"Talking to Ko'Teth ma Ree without mentioning it to her teammates is a mistake," Saryn said quietly. "She leads by consensus, and she will not consider something none of her teammates support."

"I don't know any of the Calijyt Rangers well enough to bring it up with them," Cassandra whispered back. "TJ's the only one who even knows Ma'Ree."

"Ya'Noth and I bonded over wing deployment," Jenna murmured. "I could at least ask her some questions."

"Now?" Saryn prompted, nodding toward the front of the room. The Calijyt Rangers were trickling in after the slowest patrol of the day, and Jenna followed his gaze automatically.

"Sure," she agreed. "Get her attention, would you?"

Saryn didn't make any perceptible movement, at least none that Cassandra could see, but Ya'Noth glanced casually in their direction. Jenna waved at her, gesturing toward the seat beside her, and the Calijyt Ranger smiled. She waved back, then pointed at the line to indicate that she would pick up food before joining them.

"Thanks," Jenna said, turning back to her tray.

Cassandra gave her a puzzled look. When she looked at Saryn, though, he was scanning the room. Finally he paused, and she leaned a little to one side to see what he was looking at. Just then Kayatachi looked up, and Saryn tipped his head toward the empty seat beside him.

To Cassandra's surprise, Kayatachi not only seemed to have noticed the motion but also understood what he meant. The Pink Eltaran Ranger held up her fist in a "hold" gesture, easily visible across the crowded room but less obtrusive than yelling, then flicked one, two, three fingers in his direction. Three minutes.

Saryn nodded, apparently satisfied. Then he shot an inquiring look at Cassandra, as though he could feel her watching him. Which, she thought, he probably could.

"How did you do that?" she wanted to know.

His expression didn't change. "To what do you refer?"

In the chair across from him, Jenna snorted. "Mind tricks. Lyris taught him that too."

"Mind tricks?" Cassandra repeated. She turned her curious look on the other Ranger, since Saryn was pretending total innocence. It was a look she would never have thought he could pull off, not with everything he'd been through. But right now, he looked like nothing so much as a college boy feigning memory loss about the night before.

"I can't do it," Jenna said with a shrug. "But he could get your attention from the other side of the hangar bay without saying a word. And you wouldn't even know he'd done it."

"How?" Cassandra looked from one of them to the other, focusing on Saryn when Jenna shot him an expectant look.

Saryn just nodded toward the front of the room. "Watch the line for a moment," he suggested.

She did as she was told, then glanced back at him to see what he was doing.

He smiled at her.

"Can't even tell he did it, can you," Jenna said. The amusement was plain in her voice.

Cassandra blinked. "He didn't do anything."

"Then why did you look at him?" Jenna wanted to know.

"I was just..." She trailed off. "I don't know; I was just curious. Why?"

"It is non-intrusive," Saryn told her. "If you were particularly focused on something else, you wouldn't have looked away. And if you were aware of what I was doing, you would have no difficulty resisting the impulse to turn. It is simply a... suggestion."

"He made you curious," Jenna said bluntly. "He made you want to look at him. He can make you not look, too," she added, giving Saryn a small smirk. "Which is just as useful, in its own way."

"He didn't make me look," Cassandra protested. "It was just a coincidence. Try it again, and I won't look this time. I promise."

"It is not a compulsion," Saryn countered. "Nothing forces you to look at me. If you are determined not to, then you will not. But if you are going to look somewhere, and there's no specific reason that 'somewhere' should not be me, then you are prompted to do so."

She wasn't totally convinced. But Ya'Noth was headed their way, so she just gave him a skeptical look and didn't reply. He seemed more amused by her doubt than anything, and she couldn't decide whether that was charming or annoying.

"How was patrol?" Jenna was asking Ya'Noth. "Is it still slowing down out there?"

"By the hour," the woman agreed, settling into the seat beside Jenna. "I had almost forgotten what it is to fly without shooting. I'm afraid my skill in that respect is not what it once was."

"May we all have a chance to practice that skill," Saryn murmured.

"May we indeed." Ya'Noth's gaze flicked toward Cassandra in acknowledgement, and Cassandra smiled in return. "It seems possible that the intensity of our patrols might diminish if this pattern continues."

"I have been surprised," Saryn remarked, "that no one has made that very suggestion in a strategy session as yet."

"Jenkarta will react poorly," Ya'Noth predicted. "Perhaps we remain silent out of respect for his position as leader of this world's defense."

"This isn't the only world that needs defending," Jenna put in.

"As a free world, however, it remains our first priority," Saryn reminded her.

"There might be more free worlds by the end of the day," Jenna told her tray. She glanced up, catching his eye and focusing on him. That look was all it took to make Cassandra understand--they were feigning disagreement, trying to see if Ya'Noth would support one side or the other. "KO-35 and Calijyt aren't completely under monarchy control anymore."

"Nor are they free. They have come this far without Rangers," Saryn pointed out. "There is little historic precedent for rallying rebellions with an outside force if they can not do it themselves."

"The Rangers of those worlds could hardly be considered an outside force," Ya'Noth interjected.

"Perhaps," Saryn allowed. "Nonetheless, we are committed to this world now. It is not worth abandoning a known need for an uncertain and possibly untenable situation."

"I admit, I am surprised to hear you say that." Ya'Noth was studying him. "Do you suppose you might feel differently if it was your world mounting a rebellion that called its Rangers home?"

"I'd go," Jenna declared recklessly. "If there was anyone left on Elisia to fight? I'd be there right now."

"It takes nineteen Rangers to defend Eltare." Cassandra hadn't meant to get involved, but she didn't like the pensive look on Saryn's face. "What good could one Ranger team do on a border world that isn't even free?"

"It took nineteen Rangers to defend Eltare," Jenna corrected. "The raids are decreasing fast. Maybe the Free Systems could spare a few of us--especially if it meant expanding our territory."

"Back to Border space," Ya'Noth said thoughtfully. "It is a tempting goal."

"Are you collecting Pink Rangers, Saryn?"

Cassandra looked up in surprise. Kayatachi was standing at the end of the table, regarding them all with a small smile on her face. She was the fourth, Cassandra realized. The fourth Pink Ranger at their table, even if Jenna--like Saryn--wore mostly black.

"I prefer to be surrounded by my favorite color," Saryn said solemnly, and it took Cassandra a moment to understand that he had just made a joke.

She wasn't the only one, apparently. Jenna was smirking, but Ya'Noth looked surprised and Kayatachi was giving Saryn a look of amused curiosity. "Why, Saryn," she said pleasantly. "I don't think I've ever heard you say something so... unnecessary."

"I do as circumstances dictate," he replied. "There has been little room for anything but necessity, of late. Please, join us," he added, motioning to the seat beside him.

"Thank you," Kayatachi said with a smile. "For the invitation and for the hope I hear in your voice." Her smile included them all as she sat down, greeting them wordlessly. "You too believe that circumstances are changing, then?"

"I believe that Andros has orchestrated an offensive that does not depend on the military strength of the Free Systems," Saryn replied. "I believe that offensive has a power and a momentum all its own. And I believe that Eltare will continue to benefit from it."

"Yes," Jenna said with a laugh, tapping his tray with her fork. "He believes that circumstances are changing."

"That is what I said," Saryn remarked evenly.

"We were just discussing the possibility of sending some of our Rangers to reinforce the Border planets," Ya'Noth put in. "To aid the rebellions already taking place."

"I see." The Pink Eltaran Ranger didn't react one way or the other. "Jenkarta brought up that idea during our last patrol."

Cassandra glanced at the Rangers on the other side of the table. Ya'Noth was studying Kayatachi, but Jenna caught her eye and raised her eyebrows slightly. "What does he think of it?" Ya'Noth was asking.

"He doesn't like it," Kayatachi said dismissively, but then she smiled. "Of course. Some of us argued the point, but Jenkarta thinks that the last few days are just... an aberration. A lessening of the siege, not a forecast of its imminent end."

"I agree," Saryn put in. "This is a dangerous thing we're discussing. To increase the region for which we take responsibility by depleting forces that are barely enough to defend the territory we already hold? I see no good that can come of it."

"Well, Reds are the tacticians," Kayatachi said with a sigh. "But I'd like to think you're wrong. Monarchy forces are falling back, and I'd like to encourage them in any way we can."

"What does Andros think?" Ya'Noth asked suddenly. Cassandra looked at her in surprise, and she found the Pink Ranger from Calijyt looking back. "Does he want to return to KO-35?"

"We've talked about it," Cassandra admitted, careful not to look at Saryn or Jenna. "He doesn't think now is the time."

"Indeed." Ya'Noth looked thoughtful. "That surprises me."

"Why?" Kayatachi wanted to know. "Did he say?"

"He thinks the rebellions are already out of Dark Spectre's control," Cassandra offered. "Andros says the logical thing for the monarchy to do now is to concentrate its forces... to find a target that will have an effect on all the rebellions at once."

When no one said anything, she added, "He thinks that target is going to be us."

"Attack the Free Systems." Ya'Noth seemed suddenly enlightened. "Now it begins to make sense to me. Only Andros would anticipate such a catastrophic turn of events."

"You think he's overreacting?" Kayatachi asked.

"No," the other Ranger admitted. She glanced around the table, her gaze settling at last on Cassandra. "I think he may yet save us all."

"Andros."

He answered his digimorpher automatically, and only after he'd done it did he realize what was wrong. "Karen?" he demanded. "What are you doing here?"

"Well, if I knew where 'here' was," her voice answered, "maybe I'd have more of an idea. I'm guessing I'm... maybe... no. Sorry. Got nothing. Where am I?"

"We're in JT's dimension," Andros told her. "KO-35 is overrun by Dark Spectre's forces, and Astronema is staging a mutiny with help from the general population. How did you get here?"

"Funny story," Karen remarked. "Or maybe it would be, if I had any idea. One moment I was shooting down velocifighters over the KO-35 we know and love, and the next I was in the sky over a planet that looks... well, overrun by armies of darkness. Where are you?"

"Outside the skyport at Quon," he answered automatically.

"I have no idea where that is," Karen said. "Do you want me to come to you? Because if you do, I'm going to need coordinates."

*Andros,* Kerone interrupted. *I've got two zords in the atmosphere. One of them's Ty's, and I think the other one might be Karen?*

"Is Ty with you?" Andros asked.

"Should he be? He was off my screen before--want me to give him a shout?"

*I'm talking to Karen now,* he told Kerone. *She didn't know Ty was here, and she doesn't have any idea how she got here.*

*I've got Ty,* Kerone answered. *He's running silent.*

"No, Kerone's talking to him now," Andros told Karen. "Tell me about the velocifighters back home--how many, how bad, and who's left?"

"Hundreds, but not as bad as you'd think," Karen replied immediately. "Zhane and Astronema are reinforcing the PD with zords--or they were last I knew. And the Megaship is providing some serious ground support."

"Astronema's in a zord?" Andros demanded. "Who's on the Megaship?"

"Zhane gave Astronema his digimorpher so she could fly his zord. There's no one on the Megaship--DECA doesn't need a pilot, does she?"

*Andros, Ty says the situation on our KO-35 isn't good. I'm going to send him and Karen back through the ID portal unless you want them here."

*Good,* Andros agreed. *Give me coordinates for the portal and I'll relay them to Karen.*

"Karen, Kerone's going to send you back," he said aloud. "Tell Zhane to call Elisia for backup if he needs it. And tell him that all the velocifighters coming through the portal are from the Dark Fortress; Astronema might be able to do something with that."

*Ready?* Kerone asked.

"I'm going to give you coordinates," Andros said, cutting Karen off as she tried to ask a question. "They'll take you to an ID portal that should be open for you when you get there."

*Go,* he told Kerone mentally, then repeated the numbers she gave him aloud.

"Got it," Karen said. "I'm on my way. What about you?"

"Ashley and I are going to stay here and make sure Kerone doesn't get herself killed pretending to be the person who's pretending to be Dark Spectre's loyal follower," Andros said dryly. "We expect to find our planet intact when we come home."

Karen's tone sounded positively cheerful as she replied, "We're on it!"

"You look worried," Ashley said quietly.

Cam didn't look up. "How incredibly observant."

"You should be sleeping," she said, leaning up against the railing next to him.

"I don't have time." He still refused to acknowledge her with a glance.

"Any time spent staring over a railing could be better spent in bed," she pointed out.

"They'll be here in the morning," Cam muttered. "And Hunter and Blake are sparring!" He punctuated the sentence with a fist to the railing, a blow that made a satisfying clanging sound but probably didn't relieve any of his frustration.

"Testing their new powers?" Ashley guessed.

Cam's exasperated silence was all the answer she needed.

"Look, Cam, morphers leave you with energy to burn. You can't sit around all day, you'd go crazy if you tried. Rangers aren't just athletes, they're good athletes--maybe the best, and you know why? Because they practice all the time. Constantly. They have to, or they'd never sleep.

"Sometimes they don't sleep anyway," she added ruefully. "Rangers are made for battle, for a fighting intensity that most people can't imagine. When they don't get that, when they aren't challenged enough, they have to find something else to take its place."

Cam glared down at the bay below. "He's injured," he informed the cavernous space. "He was attacked and beaten; did you know that? He was fucking mauled, and he's in there letting his brother throw punches at him."

Ashley looked at him, wondering if he had given this any thought at all. "What do you think Rangers do?" she asked quietly. "It's not all zords and space battles--and even when it is, there's g-forces and decompression and inertia. When it's not, there's blasters and sharp-edged weapons and our bare hands. We fight, Cam. The Power is used to healing pretty much any abuse the body can take."

She saw Cam swallow. Maybe she had been too harsh. She wasn't sure how to make it better, and she didn't know what else to tell him. He'll be all right? Everything will be fine? He knew as well as she did that there were no guarantees.

"I wanted him to have that morpher," Cam told the railing. "Because I knew I couldn't keep him out of a zord either way. If he had to be in a cockpit, I thought--"

He stopped abruptly. Ashley waited, but he didn't pick up again. She thought maybe he was worried about looking foolish in front of her... or maybe he was really so upset that he couldn't go on. She couldn't tell.

"He's safer with it than without it," she said at last. "The Power looks out for its Rangers, I promise you that."

He didn't say anything for a long moment. She just stood there with him, offering what comfort she had, letting him be the one to decide when to walk away. She knew how hard it was to watch someone with a morpher go into battle without you.

When Cam spoke, his voice was so quiet that she wasn't sure he meant for her to hear. "What if he dies because of me?"

His morphers had gone to the Wind Rangers. He must have had some influence over Leanne's decision of whom to give the Thunder morphers to also--or maybe he'd had some say in who piloted the zords in the first place. Or else he was just taking responsibility for everything about the resistance, which honestly wouldn't be out of character for him.

"What if he doesn't?" Ashley braced her elbows on the railing and looked down at her hands. "What if you change your mind now, put him somewhere else, tell him not to do something, and that gets him killed?"

She glanced over at him, but he still wasn't looking at her. "Don't second-guess yourself," she told him. "It'll only paralyze you."

"Easy for you to say," Cam muttered.

"It's always easy to say," she said, more sharply than she'd intended. "But people don't say things because they're easy. They say them because there's nothing else they can do."

He surprised her then by looking up. Catching her eye, he said simply, "Thanks for trying."

The good news was that Kae had a new babysitter. The bad news was that she was back in JT's dimension for the second time in two days, and she wasn't alone. Or rather, she didn't come alone.

"Andros," she told the comm.

His answer came back immediately. "Couldn't stay away, huh?"

"You got it. And this time I brought friends," Karen added, glancing at her tactical screen. "Plural."

"I see that." Which made her wonder where he was that he could tell what was going on instantaneously. "You'd better come to Sai Kung. Kerone says the ID portal's too unpredictable to use right now."

That didn't sound good. "Where's--"

"I'm sending you coordinates now," Andros interrupted.

He was sending them, not relaying them by voice. Sure enough, they showed up in her navcomp a second later. "We're on our way," she told him.

"Want to tell us what's going on?" Carlos asked over the zord network.

"I would if I knew," she answered. "I told you I was here yesterday. Kerone sent me back through the ID portal, but I guess she can't do it today. I don't know why you're all here too. I don't even know why I'm here--or Andros, or Ashley or Kerone. Anything else I can fill you in on?"

"Thanks," TJ's voice answered dryly. "How about telling us what happened to this planet? This is still KO-35, right?"

"It's JT's KO-35," Karen agreed. "Andros says it was overrun by Dark Spectre, and now Kerone's trying to take it back. Or Astronema is, but then she and Kerone switched places, so Kerone's in charge.

"Andros and Ashley got sent here a couple days ago," she added. "They didn't switch, they just got sent. Kerone offered to send them back through the portal but Andros won't leave as long as she's still here. When me and Ty got sent here too, Zhane was the only Ranger left, and that's when he called you guys."

"And the Elisian Rangers," TJ filled in.

"And the Elisians," Karen repeated. "I guess maybe he thought something like this might happen."

"I didn't even understand it when you explained it to me," Gabe complained. "If he expected whatever just happened, he's either psychic or seriously messed up."

"With Zhane it's a fine line," Carlos replied.

"I don't mean to put a damper on this spirit of adventure in the face of total confusion," Tessa began. "But if we're here because of the ID portal, and the ID portal's not working, then how are we going to get back?"

"I," TJ said seriously, "have no idea." Or not so seriously. "There was a time when that would have bothered me, but I've since learned that being a Ranger isn't about knowing what you're doing."

There was a long pause, and then Carlos asked, "So... what is it about?"

"When I figure it out," TJ answered, and Karen could hear the grin in his voice, "I'll let you know."

It was going better than any of them had anticipated. Sometimes, Ashley thought, things just worked. Sometimes they didn't, and that was why she tried not to take the times when they did for granted. This was definitely one of those times.

The Aquitian force had caught most of the planet off guard, which was good. The ninja resistance had taken the occupation completely unaware, which was better. Air squads that had lifted off in response to the Aquitian threat were caught in the crossfire when the ninja zords emerged, and the ground forces were being decimated by the terrestrial assault vehicles.

It was a fairer fight than they could have asked for, all things considered. They had expected to strike and retreat, to shake up the occupying forces and then regroup. But the initial attack had come out so strongly in their favor that they had pressed on, taking out tactical installations by twos and threes instead of one at a time, and soon the Aquitian zords left space to the fighters and joined their fellows in the atmosphere.

The fight was on, and so naturally Cam wanted it stopped. Ashley had been dealing with his voice in her ear since they first launched, and she didn't mind saying she was getting damn tired of it. If she didn't know that Leanne was probably driving the Aquitian Rangers just as crazy, she would have told him to shut up and find someone else to monitor.

"You've been out there for seven hours straight," Cam was telling her, like she didn't have the same time display in her zord that everyone else did. She could count the seconds if she chose. But she didn't, because it wasn't important.

"I know how long it's been," she said evenly, swinging around to reinforce her teammates on the ground. The dogfights were pretty much over, and the aerial zords were now flying support, reconnaissance, and the occasional independent strike on targets below.

"You need to set down!" He was almost shouting at her, which made her smile because look who'd lost his temper first. She was actually quite proud of herself for being so polite to him for This Long.

"You can't stay in those cockpits forever," Cam was saying. "They're not designed for long term occupancy and you're making them into residence halls!"

"They're whatever we need them to be," she told him absently. She was strafing the ground now, dividing her attention between the two zords she was running cover for and giving him whatever was leftover--which wasn't that much. "Right now we need vehicles that are in it for the long haul, and they are."

"Your bodies aren't!" Cam countered. "You can't keep up a pace like this forever!"

"Thunders," Ashley called, as her zord lifted toward the sky again. "You getting tired down there?" She got a laugh and a derisive snicker in return.

"Yeah, right!" Blake shouted back at her.

"Never been better!" Hunter agreed. And he sounded just like he said, no trace of pain or fatigue in his voice. She didn't doubt that it was the same throughout the fleets.

At least, the Powered fleets. Cam had a point, even if he was focused on the wrong people. "Shane," she said, switching from one zord network to another. "How's your team holding up?"

"Too many guns," he replied, sounding just as high as the Thunders. "Not enough targets!"

"It's been more than seven hours," she told him. "I'm going to ask the non-Powered fleets to stand down. Are you guys good to step it up?"

She got a laugh from him too, and she found herself grinning in return. Who needed caffeine when there was the Power? "You bet!" Shane responded.

"Mireth," she declared, rolling her zord for the hell of it. Their enthusiasm was contagious, and she had a target lock. "I'm going to send seven of our fleets back to base."

"Acknowledged," came the reply. "Our fighters have settled into a holding pattern. There is little else they can do here."

"I agree," Ashley answered, swooping in on a quantron outpost that looked mostly deserted. She blasted it to pieces anyway, eliminating another point of retreat for the raids her teammates were systematically picking off. "You've more than fulfilled your promise to us."

"I am sending the fighter wings home," the White Ranger replied. "Our zords will remain."

"Acknowledged," Ashley said with a smile. "Thanks, Aquitar."

She switched to the allcall. "All fleets, this is Red Thunder. Powered fleets will regroup at the following coordinates. Everyone else, stand down. Repeat, non-Powered fleets will stand down and proceed to base. Please acknowledge."

Ashley sent out the coordinates and got seven acknowledgements of the stand down command. "Good work," she told them. "Once each member of your fleet is home and accounted for, take a moment to congratulate each other. Then contact the Thunder base for a status report and further instructions."

"Thanks a lot," Cam muttered in her ear.

She shut off the allcall and retorted, "There's just no pleasing you, is there? What does it take to make you happy?"

He sounded a little startled. "I was kidding."

She smiled at the comm, despite the fact that he couldn't see her. "I know."

"But I meant you," he continued, as though he hadn't almost apologized. "All of you. Not just the ones without morphers."

"They're the only ones who need the break," Ashley answered, doing a final sweep before turning to head for the rendezvous point. Air threat was negligible. All active ground-based defense systems had been neutralized, though she was still a little worried about hidden battlements they might not know about yet.

Now they were stuck in the time-consuming process of eradicating occupation forces, comm equipment, relays, outposts... anything they could find that might be able to aid the reinforcements they all knew were coming. Not to mention the protection they owed to non-resistance citizens, who hadn't asked to have the full force of the occupation turned on them just because a bunch of ninjas had decided to fight back. This was a lull--nothing more.

Nothing less, either, and she embraced it whole-heartedly. Who knew how long it would be before reinforcements arrived in earnest? Given the shock their uprising had been to the occupation, she guessed they could spare a few more hours for clean-up operations.

"Ashley, your system has been flooded with more stress hormones than you can name for seven hours straight," Cam was telling her. "You haven't eaten anything, haven't even had a drink of water, and you're telling me you don't need a break?"

"You heard them," she reminded him. "They weren't kidding. They feel fine, probably better than normal, no matter how long they've been out here. The Power takes care of us."

"The Power isn't god," Cam snapped. "You talk about it like it's a religious icon."

"I know what it can do," Ashley said simply. "If you scanned us, right now, our body chemistry would be so strange you probably wouldn't recognize it. We don't need to eat, and we don't need to rest. Not now."

"And you'll keep thinking that right up until you collapse from self-inflicted physical abuse," Cam shot back.

"Believe me," Ashley told him, "you haven't seen even half of what we can take. You wanted a supersoldier? You've got six of them."

"I didn't send you out there to sacrifice yourselves," Cam retorted.

"We're not." She didn't know how to convince him. "Look, you're right, okay? We're probably high as a kite by any conventional definition. The Power amplifies everything your body can do, it gives you confidence and stamina you didn't know you had, and, okay, it makes you a little reckless.

"It doesn't cloud our judgement--if anything, it does the opposite. The Power picks people who will do good with it, Cam, and that applies to the way we treat ourselves just as much the way we treat everyone else. We know what we can do, okay? You have to trust me on this."

There was a pause. "I trust you," he grumbled, sounding a little less confrontational. "You've been through this. They haven't. I'm not convinced they know what they can take as well as you do."

"The Power won't let them hurt themselves," she said, as gently as she could. "I know. I have a friend, back on Eltare... he lost some people, people who were really close to him. He tried to kill himself.

"He couldn't," she said softly. "He couldn't do it. Not because he didn't want to, but because it was impossible."

Cam was quiet as her zord approached the coordinates she'd sent out. Then, finally, he said, "I'd rather trust people than the Power."

"Then do it," she said firmly. "You're not wrong, Cam. The Power can push us so far that we crash. But it doesn't hurt us. It will keep us going when we have nothing left, and it will charge us up again afterward. I've been a Ranger for three years. I know what I'm talking about."

The Thunder zords were waiting for her when she arrived, and the Winds made a decent entrance considering they'd never operated heavy machinery together before this morning. The Aquitian zords put them all to shame, coming in for a textbook landing in perfect formation. They were far enough apart that an attack on one would have little to no effect on the others, and she appreciated their paranoia--or was it just procedure?--no matter what the tactical screens said.

"I'm listening," Cam said at last, just when she'd giving up on him responding at all. "I know you have the experience. It's just... it's just my personal involvement that makes it hard for me to accept what you're saying."

She blinked, surprised to hear him say it so clearly. "I understand," she told him. "And I promise you, I know where you're coming from."

"I guess you would," he agreed reluctantly. "Having a morpher doesn't make it any easier to watch the people you love put themselves at risk, does it."

It wasn't a question, but she shook her head anyway. "No," she answered. "Nothing does."

"This is a problem."

Kerone was watching the inside of the Sai Kung base from orbit, and she looked far more amused than Andros felt. "I find it very convenient," she informed him. "I have Ranger soldiers now. You can't just get them off the assembly line, you know."

He gave her a look, which for some reason only made her smile. "Every Ranger that's here is one less Ranger that's at home," he said, even though she knew that perfectly well. "We don't even know why we're here. All we know is that we're going one way and the velocifighters are going the other."

"Which, again," Kerone remarked, "I have to point out is very convenient. They're short some Rangers, and you're short a couple of zords. At least the equipment disparity is on the right side."

She was ensconced in the relative safety of the Dark Fortress. All that meant was that Andros couldn't toss any projectiles her way--and she knew it. His sister was taking full advantage of their separation to make fun of him. It was moderately annoying and a little comforting, at the same time.

"Why can't we go back through the ID portal?" TJ wanted to know. The entire Earth team was here at this point, reinforcements called in by Zhane and then diverted to another dimension hours later. Why them and not the Elisians, no one knew.

"Because two velocifighters exploded during transit this morning," Kerone said bluntly. "One might have been a coincidence, damage sustained during battle, aggravated by the energy fluctuation of the portal. But two?"

"It probably wasn't built to be a permanent gateway," Andros muttered. "It may be breaking down all on its own."

"That's good, right?" Carlos glanced around at them all, huddled in what used to be one of the skyport's smaller lounges. "If it's breaking down, that means less velocifighters for the other dimension."

"It's not stopping enough of them to make a difference at this point," Kerone told him. "Two out of hundreds isn't significant."

"For us, maybe," Karen put in. "But not for them. I see what you mean."

"Umm... Kerone?" Tessa looked a little uncertain. "Why can't you just tell the velocifighters not to go through the portal? I mean, they're Astronema's soldiers, right? Why can't you just tell them to go somewhere else?"

Andros exchanged glances with his sister through the comm. She didn't have to tell him. He already knew, and he thought Ashley understood too. At least, she hadn't asked.

"Dark Spectre thinks I'm acting on my own," Kerone said. She didn't lower her voice, and she didn't look over her shoulder, and Andros knew intellectually that just the fact that she was talking to them in the first place could get her killed. But he still didn't like to hear it spelled out.

"As long as he believes his second-in-command is trying to take his place, he'll assume I don't have the support to carry out more than a localized mutiny," she was telling Tessa. "Dark Spectre has bigger problems right now, so he's ignoring this. If he knew that I was working with the Free Systems, though, I'd be a much bigger threat.

"The velocifighters tell him that my allegiance is only to myself," Kerone continued. "If I redirect them, everyone on this planet will be in danger. More danger than they're already in," she amended.

"Plus those are your quantrons on those velocifighters," Karen said with a fierce grin. "Andros was right; Astronema recognized them right away. She can stop them if she gets close enough to them, so once they're on the ground they're neutralized as fast as she can teleport."

"They're still doing damage from the air," TJ warned. "And frankly, I don't like having 'neutralized' soldiers wandering around. Whatever Astronema did to them, they're still quantrons, and I'd be happier if they were scrap metal."

"Zhane will take care of them," Andros said firmly. "If we get rid of as many as possible over here, that'll be less for them to deal with on the other side."

"Well, we came to defend KO-35," Gabe remarked, speaking for the first time. "I guess technically we never said which one."

"That's the spirit," Carlos agreed, clapping him on the back. "So what do you want us to do, Andros?"

"Ashley!" Kerone's exclamation made everyone look up. "Are you all right?"

"I'm fine, I'm fine." Ashley's reassurance sounded breathless as she slid into the frame with Kerone and glanced at the screen. "Seriously, don't worry. I got into a little scuffle with Darkonda, that's all."

And she couldn't morph, not and maintain her cover on the Dark Fortress. Kerone might have told her soldiers she was disguising people as Rangers, but a spy who could fight like one where any minion could see would cause problems. Ashley looked hassled, and her hands were bloody.

"Why is he still on this ship!" Kerone burst out, taking Ashley's hands and inspecting them where they could all see. "You don't know how many times I've tried to get rid of him!"

"It's okay," Ashley told her. "I'd have morphed if I thought we were really going to get into it. I think he'll avoid me for a while now."

"I think it's safer on the surface," Kerone said with a sigh. "I want to send you down there again."

"Someone needs to stay with you," Ashley insisted. Her tone was that of someone repeating the same words for the third or fourth time. "This ship has magical defenses, and all it would take is someone turning them against you and you'd be in as much danger as any of us."

"Andros." TJ's voice got his attention but seemed to be too quiet to distract the girls on the skyport screen. He jerked his head toward them when Andros glanced at him. "Is that true?"

Andros nodded. "She designed those defenses," he said, just as quietly. "It'd be hard to turn them on her, but if it happened, she'd need backup."

"Maybe someone else should be up there with them," TJ muttered.

Andros was very aware that Ashley and Kerone had stopped arguing and were now devoting their combined efforts to figuring out what TJ was talking about. "Can't do it," he said, raising his voice just enough that everyone could hear. "The Dark Fortress knows Ashley. The rest of us would just put Kerone at risk."

"They know you?" Carlos asked incredulously. He directed the question at the screen rather than at Andros.

"Her counterpart was a prisoner here last year," Kerone offered. "She got away by pretending to be a spy. Astronema was the only one who knew she was a Ranger."

"Everyone else thinks I'm a smuggler named Aisling," Ashley added. "Or that's what Astronema told them," she said, glancing at Kerone. "I'm pretty sure Ecliptor isn't the only one who doesn't buy it."

"He may have been more involved than I know," Kerone said, frowning a little. "But I have to assume he wasn't."

"So Astronema's been helping the Rangers for a while now," TJ guessed, looking from the screen to Andros for confirmation.

"I don't know," Andros admitted. Kerone didn't jump in, so he continued, "Kerone was a Ranger in this dimension. She was captured when KO-35 was invaded. Her memory must have been suppressed, because Astronema doesn't remember anything before the Dark Fortress."

When he paused, Ashley added, "She visited our dimension a little while ago and asked us to help put her in contact with the Free Systems. She said Ashley--the Ashley from her dimension--had made her think that she might be fighting for the wrong side."

"Might be?" TJ repeated. He didn't look at all happy with the explanation. "There's a big difference between 'might be' and 'is.'"

"It's a little late to have that discussion again," Kerone put in. "We helped her. So far it's worked out all right."

"Kerone's here now," Andros added. "She's got things under control. We have to help her keep it that way. Zhane will make sure Astronema doesn't do any damage in our dimension."

"Speaking of having things under control." Kerone was looking at Ashley's hands again, but she shot a meaningful look at the screen when she spoke. "The more you use those zords, the faster my people are going to figure out that there really are Rangers here."

Andros had already thought of that. "Do you want us to ground them? We could use the zords, but the way things are going, we'll be all right without them."

"No," Kerone said, getting up and walking out of the screen's range. Ashley was watching her, and they could still hear her talking. "They're going to know eventually. There's only so long I can pretend that the reports of real Rangers on the surface are just hopeful citizens fooled by glamour."

She stepped back onto the screen holding a bowl, which she set down in front of Ashley without a word. Ashley gave it a skeptical look, but she put her hands in without being told. She winced as she did it, and Andros wondered what exactly was in the bowl.

"Do whatever you want with the zords," Kerone added, looking at the screen again. "There isn't a quantron on this ship that I don't control--not anymore. I can deal with whatever happens here."

"Maybe we should stay with the zords," Carlos put in. "What if whatever brought us here can send us back? If we go without the zords, it's going to be a problem."

"That's true," Andros agreed. He couldn't help but think of his and Ashley's zords, inactive without pilots to reinforce the teammates they'd left behind. "You'd better stay with them as much as possible."

"No one's gone back without Kerone sending them since you guys got here," Karen pointed out. "And that was days ago. I'm starting to wonder if maybe whatever brought us here only works one way."

"Guys, that's good," Ashley said into the silence that followed. "Look, if we can't be sent back unexpectedly that makes our situation here way more stable. It's better if we can count on each other instead of wondering who's going to be next."

"But if whatever brought us here doesn't send us home," Carlos observed, "and the ID portal is breaking down, then how are we going to get back?"

"Let's try to figure out what's going on before we try to change it," Andros said firmly.

"Because in the meantime?" Ashley added. She looked more determined than battered and just as optimistic as she sounded. "We have a planet to free."