tommy snatched it from him, careful to keep his hands near the top and far from the gems it contained. "How long?"

"I dunno. When I get things ready, squared away, talk to some people." He was vague but Tommy was tired and ready to crawl back into bed so he missed both the vagueness and the strange light to Andros' eye.

"Fine, whatever. Just get me home." The next thing he knew he was standing in his living room. "Thank God."

Taking a brief moment to secrete the gems in a temporary though highly secure hiding place Tommy headed upstairs to his room to crash.

END

Next up: How does Kim react when she finds out what Tommy's just done?