Whole
By Jeannine Trevizo
Chapter 9: Taking out the Trash
The
blaring alarm resonated throughout the
As the door to the elevator opened at the
main command level, the teens piled out to find Lt. Cranston already there, his
face a mixture of anxiety and hope.
“The
sensors picked the ship up just on the other side of the moon,” he explained,
moving to intercept Tommy.
“Just
one?” questioned Tommy as he let Lt. Cranston guide him to the console where
the radar screen resided.
“Yes,
but…”
As
Lt. Cranston trailed off, Tommy and the others crowded around the radar monitor
and realized just why one ship was enough to worry about.
The
one ship Lord Zedd was returning to Earth with was huge. While it was dwarfed
by the moon, it still was obvious that the ship was at least three times the
size of the MegaNinjazord, which meant
any variety of things. Most likely that there were other support ships within
the monstrosity headed their way, and more than likely they were all armed.
But
until they got up there and engaged Zedd, they didn’t have a clue as to what
they were really up against.
“Everyone
head to the hangar bay and suit up. We’re heading for space in ten minutes,”
Tommy announced, resulting in the Center forces looking nervously at the team of
rangers in their midst.
“Tommy,
are you sure you’re ready to do this?” Lt. Cranston asked, worried that the
White Ranger had not even made any kind of battle plan before directing his
team to their zords.
“There’s
no time to make elaborate plans,” Tommy remarked, his tone clipped.
“Besides,
we don’t have any idea what Zedd’s capable of now,” Jason added, supporting his
friend and leaders’ decision.
“We’ll
do what we need to. Just be prepared to get your people in place once Zedd is
gone,” Adam insisted, following his fellow rangers lead.
“How
will we know you’ve succeeded?” Lt. Cranston questioned seriously.
“There
will be one ship left on the radar screen… ours,” Tommy answered,
his tone deadly. “All right everyone, let’s get in the air.”
With
that, the six teens headed to the elevator, heading back down past the
residential floor they’d been in less than twenty minutes before, and into the
bottom of the mountain where the hangar bay was hidden. Exiting the elevator,
Kimberly was out first, hitting the button along the wall to start the hangar
bay doors opening.
“Once
we’re outside, we’ll shift to MegaNinjazord
mode and head to space,” Tommy stated as they all rushed to their ships.
Just before they climbed
in, there was a chorus of morphing calls, armoring up the rangers in their
uniforms. Now attired for their journey and combat, they fired up their zords
and exited the hangar bay. Outside, the zords started the process to merge
their vehicles into the one large machine that they would use to fly them
through the atmosphere and head off Zedd’s ship.
“Aisha, ignition,” Tommy
commanded as he reached the main control room of the MegaNinjazord after having
docked last.
“Blasting off now, oh
fearless leader,” she quipped back, Tommy and the others smiling a little at
the levity that they sorely needed as they launched into space to tackle the
villain that caused the death of the rangers and the subjugation of their
world.
-x-
Those members of the team
that remembered Zedd recalled his ship; the lithe red vehicle, Serpentera. But
what greeted them surprised them all. Zedd had changed Serpentera significantly
– it was now a larger, less mobile vehicle. More like a dragon than a snake,
thought Tommy as he looked at the nearly black, bulky but still sinuous
vehicle.
“That’s a big ship,”
murmured Aisha from her seat in the MegaNinjazord.
“It is. Which begs the
question, what’s the firepower in that thing?” questioned Zack, a spike of
worry coloring his voice.
“I don’t think we really
want to know,” stated Kim with an unseen look to the Black Ranger.
“But we’re gonna find
out,” Jason said quickly as the proximity alarms within the MegaNinjazord began
to chime.
“Do you think he knows
we’re here yet?” Adam asked as they closed the distance between them and Zedd’s
ship.
Suddenly they watched as
the front of the ‘dragon’ opened its mouth and what looked like two dozen
ships, half the size of their zords raced out, lasers firing at them.
“I’ll take that as a
yes,” remarked Tommy curtly, before he slammed his hands on the MegaNinjazord’s
controls. “Jason, prepare return fire. Adam, try jamming their frequencies so
they can’t communicate with one another or Zedd. Aisha, I need everything
you’ve got for maneuverability. Kim, monitor our shields and let me know when
we get too close to the red. Zack, route the power to thruster and weapons and
coordinate with Kim and Aisha.”
Given their assignments,
the team dove into their work as Jason and Tommy focused on fighting the
smaller ships pummeling the MegaNinjazord with their laser blasts. Their
smaller size gave them better maneuverability, and Jason was having a hard time
shooting them down wile the MegaNinjazord was rocked by repeated laser fire.
The pummeling they were
getting was wearing on the shields, and Kim knew they had to change their
tactics.
“Tommy, Jase… we need to
reduce the hits we’re taking or we’re never getting close enough to Zedd’s ship
to take him down,” Kim stated.
“Tommy, I think you’re
going to have to split off and try to take on some of the smaller ships,” Jason
remarked as they continued to try to avoid while shooting down the attacking
vehicles.
“Will you guys be okay?”
he responded, his eyes flicking to Kim even though he knew she couldn’t see
them behind his visor.
“We’ll give Zedd hell,”
growled Kim in response to his question and the look she instinctively knew he
was directing her way.
“You guys take over,”
Tommy announced as he hurried to get up and out of the command room and to his
own ship. Kim switched seats to take the controls while Adam routed the shield
controls from Kim’s station to add to his tasks at the communications station.
Kim’s
similar piloting skills for airborne zords had made her the best replacement
for Tommy, leaving Jason the task of having to try and bring down the ships
trying to destroy them. There was a sudden crunch of metal, and the team knew
Tommy had undocked from the Ninjazord. Before them, the
white and silver visage of Tommy’s Falconzord rushed past the ‘windshield’ of
the Ninjazord, Tommy’s lasers
firing at the clusters of advancing ships.
Pinned
between the Falconzord and the Ninjazord, Zedd’s ships
found themselves quickly boxed in. They split up, forcing Tommy to follow half
of them, leaving Jason to shoot down the rest. Meanwhile, Zedd’s main ship
hovered over the space battlefield, as if waiting for its moment to strike.
“Tommy,
we need to take the fight directly to Zedd,” Kim complained as she banked the Ninjazord left and out of the path of a series of
laser fire.
“Then
let’s clear the distraction,” he replied tensely, “Jase, drive them towards
Zedd’s ship… we’ll see if we can get them to sacrifice themselves for Zedd’s
command ship.”
“Got it!”
Both
the Falconzord and the Ninjazord kept after the
ships, their shields taking hit after hit in their quest to destroy them all.
At one point, Tommy’s zord started to tumble as a stabilizer in one wing was
damaged before he could get control and redirect power from the opposite side.
Aisha and Zack had done everything tey could to keep the power levels in the
black and had engaged the fire extinguishers in the right foot and left arm of
the Ninjazord when laser strikes caught the ship on fire.
Finally
they brought down the last of the fighters. With the last ship destroyed, Tommy
opened up his comm. and directed his comments to Adam. “Open all channels – I
want Zedd to acknowledge us…”
White
noise filled the comm. before a voice that over half the team recognized, and
two of them held in dread.
“Tommy
– it’s been so long… welcome back… to your death.”
The team held their
collective breath as memories for those who had faced Zedd before were dredged
up with the sound of his voice.
“Zedd, this is that last
chance I promised you,” Tommy spat through the communications channel.
A laugh filled the
cockpit of both the Falconzord and the Ninjazord. Kim shuddered at it, memories
of the abuses at Zedd’s hands filling her mind.
“You can’t end me White
Ranger… none of your precious teams has ever been able to defeat me. You would
need to kill me to stop me… and your code, Zordon’s
outdated moral code has kept you from destroying me over and over…”
“You forget something
Zedd,” replied Tommy, his voice dark. “Zordon’s dead, just like the countless
rangers you had murdered. And me… well, I’m a whole new man, so to speak. And to save the Earth, my team … Kim from you again… I have
no problems wiping you from the galaxy.”
A small beeping sound
caught the attention of the rangers still in the Ninjazord. Jason looked down
and saw the scrolling message from Tommy: ‘fire all weapons at Zedd’s ship –
now.’
Without replying over the
open channel, Jason flipped the switches for every single weapon they had on
board, even siphoning whatever spare power from the life support they had to
add extra energy to the lasers before he pressed the ‘fire’ button with a
silent prayer/curse combination.
Instantly a barrage of
weapons flew through the airless boundaries of space and struck Zedd’s ship; explosions beginning to go off as the ship was impacted by
the firepower being poured at it. Zedd hadn’t realized that Tommy had meant
what he’d said – they weren’t playing with kid gloves any longer. Tommy
immediately followed suit, firing every rocket in his arsenal and draining his
laser power.
Zedd’s crew was
unprepared for the speed and ferocity of the ranger’s attack, and the firepower
behind their weapons cut through the ship’s shields rapidly after the
bombardment kept going without end. Zedd tried to order them to retreat,
realizing that his memories of the first Tommy, Kimberly and other rangers were
flawed by time and these resurrected rangers new
lives.
In effect, they’d been
reborn into the world as he’d allowed it to be recreated, causing them to be
more resilient and willing to use deadly force to protect themselves and the
people on the planet. His defeat was in a way his own fault. He had
inadvertently made these rangers more deadly that ever before; made them able
to kill him.
There were screams
throughout his ship as the engine room caught fire and the bridge began to tilt
as the metal around it began to buckle and twist under power of the blasts
warping it.
Then the blast erupted
from the power core, sending explosions and fire up and down the corridors of
the ship, igniting anything it
touched. Moments later communications were gone and Zedd, his ship and anyone
on board were gone in a silent thunderclap of a detonation; pieces of Zedd’s
monstrous ship hurtling through space with the force of the destruction. Kim
and Tommy took immediate evasive measures, avoiding the largest of the pieces
sailing through space.
As soon as the worst of
it was past, Tommy simply sat in his cockpit, pondering the choices he and his
predecessors had made. Deciding to kill Zedd, the people he had in the ships…
it was a decision that might haunt him, but it was war… and he would never
allow Lord Zedd to survive to blackmail Earth and its people or kill rangers
ever again.
He silently piloted the
Falconzord back to dock with the Ninjazord, entering the main control room
where the rest of the team sat in their positions. Kim got up from the seat
that was his and moved to catch his hand in hers, gripping it tightly before
breaking away and moving back to her own seat. Sitting down, Tommy turned his
helmeted head to Adam and nodded, indicating the Blue Ranger should open the
communications channels once again – but this time they were contacting home.
“Alpha?” Tommy said through the open comm. channel, breaking
the silence that filled the control room of the MegaNinjazord.
“Yes Tommy,” the robotic
assistant to generations of rangers before and after him replied after a long
moment as the transmission made its way from space near the moon to Earth.
“Zedd’s down and out. Let
Lt. Cranston know that it’s his people’s turn now… the power rangers have done
their part.”
“Understood,” Lt Cranston
replied as his voice replaced Alpha’s across the ranger’s transmission. “We’re
working on broadcasting it everywhere now. Our people will be coming out of
hiding very soon and stepping in to take over. If you would be able to return
and join us when we disband the Global Government… I think the people would
find it a great day to see the Power Rangers helping change their world.”
Tommy looked to the
others in the MegaNinjazord and they all nodded or
gave thumbs up.
“All right… we’ll join
you wherever you need us. Have Alpha give us the location and time. Tommy out.”
-End Ch 9-
Additional author’s note:
1. sorry for the delay… RL sucks. 2. just an FYI for anyone wondering, I have
been assuming the movie zords and armor in this story, as I feel they’re a
better (i.e. real) representation of ranger gear compared to some of the less
‘technical’ looking stuff (i.e. spandex uniforms) in the TV shows.