Mission 10: Part 1
The sounds of dripping water echoed through the dark caves as Lucy Beckett slowly regained consciousness. The young woman groggily sat up and cracked open her eyes to examine her surroundings. A small fluorescent lantern made from Xeno tech sat nearby casting a dim eldritch green light on the rocky walls of the cavern she was in. The ground was hard and rocky and she shivered for a moment feeling the cool damp air on her skin.
To her chagrin, she found her glasses were damaged… most likely cracked when she was dropped on the ground, wherever that was. She listened to the sounds of dripping water around her and tried to figure out what happened. She remembered getting captured by a frightening alien mantis man before being flown over some mountains in a Xeno transport craft. Danger or not, she had to escape and figure out where she was so that she could contact help. She took the small lantern and began to head for what she believed to be the mouth of the cave until as was stopped by the fierce sounds of barking and snarling.
She moved the lantern and gasped in terror as she saw a pair of the Reaver hounds leap at her. Fortunately, the horrific biomechanical attack dogs didn't get far enough to bite as they were stopped by their chain leash fixed to the cave wall. They must have been left to guard the passageway and they did their job causing Lucy to stumble backwards in fear before she bumped into another figure.
A pair of clawed hands clamped on her arms as she spun around to face the monstrous Xeno commander Vivsectus. The biomechanical human with metallic insect claws and mantis features chuckled in amusement as a few Eidolon soldiers came to back him up. "Where do you think you're going, my dear?"
Despite her fear, Lucy tried to struggle free of his iron grip, "Let go of me! Let go!"
Vivisectus ignored her and dragged her deeper into the caves until he came upon a wide cave room with the salvaged base of a Xeno Machina subspace tower. "I will let you go only after you help me first. You figured out how to disable the towers so surely you can figure out how to repair them and make them work again."
"You think I'll help you?" the scientist said. She tried her best to sound defiant but it came out more like a squeak.
The Xeno angrily hurled Lucy to the ground near the device and extended the bladed end of one pincer claw, "I'm willing to offer you a deal for your miserable life Terran. I suggest you take it."
The Xeno commander tossed her a container of tools and retracted his blades, "If you try to escape, I will kill you. If you try to tamper with the transporter, I will also kill you. The choice is yours."
Lucy stared down the alien realizing how desperate her situation had become. She glanced down to the tools and then back to the alien through her cracked and slightly blurred glasses. Perhaps there was a way out of this after all. It would be extremely risky, but it was her only option. "All right. I'll get this thing up and running again."
"If that's your choice, I'm going to be here watching you to make sure you don't try anything funny," Vivisectus snarled as he reclined in the corner of the cavern.
"Right then," she said as she pulled off her bulky flak vest and rolled up her sleeves. She tied up her hair and pulled the tools to begin working on the transmitter.
A few hours passed before she closed a panel on the device and set some of the tools down. She wiped some dirt and sweat from her brow while the Xeno rose and came over to examine the scene. Vivisectus cast a suspicious glance to her and then eyed the device, "Have you made any progress?"
Lucy used one of her hand held remote devices to enter a few lines of computer coding, "I think so. In just a few moments, I think I'll be able to activate this thing again."
As she punched in the final code, the device began to whir and activate as it powered up. From the top of its projector, an orb of light began to glow and change colors. The Xeno watched it for a few moments before his eyes began to grow wide. As the orb continued to fluctuate, he began to recognize the same signs of a malfunction. In mere moments, this device was going to create another Parallax bubble. The Xeno whirled around furiously on the scientist and backhanded her, sending her tumbling to the ground.
"You! You liar!" he snarled as he readied his razor sharp pincer claws, "You said you were going to get this device working again!"
"And I did," Lucy said as she slowly began to rise to her feet, "I never said I was going to have it work well."
"You're going to pay for this," the alien roared as he moved to eviscerate her with his claws.
The Xeno never got the chance as the top of the transmitter device erupted into a bright light and filled the entire cave with a new Parallax bubble. Lucy and every Xeno warrior within the anomaly suddenly found themselves frozen in a temporal loop. If anything, freezing herself and the other Xenos in place would buy her friends at Atlantis Base time to find her. It was all she could hope for because at the moment, it was looking like she had forever to wait.
After the fierce battle over the Russian city of Kursk, the Nova Rangers briefly returned to Atlantis Base while relief units of the UNAF in Russia deployed out to chase off any Xeno Machina stragglers that may have still been threatening Moscow. While the mission to disable the enemy transport towers and stop the unstable Parallax bubbles had been a success, the victory was soured by the abduction of Dr. Beckett during the battle. As late afternoon sunlight streamed in through the windows of the Command Tower's conference room, Erik Dobermann sat in his chair, calmly pondering the situation while his commanding officer paced restlessly waiting for General Caldwell to brief them.
From where they sat, the three younger Rangers exchanged a hesitant look before Bharata cleared his throat, "Captain... maybe you should take a seat? You're kind of making the rest of us nervous here."
The Red Ranger stopped and narrowed his gaze, "This is the perfect time to be nervous Lieutenant. Lucy's been captured for eight hours and we have no idea where she could be... or if she's even still alive."
"I doubt the Xenos would harm her right now," Erin pointed out, "Remember, they said she was useful. They probably want her to try and fiddle with their transporter technology."
Martin huffed conceding the point to the Yellow Ranger, "All right... even if that's the case, she can only stall them for so long. In the mean time, we need to be coming up with a plan and so far I've got nothing. Do any of you?"
To his dismay, the other four shook their heads too. Unless they knew where she was, it was impossible to plan anything and even then... they weren't sure how they should start searching in the first place.
The Red Ranger sat down and dejectedly covered his face with his hands, "This is all my fault. I should have been watching her. I should have done something... anything, and now she's gone."
Erik continued to listen and he crossed his arms thoughtfully. This was an unusually rare sight, but the squad's commander was mentally out of sorts and distracted. He had been jumpy and agitated since they had returned to the base nearly eight hours ago. In times like these, he decided to do what any good XO, would do. He was going to step up and help shoulder the burdens of command.
The Blue Ranger rose from his chair, "Like I said before Martin. We'll get her back. Right now it's not going to do any good blaming yourself or asking any big questions that no one has any reasonable answers for. The team needs it's leader right now and we need to all be focused on coming up with a plan to save Dr. Beckett."
A silence fell over the room as Martin slowly looked up at Erik with a curious expression. Everyone expected him to suddenly snap and reprimand Erick but the Red Ranger instead looked away and nodded to himself as if he had just been slapped in the face with a humbling revelation. "Yeah... you're right... thank you Erik. That's very true."
The Blue Ranger gave his friend a reassuring nod, "No need to apologize sir. We know you're really worried about Dr. B."
Across the table, Ella sat thinking over the situation and some of the personal words Martin had shared with her several months ago. That was when it struck her and it all started coming together. After a pause, she turned toward Martin and spoke, "I think I understand now. Sir, is Dr. Beckett that girl you were telling me about? You remember... when I came to speak to you in private that one day?"
The others paused and looked in surprise toward the Pink Ranger before turning back toward their leader.
Martin frowned, "Lieutenant, now is not the right time to…"
"No sir. It is the right time to be open with us," the Pink Ranger argued bravely, "You're obviously upset right now and if Erik is right, your judgment might be a little affected too. We're your team and we need to know what's going on here."
He rose from his seat and cast a heated look around the room before beginning to pace, "All right Ella. You guys want to know why Lucy is so important, aside from being our team's leading Engineer? She's my best friend too and we've been there for each other since the tragedies of the first Xeno invasion."
He stopped and turned away from the table to look out the windows over the Atlantic Ocean, "I met Lucy during the start of the Alpha Ranger program when I was a new recruit. Her father Andrew Beckett introduced her while she was visiting. She was an eager grad student and I was a naïve new Lieutenant. We hadn't talked much at the time but after my whole squad was wiped out in battle, I was brought back here half dead and all alone. Mr. Beckett was so guilt ridden that he isolated himself so Lucy took pity on me. She helped me through my recovery and we became friends. In a sense… I guess I had a chance to return her kindness by standing by her when Mr. Beckett fell apart and passed away. But there is some good that came of it all. We were both determined to struggle together and work hard to stop the threat of these aliens if they ever returned. We didn't want the same kinds of tragedies that we dealt with to happen to other innocent people."
"It sounds like her capture has put some things into perspective for you," Bharata noted quietly.
The Red Ranger frowned to himself again while continuing to look out the windows, "I suppose you're right Bara. She's… very special and the thing that's killing me right now is the fear that I might not get another chance to tell her that myself... to tell her how much I care about her."
Ella gave a gentle smile of understanding, "Don't worry sir. We'll find her and you can tell her yourself when we do."
"Thank you Ella… everyone…"
The team moment was interrupted as General Caldwell entered along with Lucy's lab assistant Julian Wilson. The General moved to the head of the table and addressed the squad with a serious frown. "Rangers, I came to give you an update on our status. So far the few remaining Xeno forces who escaped the Parallax reversal have retreated and gone into hiding around the world. SAR is still working to recover and locate as many missing people as they can, Dr. Beckett included. I wish I had better news, but so far we haven't had any leads in tracking down that alien field commander who took her. Until we get a bead on her possible general location, I'm afraid I can't authorize any sort of recovery mission for your squad."
A somber silence fell around the table before Julian jumped to his feet waving his tablet, "General! Rangers! Something just came up on the UNAF global monitors! I think it may be helpful to you here!"
"What is it Julian? What happened?" Erin asked jumping to her feet with a hopeful look.
The lab tech fumbled about and plugged in his tablet to project some images on the briefing room's holographic displays. Everyone watched as a coordinate in Eastern Russia appeared with fluctuating data readouts. "We've picked up some unusual signals coming from the Ural Mountains of Russia. They look to be subspace transmissions which match the same ones from the Xeno towers you guys disabled."
"Does that mean another Parallax bubble is forming?" Bharata asked, "I thought Dr. Beckett had sent a signal that fried all the other ones across the world."
"She did... unless she repaired this particular one too," Ella grinned as she scratched her chin, "The Urals are in the same general location where we were. It's possible that's where the Xenos took her."
Caldwell nodded, "It makes sense. I'm sure they'd want her to try and repair some of their equipment. Maybe she created a Parallax bubble on purpose. Maybe she did it to act like a signal flare for the rest of us."
"Brilliant! Then if she and the Xenos are caught in the bubble, none of them are going anywhere. That'll make it a piece of cake to recover her," Erik added hopefully.
"Hold on," Martin interjected, "If all of them are trapped in a Parallax bubble, then so will the rest of us if we try to enter those caves."
Julian raised a hand and gave a tentative smile, "Not to worry Captain. I'll get to work right away on repairing her Parallax Inhibitor. If I can do that, it should buy you enough time to stop that bubble and save Dr. Beckett."
The Red Ranger nodded and gave a hopeful smile, "Thank you Mr. Wilson. General Caldwell, do we have a go on the rescue mission?"
Caldwell studied the holographic maps and gave a satisfied smile himself, "Bring her home Nova Squad. We'll keep the lights on for you."
As everyone rose from the table, Erik stopped and put a hand on his commander's shoulder, "Sir? With your permission, why don't you let me handle the details of organizing a mission plan. You've got enough to worry about right now. Best to stay focused on the task at hand, right?"
Martin paused a moment before clapping Erik on the arm, "Right. Permission granted."
In the early morning hours, the Nova Rangers made their way to the base's large transporter room to head back to Russia for the third time. The faint orange and red glow of the rising sun began to creep in through the windows and push back the darkness of night while Julian stood ready at the control panels to the transit platform. The Rangers had all donned their gear and field uniforms, hoping that they'd be able to affect a swift rescue operation.
Upon entering the transporter room, they were surprised to see Captain Jeffery Austin and a squad of his STAR troopers also armed and ready for battle. The Rangers stopped at the sight of the rival unit as Captain Austin grinned and stepped forward, "We heard you guys were in need of a crack commando team, so here we are."
"Wait a second! What are you guys doing here?" Erin exclaimed with a suspicious frown, "Who told you about this op?"
"I did actually," Erik replied causing his fellow Rangers to turn in shock, "We're probably going to need some backup out there and we've already had some experience working together before."
"The General told us this is a delicate rescue operation so Nova Squad's going to need all the help it can get, especially from an experienced veteran unit," Austin added while casually resting his arm on his assault rifle, "Besides… in the off chance the STARs ever need it, you guys will owe us one."
Everyone turned to Martin and watched closely as the Red Ranger stayed silent with a stony expression. To their surprise, Martin slowly extended a hand and spoke quietly, "Thank you for the help Jeff. If you and the STARs want to come along, then I appreciate it."
He may have hated to humble himself a little toward the haughty STARs but this was not the time or place to let personal pride get in the way. A friend was in danger and her life came first. Jeffery Austin studied him a moment before clasping his hand and shaking it in return. Erik turned to the rest of the squad and did his job, "All right everyone, quit standing around! Let's get moving already! We've got a job to do here!"
As Captain Austin released Martin's hand, he gave an amused snort and headed for the platform with his own troops. The Red Ranger began to walk forward before stopping and glancing over his shoulder with a quiet but grateful nod, "Are you coming Lieutenant?"
"Right behind you sir."