Disclaimer: Buena Vista Entertainment owns the rights to Power Rangers Lost Galaxy. This story involves characters and concepts from PRLG.
Passing for Normal
by Starhawk
Monday morning. The last week of the first month post-launch. T plus 23 days and counting. Twelve more weeks until the point of no return, when Terra Venture's engines would have consumed more fuel than it would take to turn the colony around and safely decelerate from cruising speed a second time.
It was a day that should have been worth celebrating. Not because it was a benchmark, but because it wasn't. It was day that should have been about settling into routine, passing time, doing ordinary work that kept this extraordinary city-ship on course. A day when Command staff showed up for their shifts after their first full weekend off and didn't have to deal with six impossible things before breakfast.
Maybe that was exactly what was happening. He wouldn't know, since he was stuck here in Medlab for his daily checkup, drinking some awful breakfast smoothie fortified with eighty-three vitamins and minerals. Someone had kindly flavored it with sawdust so he would know it was good for him.
"Morning!" His third intern in three days popped into the room, smiling the smile of someone who hadn't had a sawdust smoothie for breakfast. "How are you?"
He eyed her over the smoothie and didn't answer.
She was already pulling something out of a drawer, but she glanced over her shoulder when he didn't answer and smiled again. "That was actually a question, not just a greeting."
He felt the same as he had yesterday. Didn't they keep some sort of record? They took enough notes while he was here to write a book.
She was starting to look concerned, which was at least a change from yesterday's intern, who had looked worried, and the one before that, who had looked vaguely frightened. "Is your throat getting worse again?" she asked. "I know it was torn up pretty badly... I can get you something for that, but I'll have to take another look at it first."
He shook his head. "No," he said aloud, and talking was easier than swallowing the smoothie of doom so maybe he had his priorities backwards. "It's fine."
"Any other complaints?" She continued as though whether he replied or not was no big deal, and he narrowed his eyes. "Headaches, muscle aches, stiffness, visions? Auditory hallucinations?"
He couldn't tell if she was trying to be funny or if they'd gotten tired of his refusal to see a psychologist and just sent one in, welcome or not. "Are you a doctor or a therapist?" he demanded.
She blinked. "Neither? I'm just an intern. If you want to see someone else, I could probably arrange that."
"I don't want to see anyone," he grumbled, frowning down at his smoothie. The faster it was gone, the less they'd have to complain about if he walked out on this ridiculous ritual.
"Yeah, that sounds familiar." He could hear the rueful grin in her voice as she turned back to the desk. "The colony is pretty young, and the self-diagnosing generation has one of two responses to medicine. They either want every drug ever invented, or they don't want anything at all. No matter what's wrong with them."
He was probably the oldest person she would ever meet. He gritted his teeth to keep from saying so, because that way lay more psychologists and hushed conversations and a really absurd amount of second guessing. On everyone's part.
"I'm just going to get some vitals," she said, ignoring his lack of response. "Pulse, blood pressure, all the boring stuff. Which hand do you want me to--"
She actually stopped when he held out his left hand. Not talking in general, just that sentence in particular. "Great," she said, taking his hand. Then, to his surprise, she pushed the sleeve of his leather jacket up.
She didn't have to. It was a thumb cuff, and it would give pulse along with pressure without anyone having to fuss with his clothes. He was expecting her fingers on his hand. He'd braced himself for it; it was fine.
He wasn't expecting her to touch his wrist. He yanked away hard enough to knock the pressure monitor onto the floor, and she swooped down to pick it up without giving him a second glance. There was a moment while she was crouched down on the floor when a single shove would have given him breathing space and room to run--and another guard on his door, just when he'd finally gotten rid of the last one.
"Sorry about that," she apologized, as though it was her fault for being clumsy. She set the monitor back on the table beside him and gave him a curious look. "Did you hurt your wrist?"
She'd seen it. He could either lie to her face, or he could allow her to assess an obvious injury that might possibly excuse his reaction. Reluctantly, he pulled up his sleeve at the elbow and offered his badly bruised wrist for inspection.
"Ouch." Her sympathetic grimace was strange and funny and bittersweet all at once. She didn't touch his skin again, and she was already turning away when she asked, "What happened?"
"I don't know," he said. "It was like that when I woke up."
That made her pause, and she glanced back at him. "Blood vessels in your arm spontaneously burst overnight?"
"I have nightmares," he said defensively. Maybe. He didn't remember them if he did. Sleeping was the best part of the day. He hadn't slept in so long, all he wanted to do was close his eyes and stay like that forever.
"Do they wake you up?" she wanted to know. "How well are you sleeping? Could you be sleepwalking, or do you think it's just from thrashing around, that maybe you hit something in your sleep?"
"I must have hit it," he muttered. "I don't know. I don't wake up."
She turned around, holding up a little tin, then frowned. She just stood there for a moment, hand raised. Then she said, "Do you have a morpher on that wrist?"
His gaze flicked to hers, startled, then slid away.
It was too late. "They said you have two morphers," she said casually. Like it didn't even matter. "One on each wrist? Is the other one bruised too?"
"It's fine," he growled. "It doesn't hurt."
"I'd like to see it," she said. "If that's okay."
The morpher, he wondered? Or the wrist?
"It's not," he told her.
"This is what I'm worried about," she said. "The Power you have now is old, right? Three thousand years since it last interacted with a human body? I'm worried that Mike Corbett's body isn't compatible with the Magna Defender's power.
"Or maybe it's partially compatible," she added, frowning, "and you're just experiencing some sort of side effect. Maybe it gets better, and maybe it gets worse; I don't know. But if you're bleeding internally, that's a really bad sign."
"I'm--" He broke off. Maybe it was some kind of side effect. How would he know?
"Is it just your wrists?" she asked gently.
"They don't come off," he blurted out.
For the first time, she seemed to be at a loss. "They don't come off?" she repeated.
He felt his fists clench, and he opened his fingers as carefully as he could. "The morphers," he muttered. Twitching his hands to either side, he could feel them wrap around each wrist. Under the sleeves, almost invisible under his heavy leather jacket, they were like shackles against his skin. "I can't get them off."
"Have you--oh." She broke off in the middle of the sentence. "That's a really stupid question, isn't it. Of course you've tried."
With a flick of his wrists, he sent them back to wherever they hid when he wasn't using them. Still there. Still an intangible weight on arms that weren't used to restraint. Straightening his elbows, he lifted his hands until his sleeves pulled back enough that she could see both wrists. They were ringed with livid purple and blue and already healing yellow, clearly outlining the location of the morpher on each wrist.
"Well, here's some short-term advice," she said, with some asperity. "Stop trying to take them off."
He couldn't say what it was about the comment that was amusing, but it made him smile. It was such a strange feeling that he barely noticed her smiling back. He let his hands fall, and she held up the tin.
"This will help with the bruising," she said. "I realize we're only treating the symptoms, but I don't have any idea what to do about the cause. If your biggest health problems so far are self-inflicted..."
She trailed off, giving him a rueful look. "Sorry. That didn't come out quite right."
"I think it did," he said. It had been his offer, his choice. Saved and condemned in the same breath. Everything he did now was just a re-enactment of that first decision. "No question, it's weird in here."
She set the tin down next to him and wiggled the blood pressure cuff in his direction. "I hear they're trying to get you to see a therapist," she remarked, as he offered his hand again.
He snorted, the answer easy and unconsidered for the first time since he'd come in. "Lot of good that would do."
This time she was careful to touch only his hand. "Therapy can be a big help," she said. "Unfortunately, I'm not sure there's anyone here qualified to work with you. Your situation is pretty unique on Terra Venture."
"It's pretty unique anywhere," he muttered, watching the numbers on the digital readout climb. He had to wonder what a daily record of his blood pressure could possibly tell them.
"Oh, I don't know." She sounded amused. "I know another Power Ranger... on Earth, I mean. This kind of thing seems to happen to them a lot."
"I find that hard to believe," he told her.
"I find everything that happens to them hard to believe," she retorted. "And so far, I'd have to say you're no better."
The pressure cuff hissed as it began to deflate, and she added, "I'm just saying... I don't know what they've been telling you, but bad therapy can be worse than no therapy at all. If you've got a gut feeling, you should probably go with it."
He didn't really know what to say to that.
The monitor began to beep as it registered his heartbeat, and he watched as the numbers continued to fall. He was in better shape than he used to be. He was twenty-six again--two months away from twenty-seven. He'd lost a son. He'd gained a brother. And there was his heart, still tripping along at 59 beats per minute.
"One nineteen over seventy-five," she announced, apparently in case he cared but had somehow lost the ability to read. He looked at her in surprise when she continued, "If I ever figure out what good it does us to check your blood pressure every day, I'll let you know."
She was, he decided right then, the least annoying intern he'd encountered in Medlab. Possibly ever. And he had no idea how to find her again, on the off chance that he ever needed a less annoying contact among the medical staff.
"What's your name?" he asked suddenly.
"Hmm?" Of course she had to be making notes, but she seemed to register the question in retrospect without him having to repeat it. "Ali Carter."
Glancing up briefly, she added, "What's yours?"
He just stared at her for a moment.
"I mean, Mike, I know," she said hastily. "Everyone knows Mike Corbett. But you must both have names, right? Does it get weird, having everyone call you Mike all the time?"
"Yes," he said after a moment. He didn't like the way she asked, though, and he frowned at her back. "I thought you said no therapy was better than bad therapy."
She lifted her head, but she didn't look over at him. "I'm not trying to psychoanalyze you," she told the wall. There was something in her voice that let him know he'd hurt her feelings. "I was just curious."
A kind woman. A curious little girl. Funny that she had just described herself with the same word he would have picked three thousand years ago, instead of the one he might have chosen more recently.
"Estavan," he said quietly. The Magna Defender, as he'd been known to most of Mirinoi. First Councilor among the people of his village. To the children, he was Zika's dad. "Estavan" only to family and friends.
Correctly deducing that this was a name, she set her stylus down and held out her hand. Just as if he'd been the perfect gentleman about it. "Nice to meet you," she said, the picture of calm. "Both of you."
He knew what she meant, and he shook her hand carefully. Touching people was still so shocking that even the part of him it reassured couldn't convince him to do it casually. "Not so bad meeting you either."
It was hard to tell whether she took that as a compliment or not, because all she did was smile and say, "Good. You'll probably be seeing me again tomorrow, then."
He didn't miss the implication that she was the first intern in three days who could tolerate him, but the feeling was mutual so he didn't complain. He just asked, "Can I go?"
"Well, I'd say your chances of PFN are fifty-fifty," she said. "So it's up to you. Take the bruise ointment with you and pass me your smoothie cup on your way out, and we'll call it even."
He was already stuffing the tin into his pocket, and he eyed her warily as he handed over the empty cup. "PFN?" he repeated.
"Passing for normal," she said. "Good luck with that. Come back if you need anything; I'll be here till five. If it's after hours, try asking for Josh or Maria. They're pretty unflappable."
Which was what he needed, apparently. People who couldn't be alarmed. When had he gone from the person who could reassure others just by being there to the person who couldn't be anywhere without upsetting everyone who saw him?
Leo had left him a message this morning. Just like every other morning since he'd gotten here. Telling him where he was, where the other Rangers were, and when they were planning to hold training that day. He was welcome to join them, Leo said.
It wasn't like he had anything else to do. The Power only let him sleep so many hours a day, and while eating was a novelty it was also disturbing to put familiar things in his mouth and have them taste utterly foreign. Or vice versa. He'd tried walking around the colony, but everyone knew him and the people who tried to talk to him were just as irritating as the ones who stared, whispered, or avoided him.
He hadn't even tried to go back to work. Today was his first day without a military escort shadowing him everywhere he went, so he figured he knew where he stood. If Command staff had any sense, someone would have locked his ID out of the control tower weeks ago. Yes or no, he didn't really want to know either way.
Today's message from Leo had told him that, unlike him, the Rangers were finally getting back to their jobs after a weekend of public service following Scorpius' attacks. Except for Leo, for whom public service apparently was his job. He was effectively a full time Ranger now.
Leo said, of course, that he was welcome to join him. Teaching self-defense classes, anyway, if not actually rewriting colony response protocols. He was also welcome to join Kendrix's department, Maya's field team, or Damon's ongoing work on the Megaship, which had become full-time as well. It seemed he was welcome anywhere except with Kai. The exception was glaringly obvious given that Kai's job was the one for which he had actually been recruited, but Leo glossed over it like it wasn't there.
He decided to head for the ocean dome instead. Being welcome and being told he was welcome were two different things, and at least he didn't know many people in aquaculture. He'd met maybe three dolphins, total, and he could count on most of the humans who were there to be underwater with them.
Or he'd thought he could. There were kids and parents in the dome, even today, and a few off-duty colonists walking the beach. He'd always liked the ocean dome, but he'd never been there during normal working hours, so it hadn't occurred to him how many people didn't work "normal working hours." The night and graveyard shifts were something he endured rather than enjoyed, so he didn't rearrange his schedule beyond what was absolutely necessary. And as a senior military officer, not to mention one of the faces of the new colony, he hadn't exactly had days off.
He blinked, shaking his head. Very Mike. Mike's memories, Mike's knowledge... Mike's reactions. Terra Venture was like that, he found. So foreign to Estavan and so familiar to Mike that it was easy to lose himself in the part of him that belonged here.
He thought sometimes that that was for the best. This was Mike's home, after all. Mike's people, Mike's life. Mike's responsibility. He thought he could probably be Mike without too much effort. "Pass for normal," as the intern said. He knew what Mike knew, what he would say, what he cared about.
That was the problem, right there. He didn't just know what Mike cared about. He cared about what Mike cared about. He cared about this crazy colony in the middle of space, on its way to some unseen new world. He cared about his troublemaking little brother, the kid who'd been abandoned and screwed over so many times it was a wonder all he'd broken was the law. He cared about Kai, a guy who never should have been in the military and now acted like it was the only life he knew, and about Kai's odd friend Kendrix, a woman who was frankly too brilliant to be wasting her time on a colony ship in the first place.
He cared about all of them, because Mike did. But they weren't his whole world the way they had been for Mike. Every love that Mike felt was overlaid by Estavan's loss: his family, his village, his entire planet. His time. It was so terribly isolating to be a man out of time. Everything he knew wasn't just gone... it was forgotten. Left behind, unremembered, days so long past that they no longer had any meaning.
Except to Estavan. Estavan still cared about a rebellious little village on the outskirts of nowhere, trying to make a name for itself as an independent state. He cared about Shairra, the woman too weak to bear children and too strong to let that determine her destiny, and about Chantilles, the girl who was more interested in sex than politics yet couldn't remember to adjust her hormonal cycle without reminders written on her skin. He cared about his only son, lost to Scorpius along with both his wives and what felt like most of his soul.
He didn't want to forget them. He didn't want to forget any of them. But Estavan's world was already gone, and Mike's would be lost to him too if he didn't make this work. The smart thing to do would be to let one go in favor of the other... he knew that. He just couldn't do it.
As long as he was partly Estavan, he couldn't be completely Mike. He couldn't listen to Mike's friends whine about the loss of their agricultural dome without exploding. He couldn't look up at stars changed by time as much as by distance without breaking down. And he couldn't ever, ever take off the morphers his mother had given him.
Not because he didn't care, but because he cared too much.
His feet had carried him to a place where the shore curved, worn away by the force of water on rocks jutting out into the miniature sea. The ocean dome's only lighthouse marked the rocks, the direction of the dome connector, and the primary launch for the aquaculture stations all at once. There was a particular cove here, opposite the sheltered marina, where a person could feel the harshness of the wind beneath a lonely sky and pretend that this place really did go on forever.
Someone was there, seated behind an immense boulder and so well hidden that he didn't see her until he was too close to pretend he hadn't. He wanted to. The woman went out of her way to provoke him, and the fact that he wouldn't have any idea how to respond to her under normal circumstances didn't help. Shaman, enemy, Ranger, civilian, she was everything and nothing in his mind and he couldn't even come up with a description that worked, let alone make some kind of threat assessment.
"Hello," she said, smiling up at him as though she'd just noticed him. "Sorry if I've taken your spot."
He shook his head, staring out at the water and feeling the wind that whipped over the top of her boulder tear at his collar. He would walk on--she didn't have any authority here--except that some ingrained respect for the wielders of magic kept him from dismissing her out of hand. She was a holy person.
She wasn't, he reminded himself. Just a civvie visitor. But she wasn't that either, and the part of him that scoffed at magic was so in awe of Power Rangers that he kind of wanted to ask for her autograph.
"Can I ask you a question?" Her voice made its way to him through the wind, sweetly innocent and damnably curious. Why did they all want him to talk?
When he didn't answer, she asked anyway. Of course.
"Do you want to stay here?" she asked him. "Here on Terra Venture, I mean?"
He looked down at her in surprise. "Excuse me?"
"It's very nice," she said quickly. Waving out at the ocean, she added, "Beautiful, ambitious, amazing. And any place that's home is home, after all."
She looked up and caught his eye, squinting against the oddly bright sky. "Is it home, now?"
He frowned at her. He straight blonde hair was pulled back in a ponytail, and she wore a GSA jacket with pants that were straight out of the aquaculture department. Her boots were unmistakably colony issue. What did she know about home?
"The universe is a big place," she was saying. "There are other places you could go. And Rangers are welcome in most of them."
"Just what I need," he muttered, wondering where she had gotten her clothes. Somehow that seemed more important than whatever she was offering him. "More places where I'm welcome."
"You could start over," she insisted. "You're a different person now. You could make a different life."
"Not so different," he said, eyeing her. She didn't seem to mind staring up at him, even shielding her eyes as she was. He thought about sitting down, but he didn't really want to commit so much to this conversation.
"Is this home, then?" she insisted. "Is this a place Mike Corbett could live to defend? Or is it a place the Magna Defender would die to destroy?"
It was such an outrageous thing to say that for a moment he didn't even register the words. As the question sank in, though, he found he couldn't muster the appropriate response. Somehow, he found himself smiling. Why? It wasn't funny. But it wasn't real, either. It just wasn't... real.
"Why do you always antagonize me?" he wanted to know.
She wasn't smiling. "I need to know how dangerous you are," she said. "I'm leaving soon, and I won't take off on a new team with an unstable sixth."
An unstable sixth. You, the Power whispered. He was the "sixth" Ranger.
"Well, you'll be here a long time," he told her.
"No," she said steadily. She didn't take her eyes off of him. "I won't be."
He considered that. "Are you threatening to kidnap me?" he asked at last. The idea should have been amusing--except that she was still a variable, an unknown in his mind, and he had the memory of that impossible crash embedded in his brain. The intact dome, the untouched ground, and two zords that were still recovering from the trauma.
"No." She did look a little amused, and strangely, that didn't reassure him at all. "I'm just letting you know that if I think you're a threat to this colony, I'll be taking you with me when I leave."
It was a more disturbing statement than he'd expected. Completely aside from whether or not she could do it, he didn't actually want to leave Terra Venture. Yet, given her terms, he wanted to want to: if he was a threat to this place, wasn't it wrong to stay? He was a threat, wasn't he?
He lowered himself to the ground beside her, and she moved over a little. Giving him shelter behind her boulder. Very kind, considering what she was "letting him know." He took the space offered, even if it put him a little closer to her than he would have preferred. At least he wouldn't have to look at her.
"You know," he said after a moment, "that I'm clinically insane."
They weren't touching, but her jacket rustled as she shrugged. "Most people would say the same thing about me."
He frowned. He didn't really know what to say to that.
"I don't care about what your doctors say," she said after a moment. "I care about whether you're going to hurt someone--including you--because of something I could prevent."
His wrists ached, a dull throb that he could accept, even appreciate, until her words made his fists clench. "You can't keep me from hurting myself," he said softly.
"If you want to," she agreed, surprising him. "And you know what you're doing. But there's two people in your head now, and if you're not making decisions by committee then one of you isn't making decisions at all."
"It's not--" He gritted his teeth, trying to make it make sense. "That's not what it's like."
She turned her head, and he could feel her eyes on him even as he glared out at the horizon. "What's it like?" she asked simply.
Psychologists avoided, check. Medlab put off, check. Well-meaning concern from family and friends ignored... check. And now a magic Ranger from another planet was going to make him explain or else she'd toss him in the back of her zord and take him out with the trash.
"It's like living twice," he said at last. That was the best he could do. "Only without dying in between. I grew up on Mirinoi, became a Power Ranger, raised a family. Then I was born on Earth. I'm still Estavan. But I'm also Mike. I'm not--"
He hesitated, grimacing. He wasn't a lot of things, and he wasn't completely sure what everyone else thought he was. He was, at the very least, overwhelmingly frustrated by the inability to put it into words.
"I'm not sharing my brain," he said aloud. "It's not one or the other. It's both. I'm both of us. All the time."
Strangely, she seemed to get this. "So you're neither," she said.
He blinked. "Yes," he said after a moment.
He could see her nod out of the corner of his eye. "I was born Kerone, on KO-35. A regular colony girl, mostly, until I was kidnapped and raised as Astronema. The princess of evil, they called me. You might have heard of her."
He just nodded. That had been a bad year, with him struggling to stay in school and fighting for custody of Leo at the same time. He'd tried to keep his brother away from the news as much as possible, but everyone knew who the Power Rangers were up against.
"My family finally tracked me down," she said. "They got past the brainwashing and the--everything. They wanted me to go back to being Kerone. I couldn't. Obviously. Not after everything I'd done as Astronema, not after everything I'd become.
"I'm not even human anymore," she added, glancing at him. "Did you know that?"
She'd startled him into looking at her. "No," he admitted.
"Well." She shrugged. "I use Kerone's name, because that's easier for everyone. And maybe I'm still that girl from KO-35, at least as much as I'm an evil sorceress from the Dark Fortress. But I have these two totally opposing views on the universe, and to be honest, I'm never sure which one's talking when I open my mouth."
He would have to tell Ali, he thought with a sigh. The one person who might be remotely qualified to psychoanalyze him, and here she was, hiding out on the beach. "You live on KO-35 now?" he asked, his eye on one of the aquaculture stations.
He could see her nodding again. "Mm-hmm."
"Is it home?" he wanted to know.
"Yes," she said without hesitation. "It's where my family is."
Therein lay the problem, he thought. "Half of my family is here," he said quietly. "Terra Venture may not be home, but it's the closest thing I've got."
"Will you defend it?" she asked, her voice just as soft.
He hadn't realized what she was asking the first time. "Yeah," he muttered. "I can be their sixth." It wasn't like he could take the morphers off anyway.
"Good." He could hear her smile in her words. "Megaship training today, right after lunch. One o'clock. Or 1300, as Kai is so fond of saying."
He glanced sideways at her. "Megaship training?"
"Yup." She looked absurdly pleased about it. "They're not that bad once you get them all arranged by color. You're NASADA though, right? I don't think you'll have too much trouble."
"Did I mention I'm insane?" he inquired, as politely as he could.
"Did I mention that describes half the Rangers I know?" she replied. "All you are is what you're doing right now. That's what my husband says."
"Is he a Ranger?" he asked.
She nodded. "He's Silver. And he can fly the Megaship with an AI copilot alone," she added, as though this might reassure him somehow.
"Is he one of the insane ones?" he continued.
This made her laugh. "Actually, no. He's pretty well-balanced," she admitted. "My brother's a little crazy, though. And one of the biggest heroes the Border has ever seen."
"Must be hard to live with," he mumbled, abandoning his questioning in the face of her determined carelessness. Apparently he was going to train on the Megaship this afternoon.
"He's terrible," she declared fondly. "And completely worth it."
He remembered what it felt like to have someone who thought that about him. He remembered what it felt like to have several people think that about him, but only one of them was still alive. If he lost that person because he was busy mourning the others...
They sat there for a long time, and it took a while for him to realize that she had stopped talking when he did. It took him longer to realize that he actually felt like talking to someone. Not to her, but to someone. To one person in particular.
He knew instinctively that the morphers the Galaxy Ranger wore could signal any radio or comm in the colony. He also knew that no one could contact them first without a morpher of their own. But did it have to be a transmorpher?
Did it matter, really? He wasn't going to interrupt whatever Leo was doing. He would see him after lunch, on the Megaship. In the meantime he could leave a message, like everyone else. It wasn't like he couldn't use a comm.
So he told the leader of the Rangers that he would be at training that afternoon. He tried to think like Mike, but it was disconcerting to come back after three weeks and find his little brother in charge of the Power Rangers. It wasn't much better for Estavan, reporting to someone half his age and not being in any way impressed by the team's lack of organization.
He almost did try Leo's morpher then, because all of a sudden he really needed to hear a familiar voice instead of all these foreign words--but if he activated his own morpher and there was no response, he wasn't sure he could handle that. Better to maintain the illusion, if illusion it was.
He made it through the rest of the morning by listening to Mike's music and indulging in Mike's habits: reading colonist bios to pass the time, and trying to decipher the new telemetry from astrophysics. The further they got from Earth, the more exciting the readings became, as Terra Venture was equipped with better instruments than any of the old probes and had already traveled thousands of times as far. It was, as he had been informed on a number of occasions, an incredibly geeky way to spend his free time.
He liked it. Spending hours holed up in his room alone with scientific data was actually one of the most relaxing things he'd done since he'd gotten here. The music probably hadn't hurt either. He'd felt strange using Mike's things other than out of necessity or by accident, partly because the room wasn't quite the way he remembered it and that made it feel like maybe the real Mike had been and gone in his absence. But these were his things, this was his room, and there wasn't anyone else to come and claim it, to call him an imposter.
Just because he remembered another life now didn't mean that this one wasn't his too.
He was feeling all right when he finally left his room for the Megaship. He even nodded to someone in the hall, just to see what would happen, and he felt vaguely proud of himself when they nodded back. He was Mike Corbett, after all. It wasn't like he didn't belong here.
The battleship, though. That was another story. No one questioned his presence in Hangar 5, even when he stood outside the Megaship for several long minutes, staring up at it... but this wasn't his life. Battleships? Space battleships? When had the GSA's weird thing about him accepting a military commission turned NASA into "Starship Troopers"?
It was a question that wouldn't be answered by standing around outside. There was a ramp down at the back of the ship, and it was farther away than it looked but it was also the only obvious way on board. No one tried to stop him as he put one foot on it, then carefully made his way up and... in? On? Through?
The hatch opened onto some kind of room, or holding bay, or welcome lobby for all he knew. There was an obvious doorway out, nothing but a hallway visible beyond. He could hear voices as he stepped inside, though, and he glanced around.
Several things hit him at once. Leo was here. Kai was also here. And his little brother was flirting with his very military friend. The reasons for this instant impression didn't register for a second or two afterwards: Kai was standing next to some sort of wall-mounted keypad, but his back was to it while Leo had his hand braced against the wall on his other side, earnestly explaining that Astronaut Bear could kick Air Force Bear's butt.
He wasn't sure whether it was the scene or the statement that prompted his incredulous, "What?"
Kai stiffened, and Leo pushed away from the wall smoothly, his hand going to the back of his neck like it had been on its way there all along. "Hey," he said, an abashed little boy grin accompanying his shrug. "You know, the Vermont Teddy Bear Company? Their Astronaut Bear is totally cooler than their Air Force Bear. I was just saying, if they ever fought--"
"Astronaut Bear would be at a disadvantage," Kai said, no expression on his face. "Muscles atrophy in orbit. He would obviously lose."
"He obviously wouldn't; he's got a head the size of a pumpkin! He's wearing a giant helmet and all Air Force Bear has is that little beret. Astronaut Bear headbutts him and he wins, easy."
"Why do you assume they're both male bears?" Kai wanted to know. "What if the astronaut is a woman and the Air Force... bear, is a man?"
Leo put his hands in his pockets, smirking. "Are you saying a man could beat up a female Astronaut Bear?"
"I'm saying no woman would be stupid enough to headbutt someone," Kai informed him. "Why are we talking about this?"
"I was just wondering that myself," he said, frowning at Leo. Leo didn't do flowers, but he did do stuffed animals. He'd heard the Vermont Teddy Bear line before. The only question was, why the hell was he talking teddy bears with Kai?
And why was Kai putting up with it?
"I'm trying to win a bet," Leo said easily. "I told Kendrix no way is Kai early every single day for a month. So far I'm losing. I decided it was time for a more proactive strategy."
"I'm going to the Bridge now," Kai announced. Then, to Leo, "Try not to be later than I am early.
"Good to have you here," Kai added, glancing his way. If the expression on his face said it might not be, his tone was completely neutral.
He didn't answer.
"Hey," Leo said, as Kai walked away. "I got your message. I'm glad you came."
He gave his brother a look. "The Vermont Teddy Bear Company?" he said pointedly.
"What?" Leo demanded. "It's a perfectly good line. Guys like it. It proves you're not too macho without being annoyingly femme. It probably works on women, too; you should try it and let me know."
"Kai's military," he growled. The California Air National Guard might not be the Marines, but it was under the jurisdiction of the USAF and all personnel were subject to the same code of conduct. "Leave him alone."
"He's Kai," Leo said, rolling his eyes. "I think he can make his own decisions about whether he wants to go out with me or not."
They were seeing each other? In the years since they'd met, he'd known Kai to date exactly one person. A female person. And here was Leo, with his puppyish charm and his teddy bear pickup lines, casually outing him and laying claim at the same time.
"I'm gone for three weeks and my little brother starts dating Command staff," he muttered. "This is so wrong."
"It's not Command staff," Leo protested. "It's just Kai. You don't have to make it sound like I'm working my way through the officers."
He winced, and he could practically hear Leo bristle.
"What's your problem?" Leo demanded. "You totally freaked Kai out, and it's not like he needs more to worry about."
"He should be worried!" he burst out, glaring at Leo. "He's putting the moves on my little brother!"
This made Leo pause. "Wait..." He was frowning, an odd look on his face. "Which one of us are you mad at?"
"Both of you," he said testily. "Aren't you a little old for this kind of thing?" It was out before he could think about it, and he didn't until he saw Leo's expression get even more confused.
"For what? Being gay?"
Yes, he realized. Hadn't Leo grown out of that yet? And what was Kai doing encouraging him?
"No," he said slowly. "I don't--"
Leo was waiting, not defensive enough to seize the silence. Not yet.
"Don't tell me things like that," he said at last. He couldn't talk about this, couldn't think about it, not when it was Leo and he didn't even know who he was. All he knew was that if Leo wanted to protect Kai, then there were things he had to learn not to say.
"What's that supposed to mean?" Leo wanted to know.
"It means don't tell," he muttered, rubbing his eyes tiredly. Sometime in the last three thousand years, he had forgotten just how much trouble his brother could be. "As long as you don't say anything, no one is allowed to ask any questions. Okay?"
"What, don't-ask-don't-tell?" Leo said it like it was all one word, and his lip curled in derision. "That's a stupid policy."
"Well, Clinton agreed with you," he grumbled. The knowledge was just there, like he'd always known it. "Congress didn't. The only way to keep them from kicking gays out of the military altogether was to make it illegal for anyone to talk about it."
"There's no Congress here," Leo pointed out. "And you're not anyone."
That was true, actually. He'd given up his place at the research center for a commission on Terra Venture, and now the only uniform he was wearing was a t-shirt and a leather jacket. He'd probably be officially discharged as soon as someone from Medlab got around to updating their records. Maybe he really wasn't anyone.
"I know he's your friend," Leo was saying, frowning like it had only just occurred to him. "Maybe that's weird for you, I don't know. But I never lied to you about guys before and I'm not going to start now."
He didn't know what to say to that. Mike never knew what to say when Leo acted like an adult, when he came out with something that sounded reasonable and articulate and startlingly grown up. All he could do was clap him on the shoulder, awkward and instinctive and utterly un-thought out.
Because of course Leo went to hug him. Leo was a hugger; he was the most touchy-feely guy Mike knew and maybe it came with the gay territory and maybe it didn't, Mike had no idea. But Leo hadn't so much as patted him on the arm since he got back, maybe waiting--in retrospect--for his brother to make the first move, to give him some signal that it was okay.
Arms went around him and dormant nerves sparked to life all over his body and it felt like his brain was overloading. He squeezed his eyes shut, because this was Leo and what the hell was he supposed to do? He couldn't move, couldn't breathe, couldn't keep tears from leaking out of his eyes. Conflicting messages flashed across his consciousness--pain comfort raw alive--and he couldn't think.
"You okay?" Leo was asking, pulling back, all the worry that he hadn't wanted there in his voice.
"I can't--" He was gasping for breath, pressing his hands to his eyes; his face was wet. "Touching... people." He swallowed, shaking his head. Wrapping his arms across his chest. "It's so weird in here."
"I'm sorry." Leo sounded stricken. "I didn't mean to..."
"Leo." He forced himself to lower his arms, burying his hands in his coat pockets, resisting the urge to wrap it tighter around himself. "Not your fault. Weird, remember? My head?"
He took a deep breath, trying to get out a complete sentence. "I didn't know that would happen." But he'd had a pretty good idea. He could barely handle a casual touch if he braced himself for it first. He should have known that that much tactile sensation, missing from his awareness for so long, would short-circuit his brain.
"Are you okay?" Leo repeated. He'd gone from just standing there to hovering anxiously without appearing to move, which was pretty damned impressive. "Should I get someone?"
He said it because it had to be said, not because it was necessarily true. "I'm okay." He couldn't tell whether that was reassuring or not, so he added, "Probably good shock therapy, anyway. I don't know why touching people is so strange."
"I should have asked." Leo sounded chastened and chagrinned, which was not a good tone for him. It made Mike feel instantly protective.
"You don't have to ask permission to hug your brother," he said, more roughly than he'd meant to. Trying to soften his tone, he muttered, "I'm glad you didn't."
Sadly, even this most obvious of truths made Leo beam, as though he hadn't been sure of it before. "Well, maybe some warning next time," he said, somewhere between pleased and apologetic. "You want to get up to the Bridge? Kai's making us look bad enough as it is."
Leo looked like he was about to head off without waiting for an answer, so he said, "Hey." When Leo glanced at him, he cleared his throat and mumbled, "Tell Kai not to screw up."
Leo scoffed. "Yeah," he said, his tone making it clear how likely that was, "I'll be sure to pass that on."
"Never mind," he muttered. Because Kai already didn't trust him, not the way he was now, so what did he have to lose if he pissed off his friend by warning him away from Leo? "I'll tell him myself."
He could hear Leo rolling his eyes. "Whatever."
So Leo wasn't even worried about him interfering. He thought that was probably a bad sign. It was his younger brother, right? And Kai? Mike was supposed to have some kind of influence with them. Both of them.
Maybe not as much as he'd thought.
Leo was telling him something about the Megaship as they made their way to the Bridge, and he listened at least enough to know that this wasn't the ship-to-surface ferry Mike had ridden from Earth to Terra Venture and back again so many times. This was a Ranger Powered zord-quality vehicle made for deep space, atmospheric combat, and everything in between. The potential had been there all along, apparently, but without a team that understood alien battleship technology, it was little more than a cargo hauler.
He wasn't convinced that the Galaxy Rangers were that team, but if Kerone thought they could learn, who was he to say otherwise? It was her ship. Apparently. Her ship, her time, and her convictions. He had firsthand experience with how dangerous it was to be on the wrong side of her faith.
The elevator they were riding in opened directly onto the Bridge, and as the doors pulled back he had the fleeting impression of a crew at work. The fantasy was dispelled as each figure resolved into someone Mike knew, tech coveralls and GSA uniforms, a ragtag bunch performing minor operations under Kerone's supervision. But just for a moment, Estavan had seen what Kerone must see every time she looked: new students, new Rangers... the beginnings of a team that might be able to do something with this ship.
Everything has its beginning, he mused. And most things began without the benefit of a teacher, a mentor, some guide in the darkness. If they were young and disorganized, they were also strong and determined. They wouldn't be paralyzed by these times.
And then Shairra stepped out from behind Kerone, smiling at him in welcome.
"Did you guys meet?" Leo was asking, as they all started to gather at the back of the Bridge. Abandoning stations and tasks and he wondered if there wasn't something more important they could be doing than staring at him. "I can't remember; I think I blocked out most of that day..."
"Only for a moment," Maya said, not unkindly. And of course, she was the one from Mirinoi, from his own planet, foreign clothes and native jewelry and she was barefoot on the metal deck of this battleship. He was the stranger here.
"I'm afraid we weren't properly introduced," she added, turning her hands palm-up and still smiling at him. "I'm Maya. Thank you for what you did for my planet."
He echoed her gesture without thinking about it, the habit there alongside all the others as though he'd always done it. "Estavan," he said, because she held a saber and therefore had no need of titles. "Thank you for what you do for our people."
There was a profound silence from the Rangers gathered around him. Only the systems' hum and the almost inaudible whisper of recycled air disturbed the quiet. He could feel Kerone's gaze among the others, the only one who didn't seem surprised.
"And," he said, belatedly realizing what he'd done, "Mike Corbett." He offered his hand awkwardly, not sure the gesture would have been right in the first place, let alone now.
But Maya's expression cleared, and she nodded. "Yes," she said, taking his hand with a curious smile. "That's how I first knew you, I think. Are you two different people now?"
"No," he muttered, trying not to catch anyone else's eye. He didn't really want to know how they were looking at him. "Just... two lives' worth of information in my head, I guess."
"Like an incarni?" Her voice was gentle, and he thought she was trying to coax him into an explanation. If he had one, he'd give it to her.
"I don't know what that is," he said, releasing her and shoving both his hands back in his pockets. Not exactly an officer stance. Not even particularly polite. But at least it was less revealing.
"Someone who remembers the lives they've lived before," Maya supplied. "I'm sorry; you--you introduced yourself as someone from my planet would."
He swallowed. "I lived on Mirinoi a long time ago," he mumbled. "I'm sure the language has changed since then."
"No," she said quickly. "I mean, of course, but I think 'incarni' is a modern term. Part of the spiritualist movement. I understand these things repeat over the years, but the words associated with them probably differ."
He just nodded. It wasn't so much that she looked like his first wife as it was that she stood out among the people of Earth. All he had seen since he got here were people from Mike's planet--with the possible exception of Kerone--and when someone from Estavan's world came forward, suddenly home didn't feel quite so far away.
"So... you remember being Mike?" It was Kendrix who had stepped into the breach. "And you remember being this other person too? From Mirinoi?"
"Estavan," Kerone said softly. Habit made him glance her way at the sound of his name, and she just smiled a little. More wistful than sympathetic.
Her recognition gave him the strength to look around at the rest of them. "I am Mike," he told them. "It's just... it's like I was Mike for a while, and then I went and lived Estavan's life. And now I'm back, and I have to be Mike again.
"Except it's not that simple," he added, frustrated all over again that he couldn't make it sound like he felt. "It isn't one and then the other, it's just... both of them, sort of--jammed together."
Damon was giving him a look he recognized. It was the why does this work when someone put it together completely wrong? look. "That's really weird," he said.
He had to shrug, because yeah, it was. "That's what I'm saying."
"It's like a long deployment," Kai said quietly. "Right? You come back, and you remember everyone, but they remember the old you. The way you used to be, before all the stuff you saw."
He looked at Kai in surprise. It shouldn't have startled him, really. Kai always said he'd come back from Lackland different. "Yeah," he heard himself saying. "Kind of like that, I guess."
"Can you tell us?" Leo wanted to know. "I mean--about Estavan?"
He didn't know how to answer that, but he knew he had to. "Maybe," he said at last. That was the best he could do. "Not today."
"Well," Kendrix began, sounding almost hopeful. "We're glad to have you back."
He found himself smiling at her earnestness. It was really no surprise that Kai had gotten her into the civilian military training program. She was game for anything. "Thanks," he told her. And he meant it.
That seemed to be the signal: for Damon to reach out and cuff him on the shoulder, for Kendrix to come forward and pat his arm, for even Maya to invade his personal space. Just like Leo, he realized afterward, they were just waiting to know that it was okay. But it wasn't, and he flinched away from the press of attention.
"Hey," Leo said quickly, catching Kendrix by the shoulders and physically holding her back. Maya stopped when she did, and he saw Leo give Damon and even Kai a warning look. "Just leave it, okay?"
"I can't--" It was up to him to say something before they all got mad at Leo, but he didn't know what to say. "It's a weird... thing. I'm sorry," he muttered. "I just--I can't."
"Are you all right?" Maya asked, and she sounded worried but she was looking at the rest of them as much as at him. Like she personally had done something wrong and they might know what it was. Kendrix was giving Leo pretty much the same look.
"He's cool," Leo said, intervening with enviable ease. "He just needs some space. He remembers being trapped in stone for three thousand years, you know? It can make a guy pretty claustrophobic."
Leo was so convincing that for a moment even he thought it might be true. It made sense. It explained everything about his reaction--except the way he actually felt. It was contact, not crowding. Claustrophobia didn't explain the way he'd knocked Ali's equipment to the floor because she touched his wrist, or the way he'd been crying when Leo hugged him.
Everyone was nodding sympathetically. Everyone but Kerone, who knew what claustrophobia was and was giving him an odd look for Leo's explanation. She didn't say anything, though, and it occurred to him that she had never told him that. Had she? What would she know about claustrophobia?
"Personal space," Kai was saying. "No problem. Anything else we should know?"
"Yeah," he said, before he could stop himself. He was looking right at Kai, but it was some combination of the moment and the concern more than the person in particular. "Don't fuck with my brother."
Kai's return stare was expressionless.
"Okay," Leo said, filling the silence. "When you said you'd tell him yourself, I didn't think you'd really do it."
"None of us would ever hurt Leo," Kendrix said, looking from one of them to the other. "You don't have to worry. We take care of each other."
That wasn't what he meant, and there was no way she could not know it.
"We're okay," he told Kai, who was standing at something resembling parade rest. "We're fine. Just remember, he's my little brother. And I know where you live."
"Would you cut it out?" Leo complained. "I'm not twelve anymore."
That was a thought. "You know he's twenty, right?" he said, ignoring Leo to remind Kai. "He can't even drink."
"Okay, shut up now," Leo warned him.
"Be glad you're not my younger sister," he told Leo. "We wouldn't even be having this conversation."
"I can only wish!" Leo retorted.
"Look, if there are decoder rings," Damon interrupted, "can I have one? What the hell are you talking about?"
There was a quiet moment where it occurred to him that maybe delivering that ultimatum in front of the entire team hadn't been the best idea. Leo glanced at Kai, who was staring straight ahead, now refusing to make eye contact with anyone. Maya was leaning against Kendrix's shoulder, both of them wearing worried expressions. Kerone looked vaguely amused.
"Uh--" Leo seemed stuck for words for maybe the first time all day, gaze going from him to Kai and back again. "Damon doesn't--didn't actually... know."
Ah.
"Know what?" Damon demanded. "Is this like the cancer thing? Why am I the last person to know anything around here?"
He blinked at that. "The cancer thing?"
"Oh, no," Damon declared, leveling him with a look. "You first. You got some kind of problem with Kai?" The tone said he'd better not.
He looked back at Kai, who still wouldn't meet his gaze. "No," he said. "I don't have a problem with Kai."
"Leo?" Damon said impatiently.
"No," he repeated, when Leo gave him a pointed look. "I don't have a problem with anyone."
"I actually... um," Kendrix paused when they all looked at her. "I broke some rules to get onto Terra Venture. I mean, it was for a good cause; you'd never have gotten someone as good as me if I hadn't--"
"It doesn't matter now," Maya said quickly. "Now that you're a Ranger."
He frowned at them. "What doesn't matter?"
"I have leukemia," Kendrix blurted out. "I was diagnosed back on Earth, just before I joined the GSA. I didn't tell them."
"Because she wanted to make a difference," Maya offered. "They valued her life over her freedom."
"Yeah, except now no one can find anything wrong with her." Leo was quick to jump in--protecting Kai, he thought--smiling at Kendrix and getting an embarrassed shrug in return. "Bet you wish you hadn't gone to all the trouble of telling us, now."
"No," she protested, but her tone was fond and she was obviously happy with the attention. If he didn't know his brother, if he hadn't seen him with Kai just a few minutes before, he might have put the two of them together in his mind.
"I had to tell you," she was saying. "And there's no reason to think it's gone--now at least they can monitor me, so when it comes back I'll know."
"Her white blood cell counts are totally normal," Leo told him, making a show of ignoring her protests. He looked proud and pleased, like he bore some of the responsibility, and he clearly expected an answer.
Mike had no idea what that meant, and Estavan was no better off. "That's good," he said, glancing at Kendrix. "Right?"
"That's impossible," she said with a grin. "Kind of like Leo firing an energy rifle one-handed."
"Oh, please," Kai muttered. "Like he's the only one who can do that."
"Still waiting," Damon commented to the group at large.
"Look, the military has a policy about telling people, okay?" Kai snapped. "So I didn't. It's not because of you."
Damon didn't look any more enlightened. "Huh?"
"Kai and Leo," he muttered, still not thrilled about the idea but willing to do his part if Kai was going to look that miserable. He waved back and forth between the two of them, just as happy to not know exactly what he was indicating. "They're... you know."
"What?" At first he thought Damon still wasn't getting it, but then the tech added, "Seriously? Maya and Kendrix, I know, but this is crazy."
Glancing at him before anyone could react, Damon asked, "You straight, man? 'Cause I'm starting to feel a little outnumbered."
"Welcome to my life." Kai's tone was icy, and he closed his mouth abruptly. Kai was glaring at them. "So you get to be the minority for an hour a day. Big deal."
"Hey." The dark-skinned man gave Kai a warning look. "I didn't mean anything by it. And don't tell me about having to keep your mouth shut, because you get that choice."
It was Leo's voice that stopped them, silencing them before someone said something they couldn't take back. "No one sees us the way we really are," he said quietly. "Okay? We're all too young, too gay, too black, too poor. Too sick. We all know what it's like.
"We're safe here," he continued. "With each other. None of us is going to have a problem with anyone else, so let's just drop it. We're a team. We've got each other's backs.
"Right?" Leo added, looking around at all of them.
"Right," Kendrix replied immediately.
Kai nodded once, then again when Leo looked directly at him.
Damon shrugged. "Sure," he agreed. "No problem here.
"Although," Damon added, "if you guys could tell me things, that would be great. If we had a mailing list or something, we could maybe avoid stuff like this."
Kendrix actually laughed, and he heard Kerone giggle. Even Kai smiled reluctantly, but Leo looked kind of thoughtful. "That's not a bad idea."
"A mailing list," Maya said, nudging Kendrix gently. "Is that like the news you get every morning?"
"Mmm-hmm." Kendrix nodded, and she sounded serious when she said, "E-mail is actually more private than a lot of the conversations on Terra Venture. With all the environmental monitoring, you're as likely to be recorded as not, but non-archived data is--
"Unless you're inside," she said quickly. "I mean, obviously residences and most workplaces are private."
He looked around, but he couldn't tell who she was responding to. Either Kai or Damon must have made some sort of face that prompted her correction. Given Kai's poker face, he would bet on it being Damon.
"Do you think you could set up something for us?" Leo was asking. "At least for training announcements and stuff? Kai ends up calling everyone about training practically every day. Or I do. I don't know why we don't just use e-mail."
"Because Maya doesn't have an e-mail address," Kai said. "And you don't check yours, so what good does it do?"
"I could," Leo argued. "I just don't, because who e-mails me?"
"No one," Kai countered. "Because they know you won't check it."
"That's the most circular argument I've ever heard," Damon informed them. "Be more creative or knock it off."
"I can get you an e-mail account," Kendrix was telling Maya. "Most of the colonist accounts are set up by last name and however many initials we need to be able to tell people apart. Do you want 'Mirinoi' as your last name?"
"Is e-mail separate from comm codes?" Kerone asked Leo quietly.
"Yeah, the comm is priority." Leo replied in kind, the words soft under Kai's current protest and Kendrix's explanation. "The system automatically routes incoming calls to wherever you logged in last. If you don't pick up, the messages follow you around. E-mail doesn't. You have to go get it, like back home."
"Get it where?" she asked, all innocence, and he couldn't help smiling at the overheard conversation. Kerone was strong and smart and opinionated as all get out, but occasionally something she didn't have any reason to know would revive the cute blonde illusion.
"What color is Mike?" Damon's question startled him out of idle eavesdropping and made him refocus on the conversation with Kai. "I mean, if our duty stations are assigned by color--"
"Only until we learn something about them without the Power," Kai interrupted.
"Whatever," Damon said. "I'm just saying, if he's Black, are you still the navigator?"
"Yes," Kerone put in, apparently satisfied with Leo's explanation of Terra Venture's telecommunication systems. "Because Mike isn't Black."
There was a way in which this made sense. Or so he was told. Unfortunately, none of the explanations they offered were that way. The main thing he got out of it was that Kai and Kerone had two totally different methods for assigning duty stations, and Kerone's was the one they were using right now.
Kai had apparently assigned them by relevant skills, which meant that he flew the ship, Kendrix shot at things, and Damon told them if they were about to blow up or crash. Maya mostly tried to stay out of the way. Leo sat directly to Kai's right, that supposedly being the place where he could do the least damage.
Maya got that seat when Kerone was assigning stations, which she claimed she did by color. Interestingly, Kendrix still got to shoot things, and Damon was still in charge of bad news. But Kai had to give up the pilot seat to Leo--something that Leo complained about a lot more than Kai did, as far as he could tell.
"Seriously," Leo said, only minutes after launch. "I suck at this."
"You only suck as much as you think you suck," Kerone told him, in a sagely teenage way. "Confidence isn't usually such a big problem for Red Rangers."
They'd taken the Megaship out on a practice run, close enough to Terra Venture that their scanners could keep an eye on the colony, and far enough away that hopefully the reverse wasn't true. Because Leo was right. He really didn't seem to have any knack for flying. Which was perfectly understandable, given that he had zero training, but Kerone seemed convinced his Ranger color alone could make up for that.
"Maybe I'd be more confident with Kai piloting," Leo complained. He couldn't seem to keep his eyes on the readout, constantly looking up at the screen as though they might be about to hit something and he would see it coming if he looked up fast enough.
"I'm more confident with him navigating," Kerone replied. "Trust me, there's nothing you can do up here that he can't override back there."
"So why is he back there at all?" Leo grumbled. It had the sound of a familiar argument, not something he expected to produce results, just something he said for the sake of form.
"You decide what the ship should do," Kerone said. "Kai decides--"
"How the ship should do it," Leo finished, repeating what must be an oft-used explanation along with her. "I must be the least-qualified person on this team to decide what the ship should do."
He felt Kerone's gaze on him a moment before she spoke. "He's actually very good in battle simulations," she confided, a note of amusement in her voice. "You wouldn't know it to hear him complain, but when he stops thinking about what he's doing he's a remarkably competent pilot."
He thought she didn't expect a response, but he had one anyway. "So put them in a battle simulation," he said. "If it's about building confidence."
"We've done seven battle simulations in the past two days," she said, a little apologetically.
He shrugged. "Pilots train on the basics until they know enough to move up. If battle is basic for a Ranger pilot, why not let him train on it until he knows enough to--" What? "Fly without people shooting at him?"
So they ran another battle simulation. The difference was staggering. Damon stopped fidgeting. Kai turned on like someone had thrown a switch. Kendrix was suddenly paying attention to her station, instead of the rest of the team. Maya, oddly, seemed to be doing less, and he wondered what all of those buttons she'd been pushing before really did.
Leo, though, underwent the most dramatic change. Not only did he stop complaining, he also managed to sit up straight, focus on the tactical readout in front of him, and give orders at the same time. He even seemed to hear the replies. Most amazing of all, he actually flew the ship. Power Ranger or not, that had been hard to imagine--right up until the moment he was doing it.
No matter how hard it had been to doubt Kerone before this, it was going to be harder now.
His respect for her--and the team she was mentoring--only grew as the afternoon continued. Megaship training was followed by combat training: hand-to-hand, from which he was excused, and fencing, from which he most definitely was not. He watched their hand-to-hand training, fascinated in spite of himself, and he didn't think anything of their sparring groups until he saw Kerone taking on Leo and Kai at the same time.
She wiped the mat with them, just as she'd done with Kendrix, Damon, and Maya before them. She'd taken the three of them, simultaneously, in seconds. Leo and Kai went down as hard as their teammates, no question. But it took... longer.
He thought maybe she was just messing with them at first. Kerone was deadly on the mats, and it took no time at all to understand that she really could kill them. Possibly all of them at once. But with Leo and Kai, she acted like she might have to work just a little bit harder at it.
It wasn't until he joined them for fencing that he became sure it was more than an act. He was paired with Damon while Kendrix and Maya faced off against one another--and in between, Leo and Kai swung at each other hard enough to strike sparks. Not a mistake, he realized, holding up a hand to make Damon wait while he watched. They were hitting hard and blocking harder and a single miss could have chopped either one of them in half.
"Is that safe?" he muttered, feeling stupid for asking but admittedly appalled by their no-holds-barred approach to practice.
Damon snorted. "That's why they're always partners. They'd kill the rest of us. Except maybe Kerone."
He was informed that they worked together out of physical necessity--a statement that would have made him scoff if he hadn't seen them. He knew his brother could defend himself. He knew Kai was pretty capable. But seeing Kai pin Leo's sword and lift him up off the ground with one hand was comparable only to Leo's retaliation, which had Kai on the ground a moment later.
He was literally the only person in the room surprised by their show.
On the other hand, he also seemed to be the only person who wasn't surprised when Leo casually invited himself along to dinner after training. "I'm just going back to my room," he muttered, because he was.
"That's cool," Leo said easily. "Can I come?"
"Yeah." Obviously. "If you want."
"Great." Leo shrugged into his jacket, and he had to say something. Because how much of a coincidence was it that Leo had picked that exact jacket?
"Nice jacket," he offered, smiling a little to himself.
"Thanks." Leo looked as though he took this very seriously. "I know you didn't... well. Kai told me. I mean, he said--he told me you got it for me."
It took him a minute to figure out what Leo meant, but finally he got it. Not so much of a coincidence after all, then. And maybe it explained why his room didn't look quite the way Mike had left it.
"Yeah," he said. He glanced over at Kai, who wasn't even pretending not to watch them. "Thanks," he added quietly.
Their eyes met, and Kai nodded once.
It was Monday evening as he waited for Leo by the door of the locker room. The last week of the first month post-launch. Twenty-one days and an entire lifetime gone; three days, one team, and maybe half of his old home back.
Maybe just enough.