They took off down the canyon, jumping from rock to rock, down to where Jason was facing Lord Zedd. But they only got halfway there before Goldar reared up out of the rockslide, directly in their path.
Chapter 19
With his Thunderzord out of commission, Jason did the only thing he could do: He teleported away from the Thunderzord and appeared directly in front of Lord Zedd.
“I don’t know what you did to knock out my Zord,” he said, “but you know what? It’s not going to matter. The Power Rangers are going to take you down with or without Zords.”
Zedd threw back his head and laughed as he shrank back to his normal size. The sound reminded Jason of a rockslide.
“What Power Rangers? I only see the Red Ranger. Do you see your team around you?”
Jason knew he was alone, and he also knew the rest of the team was fighting as hard as they could against other threats. Zedd had maneuvered them all so he could take on Jason alone.
“My team is doing what they’re supposed to do: Defend Earth,” he said. “And that’s what I’m going to do.”
“No, Red Ranger. You are going to bow to Lord Zedd . . . or you are going to be destroyed. Those are your choices. Choose now.”
“Bowing isn’t really my style,” Jason said.
Up the canyon a few hundred yards, the Yellow and Pink Rangers were mixing it up with Goldar. The Blue Ranger was at the science fair. The Black Ranger was chasing Wormazam, and the Green Ranger was . . . well, with any luck he was figuring out what went wrong back at the Command Center.
That left the Red Ranger, standing toe-to-toe with Lord Zedd.
“If you will not bow, I will end this battle with my foot on your neck,” Lord Zedd sneered. He raised his staff, and the ground heaved under the Red Ranger’s feet. He backflipped away from the shock wave and landed a little farther from Lord Zedd.
“You can’t get away from me, Red Ranger!” Zedd cackled.
“What makes you think I’m trying to get away from you?” Jason shot back. “I just needed a running start.”
He sprinted forward and launched himself into a twisting somersault. As he came down toward Lord Zedd, he gripped Zedd’s staff with two hands and used it as leverage to smash a spinning kick into the side of Lord Zedd’s helmet.
Lord Zedd thrashed away from him, and Jason lost his grip on the staff. He hit the ground hard, but he had gotten in a good shot. He rolled to one side as Zedd brought the head of the staff down like a poleax. The Z crackled and spat energy as it sliced a rock in two, right where Jason’s head had been a split second before.
It was time to up the ante a little. Jason held up his right hand.
“Power Sword!” he called out. His Power Sword shimmered to life, appearing in his hand. He spun it around once, feeling its weight and balance.
Lord Zedd nodded. “Your last resort,” he growled. “Good! Tap all your powers! That way when you are defeated, you will know you never had a chance.”
He swung his staff, and Jason parried it. The impact jarred his arms all the way to the shoulders. Lord Zedd was a cruel blowhard, but he was also very powerful. Jason fought back with everything he had. The Power Rangers were depending on him.
Earth itself was depending on him.
Spinning away from Lord Zedd’s next attack, he struck back. His blade glanced off Zedd’s armor in a shower of sparks. With his staff in both hands, Zedd knocked Jason sprawling. Again Jason got up before Lord Zedd could finish him off. He was below Zedd on the slope of the canyon wall now. Zedd advanced, pushing him farther down toward the canyon floor. Jason parried and countered. When they got to the canyon floor, the ground would be level again. Then he would make his next move.
Unless Billy could break the hold over Alpha 5. Then they would be able to call their Thunderzords.
Until then, he had to hold on.
Chapter 20
The Black Ranger was left to hunt Wormazam after the Green Ranger had teleported away. With all the mini Wormazams pinned inside the janitorial closet, he followed the trail of slime toward the gym. He had to catch Wormazam before the monster could cause havoc at the crowded science fair.
Following the slime, he spotted Wormazam approaching an intersection in the hallway. To the right, it headed toward the pool and to the left left, toward the gym. The Black Ranger ran forward and drove his shoulder into Wormazam from behind, pushing the monster through the intersection and down the dim stretch of hallway in the direction of the pool. There was nobody there. Wormazam immediately wrapped the Black Ranger up in its tail, smashing him against a row of lockers. Some burst open, spilling books and coats out onto the floor. The Black Ranger fought back, trying to get a grip on its arms. He was so covered in slime that it was hard to keep on his feet.
Just when he’d gotten a grip on it, Wormazam disappeared in a flash of light.
The Black Ranger stood in the quiet hallway. From one direction, he heard the sounds of the science fair echoing from the gym.
From the other direction, he heard a constant banging. Like something was stuck inside a room and trying to get out. He spoke into his wrist-communicator. “Wormazam disappeared,” he said. “Should I head your way?”
“Make sure the other ones can’t get out first,” the Red Ranger responded. “If they get out . . .”
“Okay,” the Black Ranger said. He ran back toward the janitorial closet, wondering what he would find.
Next to the janitorial closet was an English classroom, its walls lined with steel bookcases. The shelves were jammed with heavy hardcover books. The Black Ranger dragged one of the bookcases out of the room and shoved it up against the closet door. The Wormazams thrashed and banged inside. He went and got another one, then added a table that he tipped on its side. In a minute he had a huge pile of furniture jammed up against the door.
“Hey,” he said. “Wormazams: Come on out.”
Was it one Wormazam or several? Maybe they had all merged back together. He didn’t know. Either way, the banging from inside the closet wasn’t moving the furniture.
“Okay, team,” he called out. “I’m coming your way.” In a ripple of teleportation energy, he was gone.
Chapter 21
When the Green Ranger appeared in the Command Center, he morphed back to his regular appearance. He was still worried about his energy levels and wanted to make sure he would have enough power to use the Dagger if the need arose. The first thing he saw was Alpha 5, standing in front of the long bank of computer terminals.
“Aye-yi-yi-yi-yi,” he said.
Whoa, Tommy thought. Four yis. That meant Alpha 5 was distressed. “Alpha,” he said. “What are you doing? Jason’s Thunderzord is deactivated!”
“Aye-yi-yi-yi-yi,” Alpha 5 said again.
“He knows we are under attack,” Zordon boomed. Tommy turned to look at the giant screen where Zordon’s face always appeared. The ancient mentor of the Power Rangers looked worried. “But he is under someone else’s command. Communications from the Command Center are severed. I do not think Lord Zedd could have done this. I suspect it is Finster. No one else among Zedd’s minions has his inventive capability.”
“Can we shut him down?” Tommy asked. “He’s not attacking me. Maybe he would let me deactivate him or something.”
“That would not undo what he has done,” Zordon said.
“Then what can we do?” Tommy asked. “Billy is trying something with the science experiment he already built, but what if that doesn’t work?”
“The only other thing to do is go to the Moon Palace and try to find out what Finster has done,” Zordon answered. “But your powers, reduced as they are, will not be strong enough to teleport you there.”
“I’m willing to try,” Tommy said. He would do anything to help out the team, and they needed Zordon. How could they fight Lord Zedd without him? And without their Thunderzords?
“If I could route some energy from the Morphin Grid to you . . . no, it isn’t possible. Alpha 5 must execute those commands, and he is under Finster’s control.”
“There must be something I can do,” Tommy said.
“Aye-yi-yi-yi-yi-yi!” Alpha 5 cried out. Tommy counted five yis that time. What did that mean? Did Alpha 5 know what was happening even though he couldn’t do anything about it?
He ran to Alpha 5 and grabbed the robot by his shoulders.
There was a flash, and the next thing Tommy knew, he was lying on his back on the floor. Alpha 5 had shocked him. Tommy wasn’t sure if he was attacking, but he wasn’t going to let anyone get close, either.
But he didn’t sound happy about it. “Aye-yi-yi-yi-yi!” Alpha 5 spun in a circle. A little curl of smoke rose from the spot on his chassis where Tommy had touched him.
Tommy got to his feet. “Wait,” Zordon said. “Give the Blue Ranger a chance. You are fighting bravely. Trust one another, and believe you can defeat Lord Zedd . . . even without my help.”
Chapter 22
Wormazam appeared on the canyon wall near Lord Zedd.
“I am Wormazam, here to destroy the Power Rangers!” it burbled, waving its arms. “Lord Zedd, which one should I destroy first?”
“Slimy worthless creature, how could you have failed to destroy them in the school? Not even one! Burrow into the ground and disappear!” Lord Zedd’s temper got hotter and hotter the more his minions disappointed him. He had no wish to be distracted now, when he had the Red Ranger at his mercy.
“I am here, Lord Zedd! I am at your service!” Wormazam bowed.
“Then serve me by destroying the Power Rangers!” Zedd roared. He pointed up the canyon, where the Yellow and Pink Rangers were dodging Goldar’s attacks. “Now! Leave the Red Ranger to me!”
“Yes, Lord Zedd!” Wormazam started squelching its way toward them. For a creature made from a worm, it moved incredibly fast. It closed the distance to the two Power Rangers in a matter of seconds, and the battle was on.
The Black Ranger appeared at the head of the canyon a moment later. The Red Ranger saw him and called out, “Stay with the team! I’ll handle Zedd!” The Black Ranger ran to help his fellow Rangers as Wormazam closed in. Goldar brought his sword down, crashing it into the rocks near the Yellow and Pink Rangers. They lost their footing and tumbled down among the rocks. The Pink Ranger kept going, somersaulting between Goldar’s immense legs and coming up behind him.
“Power Bow!” she said. Her Power Bow appeared in her hands, and she fired two arrows at Goldar.
They exploded on Goldar’s armor, and he turned to her, teeth bared. Behind him, Wormazam slid down the wall toward the Yellow Ranger, who was still getting to her feet. The Black Ranger intercepted it, and they grappled. Fighting Wormazam, it was difficult to use martial arts. Its arms whipped quickly around any block. The Black Ranger held his own and gave the Yellow Ranger time to rejoin the fight. Goldar was now focused on the Pink Ranger. He spread his wings and leaped toward her. She fired another arrow, staggering him.
Billy, she thought, I sure hope you get that experiment up and running soon.
Chapter 23
Billy morphed back to his everyday look when he appeared next to the back door of Angel Grove High School. He ran into the gym and wove through the crowds to his table.
The judges were two tables over, talking to each other in front of a display about Venus flytraps. Billy started tapping away at the keyboard attached to the disrupter. He only had it set up for a demonstration, and he was going to have to do some fast programming if he wanted it to break up the signal that was attacking Alpha 5.
He got lost in the program he was writing and only looked up when someone said, “Billy Cranston?”
The two judges were in front of his table: Mr. Nordlinger and Ms. Hernandez. “Um, yeah,” Billy said. “That’s me.”
“We were about to move on without you, Billy,” Mr. Nordlinger said. “You know you were supposed to stay at your table once the fair began, right?”
“I’m sorry,” Billy said. He kept tapping out lines of code. He was almost done.
The two judges consulted their clipboards. “So,” Ms. Hernandez said. “What exactly does this machine do, young man?”
“It’s, um . . .” Billy hesitated. He wasn’t sure how else to explain it. “Well,” he said, “what the experiment does is it’s a band-shifting frequency jammer designed to stop hackers from getting into your Wi-Fi,” he said. “It detects signals that shouldn’t be there and breaks them up.” Inside he was cringing because he felt like he wasn’t doing the experiment justice. But that was the best he could do at the moment.
“Interesting,” Ms. Hernandez said. “And you made this yourself?”
“I did the programming stuff,” Billy said. “My friend Trini did some soldering and put together the case. Oh, and she wrote the posters.”
“Is she here?”
Billy looked around. “I don’t see her. Does she have to be here?”
“Well, technically everyone involved in an experiment is supposed to be present at the judging conversation,” Mr. Nordlinger said.
“Oh,” Billy said. “Maybe she’s in the bathroom. Do you want to come back?”
“I think we can proceed for now,” Ms. Hernandez said. “Go ahead and show us how it works.”
“Oh yeah,” Billy said. “Thought you’d never ask.”
He hit ENTER on the program and then he had to figure out what to tell the judges. But he also had to watch the monitors to make sure the disrupter had found the signal from Lord Zedd and broken it up.
As he stared at the monitors, one of the screens lit up. The disrupter had located the enemy signal! “There,” he said, pointing.
“There what?” Mr. Nordlinger asked.
“Wait a second,” Billy said. “I’m . . .” He clapped his hands. “Yes!”
Ms. Hernandez was watching the monitors. There were two, both divided into two displays. Each of the four screens showed something different. “Did it work?” she asked.
“It sure did,” Billy said. He pointed at one of the screens. It displayed an image of smooth, intersecting curves. To calibrate the machine, last night he had captured a baseline of what the Command Center frequency band looked like when everything was running right.
“See? This is what the target signal band looked like before the, um . . .”
“Hackers,” Ms. Hernandez said.
“Right, before the hackers tried to get in.” Billy pointed at a second screen. The smooth curves were a different shape and a different color. “The color change is because the origin of the command signal is different. That’s what the hackers were doing. They tried to pretend they were the regular command signal, and they fooled the security.”
“You mean they were trying to get into the school’s network?” Ms. Hernandez looked alarmed.
Billy looked over at her. He wanted to correct her and tell what had really happened, but he couldn’t. Inside, he was lit up with the success. He’d done it! But he had to explain it to the judges in a way they would understand without actually telling a lie.
“It happens all the time,” he said. “People are always trying to get ads and stuff onto pages even when you don’t want them.”
Mr. Nordlinger nodded. Neither of the judges were looking at him, though. They were studying the monitors. Billy reminded himself he was trying to win a science fair here, along with trying to save Alpha 5 and make sure the Power Rangers could use their Thunderzords to fight off Lord Zedd, Goldar, and Wormazam. It was a lot to keep in his head all at the same time.
“And here’s what happens when the disrupter locates the hacker signal,” he said.
A third screen showed the wave broken up into a crazy bunch of squiggles. The judges both nodded and made notes on their clipboards.
“The disrupter broke up the hacker signal so the target network could tell it was being attacked. And what happens here is that you can see the target network is restored to normal.” Billy pointed at the fourth screen, which was keyed to the Command Center’s frequency.
“That’s the school network there?” Mr. Nordlinger aimed his pen at the same screen.
“The target network,” Billy said, careful not to tell a lie to the judges.
He was dying to talk to the other Power Rangers and find out if Alpha 5 was working again, but he couldn’t. Not until the judges left.
“And just so we have this straight,” Ms. Hernandez said, “you designed and programmed this device yourself, correct?”
“Yes. Correct. But like I said before, Trini did some soldering and some of the work on the case design and stuff.”
“Well,” Mr. Nordlinger said. “This is quite impressive. You have a good future ahead of you in computer programming.”
“Thank you,” Billy said.
“Is there anything else you want to tell us about your experiment?” Ms. Hernandez asked. Both waited with pens poised over their clipboards.
Billy thought about that. What he wanted to tell them was that he had just defended Zordon’s Command Center against an attack from hostile aliens. But he couldn’t really do that, could he? He also wanted to say that he had to go and help his friends fight off a monster created from an earthworm in the Angel Grove High School science lab . . . but that wouldn’t really go over very well, either.
So all he said was, “No, I think that’s it. Um, thank you.”
“Very nice, Billy,” Ms. Hernandez said. “The judges will have their final decision in an hour or so.”
They moved on to another table. Billy watched them go, smiling at them in case they turned around again. Then, as soon as they had started talking to another student team, he ran for the door.
Mayhem from Moon Palace Page 5