Mission 12: Part 2
A fierce firefight raged between an invading force of Xeno warriors and the local UNAF defense forces of Thailand. Several mixed platoons of heavily armed battle droids and Eidolon soldiers advanced up the beaches toward a UN naval base near the province of Phuket. A small number of armed base personnel and marines stood in the way hoping that they could hold out long enough for reinforcements to arrive. Multi-colored las bolts criss-crossed over the sands of the beach were several marines had dug in with machine guns trying to delay the Xeno advance. Further up the beach at the edge of the rainforests, pockets of the base personnel set up mortar positions to support the marines.
A few mortars got lucky and hit some of the approaching enemy, but the Xenos fanned out and got down into cover before a new commander took the field. A spherical droid with heavy armor rolled swiftly along the sand with two circular treads making it look like some kind of planetoid with vertical rings acting as its primary wheels. The treads glowed with energy and as the large spherical Xeno neared, it transformed quickly and deployed some spider crab legs along with rocket launchers and laser cannons.
The UN troops let loose a blistering hail of fire but their weapons did little to harm the thick metallic armor of the Xeno attack droid. It responded with a cloud of rockets and withering lines of return fire from its blasters. The UN mortar crews cried out in fear as the trees around them were shredded and several of their positions were hit by the rocket attack. Even the marines manning their foxholes ducked as they were pinned down by the Xeno weapon sphere, allowing the foot soldiers to advance again. While the UN forces curled up in momentary disarray, a smaller probe droid zoomed forward from the enemy ranks and made its way toward a nearby communication tower of the naval base.
Just as one of the Eidolon platoons advanced, their lead officer was hit by a blaster bolt and fell backwards as if he had just been clothes-lined. The combatants all stopped and turned to see three unmorphed Nova Rangers appear on the battlefield with their blaster pistols drawn.
"That's far enough cone heads," Erik called out to the Eidolon troopers while the UNAF soldiers regrouped in relief.
"Sir, I think I've found their commander," Ella said pointing to the spherical droid, "Just follow the bouncing ball."
As Martin lowered his smoking blaster pistol, the three heard General Caldwell radioing them on their morphers, "Rangers, we're attempting to scan that Xeno's capabilities. Advance with caution, but don't let the enemy through the defense line. There are schematics for a top secret weapon being stored at the naval base and it cannot fall into enemy hands."
"Understood General," Erik replied as he turned to the Red Ranger, "Martin?"
Martin raised his morpher, "Right, everyone ready? Energize!"
The three instantly morphed in unison and drew their weapons, giving their UN allies a momentary boost in morale to meet the oncoming alien infantry.
While the beach lit up again with the fire of energy weapons, Bharata watched as his fellow Rangers began fighting the first wave of Eidolon soldiers in hand to hand combat. The incorporeal Green Ranger had been amazed that he was able to hitch a ride on the transporter to Thailand and used the opportunity to walk the battlefield. Here and there, a Xeno energy bolt or some machine gun rounds would pass harmlessly through him while he made his way toward the spherical robotic commander. As Bharata waded out deeper in the combat zone, he watched as the armored spheroid rolled about, deflecting enemy fire and returning blistering salvos from its weapon laden appendages.
Obviously, its outer armor was too thick and protected so the next logical point of attack on the Xeno was its exposed weapon arms. If only Bharata's allies could get close enough. That was when the Green Ranger got an idea. He reached for his morpher and activated it, "Energize!"
To his surprise, Bharata successfully morphed into his Ranger combat suit, even though he was still out of phase. As he neared the Xeno war machine, he reached for his comm and tried something else, "Julian? Are you there? It's me Bharata!"
Back in the Atlantis base lab, Julian West gasped as he heard a familiar voice on his personal com bead, "Lieutenant? Oh my gosh! Is that really you? What's going on?"
Bharata watched as the spherical Xeno plowed forward past a few UN marines and collided with the three Rangers. It deployed several blasters and opened fire, but the Nova Rangers tumbled past and tried to strike at it with their vibro blades. To their horror, the Xeno weapon wheel swiftly retracted its guns and pulled out several spinning blades as a surprise. It rolled about deflecting the attacks of the Rangers and knocking them aside with punishing slashes of its own saw blades.
"Not great Julian. Our friends are in trouble and the Xeno looks like some kind of freaky Swiss Army knife. We have to do something."
Back in the lab, Julian turned and watched helplessly as Dr. Beckett feverishly worked with Erin over the Parallax emitter. While Lucy worked to edit lines of computer code, Erin used her prototype universal translator to clarify instructions and text in the Xeno operating system. She had been working on a theory that there were many similarities between the language and text of the benevolent Adventi aliens and that of the Xeno-Machina suggesting a common origin. It wasn't perfect yet, but she was using every chance she could get to gather more evidence.
As Julian paced around the table, he noticed that Erin was using some of the computer subroutines that he had worked on for her translation programs. It made him smile a little that he was still present and helping in a way, even if he was more like a ghost at the moment. Finally, Lucy stopped typing on her keyboard and adjusted her glasses, "All right. I think I might have something. I've made some adjustments on this thing to create a reverse particle field. If we can find Julian and Bharata and get them to stand here, we might be able to bring them back by exposing them to the EM field."
"Do you think it'll actually work?" Erin asked nervously.
"We don't have much choice," Lucy replied as she glanced to a nearby computer monitor which was connected to Base Ops. They could see a fierce battle raging on a Thailand beach and the three Nova rangers struggling against the newest alien threat. Lucy activated the device and watched as a bubble field of subspace particles formed in front of them.
To their shock, they suddenly saw Julian walk into the field and stand in place while giving a wave. Lucy stared in both shock and relief at the sight of her trusted aide, "Julian? Is that you? Can you hear me?"
He nodded and tried to speak but his voice was still distorted.
"Have you been here this whole time?" Erin asked curiously. "Where is Bara?"
He shrugged and then looked to Lucy as his boss came back over, "Okay Julian. I need you to hold still for the next several minutes. This particle field is going to rematerialize you but you need to stay here, okay?"
He gave a thumbs up and looked over to the monitor showing the Ranger battle in Thailand. There had to be a way to help Bharata and the other Rangers, even if it was a long shot. Julian stood in place and thought furiously, despseratly clawing for a theoretical solution. As the clock ticked down, he reached for his comm.
"Okay Bara. This is going to be a bit of a stretch but I need you to listen. I'm guessing that the only reason you and I are able to communicate like this is though a parallel channel in subspace. If I can channel the reverse particles from Dr. Beckett through this connection, you may be able to shift in and out of space for a short time until you return back to a solid form too."
"All right, I don't totally get it but I'll follow your lead," Bharata answered as Julian remained standing in the corrective particle field with an open communication channel. While Julian slowly began to phase back in to realspace, he kept his link open with Bharata, transferring the corrective particles through subspace to his ally.
Back on the beach Martin, Erik, and Ella slowly regained their senses and watched in astonishment as a faint ghostly form of Bharata began to flicker in and out existence by the Xeno weapon sphere. Ella could only stare in wide eyed shock, "What the hell is going on here?"
The battle droid stopped and deployed its weapons in confusion having momentarily sensed the Green Ranger right next to it. As it exposed its appendages, Bharata momentarily phased in and struck with his energy blade to sever off several blades and blaster cannons at a time. When the Xeno countered and tried to attack with its other weapons, Bharata phased back out and let the attack pass through him before materializing again to slash off more arms.
"Where did Bara come from? How is he doing this?" Erik asked with a dumbfounded look.
"I have no idea, but it looks like he's been with us in spirit the whole time," Martin grunted with a smile while drawing his blaster pistol.
Having already been disarmed, the Xeno weapon sphere attempted to curl up into its shielded ball form and escape, but Bharata phased in just long enough to ram his vibro-blade through an armor joint and prevent the shell from closing completely.
Bharata turned as he pinned the Xeno in place and sent a garbled transmission to his teammates, "Overcharge!"
"You heard the man! Let's put this alien down," the Red Ranger called as he overcharged his blaster and took aim. Erik and Ella did the same and aimed their guns for the exposed spot in the Xeno sphere's armor. The three fired their guns and the overcharged blasts struck together, blowing apart the cybernetic core of the alien. As it began to detonate, Bharata phased back out one more time to avoid being hurt in the resulting explosion.
Back in the lab, Julian watched one of the computers monitoring the battle and he gave a cheer pumping his fists in the air. "Yes! All right!"
No sooner did the explosion subside was when the Parallax emitter powered down and returned Julian back into his normal state. Erin and Lucy exchanged an excited look before Lucy rushed over and embraced her assistant. After letting go, she crushed his cheeks with her hands, "Julian! You're back! Thank God you're okay! I am so sorry about all this! I…"
Julian laughed and steadied his mentor by her shoulders, "It's okay boss. You don't have to apologize. It's good to be back… and thank you."
He was suddenly surprised as Erin gave a relieved cheer and threw her arms around his neck giving her friend a welcome back hug too. "Julian! You really had us worried, you know that?"
The tech took a moment to steady himself while his face turned a little red, "Oh… Erin. Um… I'm sorry for the scare."
As much as he wanted to savor the moment, he let go of Erin and reached over to one of the computers nearby. There was something he had to check first.
A large plume of sand and fire erupted from the beach as the spherical battle droid exploded in a cloud of spiraling fiery shrapnel. Once the smoke cleared, the Rangers lowered their blasters and gave a sigh of relief. Coming from the fires, Bharata walked forward and powered down. He looked completely unharmed and wore a smile on his face. Erik threw a relieved arm around Bharata's neck while Ella gave his other hand a squeeze. "Welcome back buddy! I don't know what happened just now, but I'm glad that it did."
"Thanks for the save Bara!" Ella sighed, "Is everything okay? Are you all right?"
"I'm fine," the Green Ranger nodded before turning to his commander, "Err... I hope you didn't think I was going AWOL or anything, sir. Permission to return to post?"
Martin smiled warmly and clasped Bharata's hand in a firm shake, "Permission granted Bara. Welcome back."
As the fires died down, he scratched his head, "Lieutenant, do you mind telling us exactly what on earth is going on here?"
Bharata raised a finger before sending a transmission back to base, "Soon enough Captain. Lieutenant Timothy to Atlantis Base, enemy has been neutralized. What's your status?"
"All is well back here Lieutenant," came Julian's voice on the other end of the line, "I'm glad you also made it through okay. We'll leave the welcome mat out for you guys when you get back home."
Bharata smiled, "Glad to hear it Julian, and thanks again."
While the rest of the UN troopers gave another cheer nearby, no one noticed the Xeno reconnaissance droid that had affixed itself to the communication tower as it disengaged. After having tapped into the communication array and finding the information it was looking for, the spy droid transmitted a signal back into space for the mothership before self-destructing. Its remains sprinkled down in a cloud of fiery shrapnel leaving no one the wiser as to what crucial danger it had now started for the Terran defense forces.
A couple days later, Bharata Timothy returned to the R&D lab looking for Julian. After having been debriefed and going through a battery of medical exams, he was cleared for duty and eager to get back his Nova Morpher which had been taken in for routine maintenance by Lucy. When he entered the lab, he was surprised to find Julian at his workstation polishing up the morpher instead.
"Bharata! Hey mate! You're just in time," Julian smiled brightly as he held out the morpher to the Ranger, "I was waiting for you."
Bharata took his morpher and slipped it back on to his wrist, "Thanks... but I thought Dr. Beckett would be..."
"I volunteered to take care of this one," Julian chuckled as he waved it off, "I already know that I can service these morphers in my sleep. But there's another reason I wanted to give that back to you."
Bharata raised an eyebrow, "Oh?"
"I wanted to say thank you for being a good friend and giving me some encouragement," Julian said while crossing his arms, "It's easy to feel a little insecure around so many important people around here, but you helped me see that my role didn't make me any less significant as a team member."
"Don't mention it," Bharata smiled giving his younger friend a fist bump. "I'm just glad to have my morpher back now."
"You'll be even more glad after hearing what I did to it," Julian replied proudly, "I added on an extra little feature for you."
"Go on..."
The tech grinned, "I adapted that Xeno tech and installed a small emitter to the morpher which should allow you to temporarily phase out for a very short amount of time. It's still kinda new and we'll need to run more trials on it, but I figured a little stealth feature would go a long way to helping the Rangers in a pinch."
Bharata grinned from ear to ear, "Thanks Julian! That sounds awesome! I can't wait to try it out."
"Well you might have to wait a while," Julian chuckled as he tidied up his workstation, "I'm about to go on break for a while."
"Ah… you've got a follow up medical exam too?" Bharata asked.
Julian shook his head, "Nope, lunch with a very lovely lady."
Just then the main door swished open and Erin popped her head in, "Hey Julian! You ready to go? I heard they're serving fried mozzarella sticks in the mess hall so we'd better get a move on before they're gone."
Julian shot Bharata a sly look and tossed his white lab coat to the Green Ranger before following Erin out the door, "I wouldn't miss it for the world."
As he watched them depart, Bharata put his hands on his hips and began to laugh out loud before a new idea crossed his mind. Maybe he could get a head start on testing his new stealth mode after all. He could start by using it to spy on Julian's little lunch date. After all, Bharata was the team's intelligence officer and this development possibly warranted further surveillance… or at the very least blackmail material to use against Erin later.
Bharata gave a sly look around the lab to see that no one else was watching before he reached for his morpher and whispered quietly, "Energize."