The Storybook Dimension

See disclaimer.

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The Weakest Color

Chapter 13: Careless Words

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‘They’re onto you, ranger.’ Mora whispered into Bridge’s sleeping mind. ‘You’ve been careless.’

The green ranger jerked awake immediately. ‘How do you know?’ Bridge thought back.

‘Because I’ve been listening.’ Mora stated, as if it was obvious. ‘Fortunately, they haven’t figured it out yet. They don’t know it’s you.’ He felt, rather than heard, Mora’s laugh. ‘Not even your precious Sky has put the pieces together.’

‘Leave him out of this!’ Bridge replied fiercely.

‘You care about him, don’t you?’ Mora asked, in a sickeningly sweet voice. ‘You’re best friends.’Her tone changed to mocking. ‘But you’re not a very good friend, are you?’

Bridge said nothing, refusing to give in to Mora’s baiting.

‘Well,’ she continued after a moment, and Bridge could tell she was annoyed. ‘Don’t let it get in the way of our plan.’

‘Oh, I have a present for you.’ Mora added as an afterthought. ‘It’s almost ready. If you’re nice, next time you come to the ship, I’ll show it to you.’

Bridge lay still for a moment longer, thinking. He didn’t know what she was talking about, but he was sure he wouldn’t like it.

Getting stiffly out of bed, he reached into his closet and pulled out a new uniform. As he removed the badge from his dirty uniform, he hesitated for a moment before placing it on the new one. He had been so proud of that badge, and everything it represented. But now, after what he had done, he felt dirty and used, and the badge was a reminder of his evil deeds.

Bridge resisted a sudden urge to throw it in the trash. It could have been his imagination, but it seemed to gleam less than it once had.

–

‘Criminals often return to the scene of the crime.’ Sky reminded himself from his perch on the scaffolding above the SPD zords. From here, he could clearly see the bustle of activity around the zords while remaining unseen.

For two hours he had watched and waited, searching for something, anything, out of the ordinary, but with no results. Sky got to his feet with a sigh. It seemed that he was no closer than ever to discovering who sabotaged the megazord.

Pulling out a datapad, he pulled up the personnel files of those with immediate access to the megazord. ‘514 results.’ Read the screen.

‘Well, I know that I’m not the traitor, so that makes 513 possible suspects.’ Sky reminded himself. But of those, who would have the time, the ability and the motivation to sabotage the megazord?

He didn’t know. But even if it was the last thing he did, he was going to find out.

–

“Doggie? Can I speak with you?”

“What is it, Kat?”

“There was a strange glitch on one of my lab computers last night. I haven’t managed to track it, but a major error definitely occurred.” She took a deep breath before continuing. “These things happen occasionally, but the camera records for that time period have also been tampered with.”

“They’re still here.” Cruger growled under his breath. “I want to know exactly who accessed that computer, and what they saw.”

Kat frowned. “That may be impossible. Whoever it was knew exactly what they were doing. They covered their tracks well.”

“On the other hand, whoever it was knew that I planned to upgrade the security systems today. That narrows down the options considerably.”

“Try your best.” Cruger said. “The fate of SPD may depend on it.”

–

“What are you doing?” Z asked suddenly, peering over Sky’s shoulder.

Sky jumped in surprise. He had been so engrossed in his reading that he didn’t hear her approach. “Nothing.” He said, shutting off the screen of his datapad.

“Let me see that.” She said, snatching it from his hand. She read for a moment before speaking. “You’re investigating the megazord?” She flipped through a few more files. “Background checks? On SPD staff? Pretty serious stuff considering you’re off duty.”

Sky shrugged. “I’m never off duty. It’s part of being a ranger.”

“You know,” Z commented, a thought suddenly occurring to her. “Some of those files seem pretty classified, even for you.”

“I’m not breaking the rules, if that’s what you’re implying.”

“Oh, really? Then who gave you authorization?”

Sky swallowed, realizing that he had painted himself into a corner. “If you must know,” he said reluctantly, taking back his datapad, “I’m on a special assignment from Cruger.”

“Why just you?”

“Cruger felt I was the best one for the job.”

Z crossed her arms and frowned. “What, are the rest of us not good enough?”

“You know that’s not true, Z.” Sky said firmly, not liking where this conversation was going. “Just let it go. You’re acting like Syd – this is SPD business. It’s nothing personal.”

“You don’t trust us.” She realized, the pieces suddenly falling into place. “We’ve fought by your side for months, and you still don’t trust us enough to say what’s going on.”

“That’s not true.”

“Whatever, Sky. I’ve seen you sneaking around headquarters the past few days. For all I know, you’re making this whole assignment thing up to cover your tracks!”

“For the last time,” Sky retorted, beginning to lose his temper, “I’m not hiding anything, from you or from Cruger!”

“You’re a terrible liar, did you know that?”

“Look, Z, everyone is on edge right now.” Sky said, after a moment of tense silence. “What you’re saying doesn’t make any sense, and if you thought about it, you’d realize that.”

“Realize what?” Jack asked, entering the room at the worst possible moment. The door slid shut behind him.

“Nothing!” Sky and Z said, turning away from each other.

“Whoa.” Jack said, staring between the two. “What did I miss?”

–

“Errida.” Bridge said the word out loud, the name rolling off his tongue.

On the screen in front of him shone an image of the planet which was, quite possibly, Gruumm’s next conquest. In it’s own way, it was as beautiful as Earth.

‘Errida is slightly smaller than Mars.’ Bridge recalled from one of his galactic exography lessons. ‘It supports humanoid life, and the planet’s distinctive green tint is caused by a rare element in it’s atmosphere.’

None of the Erridians had ever attended SPD Academy. In fact, none had ever left their home world. According to records, they were a peaceful species who seemed uninterested in space travel.

It just happened that their strategic location made them a prime target for would-be galactic conquerors. So far, SPD and it’s predecessors had managed to prevent that from happening.

He wondered if they had their own team of power rangers, and if they were ready.

‘Maybe one of them is green.’ Bridge reflected. ‘Or all of them are green, not ranger-color, but color-color…’ He didn’t really know what he meant to say.

There weren’t that many of them – only 4 billion. He had no doubt that Gruumm would kill and enslave every last one.

‘And now he has the information to do it.’ Bridge thought. ‘He has it because I gave it to him. I gave an evil alien warlord information on another planet’s defenses.’

Just a few days ago, he would never have believed that he was capable of such a thing. “What am I doing?” He asked out loud. ‘Didn’t I swear to protect and serve the galaxy, not just Earth?’

‘Maybe I should let Gruumm destroy the Earth and then… then what?’ Then the warlord would travel to other planets, conquering other worlds, and Bridge would be dead.

Gruumm would find another planet with the resources he needed… eventually. But the destruction of Earth might be enough to slow him down, long enough for SPD to muster up enough forces to stop him.

It was a sign of how low he had sunk that he was actually considered allowing thirty billion people to die.

A red light flashed on the computer screen, and then beeped insistently when he didn’t answer. His first impulse was to ignore it – who would call him in his room? He had no family to speak of, and any of the other rangers could reach him via his morpher.

But before he could make a decision either way, an unpleasant face appeared on the screen in front of him. “If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were ignoring my call, ranger.” Broodwing said mockingly.

“You!” Bridge exclaimed. He looked around, and lowered his voice to a whisper. “What are you doing here?”

Broodwing gave him a sardonic look. “Don’t worry, ranger. This is a private band – no one can hear us.”

“Why are you calling me?” Bridge repeated sharply.

“Straight to business. I can respect that.” The bat said, adjusting his cape. “I have a counter-offer for you.” When Bridge said nothing, Brooding continued. “I’ve come to make a deal.”

—

To Be Continued

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