"What are you doing here on such a beautiful day?"

Ashley looked up at the sound of her boyfriend's voice, an involuntary smile spreading across her face. "I could ask you the same thing."

"Yeah, but I'd have an answer," he countered, leaning back against the console she had been working on.

She rolled her eyes. "All right," she said, taking a step back to give him room. "What are *you* doing here on such a beautiful day?"

"Looking for you," he answered promptly. "Come on, let's go to the beach or something."

She wrinkled her nose. "Can't. Matt asked me to catch up on the League reports."

"I'm sure he didn't mean today," Carlos objected. "Who'd want to be stuck in the Power Chamber on a day like this? Come on," he urged. "Let's get out of here."

She hesitated, but the offer was too tempting to pass up. "All right," she agreed. "Just let me finish the one I'm working on."

"Make me," he teased, folding his arms and making no move to step away from the comm console.

She smiled slyly at him, tilting her head up for a kiss. "I could be convinced," she suggested.

He put his hands on her waist and pulled her closer, and she closed her eyes. His lips gently brushed hers just as the staticky sound of teleportation interrupted them.

"Hey, guys!" Justin's perpetually cheerful voice lightened the quiet, solemn air of their command center with its sudden presence. "Seen the gossip channel today?"

Carlos kissed her once more before they drew reluctantly apart. Justin, rather than waiting for their answer, did something to the main screen and hopped up on the console beside them. "You should really see this," he advised, a grin in his voice.

"And now for our Power Ranger Watch," a commentator announced. Justin's news hookup had given them "TV on demand" months before the rest of Angel Grove, though at times like this Ashley wasn't sure it was such a good idea.

"Our top story today is the relationship between Ashley Hammond and Carlos Vargas," the commentator continued. "The two appear to have had a falling out over the past couple of days."

"No, I haven't been invited to Homecoming yet," Ashley image told one of the so-called "reporters", and the screen switched quickly back to the studio.

"Well, guys, it looks like this is your chance," the commentator remarked. "If I was a few years younger myself--"

Ashley groaned, covering her face with one hand. "When will I learn to keep my mouth shut around reporters?" she demanded rhetorically.

Carlos made a sound that was suspiciously reminiscent of a chuckle, and she lowered her hand to glare at him. "Hey," he said hastily, "you know how hard it is to tell the gossip people apart from real reporters in a crowd. It wasn't your fault."

"The question should have been a clue," Justin put in, his eyes twinkling with suppressed mirth. "Although I noticed they cut out the 'But I don't see what business it is of yours' part of the sentence."

Carlos shook his head in mock-regret. "That was my favorite part!"

Ashley sighed, her glare half-hearted by now. They'd all dealt with worse, after all--there was no sense in getting bent out of shape over anything that aired on the "gossip channel". "You can laugh," she told them anyway. "You won't have guys falling all over you from now until Homecoming."

"That would definitely put a damper on my plans," Justin agreed unrepentantly, sliding off of the console and turning the screen off.

"Relax, Ash," Carlos told her. "We'll go out tonight, somewhere public, and everyone will figure it for the rumor it is. No one takes that stuff seriously anyway."

"Yeah," Justin put in. "Remember when I had a twin brother?"

"Or when they said Laura and Tommy had had a summer fling, and that was the only reason she got chosen to be a Ranger?" Carlos added. "This is nothing compared to some of the stuff they say about us."

Ashley ran a hand through her hair, smiling a little sheepishly at her teammates. "Yeah, I guess you're right. Sorry I overreacted."

"You've just been cooped up in here too long," Carlos said firmly. "Come on, let's go out and enjoy the sun."

The Power Chamber's long-range comm chime softly, concurrent with Justin's exclamation. "Hey guys," he called after them. "You might want to take a look at this."

"If it's gossip reporters from space, I don't want to know about it," Ashley informed him.

"No..." Justin frowned down at the long-range comm console. "It's Rangers."

"Really?" Carlos asked, his tone mildly curious. "Anyone we know?"

Justin shook his head. "No one I've ever heard of. There's two teams coming in, one from Kerova and the other from Elisia. Their ships are broadcasting the Border Alliance ID."

"Coming in?" Ashley repeated. "They're not just passing through?"

"They're on an approach vector," Justin said, doing something to the control panel. "And one of them wants to speak to us."

The image of a Ranger with dark hair and piercing blue eyes appeared on the main screen, startling Ashley until she realized she was watching a recording. "This is Saryn, Red Ranger of Elisia," the recording stated. "I seek an audience with the Ranger team of Earth."

The message looped, starting to repeat, and Justin muted it.

"From the Border, huh?" Carlos muttered. "That's weird. What does anyone on the Border want with us?"

Justin shrugged. "Beats me. We'd better get Matt."

Ashley lifted her left hand and touched her communicator. "Matt, Laura," she said, not waiting for them to acknowledge. "We need you guys in the Power Chamber."

"Trouble?" Matt's voice answered, almost immediately.

"Not yet," Ashley told him. "Some people want to talk to you."

"We're on our way."

A moment later two miniature waterfalls of light slid into the Power Chamber, dispersing to reveal the red- and pink-clad forms of Matt Larkin and Laura Two Winds. "What's going on?" Matt asked, joining his second-in-command in front of the comm.

Justin pointed at the long-range link, still chiming at regular intervals. "There's a couple of Ranger teams on their way into the system," he answered. "They acknowledged NASADA's ID check before they passed Pluto, but they aren't answering courtesy hails. They've been broadcasting this for the last couple of minutes."

He unmuted the main screen and nodded to it, and they waited silently while Matt and Laura listened to the automated broadcast.

"I've never heard of Elisia," Laura said at last, looking around for confirmation or enlightenment, whichever came first.

Ashley shook her head wordlessly, but Carlos agreed aloud. "Neither have I. All we know is that they're from somewhere on the Border."

"Well, let's hear what they have to say." Matt nodded to Justin, and the Blue Ranger reset the comm link.

The recording vanished, replaced by a realtime image of the Red Elisian Ranger. Matt straightened, giving the screen a formal nod. "I'm Matt Larkin, Red Turbo Ranger of Earth. How may we be of assistance to Elisia?"

"I do not come on behalf of Elisia," the other Ranger replied. "I and two others are on a personal mission. We seek an audience with two of your teammates, Carlos Vargas and Ashley Hammond."

Surprised to hear her name, Ashley looked over at Carlos. By silent mutual consent, they stepped forward to flank Matt. "I'm Ashley," she said, a little warily. "And this is Carlos."

The Red Ranger on the screen studied them for a moment, then gestured to someone they couldn't see. A girl with hair almost as long as Laura's stepped into the camera's field of view, taking a place at Saryn's side to which she clearly had sole claim. There was no doubt about what he meant when he introduced her as, "My companion, Cassie Chan."

Out of the corner of her eye, Ashley saw Matt and Carlos exchange glances. "Nice to meet you," Matt offered politely. "Is there something we can do to aid you in your... personal mission?"

The Red Elisian Ranger caught the eye of his "companion", and Ashley wondered idly if either of them could be as human as they looked. "Cassie Chan" was a vaguely Earth-like name, but she had long ago learned not to go by that. Still, it wasn't beyond the realm of possibility that they were from one of the other human-populated worlds--

"You do not recognize us?" Saryn asked abruptly, and Ashley blinked.

Matt looked over at her this time, and she shrugged minutely. "I'm afraid not," he said, careful to keep his tone level and friendly. "You have to understand that Earth isn't exactly mainstream in the League, and our Inquiran ambassador is on personal leave this week. If there's some reason we should recognize you, I apologize for our lapse."

"No, that is quite all right," the other Ranger replied, almost absently. "It is not you from whom we expected recognition, but your teammates. I wonder if we might meet with them... in person, as you say?"

Matt held his hands out and took a step back, clearly puzzled. "I don't speak for them."

Saryn's gaze switched to her expectantly, and she could feel Carlos' eyes on her too. When she glanced over at him, he mouthed, "Your call."

She wrinkled her nose at him. *You're a big help.* Looking back at the screen, she shrugged a little. "I don't see why not," Ashley said at last.

"You and your teammates are welcome here on Earth," Matt added pointedly, and she tried to stifle a smile. He was as protective as Tommy had been before him. Rangers or no, she knew he would rather have strangers here where he could keep an eye on them than have her and Carlos alone on an alien ship.

"Thank you," Saryn replied, as though it had been a formal invitation. "I look forward to meeting with you."

Matt folded his arms and looked around as soon as the screen went dark. "You two have friends you forgot to tell us about?" he asked dryly.

Carlos held up his hands as if to ward off inquiry. "I've never seen those people in my life," he declared. "They must have looked up the team roster to get our names."

"But why?" Ashley glanced over at Laura, who was wearing her usual thoughtful expression. "And why did they think we would know them?"

Laura didn't answer, though she did sense Ashley's eyes on her. She looked up and met her friend's gaze, shrugging slightly.

"I wonder what kind of personal mission could have brought them this far," Justin mused aloud. "The nearest Border system is six galaxies away."

The sound of teleportation cut off further speculation--not that is was getting them anywhere anyway, Ashley thought. Four flashes of light illuminated the room, with two distinctly different teleportation styles. Only then did she remember the second Ranger team, to whom none of them had spoken yet, and she figured that accounted for the two red teleportation streams.

It did surprise her to see Cassie Chan emerge from the white flash; White Rangers were not common, but she had assumed Saryn's companion was a member of his team. Saryn shed the red glow at her side like a cloak, even more imposing in person than he had been onscreen, but Ashley's eyes slid across them to the other two arrivals.

Red and gold sparkles fell away from the unknowns in an effect much like the Turbo Rangers' own teleportation. A boy with oddly striped hair and a gold locket stood where the red light had been. Beside him was a girl with a matching locket and identical eyes, who looked too fragile to fight anyone yet carried herself with an air of confidence that reminded Ashley of Matt somehow.

Matt stepped forward then, introducing himself again for the benefit of the locket-wearers. "I'm Matt Larkin," he said, his gaze shifting from one Red Ranger to the other. He held out his hand to indicate each of his teammates in turn. "This is Laura Two Winds, and my Second, Justin Stewart. You seem to already know Carlos Vargas and Ashley Hammond."

Saryn nodded once but offered no explanation. "I am Saryn of Elisia," he said, pausing to glance at his companion.

"I'm Cassie Chan," she filled in smoothly, as though she had expected the pause. "It's nice to meet you."

"We are joined by two Rangers from Kerova," Saryn continued, and Ashley shifted her gaze back to the other two.

She was disconcerted to find the Red Ranger staring at her, but she did her best not to show it. The girl nudged him and he blinked, taking a quick breath. "Uh--I'm Andros," he said, stumbling a little over the words. "And this is my, uh, sister, Kerone."

Kerone smiled as though there were nothing out of the ordinary. "We're honored to meet you," she told them. "I've never been to Earth, and it's nice to see someplace other than the Border for a change."

She spoke primarily to Matt rather than Ashley, for which Ashley was grateful. Saryn's attention was now focused politely on Kerone, but when she snuck a look at Andros she found him still staring at her.

She looked away quickly, trying not to roll her eyes. Carlos was going to just love him.