There was a crash from behind her, and she jumped. Instinct made her whirl, even as she saw some of the kids starting to giggle. She was just in time to catch a golden ear disappearing from the glass window set into the classroom door.

Alyssa turned back to her class with a puzzled look on her face, though she was trying very hard not to smile. "Was there someone at the door?" she asked, knowing full well what the answer would be.

"No, Ms. Enrile!" three or four of the children chorused.

"Well, all right," she said, lifting the picture book she'd been reading from again. "I guess we'll just have to finish this story, then."

The giggles started before she could pick up where she'd left off, and she gave them all a reproving look. "Michael..." She singled out a boy in the front row. "Is there someone at the door?"

Michael's eyes widened, and he shook his head vigorously. Next to him, Elan covered her mouth with both hands in an effort not to giggle. Alyssa turned slowly, giving their visitor plenty of time to hide, and as expected she saw nothing but an empty window.

This time, the thump came again as soon as she turned her back, and the giggling got louder. "Well," Alyssa said, closing her book and setting it on the floor, "I guess I'm going to have to go see for myself."

This was greeted by protests from her kindergarten class, and she smiled to herself as she walked over to the door. She knew perfectly well who was there. Nobody made monkey faces like Cole, and the thumping had sounded suspiciously like a seventy-pound dog trying to jump high enough to see through the door.

She opened the door to find the former Lion Ranger pressed up against the wall on one side and Ness seated obediently on the other. She couldn't help laughing at the picture they presented, and Cole gave her a disarming grin. "We were in the neighborhood..."

She pulled the door open the rest of the way, motioning for him to come in. "Elan's allergic," she reminded him softly, nodding to Ness. Then, louder, she announced, "It's just about time to catch the bus, so we'll finish our story tomorrow afternoon. Everyone gather up your jackets and lunchboxes, all right?"

"Ms. Enrile, can we play with Ness?" Eternity wanted to know, already sidling closer.

"Go get your jacket," she said firmly. "If you ask Mr. Evans nicely, maybe he'll let Ness walk out to the bus with you."

"Mr. Evans, please can Ness come with us to the bus?"

"Only if you get your jackets and lunchboxes like Ms. Enrile told you to," Cole answered, going down on one knee so he was closer to the kids' height. "You wouldn't want to have to call your mom because you missed the bus, would you?"

"My mom wouldn't care," Eternity insisted, but she drifted over to the coat rack nonetheless.

A little girl with pigtails made a beeline for Ness, and Cole scooped her up before she could reach the golden retriever. "No you don't," he said with a laugh, tossing her up in the air, lunchbox and all. "You don't want to get another rash, do you?"

Alyssa smiled, putting a hand on Michael's shoulder as he darted for the door. "Where's your lunchbox?" she asked, pulling the door shut so no one could sneak out while she wasn't looking.

Michael groaned comically, turning and racing back toward the coat rack. The group around Ness was growing, and Alyssa took a quick headcount while they were mostly occupied. Michael, Jake, and Chelsea were the only ones still hanging back. Michael was getting his lunchbox, Chelsea was afraid of dogs, and Jake...

"Jake," Alyssa called, spotting the girl on the floor at the back of the room. "Are you almost ready?"

"Yes, Ms. Enrile." Jake stood with obvious reluctance, and only then did Alyssa see what she was holding. The girl had picked up the book Alyssa had been reading from earlier and was studying the last few pages intently.

As the last few stragglers joined their classmates by the door, Alyssa put her finger to her lips. "Remember to be quiet while we're walking through the halls, all right?" A few of the children nodded solemnly, but most of them were too distracted by Ness to pay any attention.

She pushed the door open, leading the way toward the front of the school where the buses waited. Ness bounced along beside them, loving the attention, while Cole brought up the rear with Elan riding piggyback. The kids swarmed out into the sunshine, only a couple of them lagging behind with Ness when the buses were in sight.

Alyssa counted them off again as they climbed onto the appropriate buses, and she glanced back in time to see Cole waving to Elan as the girl ran over to her dad. Eternity's mom was waiting as well, and both parents caught Alyssa's eye and smiled before turning away. She was finally learning all the parents' names, and she waved happily in return.

The bell rang just as she and Cole were turning back to the building, and she pointed toward the corner instead. The kindergarten room had its own door, and it would be easier to go back in that way instead of wading through the crush of older students running for the buses. Two of her kindergarteners waved from their bus as they passed, and Cole smiled as she waved back.

"Have a good day?" he asked, putting his hands in his pockets. Ness paced along at his side, as sedately as it was possible for a golden retriever to pace, and Alyssa nodded.

"A great day," she said with a smile. "We did fingerpainting and we played 'name that wild zord'. Michael got the falcon and the eagle confused..."

"They're not anything alike!" Cole exclaimed indignantly, and she tried not to giggle.

"Well, Jake thought White Tiger and cat zord were the same animal," she offered. "If that makes you feel any better."

"Hey--" Cole stopped abruptly, and she looked up in surprise. She followed his gaze to the black emergency vehicle on the other side of the parking lot. Its lights were off and its engine was silent, but the symbol of the Silver Guardians was emblazoned on its side.

A Guardian with a red beret leaned against the driver's side door. Wes Collins was receiving a fair amount of covert attention, but he seemed aware of the exact moment when they took notice of him. He lifted his hand in acknowledgement, and they exchanged glances

By unspoken consent, the two of them headed across the parking lot toward Wes. He nodded in greeting as they approached, and Cole offered his hand amiably. "Good to see you again, Wes," he remarked, as the two of them clasped hands. "It's been a long time."

"Too long," Alyssa added, smiling at him. "It's so hard to keep up with everyone these days. Is this a social call?"

"I wish it was." Wes returned their greetings with a half-smile of his own, but he shook his head in answer to her question. "I'm afraid this is business."

Cole frowned. "What kind of business?"

Wes held up his left wrist, where his morpher glittered prominently against his dark uniform. "Our kind of business," he said, indicating the three of them. "Can the two of you make it to a briefing this evening at Guardian Headquarters?"

Cole caught her eye, and Alyssa nodded once. "Sure," she said, glancing back at Wes. "We'll be there. But what about the others?"

Wes gave her that same half-smile. "Eric's working on it now," he assured them.

Her boots had barely touched the pavement before she knew something was wrong. The tarmac was too quiet, filled only by the clang of maintenance and the roar of flybys like her own. She let go of the ladder and scanned the area quickly, wondering what could account for the absence of shouts and enthusiastic chatter.

Then she saw him. For a moment, Taylor was sure she was hallucinating. Sun spots in her eyes, maybe; that happened to some pilots. Because there was no way the person she saw standing not twenty feet away could be there.

"Earhardt!" he called, lifting his chin in acknowledgement.

She bristled. "That's Lieutenant Earhardt to you!" she shouted back. Tucking her helmet under her elbow, she ducked under the wing of her fighter and made as if to leave.

He didn't call after her, though, and she couldn't just walk away. He knew it, too, damn him. Finally she abandoned the pretense and turned back, trying to ignore the infuriatingly smug expression on his face. "What do you want?"

Eric lifted his right hand and crooked a finger at her. She glared at him, but it was clear he had something to say that he wasn't going to just yell across the runway at her. There was nothing for it but to obey his juvenile summons.

When he turned to lead her off the tarmac, though, she stopped and yelled, "Hey!"

He paused, and she added, "Whatever you have to say, you can say it here, because I'm not going anywhere until you tell me what you're doing here."

"Stubborn as ever, I see." Eric gave her an appraising look. "How does that attitude go over with the senior officers?"

She tossed her head, forgetting for a moment that her hair was confined to a braid. "How the hell did you get in here, Myers? This base is a secure facility!"

He held up his left arm, displaying the quantum morpher for all to see. "There aren't too many people that will argue with the Quantum Ranger."

"Say what you came to say and get it over with," she told him.

"Now, now," he chided, giving her a reproving look. "That's no way to greet your ex."

She could have slapped him. She settled for turning her back, wondering what it would take to make her walk away. She shouldn't be listening to him at all. She took a deep breath, made up her mind to leave, and took exactly one step before he grabbed her arm.

"Taylor," he said urgently, his voice just loud enough to reach her ears. "What are you doing here?"

"My job," she snapped, not moving. It was an argument they'd had many times before. "Unlike some people, I know what it means to give my word."

He gave her arm an impatient shake. "This isn't about us! It's about you and your destiny!"

Jaw clenched, she yanked her arm free and turned on him. "If one more person says the word 'destiny' to me I swear I'm going to scream! I want to fly, Eric! That's all I want! Can't you understand that?"

"You don't have to be in the Air Force to fly," he said. His eyes were flat.

"Well, I certainly can't do it in the Silver Guardians!"

He looked down, pulling something from his belt. She stared steadfastly over his shoulder, refusing to give him the satisfaction of watching. If he had come here just to rehash their old drama she was going to find a way to bar him, quantum morpher or not.

"What if you had this?" he said at last.

Her gaze flicked to him involuntarily, and her eyes widened. He was holding a growlphone in his right hand. Her growlphone, no less; the etched feathers were instantly recognizable in the sunlight.

"Where did you get that?" she demanded, reaching for it. He drew back, and she grabbed for it again. "Give me that!"

"Only if you leave the base," he told her. He held the growlphone at shoulder height, just far enough away that short of tackling him she knew she'd never get it.

Not that she wouldn't tackle him, if she had to.

"Eric," she said, trying to keep her voice even. "I have a commission and an oath. I can't just leave and you know it."

"My morpher got me in," he replied. "No reason yours can't get you out."

The irritating part was that he was right. The Animarium mission had given her special dispensation with regard to the Rangers. Her daily 1500 flights were condoned only because the eagle made the radar scream... If she said she'd been called back, they would let her go with no questions asked.

She eyed the growlphone in Eric's hand. She wanted it. She wanted that life again. But it was over, and they had all moved on. There was no going back, and she had always known that. She just hadn't known how hard it would be to live it.

"How did you get that?" she asked, lifting her gaze to Eric's.

He gave her a deliberately mysterious smile. "Wouldn't you like to know," he said, waving it invitingly in her direction. "Let's just say... a mutual friend gave it to me."

"Why?" she demanded, folding her arms crossly. "What's going on, Eric?"

"Come with me and find out," he suggested.

She narrowed her eyes at him, longing to wipe that smirk off his face. There was just no way to do it, not and get what she wanted. She would have to wait. She could always punch him later, after all. And with her growlphone...

She held out her hand with a sigh. She couldn't quite mask her elation when he tossed it to her, her fingers clenching possessively around the powerful communicator. With a morpher, the punch that he had coming would hurt all the more. And he would never be able to catch her afterward, either.

"We practically have to go out," Max argued, watching Danny rummage through his pockets for the keys. "It's not like we have anything to eat. And who wants to sit at home on our first night back?"

"There's cereal," Danny countered. "And pasta. And canned soup doesn't go bad. Who wants to go out on our first night back?"

"How can you have lost the keys?" Max demanded, as Danny switched to his duffel bag. "You just had them at the airport!"

"Maybe if the landlord installed metal detectors in our apartment building, I'd have them now," Danny muttered. "Wait!" Suddenly he brightened, dropping several things on the floor as he pulled his hand out of his duffel bag. "I got them!"

Max rolled his eyes as he reached down to collect his friend's errant belongings. "So much for your highly organized approach to packing," he commented, plucking the keys out of Danny's hand and fitting one of them to the lock.

"It's not that it's packed in an organized way," Danny protested, using his bag to push the door further open as he followed Max inside. "It's that the packing process itself was very organized. I was done in half the time it took you."

"That's because you had half the stuff!" Max tossed the keys on the counter and dropped his backpack in the middle of the floor. He trudged back out into the hallway and swung his second backpack over his shoulder, then piled his two duffel bags on top of each other and shoved them through the doorway.

"We have more voice mail," Danny announced, sounding a little dismayed. "I just checked it last night!"

"We're popular guys," Max reminded him. He kicked the door shut and threw himself down on the futon behind it. "Ah," he added, closing his eyes. "Home sweet home..."

"Hi, guys." Kendall's voice filled the apartment, and he smiled to himself as he heard Danny sigh. "I saw your voice mail was empty, so I thought I'd be the first to welcome you home. I watered the violets this morning, and there's a note on the table for you when you get in. I'll call tonight to make sure you're home safe. See you at work tomorrow!"

"She says she's glad the trip went well," Danny called, apparently having read the note while he listened. "She can't wait to see what the greenhouses looked like, and she's already rearranging displays to accommodate some of the new exotics."

"Welcome home guys!" This time it was Alyssa on the phone, and Max sat up abruptly. Many times Alyssa's cooking had been their compromise between going out and eating in, and she might yet save them from a night of canned soup and pasta.

"I hope you had a great time," she continued. "We got your postcard yesterday; thanks! You guys look good with roses in your teeth. You should see if Kendall could use that for advertising or something.

"Anyway, I'm sure you'll both be tired when you get in, so I'm going to make extra dinner tonight. We'll be eating around six if you want to join us. If not, we'll see you this weekend at the rink. Welcome back!"

"If you tell Kendall what she said about advertising, I'm never speaking to you again," Max said, pushing himself up off the futon and heading toward the bedroom. He ignored the bags he had dropped on the floor, but the next voice stopped him in his tracks.

"This is Commander Myers of the Silver Guardians," the voice mail message began. "I'm calling for Max Cooper and Danny Delgado. Something's come up involving your former line of work, and we need you at Headquarters tonight at 1900. Someone will let you in and escort you to the briefing when you arrive.

"And kids," Eric's voice added, sounding more than a little patronizing. "Try not to be late."

"Kids?" Max stared at the phone in consternation. "Kids! Who does he think he is!"

"Just ignore him," Danny suggested absently. He was adjusting the angle of the light over his violets, apparently unconcerned by the message. "Is that tonight at seven?"

"And that's another thing!" Max exclaimed. "Why can't he use normal time? Normal people use normal time!"

"Hey, it's Cole," the phone interrupted yet again. "Wes caught up with me and Alyssa at the school. He says there's some important briefing going on tonight at Guardian Headquarters, and he's sending a car for us at 6:45. If you guys want to come over early, we can eat and go together. Call when you get in. Bye."

"End of messages," the voice mail administrator added. "To listen to your messages, press one. To record a personal greeting, press--"

Max hung up on the voice mail. According to the microwave clock, it was just after four. Plenty of time to throw everything on the floor of the bedroom and catch some sun before dinner. Alyssa really was a lifesaver.

Giving his stuff a second glance, he amended his plan. Plenty of time to leave everything right where it was and catch some sun before dinner. Danny was still fussing over his violets, and Max knew what he was going to say before he asked. But he asked anyway, because that was what friends did.

"I'm going down to the dock," he announced, hopping up on the counter beside Danny. "Want to come with?"

Danny looked up, giving him a distracted smile. "No, thanks," he said. "I'm going to call Kendall and tell her we're back. I'll call Alyssa, too, and tell her we're coming over?"

"Sure," Max agreed, jumping down again. "She cooks way better than either of us. I'll be back in a little while."

"All right," Danny agreed. "See you."

"See you!" Max called back, heading out the door. The best thing about a friend like Danny was that he never had to explain himself.

Well, that and the fact that Danny never called him "kid".

They piled out of the vehicle in a noisy rush, spilling out into the evening air with shouts and good-natured shoving. Ness added to the clamor by loudly protesting the car's cramped quarters, bounding across the pavement and back again with an excited bark. Cole laughed, letting her romp while the others looked around.

They'd had to pass two checkpoints just to get this far, and he wondered what the Silver Guardians were expecting that they needed this much security. Wes only added to his curiosity by passing out laminated ID cards that clipped to their shirts. As Ness returned to Cole's side, Wes gave her a speculative look.

"Does she wear a collar?" the Red Ranger wanted to know.

"Of course," Cole said, attaching his ID to his belt. "We had to license her in Alyssa's name, but she has all her tags."

"She does tend to roam," Alyssa added, kneeling down to hug Ness affectionately. "We couldn't let someone pick her up again, even by accident."

Wes held something out to him, and Cole frowned at the generic "building access" card and clip. "For Ness," Wes explained, catching his puzzled look.

Alyssa reached up to take it, clipping it to Ness' collar without a word. But Danny asked curiously, "Is this really necessary? It's like we're on a secret mission or something."

Wes chuckled, shrugging apologetically. "Sorry, Danny. Standard procedure here at Headquarters."

"Why are we here?" Max put in. "What's going on?"

"Nothing that hasn't been going on for several years now," Wes said cryptically. "If you'll follow me, we'll join the others inside."

"Others?" Cole repeated.

"Well, Taylor of course," Wes said, as though they might have forgotten. "Eric. And Jen and her team."

"Time Force is here?" Danny sounded surprised. He exchanged glances with Max, and Cole saw Max shrug.

"They helped create the problem," Wes answered over his shoulder. "It's only fair that they help put it right."

"Is escort duty the best you can do tonight?"

"You know, you could be a little nicer," Eric told her. "It's not like I don't have better things to do than show you around."

"I didn't ask you to meet me at the gate," Taylor reminded him. "You're not doing me any favors."

He looked over at her then, but all he said was, "Your hair looks nice that way."

"Shut up," she snapped.

Neither of them said another word until they reached the end of the hallway, and Eric punched a code into the lock beside a closed door. She didn't bother to watch, and he didn't bother to shield it from her view. Given a couple of guesses, she could probably have figured it out anyway. He wasn't very creative when it came to lock codes.

The door opened onto a group of people that drew a smile no matter her current escort. Cole looked up first, and he broke into a grin at the sight of her. "Taylor!" he exclaimed, nodding to her as Ness bounded over in enthusiastic greeting.

Alyssa and Max echoed him with exclamations of surprise and pleasure, as though it hadn't been just a month ago that she had last seen them. Danny caught her eye and smiled, making no effort to come forward with the others but conveying his welcome nonetheless. And there was one other member of Wild Force that turned at the sound of the door--

Taylor could feel Eric's eyes on her, but she was determined not to show her surprise. To be honest, she had half-expected this. There was, after all, only one person who could have given Eric her morpher.

"Princess Shayla," she said, nodding calmly in response to the princess' smile. "It's good to see you again."

He watched from the back of the room as Taylor was absorbed into the group, leaving Eric by the door with an annoyed expression on his face. Taylor took a seat beside the princess, nodding to the Time Force officers across the table as though she had expected to see them here. Which she might have, of course, there was nothing to say that Eric hadn't told her as much as Wes had told them--maybe more.

Nothing except the obvious animosity between them, anyway. Danny sat down at the end of the table, Trip on one side and Max on the other. If the two of them couldn't buffer the chill emanating from Taylor and Eric, no one could.

Wes glanced over at Eric, possibly thinking along the same lines, but if something passed between them then it didn't show on their faces. Both of them remained standing, Wes at the head of the table and Eric by the door, while Cole and Alyssa took the remaining seats on either side of Princess Shayla and Taylor. Cole's dog settled behind him, waiting patiently for whatever was about to happen.

Trip started, a movement mostly lost in the shuffle of seating, but it caught his attention. Danny shot a covert look down the other side of the table. Trip and Katie were sneaking smirks at each other, apparently engaged in some kind of silent game while Lucas pretended to ignore them both. On Lucas' other side, closest to Wes, Jen was asking if all Silver Guardian briefings were this disorganized.

The remark was clearly meant as a joke, but Danny saw Eric transfer his frown from Taylor to Jen as though she had said something deliberately offensive. Taylor folded her arms, a small smile on her face. It was hard to tell whether she was more amused by Jen's question or Eric's discomfiture.

"What's up with them?" Max whispered, nudging his elbow and indicating the door with his chin.

"Don't know," Danny said under his breath. "Maybe the Eagle zord ate his Q-Rex for lunch."

Max snorted, then tried to disguise his laugh with a cough. "Just," he gasped, when everyone turned to look at him. "Just something caught in my throat."

"Before we go any further," Cole interrupted, glancing from Wes to Princess Shayla, "could someone tell me what the princess is doing here? I thought you were going to stay on the Animarium with the wild zords," he added curiously.

She smiled, looking down at the table for a moment. Cole was frank in such an innocent way that it was impossible to hear anything but what he meant in his words. There was no subtext, no hiding meaning, and no way to take offense when he so obviously intended none.

"I contacted Princess Shayla," Jen said, answering Cole without so much as glancing in her direction. "I thought it was best that we have help from Rangers that were based in the area, and to be honest... we know you. You're our first choice."

"First choice for what?" Max wanted to know, but Cole wasn't so easily deterred.

"How did you know how to contact her?" he insisted. Turning to address her again, he added, "I didn't think we'd ever see you again, Princess. The wild zords existed to defend the earth from Orgs, and the Orgs are gone... aren't they?"

She smiled again at his concern. "Yes, Cole, the Orgs are gone. The threat we face now is far more modern--or so Time Force assures me."

"But how did Time Force reach you when we couldn't?" Alyssa didn't seem any more willing than Cole to let the subject drop. "We can't even talk to our wild zords unless they come to us first."

"The Animarium isn't quite so isolated in the future," Jen interjected. "After we met you... well, I was curious. I've spoken to Princess Shayla several times in the year 3004. She told me how to get in contact with the Animarium of this time."

This was met with complete silence, and she caught Jen's eye for just a moment. Jen gave her the slightest nod, and she inclined her head in thanks for the Pink Ranger's discretion. She would rather the others not know of the real reason for her participation in the current endeavor.

"3004?" Danny exclaimed, breaking into the quiet with his surprise. "But that's--" He stopped abruptly.

"That's a thousand years from now!" Max was staring at her as though the concept of a millennia-long existence had been foreign to him until now.

"Well," Alyssa said at last, when she didn't answer. "If the princess went to all that trouble, then it must be important."

Looking back at Wes, the Tiger Ranger asked, "What do you want us to do?"

"Trizirium crystals weren't supposed to be invented for another hundred years," Wes told them, narrating for an image on the holoscreen at the head of the table. "But thanks to Ransik's escape, and more specifically to the knowledge of one of his robots, they were introduced to this timeline three years ago."

"Don't forget your dad," Jen murmured, and Wes' mouth quirked.

"Zirium powder was a waste product from one of the research projects he was sponsoring at the time," he explained, for the benefit of the others. "Ransik's robot stole the powder and used it to create the crystals."

"That wasn't just a research project he was sponsoring," Katie put in. "The Raimei Destroyer was an armored tank with no practical application."

"Yeah, since it took about five minutes to destroy it," Trip agreed.

Wes rolled his eyes, the expression of one who had been on the losing end of this argument many times before. "Whether it was worth it or not," he said firmly, "the crystals were created early, and their unshielded presence caused a temporal storm in Silver Hills."

"The fact that they were in use at the time didn't help either," Jen reminded him.

Eric shifted uncomfortably, but Wes just nodded. "That's true. The crystal that powered the Q-Rex was converted to bizerium, but the crystal in the robot we fought had to be shattered. The pieces dispersed on temporal currents that weren't completely traceable, and we've been tracking them down ever since."

"'We'?" Lucas repeated, deadpan.

"Time Force has been tracking them down ever since," Wes amended, giving Lucas an 'are you happy?' look. "They only recently decided to get other people involved."

"When they realized that four people hunting for hundreds of shards wasn't the most efficient ratio," Eric commented dryly.

"We were doing just fine until the other crystals started to affect the time shift," Jen informed him. "Most of the fragments have already been retrieved and contained."

"The ones we've missed have opened time holes as far away as Angel Grove," Wes added. This time Lucas didn't correct his use of the word "we". "Finding the others will keep further damage from being done to the timeline."

"We could do it ourselves," Jen repeated. "But the fragments from Doomtron's crystal aren't our only problem."

"There were at least two other whole crystals," Trip offered, leaning forward to cue the holoscreen. "They were left behind when Frax was destroyed, and by the time we located his lab, they were gone. They may have been caught up in the temporal storm somehow."

"Or someone could have stolen them," Lucas remarked idly.

"That's the worse case scenario," Jen agreed, glancing at her second in command. "That the crystals were both stolen and are being used by someone with access to a time warp to prevent further shifts from the year 3004."

"We don't know that, though," Trip insisted. "They could just be lost in the timestream, and it's only coincidence that one of them has shown up now."

"Either way," Wes said, including everyone at the table with a look. "One of the crystals is very nearby, temporally speaking, and it's starting to affect the time shift. Unless we can find it and contain it--"

"Or destroy it," Eric interrupted.

"Didn't work so well last time, did it?" Katie demanded.

"Unless we can find it," Wes said pointedly, "Time Force won't be able to travel to this time period much longer. That's why we need your help: not just to find the crystal, but to keep tracking the fragments until Jen's team can take over again."

"Most of it can be done remotely, from the Silver Guardians' headquarters," Jen added. "Wes and Eric can handle the tracking and the crystals. But they're going to need backup they can trust to deal with the time holes."

"The Silver Guardians are perfectly capable," Eric said, staring straight ahead. "But they're needed elsewhere."

Wes shot him an exasperated look. "We've discussed training a Silver Guardian special ops team, but in terms of knowledge and physical prowess, it's just not practical within this kind of time frame."

"We really need Rangers to cover for Rangers," Jen agreed. "And of the teams that are active in this time, Wild Force is the only one that's both local and familiar. You guys won't have any trouble working with Wes and Eric once we're cut off."

"That's if you're willing," Trip added, looking from one to the other along the other side of the table. "So what do you say?"

Wes grinned at Trip's eagerness, then followed his gaze to the other Rangers. "Want to help save the world again?"