Earthsiege
by Rain Fletcher

He had a lot of preparation to do: this was going to be the single most dangerous mission of his life as a Power Ranger, doubly so for his life without the Power directly protecting him. He still had the patented Amazing Recuperative Abilities, which were fine for recovering from a thrashing, but not so good for preventing that thrashing from occurring in the first place.

All he needed to do was infiltrate the main Skybase of the Machine Empire, try to cut off communications between the leaders and their thousands of troops, bring down the shield to allow the Rangers and Voltron lions to attack the base directly, fight off any guards he might encounter along the way, and oh yes, "destroy" (read: kill) the witch Haggar with a magical sword he didn't even know how to wield.

No problem.

He raided the weapons locker first, as he imagined he'd need a lot more than the sword to defend himself. At his left hip he belted a standard-issue Voltron Force laser pistol with a fully-charged battery, good for a few dozen shots at least. At his opposite side he strapped on a rocket pistol, which fired miniature explosive missiles: no more than two inches in length each, but capable of a devastating blast. The gun itself held only eight shots, so he'd have to use them wisely.

Across his chest he tied a bandolier, carrying several concussive grenades, several magnesium "flash" grenades, a couple of extra laser batteries, and three clips of ammunition for the rocket pistol. He loaded the very bottom pouch of the bandolier with some compact but efficient explosive devices, which he hoped would be sufficient to blow up the communications relays, processing plants, or whatever else he could get to.

Lastly, he tested the heft of a semi-automatic rocket rifle. Similar to the rocket pistol, it fired explosive missiles rather than laser blasts or bullets, but these were far more potent than their smaller cousins. He didn't have room to carry more than a single spare clip of ammunition for this one, so he'd have to make every shot count.

This done, he took stock of himself. Two pistols, rifle, two types of grenades, explosives, ammunition, and a magic sword. Plus his all-purpose power-tool and a miniature repair kit which he hoped would serve equally well for a saboteur.

For a moment, it occurred to him that he'd trade it all in for his old Power Lance. That was something he knew how to use, and a role he was comfortable with. He'd never been a commando on a Schwarzeneggerian mission of destruction before.

But then, the next moment, he realized that those days were really over. He was not a Power Ranger, no matter how much he remained in denial about it. And with recent developments shaping his future, it was more than likely that he would never be a Power Ranger again.

But that didn't have to be a bad thing. Perhaps all of his time in the Power Chamber, working so closely with the zords, with Alpha and Zordon, and with the team had all been part of his trying to hang onto what was lost.

He really wasn't sure what he was now.

Then he remembered what it was that Alth had called him. What all the lions had called him.

Maker.

It wasn't a title that came with a specific set of instructions or responsibilities, like Power Ranger. It was a vague designation at best, open to any number of interpretations. But it was one the lions had used with respect and deference.

He didn't know how to be a Maker, come right down to it. But he knew that the lions had counted on him, just as they were counting on him now. Just as his friends piloting the lions and defending the Earth were counting on him. And if that meant he was going to have to learn to be a movie-style action hero on the fly, then that was what he would do.

Maybe that was all part of being a Maker after all. Doing whatever you could to Make things right, even if you had to Make it up as you went along.

Billy took a deep breath, adjusted the strap of the rocket rifle on his shoulder, then went to check on his fighter craft.

Here again was another great example of the fact that he was more or less winging it. The shield around Mondo's main base was made of an energy that the sensors in the Power Chamber had been unable to identify, and which the weapons of the Blue Lion had been unable to penetrate. A blast of the same energy had sent the Blue Lion spinning off course during Billy's maiden flight. But water had passed right through it.

This energy, he now knew, was in fact pure magical power, which Billy's earthbound sensors had been unable to properly analyze. A spell specifically attuned to keep out anything that might be seen as hostile: energy weapons, missiles, or whatever. But it was not proof against water.

Nor, Billy hoped, would it be proof against the magic-shielding properties of Alfor's sword. The sword was weakened, though, and no longer had the ability to shield Voltron, or even one of the individual lions, from a magical assault.

But Billy was willing to gamble that it was still strong enough to protect a single one-person fighter craft. If his calculations were correct, the presence of the sword would allow his tiny ship to pass clean through the shield. Of course, he was making these calculations based on incomplete knowledge of the properties of the magical and anti-magical energies, making this entire venture largely based on a SWAG and gut instinct.

The ship appeared to be in good working order. All that remained was one last detail.

Using a miniature blowtorch from his tool kit, he began to meticulously burn a series of letters into the side of the hull, just below the canopy. The torch had just enough power to mark the hull without actually damaging it. When he was finished, he took a step back to admire his work.

CROW T. SPACECRAFT

As he completed his inspection of the craft, he heard Katherine's voice through his comlink. "Billy, we're getting closer. We'll be engaging in about three minutes. Are you ready?"

"Yeah, I'm ready," he sighed. "Promise me you'll be careful when I'm gone, okay?"

Katherine paused a moment before she replied. "You're asking me to be careful?" she said, quietly. "I've got several hundred tons of Blue Lion protecting me. Promise me you'll be careful."

"I promise," he smiled.

"Then so do I," she replied. There was another pause, in which he could hear her take a shaky breath. "Billy, there's something I've been wanting to tell you for the past several days, but I never had the chance. Or if I had the chance, I was... afraid to take it. Something very important. I want to tell you now."

"Don't."

"Why not?" she asked, her voice suddenly very small.

"Because I'd rather hear it when we both get back to Earth alive."

"But we might not... I mean, one of us might... or even both...!"

"That won't happen," he said, vehemently. "Believe me, I have a lot to say to you, too. But not now. Not here. These aren't going to be our last words to one another, I promise you. After everything we've been through, it can't end that way. We can't let it."

"All right," she whispered. "But I will hold you to this."

"I'm looking forward to that," he smiled.

"So am I," she said in a low voice.

Her husky tone caught Billy somewhat off-guard. "You know," he said, "we should probably be careful. Do you remember the time when we all met at my place and rented that movie 'Speed' a few months ago?"

"I remember," she agreed.

"Right, well do you remember the line Keanu Reeves said to Sandra Bullock right at the very last? Something like 'I've heard relationships based on intense experiences never work.'"

"Yes, I remember," she repeated. "Now, do you remember what Sandra Bullock said in reply to that?"

Billy paused, thought about this, then so much as felt his face turn red yet again.

Katherine went on, as he could not find his voice. "That might be excessive in this case, but it should give you something to think about while you're on the Skybase. Kat out."

~*~

Substituting Zack for Adam a few hours ago had been necessary, no question, but it had not really done much to improve their position. Adam had been fighting while exhausted, true, but Zack's inexperience with Taurus was making him about as effective as the tired-out Adam had been, so they had really gained no ground with the switch. But Tommy couldn't really complain, as things would have been far worse had Zack not been there in the nick of time.

Even so, the fight was getting closer and closer to the ground. Tommy was no longer picking off prey from the upper atmosphere: usually by the time he intercepted his foes they were at altitudes of just a few hundred yards. And his own time was running out, as a glance at his power reserve gauge revealed.

His tracking computers brought him onto his next intercept course, but he quickly realized that there was something wrong. The ships were moving away! Not only that, but they were gaining altitude rather than descending.

Rocky spoke up before Tommy could. "Hey guys, it looks like they're retreating again!"

"I think you're right, Rock!" Tommy transmitted back. "All Rangers, check in! Are you getting the same readings?"

"That's an aye-firmative!" Tanya shouted.

"They're bugging out!" Kim said.

"I don't get it!" Zack put in. "Wait a minute! Kat said something about this. Didn't they do this before?"

"Only once," Tommy explained. "That was when...." He trailed off as he remembered what had caused the first withdrawal. "Kim, Tanya, go to your long-range scanners! See if there's anything coming in!"

"I'm not reading anything!" Kimberly replied almost immediately. "Whatever it is that's got their attention, I think it's on the other side of the planet!"

"Tanya, do you see anything?" Tommy pressed.

"Wait a second... YES! Something's coming in! I've got five incoming ships on scan, and the bad guys are going after them!"

"I'll bet I know who that is!" Zack cheered. As if in reply, a new voice came over the cockpit speakers: a voice Tommy immediately recognized.

"Black Lion to Power Rangers! Come in, Power Rangers!"

"Jason!" Tommy shouted.

Jason grinned at the surprise in Tommy's voice. "How's it goin' down there, bro?"

"We've been better, man," Tommy laughed. "D'you mind explaining what's going on here? Is Billy with you?"

"Sort of," Jason replied, distractedly, as he took in the sight of hundreds of enemy fighters on an intercept course with the five lions. "It's kind of a long story, but I'll let him tell it after we win this war. Right now, though, here's the plan. You guys take five and let the Voltron Force handle things for a little while."

"Voltron Force?" Rocky asked.

"Trust me, man, we'll explain later. We're gonna try to get that shield around Mondo's fortress knocked down so we can get in there and take out the factories, so that he can't keep pumping out more ships. It looks like the bad guys are gonna leave you alone for a while, but we might need all ten of us to finish this fight, so Tommy, you set the Phoenix down, save your last power reserves, and the rest of you sit tight while we make some noise!"

"Good luck, you guys!" Kim cheered.

The Black Lion's scanners reported that the enemy would be in range in forty seconds. Jason smiled in anticipation. "Okay, Voltron Force, for old time's sake, let's log on! Black Lion, ready!"

"Red Lion, fired up!" Adam shouted.

"Green Lion, all systems go!" Trini followed.

"Blue Lion, standing by for dropoff!" Kat reported.

"Yellow Lion, all weapons charged and ready!" Aisha finished.

From the lower tier of the cockpit, Jason heard Skull add a line of his own. "And Bulk Ranger and the Skull-meister, along for the ride!"

"Brace yourselves, you two," Jason warned his crewmen. "We're going in!"

~*~

From her place in the pilot's chair, Katherine found all of her senses taken by the neural interface, far more so than with the one Zord she had piloted as a Power Ranger. She knew now what Billy had been describing: she did indeed feel that this ship had a presence, and joined in this way, Katherine knew all of the ship's capabilities, and was able to use them to their fullest potential. Pain from dozens of incoming laser shots, like needles on her skin, kept her reflexes sharp, and her sight, which encompassed all directions, warned her of the dangers coming from every side. She picked out targets and shot them down, just as she had from the surface, but now she was taking them a dozen or more at a time.

With Adam giving her plenty of cover, she was able to quickly lay in a course for the Skybase, and she gunned the engines for an attack run.

"Billy!" she transmitted to the tiny ship somewhere in the lion's interior. "We're about to make our pass over the Skybase!"

~*~

The fighter's engines came to life with the lightest touch on the controls, and Billy maneuvered the ship through the hangar doors and onto the launch tracks. He brought the ship past the processing units, past the next huge door (which closed behind him), and halfway down the hexagonal launch tube, where he stopped. "I'm in position," he reported, unsheathing Alfor's sword and laying it across his lap. "Ready when you are."

"Are you sure this will work?" Katherine asked.

"If you mean Crow being able to ride the water-blast, then yes, it's structurally sound enough for that. If you mean getting through the shield, well, we'll know soon enough, won't we? Whatever happens, though, don't stick around the base too long or you might attract a blast of magic, like I did."

"I'll be careful," she replied. "We're going in! Water-blast in five... four... three... two... one... Water-blast now!"

Behind Billy's ship, the doors to the water-storage chambers slid open, and a solid wall of the liquid gushed forth. Billy waited until the onrushing wave was almost upon him, then he ignited Crow's thrusters to give him some momentum. The water caught up with him then, surrounded the ship, and carried him out through the lion's jaws and into open space, to rain down on the Skybase. Since he couldn't see a thing through all the water, he used his scanners to guide him in. The shield, which showed up on his scan as a curved green line, was fast approaching. Billy held the control grip with one hand, the hilt of the sword with the other, and braced himself.

As before, the water passed directly through the shield, but upon reaching the barrier, Crow jolted sharply, and the control stick jerked in Billy's hand. Warning lights came up on his console, reporting problems with his port and starboard stabilizers. But he had made it through the shield, and with luck, the water would have camouflaged his entry.

Holding onto the unresponsive joystick with both hands, then, Billy fired the engines again and pulled up as the water impacted with the surface of the Skybase. Crow had become about as maneuverable as a school bus, and Billy nearly wound up smashing into the surface himself. He felt the bottom of the hull skip off the metallic structure of the base, snapping off the two rear landing struts in the process, but he was then able to quickly regain control and bring Crow in for a rough landing about two hundred yards from the main castle.

Wasting no time, Billy popped open the canopy, stripped off his restraints, and vaulted out of the cockpit. He gathered up sword, rifle, and other weapons, then shut down all of Crow's systems, hoping to mask it from any of the Machine Empire's scans. He might still need this ship for a quick exit, and it wouldn't do to have it shot up in his absence.

It was then that he got a look at the damage. The ends of the side stabilizers had been sheared clean off, including the smaller engines that controlled the yaw and pitch. Only the top-mounted stabilizer remained, so Crow would be more or less flying in straight lines for the remainder of this mission. Assuming, of course, he'd even be able to make a takeoff with the rear landing struts missing.

There wasn't anything he could do to make any repairs here, though, so he took a quick look around to get his bearings, then made a run for it.

The castle was built upon layer after layer of superstructure, towering above the rest of the Skybase. Radiating outward from it were symmetrical lines of buildings and constructs, most of which Billy did not recognize, and the entire area was abuzz with activity as cogs and other smaller robots went about their ceaseless toil in the name of the Machine Empire. Billy kept his laser pistol in hand as he made his way toward the center of the web, hugging the walls of the buildings as he went.

Suddenly, a small flying robot vaguely shaped like an eye dropped down out of the sky and hovered just a few feet away. Billy barely had time to register its presence before it began emitting a siren wail, and red lights flashed all around its spherical surface. The siren was echoed by a louder alarm which reverberated through the entire Skybase.

Cursing to himself, Billy took aim and shot the probe down, but the alarm klaxons continued. Time to move, he thought, as he continued hurrying along the side of the oblong structure he'd been skirting. Before he could get to far, however, a large panel opened up in the wall behind him, and about a dozen cogs streamed out, all of their glowing eyes intent upon him. Most of the cogs were the familiar silver foot-soldiers, but the front three were made of some sort of black metal. "Destroy the intruder!" the three leaders shouted in unison as the phalanx advanced.

Billy backpedaled along the wall, firing at the advancing cogs, but his laser shots seemed to be absorbed by the black cogs, and when hit, their eyes lit up just a fraction brighter, as though they were gaining power from the beams.

Before he could think to draw his other pistol, a second panel opened in the wall, this one right beside him, and another unit of cogs poured out, cutting off his path of retreat. Lacking an alternative, then, Billy broke cover and ran across the huge open space between radii of buildings. The cogs followed, firing eye-blasts erratically as they came. He didn't have much chance to return fire, but he was outpacing them pretty easily.

When he was about halfway between two adjacent lines of buildings, however, a single quadrafighter came swooping down out of the sky and settled down on its four landing struts right in front of him. The ship's weapons came around to bear upon him as the cog pilot repeated the words of the black-metal leaders: "Destroy the intruder!"

Wasting no time, Billy dropped his laser pistol, unslung and brought up the rocket rifle in one fluid motion, and fired straight into the body of the quadrafighter. The missile impacted before any of the ship's lasers could fire, and the entire fighter, pilot and all, went up in a fireball. Billy scooped up his pistol and continued running, taking cover behind the flaming wreck as his pursuers continued to close. He quickly holstered his laser, drew his rocket pistol, then continued his dash for the next row, firing a few rockets into the cog patrols as he retreated. The tiny missiles seemed to have an effect on the cog leaders, as one was blown apart by a lucky shot. The rest of them kept coming, though, still firing wildly at the retreating Ranger.

Billy made a beeline for the largest of the next row of buildings. It put him in mind of a warehouse: tall, square and nondescript, with vehicle-sized as well as humanoid-sized doors. He forced the latter open, dove inside, then used his laser to fuse the locking mechanism to the doorframe. He then looked around for something to barricade the door with.

There was almost no light in this building, but by the echoes of his footsteps, Billy guessed it to be mostly open space, again just like a warehouse. There were several large structures towering to the ceiling, and debris scattered everywhere. It looked like there had been quite a fight here at some point, as there were blast marks on the walls, and some of the debris consisted of huge robotic arms and legs, apparently ripped from or shot off of their former owners.

The cogs began pounding at the small doors, but the spot-welding job held for the moment. Billy wondered why they didn't simply blow it open, but now was not the time to question cog motives. There had to be someplace to hide in here, or something he could use to throw the cogs off his trail. He ran toward one of the towering structures and tried to make it out.

As his eyes adjusted to the darkness, he suddenly realized what it was: a seventy-foot-tall robot monster, just like one of the many created by the Machine Empire to attack the Earth. This one looked rather like Punchabunch, the robotic boxer which had been designed to take on the Red BattleZord months before. It was dormant, and in serious disrepair, and as Billy looked closer, he saw the remains of dozens of brass-colored cogs, in pieces, strewn across the floor at its feet. Some still had tools clutched in their hands, while others held weapons, but neither tools nor weapons had managed to save them.

Billy knelt to examine the wreckage, completely baffled by what he saw. Not only had construction on the monster been stopped, it had apparently been stopped rather violently, and none of the cog parts had been recycled for new robots. To destroy his own work force in a fit of anger was certainly within King Mondo's temperament, but why leave all of these resources unused afterwards? It didn't make any sense.

"Psst! Ranger!" a familiar voice suddenly hissed. Billy immediately recognized the accented brogue as belonging to Klank, the Machine King's major-domo and chief of construction. He tried to take cover behind one of the giant robot's feet, but he had a sinking feeling it wouldn't do any good. He'd managed to escape the cogs for now, but in so doing he had walked right into the sights of Mondo's chief assistant.

"Ranger!" the voice called again, in a sort of whispered shout. "It willna' do ye any good t'hide!"

Holding his rocket pistol at the ready, Billy placed his back to the robot's foot and scanned as much of the warehouse as he could, trying to pick up any sign of his adversary. Nothing moved, however, and the only other sound was the rhythmic pounding of the cogs, still slamming away at the doors.

"C'mon out, Ranger," Klank continued. "I'd like t'have a word with ye."

Still holding his gun at the ready, Billy quietly moved out from his already questionable cover and started inching his way in the direction from which the voice had come. He just prayed he'd be able to get a shot off before Klank could do the same.

He carefully made his way across the parts-littered floor, taking care not to step on any pieces of cog. Still, though, the external microphones of his helmet picked up no sounds except the cogs at the door. Klank was hidden well, wherever he was.

"Okay, Klank, you've got me dead to rights," Billy called in reply. "Now why don't you show yourself? Where are you?"

"Right here, laddie," came Klank's response from very close by. Billy whirled and brought up his pistol, but there was no one there. "Look down!" the voice said, impatiently. For a while, Billy continued to scan the darkness, but still, there was no one there. Then, as instructed, he looked down.

Lying amidst the wreckage of cogs and other machine parts was Klank's severed head. Pieces of the robot's body lay scattered along with the rest of the debris, literally blown to fragments.

"Well, dinna just stand there, ye daft Ranger fool!" the head shouted. "Pick me up!"

~*~

Partially as a result of this, and partially as a result of the fact that the Yellow Lion's offensive systems far outweighed its defensive systems, she was getting hammered by the enemy ships. There were so many weapons at her disposal, so many options, that she barely knew where to start. She got the impression that the ship was doing most of the actual work, and that she was more or less along for the ride: this couldn't be good, and she knew it.

Thus, as she fought, she focused in on specific big-gun-type weapons and tried to use these exclusively as she attacked satellite after satellite, for the most part ignoring the dozens of fighters tracking her. The spine-mounted missile launcher was her favorite, though the sandblast was pretty effective, too, and covered a wider area.

Another dive at one of the platforms, another couple of missiles from the spine gun, and then the satisfaction of just shouldering her way through the debris as the structure blew. The sooner she and Kat and Jason could finish off these stations, the sooner they could combine and go for the source. She just wished that she and Trini hadn't been separated: a little cover-fire to keep the fighters off would be appreciated right about now.

Then, she felt a sharp, stinging pain in her side, echoed by an alert from the main console. Something had hit her! She barely had time to register this before another impact came, in almost the same place! She checked as much of the three-sixty scan as she could, and to her surprise, she realized that the claw-fighters following her had given up on firing, and were making kamikaze runs, smashing into the hull of the lion. Before she could bring any of the side-mounted lasers around to prevent this, another made the dive, and then another. Aisha felt the lion's pain as this section of the hull weakened, and her own side felt like it was on fire. The warnings on her console were louder and more insistent now, but she didn't know what to do, and this time the lion wasn't doing anything for her: it was in too much agony to act without her urging.

Finally, one ship, luckier than the rest, drilled right into the lion's side at top speed, blowing a hole in the outer hull. Aisha gasped with shock as numbing cold swept through her. She felt that she, too, had been opened to the void outside, and it was more agony than she could bear.

"Yellow Lion, come in! You've been breached!" came a voice, but she barely heard it. She was aware of nothing except the pain.

Off in the periphery, the voices continued. "Aisha, this is Skull! Come in! Jason, she's not responding!"

"Keep trying, man!"

"I've got an idea, but I'll need a second to grab something from the officers' quarters!"

"Okay, just hurry! Trini, can you get to where Yellow Lion is?"

"Negative! Too much fire on this end!"

"Jason, this is Adam! I'm on my way over to give her a hand!" The Yellow Lion, by this time, was flying aimlessly in a slow spiral, as several more claw-ships zeroed in. Rather than fire upon the ship, however, they came in and attached themselves to the hull just outside the gaping hole left by the last kamikaze run.

They were going to board her. They were going to board her, and she had no crew to fight them off. They'd come into the cockpit and gun her down, and she had no way of stopping it.

Then, as though from a great distance, she heard music. The music of her home, played on a single mbira. She recognized it as one of the traditional songs they had played and danced to around the fire the night before (had it only been the night before?), and by focusing on the never-ceasing rhythm, she was able to shut off the pain and bring her mind back to the here and now.

"Skull, what are you doing?" she heard, still from that great distance.

"Trust me, okay?! Come on, Aisha, snap out of it. This journey ain't over yet, kiddo."

At this point came a series of explosions from the outside as several of the fighters circling her like vultures were blown out of the sky by a blur of red. "Aisha, this is Adam. Do you read?"

The Red Lion's arrival took a considerable amount of attention off the Yellow Lion, but Aisha still had to contend with her boarders. A party of four android pilots had entered the ship, and were cautiously making their way down one of the access corridors, unaffected by the lack of atmosphere.

She focused all thought into the here and now, letting the music take her, and she felt herself back in touch with the lion. Now, she saw what she needed to do. The atmosphere generators had shut down automatically with the hull breach, and that entire section of the ship had been sealed off to avoid further decompression. Sensible move by the automatic systems, but also an expected one, no doubt. Maybe she needed to make things a little more comfortable for her invaders.

With that thought, she re-activated the environmental systems to the breached corridor, and turned them up full blast. All of the air pumped in was immediately sucked right out through the hole in the bulkheads, though, creating a hurricane-force wind which swept her would-be attackers out into space. She then reached up with one of the lion's hind legs and scraped off the attached ships, as though it were a dog scratching at fleas.

With the immediate danger passed, the repair systems began to kick in and seal the hole by beaming more matter into place. It would be plugged up within a few minutes, but at least she now had control back.

"Yellow Lion's back under control, guys," she panted.

"You okay out there, Aisha?" Jason asked.

"I'm fine now." It was then that she realized the music was still playing. She had thought that it was only in her mind, but now she realized it was coming in over her headset. "Is that Skull playing?" she asked.

"You found me out," Skull replied, not pausing in his song.

"Thanks, Eugene. Could you do me a favor and keep playing?"

"Anything for you, dear lady," he said in his haughty British voice.

Aisha paused a moment to smile at this, then dove back into battle to give Adam a hand in reply.

~*~

"Tha's better," the head sighed. "It's aboot time someone arrived here, though I didna' think it would be you, Ranger."

"What's going on?" Billy asked, carefully. Before Klank could reply, there was a rumbling crash from the doors, heralding the arrival of the cogs. They had finally managed to bust through Billy's welding job, and they were pouring into the warehouse. He was hidden from them for the moment, but only for the moment.

"Quick," Klank said then. "There's a shielded compartment inside the monster where the cogs willna' be able to detect ye. I'll tell ye the way."

"Why should I believe you?" Billy asked, taking cover behind Punchabunch's foot. "You're King Mondo's most valued assistant. How can I trust you?"

Klank gave Billy a noise which sounded for all the world like a frustrated sigh. "Laddie, has it na' occurred to ye yet that maybe, jus' maybe, King Mondo isna' callin' the shots around here any longer?"

This had not, in fact, occurred to Billy, and the idea of it was somewhat stunning. This clicked into place several things which had been nagging at Billy all along: why had there been no contact from Mondo? Why no demands for surrender? Why none of the normal cog patrols and monsters? Why this prolonged siege, so out of character for the Machine King? Suddenly the entire siege made more sense. "Show me where to go, then."

Klank verbally led Billy through a small door in the robot's foot and up a long ladder into the aforementioned shielded compartment in the robot's midsection. Here, Billy set Klank down and listened for a while. The footsteps of the cogs were plainly audible outside, but none of them seemed to be investigating the wreck of Punchabunch.

"Okay," Billy said, quietly, "if King Mondo isn't in charge, what happened?"

"'Twas the witch, Haggar," Klank explained. "Several days ago she usurped the King and Queen, and took full control of the Empire, sendin' thousands of well-made cogs to a fiery peril in her foolhardy attack on yuir world. Did she care about how many of 'em she was throwin' away, sendin' 'em agin' ye? Nay, she didna' care."

"Did she do this to you?" Billy asked, indicating Klank's body-less state.

"Aye. As soon as she took control, she decided tha' Orbus an' I were na' fit t'serve her. An' we tol' the witch tha' we wouldna' serve her anyhow after what she did t'the royal family. We retreated here, to our main workshop, hopin' t'find somethin' t'use against her, but t'no avail. She jus' blasted us. I lost m'body, but puir Orbus... didna' have a chance against her magic. There was nothin' left of the puir wee bairn but scrap."

To Billy's surprise, Klank sounded genuinely remorseful at the demise of his partner in evil, but something else in Klank's answer had caught his attention. "Wait, back up a bit. What did she do to the royal family?"

Klank sighed again. "She... Och, laddie, they're changed now. King Mondo, Queen Machina... even the wee Prince Sprocket. She made 'em into mindless beasts, servin' only t' her will."

"Robeasts," Billy whispered.

"Aye."

~*~

And, from a glance at her scanners, much faster. It had literally zipped in, slammed her, and zipped back out again before the agile Green Lion could draw a bead on it. "Guys, there's something strange out here!" she warned the others. "It's faster and stronger than any of the normal ships!"

"I read you, Green Lion," Jason replied. "Bulk, try to scan for it!"

"I'm working on it," Bulk's voice chimed in. "Holy moley, what... what is that? Blue Lion! It's heading your way!"

"I see it, Bulk," Kat confirmed. "I'll try to get a visual before I take a shot...."

"I'm with you, Blue Lion," Adam reported. "I'll try to give you some cover before... Aaahh!!"

"Red Lion, report!" Jason shouted.

"This thing packs a lot of punch!" Adam replied. "Lion Torches aren't doing much! Switching to missiles!"

Trini scanned for the location of this fight within the fight, and brought Green Lion around on an intercept course. "Green Lion coming in for backup!" she transmitted.

"Firing stingray missiles!" Kat added. "I've got visual! It's... Oh, no!"

"What is it, Blue Lion?" Jason demanded.

A visual of the enemy was uploaded to one of Trini's auxiliary screens. The thing was a monster, no mistake about it. Its head was tipped with sharp spikes, standing up in a circle like some kind of crown. The arms and legs were too short for the bulbous body, but the thing was moving with unbelievable speed, knocking the Red and Blue Lions around like toys.

"I think it's Prince Sprocket!" Kat said, aghast.

"Geez, what happened to him?" Adam gasped.

"He's a robeast!" Kat replied. "They made him into a robeast!"

"Jason, I don't think we can take this guy with the lions!" Adam reported, nervously. "I've barely scratched him!"

"Maybe we'd better hook up into the combined form," Trini suggested.

"No, we've got too many bogeys up here to take on in one form," Jason replied. "I've got a better idea, though."

~*~

All too quickly, he realized the Power Chamber was doing about as well power-wise as the Phoenix had been, but with Zero and Eric no longer firing, it was a little better off. He spent the first few minutes at the teleportation controls, re-establishing locks on the other four zords. He wanted to be sure he could get them all together if need be.

As he was finishing up these calculations, Jason's voice came over his communicator. "Black Lion to Red Ranger! Tommy, you there?"

"I'm here, bro! What's up?"

"Does the name Prince Sprocket mean anything to you, man?"

"Yeah! He's the Machine King's son! Obnoxious little dude, too."

"Well, he's looking a lot more than obnoxious right now! He's a robeast!"

"Oh, man," Tommy gasped, looking over at the holo-globe, to see three of the orbiting lion-blips clustered around a much larger enemy blip.

"Listen, bro, how soon could you get the Zeo MegaZord up here to take this puppy down?"

"I'm way ahead of you, Black Lion!" Tommy grinned, rushing back to the controls. "We'll be there quick as we can!" He then switched over to call the Rangers. "Power Rangers, this is Tommy! They need the MegaZord in orbit! I'm going to teleport you back here one at a time so we can assemble!"

"Finally, some real action!" Rocky cheered.

"Careful what you wish for, Rocky," Tanya warned.

"Okay, here's the plan," Tommy transmitted. "I'll bring in Kim and Tanya first, then Rocky, then Zack. That way if power runs out, hopefully we'll at least have the two slower-moving zords here. Nothing personal, ladies."

"Rocky, maybe me and you'd better start heading back that way just in case power does run out," Zack suggested.

"Cool with me. I'm on my way!"

By this time Tommy had established the first teleportation lock. "Kim, are you ready?"

"Ready!" she called back.

Tommy keyed in the commands to teleport the Zeo I zord from the top of Mount Wilhelm to the salt-flats, near where he'd bailed the Phoenix. The lights dimmed, but power held for the moment, and Kim and her zord materialized out in the desert.

"One down, three to go!" Kim reported.

"Tanya, stand by!" Tommy called, then re-established a lock and brought the Zeo II zord in as well. The lights dimmed again, darker than before, and Tommy thought he heard a strange noise coming from the generators far below. But Tanya and her zord had made it across.

"Rocky, the power level's getting pretty low here," Tommy went on. "I don't know if I'll be able to get you here."

"I haven't even made it into Central America yet," Rocky replied. "If we're in a hurry, you'd better try it anyway."

"Okay, here goes," Tommy nodded, getting a lock and initiating the transport sequence. As he pressed the command key, though, the lights went out completely, and Tommy heard what sounded like a large electrical explosion from beneath the Power Chamber. All that remained was the glow of Zordon's stasis tube and a few flashing lights on the main console, reporting that the backup generators had gone out, leaving the Power Chamber helpless except for a few hours of stored reserves. Which meant, quite simply, that if they didn't somehow restore power, Zordon would die.

But if they stayed to help Zordon, Jason and the others might get killed in orbit, and that would spell doom for the already weakened planet-bound Rangers, not to mention the rest of the world.

Then there was no choice. They would have to finish this battle quickly, then return to help Zordon before his time ran out. "Rocky," he called, using his wrist communicator this time. "Did the transport work?"

"It was a little rough, but I made it in one piece."

"Good. Zack, we've lost all power here; how close are you?"

"I'll be there in two minutes!" Zack replied.

"Let's get set to bring it together, then!" Tommy broadcast to all his teammates. He then set his controls to teleport back to the Phoenix. Before he disappeared, though, he looked to the empty blue stasis tube. "We won't let you down, Zordon!" he said to his absent leader, then jetted out in a flash of red.

By the time Tommy had returned to the Phoenix and gotten it airborne, Zack was just arriving, and his friends' four zords were going through the transformation sequence, coming together in the large humanoid Zeo MegaZord form. He glanced at his own power reserves, and realized he would be making the docking with less than two hours of usable power remaining, but once docked with the MegaZord, the five zords would pool their energy, making the whole stronger.

The Bull and Sphinx came together to form the arms and torso of the combined form, then settled in to dock with the I and II zords, which served as the MegaZord's legs. Soon all that remained was for Tommy to bring the Phoenix in to dock with the others, forming the head, shoulders, and most importantly the wings.

Docking was completed, and Tommy's pilot chair carried him through the floor of the Phoenix's cockpit and down into the control room of the MegaZord, where his four fellow Rangers were also just arriving.

"Together again!" Zack laughed, reaching across the small space of the control room to high-five first Rocky, then Tommy. He tried to reach Kimberly, but found the cramped conditions too awkward to do so.

"I wouldn't have missed it for anything, man," Tommy nodded. "I hate to break up the reunion, but we're on borrowed time right now. If we can't finish this and get back to the Power Chamber to fix the generators, Zordon won't survive."

"Then let's get up there!" Tanya urged.

"Right!" Tommy agreed. "Let's take this thing into orbit!"

~*~

"Where're ye goin'?" Klank hissed as Billy broke cover and dashed for the next row of structures. "If ye want t'take on the witch, ye'll find her in the castle!"

"I'm not going after her yet!" Billy panted. "I've got to help my friends first!"

"An' how are ye goin' t'do that from here?" Billy took the first cover he could find, flattening himself against the high wall of a featureless structure. Thankfully, no one seemed to be paying him much attention at this point. "I was hoping to knock out communications between the Skybase and the other satellites, so my friends would have a better shot out there."

"Not a bad thought," Klank mused. "But ye dinna have any idea where t'go t'do this, do ye?"

"A minor technicality."

"Ranger," Klank said then, in a very serious tone. "What if I were t'tell ye tha' I could show ye a way t'not only cease communications between the base and the satellites, but t'sever contact between the base an' every robot pilot, cog or otherwise, in orbit?"

This startled Billy somewhat, and he looked down at Klank's head. "I'd say that would certainly help my friends out."

"What if I were also t'tell ye tha' once this was done, I could show ye a way t'blow the entire Skybase t'smithereens, taking out each of the satellites in a chain reaction as ye did?"

Something was wrong with this. "What are you saying, Klank?"

"I'm sayin' I'd like t'propose a deal with ye, Ranger."

"I don't know if I'm ready to make a deal with you."

"We've got a common enemy!" Klank pressed. "The Machine Empire has fallen, laddie, an' I want t'see tha' witch go down with it just as much as you do! I'd rather see every last cog an' every last fighter destroyed than have 'em serve her!"

"You're serious, aren't you?" Billy asked, amazed.

"Aye, laddie. Quite serious."

"What kind of deal are you proposing, then?"

"'Tis quite simple. We'll knock out the milit'ry command base first, then sneak into the main processing plants in the commotion tha' follows. I'll show ye how t'set up a timed explosion that'll blow the base."

"And in return for this?"

"In return I want your word of honor tha' yuill take tha' witch on after ye set up the explosive device."

Billy blinked in confusion. "Won't blowing up the whole base be enough?"

"Perhaps, laddie, but only if she's here when it goes up. 'Twould be nothin' for her t'escape once she knew it was comin'. But if ye were to keep her busy in a battle as the timer ticked away...."

"Then she wouldn't escape," Billy said, soberly. And neither would he, he realized.

"Aye." Klank agreed.

Billy took a deep breath and considered his options. "Deal," he said, quietly. "You have my word as a Power Ranger."

~*~

"Hull integrity looks good," Rocky reported from his station. "Space-travel configuration is a go."

"I've got the fight on scanners," Zack added. "I'm plotting a course now."

"Let's keep our heads, guys," Tommy reminded them. "Kim, Tanya, how are the weapons looking?"

"It looks like everything's charged and ready," Kim replied.

Tanya's news was less encouraging. "The zords' power sources have combined, but between the five of us, we're barely at half strength. We won't be able to sustain an offensive for too long before everything runs dry on us."

"Then we'll have to end it quickly," Tommy nodded. "We'll bust out the sword as soon as we're in range, and take this robeast out ASAP."

"I can't believe it!" said Rocky. "Prince Sprocket as a robeast?" They drew closer to the scene of the main battle, where the Blue, Green and Red Lions were ganging up on a much larger beast, while dozens of fighters swarmed the outskirts of the melee, taking shots at the lions as they did.

"Believe it, Rock," Tommy replied, softly, as he got a good look at what had once been the Crown Prince of the Machine Empire. "Man, look what they did to him!"

"Red Lion to Zeo MegaZord!" Adam's voice came over the comlink. "Glad to see you guys up here!"

"Fifteen seconds to engage!" Tommy called back. "Adam, Kat, Trini, I want you three to break off as soon as we're in range!"

"You got it!" Trini agreed. "We'll try to keep those fighters off you!"

"We appreciate that, Green Lion," Tommy grinned. "Okay, Kim, Tanya, charge up the MegaZord Saber!" He brought the MegaZord's hands together, materialized the great sword, then took a massive swipe at the Sprocket robeast as they rocketed past it. The sword cut into one side of the monster, but only seemed to make it angry. The three lion ships scattered to take on the fighters as the MegaZord spun around to make another charge.

"Tommy, we won't be able to keep the Saber formed for very long!" Tanya reminded him.

"Let's not waste any time," Tommy nodded. "Rocky, I want you to concentrate shield power against Sprocket. I think the fighters are gonna leave us alone."

"Got it!" Rocky reported, flashing Tommy the thumbs-up. Sprocket roared a mighty roar — or at least he appeared to do so, as the sound did not carry through the empty space between them. He brought up his stubby arms and literally launched both hands at the MegaZord. Tommy managed to block one with the sword, but the other latched onto the MegaZord's left arm. Warning lights immediately began to flash throughout the entire cockpit.

"That thing punched straight through the shields!" Rocky shouted.

"It's draining our power!" Tanya cried. "It's somehow leeching off our power reserves!"

"Man!" Zack growled. "That thing must know we're hurtin' for power!"

"Kim, try to shoot it off!" Tommy ordered.

"I can't get a clean shot at it with any of the guns!" Kim replied. "It's in too close!"

"Okay, first things first, then!" Tommy shouted, resuming his charge on Sprocket. He made another broad sweep with the sword, again cutting deeply into the beast's structure. This time there were several explosions from Sprocket's chassis, and he was knocked back a considerable distance by the force of the blow.

Once they were clear, Tommy transferred the sword to the zord's left hand, then used the right to grab hold of the robeast's claw and tear it free. It came loose amidst a shower of sparks, and Tommy flung it away from them as hard as he could.

"The hull's breached!" Rocky shouted. "I've isolated the damaged sections!"

"Nice job, Rock," Tommy nodded. "Now let's finish this guy!" They spun around again to charge the reeling Sprocket. The robeast turned sluggishly, then fired several powerful lasers at them as they drew closer. The shields held, though, and Tommy brought the sword around in an arc that cleaved straight through the robeast's midsection. Sprocket hovered there in place for a moment, as though bewildered at the force of the blow, then went up in a huge fireball that blew the MegaZord back across several miles of space.

"Disengaging MegaZord Saber!" Tommy shouted, dematerializing the sword. "What's our status, guys?"

"Shields are holding, and the hull breach doesn't seem to have limited our motion any," Rocky told him.

"Weapons systems are fine," Kimberly added. "No damage to the Saber."

"How's power?" he asked, looking over at Tanya's station.

She shook her head. "Not so good. We didn't take any major damage, so I can cut off the auto-repair systems to save us a little strength."

"Do it," Tommy agreed.

"Incoming transmission from Jason," Zack said, suddenly. "I'm putting it through."

"Black Lion to MegaZord," Jason's voice came. "Nice job, you guys! Looks like the gang's all here!"

"We're glad to be in good company, Black Lion," Tommy grinned. "Listen, bro, you've been up here longer than we have. Where do you want us?"

"Well, we could use a hand with the...."

Kat interrupted at this point. "I've got something on the long-range scan!" she cried. "Two incoming blips! I'm trying to get a fix on them!"

Rocky and Tommy exchanged glances. "You don't think that's...." Rocky began, but could not finish the thought.

"I don't know," Tommy whispered. He then turned to Zack. "See if you can get 'em on the scanners!"

"I see 'em," Zack nodded. "Two bogeys, coming in fast. I'll try to get a visual."

As Zack worked away at his controls, Kat's voice came once again over the speakers. "I think we've got big trouble," she said in a tight voice.

"I'm putting the bogeys on the main viewer," Zack reported. Two specks appeared against the blackness of space, then grew in size as they approached. Gradually, they were able to make out some details.

One looked quite similar to the Sprocket beast, but intensified, with longer and sharper crown-spikes, immense claws at the ends of short arms, a spinning wheel of jagged blades mounted on its back, and a weapon clenched in one clawed fist, resembling a staff or a scepter of some kind. The other was taller, narrower, and apparently unarmed, but looked no less deadly, possessing gleaming metallic claws and fangs.

"Mondo and Machina," Tanya whispered.

"I hate to be the bringer of bad news," Zack said, quietly, "but according to my readings, each one of those is at least three times the size of that Sprocket dude."

"Talk to me, Rangers!" Jason's voice came over the speakers. "What are these things?"

"They're Prince Sprocket's parents!" Tommy called back. "And they look ticked!"

Now, with Klank's head once again tucked against his chest like a football, Billy was again making a dash for it, but this time cogs instead of defensemen were chasing him. He outpaced the pursuers down a spiral ramp and out of the Machine Empire's satellite command base, never once breaking momentum. Once outside the towering structure, Billy sprinted clear as the first explosion rocked its foundation. This was followed by another, and another, each explosion larger than its predecessor. Billy leaped over a four-foot monorail track and took cover as yet another explosion caused the command base to lurch sideways before collapsing inward upon itself.

Billy peeked over the rail to see that the pursuing cogs had completely forgotten about him, and swarms of worker cogs were descending upon the wreckage, looking for all the world like ants scurrying around a stepped-on anthill.

"How does it look, Ranger?" Klank asked.

He raised Klank's head up above the rail. "See for yourself. You weren't kidding about that one spot being vulnerable."

"I'm overhearin' several transmissions," Klank informed him. "Aye, good. Like I said, they're turnin' attention t'the wreck. Now's our chance to take out the reactors b'neath the processors."

"I just wish we hadn't used so many of the explosives back there. Are you sure we'll have enough to blow the reactors?"

"We'll make do, Ranger, believe me."

"And you're sure we'll be able to get in?"

"Now would be our only chance, laddie, while they're confused. It won't take 'em long t' start lookin' f'r us again, and with tha' witch's scryin' power..."

"With any luck we'll be protected from that," Billy nodded, checking on the sword belted to his hip. "Otherwise, this little infiltration won't last long."

"An' if we dinna hurry, 'twill na' matter, laddie. Let's hop to."

~*~

"They'll be here inside of two minutes!" Kat replied.

Jason nodded to himself. They'd need this Voltron form Billy had told them about in order to take on something that size, he figured, but with those fighters still dogging them, he didn't like the odds of giving them only one target.

Then, as though in answer to his prayers, Adam's voice interrupted his thoughts. "Guys, the fighters have gone dead! They've just stopped moving!"

"What?!" Jason replied, stunned. "Lions, report in!"

"It's true!" Kat confirmed. "Blue Lion scans zero function in all the fighters! They all went dead at once!"

Aisha spoke next. "Yellow Lion's picking up no transmissions to the ships, and I'm reading several large explosions on the main Skybase!"

"Captain, I've got an aye-firmative on those readings," Skull reported from the lower deck. "The bogeys have all croaked."

"Yeah, all but the two big ones!" Bulk warned. "They're still coming in!"

"Billy!" Jason grinned. "He did it! He must've knocked out the fighter controls! Okay, all lions, meet me at these coordinates! It's time for a little teamwork!"

"We're with you, Black Lion!" Trini replied.

"MegaZord, you'd better stick close to us," Jason suggested. "I don't think it'd be a good idea for you to engage those guys alone."

"I'm with you on that, Black Lion," Tommy replied. "Let's take it on the run!"

The MegaZord took the lead, then, setting a course away from the incoming Mondo and Machina. Behind the Zeo Rangers, the five lions fell into a V-shaped formation, with Black Lion in the front, Red and Green Lions to either side and slightly behind, and Blue and Yellow Lions one step further back.

"Hold onto your butts, gentlemen," Jason warned Bulk and Skull. He then switched communications to the five lions. "Okay, guys, let's do it! READY TO FORM VOLTRON!"

Jason pressed a thumb button on his right-hand control handle and twisted it a half-circle counter-clockwise. "Activate interlock!" he called, scanning his console as the results of the interlock procedure came up on his main viewer. "Dynatherms connected! Infracells are up! Megathrusters are go! Let's GO, Voltron Force!"

That said, an energy field reached out from the Black Lion, taking the four smaller lions in its grip as they continued their retreat. Jason both heard and felt the Black Lion roar as the transformation began. The front legs of the lion folded back and inward upon themselves, disappearing into the main body, and the back legs stretched out straight behind. Apertures came open in the shoulders to prepare for the docking procedure. Meanwhile, the other lions were bringing it together, legs likewise folding and disappearing into the main superstructures, preparing to be joined with the parent ship.

From his pilot's chair, Jason could see and sense it all. Like so many times before with the zords, he knew exactly what he needed to do. "Here we go! Blue Lion, Yellow Lion, form feet and legs!" The four and five ships pivoted their heads ninety degrees, so that the bodies of the lions were the legs of Voltron, and the heads were his feet.

"Red Lion, Green Lion, form arms and body!" The energy field surrounding the five lions began to contract, pulling the smaller lions in to hook up. The lions' tails plugged themselves into the shoulder apertures, which then locked them into place, so that the lions' bodies were arms, and the heads were fists. Soon after, the Blue and Yellow lions docked with the Black Lion's outstretched lower legs, becoming extensions of the lead ship. Now, only one thing remained.

Jason gripped his controls and took a deep breath. "And I'll form the head!" he cried, giving each of his control handles a sharp turn inward. As he did so, the head of Black Lion pivoted to match the rest of the body, its ears grew into horns, and the jaws opened wide to reveal the face of Voltron.

"We did it!" Jason cheered. He took a look around the cockpit, and was momentarily surprised to see that only Bulk and Skull were there. He'd been expecting that the others would join him here in the combined form, as with the MegaZord, but apparently Voltron kept the individual pilots within their own lions. "Everybody made it through that okay?"

"That was a rush!" Adam exclaimed.

"You can say that again!" Aisha agreed.

"It looks like all systems are go," Trini added.

"Our two friends are still in pursuit," Kat warned. "We're holding even with them at our current speed."

"Well what do you say we do something about that?" Jason grinned. "Okay, Voltron Force, it's time to see what this big guy can do! Prepare to intercept the bad guys!"

He brought Voltron around to face the onrushing robeasts, and the Zeo Megazord pulled into place beside them, both forces ready for battle.

~*~

Monitors on the inside of his helmet reported that the temperature here was something to the order of a hundred ninety degrees, with radiation counts that would kill an unprotected human within moments: all the more reason to keep his suit in one piece, as it protected him from both.

The room they had entered was the very core within the core: three spherical reactors dominated the scene, held in place by enormous metal bracings, venting superheated gas and radioactive material every few seconds.

"Holy crow," Billy said, softly.

"'Tis a thing of beauty," Klank sighed. "A shame tha' we have t'blow it up."

"What do I need to do?"

"Carry me as close t'the center as ye can," Klank instructed. "I need t'see if anythin' has been changed since last I was here."

"Right," Billy nodded, holding Klank out at arm's length and creeping as close to the triad of reactors as he dared. The three were set in what amounted to a triangle shape, each one touching the other two. Billy was incongruously reminded of the last three pieces of cereal clinging to one another as they floated in the milk.

"Good," Klank reported. "No one seems t'have disturbed the works. Now, laddie, I need ye t'follow these next instructions t'the letter. I dinna have any arms t'do this m'self."

"I'm listening," Billy nodded.

"If ye look down at where m'neck used to be, ye should find a small panel. I want ye t'pry that panel open."

Billy studied the base of the neck, and indeed found the panel in question. Using a tool from his belt, he forced it open. Inside, he found four small, square white buttons in a row, each with a number of black dots between one and four. They looked rather like dice.

"D'ye see four numbered buttons there, laddie?" Klank asked.

"Affirmative," Billy said, nervously. He wasn't sure what Klank was planning, but just standing this close to three nuclear reactors was about all his nerves could handle.

"I need ye t'press 'em in this order. Four, two, four, two, one, three, one."

"Four, two, four, two, one, three...." Billy repeated as he pressed them.

"One moment, lad!" Klank exclaimed before Billy could press the last. After a brief pause, he continued. "All right, ye can finish now."

"One," Billy said, pressing the final button. As he did, there was a whirring sound from somewhere inside Klank's metal cranium, and his eyes flashed three times.

"Now set me down as close t'the center as ye can," Klank said, quietly.

"Why?" Billy asked. "What was that all about? What did I just do?"

"I've activated my self-destruct countdown," Klank replied, evenly. "The code ye entered locks out my automatic override. Nothin' can stop the countdown now."

Billy stared into Klank's immobile face for a moment, then shook his head. "WHAT?!"

"'Tis the only way, lad!" Klank growled. "Yuir explosives wouldna' be able t'dent these reactors, much less destroy 'em! Now put me down and go find that witch!"

Still stunned by this turn of events, Billy could only do as Klank instructed. He set the head down on a small platform near where the three spheres joined.

"Now get out of this place!" Klank insisted. "The witch will be in the castle! Remember yuir promise, Ranger!"

Billy turned to go, but then shook his head and turned back to the robot. "Klank, don't do this. There has to be something else we can do. You don't have to sacrifice yourself!"

"Oh, but I do, Ranger."

"Look, just shut up and listen for a second!" Billy shot back. "I have every intention of keeping my promise to you, Klank, but I don't plan to die today. I'm going to do everything in my power to take that witch down, then get back to my ship and make a run for it. You could come with me! Think of all the things we could learn from one another!"

"Nay, laddie," Klank replied. "Ye're a Maker, an' a talented one, but there're some things na' even you could program out of me. I will serve the Machine Empire until the verra last. Please, Ranger, let me do this last thing for m'King and m'Queen. Let me be the end of the one tha' slayed 'em. Let me make certain the forces of the Empire don't fall into other hands."

The two adversaries stared at one another for a few moments, then Billy looked away. "Okay," he whispered. "I just wish it didn't have to happen this way." He turned to go.

"Ranger!" Klank called after him.

"What is it?" Billy asked, looking back.

Klank paused before replying. "Ye were a worthy foe, Ranger," he said in a voice tinged with grudging respect.

Billy nodded. "Thank you. As were you."

"Aye, an' since ye were a worthy an' honorable foe, there's one last thing I'll tell ye, so tha' ye can tell yuir fellow Rangers if ye do escape."

"What's that?" Billy asked, taking a step closer.

"King Mondo conquered many star systems, an' in so doin' made many enemies. With him gone, there'll be more than one oppressed warlord hopin' t'take his place at the top to reclaim the Empire afore it fully collapses. An' they'll no doubt be interested in the world tha' brought Mondo down. Be ready for them, Ranger, for they will come."

In spite of the heat of the core, Billy felt a shiver run down his spine at this warning.

"The countdown is still goin'," Klank reminded him. "If ye do intend t'slay the witch and escape, ye'd best do so quickly."

"I'll try." Billy took a deep breath. "Goodbye, Klank."

"Good luck, Ranger."

~*~

A pair of long blades materialized in the mouths of the Red and Green Lions. Jason brought Voltron's hands together, and the two fused together into a long javelin. He gave this one to Trini to control, gripped tightly by the Green Lion as the Red Lion reared back and prepared its torches.

"Here we go, team!" Jason transmitted to the group as Mondo came into striking range. The robeast King was a head taller than even Voltron, and thus dwarfed the much smaller MegaZord. Jason hoped Tommy wasn't planning on getting too wild out there with their limited power.

Mondo charged, staff raised to strike at Voltron. Jason came in to meet the former Machine King head-on, and staff and saber met in a shower of sparks. Voltron spun with the impact and sprayed the robeast with missile fire, with Adam adding to the barrage with his Lion Torches. Mondo retreated, then, only to turn around a ways off to prepare for another charge.

"Bulk, I need you to hook into Blue Lion's scanners!" Jason ordered. "Keep an eye on our other bogey!"

"Gotcha!" Bulk shouted from the lower tier. "Second bogey's holding back for right now."

"Doesn't make much sense," Jason muttered to himself. Why hold back, when they could outnumber Voltron two to one? In all Jason had heard about King Mondo, he'd never have guessed him to be particularly honorable.

Then there was no more time to wonder about it, as Mondo charged in a second time, staff held high. Jason again positioned Voltron to meet the charge, but this time, to the surprise of all the Voltron Force, Mondo spun around at the last moment and took a swipe at them with the spinning wheel of blades mounted on his back. Adam brought the Red Lion up to block the attack, but the saw-like motion of the blade-wheel dug into the Red Lion, and sparks flew into the blackness even as Adam cried out with shock and pain.

"That was a bad hit!" Bulk reported. "Hull's holding for now, but another hit in that same spot and we've got problems!"

"Trini, see if you can jam up the works there!" Jason called. "I'll give it a shot!" she replied.

Adam's move had at least deflected the charging robeast away, and as it withdrew, Trini reared back with the Electro-Saber and threw it, plunging it into Mondo's back, right amidst the whirring blades. It had the same basic effect as shoving a broomstick into a bicycle wheel's spokes. The blades seized up, and soon the motor spinning them exploded, sending Mondo sprawling through space.

"Good shot, Green Lion!" Adam panted.

"Adam, are you okay?" Aisha asked.

"It only hurts when I laugh. Have we got something else to throw at this guy?"

Jason again consulted the list of options available as Mondo righted himself and brought up his staff for another charge. "Let's get him with his own medicine! Form Spinning Laser Blades!"

Two huge shuriken-like blades materialized in Voltron's hands, and Jason spun the robot in a full three-sixty, allowing Trini and Adam to fling the blades at the robeast. They spun through the intervening space, then hit home, one cleaving into Mondo's torso while the other took off one of his lower legs at the knee. The robeast roared, but paused only a moment before resuming its charge.

"He looks pretty cheesed!" Adam shouted.

"We need something for short-range!" Kat added.

Jason nodded. "Okay, enough of the little stuff. FORM BLAZING SWORD!"

Again, the fists of Voltron came together, and as Jason drew them apart, a magnificent glowing blade appeared between them, its hilt gripped by the Red Lion's mouth. "This one's all yours, Adam!" Jason told his teammate. "Make it count!"

Mondo came in swinging, bringing his staff straight down upon them, but Adam brought up the Blazing Sword to block it. Sparks flew at the impact, and the sword half-severed the staff, but this only served to get the two stuck together.

At that moment, Mondo lowered his head like a bull, and the spikes of his warped crown shot forward, impaling Voltron through the chest in several places. None of the spikes penetrated the shield-crest for some reason, but several others pierced the Black Lion's hull and dug into place, locking the two enemies together.

Jason could not suppress a cry of pain himself, then, as he all but felt the spikes drilling into his own chest. He struggled to get them free, but they were caught, and Mondo was using this opportunity to start draining their power, as Sprocket had done to the MegaZord.

"I can't get him to let go!" Trini cried, as she pounded the robeast time and again with the Green Lion's head/fist.

"Looks like deja vu to me!" Aisha shouted. "Time to take care of business!"

That said, she brought up the Yellow Lion in an attempt to knee the Machine King in the groin. Her blow landed, but had no noticeable effect. Apparently this was not a vulnerable spot for the Machine King.

Then, to Jason's relief, a series of explosions snapped the spikes in half, and he was able to wrench Voltron free. Checking his scan, he saw that the Zeo MegaZord had come in and drilled the Machine King with several well-placed shots. The MegaZord's customary helmet was gone, replaced by a single huge cannon.

"We owe you one, Tommy!" Jason called, as Kat planted a kick in Mondo's chest and sent him flying backwards.

"You can thank Kimberly for that one!" Tommy corrected him.

"Gotta love these Battle Helmets!" Kimberly added as the MegaZord retreated alongside Voltron. As they did, the standard helmet reformed, putting Tommy back in command.

"Give me some good news, gentlemen!" Jason shouted down to his co-pilots.

"We're in pretty good shape, believe it or not!" Skull called back. "No critical areas are damaged!"

"Our other bogey's missing!" said Bulk, suddenly. "I can't find it on any scans!"

Jason blew a frustrated breath through his teeth. Their fight had carried them halfway across the world: Machina could be anywhere by now. "Keep your eyes glued, Bulk," Jason ordered. "The last thing we need's a surprise attack!"

"Here he comes!" Adam warned, drawing their attention back to Mondo.

Jason nodded grimly. "Let's stand our ground, guys!"

~*~

He was working against a serious deadline here, and most frustrating of all was that he did not know how long he had before Klank blew the reactors. It honestly hadn't occurred to him at the time that he should ask, and it was probably too late to go back and find out. As it was he'd have to cover about a quarter of a mile over dangerous terrain just to get back to where he'd left Crow, assuming he could take out the witch in time. But that first required finding her.

At last, his ascent brought him to the topmost level, and the throne room. Before entering, he loaded his last cartridge into his rocket rifle and slung it at the ready. His pistols were all but drained of ammunition, so he hoped he wouldn't be involved in any more fire-fights.

Taking one last deep breath to steady himself, he charged into the throne room.

It was empty. The thrones, the observation deck, all of it completely empty.

Billy shook his head angrily. He hadn't come this far to fail. "HAGGAR!" he shouted into the empty room.

From behind came a evil cackling. Billy spun around to see that Mondo's throne was no longer unoccupied. Sitting there leisurely, stroking a blue cat that sat in her lap, was the witch. She stared at him with malevolent yellow eyes, a fanged grin framed by her dark blue- green face.

"How delightful!" the hag laughed. "The brave knight comes to destroy the wicked witch and save his world! How wonderfully pathetic! Were you really so foolish as to come alone, boy?"

"Who says I came alone?" Billy shot back. "Or haven't you noticed? Voltron and the Power Rangers will take care of your forces, Haggar."

"While you take care of me, I presume," the witch laughed. The blue cat, by this time, was growling and hissing at Billy, so Haggar set it down on the floor and stood, casually reaching to pick up her gnarled wooden staff from where it had been resting against the throne.

"Ah, yes, Voltron," she went on, and this time Billy literally saw a wisp of smoke from her eyes. "My dear enemy." She then whirled on Billy. "And you brought Voltron here, you little beast! For that alone I shall take great pleasure in watching you suffer before I kill you!"

"You're wrong, old witch," Billy replied, evenly. "You brought Voltron here when you destroyed Arus. They're here to pay you back for what you did for their world." After saying this, Billy drew the sword and held it out as best he could. "And so am I."

"Ah, yes, the sword of King Alfor!" she cackled. "I suspected as much when I could not locate my little invading saboteur. No matter, boy! My soldiers will soon restore communications to the ships of my fleet, and then all your hard work will be for nothing!"

Billy felt his heart skip for a moment, but she hadn't mentioned the reactors. He hoped she hadn't learned of that little detail of Klank's plan.

"Do you really think you can defeat me with that puny little sword?" Haggar laughed. "Why, it couldn't save even the mighty Voltron from my magic! An insignificant mortal like you will be child's play! And once I'm finished with you, Voltron will be next! Without the sword to protect them, I'll destroy them once and for all!"

She then gestured dramatically with her staff, and streamers of lightning arced forth to fry Billy where he stood. He gripped the sword tightly, though, and the energy beams were deflected, as though by an invisible sphere. This was followed by a flurry of attacks from the staff, but Billy deflected them all off. The sword seemed to be swinging by itself, and Billy knew that somehow King Alfor was guiding his hands.

After the initial volley, Haggar slowly circled Billy, watching him carefully. "Interesting. The sword seems to work well with you, human. Your strength and its strength feed one another. You're more like Alfor than I thought."

"If you want to surrender, now would be the right time," Billy offered.

As expected, this earned him another round of cackling. "Surrender?! To a stripling like you?!"

"Your spells can't harm me! Call off your attack!"

"I don't need my spells to harm you, boy!" Haggar shrieked. "GUARDS! TAKE HIM!"

Then, from all sides, demon-faced robot warriors materialized, murder in their glowing red eyes. These were much larger versions of the robots that piloted the claw-fighters, and each one looked strong enough to break Billy in two.

"That sword won't help you now!" the witch laughed. "Prepare to meet your doom!"

"I don't need the sword for the likes of them!" Billy shouted back. He quickly transferred the blade to his left hand, then with one fluid motion brought the rocket rifle from his right shoulder to his hand, braced the stock against his shoulder, and fired a rocket into the nearest robot, blowing it to fragments. Spinning in a full circle, he launched three more missiles at onrushing attackers, then dodged and rolled to one side, never taking his grip from either rifle or sword. One managed to graze him with a kick, but he rolled with it and blew away the attacker once he gained his ground. Soon he had launched his last rocket, so he chucked the rifle and drew his laser pistol, using the last of its battery power to finish off the remaining robots.

As he did, though, Haggar was up to something. Once the final robot was dealt with, he looked around to see not one but many witches, a dozen or more, now circling him. "Which one, fool?" they said in unison as they flew in a circle around him, their feet not touching the ground. "Which one is the real witch?"

"Let's find out!" Billy replied. Tossing aside his drained pistol, he again took the sword in both hands and charged the outside of the circle, hacking at one of the grinning witches. His swipe passed clean through it, though, and only served to make the image split into two more. They were spinning around him so crazily that he quickly lost track of the two, so he took another swipe, and ended up with another pair of images for his trouble.

Only then did he fully realize that he was outmatched here. Haggar was the mastermind behind the destruction of Arus and probably countless other worlds. What could one powerless Power Ranger do to defeat her?

Nothing, it seemed, except keep her busy, as Klank had suggested. After all, Klank was sacrificing himself in the name of his fallen Empire. Could Billy do any less for his world?

~*~

He had never entertained notions of immortality. Even a free-willed machine had to come to terms with the idea that someday, somehow, something would prove stronger, and that would be the end. Klank was not an terribly introspective sort by nature, but he had given some thought to the idea of how he would like to meet his end, once it came.

This was, he thought to himself, the right way to go, in one last defiant gesture (preferably an obscene one) at the witch who'd destroyed his beloved Empire. His only regret was that his action came too late to save the royal family. But he'd seen what the witch had done to them. There was no recovering them from that.

The countdown marched on. It was now past the point where his automatic override would have kicked in, but the Ranger had taken care of that.

Klank had to admit (in a charitable mood brought on by his impending demise) that he almost liked the lad, as the two of them had been counterparts in the battles between the Empire and the Power Rangers. Behind the scenes, lacking much power on their own, but building and plotting and helping their leaders to keep up the fight. Klank even found himself hoping the Ranger would indeed manage to slay the witch and escape.

But he'd have to do it very soon. Time was nearly up. There was just enough left to do one last service-within-the-service for the royal family, for poor Orbus, and for himself.

In the heart of the reactor room, Klank began to sing.

~*~

Billy scampered to his feet and charged the witch in her moment of distraction, but before he could bring up the sword to attack, a blur of blue shot out of the darkness and attached itself to his head, the force of its impact literally knocking him sideways. Billy heard a bestial yowl as the witch's blue cat gripped his helmet, digging in with all four claws. He tried to shake the creature off, but it clung to him like a burr, and to his shock, its claws began to slice through the visor of his helmet. If it were to claw through, he'd be exposed to the outside environment, and he doubted he'd survive that long.

But no amount of grappling or tugging could pull the cat off his helmet. He spun crazily around the throne room in his efforts to dislodge the feline, but the harder he pulled, the harder it hung on. Soon, his flight suit monitors were screaming out alerts as the claws all but pierced the visor.

He had a sudden flash of inspiration, then immediately hated himself for it, but this was a life or death circumstance. He scanned his surroundings for the closest wall, turned, and charged it head-first, as fast as he could.

"NO!" the witch screamed from somewhere behind him, just before his helmet collided with the wall.

There was a sickening twisting crunch sound, accompanied by a blinding flash of pain from the impact. Billy rolled to one side, maintaining his grip on the sword while using his other hand to strip what was left of the cat from his helmet and fling it away. He was still seeing stars, but at least he hadn't cracked the helmet.

When his vision cleared, Haggar was standing over him, her staff gripped with both hands, eyes ablaze with fury. "Blast you, you meddling fool! First the reactors, and now my precious pussycat! Do you know, insect, how long it will take me to find another familiar to take his place?"

"My heart bleeds," Billy shot back.

"Oh, it will, boy!" she hissed, rearing back with the staff and preparing to drive one sharpened end of it right into his chest.

Time went into slow-motion. Billy saw the point of the staff descending upon him, and brought up the sword to defend himself. It was a wild swing at best, as Billy was still nothing more than a novice with the blade, but again, there seemed to be something guiding his hand. Slowly but surely he saw the edge cleaving through the air, leaving a trail of electrical sparks as it swept through its arc and sliced the witch's staff in two.

Next came an explosion of such force that Billy was swept across the hall and dumped out onto the observation deck. Even the anti-magic properties of the sword couldn't hold back this destructive outpour of pure magical power, but it did blunt the waves of energy enough to keep Billy from being blown clear out into space.

When the blast finally died down, Billy struggled to pick himself up off the deck, but something kicked him in the head and sent him sprawling. When he looked up, there again was Haggar, all but afire with rage. "Do you have any idea what you've done, brat?!"

"Stripped you of your power, I'll bet," Billy replied with all the defiance he could muster.

"Not quite, you miserable piece of filth! You may have killed my familiar and broken my staff, but I still have enough power to escape! Which is more than I can say for you! Enjoy your victory for these few moments, Power Ranger, for they will be your last! And as for your friends, I have already taken steps to ensure that my defeat will be avenged! You haven't heard the last of Haggar!"

And then, after the volley of cliches, she was gone, vanishing in a burst of acrid smoke, leaving only her evil laughter in her wake.

Billy wasted no time in getting to his feet and charging back into the throne room. Something had gone wrong, obviously. If Klank had indeed blown the reactors, this place should have been vaporized by now, but obviously this was not the case.

"Empress!" came a small voice from a half-melted computer terminal nearby. "Empress, come in! There was an explosion in the reactor chamber, and the cooling systems have been destroyed! We're minutes away from a reactor core breach, and we can't stop it!"

That was all Billy needed to hear. He sheathed the sword quickly and ran for it, retracing his steps through the palace, back down toward the ground level. He had a long way to go to reach his ship, and the most literal of deadlines looming over him should he not make it in time.

As he ran, he gave a silent apology to Klank. Even as the robot had failed to directly destroy the reactors, Billy had failed to keep the witch from escaping. But at least he'd managed to disrupt most of her power base. And at least Klank had ensured that the material resources of the Machine Empire would not be around for the next would-be emperor.

Only then did it occur to him that with the witch's power gone, the magical shield would likewise have vanished, and one or more of the Voltron lions might be tempted to come in and investigate. He needed to do something about that, and quickly.

~*~

"I can give you a one-minute boost of power to the sword, but it'll weaken the shields!" Bulk called from below.

"Then we'll just have to make our best defense a good offense," Adam replied. "Give me the boost!"

Bulk complied, and Jason felt the power flowing through Voltron's right arm, to focus upon the shimmering blade of the sword. "Looking good, team! How's our bogey doing?"

"He looks confused!" Kat reported. "He's stopped his charge!"

Jason brought his attention to his scanners, and saw that Mondo had indeed slowed his charge, and was holding position, his remaining limbs twitching violently.

"Guys, I'm reading a huge disturbance on the main base!" Aisha called in. "It's even bigger than the last explosion!"

"It's distracting him!" Trini shouted. "His guard's down!"

Jason didn't relish the thought of striking down a defenseless foe, but this was a fight for the future of his entire planet, and his own personal sense of honor was wearing a little thin. "Bring us in! Adam, he's yours!"

Voltron charged, but before they could reach sword range, Mondo snapped out of his trance, faced the onrushing robot, and raised his arms to block the downward swipe of the blade. The Machine King's right arm was sliced neatly in half, but he had deflected the blow from his body, and brought his left arm around to slam into Voltron's midsection. Alarms went off on Jason's control panel as the Black Lion's hull shook, but Adam did not pause. Voltron spun in a complete three-sixty to gain momentum, then Adam cleaved through Mondo's torso with the Blazing Sword.

The Machine King went up in a spectacular fireball, buffeting Voltron and driving them backward toward the Earth's atmosphere. Jason quickly regained control and righted their flight. "Nice one, Adam!" he congratulated the Red Lion pilot.

"I'm restoring power to the shields," Bulk called. "Should we keep the sword running?"

"Until we know where Machina got to, I think we'd better," Trini suggested.

"I'm with you there," Jason agreed. "Zeo MegaZord, are you guys okay?"

"We're coming up on you now," Tommy replied through the comlink. "We were a little shaken by that explosion, but there was no further damage."

"Good deal. Kat, I need a full scan for...."

"I've got a faint signal coming in!" Aisha interrupted. "It's from the Skybase!"

"Patch it through!" Jason replied.

There was a deafening squeal from the comlink, making Jason wince, but it quickly resolved itself into a voice. "—peat! This is Billy, calling Vol— Force! Come in, —tron Force!"

"Billy, it's Jason! I read you, man! Where are you?"

"Still on the Skybase!" Billy shouted back. There was something wrong with his voice: he sounded like he was in the process of running a marathon. "What's your status?"

"We just took out a couple of robeasts, but there's still another one out there! Are you okay?"

The sound of an explosion followed, accompanied by a surprised cry from Billy. "Billy, come in!" Kat shouted. "Are you okay?"

"This place is falling down around my ears!" Billy shouted. "Listen, guys, the reactors are overheating, and they're going to blow at any moment! Don't come anywhere near here! Stay away from the satellites, too!"

"What about you?!" Adam cried.

"I'm trying to get back to my ship! Don't worry about me! Just stay away from here!"

"That's not good enough, Billy!" Jason disagreed. "Give us your position, and we'll airlift you out of there!" Even as he said it, he plotted a new course, sending them toward the Skybase at maximum speed. The MegaZord fell into place behind them, matching their velocity.

"Look, this is serious!" Billy yelled into his comlink. "I'm talking about an explosion that's going to vaporize everything within about fifty miles, and a chain reaction that'll blow every satellite in orbit! Stay out of the way! There's no sense in risking all of you when I've got a perfectly functional ship parked less than a quarter of a mile away!"

Jason took a moment to confer with his teammates. "I'm going in. If any of you want to bail, let me know now!"

"I think we stand a better chance joined up," Trini replied.

"We'd better make it quick," Aisha said next.

"Let's go," Adam said, simply.

"Kat?" Jason called.

"Do you need to ask?" she said in a low, determined voice.

"Works for me," Jason nodded. He then switched over to contact Billy's frequency. "Sorry, little bro, but you've just been outvoted." He cut the transmission before Billy could reply, and switched back to communications within Voltron itself. "I need full scans from Blue and Yellow Lions as we come in. Home in on his communicator frequency, and we'll dive in and get him. Bulk, Skull, if either of you two want to bail, now's the time to hit the escape capsules."

"Let's just do like the lady said and make it quick, okay?" Skull said over his shoulder. Jason could hear the fear in his voice, but he wasn't getting up from his station. Bulk said nothing, but he likewise remained at his station, patching into the Blue Lion's scanners.

"Approaching Skybase," Jason said, mostly to himself, as he watched the base draw closer. The surface of the base was an inferno, with explosion after explosion erupting from the machine structures. Billy wouldn't be able to survive that for long. "Give me some good news on those scans, guys!"

"I can't pinpoint his position," Aisha reported. "His signal keeps fading in and out, and that place is putting out a lot of interference!"

"Blue Lion might as well be blind," Kat said, frustrated. "I can't pick anything out on the surface through all that chaos!"

"I'm taking us in for a flyby over the surface!" Jason called. "I want all scanners open wide, and let's see what...."

"Incoming!" Bulk shouted from below, and then the world spun around them.

Something came up out of the fire, grabbed Voltron by the right leg, and slammed them into the surface of the Skybase. Jason didn't even need to look at the scanners to know that it was the other robeast. It had retreated to here, laying in wait where their scanners could not detect it, and blindsided them. The Blazing Sword went flying out of reach as they were thrown bodily to the ground. Something exploded beneath them, and for a moment, Jason was robbed of his senses, much less control of the giant robot.

He quickly shook off the pain and tried to get them off the surface, but something had Voltron by the foot. Another alarm was blasting in Jason's ears, and over this sound came Bulk's shouting voice. "Hull breach! We've got a hull breach!"

"Then we've got to close it off!" Jason shouted back. "Where is it?!"

Bulk did not answer, so Jason repeated his question. "Come on, man, where is it?!"

"The cockpit of the Blue Lion," Bulk said, quietly.

Jason felt his heart in his throat. "Kat, come in!" he shouted. "Kat, do you read?!"

~*~

"There's too much interference!" Zack said, shaking his head. "I've lost all contact with them!"

"We've got to help them!" Kim insisted. "They're caught!"

Tommy nodded slowly as he saw Voltron struggle to get up, only to be thrown down by the former Machine Queen, still holding the head of the Blue Lion in a vise grip. "Rocky, Tanya, how are we looking? If we go in, how much good can we do?"

"We're going to have to burn a lot of power on defense just to hold off the radiation," Rocky reported. "Billy wasn't kidding about that meltdown!"

"We won't be able to use the saber," Tanya added. "I'll cut as many corners as I can, but we'll probably only have time for one good shot."

"Do it," Tommy nodded. "I'm bringing us in for a flyby, and engaging the Zeo I Battle Helmet! Kim, on my word, you and I hit her with everything we've got!"

"Let's make it count!" she replied.

Tommy fired the thrusters and plotted the trajectory for a diving assault, hoping to disable the arm that was holding the Blue Lion long enough for Voltron to get back off the ground. His instruments flashed innumerable warnings as they drew closer to the surface, but he ignored them. They only had one chance at this.

"On my mark," he repeated, drawing his own weapons in on the target site. "Go for the arm! Ready... FIRE!"

They opened fire with their remaining weapons, drilling into Machina's chassis and causing several explosions, but the hand holding Voltron did not unclench. Cursing, Tommy pulled up out of the power-dive and started speeding them back into space.

"Oh, geez!" Zack said, suddenly.

"What is it, man?" Tommy demanded.

"She's throwing something at us!" Zack cried. "It looks like a fan!"

Tommy checked his own viewer to see that Machina had unfurled her customary metallic fan with her free hand. But the fan, like the rest of her, had been changed, becoming a weapon. Tommy could only watch as she threw the fan, sending it spinning after them faster than they could retreat.

"Brace for impact!" Tommy shouted.

The fan struck the MegaZord's midsection and cleaved straight through, barely breaking momentum as it all but cut them in two. Tommy was thrown forward in the cockpit and slammed face-first into his instrument panel, which then exploded beneath him. The last he sensed before he blacked out was the bitter taste of blood in his mouth and the surprisingly distant cries of his teammates. Then there was nothing at all.

~*~

There were other voices now, off in the distance, but none of them belonged to Billy.

"Kat, come in! If you can hear me, please say something!"

"I found her! Vital signs are positive, but I can't tell if she's awake or not!"

"We need to keep trying, then!"

"Let me handle that! You guys concentrate on getting us outta here!"

She recognized the second voice first. It sounded like Bulk, but more serious and stressed than she'd ever heard him. The other was a newer voice... _Jason,_ she thought.

"Kat, this is Bulk," came the second voice again, confirming its identity. "I don't know if you can hear me or not, but listen up. You've been pulled out of the cockpit by an automatic system. Just before you were breached, it automatically sealed your suit and pulled your chair out of that section."

Jason's voice came again. "Bulk, is she still in the head? If we can get her into the body, we could jettison the head if all else fails."

"If I'm reading this right, she's still somewhere in the head," Bulk said, but he no longer seemed to be talking to her. "She should have been pulled into the body, but there's some kind of blockage in the tunnel! I think it might have collapsed when she got grabbed!"

"Then we'll need to wake her up and get her to teleport out!" Jason replied. "Keep trying!"

Kat wanted to say something to let them know she was, in fact, awake, but she could not find her voice, nor for that matter could she find any sensation in her limbs. She needed to reach her wrist unit, as they said, but she could not seem to move her arms.

Then, gradually, she realized that she was being held in her pilot's chair by a series of restraints which had apparently come down around her when she was yanked out of the cockpit. The reason she could not move her arms was that they were clamped to the armrests.

She was stuck in pitch blackness with no way to teleport out. Katherine tried to scream, but even that was denied her.

~*~

"Is everyone okay?" Tanya asked.

"I think so," Kim winced.

"I think Tommy's out cold," Zack reported, reaching across the small space to check on their leader. "He's breathing, but that's about it. Is it safe to take off his helmet?"

"Don't," Tanya replied, shaking her head. "Just lean him forward so he won't choke on anything. Rocky, how come you haven't said anything yet?"

"Just waiting my turn," Rocky said through clenched teeth. "I think my right arm's broken. I can't move it."

"Can one of you guys get a fix on where we are?" Tanya asked.

Rocky clumsily attempted to get a reading, using his left hand on the control keys. The forward viewer came up, showing a swirl of stars passing at high speed.

"We're drifting," Zack said, quietly.

"No, look!" Tanya said, pointing at the monitor. As they watched, the Skybase crossed their field of view from bottom to top. A few seconds later, it did so again, giving them a brief view of Voltron and Machina, still tangled up at the surface.

"Okay, so we're tumbling," Zack corrected himself. "That's not much better."

"There has to be something we can do," Tanya insisted. "Can we route the thruster controls to another station?"

Rocky checked on this. "No. There aren't any controls to route. All thruster systems are down, and there's not enough power for self- repair."

"How about radio?" Tanya asked Zack. "Can we put out an S.O.S.?"

"No," Zack replied, checking his own controls. "Looks like they're all fried, too."

Tanya paused to take a deep breath. "This is starting to sound like Apollo 13. So what have we got that does work?"

There was a long pause as each of them went through their own control systems. Rocky spoke first. "Life support is still working, and so are the radiation screens."

"That's good news," Tanya nodded.

"Yeah, but there ain't much else," Rocky went on, his voice becoming more edged with pain as he worked around his broken arm. "That fan nearly sliced us in half, and there's no contact with any of the lower sections. We can't even separate into the five zords until that gets fixed, and that's not an option."

"The Battle Helmet is still engaged," Kimberly added. "I've still got firing control to that, but it looks like all the power's being used for other systems."

"Communications are completely shot, like I said," Zack finished. "But we still have our visual scanners giving us the picture."

"That doesn't give us much," Rocky said, stating the very obvious.

"Maybe, but..." Tanya began, but then trailed off as she stared at the display.

"What's up, Tanya?" Kim asked her.

"I've got an idea," Tanya replied, quietly.

~*~

Voltron rose up from the surface of the Skybase and tried to rocket away, but the robeast maintained a firm grip on their foot: the head of the Blue Lion. The foot-thrusters from the Blue Lion were severely damaged as well, and even with the Yellow Lion pouring out maximum power, they could not budge. Machina was clamped to the surface with both feet, and was holding them with one extended arm, showing no signs of weakening.

"Why isn't she attacking?" Aisha asked. "We're sitting ducks!"

"She doesn't need to!" Trini replied. "She just needs to hold us here until the reactor goes!"

"We need to get Kat out so we can ditch the head!" Jason shouted. "Bulk, is there any way to get her out of there?"

"I'm trying to find one!" Bulk replied.

The next voice, to Jason's surprise, was Kat's. She sounded distant and strained, but it was her. "Jason, I can't move! All my restraints are on, and I can't reach my teleporter!"

"Hang in there, Kat, we'll get you loose! Adam, Trini, I want you to fry that thing with your lion torches! Try to get her to let go, but don't torch too close to Kat!"

"Jason, you have to leave me here!" Kat exclaimed. "Just get Billy away!"

"Not acceptable, Kat!" Jason replied. "Bulk, try to find a way to override the controls to her pilot's chair and disengage the restraints!"

"I'm looking, I'm looking! Skull, give me a hand with this!"

~*~

After a few moments, something did finally move. The something in question was Alpha 5, who had just completed a full reboot. "Ay yi yi!" the diminutive robot shrieked, turning around in circles as power coursed through its limbs again. "All systems functioning within normal parameters! Power blockage has been negated!"

Alpha hurried to the controls of Zordon's stasis tube and began pressing buttons frantically. "Ooooh, Zordon, please be there!"

After a pause, the customary bluish light filled the tube, and Zordon's face gradually materialized. He looked groggy, but unharmed. "It is good to see you are still functional, Alpha," Zordon intoned. "I feared that the power block may have destroyed you."

"What was it, Zordon?"

"It felt like a strong magical field, the likes of which I have never encountered. Quickly, Alpha, find the Rangers!"

Alpha scurried over to a convenient scanner and checked the display. "Ooooh! Ay yi yi! Zordon! The Machine Skybase is coming apart, and the Zeo MegaZord is badly damaged! It's drifting toward the atmosphere!"

"Are the Rangers alive, Alpha?"

"I'm getting five positive life signs aboard the MegaZord, but they won't survive re-entry if we don't bring them back!"

"Then you must do so. Teleport the Rangers to the Power Chamber, and teleport the MegaZord to the holding bay."

"I can't!" Alpha cried. "Ay yi yi! Teleportation circuits are not yet functional!"

"Restore them as quickly as you can, Alpha," Zordon ordered "We may already be too late!"

~*~

"Sure thing," Zack nodded, typing at his console. The view changed, and the next time the battle scene passed by, they could pick out details. Voltron was spaceborne, but still being held from escape by Machina. Just as quickly, the view passed by, then reappeared, then passed.

"Kimberly, bring up the crosshairs for the Battle Helmet cannon," Tanya told her teammate.

"Got it," Kimberly complied, bringing the targeting graphic to the screen.

"There, do you see?" Tanya said, excitedly. "We're not just tumbling, we're rotating. Every time we spin, the crosshairs get just a little closer to where they're being held. If we can time it just right, we can take another shot at the arm that's holding onto them!"

"Great, but we don't have any power for the gun," Rocky observed.

"Not now, we don't. But if we route all power, and I mean all power into one shot, it might be enough. That means shutting down life-support, shutting down radiation screens, and leaving just enough to keep the viewer working long enough for Kim to fire the cannon."

"Shut down life-support?" Zack parroted.

"We'll still have all the protection of our armor," Tanya pointed out. "That'll last us a while."

"But that won't be enough to get us through re-entry," Rocky told her. "Then again, I don't think we have enough power to survive re-entry regardless."

"Then we've got nothing to lose and everything to gain," Tanya insisted. "If we can get them loose, they can save us. We can have one of our communicators put out a distress signal, and hope that they can hear it and come get us. Look, we're running out of time! They'll pass out of range soon!"

"Okay, let's do it," Rocky nodded. "If we can do anything to get them loose, I say we try."

"Kim, can you make a shot like that?" Zack asked.

"I can try," she said, nervously.

Zack paused, then shook his head. "Fine. Let's do it."

Tanya was already at work at her console, re-routing all the power she could get her hands on. Soon, the lights went down, and an eerie silence settled over the cockpit. The only illumination now was from the forward viewer and Kimberly's gun controls.

The battle scrolled past again, then again. The magnified view showed the crosshairs passing closer and closer to the arm that held Voltron. "Two or three more passes," Tanya whispered. "We know you can do it, Kim."

"Here goes," Kim said, quietly.

The perfect shot came into the crosshairs, and Kimberly fired. Before the Rangers could even see whether or not the shot hit home, however, they vanished in a series of teleportation beams.

~*~

"A shot came out of nowhere and blew her hand clean off!" Adam reported. "It must have been the MegaZord!"

"She's coming after us!" Aisha warned.

"We can worry about her later," said Jason. "Jason to Billy! Come in! Give us your position, man, we're coming to get you out of there!"

After a few seconds, Billy's voice came over the communicator. "What, are you guys still here?! Did you think I was kidding?! Get away from here, NOW!"

"Billy, we can't leave you!" Adam shouted.

"You have to! I'm nearly to my ship! GO!"

"Just tell us where you are!" Jason demanded.

Billy paused, then shouted his reply for all he was worth. "Seth, get them out of there, now! As a Maker, I a ordering you to get them to safety!"

And then, immediately, Jason's controls went dead, and Voltron began fleeing from the Skybase with all available speed. Machina followed them for a moment, then turned tail and headed straight back for her collapsing fortress.

"I've lost all controls!" Jason shouted.

"Automatic systems have taken over!" Skull yelled over his shoulder. "All five lions have gone to automatic pilot! We're locked out!"

"Billy, NO!" Katherine screamed.

~*~

Now Billy had to see about saving himself, which meant sprinting two hundred yards across the flaming tarmac and hoping that Crow was still there. He wasted no time in doing so, diving forth into the chaos. Entire buildings went up in flames around him, but he did not break momentum.

To his amazement, Crow had not even been touched in his absence, and had miraculously been missed by any and all shrapnel from the explosions. He quickly popped open the canopy, vaulted in, and closed it behind him.

Before he could warm up the engines, though, his console lit up with the message, "RADIOACTIVE MATERIAL DETECTED. STAND BY FOR DECONTAMINATION."

"Can't we do this later?!" Billy shouted at his controls. The cockpit pressurized quickly, and the air became charged as the radioactive particles clinging to Billy's suit were neutralized. Billy began warming the engines as quickly as he could, buckling on his restraints as he did.

Then the ground shook beneath him. Craning his neck around to look over his shoulder, he saw, to his horror, that the robeast that had once been Queen Machina had landed not twenty yards away, and seemed to be looking for him.

Takeoff was going to be tricky as it was. Only the front support strut was left, which at least meant that his nose was pointed skyward. He had hoped to have a chance to do this carefully, but Machina's appearance made caution take a back seat to desperation. As soon as the engines came online, Billy gunned them, and Crow launched crazily from the surface, spinning out of control. Billy fought with the unresponsive controls until his one remaining stabilizer brought him to a level flight path, and he sped away from the Skybase, not knowing, nor caring, in which direction he was heading. Machina, to his disquiet, was following.

And then, behind him, the Skybase went nova. A shockwave of brilliant white energy erupted forth from the vaporized base, expanding in a fiery sphere of destruction.

It didn't take long for Billy to realize that the shockwave was catching up with him, and he had Crow's abused thrusters firing well past safe levels as it was. Through his rear viewer, he watched as Machina was overtaken and consumed by the wave, which continued on unabated after devouring her.

He just plain wasn't going to make it. The wall of brilliance drew closer and closer, but he kept the thrusters firing in a last desperate hope.

"Kat," he said again, quietly. "Oh, Kat, I'm sorry...." Then the wave overtook him, and his senses were lost to the brilliance.

Kimberly's face then appeared in his field of vision. "Zordon, he's awake!" she called over her shoulder, then looked back to him with an expression filled with concern. "How do you feel?"

"Not too bad, I guess," he grimaced, sitting up on the medical cot. He took a look around to see that the other Rangers were here as well. Kimberly was keeping watch at his side, Tanya was at the main control panel, and Rocky, stripped to the waist, was being tended to by Zack and Alpha for what appeared to be a broken arm.

Seeing Alpha in motion clicked together with what Kimberly had just said, and Tommy looked over at Zordon's stasis tube to see his mentor's concerned face looking down at him. "I am glad to see that you are not severely injured, Tommy."

"Zordon?!" Tommy exclaimed. "You're okay? What happened?"

"The spell holding myself and Alpha has been disrupted," Zordon explained.

"As soon as they found us, they teleported us back here," Kimberly went on.

"What about the others?" Tommy asked. "Did they get loose? Did they find Billy?"

"Tanya's looking for them now," Kimberly sighed.

On cue, Tanya spoke up. "I found them!" she called. "They're retreating from the Skybase, and it looks like they're heading for home!"

"AwRIGHT!" Zack cheered. "Looks like it was a good shot after all, Kimmie!"

"Thanks," Kimberly smiled, softly, "but I never could have done it without Tanya."

"Uh, guys, there's something happening at the Skybase," Tanya interrupted. "I'm putting it on the main screen."

The largest monitor came to life just in time for the Rangers to see the Skybase explode. The entire Power Chamber was flooded with light, and Tommy had to shield his eyes from the sudden brilliance.

"Ho-lee smoke," Rocky whispered.

"Looks like the bad guys are toast," Zack said, stating the very obvious.

"They did it," Tommy nodded. "They actually took out the entire Skybase."

"That's not all," Tanya pointed out. "Check out the holo-globe."

Tommy pushed himself off the medical cot, assisted by Kim, and they joined the rest of the Rangers and Alpha around the holographic projection of the Earth and the surrounding forces. One by one, the satellite bases were lighting up and then fading away, starting with those closest to the Skybase and then continuing in both directions around the Earth. Kimberly slipped one hand into Tommy's, and he held it tightly.

"We won," Rocky said quietly, sounding as though he still couldn't believe it.

Tommy looked down at Kimberly, whose face was a mix of emotions warring between elation, disbelief and concern. She put her arms around him, and they held each other tightly as the last satellites flared up and died.

"How soon before the others get back?" Zack asked, breaking the silence. "I think we've got us a victory celebration coming!"

Tanya went back to the main console and started typing away at the controls. "I can't raise them on communications," she said. "They're coming into the atmosphere now. It looks like they're still under pilot control, but for some reason they're not answering our transmissions."

"Put them on the main viewer, Tanya," Zordon suggested.

"You got it," she nodded, working the appropriate controls. The image of Voltron appeared on the main screen, descending quickly through the atmosphere. The mighty robot showed obvious damage from its battles, but was still in one piece.

Then, as they watched, that changed. Once they had passed the initial stage of re-entry and slowed to make their final approach, the humanoid form broke up into five segments — two arms, two legs and body — and each of these re-formed into a lion ship: one black, one red, one green, one blue, and one yellow.

"Incredible," Zordon said in a quiet, amazed voice.

"What do you mean?" Zack asked.

"Rangers, you are witnessing the work of King Alfor of the planet Arus. I knew him many centuries ago, when he had created the first of his lion ships. He shared with me his dream of five lions uniting into an unstoppable robotic warrior. His dream was the inspiration for the first zords, and I created the Sabretooth Tiger zord in the image of his lions, to honor his work. To see them defending the Earth in the company of the Power Rangers is...." He trailed off, unable to finish the thought.

The five lions spiralled closer, and gradually came in to land in a circle around the Power Chamber. The external cameras took in the sight of the five lions at rest, and of the awestruck crowds still surrounding the mountain.

"Alpha," Zordon called, "find the other Rangers and teleport them here. You are all to be congratulated on a job well done."

"I'm detecting seven communicator signals," Alpha reported. "Teleporting now!"

Seven beams of grey formed at the far end of the Power Chamber, and soon resolved into the figures of Jason, Adam, Trini, Katherine, Aisha, Bulk and Skull. In spite of his pounding head, Tommy was across the room in a flash to embrace his best friend. "Jason, you're okay!"

"Yeah," Jason said, and Tommy was surprised to see tears in his friend's eyes. "Yeah, I guess we are."

Tommy turned to look for Katherine, but she was already striding across the room, toward the main controls. To his surprise, she almost literally shook Kimberly and Tanya off as she continued single-mindedly in her path.

It was then that Tommy took a mental head-count and realized there should have been eight of them. "Where's Billy? Isn't he with you?"

Jason shook his head slowly, and Tommy felt a cold clenching in his guts. "He was still on the Skybase. He... ordered the lions to take us away, and they did."

"He might have gotten away in time, though," Trini added, coming over to put her hand on Jason's shoulder. "He said he was close to his ship."

"Yeah, maybe," Jason whispered, but he didn't sound like he believed it.

"I'll bet Katherine's checking it out now," Trini went on, refusing to let go of hope.

The other nine Rangers (and Bulk and Skull) slowly drifted across the Power Chamber to where Katherine and Alpha were still at work. Tommy couldn't help noticing that Kat looked terrible: her eyes were visibly red, her jaw was clenched, and she was working at a frantic pace. Around them, old friends who hadn't seen each other in the flesh for years were holding hands, hugging each other, and each of them waiting tensely for someone to say something.

Eventually, it was Zordon who did so. "Katherine, I am sorry, but there is no sign of Billy or his ship."

"That's not good enough!" Katherine snapped. "We have to keep looking! He's up there somewhere, I know he is!"

"Katherine," Zordon said, gently, "if Billy had survived the explosion of the Skybase, surely he would have contacted us by now."

"He might not be able to! He might be hurt, or...."

"Katherine," Zordon repeated, "I know this is difficult for you. It is no easier for me. We have heard nothing from Billy, and we cannot locate a signal from his communicator. We must assume that he did not survive."

"I'll assume no such thing! I can't believe you'd just give up on him like this!"

Seeing her in this state of agitation was just about all Tommy could stand. He'd never seen her like this, even in their darkest times. "Kat," he whispered, reaching to put his hand on her shoulder.

She shrugged the hand off, then went for her wrist unit. Before anyone could react, she teleported out in a flash of light.

"Alpha, see if you can find her," Tommy said, immediately.

"Katherine may need some time alone to come to terms with what has happened," Zordon said, softly. "I suggest we allow her that time."

"We'll be here when she needs us," Tanya whispered.

~*~

The cockpit was still in a state of near-complete chaos, including several gouges which opened the interior to the outside air. Self-repair systems seemed to be hard at work, though, beaming things back into place one component at a time.

She shifted herself off the actual pilot's chair and knelt before the main control panel. The main viewer had a crack all the way from the left side to the right, but it still appeared to be functional. She brought up a self-diagnostic of the ship to assess the level of damage.

As she feared, the lion was nowhere near spaceworthy. It had flown as a part of Voltron, and briefly through the Earth's atmosphere as a separate ship, but would not be ready to fly again with a pilot for several hours, minimum.

And if Billy were indeed adrift, or injured, or something even worse, several hours might be too late. Katherine tried to re-route the repair systems to work on sealing the cockpit and restoring controls, but she found herself locked out.

"Don't do this!" she shouted out in frustration. "I need your help! I can't find him alone!"

There was no answer to her angry outburst except the dull ache that had accompanied her since the lion's injury. "I need your eyes," Katherine went on. "Your scanners are more powerful than Zordon's. Maybe they couldn't find him, but you could!"

The screen suddenly changed before Katherine's eyes, showing a close-up schematic of the lion's head. All of the damaged systems showed up in flashing red, and Katherine realized that the main sensor array had been severely damaged by the robeast's attack. The Blue Lion was all but blind.

"Then fix those systems first!" Katherine insisted. "Just fix what you need to find him!"

There was no visible response to this. Repair systems continued with what they were doing, unaffected by her request.

"Listen to me!" she shouted, her voice filled with anger and desperation. "Billy spoke of you as a living thing. He told me he was entrusting you with my care. Now I'm asking you to think of his care! If you love him half as much as I do, please, help me find him!"

For a few seconds, nothing happened, and the only sound was Katherine's ragged breathing.

Then, the entire head began to move. Katherine looked up at the gaping holes in the bulkheads and saw clouds passing by overhead. Gradually, the motion stopped. The main viewer blinked off for a moment, then came back on with a forward view. There, looking back at her, was the face of the Yellow Lion, its eyes lit up a brilliant blue.

One of the four auxiliary screens came to life, showing an empty pilot's chair. Katherine realized that this screen was the view of the Yellow Lion's cockpit, currently unoccupied. A series of numbers appeared at the bottom of this screen, and Katherine recognized them immediately as coordinates.

She looked back at the Yellow Lion, which seemed to be staring straight through the monitor and into her mind.

"I understand," she whispered, reaching to set these coordinates with her wrist unit. Before she teleported, though, she took a deep breath and looked around her. "Thank you," she said to the Blue Lion, then vanished.

~*~

"You did what you could, man," Zack whispered.

"Why did he do it?" Jason went on, pausing to make a vain attempt to dry his eyes. "Why did he stop us?"

"Needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few," Bulk spoke up. All eyes turned to Bulk (except Adam, who had his head bowed over a computer console, staring fixedly at nothing), so he went on. "Come on, you know what I mean! He figured it was more important to save the seven of us than himself. Wouldn't you have done the same thing?"

"He's right, man," Tommy spoke up. "If that had been me down there, I wouldn't have wanted you anywhere near that base."

"What if you were in my place, then?" Jason snapped. "We were already there! We were so close! Just another thirty seconds, and we could have had him, and..."

"And then you could have all been dead!" Rocky snapped back.

"He should have at least let us try!"

Tommy grabbed Jason by the front of his uniform, spun him around, and pushed him into the nearest wall. "Stop it! None of us are blaming you, man! Nobody's blaming you except you! Now stop trying to shift that blame onto Billy and accept that there's nothing you could have done!"

Jason's face became a mask of fury at this accusation, but this anger just as quickly dissolved into pain, and he began to slowly sink to the floor, his legs no longer able to support him. Tommy and Trini knelt at his side as Jason's entire body was wracked by sobs.

For a long while, no one said anything, but then Alpha's high-pitched voice broke the relative silence. "Ay yi yi! Zordon! Rangers! The Yellow Lion is taking off!"

Tommy looked over at Trini, his eyes wide. "Kat?" he said.

"Probably," Trini nodded. "We didn't have time to take the keys out before we were teleported in."

Leaving Trini to look after Jason, Tommy crossed to where Alpha and several of the others were watching an image of the Yellow Lion going for altitude with all available speed. "Can you put us in contact, Alpha?" he asked.

"I'll try," Alpha answered. After a few moments at the controls, he nodded. "Channel open."

"Power Chamber to Yellow Lion," Tommy transmitted. "Come in, Yellow Lion."

"Don't try to stop me, Tommy." The voice was Katherine's, no question.

"Kat, come back! Don't go up there by yourself!"

"I'm not by myself," she replied. "I'll be back once I've found Billy." There was a short burst of static as she broke off contact.

Tommy cursed under his breath. "Alpha, try to get her back! Adam, are the other lions spaceworthy? We need to get her back down!"

A hand gently clasped his shoulder, and Tommy looked to his side to see Kimberly standing there, slowly shaking her head. "No, we don't. Let her go, Tommy. Whether or not she's right, she needs to do this. She'll come back."

Aisha nodded in accord. "She'll be safe. Yellow Lion's a good ship."

"Rangers," Zordon broke in at this point, "I'm afraid we have other matters with which to concern ourselves at present."

"More important than one of our own?" Tommy said to Zordon's floating image.

"Katherine's safety is, of course, important," Zordon replied, grimly, "but this is something that may compromise the collective safety, indeed the very existence, of the Power Rangers."

~*~

Katherine realized that her mouth was beginning to water in anticipation of the feeding that was to come, and she shook herself. "Not yet," she said, aloud. "Soon, though. We have something else to do first, remember?"

Yellow Lion's visual scanners were not nearly as acute as Blue Lion's, but they were good enough to get a bead on hundreds upon thousands of drifting fragments. She let her senses be taken by the lion's, and with this three-dimensional, all-around sight, she started watching for patterns of motion.

There was nothing at all where the Skybase had been, but the shockwave from its explosion had stirred up the wreckage something fierce, causing bits and pieces to drift away from the site in a slowly growing sphere. This would be a good place to start.

From her place in the pilot's chair, Katherine willed the enormous ears of the Yellow Lion to pivot outward from the head, and the receivers mounted inside these ears to activate. Katherine had hoped to look for Billy, but perhaps listening for him would work just as well.

"Okay, Toth," she whispered as she settled in her chair to listen. "Let's see what we can find."

~*~

"A transmission is being broadcast on several frequencies, in several languages, from a large number of sources in the upper atmosphere. I'm afraid it is already reaching the homes of thousands of people via television, and will no doubt reach many more."

"What is it?" Tommy asked.

"Observe the monitor," Zordon indicated.

The main viewscreen lit up with what at first looked like a test pattern: an image of a circle divided into five different-colored sections. Through the center of the circle, the words "A MESSAGE FROM THE POWER RANGERS" was inscribed in bold white letters.

"What the...?" Zack wondered aloud.

The image changed, then, to a view of their mountain base from the outside. A pleasant female voice began to speak. "To the nations and peoples of the planet Earth. We, the Power Rangers, have defeated the forces of the Machine Empire. The Earth is safe at last. We thank you for your cooperation in our continuing battle to bring peace to this world."

"Where's this coming from?" Tanya asked.

"As I said, it is being simultaneously broadcast from a large number of source-points in the upper atmosphere," Zordon replied.

"So it's not anything Billy did, is it?"

"No, Tanya. This message does not originate with any of the Power Rangers."

"Then where...?"

Zordon's face darkened. "That is what concerns me."

The voice went on, but the image changed to a battle scene, showing the five Zeo Rangers duking it out with a swarm of cogs. "For years we have defended the Earth anonymously, asking no reward for our services. We fight because it is the right thing to do, and we will continue to do so. However, we feel that we may no longer do so behind the anonymity of masks. We wish the world to know us for who we are."

"Oh, no...." Kimberly whispered, gripping Tommy's arm more tightly. A series of images followed, showing the Pink Ranger in action on the ground, the Zeo I Zord firing from the top of Mount Wilhelm, and then, to the horror of all, images of Katherine morphing and de-morphing. Then, to their continued shock, they heard Katherine's voice. "My name is Katherine Hillard, originally from Sydney, Australia, now living in Angel Grove, California. I am Zeo Ranger I, Pink."

Next came a similar set of images showing the Yellow Ranger, accompanied by Tanya's voice. "I'm Tanya Sloan, originally from Jacksonville, Florida, by way of Nairobi, Kenya. I'm Zeo Ranger II, Yellow."

"Can't we stop this?!" Tommy asked, watching the screen with wide eyes.

"I'm afraid not," Zordon replied. "It would be impossible to disrupt this many transmissions."

"My name's Rocky DeSantos," the monitor continued, in Rocky's voice. "I'm from East L.A., now living in Angel Grove with my friends. I'm Zeo Ranger III, Blue."

"My name is Adam Park, from Seoul, South Korea, now living in Angel Grove. I am Zeo Ranger IV, Green."

"I'm Tommy Oliver, from Joshua Tree, California, now in Angel Grove. I'm the field leader of the Power Rangers, and I'm Zeo Ranger V, Red."

Last came images of Billy, many of which involved him working with the computers in the Power Chamber. "And I'm Billy Mitchell, the leader of the Power Rangers. I'm originally from the Chicago area, but I've lived in Angel Grove for years, which is how I met the rest of the team."

After this, the unidentified female voice returned. "Many have wondered, over the years, who and what the Power Rangers were. We are happy to inform you that we are six of your own children, raised to respect and preserve life, and to fight for justice and goodness. And thankfully, we do not fight alone. We have our allies, not the least of which being our close friends Kimberly Hart, Farkus Bulkmeier, and Eugene Skullovitch."

Kimberly's name was accompanied by a view of her assuming the Pink power right there in the Power Chamber, as she had done days before, and the names of Bulk and Skull were accompanied by a silent clip of Billy briefing them for their mission, while Katherine watched with an amused expression.

"Smile, Bulkie," Skull said quietly. "We're on Candid Camera."

"And now, people of Earth," the voice continued, showing an image of their world as seen from space, "rejoice in this victory, rebuild that which has been lost, and rest assured that the Power Rangers are here to defend you from whatever menace may strike against us next. Message ends."

The screen went black, and for a long time, no one said a word. Jason, by this time, had calmed down enough to join the rest of them around the monitor, with Trini beside him. He, finally, broke the silence. "Do you think this came from the Machine Empire?"

"Probably," Adam said in a constricted voice. "They must have been recording us all along, preparing this to be their last revenge in case they lost."

"How'd they get your voices?" Kimberly asked.

"Recorded those, too," Tanya nodded. "If they got enough samples, they could probably put 'em together to say whatever they wanted us to say."

"So what happens now?" Rocky asked, simply.

The image of Zordon's head shook slowly from side to side. "I am not certain, Rangers. However, if I am not mistaken, we will know very soon."

~*~

Katherine listened carefully, opening her ears and her mind to the lion, allowing him to share it with her in a form she could comprehend: sound. They needed to sift through the sound, filtering out the static to find... what? In her own mind, that part which was still a nervous young woman, Katherine knew that she had no clue what she was after, but Toth had been certain he could help.

There had to be a pattern to the chaos somewhere. There had to be something that was more than just random signals picked up across the broad spectrum of EM waves "audible" to the lion. The lion's computers and Katherine's senses searched through the noise, trying to find just such a pattern.

After several sweeps of the spectrum in several directions, and in the midst of yet another, Katherine heard something vaguely familiar, and all but jumped out of her chair at the sound of it. "Go back! Quickly!"

There it was again! A low, rhythmic backbeat to the cacophony of noise. Something too regular to be a random signal. But it was all but lost amidst the other sources.

"Tighten it up! Filter everything out, and focus in on that pulse!" The sound coming over the cabin speakers grew more quiet by the second, and soon, only the rapid pulse remained. It was then that Katherine realized where she'd heard this before. It was almost exactly like Billy's echo signal that had reached the Power Chamber earlier!

"That's it!" she cried, excitedly. "It must be Billy's ship! We need to find the source!"

She took hold of the control levers and fired up the engines, using her tracking systems to lock in on the source of the transmission. Soon they had a location: a single source on a course for deep space amid a cloud of other debris.

A translation of the signal revealed that it was a distress beacon, too quiet to be heard by anything short of the Yellow Lion. Katherine's mounting sense of relief and joy was quelled, however, by the realization that this was an automatic beacon which only came on in the event of the pilot's incapacitation.

"Put it on screen," she whispered.

The forward viewer came up with a view of the hurtling debris, zooming in on the source of their signal: a scorched capsule-shaped hunk of metal. Katherine realized that it was Crow's fuselage: everything else had been melted off, but the main hull looked intact. Still, that was no guarantee that Billy had survived.

Katherine was out of her chair in a flash, hurrying down the steps and around the bridge to the airlock. "Bring it in, Toth! I'm on my way to the hangar!"

~*~

Before he could finish the question, Tommy was doubled over by a sudden wave of nausea, and when he shook it off, he discovered that the Zeo armor had vanished, leaving him in the clothes he'd been wearing back when the siege had begun. Looking to his side, he saw that Kimberly, too, was demorphed, and a quick scan of the Power Chamber revealed that Tanya and Rocky were also out of uniform. Zack, however, still wore the garb of the Green Ranger.

"What's happening?" Rocky gasped, still reeling from the shock. "Our powers!"

"Our morphers are gone!" Tanya added, trying in vain to summon her zeonizers to her wrists.

"It is then as I feared," Zordon sighed. "The power is lost to you."

"Lost to us?!" Tommy exclaimed. "How? Why?!"

"The vow has been broken," Zordon replied. "When you accepted your powers, one of the conditions was that your identities could never be revealed, except to a most trusted ally or friend, such as Tommy's brother David, or the Rangers of Aquitar, or even your new allies Farkus and Eugene. However, your identities are now known to countless thousands, and soon many more will hear of you."

"But that wasn't our fault!" Kimberly exclaimed. "We didn't reveal them to anyone! It was... those aliens!"

"I am truly sorry, Kimberly, but what matters is the result, and not the means."

"That's bunk!" Zack shouted. "How can you do this, Zordon?"

"Maybe you haven't been keeping up with current events, man, but we just saved the whole freakin' planet!" Rocky spat, his face twisted with fury. "And now you're gonna thank us by taking our powers away?! What kind of screwed-up logic is that?!"

"I understand your anger, my young friends, but you cannot deny that your identities have been compromised. I am not taking your powers from you: you are simply no longer capable of possessing them. Such is the nature of the Power."

"So we risk our lives and our sanity... and Billy dies," Adam said, his voice rising in pitch and volume as he went on, "and now we're not good enough for the Power?"

"I wish with all my heart that I could change this, Adam, but I cannot," Zordon replied. "What is done is done, and the nature of the power cannot be denied. I can only say that I deeply regret this unfortunate outcome."

Zack glared up at Zordon for a long while, then demorphed, stripped off the green zeonizers, and tossed them into the floor at the base of Zordon's column of light. "Yeah, you and me both, Z-man."

"I don't know about you guys, but I've heard enough," Tommy said, shaking his head at his friends. "Let's get out of here."

He put one arm around Kimberly, and together, they headed out of the Power Chamber, then up to the mountaintop exit. Adam followed, tailed closely by Rocky, and gradually, all of them fell in line, leaving the Power Chamber empty save for Alpha and Zordon.

As they began descending the mountain, Tommy noticed that the crowds had not thinned in the slightest with the arrival of the lions: several brave people were even checking the remaining robots out up close, though none seemed to have dared to try to find a way inside.

"Adam, why don't you give Zack your helmet?" Tommy suggested.

"What for?" Zack asked.

Tommy indicated the mass of people. "Well, with no power, we can't teleport, so it looks like we're going to have to go through them to get out of here. You, Jason, Trini and Aisha weren't mentioned in the announcement, so there's no sense in you showing your faces now."

"Why should we hide ourselves?" Jason asked. "We should be standing together."

"He's right, Jason," Trini nodded, putting her own helmet back on and bringing down the full-face visor. "We have our families to think about."

Jason nodded slowly and put on his helmet, as did Aisha, and Zack put on Adam's over his sweats. Tommy's ears rang with Trini's words. "Our families...." She was right, of course: theirs had not been the only lives put at risk by the Machine Empire's revenge.

A few kids wandering up the side of the mountain were the first to notice the group of them coming down the slope, and as they ran back to tell others, a considerable crowd began to gather in their path, including at least two news crews. Tommy felt Kimberly's arm tighten around his waist, and he paused a moment to look down into her eyes. She gave him a shadow of a smile, and nodded.

"Jason, do you think we could use Black Lion to fly us out of here?" Tommy asked over his shoulder.

"I don't see why not." Jason replied. "We should probably get all four of them away, if we can, then wait somewhere for Kat to come back."

"Then let's go and meet our public," Tommy nodded. They continued on, with Tommy and Kimberly in the lead, still holding one another tightly. Rocky, Tanya and Adam followed, then Jason and Trini, then Aisha and Zack, and lastly Bulk and Skull, bringing up the rear.

Tommy had half-expected a mob scene and a mass of questions, but the onlookers only stared at this procession of exhausted, bedraggled, somber teenagers. A path quickly cleared for them, and as they passed through, gasps and amazed whispers buzzed through the crowd, including the phrases "It's them!" and "Power Rangers!" and "They're real!" Obviously some of the campers had been watching on portable televisions when the revenge had come down, as the sounds sweeping the crowd were of awe and recognition. The news cameras were following them as they passed, but none of the reporters dared to approach them.

Then, above the hushed sounds of the crowd, someone began applauding.

Another pair of hands joined in, then another, and soon dozens more, until the hundreds of people who had gathered at the foot of the mountain were cheering the former Power Rangers as they passed by. Tommy kept his eyes front, realizing suddenly that if he looked at these very real people expressing their very real gratitude, he'd probably break down and start crying. It was one thing to anonymously save an anonymous world. This was something quite different.

The crowds did not follow them as they approached the towering Black Lion, but the news cameras remained trained on them. The eleven stopped at the feet of the great robot and paused to just quietly look at one another.

"Was it worth it?" Jason asked.

"To save the whole world?" Tanya asked in reply. "Of course it was."

"No, I don't mean that," Jason sighed, shaking his head. "I mean, being Power Rangers at all. It didn't have to be us. Don't get me wrong: it was the greatest honor I've ever been given in my life, but... was it worth it, to end this way?"

"I think it was," Tommy nodded. "And I think if Billy were here, he'd say the same."

"You're probably right," Jason sighed, looking down at his boots. Trini gripped his hand tightly, and he gave her a tiny smile.

"Where do we go now?" Skull asked at this point. "Assuming Bulkie and I are still invited, that is."

"Of course you are!" Aisha chided him, giving him a hug. "We're all in this together."

Tommy was mildly surprised at the warmth between those two, and apparently Bulk was, too, as he was staring at Skull with a puzzled expression. "We should go someplace where we can contact our families and get some rest," Tommy suggested. "Maybe...."

His words were drowned out by a low rumbling sound, and the ground beneath them began to tremble. As one, the group began looking around frantically for the source. It felt to Tommy as though it were coming from the mountain, but as he looked to the base, he saw the Blue Lion emerge from behind the peak, rocketing into the sky.

"Someone's stealing the Blue Lion!" Aisha shouted, pointing at the dwindling shape.

Tommy shook his head, which was suddenly buzzing inside. "No, it's not that... I think we're supposed to follow!"

"You're right," Jason nodded. "Come on, let's split up! Tommy, Bulk, Skull, we'll take Black Lion! Trini, you take Kim, Aisha and Zack in Green Lion! Adam, take Rocky and Tanya in Red Lion! Let's move!"

They scattered, but not before Kimberly gripped Tommy's hands and gave him a departing kiss. It didn't even occur to Tommy that he should protest this: Kimberly was needed with Green Lion, just as he was needed with Black Lion.

The Black Lion went into a crouch, until its head was only about ten feet off the ground. A small hatch opened in the underside, and from this a ladder descended to them. Jason was the first up, but Tommy waved for Bulk and Skull to climb up before he did, so that he could watch the other groups heading for their lions. Once he was satisfied that they were well on their way, he followed the other three up the ladder and aboard.

~*~

She hunted along the seam for the access panel, but found it fused shut. Not wasting a moment, she drew her sidearm and used the beam-laser to cut the melted plate away and uncover the canopy release handle. Once this was done, she grabbed hold of the handle and yanked it as hard as she could.

After a few tense moments, Katherine was beginning to think that there had been no effect, but then a hissing sound came from the seam as it slowly opened, and a series of valiant servo motors began to raise the canopy. There was a sudden rush of air into the cockpit, and Katherine felt her breath catch in her throat: the inside of the ship had been a vacuum.

Finally, the canopy opened enough for her to fit her head and shoulders inside, so she did so. Inside, to her relief and horror, was Billy: the relief she felt simply at the sight of him, the horror because of the limp, boneless way he lay in his chair.

Moving with a drive and precision that astonished her, Katherine quickly released the complicated series of restraints which held Billy in his chair, and then bodily picked him up and lifted him slowly out of the cockpit, setting him down on the floor of the hangar beside his ravaged ship. The small amount of moisture in the hangar's false atmosphere had condensed into a fine layer of frost over his uniform and visor, and Katherine had to wipe it away with her gloved hand to see his face.

Upon first glance, he appeared to be dead. His skin was a dull, grey pallor, and his lips were blue. There was no sign that he was breathing.

Katherine reached to unfasten his helmet, but before she could do so, a strange feeling settled over her. No. Not yet. There was more she needed to do first.

Leaving Billy where he was, Katherine dashed over to one of the many supply cabinets that lined the hangar walls. She passed over the weapons storage, tool storage, and parts storage, and eventually zeroed in on the emergency medical equipment. This wasn't the first time a fighter pilot had returned to the lion in such a condition, she realized, and in times long passed, there would be a crew on hand for such an emergency.

She and Billy didn't have the luxury of a crew, but Katherine knew, nevertheless, that she was not alone in her efforts.

She grabbed an emergency resuscitation kit from the medical locker and hurried back to where Billy was lying. The first item she removed was a small black box with a five-pronged plug extending from one of its six faces. She found an access port on the side of his collar, near where it joined the helmet, and plugged the box in. It emitted a series of beeps, and then there was a hissing sound from inside the sealed environment of Billy's uniform. Katherine watched his face, and for the first time, noticed the deep gouges on the visor of his helmet. They looked a lot like cat-scratches.

At length, the hissing sound stopped, and the box emitted three short, rapid beeps. Some color had returned to Billy's face, but Katherine knew her work was not yet finished. She unplugged the box, and carefully reached to disconnect his helmet. This was not an easy procedure: it involved several successive unlatchings, and could only be accomplished by someone who knew where to look for them. When she was done, the visor first retracted slightly, then the helmet itself fully detached from the rest of the uniform. Katherine carefully removed it, then went back into her kit-bag and came up with a small breathing mask attached to a set of air tanks. She placed the mask over his mouth and nose and held it with one hand, while reaching into the pack with her free hand to pull out a semicircular component which she placed over Billy's forehead, the two ends of it resting over his temples.

She knew what was happening, by this time. The inner fuselage of the fighter craft was designed to take serious punishment, and had remained more or less intact when the Skybase had exploded. However, with no means of propulsion and little fuel to maintain internal functions, an automatic system had kicked in, placing Billy in a sort of suspended animation, depressurizing the cockpit and sending out the distress call which had caught the Yellow Lion's attention.

The three-step procedure Katherine now followed was meant to revive a suspended pilot after just such a rescue. However, the systems had originally been designed for the people of planet Arus, and while these people had to be very close to human considering the design of the lions, there was no guarantee that this procedure would work on Billy.

Katherine waited tensely while the neural stimulator continued its work, and then, suddenly, Billy took a deep breath through the air mask. The stimulator had restored autonomic reflexes first. Now it was up to the stimulator and the special mixture of gases in the air tanks to finish the job.

Finally, Billy's eyelids fluttered open, but his pupils were enormous and unfocused. Katherine removed the stimulator and the air mask, then positioned herself in front of Billy's staring eyes. "Billy? Can you hear me?"

He blinked a few times, licked his dry lips, and gradually, his eyes focused on her. After a few moments, he cleared his throat as best he could and spoke in a rough, scratchy voice. "Hello, Kat."

With a cry of relief and joy, Katherine pulled Billy into her arms and held him tightly. "You're alive!" she whispered, her voice breaking as her eyes filled with tears.

"Of course I am," he said. They broke a small amount, so that he could look into her eyes. "Do you think for a moment, Katherine Hillard, that I would be so rude as to die before we had a chance to talk again?"

"I think I know you better than that," she laughed, holding him to her.

"How did you find me?" Billy asked.

"Toth helped me," she smiled. "Alth was too hurt to fly, so Toth brought me to you."

Again, they broke slightly, and this time Billy gave her a look of surprise. "You know their names?" he asked.

She nodded. "Toth spoke to me, Billy. It was incredible. His voice was so much like yours...."

Before Billy could ask how this had happened, a voice came over the hangar speakers. "Black Lion to Yellow Lion. Kat, are you there?"

"I'm here, Jason!" she called back.

"Is everything okay up here?" Jason transmitted.

"Couldn't be better!" she laughed. "Are the others with you?"

"We're here, Kat!" Adam called. "The Blue Lion took off after you, and we followed!"

"Thanks, Alth," Billy said quietly.

"Well, I'm glad you're all here," Katherine called, "because I've got some really good news to give you...."