Chapters:
1. Power"Will it work?" Cestro asked, regarding the device inscrutably.
Billy shrugged. There was only one honest answer to that question, and they both knew it. "It has to," he said simply.
Before them, sleek metal casing glinted in the predawn light. The Hydro Contaminators would come with the sun, racing across the ocean toward the cliffs on which they stood--and the city beyond. This single weapon, perched at the edge of Aquitar's most venerated falls, was all that stood in the enemy's path.
This weapon and the Power Rangers, of course. Billy glanced over at Cestro and found the Blue Aquitian Ranger's eyes averted. He followed the other's gaze, and his own eyes widened.
"Who is that?" He asked the question before he realized that Cestro was no more likely to know than he was. The solitary figure on the precipice below them was too far away to be recognizable.
The Blue Ranger surprised him. "That will be the Keeper of the Falls," he answered, scanning the rest of the supposedly evacuated cliffs. "She is the only one here exempt from Ranger authority."
"Exempt?" Billy repeated, startled. The Aquitians had told him that it would take only their word to clear the area. "Who's exempt from an evacuation order?"
"The Keepers follow a different path," Cestro replied, rather cryptically. He didn't seem inclined to elaborate, any more than he seemed concerned by the thought of a civilian in the line of fire.
He glanced toward the horizon again. The expanding glow heralded the rising sun, and he saw Cestro reach for his communicator. The other Rangers were not far and could hardly be any less aware of the time than they two, but the call to rally had to come from someone.
"This is Cestro," the Blue Aquitian Ranger announced. "The weapon is complete, and time grows short."
"Acknowledged," Delphine's voice answered promptly. "We will assemble at your coordinates."
The figure on the cliffs hadn't moved. Billy frowned down at it--at her--and finally shook his head. "She's not planning to wait out the battle down there, is she?"
"I have had little success in predicting the actions of Keepers in the past," Cestro replied, inspecting the weapon once more. "I would not, however, be surprised if she were to do exactly that."
Billy was still wondering how to respond to that when Cestro changed the subject. "Dephine will not order you away," he remarked, not looking up. "Your history and your skills are without question. Circumstances being what they are, however, you would almost certainly be safer elsewhere."
"I could say the same thing to that Keeper," Billy retorted. He tried not to take offense at the Aquitians' obvious protectiveness toward him, but it was hard not to bristle at the reminder of his lost Power.
Cestro's reaction was not at all what he had expected. "I wish you would," the Blue Ranger murmured. He spoke quietly enough that Billy wondered if he had been meant to overhear.
"What?" Billy frowned at him, but it didn't take long for his brain to catch up. "You don't want her here."
"It is not my decision to make," Cestro reminded him. "The Keepers--"
"Follow a different path, right. So you said." Billy studied him for a moment. He wasn't sure this was a good idea, but he needed *something* to do. "Let me go talk to her, then. Try to convince her, as you asked."
"If you tell her that you come at the Blue Ranger's behest," the other replied, his tone tinged with rueful humor, "I assure you that you will convince her of nothing."
Billy raised an eyebrow, amused and simultaneously aware that Cestro had not dismissed the idea out of hand as he had expected. Indeed, Cestro almost seemed to be encouraging him. "Is she a friend of yours?"
"That is one way to describe our relationship," Cestro allowed. He caught Billy's eye at last, and his expression looked resigned. "She is my brother's daughter."
"Your niece," Billy offered, wondering at his friend's attitude.
Cestro inclined his head. "As you say. I can give you exact coordinates," he added, seeing Billy reach for his communicator when he didn't continue. "Unless you prefer to test your skill."
Billy threw a pointed glance at the ever-lightening horizon. "Not this morning," he said wryly. "Not if I can help it. Thanks anyway."
His communicator flashed a confirmation of Cestro's data transfer just as the rock ledge on which they stood lit with the glow of teleportation. Aurico appeared beside them, and Corcus flashed into being immediately afterward. The battle was almost upon them.
Billy nodded to Cestro and took a step back. "I'll be back as soon as she's somewhere safer," he promised. "May the Power protect you."
Aurico and Corcus saluted automatically, responding to his imminent departure. Cestro looked as though he was about to say something, but the white glow that preceded Delphine's arrival kept him quiet. Instead he merely pressed his fingertips together as his teammates had and echoed Billy's words of farewell.
Delphine shot a curious glance in his direction as the teleportation stream swept him up, but the scene faded before Cestro had time to explain. He couldn't help wondering whether Cestro would say more about his niece to Delphine than he had to Billy--and what that something more might be.
Billy took an inadvertent step back as the glow of teleportation melted away. There was quite literally nothing in front of him. The drop from the edge of the cliffs to the ocean below was even sharper than it had appeared from the Rangers' vantage point, and he spared a moment to wonder just how thoroughly Cestro had memorized those coordinates.
The thought drew his attention away from the precipice long enough to look for the woman he had promised to find. After all, the faster they got out of here the sooner he could rejoin Cestro and the others. Their weapon, though effective enough when powered by the Zeo crystal, was completely untried on Aquitar, and he didn't want to be far away during its first, critical test.
The cliff on which he stood was empty.
He scanned the area again, though it was small and clearly incapable of hiding anybody. There was a faint trace to his left, a small patch of color that might mark the beginning of a path, and he moved carefully in that direction. How had she disappeared so quickly?
"Path," he decided a moment later, was a generous term for the tiny ledge that wound around and down the side of the cliff. He hugged stone to his left and tried not to look over the edge to his right, hoping none of the rocks on which he trod were quite as loose as they looked.
Once he got off of the small outlook on which he had been standing, he could glimpse some distance down the trail. It was clear for as far as he could see, but there was simply nowhere else for the Keeper to have gone, so he continued. His concentration was necessarily absorbed by the terrain underfoot, but it did occur to him that he was now in as much danger as the errant Aquitian whom he followed--perhaps more, given that she must know these cliffs significantly better than he. What would become of them if the weapon he and Cestro had constructed failed to hold the Hydro Contaminators back?
He glanced east just in time to see the first fiery limb of the sun poke itself above the horizon.
His foot slipped and he stumbled forward, heart racing as he reached blindly for anything with which to steady himself. The ground met his groping hands as he fell, and it took him several seconds to realize that his motion had been arrested. The narrow track he had followed down from the cliffs above widened into a small plateau here, directly across from the ceremonial falls.
On any other day, the incredible sight before him would have taken his breath away. Today he had none to spare, but he couldn't deny that the massive edifice was one of the most impressive natural phenomena he had ever seen.
Water billowed over the edge of the towering stone cliffs with a thunder that had been audible as far away as the Rangers' perch above, and this close it was a roar that growled through ears and into his bones. He couldn't help looking down, trying to glimpse the bottom of the thundering falls, but it was swallowed by mist and predawn shadow...
Sunrise was creeping down the cliffs even as he stared, and the whine of Hydro Contaminators would be all but inaudible in this din. He moved.
The trail he followed was now clearly marked with turquoise teardrop shapes, and it had broadened to a more respectable width. Unfortunately, with less attention needed to keep from plunging unfathomable distances, he had more free to worry about Cestro and the others. He was more relieved than awed when the path finally led into the tumultuous world of airborne water and liquid light that existed behind the falls.
"Welcome," a quiet voice greeted him.
He turned, startled in spite of himself, and found someone standing in the very spot he had vacated two steps before. His first impression of her was that she was young--far too young to be the person that logic said she ought to be. He bit back the impulse to ask where the Keeper was, though, for if there was one thing life as a Ranger had taught him it was not to judge appearances.
"Thank you," he said, hoping his voice would carry as well as hers over the pervasive rumble of water. Was there a proper response? His uncertainty was one more thing among many in the last few days that had reminded him how alien he was here. "I'm honored by your greeting in this sacred place."
She smiled slightly, but she studied him with all the curiosity that he was trying to hide. "This place is honored by your presence," she countered. "For all that you have not come to enjoy it."
He blinked. "No, I haven't," he admitted, taken aback. "I've actually come looking for the Keeper of the Falls."
"And you have found her." Her response was immediate but unhurried, agreeable without being expectant. He found himself wondering what sort of life this Keeper led that she could radiate such... "peace" was the only word he could think to describe it, but it didn't do her demeanor justice.
"I'm Billy Cranston," he said, pressing his fingers together in the Aquitian gesture of greeting. "I've been working with the Rangers to resolve the Hydro Contaminator situation."
"Situation?" she repeated mildly.
He shrugged uncomfortably. "We've, uh--we think we've developed a weapon strong enough to fight them."
"To what end?" she wanted to know. Her face was completely unreadable to him, even after the practice he'd had with the others.
"So we can stop them," he said, more flustered than he had reason to be. Why did he feel like he had to account for himself to her? "To keep them from irreversibly polluting your world."
"And you feel that a weapon is the only way to do this." She was staring at him, an odd look in her eyes, and suddenly he understood Cestro's earlier hesitation. The Blue Ranger's niece was a pacifist.
"If you have an alternative," Billy told her, keeping his tone as polite as he could, "the Rangers would be glad to listen. You must agree that we can't let the Hydro Contaminators win."
"There are no winners in a war, Billy Cranston. Force is no way to resolve an argument." The Keeper's hazel eyes seemed to stare right through him. "There will always be a stronger weapon. If not today, then tomorrow."
"We can't worry about tomorrow if it never comes," he protested. "If I could think of a way other than force to keep this planet safe, believe me, I'd do it. We all would. But the Hydro Contaminators..."
He tried to think of a phrasing that she wouldn't be able to argue. "What they want is too different from what we want. We can't coexist, at least not in the same place."
She looked at him for a long moment. "People use that word a lot," she said at last. "'Different...'" Her tone was thoughtful. "I am different, as are you. We are all different, but we don't fight each other because we're different. We fight because we are the same."
He did his best to stay objective, to hear what she was saying. But that sentence refused to make sense no matter how he tried. "If we were the same, we wouldn't have to fight."
"No?" Her expression remained uninterpretable, but her words were enough to make him defensive. "What do the Hydro Contaminators want?"
"To take over the world?" he suggested, unable to keep a hint of sarcasm from coming through. Did she think they liked fighting this way? Cestro had probably been about to warn him when Delphine arrived.
"But why?" she insisted.
"They need the water," he said after a moment. "Okay," he added quickly, hoping to forestall her. "I see what you're saying. We're fighting because we both want the same resource. But they're going about it the wrong way."
"Is there nothing in your life worth killing for, Billy Cranston?" Her gaze seemed to mock him. "Your survival? The survival of your family? The survival of your entire people?"
"They attacked your world!" he exclaimed, more and more frustrated with her questioning. "They're poisoning your planet, and you're defending them?"
She didn't so much as blink. "Are you angry because you believe differently than I do?" she asked quietly. "Or because we believe the same thing?"
He opened his mouth to disagree, but her words were insidious.
"You," he said at last. He couldn't contradict her, but neither could he say nothing. He kept his words slow and deliberate, not taking his eyes off of her. "Are one of the most aggravating people I have ever met."
She smiled for the first time since he had entered the cavern. "Many people tell me that."
The hum of the generators was the only sound in the deserted dining hall, but Billy didn't even notice when the quiet was broken by footsteps. The electronic readout on the table in front of him held his whole attention, displaying numbers that he didn't want to see. They were true numbers, of that he had no doubt, but if they were hard for him to swallow then it would be impossible to convince Aquitar.
"You stare at that datapad as though you are deciding whether to enshrine it or destroy it," Tideus' voice offered. "Are you certain it merits such concentrated indecision?"
Billy put a hand to his neck, hoping he hadn't started too violently at the unexpected intrusion. Rolling his shoulders, he tilted his head to either side with a sigh. "The Hydro Contaminators' demands," he explained, shoving the readout aside with his free hand.
Tideus took that as the invitation it was and sat down beside him, giving the datapad a token glance. "They are in no position to be making demands," he said neutrally. "Surely you know this."
Billy winced. The Aquitian Rangers didn't think much of this idea, he knew, but given his recent contributions to their defense, they were willing to let him try. "Bad choice of words."
"Indeed." Tideus studied him for a moment, then apparently decided against saying more. "There is someone asking for you in the Control Room."
Billy looked at him in surprise. "Who?"
"Someone who knows you, it would seem." Tideus' tone was perfectly calm, but there was mischief in those words and Billy could almost see the smile his friend repressed.
Billy shrugged and stood, not wanting to give the other any more satisfaction. Picking up the datapad he'd been poring over, he headed for the door. Who on Aquitar knew him well enough to come to the Ranger dome and ask for him in person?
There was only one answer to that question, and he should have figured it out before he even left the dining hall. The Keeper of the Eternal Falls stood in the center of the Control Room, looking around with interest as Cestro explained various aspects of the dome to her. Her gaze caught his briefly as he entered, but she merely nodded in welcome and continued her survey of the room.
"Billy!" Cestro's greeting was more enthusiastic. "My niece informs me that I have you to thank for the end of her moratorium on interaction with the Rangers."
"The Rangers have always been welcome at the Eternal Falls," Cestria answered calmly. "We have never shunned you or your teammates."
"You've never sought us out, either," Cestro said, giving Billy a pointed glance. "Until today."
Cestria followed his gaze. "I heard of what Billy was trying to do," she said, by way of explanation. "I wished to express my congratulations in person."
Billy tossed the datapad onto one of the consoles with a sigh, torn between surprise at her presence and dismay at her expectations. "Well, it hasn't worked yet, so I think congratulations are a little premature."
"Do you not believe your attempts at a treaty will be successful?" Her question was all innocence. Cestro turned away, as though politely hiding an expression he couldn't smooth over.
For his part, Billy could only stare at her. She had yet to ask him something without significance, but he couldn't help thinking that she was out of her element here. "I don't know," he said at last, deciding the truth was the only answer he had. "I don't know what to expect."
Cestria stared back at him, open curiosity in her gaze. "If you do not know what you want, how will you know when you get it?"
"I know what I want," he said, somewhat testily. "I'm just not sure how to make it happen."
"Is there a difference? Even as you must choose a course of action before you can follow it, you cannot ask the universe for something unless understand how it may be accomplished."
"Sounds more like praying than science," he muttered without thinking.
"If that is the word you use," she agreed, unperturbed. "The universe responds to our expectations, Billy Cranston. Why do you think the laws of physics work the way they do?"
"Because they're true." He tried not to bristle at her attempts to mix science and faith. "That's the definition of a law: something that can't be disproven."
"Exactly so." Her intent gaze had yet to waver from his. "Things of which we are unsure are much less predictable."
He sighed, looking away just in time to catch Cestro's apologetic gaze. "I think you're confusing cause and effect, Cestria."
"Perhaps," she said. When he glanced back at her in surprise, he realized she was smiling. She had seen the look he gave Cestro, and it didn't bother her in the slightest. "It would seem that one of us is, at any rate."
Billy studied her, wondering not for the first time whether her reasoning was as simplistic as it sounded. It had occurred to him once or twice that insight deep enough might sound like hers. Could she really know something he didn't?
He supposed there was only one way to find out.
"Cestro said you've never been here before," he said at last. "Would you care for a tour? Maybe you can help me figure out what I'm looking for in all this," he added, gesturing toward the datapad.
She gave the Control Room another measured glance, as though considering the offer, and he felt Cestro's startled gaze on him. The Blue Ranger had apparently not expected that, and to tell the truth, Billy wasn't sure how he felt about it either. But she would either drive him crazy or teach him something, and it was worth risking the former for the latter.
"I will not turn down a tour of the Ranger dome," she said at last. "I would enjoy discussing this with you further, I think."
Judging by Cestro's reaction, the only thing that surprised him more than Billy's offer was Cestria's acceptance. Billy couldn't help reflecting that it was nice to finally be someplace where the status quo wasn't quite so predictable.