Chapter Ten: I have a Plan

Dana was unsure about the amount of time that had passed. It could have been hours or days and after a while of yelling to be let out, she had given up. Now she sat on the floor, head against the wall. She couldn't see Carter, but it was so silent she could hear his breathing.

A moment passed before he spoke. "I'm sorry."

She shook her head even though he couldn't see her. "Stop. Stop apologizing. You couldn't have known."

"I could have gotten to you faster. I could have been more aware of my surroundings. I could have done something." He said.

"Carter, stop. It's not your fault. We haven't contacted the team. They'll know something's up. They'll come looking." She assured him. Before he could say anything else, the large metal door separated them from the rest of the ship opened. Automatically the lights flickered on. They both went to cover their eyes, blinded by the sudden appearance of light.

Dana waited for her eyes to adjust. Two X-borgs walked by their cells, dragging what appeared to be an unconscious man. His face was swollen, and his clothes were soaked in blood. Dana walked as close to the x borgs far as her cell would allow her, grabbing at the bars.

"Hey! Hey!" She yelled. "What are you doing to him?" She knew she wouldn't get a response, but she had to try. She watched as they threw him in the cell next to hers. Then they walked out and again the room was bathed in darkness.

The sound of someone coughing ripped through the air.

"Carter?" Dana asked, worried.

"It's not me." He replied. She heard a grunt coming from the next cell over.

"Hey, are you okay?" Carter asked. The guy didn't respond instead he kept coughing.

After a couple seconds, the guy spoke not realizing there was other people around. "I'm going to be in so much trouble."

"Hey," Carter said again. "Are you okay?"

The man's eyes darted to where he assumed Carter's voice was coming from. "Who are you?" he asked. He tried to get up but fell to the ground with a thud.

"Carter. Do you know where we are?" He asked.

"I was kind of hoping you could tell me." The man answered, coughing again.

Dana finally spoke up, "Are you okay?"

The man shook his head before remembering he couldn't he seen. "I think I may have a couple broken ribs."

"I'm a doctor." Dana told him. "If we could just get out of here, so I could look at you."

The man decided to change the subject. He could tell Dana felt hopeless. He knew the feeling and he hated it. "My name's Casey." He told them.

"I'm Dana." Dana said. "And that's Carter."

"Well Dana, Carter what's our plan? How are we getting out of here?" He broke into another coughing fit.

Carter winced. He had had broken ribs in the past. It was not a pleasant experience. "We don't have one." Carter said hopelessly.

"I think I may have one." Casey told them.

"What's the probability of it working?" Dana questioned. "There's thousands of those things out there and only three of us."

Casey knew she was right, but he had to at least try. He had somewhere to be. "We have to try." He told them. He waited. After not hearing any objections he finally said, "How loud can you guys yell?"

Emma leaned against the wall for support. She still felt dizzy and knew she shouldn't have gotten out of bed, but she had to tell the others.

Troy had begun to walk towards her, wanting to help her out but Emma waved him away saying she was fine.

Noah was the one to ask the question everyone was thinking, "What do you mean rangers? Why would you think that?"

Emma ignored him, instead turning to look at Matt, "Am I right? Is your dad a power ranger?" Matt looked to her, confused. The others saw the look on the little boy's face before turning to look at Emma. "We've always known there are other ranger teams out there. That's no secret." She began. They nodded. "Tell me that doesn't look like a morpher." She pointed at the box, still grasped in Matt's small hands.

"I don't know, Emma. I mean, is a morpher supposed to look like anything?" Noah questioned. "I could just be a device he uses as part of his job."

Emma could admit to herself that that explanation sounded reasonable but deep down she knew she was right. "I know what I'm saying," she said. "A while back, Matt told me he knew them. I…I thought he was just playing around. They moved from Silver Hills. There were rangers in Silver Hills."

"Emma, I think you should go lie down." Gia began, reaching her hand out and gently pushing her in the direction back to bed. Emma shook her head. She was getting frustrated.

"Listen, you have to look for his parents. If Eric really is a ranger, he can help." She looked to Troy. She had believed him when he had voiced his concerns to her, and she hoped in that moment he would do the same.

He spoke up, "She's right. We have to at least try. Besides we have to get Matt to his parents anyway." He looked at the boy, who could only stare at them. "Noah and I will go look for them at their workplace."

Emma sighed in relief, looking down to the ground. Suddenly she remembered she had something to tell Troy. She looked to him. When his eyes made contact with hers, she motioned toward the back room with her head. He nodded following her as she limped. When they were far enough away, she slipped her hand into her pulling out a crumpled piece of paper.

She looked up at him. "I know I said I'd wouldn't look into it, but…" she handed him the paper. He unfolded it and started at the words written on it. "you should know it's real. I don't know what it means. I don't know how it connects to you or why you're seeing it."

He folded the paper, gently placing it in his pocket. "We'll figure it out but right now we have other thing to worry about."