The canopy of the F-16 Fighting Falcon lifted up – the pilot pulled off his helmet. That had been a hectic afternoon. He set the helmet down and held up five fingers. It had been his fourth sortie of the day, and he'd had no fewer than three kills in each of them.

Two squadrons of Quadrafighters had headed for the Pensacola area. None would be returning to the Machine Empire, which had declared Earth as part of its territory. At least, that was what some herald had proclaimed in Washington, DC before they'd sent those fighters to probe.

Pensacola hadn't been the only fight. Over the Atlantic, at least four wings of those fighters had moved towards a commercial air lane, but the carrier USS Enterprise – more accurately, the air wing of USS Enterprise – had stood in the way. Three F-14 Tomcats and 11 F/A-18 Hornets had been lost, but Air Wing Seventeen and the Big E's escorts had downed over two hundred of the Quadrafighters and the carrier had drawn the attention of the enemy.

The carrier's Aegis-equipped escorts had thrown up a flurry of missiles, and the rest of the Quadrafighters were shot down. That part had been a turkey shoot. The group had retreated to Norfolk to re-arm, covered by the F-15 Eagles of the 1st Fighter Wing, who had engaged other Quadrafighters.

None of those planes had the new upgrades that were being produced as quickly as possible at Groom Lake, Elgin Air Force Base, China Lake, and Patuxent River. But they had held their own, on the right end of a 17-to-1 kill ratio, plus the kills claimed by the escorts.

It wouldn't have been enough. But it was something, and the modified F-16 Fighting Falcons and F-15 Eagles were maintaining air superiority – just barely – despite their small numbers. But there would be more – production lines were still humming.

Right now, they had enough for two 24-plane squadrons of F-16s, and one 18-plane squadron of F-15 Eagles. One squadron of F-16s would be divvied up in half – some operating out of Andrews Air Force Base to cover the White House, the other half kept at Elgin for further R , training for maintenance personnel, and to protect that site. The other squadron would also be divvied up – 16 planes to operate at Angel Grove – the center of past attacks. The other eight planes would operate from Nellis Air Force Base as aggressors – passing on critical lessons to regular pilots.

The F-15 squadron would be chopped into detachments – eight would operate from Groom Lake to serve as adversaries and a defense force. Eight more would go to Angel Grove, replacing the F-16s at Nellis. The last two would stay at Elgin, where they'd train maintainers at the 33rd Fighter Wing, which would be the first to get upgraded F-15s.

Hal Elliot was tired – the five kills from his fourth sortie had come from two dogfights – first, they'd taken down six Quadrafighters that jumped them. After clearing that group out, they had come to the rescue of the Red Ranger's Zord, which had been on the wrong end of six-to-one odds while trying to protect Pensacola. Add that to another… eleven over the previous three sorties today, and he thought he had set a record, but was really too damn tired to care.

Then again, he was just one of the pilots. The Machine Empire had tried to hit targets around the world, with varying degrees of success. The Russians had hit a few of their ships with their nuclear-tipped anti-ballistic missiles – Hal could just imagine how the Power Rangers would have to deal with that. NATO, Australia, Japan, Taiwan, and the Israelis had tacked on a lot of kills, too.

The debriefing was a quick one. They went over the engagement, the intelligence officer took the tapes, and Hal was handed a cup. He took a sip, expecting coffee, and was surprised that it was his preferred Mountain Dew.

He was going to be among those sent to Angel Grove, his old hometown – where he'd been among those threatened by the monsters early on, leaving just after the Green Ranger had come. That city had memories, both good and bad. Hal'd been tapped for a prodigy program by the Air Force – a move to Pensacola (and away from the monsters), a chance to be a pilot (he'd always liked the idea of flying), and a chance to make a difference against that space witch.

His family had moved to the Pensacola area to get away from that threat – and seven months later, he'd been orphaned when a drunk driver hit his parents' car while they were on their way home from a dinner date, with his Uncle Victor taking him in. Being that he had most of his high school education completed, he had scored legal emancipation after his uncle had died in his sleep four months back.

He also figured he had done enough college courses to get his high school diploma, well, he had to have, and that would make it easy to juggle the test flights with everything. He'd be sorting that out when he got to Angel Grove. Most likely, he'd have the transcript sent to Angel Grove High School, where he'd get the diploma. After all, he had enough credits, right? He did have a friend who'd gone through the Accelerated Baby Genius Program with him – maybe he was also close to graduation and could have some advice. But did Billy Cranston have the same phone number from so long ago? Hal wasn't sure, and even then, how much could he talk about with this program?

It sucked being out of touch. Maybe he could catch up. He wondered how Zack and Jason were doing. He also hoped that Trini was less self-righteous than he remembered and if Kimberly was still the bubbly full-of-life brunette he recalled.

She's probably captain of Angel Grove High School's gymnastics team by now.

In the Power Chamber, Billy's thoughts were far from old friends. Instead, he looked over an inventory. They'd picked up some readings that appeared to indicate Thunderzord technology had been in operation during the Machine Empire's sweeps.

So, the time since destroying the Starroid monster had been spent going over what Zordon had been able to recover in the wake of Rito Revolto's arrival. Then they went over the inventory, trying to correlate what they had recovered with what was known to be completely gone. This was complicated by the bomb Rito and Goldar had set off – so no telling what parts were gone either way, and that required a whole new inventory check, which showed that a lot of stuff was missing.

"Looks like a good portion of the components were gone," Billy said to Alpha 5. "A lot of them. We thought they'd been destroyed, but some kids were telling us that the National Guard was in the area…"

He heard the teleporter, looked up, and saw Tommy…

"Tommy, good to see you. I'm sorry if I'm a little late for the study session…" he said. "But I may need you to run to Pensacola, Florida for some Ranger business."

"Billy, it's three in the morning. You missed the study session for the biology test tomorrow – well, today – entirely," Tommy said. Then he realized something was up.

"Wait, Pensacola?" the Red Zeo Ranger asked. "What happened?"

"Yes, we picked up some strange readings from when those Air Force fighters cleared those Quadrafigthers off your tail, and you'd be the ideal candidate to place some remote sensors, since it would allow you to pay Kimberly a visit as she trains for the Pan-Global Games," Billy said.

"What type of readings?" Tommy asked.

"They point to Thunderzord technology, but those were destroyed by Rito Revolto, so the Thunderzords are logically out of the equation. So, we've been running an inventory, and so far we're unable to account for at least a quarter of the Thunderzord components," Billy said. "We think…"

"They fell into the hands of the military? Well, I guessed that might be the case ever since those Quadrafighters jumped me when I was taking the Phoenix Zeo Zord to intercept the Machine Empire's fighters trying to hit the Gulf Coast following that fight with Starroid. Air Force F-16s blasted the Quadrafighters. The Air Force came out ahead 6-0, and it didn't look like they broke a sweat. I may have some readings from the Zord," Tommy replied.

"I can pull them and maybe get a good idea if…"

"After you get some sleep. If we're lucky, you'll have three hours before you need to get ready for school," Tommy said. This time he made it clear there would be no argument.

"I think some sleep would be a good idea," Billy said. "Alpha, can you pull down Tommy's sensor logs and check them out?"

"As soon as you get some sleep," Alpha V said.

Satisfied that it would be okay to leave for the moment, Billy teleported out with Tommy, and a few minutes later, they would both be getting some sleep.