Commander Cruger paced about the conference room that had been cleared out to accommodate both squads. Meredith folded her hands gently on the table in front of her, avoiding Sky's gaze that she could feel now burning upon her. To her left the blue Fire-squad ranger, Aidan, let his eyes glaze over the A-squad sitting across the table with disinterest. The mission had been completed and he wanted to know why they were still on earth. They had been diverted on their way to his home planet of Druidia, having been scheduled for a week of seminars and light training and he was eager to resume their original plan. He ran a hand over his short black hair, releasing a slow breath and letting his almond eyes flick back to the Commander.
The black Fire-squad ranger bounced one leg up and down anxiously, his mind on the same wavelength as his blue teammate. His gently tousled light brown hair and green eyes had caught the eye of the platinum haired A-squad pink ranger as he leaned back in his chair. Duke, or Crater as he was affectionately called, raised his hand half-heartedly to get the attention of the now cryptic commander. "With all due respect sir, why are we still here? We came with the device you requested and the criminal is secure…" he goaded gently.
At her teammate's comment something inside Meredith's brain clicked. Her head cocked gently to the side in revelation and she spoke evenly, "A prototype blue print for the device could have been sent from Central Command and made with the machinery here in under ten minutes. But you requested our squad specifically…why are we really here?" It didn't take a psychic to pick up on the nervous energy Cruger was emitting, although apparently the new A-Squad green ranger was in fact psychic.
Dozer leaned forward in anticipation of his Commander's response. He supposed he never really thought about it that way, though he assumed calling in the Fire-squad was just another attempt at keeping Sky's ego in check. A rather aggressive and unnecessary one but Commander Cruger prided himself on keeping those around him on their toes. Cruger stopped in his tracks and sighed heavily, "I apologize for being mysterious about why you're here. But there have been several leaks in the upper echelon of S.P.D. and I couldn't risk letting this information get into the wrong hands."
"A mole?" Sky questioned, unable to keep the disbelief from his voice.
Cruger nodded curtly. "But that's not why you're here. I've requested your presence due to the continuing disturbance with a dimensional tear. Over the last two weeks several civilians and S.P.D. equipment has disappeared. Our monitors of the area show activity off the charts, but we can't seem to keep surveillance on it. We fear that it's being used by an underground Troobian cell to conduct arms trade and gather their forces. Both squads here have had some experience with dimensional tears before, especially the Fire-squad," he explained, finally taking his seat at the head of the table between Meredith and Sky. Josh, the green Fire-squad ranger, let flashbacks of Mirinoi and the weeks worth of dimension hopping they did while there chasing a terrorist mutant pass through his mind.
"Why weren't we alerted to this two weeks ago?" Sky asked, baffled as to why they of all people would be left in the dark about something so serious.
"We didn't have enough information to draw your resources away from doing battle with the Charfratt brothers," Cruger dismissed, referring to the two Kerovian rebels that had been taking personal vengeance upon Earth's civilians up until two days ago.
"Where is it?" the yellow A-squad ranger asked, clearly confused by the whole situation. The yellow Fire-squad ranger watched the olive skinned brunette from across the table with interest as he flipped his shaggy blonde hair out of his hazel eyes. Berret, or 'Lucky', had to mentally shake himself from staring as he tried to refocus on the conversation at hand.
'Oh God, please don't say it…please let it be somewhere else,' Meredith silently prayed in a sudden surge of panic. Her throat constricted and her cheeks flushed, having a sinking feeling she knew exactly where the disturbance was.
Cruger hesitated only a moment before answering, "Sector twelve."
'Fuck.' Dozer, Sky, and even Cruger immediately looked at Meredith, watching to see what her reaction would be. Trying to shrug it off she stared back blankly, trying to keep from reacting outwardly at all.
The A-squad pink ranger noticed the sudden focus on the female red ranger and scrunched her nose in confusion. "Is there something special about sector twelve?" Sydney asked, wondering if she forgot to read a chapter in her handbook or something. Her teammate Laura nodded her head as well, wondering the exact same thing.
"No," Meredith replied quickly. A little too quickly Josh noted mentally.
Dozer scoffed in disbelief while Sky shook his head slightly at Meredith's response, both saying nothing. Cruger took the opportunity to end the meeting, "Alright that's enough for now. It's been a long night and you should all try to get as much rest as possible before the morning. We'll report back here at 0800 hours tomorrow. Dismissed."
Both squads filed out of the room, eager to get some well deserved rest. Sky gently took Meredith's arm, stopping her from following the rest of her squad to the guest quarters. She shrugged out of his grasp and looked up expectantly. "What?"
"I think we should talk about this whole thing," Sky began awkwardly, suddenly regretting trying to talk to her about the sector twelve situation, both past and present.
"You didn't want to talk about it nine months ago…why would we start now?" Meredith asked flippantly, turning and taking a step to walk away. She wanted desperately to put the past behind her, to not feel the sting of betrayal every time she thought of what happened but she couldn't.
"Stop. That's an order," Sky said authoritatively before he could stop himself, instantly cringing at how he had sounded.
Meredith stopped dead, shocked he would pull something like that with her. Even when she was his second in command he had never ordered her around so disrespectfully. It was insulting at best. She turned around slowly, her stoic expression so foreign to her usually warm and inviting features. "You can't order me to do anything," she replied coolly, spreading her arms slightly and indicating her uniform.
Sky felt as if he had been slapped in the face, frozen in place and not quite sure what to say. Meredith ignored the hint of guilt as she turned back around and walked slowly but purposefully away. Sky watched her retreating figure turn the corner and he felt overwhelmed. He wanted to punch something and break down all at the same time. After years of being so close their relationship had come to this, taking cheap shots at each other. He reluctantly turned and headed back to his quarters, opting instead of an extra work out to crash. The small but charged fight with Meredith had left him emotionally drained and he didn't want to think about it anymore tonight.