From The Ashes
by Cheryl Roberts

Chapter 12

All non-essential personnel were ejected from the lab. Behind closed doors, Marg, her son Ming and Zol worked on a woman who shouldn't have been alive.

Tommy and the others led Jamie to the conference room where they were met by Beys.

"The ships seem to be in a holding pattern; there is no observable activity either in ship movement or in communications," she said, having come from assisting Vlar at the monitor station.

"At least external communications are still functional," Brath sighed.

"What can you tell us about D'Ez?" Tommy asked.

"D'Ez the flesh shaper?" the former Pink Ranger reiterated. "Not much, never having served while he was still here. Jamie did not form his team until after he lost his mother. I can give you facts, but Marg or Jamie would be best for knowing about the man."

"Jamie is not exactly in any shape to talk at the moment, and Marg is kind of busy," Tommy said with a heart felt glance at his shell-shocked son.

"My poor baby," Kim sniffed, as affected by what they had seen as Jamie. "Poor D'Ez; he was such a gentle soul. He was brilliant and artistic and.... He had known Atir for centuries, but they weren't from the same homeworld. I'm not sure how they had met, but I think he may have been in love with her. I know he was devastated when she died.

"Sh!" Tommy hushed as he realized Beys was speaking. Kim had already admitted to not knowing what became of the kindly shaper, and it was something they seriously needed to know.

"According to the reports left by Kest, the Great Imbera's security chief, and the memories Jamie shared with us, Norzod's flagship was destroyed in the last skirmish above Threa. The Rangers had won or so they thought," Beys related. "There were many smaller ships escape pods to round up and dispose of. The Great Imbera did not want Norzod to escape."

"It's too weird hearing myself referred to as The Great Imbera," Kimberly murmured.

Beys went on, unaware that she had been interrupted. "Several of the smaller craft made it to the surface. Security forces from the Academy were dispatched to contain them. They did except for one vessel. They had lost it on radar because there was no power signature from the engines. It glided into the forest around the family compound."

"I was consulting with D'Ez," Jamie began haltingly, slowly recovering from his shock. "Ayn was due to deliver Twyn soon, and I needed to know if Twyn would need genetic alterations. Neither Nahl nor Rill had, but the possibility existed that she would be more human than Threan.

"We never knew what hit us. There was an explosion I was struck in the head by flying debris. My last memory was of a hulking armored figure striding through the smoke.

"I am uncertain how long I remained unconscious, but we were already on Norzod's asteroid base when I awoke. It was Norzod's not-so-gentle probing of me that roused me. My cries of pain felt by Mother through our link are what drew Mother and the others to the Atler system ultimately, to their deaths."

Jamie tried to fight through the anguish of his memories to continue. "I believed that D'Ez had been left behind, at best; at worst, I believed he had been killed. It was not until I returned that I learned he had been abducted as well. And I knew that if he had been taken to the asteroid with me, he was truly dead."

"He's been dead in mind since that day," Kim confirmed. "Oh, Tommy! The psychic scars I found...."

"What would Norzod have wanted him for?" Jamie asked bleakly. "D'Ez was a truly good soul."

"Maybe Norzod wanted his flesh shaping abilities for something," Tommy postulated.

"Why, when there were plenty of corrupt Groladians out there selling their skills to the highest bidder? How D'Ez detested them for perverting their gifts from their gods!"

"Perhaps it was simply revenge," Beys offered. "Had it not been for D'Ez, there would have been no Imbera to thwart him."

Before anyone could speculate further, the conference room door opened, and in walked Marg. The aged elf was pale, evidence of intense strain etched on her features. Determination glinted in her eyes, and no one spoke as she crossed the room to kneel beside Jamie's chair.

"Jamie, is there any possibility no matter how remote that your mother was not quite dead when you put her in the life pod?" the healer asked, to the astonishment of all.

"I felt our link crumble. I saw her take her last breath," he stammered, struggling not to succumb to the mind blowing possibility.

"When exactly was your link to her severed? Was it after the power transfer was completed?" Marg wanted to clarify.

"No, I could feel it weakening throughout the transfer; it was gone by the time the transfer was complete."

"And she was still alive at that time?"

"Yes."

"D'Ez never adjusted Kimberly's telepathic centers as he had yours. She was too old her mind too rigid; whereas, he had worked on yours since you were an infant. Her powers were the only way for her to maintain your link." The healer paused to consider. "It is not unknown for a heart to continue beating briefly after that last gasp...."

"Marg, what are you saying?" Tommy interrupted. "Is Kimberly alive?"

"A healer cannot heal dead tissue. A life support pod cannot resurrect a corpse," was the woman's answer.

"What kind of brain activity is there?" Kim demanded, and Tommy relayed the question.

"At the moment, we are only registering minimum activity; we will know more if/when the patient regains consciousness."

"But it could just be a body without a soul," Tommy muttered, he and Kim privately considering the options.

"Is such a thing possible?" Beys gasped.

"Just look at D'Ez," Marg said sadly. "My poor mentor and friend. He is nothing but a mindless, mutilated shell."

"Then we won't get any information out of him?" Tommy asked, disappointed.

"No. I tried to link with him...." Marg shuddered; the experience had been as unpleasant as it had been painful. "There was left only a vestige of the man I knew base instinct. I set him free of his nightmare at last."

They all instinctively knew she meant freedom through death.

"I owed him that."

"Can I sit with Mother?" Jamie requested hopefully. "Maybe I can reach her."

"Very well. You many try."

~*~

"I can't believe Jamie believes that's me!" Kim huffed.

"Maybe it's more a case that he wants to believe," Tommy corrected. "Heck, if I didn't know better, I'd want to believe it's you, too."

"But it's not!"

"But it could be your body," he pointed out.

Kim reluctantly had to grant that. "Maybe... it does look an awful lot like the last time I looked in the mirror."

"Probably whoever was inside D'Ez's body," Tommy concluded. "The guy in the lab may have been a mindless shell, but he wasn't mindless when he was directing Jamie's almost-kidnaping."

"Norzod," Kim declared grimly. "It's the only thing that makes sense."

"Kim?" Tommy gasped in shock. The anger and hatred he felt roiling within her dwarfed those same feelings he'd harbored for Zedd and Rita for so many years.

"I want him dead, Tommy," she said unapologetically. "That fiend murdered my friends before my eyes. He kidnaped and tortured my son. He ultimately took me away from you."

Before Tommy could pursue this further, Vlar burst into the observation deck.

"What is it?" Tommy asked, immediately alert.

"Internal communications are still down," Vlar panted, "and I cannot reach anyone mentally. I need the Rangers in the Ready Room Jax, too."

"What's up?"

"The ships are on the move, and they are on course for Threa."

~*~

"What is the situation?" Jax asked as he and Prist arrived in the heart of the Command Center, the last two to do so. The young Imbera sounded stronger more sure of himself than he had since Trin died.

Tommy knew the reason for his renewed confidence and blushed.

"If they didn't want to be interrupted, they should have locked the door," Kim said, a smile evident in her tone.

"You're not embarrassed about catching them in the act?"

Vlar's briefing called them back to the matter at hand.

"At last count, we detected 100 ships, ranging in size from large cruisers to small one-man crafts," the security chief announced. "Emd has run computations on possible trajectories...."

"Almost all of which bring them far too close to Threa," the Green Ranger concluded.

"Any evidence of hostile intent?" Brath asked.

"Have we identified what type of ships they are?" Jax queried.

"Atler battle cruisers," Synn answered.

"You could not ask for anything more heavily armed or more lethal," Vlar murmured.

"There is no evidence that the weapons systems are charged...." Zol began, consulting her screen.

"They are too far out yet for weapons to be online, if that is their intent," Vlar offered.

"Does anyone think it's kind of odd to have a war fleet on our doorstep and absolutely no internal communications not even telepathy?" Tommy spoke up. All eyes turned towards him then to each other. Tommy could tell that they were attempting mental contact unsuccessfully. The questions flew.

"When...?"

"How...?"

"I don't know about anyone else, but the last time I noticed anybody successfully getting a hold of anyone mentally was when Jamie was summoned to the lab about the time Jax woke up," Tommy said. "Unless, he got a hold of you guys telepathically when D'Ez ran into us."

"We received no summons from the First Born," Brath answered. "We were already on our way."

"That would put Tommy's incident at over a day ago," Jax remarked.

"This isn't the first time all mental contact has been down," Tommy pointed out.

"The night Jamie was almost abducted," Vlar realized.

~*~

"It's Norzod blocking them; it has to be," Kim insisted.

The briefing had broken up shortly after the latest revelations. The team was to remain on high alert while they sought to restore radio communications, at the very least, and to discover what was blocking their mind speech.

"He was here in D'Ez's body the night Jamie was attacked," Kim pursued.

"I wonder how we can still talk to each other. That's telepathy, isn't it?" Tommy questioned.

"Not quite. We're sharing your head. If I was still in the Grid, I don't think I'd be able to get through. That night I couldn't until the kidnapers left."

"Why does Norzod want Threa so badly?" Tommy asked. "I never understood why Zedd and Rita and Mondo and all the others wanted to conquer Earth so badly. We don't have any advanced technology. We're virtually alone in our corner of the universe, and the intergalactic community thinks we're little more than children. What's so special about Earth?"

"I used to wonder that, too, but Atir told me why," Kim revealed. "Earth is a gateway world. Whoever controls Earth, controls access to an unlimited number of dimensions and the powers that can be harnessed from those dimensions. And since Earth is such a backwater world, the bad guys think it's an easy target.

"Tommy," Vlar called as he caught up with him en route to the labs. "I have those coordinates you asked for."

Kim had had Tommy request the location of a dying star with no or totally lifeless-- worlds.

"Give them to Jax and have him memorize them," Tommy advised.

"I had wondered...." Vlar began, asking no further questions. He had performed the same function for Jamie not all that long ago. He remembered the toll using the full might of the Imbera had taken on his friend. "I hope it does not come to this."

"Me either."

"I just hope we can get to 'my' body before anything else happens," Kim said grimly.

"Are you sure that this is the only way?" Tommy asked, uncomfortable with the thought of killing in cold blood especially when the someone in question looked like Kim. The power blaster tucked into the holster he had appropriated from the weapons locker felt cold and alien to him. Swords had always been his preferred weapon.

"Norzod is as evil as Zordon was good. I sacrificed everything I held dear to stop this fiend once; I won't let him win now. If you can't do this, let me have control of your body," Kim requested. "It has to be instant death. If it's a slow one, Norzod could get away again."

"Then putting you in control of my body won't work. Your reaction time is delayed just enough that the shot might not be as clean as you want." Not to mention that they'd be more vulnerable, too. "I'll do it; it just won't be easy, that's all."

"And if you'd seen your mother killed then miraculously restored to life, wouldn't you be hovering at her side?" Tommy countered, understanding Jamie very well right now.

Kim was silent for along while before responding. "Once upon a time yeah, I'd have done the same thing. I've been a warrior for too long, Tommy; I think I've forgotten how to be anything else."

She sounded so sad, and Tommy mourned the loss of the perky young woman full of life Kim used to be.

"You'll be able to re-learn once this is all over," he assured her.

"Once this is all over, I'll be returning to the Morphin' Grid."

It was a thought Tommy didn't want to contemplate. However, he cast those thoughts aside as they reached Zol's lab. He and Kim were totally unprepared for the sight that awaited them.

"Tommy!" Jamie chirped happily as the Terran Ranger pulled up short inside the doorway.

Sitting up on the bed was a very much alive and conscious—Kimberly.

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