1.10: HAUNTED WHISPERS
They’d finally found a decent purpose for the observation lounge, at least as far as Trok was concerned. Normally the room didn’t get much use; ostensibly it was a reception area, used for diplomatic events back when the vessel had been under SPD employ. But diplomacy wasn’t exactly the main gig for a clandestine black ops organization, and so it had mostly just sat empty. They mostly just ate in the workbay, and relaxed either there or in the simudeck. The most this place ever saw any activity was when someone just needed to ‘get away from it all’, needing a place to clear their head in the dead of night.
But, as Trok had decided, this was *much* better. See, the ship’s higher-level functions had needed to be shut down after the last mission. They’d crossed through the dense ionized nebula of a proto-system disk in pursuit of a pirate vessel they’d been tasked to apprehend. The ionization had done a number on the ship’s computer, and so they’d needed to do an extensive sweep and reboot of the core. Which was funny, because the whole Capricorn virus incident had only been like, a week earlier.
As it turned out though, no power meant the rangers had had to come up with a new way of keeping themselves occupied in the dark. And so here they all sat in the observation lounge, having brought in blankets and having stolen all of the room’s cushions for a fort, and they were now telling ghost stories.
…Er, well, *trying* to tell ghost stories. Trok had gone for the generic attempt, though he of course thought it had been very good. Ghost ships were a solid standby, he had thought, but apparently he’d been stuck with a tough room. Sel, predictably, hadn’t had anything and simply passed.
Xolin meanwhile, well…
“And then when the acolyte turned to look at his other two aspects, he gasped—there was only one other of himself in the room. Only two aspects. Only two”.
The other three rangers listened, mostly with expressions that ranged from ‘bored to tears’ in Trok’s case to ‘mild perplexion in Sel’s. Xolin kept up her spooky charade, allowing it to linger with the flickering light of the simulated fire they surrounded, hoping to catch them in the feeling. No such luck. Damn. She awkwardly let go of the narration. “…Oh come on, that was scary!” she said, grumpiness beginning to fill her voice.
Trok snorted, “Yeah, I’m quaking in my boots. And you called *my* story lame!”
“It’s *esoteric* horror!” she protested, “Having only two aspects would be an abomination!”
“I’m sure you had to be there” Sid shrugged, a wry grin on his face.
She glared at him. “Unwashed plebs. Wouldn’t know a good horror story if it came up and bit you”.
He rolled his eyes, leaning back in his seat, “Xolin, there aren’t any other species who have multiple aspects like yours. It simply doesn’t translate. I’m sure it’s um…’terrifying’ back home, but for us? No context at all”.
Xolin put her hands up in defeat as she slumped back into her seat, “You know what? Fine, whatever. I dare you to do one better”.
Sid leaned forward, his smile becoming downright predatory. “I’ll make you eat those words”.
Xolin folded her arms, “Oh, this should be good” she muttered sarcastically. And so Sid took a deep breath, and began his tale…
---
For once, everything was going along smoothly. No viruses, no electrical storms, no hostile ships attacking them…Iota could focus on the computer sweep in peace. Even the rangers were quiet; holed up somewhere telling each other silly ghost stories or whatever.
Iota slid his hand across the computer console as he idly checked the readings from one to the next. Only another few hours and this would be all over and they’d be able to resume their course—the pirates had unfortunately gotten away, but they’d managed to gain a few leads in their chase. If anything, waiting this out only helped them, as it would cause their prey to calm down and risk visiting one of their leads—and then they were done for.
Only a matter of time.
The entire bridge was dark, save the soft glow of the scant few consoles currently active. He liked it; it was…calming. Quiet.
That quiet was shattered by a beeping noise coming from the emergency communications system, one of the few programs to still be active. Y’know, just in case. Curious, Iota moved over to the beeping signal, and began to play it. Perhaps it was command, informing them of a change in mission. Or perhaps, less welcoming, it was an ultimatum from some ship that had caught them with their proverbial pants down.
It turned out to be neither, however. Iota listened with curiosity.
“…Anyone listening on this frequency, this is the independent cargo ship Horizon. We need immediate assistance, please respond! I repeat, to anyone listening on this frequency…”
Iota responded back, “Horizon, this is the independent transport Janus” he said, rattling off one of his ship’s many aliases when such occasions came up, “What is your situation?”
The cargo ship didn’t respond, instead repeating the same message over and over. “Hello? Horizon, please come in. What is your status?” Still nothing, and Iota knew that meant they’d have to go in personally. He rung up the sensor systems, quickly pinpointing the origin of the SOS, before transferring it to the rangers’ sky cycles and shutting the sensors back down. It wasn’t too far out; the signal had originated near a gas giant within the nearest system, less than a light-year away. The rangers could check it out while the ship was still being run through its paces.
Now however, he had to go figure out where the rangers were.
---
The hallway was a mess; Iota was thankful for his suit’s night vision, otherwise traversing the corridor leading to the observation lounge would have been a death trap. Chairs from inside the room had been stacked outside like a barrier, with random things also from inside being used as a makeshift minefield outside said barrier.
“This…does not bode well” the figured sighed as he moved aside some of the chairs so he could reach the door. Bracing himself, he opened the doorway and stepped inside…and was met with a large fort built from the room’s many sofas toppled onto one another. Inside, presumably, were the rangers.
He sighed again, “…What are you doing?” he asked disdainfully.
“Nothing” Trok replied, a little too quickly, “We’re not doing anything. We’re uh…”
“Hiding in a pile of furniture” Iota finished for them, clearly unamused.
Xolin called out from her own position behind the bar, “I’m not hiding! I’m just…” she hesitated, her head poking up over the counter. She cleared her throat, “So how long until we’re up and running again?”
“A few hours” Iota said, not taking his eyes off Sid’s fort, “But I have a mission for you now. We’ve received an SOS signal from a nearby planet. The relevant information has been uploaded to your skycycles”.
“Mission, huh?” Trok muttered from within the fort, “Sounds good! Sounds good. We were um…getting…bored in here”.
Iota eyed Sid, sitting quite comfortably—and smugly—where the others had been earlier, “And what would your take on this be?”
He shrugged, a self-satisfied expression crossing his face, “…Couldn’t say. Guess they didn’t like my story telling”.
Iota stared at him a moment longer, then shook his head in abject disgust as he walked out, “Get to your stations, all of you”.
---
Four skycycles shot through the void of space, approaching a rather large orange-hued world. It was a gas giant, with vibrant bands of texture running across its surface; chaotic maelstroms that had been churning endlessly since long before the development of civilization.
Sid was not particularly happy about it. “Because of course. The one time the Megaship is out of commission is the one time we have to dive into a class II gas giant”.
“What’s wrong? Afraid?” Xolin taunted as the four craft dipped into lower orbit, preparing for their final descent into the thick, soupy atmosphere below.
Sid didn’t rise to her obviously revenge-fueled bait, “Travel within gas giants is ‘ill-advised’ for a reason. If we’re not careful, the winds and storms could tear us apart. And that’s not even getting into the problems with the planet’s radiation belts. We’re damned lucky we’ve got ranger powers”.
“We’ll be fine” Xolin retorted, “Our skycycles can guide us through the wind belts, and the ship doesn’t look to be *that* far down in the clouds. This’ll be a quick in-and-out job”.
“Hmm” Sid mused, unconvinced. He tapped the communications menu on his vehicle, “Calling the cargo ship Horizon, this is the Janus rescue party, please come in”. When no reply was forthcoming, Sid tried again, “Cargo ship Horizon, do you read?”
“Iota couldn’t get them to respond either” Trok said, “Comms must be down”.
“But they managed to keep a distress signal going?” Xolin asked incredulously.
Sid grumbled, “I don’t like this”.
“Trap?” Xolin asked.
Sid nodded, “Trap”.
“But we’re going in anyway” Xolin added in deadpan, completely aware of where this was headed.
The red ranger glanced over at blue, “Can’t be helped. If it’s *not* a trap, we can’t just let innocent people die. We just gotta be on our guard and ready to bail at the first sign something’s up”.
“So…” Trok asked, “Taking bets on if it’s Capricorn, or that creepy guy with the briefcase?”
“I hope it’s not Capricorn again” Sel muttered.
“I’m gonna go with ‘briefcase” said Xolin, “We just torched one of Capricorn’s plans; I doubt he’d have rebounded so quickly”.
Sid thought it over, “…New guy, employed by briefcase dude. Like Naga was”.
“That’s comforting” Xolin grimaced.
“So no votes for Zombie Naga?” Trok joked.
Sid ignored him, “I’m a ray of friggin’ sunshine” he chuckled back at Xolin, then grew serious as he checked his onboard readings, “We’re within descent arc radius of our target. Prepare to dive”. And just like that, the four flying motorbikes slide beneath the orange gassy waves.
---
The upper layers of the atmosphere were as Sid pretty much expected; alternating layers of turbulence separated by levels of lesser activity. They’d mostly been diving in stages; quickly descending as safely as they could through the trouble layers, and then coasting along the quiet barriers before diving again.
Luckily for the group, at the moment the ship in question was within one of the quiet zones…though for how much longer was a good question, as Sid noted that engines and antigrave generators seemed to be down, and the vessel was indeed slipping lower into the abyss. That made rescue paramount: if they didn’t hurry, the ship would sink low enough that the pressure from the atmosphere would crush it –and them—like ants. Not fun.
Though he did have to say, not that he was a physics wiz or anything, but the ship was falling more slowly than he’d have thought—more of a crawl than a free-fall. Curious.
He motioned to the others, taking the lead towards the vessel’s forward loading bay. It was a typical terran vessel, and an old one by the looks of it, pre-dating the fall of Earth. It was what one would expect a human vessel to look like; blocky and utilitarian, with the various cargo bays segmented apart and able to detach from the upper ‘spine’ of the ship.
“How do we get in?” Trok asked.
“We could try knocking, maybe” Xolin joked.
“Janus to Horizon. Come in Horizon” Sid tried again, still trying to get in contact with the vessel. Yet still, nothing. Sigh. He grumbled in frustration; he really didn’t *want* to shoot the loading bay door down, but he wasn’t really seeing any other options. “…Alright. Everyone form up, we’re going to—oh, huh”. Sid’s command was abruptly cut off by the ship’s door opening on its own, without any indication of…well, anything. “…Yeah, that’s not suspicious”.
“We still going in?” Trok asked.
Sid nodded, “Be on your guard”. With that, he pushed his cycle forward, into the loading bay. The others quickly, if reluctantly, followed suit…
---
“This place is giving me the creeps”
It was hard to disagree with Trok; everything felt…off. The door to the loading bay had closed after the rangers had entered the ship, leaving the rangers in an otherwise unpopulated chamber. The lights were all off, forcing the team to use their headlights situated in a thin strip just atop their visors. The room itself was a mess, with boxes and supplies tossed about haphazardly like a tornado had hit the place.
“Air’s breathable” Xolin said, checking her stats on her visor, “So life support must be working still…if barely”.
Sid sighed, “No welcoming committee. I was hoping whoever let us in would be here to greet us”.
“So, plan?” Xolin asked.
“We head for the bridge, see what we can figure out” Sid replied, absentmindedly having pulled out his blaster and checking it out, “And stick together. I don’t want us being picked off one by one if it *is* a trap”.
“Do we even know where the bridge is?” she asked skeptically, “With all major systems possibly offline, we’ll be stumbling around in the dark”.
Sid nodded, “Oh yeah. This is a Charon class freighter; one of the older models, I assume. I know my way around. Come on”. He waved to them with his gun, beckoning them to follow him. They did so…though again, reluctantly.
This place was *creepy*. Trok couldn’t help but think back to his own ghost story…
---
The bridge wasn’t much better. It was dark, cramped, and littered with bodies in the seats. Old bodies too; they had been completely dessicated. They were now little more than clothed skeletons. The room itself was small; consisting of just two seats in a would-be cockpit, with a captain’s seat just behind it, and two running parallel behind.
“Well” Sid cleared his throat, “…This is pleasant”. He sighed, pushing one of the rear skeletons from his seat to the floor, taking the chair for his own. Xolin folded her arms in a bit of annoyed contempt, to which Sid shrugged back at her, as if to ask ‘what?’ The group fanned out, with Sid checking out the dead controls at his chosen station. “Let’s see if we can’t get anything operational and find out what happened here”.
Sel made her way over to the captain’s chair, taking a close look at the dead corpse laying there, before backing away, grossed out. “…How long have these people been here? This doesn’t look like a ship that just put out an SOS”.
Sid frowned, turning around in his chair towards Sel and the others, “…Yeah, I’ve been wondering that myself. These guys have been here for *years* at least. Thoughts?”
“Delayed response?” Xolin shrugged, not entirely believing her theory herself.
“Hmm” Sid mumbled, returning to his task, unsettled. This was wrong. It didn’t even feel like a trap anymore. Just…why all this? If it was a trap, it should have been sprung by now.
Xolin glared at Trok. The younger ranger was currently instinctively jumping at every odd noise the old derelict made, and being in such a shape as it was—itself being a miracle it was holding together at all, especially within the wild confines of the gas giant it had been trapped within for god knows how long.
“Will you just *chill out*?” she snapped at him, “You’re driving me up the wall!”
Trok made a hesitant sigh, trying to calm himself, “Sorry. Sorry, I just…”
Sid snickered, a wry grin forming on his mouth, “...Are you still freaked out about the ghost stories?”
“…Maybe, just a little” Trok said, fidgeting with his fingers, “More mine though. You gotta admit, this place *is* just like a ghost ship”.
As if to punctuate his point, a loud creaking noise emanated through the cramped bridge, making everyone jump slightly. Sid laughed, “…Ah, we’re fine. It was just a silly sci-fi bedtime story”.
Xolin gave their leader a deadpan stare, “Sci-fi?”
“…What?”
“Sid. We live on a spaceship. It transforms into a giant robot and we use it to fight crime”.
“…And? I'm not saying that ghosts don't exist, I'm just saying that Giant Robots don't automatically mean that every ship is infested with vengeance-filled geists” Sid shrugged, attempting to return to…whatever it was he was doing. Mostly blankly staring at the old controls because he had lost his train of thought…and *man* were they old. No holographic interfaces at all; everything was touch-screen.
“…Wouldn't ghosts be more gothic horror than sci-fi anyway?” asked Trok, a bit confused.
Sid looked at the green ranger incredulously, “…Do you even know what ‘gothic’ *means*?”
“Sweet Trinity” Xolin muttered, exasperated with the entire conversation.
Then the lights and controls and…everything came on, and everyone just about leapt out of their skin.
“What the—Sel!?” Sid exclaimed while trying to catch his breath, looking over at the yellow ranger. She was currently at one of the other control stations, evidently fiddling with some of the computer systems. Sid’s heart felt like it was going a thousand miles a minute, and the same was true for Xolin and Trok.
Sel smiled sheepishly, “Sorry. But it’s not like anyone *else* was doing anything—so I just rerouted the ship’s power core to the auxiliary generators”.
Sid clasped his hands together, full of fake and melodramatic parental support, “Our little girl’s finally learning to snark. I’m so proud—ow!” he rubbed his upper arm where Xolin had just punched him, giving him a ‘not serious but kinda’ annoyed glare as she headed over to one of the other stations. He just shook his head with a chuckle, returning—once more—to his task. “So…logs…”
Moving through the old computer system was…annoying. He knew how it worked, roughly anyway; he’d had enough training back in SPD ‘just in case’. But he hadn’t encountered anything this old in years. Still, soon enough he found what he wanted. He began scrolling.
“Wow, 2133. This ship has been here for…over a century” came Trok’s voice, from the opposite terminal, “At least, that’s the last date for anything on this ship. Who knows how long the main generator kept running before shutting down. They might have been out here years before that”.
“So what killed them?” asked Xolin, “and how the hell did they manage an SOS just now?”
“Good questions” Sid muttered, still scrolling, “A lot of these logs are…corrupted, I think. Either that or they were just speaking gibberish”.
“Gibberish how?” asked Xolin.
Sid beckoned for her and the blue ranger walked over to red. Sid pointed at his screen, and Xolin began to read. “…What the”.
“This isn’t any kind of corruption I’ve ever seen” Trok said, having found logs himself, “It’s more like…like you said, gibberish”.
Sid nodded, “And the more I scan back to the older stuff, the more legit the logs get” he squinted as he leaned in, “They were stranded here for quite awhile. And they just kind of…went crazy, I guess. Like, this is legit straight up crazy talk”.
“Yeah, there’s stuff in here about the crew turning against one another, and hallucinations, and…wow, they really went off the deep end, huh?” Trok said. “Stuff about…They keep referring to nouns that aren’t nouns. And they just keep chanting them. And like, what’s this about ‘The Great Darkness’?”
“Oh, that sounds promising” Sid sarcastically quipped.
“I don’t like this” Xolin said, “What caused the crazy? And *why* did the SOS just go off?”
“Checking” Sid scanned back through the newer logs, to ship functions. What he saw, or rather didn’t see, caused his stomach to drop through the floor, “…There’s no SOS signal”.
“What”.
“There *was*, back when the ship first got trapped” Sid clarified, “But the signal’s been dead for over a century; went down with the rest of the ship”.
“We need to get out of here” Xolin said, backing up as fight or flight began to flare up. Things were too weird; too unsettling. Damn ghost stories.
Sid nodded, agreeing as he stood up cautiously, now genuinely spooked, “…Yeah. Yeah we do”.
“Detecting another lifeform onboard the ship, headed for the bridge” Sel reported from one of the front stations.
“Capricorn” Sid grunted; so it really had been a trap all along. Damn. He was about to order everyone back to the ship, but then an idea crossed his mind, “…Wait. He knows we’re here. And we know he knows we’re here. But unless I’m mistaken, he *doesn’t* know we know he knows we’re here”.
Xolin’s palm slid across her helmet, “Okay, yeah. I’m gonna need you to explain that in less mind-hurting terms”.
Sid spun around in his seat to face her, “Easy. He’s got us in an ambush. What if we turn the tables?”
The other three rangers all looked at Sid expectedly. Under his helmet, Sid grinned. This was going to be *fun*.
---
The plan was simple; Trok and Sel would remain in the bridge on standby. Meanwhile Sid and Xolin would flank Capricorn’s location via the tube system. Once behind them, they’d trail him until he attempted to ambush the other two—at which point they would cut him off. Classic hammer and anvil. And just to make sure they’d flank him properly, Sid and Xolin had taken opposing tubes on each side of the hallway.
This wasn’t sitting well with Trok. He and Sel were currently hidden behind the bridge doorway, on opposite sides. “We shouldn’t have split up” he muttered.
“Why not?” asked Sel, risking another peek around the corner. Still no Capricorn.
“Because that’s how we get picked off one by one in a horror story” the green ranger replied in a deadpan.
Sel peeked again; still no Capricorn. “…You really think this place is haunted?” she asked, a hint of concern in her voice, though she was trying to sound neutral. But still…there was something off about this ship; she could feel it, even if she couldn’t figure out why.
More than that though, she’d been feeling weird for a day or two now. It was like there was some kind of buzzing in her ears, but no one else had heard it, and it felt like…like something was *building*. She couldn’t explain it. She’d had Iota run a few tests, but nothing. He’d chocked it up to stress.
Oddly, that just stressed her out more.
Trok shrugged, “I don’t know. Hopefully not, but like, no need to give the ghosts more ammo if they *are* here!”
And that’s when the lights shut off again, along with all the computer systems. It took all of Trok’s effort not to piss himself.
“Wow, we are *so* going to die!” Trok wheezed in terror. Sel just frowned, turning on her suit’s night vision. This was bad.
“I’m going to check the auxiliary power” she said as she headed back to the control panel, “See what happened”.
---
The power shut down just as Sid was about to reach his chosen grate. “That can’t be good” he muttered, switching on his night vision; the headlights would be too much of a giveaway to Capricorn. He pulled the grate aside, sliding back into the hallway, and checked his sensors.
No sign of Capricorn. No sign of anyone, actually. How…
“That’s…bad” he said, then spoke into his communicator, “Sid to Xolin, please respond”.
No answer.
“Sid to Xolin!” he tried again. When she still didn’t respond, he tried someone else, “Sid to Trok! Sel? Is anyone on this frequency?”
Nothing. Just…dead silence. He chuckled nervously, “Okay, really. If this is getting me back for the ghost story, you got me. Not that I’m not pissed you chose to do this while in the middle of an operation. Guys?”
Still nothing. *Now* he was getting worried. It was time to head back to the bridge. If he encountered Capricorn on the way, well; maybe he’d have information he could beat out of him.
---
There was nothing wrong with the connection, as far as she could tell; granted she wasn’t anywhere near an expert in their field. And the fact that the computer was down meant her diagnosing of the situation was limited.
Sigh.
“Hey, Trok?” Sel asked, turning back to where Trok was presumably still guarding the door. He’d be able to figure this out, no sweat. Well, except that he wasn’t there anymore. “…Trok?”
She got up from under the control console, looking around. “Trok? Where are you?”
“Indisposed of, I’m afraid” came the bleating voice of her nightmares. She gasped wordlessly, spinning back to the front of the ship. There plainly, even in her night vision, she could see her arch-enemy. The one who had captured her. The one who had stolen her away and intimidated her; who’d almost sold her to who knows where. The one she feared most of all.
…Or rather, second most of all.
“Capricorn” she whispered as her heart skipped a beat, wondering how he’d managed to make it around her to the front of the ship without her knowing.
“Hello, Sel” he bleated evilly.
---
Xolin rounded the corner. She KNEW she’d seen someone come down this way. But now…nothing, just empty hallway. Well, not *empty*; there were tossed supplies and boxes everywhere; debris littering the ground. And of course the occasional skeleton corpse, their jaws open. Two she had seen strangling each other. Another had been scratching at the bulkhead, next to words painted on: “SAVE ME”. It was almost as charming as the dried blood on the wall a few doors back that shouted ‘ABANDON HOPE’.
Yeah, it was a fun place.
“Xolin to Sid” she spoke into her communicator. “Xolin to Sid, come in”.
No response. “Great”. She moved towards the nearest door, nearing one of the segmented cargo chambers, her gun practically glued to her fingers. Steeling herself with a breath, she pulled the door open with a grunt. Stepping inside, she scanned the room with her night vision—it seemed like just a normal cargo room. Er, well…except that her visor wasn’t reading anything below the railing. The room, as it should have been, consisted of her on a platform, overlooking the rest of the chamber, which was sitting in a depression. But the depression wasn’t there—the ladder only led to an inky blackness. It was already enough to put her on edge as she stepped closer to get a better scan.
Wait. What was that noise?
…Was that…wailing?
Sweet Trinity, it was like the cries of the damned.
And that was when hands began to rise from the void, stretching out unrealistically, their bloodied and mangled forms wildly reaching for something to grab. She stepped back in horror as some of the hands began grabbing at the platform. This was…oh gods. This couldn’t be…her parents had been right, all this time. She turned and ran for the door, but found it to be locked shut when she pulled.
She felt the hands grabbing her.
“NO!” she cried, as more grabbed her, pulling her back. She held on to the door as long as she could, but they were too strong. “NO NO NO NO NO!” she was drug forcedly along the floor, towards the edge of the platform. She grabbed the railing for dear life, again grasping at it as long as she could as her body was sucked down into the blackness. She screamed in horror the whole way, even as her vision went dark. Even as the wailing got indescribably loud. Even as she was covered by the hands dragging her right into hell.
---
Trok bounded down the hallway in sheer unadulterated terror. It was after him. He hadn’t seen it, not really, but he knew it was there, in the darkness. Even his night vision wasn’t enough to save him; he could only see in one direction at the time. It was too bad about Sel; dying at its hands. They shouldn’t have split up. Had he known, had he been next to her and helped her to run, instead of being cut down while he had still been waiting for Capricorn. Now he was alone; without friends or allies. How could he hope to survive?
Oh god, where was it. Oh god, it could have been *anywhere*. He fired wildly behind him, hoping to at least get a glancing shot off.
He didn’t land a hit even once.
---
Sid made his way down the hallway, keeping his gun at the ready. This wasn’t right; the hallway to the bridge was a straight-down affair. And by all rights, he should have been there by now. But here he was, twisting and turning around in what he could only describe as a maze. And his attempt to backtrack had only made things *worse*. It was like the walls were shifting on him.
Damn. What kind of madman built a ship like this?
Wait…what was that on the floor? Another body? He’d seen a few scattering the floor, but…this one…still had flesh. Wait. He knew this body.
Xolin. No. No, it couldn’t…
But there was Trok, also lifeless. And Sel. Oh god, all of them. He shouldn’t have split from them. He shouldn’t have…oh god. Oh god, what had he done. It had happened again. He’d failed them. His team was dead again. He looked around; no sign of their killer. He checked his morpher’s sensors. The lifesign was gone.
No. His only lead, gone.
No. Nononononono.
Sid dropped to his knees. And as his mind snapped for a second time, he issued a bloodcurdling howl.
---
“What do you want?” Sel hissed, instinctively backing away. Something felt…off. Worse than usual. Capricorn grinned, but it wasn’t his normal grin. She couldn’t explain *how*, but…something radiated off Capricorn like pure malevolence. Sure, he was an evil pirate lord, but he’d *just* been an evil pirate lord. But now…something was worse.
“What do you think I want?” the goat bleated with maniacal glee, “After all this time, I have you right where I want you. The others won’t save you this time; he’s seen to that”. He nodded to behind Sel, and he hesitantly turned around to see what he was motioning at.
“I told you I’d come for you, Sel” the man with the briefcase said. She instinctively stepped away from him as well.
“No” she whispered in defiance, shifting to a defense pose.
“You have no choice” the man said, stepping forward. Her friends were gone; disposed of. Her enemies surrounded her, ready to take her away, elsewhere. Both felt so wrong, so evil…very different from before. The man had always felt…wrong, but this was a different kind. This was…everything was wrong; not how it was supposed to be.
Sel lunged, striking out at the man. She wasn’t great by any means in melee combat, but the man’s response was still impossible; he just evaded with impossible reflexes. And then he did it again. And again. Without even moving, it was like he wasn’t even there. How… She struck again, and again. But he would not be hit. She breathed, becoming slightly worn out from her attempts, but kept striking to no avail.
“Give it up, Sel. You cannot defeat us” the man said. Why wasn’t he attacking back? Sel panted, warily watching both of her foes. Perhaps it was time to take a different tack.
“…Why do you want me so bad?” she asked the man, “Where would you have me go?”
“Oh, you’ll find out soon enough” Capricorn bleated. The two step forward again, towards Sel, but this time she didn’t budge, instead initiating a detailed scan of both opponents. Nothing came up for the man; not *too* surprising, she figured he was a bit different anyway; but Capricorn, again nothing came up. There were no life signs on her sensors, and nothing coming up on the scanners about him—as if he wasn’t there at all.
Curious.
And the more she felt his evil, the more she realized it wasn’t actually *there*. In fact, it was as if the evil was everywhere, and he…it felt like he *wasn’t*, if that made any sense. She shrugged off the buzzing feeling.
“Who are you?” she demanded to know.
“Excuse me?” asked ‘Capricorn’.
She turned to him, “If you were really Capricorn, your bio-readings would match the files we have on record. You don’t have anything. In fact, the computer is convinced I’m trying to scan the wall. So who are you, really?”
The two glanced at each other, seemingly annoyed. The man turned to Sel, “Enough questions. You will come with us now”.
Sel’s eyes narrowed; she decided to test her suspicions. As her fists balled up, she began walking forward. “No, I don’t think I will” she said, passing through the two as if they weren’t even there.
Success. The two foes vanished, evaporating like smoke. She allowed herself a satisfied smile, though now she found herself worried; something was here. Something malevolent, that wanted something from them. Hallucinations didn’t just happen like that, and she *did* feel a presence, here. On this ship.
“Trok?” she called out, “Where are you?!”
No response. She spoke into her morpher, “Trok? Xolin? Sid, come in”. Still nothing. She pondered; if she was suffering from these illusions, then…oh dear. And as a xybrian, she at least had natural mental resistance against psychic attacks; probably one of the big reasons she’d been able to push through it, even if she wasn’t really trained or had ever really even used her powers. If the others were being attacked too, then they were in trouble.
She had to track them down; *now*. Using her morpher to scan for lifeforms, she headed off towards the nearest one, just down the hall.
---
Sid sat there, broken. He should never have gotten involved, never have let Iota manipulate him into becoming the team’s leader. Here they all were; dead. Dead, just like the rest. They lay sprawled across the floor, lifeless and bleeding. Just like…back then. Oh god.
“I never should have taken the job” he heard himself say. No…not him, but his voice. He looked up, and his eyes widened with a gasp as he saw himself. Or rather, the red ranger, as he approached himself.
“Who—” Sid began to ask, baffled, but was quickly cut off by the other.
“They just got in my way; slowed me down. So really, it was a mercy”.
“What…what did you say?!” Sid gasped, anger growing in his pit.
The other Sid chuckled, “Only what you really feel, deep down. Now I can finally get back to doing what I do best, on my own”.
Sid staggered to his feet, enraged. “Don’t you dare…”
The Other continued to chuckle, “What’s wrong? Angry? Or just afraid of your true feelings?”
Sid roared in rage, charging at his doppelganger with all his might.
---
“SID, STOP!” Sel cried out as she narrowly dodged his first attack, but to no avail. More hallucinations; she’d been right. And Sid was in no way prepared to deal with a heavy psychic attack like what was going on. Even now, she felt its presence trying to seep into her mind. And unfortunately for her, Sid was a *much* better melee fighter than her, even while crazed and insane. She flipped away, narrowly dodging his (fairly clumsy) assault, backing her feet in the wall before launching forward.
Time for some quick thinking.
She flew over Sid, her bow materializing in her hands as she flipped over. She managed in three shots, each hitting not Sid himself (she didn’t want to harm him) but rather the floor around him, causing explosions that did a good job of both distracting him and knocking him around a bit. Landing behind him, she was unprepared for his sudden counter-assault, a spinning kick aimed at her. She was barely able to knock it away with her bow, before being hit by the other foot. She staggered back, before once again leaping back to give herself more room, opening another volley as Sid charged, himself cutting through each one with his axe.
Sel had a brief half-second of dawning shock as she realized just how screwed she was, just before Sid slammed into her, his charged up weapon cutting through her suit with a shower of sparks. She fell to the ground, rolling away—only barely able to get to her knees so she could block his next strike with her bow.
This was bad. She needed an upset. *Now*.
---
She felt her form being torn apart; ripped asunder by the clawing hands. Not physically, but mentally. Emotionally. She felt her three forms being forcedly separated; the core of her being on the cusp of annihilation as she was rended apart. This was hell; the extinction of her concept, the refusal of her reincarnation.
Xolin screamed. She screamed as long and as hard as she could; until her voice began to give out. But it made no difference. She was in hell; and now she would suffer for her sins.
---
He was alone; abandoned. The others were gone, having been taken by It. He was going to die here; he knew that now. He was going to die alone and frightened, far away from home. Balled up in the corner, gun aiming in the darkness, Trok waited for the end.
---
A sharp pain shot through Sel’s mind as she struggled against Sid’s axe. She could *feel* them; all of them. Xolin’s screams, Trok’s sobs…and of course Sid’s rage. She definitely felt Sid’s rage, especially as another swing from the axe threw her bow aside. And that damned buzzing; it distracted her. She reached for her side arm, but it was too late; Sid’s follow-up kick, and then another strike from his weapon sent her flying into the wall. He then thrust his weapon into her stomach, knocking the wind right out of her. One more swing, and she’d be done.
“Sid, please! Stop; it’s me, Sel! You’re hallucinating!”
Sel grabbed his axe by the top of the handle, and with her other hand pulled out her blaster, opening fire on the red ranger directly. He yelped, stumbling back. She hated having to hit him directly, but times were desperate. Gripping his axe, she tossed it aside, deciding to charge right at him with a kick. He hit the far wall hard, but grabbed his own gun and prepared to fire.
“I’LL KILL YOU!” he roared.
She had to get out of here.
Quickly knocking his weapon aside, she aimed her own at the floor and issued three shots, creating a shower of sparks and a cloud of smoke—one in which she was free to vanish in, opting to quickly slide into the nearest vent. She had to get away. Had to get away. Had to get away… She was no match for Sid; she had to get away and try another way.
Entering a larger room in the vent system—probably a maintenance hub—she panted, curling up into a ball as she attempted to recover from the ordeal. She could still hear the others in her head, screaming…and she couldn’t do anything to help them. For all everyone had told her she was a welcome part of the team; for all the training they had given her, she was still the load; the one that needed saving. She was useless, and now that was going to cost everyone everything. Tears formed in her eyes.
What could she do? She’d tried to snap Sid out of it, but had only gotten a few bruises to show for it, and she doubted she’d fare much better against the other two, if the illusions really were that strong.
“Sel to Iota, please respond” she spoke into her morpher, though she knew the chances of him replying were slim to none. Even if the ship was up and running again, the gas giant probably did a good job of jamming her small personal-based transmission. And if the planet didn’t, who knew what kind of powers the Presence had. “Please, Iota…come in”.
Nothing. And none of the others would last much longer; she could feel their minds beginning to fray. She put her head in her hands. What an abject failure she turned out to be.
…Wait. The comms had been out just a few days before too, when they were stuck in that game. Sid had used that morphin’ grid trick to send that…what had he called it? ‘Morris’ code? Yeah, that thing. If she could just remember what Sid imputed…no luck. Maybe random blinks would work? At the very least she could get his attention.
Maybe.
So she sent the signal, as base as it was. She had no way of knowing if it would even make it to Iota, much less if he would even notice. Figures she couldn’t even get a distress signal right.
---
Final checks were done; lights were coming back on everywhere. Iota issued a small sigh of relief; after how many times they’d had to reboot the system as of late, it was nice that this time at least, there had been no complications. But not all business had been accounted for yet; it was time to check in with the team. He moved over to the communications console on the bridge.
“Iota to team, what’s your status?”
Nothing. Hrn. That’s when he noticed it; the slight blinking variation in the morphin’ grid, flashing on his console. It was almost like Sid’s Morse Code, except without the code part—but it was far too random to be any actual sort of message. Yet the source was still coming from the location of the SOS. Switching over to the science console, Iota decided it was time to check on a few things with that. He wasn’t disappointed; something *weird* was going on over there; energy readings were off the scale.
Time to investigate.
---
Sel kicked out the grate blocking her exit from the vent, and pulled herself through the hole. Xolin was somewhere around here; she could feel it. Like, really *feel* it. Waves of terror and anguish were rolling off like the tide. Normally Sel didn’t feel too much from other people (though her senses had been growing slowly since her rescue a few months back), but this…this was impressive. If it wasn’t horrible, that was.
Moving into the cargo hold, she quickly caught sight of the blue ranger whimpering, sprawled out on the ground, her sobs occasionally punctuated by more screaming fits. Oh god. Sel recoiled as another screaming fit started, her body distorting slightly as her three forms struggled to remain united.
“PLEASE STOP!” Xolin shouted in desperation. Sel looked around in a slight panic for something, *anything* that could help. What could she do? What could she say?
“Xolin, please snap out of it!” she said, finally and hesitatingly crossing to the blue ranger’s struggling side, “This is just an illusion! A hallucination! You’ve got to listen to me!”
No dice. Xolin just screamed louder, trapped in her own private hell. Tears welled up again in Sel’s eyes; what was she supposed to *do*?! Xolin was dying right in front of her, and she was completely helpless to do *anything* to stop it.
“Please” she whispered to her, “Stop screaming. Please wake up. I can’t do this without you”.
Xolin kept screaming. And that’s when the door slid open, and Sel found the red ranger standing there, axe at the ready.
“There you are” he said, his voice full of bitterness and hate, “Thought you could run from me!? You killed them!” his voice cracked, “You killed them all! And now I’ll KILL YOU!” For a moment Sel thought he was still after her; but soon the truth dawned on her as he closed in, and it was far worse—he was after Xolin.
“SID, NO!” she shouted, rushing to cut him off. All she got for her troubles however, was his axe swinging down on her body. Her shoulder caught the weapon, sparks exploding as she cried out in pain, her arms gripping the tool as she bent down to her knees, fighting all the way. “No…”
“You’re alone” said the man with the briefcase, standing beside her. He adjusted his glasses as he continued, “Useless. You’re going to die here, alone and afraid. Going to die, and no one will ever know, or care”.
“No, you won’t die” Capricorn said, on her other side, “We’ll find you. Don’t you worry”.
Sel gasped in pain, trying her best to shut the voices out, but her concentration was flagging as the blade cut into her. Sid pulled his weapon up, before knocking her aside and preparing for his strike on Xolin.
“NO!” Sel screamed, pushing herself back up to her feet. She barreled into Sid’s side with all her force, knocking him off the entrance ledge and into a broken crate down below. She tumbled to the floor, just in time to hear Sid’s rage-fueled roar. As she scrambled to get back up, she felt another cut from the axe into her back, and then her side. She screamed in pain, dropping back down.
“And stay down while I finish this” Sid grunted, hobbling back over to the ladder that would take him up to Xolin.
“No…no…” Sel struggled to get up, to move at all, whimpering as she did. Everything hurt, but Xolin….Xolin was going to die. Already her screams were beginning to subside. She had…had to stop… Somehow, she forced herself back up to her knees. Then, somehow, to her feet. Then, somehow, she managed to move forward, pulling herself up the latter. And there he was, waiting, axe in hand, about to strike.
“NO!” she shouted, as he swung down on Xolin’s prone form.
In one clear instant, Sel lunged, once again forming a barrier. And as she crossed his path in mid-flight, his fully-charged axe cut through her midsection, sparks going everywhere as her suit sputtered and smoked, the flame from his weapon coursing through her body. She crashed on the floor, a few feet away, moaning in pain. Had to…she had to…
But Sel was done. Her body was done. She tried to get back up of course, but she couldn’t. More sparks emanated from her costume as she tried to move. Xolin was going to die. NO. NONONONONON----
Unbeknownst to Sel, her eyes under her helmet flashed with a brilliant aura, as her outstretched hand encompassed Sid with a blazing light brighter than the sun…
---
The Megaship hovered over the gas giant, just over where the SOS had originated from. From here, Iota could tell the energy levels were off the charts, with readings the computer couldn’t even decipher. That was a bad sign. A *very* bad sign.
So, options. Attempting to contact the team had proven futile; so the easy way was out…as usual. He could go down there…and risk getting *himself* caught up in whatever was going on. If only there was some way to neutralize the energy interference that was clouding the other ship, even if only for a short time.
Wait.
Morphin’ grid ‘communication’ still worked, which meant that whatever was going on here didn’t impact the underlying morphin’ grid energies of the universe. Which meant that supposedly…what if he…hrn. It was extremely dangerous, flooding that much morphin’ energy into the ranger’s suits, but at this point, Iota didn’t see much of a choice. The results could be catastrophic; up to and including the entire ship self-destructing. But again, no choice. Working quickly, Iota shot over to the power console and got to work, shutting off the system limiter and most of the other safeguards. Then, he began increasing energy output; slowly, but steadily.
“Iota to team” he called to them, “Please respond. Iota to team…”
---
Trok blinked. Was it just him or…his mind felt clearer. Better. He was still jittery, but it was sort of like waking up from a bad nightmare; within a few seconds his mind had deduced that nothing was actually out to get him. Probably, anyway.
Wait, but then…what happened to the others?
Still shaky and a little freaked out, the green ranger stood up, feeling remarkably lighter than usual. And faster; he almost threw himself into a wall just by standing up. Brighter too; his suit was almost…glowing. Woah, weird.
“…Guys?” he called out.
“Iota to team, please respond”.
“Iota? Uh…Trok here” the green ranger responded, just a *little* confused on what was going on.
---
“Nnnng…”
“Iota to team, please respond”.
Xolin’s breaths were shaky and ragged, her skin flushed with sweat. She’d just been pulled out of hell, and now just…gods, what had happened. Sitting up, she found both Sid and Sel lifeless and scattered around her. Also, she was um…shimmering.
“What…”
She tried to get up, but every muscle in her body hurt. Probably from…whatever had just happened. It wasn’t real; couldn’t have been real. …Right? It had sure *felt* real, but…not. So why were they all down?
She shuddered, her emotions threatening to catch up to her. She attempted some ad-hock meditation to try and stabilize herself, while Trok replied to Iota over the comm.
“…Xolin here” she said, her voice ragged. “I uh…I have Sid and Sel here. They’re both out cold”.
“Understood” came Iota’s response, “Both of you, get them to the entry point. We need to get you out of there as quickly as possible; I’m bypassing your morphers’ safeties and flooding your bodies with morphin’ energy; the consequences may be extremely dangerous if allowed to go on for too long. The sooner you can get out, the better”.
Xolin glanced over at her fallen friends, a frown appearing on her face. This would be difficult.
“What *exactly* is going on?” Trok asked, over the comm.
Iota’s response came just after, “Something on the ship is interfering with comms; something that’s exhibiting excessive power levels. This is the only way I could find the communicate with you”.
“Well, whatever you did, it stopped the nightmares” Xolin muttered.
“Nightmares?”
“Long story” she replied, “I’ll explain once we make it back. Xolin out”. She sighed, looking over the other two as Trok walked in, then looked up at him.
“I uh…” he stammered, “It’s…been a long day”.
“Yeah” she nodded, holding herself together by sheer will and a helping of shock, “Yeah, it has”. The other two were beginning to stir now. Trok rushed over to Sel, taking care to avoid the damaged sections of her suit as he helped her up. Xolin meanwhile grabbed Sid’s hand, allowing him to stand.
“Oh god” Sid said, the memories flooding back, “What…”
“Nightmares, right?” Xolin asked. Sid nodded. “Yeah, it’s like that”.
“I thought you were all…” Sid trailed off when he caught sight of Sel’s condition, “What happened to…oh god” his eyes widened as he put two and two together. “…I thought I was fighting…I thought I was fighting myself” his voice became more subdued.
Sel looked at him, her arm slumped over Trok’s shoulders, “…I’m sorry” she said dejectedly, “I wasn’t good enough”.
“We uh…we need to deal with this all later” Xolin managed, knowing that succumbing to all this at the moment would send them all spiraling the drain—when what really they needed was to get out of here before something really *bad* happened, “Right now we need to get back to the ship. Come on”. She motioned to them as she staggered out of the darkened room, the other three following in a haphazard formation. Today had been a very bad day.
---
The sight Iota caught was not a good one. After re-engaging the power safety controls for their powers, he’d arrived at the Megaship’s launch bay just as the rangers were disembarking from their skycycles, taking their helmets off as they did so. Their expressions and body language were…well, they weren’t good. Each seemed distraught; preoccupied, distant. It was a sign of utter defeat from each of them, and Iota wasn’t even sure why. Normally he’d have been able to follow their progress, but this time he’d been almost completely in the dark.
Er, literally.
“Report” he said, “What happened down there?”
The four rangers seemed to warily regard each other through side glances, each dejected. Finally, Sid spoke, his voice subdued, “We uh…there was no one there. The ship’s been adrift for well over a century”.
“And the SOS?” Iota asked, a little annoyed that he was having to pull the information from Sid bit by bit.
Sid shrugged, “All systems were down. We have no idea how it transmitted. We uh…our suits have the recordings”.
“We think the people onboard went crazy. Killed each other, maybe” Xolin added, her voice equally drained and despondent, “Whatever did it to them, it…came after us too, I think”.
“…How?”
“Hallucinations” Sid replied, “It…wasn’t good”.
The abject expressions and postures of everyone convinced Iota to hold off on more questioning. He could allow them a few hours to regroup and clear their heads; it wasn’t like this mission had been vitally important. And it was a wash, anyway. “Very well. All of you; get some rest. We’ll have a debriefing in twelve hours”.
“My advice?” Xolin said as she and the others began to pile out of the room, past Iota, “Destroy the ship. Whatever lives there is evil. We shouldn’t risk it drawing anyone else in”. And that’s, predictably, when the ship came under fire; the entire deck shuddering under the impact.
“What was that?!” Trok exclaimed.
Iota was already on it, checking stats from his wrist computer. To his surprise, the other ship, the freighter, had escaped the confines of its prison within the gas giant, and was now on an intercept course with the Megaship; it had already opened fire with its primary cannons. But…freighters couldn’t stand a chance against Megaships. Another hit shook the ship.
“Well, that’s curious. Looks like your haunted ship came to us” he said, tapping his controls to get a better view on the holographic screen. Another shake. Noting that none of them were in any shape to pilot, he sighed. “I’ll deal with it. It’s just a freighter. The rest of you, get some rest before you keel over”.
Iota rushed to the bridge, leaving behind the shattered team, who seemingly made no objections. He’d deal with them later.
Sigh. This was *not* part of the scenario.
---
Another shake greeted Iota when he entered the bridge, taking his seat in the captain’s chair. Pressing a few buttons, he redirected all controls to his console, and began returning fire with the main cannons. Within a few shots though, something began to happen. The opposing ship began to…well, the best way he could describe it was ‘radiate energy’; a dark aura seemed to surround it as its form began to shift and distort. Iota’s eyes narrowed as he watched the transformation, as the hull began to buckle and bend, breaking apart into some sort of vaguely humanoid beast.
…Probably a good time to shift to Megazord mode. The Megaship quickly transformed; and not soon enough, as even as the final components were shifting into place, the beast charged in full-bore, grappling with the giant robot as they tumbled in low orbit. Iota struggled to keep hold of the ship’s controls as the inertia pulled him along, even with the ship’s dampeners. A knee to the crotch sent the monster spinning back.
How annoying.
The Megazord summoned its sword, then propelled forward with its boot thrusters with the intent of ramming its blade right into the monster’s chest. Instead, several long, black, aura tentacles unfolded from the monster, striking back at the Megazord. It was knocked back, sparks emanating from the points of impact, even as the tentacles faded again, replaced by more. As mere auras, they didn’t even look real, almost like they were just ruined sections of a photograph; black empty regions superimposed on reality. Or maybe reality was superimposed on it; some sort of vacant window into the underlying darkness that creation hid. And the areas of the opposing ship that weren’t connected anymore were the same; simply black abysses where hull and metal should have been. Its head was a chaotic mess of shrapnel and smokey aura black, the metal arranged almost like a maw of mismatched teeth.
It was unnatural, even Iota recognized that. Another tentacle lunged forth, which the Megazord barely parried with its sword. A second tentacle shot out, ramming itself into the Megazord’s midsection. Almost immediately, the area of impact began to darken and spread, and alarms went off all over the bridge; the monster was beginning to infect the ship, corrupting the hull somehow.
This was bad.
A third tentacle shot out, disarming the Megazord by knocking its sword out of its hand. Then came a fourth tentacle, aimed directly at its chestplate. Iota was so concerned about its attack he was completely unprepared when it suddenly exploded.
“What the—”
The next thing he saw was the Red Guardianzord flying by, opening another load on the tentacle that was corrupting the Megazord’s side. It also evaporated under the assault, as the Guardianzord turned its attention on the main opponent.
---
“Sid to Iota. We got this”.
“Are you certain?”
Sitting next to Sid in the Megazord cockpit, Xolin nodded, her teeth gritted, “Yeah. Time for payback”.
“Understood. Relinquishing controls to you. Good luck”.
“Yeah, right” Sid spat out, his voice rough. “Warrior Mode!”
The Red Guardianzord folded over the Megazord, forming armor and its signature twin-axe blades over its fists. The two axes detached, their chain whips launching themselves at the offending monster. They cut through the tentacles, causing the monster to scream in pain. There was no witty banter here; no wry quip. Normally they’d make comments about how utterly messed up this creature looked, how…wrong he was. But not today. Today they only had a job to do, and then they’d scurry back to their rooms so they could finally lick their wounds.
“Xolin?” Sid asked.
“Got it!” she replied, summoning her own zord, “Lightning Mode!” The red Guardianzord detached from the Megazord, soon replaced by the blue one. The Megazord grabbed its new guns and lit its boot thrusters charging in on the monster. Two more tentacles lashed out, but with the blue zord, the Megazord was quick enough to avoid as it opened fire, causing the beast to stagger. Both blasters converted to blade mode as the Megazord closed in, shoving both of them into the enemy ship hull, before landing its feet on it. Then, igniting the boosters again, pulled away, ripping the swords out and pushing the monster away with its thrusters as it flipped about back into a fighting position, its swords having converted back into blades. The two guns ripped through the enemy hull, sparks exploding all over.
“Alright, time to wrap this **** up” Sid muttered. Then his eyes widened as the black void filled in to where the blasts had hit; it was regenerating. Energy collected in front of it, as it seemed to prepare to fire back. Then suddenly, more explosions as it staggered back. The green and yellow Guardianzords flew past, back and around the monster, as Sid and Xolin suddenly found Trok and Sel in their seats next to them.
“Glad you could join us” Sid said, attempting some level of light-heartedness. No one else took the bait though, with Trok just nodding brusquely. Sel for her part kept her focus on her console. Sid slumped back down, focusing once again on the fight.
“The monster’s regenerating” Xolin frowned, “No matter what we throw at it, it won’t die”.
“The monster might be, but look” he pointed at the remains of the ship that the monster was using as its skeleton and armor. Notably, he pointed at the damage marks from the battle, “The ship itself is mortal”.
“The thrusters!” Trok realized, noting that the monster was maintaining its altitude via the ships’ engines, which were located on its feet, “We take those out, and it’ll fall back into the clouds”.
Sid nodded, “Do it”.
Xolin locked on to her controls, “Azure Sniper!” The Megazord combined its two pistols into a single larger weapon and aimed at the monster’s feet, even as it flew in towards them. One shot fired off, breaking apart the left foot. A second shot soon fired, just before the monster grabbed them, smashing the right. It was too late though, as the beast grappled with the Megazord, beginning to corrupt its shoulders as its claws dug in, the two titans spiraling around in low orbit. The rangers struggled, the inertia once again overpowering the internal dampeners.
“We need to break free!” Sid shouted, “Trok, Sel, counterattack!”
Immediately, the green and yellow Guardianzords swung back around alongside red, each opening up a volley on the monster’s backside and arms. For a moment its shoulders evaporated, causing it to lose its grip on the Megazord as the arms disincorporated temporarily, the debris from the ship itself scattering to the cosmos.
“Sel!” Sid commanded.
The yellow ranger nodded, “Assault Mode. Advent Barrage”. The blue Guardianzord disengaged from the Megazord, replaced by yellow’s. The guns covering its hull primed, aimed, and opened fire on the monster, the kinetic force pushing it further and further away. And without engines to support it, it was powerless as it began to hit friction from the upper atmosphere; just before it was lost beneath the clouds. It was over. Well, at least, the battle was over. But the atmosphere inside the cockpit was awkward and distant. Sid glanced over his team. There was so much wrong here.
---
His room was quiet; had been since he’d arrived. He’d tried tinkering with his many would-be inventions, but any drive he had was just…gone, so now his chosen toy just sat on his bed next to him as he laid down, staring at the ceiling.
He’d left his friends to suffer. He’d abandoned his position, ran and hid because of a simple hallucination, while he left his friends to die. Everything Xolin had tried to teach him, everything he’d tried to live up to…it was all for naught. He wasn’t a hero; he was a child. And the truth was, he only had confidence when in the simudeck, or when surrounded by others.
What an utter coward. It wasn’t even about what the others thought about him—he knew well enough at this point they didn’t think this way. No, this was all about him. And he knew he was a disappointment. He fought back tears.
---
She shivered, alone in her room. The memories of her hallucination haunted her; the pain she felt, deeper than any normal, physical pain. She felt the pain in the core of her being; in her soul. She had felt violation as her aspects were unwillingly ripped from her piece by piece.
Most triforians reincarnated, after being released back to the source; their aspects being remade and combined with other reincarnating aspects. But some souls were deemed beyond salvaging—those souls were sent to…well, the word didn’t exactly translate into English, but ‘Urthal’, sort of a triforian hell. There, degraded souls would be torn apart into nothing; torment was the order of the day there. Eternal torment. Hell.
It was something that had always nagged at the edge of Xolin’s mind; the idea she was wrong. Her parents; hell, her whole clan was convinced her soul was destined for Urthal. What if they were right? What if she was *wrong*? What if her entire worldview, her whole concept of being was false? How could she ever really know before it happened?
She curled up in a ball, wishing the world away.
---
She was a fraud; a mistake. They said she was a useful part of the team; but all she ever managed to do was mess things up. Whether it was forcing Sid and Trok to yell at each other in a misguided attempt to help repair their friendship, or simply not being good enough to save them from the hallucinations…god, she was useless.
The holographic quantron took her clouded mind to its advantage and knocked the bow out of her hands as it closed in, her shots having missed or been deflected by its own weapon. A second quantron hit her in the side, knocking her down as the group swarmed her. The yellow ranger’s fist hit the dirt in a fit of anger as she flung herself back up. She had to become better. Another scuffle though, and she was soon back in the dirt.
Elder Sesh had told her to make new memories, a new life; but she was failing, and she couldn’t figure out how *not* to fail. Why was she so bad at this? The image of Sid almost killing Xolin kept replaying in her head. Xolin’s screams, Sid’s cries. All the horror. Capricorn and the man with the briefcase mocking her. All the fears. Make it stop.
She was grabbed by the quantron and was pulled up. Her hands glimmered as tears began to trickle down behind her helmet. In a scream of rage and frustration, light shot out into the quantron. It seemed to glitch, just before the entire simudeck scenario collapsed on itself, the computer’s systems shorting out and shutting down. Sel fell to the floor in an exhausted heap; the energy attack having cost her most of her strength, though the ever-present buzzing at least had momentarily faded. She gasped, exhausted.
What *was* she? Why…how did she do these…things?
Why did it feel like the universe was out to get her? She slammed her fist on the ground again, forcing herself to stand, even as her shaky legs protested.
“Computer” the yellow ranger seethed, determined as she steadied her breath, “Restart last save point”.
---
Sid scrolled through the local net hub, searching sites and forums for answers on the holographic terminal. Search terms had included ‘ghost ships’, ‘nightmare monsters’, ‘alien hallucinogens’, among many others. None had given him any sort of trail to follow; just unrelated urban myths and conspiracy theories.
Sigh.
But, the fruitless search was keeping him from his real thoughts, and that was what counted.
He’d almost killed Xolin. And Sel. All because he’d been hallucinating about…about them. His old team. Between this and the whole thing with Trok…god, he had no business leading this team. None at all. He had way too much baggage.
God, what had he done. Er, almost done. If Sel hadn’t stopped him…god.
He didn’t want to think about it.
“Can’t sleep?”
Sid turned to see Iota standing in the doorway to the computer lab he was in. It was a small room, only a few computers; not much use for a lab when every room had a terminal system, but SPD engineering was always good at a bit of redundancy. And right now, Sid needed to not be in his room, just to clear his head.
Sid nodded, “Trying to figure out what attacked us”.
“Anything?” Iota’s voice seemed genuinely curious.
He shook his head, “Not a clue. There’s *nothing* here, except maybe a conspiracy theory or two”. Sid sighed, then looked back at his commander, “Any ideas?”
Iota said nothing at first, instead opting to sit down, studying Sid’s various holo-windows, “There are many wonders in the universe, in my experience. Our civilization is a thin veneer, a surface of order that we use to forget that there is depth. And in that depth, there are many, *many* places for things to hide”.
“…What are you saying?” Sid asked, slightly creeped out.
Iota continued, idly skimming through one of the browser windows, “I do not know exactly what you faced, but I do know that there are things in this universe much older than you or I. Much older than our civilizations. They slumber, deep in the cracks below our notice. They swim in the void, far beyond our knowledge”.
Sid gulped, a chill going down in spine as his prior worries were forgotten, “…So what, like…Lokar? Dark Specter?”
Iota seemed to regard him for a moment, before returning to the browser, “Older”.
“What *exactly* are we talking about here?”
“Just be glad that it seems our friend wasn’t able to leave orbit. We were likely little more than a source of food for it. Our civilization is little more than anthills they step over”.
“Yeah, that’s not awful at all” Sid replied, his voice quiet and subdued as he rubbed his arms in contemplation.
Iota shrugged, “The universe is almost fourteen billion years old. The modern age of civilization only goes back a few dozen millennia. Even the Morphin’ Masters, at the ‘dawn of time’, only existed a few million years ago. The universe is filled with mysteries and unknowns, with wonders and horrors hidden from us. But I wouldn’t worry too much about it; we’ve been around this long without anything stepping on us”.
“Maybe” Sid said, staring unfocused at his holoscreen, “…Maybe not”.
Iota stood up, turning to leave, “Get some sleep. You need it. Everything will be clearer tomorrow”.
Sid didn’t watch as he left, instead remaining focused on his screen, it’s glow casting a soft light on an otherwise dark room. Thoughts filtered through his unfocused mind, both from his own demons, and those Iota had left with him, “…Maybe not”.
---
To be continued…
They’d finally found a decent purpose for the observation lounge, at least as far as Trok was concerned. Normally the room didn’t get much use; ostensibly it was a reception area, used for diplomatic events back when the vessel had been under SPD employ. But diplomacy wasn’t exactly the main gig for a clandestine black ops organization, and so it had mostly just sat empty. They mostly just ate in the workbay, and relaxed either there or in the simudeck. The most this place ever saw any activity was when someone just needed to ‘get away from it all’, needing a place to clear their head in the dead of night.
But, as Trok had decided, this was *much* better. See, the ship’s higher-level functions had needed to be shut down after the last mission. They’d crossed through the dense ionized nebula of a proto-system disk in pursuit of a pirate vessel they’d been tasked to apprehend. The ionization had done a number on the ship’s computer, and so they’d needed to do an extensive sweep and reboot of the core. Which was funny, because the whole Capricorn virus incident had only been like, a week earlier.
As it turned out though, no power meant the rangers had had to come up with a new way of keeping themselves occupied in the dark. And so here they all sat in the observation lounge, having brought in blankets and having stolen all of the room’s cushions for a fort, and they were now telling ghost stories.
…Er, well, *trying* to tell ghost stories. Trok had gone for the generic attempt, though he of course thought it had been very good. Ghost ships were a solid standby, he had thought, but apparently he’d been stuck with a tough room. Sel, predictably, hadn’t had anything and simply passed.
Xolin meanwhile, well…
“And then when the acolyte turned to look at his other two aspects, he gasped—there was only one other of himself in the room. Only two aspects. Only two”.
The other three rangers listened, mostly with expressions that ranged from ‘bored to tears’ in Trok’s case to ‘mild perplexion in Sel’s. Xolin kept up her spooky charade, allowing it to linger with the flickering light of the simulated fire they surrounded, hoping to catch them in the feeling. No such luck. Damn. She awkwardly let go of the narration. “…Oh come on, that was scary!” she said, grumpiness beginning to fill her voice.
Trok snorted, “Yeah, I’m quaking in my boots. And you called *my* story lame!”
“It’s *esoteric* horror!” she protested, “Having only two aspects would be an abomination!”
“I’m sure you had to be there” Sid shrugged, a wry grin on his face.
She glared at him. “Unwashed plebs. Wouldn’t know a good horror story if it came up and bit you”.
He rolled his eyes, leaning back in his seat, “Xolin, there aren’t any other species who have multiple aspects like yours. It simply doesn’t translate. I’m sure it’s um…’terrifying’ back home, but for us? No context at all”.
Xolin put her hands up in defeat as she slumped back into her seat, “You know what? Fine, whatever. I dare you to do one better”.
Sid leaned forward, his smile becoming downright predatory. “I’ll make you eat those words”.
Xolin folded her arms, “Oh, this should be good” she muttered sarcastically. And so Sid took a deep breath, and began his tale…
---
For once, everything was going along smoothly. No viruses, no electrical storms, no hostile ships attacking them…Iota could focus on the computer sweep in peace. Even the rangers were quiet; holed up somewhere telling each other silly ghost stories or whatever.
Iota slid his hand across the computer console as he idly checked the readings from one to the next. Only another few hours and this would be all over and they’d be able to resume their course—the pirates had unfortunately gotten away, but they’d managed to gain a few leads in their chase. If anything, waiting this out only helped them, as it would cause their prey to calm down and risk visiting one of their leads—and then they were done for.
Only a matter of time.
The entire bridge was dark, save the soft glow of the scant few consoles currently active. He liked it; it was…calming. Quiet.
That quiet was shattered by a beeping noise coming from the emergency communications system, one of the few programs to still be active. Y’know, just in case. Curious, Iota moved over to the beeping signal, and began to play it. Perhaps it was command, informing them of a change in mission. Or perhaps, less welcoming, it was an ultimatum from some ship that had caught them with their proverbial pants down.
It turned out to be neither, however. Iota listened with curiosity.
“…Anyone listening on this frequency, this is the independent cargo ship Horizon. We need immediate assistance, please respond! I repeat, to anyone listening on this frequency…”
Iota responded back, “Horizon, this is the independent transport Janus” he said, rattling off one of his ship’s many aliases when such occasions came up, “What is your situation?”
The cargo ship didn’t respond, instead repeating the same message over and over. “Hello? Horizon, please come in. What is your status?” Still nothing, and Iota knew that meant they’d have to go in personally. He rung up the sensor systems, quickly pinpointing the origin of the SOS, before transferring it to the rangers’ sky cycles and shutting the sensors back down. It wasn’t too far out; the signal had originated near a gas giant within the nearest system, less than a light-year away. The rangers could check it out while the ship was still being run through its paces.
Now however, he had to go figure out where the rangers were.
---
The hallway was a mess; Iota was thankful for his suit’s night vision, otherwise traversing the corridor leading to the observation lounge would have been a death trap. Chairs from inside the room had been stacked outside like a barrier, with random things also from inside being used as a makeshift minefield outside said barrier.
“This…does not bode well” the figured sighed as he moved aside some of the chairs so he could reach the door. Bracing himself, he opened the doorway and stepped inside…and was met with a large fort built from the room’s many sofas toppled onto one another. Inside, presumably, were the rangers.
He sighed again, “…What are you doing?” he asked disdainfully.
“Nothing” Trok replied, a little too quickly, “We’re not doing anything. We’re uh…”
“Hiding in a pile of furniture” Iota finished for them, clearly unamused.
Xolin called out from her own position behind the bar, “I’m not hiding! I’m just…” she hesitated, her head poking up over the counter. She cleared her throat, “So how long until we’re up and running again?”
“A few hours” Iota said, not taking his eyes off Sid’s fort, “But I have a mission for you now. We’ve received an SOS signal from a nearby planet. The relevant information has been uploaded to your skycycles”.
“Mission, huh?” Trok muttered from within the fort, “Sounds good! Sounds good. We were um…getting…bored in here”.
Iota eyed Sid, sitting quite comfortably—and smugly—where the others had been earlier, “And what would your take on this be?”
He shrugged, a self-satisfied expression crossing his face, “…Couldn’t say. Guess they didn’t like my story telling”.
Iota stared at him a moment longer, then shook his head in abject disgust as he walked out, “Get to your stations, all of you”.
---
Four skycycles shot through the void of space, approaching a rather large orange-hued world. It was a gas giant, with vibrant bands of texture running across its surface; chaotic maelstroms that had been churning endlessly since long before the development of civilization.
Sid was not particularly happy about it. “Because of course. The one time the Megaship is out of commission is the one time we have to dive into a class II gas giant”.
“What’s wrong? Afraid?” Xolin taunted as the four craft dipped into lower orbit, preparing for their final descent into the thick, soupy atmosphere below.
Sid didn’t rise to her obviously revenge-fueled bait, “Travel within gas giants is ‘ill-advised’ for a reason. If we’re not careful, the winds and storms could tear us apart. And that’s not even getting into the problems with the planet’s radiation belts. We’re damned lucky we’ve got ranger powers”.
“We’ll be fine” Xolin retorted, “Our skycycles can guide us through the wind belts, and the ship doesn’t look to be *that* far down in the clouds. This’ll be a quick in-and-out job”.
“Hmm” Sid mused, unconvinced. He tapped the communications menu on his vehicle, “Calling the cargo ship Horizon, this is the Janus rescue party, please come in”. When no reply was forthcoming, Sid tried again, “Cargo ship Horizon, do you read?”
“Iota couldn’t get them to respond either” Trok said, “Comms must be down”.
“But they managed to keep a distress signal going?” Xolin asked incredulously.
Sid grumbled, “I don’t like this”.
“Trap?” Xolin asked.
Sid nodded, “Trap”.
“But we’re going in anyway” Xolin added in deadpan, completely aware of where this was headed.
The red ranger glanced over at blue, “Can’t be helped. If it’s *not* a trap, we can’t just let innocent people die. We just gotta be on our guard and ready to bail at the first sign something’s up”.
“So…” Trok asked, “Taking bets on if it’s Capricorn, or that creepy guy with the briefcase?”
“I hope it’s not Capricorn again” Sel muttered.
“I’m gonna go with ‘briefcase” said Xolin, “We just torched one of Capricorn’s plans; I doubt he’d have rebounded so quickly”.
Sid thought it over, “…New guy, employed by briefcase dude. Like Naga was”.
“That’s comforting” Xolin grimaced.
“So no votes for Zombie Naga?” Trok joked.
Sid ignored him, “I’m a ray of friggin’ sunshine” he chuckled back at Xolin, then grew serious as he checked his onboard readings, “We’re within descent arc radius of our target. Prepare to dive”. And just like that, the four flying motorbikes slide beneath the orange gassy waves.
---
The upper layers of the atmosphere were as Sid pretty much expected; alternating layers of turbulence separated by levels of lesser activity. They’d mostly been diving in stages; quickly descending as safely as they could through the trouble layers, and then coasting along the quiet barriers before diving again.
Luckily for the group, at the moment the ship in question was within one of the quiet zones…though for how much longer was a good question, as Sid noted that engines and antigrave generators seemed to be down, and the vessel was indeed slipping lower into the abyss. That made rescue paramount: if they didn’t hurry, the ship would sink low enough that the pressure from the atmosphere would crush it –and them—like ants. Not fun.
Though he did have to say, not that he was a physics wiz or anything, but the ship was falling more slowly than he’d have thought—more of a crawl than a free-fall. Curious.
He motioned to the others, taking the lead towards the vessel’s forward loading bay. It was a typical terran vessel, and an old one by the looks of it, pre-dating the fall of Earth. It was what one would expect a human vessel to look like; blocky and utilitarian, with the various cargo bays segmented apart and able to detach from the upper ‘spine’ of the ship.
“How do we get in?” Trok asked.
“We could try knocking, maybe” Xolin joked.
“Janus to Horizon. Come in Horizon” Sid tried again, still trying to get in contact with the vessel. Yet still, nothing. Sigh. He grumbled in frustration; he really didn’t *want* to shoot the loading bay door down, but he wasn’t really seeing any other options. “…Alright. Everyone form up, we’re going to—oh, huh”. Sid’s command was abruptly cut off by the ship’s door opening on its own, without any indication of…well, anything. “…Yeah, that’s not suspicious”.
“We still going in?” Trok asked.
Sid nodded, “Be on your guard”. With that, he pushed his cycle forward, into the loading bay. The others quickly, if reluctantly, followed suit…
---
“This place is giving me the creeps”
It was hard to disagree with Trok; everything felt…off. The door to the loading bay had closed after the rangers had entered the ship, leaving the rangers in an otherwise unpopulated chamber. The lights were all off, forcing the team to use their headlights situated in a thin strip just atop their visors. The room itself was a mess, with boxes and supplies tossed about haphazardly like a tornado had hit the place.
“Air’s breathable” Xolin said, checking her stats on her visor, “So life support must be working still…if barely”.
Sid sighed, “No welcoming committee. I was hoping whoever let us in would be here to greet us”.
“So, plan?” Xolin asked.
“We head for the bridge, see what we can figure out” Sid replied, absentmindedly having pulled out his blaster and checking it out, “And stick together. I don’t want us being picked off one by one if it *is* a trap”.
“Do we even know where the bridge is?” she asked skeptically, “With all major systems possibly offline, we’ll be stumbling around in the dark”.
Sid nodded, “Oh yeah. This is a Charon class freighter; one of the older models, I assume. I know my way around. Come on”. He waved to them with his gun, beckoning them to follow him. They did so…though again, reluctantly.
This place was *creepy*. Trok couldn’t help but think back to his own ghost story…
---
The bridge wasn’t much better. It was dark, cramped, and littered with bodies in the seats. Old bodies too; they had been completely dessicated. They were now little more than clothed skeletons. The room itself was small; consisting of just two seats in a would-be cockpit, with a captain’s seat just behind it, and two running parallel behind.
“Well” Sid cleared his throat, “…This is pleasant”. He sighed, pushing one of the rear skeletons from his seat to the floor, taking the chair for his own. Xolin folded her arms in a bit of annoyed contempt, to which Sid shrugged back at her, as if to ask ‘what?’ The group fanned out, with Sid checking out the dead controls at his chosen station. “Let’s see if we can’t get anything operational and find out what happened here”.
Sel made her way over to the captain’s chair, taking a close look at the dead corpse laying there, before backing away, grossed out. “…How long have these people been here? This doesn’t look like a ship that just put out an SOS”.
Sid frowned, turning around in his chair towards Sel and the others, “…Yeah, I’ve been wondering that myself. These guys have been here for *years* at least. Thoughts?”
“Delayed response?” Xolin shrugged, not entirely believing her theory herself.
“Hmm” Sid mumbled, returning to his task, unsettled. This was wrong. It didn’t even feel like a trap anymore. Just…why all this? If it was a trap, it should have been sprung by now.
Xolin glared at Trok. The younger ranger was currently instinctively jumping at every odd noise the old derelict made, and being in such a shape as it was—itself being a miracle it was holding together at all, especially within the wild confines of the gas giant it had been trapped within for god knows how long.
“Will you just *chill out*?” she snapped at him, “You’re driving me up the wall!”
Trok made a hesitant sigh, trying to calm himself, “Sorry. Sorry, I just…”
Sid snickered, a wry grin forming on his mouth, “...Are you still freaked out about the ghost stories?”
“…Maybe, just a little” Trok said, fidgeting with his fingers, “More mine though. You gotta admit, this place *is* just like a ghost ship”.
As if to punctuate his point, a loud creaking noise emanated through the cramped bridge, making everyone jump slightly. Sid laughed, “…Ah, we’re fine. It was just a silly sci-fi bedtime story”.
Xolin gave their leader a deadpan stare, “Sci-fi?”
“…What?”
“Sid. We live on a spaceship. It transforms into a giant robot and we use it to fight crime”.
“…And? I'm not saying that ghosts don't exist, I'm just saying that Giant Robots don't automatically mean that every ship is infested with vengeance-filled geists” Sid shrugged, attempting to return to…whatever it was he was doing. Mostly blankly staring at the old controls because he had lost his train of thought…and *man* were they old. No holographic interfaces at all; everything was touch-screen.
“…Wouldn't ghosts be more gothic horror than sci-fi anyway?” asked Trok, a bit confused.
Sid looked at the green ranger incredulously, “…Do you even know what ‘gothic’ *means*?”
“Sweet Trinity” Xolin muttered, exasperated with the entire conversation.
Then the lights and controls and…everything came on, and everyone just about leapt out of their skin.
“What the—Sel!?” Sid exclaimed while trying to catch his breath, looking over at the yellow ranger. She was currently at one of the other control stations, evidently fiddling with some of the computer systems. Sid’s heart felt like it was going a thousand miles a minute, and the same was true for Xolin and Trok.
Sel smiled sheepishly, “Sorry. But it’s not like anyone *else* was doing anything—so I just rerouted the ship’s power core to the auxiliary generators”.
Sid clasped his hands together, full of fake and melodramatic parental support, “Our little girl’s finally learning to snark. I’m so proud—ow!” he rubbed his upper arm where Xolin had just punched him, giving him a ‘not serious but kinda’ annoyed glare as she headed over to one of the other stations. He just shook his head with a chuckle, returning—once more—to his task. “So…logs…”
Moving through the old computer system was…annoying. He knew how it worked, roughly anyway; he’d had enough training back in SPD ‘just in case’. But he hadn’t encountered anything this old in years. Still, soon enough he found what he wanted. He began scrolling.
“Wow, 2133. This ship has been here for…over a century” came Trok’s voice, from the opposite terminal, “At least, that’s the last date for anything on this ship. Who knows how long the main generator kept running before shutting down. They might have been out here years before that”.
“So what killed them?” asked Xolin, “and how the hell did they manage an SOS just now?”
“Good questions” Sid muttered, still scrolling, “A lot of these logs are…corrupted, I think. Either that or they were just speaking gibberish”.
“Gibberish how?” asked Xolin.
Sid beckoned for her and the blue ranger walked over to red. Sid pointed at his screen, and Xolin began to read. “…What the”.
“This isn’t any kind of corruption I’ve ever seen” Trok said, having found logs himself, “It’s more like…like you said, gibberish”.
Sid nodded, “And the more I scan back to the older stuff, the more legit the logs get” he squinted as he leaned in, “They were stranded here for quite awhile. And they just kind of…went crazy, I guess. Like, this is legit straight up crazy talk”.
“Yeah, there’s stuff in here about the crew turning against one another, and hallucinations, and…wow, they really went off the deep end, huh?” Trok said. “Stuff about…They keep referring to nouns that aren’t nouns. And they just keep chanting them. And like, what’s this about ‘The Great Darkness’?”
“Oh, that sounds promising” Sid sarcastically quipped.
“I don’t like this” Xolin said, “What caused the crazy? And *why* did the SOS just go off?”
“Checking” Sid scanned back through the newer logs, to ship functions. What he saw, or rather didn’t see, caused his stomach to drop through the floor, “…There’s no SOS signal”.
“What”.
“There *was*, back when the ship first got trapped” Sid clarified, “But the signal’s been dead for over a century; went down with the rest of the ship”.
“We need to get out of here” Xolin said, backing up as fight or flight began to flare up. Things were too weird; too unsettling. Damn ghost stories.
Sid nodded, agreeing as he stood up cautiously, now genuinely spooked, “…Yeah. Yeah we do”.
“Detecting another lifeform onboard the ship, headed for the bridge” Sel reported from one of the front stations.
“Capricorn” Sid grunted; so it really had been a trap all along. Damn. He was about to order everyone back to the ship, but then an idea crossed his mind, “…Wait. He knows we’re here. And we know he knows we’re here. But unless I’m mistaken, he *doesn’t* know we know he knows we’re here”.
Xolin’s palm slid across her helmet, “Okay, yeah. I’m gonna need you to explain that in less mind-hurting terms”.
Sid spun around in his seat to face her, “Easy. He’s got us in an ambush. What if we turn the tables?”
The other three rangers all looked at Sid expectedly. Under his helmet, Sid grinned. This was going to be *fun*.
---
The plan was simple; Trok and Sel would remain in the bridge on standby. Meanwhile Sid and Xolin would flank Capricorn’s location via the tube system. Once behind them, they’d trail him until he attempted to ambush the other two—at which point they would cut him off. Classic hammer and anvil. And just to make sure they’d flank him properly, Sid and Xolin had taken opposing tubes on each side of the hallway.
This wasn’t sitting well with Trok. He and Sel were currently hidden behind the bridge doorway, on opposite sides. “We shouldn’t have split up” he muttered.
“Why not?” asked Sel, risking another peek around the corner. Still no Capricorn.
“Because that’s how we get picked off one by one in a horror story” the green ranger replied in a deadpan.
Sel peeked again; still no Capricorn. “…You really think this place is haunted?” she asked, a hint of concern in her voice, though she was trying to sound neutral. But still…there was something off about this ship; she could feel it, even if she couldn’t figure out why.
More than that though, she’d been feeling weird for a day or two now. It was like there was some kind of buzzing in her ears, but no one else had heard it, and it felt like…like something was *building*. She couldn’t explain it. She’d had Iota run a few tests, but nothing. He’d chocked it up to stress.
Oddly, that just stressed her out more.
Trok shrugged, “I don’t know. Hopefully not, but like, no need to give the ghosts more ammo if they *are* here!”
And that’s when the lights shut off again, along with all the computer systems. It took all of Trok’s effort not to piss himself.
“Wow, we are *so* going to die!” Trok wheezed in terror. Sel just frowned, turning on her suit’s night vision. This was bad.
“I’m going to check the auxiliary power” she said as she headed back to the control panel, “See what happened”.
---
The power shut down just as Sid was about to reach his chosen grate. “That can’t be good” he muttered, switching on his night vision; the headlights would be too much of a giveaway to Capricorn. He pulled the grate aside, sliding back into the hallway, and checked his sensors.
No sign of Capricorn. No sign of anyone, actually. How…
“That’s…bad” he said, then spoke into his communicator, “Sid to Xolin, please respond”.
No answer.
“Sid to Xolin!” he tried again. When she still didn’t respond, he tried someone else, “Sid to Trok! Sel? Is anyone on this frequency?”
Nothing. Just…dead silence. He chuckled nervously, “Okay, really. If this is getting me back for the ghost story, you got me. Not that I’m not pissed you chose to do this while in the middle of an operation. Guys?”
Still nothing. *Now* he was getting worried. It was time to head back to the bridge. If he encountered Capricorn on the way, well; maybe he’d have information he could beat out of him.
---
There was nothing wrong with the connection, as far as she could tell; granted she wasn’t anywhere near an expert in their field. And the fact that the computer was down meant her diagnosing of the situation was limited.
Sigh.
“Hey, Trok?” Sel asked, turning back to where Trok was presumably still guarding the door. He’d be able to figure this out, no sweat. Well, except that he wasn’t there anymore. “…Trok?”
She got up from under the control console, looking around. “Trok? Where are you?”
“Indisposed of, I’m afraid” came the bleating voice of her nightmares. She gasped wordlessly, spinning back to the front of the ship. There plainly, even in her night vision, she could see her arch-enemy. The one who had captured her. The one who had stolen her away and intimidated her; who’d almost sold her to who knows where. The one she feared most of all.
…Or rather, second most of all.
“Capricorn” she whispered as her heart skipped a beat, wondering how he’d managed to make it around her to the front of the ship without her knowing.
“Hello, Sel” he bleated evilly.
---
Xolin rounded the corner. She KNEW she’d seen someone come down this way. But now…nothing, just empty hallway. Well, not *empty*; there were tossed supplies and boxes everywhere; debris littering the ground. And of course the occasional skeleton corpse, their jaws open. Two she had seen strangling each other. Another had been scratching at the bulkhead, next to words painted on: “SAVE ME”. It was almost as charming as the dried blood on the wall a few doors back that shouted ‘ABANDON HOPE’.
Yeah, it was a fun place.
“Xolin to Sid” she spoke into her communicator. “Xolin to Sid, come in”.
No response. “Great”. She moved towards the nearest door, nearing one of the segmented cargo chambers, her gun practically glued to her fingers. Steeling herself with a breath, she pulled the door open with a grunt. Stepping inside, she scanned the room with her night vision—it seemed like just a normal cargo room. Er, well…except that her visor wasn’t reading anything below the railing. The room, as it should have been, consisted of her on a platform, overlooking the rest of the chamber, which was sitting in a depression. But the depression wasn’t there—the ladder only led to an inky blackness. It was already enough to put her on edge as she stepped closer to get a better scan.
Wait. What was that noise?
…Was that…wailing?
Sweet Trinity, it was like the cries of the damned.
And that was when hands began to rise from the void, stretching out unrealistically, their bloodied and mangled forms wildly reaching for something to grab. She stepped back in horror as some of the hands began grabbing at the platform. This was…oh gods. This couldn’t be…her parents had been right, all this time. She turned and ran for the door, but found it to be locked shut when she pulled.
She felt the hands grabbing her.
“NO!” she cried, as more grabbed her, pulling her back. She held on to the door as long as she could, but they were too strong. “NO NO NO NO NO!” she was drug forcedly along the floor, towards the edge of the platform. She grabbed the railing for dear life, again grasping at it as long as she could as her body was sucked down into the blackness. She screamed in horror the whole way, even as her vision went dark. Even as the wailing got indescribably loud. Even as she was covered by the hands dragging her right into hell.
---
Trok bounded down the hallway in sheer unadulterated terror. It was after him. He hadn’t seen it, not really, but he knew it was there, in the darkness. Even his night vision wasn’t enough to save him; he could only see in one direction at the time. It was too bad about Sel; dying at its hands. They shouldn’t have split up. Had he known, had he been next to her and helped her to run, instead of being cut down while he had still been waiting for Capricorn. Now he was alone; without friends or allies. How could he hope to survive?
Oh god, where was it. Oh god, it could have been *anywhere*. He fired wildly behind him, hoping to at least get a glancing shot off.
He didn’t land a hit even once.
---
Sid made his way down the hallway, keeping his gun at the ready. This wasn’t right; the hallway to the bridge was a straight-down affair. And by all rights, he should have been there by now. But here he was, twisting and turning around in what he could only describe as a maze. And his attempt to backtrack had only made things *worse*. It was like the walls were shifting on him.
Damn. What kind of madman built a ship like this?
Wait…what was that on the floor? Another body? He’d seen a few scattering the floor, but…this one…still had flesh. Wait. He knew this body.
Xolin. No. No, it couldn’t…
But there was Trok, also lifeless. And Sel. Oh god, all of them. He shouldn’t have split from them. He shouldn’t have…oh god. Oh god, what had he done. It had happened again. He’d failed them. His team was dead again. He looked around; no sign of their killer. He checked his morpher’s sensors. The lifesign was gone.
No. His only lead, gone.
No. Nononononono.
Sid dropped to his knees. And as his mind snapped for a second time, he issued a bloodcurdling howl.
---
“What do you want?” Sel hissed, instinctively backing away. Something felt…off. Worse than usual. Capricorn grinned, but it wasn’t his normal grin. She couldn’t explain *how*, but…something radiated off Capricorn like pure malevolence. Sure, he was an evil pirate lord, but he’d *just* been an evil pirate lord. But now…something was worse.
“What do you think I want?” the goat bleated with maniacal glee, “After all this time, I have you right where I want you. The others won’t save you this time; he’s seen to that”. He nodded to behind Sel, and he hesitantly turned around to see what he was motioning at.
“I told you I’d come for you, Sel” the man with the briefcase said. She instinctively stepped away from him as well.
“No” she whispered in defiance, shifting to a defense pose.
“You have no choice” the man said, stepping forward. Her friends were gone; disposed of. Her enemies surrounded her, ready to take her away, elsewhere. Both felt so wrong, so evil…very different from before. The man had always felt…wrong, but this was a different kind. This was…everything was wrong; not how it was supposed to be.
Sel lunged, striking out at the man. She wasn’t great by any means in melee combat, but the man’s response was still impossible; he just evaded with impossible reflexes. And then he did it again. And again. Without even moving, it was like he wasn’t even there. How… She struck again, and again. But he would not be hit. She breathed, becoming slightly worn out from her attempts, but kept striking to no avail.
“Give it up, Sel. You cannot defeat us” the man said. Why wasn’t he attacking back? Sel panted, warily watching both of her foes. Perhaps it was time to take a different tack.
“…Why do you want me so bad?” she asked the man, “Where would you have me go?”
“Oh, you’ll find out soon enough” Capricorn bleated. The two step forward again, towards Sel, but this time she didn’t budge, instead initiating a detailed scan of both opponents. Nothing came up for the man; not *too* surprising, she figured he was a bit different anyway; but Capricorn, again nothing came up. There were no life signs on her sensors, and nothing coming up on the scanners about him—as if he wasn’t there at all.
Curious.
And the more she felt his evil, the more she realized it wasn’t actually *there*. In fact, it was as if the evil was everywhere, and he…it felt like he *wasn’t*, if that made any sense. She shrugged off the buzzing feeling.
“Who are you?” she demanded to know.
“Excuse me?” asked ‘Capricorn’.
She turned to him, “If you were really Capricorn, your bio-readings would match the files we have on record. You don’t have anything. In fact, the computer is convinced I’m trying to scan the wall. So who are you, really?”
The two glanced at each other, seemingly annoyed. The man turned to Sel, “Enough questions. You will come with us now”.
Sel’s eyes narrowed; she decided to test her suspicions. As her fists balled up, she began walking forward. “No, I don’t think I will” she said, passing through the two as if they weren’t even there.
Success. The two foes vanished, evaporating like smoke. She allowed herself a satisfied smile, though now she found herself worried; something was here. Something malevolent, that wanted something from them. Hallucinations didn’t just happen like that, and she *did* feel a presence, here. On this ship.
“Trok?” she called out, “Where are you?!”
No response. She spoke into her morpher, “Trok? Xolin? Sid, come in”. Still nothing. She pondered; if she was suffering from these illusions, then…oh dear. And as a xybrian, she at least had natural mental resistance against psychic attacks; probably one of the big reasons she’d been able to push through it, even if she wasn’t really trained or had ever really even used her powers. If the others were being attacked too, then they were in trouble.
She had to track them down; *now*. Using her morpher to scan for lifeforms, she headed off towards the nearest one, just down the hall.
---
Sid sat there, broken. He should never have gotten involved, never have let Iota manipulate him into becoming the team’s leader. Here they all were; dead. Dead, just like the rest. They lay sprawled across the floor, lifeless and bleeding. Just like…back then. Oh god.
“I never should have taken the job” he heard himself say. No…not him, but his voice. He looked up, and his eyes widened with a gasp as he saw himself. Or rather, the red ranger, as he approached himself.
“Who—” Sid began to ask, baffled, but was quickly cut off by the other.
“They just got in my way; slowed me down. So really, it was a mercy”.
“What…what did you say?!” Sid gasped, anger growing in his pit.
The other Sid chuckled, “Only what you really feel, deep down. Now I can finally get back to doing what I do best, on my own”.
Sid staggered to his feet, enraged. “Don’t you dare…”
The Other continued to chuckle, “What’s wrong? Angry? Or just afraid of your true feelings?”
Sid roared in rage, charging at his doppelganger with all his might.
---
“SID, STOP!” Sel cried out as she narrowly dodged his first attack, but to no avail. More hallucinations; she’d been right. And Sid was in no way prepared to deal with a heavy psychic attack like what was going on. Even now, she felt its presence trying to seep into her mind. And unfortunately for her, Sid was a *much* better melee fighter than her, even while crazed and insane. She flipped away, narrowly dodging his (fairly clumsy) assault, backing her feet in the wall before launching forward.
Time for some quick thinking.
She flew over Sid, her bow materializing in her hands as she flipped over. She managed in three shots, each hitting not Sid himself (she didn’t want to harm him) but rather the floor around him, causing explosions that did a good job of both distracting him and knocking him around a bit. Landing behind him, she was unprepared for his sudden counter-assault, a spinning kick aimed at her. She was barely able to knock it away with her bow, before being hit by the other foot. She staggered back, before once again leaping back to give herself more room, opening another volley as Sid charged, himself cutting through each one with his axe.
Sel had a brief half-second of dawning shock as she realized just how screwed she was, just before Sid slammed into her, his charged up weapon cutting through her suit with a shower of sparks. She fell to the ground, rolling away—only barely able to get to her knees so she could block his next strike with her bow.
This was bad. She needed an upset. *Now*.
---
She felt her form being torn apart; ripped asunder by the clawing hands. Not physically, but mentally. Emotionally. She felt her three forms being forcedly separated; the core of her being on the cusp of annihilation as she was rended apart. This was hell; the extinction of her concept, the refusal of her reincarnation.
Xolin screamed. She screamed as long and as hard as she could; until her voice began to give out. But it made no difference. She was in hell; and now she would suffer for her sins.
---
He was alone; abandoned. The others were gone, having been taken by It. He was going to die here; he knew that now. He was going to die alone and frightened, far away from home. Balled up in the corner, gun aiming in the darkness, Trok waited for the end.
---
A sharp pain shot through Sel’s mind as she struggled against Sid’s axe. She could *feel* them; all of them. Xolin’s screams, Trok’s sobs…and of course Sid’s rage. She definitely felt Sid’s rage, especially as another swing from the axe threw her bow aside. And that damned buzzing; it distracted her. She reached for her side arm, but it was too late; Sid’s follow-up kick, and then another strike from his weapon sent her flying into the wall. He then thrust his weapon into her stomach, knocking the wind right out of her. One more swing, and she’d be done.
“Sid, please! Stop; it’s me, Sel! You’re hallucinating!”
Sel grabbed his axe by the top of the handle, and with her other hand pulled out her blaster, opening fire on the red ranger directly. He yelped, stumbling back. She hated having to hit him directly, but times were desperate. Gripping his axe, she tossed it aside, deciding to charge right at him with a kick. He hit the far wall hard, but grabbed his own gun and prepared to fire.
“I’LL KILL YOU!” he roared.
She had to get out of here.
Quickly knocking his weapon aside, she aimed her own at the floor and issued three shots, creating a shower of sparks and a cloud of smoke—one in which she was free to vanish in, opting to quickly slide into the nearest vent. She had to get away. Had to get away. Had to get away… She was no match for Sid; she had to get away and try another way.
Entering a larger room in the vent system—probably a maintenance hub—she panted, curling up into a ball as she attempted to recover from the ordeal. She could still hear the others in her head, screaming…and she couldn’t do anything to help them. For all everyone had told her she was a welcome part of the team; for all the training they had given her, she was still the load; the one that needed saving. She was useless, and now that was going to cost everyone everything. Tears formed in her eyes.
What could she do? She’d tried to snap Sid out of it, but had only gotten a few bruises to show for it, and she doubted she’d fare much better against the other two, if the illusions really were that strong.
“Sel to Iota, please respond” she spoke into her morpher, though she knew the chances of him replying were slim to none. Even if the ship was up and running again, the gas giant probably did a good job of jamming her small personal-based transmission. And if the planet didn’t, who knew what kind of powers the Presence had. “Please, Iota…come in”.
Nothing. And none of the others would last much longer; she could feel their minds beginning to fray. She put her head in her hands. What an abject failure she turned out to be.
…Wait. The comms had been out just a few days before too, when they were stuck in that game. Sid had used that morphin’ grid trick to send that…what had he called it? ‘Morris’ code? Yeah, that thing. If she could just remember what Sid imputed…no luck. Maybe random blinks would work? At the very least she could get his attention.
Maybe.
So she sent the signal, as base as it was. She had no way of knowing if it would even make it to Iota, much less if he would even notice. Figures she couldn’t even get a distress signal right.
---
Final checks were done; lights were coming back on everywhere. Iota issued a small sigh of relief; after how many times they’d had to reboot the system as of late, it was nice that this time at least, there had been no complications. But not all business had been accounted for yet; it was time to check in with the team. He moved over to the communications console on the bridge.
“Iota to team, what’s your status?”
Nothing. Hrn. That’s when he noticed it; the slight blinking variation in the morphin’ grid, flashing on his console. It was almost like Sid’s Morse Code, except without the code part—but it was far too random to be any actual sort of message. Yet the source was still coming from the location of the SOS. Switching over to the science console, Iota decided it was time to check on a few things with that. He wasn’t disappointed; something *weird* was going on over there; energy readings were off the scale.
Time to investigate.
---
Sel kicked out the grate blocking her exit from the vent, and pulled herself through the hole. Xolin was somewhere around here; she could feel it. Like, really *feel* it. Waves of terror and anguish were rolling off like the tide. Normally Sel didn’t feel too much from other people (though her senses had been growing slowly since her rescue a few months back), but this…this was impressive. If it wasn’t horrible, that was.
Moving into the cargo hold, she quickly caught sight of the blue ranger whimpering, sprawled out on the ground, her sobs occasionally punctuated by more screaming fits. Oh god. Sel recoiled as another screaming fit started, her body distorting slightly as her three forms struggled to remain united.
“PLEASE STOP!” Xolin shouted in desperation. Sel looked around in a slight panic for something, *anything* that could help. What could she do? What could she say?
“Xolin, please snap out of it!” she said, finally and hesitatingly crossing to the blue ranger’s struggling side, “This is just an illusion! A hallucination! You’ve got to listen to me!”
No dice. Xolin just screamed louder, trapped in her own private hell. Tears welled up again in Sel’s eyes; what was she supposed to *do*?! Xolin was dying right in front of her, and she was completely helpless to do *anything* to stop it.
“Please” she whispered to her, “Stop screaming. Please wake up. I can’t do this without you”.
Xolin kept screaming. And that’s when the door slid open, and Sel found the red ranger standing there, axe at the ready.
“There you are” he said, his voice full of bitterness and hate, “Thought you could run from me!? You killed them!” his voice cracked, “You killed them all! And now I’ll KILL YOU!” For a moment Sel thought he was still after her; but soon the truth dawned on her as he closed in, and it was far worse—he was after Xolin.
“SID, NO!” she shouted, rushing to cut him off. All she got for her troubles however, was his axe swinging down on her body. Her shoulder caught the weapon, sparks exploding as she cried out in pain, her arms gripping the tool as she bent down to her knees, fighting all the way. “No…”
“You’re alone” said the man with the briefcase, standing beside her. He adjusted his glasses as he continued, “Useless. You’re going to die here, alone and afraid. Going to die, and no one will ever know, or care”.
“No, you won’t die” Capricorn said, on her other side, “We’ll find you. Don’t you worry”.
Sel gasped in pain, trying her best to shut the voices out, but her concentration was flagging as the blade cut into her. Sid pulled his weapon up, before knocking her aside and preparing for his strike on Xolin.
“NO!” Sel screamed, pushing herself back up to her feet. She barreled into Sid’s side with all her force, knocking him off the entrance ledge and into a broken crate down below. She tumbled to the floor, just in time to hear Sid’s rage-fueled roar. As she scrambled to get back up, she felt another cut from the axe into her back, and then her side. She screamed in pain, dropping back down.
“And stay down while I finish this” Sid grunted, hobbling back over to the ladder that would take him up to Xolin.
“No…no…” Sel struggled to get up, to move at all, whimpering as she did. Everything hurt, but Xolin….Xolin was going to die. Already her screams were beginning to subside. She had…had to stop… Somehow, she forced herself back up to her knees. Then, somehow, to her feet. Then, somehow, she managed to move forward, pulling herself up the latter. And there he was, waiting, axe in hand, about to strike.
“NO!” she shouted, as he swung down on Xolin’s prone form.
In one clear instant, Sel lunged, once again forming a barrier. And as she crossed his path in mid-flight, his fully-charged axe cut through her midsection, sparks going everywhere as her suit sputtered and smoked, the flame from his weapon coursing through her body. She crashed on the floor, a few feet away, moaning in pain. Had to…she had to…
But Sel was done. Her body was done. She tried to get back up of course, but she couldn’t. More sparks emanated from her costume as she tried to move. Xolin was going to die. NO. NONONONONON----
Unbeknownst to Sel, her eyes under her helmet flashed with a brilliant aura, as her outstretched hand encompassed Sid with a blazing light brighter than the sun…
---
The Megaship hovered over the gas giant, just over where the SOS had originated from. From here, Iota could tell the energy levels were off the charts, with readings the computer couldn’t even decipher. That was a bad sign. A *very* bad sign.
So, options. Attempting to contact the team had proven futile; so the easy way was out…as usual. He could go down there…and risk getting *himself* caught up in whatever was going on. If only there was some way to neutralize the energy interference that was clouding the other ship, even if only for a short time.
Wait.
Morphin’ grid ‘communication’ still worked, which meant that whatever was going on here didn’t impact the underlying morphin’ grid energies of the universe. Which meant that supposedly…what if he…hrn. It was extremely dangerous, flooding that much morphin’ energy into the ranger’s suits, but at this point, Iota didn’t see much of a choice. The results could be catastrophic; up to and including the entire ship self-destructing. But again, no choice. Working quickly, Iota shot over to the power console and got to work, shutting off the system limiter and most of the other safeguards. Then, he began increasing energy output; slowly, but steadily.
“Iota to team” he called to them, “Please respond. Iota to team…”
---
Trok blinked. Was it just him or…his mind felt clearer. Better. He was still jittery, but it was sort of like waking up from a bad nightmare; within a few seconds his mind had deduced that nothing was actually out to get him. Probably, anyway.
Wait, but then…what happened to the others?
Still shaky and a little freaked out, the green ranger stood up, feeling remarkably lighter than usual. And faster; he almost threw himself into a wall just by standing up. Brighter too; his suit was almost…glowing. Woah, weird.
“…Guys?” he called out.
“Iota to team, please respond”.
“Iota? Uh…Trok here” the green ranger responded, just a *little* confused on what was going on.
---
“Nnnng…”
“Iota to team, please respond”.
Xolin’s breaths were shaky and ragged, her skin flushed with sweat. She’d just been pulled out of hell, and now just…gods, what had happened. Sitting up, she found both Sid and Sel lifeless and scattered around her. Also, she was um…shimmering.
“What…”
She tried to get up, but every muscle in her body hurt. Probably from…whatever had just happened. It wasn’t real; couldn’t have been real. …Right? It had sure *felt* real, but…not. So why were they all down?
She shuddered, her emotions threatening to catch up to her. She attempted some ad-hock meditation to try and stabilize herself, while Trok replied to Iota over the comm.
“…Xolin here” she said, her voice ragged. “I uh…I have Sid and Sel here. They’re both out cold”.
“Understood” came Iota’s response, “Both of you, get them to the entry point. We need to get you out of there as quickly as possible; I’m bypassing your morphers’ safeties and flooding your bodies with morphin’ energy; the consequences may be extremely dangerous if allowed to go on for too long. The sooner you can get out, the better”.
Xolin glanced over at her fallen friends, a frown appearing on her face. This would be difficult.
“What *exactly* is going on?” Trok asked, over the comm.
Iota’s response came just after, “Something on the ship is interfering with comms; something that’s exhibiting excessive power levels. This is the only way I could find the communicate with you”.
“Well, whatever you did, it stopped the nightmares” Xolin muttered.
“Nightmares?”
“Long story” she replied, “I’ll explain once we make it back. Xolin out”. She sighed, looking over the other two as Trok walked in, then looked up at him.
“I uh…” he stammered, “It’s…been a long day”.
“Yeah” she nodded, holding herself together by sheer will and a helping of shock, “Yeah, it has”. The other two were beginning to stir now. Trok rushed over to Sel, taking care to avoid the damaged sections of her suit as he helped her up. Xolin meanwhile grabbed Sid’s hand, allowing him to stand.
“Oh god” Sid said, the memories flooding back, “What…”
“Nightmares, right?” Xolin asked. Sid nodded. “Yeah, it’s like that”.
“I thought you were all…” Sid trailed off when he caught sight of Sel’s condition, “What happened to…oh god” his eyes widened as he put two and two together. “…I thought I was fighting…I thought I was fighting myself” his voice became more subdued.
Sel looked at him, her arm slumped over Trok’s shoulders, “…I’m sorry” she said dejectedly, “I wasn’t good enough”.
“We uh…we need to deal with this all later” Xolin managed, knowing that succumbing to all this at the moment would send them all spiraling the drain—when what really they needed was to get out of here before something really *bad* happened, “Right now we need to get back to the ship. Come on”. She motioned to them as she staggered out of the darkened room, the other three following in a haphazard formation. Today had been a very bad day.
---
The sight Iota caught was not a good one. After re-engaging the power safety controls for their powers, he’d arrived at the Megaship’s launch bay just as the rangers were disembarking from their skycycles, taking their helmets off as they did so. Their expressions and body language were…well, they weren’t good. Each seemed distraught; preoccupied, distant. It was a sign of utter defeat from each of them, and Iota wasn’t even sure why. Normally he’d have been able to follow their progress, but this time he’d been almost completely in the dark.
Er, literally.
“Report” he said, “What happened down there?”
The four rangers seemed to warily regard each other through side glances, each dejected. Finally, Sid spoke, his voice subdued, “We uh…there was no one there. The ship’s been adrift for well over a century”.
“And the SOS?” Iota asked, a little annoyed that he was having to pull the information from Sid bit by bit.
Sid shrugged, “All systems were down. We have no idea how it transmitted. We uh…our suits have the recordings”.
“We think the people onboard went crazy. Killed each other, maybe” Xolin added, her voice equally drained and despondent, “Whatever did it to them, it…came after us too, I think”.
“…How?”
“Hallucinations” Sid replied, “It…wasn’t good”.
The abject expressions and postures of everyone convinced Iota to hold off on more questioning. He could allow them a few hours to regroup and clear their heads; it wasn’t like this mission had been vitally important. And it was a wash, anyway. “Very well. All of you; get some rest. We’ll have a debriefing in twelve hours”.
“My advice?” Xolin said as she and the others began to pile out of the room, past Iota, “Destroy the ship. Whatever lives there is evil. We shouldn’t risk it drawing anyone else in”. And that’s, predictably, when the ship came under fire; the entire deck shuddering under the impact.
“What was that?!” Trok exclaimed.
Iota was already on it, checking stats from his wrist computer. To his surprise, the other ship, the freighter, had escaped the confines of its prison within the gas giant, and was now on an intercept course with the Megaship; it had already opened fire with its primary cannons. But…freighters couldn’t stand a chance against Megaships. Another hit shook the ship.
“Well, that’s curious. Looks like your haunted ship came to us” he said, tapping his controls to get a better view on the holographic screen. Another shake. Noting that none of them were in any shape to pilot, he sighed. “I’ll deal with it. It’s just a freighter. The rest of you, get some rest before you keel over”.
Iota rushed to the bridge, leaving behind the shattered team, who seemingly made no objections. He’d deal with them later.
Sigh. This was *not* part of the scenario.
---
Another shake greeted Iota when he entered the bridge, taking his seat in the captain’s chair. Pressing a few buttons, he redirected all controls to his console, and began returning fire with the main cannons. Within a few shots though, something began to happen. The opposing ship began to…well, the best way he could describe it was ‘radiate energy’; a dark aura seemed to surround it as its form began to shift and distort. Iota’s eyes narrowed as he watched the transformation, as the hull began to buckle and bend, breaking apart into some sort of vaguely humanoid beast.
…Probably a good time to shift to Megazord mode. The Megaship quickly transformed; and not soon enough, as even as the final components were shifting into place, the beast charged in full-bore, grappling with the giant robot as they tumbled in low orbit. Iota struggled to keep hold of the ship’s controls as the inertia pulled him along, even with the ship’s dampeners. A knee to the crotch sent the monster spinning back.
How annoying.
The Megazord summoned its sword, then propelled forward with its boot thrusters with the intent of ramming its blade right into the monster’s chest. Instead, several long, black, aura tentacles unfolded from the monster, striking back at the Megazord. It was knocked back, sparks emanating from the points of impact, even as the tentacles faded again, replaced by more. As mere auras, they didn’t even look real, almost like they were just ruined sections of a photograph; black empty regions superimposed on reality. Or maybe reality was superimposed on it; some sort of vacant window into the underlying darkness that creation hid. And the areas of the opposing ship that weren’t connected anymore were the same; simply black abysses where hull and metal should have been. Its head was a chaotic mess of shrapnel and smokey aura black, the metal arranged almost like a maw of mismatched teeth.
It was unnatural, even Iota recognized that. Another tentacle lunged forth, which the Megazord barely parried with its sword. A second tentacle shot out, ramming itself into the Megazord’s midsection. Almost immediately, the area of impact began to darken and spread, and alarms went off all over the bridge; the monster was beginning to infect the ship, corrupting the hull somehow.
This was bad.
A third tentacle shot out, disarming the Megazord by knocking its sword out of its hand. Then came a fourth tentacle, aimed directly at its chestplate. Iota was so concerned about its attack he was completely unprepared when it suddenly exploded.
“What the—”
The next thing he saw was the Red Guardianzord flying by, opening another load on the tentacle that was corrupting the Megazord’s side. It also evaporated under the assault, as the Guardianzord turned its attention on the main opponent.
---
“Sid to Iota. We got this”.
“Are you certain?”
Sitting next to Sid in the Megazord cockpit, Xolin nodded, her teeth gritted, “Yeah. Time for payback”.
“Understood. Relinquishing controls to you. Good luck”.
“Yeah, right” Sid spat out, his voice rough. “Warrior Mode!”
The Red Guardianzord folded over the Megazord, forming armor and its signature twin-axe blades over its fists. The two axes detached, their chain whips launching themselves at the offending monster. They cut through the tentacles, causing the monster to scream in pain. There was no witty banter here; no wry quip. Normally they’d make comments about how utterly messed up this creature looked, how…wrong he was. But not today. Today they only had a job to do, and then they’d scurry back to their rooms so they could finally lick their wounds.
“Xolin?” Sid asked.
“Got it!” she replied, summoning her own zord, “Lightning Mode!” The red Guardianzord detached from the Megazord, soon replaced by the blue one. The Megazord grabbed its new guns and lit its boot thrusters charging in on the monster. Two more tentacles lashed out, but with the blue zord, the Megazord was quick enough to avoid as it opened fire, causing the beast to stagger. Both blasters converted to blade mode as the Megazord closed in, shoving both of them into the enemy ship hull, before landing its feet on it. Then, igniting the boosters again, pulled away, ripping the swords out and pushing the monster away with its thrusters as it flipped about back into a fighting position, its swords having converted back into blades. The two guns ripped through the enemy hull, sparks exploding all over.
“Alright, time to wrap this **** up” Sid muttered. Then his eyes widened as the black void filled in to where the blasts had hit; it was regenerating. Energy collected in front of it, as it seemed to prepare to fire back. Then suddenly, more explosions as it staggered back. The green and yellow Guardianzords flew past, back and around the monster, as Sid and Xolin suddenly found Trok and Sel in their seats next to them.
“Glad you could join us” Sid said, attempting some level of light-heartedness. No one else took the bait though, with Trok just nodding brusquely. Sel for her part kept her focus on her console. Sid slumped back down, focusing once again on the fight.
“The monster’s regenerating” Xolin frowned, “No matter what we throw at it, it won’t die”.
“The monster might be, but look” he pointed at the remains of the ship that the monster was using as its skeleton and armor. Notably, he pointed at the damage marks from the battle, “The ship itself is mortal”.
“The thrusters!” Trok realized, noting that the monster was maintaining its altitude via the ships’ engines, which were located on its feet, “We take those out, and it’ll fall back into the clouds”.
Sid nodded, “Do it”.
Xolin locked on to her controls, “Azure Sniper!” The Megazord combined its two pistols into a single larger weapon and aimed at the monster’s feet, even as it flew in towards them. One shot fired off, breaking apart the left foot. A second shot soon fired, just before the monster grabbed them, smashing the right. It was too late though, as the beast grappled with the Megazord, beginning to corrupt its shoulders as its claws dug in, the two titans spiraling around in low orbit. The rangers struggled, the inertia once again overpowering the internal dampeners.
“We need to break free!” Sid shouted, “Trok, Sel, counterattack!”
Immediately, the green and yellow Guardianzords swung back around alongside red, each opening up a volley on the monster’s backside and arms. For a moment its shoulders evaporated, causing it to lose its grip on the Megazord as the arms disincorporated temporarily, the debris from the ship itself scattering to the cosmos.
“Sel!” Sid commanded.
The yellow ranger nodded, “Assault Mode. Advent Barrage”. The blue Guardianzord disengaged from the Megazord, replaced by yellow’s. The guns covering its hull primed, aimed, and opened fire on the monster, the kinetic force pushing it further and further away. And without engines to support it, it was powerless as it began to hit friction from the upper atmosphere; just before it was lost beneath the clouds. It was over. Well, at least, the battle was over. But the atmosphere inside the cockpit was awkward and distant. Sid glanced over his team. There was so much wrong here.
---
His room was quiet; had been since he’d arrived. He’d tried tinkering with his many would-be inventions, but any drive he had was just…gone, so now his chosen toy just sat on his bed next to him as he laid down, staring at the ceiling.
He’d left his friends to suffer. He’d abandoned his position, ran and hid because of a simple hallucination, while he left his friends to die. Everything Xolin had tried to teach him, everything he’d tried to live up to…it was all for naught. He wasn’t a hero; he was a child. And the truth was, he only had confidence when in the simudeck, or when surrounded by others.
What an utter coward. It wasn’t even about what the others thought about him—he knew well enough at this point they didn’t think this way. No, this was all about him. And he knew he was a disappointment. He fought back tears.
---
She shivered, alone in her room. The memories of her hallucination haunted her; the pain she felt, deeper than any normal, physical pain. She felt the pain in the core of her being; in her soul. She had felt violation as her aspects were unwillingly ripped from her piece by piece.
Most triforians reincarnated, after being released back to the source; their aspects being remade and combined with other reincarnating aspects. But some souls were deemed beyond salvaging—those souls were sent to…well, the word didn’t exactly translate into English, but ‘Urthal’, sort of a triforian hell. There, degraded souls would be torn apart into nothing; torment was the order of the day there. Eternal torment. Hell.
It was something that had always nagged at the edge of Xolin’s mind; the idea she was wrong. Her parents; hell, her whole clan was convinced her soul was destined for Urthal. What if they were right? What if she was *wrong*? What if her entire worldview, her whole concept of being was false? How could she ever really know before it happened?
She curled up in a ball, wishing the world away.
---
She was a fraud; a mistake. They said she was a useful part of the team; but all she ever managed to do was mess things up. Whether it was forcing Sid and Trok to yell at each other in a misguided attempt to help repair their friendship, or simply not being good enough to save them from the hallucinations…god, she was useless.
The holographic quantron took her clouded mind to its advantage and knocked the bow out of her hands as it closed in, her shots having missed or been deflected by its own weapon. A second quantron hit her in the side, knocking her down as the group swarmed her. The yellow ranger’s fist hit the dirt in a fit of anger as she flung herself back up. She had to become better. Another scuffle though, and she was soon back in the dirt.
Elder Sesh had told her to make new memories, a new life; but she was failing, and she couldn’t figure out how *not* to fail. Why was she so bad at this? The image of Sid almost killing Xolin kept replaying in her head. Xolin’s screams, Sid’s cries. All the horror. Capricorn and the man with the briefcase mocking her. All the fears. Make it stop.
She was grabbed by the quantron and was pulled up. Her hands glimmered as tears began to trickle down behind her helmet. In a scream of rage and frustration, light shot out into the quantron. It seemed to glitch, just before the entire simudeck scenario collapsed on itself, the computer’s systems shorting out and shutting down. Sel fell to the floor in an exhausted heap; the energy attack having cost her most of her strength, though the ever-present buzzing at least had momentarily faded. She gasped, exhausted.
What *was* she? Why…how did she do these…things?
Why did it feel like the universe was out to get her? She slammed her fist on the ground again, forcing herself to stand, even as her shaky legs protested.
“Computer” the yellow ranger seethed, determined as she steadied her breath, “Restart last save point”.
---
Sid scrolled through the local net hub, searching sites and forums for answers on the holographic terminal. Search terms had included ‘ghost ships’, ‘nightmare monsters’, ‘alien hallucinogens’, among many others. None had given him any sort of trail to follow; just unrelated urban myths and conspiracy theories.
Sigh.
But, the fruitless search was keeping him from his real thoughts, and that was what counted.
He’d almost killed Xolin. And Sel. All because he’d been hallucinating about…about them. His old team. Between this and the whole thing with Trok…god, he had no business leading this team. None at all. He had way too much baggage.
God, what had he done. Er, almost done. If Sel hadn’t stopped him…god.
He didn’t want to think about it.
“Can’t sleep?”
Sid turned to see Iota standing in the doorway to the computer lab he was in. It was a small room, only a few computers; not much use for a lab when every room had a terminal system, but SPD engineering was always good at a bit of redundancy. And right now, Sid needed to not be in his room, just to clear his head.
Sid nodded, “Trying to figure out what attacked us”.
“Anything?” Iota’s voice seemed genuinely curious.
He shook his head, “Not a clue. There’s *nothing* here, except maybe a conspiracy theory or two”. Sid sighed, then looked back at his commander, “Any ideas?”
Iota said nothing at first, instead opting to sit down, studying Sid’s various holo-windows, “There are many wonders in the universe, in my experience. Our civilization is a thin veneer, a surface of order that we use to forget that there is depth. And in that depth, there are many, *many* places for things to hide”.
“…What are you saying?” Sid asked, slightly creeped out.
Iota continued, idly skimming through one of the browser windows, “I do not know exactly what you faced, but I do know that there are things in this universe much older than you or I. Much older than our civilizations. They slumber, deep in the cracks below our notice. They swim in the void, far beyond our knowledge”.
Sid gulped, a chill going down in spine as his prior worries were forgotten, “…So what, like…Lokar? Dark Specter?”
Iota seemed to regard him for a moment, before returning to the browser, “Older”.
“What *exactly* are we talking about here?”
“Just be glad that it seems our friend wasn’t able to leave orbit. We were likely little more than a source of food for it. Our civilization is little more than anthills they step over”.
“Yeah, that’s not awful at all” Sid replied, his voice quiet and subdued as he rubbed his arms in contemplation.
Iota shrugged, “The universe is almost fourteen billion years old. The modern age of civilization only goes back a few dozen millennia. Even the Morphin’ Masters, at the ‘dawn of time’, only existed a few million years ago. The universe is filled with mysteries and unknowns, with wonders and horrors hidden from us. But I wouldn’t worry too much about it; we’ve been around this long without anything stepping on us”.
“Maybe” Sid said, staring unfocused at his holoscreen, “…Maybe not”.
Iota stood up, turning to leave, “Get some sleep. You need it. Everything will be clearer tomorrow”.
Sid didn’t watch as he left, instead remaining focused on his screen, it’s glow casting a soft light on an otherwise dark room. Thoughts filtered through his unfocused mind, both from his own demons, and those Iota had left with him, “…Maybe not”.
---
To be continued…
