To Live For Tomorrow
A Captain Power and the Soldiers of
the Future fanfic
By Jeannine Trevizo
8/15/2009 (Originally
started 1988; new sections & revisions Jul/Aug 2009)
Spoilers: End of
season 1, references to leaked info for unfilmed
season 2.
Disclaimers:
Landmark Entertainment and Mattel – even though they probably aren’t looking
for anything.
Author’s note: The
original version of this story was started back in 1988. While working on a
Power Rangers fanfic involving a future, war torn
world, I remembered this series and went and unearthed this story. I’ve changed
a key element in the plot based on an idea from another unpublished fic of mine to give it a different twist. Enjoy!
-x-
48-1 Mark 10
Jonathan Power
tried to sleep, unsuccessfully, in his bunk in the new auxiliary base in the
It had only been
three weeks since he and the team had left on a wild goose chase and he had
sent Jennifer - Pilot to the base alone. To her death.
Once they had realized what had happened, he and the rest of the team had raced
back to try and prevent what was to come.
He had tried to
persuade her to leave the equipment. To save herself.
Desperately he assured her that they would find another way of stopping the
Warlord-Class Bio-Dread Blastarr that was inside the
base. He had struggled frantically to come up with something that would buy
her, THEM, time. To solve the seemingly unsolvable problem of destroying their
base and everything inside it, lest it fall into evil hands, AND get Jennifer
out safely.
But she refused,
insisting that there was no other way. She had said that the
auto-destruct was out and that she had to activate it manually. He
remembered every syllable, each inflection as she had said the words to him. He
could hear in her voice that she was hurt. Badly. At
the time, his insides had knotted up at the thought of what she had been
through, what she was enduring. Then she had told him that she was all broken
up inside, and he knew that she wasn't lying.
She was dying. With
or without the auto-destruct.
Yet he knew there
was still a chance. There were still a few doctors that could help her; could
save her if he could just get her out…
He tried again to
reason, bargain with her, yet it was already too late. He could hear the fear
in her voice, the alarm resonating throughout the base. Then what he had feared
the most since they had all realized what was going on happened. In preparation
for death, she chose to let go of every mortal secret she owned. She gave him
as a parting gift what she had hoped to give him in life - her love.
She had told him
that she loved him.
The words had sent
chills of fire through his veins and over his body. Everything in him screamed
to stop her; to not let her leave him after such a declaration. He’d lost too
many people who cared for him over the years…
But there was no
time. Before he could do more than say her name, he heard Blastarr's
mechanized voice rumble behind her. She’d growled out a curse, pushed the
button and there was what seemed like the longest pause and then the sound of
explosions followed only by static.
Jon and the others
watched in horror as the base exploded; fire, rock and metal cascading through
the air. It was over in an instant that seemed like an eternity. In his ears,
he could hear Matt softly say "Oh my God" as he held his head in his
hands, his eyes tightly shut, as if to try and deny what they had just seen.
Masterson didn't
know the half of it.
She was gone; the
first personal casualty since his father to this war. The one woman who had
somehow touched him deeper than he’d realized during this madness. And he knew
his life was never going to be the same.
The team had followed
a beacon, leading them to a skybike; some of the
others had been hoping beyond hope that there was a chance that she had
survived. Yet he knew there wasn't. They were one team member less and less
than whole now. HE was less than whole now.
They had nowhere to
go and limited resources, a situation that Jon had never faced before. Demoralized
and defeated, Matt had suggested a retreat to the closest safe haven: The Passages
near where
They had stayed
there for a few days before being able to access
When they had
arrived, they had found almost everything they needed: charging station for the
suits, hangar bay, spare parts and equipment, control room and other
fundamental areas. It had taken a while to settle in, but now the base was
running fairly well and even their personal space was feeling a bit more like
home. Yet in the three weeks since the explosion, Jon had walked around
feigning both interest and leadership. Inside he was tormented by his memories,
just as he was plagued by the nightmares that kept him up at night.
He just kept
remembering HER.
Their
first meeting, when he and the others had helped pull her from the influence of
the Dread Youth. The
process of re-educating and humanizing her, and in the
process reminding themselves what it meant to be human. Worrying about her when
she didn't arrive on time to a rebellion meeting with the heads of the resistance;
the time she had kissed his cheek as she had struck off, searching for help as
he laid there, his leg injured. The time when he had kissed her, for luck just
before going into a dangerous situation; their dancing after their last major
victory and then their last talk before…
He’d made the error
of not finishing their talk, of actually telling her how he felt. And now he
would never have the chance to rectify his mistake.
Sighing, he tossed
the covers from his bunk and got up. Sleep wasn’t going to come tonight, just
like it had been elusive for the last three weeks. Still, there was work to do
and the extra hours would help them get back to where they could actually
return to the field and start hitting Dread again.
There was still a
war to win, even if Jon felt as if he’d already lost everything that made the
thought of winning worthwhile.
Tossing on his
uniform, he headed to the command room to scan the frequencies and see what was
going on out there, and maybe, just maybe, find the strength to keep going for
at least another day.
-x-
Corporal Jennifer
Chase woke to pain that seemed to radiate from her gut through her whole body. She
blinked, confused, as the last thing she remembered was…
Her skin turned to
ice and the blood in her veins froze as her memory replayed the last moments
she recalled. Finding out the disk was blank; the assault on the power base;
opening the communications link to the Jumpship to
warn the team; Blastarr’s arrival and the self
destruct’s failure… and then her last words to Jon followed by the explosion.
But there was
something she was missing. She remembered Blastarr in
front of her, his arm directed towards her as she spat a curse at him before
reaching for the self destruct button. The sound of the explosion was there,
but it seemed… fuzzy, as if she was hearing it through something else.
Then she realized
what had happened. She’d been digitized. In the last seconds, Blastarr had chosen not to hit her with his laser but with
the digitization beam. So that meant…
She turned her head
slightly; agony pierced her skull as she did so and her heart lurched in her
chest. She was in a Dread lab. Using her hands, she pushed down on the cold
metal slab below her and then tried to move her arms with no success. Trying to
rise from her prone position, even though her entire body rebelled against the
movement, she finally was able to see that she was strapped down, dressed in a
medical gown and surrounded by technology that she had never seen before.
Fear spread through
her body and she started to thrash in her restraints, desperate to escape, even
if she didn’t know where she was or if she could even stand. Once she began,
there was a sound of a door opening and she felt her anxiety increase. Suddenly
there were people in white coats surrounding her, one of which held a syringe
filled with a bluish colored liquid. The others held her still while the one
with the syringe shoved the needle into her arm, depressing the plunger to
shoot the liquid into her vein. Slowly she began to feel her body start to go
numb.
“Please,” she said
thickly, her voice sounding unused and gravelly.
“Do not struggle
Youth Leader Chase,” replied one of the people in the coats, a man. “We’re here
to help you.”
“Don’t want your
help,” Jennifer slurred as the injection they’d given her started to affect her
speech.
“Of course you do.
We’ve been working to fix you so you’re better than ever. Fit for your role
with the machine, as Lord Dread’s newest Overunit.”
Jennifer’s eyes
widened in fear at his words; she had now lost her ability to speak, yet her
mind was still functioning and she could comprehend just what he was saying. In
a matter of moments, her body was totally paralyzed, yet she was still conscious,
her eyes flicking around in dread of what they planned to do to her next.
“Alright everyone,
let’s get started. There’s a lot of re-conditioning to do, and not a lot of
time. Lord Dread wants her active in a week.”
With that, the men
and women surrounding Jennifer’s body hurriedly began to work, fitting wires,
electrodes, sensors and a variety of circuitry on her body. A wide visor was
placed over her eyes, which were now frozen open. Once they had finished, the
first man in the lab coat turned a switch, and electricity began pulsing down
the wires into Jennifer’s body, activating the electronics nearly encasing her
head as well as the other points along her body. There was an infinitesimal jolt
that seemed to shimmer across her skin, and the techs all looked around at one
another.
“Good,” said the
main lab tech, moving to a console and typing in a sequence of keystrokes.
“Let’s get Youth Leader Chase back.”
A second later, the
programming began streaming through the system and into the conscious form of
the woman strapped to the bed. And in her mind, she screamed.
-x-
It had been another
long week, totaling a month now since the destruction of the power base and the
loss of Pilot. And the team could see that their leader was still only
partially there with them. They’d just gone out on their first major mission
since settling in at Northstar, striking a Dread
patrol near what used to be
During that action
though, Captain Power had continued to walk as if in a fog. He did what was
needed of him; directing the team and taking down some of the Bio-Mechs, but it seemed… perfunctory. He didn’t even seem to
gain any satisfaction in the destruction of the metal heads.
So now, the
following day, the other three members of the team were sitting around the
command center’s main consoles with the sole purpose of addressing what was
next for their team, and their Captain.
“Hawk, we’ve got to
do something,” Scout insisted.
“I’ve tried talking
to him, but he just shuts down and refuses to discuss it. I just don’t know what
more I can do…” Hawk complained, looking to the two men who had lost their
friend and comrade in arms just a month ago, just like he had.
But their Captain’s
pain was much deeper than their own, he thought forlornly. Maybe
too deep…
“If anyone can
reach the Captain, it’s you,” Tank assured him, his normally gruff accented
voice sounding more subdued than usual.
Hawk nodded, conceding
the truth of the matter. He had to get Jon to acknowledge what was going on;
that the loss of Pilot was affecting his judgment as well as putting the team
at risk. They couldn’t keep doing this – something had to change.
Matt turned and
left the command room, looking through the base for where Power might be.
Finally he found him in the Jumpship, pulling apart a
panel to rewire part of the scanning system. It was something that needed to be
done, for sure, but with everyone elsewhere, it allowed him to be alone in the
ship.
In
Pilot’s chair.
“Jon,” Matt spoke,
leaning his hand on the head rest of the seat his friend was sitting on.
“Matt, what’s up?”
Jon said distractedly, his eyes fixed on the open panel before him.
“We need to talk.”
“About?”
Matt tried not to
sigh. His friend, their Captain was doing his best to bury himself in the
mindless busy work around the base so he wouldn’t have to face the fact that
Jennifer was really gone. But as much as he wanted to join his friend in his
grief, they still had a job to do, and they needed to all be focused on it.
“The
team. The
mission.”
Jonathan Power
turned then and stared at his friend and trusted right hand. He knew what Matt
really meant; the unspoken issue that was affecting the mission and the team.
He frowned and turned the spanner tool he held in his hand end over end for a
minute before speaking.
“You’re afraid I’m
not focused any longer,” he replied, not even phrasing his response as a
question; as if he knew what Matt and the others must be thinking. “That I
don’t care about winning the war anymore…”
Matt swallowed heavily.
This wasn’t how he wanted things to be, but since Pilot’s death… they were down
one team member, and they needed everyone at 100%.
“We know you still
care about the war, the resistance Jon. But we need you engaged all the way. We
need your tactical mind, your leadership.”
“Matt…”
“Look, we all care
about the fact that she’s gone. It’s hurt us all, and to be honest, if it
didn’t, we wouldn’t be human,” he explained patiently, moving to sit in the
co-pilot chair beside his friend. “But we have to get past it. You need to get
past this. If you don’t deal with it, at least enough so that you can really
function, we’ll never be able to go back out there and beat Dread. And she
wouldn’t want that.”
“How the hell do
you know what she would have wanted Matt? It doesn’t matter what she would have
wanted anymore because she’s not even here! She’d dead! Jennifer’s dead, and I
can’t deal with it. I need her back, damnit!” Power
swore suddenly, throwing the spanner into the windshield of the Jumpship, causing it to bounce and clatter on the metal
floor.
Matt reached over
and grasped Jon’s hands. He wasn’t sure if it was a gesture of solidarity and
friendship, or if it was to keep his friend from grabbing something else and
throwing it as well.
“I know. I want her
back too. But there’s nothing we can do but let her go.”
With a hitching
breath, Jon nodded, pulling his hands from Matt’s and shoving the heels of his
hands into his eyes, unwilling to let even Matt see him cry.
-x-
Deep within Volcania, Lord Dread waited for his report.
“Overmind.
What is the status of our project?”
“The technicians
have reported 100% success in their reprogramming of Youth Leader Chase’s brain
patterns. She has been tested extensively and shown no signs of her previous…
rebellious behavior or inclinations.”
“Good. I want Overunit Chase in charge of the cleansing of
“Power and his team
will most likely come to the rescue of the organics,” Overmind
intoned.
“Yes, I’m sure that
they will come, and when they arrive, Power and his team should find themselves
relieved to see Overunit Chase alive. And then she
will destroy him and her former comrades. The conditioning will see to it. Still…”
Dread murmured, his metal fingers tapping on the arm of his chair as he
consider all the potential threats and complications to their project.
He was certain that
the conditioning done by his technicians and medical staff was a success. Yet …
“Have the
technicians rig a fail-safe. If she does falter in her programming, then she is
to be destroyed.”
“As
you wish Lord Dread.”
-x-
The team had been
surprised by the emergency call from the settlement of
But being as they
were under attack by Dread’s forces, they had little to lose in using it to
call for help.
When the Power Team
arrived on the scene, the battle was still underway, parts of the town aflame. Using
the Jumpship scanner, Scout began a sweep of the
area.
“Captain, I read two
score of Bio-Mechs, about six humans, maybe a few Dread
Youth and then a pair of Overunits?” Scout reported.
“Seems like a lot
of firepower to cleanse a town of maybe a hundred people, most of whom are probably
elderly or young,” noted Hawk, suspiciously.
“Maybe it’s a
trap?” Tank questioned.
“You always say
that,” retorted Scout with a light smile, and then he turned his attention to
Power. “Orders Captain?”
“Let’s land and
then we’ll split up. Scout, Tank, you take the North end. Hawk and I will take
the South and we’ll meet up in the center of the town. Do your best to save as
many as you can, but we have to be quick before Dread realizes we’re here and
sends in Soaron as backup.”
The others nodded
in agreement. With the mass of forces already here, they really didn’t need to
have to face a Bio-Dread as well.
Hawk landed the
ship slightly outside of the settlement, and they all got out of their chairs
and moved to stand before the closed door.
“Power
on!”
In an instant, four
armored men stood in the place of the uniformed group that had arrived. With
their armor, they hopefully they had a greater than average chance against the
overwhelming forces inside the city. Scout pushed a button and the door to the Jumpship opened and they hurriedly exited, moving swiftly
through the grassy plains, knowing that they were most likely in for a rough
fight.
Scout and Tank waded
in quietly, hoping to pick off some of the outlying force before engaging the
humans leading the assault. They moved to corner a group of Bio-Mechs, blasting them to bits before finding the two Dread
Youths helping oversee the rounding up people for either extermination or
digitization.
With a series of
defensive maneuvers and a couple of therm grenades,
they’d gotten the Dread Youth to surrender. The fact that the Overunit had also been killed probably had something to do
with the surrendering Dread Youths. Scout and Tank tied up the unarmed Dread
Youth and locked them up in an outlying building to keep them out of the way and
away from the potentially hostile locals.
Power and Hawk had
circled around to enter from the far side of the city. Immediately they
encountered their Bio-Mech foes along with their
Dread Youth counterparts. They took cover, alternating firing into the advancing
mass of metal as they tried to keep from being hit too many times and not
injure the Dread Youths as best they could.
After a serious
fire fight, Power and Hawk had finally cleared the way of the Bio-Mechs, and had gotten one of the Dread Youth to surrender. Hawk
tied the young man up to what probably was a hitching post for the time being. The
other Dread Youth lay dead on the ground along with his metal allies. Power
frowned at this, but there was often no way around it. Dread trained their human
allies to believe they were just as expendable as the machines they fought with
and served.
Power knew that the
Overunit that was in charge of this group of Dread
Youth and mech soldiers was still unaccounted for and
he waved to Hawk to signal their move into the city center to hunt for the
second Overunit. As they got closer to what might
have once been a main square, flames from a few buildings raged; the burning
orange color illuminating the area as the sky began to darken with nightfall.
From the darkness and
smoke of a wrecked building to his right, Power saw the silhouette of a person
begin to emerge. As they slowly moved out of the shadows, he recognized the metal
glint of an Overunit’s badge and the shape of the
uniform. Realizing this was their missing Overunit,
Power brought his weapon up to zero in on them.
“Drop your weapon!”
he shouted, and the figure paused at his words.
The Overunit then began to move again, walking further into the
dying light mixed with the firelight. Power and Hawk watched the figure come
closer, blaster in hand. As they watched the figure, their walk and form seemed…
familiar. And then the light fully hit the female Overunit’s
face, and Power and Hawk stood in stunned silence.
“Pilot?” questioned
Hawk, dazed past that one simple utterance.
Before them
Jennifer Chase stood in the uniform of an Overunit,
her face, her eyes just as they remembered her. But instead of being filled
with recognition, they were filled with animosity. And she menacingly leveled a
blaster in her right hand at them.
“I order you to
surrender in the name of the machine, or you will be destroyed,” she demanded,
her weapon pointing directly at Power.
“Jennifer?” Power
breathed, his heart thundering in his chest at the sight of her alive, standing
right there in front of him.
“I am Overunit Chase of the Machine Empire.”
Hawk and Power both
stood dumbfounded. They had been sure she was dead, killed in the explosion of
the base. Somehow she had survived, and now she was here, siding with Dread and
threatening their lives. It was as if
she didn’t know who they were… who she was any longer.
“You are Jennifer
Chase, member of the resistance and the Power Team,” said Hawk, hoping to gauge
just how far gone she was.
She simply stared
at them, not a single hint of recognition crossing her features. Power was
certain that somewhere inside of her was the woman he remembered. Somehow he had
to break through whatever Dread had done to her to find her again. He’d been
through something like this before with Athena Samuels, yet this time he had so
much more riding on his every word and action. Ignoring every rule of warfare
that had been drilled into him, he suddenly reached up and removed his helmet,
letting it fall to the ground beside him.
“Jon,” hissed Hawk,
watching in apprehension as his Captain took a step, then two, moving closer to
the obviously altered ‘Overunit’ Chase.
“Your name is
Jennifer Chase. You’re a member of my team. You’re our friend. You’re my
friend…” he said softly, tentatively stretching an empty, gloved hand out to
her, as if afraid he would spook her.
“I have no friends.
I am a tool of the Machine,” she intoned, but the words sounded somehow more forced
than before.
“No, you do have
friends. You aren’t a part of the machine. You’re human. You have feelings… you
feel happiness, sadness, pain… love.”
At Power’s words,
her body began to minutely shake, the blaster in her hand wavering slightly,
and then more vigorously. He and Hawk watched stunned as her eyes blinked once,
and then a few more times in rapid succession. When they opened again, they
both thought they saw a spark of the woman they knew.
“Love?” she whispered,
her voice confused and almost inaudible to the man before her.
Before she could
say another word, a visible electrical shock shot out from the earpiece that
all Overunits wore, making her gasp in pain. In all
their time in the battlefield, they’d never seen an Overunit’s
head gear do something like that.
Her hands came up
to cradle her head, her uniform hat falling to the ground and her blaster
hanging limply in her grasp as she shuddered with pain. Jon watched in horror, unsure
if he should try and remove the earpiece but without knowing if it would make
things worse he didn't want to risk it, but he did feel a rush of hope that
maybe the electrical shocks meant that she could be reached. The electrical
surge had started after she had seemed to waver in her threat to shoot him
after he’d spoken to her. Perhaps she was trying to fight off whatever Dread
had done to her, and the shock from the earpiece was some kind of modification
enforcement device that Dread had attached to her… to keep her in line and stop
her from throwing off his brainwashing. It wouldn’t be the first time they’d
seen something like that, and if that was the case, and Jennifer was fighting
her conditioning, he just had to help her by somehow getting through to her
enough to break it.
“I am of the
machine,” she all at once intoned, her body suddenly straightening and her hands
coming back up into place. Her blaster was once more clenched in her grip, her
finger moving to tighten on the trigger as Power stared down its barrel. “I am
Dread’s eyes and ears. There is no emotion, only the precision of the machine.”
Power inched ever
closer, his face a mask of determined agony. He had to get through to her. He
had to get her back. There had to be something… suddenly a thought came to him
and his eyes closed for a second as he took a deep breath. Maybe this one truth
would break down Dread’s walls…
“You do have
emotions… you feel love; you said so yourself. Remember, you said you loved
me,” Power said softly, his words making Hawk catch his breath behind him and
the woman before him flinch, and then he impulsively added, “and I love you
Jennifer Chase. Come back to me…”
This time the
reaction was nearly immediate. With a tremor visibly running through her body,
the blaster in her hand clattered to the ground. Her empty hand seemed to minutely
inch towards Jon’s outstretched one before she was struck again by the
electrical voltage from the earpiece attached to her head, this time even more
powerful than before. She screamed at the pain from the electricity surging
through her, the sound ripping through the twilight and piercing Power’s very
soul as he shared her agony. He crept closer as she suddenly bent over in half;
both hands cradling her head as sparks and popping sounds began to shoot from
the earpiece.
It was almost as if
the electrical components were being burnt out as it forced the higher voltage
through Jennifer’s form. And for it to be doing that, Jennifer had to be
fighting hard enough to make the hardware melt.
“Come on kid… you
can do it,” Hawk murmured behind Power, his eyes riveted to the sight before
him; Jon and Jennifer together waging a battle against Dread’s mind control,
the stakes Jennifer’s very mind and soul.
A final arc shone
like a white and blue halo around her head and without warning she abruptly fell
to a heap on the ground. Power was instantly at her side, pulling her limp form
in his arms, cradling her body to his as he looked down at her face. His hand ripped
away the earpiece that had been nearly electrocuting her before his eyes,
flinging it across the square in disgust. That Dread could do this to her…
enslave her again after all the hard work she had done to break free of his
grasp nearly broke his heart.
He brushed his hand
along her cheek and was rewarded when her eyes fluttered open.
“Jon?” Jennifer questioned
softly, her voice sounding confused while her eyes seemed to be glazed over
with residual pain.
“I’m here. You’re
safe now.”
She didn’t turn to
look at him or even really react to his words or presence at all. Her eyes simply
drifted closed, her body slowly slumping in his grasp and Jon immediately panicked,
fearing the worst.
“Jennifer…
Jennifer, stay with me!”
When she didn’t
respond, he abruptly drew a gloved hand to his mouth, biting the leather and
ripping it from his hand. He pressed his bare fingers to her throat and
breathed a sigh of relief as he felt the pulse there, his glove falling
forgotten from his mouth to settle on her stomach. Her pulse was slow, but it
was there. She was alive. Any injuries she might have as well as what Dread had
done to her mind could be dealt with once got her into the ship and back to
safety.
“Hawk, Captain?”
queried Scout oddly as he and Tank rounded the corner to see Power kneeling in
the dirt, an Overunit in his arms.
An Overunit that looked like…
“Pilot?” Tank nearly exclaimed, his surprise
matching Scout’s.
“Yeah,” answered
Hawk, still overcome by the astonishment of them having found Jennifer alive.
“Captain, what do
we do about the people…” Tank asked, bringing Power’s
attention back to the mater at hand.
“Call the UTO and
have them pick up the surviving Dread Youth and see if they can take them to The
Passages. Maybe some of them can be helped. The people of
“And Pilot?” asked
Scout, staring at Power with the Overunit clad Pilot
in his grasp.
Power finally
forced himself to look away from Jennifer’s unconscious face to turn and regard
the others, determination and passion written across his features.
“We’re taking her
home.”
-x-
After Jennifer’s
collapse in
The team was still
worried of what she would be like when she finally woke. The doctor didn’t know
if she would still be controlled by Dread, or if the
fried circuitry of the Overunit earpiece had been
because she had broken the brainwashing Dread had put her through and she was
now herself once again. They just had to wait for her to wake on her own to
find out.
Yet he felt certain
in his heart that when she was conscious again that she’d be the same woman
he’d fallen in love with.
Still, whatever
Dread’s tech heads had done to her, she had somehow fought the programming
earlier. The fact that she’d dropped her gun instead of firing gave him hope,
and it was the only reason he was alive right now. He was trusting in her own
innate humanity; that the personality of Jennifer Chase was enough to overcome
the decades of Dread Youth training in conjunction with whatever brainwashing
that they’d imposed on her.
And if, God forbid,
she was still Overunit Chase when she woke, then he’d
do whatever it took to deprogram her, to find a way to undo what Dread had done
to her, just like they’d done before. He silently swore to himself that he
would sacrifice anything, move heaven and earth to bring her back.
“She awake yet?”
Matt asked as he came into the room that served as their medical bay.
“No,” replied Jon
somewhat despondently, his eyes never leaving Jennifer’s face.
Behind Matt, Robert
and Michael appeared, joining the impromptu vigil.
“What do you think
happened?” Robert asked as he and Michael moved to either side of Matt,
creating a half circle around the medi-bunk and Jon.
“I don’t know.
We’ll just have to wait for her to wake up,” Jon stated matter of factly,
his eyes glancing back to look at his team, his friends.
“What if she
doesn’t?” questioned Matt, worriedly.
In the ten hours
since their return from
Jon turned away and
shook his head, unwilling to voice the thought; he wouldn’t even consider it an
option. She had to wake up.
“What do you think happened
to her suit?” asked Michael suddenly, and everyone looked around at one another,
including Jon, each of them realizing they’d forgotten about Pilot’s power suit
in the emotional upheaval of finding her alive.
“It wasn’t on her,
and Dread hasn’t let on that he knows how they work. Maybe it was damaged in
the explosion?” suggested Matt.
“Or maybe if she
got digitized it was fried?” hypothesized Robert, thinking about the effects of
digitization on technology.
“Who knows,” Matt
said as he shrugged.
Either way it
really didn’t matter. What did matter was that Jennifer was alive, if still
unconscious. And Jon… even with his unwillingness to leave Jennifer’s side, in that
moment in
It seemed that Pilot’s
return had brought him back as well.
“Jon, it’s late; we
should all get some rest. You should get some rest.”
“I will, but later.
I just… I don’t want to leave her, you know? I don’t want to have this be a
dream,” he said, and the others understood; her return was all their prayers
and wishes come true.
As the others left,
Jon turned back to the woman in the bed that he knew he loved and picked up her
hand in his. He brought it to his lips briefly before laying it back down on
the bed, but not releasing it.
“Come on Jennifer, I
need you to wake up. I meant what I said; I love you. I promise, I’ll never leave you again. Just please, don’t leave ME
again.”
-x-
Days turned to a
week without any change in Pilot’s condition. Hawk had finally forced Power
into sleeping in his own bunk for a few hours a night with the promise that one
of the team would stay with Pilot. So it was Hawk who was startled from his
thoughts by the soft groan coming from the bunk.
“Jennifer?” he said
stunned, looking down at the stirring form of their team mate.
“Matt?” she
murmured, her head slowly turning towards him as her eyes fluttered open and
she focused in on him. She blinked a few times to be sure she was really seeing
him there beside her.
His face lit up at
the realization that she recognized him, meaning the Dread programming looked
to be history. He immediately hit his wrist comm., knowing he had to let the
Captain know… now.
“Jon, she’s conscious!”
Leaning forward,
Matt laid a hand on Jennifer’s arm, looking at her as she blinked at him,
almost as if she was unsure if she was alive and he was real.
“Hey Kid. Good to
see you awake finally.”
Before either of
them could say anything else, the door nearly blew open as a disheveled Jon
Power burst in and moved to the bed, looking down on the woman that was now awake
and aware and intently staring at him. Matt pulled his hand from her arm and
backed up instantly, slowly leaving the room. Giving them some privacy was the
least he could do. While he and the rest of the team had wanted her back, Jon
needed her.
“Jon…” she whispered,
tears starting to leak from her eyes as she realized that this, that he was
real.
“I’m here,” he
replied thickly, kneeling beside the bed, his hand coming up to her face and
brushing at the tears that were now slowly tracking down her cheeks.
“I thought it was a
nightmare; that maybe I was dead and in hell. With Dread and the Overunit uniform, burning the town, threatening Hawk, you…”
she said her voice choking slightly as she spoke.
“It’s over now.
You’re safe. We got you back and everything’s going to be okay,” Jon insisted,
his hand drifting now to reverently thread through the loose blond strands
framing her face.
“I remember
standing there with the blaster. I could feel the trigger cutting into my
finger. I was pointing at you, and I wanted to shoot you…” she stated, her
voice filled with pain as she reached for him and he pulled his hand from her
hair and caught her hand with his own, reveling in the solid feel of it in his
grasp.
“But you didn’t.
Whatever mind games, brainwashing Dread did to you, you were stronger than it
was. You fought it and won.”
He couldn’t help
but stare at her in awe. All those days and nights he’d been haunted by the
memory of losing her, and somehow she’d survived and made her way back to him.
He had no doubts that Dread had sent her to
“Where are we?” she
asked suddenly, her eyes reluctantly pulling away from his face and seeing the
unfamiliar surroundings.
He berated himself
for not thinking about the fact that she might be confused. She’d lost a month
of time, and had no idea what the team had been through since her ‘death’. She
didn’t know where they were or what they’d been doing during her absence.
“You remember the
base exploding?”
She briefly closed
her eyes and then nodded the memories still fresh in her mind. At her reaction,
Jon felt his heart ache for her again; still unsure of what she’d gone through
in the last month.
“We found the skybike and the equipment you’d gotten out. With the base
gone, we regrouped in The Passages. While we were there Scout got
“So everything’s
okay? The team…”
“You saw Hawk.
Scout and Tank are fine too. As soon as you’re ready, I’m sure they’ll be in
here, wearing you out…”
“How long?” she
asked, and he sighed, knowing what she was asking.
“A
month.”
She looked at him,
shock evident on her face. She didn’t remember more than a week at most.
“I didn’t know.”
“Jennifer, it
doesn’t matter. What matters is that you’re back and safe.”
There was a knock
on the door, and Jon realized that the rest of the team had most likely been
anxiously waiting for him to let them know they could see her. Most likely Hawk
had been holding them at bay so he could get some time alone with her before
everyone converged.
“Are you up to some
company?”
“Yeah. But I want to sit up,” she insisted.
Jon slid an arm
under her shoulders and eased her into a sitting position. She pushed herself
backwards until her back was pressed against the wall, where he quickly shoved
a pillow behind her, padding her body from the hard concrete surface of the
wall.
“Okay, you can let
them in.”
Jon reluctantly
left her side to go and open the door. Almost immediately Robert was through
the door, rushing over to give her a hug. Michael was behind him a half step, his arms replacing Robert’s and she braced herself for
the bear hug that didn’t come.
“I promise Michael,
I won’t break,” she chided, and then felt her ribs groan in protest as he
squeezed her harder.
“It’s great to have
you back,” Michael said as he backed up, ceding the space beside her head to
their Captain.
“It’s good to be
back. I didn’t think I’d see any of you again…”
“Next time you
listen to the Captain and you leave,” admonished Robert, looking to where Jon
now sat at the edge of the bed, his arm now wrapped protectively around her
shoulder.
“Got
it.”
There were smiles
all around at the light conversation with the woman they all thought they’d
lost forever. But they still didn’t know how this had all happened… how they’d
gotten so lucky.
“Do you know what
happened?” Matt asked her suddenly, giving voice to the question they all had
been pondering since they’d encountered her in
“Blastarr digitized me,” she replied sullenly and the others
shared dark looks.
“We thought that
might have been what happened… after we saw you in
“Did they ask you
anything? Locations, people?” Robert asked.
Jennifer shook her
head. She had wondered why they hadn’t asked her to divulge that information
while she was under Dread’s influence. She’d assumed it was because they
already knew, but since none of the team had indicated that any of the
resistance bases had been destroyed or leaders had been killed, she had to
wonder if that was true.
“I’m not sure what
information they had. When I woke up, they’d already gotten me out and fixed my
injuries. Then when they finished…” she trailed off, then pushed on,
“reprogramming me to be what they wanted, they immediately sent me out. I’m
sure that Dread expected me to kill you. Kill all of you. Or at least bring you
back to Volcania as prisoners.”
“Lucky for us
you’re too thick headed,” Robert teased, and she smiled.
“Just like the rest
of you,” she countered, and they laughed.
Matt was sure that
it was the first time since the base explosion that they’d laughed like this. It
was almost as if time had turned back and they were getting a chance to start
over again.
-x-
For the next week Pilot
had spent her time getting reacquainted with the team and learning the layout
of the new base. Once Hawk scanned her and had the doctor in The Passages
review the scans and clear her medically to be up and moving around, she
naturally fell into the routine as if she had never left. A new room for her
was set up, and she’d moved in as soon as they’d moved the last box out of it.
She’d luckily had a uniform stowed on the Jumpship,
so she had something of her own to wear until they could replace some of her
things back in The Passages or with other resistance cells. As it was, the guys
had donated shirts and boxers for her to use as sleepwear, for which she was
grateful.
But she refused
tell them that the only ones she would wear were the shirts Jon had given her.
Her first sight of
the Jumpship again had given her a lump in her throat
and she’d joined Hawk on a test flight as soon as she was able. Her reflexes
and intuition for flying hadn’t degraded a bit, and Hawk had checked with Power
to certify that she was ready to take them out whenever they went on their next
mission.
Before she could
join them though, there was one last issue they had to deal with. When they
were sure that she was 100%, the group had sat in the new command room and
discussed the situation with the power suits. Scout’s hypothesis about the suit
being destroyed by the digitization beam still seemed to be holding up, but it
left Pilot without a suit.
It meant that her
suit was gone. But she’d saved the spares by loading them on the skybike.
There wasn’t even
any debate about her wearing one of the spare suits.
After dressing in
the circuitry covered fabric, she’d stepped into the charging station. In
moments she’d appeared before them all in a copy of her old armor, much to her
delight and the praise of her team mates.
So it was at the
end of her first week with things nearly back to normal that a knock on the
door of her room pulled Jennifer up short. It was pretty late, and she didn’t
expect that they’d need to go on a mission.
“Come in.”
The door opened, and
a figure stood in the doorway, his form outlined by the darkness of the hallway
behind him. She didn’t need to see his face to know who it was… it was Jon.
“Hey… I just wanted
to check on you,” he nearly stammered out, and she couldn’t help but smile at
him. “Make sure you were sleeping okay.”
Jennifer got up
from where she’d been sitting on her bed and simply stared at the man in her
doorway. Ever since she’d thought she was going to die and she’d told him how
she felt, over the open comm., she’d wondered what it would be like if he felt
the same? And then when she’d been under Dread’s mind control, she’d heard him
say to her the words that had allowed her to break free.
Yet they’d been
here for a week and all that time she’d been waiting for him to make some kind
of move, some gesture or say something that would let her know that he really
meant what he’d said.
He slowly came
further in the room, leaving them just feet from one another. She was standing
there in his shirt, and he felt a rush of desire course through him at the
sight. As they stood there, the room was filled with tension, and neither of
them seemed to know what to do next.
“Thanks. I hadn’t
fallen asleep just yet. Of course if I had been sleeping okay, you checking to
see if I was would have woken me up.”
“Uh, yeah…”
There was a long
drawn out silence between them.
“I should let you
get some sleep,” Jon said as he started to turn to leave.
“Jon, wait,”
Jennifer said softly, her hand moving quickly to catch his wrist, stopping him
from moving away. “You had another reason for coming here besides checking to
see if I was able to sleep, didn’t you?”
Jon paused a moment
before turning to face her. He was thankful that she was back; there was no
question about it. But now that she was fitting in with the team as if nothing
had ever happened, he was afraid of pressing the issue about what they’d both
said.
How they felt.
He could lie, tell
her he’d just needed to make sure she was okay and walk out. But he recalled the
nights when he’d wished he’d had that second chance to tell her how he felt. He
had that now. And if he didn’t say anything now, act on his feelings, what was
to say that he couldn’t lose her again without ever telling her…
“I did.”
“But you were just
leaving now…” she noted, her voice wavering ever so slightly as she feared he’d
actually leave without saying what he came here to tell her.
Jon stood there,
not sure what to say or do. He watched her as she stared at him, her blue eyes
stripped bare of everything except how she felt. He knew what he should say,
but if he said it, everything was going to have to change.
He swallowed hard
as he realized that he owed her the truth, and he needed to be honest with
himself as well.
“I wasn’t sure if I
had the right to say anything to you,” he began tentatively, his other hand
reaching to lay over where hers still clutched his wrist. “There are a dozen
reasons why I shouldn’t tell you how I feel about you… but only one reason why
I should.”
Jennifer released
his wrist as she moved closer to him, and he didn’t back away. Instead, he
closed the distance until they were almost touching. Then Jon let himself raise
his hands to her face, cradling it in his palms as he looked down on her, his
own heart beating wildly in his chest. In response, her hands moved almost
instinctually to settle on his chest, feeling his heart beneath them; the
pounding of it matching her own.
“I love you. I
never expected to fall in love during all this… but… I did. There were times I
thought I could never tell you because of our roles with the team, because I
didn’t think you could ever understand how deeply I love you… but you proved to
me that you knew better than I did. Because you told me first that you loved
me.”
Staring into his
eyes, Jennifer couldn’t help but be moved. The years that she’d spent learning
to be human, to recognize and feel emotions had been under this man’s tutelage.
How could he not have realized how well he’d taught her?
“How could I not
love you?” she finally said, her voice cracking and her eyes welling with
tears. “You are the most honorable, kind and, well… handsome man I’ve ever
known. I don’t love you because of what you did for me, but because of how you
make me feel when I’m with you. I admit, it took me a while and a few sessions
with
He smiled at that,
his thumbs moving to swipe at the sudden tears that had broken from her lashes
and were rolling down her cheeks. Then, with the gentlest of pulls, he leaned
down and brought her lips to his in a soft, sweet kiss that made him
lightheaded. Beneath his lips he felt her sigh, and her lips parted, letting
her breath out. He immediately opened his mouth to breathe her in, and somehow
the kiss deepened, tongues moving to meet and caress as their bodies pressed
closer.
Feeling as if this
moment might be too much, too soon, he slowly eased back, pulling his lips from
hers ever so reluctantly. When they had broken apart, he instead moved his
hands to her back, pulling her flush against his chest as her arms went around
his waist. Jennifer’s head tucked against his chest and he leaned his head down
to lay upon hers.
They held one
another like that for what seemed an eternity; neither wanting to shatter the
moment. They’d found one another now twice. It was all they could do not to
revel in the feelings swirling within them.
“So, where do we go
from here?” she asked, her voice muffled by his shirt.
“You mean this?
Us?” he replied quietly, still savoring the solid feel of her in his arms.
She nodded and he
felt sparks along his skin through the t-shirt he wore at the movement. He
clutched her tighter as he pondered everything. With so much at stake with the
war, was it right for them to be selfish and want this for themselves? Or would
accepting and fully realizing it be a validation of everything they were
fighting for?
“We still have a
job to do,” he began, and he felt her begin to tense in his embrace, steeling
herself for his next words. “But we can’t deny what we feel. We shouldn’t let
Dread or the war keep us from letting ourselves have whatever happiness we can
take. I want us to be together. And let the rest of the world be damned.”
She eased away from
him and smiled upwards, her eyes sparkling with emotion.
“You realize the
guys are going to tease us mercilessly?”
“It will be worth
it.”
“So… what are we
then? What happens next? You have to remember, I’m still new at this,” she
jibed, moving a hand to poke his side with a finger, making him laugh lightly
and smile back.
“You are my
girlfriend. And maybe, one day we can say maybe… wife?” he tentatively offered
and watched her mouth drop open as she stared at him, stunned.
“You… I… are you…”
Jon leaned down to
kiss her lightly but briefly before pulling away to regard her seriously. He
hadn’t really meant to sort of propose, but the reality was that he couldn’t
imagine loving anyone else like he loved her. And he’d found that being without
her for those torturous 30 days was like loosing a piece of himself. He never
wanted to feel that way again.
“I spent a month of
my life believing you were dead,” he said seriously, and she continued to stare
at him in shock. “I was a wreck. I just couldn’t cope with loosing you. And I
realized now that I don’t want to live the rest of my life without having spent
whatever time we have together… well, together.”
“Does this mean I
get to move in with you?” she said with a slight smirk and Jon’s eyebrows
raised slightly as the full implications of what he was proposing sunk in.
Then the thought of
waking up with her in the morning, laying down to sleep at night, and other…
activities that couples shared streamed through his mind, and he had to admit
that they all were very appealing and tempting.
“Not tonight. I
think we should take this a step at a time. Have a lamp light meal of rations
in the desert, do some more dancing…”
She chuckled slightly.
In her re-education process, she’d learned what dating was. Now here was the
all powerful master of the power suits talking about dating her.
“Do raids on Dread
forces count as a date?”
He laughed at her
question and pulled her back to him for another kiss, this one deeper than the
last. When they finally broke for air, he couldn’t help but run a hand though
her hair and along her cheek. He loved her so damn much.
“Let’s spend time
together as a couple and go from there. Besides, Matt and the others will need
time to get used to the idea. And we’ll need to build in a double sized bed in
my room if you’re going to be moving in…”
“Sounds like a plan
Captain,” she answered with a seductive grin before he leaned in and kissed her
again.
“That it does. But
for now, I’m pulling rank and ordering you to get some sleep. Tomorrow we’ll
make some announcements and start planning our next steps. Until then…”
With one last kiss,
he pulled away from her, making his way backwards to the door. She held his
hand briefly, but let it go finally, knowing that he would keep his promise,
and come the morning this new dimension of their relationship would still be
there, and that they’d start to make the most of everyday they had together,
just like he’d said and they now both knew they wanted.
As the door slid
behind him, Jennifer stared at it briefly, still surprised by the turn of
events. Then she turned and climbed under the covers of her bunk, flipping off
the lights and settling in for sleep. On the other side of the door, Jon took a
deep breath and had to fight to keep the grin off his face. Moving down the hall
he made his way to his own room and promptly went in and stretched out under
the blanket, his mind and heart both racing at the idea of one day soon having
so much more with this woman he’d thought he’d lost.
-x-
The next morning
Power woke and with a spring in his step, dressed and headed into the command
room to see what kind of activity was on the radio frequencies. When he got
there, Hawk and Scout were already at the consoles; Hawk with a cup of what
passed as coffee in his hands. The two men turned and regarded their Captain
with curious looks before he moved to join them.
“Any
news?” Power asked as he
moved to flank Scout’s seated position at the communications station.
“Not much. UTO took
the Dread Youths to The Passages and the docs there are working with them to
get them sorted out.”
“Good news then. Anything else?”
“We’ve got a request to come out with some
supplies to a resistance cell in Freeland. Nothing too complicated. But while
we’re there we can pick up some stuff… some more uniforms for Pilot,” Hawk
remarked with a smile.
“Clothes?” asked
Pilot as she suddenly came into the command room, followed by Tank. “That would
be great. I could use some clothes my size…”
“You mean you want
to stop wearing the Captain’s shirts to sleep in?” questioned Hawk, and Pilot
blushed red.
“How…” Power
started to ask, stunned at what his best friend seemed to know about what
Jennifer wore to bed.
“Please,” Scout
interjected, making everyone look to him. “Like we all haven’t been here to see
you two circling around one another. Of course she’s wearing your clothes.”
“Plus,”
added Tank, his eyes looking away guiltily, “all of our things somehow
magically reappeared in our rooms.”
Power looked to
Pilot, and she bit her lip as she blushed deeper.
“I didn’t want the
rest of the team to be short things… so I kinda put
back what I wasn’t going to use.”
“So you’ve only
been wearing my shirts to bed,” Power asked, moving towards her with a smile on
his face.
She nodded, her face a deep red. She had never been so
embarrassed in her life. Of course, she had only been embarrassed a few times
in her life, since understanding what that emotion was. Then she was looking up
at Power as he nearly loomed before her. And she couldn’t help grin herself.
“I can’t say that
I’m not secretly pleased about that,” he said, his voice barely loud enough to
be heard, but the room’s acoustics let everyone hear him. “Besides, they look
good on you.”
“Compliments on her
clothes? Is there something going on here that you want to share with the rest
of us?” joked Scout as he watched the way Power and Pilot seemed more
emotionally comfortable with one another than they’d been since before the base
explosion and Pilot’s declaration.
Power looked to the
woman in front of him, and decided to just show them, rather than say a word.
With that he reached around her waist and pulled her to him, kissing her
soundly albeit briefly on the lips. Hawk whooped in appreciation of the action
and Scout yelled out a “yeah”, while Michael stood there and grinned at the display.
“I guess we can
take that for a yes then,” commented Tank as Power broke the kiss and Pilot
settled into his side, laying her head against his chest contentedly.
“You guys know you
have to keep the mushiness down to a minimum around us poor single guys, or
we’re libel to get jealous,” teased Scout.
“But really, we
couldn’t be happier,” Hawk insisted, giving his friends a pleased glance before
moving to rap Power on the shoulder. “But just be warned, you hurt her and
we’ll make you sorry.”
Pilot and Power
laughed as did the others. The group was back together once again, and the
change of Pilot and Power’s acknowledged relationship would only serve to make
them stronger.
Power grinned at
the others as he clutched Pilot to his side, looking at the rest of his team who
were still smiling and laughing. He was a lucky man on so many counts… With Pilot
beside him, the rest of the team supporting them, and the continuing efforts of
the resistance, he wondered if maybe they could stop Dread sooner rather than
later. It was as if he could now see the future laid out before him that he’d
never thought would arrive. Tomorrow was coming, and with it, a new chance to
change the world for the better.
-end-
Final author’s
notes: 1. I made a conscious decision to make Pilot’s armor the same as before.
My argument to my beta readers was as follows: I believe the armor is
determined more by the biometric pattern/skills of the wearer than the armor
being designated by the suit. If the suit itself had a certain type of armor
pre-programmed, who is to say that they would match the wearers so correctly?
2. A big thank you to my beta readers. This would not be nearly as refined if
you hadn’t given your guidance.