Night in the prison ship. Nadira was watching her new toy, a small television she had liberated from a downtown shop. She was fascinated by children’s programs -- they were easy for her to understand. One of her favorites was on -- a prime-time cartoon. She didn’t get all the jokes, but it still made her laugh. And she needed something to cheer her up, stuck in this time, in this dreary ship, with nothing to do and no one to talk to. Her father was too busy to pay attention to her, and his friends treated her like a silly child. And Frax -- he obeyed her, and acted deferential, but she sensed that underneath he despised her, and Ransik. But of course a robot couldn’t have feelings -- could it? Frax had always made her uneasy.

A cry interrupted her. She jumped up. It had been her father’s voice, and he sounded like he was in pain. At the sound of another cry -- a scream now -- she ran toward Ransik’s workroom, a room that had previously been the ship’s computer center.

Reaching the door, she rapped on it and called, “Daddy?” She tried to open it. It was locked. Looking over her shoulder, she saw Frax watching silently, with Conwing and Steelix behind him. She banged on the door.

After endless moments of crashes and thumps from inside, Nadira stepped back as the door opened. Ransik stood in the doorway, holding a small tube with a few blue drops still in it. His exposed flesh was marked with bluish patches which faded even as she watched them. The room behind him was littered with overturned furniture, and a reinforced storage case sat opened in the middle of the floor, several more tubes filled with the blue liquid visible inside it.

Ransik smiled. “I’m fine. Just took me a little time to find the serum.”

“Another attack?” Nadira asked anxiously. “I thought maybe they wouldn’t come back.”

“So did I. It seems we’re both disappointed,” Ransik said. Looking over her shoulder, he spoke to the others. “We need to have a conference. Now.”

A few minutes later they were all in what had been the control room of the prison ship. Ransik and Nadira sat in the two seats, while Frax stood behind them and Conwing and Steelix lounged against the walls. They were joined shortly by Brickneck, Ransik’s third soldier.

“Have you found anything useful yet?” Conwing asked.

“Just hints and theory, so far,” Ransik answered. “I’m sure Bio-Lab is involved in the origin of Time Force. But exactly how, I don’t know. For now, Bio-Lab is our primary target. If we can weaken them, even put them out of business, our mission may be accomplished.”

“What do you want us to do?” Steelix asked.

“First of all, we have to avoid disrupting the timestream in ways we don’t intend. We could end up preventing our own existence, or make things worse for ourselves in our own time. That means -- from now on, no killing, except when I tell you to.”

“What about the Time Force Rangers?” Steelix asked.

“They don’t belong in this time. They are fair game.”

“Let me take a crack at them, Ransik,” Brickneck exclaimed. “It’s time I had a little fun on this trip.”

“You’ve had enough fun for now. Any ideas on how to begin?”

Inspired, Nadira spoke up. “I’ll tell you how to hurt any business. With money. That’s the same in any time. Figure out a way to get at their money. Or make them look bad, so people won’t want to do business with them.”

“As brilliant as always, Nadira,” Frax commented. She looked at him sharply.

“Quiet, Frax,” Ransik growled. “Unless you can think of something better. But of course I can’t expect a robot to think.”

“I think Nadira’s on the right track. I have an idea,” Steelix said thoughtfully.

It was afternoon in the old clock tower when Wes walked into the main room. Inside, he saw Trip sitting alone at the picnic table, intently working on a strange-looking device, tools spread out around him. He looked up and smiled as Wes walked in.

“Hey. What’re you working on?” Wes asked.

“This is our communicator. I’m trying to fix it, so we can contact our own time.”

To Wes it looked like a cross between a picture frame and a television antenna. “How’s it going?” he asked.

“Slowly. In this time you don’t have the right tools or parts for me to use. I have to make things myself.”

Wes sat down on the other side of the table. “How’s this stuff work anyway? Like those suits, and the blasters that just come out of thin air.”

Trip looked at him and smiled. “It would take years to explain it in detail. Imagine trying to explain… a television or a computer to someone who lived two hundred years ago. No offence.”

“None taken. How about a short version?”

“Sure. Most of our technology is based on high-order dimensions. Sometimes we call them hyperspace, or subspace. Beyond the four dimensions you’re aware of; height, width, depth, and time.”

“There’re more?”

“Lots more. And machinery can be built in them, so that it doesn’t show in our physical reality, or just part of it does. That’s basically how the morphers work; they exist mostly in high-order dimensions. The suits are an extension of the morphers that materialize in our reality when you summon them. When you morph, your clothes are replaced with the suit, and your body is charged with an energy field. The blasters come with the suits, but just a tiny part of them exists here until you summon them and they seem to appear out of nowhere. You haven’t seen our Time Flyers yet, but they’re the same thing. They’re the size of toys, until we activate them. Some of the newer stuff is completely in high-order dimensions until it’s needed. And some of it can change shape.”

“Incredible. I can’t believe science has gone so far in only two hundred years.”

“It’s not incredible at all. Look how much stuff was invented in the two hundred years before your time. We went from horses to space travel. From… nothing to supercomputers. From early guns to nuclear weapons. Unfortunately. And most of that happened in the last hundred years.”

“I guess you’re right. Is there anything else I should know about the morphers?”

“Well… energy’s always a problem. They use a lot of energy to give you the Ranger powers and to protect you. Then they draw energy from the environment to replace it. If you get hit with a hard enough attack, your morpher can be drained and you’ll suddenly demorph, back to your normal form. Then you can’t morph again until it’s recharged. If you try it too soon, you’ll only hold the morph for a few minutes, or seconds even.”

“How long does it take to recharge?”

“Depends on the energy in the environment. If it’s a hot, sunny day, it might only take half an hour to get a useful charge. On a cold, dark night it could take several hours.” He held up his morpher and pointed to a tiny light in the side. “That’s the indicator. If it goes dark, it’s drained. The brighter it is, the more energy.”

“How long have you guys been Rangers? You seem to know a lot about it.”

“When you morphed with us was the first time. We were going to go into the Ranger program, so we had some training. Alex was the only one who actually was working as a Ranger.”

Wes frowned. “I wish I could have met him.”

“I wish so too,” Trip said. “He was a good guy.”

After they were quiet for a moment, Wes thought of another question. “If you can scan for mutant DNA, how come you don’t just find Ransik’s ship and go get him?”

“The scanners have a limited range. Our central one here, attached to Circuit, covers the city. The prison ship must be too far away. Or they may be using a shield. Or both. At least the scanner and Circuit make sure Ransik can’t take us by surprise here. Of course, we’re trying to keep him from finding out where we live, too.”

They looked up as they heard footsteps coming up the stairs. Jen, Lucas, and Katie walked in, smiling when they saw Wes.

“Hi!” he said. “Where were you guys?”

“Out earning our keep,” Katie answered. “What have you been up to? We haven’t seen you for a few days.”

“Yeah, my dad wants me to spend more time at the office. And at night he has business associates over and wants me to meet them. He wants me to spend every waking minute thinking about business, just like him.”

“You sound like you don’t like it,” Lucas said.

“You know, I don’t. I don’t know if I’m cut out to be a businessman. I’d rather be helping you.” Wes shook off those thoughts and went on, “So how are you guys doing? Do you like this place okay? Do you have enough money?”

“Yes to both,” Jen answered. “We’ve been getting a lot of work...”

Circuit interrupted them. “Rangers! I scan mutant activity at the Bio-Lab school.”

Jen jumped up. “We’d better go.” She ran for the stairs, Wes and the others right behind her.

Five minutes later their scanners led them into the Bio-Lab grounds, onto the road past the private grade school run by the company for its employees. They quickly realized they were following a moving target. A few minutes later they had tracked it down. It was a school bus, loaded with children. Pulling even with it, they saw Steelix driving, with Nadira standing behind him.

Steelix opened the bus door and began firing at them with a large blaster, as Nadira pushed open a bus window and did the same. The Rangers evaded the blasts, unable to fire back without endangering the children. Suddenly the bus swerved, sideswiping Lucas and Katie, sending them and their cycles flying off the road.

The remaining three continued the pursuit, falling back behind the bus. But Nadira moved to the back window, breaking it open and picking them off. Jen and Trip were blasted from their cycles. Wes saw Nadira throw something from the bus before she blasted him, sending him tumbling to the concrete.

As he was painfully picking himself up, Lucas and Katie rode into view, apparently unharmed. Wes detoured to pick up the object Nadira had thrown before heading for the others. It was a child’s backpack, with a piece of paper tied around the strap.

“Is everyone all right?” Jen asked as they met in the street. The other four nodded. Wes pulled the note off the backpack and read it to the others.

“Greetings, Rangers. Tell Bio-Lab to bring ten million dollars to the school playground at seven PM or we will destroy these human children.”

Wes’s excitement disappeared, replaced by anger and grim determination. “Do you think they’d really hurt those kids?” he asked.

“Steelix would.” Jen raised her morpher and spoke into it. “Circuit. Are you tracking Steelix and Nadira?”

Circuit’s mechanical voice replied, “They are moving beyond my scanner range.”

“We’re losing them on our local scanners too. We’d better head in the direction they were going and split up. Keep looking. We’ve got to find those kids.”

“You guys look for them. I’m going to get that money,” Wes said.

“We shouldn’t give in to them. They might try doing this again,” Jen objected. “And we have more chance of finding them with all of us looking.”

“We can’t take a chance with those kids’ lives. When they pick up the money, maybe I can follow them to the kids if you haven’t found them yet.”

Jen considered for a moment. “All right. Stay in touch. Press this button on the morpher to activate the communicator, and speak the name of the person you want to talk to. Good luck.”

“You too.” Wes mounted his cycle and sped back to the city as the others headed in the opposite direction.

Wes found his father at Bio-Lab, as usual busy in a meeting in his office. He charged past the protesting secretary, threw open the door and walked in. Crossing the large, dark, sparsely furnished room and ignoring the three men whose conversation with his father he had interrupted, he leaned over the desk.

“Dad, I need to talk to you right away.”

Collins stared up at him with surprise and annoyance. “I’m sure it can wait.”

“No, it can’t!” Wes forced himself to slow down and lower his voice. “It’s an emergency. I need to talk to you now.”

Collins frowned, but he stood and turned to the other men and said, “Would you excuse us, please? You can wait in the outer office.” They nodded and filed out.

As soon as the door closed Wes started talking. “Dad, a bus full of kids from the Bio-Lab school has been kidnapped, by the same people who took over the library last week. They want ten million dollars.”

“My God.” Collins sat down again. “That’s terrible.” He looked at Wes’s face, his eyes suddenly widening. “You don’t expect me to pay it!”

“The kidnappers expect you to. They addressed the note to Bio-Lab.”

“No. It’s a matter for the police. It’s not my responsibility.”

“Yes it is! Those kids go to a school on Bio-Lab property. Their parents work for you. The people who kidnapped them want money from you.”

Collins scowled at him. “How are you involved with this?”

“I can’t explain everything right now.” Wes pulled the note out of his pocket. “But the ransom note was delivered to the Power Rangers. The ones who saved the people at the library. They gave it to me.” He handed it to his father.

After reading it, Collins said, “I’ll give this to the police. They’ll want to talk to you.”

“Are you going to pay that ransom or not?”

Collins looked at him uncomfortably. “No. The police have experience with this kind of thing. This is a matter for them. Not me!”

With a last angry look, Wes turned and walked out without a word.

Wes quickly went to his own office. He already knew what he was going to do; it was just a matter of having the nerve to do it. One of the privileges he had as a company executive was access to company money. And part of the perks of being the boss’s son was that no one would question his actions too closely. Even withdrawing ten million dollars from one of the Bio-Lab accounts.

The trip to the bank was nerve-wracking but successful. Wes had gotten some raised eyebrows but no objections to his withdrawal, and the money was now safely in a metal carrying case. He realized that ten million wasn’t really a lot of money to a company like Bio-Lab. If Steelix and Nadira had been more familiar with present-day economics they probably would have asked for more. Still, it was a strange feeling to be carrying so much cash around.

Wes waited for seven o’clock at the clock tower, not wanting to go home and face the possibility of running into his father, or the police. Just as he was ready to leave, his morpher signaled.

“Wes, we’ve found them. They’re in an old warehouse on Highway 41, three miles north of the city limits,” Jen’s voice told him.

“That’s great. I have the money. Should I still go to the playground or join you?”

“Go to the playground. That way one of them and some of the cyclobots will be busy with you, and we’ll have a better chance of getting to the kids. Just be careful.”

“Right. I’m leaving now. Good luck.” Good luck to all of us, he thought as he started out.

As the Red Ranger neared the playground, he was surprised to find it deserted. Perhaps his father hadn’t notified the police after all. He parked near the school building, got off the vectorcycle and looked around at the swings, slides, and jungle gyms. They seemed sad and eerily quiet in the twilight, waiting for the children to return.

As he looked around, Nadira and a small group of cyclobots stepped out of the shadows of the school building doorways.

“Do you have the money?” she asked.

“Yeah, it’s all here.” Wes bent to lay the case on the ground and shoved it over to her.

Nadira motioned to one of the cyclobots, which picked up the case, opened it, and showed her the contents. Her eyes lit up at the sight. She lifted a few packets of bills, then closed the case and took it.

“I’ve kept my part of the bargain. Now let those kids go!” Wes called.

“No problem. The little brats were getting on my nerves anyway. All that crying.” Nadira took a communicator, resembling a small cell phone, out of a pocket and held it in front of her face. “Steelix. I have the money. You can let the kids go and leave now,” she said.

Steelix’s voice came back through the communicator, clearly audible to Wes. “There’s a change of plans. I’m disposing of these humans. Come back and help or meet me at the ship, it’s up to you.”

“What!” Wes and Nadira gasped at almost the same instant. She went on, “You were supposed to let them go! My father doesn’t want them killed!”

They heard Steelix’s voice again. “Your father’s foolish concerns about the timestream don’t bother me. The more humans we eliminate, the better.”

Enraged, Nadira shouted, “Steelix! How dare you call my daddy foolish! Steelix! Are you listening to me?”

During this argument Wes raised his own communicator and called Jen. “Steelix is going to kill the kids. Move in now!” Without waiting for a response, he got back on his vectorcycle and sped right at Nadira, who was still screaming at Steelix. As she saw him and instinctively jumped back, he leaned out and grabbed the case of money away from her. He sped away, heading for his teammates, as Nadira’s outraged howl followed him.

Hearing shouts, Wes stopped for a moment and looked back. Men and women were darting out of the shadows, with guns trained on Nadira and her cyclobots. So the police had been there all along. Somewhat to Wes’s relief, Nadira used her transporter and vanished along with her cyclobots before the shooting could start. Wes started out again while the officers were still frozen in astonishment.

Nadira arrived back at the prison ship moments later, still hysterical, and ran to find her father. Bursting into Ransik’s workroom, she immediately poured out her story, ending with, “He messed everything up, Daddy! We didn’t get the money, he doesn’t care about the timestream, he’s going to hurt those kids, and he called you foolish!”

Ransik heard her out, cold anger growing on his face. “This isn’t the first time I’ve had problems with Steelix. He’s gotten to be more trouble than he’s worth. He cares more for avenging himself on humans than for our mission. Well, he’ll find that I know how to deal with a soldier who won’t obey orders.”

“What are you going to do, Daddy?”

“Come along, my dear.” Ransik headed for the center of the ship, where the teleporter unit was set up. “Steelix will find he’s lost his ride home.”

The Pink, Blue, Green, and Yellow Rangers were in position to attack when they got Wes’s call. Cautiously they slipped inside the warehouse, which was cavernous, dark, and abandoned but still littered with crates and packing materials, enough to give them cover.

The children were in a small group, with the bus driver, who looked injured. There was a soft sound of crying. Steelix was slowly walking around them, blaster in hand, either enjoying the moment or trying to work up the resolve to carry out his purpose.

There was no other way. At Jen’s signal, the Rangers walked out into the open, blasters ready. Jen and Lucas confronted Steelix while Trip and Katie tried to circle between him and the children. All sound from the kids stopped as they watched fearfully.

“Jen. My old friend. How nice of you to come by,” Steelix said with quiet menace.

“Steelix, you’re under arrest. I advise you not to fight. You’ll lose.”

“But how many of these little humans will be casualties in the struggle? No, I propose another solution. A duel. You and me. To the death. No weapons. No interference from the others.”

“Jen....” Lucas’s voice held a warning note.

“You can’t do it, Jen. He’s up to something,” Katie added.

“Katie’s right. I have a bad feeling about this,” came from Trip.

Jen stood in silence for a moment, and then lowered her weapon. “Agreed. But only if you let the kids leave first.”

“Only if your three friends go with them.”

“Done,” Jen said, before the others could protest. She turned to her teammates. “Get those kids and the driver out of here. Don’t come back in unless you hear blaster fire.” When they hesitated, she added, “That’s an order.”

“Just to show my good intentions…” Steelix said. He tossed his blaster into a pile of crates and looked at Jen. She threw hers after it.

With obvious reluctance, Katie herded the children toward the door while Lucas and Trip helped the driver up and supported him. With a last long look back they left Jen to face Steelix alone.

“Well. Here we are, Steelix,” Jen said quietly.

“Have you missed me, Jen? I’ve missed you. You’re all I’ve thought about for years. I’ve waited so long for the chance to pay you back for betraying me.”

“You’re the only traitor here. You sold out Time Force, and for what? For money!”

“I was helping my people against human tyranny.”

“I know you better than that. You don’t care about helping anyone but yourself.”

Steelix laughed softly. “Perhaps you were right then. But revenge is all that matters to me now.” He drew a hidden blaster from his body armor, not the one he used before.

Jen smiled grimly. “No weapons. Right.”

Without answering Steelix fired. The gun was obviously a special design; the blast from it was almost silent. Jen reacted instantly, darting out of the way and ducking behind a crate. But Steelix was fast. Running forward, he leaped up onto the crate and caught Jen with the next shot. His weapon was powerful; the impact knocked her down, leaving her dazed. Another shot hit her.

Wes drove up to the warehouse as the Rangers were getting the children settled down and examining the driver’s injuries. He took in the situation at a glance. “Everyone all right?” he asked.

Lucas answered, “Yeah.”

Wes took another look. “Where’s Jen?”

“She’s inside. Fighting a duel with Steelix. It was the only way he would let the kids go without a fight.”

“You left her in there to fight him alone? He’s probably pulling some kind of trick on her right now!”

“I know,” Lucas said bitterly. “But she ordered us to leave, and not to come back unless we heard blaster fire. They’re supposed to be fighting without weapons.”

“Well, she didn’t order me. I’m going in there.” Wes started for the door. He heard Lucas call his name, but none of the others tried to stop him.

The Red Ranger ran into the warehouse to see Jen, demorphed, crawling painfully across the floor, Steelix standing over her with his blaster. Wes felt absolute fury wash through him, wiping out conscious thought. He shouted and ran forward, dodging a blast and leaping to crash into Steelix feet first, bringing him down. They both rolled back to their feet. Wes touched a button on his morpher -- luckily remembering the right one -- and felt his blaster materialize in his hand. He braced himself and fired a stream of energy at Steelix, knocking him down again.

As Wes stopped firing, Steelix rose to his knees and pressed a control on his belt. He reacted in surprise and dismay when nothing happened, pressing the button again with no results.

Out of the corner of his eye, Wes saw Jen back on her feet, diving into a pile of crates. A moment later she emerged, holding a blaster. She began to fire too. As Lucas, Katie, and Trip burst in, Steelix went down.

As Wes watched, blaster still ready, Lucas pulled a tiny object from his belt. It expanded in his hand, becoming a round canister about six inches long. He gave it to Jen. She held it over Steelix, said gravely, “You’re under arrest, Steelix,” and pressed a control on its side. A pale beam shone down from the bottom of the canister, playing over Steelix’s body. To Wes’s amazement, the mutant rapidly shrank and suddenly vanished.

Moving forward to see that all trace of Steelix was gone, he asked, “What did you do to him?”

Lucas answered, “That’s a containment vessel. It shrinks criminals by moving most of their mass into hyperspace. Then it transports them into the vessel and keeps them in cryogenic suspension. It’s the best way for us to keep them imprisoned until we can take them back to our time.”

They walked out of the warehouse to hear sirens and see police cars approaching. Quickly they ran to their vectorcycles, parked near the children.

“Everything’s okay now, Steelix is taken care of. You’re safe,” Jen called as they passed the group of kids.

“Wait! Who are you?” the driver asked.

“We’re the Power Rangers!” Lucas shouted back as they started up their cycles and pulled away.