So, forty days. And technically it's still Sukot, so i'm counting this as this year's High Holidays update - it's a tradition I seem to have grown attached to.

Love and Gratitude to the Constellations Team: Camille and Mara (friends and beta readers), Tami (mechanical engineering support) and Roie (who made this possible).

Enjoy, and please review!

43. Divide and Conquer I

“No, Shane,” said Cam, not bothering to lift his eyes from the desk. “For the thirty-seventh time, no. I’m not even halfway done here.”

“Oh, come on, the scrolls have been here for centuries, they’ll wait a few more days.”

“One of these scrolls has been missing for a couple of decades. We need to know everything we can about that scroll if we are to beat Lothor. And being that the rest of you can barely tell katakana from hiragana, I am the only one of us capable of conducting this research. Which means that as much as you’d like to pretend otherwise, none of us can afford my putting this aside and coming on a two-day camping trip. As a matter of fact, considering that the next week is finals week, I’m not sure you should be camping this weekend, either.”

Shane made a face. “I’m not Tori, Cam. So long as I pass, I’m good. And Dustin says his study schedule can take it so don’t lecture me about damaging his grades.”

Cam considered the half a dozen scrolls he had spread out before him. “In that case, can I convince you to ask Marah along also?”

“Only if I’m allowed to tell Tori that it was your idea.”

“I fail to identify the logical connection between these sentences. Assuming there is one.”

Shane snorted. “Are you kidding? If Blake finds himself in the middle of the woods with Dustin and Marah on the one hand and Hunter and me on the other, he’s gonna streak right back to town. If Tori’s cramming is interrupted because Blake’s in town with no other company and work shifts that are already cancelled, somebody’s going to get smoked.”

“I must be doing something wrong if you fear Tori’s wrath more than you fear mine, should I be left here for the weekend with Marah, who also has no other company and no shifts.”

“Well, if you’re not going to get any work done anyway, you can come along with the rest of us.”

“Why are you so insistent on this camping trip, again?”

“Because it’s my birthday?”

Cam’s head snapped up. “Do you want to solicit an all-out attack on your birthday?”

“What?”

“The more elaborate we are about celebrating one’s birthday,” Cam told him, “The more elaborate the attack will be.”

“Oh, come – ”

“The only one of us who hasn’t had his birthday interrupted by an attack is Hunter, who wouldn’t even reveal when his birthday is.”

“January 31,” said Shane promptly. “Right between Beevil and the Slob Goblin, which, you know, may have been something of a distraction at the time. And I don’t recall you ever saying when your birthday was, either, so even if we had an attack that day it wasn’t because we had celebrated it.”

“That’s the thing about being born on Christmas day,” said Cam dryly. “I seem to remember ornaments being hung before Madtropolis dropped by.”

“Dude, you were born on Christmas day? That’s awesome!”

“That’s terrible,” Cam corrected him. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, being that you insist on courting disaster on your birthday and sabotaging my chances of getting a couple of productive workdays while at it, the least you could do…”

“Is get out of here before you chase me out with shurikans?”

“Something along that vein.”

“You’re kidding,” said Kapri flatly. “A diversion?”

“Yes, well.” Lothor spread his arms. “We don’t want to make it too easy on them, do we?”

They were in Lothor’s office, him sitting down and her – as per usual lately – standing, and it was the eve of Zurgane’s big zord joyride.

“Have you seen the specs on that zord?” demanded Kapri. “They’re barely going to notice a single preoccupied Ranger.”

Lothor smiled and pushed forward a sheet of paper – a facsimile of a part of the scroll.

Kapri sat down, pulled it towards her and considered it. “Right. So they’ll have two preoccupied Rangers. If we can get one more domino, then we’re talking.”

“Ah, but which one?”

“Who hasn’t been getting enough exercise?” retorted Kapri. “That’s our default, right?” She pulled her PAM out of its holster and called up some stats. “Oh, that’s easy. I can even get you three for one.”

“Really?”

“Well, no,” she admitted. “It’ll fail. Duh.” She touched the control panel, lighting up the holographic tactical display on Lothor’s desk. “So this is where everyone is going to be at show time, and this is where they’re all going to be after scene one. Exit one Ranger, another Ranger’s kept busy, and who’s going to be sent along here?” She drew a little arrow over the tactical vulnerability. “Land a hit team here, let Zurgane out again there, and what do we have?”

Lothor considered the board. “Two simultaneous diversions,” he remarked. “Or is it one diversion and two simultaneous main scenes?”

Kapri shrugged. “Does it matter?”

“We haven’t done two diversions before. It’ll throw them off if we do. Now this,” he pointed at diversion number two, “Looks like a main event in its own right, unless we pack more punch into the other one. So, who – ”

Kapri cut him off. “No,” she said. “They’ll know we’re baiting them; have you noticed how careful they’ve been lately? Let’s give them three big ones. Just move this one,” and she dragged diversion number one’s marker a few clicks west, “here. Works every time.”

“All right. Pick one.”

“What?”

“Can’t let Vexacus or Motodrone out of the cage. This is not the kind of diversion we need. Zurgane and Shimazu can only be at one place at a time each. So, which battle scene are you gonna run?”

She’d been too caught up in coming up with clever and cleverer plans, and she hadn’t seen it coming. She should have. Kapri rolled her eyes. “Oh, that’s easy,” she said. “I’m taking the buffet.”

“Seriously, guys,” said Tori. “A portable generator, a surround system and a barbecue? If you wanted a resort you could book one, instead of pretending to go camping.”

“Yeah,” said Shane, putting down the gas tank for the barbecue. “If we wanted civilians crawling all over.”

“And a tab to pick up,” said Blake, hauling yet another crate off the back of the van. “You gonna help us or what?”

Tori raised her eyebrows. “I,” she said, “am going to finish this round of coffee and head back to town, and I’m going to be quite grateful you are all out here, busy with something other than deliberately disrupting my study schedule.”

“Come on, Tor, you know we wouldn’t do that.”

“Sure, Dustin. Whatever you say.”

“You’re spending too much time with Cam,” said Shane. “You’re starting to sound like him.”

Hunter rolled his eyes. “Don’t mind him,” he told her. “He’s saying that to anyone with brains on this team.”

“Hey, does that mean I should be insulted or something?” asked Dustin, wiping some sweat off his brow. “’Cause I think I’m the only person on this team Shane hasn’t compared to Cam yet.”

“No,” Shane told him. “Because when Hunter says ‘people with brains’ what he really means is ‘people who like to pick on other people.’”

“Is this part of the status quo or what?” asked Blake warily. “Because I can’t tell the difference, anymore, and if you two are gonna stage a fight this weekend I’m telling you, I’m out of here.”

“Hey!” protested Shane. “Nobody’s fighting.”

Blake looked between them. “What do you say, Tor?”

“If they were really fighting they’d be in each other’s faces by now. Besides,” she slammed the cargo doors behind the last crate, “I’m outta here. I’ll be back to pick you guys up Sunday night. You sure you have cell phone signal out here?”

“Yes, we have,” Shane told her. “Cam set up a signal monitor out here two weeks in advance, and even if our cell phones do get cut off, it’s not like you don’t have other ways to reach us.”

“Just checking. Have fun, guys.”

She did a hug round and headed back to the van.

“Hey, Tor?” Called Shane. “Drive safely, okay?”

“You do know who you’re talking to, right?”

“Someone with a three-hour ride ahead of her, on her own on deserted narrow mountain roads?”

“Says one of three guys who’re about to be sitting ducks for two days,” she replied, but her expression softened. “I promise not to get kidnapped on the way back to town. There’s a teleportation blocker installed in the car, and I’ll open a comm channel to CyberCam as soon as I’m mobile. I’ll stay safe, I promise.”

“Yeah, like any of us can make that promise.”

“Dude, you’re spending too much time withHunter,” said Dustin. “It’s your birthday, man, lose the attitude.”

“Hey, are you saying I have an attitude?” asked Hunter.

Tori looked back. She thought she saw the beginning of a smile at the corner of Hunter’s mouth, and Blake flashed a thumb-up at her.

“Oh, come on!” protested Dustin. “It’s not like…”

Tori shut the door of the van and started the engine.

“Bye, Tori!”

“Bye, guys!”

They’d be just fine, she told herself.

There was a woman standing on the side of the road, waving her arms. Tori stopped the van.

“Thank you!” gasped the woman as soon as Tori got out of the car. “I was afraid it would be hours – it’s my friend, we were hiking and she fell and I think she broke her leg, and we have no signal and…”

“Breathe,” Tori told her. She pulled out her cell phone. No reception, either. CyberCam would read her just fine, but that would not be much help with civilians. “I don’t have reception either. Do you have a first aid kit, and how far off the road is your friend?”

“Amy’s not far, it only took me maybe twenty minutes to get here and I got lost twice. We have a kit, but we weren’t prepared for something like this.”

“Right.” Tori walked to the back of the van and fetched the emergency kit. “Let’s try to not get lost on the way back to Amy.”

None of the other Rangers was present, or had any reason to be present on Academy grounds for the next two days. Adam had gone out on a groceries run. He had no idea where Marah had disappeared to within the complex, but it was deep enough and CyberCam assured him she wasn’t up to anything dangerous. Cam had been awake for four and a half hours of which almost three had been blissfully quiet work time, made sweeter by the slight possibility that it would remain uninterrupted. Even when the alarm had gone off Cam still held on to the possibility that it may not be too bad. A troop of kelzacks or a random alien were too good to hope for, but with the multiplier integrated into the grid – done two days before – there was little that Tori and he couldn’t handle fast and on their own.

Cam stared at the monitor. Looks familiar, he thought. Then the telemetry started pouring in. The fibersteel was a whole new complex, the hydraulics had been completely redone and not even placed where they’d been the previous time and he didn’t like the look of that power mesh.

He hailed the comm. Then again.

Shane’s voice came on. “Please don’t say ‘I told you so.’”

“Fine,” said Cam. “I won’t. But Zurgane’s test-driving his new zord, and it’s going to take the Hurricane Megazord to pull him over.”

Tori was pretty sure that Amy’s ankle was badly sprained, rather than broken. She bandaged it tight best she could, offered her a couple of painkillers and an energy bar, and then she and Kathy helped her hobble back to the road. It was probably lucky that near the end of the trip she went a little ahead of the other two and got the first look at the van, surrounded by a troop of kelzacks. Normally a troop of kelzacks was nothing major but for one thing she had two civilians at her back and for another, these were red. Tori tapped her morpher. “CyberCam,” she said, very quietly.

His voice came over almost before she finished the hail. “Explosive device planted under the car,” he said. “I would’ve teleported it away, but…”

“Yeah,” she said. She’d left the anti-teleportation device on when she left. The kelzack furies had to have hiked to get to the car. “I didn’t know Lothor had any furies left.”

“Neither did I, until ten minutes ago.”

“I’m with civilians. I have to get back to them. I’ll need backup.”

“Tori, there’s a zord fight going on and it’s vicious. You’re the Ranger and it’s your call, but if there’s any chance we can pull this without redeployment, it might be a better idea.”

She had half a dozen kelzack furies on her plate. She remembered the furies as a major threat, but Lothor hadn’t sent down any in months, not since – Tori closed her eyes. Not since the hospital, not since Sensei.

“Well, on the bright side,” she said, “Amy’s not going to complain about a few minutes’ rest.”

Zurgane managed to force his sword between the Samurai Star and the Lion Zord modules. Shane grabbed the console as the Hurricane Megazord shook. “Not again!”

“We have to use the blade star!” said Blake.

“Yeah, but we have to get some distance in first. Can’t use it up close, we’ll blow oursel – Dustin, block that, damn it – Cam, leave the telemetry to CyberCam, I mean it, and if you’re not going to use the Bee Spinner we’re losing it now. We need to get some distance if we don’t want to blow ourselves up together with Zurgane.”

“Lose the damn spinner,” snapped Hunter. “Can we do the Ram Hammer with the Super Stamp?”

“Only if you don’t want to use the Stamp for the next week,” said CyberCam. “And you only get one go.”

“It won’t work,” said Cam.

“Wh –”

“See this?” Cam panned the telemetry display with his mind, using his hands to swerve the megazord out of the way of a kick while he was at it. “He’s recording our every move – ”

“Yes, you said that already – ”

“ – and integrating it in real time. It’s power relays – ”

“Are you saying it’s copying our moves?”

“Yes. We can’t win. And we’d better not compromise any spheres we haven’t yet, because that intel’s going straight up to Lothor’s ship.”

“Right,” said Shane grimly. “And there’s not much point taking structural damage like this. CyberCam, bail us out of here.”

The furies were still annoyingly tough, way faster than the average kelzack and somewhat smarter. The thing was, they haven’t gotten any better since the last time she’d seen one of them. She had. She upped her sword to Gold Mode, streaked right over the van, got the three on that side in a Shadow Spar sweep, tossed the bomb’s remote where they’ll never get to it in time and then got to work on the remaining furies, pouring power straight through the blade. The upside was that every hit she landed was lethal. The downside was that she’d never held that concentration for that long. She would’ve demorphed and slid down the side of the van, but –

“Tori, the bomb! Let me teleport it out, it’ll detonate if you move it.”

She opened the hood, reaching in blindly for the device. She’d installed it herself, and Cam had run her through the simulation dozens of time. Those hours paid off as her fingers landed straight on the safety catch.

“Done,” said CyberCam. “And demorph on the other side of the car, your civilians are nearly there.”

“You’ve got to be kidding.” But that was what she did. She gave herself a few seconds to gather her breath and come up with a story before she emerged, hoping she looked pale and spooked enough to make it credible.

“You should have let me destroy them!” roared Zurgane.

“You’re forgetting yourself, General,” said Lothor coldly.

Zurgane had been livid at being recalled from the battle after the Rangers retreated, rather than being allowed to take his zord to the city and cause some major damage. He had marched up to the bridge and was facing off with Lothor, the other three generals watching from the shadows. Kapri had pretended to slink away from Lothor’s rage and found herself a nice nook from which to watch everyone else.

“Forgive me, Sir,” said Zurgane stiffly. “But this was the first time we had the upper hand on the Rangers in a very long time. I could’ve demolished their city. I do not understand.”

“Our purpose, Zurgane,” said Lothor with the exaggerated patience that usually meant that someone would receive some harsh discipline in a short while, “is not to take over the Earth. Not at the first stage. At the first stage, our purpose is to destroy the Power Rangers. Now, how would destroying their city advance that cause?”

“It would cause them great anguish –”

“It would piss them off, Zurgane. And angry Rangers are dangerous Rangers. The Power that supports them has been honed against precisely such tactics, General. Sure, you could’ve destroyed their city. You could have destroyed five other ones, too, and that blasted nephew of mine would’ve gotten more intel on your zord than he could dream of.”

There was a moment of stiff silence. Then Zurgane bowed his head. “What are your orders, Sir?”

Lothor turned his back on him and walked towards his throne. “Wait until the damage to the zord has been repaired and then launch another attack. It shouldn’t take more than an hour or two. Shimazu, Kapri!”

Both of them stepped forward and approached the throne.

“You will launch simultaneous attacks. Shimazu – pick somewhere in the city, anywhere at all. Kapri – I want you to capture that sister of yours. I believe she has actually retained something in that Swiss cheese of a brain of hers and has been feeding the Rangers information. Let’s put an end to that, shall we?”

Tori was still a full hour away from town, with her two civilians in the van. The rest of them gathered in Ops, joined by Adam and Marah.

“How bad?” asked Shane.

“Bad,” said Cam. “The hydraulics on the Dolphin Zord are shot. The other two Wind Zords burned a third of their power transmission each, and the Lion Zord also has some hull damage. Target acquisition on both Thunder Zords is fried. The Samurai Star and the Hawk Zord came off the easiest in most respects but you seriously don’t want to know how much damage their transformation drive took.”

“I meant the compromised power spheres,” said Shane. The room had gone completely silent. They didn’t usually have to worry about compromised technologies, being that Lothor tended to prefer arcane ninja skills to advanced weapons. The one time the Rangers had had their technology compromised it was initiated by the Thunders, back when they were still working for Lothor, but it had ultimately led to Motodrone’s street bike.

“The one disadvantage of that zord is the transformation drive,” said Cam after a moment. “It learns fast but it takes time to implement the changes. Only about two or three minutes, but relative to our transformation time it’s practically forever. However, once it’s been implemented, whatever weapon system had been used against it is useless.”

“You’re saying if we don’t beat it within three minutes of the beginning of the battle we’re going to lose,” said Blake. “And every second we stay in after the three-minute mark, we’ll be only making it worse for ourselves.”

“Yes.”

“So how do we beat it?”

“Based on the damage Zurgane’s zord took, and considering that they’d like to implement everything they can, I’d say we have two hours before they attack again. CyberCam’s been instructed to replace anything that can be replaced rather than fix it on site as we usually work. This is faster in itself and also because the Wind Zords are getting new peripheral engines, the Thunder Zords’ transformation drive is being overhauled and I’m practically changing the Samurai Star’s power transmission.”

“These aren’t the systems that were damaged,” said Hunter.

“Yeah, and it’s not even where we’re already strong,” said Dustin. “It’s – oh!” His face lit up. “That’s awesome.”

“Oh, yeah,” said Marah, beaming at him.

“What?” asked Shane.

“Where we’re weakest,” said Blake. “The Wind Zords are weaker. The Thunder Zords have awful structural tension. No idea what the Samurai Star modifications are for.”

“Dude, that zord has more power potential than it can use when in Hurricane formation,” said Dustin. “We just need to channel it out.”

“Is more raw power going to do it?”

“No,” said Cam. “But it’ll keep you going while I get the thing that will.” He laid a scroll down on the table. “I found this while looking for the stolen scroll. It references the prophecy and it contains directions for retrieving a powerful weapon, some kind of zord amp from the description of it. I held back on it for a couple of reasons.”

“Do not escalate a fight,” said Adam.

“Exactly,” said Cam. “We just didn’t need it yet and this one’s going to level the field at the very least. The second reason is that it would take all six morpher power spheres to unlock this weapon. Until the multiplier…”

“This would’ve left the whole team unable to morph,” said Shane grimly. “That would’ve been fun. Is there more?”

“I thought the multiplier would only work for morphers of the same elemental subset?”

“We did some tests,” said Adam. “It seems Cam can summon all other five spheres. This may be precisely because his morpher isn’t associated with a subset, so it’s possible none of you can call up all of the others’ five.”

“Right, so Cam has to be the one to go get that weapon,” said Shane. “Anything more?”

“Yes,” said Cam. He took a deep breath. “I’m going to the Mountain.”

“Which mountain?” asked Hunter sharply. “You don’t mean – ”

“The Mountain of Lost Ninjas,” said Cam. “That’s where the weapon is.”