In The Face Of Defeat
Chapter 7
Fallout
Anton, Elsa, and Tommy were in the control room monitoring the rangers when the recall sequence was activated by Jeremy. Anton monitored the portal and grabbed Tommy as an unknown energy source entered the portal behind the rangers.
"What the hell is that?" Tommy asked.
"It has a Venjix signature", Anton replied.
"Divert the portal!" Tommy exclaimed, "We can't let it get inside."
Anton's fingers flew masterfully over the controls as it opened spitting the rangers out onto the floor. The machinery groaned as Anton attempted to seal the portal and redirect it before whatever was in it made it through. After another moment the portal closed, but Anton continued to grimace at his console.
"Did you do it?" Elsa asked.
"Yes, and no", Anton replied, "I kept it out of the control room but it still made it into the compound."
"Where?" Shane asked as he opened the front of his helmet.
Anton looked over his scans and turned to look up at Shane, "Lower level seven, section thirty-nine."
"Shane, take the Ninja Rangers and go. Jeremy is going to help me get Zack down to the infirmary", Tommy said as he was picking up his old friend. Jeremy came up and helped with Zack's other side as the Ninja Rangers started heading down into the tunnels.
Kat and Kim came into the main infirmary room as Tommy and Jeremy laid Zack down on the table. Kat grabbed her stethoscope and walked up to the table.
"Zack", she said shaking him slightly, "Zack can you hear me?"
Zack groaned and opened his eyes, "Hey", he said weakly.
"Hey stranger", Kim said as she walked up to the bed as well.
"Hey Shorty", he mumbled out, "Nice outfit."
Kim looked down at her hospital gown and blushed slightly, "I'm your fellow patient."
"What did you do, fall down an elevator shaft?" he asked, "I feel like I did."
"I wish", she said with a smile, "I had a baby."
"That's nice", he said as he drifted back into unconsciousness.
"Is he ok?" Kim asked as she rubbed his hand.
"He'll be fine", Kat said, "He's severely dehydrated and malnourished, but we'll get him back up and going in a few days."
"Let me know when he comes to", Tommy ordered, "I want to know why he was missing for so damned long."
The Ninja Rangers entered the section of tunnel that housed the attackbot. Luckily for them it was in an area that was normally uninhabited, and also knew that this was a dead end so the monster had nowhere to go.
"Let me out of here!" they heard an angry yet metallic voice scream at them.
"What the hell are you?" Tori spouted off as the rangers entered their fighting stances.
"Shane this is Tommy, what do you see", Shane heard through his communicator.
"It's a full blown attackbot", Shane responded.
"Stealthbot", the monster corrected, Generation six."
"What was that?" Tommy asked through the communicator.
"The monster", Shane responded, "But it's about to be scrap."
"We shall see", the stealthbot responded.
"I've had enough of this freak", Hunter said as he pulled out his blaster, "Let's take him down."
After what seemed like a year of fighting, the rangers were getting tired, and had made absolutely no headway in defeating the monster. They all charged in at once as the monster let out energy blasts knocking them back down.
"What's the matter rangers?" The monster asked, "Getting too old and feeble to do your jobs?"
"Who are you calling old buckethead", Tori practically shrieked at the monster.
Tori and Shane both went to attack but were grabbed in mid-air by the helmets by the attackbot, "Old, feeble and slow", it said just before it smashed their heads together hard enough to shatter the visor in both helmets. Tori lost consciousness from the blow and Shane was knocked for a loop. The monster let out a yell and tossed them both at the other four rangers. Blake dropped to the ground and pulled his wife's head into his lap.
"I'll kill you for this you bastard creation!" he shouted.
With that, Hunter called Tommy on his communicator and said "Tommy, this guy is tough, can you use the sensors to try and find any weaknesses?"
"I can try", Tommy replied, "But I can't make any promises. The Stealthbot appears to be very heavily shielded against our scans. That, combined with his ability to become invisible, is probably why we didn't pick him up on sensors when he was still in Angel Grove."
"There's no time for that", Shane said as he forced his way up from the ground, "We have to end this now."
"What are we going to do", Cam asked.
"Fall back a little, we need more space", Shane said sternly.
Tori started to come around as they ran back about fifteen feet so she managed to carry herself most of the way. Once they were where that planned to make their stand Shane pulled out his blaster, dove forward, and fired several shots into the ceiling of the tunnel causing it to collapse.
"What the hell are you doing!" Tori yelled as a flood of rock came pouring down separating Shane from the other rangers.
"What must be done", she heard him yell as the cave in stopped.
"That was stupid", the monster said, "You have no chance to beat me now."
"I'll be the judge of that", Shane said, "Battleized mode engage. Full power."
Tommy looked at his console and gasped when he saw Shane's energy level drastically increasing.
"What the hell does he think he's doing?" he yelled, "Anton, get him out of there."
"I can't", Anton replied, "The interior teleporters can't get a lock through that amount of energy."
Shane looked at the monster as his armor started to whine from overload, and smiles through his broken helmet, "Your ass is mine now."
The other rangers were trying to dig their way through the rubble when they heard a faint whine coming through the rocks. Cam's eyes widened as he realized what was about to happen, "Get out of here it's going to exp…" he tried to yell, but was interrupted by a deafening explosion and they were all hurled down the corridor. The rangers picked themselves up and made their way back to the battle area. The monster was reduced to a pile of sparking scrap, but Shane was nowhere to be seen.
"What happened?" Blake asked in an unsure tone of voice.
Cam's voice began to crack as he responded, "He overloaded his battleizer."
Tori felt something under her boot and gasped as she looked down to see what it was. She bent down to pick it up, and let loose a few tears as she realized that it was Shane's, burnt and broken morpher.
"Oh no", Blake said as she stepped up beside Tori, "He didn't make it."
"What's going on down there", Tommy's voice came angrily over the communicators.
"The attackbot's been defeated", Hunter replied.
"But we lost Shane", Tori added.
Tommy pounded the console in anger before turning back to his communication, "I want all of you up her now, and I want to know exactly what happened!"
Across the land in a domed city a young woman sat at a massive computer terminal monitoring energy readings when she noticed a tremendous spike on one of her monitors. She went to work trying to pinpoint the source when she stopped cold in awe of the readings. "This isn't possible", she muttered. After a few moments of scanning she had triangulated the spike to a small area in the California desert. What was even more astounding was the fact that she picked up several more non-Venjix energy readings as well as an unorthodox communication frequency. Typing a few more commands; she was able to cut through the interference and get a signal to whatever it was causing those readings. She jumped in surprise as the face of a man appeared on her screen. He was in his late thirties or early forties, had shoulder length hair, and a goatee. He looked at her with a face of annoyance before sighing, "I'm Dr. Oliver, what can I do for you?"
"Dr. Oliver", the young woman replied, "I detected a massive energy spike in the Universal Bio-electric field that seemed to come from your location."
"I see", he said suspiciously, "And who are you?" he asked not willing to give up any information to someone whom he wasn't sure could be trusted.
The young woman who didn't look old enough to be out of high school looked at him through the screen, "I'm Dr. K; I mentor the RPM Ranger Series Operators."
"So you're in Corinth?" he asked.`
"That's right", she replied, "How were you able to interact with the Bio-field in order to create a shock that large to it?"
Tommy stiffened at her words and restrained himself from yelling at this girl. "We had an attackbot infiltrate our base. One of my rangers sacrificed himself in order to remove the threat."
"You have my condolences Dr. Oliver, but I find it unlikely that a ranger could generate levels of energy at that magnitude."
Tommy smirked a little at the thought that his teams still had some edge, "Maybe yours can't but some of mine are quite capable."
"You have rangers?" Dr. K asked clearly shocked.
"Several, and right now we have just lost one", Tommy replied coolly, "We also have to start repairs on the damage that thing caused."
"Dr. Oliver, how did you create ranger powers?"
"I didn't", he replied, "We've all been rangers for years. Have you lived underground your entire life?"
"You could say that", Dr. K replied, "Anyway, first thing is we have to get you all out of there."
"It's not possible, he said, "There are several hundred of us, too many to move without attracting attention."
"I see", she replied, "You can't stay there, but according to my scans there is a mountain nearby. You could construct a new base with better technology. I will send you diagrams for equipment so you can start, if I found you, then so will Venjix."
The computer started beeping as information began feeding into the system. Tommy looked over her scans and noticed something odd about them. "Thank you for your help. We'll be in contact."
"Understood", Dr. K said as the screen blinked out.
"That crazy ass old man came through for us again", Tommy said as he activated the comm. system, "This is Tommy Oliver. I need all Power Rangers and ranger support teams to main operations immediately."
Ten minutes later every able ranger as well as Haley, Elsa, and Anton were standing in the Operations area as Tommy pulled up a diagram on a computer screen.
"Let me start by saying that we lost a good ranger today", Tommy said as the others lowered their heads solemnly, "Bu t we cannot let his death be in vein. Venjix most likely detected an energy spike emanating from the Morphing Grid and will soon have our location found. We need to leave this place."
"Where would we go?" Ethan asked, "We don't have the resources to move that many people."
"I have to agree", Anton added, "There's no way to get this many people out safely."
"Plus", Kira added, "Where would we go? The Animarium can't support seven hundred more people, and I doubt that the Mystic Forest is a viable option either."
"Agreed", Tommy said, "But we do have an alternative."
Everyone stood up straight as Tommy directed their attention to the scan of the mountain.
"Well I'll be damned", Jason said.
"I don't believe it", Kat added.
"How come we've never seen this before?" Kim asked.
"Because we were never told about it", Tommy answered, "I'll bet all the information is stored securely in the computer."
At that moment an invisaportal opened in the middle of the room and Billy stepped out. Hayley ran over to her husband and pulled him into a strong embrace. "Welcome back", Hayley said as she kissed him.
Billy looked around and noticed the somber attitude in the room. "What events was I not here to observe or participate in?"
Tommy spent the next several minutes bringing Billy up to date on the events and showing him the scans of their future home.
"I don't get it", Billy said, "I've personally been through the computer systems dozens of times and I've never seen this place."
"None of us have", Tommy said, "But we need you to dig it up."
Half an hour later Billy called Tommy over to the console he was working at. Tommy looked down at an image of the facility, "Good work", he said to his friend.
"It was hidden in pieces", Billy said, "I had to really look at the code to find it, but once the first piece came up the rest fell into place."
"I'm impressed", Kim said.
"Ok Billy, I need a list of everything that needs to be done in order to make this a viable home", Tommy said before looking to the others, "One other thing, I want you all to keep this a secret. Nobody finds out until we're ready to move in."
"I think it's time to go", Kim said, "I'm sure the kids would love dinner, and the Ninja Rangers need some time to come to grips."
A/N: Here is chapter 7. We hope you enjoy it, and as always please read and review.